Much has happened since the KOF 96 finale. For one thing, Dan’s teacher, Hawkin’s, had his secret island base sacked by Shadoloo. Nobody left. Well, it wasn’t so secret after Vega tortured the location out of him months ago. Still, its loss to the Aura community and the followers of Rose was great.

At his father’s request, Dan goes to see his dad and two sisters in Battle Creek, Michigan. They are very interested in what has become of him. And it is an awkward yet heartwarming occasion (perhaps). When one of his sisters goes to borrow some cooking supply from the neighbor next-door and doesn’t return for awhile, Dan starts to worry. Especially considering that all power in the town had gone out earlier and has remained out. The phone lines are also dead. It’s as if no emergency service remains in Battle Creek. Dan goes next door to get his sister to find the neighbor lady hanging from a door by a large kitchen knife.

Dan runs to investigate screams from upstairs and sees Ravenna slashing down a closet door in which his sister is cowering. "Come to fail again? You can’t protect anyone can you?" She taunts him, angered at the scorching his fireballs gave her body two year ago in Tokyo. She should be dead, and Dan cuts loose to make it so. They engage and their attacks cut deep into each other until Ravenna transforms into her true Gaki form which Dan thinks looks like the Violater straight out of Spawn. Keeping his neck from the razor teeth that slice through his body, they battle until they go crashing through the second story window and Dan brings the might of his repeating fireball to bear on her.

From Ravenna’s sparking, exploding body, the souls of those she has consumed raise streaking into the heavens in a bright column visible from afar. The spirit of Alandra stops before Dan, thanks him, regrets the loss of his rose-colored vision of the world, and warns him to fear the easy path.

Dan’s visits the desolated island searching for clues as to the attacks and the whereabouts of his friends and "family" who were there.

Only a few small buildings and lots of charred corpses remain. Dan goes into angst because he knows he gave up the location of the island to Vega. It looks like the battle is over a month old, and there are scraps of Shadoloo robotic warriors littered about as well as broken metal claws, the kind Spanish ninjas favor, mixed in with the slain bodies of aura user defenders. Notable in the ruins are two things. The Body of Master Hawkins is not accounted for, and there appear to be fresh footprints, made substantially after the attack was over. He heads to Orient Bay, the closest settlement and the supply point for the island. Tourism is Orient Bay’s main industry, but during the off season it is mostly dead. That’s why people remembered the large man who stayed a night at the inn and rented a rowboat the nest day: a man by the name of Terra Rysin. Dan later discovers that Terra Rysin is an alias for Hunter H. Helmsley. His former team captain of the KOF team: The Power Trip. But the question remains: What was he doing there and how did he know about the island?

Dan wanders around, the ghost of Hawkin’s wife watching him, not managing to make any more revelations. He sleeps on the island and dreams. It is his third dream and the second which seems perhaps precognitive in nature yet it is filled with strange allusions.

He dreams of flags and the fall of the tower. A golden future. And two eyes open in his mind that are neither his nor part of the dreams. A woman’s voice proclaims him, "Insect," and he feels himself attacked. He awakes with a scream of pain and a cauterized wound in his forehead. Wondering if he awoke in time to prevent more significant damage, he wraps his head and returns to his travels.

Far away in Sacramento, Sarah Kingsley Martin wakes at the same moment as Dan and somehow knows he was in danger.

I Hate Nazis

In a really ill-conceived adventure based off a CornPone flick, the party stops the Nazi’s from getting the Spear of Destiny, fights killer snowmen, Roy saves Bonne Jenet, and they escape the sinking Edmund Fitzgerald II. This particular adventure took place before Judgement Day on page 5 of the Story. Not sure why it’s here.

This may have been the introduction of the Hammer toy, Focus amplifiers mounted on their elite soldiers’ arms which allow them to use Sonic Boom.

Alexi, Kagero, Dan, and Roy invade the creepy mansion of Kharnov von Krippler. They do battle with Adam, Kharnov’s creation of the ultimate man, and several high-ranking members of the Hammer Empire (including Col. Wolfenstein). Natalia Kassle double-crosses the party, and she has a showdown with Kagero. Guile shows up to help even though he said he’d stay in the van.

There is a high-speed chase scene as the party escapes through an underground lair filled with machines of war. Dan drives a truck while avoiding missiles and machineguns from helicopter pursuers. In the end, all the badguys are captured and taken by the US Military.

General Maxim, the US Army officer who traded his rank for Hammer bodyenhancers and Psycho Power, has a military base on the border of Austria. The Hammer’s control of Austria’s government has made them deny any Hammer presence so Roy "leads" the party on a "Mission Impossible" operation. Kagero and Shun lead a detachment of Yomi no Shinobi for a sneak attack. Shun slices open the gun turrets that protect the base perimeter and the party takes them apart from the inside.

After putting away the assortment of goons and thugs, the party enters the large antechamber which every villain must have in his base. Maxim greets them and introduces them to the non-scaled down gattling cannon attached to his arm. Much to the disappointment of the Storyteller (who was hoping for a bloody dramatic battle) Dan deflect the rounds and they do no significant damage. Maxim’s female supersoldiers, Tiger and Panzer leap to attack along with elite Hammer soldiers.

Maxim pulls a Darth Vader and chokes the will out of Alexi with a Psychic Vise, and Alexi is flung by Tiger’s whip to be impaled on a sword and left hanging 10 feet off the ground. So it was bloody and dramatic after all. In the end, the party cleans house and all the villains are taken as prisoners by the US military.

The Hammer Empire is effectively dissolved with no leadership.

Further Adventures

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