Description: A nearly lost log. Bao happens upon Rust during a day of Kyokugen practice. Kyokugen is about the might of the human body, pushed to the utmost limits (and also something about a mysterious man in a red long-nosed mask, or something). Bao represents something else entirely, drawing power strictly from deeper within, something more profoundly deep than just the human body... but yet, surely not any weaker even with his young age and less than impressive physique. What happens when these two seemingly opposite expressions of power collide?
Howard Rust, in the middle of frantic times, is spending every moment he has - what with classes being canceled due to increased violence (in some cases, from the students /themselves/) - looking for a friend he hopes to save from himself at long last. The problem is, he's elusive. Also, gas is growing a lot more expensive.
More recently, Marco, a senior instructor over at the Kyokugen Dojo, has decided to forcibly drag his ass over to the dojo because they could really use the 200 US dollars a week for lessons - something the shop teacher has been more and more scarce with lately, even with that hard-earned yellow belt signifying a potential future through this hard-hitting martial art.
Initial grumbling and sense of purpose has been met with one cold hard reality he had to realize - his friend is extremely powerful. If he's really as entrenched in his power in the way he thinks he is... he can't really put off being in fighting shape.
And now, on to the more immediately relevant details of a grim, overcast day where it feels like the very Earth itself, in some places, just doesn't want to bother any more. A faint, sinister hum permeates the air everywhere... and yet, those dedicated Kyokugen students whom haven't dropped out go about the usual routine. Hitting one another with real punches, sparring even with a broken bone here and there, doing household chores for Takuma... things like that.
Mr. Rust hasn't lost too much of his edge in recent times, from the look of things, although anxiety shows in almost every punch and kick he delivers against a sparring partner that really isn't quite his match, barefoot and gi-clad atop the concrete lot that's already dotted with small craters here and there from potent slams.
At the end of the day - or at least during this early afternoon - despite what goes on around the world, all that matters here is Kyokugen Might.
The world is a mess.
Everyone can see it, but not everyone acknowledges it. With the weather going crazy all over the place, the world has taken pause; with a death cult on the rise and in the public eye, the world has begun to fear; and with men and women across the planet taking leave of their senses and breaking down, sometimes violently, the world has begun to cower.
But fighting hasn't changed.
The most dedicated fighters walk the globe, searching for something few of them can quantify. They hunt for answers and find only more questions and endless opponents. The rest of them--the ones who have not been swept up in this wave of chaos and carnage--simply try to go about their lives as normal.
Some of them, though, don't really have normal lives. It seems like, for one boy, fighting is his whole world. He studies when he's prompted to, sure, but why would you spend your time staring at a page describing how idyllic the countryside is when you can go out and see and /feel/ the world? He isn't strong enough yet, they say, to go solve the problems of the world--keep training, he's told, keep practicing, keep testing yourself, and you'll get there one day.
'One day.' Bao is hearing that a lot, these days.
Which is, perhaps, what brings him to the Dojo, and to this concrete lot, pockmarked with craters and with two men fighting their hardest atop it. Well, almost their hardest, Bao thinks--the bigger guy (an instructor, maybe?) doesn't look like he's really challenged. Is he teaching, or is he practicing, or maybe something else? Bao can't tell. So there he sits, perched on the concrete at the edge of their bout. He'd be in the background if there was one, and just another surprisingly stealthy bright orange feature of the landscape. He feels something welling up inside him, a growing pressure that cannot be contained--!
He yawns, big and loud, bored by the display and restless besides, stretching his arms and legs out from their position folded up against his chest with his chin atop it. "This isn't a very fair fight," Bao says to himself with a note of disappointment in his voice. Of course, in a place like this, sounds tend to carry...
There is always a background. Certain people have made entire careers out of hanging out in backgrounds, regardless of any stretch of logic as to the hows and whys they've gotten there. There's one guy in particular, but, the name is kind of hard to recall... who was it? Oh well, probably not important.
The young boy's comment is well-timed and carries extremely well over the sound of the larger, older man taking out his sparring partner with a grounded uppercut. Kyokugen, like a number of schools, teaches uppercuts so powerful they literally take you off your feet - but this man, for his part, seems content to stay on his feet as the comparatively smaller, clearly less skilled sparring partner hits the pavement. Their body bounces twice against the floor as though the cement were, all of a sudden, made of rubber.
The older man halts in his tracks to that loud, strangely close yawn. The bright orange coloration right by the corner of his eye as he turns - with a pop in one of his knees - brings an immediate level of worry as he thinks about the possibilities in the way only someone charged with being a responsible enough adult could.
He knows a handful of the students here are fathers - is that kid down there with that orange hat one of them?
"Uhh... wh-when did you, did you get here?" He shakes his right hand by habit - extremely visible burn scars on his palm, pointer finger extended. "Are you... uh, you waitin' on your dad?"
Behind him, his previous sparring partner slowly rises, wiping his mouth and stumbling a number of steps towards irrelevance during this moment of distraction.
People who hang out in the background don't normally get noticed... but this time, it seems a little hard to miss. The orange-clad youngster's eyes track the falling man, moving up and down with his bouncing body. He winces a little bit sympathetically, but then a smile splits his face, bright and full of life. He looks back to the bigger guy--the one still standing, that is--and says, "Aboooouuuuut when he tried the high snap-kick the first time!"
Bao tucks his legs under him and bounces to his feet. The pavement under him might as well be rubber, the way he moves on it; he's got a definite energy, visible all throughout his body, in the way he stands and he the way he moves. "Uh-uh!" He shakes his head. "I don't have one." The way he says it is so matter-of-fact and so casual that it almost doesn't seem like the kind of remark someone would normally get down over. He doesn't even /acknowledge/ the fact that he should be a little depressed by the statement. "I came to see if anybody was still fighting here, on account of all the bad stuff happening. Annnd..."
He turns sideways, extending an arm and a finger with a big grin on his face. At his full height, he stands almost a full foot shorter than Rust. He's probably pointing to about chest level, and it looks a little silly. "You are! So how about it?"
