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Rubi-Kan Vagrants LAST NIGHT

    The hot sands of Wartorn Valley burn the boy's palms. His lungs burn as the mutant's elephantine foot crashes into his stomach. "Angry? Izz your fault," warbles the mutant nonchalantly, as the grey-skinned, pointed eared boy reaches out in vain.

    A few feet away from him, the partially-buried hand of his older brother hangs lifelessly open, disappearing beneath a pile of rebar and rubble at the ankle. "Not that me mind. Happy to eat for free." The mutant's humanoid hand clutches what would've been shared between the boys--a still-preserved ration from one of the crashed warships littering the valley. "Muzzt be hard to be you. Alwayzz need watching, saving. Like an infant."

    The sound of her voice jolts Phreak awake.

    His apartment is quiet, save the hum of the climate control and the muted roar of heavy rain falling in sheets upon the complex. Once in a while, the crack of thunder joins the chorus.

    Lying in bed, a single with the sheets crumpled on the floor nearby, Phreak's scowl is reflected in the window, painted over the neon-lit, rain-misted skyline of Old Athen. One voice bouncing around in his head gives way to another, and another, the longer his golden eyes burn holes into themselves.

If you suck, jolly green is going to stick down in the bush leagues and crashing on your couch instead of being the most he could be. So if you -suck-, -I-'ve got a problem.

    He rolls out of bed, lays flat on his stomach and drags the lockbox out from beneath it. Two heavy-looking submachine guns with short, wide magazines and large, bulky frames rest inside.

So wait, you just need system access? That's not hard.

    "Shut the fuck up." He exits his bedroom, slamming his elbow into the 'open' panel on the pneumatic door. Into a sparsely furnished living room where cans pile high and empty take-out is a regular sight--everywhere except the personal computer. If he can't sleep, he can work.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants TODAY - RKT 14:50
Old Athen City
Aegean Region
Planet Rubi-Ka

    Old Athen, for those that have never been, is a large city on the terraformed desert planet of Rubi-Ka. Surrounded by walls, it sits on the east bank of a tributary of the massive river that runs through the terraformed portions of the planet. To the west, there's a hilly, forested expanse, but Old Athen sits opposite that forest and those hills, instead situated in a dusty barrens littered with crashed warships and junked robots.

    Despite the location, Old Athen is a beautiful city every hour of the day. Towering walls surround it completely, with access limited either to the Warpgate at the north end of town, or one of three gates located at the east, south, and west ends. Its blend of grass, trees, irrigated water, sandstone, marble and skyscrapers provide an idyllic appearance. It's busy nearly all day, too, its roads and streets packed with foot traffic and civilian vehicles both ground and air-bound.

    That beauty is not without its price. Though it wasn't always, it is currently owned and operated by the Vanguard. The Vanguard are ostensibly part of the Clans, one of three major polities vying for control of the planet.

    While they do occupy a seat on the Clan governing body, and carry a fair amount of clout for their material contributions, this particular clan is far from the darling of the lot. More concerned with doing business than fighting the Omni-Tek Corporation, they are said by one of their very own, Phreak, to be little more than a legitimized mafia, despite what the heroic-looking advertisements playing on video billboards within the city would depict.

    Vanguard HQ is a wide, three storey complex all the way at the north end of the city. It's there that you'll be meeting Phreak, who's spent all night creating fake credentials for all of you, and scheduling a bogus appointment to be sure that Bauer will be found in his office.
Surge and Kit     EARLIER:
    "A-And that's why we need friends to help us," Kit says, indicating some faces and text on his datapad.
    "Kid, I zoned out ten minutes ago," Surge replies boredly, carefully balancing two fidget spinners on both of her indexes. "'sides we already know we can break Egghead's defenses. Not like we haven't done it already."
    "Y-Yeah, b-but this time he has... help. A lot of it," Kit insists.
    "Uuuuuugh! This was supposed to be easy! Why is it HARDER? Whatever. I can still handle it. So, drop the speech," Surge counters.
    "Okay, w-well, what if I told you... u-um, would you like to beat up some mafia?" Kit offers, playing an angle.
    Surge lets the spinners fall. "Y'got my attention."

    NOW:
    Surge hadn't much cared for introducing herself to the Watch; and Kit, without her blessing, had held off on doing anything. But getting her interested in the ordeal with the promise of some gangsters to beat up, just like in a movie? That solved both problems!

    The pair arrive like streak of lightning, zig-zagging through the streets a few times too many. Vanguard HQ wasn't too hard to miss, thankfully. Surge sets Kit down, crossing her arms and tapping her foot impatiently.

    "This is nothing like you said. Where's the action?" She demands of her smaller companion, glaring (literal) lightning at him.
    "P-Probably inside? We should... we should wait for everyone to get here. They'll explain. I-If we make a mess it'll look bad," Kit responds.
    "Fiiiine!" Surge attempts to be patient.
Rita Ma      Rita walked a good distance from the Warpgate to get here. The beautiful cityscape, and its greenery especially, ought to have lifted her spirits by the time she met up with Phreak.

     But it hasn't. Not really. The short blonde girl is dressed unusually severely, white blouse and black skirt, with the only splash of color being the little red ribbon tying up her hair. She's never completely without polite cheer- she greets everyone with a smile and a wave, after all- but it falls off her face as she looks up at Vanguard HQ.

     The Paladins want to bring him in, she's thinking. And I want him dead. In the end, there's no way to square that.

     "Yeah. They're inside, so don't worry," she says to Surge, putting a reassuring smile back on her face. The tilt of her head in the pair's direction gently implies 'we haven't met, have we?'.

     "But if you went to all the trouble of making fake credentials for us," she says to Phreak, "we'll be trying to stay quiet until we get to Mr. Bauer's office, won't we?"
Ishirou Ishirou gets the word that they're moving with Phreak towards the mafia's HQ. Okay great, that means they can finally break this guy out of corporate slavery, and also take down crime that is corrupting an organization that is (ostensibly) fighting for its right to exist. Phreak's situation was enough, what comes next is the icing on the cake.

So Ishirou is here, in a very ugly sweater (dark brown today) and a pair of boy shorts. He looks over the credentials, simply giving them a pass over. Not that he's afraid that Phreak would betray them, but when you're working on something very personal it's more likely a mistake might happen. At least, that's how his brain works.

"So we're taking him to his office. Where I can hack things directly. He's likely going to put up a fight but the goal isn't to murder him...but to leave him alive so he can answer for his crimes...and take this whole operation down with him, as well as any corruption in the greater organization. A way to prevent this kind of thing from happening again."

"Unless the plan's changed?"
Surge and Kit     "Nah, we're new. Name's Surge," the tenrec says with a grin, pointing to herself with a thumb. "Got roped into this by the kid," she adds, jerking a thumb back in Kit's direction.
    "K-Kitsunami," the fennec stutters in rebutal. "And it seemed like a good idea to get to know some people. A-And for her to stretch. So..."
    "Yeah yeah. Don't give the wrong impression about us, sheesh. But I'm getting some slimy doctor vibes outta this Vanguard place, so I'm gonna enjoy making a mess of 'em." Surge is very uncomplicated.
KNK     "Ooh, look! It's like, a movie ad? Are they the... heroes?" Violet tilts her head, looking up at the billboard.
    "Just the local company in charge. I guess they call those 'clans' here, even if they sit in a city."
    "Hmm... but are they like The Company?"
    "Maybe. One hand, they aren't letting him out. Other hand, they haven't cut off bits of him for trying."
    "So... nicer? Maybe we don't need to..."
    "Nah. You tell him to get lost, it's not like he'll stay lost. A clean break is always the best way."
    "Ooh, Rita, there you are! C'mere~"

    The conversation of a pair of ninjas is concluded with Violet running forward to take Rita's hands. The very opposite of subdued, and seemingly unaffected by either atmosphere or demands of the job, she vigorously pumps a double handshake by way of greeting. "Haven't seen you in days, where've you been?"

    "It's only been... never mind." Rose takes both her and Violet's credentials from Phreak. "So, you want us to go in openly, or is 'don't get caught' the only real need? We won't need IDs, if that's all."
Hibiki Tachibana     If you wanna get something like that, then the important thing is realizing you don't gotta try to get it on your own. You got people willing to help you.

    So spoke Hibiki Tachibana during their party at the Happy Rebel, and on god, she meant it. It's not her first time at Old Athen. It's just a pretty as last time, but she's definitely here with a clear goal in front of her this time, with a simple and straightforward path to getting there and not much time for sightseeing. Taking down Phreak's scummy as hell boss. That's something she can definitely get behind.

    After all, she's known the guy plenty long enough to know he doesn't deserve to be stuck in something like that bogus deal. And, even more than that, said boss...looking up at Vanguard HQ, she's resolved. To say the least. She must be banking on faked credentials being enough to get them to where they need to go, since she's not dressed any differently from her usual today - which, to be fair, is normally good enough on Rubi-Ka.

    "Plan's fine by me at least," she replies to Ishirou, eyes still cast upwards. Her personal thoughts on killing are far from a secret at this point, even on a world where the dead can swing themselves into backups. "If we could get him put away..." She trails off, after a little emphasis on 'could' - before her attention briefly goes to Rita. She didn't miss that cheeriness falling off.

    "...You alright, Rita? ...Though now that you mention it, sneaking in like this almost reminds me of when we had to sneak into that BIOMARE place. A lot less high tech though, probably." Hibiki glances towards Phreak for confirmation on that.

