Chapter 1: The Three Sisters IC, The In Character Thread Options

[Ronin Soul]

A rainy evening, 7:56pm, Sunday, 4th September, 2061, Downtown Seattle

When you first took up Shadowrunning, you expected it to be exciting in it’s own way. Staying one step ahead of the corps, making pileloads of nuyen, maybe even learning more about yourself. Yet somehow you never really realised just how boring some runs can be.

Take this current one for example. It was well paying and sounded like a cakewalk. 1000 :nuyen: a day for simple surveillance, plus expenses. Sounded too good to be true.
Well, until tonight it just was a sweet, if boring deal. You were hired to run surveillance on one Tatashiro Hamada, one of the high ups in Shiawase Atomics. No more detail than that and his address. No indication as to why your Johnson is interested in gathering intel on Hamada-san but no surprise there. However as the old adage goes “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
One little peculiarity was that you were also told to pay particular attention to his house.
Oh, and one other thing you were told: if trouble breaks out you are two immediately attempt to extract any Hamadas still in their house, no exceptions. If necessity demanded this then you were promised a big reward to make it worth your while.

So for the past week you’ve been staking out his rather nice house in Downtown Seattle and following him around the city. In other words, boring stuff. Boring but safe.
(The following is what you know:
* On weekdays Hamada-san leaves at 7am to go to work at the main Shiawase headquarters in Seattle. He gets back home at 7pm. He is driven in a chauffeured car with 2 bodyguards.
* On Saturday he left home at 2pm and didn’t get home until 1am. His wife (interestingly enough a non-Japanese elf.) went with him. You weren’t able to track him but you suspect it was a party or some form of corporate function.
* Today is Sunday. Once again Hamada-san left at 2pm but this time his wife didn’t go with him. He drove to Shiawase Seattle headquarters and hasn’t emerged since.
* His wife has been at home all day.
* The Hamadas have three kids, aged 7 (a human girl), 5 (an elven boy) and 2 (a human boy). They receive tutorship at home and don’t go out much. They played outside on Sunday but went inside after it started raining (about 3pm).
* The eldest appears to have some sort of psychological problem – possibly autism or some other behavioural related condition. She has exhibited severe and sudden mood swings that are difficult to otherwise explain.
* The house is a three storeyed affair, quite old, built in the 1980s. It has a perimeter fence, alarmed but not razor-wired or electrified with a single gate at the driveway. There are no guards within the grounds. Instead it relies on the Knight Errant and Lone Star patrols that are regular in this area.
* The Hamadas do have a pet dog. It’s a German Shepard so it’s quite noisy. It appears to mainly be a house pet though)
* Tatashiro Hamada is a rather fussy man in his late 30s. For a Japanese man he is very liberal it would appear, speaking fluent English and very good Sperethiel and Salish.
* He is armed. He frequently practices range shooting using a light pistol.
* He has two bodyguards, both human. One you’ve picked as Awakened, probably a mage of some sort. The other is mundane but appears to be packing some decent ‘ware. This evening the bodyguards are in the house, a variation on the usual routine.
* The house has a main two-door front door, a side door on either wing and a back door. The bottom floor windows are quite large, making them nearly as good as doors.
OOC – if you want any more info on what you think you’d also know, ask me in the OOC thread and I’ll expand this bit via edit.)

That’s how things are. Now it’s a wet, cold, Sunday evening. It’s been raining steadily for hours and not much is moving in the Hamada house.
Until about 3 minutes ago. 2 black Westwinds pulled up in front of the house. The 6 men who were in them walked up to the gate and were let in. Someone was obviously expecting them in the house so they were let in. The gate was left open. That seemed unusual. What was really unusual was about 30 seconds ago when you heard gunfire from the house. Not just a pistol shot, but full auto gunfire.

You remember your Johnson’s instructions. This sounds like trouble to your experienced ears.

What do you do?

[Dashifen]

Drek, drek, drek, drek, drek, drek, and FRAG thinks Angelus as he sees the vehicles enter the compound and the gate left open, This job was supposed to be easy.

OOC: Assuming this happens before our intrepid acrobat jumps the fence

Pausing a moment to gather himself, he turns to the others and says, "Looks like we're maybe on call, chummers. I'll go invisible and try to get up close to those vehicles. If no one is around and it seems like we need to, I'll try to disable them. At the very least, I can puncture a tire or eight." Pulling an arrow from the quiver on his right shoulder, he tests the point against his thumb and nods to himself.

