Description: Recuperating after some difficult, punishing endurance training in Brazil, Rock Howard's future as a NESTS toy has been decided upon by none other than Krizalid. Rock, however, disagrees.
"I don't think you're understanding me.."
The entire place is trashed. Long, ragged, smouldering scars are cut all into the grounds of the main chamber, pew seating all but vaporized in places where incredible heat passed through in extremely concentrated waves, cutting through stone and fusing wood into physically improbable shapes while leaving silk curtains beside it completely untouched. There is, in reality, no place where the cut-marks even end--it seems like something went 360 degrees around and evne up over th entire theatre wreaking havoc. People lay strewn in all directions. Patrons, security guards, employees, administrators. All dispatched in what seems to have been instants.
There's only one person standing here.
Krizalid, the tall, dark, scarecrow-like form stands at one end of the aisle, next to a stone pew all but shattered, swathed in that all-concealing coat of his. From all appearances, he tracked Rock Howard here and made short work of anyone who would even think.... about getting in his way.
"Dear old dad is gone." His voice is chilling, unemotive in the slightest. "But his blood isn't. See, there's a war coming. And blood like his... we can still use. Join us peacefully, and there might be a future for you yet. It's not a bad deal." It's as polite as someone like Krizalid gets.
He -tried- to make them go. This wasn't their fight. Rock had been recuperating after some training--some hard training--and for hard training, the jungles of Brazil were amongst the best for it. So he'd been recovering. He emerges out of the back room of the Theatro Municipal just as the scarecrow-like man begins talking--just soon enough to get the gist of what his speech is about. And those red eyes darken, his hands closing into fists as he looks around. He doesn't have to--he knows how bad the carnage is--but he does so anyways. He forces himself to do it.
"Join you..." Rock grits his teeth, that young face twisting into a hard scowl, hands twisting into fists. How this man can even think... but that's the problem with people like this, isn't it? They think threatening--killing--innocents will somehow make their points more valid.
"What the hell makes you think I'd 'join' you... you think that all this is gonna -scare- me...?" Teeth grit again, muscles in his jaw twitching, jumping. Dear old dad... well, it's no secret as to who Rock is, so the fact that someone's talking about him isn't surprising.
And Rock is already moving, high-stepping, running at Krizalid. "Bastard... I'm not gonna 'join' you with anything but the goddamn -ground-!!" And it looks like he intends to make good on that promise, leaping to the attack in that classic Rock Howard fashion, right arm cocked back to deliver a stinging hook to Krizalid's jaw, nevermind that punching someone in the face is a good way to break bones.
COMBATSYS: Rock has started a fight here.
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Rock 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Krizalid has joined the fight here.
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Rock 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
COMBATSYS: Rock successfully hits Krizalid with Aggressive Strike.
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Rock 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
The dark-clad man is quiet for a time, scarred eyes closing briefly in a show of suppressed irritation. All about Krizalid, there is the sense of incompressible, indominable heat, as if the man simply radiated it by aggravation alone. "Is that so," he asks, his voice flat and without interest in the question posed. A poor attitude, considering the boy's life is on the line now.
"That's a shame."
The bodies laying around him now are disregarded, as is Rock's obvious bleeding heart for them--they were witnesses to be eliminated, potential variables that Krizalid didn't feel like dealing with. And more importantly, they were a way for him to limber up before what he knew was going to be a fight. An alert flashes across his internal display, as his battlesuit begins battle routines when Rock charges him.
[#] Activating conflict resolution.
[#] Establishing remote link to regional server...
/!\ No regional server found! Continuing as orphan client.
Krizalid takes the blow full-on through his high-standing collar into his face, throwing the clone back a step or two as Rock flies past him, forcing his operating system to flood his view with vital reports as he steps to adjust. Krizalid doesn't move much, as if he had a different method of responding to pain than someone ..normal. It makes him seem all the more alien. Dark energy swirls around his gauntlet, black lightning popping between the coils looping around his coat sleeve. "...But I didn't say you had a choice." Join him peacefully.
