Description: Quon is less than enthusiastic about assaulting Ken Masters, Cammy is in a mood for various reasons, and Naerose is a bush. Fairly normal goings on, then.
Cammy has that exciting feeling of her quarry finally perhaps being run to ground. All the more exciting is the fact that her current quarry is no less a man than Ken Masters. One of the greatest fighters in the world as an opponent and Naerose as a partner is sure to make anybody excited, even dolls.
But there are other resources to call upon as well, and besides, she's doing this all for him, too, so she may as well set up a meeting with Quon first. Well, it was originally about Quon, this is becoming an interesting investigation in its own right now, one that she's certain Lord Vega will also be interested in. So thats two people she aims to please who will hopefully soon be happy with what the busy little bee has been up to. Two birds, one stone.
The park is quite a nice place for a meeting. The doll is loitering by one of the gates - the gate, and the time, specified in an email sent to Quon, summoning him to talk about important things. The walk in the park is just a bonus.
Quon for his part has busy as well, gathering information from a far and so far he just has two names that are connected to the situation. However as many questions as it answered, there are so many more questions that it raised. What are their goals? Are the names that he has the only ones involved or are there more.
As he approaches Cammy, he has his hands in his pockets and while he seems to be getting proper amounts of sleep the expression on his face shows that the stress of his friend's situation is getting to him.
"Hey Cammy. You wanted to talk to me?"
For her part, which was not really needed to be here, Naerose decides to come anyway. Quon doesn't know her, she doesn't know Quon, so rather than making it look like an obvious trap and standing out in the opened!!! Naerose hides in the bushes, well in advance. Though bushes are so far away and they don't allow for good hearing, therefore while waiting, Naerose has busied herself gathering branches and sticking it into various places so she can look like a bush! Yes, that is if a bush was really a person, wearing red with a few bush branches going in a few directions. Also Naerose doesn't seem inclined to harm the bush, so the branches are all deadwood off the ground with leaves glued to them. Oh the things one can find in her hat. At least for the time she's crouched in the actual bushes too.
Cammy is staring at the approach Quon long before he gets within conversational range - when he's a bit closer, her features assume a look of mild concern. "Hi Quon. Are you alright? You look terrible." the doll asks guilelessly. "Yes, there is a small matter to bring up with you which is related to the investigation you wanted me to do.".
Cammy half turns, to look over at the park in all it's splendour. "And we can go for a walk together as...". The Doll peers at Naerose, with a slightly irritated look. She's not sure it really is Naerose or not, but a splash of red with a dire bush disguise, is probably the witch. She sighs softly. No peaceful and enjoyable walk for her seems likely.
"Yeah. Just life has been crazy for me right now. Been busy as all get out." It isn't a lie. In fact, it's a large part of the truth. It just isn't everything. It doesn't go into the whys. He'd rather not get into that right now. He shrugs and then he follows the doll's glance at the red clothed bush and raises an eyebrow.
He begins to wonder if that might be one of Cammy's associates however the only thing that eliminates that possibility for him is first, he's sure Shadaloo has enough in the budget for reasonable camo. Well that and he's reasonably certain they have enough in the budget for a directional mic.
Either way, the surprise is not there for him since at this point he's gotten used to the idea of Shadaloo spying on him constantly, his plans on avoiding things that are incredibly revealing about any possible subject haven't really changed.
It is one of Cammy's associates, but not one of the ones Quon is thinking about. Oh well, she's a long way away still. The doll gently nudges Quon to get him walking, so she can trot alongside as they wander down the pathway into the park proper, reaching up to undo her hood and pull it back so she can see a bit more of the place. It takes her a while to actually talk, but after a couple of dozen paces, she does.
"So, this investigation. I have an associate called Naerose, who is hiding over there pretending to be a bush right now, who knows magic. She can fly on broomsticks. She is a little touched in the head, though, or alternatively enjoys being overly cryptic and bizarre." the doll explains, while lifting a finger to one of her temples to twiddle in the circle that universally means 'nuts'. Without irony.
