Post by White Mimic on Sept 21, 2012 2:15:16 GMT -5
Stepping out of the cloud lightly and somewhat slowly, Victoria continued to clutch her arm, tightly. She gave a brief glance back through the dust before approaching Arru, reluctant to get too close to his interrogation. He looked like he knew what he was doing, and it couldn’t be better any other way. The less she had to venture from her guise to, for example, assist the other bounty hunters, the better. She looked around for Levi but couldn’t spot him before Arru broke away from questioning to address her. “You know you should have stuck close, it would have been easier to juggle the combat.” She gave him a quick look to acknowledge his statement, then focusing on her self-infliction.
“I’m sorry. When the dust went up I… I lost sight of everyone and couldn’t find you at all.” She wiped her eyes a little with a slightly bloody hand before returning it to its post at her cut, leaving a brown streak on her niqab and powdering what little of her face was visible with a small bit of dirt. The clothes she had been wearing had been splotched in uneven shades of light brown, filmed over with the airborne flecks that only now were beginning to settle back to the ground from whence they sprung. “You know it would have been nice to know that you could handle yourself, unless those guys punched each other on your feminine charms.” Victoria looked at him once more, eyes wide not with surprise at his deductions but more as part of the act. Looking back and forth between Arru and the dying plume, she eventually settled on staring at the cloud as she spoke. “H-… handle myself? But I didn’t…” If these men had been sent for her and she had indeed been compromised, it remained imperative to keep all details on herself on the down-low, at least until they had arrived at the Shadlandi residence. There was no telling who else was following, who was listening. At the very least, considering the armaments the attackers had brought with them, she was still an unidentified player to the marks in this investigation.
Arru then returned to questioning, leaving Victoria to look for Levi while listening in. With the dust settling, he wasn’t too difficult to find, keeping his own claimed attacker up a wall with his own strength, and even further down the alley, she saw the two ‘mounds’ she had left. The lowering cloud was still much too thick to make out definite details but it wouldn’t be long before her handiwork would be visible. Best not to draw attention to it, her companions would do enough of that themselves when they left.
“I got nothin' outsider, they tell me who and I do it.” They? She turned to the pinned assailant under Arru’s leg, inquisitive but remaining silent. Who were ‘they’? As much as could be narrowed down and deduced, it would have been nice for a clear confession as to who happened to be behind these disappearances. Confirmation always beat out speculation, any bounty hunter worth his or her salt would agree. Unfortunately, the man had resorted to snarkiness and Arru didn’t take that very well, but as Arru said, he likely didn’t know anything. After quickly dismissing the man, it was time for the typical bounty hunter info regroup, something she had seen other bounty hunter groups do or heard of them doing but had never had the pleasure of participating herself up until now. The curse of working solo. “Don't suppose you guys learnt anything, if so I'd think we made good progress for time.” Dead men told no tales, so to speak, so all she could do was shake her head in silence. By the looks of their results, it seemed she was the most violent out of the three, having killed two of them without thinking of the loss of info, not at all lady-like or professional of her. “I'd think a person who was this knowledgeable of the surroundings and who she was up against would know about the high chance of angry henchmen in narrow path-ways.”
Clearly, her lies were drawing out the heavy mistrust in this Arru character. As much as that would ruin the stance of espionage she had in relation to the intended catch for each of them, she truly had to admire his intuition. She glanced at him, sharply turning her head, emoting confusion at his apprehension even though she knew what little help it would be in convincing him out of his determination. At this point, it would serve well enough as a mask to spies that could be watching. “Wh-What?”
“Is there something you forgot to share with the group during our bonding time?” Getting uncomfortably close as he said it, Victoria leaned away from Arru, keeping her eyes on him and doing her best to keep from averting her gaze which maintained its vigil on confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You could have at least told us your fighting abilities, people would get nervous around someone who isn't honest.”
“Wait… you mean you didn’t…” She looked back at the two she had killed before hastily glancing back at Arru. “…I thought one of you…” She looked down as if thinking things over or coming to a sudden realization. Once more she drew her attention to where the cloud had been, now dispersed and lying dormant once more upon its mother ground. It wouldn’t be long before the opportunity arrived to continue onward as Levi finished up his own side of questioning with little results other than a broken man. “If not then we should keep moving right? Don't want people to think we were the bad guys in this tussle.”
“We better get out of here, once we get to a safer place, you got some story telling to do.”
“I suppose… but it certainly isn’t safe to talk about anything out in the open… not when…” She slowly looked once more, up and down her own craftsmanship lying motionless on the ground. “…if neither of you did this… someone else might be following… we should hurry.” She sped up into a quick walk ahead of Arru, giving the bodies a nervous look as she passed him. The expression was only partially fake, however, for if these people had been able to pick up on her meddling, perhaps they had more cards in their hands than she had initially given them credit for. There truly was no time to waste, and now here she was escorting two others without (to her knowledge) abilities to travel quickly. It didn’t help in the least that now she was on a route with no decisive idea on how to get to the house, but luckily, considering the structure of the city, it wouldn’t be too hard to locate once they were out of the alley. Not if she found a few helpful landmarks that was.