Is--is he /challenging/ him, or asking for lessons? The better question is, for Bao, is there really a difference?
"That long?" His hand droops a bit - far as he can tell, that was pretty close to the beginning of their session. That this kid has stayed quiet - or maybe just he himself got absorbed with the whole sparring thing to begin with - is kind of surprising.
It's not the first time anything so bright and obvious has escaped the older man's notice, in any case, as he scratches the side of his head - which stops when the kid declares he doesn't /have/ one, which begs a really obvious question that forms on his lips. He doesn't get past the first word of 'so what are you even doing here' when Bao enthusiastically talks about fighting - all the way to mimicking one of his more prominent idle gestures to ask him a question that would be a lot easier to digest were it not someone of the orange-clad kid's age!
"Uhh, you're askin' me to, ahh... to..." he clears his throat, patting his chest with his left hand, "'scuse me."
Takuma does not like freebies being given out (ever). This is a kid who doesn't even have a dad - and yet cheerfully has come to one of the more intense schools of the nation, if not the world. There is definite hesitation on the guy's part - for one of such a small, frail-looking frame like Bao's, to all appearances he is intimidated of the prospect.
"L-Listen," he regains his composure as he falls back down to a more battle-ready stance. Maybe it's a good thing Ol' Rusty is hanging from a coatrack in there somewhere - he wouldn't want to bring a rusted length pipe up against a young child, but it's not like the rest of him is that much less dangerous. "We, we throw real punches here, that's... that's how it goes." Bao has undoubtedly heard this /plenty/ of times before from other adults he may have asked a challenge for.
"But, uh... uh, if you need pointers, or, or somethin'," he's no stranger to the fact that /fighting/ is popular among the youth, you don't become a teacher in Southtown without learning this very true, and wholly dangerous fact, "I guess I could, uh, I could show you a few things."
One would think Takuma's infamous record of young pupil abuse would make this man bat less eyelashes at the concept.
COMBATSYS: Rust has started a fight here.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Bao has joined the fight here.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Bao
Sparring, especially against people who can at least take a punch, can sometimes be engrossing. Bao knows how that is; he's had rolling fights with Kensou that were only interrupted by migrating from outside into the kitchen, and then once there, paused simply because the only thing that the older boy noticed that /wasn't/ Bao was his favorite food left out on the counter.
(And then he got headbutted, but that's a story for another time.)
Bao lets Rust have his moment, nodding a couple of times as he strides out onto the pavement. He takes long steps, swinging his legs in an almost exaggerated fashion and letting his arms do the same. His long sleeves alternate between billowing one way or falling the other, and he occupies himself by striding over to the spot the staggering sparring partner formerly occupied. Though, you know, a couple of steps /away/ from the craters.
The familiar words that eventually come to mean 'beat it, kid,' ring in Bao's ears, but all he hears is that he's got a willing opponent, but a reluctant one. That's okay--that's a pretty normal thing for Bao, at least until fists start flying. While Rust is nervous, Bao is suddenly thrilled, the look on his face being akin to what you might see when a kid is handed a wad of bills and told, while standing in the middle of a candy store, 'go nuts.'
"Okay!! If you throw real punches, then I'm gonna too! I won't hold back, okay?" Bao's smile is brilliant and entirely out-of-place in a youngster who will, by all appearances, get punched right the hell out by the first swing Rust throws. The ultimately puny-seeming boy nods once, and then changes how he stands, legs shifting from standing parallel to one in front and one stretched behind him--
--hey, that looks an awful lot like a bow-and-arrow kung fu stance--
--and then suddenly launches himself at Rust, with no part of that being an exaggeration. He leaves the ground after the second step forward, catapulting himself into the air, upwards and forward at the hesitant instructor. He suddenly changes his angle from ascending to, with an almost ninety-degree rotation in mid-flight, descending, shooting like a bullet straight down at the grown-up from what is definitely above his head.
Bao might /look/ puny, but people tend to learn that he isn't. The fact that they tend to figure this out /after/ they learn that he has super strength is usually to their own disadvantage.
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Bao's Hikida.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Bao
Now, Mr. Rust here, no stranger to small frames throwing big punches - the way Bao bounces around and seems just detached from the danger of it all in favor of exuberance and happiness rivaling that of oysters (because all oysters are very, very, very happy critters). Disarming, really, in these times above all.
For all intents and purposes, he takes Bao's reassurance of not holding back seriously. The proper fighting stance is there, although the guys above him - Robert, especially - have been trying to get him to move his feet, be more limber. His stance is noticeably fairly stiff. Hell, stiffness reads pretty readily off this man, considering how often a joint pops when he moves it suddenly.
His arms lower briefly at taking better stock of Bao's stance. Yeah, that is a real stance there, he's seen it - he at least knows how to adopt that, okay, so he may not b--
Oh holy crap he's flying at me, he thinks, reflexively bringing up his left forearm.
The angle Bao flies at forces him to adjust the posture even more to cover straight above him, a slight crouch to give him space as the big poofy orange hat hides a perfectly hard-hitting head that meets harder-built elbow.
There is a short wince in the older man's features. He's done a fair bit of blocking with that arm (very much by habit). An arm that previously took the aforementioned high kick from his previous sparring partner and a fairly good punch.
Reflex takes over his good sense to comment about this, looking to try and get a hold of Bao with his right hand - arm, collar, sleeve, doesn't really matter - to try and whip him back down towards the ground in a comparatively very simple toss.
If Bao was watching the previous spar all that much, it's pretty obvious he's much more comfortable with strikes than grapples and tosses.
COMBATSYS: Bao dodges Rust's Medium Throw.
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Rust 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Bao
Oysters are the happiest creatures on God's green Earth and in his blue seas. Nothing can rival the happiness of oysters--the mistake most make, saying they're happy as a clam, means they're merely content compared to the rapturesque happiness that is oyster-joy. Oyster-joy that, apparently, Bao possesses, and in no small amount, and oyster-joy that magnifies when he actually gets into the thick of it... like, say, right now.
