Description: In this log, training dummies employed by Pacific High's Southtown chapter go on strike to demand benefits like more flexible hours, health benefits, and overtime pay. That, or a teacher and a student talk about the wide world of fighting while continuing to oppress these poor, overworked, underpaid training dummies. One of the two. Maybe both, or even neither?!
The preliminary Strolheim match is complete, and Vince... did not do as well as he'd hoped. Paired against someone who had that very, very strange, not-at-all chi energy that he's come across only once. And because of this, it cost him first impressions. Which to the perfectionist, is entirely unacceptable. So even though he's returned to Southtown to resume school and catch up with what he didn't get for being in America, he's been out on the athletics field for the majority of the day.
School is a tomorrow thing. Not a today thing, today being Sunday and all. And who cares if he winds up a little sunburned from being out here this many hours? He failed himself, and he failed to properly represent Rose Dansant! He -can't- let it end that way!
The sun is starting to set in the sky, twilight settling about the field and most other students starting to shuffle indoors. Vince, however, remains outside with a few training dummies set up. His school jacket is settled atop a red flauncy (a.k.a., generic highschool-looking) backpack, tie worn loose around his neck. Some bangs are matted to his sweating forehead, young swordsman heaving with labored breaths. Rapier in hand is drawn back to his left side, chambered, then driven forth towards one of the targets. A direct stab, for certain, but with only a small whisp of smoky gray energy pointing the tip of it.
Howard Rust, the shop teacher, is attributed to many things. Arthritis. Bad combovers. Haplessness. And, most mundanely, benches. Pacific High is a facility that boasts state of the art everything of the highest workmanship and quality. Yet, for some reason or another, half the time he's called to the Athletics Field it's because of a bench that needs fixing. It's not a bench that he previously fixed. It's like all these benches, sometimes, seem to be plotting amongst one another the best way to start breaking apart so that they call the teacher to the field to make him spend precious time and energy making sure the benches are fixed and won't fall apart again, because apparently the custodians and other servant types rich people have access to just don't have a way with benches like he does.
Where the other kids are going indoors as the sun sets and Mr. Rust is more or less done with the present bench issue, Vince is still at it. If it weren't for Vince still being at it... well... there wouldn't be much of a point in him still being out here. There's not much of a breeze and the sky is nice and clear but television - especially the stuff from back home like any given sports game - is more captivating.
"You've been at this a while," the teacher says as he strolls up from the distance by Vince's left, and Rust's left shoulder says hello! If joints are even capable of speech in their poppy-creaky-snappy language (they aren't). He's dressed about as he always is when he's not teaching, because the teaching uniform is really hot and let's face it, it's not suitable for garage work and that's why he seems to get away with wearing his street clothes in a lot of situations. Ol' Rusty is still shoved through a pocket of that poor innocent toolbelt who didn't need a pocket destroyed just for the sake of that middle aged man's preferences as to how to carry it.
"How long you plan to be out?" The gravelly voice asks, free of the usual strain. Maybe he didn't have to do a lot of yelling today.
The rapier is drawn back from the dummy, Vince openly panting now. With a few seconds of this concentrated breathing through clenched teeth, Vince's blade becomes encased in a swirl of smoky gray.
One more breath.
"YAHH!"
The blade is driven towards the dummy, but the fatigue Vince is enduring becomes all the more apparent. The youth collapses forward with that stab and lance of chi, all but hanging onto the impaled pseudo-person. That's about when he takes his body's very clear message into account - he should take a breather.
The voice then cuts through the air. Vince's head lifts, then turns aside, tired icy blues settling on Mr. Rust. "B-bonsoi..," Vince replies weakly, offering a dim smile. "..I'll stay out here.. until I've improved..," he replies resolutely. "I cannot afford.. to become lazy.."
That last burst of smoky gray is so vibrant that the teacher's advance halts for that briefest moment, even though he's well out of reach. It does go to show what sort of intensity Vince puts into fencing. After all, he's watched a few lectures and matches every other time he's been called here.
