Description: As Rust returns from visiting Metro General Hospital, he has a hell of a time getting back. Eventually, he does... to see Rolento's had to move the triage from the tent to a temporary indoor shelter. There's not much time left for getting a ride out of Metro, if they're going to. Between Smalls' grief over how much trouble his big friend Frank gets into, Frank's mounting injuries from repeated close calls, and Rust knowing he has to get back to Southtown as soon as he can for the sake of people worried sick about him, Metro City continues to crumble. Barricades that they've helped put up have been torn down by the downpour and the rising water level. Giant balls of hail strike out at anyone unfortunate enough to be outside. The helicopter will not be waiting long... this could be the last ride out of Metro.
Well, that escalated quickly. Sure, that image macro is probably tossed around in jest on various forums as meteorologists report the continued increase in intensity around Metro City. The once-bustling metropolis is... well, it's still kind of bustling, in a manner of speaking.
The winds and water both keep getting stronger with virtually every hour. It was gradual at first - already bad enough that maybe Frank, Tabitha, and himself probably should've thought better about taking up the Gaia Tournament's push to have a fight take place in the very middle of the storms. Now, it's becoming utterly unthinkable that anyone would be out there for any length of time.
Well, someone other than Howard Rust, who has to make the journey back from the still-standing (...for now) hospital back to where Rolento and his personal army have set up camp to help refugees out of Metro. Howard's already had to duck out once to let some people he'd been working with over the last few days that he's going to need to leave to get back to Southtown, catching up with the grievously injured Zach...
Now, a few nasty saves with falling debris, exactly one (1) instance of electrical shock, two different barricades both Frank and himself helped to build spectacularly collapsing against the weight of the rushing water, and a few nasty tumbles across hard surfaces not yet completely submerged thanks to some freak gusts of wind...
There were one or two roving bands of would-be muggers, sure, but that sorted itself out quickly.
Howard makes it back, battered, bruised, and even cut up in places, but yet he stands largely intact. Ol' Rusty in one arm, wrapped-up mass of plastic whose earlier incision by Rolento is closed with a piece of duct tape, and... against all reason, the hairpiece is still on his head. (What adhesive does he use to keep it there?)
He's not sure if he's managed to make it back before Frank might have awoken in confusion for his circumstances, but Howard all but barges in to say the obvious that has probably already been communicated about between Rolento's well-disciplined, highly-organized men.
"'s gettin' worse out there," he says as he shuts a door behind him with one hard tug against the howling, violent winds, two other guys coming up to affix the locks and such to help keep it that way.
Frank, for his part, wasn't doing much of anything. In fact, he wasn't even conscious at the moment, instead in a hospital bed. Dressed oh-so-snappy in a hospital gown, a large thick cast on his right leg and foot, a foot that was suspended with a pulley system. On his body were various burn marks, all healing nicely, but still copious, and numerous. Topping it off, something must have injured that big, impossibly thick skull of his, becaused it was wrapped in gauze and thick, thick bandages. There were so many that it was impossible to see his eyes, but they were absolutely closed. That big, impossibly ugly face was slack and relaxed, underbite still present.
Sitting in the back of the room, sat a smaller man. Dressed in drab, shabby clothing, smudgy slacks with a wifebeater covered in soot and sweat and muck. In his hands was a hat, his balding head almost glaring in this light. He definitely didn't have a brilliant head of hair like Rust, that was for sure.
He barely acknowledged the pipe-wielding fighter. He just kept staring, those impossibly big eyes of his staring, transfixed. Guilt, misery, concern and something else, that was on his face like he forgot to wash it off.
Concerning where they were, he probably did.
It's not a long walk from that door to where the refugees are currently being held, after that tent initially set up for the purpose probably had to be taken down due to the increasing intensity of the storms. There's a certain haste in Howard's step even with his every joint aching from the low pressure in the air and all the physical abuse he had taken just by being forced to walk the entire way from the hospital where Zach was all the way back here.
