Chapter 3: A Struggle and a Spider

Before Ryu stood two of Bison's most fomidable fighters. The pupil of Gouken knew better than to let either one of them leave his sight, especially Vega. The warrior was aware of Balrog's raw power could knock him out if he layed a solid blow, and Vega's claws could be even more fatal than a punch. This would be a street fight that would push Ryu to his limits.

"He's mine!" Balrog shouted as he charge with a heavy blow. Ryu parried the attack and countered with a solid punch to the boxers solarplex. The blow's sudden power caused Balrog to fall to one knees, and Ryu spun around and knocked him away with a quick tatsumaki kick, trying to knock him into Vega.
The clawed assailent was much too quick and already sprung into the air and evaded his ally's massive body. Upon Ryu's decent of his attack, the ninja thrusted his claw down at Ryu.
The world warrior didn't have time to move out of the way, and did his best to block the attack. Vega's blades sliced through the Ryu's red sparring glove, but no real damage was dealt. The japanese fighter tried to retaliate with a kick, but the Spanish ninja evaded his attack with an agile backflip.

By now Balrog was up on his feet again, angrier than ever. "That all you got?" He dashed forward and began took three jabs at Ryu's face. The shotokan fighter easily blocked the three jabs and even blocked the fourth jab that came low. The boxer then caught Ryu off guard and rose up and smashed his head into martial artist's chin.
Recoiling back from the solid hit, Ryu forced his eyes open in time to see Vega lunging at him, but not soon enough to evade the attack entirely. Another cold sting struck the side of Ryu's right rib. Taking the blow, the street fighter champion grabbed Vega's arm, and swept the ninja's feet. After the masked assailant lost his footing Ryu throw him over his shoulder onto Balrog.

The ansatsuken warrior lept back to get some distance from the two. The way things are going he was going to be in trouble. Ryu knew if Vega kept cutting him up, he would would start to suffer from bloodloss. If he was to win this fight, he'd have to take out one of them with a heavy attack and knock one out of the fight. That way he could focus his attention on the remaining opponent.

"Get off me!" Balrog roared as he shoved Vega off him. When he finished glaring at the ninja he looked back over at Ryu who took up a familiar stance. His hands held close to his side. A soft glow rapidly became a ball of surging energy, being held in his hands.
"Hadouken!" The japanese fighter shouted as he performed one of his signature moves.

The attack came too quickly for Balrog to react and he was inpacted by the attack in the stomach. "Ugh!"

"Pay attention you ugly brute!" Vega snapped at his shadowloo associate as he focused on Ryu.
"Shuddup!" The banned boxer retorted as he shrugged it off, his breathing noticeably heavier.

With haste vega rolled forward and thrusted his claw at Ryu; however the ansatsuken warrior side stepped the blade and grabbed onto the ninja's wrist to gain control of the claw. The spanian then received an elbow to the face from Ryu's free arm, cracking vega's mask.

While Ryu was occipied Balrog wasted no time and raced in from and planted a powerful kidney shot on the lone warrior. With the japanese fighter's grip greatly losened and Vega took advantage of the moment and swept Ryu off his feet and rolled away.

"Come on!" Balrog taunted. "I didn't hear no bell!"

The pupil of Gouken got to his feet, his will strong, but his body was acking from the crippling blow. He saw that Vega and Balrog were starting to become more coordinated.

"Wow," A sly voice taunted. "It takes two of Shadaloo's best, and still you can't take him down, huh?"

The three fighters took a glance where the voice was coming from and saw a woman in an unusual outfit casually sitting on the ledge of dojo's roof top. She wore a purple cloth breastplate that just overer the front of her chest that was help by eight straps that wrapped around her torso like spider legs. Her pant legs were loose and resembles chaps but no fabric covered the crotch, instead she had tight pink spandex and purple underwear unusuall dressed woman had a sly look on her face as she eyes the three of them.

Ryu remained silent, and stayed focus on all the people present, uncertain whether the new face was a friend or foe. It was the first thing Gouken taught him...focus.

"It's her..." Vega hissed at Balrog. "Quickly take Ryu. I'll keep her distracted."
The boxer, looked back at the ninja, and nodded in agreement. He knew that if Juri was able to do half of what he was told, she would be something close to Bison, if not moreso.

"You know," Juri said, her smile widening. "I always thought you guys to be useless, but you did lead me right to Ryu. So I guess there's hope for you two after all."
"One should not getting too cocky my dear rabbit," Vega said charmingly. "For it is such an ugly thing."
"Come on up here and tell me that hockey mask."

Vega immidiate leaped up and charged at Juri with his claw. The woman leaned all the way, pressing her back against the tiled rooftop and kicked Vega's claw clean off his wrist. A second leg came out and struck him straight in the gut.
"Ooughf!"
She giggled as she got to her feet and began to pace back and forth, swinging her hips sensually from side to side with each step. "Aw..." She said coyly. "You prefer using that claw? Well that's too bad, because I prefer the direct approach."

