#Inferno Style Flame Control Sword

[plumsaffron]

My last post of Celebrating Sasuke Uchiha's birthday this year.

EMS -> Susanoo -> Inferno Style Flame Control Swording -> And Throwing Black Nines (I mean Inferno Style Yusaka Magatamas lol) to fling UCM commiting trash out the Final Valley stage.

[kayr0ss]

Elder Scrolls Academia: A Series of Stories

Book One: The Dragonborn’s Fire and the Lady of Ice

[Diakko, SkyrimAU LMAO, action, adventure, cute goofy fluff, and romance, and dorkiness]

Summary: Diana was unprecedented in her talent for magic, even from her home town of Daggerfall among Breton nobility. But to sharpen her skill to its most lethal, she'd have to train where the cold bit the hardest--Skyrim. Now, the College of Winterhold's foremost student is crossing the threshold from apprentice to full-fledged mage, but her arch-mage mentor had tasked her with one last act to prove herself: Guiding the Dragonborn.

Except, the Dragonborn was hardly what she expected them to be.

[A gift to PyroTato]

---

“Hey, you.”

She blinked through her bleary vision. The first thing she felt was the harsh bite of the cold. Next was the sound of horseshoes clicking against what must have been mud and stone, followed by a view of she could only describe as… white.

“You’re finally awake.”

It wasn’t just white. There were hues of gray and blue, but it was all just merged back into an endless expanse of… white.

She was jolted upwards by a bump in the road—ah, I’m on a carriage—and she tried to right herself but seems she’s been restrained by the wrists. She should have been more panicked, but it wasn’t like this was anything new. Something about her foreign features and red eyes made her an easy target for picking; what’s worse than a foreigner is Skyrim? A foreigner whose origin was a mystery. But she supposed others still had it worse, she was at the very least, as far as she could tell, from the blood of man.

She looked over to the space beside the carriage driver (an Imperial solider, looking still wet behind the ears) to find a locked chest of what must have been their belongings. It looked standard—nothing too hard to pick—made of wood like all the others, and hinges that would give if she pulled hard enough. It was secured onto the cart with two straps of thick leather. Her red eyes scanned the perimeter of the cart of for a sharp object she could use, but her observation was cut short by the thick voice of the Nord who had woken her.

“You were trying to cross the border, right?” He said. His eyes were deep-set, and the dirty blonde of his hair and beard was styled in the proud norther tradition. “Walked right into that Imperial ambush. Same as us and that thief over there.”

She mulled over the words quietly, still a bit too disoriented to engage. She was hungry, and much too focused on trying to flee. The rest of the men had fallen into conversation, with the thief bemoaning his luck while the Nords seemed to take captivity with dignity. She blinked up at the mention of Ulfric Stormclock—apparently he was the sulking large fellow to her right.

And—oh—they were going to be executed?

No thank you, she tested the strength of her bindings. She’d like to live to eat another sweetroll.

The solider called out that they were arriving soon, and that this was a small town called Helgen. Their reception was less than spectacular and a little mixed—some came out to watch like bored spectators, others screamed, “murder!”, and a handful of parents rushed to drag their children back home; hopefully sparing them the trauma of heads casually lopped off in the name of the Emperor. It was a pity. It seemed like a quiet town with people who weren’t nearly as aggressive as farther up north. There weren’t too many buildings, although all of them were imposing with their stone walls and high beams. Not to mention the Imperial fort at the center, which didn’t look tolerant of any kind of trouble.

And she was trouble in every way that counted.

But also so, so hungry!

They were ushered out of the cart with no small amount of roughhousing, thrown into the ground and yelled-at to fall in line and present themselves to a young officer holding a list. There were several soliders on standby, with a woman donning the helmet of a senior Imperial officer barking out orders for the block to be readied. There rattling of chains mixed in with some commotion—the thief had tried to escape.

Mistake.

He fell limp on the ground, not given a second thought after the arrow sniped him square in the back, through where the heart must have been. She gave a low whistle and looked over at the archer, thoroughly impressed.

“You.” The young soldier called, and suddenly she was shoved forward—closer to that damned execution block—and asked to present herself. “Who are… you?”

She stared back at him, red eyes determined and stomach grumbling persistently.

“You don’t look like anyone I’ve ever seen on the continent.”

That was probably because as far as the stories have said, she wasn’t. She had to live through a rough life of never belonging with anyone for it—and so she sized him up and for the first time, spoke her name:

“Atsuko Kagari. Who is seriously very hungry.”

 ---

The mage took a deep, chilling breath. Her blues eyes were fixated on the flute glass of water that sat at the center of her desk. She was tucked away in her study, happy to wait out the winter storm with some semblance of warmth within the tower. But it was always cold in Winterhold, and by now it didn’t bother her one bit.

Slowly, the water began frosting over, solidifying under the sheer force of her will and the careful turning of her hands and fingers.

Gentle movements—no fancy gestures. The water froze and slowly crystalized upwards and towards the center into a haphazard cylinder, but then it twisted into itself, the ice moving in shards forming a frozen whirlpool that began to splinter along the top—branching out it as though it were alive, taking the shape of the dead tree in the middle of Whiterun that she had seen while coming to visit Farengar for advice.

It was a near-perfect replica.

She sat back, satisfied with her work. Shooting out a crass bolt of ice was easy. But this? This was control—and with the way the branches had curved in all the right places, the control was absolute.

Back in High Rock, among the Bretons of high society, she was Lady Diana Cavendish of Daggerfall, whose noble house held property in the Duchy of Cumberland where they grew the most potent plants for medicine.

Her person was synonymous with her name and where she had come from. Even on the years of her life spent travelling between Wayrest and Daggerfall for study, she had been measured by the weight of her name and not her magic.

But she excelled quite handsomely at both. It served her well—Bretons were made of diplomacy and trade in one hand, and magic in the other.

But it wasn’t real enough for her.

Not anymore—not in a country where the most a mage could be was the advisor of a king in court, or a glorified cannon on the battlefield.

She left the warm rolling hills of High Rock for the unforgiving cold in the far, far North.

---

Atsuko was just contemplating the effectivity of rolling out of the way of the very big sword meant to take her head when a giant dragon had swooped in and rudely interrupted her untimely demise.

Alright. Perhaps it wasn’t all that rude.

She knew to take an opportunity when it was handed to her, and she bolted straight for the fort where all the soldiers were taking cover.

It was chaos. Utter chaos. There was a roaring overhead that her blood seemed to recognize, but Shor’s bones, she wasn’t going to take the chance and look. The young officer was yelling instructions to protect the citizenry. The ground was shaking! Stone toppled over as the buildings gave in to the monstrous black claws that swatted them away like brittle clay pots.

But the worst of it all was the fire.

The air was scalding even when a few feet away from the plumes of hellish flame raining down from the dragon’s maw. She cursed her luck, wondering if she really escaped death a moment ago only to die as pile of ashes in the next.

“These goddamned bindings!” She hissed, her breath shaky while she pressed her back against the wall. A shadow shaped like wings blocked out the dreary sunlight and she closed her eyes—praying to every single one of the nine, Azura, and anyone who would listen in between.

There was a guttural rumbling coming up from above and—no. She still wasn’t going to look.

Staying close to the wall was a good idea. The dragon shot down a pillar of fire hotter than anything she’d ever felt burning down the buildings opposite her hiding spot. Just because she was expecting it doesn’t mean she was prepared—her hands shot up to cover her face, and though the heat was overbearing; her skin didn’t burn.

It was over, and the dragon flew back up to douse another part of town in an inferno.

“Foreigner!” A loud, clear voice called out. It was—it was the young officer? He held a dagger, beckoning her to hold out her arms. She thought he’d finish the job that the executioner and the dragon seemed to have left undone, but to her surprise he cut the bindings off and dragged her into the fort though a small entrance at the back.

“Follow me if you want live.” He commanded.

They barged into the relative safety of the fort—Atsuko saw the chest of their belongings from the corner of her eyes. She scrambled towards it, eager to retrieve the only belonging she had carried through the years, but the young officer held out his arm in front of it before she could reach it.

“I’ll unlock it.” He reassured. “Take what’s yours—there should also be some armor along the racks.”

“Why are you helping me?” Atsuko looked over warily, helping herself to the now-opened chest. The axes and shields didn’t interest her, neither did the potions, but—ah. There it is.

“Two can survive the dungeons and the caverns down below better than one.” He looked over towards her. “My name’s Hadvar. I think I—” His eyes widened at the sight of the old, worn sword that she held near her.

This reaction was nothing new, and she’s had her fair share of fending off thugs who thought it was theirs for the taking. They had another thing coming. She knew how to use this, at the very least. The blade was curved and slender, a stark contrast to the heavy, wide swords of Skyrim. The grip was wrapped in dark leather, crisscrossed with finely-embroidered cloth of a deep red, making a pattern of diamonds. The guard was simple, and so was the pommel, and the worn blade itself was dotted with seven, in-laid stars. It seemed the sheath was missing—Atsuko would later scavenge for cloth to wrap it with.

“That’s an Akaviri blade.” Hadvar looked in poorly-concealed surprise. “Where did you truly come from?”

Atsuko rolled her eyes—feeling annoyed despite the threat of a rampaging dragon outside. “I’ve asked myself that question more times that you can ever imagine.”

--

Atsuko had woken up in the house of a blacksmith in Riverwood. With a bit of a headache, she sat down with her head in her palms trying to remember it all. She was hungry. Oh, and about to get executed. The—dragon? Hadvar was leading her through the caverns.

He brought her to his uncle and aunt, and they were kind enough to open their home to her and feed her. They only favor they asked in return was for her to ask Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun for help.

Of course she’d help! She crossed her arms at how tentatively they asked. Did these wonderful people really think she’d turn them down after feeding her the best venison stew her taste buds had ever been graced with?

And so she found herself hiking to the capital of Whiterun Hold. Addvar fashioned her a scabbard out of wood and leather, and her sword hung snugly across her back. The travel was easy, save for the pestering of some wolves, and soon she found herself past Honningbrew Meadery, just about to cross the bridge that led to the slope coming up towards Whiterun Stables.

For the second time in a few days—the world around her was suddenly shaking.

There were… voices. Wailing. Calling. Pounding into her eardrums and her head so strongly that she had lost her balance and nearly fell over. She caught herself on the wooden railing of the bridge that ran over a small stream. Her breathing became erratic, and she clawed at her chest, feeling her knees give in.

Dohvakiin!

Her eyes snapped up, looking around for its source. Her soul felt like it knew that voice but—how?

And why did it sound like a call into battle?

---

She was summed for a meeting by no less than her mentor, the arch-mage, herself.

"Did you hear it?"

Holbrooke looked out from atop the bannisters of the College of Winterhold. Her hands were folded neatly at her back, holding her staff across it, while the wind whipped at their cloaks; cold and merciless from the Sea of Ghosts. The view was always white. One could barely see through the thickness of snow and slat, which would have cut deep into Diana's bones if she hadn't learned the art of befriending the cold from the moment she could cast a spell.

"Somehow." She replied curtly. It was an honest answer; she didn't so much as hear than she felt it.

"The Greybeards call." The arch-mage looked towards her. "The Dragonborn has been summoned."

Diana nodded silently. She looked out into the Horizon, across the dying town at the base of their castle, towards the peaks which she knew was the Throat of the World. It was barely visible on most days, but it seemed the howling winds and frost would reign themselves in to make way for a pronouncement which struck fear as much as it did hope: there is a god amongst men in Skyrim.

It was no longer a legend.

"Did you hear?" Holbrooke began. "Or did you feel?"

Diana turned sharply towards her mentor.

"Because the rest of us could hear, but I reckon you're a little bit different."

"I'm not quite sure I understand—"

"Lady Cavendish of Daggerfall," Holbrooke looked up to her with a burning intensity. "Within the bounds of Skyrim, you will be Diana of the Frost—A proper mage. A proper master. But first—"

The smaller woman stomped the base of her staff into the cold, icy stone of the castle. The action was weak in its physicality, but the waves of magic it had sent cackled like lightning.

Diana's foot inched back a little to keep herself steady against the pulse.

"—you will seek out the Dragonborn and guide them."

---

The arch-mage had sent out word of their search for the Dragonborn of legend, and many responded with cynicism or outright disinterest. Thankfully, there was still brotherhood amongst the College’s alumna and they had agreed to keep their search a secret.

Farengar was the first to respond with any promise. The magical letter he sent was a rather enthusiastic one—of no surprise to Diana. He always spoke… so much.

She rode gracefully on her steed, intent to make up for the few days she spent fixing her affairs with the College before riding out towards Winterhold. It would take more than a half-a-day on horseback, and she had started early, hoping to arrive in the afternoon for some rest before presenting herself to the Jarl, and in turn, her colleague. The icy crags of Winterhold slowly melted away the closer she got to the Pale, and the sight of mud and greenery was more welcome than she thought it would be.

Wolves stalked the roads, but they were a nuisance at best. It was the frost trolls she had to watch out for—her area of expertise in magic was painfully ineffective against them, but she could hold her own if push came to shove. Ice wasn’t the only thing she knew how to weaponize.

She pulled on her hood, her breathing coming out in puffs of thick, misty vapor while she took a moment of respite. She’d been going at it for a few hours now. The land was beginning to turn into an expanse of green and yellow—she was at the border of Whiterun Hold. She could see spires at the top of a walled city on a mountain. Dragonsreach was clearly within view. It reminded her a little bit of High Rock, and riding through Rivenspire and Glenumbra when her mother visited for political affairs.

She bit at her lip, pulling on the reins of her horse as it began to whinny and buck. She didn’t actually know what guiding the Dragonborn meant. How did one guide a human with the soul of a dragon? What wisdom could you impart the mortal incarnation of no less than Akatosh himself?

She had studied many things in the world—more than just magic. She’s seen statue upon statue and endless sketches of Tiber Septim. The conqueror—always standing coldly in stone, uncompromising in his just crusade to unify all nations of Tamriel.

Diana was never one to doubt herself but—what guidance can a mage possibly impart on someone with such power?

She surveyed the land ahead of her, noting there wasn’t much left to cover. Something caught her eye.

It was smoke. And… fire?

She prodded her horse forward and into an urgent gallop, riding straight into the fray of what looked a small skirmish happening on the outskirts of the city walls, near the watch towers.

She was a little bit closer now but then—she gasped. It took everything in her power not to choke up and pull her horse into a full stop as a large, reptilian figure shot upwards from the ground with the beating of wide, leathery wings.

It was horrifying.

Her throat had constricted into tightness—but she grit her teeth and rode on. The closer she came, the more horrible the scene had become. Nameless guards had been gobbled into the drake’s hungry mouth, their helmets falling off and into the dirt, disappearing in a cloud of dust where once a whole man was standing. It looked like the fighting had been going on for some time. She whipped her rains, pressing her feet into the sides of her horse to push him onwards—faster. She could hear their voices now. Screams. There was a dark-elf woman who seemed to be in-command, along with a handful of what must have been the Jarl’s elite guard.

There was also a… a woman with brown hair, whipping around ferociously in tattered imperial leather armor. It looked like it was too large for her, but she wore it masterfully. She was brandishing a curved sword that looked vaguely familiar—but the dragon’s claw was coming down onto her fast and Diana was too far away to stop it and—

“Look out!”