Then, he closes his eyes, concentrates a moment, and fades from view. "What are you all planning on?" says his disembodied voice.

Waiting and listening carefully to their answers, Angelus is also mentally preparing himself for what maybe about to happen. He looks around at his team and wonders if they'll all be getting out of this one alive. As he moves out of the house across from the compound and begins to hear automatic gunfire, he moves into the shadows -- protected by the cover of darkness, the rain, and his spell. With another silent curse, he begins to run, moving for the vehicles.

[HMHVV Hunter]

Now THIS is my specialty area! thinks Gray Fox as his cyberears pick up the sound of gunfire.

Without even waiting for his teammates, Fox rushes the fence, a look of excitement almost to the point of glee on his face. At about 5 feet from the fence, Fox launches himself upwards in a gymnastics jump/flip and clears the fence, landing on the other side. As Fox's feet hit the ground, causing rain droplets to spray and a small "splash" sound, he plants his hands to the ground to soften his landing.

Not wasting a single motion, Fox springs up from his crouch, pulling his Ares Predator from his holster and breaking into a dash towards the house with a grin of excitement on his face.

I don't know why they wanted this guy watched, but I'm pretty sure him getting shot at by these slags wasn't part of the bargain. Corporate scum or not, I've gotta protect him...if only to shoot him myself afterwards...

[Blitz]

At the first perceivable sound of gunfire, a darkness seems to pass over Moira's face like that of a cloud over the moon. The momentary shadow fades to be replaced with a gentle smirk on her full lips as she sees the excitement on Fox's face. Her face is now touched with moonlight as a ghostly breeze blows her raven hair away from her pale cheeks. Extending her hand out the door after Grey Fox a subtle aura of blue streaks out of the small crescent shaped ring around her middle finger to the darting figure encasing him in a luminescent blue shield.

"Grey Fox, your armor is up. Take the front entrance so that the others can cloak themselves in stealth. I will conjure a city spirit to protect your extraction once you have secured any survivors."

She pauses a moment before adding...

"Save the children first."

Opening the door to the sedan, she steps out into the night and turns to face the rain clouds as they pour down upon her. Moira extends her arms upwards as she murmurs words from an ancient celtic language. For a brief moment, though the rain does not abate, the moon shines through a tiny break in the clouds to bath her disciple in moonlight. Within the shaft of divine light a misty form takes shape and as it settles to land, and the moon is once again obscured by the rain.

She speaks in a soft gentle voice and the form coalesces into a small humanoid form with impossibly large dark eyes. It smiles in answer and scampers off to the bushes inside the property of their surveillance subject.

[Cursedsoul]

"Hmm...this could prove an interesting turn of events." Spectral Phoenix thinks to himself as he stares intently through the lenses of his binoculars, a wry half-smile half-frown creeping across his scarred and broken face.

He breathes a deep sigh and mulls over "I do hope everyone else fairs well. I doubt this'll be much of a problem, but then again things tends to get worse and in an accelerated fashion ones the slugs start flying" as he begins to pack up his electronic surveillance gear after giving them one last round of testing.

Stuffing them expertly into his backpack he slings it over his shoulders before replacing his armored long coat.

"Gonna be a fun one if nothing else" he muses, chuckling quietly as he slips out the back entrance of the structure and onto the fire-escape as he straps his medkits on tighter.

"Fraggin' hell! I hope this coat's weather resistant or I'll be rather miffed at having to replace my gear.." he mutters as he grips the sides of a nearby ladder, flicking the lever to release it, and sliding down the sides to the alleyway below.

Taking one last deep breath, making sure his pistol's silencer is secured and the holster in place, loosening his hidden Kusarigama and Manriki-Gusari, and strapping his shock gloves on tighter, he speeds off deftly and quietly into the blackness.

As he runs Phoenix is suddenly struck by a poem he once heard. He focusses momentarily on this and soon he finds himself singing it in his head:
"Rights made wrong and wrongs made right
In dark abyss where the shadows fight
Crimson blood dancing in the street
A bounty of death the devils reap"

[Herald of Verjig...]