The masked assailant did his best to catch his breath from the solid kick to his gut that brought him on his knees. Her speed was even greater than his, and she doesn't even seem to be taking the fight seriously. Getting to his feet vega hopped away to regain his claw that stuck higher up on the rooftop. Before he could even take a full two steps Juri got in the way and kicked for vega's face, but Vega did a tactical backflip to evade the attack, barely.
"Want your little accessory?" She grinned tilting her head menacingly. "You'll have to get through me, Shadaloo swine."
"Swine!" Vega shouted. "You dare compare my beauty to that of a pig?"

While the two fought on the rooftop, Ryu and Balrog continued to skirmish on the ground. Balrog, continuously bombarded his opponent with what seemed to be an endless flurry of punches. Gouken's student had to think fast, he couldn't keep taking this abuse for too long. Hastily Ryu kicked low, and struck the inner thigh of Balrog, causing the boxer to stumble abruptly.
Now's my chance, Ryu thought. Suddenly he felt something inside him, a light of some sort. A feeling of fresh air burried in his chest, coming out from inside him. Everything was at peace, yet surging with power. Reacting to this feeling Ryu launched his fist to Balrog's gut so fiercely he lifted the boxer of the ground., "Shin-" With his other arm he drove it high into the American Boxer's chin. "SORYUKEN!" With that Ryu rocketed from the ground and sent his opponent flying thirty feet into the air.

Everything felt so right, pefectly clear, much like the technique he just performed. As the moment past Ryu steadily fell to the earth. After a soft controlled landing, a loud thud could be heard from Balrog crashing back to the ground.

Juri saw the whole thing and let out a whistle. "Hmm hmm Hmm...nice!"
Vega took advantage of Juri's distraction and flipped over Juri and retrieved his precious claw, reattaching it to his wrist and jumped off the rooftop. The woman shrugged and jumped down after him, "Run while you can" She sneered.

She looked at Vega who took up a defensive position and but he didn't continue to run, even when his partner was down. "Who said anything about running, my little rabbit." he smiled from behind the mask. Reaching behind him Vega pulled out a remote that was tucked in his sash. Be pushed the button and a huge eruption came from the dojo right behind Juri.

Gouken's dojo combusted into pieces in a massive explosion. The force of the blast knocked all the fighters to the ground, covering the area in smoke. Pieces of the dojo rained down from all around, and Juri coughed trying to catch her breath.

Shit! she thought. That bastard is full of tricks!
It suddenly came to her. "...Ryu...!" Juri got herself to her feet quickly enough, and looked around frantically. Smoke was everywhere, the only thing that was truly evident was the source of the fire which was once the dojo she fought on top of.

Vega and Balrog were nowhere to be in site, neither was Ryu. She hustled over to where she saw gouken's pupil last time. Damnit! she thought to herself. I was having a little too much fun to let that ninja bastard pull that one over me.
She knew if Bison got ahold of Ryu he'd use him for his experiments, maybe even a replacement body. But what bothered Juri the most was she wouldn't be able to have fun with him herself, to test how good at fighting he really was personally. She continued stumbling through the smoke.

Just when she was sure the world warrior was lost, she saw Ryu on his knees. His eyes wide, staring at the burning structure. The place that had been his home for so long was now a smoldering ruin. One of the few things he always had was now gone.
His hands trembled as they hung at his side, the fire reflected in his eyes. Juri could see the pain he was feeling, the loss he was experiencing. She remember looking just like he did years ago, when her parents were taken away from her.

She felt something roll into her feet, Ryu's duffle bag. It must have flown out of the dojo from the blast itself and tore through the paper walls. The bag was covered in smoke and a bit of it was still on fire. Juri took one more glance at the Japanese man that seemed to be starting to collect himself.

Ryu saw someone approaching, it was the mysterious woman. She was carrying his duffle bag in one arm she sashayed her way towards him. "Quite the mess they made, huh?" She casually spoke, forcing back a smile. It was best she didn't heckle the grief filled warrior, it wouldn't make him any more coopertive with what she had in mind.

Ryu didn't appreciate how lightly she was taking the situation, but he knew that it wasn't her fault this happened, and did his best to bury his anger for now. If not for her, the fight would have been uncertain as to who would have emerged victorious."Who are you?" He said in a low tone as he got to his feet.

"Your rescuer" She sneered as she tossed the warrior's bag at him, which he caught easily. "But if you have to call me something, you can call me Spider I guess."

The brave warrior's frown increased a bit more from the sound of the name. He hated spiders, it was one of his few fears. But this woman did help him against the Shadowloo goons. Regardless, many quesitons still remained about this woman...this...Spider...