Description: While you can choose your own title, the problem at hand - the newest in a long string of them during the Mountain Lions' stay in Zambia - proves to be anything but. Zach catches up with Rust just as he's ready to leave for the hospital to get the things they left behind, and shares the severity of his newest issues. Is there no end to everyone's problems?
After the night with Cammy breaking in, Quon's leftover note about Antoine, and speaking with a tired Ryo earlier in the morning... Rust decides it's time to wrap things up. Just going to get his stuff left behind at the hospital, book the fastest flight possible back to Southtown, and pray that Antoine is all right and not in any trouble, that he's just having a really bad case of wanderlust and nothing else. Right? ...Right?
It's just a bit past noon. A very bad abdominal cramp delays his trip back to the hospital, with Ryo's assurance that his own help cleaning it up and the belief that Rust himself is the least to blame for the damage is some sort of confidence that he can go get his wallet, cell, and usual set of clothes. Right now he's wearing his ensemble of pinkish-purplish colors and for some reason his hair is kind of a purplish hue.
Outside the house, Mr. Rust takes a moment to lean an arm up against the rented van while he gathers himself. He's in a lot of pain. It's going to take a lot of grit on his part to make it through the drive, pick his stuff up, drive back for any last loose ends, then hit up the airport. A part of him really just can't wait to leave this disastrous African trip behind.
A number of animals stroll by the dirt road that leads back to society from this nice rented lodge, blissfully unaware of the dramas and difficulties of human life in stark contrast to their simple, predictable existences.
How Zach managed to sleep through pretty much /all/ of that is nothing short of amazing, although the massive output of energy he displayed during the Kyokugen Master-Student Rumble of 2011 may explain some of it. Glen awakens to the rumbling of the van's engine, causing the psychic to look around with bleary eyes. His right hand, freshly bandaged, creeps up towards his neck to feel the metallic choker cinched around it. It's still there. A gentle tug reveals that it won't come off just yet.
Zach swears as he sits up. Strangely to some, he's uninjured now. The near-coma must have helped his already prodigious recuperative abilities. He slides out of the bed, puts some jeans on and walks out to the parking space. he sees Rust leaning against the van, and immediately looks away. Perhaps he knows exactly how that fight ended, and is having trouble facing the idea that he may have seriously injured his friend.
"Christ," the older man mumbles out loud, as though unaware that he's not the only person actually outside, "the hell did, the hell did I do to deserve all... all that mess," he complains out loud, stretching a leg out every so often to work out stiffness. If anyone's still sleeping in there, the pop of one of his knees may be enough to awaken them.
It's certainly enough to startle off an ostrich at least!
"Okay... I just, I just... get in the car," he reminds himself, "'n drive up to the hospital... get my stuff... let, let Zach and the rest know I gotta get back to Southtown... 'n.. god damn, just forget all this j-just, ever happened."
It's loud and clear from here what Howard has thought of his time in King of Fighters.
Zach tries to grin at this to show he is not taking offense when he says, "Did you expect me to walk back or something?" He eases himself to sit on the steps leading up to the front door; perhaps he's a little stiff himself from all the sleep. He looks around. "How long have I been out," he finally asks after a moment. He sounds a bit worried when he asks this.
Zach also highlights a particular flaw in his plan - they would indeed have to walk back. Yeah, sounds like he'll need to work some of this out with the rest before he goes out on his way. His posture slumps a little, a low grunt as he sees Zach grinning from the window's reflection. At least /someone/ seems to be in a good mood.
"Since... since yesterday," the older man replies as he turns away from the van to make some sort of eye contact with Zach, "'n, I'm glad you're up, because, uh..."
He stares again at the choker on Zach's neck. He just can't get over how gaudy it looks on him. "Look. Zach." He holds up a hand as he draws closer, a visible limp. "We, we've known one another a, ah, a while, right? So... y-y'know, I'd like to... I'd like to think that... th-that was an accident, but, but I gotta ask."
He raises his voice and just throws his arms up. "Wh-what the hell were you thinking?!"
"This," Zach says pointing to the choker, "Was me making a stupid mistake, and it marks the last time I listen to some old lady no matter /how/ nice they seem. What she said, and what I collared myself with turned out to be two very different things." Zach stops himself short. "No pun intended."
"What the hell do you mean, just... 'this,' that thing?" He comes short of trying to jab one of his fingers into Zach's neck outright, as if having trouble processing the possibility. "What old lady, what," he brings a hand to his forehead, waving the other. "S-Slow down, that... so, so how did that lead up to... to, I mean, blastin' the shit outta me and... and drivin' an ATV through a hospital?"
Zach picks a spot between himself and the front tire of the van to stare at. "When I woke up, after the match I mean, this old lady showed up in my room. She said she was a fan of mine," Zach scowls, "Which should have tipped me off right away," he grouses before continuing, "Anyway, she gave me this... thing, told me that it was something that belonged to a friend of hers. Said that this friend of hers was, well, like me."
