Jon Kasiya | Amun (mysteryofset) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-08-08 23:27:00 |
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At least with summer in full swing they didn’t have to worry about freezing to death. And sundown meant that some of the heat had begun to dissipate. But hanging out by the docks did nothing for the humidity that hung in the air, making her clothes stick to her. Surveillance wasn’t glamorous and tonight she didn’t even have her usual costume on. Despite how much she liked it that drew too much attention when all her and Amun wanted to do was keep from being noticed. Not that a tee-shirt sticking to her back was any better than her costume. Tomorrow she got to rotate back to patrol though. Watching their favorite gang members putz around was hardly the most entertaining thing but they had managed to get a heads up on a few threats this way. Maybe it was not the most exciting part of their beat but it was important and it was not like anyone else was keeping an eye on these guys. Slipping her goggles out of her pocket, she put them up to her eyes and clicked on the infrared. “Huh, looks like Vincenzo has shown up.” she murmured before clicking it off and pocketing it. The man was naturally built almost as big as Toro got full bulled out. “Haven’t seen him in a couple weeks.” "The Italians are soft." Amun stayed on his stomach on the warehouse ledge, lazily looking down at the moving men below. That was what an observer might see, though there was a tension in his arms and calves poising him to spring up if necessary. In truth, Amun didn't mind the stakeouts. If you were competent, they were the easiest and least risky part of any job. They had been casing the Maggia for months, and normally it was no more interesting than fish in an aquarium, but every so often there was just an inkling that they were on the cusp of something happening--something big. Kingpin's public arrest last fall had created a vacuum. The Silvermane branch of the Maggia stood a good chance of filling that hole and seizing significant power. Even with no real objective in sight, it made sense to have an in. And it gave him time to think "He was likely on vacation." Never mind that Jon had just come back from the first vacation in his life. He stretched one of his arms forward to swat away a mosquito that was more industrious than they were being and rocked somewhat to a more sitting position. It was fortunate that he moved because a soft tchink of steel hitting concrete rose from right where his right arm had vacated. "Shit." Jon didn't need to look to know the type of blade that made that sound, and he didn't have time. He rolled to his feet, drawing and throwing one of his own blades to knock a second off course. "Get down." He nodded over the ledge to the ground below, eyes never leaving the edge of the surrounding building to trace where the knife had come from. A third had not yet, they were repositioning. It was a 25 foot drop, but they were sitting ducks here. What was originally the lazy air of simply scouting out their favorite maggia types instantly changed as soon as that knife showed up. While Jon had given the order more out of habit than anything, Rikki was already in motion. It wasn’t the MO of the goons they were watching now, none of them fought like this and they had watched them mess around enough to know. The only person she knew that used knives like that was, well, Amun. “Cover your eyes.” Rikki ordered quickly before pulling out a flash disc. Just because she didn’t have her uniform didn’t mean there weren’t a few tricks up her sleeves. A quick flick of her wrist and there was a bright spark of light, enough to momentarily block out the sight of anyone who was watching them. Scrambling to her feet she kept her eyes averted, looking to the ledge. 25 feet wasn’t exactly the best but she had done worse, thank vibranium for her boots. Grabbing his hand before he could argue, Rikki tugged Jon to follow. “Hold on.” was all she said before jumping off the roof, the soles absorbing the shock of the fall. Jon flinched as the flashbang illuminated the night, blinding them from the eyes on them nearby, but drawing attention to them to those afar. If the Order had returned to take their blood price, they would hopefully not get it. But they had already paid back sin for sin. Jon had not forgotten the training mission he had interfered with. The man he had temporarily spared and the boys he had unintentionally damned. Though he had said nothing of it to anyone, he had left Egypt after the first failed warning. They should be ashamed that it took them nearly a week and a half to find him. But now they had ruined his operation. The Maggia would know they were here, it could take weeks to re-establish their watch, and if Jon ran, he would not have weeks. He had ordered Rikki off the rooftop, though he not intended to go over the ledge himself. Gravity and a falling colleague were hard to argue. Jon braced himself, taking a moment longer than the girl in vibranium boots to right himself, though