Bao's hat is soft and a little bit floppy--he's probably got a decent amount of hair under there, but not enough to fill it and make it hold it's shape. The cloth bends where it hits Rust's forearm, caving inward and letting hard head meet equally-hard muscle. The sound the impact makes, a solid 'WHUMPH', is followed up by the sound of brief laughter from the kid in orange. He starts to fall, dropping like he was a thrown lever with his head still up against Rust's arm for just a moment.
Rust grabs for him. Bao rotates his arms, pinwheeling his loose sleeves--the easiest thing to catch him on--back and around with ease. He brings them down on top of Rust's wrist, pushing and bracing his light frame on the big man for just a moment to counter the throw. He knows he's not fighting as hard as he can (he remembers that fight and what he preferred!) but figures he's still going easy on him. But Bao said he wouldn't go easy on /Rust/, and he doesn't want to disappoint...
Bao's hands shift, trying to get a hold on Rust's arm. He drops downward like a stone, tugging his hand towards the ground with momentarily unimpressive strength, relying on surprise to get his feet planted. He's short enough that he might just have to hold Rust's arm over his head from the ground, and fast enough that he might be able to get in under it, and that's just what he tries to do, running up to him--
With one hand hopefully still with a solid grip on his arm and the other going for his midsection, Bao suddenly /lifts/, strength increasing tenfold, easily able to lift Rust over his head entirely with a triumphant grin still on his face. "Haa!!"
Which turns a little alarmed when he realizes he doesn't have any balance like that, promptly falling over sideways and bringing Rust with him."Waaahh--!!"
COMBATSYS: Bao successfully hits Rust with Critical Throw.
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Rust 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Bao
Always know the signs of a super fighting kid.
Sign 1 - when they manage to grab your arm and, despite a good solid tug that puts so many tugs of other men to complete and utter shame, does not seem to really break free.
His shoulder pops loudly as Bao drops down, managing to even get the older man down over a bit far while his arm is within the grasp of a much younger, notably smaller boy.
"That's, that's a good, uh--" the older man tries to compliment as this first fact suddenly sinks in while he unsuccessfully tries to all but yank his arm out from there. It must be very amusing to watch from the outside in, where a grown man of known physical strength is being shown the boss.
The especially funny - or maybe even frightening - thing is what leads into the second sign.
Sign 2 - amazing, even supernatural physical strength.
It's not a great trick of leverage. No, moments later when Bao lifts the man up by his midsection that the older man's feet raise into the air. There is nothing but surprise on this man's face, gesturing with his free hand down to Bao briefly and then himself to some other student watching as if to silently ask 'did he just dead lift me from the ground?'
The other student gives a slow nod.
The older man all of a sudden completely fears for his life.
For what Bao lacks in balance, there isn't much space to work with in trying to mitigate how hard he's going to come down to the asphalt whenever Bao drops him. His side collides with the pavement hard enough to leave a dent that Bao might be proud of, a pained grunt as Bao's latest victim of super strength antics pushes himself up with his right elbow as he sloppily pulls himself back up.
If Takuma saw any of this he would have a cow.
"Y'know," the bigger(?) man grunts out as he shakily gets back up to prime fighting stance position, "guess I, I owe you an apology, 'cause, uh," humility grows back up to an outburst because now, he really needs to know, "the hell do they even feed you?!"
This alertness to the fact he he was dead-lifted like that is enough to bring the adrenaline back where the previous spar had fallen into simple, predictable routine.
COMBATSYS: Rust focuses on his next action.
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Rust 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Bao
Bao is, for a moment, overjoyed that he managed to pick him up off the ground without getting stopped. He is less so when he drops him and goes down with Rust, but the elasticity he seems to have means he bounces back up almost immediately, letting go of the bigger (well, size-wise anyway) man and leaving him in the dent he made. Bao /is/ pretty impressed--maybe he can show Athena the spot before they pave it over?
He hops back a step and bounces from foot to foot, his exhuberant energy compelling him to always stay in motion. Still he smiles, and it broadens a touch when Rust gives his version of an apology. Bao laughs a little, bringing up a hand to the back of his head and rubbing it for a second. "Wellll..."
SOME TIME AGO
AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
DINNER TIME
"--gwaaaaaaAAAA--"
Chin Gentsai, sitting cross-legged on the floor, seems at peace. He holds a cup of something amber in his hands, smiling beneath his white, often face-concealing hair, lifting the glass to his lips with a lazy, almost serene motion, and, with similar absent-minded quasi-grace, leans a little to the left.
"--AAAAHHH--"
CRASH!! Sie Kensou flies past Chin's head, almost hitting him, missing solely by the virtue of the slight lean. He lands on and slides across the low wooden table in front of him, grazing the gourd atop it, sending it into a slow, wobbling spin. Kensou falls off the table, lands in a roll and leaps to his feet, lifting his balled fist towards the ceiling and the other side of the room.
"Don't you do it," he calls, looking alarmed and abruptly vaulting across the room, right over Chin's head and spinning into a flying kick at the orange blob against the far wall. "GET BACK HERE WITH THAT LAST BUN!!"
A woodcut on the wall shakes as the building does. Bao makes a noise somewhere between a yelp and 'om nom nom nom,' and the sound of rapid footfalls fading down the hall fall on deaf ears. Chin catches the gourd before it falls with the edge of his glass, letting it fill it again.
NOW
STILL MID-FIGHT
PUNCHY TIME
"...you know, whatever we have!" Bao replies with another laugh. He rocks on the balls of his feet and waits for Rust to get back up, declaring, "Okay, here I go again!" and rushing in like some kind of god damn idiot.
Well, he'd be an idiot if he wasn't immensely confident, anyway. Bao hops forward and drops low into a split, planting one hand and spinning on the pavement. He sweeps his legs for the again-solidly-planted Rust, kicking at his to try and take him right off his feet. Cloth rustles against the ground as he spins, rotating completely once and then starting to rise with the same speed he fell in.
"Come on, I saw you fight before! How come you're holding back?" Bao asks, apparently not deterred by the fact that he's mid-kick.
