Description: Metro City, home of great food people keep throwing away. Aranha continues to stress out over the particulars of things he's discovered while Naerose shares the fruits of her investigations over Varvara's phone. Varvara remains irrelevant, but at least she has chicken.
After Aranha dealt with the business he had in Southtown, speaking with the chi sage about what they both dealt with in Sunshine City and what he and Naerose dealt with at Stonehenge, the captain of the Rogue team found out he had some business to attend to in Metro City.
Plus he wanted to make a few appearances at his old stomping grounds in a few of the fight halls, make a bit of money and keep himself sharp before the next rounds are announced.
The reason he's at the mall however is the fact that he needs rest occasionally and the fact that he wanted to get his little sister a gift before he heads back to Japan.
Varvara's mostly kept to herself since that first round of King of Fighters. For those who actually hail from Metro City, it's not hard to see why just about anybody would want to stay in the land of opportunity, the land of freedom, the land of the American Dream (in its most exaggeratedly optimistic presentations, anyway).
In 1928, Herbert Hoover pledged a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. 1928 is well before Varvara's time - well before just about anyone else's time. In some ways, however, she is making good on this promise over eight decades after the fact.
Which is to say, she just pulled an entire roast chicken out of a trash can near the food court and is happily eating it on the floor, much to the horror (and sometimes amusement - some foreign tourists are snapping pictures of this) of those with far more developed etiquette and greater dignity.
Most importantly, though, it's /hers/ now. Nobody else gets to have it!!
Whatever ringtone Varvara has set. . It's going off now. That is to say, unfortunately, she has a phone call. Does she recognize the number? Is it programmed in? It's totally the red witch, Naerose Delphine. And while it rings, it's almost magick, but somehow, a text message appears, also from Naerose that reads,
"Man, you totally need to like pick up your phone!" The only logical explanation for the text and phone ringing at the same time, is either Naerose is on a network that lets you text and chat at once and she started texting right after dialing, or she sent the text - then made the call. Either way Varvara is totally being called.
Aranha has his sister Kelly's gift all picked out. A few iTunes gift cards, and a high capacity U3 thumbrdive which plans on loading with all sorts of useful games and apps before giving it to her. While he's at it, he's purchased a few gadgets for himself and a pair of new indoor soccer shoes because fighting and parkour are both rough on his foot wear
That's about the point where he sees Varvara, on the ground eating a roast chicken on the ground. Aranha's hand impacts hard with his forehead letting out a meaty smack which is soon followed by that long suffering sigh he's been making a habit of every since forming his team.
While more than anything, the Dancing Spider wants nothing more than to pretend she doesn't exist, pretend this isn't happening, he can't. Varvara is part of his team and as a result of her being so distinctively ugly, he's bound to have this get back to him and as a result it will make him look bad.
He eventually makes his approach and thats when he hears the cell phone go off.
There are many controversial things about America that the world at large do not smile upon, but for one Varvara Economou, she loves America due to one fact and one fact alone.
They throw away sooooooo much food! It doesn't matter if it tastes kind of thick and bland and unnatural and that it might kill her via heart diseases in twenty or so years, it's food! So much food.
Her ringtone goes off all of a sudden, it's some random song thing she accidentally downloaded while playing around with her cell. Something screamy black metal-y - a part of her now has to debate, on a fundamental level. Food or phone? Food or phone?
Both!
Wiping her hands off on her own clothes, she gets the cellphone out of some previously unseen pocket and flips it open with one hand while the other is stuffing food in her mouth - not having seen the text message beforehand.
"who'sh thish," she asks with her mouth full and chewing.
Her back is turned to Aranha. Being so engrossed with not only the food but whatever or whoever she's talking to, he could sneak up on her without much issue.
"Hey hey hey! Varvara, it's totally me, you know!" Hopefully she does because Naerose never bothers to say explicitly who she is. The connection is really bad though, there is a lot of static, like Naerose is calling from someplace retarded. Really retarded. Probably has only half a bar.
"Did you get my text, it's really imp- Hey, what's that sound.. Are you eating filet mignon?" How realistic is it that Naerose would know the answer to that? Chances are it was just a super dumb luck guess, oh wait, she's wrong. Nevermind.
