The Colour Purple Chapter 136: the Children of a Lesser God, 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]

One day, decades and decades past [now]… they may call us… EVIL [PEOPLE].

But… it is too late now… for us.

"If we survive this… why don't we be friends…?"

…

…and… even on their lap of luxury, even if they judge yesterday with their own standards of their [today]; know well, firmly, that we fought mightily, and with great justice in our own conviction. Because we believed we were right.

…for once upon a time… all EVIL men… were once, GOOD men too.

April 1, 1944. Pforzheim, a town in Southwestern Germany.

Mounted on tall towers, the shrill sound of a cluster of multiple bullhorns filled the air – so loud and piercing, it was difficult to ignore. Even small children knew what it meant, a familiar and clear to understand sound to everyone from the years of 1939 to 1945. It was an air raid siren. A somewhat droning sound that still devastates the mind of anyone, even today, who lived through those trying times.

During times of WAR, people believe that there is something, SOMETHING, more important than life. To the sorrow of them, they feel somewhat betrayed, when they see children live lives of apathy and listlessness. Not realizing that the lives of comfort these children are experiencing, were certainly paid in full by someone else, so very long ago.

A blonde haired, teenaged boy hobbled over, dragging his limp right leg along the way – all the same while a wooden chair skidded across the earth behind him also, down the cobblestone road; its wooden legs rattling as it raked over the bumps and crevices with a steady beat. At the end of his own tune that complemented the symphony, the Boy - who would one day be called 'the Knight' turned the chair around and finally collapsed completely like a sack of dirt onto the seat. HE grit his teeth and put his right hand over the left side of his stomach. All the while trying his very best to calm down – the boy placed his hand to apply firm and even pressure over four neatly, vertically arranged holes in his midsection. He breathed out, and at the same time blood gurgled out. To defy God, if only for a few more minutes – God… if you exist, if you really, truly exist... please know, that, I FOUGHT SO HARD. "PLEASE, just for a little bit… longer... God." The blonde haired Caucasian, with a slight pang of loneliness overcoming him, exhausted to the brink of death, let his gaze drift and looked to his left.

To his side four feet away, a young, broken German child soldier sat in a chair of his own, so peculiar in the middle of the town square, unmoving with his shoulders leaning back but his head limp, tilted forward; His horribly contorted body was barely keeping himself upright. The German boy's face was battered and absolutely disfigured, with blood sheeting down his mouth that the front of his once immaculate shirt transformed into a rectangular crimson apron.

The dirty yellow haired boy chuckled slightly. "You lost. You know…"

"Go…" The14 year old German teen gurgled, jaw had likely dislocated. "Tu Hgell.." His right hand teetered like a pendulum; the last bit of blood had already seeped down his glove and collected into a pool underneath it. Four bloody fingers floating in mid air. "AighMM, g'ong to khill yhhou…"

The British boy felt a sting and applied more pressure into the side of his lower torso over the four holes that seethed with tremendous pain, he hoped that soon his body would go into SHOCK so he could feel no more – as he always did – to wallow in the numbing darkness. "Ha." It hurt to laugh. "Hey… Com'mon." Even at the very bitter end, it was hard to keep a straight face. Where two teenage boys sat alone on wooden chairs in the town square in a shithole city in a shithole country dying slowly, yet still here we are…

IN 1944, SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAPPENED.

…to the ENTIRE WORLD.

The sirens continued to blare, and both boys knew the inevitable was to come next.

A whirring roar of aeroplanes dashed overhead, loudly. Rattling the windowpanes that surrounded them – all of them.

WITH A COLOUR SHEETING ACROSS THEIR EYES, TWO BOYS REALIZED A GREAT IRONY.

With a little bit of irony and perhaps a bit of humour, the German boy weakly put his left hand up to support his dislocated jaw with what strength he had left, he mockingly molded a smile by forcefully curling the edges of his mouth with his thumb and index finger - just as he knew they were both going to die. "Yhhou know… You… You ahhre sayingg that whrong."

