Description: K' goes skulking around some exhibition matches, on a rumor Krizalid might be there. Krizalid is indeed there, and K'-- emboldened by the outcome of their last fight-- takes a shot at taking him out. It does not go quite so well.
It's a stage or two up from where the exhibition match just went down.
The Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas is a very different beast from its mother in Paris. Though it may be constructed of similar steels and have an identical shape, it is ultimately just for show. A spectacular designed to attract business to the hotel upon which it stands, it is half the size of the original. Something gaudy, brightly lit, and bathes the night sky with light so that not a single star can be seen.
A perfect place for some blood to be spilt.
He didn't complain.
Having graciously accepted terms of continuance for his participation in the King of Fighters tournament, Krizalid has been biding his time, having done a series of exhibition matches that has, so far, been rather lackluster. Not for the fact that they've been dull, but for the fact that no one on earth seems to understand that his power doesn't have the conventional limitations that they wish it did.
And that's when people started disappearing.
Now, in what amounts to a fighter staging area for the arena below, Krizalid pins the young muay thai artist to a crossmember by the neck, looking up at the beaten and ragged fighter coldly.
"You fought pretty good. A little better than the last two they drug out of their reject house. That's a shame for you. Because that means you have something I want." As he holds the fighter down, a long, black spike slides out of Krizalid's sleeve, dropping into the clone's hands. It extends in two parts, until it's roughly as long as his arm. The point is wicked sharp.
"Now... you might feel a little pressure."
K' has never seen the true Eiffel Tower for himself. The gaudy mockery that is the one in Las Vegas is thus a little lost on him.
Not that he's erroneously thinking it's impressive, mind. He's not even doing that. He didn't think much of it when he first saw it, upon arrival, and he hadn't stuck around to gawk. He'd heard there were NESTS skulking around here, and he was off to see if he couldn't ferret them out. Funny, then, that it's when he doubles back to where he started that he starts to feel the tingle. The burn that means Krizalid is close.
His pace picks up. K', never particularly smart when it comes to matters of vengeance, rushes -towards- peril, homing in on the source of that unease. He arrives, it seems, just in time.
"Hey. Drop him." The voice is very familiar and very familiarly insolent. K', crouched a mere twenty feet distant, knows he hasn't got much a chance to get the kid out from Krizalid's grasp, but maybe he'll be enough a distraction that Krizalid forgets about killing for like ten seconds. ...Sure, that's a long shot, but it's all he's got.
By the time K' shows up, Krizalid is just about to get to the fileting process. If you've ever tried to filet a fish with a knitting needle, you'll understand why this is going to get messy here in a second.
Or at least, would have if K' hadn't shown his face.
The smile as wicked as the point on the end of his gutting stave fades as K' opens his fat mouth. It's now a wan thing as Krizalid continues holding his captive. A moment or two passes before the white-haired master clone speaks. "You know, it's a shame when some people just don't respect proper boundaries. You know what I'm saying?" He's not talking to K'. He's talking to his captive.
"It's almost insulting. You decide to cut a guy a break, tell him that he should stay out of your business so you don't have to feed him his own eyes. And then he comes pawing around anyway. Like he doesn't know any better."
"I--" Krizalid laughs once. There is no humor in it.
"I just can't stand that kind of thing. You understand what I'm talking about, right?"
WHAM
Krizalid removes his elbow from the larynx of the otherwise nameless fighter, allowing the gurgling and wheezing mark to hit the ground in a boneless pile of limbs, unconscious before his skull rings off the steel at his feet. He's gonna need him later.
"Yeah. See, that's what I thought too.."
"In other news." Krizalid turns towards K', leaving the body at his mercy, jamming the pointed steel through the deck plates next to the body with one long thrust that leaves little to imagination as to Krizalid's current mood or fighting fitness. Whoever that other guy was, he can't have been much of a challenge--Krizalid didn't even take off his coat. "A traitor stands before me. Only reason why I could figure he would even show is he wants forgiveness for being such a miserable fuck. Didn't take you to be the absolution type.." he snorts, his boots ringing across the plates as he approaches K' slowly.
