Description: The mysterious Munin pays a visit to a hospital where a certain man has been laid up after the events at Dulles International. From here, two people who fought in the desperate war to curb Vega's ambition in the recent past catch up on a harrowing fact from one Howard Rust's close encounter with the infamous Juri Han - Shadaloo might be down their deified dictator-to-be, but they're still mobilizing under some form of authority... the question is, what are either of them going to do from here?
The familiar smell of disinfectant fills the hallways, as it does in every hospital. The boops, beeps, blips, and other noises are all too familiar to Munin as she examines the setting. After the war, Vega, then Adon, she's gotten a bit used to it all.
Whether that's the sign of a GOOD fighter, or a bad one, she isn't quite sure.....
Today, at least, she isn't a patient, but simply a visitor. Some may recognize her, some may not, she doesn't care. She came quickly upon hearing the news of who one of the places inhabitants was.
With the number of the room from the front desk in mind, she reads the nametag on the door, and nods. She's about to quietly slip in, when she decides instead to do things the proper way:
Meaning, she actually knocks on the door with two quick, light knocks, to see if anyones awake, and if so, decent.
Nobody got off all that light in that attack in Dulles International. More than a few serious injuries, a handful of deaths, a panicked UN Secretary General... and not to mention the reappearance of a truly frightful individual, indeed, even for one who barely registers as such outside of one incredibly notable, unforgettable physical feature for anyone who has ever had the misfortune to be in proximity of them.
In this respect, in spite of not getting to finish his lunch and getting on the wrong plane to begin with that brought him to Washington, D.C., it was actually rather lucky that one Howard Rust continues to go through the usual mundane miseries. All laid up in a hospital bed with numerous bandages around his head, he's certainly not feeling anything close to being lucky.
Or willing to get up and out of bed to the sound of knocking, to begin with. Inwardly, the aging man thinks it's probably a doctor coming to argue about his insurance coverage again. The Kyokugen Dojo has a pretty good insurance plan for fighters, really, and especially for property damage... but for some reason, /for some reason/, it doesn't cover the costs of certain brands of medication used more in American hospitals and now he's just feeling some of the same stings he did when his Pacific High insurance plans weren't all that well-tailored to someone wanting to be a sanctioned fighter.
All of which expresses itself with incomprehensible grumbling that more or less gives away the fact he's in there, which is additionally as good an excuse as any as to say 'just come in and let's get this over with.'
The grumble is exactly what Munin was waiting to hear. It means Rust is awake, alive, and coherant at least somewhat.
Unless his jaw is broken, but who knows.
The door opens, she slips in, and it closes again, all with nothing more than a faint 'click', taking a moment to analyze and deduce Rusts condition as best able before getting closer. She's still dressed in the clothes from her fight with Yoshimitsu. Brown duster with brown gloves runed with glowing violet sigils, black clothes underneath, and shades with purple-tinted lenses. She does manage a smile as she approaches "Hello, Rust. I'd ask how your doing, but here it may seem a redundant question". She steps forwards quietly "Did i wake you?".
He's seen better days, for sure. He's neatly wrapped up in a periwinkle bedsheet, aside from having his left arm (which does have a bit of bandaging) resting atop the rest of himself while an IV bag drips its contents into his unseen other arm. He looks out blearily to the familiar shape - if not familiar clothing - of someone from... some time back. Stressful, difficult times.
"N-No, you didn't," that answers the potential 'broken jaw' question as he grumbles out the words, "insurance papers... keepin' me up just fine." He tries to shift his weight a bit in bed, to try and sit up. His bed's lean adjustment button is, sadly, broken.
It's hard for him to work up a smile in the wake of pretty much anything and everything these last few weeks, his face the usual oddly neutral - perhaps that is as good a smile as anything given... well, everything.
"Nice that, uh, that you'd come 'n visit," he comments as he coughs once. "'Scuse me."
