Description: A YFC4 match between Haggar and Sakura spins wildly out of control once Cody, all twisty on Glow, crashes the party. Does Mayor Mike Haggar manage to keep his cool and avert loads of collateral damage? ----- No. (Winner: Haggar, technically)
HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK etc
This is the sound of Southtown's highways, which are clogged with cars to the point that they are now Southtown's parking lots. People are returning to the rebuilt city! The problem is, when they rebuilt the city, they did not take into account that Southtown's road systems were built to maintain a steady flow of the city's existing traffic, not accommodate a zillion jerks coming in from out of town and bottlenecking the whole fucking thing. People are literally having picnics in the shoulder, because their cars aren't going to move an inch for hours. The police can barely keep control of the chaos, so they've clamped down on it, and the chaos has become /automotive stagnation/.
In the middle of all this, there are a couple tractor trailers. They are unmarked, but look like Optimus Primes.
Their mudflaps appear to be nude silhouettes of Shihong Mao. You can tell they're nude because of little dots on the shape to represent nipples.
A production crew wanders into the traffic mess and starts leaning ladders against the trucks. Among them, talking on her cellphone, is Sakura Kasugano.
"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE HONKING," Sakura shouts, as loud as a teenager possibly can. "KEI? KEI I CAN'T HEAR YOU. OH MY GOD TALK LOUDER THERE ARE ALL THESE CARS. WHAT? /NO/, I'M NOT DATING /DAN/, WHERE DID YOU EVEN HEAR TH-- WHY IS SHE SAYING I'M DATING /DAN/? THAT'S, LIKE, SLANDER! AND LIBEL! AND... /DAN/! I MEAN, GROSS! I... WAIT, HOLD ON, I THINK I HAVE A FIGHT, AND -- /NO DO NOT GO TELL NATSU I'M DATING DAN/! DON'T YOU DO IT-- DON'T YOU-- UUUURRRRRGGGGHHHH!"
Sakura punches the side of one of the trucks with a big 'KLANG.' Then, after a moment, her fury fades and she realizes her hand really hurts.
Mike Haggar, mayor of Metro City, genocider of two gangs (one of them twice), spokesman for Brut body wash, star of a new Japanese commercial about butter that comes in celebrity head-shaped packages or something, patron of Santonelli's down on the corner of Progress Ave. and 21st St., currently craving some dim sum, is already here. His enormous arms are crossed over his chest, slabs of muscle straining against his black tanktop as he looks down at Sakura.
His mustache bristles with patriarchal displeasure. These kids these days and their /cell phones/ all the time, there is a time and a place for conversation and that is not while you're out in public walking in the middle of a giant car mass when you're about to get a sporting event on. It was better when phones had cords because then you knew where your daughter was and you could listen in if she was talking to some scuzzy boy with greasy black sideburns and an untrustworthy smile that is definitely some kind of purity bounty hunter, probably paid by some Mad Gear asshole or something.
Shadow clouds over Haggar's stony face, his mustache bristling of its own accord as he waits with the patience of a saint, like he has been for the last thirty minutes. He's had to oil his arms twice and get his assistant to send three faxes. It could be worse, he supposes.
She could be /texting./
The mere thought causes his mustache to bristle further, like an infuriated, commanding porcupine.
HONK HONK HONK whup HONK whup honk whup honk WHUP honk WHUP WHUP WHUP
The furious honking is slowly drowned out by the whirring of a rotor, as a helicopter comes swooping over the traffic jam. It is black, and something about it makes it easy to guess that it is an asset of the organization "R".
Maybe it's the giant red "R" on the side. I don't know.
Inside the passenger compartment of the helicopter, a nondescript woman in a business suit and skirt is preparing a syringe full of a glowing green liquid. A dazed, shirtless Cody Travers looks on uncertainly.
"Today we're going to try 80 ccs," the woman informs Cody. He does not look thrilled.
"That's... is that more'n usual?" Cody asks, hesitantly. "That looks like a lot."
"It is," the woman says tersely. Then she stabs him in the arm with it like she was injecting adrenaline into someone's heart.
It takes about two seconds for Cody to start reeling, reaching out to support himself on the wall of the helicopter. "Ghhg... too much," he groans, reaching up to clutch at his suddenly racing heart.
Beside him, the woman wrenches the chopper door open, filling the little cabin with rushing wind and annoying WHUP WHUP WHUP noises. "We'll see," she says, shortly before pushing him out of the helicopter with her foot.
Cody plummets the hundred feet or so to the surface of the truck directly below the helicopter, striking up near the truck cab. The metal surface of the tractor trailer craters inwards, and the rear wheels of the trailer actually lift several feet off the ground before slamming back to the pavement. At the very least, the trailer manages to avoid caving in completely, and Cody struggles to pull himself to his feet inside his new metallic pothole.
The helicopter, meanwhile, lifts another hundred feet into the air, to observe from a safe distance.
