Description: Zach Glen is feared and loathed by the Cult of Gaia. The power he wields is truly fearsome... a power he has frequently let slip out of his control. A power he would use all too liberally in what some would call selfish pursuits. They call him a product of humanity's sins and arrogance, and see him as a rallying point to justify their cause. Zach has had enough, and has moved to eliminate them all. This will be of no problem for him - but what about his own problems that have plagued him, that made him who he is now? At last, one of his friends may have the key. The key Zach had been looking for since the fateful day he awakened to his powers... unless it is too late to save him from himself.
Bad things have been going down of late: abductions, murders, rioting, rampant destruction. A great deal of it seems to be centered around the King of Fighters tournament, and specifically a group of individuals (backed a cult of suicidally fanatical worshippers) seeking to bring back some kind of dark god to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. The crime of humanity? Living in seeming conflict with Nature.
It sounds like a bad ecoterrorist conspiracy plot. It would be laughable to Zach Glen, except for one other problem: their crusade targetted humanity in general and psychics in specifc. Zach himself, a fairly public psion, had been targetted in two ways by this Cult of Gaia. The first time was to set him up as an example of why all psychics should be purged in blood and fire. That almost didn't take, but Zach's perhaps overly aggressive self-defense tendences made the matter moot when the Cult went to Plan B and tried to kill him.
Zach did not take too kindly to that. After letting some people know what exactly had happened, he fought his way back to Africa. Facing the woman who had tricked him, Zach managed to win freedom from the Cult's attempt to collar him into their dark plans. A surprisingly conflict-free trip back to Southtown (air travel is helpful for that), Zach prepared to face the consequences of his self-defensive efforts. The authorities were still trying to decide how exactly to handle a case that they had closed as an accident.
Zach, after facing an irritating legal obligation with Masters Entertainment, took stock of the situation. The Cult was still working its foul deeds, sacrificing themselves and others to hasten the return of their god. There was not much in the way of visible effort to deal with this menace, which struck Zach as odd given that he had told more than a few people who not only had a stake in the matter but had the ability to do something about the matter. The wandering psion wants the matter handled so he can face what he's done in relative peace.
There's a saying about things you want done.
Zach has taken it to heart, seeking out 'infestions' of this cult and disrupting their activity with a great deal of violence and light. So far, he has managed to keep the property damage to a minimum and and the innocent bodycount to zero. Zach was hopeful that he could keep that up, but the last place he hit had someone who gave him a bit of trouble. It wouldn't be long before one of his efforts brought him face-to-face with Tomoko Kimura, or worse Carroll Jayne.
The fighting psychic had taken a new approach to this, standing on a rooftop across the street from another temple for the Cult of Gaia. He had about him an amber glow as he surveyed the building. The sheer feeling of wrongness from the building was the only indicator he had really needed. He was planning on taking the building down in one fell swoop with a large effort of will.
Some would contend that staying out of Zach's way would be a great idea.
Rust, in comparison, doesn't really need much of a summary to highlight how desperate he's beginning to get to try and sort everything out... but at long last, he is very sure he now has figured out how to save one of them. After so many weeks of depression and uselessness in the face of so many things that seem to go on out of his control, he has it. This is what's helped drive him every moment he's had to really drive (literally so), trying to find Zach. Antoine, too - but as of a conversation with Farah, it is Zach he is hoping to find.
Nobody should ever hope to find a Zach that's ready to explode again.
His truck, damaged in the back from taking the full brunt of Bao's power, still chugs at a good clip across the cityscape. Is Zach even still in Southtown? Or Japan, proper?
Rust does not know the full details of what's gone on with Zach since the two of them last talked. For all intents and purposes, the men went their separate ways in life - both with varying degrees of guilt in their hearts, and at least some sense of duty as the whole world around them appears ready to fall apart.
The planet, in some ways, is rebelling against its own occupants. Many cower. Many aimlessly continue as they have been. Others have gone entirely mad, erupting into levels of violence previously unseen. An unmistakable apocalypse scenario, for those doomsayers.
Yet, some men are still willing to make their stand - however they see fit.
The amber glow was visible across streets. Howard, for his part, looks out his truck's window with pause. Whose glow is that? Could it be Zach's? Zach's power is, typically speaking, very much purple... and yet, sometimes, yellow-ish.
