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The moment both characters were locked in, the screen flashed white. The versus screen materialized, displaying the two fighters in dramatic profile—Ken on the left, Chun-Li on the right, both rendered in stunning detail with their names emblazoned beneath them. Then the stage loaded, the background snapping into vibrant life as the music swelled.
The theme was upbeat and energetic, with a distinctly Eastern flair that somehow felt both modern and timeless. Caelan had taken Chun-Li's theme from Street Fighter IV as his foundation, but he'd manually degraded the audio quality—deliberately "lo-fi-ing" it to match the retro aesthetic of the character sprites. Even with the reduced bit-rate, the melody was incredibly catchy, pulsing with the kind of energy that made you want to move.
The sound quality itself was crisp and clear, far superior to the simple bleeps and bloops of his earlier games. The Weave didn't restrict audio nearly as much as visual complexity, which meant Caelan could push the music quality much higher without draining his magical reserves. It was one of the few areas where he could really show off.
"Ah? This... where is this?" Cassius leaned forward, his eyes widening as he took in the stage background. Recognition dawned almost immediately. "Wait—"
"Isn't this right in front of your shop?" Victor finished, pointing at the screen with barely contained glee.
He was right. Caelan had set Chun-Li's home stage on none other than Gray Horse Street, with Game City positioned dead center in the background. The shop's name—GAME CITY—was rendered in large, bold letters that cycled through different colors thanks to a magical lighting effect. It looked exactly like his real storefront, down to the smallest details.
And he hadn't stopped there.
A small, pixelated figure stood at the shop entrance, her tiny arms pumping up and down in enthusiastic cheering motions. Even at this reduced scale, she was instantly recognizable: Ella of House Redbean, complete with her signature apron decorated with the red bean cake pattern. Caelan had captured her cheerful energy perfectly.
To the left of Game City stood the Horn Hammer Blacksmith Shop. Uncle Musta and his eldest son Hogan were positioned outside the door, both brandishing ancient weapons overhead in exaggerated, encouraging gestures. Through a small window visible in the shop's upper floor, a tiny figure sat hunched over what could only be a game console—Karrum, completely absorbed in his own digital world, oblivious to the combat happening on the street below.
To the right was Qiao Yu's Fishrice Tofu Shop. The proprietress and her husband stood visible through their front window, watching the fighters with interest. Inside the shop, miniature customers sat at tables, drinking from colorful beverages. Caelan had even relocated the Cloud Pig Pork Soup stall from across the street into this version of the scene, its vendor enthusiastically hawking his wares between rounds.
It was shameless community advertising, and Caelan was absolutely proud of it.
"You really went all out on this background," Cassius said, shaking his head with a mixture of amusement and admiration. "Uncle Musta's going to love this."
"Ella's going to lose her mind when she sees herself in the game," Victor added, grinning.
"Just wait until the full release," Caelan said, trying and failing to hide his smug satisfaction. "Every character has their own home stage with this kind of detail."
"Alright, alright," Victor said, flexing his fingers over the control panel. "Enough admiring the scenery. How do we actually play this thing?"
"Right." Caelan shifted into instructor mode. "This game is fundamentally different from my previous releases. There's no level progression, no platforming challenges, no enemies to defeat. It's purely about two masters testing their skills against one another. The entire focus is on reading your opponent, executing your strategy, and adapting to their tactics."
He pointed at the screen, where both characters stood in their idle animations, facing each other across the street.
"First rule: press Up to jump."
Both Victor and Cassius hit the up direction simultaneously. Ken and Chun-Li launched into the air in perfect synchronization, arcing gracefully before landing back on the cobblestones.
"Good. Now, your character automatically faces your opponent—you'll notice they're always oriented toward each other. This means the directional inputs are relative. Moving toward your opponent is 'Forward,' and moving away is 'Backward.' For you, Cassius, since you're on the left side, Forward is Right. For Victor on the right, Forward is Left. Make sense?"
They nodded, testing the movement. Their characters walked forward and back, the animations fluid and natural.
"Now here's something crucial," Caelan continued. "If you hold the Back direction while your opponent attacks, you'll automatically block. It won't prevent all damage—you'll take a small amount of chip damage from blocked hits—but it's infinitely better than eating the full force of an attack."
Victor immediately started experimenting, walking Chun-Li forward and throwing out light punches. Cassius held back, and Ken raised his arms in a defensive stance, the attacks sparking harmlessly against his guard.
