Hello. I'm back with more SF stuff.
So while writing this, SF6 came out and then I found out that there's a canon prequel comic that goes into hella depth regarding Ken, fully rendering my story BTFO'd. But I just went "fuck it, we're doing it anyway. Not rewriting. We die like men!" and wrote my story with the ideas I had for it based on bits and pieces plus some theories I saw on Twitter. Keep that in mind as you read. It will not follow canon much if at all. I went my own way.
Of course, I'll borrow some things and stuff from the comic for my story but consider this uh…a remix of Ken's story, I guess? A canon rewrite? A canon divergence? Yeah, something like that.
Anyway, you will come to notice my writing style is a tiny bit different in this story. I was doing some creative writing experiments when making this and that result will be what you are about to read. It will be more obvious at points, I think.
Reader discretion is advised, should you proceed. There's some depressing, graphic, violent material up ahead. This will be your only warning.
So, with that out of the way; as always, thank you for reading.
It had been raining that day when Ken's life changed. It rained today as well, so he was hit with uncomfortable memories. Somewhere deep within, it still felt like pieces of his soul vanished with his life falling apart, and now he stood alone. But he had chosen this. It was his decision; it was his journey. For the sake of truth and justice, he'd walk the long road alone.
Determination was the driving force to carry him toward the light at the end of the tunnel – however long that tunnel was. As such, he had found himself wandering into the seedier areas of the city. Ever since Cody Travers became mayor, crime had made some weird twists and turns. It had been cracked down on with the slums being rebuilt but the gangs just moved to another spot.
And of course, there was the stubborn specter of the Mad Gear Gang – and Ken's target. The source of his misery. The bane of his existence. And now, surrounded by small crooks adjacent to the gang, Ken was one step closer to getting some answers and clearing his name. Hopefully.
The downpour grew evermore persistent outside, seeping into the cracks of the dirty warehouse, and drowning out the quiet groans. Streetlights peered through the shattered windows, throwing drops of rain and wind inside. There was no light source to the building so Ken didn't bother searching for one, grabbing one of the crooks by the collar of his hood shirt and pulling him to sit while glaring him almost blind with a flashlight.
Behind his shattered shades, fear glistened in his eyes as bright as the vibrant blood from his broken nose. His pink mohawk had fallen, giving him a rather weak look.
"I-I'm sorry," the crook whined pathetically, searching through his pockets, and pulling out a key. "The woman, she's…she's in the backroom."
Not the answer that Ken wanted or sought but now his humanity compelled him to investigate. After he was done.
"Who's your leader? Where are they?" he asked instead in a biting growl.
"The Headbutt Corps! I-I think they are at the Bull Bar."
Some perverse level of satisfaction filled Ken as he dropped the crook with a hard shove. He took a deep breath, keeping himself in control and his determination grounded. He couldn't remember when this change in him had begun, maybe when this nightmare began.
He wasn't sure he liked what it did to him; the urge to hurt and lash out over getting his entire life uprooted, separated from his family, compelled by his thirst for justice, truth – and revenge. It did things to him he did not like. So much that he needed to momentarily stop and remind himself of who he was.
He wasn't a bloodthirsty beast; he was Ken Masters, a dog backed into a corner. That side of him, his humanity, removed himself from the crook and searched for the elusive backroom of this dingy warehouse.
He had a location. He had his next goal. He could just as well find this woman.
Admittingly Ken never quite kept up to date with the going-ons of the Mad Gear Gang or any of their incarnations. Perhaps there was a part of him that never really cared because someone else always dealt with them – and then they sank into the ether. A forgotten memory of Metro City.
Maybe there was a part of him that wished he had for then he wouldn't be met with an awkward feeling of finding a kidnapping victim or someone dragged into human trafficking – or whatever else these assholes did to earn blood money. Ken swallowed and pulled the door open, directing the beam of the flashlight across the room, spotting a chain that led to a mattress on the ground and the person to whom said chain was attached.
Wrapped around her neck, her ankles, and her wrists, digging into her skin, she sat strung up like a criminal. One of her horns or pigtails or whatever one would call them had gotten loose, tangled in a pink ribbon. Her eyes were closed but she was alive, judging from her faint breathing. Cuts and bruises marred her body alongside a bloodied nose. Either marks of abuse or, in her case, battle wounds.
