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Solomon Lau Hong Kong is not just one, but multiple islands. The New Territories, Kowloon, and Hong Kong Island. From any of these islands, you can see Hong Kong's sprawling skyscrapers reach into the sky, even if it's just from across the harbor.

On Kowloon, in the Kwun Tong district, is a meat packing warehouse. This warehouse, unknown to most, belongs to the Locust Boys, a gang under the Green Dragon Triad. Packed in with several other warehouses, the noise of work and production filling the air, it'd normally be difficult to get in there...unless you were with the Locust Boys.

Today's an off-day for business, but the boss is supposed to be in later tonight - Uncle Tim Leung, better known as just 'Uncle'. It's the perfect time to talk to him and try and convince him to turn himself in, and let Solomon live.

Those coming with Solomon have an easy way in - he opens the side door with his key, and moves on in. It's quiet. And it's cold. And it definitely lives up to its name as a meat packing warehouse. The scent of blood and meat fills the nose quickly, but there's no blood visible - it's pretty clean, white tiled walls, drains in the floors with barely any stains, leaving a faint antiseptic scent, and a lack of automation. It seems like it's been running the same way for decades, Hooks hang from the ceiling, bare of meat, and saws and knives are left behind on tables for when the work day starts up again. Shelves and wheeled trays litter the floor.

A staircase leads to the office on the upper floor, a large room which has shuttered windows.

For those not coming in with Solomon, there's trying to slip through the side door, trying to find a way in through the big truck doors, or the windows high up near the roof, of which there's only a few.

Solomon exhales, looking up to the office. "The boss should be in by now. If he doesn't surrender, then...we do what Paladins do." An arrest isn't pleasing to him. But, they might have to. It might be the only way to save Uncle.

Solomon ascends the stairs. He moves to the office, and knocks twice. The door is unlocked. He turns it, and moves inside.

The office is as old as the factory, in aesthetics. An old wired phone hooked to a tape recording for an answering machine. A leather chair, turned backwards. Movie posters from the 80s hanged up on the wall.

"Uncle, you here?"

A man steps in from the corner. The chair swivels, revealing a young man in his 20s - certainly not the boss. These are Grasshopper Law and Dynamite Sheng, respectively people who've been at Uncle's side for years. Sheng speaks up from the chair, caressing a submachine gun.

"You made a mistake, Lau boy. Thinking you'd get a chance to talk to the boss and tell him about, what it's you're gonna do, walk or something? You know the rules. No one walks. And the boss shouldn't have to see your sorry face plead to him. So we'll clean up for him."

Law has a machete. As Sheng smiles a crazed grin, Law comes from behind, moving to intimidate the first person he gets a chance on and grab them, but not attacking yet, while Sheng speaks up loud. "Boys, come on out! Sorry, Lau, but I know your reputation. Doesn't matter how many friends you bring. You die tonight!"

Doors start opening downstairs. It's going to be crowded soon.
Shigure     Probably one of the least intimidating members of the Fifth Strike Fleet accompanies Solomon through the district. She's an unassuming brunette, long brown hair cascading down her back, and springing up into an absurde ahoge that bobs and wiggles as she moves, somehow defying the laws of physics to stay in its weird, jagged upward point. She's not wearing her rigging, and her outfit wouldn't look out of place on a middle schooler in japan, a white sailor uniform with teal green accents. A pair of shorts, and some fairly heavy looking boots round out her look.

    "If it comes to that, we have your back, kuma." she says to Solomon, before bracing as the door opens... and reveals a pair of heavies instead of the boss. When Law comes striding up, the relatively short woman squares up to him with her chest puffed out and her hands bent into claws, ready to just grapple with him as he goes to grab at her. "Don't underestimate me, kuma!" she bellows, leaping onto Law and attempting to wrestle him to the ground... she's surprisingly strong for her size.
Tina Natsumi When Solomon Lau called for assistance with his uncle, he was probably expecting general competence and discretion. He probably wasn't expecting someone in a suit and a cowboy hat, but... Well.

Tina felt like the suit would help her look cooler today. The shades certainly help, but they do make seeing indoors a smidge difficult. She has her trusty phone in her jacket's breast pocket, of course, the camera peeking out from the top while she semi-subtly murmurs into it.

"Howdy, folks. It's ya girl, FreedomWithFries, and we're gonna talk to a mob boss." She sounds nervous, but the excitement is hard to hide even as she stage-whispers into the lapel microphone. Straightening up when Solomon speaks up, Tina gives him a thumbs up and a broad grin while making sure the camera is facing him properly, and she moves somewhat stiffly so as to not rely on the phone camera's stabilization too much. She'll let it compensate for the firefight later if things don't go well.

Of course it's not going to go well. It's good, compelling stuff, of course, as she shuffles off to the side to get a nice three-quarters shot of Lau and the men stepping forward to confront them. The faux-cowgirl sighs, drawing her revolver and tipping her hat back with the barrel.