Moving to the end of his bed, Munin picks up the clipboard with his injury information, skimming it over briefly. She peers up at him afterwards, glowing purple eyes peering over the tinted lenses showing the suprise that is kept out of her tone "You look better than these injuries would suggest, i must say".
Replacing the clipboard, she walks over to sit in a chair near the windows next to Rusts bed "I read in the papers about the attack. Happened to be in town for a match, so decided to stop by to see how you were, since the papers didn't go into too much detail about how everyone involved ended up....". She eyes the fluid, just on reflex of keeping tabs on things, before looking back "You did good. Saved the guys life. Besides, there aren't many i really think of as 'friends'. After the war, you'r one of the few i do. Had to come see if i had someone needing to be avenged, or still kicking".
She actually smiles again, instead of her usual smirk "I'm glad it's the latter and not the former".
Her expression does fall back a bit "Who did this? Anyone familiar or identifiable?"
"Grkehkgbl." So Rust grunts out to the seeming compliment as he goes to a wince at a sudden surge of pain in one of his sides. He is, otherwise, more or less quiet enough as Munin goes to take herself a seat, as if preoccupied with finding himself some sort of resting orientation that approaches (but yet does not quite grasp the full idea of) comfort on this bed. It's an ongoing process.
The talk about not having many people she'd consider friends is kind of worrying to him, inwardly, but it is true that there are few bonds of friendship stronger than those formed in times of great danger. It's good to have people you can count on.
He's kind of embarrassed on some level to realize that there was, in fact, the UN Secretary General right in the same sandwich shop and that he didn't really manage to take note of that while he was dealing with... a bear. And people shooting, and... well there's a lot of things he's not entirely sure he's clear on, evidenced as he rubs gently at his forehead with his left hand as he grunts another time.
"I, I gotta be honest with you," so the man says as he finally finds it in him to properly sit up - something that takes a whole lot of effort on his part, having to put the stress and weight on his right arm to keep himself up, "you're... you're not gonna like what I got told."
/He/ doesn't like what he's been told, as he tries to level and center his gaze with the woman with the purple-tinted shades from his lower vantage point and relative discomfort.
"Crazy eye from... India." He nods his head, yeah, that's right, he caught an unfortunate glimpse of that person somehow from while Vega was busy showing him who was boss way back when. "Don't know her, uh, her name, but... she was there." He coughs again. "'scuse me."
After a deep wheeze, he thinks briefly about what it is he should really say about it all. He took several nasty blows to the head that day, between that man with the hawaiian print shirt, the cash register, and the 'crazy eye.' The news reports give him credit for stopping two terrorists but for the life of him he only remembers one specific one, which is putting some of his recent memories into question.
Such is a thing you do have to worry about when you take a lot of blows to the head in your specific line of work, nowadays - it's kind of a wonder anyone can remember what people were like a year ago given how much trauma these people suffer to their noggins!
After a pause that is entirely too long to be comfortable, eyes increasingly unfocused from being absolutely sure he heard what he did, he speaks again to Munin once more.
"She said... she said somethin' 'bout... Shadaloo, under new management."
It's worse than she feared....
As Rust speaks, Munin goes pale. She remembers the girl with the glowing eye back in the disasterous attack on Vega in India. When Chun-Li was kidnapped and they both were nearly killed. Munin never saw her again during the war that she can recall, nor heard of what may have become of the woman.
As Rust continues, the glow of her eyes illuminates her face somewhat even with her shades on, and her mouth becomes a thin tight line. The math is quickly done "Shadaloo is back, and their moving on important people in charge of major establishments and groups.... and this is just what's been seen so far. No telling what ELSE their doing behind the scenes, or elsewhere as a distraction......".
She thinks to herself a moment "... with Vega dead, who would take over Shadaloo, though..... the woman with the glowing eye? Or something no ones seen yet?". She puts her hand to her forehead "This is REALLY bad......".