Or join him in pieces.
Krizalid lifts an arm with a military snap, discharging a full burst of force from a hand that seems more like a steel talon than anything else, painfully electric power crawling through the air as he tries to blow Rock right off his feet.
COMBATSYS: Rock blocks Krizalid's Negative Anguish.
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Rock 0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0 Krizalid
That first strike felt good, very good. But it hasn't assuaged that burning rage, that Howard legacy--the hunger for violence, that part of him that sings in sweet dark joy when he goes into battle. That part of him that he rejects, denies, pushes away. But sometimes, sometimes, it's just too tempting to taste it, to let it power his limbs, guide his strikes... let it search for the blood it wants.
But he reins it in--and just in time, as that blast of power issues forth. With a grunt, Rock throws up crossed forearms, absorbing that shockblast on his arms and in his aura. It pushes him back, but that doesn't really seem to matter to Rock--he just charges forward, lunging...
Turning his steps into a burst of forward movement, a single push making him fly across the rubble-strewn ground, leading with his left elbow--a sharply-pointed strike intended to open Krizalid's defenses for an equally sharp palm strike from his right, purplish windfire blossoming from the surface of his hand to add an additional sting.
As he goes, he shouts, in angry reply, "I'd -never- join you even if it meant seeing my dad fall by my own hands!!" That's a pretty strong statement considering just how badly Rock would love to kill his own father. Then again...
Doesn't Geese deserve it?
COMBATSYS: Krizalid reflects Hard Edge from Rock with Typhon's Rage "R".
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Rock 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 Krizalid
With the soft clink of metal on metal, Krizalid lowers his arm to his side slowly, looking past a fringe of black feathers as Rock forces himself past his dampening blast. Admirable strength, to withstand his chi so directly. "Not bad. It'll be a harder fight than I thought." Though you can't see his mouth behind that coat, there is the impression of a bemused expression from the way he glances at Rock.
"I needed the workout..."
If a cobra could laugh..
Suddenly, Krizalid twists, his leg shifting and bending in ways that would look painful to the casual observer as Rock barrels towards him at breakneck speeds, easily twisting his steel-ribbed boot high over his and Rock's head as he cuts a roundhouse kick through the air with such force that it kicks up a massive cyclone in front of him, blowing the tails of his coat wide. When Rock comes, he'll find that deadly speed of his simply bled away by a wall of solid air, the energy in his hands sucked away into the void...before Krizalid twists a claw into the cyclone and kicks it a second time--turning the wall of air into a wall of pure knives, "HRNPH!!"
"What are you even thinking, genius!? One punch.. isn't enough."
He cocks his head, a cruel light in his eyes.
"Good thing it's not up to you. Even with this, with these kinds of moves, your pop would've spanked you like a two year old red-head... wouldn't've been the first time though, right?!"
Repelled! Rock grunts as force is thrown back at him, hurling him backwards; he flips in midair, skidding through dust as he lands on his feet, left hand touched down to bleed off momentum. He looks up, his lips twisting into a fierce grin. "If 'one punch' were enough to take you off... you couldn't've done all this..." With an almost casual effort he rises back to his fighting stance, flinging dust and crumbs of stone off his left hand with a dismissive shake before closing the fingers back into a fist.
It seems like that rejection was not quite enough to put him off, either, as he stands there, contemplating Krizalid for all of a second or two. "My 'pop''s got nothing to do with this... doesn't matter if he'd beat me here or not... I'm not facing him. I'm facing you..."
Rock circles around to his right, moving in steadily but not charging in, "...and anyways... you think I'd somehow be satisfied with one punch?? It's gonna take a -lot- more than that, ass!!"
But a punch isn't what Rock has in mind--he feints a low kick, but lets it barely get halfway chambered before he turns it into a jolt step, closing in on Krizalid with the goal of sinking his hands into that leather jacket and twisting, hurling the NESTS agent towards that crumbling stone pew.
