At the Gates...

Chapter 15 - At the Gates

"I'm so tired of jungle." Charlie remarked as he, Guile, Chun-Li, and Naruto followed Cammy's lead through the Thailand wilderness. The blonde teenage femme fatale had been leading them along for the last couple of hours and while none of them were in need of a rest, dodging poisonous snakes and nasty insects was not the way they liked to spend their time, "How could he really build a base in the jungle that nobody could see from the air? Did he build it underground?"

"What is this, 'Nam?" Guile replied, smacking his bicep on his American flag tattoo as he felt a mosquito crawling about on it, "I really doubt that this guy has a series of underground tunnels."

Hearing something that she could talk about and maybe help with, Cammy spoke up, "Master Bison doesn't have a series of tunnels. He has one complete base of operations here. Normally you would be right in saying that building a base that could be unseen by nosy scouts would be difficult. But there isn't really much of a foreign military presence in Thailand, and aside from that he's taken precautions in the building of the base."

Chun-Li looked back towards Naruto who decided to stay in the back and distribute clones all about to prevent an ambush just in case, "She called Bison 'master' again. Are you really sure this is the best idea?"

"She's not a bad person... not really." Naruto answered, feeling jittery at the slow going pace they were moving at. He would much rather have been jumping through the trees, a faster way of traversing the woodlands in his opinion, but he was the only person that was trained to do such a thing. So he was stuck to walking with the rest of them, "Cammy's been calling him that for who knows how many years and she just broke away from Shadaloo. She'll stop eventually."

Well if that was the case then Chun-Li was really wishing that something would break her of that habit and in a hurry. It was kind of unnerving to be taken through the thick jungle by a person that was a noted assassin of Shadaloo, someone who still called the leader of said criminal organization 'master' when she was supposed to be preparing to fight against him. It made her feel like something terrible could happen at any time.

At that point Cammy suddenly ran forward, startling the others who started running as well to keep up with her.

She ran for a bit, but came to a stop at the top of a rather steep incline to allow the others to catch up to her. She didn't say anything as they surrounded her upon reaching her, all she did was point directly outward into the valley ahead of her. The sight they were bearing witness to explained why she had run to that point.

In the valley beneath them lay a well disguised base amongst the trees the size of a small town, mostly in one big structure with a few smaller buildings out back, probably supply areas or barracks. Low roofs camouflaged to the style of the jungle around it, built slightly into the ground adjust for the low roof height, no paving as none happened to be necessary for the vehicles below which consisted of jeeps, trucks, helicopters, small hovercrafts, and a large military-grade jet with hovering capabilities. And those were just the vehicles that were easy to see. They had SAM turrets concealed that could fire up through the flimsy leaves that concealed the base from view above.

That was not to mention that there were dozens, maybe hundreds of soldiers stationed about, looking like ants walking about the anthill to the observers.

"Shadaloo's southeast Asian base of operations I presume." Chun-Li said, mentally preparing herself for quite the fight once they went down there, "That's a big building to blow up… I hope I brought enough explosives."

Guile grunted in annoyance at the well-fortified looking base and moved ahead with Charlie as they began to descend to the valley below. They still had another hour or two of walking before they could even think about getting into position to infiltrate.

At the summit, Naruto lagged a bit behind again as Chun-Li and Cammy passed by him to follow the two older soldiers, "If those guys have guns I'm not sure how useful clones will be except to help dodge bullets." Oh who was he kidding? "Of course they have guns… there's no way they don't have guns." Naruto said to himself dejectedly.

XxX

(Jungle Roads of Thailand – Sakura/Batsu/Ken/Sagat vs. Ryu)

While Ken watched the ongoing struggle between Sagat and Ryu intently, both Batsu and Sakura couldn't tear their eyes away from it because they had never seen a fight of that magnitude up close.

No wonder Ryu had kicked the two of them around so thoroughly to the extent that only Ken could fight back. It even made Ken realize that he really should have been fighting Ryu full out from the beginning, because he could have taken it. It made him feel like a chump to be knocked down so easily, but in his defense that falling knee strike to the back of the head was not a Ryu move. Ryu didn't fight to maim like that.

His inner berating of his negligence was cut off by Batsu's comment, "Okay… when we get home, I've definitely got to start training way harder." The normally belligerent young man stated in awe of the pace that Sagat and Ryu were fighting at, "What in the world did we get ourselves into?" He then flinched and ducked as a tree behind him was smashed and felled, "Oh man!" He quickly hobbled himself away as fast as he could on his crutches as the fight had moved to behind him.

The tree had been smashed through with a kick from Sagat that Ryu managed to dodge before retaliating with a flurry of hazy punches that smashed off of the back of Sagat's blocking arms.

The Muay Thai master simply weathered the storm until the failed combination ended before lashing back out with a hard kick to Ryu's body that knocked him away. Getting a bit of a running start, Sagat then launched himself at Ryu, leading with his knee, "K̄hèā Seụ̄x (Tiger Knee)!"

Ryu blocked the powerful hit, but slid back a few meters from the force of the attack. If Ryu's own thoughts could shine through he would have noted that Sagat had certainly not grown any weaker over the last few years, and he seemed a lot more sure of himself than the last time they had met after the man's defeat at his hands.

Tall, confident, and regal-looking in his stride, Sagat didn't seem to be taking the battle as the driving, all-consuming conflict with his greatest rival that he would have been yearning for only weeks earlier, "Is this it? This is all it takes to break your spirit as a martial artist; the twisted wiles of Bison?" Instead of answering, Ryu launched himself at Sagat once again where they engaged in a furious flurry of punches and kicks that only Ken could make out.

"You were humoring me weren't you?"

Ken's attention was taken from the battle momentarily when Sakura spoke to him from next to him as she also watched the ongoing combat, "Come again? What are you talking about?"

"When you said I was really strong after our spar yesterday, you were just encouraging me." Sakura said without even looking his way. She felt that if she missed even a moment of the fight she'd have missed something important or incredible, "I can't fight like this. I can't fight like you were fighting to match Ryu earlier. You held back against me, and Ryu held back against Naruto when they went one-on-one before." She knew for a fact that Naruto held back too to keep from destroying private property, but the levels that Ryu jumped up in terms of strength here was scary.

Rolling his eyes, Ken thwacked her on the head eliciting an indignant cry and faux teary eyes, "If you're going to break down and have your own identity crisis in regards to your own strength can you save it for a less serious time?" He remarked before pulling Sakura out of the way of stray debris from a smashed portion of road that was going to hit her.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" The blue orb of surging ki flew from Ryu's hands at Sagat only for the man to kick it directly up into the air harmlessly and lower it back down in an ax kick that cracked the road and intended to smash Ryu had he not dodged. The nimble Ryu responded with a kick to Sagat's outstretched leg to compromise his balance before a secondary attack with his powerful high-rising uppercut, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!"

The blow hit Sagat under the chin and sent him flying back through the air into the trunk of a tree. He fell and landed on his feet back on the ground where he spit blood from his mouth and worked his jaw, "Ah, not as strong as the one that scarred me. Your fists don't have any soul behind them. No feeling. If you let yourself be turned into a marionette then you can't ever call yourself a warrior. And you'll always lose to a real one! Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!"

Sagat crouched down to Ryu's height and punched out with both of his hands with enough force to push out his ki in a quick crescent burst of yellow energy that forced Ryu to turtle up in order to defend against. It blasted apart off of his guard but it concealed his sight of Sagat's approach.

And the sight of Sagat's new move, based off of something very familiar to everyone present.

"S̄eụ̄x Sxydāw (Tiger Uppercut)!"

A leaping uppercut was uncoiled from Sagat that sent both of them upwards more than fifteen feet into the air, showing the impressive natural leaping ability of Sagat and his raw strength to knock Ryu up at least that high as well.

"Wasn't that-?" Batsu started to say, pointing up a crutch at the sky-high combatants.

"I think it is." Ken more or less confirmed what he assumed the youngster was thinking and what the look in Sakura's eye told him she came the assumption of as well, "It's based on the Shoryuuken. Even the little mid-air twist he threw in there for added impact."

Sagat flipped through in the air after the full extension of his Tiger Uppercut came to an end. He looked on with no small bit of satisfaction as Ryu fell flat on his back on the ground with an audibly solid thud.

