Here's the prick.



Kilik is the physical manifestation of fear to me.

It all started back in 2005 when Soulcalibur III was released for the ps2. Some friends of mine mentioned something along the lines of "renting Soulcalibur III and beating it together". I wasn't too familiar to the fighting game scene, but was almost positive that Soulcalibur was the crazy fighting game from the Dreamcast with the crazy clawed fellow. I decided to join them, even though I'm none to good at fighting games, my only real previous exposure to fighting games was Street Fighter II on my old Packard Bell, and the occasional round of Soulcalibur or Tekken 3 at the arcade as a young'n.

I joined my friends to "beat the game", which turned out to just be a story mode that didn't take long at all, but we were all so terrible at it, we couldn't even beat Nightmare at the end of the eight or so round tale. Regardless, I found the experience fun and decided it would make a worthy Christmas present.

I grew to enjoy the game a bit, played it with friends here and there. I would have people over and we would have some semi-competitive match-ups, even a full tournament once. I worked at my local movie theater at the time and my buddy was an assistant manager, and we had the crazy idea to hook up a ps2 and play some videogames one night after all the patrons had left.

This is where the shit hit the fan.

My friends and I all got together one night at the theater as planned. I brought my ps2 and a bunch of games ranging from Guitar Hero II to SSX3 to Soulcalibur III, but we only ended up play SCIII.

This is where my friend who will be named Trent in this article found his love. Who knows if it was the sexiness of Yoshimitsu, the appeal of playing it on a giant screen or just the game itself, but for some reason he took to it and quickly added the game to his own ps2 collection. We played a few times together and had fun with it, and college soon started and we ended up at different places but both of us continued to play.


The greatest character in Soulcalibur. Ever.

During this time he developed a love for Kilik as his champion of soul crushing, Yoshimitsu was mine. As my playtime with the game tapered off, I received reports via his roommate that he continued to play the game, religiously. For those of you familiar with the game, he found Night Terror in story mode and beat him with Kilik. If you're some super freak at Soulcalibur and aren't impressed well screw off you fighting game mutant. It's tough.

As freshman year of college ended we never really played Soulcalibur III together. But soon we both purchased PS3s (for MGS4 obviously) and soon thereafter got Soulcalibur IV. A little bit of fighting was done, but not a ton, as we were soon both whisked off for another year of college and this is where the terror starts.

Being that SCIV was blessed with online now, we decided to keep a semi-regular routine of online matches. And I soon began to see what had been brewing behind those dark clouds at his place in college. What I thought would be some fun online playtime with Soulcalibur was soon turned into a very serious affair.

While I spent my time dicking around with Yoshimitsu, I looked to the eastern sky and saw this frightful monster wielding a bo-staff descend from the dark clouds of evil. As we spent time dueling with our burning souls it became more and more apparent how dominant Kilik was. I could not beat him.

I began looking online, seeing what the Soulcalibur community thought of this staff wielding douchebag. I saw arguments claiming him to be "A n00bs character", and "cheap". I began to take these arguments and accusations to heart and saw Kilik as this slithering bitch of a snake, slithering about doing cheap moves that covered low to middle as a rising attack and a sickening amount of reach on so many of his moves.

As a result of my built in prejudice against the staff bitch, I would just say to my friend "Oh Kilik's cheap, obviously." I don't know if it's some inside rage that aside from Kilik, we're pretty close in skill, I'd put him one notch above me, but for some reason, when Kilik gets out there, it's leaps and bounds.

For all I know it could just be pure intimidation at work, knowing that I'll get my ass handed to me. Most nights we would end our series of fights with a Kilik vs. Yoshimitsu cage match. Undoubtedly I would always lose, regardless of how close I came, which was never that close. If I tried to keep my distance he could hit me far away, if I went in to attack close he would just knock me back. I could do nothing to stop his tyranny. I began to loathe Kilik's existence. I never used him myself, and my friend even laid off Kilik because how badly I was getting my ass kicked.

After a few weeks of burning souls and ass kickings received, something happened.


This happened.

Suddenly, after so many losses, this phallic symbol wielding douchebag was human. I saw him bleed before me.

Coming off this victory I became more confident against my digital rival. This wasn't just Trent vs. Me anymore, it was 20 something Rico Suave vs. Chivalrous Demon Samurai. I realized this upstart bo staff nerd face had to be put down.

Then I kept losing.

With one serious loss under Trent/Kilik's belt, he came back with a vengeance not unlike the full fury of hell itself. The struggle would continue. The swear words, the ring outs, the frustration would all be coming back.

Kilik would soon take another hiatus from battling me, because Yoshimitsu and myself were so dishonored at the stains we left on our respective family name. We committed many a seppuku to properly handle the burden of shame.

The battles would continue online with various characters, but in the end it didn't mean much. I had been shamed far too many times by Kilik. On one side I wanted to avenge the Manjitou clan, but on the other I knew what laid beyond the door of Kilik's castle. Death and despair. He would descend to the battlefield from time to time to wipe the floor and then soar back up to his fiery temple of hell.

After a semester of getting my ass kicked with only one victory to my name against the fiend, I went home for Christmas break and licked my wounds. The next semester began and Trent (aka: The physical manifestation of Kilik the baby cruncher) came to visit me at school along with two other hometown friends. Over the weekend Soulcalibur IV inevitably was booted up.

I don't remember the match specifically, but I know I schooled his pansy ass in person, shaming him in front of our other two friends (who didn't give a shit). I jumped and stood on the crouch Tom Cruise style, yelling and spitting and foaming at the mouth. I yelled in his face calling him names you would hear while playing Halo on Xbox live. The shackles of oppression were lifted. The "cheap ass" Kilik was defeated, laying a pool of blood. I cemented the moment by declaring that the last match of the day and turned off the game.

It's been awhile since that time. I don't believe we've played any Soulcalibur IV online since, it's either as a result of my poor sportsmanship victory, or the discovery of Metal Gear Online, but either way, I look forward to a day when I can best the force-of-nature Kilik a third time.

All in all, I guess Kilik isn't a "villain" that I've defeated hundreds of times as most of these articles are about, but I mainly chose this topic because whenever I do defeat Trent's Kilik, it's one of the most liberating feelings ever.

It's... how do you say it: "So Baller."