Description: Cammy reports back to Quon with who stole Rust's address book! But it turns out that Quon didn't really care that much all along.
A few days ago, Quon received a message on his cellphone from a Cammy that sounded pretty cross with him. Wwhen he returned the call, he found out it was from a payphone. Wait... Those still exist? Either way the message said to meet Cammy in the Clearing at this time. Quon knew he better show up but he can't help but wonder how he messed up now.
Either way, he stands in the middle of the clearing pacing back and forth and if allowed to continue for way too long, he'll probably end up wearing the grass down to dirt. He pops out his cellphone to look at the time and then he stops, tapping his feet as he waits for Cammy. The way he feels right now is not unlike a prisoner waiting for execution.
Payphones do indeed still exist, at least in the UK. Maybe Cammy called him from one of those.
The Doll has actually been here for a while, hiding in the trees beyond the clearing. More than a little annoyed. In fact she was even pondering doing something rather rash at one point, as believe it or not the placid Doll does have quite a temper when riled - she is merely difficult to rile. Probably something to do with all that evil psycho power she is carrying around inside her. But seeing Quon stalking around all paranoid and white faced does make her relent a bit. Poor Quon.
She leaps out of the tree she is hiding in, somersaulting in mid air to land nearby with a loud thump, not trying to be subtle. "Hello, Quon. I got burned by Ken-fire, and you must have known all along." she says, getting down to business right away. "I had to get a new uniform and everything. And then I finally find out that Ken was poisoned in a Neoleague match, one on TV, you must have known all along, but you let me get burned anyway.". The doll's tone is mostly rather plaintive rather than angry, but she clearly isn't very happy about being shoryukenned, let alone what happened afterwards.
He hears the tree move as Cammy leaps out and Quon immediately spins away taking fighting stance by the time she lands with the loud thump. His heart is racing and when he hears her voice as riled up as she seems to be (voice aside), he's hesitant to let the fighting stance drop but eventually he does.
He doesn't process what Cammy says immediately mainly because he's focusing on slowing his heart rate to a reasonable speed. Having your heart beating so loudly that ou can hear it in your own ears is not conducive to clarity of thought.
He finally does get his heart rate under control and that's when he finally begins to process what Cammy is saying. He raises an eyebrow. His emotional state to someone who can read them is incredibly clear. He's confused and scared. Cammy already knows his reasons for being scared but confusion doesn't reveal itself until he speaks, "Wait. You didn't get my email?"
Cammy melts a bit more, when she realises how frightened Quon apparently is - you don't really need to be psychic to see that he's terrified, even if he is doing a good job of covering it up. And she hates how he is so afraid of her! and so afraid, in general. She relaxes visibly, if only through an act of willpower, and ambles casually up to Quon. "Oh, poor Quon. Always so afraid." the doll intones flatly, a faint edge of sadness in her blank eyes. "I said I would never willingly hurt you, remember.".
As to his question, she digs around in her red cloak pocket, to bring out the savaged remains of a phone - a twisted hunk of plastic and circuitry, scorched and stamped on. "The phone did not fare as well as I did." she observes drily. "And I have only just had a chance to meet you. Life has been complicated lately. I will not tell you though unless you ask, as you are so liable to these frights of yours.".
Always so afraid? Now that fear slowly becomes into slightly indignant as his posture changes to a hand resting on his hip. As far as he's concerned, anyone reasonable would be afraid if he knew what he knew and also knew that he didn't have the experience to deal with it. But he doesn't voice those thoughts. It's not worth getting into an argument right now.
He eyes her phone for a moment and then he takes out his own, brings up the internet and goes to email service that Cammy uses before handing off the phone to her. "Check your email using my phone."
If she goes to the inbox, she'll not only see a message relating to Brihan and Carrol fighting Ken he even includes a link to an online article. With pictures.
He's quite pointedly avoiding not wanting to know what she did. He's not really in the mood for it.
Cammy does smile a little bit when Quon gets all indignant. But from her point of view, he really is just a scaredy Quon. It doesn't really matter though, it just makes him all the more adorable. Unfortunately for him.
She reaches out to take the phone off of him before poking at it briefly, and shaking her head at the message within. "I see. So it is all just bad luck, then. Enraged Ken Masters is very dangerous, you know, it really hurt. I suppose it all worked out alright in the end, though, and I gained some additional data, actually, beyond who they are, but /what/ they are, as well. I will not tell you how exactly, but I will give you the information, maybe it will be of interest. It is, after all, the answer to the question of who stole Rust's address book, which all this is about. So this investigative task is almost concluded now, I feel.".
To try and make Quon feel better, and less afraid, she tugs out one of her braids from under her coat, and reaches out with it, trying to tickle Quon with the fluffy tip. Maybe it would be playful and innocent if done by most people, but the serious faced, blank eyed, clinical Doll is probably more terrifying and vaguely creepy than reassuring.
