Sickerton
Content Creator
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2015
There was a pause in my normal output over in my usual series, due to me waiting for something to get shipped, so I wrote this mostly-unrelated piece to pass the time. Enjoy. Maybe.
---
The underground base fell silent, save for the distant sounds of groaning support beams and sparking electronics.
Or rather, what was left of it.
Intended to be a cross between a research station and backup bunker, this particular Shadaloo outpost was really nothing special. That was the whole point, really. Small, indiscreet, and far from prying eyes, it should have been a safe haven.
Which made the previous day and a half rather peculiar, to say the least.
Reeling from a major setback caused by that meddlesome Interpol agent and her assorted colleagues, Bison and his personal guard fell back to this outpost in order to recuperate and recover. It was thus not much of a surprise that several familiar faces showed up at the front door soon thereafter, intending to finally stamp out the dictator's dark ambitions.
But then more appeared.
Then more.
Then more.
As if some huge and terrible floodgate was flung open somewhere, fighters from all walks of life descended upon the bunker. People from countries away. People from worlds away. People from other dimensions. People who -- technically speaking -- were not people at all. Almost shoulder-to-shoulder as they jockeyed against each other for space and their turn at the "prize", a veritable avalanche of bodies plowed through the paltry defenses; united for just this one moment in their shared loathing of the man inside. Bison knew that he had ruffled quite a few feathers in his storied history, and was so used to attempts on his life that they no longer really bothered him, but the surgical precision of all this was nothing short of uncanny.
But still, there were very good reasons why he sported such a reputation. It had cost Bison almost all of his star underlings -- not to mention most of what remained of his physical wellbeing, as he ceased holding back and allowed his Psycho Power to run wild -- but the herd steadily thinned out as the day raged on. Now, amidst a wreckage made of equal parts steel and flesh, only three figures still drew breath.
The first, naturally, was the Master himself. His now ragged cape billowing about him as Psycho Power wavered across his body like fire, he sported a grin unquestionably pained but no less triumphantly smug for it.
The second, hanging in front of him, was the Interpol agent herself. Covered in welts and gashes, Chun Li struggled to draw air through her broken nose and blood-filled mouth. While one eye was obscured by hair due to one of her signature buns coming undone, the other bore into Bison with as much raw hatred as it could still muster.
And, holding Chun Li up from behind via an arm hooked under each of her armpits, was the ever-so-dependable Juri Han. Not exactly a fresh face either, but she was clearly the best off of the three. Turned out that being merely a henchm-- pardon, henchwoman -- had it's benefits. While the other two were in the thick of it for the entire ordeal, no one could spare enough time to care about a single mook slinking off every once in a while for breathers, and thus she was merely tired while the others were dead on their feet.
"A commendable effort..." Bison began, Chun Li feeling his eyes travel up and down her body despite their unnatural blankness. "...But no matter how many men are rallied, they will never be able to topple a god."
"You're no god." the Interpol agent spat back, her words absolutely saturated in contempt. "Just a cackling madman with delusions of grandeur. What kind of god would depend on his cronies to shoot my father in the back? Can you answer me that?"
Having said her piece to the sociopath in front of her, Chun Li then turned her head in an attempt to reason with the one behind.
"Juri. I've read your files. I know what he's done to you. To your parents. What you've been through. Help me stop thi-"
"Aw, you're adorable when you're pleading for your life." Han cooed, nuzzling up against Chun Li's bruised cheek. "How about you let me worry about my issues while you deal with yours? Speaking of which-"
Chun Li couldn't believe it as Juri released her hold and drew back. Had she actually gotten through to the girl? Had she seen the light?
Her answer came with a whump, as Bison's fist rammed into her stomach and lifted her off the ground. Juri did not retreat out of mercy; she just didn't want to get caught in the backblast.
Hanging in the air, all but skewered on Bison's fist as he raised her above his head, the strongest woman alive could only tremble and bite her lip. She did not realize that she was crying until she saw the tears drop down and spatter against her dominator's smiling face.
"You... monster..."
"When you see your father", Bison concluded, "let him know that he put up the better fight."
Then focusing his energy, the dictator blasted a hole straight through the defeated agent's torso and out the other side.
Chun Li's body rocked with the force of the blow, her muscles tensing up from the neural overload from such a brutal attack. Juri stepped back further, in an attempt to dodge the splatters as the Chinese woman's back erupted like a volcano and gore fell all around them. Bison did not care how badly he was stained, not moving an inch as he was drenched in crimson rain.
Now lacking any firm support, Chun Li began to slide down Bison's arm. The dying woman took a shaky hold of her executor's bicep in an attempt to halt the further indignity, but what little strength she had left was fading too fast to make any difference. Her legendary legs could only kick wildly in the air like a child throwing a tantrum, and even then they were beginning to slow and grow lethargic.
Bison watched as the strongest woman in the world writhed above, shuddering and helpless against his violation of her body. With her last ounce of energy she locked gazes with him and tried to speak one final insult...
...but her eyes slowly unfocused, her head dropped, and her limbs finally went completely limp.
Chun Li's quest to attain justice for her father ended here, broken and impaled on the very same hand that had sealed a similar fate so long ago.
She was not the first.
She would probably not be the last.
With his free hand, Bison seized the former agent's scalp and lifted her head back up. Free of all tension in death, her jaw hung open and her tongue slid out to loll loosely. Coupled with her (now vacant) large brown eyes, it vaguely reminded him of a doe staring at the headlights of an oncoming car.
It was an amusing sight. Perhaps later he would commission a statue of this moment, to display in her home village once he took it over. If he even remembered her by then, of course.
Releasing his hold on her head and flicking downward with his other arm, Bison dislodged and threw off what was left of Chun Li with all the care of wiping a spot of dirt off his pantleg. Her body came rolling to a stop at Juri Han's feet, who rested a sole against the corpse's cooling cheek.
Finally having a moment to himself, the dictator slowly took in the full scope of carnage all around. Then, letting out a deep sigh of relief, wound down his energies and allowed the sinister aura around him dissipate.
"It... has been a long day."
"I'll say." Juri jeered; placing all of her weight on the fallen foe below her to launch herself at Bison. Striking him with a knee to the back, the exhausted leader of Shadaloo was turned into a blur of red and green as he tumbled forward across the ground.
"Lemme put you to bed, boss."
With a labored grunt Bison pushed himself back up, forcing himself to rise and face his oh-so-surprisingly traitorous underling.
"The vulture waits until all is clear to swoop in for carrion," he growled towards the smirking woman before him. "A backstabber I do not mind, but an opportunistic coward on top of that?"
"Spare me the sermon," Juri replied, dismissing the insults with a small sweep of her hand. "Like it means anything coming from the likes of you. Besides, I'd have to be playing by chance here to be an opportunist."
Bison's milky white eyes narrowed in confusion, before opening wide with realization.
"You? All of this?"
"Yes and no." Juri replied, beginning to lazily circle her "boss" like a shark homing in on a floundering swimmer.
"Ten years. Ten years between the time you had my parents killed and I joined your organization. Ten years where I had the full case -- and every lead my father built up against you -- all to myself. To examine. To pore over. To build on."
Bison tried to keep track of Juri as she circled ever closer, but she was clearly milking the power of her prosthetic left eye to savor the moment. Every time he blinked she was in a completely different location, keeping him on edge as he was forced to search for her again and again.
"Dad wanted to hobble your organization through the court of law, to drag it into the light and watch it sizzle under the gaze of justice. Not nearly as bad a fate as you deserved even back then, but even the possibility of such retribution terrified you. So you had your lackeys abduct him; ones so sloppy that they killed my mother and gouged out one of my eyes in the process. The last anyone ever saw of him was on a videocassette sent anonymously to Interpol, containing grainy footage of his execution."
