Description: Zach and Rust finally touch base after Quon's death. This goes about as you'd expect it.
Southtown.
Wellspring House.
A couple of days after Ken's visit to the Wellspring House, Zach Glen made the phone call that he needed to make. To Howard Rust, rival and occassional partner in mayhem. There were proprieties to be observed, at the very minimum. With the phone call, Rust got directions to the property given to Zach by a grateful Chun-Li.
When Rust arrives, a personal assistant brings the fighter into a large, well furnished room. It might have a family room at some point, but Zach has converted this space into a teleconference room of sorts. Three large flatscreens dominate one wall, with a conference table set up to seat several people.
The Kyokugen Warrior will find Zach not seated at the table so much as perched on the edge of it, staring at the three screens. On each screen is a fight, but not the same fight. In fact, the only common theme between the fight is one of the fighters.
Adon.
Zach's gaze doesn't stay on any one screen for long, apparently trying to take in as many details as he can across many moments. It is also perhaps apparent to Rust, that Zach may not have had a whole lot in the way of sleep.
Howard's been pretty quiet for the most part since he came back from getting back his passport in Nepal. He's... not really all there, these days. It likely took no less than four calls to actually get him to even pick up the phone and agree in a somewhat more mumbling tone than usual to come on down to wherever it is Zach wants him.
He's hoping Zach didn't lose a passport in Nepal either, because son of a bitch he's not going through all that again.
Off to the Wellspring House, he's no doubt impressed to see the place - or let alone how Zach's got himself an assistant. Must be doing pretty well for himself now, he thinks as his presence in the large room is announced with the pop of one of his stiffened knees. Believe it or not, his knees actually want him to be up and about more than he himself does, and given his poor, tired posture... it shows.
"Hey, Zach," Howard grumbles out as he steps into the warm, reassuring, colorful glow of one of the flatscreen monitors. It makes him really want one of those for his own! It... also doesn't really dawn upon him what the connection is between the lot of them.
"Catchin' up on... reruns, or something?" Asks the Kyokugen green belt. "Coulda asked me to brought... uh, popcorn. Maybe brought over some, ah, some barbecue or somethin'."
Zach is doing surprisingly okay for himself. He found, fairly quickly, that hiring on an assistant was the only way he was going to be able to keep on top of even half of the things on his plate and maintain some semblance of a fighting career. Zach doesn't so much as twitch when he hears that familiar knee pop. Zach knew, roughly, when Rust stepped onto the property, but he didn't budge then, either.
Only when Rust speaks up does Zach move, leaning back to tap the space bar on the keyboard laying on the table. All three scenes pause, providing various action shots.
Adon driving a knee into the groin of Mister Jones.
Adon dropping a painful-looking heel kick on Sagat's patched eye.
Adon driving a chi-laden kick into Ryu's head.
"Something like that," Zach replies quietly. He finally looks over at Rust. "How you doing?"
"Mrghghbl." Rust grunts out how he's feeling with a shrug and a profoundly non-communicative statement beyond the tired tone of voice. "'s just... kind of... hard to get back into it all, y'know," he mumbles as he turns away from the frozen frames of all three TV screens as he leans a hand against the table.
"Just, you go through... a lot, with everyone, right, 'n... when you get back, after all's said 'n done, Zach," he shakes his head again. The toupee's dark purple color takes on a somehow more sinister hue in the glow of those flatscreens, somehow, as he runs his other hand up the side of his head as if rubbing at some sore or numb muscle in his face or what have you. (Given how much he gets punched in the face at his job now, this is probably not out of the question.)
"I mean... you heard 'bout... Quon, right?" This is absolutely not news to anyone at all and it's really silly for him to be asking this.
Zach turns to regard the paused screens once more, taking them in for a long moment. The three men Adon is facing against in those shots could be considered to be strong. Sagat and Ryu perhaps more than Jones, but the last is a person Zach has experience fighting against. He is almost reaching for the space bar again; Zach needs to study this self-styled Emperor of Muay Thai. Needs to prepare for what he is going to attempt unless someone can talk him down.
"Yeah," is all Zach says at first. There's... something in that simple word. So much emotion packed into such a short word. Rust has heard that tone from Zach, on at least one significant occassion.
Perhaps part of the reason Zach called Rust here was because the older man was really the one person who could talk Zach away from the course of action he is contemplating.
