Description: In the wake of the events in Sunshine City, Daniel has questions for the Boxing Psychic. The Detective also has booze. This may or may not prove interesting.
Southtown. Pao Pao Cafe. 8 PM.
Table 17.
THe Pao Pao Cafe was a famous place for all fighters to dine. Run by the charismatic Richard Meyer, it was the go to place for dining, drinking, and quite often, end of tournament celebrations. People of all ages could get the right drink, the right meal. A popular hangout for even students, it was the site of a choice meeting between two rivals and allies.
Pity that one of them was already starting the party.
Daniel Jack lurks down at the table. He was going to meet his friend, Zach, to talk crap, and bury Sunshine City behind them. To get answers. To get the truth. To get... meaning and purpose.
Though at this point, purpose was fighting to stay above the table.
Zach had not even gotten here, and Daniel was drinking. Two shots of Jack, a shot of Bacardi 151. Three beers, and a lemon slice on the side. The detective was storming and stewing, bitter in his loneliness for now. Sunshine City was almost behind, outside of a few lingering questions.
But fear seized his heart for the next chapter of his life.
It might surprise Daniel to learn that Zach Glen had never had alcohol before in his live. For most of it, he wasn't even legal. He came into barely controlled power before his nineteenth birthday, and everything he'd heard and seen about the stuff led him to decide to abstain from it out of concern of what might happen.
Zach walks in, goes straight to the bar, and orders up a beer. He looks at Daniel carefully, before ordering a glass of water. He'd heard that's good for people who had been drinking. He takes the bottle and the glass over to the table, setting both down before pulling out his chair and plunking in it.
He takes a long swig, wincing at the bitter taste of the stuff before setting the bottle down.
"Where do you want me to start?"
Where to start?
Daniel Jack was drunk. He was painfully drunk. An utter wreck. Fortunately, Zach manages to make it before the detective was under the table. As Zach reaches his table, Daniel grabs the lemon slice, and begins to suck on it. Drawing away the juice, he winces from the citrus. Clearing his throat, he takes the water, and drinks.
It would help stop the hangover.
Zach was... Zach was a rival, and an ally. The detective had a history with him. A history that was more developed, with the Sunshine City fiasco. Where do start indeed? Daniel Jack provides a suggestion. "I'd say you start with a vodka on ice, and an order of the potato skins. After that, explain who the hell that woman was, and how did you know her...."
"And what is this Gaia cult."
Zach nods, and places the order. The vodka's ready, but the skins will take a moment. He considers, taking a sip of the vodka and gasping in surprise. If it wasn't apparent that Zach wasn't much of a drinker, that should cinch it for Daniel.
"Okay. Amy Johnson. Knight Templar. We met in Tibet during the King of Fighters," Zach says slowly. This is a wound that hasn't even had time to scab up, and we're already picking at it, he thinks. "We'd actually met before that, but it was during a fight. You know how that goes." Zach tries the vodka again, bracing himself this time for it.
He shakes his head a bit, stuff tastes foul. "You remember all the rioting and crazy people towards the end of the tournament?" Zach asks. "What if I'd told you that before then, they were probably all sane people?"
Naturally, the answers bring more questions.
Daniel Jack can see Zach isn't much of a drinker. He won't pressure the guy. Some people just don't drink. But as Zach explains... Daniel asks some more. "Okay. What's a Knigth Templar. Is this like... like The Da Vinci Code? Was she crazy like in Tibet? And why did you fight before. And... if it the same people, is it the Knight Templars?" Daniel Jack shakes his head. Maybe the liquor was getting to him. Growling, he orders another beer, and throws it back.
"As for the Gaia Cult..."
Daniel Jack sighs. He remembers the Amazon, Brazil. "I ran into this weird, grey guy. Was like some kind of shaman or something. Big stony guy, really in tune with nature. Kept talking about Gaia. He helped me out in attacking the Ikari Base...." Daniel Jack sighs. "I wanted some answers. If this really is the Gaia Cult... I might have come across one of the big guys already."
"And that might mean I was being played earlier than I thought."
"Charity event." Zach sets the drink down as the skins arrive. The psion takes one and bolts it down before taking a second one. "Well, as far as I can tell, the Knights Templar was a bad-ass fighting unit for the Church during the Crusades. They apparently up and disappeared in the fourteenth century." Another sip of the vodka. Another skin. Zach orders more skins.
"The Cult of Gaia was running a lot of the insanity surrounding the King of Fighters. They were trying to create a crapton of blood and suffering in order to summon a god, who would then finish off pretty much everyone." Zach scowls. "From what I'd seen of them, it was either a for-real thing, or they believed it enough that they were going to try it anyway." He takes a moment, the vodka starting to work a bit of magic. Zach's in good shape, but he's still a fairly small guy.
"Sound familiar?"
"Damn familiar."
