Chapter 33
Monotoli Fighting Tournament
The police began rounding up the Mad Sharks members, loading them onto police cars and trucks. As Frank was being taken towards a police car, Rosanna called out to him while approaching him. "You! I have something to ask you," she said to Frank.
"Ma'am, please do not interfere with police work," the policeman said to her with a stern expression. However, when Rosanna gave him an intimidating glare, he took back his words and allowed her to do so.
Rosanna then asked Frank. "The Rapture… Where'd you get it from? Why was it obeying you?"
"What is that to you? Why'd you care about something you folks just thrashed?" Frank replied grumpily.
Rosanna pointed her gun at him and said, "Because I will make holes on you right now if you don't!" Her action made the surrounding people surprised, and they got ready to stop her.
"All right! I'll say it! I got it from M. Bison! You happy now?" Frank said to her. "I told you that he's my ally, so he gave it to me as a gift! It's made by his organization!"
"A Rapture was created by him? How is that possible?" wondered Rosanna.
"Sorry, time's up, and you'll have to answer for your gun later," the policeman said to Rosanna before pushing Frank away into a police car.
As Rosanna wondered about what he said, Chun-Li walked up to her and said to her as well as her allies, "The whole lot of you… You'll have to answer our questions regarding your acts of vigilantism."
"Are we going to be in trouble…?" asked a nervous Poli. She was a police herself, and now she was being questioned by another police, which was ironic.
"If I have to be honest, I don't really mind vigilantism," replied Chun-Li. "But Captain Strong may have something to say about this…"
"Yeah, Captain Strong is a very no nonsense fellow… I can't imagine him not getting pissed over this…" said Ness.
All eyes then turned to Captain Strong as he approached them with a serious look and his arms on his back. "Well, you young ones sure are lively, handling things without the police's permission," he said to them. Looking around at the place damage caused by Stout, he said, "Look at the mess you've caused by your actions! The police wouldn't have done something like this if they were doing things!"
"It was mainly that Rapture that caused this damage! There was no way we could've stopped it from causing this much damage!" protested Bay.
"You underestimating pros like us, lady? If I were here, the damage will be kept to the minimum!" Captain Strong said to her, which made her nervous. "Anyway, I've been talking with some folks around here earlier, and they seem happy about what you did, teaching these hoodlums a lesson and supposedly helping some school from being harassed by them. I don't care what the dumb neighborhood thinks, you folks still aren't getting away with this!"
"Oh boy… Looks like I was right…" said Ness with a shrug.
"Sir, I'm actually a police myself!" Poli said to Captain Strong. "I gave them the permission to do all this!"
Captain Strong glared at her and said, "Never seen you before. Which faction to you belong to?"
"Um… A.C.P.U…?" replied Poli nervously while flashing her badge.
"Never heard of that before too! You're probably just some brat dressing up as a police to think you can get away with things!" Captain Strong said to her.
Just then, a policewoman came up to Captain Strong and told him, holding a phone in her hand, "Sir, the mayor of Metro City called you. He wants to speak with you."
When Poli saw the girl, she was shocked. "Miranda?! What are you doing here?!"
The police girl looked at Poli and asked in shock, "How'd you know my name?!"
Captain Strong took the phone from Miranda and answered it, "Yes, Mister Mayor? The vigilantes? How'd you know about them? The news?" He looked to the side and saw a news crew standing there, filming everything, while a reporter talks about what was happening. "Yes, I see them… So about the vigilantes… Yes, I'm dealing with them as we speak. What? You want to meet them? Take them to your place? Are you serious? All right… I'll do it…"
He then hung up the call and gave the phone back to Miranda. Looking at the good guys, he said, "Consider yourself lucky that I won't be dealing with you, because the mayor of Metro City will be dealing with you instead! I can't imagine him being a nicer person than me!"
"Mayor of Metro City? That would be either Mike Haggar or Cody," said Ryu.
"I guess we are in good hands if it's either of them, because we're friends after all!" said Ken.
"You know who the mayors are?" Pepper asked them.
The two nodded, and Ken replied, "Yeah, especially Cody. We're something like sparring buddies. He's a fight-happy person who'd rather use his fists to solve things than doing things the formal way, yet you can't bring himself to hate him!"
"All right, the lot of you get onto that truck. We'll be taking you to Metro City now," said Captain Strong while pointing at a truck used for carrying prisoners.
"I think we should just do as he says so that we don't get into any more trouble," suggested Poli.
"Feels like we're being the bad guys, even after what we did…" said Zwei.
