The Colour Purple Chapter 147: Transcendence, 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.

ORIGINALLY CHAPTER 43 - The Berserker Phenomenon.

In a clean, peaceful house; Surrounded by a manicured lawn and garden; Here I am.

And even when Sandra took painstaking care to vacuum and dress the furniture in our lovely home, for some odd reason I still prefer to sit here in the corner on the carpet, surrounded by drab boring walls… sitting in a pool of blood. Wondering… To myself…

Wondering, just when, exactly, did it all start to unravel before my very eyes?

"After all I've done, Knight…" Heidern wheezed, just as... "Did I really think I could have the luxury of finding happiness and be forgotten by HISTORY, just like everyone else?" Just as the bitter man began to slump into a darkness, when a divine [monster] started to tighten its grip to bring him to the other side…

…

Krauser was right. Not even all the riches of this Earth can buy back even one second of time to tell our friends how we felt, after [the monster] decides to take them away. Because I was arrogant, because I thought we would live forever. SO instead, I am willing to sacrifice the lives of the entire world, just, just so I can see HIM again. God. To FIGHT HIM one more time. I don't care what kind of God he is… may he be a Jewish God, a Christian God, an Islam God, a Hindu, Buddhist, even Pagan God. If this [book] gives me an ontological clue, then I will use it, and spare no expense to make it true. Christians used prayers, and pagans used blood to communicate with HIM. But I will use whatever it takes to make HIM take notice. To fight him again. To make him understand, that he cannot do simply as he wishes without consequence. USE this book Doctor Brahms.

Will you, Brahms, be the human who is able to speak with the dead? Talk with GOD. Be the one who BINDS him to the Earth? Does that dream not entice you?

USE this book, so that I may FIGHT GOD once again.

…

"Honey! I… I missed you… so much." Sandra wailed and wept! "Don't EVER leave me again."

…

There is a MONSTER, and it's trapped on the other side.

1990. Johannesburg, South Africa.

"Was that all?" Rugal lifted his right foot slowly, raised it dexterously and easily until it was above shoulder height and poised directly in front of Heidern's unmoving head that still remained partially implanted in the wall behind him. Rugal still balancing on one leg in an awkward position, twisted his hips and retracted his foot back – then VIOLENTLY slammed it forward, smashing Heidern's face in and drove his skull further back into the wall.

'I was foolish to think that someone as wretched as me could be happy, wasn't I?'

"Was that all?" Rugal asked again. And to punctuate his thoughts, he pulled back and delivered another solid, high side kick into Heidern once again. The force cratered the concrete wall behind Heidern and it had no choice but to release the body, but just as Heidern's feet hit the ground and his flaccid legs begun to buckle, Rugal kicked again, and again, this time to the midsection. "THIS was what you were HIDING?!" Rugal called out, kicking and kicking repeatedly, mashing his helpless opponent's stomach and chest, keeping the rag dog upright in a sadistic play of power. "You won't take NOTICE?!" Rugal's foot felt the crunch of bones when it hit the left part of Heidern's chest. "Is THIS your GIFT? Is THIS all you HAVE TO OFFER? After I've waited TEN long YEARS, to see YOU AGAIN?!"

'What was MOST cruel, was that HE gave me a slight glimpse of IT. HE gave me Sandra, my wife, and gifted me Clara, my daughter… only to take them both away in an instant.'

WHY!? Again and again stomping on a dead animal.

WON'T YOU… Repeatedly, Rugal tortured the lifeless corpse. At first it was out of a twisted sadism.

'It would have been more merciful, and no less just, if destiny had let me die in Pforzheim.'

SHOW… Then slowly but surely, even as blood splattered across Rugal's face. Even when there was no more satisfaction to be had from pummeling an empty shell, he continued.

YOURSELF… Heidern's body slid down the wall and his bottom finally hit the floor. His face twisted and his upper body teetered and tilted to the side to fall dead.

'BUT, this God works in mysterious ways… AND, I no longer see my family as a GIFT.'

TO ME!? WHAM!

'No, I understand now, that mercy is not reserved for me; JUSTICE demands retribution commensurate to the crime, and I deserve an even greater PUNISHMENT.'

ME! RUGAL! With one last crushing blow Rugal stomped on Heidern's face like an insect. And when he retracted it, the goo dripped down the sole of his boot, leaving in its wake a disfigured remnant.

Now a crumpled lifeless husk, Heidern's cadaver sat motionless – his legs splayed wide, and his arms hanging limp over his thighs, now just a wasted husk of a man now left brutalized and empty, leaning on a hard, cold wall in a dark alleyway.

'Through his gifts, GOD, has indeed come to PUNISH ME even the more. Cruelly, as he must certainly watch me SUFFER in agony.'

