Nguyen Hue Street, Saigon
STEP! STEP!
Black business brogues and soft silk jeans.
A long, deep crimson coated ao dai trimmed in black dressed down to the knees.
Three empty hollows bored into a face featureless of a mouth and nose, housing only a trio of unblinking and unmoving white pupils that could set a soul stiff with a single unwavering stare.
And the largest pair of curved and pointed longhorns that any common cattle would kill to be able to carry on their heads.
All draped in a cape of dreadfully dark gray skin with rough and rugged scutes and scratches resembling that of a withered oak tree come to life.
In the eyes of Balrog, simply put the most terrifying monster he had ever seen in his short lived boxing career.
In Vega's eyes, easily the most unsightly and ugly creature that he had ever had the haunting displeasure of presenting his perfect and poise posture to.
Chun-Li? Arguably the most odd and strangest looking individual she had seen in her many missions around the world, and that was counting the seemingly normal lot she had already considered strange in her travels.
The creature dressed in deep crimson on the other hand? Discernible disappointment that his favorite roadside book store was closed earlier than usual.
"Of course you would turn in on the day I was looking forward to seeing you the most, did you?"
The creature's voice was masculine in nature. Sound, soft, stern and surprisingly smooth for what was essentially a walking tree as his three white eyes soon shifted away from the banal bore of a bookstore to the more contributing crowd of collectively confused police officers brandishing their assortment of fully loaded firearms like a gang of street thugs, an eye disappearing into its dark hollow to signify his mildly bemused manner at the scene around him.
"Am I interrupting something, officers?"
The uniformed men did not dare to risk so much as a slight shake or a nod of their heads in reply, either out of fear of the already critical situation getting even more critical than it already needed to be or simply because they were still shell shocked from the sight of a mythical moc tinh tunneling out of the tarmac for little more than a friendly hello.
Seeing that they were not going to be of any useful help to answering his honest inquiry, the creature turned to the next best thing at hand: the three very strangely dressed and very clearly confused combatants huddled just across from him, particularly the oxhorn wearing beauty in the blue and gold qipao which he identified almost instantly.
"I see that our northern neighbors have allowed some time to come and visit us. And very well dressed by the looks of it."
He raised a slight of his hand, or in this case a cobbled cluster of roots resembling the supposed shape a hand, in salutation of her, and despite her current condition condemning her to hold onto her bleeding waist on the ground, the Interpol Agent could not help but return the simple gesture in kind after shaking out of her brief bewildered blush at his compliment to her.
That was until his eyes landed onto the thick pair of black spike-studded steel bracelets she had on her wrists.
"Although I have to say, I did not know that there was a surge in Gothic culture over there. I might have to cancel my next flight if that is to be the case."
Goth?
Goth!?
'D-Did he seriously think that I'm a goth because of my bracelets!?' the exasperated woman had half a mind to hand him a resounding retort for making such an asinine assumption, but unfortunately for her, his attention had already averted to her two equally perplexed assailants, who were still in the process of trying to make some sense of the botanical creature standing a few feet from them.
"And what of you two? A pair of street performers in a traveling show I have yet to hear about?"
The boxer, being the first to break out of his stupor at the creature with a simple head shake, put on a smug scowl in response as he pointed a glove at him.
"And what's it to you, roots? Don't cha got a garden to run off to?"
"Me?" he chanced a glance from the close bookstore and then back at the burly boxer. "Just looking for a reason to buy a few books. But unfortunately, that is out of the picture at the moment so I suppose this is where we are now."
"Yeah, well beat it, bush for brains! Can't ya see we're in the middle of something?" he gestured to the bleeding woman on the ground, to which the moc tinh made one noted look at her severely beaten and battered form before returning to the boxer with a shrug of his shoulder.
"Very well then, carry on."
He made to look like he was about to turn around and leave almost at the sheer disbelief of the surrounding officers and most definitely the disbelief of the beauty in blue on the ground before immediately turning right back at the trio with his hands clasped together.
"But if I may be so bold as to impart with one last say in the matter of all of this." he turned to the masked matador with the tacky snake tattoo in his chest.
"Drop the snake, and get a dragon. A fine specimen such as yourself requires a mighty serpent of the gods to represent you, not a lowly mortal worm in the dirt. I hear that a new tattoo parlor has just opened up recently around here and they would be grateful to have you."
Was he serious?
The creature was suggesting the armed assassin in the middle of an attempt on her life to get a new tattoo!? This was simply impossible for even the Interpol Agent to believe, not that the masked matador seemed to mind.
"A dragon… of course! Why settle for mere mortality when you can bask in godhood? I simply must thank you for such a splendid suggestion."
He then brandished his steel claws.
"After I finish trimming your horns."
LUNGE!
"LOOK OUT!"
STAB!