He simply stood there with his massive arms crossed over his equally massive scarred chest as Ryu started standing back up, "That's what the heart of a real fighter brings you Ryu. I lost to your little killer uppercut and I figured why not incorporate a similar technique into my own repertoire. The heart of a real fighter allows you to learn and grow, to continue to improve and find inspiration to continue onward. Something you don't have as you are. So when I put you down, you're just going to lay down, because you won't have the heart to get back up. Not like you once did."

All Ryu did was stand back up and get into his fighting stance, a dead look in his eyes as he did so.

Sagat just scoffed at this and casually slid back into his own, "I see. Well I guess you'll never be considered a master of your fighting style after all. you aren't even the master of yourself." He noticed that Ryu still hadn't moved from his place and decided to take the initiative. With long strides of his tall legs, Sagat got into a powerful run before preparing to plow straight through Ryu. No guard he had was going to prevent him from being lain out with his next move, "Thảlāy Seụ̄x (Tiger Destruction)!" He was about to put all of his force behind a plowing knee that was never going to force him to break stride or combination as it would only be the first move.

"Wait! Stop!"

Sakura's cry would have otherwise fallen on deaf ears had Sagat not been so attentive. Even while lacking in depth perception with his one eye, he took notice of the subtle view of Ryu's arms being no longer tensed. He was still in his stance but as the saying went; the lights were on but there was no one home. Nor was there any hint of Bison's Psycho Power influencing his actions.

The knee of Sagat stopped short of hitting Ryu right between the eyes by inches before he lowered his leg and smirked, "Well what do you know? Questioning your drive was what it took to get you to stop?" He started to laugh before suddenly punching Ryu hard across the face without warning, much to the shock of everyone watching, "Maybe when you wake up this time you'll have yourself all together."

Sakura and Ken quickly made it to Ryu's side as he lay on the ground, grimacing in pain after Sagat's unblocked haymaker, "What in the world was that for?" Sakura asked, somewhat affronted at the large Thai man's actions, "He'd already stopped. That was why I yelled!" She let out a fearful 'eep' when Sagat's eye turned to her before he started laughing again, "What's so funny?"

"I hit him because I still owed him for the scar and the recovery time it took afterwards. He's lucky one punch is all he's getting, but I want a real fight next time so crippling him or giving him brain damage now wouldn't have been advisable." Sagat said rather casually with no shame for doing so. With his need to be there done, Sagat turned to walk away and leave, "Until the next time. Fighting now wouldn't be suitable. There are more important things happening right now, and even rivalries need to have their limits."

Ken stood up, leaving his friend to Sakura and Batsu who happened to be hobbling over on his crutches, "You're just leaving? Just like that? What happened to Ryu?" He asked, still not having any of the answers he needed to understand what was happening. Call him impatient or whatever, but he was pretty sure he had a concussion and he didn't take that kind of thing lightly, especially when he didn't know the reason why.

"Like I said..." Sagat uttered, not turning around as he continued to walk down the road in his own direction, "Bison was the cause of your friend's brainwashing. He's fine now if you can sense his ki." He pointed off in a direction into the deep jungle, "If you care, that's where Bison's base is. It's very far inside, but you can't miss it if you reach it."

Ryu sat up, beginning to get his bearings back now that he was conscious. He had been aware of the things going on since falling under Bison's control but had been unable to do anything other than simply observe until he fought back and regained autonomy over his own person, "Wait. You're not going to try and ask me for a match now that we're here?"

Hearing his rival's voice got the former 'God of Muay Thai' to stop just long enough to address him in turn, "I'm not ready to take you on in a real battle again. Not yet. I've spent too much time obsessing and not enough time growing." With that being said he proceeded to walk away again, "The next time I'll beat you and show you who's the strongest. Not for revenge, but because it's my destiny."

Instead of anyone going off to stop him or anyone trying to say something to keep him there they just watched him wander his way down the road until he fell out of sight. As if any of them were going to be able to convince that man to stop. But still, him helping them out was pretty admirable of him.

Either that or he was really just passionate about winning a fair fight against the last person to so completely defeat him. To Ryu's surprise as he knew of Sagat's occupation as Bison's bodyguard the man had just given them the location of the evil dictator and he hadn't even tried to stop them, nor did it look like he even cared. Ryu knew the location already, but the others didn't yet.

"Oh man." Batsu said, shifting his crutches beneath him, "Well let's go to that village we were supposed to meet the blonde brigade at. We can't be that far away right?" Hobbling for miles and miles didn't seem like fun at all but what other option did he have?

Instead of agreeing like most of the others were, Ryu remained silent and looked into the jungle. It didn't take too long for Ken to notice this and roll his eyes as he already knew what was on his friend's mind. Ryu just couldn't take an asskicking lying down without fixating over it, "You're going back after Bison aren't you?" He didn't even need the answer as Ryu started walking off of the road and into the jungle just like that, "Ugh… of course you are."

"He'll just escape unless someone makes sure he doesn't. And you didn't see the Psycho Drive…" Ryu said in his own defense, remembering his own time as a captive, "Not only does it make him stronger… it's a super-weapon in of itself."

"Psycho Drive?" Sakura asked, lagging slightly behind the two of them, "Wait, you're going that way? There's supposed to be an airstrike on that base once the coordinates are found. That's why we're going to the village, so that Naruto and Cammy can start looking for the base to mark it." They were already late and they'd be even later without a vehicle to take them there.

"Well if no one's going in until you reach the village you're going to I have time to head to the base and ensure that Bison is destroyed." Ryu said, tightening the red headband around his forehead, "Like I said; there's always a chance that he'll escape. I can't let that happen. This can't be done to anyone else… after what he did to Rose." By a stroke of luck, Ryu managed to find Rose after she was defeated and managed to get her somewhere to heal and rest, at least until she woke up, "…And what he's done to so many other people."

Batsu threw his arms up along with the crutches he still happened to be holding on to, "Well that's great. Go skulk through the jungle. What the fuck am I supposed to do out here on the road by myself? Tigers still come out this far sometimes you know, especially to get a wounded meal out of something like me." He was cut off when he found himself suddenly picked up by Ishizaki over one shoulder as the large man started walking down the road towards the village, "Oi! What the hell?"

"I'll transport Ichimonji-san to the village of note." A recovered Ishizaki said resolutely as the titanic butler carried off an arguing Batsu who was angrily waving one of his crutches over his shoulder, "I was supposed to be responsible for the transportation after all."

Ken ran a hand through his long blonde hair before shrugging. That was one problem solved at least. And then he turned to see Ryu gone and sensed him heading off at a high speed through the jungle already, "Oh goddamn it." He said before getting Sakura's attention and pointing into the wilderness, "Come on if you're going." With that he also took off in a run to try and catch up to Ryu.

"Alright!" Sakura kept it in step with Ken as they chased after Ryu who didn't seem to want to slow down for them, 'Following Ryu is a lot more trouble this time than when I was 14.' After all that, Ryu hadn't said more than three sentences to them before taking off to fight. He must have really been pissed, 'Last time didn't involve so much running either.' She thought as a stray branch slapped her face, "Why does Naruto like the woods so much? This is annoying."

XxX

(Hours Later – Outside of Shadaloo Base)

Guile and Charlie cut a none too subtle trail through the soldiers along the outskirts of the base, in order to soften up an exit route for those further on the inside once the explosives were planted. To their unbridled luck, the communications and alarms had been disabled somehow. This forced any reinforcements that came for them to have to run and get them on foot. Easy for two well-trained powerful warriors like them to deal with one after another.

And random traps of wires and sometimes explosives kept going off whenever certain groups of soldiers would get close enough to fire at them. Neither Charlie or Nash set any traps, but they looked around and sometimes caught a grin or a flash of orange before it disappeared in smoke.

Either way, they were a great diversion that looked like a pair of tough guys trying to muscle their way into the base. They were strong enough to make it a very realistic threat that had to be dealt with because the number of defeated soldiers started numbering past two hundred.

"More guys with guns." Guile said as Charlie stood directly next to him, both of them ducking behind a large tree and watching the advance of the next coming squad of Shadaloo soldiers, "Again?" He asked, flexing his arms out seemingly in preparation.

"Well it's not like they're stupid. They can't communicate properly, otherwise they'd see this coming." Charlie returned before the two of them looked at each other and nodded, jumping out from behind their place of cover and shouting simultaneously.

"Sonic Boom!"

"Sonic Break!"

