NationStates Jolt Archive

Nighttime in the downtown district was like that of a similar time in the jungles of the world. Day-time creatures ceased their daily workings and retired to the relative safety of their homes to sleep of the labors of the day. Like the day-time, the nocturnal awoke from their lodgings to pursue their objectives for the night before the sun's rays returned.

Such was the downtown area. The common folk of the day retired with the sun's setting while the predators of the night emerged from their hiding places to conduct their buisness. Drugs, guns, murder, and prostitution where commonplace transactions in the inky darkness of the later hours. Gunfire was so frequent that residents had begun to simply roll over and drift back off to sleep if the racket wasn't close.

It was clear that something needed to be done about this dangerous area, but what, exactly, was the topic of heated debate among the city council. The underworld council, however, had already come to its own conclusion: They would eliminate the up-and-coming dealers, pushers, pimps, and thugs cleanly, and with as little collateral damage as possible. Their rivals, while effective, had used more heavy-handed techniques that had drawn unneeded attention from the metro police department. Metro's effectiveness, however, wasn't going to take care of their foes before the damage was impossible to fix.

The lead man, an older individual who had been at the game for over two decades, had a secret weapon in his arsenal: A small buisness card emblazoned with a fanged skull flanked by a pair of crossed knives, black against a crimson background. The number on the back connected him to a secure satellite phone with a message box, and a cryptic set of directions given by a computerized voice...

'If you have reached this number in error, hang up now. If you have buisness, leave a message and your location. Thank you...'

The message was left, location confirmed, and a response was quickly dispatched. The address given was that of a small tenement building owned and operated as a drug manufacturing plant. Guarded by some twenty thugs armed with anything from small-caliber handguns and submachineguns to assault rifles, it was reguarded as a fortress by those who opposed the owner, one Juan Cruz AKA 'Rock'. That, however, was about to change...

Darkness had fallen an hour ago, it was now the hue of hot pitch, and just as warm. Swiftly, silently, and with unmatched lethality, a pair of black-garbed figures descended on the building, seperating to cover the two entrances seperately.
Entrance one, the back, was entered by a young Dark Argonian known as Jekel Slipstream, a quiet and observant killer with a perchant for knives. Armed with a UMP 45 outfitted with a silencer and equipped with assault gear befitting of one of his profession, including a level III ballisitc vest and helmet. Two guarded the door, moving to inspect whatever it was that was moving towards them.

The sharp hiss of surpressed gunfire whispered in the night, two three-round-bursts aimed at the chests of his opponents. Both fell silently, leaving crimson streaks across the walls behind them as they slumped to the dirty floor. Advancing through the hallway, he was nearly surprised by a hired gun coming out of the barely-functional bathroom. Jekel swiftly jammed a SEAL Pup Elite, one of his favorite knives, into the man's throat. For good measure, another three-round spray riddled his chest. The knife was one of seven he currently had on his person, among them his Black Bear Classic and OSS blades from Cold Steel. Others included a Buck knife, Karambit, Gerber Mark II, and his old Vietnam-Era Survival Knife with a serrated back edge and drop-point blade. He'd gutted more targets with that one than any of his other blades, even his Black Bear and OSS knives, which he'd had for more than a decade.

Jekel's area was clear, three cronies down at the rear of the building. Not surpisingly, he could barely hear the muffled snaps of Kelstar's weapon towards the front of the structure. His acute sense of smell alerted him to someone with a fondness for reefer coming around the corner from the stairwell. On seeing Jekel, he was slightly taken aback. The six-foot-tall lizard man with fierce blue eyes could have been a figment of his intoxicated state...

Or not.

Jekel's clawed fingers closed around the grip of his OSS, sliding between the hilt and sub-hilt of the weapon, he'd take great pleasure in killing this one. The temperature of the blade was about three degrees below death, swiftly sobering up his victim as the point slid up under the sternum of the barely twenty year-old, penetrating the lower portion of the heart and allowing the crimson essence of life to leak outward. Jekel yanked the blade free with one swift motion, driving it upwards through the jaw and into the skull cavity through the roof of the mouth. Again, he withdrew the knife from the jaw and stabbed down through the side of the neck above the collar bone and into the heart from both sides. A rather time-consuming kill, but satisfying none-the-less. The man bled out internally in under ten seconds, his passing made easier by the fact that he was brain-dead.