When Munin gives her own take on the situation at hand, Howard there has to wonder if maybe she was actually coming to see him as part of some extended investigation into this. He's not even really sure about who Munin actually is, or where she's come from. Or... where all that light on her face is coming from, as he rubs away at his eyes when one of them gets an especially unpleasant itch.
If he were in better health he'd probably be much more animated at this particular deduction, as it were!
"I... I got no idea." This is actually not entirely true when taken at face value. What he probably means to say is 'I don't know who individually would.'
But yet, he continues to elaborate as he puts on a sour look on his face from the searing aches of his very side. "There's... there's more out there than j-just... Shadaloo." He learned this the hard way from the Southtown Invasion, boy did he ever.
"I dunno... one of them? I mean, most've been... been real quiet since then." He sure wasn't complaining on that fact. "Someone... someone's makin' use of what they got left."
He can't even begin to comprehend the idea of a massive war machine rising again so soon after that last one, when everyone was certain they rid themselves of Shadaloo for good, and the worry is plain as ever on the man's face given the frown that forms.
A nod is given in reply, and the glow fades as Munin calms down "Well, at least in this case we know it's coming, and what it could use as a vehicle for it's plans in terms of scale.... better than the nothing from last time". She seems to refocus on him again "At least your all right. Thats what does matter in this case, regardless". Suddenly, her phone begins to ring, playing 'Final Countdown'. Pulling it out, she turns off the alarm "I'm due for a match soon, with Takako against someone, so i had better go get ready. I'll come back and check on you later".
She stands and walks over "Anything you need before i go?"
Knowing it's coming is not really any reassurance, even if it is a blessing to know that something is coming at all. Still, he can't help but wonder... whatever happened to that brash girl with the Osaka dialect, or... that... bear.
"I dunno if, if I'm gonna be here for much longer," so Rust says as he starts to lay back down because holy hell that was starting to put some serious strain on a tired arm - not to mention the startling of that cellphone going off nearly made him shift a bit too much weight on it. "Gotta get back to Southtown, just... my job, and... and someone else, 'nother... friend of mine," he's not sure if he'd count outright as a friend to the person in question - warm as she was last time they talked, there was still an odd sort of distance between them - but he remembers her request well.
"She's afraid that, that the schools there might be in danger, and... well, I said I'd keep an eye out, but," the older man just shakes his head, "went and... and got myself on the wrong damn plane." An act of folly that ultimately saved the UN Secretary General's life, but a folly nonetheless. "Sooner I, I get back to Southtown, the better."
Not that he's looking forward to having to see Takuma face to face over the disaster in getting any traction in Sunshine going.
Settling back in full without much added comfort given his somewhat delicate physical state, the older man just takes his eyes off of Munin and goes back to staring vaguely at the ceiling for a while. "Just, uh... good luck. I don't mean with just... Takako," if that's the Takako she's talking about, hoooooly shit he's never seen a more determined girl in a long, long time and he has a history of being intimidated and pushed about by hot-headed, physically super-capable young women with more talent and power than sense (and sensitivity).
He coughs again twice. "Just... just gonna get some rest. Already... trouble sleepin' just thinking 'bout all the, uh, the insurance papers." Son of a bitch how he struggles financially even with /that/ nowadays, going from a well-paying education job to... well, his lifelong dream, but it certainly hasn't made him rich.
Munin nods as she heads out "Thanks, and good luck to you, too. If you need help, you have my number". With that, she slips out the door as silently as she entered, and heads down towards the main office.
A short time later, she leaves, off to fight this Yoshimitsu alongside her self-declared rival Takako. Meanwhile, the front desk processes the paperwork authorizing the funds Munin just left with them for use in giving Rust what treatments he is in need of. She's had some success lately, and doesn't really need all of it, so may as well put it towards a good cause. Even so, she does make sure to specify that it's to be done anonymously, just in case.
Meanwhile, the fight awaits......
Log created on 23:41:28 08/08/2012 by Rust, and last modified on 01:59:12 08/09/2012.