Description: ...has no place in this log. Also, this is all the desc you really need: '[OOC] Whip changes k dash to k DOUCHE'
Oh, Southtown.
The American jewel right in the heart of Japan, the city full of so many colorful and unusual characters and packed to the gills with the fighting circuit. It even extends to the kids in high school, those that can get their parents permission or do a very good job forging their names, even the ones that have enough money to sway their way into competitions. Take for instance, the leader of the thousands-strong gang, the Ladies Team: Aoi Himezaki. She's tough as nails, angry, loud, and...
Consoling someone's kid.
Separated from his mother at some point in the bustling streets of the business district, it brings Zaki to wonder just how she managed to get herself stuck in this situation, watching over someone bawling. Kneeled down in front of the child, sitting on her heels, the chain-slinging gang leader is looking the child square in the eyes.
"Hey, look. A kid your age shouldn't be crying like that," she says, her way of talking even changing. "I called a police officer already, so there should be someone coming soon to pick you up. All right? Does that sound okay?"
Rising back up to a full stand, the tall heels of her ankle-high boots click harshly on the sidewalk, her arms folding under her chest and looking down on the child in a most intimidating way.
"So just stay right here! It'll be all right."
If Yurika Kirishima or that girl from Pacific saw her right now, she'd have such a hard time explaining the change in attitude and the niceness...
On the other hand, some people are just about as good with kids as they look.
A fine example of this is about fifty yards distant just as Zaki finishes talking and starts straightening up, and very rapidly closing that distance. An obnoxiously-loud motorcycle engine makes itself heard long before any detail of the rider or the vehicle responsible can be made out, the roar of it distorting and dopplering as the bike knifes its casual, breakneck way through traffic.
K' hasn't been showing up around the YFCC quite so often, putting in the bare minimum necessary to stay afloat there-- recent events have soured his mood too much for him to be able to deal with the place longer than he has to-- but at the least... he DOES still show. And when he does, most everyone in a mile radius knows about it... -especially- the people who happen to be right in his projected parking area, wherever it happens to be from one day to the next.
The engine cuts. The rider resolves from a black-and-white streak back into a discernable lean figure, helmetless and wild-haired, his jacket blown askew on his shoulders. Letting the brike drift to a growling stop pretty much right behind Zaki, K' pries his left heel off the footpeg and nails it to the pavement not too far from the back of Zaki's own heels: the smooth, unbalancing movement causing the bike to sway slightly under him. Ignoring both the girl and her small companion, he adjusts his shades on his face and pulls a fresh pack of cigarettes from a pocket. One practiced tap of the pack against a handlebar later, he's extracted a cigarette and lit up with a flick of gloved fingers. Hissing that first breath of smoke out with a long sigh, K' leans over his handlebars and thinks sleepily about putting down the kickstand and actually going inside.
Eventually he decides against doing so just this moment, and instead just stays right where he is... smoking up Zaki and her charge something terrible. Adding insult to injury, he's left the engine idling as well, the heat and noise of the bike relatively low, but pretty obnoxious up this close. Apparently, he expects Zaki and her little kid to be the ones doing the relocating, not him.
The motorcycle-- a loud, obnoxious device used to get from point A to point B in a dangerous manner. The smarter ones wear their helmets and usually some sort of sturdy clothing since in the event of an accident, wow, could they get hurt. The beast of a bike settles behind Zaki and the rider seems to be content with staying just there-- just there...
And smoking.
Looking down at the child who has since covered his ears to shield himself from the sound, Aoi breathes in deeply through the sturdy leather mask on her face, eyes closing while she looks slowly over her shoulder at the man on the bike. Silver hair...?
Turning her attention back to the child, her tone is back down to the deeper, more aggressive tone that people expect it to be. "Go inside," she says. "They'll keep an eye on you in there." She even pauses. "Go on."
