Legend of The Lightning Legs

01 - A Memory of Falling Leaves

The brute rushed at Chun-Li with the force of an automobile in an attempt to smash the young detective against the wall. Blood ran easily from her nose and mixed with the sweat that had already collected above her top lip as she barely felt it flow from the pounding in her skull. They had been going at it for about five minutes and she wondered if she would still be considered pretty if she managed to live. His dash came so quickly that all she could manage to do was steel herself and block which did absolutely nothing to prevent her fragile body from going limp after the impact. His thick English accent was not one that she could decipher as he yelled things at her while looking down at her crumpled body.

This was it for Chun-Li and she wondered at what would be said at her eulogy: “Here lies Chun-Li an obsessed woman who fought men twice her size on a fool’s errand of revenge”. These thoughts were quick scans through her brain, interrupting her qi which she vainly tried to summon in a desperate effort to save her life.

There was a time in the past when this same resolve presented itself as young Chun watched from a tree as her father was killed. He was a respected business man and she could not figure out why he would meet with the evil man that had come to their house. The man's entire look scared little Chun-Li and his smile was like that of a predator. The meeting had started peacefully with friendly exchanges but had deteriorated into shouts and it was in a language that was foreign to her ears.

Before his successful career her father had been a champion martial artist and he was one of his school’s finest examples of Kung-Fu. It was an honor of which he never spoke but presented itself when his graceful stances and moves deflected his killer’s harsh kicks and punches. Her father, for all of his grace and power was not able to hold out against the advances of his enemy and as he inverted himself, balancing on an open palm, the evil man—who she soon learned was called Vega—jumped and landed on her father's face.

After screaming in horror at her father's death, Chun had leapt from the tree to help him, but broke her leg upon landing. It was the first time that she had uttered the promise of revenge to herself, a promise that became her mantra, and  eventually her reality. I will never be this helpless again.

The Englishman was distracted by sirens in the distance as they drew near and Chun-li was still recovering from his attack. He spat out a tooth that must’ve gotten dislodged from one of her successful high roundhouses, and he pulled out a dirty comb to adjust his Mohawk. This cocky gesture was all Chun-Li needed to recover and she kicked at his ankle with her right leg and then kicked higher to the outside of his knee with her left. The big man bellowed in pain as the crippling kick stunned him and he dropped his comb and clutched his knee. Chun-Li got to her feet, weak but enraged, and it was as if time slowed down as she considered his vulnerable body was now hers for punishment.

Pushing at him with the energy of a Kikoken qi ball, Chun-Li ran at him while delivering alternating roundhouse kicks from each leg. She climbed the brute with a crushing stomp to his damaged leg, then delivered another to his shoulder and with one final stomp, used his head as a springboard to catapult herself off and back to the ground. The crunch from the last stomp let her know that she had successfully damaged his spine, and as he fell over and his head hit the asphalt, she knew that the gangster “Birdy” would never walk again—that’s if he still lived.

As Chun-Li made her way out of the alley, clutching her bruised chest, her thoughts ran back to teenage years when she laid in a forest similarly damaged from self-inflicted wounds. Whenever she would train—even back then, the horrible day when her father died would return fresh in her mind. It was as if she couldn’t shake it, like a scar burned upon her hands, reminding her daily whenever she looked at it. She had followed in her father’s footsteps and mastered an ancient animal form of Kung-Fu but the memory of his inability to move Vega made her want to learn more. Vega had employed a lot of strong kicks and acrobatic moves when he fought her father so to combat that she decided that she had to learn something similar.

To supplement her Kung-Fu Chun-Li had befriended a Korean man who taught her how to kick after he was impressed by her martial arts potential. One day she was made to roundhouse a young tree and the skin on her legs gave way to black and blue bruises accompanied by more pain than she had ever felt in her life. It did not matter how hurt she was as her master would not let her stop. The kicks shook the tree weakly but the memory of Vega came back in a flash as she got wearier. It was enough to spike her enthusiasm into blind fury. Vega's memory had caused the pain to subside in her legs and she alternated kicks on the tree finding new locales with which to kick it, going faster and faster the angrier she got. In time her kicks became like the wings of a humming bird as her speed increased. She remembered the endless leaves falling during her training, as there were always falling leaves whenever she would train with him.

As Chun Li emerged from the alleyway, the police rushed past her to collect Birdy. the Interpol agents hurriedly threw a coat around her hunched shoulders and rushed her to an unmarked car. As they sped off she looked back to see the brute being walked out from the alley, handcuffed, bloodied and smiling at her in a strange show of reverence. She felt happy that he hadn’t died, and happy to see him walking albeit poorly. Birdy was a criminal but a drug dealer was not deserving of murder and she had only wanted information. Though she had failed at interrogating him, she had proven to herself that she was a force to be reckoned with. Although she was no closer to Vega, it at least gave her comfort that when the time came she would have the heart to finish it.