Hang man is comin' down from the gallows

[Dire Wolf]

((For Romeo/Karl and Juliet/Apillis))

A pair of sterile, emotionless eyes surveyed the slums of Nar Shaddaa. One man may find it sad that people were forced to live like animals on the streets of a megatropolis, another may find the whole situation disgusting and in need of cleansing. Delta no longer had the capability or the luxury of feeling empathy, compassion, or anger. The proverbial slate of his memories had been wiped clean shortly after the green meadows claimed him as their ward, healed his wounds, and were so kind as to replace the RELIC chip within his skull. He simply saw the streets that lie before him as a convenient way to track and follow his quarry unnoticed.

The mere idea of his quarry being on Nar Shaddaa was, at best, an educated guess. The smuggler's moon was the very definition of overpopulated, and overpopulation meant that it was easier to hide from pursuers. Combine that with Juliet's aptitude for undercover operations and blending in, and you have a woman that could easily never be found. An entire army could turn over every loose stone on the world for a few lifetimes and never find the red headed woman. Delta had something better than an army, though: he had one of the galaxy's strongest AI programs. The client spared no expense on this operation, but despite this they didn't want him to outright kill Juliet. Simply incapacitate the woman and bring her back for reasons unknown. They didn't tell him why they wanted her back, and he didn't ask questions.

Some time ago he infiltrated one of the many huttese headquarters and planted the AI. Since then it had spread its influence throughout the planet, silently monitoring the feeds from every camera that it could tap into. Which was most, as every network had some form of wireless connectivity to it. Even if it was initially through a wireless datapad connected to the network and the holonet at the same time. Networks and firewalls simply weren't the stalwart bastions that sentient beings believed them to be.

The search parameters were wide at first; any white female with red hair that stood at five feet and three inches tall, with an athletic build, red hair and green eyes. Millions of hits and no quarry later, Delta realized his folly: she's undercover. Only a fool would try to hide without a mask or a suit. He quickly searched for any being with a slight build, stood at five foot three, and weighed roughly one hundred and five pounds without the suit. Some tolerance had to be put in place for obvious reasons. A week later, the scan was complete with a few million hits reported on his datapad. Of those, the AI scanned the obituaries and the police systems for stolen and killed owners of suits of the same model that popped on the scan.

One hundred hits on his datapad. Of those hundred, the man then scanned for possible network security break ins since his quarry decided that the call of freedom a sweet one, so to speak. One. Delta traveled to the general area as fast as the engines of his ship could carry him. He didn't bother attempting to disguise himself, though he was careful not to travel too far into the district. Instead he found as many of the homeless and destitute denizens of the area as he could and paid them a few credits to be his eyes and ears. Even interact with his quarry as necessary.

A day later he was sure where Juliet set up shop: an abandoned warehouse not terribly far from the apartment that he had rented to act as his own base of operations. Only after his informants reported her position in the warehouse did he move towards it, a thin but durable layer of ballistic body armor worn beneath his cheap looking republic's business man suit. A red tie was loosely wrapped around his neck, and a plethora of throwing knives hidden on his person.

Delta casually entered the warehouse to find nothing out of the ordinary: boxes, shipping containers, and everything one would expect to find in an old warehouse. He wasn't surprised. Delta expected Juliet to hide her equipment so that some destitute creature didn't take it while she was away. Though what he couldn't do was say where she had hidden it. Perhaps she had more information on the others who escaped. Whiskey. Echo. Victor. November. Yankee. Many others. Any morsel of information would be of use.

A continued search yielded nothing but dust and empty containers, though within a few minutes he heard a door open and close from down the hall. Not the main office, like one would expect, but the break room... or what would pass for it. His hand found one of the arrows in his quiver and slipped it up his sleeve after pulling his bow from his back. He could let it drop and have it spinning through the air with literally pin point accuracy faster than the blink of an eye. The big man rounded the corner to find a short Ubese armored Juliet.