"We coulda done this easy way, fellas. But if y'all're dead set on doin' it the hard way, then it's time to uphold..." She lowers the revolver, draws her phone, and snaps a selfie. "AMERICAN! JUSTICE!" Uncle Sam explodes into existence behind her, possibly grazing the ceiling with his head as he brandishes a sonic cannon and blasts a concentrated wave of air horn noises at Sheng!
Penelope Vasquez     Above the Paladins, on the roof of the warehouse, they are being watched. There's a woman up there, in a full-body trenchcoat, dark as pitch. Her eyes are covered by wide insect-like goggles, zooming in and creepin' on the congregation below as they progress towards the office. One Penelope Vasquez has been in Lau's position before; struggling to break out of a corrupt organization, as best as one can. It would be inexcusable not to provide the help she'd wish she'd had. So she remains, stalking and spying, up above. She watches the Paladins tromp into the office, and waits. She doesn't quite know his plans, but surely this can't go well, right?

     It doesn't. Of course not. Mob goons start streaming in into the warehouse below her- she steels herself, draws her blade from somewhere in her coat- a long, thick, hooked thing- and kicks in the window she's standing on.

     She SHATTERS through the skylight window, and resists the urge to scream a one-liner as she plunges towards the ground below. She's aiming to bisect a hapless goon on her way down to soften her landing! As she settles, she spins with a flourish towards the base of the stairs, and growls like a pitbull. The nodule-spiked collar around her neck contributes to the image. She doesn't know how to speak much of the local language, but surely that's clear enough.
Lilian Rook     Considering all the words Lilian had to say hearing about Lau and his situation last night, she'd be remiss to not make sure of having it that way in person. That, and, more importantly, she'd heard of the Jade Wheel Society in that amount of time, and is considerably more interested in what she expects from the secret society than a petty gang struggle. Essentially, following Lau in, not even he'd get the idea that she's there to help him out. She acknowledges his existence only in as far as keeping track of where he is and the relative ease with which someone else could shoot him. He needs to still be alive to track down the secret part of said Society, and that's about all the warmth she spares for him.

    Of course, even in the criminal underworld, that kind of feeling isn't all that familiar or reassuring coming from her. For one, she seems a little bit young to possess that kind of coldness to almost palpably radiate; it's not so egregious as to come off as a kid or highschooler like Kuma or Tina, but the mismatch in 'early university' look and 'jaded ice queen CEO' air is kind of real. Before going, she'd deliberated whether to try and dress for the occasion beforehand, going through a selection of fashionable clothing that would have been called 'Oriental' not that long ago, and then eventually decided that it isn't worth the effort.

    She has expectations of what's going to happen to Lau's boss, worn naked on her sleeve by arriving in her second year proviso tactical gear. It's not that much different from the basic carbon bodysuit, insert, and hardpoint ensemble before, save for visible glassy linework drawn over the exterior, in difficult to see etches and whirls. She'd gone only as far as not slapping on a pile of guns and ammo, just because that'd come off as enough intimidation that she wouldn't *quite* feel it a fair chance for someone to *not* shoot on sight. It's just an obvious handgun, and the slightly incongruous long sword strapped over her back. Neither are quite turf war getouts.

    It doesn't begin to help masking the stride of someone who doesn't belong here. Someone committed neither to the veneer of normalcy, nor to keeping their head down, nor to swagging it up for face. Brisk. Purposeful. Almost businesslike. Advertising intrusion. Her only words on the way there are taking a look around at the inside packing facility, wrinkling her nose, and saying "At least it's sort of clean.", and when they actually get to the office, and she sees she's being followed by a girl in a sailor fuku and someone whipping out their phone to stream, a rhetorical "Is this a circus?"

    When the men in the room are obviously armed and deranged, posturing and signaling 'enforcer' and not 'boss', Lilian, perversely, drops about half her tension and attitude. Instead of seeming put off or irritated by being jumped, she immediately figures out it must have been their idea, and sighs a sigh that conveys 'oh, it's just you'.

    "Judging by the looks of things, neither of you are Tim Leung, yes? That's a shame, since we had business with him, and more importantly, not you." she replies, reflexively reaching to flip her hair back for a second, though she's already tied it up. "Well, by 'we' I mean 'I'. You'll learn quickly that it's all that really matters, though. Since I don't really care what happens to you two, whoever you are-" In a split second motion, Lilian snatches the handgun from her waist and fires twice into both of Sheng's legs, barely waiting for the bang to stop echoing. "-get on your knees and beg. Grovel and squirm and beg me to take you in alive. I might overlook you scum wasting my time like this if you kiss my boots."
Solomon Lau Solomon's a killer. He can get Lilian's purpose for being there immediately, and it concerns him, but he doesn't show it. He's in business mode, and his face is hard as steel. But, things go poorly.

Everyone moves at once. The goons downstairs are moving in from fridges and backrooms, twelve of them, with two guys in suits to lead the 'mooks'. Those unarmed grab knives from the tables, while others draw guns, primarily the men in suits. However, as the fighting starts, the 'heroes' get the drop.

Grasshopper Law comes at Kuma. Kuma manages to grapple him first - he doesn't expect much because she's a small girl, but she manages to grab him and do some damage to him, holding him for a moment. He breaks off, takes that machete, and moves to charge Kuma through the window and down to the slaughterhouse below, hoping to use her as a cushion to survive the fall, trying to stab into her in the process.