Methodically.
K' holds his silence and his position, yellow eyes watching Krizalid as his 'brother' raves. He had a long time to get used to Krizalid's unique brand of insanity. Used to be he'd just stand back, quiet and complicit, and let the man rant until his madness temporarily exhausted itself. But that was when he didn't care about much of anything.
These days, K' finds himself caring about a lot of things. Maybe even too many things, given how much grief he's been put through in the past while.
"Funny, he finally says, once Krizalid's voice dies off, "how you think you still have any say in where I go or what I do. In fact, these days, whenever you tell me something--" He tilts his head. "I get this funny compulsion like I want to do the exact opposite. Just-- /because/-- you can't stand it."
Krizalid starts advancing. K' still doesn't move, standing as stock-still as if he were nailed to the metal. A snort escapes him at the label 'traitor.' At the insinuation of forgiveness. "Maybe in your delusions, I want forgiveness."
The temperature is rising around him, slowly but fairly surely. "In reality, I'll make do with your head."
"Well, isn't that something."
Krizalid's voice drops a few octaves as K' gives a response that is entirely expected.. and yet, it's pretty plainly obvious Krizalid dislikes hearing it. The way the ultimate clone watches K' is much the way a cat seems offended for, if only a moment, by a mouse's presence. That utter focus that eclipses all other factors of his attention, equal parts surprise, ambition and.. anticipation.
Krizalid's various manias are largely self-reinforcing and self-serving. When you have that kind of power, you can afford those kinds of manias. But it doesn't take someone like K' to know that one of his biggest is focused on disobedient and unruly subordinates..
His bootsteps are like gunshots in the suffocating sounds of quiet this far up, only punctuated by the occaisional passing of a car, backed to a distant soundtrack being played out of some painted up whorehouse down the road. "See, I don't really think you comprehend the situation. You're always going to belong to the Cartel. You're property. Just saying you're not is like a pig trying to say he isn't filthy. But.." he laughs a little..
Information floods across his vision. "Fine."
[#] Activating conflict resolution.
[#] Establishing remote link to regional server.
"Think you've grown a spine..?"
Krizalid slides one dark-skinned shoulder out of his coat, as the systems surrounding them decompress, disengaging buckles and catches pneumatically as the whole garment falls to the ground. Krizalid's claw teems with fire as he brings it up to K', and crushes it.
"Let's see what it looks like ripped out and twitching on the ground."
COMBATSYS: Krizalid has started a fight here.
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Krizalid 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: K' has joined the fight here.
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K' 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Krizalid
K' knows exactly which of Krizalid's many psychoses is the most intense and well-developed. That's perhaps why he developed such an insolent personality... one which would pry claws deepest in Krizalid's already-unstable emotional landscape.
He stiffens a little as Krizalid tries to remind him he's property. It was K''s entire way of thought for a long time, and he can't say that it doesn't always still make him doubt, just a little, when he hears it. Especially from the one who, for so long, used to eclipse him in every way. These days, though, that doubt is always swiftly replaced by anger.
K' has come far enough, that he gets mad even just catching himself thinking like the Cartel guinea pig he used to be.
"I think you're the one who doesn't comprehend how much circumstances have changed," K' says. "And I don't plan to let you live long enough to start." Flames spark along his wrist, K' pulling preemptively on the Kusanagi fire. It takes him a little longer to ramp it up than it does the other (better, he thinks, for only one bitter second) bloodline firewielders. He doesn't intend to use it, first strike.
Instead, he just lunges, going from zero to sixty an hour with a planned end destination of his heel slammed into Krizalid's face.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid endures K''s Minutes Spike.
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K' 0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0 Krizalid
The trigger's pulled.
Let's go.
As Krizalid watches the flame spark across K's wrist, an entirely new log is created mnemonically in his own battlesuit files--he's making a notation explicitly for K'. When K' approaches him, the clone shows him nothing but his sneer. There is zero trepidation in the way Krizalid whirls on K'--one could even say the superior simply didn't /feel/ like giving K' the satisfaction of seeing him try to block when K' blurred into his face heel-first, sending the NESTS chief down.