After such a long and exhausting search, a human would have smiled. Felt some kind of satisfaction within his heart. Exhilaration. Anger. Anything. Delta was a hollow vessel save his purpose: either kill or capture Juliet. There was no room for anything more, and no possibility for anything less. "Juliet," he acknowledged her presence. Asking her to come with him would be about as effective as asking a Sith to stop fighting or a Jedi to stop being self righteous. Despite his misgivings, it was part of his mission parameters to give her one chance. "You have one chance. Come with me or die." Before she could react to his offer, the arrow dropped from his sleeve, knocked onto the string of his bow and was racing towards her shoulder. The edge of the blade was laced with a poison that wouldn't kill, just disorient and slow the target enough to make it manageable. In Juliet's case a still very fast human.

His mission parameters involved giving her a chance to surrender, but what they didn't require was a chance to respond to the offer.

[Apillis]

When Juliet vanished, her possibilities appeared limitless. But she needed some place where she could bide her time. A place with a small populace for someone like herself would not serve as a great of an advantage for her simply by virtue that a large populace for someone who can seemingly be anyone is vastly more effective. The other challenge for her was moving her 'war spoils' from her escape without being noticed. The other challenge being was acquiring professionally forged identification of varying personas.

She recognized gathering such things without resources would not exactly be simple, and would have to take on false identities though with no false identification, and thus have to rely on wit and a smooth tongue. However, when one is trained to become an utterly different person, and to convince people to believe that they the person they say they are--it is understood such a person has quite the honeyed tongue. A good manipulator and deceiver is often an exceptionally convincing liar.

So that is what Juliet did, she in several circumstances placed they the silver-tongued temptress, just as she did with the female Ubese nomad she stole her armor from within a cantina. The invitation of someone like Juliet to join in the back of one of the private dancing rooms can be a tough thing to turn down, even when of the same gender, after all--all sexuality is fluid and everyone has a line they are sucker for, whether they realize it or not. Juliet was trained and honed to act the role of whatever the person before her wants or hopes her to be, convince them to believe it, succumb to every lie she gives them. Whether it be of a sexual nature or even just a topic in normal conversation al discourse.

She was trained to be a husk with the ability to adapt in any social situation. From posing as her target's right hand operative to becoming just another face in the crowd. In a vicious twist of irony for Green Meadows it that very skill set that Juliet utilized to obfuscate her RELIC having detiorated, she posed as though it were still operational--she acted like the emotionless husk they were 'modified' to be, she acted like what she was not any longer, and did a well enough job at it--that she fooled her own creators and trainers.

In a way she proved to be a shining success and a dismal failure. And now that she finds herself with freewill and then ability to feel once again. A flicker of a personality begins to emerge from all the static that drowned out her true self within her own mind. She has begun to view her escape via utilizing the Green Meadows own methods on top of the skills and abilities they taught her to escape with, not as some form of poetic justice, but rather finds it more amusing and humorously ironic; two qualities she has begun to find she values far more than notions of 'justice'.

Primarily posing as the Ubese female nomad whose armor she stole, she often did switch between others identities to ger what she needed. Such as posing as various port authorities to move her ship to a warehouse where she could set up shop for a time until she gathered all she needed before leaving. Posing as the Ubese nomad was nothing really, not much fuss is ever kicked up about a dead Ubese vagrant. The ragged and tattered brown and tan light armor with a tattered cream hued hooded cloak drawn over a Ubese masked full helm naturally concealing her face entirely, there were few to bother her as she went about Nar Shaddaa. The disguise served its purposes, but it did irk her a little that she was just under an inch shorter than Ubese nomad whose armor she stole--Juliet usually likes to be meticulous about such things, for its even the tiny differences that can get you killed.

That was her greatest concern: Green Meadows. It was either death or going back with them, and neither options were exactly appealing to her. So, she prepared for such an event, her faithful HK unit 'Jim', set up sniper positions within an airduct running along the west wall within the warehouse, where he simply lies and wait for days without ever moving the tiniest fraction of even a centimeter. The advantage of being a droid. Her ship itself within the warehouse is simply covered by a massive tarp made for covering vessels.