Zach's frown deepens. "She told me that the friend used it to help focus their abilities." Zach scratches the front of his hairline in a nervous/frustrated gesture. "Instead it throws any control I had over my power pretty much out the window, as I'm pretty sure you saw. I'm not spontaneously exploding or anything. I just have next to no control over my output. Again.
Zach looks up at Rust. "If you got caught up in it, I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm sorry." He goes back to looking at that spot again. "As for the other thing, I wanted to get Takuma's attention. Figured the ATV was a good way to greet him, and Ryo had pretty much cleared the path for me already, so..." Zach shrugs. The ability to improvise on the fly is something that every fighter needs, and most have. "I already knew, when I was coming back, what this... /thing/ did. I went out to the desert to experiment with it. Just in case. Had I known it wouldn't come off, well..." The rest goes unsaid and probably goes without saying.
Howard slows down the accusations and irritation to hear out what Zach has to say about the whole matter. Some old lady visiting him, okay... gave him that... thing? A friend of hers, all right, used it to focus their abilities, huh? His head lowers at the thought about this. Really, just because of that thing?
"That thing almost ran, ran right over /me/ and a nurse," and unfortunately (or fortunately?) he has not been made aware of the receptionist. "Just, just want to make this clear, Zach, I ain't gonna pay shit for, for that ATV," he shakes his head, "that one's, that one's gonna be all you."
"And, uh, so, so we're clear," he speaks up, "it's 'cause of... that thing, huh," he points at the choker, "why the hell isn't it off, just... lemme have a look at it, turn your head. I've, I've dealt with fussy clasps."
Zach nods at Rust's refusal to pay for the ATV and related damages; the vehicle was paid for before the fight. Zach leans foward and stares at the ground, waving Rust over as if to say 'be my guest.' He doesn't say anything; perhaps he's certain at what Rust is going to find out. That if there's a clasp, it's damn well-hidden!
And so, Zach's head is about to be manhandled by a larger, stronger man who is almost certain there's going to be some easy way to get this off. It doesn't cross his mind that it'd already /be/ off if Zach could.
"Okay, uh," he squints at what he sees, running his gloved left hand across the choker, "what the... one more sec," he says as he takes his glove off his left hand with his teeth so that he can actually get his bare hand on there to feel the metal around, maybe even try and dig a fingernail under there.
It may be especially uncomfortable for Zach.
Zach occassionally makes choking noises as Rust tugs on the choker. He waits for Rust to give up on the project, but seems to be doing his best to stay patient with the older man. There seems to be no clasp to the serpentine accessory. It gives off a somewhat creepy glow as well.
"Zach," the older man says in a low tone as he runs his fingers across the metal. It is somewhat uncomfortable to the touch too, a certain numbness to his fingers as it gleams strangely in the mid-day sunlight. He leans closely enough that Zach might even feel breathing - this man is pretty determined to find a way to get it off, but eventually, the most obvious question has to be asked.
"Iiiii... got... no idea, no idea how the hell you, you even got this thing on."
"There /was/ a clasp when I put the damn thing on," Zach finally says with a touch of frustration in his voice. "I'm just worried about what's going to happen when I need to vent off some juice," he says after a moment's consideration. "I'm going to have to eventually, I think."
"N-No, I mean... I... can't even see where it... it first separated to, to begin with," the man's voice is less of frustration and more of awe. He really, absolutely and positively cannot tell, at all, how Zach was even able to get this thing on. It's not elastic, so he didn't just open it over his head and worked his way down to the neck.
It boggles his mind, as someone who knows his way around a lot of trades, his mouth hanging open. "Shit, Zach."
With that, the older man withdraws from Zach with the shake of his head, "I, I don't think I can... I can get it off."
"That's what I thought," Zach says quietly. "Perhaps you should just go," he says after a moment. "I'm going to need to release some energy eventually. If... If I can't control the output like I usually do..." He doesn't finish the statement. Rust can, no doubt, imagine the results.
"I, I am heading back to Southtown a, a day early," he says, "Quon claims that, that his friends saw Antoine there," continuing as he rises up, wincing briefly once again at his aching midsection, god damn this was going to be a rough day just for being this injured alone.
"When I, when I get back from the hospital, Zach, we're makin' sure that, that you got your stuff all packed up. You're coming back with me, and... and we'll find someone in Southtown who's got a better idea, all right?"
"And you're certain that putting me in a city is a good idea," Zach asks scornfully. "Yeah. Let's put the human fucking /bomb/ where he can not only do a ton of property damage but kill a bunch of people while he's at it?"
Zach leans forward, getting to his feet. "Fuck that," he says.
