Description: When Johnny Cage goes drinking, the whole town knows. When Gertrude's been drinking, she can't handle her liquor very well at all. Can cheesecake bridge the gap between two wayward souls? Will Johnny Cage succeed in his quest to Get Some? Answer these burning questions, and more, in this very log! Wow!
Two days after Christmas, and Gertrude is holed up in the Pao Pao cafe. She's been here since opening, and it is now getting well into the evening. She's eaten breakfast, lunch, and she's midway through dinner. The young German woman has taken a seat at the far end of a long bench, and whilst she's received more than her fair share of odd looks and questioning murmurs, she's refused to be budged.
She is also quite, quite drunk.
Cheap Japanese beer is difficult to get drunk on, but she's managed it with the kind of determination and focus that lesser beings would put towards a productive end. A brand new denim jacket is in evidence on the stool beneath her; she's even bought new glasses, although since they are exactly the same as the old glasses, it is difficult to tell. Right now, they don't seem to be helping her focus her eyesight much either.
For the most part, she's been quiet, kept to herself, and since the money keeps flowing, the cafe aren't in any hurry to turf her out. There is an exception to the demure behavior, though. One which is met again when she suddenly shouts.
"EY EY EY EY Mishter Paopee, BEER PLEASE! ITOdokimosiiiii!"
Hic!
And she waves the empty bottle around to illustrate her point. The owner has long since given up on trying to convince her she has had enough. But he does look faintly worried as he retrieves yet another bottle of beer, and receives a leering grin from Gertrude in return.
"Anna CHEESECAKE!"
Whoa! Hey! Hold the presses!!
This Cafe is looking downright deserted, possibly thanks in no small part to the drunk German customer that has been here all day hitting the booze and eating all the cakes. The locals know that's always a bad sign when a crazed European is doing that in their establishments and have no doubt taken their business elsewhere.
Naturally this calls for a solution...
MORE OBNOXIOUS FOREIGNERS!
"Out of the way, people! Celebrity coming through!" An influx of people suddenly burst inside the Pao Pao Cage, with agents, models and body guards trailing after the one and only;
Johnny Cage.
Mr. Cage has been earning the big bucks lately, you see? First there was that wild stunt versus the Psycho Boxer, Keith and then his devastatingly infamous fight against Tia Langray in Las Vegas was a huge success. So now he gets to eat wherever he well pleases and it just so happens he felt like going to this place.
"Okay, Mr. Pao Pao was it? Sir, I'm going to need for you to clear out this whole place for Johnny." The agent starts speaking directly to the owner. "Which includes getting rid of a few.. undesirables." He gives a few glances towards Gertrude's direction. Looks like this whole place just got reserved!
Fortunately, and rather strangely too, Johnny himself intervenes and chuckles. "Haha! Oh Harry, you are crazy with a K, I'm telling ya!" He elbows the agent a bit and glances at the owner. "Don't listen to this guy, he just gets a little anxious when we go to places not in the schedule. Everyone's fine as they are. In fact.." Johnny lowers his shades, taking a peek to the young lady sitting somewhere in the corner of the cafe. Uh oh, looks like a certain Super Action Star has his eyes on Gertrude.
"I think I'm gonna sit riiiiight here." Johnny ambles towards the corner and sits right next to the obviously drunk Gertrude. What can he say? He always had a thing for blondes.
Gertrude has - by all accounts - been doing pretty well for herself, too! She's taken a lot of losses, but she's had some notable victories! Fifth place in the Neo League ain't nothin' to sneeze at, Son. Of course, it isn't close at all to Johnny's successes... she doesn't get an entourage, and it probably isn't too surprising that nobody recognizes her on sight - especially when she's in a drunken state.
"You wan' me to go you c'n drag me out over my COLD, DEAD FINGERS!" Gertrude shouts, which... doesn't make any sense, but she's not going to let a little thing like 'making sense' get in the way of a good shout. Oh hey, another beer!
She looks bleary-eyed at Johnny as he sits next to her, guzzling down her beer as she does. One eye is open much wider than the other as she squints at him. She feels she really ought to be able to place his face, like she's seen it somewhere before, but she can't quite put her finger on it.
Then, it hits her.
She SLAMS her beer into the table and is suddenly leaning up into Johnny's personal space. "Hey, hey hey hey, I know you, I KNOW you!" She exclaims.
"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELCH!"
Amazingly, she doesn't even miss a beat.
"Hic! You're the Ninja Mime guy! I saw you punch that dumb Langloo person right in the spungkraft. Ahahahahahaha!"
Ah, groupies.
Gotta love 'em.
Johnny takes it surprisingly in stride. A big wide grin on his face even as he gets burped at such close proximity, his only visible reaction is him wiping his shades from crumbs of cake with a handkerchief. Priorities, man.