It was nearing time for Juliet to leave, though. After having spent a fair amount of time on Nar Shaddaa gather varying professional false IDs for numerous planetary systems for her to disappear within, it was best she leave sooner than later.

Albeit, it seemed she would be forced to leave sooner than she initially wanted to or planned to. When she heard her 'name' be uttered by a human yet with all the emotion of a mindless drone, which is what one of her kind of 'assassin' is under Green Meadows control. There was no negotiating, no emotion, just a mindless drone carrying out its orders it has been programmed to follow.

She heard its offer coupled with a silly caveat, and she chuckled in response knowing it only gave such an 'offer' because it was programmed to. Sure--it was human, but every bit of humanity has been torn away by Green Meadows, it was still a noun, but not a person, just a thing--a puppet to be used.

Her back was to it, she did not know which one it was, but it did not matter. Even if she possessed enough curiosity to ask, it likely would not tell her. Even more silly would be to ask it if it knew where others were or if others had been captured, reason being its mind is such an empty vessel for such information it likely does not even have a clue. If it was one like herself, programmed--trained for Undercover Operations, it would likely feed her numerous lies, dance to the tune Green Meadows would want both of them to dance to until she would be twirled right back into their arms... never to escape again.

No, there was no taking to this thing. Her three-fifty-seven caliber step semi-automatic slugthrower pistol was holstered across her stomach on her belt. Arranged this way, because it would be difficult to see one trained to be as subtle and stealthy as her caliber of assassin to see how she is moving her hands under that hooded cloak of hers. She turned her head just a little over her shoulder so she could see him through the HUD of her Ubese helm. As she slid her left foot just a few inches backward appearing as though she is moving just to look back at him.

However, with the small blade coming at her right shoulder, she quickly piveted on her left foot turning one-eighty degrees to her left to face the drone. With her concealed handgun concealed under her cloak, she took aim at him from the hip with her gun, while simultaneously narrowly moving out of the small blade's flight path. Taking aim from the hip to fire at him center-mass was relatively for someone of her standing with a slugthrower pistol as she could be considered one of the foremost authorities in wielding thanks to Green Meadows themselves.

With a cold, detached monotone Juliet simply uttered, "Fire, Jim.", for such helms such as the Ubese use also have communicators within them as well.

In immediate response with a positively elated voice, "Statement: With pleasure, master!", which right at that moment without a seconds hesitation from its sniper position within the west wall ait ducts using a Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope that some seem to find a certain amount of love in firing--the assassin droid fired at the human assassin drone. The shot was fired at his center mass in an attempt to hit him dead to rights. Simultaneously in that moment, Juliet begun firing her semi-auto pistol also aiming for his center mass area, in other words--his chest.

Where this particular human assassin drone of Green Meadows slipped up was walking into another assassin's den without first knowing what the assassin had set up for those foolish enough to challenge them on their own grounds. After all, she was trained to be an assassin, this is no honor duel, she does not care about being fair--this is purely about survival and the elimination of opposition and/or target.

((Edit: Fixed a couple typoes.))

[Dire Wolf]

Delta's face was as cold and stony as a statue as the arrow whizzed past his quarry's shoulder, catching nothing but empty space as it spun and flew through the air. She as quickly as a one of his fellow assassins had a right to, and while he wasn't nearly as fast as his adversary he was fairly intelligent. When the man saw her pistol leveled on his chest, all that crossed his mind was a series of probabilities and equations. She would likely go for his chest simply because, while it was the area with the most armor, it was the largest and easiest to hit. The arms were mobile, and the head was a small target.

What was his preemptive response? He launched himself to the side and landed with a sideways roll. Fortunate, as a few moments afterwards he heard the clangor of a pistol discharging into nothing but the steel bulkhead of the wall across the warehouse. Curiously enough, he also heard the shrill whine of a blaster rifle. The second one narrowly missed, its brilliant bolt barely missing the bottom of his feet. Whoever was behind the trigger of that rifle was extremely skilled, and not a man to be trifled with. Unfortunately he didn't see where the bolt came from, other than above and to his flank.