So when the child reluctantly goes inside the YFCC, Zaki turns halfway to stand profile with K'. The Seijyun student's red whiplash of hair settles behind her while the chain that hangs from around her neck rattles and lists from side to side. The settle is slow and eventual, the bottom half shaking one more time while her arms fold again. "You have a lot of balls smokin' it up in front of a little kid, you son of a bitch. You and your stupid bike. Maybe you should go get a little more respect for your body and go die in a ditch somewhere. Wouldn't that be awfully swell?"
Then she actually -looks- at K', at the pose he's in, leaned forward over the handlebars and realizing that he's not all there. "Tch!" she exclaims with a harsh click of her tongue, staring off down the street again. "You here for a reason, or do you like just staring at an intersection? Huh?"
Well, this could have gone down one of two ways, based on K''s past experiences fucking around with people. She could get intimidated and just move along, much as most of the average populace of Southtown do when confronted with his behavior... or she could opt to do, well, pretty much what she's doing now. Zaki's voice abruptly alters from its urgings to the child, snapping suddenly at K', and the boy finally seems to take notice of her existence.
K' has just enough decency to look mildly surprised when the girl chooses to take issue with him as virulently as she does. A brow lifts, K''s silver head turns slightly, and the boy flips one lazy hand up to paw his shades down: tipping them just far enough he can slant an amused yellow-eyed look at her over the rim. His hand slithering back down afterwards to flop indolently across his bike's handlebar, K' remains in this semi-interested attitude up until Zaki finishes talking.
Then, he laughs at her around his cigarette.
The sound is pretty insubstantial as far as laughter goes. It's more like a smoky chuckle than anything else, roughened by the cigarette and hampered by the fact he hasn't bothered to take said cylinder out of his mouth. Eyeballing the chain about her neck-- and then letting his eyes rake the rest of her-- K' eventually slants his eyes back up to hers with an unimpressed, lengthy exhale.
"It's none of your business why I'm here," he eventually replies, picking his cigarette from his lips mid-sentence and mouthing as much smoke as he does words. "Let's just say I -have- business here. And hey, that sidewalk's pretty wide... if you or your kid got a problem, just leave. Looked like you were about to, anyway."
Infinite Arrogance clashes with Unlimited Anger Works-- but little do either of them really know the other! While he's taking the time to check her out, she's looking out the corner of her eyes to glare at him, and glare as as harshly as possible. It's sharp, much like the way she's dressed-- the dress, the jacket, the boots, even the way her hair is styled-- all of it seems to be meticilously cared for, the clothing no mere hand-me-downs or cheap off-the-rack varieties. Time and money went into cultivating this appearance, from her clothing to her hair, to that look in her eyes.
Aoi Himezaki's lips purse in irritation under the cover of the leather mask covering the lower half of her face, and her hand tenses, her fingers almost clawing out to catch the chain that falls out of her sleeve. It rings and rattles-- loudly-- and it does doubly so when her hand whips back with a sharp snap of her wrist, the lengths of steel moving in concert to wrap around her fist.
"That ain't my kid, and go peddle your bullshit..."
Turning hard on the narrow inch-high heels of her steel-toe boots, Zaki's chain-swathed fist is set to coldcock K' right in the face, -hard-.
"SOMEWHERE ELSE!!"
COMBATSYS: Zaki has started a fight here.
COMBATSYS: K' has joined the fight here.
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K' 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Zaki
COMBATSYS: Zaki successfully hits K' with Medium Strike.
- Power hit! -
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K' 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 Zaki
K' flicks his yellow eyes down dismissively even as Zaki's temper seethes ever higher, the lean boy settling a bit more comfortably in his seat on the vehicle. Lashes veil away his unusual gaze, K' huffing an unimpressed sigh as he toys with the cigarette in his fingers... rolling it back and forth. He doesn't bother looking back up at the girl, so arrogant he is, even when he hears the telltale sound of chains being deployed and swung around to wrap a clenched fist.
Eventually, he finally -does- look up, lazily putting down his kickstand, sticking his cigarette carelessly back in a smirking mouth, and subsequently lowering his hand in a bid to intercept her attack. This time, however, the fact he's a nasty fucking son of a bitch finally gets him in -trouble-.