Lycon bolts out of the shelter of the emptying house. Glancing at the sky he thinks "good weather for some action." As he dons his invisibility, his footsteps get lost amongst the splashes of the falling rain.

Seeing no better entrance, and feeling a need for a swift resolution, Lycon chases Gray Fox to the house.

Pausing a half step, Lycon looks again at the sky, and asks the stormclouds to help. He turns before they answer and dashes through the gate towards the door.

[Ronin Soul]

(This bit applies to those that are entering the house. You know who you are!)

It's kind of a relief to get into the house. For one it's dry and warm in here and secondly you've finally got a concrete goal to aim for: Save the Hamadas
Funny how things can turn around in the space of about a minute.

The "lobby" of the house is very nice. A wide room with very fancy carpets and pleasant old furniture. It looks like something out of those old British drama-chips from last century. However this place isn't without modern luxuries, as the air conditioner cycling comfortably warm air through the room atests.

It's obvious these intruders aren't really concerned about how they treat the joint. A drinks cabinet and a paining have been shattered to pieces by gunfire and water (and other liquids) is splashed on the carpet.

The stairwell goes up direct from this room and 5 doorways go off from this room on the first floor. 3 of them are open.

Lying slumped on the first step of the stairwell is a dead man. No, hold on, he's alive. You can hear him groaning faintly. It looks like one of Tatashiro Hamada's bodyguards; the adept you think.

[HMHVV Hunter]

Looks like they're going after the family Fox thinks to himself upon seeing three of the doors open upstairs. They probably took out the guard on the way up, and if the doors are already open...oh drek. I don't give a crap about the corp man, but his kids don't deserve the same fate!

Without hesitation and with no regard for stealth, Fox launches himself up the stairs, two at a time, looking like a wolf bounding for it's prey.

You wanna shoot some kids up, motherfraggers?! Huh?! You fragging bullies get your kicks pumping people half your age full of lead?!!!!!! YOU'LL HAVE TO RIDDLE ME FIRST ASSHOLES!!!

All at once, Fox feels all his control slip away.

Seconds later, any pretense of stealth is gone as Fox lets all his anger out in one big war cry that slashes through the re-circulated evening air.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!"

[Herald of Verjig...]

As Gray bounds up the stairs, Lycon approaches the wounded man.
"We may not be allies, but our goals are similar now, and you may still be able to aid those under your guard."
With that, he places a furry hand on the wounded adept and focuses his power to heal the stranger.

[Ronin Soul]

Lycon: As the healing power of the sky father flows through the injured man, you see his wounds close with almost surreal speed, fading into dark, ugly bruises. He coughs, spitting out blood. You feel a very slight, dull ache descend upon your bones (OOC: Light stun from drain)
His eyes flutter for a moment. He coughs again.
"Tyria," He murmurs, his voice barely more than a whisper, "They're after Tyria."

Above you, on the next floor you hear a the sound of wood shattering, followed by a brief shot of suprise and an even shorter burst of gunfire. And yet following that, you hear the scream of a girl-child, high-pitched and drawn out; "Mummy!" (OOC: Or Mommy for you American types)

Fox: That veil of red mist that descend upon your vision when you get angry is back again.
At the head of the stairs there is a pair of double-doors. They look really ornate and look to be made of real, genuine hard-wood.
You smash through them, tearing one off almost entirely from the hinge.
The room ahead is small, with a fireplace, a cofee table, a couch and a trid player, an odd mix of modern and archaic. There is a hallway leading off from this room and as well as a door to your right.
One of those men is right near that door, one arm around a squirming young girl in PJs. He's carrying an SMG of some sort (you think it's an SCK Model 100) and is wearing a long black coat and night vision goggles. He shouts in suprise as you burst into the room. As he opens the door he fires off a quick burst of fire in your direction. It goes wide but you duck a little by reflex, giving him time to open the door and leap into the hallway behind it.
You fire off a quick shot at him but it slams into the door panelling.
As the man in black slams the door shut, still dragging the struggling girl with him, you hear the girl shout out desperately;
"Mummy!"

[HMHVV Hunter]

Without even thinking, Fox rushes for the door that the MiB just slammed shut behind him, shoulder-charging it into splinters and bringing up his Predator as he enters the room.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Having aided the guard as well as he can, Lycon charges up the stairs.

