Dan walked the dusty streets of the city as a chilling wind ruffled his tightly tied hair. It blew a few stray bangs into his eyes, while his ponytail flapped in the wind like the tail of a kite without an owner. The cold wind did little to help Dan’s mood. He absently looked behind him to the blue sky rapidly giving way to dusk. Fei Long, bound on a plane for Belarus, probably hadn’t had a second thought of him since he got on the plane. It was just as well. It’s not like he wanted Fei Long troubled by–

As if to accentuate the point, Dan’s head erupted with another throb of pain. Even he, the world’s greatest practitioner of Saikyo-Ryuu Karate, didn’t feel too well after being slammed in the head with a crowbar. Even that high-assed Gouken would probably be crying like a baby by now....

But no. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things. Especially when one’s vision was turning fuzzy enough to make the street blend perfectly with the darkening sky. Dan stopped, his knees shaking underneath him, his eyes whipping violently in their sockets for something to make sense in the ever encroaching darkness.

Dan collapsed without so much as one word spoken aloud.

The light hurt his eyes. It burned, seared them to the point where he thought me must be blinded. A voice seemed to bellow from all around him.

“Come into the light...Come and get the light....” said the voice.

“Come and get the light,” thought Dan “what does that mean?”

The mind of the Saikyo-Ryuu warrior began to translate the message more clearly, also noting that its pitch was surprisingly higher than that of some higher deity.

“Come on, come on you lousy....grrr...come and get it!” growled the voice.

Dan turned his head-no easy task considering he was still blinded and rather immobile in a scratchy cot-towards the sound. It came from a small boy, barely in his teens, sitting against the cot with his back to the pink gi-ed one. He seemed to be shaking something rather violently in his hands, though Dan couldn’t see what. Whenever he gave it a particularly hard shake, a slight ‘beep’, ‘zap’, or ‘pika-splat!’ would emit from the object he was holding.

Dan managed a weak (not to mention slightly gurgley) groaning noise as he attempted to sit up. The kid turned to Dan, letting his arm droop slightly towards the floor. The hand on said arm held a small electronic device with a colorful glowing screen. Dan caught a quick glance of a person wearing blue and a splotch of yellow that seemed to emit lightning on the screen.

“You okay mister?” asked the lad. His own brown hair, complete with a bowl-cut, fell neatly into place over his blue eyes.

“Kid, I get the feeling I’m a looong way from okay.” groaned Dan.

The child simply looked at Dan, shrugged, and went back to his game. Dan got a better look at the device-the moving images interested him while he himself could only remain in the cot. It was mostly green, but parts of the covering had been removed, so various wires and circuits stuck out in some areas.

“Ain’t that thing a little beat up?” asked the prostrated warrior.

“No it isn’t,” said the young man “It’s just a Game Boy. I modified it.” he turned the Game Boy around so Dan could see the back. He pointed at some random gadget, while Dan stared at the title on the cartridge.

“Mega Man X...heh, where do they come up with this stuff?” wondered Dan.

“I modified it,” rambled the boy “by adding some of these circuits I turned the evil robots into pikachus. Cool, isn’t it?”

Dan turned his head quickly-a lesson he painfully learned not to repeat-at the sound of another voice piercing the conversation.

“Kevin! Get away from that man!” said voice was loud, grating, and definitely female “How many times have I told you not to talk to sick people?”

“But mom,” the young Kevin tried valiantly to defend his being there while his mother dragged him towards what appeared to be an exit. “He’s a nice guy and he doesn’t even look sick!”

“Really sick people don’t look as sick as they really are,” Dan attempted to look at the woman dispensing such half-witted logic, and found he couldn’t see her as the dress she wore was even louder then her voice. “And besides...all that pink he’s wearing? He’s probably some fruit.”

Normally, Dan would’ve been up in a flash to defend his karate suit-no one insults the suit-but the offender would run free this time. His head would not allow him movement under any circumstances. Instead, he simply took it in stride and looked around the room he was in.

He had realized about when he woke up that he was lying in a cot. However, he hadn’t taken notice of his surroundings. Namely, the fact he wasn’t alone. The room was crowded with people. Some coughing, hacking, some just sitting and trying not to touch anyone or anything. He lay back against the cot looking again at the blinding fluorescent light. His eyes were gradually getting used to its glare, if that was anything to be happy about. A few minutes later, a woman with shining blond hair and a white nurses uniform emerged from a door. She sat down on the edge of Dan’s cot and took out a pen, ready to write on the clipboard she had with her.

“You’re lucky Kevin found you lying on the street like that. You have any idea how cold it is tonight?” asked the nurse.

“No ma’am,” said Dan, “where am I?”

“You’re in a small hospital. Kevin dragged you hear when he found you unconscious on the street. When he got here all the doctors were busy with other patients so we let you rest here in the emergency room,” the nurse explained all this with calm patience, like she probably had a hundred times before, “Now, I have some questions I need you to answer...”

“Fire away” said Dan.

“Okay. What’s your name?” asked the nurse.