Zaki gets clear past his guard and slams her fist home in a satisfying hit straight to the face. Put severely off-balance, K' only just barely gets his leg out from over his bike before his momentum takes him right onto his back on the pavement. Miraculously, he manages to keep his cigarette even despite this development, and in the moments after he finds himself involuntarily sunning himself in the street it keeps him company; he takes a couple agitated drags, huffing smoke, as he thinks over what the HELL just happened there.
Eventually, incongruously, a grin starts to carve its way around the (now slightly crumpled) cigarette. She wants to fight? Fine, he's been itching to pick a fight with somebody lately...
"Okay," his voice eventually drifts up in a disembodied growl, its owner lost to Zaki's sight past the still-standing motorcycle. "So you want to do this the hard way." It's the only warning he gives her before he's suddenly kipped clear off the ground and launched himself in a blurring vault straight over the top of his bike, slamming a snapkick right towards her face.
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Zaki with Minutes Spike.
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K' 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Zaki
From the position that he's in, on the street, he may as well get run over by a car-- for all Zaki cares, that may just happen to him. That is... until...
!!!
Suddenly K' is in the air, sailing toward her at breakneck speed and his foot collides hard with her jaw, the leather mask providing a buffer for the blow. Zaki ends up losing her balance in the process, falling back and landing to catch herself before landing so hard she splatters against the sidewalk. "Tch!! You ass!! I'll break that friggin' leg before we're done!"
A bold, angry claim, Zaki is already pushing herself back up, pressing her palm hard against the pavement to help shove herself back up at least into a crouch. Twisting hard at the waist while she stands, the chain around her hand is snapped toward the ground, moving toward K' in a jagged line-- left, then right, and the process repeats over and over. The chain releases bright sparks of light, though they're clearly not just generated from friction-- and the chains are also trying to pile in and slam into his ankles to unbalance him!
COMBATSYS: Zaki successfully hits K' with Dokuhebi no Tessa.
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K' 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Zaki
Insult to injury. K' adds a slight shove once he slams a solid point of impact against the girl's jaw, killing the rest of whatever remained of her balance and forcing her into that stumbling backwards fall. Pushing off, he lands a few feet back in a lazy skid, his hands already hooking back in his belt loops and a grin cutting open the momentary concentration on his face. Sucking a mouthful of smoke, he doesn't bother inhaling: he just lets it stream out again past his teeth, lashes lowered to guard his eyes against the heated trails.
He directs the majority of it towards Zaki's fallen form.
"You can come TRY," he's taunting in instant reply to her angry claims, already tensing his lean and coiled frame to defend against the incoming attacks... but the back-and-forth of the undulating chains throws him off just far enough he misses intercepting those snaking links by a hair. Struck in the ankles, only a last-minute widening of his stance saves him from faceplanting on the pavement again. As it is, he's knocked to a wide three-point, one hand slamming into the ground. With a grimace of annoyance, his other hand-- the free one-- abruptly lunges in a bid to snare Zaki's chains.
If he can close a grip on her chains before she can react, he'll yank hard enough to take her off her feet and straight towards him. From there, it's just a matter of waiting until she gets close enough for him to -slam- a hit down on her, right between her shoulderblades, hard enough to spike her into the ground.
COMBATSYS: Zaki blocks K''s Spot Pile.
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K' 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Zaki
The strike is enough to take K' off-balance-- although it isn't enough to completely put him on the ground. Aoi grits her teeth below the coverage of her mask, cursing her dumb luck to end up picking a fight with someone that actually -knows- what they're doing. His pull on the chain brings her forward, though Zaki's skills kick in-- instinctively thrusting out one leg and turning to the side, the jackhammer-like hit catching across her presented elbow and jarring her downward a bit rather than completely spiking her into the ground.
From that close position, the chain-slinging gang leader also decides to launch her next assault, slinging the chain low in a snapping motion-- and trying to get it around K''s ankle.
And then -pulling-.
-Hard-.
The overall intent is to get the man on his back, though Aoi Himezaki takes it a step further, trying to drag him a few feet across the sidewalk and gripping her chain with both hands, trying to wing K' off the end of the chain with all her might and send him skidding across the ground to God-knows-where. "UrrrrrrAGH!"
