The Colour Purple Chapter 157: Three Seconds, 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

"Those two angry boys make a good combo, my friend." He said. "Take very good care of them – they may one day save your life… or… at the very least, they can bring you a cup of water, when you are too old, frail, and too lonely to even give a damn."

…

"Don't move."

"What!" Ralf hissed with his raspy voice, focusing his entire attention to the voice over his right shoulder. "Where the FUCK did you…"

"I said don't move!" Clark said, "AND SHUT UP!" Clark placed his left hand on Ralf's right shoulder and in one simultaneous movement pushed Ralf, heaving him to the left side of the hallway. At the same instant, with one or two steps, used Ralf's mass as a buttress to propel himself FORWARD.

CLARK! "You son of a bitc…" Ralf stumbled to the left side toppling to his knees when his legs could not run any more.

"Shuuu…t…. dohh….www…" The mechanical female voice said just when the very last of its battery power let out. "Havv…ahhhghhh… hav… a…"

Two lasers ran through the floor then up Ralf's backside. Ralf, the man hunched forward gritting tightly, with all his extremities tensing all at once to brace for the impact. Ralf wondered to himself if Clark had purposely pushed him aside just in order save himself. As perplexing and agonizing as it was, Ralf had more urgent matters to attend to.

VWWWOOOM HISSSHHHH! Red laser lights tore up a hundred pound hunk of steel on the back of Ralf's back – and this big, heavy, obsolete and clunky of machinery would likely worth a million dollars in 2021. BUT, in 1990, 31 years prior, to this one man, it was simply and absolutely priceless.

"JUMP!"

Contradicting commands all at once, Ralf defected to base instincts and reached out to two long red nylon cords on either sides of his chest and PULLED DOWNWARDS.

The red hot lasers cleaved into the heavy steel mass on Ralf's back, and the man was not sure if it penetrated completely – and for all he knew, his arms were already, probably cut off and separated from his torso, but now was not the time to muse on such things.

Those initial 36 orbs chattered in place when they stacked to a screeching halt one on top of each other desperately trying to pile up to the far end of the hallway – perhaps this was a pre determined plan, only 6 RED EYES were able to launch back to defend the room after Clark had coaxed them all to the front and as a result, tie themselves up in knots.

The hundred pound metal field generator slammed to the ground. Only 3 orbs were able to attack that steel box that slammed onto the floor, with two passes, the eyes cut it into a dozen worthless pieces.

Ralf SLAMMED his chest onto the wall, his hand up and knees curling – the man did as was his last order and placed his right cheek flat onto the cold metallic wall.

A single laser traced a horizontal line on the ground, a mere inch away from Ralf's shoes.

"YYyynnnggg!" Ralf wheezed desperately, his lower half puckering with the tension and strain, keeping it to himself as best as he could so his friend would not notice.

…

PRESENT A SUITABLE COLLATERAL.

Clark's arms swung like V8 pistons up and down propelling himself forward.

AND EVEN GOD COULD NOT IGNORE. OF THE 4 HEAVENLY GIFTS – PERHAPS A 5TH EXISTS.

…

"HAUGHH!" Clark sucked in sweet oxygen – forcefully expelling the DARK water from his lungs when he felt slight tingling sensations rush though his flesh and bone. When his body reached the surface separating life and death.

Clark Steel awakened once again, and the feeling of fleeting fear reminded him…

…THAT HE WAS STILL ALIVE.

The two remaining DOTS placed themselves on Clark's lower back. Even when Clark Steel tried desperately to launch himself forward, it was not enough and these two remnants of death still caught up with him.

Gritting his teeth and choking from the strain, Clark Steel coughed up and out the last bit of black water from his lungs.

{It's NOT enough CHILDRENS!} Clark gnashed hard down. {You son of a bitch!}

"Ha ha ha…" it laughed out loud.

You doubt me? Clarkie?!

…

Erupting to life, two laser beams ran through the ground in hungry RAGE, down the steel wall, the floor that held no pre determined biases, right towards their enemy like wild beasts.

However, even pushed to the end of possibility, Clark REFUSED to look back over his shoulder and kept on running forward.

THE SECOND CHILDREN GASPED IN RAPTURE, looking upward through the spaces between his fingers, with his talons clawing into its face. Absolutely fearless even when mortal blades cleaved up its smiling visage.

Clark Steel's left heel crossed the line.

Clark's teeth met with a hard chatter beaming a bright wide smile and grin.

…

Two laser beams once trained towards Clark immediately turned left and right the instant it came into contact with a red line painted on the ground just as the edge of Clark's heel crossed its threshold.

The red hot laser cut a small triangular sliver from the heel of Clark's boot.

WHAM!