“…we should hurry.”
“Hmm. Well that’s unexpected, in’it?” A man in regional clothing of a deep maroon with a matching turban leaned over in his seat to pick up a set from a nearby surveillance Den Den Mushi, a light pale blue in color with a feminine face. It made the tired old ‘puru puru’ noises as the man tapped his finger on the rail, waiting for the intended to pick up. “Ka-cha.”
“Oh Madame Captain~”
“What is it.”
“You know that one lady who’s been snooping around lately? And we was gunna off her this week?” He leaned back in his chair, snipping through a sheet of paper rather delicately as he cradled the receiver under his chin. There was a slight pause in the conversation as the only thing he heard was the breeze of high altitude and the snipping of his scissors. Suddenly, the sullen, irate voice of the woman came out again, carrying with it much more dominion than before. “…yeah?”
“Yeah, check this out?” He set the scissors and paper down as he took the receiver out from under his chin and slid it in front of his mouth. Grabbing a pair of binoculars he had been using to make sure all went as planned, maneuvering the hired goons to their target, he placed them in front of the Den Den Mushi’s eyes, aiming at Arru, Levi, and Victoria. “Turns out she has back-up, haha.” He set the binoculars down once he was sure his captain had seen and returned to his craft, receiver under face and all. “Aww, speechless hmm? Want me to take care of ‘em myself?”
“That won’t be necessary. No need to rely on the skill of one hunter when we can absolutely destroy them with the ability of several trappers.”
“Always overkill. Can’t show my stuff when you insist on overkill, but I take it we’re good to go? Want me to come back, hmm?”
“If I said no, you’d come back anyway.”
“But I wanna be part of the fuuuuuuuuuuun~”
“Indeed. Take your time getting here.”
“Will do, ma’am lady!”
“-Ka-cha.”
Placing his own receiver back on the Den Den Mushi, the man slowly unfolded the paper he had been cutting. Somehow, through whatever technique he had used, he had managed to cut out three different figures, each relating to the three meddlers. Arru’s robbed figure on the left, Levi’s taller body on the right, and Victoria’s own hidden shape in the middle. She had been the easiest to cut out, resembling a headed geometry while holding the hands of the other two. “Righto, time to get to work in’it?” Taking the scissors in hand once more, he quickly snipped off the heads of each figure with one clean clip.
((Too tired to put in all the editings. This took way too long for me to write. Longer than usual.))
“I’m sorry. When the dust went up I… I lost sight of everyone and couldn’t find you at all.” She wiped her eyes a little with a slightly bloody hand before returning it to its post at her cut, leaving a brown streak on her niqab and powdering what little of her face was visible with a small bit of dirt. The clothes she had been wearing had been splotched in uneven shades of light brown, filmed over with the airborne flecks that only now were beginning to settle back to the ground from whence they sprung. “You know it would have been nice to know that you could handle yourself, unless those guys punched each other on your feminine charms.” Victoria looked at him once more, eyes wide not with surprise at his deductions but more as part of the act. Looking back and forth between Arru and the dying plume, she eventually settled on staring at the cloud as she spoke. “H-… handle myself? But I didn’t…” If these men had been sent for her and she had indeed been compromised, it remained imperative to keep all details on herself on the down-low, at least until they had arrived at the Shadlandi residence. There was no telling who else was following, who was listening. At the very least, considering the armaments the attackers had brought with them, she was still an unidentified player to the marks in this investigation.
Arru then returned to questioning, leaving Victoria to look for Levi while listening in. With the dust settling, he wasn’t too difficult to find, keeping his own claimed attacker up a wall with his own strength, and even further down the alley, she saw the two ‘mounds’ she had left. The lowering cloud was still much too thick to make out definite details but it wouldn’t be long before her handiwork would be visible. Best not to draw attention to it, her companions would do enough of that themselves when they left.
“I got nothin' outsider, they tell me who and I do it.” They? She turned to the pinned assailant under Arru’s leg, inquisitive but remaining silent. Who were ‘they’? As much as could be narrowed down and deduced, it would have been nice for a clear confession as to who happened to be behind these disappearances. Confirmation always beat out speculation, any bounty hunter worth his or her salt would agree. Unfortunately, the man had resorted to snarkiness and Arru didn’t take that very well, but as Arru said, he likely didn’t know anything. After quickly dismissing the man, it was time for the typical bounty hunter info regroup, something she had seen other bounty hunter groups do or heard of them doing but had never had the pleasure of participating herself up until now. The curse of working solo. “Don't suppose you guys learnt anything, if so I'd think we made good progress for time.” Dead men told no tales, so to speak, so all she could do was shake her head in silence. By the looks of their results, it seemed she was the most violent out of the three, having killed two of them without thinking of the loss of info, not at all lady-like or professional of her. “I'd think a person who was this knowledgeable of the surroundings and who she was up against would know about the high chance of angry henchmen in narrow path-ways.”
