A/N: Well, sorry for the abrupt end for Sokaku, all you monk fans. Don't worry though… he'll still get one last hurrah this chapter.
Kyo was rather quite surprised that his team would be up against the Rival Team… which included Terry Bogard's brother, but it bothered him less than he showed. After all… how crazy could this round get?
"As you all can see," the referee said as he pointed to the pointed rings in the arena that both Team Japan and the Rival Team were standing in, "There are various point markers in here, ranging from one all the way to twenty. The purpose of this, is scoring."
"You mean like a bullfight," Goro inquired. The referee nodded.
"Yes, yes. We're planning on having this kind of round every so often just to spice things up, and we thought it would be nice to try it out with your teams!"
"I'm not complaining," Kyo answered as he looked at Eiji and grinned. "I mean, if somebody gets beat in the '20' ring, the fight's essentially over, correct?"
"True," Eiji retorted, "But if the next two people beat their opponents on '19' and anything higher than '1', their team wins, no?"
"That's how it works," the referee said. "We'll be letting the spectators inside in about ten minutes and we'll start the first match in one hour. As for the actual matches themselves…" he reached into his pocket and pulled out three envelopes, showing them to Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro. "Champion's advantage. Take your pick, but don't open until all three are taken."
Eventually, Kyo, Benimaru, and Goro made their decisions and opened the envelopes, pulling out the identities of the match-ups… Kyo vs. Eiji, Goro vs. Kim, and Benimaru vs. Andy, in that order.
"Alright then…" Benimaru said as he charged up and cracked his neck. "We'll get this show on the road in no time!"
"Uh huh… and where's Yamazaki?" Geese asked as he stared at his childish adversary.
Chonshu simply shrugged. "About to get the Jin scrolls back… As for you… HA!" Jin Chonshu became a blur, punching out at Geese and expecting the man to crumple after one attack.
Instead, Chonshu found his arm caught in some kind of defensive block before he was slammed headfirst into the ground. "Good… the Atami Nage really does work on every kind of physical attack." Geese sprang in the air and smashed down with his hand, Chonshu springing away again at a speed Geese almost couldn't track.
"HAHAHA!" Chonshu laughed as he zipped around Geese in a circle, "You may be able to defend yourself from my strength with that defensive move, but there's no way you can- WAHH!"
Geese had simply stuck out his leg and tripped the poor boy and sent him face-first onto the ground. Geese then grabbed him by his collar and began pounding his face into the floor.
"That's what you do?" Geese rhetorically asked before blasting Chonshu away with a Double Reppuken, "Run around like a little brat and hope nobody realizes your speed may be exceptional, but your reaction speed isn't?"
Chonshu shook his head as he stood up, yelping in surprise as he barely avoided Geese's next strike. When he tried to attack from the side, a Reppuken from Geese's feet flared to life, sending the boy flying into an arrangement of bones and knocking it to the ground.
"You have power and speed, I'll grant you that… more than I do, but you have no knowledge of how to use it," Geese taunted. "As a result, you are pathetic and no threat to me whatsoever."
Chonshu suddenly gulped in fear… Brother… where are you?
That's the last of them… White sighed as he looked around him, the clown look-alike ankle deep in blood and wiped the gruesome remains of his victims from his face. Turning and walking away, he stopped upon seeing a figure on the rooftops spring down, the moonlight barely showing the face of this attacker. "Ah… the Orochi vessel finally arrives," White said as he clapped sarcastically.
Ryuji Yamazaki snorted as he threw off his jacket. "Yeah yeah, shut your pie-hole, asshole. My employers want those scrolls and they even went as far as to say what they're capable of."
"Oh?" White asked as he raised an eyebrow, "And what would that be?"
Ryuji gave him a wide-mouthed smile, even going so far as to let his tongue flop out. "For one, they're a record of the Orochi's power as well as the Jin Twins. What's more… they'll act as a permanent suppressant, driving the Orochi out of me for good. And it's about time I have damned snake out of my head!" His fist lashed out the entire distance, pegging White in the head and causing him to stumble back a bit before he regained his composure.
Looking at Ryuji, White suddenly began laughing. "Idiot…" he said as he readied his staff in one hand while the other clutched the scrolls. "You're as good as-"
"BUSTER WOLF!"
White and Ryuji both turned to see a brilliant blue flame kick up in the darkness, Terry Bogard shooting into White and knocking the psychic killer away, and also knocking the Jin scrolls to the ground where they were concealed in the darkness.
