Kula Diamond

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Context

Kula Diamond was originally introduced in King of Fighters 2000 as a possible mid-boss – and as a foil to the new hero of the series K’.

Since he uses fire she uses ice, but eventually she became a mainstay in the series. She left the NEST Cartel to join up with the heroes and fight the good fight.

She’s also unlike many ice characters in comics and other media.

Background

Powers and Abilities

Kula has a fighting style very similar to K’. Whose style is listed as “Pure Violence”, but resembles Jeet Kune Do.

Her style is also officially listed as Anti-K’ Arts. But its only “anti” in the “beat him at his own game” sense.

Still, Kula’s JKD is a lot more flexible than K’s. She delivers a lot of high kicks, and some of her moves on frozen surfaces evoke figure skating.

Cryomancer

She also has numerous ice-related powers:

Her cryokinesis could shatter with one blow the mighty Zero Canon, a city-destroying railgunSci-fi gun using magnetic acceleration of projectiles., plus its orbital platform. But in DC Heroes RPG terms, she was likely spending the max amount of Hero PointsDC Heroes RPG concept expressing narrative importance/immunity. and going for broke.

Signature moves

Gameplay wise she’s a “uppercut sister” with a bit of a twist. Therefore, her main special moves are:

Other notes

Both stylistically and mechanically she plays a lot like Sub-Zero of Mortal Kombat fame.

She’s a versatile character. Kula Diamond can fight from any distance thanks to her projectile attacks and she’s got some good combos when she’s up close and personal.

Her main drawback is that her damage output isn’t that great unless a player is thoroughly familiar with her moveset and combos. A lot of her moves also leave her wide open to counter attack if poorly executed.

Ms. Diamond also has some technical and artistic skills. But it’s nothing major. She’s been unable to repair Candy after all these years and her art is mostly cosmetic footnotes.

Soundtrack

Her KoF XV musical theme, which is oddly chiptunish.

History

Kula was abducted at young age to become an Anti-K’ Program subject. Her DNA was manipulated to give her ice powers to counter K’s pyrokinetic abilities.

This experimentation caused to her develop a sort of Jekyll and Hyde personality. She was an immature little girl when not on missions, and a remorseless killer when doing the Cartel’s dirty work.

Despite all this — or rather because of it — these circumstances made her develop strong bonds with her handlers.

KOF 2000

Kula’s mission was to terminate the traitor K’.

K’ had previously been one of the NEST Cartel’s top agents. But he betrayed them after competing in a King of Fighters tournament alongside Benimaru Nikaido and Shingo Yabuki.

To ensure that she didn’t betray the organization Candy, Foxy, and Diana were dispatched along with Kula.

Towards the end of the tournament she froze the arena and engaged K’ one on one. Meanwhile, the rest of his team as well as the Japanese Team went in orbit to fight the final boss Zero.

Kula fought K’ fully intent on killing him, but after a pitched battle K’ won by a narrow margin. Her handlers helped her escape.

Diamonds are moonrakers

Aboard the orbital station, Zero lost the fight against the combined might of the top tiered fighters. But he decided to go out with a bang and targeted (dangerous) South Town.

It was at this point that both Kula and Candy had enough of NEST’S dastardly deeds. They used their combined ice powers to destroy the Zero Canon. But under the strain, the station started coming apart.

Initially neither were going to make it out in time. But when the space station started to crash Candy sacrificed herself in a Hail Mary attempt to save her surrogate sister.

It worked and Kula survived. But she was heartbroken, and vowed to find a way to repair her robot sister.

Foxy and Diana didn’t really try to stop the sisters. But they remained loyal to the Cartel.

KOF 2001

Despite her misgivings Kula went right back to working for the NEST Cartel – albeit in a diminished capacity.

With the next KOF tournament on the horizon she was ordered to participate. The other team members were Foxy and newly introduced top NEST agents Angel and K9999 (pronounced K four nine).

Their primary mission was to eliminate K’ and his team. Their secondary objective was to eliminate any other teams that might pose a threat to NEST’S interests. So basically all the other teams. However, K’ and company once again came out victorious.

Loyalty issues

Angel and K9999 had secret orders. They were to terminate Kula and Foxy should they not show utter loyalty to the cartel.