Daniel Jack stews in his seat, finally break into the potato skins. No more liquor at this moment. He needed food. Salt. Water. "So we have a crazy group of luddites with a crazy bunch of cultists. Wonderful." The detective grumbles idly, rubbing his eyes. "So what. What else do we know about the cultists. Who are the leaders, what is the god. Details, details." Daniel asks bluntly. "And is Amy with both the cultists and templars?" The detective seemed to be disturbed about something. He was binging, obsessing over something. He was giving off troubling, troubling vibes.
As if something else was eating in him.
Zach winces. Things are getting... wobbly. He takes a sip of what he /thought/ was water until it hit his tongue. He drinks it anyway. "I think the cultists were fer real," he says after a moment. "An' I don't think they were werkin' together." Zach rubs his mouth, takes a last hit of the vodka. There's no more in the glass, and Zach stares at it for a moment.
"I think the cult's gone to ground. There was a thing right at the end of the King of Fighters. Lots of fights. Some explosions. They called the god Orochi." Zach hrms a bit, taking a skin.
"Remember what I said about the crazies?" Zach asks. "The cult was goin' 'round and..." Zach grunts, trying to find the right way to put it. "It's kinda like this," he says as he gestures at the now, sadly, empty glass. "It gets in ya, messes with yer head. 'Cept they're messing with your chi." Zach orders another vodka.
"You can get it out of ya," he says, "But it's... hard." Zach frowns. "Kinda... figured out how to help people with that." Zach leans on the table, putting his weight on his elbows. "They... got to Amy. Sometime between the time I'd fought her and Tibet."
Daniel Jack was actually taking the shot glass from Zach.
"Slow down, Zach. I don't want your dad to be breathing down my neck for making you an alky." The detective sighs. An alky like him. Daniel Jack was an alcoholic now. He realized this. He was on a downward spiral, that he couldn't break. Clutching his own bottle, he just stares at it. Why all this. Why get consumed by it. He listens, and soon, speaks.
"So that's all it is. A bunch of brainwashing jerks. Like those missing men.... but...."
Daniel Jack shakes his head.
"But it doesn't matter." Daniel growls, returning to his beer. "I am done with it. I am done with Sunshine City. I am done with the madness, the stupid. I am done with false gods, cultists." And it wasn't because Sonia had sex with him, either. "I got bigger fish. More dangerous fish to fry. But thanks about the Amy stuff. Maybe when the damn Doll is settled, I can look into her again." Daniel Jack pauses.
"Oh, I might need to mention that to you."
"Right," he says. "Wrong place, wrong time, 'm thinkin'." Zach heaves a sigh. "I just... I dunno." Zach looks a bit down. He wasn't sure about how that whole thing with Amy was SUPPOSED to go down... but he sure as heck wasn't completely happy with the end result for some reason. "Jus' wanted her to have her own head back." Zach wobbles a bit as Daniel takes the glass from him. He frowns a bit at that.
"You an' me both," Zach mutters. "Done with that city. Glad Metro won the contract." Then Daniel says those things.
The alcohol clearly must be messing with him. SURELY Daniel did not just mention Dolls with Capital Ds. Zach squints intently at the detective.
"I... This is the first time I've drank alcohol," he finally says, focusing carefully on his words, "But did you just say Dolls?"
Dolls.
Daniel Jack thinks about Marz, the mysterious shadaloo doll obsessed over him. The one he saved. "First things first. Don't drink a ton of vodka starting out. I didn't know you didn't drink THAT much. Control, scuzzy. You might vomit." Growling deeply, he braces for the second question.
"And I did say dolls."
Daniel Jack pauses, considering how to best approach it. Diesel. Juri. Marz. The ladies of Shadaloo, knocking at his door. But Daniel Jack's relationship with the Vega Girls was... trying. And very likely to get Daniel in trouble. He leans over, looking into Zach's eyes, face stony.
"Zach, what do you know about Shadaloo?"
Zach gnaws on a skin as he listens to Daniel's advice on booze. Daniel's stony look is met with a serious, if bleary one. Zach knows a fair bit about Shadaloo. Not everything, but what he knows fuels plenty of personal nightmares.
"More than I'd like," he finally says. "I know they do experiments on people. Mind control, mainly." He pauses. "When they aren't starting world wars, anyway." His mind immediately goes to Cammy White and Chiyoko.
"The thing in Korea... has me worried," he says. "Feels familiar somehow."
"Yeah, not gonna lie."
Daniel Jack throws back the beer, finishing it, before going on the remainders of the skins. "Yeah, uh, Zach? I got a a weird question. About the experiments on the people. The mind control I mean. I might.... I might know someone under the knife so to speak. I mean.... I got a feeling about stuff too. About Vega. He never... I mean, how many times has he died before?"
Daniel hopes it wasn't too obvious what he was angling.
