Chun Li

				CHUN LI 1


	Chun Li was never quite able to remember just why she put the  
bracelets on, that day.
	Despite their fairly small size, they were unquestionably not  
jewelry intended for a woman.  It was decidedly in doubt whether they  
could even be called 'jewelry'.  They were a pair of gripped onyx  
fighting cuffs, gleaming jet black and polished so skillfully she  
could see her reflection mirrored upon their shiny surfaces.  Each  
bracelet was studded with eight, sharp steel spikes.  Sunlight  
entering from the store's display window focused into a tiny white  
sparkle upon the tip of one barb, a sparkle that captured her roving  
eye, holding her as one entranced.
	She was, after all, only eight years old.  A young girl at  
the tender age where a child has only begun to understand the full  
extent of the world's beauties... or its dangers.  She reached out to  
touch the gleaming, pointed objects, hesitated, and reached out  
again.  The prick from one of the sharp cuffs nearly drew blood,  
despite the timid fragility of her action.
	At the other end of the enclosed metalworking and curio  
store, her father, Zhou Li, discussed dark rumors with the  
proprietor.  Zhou Li had come here for the proposed reason of  
acquiring a new set of cleavers for his business (he was a  
self-employed breeder, vendor, and butcher of chickens).  His  
unspoken motivation, though, was to learn information.   He new of no  
man in Beijing with better connections than Chang-tai Han, the curio  
dealer... and one-time weapons dealer.
	"Chang-tai Han," he said, even as his daughter's gaze was  
enticed by the wares on display, "I have been hearing things.  Dark  
things.  The woman who washes her clothing across the street from my  
humble storefront was very nervous this morning, casting furtive  
glances back and forth.  She told me what she had heard that upset  
her so:  'The Shadoloo are coming.'  What do you know of this?"
	Chang-tai Han deliberated for a moment, then picked up a  
medium-sized stiletto and started to whet it with exacting precision.   
"'The Shadoloo are coming'... the moment that I heard those words, I  
knew that you would be here to ask me about them.  And you are right  
to do so.  The People's Republic has never been severely blighted  
with their presence in the past, but it looks as though that may  
change, may have already changed even as we speak."
	"You sound as if this news is bad."
	"It is bad... woe be unto the unfortunate who falls prey to  
their darkness.  They have taken to kidnapping, as of late.   
Sometimes they hold people for ransom, but more recently they have  
begun to experiment upon them, to test unholy drugs and chemicals.   
They are trying to perfect a chemical that 'enhances' ordinary human  
beings... and the drug's mortality rate is very high.
	"On occasion, when they have finished with a particular  
wretched 'test subject', they will toss him back to spread word of  
their terror.  But they never cast such people away unchanged.  One  
of my former contacts in Laos was spit out thus."
	"'Former' contact?  What does he do now?"
	"Drool, mostly."
	"Oh."
	"The Shadoloo were not always a ring of evil, though.  Their  
beginning lies in almost two millennia ago, when they were first  
organized as an underground militia to combat the despotic regime  
of... the name of the tyrant escapes me, as does the corner of the  
world from which they originated.  Perhaps both are unrecorded in  
history, so that I never knew them to begin with.  I am an old man,  
Zhou, and my mind has become like cheesecloth.
	"I do recall the course of their descent, however, for their  
fall from nobility is an oft-mirrored tale in human struggles.  Power  
always corrupts, whether it is the thunder of an army in the light of  
day, or the quiet cutthroat intimidation of a guerilla force at  
night.  As many as five hundred years ago, they no longer even  
pretended to stand for liberation.  Their symbol, the Winged Skull,  
once meant 'Even the freedom of Death is preferable to slavery.'  By  
the time the Shadoloo removed those words from their flag, placing  
their symbol on a sable background instead, the Winged Skull had long  
since ceased to aspire to such noble sacrifice.  Then, as now, it  
represented naught save terror and destruction.
	"Still, for all their evil, they remained only a minor  
blemish upon a very big world prior to the mid-twentieth century.   
Then a newcomer joined their ranks.  I know not what his true name  