“Dan Hibiki”

“Address?”

“None”

“Well I guess that rules out home phone number as well. Why were you lying in the street anyway?” she asked.

“Some gang punk slammed my head with a crowbar. I think he wanted revenge cause a friend and I stopped one of his brother members from robing a fast food joint. Can you believe how idiotic that is? Robbing a McDonalds?” Dan had an almost irrepressible urge of the giggles at the memory, but was able to get it in check after a moment.

“Oh, so you’re one of the people who saved the McDonalds, are you?” the nurse seemed to give him a grateful smile “My cousin’s the manager there. He said you and your friend probably saved some lives.”

“All in a days work for a wandering hero’s looking for hamburgers” Dan joked, which prompted a short round of laughter from the both of them.

“You kind of remind me of Yun and Yang Lee...” said the nurse.

“Who and what?” asked the perplexed Saikyo-Ryuu practitioner.

“They’re two brothers in Hong Kong. I took a trip there once and saw them fight in a tournament. They’re two amazing fighters. Very sweet as well, I’m told.” she explained. For a moment she seemed extremely depressed, “I wish they were here. There’s a lot of gang activity popping up around here. A few fighters would be nice to have around.”

“You don’t need to worry,” said the still-prostrate warrior, “I, Dan Hibiki, is here!”

“But with no address, I though you’d just be moving on out of town. I remember a fighter wearing a suit like yours, only his was white, came through few months ago. He just blew in and blew out when he found out no one would fight him.”

“Wearing white?” Dan thought for a moment. A fighter, wearing a white gi. Leaving once there are no challengers? “Maybe she means Ryu...”

Dan easily remembered the white-clad man. His travel was random throughout Japan, China, and most of Eastern Asia. He was always on foot and his direction was random, so it was quite a surprise when Dan himself encountered him. Naturally, Ryu had accepted Dan’s challenge.

The fight had taken...what? Minutes? Hours? Dan honestly couldn’t remember. What stuck in his memory was that he lost, and how Ryu had acted when Dan was beaten.

~~~Flashback! Ooo, wavy lines!~~~

Dan felt the force of hitting the wall for only a moment. The small pain which echoed through his back at the impact was instantly forgotten as he ducked to avoid Ryu’s elbow closing in on his head. He heard the elbow slam into the wall, and thought for a moment he felt chips of stone fall onto his back.

“Koryuken! (Translation: Shiny Dragon Fist!)” yelled the pink-clad warrior, jumping from his crouch with one arm outstretched above his head. The uppercut caught Ryu in the jaw, and both went sailing into the air. Dan simply couldn’t resist taunting Ryu as he tried to clear his head and get to his feet. Dan quickly tucked himself into a ball, rolled backward, and came up again onto his feet standing and flexing his right arm.

“Ikuzora!!” (trans. “Let’s go!!”) yelled the taunting master. Ryu heard the insult, and got to his feet quickly. Dan smirked, and crouched down again. He jumped, but instead of launching himself vertically, he jumped forward with his left knee outstretched towards Ryu. Ryu arched an eyebrow at the pink-clad one. It was quite obvious he couldn’t reach him with that pathetic kick...

Dan quickly proved the white-wearing warrior wrong. He violently thrust his right leg out, tucking his left knee back in. The burst of force in the kick carried him even further. Ryu silently cursed himself for underestimating the attack, and channeled his own inner spirit into his legs, jumping towards Dan, but with a much more vertical trajectory.

“Dankuukyaku!” (Trans. “Dan Cutting Kick!”) screamed Dan as he brought his left leg back out fully, giving him another burst of speed in the air. He tucked his right leg back in, ready to slide into the ground as he completed the special Saikyo-Ryuu technique. Dan was quite surprised to see Ryu flying above and over him, spinning his legs like a propeller. The gap between the two was a good vertical twenty feet, and the distance only increased as the two continued on their respective aerial courses. Dan slid to a halt in front of a tree, and jumped up to his feet with his back to Ryu.

As he turned around, he saw Ryu had already landed and had his hands cupped at his side. Small streaks of lightning seemed to flow from the very air around him, running down his arms like snakes towards a rat in the desert sun. The snakes of lightning quickly combined at one central point between his hands, as Ryu thrust them towards Dan, releasing the once-captive energy in a collision course for the pink-clad man.

“Shinku-Hadoken!” (Authors translation: “Damn Big Fireball!”) Ryu screamed as the energy raced towards Dan. With his mind scrambling for a defense, Dan did the only thing he could think of: he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

The large bolt of energy hitting him induced an proportionately large bolt of pain in his arms, as the force of the lightning energy crackling around him slammed him into the tree behind him. The pain was then amplified as Dan received an additional blow to the head from hitting the tree. Dan quickly fell to the ground and found it surprisingly difficult to stand up again.

Dan recited every curse he could think of mentally to himself. He had lost again! First to that bastard gloater Ken in the American Martial Arts Tournament, and now to Ryu in a simple street fight! It wasn’t fair! Saikyo-Ryuu should easily beat Shotokan Karate! Gouken must have kept some secrets hidden from him.

Dan weakly looked up to see Ryu walking silently towards him. He couldn’t see the Shotokan fighters face. Dan just knew Ryu was going to add insult to injury by bragging how great he was and berating his fallen opponent. Just like his rival Ken. All the damn shotos were alike...

“Wow, that was a pretty fierce fight!” said Ryu.

“Yeah, sure,” though the dejected Dan, “Just get the insults over with....”

“I almost thought I couldn’t get up after that Koryuken.” Ryu said casually.

“....What?” Dan was, to say the least, surprised. He was even more surprised when he saw a hand come down to his face. As first he thought Ryu was going to slap him, but then realized he was offering to help him up. With his mind whirling and confused, Dan again did the only thing he could think of: he took the hand and got up.

“Work on the speed of that flying kick, and I’ll have an even harder run for my money next time!” Ryu said with a smile.

“Uh...” Dan struggled for words in his confusion, “You’re probably right. How did you do that huge fireball, anyway?”

“Oh that. Its surprisingly simple. You simply have to pour a lot more power into your fists, concentrate that power to a central point in the sphere, and let ‘er rip. It’s a bit taxing, though, so you can’t do it constantly like I can with my regular Hadokens.” Ryu didn’t sound condescending, as Dan would have expected. He sounded more like his father had before he fought Sagat many years before.

“Well...thanks. I’ll remember that.” said Dan, who was beginning to smile himself.

Ryu calmly walked over to a duffel bag, the one he had set against a wall before the fight began, and started to walk off. Before he got five steps away, he turned back to Dan.

“I’ll see you again, and I’ll be after a rematch!” he yelled.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get a good one!” Dan yelled back jovially, shaking his fist in the air again. Both men laughed, and went on their respective ways.