And yet, the other concern held in front of his mind is probably what saw him come back here instead of seeking shelter in some other building until it passed. This is probably because the concept of 'suitable shelter' in Metro is a shrinking prospect, where once sturdy shelters designed for things like this are being flooded out or just torn to pieces by wind shear... or crushed by debris... the list goes on and on.
At least here, for now, is safe.
"Hey," calls that gravelly voice of the pipe-wielding Kyokugen fighter as he picks up the last of his pace to make it to the side of the recovering Frank and the slouching Smalls, coughing twice as if it were something he just simply couldn't do. Maybe he just coughs because people expect him to, now.
"Hey," he repeats himself, a little louder, as he stops a ways away from Smalls "How're... how're you two holding up?"
He asks as he looks behind himself, as though half-expecting that locked door to blow open from the wind. It does rattle a bit.
In the room, there was silence for a long time save for a low beeping, an electronic noise that bounced off the thin walls over and over, a modest but insistent reminder that the person this machine was hooked up to was very much alive.
For his part, Smalls looked like dog at its master's grave, wringing that shabby fedora of his in his hands, large eyes still not breaking contact with the mighty looking fella that lay resting.
"Frank over there, he...he was always lookin' out fer everyone else. Even when I called him a dummy fer it. Even when..."
Whatever thought he had, he couldn't finish it. What he was looking at caused him to feel nothing but despair.
Howard nods his head to Smalls' reminiscing, as though the guy over there were dead. It must've been a close save, after being brutally brought low as he was by the likes of Rolento. It's really something that he even still has a pulse, after all of that.
Which... probably makes the whole thing that much more weighty for Smalls over there, given that could've been him. (Or, as would be likely, far worse.)
Howard lowers the plastic mass to the ground so that he can rub the back of his head, as if to struggle for much to say. He had a hard time saying much to Zach after learning his predicament. The fact that he himself just came back from getting the crap beaten out of him by the weather and occasional bit of collapsing architecture and such probably makes it that much harder when adrenaline is still pumping through him.
"That's... that's how ya know, you made a good friend," he nods his head.
"Frank's a jerk!"
The little man suddenly exclaimed, throwing his hat to the ground and suddenly springing up to his feet. He paced back and forth, launching into a tirade while breaking to take a look at the fighter, perhaps not noticing that Howard was looking a little worse for wear. Really, everyone was.
"I mean who does that? Huh?! He's always goin' off, he's gettin' hisself killed and he don't even care none, he's always puttin' hisself through stuff like this an' don't care who he leaves behind! You can't care about nobody if you don't care about yourself, an' then they leave you feelin' like a no-good crummy loser 'cause YOU had da brains ta' tell him ta get out long ago! Normal people, they don't do lowdown stuff like this to each other!"
That seemed to have taken a little wind out of his sails. Now he just stood there, looking as miserable as ever, just maybe a little less pent-up.
When Smalls exclaims something, it's enough to turn heads - or a cringe from eardrums being put to the test. Usually even both.
"Wh--" Howard can't talk over him when the smallest of the three present (well, outside of whatever Rolento-led soldiers who might pass by because of the tirade) goes into detail about the hows and whys of it all. The man of the truly (...lies-ly, this is now a word) voluminous (also very much lies) hair (ultimate lies) goes quiet, exhaling loudly and lowering his head at all of that frustration. Given roughly half the things he himself gets into...
He seems to internally debate, for a moment, as to whether or not to say much of anything about that. Smalls is not an easy man to speak over - the biggest mouth he'd have seen in quite some time, and then some.
"Look," Howard dares to speak up as he kneels down, pressing a knee against the - ouch, he forgot how hard he landed on that thing no more than three minutes ago from that last tumble! - but he goes to kneel upon it anyway.
"If I, I didn't know that guy out there," he jabs a thumb where he thinks Rolento might be in relation to them, but it's really an educated guess going by what shouts and murmurs he may hear between the pounding rain and the deafening wind that occasionally makes the current place of shelter rattle, "and some... somebody tried to, to shoot my friend, I'd have--"
He doesn't finish it. He just shakes his head, standing back up, giving Frank another good look-over. He's probably not looking all that much better than before. That he's still intact at all, as said earlier, is probably celebration-worthy unto itself... but maybe not for his long-time friend.