Because Ken remembered her. He had met her before. He knew what she was capable of. So why was she here? He had a feeling she'd never give him any answers and it wasn't like he was curious enough to ask. So, he didn't. Instead, he unlocked the padlock to the chains and the woman dropped to the mattress but sat up imminently.
Her eyes flicked open, partly covered by hair, burning hatred, and barely contained murderous haze. He remembered her eyes to be purple, then the left one to be hidden behind an eyepatch. Now it was a vibrant teal. Her entire body was tense while she sat there, rubbing the red, torn skin where the chain had been attached.
"Can you walk?" Ken asked and expected nothing in return. He didn't kneel in front of her to check. He knew better than to get too close to her. Especially with the way, her face scrunched up to a sneer like a snarling animal.
"Fuck you! Of course, I can! I don't need your fucking help."
It was a waste of time to keep lingering, Ken knew this. And yet; "Evidently you did or you wouldn't be here."
He kept it at that and turned around to leave. He could feel Juri's eyes stare a hole into his back. He was guarded in case she tried to attack him from behind. According to Chun-Li and Cammy, she wasn't above doing such dirty tricks. And she did attack but not in the way, Ken expected her to.
"So how's the ruination of your life, Mr. Ex-Champ?"
It shouldn't have stung as it did. But it did pike at something soft and raw inside of Ken. Momentarily, that snarling-bloodthirsty beast was on the verge of breaking loose but he contained it, turning around to look at her – and the vicious smile that formed on her lips. She had stood up, playing around with the chain that had held her down just moments prior.
Either she was itching for a fight, a reaction – or both. "Yeah, I watched the news. Was pretty fascinating. I guess you worried too much about your family that it lost you your edge, huh? And now you lost it all. You look like shit too by the way."
Ken took a deep breath, only his brow twitching was any sort of indication of how he felt. For he would not give this woman the satisfaction of getting to him. Not when she was the kettle calling the pot black. "I heard a thing or two about you from a certain Interpol agent. I know who you are. I know what you've experienced. I know what it's like to want to kill someone... but I'm never going to become like you."
Just for a second, he saw something different in her eyes. Something that didn't bask in sadistic glee. A wound just as raw as his own. It wasn't Ken's intention to hurt her as it was to rebuff her mockery. And admittingly, he didn't know all that much since the information was confidential. He didn't want to know either, not if it produced an irradiated creature such as Juri Han. But he saw a chink in her armor, and he let it pass.
And then she laughed like she tried shoving it out of the spotlight. "You have no idea what the urge to kill does to someone, do you? I heard the battle outside, you know. You can feel it too, right? The urge to destroy."
Ken did. For the love of God, he did. But he couldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that. The words she spoke appealed to something deep inside, however, like she was speaking about herself, exposing parts of her soul that she wanted others to witness. It was odd to be met with someone who had completely embraced their inhumanity.
Like a mirror of someone, Ken was trying not to become.
It was a wholly surreal experience that he didn't like. But any rebuttal that he could think of only confirmed that sad fact about himself. And his silence was an acceptance in itself. But quiet, he kept as he turned around and walked away from the backroom, past what remained of the crooks, outside into the endless rain to wash himself off his shortcomings.
He had a plan and that didn't involve ever seeing that woman ever again.
Ken woke up around an hour or so from early morning. His back ached something fierce from sleeping bent over a table. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, the chair scraping across the floor as he made his way to the bathroom. When he looked into the mirror, he couldn't help but think of Juri telling him that he looked like shit. He sort of did. He looked like himself but the image reflected some minor level of brittle stability.
Suppose it was just a given with the life he was living. Shades of black were beginning to show under his usual blonde, but it wasn't as dark as it used to be. A sign of age? Stress? He didn't know. Ken splashed some water on his face and tidied himself up somewhat. Breakfast consisted of little more than a slice of toast with jam and a cup of black coffee because he was busy plastering notes on a pinboard that contained all the details of his quest so far.
Tonight, he'd be going to the Bull Bar and having a little talk with the Headbutt Corps – whoever they were. The establishment just happened to be located in one of the seedier areas of Metro City, one that continually thwarted efforts to decriminalize it. It also happened to be where Ken worked and lived.
