A gold bug-
I hurl into the darkness
and feel the depth of night.
--Takahama

The explosion took those in the Blackbird completely by surprise.

The jet disintegrated from the blast and spilled its passengers to the ground below. Scott Summers felt a surge of panic as he fell before he was caught by the flying Phoenix, his love, Jean Grey.

"Relax, you're in my arms now."

Scott, also know as Cyclops, looked around and saw his other companions safe as well, the airborne Archangel having caught Psylocke and gently setting her down.

They had landed squarely in Central Park, a continent away from their destination: Muir Island and the Xavier Protocols they needed to consult.

Which still left the question of what had literally grounded them. Scott found Jean with her eyes closed, deep in concentration. Phoenix opened her eyes suddenly, and her companions gathered around her in concern.

"This reality…it's breaking up…I sense…" Her form shimmered, as did Archangel's, and the rest of her words were drowned out by a second explosion, as silent as the first, which threw Cyclops and Psylocke to the ground several feet away.

"Jean…Warren…" Cyclops cast about blindly, blinking away the spots from his eyes. Psylocke was similarly incapacitated. When his vision returned, Cyclops saw no sign of Phoenix and Archangel. Instead, he found two figures in tattered karate gis looking about.

* * * * *

The voice had faded and indeed, it sounded so ethereal that Ryu thought he had imagined it. He felt disoriented and saw that Ken was shaking his head clear of cobwebs.

What had happened?

And where was Sean??

Ken saw them first--dressed in outlandish, skin-tight outfits, they were an imposing sight to the already inchoate Street Fighter. His gaze lingered on the female's impressive figure almost too long: a warning flash from the man's unusual eye-piece caught him by surprise. Ken rolled from the attack and came up face-to-face with his assailant.

"Tatsumaki-Senpuu-Kyaku!" Of course, he didn't say all that. Ken was too busy lashing out with multiple spinning kicks at Cyclops, lifting the one-time leader of the X-Men into the air before unleashing a wicked axe kick that sent him to the ground.

As Ken landed from his technique, he saw Psylocke rushing to help her companion, her fists pulsing with energy.

Always feeling threatened by pretty women, Ken tried to be diplomatic. "Now look, I don't know why you're--oof!" The rest of his sentence trailed off as Psylocke landed a palm strike into Ken's solar plexus.

Ryu started to aid his friend but was intercepted by Cyclops, who was unleashing optic blasts with abandon. Ryu tried to counter with a hadou-ken but was overpowered and felt the sting of Cyclops' optic blast. The Shotokan master retreated and took cover. The sheer power that his opponent unleashed stunned Ryu, as he wondered how he could possibly attack without being hit first.

Shinkuu Hadou-ken. The force of that technique might be enough to defeat his strange opponent. Ryu had no idea what kind of tournament he was in, but he planned to win.

Meanwhile, Ken found that his opponent easily anticipated every single one of his attacks. Psylocke's telepathic probes were enough to keep her one step ahead of Ken as she unleashed a barrage of psychic knives that scoured the warrior's skin and left him bruised and bleeding profusely. He realized, suddenly, that he was telegraphing his moves too obviously and planning too much.

The key to the fight was not to think, but to react, incorporating his training to a level so that thought was unnecessary. Ken could never understand why Ryu practiced the same basic moves over and over again, perfecting what was already perfect. He had always been one to look to new techniques, flashier moves, never understanding the importance of developing his techniques so that they were second nature to him.

Now, facing a true master of the martial arts, Ken might have reached that realization too late.

* * * * *

Cyclops' optic blasts took away every cover that Ryu scrambled to, leaving the young warrior stranded in the open. Seeing no other choice, Ryu set his stance and felt a surge of chi such as he had never experienced before. Cyclops felt the massive energy gathering between Ryu's palms and stopped firing his optic blasts. Having blown away every rock, tree, and bench in the vicinity, he had nowhere to run.

Unable to contain the power any longer, Ryu thrust his arms forward and let loose a tidal wave force of chi. The shock of the Shinkuu Hadou-ken stunned Ryu and he ended the attack prematurely, leaving Cyclops bruised and battered, but alive. The mutant had taken the brunt of the attack very badly and was surprised to see his adversary pull up short, but he was not going to question his good fortune.

Flipping open his visors, he prepared to discharge all of his optic energy in a single burst.