Sakura notices that the sun is no longer shining on her. Glancing up in confusion, she realizes that Mike Haggar is standing next to her -- of /course/ the sun is blotted out. "Oh man!" she cries excitedly. "Mayor Mike Haggar! I totally tried to vote for you! But I was too young and not actually a resident of Metro City and I kind of had to go to court and explain how like I wasn't actually /trying/ to perpetuate voter fraud I was just a really big fan and uh wow this story kind of went off the rails quick," Sakura says, awkwardly laughing and rubbing the back of her neck. "But, I mean, seriously, I'm not, um, I'm not a criminal."
Sakura's phone beeps. "AUGH SHE TOLD NATSU! Uh excuse me Mister... Mister Honor? Is that how you? Your Royal-- I mean, no, that's... look, sorry, I gotta take this." Sakura flips her phone on its side and begins texting furiously.
KEI U R SUCH A B, GONNA CUT UR HAIR IN UR SLEEP 4 THIS ;P XX SAKU
"Okay! Anyway, Your Honored... Mayor...ness, check this out! I heard I was going to be fighting you, so I went online to Wikipedia to figure out the secret of your style!" Sakura stashes her phone somewhere -- pockets hidden in the skirt, probably (hopefully) -- and turns around, taking something out of another pocket and, apparently, rubbing her face.
Sakura turns back around to reveal that she is wearing 1. an incredibly goofy grin, and 2. a bushy, thick, Haggar-esque fake mustache. "Not too shabby, huh? I figured out the secret -- all great big-man fighters have facial hair! ...except, I guess, Honda. And... some other guys. But... you and Zangief, at least! Yeah?"
Then a truck collapses. "CRIPES!" Sakura falls over, but from her prone position still raises her fists, ready to fight.
COMBATSYS: Sakura has started a fight here.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Sakura 0/-------/-------|
The Mayor reaches out and lays a fatherly hand on Sakura's shoulder once she finally acknowledges him, mighty jaw lowering, preparing to thank her again for her work in Metro City against Rolento, where she was an instrumental, rallying force.
Unfortunately, Sakura goes into a riot of the teenager, and the Mayor's words sound more like, "Well-- Oh it's no-- We can j-- Of course you're n--"
Sakura's texting causes Haggar's temples to erupt into twitching tics. Many dissertations on the Mad Gear Incidents have noted that this is the final stage before the much-feared Haggar Fire erupts in his eyes, whereupon no man, woman, or child that has crimed is safe. His grip on her shoulder instinctively tightens, his eyes shadowing again. He finally takes a step back, mouthing to himself, 'Are you completely serious right now.' He thanks God that his daughter got through these years when things /made sense./
"That's..." Sakura beams beneath her mustache, and the irritation goes out of Haggar. We're not talking some swelling of pride or 'aww how adorable'. He's just... defeated, before they've even begun. "That's great." Being compared to Zangief makes him slump lower, as though he were trying to curl into a ball. "It's - it takes a lot of dedication, and -"
Don't even try, Haggar. It's hopeless.
For once, Haggar disregards the helicopter, assuming it to be a flyover with a camera. All Cody's impact does, right now, is distract Sakura, something that Haggar immediately seizes upon. His hands touch the ground for an instant, and he explodes forward, hands raking the air trying to scoop Sakura up, swing her over, and dump her back on the truck roof behind him. This is the best way to deal with teenagers. "Don't get sidetracked!"
Only after the move, hit or miss, does he look at the front of the collapsed truck, eyebrows pulling together. ---*?!
COMBATSYS: Haggar has joined the fight here.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Haggar
Cody does not exactly make it to his feet quickly. He gets up onto one knee a few times, but almost immediately loses it each time, collapsing back into a pile on the ground. Eventually, however, he makes it all the way to his feet, and he slowly wheels to face Haggar and Sakura, staggering drunkenly all the while.
"B'Mi...?" he slurs, brow furrowing in confusion. How long has it been, Cody wonders. And that's not a rhetorical question: he is suddenly uncertain the last time he saw the Mayor of Metro City. How long has he been like this? Days, weeks, years? What year even /is/ it?
Don't do Glow, kids.
There is one thing Cody is certain of, even through the accelerating heartbeat and breathing that heralds Bad News Bears; he needs to talk to Haggar. The blonde takes two lurching steps towards the side of the trailer he stands upon and leaps for the one containing Haggar and Sakura.
Except it's less of a 'leap' and more of a 'fall'. Cody slams into - and then through - the side of the trailer, disappearing into the darkness. A few beats later, a series of terrible, furious roars drift up from the trailer... and then nothing.
At least until the trailer surface some thirty feet behind Haggar and Sakura erupts outwards in a spray of metallic shards as Cody, Glow'd out into a cross between the Incredible Hulk and the /fucking Devil/, leaps back onto the roof of the trailer. His eyes and veins glow a sickly green, his muscles are grossly swollen, and he's sweating like an Eskimo in Afghanistan.
He also looks positively delighted to be here... but, for now, is content to stare at the old man and little girl in front of him and wait for the perfect moment to strike.
COMBATSYS: Cody has joined the fight here in the center.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|------=
COMBATSYS: Cody focuses on his next action.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|------=
COMBATSYS: Haggar knocks away Sakura with Medium Throw!
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|------=
Mayor Mike Haggar is a big guy. He's used to fighting other big guys, like drugged-out Codys who kick in his office door demanding he sign a marriage certificate between him and 'a shitload of Glow.' He's also used to putting gang members in the hospital. Maybe he just wasn't paying attention to how strong he was. Or maybe he was totally paying attention and it's just not Sakura's day.
