Description: When Antoine, Zach, and Rust catch up with one another following the fateful night where he was saved from the clutches of the rage, Antoine reveals the place where many are gathering... but can they all stand up to the task, as a team that lost the very first round of King of Fighters? Can they all really throw caution to the wind for sake of helping save the world - or just humanity in general - from what's inside? The conclusion draws ever nearer... that said, where is Quon in all this, anyway?
It's approaching the evening in Southtown.
The small village section of Southtown is relatively quiet and peaceful. Few children are playing out in the streets while the adults are walking along on their cellphones.
The kids in the streets are passing a ball along to each other.
"That's right. Pass it to each person. Move and pass. Move and pass."
At the side walk is Antoine, who is getting the kids to pass the ball to each other as they are running off from near the coffee shop. Antoine, for the past few days, has been mulling, trying to figure out his recovery. ...And to figure out what to do for Quon, who has lost everything.
Antoine frowns, realizing how much Quon had lost.
Since that fateful night that brought all the team together (sans Yuri) to Antoine's aid, Rust has been met with relief... and a whole lot of yelling at work about helping getting things fixed up so classes could resume. There was relief to be had in Antoine being saved, sure... but the tension was still there. The disquiet around the world, the feel of something big, something terrible coming... and it is rare to come across any part of the street in Southtown with any sort of life.
That Antoine has found one with the kids in the streets is enough to attract anyone's attention... including one Howard Rust, who is presently on a lunch break with a ginormous sub sandwich that doesn't look like it should be able to fit into anyone's mouth, let alone his.
The bite marks have proven that he's found a way, as he walks along the sidewalk to the sound of children somehow finding it in them to play even now. As he lowers the sandwich down ever more... there he sees him. Antoine! Antoine out of the health clinic (and, so it would seem, out of the clutches of law enforcement given what chaos he created under the influence)... though a part of him isn't really sure if he's actually all there or not.
He wasn't there for whatever Zach did to him.
"Antoine?" The older man asks moments before one of his knees pop, stretching out one of his legs. These are legs that kind of want to keep walking, lest they call it quits for the day.
Zach is sprawled out in the shade of a tree, catching some sleep in this fine evening. He's been dead (almost literally) tired since that night at the shrine. His current nap, however, isn't so deep that he doesn't rouse when he hears some familiar voices. He sits up slowly, stretching out a bit as he looks around with bleary eyes that clear up when he spots Rust and Antoine.
He picks himself up and walks down towards the pair.
With the children passing through, Antoine had sought to try to make by and repent. Or at last, atone for what he had one. He hurt so many people. He became animalistic. He fought fighters and gained nothing out of it.
That itself was a crime.
However, what wakes Antoine up from his introspection is the sound of his name being called from a familiar voice, "...Huh?" Turning his head, Antoine sees Rust and he offers a smile. "Rust..."
However, when he makes an abrupt spot and tries to stretch his knee, Antoine winces and runs over to him. "Are you alright?" Then, his attention falls towards Zach, "...Ah, hey Zach."
It's funny that it's gotten this late for what Rust's having to be considered a 'lunch break' in the big picture, but he's no stranger to... well, long days. Be it the emotional stress of wanting the day to end, or the actual chronological distinction of it being a long work day. It's definitely the latter, this go-around.
As Antoine smiles over to him, Howard is left thinking... is he really okay? Is Antoine all right for real, over there? It's hard to believe, if in part because he doesn't really understand all that went down. He found the three of them and, out of joy, cooked fries. The beginning and ending of his involvement of that particular evening.
"Just, just the... y'know, usual," he responds with a grunt as he flexes out his leg - just in time for Zach to be addressed, seeing him turn his head over to see the short psychic head along over there wordlessly. The shop teacher raises his free hand in a brief wave.
Zach waves at both men, and opens his mouth to speak... and lets out a big yawn instead. "Hey Rust," he finally says as gets within not-yelling distance. "Antoine," he says with a nod. "Are things... better now?" he asks cautiously. He's not certain about much of anything after that night.
Zach knows he slept a lot; the medics on-scene that night couldn't find anything apparently wrong with the psion after he collapsed after his one-time light show. He hasn't really seen anyone to ask what had happened.
A faint smile is given towards Rust, who seems to be dealing with things well. He wants to see if Rust will get up to his feet. But, considering his age, it will probably take a while. He gives a sheepish smile, "I am worried..." He starts to frown, "About many things."
Then, he looks over towards Zach, who arrives. "...Yeah, for now." His smile brightens, "It was you who helped give me that strength, wasn't it?" Pause. "No, all of you helped. I am grateful to have friends like you guys." He lowers his head, "However, I feel that this isn't over..."