* * * * *

Psylocke was everywhere, her punches and kicks harassing Ken from all sides. The young man countered gamely, but was often too slow to score more than a glancing shot.

And yet, he was smiling. Ken had seldom experienced such a rush in a battle before--the thrill of facing death, the added adrenaline that was now coursing through his veins.

Every time Ken got up from an attack, Psylocke saw that his smile widened. At first she thought that she had knocked him silly, but now she was wondering if he was so psychotic that he enjoyed pain; Onslaught would recruit someone like that. Now, she was tiring and despite her best efforts, Ken was rising again. He did not even seemed phased, but his eyes were bright and energetic. The very air around him shimmered like on a hot summer day. She realized that this was his chi manifesting itself. Where had all this fiery energy come from?

Ken jumped forward, launching into a hurricane kick. Psylocke fell to the ground to avoid his sweeping kicks, only to face a flaming fist.

"Shoryuken!"

The rising uppercut scorched Psylocke and she fell back. Ken quickly landed and threw out his fist again, catching Psylocke in the jaw.

"Shoryuken!"

Psylocke recovered much more quickly this time and though she was surprised to find that Ken was readying himself for another repetition, she sucked in a breath of protective chi and weathered the final punch with ease.

"Shoryuken!"

This last "dragon punch" propelled Ken high into the air, and he knew he was in trouble when he saw his opponent setting up below him. He had but one chance.

As he landed, Ken continued the spiraling motion of his three shoryukens and crouched low.

Psylocke saw him land right in front of her and summoned all of her strength for her next, and hopefully, final, technique.

"Psi-Maelstrom!"

"Shinryuken!"

Their attacks connected simultaneously and both fighters felt the wind knocked out of them, but the energy that they unleashed continued to catapult them skyward. As their spiralling attacks wound down, they fell apart, mutually repelled.

Ryu saw his friend hurtling towards the ground and raced to catch him.

At the time, Cyclops was gearing up for his attack and saw that he could destroy both targets at once.

"Behold! Optic Bl--ah!"

The corny announcement took too long. Psylocke fell heavily onto him, disrupting his attack.

Yet she was still conscious.

"Here, take my power, Scott," she managed to say as she fed him the last of her energy. As he turned around to unleash their combined strength at Ryu and Ken, Psylocke placed her hand over his mouth and flipped open his visor for him.

"Bu-hmm, Obb-dick Bwat!"

Ryu caught Ken, set him down, and turned to meet Cyclops' attack, hoping that his enhanced chi would enable him to effectively counter the Optic Blast.

"Shinkuu--Hadou-ken!"

The two colossal discharges met in an angry flare of blinding light. For moments, the energies wrestled, then Ryu could feel the pressure building and forcing him backwards.

Straining, he half-turned his head and gritted out, "Ken! Back me up!"

His friend and erstwhile rival struggled to his feet and prepared the unfamiliar technique.

"Shinkuu Hadou-ken!"

The additional surge of power was a welcome relief to Ryu, who let himself relax enough to take another breath, then release it with his chi. The ensuing torrent washed over Cyclops and Psylocke with the force of a tsunami, and the two were jetted back, plowing a deep trench into the earth. When Ryu and Ken finally stopped, their opponents remained unmoving.

Ryu sank to the ground beside Ken, both breathing heavily and trying to replenish their depleted chi.

"Some fight, eh?" Ken managed a weak grin.

Ryu slowly stood up, then helped his friend to rise.

"I would feel better if I knew my opponent. This is no tournament; we are being manipulated."

Ken considered this in light of their strange arrival and their even stranger opponents. "'Know thy enemy, know thyself.' Sun Tzu, right?"

Ryu finally smiled at that. "Very impressive, Ken. I did not know you actually listened to Master's history lessons."

"I'm remembering some of it," Ken responded grimly. "I'll need to remember every thing Master taught us."

Ryu nodded in agreement. "Come," he said, "let us learn what we may."

The two walked off to explore this strange, familiar world.

* * * * *

In a pile of rubble several hundred feet away, Cyclops managed to rise to an elbow, propping himself against the wall that finally broke their momentum.

"Must…radio…the mansion…Protocols…no one to…unseal them." He gasped out the words, trying to steel his resolve to get up.

Falling to the ground once again, he gave up. Jean and Warren were gone. He and Psylocke were perhaps fatally-wounded and could not help the other X-Men.