The shop teacher growls and makes an illegal turn on an otherwise empty road to draw ever closer, the roar of the engine dramatically punctuating the eerie silence of a doomed civilization as the high beam headlights are flashed.
To Zach's point of view, it'll appear that someone - or some people - have taken notice. Is it time to make the demonstration he's been waiting to make in this surgical strike against the Cult of Gaia, before he is discovered?
From his truck, Rust squints to try and get a better view of what is impossible to see beyond the amber-colored haze of bottled-up psionic energy.
It's on his lips - Zach, is that you up there? Antoine? Did I find you at last?
Rust might not recognize Zach immediately; the young man's hair seems to match both hues of his power, blonde with purple tips. Zach couldn't explain it either, hasn't really taken the time to think about it for that matter. The highbeams catch his notice, causing a bit of a growl. Witnesses may or may not complicate things. Heck, part of him reasons, the lights may signal some help for him.
He's not ready yet, had not quite built up the charge he needed to lower the boom on this particular location. The plan was fairly simple, but needed a bit of time to execute. He keeps his position; it's an easy jump across the street here. Build up the power, hop across the street, then blast the roof through the floor. It would take out the cultists, pretty much ruin the place for pretty much anything for a while.
Just a little more, and this particular chapter can be closed. Before he moves on to the next, anyway. Hopefully the exercise would help him through the after-effects of the collar. Perhaps it would help him figure out some trick, some method of using his power a little more efficiently, to make the next place a little easier. Or perhaps he is just hesitating. It'd be hard to say without asking him.
Unlike his disregard for the road signs just a few moments ago, Howard at least maintains some semblance of thought to park the truck hastily in the lonely parking lot nearby. It's a bit askew, but unlikely to be getting him any tickets.
Zach may be able to see Rust clearly from up there as the older man gets out of the truck. His combover has not gotten any better. Hell, it's hard to say if anything about Howard himself has really improved at all much, physically speaking. He's a man worn a bit past his already respectable age of forty years.
Much to Zach's potential frustration, the man down there in question does not realize the reasons as to the hows and whys of the gathering of power in solitude up on the roof.
"Hey!" Mr. Rust, foolishly, calls out, waving his right hand in the air... followed by a cough, a grumble, and the patting of his chest. "Hey!" He repeats again, still unable to really tell that it /is/ Zach up there. Who the hell is that?
Doesn't he remember what happened the /last/ time he left the safety of his truck to go check and see what something was?!
This thought never comes to him as he jogs across the street ever closer to the roof. Thankfully, there is a stack of crates precariously arranged that might allow him easier access to that particular roof, if it comes to it.
The shouting gets Zach's attention. "Shit," he thinks, not quite recognizing the voice yet. Just a little bit more, and he thinks he'll have it. He walks slowly over to the ledge of the building, and looks over. It's... Huh. Zach looks a little thoughtful before waving to Rust with one hand. "Stairs would be better," Zach advises before taking a few steps back. He lines up his approach, stretching his legs out in preperation for the jump across.
The dust on the rooftop doesn't seem to sit still around Zach, the boiling power around him kicking up tiny dust devils as Zach starts to get his thoughts in line with his intentions. Perhaps Rust will help him out with things, he thinks, so he waits for the older man to get up to the roof.
For the moment Zach peers over the ledge, Rust sees it.
It's Zach! Zach Glen... from the looks of things, though it seems like there's something going on with his hair, but more importantly IT'S ZACH GLEN. Holy shit, there he is!
"What stair--" Rust starts to ask on his way across the lot to those arranged crates when he just looks off to the side... ah, yes. This is not really much of a relief, though, because this means he has to climb a whole lot of stairs.
He is just as happy to see there's Zach up there as he is dreading it. Zach is /doing/ something up there, but what? That Zach hasn't shot at him is, well, a plus... but for how long can Zach hold that power? He remembers what he's been told before about how they've struggled with their power... all the more reason to power his way up the stairs as fast he can, the kink in his knees be damned.
Yet, the only way he could be motivated any faster is if there were a chocolate helicopter on top. All that stands between him and Zach Glen now is not a wave of cultists, dangerous people of intrigue, or the police - it's just quite a few flights of stairs.
"Zach," he calls up, losing some of his breath along the way. "Zach, 's... 's been a while," he continues narrating to the silence that encompasses where the two of them stand. Dust descends down the cracks of the walkways and staircases outside the building, thrown overboard by Zach's power. In many ways, that falling dust is a severe warning.
