Description: "Dear Diary, Tonight I found K' on the road. He looked sad when I found him. I thought it was because he was all alone. He should have been happy to come home now that he had had his chance to see what the world was like. He tried to ignore me but I made sure he could not do that. He had a lot of lies to say just like the Toy Man. He is as strong as I thought he would be, but I was stronger. I could have had him then. Everyone would have been so happy with me. But then what? I have to know. - Kula"
Sixteen minutes to sunset; one long hour since K' had walked out of the YFCC, worrying Frei's message over and over in his mind with the obsessive focus that characterized most of his thought patterns. He hadn't bothered to talk to anybody, hadn't stopped to check in with anybody. He hadn't wanted to lead NESTS to any more places in their pursuit of him. He felt marked, hunted, almost cursed: like if he stopped anywhere, that'd be the next place NESTS would earmark.
It was him they wanted. So it was him they could chase. K' cared for the YFCC primarily in that he felt vaguely obligated not to bring trouble straight to the doors of an institution that had shown him kindness; but that was enough for it to merit what protection he could give. And what protection was that? The protection of his departure.
So K' walked straight out to his bike, slung a long leg over the quiet machine, and an hour later found himself where he is now: winding to a growling stop out where the city started fading away into the forest. Leaning over his handlebars, letting his head dip, K' indulges in a long few moments of total silence, face sunk into the back of his gloved hand, hair feathering across his tensed fingers. Eventually his other hand looks for a cigarette to calm his nerves; and they definitely -look- like they need calming, judging by the way his fingers tremble a bit while getting the cigarette out of his jeans pocket and lit up.
It hadn't occurred to him, before now, how tired he was. How tightly wound and tense he was, every waking moment of every one of his days. Every time he felt a little closer to attaining that normality other people enjoyed with impunity, every time he started to feel like -somebody- outside of what he'd been to NESTS, something came along to set him back. It felt like the world was striving against him, and he found himself rapidly losing the ability to hold back from reacting with all the spite his lean frame could contain. He was grateful, every day, for having found his sister again, but with the passage of time even that accomplishment seemed to get less and less.
Whip's existence might affirm the fact that he'd been someone before he'd been K'-- that he was a real person, not just some thing NESTS had made-- but the fact still remained: right now, he was K'. And even worthless as he is, even unacknowledged as he is, there were still people out there who were happy to kill him, to tear down everything he had so painfully reclaimed in the past year, for -being- K'.
The empty silence of an open road, ever the poor man's solace when no where seems like home. At first almost alone in the world, the YFCC offered a reprieve from that life on the run, a fugitive wanted by no one. But now NESTS has found him, found out about his ties. Visits from Igniz... Diana... an encounter with the frosty girl on the city streets. They're closing in around him, tightening the noose, and anyone else who happens to get caught up in the entrapment was acceptable collateral damage.
Coming to a stop on the border between the city and the woods is perhaps fitting - two unique worlds stand before the young man now. Behind him the YFCC, with the sense of belonging it offered to one who had never felt that before. Ahead is the wilderness of the world. Vast, filled with promises of only further solitude, it sits before the man who has stopped right at the edge between them both.
One would think that it would be easy for someone like K' to be left alone. Not particularly charismatic nor inherently likeable by most people, it seems a man like him should have no trouble finding a place where no one would bother him. If only that were true. Marked by a Cartel that seeks to reclaim its own, there are no limits to the lengths they seem willing to go. The first sign of company are the pair of headlights of an approaching car traveling along the otherwise empty road. A sedan, black, the windows tinted beyond the point of being able to identify even the driver behind the wheel. It approaches just a little too slow for a wide open road, coming to a stop with a gentle squeal of breaks parallel to the parked motorcycle on the opposite side of the highway.
There is a sound of a car door opening then closing and then the vehicle accelerates forward once again, the wheels slipping just a little in the gravel on the side of the road. A plume of dust is left in its wake, but it passes quickly, leaving behind a solitary figure as the car continues on into the horizon. With the setting sun, her dark violet leather armor looks almost as black as his own attire, but for her distinct, insulated yellow gloves.
It takes a moment for her long, auburn hair to settle from the wind of the departed vehicle, violet eyes staring at the man who has had his life stolen from him once again by that relentless engine of NESTS. As she steps into the road to cross the distance between them, the fourteen year old looking girl speaks up, "Why do you keep running? It's only going to keep hurting everyone..." Her right hand comes up from her side, her fingers splayed open with a quick snap, the glove creaking as she directs her palm toward the front wheel of the motorcycle. A single cold blast explodes against the tire, a small block of ice freezing it solidly to the ground - lest he get the impression that he can speed out of this confrontation quickly.
K' opens yellow eyes at the sound of that oncoming car. Feeling himself entitled to some private exhaustion when nobody was around to see him flag, K''s demeanor suffers a distinct change once he thinks someone might be watching. Strength strings tensely through him, tightening his frame, lifting his head and straightening his back-- though he doesn't yet turn towards either the car, or the girl that gets out of it. Not yet.
For a few long moments, K' simply ignores the **** out of Kula.
"What the **** do you want..." he finally greets unceremoniously, once he figures he's let her questions founder on his silence long enough. His words come out torturously slow. He doesn't bother to look at her, assume any defensive posture against her-- doesn't even bother to take the lit cigarette out of his mouth before talking, instead choosing to talk as much in smoke as he does consonants and vowels. "And why are you wasting time on stupid questions? If I don't run, the person that's gonna get hurt most is me."