    And then, to Surge and Kit. Huh. Yeah, they've never been introduced. The hand not in her jacket pocket comes up in a small wave. "Yo. Hibiki. You won't have to be waiting too long. Don't worry." Yup, Surge is a pretty simple girl, from the sounds of it. They'll probably get along.
Kukuru     Huge public places are often Kukuru's favorite meeting places. They're easy to find pictures of, easy to find maps for, and there's usually enough alleyways or rooftops or tucked away corners to pick from that she can wait until the last minute to actually show up. Prior to the meeting time, she's spent most of the day nursing a light hangover, handling her usual duties with the Concord's medical corps, and testing a new method of cooking eggs.

    Eventually, though, she remembers to actually get dressed and ready for the mission. She shows up at Phreak's meeting place right on time, dressed in a sleek black/purple-ish jacket with a similarly colored top and shorts combo along with a tie and stockings that, all together, almost give her a modern professional look with how little skin is exposed.
    
    The keyword is almost because she still looks sleepy and empty-minded as usual. "He-llo, everybody~" She calls out in her usual sing-songy tone, strolling over at her own languid pace. She scratches her cheek as she listens to the details given ahead of time, trying to look thoughtful despite the clearly vacant stare.
    
    "... Do you think he'll notice us all trying to get in at the same time? That might tip him off, you know?" She comments, then glances over at the newest faces when they introduce themselves. "Aw, how adorable~ My name's Kukuru. Ku-ku-ru. Nice to meet you both." She greets, then rummages around in her too-small jacket pockets before retrieving a plastic quart that couldn't possibly fit in there. It's filled to the brim with fried shrimp balls like those from a dim sum place.
    
    "Here, eat up. You'll need the energy, right?" She offers, then turns to the rest of the group. "Oh, I've got more if anyone else wants some~" Kukuru offers as well, all too happy to oblige on request.
Tohru Adachi     "Oh, there's definitely going to be plenty of action. Unfortunately, it's all going to be regulated by the resident fun police, so try not to enjoy yourself too much or else you're gonna be put in time out, ya dig?

     Adachi sneaks up from behind the group from seemingly nowhere as he drops in on Surge's and Rita's conversation, speaking with a rather annoyed tone of voice that's akin to a kid not getting what he wants but stubbornly pretending that everything is fine.

     Everything is not fine though. Adachi really wanted the funny murder with joke guns, but 'common sense' won again and now they're putting some money grubbing crook in jail rather than having his dead corpse next to a funny headline on some website with underpaid journalists.

     "So anyway, if we're approaching this the lame way, mind at least telling me the full plan so I can at least try to remember it?"
Rita Ma      "It's good to meet you, Ms. Surge! It's good to meet you, Mr. Kitsunami!" Rita bows her head shallowly, twice. The words are rehearsedly formal, but no less sincere for it. "I'm Rita Ma. I look forward to working with you."

     Her eyes wander up to the tower. 'Slimy doctor'? "... Yeah. It gives me that feeling, too." Her look of unease is revealing. That's a dislike she can emphatically share.

     Tohru amplifies that unease. "Hey- who do you mean, the 'fun police'? I think it'll be okay, won't it? What were you hoping to do exactly?" She doesn't dispute the idea that it should be 'fun', though.

     Whatever her prior mood, it's temporarily banished by Violet rushing over. Rita takes her hands and squeezes them excitably. "Hi, Ms. Violet!" Peeking over the ninja's shoulder: "Hi, Ms. Rose!" Then back to Violet. "I got a special golden fish at a festival! I've been learning how to take care of it and decorating an aquarium. How have you been?"

     When she's eventually disentangled from that, she answers Hibiki quietly: "Yeah. I'll be fine, Hibiki. I'm just... expecting there will be some friction. You know?" Her eyes slide over to Ishirou as she says that. The residual glow of Violet being so happy to see her keeps her from getting too melancholy, though.

     Kukuru's fried shrimp visibly tempt her, and yet she valiantly puts up both her hands to refuse. "No thank you! I'm sorry. I already ate."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      "Yeah," says Phreak to Rita. He's wearing a decidedly more combat-tilted outfit than the last few times they met. Leather, decidedly not from any Earth, in a sand-rust gradient, with sleek metal components that might be mistaken solely for armor plating, were it not for the vents and the soft glow of internals visible in places. The sleeves of a shirt poke from the armholes of the cuirass, and his golden eyes are dimmed slightly for the blue hi-tech AR visor he wears. "Quietly."

     Clarifying, for Rose's sake, he adds, "These'll get you in, and they're good enough for 'openly' if that's how you wanna do it. Getting 'caught' isn't gonna be a concern until we're on our way out--if he makes it a fight, we're gonna have an interesting trip back to the gate, I'll tell you that."

     "We try to take him alive," says Phreak to Ishirou, with a brief glance towards Rita. "But accidents happen, and no matter what, you're still walking away from this with enough internal communications to bury these people, Bauer or no Bauer."

     Phreak extends his hand to Surge, then Kit. "I go by Phreak when I'm on the job," he says. Phreak isn't the tallest (homo sapiens opifex generally aren't), but he does still end up bending forward a little for Kit's.

     "Yes and no," he says, standing up straight and facing Hibiki. "Physical security is for sure worse. They're complacent, there. But I'd say the CS here is actually better--it's not a research facility, it's a business with a bottom line and lists of customers. They hire the most fixers--yours truly," he says, motioning to himself with a gray thumb, "Of any of the clans, and make the most money. They know they're on the radar. You're not gonna find the host with a whois, or find them running forum code on their internal websites."

     Kukuru's concern is met with a confident smile from Phreak. "Well, of course. You guys are his three o'clock--the delegation from United Earth Shipping, here to discuss a new contract."

     "Hey, I know you," says Phreak. "Saw your picture in the news. You're one of the guys that hit that SOL Banking station. Great stuff, man," he adds with a thumbs-up. "Here's how it goes down. We enter, I'm you guys' escort. No need to flash IDs, they got IFFs. We take the elevator to the second-last floor. I'll get him talking. Ishirou gets into his terminal while he's distracted and dumps as much correspondence, ledgers and *especially* anything about 'leasing fees' as he can get onto an external."

     "...Then I drop the hammer and tell him his ass is going to prison. If he doesn't like that, he's gonna do one of two things. Light bending polymer nanoscreen to try and sneak out, or he's gonna reach for that Windchaser of his and try to dome one of us, then make a run for it."
Friz     A woman stands in front of an animated advertisement sign for the Vanguard group. She observes it thoughtfully. She speaks into a tape recorder, though it doesn't have the record button pressed. She's speaking to someone only she can hear.

"Don't watch this shit."
"I don't really understand the Vanguards, Rogers. I'll be looking for any sources of information I can get here."
"You want to understand them? This won't help."
"Looks fairly heroic, I think."
"A junkie's needle, plastered on your eye. Walk on by."

    She plunges her hands into the pockets of her jacket and heads for Vanguard HQ. She settles into a steady pace until she can head to Phreak, or to the lobby. She squeezes her false ID card gently in her pocket, glancing at the building. In the other pocket, she squeezes her DVSD badge, ready to make an arrest. That's the plan, right? Walk straight on in, then up to the office, with those credentials? Should be easy.

    Well, no. Phreak explains it'll probably get violent. So maybe her hand should be on her gun's holster, not her badge. But whatever. She can follow the plan. She can mosey on through, looking like yet another burned-out exhaustion case here to get exploited by the big guy. She's good at looking like that!
Surge and Kit     "Good! I'm already fired up!" Surge grins to Hibiki, smashing her fists together upfront. "I don't know anything about this hacking stuff but that sounds like someone else's problem." Specifically, Ishirou's!

    "I-I might be able to help a bit with computer stuff. If that's alright," Kit offers, as any excuse to not be at the receiving end of guns is very accepted in his book.

    Then they're offered food, and it doesn't take Surge long to start scarfing it down. Which is probably for the best, since it means Kit can do the talking for a bit. This also spares Surge asking questions about the "fun police". The hell kinda world did they wander in?

    "Thank you, miss Rita," Kit says, taking the credentials from Phreak. "Thank you," he repeats. "People here are... a lot nicer than back home," he notes.

    "Yea cush we ainsh beashing 'em up," Surge says with her mouth full. "Give ish a bish."

    Mercifully the instructions are clear enough even Surge'll be able to follow them. How long she does, though, is definitely a gamble.
Ishirou Ishirou sighs, he really hates Adachi.

Like, the dude makes his skin crawl, he says every awful thing imaginable, he's encouraging others to fall into their awful sides...and honestly, his haircut is awful. Like, whoever gets a haircut like that? No, his voice, his voice is /absolutely/ the worst.

Ishirou nods at his specific part of the plan. Though he pauses. If he's going to use that weapon to try and run...who would he use it on? If he was looking to do maximum harm to Phreak then...someone close to him? Obviously, Phreak would come in with some sort of defense, so he'd look at someone else.

Ishirou is looking rather glum at the number of people who'd rather just kill him, though he does smile at Hibiki when she mentions she'll want to avoid that. Well, that's /some/ relief. When Kit mentions that they could help, he nods to them. "Well, then the two of us can certainly work better than one of us," he says with a smile.

At this point, POD floats around him, but does not speak. "I also have the storage," there is another possibility, if he finds out that he or Kit can get that data...he might go for one of them.