COMBATSYS: Bao successfully hits Rust with Heavy Kick.
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Rust 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Bao
"Uh... yeah, wh-whatever you have," a non-answer that makes the man's spirit sink just a little more, mouth hung half-open as he - and really, almost anyone who's watching - is really starting to comprehend the depths of wonder and power that this young boy holds. Some students murmur, wondering if this guy is here to be a student, or what? After all, /he lifted a grown man/.
And here Bao comes again, as he declares promptly with utmost confidence and youthful spirit in a perfectly competent - even rather good - low leg sweep where there's significantly less ambiguity on whether or not that kick would be of much worth.
As the question is asked, the teacher misgauges how far out Bao's leg can reach, and merely lifts one leg up, thinking to step forward and maybe capitalize on this - except in this forward-thinking offensive mentality, he leans the current foot onto the ground /into Bao's foot/.
Bao's foot wins in the collision of feet, sending the man tumbling forward. He's mostly able to catch himself in a forward tumble, which ultimately mitigates much of the potential injury aside from the sudden complaint of one of his popping knees as he bowls past Bao and gets right back up to his feet.
"Y'know," he says in mid-recovery, "it's, it's just..."
It's just what? How long has he been going, 'it's just so-and-so' anyway?
"Ahh, forget it, don't think I've gotten 'round to that whole... that whole 'real punches' thing yet, huh," he muses out aloud while a part of him still really wants to show restraint. Strength and ability aside, Bao is a very young boy who doesn't have a father. Mr. Rust has absolutely no idea where the youngster's come from, or who even really takes care of him.
Yet, said boy seems perfectly content with the whole picture. It's baffling.
"All right, well, here's... here's one of 'em," don't mistake the pause in his speech for any pause in action as he steps forward towards the orange dynamo, head reared back for a moment in what should be a dead giveaway as to what's about to happen.
He thrusts his head down a bit farther than he normally does, the strength of which carries him forward a short ways in hopes of somehow meeting head to head or - much more appropriately - horrible combover against poofy orange hat.
Between these two distinctive scalp profiles, only one can prevail.
One will prevail, whether the carelessness of youth or the desperation of the middle-aged crisis. In head form.
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Bao with Hardhat Rush.
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Rust 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\0 Bao
Bao doesn't really notice the crowd's reaction. He's too focused on Rust and on the bout, the thrill of the fight surging though him as swiftly as any adrenaline rush. Maybe it's the same thing, but he doesn't think so; he fights because he enjoys it, not because he enjoys the rush. It's just as much him playing around as it is a serious battle.
Assuming, that is, he takes it seriously.
Rust tumbles down, and Bao springs back up. He looks at Rust a little bit funny as the older man recovers from the fall, circling around him a little. Something feels a little off--his worries seem to be worn on his sleeve, at least to Bao's eyes. Maybe it's just the eyes of youth. Maybe...
"Nuh-uh," Bao says, shaking his head. "Come on; you can't hesitate like this all the time!" He lifts his hands, prepared for a strike--and then, instead, finding him reading back. Bao grins, his expression and his voice full of excitement. He shakes his arms out, loosening up. "Yeah, just like--"
POW.
Bao's orange-hatted head is defeated by the combover in short order. Bao doesn't have the momentum to counter that; he's struck and is pitched backwards, his head hammered away from Rust's forehead. He slams into the pavement and bounces once, just like the other student had, coming down again and sliding a few feet across the ground. That hit was brutal; if he can't take the 'real punches,' maybe he shouldn't've started this fight.
Or maybe he's just taking a breather. Bao rolls onto his side and climbs to his feet, rubbing his head with both hands. Against all sense, he's still smiling, though wincing a little bit too. "--hahaha, haha, like that!" he exclaims. "See? I'm okay; stop worrying so much! Now," Bao says, voice tinged with playful warning as he steadies himself and shifts into a horse stance, "I'm gonna get serious, but only because you are. Okay?"
Bao lifts his arms, elbows and wrists bent. He slides one foot out in front of him, leg straight, the other bent at the knee. He slides it to the right across the ground with a swift motion and a fierce grin, bringing it behind him, the entire motion an almost meditative posture. Is he really taking a break, or getting ready? "Here... it..."
He swings his hands forward, cupping them and stopping short of a clapping motion. In a sudden blaze of blue, a coruscating ball of light forms, psycho power erupting into sight and blasting straight across the paved gap between Bao and Rust. The manifestation of psi hurtles ahead, and a gust of wind and dust blasts backwards off the pavement, the sight akin to watching someone fire a rocket launcher.
"COMES!!"
COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Bao's Dan Kougeki - Front.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\1 Bao
There's a feeling of weightlessness in the impact that the shop teacher thinks - incorrectly - for a moment that he didn't actually make any contact with the young child. That maybe he was deftly parried like his grab attempt was, it had that sort of light touch to it.
Imagine his surprise when he lifts his head up to the sound of someone's body hitting the pavement a few times - or when Bao just happily comes back up, smiling. No bawling about pain, no sudden sprays of blood dotting the pavement, nothing.
The /kid/ is for real both ways. He's dishing it and he's /taking it/. A part of the older man is relieved. A bigger part is still horrified from the lift as he takes a couple cautious steps forward to close the gap. He doesn't make much progress in closing said gap by the time Bao insists it's okay for him to stop worrying so much - along with the suggestion that he's going to really get serious.
"Uh... okay." He has no idea what he is saying 'okay' too.
He gets a lot better of an idea when Bao throws his arms up and summons power. No, this is not a new thing unto itself. To bring energy into one's strikes, or to launch it itself - that in itself is pedestrian.
It's on top of absolutely everything else. The strength the young boy has for his size, his apparent ability to take a punch, but also to summon a very appreciably sized ball of energy. The whole package, basically.
The whole package hurtling at him at extremely dangerous speeds.
Immediately, the older man thrusts his left forearm forward, left fist squeezed tightly and face hardened to that of utmost exertion, the light of the psionic ball providing an amazing contrast to his facial features.