She yelled, the exertion making her lungs burn. The woman was cued in by her shout and had rolled to the side, taking the opportunity of the dragon sinking its claw into the ground to land a clean slice at the underside of its arm.

It roared. That made it angry.

She hopped off her horse now—throwing self-preservation away with reckless abandon. She vaulted into a run, her hands growing cold, ice at her fingertips buzzing with power and anticipation. A cold shot of death waiting to be unleashed.

When the dragon pulled itself upwards to fly back into the air, Diana sent a sharp bolt of ice towards the exposed underside of its torso. Reptiles tended to have soft hides on the underside—and if memory served, dragons were reptiles all the same, albeit overpowered.

All it managed was a small gash, but the creature staggered, losing the momentum it needed to take to the skies. An arrow from the dark-elf general got it straight in the eye. There was hack from a solider at one of its hindlegs. It reared, smoke billowing from its nostrils, and Diana eyes widened—the next thing that would come was fire!

And it was going straight for the brown-haired woman.

On instinct, she reached out, a wall of ice encasing the stranger protectively. It would give her enough time dodge out of harm’s way but—

“By the eight divines, what are you doing?!” Diana yelled. She wasn’t moving at all! She was standing there, biding her time behind the wall of ice while flames engulfed her at every other direction. The dragon was getting frustrated, inching by nearer, and by the gods Diana was good but she wasn’t that good—not yet. That wall was going to melt very soon—it was already starting—but the woman kept steady while the it began to give way. Her left hand was splayed between herself and the dragon and—she had flames.

Flames of her own.

There was a pause where Diana caught a glimpse of red eyes.

Who is she?

The woman made the slightest opening with what she recognized as the gesture for the fireball spell, but how could it—? Against a dragon?

It seemed like it was more of a distraction than it was a hit for damage—it soared through the plume and straight into the dragon’s mouth. In the split second that the fire sputtered out, she lunged forward with her sword, stabbing it straight through the dragon’s throat, gruesomely forcing the sword down, and down, and down to cut an incision all the way through.

The strangled yelping didn’t last very long—the creature soon after collapsed on top of the woman.

Diana’s instinct was to hold the dragon’s body upright with pillars of ice lest it crush the woman completely. She was already falling unconscious. Diana strode forward, noticing that the armor was singed, but she was otherwise unburnt. She was covered in sweat, her breathing was ragged and uneven.

Her hand glowed in the warm light of restoration, holding it flush against the woman’s forehead.

She pulled her gently away from the giant carcass as the soldiers began to gather around them.

“I don’t believe it.” One of them muttered.

She couldn’t either, to be honest. That was a dragon. A full, proper dragon.

And she was alive.

Then the woman began to… glow.

“What’s going on?” Diana muttered to herself, eyebrows knit in confusion at the sight she was seeing. The dragon—it was also glowing. There was something similar to a link in-between them and—

“She’s…”

Diana’s stared in utter disbelief.

“…the Dragonborn.”

---

She’s the Dragonborn.

Diana told herself for the tenth time that evening, watching the woman (Atsuko with remarkable recovery) gouge herself with her third platter of sweetrolls within fifteen minutes of waking up from unconsciousness.

“You’re going to give yourself a stomachache.” The mage carefully offered.

She had frosted butter at the edge of her lip, and those red eyes were round and… charming.

There was no sign of authority.

Not even of ferocity.

She wouldn’t believe this was the same woman from that fight if she hadn’t brought her back into Dragonsreach herself.

“Nah!” Atsuko mumbled through a mouthful of food. A servant came by with a platter of roasted deer—Atsuko’s eyes glazed over. “I can like… eat. A lot. I love food.”

“I’ve noticed.” Diana said evenly.

“So who’re you supposed to be?” Atsuko said absent-mindedly, reaching for the platter which was next-in-line for devouring.

“I’m Diana Cavendish, from the College of Winterhold.”

“Oh.” Atusko blinked. “Okay, awesome.”

Awesome? Diana blinked. She shook her head, clearing her throat and speaking with every ounce of professionalism the life of diplomacy and schooling offered: “Dragonborn—”

“Akko.” She waved her hand.

“—you and I are… going to be stuck together, for a little while.”

--

fin

--

A/N: Pyro - we did it buddy. We did it. This is for you. And all your memes.

Hey guys - no one asked, but I'm writing it anyway, if only because of how much fun and joy this AU has given me. This first chapter is as serious as it gets, unfortunately, because this is gonna be a one-shot dump of SkyrimAU Diakko where they kind of goof around like dorks, except they're overpowered, and sometimes Akko sneezes but shouts 'FUS!' by accident and Diana has to clean it up. The format I'm looking for is each chapter is a separate story about their adventures, much like the books scattered around in Skyrim (because I have no commitment and will focus on Appointments I'm sorry huhuuuhu). You could probably read them on their own - save for chapter 1 which is for context of the rest of the tales of the Dragonborn and her Ice Lady girlfriend.

But if you read it anyway - I hope y'all enjoy and if you wanna share headcanons, by all means, let's make it happen!

[devilmaycrye]

We also do the same in english.

Fire is what we use generally for generic descriptors of flames, typically when it comes first, and is usually an everyday or ‘generic’ fire.

E.g. tye fire is burning, that fire sure was dangerous.

Then, when we give fire itself a descriptor, said fire is often more unique and situational.

E.g. Hellfire, dragonfire, bushfire, tire fire.

Then you have your Special use fires, in the form of Flames. These are usually tied to a form of diety or Religion or a planetary body, where the source of the fire is beyond mortal control or understanding and is something ‘gifted’ to humanity. It is essentially the Myth Of Fire and how important the idea of fire is in humanity’s zeitgeist.

E.g. The Flame of Frenzy, The Flame of Anor, The First Flame, the Flame of the Gods given to us by Prometheus, etc.

Then you have your catastrophic fires. The ones that rage beyond our control and devour everything they touch, the ones with such intensity that we can only sit back and watch the devastation.

E.g. blazes, infernoes, firestorms, etc.

So since in anime and games, its very common to ‘rank’ similar concepts to show the difference in scale and power, fire is generally the ‘weak’ form of advanced ‘flame’ powers.

So, using the two big examples shown:

In Demon Slayer, the elemental sword styles are all derived from one major style: The Sun Style (I believe. Its been a while since I read the manga). Which then got interpreted into different styles, which are represented in the main styles the various Hashira use. Which are then ALSO iterated into ‘weaker’ generic styles to help prepare future Hashira and Demon Slayer Corpsmen to potentially use the more advanced styles.

In Dark Souls, its an easier delineation.

The First Flame is the source of all Souls. Its where most forms of life draw their existence from (with the two other types being Dragons, creatures born of stone and lightning; and Humanity, bearers of the eponymous Dark Soul, which was the last Great Soul taken from the First Flame)

Chaos Pyromancy is what happened when the Witch of Chaos tried to use her own Lord’s Soul to create her own First Flame, resulting in the Flame of Chaos, also known as the Demon Flame. It is radically different to what the First Flame is and the powers it grants, akin more to a raging bushfire take consumes all it touches.

Regular Pyromancy is the ‘safe’ form of Chaos pyromancy, where you still manipulate the Flame, but you channel it directly from a ‘pure’ source that isn’t the Chaos flame. Which makes it weaker, since Pyromancy is intended to draw from the Chaos Flame.

Fire Sorcery is an attempt for Sorcery, a magic that is flameless, to recreate Fire without Flame. It typically doesn’t work beyond a few small spells, but as later games that use a similar mythology show (Elden Ring), Sorcery isn’t quite capable of harnessing Flame, since it is was never meant to, and is usually more connected to the Mind and Frost. (Whereas Flame in DS lore is more directly connected to emotion)

I've noticed several Japanese properties make a distinction between fire and flame. Do they have different connotations in Japanese?

[dykewizards]

Jasmine Nightflame’s Backstory

Jasmine Nightflame originally came from Avalon. Raised by the foxes Mariota and Caera, Jasmine grew up thinking that lesbian couples were the norm. She was in for a huge shock when she came to Wizard City and met her first heterosexual couple. But that comes later. Dubbed originally Aanor, Jasmine chose her first and last name at the age of 8. When she was 8, Jasmine was told that in two years time, she’d be sent to Wizard City. Instead of keeping her Avalonian name (the name her mothers gave her), Jasmine decided to dub herself after two things. Jasmine (the flowering bush that grew above the trellis in her backyard) and Nightflame, her room was lit at night by her very own flame. Of course, the Night part of her taken name would turn out to be disturbingly apt.

The reason Jasmine was sent away from a loving home at age 10? Easy. You see, Mariota was a more Balance inclined fox, worshipping her own goddess of Adrestia. She excelled at keeping the peace in her home, giving Jasmine a happy, if rowdy, childhood. Caera took after a more myth based magic style. Allowing minions to appear and help her child in whatever Jasmine so desired. But of course, as happy as she was (and as great parents as Mariota and Caera were), Jasmine was a pyromancer by nature. Even at the tender age of 5, she was accidentally starting fires on an almost monthly basis. After 3 years of dealing with fireproofing an entire cottage, the two agreed that it would be best for all of them if Jasmine took a tutelage in Wizard City to master her natural talents.

When she turned 10, Jasmine was sent away to a (thankfully fireproof) dorm. Since her mothers were (in comparison to Wizard City prices) very well off, Jasmine could dip down into the Shopping District. There she bonded with a fire breathing dragon named Max, (which made her roommates glad that the dorm was fireproof), and showed him off to her friends: Calamity Drakebringer (a lovely necromancer from Wysteria), Rowan Mythhunter (a Marlybonian conjurer), and Calamity Legendwhisper (a Krokotopian Theurgist).

When she began her formal (as formal as Wizard City provides) schooling under Dalia Falmea, Jasmine grew to have better control of her powers. The second she could, Jasmine learned her secondary school of Life under the teachings of Moolinda Wu (dead set on keeping her teammates alive from a fear of hurting others). Slowly, she began to climb the ranks, finishing up with Wizard City as a whole. Firecat Alley was difficult and frustrating for her, but she shouldered through it with the help of Calamity^2 and Rown. Helping out Rowan with Cyclops Lane, the four became fast friends and adventuring partners.

Krokotopia was the beginning of the beginning of the end for our lovely Pyromancer. On the more harmless side, Jasmine was a fanatic when it came to decorating her new castle with the loot she...pillaged from the pyramids. But the bad thing? With Krokotopia, came the Krokonomicon and all of its necromantic secrets. Now Jasmine’s a fire wizard (with a life secondary to keep her teammates alive), so she'd be the last expected person to get into necromancy (even with the fact that one of the Calamity’s is a necromancer). But during a solo dungeon (one her friends couldn't follow her in), she found a book. A book that allowed her to learn her first necromancy spell: Deer Knight. This was the first step onto a downward slope of learning necromancy (much to the chagrin of Drakebringer).

Grizzleheim came next, learning the runestones and their meanings. Defeating Grendels and Spiders and learning the Bigger Picture. It only fueled her fear of death, of what comes after, and whether or not someone is pulling her strings. She never liked Grandmother Raven, never enjoyed how she was made to obey a raven who wouldn’t move. Fighting bosses and almost dying over and over again. It brought her face to face with death over and over. Jasmine visited the Hall of the Ice Forge, looking up at the frozen giant, and she realized something: she would last forever no matter the cost. She made a small circle of runes behind her house, a circle for preparation.

Marylebone came after, and it was boring. All except for one part: electricity. Watching the inanimate golems walk around and even talk, not to mention Dr. Katzenstein's attempt to create life from dead body parts. But that was too storm-centered (not one of her strong suits, she’s too brash), and the only reason she enjoyed the world was meeting Rowan’s parents. A rather nice couple, if vaguely disapproving of the Necromantic Calamity and the darker leaning Jasmine.

Mooshu was unremarkable, for the most part. None of her friends came from this world, but it did gift her a perfect house for her pets to live. Of course, there were the spirits. Buried and then unburied and Jasmine realized how finicky death is. Such a simple thing to ruin and unearth. She made another promise to herself, for her body (if she ever did die) to be burned (what comes from fire must return to fire) and her ashes scattered. She wasn't going to risk losing herself to a necromancer who needed a body.

Dragonspyre solidified her ideals. The ghosts (tormented) tried to warn her away, but the crystals (trapping energies trapping memories) were her goal. So she gained them. Gained a sash of crystals (different sizes but multiplying and growing like a belt), and there was where she put animus. Trapping minor (level 5 and below) enemies into smaller crystals, and boss energies in main crystals, Jasmine’s new sash had all the lights of the Aurora Borealis. Animus became almost an obsession of hers.

Celestia brought mainly two new revelations: astral schools and Morganthe. But not all of the schools did Jasmine enjoy; moon spells bored her, star spells never lasted long enough for her plans (once quick tempered and rash, now terrifyingly strategic, she gets the job done fast, leaving her teammates staring at her in muted horror). But sun spells? She learned the damage ones, the accuracy ones, but never bothered with the healing ones. Healing comes second to dealing the most damage. With more damage, the battle ends sooner and the sooner she can get more animus.

But of course, I did mention two developments that were happened to her. The most damaging one was named Morganthe. Jasmine first realized something was wrong when Morganthe showed up and she found herself agreeing with the spider queen. This led to her shutting herself away in the bowels of her Balance house, and it was a chaotic house afterwards. You see, Jasmine (throughout her trails through the Spiral) was a collector of pets, and put them in separate rooms according to what school they belonged to. And let's just say all seven rooms of her underground Balance house (her mother was a Balance leaning woman, and she chose this house because the statue of Lady Justice reminded Jaz of Caera and home), were fucked up in response to Jasmine's emotions.

Ruled by her emotions, that's the best way to define Jasmine post learning Deer Knight. So when she realized she was slowly turning to the dark side, her house reacted in kind. The life room began to grow vines, coiling up and choking everything that wasn't the pets. The ice room was in a constant state of blizzard and frostbite. The death room stunk like a freshly robbed grave and made her sick to even enter. The storm was a monsoon and the myth room blinked in and out of existence. The fire room was an inferno. The only room left safe? Balance. There Jasmine stayed, whispering reverent prayers in the tongue of her mothers in front of Lady Judgement to save her. But of course, as she feared, no one answered.

From Celestia (and the freak out that was caused there), things went in a slow (almost unnoticeable until it was too late) downward spiral. Wysteria (though it was the home of Calamity) only served to fuel her competitiveness, anger at the stuck up Pigwick students and the cheating natures there. Tower of the Helephant made her vicious, prepared to do anything to defeat her enemies. There was very few undead enemies there, which was good. Jasmine didn’t think she could deal with the idea of her inevitable mortality so soon after realizing she was now working against her school.

Zafaria taught her the ways of political power, how to say just the right things to get people on your side. She had to play safe there though, after all Merle was watching her closer after rumors of what Morganthe had told her spread. Jasmine successfully got him off of her back, after all she did rescue an entire field trip worth of students, that was certainly heroic of her. But really, after seeing the skeletal body of an old king shake itself back to life, Jasmine thought again on what will happen when she dies. ...If she dies.