Maybe. There are a lot of things going on that he's not sure about /yet/. He needs more data.
Hibiki Tachibana     Hibiki pops one (1) Kukuru-approved shrimp ball into her mouth for the road, watching Violent assail Rita with a small smile while she chews. She glances over to Rose and gives a small 'what can you do' brand shoulder shrug. Back to Rita, she looks a little more serious. "...Yeah. I get it. It'll be fine, I promise." She follows the look over towards Ishirou, giving a small nod as she does so, before flashing the smallest of smiles back.

    And then, to Surge, she actually matches that motion, albeit with a fist punching into an open palm. "That's what I like to hear. Don't worry. Sounds like there's gonna be plenty for you and me to do." This comes, of course, right after Phreak's mention of one of them potentially getting domed. She really doesn't expect this guy to go quietly. And if there's one thing she knows about Rubi-Ka, it's that the folks here are /tough/.

    Adachi gets a brief tilt of her head as she slides her hands back into her pockets, but if he says he'll be on his best behavior, she believes him. It'll be fine. Probably. Hey, Friz looks like she has a good head on her shoulders, too. "Well, I'll take worse physical security for sure. In that case, I'm more than ready."

    She faces down the way ahead, with a second nod. Right. All set.
Rita Ma      "Light-bending polymer," Rita repeats, clearly only halfway comprehending. "That's... invisibility, isn't it, Mr. Phreak? I should be able to help with that."

     It's unclear how she intends to, but she sounds confident nonetheless.

     She reciprocates Phreak's sidelong glance. Understanding passes between them. When Ishirou proclaims the plan, she pointedly does not respond to him. Her own opinions have already been made known.

     On the way in, Rita becomes suddenly aware of the fact that she doesn't look very much like a serious business representative at all. She takes a stab at putting her hair up, catches a glimpse of herself in a reflective surface, decides that just looks even sillier, and lets it back down with a mildly grumpy little sigh.

     Maybe someday she'll be able to look like a Serious Professional.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      With the plan detailed, there's nothing left to do but enter in. As Phreak mentioned, the credentials he'd been up all night fabricating are enough for you to just 'walk in.' The only stop is at the receptionist's desk, where Phreak informs he's got Mr. Bauer's 3:00 with him. You are waved through.

     The interior of the building is clearly one that at least some of the public might be expected to see, and so the first floor has a lot of waiting arrangements, pleasant muzak piped in. Immaculate red carpet over black marble floors, with matching walls sporting gold-leaf trim. Plants brought in from Earth and from Rubi-Ka alike decorate each corner.

     The elevator is spacious enough to hold all of you, and the ascent is quiet save for an instrumental variation of a pop tune. It dings at the second-to-last floor, opening up into a hallway that stretches west and east. The secretary here is a droid. When it stands to greet you, Rose and Violet in particular will probably recognize the hilt of a beam sword jutting from its hip; as well, the synthetic musculature purpose woven for combat. Fingers racing across a hardlight keyboard, Phreak induces a crash to OS that flickers across the menacing visor of the droid. "He would've taken pictures of our faces as part of protocol. That exploit won't work again," he says. "So be ready to deal with that asshole in a few minutes if Bauer digs his heels in."

     Stepping past the droid receptionist, you enter into the floor-spanning office suite of Ramon Bauer, second-in-command of the Vanguard, and Phreak's immediate boss. "I should have known," says Bauer, ashing a cigar and rising from his wide, polished wooden desk. Behind him, a viewscreen displays a mirrored image of the Old Athen skyline, live broadcast from outside. It's probably a better view than the giant wall behind him. "I didn't remember scheduling a 3:00. You've gotta be the most ungrateful piece of shit we've ever had working here." Bauer glances between the rest of you. "Whoever you people are, you're wasting your time."

     Phreak's hand dips behind his back, motioning for Ishirou to begin. "'Ungrateful' is a funny way to put it. You wanna tell 'these people' how old I was when I signed that contract of yours?"

     Bauer's green eyes narrow. He's old enough to be Phreak's father, and dressed in his pinstripe navy three-piece, the line of gray in his platinum blonde hair does little to divorce one from the picture of a mafia capo. "Don't go there. I stuck my neck out for you. I got you off the streets. I *held you down*--"

     "You held me *back!* It's a big fucking difference. And don't you say you treated me like a son. If I ever loved you, it was before I knew what a rotten bastard you are."

     Bauer flinches from that, but goes on the offensive thereafter--his eyes aren't on the terminal at all. Ishirou can work in relative peace, but he'll have to work quickly. In the fifty years they've run this city, the Vanguard have set up a formidably secure internal virtual OS, that's the product of many iterations of in-house stress testing and white-hat attacks by the organization's many 'software specialists.' First- and second- guesses aren't enough, and cute tricks won't either. It's the old fashioned way here--methodical, exhaustive prodding for weaknesses.
KNK     "No problems until we're on the way out, huh? Given this group..." Rose takes a look around. "I don't think keep everything quiet's really an option, in that case. If it were just me, Violet, and Rita..." She shrugs. "Okay. We head in, keep cover, someone distracts him, we -- that guy, does some hacking, and then we expect either an attack or escape attempt. We don't want that, so let's just head it off with Violet stabbing him full of sleepy juice. Unless you really want to see the angry look on his face. My recommend: You can see his face later, from a safe basement somewhere, under a single, hanging bulb. Plan on doing things quick, here."

    Somewhere in-between paying small amounts of attention to Rose and rudely pointing at Mobians, Violet answers Rita, "Oh, I have been good. I've still got the clothes from that other job, and I should show you what I can do in them! I've been practicing, you know. I bet I'm getting really good at it, now. There's this whole style, you see, and--"

    "'Maid-fu' is not a real martial art."
    "Oh my god, shut up! Yes, it is!"

    And sometime a little after that, Rose makes a motion as if tapping the air by her thigh with two fingers, an act probably connected to how her and Violet's outfits are replaced with black suits vaguely resembling Kukuru's, if you removed the ties and swapped as much as possible for black leather. It's the abstract geometric designs on the jackets and the lack of spikes that really make something business formal.
Ishirou Ishirou gets the signal, and he networks Kit into the hacking VIA a HUD connection done through the POD. It'll let them start working without really needing to make any obvious motions. Of course, with the old bastard's eyes off the screen, he'll get to work. The defenses are formidable and well tested.

Ishirou can't help but smile. Either things are laughably easy, or don't work because what are electronics? Virtually, he tries this the old fashion way to start. He looks for weak points in the system and attempts to work this way.

It's unlikely that his credentials are laid out somewhere, and spoofing them is going to be hard if not impossible...unless there was a biometric component he could hijack. Actually, wait...why do that? Ishirou aims his hacking attempt to start with the large man first. He goes to try and biohack the credentials out of the man's head first...then he should be able to work without raising alarms.

Maybe.
Kukuru     "Aw, did you? Well, if you ever change your mind." Kukuru flashes Rita a quick smile, then slips one of the extra containers back into her pocket. It'll stay nice and warm in there with the others in there somehow! She catches Rita's sigh, too, and when it looks like nobody's looking...

    She slips a small, long thing at her hands. It's a pair of fake glasses like Kukuru's! She has a tendency to break these, after all.

    Phreak details the plan for everyone's sake, and Kukuru commits most of it to memory. "Go in, look confident, go to the second to last floor, meeting... Computer stuff! And then..." She snaps her fingers. "Oh, if he's gonna try running.. I could take his legs off." She offers with a helpful tone in her voice, sounding more like she's offering to help Phreak with his homework rather than dismembering someone.

    Maid-fu, meanwhile, gets a curious look from Viole and Rose. "Isn't that...? Oh, with all the hidden weapons and double-jumping? That's super real. I read it online somewhere, too!" She sounds vaguely excited, possibly from actually recalling something she read at all for once in her life.

    With the plan squared away, Kukuru takes her ID card, and she wears it around her neck just over her tie. Noticing Friz's tension, she approaches her and gives her an excessively gentle pat on the shoulder before offering her some shrimp balls. "It'll be okay. First meetings just feel trickier than they look. You'll do fine."

    Thankfully, the plan seems to go well at first. Kukuru smiles pleasantly at those she passes, and she's furiously scribbling 'notes' into a pad every time she sees something interesting. None of it's actually legible, but that's just how proper shorthand looks in her mind. Upon reaching Bauer, however, some of the facade is already uncovered, and Kukuru...

    Doesn't resort to threats or violence just yet. She looks between Phreak and Bauer several times at their back and forth, and it's not until 'son' and 'love' are mentioned that she finally turns a sympathetic look towards the latter. "Hey... Bauer? If he's a son to you, then... Then isn't it better if you let him go?"

    Rather than an accusatory tone, Kukuru actually sounds sad. "I know it's gonna be hard, but... That's what our kids needs to really grow sometimes. I've seen him work before, and he's really good at it. Letting him go now means you two could become even closer later. Isn't that better than everyone being..." She gestures around. "Like this?"
Friz     Kukuru -- or "Kay the Claws", as Rogers named her before -- gets an uneasy "ha ha" laugh. "I mean, whole point is it'll be my last. Until a court date, anyway..." She nods, swallowing, as they head through, and make the meeting.

Dirt: This guy's old. And old power, too.
Grit: Keep him off the terminal. Keep him engaged.
Savvy: How're you proposing I do that?
Moxie: Can we just make the arrest? Not pulling the revolver is...
Savvy: No. Gotta gather the evidence. I'll figure something out.
Moxie: Do it now, though!!

Savvy: Bauer... he takes a lot of pride in being justified, from the look of it.
Moxie: And he wants people to know.
Dirt: Maybe he's not sure, chief?
Grit: Or very certain.
Savvy: Either way, it's his first focus.
Savvy: Alright, Bauer, you talk about helping...