Either way, Sakura Kasugano's status is officially 'hucked.'
Pitched over Mad Man Mayor's shouler, the teenager lets out a cry of "WHOAAA-A-A-A--!" and... goes clear over the ledge of the overpass. By the way, they're on an overpass. Underneath, there's /another/ highway, and no one's moving /there/, either.
Luckily, no one is in the Honda Civic Sakura lands on, crumpling its roof and making its windows explode. "AAAOW!" she cries, clutching her knee. "AAH! HSSS! AAH! HSSS! AAAH! HSS! AAAH! HSSS!"
And it goes on like this.
While chaos breaks out because holy shit Sakura just re-enacted the best part of 'The Good Son,' the girl formulates her next plan. Her mustache... her mayoral mustache... clearly gives her the power to commandeer vehicles, as far as she can reason. She may also have a concussion. "SCUSE ME!" she blurts, jumping up and shoving someone off of a Razor scooter, which they were using to sir-sum-vrent the traffic jams. Hopping onto the scooter, Sakura begins furiously scooting back up onto the overpass, a bunch of people honking and yelling at her.
Finally, she makes it back up there, and luckily, someone has taken to sleeping under a board leaned against some barrels, because they've been waiting for their car to move for two days now. "SWEET," Sakura cries out, in full battle fury, as she hits that improvised ramp, and -- still on the razor scooter -- /sails toward Cody Travers/.
"YYYAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
Mike Haggar knows exactly how strong he is. He is also not in the business of holding back.
This'll make you stronger, Sakura, trust me.
Sakura sailing into the distance is extremely convenient for the mighty Mayor. The light gleams off his thrice-oiled biceps in loving, creepy detail as he turns, crouching and spreading out his arms. He narrows his eyes - that can't possibly be - Haggar holds out his right hand, and a suited assistant with a Secret Service earpiece mounts the ladder, hands him a small case, and vanishes back into obscurity. Haggar takes a pair of rectangular glasses with silver frames out and perches them on his nose in about the time it takes for Cody to fall horizontally into the truck.
The glasses go flying away as the truck quakes to the side, the wrestler planting his hand on the roof to keep himself steady. He is wholly unprepared for Cody to erupt from the roof a little later.
He's been hemorrhaging funds, a network of reputable private detectives and contacts maintained across the entire /world/, to find Cody. Every time someone finds a lead, they vanish - no doubt brought down by an "R" agent, Haggar shooting a glance up at the helicopter, putting pieces back together in his head. He's been selling keepsakes, cutting his steak intake by half, buying /cheap bourbon/, his bank account tumbling down a hill - for this moment. But he didn't think he'd find...
"C--Cody. Hey. What..." Words have failed him completely. A cold knot swells in his stomach. The Mayor takes a single step back, hands trembling.
COMBATSYS: Haggar takes no action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|------=
COMBATSYS: Cody endures Sakura's Large Thrown Object.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|---====
Haggar stammers his shocked greeting, and Cody just throws his head back and laughs like Ozzy Osborne. The drugs in his system add a decidedly unnerving modulation to his voice. He takes a single step towards Haggar, spreads his arms invitingly, and lifts his leg to take another step-
- when Sakura crashes into his chest on a razor scooter. It's like driving into a brick wall; Sakura's momentum arrests completely, and although Cody's flesh ripples and instantly begins to bruise, he doesn't so much as sway.
It does, however, get his attention. The man's solid green eyes shift instantly from Mayor Haggar to the girl who just ran into him with a fucking scooter, and after only a microsecond of indecision, Cody's hand snaps out and wrenches the scooter out of Sakura's hands, lifting it high over his head for a brief moment.
And then he just starts beating her with it.
COMBATSYS: Sakura interrupts Large Random Weapon from Cody with Shou'ou Ken.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 1/-------/=======|=------\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|=======
Sakura just kind of gamely crashes into Cody, ruining Haggar's dramatic moment (not Dramatic Moment). She crumples to the ground and the scooter lands on top of her, and she lets out a squeaky "Ow!" from the ground, again doing her damnedest to undercut any sense of drama.
She pops up, pushing herself up on her hands while still resting her hips on the ground, mostly. Sakura looks around. "Whoa, Cody Travers! I thought you were Haggar! I mean, I'm kind of not seeing so good right now, so you're mostly like an indistinct shape, but I can recognize the big stripey bars on your suit, and... are you here to cheer on Mayor Haggar? That's pretty cool, I mean, it's good to show your maybe future dad in law that you--"
Sakura gets rudely interrupted by a Razor Scooter being smashed into her face. She drops back to the ground, blood spraying out of her nostrils like a cartoon, and endures a couple more scooterbeats to the face and neck. "AH! CODY! WHAT THE-- WHAT THE HELL!" she cries. "ARE YOU STILL MAD ABOUT THOSE DUMB PANTS, THEY WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE FIT YOU!"
Finally, after about eight blows to the head, Sakura has had enough. "SHOU'OU KEN!" she screams, launching up from the ground in a fearsome uppercut, a brief flicker of chi flaring around her. The scooter... is atomized.