"So you're gonna, you're gonna hope it just, it just /magically/ comes off by itself," the older man meets the rising Zach eye to eye, "what're we gonna do then, Zach? I, I can't just /leave/ you like this here!" In the same stripe, he can't leave Quon going back to Southtown by himself for, supposedly, getting a tip on where the absentee Antoine is.
"Hope?" Zach says. He shakes his head. "You don't get it, Rust. Every week or so, longer if I've been doing a lot of fighting, I have to let go of the energy I build up. Otherwise I just..." Zach fumbles for an analogy for a moment.
"Think of it like a ballon, okay? You fill it up with air. Eventually, you either have to stop, or let some air out. Otherwise the balloon explodes. I can't /stop/. I flat-out don't know /how/. Near as I can tell it's impossible. So my options are to explode or let some out in a controlled manner."
"/This/" Zach says as he jabs a finger at the choker, "Pretty much kills the idea of letting it out in a controlled manner." Zach looks pissed off; this is pretty much a massive step backwards for him, as far as he's concerned.
It goes without saying that it's too late for any events to influence yesterday's final ranking in his worst days ever, but now with this Zach issue it just makes the whole trip that much more of a complete disaster - it's like everywhere around him, it's all falling apart right at the seams entirely.
For having known Zach for a while, he's never known the true nature of his problems with his powers. The inability to contain it, absolutely having to work it out before it basically explodes messily... and now with /that/ thing on supposedly making it worse?
It is a fair bit beyond his understanding, as psionic powers are for pretty much the near-entirety of the population. What's left is just a confused and increasingly frustrated forty-year-old man who finds, once more, there really isn't any easy answers to this latest problem.
"S-So, what do we do, Zach?" He asks him in earnest, arms spread out wide, "You're, you're gonna let this control you?"
"I don't know," Zach says after a long moment. "I refuse to put people in danger just by being around them." He stares at the house for a moment. "And you saw what happened when I tried to fight. It felt like I was tearing myself apart from the inside bit by bit towards the end of it. So... stepping up my fighting schedule isn't really an option either."
5r
Not knowing, that makes the two of them!
The older man puts back on the glove while Zach talks about putting people in danger, this and that... but at the same time, is it all right to really leave Zach on his own? Southtown, /someone/ in Southtown has to know what this is and maybe how to deal with it.
"Okay. Okay. Zach." The man holds up a hand. "It'll, it'll take a bit, but, but you should travel by land... vent where you got to, that's, that's the safest way to do it. Work your way up to, up to Asia, maybe a short boat ride from there, and... I, I'll just try and keep contact, all right? I'll, I'll get askin', I'll get looking, I, I can't make guarantees, Zach, but, but there's definitely some secluded places in Southtown--"
That's the best idea he can come up with, all the same, given his mind is wandering in a bunch of other directions at once out of sheer worry.
Zach nods. "And we just hope that the venting doesn't just kill me." He doesn't sound thrilled about this, but clearly recognizes that his options are extremely limited. "And maybe I'll find something along the way. Plenty of places between here and there," he says.
Then he sighs. "So long as I don't run into trouble, I might just be okay. The only problem is..." The problem should be fairly obvious: Zach may not be able to really /defend/ himself if he cannot fling soul power around.
For once, Howard catches on to what Zach is insinuating about the problem. He holds up his hand again. "I got, I got Ryo watchin' the place... listen, I, I really ought to get to the hospital, pick our stuff up we left behind, 'n get ready to get out, but... but maybe he can show you a few tips or two."
The older man straightens out a bit, though one hand is on his side. "He's, he's a good guy, Zach, knows his way 'round a punch or two. If he, if he needs payment, I'll foot it, lessons cost 'bout 200 USD a week. Just... just don't panic, don't, don't lose your head over this, we'll... we'll work somethin' out."
He sure hopes he can, he's not sure where to even /start/ with Zach's problems just yet, it's not like he could easily walk around and say 'hey I have a psychic who is having some really big trouble' considering even he still has problems believing Zach's use of the term psychic.
After all, he has yet to tell him winning lottery numbers.
"Cripes, it's, it's just... one thing after another with all of us," he grouses out loud as he limps along back to the van, "once I got, once I got my cell back I'll call."
"Keep your money," Zach says good naturedly. "I can pay for lessons if I need to." Zach considers. "Although..." Zach heads back to the place he claimed for his 'room,' and reaches under the bunk. He comes back with some kind of bundle. "I /do/ have this," he says as he unwraps it, revealing a wakazashi. It's about two feet long and looks a bit exotic, even after considering that it's an Asian weapon. He pulls it free to reveal some off the blade before resheathing it. "This, I've had a little time to work with. It... gives my abilities a little extra kick. And even if I don't use them, it still looks like a pretty functional weapon."
It /is/ a very nice sword.
"I just... don't know how to use it very well," he explains. "I mean, I know you try to put the sharp end in the other guy, but other than that..."