"Oh man, that sounds really good.. Could you like.." Pause, 'I dunno, take a picture or something? I should of packed some food, this place sucks, there isn't any restaurants at all, no fast food, just like berries and they're all disgusting. I'm so totally not a camping type." Babbling. She might of forgot why she called.
Aranha's ears may be incredibly sensitive but even in the best of calling conditions, Aranha would be hard pressed to hear what's being said on the other end of the line. Aranha stays quiet for a few moments and then he taps Varvara on the shoulder.
He waits for a heartbeat before he finally breaks his silence in a tone that's snarky and sarcastic, "Hey there Varvara, is that good?"
He doesn't say anything else. First of all he's planning his approach as to what he wants to say to the grappler. Secondly he's trying not to inhale the odors that come with being around someone picking through trash.
"Hewhuh?" Varvara mumbles through her mouth, the static screeching in her ears so obnoxiously that she's really tempted to just hang it up right then and there. Besides, she's eating, too, if there's nobody to talk to then she might as well just hang it up and continue munching.
She does figure out - somehow - that it's Naerose on the line when she asks what she's eating. "Chhkn," she slurs as Naerose's voice goes in and out describing how much things suck, she wants her to... get a what or something... picture? "Why?" She asks. "'cush yerh nht ghttin' nh."
The tap on the shoulder by Aranha is enough to see her spinning up to her feet defensively, as though she were ready to beat in the first face of whoever interrupted her... seeing it's Aranha, she relaxes and sits right back down with a slow nod as she swallows the latest mouthful.
"Ya never said Metro'd have all this /food/," she says somewhat cheerily.
"Chicken?! Oh that sounds so good, I bet it's roasted chicken and it's really great, I'm like so totally jealous, huh, did you say metro? Man, I miss that place already, there was this place it was all you can eat and they really meant all you could eat, I almost stayed there all day. You should totally make Aranha take you, that guy is all about all you can eat I think." She has no idea, the static buzzes but subsides after a moment or two as she manages to get some slightly better reception.
"AWw, just a picture? Man, you're so stringy sometimes, ahh, I wonder if you can find wild roast chicken out here." Pause. "So I'm like totally in this place that is all like temply and stuff in this place called, well outside of this place called sunshine city. I totally don't recommend it, no hotels! Can you believe that? I've been like sleeping on the ground without room service or a pool." Not that she could afford such luxuries.
Aranha's face twists into pained expression of someone spontaneously developing a migraine right on the spot. This is usually an expression he reserves for when he's dealing with Naerose related stuff. If the capoeirista was privy to who is on the other end of the line, this expression would be even more pronounced. And if he could hear what Naerose was saying he'd call her on not telling the truth. He knows better than to take the witch to an all you can eat. He learned from Tessa's mistakes.
Regardless, Aranha takes a moment to mentally work himself through dealing with the pain that this is causing instead just looks like he's going to be sick. "I'll... let you.... finish."
It's a good thing Aranha isn't going to be asking Varvara for any of that, because let's face it, she's one of those kinds of people who would probably defend the last morsel of food to the death - the sad thing being, it's no exaggeration on her part. Varvara is hungry, and her muscles do not feed themselves.
"Sunshine?" Varvara asks as she contemplates the next bit of chicken skin to just rip off the bones with her bare hands. The chicken is still fairly warm, too. Why the hell did anyone throw it all the way away? "Uh, like, ya mean... in Japan."
Varvara, pieceing things together mentally. This may be something for the record books. (As is her stench, has she showered lately? Spoiler: nope.)
"The hell are ya doin' out there, ya should get down here, they... they got the nerve to throw away all this food!" She stuffs her mouth full of chicken before looking along back towards Aranha.
"Naerose is in Sunshine City or somethin'." She fought against the giant that was Abobo there, alongside possibly the very man of her dreams. Well, in so much the 'giving so much food' part goes.
"I know right?" Naerose says conversationally, "I mean, I was all happy there too, except then I left thinking that of course a city called sunshine would have at least raisins, except when I get to this temple there is totally like nothing, except these berries. Oh and the berries are bad. I keep trying them to see if maybe they just weren't ripe the last time, turns out, still not ripe. Man." She sighs and says, "So then I got bored waiting, oh right, I'm here looking for something to help that Aranha guy out, he's all worried about something and it has to do with like I dunno, bad stuff, so.. right, anyway, I was bored and there is no signal here. I had to get on the top of this crazy tall tree, I mean I can't even see the ground from up here, took forever, thought there might be fruit. Only monkies, I wonder what monkey tastes like. . " Pause. "Anyway, So Aranha is definitely right, there is like, something way in common with this place and umm.. ummm. I forget, he was on about some other place that he went to or something, hey is there more chicken down there?"