Clark's head tilted back at the moment of impact.

WHAM! Clark's back slammed onto the hard and cold wall behind him, and with his entre being forced himself to inch back and back into the HARD steel behind him. Every fiber of his being, his body now totally frigid cold wanted to push itself into the wall, hoping the steel would just absorb him, consume him entirely.

"HAUUG!"

Two laser beams twisted 90 degrees on opposite side from its path of initial attack into an L shape and faded into the wall only to disappear. In its wake was Clark Steel heaving hard desperately trying to replace what remained in his lungs with fresh oxygen. Within that panic was simply a slight reassurance, that he had not stumbled he had not faltered.

As the Darkness came back to reality, we all were reminded, deep down inside. That, we were still alive.

…

"Ral... RAL.. RALF!" Clark's chest heaved in an out in a slow predictable pattern.

"Hagh….."

"R... RALF!" Clark said again.

"Yyy.. yooo.. you…" He hissed… "YYYOU ASSHOLE!"

"Hagggghhhhhhh." Clark breathed in calming himself beaming a smile.

What was the remuneration for that? That first second…? It was this.

…

"WHaT… THE… FUCk?!" Ralf cussed from the outer side of the hallway, expensive metal chunks littered the ground behind him.

…and on the adjacent corner Clark Steel hunched and crept up bit by bit, wishing that the steel wall behind him would absorb his body in order to protect him from the deathly red eyes.

But in the end of it all, THEY were both alive.

"Clark." Ralf said.

No response.

"CLARK!" Ralf screamed again, now louder.

"What." Clark answered; slowly relaxing his shoulders when he was sure the red orbs had died out and hummed to a predictable silence.

Ralf curled his lip inwards; he waited a few seconds and swallowed apprehensively. Then after sucking in a lungful of air, "WHAT THE FUUUCKKK!?" RALF SCREAMED.

Clark tilted his head back and relaxed his shoulders with a sigh. Both of them were alive. "Aghhhh."

"Ahh?! AHHHH!?" Ralf repeated angrily.

Clark pointed upwards with his right index finger and twirled it around in circles, around in a slow drone to reassure his friend, before pointing down. "You can turn around now. Sit down, Ralf."

Ralf sucked in with a hard GULP and gingerly pushed off from the steel wall to turn around. When it was surely safe, Ralf slid down on squatted on the left side of the hallway to the side of Clark. "Hgh!"

"You're alive, Ralf."

"You… What the fuck was that?"

Clark did not respond and simply looked forward in silence, droning on his next course of action.

"Clark…" Ralf asked. "What... WHAT did you DO?"

Clark remained silent once again, looking back at Ralf a bit perplexed and confused. When it was absolutely safe, Clark stood up straight and stared back at Ralf behind his dark Ray-Ban shades… confused. Clark tilted his head in confusion.

"I said." Ralf snarled. "How did you DO that?"

Clark lifted two open palms in front of his chest, shoulders shrugging, in what could have easily been a typical show of mockery to his friend. "That?" Clark asked apprehensively. "Don't you get it?" Honestly, Clark replied in a tone normal people would likely think arrogant, but to Clark, it was seemingly a futile exercise and a waste of energy to explain.

"Nnnnggh!" Ralf gripped hard down on his temples.

"Do you really not understand it?" Clark asked. Now calm and collected, Clark put both open palms over his stomach and leaned forward calmly, stopping when his toes were millimeters from the red paint marks on the floor.

Turning his palms up – Clark curled his right index finger and thumb into a circle and extended the last remaining fingers upwards into a THREE fingered salute.

"It was just three seconds, Ralf."

…

Chapter 157: Three Seconds.

"EH?!" Ralf jeered in a snark tone. "Three seconds?"

"Yes, three seconds." Clark immediately responded. "You know…"

{If I have to explain the solution to a problem…} "It really loses its appeal."

"Nggrrrrmmmm." Their conversation, now degrading into hems, haws and grunts – Ralf understood clearly as always that further chastising was utterly useless to a sociopath he knew for far too long. SO all Ralf could say was simply, "What!? What? How did you do it!?"

Clark sighed. Indeed a joke loses its appeal if you have to explain it.

"The lasers." Clark began, "The lasers don't shoot everywhere at once, so… so it has to prioritize its targets." This was proven by the fact that the lasers did not attack Ralf immediately, OR more to the point, the lasers did NOT attack the FIRST magazine after it attacked Ralf.

"Wait... how did you figure out…" Ralf…

"They attack based, not on mass, or heat, but on movement." Clark interrupted and continued on his tirade.

Ralf, now sure that Clark wasn't listening only threw his hands up.

"But, there's a delay."

