Description: After only a few hours in jail, Tessa, ex-cop and Shield maiden comes to the rescue, but is it possible to reform the witch, or is a waste of time. Also a call to Aranha is placed, can the world afford to free this terrible snack snatcher?
o/~ Nobody knows the trouble I've eaten, noobody knows the huunngery o/~ sings the Red Witch in a cell with some seriously depressed looking thugs. Are they upset that they were captured? Or upset that they were captured and placed in a cell with Naerose, or upset that they were captured, placed in a cell with Naerose and that the woman who had the harmonica, but wasn't playing it, felt sorry for the Red Witch and agreed to let her play it while they waited for their one phone call. The answer...?
*REALLY BAD HARMONICA PLAYING*
All of the above.
It is a dingy cell, with a mix of men and women because this wasn't a prison, it was a holding jail cell. Going to the bathroom meant a guard would actually take you to a restroom. Yes they were all in the smaller courthouse style cells and usually people would be split by gender, but with the rounding up of Mad Gear there was just far to many of them and the gender ratio was such that mixing and matching had to be done. Luckily the extreme justice of the police here prevented any problems from coming up. . . until now.
For the last hour the other occupants have been begging for respite from the harmonica wielding witch. The guards however just chuckled.. and applied earplugs.
It's kind of a funny coincidence. Tessa's father used to run a precinct just like this one, and she always thought she'd end up working there. But that isn't how things worked out. Instead, she went from solider, to special forces, to throwing away her badge and joining Strolheim. Which has led her right back to another police station for some strange reason. Go figure.
And what is that 'strange reason' in particular? Well, she the subordinate of a certain ninja who keeps tabs on a lot of fighters. Most especially the female ones. The ex-policegirl happened to run across one on Naerose while Eiji was out on other business, and found it to be a somewhat interesting read. This prompted her to ask a few of her own contacts about her, and the woman's leads eventually led her to this place.
Several hours of paperwork later, Miss Gallo is stepping up to the witch's cell, waving to try and get her attention since she probably doesn't hear her calling her name over the loud disharmony of her harmonica.
No, she doesn't for the witch is wailing, WAILING her malcontent, but before we get to the song she is singing, we will get into the booking process. It was very hard.
The first thing the police did was to take her broom away, which caused a great deal of whining and fighting. One officer had to hold her while another her broom.. Then another and another, it took a bunch of them to finally pry it out of her hands while she cried and screamed and ... many of the officers involved in that took the rest of the day off. Then came the picture. They told her to remove her shades, but she refused. They took the shades from her, and she closed her eyes. Instantly. Finally after a half hour of fighting with her they gave her back her shades so they could get her picture. End result, her shades are far down her nose, but still on her face in the picture. . She has horrible hat hair. They gave her back the hat too, but only after emptying it out of everything. Finally they got her in a cell.. minus the broom. She whined constantly until someone gave her the harmonica, and then the horror began. Now to the song.
o/~ PLLLEASE Mista Jailer, can't you just let me see my broom-y. Oh plleeasse mister jailer, without it I can not sleep (it's hard to say if the word was sleep or sweep) Because mista jailer, without it myyy heart I can not keeep o/~
Tessa puts her hands on her hips as she stands there, patiently awaiting the end of the song. And if there is no end? Well, Naerose's throat was going to get dry at some point and she'd need a drink. Sure, Tessa could just go and get her broom and hold that over her head to get her attention, but given the lyrics too her song, there was a chance the moment she got her hands on it she'd fall right to sleep. And then how would the shieldmaiden talk to her?
That's why instead, when Tessa comes back the second time, she brings a couple of drinks and some snacks from the vending machine out in the lobby, and she makes a point of popping open one energy drink can whether she's going to drink it herself or not, just so Naerose will hear the distinctive sound.
The horrible sound stops, suddenly, but the witch doesn't move, instead she slowly fades into the air as if she were nothing but a afterimage of dust. That or the moment she heard the can open she instantly hopped to her feet, ran to the bars and pressed her face gainst them, holding out a hand and looking over the rims of her shades with hopeful, thirsty stare. If you're one to study Naerose you might of been told the rule about feeding her after midnight, or before midnight. Or maybe you're just willing to take a chance.
Meanwhile the other cell occupants are practically sobbing with joy, the sound has stopped, but for how long. How long indeed.
"Please pleasepleaseplease, I am so thirsty, it's like I've been in a desert and I can't find any water.. Please.."
There is totally a water fountain in the cell.
