Mickey takes the deck, giving it a thorough inspection. "Drek! Renraku trashed the softwear before this thing was liberated!" He unplugged the connection and went for his spray cans. On the bottom of the deck he carefully applied the anti-renraku symbol on it, marking his property! "Chips will have to wait until Teng is dealt with. Time to pay a visit to Tony." He was referring to a guy he squatted with before joining the edgers. Everyone wrote him off as a piece of crap, but he had eyes and ears just like the rest, He went out and bought a few sandwiches and a sport bottle of NERPS sports drink. Then he headed over to the park Tony hung out in during the day.

Hello, Tony," he said in a less distant sounding voice than usual. He approached with the bag of sandwiches and held out the bottle of NERPS. "How goes the life of the free?" He plunked down next to Tony on the bench, ignoring the smell and offered him a sandwich. He made a little small talk, then got down to business. "Tony, I know you see everything around here. This is your domain! I was wondering uif you've seen a chromed up fragger who goes by the name of Teng pimping out whores in the erea. He's pretty easy to notice. Big limo, flamboyant clothes and so called "Iron fist." I'm looking for him...business." He unwrapped a sandwich for himself and started to munch it down...the archtypical "sharing of a meal," that prominently and shamelessly displayed his aquaintance. When one was a bum, the little things that showed acceptance were important. He could have just asked the girls where Teng hung around, but he wanted more...they might be holding out information on him to test him...or they could be Renraku plants, setting him up! Well, if so, he'd have a little .45 caliber surprise for them all! "Anything you could tell me about him would be helpfull, especially his chrome...what's real and what's for show."

Tony sits and munches on his sandwich for a while, trying to remember everything he could about Teng. "I dunno, man. I mean, I've seen him roll up to some of his girls in a pretty nice car, and either collect his money, collect his girls, or smack the drek outta somebody, but I've never talked to 'im. Really, I hacn't seen much of him at all. This ain't his neighbourhood, and he only spends the time he strictly has to here, so there's not alot of info, you know?"

After a little bit more munching on his sandwich, Tony leans in. "Hey, man, could I ask a favor? I got a buddy of mine, Seahawk. All of his friends have been dissapearing in the last couple of days. He thinks he might be next. I was hopin' maybe you could look into it, or maybe give him someplace else to sleep, where he'll be less afraid, you know?"

Kake begins his trek with Blitz and Painkiller, heading right first to start on the businesses around the newly-acquired turf. He enters the first business he sees on the right-hand side of the street.

Mickey listens as Tony asks his favour. Seahawk...must be a football fan. " Some Raiders are blitzing his friends, hmmm? Well, tell me a bit more about Seahawk and his missing friends. I've a lot on my plate right now, but pass me your information about him and his friends' downward spiral, after I recieve the information we'll see if I can convert his problem into an advantage." He grins a little, tight lipped grin at his own puns...he just couldn't resist!

See's grocery is a small store with not as much lighting as it should have and a fine layer of dust covering the merchandise, most of which is several monthes old. There is an old man thumbing through the magazines on the rack, and a bored looking asian man sitting behind the counter, writing something down on his clip-board.

Blitz takes the lead on entering into the grocery. He pushes open the door, and walks on in. He's maskless right now, no bloodshed anticipated. Maybe a bit of roughing up to do, but no bloodshed. He immediatly heads around towards the back, actually looking like he cares to buy something.

Painkiller goes in right after Blitz, but stays in the shop's front, vigilant. One of those tabloid screamsheets momentarily distracts him.

Jetblack? Alive? Frag, I should really visit Rosswell one of these days. Oh well...

He scans through the magazines, while checking for any sign of trouble.

Ghost enters the kitchen and checks with the older elf and the girl. "How's she doing mother?"

He nods at her response, "ok I want to keep her away from the guys, I don't want anyone thinking she's the gang whore or anything. She can stay in my room, I wont be using it much."

Ghost heads out back and stand near the pyre. What once burned bright and beautiful was now reduced to a pile of dark, cold ashes. He kneeled down and plunged his hand into the charcoal, grasping a handful of it he let it fall out into the wind.

"Like so many ashes omae, like so many ashes."

Ok, time to get it in gear and make my presence known.

Kake entered last. He headed straight for the counter and pulled out his credstick.