He lapses into silence: staring straight ahead, hands strangling the bars, yellow eyes slitted. He seems largely undeterred by that blast of frigid cold that seals his bike to the ground: that, or simply uncaring of it. He barely blinks as the sudden chill hits his skin. The very corners of his hate-ridden sneer twitch, that spasmodic movement symptomatic of a greater disturbance laid beneath his skin. The fire in him starts to stir, raising the temperature around him, heating the metal of the bike... and working its insidious way into that solid ice.
For a few moments, he looks close enough to the edge of violence that Kula might expect the very bike to be ripped from the ground and hurled at her at any moment. The sinews of his arms cord, the leather sheathing him creaking audibly as he shifts restlessly. His heels grind into the road. His eyes hood.
"The real question here is... why do you keep following?" At first, the sudden words seem anticlimactic, like a breath of relief after all that built-up threat... but the look on K''s face, when he finally turns his head to stare dead-on at Kula, is positively murderous. "It's only going to make me hurt -you-..."
After the sound of ice crackling and popping as it begins to oh so slowly melt against the street, the only other noise is her insulated shoes pressing against the dusty asphalt. That is, of course, until K' finally speaks, swearing back at the long haired teen. Her answer back comes quickly, as if she isn't the slightest bit perturbed by his outburst, "To take you home." As she draws near, the aura of cooler temperature comes with her, the thin child radiating chi the likes of which just shouldn't be possible in a fighter her age.
But her presence begins to meet with resistance; an imperceptable sphere of heated air surrounding the tormented young man. She can feel it again now that she's close. Just like when she saw him in the city street not long ago. Something resonates in her blood, something connects the two in ways her young mind can't comprehend. 'Save the science for the scientists, Kula.' she would so often be told whenever she started to ask questions.
She had thought about him a lot since that first encounter. It's not easy having your entire existence defined by being the counter to another person. Perhaps in trying to understand her lot in life, she had begun to ask more questions of those who were tasked with handling the living weapon. 'If I ran away, would you make an Anti-Kula?' she had innocently asked of the stripe haired Foxy one recent afternoon. Too naive to detect the suspicion that flickered in the brilliant scientist's eyes, she just had to be content with the non-answer of 'You would never run away, so there's no need to talk of such things.'
Perhaps the woman was right, though. To Kula, NESTS was father; NESTS was mother. She could see no reason to leave the only place she knew as home. What she couldn't understand was why the young man in front of her had done just that. "They miss you so bad they made me just to be able to do that." the teen of one year states, repeating back another half-truth ingrained into her malleable psyche. Hoping to avoid the disaster that was K', they had engineered her from scratch, emphasizing traits they felt would make her controllable. Submissive to the authority figures, docile, naive... at last they had their perfect counter to the likes of the K' project.
He shifts, his arms tightening, and Kula comes to a stop only a few feet away. His murderous stare is met with... guileless innocence. If she bears him any malice at all, it would be impossible to see such in the expression of the girl. Her left hand reaches over to unzip the zipper on her right jacket sleeve, loosening the effective leather armor around her arm just a little. "They made it so that you can't hurt me," she answers in the face of his clear threat. Her right hand is lifted, fingers opening.
"They fixed the mistakes they made with you." Kula continues, her left hand reaching over to clasp her right glove tightly. And then with a tug she pulls it off, revealing... a normal human hand. No swirling, uncontrolled ice. No bitter, raging flurry of chi so dangerous, so ungoverened that it needed a precisely engineered, protective glove to keep it from consuming her. No... for the similarities she senses they share, there is one stark difference. The Kusanagi power resonating within her was completely under her control. The young clone stretches her fingers then wiggles them, clenching them into a small fist then stretching them out again. "If you come home, they can fix you too..." she states, violet eyes drifting toward K''s own distinct, red gauntlet.
"That," comes the immediate, snarled reply, "was not a home, and I am not going back to it. To be locked up. Or beaten. Or changed against my will." K' rises with the words, finally standing up over his vehicle, bristling like a wolf with all its hackles raised. "Besides, NESTS's idea of 'taking me home' is killing me. Don't lie. They know they won't get any more -use- out of me. I doubt they'll bother trying."
He crosses over the motorcycle in one long-legged step, coming to rest in a stance laden with aggression and defensiveness both. His gaze is rife with the suspicion of a young man who never -had- any of the naivete Kula has in spades, as he surveys the girl in one practiced look. Impossible to direct, aggressive, paranoid, as authoritative and controlling as the people who sought to command him... that is K'. And now, he finds himself looking right at his opposite number. She's even got god damned ice to his fire.
And she has perfect control of it. That much she demonstrates aptly, with a simple motion he as of yet can't emulate. Was that perfection why she got a real name, where he only ever got a letter? His stance, very briefly, falters. He seems almost to fall back, envy and spite threatening the fringes of his consciousness, and for a moment he might almost seem marginally swayed; but then, his eyes harden. Outwardly, he seems untouched by the sheer guilelessness of her, immune to the effects of her childlike innocence; but in truth, she's reminding him of the children he left behind, and it's bothering him to a degree he does not like. It makes him want to pity her her ignorance, and that-- he knows-- is what will get him killed.
"I am going to fix -myself-." Whatever doubt he might have felt, in that one childish moment of longing for acceptance from the only parental figures he can remember, quickly evaporates in the heat of that declaration. He leans forward, broadcasting a dominant confidence he doesn't precisely feel. "I'm not going back to be used or killed. I'm not going back to be treated as a THING. Everything that is wrong with me was their doing, and everything I lost was stolen by THEM. I was somebody else before they took my life away. Weren't YOU?"