That they simply did their job wasn’t really good enough for die hard loyalist and psychologically unstable K9999. He critically wounded and seemingly slew Foxy. Kula was shocked by this turn of events, but managed to escape.

She later went to one of the NEST space station seeking answers. K’ and his group were there, and they welcomed her to the team – since the Cartel had ruined her life, too.

Angel and K9999 had followed Kula. But they were forced to retreat as the pair couldn’t hope to stand up against the combined might of Kula, K’, Maxima, Whip, and Lim.

KOF 2003

KOF 2002 was a noncanon dream match.

As to KoF 2003, it was the start of a new saga called the Tales of Ash. Kula didn’t participate in this tournament. She and K’s team were fugitives and keeping a low profile. They took a backseat and went from former champions to basically the back of the pack.

It’s possible that with the NEST Cartel seemingly being dismantled, K’s team lost the will to fight. Perhaps they only participated in the tournament to come out of hiding and merely blow off some steam.

Kula was only briefly seen in K Team’s ending, which may or may not even be canon. She was conforted by Diana and the two just kind of hung out in the background.

KOF XI

Prior to the tournament Kula started hanging out in a park.

She noticed that a girl about three years younger than her. She would often play on the swings and then go home without interacting with anyone.

Diana asked Kula if she wanted to become friends with the girl. But during the night, she learned that the kid had died in a hospital despite the doctor’s best efforts.

This sent Kula into a spiral. She began to contemplate what the difference was between her body and not just that of the girl’s, but everyone around her. She obsessed over having been subjected to multiple genetic experiments when she was still a child.

Forensics of the furious

Later after the events of the tournament K’ and company were summoned to Heidern’s Ikari Warrior’s base.

This was a bold move since they had hunted K’s Team since 2000. But both sides seemed willing to bury the hatchet.

The Warriors had retrieved the body of the defeated boss Magaki. But as they were studying it two of the Those from the Past broke into the facility. They stole the body and badly injured Heidern.

Kula and the rest of K’s Team were on site. But they did not yet know where the corpse was, and thus they were unable to help.

Though they no longer could help with analysing the body, they parted with the Ikari Warriors on amicable terms.

KOF XIII

KOF XII was just another noncanon dream match. And the game wasn’t quite finished due to a poorly-handled technological transition.

At any rate Kula moved into K’ and Maxima’s apartment. Now that they were no longer fugitives and their complicated backstory with the NEST Cartel had been dealt with they were content to lead a pretty normal life. They presumably got normal jobs to support themselves.

By chance Kula also became online friends with Chin Gentsai. Which’s a little creepy considering that he’s a married senior citizen and that she’s a minor.

We all scream for ice cream

Chin persuaded her to enter her team into the tournament by offering her tons of ice cream. His ulterior motives are unknown, but it’s probable that he was drunk when he concocted this scheme.

Whip found out about this and wanted in on the action.

But even these long running champions didn’t really have much of an impact on the main storyline. Presumably K’ and Maxima weren’t exactly motivated to participate. No word on whether Kula and Whip got their participation trophy in the form of ice cream.

This game also concluded the Tales of Ash storyline.

KOF Maximum Impact 2

Heidern tasked Kula with entering this new single fighter tournament so she could locate Dr. Makishima. He was the scientist who had turned her teammate Maxima into a cyborg, and the only person who could fix Maxima’s failing nuclear core.

During the games, Kula defeated the newcomer Nagase. The brash Nagase swore revenge for the humiliation.

However, financial troubles forced SNK to drop the exciting, new Maximum Impact series. The game was declared noncanon and the dozens of new characters that it introduced vanished.

Still the game could be included with her storyline. It doesn’t conflict with anything in the main canon. Maxima’s core was presumably quietly fixed off camera at some point so he could live to fight another day.

KOF XIV

This game marked the start of the Shin’ei Saga.

While no longer fugitives, the team still found themselves occasionally under attack from die hard NEST loyalists. Those apparently didn’t get the memo that the organization was now defunct.

Kula got a tip from Ikari Warrior Ralf that NEST operatives would be participating in the upcoming tournament. So she once again entered her team – both to confront these, and because the Ikari Warriors bribed her with ice cream.

But again K’ dragged his feet, hindering the team’s progress. They lacked an impact in the storyline.