"Wh-what did you mean by... gettin' out, uh, l-long ago," he gestures uselessly with his free hand, "are we talkin'... years?"
The little man looked distraught. He was still pacing around, gesturing at his unconscious friend, the man who'd been blown up nearly to Hades and back, sighing before speaking softly. For once.
"Frank...Frank didn't hafta fight as hard as he did all the time. He'd get beat up, he'd get his arm broken and I'd says to him, I'd says, 'Hey ya big dumb ape, take it easy, ya gotta work with yer arms, whaddaya gonna do if ya can't use 'em no more?' But he'd never listen. He'd get that look in his face, you know the one, not his happy expression or his wsitful one, or the one he gets when he eats yams. But a...a different one, and he'd just says to me, he'd says 'But I gotta fight, Smalls', that's all he'd ever says. An' now lookat the moron he could be friggin' DEAD right now!"
Overcome with emotion, the little man grabbed his fedora off the ground, throwing it hard that it actually hit the man's (presumably) injured head, bouncing off to cover the machine that was keeping him alive.
And then Frank coughed. Once, and only once, but he didn't do that a day ago when he was brought in, nor did he do that for all the hours he was laying there.
It's worthy of a double take to hear Smalls speak in something other than shouting, almost like he were expecting someone else to come in and say the part that he does.
The novelty of this does not undercut the message of it, looking to himself. Back when he was younger, he didn't work 9 to 5 - he worked 8 to 6, every day. Somewhat illegally so, in earlier years, during high school. Didn't matter the injuries from somewhat iffy work safety practices, or what have you. Worked himself to the bone, did in his joints, and the results speak for themselves. (Literally, given one of his knees popping aloud as he stretches out a leg.)
It does make him wonder all the more - how often did he put his own friends and family in the same predicament as Smalls? Sure, he wasn't blown up by military sorts, but after he started taking a stand against some strongarming years and years ago, well... knife wounds and such weren't uncommon, even as tough as he was...
When Smalls hurls his fedora with such ferocity that he might actually ding someone with it, Howard steps forward with his free hand outstretched as if to say 'whoa, whoa,' the ricocheting hat just flying out of his hand to take rest against the machine helping keep Frank among them.
Then, the cough. A cough no louder than any of the words Smalls has said since Howard came in, but a cough all the same. He holds a finger to Smalls as if to say 'wait,' but who knows if the smaller guy isn't already thinking what he's thinking.
That is, to rush over to Frank's side immediately now that there's a sign he's conscious.
"Frank?" Howard asks aloud, hand now on one of those big, meaty arms that even put his own to shame in terms of size and physique. "Frank? Can you, ah... can you hear me?"
He looks over to Smalls, wherever he is.
"Can you, uh... you can hear us, right? Frank?"
The big man instantly starts to sit up a little, grunting in discomfort and working past his stiff muscles and still-recuperating insides. Still, he was already moving like someone who'd been in here for days, not someone who was still "close" last night. His left massive hand came up, feeling the long narrow tube that was shoved up his nose and taped in place, and instantly he began to pull at it, ripping the tape right off and his eyes widening(for all we know) at the sight of it.
"Wwwertiszis crap?"
A little crabbier than usual, but given he'd just faced an onslaught of pineapple grenades, one perhaps might forgive him this.
Smalls, for his part, was already standing on the other side of the bed, balanced on the metal railing, and his weight adding hardly anything to it(especially given the weight of Frank himself.). Frustrated, he threw down a backhanded slap at the burnt bicep of Frank, who caused the ape-like fighter to grimace and grunt, but aside from that he was entirely ignoring the now irate(again) Smalls.
"Whaddaya doin' that for, ya need ta slow down an' relax 'for ya wind up in here again!"
