Description: Maimed by his prior encounter, Zach tries to carve a path through Metro to reach his destination. Along the way, he receives some unexpected advice and more than a bit of help.
If there was any hope that the destructive phenomenon that has possessed the massive U.S. city has passed while he was recuperating from his grevious injury, Zach would certainly be disappointed to find matters have grown only more grim since his ill fated encounter with the roaming armed psychopath. There are lapses, periods of time where the shrieking winds relent and the rain slows to a dull patter, turning the rivers that flow through the streets into stiller pools of fetid rot, but they never last for long before the Storm Fury riots again and it becomes dangerous to be outside at all.
The trek from the hospital to the institute will be fraught with peril. Some of the downed powerlines are still coursing with undirected electricity, leaving places where stepping in the wrong pool of water could be fatal. Many waterlogged structures have been weakened by the hurricane winds and flooding of their basements and floors, making 'death by falling debris' a legitimate threat as well.
To make matters worse, as relief efforts have begun to focus more on desperate evacuation of overwhelmed civilians, control of the streets has slipped further and further into the hands of the ruthless cutthroats that have always been kept just barely at bay by the concerted efforts of Metro's finest as well as the legendary Mayor Haggar himself. Some work alone, waylaying anyone they can find. Others work in roaming packs of wolves, hunting down and subduing anyone they can find, leaving any unfortunates they come across even worse off than they were before, stripped of belongings and left bleeding in the murk.
Those proclaiming the end of the world would be in good company at this point - though instead of being burned by hellfire, it seems as if the purging is to be an echo of the Biblical Great Flood. Zach would find the going tough. Unless he intends to swim across the rapids coursing through the streets, his best bet is to wait for one of the few but precious reprieves from the storm and then move when he can through the still flooded but more shallow and less dangerous streets. Of course, that's when the predators come out as well.
Seeing a man alone - a man bearing visible wounds at that - they'll come for Zach. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes in groups of three or four. Thugs, gang members, some men who were on the edge before the catastrophe have become unhinged, wildlings with steel pipes and boards used as improvised weapons. It's a warzone in the streets during the brief moments between the storm surges. Unfortunately for Zach, the war seems hellbent on making his progress as slow as conceivably possible - every block a gauntlet of dangers, both living and innanimate.
Up ahead there seems to be a sanctuary of sorts. A tall skyscraper lit up, one of the few with power still. Built over a multi-layered parking garage that is flooded, the structure itself sits above the putrifying streets. The rain is starting to pick back up and the young man will feel the press of wind at his back. Another storm surge is coming. Now might be a good time to take shelter before the streets become rivers once more.
Zach is most certainly injured. He is still showing a number of scrapes and bruises from his run-in with Wendigo. However, he manages to somewhat conceal the extent of the worst of it, wearing a longcoat that covers most of him. The left sleeve of the coat flutters in the wind like some kind of forlorn flag as the psion pulls the coat tight across his chest with his good hand.
The building over the parking garage looks like a good bet, and Zach forces his way through wind and rain towards it. He could use a rest; he left the hospital despite the advice of the doctors attending to him. The boxer needed to get to the Quon Chen Institute and the hospital needed the bedspace, according to Zach. The US Postal Service may have quailed in the face of the storms, but Zach wasn't about to let the weather slow him down.
It does not occur to him that, with the storms knocking power out at random, that the lights of the skyscraper may just be bait for a trap. He heads for it, as quick as he can manage.
It seems the building is an exception to those around it in more ways than one. Not only has its lower floors escaped flooding due to the nature of its construction, not only is it ablaze with light while everything around it is wreathed in blackness that can only exit where man has lost all hope in fighting it back...
As Zach draws nearer to it, he will encounter others moving in the vicinity as well. But while he moves closer, they seem to be moving away. He will recognize some of them - thugs that accousted him earlier only to be rebuffed, clutching their arms or sides, nursing injuries, some visible, some concealed by their rain-soaked clothing. They'll glance at Zach in passing, snarl or growl like rabid dogs afraid of their own shadow, then move on, retreating to the shadows of other buildings before the storm hits again.