White turned to him and grimaced before smiling. "Oh… oh, OOOHHHH…. This is good! I can kill off Terry Bogard right here, right-"
"You wouldn't dare," Terry interrupted, causing White and Ryuji to look at him with a confused look.
"Oh, and why not?"
Terry grinned and he got into a combat stance. "Because that psychic killing ability of yours works on everybody you've touched at the same time… and you wouldn't dare losing your precious Orochi vessel." He turned to Ryuji and then bowed. "I honestly must thank you, because due to your punch, gaywad here can't kill me without killing you!"
White grit his teeth and then pointed his staff and Terry. "Fine… every man for himself! Winner takes the Jin scrolls and anything else he might desire!"
"Then I'm in too!" shouted a fourth voice, causing all three of them to turn and see someone standing there only Ryuji recognized.
"How the Hell did YOU get in Southtown?" Yamazaki shouted in shock. Even without a good view of him, Ryuji could tell who had decided to rain on this little criminal parade.
"It's called an airplane," Hon Fu said as he readied his nunchuku, "We law-abiding citizens get to use them and wave at the security cameras without fear of retribution."
Without another word the detective charged into the group, and four metaphorical gods of destruction battled.
Lilly…
…
Lilly…
…
LILLY!
"It's over…" Lilly Kane muttered as she lay in a small but ever-growing pool of her own blood. "I couldn't do an-"
Don't feed your master that!
"Huh? Master Tung? But you're-"
Dead? If it makes you feel any better… I'm only a figment of your imagination… probably made from the blunt force trauma of Terry's beating.
"Joy."
But I'm still here, Lilly. Now tell me something… what happened the first year you trained at the Hakkyokusieken academy?
"Huh? Oh… I was the lowest ranked student… no upper or lower body strength… couldn't even throw a punch correctly, had a terrible streak of losses… the list goes on and on."
And what made you become the best student I had since Geese?
"Because I kept going…"
And why did you do that?
"Because…" Lilly understood what Tung was saying. Lilly slowly began getting to her feet, calling upon every ounce of her strength, "Because I didn't want Billy to always worry about me! I wanted to be able to stand on my own two feet, and fight for what I wanted!"
And that, Lilly, is what lets you keep going… that's why you get closer to Geese and Terry's level of strength every day. You can surpass them, Lilly!
"Yeah… yeah!" Lilly said as she pumped her fist into the air. She took off running before she suddenly felt an incredible wave of energy coming from the East Side Park.
If Lilly had never done the Raging Storm before, she would have never recognized the unique signature that let her know it was Geese. Stopping for a moment, Lilly turned and began running towards the East Side Park. Sorry, Hon Fu… but Geese needs me a lot more if I'm right. And if not, we'll you'll only be a hop, skip, and jump away.
Chonshu screamed in frustration as Geese casually blocked each and every one of his strikes without effort. The boy then sprang back and fired off a flurry of projectiles, but Geese stopped them all with a perfectly timed Double Reppuken and then blasted Chonshu away even further.
"You really think you're so great, don't you?" Geese asked in all honesty. "You think you're just some wonderful, special little demon boy or girl and can beat the crap out of everyone, correct? Well you can't. You can't even beat up one little man in his thirties who hasn't seriously fought in three years. You're nothing. MIGHTING RAGING STORM!"
The torrential, claw-like energy blast struck home, hurting Chonshu infinitely more than the cage-like Raging Storm had only a few minutes ago.
Lying on the ground, Chonshu looked up in horror before he heard another voice behind him.
"Brother… nii-chan…"
Geese looked up to see another boy there, this one wearing blue and having a spiked-up hairstyle. "Ah, you must be his big brother."
"You… you bastard!" Jin Chonrei screamed as he pointed at Geese with an accusing finger. "You'll pay for that!"
Punches and kicks were flying every which way as Hon Fu tried to wear down Yamazaki, Terry, and White evenly, although he himself was having the hardest time keeping up with the latter two.
Smacking White around with his nunchuku before he managed to catch Yamazaki in the gut, Hon Fu took the brunt of a Triple Geyser, although he did manage to spring out of it before Terry could turn it into a Triple Geyser and kicked out the blonde's legs.
White, however, was suffering the worst against, if only psychologically. White prided himself on his ability to kill with a single touch… a power refined through his psychic prowess. Yet it was useless here! Triggering it would kill Yamazaki along with Hon Fu and Terry, and he could not let that happen!
Terry, however, was actually enjoying the brawl for its… simplicity. With so many people around and with every one of them hostile to the others, nobody could afford blocking, instead needing to stay mobile. And thankfully, most of his techniques were not meant to try to evade.
