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Kyoko Takada     There are a couple choices for warp gates in this town, with different disadvantages to each. One is a bit out to sea, and will involve either a long swim or use of a ship. The other deposits one right at the immigration office, and will involve red tape. Visitors are being let in at a rapid enough pace, but it'll mean moving through vast crowds of the highly urbanized area before getting to where the coordinates from "Hibiki" say to go: away from the shiny skyscrapers, and into what's just a couple steps up from a slum, and much closer to the docks. There are a lot of homeless and shanties in the area, a situation made worse by the obviously foreign refugees. To those who know of modern Earth-type worlds, most of the sights won't be too odd. This is some version of a 21st century Japan. The refugees from other parts of the Quilt are easy to spot.
    Despite the theme of today's mission, law and order don't seem to be that bad in the area. In worse cities, somebody would have already ransacked and stolen some of the possessions these relatively-well-off hobos have used to make living under bridges more palatable. But things just get more chaotic as one makes their way to the final destination, and things get more multicultural. The accents vary from Japanese to Chinese to Russian, the streets are no longer picked clean of litter, and moving from one building to another solely through spanning bridges and rooftops becomes more plausible. It's getting into late evening, but there are plenty of lamps to light up the market up ahead, all street stalls crowded close together. It's close enough to the water to have any kind of thing brought in from outside. Here, the night is anything but quiet.
Kyoko Takada     Kyoko's not present, but she's still communicating to the band encompassing those who answered her call. "I won't be coming in with you, since... for a few reasons. But I can support you from here. I'm still working on arranging a few things. What I want you to look for is /organized/ crime. And try not to screw things up for people there any worse than it's gotten. Any questions, send them my way."
Xiaomu Xiaomu isn't THAT big on swimming and she doesn't know any ships who are going to be here (or if she does, she doesn't expect them to have a deck big enough for people to walk around on), so immigration and red tape it is.

"Name?" "Xiaomu." "Nationality?" "Japanese, Earth-52605." "Occupation?" "Public safety." "Date of birth?" "Uh .... what calendar were you using seven centuries ago? I always have to go back and convert." ".... Reason for visit?" "Troubleshooting and tech support." ".... Anything to declare?" "A few things. Oh, what's the local exchange rate like? I may want some souvenirs on my way home."

She may or may not have gotten through customs at least partially by dint of terminally confusing the poor functionary who was checking her through, but Xiaomu gets through with her equipment and sets about navigating to the rendezvous point specified by Kyoko. She carries with her a practiced air of giving no fucks about what any onlookers might think of her - and an equally practiced air of dissuading anyone who thinks that the sage fox tourist is going to be an easy mark for pickpocketing, swindling, or 'protection'. Or anything less savory, for that matter. The staff she's carrying might have something to do with that, of course.
Robert Speedwagon     Well, it's a cinch Robert Speedwagon and his group aren't getting in via an immigration office. Between Speedwagon's bladed hat, the penchant of Tattoo (likely the pesudonym comes from that dark blue 'splotch' tattoo over his eyes and the top of his face) to carry more knives on his person than a stereotypical Triad member from a British comedy movie, and the fact that Speedwagon himself isn't going in without his sledgehammer, there'd be no freaking way they'd get through an immigration office.

    So thanks to the three former thugs' talents in skullduggery, they've managed to 'borrow' a small rowboat and are coming in via the sea warpgate. Robert himself stands at the front of the boat while Tattoo and Kempo (a fellow conspicuously dressed as in Chinese fashion from around the Victorian era) man an oar each. They manage to navigate fairly well, in fact. The group dock and head to the coordinates.

    Speedwagon is, noticeably, carrying a guitar case. This is where he's keeping his sledgehammer. Sure, it's a weapon that's about as subtle as a brick to the face. But it suits him. And this is a dangerous place, he's not about to go in unarmed, even if he might have to abandon all pretense of normalcy to do so.

    As they head into the less picked-up areas, Tattoo ventures, "Heh. Jus' like 'ome, innit Boss?"

    "I do get the uncomfortable feelin' of deja-vu," Speedwagon replies, miraculously keeping his voice QUIET for once. "Keep your wits about yer. We wouldn'ta been called 'ere if there wasn't somethin' foul afoot." He begins to scan the crowd, shrewd gaze moving from face to face. He knows unsavory sorts. Hell, he and his group might look not too out of place here himself if it weren't for his clear Victorian attire.

    While Speedwagon does his thing, Tattoo and Kempo keep an eye out for people who might be heading in their direction with harm on their mind. Much like their boss, they know unsavory folks. Even if their sense for that sort of thing isn't quite as refined as Speedwagon's, they know the look of someone about to come over and start something.
Starbound Flotilla     The Starbound Flotilla are here, and by Hibiki's recommendation, they've decided to show up with a lot less of their usual big show, though they're still rather very obviously foreigners. Their arrival was via a rather small, junky craft, kept low-value to facilitate ditching it if they have to, and low-profile to not draw the attention of any coastal interests. Heading out from the docks, they attempt to merge with any crowds of other arrivals and work to integrate effectively with the refugees.

    Hobos have eyes, ears, and secret economic invisibility; often the beggars are the ones who hear the most, and so that's where the Flotilla heads. The homeless seem to not have had all their shit stolen... Perhaps this is an arrangement with the local organized crime elements? Specifically George, the human member of the Flotilla, has immediately gone in on any groups he can find. George already looks like a homeless man just by default, honestly, with his shabby grey jumpsuit and his messy beard and hair.

    "Heya pals! Anyone want a smoke?" George says, offering from a pack of Robust Gold(tm) Cigarettes, which he's halfway gone through already. "Passing through and looking to see who around here needs the usual respect, it looks like there's a good arrangement set up." He's doing what makes sense: Trying to chat his way through the homeless and use what they suspect are some subtle connections. The rest of the Flotilla is mostly hanging back and mingling, but Seft at least has managed to keep a sensor suite mounted on her as part of her robot aesthetic and is feeding whatever data comes through it back to Hibiki, their operator.
A2     Swimming is not a talent that exists in A2's repertoire. She is much too dense to float, and not fully watertight anymore anyways. Immigration is probably a thing she should avoid as well. As long as she wears the big hobo ninja cloak (sadly starting to get pretty tattered by now) though, and nobody squints too hard at the scuff marks on her face, she probably just looks like an unusually pretty, but otherwise highly ordinary filthy traveler or refugee of some sort, not even appearing non-human. This makes it pretty easy to blend in with the others, and with a bit of persuading, hitch a ride on one of those ghetto border boats making berth incognito at the slums/docks.

    It just so happens to be Speedwagon's. No matter how much one might stare at A2 and attempt to sense her intent, nobody would get anything in the way of an impression she's here to cause trouble. In fact, examining her too long just starts to build the unnerving impression that way too little is going on behind those eyes, which look increasingly dead-looking the longer one stares. It's not at all threatening or unsavoury, just kind of depressing and unsettling.

    Regardless, she spares a second to thank them (under her breath) and pay them (if they asked for anything) before disembarking. 'Looking for organized crime' is a pretty vague mission parameter, but A2 finds the janky, chaotic, utterly unplanned slums vastly more comfortable than the clean and ultramodern skyscrapers she sees in the distance, which she seems to eye with bristling distaste every time she happens to look at them.

    A few times, walking about the bridges and even rooftops, she considers starting trouble just to see what will happen, but pushes the urge down each time by reminding her that her dubiously allied contact had asked her specifically not to. The overall degree of order and relative confidence of these refugees could indicate a severe crackdown on petty and solo thugs in the area, so a market seems like a safe bet to find dealers of . . . whatever they have here.

    Frankly, A2 just starts looking for the most blatantly sketchy or illegal sales or cargo she can find, up to and including being pretty blunt and obvious about it, to the point that anyone actually hypothetically in the biz would be trying to get her to keep her voice down.
Kyoko Takada     The office route really isn't that bad. It would have been worse if this had been a few months ago, but they've started getting used to their neighbors. There's still a lot of staring, and some confusion, though, given that none of those neighbors are particularly close, nor have they solidly fixed up their mutual borders and routes of travel and trade. A general good will accounts for both the number of refugees and the ease with which possibly armed and dangerous people enter the country so easily.
    But those dangerous people aren't within Speedwagon's sight, so far as even his senses can pick up. There are a lot of dishonest people surrounding him, even some criminally so, but that's because he's surrounded by street stalls. The scent of violence yet eludes, though it could still just be around the corner, and this place has a surfeit of blind corners. There's other things the sufficiently keen could pick up here, like fear.
    That fear might be specifically directed at the foreign, but there's still *enough* foreign for the Flotilla member to more or less join the crowd. The fact that these places are really crowded helps. There simply isn't enough room to give anyone a wide berth without some fancy footwork, not reliably. George has the best chance of making pals, and offering cigarettes was a good starting move. One of the better-off hobos stoops the rest of the way out of his solar-cell-laden shack, his eco-conscious nature not stopping him from accepting a cancer-stick. "Heya. Good evenin'. Don't get a lot of respectful types here, but you're welcome to give it." Some others are watching.
    It would be weird if nothing came of A2's investigative style, though it's not anything she asked for. Neither thugs nor dealers appear before her, so far as any will admit to it in word or deed, but one stall merchant speaks before she's even managed to voice a question, cringing away from her and saying, "No, no, I already paid this month! Ask your friends!" in a thick Mandarin accent.
Robert Speedwagon     Speedwagon might have been a thug in the day, but he's more or less given that life up. Jonathan Joestar has been a good influence on him, so he's a good guy now. He wouldn't have asked anything of A2 in the way of payment for hitching a ride on the boat. He would, however, have kind of squinted at her for a few moments before agreeing. Shrewd sort, this one, but as long as she didn't smell like brimstone to that refined sense of his, he wouldn't have had any issues with letting her hitch a ride.

Yeah, street stalls he expects to be run by the dishonest and criminal; in fact, it would attract his attention if one WASN'T dishonest and criminal! This is nothing new to him; indeed, there's a lot that's familiar here. Though as that raised voice registers, he looks in that direction, pausing to take stock of the situation.

    He recognizes the accent, it's similar to one of his group. So he looks at the one of his group that's dressed in the Mao jacket. "Kempo," he says simply, then inclines his head in A2's direction. The trio amble over in that direction, looking for all the world like they're just normal travelers. Though notably, Kempo's standing to Speedwagon's right, were he can be seen easier, while Tattoo lags back a little on his left.