He's working himself up into a fine state of indignation... but there's one thing wrong with the entire picture. It finally clicks in his mind, and K' visibly stops. "--they made you just -for what-? Just to handle -me-?"
The demonstration complete, Kula calmly slips her dainty hand back into the thick, insulating glove. Thus it becomes clear, the gloves are only to protect herself from the jagged ice on the outside when she fights rather than to keep her power at bay like K''s. Though few see her outside of the protective shelter of the NESTS bases, when not fighting she rarely wears them beyond training exercises. In the lessons they learned from stealing the life from a child and grafting into him a new one, they were able to infuse the girl with flawless control over the divine chi they have sought desperately to control.
Still, as much as a triumph Kula is, there is a flaw. She was created in a lab, from scratch. While the progress her success has provided the scientists is phenomenal, it isn't the final step toward their ultimate goal. Igniz's godhood requires that those who serve him figure out how to flawlessly imbue an already living man with that divine chi. K', for all the mistakes made, is still closer to their ultimate goal than the docile girl he towers over menacingly.
The glove is strapped tightly, followed by the sleeve being zipped back closed over her arm - every action done calmly as he hisses and yells, as if they had gone out of their way just to make her IMMUNE to that kind of ranting out of /spite/ toward the fire-tempered K'. As if they knew he would act like this and specifically wanted to deny him the pleasure of being able to provoke a reaction in the seemingly infinitely patient girl. Violet eyes look up into his face as she refastens her gear one step at a time. "It would be a lot of work to do all this just to kill you," the girl replies, lowering her arms to rest against her sides. "And a waste." Propaganda or the truth, from her lips it's nigh impossible to know.
"Home isn't like that," she begins to protest at last, her tone not defensive, coming across more as if she merely pities his confusion. Maybe the Toy Man put such ideas in his head? He seemed a crafty one, that Toy Man. "There's shelter, and food, and games, and Diana, and Foxy, and Angel, and Candy, and Baron Pontmercy, and Basker, and Milton, and Sir Winston, and-" It's as if she has an endless list of people she thinks are important. Too bad most of the list is comprised of plush animals. And she'd keep listing them, too, were it not for K' cutting her off with the one question that at last provokes a deeper, if silent response.
It's as if through that impenetrable shell of innocence he found the one crack, the one opening that even the NESTS mental conditioning has been unable to patch over fully; the question of her purpose, the big 'Why'. In asking he also answers and Kula stares back at him silently, violet eyes blinking once, her mouth closed. If he had never run away, she would perhaps never existed. If he had been a success, they wouldn't have even needed her in the first place. If it weren't for K', there would be no need for an Anti-K'. Her life is predicated on his, her attributes defined by what he /isn't/, her design not just an improvement, but in every bit his counter.
K' finishes his scathing words, and K' lapses into silence. Kula's complete patience and lack of response serves, fairly effectively, to take much of the wind out of his sails. If NESTS had purposefully engineered her just to enrage him in this regard, they patently succeeded; he seethes and rages, but it's all for naught. Kula is simply imperturbable, and in that regard she proves an impossible challenge for a boy who operates by provocation and taunt.
The sound of pity in her voice infuriates him beyond belief, mostly because he KNOWS he isn't the one to be pitied here. He doesn't even parse half of what she goes on to say due to that sudden anger. "I bet they give you everything you need," he snaps harshly in reply, backing away, turning shoulder on her as if not facing her could make talking to her easier, "everything you need just to stay alive, and nothing you need to be more than a toy. How much of the world have you seen? How many other girls your age have you ever met? Don't you get curious?" K' sure knows -he- got curious, after months of being cooped up. He knows he got curious to see more of the world, after NESTS carelessly let him out into it one too many times.
She really isn't registering as a NESTS abomination to him. Not as much as she should. K9999 was easy-- the other boy was so riddled with violent hatred that it was simple to hate him. Simple to tear into him without remorse. Kula, though-- she reminds him too much of the little girls that frequent the YFCC. She reminds him too much of someone who could be a person, much like Maxima always thought K' himself-- even savage and callous as he was-- could be won over. She has the dumb loyalty of a programmed machine, certainly, but... then again, so did he.
And beyond that... this is the result of his actions. This girl was born, literally born, of his choice to turn traitor and run. He wouldn't exist if not for Kyo; and Kula wouldn't exist if not for him. Being shoved into Kyo's position doesn't quite make him -understand- Kusanagi any better or sympathize with him any more-- K' is not that emotionally advanced-- but it does make him feel sick, and irrationally resentful of NESTS for forcing him to be guilty of that which he hates Kusanagi for.
This girl's life was his fault. It's a heavy responsibility to bear, something that almost transcends the mere pseudo-sibling relationships that exist between other clones. K' reacts to it as one might expect.
K' stares down at her, very levelly, and for a few moments it's anybody's guess what he'll do to her. His hands twitch, his eyes narrow, and then after a long stint of silence K'... simply turns around and starts to walk away. "...I'm not going back. Maybe -you're- happy being shut up all the time, never let out, never seeing REAL people... never being more than some answer they made up to fix a problem. But I'm not."
He's the first one to speak again, as if the questions that threw her into silence have derailed her off her programming to the point that she can't figure out what to do next. He's left to speak back at her, harsh words and even harsher questions. Questions she doesn't answer. To be a toy? But... that can't be. Angel and Diana are nice to her and don't treat her like a plaything - she thinks! Met other girls her age? None. Curious? Always. Just, perhaps, not in the same ways he was. Her curiosity has never bred the reblliousness it did in him. Maybe she doesn't even have a rebellious gene in her body, all of them spliced and engineered right out of her. Or maybe she's not old enough to view the world the same way he did when he finally broke free of the cage that was the Cartel.