Once Delta found himself on his feet once more, he darted behind a shipping container and glanced out at the wall where it came from to see nothing but a few air ducts. The bolt could have come from any of the three, and he didn't have the time to asses which of the three was the most viable of targets. Instead, his fingers danced along the dimly lit pad of his gauntlet a few times, and shortly thereafter he could feel his quiver spinning the head on an arrow, and he quickly pulled it out of the quiver. It the arrow had snapped onto his string, he whipped around his cover and launched it at the wall.

With that small chore complete he darted from behind his container with another arrow drawn, this one with a simple arrowhead. It was safe to assume that Juliet had moved since then, so he sprinted to a corner of the building, taking care to leave something between him and any possible supersonic metallic projectiles that might decide to fly that way. Not to mention an object that would obstruct the sniper's view. This fight was about to get... interesting.

[Apillis]

The fired arrow had the power behind to punch through the air vent the assassin droid was positioned in and successfully dented the barrel of its sniper rifle. If a droid could frown in dismay, HK-80 would certainly do so, all the more exclaimed by his utterance to his master, "Despair: OooOooooOoh, Master! My rifle is rendered inoperable!", its glowing red oculars flared a bright red as it continued, "Declaration: That gelatinous mass of flesh needs to be ripped in two!"

Seeing as how the droid was no longer any use of her as a sniper, she surmised it was best to get a move on immediately whether she killed the Green Meadows assassin that is after her or not. The conclusion left her to respond over her comlink to the droid, "Then help the Mark prep the ship for our get-away, Jim. I will handle this from here."

The grate to the air vent the droid smashed with a strong smack of its fist, and rolled out of its position, landing on its feet with a heavy metal clank from metal hitting the cement floor of the warehouse, and quickly sprinted its way to the ship concealed by the massive covering for a vessel the Vermisst's size. The droid slipped under the gargantuan tarp to gain access to the ship itself.

Meanwhile, Juliet ran straight into the stacked industrial sized shipping containers upon having seen the assassin move to get cover behind another shipping container. Juliet on the other hand ran in between two, and the small three feet of space between to the two, she jumped up, then used her right foot to push off the wall of the shipping container to her right, springing upward for further altitude with her right leg, though the pressure of which pushing her closer to the massive shipping container wall to her left, though that was her intention. For she then used her left foot to spring off of the wall of the shipping container to her left. That push for further launched her just high enough to land on top of the shipping container that was to her right.

Crouching low if nothing else to make herself a smaller target, and to move more quietly, her taking a higher ground was simple--to have a more bird's eye view of the warehouse floor, and so she could fire on the the assassin from perched position. She moved to the far right side of the industrial shipping container, giving her an angle on the assassin to his left side. All she really had decent line of sight on though was his left arm. But at this point beggar's cannot be choosers, so she is willing to take whatever she can get--simply wounding the assassin can give her a better edge of victory here.

Raising her gun she took stead aim and fired three shots in quick succession. So far she has fired six rounds altogether, leaving her with nine bullets left in her clip. While like any decent assassin she has another clip, but also like any decent assassin--if she is relying solely on her gun to eliminate her target, she is doing something wrong. After spending only a split second to see whether or not her shots landed, she quickly jumped back down into the small alleyways formed by the industrial shipping containers.

[Dire Wolf]

Moments after the assassin droid leaped from the air duct, Delta's ship arrived. The artificial intelligence in his ship guided it towards the beacon in his arrow, and after a heartbeat to double check the signal it began to unleash hell on the wall. Two medium laser cannons slid from their hiding place in the ship's fuselage before firing off at a moderate rate of fire. Blue bolts of ionized particles slammed into the duracrete wall, and a salvo of four concussion missles exploded against the side of the warehouse shortly thereafter. Within moments the wall detonated, throwing dust and debris throughout the large warehouse. A final pair of blue cannon bolts jumped through the smoke and slammed into a shipping container.

