Description: Midway up the Bantiankong Chemical Building, Alan calls his teammate to figure out where they're at. One learns the other has become God - the other learns the one's reason for being here.
As the world goes to hell, Alan R. B. is taking a moment to not be in it himself.
The boxer couldn't bring himself to trust any of the elevators of Bantiankong, and in his attempt to reunite with his teammate, he has taken the stairs. Alan is significantly the worse for wear - still wet from the storm outside, his electricity crackling fitfully about him. His vest and shirt are ripped and stained with blood, a furious-looking trio of red scars marring his body - one on his neck, over the carotid, and a matched set on his left side where Kula's spear took him. His hair is mussed - wait, there it goes, back in perfect order as Alan runs his hands across it, setting his signature lightning bolt with an automatic, robotic action. Then, a fresh wave of fatigue rolling over him, he crumples against the side of the wall, legs splayed out, currently on a landing.
His phone clatters out of his pocket. Alan's gaze slides down to it - he forgot that thing even existed. He picks it up. Full service.
A minute later, the blonde's inane chuckling is over with, and he taps at the screen, ringing up Aranha. This makes it easy.
Aranha meanwhile is still flipping through screens,cursing the day that Saint was born for two reasons. First the Romanian priest is creepy as all hell. Second, and most importantly for the purposes of the capoeirista, Saint destroyed a good portion of the monitors making it significantly harder for him to find Shiraha and Kasuten.
"No... That isn't it... Not that either. I swear I'm gonna push him out of a highrise window if I see that nut-job again."
His muttering and search is interrupted by a ringing phone that he kept out for easy access, after all there were a couple of calls that the capoeirista was expecting one of which wasn't Alan. After all, He kinda expected Kula to do a nasty job on him that would put him out of commission for a while if not six feet under. While it wasn't expected, it was certainly welcomed
"Yo, Alan. You okay?"
"That," the boxer begins, "is an /excellent/ question." He sounds out of it, but given last time you saw him he was staring down a Kula Diamond, that is probably to be expected. "Kula got past me, man, but I guess I delayed her long enough, since you're not dead. You find something good?"
Alan stands up with some effort and moves to the railing, leaning heavily on it.
"And then some."
Aranha clicks through more footage, frustration at his inability to find what he's looking for mounting. It takes everything within him to not let his frustration be voiced.
"I'm currently sitting where the controls of the defenses of Taizhou are located. I also have access to a weapon that can pretty much shoot at any location in the city. As well as having camera footage of most of the city. I also managed to get these files."
Aranha begins clicking on his phone and sending files to Alan's phone. After the files are done sending, Aranha picks up the phone again.
"Unfortunately, I have two problems. I still don't know enough about this situation and I get the feeling what I don't know will turn around and bite me in the ass. And the second, which may or may not be connected to the first problem, is that Katsuten is about to blow up and because the lunatic that I was fighting up here with a... fr- associate of mine destroyed some of the monitors so I have been having trouble finding out who has the sword that's supposed to take Katsuten out, let alone Katsuten itself."
Alan gives out a slow, drawn out, "H...hhhuh." His phone beeps, and he glances at it, eyebrows climbing as he sees six (?!) data transfers going. He switches to speaker, so he can watch them download as he talks. "Sounds like you drew the long straw." A pregnant pause. "Vice showed up." Alan still doesn't like thinking about it - he might've survived the encounter, but his hand instinctively reaches up to brush against the fresh burn over his artery. He then glances around, looking for any cameras - he spots one a floor up, the... 23rd, and heads there.
"I'm on the 23rd floor landing right now, if you got a spare monitor. I didn't trust the elevators - one of the doors was frosted over. So, Katsuten's going off, huh... it's just a bomb, after all?" That seems odd, for what seemed to be the instrument of Seishirou's 'change'. "Shit, that's damn near disappointing."
The file on Saint finishes first. Alan doesn't get very far until he stiffens, eyes widening, hand clenching on his phone. He tries to keep his voice even and light. "This dude... is this the guy you fought? Is he one of Seishirou's people? Where'd he go?"
Aranha turns to the monitor he previously had trained on Eagle at the Shao Jiao and clicks a few times bringing up the stairwell on the 23rd floor. It's at this point that Alan asks his questions.
"Alright... I got ya on the monitor. Daaayaaaaaaam! Yeah... I think I drew the long straw but if my associate hadn't arrived when she did, I probably wouldn't be able to talk to you right now."