It's a little unfair, really. Haggar was intending to use this fight as one of his - as they say in the biz - 'PSA Fights', where he puts on a good show while espousing various virtues like winners not doing drugs and never giving up, and building the attitude to go reach out and grip the world like it was your woman. This, though, kind of blows it out of the water.
Haggar instinctively rushes for Cody once he begins to PUMMEL A TEENAGER WITH A VEHICLE, but his stubborn code of law commands him to adhere to the rules of the match. This is, effectively, the start of the fight, and Cody is still allowed to rampage.
Haggar reels back as Sakura drops a ghetto Shoryuken, a flicker of blue light throwing his features into sharp relief. Besides, it looks like the girl has things in hand.
Haggar doesn't want to pile on like this, but he has little choice - he darts in, reaching with one mighty, overlarge Capcom hand for Sakura's face, twisting and shoving her toward the ground. He follows after, dropping an elbow for her collarbone. Conveniently, this puts him between Sakura and Cody, more or less.
"Cody... where have you been? What's /happened/ to you?!" This green color... he's practically monstrous!
Haggar recalls a few years ago... a new drug rush, a brief flare, quickly stamped out - or so he hopes. Is this-?!
The Shou'ou Ken has a significantly greater effect on Cody than simply hitting him with like fifteen pounds of metal and a hundred pounds of teenage girl. The uppercut vaporizes his makeshift weapon, and sends him stumbling a few steps backward. He regains his composure after only a moment, however, and immediately begins moving back on Sakura.
His plans are interrupted by Haggar leaping upon her. Cody hesitates for only a moment when the big man addresses him, but it seems that for the moment, Cody isn't home; the blonde simply shrugs, lifts his leg, and pistons it outwards towards Haggar's face, despite still being a few feet out of reach.
The kick comes out with such force that Cody goes sliding across the trailer roof, as if it were made of ice, or his foot were made of roller skates. In either case, the end result is still Mike Haggar (maybe) getting kicked in the face.
COMBATSYS: Haggar successfully hits Sakura with Quick Punch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
Sakura 1/-----==/=======|=------\-------\0 Haggar
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Cody 0|-------|=======
Sakura touches down from her uppercut, heaving and panting, breath ragged. She hasn't yet realized she's broken all the rules of the fight -- from the way her eyes seem glazed over and her stance is wobbly, she may not even be able to tell anyone her own phone number at the moment. Brain damage is a terrible thing for a teenager, especially so close to Christmas. No one wants a Coma Christmas.
Especially since Sakura has never wanted and will never want to know if any of her friends spread their buttcheeks as Mike Honcho.
Still, there's no time to dwell on that, as Sakura is promptly dropped like a fucking sack of rocks by Haggar. "Unh!" Just as she's about to mount a protest in the form of a punch to the knee, Haggar comes down on her like a fucking sack of boulders, basically crushing the air out of Sakura's lungs and possibly giving her a spinal curvature disorder. "AAAAAAGH!" she cries, unable to keep her fighting voice set to 'indoor.'
When Cody re-enters the fray, Sakura is able to roll away and stumble to her feet, bloody, bruised, concussed, and probably all the more dangerous for it. She hunches over to catch her breath, and that's when she notices something. In the chrome grill of one of the trucks, she can see her reflection. Her face, battered and damaged... but still sporting that fake mustache. She is a mustache warrior today. She must live up to that.
And so Sakura grabs the grill of the truck, puts her foot up on one of the headlights for leverage, and starts pulling. With Herculean effort, she manages to slip and fall, causing her foot to crash down and knock the truck's bumper off. "Uh... good enough," she groans, hefting the heavy bumper -- and then running at Haggar with it, top speed, like a battering ram. "AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" she cries, like a retarded little maniac.
COMBATSYS: Haggar endures Cody's Ruffian Kick.
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Sakura 1/-----==/=======|====---\-------\0 Haggar
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Cody 1|------=|=======
COMBATSYS: Haggar interrupts Large Random Weapon from Sakura with Random Weapon.
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Sakura 1/-======/=======|======-\-------\0 Haggar
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Cody 1|------=|=======
Haggar lets up on Sakura as Cody comes Ruffianing in. This is a good opportunity for her to go play with a truck! While she does that Haggar and Cody will have some man talk.
The Mayor pulls himself to his feet again with astonishing speed for his size, hunched down, letting Cody come to him. He's fought with and alongside Cody for an extremely long time - few fighters know each other so well. Ken and Ryu. Terry and Andy. Haggar and Cody. Haggar shifts his weight at the perfect moment for the Ruffian Kick to hit off-center, slamming into his cheekbone and dragging down the side of his head. His eyes snap open wide as the kick /tears/ at the side of his head, opening three parallel wounds. This is a brutal power Cody simply didn't have before.
The blow drags Big Mike back along with Cody, and he reaches out to complete the move, gripping the side of Cody's head, one leg thrusting forward to sweep him off and shove him down. He stares into Cody's solid green eyes, sweat beading out on his forehead. "Get ahold of yourself! My daughter is..." Anger wells up within him. He's let himself fall so far! No matter what hold "R" has over him, for Cody to let this happen-- "Cody, what the fuck have you done to yourself!?"