Rust's pretty sure he's seen Zach carry that around here and there, but he doesn't recall in recent memory being shown it. The first thing he almost thinks to say is, 'why didn't you even use it in King of Fighters,' but the samurai fan in him cannot help but pause right as he's at the van's driver seat door, looking over his shoulder before turning the rest of his body about with a few pops that otherwise fails to overcome that silence that falls before him.
"That, that ain't decorative, Zach, I, I can tell you that," the teacher says as he limps along back towards Zach, "I mean... I'll be honest, I wield Ol' Rusty, but, but I know how you swing one of those." Unfortunately, a lot of that came from watching samurai movies.
"Can I, can I hold it for a sec?"
Zach didn't use it for pretty much the same reason Rust used Ol' Rusty. He holds the weapon up by both hands to let Rust take it. If he actually draws it, it's just a very well-made sword. Zach doesn't say that he found it in a drained pig-iron tank in a foundry in Taizhou.
Oh, you know he's going to draw it. Mr. Rust is a huge, huge fan of samurai films and it's kind of like living in the moment as he gives it a nice, slow draw as his expert(?) eye sizes it up, up and down. He might not be /the/ sword expert if Zach is looking for lessons, and yet...
"'s a... wakazashi, 'bout at the very... limit of what you'd call one. 's shorter than the, than the katana you might be thinking of," he says as he puts it back in its sheath to hand it back to Zach, "nothin' wrong with, with it being shorter, I can, I can tell the balance is pretty... pretty good. Leverage, that's... that's somethin' you got to keep mind when you use a weapon."
He clears his throat as he pats Ol' Rusty, which is down at his left hip. "Better balanced than Ol' Rusty, I mean... I like the heft, but, but I understand that it's, it's not for everyone... I mean, hell, Mike Haggar, he does crazy things with, with a pipe but I don't use ones as long as, as he does for that reason."
He clears his throat. "That's... that's a pretty good one, Zach, but, uh, you said it... gives your abilities some kick?" He scratches his head, as if unsure if that is - in this instance - a good idea.
"Yeah, but only if I actually /use/ my abilities. It improves my output just a little bit," he explains. "But nothing I couldn't handle before, well, you know." He takes the sword back, holding it by the sheath. "I'd bet there's more to it than that, but I don't know if I could find the guy who made it. Or even if he'd talk about it if I could."
Zach sighs as he stares off the the east. "I found it when I was in China," he finally supplies. He allows Rust to make whatever assumptions he wants about /that/ statement.
Found it in China, huh... well, that does put a kind of spooky tone on things, the older man just lowering his head a bit. He's not sure what to suggest in so far as finding out who is responsible for it goes - maybe if there was a name engraving there, there's a chance he could read it. Remote as it might be, being fluent in Japanese was a necessity for working at Pacific's Southtown branch and there is a fair bit of Chinese writing borrowed.
"If, if that's gonna be able to help protect you, Zach, I'm gonna tell ya that, that it should do a fine job." He's pretty sure of it, at least! "Once you're back in, in Southtown, Zach, ring me up and I'll, I'll try and help you with it too."
Zach nods affirmatively. "Watch your ass, man," Zach says. "I think all the crazy is coming out of the woodwork on account of the King of Fighters. These tournaments tend to unhinge things a lot."
Zach considers, then decides to admit. "I... was worried that you and the others would learn about that the hard way. That I wouldn't be able to get all of us through it in one piece."
"Do they, Zach?" Asks the complete tournament newbie that is Howard Rust, who seems a bit mystified with this thought. "So... so you're sayin' that... this is normal fare for all the... all the tournaments out there?"
His heart sinks a little more on this thought, as though thinking he couldn't have avoided any of this mess in any other circumstance. "Cripes... it's just, it's just one thing after another."
"Seems to be the way of it," Zach says with a nod. "I mean, some might be tamer than others, but I could tell you some stories about my first tournament that'd freak you right out. It was on a boat, and we were finishing the thing while it was trying to /sink/." He shakes his head. "And this, the King of Fighters? Even bigger than that one was."
Isn't /that/ just a kick in the pants, it's like there was no avoiding almost any of this to begin with. Given everyone else's problems, it may soon as well be high time that Howard Rust himself runs afoul of all the things going on.
"In that case, Zach, I... I better get goin'," he says as he turns back to the van with his elbow creaking loudly as he flexes it, "sooner I, sooner I catch up to Quon and figure out why Antoine's been... y'know, gone, sooner we get one less problem." He really has his doubts about letting Quon wander off on his own - Yuri is at least in the company of her loving family, and he considers that matter more or less handled for better or for worse.
Likely way worse.
"I'll, I'll call as soon as I got my cell back, and... and we'll just have to play the rest by ear."
Log created on 17:46:20 02/26/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 20:27:07 02/26/2011.