Description: Kain walks into an arcade, and starts playing MotM: Dream Edition. Kain gets accosted by a guy named Steve. They have the most badass fight you could possibly hope to get for a quarter. Then Kain leaves, and blows the place up on the way out. Fin. (Winner: Kain)
Ah, the local arcade.
It's seen better days, but there are still a fair number of people hanging around, playing the various games. Most of the people are crowded around the DDR machine, but there's even a person off in the corner playing Ms. Pac-Man. There's one machine that's currently unoccupied, though, and that's where the man who has just entered the arcade goes.
Why is Kain in an arcade? Why, to play MotM: Dream Tournament, of course. He strides over to the machine, a quarter gleaming in his hand. An arcade game that only costs a quarter? WTF? Yeah, well, shut up. This is a fantasy match, isn't it? Anyway, Kain slots his quarter into the machine, and the game starts up. "SELECT CHARACTER!!" Kain pushes the joystick around for a bit, finally settling on the little portrait of Kain before hitting the Light Punch button for the normal color scheme. And then he begins working his way through the single player game, completely pwning the AI as he does so.
"...Oh, snaps, it's a Cosplayer!"
The words are sort of blurted out, and perhaps a bit louder than the source of the utterance was hoping for, but thanks to the bleeps, bloops, and heavy music being played in the arcade, it's the sort of thing that could possibly be passed over. What follows, of course, isn't quite as easy to ignore.
A man--by the looks of him in the early twenties, sporting a dirty red shoulder length mop of pseudo-dreadlocked hair, a 'Games Workshop' tee shirt and green jean shorts purposefully moves to the 2P control side. Not bothering to hide his self-important smirk, the hefty individual slides another quarter into the machine, hitting the button in due time.
-A NEW CHALLENGER HAS ARRIVED!-
"I'm Steve," our antagonist declares. "And I've been champeen at MotM: Dream Tournament here, 3 tournaments straight. I know the infinite combos, I've watched the demos, I know everybody inside and out and back in again. You think you can battle here without getting OWNED?" What's next is a sound similar to a 'pshaw', followed by a sucking of the teeth. "You go ahead and play Kain, I'll school you with the low tier. SCHOOL YOU!"
Slapping the controller over a few times, the 2P icon falls on the sprite portrait of Nassir, the Strong kick button hit and causing his uniform to change into the yellows and reds of the upper-echelon Shank Squad.
Kain gives Steve a sidelong glance for a moment, then turns back to the game. Hey, even evil SNK bosses have to relax sometimes, okay? And if Kyo and Iori can play each other on a KoF machine in a Chinese comic book, then why shouldn't Kain try to mop the virtual floor with his opponents using his own avatar?
He taps impatiently on the front of the machine, keeping his fingers near the buttons, while he waits for the level to load up. His left hand rests firmly on the joystick, already pulling it down and back as he starts getting ready to charge up some of Kain's moves. The character may not have much in the way of combos, but he doesn't really need them.
COMBATSYS: Kain has started a fight here.
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Kain 0/-------/-------|
"You think SNK Boss Syndrome is going to help you, don't you?" Steve, ever confident, ever willing to talk mostly inefficient smack. It hadn't occured to him that he was standing next to the real Kain, merely a good cosplayer...a very good cosplayer, at that. Real reclusive fighters don't go to arcades...so there.
The stage loads up quickly enough, the fighters being deposited on a stage that bore no slight resemblance to the Southtown Docks. Both characters go through pre-fight animations: Nassir appearing from a gout of Shadowy chi similar to Psylocke's entrance in most of the X-Men games, while Kain does...well, whatever a Kain would do. The words 'Round: ONE' flash by the screen in large gold print while the announcer's voice repeats, followed by a rather ominous 'FIGHT!'
Steve, being at least reasonably skilled with the game, seems about as quick on the draw as one would expect a tournament grade arcade gamer to be: Sending his Nassir spiraling backwards into the air, throwing a knife at the Kain avatar in a manner similar to Rolento @ SFA3. The knife carries an odd looking greyish-blue beam behind it, signifying Nassir's Air Horrors of War Special.
COMBATSYS: Nassir has joined the fight here.
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Nassir 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Kain
COMBATSYS: Kain slows Horrors of War from Nassir with Schwarze Flame.
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Nassir 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Kain
Kain flicks the joystick from the down-back position to straight back, holding it there for a brief moment while Steve starts up his own attack. He then pushes forward, hitting the heavy punch button to send the blast up at an angle to meet the incoming knife. He's a bit too slow on pulling it out, though, and the explosion as the two projectiles cancel each other out is close enough to hit him, doing a few pixels of damage.