Avalon...hurt. Her mothers were alive, of course I'm a dyke I don't kill my lesbians, and they still loved her. But there was a darkness that her Balance mother and her Storm mom could see, and it worried them. But they welcomed their daughter back into their home with open arms, and just had to pray to their goddess that she would turn out alright. Avalon hurt in another way as well, in the backstory of Morganthe and what exactly she did to gain her power. The tangled crown of roses put upon King Artorius’s head made her decide on buying a life house.

In the basement of the lifehouse, Jasmine created her shrine. A tapestry of the Spider Queen flanked by swords, with an obsidian chest placed down in front of it. Grinding and fighting for hours upon hours upon days, Jasmine eventually siphoned enough animus from Lord Nightshade to trade his spirit inside of her house. Now he and his Field Guard minion guard her chest.

Azteca taught her consequences. Taught her how fragile a world could be and how it could end. Of course, there was also more Morganthe. More honey soaked lies that Jasmine was eager to believe. It was lucky she wasn't doing the dungeons alone, as her traveling companions pulled her back from the brink time and time again. (Jasmine feared the solo dungeon that would tip the scales). Or did she anticipate it eagerly? It’s been too long for her to remember or care to try to.

Aquila gave her pride, she defeated gods themselves and did it over and over again just for the fun of it. Her traveling companions worry about the gleam in her orange eyes as she struck down Hades himself. She struck down countless gods, uncaring about how ruthless she had become. As she donned the gear of the gods, her hands came ablaze with blue fire, and she burned her handprint into the throne of Hades himself. A marker for all those who follow in her footsteps to defeat the gods.

Khrysalis...changed her. She learned shadow magic. She learned how to take advantage of what drove Morganthe to the cliff's edge and she took the bull by the horns. Her eyes gleamed and her freckles turned stark white against her dark skin. Shadows (blacker than the natural tone of her skin) curled around her arms and legs and torso like the shadow of a light source that wasn't there. And there...she defeated Morganthe, and she became Morganthe. And she no longer cared.

[aion-rsa]

50 Best Fighting Game Final Bosses from Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and More

https://ift.tt/2N1eIZQ

When it isn’t about rage-quitting against your best buddy sitting next to you on the couch, or some guy playing against you across the country, fighting games are all about beating the arcade mode. Doing so means defeating the pesky final boss.

We’ve fought so many final bosses over the last 30+ years. Whether they’re godly megalomaniacs or bloodthirsty loners out to prove they’re the best, there are pleny of cheap-ass villains standing in the way of character-specific epilogue cutscenes.

So I’ve decided to rank the 50 best final bosses in fighting game history. This ranking includes both default final bosses and special secret bosses, but they have to be the last guy you fight. That means characters like Goro, Cervantes, Apocalypse, Vega, and Antonov don’t count. I’m also not counting games like Street Fighter Alpha and Vampire Savior where there’s no real set boss and different people have different final opponents, which is why Jedah isn’t on the list.

Now let’s face it straight!

50. JINPACHI MISHIMA

Tekken 5

I think this is the moment when Tekken’s story started going off the rails. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the lore of the series, but after doing a game about Heihachi vs. Kazuya vs. Jin, they decided to go further and bring in Heihachi’s dad. And he’s possessed by a demon because why the hell not.

But really, the reason he’s possessed is because otherwise he’s the one member of the bloodline who isn’t a jerk. That doesn’t make for a good boss design. In Tekken 5, he takes over the Mishima Zaibatsu and sets up a new King of the Iron Fist tournament ASAP just so somebody strong might be able to kill him before he completely loses control and wipes out all life on the planet. His ending cutscene even has him cry blood over this because he’s that hardcore.

The tragedy is that, in the end, he was killed by his great-grandson Jin, but Jin came out of it learning the wrong lesson. Jin, suffering from his own possession problems, went and took over the Mishima Zaibatsu and started a world war as part of an elaborate plan to commit suicide by putting a giant target on his back. It took two more games for him to finally get his head on straight.

49. SILBER

Buriki One

SNK shamelessly ripped off Akuma, but at least the studio did it with style. Coming from the lesser-known fighter Buriki One, Silber is a Victor Creed-looking urban legend who is obsessed with increasing his power and challenging worthy opponents. At the end of the game’s big MMA tournament, when the player is ready to face his fellow finalist, your opponents’s busted carcass is instead knocked through the entranceway like a punted football. The mysterious Silber takes their spot.

Win or lose, Silber’s response is to just quietly jump off and exit the arena. The endings are mainly about the winners being asked by the press what the hell that was even about. And if you unlock Silber and beat the game with him, he just leaves the press hanging by jumping off into the distance.

Silber also appeared as a hidden mid-boss in King of Fighters XI, but his fighting style lacks anything really bombastic. No fireballs or energy explosions or anything like that. Just brutal karate with his flashiest move being a flipping legdrop.

I do really get a kick out of how one of his King of Fighters intros has him throw a non-descript martial artist to the ground before jumping into the fight, like it’s his regular thing to kick some schmuck’s ass and take their spot in a tournament.

48. SHANG TSUNG

Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat’s attract mode sold the game by going, “Yo, check out this huge claymation beast with his four arms and topknot! He will break you in half if you even blink!” But this unstoppable monster was actually second to some floating geezer. Surely, that at least had to mean that Shang Tsung was a special kind of threat in his own way.

Indeed he was. A shape-shifter was a fantastic gimmick for a final boss, especially since it jibed with his tendency to eat souls. Even though he was turning into other playable characters, the insinuation was that you were more or less fighting all the dead warriors from the years that he had absorbed into his being. Then Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa played the HELL out of him in the movie and his legendary status was solidified.

While lesser on the totem pole in later games, Shang Tsung regaining his youth made for a good trade. It’s just too bad that once games were on discs and had loading times, Shang’s tendency to morph mid-match took a powder. As one of the final bosses in Deadly Alliance, it just didn’t feel the same. He was just some guy.

47. SOUL EDGE/INFERNO

The Soul Series

As far as I’m concerned, the Inferno concept peaked in the first game. Cervantes was an evil dude, but he was still just a pawn. As shown at the end of that fantastic CGI intro that still holds up to this day, the swords were really running the show. So after taking down Cervantes, the swords came to life to fight you as a more powerful version of Cervantes with a flaming skull head.

The development of Siegfried wielding the Soul Edge and being transformed into Nightmare was a wonderful twist and selling point for the sequel’s storyline, but it made Inferno look a little redundant. The flame body was neat, but he was just Nightmare with a weaker design. Inferno never really had a personality of its own. Then Bandai Namco started having Inferno adopt random movesets, but there are like a dozen characters like that in SoulCalibur.

The concept of Inferno did translate well in SoulCalibur V where they showed that the Soul Calibur sword has its own counterpart in Elysium. It appeared in the form of a scantily-clad Sophitia in order to manipulate Sophitia’s son, Patroklos. Man, Inferno may be evil personified, but at least it didn’t try to seduce Siegfried by turning into his dad in a speedo.

46. MISS X

SNK Gal Fighters

The Neo Geo Pocket Color game SNK Gal Fighters features an all-female roster in a comedic story about a mysterious Miss X putting together a Queen of Fighters tournament, with some kind of wish-granting talisman up for grabs. When you reach the end of the game, you discover that Miss X looks an awful lot like Iori Yagami wearing a mask and a dress. While many of her opponents aren’t fooled, nobody outright says Iori’s name, and Miss X insists she isn’t who they think.

But also, please don’t tell Kyo about this.

Of course, she still fights exactly like Iori Yagami and is flanked by Iori’s former King of Fighters partners Vice, Mature, Billy Kane, and Eiji Kisaragi. Miss X is REALLY committed to the act, but it’s never really explained why she’s created this whole disguise.

Miss X made a few more appearances too, including when Dimitri performs his Midnight Bliss attack on Iori in SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos and as a DLC character in SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy.

45. SAGAT

Street Fighter

As the boss of the first Street Fighter game – which nobody really cares about – Sagat being on this list is more of a courtesy. While a difficult opponent, Sagat’s position as a final boss isn’t really that memorable. If anything, he’s defined by his defeat here. It’s why he has that cool scar on his chest, why he suddenly has a Dragon Punch knockoff in the sequel, and it’s the crux for his redemption story and frenemy relationship with Ryu.

Sagat’s spot as the original Street Fighter boss actually helps build up M. Bison and Shadaloo in general. He returns in Street Fighter II, scarred both physically and mentally, while physically stronger and more driven. Yet he is still only the penultimate boss, showing that this time he’s outranked by a big-chinned dictator.

44. ZEUS

World Heroes 2 Jet

World Heroes 2 Jet doesn’t have any character-specific endings. Instead, the endings are based around Zeus, a jacked behemoth who watches your penultimate victory from a balcony, acts jazzed about finding a worthy opponent, then makes the grandest of entrances by flexing off his suit (revealing body armor underneath), walking down some stairs, and kicking the doors off the entranceway.

A regular old pain in the ass, Zeus’ reaction to his defeat is decided by how much health the player has left. If it’s a close match, he’ll berate you until realizing that it was a fun fight. If the player has half a life bar left, he’ll threaten to kill them the next time they meet. If the player has almost all of their health, Zeus will mope as his henchman Jack tries to cheer him up. He insults the player, then cartoonishly cheeses it across the image of a map.

What makes this so golden is the iffy English translations. Here are some of Zeus’ lines from his endings:

“Why you, you, YOU… YOU CRAZY FUNSTER! To think that you were this strong!”

“YOU FILTH, YOU SLIME, YOU LAWYER! To think you had such power… But, heh, heh, heh…it was a crazy, hip time!”

“Hey, you. Still can’t walk and chew bubblegum at the same time? Oh, nooooooo!”

Classic.

43. DARK KAHN

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe felt like a joke someone made about Marvel vs. Capcom that someone else took as a serious suggestion. Quality of the game aside, the two worlds meshed well together, which is why we’ve seen the two parties meet up again a few more times. Mortal Kombat and DC, for the most part, didn’t so much match up as they complemented each other.

One pairing in particular matched up perfectly. Darkseid and Shao Kahn were both evil overlords, two peas in a pod. Rather than fight each other or team up, they did one better: they merged.

Dark Kahn isn’t exactly better than the individual characters but this modern Amalgam design still kicks ass. Darkseid’s stony flesh mixed with Shao Kahn’s skull face to create a lava beast who lives to blow up the multiverse.

Dark Kahn IS…OUTSTANDING.

42. MISTER KARATE

Art of Fighting

Just because someone is designed as comic relief doesn’t mean they can’t have their moments of serious competence. See also: Deadpool, Mankind.

Mr. Karate started as the original Akuma type. In Art of Fighting, Mr. Karate was a mysterious mob enforcer who happened to look and fight just like protagonist Ryo Sakazaki, but with a different head and more damaging attacks. In another light, Mr. Karate’s tengu mask could be seen as silly, but considering how brutal he was, it was easy to see it as a threatening symbol of martial arts dominance.

After that game, where it was established that Mr. Karate was Ryo’s father, Takuma Sakazaki, who’d forced to work for the mob, he became a secondary character. He showed up in King of Fighters regularly as just Takuma, but became something of a joke. When he appeared in the Mr. Karate mask, he acted like a total goof and everyone rolled their eyes at his lack of self-awareness. But comedic or not, there were still moments here and there that made him look tougher than the rest of his family combined.

But it was SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos that revitalized him. Depicted as Akuma’s SNK counterpart, Mr. Karate was given both a silly base version and his “serious” boss alter-ego, who reminded the world of what kind of force he was in his Art of Fighting days. Right on.

41. ASMODEUS

Mace: The Dark Age

The Nintendo 64 was lousy when it came to compiling a fighting game library, so we had to do the best with what we had. Mixed in the shallow pile was Mace: The Dark Age, which was like if the guys who made Mortal Kombat were tasked with making a SoulCalibur game. The basic story was roughly the same: an insidious, medieval weapon of ultimate power falls into the hands of evil and everyone wants a piece. The difference was that while the Soul Edge brought demonic chaos in its wake, with its wielders just wandering around destroying stuff, the Mace of Tanis brought demonic order, as its wielder used it to rule Eurasia and its corrupt council.

This created a conflict where everyone wanted a shot at holding the Mace. Not just the heroes, but also conniving members of the Council of Seven because they’re evil and power hungry. And wielding the Mace of Tanis? None other than Asmodeus. His name popped up in exposition dumps but he didn’t even have a pre-fight profile image. You didn’t get to see him until you actually faced him in the final battle and, all in all, he met the hype.

For all of the limitations of the Nintendo 64’s graphics, Asmodeus looked amazing. He appeared as a gigantic, reptilian demon so big that only his upper half was peaking out of a portal. His offense wasn’t much to talk about, as it was mostly just swiping attacks and pounding at his prey, but damn if he didn’t look like how a final boss should look.

40. MUKAI

King of Fighters 2003

The 10th and 11th King of Fighters games released in the final days of the franchise’s classic art style, and included some great designs, like Oswald. But while the bosses in these games looked and moved exceptionally, they were mostly really lame otherwise.

Mukai from King of Fighters 2003 provided a great balance, though. He didn’t have much going on besides being the harbinger for lesser villains, but he looked totally sweet and his stone-based motif led to a fun boss fight that wasn’t too hard to figure out. Admittedly, I’m a sucker for the glowing lava design usually reserved for rock creatures, but making that classic design monochrome feels fresh and absolutely badass.

Too bad he died like a punk in a random cutscene several games later.

39. KULL THE DESPOILER

Way of the Warrior

It’s disappointing to me when a ridiculous and/or stupid fighting game doesn’t have that final boss that just pushes it further into hilarity. I’d love to discuss ClayFighter here, but it’s not like N. Boss or Dr. Kiln were anything to write home about. Tattoo Assassins is a total trip, but there’s not much to say about its big bad Koldan. Death from Time Killers is just lame and ugly to look at.

Way of the Warrior is an extreme piece of garbage and sweet Jesus does that translate to its final boss, Kull the Despoiler.

This 3DO classic is one of several Mortal Kombat knockoffs that tried to cash in on digitized graphics and bloody violence. Other features included a White Zombie soundtrack, hideous backgrounds, a character who just a regular guy’s sprite but enlarged to look like a giant, and a couple boss characters brought to life by mid-‘90s CGI.

After the player has gone through the main cast and a CGI dinosaur named High Abbott (with another CGI dinosaur watching from a throne in the background), we take a trip to the citadel graveyard stage. There’s a memorial statue of the great warrior Kull that suddenly breaks apart to reveal that his living, 8-foot-tall skeleton is inside.

“Not even death shall keep my name from the Book of Warriors!”

You must fight this silly skeleton warrior, who is armed with a bloody hammer and iffy voice-acting, all while the guy who made Devil’s Rejects is singing. A fitting finale for such a game.

38. HEIHACHI MISHIMA

Tekken Series

In terms of pure power, Heihachi is one of the weakest boss characters in relation to his series. He’s played the final boss a few times in the Tekken series, but these fights are always less about him being the ultimate force of destructive evil and more about his importance to the story as a scheming bastard with the occasional redeemable moment as a human being.