"Agh.. Ah.. hahg…" The British teen replied, the pain reflecting with each syllable. He was not sure if he was laughing, eventhough it hurt, because of the pain, or was it because a German kid what that familiar with English colloquialism, or if it was simply because of the irrelevant conversation they were having, just before they were about to die. "Hey!" He said out of tune. "I enjoyed fighting you." Said the blonde haired boy.

I'M SORRY – IF I CAN'T STAY just A LITTLE BIT LONGER… WITH YOU.

The camera of the world pulled back and upwards, and in its finality – two boys soon came to grips with the fact that their bodies had stopped functioning properly, and among them, like a wide spanning meadow of red flowers in bloom - were littered the dead and lifeless corpses of German and British child soldiers easily fifty, maybe even a hundred strong. At long last. The screaming had finally stopped, the loud wails of pain captured in death in each of their comrades' faces. …and all that was left were two boys, each, in wooden chairs who sat in a small circular clearing, surrounded by a forest of death.

A British teenager, and in like fashion, a dedicated German boy sat next to each other.

Here.

His mortal enemy had no more strength and his left hand fell down. In a final peace.

"What's your name?"

"Hei… Hei…dern." The German teen whispered with a smile just at the brink of death. "Wie heiBt du?"

"Ich bin…" The 14 year old blonde haired boy…

United States Army Force bombers flew through the air, dropped their payload and enveloped the entire world in white silence. Both Boys, their silhouettes slowly faded into charcoal sketches, then into nothingness – as they sat on wooden chairs – now, without a care in the world where the dead bodies of their fallen comrades littered the ground just as their flesh began to disintegrate in slow motion, MEANINGLESS, in front of them like discarded trash. ALL. For the sake of THE divine JUSTICE.

Werdest du mir helfen, den Krieg zu beenden?

…

JA.

…

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer.

THIS is the KEY from the OUTER DARKNESS. It took me 7 days to realize this, a high level technique that would not have worked with anyone even a fraction less skilled, and it can only be discovered by a boy wshoe olny ohter alntaertive was DEATH.

…

Let me ask you.

"Do you remember what you were doing on December 25, 1977. Sunday. At 7:30 AM?"

In many ways this CONTRADICTION is what allows civilization to continue to exist.

…

King traced a slight line horizontally across his wrist. From left to right, just breaking the skin, and it was undeniable that his hand was trembling… His veins seemed to retreat back into the innermost part of his arm. He pulled the edge of the blade back and cut repeatedly, and with each stroke digging slightly and slightly deeper until a thin bubbling red line appeared. Goading himself, testing his resolve more and more, the white yellow flesh underneath began to part.

But it was just never enough. It was frustrating, and it was INFURIATING. Kings body and his mind simply would not comply with his commands.

I understood even then… if I CUT left to right, I don't think I would really die.

BUT, what if I cut up and down – parallel to my forearm. From my WRIST, DOWN to my inner elbow. I will surely END it. King's breath began to grow cold, his extremities turning pale. Like the sensation you feel when your toes teeter over the edge of a wide canyon, and you understood – that the next, any sudden movement would be one where you couldn't return from. Just ONE sudden movement – and over that edge – regret and apprehension would become two disjointed words. The tip of those scissors dug deep, piercing the flesh and driving a painful sensation over King's body. All I had to do is PULL BACK. PULL IT BACK, like a zipper, and ALL of this would be rendered irrelevant. Ahh…. Just do it… just do it… JUST…

"Hey. You need someone to teach you how to use scissors?" (77)

With his right hand, King grasped a pair of splayed scissors like a knife, paying no care eventhough the one bare blade dug into the insides of his four wrapped fingers.

The END of La Bizarre Love Pentagon – part 50.

…

Metaphorically speaking, a celestial hand took a pawn piece from that chessboard, and was about to place it to the upper left one square above… but… this once instant, IT had changed course, without reason, instead, the HAND moved the chess pawn directly one square in front of it, instead of sacrificing itself for a checkmate, instead the Pawn advanced to challenge the King face to face. This irrational movement is exactly what DESTINY fears.