    "Somethin' the matter, sirrah?" he asks pleasantly. He looks like the rough sort, with the scar on his face and the lines under his eyes. To say nothing of the way Tattoo and Kempo stick close by -- it's very reminiscent of a group of thugs, for those in the know about such things.
A2     'Protection racket. That seems more like it' Thinks A2. 'Explains why nobody's stolen all this shit out in the open too'.

    Still, she isn't about to squander the only opportunity that's presented itself so far. A2 has no illusions. She doesn't even consider herself socially functional, nevermind a detective, and all this 'being around' people was starting to get to her already. It isn't hard to fake ('fake') being irritable and unhappy with the merchant's reaction. She casually (and loudly) slaps a hand down on his counter, leaning just enough that it starts to creak.

    "Is that so? Funny. I didn't hear anything about it." She intones, technically not lying. "Then who got the money? If a magical fairy didn't come to collect, I can just check, and we can resolve this misunderstanding. That'd be easier for you, right?" It really takes zero effort nor stretch of the imagination for her to adopt an impatient, dismissive, and vaguely threatening tone. It's one of her practically three modes of communication. Of course, she doesn't /actually/ have any intention of roughing the poor guy up. Probably.

    So she glances aside to Speedwagon and crew with more than a little visible irritation. Of course they'd have to wander in on her trying to pull this stupid bluff. Obviously they'd know she doesn't /actually/ work here as an enforcer, right? She'd taken their boat. All she can really do is try to glare meaningfully with those dead, lavender eyes, and tap her finger loudly on the poor merchant's countertop. "Yeah, what's the matter? We shouldn't have a problem here, should we?"
Starbound Flotilla     George offers a handshake with a calloused hand. "Name's George." He says, shifting his posture, moving his shoulders, meeting eyes, mirroring motions, all in a way finely tuned to obscure intentions with chaotic restlessness and to provoke a friendly first impression. He's speaking an odd language, some strange Gutter language that sounds like a creole trade language of some sort that brings aspects of Russian and Mandarin. "Looks like this is an alright place to stop a while. Anyone or anywhere I'd need to meet and greet so as to not cause any trouble while I stay?"

    He looks up, at the solar cells, eyebrows shooting up in recognition of the technologies involved. "Huh. Is that polycrystaline or thin-film?" He says, with a bright smile. "Man of taste! The neighborhood must love you, nothing worse than a junkyard-dived diesel nightmare stinking up the place to keep the lights on." Put them at ease with an angle of familiarity, using his own expertise.

    It also hints gently at George's own somewhat more extensive knowledge, the sort of well-spokenness that comes of having something of value to offer on a referral. This is, after all, what he used to do professionally, back when he was young: Subtly ingratiate himself in a way, to get close enough to someone to pull a gun and put a few rounds in their gut. Let's hope he can get pointed in a good direction!
Xiaomu A few decades ago, Xiaomu got used to wandering around Akihabara while it was better known as black market site than the electronics-and-hobby mecca that it is in the present day. There's something about the 'less civlized' part of town which reminds her readily of that place in those days; she kind of prefers Akihabara as it is *now*, of course, but at least the memories of decades past lend a bit more of a familiar feel to the here-and-now. The sound of someone claiming that he 'paid this month' gets one vulpine ear to perk up, and she meanders in that general direction.

It's as good a way as any to meet up with the others - and A2 seems to have a good idea on how to follow up on the opening which the timid merchant just presented. Xiaomu nods to the gynoid, leaning casually on her staff, and looks the merchant over - along with his wares; she's genuinely curious about what's for sale.
Kyoko Takada     The upset stall-keeper might not view the approaching Speedwagon et al as friends, but he's at least more relieved to see them than A2. As convinced as he sounds of impending hostility from the (let's just call her a) lady in the ragged cloak, maybe he doesn't think the potentially heroic potential rescuers could take her, since he says, "No, no trouble. No trouble here. No trouble, right?" sounding rather less than convincing. It doesn't get any better the closer she gets to him.
    "I said, ask your friends! They came yesterday, I paid the long-haired woman, just ask--" he pauses, suddenly, looking at A2's face. Or, subtly differently, just above her face. "Eh? What, you with them, right?" Confused, he looks between her and anyone else nearby, Kempo and Xiaomu included, but answers don't immediately materialize.
    At first glance, these are some quality goods, mostly small, electronic devices, like cameras and specialist chips. Much closer inspection and knowledge of local standards would reveal that they're all aged models, some unlikely to work.

    Elsewhere, "Polycrystaline," the hobo smiles. He looks less of a hobo than George does, having probably shaved within the past few days and bathed recently, but that may be a cultural difference of space hobos/adventurers vs modern Japanese hobos. He stops short of actually looking dignified, but does look proud of his setup. "If you want to set up shop," he lowers his voice, "I'd try far from the docks. We're too close here, taxes are bad, you know?" It raises to a normal, genial conversation volume. "There's too many people here, drives prices up, good and bad in that, yeah?"
Nozomi Houken     The girl and the tiger are here. And they are here with, depending on your perspective, two purposes, or three.

    The official purpose of Nozomi Houken's visit is an olive branch from a fellow iteration of Japan. She's been sent as her own country's emissary of sorts, both to offer her services in any particular multiversal issues they might be having, and to assess what sort of local issues might be prominent. This is where the matter of perspective comes in; while this dovetails nicely with Kyoko's own request, they aren't /quite/ the same thing. The most-assuredly-separate other purpose, however, is much more simple and straightforward. TIGER's scans of this place were /very/ interesting, both to the JSDF and to the Concord. They're here so he can get every bit of information possible about this place, about what's going on here, about the ambient magical energy, everything. As many scans as he can take. Constant sweeps, probably several in-depth analyses.

    Which explains both the fact that Taiga's ears and nose are constantly moving this way and that, and the fact that Nozomi Houken is currently wearing a full JSDF dress uniform. And looking extremely self-conscious. The two of them are headed for a meeting point that, fortunately, puts them not far from Kyoko's given coordinates... in fact, if a certain fox, cyborg and cool dude look that-a-way, they might get to see the duo heading right along.
Nozomi Houken     The girl and the tiger are here. And they are here with, depending on your perspective, two purposes, or three.

    The official purpose of Nozomi Houken's visit is an olive branch from a fellow iteration of Japan. She's been sent as her own country's emissary of sorts, both to offer her services in any particular multiversal issues they might be having, and to assess what sort of local issues might be prominent. This is where the matter of perspective comes in; while this dovetails nicely with Kyoko's own request, they aren't /quite/ the same thing. The most-assuredly-separate other purpose, however, is much more simple and straightforward. It's a previously-unknown world. More mundane things are easily sleuthed out, but the magical side of things tends to be harder to uproot. So they want their walking magical sensor suite there to take as many scans as possible, just in case there's some supernatural threat lurking 'under the hood' they need to be aware of.

    Which explains both the fact that Taiga's ears and nose are constantly moving this way and that, and the fact that Nozomi Houken is currently wearing a full JSDF dress uniform. And looking extremely self-conscious. The two of them are headed for a meeting point that, fortunately, puts them not far from Kyoko's given coordinates... in fact, if a certain fox, cyborg and cool dude look that-a-way, they might get to see the duo heading right along.
Robert Speedwagon     Robert Speedwagon may be unsubtle, but he's not dumb. Once he approaches and hears what A2's saying, he knows better than to mess up what she's doing. Might be a good way to get some information. Since he's not really sure what they're supposed to be looking for anyway, and has no real idea where to really start.

    Speedwagon looks up as Xiaomu approaches, and offers a nod of greeting to her. The hairstyle is a weird one as far as he's concerned, but that's all he figures her hairtails for -- an odd hairstyle. So though he does give the 'hairstyle' a look, he doesn't seem like he's terribly weirded out by it.

    The stall owner's words catch his attention before the wares do. He doesn't know what most of them are in the first place, so he's not about to delve into THAT particular area of non-expertise. No sense in looking like a complete idiot. So instead of being all White Knight... he just sort of grins in the man's direction. Shifting that guitar case to prop it on the ground and lean lightly on it, he asks, "Shouldn't be a problem, should it? Jus' ta check right quick? Got a name for this long-haired lady? I'm sure there's more than one long-haired lady 'round these parts..."

    It's pitched in that 'I'm your friend... no, really!' tone that he's heard -- and used more than once in his past -- to lean on people who owe juuuuuust a little harder. Here Kempo speaks up, in Mandarin. "It would be in your best interests to answer the question," he says calmly. The tone is not a threatening one. And Tattoo's mad grin from behind him might not hurt in the intimidation department either! He seems to share A2's opinion about the situation; he doesn't see the harm in scaring the guy since he doesn't intend to actually rough the guy up.

    Though he IS surprised by the appearance of Nozomi. Not at her uniform no. At the fact that there is a METAL TIGER at her side. That gets a wide-eyed look of shock, and not just from Speedwagon either. Tattoo's openly staring, and even Kempo looks as though he's not quite sure what to think!
Kyoko Takada     Everyone on the mission who's patched in can hear from Kyoko as she says, "It was convoluted, but law enforcement should be moving in close enough to react without appearing to know where the target is. We don't want them just going to ground. And it's better if someone other than me contacts them when they're needed. Officer Nomura's in charge, he has a good rep for responding quickly." Either Nozomi or Taiga should already have the contact info for that guy.
    There's a lot of magic in this world, but it's more spread out. Not particularly astonishing, except that every person here registers as what would be a low-ranking mage on some other worlds. It washes things out, like city lights block out stars, but focused scanning can still pick out what particular devices have magical components, or the odd native here or there with above-average magical capability.
Xiaomu Xiaomu grins, raising a hand to wave to Nozomi and TAIGA, then turns her grin to the merchant. "So how much were you short for the next payment again? I can't promise to cover all of it, but if you've got -"

She pauses, crouching down a bit to get a better look at one of the boxes. "... oh hey. WonderSwan Crystal, I haven't seen one of those since they went out of production in my world. Wonder if the games I've got back home are compatible with this one ..." She straightens up, grinning. "What's it worth to you? And how much does that measure up with how much the answers are worth to me and my buddies?"