COMBATSYS: Zaki successfully hits K' with Chain Flip.
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K' 0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0 Zaki
Still a bit tangled in Zaki's chains, K' doesn't let go of her rattling links fast enough to avoid her sudden reprisal. Her experience with chain-fighting and his -inexperience- dealing with such tactics display their stark contrast as she gets sudden purchase around his ankle. The first note of surprise starts to enter his eyes when he finds himself slung hard to the ground, dragged, and then ejected from the coiling weapon. Skidding a short way across the ground, he eventually gets his wits back enough to recover into a considerably more wary crouch.
Like her, he's starting to get a little more cautious about just who it is he's managed to pick a fight with this afternoon. Looks like there was a little underestimation on both sides of the fence. Narrowing his yellow eyes, some of his initial carelessness starting to drop away, he eventually straightens back up, cracking his neck and staring across the space between himself and the masked girl.
"The hell are you, anyway?" he demands. His hands tighten slightly, fingers coiling as a suspicious heat starts to flicker and waver about his wrists. He hadn't bothered to use his fire before now, figuring it wasn't really worth the bother, but now things have got a bit more interesting, well...
He lets it out, suppressing the pain that flares up in tandem with the fire. Fire bangles and coils about his arms like flaming counterparts of Zaki's chains, the subtle crawl of fire flickering along the lines of his shoulders and in the cages of his clawed hands.
COMBATSYS: K' gathers his will.
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K' 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Zaki
Zaki drags-- drags, and drags-- and then flings him off the chains, taking the brief moment to recover, herself. Once he takes the step back, once he starts to vent out that mysterious heat that bends and ripples the air right before her eyes, does she realize that he's no ordinary opponent. The laws of physics roll through her head all at once, though the metaphysics that explain the usage of 'powers' is what she should really be focusing on.
And who is she? Silly bitch.
"Leader of the five thousand member Ladies Team," she declares in a stern tone. "The one here to kick your ass."
The emblem of Seijyun Girls Academy on her jacket on both the chest and the sleeve give away her age, what with the mouth on her. The skills she have are -very- polished, no amatuer with the lengths of metal. And with that chain, she starts to wheel it around in the air, the silky-smooth ring of steel on steel becoming little more than a loud, harsh 'woosh' as the chain is spun in circles.
"Zaki!!"
And then her arm launches forward, the chain at her disposal flying toward K' with the express intention of piling into his chest like a lead weight-- and then -shoving- him backwards, pretty damn hard!
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Zaki's Hakai no Tessa.
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K' 1/-----==/=======|=====--\-------\0 Zaki
The emblem? He doesn't know it. Her team? He hasn't the faintest idea. All he really registers is the name she gives-- Zaki-- and that's what he really remembers, when she answers her question. But there's really no time to banter further or exchange niceties... and even if there were, he wouldn't return the favor and give her his poor excuse for a name, unless she explicitly demanded it.
No, he's a little busy with interposing his gloved hand between his chest and her vicious chain.
The piling links slam into his guard with concussive force, driving him a few inches back. He forces them away once they've spent their momentum, shoving outwards against the bunched links and spurning them back.
"...Hmph. Never heard of it," he replies her introduction, quite articulately, before all that flame gathered about his shoulders coalesces and bursts down his right arm. With a clawing upwards gesture, he slings the fire before him in a ring, much too far from the girl to do any damage-- but subsequently, he spins abruptly and slams a kick into the gathered fire, sending it towards Zaki in a scorching answer to her long-distance tactics.
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Zaki with Second Shoot.
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K' 1/----===/=======|=======\-------\1 Zaki
Never heard of it?
Never -heard- of it?
Zaki's eyes narrow just a little bit-- it isn't as though the Ladies Team advertised their presence-- a gathering that large of that many people wearing that many flu masks would be bound to draw a whole lot of attention. As for the emblem, well, Seijyo still isn't Aoi's favorite place in the world, so not being recognized for that is quite fine.