Haggar's roar echoes out like thunder, and for a moment, all the cars seem to fall silent, in grim respect for the second time Michael Haggar has been bleeped on broadcast, ever.
He remembers himself at the last minute, simply shoving Cody back instead of doing a move. He still has just a little more time, damnit. He feels more than hears Sakura coming at his back, hard-wired instincts causing him to spin around, catching the bumper in his right hand. What Sakura has to wield like a ram, Haggar grips as easily as a length of pipe. "Hey," he frowns, yanking it away. "You're not licensed for this yet." Haggar brings his arm back around, smacking it 'lightly' on the side of Sakura's head.
"You need 30 hours of two-by-fours before you can get your full debris license!"
Haggar's hesitation once he has Cody's leg propped up on his shoulder provides the half-naked, striped-pants-wearing blonde a perfect opportunity to just kick the Mayor in the Goddamn head. It is an opportunity, however, that he doesn't take. Instead, he spends the entirety of it looking confused. Daughter... what about Jessica? This is obviously important, so--
Haggar shoves Cody away and the distracted fighter topples onto his back, landing with a heavy thud. He struggles clumsily to his knees, but rather than rising all the way, he just sits there, reaching up to clutch at his head and snarling in pain. "J'sca," he slurs; although he says the word, it doesn't sound like he really understands it. "Whs... muh..."
It lasts only a few moments before the brief flashes of 'human thought' give way to skull-shattering agony as his brain rebels against having to do anything other than be in an adrenaline-fueled rage. Cody staggers fully to his feet, passing his hand behind his back as he does so and producing a long knife from places unseen, thus proving himself to be a magician of at least equal talent to Gob Bluth.
Cody lets out another roar and leaps at Haggar's back while he's distracted, plunging the knife down over and over at the bigger man's shoulders.
The 'gentle tap' of Haggar dinging Sakura on the head with her stolen bumper results in a tiny 'klonk!' noise and then the sound of Sakura falling to the ground, unconscious. Or apparently unconscious, anyway, because her eyes are still open. Maybe she's dead.
No, no, she blinks, she blinks, Sakura's alive. Still, it's like the 'off' button was pressed, or the marionette's strings were cut. She's just limp on the ground, and she might have difficulty doing math or distinguishing between colors for the rest of her life.
SOME TIME AGO
"MOM CHECK THIS OUT I GOT IT ON EBAY, CHECK IT OUT CHECK IT OUT!" Sakura runs into the kitchen, piefacing her younger brother out of the way and waving around... a fake mustache.
Sakura's mother, currently checking on some boiling water at the stove, makes a face. "...is this your way of telling me you're a lesbian?" She finally asks.
Sakura stops in her tracks, and her excitedness level drops by several factors. "I... wha..."
"I mean, the fighting, the haircuts, that Natsu girl you're friends with... now... the mustache?" Sakura's mother reaches out and puts her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "I just want you to know we accept you, me and your dad. No matter what you choose to be."
NOW
Sakura suddenly hulks the fuck out and rages to life. She jumps to her feet, and as Haggar is the nearest possible target, she turns toward him, fuming. Her hands come together, and chi sparks between them, building to a brilliant orb of blinding intensity. Thrusting her hands forward and creating a hellish torrent of chi that's as tall as Haggar, Sakura screams, unholy rage in her voice:
"I'M--
"NOT--
"GAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!"
COMBATSYS: Haggar endures Sakura's Shinkuu Hadouken.
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Sakura 0/-------/--=====|=======\===----\1 Haggar
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Cody 1|------=|=======
COMBATSYS: Haggar counters Tokushu Koudou from Cody with Power Swing.
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Sakura 0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||| ]
Cody 1|-======|=======
Haggar discards the fender after his 'light tap', pitching it off the side of the stationary semi. It crushes through a wayward camera, ruining that angle but making a /really sweet shot./ Haggar keeps his eyes on Sakura - she's a student of Ryu, and not to be underestimated. She doesn't have his attention, though. "That's right, Cody. Jessica's waitin' on you. I haven't told her anything... if she saw you like this..."
Cody roars, and leaps at Haggar's back. The Mayor closes his eyes, flexing his right hand as Sakura likewise surges to her feet. "It'd destroy her."
Haggar's eyes snap back open, a gleam of light running through his carefully-kept mustache as an extremely heterosexual Shinkuu Hadouken comes rushing toward him. The Mayor makes a sharp movement just before the energy washes over him, obscuring him from sight. Cody's knife plunges into the energy torrent, but only once - something arrests the movement of his arm.
Blue flash.
When the Vacuum Wave Motion Fist (really?) finishes charging through, Haggar is in the exact same place that he was, skin flushed a burned red, blue flames flickering on his pants, tanktop entirely burned away, hand wrapped around Cody's wrist. The blade cuts a thin line in his forearm, drawing a trail of blood. "You know, Sakura, the city owes you a lot. You need some help talkin' about any repressed issues, I can pull a couple strings, I know a guy."
The muscles in Haggar's arms surge, and he whips Cody up and over his head, slamming him down into and through the semi's container. The whole thing starts to groan, breaking down. "His name's Saul!" Haggar shouts over the whining metal.
