Description: Aranha calls on Wing to discuss the potential recruits for their team. The two quickly agree on Shiden and Varvara since it instantly brings their team total to four. But they also want to fill the fifth slot and possibilities aren't guaranteed due factors such as jealousy, personality conflict potential, and just not being sure whether or not they'll accept the invitation.
It starts with a text.
"We need 2 talk about KoF"
More texts are exchanged and it leads to Aranha being the one waiting in the restaurant by himself wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. His denim jacket with a fleece lining hangs off the back of his chair.
In front of him is a notebook and pencil with a few notes on people. A plate with a cheeseburger with a bite taken out of it, a plastic bowl with french fries in it, and another plastic bowl with coconut battered shrimp also sit in front of him.
After taking another bite, he picks up a pencil and continues to write in his notebook.
At the very least, Wing looks like she's been working.
'Working', of course, means seeking out powerful fighters, presumably under the impetus of the looming King of Fighters Tournament. In Wing's case, being less constructive than Aranha in general, this has meant picking fights with random hapless bystanders, most of whom collapse immediately, which Wing interprets as a charitable offering of their wallets. Systematically assaulting and robbing the general populace, the accidental consequence of all this, meant that she'd had to lay low for several weeks. Upon receiving Aranha's text, she poked her head out of the sand, and did the first most important thing: went to try and find a new outfit.
It didn't go so well.
She shows up wearing her usual Sean John hoodie and cargo pants, grinning almost somewhat abashedly -- as usual, showing a little more natural and less belligerent side of herself around her teammate -- as she steps up to the table sporting a shiny black eye, her thin upper lip cleanly split. "Hey," she says simply in greeting, actually sounding as though she's in a very good mood. (She managed to stir from unconsciousness just in time to escape the cops.) "I found some strong fighters."
She clears her throat, eyeing the shrimp.
"They were, uh... a little too strong. I mean... already in teams."
Little does she know that's actually true.
"You gonna eat all of those?"
Wing what with her black eye and split lip makes quite an entrance. It also ends up drawing raised eyebrows. Aranha just happens to be owner of one of those said eyebrows. He seems like he's about ask her a question (if she had just called Rugal Bernstein a punk bitch) but then she explains it. If he knew about the muggings, he'd frown mostly because he's trying to distance himself from that type of thing.
"You can have /some./" He knows about Wing's eating habits. While her stomach is a match for his old team mate's she at least pays for own food. Even still he wants to make it clear that he still plans on eating a majority of the shrimp. After all, that's his favorite food.
"I've been busy as well." He gestures towards his notebook. "I've found a list of possible team mates but I need to get your thoughts."
Some? That's /almost/ all, right?
"Yeah!" the petite thugette exclaims, clearly undeterred by whatever beating she must have taken the other day as she digs in. By the time Aranha has finished his last comment, she is looking up with three fried shrimp sticking out of her mouth, blinking with a blank expression. "Hmrgn hprhh fhr?"
Pause.
Chew, chew, chew.
"Phrgh--"
Pause.
Chew, chew, chew, chew.
"So, who are they!?"
She reaches out to flag a waiter down.
"Soda! And more shrimp!!"
"There were two that... HEY!!! Easy! I still want to eat those!" Yeah. Wing's eating habits leave a lot to be desired but thankfully he's seen much worse. He begins to dig into the shrimp and put a bunch on his own plate with the burger if only to make sure she doesn't eat it all.
"As I was saying there were two that are a bit of a package deal so if we take them we have enough to enter." He pauses to bite down on one of those shrimp, before continuing. "Then there were a few others that I was interested in. Also, I bumped into one of my old team mates recently."
He reaches for his french fries and then takes a bite of those as well. "We have Pullum Purna from Saudi Arabia, an agile, dance based fighter. Sorta like me only female, inexperienced, not quite as adaptable, plus our dance styles are different. She does have plenty of room to grow though. Problem is she wouldn't give us anything we don't already have in me. Plus I'm not even sure she's interested in joining up anyway."
He then turns the page in his note book. "Then we have the package deal. There's Shiden, he practices some type of kung fu. Pretty cunning and hits fairly hard. I'm pretty sure there's more to the guy than that but from what I've seen he's pretty good." He grabs a shrimp from his plate and gestures with it. "He's bringing a chick named Varvara. Some type of grappling style, she's brutal and can take punishment like nobody's business. One of her downsides is how easily manipulated she is by food."