With Vince's forward collapse into the dummy, the older among them (unless those dummies have been around longer than they appear to have been) grabs a half-consumed water bottle out of his toolbelt and, upon actually coming within arm's reach of Vince, holds it out to him. (Whether Vince there is the type to accept water someone else already drank out of, well...)
"Never seen you this... uh, driven." That might be putting it lightly, the teacher only slightly bewildered at the sudden shift from 'frequent practice' to 'hard exertion,' but then again he's nobody to talk if he's about to criticize this!
The dehydrated noble looks to the water bottle, and eagerly - though politely - takes it to draw a healthy swig. The bottle is then lowered to his side briefly before offered back to his teacher. "Merci..," he offers, still quite breathless.
Vince grants Rust a second smile, though this one a little sheepish. "Either.. you have not seen too much of me.. or I have become lazy." It's a joke. Partly. Vince pulls himself off the dummy and yanks his steel from the husk. "Either way, my introduction to Strolheim was -pathetic-. I've shamed Rose Dansant, and every other LaRose with my performance. So I must train harder, more ardently to do them justice."
Despite this, Vince overturns his sword the slide it into the scabbard at his left hip. A break is due for now. But not a long one, if Vince has anything to say about it.
"It.. was a good performance, and I'm sure it was entertaining for the spectators.. but..." He pauses to shake his head. "The type of energy Zach used was too much. My winds sheared him truly, but it was insufficient. So I must harness it better."
The teacher raises his left hand and shakes it in dismissal. Nah, that's Vince's if he needs more, this is like the first time in forever his throat hasn't been so... dry. Scratchy. At least not yet. But if Vince continues to insist and hold it out, he'll take it back. But for now the bottle may very well rest in continuity limbo like the lozenge Nataya handed him when he first met.
The speak of family shame. Mr. Rust doesn't have a lot to say about it as he rests a hand up against the dummy just impaled and gives it a good shake to ensure it's still solid. But he listens, about as intently as he can. After all, it's just him, Vince, and whatever few students are still lounging around the fields for whatever purpose.
The idle shaking of the dummy stops abruptly with mention of the word Zach, turning his head juuuuust a little more to Vince because it's already turned to him but there's always room to turn a little more, and by golly the mention of that name is enough to make ol' Howard find a way to turn his head that much more.
"You mean... Zach Glen?" He runs his other hand over his own scalp. "Purple hair... kinda short, about this tall?" Holding that same hand now parallel to the ground roughly sixty one inches from it, give or take a few. "With that... purple... explosive stuff?" His tone bleeds into wincing as he bends down to massage the knee that so very, very, very clearly remembers what happened when he decided to step on that little sparkly angular blob of bright purple color and debilitating painful sensation.
"Unfortunately. Encountered something like it only once before, and it was unpleasant then as well." Vince's gaze drops, just as his hand lowers the bottle to his side again. "..I overcame it then, though, and defended Pacific High."
Vince shakes his head slowly. "I must improve myself if I'm to win that tournament. Assuming they even allow me to stay," he mutters. It's plainly evident by his self-loathing tone that -he- wouldn't let him stay, were he the one calling the shots. But again, Vince is a perfectionist. Such a glaring failure as was in Metro City is grievous indeed.
"Tch. I -will- improve my technique and draw forth the wind more fervently!," Vince says in resolution. "The rosettes, the wind, the rapier... I'll not only prove to -him- the full potential of Rose Dansant, but the world!"
A rosette is drawn from his belt and quickly stabbed into the markedly innocent dummy Mr. Rust has been toying with. A savage stab, to be sure, triangle-shafted blade sinking in at the hollow of neck and shoulder. Which, you know, would logically be a killing strike.
"I--!" Vince pauses, eyes widened briefly. He turns aside, one hand still holding the murderous stiletto bloom in the dummy, now staring at Rust. "You knew him? How so?"