Bison blinked again, and Juri was right upon him. Their foreheads touched as she peered into his pupiless eyes with hunger, her Feng Shui Engine filling his vision with purple light.
"Dad had all the pieces he needed to destroy you, but was too good a person to properly finish the job. I'll have no such problem."
They stood frozen like that for a moment; face-to-face, the room quiet enough to almost hear each other's heartbeats.
Then, to Juri's confusion, Bison broke into a smile.
"Seven out of ten."
Han drew back slightly, her brow furrowing as she tried to make sense of the non sequitur. "What?"
"Seven out of ten." Bison repeated. "You made a great show out of it, but your revenge speech had little to make it truly special and was obviously rehearsed."
The words sinking in, Juri began to visibly tremble with barely-contained rage. "This is not something you can brush off, big boy."
"Do you know how often I he-"
"I KNOW EVERYTHING!" Juri roared, finally losing her composure completely. A wave of energy burst from her as she screamed into Bison's face -- her Feng Shui Engine reacting automatically to her fury -- pushing Bison back a few steps with its power.
"All of your wrongs, all of the bitter enemies you've made over the years! Dad had a filing cabinet full of names! And I even found more! Do you think this--"
Han flung an arm out; motioning to the half-ruin, half-graveyard all around them.
"-- happened by accident? I didn't need to gather them myself -- all it took was a few hints 'accidentally' dropped in the right areas to bring 'em running -- but do you understand how hard it was to get them here all at once? I literally had to wait for stars to align! What is wrong with you? Even if you thought you could handle so many out for your blood in batches, didn't you ever think that someone could take advantage of their sheer number?"
"If only you knew what you were tamperi-" Bison began, before he was knocked off-balance by a backhand.
"I know that too!" the Korean shouted again with enough force to spray spittle across the recovering dictator's cape. "Your precious 'Psycho Power' is too strong for your body to handle. It eats you!"
Catching herself, knowing that she wanted to make the most of this moment, she took several deep breaths and calmed down. When her eyes opened again they locked on Bison with a smoldering joy, and her mouth turned up in a sadistic grin.
"That was the point. Of all of this. You've been running at full charge for hours upon hours; your body cannot physically handle a second more of it. I'm going to take my time breaking you apart piece by piece, and if you so much as think about calling forth your trump card again all you're going to do is save me a couple steps. You're done."
Juri dashed forward and snaked a hand under Bison's face, essentially cradling his chin.
"How does it feel, knowing that your undoing can be traced back to not letting a nobody lawyer be one Tuesday morning? I bet it stings."
Bison opened his mouth to reply, but all that he could manage was a small grunt as Han spun and landed a straight kick into his gut. The exhausted dictator was launched off his feet, for a moment a makeshift indigo sparkler as his clothes caught fire from Juri's artificial energy. Rolling to a stop, his smoldering cape drifted down to cover him like a shroud.
Juri watched the still form and waited, knowing that Bison was not finished yet. He couldn't be. She still had so much she wanted to do to him.
Eventually, the form began to move. She could also hear a new noise as well. Was he... Was he sobbing?
Han began to workshop a proper jeer to throw at such a egotist breaking down like a baby, but her train of thought was derailed as Bison rose once more and the situation was clarified. The Master was not weeping. He was giggling.
"Yeees..." Bison mused, drawing out the word like a snake's hiss.
Throwing his cape back, Juri finally figured out the joke. Her kick had burned a hole straight through the front of Bison's suit, revealing his stomach underneath. Or rather, what should have been his stomach. Rotating lazily in a cavity just below his ribcage was a metal sphere designed after a Ying-Yang symbol. A 'Tanden Engine'; the pride and joy of S.I.N.'s engineering department, and the big brother to Juri Han's own Feng Shui Engine
"...I imagine it would."
Too shocked by this turn of events, Juri was caught flat-footed and ceded Bison the opening move.
Bringing his hands out in front of him and focusing, Bison used his new toy to create a tiny black hole for a fraction of a second. It did not exist long enough to cause any damage, and collapsed in upon itself as quickly as it came to be, but the resulting vacuum pulled Juri towards him. Lunging forward himself, Bison caught the approaching Han in a clothesline with enough force to make her fully flip before landing on her stomach.
The purple woman had only just started to push herself up when she was forced back down with a crash; an elbow between her shoulderblades smashing her chest against the ground and forcing the wind out of her lungs. As Bison repositioned himself above to catch her in a headlock, all she could do was wheeze and claw at the arm threatening to choke her out.
"How..." She asked, with the little air she could manage. "Only... Seth..."
"Seth?" Bison repeated back to her, his voice now taking a mocking tone. "You mean the head of my weapons division? The man made by my scientists? To be one in a series of my backup bodies? Yes, he was a good test run."
Rising to his feet and bringing Juri up with him, Bison spun a few times to build up momentum before letting go of his captive. Still dazed from the choking, Han crashed against a cracked wall monitor with a shower of sparks before managing to recover just enough to land on the ground in a sloppy crouch.
"It doesn't matter..." Juri reasoned out loud, one of her eyes beginning to twitch. "Just ask Seth. Oh wait, you can't. I killed him."
Bison responded with the faintest of shrugs. "The crucial thing that deluded double lacked was my mind, child. Even barring the capabilities you can pull off with your piddling prototype, he had more than enough to make something of himself with any thought at all. Given a blank check -- the ability to steal powers from the defeated -- he settled for sonic booms and long arms. Meanwhile..."
Bison gestured around them, to the countless bodies absolutely littering the ravaged base.
"...I have a banquet fit for a god. As it should be. Courtesy of you."
Juri's jaw dropped as the realization hit her.
No.
Kicking her Feng Shui Engine as absolutely high as it could go, Han lunged at the now full-on laughing Bison in a desperate bid to fix her grievous mistake.
No no noNONO!
She was just a few steps away from her target when she was lifted into the air. Forced aloft by the energy building around Bison like a tornado, Juri twirled wildly in search for something to ground herself with. Eventually catching hold of a ceiling support beam, Juri looked down in awe at the spectacle below her.
Bodies spun about the dictator, seemingly leaking inky trails of white and black. Said energy funneled down to the now augmented Master, eventually obscuring him in a writhing mist of light on dark. It all came to a head with the sound of a thunderclap as the bodies were thrown back in all directions, the winds died down, and the energy cleared like a smoke cloud.
There, staring up and patiently waiting for her, was Bison. He did not look any different... But still...
...What was she doing? Was she actually scared? This was the moment she was waiting for! It was now or never!
Putting on a smirk, but for some reason not really feeling it, Juri leapt down towards her moment of destiny.
Bison did not move as Juri fell towards her. Han took this as yet another flaw borne of his unrivaled arrogance, and aimed to place a dropkick right on his dumb smug face.
She landed the blow without resistance, but seized up upon contact as surges of electricity ran through her. Apparently, a familiar green Brazilian was accounted for somewhere among the corpses.
Losing all composure from the unexpected shock, Juri dropped like a rock and would have landed sprawled on the ground. "Luckily" for her, though, Bison was just the type of person to lend a lady in need a hand.
Grabbing Han by her dudou as she fell by, Bison hoisted her up so that they were face to face. Then, giving her just enough time to refocus on him, he electrified his body once more.
Juri shook and jerked as the current coursed through her body, crackling energy randomly seizing up her muscles in a dance of agony. This was only compounded as her Feng Shui Engine -- far too small to sport much in the way of surge protection -- malfunctioned and discharged feedback into her connected nervous system. She swore that she could feel the saliva in her mouth start to boil, the hair on her head begin to smolder, and parts of her brain start to eat itself.
Knowing that she could not take this for much longer, Han did the only thing she could think of to escape. Her trembling hands eventually reaching her sides, she tore the straps to her quipo and fell to the floor in a smoking heap.
