Description: Howard Rust has taken a lot of nasty falls over the years. Every time, he had a metaphorical quarter before it would be too late to pick back up. Beaten within an inch of his life, too tough to die, and yet not too numb to feel every ounce of agony... in the wake of a fateful encounter against a young Heihachi Mishima alongside an ally in Elisabeth Blanctorche, he has been left for dead in the middle of a void with no apparent entry or escape. Have his pockets run empty at last, as the curtains start to come to a close for the world as a whole... is this where he has to admit defeat at last, keying in his initials short of Saiki's doorstep?
10...
It was a brutal encounter. There is no better descriptor. Heihachi Mishima at the height of his power, with his youth restored, could very well have been an equal match - at worst - to any single force in the world. Over a dozen unfortunate souls found themselves locking fists with him, one by one, as he stood guard over a Time Sphere.
Howard Rust and Elisabeth Blanctorche were his two last challengers, and together, the two of them managed to overcome who may well have been the greatest of the Mishima bloodline in a narrow pitched battle where they gave their all. Those who came before did, with certainty, but their all... it wasn't enough.
9...
Only one of them left the void of white where they all fought. Any matter of footing or any real geography to speak of is enitrely unclear, other than where numerous bodies are strewn about. Broken. Probably... dead. Blood spatters in the nothingness may provide a context clue of where it is safe to step without possibly falling into the vast white nothingness.
Lying face-down, one Howard Rust lies there, an arm outstretched as a nearby unconscious Heihachi Mishima looms over him. Somehow, he casts a far greater shadow among those who thought they stood a chance against a King of the Iron Fist with the ravages of age taken away from them as part of a fell deal with a mysterious, powerful figure that claims themselves a God.
Bereft of color or sound beyond the presence of those who would stain the purity of this space, all seems it would be in stasis.
8...
How much time even really passes? Can it, any more, in a space that seems to exist outside of anything that reality would care to give shape? Even the color white seems to be a concession just for the sake of those gifted with the ability to perceive, to see, to think, to exist, and only just that.
It seems spiteful on behalf of those whose bodies seem to continue to just... be here, and not be swallowed up into the white nothing, to simply disappear. It is as though the dozen-plus fallen fighters here were mounting their own final stands against fading from existence, into unobservable obscurity.
No words of kindness are passed among them, for none of them seem as though they are able to speak.
7...
There is only the twitch of a hand, a gloved hand. The subtle shifting of whatever forces govern this place trying to nudge along something in its way?
It twitches again, then rises upward, fingers outstretched, shaking... and it slams itself against the nothingness it all lies upon, again. The fingers clench, as though trying to grasp at... something. It doesn't seem to quite find visual purchase, but a sense of touch may be the only feedback available here.
Something pops. Cracks. Noise. Movement and noise start to return, to violate the sanctity of this dimension anew.
6...
It is followed by a voice. Grunting. Straining. Consonants that should never be lined up with one another. With limited mobility, they turn to the side.
There is a great big cry of pain that echoes throughout, as the individual faces upward.
Howard Rust, who... still lives.
Battered. Bruised. Beaten. Bested. There is no mistaking the result of the engagement between himself, his newfound (and now newlost) ally, and their combined bid to try and get past Heihachi. His body is quick to remind him of this with every flex of a muscle, every bend of a joint... every breath he takes.
%5...
A vaguely cyllindrical object, bent and aged by the elements and copious blunt trauma comes within reach. It is grasped out of haste, for what good it does to help him (very little). At best, now, it is just a way to help him attempt to stand.
"Gragh," comes a more coherent grunt as even coming up to a kneel is a torturous endeavor. It takes absolutely everything for this man to bring himself up, face flush with pain, stress, and frustration.
It is such an effort he almost trips over himself to fall right back down, catching himself into a kneel as weight is slammed against a knee that does not feel like suffering such.
4...
Time passes. He manages to stand, after what could be an eternity. He doesn't know. Every time he blinks, it feels like something... passes. Minutes? Hours? Weeks? He can't make sense of it.
...Except for one fact, and one fact alone.
He was still alive.
Alive... and alone.
3...
He wasn't dead. The pains in his body were a true reminder of this fact. This wasn't much of a blessing considering how much continuing to live... hurt. His ally is long gone. As far as he knows... he's left alone.