COMBATSYS: Rock successfully hits Krizalid with Quick Throw.
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Rock 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Krizalid
/!\ Warning! Uncontrolled lateral movement detected!
His sensors weren't fast enough to detect both movements. Internal gyroscopic sensors in his suit struggling to keep up, Krizalid tumbles through the air slowly as Howard snatches him and throws him through the shattered pew, the clone's suit and momentum easily providing enough durability to break through the rest of it with bone-jarring force.
Steam hissing slowly from containment units in his boots, Krizalid shifts, getting up slowly from the wreckage with a soft groan, his body seeming to bend in strange ways as he does. He gives Rock a level, cold glare.
His shoulders shift slowly, the presence of a short, bitter laugh. Krizalid seems to taste a little blood in the water, even as he drags himself up from being put down. "That what you think, sunshine-head?" He initiates the scan of Howard quickly. "Let me break it down..." His claws twist into the marble underneath him. And suddenly, the experiment is gone, his body moving in an eyeblink as he closes ground between them instantly, shooting a leg out into Rock's solar plexus to surprise him and stun him, the muscles in his leg twisting as he tries to just throw Rock away.
"Geese was one of the strongest fighters on the face of this earth, and one of the greatest threats to our goals." He doesn't imply any more than he has to. "But he was also the greatest potential resource at the disposal of anyone enterprising enough to take advantage of it. So, in a way, it really is about him. See, like it or not, you /are/ his legacy." Krizalid flexes his claws, the knuckles cracking audibly.
"So I think, from now on? I'm gonna make you my pet project..."
Imagine what his record'd look like with this kind of catch on it.
COMBATSYS: Rock counters Light Kick from Krizalid with Gedan Crack Counter.
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Rock 1/-------/=======|=======\==-----\1 Krizalid
Blood in the water? That may be, but Rock's no wounded prey. He looks almost patient, that sort of speed something he's very familiar with--Krizalid might momentarily be pleased to feel his leg impacting something solid and fleshy. But it isn't impacting Rock's chest--instead, it's impacting a -trap-, Rock's arms held not only to deflect that kick but to rob it of momentum, to freeze that limb for Rock to use as a fulcrum, whipping his body up and over and planting an extended, right bootheel right into the center of Krizalid's forehead, the followthrough snapping down as the Howard scion regains his footing.
"I am his legacy," Rock replies, sounding, for a moment, almost reasonable, compared with his earlier shouting.
"But you know... this is probably the one thing he and I would agree on..." Rock backsteps two steps, his feet shuffling, kicking up clouds of dust.
"And that's that -you- don't get to play around with his legacy! Think he'd tear -me- up? You don't wanna -think- what he'd do to you... and believe me..."
Rock smirks. "If you could take -him-, you wouldn't want -me-... so you better take this 'pet project' idea of yours and -stuff it-."
Krizalid gets the opportunity to raise one eyebrow before Rock's boot hits him in the skull like lightning.
The clone is driven off as Rock breaks off Krizalid's attack and snaps back with a wicked fast counter of his own, the momentum bleeding away from Krizalid as he's forced back, his body shifting in weird, messed-up ways as he stumbles clear. His skull feels as if it had split, and blood drains freely down the experiment's face. For a second, Krizalid stands there, bent 90 degrees in the wrong direction, his claws just barely scraping the ground. Lifting one of those to the blood on his face, his shifts as he makes a choking noise...
Which slowly devolves into the most haunting cackle.
"... Moron ..."
Suddenly, and violently, pneumatic pops signal the mnemonic activation of a limiter release protocol. For safety purposes, his battlesuit automatically releases each of the numerous buckles securing Krizalid's coat to his body. It ejects the entire affair off of him with a massive corona of heat-choked wind, a dark and lurid heat seeming to taste of copper and boiled blood suffusing the clone.
