NESTS Chronicles

The NESTS Chronicles, also known as the NESTS Saga is the second mainline story arc in The King of Fighters series. It covers the events found in The King of Fighters '99, The King of Fighters 2000 and The King of Fighters 2001.

Past Events
NESTS is a secret organization that had control over all kinds of criminal activity throughout the world. Their dealings made many corporations around the globe to go bankrupt. Their members were wanted by all investigation agencies, but no one could find their headquarters, since their true location was on a satellite hovering around the world. NESTS had a high-technological arsenal of weapons and machines at their disposal, which allowed them to research on many fields of science, specifically on bio-engineering.

Sometime during the Orochi Saga (possibly during the period between the '95 and '96 tournaments), they learned about the Orochi power, as well as Kyo Kusanagi. When Kyo was knocked out after the fight with Orochi in the end of the KOF '97 tournament, they kidnapped him and beginning the "Kusanagi Cloning Program", an experiment where children were turned into human weapons based on Kyo's appearance and DNA.

One of these children for this program was a boy with an unknown name, and his elder sister Seirah. In 1998, the boy was made to participate in the Kusanagi cloning program. He was infused with Kyo Kusanagi's DNA, which gave him the power of pyrokinesis, as well as a clone based on his appearance named Krizalid. During the program, his memory was tinkered with, and he was made to believe that he was Krizalid clone. Any real memories from his past have either been erased by NESTS, forgotten, or repressed. With his memories suppressed, and now working for NESTS, the boy with no name now became known as K'; a boy who would eventually become NESTS's ultimate downfall.

New Challengers, New Rules
Two years after the previous tournament, The King of Fighters tournament returned in full force. However, this new tournament came with a surprising new rule; Teams were no longer comprised of 3 members, but rather 4. This 4th member of a Team would be dubbed as "Strikers", allowing them to be summoned at any time during a match for assistance, albeit for limited attempts. With these new rules in place, every single team was shaken up with new dynamics:

Fallen Angel
Once again, all of the teams fought will all their strength, culminating with the Hero Team winning The King of Fighters '99. However, during the tournament, several reports from many agencies reported that many people with the appearance of Kyo Kusanagi have shown up in various locations around the world, a feat that Heidern requests the Ikari Team to look into.

During the finals, the Hero Team is taken to an underground base to meet Krizalid, an agent who reveals himself to be a member of the mysterious organization NESTS. Krizalid reveals that the whole tournament was used to record combat data from all of the fights he obtained to activate an army of Kyo clones that NESTS themselves had created after the fight against Orochi. He is faced in two states: first he appears with a special coat that analyzes an opponent's data. Once he's defeated, he burns away his coat and increases his strength while having stronger moves. K' used everything that he had and more to take down Krizalid.

After Krizalid's defeat, his superior attempts to kill him via falling debris while other members of NESTS attack K' and Maxima, who are both revealed to be former NESTS agents and that the duo succeed in defeating their enemies before making their escape from the collapsing location of their battle against Krizalid. K' then discovers that he is a test subject designed to replicate Kyo's techniques. Interested in learning more about his stolen past, he decides to take down NESTS, with Maxima helping him.

Aftermath
Mere moments after Krizalid's death, the underground NESTS base exploded, which caused many of the fighters to get caught up in. Terry Bogard, a yearly combatant in The King of Fighters tournament, was nowhere to be found, with his glove being the only thing left. Takuma Sakazaki was seemingly crushed underneath the rubble, although he humorously broke out of it shortly afterwards. Athena was caught underneath the falling rubble and passed out. Though he has no memory of it, Kensou saved her with a formidable latent energy known as the Dragon Spirit, something that seems to affect both him and Bao.

A few hours after the tournament's conclusion, Whip returned back to the area where the final battle took place and found Krizalid, still barely alive from the crash. She asks Krizalid if he remembers his father's face, to which he discovers that he cannot remember. Whip reveals to him the reason why he couldn't remember is because he was not her brother; K' was. Krizalid would shortly die realizing that he was the clone of K'. His corpse was later taken into custody by the Ikari mercenaries, with Whip crying silently.