Panting in pain, Juri looked up to be greeted with Bison examining with amusement the top that still remained in his grasp. Turning his gaze down to the mess below him, he put in his two cents.
"Foregoing a dignified end so early?"
With another surge of energy the top burst into flames in his hand, quickly disintegrating into nothing.
"I swear, you never fail to disappoint."
Juri was nursing the mother of all migraines, and could only see out of one eye since her prosthetic had been scrambled, but she knew that her life depended on staying on top of what Bison was up to. She did not recognize the motion the dictator made next -- drawing back one hand as if readying a bowling ball throw -- but assumed that nothing good could come of it and rolled to the side. This saved her a dicing as a wave of crescent energy cut through the ground where she was just seated, but that would mean little if she could not turn things around fast.
Juri lunged forward, attempting to ram a heel into the Tanden Engine in an attempt to damage it, but she was significantly slower due to the trauma and lack of support from her own prosthetic. Stepping to the side to avoid the kick, Bison responded by ramming an open hand into Juri's abdomen and clamping down in a claw hold.
Juri gasped as the dictator's fingers dug into her stomach, doubling over against the grip. Her groan quickly rose into a scream as she felt claws sprout for a brief moment, just to let him dig in more before pulling back with a visceral rip.
Han stumbled as she stood trembling in place, blood oozing through her fingers as she clutched her gashed midsection. She did not even see the followup headbutt coming; it being introduced to her via a mental lightshow as she was forced to her knees in a daze.
The dictator stooped to greet her face to face; one hand cupping her chin, to keep her lax head from drooping. As Juri's vision began to creep back she could have sworn that something had been broken. Bison didn't have...
Even through the concussion, she knew that the red glow of his eyes was a terrible omen.
"Behold." Bison whispered.
Juri was blown back as she was hit straight in the face with twin spouts of raw concussive force, breaking her nose and knocking loose several of her teeth. Coming to a sliding stop on her back, Han laid still save an occasional twitch and gurgle.
Bison ambled his way over to the fallen Korean and nudged her with his foot. After a few pokes to the temple he got back a low groan and a weak attempt to push his boot away.
So there was still life in the wench. Good.
He was starting to figure out all that was now at his disposal, and it was about time to start getting creative.
Juri Han was too busy lying in a puddle of her own teeth to notice Bison bringing down a fist against the ground next to her, but the weightlessness as it popped her back up roused her enough to stay standing as she landed.
Which was probably the worse choice, all things considered.
Juri was knocked into a stumble by a hook to her jaw, only for her back to collide against something that burned it and bounced her forward again. Turning her head to make sense of things, she saw a small wall of plasma floating midair. That was a new one.
Another blow landed against the temple of her turned head, forcing her to sprawl back for another shock and rebound. This made sense now; Bison had conjured it specifically to pin her up against.
Still trying to gain her bearings, Juri's body was gradually dotted with sears as Bison's rundown of the several boxing styles he had recently absorbed ricocheted her off it again and again. Eventually, though, the "wall" dissipated and Han was left swaying woozily on her own power.
The dictator cracked his knuckles and beamed. Oh, this one was going to be good.
Bison ducked down slightly and pumped his left fist into Juri's already wounded stomach; re-opening the wounds and causing the Korean to cough up blood. Her agape mouth was quickly closed, however, as Bison brought up his right fist to uppercut her in the jaw. The sudden closing caused her to bite off the tip of her tongue with what was left of her teeth, flooding her mouth with even more coppery liquid.
Rising up to the peak of his jumping uppercut, Bison let Juri fly off as he descended. Even though he knew the power of this blow firsthand, he was still amazed how far her battered body soared; watching with glee as she landed with a splintery thud across the remains of a lab desk.
No wonder so many of those fools liked that move. This was just plain fun.
Juri Han's world came back to her slowly, and with great pain. Her neck creaked with every tiny movement as it began to stiffen from the whiplash, she could swear that some of her ribs had been broken as she landed, and a steady stream of red drool flowed from her open mouth. Having landed face down across some sort of table, her arms and legs drooped off the edges in an almost comical matter.
She was debating just letting the darkness at the edges of her vision fully take her as something worked her way into her mouth, and with a pull upwards rose her head once more. Bison was again in front of her, and this time he had retrieved a new toy from the surrounding wreckage. The silly baton that one military mercenary sported was now his, starting in the dictator's firm grasp and ending in her coppery craw.
"Do you think your father can see you from where he is?" Bison mused, shoving in the staff further and causing her to gag. "Do you think he is proud of what you've accomplished in his honor?"
"Gu tuh hll." Juri mumbled, knowing that she was being egged on but helpless to not take the bait. The retort was heavily muffled by the shaft forcing its way inside her, but it did not take a genius to work out the proper translation.
To her surprise, Bison actually removed the baton upon hearing this; chuckling and examining the now crimson tip as he circled around the table and outside Juri's cone of vision.
"One day, maybe. Once I am through conquering the world of mortals, I could ride down and seize the underworld just for fun. You could even give me a tour while I'm there! But for now..."
Han thought that nothing could catch her off guard at this point, but let out a gasp of disbelief as a hand seized the top of her pants and tore them away.
"...It is about time I gave you the disciplining your parents never provided."
It was a pity that the dictator was on the opposite side, as the rapidly flushing face of such a woman coming to terms with her immediate future was truly a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.
"You wouldn't." she half stated, half pleaded. "Even as low as you are, you wouldn't..."
"Worry not, woman." Bison 'assured' his fidgeting victim. "I would not think of sullying my perfect being with such degenerate trash. Besides, you already gave your body to me and my cause."
Drawing the hand holding the baton back, he added:
"But you are a spoiled child, and thus will be treated like one."
The baton came down against her rear, letting loose a meaty thwack as the kinetic force rose welts and sent ripples across her ass cheeks. Juri, too weak to flee, could only let out a hiss of air in protest.
The makeshift cane drew back and landed again, pushing Han forward slightly with the power of the blow. Trying not to give her abuser the satisfaction of her reactions, she bit into one of her forearms to silence her involuntary screams.
This only incensed Bison further, though, as the muffled cries of a clearly humiliated foe were leagues more satisfying than any standard moan. Again and again he brought the baton down against her, turning her rear into a quivering canvas of purple, red and black. He was amused without end when he discovered that he could somewhat control the pitch of her whines, as they approached squeals whenever he aimed lower and partially lashed her womanhood. Trickles of fresh blood ran down Juri's arm as her teeth sunk deep into it, digging further in with every shudder of her abused body.
Unable to bear any more, Juri summoned up as much energy as she could for one last pitiful act of resistance: She rolled over, denying her tormentor a clear shot at his target. But, in her haze of agony, she failed to take into account what doors this act of 'defiance' opened up.
Not even missing a beat, Bison stepped close enough to tower above his spread-eagle victim and began to lay into Han with the staff anew. Her arms were beaten back, taking away the only luxury she had of masking her cries. Her breasts, while fairly small on her athletic frame, still crashed against each other as Bison beat them back and forth. Her whole body arched with each blow against her crotch, the shock overloading any dignity left as she convulsed and wailed into the hot air. Blood and sweat rolled down her glistening body interchangeably, flying up in spatters as she jerked and writhed beneath the assault.
Bison finished with one last strike along her sex, the thunderous whiplike crack drowning out the whine partially caught in Han's throat as she felt the blow all the way down to her bones. The reactive seizing of her system made her leave the table for a moment, suspended breathlessly in midair, before flopping back down to lay bonelessly in a puddle of her various fluids.
