The King Of Fighters Storyline Retrospective: Part Four
Prepare for the final part of the King of Fighters Storyline Retrospective. Part Four will bring us right up to date with the King of Fighters storyline just in time for the UK release of King of Fighters XII. You know the drill right now; sit back, get comfortable and enjoy the final part of the story, so far.
The King Of Fighters 2000
A year passes since the mysterious events surrounding the appearance of the NEST cartel and fighters are left with more questions than answers. Who was Krizalid and what was his relation to NEST and who exactly are NEST? As the next tournament comes closer the fighters know that they will get their answers by the time a new champion is crowned.
Invitations are sent out to fighters around the world again but this time by the Ikari Warriors. They plan to use the tournament to lure out NEST and investigate further into the cloning incident of last year’s tournament.
The rule of four fighter battles remained unchanged and battles commenced with Ikari keeping a close eye over the proceedings for any sign of NEST interference. Teams remained relatively unchanged, however K’ and Maxima parted ways from Benimaru and Shingo, teaming up with two new fighters Vanessa and Ramon. This left Benimaru and Shingo to enlist the abilities of two other new fighters Seth and Lin.
The fights proceeded as before with the fighters anxious about the NEST interference. The fights led the tournament back to their origins in Southtown, a city now overcome with unstoppable crime and corruption.
As the fighters enter Southtown, K’ notices Ikari’s mercenaries dotted around the harbour; along with the rest of his team his goes to investigate. As the team enter K’ freezes on the spot and tells the others to leave, quickly. As they do a storm begins to break out all around the harbour seemingly pinpointing in on K’, as the waves inch higher into the sky they suddenly freeze and a woman dressed almost identically to K’ stands before him, he sneers back at her.
Vanessa, Maxima and Ramon take shelter in an abandoned factory and meet Benimaru, Shingo, Seth and Lin. Before the fighters have a chance to exchange pleasantries the building is surrounded by Ikari mercs, the fighters take cover and hide away in fear of being slaughtered and gunned down.
Back at the Ikari HQ, the underground generator is activated. Ling tells Heidern “This way, we should be able to activate the Zero Cannon.” A cannon that was designed to track down and destroy the hideout of any NEST operatives.
Heidern reminds him of his mission to capture K’ and Maxima for questioning about NEST and Krizalid but as he does a gun is held to his head, Ling laughs at him “You don’t have to know anything, you’re just a mere spectator, and I…I am the executor!”
Back in the warehouse the fighters are still hiding as the ground underneath them begins to move taking them down, underground to an ancient temple. Where Heidern and his operatives are being held at gun point, thus revealing their location as Ling’s command centre. Ling steps forward and confesses his real name, Zero.
Zero turns out to be none other then an operative of the NEST cartel and the same man who was responsible for the death of Krizalid at the conclusion of the previous tournament. Zero now plans to battle the fighters and use their energy to charge up the Zero Cannons which will be fired at any destination in the world of his choice.
“The future of this world isn’t NESTS” proclaims Zero glaring at the fighters “It’s me!” The battle begins and one by one the warriors are blown away by Zero’s devastating fighting abilities, each fighter is reluctant to use their full abilities because of the Zero Cannon and pay dearly because of it. All hope is lost until Lin attacks Zero from behind and manages to land a powerful blown against him.
Zero isn’t fazed for long and makes short work of Lin, although seemingly defeated Lin acts victorious. Puzzled Zero looks on towards him as another fighter enters the room, K’. Heavily beaten from his earlier battle, K’ stands against Zero who just laughs at his pathetic state as the two begin to fight Zero starts to feel weak, as the attack from Lin starts to reveal its true motives.
Lin had installed his poison blood into Zero’s body. Unable to regain his abilities K’ uses this to his advantage and lands a massive blow against Zero shaking the entire temple to its very core. K’ turns away and helps his friends get to their feet as Zero emerges from the darkness behind. Bruised and beaten he stands enraged and with a small trigger in his hand.
Zero presses the trigger before anyone can react but nothing happens, the generator shuts down. Zero’s body is engulfed as he becomes immobilized, two women going by the names of Diana and Foxy appear at his side. Diana pulls out a transmitter from her pocket and begins to talk to someone called Kula, K’s recognises the name, it’s the same person who fought him earlier on the docks.