Entrance two, the front, was assaulted by the leader, Kelstar Nightfang. Armed similarly to his associate, Kel fired his weapon in semi-automatic operation, splitting the skulls of his targets with precision. As he entered, another hired thug raised his weapon. Kel's trigger-finger worked with surgical speed and precision, putting a pair of forty-fives in the upper chest of his victim followed shortly by one in the head. Dizzied by the speed at which the he'd been executed, the man promptly fell backwards. At least, this is what Kel believed had happened. In reality, the large-caliber chunks of lead lodged in his vitals had caused him to expire and not Kel's overly-inflated opinion of his combat skills.

Advancing down the hallway, littered with broken tables, trash, and broken crack pipes, the familiar figure at the opposite end put his instincts at ease. Jekel stood at the other end, carefully wiping the blood from one of his many knives. Kel was surprised the Silent Butcher had only chosen seven of his tools for the operation. Even still, his blade-fetish had never interfered with the quality of his work. His taste for perfection and blood had only complemented his skill with the blade, and consequently his effectiveness. The man standing next to him seemed to suggest otherwise, however...

"Why is he still standing?" Kel asked softly, eyeing the corpse with some suspicion...

"He's dead."

"I see that, but how is he still standing?" Jekel was a lot younger than he was, and still had a tendency to play with his prey...

"Beats me. I guess that stab to his brain did more than I thought..."

"Whatever... We head to the third floor. Our target keeps an office there..." His patience wearing thin and the stink of dead mammal rising in his acute nostrils, Kel sought to end this foray as quickly and cleanly as possible...

"Fine. I'll take the stairs..."

Jekel slipped off into the stairwell, submachinegun held low. Kel tapped the '3' number on the elevator keypad, then stepped inside. The top floor was mostly clear, the filthy hallways where somewhat less cluttered. Side rooms contained cocaine processing equipment, transforming it into high-profit crack. Kel simply chucked a fragmentary grenade into each door to take care of his secondary objective; taking out the manufacturing plants.

Rock's office was at the end of the hallway, the boss himself sitting inside behind a large desk flanked by two of his biggest goons, oblivious to the overhead vent creeping open. Kel's extereme precision with his holographic-sighted weapon resulted in the demise of both of Rock's bodyguards, while the bossman got to his MAC-10 a bit quicker than Kel had anticipated...

"I don't know what the fuck you are, or how you got past my dawgs downstairs, but you got some balls, homes. Unfortunately for you, you ain't gonna get another chance to use 'em..."

Kel's scaly jaw opened slightly, emitting a harsh chuckle...

"You gonna laugh at me, bitch?" Cruz snapped, his eyes alight with rage and his MAC held slightly at an angle...

"Yes, specfically at your ignorance that I would operate alone..."

Rock reguarded him with a slightly fearful look, beginning to feel the hot breath from Jekel on the back of his neck...

"Howdy."

Jekel hissed as Rock slowly turned around, fear beginning to burn in his gut. The gleam of the Black Bear's stainless steel blade caught his eye, followed by the less-obvious shine of the phosphate-coated edge of the OSS. A stab under each arm kept Rock alive long enough for Jekel to hiss in his ear...

"Lou sends his best motherfucker..."

The Dark Argonian yanked the blades free, bringing them upwards to scissor-slash across Rock's neck and remove his head from his shoulders with one powerful motion. Wiping the knives clean on his victim's headless corpse, Jekel picked up Rock's head by the hair before carefully placing it on the desk next to the MAC-10 he'd snagged from the floor. This had been an interesting operation...

The Butcher began to perform a more thorough cleaning on his knives as Kel phoned the local police...

"Excuse me, operator? There's a bit of a mess at the 1258 tenament address, one of your most wanted seems to be running a drug production operation from there. I'd suggest you move quickly..."