…

If the King does not take the Pawn, then with one more step it can become any piece it wishes to be. And with God on your side, even a wooden puppet can become a REAL BOY.

…

But you are different. You are SAD and PITIFUL indeed; for you show no desire to live, and you want to die for all the wrong reasons...

Perhaps… DESTINY realizes this, and by the way it repeatedly thrusts misery unto you, LIKE AN ANIMAL, it has no choice and is instinctively doing so to PROTECT itself from YOU. …that, I believe deep down inside. Therefore, DESTINY MUST FEAR YOU.

…

When human society is at war – people are driven to believe that there is indeed, something MORE VALUABLE than life.

A single high pitched tinkerbell broke the silence… oh… can you hear it too?

{The spaces in between, had…} Disappeared.

The opposite of the 61st second, seconds seemingly were cut away, and both Clark and Robert could sense it instinctively.

…

"A." King's face flashed an expression of utter shock. Then as the world had calmed down to a point when the maddening screams had slowed to a halt, King let out a breath. She took a deep breath – then – grit her teeth clamping down as HARD as she could. From the surrounding black darkness, the WORLD washed into a blinding, devouring white light as the camera rushed into her face like an oncoming tractor-trailer, ready and willing to devour everything in its wild path.

7:34 AM

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, HERE? With… me?

"CLARK!" Knight said, lifting his body from the chair where he sat. Just as Clark disappeared from sight on 7:33 AM, December 25, 1977 – the Knight pushed both hands on his knees to stand, but halfway he had frozen in time at the same time as Heidern's hands relaxed their grip from his biceps in disbelief.

A dark phantom flew by Knight and Heidern and hit like a comet, crashing into three folding chairs behind the Knight and Heidern. King's mouth gawking wide to mimic her eyes – it betrayed her once stoic expression, leaving HER in utter shock when the viscous goo erupted outwards into the air. A DISTINCT sensation of PAIN. THIS was something she had not felt for a long time.

"A." Knight was first to break away from his once frozen momentary gaze. Just as he was suddenly awakened from a century of frozen sleep, he did not understand why he felt something had happened, yet he had not been privileged to witness it in real time. Heidern next to his friend blinked – realizing at the same time that the world had continued to turn without even asking if he was aware of it all.

…

Knight FELT it. Something was CUT. A certain element was forcefully, like organic chemistry, removed from his consciousness. And all the while, even when his friend Heidern did not fully comprehend the gravity of the slight, minute difference of the disturbance, Knight knew at a base level that – within that section that was suddenly sliced away, someone ELSE had stepped into the world he and his child once held an exclusive luxury to.

From across the hall, Clark stood momentarily frozen – his left fist outstretched, while his right remained tucked firmly by his hip. His knuckles curling, the picture perfect moment moved from his frozen left array of knuckles – down his forearm, up his bicep – over his shoulder, his neck, his GRIN then to those same eyes that gazed outwards longingly. Clark Steel gnashed his teeth hard, interlocking into each other.

Clark's left fist floated up high SPANNING THROUGH TIME.

Don't you realize it by now? If destiny indeed fears you, IT should take heed, and FEAR me more. Can a BOY create a THING that God fears? Can the possibility exist? Or are we simply playing an asinine game?

I CAN, FINALLY, [SEE] YOU! KING OF KINGS.

Chapter 136: the Children of a Lesser God

"I told you…, KING!" Clark snarled. "I am NOT going TO, LOSE… to a FUCKING girl…" DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!

The tips of Heidern's brow twisted over and under each other, just before he looked to the right side at his friend, the Knight.

{It is impossible. It is physically impossible. 90 pounds, even 100 pounds maximum. The difference in mass between you and me – the difference in our height, weight, bone density, reaction time from fast twitch muscle fibers… it is highly improbable that a girl can beat ME! And that is what makes all this so mortifying… unless…} Clark droned on.

