Rock laid on the soft, damp grass and watched the stars float above him. There were so many. They covered the sky with bright sparkles like you never saw in Southtown and looking at them, looking into the incredible vastness of space, made Rock feel small and exposed. He could just barely pick out the star he'd childishly decided represented his mom a year ago; it felt silly now he was big, but looking at it did make him feel a little better.

He listened to the sound of the wind, the shifting of the grass, and Terry's quiet breathing. Terry didn't sound tired at all, which was kind of annoying. Rock was exhausted. He'd spent all day and night fighting Terry (even if it had mostly been him throwing wild punches and Terry blocking or dodging) so the least Terry could do was be out of breath.

It was funny. He could clearly remember why he'd started fighting Terry, but it didn't seem important anymore. He was starting to think he hadn't really wanted to do it at all.

The stars floated in the sky and Rock felt like he was floating too. The world felt quiet and calm, like all the fighting was far away. It was a good time to ask the question that had hung in the back of his mind and built up strange, confusing feelings in his chest until the only way he could let them out was with his fists.

"Terry...why'd you kill my dad?"

The question disappeared into the night. The wind, the grass, and Terry all stayed on the quiet edge of hearing.

Maybe Terry hadn't heard him right. Rock asked again.

"Terry, why'd you-"

"I heard you."

Terry's voice didn't sound like normal. It sounded dark and tired and Rock started to regret asking the question.

But it wasn't an answer, so he kept going because how else was he ever going to find out? Terry never talked about it and Rock wanted to know. Needed to know.

"Was it because he was evil?"

"No. Not really." Terry was quiet for a long time after that, but just before Rock started to ask for the real reason he let out a huge sigh and said, still dark and tired: "...he killed my dad."

"You're the same as me... All right! From now on, I'll take care of you!"

"And that's how we're the same, right? So that means..." He'd thought Terry had meant they were both orphans and that was it, kinda. He hadn't known how Terry was an orphan, though.

Terry had killed Geese for his dad, so wasn't Rock obligated to do the same thing to Terry?

The reply was immediate this time. "No-! That's- Look, Rock, I didn't know that then. And even so...I dunno how to say this, but-"

"Was your dad nice?"

"...yeah. He was the best."

"Geese was a jerk." Maybe you didn't have to avenge jerks, even if they were your last remaining blood relative.

"Yeah, he was. Look, it's like- If you want to train to defeat me, fine, I can't tell you not to. But I can tell you it's stupid and will waste your life and I wish you wouldn't."

"Why?" Rock did want to defeat Terry, someday. When he was big and strong like Terry. They'd fight each other like equals and Terry would say something like "from now on, you're my rival!" just like in the movies. Hearing Terry call it stupid kind of hurt.

"I just told you, it's stupid. It'll waste your life."

"But you're already training me. And someday, I'm gonna be as strong as you. So when we fight-"

"That's not it. Geez, I told you I didn't know how to say this." Terry sighed again. "It's not 'training' or 'becoming stronger'. That's all fine and good. But doing it for hate, for revenge...that eats you up inside. It makes you all cold and narrow and mean. It sucks and it drags everyone around down with you, and in the end all it does it make you another murderer."

"Were you cold and narrow and mean?"

"For awhile, yeah."

Rock couldn't picture it. Terry had to be making it up to scare him. Mean Terry just didn't fit.

He craned his neck over to look at Terry, just to see the dim figure sit up and turn to look at him. He couldn't see Terry's face at all under the moonlight, just the vague outlines of his clothes, but Terry's voice said everything. It was low and intense like Rock hadn't ever heard him before.

"I just don't want you to have to go through what I did. That's all."

Rock didn't know what to say to that, so he curled up against the ground instead. Maybe asking hadn't been a good idea after all. It made Terry weird.

There was a long pause and Rock kind of hoped the conversation was over and Terry would go back to normal. But then Terry spoke up again, still all dark and tired. "It's like this. After I fought Geese for the first time, Billy came looking for a fight. Said he was gonna kill me just like I'd killed Geese because fair's fair."

"Did he?"

"I'm still here, aren't I? But that's not the point. After that, I started to think. I couldn't say he was wrong when he was just trying to do what I did. And Billy's good. He could beat me someday, if he worked hard or I slacked off. And then Andy would fight him. And then...I dunno, Lily or someone would have to train, and beat Andy, and then Mai would get involved...it doesn't stop, you know? Everyone keeps fighting because they've lost someone and they just keep going and going until someone puts an end to it. And I decided that someone was gonna be me."

"Billy still doesn't like you." He'd caught up to them just a couple weeks ago, yelling and cursing. Terry had knocked him down and told him not to come back, then given Rock a long lecture about not using any of those words.

"Yeah...I get him, though. Anyway, do you get what I'm trying to say?"

"I dunno. Maybe." He pictured Terry fighting Geese and Billy fighting Terry and Andy and Joe and Mai, all of them slowly spiraling down into the darkness. It wasn't a nice picture. Rock didn't want to be part of it. "Yeah, I guess," he said, and added: "And even if Billy doesn't like you, I do."

Terry laughed. "Glad to hear it, kid." He sounded normal again, and Rock was glad. The sky and the wind already felt warmer and friendlier.

"Hey, Rock."

"Yeah?"

"I didn't mean to kill Geese. I tried to save him."

"But he still died."

"Yeah. He didn't want to be saved."

The words hung between them, floating through the quiet night. And Rock began to think.

He thought about the spiral of fighters, him and Terry and Geese, the sky, the field, the wind. Everything around him was so huge. It was all a big, swirling mess with him right in the middle where he didn't want to be.

"Crissakes kid, what's wrong with you today? You want something?"

Terry had asked him that earlier. Rock hadn't been able to come up with an answer at the time and had let his punch do the talking. Now it felt a lot more important.

Why was he here? Why did he want to become strong?

'To be like Terry' was the easy answer, and it was absolutely true, but more than that... He didn't want to be like Geese, or like the guys Terry beat up. He wanted, in some indescribable way, to be better. Not to be defined by a father he didn't even like, or a bunch of past grudges someone else told him he should care about. To run to the edge of sky and past it, further and further, until he found what was on the other side.

And when he got there...well, he'd worry about that then.

AN: "Listen kid whose dad I just killed, revenge is only cool when I do it, okay?"

Rock attacking Terry in revenge for Geese as happening a year after they met and started traveling together is from the backstory on the old Garou homepage. Rock originally didn't care, then got a feeling so complicated, then fought Terry and decided he didn't care after all because seriously, Geese was a dick.

"You're an orphan, same as me... All right! From now on, I'll take care of you!" is the Japanese version of Terry's "Enough of this senseless fighting! Let's be friends. Call me, pop, son!" line to Rock in FF3. Terry did in fact adopt a kid because he was an orphan and then set out to keep him that way.