The Colour Purple Chapter 110: the Outer Darkness, a king of fighters fanfic

The Colour Purple... The King of Fighters '95

This (chapter) fanfiction was originally written circa: [XX.96] (Thank you)

"Which Character are you?"

Note to self: Legacy chapter numbering (32- - -), does not match. [Original chapter written 2016]

"Will you follow me, even if in the end of it all, this great crusade would have been in vanity?" Rugal asked nonchalantly.

"I shall, and I will." Mature did not hesitate, her posture did not falter in the dark recesses of that palace so high in the sky.

"THEY say…" there is a place referred to three times in the Gospel of Matthew, a darkness into which a man may be cast out. While most think of this place as HELL, perhaps this place could be the small separation from God – from a 'wedding banquet' when HE comes a second time. At this time, the greatest fighters of the world will be divided, when we goad him again to show his face, HERE. I will dare HIM to face me again.

…

…a familiar voice said. {I wanted to die. But why am I feeling this way?}

NO! NOT THAT!

IN ORDER TO BE [RIGHT]. All I have to DO is...

Againagainagainagain… The monster stabbed into her right thigh – by now her mind…

Do you know? He said to me. Do you know what will happen if you lay on the ground when three bloody thugs gang up on you? He berated me eventhough I was the victim, and [i] was on the ground.

"He won't kill you, you know that."

AUUUUGGGHHH! That was what she wanted to scream but her throat was now dry and calloused. The steel blade stabbed hilt deep into her thigh, her tongue curled and rolled back into her throat – again it stabbed into her bicep, one by one, taking turns to mutilate her, when three beasts pinned the girl down keeping her alive through the pain. King looked up and out into the sky, trapped in a glass jar helpless to the events that unfolded with each second. She took a deep breath that filled her lungs, grit her teeth down but could not stop her lips from trembling and her eyes erupt into rivers of tears. She inhaled rabidly sucking precious air through the spaces in between her teeth. Understanding in its finality, what THIS place was, when she sobbed paralyzed as her extremities were gutted, yet she was not allowed to die. WHY? The off white ceiling transformed slowly, fading into a black - devoid of light.

Won't you let me die?

"Do you know where this PLACE is?"

But the subjects of the Kingdom will be thrown to the Outer Darkness, where there will be much weeping and GNASHING of teeth.

-Matthew 8:12

It is the…

SCREEEEEEEEEHHGGGHHHHHH… Again and again that rancid sound commanded a carnal response that made King grind her teeth against each other, but even as much as her brain fired reflexive signals to protect herself, the synapses could not make it past the bloated feeling of her shoulders and her arms remained limp and unmoving on the armrests of her wheelchair - eventhough her mind wanted to will them to grip hard to seethe the pain in her head. Trapped in this dream state, rendered a pitiful quadriplegic, she could no longer move her arms and legs.

…

This place was not unlike an imaginary purgatory.

Imprisoned in that aluminum wheelchair, King had now lost all feeling in all four limbs and could do nothing else but look outwards into the smoggy horizon. Is this freedom?

NO. No… NO! NOT THIS. NOT NOW!

Back then – at that time, I felt RAGE. A fiery red bloody clawing screaming rage wrapped itself around my body before putting both hands on my neck with a hateful squeeze.

{OR WAS IT 'THAT' TIME,}

…

"I gave you your wish didn't I? Aren't you FREE now?" The BOY asked through the gaps between his serrated teeth. You no longer need to fight, now. You are FREE, now.

King could no longer feel her arms and her legs. Now only those two were trapped in this room that spanned so far and wide, protected from reality - the cruelty of the world.

The girl bit down HARD, her teeth cutting deep into her lips as they trembled when her conflicting emotions rammed headfirst against each other. {Who are you? Must I call you,… GOD?}

…

King's throat had twisted into a tight corkscrew and the sounds that escaped her wide-open mouth were just gurgles and frightful wheezes of defeat, of helplessness and of mortification when she could no longer move in this nightmare that she could not wake from. Tears streamed from her eyes and on her face reflected a clear picture – a distinct agony.

"Choose." The blonde haired [boy] behind King leaned forward, its arms still clenched firmly on the handles of that cold wheelchair, and as the words formed, its lips puckered forward coyly. "Chooooose," He whispered into King's ear when she looked out to the sunset. "CHOOSE – and I PROMISE you, that your WISH will be my COMMAND…"

Was this… the first time… that instead of deciding to LIVE virtuously, that I chose to instead, become EVIL?

