This is Neo Geo Chronicles, the only King of Fighters fanfiction that has as footnotes half the length of the chapter.
In this chapter, we leave the "Orochi Stops an Alien Invasion" story for now, across town to a café in which Sho Hayate, Nakoruru, Iori Yagami, and Adelheid Bernstein are discussing things. By café, I mean diner. And by "discussing things" I mean basically almost talk about stuff, when Rose Bernstein crashes the party.
So stay tuned.
--ABOUT FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE WHOLE FIASCO WITH THE YAMATA NO OROCHI AND THE ALIEN INVASION DUE TO HAPPEN WITHIN 12 DAYS--
The Purple Flame Diner. A café in the lower right corner of Southtown(1), of which usually brings in about fifteen to twenty customers a day. That's just enough for the owner, operator, manager, and day-to-day worker local King of Fighters badass Iori Yagami, to keep the thing afloat. Considering it occupies what used to be the Thunderbirds café (2) before it got shut down following the NESTS collapse in 2001, the rent's not too high. Even still, the heir to the ancient Yagami clan doesn't get as much money as he hoped to get, just enough to pay rent and cover the cost of the food. (3) Still, fifteen to twenty people is a lot of people for the Purple Flame Diner, what with it being about the size of your local McDonalds (4), and about as popular as a copy of Halo at the Tokyo Game Show.
This morning, Iori got a trio of visitors to the café. One was the son of long-dead arms dealer and long-time King of Fighters Dream Tour (5) endboss Rugal Bernstein. Another was the founder of Fu'un Karate (6). The last one… well… she came from Feudal Japan (7). They've been there since 11:00 AM. It's 1:00 PM.
The aforementioned threesome was sitting at the far end of the café. One had a red breastplate on, tan karate pants, a red headband, and was barefoot. His hair… get this, his hair closely resembles a mullet. Not an Eiji Kisaragi-style (8) mullet, mind you, a black shaggy mullet. Another was dressed casually (for him, anyway), with a black shirt and black slacks with white socks and shoes, and also a pair of black gloves. His hair was blonde, and was styled in the same way as his father. The girl looked like she came out of a Japanese mythology convention, only she was real. She had long black hair tied with a red bow, and a bird was perched on her shoulder. This wasn't some robin, though. This was a hawk.
So basically, we have a karate-man, a supposed-to-be-dead-for-centuries (9) nature girl with a pet hawk, and a techie guy with an ill-gotten inherited fortune and some of the strongest kicks this side of Kim Kaphwan. These three are Sho Hayate, Nakoruru, and Adelheid Bernstein.
"Hey, Adel, how'd you find this place anyway?"
"Yes, Mr. Bernstien, I'd like to know this as well."
"Please, Nakoruru, Mr. Bernstein is my dead father. And as for your question: I used one of the GPS systems I built, as well as reasoning that you would be here to find this place. The fact that it's called the Purple Flame Diner was compl-"
Nakoruru interrupted his answer in the name of a very important question: "GPS? Is that another of your new-world devices?" to which Adelheid Bernstien, noted techie, said nothing. He just glared at Nakoruru. And then a figure came to their table, speaking the phrase, "I didn't expect you guys to come here. 'Specially you, Adelheid. I thought you and Rose were going to the fancy-schmancy restaurant across town." The figure in question was tall, with a black jacket, white pants, light brown shoes, and a plain black choker (10). Of course, the telling feature was his hair. Think of it this way: Dextera from the anime Kiddy Grade, but with much longer hair. (11) You've pretty much got Iori Yagami right there. "Well, I'm personally not that big a fan of what you consider to be fancy. That's all Rose.", Adel responded, brushing his hair out of the way. "Who's Rose?" Nakoruru asked, not expecting an answer this time.
WHEN SUDDENLY! The door to the diner flew open. When I say flew open, I mean it flew off its hinges all the way to the other side of the restaurant and broke the door on that side. The perpetrator happened to be a young girl (younger than Adelheid) who looked pretty elegant, and would be the prettiest thing Sho Hayate laid his eyes on, if it wasn't for the fact that her expression was that of pure fury. "That's the third and fourth doors broke this week!" Iori complained, who then got over to fix the doors. Meanwhile, Adelheid told Nakoruru, "That's Rose. She's my sister."
"Oh. Funny, I don't see the resemblance."
"ADELHEID BERNSTEIN!" Rose yelled at the top of lungs (12). "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AT FRANCO'S(13) WITH ME, BUT I FIND YOU HERE INSTEAD? FOR SHAME!"
"Yup, that's Rose, alright."