his hand quickly moved to his belt to draw a knife. His eyes never left the sky, though the streetlights made it hard to make out the shadow from that which waited in them. "What are you carrying?" Recovering was easier for Rikki, the vibranium took most of the damage from the fall. She took a quick stock of what she had on her when Jon asked. This was supposed to just be a recon night so she had packed light. “Few flashbang discs, my shield. That’s about it.” she rattled off quickly. She didn’t even have a decent smoke disc on her which was a terrible decision on her part really. Stupid Rikki, you need to be prepared for everything and anything. And you knew people were out there. You should have listened to Bucky and Natasha. “These aren’t Maggia. So what the hell are they?” She took a quick look at him. "I didn't see." His voice was distance as he kept his gaze up. It was a little true, he hadn't seen anyone but a shadow and a blade. But he did know who they were, or who they worked for. Amun had nothing on him beyond surveillance equipment and four daggers. It was less prepared than he would have ever thought to have been in the days when he still did the work of the men chasing him. But it was a sensible level of arming for this world. So he held out a hand, dropping his voice and nodding towards the ledge above them. "May I have a flashbang, quickly please.." “I didn’t ask if you saw.” Rikki dropped her voice to match but pulled out a flashbang disc and handed it over. She looked over to where he was nodding towards. Whoever these people were it was going to be a sight. Unfortunately for whoever they were, Rikki and Jon were more than willing to put up the fight they wanted. And they weren’t about to lose. Even if this whole mess meant establishing their surveillance again was going to be a pain. Jon tossed the flashbang up at the ledge of the roof, not flinching to look away. It burst with a bright and blinding light, making obvious the shadows like gargoyles atop the plain warehouse. Jon's hand clapped over his eyes in immediate regret of that call as his vision continued to eclipse, but he managed to find his words. "There are three." But he wasn't the only one taken aback by the charge, and was lucky, while he recovered, that no one else was able to take a shot. They were luckier still when one of the black clad figures fell to earth with a sick thud. He still was not answering her question but RIkki kept it in mind until they weren’t be attacked by random evil doers who threw knives at people. If he was going to keep anything from her he should know better. And if he was keeping something from her that directly impacted their safety and their mission, that was something she could have to yell about. But yelling was not exactly going to help now so it could wait. “Sounds like it’ll be two first.” Rikki commented as her shield materialized into existence. They had options technically, run or fight. But if they ran and these people followed them they would end up in a higher populated area. If they took them out here there was minimal risk to civilians. If they took them out quickly they might even avoid the perimeter guards of the Maggia getting there to check on them. Shadows started to shift and Rikki locked eyes on her target. “I’ve got this one.” she said quickly before barreling forward, using her shield to ram into him. "We can handle that." There was a forced banter to Jon's reply. With Rikki, and one unconscious, he could handle this team, But as much bravado as the Hand of Death could manage about incompetents taking so long to find him, the truth was, they might well have had him without retreat were he alone. Jon made a note that when he survived this, he would stay better armed. Jon threw his arm out, hitting aside a dagger flying towards him and drew the rewi from deep within himself. He sent one of his own blade's flying and worked to close the gap. The other assassin was larger, but Amun had the speed of Amunet moving him. And more, he only had three other daggers, the couldn't stay at range forever. They could handle that. A small grim smile was Rikki’s only response to that. After all surveillance wasn’t what she really wanted to do anyway. Sure she was good at it, she knew how, and she understood the importance. How many of her problems in life had happened because she just ran in instead of just taking a moment to take precautions? Pretty much all of them. But what Rikki was really good at was this part, the fight. There was the small flash of energy as a knife hit the shield, but Rikki kept barreling forward and slammed it hard against her target. Pulling it away quickly she punched before they could recover. “Who are you?” she demanded as she hit, only to be met with silence and the swipe of a blade that she ducked quickly behind the shield to avoid. Amun had fought with or for or beside men and women like this his entire life, and though he did not know these faces, he knew their moves, because knew his own weaknesses. Jon lunged forward and grabbed at the mask of the assassin, pulling