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RP [Bounty Hunter Series] Mission 1: Housekeeping

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Howlers

"If only I could hide something helpful up there, truth be told I'm not a big combat fighter I stick to this." Satto spoke grabbing his tie before re-smoothing his jacket, "And if the situation calls for it I've also got a hidden pistol but thats about it for me I'm afraid. And no I don't have any cheesy nicknames, I try to stay professional about my work, killing people is hardly a joke."

The man turned back to face their unknowing targets and watched them closely, and made a silent apology to any potential family and friends who may grieve the loss of the men who were almost certain to die now.
 
Roof Access

As Phage's optic cable snaked in to the drilled hole she saw that it was merely a rusted unused darkened staircase leading down. The only real light that could be percieved by her enhanced senses was a very faint glow from somewhere out of sight. It was clearly a mess of a stairwell, one might have even thought that it was feces that stained the wall...wait was it?

Duncan thrust his hand in to the hole once the cable was cleared and, using his gauntlets, easily tugged the door open, the wind once gain paying dividends in the masking of noise.

"Salem could be right, who knows what could have happened to Frank but I feel maybe the guy who added him to our mission may have just as easily pulled him for something. Either way we should assume they know we are coming until we find out otherwise," Duncan said before turning to the stairwell, hefted his shotgun up and took a few steps in, he looked over the stairs railing seeing the bacl descend quite a ways with a smattering of faint glows, possibly from doorways.

"I will lead, then Salem then Phage and Kira at the rear," he said briskly as he started down the stairs, the first floor they came to showed no light from inside, it looked completely deserted upon first inspection. Duncan groaned, "This may take a while." He slowly pulled open the door and stepped on the the tenth floor hallway. It was a gigantic hallway that went off in both directions around a sizeable courtyard in the middle which was a giant opening that went all the way down to the first level. The iced over dirty glass dome above it only let a dull grey light inside for natural illumination.

Duncan stepped up to the bannister and peered over, the few levels below them were blacked out but after that there seemed to be several floors with lights on and even some wisps of smoke coming from them. Along this floors hallway there was a sries of doors that obviously led to apartments.

Out Front

The small group of mismatched mercenaries did not have to wait long. After maybe ten minutes the other group of three guards came out from behind the building and quickly huddled up to their friends, cold numb fingers stretching for the warmth of the trash fire. Laughter could be heard over the wind as they seem to be mocking each other to help get by the boredom. It seemed that only really one of the goons kept his rifle at any semblance of ready. He was probably that one paranoid guy in the group who always thought things were actually going to happen in the unending monotony of the Thug Life.

It seemed like a better time not come again for a while...
 
Howlers

Tecuma blinked as she was called beautiful, her pale face turning a scarlet red.

"Th-The hell is wrong with you! Don't just call someone beautiful outta the blue!"

She had to turn away and growl a bit as she slapped her face a few times to get herself back under control. She took a few breaths and shook her head before she looked at the others.

"Can we PLEASE get on with the killing then? I'm getting bored and freezing my ass off here, I wanna get this shit over with and get a drink."
 
Out Front

Sacre touched the braclets together and a guise of a much older Separa'Shan begger was overlaid on her. She took two knives, and held her arms together as if to shiver to try and regain some warmpth. With that, she truged forward, looking for all the work like one of the Separa'Shan refugees that had been on the news recently.

Her plan was direct, if slightly underhanded. She was going to approach and likely draw their attention. That would allow the others to get into posision to do their thing. If she managed to get close enough, then she would wait until someone else started the show or she couldn't wait any longer. Then the blood would flow.
 
Habitation Block Top Floor

Phage seemed completely fine with just ignoring the gross crust on the walls, again displaying the value of wearing an environmental suit all the time. Their roller-wheels bonked down the first couple of steps without bothering to tackle the first few individual steps, only swapping to leg movements once the web of grenades on their chest started to jangle around just that bit too much.