"After... after Vega," Rust continues seemingly oblivious of the hints of Zach's singular word choice as if it were suddenly an unspoken invitation to narrate with his unconquerable legion of pauses, word repeats, and stutters characteristic of a man who always seems to be a bit overworked or tired on the job when he is ultimately unaware of what his actual job is about to be.
"'s... lookin' up. Really lookin' up, Zach. Just... ready to, ready to go back, get on with our lives, I mean... it's never that, that simple, or, uh, shit." He stands up a bit, removing his hand from the table as he eyes the freeze frames of Adon. Huh, he's been watching a lot of Adon, hasn't he. He never really thought Zach to be a huge fan of Muay Thai. Obnoxious guy, that Adon. There's no doubting how good he /is/, though.
Rust, personally, used to watch a fair bit of Tony Styles and his love of those lightning-fast counterattacks. Too bad he's not on TV any more, probably would be really interesting to see him and Adon go at one another.
This mistaken thought of what Zach is actually doing or hoping to do with the display is filed away as he keeps speaking. "That kid, he had, he had all of us behind him, Zach," Rust's sadness shines through a voice that's almost too tired and despondent to really even think about it at length as he throws a hand up, "threw it all away. All... all of it."
Zach is silent for a moment. "Perhaps," he says slowly as he taps a couple of keys. Volume is muted as the displays kick back into thunderous motion. "Perhaps he didn't /see/ that." Zach is silent for a long moment.
"It can be very lonely in the dark," he says with something in his voice. "Like you are the only one there. It... blinds you to what you have." The tone in Zach's voice is not one of someone being thoughtful, as much perhaps of someone who knows.
The fights carry on. When fights end, new ones start up. All of Adon fighting someone. Anyone. Win, lose or draw, if it was committed to film, it is in this collection. "Sometimes it's something you threw away. Or something you lost," Zach says, in a tone that suggests confrontation. "Sometimes, though," he says as he jerks a chin at the screen. "Something gets taken away."
"In the end, regardless of the specifics," Zach says with a bit of finality, "Quon didn't have something." That is the closest Zach has been to admitting that Quon's suicide was, in fact, Quon's fault.
They were teammates in King of Fighters 2011. Their road to the title was... very short, but full of memories unto itself. Who would forget how they had to do a cross trip through Africa just to figure out where they would be staying, or the little things that popped up here and there as they prepared for that big title bout that could've, should've, would've really got things forward...
Only for Quon to never have a chance, for Antoine to be... corrupted, for Yuri's father to come... well, be Yuri's father, for Zach to... well, one gets the picture from there, one would imagine. Memory-filled, indeed, as Howard kind of goes quiet in trying to figure out what Zach's really saying while he watches the stuff on the three screens.
He's back to scratching his head at Quon not having something. What... didn't he have? Howard could think of a lot he did have, given... everything that passed, as a hand goes on the table again, leaning forward as if to get a better watch of those three screens.
"I don't, uh... get what you're saying, Zach," he has to admit it somewhat sheepishly. "What, what... didn't Quon have?"
"For everyone that finds themself in that hole," Zach says. "The ones who come out of it alive have one thing." Zach stares at the screens for a moment. "It's... not the same for everyone, but the survivors all have it in common." Zach watches the screens, taking everything in for a moment.
"They all have something to hang on to. Something to keep them here. For some, it's a person. Someone that is so important to them that the idea of being without them... just isn't acceptable. Others, it's a goal. Something they have to get done before they feel like they can finally be done." Zach stares at the screen, thinking. "Whatever it is, it keeps them here long enough to climb out of that hole."
"Quon didn't have it," he says with finality. "And I don't think he lost it. Or threw it away."
They all have something to hang onto, Zach says... Howard nods along with that, thinking... sure, that makes sense, so far, except for the one thing about Qu--
Oh, he's getting to that. Howard opens his mouth briefly before Zach speaks with that finality that Quon didn't have it. That he didn't lose it, or throw it away. Rust knows how Quon felt about his old dream to be a movie star in the wake of... everything, involving Vega.
"What 'bout... his friends," Rust speaks up, clearing his throat once before he continues again, "I, I have trouble believing that he didn't have it, Zach. I really do, given... a lot." He's not sure where to start, so he seems content to just say in defense of his statement a mere 'a lot.'
"But, but if you're sayin' that he didn't... lose it, or throw it away, what're you, ah, getting at?"
"He didn't /see/ that," Zach explains with surprising patience. It's not an easy concept to grasp. Rust has been down, but not to the bottom of /that/ hole. "He..." Zach scowls a bit, slapping the space bar again. He stares at the images.
