Description: Zach Glen returns to Southtown after a desperate set of battles in China... and receiving a mysterious invitation to one of the greatest fighting events of the world. Little does he realize that an unlikely candidate for a teammate has nothing but this on his mind.
This would be an ordinary day in Southtown. It's been quiet here lately. Almost... peaceful, in comparison to before. Sure, over in Taizhou there was a whole lot of scares, but here in the homefront of some of the world's greatest fighters? Things may be getting back to normal at long last with Saturday Night Fights running again and, dare one say it, a couple more confident muggers and ne'er-do-wells than there used to be following that big upheaval of Geese's removal from power.
It's an overcast afternoon. A number of Pacific High faculty members have been invited to help oversee some festivals out in the quieter parts of the city. Taken at face value, it's a high honor for a bunch of outsiders to be taking direct parts in a lot of more traditional ceremonies and the sort - something a lot of the more stalwart old-timers have insisted keeping to the natives in the past. It's a first-time thing for a lot of people.
Howard Rust, now a forty-year-old shop teacher, has something else entirely on his mind as he idly slips by with two folders underneath his right arm. In his left hand, a letter. It's a simple letter. The message is clear, it's not written entirely in small print. It shouldn't take any more than a minute to read it.
But here he is, many hours later, still sneaking peeks at it every so often even when other people are trying to talk to him. His mind is not where it ought to be, considering his job and the sensitivity and significance of what's supposed to be going on right about now. No, there's something else that has his attention.
Something that, for better or for worse, has drawn him completely away from the job at hand. Almost entirely on a different plane of reality, a plane of reality that may or may not still revolt at that horrid combover he still seems insistent on using to convince the world at large (unsuccessfully) that he's not balding.
With the occasional creak in his knee, he continues down a gravel path with his eyes firmly placed on this single letter.
Almost by coincidence, or perhaps parallel story construction, a younger man is walking up the path towards the path towards Howard Rust. The man is fairly well-known around here, having gained a reputation for flashy fights and more than a little property damage that he's always willing to help clean up.
He's also not really paying attention to what's going on around him, as he is examining a familiar-looking piece of paper with a frown on his face. Rust will recognize the psychic fairly quickly, though, despite two new accessories: the first is the odd half-gauntlet looking thing on his right hand. The other is a cloth-wrapped bundle about two feet long and hanging over his shoulder by a string that holds the top of the bundle closed.
It's easy to recognize faces - less so for names. It's a bit harder to do this when your entire fixation is upon a letter more than... faces. Words. Jobs. Frustrations. Debts. Injuries. Disappointments. Meetings. Favors.
In so far as the world of Howard Rust goes, it's him, the folders underneath his right arm, and the letter. He reasserts his hold of the folders in his right arm as if to try and remind himself (if ultimately for naught) he has other important things he needs to be doing today. Things... other than reading a letter over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
"Is this shit for real?" He utters out loud in his usual gravelly voice for about the fifth or sixth time today. He's not keeping count of that. Keeping count takes focus away from what's actually here.
By the time he bothers to exude any more attentiveness other than to what he's carrying, he's probably getting in a little too close to the much smaller, much more battle-worn young man - enough that he suddenly looks up with a start.
"Wh-whoa! Whoa. Whoa. Sorry." Mr. Rust bows his head as he tries to step aside, "G-got a lot on my... uh... mind."
A few moments later, he looks back up towards the younger man, lowering the letter with a sort of psychotic reluctance. "W-Wait a sec, uh... Zach? That you?"
Zach gives one of those startled hopping spins one does when he suddenly realizes he is about to collide with some guy. His eyes are wide and the paper goes fluttering to the ground as he uses that arm to balance himself. He blinks once or twice at Rust before grinning. "Don't know who else I'd be," he says before glancing down at the sheet in Rust's hand.
"So you got one too?" he asks as he reaches down for his own sheet. He picks it up and pulls himself upright before showing his own. It reads a lot like Rust's, except with Zach's name instead of Rust's.
"Y-You mean invited to, uh, help set things up for some festivals here?" Howard blathers out defensively, as if his job is on the line. It usually is, when you are a teacher of a subject that is not a focus at your high school and are also not some sort of hugely acclaimed intellectual old money professor.
He clears his throat while he kneels down with a silent grunt and a far less silent crack of one of his knees to go help pick up what Zach drops - even though Zach's already plenty on his way to retrieving it without any additional help on his part.
That's when he gets a better look at what Zach is really truly talking about. An eyebrow quirks. "Uh... y-yeah. Actually, that. I mean, that paper. That one there. Does it, say, uh... something like, you're invited to... participate in, in a tournament of..."
He can feel his own heart racing because it makes him remember that letter he's been looking at all day and holy shit does this mean it's for real if someone else has it?!
"'Scuse me, sorry." He clears his throat again. "I won't hold you up."
Zach quirks an eyebrow under the brim of his ballcap. "No worries, man," he says cordially. "I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere. Just got back in town, actually." He tugs on the bundle's string to resettle it. Months later, and it's still uncomfortable there.
He folds the paper up and slips it into his pocket. "Gonna enter," Zach asks curiously. "I was thinking about it, but I heard that the tournament's a team affair, and I'm not on one."
"Ah... well, uh, things've been kinda... quiet." Howard nods his head. "Here, I mean... heard about a whole lot of, lot of bad stuff going down over in China though." He hasn't any idea that Zach's been directly involved in the events that went on over there. He rolls his left shoulder about a little to fight off stiffness. That shoulder has been holding his left arm in largely that saem position all day. His neck, just about as much. Both of them feel as stiff as all get out, and it sure sounds it when he really flexes them.