A howl of pain drawn from a man is heard as Zach gets nearer to the stone steps leading up to the entry lobby. The source seems to be the next man to brush past Zach, dropping a bent metal pipe to the ground with a ringing metallic clang, his face a mixture of anger and pain as he vanishes into the dark.
The rain comes again, pouring now, driven at sharp angles by the wind that has returned to continue its airborn war on the city. The top of the wide staircase opens onto a wide platform that is illuminated in a dim yellow glow from the lights within. Now closer, it is easy to see the many broken windows along the lower levels of the structure, many with curtains hanging out of them that begin to flap in the rapidly building win. Still, it's lit and, from what Zach can see outside, it's dry in there. But if the men fleeing the building are any indicator, not all are welcome to enjoy this particular shelter.
From outside, Zach can see that the lobby is in disarray. Furniture strewn about, evidence of looting and ransacking abundant. But right now, it seems empty and, compared to the brewing maelstrom above, quite calm.
Perhaps surprisingly, Zach is not about to help these men. They could have left him alone, and stood a better chance of finding safe shelter. Plus, Zach doesn't have the energy to spare for them right now. However, the dwindling numbers don't escape his notice either. Something is either driving them off or worse as they try to gain entrance. Still, the storms are about to kick up again, and he's not keen on his odds right now if he gets caught in them again.
He pulls in a deep breath, and presses on, gaining the doors to the lobby. He carefully slides himself through a broken window, taking a moment to avoid getting his coat caught on them. He likes the coat, and it has seen him this far. He looks around for a moment, getting his bearings before deciding on whether or not to press onward and upward.
Apparently, the lone occupant of the lobby. At least, for a moment. There is movement to the back of it, behind the large and elaborate receptionist station. A squeak of a chair as someone shifts to an upright position, apparently having been reclined low enough to escape immediate notice.
Ayame's hands press against the counter then, rising up to her feet to stand behind the station. Unlike the waterlogged denizens Zach has come across, she appears to be perfectly dry, suggesting that she's been safe and secure in this building for at least sometime. Free of injury or even smudges of dirt that anyone would likely pick up from navigating the perilous streets Zach's quest has taken him through, it's a question of whether she was here before the storm even broke out, or if she has some safer means of transport available to her?
A scrutinizing glance is cast over Zach, inspecting him from head to toe. "Hmph." She reaches to her right where a stack of papers sits in disorderly array and slides one of the papers out from the middle. "Hm, hm, let's see here... Ah, yes." she mutters, skimming over the paper, "Admitted at 9:43 with severe trauma to the left arm... burn marks, metal fragments, and bodily damage suggest some kind of explosive... Recommended course of action..." her voice fades out without finishing the sentence. The girl sets the paper aside with a shake of her head, "It's sad - with power so unreliable, they've reverted to keeping track of everyone with pen and paper again. It's possitively primeval out there."
The apparently swiped medical record is crumpled up and tossed over her shoulder before Ayame leands forward, hands pressed against the counter. "Whatever you did, I recommend you avoid doing it again in the future." She shakes her head, a judging 'tsk' escaping her lips, "What are you even /doing/ here? Something disgustingly heroic, I imagine. And look what that's gotten you."
She slumps back into the receptionist's chair, seated more upright now, hands clasped behind her head as she watches Zach from behind the counter. "So have you already figured out what you're going to do about it?"
Zach doesn't react immediately to the movement; he knew someone... or some/thing/ was here. People liike the ones who attacked Zach don't flee apparent safety without a good reason. The voise, however, is pretty much the last one he'd want to hear right now. Zach has faced down megalomaniacs, would-be gods, burning buildings, foundries flooding with molten metal, and harbingers of apocalypses with less worry than he would the owner of this voice.