Aranha looks back over to his search monitor and then clicks through a few more cameras. "I don't think he's using the bomb directly to make his change, after all, Seishirou also spoke about giving us a sword that could be used to stop it."
After a few moments his own cell phone gives a beep indicating that one of the files was completely transferred. "Yeah, that's him. He's part of Seishirou's group Kagero. After we finished shit-beating him, he put Marou Wakamoto into a coffin and dragged him off. I don't think he'll kill him since Saint seemed to be honoring the Shoten, but I feel sorry for the poor bastard."
"Wakawhat?" Ding. "Oh." A money man. Forgetting he's on camera for a moment, Alan's handsome face twists with contempt before smoothing out. "Well, I didn't expect this to be easy. I get the feeling things are buildin' up to a head." Alan is on edge now, with confirmation that Seishirou's people are /here./ Well, that's perfectly natural. Nothing untoward about that.
For a second, something tugs at Alan, and he almost says something before stopping, digging into his pocket for his cigarette case, settling one into his mouth. Sitting back down, he balances the case on his knee, keeps his phone in one hand, and starts using the edge of a little pocketknife to pry at the R logo in the case. "Just feels a little clumsy, to me. What, make change by giving people an opportunity to keep the status quo? Maybe there's somethin' else goin' on we haven't even seen."
The next file beeps, and Alan glances over the data on Shinseikasen. "Hot damn! Yeah, this thing popped my plane on my way in. Fuckin' ridiculous."
For a few moments, Aranha is silent. Well other than the constant clicking of keyboard keys and the mouse. He glances up for a few moments and sees Alan prying away something on his cigarette case. He takes a moment to bring up a camera at another angle and takes another moment to zoom in and then he finds himself raising an eyebrow at the removal of the R symbol.
"Like I said, there's way too much I don't know right now. But think back on the first tournament, everything Ryouhara threw at us was some type of trial. And then think about what it took to get in this city in the first place. I could be wrong, but what if through some convoluted scheme he was trying to change the people who live in this world by making them go through all kinds of ordeals?"
The Shinseikasen file is through. Aranha nods as he looks at his phone and then after that he resets the Alan monitor to its previous angle. "I guess you could testify to the weapon's power then."
Aranha looks at his phone again. There's one last file he looks at on his phone trying to decide if he should send it or not.
The R seal pops off his case, leaving a circular indentation, flipping up into the air. Alan's hand blurs, and he catches it, glaring at it as the last few files come in. He closes his hand over the ivory and onyx, and chi bursts from his closed fist in a brighter flare than he'd been using previously - some of the Taizhou storm is still in him. He opens his hand, letting dust drop onto the landing, and picks himself back up, puffing smoke out of his nose as he replaces the case. "He's always been into makin' people stronger," he states, his words carrying an odd weight. "Kind of a Krauser thing going on, but all weird and ninjaey."
He takes a breath, and starts making his way up the stairs again. "Yeah, man. If that thing was supposed to kill us, me and Hotaru would have our chips cashed right now. If you get control of that sumbitch, you're basically God here. Except for Katsuten, I guess, looming over there like some kind of Lucifer. Maybe be careful where you point it. So this Wakamoto guy bitched out, someone came collectin'... I guess people are getting different ideas about things. Maybe Seishirou really did get punched out."
Alan mounts a landing, unaware of Aranha's concern - instead feeling an odd urge to come clean, tell /someone/ why he came, anyone. Kula might still be rolling around... like he is, if he runs into her...
His head suddenly snaps up. "Li Hua. Who'd you stash her with? How was she when you left her?" Uncharacteristic concern shoots through Alan's voice.
And that pretty much confirms it. Aranha brings up footage of Bantiankong Chemical just a little after Aranha had ran off and then he sses the image of him fighting Vice. That removes pretty much any doubt. Alan is officially no longer with 'R.' Aranha breathes a sigh of relief before pressing send on one last file.
He held off on sending it mainly because if Alan was still with 'R' he didn't want to practically hand the keys to Shinseikasen to Rugal. He was already scary enough as it is.
"She's still at the Sanctum. I have some people making sure she's fed. Though now with the Chinese government stoming around, not even that place is safe. Our favor with Ji Zhou is being used to keep the 46ers off our back. Which unfortunately means we can't use it get information about this place here from him with it."