Besides, that Gertrude is able to recognize him even in her drunken stupor is /huge/. When was the last time Cage actually had a fangirl throw herself into his arms? And no, that fight with Tia doesn't count, because her intentions were clearly more than just flinging herself at him.
"Heheh! That's right! It's Johnny Cage, baby." Cage flashes a grin and allows Gertrude to lean on him, arm casually sliding around her, though mostly for the purpose of giving her room to slide up to him.
Man, this was gonna be easy.
"You saw that one!? Pretty kickass, right? Sad part is, that's not the first time a chick gets all wet when first meeting." Hey, Gertrude is clearly drunk, Cage is going to be as much of a pig as he wants right now. This is a very rare form he's in.
"Heeey.." He lowers his shades to get a better look. "I think I've seen you too before. Didn't you fight a couple of times in the Neo League?"
"Shix, shix... six, six times, an twiche in the Saturday show. Th' one with the exploshions."
Gently, but firmly, Gertrude moves to grasp Johnny's wrist, and move his hand from her shoulder. Her beer is now forgotten, as she tries to call up her knowledge of fighters. It is her passion, her career, her very reason for living! And mostly, she's just remembering that this guy has a reputation as a bit of an asshole, but he did beat up that other awful human being, so maybe he's not so bad?
Hic.
"Ey, let me ask you something." She slurs, jabbing with her finger at Johnny's chest. Looking over her glasses, her eyes are fairly bloodshot. The fact that he's keeping up a good sense of humor would probably have been appreciated, if she weren't so utterly far gone that she doesn't even realize she's being kind of gross right now.
"How, how do y'deal with the /freaks/, Cagey? D'you get the weirdos an' the lunatics and the religigigious peoples tryin' to make you do the things for them too?" She giggles, then, and finally does just flop over into his lap.
Gertrude is almost six foot of 'generously built' German woman. She is no dainty flower, that's for sure, but Johnny's a pretty tough guy. He can probably take it, even if the stool groans with alarm. She'll try to stroke a finger over his face but... may just wind up doing more jabbing, inadvertently. "I betcha jus' kickem in th' nads, right?"
Excuse me!!?
Cage is a complete asshole, thank you very much, not just 'a bit.'
When it comes to Jay Cee, being an asshole is an art, a /way of freaking life/. His entire career has been built on him being a giant asshole. It's what makes Cage.... Cage.
Thankfully, /most/ of it is just a show for the cameras. Outside the set and the ring Johnny is kind of stuck up but not an entire abusive douche bag. He notices that Gertrude is not too keen on letting him cope a feel despite her drunken state and he offers no opposition when his hand is grabbed is pulled out of the way. Okay, that's cool, he can dig it. He'll just romance the lady the old fashioned way.
"Hm?" Johnny raises his eyebrows when Gertrude goes straight for the interview and starts asking him some questions. He's starting to remember her now that she mentioned how many times she's fought in the Neo League, some of her matches were kind of.... brutal. No wonder she's here drowning her sorrows. Particularly that one versus the Daniel guy. Talk about ouch city.
"The freaks?" He echoes her question, rubbing his chin a little. "Well--woa." The actor begins to think just as the Amazonian like lady decides to take a seat on his lap. Johnny is grinning like a fool and doesn't seem to mind one bit that this woman is a few inches taller than him, and thicker.. and probably heavier. He just moves right along with the questions.
"Freaks.. freaks.. well, there was that one boxer guy with psycho power. That one was a doozy, dude was shooting up right on stage too. Talk about weird.. never did get his name."
Another flashy grin. "But yeah, I totally just punched him right in the nads. That got him to settle down a bit." Johnny Cage's words of wisdom. Punch all your problems right in the balls. No better way to take care of them.
"Why?" Asks the movie star as he's caressed/poked on the face. "Has anyone been giving you problems, missy?"
He's side glancing to a waiter and raising two fingers. "Hey, a couple more beers over here, will ya?" Because clearly, that's what Gertrude needs. "Oh and cakes!" He can kinna smell what she's been eating too.
"I... I dunno..."
There's a heavy sigh from Gertrude, and she slumps. Right now, the last few days are a heady blur of clashing and confused impressions. "I think some people tried t'kill me, and I... there was this thing, and then I was drowning, and I was saved by this man with a shiny face."
Weirdly enough, the woman's slurring has eased off as she considers these very serious and dangerous events. Sure, the losses in the neo league had been embarrassing, but the straight up attempt to murder her, and a stark reminder of her own mortality, that - more than anything else - had driven her to the bottle.
"I jus' wanna be a good fighter, y'know? I wannna be all GERTAHRUDE, CHOP!" And to illustrate her point, she wobbles, leaning away briefly from Johnny, and perfectly executes a downwards karate chop, which smashes her empty beer bottle into a hundred pieces.