Downstairs, one of the two men in suits, plus two of the goons, come at Penelope, who bisected one of their buddies. Bullets are fired at her torso, as knives go slashing at her side as the man in the suit, Lucky Shu, shouts out. "It's a police raid! Lau went snitch!"

The other man tries to shoot through the shattered window, Sweet Rusty Cheng, trying to take out Solomon. For Solomon's sake, he rolls out of the side, the bullet hitting the table, and the gunman leaps out the window, drawing a pistol and firing in exchange in midair.

Tina summons her Persona. Dynamite Sheng's eyes widen, as he shouts "Fucking portal people!" And then he gets blasted with a sonic wave. It nearly knocks him out of the chair, causing him to sprawl backwards, when Lilian fires two shots into his knees and disables him. "Agh!"

But he's not down. Lilian's words tell him she's a cop, and a bad cop, who's going to kill him. He's a proud gangster. He has to kill her first.

"You're just gonna kill me anyways, pig! I know you cops, you don't take no goddamn prisoners when you're dressed like that!" Wheeling the chair backwards, the submachine gun is levelled at Lilian and fired, before being swept to the side to fire into Tina's giant robot as well. The bulk of the bullets are aimed at Lilian, though, Sheng taking a lot of issue with her attitude.

The rest of the goons prepare to start storming up stairs, if they get a chance. The office is too narrow - those inside may want to move out into the slaughterhouse proper.
Shigure     Kuma loses her grip on Law. She gets tackled out of the window, and manages to curl herself around so she lands beside Law, instead of under hip. The knife finds little purchase on the girl's body. Scratching across skin like it were metal plate, drawing a black ichor-like fluid and leaving jagged black marks instead of slicing flesh and drawing blood.

    Kuma rolls away, coils herself around and does a neat little twirl on her hands before landing on her feet, bringing her hands up in that claw-like posture again. "You're pretty good, kuma. But Kuma is better, kuma!" she crows, darting in and using a combination of 'claw strikes' and clenching her fists to slam into Law's body, using a hybrid martial arts style.
Tina Natsumi People start coming in all at once, and Tina has to struggle a bit to keep her cool as she jerks a thumb up at Penelope and another over at Lilian. "See? Toldja it'd be easier if you did it the easy way." She cracks a grin, but it's a shaky one when Lilian gets a little creepy about it. "Hey, ain't we supposed to be the good guys here?" She stage-whispers to Lilian even as she levels her revolver at Sheng.

She's not above shooting a man when he's down, but the fact that he is indeed a man and not some kind of weird monster or robot holds her back just long enough that he's able to fire his SMG at her. Thankfully, Uncle Sam catches most of the shots, and his reinforced body keeps the reflected damage to Tina to a minimum aside from a few bloody nicks and gashes cutting across her arm.

"Still, you guys really got a nice setup here. Any chance a portal gal can get a discount if I ask nice?" Tina cracks another grin as she uses Uncle Sam as cover against Sheng while turning to the goons coming up the stairs. She fires off all six shots at the frontmost goons' legs to try and bring them down, fully aiming to turn the stairs into a major tripping hazard for anyone coming up!

Uncle Sam, meanwhile, hunches over Tina to keep her covered as it sweeps the sound cannon across the stairs to help control the incoming crowds!
Penelope Vasquez     Penelope's eyes widen in surprise as the mobsters draw and fire- aren't there rules about guns in China?!

     Oh, wait, yeah, duh. Criminals. She'd do the same thing, honestly. Or maybe she's thinking of Japan again. Honestly, though, this isn't the time for deep contemplative thought about local firearm restriction, considering there are bullets midair between her and her targets. She should do something about that. So she does.

     One of the little white nodules of liquid around her neck drains with a pneumatic hiss, the stimulant pushing into her bloodstream and making her pupils dilate. Her arm snaps up, half-bidden, half automatic- and the blade in her hand blocks one bullet, then another and another, twitching and swerving as the lead rebounds into the rest of the factory. She screeches like a banshie as the knife drags slams into her- the coat she's wearing prevents the tip from sinking into skin, but it's still enough force to leave a bruise tomorrow.

     She kicks off of the staircase in a linebacker tackle, trying to knock Lucky Shu off his feet- and into a nearby meathook, if possible! Whether the man gets a sudden gut full of spike or not, she rolls from the shoulder-check to her feet, her back to Kuma as she engages Law in some CQC. Her hand darts into her coat again, and pulls out... an industrial aproximation of a gun. It vibrates, then coughs again and again as metallic shards are sent ripping into the crowd, warding them away from helping their boss in his fight! And hurting them, obviously. It's like high-velocity steel splinters.
Lilian Rook     "Ahahaha! Ahahaha! Oh you poor *idiots!*" Lilian laughs. She keeps laughing when the guns start going off, and doesn't stop. Even when Sheng squeezes the trigger on his SMG, she seems to find something about it completely hilarious. Unnaturally so. Even when the roar of automatic gunfire drowns her out, there's a smile. It's not a fun one. Twenty odd bullets are fired at her nearly point blank in the enclosed space of an 80s warehouse office, and in exactly the situation and environment any self-respecting and competent hero should dive behind a desk guns blazing, Lilian raises her arms and-

                -----[stop]-----
    She takes a few moments to let the giggles ride out. Given that the trap here was sprung by the musclehead enforcers on their own intiative, rather than planned by a triad boss, and unprepared for 'portal people' to boot, Lilian assumes she won't need to budget herself for many surprises.