Tessa had heard, or course. But seeing some of the reason why up close and personal like this is still somewhat disturbing. "Oh, hey, it worked. Um, anyway, I'm not a cop. Name's Tessa, and I wanted to discuss something with you. I'm willing to give you this drink, and there'll be donuts in the interrogation room if you'll just come with me for a few minutes, okay?"
One of the guards starts to walk over then, fiddling with the keys, but waiting until Naerose has given her response before actually unlocking the cell.
"I am so game," The witch replies with a knowing HUGE smile and waiting by the door to the cell for it to open. She has the look of a giddy child. Now the guards, they were by this point pretty sure her broom was the source of her power, since she fought hardest to keep it and more or less gave up fighting once they took it away (except for the not opening her eyes without her shades on thing, she insisted she was blind without them). Little did they know it was the other way around. She wasn't weak without it she just refused to fight without it. But it's clear this guard at least has no fear of her doing anything at this time as she is finally given a chance at relatively more freedom.
The shieldmaiden doesn't even ask them to cuff the witch once she's released. She just keeps a tight hold on all of those snacks, and the drink can, tossing the former into the interrogation room ahead of her, and holding the door open where she'll hand the energy drink itself off to Naerose as she enters. The donuts are all already in there waiting, too, just like she said. "Come on then."
The drink is empty the moment the witch gets it. She starts drinking and finishes before she's sitting down, next to the donuts, which she helps herself to. On a side note, donuts are mostly sugar. Most people would argue that giving Naerose this kind of thing was a really really bad idea, but .. oh well.
"Hey, can I have by broom back?" She asks, pleasantly enough. There is no sign of whining in her voice anymore.
The Roman fighter shuts the door behind her as she enters and sits at the opposite side of the table. The desklamp isn't yet being shone on the witch's face, but Tess does pull it a little closer to her just in case. "Hm, I think that sort of depends on how cooperative and honest you are with me. I'm not a cop myself, but I've made some special arrangements to try and help you out. I'm not even doing it because I need you as a witness in a court case. I just don't think you deserve to be locked up."
There's a pause, before the Strolheim agent indicates the snacks from the vending machine. Chips, candy bars and the like. "I heard you were mostly arrested for trying to rob a vending machine like the one outside that sells these sorts of things. That true? And are you really with Mad Gear? You don't look like their kind, to me."
*chomp chomp chomp* "Mohfh moad gear?" Naerose eats some more chips and scratches her head, "Oh you mean Katana's peeps. No no no, that's umm.. " She stops and looks thoughtful again, behind her shades, at the ceiling and then looks back at Tessa,
"Yeah. .. ahh I think he offered me free food or something and some people who had to be my friends, so I thought, cool, and then we did a bunch of stuff and I was totally playing pool when this kid came and started smashing the place up." She looks serious, except, not really. Naerose never looks serious.
Tessa was sort of afraid that's all it took. And while this might make it seem terribly easy to get Naerose to listen to *her*, she wouldn't want to have to rely on such a tactic. That wouldn't teach her any kind of lesson, and she'd just end up getting in trouble again the next time someone evil like the Syndicate, who totally has more money than a Strolheim security officer gets paid, offered her even more food.
"I see. Well, I'm sure you realize now, that was a bad crowd for you to fall in with. You need to be a little more careful about the kind of people you let... bribe you. In any case, I don't think you're a bad person, Naerose. I'd like to help you out. But you're going to have to work with me a little. Do you think you can do that?"
"Er hold on a moment," Naerose says with the distinct impression she's being talked down to, but then realizes, she doesn't care and scarfs down another donut.
"That's Nay-row-ss." She didn't even know for sure that Tess was saying it wrong or not, she just wanted to sound a little more in control and mature, likely in the process doing the opposite.
"And I mean it wasn't .. That fella Katana, he isn't such a bad guy, I mean sure he's a little rough around the edges, but he was always nice to me and one time .." She tries to think of something he's done for her in the past.
"One time when he drove a truck into a shop he totally .." No he didn't tell them to buckle up really,
"Okay I've got nothing."
Tessa nods and crosses her arms a bit, but she doesn't even so much as flinch an eyebrow when Naerose tries to correct her pronunciation of her name. She's a pretty polite woman, even if she is being demanding.
"Well... I'm not with Metro Police, like I said. Or Interpol or whatever. I'm not even sure what happened was a big enough deal to warrant their involvement, but that's not really an issue for me. I never met Katana. You're free to think whatever you want about him. It's just that Mad Gear, always was, and always will be a street gang. A very dangerous street gang. And whether you think they endangered your life or not, they did. They have a lot of enemies. This Jiro guy that arrested you, for instance. And you did hear what happened to Katana himself, right? That could've been you."