was, but he called himself a phrase in a foreign language that meant  
'the fires of madness.'  Six months later, he had personally  
assassinated the top five controllers of the Shadoloo, and subdued  
seven others in ritual hand-to-hand combat.  He became the sole  
dictator of the organized crime ring, the Grandmaster Unchallenged  
and Lord of the Shadoloo.
	"On the day that he formally assumed leadership in the  
traditional Shadoloo ceremony, he declared that he was 'the fires of  
madness' no longer.  The name that he used then, and currently uses  
today, is M. Bison.  Lord Bison, he is now called, a name that is  
almost certainly an alias.
	"The eve of that dreadful inaugural day, he renounced his  
former name because, in his own words, 'There is power here, waiting  
to be tapped; power beyond the deepest reachings of the imagination's  
abysm.'  His speech was truthful enough, for under his iron rule, the  
Shadoloo swiftly broadened its influence.  What was once a small-time  
extralegal smuggling cartel matured into an international organized  
crime militia.  Its seed of evil, left alone for far too many years,  
finally blossomed into a deadly wall of thorns.
	"Their criminal activities include racketeering,  
prostitution, narcotic smuggling, extortion, burglary, arson,  
blackmail, assassination, and most recently kidnapping.  Zhou, my  
friend, please believe me when I tell you that you do not want to  
cross paths with these people.  Not ever.  Not for anything."
	Zhou Li nodded, taking in the precious information.  One  
thing within the long story prompted him to interrupt, however.   
"Chang-tai Han... you have never called me 'friend' before."
	Chang-tai Han looked up from the razor-sharp edge of the  
whetted dagger.  "Have I not?  I am sorry, then," although it would  
be hard to say whether he apologized for never calling Zhou Li a  
'friend' before, or for calling him one now.  "I am very old, was so  
long before you and your family came to this city, and my thoughts  
run like whey through cheesecloth... or did I say that already?"
	Upon hearing Chang-tai Han say the word 'family', Zhou Li  
noticed that Chun was no longer at his side.  Suddenly  
nervous--Chang-tai's dark news of the Shadoloo had put him into a  
jumpy mood--he scanned the store for her, and nearly had a fit when  
he saw his only beloved offspring wearing the spiked fighting cuffs.
	"Chun Li!" he snapped, commanding, and she startled, looking  
back at her father with guilt hiding beneath the innocence in her  
sepia brown eyes.  "What have I told you about touching wares that  
you do not intend to buy?  Remove those and apologize to Chang-tai  
Han at once!"
	"I- I am sorry, father," stammered the young girl, genuine  
distress creeping into her voice.  She had not meant to disobey her  
father's wishes; the bracelet's pull had just been so attracting...
	"I said for you to apologize to Chang-tai Han, not to me.   
And why are you still wearing those?  Take them off, and put them  
back where you found them!"
	"Wait, friend Zhou," interrupted the shop's aging proprietor,  
as he limped towards the confrontation.  "Do not be too harsh upon  
her.  It is not entirely her fault that she was drawn to those.  They  
have never been for sale in all the years that I have lived here, but  
when I heard the bad news, I put them out on display.  You see, I  
knew that you and your daughter would be coming, and I wanted to  
offer you those.  They are meant for her.  She takes after her  
mother."
	At the mention of his lost wife, Zhou Li's expression  
softened, a little.  Nine years ago, he had fallen in love with a  
mysterious woman known only as Wu.  She had some traces of Korean and  
Japanese blood in her ancestry, which was bad enough; worse still, it  
was gossiped that she practiced fey magics and dark Arts.  But love  
was love, and so Zhou had married her, despite the disapproval of  
family and friends.  Alone among all the people that he knew, only  
Chang-tai Han the curio dealer treated her with full respect and him  
with the same indifference as ever.
	Zhou and Wu had only one child, their daughter, Chun.   
Perhaps they could have petitioned the government for permission bear  
more offspring, but Zhou doubted that such a request would have been  
granted.  In any case, he had more than enough elder brothers to  
carry on the family name (all of whom despised the woman he loved,  
and none of whom spoke to him on a regular basis).  