Howard drops a repetition of 'whoas' as Frank starts to stir, move and pull stuff off of him, moving to place a hand against his more gently in comparison to Smalls' frustrated act of slapping. He takes in a breath as he looks over his shoulder, looking back to Frank... and over his shoulder.
"You had... you had a close one," Howard illustrates the obvious, "Smalls... he'd been, he'd been staying by you the, uh, the entire time. Had him... had him worried."
Had /him/ worried too, among other things. The pipe-wielding man stands up a little straighter, but making sure not to leave what would be Frank's immediate line of sight (were his eyes not bandaged, in any case, so it's kind of a fruitless gesture).
"How're you feeling?" Howard's voice trails off as though he has something more to say, but seems content to leave it at that question mark... if maybe for the next few seconds, as there's a bit of a sense of urgency now that Frank appears to be awake and conscious.
"I feels great, yer."
He grunted and muttered as he continued to work his way to a seated position, leaning and reaching up(but not very far thanks to that incredible reach advantage of his), pulling that pulley down and letting his foot down to rest against the bed. Not heeding their advice he continues to pull that long tube out of his nose, eventially 'popping' it out with a sick sound and letting it flop to the ground. He grimaced as he worked, pulling his body sideways so his feet were touching the ground, his back to Smalls who just continued to look at this development with wide eyes. The little guy was a loudmouth from hell, but he knew when to take the backseat. Like, now for example.
"Yer inna rush, yeh? Nnngh...he was throwin' gurrnades. What a lousy, no-good CREEP."
Anger coming from Frank? This was rare, but it seemed he was still sore about, well...being almost blown up. He was so miffed, that he even started to stand up, that specially reinforced, heavy duty bed suddenly creaking to the side, and causing Smalls to fall off the edge of it with a scream and a quick wave of his arms.
Frank was unaware of this. Grabbing at the wall and that machine, gripping the metal balance beams that were riveted all over the place, he was struggling to work himself upright. And doing rather remarkably well, actually. Just now perfectly on his first try. A sign that he, in fact, was not at one hundred percent...
"I, I dunno if--" Howard might protest, but there's a part of him that doesn't seem too insistent to push the point. He moves to try and help steady Frank, holding onto a part of him if need be for support. Shouldn't he be shoving him back into bed?
"...Same guy who, who saw to it that... that you're still with us," Howard clears his throat at the angry declaration of creep-hood. Maybe this is more in hopes that Frank is not about to get up and go on a rampage the next time he sees him, though the unsteadiness in him standing up gives a glimmer of hope that he's not about to rush off and do just that, as he casts a glance over to Smalls as he tumbles.
"Y-You okay over there? Uh.... all right, Frank. Frank." Howard speaks up, shaking his head a couple times, "y-you gotta... both of you gotta listen to me, okay? I, I just got done... coming back, from somewhere else," he elucidates, before pointing outward with Ol' Rusty towards the nearest way 'out.' That door shudders and barely clings on to stay on its hinges even with the highly reinforced locks that have been installed to help keep it there.
"'s gotten... a, a lot, lot worse. Remember the, uh, the barricades? Stuff to, to help keep the, the water off the streets leading up here?" Howard's hoping Frank's intact enough to remember that, as he snaps the fingers of his now free hand (meaning he lets go of the guy). "Gone, like... one of them, uh, just burst right, right all over me as I went by. Winds keep... keep pickin' up, threw me 'round like some kinda... some kinda plastic bag."
That'd explain why he seems so battered.
"'m glad you, you think you're good enough to get up, 'cause... next time the, the helicopter comes to pull people out, that... that might be our last shot."
He looks all about the very room they're in, even, as he points up towards the roof. "Roof's... roof's probably not gonna be here tomorrow... or, uh, the rest of this place..."
Frank was listening, alright. While Smalls was picking himself off the ground and dusting himself off(because that was the problem with his clothing, the dust off the ground.), and while Frank was leaning against the wall both for support and to stretch his back and limbs and let his bones crackle from the stiffness of laying in a medical bed for too many hours, he was listening closely to what Rust had to say. His face darkened(presumably, given Smalls' reaction), and he finally turned to Rust, almost leaning on the much smaller man for support, although he tried to reduce that as much as he humanly could.