    "...But are you really *sure* you were helping him? I mean, who made the streets dangerous to begin with (who had the power to stick up for everyone in the streets and just didn't)? And isn't the point (the whole goal of a real parent) to build a child up enough to have freedom?"

    She makes a short tilt with her head. A spectral presence, watching her and her target, moves into place. "I'll warn you when he's gonna make his move." He whispers in her ear. The ghost settles behind the terminal, watching him close from behind for any suspicious moves... And ready to hauntingly flicker the lights right at the exact most advantageous moment when this escalates to violence, after a yell that only Friz can hear, to have her draw her revolver.
Rita Ma      "Oh! Thank you, Ms. Kukuru!" Rita slips on the thin glasses and peeks at herself in reflective marble again. It can't completely dispel her youthful charm, but it does help a little bit.

     "Maids," Rita marvels on the way in. Pleading with clasped hands: "Please do show me, Ms. Violet! I don't really know anything about them, but... the outfits are really amazing, aren't they? Besides, me and Ms. Rook have had to wear maid disguises a couple of times, so it'd be a big help in the future if you could teach me more."

     Regardless of the prior subject matter, Rita's face is set in firm determination as soon as she's entered Ramon Bauer's office, if not before. A higher-up in a grand corporate clan, a man who enslaves others with contracts, a man who wears finery while others wear rags and has an office that looms over the city-

     He fits neatly into a box in her head. It's not a box that demands she be kind.

     Nor does the comment about 'treating Phreak like a son' soften her expression. After a momentary surprise, she cools again. "Mr. Phreak wants him in prison, Ms. Kukuru," Rita says. "There's good reasons for that. I don't think he wants to be close. And I don't think you can forgive Mr. Bauer on his behalf."

     In a lull in the conversation, one might hear a soft slithering noise, like a snake winding through the grass ten feet away. Rita's fingernails change styles. Her blouse becomes short-sleeved.

     That's all the evidence there is of her wrapping-disguise having partially unraveled, baring her 'real' forearms. The spare tentacles invisibly wind around the room, blocking windows and doors with their sharp edges.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Ishirou and Kit, working together, find what they need. The former, peering into Bauer's head, finds login credentials. It's fortunate, too--Phreak was right about this place. No computer system lasts long after contact with Ishirou, but even the most secure system is only as secure as its weakest link. Bauer clearly didn't bank on someone just looking in his head.

     With his password, Ishirou and Kit everything needed to bury the Vanguard, with or without Bauer. 'Leasing fees' serving as glorified protection rackets, complete with 'collection specialists' on task for 'advanced procurement techniques.' Incident reports going into great detail on the treatment of those unable to pay their fees, confirming that their livelihoods are destroyed and the people themselves thrown into Wartorn Valley to take their chances with the malfunctioning robots, mutants, and other desperate souls eking by in the wastes.

     Contracts, including Phreak's own (signed when he wasn't even old enough to drink), agreeing to provide access to illegal, highly-sought after nanoprograms in exchange for interminably long periods spent using those programs to benefit the Vanguard. Cargo manifests detailing shipments full of contraband, listing out routes and officials in Clan, Neutral and even Omni-Tek cities to be bribed.

     "The goal of a real parent is to leave something for your kid. Elie had potential. I wanted him to take over for me--"

     "I'm not gonna. And I'm not working for this dogshit place anymore. Fuck your legacy, fuck what you and Jacobi built. I walk--but you, you only leave here in cuffs or a body bag."

     Bauer's brow furrows. "Cuffs, huh? How you gonna make that happen, big man?"

     Phreak shrugs his shoulders. "Well, two of the people here are Paladins. Way I see it, I'm a concerned citizen. And I think the Council of Truth needs to hear about what the Vanguard's really been--"

     The lights flicker, then, as Rogers' ploy goes off. Bauer fades, light bending around him. There isn't even an impression of his dress shoes on the expensive rug he'd been standing on. Phreak bolts for the nearest wall, his body a grey-and-brown blur as his incredible speed carries him straight up. A backflip, and a two-gun burst, sends crescents of burning lead in a X-shape that covers the desk and its immediate surroundings.

     As he'd predicted, the bodyguard droid enters the room, energy sword drawn and sheathed in a series of rapid strikes as its sleek, synthetically muscled body flies through the room, one leaping bound after another. Meanwhile, clipped by Phreak's spray, Bauer is revealed just in time to show him shouldering a sand-blasted, heavy-looking rifle. A targeting reticule emerges from his skin over his right eye, making a terrifyingly accurate shot on the opifex speedster.

     Downed with a gaping, smoldering hole in his abdomen, Phreak struggles to get up as the wound and his armor slowly mend. "See what I mean?"
Surge and Kit     Oh. It's one of those stories.
    Surge frowns, evidently rattled. So much of a nice distraction and a warm-up. Had to land straight into that narrative again. At least her instincts were right, the slimy doctor vibes here were intense.

    Oh and now there's a robot.

    "'least it doesn't have a freakin' mustache on it," she rumbles, electricity starting to arc from her frame. Kit leaves the whole computer stuff Ishirou the moment he can-- it's clearly he's outskilled in this field, and the appear of the robot causes him to want to help Surge more than anything else.

    Water shoots out of his backpack, forming a bubble around Surge that lets her take the brunt of the assault without budging much. "Thanks kid, now don't mind if I GO TO TOWN!"

    Surge turns into a ball of spinning death, somehow both bladed and blunt at the same time. She ricochets off a wall and aims for the bodyguard at an angle, electricity joining her in the assault.
Ishirou So he did go for Phreak first, that son of a bitch was both short-sighted and more spiteful than he expected. On the other hand, he didn't figure out he had the data...between him and Kit, the entire database was stored, and POD immediately starts transmitting that data to the Paladin network.

However, before Ishirou could say anything, the bodyguard droid comes in! Crap...of course stopping him and taking him in was the main goal. He couldn't let him get away /or/ get killed. Though he realizes that he might still go after Phreak. Son of a..

Ishirou immediately starts scanning everything, before putting a plan into action. These were still droids...

Ishirou points at one bodyguard droid and starts trying to hack it, before trying to create a virus on the fly to try and spread it across their network. "Your boss is in danger of getting away, protect him from escaping," he says, giving the droids a corruption of their commands...and to sick them on him.

"You are under arrest, for a list of crimes that is seriously too long to read."
Friz "WATCH IT!"

Dirt: He's vanished, boss!
Grit: Readying up! Adrenaline going!
Moxie: Getting the gun ready!
Savvy: He'll have the place rigged! Get me the incoming!
Dirt: Droid, three-o-clock! Energy sword!
Grit: Can't block that. Moxie.
Moxie: I have it!

    Energy singes her painfully, cutting a glowing line through her jacket. In a clean motion, she rolls with it, her body emitting a flickering green glow for a moment. She tugs a badge free in the same motion as a revolver. "DVSD! Freeze, you're under arrest!"

Grit: It's a graze. I'm pulling the Green Knight's toughening for that.
Savvy: Moxie! Backup with the baton!
Grit: He abanoned cover at his desk.
Dirt: He went for a rifle!
Savvy: A heavy kind. We can't take that shot.
Dirt: We have an angle! Use the droid for cover!
Moxie: Maneuvering!
Savvy: Baton on the droid! Revolver on Bauer!
Moxie: I've got it!!

    Friz moves her footwork as fast as she can, swinging her baton to slam the droid's cameras and legs while putting it between her and Bauer, before trying to open up with a few heavy revolver blasts. "The VIP's down! Someone get him some cover!"
Kukuru     "I know, but even in prison... Even the worst people can become better if they try, you know?" Kukuru replies to Rita, still holding out hope even after everything she's heard about Bauer and seen from him in these few moments alone. "Doing terrible things before doesn't mean it's impossible to do good things if he really tries."

    Sadly, Kukuru's hopes aren't quite in line with reality as the lights get messed up, and Bauer sics his defensive droid against the group. Kukuru ducks into the oncoming droid's attack as its energy blade rakes across her arm, creating a rather nasty sizzling gash across the surface in the process.

    "Wait... You're a robot?" She only seems to realize this now as she reaches for the droid, grasping at its arm to try and get a good hold on it with one hand while the other goes for the main body. She jerks both hands in opposite directions with a quick burst of force to try and casually rip the offending limb off, and then she hears Friz calling out Phreak's condition.

    "I'm on it!" She shouts back, then (with or without the droid's swinging arm) flings herself over to provide him with some bodily cover while kicking her nanites into gear. "Easy now. I've got you, okay?" She speaks in a soothing tone while directing that healing towards his gaping gut hole.
Hibiki Tachibana     And in they go. Hibiki is pretty quiet on the way in and up, though at some point during the pleasant elevator trip up, she gives an idle glance between both Rose and Violet.

    "...I've never heard of anything called maid-fu..." She mutters, with the vague aura of someone mildly interested in what that'd even be.

    The robotic receptionist, as they pass by, gets a glance and a slight tensing of her fists, perhaps in preparation for the possibility of punching. Thankfully, punching isn't necessary for it just yet, and they're able to keep moving ahead...to Bauer's office. The guy really does look everything the part of how he's been described, and even the way he talks sounds like something out of a mafioso flick. She's seen enough to know.

