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Yumiko moved first. She attacked him with such speed that Riku was barely able to block her blows. On top of that, his pocket began vibrating. He reached for his phone, but a low blow prevented him from reaching it. He jumped backwards, only to see the silhouette of a large object come flying at him. He looked back- and saw a Russian tank flying through the air. He dodged just in time, only to feel a sudden shock go through him. He fell over, the electricity still running through him. He felt something warm on his arm. He looked, and there was blood- but not his own. Yumiko struck him again, this time across the back. With what little strength he still had, Riku reached back and pushed a small button on his com set- the Panic button. At least they'll know where to find my body," Riku thought as he went unconscious.

The garage, MMHQ

Joel looked at the phone in disgust. "He's not picking up." He pursed his lips. Riku just didn't seem the type to go AWOL at the beginning of a mission. Just as he opened his mouth to speak again, the phone rang, as did Styxx's. "That's him. " Joel pressed the talk button and snapped the phone to his ear. "Hey, Riku, where are -" A recorded female voice interrupted him.

"Your attention please: [Riku] has pressed the panic button. Repeat, [Riku] has pressed the panic button. Repeat, [Riku] has pressed...

He hung up the phone. Almost immediately, it rang again. This time, the call was from Ops. "Yo." Joel answered the phone. "Yes. Who's attacking us? Have the Uroboros been spotted? How are the base defenses? All right, do something about the tanks. Prepare to seal off the weapons room. And keep me posted." Joel hung up. "We're under attack." he told Styxx. "Blitz, Zetsumi, and the Bear have been caught on camera. Our side is sealing off everything and preparing the main hall for an assault. If we want to be on the defending side of the barricade, we'd better hurry." Joining the few people trying to snipe tanks was another possibility, but Joel was much more of a melee fighter than a sniper, and he suspected Styxx was, too.

((Baltazaar, that is one abstract post.

I'd love to join you, but I'm not sure I entirely understand where or what you apparently are. smile

Anyhow, I obviously need help to get back into the RP... Hand up?))

Larry looked at the laptop screen and went to the search engine. "Well if you don't suspect it to be the old bird, Mr. F, they must've been doing it for other reasons." Larry said, clicking on Rival Firms "After all, they did attach some kinda paralysis collar to the cat to keep it from running." As Larry spoke, he typed in the parameters. Female, 20-30, Middle-Eastern/North African, assassin, thief. He finished and hit 'enter'.

Just as he pressed the 'enter' key, it occurred to Larry that what he was putting in sounded like a dating service only with hired mercenaries as it's clientele. A small chuckle escaped his mouth before he started looking through the profiles. He completely ignored the textual explanations and focused on the faces of the mercenaries, most of them known terrorists operating in the middle east.

As much as Larry was finding on middle-eastern murderers and jihadists, he sure wasn't finding anything concrete. Not about the woman he was looking for anyway. He reached over to drink a glass of ice water, when finally something caught his eye. Rather it was a set of eyes that caught his. The picture was of a younger woman, barely into her mature teens, and her skin was much more innocent and pristine than Larry remembered. But as he zoomed in on her eyes, zooming in until the two of them were the only part showing in her visual dossier.

"... That's her..."

Larry zoomed out and maximized the textual dossier. After skimming over the important details, Larry was shocked to learn who he had just escaped from. "Darya Azhaar al-Hadithy." he said to the group around the bed.

The dossier read like an assassin's Bible, containing such things as:
Believed to be a freelancer operating mostly out of the mediterranean-Africa area, suspect is to be considered highly lethal and mentally unstable. Has been connected to dozens of Eastern and African political assassinations as well as high-profile heists. Wanted in connection with the Malta Group, an Italian domestic terror organization dedicated to the breakdown of Italian infrastructure and the conversion of the government to a more authoritarian one.

Larry was getting quite an ulcer just from reading this and little more, but continued to read along. Until suddenly, he stopped when he came across something. "Hey, listen to this. Her dossier says that among her known mental tweaks is a string of anorexia throughout her life." Larry said "It's saying in here that her history of psyche-outs started in Rome when she was at a restaurante with her old man. He went outside into the street to start the Vespa, but she stayed behind a second to grab a few extra bites." Larry couldn't help but pause before going on "Someone in the street hit the gas instead of the brake, daddy flew through the air... Good God, Mr. F, she was only 10 years old."

So that was it. The psyche section concluded on the note of her father being dead from the accident and her mother dead from giving birth to her. Darya was forced to live with her aunt in Sicily with her two older sisters, during which she became increasingly aloof. Larry closed the laptop and laid back in the hospital bed.

((Ha. I'm good at getting myself disliked.))