36 hours after the destruction of the big bad Verse, K’s team met with the Ikari Warriors for a debrief. But while everyone else was paying attention Kula and Whip sat in the back, ate ice cream, and chatted.

SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy

This game was widely considered a facile, tasteless cash grab. It features most of the female fighters in skimpy outfits participating in a nonsensical tournament with a paper thin storyline. Presumably it was an attempt to keep a financially troubled company afloat.

The following storyline likely thus was noncanon.

Sometime between the events of KOF XIV and XV, mysterious recent character Kukri teleported a bunch of the female fighters to a pocket dimensionOther realms of existence that are not our universe.. As well as a few male fighters that somehow became gender flipped. So that they could fight for his perverse amusement.

Eventually he was defeated and the women were returned home. Kula then woke up from a bad dream in which K’ and Maxima had eaten all her ice cream, but was relieve to find that there was plenty left.

Dead or Alive 6

Kula made a brief appearance as one of the final DLC characters in DOA6.

The scientist and fighter NiCO had discovered an alternate dimension and beamed one of its denizens to her realm to collect combat data. It seems likely that NiCO came out on top, but she gave Kula a giant lollipop as a consolation prize.

She also told her not to tell anyone of their encounter, then thanked her for providing some interesting data before whisking her back to her own dimension.

This would likely be noncanon in both universes. But it doesn’t really change anything either way if it isn’t.

KOF XV

The Ikari Warriors had tasked K’ and his team with ending the serious threat posed by the remaining NEST loyalists.

It turned out that the Cartel was in better shape than previously thought. They were still operating from the shadows and still had their fingers in a lot of black market activity. Not as much as they had in their heyday, but the supposedly destroyed NESTs remained a global threat.

Due to their hectic schedule of hunting down and dismantling the organization K’ and Maxima thrice failed to fulfill their promise of taking Kula to an amusement park. She rebelled and wound up joining a team of former NEST members after they bribed her with ice cream.

(Because at this point God help you if you get between this woman and a sundae).

Oh, NEST work

This caused K’, Maxima, and Whip to enter again to try and find Kula. And potentially get her out of a bad situation as well as apologize to her.

Angel and Krohnen McDougal (actually K9999 in disguise) became tired of Kula’s childish antics. They safely returned her to Foxy and Diana along with her cut of the prize money. They also seemed concerned that Kula might get wise to their plans.

(Previous fan speculation that the NEST pair sought revenge thus appear to have been wrong. But as of this writing it is not certain whether this game will be considered canon).

Description

When Kula was first introduced she was a mere 14 years old. But as of early 2023, she seems to be in her early to mid-twenties.

Her hair is officially stated to be strawberry blonde. But in all official art work and in the games its either white or a very pale blue.

Likewise her eyes are listed as blue. But a lot of the artwork depicts them as brown or even purple.

Her skin is extremely pale – to match the ice princess motif.

Kula wears a dark purple leather body suit similar to racing leathers with black trim, chaps and a yellow belt. Plus black combat gloves similar to K’s with yellow highlights – and matching boots.

She’s generally drawn to kind of cute, girly, and very youthful looking. She often holds a large lollypop to indicate her love of sweets.

Personality

Kula was meant to be a more “authentic” female character both in design and personality. SNK had just hired a new wave of female employees and management felt that by consulting them they could produce a more naturalistic female fighter.

However, the result wasn’t the deepest-nuanced character.

During her first few appearances she was said to have somewhat of a split personality:

Ice, ice, baby

Once she left the organization and spent more time with K’ the whole cold blooded killer thing receded. Kula became an annoying tweeny bopper who’s only real motivation seems to be to fight for ice cream.

She also seems bereft of common sense. With her talents she could presumably get a legitimate job and make enough money to buy her own ice cream. Rather than fight in dangerous tournaments to maybe score some frozen treats.

She does care deeply about her surrogate family including:

But Kula is too immature to meaningfully express these feelings. What she actually does is get in trouble and accuse others of stealing her ice cream.

Quotes

“You serious ?”

“OK. Here I come… with a big one !”

“I won ! Are you happy ?”

DC Universe Adaptation

(This section proposes ways of using this character in DC Universe stories).

Kula was a clone of Killer Frost created by Lex Corp to be used as a weapon. After several missions she sabotaged the lab that created her and ran away. Now she is on the run from both Lex Corp and the law for her previous criminal actions.

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