we drink all day and we talk til dark
that's the way the road dogs do it
light til dark

lana del rey, "ride"

Young Lions

Ch. 12

Love, Violence, and the Ghost of Geese Howard, part I

They called him the dojo killer. Ryu knew him by reputation. He'd become something of a boogeyman. They said he was a wandering fighter. He'd walk into a school, unannounced, and politely challenge the top fighter to a match. In the beginning, they'd all thought he was a joke. They said he was young, looked like a traveler. But too clean to be completely homeless. Must have been one of those kids who had came from a comfortable life, Ryu thought, backpacking through foreign lands by choice.

Ryu, who'd spent his fair share of time on the road, had met enough of them. He didn't need to see another one.

But when Ryu stopped by Ken's boxing gym on a peaceful summer day, he'd found the place in complete disarray. Broken glass, toppled furniture, wall scrolls scattered across the floor. A blond man in a red gi surveyed the damage while his students, armed with brooms and gloves, worked to pick up the worst of it.

"What happened?"

Ken turned around. His face had been patched up. "Ryu! Welcome back. You missed it."

"A fight?"

"Yeah."

Ryu did what any friend would do. He picked up a broom. Helped sweep up some of the glass while Ken explained it to him.

"He barged in here looking for a challenge. In broad daylight. Trying to get me shut down, I swear."

"What did you do?"

"He was looking for me. My students told him he'd have to make an appointment. He insisted he just wanted a word. Someone made fun of his hair. It spiraled out of control from that point."

"Sounds like a mess."

"Looks like a mess."

"Your guys held their own?"

"Yeah. But he knocked over one of the statues. My top student lost it. They had it out. But this guy is pretty strong. So everyone else just jumped in."

"They ganged up on him?"

"Hey, he came at us in our own territory, he had to have been expecting it. They held him off long enough for me to get there. And at that point, he's beaten up already, standing there, blood on his face. They totally worked him over. But he's still challenging me. What was I supposed to do?"

"Seems like it would have been better to refuse."

"That's what I did. Then he came right at me."

"Really?"

"So I kicked him. Straight through that window. Told him to go home."

"Did he?"

"What do you think? Wouldn't give it up. Made me dislocate his shoulder. That was after he got me real good in the face."

"Your wife will be upset about that."

"Eliza's pissed, yeah. Says I should go for legal action. But no one knows who he is. You know who I think it was, right? I'm telling you the rumors are true."

"Oh. Him."

"Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. He either has a thing to prove, or he just hates traditional martial arts. And so far..." Ken looked around him. "Seems like he's good at making a scene."

"But you sent him on his way."

"It goes down as a draw. We didn't meet on equal footing. My guys wore him down before I got here."

"I see."

"In a way, I hope he comes back. Feels like unfinished business right now."

"Does he hate traditional schools?"

"He never said anything like that. But it looks like he does mixed martial arts."

"Was he trying to recruit for a gym or a school?"

"Nope. Just came for a fight."

"That's troubling."

"Yeah, I know."

They hadn't had these types of problems for a long time. When mixed arts were a new trend, yeah, there'd been some skirmishes. With any new sport, the young practitioners were often zealots, disrespectful and cocky. But now that the sport had aged a little, the traditional and modern styles tended to keep their distance from each other.

Still, the rivalry remained, and some tensions occasionally arose.

Fighting was not the end goal of traditional martial arts. Ryu had long followed that path. It was a way of life. As far as he was concerned, boxing and mixed martial arts were sports. There was a difference.

"They say," Ken went on, "he's going after fakes."

"You are not a fake, my friend."

"Well, he's probably figured that out. Hope he got that shoulder taken care of."

Ryu swept up shards of broken glass into a bin.

They had most of it cleaned up by the time a black Cadillac pulled up to the front. A door opened. A man got out of it.

"Excuse me."

He was tall, massively built. He wore a vest over a collared shirt. Two men flanked him on either side.

"I'm looking for the owner," he said.

Something unnerving about that smile.

Ken stepped up. "That'd be me."

"I heard you had some trouble this morning."

"There was a little incident, yeah."