	Then tragedy struck, and Wu was lost.  Zhou Li wondered some  
times if he would ever bring himself to seek a second wife, not that  
most women would seriously consider the prospect of marrying him.  He  
was estranged from his own family, supposed widower of a witch, and  
none too wealthy to boot.
	He made a marginally tolerable living for himself and his  
daughter, working at his open-air storefront all day.  They had  
enough to eat, clothing to wear, a chance to sent Chun Li to a public  
school... and that was about it.  Certainly, he did not have the  
money to spend upon an extravagantly gaudy pair of spiked cuffs.
	"Chang-tai Han, as much as I respect you and your wisdom,"  
replied Zhou, "it is necessary that I discipline my daughter.  She  
knows better than to touch other people's wares.  I could not afford  
to buy her those baubles in any case, even if I wanted to."
	Chang-tai Han exhaled a deep breath.  "I was not trying to  
hawk my merchandise... Here, let me show you."  The elderly man  
kneeled down before the wide-eyed girl-child, who still absently  
fingered the spikes about her wrists.  "Little one, would you please  
give those to me for a moment?" he asked her, not unkindly.  "And be  
careful not to cut yourself.  You may touch the sides of the spikes,  
which are rounded and sport no sharp edges, but do not put your  
fingertips on their points or you may prick yourself, okay?"  Chun Li  
did as he requested without saying a word.  Her eyes remained wide  
and clear.
	"Look, Zhou," Chang-tai Han explained, presenting the girl's  
father with the objects.  "Can you see it?  The tracings are very  
faint; they were shallow when the bracelets were first created, and  
countless years of use have worn them down even further.  For you  
see, Zhou, these articles are older than I, by far.  Do you  
perceive?"
	Zhou Li decided to humor the old man, and looked closely.  At  
first, he saw nothing but polished black stone with spikes set into  
it.  Then he tilted his head a few degrees to the right, and light  
reflected off of their shiny surfaces in a slightly different  
manner... revealing designs of songbirds in midflight; the other  
carried reciprocal, but not identical, patterns of snakes and  
lizards.  A flickering shimmer or two skittered across them, and the  
depicted creatures nearly had the illusion of movement.  There was a  
certain symmetry, a harmony between the two seemingly disparate  
designs that agreed nicely with his own sense of balance.
	A few kanji were written upon them, as well.  They both  
carried the symbols for "peace" and "freedom", plus others too dim  
and too archaic to clearly make out.  The feel of the writing on each  
one was subtly varied, as well... almost as if each member of the  
matched set had been marked by a different engraver.
	"Yes, Chang-tai, I perceive," Zhou said, becoming a little  
enraptured in spite of himself.  "I still do not have the money to  
purchase them, though."	"These are not for sale.  They never have  
been.  Indeed, they cannot be sold; for like true peace and freedom  
themselves, they must be given without obligation or else their power  
is broken.  I desire to give them to you and your daughter.  She is  
old enough to have them, now..."
	"What was that about 'power'?  Do not tell me that you are  
superstitious, Chang-tai Han."
	"A man is not superstitious if his theories about cause and  
effect are true.  I cannot explain any more than that.  Except..."
	"Except what?"
	"Except, friend Zhou, that I am worried about you.  Much of I  
what I learned about the Shadoloo's new leader, I learned from Wu.   
At one time, she had the misfortune to encounter them, many years  
ago.  You were once Wu's husband..." The old man grimaced, a little.
	"You think that I may be a target?  Is that it?" Zhou  
snorted.
	"If I were you, friend Zhou, I would seriously consider  
moving."
	"No," he replied, firmly, shaking his head.  "I stayed here  
when all the people I knew looked at me with contempt.  I am not  
going to let mere heresay drive me out of town."
	"I knew that you were going to be intransigent the moment I  
learned the bad news.  But will you at least honor the wishes of an  
old man, and accept the gift of the cuffs?"
	Zhou deliberated briefly.  "I will,' he said at last.  (But  
only because you were the one man in Beijing who was truly respectful  
of my wife).
	Chang-tai Han smiled, as though he were capable of reading  
the chicken-vendor's mind.