"Don't worry; if the mayor is who we know, then I'd say this is the best case scenario," Ken said to her.
As they were getting onto the truck, Ryu looked at Chun-Li and asked, "You're Chun-Li, right?"
Chun-Li replied, sounding confused, "Yes, and?"
"Nothing… Just making sure," replied Ryu before joining everyone else on the truck.
Once the place was cleaned up, the truck the good guys were on began making its way out of Twoson and towards Metro City. Inside, Ryu said, "Seems like Chun-Li isn't the same one I know because she didn't seem to recognize me."
"Frank didn't recognize me as well, so it seems that this isn't actually my world… The geography and locations being different further prove things…" said Ness.
"And there's also Miranda, my partner back in our world," said Poli. "Unless she got mind wiped, she doesn't seem to be the same person..."
"Can we talk about this shocking revelation of Raptures being created by this person called M. Bison the whole time?" said Rosanna.
"Yeah, I'm surprised to hear that as well! He's the one responsible for what happened in our world? I can't believe it!" said Bay.
"But we don't live in the same world! This doesn't make sense! Unless this is actually the past, and we're just starting to witness the rise of Rapture invasion…" said Ein.
"Or maybe they're not the same Raptures we know," said Zwei. "The Raptures in this world may have been created by him, but not the ones in our world, where they have their own origins we do not know of yet."
"I guess that makes more sense…" said Pepper. "These aren't the same Raptures we know."
"You know who M. Bison is, right?" Poli asked Ryu.
"In my world, he's a villainous man and leader of the evil organization Shadaloo, which deals with evil acts such as drug smuggling and illegal arms. They've also known to kidnap people to experiment on in hopes of creating super soldiers that will help them take over the world," replied Ryu.
"Yeah, pretty nasty people… They won't stay down no matter how many times we've put them down," said Ken. "Can't believe Bison is here as well.. Or maybe a different version of him… Won't know until we meet him in person…"
After several minutes, the folks arrived at Metro City. Stepping out of the truck, the good guys looked around to see a fairly ordinary-looking metropolis, with people going around doing their business like nothing special is happening.
"Looks just like Fourside, but then, you can say the same for most big cities…" said Ness. He then noticed a particular building rising from the distance behind several buildings. "The Monotoli Building… If the tournament it is holding takes place here, then I guess it makes sense for that building to be here."
"I don't remember such a location in Metro City either, so it must be something different about this world, a combination of yours and ours," said Ken, looking at said building. "That aside, it looks like this Metro City is very clean compared to ours. The mayor must've done a good job cleaning things up!"
The group are then led by Captain Strong and Chun-Li into a specific building. After going through various security checks, they are brought before a large set of doors that the two police captains went inside first. "I hope the mayor is a nice guy…" said Little Mac, sounding nervous. "This is my first time meeting a big shot."
"Assuming it's the same as our world, it should be fine," said Ryu.
A few minutes later, Chun-Li came out and told them to go in, and the group nervously went inside. Once inside the room, they saw a blonde man in a light blue striped formal suit seated behind a desk, with Captain Strong at the side. Ryu and Ken immediately recognized him as Cody. "I knew it!" Ken said in his head with a smirk.
"So you're the vigilantes I saw on news who whooped the butts of the Mad Shark Gang?" asked Cody.
"Yes, we are, and we apologize for taking things into our own hands rather than getting support from the police. I know I'm wearing a police uniform myself, but my authority doesn't really lie anywhere here, so I don't really have the right to do what I did," Poli said to him while saluting.
"You don't have to apologize for anything, because I love every part of what I saw!" said Cody, his tone becoming excited as he stood up from his chair. He then turned his computer towards them and showed footage of them fighting Stout, recorded by civilians standing close by. "You see this battle that you guys are involved in? It was awesome! The only thing I didn't like is the lack of footage of you folks beating up the Shark Gang. Man, I would've loved to be there to see it in person!"
"Whoa… He's nothing like what I expected at all…!" said a surprised Bay.
"He's exactly how I thought he would be!" said Ken happily.
"I've been wanting to beat the crap out of the Mad Shark Gang by myself for a while, but since I'm a busy man who can't find a good time to leave Metro City, that never came. I eventually got fed up and gave the police department of Metro City the permission to go after them, since the police in Twoson don't seem to be interested in doing anything, supposedly because their hands are tied one way or the other," explained Cody. "That's when I saw on the news about vigilantes taking on them by themselves. Man, that reminds me of the good old days when I was a do gooder out on the streets!"
"So you're letting us off the hook?" asked Poli.
"You can't just let them walk out like this, mayor! Vigilantism is a serious offense!" Captain Strong said to Cody.