{A delay?} Ralf thought to himself perplexed. {Did you figure that out between the moment I ran and when…}

"It's three seconds." Clark said.

The lasers can't target YOU and ME at the same time if we are close to each other. So how does it prioritize targets? It does so by objects that are still moving for 3 seconds after the last attack.

Ralf sighed, retreating into his own thoughts letting Clark drone on until he can finish. Okay, he got it. Three seconds but… "Wait."

Does that mean that the lasers could only target Ralf as he kept on moving? Was that it? WAIT! That means that if Ralf was a 'blocker' all that time… and all that Clark had to do…

"All Clark Ajussi had to do…" Jung slammed his right fist over his left palm in an immediate epiphany. "Ajussi has to just stay 3 seconds behind Ralf! GENIUS!"

Almost like a car trailing an ambulance in traffic, Ralf cut a path through.

From the bottom of his stomach, Ralf's blood began to boil. "CLARK! YOU ASSHOLE!" Ralf screamed. "You used me as a human shield! YOU ASSHOLE! YOU… You ass.. ASS.. YOU ASSH…"

"Jung…" Clark pressed the button on his earpiece and looked out to the opposite side of the hallway. "Jung can you hear me?" Clark said again.

"Don't ignore me, Clark!" Ralf roared, and the only thing that kept him from leaping up and tearing into Clark like a wild beast was the possibility of red lasers tearing him apart like rabid piranhas if he dared to step forward.

"Hey! Are you listening to me you asshole? Clark!"

"Jung…" Clark said again completely ignoring Ralf.

"Clark ajussi." Jung replied into his headset. "I hear you… if…" Wait. Jung stopped for a moment in the middle of his response. {Three seconds?} He thought. Was that enough?

Logically thinking about it… The generator only has 15, maybe 20 seconds of power… The lasers attacked Ralf ajussi the first time – that was 3 seconds in between them. Then. The lasers hit Ralf ajussi a second time. 6 seconds, just as Clark threw the first magazine.

…

Clark heaved his entire body forward and threw the aluminum magazine in a torpedoing baseball pitch that sent it twirling over and under like a spinning knife to the back of Ralf's head.

…

Clark ajussi threw the magazine and waited another 3 seconds. That is 9 seconds behind – maybe even more. Logically subdividing the joke – until it utterly lost every bit of its humour.

9 seconds?

…

Even if he could. "Even if Clark could run almost TWICE as fast as Ralf ajussi… 4 seconds separating them... It's barely NOT enough between attacks.

…

"Clark Ajussi! No! Wait!" Jung screamed.

Almost as if responding to Jung's scream, the first three rows of red eyes lit up with a slight hum, three dozen orbs ran through their rails from the back of the hallway to the front, and stacked one on top of each other to respond to the new threat at the opening of the tunnel - readying and arming themselves. All locked on at Clark Steel.

"JUNG! THROW THE MAGAZINE!" Clark roared as loud as he could.

…

Jung recalled Clark's rabid SCREAM. Even then – in an act of desperation, if that moving magazine was able to distract the lasers with that 4 second buffer. There was still…

Wait… mathematics.

There was still 4 seconds buffer between Ralf and Clark even if there was a THIRD magazine to distract the laser. Without that possibility, could Clark have cut 4 seconds to reach Ralf.

Still… that 3 + 1 second moment where Clark was SURE to die. SO what then?

"Where… Where did that 1 second GO, in between?" Indeed, the more the Korean thought of it, the more the joke lost its amusement and turned itself into bewilderment.

From across the hallway 100 meters away, Ralf continued to chastise Clark with two middle fingers stabbing in mid air, and amidst all that Jung sat at the opposite edge of the corridor utterly perplexed.

"Jung. I made it." Clark said dryly. "Can you hear me?"

…

{Where did that 1 second go, Clark ajussi?} Jung breathed deeply, filling his lungs with cool air, a wide beaming smile flashing across his face, maybe as the tension escaped his shoulders, maybe as gratitude for the God he prayed to.

Wherever that ONE second went, it did not matter – as it was the 5th heavenly GIFT.

"You used me as a HUMAN SHIELD! YOU ASSHOLE!" Ralf droned on and on.

The BEAST – part 17.

…

"Meosjida!" Jung exclaimed in glee.

REMEMBER, MY FRIEND.

"They did it Jung!" Jung radiated a warm, brilliant smile when a hearty slap from his teammate hit the back of his shoulders.

"Jung." Clark said again. "Can you hear me?"

Jung pressed the button his headset and replied. "I hear you. I'm happy Ralf ajussi and Clark ajussi made it safe." Jung replied, unable to hold back the tears in his eyes. "Let's save Commander Heidern!"

Let's save our friend, together!