-FIRST HIT! 250 pts.-
"Ahah! You can't challenge me here, newb!" Celebrating a bit too early, perhaps? The words come steadily from his mouth, even as Steve enters in more commands. Rolling his control stick in a quartercircle motion almost before Nassir actually hits the ground from his jump, the little Shank Squad sprite rolls forward in a circle along the ground, stopping in front of Kain to throw a sidesweeping leg forward. Since it was only the light kick entered, it wouldn't sweep Kain...but it was likely to cause another little ping of life-loss.
COMBATSYS: Nassir successfully hits Kain with Light Kick.
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Nassir 0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0 Kain
Kain watches Steve moving Nassir in, and he starts pulling back on the joystick to block. Hmm, looks like it's going to be a low hit, so he'd better... Hey! What's this!? Why isn't the game responding? It looks like some bastard spilled soda on the machine, reducing the responsiveness of the joysticks. Kain's life ticks down a bit further, and then the joystick finally starts working properly, after he snaps it back and forth a few times.
Okay, new strategy. Kain is a charge character, so Kain-player does a quick double-tap backwards with the stick to hop away, then continues holding back to make Kain walk across the screen. This puts him in an immediate position to snap out at least two moves, and there are others that he can also quickly get access to, should it suit him.
COMBATSYS: Kain focuses on his next action.
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Nassir 0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0 Kain
..but, presumably Steve knew this. This might be a poignant time for a flashback.
New Orleans, 1998. King of Fighters 1998 just came out in those clunky 4-for-1 SNK arcade machines, along with Baseball Superstars and some other games we don't overmuch care about. Little Steve always went to the arcade after school with his friends, saving lunch money from day to day just so he'd be able to have a play or two at the quarter machines. Little Steve was a good kid, with good and right ambitions.
Little Steve used to get schooled. He'd play guys like Bao because he liked how they looked, or he'd play folks like Mai...because he liked how they looked. He didn't understand how to play past randomly banging out moves, and lost every time to the older kids who knew what was what. Occasionally, when he did win...they'd just take his other quarter and push him off of the machine.
Aww. Let's hear it for Little Steve.
This made Little Steve...bitter, angry. Of course, it also pushed him on to get better, somewhat...it also made him want to get bigger, but that's neither here nor there. Suffice to say, because of this most heinous arcade experience, Little Steve became Big(well, bigger, anyways) Steve, who worked at a freaking Kinkos because his friend didn't have the heart to fire him, and spent all of his time studying sheets upon sheets upon sheets of information on each character, learning strengths...and weaknesses.
So, yes. Steve knew this, perhaps better than Kain himself did. It wouldn't help him much if Kain decided to actually do something to -Steve- rather than his avatar, but yeah. Let's not worry about that right now. Let's worry about the game. Doubletapping backwards in turn, Steve started up a quick quartercircle motion before the backwards dash was anywhere near complete, slapping the 'jab' button at the end and triggering Nassir's command knife: The one that isn't Horrors, anyways. How would this new Kain player react? Only time would tell!
COMBATSYS: Kain blocks Nassir's Thrown Object.
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Nassir 0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0 Kain
And Kain just keeps holding back on the joystick, letting the knife projectile plink against his guard. He could have tried just the Just Defend, but that would have required interrupting the charge that he's already got going. Since he didn't do that, he's able to immediately snap off into an attack, tapping forward and hitting Heavy Kick. This version of Schwarz Cutter has a slight delay at the start, but once it goes off it does cross the entire screen fairly quickly. Nassir is too far away for the first hit, but the second one should be painful enough...
COMBATSYS: Kain successfully hits Nassir with Schwarz Cutter.
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Nassir 0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0 Kain
Why, yes it was. Steve's Nassir goes jumping high, trying to triangle jump ala Balrog, Chun li, and countless other speedfreak types...but just doesn't time it right, getting caught in the air and crashing into the ground. It was a move that cost him countless seconds...by which we mean three or so. Still, it seemed like an eternity when it could feasibly allow Kain to start putting together some kind of functioning offense. Steve's sadsauce taunting stops, replaced with a solemn, determined grimace. What to do now?
