@KoL@Raineh Daze@VitaVitaAR.@TheFake@RolePlayerRoxas@PKMNB0Y

Lundgren stared at the little chinese girl, eyes forlorn as she wolfed down the meal set before her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been glaring at him as she did so, almost taunting him as the source of that wonderful, beautiful smell disappeared before his eyes.

It was honestly starting to feel like Soulflame was some kind of sick, unusual punishment for his past. Slick Rick in the corner over there really pulled the “food for the mind card,” and continued reading to himself. Like an asshole. Meanwhile, the Incredible Irish Preschooler was harassing him about not using her proper name, One Sale Dale was still trying not to wet himself, Lynch had shown up, the place was getting too crowded and then... Fan was talking about a raid.

His teeth throbbed. There was a fight in his immediate future, with heavily armed strangers that he was allowed to break in half. Slowly, the hackles settled back, his lips closed. Fremont relaxed, ever so slightly, then turned to address his new, assorted coworkers. No more bullshit, no more fake manners. Time to be frank, starting with the beanpole leaning against the corner.

“Slimjim. ‘No’ would’ve worked just fine. I get the feeling we shouldn’t kill randos on the street, probably bad business. Maybe you’d realize that if you remembered we’re supposed to be helping people and stopped quoting dates out of history books and snickering to yourself like a Bond villain.

Pint-size, you introduced yourself, unironically, with 'greetings,' and you are, by mass, a third of me. I literally cannot take you seriously. The other smallest person here can pull rabbits the size of a Buick out of her hat. You just speak like a German nun.

Sister rabbit, I’m not gonna eat your dinner. I'm jealous of it, but I'm not gonna. Calm down. I like the big rabbit, by the way.

Lynch, Fan, I’m bad at sneaking and good at everything else. Put me in the middle of the clusterfuck. I call dibs on the biggest one.

Little John, nice to meet you. I’m sure you're good at whatever it is you do that isn't deadly combat.

"That's outta the way. Now, we can all get on like one big, dysfunctional family. With that in mind, my last meal was 16 hours ago, and we have a fight coming up. I’m ordering take out before I eat this table. Anyone else want something?”

Abigail's blue eyes narrowed. Not only did the man refuse to take her seriously, but he also continued to refer to her by everything but her proper name. It was becoming quite clear to her that there was nothing she could say to make him understand just who she was and why she was worthy of respect, and indeed why she desired such respect. Indeed, her duties were important, and they would soon embark on a mission, but for the moment she would not work with this man until he was fully aware of her feelings and her nature. Abigail would not be belittled any longer.

"Hmph. I can see that there are no words that will reach you," she said, simply, placing her hand on the hilt that protruded from the sheath hanging on her hip. Of course, it was not a real sword. Abigail would never have been able to enter the country carrying a real sword on her hip. But such things mattered little when it came to her contract.

"But I am certain that actions shall," she added, "Behold, the Claiomh Solais."

She drew the hilt. In an instant, a brilliant light filled the room, as the plastic replica she had drawn underwent a stark transformation. When it concluded, the sword in her hand did not appear to be made of any sort of common metal. No, its blade gleamed like starlight, and let off a glow that illuminated the whole room.

"The very symbol of my contract, and of my position as a Knight of the Fianna. I trust you cannot deny what you see with your very own eyes, can you?"

@Raineh Daze@Tominas@KoL@TheFake

With a nod, Steven glanced down at the pile of documents once more to deal with the questions he had just been posed. It seemed as if none of the others wanted to sift through the paperwork, which meant it was left to him to dictate and dispose of them after the information was out on the field.

"Mmm... Give me a moment," he said, flipping through the papers for a moment before sighing. "Guards numbering fifty minimum, with three Contractors minimum among their number. Slated to be about 200 attendees otherwise, at least half of whom are expected to be noncombatants. They're really not going to be making this easy for us..."

With a bit of a dead gaze at Donovan, Steven turned towards Mao before shrugging.

"I think HQ has someone contracted with Mnemosyne somewhere, so worst comes to worst we just nab them and make them 'forget' what they saw. Honestly, I'm against that if at all possible because the idea of tampering with someone's memories bugs me to no end, so let's try to keep it as quiet as possible. That being said, though..."

The brewing argument between Abigail and Fremont was starting to worry the lawyer; the ego of a small child compared to the 'give no fucks' attitude that Fremont seemed to be touting would inevitably end up with more clashes in the future. While that would probably be fine given the fact that they would inevitably have to work together anyhow, the 12 or so hours leading up to the raid was likely not enough time to make this relationship "stable" in any meaningful way.