It’s also about how he measures up to his son, Kazuya, the would-be protagonist who is ultimately more evil than Heihachi. The first game’s plot focuses on Kazuya as a vindictive monster who smiles at his father’s assumed murder, and Tekken 4 finally brings the three-way generational conflict between Heihachi, Kazuya, and Jin to a head for the first time. Then in Tekken 7’s story mode, Heihachi gets his final battle with Kazuya in a war that’s been ravaging the whole world.

Despite being hilariously unkillable in the past, Heihachi appears to be dead for real now and it’s solidified his true purpose as a final boss: to pass the torch to his son, who is both stronger and straight-up worse as a human being.

37. ATHENA

SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos

If there’s anything resembling a story in SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos (not counting the completely bonkers Hong Kong comic adaptation), it’s that all the street fighting going on in the world has caused havoc on time and space. Beings from the past and future have ended up in the present. By the end, it gets so out of control that by defeating Shin Akuma or Serious Mr. Karate, you create a rift that sends your character to Heaven or Hell.

(Let’s rock!)

If you’re in Hell, you fight Capcom representative Red Arremer from Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins. If you go to Heaven, it’s SNK’s Athena, but not the annoying pop star from the Psycho Soldiers team in King of Fighters. It’s the original SNK Athena from the sidescroller where she’s a bikini-clad goddess. Funny enough, despite there being pre-fight dialogue specific to each pairing, none of the King of Fighters crew pay any lip service to this.

Rather than annoying you with constant screams of, “PSYCHO BAAAWWWWW!!!” this Athena uses lots of summoning and shapeshifting powers to get the better of you. If King of Fighters Athena brought out a giant baby chick to destroy her opponents, I’d probably choose her more often.

If you lose the fight, she transforms you into an animal specific to the fighter. If you win, you get to meet God. Either way, it’s a pretty eventful day.

36. ABYSS

SoulCalibur III

I was thinking of putting Algol on this list before realizing that I have absolutely nothing to say about the guy. He was fine. Nothing especially memorable about him.

In terms of end bosses wielding both the Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, Zasalamel’s final form, Abyss, is where it’s at. Mainly because Zasalamel is one of the last great SoulCalibur characters (along with Grizzled Owl and Harley Quinn Gollum). He’s a fantastic neutral warrior who ironically uses a Grim Reaper scythe despite being cursed with immortality and wanting a permanent death.

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After Zasalamel is transformed into Abyss, you actually begin rooting for Zasalamel to come through. This is his chance to put a stop to his endless cycle of resurrection, but it’s unfortunately turned him into an uncontrollable demon.

In the end, Zasalamel comes out of it better. During the experience, he sees a vision of the future (our present), and after reverting to his normal self, he goes from, “I must use the two swords to kill myself for good!” to “I have to prevent the two swords from ever killing me because the future looks fun as hell!”

Which reminds me, where’s my Zasalamel in Tekken, Harada?!

35. ONAGA THE DRAGON KING

Mortal Kombat: Deception

After Shinnok disappointed Mortal Kombat fans, Midway decided to introduce a new final boss who was a Shao Kahnier Shao Kahn. Fortunately, Onaga worked.

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance made an effort to clean the slate and start fresh, removing Liu Kang, Shao Kahn, and Goro from the board. Having Shang Tsung and Quan Chi share the final boss spot went against that attempt for freshness, but Midway made up for it by planting the seeds for the sequel.

The whole plot was about introducing the Dragon King – the most Mortal Kombat villain name possible – who ruled Outworld before Shao Kahn. They built up anticipation through the game’s lore without showing him or even outright naming him, and we just knew the heroes were on a collision course with something monstrous. Reptile’s ending, in which his body was possessed and mutated by the Dragon King’s soul, made it definite.

Deception revealed that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi defeated the heroes, but it didn’t matter. Onaga was back and he made the two look like jokes. Things were already dire after the good guys lost, but now there was also this 10-foot-tall tank covered in scales with gigantic dragon wings just sauntering around.

Unfortunately, he got stuck being archenemies with Shujinko and that dude straight-up SUUUUUCKS!

34. NECROSAN

Primal Rage 2

The holy trinity of almost-to-completely-finished fighting games that didn’t get released are Thrill Kill, Tattoo Assassins, and Primal Rage 2. Primal Rage 2 is a fascinating unreleased game that not only had action figures, but a novelization that I would love to read one of these days. It’s always crazy expensive on eBay, though.

The first Primal Rage didn’t have a final boss, but legend has it that Atari Games originally planned to introduce Necrosan in an updated version. Instead, the studio saved him for the sequel, and while the game never saw the light of day, he simply rules too much for me to ignore. Much like King Ghidorah, Necrosan is an alien invader in a world of Terran kaiju. An extremely well-animated winged dragon skeleton coated with muscle tissue, Necrosan looks metal as hell. His backstory complements his look too: he singlehandedly kicked the asses of all the beasts from the first game.

Also cool is the twist that the big meteor that caused the first game’s post-apocalyptic origin was actually an egg housing Necrosan who planned to conquer the planet for his race.

33. KRIZALID

King of Fighters ’99

After spending several years doing the Orochi storyline, King of Fighters finally moved on to something different: mad scientists. The NESTS Cartel was a neat idea in theory, but the further the story went, the more they revealed themselves as dorks. In other words, don’t expect to see Zero or Ignis on this list.

Krizalid had a great look…er, well, his first look. That coat with the fur top covering his jaw was great. The more flexible S&M garb from when he burns it away, not so much. He made for a great first threat in this new story, especially due to how the endings painted him as a tragic figure and made NESTS look like bigger dicks because of it.

For all his posturing, he’s just a deranged clone, pitied by the heroes and exterminated by his bosses at the first opportunity. Then again, maybe they were also annoyed that he got rid of the coat.

32. SHINNOSUKE KAGAMI

Last Blade

The Last Blade games are some of the most underrated titles in the SNK library. Despite only having two installments, the series features plenty of interesting moments, including a redemption arc for its initial villain, Kagami. Originally guard of a portal to evil and darkness, the high-and-mighty Kagami lost his faith in humanity and decided to use that portal to wipe out life on Earth and purge mankind completely. Using his refined swordsman skill and ability to wield flame, he killed a lot of people to help pull off his scheme.

In the end, he was defeated by the hero character Kaede and banished himself into the portal to be tormented. But was resurrected to fulfill his original role as guard of the portal as well as help take down Kouryu, a former victim of his whose reanimated body was possessed by evil from within the portal. This made Kagami second guess his role in the initial adventure, deciding that humans aren’t bound to evil after all and may even be good.

I always liked how he’d have a normal stance in the first round, but after taking a loss, he’d levitate half a foot off the ground. It’s just ominous enough without having to completely change his style.

31. SUPERMAN

Injustice: Gods Among Us

“Evil Superman” has been done to death. It can be used well, but a lot of the time you just end up with Brightburn. Injustice: Gods Among Us did a decent enough job by taking an interesting episode of the Justice League cartoon and leaning harder into it. The main difference between the two Supermen was that, while the animated version was driven, he wasn’t as mentally cracked as his video game self.

The animated Superman still had Metropolis and Lois, but Injustice Superman lost them both at the hands of the Joker. As shown in the better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be comic book tie-in, Superman began his reign of terror by killing the Joker in a fit of anger, and bitterness, time, and betrayals caused him to become obsessed with order and a world where there was no war because he said so. It didn’t help that so many of his superfriends sided with him.

Superman is so regularly pushed as the top guy at DC that it’s not that surprising he’s the final boss in a DC fighting game. In fact, the only way to beat him was to get the good version of Superman to do the job.

30. NU-13

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

When I played through BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger’s arcade mode, I made sure to use Ragna the Bloodedge last. The fact that he was the protagonist, yet very rarely appeared as an opponent for everyone else’s arcade mode path made him seem special. This ended up being the right way to play the game as his dialogue with Nu-13 hit me like a train.

BlazBlue’s plot of, “Wait, I think I understand, but… No, you lost me,” means I can’t fully explain what Nu-13’s story is but the gist of it is that she’s some kind of experiment gone wrong and she’s showing up around a portal that’s messing with the time-space continuum. Everyone comes across her in arcade mode and she usually greets them with extremely dry robot talk throughout the boss fight. When she meets with Ragna, she suddenly acts like an excited schoolgirl who has been pining for this guy and writing his initials in her diary. It’s extremely off-putting and unexpected.

As a boss, she’s a great fit for the game, which takes place about 200 years into the future, but Nu-13 is the only one truly diving headfirst into the futuristic look. Even the game’s resident cyborg Tager comes off lacking compared to all the crazy sci-fi shit Nu-13 has going for her.

29. KARNOV

Fighter’s History Series

There is a holy trinity of ’80s video game asskickers who are remembered fondly due to a mix of genuine nostalgia and internet irony: Abobo, Mike Haggar, and Karnov. The latter fighter is a fascinating bloke. Not only did he star in his self-titled platformer game, but developer Data East also decided that this dadbod adventurer should just show up in several of their games like a mascot. This is why Fighter’s History is treated as a sequel to the original Karnov game in which the bored treasure hunter holds a fighting tournament with lots of his money on the line.

Fighter’s History is such an obvious Street Fighter II clone that Capcom tried suing Data East. The game’s only real saving grace is the use of Karnov as the carrot to lead you to the end. And while the sequel/update of the game is just the same cast with the bosses playable, Karnov looks completely different. In the first game, he’s completely jacked, albeit extremely short. In the next game, he’s taller and fat with a nasty stomach scar and has moves that allow him to morph his body like Jake from Adventure Time.

I suppose if it wasn’t weird, it wouldn’t be Karnov.

28. PYRON

Darkstalkers Series

When the gimmick of your game is that all your characters are Japanese takes on classic monsters, it’s only logical that the biggest threat is extraterrestrial. Pyron is far from the best alien in a video game, but he does the job here as both Silver Surfer and Galactus wrapped in one.

Seriously, look at his ending. If he can turn as big as the sun, he probably could have saved time by leading with that. But what do I know? I’m just a human who hasn’t been murdered by a vampire with stupid hair.

Pyron gets by with his design, which looks absolutely beautiful in that mid-‘90s Capcom arcade animation. The rippling energy waves of cosmic flame almost make you forgive him for what he was like on that terrible Saturday morning cartoon show.

27. MASTER HAND

Super Smash Bros. Series

Chucking a bunch of Nintendo icons into a game and trying to make a narrative out of it is a fool’s errand. Luckily, Nintendo didn’t overthink it too much and just decided, “They’re figurines or something having an imaginary battle.” It’s Lego Movie meets Secret Wars.

And after so many dream fights like Mario vs. Link and Kirby vs. Yoshi, who would be at the top of the ladder to threaten the heroes? Bowser? Ganon? Andross? King Slender?

No. It’s a hand. Just a big, disembodied glove dead set on crushing the player. I suppose Nintendo didn’t need to have a recognizable final foe. The four-way Nintendo slugfest was enough. So why not have a big hand that can do silly big hand attacks? It’s just the bizarro icing on the cake at this point.

I love how random Master Hand is. It’s a boss fight version of the Toy Story toys revolting against Sid the bully. With every new game, Nintendo had tried to add needless context, and this has caused Master Hand to expand into transcendent final boss concepts like Crazy Hand and Tabuu. That’s just a special kind of weird. Imagine creating a giant hand as your villain and then in each sequel thinking to yourself, “How do we build on that?”

26. KRONIKA

Mortal Kombat 11

Despite rebooting the series’ winding and convoluted storyline, Mortal Kombat 9 ended on a low note. Sure, Shao Kahn was dead, but so were most of the heroes just as Shinnok was preparing to make his own move. Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat X, while not having the happiest ending, culminated with most of the major threats taken off the board. Kahn was still dead, Quan Chi was dead, Shinnok was just a head, and Onaga’s resurrection was prevented. Things were looking up for once!

But in Moral Kombat 11, a cosmic Tilda Swinton appeared as not just Shinnok’s mother, but as a meta representation of video game designers at odds with the story. Kronika wants good and evil to war with each other on equal enough footing forever. The status quo doesn’t allow enough juice for what she wants, so her plans include bringing back dead characters with a hand wave, reverting characters who have developed farther than she cares for, and even rebooting the franchise itself.

Even her kind, the Titans (higher up on the chain than the Elder Gods), play into this. Scorpion’s ending shows that reality simply won’t exist without the backstory that his wife and child were killed, all because the Titans deemed it so. These games are getting dangerously close to the fourth wall.

Meta or not, Kronika is a fantastic addition to the Mortal Kombat mythos. That endless time-reverse Fatality of hers is one of the highlights of that game’s many kills.

25. ULTRON SIGMA

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite

Despite its huge roster, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 didn’t have much in terms of Capcom-based villains. Plus, the big boss was Galactus. Where do you even go from Galactus in a sequel? For Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, bringing Galactus back was a no-no due to Disney being stingy with the Fantastic Four property at the time.

But Capcom had a pretty good solution. First, introduce Sigma from Mega Man X into the world of fighters. Second, bring in box office superstar (at the time) Ultron. Third, take a page out of Dark Kahn’s book and merge the two into one being. They’re robots. Robots love that shit.

For the record, the most hyped I got for this game was the stinger on the announcement trailer where they showed a shadowy Ultron sitting on a throne with Sigma’s glowing eyes appearing on his torso.

Not only do you get each meatbag-hating robot on their own and in merged form, but then there’s the over-the-top design of their final form. Transforming into a nightmarish and gaudy final form is Sigma’s MO, so it’s nice to see Ultron just go with it.

Yeah, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite didn’t have staying power, but it did have a giant Sigma head with Ultron’s body sticking out…as well as that head-scratching plot point where Thanos made a gauntlet powered by Ryu’s inner evil for the sake of throwing fireballs at Death. See, that’s why you need arcade mode endings in games like these. Let your crossover freak flag fly.

24. VICTOR ORTEGA

Ring of Destruction

Saturday Night Slam Masters is remembered well enough, partially due to its SNES port, but few talk about its sequel Ring of Destruction, which had more of an emphasis on fighting game mechanics. Players of only the first game would still recognize Victor Ortega, as he’s the Billy Graham/Hulk Hogan guy in the intro, tearing his shirt off. Though not part of the game’s roster, his identity is revealed if you’re able to beat the game without losing a single match.

This mountain of muscle was a previous CWA champion who was so dominant in the ring that he left out of boredom. Getting the first game’s best ending has Ortega return to challenge your wrestler, ending in a cliffhanger.

The sequel is about the Capcom Wrestling Association being invaded by heels representing the Blood Wrestling Association. This situation piques Ortega’s interest, as hewants the last man standing to challenge him for the title. He proves to be a pain in the ass to take on — not only can he uppercut so hard that fireballs fly out but he was busting out jumping Yoshi Tonics all the way back in 1994!

23. ZANKURO MINAZUKI

Samurai Shodown Series

In fighting games, having a katana means getting some extra range and damage. In a series like Samurai Shodown, what does one do for an extra range advantage when everyone is armed with a sword? Easy. Create an 8-foot-tall Brock Samson samurai guy with a katana befitting of his size.

Zankuro is one of the rare examples of a character who talks about “the demon within” but isn’t actually possessed by one. Ryu is a good person despite having a magical dark force inside him threatening to turn him into a rage zombie. Zankuro is just an asshole. He slaughtered villages of people because killing people is his vice. And really, who’s got the skill to get in his way and tell him to stop?