Alone, with the other broken, the other defeated. Every so often, there is a nudge with a pipe, or some utterance by his voice when he isn't in the middle of a coughing fit after his body contineus to be confused as to whether what it is breathing is actually oxygen at all.
2...
All the distance he could walk... or limp... there was no sense of progression, hardly a sense of distance, his left arm hanging limp from the dislocated shoulder, the other hand using the pipe as a makeshift cane. It is not really long enough for this purpose, but it is all he has.
He cannot see anything other than white. He is surrounded by images of people who are, effectively, just like him - defeated, discarded. Inwardly, he wonders if this is how the soldiers he fought in those land wars felt.
As though they were cast aside to be numbers, a pure statistical count of those he had to fight through to help bring an end to Vega's mad ambitions. That humbling feeling that he is... now... just another number. Heck... Heihachi might wake up, track him down, beat him anew.
1...
He calls out as loud as he can. Anyone? someone? He's here. Someone's here! He wants to wave to the signs of any movement, of any person even being here at all, but there is no feedback.
He slows further and further before long, falling down to his knees. Physically, one of the single most resilient people alive... and proof now that, even when beaten by one as powerful as Heihachi, he just doesn't have it in him to up and die... or have the sense to let himself be left bedridden and shattered. His spine should have snapped in twain, after that last one. Lord knows so many others had their careers end in paralysis from the electrifying power of the Mishima family fighting style.
He looks up to what isn't a sky, for there is nothing there. His head is merely tilted back to observe a part of what is already clearly in front of him.
This close, he thinks as he draws in breath... this close, to maybe finally getting a handle on all this. Is this how it all ends? To wait here, until eternity passes? (Or rather, that he dies of hunger, or thirst, or what have you...)
He might have flown as high as he could have, according to Heihachi Mshima himself, and this may be all he has left to look forward to.
The clock ticks down...
...and stops before it hits zero.
he end comes not with a bang. Not even a whimper.
In point of fact, the end doesn't come. There's a sort of shimmer in the air. A *WHUMP*ing sound as air is suddently displaced, the space filled with a young man, in a bloodied tactical looking outfit that has more than the requisite number of holes in it. A tactical harness carries a mismatched pair of short swords. "Nooot quite what I was expecting," a familiar voice declares.
This familiar voice in an unfamiliar appearance might see the grisly sight before him. Of people all but utterly destroyed by one of the greatest martial artists to ever walk the earth... and in the distance, exactly one individual who shows any signs of movement, at all. One, and only one.
Far off as they are, the new arrival doesn't appear to register to them as they lay kneeling against the ground, visibly supported by... something (it's hard to tell). Exactly one person.
There is a horrible, discolored, absolutely ugly mass of dark purple... matter, by the new arrival's feet. Attributing any known material to its consistency and appearance is an absolute insult to any given word in the dictionary, so 'matter' is going to have to take the hit for the team.
It looks like it belongs on someone's head.
Zach Glen. Soldier, fighter, adventurer, psion. He has seen many things in his live, but even this is enough to take his breath away. He walks past body after body, seemingly without end. The sheer enormity of it is enough to cause him to forget about the purple... thing. There's...
...at first, Zach would have thought he was the only person here. But for one thing: a faint... sound wouldn't be the right word. But it is something Zach can perceive. Even stranger still, it's... familiar to Zach. Glen closes his eyes, focusing for a moment on the perception.
A moment later, Zach's eyes snap open, and a moment later he is running full-tilt over the bodies of the fallen, chasing after the source of his feeling. It's full of worry, and fear, and at the same time renewed hope and confidence. For all of the jumble of emotions the moment brings, Zach is somehow able to sum it up in a single word.
"RUST!"
'RUST!'
All capital letters, that exclamation mark. For Zach's familiarity with the man, as he draws ever closer, there is absolutely no mistake that he's around. It should be less of a surprise that he's... still alive.
The figure still kneels, their breathing irregular as they simply appear content to.... be. They don't look back at the name that is called for them, as though sound itself were starting to ring hollow. Zach's footsteps register strangely in terms of sound against what is, effectively, the very nothing he runs upon.
There's no uneven dips in terrain or anything of the sort, nothing to threaten to trip Zach up in the least. Nothing stops Zach from closing the distance, from reuniting, almost absolutely, with that man of whom he could consider a best friend and best rival. (Maybe a best man for a theoretical wedding.)
These are clearly not the best of circumstances, for the lack of response from the knelt-over man who, from the back, is absolutely one Howard Rust.