Quon is pretty sure he knows what Cammy is /trying/ to achieve by tickling him with the blonde tip of her braids, and that's the only thing that keeps him from getting creeped out. However there is a bit of cognitive dissonance. It's like seeing Wednesday Addams hugging a cute bunny and then dancing around like a ballerina before kissing her brother Pugsley on the cheek and then skipping away. At the very least, Cammy can feel the appreciation for the attempt from him.
But he doesn't voice that discomfort choosing to talk about his reasonings behind what he had said after all, in previous conversations he did get sense that she misinterpretted the spirit of what he had said. "Have you wondered why I told you that if you thought that Rust's accusations were unfair, that you should find it and clear your name?"
Cammy persists a bit with the tickling attempt, but he doesn't really seem to be all that ticklish - and he seems more bemused than anything else, so after a while she just gives up and stashes the braid again under her coat with a slight shrug. She tried. So she makes do with a reassuring, or what she hopes is a reassuring, smile instead.
His question is a little unexpected - she raises an eyebrow, and shrugs. "No, not really." she replies, with complete apparent disinterest as to the motivation. Kinda like when the Killer Bee is unleashed upon some foes of Shadaloo, she doesn't really concern herself too much with the whys and the wherefores, she just does it. "I assumed it would be a task which, if I completed it, would make Rust and yourself happier with me. Though after the various encounters I have had with Rust in the course of the investigation I do not think I care anymore what Rust thinks.".
And thus what he believed is confirmed. "You saw things that you believed were unfair and you did something about it. You didn't need to do it for me. I already knew you were innocent. You needed to do it for yourself. After all, it was you were the one was accused here. Not me." Of course, Quon may sound hypocritical saying this. He is the one caught in an unfair situation with Shadaloo but he doesn't believe himself to be such after all, he is working to get himself out of that situation only it's a longer term thing than the task that Cammy has undertaken. Or at least that's what he believes.
He continues, "But if you weren't going to do it for yourself, you might as well have left it alone and let him continue to accuse you unfairly. At this point, I'm pretty sure he knows it wasn't you but he doesn't give a damn." He gives a shrug. "It is what it is."
Cammy tilts her head, and thinks that over for a while. And then... her forehead furrows into a frown. "You already knew??? Why did I have to get shoryukenned by Ken Masters?" she asks, plaintive again, and not liking this, or understanding it, at all. "You made me do all that... for nothing? I was doing this investigation for weeks. I got kidnapped by Geese Howard. I had to follow Zach for days, to get him to talk to me. I had to put up with Naerose's babbling.".
Wow. She takes a step back, and there's this strange feeling, like she's just been cannonspiked by Decapre, even though she hasn't. "I did not really care about it, I have done much worse things than steal an address book." she says candidly. "I only cared that you and Rust seemed to care. Though given what happened since then I don't care about Rust anymore, so the whole thing is pointless anyway I suppose, maybe bad, even, given I antagonised Rust further, except that you wanted me to do it.".
She really doesn't know what to think of this, whether she should be angry, or feeling used, or what. Eventually she just says, "I... see. I suppose maybe it was... some sort of test, I suppose. Lord Vega likes tests, too. Did I do well?".
Cammy goes through the entire litany of things she had to go through to prove her innocence, and he outright cringes in sympathy. When he originally said all of those things, he had no idea she would have to go through all of that. "Damn." That alone should say how much of a raw deal he believes has gone throuh to bring the investigation to this point. Or at least it would if one knew how rare it was for him to curse.
"I've always believed that if you thought something was unfair, you worked change it especially if you cared about it. It sounded as though you cared about the unfairness of the entire situation. And I'm sorry that you went through all that for something you didn't care about. And I'm sorry that I didn't make it clearer that I believed you."
On one hand, there's a part of him that wants to hug her. He doesn't because there's one part that's afraid that she'll pull away and there's another part that doesn't want to get close emotionally to her because he's certain the other shoe's going to drop soon. Instead, he reaches out for her shoulder and rests his hand on it.
Cammy is dogged and relentless, such is her reputation. And she's certainly proved it here, though for a rather more innocent task than normal. "It was unfair, but only insofar that it made you and Rust seem to want me to go away as a result. Well, more Rust, I suppose, but you were being quite harsh as well, I recall. I thought you really were unhappy with me.". She shrugs. "Well, if ordered to maybe I would, but I was not, and if I was then you should have been unhappy with Lord Vega, I suppose, not that it would make any difference.".
She lets out a sigh, though in truth she's not /too/ bothered because so much data useful to Shadaloo was gleaned during this mission that she's certain some good, that is to say bad, will come out of it all anyway even if it was a wild goose chase. She's just thinking about the Giant Chin and how happy he will be, in fact, when she feels Quon's hand rest upon her shoulder - now there is a pleasant surprise. Maybe Quon isn't so afraid after all. Looking up at him, she smiles. Really, at the end of the day, it looks like everybody whose opinion she cares about seems to be happy with her, and for Cammy, that is the main thing. "Mission Complete. Maybe next time you could be a little more clear with the mission parameters, but it all worked out OK in the end.".
"Now... we shall go drink soda."
Log created on 09:59:15 04/06/2011 by Cammy, and last modified on 12:19:14 04/06/2011.