"And then th' crowd goes yaaay and screw you mom I made it on my own and I'm a success and you're just stuck in the castle being a bitch."
Hic.
She may or may not have another beer ready at this point - as she's trying to blindly grope within about a foot of where it actually is, she might not be capable of withstanding another one regardless of its availability. "D-d'you know what I mean Misthur Cage?"
Sure enough, the moment that Gertrude smashes her beer bottle she quickly has another one filled up and ready to go. Courtesy of Johnny Cage's entourage. The action star gives his assistants a thumbs up of thanks for the good looking out.
For a moment, Johnny isn't completely sure if Gertude is for realsies about people wanting to kill her. She's clearly very drunk and speaking about a man with a shiny face saving her raises all kinds of flags about her having an acid trip or something. Where Johnny a more religious man, he might say that Gertrude was having a revelation of some sort. A brush with her spirituality.
But he's not, he's Johnny Cage.
So he offers a more sensible solution.
"If someone is really trying to hurt you, you should call the cops." He's an actor, baby. He saves the world for the cameras!
"And hey, you already know that guy from Interpol. Daniel or something right? I know he's kind of a scum-bag but I'm sure he can hook you up." Dang, when Johnny Cage calls you a scum-bag its time to rethink your life.
He chugs on his beer and wiggles on his seat to get a little more comfy. Gertude is /dang/ heavy but he's not about to tell her that, or to ask her to move. Johnny is quite happy to have the big lady on his lap and clinging to him.
"Oh, totally!" Cage agrees immediately. He's heard this kind of story countless of times before. "I've been there, ya know? Back in school I was a total wimp, got my ass kicked a lot. But then I started taking martial arts and got super diligent about it. Before long I was winning tournies and getting deals from Hollywood. Then I gave the world.."
"Johnny Cage."
He pats Gertrude's waist a little and gives her his signature douche bag smile. "You just gotta keep at it, toots. Believe me, if a loser like me can make it big with just perseverance anybody can!"
Then he adds something quickly. "Except that Dan Hibiki guy. He's a total lost cause." Whoaaaaaaaa.
Gertrude grabs the gifted alcohol and slugs back some more of it, but even in her drunken state, she's astute enough to manage to pick out some useful pieces of advice from what Johnny says. Although, the idea of going to the cops actually gets a drunken giggle from her.
"I dunno. I wouldn't believe me. Weird people tried to lightning an' eat me an' then I was saved by a ... like a ... shadow ... fish ... warrior ... person?" Hic. "Shut up Gertrude you're drunk."
Cheesecake is put before the two fighters as some kind of offering; the sort that reverential worshippers might leave before the idol of their betters. Gertrude favors Johnny with a pat on the shoulder, and a chaste kiss on the cheek - she doesn't even slap him for patting her waist - but then, in her current state, it is highly debatable whether she'd even feel it.
"You're schweet." She says, with a lopsided grin, "But don't worry, I won' tell anybody."
Now, what Gertrude probably meant to do, was get up, slide her plate neatly back along the table, and resume her own seat. That would have been no problem at all under almost any other set of circumstances.
What actually happens, is that she stumbles off Johnny's lap, her hand drops her plate to the floor, and she trips over, landing face-down in the delicious sweet desert. Falling over might normally be cause for concern, too, especially when the person doesn't... get right back up.
But as soft, gentle snoring ensues, the only damage is likely to be to Gertrude's hair. And her pride, when she wakes up.
Johnny isn't entirely sure that the cops not believing her is enough reason to not actually say anything. If Gertrude is serious about being attacked, she should totally tell, crazy happenings or not. Hell, Johnny has seen some things already, what with that psycho boxer trying to blow him and everyone up and all, the cops should at least investigate a little considering these kind of things are a...well, a thing.
Then again, if she calls them while she's drunk there's no helping that. Cage is nowhere near kind enough to go an extra mile to help a stranger, he gave advice and now he's calling it a day.
Either way, all sensible train of thoughts is totally lost when Gertrude gives him a sloppy kiss right on the cheek. Johnny beams a disarmingly winning smile of a guy that just won the lottery and is going to call this one a win. Aww yeah, hot Amazon kisses for the win.
Would have been perfect too.. had Gertrude not slipped and fell face first right on a cake.
"Oh wow.." Johnny lowers his shades and lowers to flip her around so she doesn't choke on cake frosting. And she's already passed out too, so much for a fine evening with an Amazon lady.
"Wellp, there goes that idea. Check please!" No worries Gertrude, Johnny's got the check covered.
And when she wakes she also gets another present.
A signed autograph of Johnny Cage.
-To my Biggest Fan-
Log created on 18:37:43 12/27/2014 by Gertrude, and last modified on 21:01:46 12/27/2014.