(Citadel, Tayseri) Guess my Name. (Closed)

A large, after-market-modded, hover truck, its rear-seat capacity ruined by the installation of excessively large speakers, pulls to a halt at the curve. Glistening with chrome, decorated in a pattern of solar-flare jagged fire-coloured stripes, it screams its presence like a hornet or xykoth does--its loud sound and brilliant colours announcing that the bearer is dangerous.

The driver slides out and rounds the vehicle. Tango is a tall, powerful-looking turian, wearing a sleeveless shirt to show off an abundance of muscles and tattoos on his arms. He might not be the sharpest bayonet in the gunrack, but for those who like tall handsome and intimidating, he does the trick.

The turian emerging from the passenger side is a female, a head shorter than Tango, wiry rather than bulky. Still, the scars on her face and the coldness in her stare suggest she might be the more dangerous of the two. Her eyes probe the sky, searching for the drones Des mentioned. Her clothes cover most of her body, but the tattoos on her neck indicate she and Tango were once on opposite sides of a vicious gang war. Now both of them wear matching Sundowner facepaint.

While those two are making their show of force, Trex, in a black robe and with her rifle on her back, slinks out of the back of the truck and into the cover of an alley. She climbs lightly up the nearest fire escape, seeking a vantage point, and scans the ground for targets. Raelon sends her a message: DO NOT FIRE UNLESS FIRED UPON. She clicks her omnitool once to acknowledge. For her, she's just happy to be out on operation again, even if it's nothing, even if she isn't supposed to use her gun.

Raelon gets out of the vehicle last. With his hood down, he's rather reminiscent of a Marauder, even if he is about five eyes short and still wearing recognizable turian facepaint - it's easy to overlook it when you're staring at the monocle that is his left eye, the metal spikes that are his fringe, the overlay of wires and circuitry and tubing that cross his cheeks and jaws and mandibles. He leans on an ornate metal staff that he hopes looks like it's for show; he didn't dare come without a crutch, but he doesn't want his weakness obvious. Better people stare at the staff's outrageous designs, or the strange modifications he doesn't bother to hide. Even on the Citadel, you don't see a heavily modified cyborg every day.

Des' emotions seesaw back to embarrassment-with a brief stop at he looks incredible and does that mean he's finally ditching that ridiculous hood?

Accompanied by one of the older drones that he kept in reserve, he steps out, waving him over. "I'm really alright..."

And then one of the drones surveying the area recognizes a shape and immediately pushes it to the front of Des' consciousness-he spins around in place, looking like he's staring through a wall. "Is that a pre-pilgrimage kid with a rifle?"

Raelon walks forward to meet Des, doing his best not to limp or lurch, proud of how well he succeeds. He doesn't want his friend to come out too far, just in case the threat has a gun. Funny how he doesn't see anyone. Not even through his new rearward-facing motion and heat sensor.

"Rae?" Tango whines from the left of him. "What good's a show of force with nobody to check us out?"

Raelon rolls his organic eye until Des asks his question. He's about to get angry with Trex for being too visible, until he reminds himself that Des has multiple drones and is an effective coder and builder. Of course he'd spot the sniper. "No, that's an insurance policy," he says, "a last resort that nobody is supposed to see."

He copies Des on a burst transmission:


A message comes back - to both of them:


At exactly the same moment Tango shrugs and says, "Come on, where's the bad guys?"

And, proving he only has 99% of his priorities straight, Raelon suddenly realizes that going out with no hood, while strategically sound, might be (to Des's way of thinking) kind of like that ancient Turian monastic order that went into battle naked save for red-painted carapaces.

"Hey Des, I don't look like a quarian stripper, do I? My 360 degree sensors don't work so great under the hood."

Yes. The man has installed 360 degree vision, motion and heat sensors.

"If she-the quarian or the kid gets shot, I will get exiled." In truth, he might have been excused if Trex died. Annoyed by that fact, he slid back to anger. "One...Like I said, there is one 'target', she was here." Maps appeared in midair, a large arrow pointing at where he last saw the other quarian. "When she blew out the drones following her. I haven't spotted her on any other camera yet so I doubt she's gone far."

He took another look at Raelon. "More servant than people..." Why did he say that? Other than it being completely true. "...but I adore it! Don't put the hood back on."

Meanwhile, Kari was busy at work in her hiding place. A busy mind took her mind off how her legs were starting to cramp and how the walls seemed to be closing in on her...

First thing was first, she needed to ditch the robe. It was going to be a hindrance from here on out just like it was during the Coup. And this time, she didn't have the Bird here to tear it to shreds. But she wouldn't dare try stepping out and taking it off without fear of alerting someone to her presence.

She'd have to cut herself out of it. But in her haste to get here she'd forgotten her knife at home and there was no way she was going to use an omniblade. She'd burn herself alive in the process.