"I need some smokes, chummer. Watcha got?"

"We got Llama Lights, Nails, Krag Extra Harsh, Harley Exhaust Pipe, and Hellbender Sludgepit Filterless."

Nick wakes up a bit later than he intended, and rubs some sleep out of his eyes. Then he lets out a loud groan and rolls out of bed. His muscles were still sore from the fight. He stands up and staggers into the bathroom, turning on the hot water, and taking a quick shower.

Nick gets out of the shower, now fully awake, and quickly dresses, deciding to wear his leather pants, and a t-shirt with safety pins in it, and then puts his Ares Predator in a hip holster on, and puts his armored jacket over it, then finally pulls on his boots, and hops quickly up the steps.

He walks into the kitchen, helps himself to some food out of the fridge, not really looking to see who its labeled for, then asks,

"Oi, where's Mickey? We got some stuff to do today."

Mickey finishes up with Tony, then heads back to the doss. He opened the door quietly, so he wouldn't wake anyone, then saw Nick was up and that silence was pointless and he let the door close hard. "Hello, Nick. Let me go wash up a little, then we can take care of biz. We need to talk to the ladies about Teng."

"Pfah. Dem ain't real smokes... Fine, mebbe we should just move on to bus-ee-ness, neh?"

Kake snaps his fingers, signaling Blitz and Painkiller.

"We gots a prop-o-sishion for yas."

Blitz turns, and looks to the counter, keeping both men in his field of vision, he just leans right on the shelf in front of him, regarding the pair with narrowed eyes. The display actually tilts towards them, a little sign of what might be to come.

"Excellent", Nick says, finishing what he was eating, then discarding the container.
"We'll take my bike.", he adds in, going downstairs to get his helmet, then going back up to wait in the garage.

The cashier blinks for a second or two, stunned. "Look, I don't want no trouble, mister. Maybe we can just come to some kinda terms. Free merchandise and whatnot. I don't wanna be a hero and die or nothin', but I gotta feed my family outta what's in this register."

"We gots no problem wit' dat. We just want ta let ya know who da new boss 'round 'ere is. 'Is name's Ghost, and 'e's the new front Troll of us Bleeding Edgers."

He points to the cloth around his arm.

"Ya see? Be good ta us, and we be good ta yas and yer family, so ka?"

He nods once to make sure he understands.

"Now, which side ya take? Da old Loser's side dat's no longer wit' us, or da Edgers?"

Once Mickey arrives in the garage, Nick gets on his bike, and waits for Mickey to get in the bitch seat. Once properly seated, he instructs "Hold on", then drives off to meet the hookers at full speed, popping a wheelie through a major intersection for showman's sake.

Mickey is quiet while on the bike. He hates not being the one in control of it...depending entirely on Nicks prowess and the other drivers on the road. He cringes when Nick pops a wheelie...he'd get him for that! He just holds on tight until they get there, hopping off real quick once they arrive.

"Remind me to learn to ride one of these things!"

"Yeah. Theres four bikes in the garage. I could let you use that Scorpion I stole.", Nick says, setting up the kickstand, and hanging his helmet from the handlebar. Then he turns and enters the abandoned diner.

"Tell us all you can about Teng.", Nick asks the nearest one.

He steps into the diner and shakes his head. "I believe what Nick meant to say was, "Hello ladies, how are you?" Then he would ask about Teng." He smiles and tries to soothe over Nick's rough edges, wondering if the guy had ever learned a polite idea ever. He moves over against a wall, leaning on it. "He means well...after all he's very protective. Teng offends him, you see, and he wants to know just what we'll be dealing with."

The cashier stands silent for a minute, obviously figuring in his head what will and won't get him geeked. "I'm for whoever's the biggest bunch of guys on campus, and I'm perfectly willing to be nice to those that are nice to me, but if you guys want money, well, you're not likely to get it. I havn't even bought new clothes for my daughter in four years. I would pay tribute, but there's nothing to pay with. Feel free to have some free smokes and soda, and maybe duck in here hiding from the cops, but there just isn't any to give."

"So ka, chummer, so ka. We take care of yous, yous take care of us. Free drek is good, just as long as you do what Ghost tells ya, arright?"

Kake turns around and looks at Blitz and Painkiller.