Guile swung his arms inwardly concurrently in a double-armed cross slash with enough speed and force to send out his ki in a spinning wave of energy. Charlie's did the same, only he needed just one arm to fire his, making his rate of fire far faster than Guile's as he could swing his arms in succession and do his damage. It was comparable to a semi-automatic and an automatic weapon. He could even do it by throwing kicks as well which he took liberal use of.

Either way, the explosive blasts of fast ki devastated the soldiers before they could take aim at them men and fire. After the rumbling explosions rang out, Charlie sighed and looked over at his friend and partner before adjusting his glasses on his face, "You've seriously got to learn how to do these with one arm Guile. Yours are so slow compared to mine."

"They work just fine the way they are." Guile responded dryly a dark killing intent filled the air around them, "You feel that don't you?" Both of them looked directly up to see M. Bison hovering above them with his arms crossed and his cape billowing behind him, "Is that who I think it is?" Charlie didn't answer, he just stood by Guile's side in his fighting stance. That was all the answer Guile needed, thus he wound up for another projectile attack, "Sonic Boo-!"

Before he could even launch the attack, Bison teleported right in front of his eyes and reappeared directly behind them. The confident dictator laughed when he saw both U.S. born military men jump away from him as if to avoid an attack.

The notion that someone like him would need to sneak attack those two worms from behind in order to defeat them. Absurd.

"So these are the barbarians knocking at my gate?" Bison said, observing Charlie and Guile through his white and pupil-less eyes with a smirk on his face, "And here I thought I killed the man in glasses there. Back in Brazil."

"Good thing your gunships aim as badly as you dress." Charlie responded with a hard look in his eyes, remembering almost being killed two years ago after being shot from behind off of a clifff by a gunship that Bison used to escape, "I'd love to see you try that again, or are you actually going to fight this time?"

Bison scoffed and cast away the cape that was attached to the shoulder pads of his uniform in kind, "I normally don't dirty my uniform with the blood of such useless peons, but what can I say?" His body began to radiate the sickly purple Psycho Power in an intimidating fashion, "Today is just your lucky day isn't it?"

"I'm done hearing you talk! Sonic Boom!" Guile flung his double-armed wave of ki at Bison only for him to chuckle and teleport a few feet to the side to avoid the blast that exploded in the distance behind him. A totally unnecessary display of his apparent superiority over them. Guile merely growled at him in anger from being so casually overlooked.

"What was that; a demonstration?" Bison taunted, gesturing them both forward with one hand, "I'll even handicap myself. We're so close to it on my base, but I won't even draw power from the Psycho Drive to defeat you. Consider it a gift from me to you for thinning out so many of my useless soldiers."

Both Charlie and Guile looked at each other in tandem before rushing forward to attack Bison at once, something he took great humor in, cackling as he began dealing with the two.

As they pressed forward and mounted their assault he seemed almost bored as he dealt with the two of them. Any punch that seemed like it would have gotten close to hitting him was swatted away as he continued to just dodge and dodge.

The grin on his face was beginning to press on Guile's nerves as his fastest punch and kick speed didn't seem to be registering at all with the man. He began getting sloppy, sacrificing his technique for just wanting to knock Bison's block off with one good shot, "Oh, am I done waiting for your turn to end?" Bison taunted as he took notice of this and grabbed Guile's arm after one of his sloppy punches, spinning around and whipping him right into Charlie, sending both men flying away, "I guess I'll take mine then!"

Both Guile and Charlie untangled themselves from the pile they had been distributed in and got back up, "Focus!" Charlie shouted at his friend, "Don't let him get into your head damn it! Fight your way or he's already beaten you!" As Guile continued to stand up, Charlie took the initiative and headed forth to engage Bison once more.

"I beat you before I woke up this morning." Bison quickly subverted Charlie's attack with a stance-breaking backhand that knocked his hands away when he tried to block. It was quickly followed up with a punch that had Psycho Power generating around his fist.

Guile watched in shock as his friend was knocked dozens of yards away with a single punch to the face. That was impossible. He knocked a nearly 200 pound grown man away like a golf ball with a single punch. It wasn't like this was some weekend warrior kind of fighter that he had done it to either.

"Do you realize how useless your weak little fighting moves are?" Bison said, right at Guile's side. The man never even noticed his approach. In surprise, Guile tried to respond with a spin kick, but it was caught in Bison's arms. He couldn't even make a move before he found himself pulled into a crippling knee to the body, "This is child's play!" He followed up on the doubled over Guile with a hard downward elbow to the back of the neck that sent him face-first to the ground.

"Crossfire Blitz!"

The moment Guile's body hit the ground, Charlie was back in the fight and within range of Bison whom he immediately began unloading on with a furious assault, so fast that it looked like three different Charlies were attacking from three different sides, ending with Charlie and his two afterimages uppercutting Bison into the air.

He never fell back down to the ground though as he flipped through in the air and merely levitated out of Charlie's reach, scowling down at the man that had just managed to hit him. The sheer audacity of the action took the leisure right out of him.

And what was this? Hope? From the look on Charlie's face as he helped Guile back up it looked like he believed that they had a chance. That was completely unacceptable. Weaklings were to be crushed. That was all there was to it.

Seeing that Charlie managed to hit Bison put a serious spring in Guile's step, neither really paying attention to the fact that despite taking dozens of blows he was still unmarked.

Guile sprinted towards Bison's levitating form before sliding to a stop beneath him and launching into the air with a direct backwards kick instantaneous and hard enough to leave a blur of a trail where he had rotated, "Flash Kick!"

Bison had seen him coming all the way and had prepared a teleportation out of the way. Charlie knew that Guile had telegraphed his move and expected Bison to evade it, thus when he reappeared elsewhere in the air he was able to take aim for his own counter, "Sonic Boom!"

A swift bolt of ki flew and spun from one of Charlie's blurred swinging arms and flew at Bison only to pass clear through him, 'Afterimage? Are you kidding me? He can leave those?' He didn't dare and finish his thought, turning around when he felt the swell of energy from Bison's reappearance, "Somersault Kick!" Charlie threw a jumping flip kick of his own with a corkscrew thrown into it for a wider swing to it, but it missed as Bison drifted back and let him land on the ground.

Like a missile that had honed in on him, Bison swiftly hovered over to Charlie before stomping right on the top of his head with both feet, "Head Stomp!" While it was a devastating attack that drilled Charlie right into the ground, it was a demeaning method of displaying Bison's superiority. Seeing Guile coming back in to defend his friend, from where he was hovering just at where he had stomped on Charlie's head he spun around and kicked at Guile, knocking him back despite the fact that he blocked it.

Taking a series of deep breaths, Guile focused his ki intensely as he opened his arms wide. Bison laughed at the display loudly, "Well if you're presenting me with that much of an opening it would be rude not to take you up on such an offer!" He started charging forward before leaping at Guile and spinning his entire body, leading with his right arm as his entire form was engulfed in Psycho Power like a drill, "Psycho Crusher!"

'Well this is it.' Guile thought to himself before timing the release of his ki perfectly. He would need every bit he could generate to make this move work, "Sonic Hurricane!" If he screwed up he wouldn't release the attack in time and would be more than likely cut clean in half by the Psycho Crusher or he'd release it too soon and the apex of energy would subside without ever hitting at all.

Guile swung his arms inward for a normal Sonic Boom, but instead of firing one off he formed one massive ongoing blade of spinning ki in front of his body that made a loud noise, almost akin to a jet engine.

Bison's forceful energy attack crashed directly into Guile's own and began to get pushed back as it tried to cut through his cloak of energy. Sweat rolled down the blonde soldier's brow, but he could feel his own attack holding up… that was until it started running out of steam. He tried pushing more ki into the attack, but it was like trying to blow up a slowly deflating balloon.

"Running out of energy are we?" Bison shouted over the sounds of their conflicting attacks, "How unfortunate!" He then noticed that Guile's Sonic Hurricane wasn't losing power anymore. In fact it was seemingly growing stronger. Through his constant spinning he was able to see that Charlie had taken up a position standing behind Guile, "What do you think you're doing?"

Charlie ignored Bison and began focusing to channel his ki into Guile to bolster his friend's attack, "I'm not one for the power moves, but I've got energy to spare! Just finish him off!"

The skin on Guile's hands began wearing down, going up his arms as well, 'I was never supposed to hold it for this long!' He thought to himself as his breaths started coming out in an almost hyperventilating manner, 'Channeling this much power through my arms is a killer!' Like trying to direct the water from an open faucet through a straw, but there wasn't any other direction for the power to go.