Wedding? Yeah. Right. That won't happen anytime soon. Zach's eyes go wide as he looks Rust over and finds the larger man to be one massive bruise. Still alive. Thank god, Zach thinks as he takes a knee, calming himself before putting a hand on Rust's shoulder. A moment later, a gentle wave of light washes over both men.
Some of Zach's cuts, already shallow things, close themselves. A similar effect might happen with Rust, but there's so many MORE of the wounds to heal on Rust. "Stay with me, man," Zach whispers. "I could use some help."
Heihachi Mishima's wrath is never one to be cleanly wiped away - he held nothing back, and Howard Rust just about took the brunt of all of it. For a man that appears to be able to survive improbable amounts of physical duress or otherwise debilitating injury that should - and does - fell far lesser men. He looks, unquestionably, as though he has taken just about the utmost limit of what he can handle.
The man shudders to Zach's touch, a hiss and a start as he jerks his head to the left, to see Zach's face, where he silently mouths his name.
His eyes are tired. They almost seem resigned, on some level, as though disbelieving that he's there. This man has not been able to get a wink of sleep since the nuclear scare of Rolento, and yet, here he is... having braved the divides between space and time itself, seemingly entirely on his own...?
Zach heaves a sigh of relief as Rust proves, once again, to not be dead. He grins a bit, and goes from kneeling to sitting. "Hey," is all Zach says.
The worst of it, is that Rust doesn't look like he's even entirely there, mentally, emotionally. With Zach's help, sensations come back in his left arm, his elbow bending his forearm upwards with a twitch, fingers wriggling uncontrollably with the elation - or disappointment? - that they are no longer 'on break' from what abuse this man seems to put through his body.
Zach grins as he sits down, and Rust... doesn't seem to get in any greater ease, as he coughs once.
He at least blinks, once. This is the first time he's blinked to Zach's observation since he showed up, and he seems to be having trouble thinking of what to say.
"...far as I can go," is the only sentence fragment to be made out.
Zach frowns a bit at that. "Finish line's in sight, Rust," Zach says quietly. "We're down to the guy masterminding those whole fiasco." Zach's postive talk is masking more than a little bit of fear that is creeping back into him.
Whoever this Saiki is, Zach's certain that he won't be able to take him by himself. Having Rust at his side would be, if not something to give Zach confidence, then most certainly something to give Zach /hope/. The psion would take hope over confidence any day of the week.
Howard Rust is a pillar that inspires hope for many people, throughout recent years, despite... uh, himself. Yet, here in the heart of where this entire apocalyptic mess before them, in the wake of everything that has been broken, shattered, lost forever as an afterthought to a world that has gone entirely haywire...
He looks absolutely nothing of the part, as Zach reminds him of just how close they are. The mastermind, the one responsible - maybe indirectly, in some ways, if some things are to be believed but still culpable - for just about everything, the one who at minimum has now changed the course of history for the worst, in a downward spiral that may never be recovered from.
"I got... I got beat," Rust speaks up, "a... a lot. Every, every time... something... bigger. Nastier. They, they keep saying..."
He doesn't finish the sentence fragments as he stammers to the next bit.
"The, the... the young woman I was with, I," he doesn't know her name, he has very little to describe her that he can't quite get out of his mouth, "she, she just... moved on like... like I was dead, after..."
He doesn't even really face Zach any more. In some way, he might feel like he could well have abandoned Zach back in Metro, when he visited him briefly in the hospital... and then found himself all but forced to leave because of the weather intensifying even more violently than imagined. He might have been of the thought that he accidentally left Zach to die, like he should have braved storms he could not have toughed out in the least - the winds were too violent for him to stay on his feet. He wouldn't have gotten anywhere.
"Everyone... everyone says, that... that, that at best, there's... there's nothing..."
Zach's expression falters a bit as he watches Rust all but tear himself apart right in front of him. Early in what could be called Zach's fighting career, the psion was only really for good for being the force that came in, knocked down the opposition, and rode off into the night. As the young man grew, and matured, Zach grew tired of being the purely destructive force.
He learned, and struggled, and fought, and in doing so earned for himself the ability to support. To protect. But as he watches one of the strongest men he knows all but broken both physically and mentally, Zach realizes just how powerless he is.
Zach's eyes water, both at the frustration at his inability to help his friend but also at the pain caused by seeing Rust in such pain as to bring him to this state.
