Description: North Korea senses weakness in its Southern neighbors, and decides that it is time to put an end to the rivalry that has been between them for years. Ready to face them is a young woman who has stood up across the world to stop the forces of tyranny; Champion of Justice, MAY LEE! Faced once again with the brutality of warfare, May Lee finds herself pitted against a legion of mortal men. Can she stand up for her ideals AND save her countrymen? Or will she have to choose to sacrifice one in order to protect the other?
Dawn. South Korean border.
To say that the situation is tense would be an understatement. Ever since this began, South Korea has been certain that its neighbor would make a move. How could it not? The power-mad rogue state has only been held in check by the barely believed shield of American troops for years. Now the United States itself is under siege, and their eyes are elsewhere, which leaves South Korea to defend itself.
May Lee has not been fighting for her people. She's been fighting for justice. For the ideal which says that those who are strong should protect the weak, not dominate them. She had been badly injured fighting off the Shadaloo invasion of Seoul, but she's had a week to get over it. A full week of inactivity and only light training, which has knitted her broken ribs and put her back on fighting form.
Now, Kim and the other Kaphwan family members are off saving the world. May Lee, after her dramatic call-out of Vega, has been left to defend the home front.
She's done all she can to lighten the mood at the border. Cracking jokes and demonstrating her skills when asked, she's become something of an unofficial mascot, but this morning, dawn, as the rising sun casts the sky a bloody red, the sirens sound and the joking stops.
They are on the move.
There will be unification. The North is not pleased about the previous attempt, their opinions being formed as though they really were the true power players behind everything. That the national hero, Kim Kaphwan, had stood tallest in what should have been the South's darkest hour has caused significant unrest. It was time for a very, very, very personal show of force.
North Korea is no pushover in terms of raw manpower, with the fourth-largest standing army in the world. That they have chosen to act at all should be seen as a thing of dread, and there is no dread to be spared as the South's own soldiers choose to stand their own. Their numbers are too great for them - the South stands to be overrun unless someone can stand to them.
The hero of South Korea has left the nation vulnerable, or so they tell themselves as those from the North move in with rifles firing and shouting. They will unify Korea at long last, to be the true peacebringers of the world underneath their new leader!
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon has started a fight here.
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DPRK Platoon 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: MayLee has joined the fight here.
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MayLee 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
Perhaps May Lee's patience is finally at an end. She has been fighting for an awfully long time, after all. Whatever the case, where the Shadaloo forces had been given the chance to retreat before violence was inflicted upon them... the North Koreans get no such concession. May has been listening to the dread of her fellows for too long; she knows what they are fearing, and she knows for certain, now, that the only way to make these people leave, is through an overwhelming display of force.
That is precisely what she decides to try and give them. The moment the siren sounded, May was springing into action. Now, she vaults over the wall separating them, and hits the ground running.
"Did you think we'd just abandon our homeland?" May shouts, as she pounds towards the uncoming army.
Sliding down low, when she comes back up, May Lee's foot leads the way. The man who would have been the first North Korean soldier to set foot in South Korea finds himself confronted by a rising boot. If it connects, she follows with a second, aiming to throw him back into the oncoming troopers.
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon blocks MayLee's Lightning Needle.
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MayLee 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
May Lee's training puts her well above the average soldier. The North Korean she looks upon is, actually, frightened. He all but thinks to just toss himself to the ground and hope that this gesture would be enough, but her powerful rising boot keeps him up.
The second sees him back among his North Korean folks - far less shaken up - and (un)fortunately for him, he is deftly caught and set back down on his feet with gentle 'encouragement' not to be pathetic in the face of one who opposes the reunification.
"We do not think that you even think of what you are opposing!" Barks another, as rifles are raised and... well, they're not content to just raise rifles. They are more than happy to shoot, shoot, shoot, and shoot again even if she doesn't have a gun.
It really seems that, for all the money and prep time they put into these soldiers, they have yet to really understand first-hand that the strength of fighters are no mere media lie.
That's still a lot of bullets though.
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon successfully hit MayLee with Cover Fire.