Getting older ain't easy, let's put it that way. Rust just has it a little harder than most his age, a wince on his face as he finds his shoulder starting to lock up on him too. It's been a long work day, and his body just says it outright - it wants to stop and just go home.
"Yeah?" The older man thinks to ask to elaborate, but not before Antoine drops the bombshell about whatever it is that happened - the thing about... giving strength? Even as Antoine backpedals and gives credit to the lot of them, it's enough for Mr. Rust to actually stop and ask.
"W-Wait, one sec. Antoine, uh... what'd Zach do?" He's in the dark about the whole picture, casting a look over to Zach. "I mean, uh... you did something to, to... uh, you're not feelin' like, like being crazy or anything any more, right?"
The older man clears his throat. "Sorry, I'm, uh... I'm kinda lost here."
"It's... what I tried to do," Zach admits. "I mean, there's supposed to be a relationship between the body and the mind and I thought if your body couldn't do it on its own then if I tried to help bolster your mind that..." Zach blinks, realizing he is blabbering just a bit. He looks at the ground, slightly embarrassed.
"I... wasn't even sure if it'd work," he says softly. "I could have hurt you, a lot. It was a dumb risk to take. I'm glad it worked, though."
"You allowed me a chance to separate myself.... and face the darker side of me. I could feel the desire... the rage." His eyes lower, "It's not over, however, the true side had prevailed. This rage... this taintness of the chi, only amplifed things that I felt before. ... An inner demon that I will likely struggle with."
He offers a faint smile, "Sifu Huang would want me to keep fighting, keep learning, and to keep the tradition honored."
His eyes drift towards Zach, "It was a chance that had to be done. However... the source is not over." Antoine narrows his eyes, "I am afraid that we will not let this sit by. We will have to find answers about this."
Rust looks onto what Zach explains wordlessly. The realization that what he's personally said to Zach may has sunk in... perhaps it may have been the single trigger that allowed Zach to figure out a way to do this, a way to save Antoine and... who knows? Possibly even more.
The older man thoughtfully looks to his comically oversized sandwich. His stomach rumbles, and yet, running into his friends here have become increasingly rare as their various issues keep piling up and up, while Antoine gives his thanks and muses about the true nature of what he overcame.
"A source?" The older man lowers his food away. "Wait... Antoine." He starts waving a finger, absentmindedly. "Do you... do you, uh, this is a long shot, but... I, I ran into some other guys with what you got. That football player, and... and some students in class fell to the same thing."
It's not a subject he fondly remembers, but now realizes that Antoine /himself/ may be the key to figuring out what's left of this entire mess.
"If there's... if there's a source, Antoine... did you, did you feel it on any level, I mean... where? Were you... drawn anywhere while all that was, was goin' on, or..."
Zach shrugs sheepishly at Rust's stare, "Maybe I can do stuff that doesn't involve things exploding. It was a gamble... a /big/ gamble. Just glad it paid out like it did." He listens to Antoine and Rust for a moment.
"Ken Masters, too," Zach interjects. "Can't forget him," he says with a wince. "Some of them may have volunteered for... whatever this is, but I'd bet more of them had it forced on them like it was with Antoine." Zach frowns a bit. Amy, too, was pulled into this somehow. He's just not sure if she was forced to... or if she volunteered for it.
He looks up sharply at Rust and Antoine. "If there's a source, there's gotta be a way to cut that source off."
"I am afraid that I do not know these people, other than Ken Masters." Then, Antoine is furrowing his eyebrows. He looks over with deep concentration, letting his eyes lift up to the sky while thinking to himself.
He stumbles forward, his hand resting towards his forehead."...I recall the voices... I recall a feeling as to where the gathering was." He looks at both Zach and Rust.
"...It's somewhere here in Japan.... I can kind of feel where it is at." It feels like visions in a way, but it's faint. "....We need to hurry and find where thef eeling is coming from.. If we can get there, if we can find where they are meeting, we can stop them from what they are doing."
Indeed, Zach may have proven - once and for all - he can do more with his power than simply blow people up. Perhaps Rust over there is going to have a lot to feel good about, helping to enable Zach to that new way of thinking... although there's still plenty of worry on the older man's features about the bigger picture surrounding the world, even if one /good/ thing has managed to, for once, snowball into another good thing.
When Antoine stumbles forward, Rust's already moving to go try and support him even with only that one free hand, outreached when Antoine talks about recalling voices... where a gathering was?
"A gathering?" He scratches the side of his head instead of lending another hand further to Antoine. The thought that they all need to hurry, together, to find where it's all coming together... to stop them.
"We? ...All of us?" There is a certain pause in the older man's voice.