He is silent for a long moment. Then Zach scowls, and stands up, striking his tears from his eyes with the tattered sleeve of his shirt. "There's never nothing. Not so long as we're alive," he says, steel starting to slide back into his will. "If we're alive, that's something."
Zach offers his one hand to Rust. "Strong hands are needed if things are to be rebuilt. Ours are here, right now." he says.
Both men have had to stand up against things far greater than themselves, somehow, all in the name of trying to make things right. Vega, those crazy cultists, the inexplicably stubborn radiator that just wouldn't work no matter how many times they had to pull it apart entirely to figure out what was wrong...
...
Wordlessly, Rust is unresponsive to all that Zach says to encourage his friend in the time of the entire universe's need - of all space, of all time, of anyone and everyone who has come to simply exist. Here, at the final stop before whoever is behind all this (99%+ odds it is this Saiki that has been mentioned)...
He takes the hand, which now provides something of a larger problem. Howard is larger, heavier, and stronger than Zach physically. That's not where the issue lies.
He has a difficult time fully getting up to his feet at all. There's always been a certain sluggishness to his movements, some restraint brought on by physical malady accumulated over the years, but now... it does seem like he is having real trouble getting on his own two feet.
Is this a man who really can - or should - make the final steps of the journey to fight someone assured to be far more terrifying than anything either of them have come to face?
Zach leans back a bit, giving a slight pull to help Rust get at least physically upright. He nods once. Rust is standing, at least. That is what you call a start. He nods once, and then looks around.
Zach might be a bit lost, but then anyone would be lost in-between basically everything.
It's a start. He's back on his feet. That may be all that can be asked of him, as he looks out blearily into the void of white before them. What would it matter? Now it's two of them standing, in a seemingly endless void of white.
"She... she went... that way," he speaks up, pointing Ol' Rusty out in a direction that differs in no way, shape, or form from any other direction except for whatever he has chosen to point in, "I... I dunno, there's just, just this... feeling, but, but she was... going that way, it's like..."
Howard continues to mumble incoherently before he returns to clarity.
"Just so... so... angry. F-Frustrated, and... and going that way, feels... feels kinda... the same, so..."
Why would anyone want to follow anything on a bad hunch? Granted, there is no other such compass here, as he starts to stagger in that direction. Zach may be needed to help keep him upright as he shuffles forth, but there's some sort of confidence in this extremely bad, negative feeling that veers around that way.
Zach closes his eyes for a moment, then scowls. "Hold on a second," Zach says quickly. He fumbles at a pouch, pulling out a small ball of radiant light. One of the Time Spheres. He looks at it, concentrating.
Then the psion takes a deep breath before grunting with a bit of effort. Lines of goled energy race can be seen racing across exposed skin and another shimmer of light forms and elongates. "Come on, you motherfucker," Zach growls, "OPEN!"
The length of light shimmies and contorts before turning into a rectangular area, similar to a doorway. Zach slumps slightly nodding towards it. It is in the direction Rust was already heading. "That way," Zach sighs.
This being only the second time Howard's been in presence to a real Time Sphere, Brett's warnings still really can't prepare him. He seems dumbstruck just seeing it this close, the surprise of its revelation... something stirs. The way it seems to inspire upheaval, a desire to see change through... it may not be considered terribly positive reinforcement, with the emotions that wash over him in the wake of being shattered and barely glued together.
Howard flinches away from the rectangular structure that opens before them. He points Ol' Rusty into it as a cursory check...
"Huh," he mumbles, "that's, that's the way out, is it--"
He doesn't finish the sentence or give it another thought, raising a foot needlessly to try to take the first step through on his own. It's clumsy. It's dangerous. It's not even certain that he might be able to completely walk off what he just suffered, even with Zach's help...
The two of them together may yet reach the very end of their long, arduous journey towards mastery of not only their own styles, their own powers, their own lives... but their own destinies, whatever they may be, in the face of one whom stands a far greater challenge than anything any one of them have ever faced.
"Let's... let's go, Zach," Rust speaks the obvious two steps too late, "I've, I've had enough... white for, uh, a long time."
Zach lets out a bit of a snort, heading for the doorway, with a little more spring to his step. "Let's do this thing," the psion says.
Log created on 20:00:12 10/18/2014 by Rust, and last modified on 00:31:10 10/19/2014.