A collective silent gasp escaped the lips' of the officers as Chun-Li's eyes widened in almost static horror.
He had killed him.
He had killed an innocent bystander who had nothing to do with this and she was powerless to stop him.
She had failed her duty as a police officer.
…
"I had hoped it would not have come to this."
His stern voice, still speaking. Surprised, she chanced a hopeful glance upwards to see that the masked matador's bladed claws had somehow wedge themselves in the space between the moc tinh's rooted fingers, his hold tightening with the stunned assassin's every futile attempt to break free from the creature's iron grip.
"But I suppose there is no reasoning among your type."
"W-wha… unhand me this instant, you ugly c-!"
CRUNCH!
…
"AGHHHH!"
A collective cringe of discomfort erupted from everyone in the area as the creature's fingers clamped violently onto Vega's claw hand, with even Balrog having to wince away from the sight as the moc tinh's grip twisted and turned with every crunch, adding to the masked matador's melody of excruciating screams of pain that only seemed to fuel the creature's already rising fury.
"You invade my home."
CRUNCH!
"GAHHH!"
"You bring along your conspirators."
CRUNCH!
"AGGH!"
"You assault our visitor."
CRUNCH!
"…and now you assault me. A Vietnamese in his own home." he brought the terrified matador up to his level by his mostly broken hand, his empty stare as cold as the dark, black hollows that held them.
"Like so many that have tried and failed to do before."
PUNCH!
A ferocious outstretched wooden fist to the chest sent the masked matador screaming as he soared along the path before landing brutally onto the ground with an unceremonious tumble and skid, the brutish boxer briefly shocked by this before furiously facing the moc tinh with a seething breath.
"Oh, you're gonna pay for that, you overgrown w-!"
WHIP!
GRAB!
"WHAT THE-!?"
LAUNCH!
STRIKE!
A long stretch of encroaching roots from the creature's arm shot out and latched onto Balrog's waist and before the boxer knew what hit him, he too was sent flying across the road from where he stood before tumbling right next to the downed matador by a devastating drop kick from the moc tinh as his feet planted firmly back onto the tarmac, patting his hands as he did so.
"That should take care of them for a while. Now." he then knelt down to the stunned and still bleeding Interpol agent on the ground, a gentle hand placed on her head to help her sit up the best that she could.
As hesitant as her initial thoughts were on the strange creature, she could not help a small smile of gratitude for him to help her even when her police conduct dictated that he really should not have interfered with this dangerous situation.
But that was all for later. Right now, she simply rested in silence on his hand while he made a mental note of the disturbing damages Balrog and Vega had done to her.
"Those two did quite a number on you, did they?"
"Tell me something I don't know."
"Sarcastic, much?" the Interpol agent merely rolled her eyes at his jest as he then hovered a hand over her bleeding midsection, signaling her to remove her own hand.
Although uncertain at first, she eventually relented and let her hand fall loosely to her side and allowed the creature to gently press onto the wound. Forcing herself to fight off the threatening screams from the initial stings, she soon found her breath becoming strangely more and more relaxed, as if the excruciating pulse in her body was diminishing by the second.
And when the moc tinh was finished and lifted up his hand, she saw in slight amazement as the wound was no more. Completely healed and absent of blood if only to leave behind a small but visible scar on her midriff as she smiled a sigh of relief.
"That should hold you together for a while. Think you can stand up now?"
With a small nod, she gently gripped onto his shoulder and with no small amount of struggling, the two eventually found themselves standing on their full height.
Just in time to turn around and see the boxer and the matador also on their feet, and not at all looking pleased as claws and red gloves bared.
"Annoying bastard. If you're so insistent on being a pest, then we'll just put you in the ground right next to her!"
The creature and Chun-Li merely looked at one another.
"Think you can take on the brute?"
"Only if you can keep up with Vega."
"So that is his name… alright then, let us dance." and with one final nod, the two assumed their positions, just as Balrog dove right at them with a murderous charge.
"RRRAGGH!"
"KIKOKEN!" a brilliant blue burst blasted from her open palm, striking the brutish boxer right in the chest and stopping him dead in his tracks with a daze, allowing Chun-Li to follow up with a short handstand to launch herself into a series of gravity defying rapid rotary kicks to his head.
STRIKE! STRIKE!
"SPINNING BIRD KICK!" with every hit, the boxer staggered to find his footing until the last kick sent him sliding a good distance away from her before he furiously charged back into the fray for more.
As for the creature, he was having a little more trouble finding his footing when his opponent was thrashing his steel claws wildly at him like an unpredictable rabid animal going after prey.
SLASH! SLASH!
SLASH!
"I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER FOR THIS, YOU REPUGNANT CREATURE!"
But in actuality, all that aggressive rage-fueled savagery only led to a series of carefully calculated sidesteps from the creature as he elegantly anticipated and dodged the myriad of swings and slashes without so much as a silver of steel sliding onto the fabric of his red dress before catching the matador' final slash with his hand.