The thin sheet of durasteel opened as if it were made of paper, and the contents inside exploded under the heat of the ship's armament. A shock wave ripped out of the container, sending shrapnel through some of the emptier containers and knocking Delta off of his feet. Fortunately the container between him and the explosion was filled with something to stop the shrapnel, else wise he would have been turned into swiss cheese. As the dust made from the destruction of the wall and the explosion cleared, Delta glanced out of the newly made hole to see his ship almost delicately hovering there, ensuring that no one would leave the building. He would have to mark any targets for it to kill, obviously.

Delta's fingers danced on the dimly lit screen of his gauntlet, sending his ship into a circular sweep around the perimeter of the building. As it turned out, that was the last command Delta would issue to his ship via his gauntlet. It exploded not long after, thanks to the .357 slug sent by his adversary. Delta stumbled back for a moment before the RELIC chip in his mind regained control of his emotions and the situation.

The armor on his arm deflected the bullet, but the screen on it was all but destroyed. Another of his arrows was knocked onto the screen within a moment before he whirled around and loosed it from its string. His bow's draw weight far exceeded anything that even his peers could pull back for very long. Two hundred pounds of pressure sent the carbon fiber arrow flying fast enough to make it a solid black line, barely preceded by a hellish whine.

It was aimed at where he surmised she was. His guess was moderately close, but the arrow still slammed through the thin sheet of durasteel below her. Unfortunately for her, the head of the arrow was far more than a simple broadhead. It had a fuse that began its extremely short count after contacting with a solid object, and before even half of the arrow could pass through the thin hole the minute amount of plastic explosives. The detonation wouldn't have been enough to kill her, but certainly enough to pepper any exposed areas of skin. At the very least it would disorient her for a short time, perhaps even cause her to fall into the hole made by the explosion.

Regardless, he had another arrow knocked onto his bowstring within the blink of an eye and pulled back as he ran towards her.

[Apillis]

The second she saw the assassin prepare for another shot, she wasted no time preparing to be on the move once again to get out of the assassin's line of fire. The second the arrow struck the industrial container she was on and on the move to move to the next. The arrow's abrupt detonation into a massive explosion powerful enough to shred a gaping hole into an industrial shipping container, which are made of metal able to carry several hundred tons of cargo. The force of the explosion tossed her small frame over the small alley she had used to get on top of the thing earlier, and crashed onto the top of the industrial container across from the one she was just on. She tumbled clumsily across the top of it until she unintentionally rolled right off the top of it opposite from where she initially had crashed heavily upon it.

With a harsh thud onto the cement floor of the warehouse. Pain shooting through her entire body, and ears ringing from noise of the explosion. This was beginning to get insane. This assassin fought more like a rampaging commando than that of a subtle infiltrating assassin. He would be better suited with a grenade launcher thus far than archery. First blowing out a wall with a vessel, and now explosive arrowheads. Juliet figured this had to be getting attention from outside the warehouse by now, and thus needs to get the hell on the move now and away from this place. Or risk getting notice by curious eyes or death by the assassin. Albeit, the former is another form of death for one such as her who relies heavily upon anonymity, which still will lead to the latter.

If Green Meadows wanted her back, screwing up her reliance on subtlety seemed counter-productive. However, if they simply wanted her dead from the onset, one could suppose this would be the way to do it. Make it loud, make it noticeable, remove any nuance and make it as destructive as possible. Juliet perhaps a bit naively took for granted that Green Meadows did not want much notice as well. She was going to have to rethink her strategy in avoiding them from now on should she live through this encounter. While also hoping the Hutts do not take notice to their tearing up their warehouses while still there.

For the moment, though, it is this encounter she needs to focus her attention on. She was slow to rise back up to her feet. Her left bicep she took notice to being gashed by what she could only surmise was by a piece of shrapnel. She had the same on her left side, though much smaller. She was bleeding--the gash on her arm more so than the cut on her left side.

After slowly getting back up onto her feet and the ringing in her ears begun to die down a bit, she leaned her back against The industrial container she fall off of, taking a second to think for a moment on what to do next. Her initial goal was to wound the assassin, and now she is the one who is wounded. Then again, she did expect explosives from an archer. Since her escape, she has been able to indulge several things she never got to just for the shear pleasure of it, and it was all beginning to remind her of a cheesy action flick she watched not long ago. Juliet cracked a tiny smirk as she thought this assassin would be better suited without a shirt and a red headband tied around his head.