Hey, why shop purely for pleasure when you can knock out some business on the same receipt?
A2     A2 can't help but smirk at the merchant's sudden and panicked reply. Even if she has no intention of really making his life difficult, seeing the poor guy sweat and squirm like this is legitimately a little funny; especially when the Speedwagon crew joins in on the ruse. A little bit of tension leaves her frame when he picks up on the deception. 'Good. Smart guy. Smart crew.' she thinks, along with the idea that it'd been good luck to hitch a ride with them.

    "Right. No trouble. He was just /helping/ me identify his last 'business partner'." A2 doesn't even try to make it sound subtle. It's actually kind of offensive just how blatant she makes it, since Robert and Kempo are playing right into it. Besides, it's classic good cop bad cop. Having a complete stranger butt into it though, sends a sour and uncertain look Xiaomu's way, basically just silently screaming 'who the hell is this ditzy tart' and 'get lost'.

    "We're not paying /him/ to answer to /us/. That's literally the opposite of how this works." The number of cooks in the kitchen increases. A2 plants both hands on the edge of the counter, and then her fingers start to squeeze into it to the point that they puncture the surface in neat little rows, subtly implying what she could be doing to somebody's legs. "Eyes down here." she insists. "Because I sure don't remember being paid anything, if 'long-haired woman' is the best you've got." The hell did that weird glance mean? Do the crime bosses around here go around with some kind of forehead mark or hair accessory?
Starbound Flotilla     George gives a firm nod and a wide grin. "Cool, cool. Sounds like I ought to make sure I don't do anything to break up the flow of all this. Can't go messing up property values and all. Maybe there might be someone I could talk to about what toes need not-stepping on." George seems to have run into most of a wall for what he can get done here... Under the watchful eyes of those who watched him, anyway.

"Docks."
"And this is your certain conclusion?"
"Aye, it's a sensible source. Skim some merchandise..."
"Explain for homelesss sssolar panel!"
"Worried. But why does Hibiki need to find them? They don't seem to be causing trouble beyond the norm...?"
"How do we proceed? You know this... Gutter nonsense better."
"First of all, fuck you, second of all, we go there and knock on doors."

    Time to hit the docks. The Starbound Flotilla has two specific specialties: The specialty of architecture and environment-craft, and the specialty of industry. This includes shipping and handling; they move quickly down towards the docks, and intend to set up to observe it. George intends to slip in among the open areas with his generic jumpsuit to blend in, while the others intend to use Seft's sensors to scan from afar, and feed data to Hibiki for a thorough analysis. Their goal: Look for any unusual handling of shipping materials, and identify where they lead.
Kyoko Takada     Things are getting a little crowded around the stall. "Hey, hey, hey. You can't tell me all you guys are together! Who are you? I paid the oni, you want to lean on me, lean on them! Okay! Okay?" The more questions are asked at once, the less willing he seems to be to talk in worthwhile answers. He rattles back to Kempo in the same tongue, "Nobody likes loose tongues, everybody knows nobody does." Xiaomu, at least, gets a quick, "Forty credits, heavy coins or yen okay, money-changers three rows down." in more accented Japanese.
    He winces when A2 continues the intimdiation tactic regardless, but it gets his attention back on the matter at hand. "Look, look. I thought you were one of them. My mistake, okay? You have the white hair, that too-pretty look, you move like a nightmare. But no horns." He holds up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I've no profits left! Nothing left to give. Just leave me to business, please? I'll starve!"
Kyoko Takada     Kyoko starts getting some more data, fed in by the Flotilla, and it helps advance the routines she already had running to find this area in the first place. "The docks, huh? Makes sense," her voice comes over the radio. "I've never seen what it looks like, but I think I can find some... I mean, obviously there's no legal way I could just find shipping manifests... but I can check who owns what buildings and how much business they're publicly admitting to doing. Let's just see if there's any differences between that and what you're seeing happen down there, tonight. Too bad we don't have a few weeks to keep watch. The confidence bounds are going to be awful. I mean, the accuracy's not going to be high up there."
    Still, it's only a matter of time before they turn the word "docks" into a real lead on a Point of Interest. The more so if they do something more than watch people. It's one thing to watch for suspicious people, but at this dock, it kind of feels like everyone is suspicious, even when it's not murderbots and guys with saw-hats coming in on rowboats.
Nozomi Houken     Oh, hey. People she knows. Or at least one person. Nozomi stops, and gives a brief wave to Xiaomu; it looks like something's going on over there, but at the same time it almost seems like something she shouldn't be interfering in... or, at the very least, something she's better off not being a direct part of (because, let's face it, Taiga aside, she's about as threatening as a bag of marshmallows). So for now she just stands to one side, out of the way of foot traffic, where she can at least keep an eye on things.
Robert Speedwagon     Hopefully the decision to play into A2's bluff won't be a bad one. Not from A2's point, but Speedwagon saw the look from the merchant to A2, and had the same question -- what was he looking for above the girl's face? It's not one he's going to voice though; that would make him look like he didn't know what he was doing. Which... is actually true. But as they say, 'fake it 'till you make it'!

    Though now he can recognize there's more than a little bit too much attention here, and the guy's getting cagey. The more they lean, the more he's going to dig his heels in. Speedwagon sighs, and notes to A2 and Xiaomu, "Yer both might be better at this. I'm gonna go look for some shadier places ta poke into." He looks at his entourage and makes an inclined gesture of his head, indicating they should go.

    He isn't done with the merchant, though. Hearing that the merchant won't have much in the way of profit thanks to having paid someone gives him an idea. He reaches in a pocket with his free hand as he and his group start to wander off. And he flips a single coin over his shoulder, to land on the merchant's stall counter. It's a gold coin, one native to his own world. "For your time. Coinage might not be worth much to ya... but the metal might," he comments.

    Hopefully there's a less skittish place to poke around for information. An alley or something. Those usually have all kinds of unpleasant things going on, if one finds the right one.
Kyoko Takada     It's good that everything is as chaotic as it is in the night market, or there'd be an inconvenient amount of attention entirely focused on the bluff/shakedown of this one stall-keeper. As-is, life continues apart from that, as people buy, sell, shout, and argue, the general weirdness of all foreigners blending together here as it does in few parts of what's still a fairly homogenous country.
    Taiga stands out, a lot. If there are any robots like him around, they don't come to this part of town. Nozomi strikes a more inoffensive profile. Splitting the difference, she still gets people just passing down the way, giant packs on their backs, trying to sell her things, taking the opportunity presented by her not being obviously busy. Most of it's food, candy, or items they swear are highly collectible, the least likely to get quickly sold in this fashion being a full bag of mahjong pieces with too high an asking price.
    If Speedwagon looks for places people aren't, there are a few alleys on offer, the evening's early drunks making up much of what population they do have. Conversely, if he wants to find places where people are, he can walk into one of the places the drunks stumbled out of, where the drinking continues.
A2     A2 finally leans back from the counter with an irritated noise, removing her fingers from the holes she'd managed to put in it. Though it looks like she's wearing black gloves, it's really just where the false skin and subdermal plating has completely come off from years of constant combat, so there is a conspicuous lack of damage to them. "Tch. That's a distinctive description at least." A2 says to herself as much as she does the radio. "Look for someone who looks like me but with horns." Answered her unvoiced questions in short order.

    At hearing that 'move like a nightmare' bit, though, she takes a second to move her fingers one by one, examining them for any defects in the motive systems with something that almost looks . . . self-conscious. No, no irregularities yet. He was speaking metaphorically. Nothing is so badly broken that someone could tell by looking. It's fine.

    "Whatever." she finally says, practically spitting it in the poor guy's direction. At least he'll be rid of her now, with her incredibly rude and mean bluff out of the way. A2 stalks away from the stall, and heads further into the slums. Her genius plan this time: claim that she'd come here to settle a score, in search of an impostor with horns causing trouble for her abroad.

    A detective A2 is not, but at least, the worst case scenario here is that some cronies materialize out of the crowd to pick a fight, and she gets to release some pent up aggression.
Starbound Flotilla "Worried. Ahhhh... This is the time-limited situation..."
"Time of hunt isss almossst done!"
"Aye, it'd take a week or two just to get this all connected."
"Whelp, I'm out of ideas."
"Okay, we--"
"Everybody, Albert, shut up, I just got an idea."
"..."
"What might it be?"
"Less disruptive, more thorough. Dig, swim, scan, whole spectrum on all areas. Let's do it."

    If active they must be, active so they shall be. What happens next is "disruptive" in a way that is seemingly a little strange. Mining beams come out. Glide-packs. Diving rebreathers. The whole works. Pavo and Biteblade pick a place where nobody's looking and just dig straight down, intent on apparently searching through any basements or hidden rooms, deftly dodging around local infrastructure and sealing up tunnels behind them as they go and poking their heads thropugh walls to peek around before sealing things back up cleanly as if they never were there... Regardless of if anyone saw them! George slips down into the docks area with industrial tools, poking around and quick-breaching containers as fast as he can with his sneaky bullshit style, looking around for manifests and other data in the physical realm to send to Hibiki. Seft, Albert, and Moonfin maintain their distance, but find perches among buildings using their platforming nonsense, seeking out any signs of the A2-like individual(s) being reported over the radio!

    None of it is disruptive in the technical sense of the term, but all of it has swung into a wild range of adventure-and-run irresponsibility. Time limits! They do things like this.
Xiaomu Xiaomu grins, "That sounds like a fair price, maybe more than fair ..." She double-checks her wallet. "Be right back~"

She doesn't seem to have cared about how A2 reacted to her trying to get a word in edgeways- but while she's looking for somebody who'll give her a decent rate (preferably matching the current official exchange rate), she's keeping her eyes open for an oni - or anyone else, for that matter - who looks more or less like A2, plus the horns of an oni.

... then again, she may not quite be on the same page as the others are, so there could be something to be said for just buying her Swan Crystal and shutting up while - nah. She DID promise her assistance, and if the white-haired oni is part of the local syndicate (which is what it sounds like; collecting protection money and intimidating the heck out of otherwise ostensibly law-abiding merchants?), then it's a matter of find, ask questions, look for the next person. Right?

.... this is probably why Reiji does most of the serious leg work (and paperwork) between the two of them.

Anyway, Xiaomu turns up again at the merchant's booth, ready to transact some commerce. Hopefully she will soon be walking away with a brand new unit of a sadly-discontinued video game system.
Robert Speedwagon     Speedwagon makes a decision. "Tattoo, you and Kempo see if you can find some clues in some 'a these deserted places. I'm 'eadin' inta the nearest pub," he directs. "Meet back up 'ere in an hour." It shouldn't take him that long to do what he needs to do. So it is that his entourage starts heading into one of those alleys. Speedwagon himself heads into the nearest one of those places that drunk people are stumbling out of.