Wing blinks, and looks up from the second plate of shrimp that has been brought, which she appears to have already almost finished. The straw for her soda is sticking out of her mouth, as well as a shrimp tail. Is she eating and drinking simultaneously?
"Easily manipulated by food!?" she manages to say, as soon as she swallows. "That's terrible!" She quickly stuffs another shrimp in her mouth, and chews noisily. "But everybody has at least one downside. Well, most people. If they seem good, we should take the package deal, I think. If they act uppity, I'll just beat them up, no problem." Plus, this Varvara girl sounds like kind of a fattie, which sounds perfectly fine to Wing.
This dancer, on the other hand...
"P-Pullum Parna, huh? I'll, uh..." Have to look up some pictures on the internet. "...have to check out her Fightpedia page, I guess." And make sure she's not too attractive.
A dancer, huh...
"Hrmm..."
Kung-fu is... kind of like dancing.
"Well, four is the minimum, but it's not a bad idea to have substitutes, right?" the Queen of the Streets adds, in a surprisingly constructive comment. It must be the shrimp. "Who was the old teammate you met, anyway?"
"Varvara? She ain't fat at all. I think she's so easily manipulated by it because she ain't getting enough." He goes for more of french fries seeing as his supply of shrimp is safe on his plate as opposed to the plastic boat that had previously contained his shrimp.
"My old team mate is Naerose Delphine. Dresses like a red witch. I know her pretty well in terms of fighting and she's damned good. But she's a bit touched in the head. Plus to be honest I don't like her all that much and she's just as easily manipulated by food as Varvara... No she isn't fat. And I seriously don't want to shell out money for her eating habits. At least with Varvara, Shiden I assume would be footing the bill for her."
"Tsk."
Wing mutters to herself a little, as though sincerely bothered by the apparently lack of obesity on her team-to-be. "That's, uh, a lot of girls, huh," she finally mumbles, before passionately stuffing another shrimp in her mouth and chewing intensely. Her brow is furrowed, possibly, though it's not likely, in thought. "Well, I don't know if we want any /crazy/ girls on our team."
She slurps loudly from her soda.
"But if she's a stronger fighter, it's just for King of Fighters, right? If she's obnoxious, I can just beat her up, and put her in her place." Wing is consistent in her solutions. "I'm the Queen of the Streets, you know."
She pauses for a moment, before grinning. That lip looks bad.
"So it's you, me, this Shiden guy who sounds tough, this fat Varvara chick, maybe Pullum Parna--" If she's not too attractive. "--and maybe this witch girl. We'd top out at that, I think. But hell, the more the have, the more likely we are to win, right? I like it. I like it!"
Wing raises a fist, clenched tightly, eyes beginning to sparkle.
"I like outnumbering my opponents!!"
That's the spirit.
"We're limited to five people. So if we take Shiden and Varvara, who isn't fat..." Ugly as sin, but not fat. "It will either have to be Pullum or..." A bit of a pause for exasperated exhalation. "Naerose."
As for that whole crazy girls thing, Aranha can't help but be amused. It takes all of Aranha's willpower to not say, 'Miss Pot, should I look up Miss Kettle's phone number for you?' In fact, he can't help but note that the two females who are on the team are crazy in his opinion and if he were to bring on Pullum, she would be only sane one around.
"There was one more fighter who had a pretty good showing. Setsuna Sonozaki. Pretty much an unknown but she seems like she's seen her fair share of a few scraps. Once again because she's a relative unknown, I don't know if she has a team or is even participating."
"Too many girls!!"
Wing shouts this so loudly that other patrons turn to stare.
"We have enough girls," she mumbles in a more subdued tone, lowering her head and stuffing the last of her shrimp into her mouth, the Queen of the Streets appearing to be on the verge of sulking. It's just your imagination! "Here's what /I/ think we should do. Let's make this Pullum girl fight this Naerose girl. Whoever is stronger gets to join our team. It's simple, and it makes sense."
Wing rattles this off with a professional tone, recovering from her moment of pouting -- no, she wasn't! -- but there's a odd sort of gleam in her eye. Of course, Aranha did mention that Pullum was inexperienced, and Naerose was strong. And if Naerose is unattractive and fat, and Pullum is the Arabian dancer, well...
"I know you have your differences with Naerose," Wing says in a serious and reasonable tone, or at least her best approximation of a serious and reasonable tone, "but if she's more powerful than our other option, we should go with her, for practical reasons. This is a tournament, after all. And it's not as though we have to fight side by side."
And certainly not for reasons of she's not cuter than Wing.