    Once she's done laughing out the remaining novelty of that revelation, she takes a look at Kuma and Law paused mid-fall, wrestling each other with a knife between them on Kuma, surrounded by a constellation of broken glass. She decides that isn't her problem. She glances to Tina, flecks of blood jumping from her spontaneous nicks and cuts yet to fully break from her skin, and decides she's probably fine as well. Solomon himself seems more than prepared for this eventuality, so she turns to the hail of bullets hanging in front of her, patiently sitting at the head of their rippled supersonic wakes, and brushes her hand back and forth through them several times, slapping the slugs aside to the left and right instead of touching their forward inertia.

                -----[start]-----

    -advances through the hail of fire without a scratch. Bullet holes tear through the carpet and perforate the walls all around her, but Sheng mysteriously misses with every single one of them, which go ricocheting off into the background. Not taking it especially slow, she closes in on Sheng while his gun is dry and his legs are shot out, swinging up a kick straight to his solar plexus from below that'll probably break several ribs if he takes it badly. Without putting her foot down, she snaps a second kick out to his gun hand to smash it against the wall and break his wrist.

    "You'll *wish* I were a mere 'cop'. But you didn't think to check did you? I'm so far above your police you could scarcely comprehend it, but you decided you'd treat me like some badge-wearing donut eater, and this is what you get for your idiocy." Notably, she doesn't actually put the gun on him in a way that'd guarantee he'd get shot if he moved, as a means of subduing him. "Or is this your attempt at suicide by cop once you knew you'd been ratted out? You realize that only works on police trained to fear for their own lives from your kind, right? Sorry, but you don't get to go out in some heroic underworld Alamo. I told you to beg. I didn't say you'd get to die right here and now if you didn't."
Lilian Rook     Provided Sheng hasn't done something ridiculous, or something that'd get Tina to stop hesitating and pop him, Lilian leans in real close, still in the Tarantino shot. "I haven't gotten to kill someone before. Not directly, anyways. I have real reservations about letting you have my first time, so let's try again. You give up and cooperate, we take you away, and the system will figure you out, or, you don't, I break every bone in your body, we take you away anyway, and the system has its way with you until you tell us everything you could have gotten a deal from by divulging voluntarily. Which is it going to be? Just remember, no matter what, I won't let you go out like a hero."

    Paying some absolute barebones attention to the fact there is a raging gunfight downstairs and continuing to beat on just one of the enforcers probably isn't helping swing the fight at all, Lilian twists the fingers of one hand together, wreathing them in red and black flame. She snaps, sparks fly, and a controlled section of the packing room floor explodes into a midnight pyre.

    It probably doesn't consume anyone directly, since she'd essentially aimed at an arbitrary middle space where lots of cover would be, but the blast wave is considerable enough to uproot tables and conveyors and throw them around indiscriminately in a wind of carbonized meat shredded from its hooks. Unlucky mooks standing too close would probably get third degree burns, glowing an angry red.
Solomon Lau Law hits the ground with a thud, instead of cushioning on Kuma. The knife only scrapes against her - and he isn't expecting her martial arts when he rises. The claw strikes slam into him over and over, knocking him backwards, but he keeps a grip on his machete. Three of the goons split off from the stairs and move at Kuma - one grabbing a nearby swinging hook and trying to grip it around Kuma's neck to hang her with, while the other two stab at her with their own, smaller knives.

Law, meanwhile, comes in for another swipe at Kuma, trying to gut her with the machete.

Tina uses her giant robot to survive the shots, and then fires a revolver at the goon on the stairs. He's brought down, barrelling down several other goons down the stairs. They start rising, battered but still moving, besides the dead guy, and charge at Tina with the knives, trying to push past the sound cannon and carve her up while her robot is distracted.

Penelope knocks Lucky Shu into a meat hook, as she takes drugs like a real winner. It doesn't go through his gut, but instead his shoulder, stringing him up and tearing ligments, spilling blood everywhere. He screams in pain, and with his other hand, fires wildly in the swordswoman's direction, trying to hit her in the head where her armor can't protect her as well. But it's so wild it might miss, and one of the goons on him go down quickly, leading only one more to charge her with a knife. He's probably doomed.

Sweet Rusty Cheng and Solomon, meanwhile, are duking it out. Their fight goes towards the shelves, firing shots at each other in and out of cover, in a battle sort of like dancing. Solomon has the upper hand - he'll probably be fine. - but he's also watching Lilian like a hawk. She unnerves him.