"It's not close to being enough!" Bison yelled as the shoulder-pads of his uniform began to glow and generate black electricity that began to whirl around his Psycho Crusher, powering it further, "With the Psycho Drive… I'm invincible!" Guile's arms couldn't take anymore and he was running out of his own ki either way, thus his Sonic Hurricane failed.

This left Guile and Charlie at his mercy as they were unable to dodge once their defense against the brutal dictator fell. Both of them took the hit from the edges of the corkscrew as much of the ground was destroyed and carved up from the direct impact of the maneuver.

The dust settled and the two American soldiers lay on the ground barely able to move. Guile couldn't push himself up with his arms, but Charlie was still trying to get back up. While he was failing to get himself up past the point of getting past his knees, Bison grabbed the back of his head, palming it like recreational sports ball as he lifted the man off of the ground, "Raaah!" Charlie tried to pry the man's grip off as Bison slowly started squeezing his head with one hand.

"Hah, that was a good workout." Bison said as he seemed to revel in the shouts of pain from his defenseless adversary, "You actually made me try in the end. Feel proud. After all, I'm the strongest in the world."

"You're not the strongest. I've fought the strongest."

Bison's victorious grin fell and turned to a frown as he turned around and noticed a figure in a white gi walking barefoot towards him from the unkempt wilder area of the jungle on the outside of the base, "Ryu. I felt our little connection break. I figured that it was because you had finished your mission and Sagat had killed you after you had served your purpose. He was so looking forward to his rematch with you, to get his little revenge."

"Let's just say I found myself before it was too late." Ryu tightened his red fighting gloves on his hands before punching his fists together. His dark eyed glare was fixed firmly on Bison as he walked forward towards him, "I have to thank you actually."

"For showing you what a taste of real strength was?" Bison finished for Ryu, smirking as he threw Charlie away like trash, "You're welcome."

"No." A serene smile found its way to Ryu's face at that point, "Because of what you tried to do to me I realized who I am, the part of me that people believe in. I can't question myself as a fighter even with a dangerous power inside of myself. That in of itself is just another battle I have to fight at some point, because sometimes the most important battle is the battle within. But for now, before I master it I'll deal with you."

It was laughable to Bison that Ryu would 'deal with him' as he so bluntly put it. Did he not learn anything from the first time they had fought. It was just a few days ago, was his memory really that short, "And just what do you think has changed to allow you to… 'deal with me' my boy?"

Ryu uncharacteristically smirked when he set himself into his fighting stance without any fear whatsoever, "Well I haven't learned any new moves, I haven't even gotten to train, but I've seen your moves… and I've felt your Psycho Power. I've fought stronger."

Stronger? Stronger than his Psycho Power? Oh, he was just trying to get into Bison's head. Not a bad approach, trying to poke the bear and goad him into fighting angrily instead of his normal method. Either way it didn't matter because Ryu would be destroyed just like the two Americans would be once he was finished there.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Naruto looked abruptly over his shoulder as he could swear he had heard the hiss of a cobra or some other deadly, deadly snake of a poisonous variety. Oh how he hated snakes. They were without a doubt his least favorite animal. Getting eaten by one when you were twelve years old on top of all of the other negative snake experiences would do that.

And along with all of that, the jungle sucked. It was muggy and mosquitoey, and he was never going back again, "To hell with this. I trained for a completely different kind of forest. These ain't woods, this is jungle." Naruto muttered to himself. At this point he was on the grounds of the base, Henged into the form of a soldier around the edge of the area that he managed to separate and incapacitate.

He had dispersed clones every so often to set traps that they could hide and activate when the time appropriately came as it was still a lot of jungle even though much of it on the ground level was cleared out so that vehicles could easily be used and the troops had plenty of space to move about. It was pretty impressive. The trees were a lot like nothing more than pillars with the canopy and upper branches of them serving as the sky cover with the late afternoon sun barely visible through the dense leaves.

But Naruto's best efforts to walk around looking like he knew what he was doing belied his own thoughts on the matter, 'Gah! Where's Cammy? Where's Chun-Li, Charlie, Guile, anybody!' They'd separated at opposite points with Cammy splitting off last once she got everyone to soft entry points. Each to do their own thing as it were.

So what did that leave Naruto to do? Run around as a fake guard with a transformed stick in his hands to look like a rifle? Screw that.

It took a while to do it without suspiciously making a beeline straight for it, but Naruto made it to the main building of the base and decided to go in instead of puttering around outside like a fool. Maybe he'd find one of his party members, because if he were setting explosives he'd definitely have been going there as a priority. Eventually he'd have to come across someone.

The halls weren't dingy, they were well lit and well-kept, probably done by the grunts, with white tiled floors and extremely sturdy looking grey colored walls. He really hoped Chun-Li's explosives packed enough punch to take that place down.

All the while he was walking around, Naruto took note of the fact that there weren't any soldiers inside. The point was driven home when he was given a rather queer look by a trio of scientists that he passed in the halls. He ignored the look, but he had to recognize that there simply wasn't supposed to be a soldier in here.

At least not on that floor. Damn it he should have gone in through the basement or something.

He walked down a few more halls before choosing to duck into a doorway where an unseen puff of smoke gave way to Naruto emerging with a new scientist's disguise. But it didn't get him very far because at the end of that particular hallway he was stopped by five young women wearing the same attire that the two assassins Juni and Juli wore when they attacked his school.

One of them had rather dark skin, wild black hair, and held a spear along with a small golden monkey that she kept on her shoulder as a companion of sorts. Another was a Japanese girl with short black hair and a katana on her back. The next was a Chinese girl with her hair in a tight bun on her head as she brandished a set of nunchaku. The next girl had a small pair of claws in her hands and blonde hair in two braids similar to Cammy's, but he couldn't see her face due to a black mask covering it. The last one had neck-length pink hair and brandished something that Naruto had done a very good job of avoiding conflict against thus far; a firearm, though it was only a pistol thank goodness.

But still, you know… as far as the situation went for Naruto…

Crap. Son of a bitch. All of that good stuff to express how he was feeling at the moment.

Naruto nervously adjusted the fake glasses on his disguised face, and adjusted his voice accordingly with his disguise before speaking in English, "Yes? Is there something the matter?"

The girl in the black mask with the claws merely pointed at Naruto and then directly behind him, seemingly allowing him to turn and look. Naruto immediately palmed his face at the sight of a security camera and turned back around with a sigh as he dispelled his transformation and stood there facing down five female assassins, "Ugh… names?" He irritably grunted out, trying to stall and think of a plan.

In the order they were seen they all spoke in turn before finishing in robotic unison, "Santamu. Satsuki. Xiayu. Decapre. Février. Mission: to exterminate the intruder, now identified as Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto nodded, expecting that much, before immediately turning tail and running back from whence he came. He was not fighting five-on-one straight up, even against a group of very pretty girls, "Fuck this… Cammy!" He exclaimed as if she was somewhere where she could hear him as he ran away, "Get your Doll-sisters damn it!" And there were still supposed to be seven more around there somewhere?

A silenced gunshot came from the pink-haired Février as the bullet grazed Naruto's shoulder, getting him to turn his head around in time to see Satsuki advance on him and try to cut him down with the unsheathing of her sword. Naruto was able to twist his body and jump up towards the ceiling to avoid the slash where he kicked off, rolled on the ground, and swept her legs out from underneath her before he kept running as the other Dolls jumped over her and continued to chase him before she got back up.

The first corner that they saw Naruto turn, they pursued him only to find an ambush clone awaiting them that Xiayu was able to hit with her nunchaku before the rest of her body even got around the turn to make her vulnerable.

To Naruto's chagrin he managed to corral himself into a corner, but instead of stopping and preparing to defend himself, he started focusing his chakra into his right hand in its forceful spinning manner, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" The impatient blonde teen drilled his signature melee ninjutsu straight through the wall to make a fake door into a stairwell.

More space. That was better than fighting against girls with weapons in a freaking hallway, but not by much.

Santamu and her spear filed through the hole in the wall first as she impressively tried to slash away at Naruto before switching to a stab that he backflipped out of the way of onto the railing of the stairs. He began to slide downstairs until the little golden monkey latched onto his face for long enough to disrupt him and force him to fall once he reached the lower landing, slamming his own body against the wall.

A shift of his head prevented two gunshots from Février from depositing themselves neatly into his skull. He then brandished a kunai to defend himself from the masked blonde Decapre's short claws. He'd just gotten through fighting Vega the previous night though, which meant that as good as she was with her claws it just didn't measure up to Shadaloo's most elite assassin when it came to his skills with them.