- Power hit! -
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MayLee 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
May Lee is thoroughly shot. Though she attempts to cross her arms over her chest and head to weather the storm, the hot lead still raises cuts across her arms, and... when one lucky bullet smacks clean into her forehead, the girl tumbles over backwards. Is that the end of our hero, May Lee?
... No.
Throwing all caution to the wind, May surges forwards with a sudden burst of determination. "I fight for JUSTICE!" She shouts, grinning from ear to ear despite her pain.
"And there's no army in the universe big enough to crush that!"
This last is delivered as May Lee leaps into the air, and comes diving down foot-first, aiming to crack her heel into the mouth of the man who had been talking. In her experience, the talky ones are usually the leaders.
COMBATSYS: MayLee successfully hits DPRK Platoon with Light Kick.
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MayLee 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
Justice is frightening! They are ready to consider May Lee dead and think nothing more of her as they move on inward.
It should be noted that Chang and Choi are actually no more than maybe a couple blocks away, staring dumbfounded at the battle unfolding and wondering if what's going on is actually a really really good thing for potential freedom, or a really really bad thing for potential freedom.
That May Lee springs to such action takes them all entirely by surprise, panic swelling the ranks of the two dozen or so men that are all present while the mouthy one's jaw cracks as his head hits the pavement, blood spraying out the side of his mouth (don't worry, dentistry is fairly cheap in South Korea) while the others seem content to try and throw themselves upon May Lee in response - less as trained soldiers underneath a glorious ruler they were raised to revere and more as entirely frightened people that someone like May Lee actually exists.
COMBATSYS: MayLee blocks DPRK Platoon's Quick Throw.
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MayLee 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
May Lee has an inordinate amount of trust for Chang after his assistance of late; the huge man has been an inexhaustible supply of support for putting the country back together. Whilst she might not have that much respect for Choi... the fact that they are close is heartening to her. She knows that if she does get in trouble, Chang at least will *try* to get her out of it.
The fear on the soldier's faces is also not new to May Lee. Whilst she dislikes that she is a symbol of terror to these people, she must use every advantage if she is going to fend them off successfully. "Run." She says, as they come in at her.
And when they smack her into the ground, some of the Champion of Justice's good humor has evaporated. They scarcely injure her at all; inexpert in hand to hand, she rolls as she hits the floor, and when she comes up it is with a straight vertical kick which aims to lift the largest soldier amongst them high overhead.
"Nobody HAS to die today. You can still go home, to your families."
COMBATSYS: MayLee successfully hits DPRK Platoon with Into Sky.
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MayLee 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
Some of them really do take her up on the offer to run, as she makes little effort of one of the largest soldiers of the army as a couple go flying out of close proximity to such rapid momentum changing from being a potential victim to moving back to the offensive.
In some other corner of the city, Jhun Hoon is not giving them this choice. Any North Korean soldier stepping foot onto South Korean soil without immediately throwing themselves down in surrender or defection is... probably dead.
The real horror to May Lee's generous offer comes when some of them actually shoot the ones who think to run.
"Cowards!" Cries one of them as the rifle bursts are wildly shot in May Lee's direction soon after. "She isn't for real! She stands in the way! We will not know peace and unity until we force them to surrender to our leader!"
It's convincing enough to the lot of them to at least start trying to spread out just a bit and keep their distance. They know they already shot her a few times, can't they shoot her a lot more times and beat her?!
COMBATSYS: MayLee interrupts Bullet Spread from DPRK Platoon with Dinosaur's Footprint.
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MayLee 0/-------/---====|=======\===----\1 DPRK Platoon
May Lee feels genuine fury rising in her when the soldiers start gunning down the ones who try to run. It is a horrible sensation. She doesn't like it at all, this anger. It.. isn't her. But, what they are doing, what these monstrous men who wear a human face aim to achieve by this violence on their fellows... it is sickening. May Lee is still very uncomfortable with the fact that she has, undoubtedly, shed blood to defend what she loves... but as these men turn their weapons on their own, it is everything she can do to remind herself she isn't fighting for revenge. She is fighting for justice.
The distinction is subtle, but it means that as May leaps into the sky, it is not with murder in her heart but simply a desire to end the violence.