Kel swiftly hung up the cellphone, placing it open against Cruz's head. It was one of those little touches that would lead the police astray, thinking it was some psycopathic killer with a knife and a taste for forty-five caliber weapons. The skill levels demonstrated with the gun and the blade might draw the police in towards a renegade CIA operative or some other individual with expeirence in such matters. Not a single bullet or knife-cut had been wasted during the process, each had been lethally effective.

It didn't matter to either of the assassins, they simply walked out of the building and disappeared into the darkening hues of the night...

The Large Black Hawk Helicpoter hovered over the outskirts of the city. Out of it jumpped a person, a very skilled CIA op from Kanami. In fact it was a woman. Not just a woman, the most skilled gunner in the Pacific. Her phone went off. "Yeah?"

"M, this Speed. Did you arrive?"

"Safe and sound Speed. What's the situation."

"The Drug Empires are raging war, making billions off of drugs, death, crime, and other things. The CIA Still doesn't know for sure who is fighting for who, but that's not your objective. Your objective is to get into the city, set up residence, and then begin the investigation, and even assasinations. The KCIA, and the NSA will send you more info, as this goes alone. Becareful, bueaty can get you into trouble here."

"Got you." She hung up She was a gerogous, but very deadly mercinary.

The local police arrived fifteen minutes later, taping off the building and calling the local news agency, then the coroner...

The phone rang

MADLAX, it's Three-Speed. Yes in fact Agen M was really called Agen

MADLAX

"Now we're going by our offical names?"

"The line is secure, the NSA has our backs. What's the status

"Police are begining investigation. So far it's all vauge. Very few details, and I'm sure the Police won't tell me anything."

"Try, act like a reporter"

"In this getup?"

"Put on a dress then. MADLAX, in order to stop the drug retail comming into Kanami, we need to get this taken care of."

"Got you." She disappeard behind the building, and threw off her clothes. She came out in a chrimson red dress, usually her evening gown. She came back up to the police officer in charge

"So, what's the deal?"

The officer, not seeing a press badge or anything close, simply waved her along. It was late, he was tired, and this investigation was already looking to be something the investigation department would probably drop a week later.

One of the fifteen most wanted criminals in the city was headless in an upstairs office next to two of his boys, and no innocent bystanders had been harmed. Someone had done their dirtywork for them, and there seemed to be no need to bother investigating it any further... Just let the coroners do their thing and go home late. They'd wheeled three bodies out from inside the building, and where in the process of getting them prepared to be shipped to the coroner's office for an autopsy.


Most of the cases he'd seen had been shot to death, now the cases where in the black bags that where zipped all the way up...

"Move along ma'am..."

The yellow-taped perimeter was guarded by no less than fifteen officers, with SWAT moving in to keep perimeter security and keep looters from infiltrating the building and making off with the unsold crack cocaine. No-one would be getting inside until there was nothing left but bloodstains and a condemed sign. The product was always sold locally, Rock hadn't had the connections for international sales, and other than cleaning up the mess, the PD had little else to do...

She wasn't happy about being waved off. But it wasn't the end yet. She crept over to a mass of SWAT officers, and looked for the straggler. He grabbed him pulled him away. Faint punches land. MADLAX emerges dressed in the SWAT uniform. It was a perfect desguise, no one could so much as spot her. Now she would get the answers she needed.

"Okay, so what is it you couldn't tell me over the phone?"

Israel Mohtaj was not particularly happy. He was a gun for hire in a city full of guns for hire and people hiring guns. True, he was one of the best working here, but it still didn't buy him the respect he wanted. Here he was in the office of one of the cities minor druglords, someone whom he'd done jobs for before, but had no particular like for. The reason for his prescence here was paranoia; for some reason the druglord believed his phones were tapped, and wouldn't tell him the details of the job over the phone.

"I can't say anything now, some see me tomorrow and we'll talk," he'd said. No matter how much Israel tried, there hadn't been a way to avoid this. Visits to bosses were something he hated, it made it so much easier for people to know who you were working for.