*****

	The next several days passed without incident.  Zhou Li  
forbade his daughter to wear the absurd cuffs during the day, but she  
had a tendency to slip them on at night, or even fall asleep wearing  
them.  Deciding that the only way she would learn better would be the  
hard way, Zhou warned her that if she ever cut herself upon them, he  
would take them away and never give them back.  She was always very  
careful with them, though.
	(They are meant for her.  She takes after her mother),  
Chang-tai Han had said.  The second part of Han's statement was  
undeniably true.  Whenever Zhou looked at his daughter, he saw in her  
a reflection of the lost Wu.  Chun Li's hair, in particular, marked  
her, even as Wu's hair had marked her.  His daughter's light, flowing  
tresses were not colored black, like his own and those of nearly all  
Beijing.  Her hair was brown, just as Wu's had been; it was a gentle,  
cinnamony sepia that matched her deep eyes.  Zhou sometimes wondered  
why the hair on his daughter's head was so much finer, so much  
softer, than anyone else's.
	It wasn't just that young Chun looked like her mother,  
though.  There was so much in her voice, in her mannerisms, that  
reminded him of Wu.  Her occasional, high-pitched squeals of delight,  
her uncanny grace when she moved, even her enduring streak of  
obstinacy.  Or perhaps, 'especially' her enduring streak of  
obstinacy. 

	Back in happier times, Zhou and Wu had used to discuss from  
whose family Chun Li had inherited her unusual intransigence.  Zhou  
insisted that it had to have come from Wu--all of his sisters had  
known when to yield.  Wu, in turn, declared that their daughter's  
defiant spirit could have come from none other than Zhou himself, who  
never_ knew when to yield.  Eventually, Wu had given up trying to  
persuade him, proving once and for all that he was right and Chun's  
stubborn side did_ come from her, and her alone.
	Yes, Li seemed to be a little more like her mother every day.   
And Zhou knew that the oddly-inscribed cuffs were just the sort of  
thing that Wu would have been attracted to, in the past--not because  
of their usefulness, but rather because of their stylized, ancient  
designs.  So, he could not quite bring himself to take the unwomanly  
things away from his daughter at night, so long as she did not harm  
herself with them.  If she had pricked herself, even once, then he  
would have locked them away, out of her reach.  But she never did.
	So it was that Chun Li happened to be wearing the fighter's  
bracelets, that night two weeks later, when the horror descended upon  
them.