The interior did strike them as a little spooky, though. Space ships were rarely this badly maintained unless all the crew were dead.

Secondarily, the loose debris and scrunched carpets meant it would also be pretty easy to hide traps nearly anywhere. Thirdly, there wasn't really anything around that they could hack into easily. Or steal.

Stayed vaguely close to Salem, since they internally figured Duncan had ordered them behind the large man as a sort of shield. But no point in worrying about that sort of thing just yet. Didn't even need to look over the guard rail (which was actually higher than Phage's head anyhow), since they had Duncan's camera feed from Shasta, too...

"Large man fancy-gun..." Their name for Salem. "Watch feet for traps. This... Too quiet..."

They were looking around for such things whilst they said it. Security cameras could be a pretty big threat, too.
 
Habitation Block - Top Floor Stairwell

Falling into the rear of the formation as ordered, Kira stepped across the door's threshold behind the lumbering Freespacer. Looking around at the filth crusted on the walls, she didn't recall ever being much more thankful to be enclosed in a full-face helmet than she was at that moment. But even though she was protected from the bulk of any smells that might be wafting through the stale air in the decrepit stairwell, her mind seemed intent anyway on imagining all manner of unspeakable, rancid fumes so vividly that it was almost as if she could smell them. And it was enough to make her stomach do a little back-flip before she forced herself back into the game.

She swung her helmet's camera slowly around the stairwell, making sure Shasta could see everything they did. Numbers and data—ambient temperature, sound levels, display status, all mostly meaningless to her in the moment—scrolled across her peripheral vision as she followed a few paces behind the group, her pistol securely at the ready. She took her left hand from it just long enough to turn a dial on the side of her helmet, and the color balance in its display adjusted to the dim light, brightening the dark smudges in her field of view to sharply discernible shapes. Returning both hands to the gun, she cautiously stole a quick glance over the stairway's railing to look down and get a glimpse of anything she could see that might be waiting for them. Suddenly she became acutely aware of the weight of the rifle slung across her shoulders. In these tight quarters it wouldn't do her much good, but the mere presence of her favored weapon of choice was enough to keep her nerves steeled, and her professional resolve honed to a fine edge.
 
Habitation Block Top Floor

Salem quickly moved behind Duncan and matched the man's speed going down the stairs. He silently heeded the warning of the small Freespacer with a small nod, his eyes glazed slowly over their surroundings from left to right, right to left as to maximize his chances of spotting something. As Duncan opened the door and moved out into the hallway, Salem hugged closely behind the large man before button-hooking to the right with a sharp pivot, taking a few more steps forward down the hallway before coming to a knee.

"At least time isn't a priority, well, not until we're spotted that is." He spoke softly, his eyes conducting a hasty search before falling into a more detailed search down the hallway. He began to establish his baseline of the building trying to find what is normal in order to point out the abnormal. His search started at his feet before moving out five meters, then ten meters, then twenty, and so on as far as the hallway went. An effort was made to search the ceiling as well, he wouldn't want to be caught under some sort of IED.

Smell was important to Salem as well. Though he mostly smelled the horrors of the unkempt building, he attempted to decipher any odor that seemed out of the ordinary though the task was proving difficult.

"What's the call boss-man?" He reached into his front admin pouch and removed his binocular NOD, snapping it onto his head mount before pulling them down to his eyes and turning them on, resuming his detailed search.
 
Howlers - Out Front

The purple neko couldn't help but grin beneath her helmet at the short Nepleslian woman's reaction, deciding to playfully spin the suppressed smg around her finger a few times as she spoke, "Fiiine, work now and fun later - but you'd best bet there is going to be fun."

Adley's next victim was the lanky guy with the suit, while not outright hating him it was clear he wasn't really her type of person as the voluptuous neko shot him a brief sideways glare - her tone dropping to something almost threatening as she spoke to him this time, "Call it cheesy one more time and I'll feed you your own fucking spleen, mkay?" Her tone did hitch back up into something kind of friendly towards the end though, golden eyes shifting to watch the stabby snake disguise herself.