Discarding the baton just as casually as he had taken it, Bison rounded the table again while taking in his handiwork. His little minion was broken in nearly every sense of the word. An involuntary moan left her with every ragged, uneven breath; having passed the threshold of being able to play tough long ago. Her bare, ravaged body was a living effigy to her defeat, a writhing painting celebrating her dominator's innate superiority. But still, the one eye she still had left still smoldered with a seemingly unsnuffable fire.
Perhaps he had a tool now which could assist with that.
Bison propped up the back of Juri's skull with one palm, and she was forced to watch with dreamy passiveness as the Master prepared for his next act. Balling his free hand into a fist and focusing on it, he was clearly pleased as a ball of volatile pink energy formed across the back of his wrist. Concentrating harder to further refine it, he soon had a glowing psionic 'dagger' on his hand and ready for action.
"Little guinea pig..." the dictator began, turning his gaze down to her. "...are you ready for another experiment in the name of your master?"
Bison did not wait for a response before he brought the fist down, embedding the 'blade' fully in the Korean's forehead.
Due to the very peculiar nature of this psy-blade, such a move did not kill Han. In fact, it did not do so much as break her skin. A purely mental construct, it was designed to pass harmlessly through flesh and bone.
The mind, however, was a whole other story.
Losing complete control of her body as neurons were overloaded and fried, Juri Han shrieked.
Her hands, desperate for any sort of stability as the world scrambled, clawed at the table top until they dug grooves in the surface and her nails broke off. The pungent smell of urine filled the air as her bladder gave out, expelling it's contents as the systems handling it went offline. Her one good eye bulged in her socket before rolling up into the back of her head. By pure instinct alone she screamed over and over, her wails being that of a wild animal meeting a brutal and messy end.
She did not stop, but rather something inside stopped her. Unable to cope with the sudden abuse, her vocal chords gave way and her cries were diminished to raspy wheezes. But still the frantic thrashings continued.
Bison let this carry on for several more seconds before pulling back, removing the 'blade' from her and allowing it to dissipate into nothing. Juri lay there unmoving, unseeing, unfeeling. Save for an occasional twitch and burbly cough, she could have passed as dead.
That was quite a reaction.
Not the one he was most interested in, though.
-=-
It took ages for Juri to regain consciousness by herself, but Bison was a patient man.
When she returned to the land of the living, she found herself exactly where she had left off. The only changes were that she somehow hurt even more now, the puddle she rested in had grown cold as well as taken on a much more pungent odor, and her body was chilled by the now cooling air.
Then, of course, there was Bison.
He was now facing away from her; arms crossed, as if waiting for something. She debated trying to crawl off while his back was turned, but that hope was dashed as he broke the silence.
"Your parents."
Juri could only reply with a surprised "Uh?", caught completely off guard by this change of subject. Even that was hard to do; her voice was coarse, and it felt like strips of sandpaper rubbing against the inside of her throat when she tried to talk.
"You think so highly of them, but to me they were but footnotes." the dictator continued. "So refresh a poor old man's memory. What were their names?"
Juri opened her mouth to reply, then paused. She... was drawing a blank. Try as she might, the names of her parents were lost to her.
"Having some trouble?" Bison asked, his voice rising with sadistic curiosity.
"What... have... you... done?" Juri gurgled as she rolled over and clutched her head in legitimate terror. She was taking mental inventory, and discovering new gaps that chilled her down to the core. What was her mother's job? Did she ever meet her grandfather? Why couldn't she recall her father's face?
"Just some spring cleaning." Bison replied airily, still not even bothering to turn. "You can't hold onto old, useless junk forever. It's unhealthy."
Juri ran her fingers down her bruised and broken face, pulling herself into a fetal position on the table as hitching sobs began to rock her body. This was too much. This was beyond sadism. This was beyond torture. This was the work of a demon made flesh.
"Kill... you..." she grated out between sniffles, pushing herself up to a crouch despite every fiber of her being begging otherwise.
"Kill... you..."
Tears carving lines down her stained cheeks, she tensed her pleading muscles and prepared to push off. Although beaten and broken beyond all measure, the sheer magnitude of this atrocity stoked her flames enough for one last go.
"Kill you, kill you, KILLYOU!"
Launching herself towards Bison's back, her guttural scream of unbridled rage drowned out the low retort from the dictator himself.
Bit of a pity. He thought she'd appreciate the irony of "This is the end for you."
Juri reached out for Bison's neck -- ready to strangle and twist and tear -- but never made it. As if on cue, the dictator spun with a low sweep. This seemed like a botched counterattack, as there was no one to trip, but she was soon shown the error of her ways as he continued to spin and rise. Realizing far too late what he was up to, Juri Han collided face first into one of her own favorite finishers.
Up they both rose; Bison on his own power, Juri being juggled by spin kicks covered in purple fire she knew all too well. At the height of their ascent Han braced for the axe kick back down...
...which never came.
Changing tacks, Bison instead remained floating midair and grabbed Juri before she could fall. Having no clothing left to hold her by, he instead settled on wrapping his right arm around her back and bringing her in against him.
They both hung like that, almost as if in the mockery of a lover's embrace. Juri wanted more than anything to break free -- even if it meant falling to her death -- but that last attempt had truly drained everything she had left. She could only stare in despair into Bison's soulless white eyes, trying her best (and failing) to not weep.
"You know, this is my property..." the dictator began, raising his left hand to tap a finger against Han's artificial left eye. "I have every right to take it back..."
Juri's breath caught in her throat, knowing where this was leading.
"...I won't, though." Bison concluded, much to Han's confusion.
"Wha-"
"Why would I ever need it? It's nothing but a prototype for my perfected design. So weak. So flawed."
Bison's finger moved to her left temple, and Juri began to feel a little... odd. It was so hard to place why, though.
"Terrible output. Next to no shock resistance. lacking many valuable features. And worst of all?"
Han now realized the issue, her head was growing hot. As in, the inside of her head. Bison had begun to feed large amounts of Tanden energy into her Feng Shui engine, causing it to activate and run at dangerously high levels.
"Very vulnerable to overcharging."
Juri wanted to fight back -- to spit and curse and bite -- but there was simply nothing left for her to work with. She could only moan and writhe against her soon-to-be executor's unyielding body as she felt her blood rise to a boil.
Bison watched hungrily as her traitorous minion's face began to crack and blacken, smoke rising from her eyesocket as the engine within glowed and trembled with it's barely-contained power.
It would not be long now. It was time that he gave her his parting word.
"Thank you for your assistance, Miss Han. I could not have reached such a peak so soon without you. It truly is an odd feeling, knowing that all this majesty can be traced back to me squashing a single insect one Thursday morning."
Mere moments later the Feng Shui engine passed critical capacity. Arcing her back, accompanied by a scream of equal parts agony and sorrow, Half of Juri Han's head disintegrated in an explosion of shrapnel and purple fire.
Bison held the body against him for a few seconds more, cherishing it's final convulsions and shudders. Finally, as it stilled to merely swaying in the air, he let go and allowed the ruined woman fall to the floor below.
"You are dismissed, child."
Most of Han was destroyed with the explosion, but the barest sliver remained to experience her final fall. It was but a shred of her former self, though, and thus could not... appreciate the situation of her true finale.
By pure chance, the dying woman's drop was cushioned by the corpse of Chun Li. Laying on top of her as she faded, they could have passed for spouses cuddling post-coitus in any other situation.
Both of them had lost loved ones to the tyrant, and both had dedicated their lives to setting things right. In the end they laid intertwined, the only true difference being the depths of their failure.
But, as already stated, Juri had neither the time nor the ability to make such observations. The fraction of her brain that still remained could only focus on one detail as it perished, with all the fury of a dying sun:
It was a Tuesday.
It was... a goddamn... Tuesday...
---
Balancing Act
(Alternate Title: The World Versus Juri Han)
(Alternate Alternate Title: BISOOOOON!)