The guy didn't look like a detective.

"I hope you'll accept this." He handed over a sealed white envelope.

"We don't need any...uh, donations."

"This isn't a donation."

Ken exchanged glances with Ryu. Finally, he accepted the package.

"Sorry to hear that you've been catching heat," the man continued. His smile was a shark's smile. "The fighting business isn't easy. Lots of overhead to run a gym of your size. It isn't fair to you to have to fall behind on your expenses. These are trying times. But I'm sure you'll manage." The man turned back towards his waiting car. The engine was idling, the driver and the car's interior concealed by tinted windows.

"And," the stranger added, "if by chance that lost puppy comes back around here, let him know that his master would like him home."

The doors swung open. The men disappeared inside, and the car rolled off, turning around the next corner.

"Who was that?" Ryu asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Ken examined the thick envelope in his hand. "Should I even open this?"

"Be careful."

Ken undid the string tie and opened the flap. He found inside a heavy stack of clean flat bills.

Enough money to cover the cost of damages to the dojo.

"Maybe you shouldn't accept that," Ryu said.

"I know."

"He looked..."

"Shady? Yeah. Times ten." Ken flipped through the bills. "What are the chances that this is clean?"

"Hand it over to the police."

Ken seemed to think it over. He tied down the flap of the envelope. "You're my witness," he said. "That guy just rolled up here on his own. I don't know him."

"Are you thinking of keeping the money?"

"Look, we were just scraping by before this whole shit went down. I can't keep asking Eliza for money. It isn't fair to her."

"I see."

"I bet we can pull his license plate from the security cameras. I've got a friend in the law who might be able to help me run the numbers."

Ryu was left feeling unsettled. There were rules and protocols instilled in him by tradition. These things were important, no matter what the young upstarts thought about it. Pride and bruised egoes ran side by side with all fighting arts. Traditional rituals were invented to cultivate the spirit away from those things. Left to their own devices, pride and ego were destructive, not just to the self, but to one's environment, as Ryu's sensei had once explained to him.

It was dangerous to teach fight and combat without also teaching control and spiritual values.

The very existence of this dojo killer was proof enough of that.

Later, Ryu would meet his friend over a sushi dinner at their usual spot downtown. And Ken would come prepared to share the whole rundown.

Ryu had always found the sushi in Ken's area a bit off. Quality ingredients, but an odd flavor, and the selection quite limited. However, this particular place did things well, and sometimes, the staff would let him put in a special order. They seemed to know, perhaps by his accent, what his tastes were like.

It was a quiet night. A few other tables were occupied. Ken ordered beers for both of them. It was meant to be a celebration. They had both received tournament invites.

Ken talked for a bit about Eliza and the upcoming tournament and his plans for the dojo. The damage was being repaired, and he had decided to remodel parts of the building at the same time. The mysterious donation had been enough to cover all of that.

"Who was he?" Ryu blurted out.

"The guy with the money? My girl at Interpol looked into it. The license on his car was a cold plate. Meaning that it's tied to an empty registration file. That usually means the cops. What level - state, federal, or local - we're not really sure."

"So he's a government agent?"

"Somehow I doubt it. Maybe a corrupt one. He looked like the mafia to me, in all honesty."

"Maybe you shouldn't have taken the money."

"Well, refusing the mob is usually asking for trouble too, ya know. He wants me to forget about filing a police report against his friend. I'm not going to forget about it, but I don't need to get involved with the cops either."

"So he works for the dojo killer?"

"Yeah, most likely he does. Might be the guy's lawyer or something, going in and easing tensions with the people he pisses off every time he goes on one of his little rampages."

"You won the fight. Do you think he'll try to retaliate?"

Ken made a motion with his hand. "Hell if I know. He usually only hits a place once. But now I know his face. If he wants a rematch, I'll give him one."

This was, Ryu thought, Ken Masters in true form. His friend never backed away from confrontation. Usually, Ryu held him back, tried to coach him into stillness and calm. This time, however, his determination was uplifting. Their troublemaker had proven to be a potentially dangerous person.

"What does he look like?"