Using anaerobic metabolism for fuel, fast twitch muscle fibers predominantly advantageous in men, provides short bursts of speed. So how is it that you could…?

Can a GIRL, who was fighting since BIRTH easily span this physiological divide, with just the luxury of TIME and DEDICATION overcome this wide span of logic? WHAT DO YOU HAVE? What do you have that I do not? What do you…? Oh…

What. Wait. What just happened? Clark looked left then right, wondering to himself what had occurred seconds before. A boy had woken up on weekday, greeted by the sunlight of another school day. How many times had you felt this? Suddenly awoken and desperately trying to remember – a DREAM that was slowly fleeting away.

Letting out a wheeze, Knight put both palms on his knees and sat back down, turning to his friend with a blank stoic look on his visage in response. The Knight was placed in a ROOM where he for once did not know what to do…

Knight sucked in the air through his teeth, looking straight and Heidern then back at Clark. Perplexed and absolutely confused he did not know what to do. …but to sit back and lay himself bare and helpless to the whims of destiny. "Clark…"

YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF IF YOU WANT.

"Do you want to kill yourself?" Clark asked in a conversation saved only for two, in the silence. "Fine by me." Clark hunched backwards with both of his open palms splayed wide. "DO IT! I DARE you." Clark's groan slowly began to ebb into a slight chuckle.

Do you feel like your life is useless?

You do not fear, NO, you do NOT understand the simple concept of death. This must be why you are so strong. Or… is it that you simply do – not – care? It took me only 7 days to understand this.

THIS IS WHAT [DESTINY] FEARS THE MOST.

What is it that you fear the most? Is it the agony that life presents to you? Or is it?

IF it stops NOW, then EVERYTHING… EVERYTHING you SUFFERED THROUGH…

…like me.

…everything would have been in VAIN.

"What is it that you fear the most?" Clark asked.

Clark's finger floated up, up and over King's shoulder. Behind the girl, the Knight and his friend Heidern were frozen, petrified in their chairs like statues. DO you understand what this means? If we can be here together?

The entire space around them, with the sound of a switch, had been instantaneously turned OFF and now the world had… it had.

…

King's right hand TORE ITSELF UP from its grave. Her Fingers penetrating through the soil even when destiny wanted so desperately to bury her. Her four fingers curled around the free standing metal chair in front of her, then her left – her left hand launched up the opposite side, and with both arms she heaved herself upwards. A sigh escaping her lips and then, she stared outwards with a blank visage. On King's face was a stern scowl – a small child, on her face was the expression of someone – King gnashed her teeth together back and forth, but that rancor would immediately be replaced with a cold apathy – it was a face of a small child, who had been forced to swallow sewage for 13 very long years.

Do I anger you? Clark snarled with a grin. DO you HATE ME?

King's face peeked up in between both her hands when she pulled herself upright. With a heavy sigh and snarl, she expelled a heavy breath from her lungs and through he gnashing teeth.

YES.

I have seen this expression before. Far from death, the y8irl:, King sat herself up and gazed forward at her enemy – her one and true enemy – Clark Steel – and in this room…

...

A single dot drawn by that dry felt tip marker, around it was a solid black square.

…

…yet somehow, this time, it was different.

King's face, that was once lethargic and bare, was not at all indifferent… because apathy was replaced, for some perplexing reason, with something else.

Tortured by eternal silence – and after all this time… Clark was given a slight luxury of a voice he heard very little of…

…

"I'm King." She said.

…

Saturday. December 24th, 1977 – the Sixth Day. (115)

Clark hunched forward and pressed the cold ice bag on his temple. There he was, in a dark space - floating in a void in front of him was a 13-year-old King who sat cold and uncaring with his hands on his knees, staring back at Clark.

Clark looked at King with his one good eye.

King simply looked back with eyes glazed over in apathy.

"Haaaaghhhh…" Clark breathed out in a heavy sigh. He had finally given up and put both hands over his forehead, digging his fingers deep into his scalp. "This is all fucking useless." He cussed under his breath.