"You guys ready for da next one?"

The diner's mostly empty this time of day, but there are three or four girls around. They look up from their breakfasts (someone's got the kitchem going) for only a second, and they look back down. Yellow stands up, puts a smoke in her mouth, pulls out a lighter, lights it, and looks at Nick and Mickey.

"Not much to tell. He's a pimp. Seen him beat some of his girls, but he's only about as mean as the rest of them. He's got a thing for expensive clothes and chrome, though. He figures he's one of the original gangters, but he's just imitating. That's really all I know."

"By the way, I heard about Jones. Good job on that, I know her girls will appreciate it, but did you have to cack her friend? He's never been nothing but nice to anybody. He was a pretty good customer, too. They didn't peel him up off the concrete for six hours, and he was just barely breathing then. I don't even think he made it to the hospital."

Blitz grunts when he hears the guy's story, and nods. Looking to Kake and Painkiller, he waves for the door.

`You guys go 'head, I'll be right out.`

When they do head out, he'll head around the counter, and walk over to the counter. May seem like he plans on leaning on the guy, or maybe he needs to go to the can, but he opens up his jacket and fishes out a wad of plasti-weave bills, not even bothering to count 'em. His last 50 .

`Saves it for her birthday if you like, but get her something nice,`

He doesn't like when kids have to do without because the world's a drekpile. 'specially not young girls. He places the bills on the counter, and just walks out, not waiting for the guy to say anything. When he does emerge from the store, he looks to the guys, and grins a toothy grin.

`How 'bout we hit Skag's next? I ain't been there in a while.`

Mickey's not about to let one of his girls give him a hard time over a command decision, but he'll undermine the operation if he resorts to Teng's abuse. He didn't want to spend all day explaining his decisions in the future either!

"This once I'll explain, but do not question my command decisions after this, understood? You don't know me so I will give you a little slack this once. I'll not explain myself regarding my decisions again." His voice is smooth and monotone, all biz. "I have no sympathy at all for any who support my enemies. Trust me, he may have been nice at times, but he supported Jones. In the field I cannot take the risk of someone having a piece and deciding to use it on me to defend an enemy. He became a danger and a target by associating with drek like Jones." He pauses for a moment, then deepens his voice a little. "I and my boys will protect you with the same aggressiveness and efficiency. You'll never be safer."

He gave the girls a minute or two to digest that, then got down to business. "I spoke to a friend about Teng and got a suggestion as to what questions to ask. I want to know about his chrome. What does he have? Does he move faster than a normal man should? Is he a lot stronger than he looks? Or is it all for show? Also, does he carry weapons and if so, what?"

"Well, he's not alot quicker than most, and he hasn't broken any of the girls' jaws or nothin'. He's really mostly a playboy, and it seems like it's all for show. I'm pretty sure his eyes are real, it'd be kinda hard to fake that, but that's about it, I figure. As for weapons, he doesn't carry much on his own. He's got a couple a meat-heads to do that for him. They mostly carry shotguns and stuff."

Yellow lights another smoke. "An' there's no need to get defensive."

Badger a little red-eyed from lack of sleep comes to the door. When he's let in, he goes straight to Ghost. He drops a small duffle bag at his feet and looks up at him.

"Alright, omae. I burned my candle at both ends and I turned that cyber into cold hard cash for you. I didn't expect you wanted any of it yourself, so I got rid of as much as I could."

"For some reason, the eyes and the arm didn't sell, but you made a killing on the spurs. All said and done, you got 19,400 . I didn't even take any off for that, I just made my money off of the surgery. I hope you likes it."

He looks at his shoes for a minute, obviously wondering whether or not he should say what he's about to say. "Listen. Umm... there's this bunch that have been giving me a hard time just in the past two days here. They say they want me to shut down, and they'll kill me if I don't. They just pop up outta nowhere and dissapear again. They smell like rotting meat, and they've already tried to set fire to my place twice. And that's just in the last 48 hours. You guys maybe wanna look into it?"

He looks at his shoes again. "They said if I came to you guys for help, they'd kill me. Maybe I could crash here for a bit, too?"

