By Matt Lawson

Something monumental was about to happen to her; possibly the most monumental thing ever to happen to her in her entire life. Lying on the hospital bed which was being pushed by three strangers in surgical gear, she gazed down the hallway as an endless number of doctors and patients pressed themselves against the wall and allowed her to pass.

"Why wasn’t he here? Why wasn’t he with her? Why’d he have to go off and phone that damn friend of his??" Then it happened again. It came back.
The lasso of pain whipped around her hips and slowly began to tighten. She bared her teeth and tried hard not to scream, grimacing from t

“RRRGGHH!!”

“Come on Mrs. Masters! Just breathe steadily, okay?”

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I’M DOING!!”

The doctors and nurses ignored her cries and continued to push the bed with the struggling woman down the corridor. This was their job, and they were trained to ignore the screaming and just attend to her needs.

Meanwhile, Ken started to run to find out where the source of the screaming was. He had just gone away for five minutes to phone Ryu up and just lost her like that.

“Hey, did you see a screaming woman with a bump in her stomach and a murderous look in her eye?” He asked a passing nurse.

“You mean Mrs. Masters? She just went down the hallway towards the delivery room. I’ll take you there.”

Ken followed the nurse towards his destination. Another scream from Eliza. He knew he was getting close. A doctor stopped him and waved Ken into the dressing room, where Ken tore off his clothes and got into surgical greens. It took a few minutes. Ken was clumsy from the excitement of the whole thing. He walked through the waiting room and into the delivery room.

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” the doctor observed.

“I thought you were supposed to inspire confidence in your patient!” Eliza spat back at him angrily. Then she started blowing again, fighting off the impulse to push. Ken grabbed her hand.

“Hi, babe.”
“Your timing is pretty good,” the doctor observed.

“Five minutes earlier would have been better!” she said angrily. Her faced was bathed in sweat, and very tired. And she looked beautiful.

“I had to call Ryu over here. Didn’t want him to miss this.” He turned to the doctor. “How is she?”

“She’d be in a hurry if we weren’t all waiting for you to get back from your phone call. Otherwise everything looks good,” the doctor answered. He seemed far more nervous than the soon-to-be mother. “Are you ready to push?”

“YES!!”

Eliza squeezed Ken’s hand. Her eyes closed and she summoned her strength for the effort. Her breath came out slowly.

“That’s it baby. Come on, you can do…ow! Ow! OWW! OWWWWW!!!” Ken started to scream as she started to dig her nails into the palms of Ken’s hands as the garrote squeezed and squeezed, until it felt as if her heart were being turned inside out.

“There’s the head. Everything’s fine. One more push and we’re home,” the doctor said. His gloved hands were poised to make the catch.

Ken turned, despite the pain in his hand, as the rest of the newborn appeared. His position allowed him to tell even before the doctor did. The infant had already started screaming, as a healthy baby should. At last the sharp pain subsided as she let go of his hand, leaving four brown crescents in his palm.

“Boy,” Ken Masters told his wife just before he kissed her, “I love you.”

The nearest nurse assisted the doctor as he clamped off the cord and swaddled the infant in a white blanket to take him away a few feet. The placenta came next with an easy push.

“A little tearing,” the doctor reported. He reached for a painkiller before he started the stitching.

“I can tell,” Eliza replied with a slight grimace. “Is he okay?”

“Looks okay to me,” the doctor said. “Eight pounds even, and all the pieces in the right places. Airway’s fine, and the kid’s got a great little heart.”

Ken picked up his son, a small, noisy package of red flesh with an absurd little button of a nose.

“Welcome to the world. I’m your father,” he said quietly. After a moment he looked down at his wife. “Do you want to see your son?”

“I’m afraid he doesn’t have much of a mother left.”

“She looks pretty good to me.” Ken placed his son in Eliza’s arms. “Are you all right?”

“Except for our home, I think I have everything here that I need, Ken.”

Ken kissed his wife as they looked at the newborn baby in Eliza’s arms.

The other couple were running towards the waiting room. Thanks to Guile’s guidance on Chun Li’s cell-phone and Chun Li’s unusual breaking of driving laws, to which she stated to Ryu “They can take any speeding fines off Interpol’s account,” they managed to get there in a very quick time indeed.

Taking directions from the nurses, they dashed towards the room, Chun Li holding up her Interpol identity badge as if it was an emergency. They walked into the room and discovered there was nobody there.

Until Ken walked in with a beaming smile on his face a few seconds after they came in.

“You two have just become an uncle and a godmother!”

They embraced each other with laughter and smiles.

They were standing in the hallway, looking through the window into the nursery. There, the little baby lay peacefully in the little glass box that was the incubator. Ken stared at him with a smile on his face.