What -isn't- fine? The flames-- the fire that roars toward her with the swift kick, looking quite surprised and even more displeased. Trying to twist out of the way, the flames explode across the exaggerated lapels of her uniform jacket, the burst sending gouts of chi-fueled flame blasting right up into her face. And it -burns-, for obvious reasons, owch.
Letting out a harsh, furious gasp, Zaki's lean frame reels in the chains she wields while she takes a step towards K'-- and then squats. Lowering just a little bit, keeping her center of gravity... and giving absolutely no indication as to where she's going to go next, high or low, left or right.
But then suddenly, Aoi lurches forwards in a burst of bodily movement, twisting hard at the waist and forcing the rest of her body to follow, lashes of chains and very long red hair following in her wake. Her leg thrusts out at K' for a powerful kick to the chest, trying to knock him right off his feet.
"Then you're gonna LEARN IT!!"
COMBATSYS: K' interrupts Kokou no Pride from Zaki with Heaven Drive.
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K' 0/-------/------=|=======\====---\1 Zaki
Well. K' does kind of live under a rock when it comes to most things your average person would know. The fact that the Ladies Team already seems a bit clandestine guarantees that K' won't have the faintest what it is. And Seijyun? K' can barely keep straight which schools in Southtown are which, much less recognize their emblems and the like. It's true a lot of schools play host to fighters who regularly show up in the professional circuit... but most high school age fighters, to be blunt, do not precisely fight in the same tier that K' does. Yet.
It doesn't stop them from being able to force him to take them quite seriously, however.
Initially prone to just dismiss Zaki with a laughing malice, K' seems to have changed his mind on that count. Much of the slack carelessness has left his lean frame, and he brings his flames to bear now without compunction or reluctance. His unremitting fire bites into the girl, knocking her back and searing across her body, and he watches her carefully as she recovers from the strike... weaving slightly to throw him off as to her manner of approach and angle of attack.
Her sudden lunge is a bit disorienting-- the whirl of her hair and sweep of her chains initially draws his yellow-eyed gaze, the boy expecting her to use her weapons-- but in the last moments before her attack he realizes what she is about to do. He stands his ground, her harsh heel impacting his chest for the space of a moment... and then K' lunges forwards -into- her strike, fire blazing to life about his clawed right hand, a sharp whirl cutting it in a circling uppercut straight into Zaki's lean frame. He lands, gives it a moment, and then repeats: but this time, the movement is stronger, the sweep of it broader. It takes both combatants into the air... and then K' spins sharply, cracking a sharp fire-laced kick around to make certain Zaki's reuniting with the ground is far harsher than his own.
He lands, hands lowering, fire guttering and flickering into embers-- but he doesn't quite let his guard down yet, his yellow eyes watching her for any sign of reprisal. The boy seems to have sunk into some kind of dour, focused autopilot, his abrupt shift of mood darkening his expression. "You're just about done," he assesses coldly, his initial laughing mockery gone: replaced by something more cutting. "So if you got anything else to 'teach' me," he continues, a sharp downwards flick of his right wrist putting out the lingering flames with a quenching hiss, "...now's the time."
Even if he lives under a rock or hides in a wall, a basement-- anywhere that provides him safe haven from the scrutiny of the world and those that would seek to hurt him, he'll have to learn. Learn well that this schoolgirl isn't just someone that's on a lower level, that she actually does have some power to back up her claims. It's that forceful personality, the way she handles herself in a fight-- the way she handles that chain.
Her kick is disengaged with the explosive force of his uppercut, made worse by the second... and then folding like a kite over his leg when he kicks her roughly to the ground, fire and flames chasing her the whole way down. "Arrgh-!!"
Pushing herself up, propping herself up on her elbows while a trickle of red rolls between her eyes and settles briefly on the lip of the mask covering her face, Aoi's body tenses. Is she done? That kick took a lot more out of her than she was expecting it to, and the landing... ow.
Still, she steels her resolve and pushes up harder, scooting her legs below her to crouch, then stand-- albeit wearily, ragged. "Fine-- final lesson!!"