"I presume you've heard what happened to Rock's place."
"I've heard some rumours, fill me in on the details."
"Someone hit his manufacturing center, hard. No survivors, no collateral, just dead thugs, a dead druglord and an annonymous phonecall to the cops."
"And you want me to find out who did it."
Israel's words were a statement, not a question.
"Exactly, poke around, find out who did it, who paid them and why."
"Expenses?"
"I'll cover them within reason, and you will be compensated for each of those three pieces of information if you can get them."
"Sure."

Israel turned and walked out of the druglords office and back to his place to prepare for the job. He read up on the story in the paper and on an online newsblog. Neither said much of anything of use to him, but he wanted to know the story the cops were choosing to put out before he found out the truth.
The first thing to do would be to go down and have a look firsthand. After collecting a few tools, Israel hailed a taxi and rode to a few blocks away from the tenement. He stopped down the block and across the street, watching the police guarding the place and seeing where possible entrances were.

The night had not gone well for Caleb, while it was still daylight he had attempted to mug a man walking down the street, and nearly got away. However the man had managed to pull out a concealed gun. They struggled and the gun went off, killing the man. Caleb fled, but not before relieving the corpse of his wallet. It was then that his troubles really began. He opened the wallet to find that he had killed the son of major druglord of the city.

Hours later he had already managed to give the slip to a bounty hunter looking for his head, To escape the the people that would be after him he hide himself. He hid in a little crook of a building, in a small room that was not really a room at all but really just a hole in the attic of some god forgotten decrepit run down old, well a number of other descriptive words as well... of a building.

The building just happened to be next to a certain small tenement building where certain people where manufacturing drugs, and the spot that Caleb managed to find around a year ago had a good view but one that you could still hide in fairly easily.

Caleb looked down looking for any sign that people might know where he is and taking actions against him. He looked down... he seemed to think there was something down there but he could not really see. But then as he looked into the inky blackness he saw a man... no not a man.. it was.... it was a lizardman. He stared at the lizard man trying to figure out what it was doing.... It was going the back entrance to the nextdoor tenement... He saw something flash it the moonlight, it could have been anything but something told Caleb that something was going down... he knew he should go, but he found himself mesmorised unable to look away...

The Lizardman entered the building and there was silence, inaction for a time, then guns went off... later some grenades went off ... "Why Am I still here... Stupid, Stupid..." he chided himself as he tore himself away from his spot and fled... he fled a panicked run... running away from the lizardman... hopefully the lizardman would not know that he was there... but he needed to go.. his spot will not hide him form the scrutiny such occurances would bring. The police would be on there way... and he needed to keep away from them as well.

Caleb ran down some stars and outside of the building... and just ran... he did not have any place in particular in mind but anywhere was better than here... well that was what he thought then....

Kel and Jekel entered their car, a black Saab parked two blocks away, and slowly drove off into the night towards Lou's mansion at the edge of town. Their enigmatic employer would have work for them throughout the week, it seemed, and they would be quartered on his premesis.

Their weapons where somewhat dirty from their use that night, as where Jekel's knives. At around one AM, field-stripping of their weapons began, the UMP's coming apart with practiced speed and precision. Another item in the pair's arsenal was a forty-five caliber Glock handgun, one per operative, outfitted with a surpressor and a laser aiming module. At about two Jekel began to clean, sharpen, and oil his knives. Kelstar, at about one-thirty, had re-assembled his weapon and turned in for the night.

Their organization operated, usually, in teams of four, every member exactly alike, down to the ballistic equipment and ammunition. Stealth and lethality were key traits, combined with the killer instinct of their race. Some twenty-four individuals had decided to convert this natural ability into profit, and as such the Deathwraith Assassin's Guild had been born. The Dark Argonian homeland of the southern Black Marsh served as the headquarters, with a lone UH-60 Blackhawk ferrying personnel and equipment between contract sites, kept the six individual teams in constant work.