Aranha looks at Varvara then glances at the phone. "What? I told Naerose not to go there by herself! I told her to take either you or myself. If she gets herself hurt before the next round... RAH!!!" Aranha begins pacing back and forth in the midst of a team leader freak out.
The Dancing Spider doesn't know this but right now, he can empathize with the leader of the Mountain Lions about the trials and tribulations of being a team leader if not the reasons behind those trials and tribulations.
Once again Aranha can't hear what's going on on the other line so he doesn't know that there is indeed a connection between what he felt in Stonehenge and what he felt in Sunshine City.
Varvara has no problems at all with just talking while chewing, the obvious slurring aside as Naerose drones on and on and on and Varvara drones on and on. Really, if this went unchecked, Varvara and Naerose could probably converse for almost an entire day on end over the cellphone, because to Varvara cellphones are so very very neat and fun.
"No," she tells Naerose, "'cuzh idsh mhhn." And it sure is, because nobody wants to be around her - even the mall security is a little scared of this ugly mannish lady even with her short height, because let's face it, she's willing to devour almost the entirety of a roast chicken she found in the garbage. Are you going to get in the way of someone like that?
"Nahrosh shesh, uh, thosh twh thngsh hhf shmfhng in chmmn."
Varvara swallows the food as Aranha is pacing back and forth, "whatever that means--"
Varvara's attention is suddenly drawn towards some other hobo looking to get in on the meal, balling up a fist and raising it threateningly in his direction. If Aranha decides he absolutely needs to talk to Naerose, now is the best time to try and swipe it out of her grimy hand.
"Ah huh ah huh, oh is Aranha there right now? What does he say? About the common thing?" Naerose seems to be able to speak mouth full of food talk. She doesn't pause for even a second, no delay in understanding what is going on in this conversation.
"Oh right, tell him.. " She starts to consider talking through Varvara but gets distracted by food again,
"Wait a minute, are you telling me Aranha is buying you food?" She's shocked! "He totally was holding out on me then." She mutters, sounding like this is the biggest and most important discovery ever. Ever.
"Okay, I totally need to get back there, I just, drat, you know I think there is like something else he'd like to know, like.. what is the point and I feel like I might be on the beating heart of figuring out something to do with the point and I'm telling you, it's not the berries, they're really yuck. Tell him, it's not the berries, you can't eat them. I'm pretty sure he wanted to know if he could."
Varvara is not really paying a whole lot of attention to what Naerose is saying. It's like a tiny voice that goes in one ear, realizes it doesn't want to take another step further, and rushing back out, as her free hand is dedicated towards yanking the plate closer to her as if to claim her territory. This chicken is hers, hers alone! She's not sharing. The other hobo gets on his knees and starts to reach out for a piece anyway.
She makes out a phrase to put on her phone while she's on the verge of starting an incident within this very mall that poor Aranha does not really need under his belt.
"Berries sound great, bring me some," Varvara demands. "Ya touch this chicken and I'm gonna eat your shoes," she says back to that hobo.
She probably will. Aranha may have seen her munch on a sole once.
Aranha's seeing the hobo approach and he already knows how Varvara acts when she's around food and he does not need his team linked to any more chaos. It just means it attracts more of the unwanted attention and less of the wanted. It doesn't look good for him.
He knows he's about to regret what he's about to do but he's hoping that if humiliates/intimidates the hobo just enough he might be able to make the hobo reconsider starting trouble with Varvara and walk away peacefully.
He bumps into the hobo knocking him to the ground and his hat off his head and then he goes to grab the hat before 'helping' the hobo off the ground, patting him down and putting the hat back on his head pulling it down so that it covers his eyes. He then waits for the hobo
"Oh I don't recommend starting with her. First of all you're outnumbered, unarmed..." Aranha drops a switch blade, and couple more knives down to the ground behind him. "And out classed." Aranha then pulls a cord from out of his sleeve which looks like the cord that /was/ holding up the hobo's pants. They drop and the world is suddenly filled with a foul odor. "I think that if you want leave with only your dignity injured you might want to move on."