Ken whipped out his phone. "I can pull up the camera footage for you." He set the screen on the table in front of Ryu.

Tall, blond, well-built, face half hidden by a red cap.

"You'd recognize the hair from a mile away."

"You used to wear your hair long too," Ryu pointed out.

"Ha! Yeah. It's risky though. Never had it grabbed during a street brawl, and I wouldn't want to."

Ryu studied the image on the screen. "I wonder what his problem is."

"Good question. I did some poking around. You've heard of the underground? The illegal fight circuits?"

Ryu nodded. "Yes."

"Rumor has it that he came up from down there. Those circuits are rough. Like, really rough. No holds barred. Guys have been seriously hurt or killed in those places."

"I suppose that would explain his reckless nature and disregard for other people."

"Not just that. It's said that he's killed in the ring before."

"Ah."

"So, watch out for him. You're on the road a lot, Ryu. You've probably seen it all. But he's out there too. Your paths might cross one day."

That much was true. They came from different backgrounds, but they walked the same roads. Perhaps a collision was inevitable.

Tucked behind his ear, Terry Bogard kept a loose cigarette. Turkish Royal. Filtered. He had found it in a shirt sleeve more than a week ago, while packing his things, preparing for the trip. He had been making plans to see or at least talk to everyone one last time before he set out. The cigarette had tumbled out onto the floor as he had tried to fold up the shirt.

It had fallen on the floor intact. And he had stared at it for a solid minute or two, unsure of what to do with it.

In the end, he kept it in a breast pocket and brought it with him the entire bus ride over.

He didn't smoked it because he didn't smoke. But he carried a lighter. An expensive refillable, engraved with a rose. But he didn't smoke.

These things had belonged to someone else, and he didn't want to explain how he'd come to carry them.

So when Roy offered him a cigarette in the backstage parking lot - where Mac shadow boxed, Lucina filed down her nails, and Doc Louis video chatted with his grandkids - Terry simply shook his head.

"Not before a fight," he said, and then he held the lighter for Roy.

"Thanks." Roy blew out a cloud of smoke.

Together, they watched the others in silence for a bit.

Pichu had settled on Terry's shoulder and showed no interest in vacating the spot.

Roy looked like what others had said of him. Rough, volatile, quick with the verbal put-downs. But he was more worn down and jaded than Terry had expected. And he cared for his crew, even if he never said it.

"On a scale of one to infinity," Roy said to Terry, "how scared are you?"

"I'm not." He lied. A part of him was mad that Roy had guessed it exactly right.

"Remember."

"Huh?"

"Remember how you're feeling right now. It's not going to be the same again."

Terry nodded. There was, again, the need to measure up. And with it, the ever present fear of failure.

Andy had not shown any resentment that the invitation had arrived for Terry and not him, but he must have been disappointed. They'd been rivals since they were kids.

And it probably should have been Andy, not Terry, in this spot. Andy, who went to bed before midnight and got up before dawn, who had a college degree and a pro fighter wife, who followed the path of a traditional martial artist, as outlined by their teacher, and never strayed. Andy, who was in line to inherit the school, over Terry, because Terry had strayed.

One of their longest running disputes had been the battle between modern boxing gyms and the traditional schools for relevancy in the world of martial arts.

In terms of competition and commercial sport, traditional martial arts were losing favor against the modern mixed styles.

Andy didn't like it. Terry had tried to understand it from that point of view. Their old teacher had never harbored any ill will toward his once star student's choices, and yet, there was still a sense that some bridges had been burned between Terry and his former dojo.

Roy checked his phone. Then he put it away. "Buddy of mine," he said, "decided not to come this year."

"Why not?"

"Work. He's kind of the guy in charge at his job. He can't just walk away from that just for a tournament."

"So, he's not a full time fighter."

"This shit? Nah, man."

"Oh."

"Did you think it was different?"

"I guess I assumed the pros were all full time."

"Most are. Some have day jobs. Others have careers that don't involve this. It's different."

"I see."

"Were you hoping to get made and never have to work again?"

"Uh, yeah. You could say that."