Naruto defended against a few slashes with his kunai before posting one hand on the railing of the stairs heading downward and kicking her in the face, allowing him to tactically retreat from the other girls again before they could surround and swarm him. So was this what it was like when he tried using his clones on singular people? Because he could see why it was either annoying or terrifying for his opponents.

He'd never been outnumbered before, but he was so experienced in outnumbering other people in the past that he could swear he'd seen and done pretty much every way possible to do it. That was some kind of an advantage, wasn't it?

Whatever. He was still running away until the terrain better suited him. Thus he continued to run downstairs away from the lovely ladies that would have wanted nothing better than to rip his heart out of his chest.

What else was new?

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Base – With Cammy and Chun-Li)

While Naruto was dealing with his trouble in his own portion of the base, the two ladies of the strike force would be enacting their own plan to take things down.

From a control room on the basement floor, Chun-Li watched the door as Cammy was inside working away at the computer within. Chun-Li had of course already set explosives in that room and in any structural place she could find until that point, but they found it prudent to enact another important method of destroying the base.

Their thinking was that there was a chance that the enemy would be alerted as to the fact that explosives sat within the base, thus the two of them infiltrated the control room where Cammy was able to work her magic over the systems.

She was not only able to jam communications around the base, but she was able to securely lock the doors to the point where only one of Bison's 'Grand Masters' (none of which were there) or one of the Dolls would be able to open them. No unwelcome advances from the outside guard would be crashing their party and anyone unable to get in and out would merely assume that Bison was on one of his control freak trips.

That would leave them mostly clear to plant explosives at their leisure. Only the people inside would pose a threat to them and that was more than manageable.

With her job complete for the time being, Cammy got up from her place at the controls and let Chun-Li know that she was finished, "If you're planting explosives I believe that the best place to go in order to ensure complete destruction of the building is the underground garage. With all of the fuel stored there the explosion generated will be massive, and if you can destroy the ceiling you'll bring down the floors above it."

"Alright, sounds like a plan. We can steal something to escape with from there after I set the timer too." Chun-Li said with a nod as they started down the halls again. So far Cammy had been quite trustworthy when it came to leading her along through Shadaloo's base as they had planted explosives in the extra buildings as well before making their way inside. She really just hoped that no one else had done anything dumb in the meantime.

Everyone else had split up in teams of two; her and Cammy, Guile and Charlie, all with the exception of Naruto who had gone off alone to be some kind of man on the inside. He had caught a soldier right in front of them, stole his credentials, and then performed a seamless transformation into the man much to everyone's surprise, so they let him do so.

All of a sudden Cammy stopped in the hallway, alerting Chun-Li as she turned around to face the girl with the scar on her cheek, "Is there something wrong?" She was really glad that she had declared as an Interpol agent that she wouldn't use guns, because with the nerves she had walking through that base she probably would have been shooting at shadows three times over.

Cammy's blue/green eyed gaze was fixed further down the hall as she wasn't moving, but Chun-Li's voice snapped her out of it and she grabbed the older woman's hand as she dragged her along behind her, "Come with me!"

Despite her curiosity, Chun-Li didn't ask any questions as Cammy had been invaluable thus far. Though she did wonder just what it was that set her off. Did she sense something off? Smell some sort of poison gas in the hallway? And then as they got closer to the garage, she realized what it was.

Opening the doors to the vehicle storage area saw Naruto(s) fighting twelve similarly dressed girls Cammy's age wearing similar black leotards and leggings as a uniform and using various methods aside from hand-to-hand combat to deal with him and his Kage Bunshin.

There were many cars, trucks, and military vehicles of various natures and uses all over the garage, and Naruto was doing his best to pigeon-hole them into a situation where he or his clones could defeat them. It wasn't really working too well, but it was keeping him out of trouble as almost half of the girls had weapons to fight against him with.

Cammy and Chun-Li were paying rapt attention to the battle in front of them and almost didn't notice that the real Naruto was trying to creep out of the garage behind them until Chun-Li saw him and whispered harshly at him as she grabbed his hood and kept him there, "How the hell did you do this to yourself? What, did you walk into all twelve of them in the cafeteria or something?"

"Oh no, don't blame me! Don't put that evil on me!" Naruto exclaimed quietly in a similar whisper, "I started out fighting five of them, and then more came when I led them here, and then it turned into this. Help me beat them or shut up!" Turning their attention back to the Dolls, they were stunned when Cammy walked right up to them and they seemingly stopped, "Cammy what are you doing?"

One by one she walked up to each of her 'sisters' and flicked them on the forehead, and they didn't try to attack her for doing so. Afterwards, Cammy just stood there as they all seemed unaware of what had just happened. But their aggression towards Naruto seemed to be nonexistent.

Chun-Li walked closer in an effort to support Cammy in case it was needed and Naruto reluctantly did the same. He had just spent the last few minutes tangling with those girls and it didn't leave him very excited to do it again, even with help this time, "How did you stop them?"

"I don't know." Cammy admitted, seemingly caught off guard by her own actions. It was something instinctual, "…I think the man that broke me of Master Bison's mind control implanted something in me to break theirs as well." As farfetched as she knew it sounded, it was the only explanation she had. She had to remember to look up the man Dhalsim again once all of this was over with.

"I'm still not going over there." Naruto said resolutely, dispelling his remaining and surviving clones as he sat on the top of an M35 military cargo truck where he could keep an eye on all twelve of the Dolls lest they attack again. He then found quite a bit of C4 thrown into his lap, almost getting him to freak out until he realized that it wasn't armed, "What's this?"

Chun-Li pointed directly up, "I need you to put explosives on the ceiling in strategic spots that'll destroy it and the pillars. I'll put a lot around the base of them and by the fuel tanks. Besides-." She knocked on the truck he was sitting on, "This is what we're taking to get out of here once we're done." She then found the C4 thrown back at her and frowned, "Why? You don't want to destroy this place?"

Naruto shook his head and pulled out well over a dozen explosive tags, "Save that, I'll use these for the ceiling." He sprinted over to a pillar and ran up it to reach said ceiling where he began applying them, "Look at this place though. I'll have to use the rest of my supply to make sure this ceiling comes down." Getting the right paper to make more was always a chore and a half for him.

'Paper… bombs? How in the world would he even activate them if they worked?' Chun-Li had to shake the thought out of her head as she watched Naruto tack them on all over the place. She still had her own C4 to apply thickly, and once she did she looked up and got a thumbs up from Naruto who had finished as well, "Right then. I need to set more explosives on the upper levels. I can't make this boom big enough to make sure this place comes down."

"Naruto I need you to come with me."

Looking down at Cammy who was looking up at him, Naruto jumped down against a pillar and slid down to the floor, still keeping a wary eye on the Dolls, "What do you need me for? You've got them."

Cammy fitfully shook her head in the negative, "No… they've just awakened. I don't think I've given them free will, I just think I broke Master Bison's control over them." She seemed rather upset that she didn't get it to go the whole way like hers, "They'll just follow me because I'm the only one that knows what I'm doing. Their actions are mostly instinctual right now, like my own were until I gained my bearings."

"So they won't attack me?" Naruto asked, standing guardedly in front of one of the Dolls and waving a hand in front of her face to get no real response other than a curious look from the girls.

"They shouldn't." That didn't really reassure him any, but Cammy grabbed a hold of his arm to keep him from continuing in his efforts to tease the Dolls without touching them. He was smart enough to know that making contact with them could have resulted in brutal retaliation, "I still need you to come with me. There's something we need to destroy firsthand and make sure is broken beyond repair. If we don't then this was all for next to nothing."

That got Naruto to stop playing chicken with the twelve female assassins in exchange for looking curiously at the one he was on a name basis with, "We're blowing this whole place to hell to begin with. You're telling me if we don't destroy this one thing in particular the other blasts won't get it?" They had set a ton of explosives just in the garage, and Chun-Li seemed to have considerably less C4 than she did in her bag at first.

Cammy shook her head and pointed up to signify that it was on a higher floor, "It's the heart of the base so to speak. Master Bison's most important tool/weapon, whatever you want to call it. It's in the most fortified room constructed specifically to house it."