*****

	Chun Li and her father were sleeping on the floor of the shop  
when they_ came.  The young girl was the first to awaken.  Perhaps  
something did not feel right within her dreams.  Her fingers brushed  
against the unusual, spiked cuffs she had been wearing, as her eyes  
opened.
	"Father...?" she half-mumbled.  A sharp, unkind <click> was  
her only reply.  Awareness came, and she peered into the depths of a  
double-barreled shotgun.  The overpowering instinct to hide descended  
upon her, and she froze.
	The man who pointed the gun at her was himself Chinese.  So,  
too, was the second gunman, who kept his weapon trained on her  
still-sleeping father.  Countless other black-garbed men swarmed  
about the small shop, ransacking everything of value.  But what young  
Chun would forever remember of that fateful day was the dark,  
hideously cruel leader of the ring of thieves.
	His hands flickered and glowed with an eerie light that was  
now green, now blue, now gold, now the searing white of a bonfire's  
inner heart.  And yet the surrounding night's darkness seemed to  
cling to him, to swirl around his luxuriant purple cloak, masking his  
form and features in shadow.  His eyes reflected energy and  
nothingness.  He smiled at her, then; not the benevolent expression  
of a living man, but rather the sharp, rictus grin of the walking  
dead.  She held perfectly still, rigid with both terror and awe, even  
after his attention shifted away from her mute, helpless gaze.
	"Yes, Zhou Li," said the ghastly stranger to her sleeping  
father.  "It is indeed time for you to awaken."  His Chinese was  
pure, utterly flawless, and with almost a native accent.  "I regret  
being forced to call upon you at such an inconvenient hour, but alas,  
some unfortunate circumstances simply cannot be helped."
	Zhou stirred restlessly, mumbled something, and then opened  
his eyes.  They widened even further when he saw the rifle aimed  
point-blank at his heart.  A crazy though struck Chun Li, leading her  
to wonder if she had looked like that when she had been roused.
	"Who...?"
	"You may address me as 'Lord Bison'," instructed the  
overpowering figure sibilantly.  "For I am the Lord of the Shadoloo,  
Lord of the all-consuming Fires of Madness, and as of right now...  
Lord of your personal fate."
	Zhou half-attempted to stand; a sharp prod from one of his  
monitors halted him.  "What do you want... Lord Bison?" he asked,  
guardedly.  His right hand rested lightly on his nightshirt pocket,  
as he spoke.
	"Why... to renew and old acquaintance.  Your lovely wife Wu  
and I were close friends, once.  She also used to be of tremendous  
assistance to us in the gathering of information... I have been  
absent from this wonderful land for far too many years.  There have  
doubtless been innumerable changes since she and I parted ways.  I  
would very much like to see her again, and talk over old times.   
Where_ is_ she_?"
	"Wu is gone," he said, abruptly, and for once in all the  
years since he had first uttered the statement, he was glad that it  
was true.  "She has been gone for many seasons."
	The false warmth faded from Lord Bison's appearance, to be  
replaced with twisted hatred.  "No_.  I shall not_ be cheated again.   
Where_ is_ she_?"
	"I know not where her lost soul resides."
	The last traces of humanity fled from the dark lord's shadowy  
face.  "You are lying_!  Hold him!  Hold them both!"  Before Zhou  
could react, the iron grip of five powerful men descended upon him  
from behind.  He might have struggled, had there been so much as a  
second during which to think.  Two more masked figures seized Li,  
forcing her to kneel and watch the dialogue.  Lord Bison advanced  
upon the immobile Zhou and backhanded him, once, across the face.  A  
luminous crescent hung briefly in the air seconds after the motion  
was completed.  Chun was able to glimpse a trickle of blood flowing  
down her father's chin before the additional light dissipated.  "You  
will tell me where she is, or both of you shall suffer_!"
	"Lord Bison," interrupted a quiet, wavering voice in a  
language that neither Chun Li nor Zhou Li were particularly familiar  
with, "it seems as though he might be telling the truth.  The search  
party has uncovered no sign that more than two people live here,  
and--"
	"That is_ enough," snarled the brooding man, but at least his  
attention was no longer emblazoned upon Zhou.  Chun Li strained to  
see in the omnipresent gloom--and glimpsed a strange, pale-skinned  
woman standing very tentatively next to Lord Bison's side.  Her black  
dress had virtually rendered her invisible, before.
	"Very well, then," intoned the crimelord.  "It would seem  
that some things are not meant to be."  Switching back to Chinese, he  
commanded the several strongmen to release Zhou Li and his daughter,  
and added "Strip the premises of all valuable goods, and then set it  
afire, in pyric memory to a lost friend."
	"NO!" shouted Zhou Li, involuntarily.
	Lord Bison reaffixed his soulless eyesockets upon the  
resistant shopkeeper.  "I do not usually offer lenience.  But we are  
currently travelling light, too light to bother with domestic cattle  
such as you.  You will serve us better by spreading our fear.  Take  