He then turns towards Varvara. "Hey could you give me the phone for a second?"
When Varvara is around food, the food is no longer around because of Varvara. That's just the way of things with the hungry, thuggish Greek Cypirot. She's sneering and otherwise looking the part of the attack dog that she's accused of being for that shady Shiden character, but then again... what else could she possibly do with her life as it is?
That's when Aranha comes to the rescue! The hobo in question is absolutely no match even for the likes of your average Southtown schoolkid fighter, and is easily pushed around. He mutters and flails his arms around when Aranha knocks him over, but there's nothing at all in his blows that could do any lasting damage - or even touch Aranha, for that matter, as he's helped up to his feet.
Lifting the hat off his head, he eyes what falls out of Aranha's dropped blades... just in time for the pants to drop.
<< DESCRIPTION OF UNDERWEAR REDACTED - THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING. PLEASE STAND BY... >>
The hobo, now long gone, leaves a Varvara whose only immediate means of thanking Aranha is in how she greedily continues to devour her prize - a brief pause when Aranha asks her to borrow the phone.
She eyes him for a bit, then the chicken, then the phone... but, in the end, slowly extends the phone towards Aranha for him to take.
"H whnt ht bck."
Meanwhile. On the other end of the phone, where hobo's do not exist, in some over grown forest somewhere, you have babbling. Much babbling. "So then Cammy was talking about something about address books and I was like, that doesn't sound like something to do with anything suspicious, you know, they guy probably misplaced it and anyway, whats her point. Well so we agreed to be all friendly, except she had no food on her, it was crazy, in fact I don't even think she had any pockets. Anyway, by that point it had been , I dunno, a little while since I tried a berry and of course I'm trying to see if they taste any better ripe. Oh what you want me to bring you some? Sure, they're really small though, I mean I wouldn't even consider eating them if there was anything better around here. Fried chicken, for instance. Do you know what that grows on? I've been looking at the trees, but no fried chicken on any of them, I mean seriously." By this point, Aranha probably has the phone.
"Awww... He forgot his knives," he says as he watches the hobo beat feet away from them. Meanwhile he reaches out for the phone that Varvara extends towards him. "Of course." And then he places the phone on his ear.
At this point though, people are now keeping their distance between the smell of upended garbage, unwashed Varvara, and the stink of pantsed hobo lingering in the area keeps prying eyes and ears at a distance leaving only themselves and Mall Security as the only ones close by and they aren't going to go much closer considering not only is Aranha there but Varvara is there as well and nothing short of a Division 8 officer is going to try anything right now.
And when he takes the phone, he hears witch babbling... The smell and this whole situation ends up giving him an even bigger headache. He needs the witch to focus. And he needs to find out whether the two sites had anything in common before he goes into a 'what were you thinking rant.' "What was going on over there? Did the temple and Stonehenge have anything in common as far as energy in the area?"
That doesn't sound like Aranha, so Naerose is all like, huh? But then she just speaks as if it was expected, "Didn't she say? I just told Varvara, umm, yeah, they're like almost the same. But I'm not sure whats er, let me think, if .. it's going to happen latter, or sooner.. Who knows, but yea, so I'm hanging around to see if anything changes, and I'm totally not here to see if the berries get ripe or anything. Yep, same sort of place though, yep." She hums for a moment and then states,
"So yeah, same sort of place and I'll probably leave soon, cause I'm pretty hungry, I dunno, maybe a few more days. And this totally has nothing to do with just not having any reliable way to get out of here. aha, ahahahahahahahahah!" She laughs into the phone, totally not covering up having overlooked the whole notion of 'round trip'.
Now that he got what he needed from the conversation. "What were you thinking going there by yourself? I told you to bring either me or Varvara there so that you wouldn't be there alone! That could've messed with your body and made you sick."
Aranha takes a breath and this proves to be a mistake what with the foulness in the area. He ends up looking like he's a hair away from throwing up. He manages to hold it together long enough to say, "What? No way to get back?"
He puts the cellphone on mute while he swears he's not having any of these people on his team again regardless of how far they go in the tournament.
There apparently is listening to the Aranha speak, but after a moment Naerose interrupts, "Wait, make me sick? Is that even possible?" She sounds a if she honestly has doubts about that.