She unnerves everyone, especially Dynamite Sheng, when she's missed by bullets, confidently walks up, breaks several ribs with a kick, and threatens to torture him - without the relief of death in the end. It takes him a few moments, struggling as his wrist is broken and smashed against the wall. He can't shoot her. He can't even shoot himself. There's no out here. He could continue fighting, but -

"Alright, I'll go, I'll go!"

The guy down there fighting Solomon shouts as he overhears this. "Sheng, you fucking coward!" He raises his gun, pointing it up at the window and trying to take out both Lilian and Sheng with two shots. They're stronger than they are accurate, but they're not horribly /inaccurate/. For his purpose of deciding to ignore Solomon, though, it's followed up by a knee to the stomach, barreling Cheng backwards.

The fire, meanwhile, hits some of the goons who are downstairs. Their limbs burn and burn, their voices screaming screaming. Their numbers are being thinned, though the leaders, except for Cheng, are all still being stubborn and fighting.
Shigure     Kuma has just about had enough. As the goons come in, she just narrows her eyes. "Enough playing games now, kuma." She grabs the hook before it grips around her neck, and bends it straight, pulling the weilder over her shoulder and using him to beat Law. The other two find their knives completely stopped, as a rig of metal and guns manifests on her back. Their blades strike this metal, and machine gun nests spring out, and spray them point blank with tracer fire. "Everyone surrender now, kuma. Kuma will not kill anyone, kuma but do not expect to be unharmed if you resist kuma." she says, entering full on Engagement Mode, spraying tracer fire around anyone that's still fighting from her central position.
Penelope Vasquez      The guy charging Penelope with a knife is totally doomed. Even if this was a fair fight, what's a guy with a knife gonna do to someone with a sword? A knife is just a sword, but with range. Guy must be taking more drugs than she is.

     Speaking of, more of those nodules disappear into her neck, one after another, as the spike'd Lucky fires futily into the air around her. She doesn't move a muscle as the bullets trail around her; she's watching them like they're slow-lobbed softballs, the tactical computers behind her eyes telling her she's in the green on avoidance. The last round passes by her as knife-guy approaches. She should probably end this before Little Miss Torture Porn upstairs gets too into things. Her arm swings, and neatly severs the approaching stabber's leg at the hip. It's done without looking, without even really considering the guy. The Biggest Boss here is Sweet Cheng, she thinks, maybe. So she strides through the battlefield towards him as he and Solomon engage in their gunfight.

     Well, 'stride' is a very liberal use of the word. She kicks off the ground like she was mid-marathon, accelerating to Thoroughbred speeds in the space of a blink as she darts through the crowd of attacking/flaming goons. Her hooked sword trails behind her, and with each man she passes, it twitches in just the right way to catch a limb on that hook. Sized just right to encircle a limb- and move through them, leaving a small trail of quite literally disarmed mobsters. She arrives just as Cheng is blasted backwards by a knee- she's windmilling her sword up, then down, aiming to slice through the man's gun. It scrapes into the tiling after the swing, and digs in a good six inches before it stops. Her other hand snaps out, and grips his shoulder, hard, as she LOOMS. She's vibrating. She speaks, for the first time in the night, hoarse and terse, tones like a matron speaking to a disobedient schoolboy. "Surrender so your boys get outta here alive. Look around."
Tina Natsumi That's one down. Now for the... ALL OF THE REST. Glancing back as Lilian continues being extra creepy to Sheng, the streamer takes a moment to call down the stairs to Cheng in turn. "Hey, just so you know? I ain't this gal's boss or nothing, so it's up to you if you wanna risk her going nuts on your asses!" Her attention shifts to the goons rushing up the stairs, powering through Uncle Sam's sonic cannons and swinging those knives at her. Judging from how she's yelping and rolling around to avoid getting chopped to pieces, it's clear that she's not quite so used to fighting up close as she is in letting her Persona take the hits. Luckily, she manages to avoid the worst of the slashes, only losing a sleeve and some blood from a particularly nasty gash on her arm before rolling back to start firing at the oncoming goons with less care paid to keeping them alive than she had earlier.

"Dangit... I-if you don't wanna take the plea deal, then don't complain if your fine's paid in blood!" She laughs, she pauses, and she resumes firing at the crowd of goons. "... Little too dark?" Uncle Sam joins in on trying to bring the horde of goons down, swapping the sonic cannon out for grabbing at the nearest gangster and swinging them around like an oversized club.
Lilian Rook     Lilian looks down at Sheng. She's probably a few inches shorter were they both standing, but somehow has ten times the presence. She looks at him long and hard, and for a very real moment, it seems like she might just be considering whether to ignore him giving up. Finally though, she releases her heel from his shattered wrist, and says "Smart choice~" She got her way. That's what it takes.

    'Sheng, you fucking coward!'

