Em 1996, dois anos depois do lançamento oficial de Tekken, Quando a Capcom, em parceria com a ARIKA, lançou Street Fighter EX, o game de lutas estilo 3D inspirado no game de lutas da Namco, teve reações mistas. Uns gostaram, outros nem tanto. Um dos personagens mais obscuros é Cracker Jack, um ex segurança que virou guarda-costas pessoal de Blair Dame.

"Hey boss" Paloma poked her head into Jack's office, looking back at the empty shop floor to make sure no one came in before stepping into the office fully. "We had a great footfall of one customer today" she laughed sitting down on his desk. Now that Paloma didn't work full time in the store she felt like she didn't hang out with Jack much, "So," she sight picking up a pen from his desk and twisting it around, "What's up?"

Paloma was at the bar wating for her drink and turned to the floor to observe the people at the even. She soon noticed Jack in the corner of the room and without much hesitation turned back to the bartender and double her order. After getting the drinks she came up to him and smiled handing one "Ey, boss" Paloma nodded at him.

Blake had seen the list, he wasn’t going to admit it but he was excited about this trip. This things made him felt like a teenager, and he was going to grasp to them as much as he could. He looked around for King, as soon as he got off the bus. Spotting him after a few seconds. “Hey bud!” He reached up to him, half smile on his face. “I guess where kind of stuck with each other for this trip.”

He’d had to see it for himself. Once those Watchers were done poking around, when everything was misty and still and quiet again. He hadn’t asked anybody from home if they wanted to come. Didn’t expect a yes. Wouldn’t blame them, exactly. Maybe the boy hadn’t been one of theirs, maybe they didn’t care much about anybody from above the water, but… they still felt it, the wrongness of a kid dying like that. In their lake. Their home.

Which was why Ollie couldn’t stay away. Even if he wanted to, if it had made his fins curl, just being in there. A dark, dank place. He’d held out, though, searched the grotto as far as he could. Nothing much to see. Old, broken toys. Scraps of mildewed cloth. The news had called it accidental, but… that might be for the paper, who knew. Had to assume the Watch would be suspicious. Given how he’d been found, like that - wrapped in a blanket. The lake hadn’t done that on its own. Some sick kind of tenderness, or something, there. Made his stomach churn. Poor Sabine. She’d stayed home from school for days after. Hadn’t come back to swim team. Oliver hadn’t asked about that, yet. Made sense.

He hadn’t known what he was looking for, and he hadn’t found it. So. Time to head back. His head broke water, gills folding away as he took a big, deep breath. Had to time it right, or the turn could really sting. A flick of the tail, a shape-sliding step, another, and he was walking out of the shallows. Tugging his trunks on - still damp from swim practice, he’d come right from the pool - Ollie took a seat on the hanging fir he had left his stuff stacked up against and started to dry off. Or, almost did, freezing, towel in hand. Blinking water out of his eyes, heart kicking hard in his chest. Branches, breaking underfoot, had cracked through the quiet. Up the bank. Sounded like it, anyway. He turned, slowly. Who’d be out here, now? “Hey?” Oliver called over, cautiously. At nothing, maybe. Hopefully. Who’d be out here, now, applied to him just as easily. “Nice, uh... night for a walk...” 

     “Jack Sauvage?” Even within the smoky depths of l’Enfer, Bhari could recognize those handsome eyes. “Désolé-- I promise I won’t take your time,” he felt a bit foolish approaching someone like this, but Jack didn’t feel like a stranger. Not when Bhari had kept a close eye on his fellow alumni’s career. The writer doubted that the director would remember who he was, and that didn’t matter much to him. He merely wanted to give praise.

     “I only wanted to say that I am a fan of your work.” 

      Like a gentleman close to the edge of his life, Arturo frequntly found himself transfixed on the morbidness of his own mortality. For some this would seem like nothing new, but the level to which he sunk into these depths as of late was astounding. 

"It is a metaphor, yes?” Through his words the taste of wine hung on his lips. Slumped in the corner of the auteur’s apartment, he and Jack had drank themselves into a comfortable oblivion as they took in the flickering images projected onto the wall across from them. 

“The female form with the shadows? It is a metaphor,” he said again with utmost certainty. While he often thought himself to be a cultured man, with a fine taste in art and the ability to analyze it, more often that not he was driven to confusion by Jack’s works.