It's not that Zach /fears/ Ayame at this point. He's faced her down as well, and he suspects (prior to his run-in with Wendigo) that he could take the young thief in a fair fight. However, Zach also knows that Ayame avoids those with a passion. The only question here is simple: is she here to taunt and antagonize him, or pay him back for previous encounters. Zach stands there, simply staring at Ayame, right hand in his pants pocket. The lay of his coat suggests that he's carrying some kind of weapon. In fact, the hilt of that sword he picked up in China pokes out from underneath it, which might help explain how a seriously wounded man may have navigated the city so far.
"I'd recommend against trying to deflect fourty millimeter grenades without serious practice," Zach says, deciding to opt for the truth. Ayame's way too sharp, and too well informed for Zach to get any story past her. "There are kids in this town, that I brought here. I need to see that they are safe. So maybe not disgustingly heroic so much as idiotically responsible." Zach approaches the desk, keying up whatever fight he has in him at the moment without simply summoning up his power. Ayame's not really fazed by displays, he's noticed. "And I don't know what I'm going to do about it yet," he answers. "I wasn't even awake when the doctors had to take action. Still trying to process it myself."
He stops just outside of Ayame's striking distance, he knows her too well. "What are /you/ even doing here? I figured you'd find yourself a safe place to lay low, until this either blowed over or the world ended." It /does/ seem kind of odd to Zach that Ayame, who as far as Zach can tell is only after what she can get for herself and get away with, is out in this shitstorm.
"Truly words to live by..." Ayame replies dryly regarding the 40mm grenade. She rolls her eyes up toward the vaulted ceiling in thought. "Medical report mentioned some lacerations that seemed indicitive of shotgun shrapnel too... You're too..." she frowns a little, as if finding the next word uncomfortable to say, "...competent to be assaulted by the normal trash out there. I'm guess you had an encounter with that not-so gentle giant. Seems to be packing a military locker's worth of hardware on him..." she muses, lowering her face to look at Zach again before shrugging slightly.
"Oh well. You're not the vengeance driven sort, so it's almost pointless to advise against wasting time on the likes of him. It won't be long before he doesn't matter anyway..."
The girl exhales softly, shaking her head, her hand coming up to press lightly on her forehead as the dedicated psion explains why he's heading /away/ from the evac zones rather than toward them. "Safe... yes... well, that's all relative now, isn't it." she murmurs to herself. "How lucky they must be to have the one armed warrior on his way to rescue them from the ocean of despair washing over this worn out city."
She glances at the floor where Zach stops - he seems to have picked his positioning very accurately based on their long history. She shows no signs of attacking, but she rarely does... always hiding her fangs until it's too late for most to respond.
"Safe... there's that word again." She's quiet then, brown eyes studying Zach before she pushes herself back to standing, hands steepled at her chin in thought. The lobby, with its many broken windows, is hardly safe from the storm outside. Warm and dry, yes, but the papers stacked on the counter are soon blown away as the currents throughout the chamber begin to pick up.
"Not a lot of what you are trying to do is going to matter... and depending on the choices you make in the very short time that remains, maybe none of your actions will have any lasting impact at all. But! There is a slim chance that they will. If you are worthy. Have you ever flown before? Hm... no, that doesn't matter right now."
The girl ducks briefly behind the counter before she comes up standing then resting familiar enough looking item horizontally on the surface between them: a sheathed sword of ordinary looking construction. Unlike the weapon at Zach's side, this thing appears to be nothing special. "You are getting by with the use of that sword of yours in the meantime... do you like it? The cut of steel against flesh? Or are you afraid of it - afraid to even use it for the purpose it was given?"
"Yeah," Zach says, "That'd be him. I think that he's the only guy I've met that carries more steel than you do." He listens for a moment, letting Ayame do some talking. She likes to talk. She asks about flying, which he answers. It's a question. "You mean on a plane or-" And then she continues, setting the sword on the countertop.