Their skills had been in demand throughout the underworld and across the globe from national governments to private citizens. Their methods varied widely, from knives and the gunfire to poisons and explosives, but the results where always the same. This urban gang-hunting was considered a pleasant vacation for the two most senior members of the Guild. At about three-forty-five, Jekel sheathed his knives and retired to bed, leaving Lou's other hired security personnel to protect them from harm while they slept...

Rock's Drug Facility

The patrolmen had begun to cart loads of rock cocaine from the building, while SWAT snipers and assault troops patrolled throughout the structure, clearing each room before any other personnel entered it. This served as both a precautionary measure and a training tool for the city's special team. Armed with MP5A2 submachineguns and Glock 17 automatic pistols, the team was more than capable of dealing with the city's thugs in small groups. En masse, they didn't stand a chance. Any help, no matter how violent or obscure, was welcome.

And by the looks of things, there killers had a lot more money to spend on equipment and training than Metro did...

Coroner's Office

The autopsy was nothing short of mundane. The usual variety of gunshot wounds and slashes constitued the extent of his work tonight, until the other victims got wheeled in. These new cases where nearly blown to bits from shrapnel, but that was the extent of the damage and determing the cause of death. The most interesting case was that of a young male the police had found standing up, yet dead. He'd been stabbed about four times, his heart penetrated three times and his lower jaw to his brain once. The coroner was unsure how to label the cause of death, from brain trama or heart trama, so he simply labeled it as a sharp object trama case...

MADLAX, still desguised as a SWAT Officer, to keep her low profile. She examined the Rock House, to get the jist of just how the drug operations work.

Israel waited, watching the cops haul out body bags and poorly disguised carts of crack cocaine. None of that interested him in the least. Maybe the bodies, would have been interesting to see the killer killers' style. A lot you can tell about someone by the way the kill. he thought to himself. When they had finished, well into the night, he slowly walked into the tenement, wandering through the halls, he looked for things that might give him a hint as to how the raid had been done, things that a cop wouldn't notice. He noted a few bullet holes in the hallways and near the entrances. Very few.

This was done by professionals, they didn't waste time or amunition. Very surgical. The police had made no attempt to clean up the bloodstains, not that they could have removed them if they had tried. Israel noticed two especially large ones: one at a corner in the ground floor hallway, and one on and around a desk in a room on the third floor. The first one had seemed obvious to Israel. Knifed him as he came around the corner, the poor bastard never saw it coming. The one upstairs was slightly more puzzling. He presumed that the room had been Rock's personal office, the main target of the job. The grating was gone from an overhead vent, and there were small holes in the floor from partially spent rounds, but the mess on the desk and floor suggested Rock had been knifed.

There's no way he was unarmed, the killer would've had to shoot him or sneak up on him, and shooting his body guards would give Rock the heads up. As Israel stood in the middle of the room looking up at the vent something occured to him. He turned around and looked out the office's door into the hallway. "There were two of them," he said quietly to himself, speaking with utter certainty, "The one in the vent distracted Rock long enough for the other to sneak up behind him, clever bastards." Israel completed his our of the facility, spending just a few moments on the mangled processing equipment before leaving.

Later that night, he called up his employer. "It's Israel, listen up. I'll give you what I know now, I don't have any specifics yet, I just know that whoever did this, they're professionals, and there were probably two killers, possibly more."
"I'm not paying you for crap like that, get me some real information."
"Relax, it's my first day on the job, I'll have your info."

"Not going well Three-Speed. i'm afraid my clever desguise didn't really yeild me any information. i'm still searching, but as far as I can tell, their could be one or more drug king-pins lying around some place. Heck they could all be dead."

"I'll get back to you. I'll try to tap some of the police lines, hopefully un noticed"

The line clicked

The sun rose slowly over the city, golden rays of illuminating warmth stretching throughout the alleyways and parking lots where the shady evening buisness was done. The inhabitants of the night began to scatter long before the celestial body of fire became visible. Life as it was supposed to be began slowly, the first trickle of traffic coming down mainstreet.

The police department had a new issue on its hands, an individual who had attacked one of their SWAT officers the night before, and assaulting an officer being a class A felony, this individual would have to be found. Security would be doubled at any future crime-scene clean-up...