Cody isn't very sure what just happened. To be fair, he's not very sure what's been going on since the fight began, but one moment he's leaping onto Haggar's back with a knife in his hand, and the next he's surrounded by light and fire, and then he's being slammed through the top of the tractor trailer, his knife spiralling out of his hand and away into traffic.
Only as he lies in a pile inside the trailer does he piece together what happened; the girl threw a fireball. Even Glow'd out - /especially/ Glow'd out - Cody Travers hates fireballs. The blonde begins to haul himself to his feet, snarling angrily... but freezes when he lays eyes upon something very, very interesting inside the truck.
The metallic whining of the collapsing semi trailer is suddenly accompanied by the deep *thunk, thunk* of the cargo inside shifting around as Cody manhandles it. Just what is this truck hauling, anyways?
Suddenly, green light erupts from within the trailer, casting sickly shadows out of the numerous holes in the thing's sides and roof. The light is followed, momentarily, by a deafening, bestial roar, and once again, Cody explodes upwards from inside the trailer, scattering metal shards into the air.
However, there are two important differences between the first such incident and this one. The first is that this time, despite moving surprisingly ponderously, Cody is trailing hazy, transparent afterimages, tinted the same green as his eyes, and as the blood now streaming from cuts all over his chest and face.
The second is that he is carrying an enormous steel I-beam, drawn back over his head like a sledgehammer.
Still roaring, Cody swings the girder up over his head and down towards Sakura; even if she manages to get out of the way, the strike explodes the entire trailer into chunks of metal. For some reason, it also causes the truck /cab/ to explode, erupting into a tremendous ball of flame.
Haggar frowns. What a terrible outcome.
COMBATSYS: Cody successfully hits Sakura with Random Weapon!.
[ < > ///////////////// ]
Sakura 1/--=====/=======|===----\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||||||||||| ]
Cody 0|-------|-======
"Wh... issues... Saul?" Sakura groans, bewildered and weak in the knees from her last, desperate onslaught of chi-flame. "I don't..."
Then Cody goes berserk.
Sakura's life flashes before her eyes as an I-beam swings at her.
SOME TIME AGO
Sakura Kasugano rapidly grows through a carefully edited montage of her doing one of Ryu's signature ansatsuken kata from some video someone made of him doing them. In her bedroom. The bedroom, weirdly, does not change that much.
NOW
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Sakura leaps out of the way of the I-beam -- right into the driver's seat of the cab of the truck. "Phew," she says, wiping her brow, when suddenly, the truck cab /EXPLODES/.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa--"
This is the sound of Sakura, clutching for dear life to the seat she had parked herself on, as the seat -- and her -- fly off over the horizon, leaving a dark contrail of smoke.
She lands far, far away.
Almost casually, Haggar steps out of the violent explosion's ensuing dust cloud, completely unharmed, smoothing his hair back down with one hand. He holds one hand over his eyes to watch Sakura go soaring away on a truck seat - she'll be fine, he eventually determines. The mayor takes a deep breath, cracks his knuckles, and turns around to regard the smoking wreckage.
Haggar bends down, scooping up some still-hot wreckage in one massive hand, bouncing it back and forth and blowing on it until the angry red dims. "Hey," he calls out, voice rumbling above the echoes. "Come out of there." He whips his hand across, scattering the metal into the wreckage in Cody's general location. "You an' me still gotta have a conversation, son."
Possibly a conversation in which Cody loses his teeth.
Because Haggar's going to knock them out of his head.
With his fists.
COMBATSYS: Haggar successfully hits Cody with Small Thrown Object.
[ < > ///////////////// ]
Sakura 1/--=====/=======|===----\-------\0 Haggar
[ ||||||||| ]
Cody 1|-------|=======
Haggar's chunk of debris soars into the smoke, dust, and flame, and strikes something with a tremendous *CLANG*. There's a guttural snarl... and a few seconds later, the ridiculously thick smoke is lit up by two tiny, brightly glowing green dots; it only takes a moment to recognize them as Cody's eyes, and in that moment he steps slowly forwards out of the smoke, walking through a small wall of flaming gasoline as if it were nothing.
The man's chest is a latticework of open gashes, and neon green blood runs down his body in innumerable trickles. His face is even worse; blood pours like some kind of tiny, terrible waterfall from one corner of his mouth and both nostrils.. and a few fresh-looking smears of what might be oil. That must be where the debris hit him.
Behind him, scraping irritatingly along the ground, Cody drags the bent, twisted remains of his I-beam, clutched in his right hand. His left hand, on the other hand, appears to be on fucking fire.
The blonde slows to a halt just past the wall of flames, and for several seconds, he just stares at Haggar. Before he has a chance to act, however, he notices that he is the fuck on fire. The man's neck twists almost mechnanically, and he lifts his flaming hand to stare at it, Slowly, he uhfurls his fist, stretching and spreading his fingers out as far as they'll go.
Suddenly, a flicker of green appears in the flames on Cody's hand. Within only a few moments, it spreads through the entire flame, spreading like the Glow infecting the man's blood, and he keeps on staring at the sickly green flame in his hand. He looks like he's seeing something for the first time.