But the outcome is inevitable. He has to die. In Samurai Shodown III, Zankuro had a fake-out death followed by a real death, just as he lamented his horrible acts. He was be sorry about his sins, but sidestepped having to live with them.

Except…he keeps getting resurrected.

22. DIO BRANDO

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

It’s kind of crazy how popular Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has become in the US in the past few years, especially when you look back at how niche it was in the late ‘90s when Capcom’s Jojo fighter hit the arcade, Dreamcast, and PlayStation. Back then, the best you could do was find some low-quality manga scans and hope that someone online could translate them. All Capcom had was the manga and a few episodes of an anime, but they still managed to turn those into a kickass video game adaptation.

Dio was a major part of this. His moves and animation set him up as someone who could be cold and collected one moment and a slinking psychopath the next. The way he’d jump off-screen, return with a steamroller, and smash you with it while laughingly clawing at the vehicle defined what kind of series-carrying villain he really was.

The biggest mark against him is that regular boss Dio is not nearly as cool as his faceless counterpart Shadow Dio, based on the stretch of the manga when nobody knew what Dio’s powers actually were but understood that he was scary as hell.

21. WOLFGANG KRAUSER

Fatal Fury Series

SNK did Krauser dirty. His appearances in Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury Special made him the most epic boss fight of the era. First off, the dude was so jacked that he was able to burst out of his chest armor with a mere flex. Second, he got this epic line:“I’ll chisel your gravestone! Sleep well!” Most importantly, his background music was only a version of “Dies Irae” but it was played by own personal orchestra during that fight!

Dude wasn’t even up to no good. He was just an intense man who wanted a good fight. Even in defeat, he stood back up to dramatically yell, “You were perfect! I have met…my match…” before collapsing. Legendary presentation.

Unfortunately, then we got the second Fatal Fury anime, where SNK inexplicably got rid of Krauser’s amazing purple mustache. Why would you do such a thing? That mustache never did anything wrong.

He was almost completely forgotten by the time King of Fighters rolled around. He appeared in King of Fighters ’96 with a lanky redesign that made it look like he had a swimmer build, but everyone knows that Krauser needs to look like 2003 Triple H.

Oh, well. At least they didn’t get Ray Park to play him in a movie.

20. FERNANDEZ

Waku Waku 7

Waku Waku 7 is one of the liveliest and enjoyable fighting games that nobody has ever heard of. With one installment to its name, this Sunsoft creation has a handful of anime archetypes and knockoffs fight to free a magical fairy and earn a wish. In order to release the fairy, they have to grow into a giant and take on the kaiju known as Fernandez.

Known as Fernandeath in Japan, Fernandez is a large, black ball with a smiley face, bat wings, ball-shaped limbs, and a glowing aura. The giggling beast seems cute at first, but the more time you spend with it, the creepier and more malevolent it becomes. Its eyes turn red, it sometimes has pointy teeth, and at times it’ll turn full-on demonic.

There are some silly move animations thrown in there, but getting devoured and then shot out of its butt like a cannon can’t be the most enjoyable experience out there.

19. JUSTICE

Guilty Gear

Guilty Gear gets a lot of flack for its confusing plot and ridiculous titles, but the gist of the story is unique and surprisingly simple: Once upon a time, humanity took part in a devastating war called the Crusades, where they fought against robo-mutants (a cross between SkyNet and the Age of Apocalypse) and barely survived. Now, with the world reaching borderline utopia, it’s constantly threatened by the possibility of going back to the bad old days. In other words, we missed out on seeing the exciting, explosive, action-packed era of this fictional world, but we absolutely have to prevent that from happening again.

Adding to the terror is that Justice was never fully destroyed in that war. She was simply sealed away for all eternity, which never lasts in fiction. In the first Guilty Gear, losing to this lizard mech meant endless death and destruction. But through her defeat at the hands of Sol Badguy, we not only got a tragic origin story for our main hero that explained what the hell a “Guilty Gear” is, but Justice opened up this world to the possibility that the Crusades could return in various ways despite her death.

18. BRAINIAC

Injustice 2

When your first game is all about Batman taking down an evil Superman, where do you go for the sequel? Easy. You figure out a threat so huge that both Batman and Superman have to put their feud on hold in order to save Earth. The logical choice is Darkseid, but NetherRealm went in a smarter direction with Brainiac. Even though he’s an established character in other continuities, Brainiac had yet to show up in any form in Injustice canon, so the studio could treat him as a brand new threat.

He was the perfect fit, too. Since he was the one responsible for blowing up Krypton, the game used this backstory to also introduce Supergirl and gave us a villain that Superman would hate just as much as the Joker. Even in defeat, Brainiac’s plan created another violent moral argument between Batman and the murderous Superman.

Above all else, Brainiac felt like a big deal. His moves during the boss fight made him seem like an even more advanced take on Doc Ock. The inside of his space ship added to his cyber nightmare aesthetic, too. Last but not least, he was voiced by Jeffrey Combs, whose chilling delivery made him sound like the most menacing threat in the universe.

Sorry, Darkseid.

17. THE GENERAL

Kaiser Knuckle

Kaiser Knuckle is your average Street Fighter II knockoff from the early days of fighting games, and there’s only one reason anyone remembers it at all. That reason is the General.

At first glance, he’s little more than a blatant ripoff of M. Bison. Then you fight him. Without a doubt, the General is the absolute hardest boss in fighting game history. He’s unbelievable. Not only are his attacks unfair variations of Bison’s offense, but he has a move where he releases Green Lantern construct projections of himself in various directions.

He’s an afront to God and when he wins the round and calls himself a perfect soldier, it’s hard to argue.

16. RYO SAKAZAKI

Fatal Fury Special

Some time after Mortal Kombat gave us Reptile and mere months before Street Fighter gave us Akuma, Fatal Fury Special introduced a very special hidden boss: Ryo Sakazaki. Sure, King of Fighters ’94 would be released within a year, but this was our first time seeing a major SNK fighting game crossover. This was the first Terry vs. Ryo matchup.

One of the reasons this debut hits so hard for me is that Ryo and the Art of Fighting crew never seemed to be too prominent in the King of Fighters games. There are two main continuities when it comes to SNK’s fighters. King of Fighters puts everything together and says it all coexists in the same era. Meanwhile, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Buriki One, and Savage Reign are on a staggered timeline. With Art of Fighting taking place in the ‘70s, it means that the Ryo in Fatal Fury games and Buriki One is a hardened, middle-aged legend and not just another young upstart like he is in King of Fighters.

In other words, Ryo showing up in Fatal Fury Special isn’t just an early crossover, but a passing of the torch.

15. EYEDOL

Killer Instinct

Killer Instinct always valued character designs first and everything after. Ninja, robot, dinosaur, T&A secret agent, boxer, Native American, skeleton, werewolf, ice creature, and fire guy. Then came the story.

To that effect, Eyedol, much like Spinal, is a tribute to the stop-motion fantasy movie monsters of the old days. Specifically, he’s a two-headed version of the cyclops from the 7th Voyage of Sinbad. He made for a memorable final battle, thanks in part to the cheap-ass healing ability that he’d spam while the other fighter recovered in between rounds.

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Eyedol was the last classic character released for the Killer Instinct reboot, and they redesigned the HELL out of him. Depicted as a holy chosen champion turned demonic and ogre-like due to his own ego, Eyedol’s two-headed cyclops look was explained as the result of having his head cleaved in half down the middle, then being resurrected. The wound is healed, but not undone, resulting in some gnarly body horror.

Much respect to his old ending, which was not only a parody of Blanka’s Street Fighter II ending, but by having his would-be mother refer to him as “Billy,” it becomes both a sly reference to Double Dragon (Billy and Jimmy) and musician Billy Idol.

Get it?

14. GILL

Street Fighter III

Following up on M. Bison was never going to be easy. For a long time, he was the poster boy for fighting game final bosses. For the third major installment, Capcom needed to introduce someone who felt different but also as big a threat as his predecessor. Rather than introducing “M. Bison’s boss” or “M. Bison’s dad,” the studio instead went in a completely original direction with Gill. Was he powerful? Yes. Did he use street fighting tournaments as a front for some kind of maniacal scheme? Yes again. Was he the ultimate evil? Well…I guess that depends on your thoughts on organized religion.

Rather than a villain delusional enough to call himself a god, Gill might as well BE a god. And he both wants to be virtuous, but he’s also an egomaniac about it. It’s definitely a fresh take on the mustache-twirling monsters in these games. Even Alex, the main character of Street Fighter III, only wants to fight him to get revenge after for his mentor, who Gill beat so bad in a street fight they had to send him to the hospital. Alex doesn’t seem to really care about the whole new world order cult gimmick.

With Street Fighter III being such a beautiful-looking sequel, Gill also brought the novelty of an asymmetric 2D character who wasn’t just mirrored when he looked in the opposite direction (i.e. Sagat’s eyepatch switching eyes depending on where he’s facing). That fit well with Gill’s mastery over fire and ice.

Screw him for that cheap resurrection power, though.

13. KING LEO/TRUE KING LION

Savage Reign

A lot of times in fiction, futuristic designs are based on the decade when they were conceived. That’s how we got King Leo, a villainous champion in the future of the Fatal Fury/Art of Fighting timeline, who looks hilariously try-hard ‘90s. The angular mask/boots/codpiece combo, the boxing gloves with sword, the ridiculous flat-top mullet, the cap, the ab window, etc. He has it all. He is pure extreme.

In both Savage Reign and its sequel Kizuna Encounter, he’s playable but not really. King Lion is selectable from the beginning, but it becomes apparent that he and the final boss are two different entities. Playable King Lion is an impostor meant to test the challengers, while King Leo is the far more powerful real deal.

Even when Jyazu appears in Kizuna Encounter as the actual final boss by impaling King Leo with his giant sword, King Leo is still able to later shrug off that major wound in a post-credits sequence. God, I wish that game had a follow-up.

12. GALACTUS

Marvel vs. Capcom 3

I’m surprised it took Capcom so long to bring in Galactus. The studio had the giant boss thing going in its Marvel games with Apocalypse, Onslaught, and whatever the hell Abyss was, and probably should have gone with Galactus for Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but I guess Capcom wanted to do multiple forms for the battle and that’s what Abyss brought to the table. Fortunately, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 finally brought in the Eater of Worlds.

Galactus isn’t the kind of guy who is supposed to get taken down by Ryu and Wolverine, but considering Capcom made a Marvel fighter where Spider-Man can take down an omnipotent Thanos, and that there’s an in-story reason that Galactus isn’t at 100%, one can give this story a pass. He still fights like Galactus should with cosmic energy beams flying all over the place.

Probably the best thing about him is his silly appearances in various endings, like being put on trial with Phoenix Wright as his defense lawyer or an annoyed Wolverine telling X-23 to get Galactus’ defeated body off his lawn.

11. MARIE KORBEL

Skullgirls

The Skull Heart from Skullgirls is terrifying and interesting enough to build a fighting game story around. It’s a demonic relic powerful enough to grant you any wish you’d like, but it will possess you in time. How fast it possesses you depends on how selfish your wish is, but the sad fact is that no matter how altruistic or heroic your actions are, every wish is selfish on some level. To use the Skull Heart is to damn yourself and doom everyone else.

That’s the tragedy of Bloody Marie. She grew up an orphan, abused and treated as a slave. Her thirst for vengeance was justified, but it didn’t make a difference. As the all-powerful Skullgirl, it was only a matter of time before she lost herself completely and slaughtered everyone. This struggle translated to her appearance, which seemed normal enough…until you notice the glowing, bare ribs peeking out the side.

Marie has several forms, and each one depicts her as being less in control until she’s just scraps of bone being manipulated by the Skull Heart. Defeating her not only means wiping out a young girl who really doesn’t deserve it, but for some of her challengers, it means they’re walking towards their own tragedy with the Skull Heart.

10. ONSLAUGHT

Marvel vs. Capcom

Capcom pulled off a miracle when it made Onslaught cool.

In general, Onslaught is like the Star Wars prequels. A solid idea in bullet points, but terrible in practice. The idea of an insane Xavier/Magneto/Juggernaut hybrid commandeering all the Sentinels and becoming such a threat to the Marvel heroes that the only way to stop him is to send a purified version of the Hulk after him sounds so awesome, but…well, ‘90s comics are ‘90s comics.

Marvel vs. Capcom’s Onslaught makes for such a sweet boss fight and is a big improvement over Apocalypse, who bypassed the normal-sized battle for the sake of immediately turning giant. Onslaught is Magneto on steroids, who turns into Apocalypse on steroids, and works because ‘90s Capcom was so damn untouchable.

We’re at a point in pop culture where War Machine is a mainstream superhero and “Lethal Protector” Venom made more in the box office than the Justice League. Onslaught is still considered a very specific time capsule that’s yet to be redeemed, which makes Capcom’s use of him here that much more impressive.

9. OGRE

Tekken 3

Tekken is like WWE where it’s so much better when isn’t focusing on the old man running things and his shitty family. When the bosses aren’t part of the Mishima bloodline, they’re usually some kind of unearthly being. You have your Egyptian demigod, you have your goth lady wearing sludge overalls, and you have your Aztec God of Fighting.

Ogre is the one Tekken boss who doesn’t directly tie into the Mishima family. It’s refreshing and makes the whole world feel bigger. He’s a completely unrelated force who reveals himself by beating the crap out of different mainstays in between Tekken 2 and 3. Granted, it was more impressive early on because Ogre got credit for wiping out so much of the early cast. But those guys returned in later games, and it seems Ogre only really killed the first King and MAYBE Jun, who sucks so good for Ogre.

Outside of non-canon stuff, Ogre didn’t last long in the Tekken series, but his death brought forth the rivalry between Heihachi and Jin, springboarding the Mishima war into a new direction. It was also explained that the Ancient Ogre form was defeated by Paul Phoenix, which is sadly one of the last times that character was treated like an actual threat.

8. OROCHI

King of Fighters ’97

Nailing the landing on a long-running story isn’t easy, and it’s truly impressive when a franchise pulls it off. Fans of Avengers: Endgame know that feeling well.

While the first King of Fighters game was all about Rugal, his return in King of Fighters ’95 built on the idea that he was tapped into a greater power that dwarfed him. Then King of Fighters ’96 continued that by showing us Goenitz, who was also a player in Orochi’s game. Even Iori Yagami – an antihero who wanted nothing to do with the evil god – was powerless to be anything but its bloodthirsty pawn.

King of Fighters ’97 not only acted as the climax to this whole saga, but it really felt like the peak of the whole franchise. There were great King of Fighters games afterwards, but this was where everything really felt like it lined up. And so, after all this build up, we got a team of Orochi worshippers, two insane pawns slaughtering in his name, and one guy so insane and bloodthirsty to start with that he shrugged off the magical need to go feral. Then by the time you got to Orochi, he felt like a true final boss that they spent several years building towards. He was the right level of malevolent celestial being and, while challenging, was never too hard compared to other SNK bosses.

As the exclamation point, most endings in the game warned that he’d be back someday. The only way to truly do away with him was to beat the game with a very specific trio of fighters, which happened to trigger one of the coolest endings in the series. The following arcs of King of Fighters would try to build towards other masterminds, but none of them held a candle to Orochi.