    Phreak is given a silent sideglance, and then a look back--it's not her place to say a thing, yet. But it /is/ her place to move, when things start kicking off. The lights flicker, gunfire rings out, and the bodyguard droid makes its entrance. Hibiki, not transformed yet, has to spin on her heel to meet it as it leaps through and lashes out at all of them.

    She ducks past it, the beam blade just narrowly grazing her jacket as she whizzes past - and finds her chance. "Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron!" A flash of light henshins her up on the spot, and the last piece of mechanical limb-armor clicks into place at the same time she steps back in to close the distance not with the machine, but to the fallen Phreak, making herself an additional human shield between him and the rest of the chaos while Kukuru tends to him.

    "...Bauer. If you really care about him like a son, then act like a father already, damnit! I saw that flinch!" Her tone is a fair deal harsher than normal--and whenever the receptionbot comes back this way, it experiences that harshness in the form of a roundhouse snapkick meant to send it flying right into the viewscreen of the city skyline.
Rita Ma      Rita's right eye flicks to the opening door, and the bodyguard droid behind it, before her left does. Her body moves automatically while her face still looks surprised. She sways forward and crouches low to duck under the blade, rolls to the left on the floor to dodge the likely follow-up, and then springs back upright.

     Her eyes don't stay on the droid, though. As she stands up lazily, they dart backwards to the source of the smell of human(ish) blood- Phreak's wound- and then, when Kukuru and Hibiki stance up to protect him, snap forwards to Bauer instead.

     Rita leaps- no, pounces- over the table, fast enough the eye can barely track her. Papers scatter in her wake. She slams into Bauer like a cannonball, likely smashing him between herself and the wall behind, then kicks off his chest to plant her feet, pick up the entire mahogany desk, and slam him with that next. It's unusually rough for a dainty girl like her, but the point is to keep him too unbalanced to aim a second shot at Phreak.

     "It's okay, Hibiki. You don't have to bother."
KNK     Outside, Rose gives the secretary an appraising look, as Violet stares off into the middle distance, then examines her nails. Both walk past, with Rose patting the droid on the back along the way.

    Inside, there's no way Rose, as carefully as she's watching, would miss that flinch.

    "Huh." He cares. Didn't expect that, did you? Would they care?

    "Well, whatever."

    Violet certainly looks like she's standing behind Rose, but that Violet's just as much of a holographic illusion as the business formal outfits, projected from little rolling bots hidden at ankle height. The real kunoichi disappeared from sight at around the time the secretary droid got crashed, and matched the sound of her heels to the illusionary copy. She doesn't make any sound at all while she's sneaking around Beauer, preparing a 'fun' cocktail of drugs to jab into either his neck or his back, thumb sliding up the hilt to not-quite-press the button that will drive the needles in.

    She doesn't get the chance. Rather, she hasn't 'yet' gotten the chance. The droid bursts in behind Rose, and Violet's target is mobile.

    Rose is, too. She's fully turned to face the door before it's even finished opening. The detonator is already in her hand, the triggers squeezed, and the tiny disk she'd slapped onto the droid's back inverts as its pins dislodge and its springs uncoil.

    It's not an explosive in any traditional sense, though its springs are arranged to unleash the force of it unfolding into a short, armor-penetrating spike, the better through which to aim its tiny payload of exothermic reactants. Small, high-quality stuff, with the spark supplied in the same motion as the disk destroying itself with its own springs. A hypodermic flamethrower, with the magnetized shards being more of an afterthought.

    Not that Rose actually counts on it working. She's backing up out of the way -- or seeming to, but her direction shifts the very instant Bauer's gun moves, even if not in her direction. She'd rather not be between them, but she can track both for at least a little while.

    And then Violet settles for, while crawling over the floor with the kind of rapid motion that would make far more sense were she a snake, stabbing for an artery in Bauer's right leg. It's a reach, and she probably shouldn't, but Rose is too busy to tell her to wait.
Tohru Adachi      "Ya know, when I signed up to help you deal with your boss, I didn't think it actually be this emotional. Was kinda hoping for a bit more back and forth 'fuck yous' between you two."  

     Adachi, as usual, doesn't seem to be taking things too seriously. He's even adjusting his tie during the conversation, that's how aloof he is!

     Yet, every now and then, the ex-detective's goofy face turns into a disgusted sneer. It's not like he can help it either, someone being able to be this openly shitty just because they have money strikes a nerve. Especially since when he acts shitty, he has to live with the consequences of his actions.  

     When the Security Droid barges in and starts doing ninja flips  across the room, Adachi nearly falls flat on his ass, though through some sort of miracle, he's just barely able to keep his balance by flailing his arms around.

     When it finally gets around to rushing him, he reaches down into the ground below him, struggling a bit before yanking out a small vaguely human-shaped shadowy blob.  

     Whatever it was, it doesn't live for long however, as it's immediately thrown in the way of the attacking droid, the poor thing being sliced in half and dying instantly as it eats the hit meant for Adachi. As it dies however, he follows up with his own attack, clumsily swinging a free arm back before stumbling forward with the most awkward haymaker known to man to the robot's face.

     Despite his spindly appearance and the almost comical nature of the attack, the force behind it is anything but.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      The bodyguard robot is clearly built to take a beating. It's not that Kukuru isn't strong enough to tear its arms off--it's that the droid seems to have that play figured out. Its foot crashes into her chin by the time she manages to dislocate an arm, wriggling free with inhuman agility.

    Surge hits it as it comes back up, the centrifugal force from her attack helping cut into the tough chassis, and the blunt trauma enough not only to dent, but to lift the droid off of its limber legs, hurling it into the wall.

    Even hurled into the wall as such, the droid gets back to its feet with an agile kip-up. As Friz closes in, her baton cracks the orange monovisor serving as the droid's optics, then cracks it again before the droid can make a counterattack. With its optics damaged, the counterswing is imperfect--enough for her to juke aside and sweep a leg.

    Adachi's haymaker slams into the opposite side of its head, nearly knocking it over. Servos whine as it adjusts, but the counterattack it makes is stopped cold when Hibiki sends it flying for a second time. The last thing the viewscreen shows is a swarm of drones roughly the size of small dogs, shaped like mussels, with antennae, sophisticated three-point optics, and what appear to be lasers. It is then crackeed into uselessness.

    Grounded again, the automaton's limbs briefly spasm, and its visor flickers with rapidly scrolling command prompts. On its feet once more, it ignores both Friz and Surge, on its way to its new target--Bauer.

    Having flipped his desk over to take cover from Friz's revolver, the Vanguard capo is unprepared to have his own droid's energy sword split his cover in two.

    "I'm fine!" shouts Phreak to Friz. "Kukuru's got me! Get Bauer! His targeting computer's defragging!"

    "He wants this to be business, so it's business," bellows Bauer to Hibiki, leaping from cover just as a fleet of flying surveillance drones and a cadre of Vanguard enforcers breaks through the door. "A man comes into my office to have me arrested, that demands an answer. He doesn't get it both ways." Yes, Bauer was hurt by Phreak's assertion--but this is a betrayal that goes beyond the pale.

    Chaos breaks out, as the drones try to shoot Bauer, and his officers, wearing the distinctive salmon shuttered armor of the Vanguard, begin shooting and bludgeoning the drones.

    Smashing Bauer against the wall works. He is tougher than his age would let on, and even having both halves of his table smashed against him doesn't put him out of the fight. Shifting his body to profile through the splintering wood--

    "LOOK OUT, RITA!"

    Bauer's fist closes around a syringe full of a grim-looking pink-tinged liquid as his rifle disintegrates. He uses it with the skill of a professional, trying to stick her with a deadly, withering poison.

    The bodyguard droid heaves its last when it's melted from the inside out, its smoldering chassis hitting the floor of the crowded office suite with one hand outstretched towards Bauer. The droid's last gasp is enough to trip him up, a stumble leading him right into Violet's attack.

    "'Arrest me,' huh?" asks Bauer, jabbing himself with a medical stim to force the wound closed. "You're short on cops and high on killers. But that's fine."

     Breaking into a sprint through the melee, Bauer weaves in and out of drones opening fire on him--making catching him a mess of weaving through friendly (and unfriendly) fire. Without his targeting computer or even glancing at the scope, Bauer's aim is still chillingly good, his comfortability with the rifle enough to put it to use even in this suboptimal environment. Ducking in and out of his own men for cover, his shots menace vitals with precious seconds to spare.
Ishirou The shot was true, though through only quick action that it didn't hit something critical in Ishirou. He hits the ground hard, rolling across the office and hitting a wall. He slides down, groaning the whole time...but he did get some interesting information. Augments, lots of them...human and flesh, and that's something that Ishirou is very highly specialized in dealing with.

His body is fighting him, trying to scream at him to stop and retreat, but if he did that he'd be abandoning everyone here. He couldn't do that, and he promised Phreak that he'd help him. He'd help save him from the hell that was this slavery.

"You know something..." he says, speaking to the mafia man. "That line doesn't work very well when you're forcing servitude. My old masters always told me it was for the best, that they knew better. That I wasn't capable as they are."

"In reality, they just wanted to make sure I felt so low that I couldn't fight against them, that any attempt at rebellion would fail in my own mind. The problem with that is when there are others, much MUCH more capable than you are that come to love and want what's best for him...and not you."

This time, he goes full-on hacking. He attacks NOT just the biological side of the man, but his augments as well. He full-on attempts to cause the augmentations to try and start rejecting. He's been using them to great effect, but what if they decided that they weren't supposed to be there? He turns every single autoimmune center of his body on maximum...and then causes the software of the augments to malfunction.