"It's a good tool," Zach says carefully, trying to figure out where Ayame's trying to go with this. "Those aren't the only two choices," he answers after a lengthy period of consideration. "To like cutting people up or being afraid of it, I mean." He leans in a bit closer to inspect the weapon between the two of them, his stance one of wary respect for the young lady in front of him. "I... respect what it can do, what it is used for. This one," Zach jerks his chin towards the Mirai Blade, "Cuts when I want it to, and doesn't when I don't. It is effective either way. Its purpose is the one that I give it."
He glances back up at Ayame intently, "And you still haven't really answered my question, after I've answered all of yours. Seems only fair."
She's quiet as he speaks about his sword, the focus on him at that point suggesting that she finds that the most interesting thing he has to say out of their exchange thus far. "Is that so..." she remarks quietly, the doubting, questioning edge to her voice dropped for a moment. The building creaks under the pressure as debris are idly blown across the lobby behind Zach. "It feels like it always belonged with you then." Did the Ryouhara scion forsee that so long ago?
"But yes, fair is fair, and there's nothing I like more than being fair." She makes no move for the ordinary looking sword on the counter, simply standing behind the divider between them for now. "I came looking for candidates... You know one of them - the geezer with the pipe. I know he was in Metro at some point, but..." She shrugs toward the broken glass and the violent rainfall pouring against it outside. "People aren't as easy to find right now."
She glances up toward the ceiling again, evaluating something, looking for something before eying Zach again. "It's only going to keep getting worse outside. Each cycle brings even greater force than the one before. The construction of these buildings is truly being put to the test, but it is a test they will eventually fail."
Her brow furrows slightly as she leans forward then, resting her hands on the counter behind the sword. "I know how you could get to where you are going faster, albeit with a lot of guts and a bit of luck..." She glances toward the left sleeve of his coat, "Luck's something you seem low on lately though." Ayame grunts softly. "There's also the issue that it is going to take two... hands in order to use. You, of all people, should be able to do something about /that/ though."
The girl shakes her head, "You've always been a diversion capable of providing some entertainment, at least. It would be a shame to lose that. I'm guessing you already found your current disability beyond your ability to mend or you would have fixed it by now. But is that all your incredible power can do? Destroy or repair?"
She cants her head to the side a little, "As you say, there aren't only two choices. Open your mind to other options."
"Rust is in the city somewhere," Zach offers. "He paid me a visit in the hospital." He thinks, listens, then answers. "If I could have fixed it," Zach says as he pulls the bandaged left arm out. It doesn't /look/ right, ending in that smooth hemispherical surface instead of a hand. "It probably wouldn't have had to..." He pauses, "...happen like it did. Luck's never been all that plentiful to me. Guts, on the other hand..." He considers for a moment, regarding Ayame for a moment, then looking at that... /stump/.
He glances at the sword for a moment, considering. "You know," Zach says after a moment, sometimes it feels like my hand is still there? I've heard that it's normal, but..." Zach considers, reaching for the sword on the counter with his left arm, stopping short for so many very obvious reasons. "My power is a lot like this sword," he indicates the Mirai Blade. "Or that one," a nod to the one on the desk. It's a tool. It's not a definition of me," he takes a deep breath to focus, to hold an image in his mind. "But it /does/ do something."
He lets out a grunt of effort, as a veritable font of soul power pours forth and wraps around the sword between the two people. The weapon shudders for a moment before racing towards Zach's arm, stopping about where it would sit if it were being held. The orientation of the weapon is a little off, but for first efforts? Zach will take it. He considers for a moment, and the mass of energy starts to look more like a hand, and the weapon shifts to a more natural-looking position
"It just makes me more of what I am," he says, slightly out of breath. He takes the weapon in his right hand, dismissing the construct. He holds the weapon out to Ayame, horizontally with neither the blade nor the hilt pointing at either of them. "Whatever I decide to be." He smiles a bit at Ayame. He waits to see her reaction.