The teacher lets Vince go on with his loud promises to the world around him, because hell, that's what young people do - they find something they like and try to overcome all odds to get what they want, largely because they are young and think their way is better than what the last generation did and mumble mumble mumble. Well, no mumbling. Pacific's shop guy is too busy nursing a knee that still remembers. Oh boy, does it, even now.
"Sparred on Sound Beach, ah... while back," he looks up from his hunched over posture now that Vince is staring down at him. The teacher only has an inch on him when he's standing straight up. Come to think of it, a lot of the students here are really tall. In fact, the average height of a person in Southtown appears to be disproportionately higher than most of Asia surrounding the city.
"He's a pro fighter... established." Seriously, he's a Saturday Night Fight regular and he has quite the Neo League appearances too, it'd be hard to not recognize him! The teacher coughs once, okay, maybe his throat is starting to get dry after all, patting his chest with his left hand balled up into a fist while he straightens himself out after deciding that for the moment that knee isn't going to dictate all his attention. "Sorry. He's in the pro leagues. Fights all the time... hell, he knocked me out cold. Ahh... he's not a bad guy, he went through the trouble to drag me back to campus." His knee disagrees, creaking as its owner flexes it. If it is disagreeing. Why would it? Joints don't have feelings.
"Don't even have any idea how well I did, guy was all... smiling the whole way, yeah, guess that didn't brush me right... kind of a blur now."
A little scorned, Vince's expression scrunches. "Just because I am not on the television so much does not mean I'm a stranger to combat. Mine, however, are rarely spars anymore." So there! Hmph! Perhaps a bit telling of age. Or arrogance. Or ego. Or just a flailing desire to be recognized. Either way, Vince appends this by... holding up the water bottle again. His teacher's coughing like an asthmatic goat.
"He at least played along with the scenario I offered. So, again.. good show for the audience. Poor display for Rose Dansant." Hence, practice-practice-practice! "Anyway, our next encounter will be much different. I'll see to that. ..But what were you doing out here on a Sunday's eve'?" Dagger is yanked from the dummy and slid back into his belt.
And so, continuity as it regards the water bottle is resolved. Perhaps one day the poor lozenge can have this same sense of closure. If anyone seriously cares about that maybe they can be free to app the lozenge as a SC. Moving on! The water bottle is taken back, at which point the teacher decides to just down the whole thing. If the cap is in the way, it won't be before his mighty teeth and the dental benefits his job provides! Emptying out the rest, he shoves the bottle through the toolbelt pocket it was occupied by. Despite how little remains it takes about as long for him to drink as it does for Vince to get his dialogue in.
"Bench," he motions with a thumb back to the freshly fixed bench, his gaze following it. "How many benches is it this year? It's... it's like if it isn't a light, it's a bench." A shrug of bewilderment as he turns back. "Any other benches giving you grief here? Because... well, I'm getting sick of benches."
Vince furrows his brow at Rust, then shakes his head. "How is it the benches are continually damaged? Who would be vandalizing benches?" Perplexity!
But Vince seems to have caught his breath by now, at least. He turns back to the dummy and draws the rapier back out into his hand. "So have you... made an official re-intergration?," he asks, shooting Rust a sidelong look before jabbing the pointy, shiny tip of the blade into the dummy's 'sternum'. Blade is drawn back.. and the motion is repeated, only faster and more crisp.
"Iiiii have no idea!" The teacher responds immediately to the bench issue. It is going to be one of those things that will haunt him for years to come. It's up there with all the furniture dollies suddenly going missing when he needs them. Perhaps societies of convenience are doomed to require those hapless enough to go into fields that practice the skills necessary to maintain everyone's quality of life and Howard Rust managed to draw the short straw.
"Official re-integration? Uhh... you mean if I'm still working here, yeah." The 'uhh' part is where Vince is stabbing the dummy anew. Damn, that kid's driven, doing that again so soon! He scratches the side of his head, one eye shut for no good reason. "Unless you mean... were you talking to Marisol?"