Alan's steps come to a slow halt, he only dimly registers receiving the last of the Sanctum Files, not entirely cognizant of the fact that he, too, has the keys to God. "If they're being kept off /our/ back, there's no telling if they're being kept off of /hers./" The boxer is clearly conflicted, one foot up on a landing, another off.
He takes a long time, head bowing, and turns off speaker. It's too impersonal - he decides to get it all off at once.
"I had a high school sweetheart. We were going to get married. Her name was Tricia." The silver bracelet winks at his wrist. "Right after high school, she got sick and died, because we didn't have the money to get her treatment - the hospital couldn't afford it - the US government was doin' too much shit to bother with a grant. I had to watch her die because of money." Alan turns, and slowly starts back down the stairs. After all that work to get in... "You've got the fort up there, dude. I can't run the risk that Ji Zhou's gonna take the chance to go for her if I can stop it. I'm not gonna see another girl die because of /money./"
Aranha remains silent as Alan relates the tale of his high school sweetheart. It's at this point that Aranha understands why Alan is in this particular tournament, why he had turned his back on his affiliation with 'R,' and why he had shown concern for Li Hua in the first place. "Li Hua was included in the 'our.' That's why I'm not as concerned about Ji Zhou as I am about the Chinese government and those crazy ass Ninkou toy soldiers running around."
Aranha goes back through footage of previous search locations and then has some of the images of the automaton and Chinese military, the chaos through the streets, etc. He sends a few of the pictures to Alan.
"Just before you called, I was speaking to Eagle, in an attempt to find out who he was getting his own orders from. Goes by the name Tsang. Anyway, while we were talking, he was putting down a riot at the nightclub and few soldiers started attacking him as well. Made me wonder about what's going on."
Alan slows, then comes to a stop, flicking through the pictures. His expression is controlled - first a careful mask of blandness, and now his customary sneer as he looks at the pictures and quips, "Well shit on my chest, look at what you miss when you're pinned to a wall by a crazy ice bitch." Alan considers things for a moment... and then continues. "Well, I'm still concerned. I don't think she's gotta worry about these robots if they're from Kagero - she knew Seishirou, or something - but it looks like the military's gone hogwild, and bless her heart, she's not too worried about her /own/ life." Alan's sneer turns into a sardonic smile. "She's way too young for that attitude."
Pot, kettle. The memory of calling Akuma a bitch and getting kicked through a helicopter floats unbidden to his mind.
"Tsang? I've heard his name once or twice, some kind of big dick player, I think he's government. Nothing concrete. I guess it's too late to learn anything useful about him now, though." Alan blows an explosive breath.
"I think that's about it on my end. I'm going back to the Sanctum to make sure Li Hua's alright - and unless I miss my guess, you and your fr---" A long pause, Alan suddenly grinning into the phone like a shark. "/Associate/ could use some privacy."
And Aranha telling Rugal to kiss his ass comes unbidden into his own mind, about the same time Alan's own thoughts go to calling Akuma a bitch.
Aranha nods as Alan states his plans to go to the Sanctum. Of course Aranha catches the implication of what Alan is saying. "No. Just... No."
After all his associate is about the same age as his little sister who is definitely not legal in the US. It makes it kind of squicky for someone who spent most of his life in Metro City.
After a few moments to recover he then says, "In the meanwhile, I'm going to both see if I can both find where Shiraha and Katsuten are located and see if I can aid the bomb diffusion efforts from here and see if I can use Shinseikasen as a bargaining chip with Ji Zhou in exchange for more information. Go write your own damn legend, you fucker." Aranha's laughter can be heard a few moments before the line cuts off.
Alan, meanwhile, has developed a very 'international waters' kind of outlook toward the age of consent. "You're young, you'll be fine," Alan manages to quip in the teeth of Aranha's laughter. When the line cuts off, he pulls the phone away, spins it in his hand, and slides it back into his pocket.
...only to collapse against the side of the railing again, another wave overtaking him. First Kula, then Vice, and now climbing halfway up and halfway down the Bantiankong Building - with a promise of more madness to come. Alan's scars throb, his skin still feels soaked, and he's been coughing a little bit of blood every now and then.
Settle for nothing but victory.
Drawing himself up, Alan shoves off the railing again, continuing down, taking steps two at a time. At least Aranha is probably /warm./
Log created on 07:20:51 06/30/2010 by Alan, and last modified on 10:48:45 06/30/2010.