(Alternate Title: The World Versus Juri Han)
(Alternate Alternate Title: BISOOOOON!)
The underground base fell silent, save for the distant sounds of groaning support beams and sparking electronics.
Or rather, what was left of it.
Intended to be a cross between a research station and backup bunker, this particular Shadaloo outpost was really nothing special. That was the whole point, really. Small, indiscreet, and far from prying eyes, it should have been a safe haven.
Which made the previous day and a half rather peculiar, to say the least.
Reeling from a major setback caused by that meddlesome Interpol agent and her assorted colleagues, Bison and his personal guard fell back to this outpost in order to recuperate and recover. It was thus not much of a surprise that several familiar faces showed up at the front door soon thereafter, intending to finally stamp out the dictator's dark ambitions.
But then more appeared.
Then more.
Then more.
As if some huge and terrible floodgate was flung open somewhere, fighters from all walks of life descended upon the bunker. People from countries away. People from worlds away. People from other dimensions. People who -- technically speaking -- were not people at all. Almost shoulder-to-shoulder as they jockeyed against each other for space and their turn at the "prize", a veritable avalanche of bodies plowed through the paltry defenses; united for just this one moment in their shared loathing of the man inside. Bison knew that he had ruffled quite a few feathers in his storied history, and was so used to attempts on his life that they no longer really bothered him, but the surgical precision of all this was nothing short of uncanny.
But still, there were very good reasons why he sported such a reputation. It had cost Bison almost all of his star underlings -- not to mention most of what remained of his physical wellbeing, as he ceased holding back and allowed his Psycho Power to run wild -- but the herd steadily thinned out as the day raged on. Now, amidst a wreckage made of equal parts steel and flesh, only three figures still drew breath.
The first, naturally, was the Master himself. His now ragged cape billowing about him as Psycho Power wavered across his body like fire, he sported a grin unquestionably pained but no less triumphantly smug for it.
The second, hanging in front of him, was the Interpol agent herself. Covered in welts and gashes, Chun Li struggled to draw air through her broken nose and blood-filled mouth. While one eye was obscured by hair due to one of her signature buns coming undone, the other bore into Bison with as much raw hatred as it could still muster.
And, holding Chun Li up from behind via an arm hooked under each of her armpits, was the ever-so-dependable Juri Han. Not exactly a fresh face either, but she was clearly the best off of the three. Turned out that being merely a henchm-- pardon, henchwoman -- had it's benefits. While the other two were in the thick of it for the entire ordeal, no one could spare enough time to care about a single mook slinking off every once in a while for breathers, and thus she was merely tired while the others were dead on their feet.
"A commendable effort..." Bison began, Chun Li feeling his eyes travel up and down her body despite their unnatural blankness. "...But no matter how many men are rallied, they will never be able to topple a god."
"You're no god." the Interpol agent spat back, her words absolutely saturated in contempt. "Just a cackling madman with delusions of grandeur. What kind of god would depend on his cronies to shoot my father in the back? Can you answer me that?"
Having said her piece to the sociopath in front of her, Chun Li then turned her head in an attempt to reason with the one behind.
"Juri. I've read your files. I know what he's done to you. To your parents. What you've been through. Help me stop thi-"
"Aw, you're adorable when you're pleading for your life." Han cooed, nuzzling up against Chun Li's bruised cheek. "How about you let me worry about my issues while you deal with yours? Speaking of which-"
Chun Li couldn't believe it as Juri released her hold and drew back. Had she actually gotten through to the girl? Had she seen the light?
Her answer came with a whump, as Bison's fist rammed into her stomach and lifted her off the ground. Juri did not retreat out of mercy; she just didn't want to get caught in the backblast.
Hanging in the air, all but skewered on Bison's fist as he raised her above his head, the strongest woman alive could only tremble and bite her lip. She did not realize that she was crying until she saw the tears drop down and spatter against her dominator's smiling face.
"You... monster..."
"When you see your father", Bison concluded, "let him know that he put up the better fight."
Then focusing his energy, the dictator blasted a hole straight through the defeated agent's torso and out the other side.
-=-
Chun Li's body rocked with the force of the blow, her muscles tensing up from the neural overload from such a brutal attack. Juri stepped back further, in an attempt to dodge the splatters as the Chinese woman's back erupted like a volcano and gore fell all around them. Bison did not care how badly he was stained, not moving an inch as he was drenched in crimson rain.
Now lacking any firm support, Chun Li began to slide down Bison's arm. The dying woman took a shaky hold of her executor's bicep in an attempt to halt the further indignity, but what little strength she had left was fading too fast to make any difference. Her legendary legs could only kick wildly in the air like a child throwing a tantrum, and even then they were beginning to slow and grow lethargic.
Bison watched as the strongest woman in the world writhed above, shuddering and helpless against his violation of her body. With her last ounce of energy she locked gazes with him and tried to speak one final insult...
...but her eyes slowly unfocused, her head dropped, and her limbs finally went completely limp.
Chun Li's quest to attain justice for her father ended here, broken and impaled on the very same hand that had sealed a similar fate so long ago.
She was not the first.
She would probably not be the last.
-=-
With his free hand, Bison seized the former agent's scalp and lifted her head back up. Free of all tension in death, her jaw hung open and her tongue slid out to loll loosely. Coupled with her (now vacant) large brown eyes, it vaguely reminded him of a doe staring at the headlights of an oncoming car.
It was an amusing sight. Perhaps later he would commission a statue of this moment, to display in her home village once he took it over. If he even remembered her by then, of course.
Releasing his hold on her head and flicking downward with his other arm, Bison dislodged and threw off what was left of Chun Li with all the care of wiping a spot of dirt off his pantleg. Her body came rolling to a stop at Juri Han's feet, who rested a sole against the corpse's cooling cheek.
Finally having a moment to himself, the dictator slowly took in the full scope of carnage all around. Then, letting out a deep sigh of relief, wound down his energies and allowed the sinister aura around him dissipate.
"It... has been a long day."
"I'll say." Juri jeered; placing all of her weight on the fallen foe below her to launch herself at Bison. Striking him with a knee to the back, the exhausted leader of Shadaloo was turned into a blur of red and green as he tumbled forward across the ground.
"Lemme put you to bed, boss."
-=-
With a labored grunt Bison pushed himself back up, forcing himself to rise and face his oh-so-surprisingly traitorous underling.
"The vulture waits until all is clear to swoop in for carrion," he growled towards the smirking woman before him. "A backstabber I do not mind, but an opportunistic coward on top of that?"
"Spare me the sermon," Juri replied, dismissing the insults with a small sweep of her hand. "Like it means anything coming from the likes of you. Besides, I'd have to be playing by chance here to be an opportunist."
Bison's milky white eyes narrowed in confusion, before opening wide with realization.
"You? All of this?"
"Yes and no." Juri replied, beginning to lazily circle her "boss" like a shark homing in on a floundering swimmer.
"Ten years. Ten years between the time you had my parents killed and I joined your organization. Ten years where I had the full case -- and every lead my father built up against you -- all to myself. To examine. To pore over. To build on."
Bison tried to keep track of Juri as she circled ever closer, but she was clearly milking the power of her prosthetic left eye to savor the moment. Every time he blinked she was in a completely different location, keeping him on edge as he was forced to search for her again and again.
"Dad wanted to hobble your organization through the court of law, to drag it into the light and watch it sizzle under the gaze of justice. Not nearly as bad a fate as you deserved even back then, but even the possibility of such retribution terrified you. So you had your lackeys abduct him; ones so sloppy that they killed my mother and gouged out one of my eyes in the process. The last anyone ever saw of him was on a videocassette sent anonymously to Interpol, containing grainy footage of his execution."