7. DIZZY

Guilty Gear X

As I said earlier, the true conflict of the Guilty Gear series is that shit was bad long ago, and the heroes have to keep the world from unwinding back into that chaos. When it came to the villainous Justice, things were pretty cut and dry. Justice had been released from her prison, cloned, and even resurrected at times. But Dizzy was a deeper take on the idea. She is the daughter of Sol Badguy and/or Justice and is an omega-level threat who could very well relaunch the war between humans and Gears.

It just so happens that she’s also an innocent, young woman who just wants a peaceful existence, someone who just wants to be left alone where she can’t hurt anyone. Despite being possibly the most powerful character in the series (give her Instant Kill attack in Guilty Gear Xrd a look), Dizzy is left alone in the end. She ends up finding friends, love, and even has a son.

6. THANOS

Marvel Super Heroes

Marvel Super Heroes is a very loose adaptation of Infinity Gauntlet, and that’s part of the reason the final battle with Thanos work so well. You spend all game accumulating Infinity Gems, adding more power-up options to each fight. Then Thanos steals them away and you have to take on a fully-Gauntleted Mad Titan in front of a backdrop very reminiscent of the big heroes vs. Thanos fight from Infinity Gauntlet.

Now, for those of you who haven’t read the comic that inspired Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos got the Infinity Gauntlet and became omnipotent. A bunch of heroes dogpiled him, and Thanos even gave himself a handicap to make it the slightest bit challenging, but the heroes still lost BADLY.

So here you are, playing as Spider-Man or Iron Man or whoever, having to have a kickass one-on-one brawl with Thanos and having to do alone what almost 20 superheroes couldn’t do in the comics. But because fighting games exist in a reality where everyone can win (and not just Jim Starlin’s Jim darlings), everyone — from Psylocke to Juggernaut — stands a chance at dethroning Thanos and truly earning the Infinity Gauntlet.

5. RUGAL BERNSTEIN

King of Fighters Series

I’m a huge fan of this character despite his tendency to be a bullshit SNK boss. Fighting him in King of Fighters ’94 should be banned by the Geneva Convention. It’s just that…man, the dude has so much swagger and radiates such coolness that I can’t hate him. He’s Rugal Goddamn Bernstein and we’re better for knowing him.

As with most early villains of fighting games, Rugal is overshadowed by his replacements. Shang Tsung works for Shao Kahn. Sagat works for M. Bison. Heihachi is the son of Jinpachi. Eyedol is the rival of Gargos. Geese is the weaker brother to Krauser. Rugal got the ball rolling in his own way as a way to build to the Orochi storyline, which practically defined all the following King of Fighters storylines. Yet in the end, despite being the first step in the saga and being killed for good during the second entry, Rugal has solidified himself as THE villain of King of Fighters. Dream match games and non-canon adventures tend to just go with Rugal as the final boss by default, usually with some extra bell and whistle, my favorite being God Rugal from Capcom vs. SNK 2. A coked up Rugal with Akuma gimmicks is my kind of boss battle.

Rugal is mostly a collection of awesome motifs and special attacks, but I also love that he’s just as defined by his number one weakness. Yes, he’s good enough to crush a team of three like nobody’s business, but he has his physical limits and his downfall is that he doesn’t see that. In canon and as God Rugal, he loses because he absorbs and uses up too much power for his body to handle. It’s nice when a villain is done in by their inability to leave well enough alone.

4. SHAO KAHN

Mortal Kombat Series

The worst thing I can say about Shao Kahn is that, while I dig the way his latter appearances lean into his “painted on the side of your van” metal design, he will never be as completely rad as he was in Mortal Kombat 2 and 3. Probably because loud growling doesn’t hold a candle to his eerie whisper and proud laughter.

Kahn is more intimidating than most bosses. The attract sequence in Mortal Kombat 2 showed a silhouette of Kahn reading Shang Tsung the riot act followed by a more direct look at his appearance, and it was immediately clear that this guy was absolute trouble. The first game tried to make Goro seem terrifying, but we knew that he was still second to Shang Tsung. Shao Kahn was THE boss, and we knew that, even if we climbed up that ladder (with Kahn STANDING ON TOP A MOUNTAIN), Kahn would be the end of us.

And a lot of the time he was. He would beat you with a war hammer, kick you across the room, and taunt you and you’d love him for it. He was so perfect as a boss that Midway simply had to bring him back for the next game.

Even after taking a backseat in the subsequent games, Mortal Kombat Armageddon’s story revitalized him by making him the winner of what was essentially the Mortal Kombat Royal Rumble. It was such a tragic turn of events that Raiden had to go back in time to stop it. Even with nearly all the good guys dead, it was all deemed worth it just because Kahn was killed. At least for a few years.

3. M. BISON

Street Fighter Series

As a kid, I was always confused about why this bus driver was running his own fighting tournament, but that feeling was replaced by my rage at his damn slide kick and arm-hook throw combo. You have fire-hand powers. You don’t need to be that smooth, dude.

Bison isn’t as deep a character as Sagat or as hardcore as Akuma or as naked as Gill, but he is possibly the hammiest final boss in the history of fighting games. All the various actors who have portrayed the character seem to be taken by the infectious fun that comes with playing him, whether it’s Raul Julia in the first live-action movie, Gerald C. Rivers and Kenji Utsumi in the games, Richard Newman on the cartoon, and, hell, even Neal McDonough had his moments in that crappy Chun-Li movie.

As the first final boss that anyone ever cared about, Bison is a wonderful pile of escalating craziness. Over time, he’s become a comedically-jacked guy with a constant smile whose plots involve Buddha statues with laser faces, running over Ryu with a bigass truck, shoving his soul into gender-swapped clones, and dropping satellites onto civilization for the sake of causing chaos. Capcom can try to write him out of the series, but he’s just too iconic to destroy for good.

2. AKUMA

Street Fighter Series

It’s crazy to think how Electronic Gaming Monthly did an April Fools’ joke about there being an enhanced version of Ryu as a secret final boss in Street Fighter II and Capcom decided, yes, that’ll do. That’s how one of the most iconic fighting game characters ever was born.

“Ryu but darker and more powerful” could have ended badly, but Akuma’s always shined as the X-factor of Street Fighter’s roster. He’s more than just an evil final boss. He’s a malevolent force that is somehow neither good nor evil…which is for the best, considering Capcom eventually labeled M. Bison as literal pure evil.

What’s funny to me is how Mortal Kombat introduced the idea of the hidden boss fight with Reptile, then gradually turned him into the biggest jobber in Mortal Kombat lore. Akuma showed up, wiped out M. Bison with his so-powerful-we-can’t-even-show-you super move, gave you a nigh-impossible boss fight, and then Capcom made sure to keep him going as the guy who will make you shit your pants every time he shows up. When SNK made its SNK vs. Capcom crossover game, the team even put an ending in there where a bored Akuma challenged God to a fight.

1. GEESE HOWARD

Fatal Fury Series

As fighting games are ensemble pieces, so are their storylines most of the time. Fatal Fury, not so much. Fatal Fury is really the story of Terry Bogard vs. Geese Howard with a bunch of supporting characters. Even Andy Bogard, who has just as much a reason to be the protagonist as Terry, is relegated to being “the guy who is reluctant to sleep with his hot girlfriend.” Fatal Fury is really about Terry and Geese and everyone else is, at best, an extension of the two of them.

Geese is everything you could ever want in a final boss, unless you’re looking for a giant shooting lasers out his eyes. He’s slick as oil and tougher than brick, with a moveset that’s based around throwing you like a ragdoll or blasting you into the stratosphere. He’s the right balance of difficult enough to make you curse, but not cheap enough to make you throw the controller through your screen.

Not only is he unique in battle, but he just has so much personality. His cockiness is on another level. His every gesture makes him look like he knows he’s superior to everyone else in every way, but kicking their ass is a better use of his time than whatever else he has planned. Even his counter moves (“PREDICTABLE!”) make him seem untouchable.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

His canon death scene in the Fatal Fury games is also second to none. Hanging off a tower rooftop, he sees Terry reach his hand out. Rather than be saved and maybe even forgiven by Terry, Geese chooses to smack it away, let go, and fall to his death while looking up at the winner and laughing maniacally at him. What a boss way to go.

The post 50 Best Fighting Game Final Bosses from Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and More appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/36SXXqS

[people-pulp]

-Written by Azure Aria-

Orrus Chiu

Male | 31 | 6’3” | Firebender

Orrus Chiu was born in circumstances that could charitably be called “unusual.” Everyone knows of the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom, it’s no secret, really. That annexing is roughly the main front of the war anymore. What they may not know about, is the smaller villages that are somewhat further away, and considerably more mixed. There is a reason they aren’t well known. This is where Orrus was born, a small village that barely had a name to itself. In it he was raised amongst other firebenders, nonbenders, and even earthbenders, all sides either ignorant or seemingly uncaring of the Hundred Year War raging between their people. A strange sort of peace in the chaos and suffering of the war. It was in this pocket of tranquility that Orrus grew up, becoming a blacksmith like his father at the age of 20, and running the business entirely not two years later. It was only natural for firebenders to blacksmith, no? They have fine control of the flame, and it’s not like someone could just bend the metal itself or anything! Raised eyebrow, wink to camera It was peaceful, uneventful, really. Making weapons and tools for a small village tended to be, and Orrus made a life of it for the next eight years, honing his firebending with careful control to smith the items needed. If the extremely subtle hints being dropped didn’t let you know, this did not last. And what better way to do it then… Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. You see, the Fire Nation wasn’t exactly happy about this peaceful coexistence when it was found out. Why, such people just living their lives in harmony could provide root for a rebellion! Or disrupt their carefully laid propaganda! Can’t be having that! Thus, one day, out of the blue, soldiers marched in. And where they went, the village burned. Earthbenders and nonbenders were killed or imprisoned, whichever worked. Firebenders like Orrus, were either killed if they fought back, or exiled. Some of those who were exiled were given… reminders of just what had happened that day. Orrus was one of them. The soldiers marched right into his family’s smith, and accused him of making weapons for a growing rebellion. No matter how he tried to deny it or explain himself, they would not listen, and, as punishment, his left arm was forced into the very forge he and his family had been using. While it was lit. Firebender or no, this resulted in extensive burns across his arm, leaving him needing care for quite a while. To show their “mercy” and “forgiveness,” Orrus was given medical care by the Fire Nation, before being booted out into the Earth Kingdom, homeless and with barely a penny to his name. To some, this would be a breaking point, leaving them wandering aimlessly, or simply offing themselves. In a sense, it was a breaking point for Orrus, just in a different way. He got really, really, mad. Firebending, at least what is taught by the current Fire Nation, is fueled by anger. And when Orrus went into a clearing after being released, he roared with all the rage and fury that had alighted in him since that day, that had been boiling in him for that long stay in medical care, that was going to direct the rest of his life. The flame he loosed from his mouth burned so hot with his sheer rage that it cleared the treetops, very nearly starting an inferno of a forest fire, a promise of the nature of his firebending from then on, until he got the revenge he so desperately sought. The sheer anger and hatred burning inside him left the flames he created as burning hot with the sheer anger infused into them… but of course, there is a catch. Given his traumatic experiences with fire, summoning it directly can occasionally be difficult for him. Though this does occasionally save him from blowing his cover as a nonbender in the heat of a moment. The scarred arm also helped with that disguise. Of course that’s what he did, though. He masqueraded as a nonbender to travel the Earth Kingdom, and when he finally found someone, he spent the next year of his life learning how to fight with a sword. From the outside, Orrus seemed calm, almost jovial. He relaxed, took tea, chatted kindly with people… But everyone could see the fire in his piercing green eyes. He had not let go of his anger, it did not subside. Orrus plateaued at a new level of anger, he created a new baseline. He is always angry, bubbling just under the surface. However, this also means he lets what he considers to be “little things” wash off of him a lot. He had bigger fish to incinerate, after all. His sword needed to be perfect for it. A single-edged blade with a spare and a dagger sheathed at his hip and back. He made them himself, of course, but with a bit of an alteration to what would be expected. To augment his occasionally lacking firebending, he created pockets of flint in various points on the blade’s blunt side and handguard, able to be replaced as needed, that he could strike with the steel bracers of his gloves to make a spark and ignite his sword, using it as a conduit for his flames. Now 31, with his black hair in a ponytail, and dressed in Earth Kingdom style, he wanders across the Earth Kingdom, planning and seeking his revenge however he can, while getting by through selling his abilities with a sword or forge. Or just his ability to occasionally make pretty good food that he will compare to smithing, or his ability of looking really intimidating when he wants to be.

[plumsaffron]

Celebrating Sasuke's birthday by destroying UCM assisting trash.

Your darkness could never swallow mine

These eyes see darkness clearly

[yuki-d-raizel-blog]

Believe Me

Chapter 11/??

Relationship: Rin x Reader (Your/Name) , (Full/Name)

Summit: Inside the class there was the same confusion of always, Rin and Bon were fighting over something stupid, Shima and Konekomaru were trying to stop them while Shiemi and Izumo were laughing for the scene. Everything was as always. Until the bell rang. The Exwires notice that the professor was late, but nobody knew why. When the door opened… A new student arrived to the True Cross Academy. She’s smart and strong, still a quiet and solitary person. Moved by a strange feeling, Rin would like to know her, help her if he can but nobody would think that that student was someone so… special.

--- 

In the following days, after training, Rin comes to your place to play, talk and swim in the pool, or to drag you out somewhere he would like to go. Shura notices a huge improvement in Rin and his ability to control flames, so she decides to follow him and know the truth. She was caught by Yukio and his students, so she dragged everyone with her.

They followed Rin in a rich and beautiful villa.

<<What the- Who lives here?!>> she screams whispering, and Yukio tells that (Y/N) is the owner of the house, <<Hah? You’re kidding!>>

<<I’m not. She lives here with her brother.>> he adjusts his glasses and turns his heels, <<I’m not going in.>>

<<Why?>> the woman is curious to know what Rin do when he’s with you.

<<It’s rude to enter without announcement.>> “And she hates it. I don’t want to deal her again.”

<<Let’s go guys!>> Shura and the students break in the propriety and follow the demon carefully.

The group hides in the flowers and looks at Rin relaxing in the pool, while you are in a room watching the TV with a giant wolf. You look so nervous and your eyes are glued on the screen. What are you watching?

<<Ah, Yatsufsa it’s him!>> you pointed at the TV joyfully and Rin comes near too.

<<Is Shion’s turn already?>> he asks going out the pool, <<Woah, that’s an awesome costume!>>

You increase the volume to hear what your brother will say, even if you know that too well. He always says a phrase before the performance, and those words never fail to drive the audience crazy.

<<Now, the prodigy ice skater!>> the commentate is so enthusiastic to introduce Shion, <<He’s a rather quiet person and rarely talks. However, whenever talking about music he always mentions how “fate is written in the stars”. Interviewing his coach, we discovered something new about this mysterious and charming boy! He’s extremely dedicated to his duties to the point of suffering emotional breakdowns->>

<<Yukiya you piece of shit! You didn't have to say that!>> you are throwing chips to the screen, <<Now if Shion loses his change to get the medal due to this shit, I swear I’ll kill you when you come back home!>>

<<Why don’t you go with your brother?>> Rin asks stealing a few chips, <<You train him, right?>>

<<I can’t, Shion is too- Wait a second.>> she turns facing the friend, <<How do you know that?>>

<<Ops… I’ve never said that to anyone!>> he quickly takes a few steps backwards, <<Nobody knows that you’re his coach and prepare everything for him, from the music to the choreographies!>>

<<Double torture for Yukiya when he comes back.>> now she’s focusing again on the competition.