But for all the resentfullness he holds for Kyo Kusanagi, Kula seems to bear not a shread of it for him. She doesn't mind her existence, it's all she's ever known. She doesn't have a past that was stolen, a family robbed of the joy of raising her. She simply was and is. The idea of being angry about being alive would be a preposterous one to her. If she didn't exist, who would have salvaged poor Archduke Snuggles the bear out of a Southtown gutter one Autumn afternoon? While he resents a life stolen, she has only the life crafted and now that what's done is done, that's better than the alternative.
He stares at her, but she doesn't react defensively. Maybe she's not feeling it - that sense of self preservation that tells one they're about to be attacked and to take defensive preparations. Maybe there's a closer link between the two than either realizes, and she just knows a strike isn't coming. Not yet. In the end, the escaped project turns to walk away, his back exposed to the girl who's come to retrieve him for his ultimate fate. He issues what he perhaps intends to be his parting words and is met with only silence. Perhaps he might wonder if he's shaken her enough to keep her from attacking.
But there's one important point to consider. Billions in research, countless man hours invested in experiments, and over a hundred terabytes of data were not all spent to make a cute doll that's only good at asking nicely or playing cute to soften rough edges. If anything, that whole aspect of her was a side effect. What matters more than anything else, in the eyes of those who created her, is what she can /do/. Violet eyes stare after K', Kula not looking hurt and most definitely not angry. Instead she looks just a little sad. For she knows that the car that dropped her off will be back at a pre-established time. Her task is to have K' subdued for transport by then. And him walking away means the issue has been forced.
A deep breath is taken, followed by a slow exhale. A shimmer courses over the young clone, leaving a girl transfigured, her auburn hair becoming a icy blue hue, her violet eyes taking on a slightly red tint, contrasting with her changed hair color. The power unlocked, it's time for her to use her 'tools' to accomplish her task. That's what the good people of NESTS graced her with them for, after all. In fact, this very moment marks the chance to prove, once and for all, that it was all worth it.
The girl's right hand rises, the yellow leather creaking as she closes it into a loose fist. Ice drifts down from the bottom of her hand, joining the small flurry of frozen crystals that drift immediately around her person. Letting K' walk away would mean she was a failure. And that is simply one thing she is not. That's the difference - he was the mistake, she is the correction. Without that purpose, what is she? "You can't go." is the only verbal warning as she brings her hand up to her mouth, raised, fingers toward him.
A soft exhale may seem innocuous enough at first, but the blisteringly cold burst of crystal laden are that blasts toward him out of no where is anything /but/ harmless. Kula Diamond they had called her, granting her not only a real name, but a last name to boot. And now it was time for the diamond to shine.
COMBATSYS: Kula has started a fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: K' has joined the fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 K'
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Kula's Diamond Breath.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 K'
He can sense it long before the attack ever comes. The activation of that kindred power itches at the back of his mind and burns his blood before it even starts to color the girl's hair and eyes. He makes no outward showing of his awareness, merely opting to continue walking, but he is paying careful attention to her movements: senses on high alert, tension strung through him. The blast of icy air finally rips forwards, and it's not until it's halfway through its crash course towards his back that he suddenly whipcracks around and sets his stance.
With all the ill-tempered abruptness of a sudden lost temper, K' forced his gloved hand straight into the storm of icy air, the metal momentarily freezing painfully about his hand before a sudden gout of scarlet flames clashes abruptly with the swirling crystals. Steam hisses as the two elements cancel, K' left standing with his half-open hand still thrust forward.
A momentary twitch plays along his brows. The movement is the sole outward evidence of the way he struggles to get his triggered temper under control, the way Geese taught him. His half-frozen hand slowly claws shut into a fist, shedding with a shuddering crackle the last remnants of water and ice that cling in all the crevices of that suppression glove. His yellow eyes fixing on hers, senses hooking into all the eddies of power he can perceive within and around her, K' affords her behavior only one low word: a decided warning. "Stop."
COMBATSYS: K' focuses on his next action.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0 K'
As he turns, she lowers her hand from her mouth, breathing back in after the exhale that powered her attention-getting blast of ice laced air. The interaction between his flames and her projected, frozen water is observed. Last time they met her power had been used on Maxima, leaving her bereft of any test against /him/. But now she's seen it with her own eyes what she was told would be the case. That they cancel each other out upon contact, but not without a cost to be paid.
She couldn't let him walk away. To do so would be to deny her purpose, her point for existing. And now that he's turned, speaking to her with that unmistakeable threatening declaration, she's relieved, as if having him simply ignore her would be worse than any of the number of things he might be planning to do to her now. "I can't." she replies, declaring the simple truth. Just as he may have felt that he had no choice but to leave the YFCC behind, she has no choice but to pursue him and defeat him now. She sounds neither resigned to the idea or pleased about it. It's simply how things are. She cannot refrain from attacking him if he is going to leave. The problem is, she has the capacity to be more than simply verbally stubborn, as her warning shot perhaps alerted him to.
Her gloved right hand clenches, her shadow long with the sun sinking below the distant horizon. Now she has his attention again and in that fact she finds twisted solace. He might even notice the flicker of a smile now that he's looking back at her. Not the sort of malevolent smirk a blood thirsty assassin might bear at the sight of their prey, or an enthusiastic smile a fighter might adopt at the prospect of a good fight ahead. The expression is far more simple than that - a genuinely happy, albeit subtle smile.