"Awright then. Let's git outta here, yeh."
As he spoke, that last chopper was on its way as they spoke. Appropriately enough, the pilot years ago had fondly named his craft 'Saigon', after the place where he met and married his wife. Given the current situation, the irony was lost on everybody, who had much more pressing concerns on their mind.
Who knows what Rolento's tolerance for individual quirks and personalities in his soldiers go, but nonetheless, Saigon is going to be the key to salvation for those people still stuck here. The two others beyond Frank that had been receiving medical care and attention are carefully escorted along out to the landing pad.
The storm comes to a (relative) calm. It's still rainy, hazy, windy, all that jazz. Howard holds the plastic mass full of cash under his left arm, Ol' Rusty in his stronger left hand, leaving his free right one to help the humongous Frank along the way there as various individuals shout for them to move, move, move, if they're going to evacuate on this ride. They're not going to be able to stay along.
Howard's shaking his head as he peers out one window en route, another good look at that city he's walking out of. Of course, he's conflicted about it... but he has to go back to Southtown, and he just saw some of his work with Frank unravel before his eyes on the way back. Is there truly no end in sight? Can those who are still holed up here hold on?
"I, I'm not kiddin' 'bout how it was," he reiterates along the way, "the... the wind's even knockin' my ass flat, and," he gestures vaguely with his pipe as though it should say something, but it really doesn't, "we... we gotta get you, 'n... 'n some others, somewhere safer."
Very quickly, Frank's big cast was covered in trashbags, and Smalls tossed the big lumbering hero a hooded poncho, something to help keep the bandages and injuries dry, something that was important. Smalls very quickly grabbed his fedora and was soon following along, behind the two and unusually quiet. That outburst earlier took a fair bit out of him...
For Frank's part, he walked quickly, grunting every twenty-ith step as he put a bit more pressure on that foot than he was used to just yet, but he didn't complain. One massive arm was draped over the shoulders of the pipe fighter, and Smalls was following quickly behind. Funnily enough, his smaller size meant it was easier for him to stay close to the ground as those powerful winds slowed even Frank's mighty progress, a testament to his injuries, a testament to the deadly, underhanded skill of the crazy fighter known as 'Rolento'.
Frank just kept quiet, teeth grit, although his right hand was held up, keeping rain out of his eyes(although that hood did a fine job of bringing a thick shadow over them), and he also played 'defense' for Rust, knocking the occasional giant hail ball out of the way effortlessly. He just wanted to make it to the damn helicopter and sleep.
As they trek out into the elements for their last taste of what the fury of Mother Nature - or some greater, far more spiteful concept personified as female, maybe we'll call it Jilted Ex-Lover Nature instead - Howard instinctively fears another deadly gust like the ones that threw him about on the way back here. The storm cycles between calm and violent, and even the calm now is still something of a mess to deal with.
When hail starts to fall, Frank finds it in him to heroically knock away the spheres of ice that threaten to knock either of them unconscious - or worse. They may be premiere tough guys between the two of them, but...
"Frank," Howard speaks up above the ambient sound of falling rain and moving air, "d-don't... don't stress yourself furthe--"
Howard is vaguely interrupted as another one pelts him in his upper back. He scowls, casting a glance behind him as though he were expecting it to be someone, not something, that hit him. Hail.
Taking his arm off of Frank for a second, he switches Ol' Rusty to his right hand and swings outward a few times at a flurry of them, batting them aside or shattering them into tiny, somewhat less harmful shards.
"God damn, the, the hail wasn't--"
The soldiers up ahead by the helicopter motion for the rest to hurry, as they load the other two injured folks on board. The hail being as it is... nobody wants to be out here for much longer.