The remarks regarding Rust provoke no reaction. It's possible she already knew about his friend's bedside visit or maybe she's just tucking that note away to deal with later. Eyes stray toward his left arm as he produces it but then go back to his face, offering no verbal comment, appearing to be content just to observe for now.
But then he extends that power, exercising control earned through his years of suffering, punishment, effort, and now and then, triumphs over the forces that have beset him. Her attention shifts to the oridinary sword as it begins to respond, influenced, touched in a way, by Zach's will. But finally it moves - no small wiggle, no tiny nudge, but flying into the simulated grip of the young man. It doesn't exactly look fight-ready, at the moment, but it's certainly a solid start.
"Well, it's something," Ayame remarks, her voice sounding indifferent after having coaxed him into the attempt in the first place. "I don't know if it would be within your capacity normally, but... using what used to be part of you as a focus, it seems possible to improve the precision of your control... with practice, you might be able to make something of it. For now, you just need to figure out how to get a firm, solid grip that you can maintain for a few minutes."
She takes hold of the proffered sword, hefts it up and down a couple of times, judging its weight, before placing it on the counter where she had put it before.
Ayame finally moves out from behind the counter then, moving over to the scattered pile of papers that had been blown off its surface before fishing one up and taking a look at it intently. "We need to go to the roof." In this storm? With the entire structure creaking under the might of nature's fury? "Now."
She turns for the elevator on the right of the lobby, leaving the sword behind on the counter. "Where was it you were trying to get to again, anyway?" His goal was probably not the top of a seventy-seven story building, to say the least.
Zach turns toward the sword, and snatches it off of the table with that energy construct hand trick. It moves a slightly smoother this time now that Zach has some idea of what he is actually doing. "Might as well start practicing now," he mutters as he turns to follow. He regards the elevator incrdulously. "I was trying to get to the school," there is really only one school Zach could be referring to. "Barring that, I need to make sure they are safe somehow. Didn't really take storms like this into consideration when the plans were being drawn up."
He looks at Ayame carefully, trying to get a better read on the young lady. "After that? Maybe try to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on. The storms, Mount Fuji? Too much going on all at once to be a coincidence. I don't know about you, but I'd like the world not to end. It ain't perfect, but everything I've made for myself is here."
A press of the button is answered with a mundane chime of the elevator doors opening, as if everything was normal in the world, and this was just some standard office building in a city not being torn apart by the frenzied storm. If only any of that were the case. Turning around, Ayame backs into the elevator and leans against the far edge of it.
"The school, hm. That's probably close enough... you'll only have a few minute window to pull it off though, so we better get moving." She falls quiet as he mentions his plans beyond that before nodding just slightly in acknowledgement. "You should do that," she responds.
The building shudders as another severe gust rushes around it, glass shattering as it is finally pressed past its breaking point, allowing the driven rain to come pouring into the lobby now, drenching the floor and upturned furniture. "But for right now, you should get in here and take us to the seventy-fourth floor. Your chance will come and go in an instant... you might make it on foot..." A loud crash is heard outside as debris from a neighboring building come pouring down into the flooded streets. "But the odds I've calulated seem pretty low. Come on."
She continues to lean against the back of the elevator, looking upward again, seemingly lost in thought, "It's definitely not a coincidence... there are patterns to it, certain locations of heightened... relevance, I suppose. There's something here in Metro, I think. But it remains hidden." Her tone is distant, her demeanor reserved for the moment.
Zach follows. In some ways, refusing the lift Wendigo offered started that ill-fated encounter. And for everything Ayame is, she's not nearly as crazy. He concentrates, and uses the hilt of the sword that he's... what? Levitating? Manipulating? In his 'left hand' to push the button. The doors slide close, and the car starts to rise. Meanwhile, he tries to think.