What to do, indeed. In all reality, Steve already knew the answer: Nassir needed to get back onto the offense. That offense would take the form of another projectile, Nassir's best combo lead-ins. Rolling off a backwards Dragonpunch, Nassir's sprite chucked a grenade, the airborne time painfully short as the rest of the grenade animation just sort of rolled along the ground. If Kain was still in contact with the ground, it would explode on him, otherwise it would just roll off of the screen. Which would it be? Did this Kain player know about the tossup on it? WHAT WOULD BE THE FATE OF THIS COMBAT?!?
COMBATSYS: Kain negates Scorch the Earth from Nassir with Schwarze Flame.
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Nassir 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Kain
But Kain is already charging back as soon as the animation for his last attack ends, preparing to continue the offensive. The sad plight of charge characters, in that he can't really combo his specials together very well. Still, it means that when he sees Nassir starting up a new attack animation, it takes but a moment to tap forward and hit Light Punch, sending out Schwarze Flame to impact with the grenade before it hits the ground, causing the two attacks to cancel each other out.
"Goddamn lameass Schwarze. Is that the only attack you know? I wanna see some real -skills-, man." Frustrated, Steve? Nah, just trying to break him away from the use of that move. Psychological games? Yeah, when all else fails it's time to get into the opponent's head...assuming Kain would even freaking care. I mean, this -is- Steve we're talking about here. Nassir's next move doesn't seem entirely...smart, exactly, jumping in against a charging character. The aerial offense is little more than another niggling kick, put out there to hopefully cross up Kain's block and knock him out of the charge. It was risky, but possibly worthwhile if it panned out.
COMBATSYS: Kain interrupts Light Kick from Nassir with Schwarze Lanze.
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Nassir 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Kain
Ah, but what's this that Kain is doing as Steve sends Nassir jumping in? Ducking? No, you fool! You'll need to block high for this attack, you- Oh. And that's when Kain suddenly snaps the joystick back up, and hits light kick. The light version of Schwarze Lanze is fairly quick to snap out, and although it doesn't do as much damage as the heavy version it still has fairly high priority. More than enough to slam through one of Nassir's normals, anyway, although thanks to the Poke Interrupt system in MotM: Dream Match, Kain still takes some tick damage.
"..Ahahahah!" Not really the response you'd expect from someone who just got served up, right? "What, did you just read that one from the panel here?" Unlike most bootleg cabinets, this one has the movelist panel that shows three moves to each character, plus a MAX. Steve's got a smile back on his face again, looking like he just won the lottery...from a bingo hall...for 20 bucks. It's a smile, it's not a dance around the arcade.
The Gambit, Continued.
Steve's Nassir lands in a heap, the hit animation from air showing for a second time since this match began, before Nassir...starts a taunt animation. That's right, his taunt. Steve's hand flicks over to the 2P button, causing the sprite to pick at his nails with a throwing knife. How's them banannas for ya?
COMBATSYS: Nassir focuses on his next action.
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Nassir 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Kain
Okay then, let's see how Steve likes this! Kain leaps in toward Nassir, then immediately begins charging down-back as soon as he hits the ground, preparing one of the new attacks that he gained in the transfer from Mark of the Wolves to MotM. It's barely even a charge, though, taking only a brief moment before Kain snaps the joystick forward and taps the light punch button, causing on-screen Kain to throw out a shower of purple sparks toward his opponent, who with any luck won't be able to break out of his taunt animation in time.
COMBATSYS: Nassir overcomes Schwarzer Funken from Kain with Horrors of War.
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Nassir 0/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Kain
"Oho! But he did like those banannas, good sir!" Yes. That's literally what he just said. Steve rolls out another command, The sharp pullback suggesting that he's starting to do another move, even while the animation for his taunt animation did indeed break out for the high backflip jump. Much like Rolento's own move, the knife follows soon afterwards, complete with bluish grey beam effect--cutting through the sparks and threatening to hit the waiting Kain in the process.
COMBATSYS: Nassir successfully hits Kain with Horrors of War.
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Nassir 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\1 Kain
Okay, to heck with being subtle and attempting to game the system. Kain's currently in his hit animation, and he wants out of it as quickly as possible. He starts jamming on the C button, trying to pull out Kain's standing Heavy Punch, which comes out fairly quickly, and does half-way decent damage. It's also one of the few buttons Kain can actually combo off of, and he'll try to throw in at least a Light Kick or something after that, if he can pull it off.
COMBATSYS: Nassir interrupts Flame Fist from Kain with Stockholm Syndrome.