Eventually, he snaps his hand shut, extinguishing the flame with a poof of smoke and air. His baleful gaze turns back upon Haggar, and his bloody mouth spreads into a wide, manic grin.
And then he lunges, dashing towards the Mayor of Metro City. He slides the last few steps on the soles of his shoes twists at the waist, swinging his enormous girder club over his head to bring it crashing down at Haggar hard enough to shatter concrete.
COMBATSYS: Haggar counters Huge Random Weapon from Cody with Hammer Thru.
[ < > //////////////// ]
Sakura 1/--=====/=======|======-\-------\0 Haggar
[ |||| ]
Cody 1|---====|=======
Haggar cares for his friends. He cares for them extremely deeply, with a fire few people are able to match. When Cody steps out of the flame, steeped in the foul green, a spike of revulsion drives into the back of his throat, but he only thinks of one thing: helping his friend. Helping the man who, until recently, was sure to be his future son-in-law.
Many people would balk to see something so unnatural as Cody making the flame /his own/, but Haggar only lifts one foot, and drives it into the ground. The soles of his boots crack the pavement, plunging down a few inches and anchoring him. He repeats the motion with his other foot, and lifts his left hand.
Mike Haggar beckons the man he's trusted his life to many times over on, as Cody grins. Haggar is a caring man, but Haggar is not a soft man. Right now, the first step in helping Cody, to him, is to beat him senseless and throw him in a box. He will then sit on the box and personally ruin the night of any "R" agent sent to get him out. Let them all come.
"HOOOOORRRAAAAAAAGGGH!" The next moments are very rapid, and many witnesses can hardly trust their eyes. Cody charges in the space of a few instants, the girder whirling at inhuman speeds to crush for Haggar's head. In response, the Mayor links his fists together, leans forward, and chops up.
Half of the girder tears away with a horrible steel howl, scattering bystanders as it whirls through the air to bury itself several feet into a stone wall. The rest slams down into the ground in front of Haggar, cratering the concrete and freeing him from his anchor. With a single, smooth motion, the enormous man stomps one foot forward onto the girder, bringing his raised arms down onto Cody's glowing, cracked chest.
Haggar's double axe handle crashes into Cody's chest like God's own battering ram. The force of the blow drives the blonde, briefly stunned from the impact between his weapon and the larger man's fist, straight onto his back, the concrete cracking underneath him, his legs swinging out in front of him and up into the air in an almost comical fashion. Somewhere in his drug-addled brain, something bubbles to the surface about not trying to overpower Mike Haggar.
It seems like pretty good advice.
In the helicopter still hovering above the fight, the woman in the business suit frowns thoughtfully and makes a few marks on a clipboard. Almost as an afterthought, she calls up to the copilot, "Get the rifle ready."
With a snarl, Cody slams his hands into the pavement underneath him. It cracks yet further, and the force of the blow propels the blonde up onto his feet. He doesn't even miss a beat; as soon as he's back up, he ducks into another lunge and cracks his right fist upwards towards Haggar's chin, savagely twisting his forearm as he extends his arm.
The blow itself is lightning fast, and doesn't have a particularly spectacular amount of power behind it. It's a move, however, that Haggar has seen many times before; as Cody's arm reaches full extension, a whirlwind of chi erupts into existence around the bunkered down Mayor. There are a few key differences, hower; for one, the entire tornado has a sickly green tinge to it. For two, the air that composes the whirlwind is really, /really/ hot.
Apparently, this comes as a surprise to Cody, too. He recoils from his own whirlwind, stumbling backwards towards the still raging fire, lifting his own hand to stare at it. About the same time, the man's sternum gets the memo that it was just, essentially, hit by a car; he trips over his own feet and collapses into a sitting position.
And then he starts to panic, eyes darting back and forth, breathing rapidly accelerating. Perhaps the drugs have hit some sort of critical mass, but whatever the case. Cody is definitely totally freaking the hell out.
COMBATSYS: Cody can no longer fight.
[ < > //////////////// ]
Sakura 1/--=====/=======|======-\-------\0 Haggar
Suddenly, the green blood pouring from Cody's body is filled with thin tendrils of red, lines of color that slowly grow to overtake the unnatural green. The blonde seems to shrink, what must be a trick of the eyes that is compounded by the way he curls into a fetal position, still writhing slightly in obvious agony.
His eyes stay open the entire while; eventually, when nothing but red flows from his body, and the neon color has drained from the veins visible through his skin, they, too, stop glowing, reverting to their usual blue.
"The rifle," the woman snaps to the helicopter copilot, currently scrambling to remove a rifle from its long black plastic case and load it with something. "Now!"
COMBATSYS: Haggar endures Cody's Criminal Upper.
[ < > /////////// ]
Sakura 1/--=====/=======|=======\==-----\1 Haggar
Mike Haggar knows the move, of course, and doesn't even try to guard his chin. He let's Cody's first glance off, heedless of the nasty bruise and savage cut it leaves, blood running as he crosses up his arms and hunkers down, intending to bull right through the incoming whirlwind.
He's not ready for the Glow-backed force, the blazing /heat/ of the thing.