    Actually FIRST he heads to get some cash transacted. He's got a little bit on his person, surely enough for a drink at one of those drinking establishment. Once that's done -- if it CAN be, his currency's not just "old" here, it's ancient! -- THEN he heads for the bar.

    He'll listen in on conversation, see what he can find out, and then go back to meet his group once the hour's up.
Kyoko Takada     The exchange rates probably would have been better back near the immigration office, but here we have the convenience of exchanging money when you know how much you need. Xiaomu gets a rate probably not much worse than she (should have) expected, given the area, and when she gets back, the game system is given over to her without fuss. No white-haired killers show up on the trip either way, except possibly for the one she already knows.
Kyoko Takada     Flotilla members dig through the city, filling things back as they go so as not to cause catastrophic collapse. Depending on how well they clean it up again afterward, it might cause problems down the road, but probably not until everyone here is long gone. Knowing to look through the docks area, they send the data they acquire back up to Kyoko, and eventually she pings back with, "That one, check that warehouse. It's full, but underutilized. They're storing something off the books that's just been taking up space for weeks." In fact, the warehouse does look full, the boxes not labeled in any meaningful way, but with the borrowed manifests in hand, they can tell that there should be foreign trade goods all around. Most of it's nonperishable foodstuff, not so valuable that it should need a lot of attention or guards. Just looking for it will be enough to find the one giant set of crates with a label that's not on the list.

    Between Nozomi and Taiga, at least one of them is getting a call. It's from the local cops. "Tatsuta Nomura, here. A pleasure. I'm the senior officer on-site. Is there anything to report? I'm not sure how long we can keep from attracting too much attention. The sooner we can move in, the better a chance we'll have of doing some good."

    Speedwagon and his crew split up. The information they soon find is naturally linked. From the drunks stumbling outside, one complains at length about "cheaters" in very colorful terms. Inside the drinking establishment, Speedwagon finds that this place serves more than one purpose. To be sure, there's plenty of drinking going on. But there's also a lot of groups of four sitting around tables, shuffling tiles into rows, laughing, or giving each other their best poker faces. It's a mahjong parlor, and from the colorful clientele, probably the most popular one around for foreigners. Some, like the ones with the mainland accents, at least came from places with a history with the game. Others are subtly inhuman, but even the ones who act like they're not too familiar with the rules smell more of bluffs than incompetence. The closest he sees to the long-white-haired, A2-like woman everyone is now on the lookout for is a willowy, short-white-haired man a ways in.

    A2 gains a level of hints and clues in proportion to her skill and willingness as a detective (i.e., practically nil). Glaring at people pulls attention toward herself, and gets her a wider space to walk in than otherwise, but nobody wants to talk to her. One of the people who doesn't want to talk does shift his eyes over her shoulder, though, for a moment, as she describes the traits of the "imposter." There's no one exactly A2-like in the direction he looked, but there is a tall figure with white, waist-length twintails tied up in blue ribbons, a black coat covering most of the rest, the hood lowered likely just to keep her hair free.
Robert Speedwagon     Ah, a hive of scum and villainy. This is a familiar establishment, even if it's not his time period he's working in. Seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same, even in the future. Anyway, Speedwagon secures a drink, and then goes to watch the mahjong game -- believe it or not, this is something he's familiar with; there were a number of Chinese people who lived on Ogre Street, and they brought their gambling with them.

    He's also watching the people here, trying to get a whiff of their natures. That one's probably cheating... that one's pretending to be less experienced -- probably not anything too unusual. It's true that no one here matches the description the stall owner gave. But (and this may be applying his own world's rules to a Multiversal one) white hair is rather unusual unless the person's aged.

    Robert's got something else planned if this doesn't turn over any leads. But for the moment, he tries to get a read on the white-haired fellow. What's his game? What's he doing here? Is he just drinking? Might he have some money on the game? Or is he here for some other reason? Supervising the game, perhaps? They're supposed to be looking for clear signs of organized crime, and gambling is definitely a candidate for the 'organized crime' racket.
Nozomi Houken     "Ah, hello, this is Nozomi Houken. I'm... I don't think we have anything, yet." It's almost adorable, seeing Nozomi standing there and fidgeting, trying to sound official. It's a valiant attempt to adopt a businesslike tone she's heard the JSDF's soldiers use. And she can't quite manage it. "But we... I-I think some leads are starting to pan out? We'll try not to keep you waiting, too long." Taiga, meanwhile, is remaining close, and continuing his general survey of the city's metaphysics. It's not anything spectacular, but it /is/ curious. Especially when he finds a person or two who reads above-average. Or some of the tech.
A2     A2 is not good at this. She knows she is not good at this, and she knew that before she even started, so that just makes it more frustrating. Being frustrated makes the 'detective' work harder and less successful, and then that just feeds back in on itself to make her demeanor even more impatient, more aggressive, and less pleasant. People are even less willing to talk to her, chasing them down becomes even more difficult, A2 steams, the cycle repeats.

    By the time she walks past the woman with the blue ribbons, the android is in an even fouler mood than usual. Just seeing someone stealing that uselessly coy glance at her sets her off, and it isn't until after she's already spun on her heel and yelled "What do you think /you're/ looking at?!" that she actually processes the white hair, almost a full second later. When that detail laggily stutters to the fore, she starts walking again, this time towards miss blue-ribbons, clearly intent on not letting her ignore her.
Starbound Flotilla "Hmph. Food. Nothing useful or incriminating."
"Aye, and too much inconvenience for me to be stealin'."
"Hmmmmm... I would not be so certain. Intuition tells me otherwise."
"Scanning. Attempting to map to manifests..."
"There! Floran findsss box of interesssting!"
"Here's the stuff, told ya. Now we do the door-knocking."
"Curious. That was not what we've already done?"
"Nah, nah, we still got a bit to do."

    The Flotilla debate among themselves while creeping through the warehouse, heading over, and working in tandem with George to pull out a set of power-crowbars to pry everything apart quickly and efficiently. George's plan is relatively simple and relatively brutal, though it's a plan in two possibilities. If he finds something he and Hibiki could get identifying info from, he's going to try to gather data and find out who or what constitutes the local organized crime, as would any hired crime-fighter in his circumstances. The simple plan! The logical plan. If he finds nothing he can get identifying data from... He's gonna drag the crates and whatever the contents are outside to a relatively safe distance from any structures or guards, light a bonfire with them, and stake it out to grab and interrogate whoever has paid first responders off enough to be able to come running to try to save their cargo.

    Hibiki said low profile. This is apparently George's idea of low profile: Ant-farming the docks and starting literal fires.
Kyoko Takada     Speedwagon gets closer to the white-haired man. This is a place where odd fellows are expected. So long as he's paying, he won't stand out too much, himself. His careful attention to his quarry leads to a few pieces of information. First, the man is paying close attention to several games, but ignoring most of the area. Second, no one pays much attention to him, though a few he speaks to in passing do respond as if they know him. Third, apart from the white hair, his appearance is far too clean and unblemished. He wears an eyepatch with an abstract pattern threaded over its visible side, but is otherwise the least scarred man in the room. Fourth, there's an uncomfortable sense of something glitching, every so often, in the area of his face. It's barely perceptible, and easily explained as one's eyes being tired.

    Taiga continues to pick up traces of magic that would be out of place in most versions of Japan, but not here, it seems. Across the street, a man snaps his fingers to produce a small flame, and lights a cigarette. A woman a block a way sends out a fully-magical ping while waving her phone, to find a lost signal. Everywhere, magic and radio waves overlap, even if the latter are more reliably constant. Nothing seems especially nefarious.
    Nomura's voice turns a trace gentler. "Right. Just keep me informed. Give a heads-up, if you can. Our job's to be there as things are happening, not just to get in afterward."
Kyoko Takada     Everything in the warehouse with the Flotilla is just what the manifest and the identifying codes say it should be. All of it is terribly boring, and probably not valuable. The one exception to this is an exception in all ways. One, rather large crate turns out to not contain cargo at all. It mostly contains empty space, and from the way it's been secured to the ground, is more of a crate-styled room-within-a-room than a piece of cargo at all. The one interesting feature within this rather small room is a hatch on the floor. It's secured, as well, but not to bomb vault standards. It looks more like regular locks, all electronic, and with a tech level surpassing the area's norms. It's about the right size for a human to pass down, if they weren't too oversized and weren't wearing too much bulky armor.

    A2 confronts a twintailed woman. Now that she's closer, she can see that if this isn't another android, it's at least someone so perfectly pretty that they could pass the part of having been designed that way, "to look human." There's just the eyepatch marring that look. Part of her considerable height, it is now apparent, is from a good six inches of extra boot, neither the height nor the inclination of her feet bothering her balance, as subtly indicated as she takes half a step back to present A2 with her profile. "Sorry, do I know you? I'm pretty busy."
Robert Speedwagon     On the bright side, Speedwagon's scarred face probably helps him blend in here. And he knows these people are just trying to make a living, so he'll definitely buy a drink, with thanks to the server.

    The white-haired man's too-clean looks don't go unnoticed. And Robert would be stupid to think that, just because one guy mentioned one female enforcer, that ALL these enforcers would be female. It's hard to get a read on the guy, and Speedwagon usually takes that to mean someone's used to being scoped out and has trained himself (or herself) not to give anything away. So there's only one thing for it.

    This is probably pretty stupid, but he'll try it anyway. He approaches the white-haired fellow, and greets, "'Ello guv'!" Let's be respectful at least. He removes his hat, placing it to his chest with respect. "I can see yer got a lot on your mind, pardon the int'ruption. But I've just arrived, an' I was wond'rin' who it is what I oughta be payin' me respects to. If ya catch me drift."

    Respectful? He's trying, yes. Blatant? HELL YES. But hey, it gets his point across right quick, doesn't it? And he certainly does look like a thug, with that scar, his strongly-lined eyes, and the 'friends in low places' look to his demeanor.