"Relevant how?" Zach finally asks. "What is going on here, anyway?"
The doors close at the press of the button and the elevator begins to ascend. A modern installation, it rises quickly through the floors. Even with so tall a building, it will only take a minute to reach the destination. The lone occupant with him seems unaggressive enough so far, at least, glancing at his left arm and what he's accomplishing with it even as he asks his question of her.
"Leylines." she replies after a few seconds of consideration. "Chi, life energy, belts of life force that circle the globe, that kind've thing," she adds, waving her hand. "They're normally too broad, too dilluted to really be noticeable, even by those sensitive to such things."
The girl frowns, exhaling softly, folding her arms as she bows her head, "But something... or someone... has found a way to change that. I believe the points of catastrophe are where they are concentrating the intersections... or disrupting them? I'm not sure. There's still more to find out, more to know. This couldn't have come about by happenchance. There's a deliberate pattern to it all, just like there is to this storm."
She looks up at him then, "Take this storm, for example. The cycles, of calm and fury, there's a repeating pattern to that as well. A complex one, but deliberate. In eight-seven seconds, the storm will calm. The calm will last six minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Followed by another sixty-five minutes of weather with steadily increasing intensity." She cants her head to the side slightly, mouth curled in faint satisfaction, "Does that sound like a natural phenomenon to you?"
The elevator comes to a stop, the doors opening into an entirely uninviting scene. The seventy-fourth floor is riped open, a side of the building laid bare to the elements. Everything is soaked, plater, plastic, wood, metal all twisted and bent by the power that consumes the sky at this altitude. Ayame moves forward, pausing at the elevator door to look across the debris-strewn opening.
"Come on!" the girl exclaims, raising her voice over the cacophony, "Four more flights of stairs to get to the roof!" With that, she raises her arm over her face and presses out against the wind blowing against them to make way toward the exposed, slightly swaying metal staircase leading further upward!
"Not even a little natural," he responds as he follows Ayame towards the staircase. He doesn't try to talk while navigating the stairs, taking only a moment to grasp the sword in his right hand. Zach then tucks the sword through his belt on his right hip. There's a time and a place for everything, and this is not the time for practice.
Or perhaps it might be? The technique Zach attempts to employ is not exactly new. He extends a sunlight-tinted shield between the pair and the elements, trying to keep the wind and rain off the two of them. He's looking a little peaked at this point, however. The journey, plus the all-too-recent trauma adding up. Nevermind the experimentation; thinking in new ways can be tiring. "Let's get going then," he says quietly, hoarsely.
The stair climb is both eventful and uneventful at once. On one hand, the duo are battered by the elements, drenched anew, and sometimes forced to pause and grab tight hold of the metal railiing to avoid being bowled over. But at the same time, especially with the effort Zach makes to ward off some of the storm's fury, they manage to ascend without any severe mishaps.
Somewhere around floor seventy-six, the power goes out, what few working lights remaining going dark in an instant. Some emergency lighting, such as red exit signs, begin to glow, casting a mixed-hue illumination over what remains of the interior.
But as the two step reach the rooftop, the promised reprieve begins, the storm's fury waning quickly. The cause for the power loss is evident. Ayame had mentioned the rooftop generators... that is probably what the twisted metal husks used to be to the left of where the stairs exit. The girl glances at them briefly but doesn't linger long. The lull is almost unsettling after nature's violent tantrum. The sky is still dark, and rain falls as a light sprinkle, but for now, they have a break.
"Hm... it got stronger than I thought that time. Not sure how many more days this city has. Anyway, let's see how close you can get." The view from atop this building would be phenominal if not for the thick overcast clouds hanging so low. Still, it is possible to see a long distance as most of the neighboring buildings aren't quite as tall.