Holding her temple in exasperation, Chun-Li walked up to the blonde pair and pointed at the copious amounts of explosives she had distributed and also Naruto's explosive tags that she somehow banked on working despite not knowing what they were, "Look, this whole place is coming down come hell or high water. Are you seriously telling me that a single room can survive the entire base crumbling in and collapsing after being blown sky high? And even if it did, what's so important about it?" They needed to go quickly. Charlie and Guile were still out there somewhere acting as a diversion.

"Because with it Master Bison can destroy whole towns from wherever he activates it from." Cammy responded in kind, taking what she was talking about very seriously, "The Psycho Drive; it's a machine created by Shadaloo scientists that allows Master Bison to channel and store his own Psycho Power either to charge it up or weaponize it." She seemed to get a skeptical look from Chun-Li while Naruto seemed to be enraptured with her explanation, "Shadaloo has a stealth satellite in orbit. With the use of both it and the Psycho Drive, Master Bison can amplify Psycho Power through a magnifying glass on the satellite and fire it directly at a target. He can destroy a small town in one shot with it."

Naruto's jaw dropped at that revelation and Chun-Li covered her mouth in horror of the thought of him possessing such a weapon, "If he's got something like that and he's supposed to be so evil then why the hell hasn't he used it yet to threaten anyone? That's ten times better than any bomb I've ever heard of!" The Kyuubi took deep offense to that statement as it could have done the same, but remained quiet, only snorting from within its cage.

Despite the surprise from the reveal, Chun-Li was still rational enough to generalize it, "Think about it. Once he actually uses something like that once, too many things will happen for him to proactively control. No… he's better to save something like that for when he truly needs it." Bison wasn't a dumb man. Despite his love of power, especially his own, he wasn't foolish enough to outright provoke a crushing military response even with a powerful deterrent like that. It wasn't smart, "I see why you're saying that we need to ensure that it's destroyed. And you know where it is?"

Cammy nodded, "I do. But like I said, I need help." She gestured towards the Dolls, "Look at them. As they are now they'd be a liability coming with me, but they're going to follow me no matter what. That's why I want Naruto to come with me. He can help." If nothing else he could keep an eye on them.

"And they won't try to kill me again?" Naruto asked once more, making sure to keep both Chun-Li and Cammy between himself and the Dolls, "…At least they dropped their weapons…"

"They won't try to kill you." Cammy assured him for the last time before she began walking with the other Shadaloo assassins following her out, "…I think."

"I heard that!"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Outside of the Shadaloo Base)

Charlie's eyes opened to the sight of a battle raging on before him between Ryu and M. Bison. By all rights he figured that he should have been dead and tried to move from the position where he was sitting against a supply crate until a hand set itself against him to keep him in place, "Don't try moving." He looked up the arm to see a Japanese schoolgirl with short brown hair and a white headband keeping him there, "You and your friend were unconscious when we got here. I'm assuming you're part of the Interpol people Naruto had us working with."

"Bison…" Charlie weakly uttered, noticing Guile laying down on his back nearby, stopping his struggling to stand, "And the other soldiers."

"Ken is handling them." Sakura said, looking over the crate they were by to see Ken dealing with multiple Shadaloo soldiers that tried to get themselves involved to assist their leader. He was seemingly doing very well despite their use of firearms and the lack of his own, "And Ryu is fighting Bison."

Speaking of the fight between Ryu and Bison…

The fists of Bison weren't delivering their usual devastating effect against Ryu. Not only had the young man yet to crumble underneath his actual onslaught, he seemed to be thriving, matching him punch for punch and kick for kick despite the fact that neither of them had landed a hit yet.

That in of itself was staggering.

'Was he really serious?' Bison thought to himself as he pressed an attack against Ryu, watching with mounting anger as he was avoided deftly by his opponent, 'Could he really have found a way to improve his chances against me after only fighting me once?' It was unthinkable. Their last battle consisted entirely of Bison outright thrashing Ryu who never laid a hand on him once.

And yet here he was the one that hadn't laid a hand on Ryu.

Who learned how to deal with someone after outright getting their ass handed to them by that person? Only the most attentive of warriors could break down someone's battle processes while they were taking a beating.

At that moment Bison realized what the problem was. He had used a large amount of Psycho Power to survive Rose's go-for-broke onslaught only days earlier, and against Charlie and Guile he needed to use a significant amount to defeat their combined effort as well. He had even had to tap into the Psycho Drive both times and the energy he had stored within it. He had done these things without taking the time to heal and replenish himself in the Psycho Drive room.

His body was beginning to break down anyway, as his horrible power was beginning to exceed the limits of what his body was used to, having damaged it so supremely in learning how to master Psycho Power to begin with, and the constant uses in stressed situations weren't helping.

On the other hand, Ryu didn't understand quite what was going on as he blocked Bison's punches one after another, 'Is it really that I've gleamed that much from his fighting style, or what? He seems slower now for some reason.' A punch sailed past his head and Ryu instantly reached out to grab Bison's shoulders. From there he rolled backwards, taking Bison with him before throwing him away.

Once again, Bison caught himself in midair with his ability to hover and righted himself, glaring heatedly at Ryu for daring to hurl him. Holding in both of his hands he began charging a surging purple ball of Psycho Power before using one hand to launch it underhand at Ryu, "Psycho Shot!"

Nothing about the purple, pulsating orb looked friendly or advisable to take on directly under any circumstances, thus Ryu jumped back out of the way of its direction of fire. The purple orb exploded and blasted away chunks of ground, knocking Ryu further back than he intended to jump.

As a result of this he stumbled, and Bison mercilessly took advantage with a forward flip through the debris that came forth and smashed Ryu on top of his head with two kicks, one after the other. Landing on his feet with a fist covered in his Psycho Power, Bison punched Ryu straight in the stomach with an uppercut, lifting him straight up into the air on his knuckles. As the air, blood, and spittle flew from Ryu's mouth, Bison sneered up at him, "I expected that to go straight through you. It seems like you're worth something after all."

Ryu twitched on his hand and Bison dropped it out from beneath him before using his other hand to punch him into the ground with considerable force.

"Damn it!" Charlie stood back up, Sakura's best efforts notwithstanding and tried to hobble his way back into the fight only to attract Bison's attention.

With a derisive snort of dismissal, Bison charged up another Psycho Shot and launched it at Charlie. His intent to finish off the annoyance was plain and clear and would have worked had Sakura not moved in front of him and channeled her ki to her hands as if she were about to form a Hadoken without the pushing motion.

The improvised invisible energy shield layering her hands protected Charlie from the blast, but she was still hurt fairly badly as she was thrown back into him, sending them both to the ground. Bison smirked but then noticed Ryu about to stand again, "Where do you think you're going?" He asked in a taunting and rhetorical fashion as he delivered a hard soccer kick to his ribs, flipping the man over onto his back, "And you're supposed to be one of the strongest men in the world? But then again that's all you are in the end. You're just a man. Not something more… the way I am."

Ryu sat up and stood again as quickly as he could, stumbling once he reached his feet, "You're a monster… not a man. I'll give you that much at least. You think you're strong?" He confidently set himself in his stance again despite the beating that had just ravaged his body and the gambit that both his physical wellbeing and his spirit had been through over the last few days, "Yeah… you're pretty powerful. But your real strength is only equal to that of your will to win!"

And his was stronger than Bison's. He knew it was. He was not going to lose that fight no matter what he had to do in order to win.

It was then that Bison started to feel a dark presence within Ryu stir up, the same as the last time that they fought. Then he had been on the verge of knocking Ryu out so he was able to finish the fight before it manifested itself into any kind of battle factor. Here there was time to better analyze just what was radiating from Ryu.

It was the very thing that contributed to establishing such an easy control over the man the last time, and there was still a little bit left in there from what he could feel. It was more than what he needed to be effective.

'That power again.' A grin spread across Bison's face as he reached his arm out towards Ryu in a half-gripping motion, "Feel that strength within you! I can and will show you just how to unlock its true potential! Just return yourself to me!"

Something triggered in Ryu's head and froze him dead in his tracks as the latent dregs of Bison's previous brainwashing and mental control over him took hold once again.

Noticing that Ryu's body had stiffened up out of any sort of confrontational stance, Bison chuckled darkly and beckoned Ryu forward, "There we go. Now… dispose of that pest over there." He said, pointing towards Ken who was steadily decimating Shadaloo soldiers not too far away.

Shaky arms began to motion themselves into the correct posture for the Hadoken that he slowly began to charge up, though he was noticeably struggling against it. But it was a futile battle as not only was he building the ki for a Hadoken, he was building much more than normal, putting exceeding energy behind it to the point where he had to expand his hands just to hold the unstable attack.