Gray is great at killing, but the six who entered may be too much for him alone. Besides, Tyria might not realize he isn't there to kill her as well.

[Cursedsoul]

As he sprints across the lawn Phoenix's mind deviates from the poem he's been happily singing inside his head to what to do about the six men.

"Damn, what do I do? My guess is the team went upstairs...leaving them pretty evenly matched. However they don't know about the three people down here...and they could pose a problem."

After a moment's thought, he steels himself for the task of taking on three heavily armed and possibly armored individuals by himself.

He adjuts his micro-transceiver's frequency to that of the team's and radios quietly that he is taking the first floor, and alerts them to the presence of the second team. [OOC: If no one has a radio ignore this]

"Hell, three on one. I like those odds. Every man's gotta die sometime..." crossing his lips as he wields his bullwhip in his left hand, and "Pacifier" in his right.

Taking a moment to shake off his hat, he replaces it so that the brim's shadow looms over his face in a most menacing fashion. Having done this, he slinks off around the first floor as quietly as possible in search of the goons.

[Ronin Soul]

Fox: You charge into a short corridor. Down it a little further is a cabinet of some sort and to the far end is three doors, one directly at the end and the others to the left and right.
"Take another step and the kid's head decorates the wall."
The same man rises from behind the cabinet. His SMG is pointed at you but he has a pistol in the other hand jammed into the side of the little girl's face. He also presents the girl as the most likely target, having her right in front of him.
The girl is sobbing quietly. She's the eldest, the seven year old.

For some reason, the man looks familiar, almost like... like someone you've worked with before... a long time ago...

The man begins to back off towards the end door, his SMG still pointed at you and the pistol still jammed into the side of the girl's face...

Lycon: You bound up the stairs, reaching a double door. One of the doors has quite literally been torn off at the hinge.
Behind it is a small, well humans call them "living rooms", with a comfortable fire burning cheerfully in the old fire place in the room. There is a hallway to your left and a ... doorway to your right. The door in it has been almost totally shattered.
Fox is standing in the doorway, his pistol pointed at a man backing of slowly down the hallway behind the shattered door. The man in black is carrying a squirming crying girl, a pistol jammed into the side of her face and an "SMG" pointed at Fox.

Phoenix: It looks like Lycon and Fox have gone upstairs, leaving you with the downstairs. At the head of the steps is a man, breathing slowly but steadily.

You take the closest open door to you.
You're a lucky type tonight.
You're not sure why you chose that door. Probably the buzzing sound of an over-heating cyberterminal. Whatever the case you found more than guards.
This part of the house appears to be a work area. A basic office meets you, with a bathroom and another room leading off from it. The door to the other room is slightly ajar. You push it open and look inside.

It is a cyberterminal room you would guess. A large (and powerful) cyberterminal takes up a large part of the room. The cyberterm is still on, but it is making a large number of unhealthy sounds and is even sparking. You think the sparking is coming from what looks like a bullet hole. But you're not paying a great deal of attention to it.
What does catch your attention is the body lying sprawled in front of you, still plugged in and shot cleanly through the back of the head. It is the body of a caucasian elven female...

It's the body of Tatashiro Hammada's wife.

Then it dawns on you. In order to leave this room, her killer would have had to pass through the main room that you were just in...
So where in the drek was he?

[Cursedsoul]

[once again, if no one has a radio, ignore this part]

"DREK DREK DREK DREK DREK!!!!" is the only thought that crosses Pheonix's mind as he takes in the gruesome scene.

Suddenly, it hits him that her killer would have to have walked right by him. A flash of cold blood rushes all over his body, icing him thoroughly. The feeling lasts only a second as he whips around and quickly shuts the door.

Spinning deftly back around he gingerly unplugs Hammada's wife from the terminal. Cracking his knuckles, he feverishly assaults the machine with all his knowledge of electronics, trying to coax the hulking, sparking, metallic monstrosity into life again.

"Where the hell are they!?" he spits out as he attempts to locate the intruders with any cameras that may be hooked into the system.

After this is completed, he quickly inspects the wife's body to ascertain whether or not this was really a gunshot inflicted death, or caused by some other means. He also tries to ascertain the time of death to figure out approximately how far away the culprits are.