Which probably saves the shooter's lives as she descends, both feet coming down through the hail of bullets, practically heedless of them. She connects heavily with the skull of the man who seemed to do the most shooting, and uses him to leap on to the next, and crush them to the ground, too.
"MEDIC!" She shouts, "I NEED A MEDIC OVER HERE."
Who can say what the South Koreans will make of it when they realize the wounded she wants saved are wearing the wrong uniforms.
May Lee's call for medical help is well-intentioned even in a time where long-standing hatred and paranoia were somehow kept at bay by a ceasefire that is flimsy at best, as North Korean soldiers shot by their own countrymen are quickly bleeding out.
There is almost no one out and around who has a free set of hands to come try and help. Even Kim Kaphwan's own sons - in varying degrees of participation and/or proximity to the very forefront of the front lines (guess which one's which) - can't think to go over and give that kind of care to those victims when they are barely holding the line even with their own might.
One by one, the men May Lee jumps into start to fall over, bullets spraying up towards nothing in particular. The rest aren't even sure what to make of her call for help - is it for her? Knowing that running means shooting and fighting means possibly dying, they make the tragic - especially for one so young as May Lee - decision to keep throwing themselves at her in an increasingly larger and larger dogpile to try and wrestle her down.
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon successfully hit MayLee with Strong Throw.
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MayLee 0/-------/-======|=======\====---\1 DPRK Platoon
May is doing her level best to get the help to these people that she can... and all they seem to want to do is fight her. May's eyes harden as the men come surging forwards, and this time, she isn't quick enough to defend herself. She tries to step to the side, but they are larger and more numerous, she misjudges her step, and she winds up on her back in the dirt.
May just refuses to stay down, though. She is 'just' a teenager, but maybe it is that fire of youth which keeps her heart burning so brightly, her spirit unbroken despite the horrible things she has seen. She has to believe in a better world than this; that there will be peace. She has to. And if she has to fight for that world.
"JUSTIYAAAAAAAAACE!"
"PAAAAAAAAAANCHU!"
Furious, with herself for being foolish enough to be hit, and with these men for daring to get in the way of the help their compatriots need, May Lee erupts from the ground as fast as any of the bullets they have tried to use to subdue her. Her Power Belt actually glows as she comes up, bright red and blue, heralding her rising fist as it seeks out the chins of the villainous!
COMBATSYS: MayLee successfully hits DPRK Platoon with Strong Punch.
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MayLee 0/-------/=======|=======\=======\1 DPRK Platoon
They can't keep her down. They can't shoot her down, they can't really do much of anything but continually struggle and pray that somehow they'll defeat her and then everyone else and then they can unite Korea. The South would dare keep them fractured in this state!!
Meanwhile, Chae Lim is hitting people with a tidal wave or something. We don't know and we don't care about Chae Lim.
When the dust settles from the rising fist, there are no more than nine men still standing around May Lee, some pointing rifles, some having since dropped them.
A few of them nod to one another as they drop to more careful, more measured Tae Kwon Do stances, at which point the fighting takes on a much more personal air - who is the superior martial artist? Surely, they are all actually fairly well trained once the panic and overreliance on superior numbers has gone away, but May Lee can see the fear in their eyes.
She is not fighting against faceless people fit only to be forgettable cannon fodder underneath some pompous named supervillain like in her shows. They move like people, they shake like people - she has attempted to show mercy to them as other human beings, a true gesture of her strength of character even when some would accuse her of having a strangely weak grasp on reality.
They all push forth and attack with a variety of highly competent - possibly even, in some ways, equal to May Lee's own - kicks and other such strikes and leg movements in one grand, barely-organized brawl to try and overwhelm her at last.
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon successfully hit MayLee with Pincer Attack.
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MayLee 1/-----==/=======|====---\-------\0 DPRK Platoon
May Lee inhabits a strange world by most standards, it is true. She would sternly deny that she is insane... but she does genuinely believe in, if not the reality of her Tokusatsu shows, the moral message of them. Good must triumph over evil. Heroes are willing to sacrifice themselves for their friends, or for what is right. Has there ever been a more right purpose than this? Fighting against North Korea to save her homeland?