Yet another thrust is made at the dummy, sharper and crisper. The blade digs a little deeper into the wood, making a 'thok' sound. There's a small crunch of twisting, splintered bark as the blade is retrieved again.
"Once or twice...," says Vince cryptically, peering at Rust through the corners of his eyes. Indeed, he's attempting to lure Rust into an admission of something. What, exactly.. well, that's to be seen. In all honesty, Vince has seen Marisol a whole twice in his entire life. Spoken to her just as many times. It's a big school!
Trying to bait the teacher into it... does he recognize it? He brings his hand away from the side of his face, presses his lips inwardly tightly... and nods his head. "Yeah. Actually... I registered in the Neo League. While back."
He said it!
"Still... working out time. Haven't had a match yet. I got a demanding day job, I mean... you see me almost every day." He straightens up, stretches his arms out... and lets the pops sing, oh man, the pops. He grimaces a bit with the stretch as to try and loosen up his stiff, sore joints... the stuff Nataya teaches after school's out for the kids really helped with it! "Yeeeeeeeaaaaah. I guess that way I'm," he does the 'quote' gesture with one hand, "'re-integrated.'"
Vince grins at the admission. "Thought so. Good luck, Mr. Rust. I found it to be lacking in... quality... when I gave it a try." His lips twitch into a brief frown, then a full-on grimace at the cacophany of pops Rust's joints make. His little trip to the clear other side of the world got him to forget a couple of otherwise familiar things!
Vince quickly recomposes himself though, and focuses on the dummy again. "Taking it easy would be wise, indeed," he agrees, even if Rust didn't come out and say it. "Finding someone worth your time is paramount in these things. Otherwise, what is the point?"
He attempts to stab the dummy again, same as before, only somehow faster. And faster it is - but a smidge off mark. He scowls a little at himself and draws back to repeat the motion.
Mr. Rust has never actually been a part of any formal competition or league up until now. It's exciting. He can't wait, even when the drudgery wears heavily on his face and caution has left its mark given all the insanity through his year in Southtown thus far. Even after Nataya drilled in the importance of being who you are and letting things that will be, well, be, in the end he still has a job he still wants to hold very much. Even though now that he /has/ signed up he could use the extra money, because the insurance payments skyrocket when you are a career fighter, big time. This is on top of every other thing he's still paying off through life! Being a grown-up is hard.
A low sigh and a prolonged exhalation later, the teacher takes his left arm to the opposite shoulder and gives it a few rotations for another good pop or two... from the elbow, the second of which gets a short hiss. "Lacking?" He gets that out as he relaxes his posture once more. "Oh... yeah, you were in that, weren't you? What happened?" He remembers Vince was /in/ a fight but he can't remember who it was or how it turned out.
"Hurricane Hime. The most ridiculous, worthless, demeaning example of a fighter I've ever seen in my entire life," Vince says carelessly as he makes another thrust at the dummy at the same speed. Again, he's slightly off-target. Which is unacceptable. "Naturally I defeated her, but the fact that they would let someone in like her proves they've absolutely no quality control. Apparently they've no qualms against making those who train hard and have talent look like jokes, allowing people like that to 'compete'. In short - I'm not interested in insulting myself by throwing my lot in with that."
Stab.
"DAM-"
Vince clams up, teeth biting onto his lower lip to finish the.. well.. 3/4ths completed expletive. He was slightly off target again. "I -will- get this..," he mutters darkly under his breath. Yet another stab.
'Hurricane Hime,' where has he heard that name, he hears it, he hears it quite a bit but... oh! Her. "I, uh... I see." Maybe that explains why Vince isn't in the Saturday Night Fight leagues either, given what sort of stuff happens in those matches. Vince seems like the guy who wants to prove himself with a good, clean, straight fight... the teacher nods his head a little. It makes him wonder how the world would see /him/ the day he finally goes on national TV for the very, very first sanctioned competitive battle in his entire life. A day many years in the making.