"My turn."
STRIKE! STRIKE!
A series of successful grabs to the chest with his rooted hands followed by brutal punches to the head sent the disoriented masked matador further and further and further along the stretch.
GRAB!
STRIKE!
Until one last devastating dropkick to the head put Vega to sleep, the thoroughly mulched matador lying in a crater of his own bodily design.
"So ill mannered." the moc tinh dusted himself nonchalantly as he turned around to find the Interpol agent standing next to him, looking none the worse for wear herself with a soft and satisfied smile on her face to which he returned the sentiment in kind with a simple nod.
Followed by sharp grunt.
STRIKE!
"UGGH!" the creature staggered for a bit as he could only regain his vision long enough to see the still furious form of the brutal boxer charging at him with a lightning fast straight cross to his face, followed by a brutal uppercut and then back.
"GO BACK TO HELL, YA DAMN STICK!"
STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!
And with one final furious cross, the moc tinh was flung hard across the tarmac before tumbling and skidding along the road, unconscious and out of the fight, much to Chun-Li's horror.
"NO!" she made a move to get to him, but was quickly intercepted by a vicious uppercut from the boxer, followed by a series of consecutive crosses and hell raising hooks to the head and chest.
STRIKE! STRIKE!
"GAHH!" the Interpol agent stumbled back a few steps from those strikes, but she refused to back down so easily, not when the battle was so close to its conclusion, and she steadfastly maintained her footing and position as she shot a serious glare at the smug smirking boxer approaching her threateningly.
"What are ya gonna do now, now without yer botanical boyfriend to tag you out of the ring?"
Chun-Li did not say a single word, simply standing where she was and waited, anticipating Balrog's next move as the scowl on her face never left nor softened.
"What's the matter, copper? Too broken by your loss to say anything?" his brutal taunts ate at her mind like mites, but still she stood her ground against him, Balrog simply huffing an unamused breath in return.
"Well, if yer that desperate to see him again… then you can JOIN HIM!"
The boxer made a mad dash towards her, a fist pulled back to deliver a killing blow and she prepared to deflect it.
GRAB!
…
"…w-what?" Balrog and Chun-Li stared in surprise as the boxer's arm suddenly refused to budge, for it was held in a vice grip.
By a tangled mess of roots latched tightly onto his arm.
Outstretched from the branch-like tendrils of the moc tinh in red standing just a short distance away from where they were.
Very alive.
Very active.
And as of this very moment, very, very angry.
"Get over here…"
…
"Oh sh-!"
PULL!
The next couple of minutes were like a blurry haze to Balrog.
"AAAGH!"
STRIKE!
"AAAGH!"
STRIKE!
"AAAGH!"
STRIKE!
A very brutal, bloody and bone breaking beat down of a blurry haze.
STRIKE! STRIKE!
One minute he was hanging helplessly by the end of the creature's rope-like arm of roots as he was viciously pulled in and punched out in the face again and again and again like a malicious man-sized paddle ball to the point that several of his teeth started falling out of his bloody mouth.
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!
The next he was savagely and repeatedly slammed into the cold black tarmac over and over again, leaving several craters of various poses of chalked out corpses into the ground imprinted by the screaming boxer's flailing body now sticking from head to toe with chunks of broken tar.
SHOOT!
Followed by the creature pulling Balrog's now nearly limp body closer and shooting his arm up straight into the air as high as it could go, the boxer's body held up at the height of the nearby buildings like a bloody, brutalized and thoroughly beaten light bulb on a lamppost for the stunned officers and Chun-Li to see.
JUMP!
Before launching his entire body into the air to meet the boxer's body held in stretched hand, leading to swift kick to Balrog's chest.
STRIKE!
Followed by a grab leading to a pulverizing punch.
STRIKE!
And finishing off with the moc tinh's legs wrapped around the boxer's shoulders before twisting rapidly and sending both careening back into the ground.
CRASH!
A large puff of smoke erupted and engulfed the space in which the two bodies collided with ground, with Chun-Li coughing away the dust in her vicinity as she quickly moved in to look for the creature.
But as the dust settled and ground stilled, her eyes landed on a familiar shadow.
There he was, standing with the longhorns on his head stretched tall and proud in the center of the road with his hands behind his back, the boxer laying just next to him and surprisingly still breathing, if very much unconscious.
A wave of relief washed over her with a soft smile as the moc tinh walked up to her.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah… yeah, I'm okay." she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you."
The creature simply nodded in return.
"You are welcome. Now if you would excuse me…" he made a turn to leave the area.
FALL!
Before immediately collapsing onto the ground, the toll of the battle taking full effect on his body with the last thing he heard being Chun-Li's distressed cries.