"Anyway, just wanted to let you know what I heard, oh wait what else. Something about.. " She pauses, seems to think for a while, "Rust.. I mean a person? I never heard of them, but they .. lost an address book and someone else cares about that and who else was it.. An.. Anthiny? Andy? Antonment.. Right, someone like that went missing and it is thought by someone that this is somehow related to .. weird things. I wonder if I can eat that. " Pause. " Yeuck." She spits something out audibly.
Aranha finally takes the phone off mute so he can talk to the witch again. "The person I was originally in the place with reacted badly to being in that area to the point of being almost sick. He might've had bad reaction to the 'wrongness' over there but either way I told you to take someone with you so if it had that effect on you, you had someone who get you out of there fast. I told you that!" He pauses to mutter, "Why do I even bother? She never listens to me anyway."
He takes a moment to listen to this information about Rust and he files it for later. But he looks at Varvara, on the ground eating, "I'm giving the phone back to Varvara." He hands the phone off to Varvara and heads off. He can't really say what he wants to say to the thug right now. He's going to have to wait until it's not only more private, but also when he's not feeling the effects of a Naerose migraine.
By the time Aranha feels like handing the phone off, Varvara just thrusts one of her disgusting hands up at the thing and yanks it right back possessively. That short amount of time spanned the length of her gratitude for Aranha's assistance, anyway.
"Wht's hh hllng hbht?" She says with her mouth full, yet again.
Annnd Naerose is passed back, she was in the middle of saying something about a 'weird place,' but gets cut off and is back to Varvara,
"I dunno, Aranha is on about places being weird or evil, I keep trying to tell him that they're just ahh, charged." Pause, one could almost imagine her shrugging, "Aranha is weird, you know? He's on about stuff and this and that and kind of hard for me to follow sometimes, but I think this whole thing means something to him, I dunno what, figured I'd help him out or something. Hey, I totally saw your first go in that king of fighters thing, it looked ah, painful, but I was all totally wondering, who is that Shiden guy anyway?"
"Wht'sh hsh dhl hnywhh." She mutters with her mouth full until she up and swallows again, thankfully restoring her to something involving clarity that Naerose has aptly demonstrated that she doesn't need, while Varvara's crusty fingernails look to scratch off a little more meat off of some bones. Maybe she'll just actually /eat/ one of the bones.
How does she still have her teeth?
"He pays me 'n I beat people up," she responds bluntly to the query about her and Shiden, "'n sometimes he goes and gives me money in advance."
Oh, that was a simple answer and Naerose can't really argue with that. "Oh, well, I guess that makes sense, but, you know he's kind of mean, right?" She pauses a moment then continues, "But I guess that isn't really important then if he's all paying you and stuff." She sighs, it isn't like she could offer Varvara more than Shiden, it isn't like Naerose could offer her much of anything at all. Except berries. Unfortunately she will probably just do those for free, being a pushover when it comes to berries that she has as of yet, failed to find any actual way of eating.
"Dang, my battery is so totally going to die at this rate. I should go here in a minute." The red witch says as the static level rises a little.
It is a sort of sad thing to see the Shiden and Varvara dynamic - a cruel man and a dim-witted flunky of little to no worth in any meaningful way outside of beating people up... and even then, King of Fighters has shown in round one that perhaps even she can't really compare in that regard.
Even if the team technically won. If it weighs on her mind at all, it doesn't show. After all, she's eating roast chicken from the trash and is somehow looking forward to Naerose's gift of berries.
"Why wouldn't he be? We both beat people up," she comments about Shiden being mean, "that ain't a job to be nice." He keeps paying her, she keeps beating people up, she gets the money for her own ends - one of which Naerose got to see for herself personally during the holiday season.
"Why can't they just go forever," Varvara muses out loud, "do they even make 'em with things that go forever, I hear they make flashlights that do, so, y'know, why not cellphones?"
"You mean like the flashlights you shake and they don't lose power.. or something." Naerose has totally heard about those and then says, "Hang on, I wonder if my cell phone does that. It has all sorts of neat features, you know a while back I learned it could be recharged. For a while I just figured when the battery died that was it, and then let me see, oh they can take calls!" Apparently hardly anyone calls Naerose, "Okay, going to shake now."
-Call Lost-
Log created on 12:41:21 03/02/2011 by Varvara, and last modified on 17:38:04 03/02/2011.