Bison blinked again, and Juri was right upon him. Their foreheads touched as she peered into his pupiless eyes with hunger, her Feng Shui Engine filling his vision with purple light.
"Dad had all the pieces he needed to destroy you, but was too good a person to properly finish the job. I'll have no such problem."
-=-
They stood frozen like that for a moment; face-to-face, the room quiet enough to almost hear each other's heartbeats.
Then, to Juri's confusion, Bison broke into a smile.
"Seven out of ten."
Han drew back slightly, her brow furrowing as she tried to make sense of the non sequitur. "What?"
"Seven out of ten." Bison repeated. "You made a great show out of it, but your revenge speech had little to make it truly special and was obviously rehearsed."
The words sinking in, Juri began to visibly tremble with barely-contained rage. "This is not something you can brush off, big boy."
"Do you know how often I he-"
"I KNOW EVERYTHING!" Juri roared, finally losing her composure completely. A wave of energy burst from her as she screamed into Bison's face -- her Feng Shui Engine reacting automatically to her fury -- pushing Bison back a few steps with its power.
"All of your wrongs, all of the bitter enemies you've made over the years! Dad had a filing cabinet full of names! And I even found more! Do you think this--"
Han flung an arm out; motioning to the half-ruin, half-graveyard all around them.
"-- happened by accident? I didn't need to gather them myself -- all it took was a few hints 'accidentally' dropped in the right areas to bring 'em running -- but do you understand how hard it was to get them here all at once? I literally had to wait for stars to align! What is wrong with you? Even if you thought you could handle so many out for your blood in batches, didn't you ever think that someone could take advantage of their sheer number?"
"If only you knew what you were tamperi-" Bison began, before he was knocked off-balance by a backhand.
"I know that too!" the Korean shouted again with enough force to spray spittle across the recovering dictator's cape. "Your precious 'Psycho Power' is too strong for your body to handle. It eats you!"
Catching herself, knowing that she wanted to make the most of this moment, she took several deep breaths and calmed down. When her eyes opened again they locked on Bison with a smoldering joy, and her mouth turned up in a sadistic grin.
"That was the point. Of all of this. You've been running at full charge for hours upon hours; your body cannot physically handle a second more of it. I'm going to take my time breaking you apart piece by piece, and if you so much as think about calling forth your trump card again all you're going to do is save me a couple steps. You're done."
Juri dashed forward and snaked a hand under Bison's face, essentially cradling his chin.
"How does it feel, knowing that your undoing can be traced back to not letting a nobody lawyer be one Tuesday morning? I bet it stings."
Bison opened his mouth to reply, but all that he could manage was a small grunt as Han spun and landed a straight kick into his gut. The exhausted dictator was launched off his feet, for a moment a makeshift indigo sparkler as his clothes caught fire from Juri's artificial energy. Rolling to a stop, his smoldering cape drifted down to cover him like a shroud.
Juri watched the still form and waited, knowing that Bison was not finished yet. He couldn't be. She still had so much she wanted to do to him.
Eventually, the form began to move. She could also hear a new noise as well. Was he... Was he sobbing?
Han began to workshop a proper jeer to throw at such a egotist breaking down like a baby, but her train of thought was derailed as Bison rose once more and the situation was clarified. The Master was not weeping. He was giggling.
"Yeees..." Bison mused, drawing out the word like a snake's hiss.
Throwing his cape back, Juri finally figured out the joke. Her kick had burned a hole straight through the front of Bison's suit, revealing his stomach underneath. Or rather, what should have been his stomach. Rotating lazily in a cavity just below his ribcage was a metal sphere designed after a Ying-Yang symbol. A 'Tanden Engine'; the pride and joy of S.I.N.'s engineering department, and the big brother to Juri Han's own Feng Shui Engine
"...I imagine it would."
-=-
Too shocked by this turn of events, Juri was caught flat-footed and ceded Bison the opening move.
Bringing his hands out in front of him and focusing, Bison used his new toy to create a tiny black hole for a fraction of a second. It did not exist long enough to cause any damage, and collapsed in upon itself as quickly as it came to be, but the resulting vacuum pulled Juri towards him. Lunging forward himself, Bison caught the approaching Han in a clothesline with enough force to make her fully flip before landing on her stomach.
The purple woman had only just started to push herself up when she was forced back down with a crash; an elbow between her shoulderblades smashing her chest against the ground and forcing the wind out of her lungs. As Bison repositioned himself above to catch her in a headlock, all she could do was wheeze and claw at the arm threatening to choke her out.
"How..." She asked, with the little air she could manage. "Only... Seth..."
"Seth?" Bison repeated back to her, his voice now taking a mocking tone. "You mean the head of my weapons division? The man made by my scientists? To be one in a series of my backup bodies? Yes, he was a good test run."
Rising to his feet and bringing Juri up with him, Bison spun a few times to build up momentum before letting go of his captive. Still dazed from the choking, Han crashed against a cracked wall monitor with a shower of sparks before managing to recover just enough to land on the ground in a sloppy crouch.
"It doesn't matter..." Juri reasoned out loud, one of her eyes beginning to twitch. "Just ask Seth. Oh wait, you can't. I killed him."
Bison responded with the faintest of shrugs. "The crucial thing that deluded double lacked was my mind, child. Even barring the capabilities you can pull off with your piddling prototype, he had more than enough to make something of himself with any thought at all. Given a blank check -- the ability to steal powers from the defeated -- he settled for sonic booms and long arms. Meanwhile..."
Bison gestured around them, to the countless bodies absolutely littering the ravaged base.
"...I have a banquet fit for a god. As it should be. Courtesy of you."
Juri's jaw dropped as the realization hit her.
No.
Kicking her Feng Shui Engine as absolutely high as it could go, Han lunged at the now full-on laughing Bison in a desperate bid to fix her grievous mistake.
No no noNONO!
-=-
She was just a few steps away from her target when she was lifted into the air. Forced aloft by the energy building around Bison like a tornado, Juri twirled wildly in search for something to ground herself with. Eventually catching hold of a ceiling support beam, Juri looked down in awe at the spectacle below her.
Bodies spun about the dictator, seemingly leaking inky trails of white and black. Said energy funneled down to the now augmented Master, eventually obscuring him in a writhing mist of light on dark. It all came to a head with the sound of a thunderclap as the bodies were thrown back in all directions, the winds died down, and the energy cleared like a smoke cloud.
There, staring up and patiently waiting for her, was Bison. He did not look any different... But still...
...What was she doing? Was she actually scared? This was the moment she was waiting for! It was now or never!
Putting on a smirk, but for some reason not really feeling it, Juri leapt down towards her moment of destiny.
-=-
Bison did not move as Juri fell towards her. Han took this as yet another flaw borne of his unrivaled arrogance, and aimed to place a dropkick right on his dumb smug face.
She landed the blow without resistance, but seized up upon contact as surges of electricity ran through her. Apparently, a familiar green Brazilian was accounted for somewhere among the corpses.
Losing all composure from the unexpected shock, Juri dropped like a rock and would have landed sprawled on the ground. "Luckily" for her, though, Bison was just the type of person to lend a lady in need a hand.
Grabbing Han by her dudou as she fell by, Bison hoisted her up so that they were face to face. Then, giving her just enough time to refocus on him, he electrified his body once more.
Juri shook and jerked as the current coursed through her body, crackling energy randomly seizing up her muscles in a dance of agony. This was only compounded as her Feng Shui Engine -- far too small to sport much in the way of surge protection -- malfunctioned and discharged feedback into her connected nervous system. She swore that she could feel the saliva in her mouth start to boil, the hair on her head begin to smolder, and parts of her brain start to eat itself.
Knowing that she could not take this for much longer, Han did the only thing she could think of to escape. Her trembling hands eventually reaching her sides, she tore the straps to her quipo and fell to the floor in a smoking heap.