Charlie sat up, as did Guile and Sakura, all of them noticing that the unaware Ken was about to get blasted from behind by his best friend, "Bison! Let him go you coward!" All Bison did in turn was cackle victoriously. He would have Ryu kill all of them, and from there he could only dream of what he could do with such a powerful commodity at his disposal. Maybe he could even take the power for himself? There was never such a thing as too much power.

"Goddamn it Ryu I didn't know you were so weak!" Sakura yelled at him abruptly, getting back up despite her exhaustion from the day and the wounds from her fights, "This is all you've got? I thought that you had guts! Conviction! I thought you had some fucking heart… but it looks like a toad like Bison has whatever heart you have in his back pocket!" It wasn't particularly like Sakura to curse aloud, but this wasn't the time to keep a limiter on her words, "If this is how it ends then you're not the strongest anything!"

Her words seemingly fell on deaf ears as Ryu continued building more and more power into his Hadoken as grit her teeth and shakily stood up, preparing to take matters into her own hands to stop him if she had to. Even though she was injured, she was still the healthiest out of herself, Charlie, and Guile who couldn't even move his arms.

"You're wasting what little time on this Earth you have left little girl." Bison taunted mean-spiritedly, taking delight in the attempt to mad-dog him with a glare that Sakura returned, "Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed… but you don't look useless. Perhaps I'll take you and make you into another of my Dolls?" He cackled again before giving an order, "Ryu, enough! Kill your friend already so I can put an end to the rest of them!"

"No!"

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

The smug, satisfied laughter was stuck as a choke in Bison's throat as a massive, crushing blue beam of energy hit him from behind and engulfed him instead of what had been Ryu's intended target of Ken, "RAAAHHHHH!"

Sakura's eyes lit up when she saw Ryu pouring every bit of ki he apparently had into trying to eradicate Bison. Even Ken managed to tear himself away from his fighting of the Shadaloo forces to witness his friend tear into the evil crime lord. After making so many suffer over the course of his days, the sounds of Bison suffering himself sounded like poetic justice to Charlie and Guile.

But Ryu was just focused on putting an end to this whole thing once and for all, "Always keep your eyes on your opponent, even when you bow! Who said I was done yet?" He had managed to break Bison's mind control far quicker than the last time after doing it once, and while it wasn't really his style, against someone like Bison he had to do what he had to do. If Bison was giving him his back to freely attack it was his own damn fault for being so overconfident.

Eventually the Shinkuu Hadoken subsided and he fell to his knees in outright exhaustion at using so much power to exterminate M. Bison.

"That's impossible!"

At that shout from Ken his head slowly tilted up when he saw what was a horrendously injured Bison's body, missing his arm up to his elbow, covered in blood and burns, uniform shredded, and shrouded in his purple Psycho Power before he suddenly vanished from their view in his teleportation technique. Ryu's eyes were wide as he tried in vain to get up quickly, "He's… he survived?"

XxX

(With Naruto and Cammy – Inside the Shadaloo Base)

Naruto, Cammy, and the slew of twelve other girls made their way back through the building's basement levels before reaching the ground floor and then the upper level, warily moving in case of indoor guards of which there had been more than a few. That was where Naruto and Cammy came into play as the Dolls did not attack.

Speaking of them, Naruto still found it rather disconcerting that the expressionless girls weren't really doing anything other than following Cammy. He kept thinking that one of them would snap out of whatever Cammy did and would turn on him to try and kill him again.

But you had to trust in your comrade, and Cammy hadn't done anything to warrant any suspicion since their little coordinated effort to bring down Shadaloo began. She'd been very good the entire time. She still could have stood to lose saying the whole 'Master' part of Master Bison, but once again he couldn't rightly knock her for that.

"We're close." Cammy said aloud, informing Naruto as they continued to traverse the halls of the upper level, "…I've never been in this room before." She stopped in front of a large pair of doors and found them to be locked. A frown crossed her face, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from getting in. It was fortified so she couldn't just kick it off of its hinges the way she wanted to, "Naruto, if you don't mind..."

"Rasengan?" He asked, getting a nod from the girl before he lifted his right hand to form the spinning blue orb, "Alright, move." Cammy did as he asked and he proceeded to slam the devastating ninjutsu into the center of the two doors, blowing them wide open forcefully, "Check out my skeleton key."

The entire room was nothing but an open and rather dim chamber with shiny, reflective dark tiles comprising the floor and walls that ran up into a concave ceiling. All sorts of wires and pipes of varying sizes and thicknesses ran themselves to a wall above a smaller door at the end of the far side of the room. The wires and pipes produced the little light in the room with the glow coming off of them making visibility possible.

It was pretty creepy, "Man… this place looks like it came straight out of a video game." Naruto commented as they walked inside, "Where is this Psycho Drive thing?" He asked, "Can I just start ripping up these wires and stuff?"

"If you want to kill us all then go ahead." Cammy said, revealing that she was carrying a bit of explosives on her person from Chun-Li, "This entire system is volatile. It's only meant for Master Bison's Psycho Power. If you don't want everyone in the room to die I'd just detonate the C4 with the rest of it when we get away from here like the original plan stated we should." She then noticed something amiss.

The wires shouldn't have been glowing for no reason. While she wasn't privy to the full-on mechanics of the device, she was knowledgeable enough about it to know that the purple glow emitting from them wasn't something that always happened. That meant that Psycho Power was passing through them. And the sound from behind the door showed that there was someone inside.

"Prepare yourself." Kyuubi's uncharacteristic warning shook Naruto into action, "If you can't feel that presence in the next room then I can't believe that you've lasted this long in life as a ninja." Now that the great biju mentioned it, Naruto could indeed feel an existence behind that door that made him feel somewhat sick at sensing it, "If you really intend to destroy that drive then I believe you have a fight ahead of you."

Electricity began to surge from the door at the end of the room before it slowly slid up, revealing a fully mechanical room behind it and a muscular figure in a new fixed red military uniform. Despite less than thirty minutes prior having been nearly completely obliterated to the extent where he had lost an arm, there seemed to be no trace of damage done to him at this point. With the incredible surplus of Psycho Power routinely stored in the Psycho Drive by Bison, he had found a way to regenerate his body as long as the drive existed.

Naruto and Cammy had no idea of his past battles, but Cammy knew absolutely who this was.

"Master Bison." She said, stiffening up in a bit of trepidation at facing off with her former master, who seemed to be crackling with pure power all around him.

"What a busy, busy day." Bison remarked as he levitated out of the Psycho Drive room calmly, landing on the ground in front of Naruto and Cammy. He then noticed all twelve of his Dolls standing behind them, "Welcome home Killer Bee. And you've shown me just how incompetent my concept of the Dolls were. They aren't murdering Naruto Uzumaki as I speak. That's a problem."

"They're not under your control anymore asshole!" Naruto shouted at him, using bravado to mask his own consternation at the man he was facing. He hadn't felt such unbridled killing intent come from someone so naturally since standing against Orochimaru during his two run-ins with him. But just like those times he could grit his way through it. He wasn't some weak little boy either, "You're that Bison guy that tried to have me killed and have Karin kidnapped, right?"

Bison at first ignored Naruto's words in exchange for just staring at Naruto and inspecting the power that he could feel within him, centralized around the young man's belly; the source of that wonderfully powerful red energy that Vega wasn't dominant enough to handle. But instead of a mere sample, within Naruto sat the whole thing, whatever it was.

"Within you sits something… beautifully intense." Bison said with a smirk, reaching an arm out in Naruto's direction and getting the boy to take a step back, "I've seen what a small sample of it can do. I wonder just what you're capable of… when you let it out." His solid white eyes began generating power to them, "You my boy are infinitely more useful than these useless dullards you currently find yourself in the presence of."

"We're not useless." Cammy replied, angrily narrowing her eyes at her former master, "We're people too. I'm not a tool."

"You're right!" Bison snapped at her, his booming voice echoing through the room, "You're not even a tool because a tool is only as good as the person using it, and you've all failed to live up to the reason I recruited you!"

'Recruited?' That was what he referred to it as? He said it as if he had put up a poster and those girls answered the call. The bastard, "You mean kidnapped!" Naruto yelled right back at Bison, not backing up another step, "You stole all of these girls from their homes! You murdered their families and turned them into robots just to kill for you!" Bison laughed at Naruto's heartfelt berating, and that wasn't exactly the reaction that Naruto was going for, "What the hell's so funny?"