New Millennium
Nearly a year after the events of the 1999 tournament, Heidern is determined to figure out the objective of the NESTS cartel so that he can stop them from achieving their ruthless ambition. A fellow commander and long-time friend of Heidern, named Ling, tells the veteran fighter that K' and Maxima may hold the key to locating the whereabouts of the mysterious organization. Using this information, Heidern decides to focus his efforts on finding the duo so that they can be captured and interrogated for information.


 * K' and Maxima were joined by mercenaries Vanessa and Ramón. They entered the tournament to discover NESTS scheme, but Vanessa and Ramón were really there to capture K' and Maxima at the end of the tournament, since they were working for Ling and Heidern.


 * Benimaru and Shingo meets up with two individuals; an agent named Seth and an assassin named Lin. Shingo was nearly killed by Lin when he almost touched his band, but was saved at the last second by Benimaru.


 * Terry is revealed to have survive the NESTS base collapse and returns back to South Town. The reason Terry didn't contact with any of his friends or loved ones in his time of absence between the previous and upcoming tournaments was because he discovered that Mary is one of NESTS' primary targets to be disposed. He decides to help her out in her job by teaming up with her in tournament.


 * Ryo welcomed King into the team, even though Robert's protests, as Yuri back to the Women Fighters Team. Takuma apparently noticed (and mistook) the respect the young fighters had for one another for love and presses his wishes for her to join whenever the time calls for it (something Robert and Yuri would eventually do too).


 * Due to King joining the Art of Fighting Team, A few days prior to the 2000 tournament, Yuri and Mai call Kasumi to be a member the next year and gracefully accepts. The next day, they hold auditions for who would be their fourth member. A girl named Hinako Shijou enters, with the three girls are surprised to see a girl like Hinako would enter a tournament. Mai deciding her worth by making Yuri and Hinako fight. Hinako succeeds in proving her worth by defeating Yuri in a mock match.


 * The Ikari Warriors Team is once again tasked with investigating any shady activity during the tournament.


 * Prior to the events of the tournament, Chin suspects that the Dragon Spirit is connected between the two boys. His theory is because Kensou used the Dragon Spirit, its power was transferred to Bao, and completely drained Kensou of his Psycho Power. Despite this, Kensou decides to enter KOF regardless of if he has his Psycho Powers or not.


 * The Korea Team continues their Rehabilitation Project.


 * Kyo and Iori once again view events from the sidelines.

Anti-K'


After K' and Maxima's betrayal, NESTS began working on ways to take out the traitors. Due to how powerful K' was, the answer was to fight fire with fire; or in this case, ice. Learning what they knew about the K' program, NESTS created the Anti-K program; an experiment that alters the users DNA to control ice. Their experimentations culminated by using a little girl who was kidnapped by NESTS at a young age. This little girl would become Kula Diamond; their Anti-K'. Despite the fact that Kula was a mindless puppet with no sign of emotions (aside from being an innocent young girl), the NESTS cartel was not willing to repeat the same mistake they made with K'. Therefore, NESTS created an android called Candy Diamond, who would monitor Kula's behavior and assure that Kula would accomplish her missions, providing assistance in battle if she was needed. NESTS also assigned two of their top agents, Diana and Foxy to supervise and prevent any sort of betrayal by Kula.

Prior to the events of KOF 2000, NESTS orders Kula to exterminate the cartel's traitor, K' during the tournament. During the midway point of the Tournament, Kula freezes an arena, trapping K' and his team. She is ordered by Diana and Foxy to exterminate K'. The two fight and K' came out the victor, forcing her to retreat.