He also sets in one last thing, a sliver of mind control into his brain. Turning off his ability to lie. "Tell us the truth about what your plans are with Phreak. All of them, hold nothing back."
Friz think
Grit: Kay the Claws has the VIP.
Moxie: Wait, is that good or bad?
Grit: Good. She'll help.
Dirt: The shortie's got her covered -- human shield type!
Savvy: Make it count.
Moxie: Droid's down-- no!
Dirt: Where's it going?
Savvy: Ishirou handled it. Excellent!

Dirt: GUN'S LOUD! AIM'S LOCKED, BOSS!
Grit: Vitals. That's death.
Savvy: Not if we can help it. Moxie!
Moxie: I'll get us away!!
Savvy: No! *Closer*! Phreak's taken his targeting!

    Her baton-hand slips to the badge dangling around her neck now. She squeezes once, takes a deep breath, and takes off. Steadying her revolver with a two-handed grip, she rushes at Bauer, leaping over table debris and slamming hard onto her knees, tumbling a bit before dashing through the crowded office suite.

Grit: Bad move.
Savvy: What?

    A flicker of light. A blessing from the green knight is the only reason a bullet isn't tearing her heart apart as she slams back. She lets out a scream as bruises rock her ribcage, and she looks almost knocked out of the fight.

"UP! On those feet! Don't you start your second payment *here*, all the places."
"C-can't..."
"*Control breathing*. Roll right, get cover!"

    She flops onto her stomach, rolling twice, then crawls to a better position with some coverage, torso heaving as she gasps in pain behind a piece of office furniture. She loads a few more revolver shots with a shaking hand, steadied by a spectral grasp around her wrist.

Moxie: I can't get close! We're gonna *die*!
Grit: Savvy, solve this.
Savvy: How can I--
Grit: There's a way somewhere. Solve this or we get killed.
Savvy: Ghhh... FINE!!

"Automatic Targeting Systems in the 295th Century", 2nd ed. 240-276, Galactic Defense Publishing.
"Long-Arms and their Engineering", 5th ed. 523-554, Yellow Dwarf Books.
"Close Combat: A Violent History", 130-135, Sourcer Public Archive.

    She watches and listens closely. The sounds of the gun. The impacts it makes when firing on others. Even the footsteps of Bauer's motions. She matches it, with engineering, tactical theory, and history. "Rogers, get me *one* moment and I can make this happen." She whispers.

    "I'll do my best."
    A phantom man moves as close as he can to the powerful operator and his steady aim, invisible, intangible. Gritting his teeth, he tries to plunge a hand into the rifle. It's likely too reliable to be jammed, but with his ghostly tricks, he can try to unexpectedly switch its safety on for just a moment. Only one.

Grit: You are invincible. You can't die.
Savvy: That--
Grit: Invincible.
Moxie: Aaaaaaa that doesn't sound right but whatever!!

    Friz does something stupid. She rushes at the man head-on, brandishing one half of a pair of handcuffs. The other... is around her wrist. With surprising speed and a precise motion, she tries to get it latched around his right wrist and make any future aiming nigh-impossible with her flailing, as if they were going to have some kind of traditional knife fight. The other hand brandishes a baton while she hollers a loud, unsteady battlecry, trying to just bring it down on his arm multiple times. "Drop the guuuuuuun aaaaaaaaaaa!!"
Surge and Kit     Bauer's shot blasts through the last layer of the water shield Kit had conjured up for Surge. It knocks her back, square into a wall, though like an angry furball refuses to stay down longer than that split second.

    "Damn, that gun's not messing around. Kid, cover me!" Surge says, without even giving Kit a look; knowing he's pretty much nodding and trying to follow along. Tendrils of water surge out of his backpack, like extra wobbly limbs, shooting forward towards Bauer with the intent to yank his limbs back, and trip up the men between him and the pursuing party.

    Surge has a much more direct plan.

    "Like I'm gonna let some slimy mob boss outrun me!"

    Her form blurs forward, paying no mind whatsoever to the multitudes between her and Bauer. There's a crack of thunder, the absolute discomfort of a sonic boom indoors, while her lightning-enhanced body tries to land head-on punch to the face. "Only cowards use guns! Come on, try me!"
KNK     Violet jabs Bauer, letting his bloodstream carry the drugs. Those do, unfortunately, tend to take time to work, especially when someone is really pumped and ready to go. Getting that in before hostilities began in earnest would have been a lot better.

    Rose is already busy cursing herself for not thinking of the things that haven't yet gone wrong when she--

    Doesn't have any time to react to Bauer's aim. Rose had been on the lookout for all the traps she would have laid in the room, herself -- drop-out turrets, recessed guns and gas dispensors, low-signature projectile launchers with electromagnetic payloads -- that she doesn't give herself sufficient room to dodge. Her reflexes are good enough, and her thrusters engage, but she has to move her whole body a lot further and a lot faster than her opponent has to adjust his aim. All of it happens far too fast for her to actually verbalize a curse, though she bears the curse of being just fast enough to think, 'I should never have gotten this close.' She should have stayed outside the room, at that.

    Fire rips right into her body, and through her body, a cluster of shots where her heart should be, painting the wall behind her red.

    That's not where she keeps her heart, but there isn't enough extra space in her chest for there to be nothing vital on a collection of lines from front to back. Rose loses her balance in an aborted dodge, flying out of her holographic outfit moments before it fuzzes out, and slamming into the ground. She reaches for the SMG now revealed at her hip, then aborts and heaves herself, without getting to her feet, in the direction of the remains of the desk Rita had thrown.

    It's awkward going, something broken in her limb coordination, and Violet rushes at her to help, but Rose barks, "Cover me, get him!" and she veers off again, taking an intercept course that puts any shot aimed at Rose necessarily within three feet of herself.

    The edge-heated blade she draws is therefore for her partner's defense, ready to calculate bullet paths with the precision of artificial eyes, but the uncannily swift approach is for Violet to take it on a path straight through Bauer's limbs, leaning into the attack far enough to take apart as much of him in a single swing as she can.

    This is not a plausibly non-lethal attack.
Hibiki Tachibana     "Who the hell says he can't...?" Rather than an open response to Bauer, it's something Hibiki says to herself through clenched teeth, as the scene gets a whole lot more chaotic. Drones come to rein in the situation, and his own Vanguard muscle...this looks like it's gonna be a right mess, but even so.

    'It's okay, Hibiki. You don't have to bother.'

    "I sure as hell do! Phreak, watch yourself!"

    Kukuru has him, and he's no slouch, so the Gungnir girl breaks off to sprint after Bauer and right into the thick of the melee. One drone is bounded clean over, Hibiki nearly making contact with the feeling before hitting the ground running. An unfortunate enforcer is on the receiving end of her giving a momentum-driven hook slammed up into his jaw once she slips in range of his firearm. The middle of dangerous disasters is where she thrives.

    "Who's the one who let it get to this point, huh!?" She breathes out while pushing ahead, raising an arm up to shield her face as she darts through some exchanged shots. "If he got pushed to this point, it was for a reason!" A rough shoulder check to bash another enforcer out of her way. "Shitty contracts, trying to keep a hold on him for life, even shooting him--!" The Windchaser is fired off at her, and it painfully punches through her side, piercing her Symphogear's invisible barrier in the process.

    She doesn't slow down much. "Yeah, you pulled him off the streets, but what'd you do after that!?" When'd she become the expert on father figures? Whatever the case, Hibiki seems plenty fired up - enough that her arm goes out to grab hold of one of the surveillance drones, tight enough that her fingers scrunch down the metal a bit, and then rear it back.

    To /throw/ it at Bauer as he tries to make his escape, to flat-out bean him from behind and bowl him over to stop him in his tracks or at least slow him down so she can catch up. And even more importantly, so other people can catch up. Like Friz, who is currently invincible. She's gonna be right behind her projectile (the second makeshift one of the night!), too to try and get in his face.

    "If you wanna leave something for your kid, leave them something better than a crime empire and a bunch of bodies, asshole!"
Kukuru     "That should.. Do it!" Kukuru gives Phreak one more pat on the side once she finishes closing up the hole, letting the nanites linger a little while to try and keep his wounds from bothering him too much. Only afterwards does she focus them into her own face, wobbling a bit while getting back on her feet from the earlier kick to the face.

    "Business...? But he's still your kid!" Kukuru asserts, irritation evident in her tone while she stands her ground as Bauer's men start coming in and he starts firing that gun that the group had been warned about. "It's not normal for kids to want to do this sort of thing to their parents! For things to get this bad..."

    She watches Bauer as he starts firing at herself and her other companions, looking back at Phreak a moment later and how close he (probably) still is to where she's standing. A proper parent wouldn't really risk their child's safety firing weapons like this so close to them, but he's already shot Phreak once before. He's doing it again, and it looks like it's coming so easily to Bauer.

'Are... Are you okay?'
                        'No. I am not.'
                        'How could I be?'
'If I ever loved you, it was before I knew what a rotten bastard you are.'
        'He wants this to be business, so it's business.'
                
    "You called him your kid." Kukuru murmurs, barely audible above the gunfire or even the impact of his shot against her midsection as she acts as Phreak's (non) human shield. She lurches a bit, hissing as the regenerating powers of the science juice in her body keep her from passing out from the pain.

    "You're trying to kill him." She falls backwards, disappearing into a mass of dark energy and reappearing behind Bauer shortly afterwards.

    "A parent isn't supposed to kill their kids." She reaches for his arm, his back, anything she can grab onto, anywhere she can cran her fingers right into and through his flesh.