One who can not afford directional mics instead has bushes and realizes almost right off, she can not hear what is being said!! So she decides she needs to move closer. Slowly the bush creeps up and it's on the sidewalk now and looks nothing like a bush, rather a comical attempt at hiding, but really what adult would do that? It almost looks more like a stunt now. But for whatever reason, Naerose plays the part completely. Stops moving it someone so much glances at her and gives no indication what so ever that she might know that she's totally not fooling anyone.
"Man. That's... odd." To put it lightly. To be fair though, it's isn't as though anyone has come up with a word to accurately describe the red witch's antics. The closest anyone has gotten was meshuggener from from Yiddish but even that doesn't quite capture Naerose's crazy quite accurately enough.
"Yeah I've heard of her, part time announcer and part time participant in the fighting leagues. Interesting associate you have there, Cammy."
He continues to walk with the Zero doll as curiosity seems to get to him. "So what did you find out anyway?"
"Naerose thinks that there is some sort of organisation that is corrupting chi to use it as some sort of power siphon, in conjunction with various magically attuned locations, like Stonehenge, somehow. I am not really sure how that is supposed to work, as it's Naerose who does the magic not me, but I am familiar with technologies which can do that sort of thing - remove power from people, and channel it to some end.". Cammy knows all about things like psycho drives after all, so this sort of story is eminently believable to her.
"Naerose and I will find Ken Masters, who is the highest profile afflicted that we know of and therefore likely corrupted and observed by someone important, and question him, using force if necessary, to try and get clues. You want to come?" she asks, looking up at Naerose. Assaulting Ken Masters, it'll be fun, right?
The bush starts moving, it seems to be more or less nodding though which .. is possibly creepy. Really what do you do, what can you do, when you're having a conversation and trying to pretend there isn't someone in a bush following you around, like ten paces back. It's got to be distracting but somehow Naerose manages to continue the act, regardless of how stupid it looks and how much no one is fooled.
It's nodding? Double Yu Tee Eff, mate. A twitchy look appears on the face of Quon due to the outlandishness of the whole situation as he regards the 'bush' one last time before he's forced to consider Cammy's question. There are a whole bunch of details that need to be considered.
First, is it wise to be seen working in conjunction with the Zero Doll especially knowing that he has people watching him? Is it all that wise to be seen attacking Ken Masters? Regardless of his current condition, it was something that could put an end to his acting career before it began. Then there's travel. He was allowed to bend the rules a bit on traveling out of Southtown due to Rust acting as guardian and because of the King of Fighters. Right now, he's pretty much stuck in Southtown. At the most, he can go to Sunshine City but that's about it.
"I can't do that. Without Rust acting as my guardian, I can't leave Southtown to go after Masters. At the most I can only really do information gathering from here."
"I see." Cammy says, a little disheartened, but not all that surprised. "It would have been fun, fighting together against someone. Maybe next time." And then her nose wrinkles a bit at the mention of Rust. "I was trying to forget about Rust." she adds, voice going cold. "I wonder if he will be sufficiently persuaded that I did not steal his address book by now? It was not even Shadaloo that stole it. Judgmental. Do you like him again now?" she asks, looking askance at Quon searchingly, lips thin.
"There is no need to hide any longer, Naerose." the somewhat irritated doll calls out, not bothering to turn around. "Everybody knows its you, and Quon is quite convinced of your cryptic and surreal nature by now, I am sure.". Yeah, Rust is a bad word these days.
"Huh?" Naerose wanders over with, dropping most of the branches but one stuck in her hat, "Whats me? I just totally happened across you, oh hey Cammy and Cammy's friend. I'm Naerose Delphine. So umm, what if Ken was in southtown when we did this?" Naerose asks Quon, "Cause we could maybe arrange that, and if we did, wouldn't you want his autograph? So you'll help right?" She smiles at Quon, smiles big, cause clearly the red witch thinks she's onto something clever.
As Naerose literally drops her disguise, Quon finds himself shaking his head in disbelief that Naerose hasn't been locked up in a mental institution yet. But he keeps quiet about that mainly because he's more focused on the questions being brought forth. "I'm trying to do my own thing right now." He's avoiding the speaking terms with Rust question. While he isn't, he'd rather not have his current friendship statuses out in the open. He knows that the known friends are in danger due to his current and unwanted connection to Shadaloo.