He turns his head a little, not at the cursing (because we all know how foul a mouth Mr. Rust has), but at 'this.' "What're you trying to do?" He mimes the motion with his right hand as though he were holding a sword made of thin air. "With the, the thrust."
"Strike faster!"
Thrust.
"Strike straighter!"
Thrust.
"A battle lasts only so long as the other can avoid being harmed," Vince replies, gaze evened on the dummy. "The more strikes you land, the more likely victory is for you. The more accurate your strikes, the greater the harm you inflict on your adversary. Strike swift, strike true, strike -once-. For it may take only one well-placed strike beyond your foe's defenses to fell him."
Vince ceases the repetition and looks back to Rust. "The speed, power, and precision of the blade is paramount to the warrior's victory. Without these things, you're doomed." His icy gaze evens on the dummy again, teeth gritting. "And that is what I am attempting to improve."
Everyone's got their own way of doing things. Mr. Rust holds peculiar beliefs about when is an appropriate time for barbecue that has put him at odds with just about anyone with a shred of sense, along with his personal feelings about where a furniture dolly should be located at any given time (in other words: not where he can't find them!!!).
As a fellow weapon wielder, the teacher may either be aware of the approach or at least agree with it. "You've been, been fencing all your life, right?" The teacher says as he steps up to another dummy, bringing his right hand down to Ol' Rusty, which has been waiting long enough to be mentioned in a pose again. Gripping the makeshift hilt, which is whatever end happens to be sticking out the top at the moment, he unsheathes it through a scabbard that is really not (toolbelts are not a replacement for legitimate swordsman wear no matter how much Howard thinks otherwise) after a series of labored tugs. Sometimes the belt is uncooperative. But this time, it yields without too much fuss.
"I'll tell you... I got into a lot of trouble in my 20s, I grew up in a kind of," he coughs twice, "excuse me, grew up in a kind of rough place." Ol' Rusty, which is no more brilliant in the sunset because it is a rusted length of pipe that is terribly unphotogenic in every conceivable way, gets poked up against the spare dummy a few times in order to test how firmly it is held in place. "Mind if I show you something?"
There's a pause in Vince's fevered stabs against the dummy as Rust asks his question. He turns to face him and inclines his head. "Aye. Ever since I went from four legs to two." It's a Sphinx reference. From a play!
He looks ready to resume stabbing until Rust makes a suggestion to show what he can do. Vince is duly halted, eyes widened. He's going to get a demonstration with the pipe finally? A grin spreads over his lips and he steps back. He can make time in his regimen for this! "Please, feel free!," he encourages. There is no teasing in his voice - just sincere, wide-eyed curiosity.
"Thanks. Okay. You're watching, right? I'm going to say... we don't swing the same, not going to ask you to incorporate any of that." He gives the dummy a few more seemingly lethargic nudges. "This stuff? Most people I fought, way back when... didn't stand around like this. They moved." And they really would, you don't generally stick around to take hits from a burly man with a length of pipe unless you are also a burly man who may or may not be wielding a pipe or something else entirely like, say... a tire.
He gives a couple sample swings he uses. Diagonal from the dummy's lower left to the upper right. A largely horizontal back swing. A thrust that matches the one Vince was performing, if perhaps somewhat slower. The dummy buckles and rattles loudly after every hit. "You can hit hard. If they take it... that's great. But most... no, they don't sit around. See."
He raises Ol' Rusty. "I'm right handed. I hold this one-handed... ah, most of the time. So, lots of people, they'd take me from the left. If they took me from the right," he turns his body with only minor complaint from the knee that was not Zach'd, "I could do something like... like this," he does a backhand swing with a small crouch, aiming a bit low to the side, which makes it rattle. "Or this," miming striking an elbow at it. The fact he doesn't go all the way with it suggests he probably doesn't feel like hitting something with his elbow unless he absolutely must. "Or if they aren't too deep, something like... like this," suddenly striking out with his right leg in a side kick straight to the gut, causing the dummy to once again rattle under the blow.