"Hhhaghhh…" Remember my friend.

The booming sound

"Hha… Hagh…. gh…" Before you tear down that fence…

The echoing sound.

"Hhhhagh….. aghh…" First, you must know…

Of a familiar voice.

Rugal took one then two steps back, he regained his bearings and commanded himself to calm his breathing that had momentarily become wild, labored and uncontrolled. Rugal Bernstein looked at his left hand, the blood had now become sticky and gooey. Disgusting.

The man swung his left hand outwards again in disgust, flicking as much of the red viscous slime from his fingers before wiping his fingers with his handkerchief and continued to wipe the excess from his face.

"Haaaagh…" Rugal breathed out a long sigh once his heart rate calmed to a manageable pace. "I guess you are not the one, Heidern. You were hardly a match for, Rugal."

Rugal looked at the bloody handkerchief and after debating for a few seconds decided to toss it on the ground, into a pool of blood that collected around Heidern's seated carcass whose flesh had slowly become to peculiarly begun to shrivel like a prune into a dry mummified husk.

"Right…" Rugal mused. "Which computer was it?" Turning around, Rugal walked past an array of desks with large metal boxes and monitors, trying to remember which one he wanted. With a light annoyance, Rugal kicked away a mangled and severed arm, stepped over a dismembered torso, and only showed clear disdain as he had to maneuver around a severed head when he took a stroll in a field of death and carnage.

Looking from above, a large dark air conditioned room, filled with metal towers and blinking lights, the husks floated like an archipelago within a sea of blood and flesh.

…

Which one was it again?

The blinking lights, red yellow and green – many colours in a large galaxy.

This one?

Rugal made his way to the CPU next to the metal operating table next to a large tubular aquarium at the far side of the room. He placed his palm on top of the metal box, but stopped, instinctively.

A single peculiar candle remained lit in a glass decorative jar.

A small bright sunspot caught his eye and Rugal couldn't help but turn to the side and stare at the strange spot on the wall that seemed different from the other glowing lights, so much so that, while seemingly insignificant, he couldn't turn away.

Eventhough the man was in darkness, in that cold room, he did not understand why he put his forearm over his eyes to assuage the piercing sensation that slowly began to burn his vision. "Agh." Rugal grunted, more in frustration. He closed his eyes, even put his arm over his face, but for some reason that white glow still pulsed in front of him.

Rugal rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle fingers, taking a wobbling step forward. Turning one way and then to the other… fumbling in the dark, he reached out blindly with his other hand.

Rugal opened his eyes, looking outwards perplexed, wondering what exactly was happening. The one glowing light that surpassed all the other small coloured bulbs continued to shine over his shoulder. The man put both hands on the desk in front of him to catch his bearings, yet even as he blinked his eyes feverishly as the phantom pain of glass shards ripped into his eyeballs, he could not escape the light that was now in front of him again, dimming then bursting into a flare, before dying into a shimmer once again.

Despite it being futile, Rugal closed his eyes and continued to stumble in the dark, waving both hands outwards. Taking a slow step, one foot in front of the other hobbling like a frail, lost, old man…

IT manifests itself, differently – for different people…

The soft beeping sounds and the droning hum of the large computer servers and air conditioning had all but become silent as Rugal's mind unconsciously ignored them, naturally. As he continued to walk, the smell was slight, and it was faint enough – lavender flowers, a permeating aroma of coffee, present but still subdued as not to cause concern, and the peculiar hint of arid sand.

Rugal continued to walk, however, slowly but surely, his stride became lighter, his legs felt stronger, his heartbeat began to slow and the piercing aches and pains that earlier radiated across his body begun to subside.

A strange, burning sensation slowly rose from Rugal's stomach, up his lungs – a feeling that emolliated him inside, but instead of pain, it felt wonderful. The old and weathered creases on his old face slowly begun to smooth out and disappear. In real time, as the man touched his cheek, he felt his rough skin, his beard suddenly faded away, as he regressed back in time.

What is this? What is…

But when Rugal looked up, his questioning thoughts were interrupted; and his mind was suddenly calm, clear and absolutely lucid. Rugal looked upwards and stared out to the far reaches of the room. Finally, after all this pain and after all this torment, and after all this regret that chained the bitter old man. Finally, the weight was lifted off his shoulders, the dark miasma that enveloped him and filled his lungs for the past 20 years dissipated as easily as it was for him to exhale.

Ah.

He had lost the ability to question. Anything. But that was fine.

When the warm calming glow radiated from his chest and reflected on his face that had now lost the hardened rancid shell it had built upon itself, and Rugal's youthful vigor had returned, his heart beat slowly – in a matter of seconds, time had turned back 20 years – and Rugal was a young man again.