Zero Cannon
At the finals of the tournament, the Hero Team are taken to an underground mansion via a hidden elevator and are greeted by a mysterious but sinister-looking man. At the same time, Ling and a couple of his associates suddenly betray Heidern by holding him at gunpoint. In the underground mansion, the man known as Zero reveals he had the real Ling killed and replaced with a clone in disguise. He also tells the fighters that he was a former member of NESTS with plans to eliminate the cartel by using a powerful space-based weapon known as the Zero Cannon. To demonstrate his power, Zero fires a warm-up shot of the cannon towards Earth and wipes a city off the map.



The Hero Team fights Zero and defeat in combat. However, he is rather pleased at his defeat, revealing that the fighter's battle energy powers the Zero Cannon, and their battle gave it enough energy to power it. He attempts to fire the Zero Cannon again, but nothing happens. It's revealed that Heidern swiftly and forcibly removes the clone Ling's remote control of the cannon while dispatching him in the process. Meanwhile, in space, Kula and Candy stands atop of the Zero Cannon and destroys it while in orbit. This causes it to fall straight to Earth, causing it to crash them to be caught in the blast and falls head-first to Earth, but Candy sacrificed herself to save her beloved sister.

Tragedy


The second shot of the Zero Cannon hits South Town, destroying the town, and catching everyone in the process. All of the fighters miraculously survived, although the Benimaru Team would come face to face with a man named Ron; the person Seth and Lin were looking for. He reveals that he betrayed the Hizoku by joining NESTS for personal gain, labeling himself as a traitor by many of the group's members. Ron attempts to kill Lin and Shingo, but escapes to avoid Benimaru's Electro Trigger.

NESTS's Requiem
After the destruction of South Town by the hands of the Zero Cannon, the incident was reported to be the result of an artificial satellite crashing to earth and adorned the front pages to various newspapers of countries all over the world. A legion of individuals called for the end to The King of Fighters tournament, which had a notorious history of always inviting some sort of violent accident. In an ironically turn of events, this ended up causing the KOF tournament to regain considerable popularity. And thus, The King of Fighters 2001 was planned to take place. The interest in the tournament rivaled that of the KOF '97 tournament, perhaps even exceeding it.

Save the Universe
In the tournament finals, the Hero Team boards a special blimp that is soon revealed to be a spaceship. There they meet Original Zero, whose clone decimated the cartels' secrecy with his scheme in the previous year. He congratulates them for reaching the finals and states that they're headed for NESTS's real headquarters. He decides to entertain his passengers with a match and is backed up by his pet black lion Glugan, Ron, and Krizalid. Despite the oppressive force of his group, he is defeated moments before the ship docks at NESTS's space satellite. He stays on board the exploding ship and urges the Hero team to proceed forward.



Once inside NESTS's satellite, they face the NESTS leader, Nests. He expresses wishes for his renegade agents to return to the organization and is soon afterward killed by Igniz, who claims ownership of the cartel. Igniz also reveals that K', Kula, Krizalid, K9999 and Whip were are guinea pigs; creations made for his own personal entertainment. Kula, who was separated from the rest of her team and present at the time, also heard her origin as an artificial life form. Declaring himself a god, he assaults the team as his first act of "divine retribution" and defeats them. As soon as he's about to kill K', other fighters came to intervene and help in the fight. When he's defeated, he proclaims that he is a fallen god and names himself a "demon" instead. He plunges the satellite through earth's atmosphere in an attempt to demolish his competition and the planet.

Thankfully, the satellite crashes into the ocean and the fighters aboard were somehow saved from the explosion, presumably thanks to Ron. K' saves Kula from drowning; in gratitude, she and her guardian, Diana, ally themselves with K' and company. K9999 and Ángel are presumably still alive though their exact whereabouts are unknown. Foxy is also stabbed by them though her apparent on-screen death is later revealed to be false.

Ron reveals to Misty about the Dragon Spirit, and how its power surpasses NESTS. This power currently resides in Kensou, and is interested in releasing this power for an unknown goal.

With Igniz's death, it signaled the end of the NESTS cartel. K' and Kula, now free from NESTS, both want to make their own future and make up for the time lost in their lives.

