Description: That's what those friendly dolls hanging from the power lines over on Gedo Street say to a man desperate to find a troubled friend, after news of his violent breakout reaches his ears. Maybe he should've went on his way already, before the pumpkinhead came by to show his captive inanimate audience how it's done. What does this have to do with Antoine's behaviors and disappearances, if any? Is this the end of the line...?
11:43 PM.
Following a chance meeting with Ayame in strange circumstances, Howard Rust is more or less on a wild driving tear around Southtown, not really thinking too highly about where he's going to look for him. Antoine could be /anywhere/ after that breakout. It's dark, it's cold. He's in such a hurry to get out and find him that he hasn't put on a coat or even any shoes - just a pair of pants, some socks, his cell (in which he's kept leaving frantic messages over to Quon who will likely not answer him), and the steadfast rusted length of pipe Ol' Rusty along for the ride.
"ANTOIIIIIINE!" He shouts through his tired, strained throat down the streets. What he fails to realize in his haste is that he's been needing to refill the gas tank - it promptly runs out right in the middle of Gedo Street, one of the quieter, rougher parts of town. It's never a good place to be, even if the man has a slight bit of favor from Gedo for his attempts to help defend them during the invasion.
Feeble as it might have been.
Adrenaline keeps the older man going as he shuts the car door behind himself, presently heedless of the risk given the panic and what Antoine's breakout exactly means.
"Antoine!" He calls a bit quieter, catching his breath as he leans up against a brick wall in the vain hopes that he'll see that young man around these parts.
Given how quiet it is... and how loud and rowdy Antoine was when he first found him in the forest coming back into Southtown, the chances of running into him /here/ are really, really slim out in the alleys and slums of Gedo Street.
It's dark.
It's cold.
Nobody who even thinks about starting trouble comes down here. The proximity to Gedo High has been enough to keep most people who walk the streets here safe. But now, a boy is lost and his so-called guardian is stranded, out looking for him. That boy seems to have succumbed to the bloodlust that so many others have during this chaotic time.
Strange times, indeed.
They awaken all but the most peaceable of us.
Tragedy that there aren't many peaceable sorts around here.
Choral whispers trickle slowly into the air as Rust plumbs the inner depths of Gedo Street, the alleyways a maze of grime in the labyrinthine city streets. The whispers are low, scandalous, eerie, but they don't seem to originate from mouths--not truly, anyway.
i hear he didn't kill him.
but he didn't kneel?
nope.
what'd he do to ..you know?
you know how it works. someone's gotta bleed.
uh oh.
lucky for us, eh?
yeah, lucky...i guess.
well, someone else is coming now.
how scary.
If Rust finds his way just only slightly deeper onto the open street, burgeoned on by the pulses of adrenaline feeding him strength in his veins, he might come across the sources of the voices. At least, the seeming sources of the voices.
At least twenty toy dolls, hung from the powerlines at the necks. Like some grisly pair of shoes, they hang in pairs, their necks twisted viciously underneath tightly cinched leather. Despite their recent injuries, they are old, well-worn, aged things. Some have their stuffing conspicuously hanging out. But they're all chattering amongst themselves absently.
As Rust approaches, the whisperchatter gets progressively louder.
look who it is.
check this shit out.
oh man, fresh meat?
maybe he's a little stronger than the last kid.
fucking doubt it.
think he's as good at kneeling?
maybe.
mister.
hey. mister. up here.
It's a single doll, hanging lower than the rest.
you ain't gonna find what you're looking for out here.
What's that sound, down one particularly black alley? Sounds like.. metal. Old metal. And that scent...ugh. It's horrible.
The only thing keeping Rust's psyche together and his courage steeled is none other than the length of rusted pipe in his right hand. Where he usually wears work gloves, the skin of his hands is bare for all to see - especially the burn scars on his right palm, as he nervously looks up and around, thinking that maybe this one flash of yellow here or there may actually /be/ Antoine.
He's had such great luck accidentally running into people he's been looking for prior, why can't he have it happen again? The socks barely protect against the cool asphalt, the older man's pace slow and measured. A popping knee may give an ironic, sort of haunting feel unto itself.
Then, there's the voices. It puts the hairs on his neck on end, the grip on Ol' Rusty clenching a little more tightly as he looks over his shoulder - but there's nobody there.
The only thing that keeps him going is the morbid curiosity surrounding those voices, the sense that he's in the presence of someone or something that... knows something. But where? As he chances the depths and darkness, he checks his better thoughts at the metaphorical doorway.
A low cough betrays any further sense of stealth he might have, the dust of the streets finding its way into his lungs. As he finishes coughing, he is treated to eerie shadows hanging up high - and can only look at them with a certain sort of awe.
What the hell is that?
What the hell /are/ those?!
He walks sideways, trying to take in what it is he's exactly looking at. Hanging childr-- no, too small, but Christ, that's a morbid art piece on... power lines? These are definitely power lines.
'hey. mister. up here.'
He's right underneath that lower-hanging doll, eyes widening when he sees it head on - and what it is they seem to be saying.
"What...?" Is all he asks, posture lowering instinctively to the sound of old metal screeching along from somewhere. He's too surprised to run, and running too high on adrenaline to think of suddenly backing down.
Or to really comprehend, truly, that helpful bit of advice.
"Do you... do you know where Antoine is?" He asks of absolutely noone.
antoine?
heh.
maybe you'd be better off askin.
WHERE IN THE HELL.
you're at right now.
It is definitely some kind of a metallic grinding noise. There is a dull thump, followed by the sound of a loud crack, punctuated by a ragged splash shortly after, as if someone crushed a water balloon. The grinding sound is less overt now, less dry. It seems to adhere to some kind of a rhythm--as if someone was chopping down a tree. Except trees don't have that kind of loud grind, or that kind of sick wet sound associated with them. Something hits something, and there is a loud crunch.
The doll that's currently speaking seems to be wearing a little black coat. Most of his cohorts seem to be whispering along with him, of course--this is after all, a huge scandal, to have Rust come walking in here like this. It's just that he seems to be the only one capable of talking loud enough for Rust to hear over the muttering din.
don't worry about the kid.
it's not like he wasn't asking for it or nothin.
not giving the proper respects like he's supposed to.
course.. that leaves you.
what's with you?
don't you know they say gedo's no place for people to make trouble?
that's what daigo said, though.
he ain't here right now.
only pumpkinhead.