The older man shakes his head. No, can't pussyfoot around with this shit any more. This may be the only chance he has to see Zach again for a good long while with everything going on. He has no choice but to get it in one - no time to say his piece and get him to think over it. He has to be right, he's got to be... it took him this much to put it all together, he thinks to himself as he gets up the last flight of stairs to the roof, and now it's time. It's time to put everything that has been conjectured to the test.
"Zach," he repeats his name again as he steps out onto the roof, "you... you don't got that, that collar on any more... right?" According to that newspaper clip he saw, he didn't have it, although being this close to Zach's built-up power makes it fairly hard to make out finer details.
"You... you in control, Zach? A, a hundred percent?"
"Collar's gone," Zach affirms. "Had to go into a freaking African sewer system to do it, but yeah. I've got my control back." No need to really talk about the weird feedback issues; they only hurt Zach, and that isn't what Rust is asking about. He pulls the collar of his tee shirt away to show a lack of collar. It's not hard to spot, or not spot, between the cut hair and lack of ballcap Zach's neck is easy to see.
The amber light brightens a bit as Zach pulls himself upright. He turns to regard his target for a moment. "There's some kind of shrine across the street. Those cultists that work for the guys what got Antoine have been all but killing themselves to bring about the return of some dark god of theirs. Hell," he says with a snort, "Some of them have actually been killing themselves to do it. Freaky as hell to watch," he admits.
"I'm tired of these guys, Rust," Zach says. "I saw what they did to Antoine. What they did to Ken Masters." Boy did he. "I'm tired of them trying to hunt down people like me just because we exist." Just a little more, he thinks. "I'm going to put a stop to it," he announces to Rust. "One cell at a time if I have to. Sure as hell doesn't seem like anyone else is even trying."
The collar /is/ gone - that much is understood and further reinforced with Zach showing his bare collar. The shop teacher slowly nods - but the brightening amber aura is a thing of worry.
A ticking time bomb, as Rust is well aware of. Zach has described needing to release from time to time. A necessity. Something that has haunted Zach's being from the day they awakened to his power.
Howard steels himself against stepping back, even with that reminder from Bao about just how dangerous the power /is/. How capable it is even against someone as sturdily built as himself. The way it attacks and destroys, fundamentally, on a whole other level, as Zach narrates the target.
He doesn't like the sound of 'killing themselves.' What if Antoine were doing this to himself under that influence?!
Where Zach speaks his weariness, Howard makes sure to stay standing tall as Zach's words are tinged with everything Rust has had on his mind since Farah helped him piece the whole picture of what he saw, what he experienced, and what's going on now together - and how Zach is describing his big, final solution.
"Zach." Howard speaks up after clearing his throat, casting aside his oft exhausted, mumbly manner as though he were readying himself for another day in class. Where his voice carries better, where he shouts, where people listen, where he doesn't have to second guess what he's saying so much. The sort of thing he really only carries off when he's had some coffee.
'Some' being very subjective, as he has drank entire coffee pots at the start of some very difficult days (to the chagrin of his co-workers, this particular cause of irritation towards him being particularly deserved).
"If you're in control, Zach... you gotta turn that down," he speaks. "Turn it off. Turn it off with, without shootin' it. Can you do that?"
Zach's eyes narrow at this request. It's not that he is literally unable to comply; there have been fights where he's had a surplus of juice that he did not simply blast off. However, it /did/ take a bit of work to build up to this point. Wasted work /stinks/. He looks at Rust, then at the building.
Rust is his /friend/, however. One he has risked his life, on more than one level, for recently. In fact, a lot of Zach's recent troubles resulted directly from his desire to help this friend out. Zach's stance relaxes and the aura starts to fade, if a bit slowly. "Fine," he says slowly. "Gimme a moment. It's like trying to get your heart rate down after hard running. Better to do it slowly."
He seems a bit irritated, however. Again, part of it is effort for nothing. Part of it is betrayed by the look he keeps giving the building. He /really/ does not like these guys. It would even be safe to say that he hates them. "You gonna help me hit these guys?" Zach asks. "Because I'm not going to be able to drop the roof on them now."