She pulled her hand away from her bicep that she had been unconsciously cradling her wound at her left bicep with, and smiled a bit as an idea came to her. She tore off her left sleeve and used it as a triage bandage. But the blood on her hand she used to leave bloody hand-prints on the industrial containers. The pattern she placed them in as she weaved through the alleyways of the several stacks of them in, was in a manner of as though she were using her hand to brace herself against them as though she had been hobbled.

She left a hand-print trail with what blood she could, and nor did she have the stupidity to dig around her wounds to make them bleed more, which would only worsen her situation. Besides, if she did it too much it would be obvious she was leaving a trail, this way--it looks as though she is attempting to do something about whatever wounds she may have as one would expect a highly trained assassin to do in order to hide.

And hide she did... but only after she had a double backed to the alleyway of industrial containers she was when the explosion that wounded her with shrapnel earlier. Essentially what she was doing was setting up an ambush. To shoot the assassin in the back? Maybe...

[Dire Wolf]

Miscalculations were a possibility no matter what one's skill with explosives happened to be. One connection in the wrong place, or an uneven coating of explosives could result in what just happened: an overt display of the destructive force of pyrotechnics. Self and gear assessments would no doubt be taken after this woman was either in custody or pieces. His mission parameters involved bringing the woman back alive, not necessarily bringing the woman back with all of her arms and legs attached to her torso.

Delta felt the slight bump of the bow as another arrow's knock locked into place, and approached the area where he saw her last with no small amount of caution. Hyper-trained eyes darted around the scene for a moment before they caught a bloody hand print on the wall. It looked as if Juliet took a moment to brace herself against it before hurrying off. The man's grip on his bow tightened as he stalked down the alleyway that she most likely walked, and sure enough he found another... though there was decidedly less blood than the last.

He would continue along this trail, checking corners and gradually rounding corners instead of throwing himself around them haphazardly. This technique had been used by the police and military for centuries, and was still as valid that day as the day it was created. He simply drew his bow back a few steps back from the corner and took a step to the side, clearing it without fully exposing his body to Juliet's fire. This was called "pieing" a corner. She didn't seem to be going along any predetermined path, but instead take a winding path that had just began to double back. It wasn't frenzied by the way her hand print was set against the container, nor did he believe one of his peers was capable of being set into a frenzy for survival.

Then the path seemed to end with no trace. Presumably the blood on her hand had dried, or run out. He slowly made his way back towards the alleyway where he had let his explosive arrow fly a few minutes before. It wasn't long before he came across a full on intersection. So, before he did what he did when he came across every corner: he pied it quickly but not too fast.

Nothing. The intersection was far too long to see extreme corners, though. So he moved his body back to the opposite wall and curved his torso out or a heartbeat, seeing nothing towards the hand print. Delta repeated the process but opposite, even going so far as to switch arms so that even less of his torso was exposed. He also moved into a crouching position, just in case Juliet had seen his peek. When his torso bent around the corner, sure enough, he saw the attractive female assassin there.

She was wounded, obviously, though worse than he initially believed. There was a small gash on her left side, a large one on her right arm, and a smaller one on her left. The man took a blink to aim his bow just off of her left side, a prepatory action that would have her running into the arrow should she decide to move to that side. He assumed she would move that way due to many factors, closest turn and wounds taken into account.

"Come with me," the words may as well have been spoken by a droid. There wasn't a trace of begging, pleading, or desperation in his voice. Should she refuse or take a shot at what little could be seen (barely more than his hand, bow, and head) he would loose an arrow into her faster than most people could blink. This arrow was no explosive arrow, or even one laced with poison... if he had miscalculated the amount of explosives it was also likely that he had also made an arrow in the dose of paralytic on the arrow. His current arrow was little more than a simple broad head with no gadgetry or technology beyond master smithing.

Though the mere fact that he asked her one final time proved that there was something new in him, something that not even the powerful machinery of Green Meadows could pluck away.