--shit, he heard.
Somewhere inbetween now and when the doll assured Rust not to worry, the grinding rhythm has faded to nil. It's been replaced. By a clearer noise. Someone is dragging something large and metal. And that someone is approaching you. The dolls sway a little to the tune of odd squeaking plastics and clinking woods as a chilly breeze kicks through the area, but none of them seem particularly concerned with it.
oh well.
nice knowin' ya, man.
This man's got no time for dealing with ventriloquist bull, which is what Rust would like to shout out loud when there's actually a really good query here - he should be asking where in the hell he's at right now.
"No, no, I got, I got plenty reason to worry," why the hell am I having a conversation with a doll? Then again, it was no more than roughly an hour ago where his eyes were awakened to a truly wondrous thing in a paper crane that was actually moving of its own volition and showing at least a basic amount of comprehension of its situation.
Perhaps such discovery truly lends itself to being that much more terrifying - only reinforced by the louder, clearer noise of someone dragging something heavy, someone coming close - and that little farewell by the doll in black that suggests this would, definitively, be the end of the road for his search.
The shop teacher, foolishly, does not run. He points Ol' Rusty forward in the direction of the sound, as the chilly breeze carries through and ruffles that combover that may be the only match in outright spookiness for these dolls to be found.
"What," the older man makes his demands - if they know something, he can't back down, "did you... do with Antoine?"
who?
listen.
maybe you're not hearing me right.
The grinding noise is distinctive--it could potentially be heard, at least distantly, from very far away. The keening pitch it reaches is nothing short of chaotic, a headache incarnate resonating and jangling something just behind the eyeballs with every teeth-gratingly long drag. Slightly lower than that, there's the shuffling step of something.. that may be a person?
the only thing you've got to worry about.
is how you're going to keep.
YOUR FUCKING BRAINS.
inside your skull.
The only thing you see in the darkness of the alleyway is a wicked, jagged edged grin. It's glowing warm gold and it is an order of magnitude taller than one might expect, compared to all the tiny dolls talking shit. The glowing face, and the empty golden eyes that appear shortly thereafter to match it, they seem almost like the rictus grin of a.. jack'o'lantern?
kid must be somethin' to you.
let's have a class.
we'll call it your lab project for today.
The warm air that bales out of the darkness seems to cling to pumpkinhead, a tall spindly caricature of a man wearing a long wool coat stained with blood and a pumpkin on his head. The warm air that clings to his body is enough to make the goosebumps go away, if it didn't seem to stick to you with every passing moment. It's the -smell-. This thing smells as if he's been wrist-deep in the fat lady's ass and random other parts for a long, long time. Now we know why she sang.
He drags a giant derelict's scythe with him, dragging a gory trail of something unmentionable and unidentifiable on the end of it, his shoes as he shuffles across the ground making horrifyingly gory streaks as he slowly makes his way across the street right down the line of Rust's pipe. The comensurately rusted metal of that scythe makes cripplingly agonizing sounds as it skips across the pavement.
He is heading for you, and he is not stopping.
we're going to see.
how long it takes for you to forget about antoine.
and kneel.
COMBATSYS: Eriya has started a fight here.
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Eriya 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Rust has joined the fight here.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Eriya
"Where is he," he repeats with significantly quieter a tone - if it comes to it, the two would probably spend the entire evening arguing over how the other is not listening. The odor draws closer, the older man's nose wrinkling at the stench. The ear-splitting pitch earns another wince, but the man doesn't go to shield his ears. Ol' Rusty is still held forward...
Until he sees the wicked, jagged grin. That light. It's unsettling, it's fearsome... and it brings back a number of extremely uncomfortable memories concerning Ojike no Oni. His incredibly close run-ins with him, first when trying to save Gedo, and then in that desperate defense for Pacific.
The warning about how he has to keep his brains in his skull, the idea that this will be a lesson for him he soon won't forget. Well, he soon won't forget about any of that, no siree, so long as he actually keeps his brains in his skull to remember it with.
One of his knees starts to ache, as if his legs were trying to say 'go, run, no way we're doing this,' as the warm air washes uncomfortably around him. The foul odor is enough for him to want to force bile out of his throat. The throat, too, joins forces with his knee in regards to its feelings about the matter.
There's no mistaking what's on that scythe - this is no mere ventriloquisum trick meant to scare naughty children, he's looking at something almost truly right out the same world of mystique and wonder his mind has been opened to. From beholding a miracle of creation, to an abomination of terror.
The older man's resolve only goes so far before he takes a cautionary step back that will do him absolutely no good. Even if he's to turn tail and run, the frightening figure before him would catch up with him. Howard is a very easy man to outpace.
"Shit," he mutters aloud, too stunned to harden himself mentally in the face of... this, a part of him growing concerned as to whether or not this young man is going to be worth this particular trial as he finds himself taking yet another step back, Ol' Rusty almost literally the only thing standing between him and what might be a bloody end.
COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Eriya
not here.
where you should be.
little late now.
As Rust backs away slowly, the tall man seems just a touch faster--truthfully, he's moving a little slowly, but the length of his limbs seem almost freakish, if one were given to fits of imagination, so each dragging step counts for two of any other potential onlooker. The tall man honestly looks like he just stepped out of a slaughterhouse--some of the ichor stains zig-zagging across what might have at one point been a nice travelling suit are new. Some are not.
Most of all, the only kind of reaction that one can get from him is that he knows you're there. Most intimately, and without pretense, he knows you're there. Beyond that, you can wave your arms, curse at him, wave a stick threateningly, nothing seems to much faze the pumpkin-headed creature heading for you right now. His scythe, dripping with malice and things much less ideological, raises slowly as he closes the distance. Only by a foot or so, but beyond his shuffling steps and the murmuring from above, his approach is now.. quiet.
The metal glints. At least, what parts of it aren't covered in rust and gore.
He stops, a little over an arm's length from
now kids.
SIT YOUR ASSES DOWN.
school..
..is in session.
At that point, the tall man shakes at the shoulders, at the waist, at the neck, at the hips. He seems to suffer something like a spasm, tipping his scythe into the air, and then he leans back, his spine curving and cracking loudly with the motion. Suddenly, his weapon drops.. and whips across the ground.