<<He's very hard on himself, as he believes he has to do anything to prove that he’s a valuable member for his brother. He eventually let down his guard and openly smiles and jokes around with everyone, but he is very close to his brother Orion.>> the skaters are warming up while the commentate is taking his time, <<Let’s remember him for a moment. He made his first and maybe last debut with his little brother two years ago, Canada. They performed with a new skate style and they conquested all the world with their voices, songs, and moves! Their win was declared with their duet song, “Immortal Inferno”.>>

<<Yeah, yeah, I remember that! C’mon, let me see my boy win against those idiots!>> Yatsufsa too is moving his tail faster, impatient to see Shion.

A young man skates on the court and stops in the center, the crowd goes complited silent, <<Ladies and gentlemen, Shion is here!>>

He’s still and silent with a microphone on his ear. The silence is cruel, but nobody tries to make a noise to not disturb and not hear the sweet voice of the skater, <<The stars have led me to you; now, whisper my name.>>

The music starts and Shion begans to skate gracefully on the ice. His voice is so deep and hypnotic, even Rin is staring at the TV with wide opened eyes. You sing along with Shion and move a bit your body to release the pressure to watch him trough a screen. The jury is focus on every movement, jumps, the position of the hands, the arms; they are stricter than usual.

<<You can do it…>> you hug tight Yatsufsa and continue to stare at the TV, praying that he doesn’t fall or makes mistakes. You know if that happens, Shion will blame himself for everything and will avoid you for a while. You don’t want it, you want he comes back home, hug you and show at you his pure smile.

Shion sings like a melodic instrument, jumps with an angelic harmony, spins like a top but he hasn't done yet. When the music stops, he stays still, the chest is going up and down with a crazy rhythm.

The audience is quiet like your living-room....

Suddenly, loud screams born into the arena and on the ice court there are so many flowers, flags, sweets, stuffed animals.

<<SHION! SHION! SHION! SHION!>> the entire stadium calls his name like one person.

<<Wow!>> exclaims Rin, he has never seen something like thath before, <<If he won, what->> you’re too focus on the jury. “Shion is really important to her. Look how she is praying for him.”

<<Come on, he did everything perfectly…>> your anxiety is almost palpable, <<Please…>> you close your eyes and hide your face in Yatsufsa’s fur.

….

<<Oh my goodness! That’s a new world record!>> the commentate screams joyfully, and you raise your head to see the score, <<He took a full score! And we know what this mean!>>

<<Oh my god Yatsufsa!!>> you jump off the sofa and join your hands firmily.

<<LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! OUR STAR SHION, RISES AGAIN! HE’LL GOES TO THE WOLRD CHAMPIONSHIP!>> after that scream, the entire stadium explodes with the loudest cheer of all the time.

<<YES! YES! YES! HE DID IT! HE FUCKING DID IT!>> you and Yatsufsa are celebrating the boy’s win; the wolf runs all over the room barking, while you’re crying tears of joy watching Shion’s doing the same on the screen.

Rin is clapping enthusiastic for him. He skated amazingly, his voice was like a blessing, the lyrics too… He deserves the first place more than anyone. Moved by an unstoppable happiness, you jump in Rin’s arm and hug him. He didn’t see you at all, so he loses the balance and both of you fall in the pool.

<<(Y/N), are you crazy?>> he scolds the partner, but you’re too busy on celebrate with Yatsufsa, which is in the pool too. “She is so pure… How can her presence be a catastrophe, I really can’t understand that.”

<<I must text hi->>

<<Not so fast girl.>> Rin grabs your shorts and pulls you back in the water, <<You’re gonna pay for this.>>

<<Wanna fight?>> with an invisible jump, you get on the edge of the pool and with a simple snap, the water is moving like a snake, <<Bring it on!>>

That tecnique hits Shura and her group's attention. They don't know anything like that. You didn't say any sutras or mantras, so what did you done to create a water wall so easily? The questions and dubts about you and your identity grows more and more. Are you an enemy? A spy? Who are you?

<<Woah wait!>> the blue exorcist jumps out and looks at the liquid, <<It's not fair!>>

<<Why?>> you hold the water still with a finger, <<I did the same the other time too. What's the problem?>>

<<Last time you used your swords! What is this?! How can you do that?>>

<<Hahaha look at your face!>> she laughes and moves the liquid, <<I told you at the exam before the mission, remember? I can manipulate Elements, which means I can use fire, water, wind, lightning, ice, light, darkness, earth and steel.>>

<<....Those aren't->>

<<These aren't japanese nor exorcism tecniques, you're right. I learned them in my village. Traditions, you know.>>

<<If you can control them bare handed, why do you use swords?>> Rin is curious, you are so new to him, like a strange but still affascinating lands, <<You told me that you’ve more than two weapons.>>

<<He, it's a secret, sorry.>> you avoided the topic and concluded the issue putting the water back in the pool with a smile, <<However, you’re weak Rin.>>

<<What?!>>

<<You depend too much on  your powers. First, learn how to use a sword.>> going near him, you hit him for adjusting his posture, <<Can you divide the water with a single swing?>>

<<...Like what?>>

<<Ah...>> sighing, she leaves an arm hanging, suddenly, moving it like a clawed hand, she raises it and a strong wind comes... <<Like this.>>

<<....What the hell are you? Really!>> Rin is speachless, all the water leaks from the pool and on the garden there is something like a path, the air you moved was too strong that crushed the grass on the ground, <<You were unarmed too!>>

<<If you move your body like a gear, you can do it too.>> calling Yatsufsa, you order him to bring two training sticks, <<Your sword skills are very bad buddy.>>

<<I'm not that weak!>> Rin protests, even if he knows that is true.

<<Even Shion can beat you. The son of Satan can't lose against a human!>>

<<Shion can't beat me, damn it! I'm more used to fights->>

<<I trained him for self-defense. He knows martial arts very well and can use a few weapons just in case.>> the student crosses her arms and makes a playful grin, <<You can barely use your body correctly->>

<<Ok, I get it! Yukio and Shura are enough!>> Rin sits on the grass and ignores you, <<Fuck.>> a light weight hit him on his blue hair, <<What?>> he has such an angry face, it's kinda cute.

<<I can teach you if you want.>> you pass him a long wooden stick, <<It's not a bother for me, and it’ll save your life one day. I'll make each lesson funny for you, don't worry. I understand which is your best learning method already!>>

<<You’re pretty secure, aren't ya?>> he stands up again and grabs the weapon, <<I'm in your hands again, (Y/N)-sensei!>>

Starting slowly, you show him the basic movements to loosen muscles and joints of the body. Being flexible is a fundamental requirement for learning martial arts. 

As the first lesson continues, Shura and the others decide to retire for the moment, go back to the Academy and reflect on what they have just saw. Rin knows about you more of them, but what exactly? What was all that force that came out of your arm in that istant? Rin said you have more than one sword... So it means that you’re used to fight with various types of weapons and how to take advantage of them. Right now, for the team, the main questions are: who are you and can they trust you? Making an immediate report to Mephisto, the principal decides to tail and watch the two Exwire until holidays are over. As soon as they'll come back, a very complicated mission awaits them.

Shura continues to follow the son of Satan, but one day she finds a powerful barrier surronding your house. Not knowing how to break it, she calls Yukio and the Exwire avaibles to formulate a plan. When they were speaking, the second gate opened, (Y/N) cames out the house and waits with Yatsufsa. While she’s waiting, a young boy suddenly appears next to her.

<<I checked everything, he isn't here.>> he says putting an arm on your shoulder for rest a little, <<If Yukiya finds out the truth we’re all in trouble, you know that, right Master?>>

<<Don't worry Raika.>> you rest your head on his arm, <<I made this barrier for Shion and you guys. I feel something weird in the air today... Bare with me a little longer.>>

<<I’ll be always by your side.>> Raika pats your head and adds sighing, <<Master, you need to sleep more.>>

<<Geez not again...>>

<<I know I'm a pain in the ass, but I'm worried about you. That man broken your peace and I can see that in your actions and your eyes. Do you want to move again?>>

<<No, Shion really likes here. Let's stay a little longer.>>

<<Master, you should stop to carry the burder all by yourself.>> Raika strokes your hair sweetly and his voice is so gentle, <<We’re here with you, so share it with us.>>

<<I'm only afraid, you know that.>> with a sad sigh you raise your head and cross your arms, <<I don't wanna be happy... When I'm too happy, something terrible always happens...>>

<<What you’re afraid of is quite stupid, Master. You’re the strongest in the world, and so we are... We don't go anywhere (Y/N).>>

<<If I'm lose all of you... I'll go crazy... I can't take it; another member of my family who dies on me... Never again...>> deleting all the sad memories, you add: <<You said my name. Call me that more Raika->>

<<Master, Shion is back!>> the boy points at the horizon and a car is moving to your place. Raika goes into the house to prepare something fresh and cool for your brother, today is hotter than usual so it will help him.

A car stops in front the gates and Yukiya is the driver for the occasion. Shion get off with a smiley blondy girl next to him.

<<Shiemi?>> you’re pretty surprised to see her, same as the team that are still watching your movements. Shion says that he finds the classmate on her way here, so he accompanied the young lady to her destination.

<<(Y/N)-san, I'm sorry for the disturb...>> Moriyama is a little embaressed.

"What was that?" you heard something, so smiling, you encourage the two to enter while you will check what was that sound.

---Continue...

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

[spirit-of-vengeance]

@nightmarinqs

𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖔𝖗 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖔𝖓𝖖𝖚𝖊𝖗𝖔𝖗

How she haven't noticed his recurring plan, his desire for control and corruption never laid dormant, only masked by his interest. If it was true. They were so similar yet entirely different; Cindy held his darkness, bathed in the power of abyss, but not entirely tainted by it; her duality cut through the eternal clash of light and shadow.

Perhaps he was feeding on the terror she had caused amongst humans with her gruesome, cruel ways of murder. If so; the pure fear of pain or death of a grown man or woman is much stronger than a little child's fear of the monsters under their bed.

The little town of Burgess was swept apart by a fire tornado, but before the destruction, it was evacuated by the Guardians. They guard. Cindy protects. When everyone fails, she steps in as last resort, the final and strongest line of defense, the reason why she was created, to prevent the balance tripping at all costs. Even if it shatters the remains of her heart.

The forest blazed, the fire roaring through everything in it's path, radiating pure light. The small creek cutting it was the only safe place remaining; last week he was threading his elegant fingers through her hair, he'd found her with it down here. Now he was facing her, standing in the shallow water but not for a playful, flirty duel this time.

His creations stood on the shores, still in great number, despite she had already slain endless amounts of them. Closing in with feverish thunder of their hooves, shrill neighs echoing through the air against the wild cackle of the fire. Stream rose from the creek on her side, the flames in her eyes empty, free from their usual spark, as if she was truly dead. Deep down, Cindy knew this day would came. She wasn't entirely innocent, she had often provoked him for the reason to learn his moves, his style so she could train until the time comes.

"Nem fogom megtagadni önmagamat. Még miattad sem, Szurok. " her mother tongue foreign on her lips, the first time she had spoken since the events unfolded

Her expression stoic, stone cold as she pulled her Hussar swords free from their holsters.

Her form bathed both in the heavenly moonlight and in the sinister glow of the inferno as she took a step forward. The invitation was wordless; only done with her position as she readied herself mentally for the battle with her enemy; no matter how much it pained her.

[mkdremareriser]

So

I’ve come up with my own Kyuranger OCs. I’ll make art for them later when I have the free time, but for now, here’s their information. For convenience sake I’ll be using both the “correct” way of naming them with their constellation’s Japanese name and the “translated” way ‘cuz I kinda like that way too. I’ll let you guys know that some of these OCs are inspired by my own constellation-themed toku-styled story that I had been making for years, but haven’t really done anything with it since I got busy with college and with other ideas (though I STILL plan on using it one day, even if people will think that I’m just ripping off Kyuranger). Hope you all enjoy the many, many Kyurangers I’ve made.

“Death/Burning Star, RoFlame/FornaxFlame!” (According to Wikipedia, “flame” is an actual color)

- Kirrn/RoFlame I: The first user of the Ro Kyutama, Kirrn was a Kyuranger who became evil after gaining a desire to trample those he viewed weaker than him (the original wish was to defeat Jark Matter and become the strongest). Hot-tempered and intelligent, Kirrn hunts down anyone he deems a target, which includes the Kyurangers, Jark Matter, and anyone in his way. He uses the Transformation Remote RoGunnon to change in RoFlame, and controls the Ro/Fornax Voyager that become the Roho-Oh on its own (it can combine with other Voyagers by folding its arms and legs away). As the name implies, the RoGunnon is a weapon that has a gun mode and a cannon mode, and his sidearm the KirinKnife (taken from a Kyuranger he killed) is able to combine with the barrel of the RoGunnon for a bayonet mode. His title as RoFlame is “Death Star”, though it was originally “Burning Star”. His finisher for all forms of the RoGunnon is the “Fornax Punishment”, where he fires a barrage of fireballs at his enemies.

Notes

Kirrn’s name is based on “kiln” and “kill”.

- Blast/RoFlame II: After Kirrn is killed by the Kyurangers in their final battle, the Ro Kyutama flies off and leads the Kyurangers to its new owner, a native from the same planet as Kirrn. While very eager to join the Kyurangers, he couldn’t get the Kyutama to work with the Seiza Blaster until he entered the second fight between the Kyurangers and his planet’s Daikaan, and in trying to activate the Ro Kyutama, summons the RoGunnon to his right hand, and joins the Kyurangers in defeating the Daikaan. Like Kirrn, he’s able to transform into RoFlame with the RoGunnon and controls the Ro/Fornax Voyager that can transform into the Roho-Oh. His title as RoFlame is “Burning Star”. His finisher for all forms of the RoGunnon is the “Forax Inferno”, where he fires a concentrated ball of fire at his enemy.

Notes

Blast’s name comes from “blast furnace”.

Both of the RoFlame’s unique costume quirk is that he’s got furnace stack-like shoulder armor, and his forearms and legs have furnace gates. Likewise, his visor is styled like a furnace gate as well.