/Can/ you do it, Zach? This is what Howard asks. He wants to know - he must know. There is a point to him asking - something that, on the outset, seems like just another arbitrary obstacle to Zach's ability to fight the fight. A lot of things have gone wrong in proxy of that shop teacher through the months. Some may think it right to believe that Zach's troubles may begin and end entirely on this man who makes such a difficult request of a man who seemed ready to blow.
The older man exhales briefly in relief, but holds his ground even to the utter irritation of Zach. The man who was set up and ready to wipe that particular cell of the Cult of Gaia off the face of the Earth... decisively. He could do it. He could do it flawlessly. That is the power Zach is blessed with... and also his curse.
Is he here to help destroy them, Zach asks? A good question.
"Zach," the shop teacher speaks up, "I'm here to save you."
The older of the two takes a few steps closer. "And, and I'm gonna be honest, there's some things I'm never gonna... gonna get 'bout that power."
He notices his voice is starting to slip again. Got to keep steady, got to keep calm, got to keep /clear/. "I think I figured it all out, Zach, everything that you told me, 'n... things a friend cleared up for me." He starts waving a finger out of habit, as if to reiterate that yes, he has finally figured it out.
"How it all ties to... to yourself, your emotions, your own confidence, 'n... Zach. I dunno who you've ever... you've ever spoke to 'bout it, if anyone did." He can't discount the possibility this may have been brought up to him prior by those who share the same power Zach does. Whether or not he's aware...
This is it. The man here knows it, between Zach's shortening patience and his full intents. Even if Zach had the control to turn it off, it's strongly /exuding/ from him. There's no pause for deep breath or anything to show uncertainty. It's all fallen into place, and it's time to say it.
"Your power's all about your frustration, Zach." Howard declares, as though he were taking in the steps of Sherlock Holmes himself delivering what really went down. "That's... that's what's been driving you all this time, Zach."
Mr. Rust begins pacing about the rooftop, content to keep this train of thought going as every little detail he's put together fits into place as he puts down the whole of the puzzle. "You told me how you awakened, right, an argument... how you talk 'bout how you've had to just /release/ it because it's all built up, and... and that's a normal thing, we all get stressed, hell, I get stressed, Zach - but that's why your shit's all explosive."
He faces Zach head on. "You've been letting that guide you, Zach! You got to let that stop driving you." Holy hell, if he had powers like Zach's at his age, he'd have probably bought into it - having such a great, powerful outlet to solve his problems like that. "I think... no! I know that's why you've always had trouble with that. You gotta stop letting that guide you, Zach. You gotta stop turning all that frustration into... into that power. It's got to end, Zach."
Ol' Rusty is suddenly drawn clean from its makeshift hilt, pointing down towards the end. "I'm not gonna stop you from putting and end to, to whatever the hell's goin' on down there, Zach, but it's time to stop doin' it all out of every little thing that's gone wrong with your life, or, or what makes you want to just explode."
The question is - is what Howard Rust saying the turning point to Zach Glen's woes?
Zach eyes the pipe evenly. His gaze drifts from the pipe to Rust's face. His eyes narrow a bit. He tenses up as Rust lays out his case. "What," he asks incredulously, "I'm supposed to just laugh all this shit off?" he says, his voice intense as he gestures at the shrine. "Just let assholes like them do whatever they want to whoever they want? For whatever stupid reason they want?" Perhaps he is a bit too focused on the issue in front of him to see the broader strokes.
"Am I supposed to just sit here and do nothing while people get kidnapped, or murdered, or worse?" He says, that intensity surprisingly level as he simply glares at Rust. The glow, however, picks back up a bit. Amber light spills across the rooftop once more. His eyes go back to the pipe, then back to Rust. Zach's face is a mask of frustration; he might recognize that Rust may have a point. Rust's theory lines up with facts pretty well.
However, Zach has no idea what he /should/ do. The Cult of Gaia, and others like them, need to be stopped. He has the means to do so, right at his fingertips. This may very well be the first time that someone has suggested that the power may not be to blame. Zach has no idea how to handle that. Zach's eyes lock onto that pipe Rust insists on carrying around.
The pipe isn't pointed towards Zach. Rust makes sure to hold it facing down that shrine all the way down there. The shrine that Zach's power could level with very little issue.
Zach strikes back to take hold of the conversation with his raised voice and frustrated at what he's saying. The teacher starts to shake his head, opening his mouth to try and speak with his left hand raised up, as Zach goes to talking about sitting here and doing nothing.