Have you ever been scalped by a scythe?
Well.. luckily, the tall man's aim doesn't seem to be that good.
Maybe he'll have to settle for an ear.
Or an arm.
Or an eye..
Really, whatever's within ripping distance from the edge of that gory blade will do. He doesn't seem to be terribly picky...
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Eriya's Carving Nightmare.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Eriya
There are a few more steps backwards in that interim with that repeating message about Antoine being 'not here.' More and more, the man looks the part of an imminent murder victim and less the defiant would-be savior of an Antoine that is clearly out of his entire goddamn mind.
Made all the more evident with the taller man in that bloodied suit as he determines to strike after a series of spasms and a loud crack that - for this really brief moment - Howard can sympathize with. That's really gotta hurt.
There's no more room for empathy when the weapon drops and just sends scythe along the ground, at which point th eshop teacher visibly hunkers down, left hand clenched tight as his entire body stiffens - the familiar gesture he uses in which to protect himself.
The scythe's impact against his left elbow before it goes along its merry way. The way it jerks his left elbow, the impact feels more bludgeoned than sliced. The arm is, undoubtedly, still unattached.
It's now a question as to whether or not it opened up a gash or if some of the gore is splashed on him, an eerie chill as a drop of blood falls from the place of impact and splashes into a tiny pool of cold water underneath Rust's sock-clad feet.
He regrets not putting on his shoes now.
Am I really going to die here like this, Howard has to ask himself. No, things are different now, I'm not the flailing, panicked man from some time back, he decides as his shoulders loudly crackle, forcing his joints to flex by sheer will where they'd be happy just being locked there after the fact.
"I don't, I don't have time for this," the shop teacher says shakily as he risks the innate danger - the unmistakable /fear/ - to bring himself forward in the wake of the well-used scythe, knees and ankles loudly protesting as he steps in close, his right shoulder popping to the sound of him attempting to thrust an elbow into that mass of disgustingly soiled cloth in an elbow strike...
Followed, immediately, to the seemingly bone-crunchingly loud pop of him forcefully loosening up his elbow to swing Ol' Rusty outward for the follow-up strike, looking to take the wind out of this man - if it even /is/ one, anymore - in what he hopes to be a strong statement about his opinion of where he stands in regards to wanting to find and save Antoine before it's too late.
His own right arm's going to be aching well after the fact.
COMBATSYS: Eriya endures Rust's Crushing Strike.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0 Eriya
It might have something to do with the fact that the thing keeps grinning at you--a pumpkin really doesn't have many expressions to speak of--but whatever happened to pumpkinhead's back doesn't seem to even be a factor in what's shaping up to be a pretty messy battle already. Luckily, the huge scythe this thing is slinging around with one arm seems not to be an iminently lethal weapon--the exact angle seems to determine whether you're folded in half or lose an arm to the bloody reaper. The metal, coated in rust as it is, is certainly not wickedly sharp as most weapons are, though it is certainly capable of parting flesh. To that vein--let's hope it didn't break skin.
That scythe.. is definitely not sterilized.
As unclean as it may feel to simply be in the presence of this damned thing, Rust manages an admirable amount of courage in giving the tall man a swift drubbing in the midsection, folding the creature in half over his pipe, and leaving something within that pumpkin to wheeze hollowly, shaking with the motion. The murmurs continue overhead, slightly louder now, but keeping their attention rapt on the fight. Somewhat accordingly, there is an overwhelming sense of audience--that Rust is not alone, that he is being watched.
But there is no help here
Nobody here is watching to help
They're...amused
...They want to see what happens next
Slowly, a serpent winds its way down Rust's weapon, leaving black oil in its wake as it slithers down his length, gripping tightly..the pumpkinheaded creature is wheezing, twitching... but--is it moaning? Or-- are those the dolls laughing?
His arm twitches bonelessly, his scythe raising from behind Rust. The move seems agonizingly slow. At least, until the last moment. Upon which a startling realization might be made. The very point of the scythe's blade, driven with the forces at which it certainly moves now, is more than capable of lodging itself in
COMBATSYS: Eriya successfully hits Rust with splorch..
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Rust 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Eriya
It's ... really not sterile at this point.
Unfortunately, there's a lot more to worry about than the measurable chance of an infection. Being punched through the back by the blade of a scythe and lifted like a ragdoll, for example.
The tall man has Rust suspended on the end of his scythe, and with both hands on the snathe, is lifting the man as if trying to offer him to the dolls. But that's not who he's being offered to. Snakes, of all sizes, shapes and colors, come streaming from the man's coat, the gaps where a normal man's eyes would be, that wicked grin. All sizes and shapes, they spill out, trailing oil and ichor in equal number as they wind their way up the scythe snathe to where Rust is suspended. Some of them may be made of energy. If you're lucky, most of them are. Because those bared fangs seem all too real.
They begin to bite.
They begin to feed.
And they don't stop until pumpkinhead rips his blade out of Rust with a vicious kick.
This man has had a dream of becoming a fighting superstar go up in smoke in recently - that he would, in theory, have been okay with being the center focus of attention and amusement of many on the fighting circuit takes a sharp one eighty to the creepy murmurs of the hanging dolls, the older man gasping for air with a slight cough at taking in another strong whiff of... all that blood.
He hasn't been in the center of so much blood since Rolento walked up and slaughtered so many invasion soldiers around him, and even now is an incredibly unsettling thing--
Wait, what's that on the pipe-- a snake? The older man starts trying to shake it off as he tries to keep his head out of the past, this is now, Antoine's in trouble /now/, this... guy must have something to do with him!!
Too much time is spent on the snake, not enough on the scythe rising behind himself. He doesn't notice until it happens, where the murderous pumpkin-headed figure catches him, metaphorically, with his pants down.
"Grrkah," something sharp manages to make it into his back and lift him up, a cry of pain as he hangs off the dirtied scythe, kicking feet uselessly as he's held up towards the dolls. Their creepy faces, their creepy eyes. And that sudden feeling of slithering - something's on his knee.
No, something's on his /everywhere/!! A loud shout of utter surprise can be heard down the street as the snakes come rushing over and... well, let us be charitable and not go into too much detail as to the individual injuries.