Seeing an opening, Frank moved his arm so that it was no longer draped around Rust's shoulders, but grabbing the back of the man's shirt collar. While Smalls darted out, dodging hail blasts and finally leaping on the plan dramatically, the large fighter took a different tactic: Just bullrushing the rest of the way, and using that significant strength of his to try and YANK Rust along. Deep down, he recognized that Howard was so much like himself, and he knew that the pipe fighter was the kind of man to leave himself behind in a situation like this. And Frank wasn't gonna let him do it, they were both gonna get through this, and they were gonna get out of this zany place once and for all!
"CARM ON, YEH?!"
In turn, Howard doesn't want Frank to hurt himself further trying to protect the both of them from Jilted Ex-Lover Nature. In a moment of desperation, Howard looks ready to perhaps pull just that, potentially giving up his seat - and possibly last ticket - out of the city. If the storm gets any worse than this (and it sure looks like it will), there's great odds that the helicopter isn't coming back.
Frank yanks him by the collar.
It is such a surprise to see the show of strength by Frank that he doesn't even fight it. He can't, given that his sandal-clad feet slip on a cold puddle, putting him in the humorously awkward position of someone being dragged on his ass the way out.
He can't quite voice much of a protest either as he clutches his plastic mass-covered bag of money tight, swinging Ol' Rusty about like a lunatic to deflect what oncoming hail he can actually see. The sky is colored in such a way it's hard to see those balls of ice come down until it's too late. His batting average seems to be in about the point four-hundreds, at least.
Most men wouldn't survive anything less than a thousand in a situation like this.
Those at the helicopter help Smalls on, and are ready to receive the both of them as the injured and recovering Frank finds one last great burst of energy to get them both on board...
Frank had enough energy for that last, gorrilla-esque charge before tiring out, being helped on the special, reinforced helicopter by at least three men while two others indeed help Howard, perhaps trying to calm him down so they don't end up stepping into one of those deadly pipe swings. One in fact trying to show him how they're batting hail away with trash can lids and other heavy wide objects, trying to convince him to calm the hell down. They know they can't just tranq him, that would be a waste of needles.
Soon, assuming they got the Fabio-haired fighter onboard and safe from the pelting ice-balls, the copter would take off, heading toward the East, towards the land of the rising sun.
Well, more like the land of the smokescreen, but it was better than this. They even had a few makeshift beds, one of which would house Frank. Frank, who was utterly exhausted by just these short events, and probably glad to slip back in and out of sleep waged on...
His dragging comes to a sudden halt as the loud whirr of a helicopter's engines (and the resulting displaced air all about) should be something of a calming thing. This is it. They're almost out.
Howard's still wound up for Frank's sake, and it takes a bit to get him to slow down, lower his swingin' arm, and just hurry onboard so that everyone can get out of here. He eventually nods slowly in acknowledgement that yeah, they're safe for now (one damn well hopes). It's hard to say he's going to be calm as long as he has to face the storm while in the air. All it'd take is one good engine failure from the strain and they might go back into the drink...
Given they're ready to go, and that these are trained professionals who have done this many times. Howard doesn't really have much a choice but to trust them as he eyes Frank who has decided to take a rest, urged towards taking his seat alongside the other four that are to be rescued.
Howard's not sure what to say at this point as he gets to have one last look of what's left of Metro City in this weather. Sure, he could reflect on his time here, hoping that the rest they've all worked with until now have the rest of the evacuation plans well handled... that Zach himself, might recover and have something done about his hand in addition to getting out of this mess alive...
He clutches the money wrapped in the plastic tightly. Getting out of Metro is one thing. Making sure he can get back to Southtown with a lack of proper identification thanks to certain people, well... that's something for another time.
He turns to Frank as if to say something, but sees how the big man's already resting. Putting Ol' Rusty on his lap, he reaches out to pat the big guy on the shoulder in silent thanks and reassurance. Maybe the two'll have a chat about what comes next later... once they're out.
The helicopter takes off. It may be the very last flight out of Metro City for some time...
...a narrow escape from what else is to come.
Log created on 20:52:37 09/03/2014 by Rust, and last modified on 00:30:23 09/05/2014.