Zach reaches forward at the same time Rust does, the larger man simply gets there first. "Easy there, Antoine," Zach says with gentle reproach. "No point in wrecking yourself." He listens to Antoine's statement about the source of the trouble being in Japan. His eyes narrow, then go to Rust.
"Well, if Antoine's willing to go like this, then neither of us really have an excuse not to. We can't just let him go by himself, right?" Zach doesn't /say/ as much, but there is concern on his face. Antoine fell prey to the Riot of the Blood once. Who is to say another exposure wouldn't knock the young man back to square one in his battle against the Rage?
A hand is held out to Rust, the ebony-skinned man is shaking his head fervishly.
"We need to go."
Antoine's tone is hurried. His tone is a bit frantic. He calms himself, however. He will have to do this with a clear head. "We need to get a hold of Quon as well." He looks at both Zach and Rust. "We have to do this. We have to stop the situation." He looks over towards the three. "...This is our call."
And so, Antoine puts out the call to action. That they - all of them - need to be the ones to hurry there. They have to stop it, Antoine says.
Rust is frozen in his place, remembering the scope of the Southtown Invasion of 2009. The way he kept getting caught in the middle of people of conflicting and frankly scary interests... how he ended up, by sheer chance, in the very heart of the base out of fright and legitimate fear. That he even got out of it all, A-OK, and the revelation he had...
In a way, it's like it's all replaying again. Waves of doubt are already on the older man. Zach can probably pick this up before the older man even has anything to say about it.
"Antoine, it... it ain't gonna be as simple as just us... walkin' up to them." He gestures over to Zach. "He 'n I stormed a temple here, but... by the sound of it, what you're talkin' 'bout is gonna be... is gonna be a whole different magnitude."
He doesn't need to even elaborate that they lost in the first round of King of Fighters. To think that the likes of Ken Masters, a world-famous fighter of nearly unmatched skill, could succumb to them puts a really worrying thought into perspective.
With Zach's narrowed eyes on him and his own words, the teacher turns to face him. "We can't let /anyone/ go... by, by themselves, but..."
"It doesn't matter." Antoine narrows his eyes, "There is a lot at stake here." The young man is now slowly approaching towards the corner. When he makes his way towards the corner nearby the shop, he reaches behind the trash can.
He withdraws his dufflebag. With the dufflebag, Antoine snaps his head over. "...Sifu Haung once told me... 'Fight when you feel is right. There are times when you must fight for your life. Fight for what you believe in.' Although he hoped to see the tradition passed on... it will be meaningless if what happens come to light."
The determined young man lifts a hand up. Slowly, that hand rises until it tightens to a fist. "We will fight this..." He looks over towards Rust and Zach, "Is there anything left to lose? ...The only way we can go on..."
"Is to climb."
Zach considers for a moment, thinking quickly as he thinks things over. He clenches his fist, tamping down the frustration he feels at this particular moment. Even if Zach was not anything like a mentalist, he can see Rust's expression, the older man's body language. Rust Howard is worried, and rightfully so; the threat this group is facing... is immense.
"I could swing by the YFCC," Zach offers. "See if I can scare up Rose, or Alma, or Frei," he continues. Hell, he'd take Hotaru if he could find her. Not that Zach has anything against the young woman, but she simply hasn't been around of late. "It doesn't have to /just/ be the four of us," Zach says including Quon automatically. "In fact, it really shouldn't be just the four of us by ourselves." Zach pulls out his cell phone, checking his contact list. Topping that, since it's alphabetically sorted are Alma Towazu and Athena Asamiya. Zach's eyes light up at those two names; both are powerful psychics, moreso than he's likely ever to be.
Not just immense! Quite possibly the single most dangerous thing this world has ever had to face down. They are, literally, looking at the end times - something on a deep and instinctual level that nearly all humans can feel. The way that the world... seems ready to reject them, spurred on by a very force of nature from... somewhere.
It's hard to explain, but it's not hard to see how everything has gone out of whack. How everyone is out of sorts, how weather patterns have gone entirely nuts and dangerous... and it seems to be upon a small handful of fighters, some yet to even really make it out there in the big scary world, to go forth and make a difference.
Of course, forty-year-old Howard Rust, a shop teacher with occasional bouts of physical nigh-invincibility is utterly terrified at the concept of having the fate of the world be thrust right on his shoulders.
Antoine, young and optimistic, has made up his mind even as he relates what his master said. The way he's willing to face on what happened, even after what happened to him...
And Zach, who knows they wouldn't be alone, able and willing to call up those who haven't found their own way towards the great final battle for all of humanity by themselves...
The teacher quietly and slowly shakes his head, wordlessly.
Log created on 19:00:38 07/24/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 22:36:36 07/24/2011.