Adon hurling those nachos at Athena. Adon throwing himself at Mukai.
"Quon... I think he must have felt like it had all been taken from him," Zach finally says after taking a deep breath. "Most of the people involved in that are... out of the picture one way or the other."
"Zach," Rust speaks up as his friend slash rival spells out his understanding of Quon's psychology and feelings with an odd clarity that turns out to be a precursor to just another clearing of his throat. Man, grass pollen has been eating this man up alive lately.
"Do you... do you know how much effort was, was given to... just, give it all back, 'n more?" So asks Howard as he finds it in him to somehow stand up in full again as he eyes whatever's on the screens. Nachos in Athena's hair? He somehow seems a little offended at the sight, somehow.
"Shit, Zach. He had... he had people at his back. It's..." His voice trails off. Maybe it's just too much for him to really want to bother thinking about all that was being done for the young man so that he could just reach out and claim his dream.
"Zach, I, I know what it's like to, to lose a dream like... like you wouldn't believe." He speaks up a bit. "I, I never got my chance back when I was 'round your age. Back then... wasn't easy to just, just get into fighting, y'know."
He takes the time to step in front of Zach, aggravatingly putting himself in the way of those Adon feeds. "But, but I was lucky I had a bunch of friends then, too. Got me... right back on my feet, went to college... became a, a teacher, well."
Maybe that's not the best example, considering how that ultimately turned out. "I, I for the life of me, Zach, can't... can't imagine why Quon couldn't... see that. He had, he had the people, the friends, he had a, a god damn chance, Zach, and..."
His train of thought jumps tracks. "Why're you watching Adon?"
"And for all of that," Zach says evenly, "He. Didn't. See. That." The psion closes his eyes, rubbing at his head tiredly. Fatigue washes over him, washes away any frustration Zach might experience from Rust doing his impression of a door. "It... can't be helped. Not now, and probably not even then."
Then Rust finally asks about the footage.
Zach gestures at Adon. "Adon may not have committed the murders people claim he did," Zach says. "But he /did/ hound Quon for his connection to Sagat." Zach opens and closes his fist, and an expression settles over Zach's face. Rust has seen this expression once before, during the insanity that surrounded the King of Fighters tournament. "By itself, it might have been nothing Quon couldn't handle," Zach says in a surprisingly even tone. "But when you combine it with everything else..." Zach slides off of the table to look Rust in the eyes. "With everything else, Quon didn't... /couldn't/ see what he still had here."
It's on Rust's face as Zach spits it out, as if he's ready to shout 'then whose fault is it?' If Zach is looking for blame, anyway, on some level they seem to agree that Quon didn't see it for whatever reason. Howard will likely continue to be mystified as to why Quon didn't, or couldn't see it considering everything.
Zach's admission that it can't be helped seems an invitation enough for the unspoken agreement that this point of argument about Quon's ability to really know about how much his life was beginning to look up is... well, moot.
Rust strolls away from the front of Zach, head tracking Zach's finger(s) over to one of the monitors with Adon, as Zach lays out how that guy plays into the big picture. The look of frustration is well-noted - one of his knees starts having a bit of a twinge of pain. That look of anger and frustration.
"H-Hold on," Howard speaks up, swaying himself back in front of Zach and the monitors again, which he does not need to do to really look at the monitors. That he decides to step in front of Zach again and then look behind his shoulder to see the monitors is an exercise in a failure of understanding spatial relationships and what Zach is actually more focused at looking at from his current location, before looking back to Zach who is looking him in the eyes.
Rust points a finger over his shoulder towards a monitor of frozen Adon footage (though his thumb is, incidentally, pointing at someone else).
"You're sayin' that... it's because of..."
Zach does not answer verbally, simply waiting for Rust to get to the conclusion on his own. Zach's rival is not known for quick movement, but Rust is implaccable and inevitable.
Rust looks over his shoulder again and finds that he accidentally has his thumb pointed at Mukai. He slides his hand back a little more towards Adon, as if expecting Zach to speak up about this. When Zach does not answer him at all, the older man lowers his arm.
It grows so silent and tense that even that elbow of the lowering arm dare not creak to upset it, as the little gears in Howard's head turn, creak, occasionally stop in need for some sort of lubricant (maybe something alcoholic, perhaps) while his eyes blankly stare off into the distance.
"Zach," he mumbles the name out, "what're you... what're you hopin' to do?"