"Ah, what happened to Katana?" Naerose asks with the childlike innocence that states, 'I have no idea what happened to Katana , but it btter not be something bad or gosh help me I will break down in tears'. that's the look anyway. Really if you had to read anything from her expression it would have to be that she doesn't get it. . at all. Now do you believe her? Should anyone? Riko once tried to claim Naerose was a very big con and people apparently fell for it often, but really can you honestly say you think Naerose is actually clever?
"Er.. wait if you're not with Metro police or internet poilce or whatever they're called. .. Or a guy named after tasty good,. Gyro wh atever.. What.. er why are you here except to bring me treats?"
Maybe it's safer to answer the other question and gloss over Katana.. Unless one wanted to make a point.
Tessa feels like there will be plenty of time to try and make points later. Possibly with the help of a strategically-placed newspaper with the Katana headline on it, so it won't be as confrontational. "I just... told you who I was. But I don't mind trying to explain a little better. I'm Tessa Gallo, and I'm a fighter like you. I used to be a policewoman, and a government agent, so I've still got some authority. Nothing like Interpol though. Basically, I don't always agree with how the police do things in certain parts of the world. I heard what happened to you, and I decided I'd like to see you reformed. You used to be pretty popular as an announcer, after all, didn't you?"
"Oh no , I'm not a fighter silly," Naerose says with a girlish laugh. Not really her style, but she does it anyway. "I am an announcer though, that is totally true and I'm not a bad person, I mean, I didn't do anything wrong! I was given that candy, I didn't break anything and I didn't steal anything, or anything like that." The witch insists. "But I'm not a fighter. . . I'm a witch!"
The shieldmaiden reaches up with a hand to scratch at one cheek. "Oh. Hmm. Well even so, you've been to a lot of fighting events, right? I'm hoping you won't mind doing a few more. If I do get you out of here, then certain things are going to be expected of me, which in turn means that some things will be expected of you. I wouldn't invade your privacy or follow you around all the time, but I'd kind of be like a parole officer to you. Basically what I want is to see you stay out of trouble, and to earn yourself a better reputation. Have you heard about the new Team League that's forming?"
"Oh yeh, Totally, Strongest! team is going to take it all, just as soon as.." The witch pushes her fingers together a little and sort of looks down, her hat flopping over a bit before she continues,
"But see.. er.. I kind of can't locate any of the other members." She shifts her weight a little then seems to realize what is being said to her.
"Wait, you can get me out of here and get me my broom back and everything and all I gotta do is join some team? I mean.. umm.. I love my team.. Li X is so cool. But.." She considers, jail or freedom?
"I'd be totally in."
Tessa nods and slides a few more snacks over to Naerose's side of the table. It's not a bribe, but more of a reward for coming this far. "I understand. I think I saw that team in a few old videos. You girls were pretty good." she remarks. But again, like the Katana thing, she doesn't mention how she thinks certain team members have probably moved on and settled down somewhere.
"That's the short version, yeah. I'm not asking you to give up on your friends, though. We'll keep a spot open in case they happen to turn up. How's that? There's still a few things we're going to have to work out, but I'm pretty good at negotiating. Either way, since we're in agreement, I'll go take care of getting you your broom."
And with that, the woman pushes her chair out a bit and moves to stand, offering her hand so they can shake on it.
Naerose reaches up, takes and shakes the hand, shakes it firmly. This was a deal she could really go with. A smile pulls at her lips, even though she was mostly already smiling the whole time. Then she leans back and resumes snacking. She does so love snacking, though as she enhances her sugar high to all new levels something occurs to her. Maybe she'll let Tessa bring her broom to her first, but either way she's going to ask,
"Err. whose team .. I mean.. you know what is this team you want me to join?"
Tessa is about halfway to the door before she just sort of offhandedly mentions she only just joined it herself the other day, and that she isn't the leader, and that she's only met with one of the members so far. "But I'll be right back with your things."
She then exits, and comes back with the item in question a few moments later, along with Naerose's release papers. "Here you go. Anyway, I'm sorry I can't really tell you much more about the team. I don't think they've even named it yet. There are two other members, so you'd be the fourth. And then there are two more spots open after that."