it off. He opened his left side to meet the assassin's blade, but Jon had dealt a killing blow, unmasking his foe. Even as he winced, he grinned like a crocodile. In the moment of the assassin's stunned silence, Jon was able to draw his own knife. The man he was fighting was only just older than Amun. That made sense as most of his order but the elders was under 30. The life of an assassin was brutal, fierce, and short when failure meant death. So neither could write the other off as inexperienced by way of youth. "Return to your master, or else I shall return you to your maker." The boy spat across the loading dock in angry Arabic. The Arabic seemed to work better than any demand in English. The assassin spat an invective at Jon lunging again with his knife. Arabic. Great. Rikki did not know that. She made a quick mental note that if they were going to be fighting thugs who spoke arabic maybe Jon should teach her some. But that still begged the question as to why the hell Jon knew how to speak to them. “You and me are going to have a long talk after this.” she threw out as she caught another punch against her shield. Putting her shoulder behind it, Rikki pushed her attacker off before letting her shield dissipate. Quickly she brought up a kick that landed hard on her target’s chest, slamming hard enough to knock him down to the ground. "Yes you seem fond of those." Amun called out in English over his shoulder as he deflected the blade with the brace on his right arm, the leather making a muted thud against the steel. Amun slashed under his arm and out, cutting fabric and flesh beneath that before his rival fell out of range. The fight fell back into its rhythm of slashes and jabs. Knife fights were a pain, and that was actually being quite literal. He lunged again, This time Amun sidestepped and grabbed the man's shoulder, wrenching it. He pressed his blade to the back of his foe's neck. He forced him down to his knees on the pavement. They had two others, but something stilled the Hand of Death. The assassin on his knees had begun to comment on it, when a bright light shone on the party of five. Jon might not have stabbed his attacker, but he had no problem punching the back of his head to shut him up. "Eh!" A man in a suit approached, Vincenzo, though the recognition on either side would be denied. He wasn't alone, with two other men, one holding the lamp, and he wasn't armed with knives. "What're you think youse doing?" Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Rikki had been hoping they might take a little longer to respond to the noise. But nope for once the henchmen were actually on time. Perfect, just perfect. Because now they had been seen which meant reestablishing their watch was going to be even more difficult. Still there was no avoiding it now and with the bright lights on them there was nothing their attackers could really do without inciting the Maggia’s thugs as well. “What’s it look like?” Rikki huffed, trying to think quickly while keeping an eye on the man she had just kicked to the ground. Her shoulders were squared and her frown looked more pissed than anything. “These assholes tried to jump us. You’d think people would have some manners but no it’s all masks and knives. I don’t even have a purse.” She backed away slowly, holding hands up as she looked at the mob guys that had shown up. With her hands up there were no weapons on her, at least none that they would be able to see anyway. “They yours? Cause jumping a girl’s rude." "They look like his." The man with the flashlight shone it at Jon who fixed him in a steely glare. "That's racist." It wasn't wrong per se. Jon probably had more in common with the assassins than anyone else here--that was why they were trying to kill them. But that didn't mean they had anything to do with one another. "I was born in .. Florida." Jon kept the dagger trained on the assassin kneeling before him, but looked over at Rikki and offered a smile to the men. "Besides, I was following her. A pretty girl tells you to go somewhere, you go. Yes?" "I do not know who these are." Usually RIkki thought pretty quickly on her feet. Usually. Logically she knew all of this was to get any suspicion off of them. But she couldn’t helped her face going completely red, her cheeks hot as her mouth opened to yell at him and instead nothing at all came out. Which simply made her face going even redder, much to her disapproval. What the hell, Rikki? Get yourself together! Except that just made one of them laugh, rolling the light over towards her. “Looks like youse gone and embarrassed her.” “I’m not embarrassed!” Rikki huffed and tried to force her blush away. “Anyway, we don’t know who these guys are. They just showed up out of nowhere.” Jon couldn't help but grin, perhaps Jenny or T'Challa or Pepper or even Anya's influence was rubbing off on him, perhaps a year away from being the Egyptian boy for hire had let him develop into something of an actual person. He looked over at Rikki with the same expression. She knew it was a cover, and that was more than likely