The amber power starts to pick back up. This is a cause of alarm for anyone. Even Rust's knee starts to twinge, a signal he has yet to pick up the full meaning behind. Zach may not have a winning fighting record, but anyone who has fought him who claims his power is trivial is bluffing. The youth's strength - potential - is truly terrifying. Especially one driven to the particular emotional extreme he has been pegged to.
Howard Rust holds strong instead of backing away from the power that, if Zach chose, could knock him clean off the roof. It's a fall he would likely survive, but still a wholly nasty one. One that builds as Zach brings justification to the need to bring the Cult of Gaia down.
The fate of humanity as a whole lies in the balance. It may very well lie very strongly on what goes on between these two men right now - where Rust may be painting broader strokes than Zach is focusing himself on, even the older may may be truly unaware about the weight of what's happening.
"I'm not sayin' that." He speaks up, fighting against Zach's glare not with his own anger and frustration. He can't give into it - he's got hope of saving at least /one/ person now, and by hell he's going to ride that hope all the way over to the bank! (Banks are hell.)
"I'm sayin' it's time to stop flying off the god damn handle." Aside from the vulgarity, he maintains his composure as he dares to step closer to Zach. Ol' Rusty is still pointed down and back, towards the shrine. However, this may be mistakenly thought of as a threatening gesture. Howard holding the pipe that way is often a fairly bad tell, in fights, that he's intending to follow up a strike immediately with something else - be it that headbutt, that faceplant slam, or other such gestures that tend to to give him the space to do this.
"I'm sayin', stop letting that frustration tell you what to do. They're bad news. Shit, I was /there/. I know... I know what they're doin', what they're capable of."
It's at this point, he's willing to take the biggest risk of all against a young man who seems tense enough to explode. It is, in this context, the ultimate exercise of trust in Zach's ability to comprehend both his better nature and, simultaneously, his worst. The teacher's limbs feel ready to lock up. Seize up, as if to protect the body they reside in for what some may see is the inevitable retaliation to all that's being said.
"If, if they're at all like that crazy guy with the hammer, their friend who did that... weird color thing, and that football player that jumped me 'n someone else some... some time back," Zach probably hasn't heard about it, "they're lettin' themselves be driven by that too."
It's at this point he chances it - gently putting his left hand on one of Zach's shoulders, if he lets him.
"I say we... walk right back down these goddamn steps," he gestures loosely with his pipe, "walk right up their friggin' front door, and show 'em together."
It's almost like carefree old times back on his old job, which wasn't really carefree. Maybe there's still an old spark of youth of the old times there, when fighting was not so horribly complicated by things like having to be an overglorified babysitter for some rich kids and behaving accordingly lest he lose his job.
"No more frustration 'bout it. No more letting it keep pushing us to do things we're gonna regret. Hell... wouldn't be surprised if, if they got some innocent people held in there." New converts that could have their faith in people restored, possible human sacrifices that could be averted.
This isn't a fight, Zach tells himself, not yet, even as Rust's posture gives him enough tells. There's an attack there. A headbutt, or perhaps one of those wrecking ball sweeps Rust can pull off. Zach tenses a bit when Rust's hand sets on his shoulder. He looks at Rust, then down at the building that by all appearances has no clue regarding the trouble that could come storming down on it at a moment's notice. There is a moment, a very long one, wherein Zach regards the offensive building.
It would be an easy thing, he thinks, to simply drive a meteoric blast of psionic power on it. To give these assholes a taste of the Shiva D they've been pushing on everyone who might stand in their way. Lord knows they have it coming. So easy.
And perhaps exactly what Rust is getting at.
The tension flows out of Zach. "Perhaps," he says, "I shouldn't go down there, then." He looks down and away from both Rust and the building.
Howard thinks he might have this handled at long last - may have finally gotten through to Zach, may have saved him from himself. He is calling a victory much too soon when Zach suggests that he shouldn't go down there. When the older man looks back, Zach's looking away - and his own shoulder creaks like it doesn't want to be going face-to-face with anyone either.
"Zach." How many times has this man said Zach's name, now? He steps away from the staircase to go stand a bit closer to him as it dawns upon the younger of the two about the doubts of it all - perhaps the likeness of their approaches.
Maybe he just hit far too close to home?