Growling like the wolf he was, Terry sent Hon Fu skyward with a Rising Tackle and was in perfect position for a full power Buster Wolf, but Yamazaki had just pounded him with a flurry of punches into the awaiting staff of White. Terry turned away just in time, sweeping out White's legs and catching Yamazaki's super-stretched arm, inadvertently helping Hon Fu when the Chinese man landed squarely on the thugs arm, kicking both Terry and Ryuji before flipping away.
In fact, however, Ryuji was suffering the most psychologically out of all of them. Terry was doing this only for more power, and he already had plenty of it. White was doing this to use the Orochi inside of him as a pawn. Hon Fu was just being a damned good cop.
For Ryuji, this was survival. He wasn't going to be that snake's plaything anymore! He was going to take them all out, dammit!
Snatching Hon Fu by the neck, Ryuji slammed and dragged him across the ground before jumping up and slamming him back down into the ground…
Except due to the dark, Ryuji didn't see one thing.
"POWER GEYSER!"
Both Ryuji and Hon Fu were bombarded by the attack, but it also left Terry vulnerable to being harshly struck by White.
When Ryuji and Hon Fu landed, the rolled away from each other, Hon Fu panting when he noticed the sun was slowly coming up. To be fair, this fight had started well after three in the morning…
"This is about as much fun as I've had in a long time, ladies," Terry said strongly. "Of course, you can't keep it up forever… so let's finish this!"
White glared at Terry and finally decided. If it came to it… he would kill them all… his power wouldn't work if he didn't will it after touching them after three hours and within 500 meters of them. "I'm all in…"
"Same here," Ryuji said defiantly.
"Well then…" Hon Fu finished, "I guess I'll need both of these guys…" He then readied his second nunchuku before they all charged again, each praying the others would destroy themselves.
Upon seeing Geese Howard, Jin Chonshu had been very confident he would've been able to defeat him. And if not, then certainly his brother could best Geese in single combat.
He had been wrong.
"Deadly Rave!"
Jin Chonrei suffered against Geese's merciless strikes before he finally was sent to the ground too, next to his brother.
"That all?" Geese answered as he walked away.
"I'm sorry…" Chonrei said to his brother as they both slowly got up, "But I thought… I thought you could do it… help you grow… I…"
"It's okay…" Chonshu said as he shook his head. "I understand. But it seems only our combined power stands any hope of defeating Geese, even though he's rather tired by now…"
"Yeah."
"You two still alive?" Geese snapped as he turned around and fired off a pair of Ressatsu bolts. The two brothers dodged to two different sides, and when Geese turned towards Chonrei, Chonshu blasted into him from behind, sending Geese to the ground before the elder brother blasted him with something that looked quite a bit like the "Final Flash".
It hurt far more than Geese had thought, and he suddenly realized that he would have to give his all to keep in this fight now.
Then red and blue energies erupted from both of them, and it almost seemed like every sign of injury Geese had inflicted vanished from both of them.
Lilly charged at the gigantic barricade that blocked the East Side Park, knowing full well its lethal qualities.
True, a number of Southtown Police officers had been killed upon entering, but they didn't have protective aura to protect themselves with, now did they?
"Aww… look at that…" Jin Chonrei said sadistically as he kicked Geese in the head and sent him flying, the American lacking the strength just at this moment to get back on his feet. Things were going dark for him… and it looked like he wouldn't have the short breather he preciously needed.
"Indeed, brother," Chonshu said. "Together?"
His elder nodded. "Together."
"DOUBLE…"
It couldn't end like this!
"EMPEROR…"
What abut Marie and all the others?
"DRAGON…"
Please… just a few more seconds! Geese silently prayed, Somehow… somebody! Geese had prided himself on rarely losing his game face… but this time he had blown it…
"VOIC-"
Geese had expected an intense energy blast to the head.
He got it… well, it happened… but not to him.
Chonshu and Chonrei turned to see a young woman in a red dress, bloody but standing strong, in the Ressatsu stance. The same woman that had blasted them with the concessive force to knock them out of their attack.
"Lilly…"
Lilly Kane turned to Geese and nodded. "I can't do this alone… but together… we can do it, Geese!"
A/N: As day breaks in Southtown, new hope arises as Hon Fu, Lilly Kane, and Geese Howard battle against incredible odds. In the meantime, Team Japan finds the rules for their newest match to be… compromising… when the Rival Team plots their moves so even if they win just one round, the win the match! And when Iori Yagami, Vice, and Mature confront the Psycho Soldier Team… they suddenly discover they have a Serpent God to worry about in Shesha's Return.