I mean, who is, though, /really./
That outburst was unexpected. But that explains a lot. It will only make things awkward when he has to tell her he's not interested in her. Even if she's legal by Japanese standards. "It's not like I've been seeking girls out specifically. I've been seeking out fighting talent. It's just that I've been fighting females more often than guys lately. Blame the execs of Neo League and Saturday Night Fights."
He takes a deep breath and then a bite into his burger. "Plus if you have a problem with the female to male ratio, we can always just stick with the four we have."
"N-Nah," Wing mutters, backpedaling immediately, hesitant and as emotionally transparent as ever. "I'm not worried about the ratio. There's no ratio problem. Ratio's not an issue."
It's more-- attractiveness ratio, if anything.
"Seriously, let's go for five. If that's the cap, we should hit it, and go all the way. Like I said, the more fighters we get, the better. I'm serious. Let's get those two girls to fight each other, if we can. If we can't, let's grab that witch girl. If she's the stronger one, we should get her."
Wing will just manipulate her with food. It'll be great.
"Heh heh."
Her /and/ that maybe-fat chick Varvara.
"Heh heh heh."
This is going to be super fun.
"A-Anyway, you have their contact information, right? Let's scoop them up. And, uh-- oh, yeah-- do you, uh, know what we're calling our team?"
She noisily drains her soda before slamming it on the table in a sudden burst of excitement, grinning as her eyes widen, offering that typically dangerous light.
"Let's go with 'The Queensguard!'"
Oh, boy.
"Oh, no, wait-- The Queen and Her Retinue!"
Are they naming a band or something?
"As a male member of this team, I must respectfully say hell no to those names. Especially being part of a team with queen in the name is not good for my or Shiden's images."
Eventually the shrimp, the fires and the burger all gone. "What we want a name that embodies each and every one of us... Annd possibly marketable just in case we stick with each other even after the tournament. I would go with 'Street Soldiers' but not a single one of our prospective fifth members embody that other than maybe Setsuna."
Aranha leans back into his chair and stretches.
"Ah ha ha..."
Wing, grinning lop-sidedly, reaches up to rub the back of her head.
"Depends on whether any of us are gainfully employed, I guess."
She leans back too, reaching down to rub her full belly in a decidedly unladylike fashion. Her shrimp and soda are thoroughly consumed.
"That Naerose is a-- witch? I wonder what kind of money she makes out of that. I'm going to do with zilch. And if this Varvara is easily manipulated by food, I expect she doesn't eat too well. I don't know about this Shiden guy, but-- I mean-- if we're all--"
She blinks, pauses, and shrugs.
"If we're all on the street, in our own way, it works."
And then, of all things, the Queen winks.
"As long as I'm co-captain, I'm good with whatever!"
Maybe they should go with Team Disaster Waiting to Happen.
"She makes zilch and gets her food by mooching. Though now you're putting the cart before the horse. Naerose isn't a guarantee anyway. Remember what I said about her being touched in the head? That might be an obstacle to recruitment anyway. I'm more inclined to see if there are other options out there anyway."
He raises an eyebrow at the rubbing of the belly and mentally notes it as yet another reason Wing isn't an attractive option to him. As for the name of the team, the wheels in his head turn and come up with two.
"Hmmm... How about 'Dark Horse' or 'The Spoilers?'"
Wing burps, though she at least covers her mouth.
"Dark Horse!?"
So there's at least a tich of lady in her.
"More like-- Wild Stallions!"
Whereupon she grins again.
"Look, the more you talk about this crazy Naerose girl, the more she interests me. You're so vague about these things, Keith." She chuckles to herself, clearly not considering that maybe he's being obscure because these are memories he'd rather not relive. "Tell you what: I'll find her and decide for myself if she's worth dealing with. Even if you don't like her much, will you accept my judgment if I think she's fit to join us?" That actually sounds like a serious comment. Indeed, her expression has actually settled into something vaguely professional. Her unrestrained demeanor aside, Wing seems pretty set on this co-captain thing. Or at least this team thing. Certainly this tournament thing. Definitely this fighting-alongside-Aranha-more thing. "Strength is all that matters to me."
That's probably still true, even after Jinchuu.
"But I'll keep my eyes open for different candidates."
She just has a slightly healthier notion of what strength really is.
"Hmmm. Dark Horse, huh... the Dark Horses... that's... not bad, really."
Log created on 21:41:49 12/16/2010 by Aranha, and last modified on 14:02:07 12/17/2010.