~~~End of flashback. More wavy lines, wheee!~~~

“Well don’t you worry ma’am,” said Dan to the nurse “I’m not quite as quick to leave as my predecessor was.”

“You mean you’ll be staying in town?” she asked.

“Yup. It’d be my pleasure.” he replied.

“Okay then. You’ll have to stay here till we can run some tests and make sure your head isn’t fractured, and then I think I know some places you can go”

“I’d appreciate it” said Dan.

By the end of the day, a doctor had been examining Dan’s head and estimated that he would need about two weeks to recover. He stayed in the hospital, but quickly grew tired with the lack of either entertainment or the chance for decent exercise. In one week he told the kind doctor that he had no intention of staying any longer. Ignoring the doctors warnings of possible harmful effects on his health, Dan left the hospital.

He walked along the streets once again, this time minus the throbbing headache. He reached what looked to be a small park, with its main point of interest being a piece of blacktop with a basketball net on one end. Several small children were gathered around the net, trying to reach the top where a basketball had been tied to the backboard.

“Hey mister! You’re tall, can you help us?” one of the children ran up to Dan pleading for his help, and the Saikyo-Ryuu practitioner could never resist a child’s asking for help.

“Sure kid. You need your basketball back, right?” he asked.

“Uh huh. Some big bullies came by and tied it up there.” said the child. He quickly grabbed Dan’s hand and led him over to the basketball net where the other kids were gathered.

“He can’t reach, he’s not tall enough!” one shouted.

“I won’t need to use my height!” declared Dan. He crouched low to the ground, and leapt up with his fist outstretched.

“Koryuken!” he yelled, as his hand came up through the basket and knocked the ball free of its makeshift shackles. When he landed, Dan took one quick step to the side as the ball dropped through the basket.

“Two points!” yelled Dan to the children. Half were either laughing in glee that their ball had been returned while the other half were staring at him wide eyed.

“I’ve never seen anyone jump that high...” one of the children said.

“That looked like an attack!” said another.

“Look at his clothes! Maybe that’s some sort of costume?” a third one asked.

By now their conversation had pierced the ears of the other children. By now they were all staring at him in awe.

“Do you think...” asked the first child, “he’s a super hero?”

Dan grinned. “Of course I am!”

“Really!?” asked the kids. This was certainly a rare feat! A super hero, in their own town! “What’s your name?”

“Well, I don’t think I can tell you my real name, for there may be enemies about! The very enemies I’ve come to punish!” Dan grinned even wider.

“Well then what’s your super hero name?” asked the children.

“Well, my super hero name is...” Dan thought for a moment. He suddenly remembered the game Kevin was playing when he first woke up in the hospital. Dan jumped over the group of children, and landed outside their circle on the other side of the blacktop. He turned back to them grinning widely and sticking out his arm, making a peace sign.

“I am Mega Dan X!” declared the Saikyo-Ryuu user, much to the squealing delight of the children.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our hero but knownst to us, someone was watching this exchange. Two someones to be exact.

“A hero?” asked one.

“He’s just putting on a show. But he is the one who took one of our gang out at the McDonalds.” said the other.

“What’re we gonna do to him?” asked evil henchman #1.

“Let’s go see the old lady first. I think she’ll be interested in him....” said #2, and with that, they both ran off.