Therein lies the attack.
As K' strikes Krizalid, spraying blood into the air, the commander's entire body seems to lengthen in illusion as he twists around, his leg whipping straight out in a vicious spin. Even approaching Krizalid, K' can feel it. The crackle in the air of built-up power, the charged force that Krizalid commands--not just the Kusanagi fire, but the other powers of which Krizalid has command, making him one of the few fighters out there capable of harnessing three seperate elements of chi. This is one of his strongest.
As his leg stretches far above his head, Krizalid twists his body, seeming almost to slither downward as he drops his boot into the ground, hard. His recovery is brief. And, point-blank from where K' is bleeding off his momentum, a massive blast of twisting wind curls towards his wayward duplicate, sucking plates from the deck, shredding cable and dicing bolts to pieces.
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Krizalid's Typhon's Rage "S".
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K' 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Krizalid
K' impacts hard. There's one moment of satisfaction, another moment of trepidation, and then a split second of suspicion. He took that blow-- wasn't hit by it, but took it--
K' feels Krizalid give before the blow, not affording him much leverage to push off and away. He takes as much as he can nonetheless, shoving hard against the point of impact and spinning back through the air. The retaliatory surge of chi-- how K' used to be jealous, all the shit Krizalid could tap into-- tears forward, flaying metal apart on its path towards its target.
K' twists in the air like a cat, facing the blast and bracing to slake off most of its energy. He can't fully dispel the momentum, though, meaning he's shoved back much farther than is tactically sound for a retaliation. He lands a full fifteen feet away.
Of course, this means he attacks anyway.
The fire about his wrist snakes fully to life, ripping its way into a blazing ring in front of him. A sharp twist, and K' slams a kick into the gathered fire, sending it back across the distance.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid blocks K''s Second Shoot.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 Krizalid
K' slams into the ground, and already Krizalid is moving towards him.
There is a very deliberate way about the commander when he moves. Though the vicious spinning exchange was brief, every movement Krizalid makes is premediated. Though they are cut from the same cloth, Krizalid has always had a greater preference for savoring every last bit of what his opponents spill on the floor. Fresh blood still trails down the commander's face to match his eyemarks that differentiate him from K', but he pays it little mind in his slow approach towards him.
He wants K' to know that that blow wasn't anything special.
"Let me ask you something. What makes you think that any part of your life is original? What makes you think that any part of it hasn't been planned by us?"
As K' conjures a whirling stream of fire, the air around Krizalid begins to boil. With a thuroughly dour look, the commander launches his sinuous body into the fire, cutting through it with a flash of his own crimson flame--the sacred fire boiling away in his talons as his advance is temporarily stopped. The flame boils away, only to be replaced by black lightning as Krizalid seamlessly switches from one type to another. He wants K' to /see/ it.
"What makes you think your story's end isn't already written down in our R&D day planner!?"
The crackling, erratic blast grows in Krizalid's palm as he throws the entire jangled black thing at K', the scent of scorched air filling the makeshift arena as the burst of electricity streaks towards K's center of mass to knock his senses for a loop.
COMBATSYS: K' dodges Krizalid's Negative Anguish.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 Krizalid
COMBATSYS: Krizalid has left the fight here.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|
Therein's just one of the many differences between these two "brothers." Krizalid always preferred to roll in whatever he flayed out of his victims. K' just tends to burn it all away. Some might say it's symbolic, this preference of K''s for purifying himself. Bettering himself. Stripping away all those impurities.
In reality, it's really just that blood is an annoying thing to have on you. It's sticky and kind of hard to get out of clothes.
K' stands stock-still in the wake of his attack, meeting Krizalid's dismissive insinuation with one of his own. He's not going to give ground. As Krizalid begins questioning his life, his reality, his very existence as a separate person, though-- that hits home. K''s hands clench, his eyes narrowing-- especially when Krizalid just tears through his fire.