As for joining in? "Then you have a problem with one making it the type of thing that's either going to be seen by enough people to make it inconvenient or being hard to get him alone for questioning afterwards because he's high profile. I can't really afford to have my record tarnished any more than it already /is./"
Cammy practically pouts, as much as a doll can anyway, before glancing over at Naerose, and, being already irritated, has a bit of an outburst. "Do not nag him so, Naerose, it is pointless. He doesn't want to come, that is the real reason. Quon makes many excuses, I have noticed.". Then she gives Quon a searching look. "I almost gave up on Quon, in fact... I wasn't sure if he even liked me, after all my efforts. A painful thought.", she admits. "But then he sent me an email and it was all alright again.".
Not entirely convinced by her own words, she shrugs, now dejected, the delicate illusions she maintains in her 'relationship' shattered by the red witch. "You have ruined my happy mood, Naerose.", and focuses for a bit on trudging along the path rather than talking.
"You should..." Naerose starts to say, then points a finger after the departing Cammy, "Probably go after her.. I've never seen her this way and I think it has to do with you." Wisdom from the red witch. Anyway the unspoken part is that she isn't going after Cammy, she's finding a nice park bunch, opening a bag of little mini cookies from her hat and munching on them, all the while waving poor Quon to make things better.
Quon is in an awkward situation. On one hand it gives him an out of his situation. On the other this would quite possibly fall under that whole hurting Cammy thing which as a result means he needs to act fast to salvage this situation. He knows that he still can't accompany the two on their expedition to hunt Ken nor can he participate if Ken is brought to Southtown.
He moves towards Cammy. "I just can't help you on this one. It's not that I'm scared. It's just because I don't have the resources of a huge organization behind me, I have to look at things in the long term. I'm already in trouble with the police, I'm already in trouble with your organization and I currently have way too many eyes on me. Right now, my best interests is served by attempting to lead as normal a life as I can manage and attacking Ken right now isn't going to help me or my friend."
Cammy frowns, shrugs. "It's not that, so much, that bothers me." she says distantly. "I can understand the logical reasons for you not wanting to fight Ken.". She shrugs, her outburst already in the past, the doll not given to emotional displays after all. "Never mind." she says softly, trying to put all her worries and fears to the back of her mind.
She reaches out to take hold of Quons hand for a moment, to look at it, before finally letting it go. There's a big sigh, and she stops walking, instead returning to where Naerose is eating, to just stand and wait.
Oooouch, awkward, from the third wheel to the one being used to avoid any sort of emotional conversations, now it's Naerose who just sort of wants to stomp off, well at least escape. She really isn't the stomp off type. So she munches on the cookies. Looks furtively at Quon. Jerks her head toward Cammy. Looks furtive. She's trying to give him some kind of hint, but won't say it, probably because the person she'd be talking about is STANDING RIGHT THERE! Too bad she's about as subtle as a elephant and probably her attempts to draw attention to something is noticed by everyone, but what she's trying to say? Might as well say it in english. Instead she keeps up with the head nodding.
Quon has two options. He can ask her what's bothering her or he can allow her to push it to the side. Both contain many potential pitfalls. He decides to take the first option of asking what's wrong, but before he opens his mouth she has already utters the words, 'Never mind.' That pair of words have put the fear of god into many a man because what it usually means is, 'You're in the dog house and there's not much you can do about it.' However the curious gesture of her taking his hand and looking at it is so confusing to him that he ends up putting the fact that he's in the dog house temporarily on the back burner.
The pair eventually return and Quon can easily see the witch is trying to tell him something but with him trying to maintain focus on trying to maintain balance between treating her emotions delicately and maintaining some sort of distance so that when the other shoe drops, he himself won't be emotionally damaged from the whole thing.
Quon is definitely in the doghouse, for a bit at least, but Cammy is happy to let it go, this time. She's a doll. And she's kinda faux-English as well. Reserve is what she's all about.
And everybody is all quiet now. Eventually it's uncomfortable enough, even for her, and she clears her throat. "OK, Quon will not be with us for Ken, then. And I guess that is all I really summoned you here for. Well, that and a walk in the park together." she admits. "But the walk is not so good now there are three.". Naerose is one of the least relaxing people she knows, really.
Log created on 11:05:19 03/23/2011 by Cammy, and last modified on 03:01:51 03/24/2011.