    "A parent is supposed to protect their kids." She heals him.

    "A parent is supposed to soothe their kids' pain." She pushes her hand in deeper, searching for something to grab onto from the inside.

    "A parent is supposed to kill FOR their kids." She heals him. She tightens her grip. She heals him. She starts pulling. She heals him. She repeats this process several times, the healing nanites working overtime as she visibly struggles with something almost resembling anger in her eyes.

    "Did you ever really love him?" Kukuru pulls her hands back, and she heals him one more time.
Rita Ma      Rita, counterproductively, looks back over her left shoulder when Phreak yells out to her. Then her right eye snaps back to Bauer. The syringe descends; she turns, grabs his wrist, halts it, then tries to stab it into Bauer's chest while he's still holding it and strikes the plunger with the heel of her hand. "Thanks, Mr. Phreak."

     'You're short on cops and high on killers.' "Yeah. We are."

     Rita finally fades into invisibility, having saved her chromatophores for when the fighting is thickest. Then she simply leaps onto the ceiling, letting the thick crossfire pass below her.

     The salmon-armored officers begin to become disarticulated, as if by invisible swords: hands from arms, arms from bodies, legs abruptly cut out from under them.

     The source can't be seen, but the trail of mayhem paints a clear path towards Bauer. When she shimmers into visibility again, it's to drop down from the ceiling behind him. Four hidden blades- two on each side- scissor into his body. Two more rest passively on his back as pinpricks, waiting, probing. Is this the moment for them to spear in and drink?
Tohru Adachi      "Yeah! That's right! And don't get back up you bucket of bo- Oh wait, oh dra-"  

     Adachi's in the middle of talking down on the downed bodyguard droid when he remembers that they were, not in fact, the main enemy. He remembers this a bit too late however, and the gun shot smashes into him, completely flooring the watch-member as he falls over and crashes on to the ground.

     Sadly, Adachi isn't dead, though one of his favorite suits now has a massive hole in it. He just sort of lays there for a moment while soaking things in, staring at the ceiling and exhaling deeply.  You know what, yeah, he deserved that.

     Still, the fight must go on, and eventually he raises his legs up into the air as if he's about to jump off the ground and back on his feet. Except he doesn't do that because that would require way too much effort, and instead he just opts to disappear in a shadowy cloud and reappear behind Baurer like a boring lazy person.

     "You know, I don't want to be 'that guy', but cops and killers are pretty synonymous."

     Reaching into his jacket, Adachi pulls out a revolver, though rather than aiming the barrel at the mob boss, he instead opts to hold it like a club, bringing his gun arm up high before quickly bringing it back down as he smashes it into the back of Baurer's head.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Forcing Bauer's body to reject the implants altogether is much more difficult than interfering with their ability to work, as Ishirou is evidently untangling several thousand years of evolution--but it's possible. Doing so turns his skin an unhealthy shade of red, bursts blood vessels in his eyes. With an irritated swipe of his hand, he beckons for his henchmen to open fire on the hacker.

    "My 'plans,'" says Bauer over the din of gunfire. "Like I'm a bad holovid villain. Get the fuck out of here," he manages to spit at Ishirou. "I wanted him to take my spot when I retired. Maybe even take Jacobi's, when he finally did. I wanted him to make this thing from a powerful clan to a world power. Omni-Tek's lease on the planet expires in less than a hundred years--and I wanted my boy, and his kids, to have a rock-solid buoy for when that fucking chaos happens." That is the truth. No malicious schemes, just a deeply flawed man's attempt to leave something for his kid

     Fighting off cybernetic rejection and the poison Rita'd stuck him with, he doesn't flinch when she sticks him a second time, surrounded by dispatched henchmen. There's an audible pounding at the door, followed by the whine of an angle grinder. Phreak must have bolted it, during the chaos.

    Adachi's pistol clubs the back of his head with an alarmingly grisly thudding noise. Still, Bauer tries to get up and fight. With his gun dropped, all he can do is make a mule kick aimed at Adachi's leg. "Yeah, you would know, wouldn't you, Adachi? That's right. I did my homework on you. You guys think I'm a rotten bastard? I'm a businessman--but this guy's been rotten his whole life, haven't you?" Being cuffed by Friz doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest, even when she forces him to drop the weapon. Why?

Ramon Bauer executes nanoprogram 'Assume Profession: Martial Artist...

    Cuffed to Friz, Bauer's wounds knit themselves closed as Kit yanks his limbs mid-escape attempt. "Coming right up, sweetheart," he spits at Surge, meeting her head-on to trade his own haymaker with her all-out charging punch. The impact is loud enough to crack the flickering viewscreen on the back wall.

    Bauer's hands freeze over with ice, hardening enough to use as parrying implements for Hibiki's thrown drone. Catching it in the jaw, he flings the dented thing back at her, then brings both hands up to try and grab Violet's sword. He never gets the chance. Kukuru's claws plunge into him, drawing a ragged scream from him that increases the urgency of the outside attempts to get in. Losing an arm that regrows immediately from Kukuru's on-and-off torment, still under Ishirou's truth compulsion, he answers her.

    "I never had a kid before him. Never had one since. Never had somebody who looked at me like I couldn't do anything wrong. Never been responsible for somebody. Never seen somebody so amazed by little things. Yes, I loved him," he says, bloodshot eyes welling up with pain--and hatred. For Kukuru, for Ishirou, and everyone here. "Everything was fine until *you* fucking people came into town two years ago. You turned him against me--suddenly now it's me that's the bad guy, because you people sold him on the idea that the real world just lets you do whatever the fuck you want, and you only have to get your hands dirty when you feel like it. Fuck family. Fuck obligations. Go be a superhero, if you want to. If I'd known how soft you'd make him, I never would've sent him to help the Watch that first time.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants     "...you remember the night you took me to see that Dirk Danger flick?" asks Phreak, just loud enough to be heard over the din of battle. "I think I was twelve. You got me the goggles he wore for my birthday that year. I loved that. I kept those things. Still have 'em," says Phreak, approaching the heavily bound and exhausted Bauer to place a hand on his shoulder. "I didn't understand why you looked sick when I said you were better than Dirk Danger. Why you looked like you had to get to anywhere but in front of me. These days, it's me that feels sick when people thank me. Because just like you did back then, I know better than they do all the things I've done working for this thing. I can't do it anymore, dad. And you've done it for so long you won't try any other way. It's 'real' for you, and nothing else is. I'm sorry," says Phreak, his hands gently cradling Bauer's head. "I'm so sorry. I loved you too."

     "Rita..." he says, nodding. It's time.
Rita Ma      Rita gives the father and son time. Her eyes are watering, just a little. The false eyes of her disguise-wrappings can't cry, but her real eyes behind them can, and lines of moisture glimmer where the tears ooze through the cracks.

     Then: "Ms. Violet. Ms. Kukuru. Mr. Adachi. Please protect me." Her eyes linger on Ishirou, Friz, and Hibiki. Her stare is sharp, except for the last, where it turns soft and apologetic.

     The process takes just a few seconds. A half-dozen tentacles, barely visible as just a shimmer in the air, impale him- one in the back of the head, to make it painless. Glowing blue 'energy' drains back along them in distinct, audible pulses. He starts to turn ashen and disintegrate into dust, from the extremities inward.

     If she is allowed to finish, there is nothing at all left at the end: no body, no soul. For once, it doesn't seem to leave her contented.
KNK     It's a mess, but Violet gets in. Catching her blade would be -- possible, though generally ill-advised. The cutting edge isn't even the most dangerous thing about it. If one even could catch it, with how swift her swing is.

    Rita asks for help, and Violet provides, ready to apply a reflexive counter to anyone, or anything, approaching close enough to bother her. She is, as one would expect from her appearance, very confident in her reaction speed.

    Rose has reached cover, and is now waiting for it to be over so Phreak can grid them out -- whatever that means. She vaguely recalls it coming up before with Ezekiel. Some sort of transportation system with limited destination points, but capable of emptying a whole building of people. She'd like that, since she's currently very badly vulnerable, especially with Violet all the way over there. All she can do is shoot someone, though dual SMGs at least provide a lot of bullets.

    Violet catches Hibiki's eye, and gives her a sad little smile, but it's Rose, just out of line of sight, who speaks on the relevant topic. "Were we like that...? No, not even at her age. Guess we all lose our innocence, but not at the same time."
Ishirou Of course, things go completely wrong in the eleventh hour. Of course, most of them wanted to kill him and lied to him...to Lilian to even get him here. Ishirou clutches his sides, feeling his entire body scream and want to shatter. He wants to cave in, to scream, to shout...but none of those things.
His own gaze is returned to Rita. It's sharp, cold, and calculating. It's the eyes of someone who's already forming a plan, but also someone who's lost a lot of trust in someone. Ishirou was taken for a ride, he went to bat for her, he did a lot...only to be lied to and misled. She might have said that she trusted him, but not trusting the organization he is in, and misleading him...well that makes him feel the reverse.

They were past words now. The time for talk had came and went...and now action would determine what happens.

He puts a plan together, he pulls himself to his feet thanks to POD. "POD, beam program," he says and fires the beam straight towards the roof. The idea would be to obscure sight in the room. It wouldn't obscure his vision, because he has other ways to see. He runs forward, he's got to be there first...hopefully, Friz distracts, and hopefully, Hibiki can delay...