Clearly, her lies were drawing out the heavy mistrust in this Arru character. As much as that would ruin the stance of espionage she had in relation to the intended catch for each of them, she truly had to admire his intuition. She glanced at him, sharply turning her head, emoting confusion at his apprehension even though she knew what little help it would be in convincing him out of his determination. At this point, it would serve well enough as a mask to spies that could be watching. “Wh-What?”
“Is there something you forgot to share with the group during our bonding time?” Getting uncomfortably close as he said it, Victoria leaned away from Arru, keeping her eyes on him and doing her best to keep from averting her gaze which maintained its vigil on confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You could have at least told us your fighting abilities, people would get nervous around someone who isn't honest.”
“Wait… you mean you didn’t…” She looked back at the two she had killed before hastily glancing back at Arru. “…I thought one of you…” She looked down as if thinking things over or coming to a sudden realization. Once more she drew her attention to where the cloud had been, now dispersed and lying dormant once more upon its mother ground. It wouldn’t be long before the opportunity arrived to continue onward as Levi finished up his own side of questioning with little results other than a broken man. “If not then we should keep moving right? Don't want people to think we were the bad guys in this tussle.”
“We better get out of here, once we get to a safer place, you got some story telling to do.”
“I suppose… but it certainly isn’t safe to talk about anything out in the open… not when…” She slowly looked once more, up and down her own craftsmanship lying motionless on the ground. “…if neither of you did this… someone else might be following… we should hurry.” She sped up into a quick walk ahead of Arru, giving the bodies a nervous look as she passed him. The expression was only partially fake, however, for if these people had been able to pick up on her meddling, perhaps they had more cards in their hands than she had initially given them credit for. There truly was no time to waste, and now here she was escorting two others without (to her knowledge) abilities to travel quickly. It didn’t help in the least that now she was on a route with no decisive idea on how to get to the house, but luckily, considering the structure of the city, it wouldn’t be too hard to locate once they were out of the alley. Not if she found a few helpful landmarks that was.
---
“…we should hurry.”
“Hmm. Well that’s unexpected, in’it?” A man in regional clothing of a deep maroon with a matching turban leaned over in his seat to pick up a set from a nearby surveillance Den Den Mushi, a light pale blue in color with a feminine face. It made the tired old ‘puru puru’ noises as the man tapped his finger on the rail, waiting for the intended to pick up. “Ka-cha.”
“Oh Madame Captain~”
“What is it.”
“You know that one lady who’s been snooping around lately? And we was gunna off her this week?” He leaned back in his chair, snipping through a sheet of paper rather delicately as he cradled the receiver under his chin. There was a slight pause in the conversation as the only thing he heard was the breeze of high altitude and the snipping of his scissors. Suddenly, the sullen, irate voice of the woman came out again, carrying with it much more dominion than before. “…yeah?”
“Yeah, check this out?” He set the scissors and paper down as he took the receiver out from under his chin and slid it in front of his mouth. Grabbing a pair of binoculars he had been using to make sure all went as planned, maneuvering the hired goons to their target, he placed them in front of the Den Den Mushi’s eyes, aiming at Arru, Levi, and Victoria. “Turns out she has back-up, haha.” He set the binoculars down once he was sure his captain had seen and returned to his craft, receiver under face and all. “Aww, speechless hmm? Want me to take care of ‘em myself?”
“That won’t be necessary. No need to rely on the skill of one hunter when we can absolutely destroy them with the ability of several trappers.”
“Always overkill. Can’t show my stuff when you insist on overkill, but I take it we’re good to go? Want me to come back, hmm?”
“If I said no, you’d come back anyway.”
“But I wanna be part of the fuuuuuuuuuuun~”
“Indeed. Take your time getting here.”
“Will do, ma’am lady!”
“-Ka-cha.”
Placing his own receiver back on the Den Den Mushi, the man slowly unfolded the paper he had been cutting. Somehow, through whatever technique he had used, he had managed to cut out three different figures, each relating to the three meddlers. Arru’s robbed figure on the left, Levi’s taller body on the right, and Victoria’s own hidden shape in the middle. She had been the easiest to cut out, resembling a headed geometry while holding the hands of the other two. “Righto, time to get to work in’it?” Taking the scissors in hand once more, he quickly snipped off the heads of each figure with one clean clip.
((Too tired to put in all the editings. This took way too long for me to write. Longer than usual.))