    Lilian hears that one drift from downstairs even above all the action movie gunfire. She turns as both overpowered shots are fired their way, gives off the uncanny sense that her gaze has focused on the bullets in mid-flight instead of the man behind them, and-

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian appraises the fight between Solomon and his opponent. A quick look at their kinetic positioning, the lines of both their weapons, where their next movements are going by the posture of their bodies, and concludes that Solomon looks like the very likely winner --especially with his foe distracted by the betrayal. She walks up to the broken window, snatches both larger bullets out of the air, squeezes the remaining inertia out of them, and steps back again.
                -----[start]-----

    -snaps her hand out to display both slugs, still intact, caught between her fingers like a sleight of hand trick on stage. "A pig crying because another one dodged the slaughterhouse. Do you want to be gutted, frozen, and hung up on a hook? You're in the right place for it. It doesn't look to me like you have the balls to surrender."

    Lilian tosses the slugs clattering off into the office corner, rolling on the out of date floor. It's worth noting that she'd gone as far as to prevent Sheng from being shot, despite how kind of sadistic she'd gotten with roughing him up. It's hard to tell, though, whether she's intentionally distracting and riling up that particular enemy to give Solomon an opening, or just because she enjoys talking down to the thugs. She brings up her handgun, having acquired it again at some point nobody was looking, and sights down the length of her arm, humming undecidedly to herself as she tilts it back and forth across the mobish crowd below, firing two round bursts here and there when a gangster manages to get out of someone's sight or gain an advantageous position. She doesn't aim for deadly vital shots nor incapacitating 'safe' shots, but just uses her commanding position to pick the low hanging fruit of putting hollow point bullets into various guts; instantly debilitating for a human, very easy to hit, not immediately fatal, but definitely fatal with a few hours outside of a hospital. 'Encouraging' the right choice. There are no further flexes of that overtly supernatural fire.

    She glances back over her shoulder at Sheng partway through, a pair of hot casings flying past her ear. "Just sit tight and it'll all be over soon. Someone who can make sure you get to keep that hand will come along shortly. Maybe you'll get really lucky and you'll get to talk to whoever cut Lau a deal, hm? You can fantasize about that." Lilian then hits her radio bud with her free hand and hits a standard Paladins signal, making good on that word at least to have a cordon and medical here 'soon enough'.
Solomon Lau Kuma pulls out cannons. Tracer fire is blasted out, as the goons dive away, burned up. When they dive, they stay down, as Law backs up, dropping his machete after being bludgeoned with a hook and putting his hands in the air, muttering "Fucking portals, man..." under his breath.

Tina keeps shooting through the goons, as they're swung into each other. They all barrel down, and those that aren't killed or knocked out surrender as well.

The rest of the mooks on the floor surrender soon after as well, after they all take very accurate shots to the gut, knocking them out. There's no one left but Cheng.

Penelope slices a limb off and forces another surrender, as she comes up towards Cheng and slices through his gun, grabbing him. He tries to jerk away, as he shouts at Solomon. "You fucking traitor! You had it all! You could have been big! But just like Jason, you had to do something to get yourself a target on your back!"

Solomon, who has been anxious this whole time, narrows. Both Lilian, if she cares to pay attention, as well as Penelope, who is right there, will see the tension on his body. It's like an agitated predator, eyes narrowed and ready for the pounce. Solomon's gun rises up to Cheng's head quickly, as the hitman-turned-Paladin speaks in a harsh tone.

"What the fuck do you know about Jason?"

Cheng spits, and just stares him in the eye.

"Surrender, Cheng."

"Fuck you."

Solomon's finger moves for the trigger, almost reflexively. Before he can do something he'll regret, though, the side door opens again. Fine boots stomp through the blood, as an older man with graying hair and a nice suit, who could only be Uncle Tim Leung, starts walking into the middle of everything, looks around, and turns towards Solomon and Cheng.

"Solomon...what on Earth have you done?"

Solomon swallows. He's off-guard now. Penelope might want to stop Cheng before he takes advantage of that to grab the gun, but it seems that Uncle is unarmed. And he's very, very disappointed.
Penelope Vasquez     Penelope knows the look of the Big Boss when she sees him. And she knows Cheng isn't going to calm down, or surrender, or anything of the sort. So she takes that hand on Cheng's shoulder, grips him harder, and jerks him around like a ragdoll before he gets the chance to snatch for Solomon's gun. His arm is jerked uncomfortably behind his back. Penelope's arm is around Cheng's throat. She squeezes, and squeezes, and squeezes, until he either taps out or passes out. She stands there like a statue for a few moments, breathing harshly, before the wild, barely-controlled look leaves her eyes.

     She continues to prop Cheng up, but she's shifting her disposition and posture like a switch was flicked; she gives Uncle a broad and warm smile. "Aaaaayyy!" She's played up her Bostonian accent to absolutely horrific levels. "Nice to finally see you! My good friend Solly here had a message for you." A jiggle of Cheng's body. "Unfortunately, your boys here thought that it was something /you/ didn't need to know about. You. The boss. Which seems pretty impertient to me. Even more so, the mess they made of your warehouse here." A glance to Solomon- and a flourish of the hand around Cheng's throat. "Assuming none of these people are gonna interrupt us anymore? Solly, I believe you got the floor."
Tina Natsumi Tina picks herself up slowly as the wave of goons finally lets up, shaking a bit from the burst of adrenaline on account of being charged at abruptly. "See, boys an' girls? Firefights with the Paladins ain't worth itThat wasn't so hard, was it? Now if you just gather up against the wall, we can..." She stops as she approaches one of the fallen goons, looking off the side of the stairs and noticing the limbs and gore below.