But Naerose has snacks and she is waiting for her freedom and her precious broom of which she refuses to fight without and now.. And now, she really ignores the offhanded remakes and when Tessa says the rest, well she has her broom right? And really the job just sounds like nothing. Random people, random team, just help them? Sure what could be easier, it will be a cake walk! No team could be serious and take things this easily. The witch smiles. Smiles big. She's well and convinced this will be easy..
"Right. I think I'm ready." She picks up her broom and tests it's length, holds it in the air as if it could suspend itself.. even her weight.
"So.. .. let me just." She busies herself with stuffing her hat with the remaining snacks.
Meanwhile outside of a dingy fighting pit in the slums of Metro City Aranha stood checking his voice mail. He had some time to kill before his flight back to Southtown and so he figured he'd put in some face time and make a little money before he headed back.
After listening to the messages, Aranha calls the prison and is patched through to the interrogation. He thought it was kind of odd that his call go there for the next recruit but what the hell... It couldn't be too bad. Most of the people he hated indirectly or directly were capable of keeping themselves out of prison even if they were the criminal types.
Aranha takes a deep breath when he finally hears someone pick-up, "Hello? Is Tessa there?"
Tessa isn't expecting a problem either. So, she hits speaker phone just after picking up and realizing who it is calling her back. "Yeah, thanks for calling back, Aranha. Pretty good timing, actually. We're just about done here."
She doesn't mention Naerose's name just yet, so it's kind of all up to her whether she chooses to speak up herself after hearing the capoeirista's voice, followed by his name...
"Aranha...?" Naerose asks and looks at the phone with mingled surprise and confusion. She couldn't be serious. Actually The Red Witch is impressed, it shows, after all, Aranha is the boss of THIS woman who is just about a second away from getting her out of jail free? After hardly a day in a cell? This is .. well impressive, but also.. She presses her lips together and maintains a smile, falling silent.
Maybe despite saying she doesn't know Aranha half the time she sees him, just maybe she actually knows how he feels about her. Maybe she will wait until she gets out of the prison before ruining it.
From his end, smile forms on his face as he speaks again. "Yeah you told me you had someone in mind to join our team." He probably wouldn't be smiling if he knew who it was.
There is a bit of eagerness to him that he does not bother to mask, after all, he just went from having team mate troubles to being able to field an entire squad. Plus there's no reason to hide it.
He tries to hold out on asking the next question but curiosity gets the better of him. "So who is this mystery team mate you have in mind?"
Tessa glances over at the witch a moment when she notices the surprise, and places her hand over the speaker for a moment. "You know him...?" she whispers. Granted, Naerose doesn't seem to look upset or anything, but even if they're not mortal enemies what if it's an old boyfriend or something? That could be totally awkward too!
The shieldmaiden stops covering the speaker soon after Aranha asks his question though, so as not to be rude. "Well uh... how about I let her introduce herself."
But instead the witch whispers back, "Huh? Yeah, I was his fight manager for a while and lets see, I used to follow him around a while, but then he got a deal with some other group, I don't remember who, some big fella with shades not as good as mine." She's totally whispering though.
"And lets say, ahh.. I might of .. er.. accidentally run over his childhood toy. I mean favorite childhood toy with my scooter one day. or something equivilant. I'm totally sorry though." She's totally whispering, Naerose doesn't seem to want Aranha to hear her talking!
Tessa is a girl with a pretty healthy tan, so you can really tell when she starts to turn a little pale. "Y- yeah. That's him." she whispers back. But for Aranha's benefit, she quickly sputters a quick. "Sorry, I think she's feeling a little shy now! Give us a sec."
From there, she rubs at the back of her head. "Well... what do you think I should say?" More whispering, of course. There's even more reason for her to keep her voice down now.
"What do I think.. " The witch, master con? scratches her jaw. She wonders many things. Is there more free food in store? Can she use her broom indoors? Will they stay at hotels with pools? That would be so awesome. Then she looks at Tessa seriously - for Naerose that is.
"Well we could .. I mean, we could.. er.. hey I used to wear a disguise.. I could do that again, or.. maybe if you explained, ahh, the whole parol officer thing? I bet Aranha would totally dig playing jailer." She whispers back. Somehow it seems as if the Red Witch is enjoying herself.
Ok... Now Aranha was getting nervous. After being treated to silence and occasional hushed tones he seemed to sense that something was wrong. Sure there was the possibility that this person was shy. But the sputtering seems to give him doubts of her words. Unfortunately, Aranha doesn't have the benefit of his eyes to truly look for tells.