"Stop right there. Stop. Don't say one more word. Thinking .. for even a second.. that you're anything but the _past,_ with only shreds of usefulness to what is ultimately.. the _FUTURE_... that you and anyone ever connected to you is going to be anything but a _footnote_..."
Krizalid shifts, lifting his torso with every slow, angry breath that he takes.. "I'll _tear you in half!!_" Temperature rising! Critical heat output attained! Krizalid suddenly bends forward with full authortiy, righting himself with sudden and alien fire. This burning sensation is familiar. It's the sacred fire of Kusanagi, only bent to a hellish whim--the dragons have lost their legacy to the hellhounds.
Glowing white-hot claws flash in the air, trailing beams of fire in their wake, waves wide enough to set the immediate environs to boiling in huge molten gashes. It makes it swiftly apparent exactly how Krizalid put those cut marks in the ceiling. In the end, Krizalid's response takes only a moment, leaving a wicked cross-scar in the earth before him as the clone pants, every part of his frame momentarily steaming, scalding to the touch as his temperature drops off sharply.
And the hellhounds know how to use that legacy, as well.
COMBATSYS: Rock blocks Krizalid's End of Heaven.
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Rock 1/------=/=======|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
It takes more than the simple crossing of arms, this time--Rock acttually has to push -into- that cross slash, burning his hands, the leather of his jacket, the arms underneath, as he grunts under the pressure, shoved bodily backwards, acrid smoke rising from his now-ruined jacket. Thankfully he has plenty of others. "Make up your goddamn mind, you freak!" he cries, scornfully, snapping his arms out to either side to shake off the last of the pain, those red eyes still focused on Krizalid, the anger burning just behind them.
"Either you want to use me or I'm just a piece of the past... you don't even know which it is, do you? You're all twisted up in there..." Well, Rock'll help straighten that out, won't he?
But he changes his flow, his pace, suddenly keeping his distance. "So, let's finish this little play out..."
COMBATSYS: Rock focuses on his next action.
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Rock 1/------=/=======|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
"Oh, I've made up my mind a long time ago.."
Krizalid straightens, a wicked light coming to his eyes, limned in the blood draining out of his skull. "Don't get confused. My benefactors could use you. As you are, they've got at least four different plans for you, all involving a knife and different parts." He stretches slowly, luxuriously, as if pain wasn't shooting electric impulses up his body. He stalks quickly, first to one side, then to another. The predatory air about the partially insane experiment is not mistakible.
"Me, though? I'm different."
His eyes narrow to deadly slits as he senses Rock, the battle data for the young fighter still flickering across his suboptic implant, telling him a few things about the boy's vitals and making hypothesises about his next move. Krizalid disregards it.
"To me?"
Krizalid is suddenly /right there/.
Rock has all of a split second to respond before Krizalid snatches him up by the throat, lifts him bodily like a misbehaving kitten and slams his blonde head through one of the pews. To Krizalid, the moment Rock first talked back, he became something real simple. "You're just a _toy_!"
COMBATSYS: Rock effortlessly dodges Krizalid's Dead Fall.
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Rock 1/------=/=======|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
Rock sways back, avoiding that snatching grab; the claws snap closed on empty air. And then he straightens back up, putting his right shoulder into Krizalid's chest, forcing the man back a step. "Yeah... you're almost just like him... too bad you don't have the skills to back it up! You think you're gonna make a pet project out of me? Think you can learn what makes me tick, take me apart like a bunch of Legos? Well, you don't know -anything- about me..."
Rock pushes off with his feet, forcing Krizalid back another step, putting him in perfect placement--at least, for the moment--for Rock to duck down, grabbing for Krizalid's ankles, seeking to use a strong grip there, his deceptively powerful legs, and his arms to whirl Krizalid up and behind Rock, where he might land just about ten yards away.
"Just a toy? You're nothing but a toy yourself!! You can talk about toys when you get that guy's hand -out of your ass-!!!"