"Okay, that's actually pretty intuitive," Cassius said.
For the next several minutes, Caelan walked them through the fundamentals. How to execute special moves—the iconic fireball motion of Down, Forward + Punch. The anti-air Dragon Punch input of Forward, Down, Forward + Punch. How to link light attacks into heavier ones for basic combos. The concept of frame advantage and why some moves left you vulnerable.
To Caelan's genuine surprise, Victor took to the game like a fish to water.
Victor, who usually struggled with the precise timing required for platformers. Victor, who'd died repeatedly to the same pit in Super Mario because he couldn't gauge jump distances. Victor, who'd once declared that Elemental Contra was "a personal attack on his reflexes."
That Victor was absolutely thriving in Street Fighter.
He picked up the rhythm almost instantly, his fingers flying across the buttons with increasing confidence. Within minutes, he was matching Cassius blow for blow, his Chun-Li dancing around Ken's attacks with surprising grace. Every successful combo drew an excited shout from him.
"Holy moly, Caelan! This is amazing!" Victor's eyes were locked on the screen, his whole body leaning into each movement. "Why didn't you release this sooner? This is way better than jumping on turtles!"
Caelan chuckled. "I didn't have the mana capacity for it. Even now, it's pushing my limits. Engraving this much data into a card—all sixteen characters, their movesets, the stage backgrounds, the music—it's like trying to carve an entire mountain with a toothpick. The magical complexity is insane."
"Fair enough," Victor conceded, then his eyes narrowed as he studied Ken's character model more closely. Something about the design had caught his attention. "But hold on a second. Why does Ken have a lion emblem on his gi?"
He paused the game—one of the few ways to actually stop the action—and pointed at the red lion symbol emblazoned on Ken's white martial arts uniform.
"Admit it, Caelan," Victor said, his grin turning absolutely wicked. "You're secretly a fan of mine. You saw my White Flame Lion technique and put it in the game, didn't you? This is basically fan art of my ultimate move!"
Caelan rolled his eyes so hard he nearly saw the back of his skull. "In your dreams! Ken is from the Lionheart Empire—it's a national symbol, you narcissist! It has nothing to do with you. Besides, I've never even seen this so-called 'ultimate move' of yours, so how could I possibly copy it?"
"Victor's signature technique creates a literal lion made of white flames," Cassius interjected, his tone dry as he focused on executing another combo. "He's just being insufferably vain as usual."
"Hey, if anyone should be worried, it's you, Cassius," Victor shot back, completely unrepentant. He unpaused the game, immediately throwing out a sweep that caught Ken's legs. "Your fire magic takes the shape of a phoenix, right? The women of the Phoenix Empire are notoriously possessive about that symbol. I'm genuinely concerned about your future romantic prospects, cousin. Nicole might not appreciate the competition."
"Go to hell!" Cassius snapped, but there was no real heat in it—just the familiar exasperation of long friendship.
As if to punctuate his words, his Ken suddenly caught Chun-Li mid-jump with a perfectly timed Hurricane Kick. The spinning aerial attack connected cleanly, sending Victor's character spiraling backward across the screen. She hit the ground hard, bouncing once before sliding to a stop.
Caelan's attention was drawn to the bottom of the screen, where two meters had been steadily filling throughout the match. "Your energy gauges are full!" he said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. "You can unleash your Super Special Moves now. These are your ultimate techniques—incredibly powerful attacks that can turn the entire match around."
Both Victor and Cassius perked up at that.
"For both of your characters, the input is the same," Caelan explained. "Down, Forward, Down, Forward, then press any Punch button. The strength of the punch you use determines how the super comes out, but they're all devastating."
They absorbed this information with the intensity of students learning a life-or-death technique.
Then they moved.
Cassius, with his more disciplined gaming habits and better muscle memory, executed the command first. His fingers danced across the buttons in a blur: Down, Forward, Down, Forward, Heavy Punch.
The moment the input registered, the entire game responded.
"CRIMSON HADOKEN!"
The background—Game City, the blacksmith shop, Qiao Yu's restaurant, all the cheering pixel people—faded into absolute darkness. The entire screen became a canvas of shadow, with only Ken visible in perfect clarity. His hands came together at his side, energy gathering between his palms in a swirling vortex of crimson flames shaped like blooming lotus flowers.
Then he thrust both hands forward, and the screen exploded with light.
A massive orb of fire roared across the stage, easily three times the size of a normal fireball. The flames twisted and spiraled, leaving trails of crimson light in their wake. The camera angle shifted dynamically, following the projectile's devastating path.