"Which is why I've decided that to make up for your actions, you should help with undercover job in finding out the real motive behind the Monotoli Fighting Tournament," said Cody.
"Finding out its real motive?" asked Ryu.
"That's the same one Paula went to join!" pointed out Ness.
"You see, there have been rumors that something shady is going on with Mister Monotoli, the owner of Monotoly Building, and even I can't get anything out of it. A friend of mine gathered information on it, and he insists that nothing is wrong, but I still have doubts, even though he is a my friend..." explained Cody. "My guts feeling is telling me that this fighting tournament he is holding has something to do with those rumors. As much as I want to join it myself, I'm afraid I can't for unfortunate reasons. I want you folks, at least one of you, to get involved in this contest and see if you can dig up anything that can help verify something about it."
"Heh! Interesting! Looks like I get to flex my fighting skills!" said Milk, cracking her fists.
"Indeed. This is one punishment I can get behind, if you can even call it one," said Ryu.
"So how are we going to get into the tournament?" Ken asked Cody. "That, and we have problems with living quarters too."
"I can easily get all those arranged for you," said Cody as he handed Ness a pamphlet for the tournament.
Ness read the pamphlet and said, "It says here that while weapons aren't allowed, outside of boxing gloves, you are allowed you use any abilities you naturally have, such as your superpowers. They don't even have age limit! I guess that's why Paula is able to sign into this tournament."
"And maybe it's also while it's not widely advertised due to the uproar of knowing that children can participate," said Little Mac.
"But seriously, why would anyone allow children to participate in a fighting tournament anyway?" asked Milk.
"That's one of the reasons something is not right with this tournament," said Cody. "So… are you folks in?"
"Of course we're in," said Ryu without hesitation.
"So all we have to do is join the tournament?" asked Pepper.
"Or serve as an audience, while being on the lookout for anything suspicious," replied Cody. "You may even have to disguise as staff member of that place in order to gain access to different parts of the building."
"Then I'd rather do that. Can't say I'm into this whole fighting thing, even if that's what I'm crea… What I'm good at…" said Pepper.
"Undercover work is part of being a police, so I think I'll gladly snoop around the place in disguise if I have to," said Poli.
"Obviously, I'll be doing the fighting, just like Ryu," said Ken.
"I'm in too as a fighter," said Little Mac.
"If Paula is in, then I'm joining too. Who knows? Maybe I may end up being her opponent," said Ness.
Punching her palm, Milk said enthusiastically, "Do you need to ask me? I'll gladly take up any role that involves punching people!"
"Hope you folks enjoy beating up each other, because as much as I am accustomed to violence, I think I'll take the backseat and observe from the audience area instead," Rosanna said to them. Bay, Ein, and Zwei also said the same thing, wanting to be observers behind the scene instead.
"All right, then it's decided!" said Cody. "I'll get my secretary to arrange everything. All you have to do is wait for the tournament tomorrow."
"And I will be keeping an eye on you lot. You will be reporting to me your findings, and no funny businesses allowed!" Captain Strong said to them strictly.
The next day, the good guys were gathered together in front of the Monotoli Building. Looking up the towering skyscraper, Ness said, "It's convenient that we are in a fan fiction, because this allowed the author to go ahead and skip to the next day without having us to go through the remaining hours of the previous day." Yes, he broke the fourth wall.
"So the tournament is held here?" asked Ryu. "Doesn't look like the kind of place to be holding one…"
"You'll never know what surprises rich buildings like this can hold," said Ken.
The group then went inside, where they were greeted by staff members. Approaching the front desk, Ken asked the receptionist about the fighting tournament. "Yes, it is in basement level," the receptionist told him, and then she pointed her hand at an elevator. "Please take that elevator over to the basement level, and you will be greeted with staff members who will prepare everything for you."
"Thanks for the info!" Ken told her before approaching said elevator with the others.
Taking the elevator to the basement floor, they were led by staff members throughout the place and also made sure that they were properly registered into the tournament, which they learned didn't have as much contestants as they thought participating. However, the most surprising thing they learned was that each fighter would have his or her own changing room. This was to prevent any form of interaction between fighters before the fights and therefore allow the element of surprise when they meet on the fighting ring.
"Interesting. I guess this does make the fights more challenging. You do not know who you are fighting and therefore do not know what to expect from your opponents," said Ryu with interest.
"Who knows? Maybe we may end up fighting each other," Ken said to him.
"Or one of us may even fight each other…" said Ness.