She starts toward him with ordinary steps, but with each step she picks up speed, until finally she seems to glide right over the dry pavement, bearing in on runaway clone, her arms swinging out at her sides. A white halo of chi emanates out from her clenched hand, only to congeal an instant later into a jagged cast of ice. An icy guantlet that she brings smashing in toward the flame wielder's chest as she gets close, spinning her body into the blow, leaving her trickier to counter attack while also lending a it more weight to the strike. A physical strike, a chance to demonstrate her purpose.
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Kula's Medium Punch.
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Kula 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 K'
"Yes," he counters instantly. "You can." His eyes narrow, the yellow of them glinting in what's left of the sun. Long lashes nearly obscure the sneaking hint of red that flickers in them now, the sight a subtle indication that the fire in his blood is stirring. "I did."
The implication is obvious. It should not be hard to stop doing what NESTS tells you. It shouldn't be hard to stop being what they want you to be. Even despite the part of him that's secretly -pleased- NESTS finally noticed him enough specifically to design Kula to bring him back, even despite the part of him that is childishly glad to have finally merited attention... K' still has no intention of letting those feelings erase what has already been done to him.
He seems to bear those who are unable to make difficult choices no pity. He himself has had to make so many difficult choices, over the few years he's lived, that those who hide in the simplicity of authority's shadow draw nothing but his scorn.
Unaware of how much this interaction resembles some twisted image of himself and Kyo-- didn't he always fight for Kyo's attention, himself, whenever he encountered the other?-- K' simply watches Kula as she comes in closer. That ice-sheathed hand comes crashing in and K' catches it, heedless of the sharp chill that freezes and cuts his hand upon contact. His eyes are watching hers as he acts and reacts, but they seem to express little more than a sense of obligation-- or boredom. To show any more would give this so-called destined clash more gravitas than he is willing to grant; to show more would acknowledge NESTS's intention to make this something more than mere traded blows. And he is not willing to play their games.
He just doesn't seem to care about how much this encounter validates Kula's existence, or about the fight at all beyond mere survival, and that doesn't change even when he twists his grasp, tries to snare her wrist, and attempts to deftly yank her off balance so he can shoot off a sharp blow at the back of her neck.
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Kula with Spot Pile.
- Power hit! -
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Kula 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 K'
Her ice encased arm is stopped early, his words echoing through her mind. She stated a simple fact, and with his next words he declared it to be decidedly untrue, citing himself as proof to the contrary. "Lier," comes the whispered reply, the girl falling back on the mantra NESTS taught her about anyone on the outside. They're all liars - every last one of them. And those who had left the Certel were simply the ones that had fallen prey to the deceptions out there. That's what happened to K' - he didn't make a decision, he was simply led astray...
He has her wrist but she isn't concerned, her left hand coming up, intending to deliver a second attack without delay. But that's when he's pulling her off balance, the Anti-K' stumbling forward. She senses the attack coming, and twisting in his grip, ignoring the discomfort it causes, she twirls around to defend against it, her opposite arm coming up to intersect his strike.
But in so doing she simply makes matters worse, her forearm not quite reaching its place in time and instead the blow meant for the back of her neck catches the icy haired girl in the throat, provoking a sharp gasp of pain from the smaller fighter.
She needs a second to recover from such a stunning strike, and in trying to create just that, she wordlessly slams her right hand forward, reaching to counter grab K's arm and twist it harshly to keep him still for a moment. Her left hand comes next, reaching to press against his chest and unleash a point blank blast of frigid chi into his torso with force she hopes is sufficient to knock him back a little ways.
COMBATSYS: K' interrupts Quick Throw from Kula with Second Shell.
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Kula 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 K'
There are reasons why K' was never permitted to teach a damn thing to anyone at the center, despite the acknowledged fact that he has many skills he -could- have imparted to the kids there. When he gets it into his mind there is a lesson to be imparted, he is unremittingly harsh in the execution of his instructions and forceful in enacting his will. Even when he sees his strike will hit the girl in the throat instead of the back, he doesn't stay his hand, letting it hit home with consummate force. After all, in his eyes her decision to keep after him is a -choice-, not an absolute, and if she's going to choose to attack him she must be prepared to take the consequences.
"There is no 'can't,'" K' hisses, ignoring the pain he's causing his little clone as he forces her into retreat. "There's only people too weak to make choices for themselves. I bet they taught you to squawk 'liar' every time you run into something they don't like. What is it makes -them- right, and the rest of the world wrong? Huh?!"
The harsh interrogation comes punctuated with a sudden reversal. She tries to get ahold of him, attempting to drive him away, but as her hand shuts about his wrist he just presses -forward-, his eternal aggression overriding her defensive. Her blast of chi has barely started before his fire roars in a violent counter, the heat weakening her ice and making way for the harsh kick he snaps up into her through the flames. He retracts out of his kick instantly, heel swinging back to land him right back in his loose stance, and from there he starts seamlessly into a restless prowl around her, waiting for her to get up.
Some might call it ruthless how mercilessly he's pressing his assault against her, but he doesn't see it as anything more than mere necessity. If he doesn't fight with all he has, he goes back. Certainly, in his mind he's still giving her a chance not to earn his permanent ire-- more of a chance than he gave K9999-- but he's still not holding back from lethal force if that is what it will ultimately take to preserve his own life.
Another attempt to attack him ends up turned right around on the girl as Kula finds herself retaliated against with flame and physical force. Unlike the blow to her throat, the impact this time is enough to take her off her feet, dropping the smaller fighter to the ground hard, landing on her side atop the dirty asphalt. A little dazed, and a little more disturbed the words that preluded his strike, she is slower to move after landing, merely propping herself up on one elbow and one hand, shaking her head.