"You might ask those questions of YOURSELF," K' grits. "You happy to let NESTS chart your life?"
The black lightning stitches jaggedly through the air on its way to K'-- except just then, K' taps his own native form of chi in wordless answer to Krizalid's display. He very nearly warps to one side in a distorted black blur of chi, the motion simultaneously a closing of distance. He lands out of his dodge, digs in his heels, and leaps forward again, feinting high. At the last moment, however, he drops low, cutting straight at Krizalid's ankles to take him off his balance.
COMBATSYS: K' successfully hits Krizalid with Narrow Spike.
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K' 0/-------/----===|======-\-------\0 Krizalid
His white-haired mane tilting as K' flickers to one side, Krizalid's shoulders lift in a harsh bark that could in some situations he construed as mirth.
A moment later, K' slams into Krizalid at high velocities, the NESTS commander piping data straight from his suit to calculate the possibilities of an attack feint just as K' is doing so. At the speeds at which K' is moving, it won't be possible to respond. But that assumes Krizalid is at all afraid of whatever it is he can do... let him--
The agent stumbles, his legs stretching out at an obscene angle to avoid being completely knocked over by the younger rogue and hitting the ground hard, absorbing the shock into his limbs. It wasn't the same kind of response he was planning, but the damage level wasn't enough to throw him onto his ass.
Looking over his shoulder, all you can really see are the whites of his eyes.
"You're making me laugh, K'... Normally, I only do that when I look at your gene file."
His knee clicks as he near-dislocates it and twists.
Before one's eyes can even fully close, Krizalid is in the air. Before they can open again, Krizalid is descending, claws first. While K' was trying to knock him off-balance, the black blurred Krizalid is trying to knock K' to the ground entirely, pinning him, crushing him beneath the weight of his entire body as he works on the long process of ripping K' open and showing him his own insides. It's kind of involved.
"Difference between us," Krizalid hisses, his voice slowly distending into a eerie shriek, "--I'm the one who gets to wRITE WHAT HAPPENS TO /YOU!/"
COMBATSYS: Krizalid successfully hits K' with Demon Landing.
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K' 0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Krizalid
K' hisses a breath out between his teeth as Krizalid fails to go down. This leaves him in a more precarious position-- and Krizalid sure does take advantage of it.
The younger experiment goes down hard under Krizalid's plummeting weight, his attempts to divert or soften the impact all failing. Claws sink deep, rending to the bone, harrowing long furrows in K''s torso like Krizalid intends to put down a new wheat crop in his little brother's flesh. It hurts. Like a bitch. It says something about K''s training, about what he's been through since he got fire put in his blood, that he barely makes a sound.
But this doesn't mean he doesn't /react/. Oh, he reacts. He reacts in the way he usually does when in an agonized panic. He lights on fire, the sudden flare of heat and light hopefully enough to drive Krizalid back; if K' /recoiling/ wasn't already enough just by itself.
"Typical," he pants, as he tries to open space and collect himself. The flames persist around his arm. "Egotistical bullshit. You don't get to decide /shit/ for me anymore, Krizalid. I could've walked away a long time ago. Only the fact I'd rather burn NESTS down than leave it standing keeps me coming back."
COMBATSYS: K' gathers his will.
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K' 1/----===/=======|=======\=------\1 Krizalid
"Heh..."
Krizalid leapt back at the moment of ignition--teasing, but never quite coming ever within range of the sacred fire which K' conjures. Talons trailing the connective musculature that once held K's ribs together, Krizalid's landing left a bloody streak a meter long, legs bowing at the knees to absorb the shock of his landing, his grin widened.
Now, Krizalid stands before K', his breath coming in slow, rhythmic gasps. K's attacks have done some damage to him, evident in the blood trailing from his lip, but the whites of his fangs are no less bright for being stained with red ichor.
"You insist that you're doing what we want.. because you want to do it. And here I thought you were at least passingly intelligent. I'm gonna have to talk to our R&D about fixing that, after I finally decide to bring you in."