your daughter and go now_, while you still can."
	"No!  Why do you seek to destroy my shop?  I am only a  
chicken-butcher, just barely above poverty!  I have now other  
shelter!  I have no other livelihood!"
	"Defy the Shadoloo, you fool, and you will have no life at  
all."
	Even as this terse exchange finished, the smoothly efficient  
gang of thieves claimed the last objects of worth that were lying  
about--the set of knives that Zhou had purchased from Chang-tai Han  
only two weeks before.  There was the wet slap of poured liquid, and  
the whoosh of alighted fire.  The members of the Shadoloo were  
already hurrying to comply with the will of their lord.
	"NO!"  raged Zhou Li, and the former, relative calmness of  
his inner self snapped in twain.  "I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS!"  With  
blinding speed, he withdrew a very small, snub-nosed handgun from  
where it had lain all this time, in his nightshirt's pocket.   
Pointing and aiming it at the central figure of terror, Zhou fired,  
twice.
	Lord Bison jerked backwards, startled.  Then an evil insanity  
flickered in his eyes, and he started to advance back in upon Zhou  
Li.
	(This is impossible) thought the nigh-hysterical storekeeper.   
(The gun is loaded.  I am firing at point-blank range).  He was too  
much in shock to see the nameless, fallen thug behind the Shadoloo  
Lord, who clutched at a hole in his lungs.  Zhou was only able to  
bring the pistol up and discharge it again and again, until empty  
clicks sounded in place of the rapport.  The Shadoloo Lord was  
towering over him now, and he felt the ruthless grip of two,  
electrifying hands seize a strangulation hold about his fragile neck.   
There was a sickeningly ugly <crack>, and Zhou wondered if by some  
miracle Lord Bison's wrist had broken.
	"Father!" cried the young Chun Li.  Her shriek went unnoticed  
by the killer who casually cast aside Zhou's body like so much  
refuse.  Heedless of the spreading fire about her, she stumbled to  
the dead man's side and tried frantically to elicit a response from  
him.  None came.
	--and then she was being forcibly lifted, carried away from  
the increasing heat and her beloved father, no matter how much she  
struggled.  She kicked and howled, and yet no response came from her  
abductor.  Then she screamed even more loudly, but the noise was lost  
in the thundering <crunch> as the roof of Zhou's store caved in.
	"Silence that brat!" came the angry, disembodied command, and  
Li's sobs abruptly cut themselves off.  She was crouching on the  
ground now, and the black-dressed woman embraced her tightly.  The  
strange, foreign female smelled sweaty and perhaps even a little like  
the chickens Chun had been taught to raise.  Chun gasped fragments of  
bitter questions to the alien woman that had dragged her from the  
flames, but her only answers were incomprehensible soothings in a  
western language.  Chun tried to say more, between the flowing tears,  
and the unearthly woman responded by nearly choking on some very  
badly mangled phrases in Chinese.
	"Take easy, little girl.  Right, please, okay will be.  Calm.   
Peace.  Be peaceful," managed the woman, fumbling for the proper  
words.  But even if the speech was horribly distorted, the sad,  
urgent kindness behind it was quite genuine.  Then the sharp bark of  
one of the many man in black interrupted Chun Li's comforter.
	"Lord Bison said to silence the brat," grunted one of the  
legion gunmen, sighting his weapon upon Chun Li's heart.  "Get out of  
the way."
	"No," said the woman, half-standing so as to physically  
interpose herself between the gruff militiaman and the frightened  
child.  "This one will be quiet.  Just give me a chance."
	"Move, bitch, or die_ as_ well_."
	"Please," said the woman, "let me deal with the child.  I am  
not going to step asi--"
	There was a bellowing blast of fire and smoke, and Chun Li  
screamed again as her enigmatic rescuer buckled backwards from an  
impact too swift to be seen.  A spreading crimson flower blossomed  
upon the woman's black dress, its color quite clearly visible in the  
light of the burning, open-air storefront.
	Chun Li fainted.
	...and when she returned the consciousness, the nightmare was  
still in progress, with a few changes.  Now, the Shadoloo Lord was  
standing over the mysterious, black-dressed woman, holding her right  
wrist in an unliving grip of steel, literally half-dangling her off  
the ground where she had collapsed.  The spasmlike aurora of energy  
that crackled about his clenched had flared almost as intensely  
bright as the fiery building nearby.  Then he let her go, and she  
fell to the ground again, limp.. but still breathing, and no longer  
bearing the gunshot wound.
	Just off to the side, Chun Li was barely capable of glimpsing  
the remains of the man who had threatened her and fired upon her  
rescuer.  His neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, exactly as her  
father's had been.
	"The next time you attempt a stunt like that, I shall not  
intercede," growled the Shadoloo Lord to the unresponsive woman.   
Then his gaze turned back to the distressed girl-child nearby.  "Hold  
that one.  Perhaps we may yet have a use for her..."