“Have you decided on a name for him yet?” asked Chun Li.

“Mel…Mel Masters.”

“Mel, huh?” Ryu said as he continued to look into the room. He turned his head to look at Chun Li, and saw that she had a wishful look in her eyes.
So, she wants a baby too, huh? he thought.

At that moment, he started to hold her hand, and she grasped it tightly. “You must be proud, Ken.” Chun Li said to him.

“I am. I’ve found something else to fight for if I have to, something to protect. I’ll protect him with my life if I have to.”

They continued to look at the baby, realizing it to be true. A child certainly was something that many fathers would risk their lives for. And even though Ryu was not a father, he felt the same way. He’d help Ken in anyway to protect Mel, and were he ever to be a father himself, he’d so exactly the same thing for his own.
He looked at Chun Li, and he saw in her eyes that she was the same thing. He then read what she was saying in her mind, like a telepathic link between the two lovers.

He moved his head sideways as if to say, you sure?

She nodded her head in agreement.

The couple started to walk from the window, when Ken turned. “Ryu!”

Ryu turned to face Ken. “Yes, Ken?”

“You’re going to face him aren’t you? Akuma, I mean.”

“How did you…?”

“Don’t bother asking, I can tell. After what he’s done to you, I can understand why.”

“I have to face him. If I don’t, he’ll continue to torment me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live like that anymore.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“What??”

“Are you insane, Ken?” Chun Li asked, “Did all that excitement and happiness about Mel do something to you?”

“I’m not kidding, Li. I’m going with him.”

“But, what about Mel? You’ve just become a father, you can’t just go off like that. And what about Eliza, who can’t leave her like thi-”

“We talked about this when they took Mel to the nursery. She’s agreed. I can be a real stubborn bastard sometimes and she knows it. I want to protect my family from anything that presents a threat to us. Akuma is one of those threats.”

“I can’t let you do it. This is my fight, this doesn’t involve you.”

“The hell it doesn’t! This involves me as much as it does you.” Ken replied, placing a hand on Ryu’s shoulder. “Sensei was as much my father figure as he was yours, Ryu. Akuma took him away from the both of us. I want a piece of him as much as you do. I’m going.”

There was a tense pause. “You know what,” Ryu spoke finally, “You’re right, you are a real stubborn bastard sometimes.”

“Of course, why do you think I was able to put up with you all those years in the dojo and then put up with you moving about all over the world all these years afterwards?”

The first class lounge at Los Angeles International airport was comfortable enough, or would have been had Ryu not been nervous about flying. Beyond the floor to ceiling windows he cthe Boeing 767 that he’d be taking home in a few minutes. Ryu never liked flying at the best of times. A man who rarely encountered and distrusted technology, since he was always on the road, the only times he ever flew was so as not to insult Ken by refusing him every time Ken bought an airline ticket for Ryu. Still, at least this time Ken was going with him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked Cammy, who would be taking care of Chun Li should the worse ever happen.

“I have to Cammy, this has to end now.”

“Well, it’s your fight, Ryu. Not like I’m facing up to some mad psychotic now. Least you got someone to cover you.”

“Yeah, well,” stammered Ken, “you can be sure that Ryu’s gonna be alive, I’m not going to die by someone else’s hands…”

“You worried about this Akuma guy too?” Guile, who was also present, asked.

“Nah, I’m more worried about Chun Li. She’d kill me if anything were to happen to Ryu…”

A few chuckles, none coming from Ryu and Chun Li, could be heard. Ken patted Ryu on the back.

“Just trying to lighten up the mood, buddy.”

“Flight 325 to Tokyo now boarding at gate 4. All passengers…”

“That’s our flight pal.”

Traveling to the necessary gate, Ryu, Ken, Guile, Cammy and Chun Li walked silently to the inevitable parting.

They turned to say what could turn out to be their last goodbyes.

“Guess it’s time.” Ken said to the three non-participants.

“Give him hell, guys.” Guile said with a salute, Cammy saluting beside him. Chun Li just stood, silent. Ryu looked at her, knowing what was going on in her mind. He took a step forward, and Chun Li hugged him tightly.

“You have to come back to me. Promise me that.” Chun Li whispered in his ear, tears in her eyes.

“I promise, Chun Li. I will come back.” They hugged for some time. Finally, Ken placed a hand on Ryu’s shoulder.

“C’mon Muscle-man. Let’s go.”

The couple broke their embrace and parted. Cammy put a hand round Chun Li’s waist to comfort her.
All they could do was watch as the two friends walked down the tunnel towards the plane that would take them to their destiny…