From behind Mickey and Nick, there's a noise. Startled, turning around, they see the most rediculous sight they've ever seen. Dressed in purple fur, with a fedora and a cane, jeweled to the nines, and with a great deal of very well-polished chrome, stands Teng. He's fully seven feet tall, and smiles with a gold-plated tusk. Behind him, stand two orks dressed in conservative turtle-necks and holding shotguns. They don't look pleased to see you here.

"I hear you've been poking around, askin' 'bout me." He speaks with a heavy orkish accent. "I'd like ta' know why."

Ghost takes the bag full of money, a smile creeps across his face. "Sure thing Badger, you stay here, and if anyone come looking for you will take care of you."

Mickey looks over at Nick, eyes narrowed...saying gotime with his eys. He bolts for the cover of the counter, leaping over and drawing his pistol. He faces the foes, peeking over the counter and pointing his gun at Teng. His smartlink's crosshairs sight onto him, the clashing colours and styles making it too easy. He squeezes the trigger twice, his training and rage taking over. Diediedie...Renraku bastards! It was what he was thinking, but it came out "RAAAAAAAAAHHH..!"

Nick says to the Hooker.

"I asked Ming to call the Ambulance. I don't know why he did... I'm sorry about your friend."

When Teng shows up, Nick thinks

"Fuck. We're fucked. Maybe I can be diplomatic..."

He opens his mouth, but is cut short by Mickey's leap.

"Doublefuck.", Nick thinks, then follows suit, and dives behind the counter as well, drawing his pistol, screaming

"Mickey, you fucking fuck!!", as he places the crosshairs of his smartlink on the left Ork, squeezing two shots off center mass.

The first ork goes down with a quick sputter, dropping to his knees and glancing at his chest, which is leaking a strange red substance. THe second ork doesn't even seem to notice the bullets that hit him. He simply returns fire. As shot after shot blows holes in the wall behind Mickey and Nick, Teng makes his way out. He just barely outruns bullets at his heels. One gets him in the calf and he yelps as he runs round the corner. The last orc finally realizes that he's all alone and turns to run.

He just gets to turning when a shot rings out. He drops to his knees, a wide gory hole in the back of his head. All eyes turn to yellow, as she's pulled a streetsweeper and unloaded it at the back of the troll.

Setting her gun down on the counter, she lights up another smoke.

"You boys can come out now."

Teng get away? Hell no! Mickey vaults over the counter and gives chase, pistol in hand. No way he could hide in that outfit! Out the door he goes, pivoting in the direction Teng went and quickley scanning for him.

"TENG, YOU CHROMED ROADKILL! COME INTO MY TURF AND TRY TO TAKE ME DOWN? YOU BETTER RUN 'CAUSE I'M COMIN'!"

He's running all the while he shouts, drawing loys of attention and caring not at all! Once in range (assuming he spots him) he unloads in mid run.

Nick follows Mickey, pausing only to thank Yellow, also looking for Teng, using full advantage of his Vision Magnificationm, and seeing if theres a blood trail from his calf wound. Nick feels the impulses of combat that come with his adrenaline. He remembers that this is what he lives for. The chase, the fight.

"COME ON TENG, YOU SON OF A BITCH! I'M THE MAN WHO KEEPS MR. DEAD IN HIS POCKET, AND I CAN'T BE STOPPED!", Nick screams, giving chase. If he spots Teng, he blasts him.

Teng is not that far at all. It seems that the bullet in his leg is impeding his run. He struggles with his wayward limb and pleads with it. He looks up at the sound of shouting, and gets a *very* worried look on his face. He pleads with his limb for exactly one more second before the bullet hits him. He drops to the ground, on his back, and tries to pull a gun, but finds his arm won't obey with a bullet in it.

So, it is in that sorry state, wishing he had real chrome, that he meets his end, the tears of someone afraid to die on his cheeks.

Nick looks at Teng's body, panting from loss of breath, and the bloodlust fading from his eyes, he sees what he and Mickey have done.

"Oh, shit.", he thinks. He sinks to the ground and lights a smoke.

"Shit, man...Shit. Pimps...I hate 'em, and all. But...chasing down an unarmed fragger and cacking him in the dust? The other orks, they had shotguns, so it was defense, but....shit..And the Losers, well, they deserved that. But...I mean, I like to fight, but...no one dies with fists.", Nick says, looking more than a little disturbed.

"We gotta lay off fucking killing people, at least for a while.", he adds, finishing his cigarette, and throwing the butt in the gutter.