Victor, caught in the middle of executing his own attack animation, couldn't block. He couldn't dodge. He could only watch as the super attack engulfed Chun-Li completely, the impact filling the screen with explosive effects that would have made any action movie proud.
When the light cleared, Chun-Li was sprawled on the ground, her health bar completely depleted.
The background snapped back to normal—bright daylight on Gray Horse Street, with all the pixelated spectators cheering wildly. Ken stood over his fallen opponent, raising one fist high in his classic victory pose as triumphant music played.
"AGAIN!" Victor shouted immediately, already reaching for the character select button. There was no frustration in his voice, only fierce determination and barely contained excitement. "That was incredible! I want to do that!"
He cycled through the roster this time, his cursor landing on Fei Long. "Let me try this guy. He's from the Moonwatch Empire too, right?"
"Correct," Caelan said, pulling up a simplified move list overlay. "Here's his command list. His movements are faster than Chun-Li's, more aggressive. He's all about getting in close and overwhelming opponents with speed."
With Caelan's guidance on the move properties and optimal combos, Victor managed to claw his way back to victory in the next round. His Fei Long was a whirlwind of kicks and flame-enhanced strikes, and he let out a victorious whoop when Cassius's Ken finally fell.
Cassius, ever the analytical thinker, took the loss in stride. "Let me try someone different." He scrolled through the roster, his cursor settling on the very first character: Ryu.
The next match began, and within the first few exchanges, Cassius's brow furrowed thoughtfully.
"Wait," he said, blocking a combo and countering with a sweep. "Ryu and Ken have almost the same moves. Ryu has a regular blue Hadoken, Ken's is red and made of fire, but the command is identical. The Dragon Punches are the same motion. Even their Hurricane Kicks are similar, just with different properties. They feel like variations of the same fighting style."
"That's because they are," Caelan confirmed, impressed by how quickly Cassius had picked up on the design logic. "They were trained by the same master, learned from the same school of martial arts. It's only natural that their foundations would be identical. But if you pay attention, you'll notice their timing, damage output, and frame data are actually quite different. Ryu is more balanced and defensive. Ken is aggressive with stronger offense but weaker fireballs."
Cassius nodded slowly, clearly processing this information and filing it away for later use. After a moment, something else seemed to occur to him.
"I noticed that Ryu is the default selection—the character highlighted when you first reach the select screen, positioned on the far left of the roster." He executed a super of his own, the screen darkening as Ryu unleashed a Shinku Hadoken that engulfed Victor's Fei Long in blue fire. "In Chronicle of the Fierce Tortoise Warriors, the first character is always the leader of the group. Is Ryu the protagonist of this story? The main character whose journey we're following?"
It was an excellent observation, showing exactly the kind of pattern recognition that made Cassius such a sharp businessman. Caelan felt a flash of pride at his friend's intuition, but he shook his head.
"Not quite. There is no single protagonist in this game. Or rather, every character is the hero of their own story." He gestured at the screen, where the roster of fighters was visible between rounds. "When I release the official version, everyone will have their own unique ending sequence—a short animation that explains where their journey takes them after the tournament, what they were fighting for, what they achieve. Each one is equally important to the overall narrative."
"The male lead might be up for debate," Victor interjected, selecting Chun-Li again for another round, "but the female lead is definitely Chun-Li. No question about it."
"Well, no kidding," Cassius said, his tone completely deadpan. "She's the only girl on the entire roster. Kind of wins by default."
Victor turned away from the screen just long enough to shoot Caelan a curious look. "Are there any other women among those four locked characters? Please tell me you at least added one more."
"No," Caelan admitted, feeling a small pang of regret about the Cammy situation. "Chun-Li is currently the lone female fighter in the game."
"Then it's absolutely settled," Victor declared with the certainty of someone pronouncing a universal truth. "She's the star of the show. The face of the franchise. The breakout character everyone's going to remember."
Caelan didn't argue with the assessment—partly because it was accurate, partly because he was genuinely pleased that Chun-Li was making such a strong impression. But even as he smiled at their enthusiasm, a thought crept into the back of his mind.
Among so many fighters, having only one woman... I really hope the people of this world don't have a 'Social Justice' movement yet. I'd hate for my shop to get picketed over character ratios. Though knowing my luck, that's probably exactly what's going to happen.
He kept that particular concern to himself and let his friends continue playing.