Chapter 5: Time will tell
Disclaimer (Sob Forgive me gentle reader's, but I must!): I, Grey Rayne, do not own anything, whether it be items, characters, place names or anything within The King of Fighter's universe. I do own a few miscellaneous characters within this story, but they may be used freely by all.
King of Fighters is a trademark of SNK Playmore.
They stared up at a sign; one of the plainer one's; without neon lighting.
"A second-hand shop?" she muttered gloomily. He grinned to himself slightly.
"It has clothes and shoes. Besides, it's the only place that's open right now." He said over his shoulder as he pushed the door open. She trotted after him gloomily. The shop was quite large, there were books across one wall, ancient toys and old computer games from defunct consoles on the other side, mostly there were clothes though, covering the far side of the shop. An old woman stared at them from behind the counter, her beady eyes peering over the top of a Catherine Cookson book. They walked over to the clothes section and started rummaging through it. She pulled out a rather tasteless purple dress with an unnecessary amount of frills, she stared at it for a short while and then put it back.
"Some of this stuff is crap." She whispered so that only he could hear. He nodded very slightly, but then his eyes lit up as they fell upon a pair of red dress trousers. What's more, they looked like they might just fit him. Meanwhile she was flicking through dresses, although she couldn't imagine wearing most of them, a long black dress caught her eye. It was the type of dress you could imagine pale Countess' wearing. She grabbed a black leather jacket from another rail and a pair of black high heel boots.
"Going for the gothic look?" He said, looking over her shoulder at her selection of clothes.
"Well, I don't know what I like, so I'm just going for whatever I'm drawn too." she said as she put them on the counter. He picked up a pair of large boots and put them on top of his own clothes, which he placed on the counter beside hers.
"That's 35 all together." The old woman said automatically, without prying her eyes away from the book. She handed over the money.
"Is there somewhere we can change?" He asked politely. The old woman waved a hand vaguely towards the back of the shop as she counted the dollars suspiciously.
"Dressing rooms." She said simply. They bustled off in the direction she had indicated, her beady eyes following them.
He sat on a bench, dimly aware of the rustle of cloth and leather behind the curtain across from him. He began humming a tune to himself absently, although when he tried to identify the melody he drew a blank.
"We should name ourselves." He heard her announce as she struggled into the dress. He stopped humming.
"What?" He said coming out of his reverie. She grunted slightly as she finally got into the dress and then she started hopping as she tugged the boots on.
"We don't know... What we're called, so..." She caught herself as she nearly fell over. "...We should give ourselves temporary name's, you know, until we find out who we are." She finished lacing up the boots and pulled on the jacket. She then pulled open the curtain and stepped out. "Is there a mirror anywhere?" She asked, noticing the grin on his face as he looked at her. He pointed with his thumb to a full-length mirror and she turned to inspect herself. Her new outfit showed a bit too much cleavage for her liking and she blushed as she looked at herself. There was also some lower leg showing, but she didn't mind that as much. She pulled the leather jacket tighter around herself.
"I feel like an Edward." He said as he walked into the dressing room and pulled the curtain across. She had to stop herself from laughing. He snorted indignantly as he began to get changed. "What's wrong with Edward?"
"Well, it sounds a little too... English..." she said uncertainly.
"So?" He grunted.
"I mean...uh... you have a bit of an accent, see?" She explained nervously. He paused for a moment.
"Ah, you noticed?" He said as he began to button up his shirt. "How about Rufus then?" He said thoughtfully. She mentally tried to picture the name on him, but it didn't seem to fit.
"Nope." She said. "I think I'm going to name myself Viper, or something." She announced. This met with silence.
"Why?" He eventually said. She looked down at her boots.
"Well, I have this tattoo on my back..." She said. "I think it's a snake of some kind, it's cool."
"Okay then, Viper." He said seriously. He stepped out of the dressing room and glanced briefly at the mirror before turning and slowly walking away. She followed him quickly. They shut the shop's door behind them and began walking aimlessly again. They wondered if they should have asked the old woman in the shop for direction's or, better yet, a map. 'Viper' absently kicked a discarded baked bean tin in front of her as they strolled past an alleyway where a group of people were crowding round a fire in a trashcan. They caught some conversation as they went by.
"-kid's these day's. The other day someone almost tripped over me and all they said was "Watch where you're sitting, you old fu-"
They strolled on. The city around them seemed empty, except for the shadowy figures they could sometimes glimpse and the sounds of feet hurrying away. The buildings were tall and everything seemed so cramped. They vaguely glanced at the graffiti on walls as they passed by, learning the nick name's of several arch-vandals.
"This cities a hell-hole." She muttered as she kicked a beer bottle aside. As if on cue, they heard an explosion of trashcans behind them and quickly spun around in time to see a body land forcefully amongst the wreckage. A grey cat yelped and rushed away in the opposite direction. They walked towards the body with grim anticipation and found that another body was buried in the wreckage, in even worse shape than the first.
"Do you want to check their pulses, or should I? Because either way, the chances they're alive are-" His voice trailed off as he looked at her expression. She was staring at the blood, her eyes looked fierce, like that of a feral cat. Her tongue hung out of her mouth slightly and she took a shaky step towards the blood in a trance-like state. Hungry...kill...blood...
K' burst through the building's fire exit and was about to storm off when something strange caught his eye. A large man with one arm was trying to restrain a gothic-dressed woman. He would have thought it was a case of domestic violence, except for the strange circumstances. The two bodies he had thrown out of his window could be seen amongst the garbage in front of them and the woman was making guttural, animal-like noises and thrashing about violently.