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Nassir 0/-------/-----==|=======\====---\1 Kain
While Kain is slapping on the 'C' button, Steve suddenly had an epiphany of the most bizarre kind: Kain's control set had four buttons, while Steve's had Six. Why the hell did they do something bizarro like that?
But just like that, the thought was shoved away into the back of his mind--he never let that stop him before, he wouldn't do it now. A pair of quartercircle motions were rattled off, followed by the heavy-punch button. The screen flashed blue and the gameplay stopped for just long enough to allow a closeup on Nassir's eyes to scroll by. Gameplay resumed, and Nassir's right hand is flailing around, shadow-duplicates of the offending limb mirroring his motions and pounding Genlike touch attacks into Kain's chest. Thanks to the MotM poke system, he sucks in some damage too...but from the looks of things (ie, the bars overhead) the tradeoff was reasonably worthwhile.
"Ah Hah!" Steve exclaims. "Do you even know -how- to do your MAX? I'm gonna freaking serve it to you, man, just like I said I would! I'll two hit combo you to death!"
Does Kain know how to do his MAX? Well, one might wonder why for a charge character he's suddenly starting to do a double quartercircle forward motion. Oh, yeah. Don't all the Mark of the Wolves character have the same motion for their Supers, except for a few hidden attacks? Right.
Except Kain doesn't hit any of the attack buttons. Fake out! Instead he double taps forward and then jumps, leaping into the air toward Nassir. He starts holding down on the joystick as he comes in, trying to hit Nassir with an airbone C, then immediately combo into Schwarze Lanze upon landing. But then he quickly taps A and B, breaking out of the animation and leaving him free to chain it into something, and /now/ he quickly pulls out a double quartercircle forward and hits D, launching a giant glowing yellow ball of energy toward Nassir.
COMBATSYS: Nassir slows Himmlische Seele from Kain with Horrors of War.
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Nassir 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 Kain
Funny how the end of a fight turns into a furious slamming of the controllers for both participants. Granted, Kain's slamming was all preplanned, but...so was Steve's right? Right. His just didn't have as big an effect. Going for the 'Strong' attack on the Horror of War, Nassir remains on the ground, right in the way of Kain's combo attack....but ends up with nothing happening. Just a -tad- too slow on the input, Nassir is juggled around like a redheaded stepchild, meter dropping like a stone in the process. Kain scores the combo points, plus the 'Super' bonus, leaving him with a nice, beefy, padded score. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Steve made a note to congratulate the impressive cosplayer on his ability, but as it slowly rolled forward in his mind, the content changed, twisted, and mutated into:
"You know, even if you win this, it's only because you're playing a freaking Boss. Next round, I'll bust out my Igniz."
Hey, hey... Kain's not finished yet. See that little row of buttons up above those reserved for punching and kicking? Yeah, Kain hits his DM button, and suddenly his super meter surges upwards and begins glowing, while a little chime comes from the game. And then Kain does /another/ double quartercircle forward, even while the projectile from his last super is still plowing through Nassir. Yes, that's right, Kain can combo projectile supers together. Even in his original game, if you were playing in practice mode with infinite super.
They do have to be different versions, though, so this time can hits the Light Kick button, and busts out with a large blue orb instead, hoping to juggle Nassir for a bit longer. It's rather disheartening to get hit by, not to mention the way it racks up the score even further.
COMBATSYS: Nassir dodges Kain's Himmlische Seele.
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Nassir 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Kain
"Ah-HAAAH!"
Now, granted, that's a fairly scary thing to be staring down. I mean, hell...while Steve has been making light of the fact, it is true that Kain is an SNK boss, and he does indeed suffer from SNK Boss Syndrome, meaning that the Himmlische Seele combos are generally...wrong. Wrong and very not right, too.
Thankfully? Nassir is a jumpfreak. We've seen him walljump, but have we seen him...doublejump?
Going up once, it seems for a brief moment that Steve managed to put his Nassir right into the path of the orb, but then? right in the middle of the air, Nassir jumps again in a manner similar to Hokutomaru from the very same game. SNK Boss Syndrome versus 'Latest Add-in imbalance'. Which would prove triumphiant?
Landing for only a half-second, the furious rolling of controller doesn't stop throughout, with Nassir going into another backwards jump. It was sort of like telegraphing the intention behind the attack, which is a problem with Nassir's air Horror, but...hey. Flashing yellow in the air, Nassir's 'DM' icon explodes into nothingness as the dark blue knife+beam cuts in for Kain.
COMBATSYS: Kain blocks Nassir's Horrors of War.