A man desguised as a Phone Repare man, tampered with the phone lines of the Police Station, and a few others. This way he could get in to fix them, and set up a wire tap for Three-Speed. "Done and done."
He went into the Police Station.

"Hi" he said "I'm with the Phone Company, their have been reports of Phone problems in the area. Would you like to check out your phones for you, free of charage?"

The desk sergeant narrowed his eyes at the individual standing in front of his desk. Keeping his eyes on the guy in front of him, the sergeant picked up the phone and put it to his ear. The dial tone ringing in his ear brought a slight smile to his face...

"Here, listen..."

He gave the guy a short listen before hanging the phone up...

"That answer your question, pal? Beat it."

About that time one of the detectives came around the corner waving a manila folder...

"Hey Roark, Martinez says he got jumped by a chick, grabbed his kit and everything..."

Sergeant Roark chuckled sharply, slapping his hand on his desk...

"I thought his uniform looked kinda loose last night. He get a good look at her?"

"Nah, no description was provided, other than that she was pretty good looking. How he knows that and doesn't have any other info is beyond me..."

Warehouse registered to David 'Gatz' Marquis, South Central...

Gatz Marquis was a well-connected individual, with contacts in a particularly profit-hungry private military corporation. The tables in his fortress-like warehouse were literally stacked with military-grade hardware, and customers were never in short supply. Today's clientel came from Big Lou, the family don in the city...

"What can I do for you fellas? I got a nice shipment of M249 Squad Automatic Weapons in a few days ago, great for a drive-by..."

The first, a slick-haired man in a fine suit with a bulge under his left shoulder, responded before his slightly round comrade was able to...

"Nah, Lou sent us with a list a' shit to pick up... Said you should have it ready..."

Gatz considered for a moment, then his memory kicked in. His head hadn't been quite right since that AK round skipped off his head in the Foreign Legion...

"Ah yeah! The Deathwraith special... Four boxes of Hydra-Shok forty-five caliber ACP rounds, +P+, an M4A2 carbine outfitted with a Harris Bipod and an ACOG combat optic, sixty rounds of Federal Match-grade rounds in .223 Remington, and two high-reliability Heckler and Koch M16 magazines. It'll run you close to fifteen grand..."

Henchman number one threw Gatz a stack of bills held together with a paper ring...

"Lou sends his best..."

Gatz smiled, displaying a shiny gold bi-cuspid that gleamed in the dim lights of his warehouse...

"Tell him I'll get that custom shipment in about two more weeks. The mods I'm making to those Glocks he ordered will be more than worth it, they'll shoot tighter groups than you all are capable of..."

All three shared a laugh, even as the scope of an M24 sniper system hovered over the head of henchman number two. Braced by a bipod, the bolt-action weapon was capable of splitting his head like a melon with a 7.62x51mm NATO round. The creature behind the scope had a slit-pupiled eye, black scales, and a nasty disposition. Gatz knew what true protection consisted of, and the two pairs of eyes in the rafters, glaring down through telescopic sights, consisted of such. With Jekel and Kel out doing the fun stuff, the other half of their team waited silently in the warehouse of their chief arms supplier...

"Take care..."

The two hired guns made their exit, hauling the rifle and ammunition out with them to provide their new help with some more options in their nightly tasks...

"Time for plan 'B'" he said. He went over to a sewer system, and went down. "Just as I thought, underground phonecables." He pulled out the main line, and planted a wire tap inside it. He worked dilligantly for a long time. And reconected the cable. "Now we have a direct tap on all police lines."


"Madlax, it's three-speed, we now have a wire tap on the Police phone lines. We hope we can keep it going before they get wise."

"Got you. Any new developments?"

"Their is a suspicous storehouse David 'Gatz' Marquis, in South Central."

"I doubt he would be the real culprit. No Kingpin would register himself in his right mind."

"Why don't you check out the warehouse? If needed, shoot to kill. But only if needed."