There's a lot.
If anything, the pumpkinhead ends up his savior with that powerful kick that rips the blade clean (...not so clean) out of his back with a spray of blood, the older man tumbling head over heels across cold, rapidly bloodied street onto his back. His white undershirt looks more like a tattered mess of red and black cloth, when one considers the wound in his back, the oily trails, and the snake fang-shaped bites largely everywhere.
Knelt down on the ground and prone, the older man gags as he brings his left hand to his back. It's warm, he's bleeding, he's cut. Falling over onto his back a moment later from the pain, he can only look up dazedly to those hanging dolls that, almost assuredly, are expressing their amusement.
It takes a supreme effort of willpower to sit up so soon to even see this figure - and, by chance, a trash can nearby.
There is no banter or demands to be made, as a truly terrified man's only means of protecting himself is to harshly punt said trash can with one leg and just hope he can hit it hard enough in that /thing's/ direction.
COMBATSYS: Eriya endures Rust's Large Thrown Object.
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Rust 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1 Eriya
Serpents literally drip from the tall man's sleeves as his scythe slams down, planting in the ground, held in a bizarre reverse-way in his long grip. It's a side-effect, one may note, of the way he hit Rust from behind. It takes a moment for it to seemingly occur to pumpkinhead that it is really not a way one should hold a scythe at all, especially not one you'd like to pithe someone with.
see. you think you can save anyone?
don't make us motherfucking laugh.
there's only one messiah.
you can't save anyone.
the only thing you can do.
is kneel.
As if to punctuate the livid word, a trash can is kicked at the murderous macabre, slamming into him and shifting him--slightly. There is no response directly from him, no gutteral noise of pain or really any sound at all from the creature, beyond the cacophony of being hit with a trash can which rebounds across the street. His expression--the wicked unconscious grin--never changes. His hand shifts, changing orientation on the scythe, before he brutally rips it free from the street.
At which point he leans forward, striking right from where he stands to plant his blade in Rust again, and drag him closer. At which point Rust will find out the vermin that spilled out from the creature aren't just snakes. Spiders, biting ants, scorpions--the ground is livid with angry, venomous creatures. All of which pumpkinhead is currently trying to drown you in.
COMBATSYS: Eriya successfully hits Rust with Writhing Black Cat.
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Rust 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Eriya
Words hurt. In this case, it feels more like thoughts, but by themselves, they hurt - a reminder that perhaps, despite everything, he is still incredibly weak. Laughable. He's on the ground, he's hurt, he's bleeding, and... in no shape to really do much of anything about Antoine, by the moment.
His left leg jerks up when the scythe comes down - a moment of relief, only momentary, when he doesn't feel the ill-decorated steel clamp into him.
It catches his sock.
This would literally be the one time he'd have regretted shelling out extra cash for heavy duty socks that don't tear easily under duress, for what could have been a clean miss becomes, in its entirety, the same result - his back screaming in pain as the wound is dragged across bumpy asphalt while he struggles, even fails outright, to pull himself out of the grasp.
His hand falls upon a scorpion, just in time for a couple ants to start nipping along his other arm. To say nothing of the snakes that have literally decided to crawl upon his scalp in the same general pattern as his combover, their hisses rattling in his ears.
A loud yell echoes through the alleys again as he uselessly swats away in an attempt to pull himself up, writhing and tumbling and otherwise showing a whole lot more activity than is normally seen from this aging man. The loud pop in one of his shoulders seems, distantly, a lot less painful than where a couple ants have managed to get inside.
As a spider dances past his eyes, a part of him wonders - I spent a whole lot of time and energy in Kyokugen, is it really going to be all for nothing if I'm caught in a life or death situation like this? Have I really not progressed, at all?
His left hand suddenly rises from the swarm of venomous insects as he forces himself up to a seated position, some creatures still clinging onto him as he risks attempting to pull the same dragging trick the pumpkin-headed monster has on /himself/ - trying to reach out and yank him close, heedless of the muck his hand might get inside. Yank him close, yank him down to his level, pull him down.
If he can just get that opening, he raises Ol' Rusty up - a spider along for the ride - and intends to send the butt end crashing down upon their back, multiple times, a short pause to reassert his grip for every blow, given the strength he would strike at would outstrip the weaker grip of his right hand.
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Eriya with Hammering EX.
- Power hit! -
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Rust 1/----===/=======|=======\=====--\1 Eriya
With the dreaded reverbations of metal carving furrows into asphalt, pumpkinhead works the blade dutiously across the street as Rust yells, silently trying to drag him, no--drown him in venomous creatures and the slick ichor that paints the street at this point. It's amazing, how fast someone can move when flesh-eating beetles are nipping at their heels, isn't it?
The things have wormed their way into most of what few articles of attire Rust has worn, biting, snapping, stinging angrily. Some of it seems to chill more than it does hurt--the creatures which are more nightmare than real inflicting damage on the flesh and the mind. But when you slap at these creatures, some of them squish, as opposed to dissipate. Some of them are not the fictions of a deluded, deranged mind.
pumpkinhead almost viciously murders Rust's sock in the ensuing mayhem.
As his blade lifts again while Rust is otherwise occupied for what might be a fatal blow, Rust manages to catch hold of the lower lapels of his coat, yanking the killer to the ground, his head slamming into the pavement with a hollow crash, his scythe dropping from his grasp.
At which point the pipe lands.
pumpkinhead is battered for all of his life, blood welling from his back as Rust hammers him with the rusted pipe, his body giving little resistance to the thing--as you can swear you hear the snap of bones as well as the hollow thumping of meat being pounded. For a moment, he is still.
well.
congratufuckinglations.
you beat a bitch straight to death.
i hope you're happy.
do you feel powerful?
oh wait--my bad.
One gloved hand twitches, and with deliberate premeditation, grips the snathe of the scythe.
you just got yourself a one-way ticket to the promised land.
at least you're in the right position for the occaision.
Slowly, pumpkinhead rises, his black shadow lengthening from the flicker of an amber streetlight above. It falls over Rust. In the embrace of the dark shape, it seems much colder than before. The only thing visible from that angle is the glint of his bloody reaper, and the rictus grin of his pumpkin, as if having enjoyed the beating he just set loose.
i want you to watch closely, students.
this is gonna be like a fucking miracle.