"THIS ISN'T THE KIND OF PLACE OUR FATHER WOULD ALLOW YOU TO GO TO!", Rose continued shouting. Adel, meanwhile, was… not furious at all. He casually waved her off and said, "Yeah, and our father's dead. Therefore, I'm not obligated to abide by his rules anymore."
"SO? BESIDES, HE'S NOT DEAD!"
Iori heard the commotion, and after hearing a bit more, casually walked over to the quarrelling couple and said, "I'm sure this is a very interesting argument, Rose, but can you please keep it down? There are people still eating here, one of which is Mr. Howard over there."
A young, blonde teenager with a red and white jacket, a black shirt under the red and white jacket, black pants, and red eyes, turned his head to the arguing party, smiled while waving his hand, and then continued eating his turkey club sandwich.
"THAT'S ROCK HOWARD, YOU NUMBSKULL!"
"Exactly. And he's got the personalities of his biological father and Terry Bogard, and if he's anything like the latter, he's got a big appetite and no patience for people who interrupt his lunch." (14)
"Damn straight!" a voice that sounds like that when your mouth is full of which the origin of said voice is that of the aforementioned Howard boy exclaimed.
"SO? HE SHOULDN'T BE EATING HERE EITHER! HIS FATHER'S A CRIME BOSS, FOR GOD'S SAKE!"
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Not only are you disrupting the peace (that might get you a court order, with your unnecessary screeching tone and the fact that you blew two doors out of my establishment), but it's unwise to mention Rock's biological father's chosen profession in front of him (15)."
"WATCH ME! RO-" POW! Reppuken to the face! That powerful projectile knocked down Rose, interrupting her statement before it even got started. "OH, SO YOU WANNA FIGHT, EH? THEN TASTE THE WRATH OF ROSE BERNST-!" RATATATA-POW-WHAM! Rising Tackle (16) followed by a front-flip which spikes Rose to the ground! That would send any average person to the hospital, but the people of Southtown are no average people by a long shot. Rose isn't a citizen of Southtown (17), though, so she felt that one in all of its eight-hit-rush-combo power. Amazingly, though, she still stood up, though she kinda wobbled. "owwww… what happened?" Rose eked out. Iori answered the question with, "You were screaming your head off, Rose. Something about Adel eating here, in West Subway, as opposed to Franco's, in Geese Square. Then Rock Howard over there knocked some sense into you."
"oh… I really need to take those lessons sometime soon… For now, though, I'm going to take a nap here… goodnight…"
And then Rose Bernstein collapsed in the middle of the Purple Flame Diner, much to Iori's satisfaction. "Well, that was… easy. Nice going, Howard."
"No problem, Yagami."
And then both related peacekeeps went back to their respective what-they-were-doings: Iori got back to fixing the doors, and Rock got back to eating his turkey club.
As for the other three involved in this mess? Well, Hayate was pretty dismayed himself. "Hey, wait a sec! Wasn't there supposed to be this climactic diner-destroying fight? I know I wasn't the only one who saw that door" he pointed to one side, where the door was missing "fly off its hinges and break that one over there!" he then pointed to the side that Iori was fixing, at which point the Yasakani descendant announced, "Don't mind me, I'm just fixing collateral damage." Adelheid pointed out, "My sister honestly doesn't know her own strength. And are you trying to say something, Hayate?"
"No way. I just thought that Rose would be the type to destroy the entire joint to get to you and drag you to Franco's, by hook or by crook."
Then Nakoruru noticed something wrong about this picture. "I'm sorry you guys, but why would Iori Yagami, a noted jerk and general antagonist, suddenly start owning, operating, managing, and working at a restaurant in this city? It doesn't seem right."
"You trying to say something, Nako?"
Iori heard this conversation; and again stopped what he was doing, walked over to their table and explained the following: "Why would I do something like this? For starters, I got the suggestion from the Kanes. Turns out that community service is the best way to get people to like you if you were a jackass, and what better community service is there that starting another restaurant in Southtown, a city known for its fine food and culture as well as its bi-hourly restaurant bouts, main street melees, and back alley brawls? Not to mention the tons of tournaments here, I figure I could get at least two or three teammates just by hiring them. Speaking of, you guys looking for any jobs?"
Out of the three people there, only Nakoruru was looking for a job. "Well, I'll see if I can't find a job for you, then." As he walked away from the table to get the application, someone at another table complained, "Hey wait! You didn't give me a job!"
"That's because I don't like you, KU-SANAGI (18). You're almost as bad as Kyo's number one obsessive fangirl (19)."