"So you think you can burn your mother down?" Krizalid asks, grinning manically. You can smell burning blood on his talon when he lifts it, crimson boiling away as he summons his own sacred fire. But instead of lighting up entirely, Krizalid lets that flame twist in his talon, the curling blaze reaching for the sky as it crackles with augmented energy. "I'd like to see you try..."
He raises his claw higher, the twisting flame in it casting an eerie light over him.
"Because, I'll tell you. NESTS has made flames a lot hotter than yours."
In a beat, he crushes the flame, extinguishing it, and suddenly, a shockwave of force and lightning slams through his long body, crackling light and power through him, his body discharging power into the ground in long splintered arcs.
He smirks, seeming for a moment like the Kusanagi from which both of their genes derive.
Except that he knows what the insides of children taste like.
"I should fucking know."
COMBATSYS: Krizalid gathers his will.
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K' 1/----===/=======|=======\=====--\1 Krizalid
His chest a bloody ruin, K' glares across the lurid highway of spilled blood now separating them. His breathing comes steadily, in and out-- he's found even breathing is the best way to tank through pain. Pain like he's just about to inflict on himself.
His burning hand lifts, bringing the heat in close so he can sear his wounds. It stops much of the bleeding, though he doesn't leave his hand long enough to really cauterize-burn deep. All the while he listens to Krizalid rail, his expression settling into the contempt of a boy listening to somebody repeat the same old propaganda he's already long since learned to see past.
"So letting me run around by myself is all in your grand plan, and you're just amusing yourself letting me dance on your string because you don't "feel like" pulling me in," he comments, looking at his injuries instead of at Krizalid. "Clever rationalization." He picks something out of his wound, flicking it on the ground in a splot of blood. "Not like it matters to me what you delude yourself into thinking. It's not gonna change MY mind."
His gaze finally flicks up, though, when Krizalid makes that boast. Taunts him about thinking he can just burn his 'mother' down. It's the repugnance of thinking of NESTS that way that spurs him, a sort of repulsion that kickstarts him into action. He responds not with words, but with movement.
He closes the distance in a blur, coming daringly close in to the heat and display. So close, in fact, he seems on the verge of crashing into Krizalid... except, at the last moment, his arm snaps forward from point-blank range, traveling down an invisible line drawn straight through Krizalid's chest.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid blocks K''s One Inch.
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K' 1/----===/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Krizalid
It--didn't work.
The One Inch punch, a move modified from hard styles of kung fu, is a deadly technique, made to cripple fighters even the class of Iori Yagami and similar instantly. A close range punch that seems far too slow to hit people with the kind of power that it does, it's one of NESTS' signature techniques. It's laid low hundreds of fighters over time. But a move of that level, no matter how much it's boosted from the predatory speed K' expends in extending it out to him, has a low chance of working on him when he can /see K' telegraphing the fucking thing from across the plate!!/
He /wants/ him to hit him /so bad/ right now!
The moment K' snaps out his hand in that deadly blow, Krizalid grins wide, his eyes widening as he just stretches out a leg and shifts his middle body /just/ so many degrees to one side, taking the blow without even an ounce of resistance otherwise.
A normal hit from the technique would send a grown man flying across the deck, and slamming headfirst into an exposed crossmember. Krizalid, beyond a soft shift in his body as he gains what will probably be a sizable welt as his frame absorbs some of the shock, doesn't even move.
He wants him to /see/ what little point there is in fighting /him/!!
"So," Krizalid starts, on the edge of maniac laughter. Energy branches in harsh snaps from every surface of his body, his claws limp at his sides. "You think we can't do it?" He snickers, with K's fist embedded in his midsection. "Do you know how much our companies rake in every year? Do you know how many programs we have running out there? Now, just because.. let me ask you this. Do you know if we know who you associate with? Do you know perfectly well that everyone you've ever met in your life is perfectly safe from every shadow? Do you think they'd talk, if I had enough quality time with them? Tell me--do you still sleep? Who are you? You're just a man.... no, not even. Just a product. We're the MASTERS OF DARKNESS, you fucking idiot."