After he finishes this unpleasant task, he radios the team and informs them of his findings.

All the while he keeps one eye fixated and one ear cocked to the entrance doorway. Watching, waiting, for any signs of movement in the handle or footsteps on the other side. Assuring himself that he's safe for the moment, he slinks away quietly, tightening his grip on his weapons and listening as intently as possible as the intruder could be anywhere, and he doesn't plan on going down because he was asleep at the wheel.

[HMHVV Hunter]

Keeping the gun steady where it is, and not moving an inch, Fox readies his aim on the fragger's head...

(Rolling initiative here)

[Ronin Soul]

Phoenix: A flashing message on the cyberterminal's display doesn't bode too well; "Memory loss; 58%". That number is dropping at the rate of about 1% a second. It's not hard for you to jury-rig the machine back into as close to full functioning order in a few seconds (the gunshot passed through something before it hit the cyberterm; you really don't want to think on that too much). However the memory loss doesn't appear to be caused by this; rather it is internal; as if something within the system or the Matrix was deleting the memory intentionally.

Crap, crap, crap.

It's hard to tell the cause of the woman's death. Her head is a mess and the gunshot broke her neck as well. It must have been point-blank.
That said, you're not sure that the gunshot was what killed her. It's hard to see, but her eyes have that really disjointed, fogged-up look of someone who has just experienced major-level dumpshock from playing tag with another decker or a particularly irritable piece of IC.

THe only sounds you can hear is the rain. It's coming down heavier now.
It's just too fragging quiet otherwise though...

Fox: This MiB is watching you closely. His SMG is pointed directly at you and each step back he makes is calm and deliberate.
"Try it Fox." THe man says to you, his mouth twisting into a smile,
"Think you can out-draw me this time?"
If you weren't concentrating on other things, you would have sworn that that voice was very familiar.

(OOC: I'll wait for everyone else; Blitz, Dashifen et al to write up some posts before I continue on too much. I don't want things to get too disjointed this quickly)

[Cursedsoul]

Phoenix stalks his prey quickly and quietly. Each step measured, his weight balanced perfectly on each foot. His breathing becomes subdued as he narrows his eyes. Peering into each corner, listening for the slightest hint of movement. He knows they're out there, and is sure that they know he is as well. His only hope is that he finds them first.

"Come out come out where ever you are. You can't hide forever so it's been said, just show me your face and I'll gladly put a bullet through your head" he whispers as if expecting an answer from somewhere behind him.

"Fragging hell...I just hope the rest of the team's okay..." runs through his mind as his eyes continue searching desperately for a flicker, a shimmer, anything he can get a bead on.

[Dark Scrier]

Eddie starts the mental ignition on his Westwind 2000 Turbo, and cruises over to the other two cars, noting the number plate of the rearmost Westwind. He runs his mind across some simple commands commands, switching the shade of his photoelectric paint to match the other Westwinds as closely as possible, while changing his licence plate to match the licence plate of the other car. As he does this, he runs a short script which he wrote himself to launch the Roto-drone from the drone bay. It isn't much, but hey, it's a little more efficient than the one which came with the bay. Managed to remove two whole portions of code!

He disconnects from his car, and opens the door, sliding out into the night, as the door lock clicks into place behind him, and dashes across the short distance to the door of the Westwind he has tried to mimic. He examines the lock, and considers the difficulty to crack it, and move the Westwind.

[Blitz]

Moira waits on the opposite sided of their surveillance vehicles, watching the house and seemingly oblivious of the rain as it mats her coal black hair to her pale skin. Her cream colored Zoé Futura business suit weighs heavy on her, but thankfully, the jacket prevents her now translucent blouse from revealing too much.

Watching Eddie with a curious eye, she finally realizes what he's doing and has to laugh lightly.

Now that's clever....

[Herald of Verjig...]

Lycon sees the standoff and ducks around a corner, hoping that the child's captor hasn't noticed him.
A moment passes before he realizes what to do. Quietly he wispers to the house.
"Spirit that has guarded this home, aid those who have been in your care, and do not let their enemies find the exit."

[Dashifen]

Arriving at the vehicles, Angelus performs a cursory examination while seeing some of the others run across the grounds and towards the house. Looking for any obvious signs of an anti-theft system -- blinking, red LEDs on the dash, for instance -- and seeing none, he decides that it might be a little too risky to assume that there's nothing rigged on the cars.