Panting in pain, Juri looked up to be greeted with Bison examining with amusement the top that still remained in his grasp. Turning his gaze down to the mess below him, he put in his two cents.
"Foregoing a dignified end so early?"
With another surge of energy the top burst into flames in his hand, quickly disintegrating into nothing.
"I swear, you never fail to disappoint."
-=-
Juri was nursing the mother of all migraines, and could only see out of one eye since her prosthetic had been scrambled, but she knew that her life depended on staying on top of what Bison was up to. She did not recognize the motion the dictator made next -- drawing back one hand as if readying a bowling ball throw -- but assumed that nothing good could come of it and rolled to the side. This saved her a dicing as a wave of crescent energy cut through the ground where she was just seated, but that would mean little if she could not turn things around fast.
Juri lunged forward, attempting to ram a heel into the Tanden Engine in an attempt to damage it, but she was significantly slower due to the trauma and lack of support from her own prosthetic. Stepping to the side to avoid the kick, Bison responded by ramming an open hand into Juri's abdomen and clamping down in a claw hold.
Juri gasped as the dictator's fingers dug into her stomach, doubling over against the grip. Her groan quickly rose into a scream as she felt claws sprout for a brief moment, just to let him dig in more before pulling back with a visceral rip.
Han stumbled as she stood trembling in place, blood oozing through her fingers as she clutched her gashed midsection. She did not even see the followup headbutt coming; it being introduced to her via a mental lightshow as she was forced to her knees in a daze.
The dictator stooped to greet her face to face; one hand cupping her chin, to keep her lax head from drooping. As Juri's vision began to creep back she could have sworn that something had been broken. Bison didn't have...
Even through the concussion, she knew that the red glow of his eyes was a terrible omen.
"Behold." Bison whispered.
-=-
Juri was blown back as she was hit straight in the face with twin spouts of raw concussive force, breaking her nose and knocking loose several of her teeth. Coming to a sliding stop on her back, Han laid still save an occasional twitch and gurgle.
Bison ambled his way over to the fallen Korean and nudged her with his foot. After a few pokes to the temple he got back a low groan and a weak attempt to push his boot away.
So there was still life in the wench. Good.
He was starting to figure out all that was now at his disposal, and it was about time to start getting creative.
-=-
Juri Han was too busy lying in a puddle of her own teeth to notice Bison bringing down a fist against the ground next to her, but the weightlessness as it popped her back up roused her enough to stay standing as she landed.
Which was probably the worse choice, all things considered.
Juri was knocked into a stumble by a hook to her jaw, only for her back to collide against something that burned it and bounced her forward again. Turning her head to make sense of things, she saw a small wall of plasma floating midair. That was a new one.
Another blow landed against the temple of her turned head, forcing her to sprawl back for another shock and rebound. This made sense now; Bison had conjured it specifically to pin her up against.
Still trying to gain her bearings, Juri's body was gradually dotted with sears as Bison's rundown of the several boxing styles he had recently absorbed ricocheted her off it again and again. Eventually, though, the "wall" dissipated and Han was left swaying woozily on her own power.
The dictator cracked his knuckles and beamed. Oh, this one was going to be good.
Bison ducked down slightly and pumped his left fist into Juri's already wounded stomach; re-opening the wounds and causing the Korean to cough up blood. Her agape mouth was quickly closed, however, as Bison brought up his right fist to uppercut her in the jaw. The sudden closing caused her to bite off the tip of her tongue with what was left of her teeth, flooding her mouth with even more coppery liquid.
Rising up to the peak of his jumping uppercut, Bison let Juri fly off as he descended. Even though he knew the power of this blow firsthand, he was still amazed how far her battered body soared; watching with glee as she landed with a splintery thud across the remains of a lab desk.
No wonder so many of those fools liked that move. This was just plain fun.
-=-
Juri Han's world came back to her slowly, and with great pain. Her neck creaked with every tiny movement as it began to stiffen from the whiplash, she could swear that some of her ribs had been broken as she landed, and a steady stream of red drool flowed from her open mouth. Having landed face down across some sort of table, her arms and legs drooped off the edges in an almost comical matter.
She was debating just letting the darkness at the edges of her vision fully take her as something worked her way into her mouth, and with a pull upwards rose her head once more. Bison was again in front of her, and this time he had retrieved a new toy from the surrounding wreckage. The silly baton that one military mercenary sported was now his, starting in the dictator's firm grasp and ending in her coppery craw.
"Do you think your father can see you from where he is?" Bison mused, shoving in the staff further and causing her to gag. "Do you think he is proud of what you've accomplished in his honor?"
"Gu tuh hll." Juri mumbled, knowing that she was being egged on but helpless to not take the bait. The retort was heavily muffled by the shaft forcing its way inside her, but it did not take a genius to work out the proper translation.
To her surprise, Bison actually removed the baton upon hearing this; chuckling and examining the now crimson tip as he circled around the table and outside Juri's cone of vision.
"One day, maybe. Once I am through conquering the world of mortals, I could ride down and seize the underworld just for fun. You could even give me a tour while I'm there! But for now..."
Han thought that nothing could catch her off guard at this point, but let out a gasp of disbelief as a hand seized the top of her pants and tore them away.
"...It is about time I gave you the disciplining your parents never provided."
-=-
It was a pity that the dictator was on the opposite side, as the rapidly flushing face of such a woman coming to terms with her immediate future was truly a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.
"You wouldn't." she half stated, half pleaded. "Even as low as you are, you wouldn't..."
"Worry not, woman." Bison 'assured' his fidgeting victim. "I would not think of sullying my perfect being with such degenerate trash. Besides, you already gave your body to me and my cause."
Drawing the hand holding the baton back, he added:
"But you are a spoiled child, and thus will be treated like one."
-=-
The baton came down against her rear, letting loose a meaty thwack as the kinetic force rose welts and sent ripples across her ass cheeks. Juri, too weak to flee, could only let out a hiss of air in protest.
The makeshift cane drew back and landed again, pushing Han forward slightly with the power of the blow. Trying not to give her abuser the satisfaction of her reactions, she bit into one of her forearms to silence her involuntary screams.
This only incensed Bison further, though, as the muffled cries of a clearly humiliated foe were leagues more satisfying than any standard moan. Again and again he brought the baton down against her, turning her rear into a quivering canvas of purple, red and black. He was amused without end when he discovered that he could somewhat control the pitch of her whines, as they approached squeals whenever he aimed lower and partially lashed her womanhood. Trickles of fresh blood ran down Juri's arm as her teeth sunk deep into it, digging further in with every shudder of her abused body.
Unable to bear any more, Juri summoned up as much energy as she could for one last pitiful act of resistance: She rolled over, denying her tormentor a clear shot at his target. But, in her haze of agony, she failed to take into account what doors this act of 'defiance' opened up.
Not even missing a beat, Bison stepped close enough to tower above his spread-eagle victim and began to lay into Han with the staff anew. Her arms were beaten back, taking away the only luxury she had of masking her cries. Her breasts, while fairly small on her athletic frame, still crashed against each other as Bison beat them back and forth. Her whole body arched with each blow against her crotch, the shock overloading any dignity left as she convulsed and wailed into the hot air. Blood and sweat rolled down her glistening body interchangeably, flying up in spatters as she jerked and writhed beneath the assault.
Bison finished with one last strike along her sex, the thunderous whiplike crack drowning out the whine partially caught in Han's throat as she felt the blow all the way down to her bones. The reactive seizing of her system made her leave the table for a moment, suspended breathlessly in midair, before flopping back down to lay bonelessly in a puddle of her various fluids.