    Better than that? As phrased, the question also leaves plenty of room for him to be talking about any number of mundane things, too, in case this guy has nothing to do with those 'enforcers', too. So it shouldn't be too much of a faux-pas.
Nozomi Houken     "Ah, we... might have something," Nozomi says over her phone. "A hidden room in... a warehouse, I think...? Taiga and I are heading over there now. I'll let you know, as soon as I find out more." She carefully climbs onto Taiga's back - slightly awkward in her uniform, but she manages - and the robotiger turns to begin a fast trip to meet up with the Flotilla.
Kyoko Takada     "Hard to read" has it right, though it could be that this guy Speedwagon is talking to is just more alien than he looks. It would make him a more subtle non-human than some of the other mahjong players, if so. There's little way to read his smile, though it certainly doesn't come off as particularly, genuinely sincere. It could just be a business smile. "Are you new to the area? If you're here to buy, I'm sure the market would welcome you even if you're the type to spit. If you're here to sell, I could point you out to where to rent a license. But if you're just here to lose money at the tables," he grins, gesturing to encompass the room, "you'll be welcomed even more." Someone laughs, before turning back to their game.
    His black suit is very tidy, too. Not quite cloth. Form-fitting, and not the right style for the area. He's probably carrying a pair of handgun-sized weapons.

    The Flotilla hadn't needed to travel far. It won't take much time for Nozomi and Taiga to arrive.
    "Roger that. Be careful." comes the response.
Starbound Flotilla "Diabolical, it's a shipment of secret rooms."
"George. That's stupid."
"I resent this being impossible to steal."
"Please, Pavo, now is not the time to indulge his fanciful quirks."
"Floran will help human friend break locksss!"
"Ready. I will attempt to map the area and begin our approach as best we can."
"Sheesh, tough crowd. Alright, let's dig into this baby."

    George has extensive history with electronic locks, and he's someone well familiar with the processes of disconnecting, reconnecting, and pulsing power to a wide variety of electronic setups. He goes in hard to the hardware level, rather than fussing about with any authentication, which is possibly going to draw some attention and make a stealthy approach rather difficult, but very probably play to his strengths of cracking doors open by way of using his knowledge of hacking through airlock systems.

    Meanwhile, Seft produces a scanner from her Matter Manipulator, and presses it against the hatch, pulsing scans through it. She's trying to identify points of interest beyond, so that the moment the hatch breaches, the Flotilla can rush straight towards whatever and wherever seems to be the most immediately interesting on a close-range scan of that sort. Taiga is undoubtedly the superior scanner, though, and she cedes scanning power to him when he arrives.

    Speaking of that pair, Albert shifts straight in towards a bodyguard sort of position -- well, the secondary one that Taiga doesn't always already occupy -- utterly wordlessly, with a short grunt of greeting. The moment the hatch cracks, the Flotilla intend to surge in and begin their investigations.
Robert Speedwagon     Speedwagon mentally takes all that down. There's an odd inhumanness to the guy that feels unnatural. Then again, Speedwagon's mostly used to dealing with humans, so that inhumanness might be throwing him off. Either way, he can see the man's armed, and he knows what a gun is. And what looks like a gun probably IS, even if it's some futuristic variant that's even MORE dangerous. He doesn't want to start a gunfight here.

    So he grins at that. "Oh, I'm quite sure," he replies. "The thought did cross me mind... though I may let one 'f my boys 'ave a go at it an' see how 'e does. 'E's more familiar with the game -- he's an Asian, ya see." Nothing offensive is meant by his statement; that's just what people SAID in the Victorian era. And if this strange white-haired man recognizes the clothes Robert's wearing, that's exactly what it'll call back to.
A2     The image that turns to face A2 is so uncanny that, for a moment, it makes her completely forget what she was searching for. Her hand outstretched just a second before grabbing the woman by the shoulder and turning her by force, A2 fizzles out in her advance and freezes stock still when she sees her face. The unnatural, statue-like quality of her absolute stillness is a flag raised on both her non-human construction, and the sheer amount of processing power hijacked in that instant, stealing away the cycles needed to naturally lower her hand again.

    The looks. The carefully curated features. The white hair, yes, but the height and the eye covering and the /ridiculous/ heels? A2's fingers twitch simultaneously with her pupils as she struggles with the misguided urge to look at the blue-ribboned woman in front of her as a YoRHa model; even if she did, she wouldn't know what to do from there, between the equally likely possibilities of this incredibly unlikely eventuality coming down to 'spy' and 'deserter'. It'd be a brief and natural-looking moment of stunned confusion in an android better maintain than her, but she isn't that android.

    Oh right. The horn. The merchant said something about a horn. A2 returns to life after a long couple of seconds just to look for one, before her eyes finally flick back down to the speaker, her hand drops, and she puts her heel back. "Busy with /what/? If you've got time to stop and stare, it can't be that important now can it?" Pretending to be mad is making her a little mad. Stop it. Separate those processes. "You got a sister or something? Finding someone with 'white hair' is supposed to be easy, not this bullshit."
Kyoko Takada In different locations, but around the same time:

    It might not have been the most stealthy method, but George's hacking is successful in getting the thing open. Seft scans, and it looks like there's a large room underneath. It's pretty close to a small- or medium-sized warehouse, itself. There's a high-energy point or three down there, the obvious one as visible as an active high-tech reactor. According to Taiga's sensors, there's no sign of magic.
    The hatch is opened up. The room beneath is white and well-lit. If something's going to happen, it'll happen soon.

    Whatever the white-haired man's hard-to-place geographical heritage, he doesn't take any offense. "Oh, of course. He's perfectly welcome to try his luck. I might sit down for a game, myself, but..." He pauses, becoming perfectly still amidst the continually noisy room, eyes flicking to the side. "I'm sorry, but I just remembered some business I have to take care of. Nothing too urgent, but better safe than sorry, right?" He doesn't wait for another word, but starts making his way outside at a smooth, long-legged walk, just this side of hurried.

    The twintailed woman gives A2 what would very well for a genuine "are you crazy" look. Guardedly, "None of your business, but no, no sisters. White hair? What, like yours?" There's horns on her head, just some short-cut bangs, her hair volume being great enough for those twintails even without making full use of what she has. Her attention flickers, looking off to the side the way someone does when distracted by something that isn't actually location-specific, quickly enough that most humans wouldn't catch it. "And my business being none of yours, I have to go. Good luck with... whatever you're doing, right?" There's an unhealthy amount of suspicion in her against the questioning, and she moves off at an angle and with a glance back, the heel-raising boots continuing to do roughly nothing to slow her gait.
Robert Speedwagon     "Right-o," Speedwagon replies, offering a polite bow. "Pleased ta meetcha, either way. Evenin'!" He can't detain the man without seeming suspicious. But he CAN follow the guy. He finishes his drink, and then heads out of the place himself, though not fast enough or near enough to the white-haired man to cause suspicion. As he does, he murmurs into his radio, "Tattoo, Kempo, back 'ere. Think I found a lead."

    And then he warns the group at large, "Careful. I stumbled on a white-haired bloke, an' 'e just left in an awful hurry." Hopefully he can keep sight of the man AND catch up with his group, and doing both won't be too difficult...
Nozomi Houken     It's like old times. Nozomi is off Taiga's back as soon as they join the Flotilla, glad of Albert's presence. Taiga moves smoothly up to the front of the pack, sweeping with his sensors as soon as George has the door opening. "I am seeing no overt signs of magic," he states simply, one ear quirking slightly. "Your sensors will likely be of more use, but I will continue to scan. Allow me to scout ahead." And that is exactly what he'll do if there are no objections; moving stealthily and silently, the robotiger plans to slink right into the room below. If there's people waiting right inside, well... that's what cannons are for?
Starbound Flotilla "Arm up."
"Don't be paranoid, I probably didn't trigger anything."
"All the same, perhaps it is best we allow our friend to take the lead as he asks."
"Quiet friend isss here again! Yaaaay!"
"Here's hoping there's something worth taking down there."
"Cautious. There is a quite functional facility down there. I will feed you the data as I acquire it, Taiga!"

    Still above, the Flotilla briefly activate their six-man collective transformation sequence, getting into their armor! And then, they head in with Taiga, keeping guard for Nozomi, letting her friend scout for traps as they like but ready to provide backup the moment it's needed. If it's a reactor, it's powering something; they intend to head for zones adjacent to the reactor points, and if any of those high-energy points are just adjacent to the reactor, that especially, if they can move through the room properly. They're armed and ready for whatever happens next, but George suspects that backup may be heading their way...
A2     A2 doesn't miss the 'are you crazy' look, but frankly, she wonders the same thing about herself as well, and it's far from the first time she's seen it. Being stared at like someone in the midst of a mental breakdown doesn't even ruffle her. If anything, it help grounds her a little. "Yes, like mine. That's the entire problem. Someone who looks /coincidentally/ almost exactly like you is causing problems for me, and I want to know who they are."

    This time A2 doesn't waver. When the woman starts walking off, A2 reaches out to grab hold of her wrist, squeezing far more than is necessary (or strictly natural). "So if she's not your sister, then call up your cousin or niece or doppelganger or vat-grown alien /clone/ for all I care and tell her she has a problem if she doesn't stop avoiding me!"
Kyoko Takada     The man Speedwagon follows is more visibly hurried once he gets outside, where being hurried is not something that attracts much attention. He's heading for the docks. Given that haste, he doesn't appear to notice that he's being tailed. It won't take long for either of them to reach the warehouse.

    Taiga heads down. At the bottom of the ladder, what's immediately obvious is that this room is just as big as the warehouse above it, including high ceilings that don't seem to be getting put to any purpose. The only things in the room are all lower down, where human-sized figures could use them. It looks like there are beds, chairs, tables, what's probably some portable kitchen equipment, and a lot of boxes more haphazardly placed than the neat rows of the canned food warehouse above. There's one raised platform, ramps leading up to it from three sides, with a platform surrounded by pillars and actuated rings. That's where Seft was picking up the highest energy point.
    No detector picked up the small device that jumps up just to Taiga's side with a "ping!" It shoots to ten feet in the air, and then the mine explodes, hard enough to take out a chunk of ladder in the process, but not to do more than leave a blast mark over the clean, white floor.
    There are two figures already down here, once someone has the time and attention to notice them, moving to attack, without a word. Both figures have white hair, eyepatches, and three horns between them. The one-horned man has short-cropped hair, and moves forward quickly while holding the hilt of what could be a giant sword, if it had a blade. The Flotilla might recognize what sprouts from that hilt as a hard light weapon, or something close enough as to make no difference, a good five or six feet long and swung to impact as many targets as possible. The two-horned, long-haired woman with less implausible footwear than the last encountered, if still high-heeled, is slowly drawing back a bow. The arrow charges with light, though there remains only light and heat signatures, rather than magical. She's just finished charging as the group drops down, letting that high-powered shot fire before switching to quicker, weaker attacks now that she has plenty of targets.