Diana checks Kula’s location and she confirms that she’s placed on top of the Zero Cannon in space, she manually overrode the controls to stop Zero using the cannon for his own purposes. She changes the location directly onto Zero and fires. The blast whips down and begins to tear Zero apart, the other fighters jump to their feet and flee the blast area before they can get caught in it.
Zero lays dying on the floor as a lone figure makes his way towards him. “Well, well…what a honor to have you as my final witness to my death, Kyo Kusanagi!” Kyo demands answers of the cloning process he was put through but the dying Zero doesn’t grant his wish and closes his eyes preparing to embrace death.
As he does another figure enters the rubble, Kyo turns to see Iori walk into the light and face him “So, you’re still around, eh?”, “You knew that I would come back for you…”
The two warriors engage in battle no longer filled with hate but with excitement of the fight and the chance to become the King Of Fighters. Iori and Kyo fight for the honour of being the best of the best.
As another tournament comes to a close things begin to look up, but they will never be the same, not until NEST cartel is finally punished for their interference in the King Of Fighters.
The King Of Fighters 2001
The tournament, if nothing else, had shown the entire world what a threat NEST were to the safety of the entire human race. With the abolished Southtown left as a painful reminder to everyone around the world. As long as the NEST cartel remained a constant threat to mankind’s freedom existed.
Despite efforts by both ex-NEST members led by K’ and the Ikari warriors to track down the supergroup no leads were found. A year passed and nothing was heard from NEST it was almost as if they had vanished off the face of the earth, then suddenly new invitations to the King Of Fighters tournament were given out signed by none other then NEST themselves.
Despite being tracked by many governments and specialist agencies NEST went on to sponsor the tournament directly. Fighters were understandably suspicious about NEST’s appearance but willingly joined. Many planned to take down the organisation.
The teams consisted of old favourite K’ who was joined by new and old fighters. One team in particular gets the attention of those participating a team led by none other then Kula Diamond the same woman who helped destroy Zero in the previous tournament.
She is joined by Foxy and two new members, a young woman by the name of Angel and a frail looking boy known only as k9999.
The battles begin with more explosive passion than ever seen in any previous King Of Fighters. As the tournament works its way through the matches and up until the concluding matches, three figures watch over the fights.
The very leader of NEST themselves keeps a close eye on the entire proceedings accompanied by two other fighters a tall man with long blonde hair and a mysterious looking woman. As the fights begin to wrap up a lone warrior is called into battle to do the bidding of the NEST cartel and finish off whatever the winning team may be, a man hand chosen by the leader of NEST and a man that appears to look like Zero.
K’ and his team meanwhile celebrate their victory at the tournament but they know the battle has only really just begun as they are invited to attend a celebration ceremony by NEST atop a huge blimp. When they arrive the blimp takes flight and soon the team are greeted by a man that looks strangely like Zero and a huge black lion stands at his side. As K’ and the others look on towards him the man admits he is Zero, but not the same Zero they had met.
In fact the Zero from the previous tournament was a clone of the Zero standing in front of them, as he explains two figures step forward, Krizalid and Ron. Krizalid reveals himself to be a clone to the former NEST agent and with Ron being an ex-Hizoku warrior who thanks to NEST had been given a huge boost in inhuman powers.
The three NEST agents along with Zero’s black lion charge into battle against K’ and his team. The battle was fierce but the fighters eventually prevailed, Krizalid proved no problem as the fighters had all grown in power since their last battle. Zero was eventually knocked back by K’s immense power that had only grown in the past year. As Zero admits defeat Ron uses this distraction to escape to the frustration of Lin. Zero simply admits defeat as the blimp suddenly thuds and arrives at the NEST headquarters.
As the fighters make their way into a huge hall area they notice a strange glow coming from the windows. As they make their way over they notice that the glow was from Earth and they had been taken into space. Slightly shocked by what they had just seen the team carries on towards the end of the hall.