The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match

 * This section's information is based on materials that is not canon within the NESTS Chronicles, due to K9999's eventual omission from succeeding story series and being replaced, as seen below.

Project Zhe Prime
Nameless is the 9,999th K' clone and the only survivor of "Project ". He is known by NESTS by his codename "'" or "Zhe Prime". Existing as an experiment subject to perfect the Kyo Kusanagi cloning program that was first achieved with K', he only knew pain and suffering from excruciating endurance tests, with his "brothers" (other clones dubbed as "K' children") being guinea pigs to the Kusanagi DNA, with gruesome results from explosions and genetic mutations, or even death. Nameless himself has come close to death at least 180 times.

Nameless's miserable existence would one day be eased with Isolde, having fallen in love with her. Whenever he was badly injured, he would see the beautiful yet sad girl near the infirmary. Isolde became his motivation to live on and endure the painful experiments, and little did Nameless know he would also indirectly help Isolde improve her own powers, and that his attraction for her was mutual.

During the course of the experiments, Nameless eventually gains control and strength over his power. Once the laboratory members deemed him fit to wield the Kusanagi flame, his custom glove was grafted onto his left arm. The glove is meant to enhance his strength of will, which would theoretically make him as adept as Kyo. A similar glove design was originally planned for K' but he left before it could be used on him.

He was immediately sent to Earth to test his fighting skills, and with him being able to kill by mere touch (a tap on the shoulder), demonstrated unintentionally with an unfortunate woman victim, he was designated as an assassin. On one of his assignments, he cornered a man who was trying to escape from the syndicate. In a bid to spare his life, the escapee confessed the truth behind Isolde.

She was a part of the Anti K' Project, similar to Kula Diamond, and was given the power to control ice. However, her abilities were deemed to be inadequate until she saw Nameless. The organization soon noticed that Nameless and Isolde's abilities are increasing by meeting each other, and so they were allowed to routinely see one another to bring out their full potential. Regrettably, Isolde died from her testing. Rather than waste her progress, NESTS crafted her DNA into Nameless's glove. Her abilities keep the flames pacified until needed for use.

Nameless doesn't know if he should believe the man, but he realizes that his words have weight to them. He hasn't seen Isolde since he received his glove. Not wanting to risk losing Isolde, he unquestionably follows any orders he's given by NESTS. He hopes to one day return her to her rightful body and perhaps, even bring her back to life.

Debutant Characters

 * Characters who made their canonical debut in The King of Fighters series, ordered by their first appearance in the series.

Returning Characters
Characters who are returning from previous installments in The King of Fighters series, ordered by their first appearance in the series.

Non-Canon Characters
Characters who are not playable in this saga canonically, but do appear in Dream Match games, ordered by their first appearance in the series.

Character Strikers
Non-Playable Characters who appear as Strikers.

NPC Characters
Non-playable characters who appear during the saga's lore.

Characters & Teams' Participations

 * Teams in which the characters who participated in the saga were inserted.

Mainline Games

 * Teams and/or particaptions of the debutant or returning characters in mainline games of the saga, either they canonical or not.


 * Note 1: The order of the tables are based on the appearances on the first mainline game of the saga.
 * Note 2: About the colors in the table, they follow the logic below:


 * Yellow: for table titles.
 * Lime & Red: for the characters' participation in the saga.
 * Forest Green & Fire Brick: the first color indicates the characters who participated in all games of the saga, and the second indicates the characters who were absent from, at least, one game in the saga.

Spin-Off Participations

 * Participation of the debutant or returning characters in spin-off games with direct relation to the saga, either they canonical or not.


 * Note: About the colors in the table, they follow the logic below:


 * Yellow: for table titles.
 * Lime & Red: for the characters' participation in the game.
 * Forest Green & Fire Brick: the first color indicates the characters who participated in the game, and the second indicates the characters who were absent in the game.