    A2's pal, the twintailed woman, moves to avoid her hand, but not quickly enough. The optic camo on her breaks all at once, revealing the pair of small horns on her forehead poking through her bangs, and the unwieldy-looking, massive blades that pop out the back of her boots. They're probably not all that heavy at all, most of their size being from some kind of projected energy form, and in any case she responds to the grab immediately by lifting up off the ground to the sound of small, twin jet engines, which continue to fire as she twists her body fully in the android's grasp, letting her keep that arm hold but using it as leverage to spin a back-kick around chest-height, blades first. There's no vocal objection at this point, perhaps because she isn't the type to talk to people who should shortly be dead.
Nozomi Houken     Taiga is, robotic though he may be, a predator. A canny, cautious predator, with superhuman reflexes already based on those of a very sharp creature. When the mine pops itself up, he hurls himself aside at full strength, a leap which probably takes him most of the way across the warehouse before he lands. This takes him a good ways out of both the mine's range and the arrow's path, but it also results in him needing a second or two to right himself. At least he can point his cannons and start unloading, firing shots of yellow magic and particle energy.

    Nozomi hears the explosion and shooting below, meanwhile, and utters a startled noise. The call is quickly made to Nomura, though the relay of 'we're at the warehouse and being attacked, here is address' might be a tad panicked.
Robert Speedwagon     Speedwagon waits only long enough for his companions to rejoin him before the three of them hurry after the other man. He can just barely keep sight of the white-haired fellow in the crowd, but he knows where he's going anyway. Or at least, he has an idea. And sure enough, that does seem to be where the white-haired man is heading -- right for a warehouse. Probably the same one he's been hearing about the others on the radio having found.

    And when he hears that there's battle? He nods. He ducks into the area next to the warehouse, and looks between his companions. "Right then. Boys? Get ready, we're prob'ly walkin' right inta a war zone." As he speaks he's unbuckling the clasps on that guitar case, and drawing out the sledgehammer hidden within. He drops the case next to the building.

    Tattoo pulls out a knife, and grins. "'Bout time," he intones. "All'is sneakin' around was gettin' borin' anyway."

    "Oh, I 'ave a feelin' you're about ta see PLENTY 'f action, Tattoo me boy." He smirks. "Right! Let's go!" That said, the Ogre Street gang heads for the warehouse! With any luck, the white-haired man's left something open, because Robert figures he's heading here.

    Of course, if not, Speedwagon could just knock a hole in the wall, or knock the door down. If he has to MAKE a door, they're going to be coming in as subtle as a brick to the face, but BY GOD THEY'RE COMING IN!
A2     Having no previous experience with optical tech (magic?) of this kind and calibre, A2's reaction to the unknown woman's visual facade melting away is one part surprise and ten parts mistrust. In her brief comparative reflex process, the course of action where she releases the woman's wrist and jumps back loses out to the course of action where she keeps her hold to prevent her escaping, and so she stubbornly curls her fingers even tighter, preventing twintails from getting away, and simultaneously ensuring that she gets the kick right in the chest, off-centered only slightly by the android's unexpected weight in relation to being used as an anchor.

    It's pretty bloody. The hard-light spike plunges straight through her cloak, punctures what remains of her skin, and stabs straight out her back, with no unusual amount of resistance. Bright red liquid blots the dark cloth, and runs down the length of the blade as it spreads. A2 chokes from the impact, lifts her free hand to clutch at the flat of energy blade, spits out an angry glob of simulated blood, and growls "You bitch."

    A2's cover as a filthy refugee doesn't stick for a minute longer. Her combat routines are the partition that never fails to see use, and so A2 sweeping the woman's remaining leg out from under her with a half-circle kick, pulling her along with a backwards somersault by the arm, and transitioning to smash her heel into the woman's jaw from a hand-stand position, are simple and natural muscle memory. The whole gymnastic flurry of motion also reveals her ridiculously burned, battered, and corroded legs in all their dermally-falling-apart glory, so it's even less subtle.
Starbound Flotilla "TAIGA!! GhhhrrrRRRRRRH, DAMMIT! Squad, go loud!! Star Two, blade left. Star Three, incoming at two!"
"See, I told you we should arm up."
"Star Six, shut the fuck up."
"Star Five, closssing on bow! Yaaaaay, time for huuuunt!"
"Star Four, going high! Reminded of when we got stranded..."
"Seventh Sea Hylotl Style: Unbroken Shores!"

    The whole Flotilla feels the impact of that mine, the shockwave taking out parts of the ladder enough to shake some of them off of it and to the ground, painfully. The rest are forced to leap down with just as much urgency, to help their fellows up and to reassemble. All six of them have weapons drawn the moment they know this for sure. Hopefully Nozomi can get down despite the dangers of the ladder. "Houken! They may be calling in backup, don't let yourself get pincered!" Albert calls out, inviting her further down so they can protect her even if it brings her closer to the fighting, or inviting her to hide herself away.

    Incoming. Moonfin dashes to one side, trying to block the heavy blade, drawing his own high-tech power-katana. The massive impact rings out hard; the surprise assault catches him in a bad blocking angle, and though he blunts much of the impact, it shatters his katana and knocks him back, striking against Albert as well before this is done. George, spry and agile as ever, was first on his feet after the tumble, and then first off it again as the heavy hard-light arrow slams into his chest, taking him down with a brutal, meaty snapping noise and a pained swear. His armor's systems, shattered as they are, work hard on administering regenerative and stabilizing agents, but he'll need a moment to get back on his feet.

    Counterattack. Seft slams her battleaxe into the ground and presses a shield up, and the combined effect generates some sort of shield of elemental energies interposed between the Flotilla and the bow-oni (boni). Biteblade and Pavo go in hard, with with Pavo leaping up, then boosting Biteblade's own leap from mid-air before she goes into a glide and starts firing back with heavy energy flintlock attacks on the one with the sword, while Biteblade rushes in from above on an arc, trying to pounce onto that archer with a pair of heavy energy daggers. Seft works hard on trying to get George back on his feet, while Albert seems to focus on checking Nozomi's current status and making sure she's safe, despite the wounds he sustained from the blunted sword impact.
Kyoko Takada     "Understood, we're on our way. Move to a safe location and wait for us." The call clicks off at the moment that officer Nomura starts speaking loudly in another direction. They're too far away to see or hear immediately, but it's a safe bet that they're on the way. According to prior conversation, they weren't too far off.
    The charging swordsman is an easier target than the archer, but after his strike he rolls, dodging forward rather than back, trying to make it riskier to continue shooting at him, and taking blasts onto his sword's blade if Taiga proves as accurate as his own comrade. It's uncertain how much damage the wielder can take, but the projected sword blade is quite sturdy. Given the smallest chance, he continues the attack, mixing short and long strikes, and not afraid to hit with the pommel or his futuristically armored knees, given the chance, laying into the Star squad in a brutally pragmatic style, but that's only if enough pressure isn't effectively levied against him.
     The bow fire is steady and precise, even when firing while running to the side, as the allegedly A2-esque woman moves between the light cover presented by scattered crates. Seft blocks that, Pavo fires and forces the archer to retreat in sudden, possibly boosted leaps, and Biteblade catches her anyway. Once they do clash, however, the bow is nowhere to be seen. It's a curved, metal blade, a katana of similar aesthetic to their other equipment, that strikes at Biteblade at the moment of impact, attempting a hard counter that will still leave her momentarily open to further ranged fire.
Kyoko Takada     Speedwagon's quarry has, indeed, taken the time to open a door and then close it back behind him. It's a heavy door, but not so heavy that a good hammer won't knock it open again, this warehouse not having been secured for truly valuable cargo. They come in loud, but quickly enough to catch sight of their target. He's drawn his weapons, which are relatively easy to understand in nature for even someone not up to post-21st century firearms technology. They're pretty close to being twin tommy guns, which could not plausibly have been hiding under his clothes as they did, but the fire coming from them is quite real as he responds to the sudden intrusion by firing off and ducking behind a high stack of cargo. There's some distance still between either Speedwagon's crew or their target and the entrance to the underground area, but the white-haired man is closer.
    A2's opponent wasn't content to just stab through her. There's a move to carry the motion through and drag the blade out the hard way, halfway-bisecting her, and making up for what it lacks in leverage with the powered assist of the engines on her feet. It doesn't quite work out that way, as A2 rotates the reference frame into more complicated balancing equations, and kicks her in the face. The horned woman's blood is red and her pain-sounds at the expected level for humans. The strike still isn't enough to bring her down, though it does force her to view A2 with more cautious respect, as one would an out-of-control, high-performance killing machine.
    This happening in a crowded area, people are screaming and running away. A few look ready to wade in one side or the other, but quickly think better of it once they catch a better look at what's happening, joining the outward-traveling mob. Doors slam shut and lock. People who think they're far enough back try to get a better view.
    Bloodied, but not knocked out, boot-blades' next action is to yank away her eyepatch. There is an eye under there, the coloration off, but not much time to examine it before half the onlookers are blinded by a near-heatless explosion, the surging energy concentrating into the woman's legs and lifting both her and A2 fully up into the air. She twists around once more, hugging her held arm to herself to minimize the force against it as she flies at incredibly unsafe speed, jagging for G-force far past the knockout level, bashing A2 against buildings and signs and steel traffic light poles but mostly just getting them both toward the docks.
Nozomi Houken     "A-ah, I... I don't know if that will be possible, but I'll /try/...!" Nozomi moves in a little further, but she's somewhat wary of going down into that underground area with all the combat going on. At the very least, she's going to have to find cover and huddle behind it - and hope the Flotilla can cover her.

    But while the lady hides, the TIGER prowls. Archer girl has started going stick-and-move, taking potshots at everyone as she can. While the Flotilla moves in, Taiga is darting from cover to cover himself, in single, swift leaps, a black blur of movement that takes advantage of every single moment her attention is elsewhere. Until she's close, anyway. After he's circled close enough, the robotic hunter abruptly /leaps/ - hurling himself up to a nearby wall, from there all the way up to the ceiling, and from /there/ he descends on her paws-first. Paws, not claws; depending how frail she is, he's already risking some serious injury to her when the cops probably want her alive.
Robert Speedwagon     Being under the impression that Nozomi and the Flotilla is in front of the white-haired man, and he doesn't want them getting pincered between whatever's already down there and this guy. But the guy's too far ahead to pull him into melee. Speedwagon can easily fix that, though. "Get ready," he notes to his companions. "Spread out a bit. Hide behind somethin'. I'll draw 'is attention towards me, then you two try an' double team 'im from the back."