The soft sound of the dark evening breeze running through the withered brown grass, the erratic, sharp caws of black ravens that laid perched in the trees behind them when they sensed the incoming storm, and the heavy bleat of traffic from the distant road that encircled this dark place.

All these sounds were slowly and surely drowned out by a soft, steady static hum.

A storm was brewing and dark clouds above came together to swirl steadily into a vortex, culminating to a single point that seemed to suck in all the light. …and King bit down hard with such force the stress of her molars gnashing against each other made her jaw crack and her teeth crumble.

SccchhhhhhghhhhhheeeEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIII!

King's face looked outwards to the dark horizon, her eyes open wide and her pupils bounced erratically within their small pools of white. Then, the sound stopped. King's lips separated, and a single syllable dribbled out her mouth – her lips puckered and the jagged micro-serrations of her front teeth locked against each other to release a seething hiss. "…" It happened to me too. …and perhaps to, you, as well. How old was I then? I forget now. Just as I lost my sanity, that exact moment…

My mind became so very clear.

"…"

Everyone was my enemy!

In the finality of it all – we are ALL forced to make a choice. In a place a half step in between the darkness and the light. YOU and I lost our MINDS.

…

SCREEEEEEEEEHHGGGHHHHHH…

Either I have to die… OR…

…

The sound of a light switch clicked "on". The coming storm had instantaneously disappeared and instead, this imaginary world had been replaced by a calm, bright, peacefully lazy afternoon.

King pulled her right hand down in sync with the beams of the sun that had shown her mercy finally and turned to the wayside. Her vision returning, she now found herself on a pathway, away from the house that imprisoned them all in a pitiful existence of mediocrity, now, to a grassy plateau that overlooked a tall cliff over the water.

"A," from a tight focus, King's gaze darted back when the rectangular freeze frame of the video camera that showed us the ways of the world rocketed up and backwards, skywards spinning around the two, in this silent place of green peace, this lonely place up from heaven – for all of us to see. A picture perfect scene saved just for us to enjoy. A so very BEAUTIFUL girl sitting on a chair, looking out to the horizon.

Minutes from the house, was a crisp green grassy cliff, with absolutely nothing around to impede the imagination – at the very edge, overlooking the clear blue bay was a solidary wooden chair taken out of context next to a short wooden table, a single pair of bloodied scissors and soiled crumpled bandages on top of it. In a plain, white sun dress King sat calmly looking out to the horizon, her one hand over her thighs and the other on her wide khaki hat to keep it in place as the wind blew a cool breeze that, even when most others paid it no heed, to HER, a woman among women, was indeed sweet to the smell.

"What a beautiful day."

After a few moments of silence, like the sensation one would feel when you woke up with an extremely paralyzing cramp in your leg, the pain slowly subsided, leaving King with a thankful sense of glee amidst the cold sweat that beaded her brow.

King sat peacefully in a wooden chair, looking outwards into the calm water of the blue bay in front of her while nonchalantly rubbing the rough, calloused scars on her wrists with her thumbs. It was a beautiful sight. The water seemed to go on forever, the peaceful waves pulled her mind in tenderly. "A sight fit for a Prin… cess..." The sweet cadence of her words caught between question and statement. Mocking, yet envying the time that had long passed, and left her in this lonely, imaginary world – all alone as the dead had been already set free. "What day is it… today?" She asked out loud.

When the sorrow emptied my gutted body, you somehow filled my heart; When fear crippled me, you helped me take a stand; When the darkness left me all so alone, your gleam of evil kept me in warm company; When a savage beast came to take me, you stood your ground and protected me… cruelly, yet tenderly.

…and when I was at my wits' end, when I was ready to end it all – you were there for me…

TO save me. Prince. My one, and only, true friend.

Standing behind her was yet another small boy. He looked very similar to her, with short dirty blonde hair, once draped over his eyes, a dark shadow masked the entirety of his face, but when he tilted his head up, those eyes, small, slit, evil eyes cut the black in sinister manner.

"It's Sunday – my Princess." The snarling and hollow voice of a boy replied, putting both of his small hands on the backrest of that wooden chair, joining King as they casually watched the clouds float across the sky at this time disjointed from reality.