They make their way through a set of metallic doors to see three figures standing before them. A loud voices booms across the room at them introducing himself as Igniz a tall threatening figure with long blonde hair. The man congratulates the fighters on getting this far but their fate is now sealed. K’ sneers back and proclaims it is them who should be worried about their fate.
Back on Earth, Kula and Foxy watch as the blimp crashes back into the atmosphere. As they stare on they begin to wonder about leaving this life behind them and concentrating on living a normal life. Kula turns to Foxy to mention it as a black spear bursts through her body. Kula is knocked back and sees K9999 standing behind her, he pulls the spear out as it morphs back into his hand, Angel appears at his side as Foxy falls to the ground.
Angel proclaims that NEST need agents with true dedication, and Foxy and her are both threats to the organisation just like K’ is. Foxy lays dying on the floor in front of Kula, who can only look on in horror as K9999 and Angel prepare to dispose of her as well.
Back in the space station, Igniz reveals that the cloning process of Kyo only really produced four worthy fighters; Krizalid, Kula, K9999 and K’ himself. Igniz demonstrates his own power by turning the leader of the NEST cartel to dust in mere moments. Igniz swears that he will destroy the strongest the world has to offer and has used the King Of Fighters to find those who claim to be so.
Igniz throws aside his cloak and demands the team attack him and face him in battle. The team do not hesitate but are effortlessly beaten by Igniz overwhelming power even K’ is knocked about like a rag doll. The power Igniz holds is far greater then anything the world has ever seen before, Rugal, Geese even the Orochi cannot match what Igniz displays. Igniz looms over the fighters defeated bodies and prepares to finish them off.
Igniz lifts his hand to deliver a finishing blow to K’ but is knocked aside suddenly by a barrage of flames, Kyo has appeared along with all the other fighters Terry, Athena, Ryo, Kim, even Iori all now stand before Igniz.
Kyo swears revenge for the experiments exacted upon him and the other fighters all stand to avenge something they have lost at the hands of Igniz.
Despite the fighters best efforts, Igniz was still far too powerful and finally only K’, Iori and Kyo remained standing. The three attacked in unison and Igniz began to feel the cold realisation of defeat as all his abilities where nothing more then binary code, number and statistics gathered from other fighters his own abilities could not match those of a fighter with the will to live and the passion to fight.
Eventually Iori and Kyo wear Igniz down and give K’ one last opportunity to attack striking down Igniz once and for all. Dying Igniz dragged his body away, unable to comprehend why the fighters would rather die than live in a world ruled by him. Igniz got to his feet and began to scream violently as the whole space station shook it was soon obvious it was being hurled towards Earth.
Back on Earth, K9999 and Angel are starting to wear down Kula’s efforts, Angel notices the station entering the atmosphere and is instantly distracted by it. K9999 does not flinch and carries on his onslaught of Kula as the station crashed into the sea.
K9999 laughs manically and shoots out a grotesque deformed mixture of flesh and machine towards Kula in an attempt to finish her off. As he does a crimson flame blocks the impact and knocks K9999 back.
K’ stood before him battered and bruised but still standing and that was all he needed to fight his clone. As K’ stands aside Kula they look on towards K9999 and Angel but the two notice helicopters approaching and they decide to escape and finish the battle off another day.
The station burns throughout the night as the fighters gather together and head off on their own paths ready to put the nightmare of NEST behind them now that Igniz had been destroyed. Most fighters knew that someday they will have to fight again not just for the tournament but for the safety of the human race but for now the tournament was over for another year and NEST had been disposed off.
A few months pass and K’ is seen making his way along a coast line. In the distance a girl calls out to him, he looks over to see Kula who runs up to him as they embrace each other. They begin to walk along together as she asks him what is going to happen to them from now on with NEST maybe still out there?
He doesn’t answer he just smiles back at her cause he knows no matter what threat there is it won’t be able to defeat the King Of Fighters.
That’s it. The King of Fighters Storyline in four (fairly) bitesize chunks. We know this part has been slightly longer than the others but it was definitely worth it.
The King of Fighters XII is released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in the UK on September 25th and can be found on shelves in the US right now. But stay with BeefJack as our coverage of King Of Fighters doesn’t end here, our review of the newest instalment in the title will debut next week!
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