Looking away quickly, her attention instead shifts to the fallen goon as she nudges him with her foot and notices a distinct lack of movement. "Just... Against the wall, alright? Come on." Tina's face pales considerably as she keeps nudging the non-moving goon. Uncle Sam plods over and flips him over gingerly, revealing a distinctly bloody hole in his neck.

That doesn't sit very well with her. She can't come up with any funny quips, and she isn't doing much beyond staring at the body. There's a few more on the staircase that she's wary of even going near, and it takes the old man coming out to snap Tina out of it just long enough to back away from the stairs and lean against one of the walls in the room with Solomon and his uncle.

Tina's going to need a moment.
Shigure     Kuma narrows her eyes at Law, producing a set of ziptie cuffs from her rigging and moving to arrest the enforcer, pushing him down to the ground and tying his hands behind his back. "Stay down, kuma." she says, then stands up and looks over towards Solomon, Uncle and Penelope. She locks her rigging in parade rest, the barrels pointing Not-At-People as she keeps a half-eye on the trio(quartet, are we still counting Cheng here?) Producing more ziptie cuffs, she goes about immobilizing and subduing the other mooks that have surrendered. "This is for your protection too, kuma." she explains, then pulls out a VERY LARGE PHONE. One of those giant 80s style ones. "Hello, kuma? We need ambulance to <warehouse location>, kuma. Yes, yes kuma. Yes, no kuma. Kuma will launch a flare, kuma." she then clicks off, and steps outside to fire a Star Shell to guide the relief team in to pick up the wounded.
Lilian Rook     "Finally." says Lilian, tilting the handgun back, slide extended all the way back to expose its empty chamber, trickling smoke. It's more of a punctuation to the end of the fight than much else. It doesn't take much looking for her to figure out that most of the mooks she hadn't hit are worse off than the ones she had, if not just outright butchered.

    Something of a hard, sour look briefly crosses her face, then it evens out into Professional Nothing. She taps out the magazine, racks the slide, then turns the safety back on and snaps it back to the hardpoint on her hip. Tim is pretty obvious by his stride.

    Lilian waits just long enough to receive the confirmation for the cordon and medical she's called for, tells Sheng to wait exactly where he is because she'll know if he moves, and then hops from the broken window and skips the stairs, crushing the broken glass littering the floor under her heels. Her weapons away (not that she'd even used one of them), she struts up to Tim Leung with the look of someone's boss having caught sight of just the employee they were looking for, to foist extra work on them.

    "No need to ask him." Lilian says. "You should be talking to me instead." Out of habit again, she glances to her curled fingers as if to check her nails, despite wearing gloves. "Please dispense with any of that honour among thieves tripe before even bothering to answer. I could hardly care less about a dime a dozen cockroach infestation like this. The reason they're littering the ground like dead leaves is because they had the call to try and undercut your man here, and I suppose by extension, undercut you too, and spring their own ridiculous ambush."

    "This is business. It concerns Jason and a certain organization you're probably aware of. You can be just like Solomon here --valuable enough to keep on a leash instead of a cell or a coffin in exchange for your full cooperation. A good portion of your men are out of commission, you, personally, can't win a gunfight by yourself here, and your Green Dragon friends will no doubt have you killed if you leave in any fashion but 'with us', so let's play things straight shall we?"

    "Mister Lau is done with this. Specifically, he's uncovered a specific concern that vastly exceeds triad business in scope, which he likewise cannot simply walk away from. As his boss, this is your one and only chance to graduate with him. He seems to think highly enough of your personal character to believe that you'd rather tackle something bigger than drugs and turf wars. Of course, if he's wrong about that- well, you've been in this business for a while. Considering how many Locust Boys are about to meet the tender care of government reviewed socialized health care, you can guess the rest."

    It is, for Lilian, not overtly snotty or condescending. She's being quick, forceful, and cuttingly bleak about her points, but addresses Tim vaguely 'on the level'. She doesn't project much of any sense that she'd greatly prefer him to cooperate over not, but she sounds at least . . . prepared to be pleasantly surprised, in a way. It's the no-nonsense, unkind, stripped bare essentials someone fires off at someone else they assume is smart enough to handle it.
Solomon Lau Kuma cuffs the goons and calls for an ambulance. Tina has a breakdown. Penelope...

Begins talking to the boss, while being overly friendly with Solomon, who kind of side glances at her, but puts his gun away when Cheng taps out and falls to the floor, after being strangled by Penelope.

Penelope pushes Solomon to talk. He's about to start. "Uncle, I-" And then Lilian comes down and dominates the conversation. Unlike the socially awkward Solomon and the arrogant and boastful elite thugs, Leung takes it all in stride, taking a second to grab a pack of cigarettes from his upper coat pocket and light one as Lilian speaks to him. As she mentions Jason and the Organization, he narrows his eyes and looks at Solomon. What the hell had they gotten up to?