"You still with me?"
Vince lifts his left hand momentarily. "Naturally I would not assume a target would stand still. But we must perfect technique before it can be applied," he defends. "That aside, finding moving targets can be tricky."
But otherwise, Vince warrants his attention over to Rust. As per a good student. His head tilts slightly... and while he certainly has some input to implement, he decides to wait until the completion of the lecture. Like a good student.
So Mr. Rust is given an eager nodnod.
After the kick, Mr. Rust rubs his opposite hip briefly. He probably should've stretched his legs out a little more before doing that, in retrospect. "Yeah. Yeah, they are," he replies through the brief shot of pain, a short grunt after at which he decides Vince probably doesn't want to watch him massage his hip over the next few minutes, straightening himself up.
"All the times I got in a scrap... see, the only people who stay back, they're the ones that want to. But here. If you got someone that wants to get in on your, your weak side," he raises his left hand, "you got to be ready. Sometimes, your back might be to something, and you can't move back. So you need to--" interrupted by a single cough, "sorry, okay... right, you need to be ready for that."
To demonstrate, he turns his left side to the dummy, the side of which he doesn't wield his weapon. "Sometimes, if they're quick... they're going to hit. So you have to figure out how to cover that. Up against... say, a knife mugger already lunging at you. I'd go something like..."
At this point the shop teacher throws his body weight up against the dummy as such that it nearly falls back, raising up his left hand that would appear to make his side vulnerable. This vulnerability exists only for that split second as he brings the palm down on its head, bringing it free of its restraints as he faceplants it straight down on the field. It's not elegant. The earth doesn't shake underneath it.
"You can't be too afraid to have to throw them down. You can't always keep them at... at arm's length," he says while still hunched over with the face-slammed dummy. Maybe he's already thinking of what he'll need to do to set it back up.
Vince observes his balding, overweight, aged shop teacher manhandling a dummy.
his is so awesome. School should always be like this.
Vince, thoroughly amused and entertained, eyes the dummy on the ground. He finally looks back to Rust, his words finally sinking in. "Ah, but fencing covers close-ranged assault as well," he explains. "The traditional, single-handed rapier style is what you see me utilize most often. But I can easily adapt to the main gauche variant, utilizing both rapier and dagger."
Vince takes a step closer to Rust and turns his back to him, sword arm on the far side. "As you said, I wield with the right arm and would seem to be vulnerable on the left. But should someone attack from that side..."
His hand drops, immediately retrieving one of the rosettes from his belt into an underhanded position - turned with the blade outwards. "..It's short work to plunge this into an attack, or let them impale themselves."
Vince slides the stiletto back into his belt and turns to face his teacher again, although now looking a bit sheepish. "I am.. not good with Judo," he offers in excuse.
Howard here is always going to wonder why he's okay with letting Vince make knives in his class that he'd use - and has used - in actual live combat. Then again, he walks around with what is a living, thriving, brightly colored banner of tetanus without many people batting an eyelash. (Southtown: the most progressive city towards free, legal, open weapon ownership in the whole wide world!)
Pulling the dummy back up with the same hand he used to rip it clean off, he closes one eye as though having the other open would give it a better look at fine detail with the tiniest of frowns. Please tell me this isn't one of those more subtly high tech and expensive ones, the teacher pleads inwardly. After all, these aren't made for grappling! Or guys deciding the best way to demonstrate how to take care of someone at times is to faceplant them, like himself.
Despite his worries about the dummy and having only one eye, he nods, turning a bit as to be able to see what Vince is doing. Seems like Vince is a little bit more on the ball about that scenario than he thought.