COMBATSYS: Krizalid blocks Rock's Shinkuu Nage.
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Rock 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Krizalid
"Hrngh!"
Krizalid finds his advance stopped by Rock's shoulder-check, his claws snapping shut just shy of Rock's jugular only moments before, heavy boots taking hissing steps into the ground--his systems still hot from the discharge only seconds prior--as Rock pushes him further, attempting to flip Krizalid over him neatly, sending the clone tumbling away. It almost works.
"Ha!"
The clone twists in the air, quickly reasserting his control enough to continue the motion, spinning once in a revolution that causes a massive whirlwind to twist down towards Rock, the kickback causing the experiment to land harshly some ways away, but certainly not on his back. "Someone like _you_ talking about hands in ass? Don't make me /laugh/."
Kids these days...
A little pain ought to shut his mouth.
True to form, an instant later, the whirlwind lands as a deadly cyclone in the vicinity, a horrific screeching sound emitting as the wall that formerly stopped Rock cold slices the pews around him into thin slivers.
COMBATSYS: Rock fails to slow Typhon's Rage "S" from Krizalid with Raging Storm+.
-**- LUNATIC HIT!! -**-
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Rock 1/--=====/=======|=======\-------\1 Krizalid
Pain? Oh, Rock's got that in spades now. Pain all around him, that whirlwind descending faster than he expected, tearing into him, cutting short his response, the upwelling of chi canceled out utterly by the storm of power, shredded pew slashing into him from all sides as well. Yeah, Krizalid just brought the pain. Rock isn't just struck--he's -hurled- backwards, exploding two additional pews before fetching up against the edge of the raised stage.
In an instant, he's bloodied, battered, beaten. But not beaten -down-. Rock is many things--and he is like Geese in many ways, many that he'd deny. But like his father, Rock is a fighter. Say what you will about Geese Howard--ruthless, immoral, criminal, backstabbing... it is as Krizalid said. The man is--was--one of the foremost fighters of his time, and indeed, if he were still alive today he'd -still- be one of the most formidable men one could ever hope to face. One does not become such a fighter by learning to give up, or back down, or just go away and submit--no, one must be a fighter in spirit as well as in body.
Rock isn't there yet, but he's got some of those traits--he is a fighter as well. So there's stillness for about ten seconds, and then the rubble shifts, and Rock, bent and nearly broken, rises out of the wreckage, spitting a mouthful of hot blood onto the floor. "Not bad... but like you said... my dad's done worse... so... I'm /not impressed!/" It's a big show of bravado, but Rock still feels like he's got something to back it up...
[#] Attack efficiency peaked at 1.3vc -- record made for log.
"Pretty brave."
Krizalid squints at Rock's bloodied form closely. "You know, it's funny how fast someone's song changes when I use my full power," the clone notes, dispassionately. "I've seen it, you know. First they think they can get away clean, thinking it's nothing important, that it's just some other fight."
As he speaks, the clone steps forward, stalking after Rock with a predatory intent.
"Then.. as they figure out what it is they're up against, they start to falter. Strength becomes weakness. As they start to get--" he laughs once, tapping the side of his skull with one of those wired claws. "--Exactly what sort of danger they're in." He's not smiling. His boots are starting smaller fires in his wake. "Bravery turns to cowardice."
"Then. They try to run."
/!\ Warning! Core temperature reaching unsafe levels.
He crosses his arms slowly, focusing his power. A massive explosion rips out from the center of Krizalid's body as the clone manifests magnificent and huge wings made entirely of that boiling sacred bloodline fire as he sheathes himself in a pure conflagration, lethal to everyone but him. Inside that corona of harsh, billowing hot light, the only thing you can see is his grin. He doesn't /need/ to say anything else.