Suddenly, Krizalid's hands blur out. If K' doesn't move in a hurry, Krizalid's going to just snatch him up by his shoulders, use that built up power to knee him in the midsection to keep him docile and throw him head-first into a batten joist, preferably leading him with his face.
Krizalid steps forward, his boots sounding hollow on the plate below. "Our not having to catch you and drag you in kicking and screaming's got nothing to do with how badass you are. WE MADE YOU. And right now? You're just not performing well enough to really justify spending anything on dragging one of our special little people out to end your miserable little life as you built it up. Right now, I'd say you're more of an interesting research project."
Suddenly, Krizalid is /right there, on top of K'/. It's like he takes one step for every man's six.
"A project report I filed under 'traitorous failures.' Lemme show you why."
COMBATSYS: Krizalid successfully hits K' with Desperate Overdrive.
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K' 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0 Krizalid
His fist curves towards K'--and then stops an inch before his body. Krizalid's arm tenses. And then his fist lowers to touch K' with the first two knuckles. If he's got K' pinned just right, he's gonna crack the beam behind him with the force of his blow. It's inarguably a perfect execution of the attack K' just used on him, only this time, Krizalid's making sure that K' is weak, and in no position to fight back. They taught K' One Inch.
He twists, his body crackling with pent-up energy. And then he extends himself, hitting K' /again/, this time in the throat. They taught Kula One Inch.
He punches again, this time his body twisting in the opposite direction, his arm seeming to stretch to unreasonable distances before the energy-laden power hits K', the brief pause before each blow only a knell of its arrival. And even though he doesn't care to use it that often..
At that point, Krizalid continues. Leaning back, he laughs once, darkly. Then he begins. The staccato rhythm of his attacks seems jangled and without reason, but he unleashes a literal hailstorm of One Inch punches on K'. Without waiting, he punches K' everywhere, in every possible organ, all in the space of a few seconds, as if trying to tear K' down and build a goddamn house with him. The last blow is a punch full of glowing purple chi, the kind that pierces right through K' and puts out all of the lights on the southwest upright of the tower in a cascade of falling glass and exploding electricity.
Even though he barely uses it, they taught /KRIZALID/ One Inch.
There's a last-minute shift which tells K' his move is simply not going to work. It's too late to pull it by then, and it brings him-- a little-- too close--
K' remembers what it's like getting too close to Krizalid. His nerves are already shrinking away from the impending response, though there's little outward indication of it. There's just silence, a black vicious silence pooled deep under that look of hatred he returns Krizalid in answer to all that mocking. In that earlier harrowing Krizalid made, he sows doubt. And doubt punches K''s reflexes out for the day. It makes him slow. It makes him wonder if his earlier successes really were flukes, if they were a matter of Krizalid simply not trying quite as hard as he could.
It makes him fail to react in time to avoid being introduced to that joist -hard-. K''s senses are still reeling when Krizalid comes in for the follow-up.
The first attack destroys several ribs. The next destroys his ability to speak. The subsequent ones destroy /everything else/. K' is limp by the time Krizalid draws close to a finish, a satisfyingly boneless wreck strewn across the steel like a butchered animal. Blood doesn't just drip from him-- it gets SLAPPED from his body, painting the metal around them. He is virtually a motionless corpse, senseless to Krizalid's continued attentions.
Of course, the thing about corpses is, they sometimes resurrect.
K' twitches once, the slight movement the only betrayal of any sign of life before the unreasoning hatred rekindles in his eyes and he spasms straight up on the conclusion of Krizalid's attack, rising up to lunge straight into the receding teeth of Krizalid's assault. There's no verbal response-- K' won't be talking for a week-- but the lurid look in his eyes is speech enough. I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST DIE?
And K' does his crippled best to make Krizalid die. Flame lights all along his arms as he rips forward, no technique or coherence to his movements save the rending need to tear Krizalid open in equal measure.