It's SUNDAY.

{So… after all this time… it was always just us. It was just...} "…just you and me," she completed her thought verbally, "You and I are both so very alone in this lonely world. We have nobody else…" {Except each other…}

King looked down at her knees, the clean and pure white dress that enveloped her body with a comfortable and peaceful embrace. She took a long and hard breath in, then releasing it slow and purposely. "Why, why do you fight, my friend?" She asked.

{…and only our RAGE will be our company, and keep us warm at night.}

"Huhn!" The Prince chuckled behind King. "Why?" He repeated inquisitingly. "For no reason. But simply because someone we thought wiser than both of us, told us to." The make believe monster's scowling face let those words creep out from his heart as he rocked his head back and forth teetering like a pendulum. "It was our ONLY purpose. We were BORNE only for FIGHTING. You and I."

[You] and [I].

A crying baby on that cold, so very cold hospital floor did not realize it just then – but another [boy] - just 10 years older than him, even then, existed, helplessly and could do nothing but stare, from the far wall, looked over that baby on the ground. Even if he was an invisible, imaginary being, [it] could still understand. I am here. Even back then. ONE DAY, will you give me [purpose]? Will you allow me to EXIST?

BUT.

HE SAID.

If… If. The boy looked out and drove his eyes into a single point out into the horizon, then shifted, a freeze frame, a smooth video that skipped when a static shifted his face suddenly cocked to one side, contorted his head as that video cassette player processed crumpled tape with a knotting 1980s crunch. What if I told you?

What would you do if I told you, that, there was a way for you to END all FIGHTING?

What would you do?

King puckered her lips in, softly placing her teeth down on her lower lip. "END all fighting?" She repeated those words, her trembling voice - once dry, bitter and painful, had somehow changed to a sweet sound of longing.

What would you do? If I said WE – both YOU and I - could end all SUFFERING? For all boys and girls like you who've suffered so very much.

YES.

There, in that darkness …where there is wailing and great gnashing of teeth.

"Yes," the boy nodded in confident response. "IF you continued to FIGHT. If you could PROVE to the entire WORLD that there could be NO ONE better than YOU. IF you, and with our Godly gift fought and DESTROYED everyone in the world who wanted to fight…"

If you proved to them, that there is no one better, no one stronger, NO ONE greater than you.

If one by one, through careful and calculated action, if you destroyed, not just their body, but their spirit... If you were to become the GREATEST! Maybe the entire world would realize that FIGHTING is useless. Because no matter how much they tried – YOU could defeat them effortlessly. With your Godly might. Each and every one of them.

Just like a nuclear deterrent… perhaps, together, we could end all war?

AT THAT MOMENT, I THINK I FINALLY REALIZED…

King breathed in, bit by bit digesting the string of murmurs that started with sounds, words, sentences then, grandiose ideals, then, to a simple, easy to understand, zeal.

IF you made an enemy of the entire world. If you DESTROYED each and EVERY one of THEM… We can hold in our hands, peace. Then, despite your suffering, we could justify every ounce of pain WE tasted, only if we could render WAR useless.

"TO end… all war." She whispered. All you had to do – was to become the greatest.

And in your wake, simply in exchange, YOU would have to rule as a fascist over them, you would have to walk over a pile of crippled bodies. There may be some who will adore you, but most will despise you… Are you willing to do that?

We are ALL, KINGS. And even if the entire world becomes your enemy.

Then, the sound stopped. King's lips separated, and a single syllable dribbled out her mouth. "…"

So you've chosen.

He said.

And you've chosen wisely.

It would still be a lazy Sunday afternoon. In 1992.

"Oh. I see… Ofcourse." King sighed. "Then… Let's finish this." King closed her eyes, leaned back into the wooden chair, put her open palms down on her skirt, pushing it forward and pulled her face from the water up, up into the clear blue sky.

Let's DESTROY everyone, then.

EACH.

And.

EVERY.

one of them.

…

"…"

Yes.

"YES!"

Just you and I… old friend.

…

Both hands of that plainly decorated clock rotated rapidly counterclockwise – with the fervour of a hurricane, turning back time, up until it slowed to an easy flow, then on a turtle's pace, then one click at a time – tick and tock – as sand seeped UPWARDS in the tiny hourglass' waist, up until the seconds – minutes – hours – days and years had turned backwards and became a familiar one. In 1976.