And then it strikes.
It's more apt to say that it /carries him along/, the bottom of his feet scraping hard enough against the asphalt that, were it to continue for much longer than the two seconds it moves him, he might've started a fire.
That's just his feet. The rest of him up there finds his fortitude put to the test as the energy doesn't just collide into him, but /through/ him. It's taxing on his very will - in ways that strike home a whole lot closer than he would be comfortable to admit, when it's all starting to click together.
"So that's," he mutters an incomplete thought as the psionic energy dissipates. The two of them are really too far apart for the shop teacher slash Kyokugen student to really do much with as he shakes his head and tries to straighten himself out.
There is a distressing amount of joint popping from his movements as he tries to make back up the lost ground best he's able with his slow, measured steps. It's like he's fighting his own body in the willingness to make it /move/ to begin with.
"I've... I've, I've run into, y'know... that stuff," he mumbles out to Bao as he takes in his breath again. He is also considering never fighting barefoot again because holy shit that hurt his feet.
COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\1 Bao
Bao was just light, that's all. With a strike like that, it's inevitable that Rust should think he wasn't there when he connected. It's not like he met much in the way of resistance--a brick wall, Bao is not.
But, well, that much distance between them... to anyone who has ever fought Bao, this sort of thing was inevitable. To Rust, who was, for a moment, thinking he was just a gifted kid, it was probably the last thing he expected. Bao, at least, seems to be taking the whole thing in stride, but then, why wouldn't he? To him, this is probably a pretty normal outing.
That part is perhaps a little worrying, at least to nearby Responsible Adults. What kind of parent lets a kid Bao's age out to go fight in the streets? None, apparently; Bao seems to be willful enough that he lets himself do these things, regardless of whatever some guardian he may or may not have says. Of course, it /could/ be that he's /encouraged/ to do these things...
Bao watches with interest as the psycho ball hammers into Rust's arm. He holds the pose he was in to throw it for a few beats more before dropping out of it, stalking forward with those long steps. Maybe he wishes he had longer legs.
If Rust had been wearing shoes, he might have worn a hole through them and the pavement below him both with a slide like that. The force of psychic energy battering against his body and his mind, his physical toughness and his force of will--that will take a lot out of anyone. Bao knows as well as anybody else that he has to be tough to have endured that and be still standing. Though that sound doesn't seem to be a good one, the one coming from him.
"You have?" Bao asks, suddenly interested. His eyes light up, and he leans forward, planting his hands on his thighs, hunched over while he lets Rust come to /him/. He tilts his head curiously, seeming like an orange bird who has caught sight of a shiny bauble. "I don't know a lot of people who can do that. Besides me and my friends, I mean," he says, self-correcting. Bao seems to be taking a bit of a breather, letting the buzz of psycho power that washes over him go back down to a dull roar. He doesn't want to /really/ hurt Rust...
"Are you okay, mister? You don't look so good." He looks skeptically at the teacher's joints, trying to find the source of the popping and tracking it by his limp to his lower legs.
COMBATSYS: Bao gains composure.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Bao
One would think after years of coming across kids of amazing powers, the novelty would have worn off. The man may just be chronically genre blind in the big picture, in spite of all the craziness that seems to be thrown in his face almost daily.
And yet, recently, someone has helped him piece together something beyond the grasp of so many people - even if the whole sensation, the state of /being/ what he is pretty sure he has been hit by, can never be truly and fully understood.
To Bao's query, he simply nods slowly as he draws a little closer. As the general air of aggression seems to fade, so does the older man's tension as he draws back towards polite-not-having-to-speak-up conversation range with a few of his slow, measured strides.
"F-Far as I know, uh, it's... it's... not really somethin' you see a lot of people do." Of course, any eavesdroppers on the conversation at this point are completely unaware of what they're talking about, don't care, or are probably being ushered to keep fighting by some immediate superior just out of view.
Clearing his throat, the older man starts to rotate one of his shoulders. He grimaces at one particularly nasty pop which, by itself, renders the value of taking the moment to get a breather moot. "Y-Yeah, I just... just, uh, lock up. Sometimes... ah, word of advice, when your body says to stop, ah, typically... you ought to."
Something he should've done when he was working in the construction field in his twenties. He never let himself rest, worked like hell day in and day out well and beyond the call of duty, ran his body down to the ground... which did absolutely no favors for his joints in the following years.
"I can, I can take more 'n that," he grumbles out in what should be reassurance but is, on the cosmic level, ultimately tempting fate considering the taste of incredible power Bao has inflicted upon him.
"Ahh... who're your friends, I mean, if you're... all right with sharin' that," because he'd really like to know why they're letting a young kid run around the Kyokugen Dojo unattended. Lifting up his left heel makes him realize just how much pain the bottom of his feet are in after skidding across the concrete. Holy hell he's going to have to walk on a floor full of aloe vera, or something like that, he thinks to himself.
COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Bao
Some people just can't accept the insanity of the world as being real, even when it's at their fingertips. Maybe Rust just doesn't want to see what's right in front of him? It would certainly make things a little easier.
Bao doesn't appear to be about to strike Rust as soon as he comes back in range. Heaven knows his 'range' is certainly a great deal longer than Rust's; if that ball of psi was any indication, he could have hit him again after he'd stopped from the first one. Bao seems to be more interested in the fight for the sake of the fight rather than beating someone, more interested in learning and growing and, well, if he wins, he wins. He isn't about to use dirty moves to beat someone who can teach him something through a fight like that.
"Well... I guess it isn't, huh?" Bao remarks, rubbing the back of his head and grinning. He looks around, the few students who were previously staring now being ushered away after that last attack. He beams a smile at the whole lot, but in a moment, the paved area suddenly feels a lot more... subdued, and empty.
Bao stands up straight, clasping his hands in his sleeves behind his back. He rocks on the balls of his feet, back and forth, still abound with energy while Rust is busily trying to make himself take one step at a time. "That's good advice," he agrees, slightly more solemn for all of a second or two before perking right up again. Subject change!