"Shit."

Ghost goes to the living room, looking around. When he doesn't see what he wants he heads up stairs. Still not there.

Fraggin hell.

After not finding Blitz, Ghost grabs his coat and stun baton and heads over to the Losers old place. He let's himself in and scribbles a note to Blitz.

Blitz, come to the HQ, we got Biz to take care of.

-Ghost

Satisfied with that he heads down to the bar for some food, and a drink. He walks up to the bar and orders,

"Burger fries, and a coke, soka?" He slaps a hundred on the bartop.

"Keep the change."

Mickey steps over to the dead pimp and is rifling his body as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The girls had probably allready done the same to the orks, but he'd go back and check anyway.

"You're getting soft, Nick. If we'd let him go, this little bastard could have made life very difficult and you know it. You also know we cannot "lay off killing." We have 2 more sanctions." He finishes rifling through Teng's pockets and keeps everything, then pulls out his spray cans and covers the corpse with the circle/slashed R. "Now, let's get gone before the Star decides to do their jobs for once."

He started off back toward the diner and went inside. "Teng has been rendered obsolete, Ladies." He looked at the two orks to see if there was anything that was worth grabbing left.

Kake nods to Blitz and walks toward's Skag's. Seemed like a good place to start. Hopefully.

Painkiller looks at Blitz, a question mark almost printed in his face.

"Soft again, neh?"

He's just started to walk when Painkiller addresses him. Blitz stops in mid-stride and turns to regard his fellow Edger, the look on his face far from soft.

`You got an issue friend?`

The compassion he showed in the store is something rare for him, a touchy spot. He doesn't like people questioning him about it.

"'Ey, 'ey, stoppit. Whatever 'e did, it's 'is bus-ee-ness, and not ours, so ka? Don't want ta have ta 'splain ta Ghost why yous had ta get shut up, now would we?"

"Nothing personal against you, Blitz, I just want to know if we deal with Skag's like we just did."

Painkiller's eyes lock on Blitz's.

"Now, if you ask me, I still favor sending one big message that everyone can understand. Being nice and all that can make people think we're soft after taking too many hits from the Losers. ¿Entiendes?"

Mickey shakes his head. What did Nick think they had just become? He grabbed his casings as he saw them on the way to the diner.

"Indeed, but Mickey will require a different style. That cortex bomb detonator has to be recovered first Perhaps we should draw on our resources and see who has the best sneaking ability to search and retrieve. As for Dr. Zhivago, his separation should give us more time with him...though I'm certain word of the stroll will reach his ears eventually."

When asked about the slashed R his trigger finger twitches and his face goes a little more vacant than usual...then hardens as memories rush into his brain. He's dead quiet for near a minute before he answers.

"So that They know They will never catch me again!"

The words come out so cold, yet with such contained rage and fear that it's almost a physical force.

Nick decides not to press the R point any further.

"Alright. Whatever, man.", he says, holstering his pistol and cracking his knuckles.

"Hey, did you ever see that old flatvid movie, it was called Boondock Saints...it was about these two guys who went around killing mobsters, and at the end, the mob boss caught them, because he figured they'd come? I think this might be kind of like that....", Nick adds, holding the diner door open for Mickey.

`Skags ain't the kinda place you go in looking to clean house...`

This coming from a guy who was about to try and take out a whole bar with a vodka bottle.

`They're my people, we go in there looking for a fight, we'll get tossed. We go in there looking to recruit, maybe we score some prime fighters. You want to send a message, we'll trash the convenience store.`

He's walking again now, a bit hungry and in need of a drink.

"Sounds good. Let's go, I'm gettin' hungry anyways."

He begins walking again, toward Skag's.

"Oh, and, 'ey, Painkiller. Don't be talkin' 'bout gettin' soft, cause we ain't. Got it, omae?"

He snaps back to reality and nods. "Indeed. Let's get started, find out what the Redheads can give us about Mickey specifically."

Mickey sits down in the diner and checks the rounds left in his gun. 8 bullets...plus his 2 extra clips. He really needed to get more ammo! An SMG would be nice, too, but that could wait. Best wait for the Redheads to return.

"Yesllow, what would you say if I told you we might be able to do something about that missing arm of yours?"