Ayame diverts to the right, stepping into a a large concrete shed that has withstood the storm thus far, even if so much of the rest of the roof appears to have been twisted and cleared by the fierce gales. She comes back out bearing some rather large tarp covered object that appears to be made of some metal judging by the sound it's making. Grunting, she drags it over to one corner of the roof and puts it down.
"Okay, let's see here..." As she manipulates the tarp, it becomes clear that it isn't a tarp at all, but rather the large, angled kite-like body of a glider. The metal poles forming its frame snap into place quickly as she pulls and pushes at the contraption at the appropriate place. Standing up, she lefts the lightweight glider easily with one hand and shakes it a few times to make sure that everything about it appears stable.
"Here ya go!" she exclaims, if Zach is feeling crazy enough to have waited to see where this was going. "If this is your first time, it's not really all that hard. Just put this harness on here..." she gestures, "Take hold of the crossbeam here, balance your weight, and take a good running leap!" She turns to point toward the horizon, "You'll want to glide for about four minutes... that will get you close to the school. By then you'll be able to see it. The nearby buildings are low, so you should be okay for landing. You can steer it by leaning right or left with your hands- hand... er... use this bar. Leaning forward will take you down lower, pushing back off the bar will give you lift. It's surprisingly simple as long as you don't panic."
Ayame drops the glider on the rooftop and steps away from it, shrugging, "Well?" the crazy invitation is offered. Of course, after all Zach's been through, this isn't the most wild thing he would have to accomplish, is it? "Oh yeah, make sure you land within the next five minutes or by then the winds will... well... you know." She shrugs a little, grinning faintly with amusement as she waits to see if Zach will dare the air glider to make it to the school.
Zach's eyes almost light up as he sees exactly what Ayame is putting together. It may not be the most insane thing he's done in his life, but this is right up there. He listens to the instructions intently, and then summons up that glowing hand again. It is a ragged construct, but definitely a hand. The fingers, all Zach size, flex once or twice as he examines the kite glider. "/Ninja/," he says almost breathlessly.
He give Ayame a manic grin, not one he's ever shown her before really. Like he's about to take life hard by the reins and enjoy the living hell out of it. He starts to buckle himself in, fumbling slightly with the clasps with his left hand. His right, however, seems to be picking up the slack pretty quickly. "What about you," he asks, glancing around. He's trying to find a second glider. Or at least the parts for one.
Ayame stands back, hands resting at her hips as Zach takes to the glider with remarkable enthusiasm. "Good, good..." she states outloud, a rare remark of approval. "I figured you wouldn't disappoint." She otherwise stays out of the way. Zach will find the glider's construction to be sturdy, no obvious signs of defects or sabotoge... seems she has no intention of having him jump-dive to his doom today.
"My road isn't through the sky... I have some digging around to do down there." she explains briefly before looking at the young man for a long moment, mouth pursed slightly as if trying to settle on something. "If you survive this... you will hear from me again. Before the end. Don't die before then or I'll have been proven wrong about you, and I really hate that."
She waves her hand toward the edge of the roof, "Your time is short. The storm will be back soon. The next break will last for twenty minutes, just over an hour from now. I haven't calculated it out beyond that yet. It might be your only chance to do whatever it is matters to you."
Zach nods in affirmation. "You've got your methods," Zach says carefully as he grasps the crossbar with his right hand, and then the energy construct. He's trying to hide his surprise. It's almost like she's being nice to him. But that can't be right. Besides, this seems a lot like a number of largish favors, which might have to be repaid some time down the line. Assuming there IS a some time. "Best not to overthink it," he mutters. He regards Ayame.
"Thank you," he says honestly, giving a slight bow at the waist. The glider makes that tricky. "For everything."
With that, Zach takes a running leap off the side of the building. He drops out of sight for a moment, and then comes arcing back up into view with a whoop of excitement. Next stop: The Quon Chen Institute!
Log created on 13:16:01 09/01/2014 by Ayame, and last modified on 20:11:37 09/01/2014.