Stupid girl. How could you have been so stupid as to forget one of your most useful tools? she thought to herself, as she sifted through the trash for anything, anything that would be sharp enough to get her out of the robe. Letting out a sigh of relief as she found a jagged piece of some long broken piece of machinery. Carefully she placed it at the top of the robe and slowly, slowly moved it down thankful it was one of her cheap robes as the fabric gave way and she slowly slid out of it. Exposing her muscular frame. But now felt naked, vulnerable especially now without her hood the many wires and tubes on top of her helmet were now exposed and she didn't like that. Not one bit. But she lacked the time and space to carve out an acceptable length of cloth to wrap around it...

Next. She began to disable every single safety on her omnitool and activating every combat app she had access to, turned on her kinetic barriers (she doubted there would be any guns involved, this was the damn Citadel after all, but better safe than sorry) If that bastard had truly called in backup, she was going to be ready for it.

Finally, she needed a escape route. She should be able to run out of the alley and head away from the store, duck into a crowd (hoping her height wouldn't make her stick out too much to any pursuers), and run like hell to a cab back to the Presidium.

She'd wait a little longer before she did that however. Caution was the way she had survived so long on her own after all...

Tango is absolutely and utterly fascinated by the images floating in midair. He raises his hand to try to touch the arrow, and his fingers pass right through it.

Raelon rolls his eye but sounds almost envious as he mutters, "I can make floating holograms too, you know."

Breaker, meanwhile, looks instead in the direction the arrow is pointing. Empty alley. But there are a lot of abandoned flats, cardboard boxes, dumpsters, sunken staircases and other objects blocking direct line of sight. Lots of places for a hostile to be lurking.

She gestures to Tango who, reluctantly, tears himself away from his observance of the holograms. He enters the alley, kicks a pile of boxes, scattering them, to prove there's no one behind them. And he's working his way down towards Pariah's dumpster. Breaker takes the other side, and she prefers to slip up on things and peer around them without warning.

Raelon walks up to Des, offers him a shy smile. "You think this is okay?"

scrolls across both their tools.

Raelon scowls.


He looks grimly at Des, "It was really not my idea to bring her." Then he smiles. "So, um, meet my crazy family..."

"It is definately okay." He blinked suddenly when the message popped up. "But I am a little overwhelmed at the moment..."

"Your crazy 'family' is very much appriciated."

Two at least. Maybe more for all you know, and they are coming this way... Kari thought to herself as she got ready to make her move. She didn't know if whoever was outside had been called in by Des'Keran to deal with her or just bystanders coming to investigate the noise.

And she didn't really care.

Whoever they were, If they got too close to her hiding spot for her tastes, they were going to be regretting it immensely.

"Yeah, you'd think that now," Raelon mutters. Spirits, he thought he'd have more time to figure out a good way to explain this. But he doesn't, and it's unfair to leave Des unwarned, so he just sort of spits it out. "I just want you to know, given that I hauled them out here for you, they're probably going to figure out that you, um, that we have the sort of thing where I got your back, which means that they're culturally obligated to lay down the law to you, about being an associate of the clan, and not to freak out 'cause they won't actually hurt you, they'll just talk big." He fidgets. "Unless you cross the line, which I want you to know doesn't mean you can't ever decide to dump me or that you're stuck with me forever, but if you do it by, say, posting my access codes all over the extranet or something else that pulls the whole family into it, then you'll have the whole family on your ass, so, now there's two reasons for me to hope it never comes to that."

Raelon is actually hoping the Migrant Fleet is equally obsessive about this sort of thing...given what he's just asked Des to put up with.

"Um....maybe you should know this...Juhani's gone. He...the Hierarchy drew the line for him, said he couldn't associate with us any more. Apparently he's already in for disciplinary action. I...I miss him." Spirits, this is awkward. How do you say "the other guy's off my radar" while also being honest that it hurts?

Meanwhile, Breaker has seen nothing of interest, though her instincts tell her something's out there. Trex has seen nothing of interest either, and she's not sure whether to be glad, or disappointed. Tango is just having fun punching and kicking things, and so he delivers a rousing kick to the side of a dumpster, certain to rattle the teeth of anything inside.

"...Raelon? Raelon." He put up his hands, gesturing for him to stop. He kept glancing towards the alley. "It's alright. Thank you for coming so quickly."

At the mention of Juhani, he squeezed his eyes shut. This was, of course, good news, but he didn't want to win by default-on the day when he had to open up about all his past difficulties. He sighed, struggling with how to phrase a response. "I would have wanted it to be your choice...but can we talk about this later?"

NOW! GO!

Kari burst out the dumpster, turned her head in the direction of Tango and gave him one of the most angry death glares she could muster before pointing her omnitool in his direction and shocking him with a very powerful overload. Not bothering to stop and see if the turian was okay she got out of the dumpster and started making a mad dash towards the alley way exit.

"Yeah, sure." Raelon's immediately abashed. It's amazing how his image crumples - he strode in here like a warrior, a soldier with a vow to defend, and now he's collapsed back into an awkward young man, blurting out personal information at inopportune moments, holding a pistol he can barely use. He seems uncertain and so very young.