"My friends? Kensou and Athena and Master Chin and..." He trails off, looking at Rust funny. It's probably not because he expects him to have heard of the Psycho Soldier team (though frankly they're well-known enough, especially Athena), but because of something else. He can practically feel the discomfort and fatigue radiating from the man; maybe it's better to let him off easy and come back when he has shoes?
"We don't have to finish if you wanna give up. I think you should maybe sit down for a while," Bao suggests, "and get off those feet." He doesn't /mean/ it as a taunt...
COMBATSYS: Bao takes no action.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Bao
It is a significant disadvantage one Mr. Rust has to contend with - he's just as sluggish in going from point A to B in most circumstances as he is tough. It would be a trifle to keep him zoned out at long enough range, if one were to fight so pragmatically in regards to securing a win - something that the largely innocent Bao, mercifully, has no real interest in.
Which, considering the effort it took to try and survive /one/ of those powerful psi balls, is likely very good for the less energetic one's continued good health.
Fortunately, he appears to limber up a little more - the popping significantly less noticeable as he gets to flexing the stiffness out of his limbs, though perhaps this is hurried a bit more at mention of some very notable celebrity names.
"Hey, y'mean Athena As--" of course, he gets interrupted with the, in his heart, polite offer to stop, maybe sit around, get off his feet. The older man slumps a bit at the mention of this, thinking... am I really still coming off as so dumpy as to be counted out right this moment?
"What? N-No, I'm all right, I'll just, y'know, tough it out." How many times has this mindset landed him in significant amounts of pain? (Hint: a lot.) Rising up and straightening himself out, he drops down into a ready stance again. Hands raised, feet spread apart... it's still a solid stance, aside from the slight shifts of balance to make the bottom of his feet take turns as to which one harbors the brunt of the stinging sensation in the bottom of his feet.
"If, if I went down to somethin' like /that/," he should be saying 'these,' "wouldn't be.... wouldn't still be here."
COMBATSYS: Rust focuses on his next action.
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Rust 0/-------/=======|======-\-------\0 Bao
Bao isn't a pragmatic fighter in the least. Maybe if he were actually fighting for his life, if he were actually putting everything on the line, he would be. In the clutch, it could be that he could be incredibly dangerous and completely unforgiving. But he's just an innocent kid with a touch of power, and the chance of that happening...
But you know what they say about power.
Bao looks at Rust skeptically for approximately three-point-four seconds. He goes right back to grinning ear-to-ear as soon as this time has passed, going from at least a little serious to completely overjoyed like someone had flipped a switch inside his (hard) head. He nods. "Yeah! Okay! I /knew/ you were tough!" The kid certainly has spirit, and no shortage of enthusiasm.
Oh yeah, and a penchant for dive-bombing people with his /whole body/, that too. The moment it looks like Rust is actually ready to fight, Bao springs into action again, hopping backwards away from him like an uncoiling spring. He pushes off the ground with what seem to be his toes, bouncing backwards a few feet and then bouncing from foot to foot again. He keeps his hands up, grinning--always with that grin!--and giving Rust a thumbs-up out of basically nowhere.
But speaking of the dive-bombing--
Bao is airborne again. He leaps to the left and then springs into the air, spinning around and thrusting his feet out and down, his hands straight up. He looks like an orange meteorite, dropping down in a two-footed flying kick that falls a little too fast for someone his size, his weight, and for precisely how fast he was going a second ago. He has every intention of planting both of those on Rust's head, and then planting his head into the pavement.
Hey, at least it's not another headbutt.
COMBATSYS: Rust interrupts Heavy Kick from Bao with Brick Stacker.
- Power hit! -
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Rust 1/------=/=======|=======\=------\1 Bao
Toughness doesn't mean you're not hurt. It means you, generally speaking, keep going despite that. There's no doubt of the strength of Bao's own toughness in how he's willing to bounce headlong back into a fight even knowing how heavy a single hit from the man before him hurt him.
Even in the best of focus and attention, Bao remains, for all intents and purposes, faster than Rust. His feet are planted right on his head, leaving extremely faint shoe-shaped marks.
There's also the matter of the fact that the older man's left hand has found purchase somewhere on Bao, lifted straight up as if to try and catch him. The intent to plant his own head into the pavement is sadly aborted by the man largely intercepting that stage of the grand flying attack plan. The strength in which he thrusts Bao's body down towards the pavement in front of him might be enough to leave a small dent.
It also affords a moment of hesitance that allows Bao a moment to recover, as Howard thinks 'oh crap did I really slam him that hard,' body remaining bent down with the follow-through to the catch for a bit longer than he ought to be.
Toughness is as much a state of mind as it is physical endurance. Bao's cheerful, upbeat attitude affords him a lot of it, even if he isn't so great at taking a punch. Well, compared to someone on Rust's level, anyway; Rust looks like he practically makes a career of taking hits and standing through them, whereas Bao...
Well, Bao is twelve. Ish. It doesn't leave much room for 'tank.'
Bao makes a sound of surprise when he lands the hit but doesn't follow through, largely due to the fact that he just got grabbed. He flails wildly for the half-second he has before he's slammed into the ground, landing flat on his back on and partially /in/ the pavement. The ground beneath him definitely crumpled a little there, cracks forming from where he landed. He makes a noise like he got the wind knocked out of him, and grits his teeth for just a second--
--but not in pain. Psycho power bleeds off Bao as Howard Rust takes stock of the boy on the ground, a bright blue aura leaping up around him. He somersaults backwards and plants his feet, still curled into a ball, and, once he's planted, /kicks/.
Straight down.
Bao hurtles himself upwards with the little kid version of a kiai shout, a brilliant sphere of psycho power covering his body. Whereas his flying headbutts might be akin to being a human bullet, this is more like a human cannonball, spinning forward and upward and, generally speaking, right into Rust's hunched-over self.
COMBATSYS: Rust Toughs Out Bao's Hontai Kougeki - Bound!!