    He waits only long enough for Tattoo and Kempo to hide -- the former chooses a higher vantage point, the latter chooses a ground-level hiding place. Once they're out of sight, Speedwagon flicks the brim of his hat to make the false brim unravel, then flings the hat at the white-haired man. Hit or miss, it should arc back so that Robert can catch it in his free hand. The other hand holds the sledgehammer over a shoulder. "Sorry, chum! I got friends 'round 'ere, and I'm not about ta let 'em get attacked from both sides. I'm sure yer understand!"

    Tattoo and Kempo wait for their chance to attack, and Speedwagon waits to dodge what he's sure is going to be heading his way any minute...
Starbound Flotilla     The archer goes in for melee.

"Star Five, dig in!"
"Yaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!"

    Biteblade suffers the full brunt of the harsh counterattack. Densewood plates and reinforced bones splinter under the force of the deft and unexpected counterattack, blunting it only enough that the blade doesn't entirely run Biteblade through. But the power systems in her arms are still working, and even weakened by the pain, they allow her to attempt to lock her arms around the archer's own. From there, there are few practical attack vectors for a human to take... But not a Floran. Biteblade's helmet surges with power as the articulation systems link up around... Her /jaw/. She has power-armor-assisted biting! She attempts to sink her teeth straight into the arm that stabbed her, so that she can acquire her valuable buffs and regeneration effects! Hopefully, at least, Biteblade will manage to prevent the archer from evading Taiga's attack, though their chosen methods are so different.

    Seft tries to use her shield to provide extra cover, but it's little help. The initial volley of flanking weaker shots come in hard and slam into it, impacting her enough to throw her off completely while she's so occupied trying to get George up. George, luckily, has gotten back on his feet, and restored his grip on the power crowbar he used to pry the crate open. He moves in fast. "Pavo, go high, cover Taiga!" He calls out, before diving, sliding low on his backside to try to come at the swordsman! Pavo, from above, tries to fire on him and cover Taiga, but it's a decoy plot. She's trying to keep his attention up, since it likely will already be there due to Taiga's passage, and to make him focus on blocking and dodging attacks from above, so he won't notice George moving in for a melee strike! George is gonna go right for the knees, trying a brutally jabbing side strike precisely designed to move swiftly into either a crunching shatter of the knee or an effective leg-lock that defies geometric understanding when he attempts it. He's going nonlethal as well, but no less brutal and efficiency-inclined.

    Moonfin is on his ass, recovering from the heavy sword strike, but he calls out, "You must surrender! Law enforcement shall be arriving any moment, and shall secure this far beyond your ability to manage. This criminal nonsense will be ending one way or another! It seems clear this world is not your own, but we are just as capable of dealing with such technologies!" Honestly, he doesn't much expect them to actually surrender, but he does hope that one of them will be confident enough to banter during the combat.
Starbound Flotilla     And what's Albert doing during all of this? Well, he's gonna get to the ladder where Nozomi is closest, draw a heavy riot shield, and plant himself firmly wherever she seems to be deciding has the best cover, providing a little extra, and wordlessly just sort of standing guard and providing cover to her as she stays out of battle, supporting his allies through tactical callouts more than through actual combat.
A2     People screaming and running in the background is a new sound for A2, so used to fighting where all the world but her is the enemy. The infectious panic and confusion register at a sensory, and even conscious levell, but they don't make it into her decision making routines. She's more than preoccupied at the moment, and even more than aware of the harsh fact that looking away in concern for bystanders is how you get killed. She hadn't lived this long and gotten this far by leaving herself open.

    The eyepatch comes off, and for just a fraction of a second, A2 can feel herself tensing up for what she expects to see beneath it, but heterochromia is far down the list of things to worry about, and to the best of her knowledge, no YoRHa unit has ever been built with mismatched eyes. It's relieving in one way, and puts her on guard in the other, since she has even less idea of what to expect, and that assumption is promptly embodied by the fact that she just takes off on a jet of rocket thrust.

    Even then, A2 doesn't let go. She can't fly, and letting this woman escape now would be more unthinkable than being smashed to pieces. The ragged cloak is completely torn from her body by the wind that rips into her with the sudden acceleration, baring the years old tapestry of repeated damage and sub-par repair all over her body, but the g-force itself isn't a threat to her. Slamming back and forth between high pieces of scenery as her catch struggles for aerial control is what does all the work. Building corners crumble, windows shatter, wires snap and sputter, and steel poles and signs warp as A2's weight smashes into them. Though the android's bleeding body leaves scarlet splatters where she is thrown into something especially hard, the heavy crunches and metallic bangs are distinctly artificial, as is the sparking from her joints as she struggles to catch her breath.

    She focuses through it, fighting for control, and ignoring the repeated blasts of head-shaking static that fill her vision with each fresh collision. She stares past the damage reports, squints through the flickering of her miscalibrated senses, and finally, at an opportune moment, uncoils her body underneath the woman in flight, swings back, kicks upward with her whole back, and rolls the chaotic grapple over completely, landing to straddle the woman between her knees, twist her arm behind her back, and flat out grab her by the face so she can physically smash her head through the first hard thing that rises to meet them when A2 forces the rocket boost into a dive, collateral damage and public panic be damned.
Kyoko Takada     Speedwagon has to deal with incoming fire as soon as he's in sight of his opponent, so his safety there is a matter of reflexes. But he still gets to throw his saw-hat, the fashionable weapon interrupting the oni's fire as he blocks the blades with one of his guns. He gives a pained grunt, grimacing as the blades still manage to reach his fingers, but the cuts are shallow before he backs off again around another corner, retreating.

    The archer-turned-samurai is already busy with a couple Flotilla members when Taiga pounces. And from the shock on her face, she's never fought a floran before. Things go badly for her very quickly when the initial strike both fails to kill her target and fails to gain her the all-important maneuvering distance, and while she tries to continue dodging even with the extra weight, and shake Biteblade off her vulnerable and lightly-armored flesh, Taiga comes right down on top of her. Once she's pinned, she struggles, but isn't able to dislodge him.
    Moonfin will be disappointed, as while it does look like the swordsman is talking, it's at a low enough volume that the only thing that could be picking it up is radio equipment clearly not tuned to broadcast to his opponents. His attention does shift upward for a moment, but with Taiga moving at his comrade, it isn't enough to distract him to the requisite level for a full takedown. He doesn't have nearly the speed shown by some of the others, but his movements are still well-trained and lethally precise. A strike of his sword into the ground carries him up and over it, trading taking a few shots from Pavo to come in over George and try to drop a heel on him. This time, his heart isn't fully in it, and there's no follow-up, as he instead leaps back over the embedded weapon, withdrawing it by instantly retracting the blade, and making a break for the raised platform halfway across the room.

    By this point, the police sirens are audible, and getting closer. There's a whole fleet on the way, unmarked vehicles leading the way, white-and-black cars with red light bars trailing behind. Nozomi gave them the warehouse location, and if not quite full emergency force, they're still putting a lot of boots on the ground.
    The ground, where A2 slams her opponent, the arcing path having finally taken them to their destination but with the "oni" being knocked out in the process as the pair blast inside and have the stacked cargo soften their landing. It's not softened much, being wood and thin metal cans, but still softer than most of the things they've been hitting. The man with the twin guns turns to look, immediately trying to move in that direction, perhaps to help his comrade. This puts his back to Kempo.
Kyoko Takada     Nozomi gets another call. "We're here. Are you alright? What's the situation?" The police force is loud, coming to a halt and quickly exiting, armed and taking cover around the broken warehouse entrance (as made permanently open by Speedwagon), but not running inside.
Nozomi Houken     With his target pinned, Taiga utters a dangerous, warning growl, and one of his shoulder cannons snaps up and forward. He makes a very deliberate show of curling his claws... and then speaks in a calm, measured tone. "Please do not resist further. Evading arrest is not worth your wellbeing."

    "A-ah, I'm... I'm in cover," Nozomi replies over the phone, sitting tight for the moment. "There's two down here, one of them's... I-I think Taiga- oh, that's my... that's the robot with me, Taiga. He and some friends of mine, they've got one pinned, and they're trying to stop the other. There's another one up there, too, I don't know exactly what's going on, but there... I-I think there should be a few men up there trying to stop that one, too. It's... the ones with laser weapons and horns are the bad guys." Pause. That could describe the Flotilla, possibly. "...th-the ones that don't have a plant alien and a bird alien with them. The plant and bird are my friends."
Robert Speedwagon     Well, that wasn't QUITE how Speedwagon planned it. He gives a growl as he's hit in his throwing arm, but he still manages to catch his hat before ducking back behind the crates. He's not going to be able to throw that hat again, though -- his sledgehammer is in his other hand! He flips the hat back onto his head, and waits a moment.

    As it turns out A2's dynamic entry provides exactly the opportunity needed. Tattoo is forced to abandon his perch and jump to another stack, lest he risk being a landing pad for A2 and her oni 'passenger'. Unfortunately this puts him within the white-haired twingunner's sights. But (hopefully) before he can fire, Kempo sees HIS opportunity. He aims for a chaining of three strikes here -- two hard strikes aimed at the twingunner's kidneys, and then a backflip kick.
Starbound Flotilla "Star Five, status report."
"Hr'r hraghagh hrahha hrgh! Hrharh hr hraghah ah hrrgh!"
"Optimistic. Good to hear!"

    "FUCK!" George cries out as the heel comes down. He hadn't expected the attention to still be on the ground! The strike crashes into his body, crushing even more armor around the weakened part that the archer broke, and he's well and truly properly disabled from the fight now, until he can get a lot of medical attention. Dammit!

    Moonfin can't debate or do diplomacy like this! Not with a non-broadcasting radio system. He props himself up on his shattered katana and calls out, attempting to go for a low psychological blow: "Would you flee without your companion, then? How little honor among thieves!" He calls out, and then speaks more subtly, over the radio, "There is something over there, that the target is making a break for! Take care that they do not reach it, I believe it may be some form of escape teleporter!" He shouts.