"Your wish is my command."

SCREEEEEEEEEHHGGGHHHHHH…

"Do you know where this PLACE is?"

Everyone will be thrown [THERE], where there will be much weeping and GNASHING of teeth. Oh yes, this place, where the slight gleam of fairy dust wisps in the air, this is …

Chapter 110: the Outer Darkness

…

Hiroshi leaned back and in front of him was a vision was all to witness, King sucked in the mixture of saliva, sand and blood through the spaces in between his teeth. King's shoulders rolled in place and weakly floated to touch the dirty Earth.

From the left King's pupils rolled horizontally in its sockets, turning towards the 15 year old boy who dominated him from above. As they turned, slowly King's head followed and rotated on his neck.

And when Hiroshi looked downward at his prey, for a split second King wondered to himself, wondered about the rules of the world. Wherein everything exists a hierarchy as his father taught him, and he wondered… Just for a brief moment.

King turned his head around slowly recovering from that last barrage. His bloodshot pupils like spears driving themselves through his enemy's face.

FOR FIGHTING. MEN RAISED THEIR SONS FOR FIGHTING.

Savagely and indiscriminately, in a play of mutually assured destruction.

This is the only reason we endure suffering, silently.

Wherein everything exists a hierarchy as his father taught him, and he wondered… Just for a brief moment. Hiroshi wondered in fright, just now, WHO was the prey and who was the PREDATOR.

"Don't LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!" Hiroshi had lost all control and cocked his hand up to strike and drive that knife into King's forearm.

MINAGOROSHII!

WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER!

…

"STOP! STOP!" Eagle, the old constable pleaded at the top of his lungs running as fast as his heavy body could.

…and…

…

"OI! HIROSHI!" Futaba looked at his friend now in fright while still holding King's arm down. "OIII!"

Hiroshi was going to do it – he was going to stab that blonde haired boy in the arm!

"HIROSHI NO!" Futaba released his one arm from King and grasped out to Hiroshi's elbow, barely deflecting it to the side. The tip of that sharpened steel blade dug itself two inches deep into the soil barely missing King's wrist.

"HIROSHI!" Chang screamed! "HIROSHIIIII!"

"WHHHHAT!?" Hiroshi bit his lip now foaming in a mad rage at the mouth. He looked up at his friend Chang to his one side, and…

…Hiroshi looked at Chang and Futaba who, both, silently stared blankly to the right side. Hiroshi instinctively followed their gaze up…

They say…

…

In instances of EXTREME stress, the human mind is granted an ability to hallucinate and see celestial things they would, under normal circumstances, could not see.

Hiroshi looked to the side matching momentarily holding his thoughts at bay when the constant static somehow filled his mind like water gushing into a sinking boat, rendering him deaf.

Grayscale dots like small locusts began to collect from far off in the distance, and clump together; buzzing in tune with the static, Hiroshi could not understand why he was seeing this shadow swirl into a vortex and into a tight clump of mass and slowly take shape from a distance.

It started from its fingertips, the dots collected into black wires, twisting around each other to give itself mass, grunting and twisting the once hard sinews to loose ligaments to give itself form. Fingertips to fingers, hands, arms, a torso, waist, legs and finally to a head. A round black head like knotted, curled wires forming a ball.

Then those wires – slits cut side to side and peeled open two white eyes, in the middle were beady pupils…

Oh? It giggled. "Oh?" Oh. Ooh. Oooh…

The deafening static, while not that loud, rendered the three boys unable to hear with the same insidious manner when water slowly filled a cup, forcing all air out from its container.

How can an imaginary being EXIST? This phenomenon was called the [1st Children].

…

The Colour Purple. [Insanity] welcomes you. Let it set you FREE!

…

It's YOUR TURN!

Now, it was YOUR turn to be trapped here, finally.

"Haaaaghhh…" YOUR WISH, IS MY COMMAND - it snarled proudly not caring if there was anyone to acknowledge him. You called to me, and I respond. With a clawed finger, the light switch clicked OFF. Enveloping the world in pitch black darkness.

A loud boom thundered in the Prince's ears as four walls fell down one after the other from the sky, booming as they drove themselves into the ground and trapped EVERYONE in a lonely box. ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. He too, the prince, found himself in that small place, with a small piece of HEAVEN [that] existed there too.