May drops out of her overly dramatic punch, and as the men around her take up an all too familiar style, she actually smiles. She matches them, only to turn up her hand, and beckon.
The brutal assault demonstrates that there is at least one trainer in North Korea who can teach his men the basics. May tries to move with the attacks, turn them aside, defend herself, but she is overwhelmed. Still just a student herself, still far from being a master, perhaps... it was inevitable.
But she's still smiling.
Bloodied, she picks herself up from the ground, and her foot sweeps around, before coming down again. Planting herself firmly, her eyes actually sparkle as she surveys her opponents.
"My turn."
May Lee isn't fighting with her most flashy techniques. Instead, she focuses on what she knows. The best that she has from her repertoire. Sliding down low, she aims to sweep the legs out from the first man, and her backhanded fist would send him flying towards the second.
"One. Two."
She's already coming into the third, leaping, her foot comes down, and from there, if she finds her springboard, she'll be sent hurtling towards the forth, that leg still sweeping horizontally.
"Three. Four."
She's scarcely touched down before she's moving again, diving forwards in a roll to bring herself up and into the fifth, cartwheeling backwards as she goes to crash her heel into his chin, and land on the sixth.
"Five. Six."
Finally, she starts to slow. Throughout all of this, the trail she has left is insane to the non-fighter. It is like there are a dozen May Lees, carving their way through the battlefield in a display of Tae Kwon Justice.
A display which she ends by diving forwards, and driving one fist each into the throats of two more stunned soldiers, which would, if all has gone according to plan, leave her with her head bowed, eyes closed, as they crumple to the floor.
At which point, she will open her eyes, and meet those of the last man standing with a daring smile.
"That is Kaphwan Tae Kwon Do. What is your style?"
As though it is the old days, happier times comparing her style with those of other practioners of the art, and not a deadly battlefield in which she has just unleashed a stunning demonstration of martial prowess.
COMBATSYS: MayLee successfully hits DPRK Platoon with Gauze Tail Tinkerbell.
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MayLee 0/-------/------=|=======\=------\1 DPRK Platoon
Of the very last man standing, who can only watch in something akin to outright awe as she moves the way she does. To speak of the fates of the others to her rapid blows would do a disservice to the truth already so plainly stated as they all indeed fall over.
The last man standing is not a very tall man. In fact, he is exactly as tall as May Lee, a height no doubt affected greatly by malnutrition - he doesn't seem like he is large enough to fully fit inside his given uniform, either, the stance he had previously shown given way to simply standing stunned.
The outcome between these people and May Lee are similar to those that are being reported with other such encounters throughout where North Korea has infiltrated. Gunfire and explosions can still be heard all around, as are the yells of frightened people and forceful soldiers.
To May Lee's question, he cannot answer. He instead throws himself down on the ground immediately, covering his head with his hands as he clenches his eyes tight and falls silent before her while the rest pass into sweet unconsciousness or continue to moan (or maybe even slip out some hateful words) in pain.
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon takes no action.
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MayLee 0/-------/------=|
COMBATSYS: DPRK Platoon can no longer fight.
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MayLee 0/-------/------=|
May Lee is actually fainted disappointed when the small man cowers before her. Again, she is jerked out of a world where, by demonstrating her strength, she might win a friend... to a world where they may never be friends, simply because they were born a few hundred miles apart. What would have become of her, if she had been born on the other side of the border? Would she be here, now, staring some awesome figure in the eye and trying to muster up the courage to strike them down?
The girl falls out of her stance. She sighs softly, and shakes her head. Those medics still aren't coming.
So, with a heavy heart, the teenager leans down to pick up one of the worst injured. He bleeds all over her, as she does her best to bring him to safety. A journey she will be repeating over and over. By the sound of the explosions far away, and knowing that some of her allies aren't holding back as much as she... she'll be doing this until the sky darkens again.
COMBATSYS: MayLee has ended the fight here.
Log created on 14:52:07 02/26/2012 by MayLee, and last modified on 09:25:40 02/28/2012.