{What.}

"I understand it." Clark murmured. "I think I understand it NOW."

{What.} In a sense of déjà vu, King curled his shoulders up and backwards, having a slight feeling that these sequence of events were unfolding out of the ordinary. CUTTING bloody pieces of film that littered the ground. Pasting them then, out of sequence.

"…I finally understand what the purpose of the CHILDREN is." Clark said. "…and what DESTINY FEARS THE MOST…"

If you walk down the street, and talk to yourself – people will think you insane. A mental dysfunction. Yet, look at US now. The difference between insanity and genius. Clark pointed outwards over King's shoulder. King gave in finally, nonchalantly turned over his shoulder, and with eyes wide in clear understanding, he gazed upon the Knight and his mother frozen in time – and replacing the tired drab colours of the world was now an empty void, a darkness frozen in time.

Yes.

The difference is that we are talking to each other, here, alone. I finally see it now.

"THE FIRST CHILDREN HAS ONLY ONE [PURPOSE]."

…

From my WRIST, DOWN to my inner elbow. It will surely END it. King's breath began to grow cold, his extremities turning pale. Like the sensation you feel when your toes teeter over the edge of a wide canyon, and you understood – that the next, any sudden movement would be one where you couldn't return from. Just ONE sudden movement – and over that edge – regret and apprehension would FINALLY, become two disjointed words.

END IT! With four fingers wrapped around the splayed open pair of scissors, so hard his fingers began to bleed, King STABBED DOWN into her wrist with her ENTIRE STRENGTH… but, just the last instant as only 3 millimeters of the sharp steel tip penetrated her flesh it stopped. His hand began to tremble, and even with her entire strength the blade REFUSED to move.

The tip of those scissors dug slightly and stopped as if it hit bedrock, piercing the flesh and driving a painful sensation over King's body. All I have to do is PULL BACK. PULL IT BACK, like a zipper, and ALL of this would be rendered irrelevant. Ahh…. Just do it… just do it… JUST…

This time however, Clark stood silently by the door with a look of shock and confusion on his face. Certainly unable to fully parse what was happening.

With his right hand, King grasped a pair of splayed scissors like a knife, paying no care eventhough the one bare blade dug into the insides of her four wrapped fingers. King's left wrist had been cut as the edge remained in his forearm but refused to go further.

The term SUICIDE, exists, and therefore, it must have meaning.

Inflicting children in an insidious way, it was a result of a life without meaning, virtue or purpose. Children, just at the apex of adulthood, the age of accountability, at least once in their torrid lives, thought of this concept, for certain.

I didn't notice it before, but now as I recall this memory.

"I see it, clearly, now."

…

The sixth day.

From his wooden seat, Clark looked up and stared King straight in the eye and asked, "Do you know what the first Children's purpose is?"

…

King's hand trembled, but wrapped around the exposed blade of that scissor was another, now bloodied hand. Up that hand, its wrist, its arm, shoulder, neck and face. Was a fang toothed grin. It's triangular smile existing throughout the individual sequences of time, simultaneously.

Unwilling, or mayhaps unable to feel PAIN. Pulling back forcefully, [another] blonde haired boy, its face like a pierrot pulled that blade back and prevented it from digging any deeper.

…

Under normal circumstances, there is a basic human instinct of survival. An uncontrollable base instinct. This is the reason it is impossible for the mind to will its body to hold its breath to the point of suffocation.

But someone like you – you HAVE to be different. If you have the innate ability to physically and emotionally destroy anyone you touch, I find it impossible that you are unable to have absolute control of your own body.

"In 1964, the [First Children] was born; it was a beautiful mind's desperate plea, a defense mechanism - and its sole purpose… Was to prevent itself from committing suicide."

…

The First Children has one purpose… and IF I have a Children too… by distributive property, MY CHILDREN, must have a greater purpose too. Don't you think?

"…King of Kings?"

{Oh… wait…} Clark chuckled. {I thought out loud again, didn't I?}