Israel woke up that morning at aroudn 10:00, and started planning his day. The first thing he needed to do was restock. His last assignement had used up a lot of equipment and ammunition, and his first item of business was to visit his supplier. Most people who valued their equipment went to Gatz for their guns and ammo, and Israel valued quality very highly in his equipment. He made a mental note that Gatz might also know something about the strike on Rock's manufacturing facility. Getting that kind of information out of an arms dealer would be tough though. I'm gonna have to put some money behind this.

He showed up early in the afternoon, walking into Gatz's warehouse. He spotted the arms dealer over by a table with surprisingly few boxes on it. Israel slowly walked up beside him. "Workin on a special order Gatz?"
Gatz started slightly, peering at Israel in a confused way, "Can I help you."
"It's Israel, Gatz, I need to pick up some equipment."
Gatz stared for a moment, and then his face brightened in recognition.
"Right, Israel, what can I getcha?"
"Well, for starters, some 9mm ammo, the usual order, standard restock.
"Right, what else you need?"
"Two MP7's and about 30 boxes of ammo."
Gatz moved quickly, fluidly through his warehouse, knowing the location of each piece of inventory by heart, and soon, had a pile of boxes on the table nearest to the door. "Is that all."
"Well, there was one other thing."
"What's that?"
"Can you answer a question or two for me Gatz"
"You know I have a strict confidentiality agreement with all my customers Israel."
"I know Gatz, It's just that I might have a very large order to place, some very large items, a few things that could be quite, well, expensive."
"I don't share information, and that includes what you do with your purchases."
"All right then Gatz, but remember what I said, and if you change your mind," Israel moved his purchases onto a cart and pulled out a wad of money, placing it in Gatz's hand, "you know how to reach me."

MADLAX arrived at the warehouse, it didn't look highly suspicous, but you cant judge a book by it's cover right?

Just like a spy movie, she pulled out a Grappline hook, and climbed her way to the top, fire escape. She stealthy moved about, looking every which way.

All clear.

She moved on, she tapped several windows, to see which could open. Non. But at last she found an open window, and slipped inside.

She dropped down onto the cat walk, bellow her, several men we're pacakging stuff. Looked like weapons. She pulled out a small camera and snapped pictures.

The two overwatchers in the rafters of Marquis' warehouse took meticulous notes of the comings and goings of the arms dealer's customers, including a hitman who asked too many questions, more so than someone in his line of work should do when not involved in an assignment. After all, they, too, where hitmen, albiet extremely well-paid and professionally trained. This was the best reason Kelstar had found to refer to themselves as 'assassins'; and not common hitmen.

The intrusion alarm pinged inside of the first sniper's headset, the pattern matching the roof alarms. Gatz always operated alone, besides his hired help in their overwatch positions. The scope swung smoothly around to get a sight picture on whatever had opened the exterior window. They where trained for this sort of thing, and Gatz, being as paranoid as he was, had installed simple magnetic sensors on his windows and doors. If the magnetic field was broken, alarms alerted his hired security. Having close to four million dollars in firearms stashed in a warehouse, one could never be too careful.

The crosshairs centered on the head on their intruder, a woman dressed in a SWAT uniform. The police knew better than to snoop around this place, so he squeezed the trigger, sending a shattering crack of gunfire echoing through the warehouse...

"Ut-oh." Dodging the gun fire, she stripped the SWAT Uniform, and was now back in the chrimson dress and dodged the gun fire, pulling out her own gun, she dropped down to the floor bellow, and began shooting, back. She struck a few men, and quickly moved around, to maintain the advantage.

She swong on a pol, and kicked down a few more men. She over tossed a tabble full of weapons, hopefully unloaded or on safty.

She threw a few bags of powedery substances at people, dissorienting them.

Kicking a few more down, she backflipped her way down the aisle, landing up right, into the hands of two other men. She elboed both them. She turned and kicked one other down, and backfliped once more. Two gun men popped up and began shooting, she ducked down.

She ran and slidded. She popped upright, at Gatz, and held her gun at him. "David 'Gatz' Marquis, your under arrest."

OOC: I've put up with this nonsense long enough. I'm closing this thread due to lack of competence on the part of one of the participants.