Haggar is initially forced back, feet pumping, arms swinging. "D--damn..." It takes the Mayor a few moments before he can find his feet again, panting, gasping, charging /back into/ the Criminal Upper. The powerful winds resist him, the heat catches his pants and suspender on fire again, singing his hair and mustache. "Cody!" He's starting to fade. Can he get through?! Haggar roars with effort as he stabs his hand through the bulk of the Criminal Upper, his /skin/ catching on green fire in the process. Angry blisters start to form on his arm, and his chest, as he keeps fighting through it. "CODY!"
The pain is incredible, but Mike Haggar is not going to stop. This is the first chance he's had in /years/ to get his closest friend back from whatever the hell he's gotten himself into. He /needs/ Haggar's help...
...and if he's read the world's situation right, Metro City and Haggar may soon need Cody's help.
Despite his transition back to normalcy, Cody's whirlwind persists, and longer than it ever has before. It appears, in fact, to have spun (ha ha) wildly out of control. But Mike Haggar is... well, Mike Haggar, and a little thing like a terrible cyclone of blast furnace-temperature air isn't going to do much more than slow him down.
It does, however, slow him down.
Eventually, Haggar's struggling against the cyclone simply blows it apart, the whirlwind erupting into a burst of harmless air, leaving Haggar an unimpeded path towards Cody's prone, groaning form. Sure, he's surrounded by fire, but--
*BANG*
A crack of gunfire erupts from the helicopter above the freeway. Something small and moving at several times the speed of sound howls towards Haggar... and then right past his ear, and into Cody's neck.
The good news is, it isn't a bullet.
The bad news is, that's because it's an enormous, hollow dart.
Filled with Glow.
The dart empties itself into Cody's carotid artery with as much malice as an inanimate object can muster, and the man arches his back and lets forth a strangled scream. He collapses again a moment later... but he is far from still.
Cody's heartbeat pounds in his ears faster and faster. His breathing, too, begins to speed up, the blonde frantically sucking in breath after breath. Slowly, tiny threads of green appear once again in the blood still pouring from his body...
Haggar stumbles to a stop, staring in shock. The dart whips past his ear with a hissing sound, and once Haggar gets a look at the dart, he doesn't need to keep looking at Cody to see what's going to happen. Haggar, goal-oriented, whirls around. His eyes lock on the helicopter he's been ignoring this whole time, finally spotting the "R" insignia.
The mayor's eyebrows knot together. A terrifying light leaps into his eyes.
Grinding his teeth, Haggar reaches down, wrapping his hands around the chunk of girder and lifting it about as easily as a normal man would a baseball bat. "Bernstein..." he growls, hauling back. "Bernstein!" Haggar's forgotten, for the moment, all about the 'ideal' Alma has behind this tournament. He's absolutely furious.
"BERNSTEIN!" Mike Haggar hurls the girder up at the helicopter, twisted point first. Sprinting, bowling over anything in his way, he makes for the second chunk, embedded in a wall.
Up in the helicopter, the woman lowers the rifle from her shoulder and squints down at Cody as he changes again. "As expected," she says smugly, passing the rifle off to the co-pilot still in the back with her. She picks her clipboard back up and makes a few more notes, hmming thoughtfully to herself. "This should be more than enough data," she says, lowering her clipboard again to look back down towards Cody.
Whatever the rest of her sentence was going to be, it suddenly becomes a gasp of terror, instead.
Haggar's girder javelin blows through the helicopter like a bullet, almost tearing the vehicle in half, A plume of flame erupts from the rotor, and the chopper goes spinning wildly out of control, rapidly losing altitude until it finally simply crashes into an overpass and fucking explodes.
A few seconds later, the metaphysical camera cuts over to where Cody lies... or, more accurately, was lying. He's simply gone, and although his tracks down the freeway aren't necessarily hard to follow - every once in awhile, a car flips over onto its roof as the fleeing man strongarms it out of the way - he has a nice head start, and is moving incredibly fast for someone who just had the shit beaten out of him.
Haggar doesn't like killing people - he hates it, actually, straight up.
But he's done it before. Once the girder rips through the helicopter, he stops regarding it as a threat, turning decisively away from it to Cody, shoulders heaving, those blisters on his arms and chest looking positively nasty by now. Some have broken, weeping fluid. But... he's just missed him! Damnit! The Mayor's rage plays out in one final stomp on the ground, slamming down hard enough to crater the ground around him, a shockwave shoving debris several inches away from him.
He fumes like that for a few seconds - there's no way he can catch up to Cody, the younger man's always been faster than him. Abruptly, he sags, shoulders slumping, legs giving out from under him, mustache losing its shine. He buries his face in one hand, rubbing up and down, taking one deep, shuddering breath. After so long...
With a visible effort, he pulls himself out of it, dragging his hand off his face, running his thumb underneath his suspender. Without stopping to think about it, Haggar turns toward the wreck of the helicopter, far enough out that the area wasn't exactly primed for a fight happening. There's shit to do.
COMBATSYS: Haggar has left the fight here.
[ <
Sakura 1/--=====/=======|
COMBATSYS: Sakura can no longer fight.
Log created on 01:04:05 12/22/2009 by Haggar, and last modified on 18:24:54 12/28/2009.