He dives in, attempting to come at the father from another angle. The blade he rarely uses in hand, aiming to swing it down. He sends a signal with it, to hopefully track down the signal.
Kukuru     Kukuru's mind goes through several different possibilities as her anger starts to fade. Should Bauer be allowed to live? Should he die for his crimes? Should he be given a chance to atone? Should the world be freed from his influence?

    Ultimately, she releases him, but not out of a sense of mercy. She knows Rose is aiming for him. She knows Rita wants him to die, too. Ishirou's sense of duty and his strength exhibited so recently still inspires her, as does Hibiki's belief in chances to do better. As short of a time as she's known Friz, even Friz's dedication to reform has Kukuru's pride surging up in all of them.

    "... But he's still done unforgivable things as a parent. I can't let that go." Kukuru shifts her position, giving Rose and Rita and Adachi a wide berth. It should be easy at this point, knowing that Bauer is someone that's pushed Phreak into hating him so much that he would be okay with killing someone he once considered his father, right?

    Right?

    It is not nearly that simple.  Phreak is remembering things from their past, things someone driven by pure hatred and anger wouldn't remember. Bauer corroborates it, and his anger is easy enough to understand. Why wouldn't he be angry at the outside world that turned his son against him? Why wouldn't his son, estranged as he might be, still choose to remember the good times before things went so terribly wrong.

    <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Ms. Violet, Ms. Kukuru, Mr. Adachi. Please protect me for just a second."
    <J-IC-Scene> Tohru Adachi says, "Yeah. Alright."
    <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, sounding considerably more shaken than before, "Uh... Huh? R-right. I... Yeah."

    Listening to other people lead her around is so much easier. It's far easier than trying to think much herself at this point while she's choking up, trying not to cry in front of everyone, and failing rather miserably at that. She shuffles over to where Rita is, standing guard over her like a body shield that's only barely taller than her charge.

    "G... Got it. You... Yeah." Kukuru murmurs and sniffs once, her mind already drifting elsewhere. She doesn't even question why Ishirou's shooting the ceiling and trying to cut through Bauer, too.

    At this point, she's just making sure everyone else here is physically fine so they can finally go home.
Friz Savvy: Jesus, that worked.
Moxie: Don't like losing one of these hands!
Grit: He'll lose more.
Dirt: Wait-- boss, they're gonna kill him. This isn't puff-talk.
Savvy: Shit. Shit.
Grit: He'll die. Permanently.
Savvy: How do we stop this? I can't... none of these people on the radio...
Moxie: Can't you find some way to convince them?
Savvy: Nothing's catching. Total loss.

Savvy: I'm... so tired. This hurts. I need to rest.
Grit: Savvy. Wake up. He's going to die.
Moxie: Savvy! Come on, do something!
Dirt: Boss? Hey! Boss, we're about to become accessory to a murder!
Savvy: I'm just... so tired. Too hurt...
Grit: SAVVY!

    Friz taps an electronic card against the cuffs, popping them open after he's fallen. She rolls away, trying to get some distance, scrambling for something. She dropped her baton, her gun's out of rounds...

Dirt: The kid gave us orders. It's the best we have.
Moxie: God dammit... I'll try to...
Grit: A painful memory made more painful.

    "You're under arrest for attempted murder...!" She can barely, hoarsely exclaim, pointing her spent revolver at Rita and her protectors, Violet, Adachi... likely even Kukuru. "Freeze! Don't-- god dammit, don't make me a fucking accessory to..." A distraction? Maybe. In as much as she could possibly distract anyone from what Ishirou is doing. It seems more of an expression of a kind of grief. She had hoped to help someone who sounded like they were in a bad place. Instead... she expects this will hurt him a lot. Especially after hearing what was said now. One hand brandishes the gun, the other squeezes her badge with a white-hot grip. Teeth clench. Hands shake.

Grit: It won't work.
Grit: This is death. It is the end.
Grit: The boy is smart, and dedicated. But death is threatened by the world's smartest boy as much as its smartest insect. No dedication could change this.
Moxie: Then we support him at a tough time, too.
Grit: ...
Grit: It is all we can do.
Hibiki Tachibana     The thrown drone is returned, and Hibiki meets it with her fist--slamming straight into it and reducing it to scrap falling off to the sides. She's breathing heavily, and emotions are still running high. Too high. She's more visibly angry than she normally gets. For a lot of reasons. And yet, it takes a 180 turn before too long. '... So let me do it.' It snaps her out of it like a bucket of cold water.

    "Cr--Rita! Not unless we don't have a choice!" She whirls on the other girl, looking somewhere between shocked and pleading, only for her mouth to fall open. She looks between Rita...Violet...all of them. The more they all talk amongst themselves, her included, the more an awful feeling builds up in her gut. Kukuru might see that she has a point, but she doesn't entirely understand where it's coming from. She's angry because this man has done unforgivable things, but not in exactly the same way. But now...

    ...If she lets Rita put even more blood on her hands, even after flashing her that heartwrenching smile...
    ...If she lets Kukuru go along with this, after everything she said about parenting, tearing up...
    If she lets this man die, in his son's arms, being called 'dad'...

Who's side are you on?
                I'm just going to do...what I...
/And what is that right now/?

    "...I..." Her teeth dig into her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, the fists at her side clenched to the point they're white-knuckled. They only get tighter, until small trickles of blood are also leaking out from her palms. She can't. She can't let it. Not just for all of them. Because she thinks a part of her might break too, if she just stands on the sidelines and lets it happen.

    Until all her built-up emotion explodes out in a loud roar. It's full of frustration, pain, and too many other things to count. It's loud enough to shake the air of the room and echo off the walls, and it's timed with her fist coming up and wrenching back--before, for lack of anything else to punch it into, she brings her whole body down into smashing it directly into the floor.

    The whole office doesn't just quake, it feels and sounds as if it's going to break apart at its foundations and collapse all the way down to ground level. /It actually might/, depending on just how reinforced the whole place is put up against her strength. But it'll sure be attention grabbing, one way or another, and it just might give Ishirou the chance he needs in that moment of chaos after the chaos has ended.

    She's sick to her stomach. And this 'distraction' is hardly calculated. It's more like an excuse to do what she already wanted to do on the inside.
Tohru Adachi      "Yeah, yeah. Look who's calling who a piece of shit. Could have at least had the decency to go out like a real villain. Now look at what you did."

     There's a lot less snark and liveliness in Adachi's voice,and more just the tiredness of a man who's had the wind knocked out from under his sails after learning his birthday party got cancelled because of rain. He'd come here to murder a rich asshole, and while he's still definitely not going to be losing any sleep over this man's death, there's certainly no joy in it now either.

     Having your suddenly world flipped upside down on you and lashing out because you don't understand while hurting the ones that loved you in the process... Well, perhaps that's simplifying what happened here, but it's the easiest way for him to digest what happened, so it's good enough for him. Good enough to at least explain the slightest shred of sympathy he feels for this bastard.

     When Rita calls over for him and the others to spot for her however, he's quick to adopt his usual goofy demeanor once more, walking over to block the rest from interfering.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Phreak turns his back on Rita. "Exfil in two minutes," he says. His exit plan is all-inclusive, but it is far from expedient. As lines of code scroll up the interior of his visor, and his fingers dance across a hardlight keyboard, "Iris'll be closed on the warpgate here, no point in even trying. I'm bumping us to Newland--neutral. That way even if word gets out to other Clan cities, we don't catch heat. You're on your own from there." Another window opens up on his visor. Not command lines, this one. Looks more like video files.

    Bauer is dust.

    Thanks to Hibiki's anguish, the Vanguard HQ might be, too, inside of a few minutes. The doors are breached just as the last line of code is entered.

    Your vision is, for one second, an alarming, solid blue. It swallows everything. Darkness, thereafter. A strange, negative image of a cloudy sky. 'You' is a different thing, here; a solidly defined thing as anywhere else, but defined differently, shaped differently. You feel yourself hurtling through an airless, lifeless space, towards a light in the darkness--a sign. NEWLAND CITY. It passes overhead, and the fever vision passes with it.

    Newland City, that slim tract of land built up along a gradual incline, is pleasantly bustling at this time of day. The Warpgate is just outside of town, resting up against the wall. "I altered the footage before we left. For what it's worth," says Phreak hollowly to Ishirou and Friz. There'll still be eyewitness acounts. But no hard proof, whatever cold comfort it may provide. "Take the files you got to the Council of Truth, in Tir, once this boils over. They'll act on it."

    His tone suggests that neutrality is, at this point, a concerted effort on his part. His eyes, even behind the blue of his visor, are clearly welling up. He stands awkwardly for a tense moment stretched to agonizing extent, fingers twitching at his sides. His facade cracks, and he knows it--so he breaks into a walk, which becomes brisk, which becomes a run and shifts then into his full, superhumanly fast blur. He's gone.

The Green Chapel
Adonis Region
Shadowlands

    The mossed-over ruins of a place of contemplation, ruined long before humanity was thought of. The ghostly memory of a place that Was. Bercilak isn't here. It is, at once, a tremendous relief and a stabbing pain in his stomach. It makes what Phreak has to do easier, and one thousand times lonelier.

    His knees hit the dirt. Then his palms, grabbing up handfuls of ur-grass as if gripping this shattered place for comfort. It offers none, and Phreak screams into the open air. Flights of half-remembered birds take to the hazy suggestion of a sky, cast in relief against it by the shining Sun-Something. The sound is anguished. To even let it it loose strips him of the last of his strength, and his side hits the dirt soon after.

    Curled into a ball, alone, Elineve mourns the loss of someone who died years ago.