Tango, meanwhile, finds himself in for an unpleasant surprise. He's used to targets that are frightened, cowering, whimpering. He's not expecting a quarian to pop out and hit him in the face with a stunner. His eyes shut automatically, and then won't open again for the moment his nerves are stunned. He howls with the shock of it, steps back, and trips over an empty Paragade bottle that had fallen out of the trash.

Up top, Trex's vision is partly obscured by the dumpster. She doesn't realize that Tango has stumbled over garbage and his own feet. All she sees is one of hers crying out and then going down.

Regardless of whether Tango was shot or stabbed or Spirits only knew what, the quarian attacked first. Trex feels perfectly justified in drawing bead and firing a warning shot over the fleeing quarian's head.


It's at this point where Breaker rushes over to Tango, confirms that he's not dead, and yells out to Raelon and Des, "It's a shocker...he's down but he's okay."

"Thank you." And he reaches out to take Raelon's hand, give it a gentle squeeze-to be the mature, comforting partner-

-and ends up squeezing it like a vice when he hears the gunshot going off (probably in something more than stereo, since he's got audio feeds from the drones). "Don't!"

Get exiled, or place a child in mortal danger. The correct answer is neither. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "...In fact, get back here! I've been in denial."

They shot at me! The thought raced through her mind as she ducked to the ground. Someone had actually had the nerve to shoot at her!

If the quarian's blood hadn't started reaching the temperature of an exploding sun, it surely had now. How in the name of her ancestors did he get a sniper out here?

Move. You'll either be captured by those turians and ancestors knows what will happen then. Or the sniper kills you. And you know that you would rather die then be at the mercy of anyone else ever again. So go!

Kari got up and started towards the exit of the alleyway again. She was almost there. She had her barriers up, she could take at least one shot from an average sniper rifle (unless they were packing something real heavy up there) She could do this...

Hopefully no one got in her way.

Raelon waves some kind of hand signal to Breaker. The female helps Tango to his feet and the two of them back towards Des and Raelon, covering the alley. Still no guns drawn, but Breaker clearly has her hand on something under her coat. They close ranks around Des and Raelon and any privacy the two techies might have had is gone.

A small, caped figure drops to the ground from the fire escape.

Tango, for all he's big and rough, is the kind of person more likely to do damage out of ignorance than malice; the kind more likely to intend only to rough someone up and go too far by mistake. Breaker is a warrior, skilled but also disciplined; someone who sees force as a means to an end.

The look in Trex's eyes under her hood is cold and sharp. Someone who sees the hunt as an end in itself.

Raelon notices and is clearly disturbed by it. He kneels in front of her, heedless of how it hurts to do so and how hard it's going to be to get back up again. His staff clatters to the ground as he wraps his hands around her arms and squeezes gently. "Trex, that kill badge isn't worth it."

"She's not innocent," Trex retorts, "She was bothering your friend."

As though that were an appropriate reason for a death sentence.

Raelon bites his lower lip. "Any idea who that was, Des?"

Tango and Breaker keep watch in case the strange quarian tries to come back.

"You are clearly in my employ." Des was still angry and embarrassed all at once, and he turned it on Trex "If they want to, I could be exiled for having shot at another quarian. They would take away my name and cut me from society because I did not treat the lives of my people with respect."

"You are a child. I should have asked you to leave the moment you arrived."

"Somebody has probably called C-Sec." He sagged slightly. "Probably working for the Admiralty. The short version is they want some of their research back."

Kari had slunk into a dark, easy to miss place not far from the exit. It wasn't the cowardice. She was getting shot at. Anyone would have done it. And then she heard voices behind her and she squeezed behind some boxes and other assorted junk. Her suit being the perfect camouflage.

Leave.

It was another foolish mistake she knew that. In the old days she sould have stayed hidden for two hours at least, enough time for things to blow over enough so she could leave...

But ugh, C-sec was just too good at finding your hiding places.

So she walked out. Right into Des and his friends...

Shit.

Trex protests hotly, "I didn't shoot at her. I shot over her. On purpose. The bullet embedded itself, harmlessly, into a stack of boxes." She's getting more and more agitated. "I'm a professional, I know where my bullets go, and I..."

Raelon gives her a look to stow it.

She does.

Raelon never thought he had that ability, to look anywhere near as scary as Notras on the average day or Vindi in her battle trance, but he's going to take it now. He's feeling guilty already for presuming that Des' culture was anywhere near that of the Sundowners - that what would be okay in Kubla Khan on Omega or the Loyal Arms on Solregit would be okay here. Dammit, he's a shaman, he should know better.

So when there's movement at the end of the alley, he puts his hand on Breaker's shoulder before she can draw her gun and put Des closer to a bad situation. He does, however, take a step ahead of Des. If the Sundowners aren't allowed to shoot, his only way to protect Des is to put himself between Des and the enemy.

He tries to tell himself his cybernetic plates are as good as a bullet proof vest, and they are, but that's no good if someone's aiming for your head. So, yes, he's scared. But he does it anyway.

The woman's presence...didn't make any sense, and that made coming up with a rational response harder. "...Why do you keep coming back? The files aren't even here."

He spun up the drones again.

"Are you suicidal?"