"Oooo okay good plan, I'll go get into position but you nerds better not take too long - I might get bored," was the last thing Adley decided to annoy her teammates with before firing up her armour's camo system, fading to nothing and floating off of the ground silently as the purple neko began moving into position, coming to rest underneath a nearby awning to make sure there wouldn't be an hourglass-shaped disturbance in the falling snow.

She may not have seemed professional in the slightest, but if there was one thing Adley Hayabusa was capable of then being a scarily effective weapon was certainly it - not that she'd shown that yet but she certainly was enthusiastic to.
 
Howlers

"I don't doubt that but at least wait till after the job-" Sato started as she disapeared from sight, well that was one way to end a conversation, at least she seemed competent when it came to the work itself and with any luck he'd get to keep his body in tact. Wouldn't really be a fair fight if it was him against he and he had no doubt he'd come out the loser if he didn't go in with a serious advantage.

But now wasn't the time for thinking about that, they were starting their plan now and he had to be ready, he noticed their scaly friend had already started moving forwards as well, and given her appearance it had a good chance of buying a second of distraction if nothing else. The tall Nepleslian decided he'd be best suited staying close by to the Separa, he couldn't move as quickly as the two neko super soldiers and didn't have any fancy gear to hide himself. If nothing else his own clothing was designed to have the appearance of a civilian as well despite being somewhat bulletproof.

"I'll be close behind, signal with your tail if you want me to move." He said quietly to the woman as she moved off, moving to the nearest spot of cover and crouching down to watch from a distance, he'd balled his special tie around his left hand and had the right ready to grab his concealed pistol if needed.
 
Howlers

As the mercenaries each moved to their best personal vantage points Sacre took the lead slithering forward toward the grouped thugs. She made it quite close before the paranoid thug on alert spotted her elder slithering form growing nearer to him and his crew. As the others laughed and went on in general camaraderie the point man turned his head and barked out a warning, "Yo, take a look at this! Some reptile bitch is coming over here. I wonder how this filthy xeno got here."

It seemed the the mention of an alien awoke something in the group as they each turned and took up their weapons and slowly gathered to meet Sacre. "I say we swiss cheese it," said one man. "Nah, just beat her head in old school," replied another. "Guys seriously, we should fuck her up and then take her to Maxim. Heck he might even let us have a ride before we gut her," another said with a sneer. The jabs and jibes were enough to really stress that the Malaise system was not a welcome one, especially to non-Nepleslians.

One man stepped forward however, his dark beard was long and unkempt. It was hard to make out his muttered words above the wind but the sobering visages of the collected thugs told the story, that and all of them taking a small step back. "Die you filth," The bearded older man said before he raised an HHG and squeezed the trigger aimed right for the Separa'Shan.

Inside

It was apparent to Duncan that this floor as well as the next few were very likely going to be dead ends for what they sought. He watched Salem get a pretty decent feel for the floors and saw the way Kira did her thing checking for vantage points in which to use her rifle. It seemed to him that the team were pacing themselves out exactly as he had hoped. Kira was a noted support specialist according to Desmond's notes and it was rare for the stoic former leader to give such praise. Salem, as Duncan knew, was a tactical man, all action. Phage, was a bit of a wild card but already the diminutive Freespacer was providing out of the box foresight.

He reached up and turned the multi lens on the left eye of his mask. It was the first time he had used this feature and knew it was a bit out there but he thought back to his preliminary training with it and tried to suss out the information. Even his personal armorer was skeptical about adding such a strange feature but it had it's uses, an acoustic spectogram. That's right, Duncan's current vision in his left eye was actually seeing sound. The weird pulses and waves flowed strong from the center courtyard but quickly leveled out when he swept over the rest of the tenth floor.