COMBATSYS: Eriya gains composure.
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Rust 1/----===/=======|=======\====---\1 Eriya
The older man is trying to make each and every last strike count, not stopping at the visceral sound of a bone crunching - it's life or death, it needs to end, it needs to stop. For that brief moment, it would seem that the role of murderer and victim both been exchanged. Something that gives poignant pause when Howard slowly rises up, seeming victor, to the sarcastic congratulations - and quick amendment - of that voice.
The snakes - real ones - still park themselves atop his scalp. The shop teacher appears none the wiser in the heat of the moment, staring agahst at the twitching hand that clutches the scythe and the enveloping darkness as the pumpkin-headed madman... or madwoman? Seems to all but cut him out of the world in the embrace, a chill running through his largely exposed body.
He really should have put on a coat.
"I'm, I'm tired of this," Howard starts with the voice's invitation to these students to watch for a 'fucking miracle,' bending down low with pain in his lower back from where he suffered a deep stab. Ol' Rusty's tip scrapes against the darkness on the ground.
"Tell me, tell me what you did to... to Antoine," he bares his teeth as he tries to find his voice. It's weak - too weak for proper heroic defiance. The spirit is willing. The throat, not so much. His lungs are not particularly motivated.
"Where is he," he sneers as Ol' Rusty spins about slowly once in his grip, scraping it hard against the asphalt with a scratch that summons sparks - a brief flash of light - in the face of the mad killer.
"...and what did you... DO TO HIM?!" He calls as the pipe is swung upward, himself moving forward across the ground, as he tries to get his answers. Answers to a question that may not be able to be resolved in this particular circumstance.
Answers that he hopes to shake out of that pumpkin-shaped headgear with one solid, powerful swing to its chin.
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Eriya with Cement Upper.
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Rust 1/----===/=======|=======\=======\1 Eriya
The pipe lands solidly on what would be the chin on a human head--for a pumpkinhead, however, it's just underneath the grin, sending the thing's head spinning near 180 degrees with a horrific cracking sound. If you didn't know better, his neck simply twisted in half. The tall man shifts, almost falling back before shambling towards Rust slowly, undeterred by the fact his head is oriented looking somewhere over his right shoulder.
It's almost like he can hear your heartbeat, and that's enough.
The creature seems completely oblivious to any attack, no matter hoy Kyokugen it may be. Any attack that doesn't cause the tall man to fall over is simply ignored. It's a question then of how much blood that that thing is dragging around in his clothes is his, and how much is other people's. The question 'how much of it is going to be yours' is also a matter of pressing concern.
you want antoine, eh.
The blow comes almost too fast to think on. As the creature shambles towards Rust, suddenly he leans forward to check the aging fighter in the throat with a straight-edged blow from his snathe. As if he were trying to strangle Rust by crushing his windpipe, trying to stun him. Even shortly after that vicious attempt, the pumpkinheaded killer slowly begins to whirl that massive scythe around. The weight of the thing is audible as it passes, the killer's lopsided grin focused somewhere on the middle distance between it and a bookstore across the street.
maybe you want to start looking.
IN THE MOTHERFUCKING AFTERLIFE
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Eriya's A Brutal Psychopomp.
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Rust 1/--=====/=======|======-\-------\0 Eriya
"Ahugh!" The snathe checks him in the throat, all right, a backwards fall onto his bum indicative of a weakness in position. An opening, an entirely perfect chance to end all this in the here and now, while those 'students' are sure to be taking notes on the best way to horribly murder a man barking up the wrong tree, sniffing the wrong rump, or any other sort of demeaning metaphors one might bring to the front of the classroom o' brutal killing.
Blearily, the shop teacher looks out to the yellowish glow as the scythe starts to move towards him. The positioning is, really, perfectly ideal - the blade is perfectly spaced for cutting flesh in twain. Any other man, and it'd split them in half on the spot.
"No, he's... here," he groans out, "somewhere."
His left hand tenses into a fist once more, trying to lean his upper left arm into the scythe as it goes to reap this soul from this world.
Instead, there may be a jarring, harsh stop where the blade does not pass his flesh. It is very clear, frighteningly clear - most especially to Howard Rust himself, who is bleeding and feeling a bit of weakness from the venoms coursing through him - that in this particular, brutal swing, it's not going to be cutting him into any particular pieces.
"I just, I just want him outta trouble," he wheezes far too pathetically for a man who just stood against a should've-been fatal scythe swipe, the man's body crackling all about as he wills it to move, stumbling forward to the pumpkin-headed killer.
Some may wonder if the unmasked combatant, himself, is even really human in that respect.
"And is that," he sneers as he forces his left hand up high, as if to try and place it on the pumpkin, "so much," he wheezes out as there is no real special technique or flash to be had.
"To ask for?!"
He asks as he brings what strength he has to plant the taller, heavier pumpkin-headed terror face down into the dark, cold pavement beneath, Ol' Rusty in his right arm being cocked back.
COMBATSYS: Eriya endures Rust's Brick Stacker.
> Determined Hit! <
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Rust 1/---====/=======|=======\=------\1 Eriya
Though Rust is hit, he is hardly stunned.
The scythe's dance stops there, rusted blade caught by dirty flesh and slowed just enough to stay the execution by inches, as Rust is much tougher than the last fellow who tasted the bitters of the reaper. The tall man leans into the blow slowly, as if trying to rip Rust's offending arm off through sheer force, but the wheezing old man is made of just a little tougher stuff than that.
The killer's shoulders slowly raise, just before Rust palms the comically oversized head, to which there is, naturally, no resistance at all. Before you know it, the killer's lopsided grin eats pavement, as it is driven into the ground hard enough to crack the icy blacktop, the gangly caricature's limbs all screwed up as he's driven there. A single spasm, and the killer is still, in a growing pool of blood.
The pumpkin cracks. And begins to flake.
Beetles swarm from the crack.
Starting with the clothes, the entire body seems to melt into a pile of leeches and beetles, snapping at Rust's hand venomously. If there was ever any question as to what part of the tall man isn't really infested with creatures... well, the answer is blindingly obvious now.
i think.
you should be worrying.
about all the trouble you're in.
oh.
behind you.