"There are some people here you could talk to about that. Peach is probably the best. Mario's a good guy but the stuff that works for him don't work for anybody else. And..." Roy smoked the cigarette down to the filter. He dropped it and crushed the butt of it beneath his shoe. "Whatever you do, don't go to Falcon for advice."

Terry winced. "Why?"

Roy shook his head. "I'm not saying he's a bad guy. All I'm saying is that you don't wanna get caught up. There's business, right? Then there's Falcon's business."

"Oh."

Terry tried to sound casual. Wasn't sure how well he pulled it off. He didn't know much about Falcon. He only knew what the man was willing to show him. And that was either a little or a lot, depending on what exactly you were talking about.

At this point, they were still strangers.

In the dark, they could pretend otherwise. Falcon must have had someone else on his mind when he invited Terry up to his room.

Terry would have been lying if he'd said he hadn't been dancing with a ghost. He'd spent the last year on the road, trying to outrun the shadows that seemed to follow him out of his hometown. Driven by his own restlessness, looking for a challenge, a fight, a purpose. He'd caused a lot of trouble for people who didn't deserve it. And he didn't know how to stop.

There'd been nothing but open road in his recent memory. Distant horizons seen through the windows of long haul trucks and delivery vans. Strangers at bus stops and gas stations who offered him rides. Nights in motels, alone or with someone. They were never women who stopped for him when he stood by the roadside. They were always men. And that worked out fine for him.

They were either nice and normal, or they were sketchy as all hell. They either talked about their families and sports and the weather, or they grabbed at the back of his neck and took him by the hair and pulled his face towards their laps and made forceful suggestions that he rarely refused.

And he either rinsed his mouth out with water afterward or took long showers at the next pit stop and threw his clothes into coin laundry machines and bought new underwear.

He never wanted to admit that he may have been losing the battle with his inner demons. It was something that Andy had brought up to Mai one night when Terry slept on the couch in the living room because Joe had moved into Terry's old room and occasionally had a girl over. The walls of the trailer were thin, and their conversation had carried, even with hushed tones.

Andy had only ever taken well calculated risks. As a fighter, he entered the ring with strategies and tactics. Terry was the loose cannon who went off script and fired off like he was invincible. Driven by impulse and instinct.

It had made him a more dynamic fighter than his brother. It had earned him both fame and infamy. And now, it had earned him sponsors.

But while Andy had started to settle down into a career outside of the ring, with the prospect of a stable family life, Terry barely had a permanent address. And while Andy now had a wife who was also a long time friend, Terry had...

A long line of regrets that his skin remembered more vividly than his heart.

They were brothers, but there were some things that had to go unspoken between them. There were secrets that had to stay buried. And if it destroyed either of them, Terry hoped it was him and not Andy.

"Do you have a corner?"

Terry met Roy's eyes. "No," he admitted.

"You came alone?"

"Yeah." Terry watched Mac spar with Lucina, Doc commentating on the side. "My brother is getting married today."

"Oh. Shit."

"I was supposed to be best man. Our friend, Joe, stepped up in my place. I don't feel like I should really be here. I feel like I should be with them. He's my little brother. We were close growing up. But there were times when I wasn't there for him and I should have been. I wanted to make it up to him. And then I got the invite to this tournament. It was something I couldn't pass up. I couldn't afford to. He knew it. He said he understood. But I don't know. I just wish things were different. I didn't want to have to choose between my job and him."

"I get it."

"Yeah, so, I have to make it worth the trouble. They said they'd be watching, everyone at home. I can't let them down."

"I'll be your corner," Roy said. He nodded at the others. "We'll all be your corner."

Terry smiled. "Thanks."

Ken helped him wrap his hands in the back room before the fight. The look on Ken's face was the most serious that Ryu had seen on him in some time.

"You sure it's the same individual?"

Ken nodded. "Positive. Going by the picture, it's our guy."

Dojo killer. The thought of it brought out some deep rage from within that Ryu had thought he'd done away with. A person who acted with such casual disregard for the wellbeing of others was someone who needed to be brought down a notch or two. Out of respect for his old master and his best friend and his long held values, Ryu knew that the task fell to him.