Chapter 147: Transcendence

IT manifests itself differently, for different people. And I wonder, sometimes, how it will be, for you, and for me… when our time finally comes. And, disguising itself as a blessing, it lifts us from all our misery and takes us away… from all of this… regret.

We will not even realize it, as we welcome our final moments with eagerness.

…

"Hey…" Rugal smiled, saying, his voice once gruff and heavy, had slightly changed, it was a voice he took for granted once, and he had long forgotten. The pace in his stride began to increase, a new youthful vigor suddenly surged though his veins.

Hey… Looking outwards, the darkness had overcome the crux of twilight and now enveloped the world in a warm hue. Hey. Rugal walked over to a man far off in the distance with his back turned to Rugal.

He was certain, he was sure – it was unmistakable. And finally a slight, though apprehensive grin cracked his once hardened face.

Golden armor and a royal purple cape rested on the man's shoulders – the man who looked as if he was hundreds and hundreds of meters away, but that was all inconsequential to Rugal now.

"Hey!" Rugal shouted more forcefully now, increasing the pace of his steps to a light jog.

The stocky man with the stature of a hardened golem tilted his head and perked his ear up at the voice. He turned slowly, cautiously… he turned back to Rugal, and what felt like an eternity penetrated and overcame Rugal like the sating taste of water from a long prison in the desert – a journey that had to be made alone. But it was over now.

"A…" Rugal sighed, his shoulders slumped when finally, at long last, his knees weakened and his steps droned to a slow march. He grit his teeth and did all he could to keep his emotions at bay, as any of the such was unfitting for a man as Rugal Bernstein.

Grief – is a journey across the desert that must be made on foot. Alone. But it was finally over now, and nothing seemed to matter and Rugal's mind was peacefully clear and blank. All questions had been answered at long last.

"Ivan." Rugal emotions bubbled up his throat and trembling lips in a bittersweet melancholy expression. Ivan Krauser, my friend.

…

Likely near 200 pounds, the golden armour, Ivan Krauser easily swung around with the huge globular shoulder plates on his body as if it weighed nothing. A twisted and playful smirk painted itself across his face after being kept waiting for so long, he was able to see his friend again.

Rugal launched again to a spirited jog, desperately trying to close the distance between them. There was so much he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to say. So many questions, so many things to fill in the spaces in between, Rugal just wanted to speak, just so he could somehow chain himself in the moment, he wanted to say I'm sorry… but the most of all – he just wanted to say… Thank you. Thank you for being my…

Krauser's face suddenly changed, from light to dark, the sweet glow abruptly twisted into a bitter scowl! His mouth moved rapidly, but for some reason…

|ug-al|

"What? Ivan what?" Rugal said as he continued to run but the distance did not change and Ivan still stood so far away from him.

|hind y|

Krauser waved his right hand back and forth, what was most frightening was what only Rugal could understand – Rugal had never seen the hard faced, emotionless German noble flash a face of panic just as he did now silently even as his mouth blared wide, but voiceless...

|b ehi ou|

"Ivan… Ivan…?!" Rugal pleaded, "I can't hear you…"

I can't… wait…

Desperate now, Krauser pointed with his right hand right through Rugal, his face SCREAMING!

Wait… what… what am I…?

What… is this… this smell? Lavender flowers, a permeating aroma of coffee, present but still subdued as not to cause concern, and the peculiar hint of arid sand. The youthful Rugal, not a crease or scar on his face and body, looked down at both palms, his arms stretched outwards in front of him in confusion.

…

"You do not understand," The lady said. "You don't understand [it] yet do you?"

"Du hast entfesselt…"

…

|STOP.|

|RUGAL.|

Krauser pointed with his right hand right through Rugal, his face SCREAMING!

…

A split second instantaneous flash of blinding light that inserted itself between two distinct seconds, further subdividing even the smallest fraction of time.

A Cheshire cat smile cracked the plain white wall.

…

RUGAL!

RUGAL! BEHIND YOU!

"God is PUNISHING ME, isn't he?" Heidern cried in sorrow.

…

Rugal, before you tear down that fence, you must first, understand what lies on the other side.

…

"A!" Awakened from a petrifying slumber, Rugal felt his heart drop when his spirit fell back into his body, making his knees buckle from the sudden impact. Freed from a dream, he did not know that what was about to unfold was the real nightmare.

Over Rugal's shoulders stood a tall shadow, its face completely black except for a single slowing red orb where its right eye once was. A thick white mist seethed through its gnashing teeth as a guttural growl emanated in the dark room.

Heidern's reanimated body stood perched over Rugal's shoulders.

The BEAST – part 7.

But YOU Rugal, Rugal Bernstein, you are the only one I do NOT forgive.