Satisfied he rotated his left lens back to normal and spoke up, "From what I can tell this floor and the next few seem empty, at least I presume due to the darkness and that their is really no sound coming from them," he held his hand to his covered ear. There was no real purpose but it was habit from when he used a separate mic, "Shasta, why don't you send a drone down this central shaft to give us a better visual, it is also a great standby in case we engage, they would not expect it. Speaking of, when we determine the exact floor we need to begin an actual sweep, I say Kira stays one floor up. You can use your rifle on angles to add with the drones.

"Salem, you and I will push from the stairwell with Phage staying back a bit in case we come across any obstacles we can't punch our way through," he knew that splitting up would not be a favorite choice but he felt that the teams abilities dictated they would pull this off with the right amount of surprise and overlapping fire.
 
It was the moment that Sacre had been waiting for. With a surprising burst of speed, her tail straightened and propelled her forward into the group. The man fired at where she had been only a moment before. However, she was no longer there, she was standing in front of the rapeist. Then she swept her tail, wrapping it around the shooter and preventing him from moving as Vera appeared in her hand, slashing the throat of the rapist and releasing a flood of blood from the nearly decapitated neck. Then she turned, finishing winding herself around the shooter and using him as something of an impromptu body shield. She grabbed the gun with her free hand, pushed it out of the way, and stabbing him with Vera between the body armor plates.
 
Howlers

Things escalated faster than the neko was expecting but she responded nonetheless, a burst of snow kicking up from the ground as her cloaked form rapidly descended and landed with a hard roll that put Adley upright again - near silent footsteps rapidly approached the group of enemies as the schlink sound of two blades being unfurled was followed up by them being scraped against the ground as the cloaked, purple woman closed the distance.

A smaller spray of snow and the sound of something whistling through the air were the only warnings given as she finally un-cloaked and rammed one fist towards the chest of a surprised Nepleslian thug, the neko had sprung only a foot or so into the air to get more force on her thrust as the blade revealed itself through her target's back with a spray of red that stained the snow - there was a thoroughly pleased smile across Adley's purple features, concealed by her helmet though the others would hear a squeal of delight as the neko dropped back down to the ground, nearly cleaving the mortally wounded man's body in half with a large, vertical gash as she tucked in to slide between his legs.

Her armour was coated with crimson spots as Adley's blade finally left his falling corpse, popping up on the other side and transitioning into a kick aimed at her next target's chest with a resounding "Wheeeew" - the forearm mounted blades were crossed over each other as the neko landed on her downed target's chest, almost looking like she was straddling it before the blades were rapidly uncrossed and this thug's head rolled away from his corpse.

A few rounds slapped into the snow next to her, causing the neko to tuck in and roll away as she cloaked once more, sure there was a gun in one of Adley's hands but she found out a while ago that blades were so much more fun to use.
 
Howlers

Sato watched as the first two members began their attack, quickly dispatching 3 of the 6 guards he could see in front of the building. While he could attack with his own handgun from range, like the neko he also preferred close combat with hands or weapons. Moving around the outskirts of the battle he unwrapped the tie and prepared to jump the furthest guard from their group which was now the closest one to him.

In an effort to assist the team and avoid being looked at harshly for not contributing the older nepleslian stepped forward quietly and wrapped the tie around his throat, holding it behind his neck with one hand while the other clapped over his mouth.
 
Corona

"Hai, Okonaimas" The mutant mumbled the affirmation to herself quietly before sending out the media command to the unarmed blister. The forward most drone hovering over Salem's shoulder responded with a whir and zig-zagged through the group to scout ahead through the shaft and out of sight.

While the drone shifted and looped through its path the mutant fidgeted in her cupola. Already below freezing, Malaise was quickly becoming the bane to the mad mutant who often dressed in as little as social norms would permit to allow freedom of movement for her girlish spunk-antics. Yet being stationary in the idling gunship was slowly freezing her as the only sources of heat being the defrosters for the cockpit and a still relatively cold engine quickly had her shivering and even sniffling. Yet the job had to go on!