Zach squints at Daniel again, ordering more skins. "Hell if I know," Zach finally answers. "'M not entirely sure he died in China. Ain't like he left much proof." Zach is still staring at Daniel, emerald poking out through white skin. He rubs his face, trying to work his way through... whatever it is at the edge of his mind.
"You got somethin' in mind?"
The liquor was taking over
Daniel just kept thinking. The nuclear blast that freed her mind. What she could have been before she was kidnapped. What she became. The emotions running through her. This was originally about just shooting the breeze after Sunshine City. But... Zach was a psychic. Just like her. He had to know something. He had to help. And finally, Daniel Jack breaks down.
"I got a Doll friend."
Daniel Jack just says the words. They come out easy, they come out vile. The poison that is whispered from the detective is a confession. "I have... a Shadaloo Doll that keeps following me, keeps approaching me. I don't know, Zach. They are human beings, she is.... she isn't just an assassin. I didn't think she was going to be anything else... until I met Cammy. Zach..." Daniel begins to mutter desperately.
"... Is there a way to break his mind control?"
Zach winces as Daniel lays the situation out. He thinks as he chews on another skin. There's still a lot he does not know, and the stuff he DOES know about this kind of thing leaves him a bit intimidated.
"Sort of," he finally answers. "Two hitches, though," he says, holding up two fingers. "The first is that I don' think that /I/ can help with it." Zach shakes his head. "Not strong enough to undo Vega's work." He leans back in the chair. "The second problem's actually tougher than that." Zach leans back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling.
"She's gotta want it to be broken. That thing I did with Amy. It's... it ain't like I'm just makin' it go away. I'm just lending them the strength to break themself loose." He goes silent for a bit. "It's... hard to explain."
Want it to be broken.
"Yeah. that's easy." Danny snarks bitterly. "She is brainwashed to follow Vega. Every damn conversation is her emphasizing how much she loves him, and how hard she is working to carry out her vision. Her ego is washed out, and replaced by that asshole. And he is damn close to them. I mean, now is the time to break it, before he comes back again. And you KNOW he is gonna come back. People like that just don't die." The detective stuffs down more potato skins, growing angrier and angrier.
"But..."
Daniel Jack mulls. "Marz stated that one of the reasons Cammy broke her brainwashing was because of her relationship with Quon. I dunno. Should I like... what. Be a big brother to her? I can't exactly be a boyfriend, you know." The detective growls. "And what, I still have to find something strong enough to undo it? I'm fresh out of nuclear bombs, scuzzy."
"Unless you know someone strong enough."
Zach calmly, steadily, reaches across the table to take that vodka Daniel had taken from him. He takes a swig from it without breaking eye contact with Daniel. He sets the glass down, letting Daniel work through the thing, identify the problems, come up with possible plans.
Then Daniel mentions he's out of bombs, and Zach finishes the glass. "Maybe I do," he says. The problem, he thinks, is that Vega is easily the strongest user of psycho power on the /planet/. He doesn't say that, though. It'd be rude to get a guy's hopes up and then let him down that quickly.
"Then tell me.
Daniel's words are strong, overbearing. He was standing up out of his seat now, leaning over the boxing psychic. "I need to know, Zach. I need to save her. I mean, just think of it. A kid like that, kidnapped by that thing, and made into his image. It's sick. It's actually making me sick." And not the booze, of course. "Give me a name, a location. And I am there. I have to help her, Zach."
"I'm not going to fail again."
Zach slams down the rest of the drink, setting the glass down carefully so as not to bounce the thing off the table. He looks at Daniel as steady as he can manage. The psychic looks at the detective. "Y'know," he says. "I think you mean it." He looks down at the table, sliding things aside so that he can fold his arms on it. Then he leans forward, resting his chin. This is comfortable, he thinks.
"If you can find her," Zach mumbles. "You'd be the best detective ever. But if Rose don' wanna be found... you'll never find her." Zach blinks /very/ slowly. "Most psychics... who aren't evil or crazy... they tend to stay out of sight." Zach considers for a moment. "Wonder what that makes me," he says softly before letting his eyes close.
"Dumb."
Daniel Jack says with smile. He didn't fully understand the psychic game. But Zach, despite his flaws, was in fact a great guy. "Which is a lot better than evil and crazy, don't you think?" Daniel Jack rises from his seat. keeping his footing fairly well. "Rose. I think I can find a Rose. Rose the Psychic." The detective repeats to himself. "You found me from a calling."
"Maybe I can make a calling too."
Looking off across the cafe, Daniel Jack takes a deep breath in. "I'm gonna get started on that, Zach." Taking out his wallet, he just tosses bills on the table blindly. "Thanks for everything man. I think.... I think I can take care of it from here." He couldn't take care of it from here. But as he walks away, that resolve was over him. That sleuthing dedication. He was going to find Rose.
He was going to save Marz.
Log created on 00:15:37 07/30/2012 by Zach, and last modified on 12:16:25 07/30/2012.