But ... everyone did leave them. Pulling out four normal arrows and unscrewing their arrowheads, Angelus replaces them with hammerheads. Placing these four arrows back into his quiver, he arranges the four arrowheads underneath two tires on both cars (driver side front and passenger rear tires on both). Hoping that this might be enough to blow a tire or four if the bad guys make it back to their vehicles, he thinks to himself: Grenades would have worked better ... 'course might have hurt any captives with those.

Seeing Eddie pull up in his vehicle, Angelus leans down and grabs two of the arrowheads. "You see any anti-theft gizmos on these guys?" he asks Eddie as he comes jogging over. "Nice trick with the car, too. Good idea. I was just going to break them."

Knocking an arrow (normal arrowhead) to his string, he begins to watch the house as he waits for Eddie's reply.

[Ronin Soul]

Phoenix: It's drekking quiet down here... Only the rain and the buzzing of the dataterminal to keep you company. Oh, and the sound from upstairs. Sounds like they're having fun up there.
You try each door, seeing a variety of rooms. The funny thing is, as you look at all the stuff on the bottom storey, it rapidly dawns on you that all this stuff and even the house come to think of it is waaaay to expensive for a mid level Shiawase exec.

You come to the last door on the bottom storey, which you guess leads out to the side door. You walk up to it to see if you can hear anything through it. As you approach it it suddenly slams out at, smashing you in the face and sending you to the ground. You look up groggily to see two men in dark, almost-cape like coats rushing down the short hallway towards another door at the end of it, one your presume leads outside...
(OOC: Resist 8 L Stun damage from the door smashing you in the face)


Eddie: First of all these cars have no liscence plates... How in the frag did they manage to get into an AA security rating area without number plates?
That thought stops you cold. There's been more than a little gunfire in the house and an alarm had to have gone off.
Where the hell is Lone Star?
The Roto Drone spirals up into the sky, ready to provide support in case these intruders try to get their cars back.

The lock is a standard lock, but closer examination indicates that it's wired to something, probably an alarm or other anti-theft system. The windows are darker than your average glass window, and the rain slides down them with greater ease than normal glass.
Bullet-resistant glass

Angelus: (OOC: Pretty much all of what I told Dark Scrier. I think I'll rely more on interaction between you two for just a moment. Don't worry, the action is coming your way soon :D )

Moira: It's really hard to see with all the rain shrouding the night, making it even darker than it should be and dampening the effects of the lights of the house. You *think* you see one of the side doors open but you can't be that sure.
(OOC: Sorry, that wasn't that much, was it? :) )

Lycon: You feel the spirit manifesting from the very fibre of the house. It acknowledges your orders with a nod that you feel rather than see and then you feel it's prescence fade away again...
Wait, that wasn't meant to happen!
Something or someone banished it! And really quickly too!
(OOC: That sounded cheesy I know. Just trust me, without giving too much away, these guys have certain "contingencies" in plan shall we say? :D )

Lycon & Fox: The man looks at you both with the alien eyes of his night vision visor. He grins suddenly.
"Sorry Fox old mate. I've got to go." He leaps back suddenly, with the reflexes only a street sam or adept could possess. He carries the girl effortlessly with him. He fires his SMG as he leaps back, spraying suppressive fire down the hall, peppering the walls with bullet holes and forcing you both to duck for cover. A stray bullet still hits Fox in the shoulder. He comes up effortlessly from his leap and smashes through the door at the end of the hall. However he doesn't really get a chance to close it properly before you've got your wits back to you.
(OOC: Fox, resist 8M damage, reducing it by armour first (I can't access your gear section so I don't know your armour ratings - oh, and take that as an indication he beat you on intiative :D ).

[HMHVV Hunter]

Fox shakes off the bullet wound and charges after the bastard with a roar of anger.

"GET BACK HERE YOU SON OF A BITCH!!" He shouts after him as he charges the MiB through the door.

[Blitz]

:: Moira wipes the water from her face and squints through the curtian of rain. Crouching slightly more against the car, she whispers into her comm unit. ::

"Uh..I think I see movement, side door. You guys might want to move away from the vehicles. Hopefully my spirit will begin confusing them...but don't rely on that."