“Shine Star, JuujiCrimson/CruxCrimson!” (personally I prefer Crux over “Minami Juuji”, so that’s what I’m going to use)

- Chryshiro/Original Holder of the Crux Kyutama: The Karo of the Crux System, Chryshiro was known as the weakest of the 88 Karo, but not because of his physical strength, but of his heart. He was perhaps the kindest of the Karo, making sure that his system’s people were well-cared for, moving them from planets that were planned to be drained of their Planesium while appointing Daikaan that shared his views. Because of this, he was often ridiculed by his fellow Karo, though he was just as strong as any of them. One day while visiting one of his planets he encountered the Kyurangers, and fought against them and won, imprisoning them. After making plans to depart from the planet with the Kyurangers to take them to Don Armage, the Kyurangers plague him with questions, since they saw that he took care of his people yet was still willing to do even deeds. After minutes of this, he reveals that he had thoughts about fighting Don Armage before, but ended up abandoning them when he realized how strong he was. They accuse him of being too afraid, that he gave up before trying. That’s when Kirrn attacked the planet, searching for the Kyurangers. With his forces being overwhelmed by Kirrn’s power, Chryshiro goes out to fight, telling his subordinates to free the Kyurangers to fight Kirrn if he alone isn’t enough. Despite putting up a good fight against Kirrn, it’s obvious that Chryshiro is more focused on making sure that the people of the planet are out of harm’s way, which lets Kirrn land a few good attacks, damaging his Enlarge Inro (assuming the Karo even use them). The subordinates watching over the Kyurangers decide to free them, and they join the fight. Lamenting his own weakness, Chryshiro looks around and sees the damage caused by the fighting, and wishes to protect the people. This wish creates the Crux Kyutama, but before he had the chance to use it, Kirrn directs his “Fornax Punishment” at a child and their parents. The already weakened Chyrshiro leaps into its way, and takes the full blunt of the attack. As he laid dying, he realized that with his death, the other Karo will be able to subjugate the Crux System however they want, and he begs the Kyurangers to defend them, handing them his Kyutama before succumbing to his wounds. The Kyurangers chase Kirrn off, and while pondering what to do with Chryshiro’s Kyutama, see that it’s shining a light in a certain direction, leading them to its future holder.

Notes

His name’s a combination of “Christ” and “Hero”, since he’s from the Crux constellation.

If you can’t tell I thought a LOT about Chryshiro, Rook, and CruxCrimson.

- Rook/JuujiCrimson/CruxCrimson: A native of a desert planet near the edge of the Crux System, Rook had a vision months ago telling him to build a strange weapon-like device. A tinkerer by trade, Rook was able to get the materials he needed for the device easily, though his friends and family were concerned with the fact that he had the vision in the first place. While agreeing with them, Rook managed to finish building the device, and started carrying it around as a good luck charm until the day the Kyurangers came to his planet, looking for the user of the Crux Kyutama. When they find Rook and realize that the device he made looked like it could use Kyutamas, he was reluctant to join since he just wanted to live peacefully with his family and friends, when the Jark Matter attacked, followed by Kirrn. Realizing that the planet he loved was in danger, he takes the Crux Kyutama, and attaches it to the base of his device, transforming into the Shine Star, CruxCrimson. After chasing Jark Matter off and forcing Kirrn to retreat, Rook joins the Kyurangers in order to protect everyone’s homes. As CruxCrimson, he uses the Transformation Cross Cruxaber and the Crux Kyutama to transform and fight, and the Crux Voyager, which can transform into CrossOh, which has its own arms but can fold them away to combine with the other Voyagers to become Great CrossOh. The Cruxaber has four modes, sword, spear, axe, and gun. His finisher name for all of the Cruxaber modes is the “Crux Brilliance”: For Cruxaber Sword Mode it’s a powerful slash of light. For Cruxaber Spear Mode it’s a series of stabs powered by light. For Cruxaber Gun Mode it’s a blast of light. For Cruxaber Axe Mode it’s a strong smash of light.

Notes

Rook is based on “Luke”, as in “Luke Skywalker”, not the chess piece.

As CruxCrimson, I imagine him having gauntlets and boots that have crosses as his unique costume trait, and his face is a stylized cross. Overall, his aesthetic is pretty knight-like.

The Cruxaber’s shaped like a cross, to match with the whole cross theme.

I can’t draw robots well, especially if they’re suppose to follow an established aesthetic, but I imagine CrossOh’s arms to be similar to Go-buster Ace’s with the way they fold to combine.

“Teaching Star, SankakuTeal/TriangulumTeal!”

- Pytha/SankakuTeal: An android tutor from the Triangulum System, Pytha had spent her entire life teaching the children of the wealthy of her planet, not realizing that the majority of the population was illiterate until she was convinced by her students to take them out to the market so that they could see what they had. Horrified by this revelation, she went to her Daikaan in order to persuade her to let her teach the poor, but was denied and sentenced to reprogramming in order to remove her memories. While she was being led away, the Kyurangers came and fought. In that moment of confusion, she ran away from her captors, and managed to find the Kyurangers, begging them to take her away, wishing to teach those uneducated when the Sankaku Kyutama appeared to her. As SanakuTeal, she uses the Sankaku Kyutama and Seiza Blaster to transform, while using her personal SankakuSpinner weapon to fight, and she pilots the Sankaku Voyager which can turn into a limb for any of the robots. Her finisher is “Sankaku Spinisher”, where she rapidly spins with her SankakuSpinner in its current mode to attack. The SankakuSpinner Sword Mode is a spinning slash (best for one opponent), Gun Mode is a spinning tornado of lasers (best for crowds of enemies), Whip Mode she ties any of the Kyurangers for a combined spinning attack (which very few of them are willing to do since it makes them dizzy).

Notes

Pytha’s name comes from “Pythagoras”.

The SankakuSpinner is an arm-mounted weapon that can change modes depending on which point is over the hand. There are three modes in all: Sword, Gun, and Whip.

The Sankaku Voyager is basically a Tenbin Voyager remold, except the shields are triangular instead.

Honestly I’m torn between “Spinning Star” and “Teaching Star” for her. “Spinning Star” because that’s her thing, and “Teaching Star” because she’s a teacher.

Her unique costume quirk is that she has a noticeable triangle pattern on her suit’s midriff and back that’s a shade darker than the rest of her costume.

“Mini Star, HaeAmber/MuscaAmber!”

- Apys/HaeAmber: A fly-girl from the Musca System, Apys is a thief with the ability to control her dimensions (meaning that not only can she become small, but she can also reduce her body’s thickness to that of paper; likewise, she can become huge) who idolizes the BN Thieves and follows in their footsteps as a “good” thief robbing only from Jark Matter. While on a planet stealing from its Daikaan’s office, she comes across her idols who had been sneaking around to find the Daikaan’s plans (as well as any treasure they could sneak off with), and she follows them in her small form, catching a ride with Balance in his Tenbin Voyager. When she finally revealed herself to the Kyurangers (who she proceeded to idolize over when she found out that Balance and Naga were a part of their group), she decides to join them, though they were reluctant (Balance loved the attention from her, though, enough to try and convince everyone to let her join, and Lucky was always ready to welcome anyone in). She proved her worth when she risked her life getting the plans from the Daikaan (who turned out to had been sleeping with them in his pocket), and nearly died fighting him, though her wish to be a part of the BN Thieves (and the Kyurangers by extension) allowed the Hae Kyutama to appear. Like the other members of the Kyurangers, she uses the Seiza Blaster to transform, uses the Kyu Rapier and Kyu Shot to fight, and controls the Hae Voyager, which unlike the other Voyagers, combines with the back of the robots to give them flight (pretty much what the Washi Voyager toy can do). Her finisher is the “Musca Impact” which is a variant on both Hami’s and Raptor’s finisher depending on what mode she’s using.

Notes

If you’re wondering what she looks like, she’s pretty much like Rachnera from “Daily Life with Monster Girls”, only without the huge boobs (if by just a little : P) and is a fly instead of a spider.

Apys comes from “Apis”, the original name of the Musca constellation.

Her unique costume quirk is that she has fly wings on her back, and two smaller arms that she keeps crossed her torso. But they are fully functional, and can hold more weapons. In fact, I’d have her dual-wield Kyu Rapiers and Kyu Shots if the Kyurangers could use more than one set.

“Artisan Star, GakaJet/PictorJet!” 

- Canvas/GakaJet: An artist with a photographic memory from the Pictor System, Canvas had been struggling with creating art for a while, if only because he’s been stuck on his planet for years making portraits of his vain Daikaan to the point where he can just finish one within the hour without even glancing at him. Frustrated at the lack of creativity and his own planet’s lack of beautiful scenery (it was almost completely drained of its Planesium), Canvas’s life changed when the Kyurangers came to his planet. Upon seeing the “grace” of their fighting, he ends up stopping them from going back to the Orion and begs them to let him paint them. After finishing their painting and realizing that there’s more to the universe that he wants to capture in his art, the Gaka Kyutama appears to him, and he joins the Kyurangers in order to save the universe’s beauty. Canvas uses his personal Pictor Belt that he and Rook made (since he wanted to stand out) to transform, is armed with the Pictor Set (basically weaponized versions of artist tools), and controls the Pictor Voyager, which arms any robot he combines with with an array of artist tools. His finisher is “Pictor Stroke”, where he strikes his enemies with a series of brushstrokes with the brush weapon from his Pictor Set.

Notes

Canvas name is obviously from the word “canvas”.

“Jet” is a shade of black if you’re all wondering.

His unique costume quirk is that he has the Pictor Belt which is basically an artist’s belt, and that he has “paint splotches” on his arms.

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OLD NEWS: Funny how words can change in 100 years

Let’s talk dubs.

A small item in the Oct. 15, 1918, Arkansas Gazette captured a vivid scene from the streets of the capital city:

Fire which damaged two one-story dwellings at Ninth Street and Broadway early yesterday morning brought forth a hero for one brief minute, then made him into a dub again.

Cheerfully, the item reported that “Pete,” a blind black man who played a big bass viol in a segregated orchestra, couldn’t tell how far the fire might spread and so hastily made his way out of his building. In the street he let out a yell begging someone, anyone, “Save mah fiddle. Save mah fiddle.”

Before the eyes of a hundred spectators, one brave bystander dashed into the burning building.

In a minute out he dashed with the precious bass viol under his arms. The big instrument obstructed his view as he ran across the street, his feet became entangled in a stretch of fire hose and down came hero, fiddle and all, with a loud bang.

Owned by the Bragg family estate, the buildings were not greatly damaged. But the instrument was a goner; and that would-be Good Samaritan fled as quickly as he could.

The Gazette is a trove of such vignettes, glimpses of everyday life that would be charmers were they not so often delivered in dialect that seems designed to mock the speakers. But it was the reporter’s word “dub” that stopped me.

The headline used it, too: “A Hero for One Brief Minute, and Then a Dub Again.” What did it mean?

Dub is an unincorporated community in Poinsett County. And we know people named Dub. The 2017 voters rolls list three people with that last name and two whose middle name is Dub. Remember Jefferson County Sheriff Walter C. “Dub” Brassell (1920-2000) and Pulaski and Perry counties prosecutor Wilbur “Dub” Bentley (1927-2007)?

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that their first names begin with W. Imagine a young speller sounding out the letters, and Dub becomes a natural nickname. Someone, please, run ask Chief Justice William Howard “Dub” Arnold about that and report back.

Having lived in the age of dubbed, or copied recordings, as well as the age of voice dubbing — replacing foreign speech with a translation — cousins might call a boy who looks like his daddy “Dub.”

We know it’s an old word. Quaintly power-consolidating monarchs rewarded loyal followersby dubbing them Sir This or Sir That with a sword tap. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the noun joined the language in the middle of the 15th century as an artificial fly for fly fishing.

By the 16th century, Scots were calling stagnant pools “dubs.”

By the end of the 1500s, “dub” was the sound of a beating drum, and then the sound of a blow, or of vigorous scrubbing in the bath.

The OED proceeds through other meanings until it reaches an Americanism that explains what the Gazette reporter was saying: “one who is inexperienced or unskillful at anything; a duffer, fool.”

GAY OIL ON FIRE

Those long-ago Arkansans feel like neighbors — until they go all racist on us or they don’t want to pay for sewers or we notice they’re still riding horses around town. Or they use some word the way they used it, a way that doesn’t make sense to us.

An easy example is “gay.” Even though my dictionary’s definition still begins with “joyous and lively; merry; happy; lighthearted,” the word has evolved since 1918.

And so the title “Gay Office Building” engraved on a facade at 300 S. Broadway in Little Rock might give … I almost typed “might give us the giggles,” but I should know better than to presume Dear Reader is as immature as I am.

The Gay Oil Co.’s two-story, brick, classical revival building is on the National Register of Historic Places, but in 1918 it didn’t exist. Gay Oil had headquarters at Third and Center streets, and its storage tanks were near the Arkansas River at Ninth Street, beside tanks for the Rock Island Railroad.

On the night of Oct. 7, 1918, a Gay Oil delivery truck backfired. Its cylindrical tank had just been filled, and gas had run over the sides. The driver escaped an instant inferno; and no one else was hurt — even though six tanks containing 15,000 gallons each, a 25,000-gallon tank of lubricating oil and several 20,000-gallon machine-oil tanks exploded.

Firemen from companies two and four somehow weren’t decapitated by flying sheet iron.

The Arkansas Democrat reporter estimated that great blurts of burning oil launched skyward at least a dozen times, roaring 500 to 600 feet and evaporating as they fell. After about three hours, oil sluicing through a sewer pipe reached the river.

The surface of the water over a large area was immediately a mass of flame, at times the flame reaching a height of about 20 feet.

Fire crews brought that under control, somehow, after 30 minutes.

A black cloud covered the city. Damage was estimated at $70,000. The Hilliard Monument company nearby was destroyed, without insurance; but the Darrow Warehouse, filled with baled hay, escaped.

Two days later, Gay Oil ads in the Democrat and Gazette assured customers it was delivering “plenty of ‘Gay’ oil and gasoline” to its filling stations.

A highlight box in the ads proclaimed, “Gay means service.”

This ad for cranberries appeared in the Oct. 25, 1918, Arkansas Gazette.

BETTYS

One more odd word from 1918 before I let you go.

Although negotiations had begun to end the Great War, the U.S. Food Administration — aka Herbert Hoover — tightened its fist around sugar, butter, flour, meats.

On Oct. 14, 1918, the Gazette reported new rules for restaurants and boarding houses:

All bread must contain 20 percent flour substitutes; each person should be served no more than 2 ounces of such bread per meal; no bread could be served until the first course was on the table; no bread, toast or bacon could garnish a plate; only one kind of meat per person per meal; no more than 1/2 ounce of butter or American cheese per person per meal …

No guest is permitted to have more than one teaspoonful of sugar, and that only when asked for.

Banquets were condemned, as were “unnecessary” suppers, teas and luncheons. The public should eat only three meals a day.

In this climate of austerity, marketers got creative, witness an ad from the American Cranberry Exchange, trademark: “Eatmor Cranberries.”

Over a recipe for Cranberry Betty, an ad published 100 years ago Thursday declared, “Oh You Betty: A piquant, moreish, Hooverizing, come-hither pudding.”

Hmm. “Betty” was then, at it is today, a baked dessert of sugared fruit and buttered crumbs. But something else is going on in this ad, a flirty allusion.

I have ransacked the Internet and the OED in vain for evidence that, in 1918, “Betty” was slang for a pretty girl. All I’ve found are observations that the name was a specifically American shortening of Elizabeth, dating from 1860, and it began rising in popularity about 1915.

But also during World War I, “betty” became slang for a man who did a woman’s work, or a gay man.

I doubt they were selling cranberries as the gay berry, but who knows? Words have changed.

Email:

cstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 10/22/2018

Source: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/oct/22/funny-how-words-change-20181022/