"I don't see what's so bad about that," said Milk. "It's not like we're trying to kill each other. It's just a friendly sport match after all. That's unless you're too flimsy to survive a punch from me!"
"You have a lot of confidence in your fighting skills," Ryu said to her.
Feeling smug, Milk said, "Of course! I have it all I have when it comes to fighting! Being a Nikke, I'm sure I have the strength advantage compared to all of you!"
"Interesting, then perhaps we should hope meeting each other on the fighting ring to compare strengths," said Ryu.
"Don't regret your words when that happens!" Milk said him with a smirk.
After they were done talking, each went into his or her changing rooms. Entering her room, Milk saw that the size wasn't big. There was a locker on one side that contained spare fighting attires of both sexes, made for fighters who didn't bring their own. There was a TV attached to the wall that was already turned on, showing the fighting ring. "Well, time to get prepared!" she said to herself while cracking her knuckles.
Meanwhile, Rosanna, Bay, Ein, Zwei, and Pepper found themselves seated among the audiences. The student Nikke even bought snacks. Looking around, Pepper said, "It's not really as crowded as I thought it would be.
"They did say it's not a widely advertised fighting tournament, so not a lot of folks got the message, I guess," explained Rosanna.
"It's basically an underground fighting tournament…" said Bay. "I'm already getting shady feelings about this place… You think the others will be all right?"
"If they have enough balls to join the fight, I'm sure they'll be fine," said Rosanna. "You shouldn't worry about Poli as well. She's a police and a pro at this sort of thing."
Elsewhere in the same floor, Poli and Miranda were both wearing the same kind of uniforms as the staff members of this place. Not only that, they had managed to get fake ID cards for themselves and even gotten their identities hacked and registered into the company's database to add to the authenticity, all thanks to people working for Cody.
"I'll be honest… This is actually the first time I'm doing undercover work…" Poli said to Miranda. "Sure, I did study a lot about it before, but never got the opportunity to do it…"
"Don't worry; this is my first time doing undercover work too, and though I did study beforehand about it, I can't remember everything even though I paid attention to them all," Miranda told her, sounding enthusiastic.
Poli stared at her with a worried look and said, "You're not making things sound any better, assuming you're anything like the Miranda I know…"
"What?" asked Miranda in confusion.
"Never mind…" replied Poli.
There was excitement in the air as people waited for the fights to began. Eventually, an announcer said out loud to everyone, "Welcome to the Monotoli Fighting Tournament! A fight where everyone can be the winner!"
From his room, Ness heard the announcer's voice coming from the TV, and though he couldn't see him, the voice sounded familiar to him. "Isn't that Everdred's voice?"
"That's right! You heard it right! This is a tournament where everyone can have the chance of winning, because you see, the winner isn't only decided by only who makes it to the top, but also performs well!" explained Everdred from a table located somewhere just to the side of the fighting ring. "If Mister Monotoli likes how you performed during the fight, he will gladly reward you as well! So everyone, fight the best you can, because you can also win even if you don't win!"
"Huh, that's one unique way to do things," commented Ryu from his room.
"All right, without further ado, let us start the fighting tournament!" said Everdred. "First up, we have the famous Red Cyclone of Russia, Zangief!" He pointed to the appearance of a large, muscular man wearing red briefs appearing in the room and making his way to the ring while waving his arms in the air. Getting into the ring, he flexed his muscles nonstop while making roar-like sounds, earning the praise of several people.
"Oh hey, Zangief! He's here as well!" said Ken.
"And then on this side, we have the Ruby ENFP, Clay!" continued the announcer. A blonde girl wearing a red tank top and thong-like briefs then appeared onstage, waving her arms and thanking everyone for their support, while people showered her with cheers of happiness.
Bay stood up in shock upon seeing her and said out loud, "Clay?!
"Isn't that the other girl you do cheerleadering with?" Rosanna asked her. "Saw her on TV a few times with you."
"She is! I can't believe Clay is here as well, and in this tournament to boot!" said Clay in disbelief.
"Can she even fight without weapons?" asked Ein while eating popcorn.
"Actually, Clay participated in an underground fighting tournament back in the Ark," explained Clay. "But she doesn't have a good winning record and is largely famous for constantly losing…"
"There's an underground fighting tournament in the Ark?!" said Zwei in surprise.
"Yeah, I heard of it," said Rosanna. "You'd be surprised at how much shady stuff that goes on in the Ark."
Meanwhile, Zangief and Clay were now on the stage, staring down at each other. "Little girl, be careful that I break your bones. You don't have any muscles!" Zangief said to her.
"That's assuming you can break my bones of steel!" Clay said to him with confidence.