The point of the snathe, originating from a very-much-in-one-piece killer, jabs out, to invoke a fountain of blood from the earlier impaling wound he inflicted in Rust's back. He wants his blood. He wants his blood by the bucketful. Blood is going to fill the streets when he's done. So much blood. That it'll come up to pumpkinhead's shoes. In a grisly mirror of Rust's own attack, pumpkinhead is trying to pin the fighter down underneath his snathe.
after this.
the joyous work begins.
COMBATSYS: Rust fails to interrupt Victimize from Eriya with Man At Work.
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Rust 0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0 Eriya
COMBATSYS: Rust can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ <
Eriya 0/-------/-------|
It's like being a preserved butterfly.
Pinned to the ground like this, the end of his snathe is lodged perilously in the formerly near-surgical puncture wound, once just a bloody ragged slit in the torso. That.. that changes quickly. Boneless, another hand grips the haft of his scythe near the blade head as he leans his weight onto the thing, the tall man's back arching up as he drives the snathe deeper into the wound.
can you feel the joy.
pumpkinhead leans back on the snathe, twisting it into the wound, driving the thick oak deeper in. Then he leans forward, working it further.
can you feel.
the fucking joy!?!?
The tall man works feverishly, his ministrations causing a rising pool of blood from the aging fighter. The writhing movement of the scythe twists and drives, pulses and jams deep into the bleeding wound, working blood into every fiber of that wooden snathe. The blood is unreal. It's entirely more than is evne n Rust's body, welling high, threatening to submerge Rust entirely. Cold blood. Miserable blood.
Gelid.
And unspeakably... /painful./
The man doesn't even really comprehend the weightlessness as a feint in his attempt to drive a humble request home, leaning down with the faceplant with Ol' Rusty cocked back, ready for the final, decisive blow if it has to come to it. The man's face is twisted in anger, agony, and stress - the thought, childish as it may be, that he may be facing down the very reason for everything.
Assuming, of course, one can truly attribute reason to the utter madness all around him. The supposedly talking dolls, the vermin, the darkness... the fear.
There is a lot of it. This man is truly afraid.
He recoils once again when beetles rush out the cracks of the mask and attempt to bite into his hand, as the form seems to melt away into the very ground to a series of polite considerations about how worried he should be.
Behind him?!
It's an awkward position to work from, lifting up his left leg as he realizes he's going to have to start kicking behind him blind. But, he can do this, he thinks. He can do this, just have to start low, go up--
His first kick manages, of all places, to blast the thin air going between the killer's legs harmlessly.
That first kick is all he gets, the snathe's point striking into his back the moment he's preparing a second of many kicks - it brings him down to a kneel with a shout of surprise, and gets driven right to the cold, unfeeling, dirty streets with utmost horror on his face. He can't turn around to see what's going on.
He can just feel it. Is that the joy the voice is talking about? No, it's pain, it's suffering, it's a tense face with his eyes squeezed shut as his strength fails him to pull himself up - actually, he can't, he'd risk driving whatever's in his back all the way through himself. He's pinned, he's helpless.
He's as good as dead to the joys of a rising pool of blood from his back. He feels weaker, like everything's starting to fade to black as he's bathed in the ichor of himself and others that have encountered this... whoever it is.
"God damn it," he wheezes weakly, "Antoine," raising his left hand up towards the empty, uncaring darkness before it falls limp.
She had told him she couldn't promise any help; that he had to go find Antoine on his own. It should have been understood that she had better things to do. Her time is valuable. She was becoming dangerously close to getting 'involved' with something she was certain she didn't want to be stuck caring about. Collecting information, gathering data, feeding intel back into the network to let others figure out what to do with it? That was all fine and dandy. Scouring the streets for some guy that just rampaged his way out of a rehab center? Not high on Ayame's List of Ayame's Interests.
But... not everything can be broken down to simple, rational choices, as much as she would prefer to operate that way. "Maybe this guy... maybe he'll be one of the ones we need," she had muttered to herself as she crouched next to Rust's beaten down old set of wheels. "Maybe he's important somehow. Maybe he's a resource. Yeah." she decided, relieved to find an excuse to take some precautions. 'Resource'. That's sufficiently impersonal to be all right to care about. The tracker she tucked under the rusted out bumper is perfect for keeping tabs on where the desperate man finds himself driving off into the night.
That was a while ago. Ayame had gone her seperate way. She still had a few matters to take care of before fully investing herself in another direction. Now and then she'd pull out her high resolution, wide screened smart phone, pull up a map, and check on Rust's whereabouts. Well, his truck's whereabouts.
Then it stopped moving in the middle of Gedo... in the middle of the night. "Che." She used to live down there, dwelling in what barely passed as a single bedroom suite in a building twenty years past the point of when it should have been condemned. She knew that area. Sure, the Gedo High students did what they could do to keep ne'er-do-wells like herself under control, but they couldn't be everywhere at once... nor was she the worst element of that area. By far. "A little out of the way..." Ayame had mused as she changed her route. Just a /little/ detour, won't hurt anything just to make sure.
A minute ago she came across the truck, sitting in the street, its engine and lights off, and Rust no where to be seen. Is that a tinge of concern for Rust? Or just worry over the loss of a potential resource? Ayame slips her phone out of her jacket again. "What've you gotten yourself into now, pops?"
Seven seconds later, the cell phone on Rust's beaten, bloody person begins to ring.
The rest of it passes in a blur.
Dripping with blood half imagined, half-real, the snathe is extracted from Rust's wound only when the grimly satisfied man is convinced that the aging fighter won't be getting up anytime soon. When he does so, it's which a vicious wrench, holding the scythe in one hand as he shifts, breathing hard. Perhaps in exhaustion.
Perhaps in excitement.
The droning murmur overhead slowly turns to..tittering. Giggling.
one last lesson before we adjourn, kids.
The scythe raises.
what happens when you don't kneel to pumpkinhead.
The scythe falls. Being stabbed a few times with three feet of rusted steel are ultimately, against someone as tough as Rust, just practice swings. It seems like he's just taking pent-up frustrations out now. Before he gets to the business of puncturing the aging pipesman's heart and, as promised, cutting the grey matter out of his skull. The killer, in some fit of discontentment, drags Rust's body back up out of the pool of blood, lifting him with one hand as he drags him over to a nearby car, slamming his body over it with enough force to cause the shocks to tilt.