"I'm going to find out why," Zach says coldly. "I'm going to find out what is driving this asshole." Zach's hands open and close slowly, almost mechanically. "And then I'm going to do my damnedest to show him just what that hole looks like."
The clips end. Zach had not apparently set them up to repeat, perhaps to force Zach to disengage for a moment to use the bathroom or get food or attend to some other need.
Then again, given the worn look Zach has on his face, perhaps it was simply a signal for Zach to restart the footage.
He's going to find out why? That sounds awful benign for the tone of voice that-- no, as Zach continues, it turns a more sinister turn. That hole - the hole Quon was in. In which Rust had to be proxy to Quon's absolute fear and terror over Vega, the pain of having his life fall apart bit by bit. Quon having to shame himself to potentially save a bunch of people from one of Vega's evil machinations... to his college kicking him out over it, to his family all but disowning him... to his /homeland/ all but disowning him except to attempt to conveniently draft him into their forces for their own ends...
The list goes on and on in Howard Rust's head, and to hear Zach Glen - a young man he helped come to terms about how he was letting negativity drive him - speak of this in such a way...
"Zach," Howard turns himself full-face to his smaller, younger rival, "are you... are you hearin' yourself talk, Zach? Did you just... turn off your, your head?" It's not anger or rage in the older man's face, eyes, and voice.
It's pretty much out and out terror.
Rage is a terrifying thing, and Rust knows full well that Zach has plenty of that. Zach does not back down from Rust's stare. "He. Needs. To /pay/." Zach spits out. Tension fills the smaller man's frame, not exactly puffing him up but still lendning him a palpable aura of menace.
Zach's tone starts to rise as Zach rises up on the balls of his feet. "Adon needs to /know/ that there are consequences to the things that he does." Zach takes a deep breath. The sane part of his mind /knows/ that he is standing on the edge, looming over the abyss. The sane part of his mind is fighting an uphill battle against the rage that has been building and stoking and growing in Zach. A rage that Ken only blunted through distraction. "HE NEEDS TO KNOW!" Zach roars. No energy has come forth just yet, his control over /that/ particular issue still firmly in place.
It's absolutely chilling to ever be in any emotional extreme of Zach. He is a very powerful psion, whose ability to express his power as an extension of his own soul rather than drawing from the latent energy laced through the Earth does not have many equals, and a few outright superiors.
Just because Rust managed to survive Vega does not mean he would be ready to count out Zach's wrath when - not if, when - given form, but the prospect of Zach Glen, a young man who accidentally brought suffering and worked so hard to overcome this, is now all but willing to inflict it upon someone in a manner similar, equal, or maybe even worse than Quon.
Adon is... not someone you would consider a good man. Yet...
It's here that Howard telegraphs exactly what he's thinking with a furrowed brow and the lifting of his left arm, crossed inward, as he moves to sweep the back of his hand up against Zach's roaring, angry face with all the strength and muster of a man who, perhaps, knows that hole Zach wants to inflict upon Adon more than Zach may think.
"Get a god damn grip!" So Rust yells out. He can't match Zach's volume, but he's pretty sure he'll be heard loud and clear.
Zach knows the hole all too well; he clawed and climbed his way out of it when he was a little older than Quon. Perhaps that is what is helping to fuel Zach's anger, the psychic's need to have Adon see for himself what it is like to be there.
The psion is utterly unprepared for Rust's backhand. He spins away, smacking into the table before wobbling away. A trickle of blood can be seen falling from the corner of Zach's mouth. Zach comes up into a boxing stance. Not the orthodox stance he normally shows in a fight, but a far more offensive orientation. Left hand low and clenched with his right hand by his chin and chambered to fire off a straight at a moment's notice.
His eyes aren't focused for a long moment; Rust hit him pretty damn hard and Zach was not at all ready for it. There is still none of that energy Zach brings to a fight. Energy that would more than readily end this fight before it started. Rust has /that/ going for him at least. The part of Zach ready for a fight, /needing/ a fight, is still calling some of the shots. But for all of the apparent (and all too real) rage Zach was showing earlier, he doesn't move to engage.
The sane part of Zach, the part that knows better, is calling just enough of the shots.
Rust does not lament the smacking of Zach, although he winces in utmost brief about how he hits the table. Still, he sticks by his words. Get a god damn grip, Zach, he wants to shout again as he watches the young man scramble up to an aggressive boxing stance that asks for its user to get lower to the ground. Rust remains standing tall.