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Nassir 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Kain
Okay, now we're in the end game. Kain blocks the incoming attack, then double taps back toward Nassir. Kain doesn't actually have a dash, but his hop does at least cover a fair amount of distance. Not quite enough, but Kain follows it up with a roll, bringing him in even closer. Trying to play keep away with a jumpy character? Not a good plan. And as long as he times it right, Kain can pull off some of his moves, even in close range. For now, though? He's just trying to get up close to Nassir and hit C, trying to activate his throw, where Kain flips up and kicks the opponent in the jaw. C'mon, c'mon...
COMBATSYS: Nassir dodges Kain's Schwarzer Mond.
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Nassir 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Kain
When all else fails, depend on hax. That's Steve's game, right there...fairly decent playwise, but the knowledge of the exploits is where it's really at. So, when Kain goes for his baseline throw...Nassir rolls backwards. There's a few frames of oh-so-dirty hangtime, where Kain phantom grabs before going into the miss animation, which only buys Steve some second or so of action time...but here we are, endgaming it like whut. A second counts when it's this close, when you're Steve.
So, what does Steve do? Another quartercircle motion, the exact same one he just did not more than 10 seconds ago at most. This time it's capped with a different punch, engaging the standing Horrors of War. Look out, here comes teh knife!
COMBATSYS: Nassir successfully hits Kain with Horrors of War.
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Nassir 0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0 Kain
So, Kain's in a bit of a bind, here. Coming off of his throw animation, he doesn't have time to block the incoming attack. His life bar is flashing red, too. On the plus side, he's in T.O.P. mode now, at least. But that's not quite enough, oh no. Through some quick button mashing, Kain manages to pull off trickey of some sort, causing the onscreen character to flash for a moment, along with a little 'ping' noise.
...And then he just taps the Light Kick button. Okay, whatever.
COMBATSYS: Kain successfully hits Nassir with Light Kick.
- Power hit! -
[ < > ]
Nassir 0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0 Kain
Steve, likewise, is furiously pounding the controls. Were there strategies involved before? Probably. They sure as hell aren't doing anything now, though. With tactics usually reserved for Scrubs who play Wolverine, Steve jam-throttles the controls whilst furiously tapping on 'jab'. It was now that Steve had to ask himself--why the hell did he play in an ism that didn't have T.O.P. modes? Grr!
Meanwhile, Nassir on screen starts the animation for a punch. Would it be enough, or was this time for 'gg' to be handed out?
COMBATSYS: Nassir can no longer fight.
[ <
Kain 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Kain dodges Nassir's Quick Punch.
[ <
Kain 0/-------/---====|
And what does Kain do? He goes for the roll as quickly as damn possible, just barely sliding through the punch from Nassir. And then he starts inputting his next attack (It's a video game, after all. How can you keep fighting when you don't have any health?), when suddenly an announcement comes up on the screen: Time Over! Winner, Kain!
And that, dear friends, appears to be it. Kain's little sliver of life bar is just that much larger than Nassir's little sliver of life bar, and thus is Steve defeated.
COMBATSYS: Kain has ended the fight here.
"......ng......"
And that, as they say, was that. Steve stood there, absolutely dumbfounded. How was this even possible? It obviously wasn't. "...th...no. No! That was bull, man! Do you even know how to play without using the cheapass boss characters? There's more to the game than spamming Dragon Punches and Fireballs, man." There you go, Steve. That'll show him.
Reaching into his pocket, Steve produces another quarter. Putting it on top of the machine, in between the jab and straight buttons, Steve stared at Kain cockeyed.
"...This seriously didn't count. I'm still champeen here in this arcade. You don't even compare to me, scrub. Go ahead and make yourself feel better pounding on the buttons until you've beaten Geese. Just don't go getting any of your scrubbiness on my controller."
Pause.
"I'm going to go get a soda."
Steve picks his quarter back up, and starts for the door, trying his best not to stomp out, scuff his shoes along the floor, or otherwise fly into a full on tantrum. There's no way some Kain cosplayer would've beaten him like that if he was playing for reals....yeah.
*snif*
Well, Kain has won. But Steve has really kind of ruined his enthusiasm for this arcade. He's probably not going to want to play here anymore. Hmm. Oh, what the hell.
And then Kain snaps his fingers, and the entire building explodes into a massive purple inferno, out of which Kain walks a few moments later, humming softly to himself.
...and so, the story of Steve concludes.
Log created by Kain, and last modified on 04:29:25 12/13/2005.