But it didn't sit too well with him. He needed control of his emotions to fight strategically.

"He's fast," Ken said. "He hits hard. Be patient. Wait him out. Don't try to force an opening. He's reckless. He'll open himself up once he gets frustrated enough."

"I see." An instinctive fighter. Ryu set that detail aside for later use.

"Another thing. It looks like he fights harder after he takes a certain level of damage."

"Really?"

"Yeah. When he's taking a lot of hits, he seems to go into a kind of mode. Like a kill mode. He starts to go down, then he suddenly comes roaring back. It's like he needs the pain to bring it out of him. He's stronger after he bleeds."

"Ah." A man who needed to be brought near death in order to fight for his life. This was a fighter who either had no value for his own life, or one who had very little to lose. Dangerous, chaotic, but with troubled emotions that could be exploited.

Ryu had been there before, and he didn't want to go back. And in that thought lay a level of understanding between the two, strangers still, who were about to meet. Ryu knew the path of destruction the other walked. Fighting was not about simply beating the other opponent. It was about restoring peace, reducing the amount of damage in the world, by pitting those with harmful tendencies against each other, until they wore themselves out.

Hawk would fight hawk. Wolf would fight wolf. And spare the lambs.

From one chaotic heart to another, Ryu hoped for a good fight.

"Ryu is a medium heavyweight. Judging by the fact that his muscle groups seem to have muscle groups of their own, there is a zero percent chance and that he doesn't do performance enhancing supplements. Or fuck, I dunno, maybe he can holistically meditate his own arm mass into existence. He should probably meditate some shoes into existence while he's at it. Just so he doesn't step on a rusted nail and catch some tetanus. Between him and Corrin, there are going to be some happy perverts in the audience tonight."

"Do you actually have any useful information, Roy?"

"Chill, Luci, sorry for looking at your girlfriend's feet. I'm just getting started. Ryu's got the face of a guy with the personality of a plank of wood. But it's dense wood. Good wood. Strong wood. You could build a fucking house with his personality. So you're up against a strong combo game and some cray mix ups. Plank of wood has decent aerials. He will pressure your shield, and he will punish your mistakes. He moves slow, but he's dangerous at close range. At a distance, you'll have to watch out for the Hadoken projectile. That ki fireball thing. He will most likely fight you on the ground. Don't leave yourself open. Woody's gonna try and KO you, but he's gotta wear you down first."

"Thanks, Roy. I think we all read the same wiki article."

"You want more, Luci? I can give you more. He's proficient in ka-ra-tay! So judo his ass. Wood boy's grab game is weak as fuck."

"Stop calling him that, Roy. You should show some respect to your opponents."

"Oh? Is this the same little miss cutthroat from earlier? The ends justify the means. You were the one sayin' that."

"You can win without disrespecting."

"It's like a ring name, Luci. Everyone's got one. Woody's officially the 'Eternal Wanderer,' and that's boring as fuck. Whereas Mac is the certified 'Bruiser from the Bronx.' See the contrast? It's punchy. It kicks. It's got alliteration. And you are...actually, yours is kinda heavy, girl, not gonna lie."

"I know."

"I wonder what they'd call me."

"Hmph. I've got a pretty good guess."

"And in Terry we've got 'El Lobo Legendario!' Or as Falcon calls him, 'Cariño Fatal.' Ha! You didn't think I knew about that, huh? Haha... What? It's a compliment! You look like someone just dropped some spicy curry on your ass. Save it for the Captain! He'd love to see your cheeks light up like that. If you hafta fight him too, just throw off your shirt an' blow him a kiss. I wanna see him try an' hide a raging hard-on in all that spandex!"

Ken pulled his gloves on for him. Then he touched their foreheads together. "You've got this!"

Ryu nodded at his friend. "Thanks."

Remembered their old master. Fought for his soul to be calm.

The scriptures said, 'The flags are still. No wind blows. It is Man's heart that lies in tumult.'

"Roy, I know you're on a roll, but the pager's going off."

"That means we're on, team. Let's go fuck some shit up."

been trying hard not to get into trouble
but i, i've got a war in my mind