"I don't, I don't follow Adon's personal life," Rust says, "but... what end are you gonna go if, if you try to shove him down like... like that?" He clears his throat. Throat, I do not need you to be all ticklish and irritated with whatever dust or grime's managed to find its way there, he grumbles in his mind, I need to speak.
"What if, if he's got family? People who care for him?" It's kind of hard to imagine anyone being like this for Adon, who is reported to have had... a very interesting relationship with quite a few women. "People who, who've done nothing. Nothing wrong, Zach, other than, than knowing him - are you gonna hurt them to, to get at him?"
He takes a step forward, running a hand on the table in brief to make sure it's not damaged or what have you to his keen carpenter touch because that really is a nice table. "Zach, I, I had to watch Quon fall into that hole. How afraid he was, 'cause of... Vega, 'cause someone just... decided, for no personal benefit, just to... just to make his life hell. God damn near made me want to, want to cry watchin' it, Zach! Hearing 'bout how, how his life was falling to, to pieces left and right, Zach!"
"I don't wish that shit on... on anyone," Howard growls out, "not even to those, those god damn psychopaths I kept runnin' into out in, in Asia, everywhere! This ain't 'bout justice, Zach," Howard says as he dares to step closer to a ticking time bomb that's just waiting to go off, his pained knee be damned, "what you're, you're lookin' at doing isn't about making him /see/ nothing! After... after all you been through, Zach, all you've done, all the... all the /things/ to be, a, above all this,"
For all the shouting and aggression - and that backhand! - Rust throws on Zach, he dares to reach out to put his hand on Zach's left shoulder with his right hand. It is decidedly lacking in anything suggesting intent to harm. He's not bearing his weight down, he's not squeezing, if Zach lets him.
"Are you, are you really gonna let yourself be driven by... frustration, anger, all that, to do things you... can't take back, that you might end up... end up regretting, Zach? After... after all you've done to, to be above all that?"
"You're better 'n this," he mumbles out as his throat wins out again, interrupting further ranting with a brief cough.
The table took the hit like a freaking /champ/. Zach is small, and the psion picked the wood out for its insane durability.
Zach, for his part, simply absorbs Rust's words, like desert sands and water. So much /anger/. Such a need to tear Adon down and throw what remains to the winds. Zach has always been a man of strong emotions, his control over them manifesting as a fairly easy-going attitude that doesn't get rocked too easily. Stable. Solid.
Until it takes the right kind of hit. Then it goes all to shit. Zach said it once, to Takuma Sakazaki: "I don't have so many friends that I can afford to let you take one, sir." And now Quon is gone.
Blame has to be assigned. Someone HAS to be at fault. He cannot blame Quon, since the young man is gone. So too has Vega disappeared. Cammy White, for all of the things that could have been laid at the Zero Doll's feet, Zach knows better than many that such a thing would be pointless. Cammy doesn't remember doing those things. There would be no possibility of regret or remorse. That left Adon.
And now Rust is saying that that isn't really an option, and worse, Rust is telling Zach that Zach /knows/ it's not really an option.
The psion slumps to his knees under the weight, real or imagined, of that hand on his shoulder. His body body shakes, rage and grief clashing inside that small frame packed with so much /power/.
And yet Zach is completely powerless now.
"C'mon." Howard gently tries to get Zach up to his feet as he speaks a bit more calmly, not letting the silence pass for long as the young man's inner turmoil comes to a heartwrenching stalemate. "I, I saw the blood out the... the side of your mouth. Let's... let's get you to the, ah, the dentist."
The one place all fighters fear going to, given how expensive it is in a lot of places and how often teeth just love to loosen or fall out after a good nasty strike or two. Or twenty. Howard remembers he missed his scheduled check-up from being caught in that warzone. He ought to go to the dentist soon himself.
Where Zach had been driven by anger and the need for blame, Howard's been despondent. He hasn't been able to give a hundred percent at the dojo. He's started falling back on some old habits he had thought he grown out of for good when he finally got to step up his game in a bid to at last chase his lifelong dream.
It's really not befitting for either of them given all they've gone through, is it, Howard muses to himself quietly. Quon threw it all away in spite and selfishness to a place they can't chase after. Howard is not going to let Zach nor himself dive off after the metaphorical cliff after someone who has already hit the bottom and expired.
"If, if your teeth are okay enough after that, how 'bout that, that sports bar," Howard attempts to suggest something to get both their minds off of this, "watch some, ah, some baseball. Have some of that... that pizza you like." He's not sure what it is but he doesn't like the pepperoni they put on pizzas in these parts, there's just something really off about it.