COMBATSYS: Krizalid dodges K''s Chain Drive EX.
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K' 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0 Krizalid
Krizalid pants hard, his skin slick with the sweat of exertion from so many One Inches in so much time, wrist deep in traitorous dog meat. It's hard work. It's only until he's pretty sure that if he uses one more punch on K' that K' will just drop dead on the spot that he breaks away, stepping back and leaving K' to the mural he just painted with his face. Though his limbs seem to be the normal length, from K's broadly beaten body, it seems that Krizalid was either moving too fast or truly is capable of some physically impossible feats.
The clone can barely stand before him.
He can see the enmity boiling in K's eyes. The anger, the want to kill him. In short. As a walking corpse, K' understands just what his position is now. Just what he risks by standing before Krizalid. Presuming to beat him, time and time again.
"That's better," Krizalid hisses grimly. "I like you like this."
Hate him. Hate him more. Because it's all fuel in the end.
Taking every step as if it were a battle all its own, K' suddenly launches like a missile towards Krizalid, his flames burning bright through his arm as he comes too fast to track, his disappearance registered as a single /!\ blip on Krizalid's optical read. It's too fast for his battlesuit to read. It's too fast--this is his strongest!!
But Krizalid doesn't rely on his software to fight. Not when it's K'.
The clone drops low, his claw snapping out as every muscle in his body tenses. Suddenly, K' impacts a /wall/ of twisting, ripping force, a cone of wind that does everything but focus his fire down into the point K' needs to finish Krizalid right now. In an eyeblink and the rush of wind, the NESTS executive is gone. Instead, curtains of fire and wind rip from that cyclone, spreading and propagating throughout the structure. The wind is enough to rip the rivets out of steel and twist the warm metal into snapping.
"You seem tired. Is this the limit of your strength?" Krizalid asks darkly, from behind K'.
Otherwise unharmed, the clone is stripped to the waist, his dark skin bloodied, but otherwise as perfect as the day he was decanted. From the speed he had to rely on to get out of the way of that murdering attack, the upper parts of his battlesuit had to be forfeit, leaving only sections of his tungsten claws and gauntlets intact. The rest of the metal exoskeleton has been rendered a shredded framework of steel, wires, leather and kevlar--the work of his own fire and wind together--hanging from his waist. Data and power from his body and subdermal sensors still transmit across it, crackling across the ruined framework with futility.
He advances slowly on K'.
"Do you get it now? Do you understand that whatever you do out there.. isn't even a tenth of what we do? I think you've FORGOTTEN WHAT IT'S LIKE...!!"
Krizalid doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word mercy. With the tower bring broken up and falling apart around them, he still attacks. It's like he doesn't know anything else. Even though K' can no longer bring voice to his traitorous lips, that doesn't stop Krizalid from viciously whipping out, his leg twisting a full 180 degrees to try and slam into K's neck, lifting him up by his throat entirely off of the strength of his leg, as if Krizalid won't be happy until he manages to twist K's head clean off.
But that's not entirely fair...
Krizalid is also perfectly satisfied with putting K's skull through an inch of steel if the opportunity presents itself. Like now.
COMBATSYS: K' interrupts Lethal Impact from Krizalid with Second Shell.
[ \\ < > ////////// ]
K' 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1 Krizalid
COMBATSYS: K' can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ <
Krizalid 1/-------/=======|
K' lunges at Krizalid. And-- goes straight over him. A rush of wind and the NESTS executive is gone, leaving K' to slam hard into a steel girder and curse his crippled body. Miss? He almost never misses with that--!
K' thinks back on the last time he fought Krizalid, the way he left his brother bleeding in the dirt. Could he be falling behind? Or was the fact he had pulled ahead only, in the end, an illusion...?
Is NESTS really pulling the strings? Fucking with his perception of the world? To play with what a man perceives can drive him mad, in the end...