"Okay, Abigail: let's stop right there," he remarked pointedly, staring calmly at the girl as she began to flaunt her abilities. "Neither your ego nor your pride will help us in this situation. If you're going to be representing the Fianna, I would hope that you had the rationale to realize that not everyone is going to acknowledge you simply based on words alone. If you believe yourself to be in the right, then show us as much, and if you believe Fremont to have wronged you, then have the dignity to act in a manner befitting of your position. Are we clear?"

Despite the fact that she was a representative and that he was no more than a bit of fresh blood to the world of law, he was still technically her superior and supervisor (well, really, that was Donovan's job, but that wasn't important at the moment). That being said, though, it wasn't like he could simply brush off Fremont's comments. He could probably sit the man down and figure out a solution later, but it probably wasn't the best idea to aggravate the starving beast right now.

"If you're ordering food, I'll take some black pepper ribs with rice," he remarked, handing over a menu to Lundgren from some cranny off to the side. "But in any case, I'm in agreement; we can worry about this after we deal with the problem tonight. All clear?"

---

The rest of the day had gone by fairly uneventfully for Steven, given that he spent most of it brushing up on the possible enemies that the group might have to deal with and studying on his own. He had a feeling that Abigail was wont to prove him wrong for the last half a day, but it was now to see if she would actually follow up on those feelings.

Their dropoff location was a few blocks away from the docks, and under the cover of night it was fairly doable to slip through the crack that had been made by the ones setting up the job for them. That didn't mean that everything afterwards would go swimmingly, of course, but getting into the area undetected was as a good a start as any.

"Okay, our destination is down this way," Steven said, walking forward with his hands in his pockets. "Ideally, combat begins at the entrance to their market, but their guards' patrol patterns seem to be somewhat random. Stay on your guard."

His fear—at least, in his opinion—was wholly warranted; this was the first time he would be involved in actual combat in his life, and not only did it involve possibly having to kill people, but it was against a ground of people who probably outclassed him. But at this point, going back was most definitely not an option.

"Mao, let us know if anyone that looks aggressive is en route; Donovan, keep us cloaked as long as you can. Let's move."

@Tominas@TheFake@Raineh Daze@VitaVitaAR

“I hope it’ll be as simple as you think it’ll be,” Mao said to Steven as he took a step away from the wall close to Chenlu.

“I’ll go get some things ready for tonight. If I’m not at home when you make it back there, you know what to do,” he said to the girl in their home language, before making his way out of the bookstore without so much as throwing a look towards the others. The last thing Mao could want is to get roped in whatever would happen there after the young would-be knight pulled a weapon without thinking of the possible consequences.

As soon as he was out of the bookstore, Mao went out to a hardware store and bought a couple packs of cable ties and a small length of thin steel cable, which would come in handy tonight. After that, he made his usual groceries before going back home to ready his old ‘work clothes’.


Mao arrived at the designated area at least half an hour before of the appointed time and scouted the premises to the best of his capabilities before Steven and the others arrived.

He remained silent as he listened to Steven’s last instructions only raising his voice after the man gave asked he to look for any ‘potentially dangerous individuals’. “How do you expect to avoid casualties with such strategy? I know the Japanese. If your plan consists on kicking the front door and commanding them to surrender, be prepared to have a lot of blood on your hands when the dawn breaks,” Mao said in a completely nonchalant tone.

---

The detective mirrored the lawyers stare with a slight smirk. Lawyers always tended to antagonize him a little bit and Donovan took what chances he could to poke fun at Steven.

“That’s a high number of guards for the amount of attendees, I wonder if some of them are personal guards for the attendees.”

---

The next day he showed up shortly after Mao, himself clad in a business suit carefully tailored to hide the presence of a concealed pistol and baton as well as the stab proof vest and vambraces underneath.While waiting for the others he organized the plan in his head.

“A frontal assault won’t be practical in any case, neither would a diversion from the outside. We’ll have two teams. Lundgren, Abigail, Yang and Mao will go for the artifacts. They will attempt to keep a low profile for as long as possible.”

He pointed to those mentioned and placed a handful of duffel bags on the ground. He had hesitated over including Yang in the plan as anything other than a lookout but the artifact team would need an extra hand and it would be beneficial to keep the girl with her guardian. Lundgren and Abigail had already had some friction but they would have to work together sooner or later, they were also two of the more offense oriented contractors.