"Sound good? I think... I think we both just, just need a night off."
Zach pulls himself to his feet, slowly, the fight completely out of him. He rubs a thumb across the blood, his tongue prodding around inside his mouth. "Don' need the dentist," Zach says softly. "It'll be fine." He wobbles in place; that much raw emotion from /any/ source is enough to take it out of Zach.
He starts to nod when the pizza is mentioned, but bolts upright when Rust mentions a night off. "Can't," Zach says quickly. "Don't have time as it is. Why do you think I hired Steve?" Zach's turnaround is, perhaps, a bit odd to those who don't know him. Rust has seen the before; Zach bounces back from things fairly strongly when he bounces back. "Gotta show you something."
Zach walks over to a stack of folders and files, pulling folders seemingly at random but clearly not, before laying them out. Blueprints, contracts. "Remember that bar in China?" The prints, which ought to be easy for Rust to read given his background, are clearly for a large building complex. It might remind Rust of some of the schools in Southtown. The gymnasium and auditorium look especially durable.
"Ken's fronting some money," Zach says with a bit of excitement in his voice. "I'm fighting my ass off to raise some more."
Even knowing Zach for the ability to bounce back, sometimes Howard has to wonder if Zach might actually be slightly bipolar. It is relieving to hear that Zach doesn't need a dentist though, assuredly, as Howard rubs the back of his head with his right hand at Zach's insistence that he 'can't' take a night off.
Howard follows him over to the folders and files, nodding his head once as he checks out the prints - yeah, he can read them easily from over Zach's shoulder. He squints at some of the numbers he's able to make out, though. That's not for a mere backyard deck...
He picks one of them up to give them a look-over, perhaps because he doesn't quite believe some of the things he's seeing. He points a finger over a figure, as if thinking 'do they have the math right on this, I'm not sure...'
"You're makin' it happen now, huh," says Howard as he takes the pointing finger away from the sheet he's holding to give Zach a good pat on the back, "there you go, so... uh,"
He puts the sheet down to look at Zach. "You... you already got arranged to, to fight Adon, huh."
It's possible. Zach's never been in to a doctor to get checked out for it; too many complications if it turned out to be true. It'd /cripple/ his fighting career, and Zach's completely unwilling to find out what would happen when his mind got altered by whatever medication was prescribed.
Zach glances up at Rust, eyes certain. "Yeah," he says. "Even I..." Zach's voice trails off. "This is something I can't back off from either." The psion shakes his head a bit. "I need to see what's pushing Adon. Don't think I'll be able to move on until I do."
"I, I don't think the, the contracts they lay out'd... let you back out," Howard grouses on that point. Something about an infamous young woman with long blonde hair and red clothing, some kind of ninja, having been really bad about making commitments to the point they've made contracts a touch more strict in recent years.
Howard blinks a couple of times as he thinks about what it'd all mean. Did Zach whip himself up to a frenzy over this before getting everything all signed, or after? Maybe... that's not important, he thinks as he rubs his face, but.
"Zach," he says as he looks to him again, "I, I'm not gonna lie, that Adon guy," he nods his head, "he's... he's pretty deserving of a, y'know, swift kick in the ass."
He hasn't forgotten the time at the airport. Who would? It took three men to hold him back then. After the war, given he's capable of holding off roughly a hundred or so armed and trained men at once... the only person that'd probably hold him back is himself, now, if it came to it.
"Promise me, Zach, okay, that... that's all you're gonna do to him," he says as he puts a hand on Zach's shoulder again, "none of this... none of this makin' him, y'know, suffer, or... any of that. Just... one wholesome, clean kick in the ass."
He stops, the other hand on his chin as he thinks.
"Uh... wait. That, and, uh, one here," he gestures to his own midsection, "'nother one there. Two swift kicks. All right?"
Zach grins a bit. "Won't be much kicking from me," Zach reminds Rust. "Boxing, remember?" He flexes his hand open, spraying a /very/ light sparkling of Soul Power. "Though I might blast him into next week."
"Two swift punches." Rust grumbles. "Don't, don't play the semantics card."
"How about we make it three," Zach says gamely, "And I throw in a punch to the head?"
Howard lowers a hand down to one of Zach's in the invitation for a handshake. "Deal."
Zach takes the hand firmly, shaking it once. "Deal."
Log created on 16:23:30 05/29/2012 by Zach, and last modified on 18:03:21 05/31/2012.