He doesn't immediately respond to 'going to enter.' After all, he's forty and just about decided to settle into life as it is once and for all. This letter seems to be one of his final tickets to that one little thing that's always on the back of his mind. That one fleeting dream. That one thing that keeps escaping him. It's right here in his hands.
"A team?" Mr. Rust has to ask. The embarrassment shows on his face a few moments later as he realizes what they're talking about - a King of Fighters tournament, of course it's going to involve a team-based affair.
"I, uh... I don't got a team either." He admits almost entirely in defeat. He's not entirely sure who he'd want to pull into it. Sure, Marisol or Vince might jump at the chance for this, but being a Responsible Adult(tm) he doesn't want to give either of them a whole new excuse to stall their studies or anything.
He's not sure how he's going to /find/ any. 'Hey, forty-year-old wash-up working man looking for team of the best fighters?' That's never going to work. But yet, there he is, someone like himself, invited to take part despite being in all of four ever sanctioned fights.
Zach smiles a smile that doesn't reach his eyes at the mention of China. "Yeah, 'bad stuff' pretty much surrounds what happened there." He adjusts the bundle again in an almost subconscious gesture. He gets an odd stare for a moment before shaking himself back to the present. He listens to Rust for a moment.
The grin is still there, though. Zach's not entirely certain that people will want a glass cannon like him in the face of some of the strongest fighters out there. "Well, maybe, if we can't find one, we could make one," Zach says. "If you wanted to enter, I mean."
Mr. Rust here wants to ask Zach if he knows anything more about China, but... if so, maybe it's best not to ask for the time being, especially not in the face of HOLY SHIT I HAVE BEEN INVITED TO ONE OF THE GREATEST TOURNAMENTS FOR ONLY THE BEST AND HOLY SHIT WHAT AM I EVEN GOING TO DO IT EVEN HAS MY NAME ON THE INVITE THIS IS NOT A MISTAKE IT CAN'T BE HOLY SHIT I'M INVITED.
"Yeah, m-maybe we shou- wait. Wait." He gives Zach a look. "Really? You..." He points a finger. "Me? You mean... us, on a team, I, uh."
He clears his throat again. "Look, I... yeah, I'm kinda, kinda in shock over this right now, I mean." He looks away. "This shit." He raises the letter. "This shit right here, it's... it's no lie when I say, I've been looking... looking for something like this since I hoped to go pro. Y'know?"
Zach's still young, so he probably doesn't know. He may never will, given he's already pretty established and infamous for his particular fighting style. Zach is one of the flashiest and most explosive fighters around when he gets in battle. Sure, he's infamous for having a bit of a glass jaw but that doesn't change he's powerful.
Something Howard Rust knows twice over. Something one of his knees subconsciously knows, fears, and loathes. If knees had feelings. They don't. But if they did, that knee would seek its revenge one day, Zach. It so would. His knee does sting a bit thinking about it.
He re-establishes eye contact. "So, uh... yeah. If, if you want me, hell. I'll step it up." He's been in way better shape in comparison to his first year or so here in Southtown - but between his work and other such duties he has to keep up with, he never imagined he'd be comparable to some of the best in the world.
This invite is definitive proof that he /is/ a competitor.
Zach grins a bit at this. "Well, don't jump into it too hastily," he says with a chuckle. "Yeah, man. You hit like a freakin' /truck/, AND you can take a hit. You'd be a good addition to any team, I would think."
He looks around for a moment. "But we'd need a couple more people at any rate," he continues, "Maybe we should keep a lookout. We still have a couple of months before this kicks off." He jogs the bundle a little more consciously this time, "And I've got some things I want to work on before then as well."
Being able to take a hit is one of his prides as a fighter - and in daily work. A fall or a misplaced hammer or nailgunning is hardly an issue for him. Hell, get him properly motivated and Mr. Rust can slam his hand on a spinning sawblade without issue.
This may be one of his only stand-out features as a fighter, considering he lacks the flashy lights or, really, even much of the agile movement and sheer speed of a good number of people. He's a slow-moving modest-height brick.
"Well, uh... y'know what I already know 'bout you," and boy does he. His eyes wander around wherever Zach's looking, wherever that is. "Couple of months, huh... yeah. That's, that's good time to get in shape."
This might be the only true shot Howard Rust here has left to the big time. This /is/ the big time. Far as he knows with his age, it's all or nothing now - the career defining moment for him, likely Zach, and who knows who else if they can get some sort of team together.
"Yeah, I got... I got a lot to work on too." He concedes. He's forty, and this is going to be the biggest event of his life. He needs to be on the top of his game. It may be the last time he'll ever see a peak.
"Then perhaps we oughta get to it," Zach says with a grin. "And we'll both keep a lookout for some more teammates. Someone with a bit of experience with this kind of tournament would be great."
He starts to walk away, giving Rust a wave over his shoulder. "Though I suppose we can't overlook youthful determination either," he mutters to himself.
It's hard not to feel good up against Zach's confident grin, though Rust's face here is not typically too expressive - like some kind of stiff golem of a man. A golem of a man not quite six feet tall, but a golem nonetheless. He raises a hand as if to wave Zach off, probably just to go back to reading the letter.
An old man walks up to Howard and starts to yell something in extremely thick, difficult Japanese. The teacher immediately recoils and bows his head, uttering something back in a respectful tone of the same language. Looks like the parting's come in the nick of time, for this man's in trouble for more or less loafing off in the face of the unthinkable.
Even with today's work, there's really only one thing firmly in mind now - the King of Fighters 2011. Can the two of them find a big enough team in order to aspire to the title?
The days would pass by so very quickly...
Log created on 12:37:15 10/13/2010 by Rust, and last modified on 14:21:55 10/13/2010.