Description: Two different people from two entirely different backgrounds and walks of life are looking for one very specific man for once again completely different reasons. They have yet to realize this.
This man is plenty happy the school day's over with. For being his job and entire livelihood, today is... really one of those days. The children were especially insubordinate and it's never fun to have to deal with especially bratty high school kids. Especially when laying a single finger on any one of them can cost you your job and any future employment prospects in the field of education.
Southtown, in comparison, is hardly a happy place today. The air is thick with moisture, promising the coming of a cold rain in the near future. If anything, it should be an air of mourning and depression. This man, though, he's been long waiting for a chance like this - a heads up on a potential teammate for King of Fighters 2011, an associate of someone he met back home in Oregon.
The man double-checks the address to the university on the back of a notecard from doing some calls around earlier... but he can't help but feel he took down the wrong information. Taking a rest stop near some fast food joint, he scarfs down a (not at all spicy, he is so done with spicy right now) hamburger with the occasional sip of some diet soft drink on an outside table by his lonesome. His usual cohort and weapon of choice, Ol' Rusty, still hangs through a toolbelt pocket like the open public tetanus infection threat it is.
Whether it is a greater toxin than the sight of his combover remains a thing of enthusiastic debate.
Cammy is scouring Southtown yet again for the fifth day running, looking, ostensibly, for Angel. In truth she actually is looking for Angel but on day 5 motivation is flagging a bit and she's been working up a range of more personal goals to keep the boredom away while attending to Master Vega's instructions. Besides, Marz is looking for Angel too with instructions to report back to the Killer Bee when she is found, so really Cammy can do her own thing while minions do the real work.
And so Cammy has a different goal in mind today, trying to find a man whose name she doesn't even know. Why? Well, she met him in an arcade in Southtown the other day and actually had fun playing games with him, and fun is a rare find indeed for Cammy. And besides, she wants a rematch, dammit! A difficult task perhaps, finding a man whose name she doesn't even know, but she does have some experience in hunting people down - and has access a rather large criminal organisation whose resources she can, to a small degree, call upon.
And so she is scouring Southtown with two goals in mind now, clad in her heavy red cloak, and armed, with a bunch of dossiers and photographs. She knows Quon is probably at school somewhere. She knows he's something of a fighter. She managed to obtain a photo, if a bad one. And she knows the location of every schoolteacher in Southtown who has even a vague interest in the fight scene. Cue Rust!
Rust is a particular obvious mark with that hair. So he's quite early on Cammy's list, which is why right now she's barging past him at the fast food joint, half looking at the menu and the food on offer, and half looking at him. Killer dolls aren't all that subtle. "Good afternoon." she promptly offers politely enough, voice flat.
The shop teacher catches sight of that red cloak as it goes by. It's kind of funny to be wearing that much, he thinks, even though most reasonable people are wearing coats and keeping their umbrellas handy for the rain that is almost inevitably coming. He himself doesn't mind any prospective rain. Bad weather is rarely a detriment to him and whatever it is he wants to do.
The cloak remains striking. Him taking notice of this is the likely sole reason he even acknowledges that the wearer is trying to address him. He finishes swallowing the current bite of his burger before actually checking with her to see if she is trying to talk to him, maybe she's trying to address a cashier from here?
"Uhhh... hey." He greets somewhat half-heartedly, sitting up straight and rolling his left shoulder a bit to pop out some of the stiffness. The popping noise may be a little surprising or jarring, if unexpected. "Can I, uh, help you?"
No, she's definitely talking on him - blue eyes visible from under the hood, focused with great determination upon Rust, the odd glance at the menu mere cover for what is apparently the Main Event. If she didn't look so generally small and harmless it would perhaps be quite unsettling. "May be." she replies, and roots around in a voluminous cloak pocket, to draw out a photograph - of a yellow suited kung fu fighter, apparently in a video arcade, though the image looks quite grainy and blurry, it coming originally from a security camera.
"I'm looking for this man." she offers to him. "Now, I know that you are a teacher, and I know that you are the sort of man who pays attention to up and coming fighters, so I was hoping that maybe you would know what his name is.".
The man takes the blurry, grainy photo and scrutinizes it closely. His eyes squint very narrowly. He's not sure what she means by 'you're a teacher' and 'you know up and coming fighters,' those are two very odd subjects to put together. That yellow manner of dress... it's similar to Antoine's, although that sort of outfit is pretty common with Chinese martial artists.
Little does he realize that the two of them are actually looking for the same person, unable to connect the two dots between coincidental appearances as anything more than just that.
"Uhhh," he starts as he scratches the side of his head with his free hand - in this case, his right. "Can't say I've ever... uh... seen this guy before." He hands the photo back to her, shaking his head. "Doesn't go to Pacific."
"Meh.". Cammy lets out a sigh, and momentarily turns aside, before she starts rooting around in her pockets again. "Well. If you do see him, perhaps you could email me." she suggests, as she pulls out a loose collection of sheets of paper and photographs and plastic binders from that (apparently huge) pocket and spreads them out on the counter. Picking through the paper she draws out a little slip that has an anonymous email address on it, and passes it to Rust. "I think he is fairly distinctive. Don't worry, I'm not planning on doing anything bad to him when I find him. And you would have my thanks if you do this favour for me.".
Going back to her pile of papers, she sorts through them quickly, and then gives Rust a rather less friendly than earlier eye. She shifts her position a bit so one red cloaked shoulder is between papers and his eyes, and riffles through her stuff, tucking the 'Rust' piece of paper in the back, now he's been met and dealt with.
Who is this lady, anyway, the forty-year-old man wonders aloud as his eyes follow the the binder. A private investigator or some such? Either way, he's pretty sure it has little to nothing to do with him, it's just... some guy in a yellow Chinese martial arts outfit, right?