Little more than a demon of the conflagration, Krizalid leaps up into the air a short ways, and with an unholy shriek, dives for Rock's throat. He bears down on the scion with only one hell-bent purpose in mind: Finish the job he started of ripping him open, only this time he's going to do it with his bare, fire-limned claws buried up to the wrists in Rock's chest.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid successfully hits Rock with End of Eden.
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Rock 1/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
The sound is wordless, part sound of impact, part sound torn from Rock's throat, his battered body refuses to obey him--once again he's flung backwards, crashing through a wall, a brick one this time. And for another moment, all is quiet and still, the theatre's transformation into an abbatoir complete...
Until there's a glow of golden light shining through the opening that Rock Howard just made through the wall. A glow that resolves itself as Rock's right hand, as the red-eyed, blond-haired young man steps back through the wall. He's even more bloodied now, his teeth a white slash in a mask of red that covers the lower half of his face. "You got a lot of power... and I'll admit... you know how to use it... but you're still..." Rock starts walking forward; within three steps, he's picked up a bit of speed. Two more steps, and he's in a run. One more step after that and he bursts forward, that right hand cocked back, streaming golden chi as he fires across the ground like a bullet, feet not touching the floor, dead-set on giving Krizalid a chi-fueled knuckle sandwich right to the jaw--the same point he hit coming -into- this fight.
Just as he kicks off for that final launch, he completes his thought, "--nothing but a broken toy yourself!!!"
COMBATSYS: Rock prepares to take his last stand against Krizalid!
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Rock 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
COMBATSYS: Krizalid blocks Rock's Shine Knuckle.
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Rock 0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0 Krizalid
[#] Conflict Resolved! Factor is estimated at 34%...
Warped air trails off of Krizalid's body like streamers, tinted red from the vapors of a vicious cocktail of blood--belonging to every person here, including himself. Crusting the mass instantly to ichor-stained claws, the wings of fire slowly disperse from Krizalid's back, leaving the clone to pant, hard. Using his full power might not be damaging to him, but it is draining.
But his lips split into a whip-thin smile.
It's more than draining. It's exhilarating.
/!\ Silhouette shift detected! Reengaging conflict resolution!
His eyes flit up quickly to track the source of the movement. What? How is that even possible? There's not many people who can take even a few seconds of Krizalid operating at his full power, let alone continue fighting. As Rock bolts towards him, Krizalid's surprise is self-evident as the clone is forced to absorb the intensity of the shining hit into his shoulder, sending the clone skidding back from the sheer force of it--a blow that would have easily put the clone's lights out if his reflexes were just a touch slower.
Krizalid snarls, his patience finally broken.
"Whipped dogs--"
Krizalid launches himself headlong into Rock, attempting to just grip him bodily and throw him off-balance somewhere behind him, before whipping around to throw out a palm strike. He aims to plant a hard blow right into Rock's freshly-opened wound, to maximize the pain the boy feels. Krizalid will try to pin him against a pew if Rock doesn't escape in short order. "--Should mind their masters!!"
COMBATSYS: Rock counters Desperate Moment from Krizalid with Gedan Crack Counter.
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Rock 0/-------/-----==|=======\-------\1 Krizalid
Rock growls. All this posturing, this blathering talk, this air of superiority... who the hell does Krizalid think he is? Rock's anger, the justice that cries out to be served for the people who Krizalid killed just to draw Rock Howard -out-... they crystallize into a moment. Rock sees himself in slow motion, sees Krizalid's fist, centers on it. _Focus_, he tells himself, hearing it in Terry's voice, too...
And he -grabs- that fist, stopping Krizalid cold for a second, long enough for the battered Rock to snarl, "I have only =one= master, 'dog', unlike you..." And once again, he uses that grip as a fulcrum, flipping over it to heelkick Krizalid in the head--but, touching down, still holding that fist, throwing out a right roundhouse for the head, releasing his grip in the same instant--
"--and that is MYSELF!! Get some freedom to think. You might like it." Rock isn't naive enough to believe the fight over, but he's on his last legs, just about ready to collapse. If that doesn't take out this guy, then Rock might just have to actually run, much as he would hate it.