“They rest will be with me in abducting the attendees. Both teams will stay together until we find the artifact storage area. Until that point I will keep us cloaked under Féth fíada. When we leave the artifact team, they will begin to bag up everything that they can, leaving combat until there is no other choice. After my team as abducted as many as possible I will return and we will escape, once again cloaked.”

He unbuttoned his jacket for easier access to his handgun and lead the way.

Quite surprisingly, Chenlu was dressed practically for what they were doing--dull grey clothes, and the thick hoodie did a good job of hiding her most obvious features (and anything else that might be concealed on her person)--which were by far more noteworthy than dressing mildly suspiciously. Unsurprisingly, she seemed rather relaxed about the affair, as if infiltrating a criminal meeting and looting the place was a sort of every day occurrence. Maybe she really didn't think it was a big deal, or it was because Mao was around? Maybe she just didn't get that it was a problem (though unlikely)? Or maybe the idea of doing "grunt work" was just amusing to someone raised in her position?

Either way, she didn't seem all too bothered when she put a hand up and asked first: "Is it important if some people get nibbled by rabbits and die?"

@Raineh Daze@TheFake@PKMNB0Y
Fremont tilted his head, scratching behind an ear. This entire situation was much, much less professional than he had been led to believe. He was fine with that. “Y’know Cloverfield, I think you’re right. I was well and truly wrong. Nice switchblade, I’m sure it’s as impressive as a big rabbit. Feel proud, you’re the regal knight who, through their best efforts, might not embarrass themselves in front of the convict.”

The convict patted the leprechaun on her tiny shoulder, stomach growling as he nodded to Fan. "Noted. Anyone else?"

---

One good meal and several hours later, the resident colossus walked in the motley crew drifting towards the party. “Same question as the rabbit girl. ‘No casualties’ is a noble goal and all, but if someone shoots me I’m not gonna politely ask them to wait in the police car.”

"Very well, then. I have an idea of where they might be keeping the most valuable items, but that's also where their best guards will be. Just like the others, I can't promise that I'll not take their life if necessary. It's very likely that we are going to face samurai contractors; they are too obstinate to be taken alive," Mao said, replying to the much more considerate plan proposed by Donovan.

Before they departed, he walked up to Chenlu. He didn't have the intention of stopping her, if she wanted to be a part of this, but there were certain precautions that they needed to take in order to ensure their own safety before anything else. "Here, you'll need this," Mao said in English, handing her a handful of the cable ties that he bought earlier and keeping the rest for himself. "If anything happens, call me right away. And, if you find anyone that you suspect to have ties with Hong Kong, don't let them live. We cannot take the risk of being tracked," he added, speaking in their home language.

---

As soon as everyone else present chimed in about his plan being less than ideal, Steven held his hands in front of him and took a step back. He was a lawyer, after all; things like combat strategy and mission planning weren't things that came naturally than him, so he was quick to cede to the people who did know what they were doing.

"Fine, fine, fair point. Let's go with Donovan's plan, then; seems a lot less prone to disaster than mine, anyhow," he stated, shrugging his shoulders as the issue of casualties came up. It was kind of a given that people would probably die in the midst of the operation (hopefully not on their side), but he had to admit it still had to be addressed.

"I'd rather not kill if we could help it, but if it can't be helped, then you have the all clear to take them out. That should be it for the lead-up to this whole debacle, though, so let's get this show on the road."

With a deep breath, Steven began to follow behind the detective, hoping that their team's muscle would be able to cause enough havoc to let the rest of them handle their job without discovery.

It wasn't likely, of course, but it didn't hurt to hope.

@Tominas@TheFake@Raineh Daze@VitaVitaAR

Lynch lead the group around the corner so that the warehouse was in view. It was nondescript, except for the number of luxury cars parked outside. A last few guests were still making their way inside. Several guards stood out front and patrolled among the vehicles, a few more stood near the only gate in or out of the area. He backtraced a step and will himself and his party to vanish.

“Stay close.”
The detective peeked around the corner again and examined the smaller cargo ship docked adjacent to the building. There were only a handful of containers on board and an almost equal number of guards onboard as there were around the warehouse. He muttered under his breath, “If only we had someone to drive a boat.”

@PKMNB0Y@KoL@Tominas@Raineh Daze@VitaVitaAR