****

	"Well,  this_ is a first-rate fiasco," grumbled General  
Alsace, of the Right Hand of the Shadoloo, in French so as not to be  
understood by the surrounding militiamen.  "Did you succeed in  
healing your suicidal--"
	"Watch your tongue," warned the Shadoloo Lord, in the same  
language, "and speak with respect."
	"I... apologize, Lord Bison.  Still, we have lost two men  
this day, and for what?  That idiot chicken-farmer was not lying when  
he said he was poor.  We cannot stay here for much longer, either;  
the fire and the resulting ruckus will--"
	"I am aware of that.  Did you carry out my orders with regard  
to the girl-child?"
	"Yeah, yeah.  We gave her a dose of Doctor Geovitch's drug,  
and you know what?  It didn't kill her.  She just shrugged the stuff  
off."
	"Indeed.  Interesting.  The good doctor should indeed learn  
of this information.  Why do you not report the night's events to  
him, when we return?"
	"Whatever you say, boss.  Do you want me to shoot the drugged  
brat before we ship out?"
	"No," commanded M. Bison, now returning his speech to Chinese  
so that his orders would be understood by all.  "Leave the girl-child  
behind.  The blood price for the loss of my soldier has been paid.   
Any who care to disagree will share the fate of the traitor who fired  
upon a member of the Left Hand of the Shadoloo without authorization.   
All of you--vanish, now."
	The troops did so, obeying the letter of the command as they  
scattered and faded into the early morning darkness.
	"As for you, General Alsace," continued the Shadoloo Lord to  
the only conscious member remaining member of the force he had  
brought with him on the raid, "you may carry the member of the Left  
Hand back."
	"Yes, Lord Bison."
	"Until we meet again."
	Then the last of the night's intruders disappeared, leaving  
behind three dead men, a blazing fire, and an eight-year-old girl  
huddled upon the cold street, half mad with grief and fear.  She  
looked at the inexplicable reptilian-and-avian designs upon the  
spiked cuffs Zhou Li had permitted her to wear; the sketchy patterns  
were amazingly distinct in the flickering firelight.  Once, the  
strange wristlets had been like fascinating toys; now, they were all  
that she had left of her father.
	That was how they found her... kneeling in the street and  
fingering the spiked bracelets, while the bonfire in front of her  
slowly died down to ash.  She wasn't crying, though; the last of her  
tears had already been exhausted, by then.

******

	Chang-tai Han took the abandoned Chun Li in.
	He taught her many things; about weapons, about metalworking,  
about history, about English... and also, about self-defense.  He  
sent her off to school each morning, and helped her with her lessons,  
when she asked.  And he told her stories, too; countless, fabulous  
stories about dragons and emperors and fallen nations long since  
gone, about oni and ki-rin, fantastic beasts and demi-human subraces  
that no longer walked the earth.
	Chun Li had always known that she was different from the  
other young girls her age.  Her brown hair, her streak of wild  
temper, the hushed stories about a mother that she remembered so  
little of... so much of it set her apart.  But after her father died,  
she almost existed in a different world from that of her peers.  She  
never removed the spiked bracelets, save when she literally had to in  
order to write, or perform some similar task.
	She never forgot the damnable night when a mysterious man  
calling himself Lord Bison had brutally murdered her father.  And so,  
after Chang-tai Han had taught her all that he could about the  
rudiments of self-defense, she approached a teacher in the Art of  
Wushu and petitioned to train in the ancient ways.
	Her goal was to become the strongest woman in the world, and  
an unbeatable fighter.  Even more than that, she desired to bring the  
spirit of her father peace, the only way she could... by one day  
searching out Lord Bison and putting a final end to his evil.

Bethany Cox
coxb@carleton.edu