"Anyone that tries to convince me why I should leave the only good things I have is clearly a liar." she finally replies, her voice a little horse from the blow to her neck, lifting her head and rising up onto one knee, both hands planted against the ground. He's every bit as tough as she was told he would be. His fire is strong, hurting her even through her powerful defenses against energy based forms of attack, and his experience in /real/ world combat dwarfs her textbook training sessions within the Cartel bases. "You have an interest in disuading me, you have a compelling reason to lie." she continues, reciting more of those ingrained lines from her 'education.' "You have no reason to care what happens to me though... that's why I know your words are a lie."
As she speaks, another shimmering halo extends out from her right hand as Kula lifts it up off the pavement, watching him as he prowls. Knocked down once, but only barely having tapped into the power at her control, Kula gives K' something else to contend with, hoping, perhaps, to deal a strike from a great enough distance to keep him from keep turning her attacks around. As she rises up to standing, her arms hang at her side at first, that right one aglow with the icy aura around it.
Perhaps she's been holding back too much, a sub-conscious reluctance to finish this defining moment too fast. Or maybe she wanted to just feel out his skill level before settling on the proper level of force. Whatever the case may be, what comes next dwarfs her previous attempts to harm him as Kula finally spins to face K', her right hand extending out, the girl lowering her face and leaning forward. The sphere of chi around her yellow glove solidifies into ice - powerful as steal yet as malleable as water under Kula's control.
The side nearest K' morphs, lancing out for his chest like a jagged, leathally sharp spear of frozen water. She's aiming just below his sternum, the attack coming in with the kind of force that may very well pierce right through him, threatening vital organs in its path, seeking to critically wound him and take some of the fight out of the escaped clone.
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits K' with Critical Ice.
- Power hit! -
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Kula 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 K'
"Good things?" K' barks laughter as he comes to a stop, the sound terrible and mocking: but not short of the sort of understanding that comes of experience. "You haven't got good things. You haven't even got a life that's your own." He rests his gaze steadily on her, listening half-heartedly to her insistences, finally gracing them with a shrug at the end of it all. "And honestly... I really don't care enough about you to waste the effort making up lies for you to hear."
He holds his ground even as he perceives the sudden spike of energy, but the manner in which it makes itself manifest is unexpected, K' not quick enough this time to stave off the damage. Perhaps expecting something more like K9999's uncontrolled blasts, the precise and spearing ice crashes straight through his attempt to guard, forcing him back, grinding a sound of reluctant pain out of the back of his throat as his head dips. A stream of unusually-hot blood courses down the girl's ice, searing a steaming groove along its path. Confronted with K''s searing internal temperature, the energy itself begins to melt a little... but the damage has already been done.
"Do -they- care what happens to you? Sending you out after me like this, knowing I'd sooner kill you than go back?" Even speared -clear through-, K' manages to be pretty damned unsettling, the menace of his aura unabated: probably because even despite the grievous injury, he's leaning -forwards-, his pain tolerance a ridiculous thing, his hand shutting on the ice piercing his chest. "I could kill you, send you back in pieces... and they'd just use them to make a NEW you. They don't -care-."
Fire consumes him in a sudden flare of force, the ice piercing him falling into water and puddling in the horrible wound. The flames sear the ragged edges of that injury, stanching some of the bleeding, evaporating the water in a hiss and steaming clean exposed flesh. The heat rushes out about him with a kind of force all its own, driving off the cold Kula radiates, fire snaking down his arms: it focuses, and K' abruptly whirls to slam the gathered flame towards Kula in a sharp reprisal.
COMBATSYS: Kula reflects Second Shoot from K' with Counter Shell.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////// ]
Kula 1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 K'
He says he doesn't care enough to bother making up lies and in the next instant, K' finds himself run through. Maybe she didn't take well to that! She sustains the ice bolt that links the two for a long moment. On her end, her hand is encased in what remains of the sphere of solid ice. On the other end, the sharp end, K''s blood melts the surface, smoothing out the serrated, jagged edges as the ice begins to give way to the intense heat of his body. Kula's expression is neutral, tight-lipped, red tinted eyes staring back at the clone she just stabbed from five feet away.
But if she expected something like that to silence his 'lies', she's disappointed to find that he's still talking, and even pressing against the deadly ice. Kula pulls her hand from the 'handle' sphere on her end and draws back, and the temporary weapon falls apart into long, crystaline shards that drop to the ground the moment she ceases to sustain its existence with her chi. He says he'd rather kill her than go back, and while she may have called his earlier words lies, there's nothing but truth resonating in what he says now.
Still, she doesn't scare easily. If death threats could stop the Anti-K', the project would have been deemed a quick failure. It's impressive what a year's worth of intense mental condition can do. Standing up straight, Kula stares back at K', not so much a swallow, a nervous twitch, or visible hint of fear at what he implies he would do if necessary to protect his freedom. "What are you fighting for?" Kula asks as fire courses along his arm. "What is the point to wandering alone? Is it worth being so angry? Aren't you lonely? At home I don't have to be..."
The heated burst rushes her in an attempt to punctuate his declarations and Kula demonstrates yet another tool at her disposal for dealing with K', her left hand waving out in front of her, from left to right, leaving a thick field of ice in its wake. The timing is precise, yet another example of her precision control, as the field solidifies into a mirror of glass-like ice against which his flames collide.
The hiss of steam rises up around the barrier as some of that fury is driven back toward K' and then the half-melted mirror falls to the ground, shattering into fine, crystaline powder across the pavement.