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Rust 1/---====/=======|=======\==-----\1 Bao
Arguably, these days Rust has made a career over in Pacific High as being a glorified errand boy. What he teaches is not a focused subject over there. His co-workers have never been terribly fond of him. That he's been attempting to make a career out of long-dormant fighting talent and his physical attributes of being almost superhumanly tough keeps being met with speed bumps of an oft-cruel nature.
A lot goes through the man's mind. Time seems to slow when one of his knees starts to ache, severely, in the presence of the rapidly awakening, rapidly powering-up Bao. The thought about what another hit like that might /do/ to him, considering it took a lot for him to largely weather that first hit.
There's no mistake of what goes on. Bao hits the man in the midsection clean, sight blinded by the immense light of Bao's own soul given external form and leaving a nice Rust-shaped shadowed outline for those few that might still be watching. To Bao's arsenal, it may be the equivalent of a cannonball when he has even deadlier and more powerful up his sleeve. To Rust, it's nothing short of being hit by a missile. It is the sort of thing that robs even the stoutest of their sense, their ability to fight, as their very /being/ gets struck by this power. To one who wields chi, power like Bao's is foreign, incredibly uncomfortable, and outright dangerous.
Of course, he remembers why he's eventually decided to come here - if he finds Zach and Zach has let himself go like he thinks he might have, he's going to have to stand and fight regardless of what sorts of powerful lights he might throw at him.
Back in real time, Mr. Rust is - which might startle more than a few - completely unmoved. His feet do not skid (or rather, grind) against the pavement. He's not letting Bao through him. He's content with simply letting him bounce off even after a blow that by all rights should have shattered numerous bones within his torso, as he moves his left leg forward in front of him, draws it back in brief with a pop in his knee...
And gets kickin'. The first few go low, likely well underneath where Bao presently is (unless he's landed in the tiny, tiny interim of time between Rust being struck and now) - but the successive kicks reach up higher and higher, rapid-fire, as the older man quietly puts his worries behind him in the heat of an adrenaline rush. One after another, the kicks continue like a man endlessly working a hard day, topped off at the end as he swings his body around to deliver one last kick to Bao (or thin air) to send him on his way across the lot.
COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Bao with Man At Work.
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Rust 0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2 Bao
Bao lets loose a cannonball formed from the stuff of his very soul. The psycho power that he wields wells up like he'd simply turned on a faucet and let it loose, manipulating it into the simple ball-shape with an effort of will. It's not the cold, forceful sort that some use to manipulate it; Bao accepts who he is and what he can do, and he molds the psi like it were wet clay, shaping it as it spins of it's own accord.
Yet even he is no master craftsman. His psycho power, though perhaps nearly unmatched in raw strength the world over, is unrefined, unhoned. His training has gone this far, pushing him to a powerhouse among those who wield the same force with what may be more tenacity, but still he has to train. He still has much to learn. But even with all that power, with all the focus he musters...
Rust does not budge.
The light of Bao's soul fights against the teacher, the instructor, the construction worker, the errand boy, but he does not budge. The resolve that Rust has within himself--to help a student, or perhaps a friend--keeps him safe, and keeps Rust at bay. The silhouette of the man with the warped psycho ball pressed against his chest, spinning and whirling, is visible all across the dojo's lot. Bao shows no signs of stopping, but his confusion makes him slow...
He's struck, and he loses his focus. The psycho ball that surrounds him vanishes with an audible 'CRACK' of air rushing back to fill the space it occupied, and he's driven up, juggled on the edge of Rust's bare feet and taking every single hit that the older man is willing to dish out. To Bao's credit, he's drawn himself up in as close to a defensive stance as he can manage, never actually managing to land on the ground to steady himself against it, arms covering his face and legs curled practically against his chest. He grits his teeth, every part of his body aching against the onslaught.
"Waaaaahh--!!"
He flies. A blur of orange is launched across the lot, flickering briefly with blue, catapulted into the distance. It's hard to tell what he landed on, besides 'the pavement'; the orange blob that is Bao strikes the ground some distance away and bounces once, twice, the third time sending him into a long roll. He goes for a time, and then stops moving, a lump of orange fabric on the ground. The space between himself and Rust is pockmarked, perfectly rounded dents in the pavement and then a short groove indicating where he landed.
A moment later, against all odds, Bao gets up.
The boy in orange staggers to his feet. He's battered, bruised, and scraped to Hell and back. A little blood comes from his nose, but after a fall like that, it's not unexpected. His entire body is one big ache, and he feels like his head is a giant bell, rung a dozen times by Rust before hurled away.
But the buzz inside of him, the prickling feeling across his skin, the strength he so easily calls upon--that still remains. He inhales, filling his lungs, but he does not look outward, instead focusing on what is inside him. Chi is the power of the world around the martial artist, latent and waiting to be called upon, summoned up from without with the will and intent of a master's touch. But psycho power comes from within, comes from the soul, and of this Bao is keenly aware.
Across the lot, cyan light flickers. Bao sweeps his hands forward like he was throwing another ball of condensed psi, but it doesn't come. The air flickers again, a crackle playing across the featureless plane of asphalt between the boy and the man. He inhales through his nose, breathing deeply and calling up what reserves he has left.
Though, perhaps 'reserves left' is the wrong phrase. If psycho power was a pond, those gifted with it draw buckets from it to splash at their foes. If Bao's psycho power were to be compared in such a manner, it would not be a pond, but instead, an ocean. Instead of buckets, he's been calling up waves, first gentle, and then rough, scattered against the sea-wall that is Rust's body and will.
But if that was a wave, this is a tsunami.
The blue light that suddenly springs into being before Bao is immense. It swirls and twists in blue whorls at first, no bigger than the last one he threw, devastating though it was. This one spins as if it were a top, flowing like that clay, filling like the bucket of water, breaking forth from the sea of his soul like a storm cresting the horizon. It pulses outward and grows, larger and larger, the orb beating like a heart and shifting as he lets it all out, all at once. Bigger, bigger, bigger...