"I, I remember, Zach. You didn't... you didn't ask for any of what you have." There's no need to repeat what this power has led Zach to do, with or without that choker around his neck. He was there for that tragedy. That's a tragedy you don't just walk off and smile with after a couple of words.
In some ways, the guilt partially remains his - if only because /he/ knows what really happened there. The man with the bad combover falls silent for that moment, head bowed a little as he scratches the side of his head as to how best to approach this delicate matter further.
"I'm not gonna say... to forget what happened, Zach. Just... it's gonna be up to you." It really /is/, ultimately, up to Zach, to Howard's understanding. He is not a psion himself. There are so many things about it he will never truly 'get.' "It's gonna be up to you, to decide what... what it all means."
"But, but I can tell you, neither of us is gonna be able to save Antoine, or anyone else on our own." He did not go and save Zach on his own - it was with Farah's guidance that he finally put the pieces together to confront Zach with. Without her, he would have had nothing to say to him. It would have had to have ended completely in violence between the two.
Zach considers this. Forgetting was the farthest from his mind. He stares long at that building. He decides to tackle this, if not from the same motivation, then at least with the same methodology he has employed in dealing with his powers and the situations that have arisen because of those powers. One step at a time, the things in front of you get handled first.
He rolls his neck before regarding Rust. "I've got some techniques that won't make a mess of things," he finally says. "These guys have to be stopped, and we're here. Noone else is. If someone in there needs help, then we have to go in there and help them, right? Unless you called in the cops or something?"
It's a good thing that Zach has at least some things that won't make a mess of things, which is good and met with a nod - but at the mention of calling the cops, the older man scratches the back of his head.
That gesture alone should speak well before the man himself does.
"Probably... wouldn't be a bad idea, but, things've been... been really messy lately." Oh man, that is putting it so lightly! Violence is an everything day well beyond the scope of street fighting, and there's really only so much law enforcement - or really, any fighter still holding themselves true - can do.
"We're... we're gonna have to work with what we got." Which is to say himself, Zach, and an inanimate object Rust keeps lugging around as one of the main focuses of his fighting style. The sort of thing that people should really up and consider if it's okay to hit others in civilized fighting settings with something that's rusted.
With that, Howard starts his way down the steps. "I think... y'know, I think the two of us could handle it."
Zach is still staring at the building; he doesn't notice Rust's gesture. "I'll meet you down there," he says evenly, as if trying to get into some kind of mindset before things get started. He waits untill Rust shows up on the street before simply stepping off of the two story building.
This seems like a really insane move, until you notice the sheath of energy around Zach's body as he lands in a low crouch, with a bit of a wild grin on his face. Nothing to get the adrenaline going like jumping off a building. He calmly walks up to the front door, and takes a deep breath. "You ready," Zach asks Rust.
Two stories isn't hard for Rust to take on the way down, either - but it hasn't been more than a few days since Bao blasted him so hard his upper back plowed through a whole bunch of nasty things, and there's just some risks he's more than willing to avoid to not chance an early injury when it counts to not be a broken heap o' pain!!
He does give Zach something of a look - hypocritically, in this case, given what he'd have done in any other circumstance - as Zach goes up the front door.
Is he ready?
"Well, Zach," the shop teacher clears his throat, "classes are canceled, g-got no idea where... where Antoine is... wonder if any of 'em got any clue."
This vocal consideration is the equivalent of putting the tokens in the arcade cabinet and hitting the proper button to start the game. He gives Ol' Rusty one good look. He knows full well his right hand doesn't have the grip it used to. Those inside are likely composed of utter maniacs of strangely identical appearances with slight changes in color.
He asks himself this... what would Mike Haggar do?
With the roll of his shoulder, the older man nods his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready."
Zach grins as he strides up to the door. Sunlight sweeps along Zach's legs as he delivers a thunderous front kick that snaps the door off of its hinges, damaging the frame around it in a spray of paint chips and splinters.
"Special delivery," Zach calls out. "Justice, beatings, and maybe a rescue or two. Just need someone to sign for it." Mission start!
A really cool Final Fight stage ensues, but as we all know, the real final fight is looming a ways beyond whatever the two discover down here...
But will they - and other such heroes making their stand in a world driven to the brink - be able to stand and deliver?
This is a question for another time. A time that will come soon...
Log created on 19:15:26 07/10/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 00:13:26 07/11/2011.