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits K' with Reflected Second Shoot.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////// ]
Kula 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\1 K'
He doesn't seem surprised at his inability to scare her, the way he might be able to scare a normal person-- or even a normal fighter. He wasn't even actively -trying- to scare her; it's simply his way to talk in such cruel absolutes. Violence, both in traded blows and spoken words, were never in short supply between those engineered by NESTS; violent ends and painful deaths were just part of the job description. She looks blankly at him, and K' returns her stare with an equal coldness.
And soon, it becomes evident just how intimately familiar with their own creation NESTS is. As they knew he would, K' presses the attack with characteristic force, and Kula reacts as she has been programmed: she counters it, sending it biting straight back into him, making it manifestly clear that NESTS engineered Kula specifically to counter every strength they built into K'. A high latent resistance to the strength of his fire, an ability to fling it back at him: a defensive focus, to reduce the sheer damage of which they made their first Kusanagi-imbued project capable. The leather he wears can protect him from some of the searing burn of his own flames, but certainly not all.
Eventually, will alone drives K' back upright, the boy moving through the stolen fire that yet scorches about him: seeming to castigate him for having dared to contain it in his foreign blood. He seizes it, brings it back under some semblance of control, mixing it with a fresh display of summoned flame that rips about him with an audible snarl. The force of will that drives him is nearly tangible in the air around him, woven into every last lash of fire that shrouds him. For all he broadcasts such a self-effacing exterior most of the time, when he really gets it in his mind, he can project a startlingly charismatic presence.
"I am fighting," he presently replies, very slowly, as if speaking to an idiot child, "to make my own choices, and to live my own life. Why should I be forced to go where I don't want to go? Why should I be forced to do what I don't want to do?" Fury brands his voice, the intensity of his anger seeming to feed the fire that seethes around him, his chaotic nature standing in stark contrast to the clinical, precise control of the girl across from him. "Do you know what I was to them? What YOU are? We're things. Tools to keep caged up until something comes up they can use us for. I was ten times more alone wandering around in their empty labs, week after week, than I ever was once I finally got free." He struggles with himself a moment, his fire flagging momentarily as his concentration and confidence waver, before he finally resolves to manage, "Out here, I mean something to people beyond what I can do for them."
It took K' a long time to even believe that statement for himself. For all he didn't feel himself worth it, for all he was so paranoid-- so afraid it was just some kind of joke-- the people he has encountered have finally managed to convince him he has some intrinsic worth. That Frei said it outright to him, earlier today, just put that feeling into articulable words. For years after he woke up as some freak science experiment, he had felt like a nothing-- like a failure, like a mockery, like something that existed only because he had some use. And it's only now he's finally starting to realize that he is a real person, of real parents, with a real sister and people who think he's more than some kind of walking artillery; it's now he's figuring out he doesn't deserve to be nothing more than what his years with NESTS defined him as.
COMBATSYS: K' gathers his will.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////// ]
Kula 1/-----==/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 K'
The powder scattered at her feet begins to melt, joining the now quite significant amount of water pooled over the surface of the street. Much of it turns to steam, rising up from the sun-heated road, taking on an almost orange, mystical appearance as the sun dips even lower beneath the horizon. At a glance, it is as if the two experiments battle in the midst of smoldering coals, their fire and ice mixing to create a hellishly hot and humid venue in which to fight.
Flames flicker over K''s body as he renews his resolve to keep fighting against the girl sent to bring him in like a hunted animal. He speaks slowly, the words coming one at a time, and Kula merely stands in place, her feet surrounded by the pooled water. He declares that they are but things to the people of NESTS and Kula begins to shake her head slowly. That can't be true. Sure, she's kept locked at the bases most of the time, but that's for her own protection, she knows that. She can't wander far, in case one of the whitecoats wants to run some tests, get a blood sample, or inject her with some other substence 'promising' to make her even better than before. But she's never known otherwise, never had a reason to believe there's anything wrong with that at all. It's just inconveniences in exchange for the shelter and protection her NESTS family provides her.
He claims he was far more alone when behind the walls of the Cartel and she just looks confused, knowing nothing of the box he was held in - of the cage used to keep the uncontrollable, rebellious fire user contained. And then he speaks of meaning /something/ to people, being thought of as a legitimate person... and Kula's confusion fades, the girl glancing from side to side along the wide, empty road. No one to be seen for miles. The concealing woods in one direction, the bustling city of people too busy to concern themselves with another in the opposite. At last her red hued eyes come back to rest on him and Kula says two words. "What people?" 'If he was so cared for, why is he out here', she seems to imply.
She breaths in then exhales, and while flame flickers over him, building up potency, a different change comes over Kula. The air around her chills further, and immediately surrounding her a localized wind picks up, touseling her hair and driving the floating crystals that continue to swirl about her even harder and faster. While she seems calm on the surface, the sudden increase in visible power almost suggests otherwise. Holding her hands out to her sides, the girl begins to gather additional power and the water dampening her shoes suddenly refreezes.
"It's time to come home, K'," she murmurs as she suddenly lunges forward, leaning down, her gloved hands pressing against the damp surface of the street. More ice materalizes as the water re-solidifies, and much of the built up power around the girl begins to spiral down around her feet and directly into the ground itself. There is a rumble, a tremor in the earth as that ever expanding platform of ice stretches out toward K' as well. But when the attack itself comes, the warning is terribly short as suddenly a piller of jagged ice crystals explodes out of the ground in front of him at an angle, aiming not just to smash into him but to run him through as well, ice shards projecting every which way.