He quirks a brow when she mentions 'not planning on doing anything bad to him,' a very specific denial. "Uh... okay, sure." He reluctantly takes the anonymous e-mail piece of paper and pockets it somewhere.
Interestingly, Cammy may find an opportunity to sneak a peek at an unguarded notecard address to a college (that may or may not be in error) to a guy named 'Quon.' Chances are it's probably irrelevant, after all, the guy has never seen the person in yellow in the photo personally. What would be the odds?
Cammy is a very thorough sort of person. After all, extracting fighting data is why she's on this earth in some large measure. Those blue eyes miss nothing, and they narrow when they spy this address card. "Hmm, what is that?" she asks, and one hand shoots out faster than greased lightning to delicately pluck it from Rust, assuming he doesn't try and stop her.
She holds up the card to the light. "An address. In some college dorm." she says, and then holds it out, for Rust to reclaim. "Who is that?" she asks, curious, eyes slightly narrowed as she looks over him. "A son? A student? The address is not yours.". She half turns away from him, to quickly gather up all her stuff, and return it to a pocket.
"What's wha-- whoa!" He reaches out with a hand, knocking over his drink. Fortunately for him, his cup's got a lid on it so the nasty diet cola doesn't go spilling everywhere. "Give that back, I nee--"
Before he can add any further protest, she's already bombarding him with questions while offering the card back - which he takes post-haste with a sour look on his face to meet hers. Lady, seriously, I'm trying to eat here, his look says, what the hell are you even getting to?
"Friend of somebody or some such," he answers with irritation as he puts the card somewhere marginally safer such as... say... his pocket. His elbow makes another popping sound. "Been trying to reach him... anyway, listen, lady, I, I dunno what you're gettin' at, okay, but, I never seen that guy. Okay?"
"Okay." Cammy repeats, deadpan. She's happy to badger him some more though apparently - she's not planning on searching for Rust again, may as well make sure all leads he may offer are thoroughly exhausted, while she's here. "Thank you for being so helpful." she offers, in the same deadpan voice, though this time with a smile. The smile fades almost as soon as it appeared. "Friend of somebody. So not someone you know very well. Why are you trying to reach him?" she asks.
She pauses for a moment so he can get a word in edgeways, and looks over at the menu again. "Not very healthy food in here. I wouldn't make a habit of it." she says, making small talk, Doll style. Though she does order something, as now she's here taking up space and harassing customers it's perhaps best to placate the shopowner. A diet coke for Cammy too! One small hand wraps around it when it arrives, and she slurps noisily at the straw as she turns back to Rust, expecting answers.
Seeing his cup of diet coke spilled over, he makes sure to right it up. Nothing leaks past the cap... good, good. He has himself another sip. He's hoping that 'okay' from her part is the end of it so he can get back to eating. He raises his hand and bows his head briefly as if to say 'all right, glad to be of help, good bye, let me eat.'
Then she asks more questions. He grunts at this. She just won't give up. Why in the hell does this matter to her, he thinks. "Met a friend of his when I was, I was visiting back home... we talked, had a bit of a spar, and... just pointed back that way." He shrugs. What does she want out of him about that? Vaguely worded as it may be to the eyes of someone searching for concrete statements, to Rust, that /is/ the concrete statement.
"Yeah, I don't... I don't eat out here as much as I used to, but... burgers're still good."
"Oh, a spar.". Cammy's eyes narrow again for a moment. "With who? Maybe I have heard of them.". She slurps on diet coke again, pondering. "So this college student - you plan on sparring with him as well?" she asks. She already knows Quon is someone not very famous and someone who spars, so who knows. Small odds, but scouring the city and asking random educational professionals is needle in the haystack as it is.
"Never mind." she says, already having decided to pay this address a visit at some point. "You have been most helpful. I think that concludes my questions. You can contact me, if you come across anything else. I suppose I will leave you to your burgers now.".
The man with the incredibly bad hair is already having another bite of the burger. He makes it a point to chew very, very slowly as she asks this question about him sparring. With no idea as to the hows or whys of what this has to do with the man in her photograph (or any real inclination to say anything more since the burger is starting to cool), he only feels guilty enough for his own rudeness to answer who he was sparring with after he swallows.
"An--" She tells him to never mind. He mentally shrugs and reclines in his seat, well, okay then. He sighs out loud in relief that he may be able to actually enjoy this impromptu meal at last. "Y-Yeah, I'll do that," he's not sure if he will but he hasn't thrown away the e-mail address or anything of the sort. "Good luck with, with all that."
The two of them are a lot closer to finding this man than either of them would think, that's for sure.
Cammy nods. "Goodbye.". She glances up at his head, and offers as a farewell gift, some advice. "If I were you I'd shave it all off. It'd look much better. And then maybe you could get an eyepatch. Sagat has an eyepatch. If you looked like Sagat, I probably wouldn't walk up to you and disturb your dinner like I did.". And with a smile and a wave, the Killer Bee heads off, to kill a few hours before investigating this latest ephemeral lead.
The man passes Cammy another sour look at the mention he should shave this all off, aw, hell no, why should I shave off my perfectly healthy head full of hair (which is of course a bold-faced lie). Any verbal protest he might make is frozen in its tracks when she suggests being like Sagat.
A man of great stature and intimidation who he had the unfortunate experience of being in the exact same room with during the invasion of Justice High. Holy shit, that's not a pleasant memory there. Raizo pulled through, sure, but it was a close shave. It was a close shave indeed.
...He decides thinking about shaving makes it even worse, content to just wave Cammy off and have the rest of his diet coke in relative peace.
Log created on 07:50:45 10/27/2010 by Rust, and last modified on 10:09:50 10/27/2010.