"You're mostly right." Bison said, calming himself down from his laughing fit, "I did take all twelve of the girls behind you. I didn't kidnap the one next to you though. Killer Bee is… different from the others I should say." He placed a hand on his chest and grinned at her, "She's from me after all."

Cammy's jaw dropped and Naruto's eyes widened as he looked between the two of them, "Wait, she's your daughter? I think I was better off not knowing that." How something so cute could come from whatever Bison was… he didn't need to be informed of that fact.

"Not my daughter. No woman is worthy to bear my offspring." Bison arrogantly declared, "And any blood related child of mine would only be a monumental disappointment that could never live up to my glory. No, Killer Bee was different. Only here existing, meant to become my next body once this one finished breaking down from the might of my Psycho Power. But now she's useless, just like the rest of these disposable girls. And she'll have to be dealt with as such."

His rant was stopped when he had to lift a hand to casually block a punch aimed at his face directly from Naruto. Observation would note that his blue eyes were raging in anger at how he was casually dismissing the right of Cammy and the other girls just to exist.

On the other hand, Cammy was nearly beside herself in shock at this point, 'That's it? Everything I've ever done… it was meaningless. Having a name at all was worthless. The only thing I was ever supposed to be was Master Bison's shell.' It was a hard revelation to come to terms with, knowing that the detestable training and years of doing nothing but traversing the world to kill at Bison's orders were just because he hadn't deemed it time yet to take her body.

She had been thinking about herself a lot over the last few weeks since Dhalsim had scrambled her programming and had awakened her. It was times like that when she thought that maybe she was better off without self-awareness. Times like that when she thought that having emotions simply wasn't worth having the weight that was sitting in her chest at that moment.

"You need to shut your mouth already." Naruto growled out, nothing but pure venom in his voice at the man that had his fist in a rather tight and increasingly crushing grip, "Maybe Cammy would have ended up being your next body or whatever you called it, and maybe now that she won't follow your every order anymore she's not important to you now. But she isn't disposable and she isn't useless. None of these girls are! They're human beings!"

"And human beings are useless creatures!" Bison exclaimed, blowing Naruto away with a sheer expelling of his Psycho Power, sending it out in a purple torrent that knocked Naruto down and sent him sprawling across the floor, "Look at the lot of those vapid little girls there and tell me with a straight face that they have any use or benefit to mankind! No, their only use was to do my bidding, and now they aren't even any good in that regard! So thank your sister Killer Bee girls, because her busybody meddling with your programming is the reason you're all going to die!"

He started building power, intent on eradicating the sitting duck Dolls until they all got a look at his eyes and like a switch was flipped they all sprang into attacking Bison at once before he could muster an attack against them to kill them. Another anger-induced blast of his Psycho Power blew them all away before they could reach him, sending the twelve girls flying all across the room.

It came as a surprise to him that the Dolls attacked him, but after taking a moment to think about it he found that it did make some sense, "...The instinct to survive I guess… even the lowliest beings on this planet possess it."

Cammy kneeled down by two of the fallen girls that hadn't landed very well at all after Bison's authoritative show of force, trembling a bit as all he could see was her back, "…I'll never forgive you."

"What was that?" He taunted, feigning ignorance at what she had just said, "The words of an empty golem of a girl don't mean very much to me I'm afraid. You'll have to repeat yourself."

"I said I'll never forgive you!" Cammy stood up and turned around with an enraged look on her face and tears building in her eyes. She then did something that she never would have dreamed of doing in her life a short number of weeks ago. She gathered herself into her fighting stance and faced off against Bison.

The militaristic man merely laughed out loud until he felt a rather strong presence walk itself up next to Cammy to stand alongside her; Naruto. Naruto with his eyes red, and an orange aura burning around his entire body, cloaking him in it, "That feeling that you're feeling right now…" Naruto said to the girl at his side, "That's anger if you didn't know." He then glared over at Bison who seemed more amused than anything else that the two of them were going to fight him at once, and with the Kyuubi's power nonetheless, "The feeling he's about to be feeling after we're through with him… that's gonna be pain."

"No." Cammy said, shaking her head once as she cleared the tears that had been forming in her eyes, "I don't think people feel pain when they're dead."

"You two can't kill me." Bison said, standing in his own fighting stance with his power billowing as he decided not to even mess around when dealing with Naruto's red power as he had seen firsthand during his battle with Vega, "There isn't a force on this mortal plane that can kill me for certain. I doubt that a malfunctioning Doll and a single no-name boy can do it."

"We'll see."

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{Character Profile}

Name: M. Bison

Nationality: Unknown

Gender: Male

Age: 35 (April 17)

Height/Weight: 5'11/254 lbs.

Bloodtype: A

Likes: Dominating the world, obedience, his own power.

Dislikes: Weak people, useless soldiers, incompetent underlings.

Hobbies: Hypnosis

Rivals: Chun-Li, Guile, Charlie, Cammy, Ryu.

Fighting Style: Psycho Power-infused self made fighting style

Current Techniques: Psycho Crusher, Psycho Shot, Scissor Kick, Head Press, Devil Reverse, Bison Warp.

Hyper Techniques: Knee Press Nightmare, Ultimate Psycho Crusher, Nightmare Booster, Psycho Punisher.

Background: A self-seeking villain motivated by his own lust for power and domination of everything, Bison is an unfeeling and vicious dictator willing to do and kill anything he needs to in order to get supreme control of the world. Bison has no respect for human life with his constant use of physical experimentation to better his underlings that he sees as nothing more than pawns, and while he demands complete obedience and loyalty from all beneath him he shows absolutely none to them in return. He routinely uses blackmail, brainwashing, vulgar displays of force, and terrorism to get what he wants, reveling in the fear that those privy to his name often show. Due to the advanced and extremely devastating power at his command in Psycho Power (only enhanced by the creation of the Psycho Drive) he fancies himself as a god, but despite his outright strength that many consider immeasurable he has many dirty tricks and devices to make the best use of his abilities and intellect.

Name: Charlie Nash

Nationality: U.S.A.

Gender: Male

Age: 28 (June 19)

Height/Weight: 6'1/185 lbs.

Bloodtype: AB

Likes: Justice, scotch.

Dislikes: Injustice.

Hobbies: Harrier maintenance, psychology.

Rivals: M. Bison, Guile (friendly).

Fighting Style: Special Forces Military Training

Current Techniques: Sonic Boom, Somersault Kick.

Hyper Techniques: Somersault Justice, Crossfire Blitz, Sonic Break.

Background: A first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, Charlie is also a member of a secret military team and was dispatched undercover under the guise of going AWOL to deal with the Shadaloo problem with no borders or barriers of protocol to stop him. Trained initially as a pilot in the air force, he is confident and unlike his friend Guile he is markedly calmer under duress. One of the recognized most powerful fighters in the Americas, he is oftentimes a subject of 'fantasy booking' by rabid fighting fans that wish to see him go one on one with Ken Masters due to Charlie being the last man to win the U.S. Open Fighting Tournament before Ken did, Charlie having not entered due to his beginning trouble with Shadaloo. Due to his repeated run-ins with the organization he has a strong hatred for Shadaloo and especially the leader M. Bison.

Name: Guile

Nationality: U.S.A.

Gender: Male

Age: 29 (December 23)

Height/Weight: 5'11½/189½ lbs.

Bloodtype: O

Likes: Coffee, American automobiles, John Wayne movies, his hair, his family.

Dislikes: N/A

Hobbies: Air Force Fighting Tournaments

Rivals: None

Fighting Style: Special Forces Military Training and brawling

Current Techniques: Sonic Boom, Flash Kick.

Hyper Techniques: Double Flash, Sonic Hurricane, Flash Explosion.

Background: Guile is an extremely tough martial artist with something of a streak as a hothead, extremely loyal to the U.S. military. Trained by his senior teammate, best friend, and superior officer Charlie in how to execute his specialized techniques, Guile has his own way of performing them which while effective lacks the technical proficiency that Charlie exhibits when fighting. While on a mission in Thailand, he was captured along with Charlie, convincing them both that there was an inside man in the U.S. military that had informed their enemy. While Charlie took on a 'whatever it takes' mindset in dealing with the problem, until recently Guile went by the books until realizing that fighting Shadaloo in such a way would not work. Guile's impressive hairstyle is fixed up with a special-order hair spray to allow it to keep shape. This is something that Charlie makes fun of him for quite often.