Zaki's arm reels backward and spins harshly, bringing her chain around her forearm and securing it like some sort of awkwardly wrapped bracer. Taking a few long strides, she leaps into the air-- and then twirls with the grace of a dancer, her right leg arcing up extremely high-- and then sweeping back down to slam into K' with an axe kick. It has a lot of strength behind it-- enough so, in fact, that her leg will continue back down to the ground, so that she can throw a second kick in exactly the same manner. Then a third, and a fourth... and then Aoi Himezaki crouches low and -springs-, her foot suddenly glowing with a burst of light-colored energy, the strength of her kick meant to slam into the biker man's chest and send him flying as far as she can possibly send him.
"KISS MY ASS!!"
COMBATSYS: Zaki can no longer fight.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Zaki successfully hits K' with Hissatsu Inazuma Gankou Geri.
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K' 0/-------/---====|
She gets up, eventually. He's not surprised at all at her ability to do so, not like some other fighters might be. It's true the people who COULD survive his assaults are extremely few and far between... but he has a cynical faith in his ability to run into pretty much every last one of them. Especially in this godforsaken city, home to the vast majority of the fighting prodigies of the world.
However. He does have enough confidence in his ability to hit hard that he underestimates her capabilities in throwing further attacks at him after the fact. She lunges back at him, arcing through the air, and he just follows her with his eyes as she arrows in. Slow. Telegraphed. He knows exactly what she's going to do. He starts a defense impatiently, intending to just cut her off-- and then she whirls abruptly, changing her position and arcing a kick from an unanticipated direction. K' adjusts about two seconds too late.
The first staggering strike hits straight home... and then the other, and the other, and the other, each added strike adding its hatred to his already-strained frame. The final hit smashes into his chest, taking him off his balance and knocking him back against the wall of the nearby YFCC building hard enough it alerts the people inside. A few people in the foyer within peek cautiously out through the frosted glass, and then withdraw with a sigh once they see who's altercating. Oh, it's just K' fighting again, they are doubtless thinking. This is not news in the least.
Propped up there in a crumpled stand against the wall, shoulders slumped and breath coming a bit heavily, K' finally gets his breath back enough to emit a coughing laugh. And then, somewhat counterproductively, he just tilts his head back and takes a long drag from his nearly-spent cigarette-- which he's managed to keep in place all fight, by some minor miracle. Letting the smoke coil hotly in his mouth along with a slight pooling of blood, he inhales slowly and then hisses the smoke out with a derisive 'Che!' The blood just gets swallowed, that particular result of Zaki's forceful strike cleanly and clinically handled.
"Not bad..." he finally assesses in a rasp, straightening up and pawing the spent cigarette from his mouth. Putting it out on the back of his glove, he lifts a shoulder in a shrug, a flicker of his initial smirking nastiness starting to threaten his features again. "...But not good enough."
COMBATSYS: K' has ended the fight here.
With the last kick that pounds K' into the outer wall of the YFCC-- the very building that she sent that lost child into, to wait for the police-- Zaki slumps forward a bit on her feet, shoulders and back hunching forward while she breathes deeply and rather hard. He's... fine? No, not fine... but if they continued much longer, she's going to have to get carried off to the hospital and awaken to the sight of two rather pissed off grandparents whose time is better spent managing the Himezaki estate she tends to hate so much.
Through whatever force that drives her-- hate, anger, or even just the vinegar and ice water running in her veins, Aoi -forces- herself to straighten up a bit, mouth curved into a hard frown under her damaged leather mask. "Don't get all cocky just because you got one goddamn lucky shot in...!"
She says this while her hand still grips at her chest, applying pressure to one of the numerous injuries she'd taken in the course of the battle. To that effect, she turns hard on her heel, letting out an angry, "Tch!!"
"And you're supposed to introduce yourself to people, asshat." Starting to walk off, continue on her way, the Seijyun student adds without looking back: "Next time it'll end different!"
Log created on 23:08:38 03/19/2008 by K', and last modified on 05:47:52 03/23/2008.