That blade, unmercifully, raises again.
And then the winsome sound of some ringtone plays.
"....?"
As if concerned, the killer pauses briefly. Now oriented properly from the headslam Rust initated only moments ago, his head shakes. Infuriated for no apparent reason other than the cute noise emanating from what passes for Rust's pants, he throws the stripped body to the ground, and begins to stomp, looking for the source of the aggravating noise. To silence it. Though the dolls watch, they are very careful not to interrupt pumpkinhead during one of his violent fits.
The worst thing about it is that he's conscious for the entirety of it - too tough to pass out so easily from bloodloss, from poisoning, from pain, a dull sense of wondering about why things just have to turn out like this as his back is tenderized a bit further from the scythe. He flinches with every blow, having passed that little threshhold of pain otherwise where pretty much any and every hit is guaranteed to leave a mark, half his face drenched in warm blood - some of which may not actually even be originally his.
Yanked up suddenly, the weak, slowly bleeding out older man stares at his to-be killer with bleariness and emptiness, too weak to really do any pleading aside from a few pained grunts and several odd strings of consonants that do not really constitute communicative language beyond 'ouch.'
Which stops abruptly when he is slammed against the car. His phone suddenly rings. Quon? Is Quon calling him back? Did he find Antoine, or---
His weak, barely conscious self hits the ground - and with it, his cell slides out of his pocket and makes numb contact with his right hand.
Answer it.
Answer it god damn you, you're still alive!
Letting go of Ol' Rusty (how he even managed to keep hold of it while being lifted up and slammed and such after the fact is really something), he pats for the familiar feel of plastic, of the thing he absolutely despises because the buttons are much, much too small for his fingers and he cannot for the life of him find a phone that fits them.
It takes some fussing, and the madman nearby will no doubt figure out where that ringing is coming from soon enough, fumbling frantically with his hands to flip it open so that it'll catch.
Shortly after the fourth ring, on the other line, Ayame may hear the sounds of stomping, and some disconcertingly weak breathing on the other end.
"Quon?" Comes Rust's weak voice. "Is that... you, uh, sorry, I, I didn't... find..."
A crash echoes somewhere not far. Down one of those dark alleys no one with any sense would ever go down if they had a lick of sense. Could be where Rust is. Or it could be any number of other things that go bump in the night in these parts. She has to be sure.
And then the ring. A sonar ping for the only person out there trying to listen for it.
"Gotcha." Ayame murmured to herself as she took off in that direction. As no answer comes quickly, she's put on guard. She'll approach carefully. She could move so very quiet when she wanted to.
Just needs to go down this alleyway... She's been down countless like it in the past. She's not afraid of the dark, not afraid of the scum that lurks around these corners. It's not so long ago that she used to be one of them, trying to scrape out a desperate living by way of petty crime. Her parents would be so proud.
But this time she hesitates at the mouth of that dark passage, her skin crawling, her mind in a violent wrestle between the rational side that argues it can't be any different than normal... and that paranoid side she usually kept burried so well that tells her to just run... just start running in the opposite direction now and put that Pacific High teacher out of thought and mind for good. That isn't so hard, is it? She's always excelled at mental compartmentalism - it's a component of her formidable recollection.
Her left hand slips to a pouch tucked beneath her jacket, drawing a six inch long metal tube. Silly, she tells herself... but holding it brings her comfort she dreads to admit. She'll not think about that for now. Into the maw she slips, the sound of the pinging phone accompanised by another noise...something violent and primal.
Her right hand occupies itself with slipping her phone back into her jacket then taking a small Bluetooth ear piece and sliding that into her ear. Just in case Rust finally answers.
When the ringing stops and a voice is heard in her right ear, it doesn't get any better for Ayame's nerves. The old man's been shanked? Probably got in over his head... probably got mugged by some ruthless thug... no, thugs, it'd take more than one to get him down, she muses. But something screams in the back of her mind that such a rational explanation isn't going to apply here.
She sneaks around another corner and the ghastly sight is forever imprinted in her mind. Not so good at forgetting things? She'll /want/ to forget this waking nightmare. For seconds, Ayame freezes in place, her mind reeling at the scene of the crime. It wasn't more than an hour or so earlier she had been showing Rust that paper can move of its own volition and chi birds can fly. And this? This she can't believe. This just isn't real. It can't be.
A year ago a fragment of Shadaloo's vile dictator reached out and touched her forehead, invoking in Ayame's mind the malevolent phantasms of her worst nightmares. Ayame had blacked out, flicking her mind off like a switch, rather than facing /that/. What she's seeing right now establishes, perhaps, a new terror to mentally flee in her sleep.
'At least I'll be alive,' she contemplates, already imagining reading about Rust Howard's demise in tomorrow's headlines, right hand lifting to her ear to hang up the phone. One's gotta be alive to have regrets. The dead sure don't.
She looks up overhead. What are those? Are those babies hanging up there? No, dolls. Why are there so many dolls? This /is/ a nightmare, right?
"No." Fear is weakness. She won't be driven by it. Not... not in a situation like this.
When the lithe figure of Ayame lands between Rust and Eriya a couple seconds later, her staff is already at its full six-feet length, its surface decorated with a number of delicate crimson, glowing runes, only visible in the darkness of this hellhole. She's looking at the killer and his grotesque head, his perpetual pumpkin smile. This can't be real. "You'll have to get through me before you draw another drop of this good man's blood." Who said that? Did she just utter those words? She shifts her stance, her staff angled in front of her, doing everything in her mental capacity to keep her arms from trembling.
That thing kicks like a damn cannon.
Stomping new and ever more imaginative mudholes in his target and probably anything even remotely close to his target, the pumpkinhead raves for a few moments, losing track of what's real. It leans back, head shaking violently despite the silence, despite that sick grin plastered across its face. That noise. That noise...
It continues hearing it, even after Rust answers the phone, after whimpering what is going to be his last words. Moving away, the pumpkinhead thrashes about wildly, ripping the driver's side mirror off of the car it bent Rust over a moment ago with his bare hands, stomping it to pieces the moment it makes a sound hitting the pavement. Crunch!! At this point, the dolls aren't saying a thing. In the hushed silence, it's easy to imagine the dolls are as afraid of pumpkinhead as anything else should be.