She glanced momentarily at a second monitor usually used for viewing the pilots POV...

One of her Lachesis drones was showing its grainy feed from what looked like a bunch of men around a campfire fighting a strange noodle-person-thing. She was about to disregard it when others looked like they where about to intervene and wrestle the weird pet lizard bigger than most yamatians when they too joined in the old nepleslian past-time of Beat Em' Up.

The mad mutant made a face as they pursed their lips and wondered if it was just best to let the two armed drones open fire and scatter the mess before they blew Bozu's cover while they where still shrouded by the falling snow.

She lost her train of thought when she wondered how anyone owned such a large reptile on such a cold world? And let them have their fun without reporting it to the bossman, Albeit under armed supervision.
 
Inside

"Good to go." Salem picked up slowly, walking backwards with his weapon still at the ready towards the door. As he hit the edge of the door, he turned around and rounded the door with his weapon trained down the stairwell.

"I'll take point going down the stairwell." He waited a brief moment to ensure Duncan was close behind him before descending down the stairwell at a brisk pace, pie-ing off doors as he passed them by before snapping his aim back down the stairwell and continuing. What Salem really wanted to do upon reaching each door was to hold security on it, letting his team members pass him before falling into the back. This would repeat with Duncan holding security on the next door as they made their way down before falling into the back and so on. But now wasn't the time to explain urban tactics to the other contractors, he figured he'll show them a bit later on.

"Tell me when we reach the floor you want to search first, and-" Salem stopped abruptly, attempting to halt Duncan and Phage behind him.

"Do you hear gunfire or am I crazy?" He looked back at Duncan for a very brief moment before returning his sight back to where it should be. His ears still strained to hear what he thought sounded like a firefight outside.
 
Howlers

Yet again, Tecuma seemed to be ignored. That was fine, her deal usually wasn't the quiet stuff anyways. All this sneaky shit wasn't her deal. When shit got loud though, they would be happy they brought her along. With the others down, she idly pressed her trigger to let the gun spin up just for a second, just to get that noise in her ears and make sure the gun was ready before she let it die down again. She stepped forward through the small yard to where the bodies were and stretched her arms up as the weapon hung on its sling around her.

"We ready to go in?" She asked in a bored tone as she looked at the dead bodies. It didn't seem like she cared much about the fact that so far she had done nothing to help in the combat.
 
Corona

A major flaw to tasking Shasta any specific and underlined task, Duncan would have to learn, Was that she simply couldn't stay put. Excitement and anticipation had the mad mutant bubbling and hopping in her cupola as if the durandium protected cockpit simply couldn't contain the exciteable mutant.

And it couldn't...

Without a word to the spacer in the pilots chair, Shasta, Not even buckled in, Simply bolted through the hatch and out of the gunship with a series of thuds and bangs like a bat out of hell. Through the roof entrance and bounding down the stairs faster than her feet could take purchase she vaulted over rails and down floors with an intensely focused drive.

She knew where she was going. She had already ripped the buildings layout from the public works records and had already passed the team by cutting through a, Thankfully, Vacant corridor and was going down a different flight of stairs altogether and was quickly reaching the lower levels of the structure where it would almost certainly be occupied, Not that such thoughts had yet to even register to the mutant, But out of habit her energy pistol was in hand, Her shock baton bounced happily on her hip, A simple and unadorned ring was ready on her pointer finger of her right hand and her drones noting the movement of the home point where stalking her outside. There was a danger noodle out there and she totally wanted to touch its tail!
 
Hunters

It was slow going for the team as they gave every precaution on each floor they encountered. More and more they saw that the levels were abandoned and forgotten, all the evidence pointing to the observed lighted floors as the only currently occupied.

As Salem swept forward on their latest floor, Duncan and Phage were close behind, the latter skating silently. Kira did her best to hang back and cover their movements from afar. All they found was more dust and webs. The small spacer even flailing comically as it encountered a particularly thick web head on. The group, clearly becoming agitated that they had spent far too much time being cautionary and not enough time getting to their objective.