"Ouch. Now that's an insult." another customer noted. This one was actually Kyo's number two obsessive fangirl, Kyoko Kirishima, otherwise known as Cosplayer Kyoko. (20)
ATTACK OF THE HUNDRED FOOT TALL FOOTNOTES!
1) Also the location of the Pao Pao Café, another highly regarded but little known restaurant. That is, unless your name is either Richard Meyer or Bob Wilson.
2) The Thunderbirds Café was named after an actual location somewhere in the outskirts of Harrisonburg, VA. This location is completely original, and not found in any KoF or related games.
3) It's still good food, even though the menu's like a combination of Subway and Johnny Rockets. Hell, the whole place is as big as… well, see footnote 4.
4) Unless you live in Orlando, FL; where your local McDonalds has two floors and big enough to support a whole crapton of arcade games (including F-Zero AX, a game I thought I'd never see in my life.). Otherwise, your McDonalds has one floor, and is in fact pretty small, not counting the area taken up by those playgrounds (where available).
5) The King of Fighters Dream Tour basically is the dream matches of the series: '98, 2002, and Neowave.
6) Fu'un Karate is the style of fighting Sho Hayate uses. I'm not sure if he's the founder of it, but it's certainly new (6a).
6a) Correction: Fu'un came from Savage Reign and its sequel, Kizuna Encounter. It's new in KOF as of XI, though.
7) See: Samurai Shodown. NOT Last Blade, that's Tokugawa-era Samurai fightings.
8) Have you seen this guy's hair? Eiji's like Solid Snake. At least, he had a mullet in Art of Fighting 2, but that took place in 1979, and not counted towards the KoF storyline, so that's excusable.
9) If you come from the Feudal era of Japan (the 1400s), and this year's 2009, then you're supposed to be dead for centuries. Nakoruru's proof of this, 'cept she's alive here. Time travel? That would make this story even more awesome(9a)
9a) As I often say, Time Travel automatically makes stuff awesome. Sonic CD, TimeSplitters, Back to the Future, Inuyasha, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, and Chrono Trigger deal with this, and with the exception of Inuyasha, they're all awesome.
10) This is Iori's King of Fighters XII outfit/his Another Striker outfit from KOF 2000.
11) This comparison was brought up by The Fighters' Generation, a full-fledged encyclopedia of fighting games and their characters. I myself have never heard of Kiddy Grade.
12) This is an intentional omission of a pronoun, in reference to the last sentence of Squirrelking's (in)famous breed of fanfictitious horribulous Half Life: Full Life Consequences, its sequel sub-subtitled What Has Tobe Done, and several other bad fanfics involving relatives of the main characters, usually (not very) cleverly named. People like him should not be writing fanfics if they don't know the history and make up stupid-ass OCs to compensate.
13) Franco Bash; fancy Italian restaurant entrepreneur and Fatal Fury combatant. He would almost be awesome if it wasn't for the fact that he keeps losing.
14) Terry Bogard, besides being a badass street fighter, is a guest writer for The Daily Melee, a local newspaper in Southtown. Terry writes about restaurants in the city (and their food) under the pen name Jeffrey Wolfe.
15) Rock Howard doesn't like his dad, Geese, very much. He especially doesn't like the fact that he's a crime boss, and that he abandoned Rock when he was, like, six. That's exactly the reason why Terry, being the archetypical hero, adopted him.
16) Terry hasn't used the Rising Tackle since SNK Vs. Capcom SVC Chaos. That technique is used by Rock a lot nowadays.
17) If you recall, the Bernsteins live in an airship called the Black Noah. It usually hovers over Southtown, though, so technically they are Southtown citizens, even though they live over the city and not in it.
18) To differentiate between Kyo Kusanagi and his Yata Mirror-produced clone, KUSANAGI is all caps.
19) Yuki Kushinada; Kyo's official, canonical girlfriend. Yuki was not made up by me, or by anyone else. She is 100% character-mutilation-FREE!
20) KYOKO IS NOT AN OC. Kyoko is an actual character, albeit a really, really obscure one. She appears as an Extra Striker for Shingo in KOF 2000. Don't believe me? I don't blame you, but Cosplayer Kyoko does exist. Her last name is taken from Kyo's original name, Sho Kirishima. Don't believe me on that? Look it up on the KOF 10th anniversary website. Expect more of Kyoko soon.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is TWENTY TWO footnotes, more that DOUBLE that of the last chapter.
So next time, we catch up with whatever the hell Kyo Kusanagi is doing. Particularly, running into fellow legal arsonist K' (it's K Dash).
Keep flying.
-GF