The OUTER DARKNESS. This place. THE ROOM!

…

In the room. In the lonely, pitch black darkness. A black ghoul who's face was a clump of curled wire in the shape of a head hunched forward and SNARLED at King, the coils separating now revealing a wide mouth half way up its face where a human nose would be – a snapping mouth that resembled the jagged teeth of a steel bear trap.

But.

She was not afraid.

King's face was now bleached clean and aloofly, her eyes half shut responded by looking back up and into the beast's open, jagged mouth that snapped repeatedly at her.

She was no longer afraid. Because, there was something else that was WORSE than that monster that leaned forward just inches from her nose. There was something ELSE, that was WORSE THAN DEATH. In comparison, that Monster was inconsequencial.

"You…" The expression on King's face was stoic and rigid. Even as the face of DEATH'S MONSTER looked at her and snapped wildly she stared back into that void.

SHE did not care. The expression on her face now, DID NOT CARE. SHE DID NOT GIVE A FUCK!

Perplexed, the twisted monster made of taut black wire tilted its head in confusion when both their noses touched yet King refused to blink.

"You filthy…" King snarled. "You FILTHY, FILTHY ANIMAL!" She ROARED pushing her face forward at the beast even when both her arms were pinned down by monsters and an immeasurable weight sat on her waist. King smiled finally in surrender. She relaxed her shoulders and even when moments before she was ready to bite the face off of that grotesque monster in front of her, she simply breathed out and laughed.

She laughed.

Tell me, why do we fight? My friend.

She laughed. It was slow at first. One syllable, ha, then another. Ha. But as time slowly crept by, the pace of her laughter grew faster. Ha. Ha.. Haha… AHhaha… haha…

King closed her eyes and the beast over her with a widely splayed claw stared at her in confusion. Ha.. haha… AHAHAHAHAHAAA… King smiled.

Then she stopped. With the back of her head firmly rested on the ground her eyes darted WIDE OPEN. "Don't you know… within me…"

Dwells a MONSTER even more VICIOUS than YOURS!

If a wild beast can have cognitive thought, if we can pretend for a moment an untamed monster can somehow parse intelligible discussion, the savage beast that sat on King's midsection looked upwards, perplexed… and… through the silence, IT understood, IT tilted its face to the right side. Instinctively it felt the coils of its makeshift wireframe spine curl and tighten in a sensation it was unfamiliar with – but could only be described as – horror.

Is this the feeling?

It started from fingertips, the dots collected into black wires, twisting around each other to give itself mass, to give itself form. Fingertips to fingers, hands arms, a torso, waist, legs and finally to a head. A round black head like knotted, curled wires forming a ball.

Then those wires – slits cut side to side and peeled open two white eyes, in the middle were beady pupils…

From a wish, it was given form. With a PURPOSE, an imaginary being was given conditional existence. From the black distance, a blonde haired boy stood rigidly, its upper body tilting somewhat backwards. Its face was now fleshy in colour. Two blades cut two small slits in the form of makeshift eyes. They peeled open slowly exposing pinpoint black pupils bouncing wildly like rubber balls within a sea of white sclera.

CHUK! The blonde haired boy – hair as if made with dry straw, with its right hand dug its talons into its fleshy face, cutting a ragged mouth from ear to ear. As the ripped pieces of flesh floated like torn curtains waved, his mouth moved silently.

{Oh. Can you SEE me?}

Immediately the television screen cracked into three pieces from two horizontal lines.

The Prince cocked its head back and thrust like a hammer now hunching forward as an unpostured wild beast – both hands, all 10 talons scraping the ground.

Hiroshi's ghost gurgled, choking in its own saliva. All it could do was look away in utter and instinctive fright to look back at King who was still pinned down at her stomach.

King grinned, locking her gaze like chains imprisoning that beast that had eventually realized that the roles had reversed – and now – the predator had now become prey.

"Do you understand now," King's smile had transformed to a stark scowl. "My MONSTER, is even more VICIOUS than yours."

…and now…

You are going to DIE.

The END of La Bizarre Love Pentagon – part 24.

{JUST WHEN DID I FIRST BECOME AWARE OF THIS SENSATION?}

Was this the first time?

Was this the first time, I succumbed to the evil?

SCREEEEEEEEEHHGGGHHHHHH… The sound of nails plowing down a dry blackboard ripped into our ears.

…