The silence of the floor was broken by a burst of radio in the Hunters ears, "Sugar, this is Maxine. I dare say that that little dog eared lady, she gone ran out of here like she just remembered where she buried her bone. I fear she may get herself in some trouble." The words of Maxine were thick in her southern accent an seemed out of the ordinarily calm given the message.

Duncan replied, "Copy that Maxine thank you." He turned to the rest of his small crew and waved them in, even though their comms reached further regardless. "Listen, we gotta check on Shasta. Phage, head back up to the Corona and take over on overwatch. Kira, Salem, I feel confident these floors are abandoned. Either way, the two of you head to the last dark level and set up a roost, Salem will be guard. I will try and head off Shasta."

The two mercenaries nodded though it was evident they were not totally happy with even this small split. With a last look at Duncan, Kira followed Salem in to the stairwell and on their way.

"Shasta, Shasta this is Duncan. Where are you headed? What is going on," he asked as he opened a nearby stairway entry. As if in response he heard a repeated thudding further down and looked over the railing. Sure enough he saw a brief glimpse of his favorite little mutants skirts as she rumbled ever downward.

The noise was concerning and he knew he had to catch her otherwise things could get pretty hairy. He began his ony decent though not as uncontrolled, trailing down the dirty stairwell after hie fellow.

Howlers

The scene was a bloodbath. The snowy earth was crimson from the viscera that laid out upon it among the bodies. The errant shooting that had begun the encounter had been as ineffectual as the guards in the end. Their lives had been laid low and if they were any example the rest would be easy pickings. According to their intel, there should not be many more anyway. Already the relentless cold of the planet was icing over the men who also sported a fresh coat of powdered snow.

As if in response to the sudden iolence, the wind had picked up and whipped around the scene at new speeds. The light that formerly heated the men was snuffed out much like they had been. It was darker now, the only light coming from the entrance to the large Hab building.

Those in the group with enhanced hearing had heard a thudding before the prominent front door swung open and out bounced a poorly dressed young woman with large dog style ears. It was clear she was armed, with armor adorning her torso above a swishing skirt. Her appearance was in severe contrast to the hardened thugs the group had just previously faced.
 
Howlers

Being one of the few, if not the only, members of the group with enhanced hearing the thudding made Adley's elven ears twitch under her helmet as she moved on from the scene of one crime and off to commit another - pulling away from a patch of bloodied snow and uncloaking as the purple neko raised one forearm-mounted blade just in time for the door opened to reveal some eye candy.

There may have been an energy pistol pointed at her but likewise Adley held her blade at the newly revealed woman's throat, observing her for a moment before using volumetrics to reveal purple lips curled up into a wicked grin, briefly licking those lips before speaking. "Now I usually prefer hitting on women rather than hitting them, so don't be a dumb bitch yeah?"

Her own response amused Adley, causing a fond chuckle to roll off the curvy purple assassin's voice much like the gore and blood that was rolling down her armour - shit would be a pain to get out later but oh man, for the rush she was getting right now it was worth it... providing this little stunt actually played off, oh well though, it would hardly be the first death of Adley Hayabusa and she had plans in place just for that potential outcome.
 
Howlers

Satto laid the corpse to rest at his feet and replaced the deadly tie at his own throat, an unconventional weapon maybe but its effectiveness and camouflage made it invaluable to him. With the rest of the guards dealt with the older man looked around the carnage slowly, his abnormally long torso twisting like a silent and well dressed boogieman searching for more prey. While he didn't hear the footfalls Satto did watch as their invisible cat met with a dog at the doorway, what an ironic meeting, but would dog or cat bite first.

Moving slowly and silently through the snow like the phantom he'd trained to become, the nepleslian approached the building but kept a moderate distance from the new enemy to avoid drawing attention, his hand slipped into the hidden holster within the suite jacket he wore just in case.
 
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