A knock on the door brought him out of his musings and he went to the entrance, taking a look through the peephole first. It had become a habit of his and probably for good reason as he stared into the fish-eye lensed image of Juri standing with a lollipop in her mouth. In the dull daylight, her injuries looked more apparent. Ken however was far more occupied with the fact that she was here for a multitude of reasons.
He flung the door open and stared at Juri in utter disbelief, posing one of many questions. "How do you know where I live?"
"I followed you," she answered like it was completely normal to follow people home and Ken should slap himself for not noticing her when he did eventually return to base.
"Why are you here?"
She rolled her eyes and strolled right inside, pushing past him like he was okay with this. "Why do you think? I want to watch your corruption in real-time."
"…Are you serious?"
"Yeah. You're going from gang to gang, kicking their asses and just mindlessly fighting them. At some point, this whole mess is gonna break you. And there's fighting on the side. Sounds like fun."
Right. Well, okay but why? According to what Chun-Li had said, this woman was bit of a fickle being when fighting for her own self-interest. But Ken was certain that there was nothing he could offer her, and he was already invested in the process of keeping his head above water. If she thought his corruption was inevitable, he'd have to disappoint her. Unless there was a separate reason for her sticking around.
"Because you have nothing better to do?" Ken asked, almost tentatively like he was handling her with kid gloves.
"You'd be right," Juri dipped her head into a quick nod as she looked around. "I'm kinda bored. I may dip if you bore me too."
"Okay. Do whatever you want," Ken shrugged. Motives aside, having her as an ally probably didn't sound like such a monkey's paw. She'd leave anyway if he didn't live up to her expectations.
"I am," she huffed, glaring at the coffee mug standing on the table. "Geez, this place sucks ass. And it stinks of man."
Indeed, this tiny two-room apartment was a man cave. Ken hadn't done much in terms of decorations or order. it was only really a base for him to go back and rest when his body needed it.
Still, he couldn't help but laugh ruefully at her derisions. It reminded him a little bit too much of Eliza when she saw his apartment for the first time.
"Because a man does live here."
"Oh, what's this? Your big bad conspiracy wall?" Juri asked when she stopped by the pinboard, glancing over all the detail. "Mad Gear Gang? Never heard of 'em."
"Guess the memo didn't reach S.I.N. or Shadaloo…or whoever the hell, you answer to."
"I answer to no one," she scoffed.
Maybe not. Ken didn't know. She was probably on leave. Otherwise, she would not be here. Or maybe she would have tried to kill Ken for whatever reason her handlers had. But he knew in his heart of hearts that she wasn't involved with the Nayshall incident. So his body didn't work on edge as it usually did when he left his abode.
He folded his arms over his chest, leaning against a nearby wall while he watched her putter around. "Color me unsurprised."
He looked at the clock and reminded himself that he had to leave. So he took his jacket from a nearby nook and put it on, making sure to pull the hood over his head. Juri had taken a seat on the futon, doom-scrolling on her phone with a garishly pink cover. She lifted her head a quirked an eyebrow, the lollipop clicking in her mouth against her teeth.
"Where are you going? Out to beat asses?"
"Later. I'm going to work. I gotta make a living."
Annoyed she was, yes but behind it, there was a flicker of interest in those miscolored eyes. A flicker that caught Ken's attention even as she soured a bit while she stared at her phone again.
"Okay, bye."
"So you do plan to stick around then," Ken mused as he reached for the keys. He made sure to detach the spare and put it on the kitchen table.
"Yeah, why not?"
Why not, indeed. Ken drew a deep breath to let the reality of this weird experiment or whatever it was set in. Momentarily, he considered calling Chun-Li so she could give him an idea of what to do with someone like Juri.
He knew her to be dangerous when she had a target but now, as she was aimless, what was he to do with her? Suppose he would rather find out as time went on than debase himself and ask for help. For all he knew, he didn't even know of Chun-Li had bought into the publicity of his life falling apart. He knew better than to risk it.
"Right, just making sure," Ken answered and almost laughed at himself. He sounded like her father, and it was sort of ridiculous.
Here's to hoping the apartment would be standing when he got back.