"Ehhh, neither am I," the teacher starts as he sets Ol' Rusty down on the grass and gets to work on repositioning the poor assailed dummy, if it does in fact need to be tethered to something or what have you. "You got people who get... really intricate with all those. Holds, locks, slams. Like Mike Haggar. Or," he snaps his fingers on his left hand twice, who's he thinking of, "there was this Judo guy they call 'The Demon' here in Southtown, like... I don't know how far back that was, but the point is, you don't have to get fancy. I've seen a lot of big guys."
Setting the dummy back up more or less straight in a vague, catch-all way in hopes that this is how one properly ensures they can still function as a dummy, however simple or complex this process may be, he dusts his hands off and picks up Ol' Rusty again. "Lots of them, they... they'd take stabbing better than you'd think. But lots of them... I'm serious, here, they don't know how to take a fall. Don't need to make it too, too fancy to work with that."
"So I've noticed," Vince agrees.
The dummy would thank Rust kindly for picking him back up (male pronoun for lack of bust! Haw, statue joke), but it is indeed not a mechanical, expensive, or otherwise noteworthy dummy. Just a hunk of wood, more or less.
"But these same people who can withstand even the best placed pierce cannot stand against the winds." Vince draws on what energy he's gotten back from the small break, and soon, the length of his blade is wreathed in swirling smoky gray. "This penetrates defenses easily..." Pause. "Usually. Another thing I must train myself to harness more efficiently."
That wouldn't be the first time an inanimate object would seem like it'd want to speak to him. But, neuroses and hallucinations aside, if either one actually do appear to suffer from any notable ones that would impact their ability to function... it sure doesn't show!
Resting Ol' Rusty on his right shoulder, he takes a couple steps back, holding his left hand out, shaking it a little as though if he were to say 'stay there, stay there, don't fall, stay there.' The smoky gray breezy energy casts the slightest wash against him even with the distance between them. His nostrils flare once quietly. What does it remind him of...
"Oh... yeah, that reminds me," pointing his left hand up, "we might get hit by a tropical storm later in the week... ah, I think they're calling it... Jangmi!" He nods his head again, "Yeah, it's Jangmi. That's... that's a heads up if you got anything later this week." Mr. Rust knows he does, especially if it gets /worse/. Especially so.
Content with his little 'enchanted sword' display, Vince lets the chi die back down. The blade is lowered.. and the random information gets a blink from him. "Really? That... that could be useful for training! Immerse myself in the winds to learn how to better harness them!," he declares.
Perhaps shortsighted, but by golly he's determined.
The response is met largely with the same hand he's been really doing any and all emoting with by scratching the side of his head, where some of the last strands of resistance in the war against complete baldness. A few moments later, the teacher shrugs. "I'll, ah, keep you posted if the news doesn't." And it will if it looks like Southtown's going to be in its path, it's still a bit early in the weak to be absolutely sure as to where it'll be going or how much of it they'll get.
"Anyway... it's getting late. Gotta go and finish up grading last week's projects. You'll make sure this stuff gets back where it, it belongs, right?" He motions with one shoulder back towards the direction of the proper facilities in question.
Vince, completely enraptured with the idea of training in the wind, is simply grinning to himself distractedly. But Rust does manage to get a response from the youth. "O-oh, of course. I will as soon as I'm finished, naturally," he chirps.
But when he finishes, it might be daybreak. Considering the way Vince has been going throughout the day, that might not be too far a stretch of the imagination. Daybreak or passing out, whichever comes first.
But danged if Vince seems to realize this or care.
"I will see you in class then, Mr. Rust?," he asks, all smiles.
"Yeah. In class," he says as he turns and starts to head off the field, Ol' Rusty still held against his shoulder than properly re-sheathed, because who knows if there's some jackass out front planning to cause a mess late at night as occasionally happens, a knee popping out of the blue as if to serve a warning as to what'll happen if Vince takes physical labor too far each and every day of his youth!
Or maybe it's just because that knee does not feel like flexing without a significant fight. Getting older sucks.
Log created on 19:06:39 09/28/2008 by Rust, and last modified on 22:22:37 09/29/2008.