"S-snap out of it!" He was shouting, worry evident in his voice. He managed to grab her around the waist and turn her body away from the dead bodies. Her eyes met K's and he could see that they were wide and blood-red even through his sunglasses. But then, slowly, the redness seemed to be drawn back into her and her struggles became weaker. She went limp in his arms, although she was still conscious she suddenly felt drained. K' watched all of this with an impassive look on his face, although he was secretly intrigued. He walked sullenly over to them as she gasped for breath.
"What just happened?" she demanded, noticing the way he was holding her tightly. He didn't reply as he collected his shattered nerves.
"You almost had a Riot of Blood." K' said matter-of-factly. They both looked up simultaneously as if they had just noticed him. K' remained sullen as they seemed to inspect him with a mixture of interest and horror. He couldn't blame them, if he saw a guy wearing full black leather with white hair dyed red with blood and wearing sunglasses at night time, K' would be shocked too. All he had to do was look in the mirror, though. Besides, the two people staring up at him had a special strangeness of their own.
"Riot of blood?" she asked quietly, not liking the sound of it much.
"It means you're either of Orochi heritage or you have had dealings with them in the past, probably the latter..." K' uttered thoughtfully. She stared down at the arm protectively clutched around her waist and she coughed pointed.
"Ah, sorry." He said, drawing his hand away. He then helped her up to her feet and put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
"Who are you, anyway?" She asked the dark-skinned man standing impassively in front of them.
"I have no time to chat." K' said dismissively. "You guys seem to have enough trouble as it is." He said, turning away from them and beginning to walk away.
"You don't know the half of it." He muttered under his breath. K' caught this though. He stopped walking.
"Oh?" K' said over his shoulder.
King snuggled into her bed. She had just got back from walking Sally and Elizabeth home; South Town was a dangerous place to be by yourself in, and Sally or Elizabeth would be easy targets for muggers and rapists. King was known, and feared, by the criminals in South Town, and any newcomers who thought that three women looked like easy targets had soon learnt the error of their ways. She felt light-headed. Kyo was coming to South Town as quickly as possible, which gave her some relief at least. She began to daydream about Ryo when there was an intrusive noise. Her bleary senses woke up enough to recognise it as someone banging on the bars main door downstairs. She tried to ignore it, but it continued incessantly. She threw back the covers and slipped out of bed. After wrapping a night-gown around herself, for decencies sake, she charged angrily out of her bedroom and down the stairs. The knocking continued.
"Partir, we closed at 12!" she shouted, slipping slightly into French in her tired state. She looked up at the wall mounted clock. It was 2:00 in the morning.
"Is that Miss King?" she heard a low male voice behind the door.
"Yes it is. What do you want, it's 2 in the morning!" She huffed.
"My name's K'..." The voice said simply. Her weary thoughts suddenly pictured a leather clad, flame wielding Kyo clone from the recent King of Fighters tournaments. She unlocked the door and opened it slightly, drawing back her clenched fist just in case it was someone messing around. It was indeed K', the Kyo clone. But he wasn't alone.
The epic battle continued.
Shermie and Chris watched nervously from the side. Shermie bit her fingernails absently whilst Chris' eyes swivelled from one combatant to the other. This match was to prove who was the dominant of the adult males in the four heavenly kings. Everything rode on this epic contest, including Orochi's favour. Their eyes met with fierce determination as Orochi himself watched on from Goenitz's throne. He looked bored. Yashiro visibly flinched as Goenitz's hand shot out and his mouth opened wide.
"I have you now!" Goenitz roared as he reached forward.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Yashiro screamed.
The sound of stone-on-glass filled the air and all went deathly quiet.
"Check-mate!" Goenitz barked. Yashiro hung his head in defeat. Chris and Shermie breathed out.
"Bad luck, Yashiro." Shermie said kindly. Chris clapped politely.
"Y'know, this game isn't fair. You're like 2000 years older than me." Yashiro remarked.
"I told you, you should have played Twister!" Chris said.
"I'm very bendy for my age!" Snapped Goenitz. This remark met with embarrassed silence. Orochi stood up and grinned broadly, his teeth turning from white to black in synch with his hair and markings.
"Well played, Goenitz." He said as he strode down the steps towards them. They shuffled into tentative postures of attention. Suddenly, a very bad version of the theme music from Ghostbusters started playing. They all turned their heads slowly to Shermie, who had pulled out her cellular phone.
"Hello? Suzie, hi! How's Brad? hmm... Yup, I'm still coming to the party tomorrow. Yes. I'll bring sandwiches! Of course not! Giggle I wouldn't miss it for the world. Love to you both! Bye!" She hung up and smiled sweetly at them as they stared at her in disbelief. "What?" she asked innocently.
"Uh, we're in the Orochi realm, how come people can call you?" Yashiro asked quizzically.
"Oh, Suzie's one of my Orochi servants." She explained. They all nodded and muttered words of acknowledgement.
"You're going to a party, with your servants?" Orochi asked, a rare tone of uncertainty in his voice.
"It's Brad's 25th, I can't miss it!" She said, placing her hands on her hips. Orochi's expression was the picture of incomprehension. God's shouldn't have to deal with teeny-boppers, it's too much for them.
"V-very well." He stuttered. He shook his head and remembered what he was going to say. "Goenitz, you won the 'epic battle,' Therefore, you may return to the mortal realm and seek revenge yourself."
Everything, except for Goenitz, seemed to slowly darken. He grinned evilly and threw up his hands.
"Soon, Kusanagi and Yagami will be no more!" he roared. A spiral of Orochi power, Flame, Lightning, Earth and Wind, engulfed him. He spun on his heel and was gone.
Chris shuffled nervously over to Orochi's side.
"Master, when will C.Y.S be able to return to the mortal realm?" He asked, looking up at the tall figure. Orochi patted him on the head absently, which Chris hated, and said.
"Time will tell, my young Heavenly King."