Bao doesn't want to hurt Rust, not badly. He doesn't want him to have to go to the hospital, or have to lie in bed for the next week because of a fight with him. But after that display, after seeing what Rust can /really/ do, he wants to fight his hardest. He wants to live up to the will and soul of the man so scared to hurt him, so worried about the future, and so unsure of himself. If Bao fights his hardest, maybe Rust will, too. Maybe he won't be so scared anymore.
The blue sun rises in the east, it's light falling upon Rust like an inexorable tide.
COMBATSYS: Rust fails to interrupt MAX Psycho Ball from Bao with Intercepting Strike EX.
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Rust 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Bao
COMBATSYS: Rust can no longer fight.
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Bao 0/-------/---====|
The intensity of a good fight radiates as brightly as Bao's light... and, er, whatever the hell Howard over there radiates. A moment of such pure wonder and amazement in how two fighters of extremely different disciplines and abilities clash, each holding their own despite what some would view as clear superiority on one side over the other.
For that single moment where there was a stalemate of Bao's soul against Rust's work-hardened will prior to the series of kicks that ended that particular engagement, they were equals - a man fighting advancing age along with the problems surrounding his immediate friends that followed him into their ill-fated King of Fighters run, and a boy whose potential power could bring great goodness to the world underneath the tutelage of the righteous Psycho Soldiers, further empowered by his undeniable purity in his approach to bettering himself.
This beautiful moment fades for that moment where Bao is pushed a ways back and the sobering revelation comes back to one Howard Rust that he let himself really, really go in the heat of the moment. Oh my God, he thinks for that brief moment where Bao is down, I think I really hurt him.
Takuma would be so incredibly proud if he weren't busy trying to make the greatest shopping cart fort over at Costco that would put that... uh, other guy to shame. What was his name, again?
Never mind.
In that interim, Rust is moving closer with all due haste - although for him 'all due haste' is the equivalent of 'very slow jog,' close enough to see the bloody-nosed Bao sweep his arm out. The teacher extends one hand as if to be the beginning of a question that is soon about to be answered.
His knee starts to throb in pain again, inexplicably.
The ball being summoned is no bigger than the previous one, but the man just knows, deep down, there's something... more about it. Something more than the faster speed it rotates... and then it gets bigger.
Against all common sense, the man steps forward. A couple students look to one another - is he about to try and do the thing he did with that rowdy guy in the red some time back? His palms raise up, pointed towards Bao as if to say 'don't do it, don't do it.' But no, the students of Kyokugen know better what this stance represents.
This man has never been able to visually manifest chi, and yet, when he comes by here he goes for the old college try each time - and this stance is unmistakably the beginning of the big one. The Haoh Sho Ko Ken.
The odds of him getting away with just the gesture alone are astronomically low.
"Haoh..." He whispers it, circling his arms around once. Oh my God, why am I doing this, a small part of him thinks when he really ought to be moving away because, frankly, the idea of totally shredding his feet against the concrete after that first one is really unappealing!
Too bad, too late - Bao is going all out, not out of malice, but because of a pure desire to have both fight their hardest.
Rust, for his increased scarcity on dojo grounds, unwittingly obliges.
"Sho..."
The blue sun rises in the east, all right, and it is not Howard Rust's day. The next syllable begins to be announced as he shoots his palms outward - one high, one low - intending to try and push through the blast, somehow, to reach through and disrupt the young psion's built-up power.
Instead, he succeeds largely in sticking his arms inside the released blast as his body goes skidding for the ride.
The flat lot in front of the dojo tends to be good for keeping the really destructive spars away from the things that typically get broken anyway in any number of familial disputes. This flat does not account for huge bursts of energy comparable - or maybe even superior - to Takuma's own, as Howard Rust lasts only about four hundred feet or so at a speed comparable to that of a car before his feet really can't take it any more, his knees jerking upwards to keep them off the concrete.
From there, he is inertia's bitch.
This blast carries him past (or through) no less than three other sparring demonstrations along the way, making for a purely entertaining domino effect. Whether or not the psionic energy fades, the momentum is there as a barely conscious Rust blearily looks at the rapidly spinning world and only occasionally shows any sort of acknowledgement about the number of interesting things his back is hitting. Some other students. A newly installed street light. A giant statue of Robert made out of chocolate. The backseat doors of someone's car.
Finally, the back of his own truck, which rocks violently as the back manages to catch what's left of his momentum while the older man suffers the shock of a somewhat sudden stop, his upper back and the back of his head suffering the brunt of the shock.
To say nothing of how he feels after taking something like that virtually point blank.
It is some wonder that Bao may see - in the distance - the vague shape of the older man rising up from the parked vehicles, one hand raised up high in the distance as if to say 'hey, I'm here, wait a moment.'
Until the aches of his body get the better of him, as he tumbles down the side and hits the dirt in a slightly exaggerated dust cloud, vision growing especially fuzzy to the murmur of a string of unpronounceable consonants.
The blue sun sets as quickly as it rose. Bao's body hums with Psycho Power, the blue light flickering in tongues across his hands and bleeding into the pavement. It fades, disappearing from sight, and he takes a moment to let his eyes adjust. After that amazingly bright light of his, it's a wonder he didn't flash-blind /himself/.
Howard Rust is nowhere to be found. The startled students and teachers all around tell the tale of his sliding, then flying, then crashing, then bouncing, then crashing some more path through the dojo and out into the real parking lot. He must have been thrown a significant fraction of a mile by that, and powered through every single object in the way. Bao marvels, looking in the distance--
He sees a hand, and a dust cloud.
Bao exhales.
The boy in orange grins, throwing his arms into the air. He calls, voice dramatic, "Okay, now I'm going to teleport!!" He stands there for a long moment, tension building as he, presumably, gathers his Psycho Power for a moment of rending space-time and moving from here to where Rust is currently faceplanted.
A pause.
"...heh. I guess I need more practice!" He smiles a little sheepishly at the people all around, and then starts to practically skip off to where Rust has landed. The least he could do after a fight like that is give him a hand up.
COMBATSYS: Bao takes no action.
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Bao 0/-------/---====|
Log created on 14:23:24 07/09/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 20:57:41 12/03/2011.