all it was. "Sorry." He couldn't even make it sound like he meant it. The Maggia enforcer shone his light from Jon to Rikki, to the three assassins in various states of prone, then looked to his boss. It was a believable enough story in theory, two kids looking for a deserted place to do what kids sneak off alone to do. But the docks weren't deserted "Okay." The man in charge seemed to buy it, but he didn't stop considering them.Finally he spoke "Where did youse guys learn to fight like that?" That was a harder question to answer. When they got out of this Rikki was already planning to smack the hell out of him. And now she had to do it just to get that stupid grin off his face. Granted Jon had started opening up more in the past few months, and that was great. Really it was. RIkki almost saw what Anya saw in him when she wasn’t mad at him for, well, being an assassin. That didn’t mean she liked him turning it against her. But for cover it worked. He could actually pretend to be a normal guy instead of whatever he usually was. “I took ballet.” Rikki answered, folding her arms and looking straight at the man in charge. She took eye contact and the blush faded away. “You think it’s easy putting your bodyweight on your big toe?” It wasn’t a lie. Sure there was the SHIELD training, Captain America’s training, Black Widow’s training, Winter Soldier's training, and watching everyone she could to add on top of that. But first mission out everything she knew had all been from ballet. It just wasn’t the entire truth. She jerked her head towards Jon, raising an eyebrow. “You should see him in tights.” Which led to the light being shone on Jon. “Hey my girl took me to that nutcracker once.” One of them spoke up. “It wasn’t bad.” Granted, ballet didn't teach knife-fighting but for all Jon knew about it, it just might have. He supposed he would have to learn something now. How such a basic concept as giving covers had turned into a test of wills, Jon would never know. He gave half a sigh. "They needed to know that, clearly, Jamie." Jon kept his blade still where it was against the assassin's neck and reached across his torso to hold out a hand. "I am Brandon James." He just gave the name on his fake ID, perhaps too easily. But while Jon Kasiya and Rikki Barnes clearly knew these men and their game, they wanted if nothing else to convince them that they were hapless kids who stumbled upon something accidentally--and then beat up three trained assassins with the power of dance. But the name was safe, the boy he had acquired the ID from had no priors but a small traffic fine that made him exist in the network. He had probably never thought when he sold his drivers' license to the seventeen year old that it would be given to the mob, but Jon was not one to begrudge fools their poor life choices. "Were we interrupting something here? I--well we--assumed these docks would be empty after the workers left." For having no real concept of earnestness, Jon played it remarkably well. On cue Rikki let her face pale a little. “Oh man, you’re not cops are you?” she let her eyes get wide and stupid as she looked at the enforcer. These men were clearly not cops but what were a couple of high school kids supposed to know about the mob? “My grandpa is going to kill me. Like literally kill me. I can’t get arrested, I’m not even supposed to be out tonight!” Earnest was easy for Rikki to play, she basically bled it most of the time anyway. When she wasn’t completely given over to paranoia. Which luckily seemed to play right into their hand when she heard one of them laugh. Maybe something would actually turn out okay from this? That would be nice, given that it never happened ever. “Nah, we’re not cops.” the one who laughed elbowed Vincenzo in the side. “They’re funny, Vincenzo. You like funny.” Jon let a wave of a realization wash over his features, though his mouth was a little wider than his eyes should be. "They will not call the cops on us." He looked back to Jamie and tilted his head. "We are all…" Brandon searched for the word, Jon for the the okay to go ahead with this gamble. He caught Rikki's eyes and looked back towards the men in suits, speaking tentatively. "Friends….I think... here?" He gave a nervous smile, though most of the nerves were that Jon Kasiya rarely smiled, and not that he expected them to call the cops on them. "You know. Apart from these guys." As if on cue a groan came from the third assassin who had been knocked unconscious before the fight even began. Jon's facile cover fell instantly as his hand tightened around the front of his mark's jaw and in an instant he had to decide whether to slice this man's neck to take on the third or hope for an overture of friendship. His knuckles whitened as he kept his knife ready. He didn't like the hesitation that came, lately, though he would be damned if he admitted it. But the decision was taken from him when a gunshot broke the moment with a suppressed click. The man fell back down. Jon could see how Vincenzo made it this far. "Yes." Vincenzo decided. "I think we can be friends." |