    "Aye, matey!" Pavo calls out. This room is open, quite open... Perhaps that means the generator that Seft detected earlier could be visible? Pavo runs the data as fast as she can, trying to identify the generator for this area... And then she intends to aim her heavy flintlocks at it and fire straight into it, trying to disable the flow of power before the swordsman manages to do whatever he's trying to do over there! Too much of the Flotilla is down and basically out, or occupied with other matters, for them to physically bar the escaping swordsman, but perhaps they can use their keener understanding of base construction to work with this.
A2     A2 will take wood and cans over being flung into another street lamp. She almost wishes there were something harder to land on, for all the spite with which she drives the criminal through the ceiling. 'Criminal?' When did that slip into her thought process? Oh right. The sirens. That'd have to be it. She's a criminal, isn't she? That's why she tried to leave. That's why she attacked. Lashed out. The police wanted them to do this, but A2 had only come here because 'Hibiki' needed the help, and . . .

    A2 tastes something extremely bitter in her mouth. It isn't a glitch in her sensory complex. It's the unlikely that that the unconscious woman she is in top of had thought of her as some kind of officer of the law and tried to flee arrest. A lethal street brawl with a gang enforcer in a rough neighbourhood is one thing, but being a /cop/? A2 wants to spit at the idea, but her fingers touched to her lips find that her saliva is all pink anyways. She leans back, tilting her head, letting her hair slide over her ankles, and resting on her arched spine as she just stares blankly and unblinkingly up at the sun, before she finally decides to get up and off of the pile of warehouse wreckage, finally releasing her grip on the 'oni's' (probably badly bruised) wrist.

    Getting up is a bit of a feat, with how banged up she is, but she was supposed to be top of the line for a reason, and after a few unsteady twitches and wobbles, her balance systems sort themselves out and properly recalibrate, and she gets walking again. 'Left knee is fucked again' is about the extent of what goes through A2's head, even with the firefight now taking place very close to her. The gunshots are a dull, blurry roar in her ringing ears as she checks her integrity gauge and dismisses the OS warning in the corner of her vision.

    A couple of seconds later, the air around her picks up some kind of fizzling electric charge, and thousands of stark white particles, much like tiny, glowing pixels, surge out of the surroundings and coalesce around A2, flowing into her broken knee, the massive wound in her torso, and the various other points of damage all over her body, re-fabricating them to spec with converted maso. Almost to spec. Just a little bit off. Even the best self-repair technology is just that 1% off, a measure meant to go hand in hand with healthy routine maintenance.

    A2 waits for the repair cycle to complete, barely paying attention to the continuing combat, as if either in a shell-shocked daze, or if it were so familiar as to put her to sleep. She watches the white bars slowly climb back to full, wondering what her new 'scar' will look like. Not in a bad way. These things are the only real proof she has that she's alive.
Kyoko Takada     After a few moments, "Lasers and horns, but not plants or birds. Okay, got it." Nomura answers Nozomi, and then the cops start moving in. They had to wait for the guys with the shields to catch up, but now they're approaching the interior. A2 would get to be the first in their path, if she hadn't walked off, which is just as well.
    Not far from the downed twintailed woman is the gunner, lifting his hands to fire as soon as he rounds the corner and gets the android in sight, except that she's not there, and Kempo gets off three solid strikes first. His suit is armored in some way, but not well enough to do more than soften the blows. The kidney strikes stun him, and the kick knocks him forward. He's off-balance and now surrounded, and as soon as he can he turns and tries to run again for the hatch downstairs, with a groan, a shake of his head, and some words into a radio that no one else can pick up. Given that Kempo is still there, and the strikes have left him slowed and disoriented, interception won't be a major challenge. Just keeping him in place for another ten or fifteen seconds would mean the police catching him, instead. They're already taking in his fellow he went to rescue.

    Taiga's captive stays put, but does say, "Medic, I've been bitten," in a tone as much morose as pained.
    The reactor seems to be built in to the platform itself, which makes it easy enough for Pavo to find, but difficult to do anything about it without a big enough gun. Rather than set up to power everything else, it looks more like everything was set up with that platform as the base. Firing does slow the swordsman down for a moment as he looks back and draws his sword defensively, but he's not stopping, either. He said something in response to Moonfin, but again, it doesn't get transmitted.
    Moonfin can at least take solace in being right. Once the platform is reached, the rings activate, and one of the four criminals makes his escape via teleporter, assuming that this wasn't a suicidal charge into a prominently placed incinerator, instead.
Nozomi Houken     Taiga's reply is a simple one. "My sympathies."

    Nozomi finally dares to peek over the crate she's hidden behind, only to see... "George!" Oh, now she's up and out, and running! Running straight for the downed Space Dude, and shuffling around in her purse besides. Out comes... is that a first aid kit? Yes. Yes, it's a small first aid kit. It is wholly inadequate to the level of injury George has suffered, a fact that she realizes around fifteen feet away. That's when her expression falls into one of deep worry. "A-ah, I'm... George, are you..."
Robert Speedwagon     "On 'im, Kempo!" Speedwagon calls, realizing his companion's in just the right place to try and down the twingunner. Or at least to stall him. Kempo dutifully lunges forward, arm outstretched to strike again.

    But the twingunner probably isn't concerning himself with what's above him. Which might end up being a bad thing for him, since there's still a knifeman above him. But not for long!

    However, this time? Tattoo doesn't leap with knife outstretched. He leaps with leg oustretched, aiming for a flying kick at the side of the gunner's head. There are police nearby, and it doesn't look like they're going to get past without dealing with them -- he doesn't want to get a rap for stabbing this guy. Besides, if Kempo's strikes didn't knock the guy down, there's probably some armor going on. Hence why Tattoo aimed for the head. Maybe that ISN'T armored!

    Hit or miss, once everyone's on the ground, Speedwagon and his group try to make themselves scarce among the crates as best as they can. Hopefully they'll be able to find a way around the cops that are coming in through the makeshift door to the warehouse and be able to split before they're noticed. Or at least before they can be caught.
Starbound Flotilla     "Avast! No! Ye scurvy /dog/!" Pavo calls out, shooting until the swordsman escapes, and then spiking her own flintlock to the ground. "Dammit!" She turns back, swooping down to Biteblade. "The cat's got her good, flower, we've gotta get out!"
    "Hrhy! Bleah. Bye, archer lady!" Biteblade says, releasing the oni's arm from her jaw. "Good fighter! Ssstrong hunt! Never ssstrong like Floran, becaussse Floran greatessst hunter, but Floran admiresss!" She says, beaming with pride. And then they rush away! Pavo's gotta get Moonfin on his feet!

    "No no no. C'mere." George says, waving Nozomi over limply from his damaged position on the ground. If she does, he grabs the medical supplies and wraps some of the gauze... Just... Over the armor. Uselessly. He then presents it, sorta, wordlessly going 'tada!' He literally just spent twenty seconds and a whole lot of pain on a /comedy gag/. God damn it George.

    Albert has followed Nozomi, and makes harshly critical noises at George. "Don't waste supplies, moron." He says, angrily, before nodding firmly to Nozomi. "Offers of assistance appreciated. You'll be safe on your own." All business as always, but always as careful to make sure she's okay. "Seft. Get him out of here."

    As for what they do to escape, well... A big high-tech room this may be, full of strange jamming metals and such, but it was built up recently, and so it likely can be deconstructed. A series of mining beams built into the Matter Manipulators on all four remaining active Starbound Flotilla members activate, and they attempt to dig through the wall, tunneling out and away, towards wherever Hibiki's called some transport for them! This should be tough for the police to spot until far too late!
Kyoko Takada     The place is now partially wrecked, but more of it's still intact, and the cops are moving cautiously without knowing exactly what's ahead of them. They've taken one, the one A2 downed, only to find that they've entered a building in which any number of people could be hiding. The gunner collapses to Tattoo's strike, and the cops move in his direction, making their second arrest shortly after Speedwagon's crew has retreated. This almost puts the law in line-of-sight to the hatch down, so it won't be much longer.
    "I'm on site, and you should see us soon. We're securing the area. Are you still alright? We have two of them in custody. Did you get a count on how many there were?" Nomura's call comes in for further info, though Taiga might have to take this one if Nozomi is occupied.
    This all gives plenty of time for those escaping to escape, having the extremely handy advantage of matter manipulators. The walls are shielded against some types of scanning, but not particularly hard to get through from inside. Once they're back to the surface, "Hibiki's" instructions say to split into a few groups, head to the indicated coordinates, and find waiting taxis. They're perfectly ordinary taxis, prepaid online to get somewhere far enough away, and not big enough to take 10 people in one car.
    There will be funny looks, but this /is/ the "weirdo foreigner" quarter.
Nozomi Houken     "Ah, alright, here..." Nozomi hands it over without complaint. And then gets to see George... wh... what is he...

    ...

    ...pfft.

    It's the tiniest little giggle. It's barely there. But the utterly ridiculous sight of the gauze wrapped around the outside of the armor has the intended effect, breaking the tension enough that she's able to stop worrying... well, /as/ much. "Ah, alright. You... you guys be careful, okay?"

    Taiga happens to be tied in to Nozomi's radio, so he's able to take the call easily. "Thank you for your assistance. This is TIGER, Nozomi's companion and equipment. We were able to count three for certain - two in the underground section, with one above; it is strongly possible there is, or was, also a fourth above, but I am less certain of that. One of the underground suspects has escaped, but the other is presently in my custody. I don't know the situation above."
A2     More gunshots. The sounds of fists flying. Bodies scuffling. Crumbling walls and floors. A2 walks away from the site of her crash without paying much of any attention to it, 'lost in thought' as it could be charitably called. She hates thinking of it that way. Whenever she can't assign a system or a process to her behaviour and has to use one of those human words for human feelings, it reminds her of-

    Police sirens. That one's new, when she finally hears it. It snaps her out of her daze for a moment, just long enough to hear Hibiki's well-placed advice that she really shouldn't be here for the cops to find her. Especially her. A2 specifically. Given what she looks like. She lost the cloak, and her body beneath is so blatantly abnormal and exposed that she'd get stopped even if she weren't suspected of this inovlvement, so she doesn't have a lot of choice. Her one shot out is picking up the pace and following the others out the hole the Flotilla drills out the side before she misses the chance.

    Her last victim for the day is the poor taxi's suspension.