As if that wasn't enough, a second pillar shoots up from behind him, mirroring the first, as it too seeks to pierce K' in place and lock him down - two manifestations of malevolent ice that dwarf anything Kula has used on him thus far, crushing in on him with so much force as to shatter the now quite rigid asphalt.
COMBATSYS: K' interrupts Diamond Edge from Kula with Heaven Drive.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ <
Kula 0/-------/--=====|
COMBATSYS: K' can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ <
Kula 0/-------/--=====|
Kula's meaning is clear, as she looks around. K' just watches her, figure draped in fire, as she finally asks the obvious question. It's one with an obvious answer-- or at least, obvious to those who know what it is to care for other people. "The people I left behind so they wouldn't get hurt cause of me," comes the quick, ready response. His level voice cuts cleanly through the snarl of the flames. "Hurt by people like you."
She gathers her energy, and K' fails to move. His stance simply sets even more solidly, heels grinding into the road, the heat about him wavering the air and throwing the wide world spread past his shoulders into an indistinct and shimmering haze. She lunges forward and smashes her hands into the road, coating the pavement in ice, forcing her energy into the earth, and it's at that point that K' fires off into a swift lope-- towards Kula.
The spires of ice pierce in at him from two different angles, and for the space of an instant they contact him: lacerating into him in their attempt to pinion him in place. Let blood spins through the air, hitting the pavement and scattering, boiling from both its own natural heat and the lingering warmth of the road. But then, all that fire about him concentrates with a sudden force and fervence, the overwhelming heat of it working its insidious way through the ice, splintering and weakening it. The spires falter, and K' keeps right on going.
K' lunges forwards with a ludicrous amount of force, a violent whipcracking spin simultaneously shattering the ice and sending his hand-- half-shut into a loose claw, wreathed in fire-- ripping up into the small girl's jaw with an unrepentant strength. His rotation completes, he touches the ground again only long enough to anchor himself, and he strikes her again, harder this time, raking from hip to shoulder and smashing her up into the air. His lean form meets her in the air moments after, but it's only so he can twist sharply and crack a blast of fire and a sharp kick into the girl, spurning her from him, seeking to crush her back into the street and send her skidding away.
He lands with a deceptive lightness, strength largely spent in that violent act of desperate force. And like a hunting animal that strikes cripplingly and then fades away, his dark figure is already retreating, trying to reach the shadows between the trees off the road. "I told you... I am NOT going back."
She has him. The ice pillers sieze the escaped project, piercing into him, catching on clothes and flesh alike. He won't be going anywhere now. She need only take hold of his throat and put him into an unconscious stupor, leaving those who will be returning to do the dirty work of securing and transporting him back to NESTS proper. Slowly she stands up straight. A little tired from effort expended, a little sore from the points she was struck, but she should be fine for the most part. She takes one step forward, foot crunching down against the frozen ice... and then it becomes clear he isn't done fighting yet. He's not done struggling. All of that pent up flame demands release... release from his control, release from her attempts to confine him in shackles of ice...
She stops then, right hand coming up, in the act of preparing to create a protective barrier - but the ice has already given way, and K' is smashing into the young clone. He catches her in the jaw and her attempts to defend herself are shattered as she staggers back. Blood seeps from her lip, only to freeze on contact with her skin, red eyes just barely coming back to fix themselves back on K' before he's upon her a second time with a rising, flame wreathed claw that launches her into the air. She twists, trying to regain control in the midst of the assault, but the fire laced kick cracks into her side, sending her sailing back from him, dropping toward the ground back-first.
The agile thing recovers quickly, however, spinning around as she descends. Before she even touches down, a slick of ice forms and it is onto that Kula lands on toes and fingers. The momentum carries her several yards, the ice flow expanding to keep her from skidding onto the pavement, but she finally comes to a stop in plenty of time to see K' retreating for the woods. She takes a step forward on the ten yard long stretch of ice. She can catch up with him easily - skating along the slick's surface to regain lost ground in an instant.
She coughs hard then, more blood appearing at the corner of her mouth, and she wobbles slightly. Injured but not stopped, she's capable of going further. Ignoring the pain in her body, the icy haired girl starts to slip forward over the 'runway'. She has him now. That last attack... that had to have consumed so much of his strength. It's simply a matter of capturing him and subduing the rogue clone. As she speeds over the ice she pictures how happy everyone will be back at the base. Their little Kula completed her mission to bring K' home. The Anti-K' fullfilled her purpose perfectly.
Diana, Foxy, Angel... they'll be so proud of her. She'll have to tell her army of stuffed animals all about her success. She'll tell them about all the things K' said, like she always does whenever returning home from excursions. Then there will be a party - lots of ice cream, cake... She recalls some of his words as she speeds over the ice, making up for lost ground with blinding speed. His lies about being alone, freedom to make decisions. All impossible to believe. He talked about how she was like him, just a tool, caged until given a purpose... and suddenly Kula falters.
She slows to a stop, feet sliding along with her remaining momentum as she reaches the limits of the ice slick and simply steps off onto drive pavement, arms hanging against her sides. If she brings him back, she'll have fullfilled her purpose... But then she has no more point. What is an Anti-K' with no K' to pursue? What is a perfectly engineered counter with no rebel to counter? The icy blue color drains from her hair, leaving her locks dark in the encroaching night as now-violet eyes stare after the direction K' escaped. In the end, K' was right. He's not going back. Not right now. Not until she knows what she would do without him. Not until she confirms with her handlers about the plans they have for her once the K' threat is contained. Until then... she can't bring him back.
COMBATSYS: Kula has ended the fight here.
Log created on 20:03:59 05/17/2008 by Kula, and last modified on 03:46:33 05/18/2008.