When Lilian finishes speaking, Leung removes his cigarette and turns to Solomon."Is this all true?" "Yes, Uncle."

Leung sighs. "You're all going to get killed. Jason was poking into that Society, and he ended up in a fiery wreck for it. It's important to know as little as possible - the Dragon Head's affiliated, and whenever they get mentioned, it's not pretty. You don't fuck with the Wheel."

However, he turns to Lilian, clearly respecting her as the Leader here, based off her demeanor, outfit, and general attitude, as well as respecting her word choice. "But, very well. I'm an old man, I've played this game long enough to know what'll happen either way. However, I have one condition." He's not in much of a position to be making them, but he does anyways.

"My daughter's at a local college. I worry for her safety. If you can secure her, then I'll do whatever you ask. If not, just shoot me now. Ever since Jason died...I suspected my days in this business weren't long."

Solomon exhales, assuming that's that. "You made a good choice. These are...good people. There's a reason I joined up with them."

Leung just turns to Solomon, and says. "You've gone too far. If I wasn't in this situation, I'd demand you kowtow. But out of respect for you, I'll simply wipe away our relationship. You and I no longer have anything to do with each other besides any work. Goodbye, Mr. Lau."
Tina Natsumi Tina is indeed having a breakdown! One complete with light headtapping against the wall while she tries to get her bearings back, but-

'There's a guy cut in half down there!' It's not really working out for her. It takes several moments of her just listening to Leung, Lilian, and Lau exchanging words and possible deals before she finally remembers to cut the feed on her phone, slumping to the ground afterwards. It takes several more moments after that before she remembers to pocket her revolver as well.

"S... Someone's gotta keep an eye on her, right? We'll..." Tina turns towards Leung, barely managing a weird grimacing half-grin before turning back to stare at a particularly interesting spot on the ceiling that /doesn't/ have blood or bullet holes on it.

She'll get over it sooner or later. Maybe.
Lilian Rook     Lilian visibly lofts and eyebrow at 'I have one condition'. One hand to her cheek and the other to her elbow, it is the *embodiment* of silently suggesting 'You think you can set conditions?'.

    When she actually hears it, however, it's almost a half-laugh that says "That's it? Fine. Certainly. That's not hard. Give me her name and location and I can pick her up myself even." She falls to tapping her chin in contemplative, analytical silence for a minute. "Well, I'm surprised. Mister Lau doesn't seem to have been wrong about you. Romanticized, sure, but not wrong. You don't need to worry about us at any rate. Whether or not we were to get killed, it wouldn't be your problem, now would it? What happens to the Society is up to me to decide. You'll be far, far away by then. I'm sure someone or other will look favourably on your cooperation. Who knows."

    She doesn't appear to have any real empathy or concern for him, but once again, 'just doing what she demands with a modicum of respect' defuses pretty much all the potential worst cases for dealing with her, even for a gang boss. Tim Leung is now The System's problem to figure out, and since she doesn't know about, and hasn't seen, any of his previous dealings, she has no investment in what becomes of him. That's probably for the best.

    Perhaps sensing Tina's . . . drift of focus, Lilian claps her hands together and gestures towards her with her finger. "Tina. Get up. You're coming with me to collect Mister Leung's daughter. Put that phone away and get moving." That part seems to be intentionally considerate. Just a little bit.
Tina Natsumi Maybe she's just overthinking things. Multiverse technology means they can probably survive, right? But that would require having it on hand and the corpses not being corpses. Also, it doesn't exactly change the fact that she shot at least one of those people in the neck, and...

Someone says her name. "Wh..?" Tina blinks slowly, looking around a few times before identifying that voice as Lilian's. She blinks blearily at her a few times, then staggers up onto her feet. "Oh! Uh. Y-yeah, on it." She sounds considerably distracted despite her confirmation, shuffling over to join up with Lilian across the room.

Having the new objective should help distract her at least for a little while. She just shouldn't look down for a while. Or breathe with her nose.

The scent of meat and blood is suffocating.
Penelope Vasquez     Penelope looks mildly peeved as Solomon starts to speak- and Lilian jumps down and strides before the pair, taking charge. Her peevedness only grows as she continues to speak. By the end of her speech, she looks like someone who's had their cereal pissed in. But- she has successfully crafted a peaceful resolution to the conflict and negotiated for Solomon's release, so the Pissed lowers to a mild simmer. Eventually, she sighs, and sets the limp enforcer in her hands to the ground, her voice far less ear-bleedingly accented. "I have full faith in their ability to protect your daughter. We should make sure some of the fools here don't bleed out."

     She steps away from the two Paladins and Uncle, and starts (crudely) tending to the wounded, doing what she can to stabilize them before the abulance comes. She can't do anything for Lillian's shots to the guts, but the men she's disarmed and dislegged have their stumps tightened off with torn clothes, and she places their missing limbs back with them where convenient. She makes her way up the office stairs, doing what she can for the mooks that still live.

     A short time after she enters the office, there's a sound of glass shattering. Upstairs- a window is broken. Penelope has exited stage left, before the more upright people on-location can address her methods.