Steven slipped to one knee in the entrance hall, ducking into a doorway. Clasped in his hands was his P-90; strapped to his back was an FN SCAR. At his hip he again had a 1911, and strapped to his thigh, the 92FS. A black military-esque utility vest was belted onto his torso, and in it were a pair of fragmentation grenades, as well as a pair of smoke grenades and a pair of flashbangs. Steven was set for a short but intense conflict.

He thought of asking someone what was going on, but as people rushed around, he decided that it would be easy to determine who was the foe here. Probably whoever would be breaking in the front door. Firing weapons. Or whatever was going on here. If he shot someone he wasn't supposed to be shooting, he'd make it up to them somehow. And again, he was sure it would be fairly clear who to put a round through. Either way, though he was waiting for the moment.

Riku was in a daze. He was unable to move, unable to speak. He could hear loud noises around him, almost like an army moving in. He could feel the rumbling as APCs rolled past him. He felt completely helpless.

Then he heard a voice. A woman's voice.

Riku, get up. This isn't how you want to die, is it? The Riku I knew would never give up like this. Riku. Riku.... the voice faded into a different voice, one crackling with static.

"Riku Kitai, if you are still alive, report at once!"

Riku snapped back into consciousness. He raised a finger up to his earpiece, and pushed the button. "Th-this is Riku. I'm still here" He tried to sit up, but fell back in pain. "Barely."

He reached for a small bottle on his belt; a rare potion meant for near-death situations. He swigged it down in one gulp, and then screamed in pain. His wounds steamed as they sealed back up, and he felt some strength pulse back into his body. He managed to sit up. That's the last of those potions I had, he thought to himself. Next time I'm wounded that bad, I'm screwed.

He stood up, and looked around. Sure enough, there were signs an army had been through there just moments ago. He looked up and saw a massive helicopter- a "Hind", if he remembered- flying towards the base. Then he heard the sound of a car behind him. He turned, and saw what looked like a Jeep with Soviet colors on it coming his way, a PKM machine gun leveled at him. He waited until it got close, then grabbed the passenger-side door and climbed in. He punched the driver and threw him out, then stabbed the gunner in the leg, bringing him to his level where he finished him with a punch that shattered his windpipe. He then took the wheel and began driving towards the base at top speed.

What he saw was a small army waiting for him. They were all advancing on the base. No damage was visible, except for some bullet holes. He swung up into the gunners position, primed the PKM, and opened fire. The soldiers in front of him, caught off-guard by an attack from their rear, fell as the 7.62mm rounds ripped into them. The vehicle crushed several more, still moving under it's own momentum. It crashed into a rock and flipped, and Riku was thrown from it. He caught himself in midair and came down upon a small group of enemies, slicing through their throats before they had a chance to fire. He placed his finger up to his receiver, putting it on constant-broadcast mode.

"Joel, this is Riku. Looks like we have some uninvited guests."

((
Hey, nothin' against you personally, SirBayer. This is a drinking game, though. Someone asks what's going on, take a shot. Can't let sentiment get in the way.

The dumb part was taking all those shots. Those can't be good for an RP.
))

Garage, MMHQ

Joel broke out in a smile. "Then we'd better go out to meet them."

He had had the panic button pressed on two occasions, in a previous job. Both times, pressing it had been someone's last living act. He was relieved that Riku was still in action, and sounded unharmed, even. "Hey, where are you?" he said into the phone. A muffled whump put another dent in the garage door. "And can you see who's knocking on the hangar doors? I'd hate to waste this reception on mere infantry." A plan had been forming in his head. In a garage this big, stocked by people who were obsessed with having everything, there had to be a vehicle of mass destruction.

Another whump echoed through the garage - but this time, the echoes didn't die. Joel turned to see Sokato's mech maneuvering into position. With a final clank, it stopped, and split open.

Joel didn't know if this was just a coincidence, or if some techie was reading his mind, but either way it didn't matter. Joel loved mechs. Absolutely every weapon could be improved if it was attached to a mech. He jumped in, sealing the cockpit around him. The interior lit up at his touch, and he spent a moment familiarizing himself with the controls. There were several odd ports which appeared to be designed to plug into the wearer somehow, but he managed to work around those. Another whump, heard through the suit's audio pickup, caused the doors to bend inward alarmingly. They would come down within three hits. Joel hunted around for the suit's transmitter, found it, and plugged the phone into it. "Oh, and call me Groundwalker. This mission has officially begun." He switched to the external speaker. "Stand back, Styxx." he said to Agrotera.

The android's entrance was covered by another whump.

-------------

Infirmary, MMHQ

Mr. Forgle didn't know what to say. These sorts of tragic stories were exactly the reason he had become a zookeeper and not a mercenary. Every target had a story like this, and he could not imagine himself just shooting someone when they had been through something like that. After an awkward moment he sat down shakily on a chair by Larry's bed. He opened his mouth to offer some sort of comfort, but Larry wasn't the one who needed it. "That poor girl." was all he could think to say.