He can be so kind to his disciples.
It can be so cruel, too..
Scythe marks rip across the pavement in all directions by the time the young rogue lands between them, the killer facing away from Ayame. It pauses, seeming almost inhumanly spindly as it looms, turning to look at Ayame. He grins at her in a totally unfeeling way. Its head... has stopped shaking. But the blood-drenched murderer seems to be breathing much more heavily than before.
o--oh. look. another disciple for pumpkinhead.
yeah--
A doll explodes into blood overhead, raining from the sky in gory bits.
The killer stalks towards Ayame, the faint glow of her staff bleached out by the eerie yellow candescence of whatever--whatever--is inside that head of his. As he walks, dolls squeal as they're crushed, as they catch fire. As they drown. As snakes wind out of their own skulls and crush them. Blood rains from the sky. pumpkinhead? He grins furiously. He grins violently. He grins brutally. Stepping forward, he raises his scythe....
... and then recognizes Ayame as a person.
"wh..who is this...?"
A voice resonates from inside the pumpkinhead, as opposed to within your bones. Its hands shake. And then it begins to dissolve away, into a swarm of parasitic slugs, hitting the ground in a massive, repulsive wave of pulsating, writhing flesh. The otherwise benign things squirm away from the scene slowly, stalks fluttering as they attempt to feel their way through the dark, and the quickly drying pools of blood. Eventually, as the blood goes, so do they, drying out each in turn and cracking into dust.
Only a few live slugs are left, writhing in agony and rearing up in throes from some venom or another.
The pumpkinhead--scythe, dolls and all--is otherwise gone. It leaves only Rust, a few gory splotches of blood, and an oily-eyed Gedo boy, further on down the alley, who wasn't so lucky.
"Quon?" The older man asks in a gradually weaker voice, hoping he didn't just hang up - unaware of the true nature of who it was on the other line. "Quon... you, uh, you there..."
PLEASE BE THERE THIS IS IMPORTANT OH MY GOD PLEASE BE THERE.
Even in his weakness, he can make out the soft click that comes with a cut phoneline. Quon hung up, the shop teacher things. Quon hung up. Damn it, boy, he inwardly curses, trying to ball up a fist but not finding the strength in him to do so - let alone attempt to lift it up and try to punch the pavement in anger. He's through, that's how it all ends, isn't it - Antoine's still out there going nuts, Zach's a murderer with some powerful thing he can't get off... what a fine captain he was, huh--
'No,' someone says. He's not able to turn his head much to see who it is, but it's a female voice. Sort of familiar (it really ought to be, it's been only about an hour or so)....
A boast is made, and from the corner of his eye he can see the tip of a staff and Ayame's heel, a view obscured when a bit of exploding doll decides to wash itself over his face and a wince as he makes due with whatever time he's going to be having left, at this rate. Another voice comes in - who is what? It... probably doesn't matter.
It is debatable as to how much awareness he has left while he's slowly bleeding out.
Ayame holds her ground, staff angled in front of her, standing between Death and Rust, gazing back at that frozen, glowing rictus. How is it glowing? Isn't there a head in there? How would there be room for a light too? How does she even begin to fight something like this? Her mind races to form plans and tactics while simultaneously trying to squelch what would be crippling terror were her psyche any less firm, any less resolute in this very moment.
How do you fight something this evil, this vile? Drenched in foul smelling ichor and armed with a scythe that puts her own reach to shame, Ayame begins to wonder if there is anything at all in her entire repertoire that can combat this presence.
That's when a memory of another time is forced to the front of her thoughts... a time when she faced something just as evil, just as contemptable... The Devil of Koga. It was in that moment when her life was all but forfeit that she unintentionally recalled her birthright, the purpose to which she was born. The destiny her parents had always hoped she would secure - the greatest miko her family had seen for generations; a priestesses to take a stand against the demons and devils that torment the land of man. But she had turned away from that life and ran... and has been running ever since.
Right now, staff in hand, standing bravely if terrified in the way, Ayame whispers a quiet prayer beneath her breath, words that have gone unuttered for years now. Face to face with The End that stands before her, a distant kernal of young faith, burried beneath layers of cynicism, is kindled. The gods may not listen to a heart so lost as hers, but this instant, it doesn't hurt to try, does it?
Here he comes. His scythe is lifted with ease that betrays the raw power in this primal creature's limbs. She will have to trust in her bojutsu, the traditions taught by her father. Knife or chain mean nothing against slaughter incarnate!
But then she awakes from the living nightmare. No, wait, it isn't her that awoke...
With each doll's demise, Ayame flinches. She never heard them speak, never heard the whispers in her skull like Rust did, but the miserable little constructs will not be missed all the same. All she does is stand there, white-knuckle tight grip on her staff, as the scene falls to pieces before her eyes.
Did she... did she just pray it away? Ayame shakes her head slowly, lowering her staff. She can tell it's gone. This is no trick, no deception of the night and shadow. It's... it's gone. The girl lifts her hand to her face, rubbing it down from forehead to chin once then twice, wiping away the dampness of fear induced perspiration.
The butt of her staff clanks against the ground, the noise shocking her back into moving, shaking her head, blinking her eyes and turning around to face the pumpkinhead's most recent victim. A surviver... a rare find indeed. "Rust...? Rust? You with me? Hey, don't slip off like that." Her staff collapsed and stowed, the girl is crouching at Rust's side. "You're too tough to die now, right? Just... just stay with me for a little while longer."
Seconds later, her knees touch the ground, the girl propped up by her left hand. pumpkinhead got at least one to kneel this night.
Her right hand fishing for her phone again, Ayame keeps nudging Rust, looking for signs of staying awake from him. Paramedics will come. They'll send an ambulence. The mid-town hospital isn't that far, she tells herself. Of course, by the time anyone will get here, she'll be gone.
They'll find the poor boy at the scene, his eyes damp with a black fluid that no one can identify - the tears of one who did not benefit from a miko's intervention.
COMBATSYS: Eriya has ended the fight here.
Log created on 00:04:26 03/27/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 17:11:45 03/27/2011.