K' skids to a silent halt, shaking with exertion and rage alike as Krizalid rails at him-- and then attacks again. K''s eyes, watching Krizalid come shrieking in, are nearly red with rage-- that, or burst blood vessels. Not quite sure which. Either way, they are eloquent with the magnitude of K''s disgust, repulsion, hate-- and, in some measure now, doubt and fear.
Krizalid starts to swing his leg. Suddenly, K' is there meeting the attack.
In a sudden blaze of fire, K' preempts his 'brother,' swinging a cutting kick of his own to impact Krizalid hard and knock him back in a burst of flames. But canny as ever in his self-preservation, K' doesn't stick around afterwards-- he knows he's physically done, beaten, too exhausted to continue. If he stays, he will /assuredly die/. As such, the moment he connects his attack--
--he turns it into a spin. He whirls around, racing for the edge of the tower, and leaps into a blur of inky chi. He'll find his way down. He'll finish this another day. Somehow.
When the righteous flames collide with the deadly whirlwind, the ripples of fire sent out are enough to lash steel, searing rivets and flaying metal away. Sparks fly as the massive whirlwind grinds across the steel deck plating, sending showers of white skipping across the ground and covering the horrific shriek of Krizalid's landing behind K'. Before you know it, the executive lengthens, launching his body after K' as if his muscles alone simply won't do at all, letting unbridled viciousness pick him up and throw him bodily at the clone.
There is no mercy. There is no pity from Krizalid.
For every ounce of hate this genetic double has, it is mirrored in the white haired clone, a desire not just to kill K', but to take him apart, piece by treacherous piece, mind and body both. He'd have him cloned again, so he could have his way with him again. Without limitations, there would be no succor for traitors to the Cartel. That is the limit of Krizalid's patience--he will never tire of dealing with K'. Again and again..
When the two meet, it's an epic clash as leg meets leg, shattering the force of Krizalid's blow against K' and turning what would normally be a damning blow that leaves K' completely at his mercy into a crackling blast of force, hitting Krizalid full on in the chest and sending the commander dropping down out of the air and skidding back, his claws drawing deep furrows in the steel as his wrists flex, causing the metal ridge where his power coils literally shattered off of his arms to point upwards in wicked steel hooks. His head low, only inches from the ground, he sees what K' is trying to do. He drags in breathless air, "Fucking--"
The moment K' disappears over the edge, Krizalid's steel-exoskeleton'd boot slams into the crossmember of the beam just behind where the clone's head was an instant earlier, buckling the steel in the space of a half-second. Before his momentum even bleeds off, the commander snarls with rage, tungsten-wire talons opening as he whips through the superstructure of the steel with an instant flash of heat, his claws trailing fire that reduces metal to molten slag in a giant ruin cross.
Spotlights flare from below.
Glass and droplets of molten steel rain from the sky.
Krizalid bursts through the superstructure like a second birth, into the open sky as K' disappears beneath him into the disgusting ink, with the commander's claws snapping after him the whole while. Had the escaping copy been a taller man, he would have lost a leg. Krizalid would dive after him, but it'd be useless--if there is one thing K' has always been exceptionally good at, it's running away. Hissing curses in at least three different languages, Krizalid's fire-trailing claws reconfigure, as he stretches, wind flaring underneath him to slow his outward descent. Massive wings of crackling flame explode from behind him, twisting in the charged curtain of wind as Krizalid beats back the air with one mighty outpouring of power, reversing his cascading descent and throwing him back up onto the deck plate.
It takes some time for his talons to stop glowing, to stop trailing smoke.
"+~#~-MMander! Are you OK!?"
"Yeah..." Krizalid mentions a moment later, as one of his battlesuit's communications antenna arrays self repairs and reestablishes a barely functioning communications link. "I'm fine. Just fuckin' fine..." Turning away from the precipice, he lifts a claw to his temple, gripping the side of his skull. He draws blood.
He laughs, bitterly.
"I think.. I'll rip out his eyes last, so he can sob as I crush his heart."
Log created on 23:04:18 03/30/2011 by K', and last modified on 23:43:35 04/11/2011.