But he doesn't voice his opinion, or any question that indicates any suspicion on his part. More than anything he wants to ask, 'Is there something you're hiding?' Aranha even as the second in command doesn't want show distrust in Tessa so early on in the game.
Tessa sighs a bit, but she thinks she can handle this so she sits up and moves closer to the phone, picking up the reciever and taking it off of speaker phone, at least for now. "Okay, see, here's the situation. I heard about this girl who got arrested for something really ridiculous. It should have been a fine at best, and I don't think there was even a court case for it. Some jerk from interpol just harassed her and then took her straight to jail. I didn't come here just to recruit someone for the team. I came here to help her out because I thought she was being treated unfairly. It seemed like I could kill two birds with one stone and help the team out too, so that's why I called. I've basically already arranged to be her parole officer anyway, so why not, right? But when she heard your voice she got this look on her face, and I asked her if she knew you and... I don't know, do you honestly hold a grudge against this Naerose girl?"
Hahheh, This was going to be something else. Naerose couldn't help but smile a little, why? Because she wasn't on the phone. There was no way that things were going to go well here. So the witch leans back, folds her hands behind her head and lays her broom against her arm. She has this. If things go really badly all she really needs to do is fight her way to a window and she's totally free. Well sort of. She couldn't like.. well.. she could get out of a high level window and not fall to her death.
So she snacks on a candy bar while waiting for the explosion she is SURE will be coming in just a second. She almost felt bad for Tessa.
There's a long pause on Aranha's end of the phone. In this silence Aranha's trying to figure out whether or not to hang up on Tessa. The people who were standing next to Aranha were starting to give him wide berth and then the silence is finally broken not by his voice but the sounds of wood being broken. Or to be precise, the sounds of a pallet from the close by warehouse being broken.
Then his voice can be heard but the tone seems just a razor's edge away from going from controlled to snapping, "Naerose Delphine, right?" Maybe there's another Naerose out there who can fight. (Not likely)
Tessa clears her throat, and gives a glance over toward Naerose. This isn't just to help her remember the last name from the file, putting the name with the face in the picture she saw, but because she can probably guess what she's thinking. Fight your way out, huh? The shieldmaiden has a weapon too, and she's running her fingers over its metal rim right now.
"Yeah, that's the one. The witch. She told me what happened, but you really need to just stay calm and consider this. She was your manager, right? You're being given the opportunity to have it the other way around. You can be her manager, and if she screws up at all you decide her fate. I'm being completely honest in telling you I had no idea about the situation between you two, and for things to happen this way, it probably really is meant to be. Not saying you have to accept it, but think of the chance you'd be throwing away, that's all."
The witch has to fight the grin, she fights, she fails, I mean, come on she's often called failrose. So she fails. She grins. How could she possibly not grin. It is beyond her to keep that up, it's hilarious kind of. kind of. Especially when Tessa brings up the manager thing. Naerose failed to mention, maybe in her mind of minds she forgot, that she didn't ask him to become her client. She kind of forced him.
But at the times this was just funny right and on top of that, seriously, who would predict that her fate would be on his shoulders and it wasn't like harm was done.. But yo ucan't read minds, Yeah she's thinking of fighting her way out. Both hands are on that broom, she at least doesn't plan on giving it up a second time.
Aranha takes deep breaths trying atleast keep the vocal semblance of serenity before he speaks. His body tenses and the hand not holding receiver and his lips release the words, "Manager? Is that what she's telling you? I never signed any contract for her to be my manager."
Aranha's temper is coming close to a boil and he knows it, "She was never my manager. She just followed me around saying she was my manager and attempted to take a cut from all of my fights. But did she also tell you why she was acting as my 'manager'? It was so that Blackjack bitch Elle Belmounte could keep tabs on me." He doesn't hesitate to use that organization name while on the phone with Tessa. If she had the type of pull with police to spring Naerose like that, she probably was familiar with them.
"Let's see what else Blackjack has done to me... Their second thief has attempted to rob me twice, they made life a living hell in the Jinchuu tournament, and they've kidnapped my sister." And here's where he really loses it. His voice starts from low rumble building up slowly to a roar that Naerose can probably hear from a distance. "I'd sooner beat the ever-living shit out each and everyone of those fuckin' cock-suckin pieces of shit then to work with a Blackjack member. I WILL NOT FUCKIN WORK WITH ANY OF ELLE BELMOUNTE'S LAP BITCHES!!!!!"
Log created on 15:15:47 04/22/2008 by Naerose, and last modified on 00:29:30 04/24/2008.