The twin blows hit Krizalid in the skull.
All he sees of the world is white.
/!\ Critical damage sustained. Reboot offline...
The clone takes an uneasy step on his boot as he whirls away, attempting to keep his balance. Blinded momentarily, Krizalid his suboptic display ghosts and cracks, distorting as the clone forces himself to breathe, forces his double-vision to congeal. "No... I'm supposed to be the ultimate..I /am/ the ultimate!!"
"Freedom? What /point/ is there in that if there is NO FUTURE?!"
The clone launches himself bodily from that short distance into Rock. He doesn't stop, positively inexorable, still attempting to bend Rock over a pew, as if that vicious blow and the fact that his head is openly bleeding from a score of different cuts and soon-to-be-bruises simply doesn't matter to him. His blood-drenched teeth grit in a facet of disgust. "If I had /freedom/..." Krizalid seethes, "...All I'd be is /you./" He spits the word venomously as he hops back. "Weak..pathetic..dense.." He /spits/. "Just thinking about it..."
Unstable energy crackles along his arms and into his fists as Krizalid grips his aching temples with them, his battlesuit initiating a battle data backflow straight into the labyrinthine confines of his own skull, mnemonics flooding his mind.
"I CAN'T STAND IT!!"
A fist crashes into the stone by Rock, punching a hole in it. Then his left smashes across the opposite side, ripping a gouge from the pews ahead. Energy, lightning crawls off of those blows, force and power coming from Krizalid's last reserves simply flooding his body now. Krizalid accelerates to an insane level, his body shock still but his fists seeming to become an /ethereal/ thing, stretching and blurring in ways that can't even be biologically possible as Krizalid tries to beat Rock to within an inch of his life and beyond. Lightning arcing from every one of Krizalid's limbs, the salt from the sweat that pours from his brow in his overexertion sears like fire into his facial wounds.
But Krizalid has never felt more alive.
"LET ME HEAR YOU SAY IT AGAIN HOWARD!!! Tell me how the puppy can walk on his own!! TELL ME HOW IT MATTERS!! I AM THE ULTIMATE CREATION!! I'LL BEAT YOU UNTIL YOU BLEED! I'LL BEAT YOU UNTIL YOU BEG! I'LL BEAT YOU UNTIL YOU CRY! BUT I'LL NEVER STOP!! NOT UNTIL YOU'RE ON YOUR KNEES AND KISSING MY BOOTS!!!"
Eventually Krizalid stops. At some point.
It doesn't really matter if Rock is there or not by the time he does.
The clone will be standing shock still, a blank, vacant look in his eyes. His arms are slack at his side. And he's standing in nothing but rubble. Nothing but destruction surrounding him for at least three feet all around. The ground will eventually cool.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid can no longer fight.
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Rock 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Rock dodges Krizalid's Desperate Overdrive.
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Rock 0/-------/-----==|
Discretion is sometimes not the -better- part of valor... it's the -best- part of it. Rock isn't about to stick around--he'd turned his back on the whole situation and was limping out. Krizalid's screams, that rant, it doesn't fade all that fast--because for one, Rock ain't movin' all that fast... and secondly...
Those words stick in his head. Bouncing around, reverberating. But he stops at the entrance, looking back, shaking his head briefly. "Ultimate? The hell is with that? As if your bosses'd create 'the ultimate'... that's not what they want. They want to /be/ the ultimate... they're just using you." But even though the words are said out loud, they're not loud enough for Krizalid to hear.
Even if he were right there, a fly buzzing them in Krizalid's ear... the Irishman wouldn't hear. Too caught up in his own rage. Rock's blood chills as he thinks of all these people... He's got to talk to Adelheid. And maybe Chun, too.
Log created on 03:31:29 10/23/2010 by Rock, and last modified on 16:14:24 10/23/2010.