Discarding the baton just as casually as he had taken it, Bison rounded the table again while taking in his handiwork. His little minion was broken in nearly every sense of the word. An involuntary moan left her with every ragged, uneven breath; having passed the threshold of being able to play tough long ago. Her bare, ravaged body was a living effigy to her defeat, a writhing painting celebrating her dominator's innate superiority. But still, the one eye she still had left still smoldered with a seemingly unsnuffable fire.
Perhaps he had a tool now which could assist with that.
Bison propped up the back of Juri's skull with one palm, and she was forced to watch with dreamy passiveness as the Master prepared for his next act. Balling his free hand into a fist and focusing on it, he was clearly pleased as a ball of volatile pink energy formed across the back of his wrist. Concentrating harder to further refine it, he soon had a glowing psionic 'dagger' on his hand and ready for action.
"Little guinea pig..." the dictator began, turning his gaze down to her. "...are you ready for another experiment in the name of your master?"
Bison did not wait for a response before he brought the fist down, embedding the 'blade' fully in the Korean's forehead.
-=-
Due to the very peculiar nature of this psy-blade, such a move did not kill Han. In fact, it did not do so much as break her skin. A purely mental construct, it was designed to pass harmlessly through flesh and bone.
The mind, however, was a whole other story.
Losing complete control of her body as neurons were overloaded and fried, Juri Han shrieked.
Her hands, desperate for any sort of stability as the world scrambled, clawed at the table top until they dug grooves in the surface and her nails broke off. The pungent smell of urine filled the air as her bladder gave out, expelling it's contents as the systems handling it went offline. Her one good eye bulged in her socket before rolling up into the back of her head. By pure instinct alone she screamed over and over, her wails being that of a wild animal meeting a brutal and messy end.
She did not stop, but rather something inside stopped her. Unable to cope with the sudden abuse, her vocal chords gave way and her cries were diminished to raspy wheezes. But still the frantic thrashings continued.
Bison let this carry on for several more seconds before pulling back, removing the 'blade' from her and allowing it to dissipate into nothing. Juri lay there unmoving, unseeing, unfeeling. Save for an occasional twitch and burbly cough, she could have passed as dead.
That was quite a reaction.
Not the one he was most interested in, though.
-=-
It took ages for Juri to regain consciousness by herself, but Bison was a patient man.
When she returned to the land of the living, she found herself exactly where she had left off. The only changes were that she somehow hurt even more now, the puddle she rested in had grown cold as well as taken on a much more pungent odor, and her body was chilled by the now cooling air.
Then, of course, there was Bison.
He was now facing away from her; arms crossed, as if waiting for something. She debated trying to crawl off while his back was turned, but that hope was dashed as he broke the silence.
"Your parents."
Juri could only reply with a surprised "Uh?", caught completely off guard by this change of subject. Even that was hard to do; her voice was coarse, and it felt like strips of sandpaper rubbing against the inside of her throat when she tried to talk.
"You think so highly of them, but to me they were but footnotes." the dictator continued. "So refresh a poor old man's memory. What were their names?"
Juri opened her mouth to reply, then paused. She... was drawing a blank. Try as she might, the names of her parents were lost to her.
"Having some trouble?" Bison asked, his voice rising with sadistic curiosity.
"What... have... you... done?" Juri gurgled as she rolled over and clutched her head in legitimate terror. She was taking mental inventory, and discovering new gaps that chilled her down to the core. What was her mother's job? Did she ever meet her grandfather? Why couldn't she recall her father's face?
"Just some spring cleaning." Bison replied airily, still not even bothering to turn. "You can't hold onto old, useless junk forever. It's unhealthy."
Juri ran her fingers down her bruised and broken face, pulling herself into a fetal position on the table as hitching sobs began to rock her body. This was too much. This was beyond sadism. This was beyond torture. This was the work of a demon made flesh.
"Kill... you..." she grated out between sniffles, pushing herself up to a crouch despite every fiber of her being begging otherwise.
"Kill... you..."
Tears carving lines down her stained cheeks, she tensed her pleading muscles and prepared to push off. Although beaten and broken beyond all measure, the sheer magnitude of this atrocity stoked her flames enough for one last go.
"Kill you, kill you, KILLYOU!"
Launching herself towards Bison's back, her guttural scream of unbridled rage drowned out the low retort from the dictator himself.
Bit of a pity. He thought she'd appreciate the irony of "This is the end for you."
-=-
Juri reached out for Bison's neck -- ready to strangle and twist and tear -- but never made it. As if on cue, the dictator spun with a low sweep. This seemed like a botched counterattack, as there was no one to trip, but she was soon shown the error of her ways as he continued to spin and rise. Realizing far too late what he was up to, Juri Han collided face first into one of her own favorite finishers.
Up they both rose; Bison on his own power, Juri being juggled by spin kicks covered in purple fire she knew all too well. At the height of their ascent Han braced for the axe kick back down...
...which never came.
Changing tacks, Bison instead remained floating midair and grabbed Juri before she could fall. Having no clothing left to hold her by, he instead settled on wrapping his right arm around her back and bringing her in against him.
They both hung like that, almost as if in the mockery of a lover's embrace. Juri wanted more than anything to break free -- even if it meant falling to her death -- but that last attempt had truly drained everything she had left. She could only stare in despair into Bison's soulless white eyes, trying her best (and failing) to not weep.
"You know, this is my property..." the dictator began, raising his left hand to tap a finger against Han's artificial left eye. "I have every right to take it back..."
Juri's breath caught in her throat, knowing where this was leading.
"...I won't, though." Bison concluded, much to Han's confusion.
"Wha-"
"Why would I ever need it? It's nothing but a prototype for my perfected design. So weak. So flawed."
Bison's finger moved to her left temple, and Juri began to feel a little... odd. It was so hard to place why, though.
"Terrible output. Next to no shock resistance. lacking many valuable features. And worst of all?"
Han now realized the issue, her head was growing hot. As in, the inside of her head. Bison had begun to feed large amounts of Tanden energy into her Feng Shui engine, causing it to activate and run at dangerously high levels.
"Very vulnerable to overcharging."
-=-
Juri wanted to fight back -- to spit and curse and bite -- but there was simply nothing left for her to work with. She could only moan and writhe against her soon-to-be executor's unyielding body as she felt her blood rise to a boil.
Bison watched hungrily as her traitorous minion's face began to crack and blacken, smoke rising from her eyesocket as the engine within glowed and trembled with it's barely-contained power.
It would not be long now. It was time that he gave her his parting word.
"Thank you for your assistance, Miss Han. I could not have reached such a peak so soon without you. It truly is an odd feeling, knowing that all this majesty can be traced back to me squashing a single insect one Thursday morning."
Mere moments later the Feng Shui engine passed critical capacity. Arcing her back, accompanied by a scream of equal parts agony and sorrow, Half of Juri Han's head disintegrated in an explosion of shrapnel and purple fire.
Bison held the body against him for a few seconds more, cherishing it's final convulsions and shudders. Finally, as it stilled to merely swaying in the air, he let go and allowed the ruined woman fall to the floor below.
"You are dismissed, child."
-=-
Most of Han was destroyed with the explosion, but the barest sliver remained to experience her final fall. It was but a shred of her former self, though, and thus could not... appreciate the situation of her true finale.
By pure chance, the dying woman's drop was cushioned by the corpse of Chun Li. Laying on top of her as she faded, they could have passed for spouses cuddling post-coitus in any other situation.
Both of them had lost loved ones to the tyrant, and both had dedicated their lives to setting things right. In the end they laid intertwined, the only true difference being the depths of their failure.
But, as already stated, Juri had neither the time nor the ability to make such observations. The fraction of her brain that still remained could only focus on one detail as it perished, with all the fury of a dying sun:
It was a Tuesday.
It was... a goddamn... Tuesday...