BGM: Zangief Theme (Super Street Fighter II Turbo)
The referee, who was the same person from Punch-Out Wii, told them to step back and get into positions. Once they were in position, he gave the permission to fight. The moment the fight began, Clay charged at Zangief and attacked with a flying kick against his chest. However, she bounced off him and back into the air, landing in a crouching position.
"Haha! That felt like nothing! A mosquito can bite feels more than that!" said Zangief.
"You haven't seen what I can do yet!" said Clay before charging at him and delivering swift kicks and punches to various parts of his body.
Zangief just took the blows like they were nothing. Eventually, he tried to grab her, but she moved back swiftly to avoid his hands. "You may be fast, little girl, but that is nothing if you cannot hit me hard enough," Zangief said to her.
"Like I said, you still haven't seen what I'm capable of what!" Clay told her. She then jumped back and landed onto the elastic rope at one side of the fighting ring, and using it like a trampoline, she bounced high into the air while spinning, and then she fell towards Zangief with one leg stretched out to hit him with an ax kick, hitting him in the shoulder hard.
The blow actually managed to make Zangief bend down on his knees with a look of pain. Clay landed in front of him and said, "How'd you like that?"
But Zangief stood back up in a couple of seconds and said, "Ha! You got A for effort, but I have taken stronger hits than that and still stood back up! Now is when I get serious!" With a cry, he lunged at her to grab her, but she got out of the way. Zangief continued to attack her, but she moved around fast to dodge his attacks while striking him in various parts of the body, though none of them seemed to be doing anything to him.
"You can do it, Clay! You can do it!" Bay cheered loudly for her, so much that the audiences around her were all looking at her, wondering what was up with her.
Zangief spread out his arms as he performed a spinning lariat, hitting Clay in the face when she closed in for an attack again. She flinched and took steps back with one hand over her face, and then Zangief stopped spinning to charge at her to grab her by the waist before she could react.
He then lifted her over his head and slammed her headfirst against the floor behind himself so hard that her upper body sank into it, leaving only her lower body and half of her arms sticking up into the air.
Seeing this, the referee began counting down to ten. Clay responded by kicking her legs and wiggling her butt in an attempt to free herself, but was unable to do so, and the referee kept on counting until he reached zero. "Match set! Winner is Zangief!" he said while pointing his arm at the wrestler, who raised his arms into the air and shouted in triumph, while the audiences cheered in excitement.
BGM Ends
Seeing this, Bay sighed in disappointment and also felt embarrassed for her friend. "Clay…"
"It's not everyday you see a Nikke lose to a human in close range combat," said Rosanna. "Either she's not that strong at all, or that human is something else."
"I guess this world really does have really strong humans," said Pepper.
In his room, Ryu watched the entire fight from his TV and said, "Zangief is same as always here too, it seems. I wonder who else familiar will I run into?"
Within another area of the building, Geldegarde Monotoli, an old man in a business suit and the owner of the Monotoli Building, was watching the fight from a TV. He had a depressed look on his face as he watched the whole thing, and without turning his head, he asked someone behind him, "You really are going to do this, aren't you…?"
"Yes," said the man standing behind him, M. Bison. "Everything will be going as we have said. Don't worry; after all this is over, I will assure you that you will have nothing with this any longer. Nobody will ever suspect your involvement in this, and you can go back to your usual life."
"This is wrong… I shouldn't be doing this…" said Monotoli.
"What's the matter? Having cold feet? Too late for that! You are already as guilty as us, so might as well remain guilty until the end!" said a voice that appears to belong to a fat kid.
Monotoli turned to see a fat kid standing next to Bison and said to him, "Porky…! How can you do this? How dare you sell out everything I've worked to Shadaloo?! I offered you everything, and this is how you repay me?!"
Standing behind both Bison and Porky were four additional people. A boxer named Balrog, a blonde man wearing a mask named Vega, a man in Chinese clothing named .G., and a large cybernetic being named Chatterbox.
"Your days are over, geezer! Things weren't that fun when you were running things, so I struck a deal with Shadaloo to spice things up a bit and hand them over our goods!" Porky said to him. "I am the boss from now on, while you just serve as my public face and do what I say! No buts!"
TO BE CONTINUED
There will be lots of nonstop action next chapter, so please look forward to it! I hope you enjoyed the villain reveals this chapter as well!
I got the idea for Clay's epithet, Ruby ENFP, from reading her wiki page. It says that her personality type is ENFP, a personality that is defined by being energetic and wanting to inspire others. Ruby is also her underground fight club name.
