[hr][h1][color=darkslategray]PLAGUE[/color] and KHAN[/h1][hr] 

(Collab between [@Maxx] and [@Mr Allen J]) 

"... No, you fucking listen to me." Khan spoke, into her phone in one of the side rooms of the Franklin's Power Plant... abandoned since the eighties, and now used as a base of operations for Khan and her Fiends. "[i]You[/i] fucks made us tear up that Fair so you can do whatever the fuck it is that you assholes have planned, and you know [i]who[/i] is dealing with NEST and every other fucking government agency with a gun and a dick?" 

Khan slammed her hand onto her chest, creating a loud slapping sound. "[i]Us![/i] Me and [i]my[/i] fucking Fiends." She shouted into the phone. "You sure as hell aren't going to cut us off now.... Now, I'd like my fucking mutagen." She gripped the phone with enough force to break it, but she held back the whole time. She growled through her gas mask.

"... Khan-" A poor Fiend walked into the room and was greeted with Khan's beretta handgun.

"... Fuck do you want!? Can't you see I'm fucking busy!?" Khan asked the Fiend, gripping the trigger.

"Hey, hey, hey!" The Fiend stammered, putting his back against the wall, and desperately waving his hands in order to signal Khan off. "Don't shoot the messenger! Plague wants to have a word with you!"

"Well tell him to fuck off, I'm fucking busy, you fucking bitch!" Khan shouted, but she noticed that the person on the other end of her phone went silent. She looked, and saw that her contact had ended the call. "Fuck." Khan whispered underneathe her breath. All of a sudden, there was a knock outside of the door. Plague's artificial voice echoed into the room. 

"Is everything alright, my lord Khan?" Plague asked, stepping into the room. "Forgive me for intruding, but I must have a word with you about a bit of important business." He looked at the Fiend and jerked his head towards the door, a sure sign that the man should leave. He bustled out of the room as quickly as he could. Plague crossed his arms across his chest. 

Khan put her phone right back into her pocket and crossed her arms. "Other than the fact that our [i]contact[/i] is cutting us off, everything is [i]fucking great[/i]." Khan sarcastically spat out, looking off to the side. "Now, Plague, what the fuck do you want?"

"Ah, so they've backed out of the deal, eh?" Plague replied [i]totally not expected[/i]. "This will certainly put us in a bind. Are there any other suppliers that we could take advantage of? I thought I heard not long ago about a particular Chinese company that was developing a similar mutagenic drug." 

"... Only people we can get the [i]real[/i] fucking mutagen from is the Hands." Khan sighed, walking over to a wall and leaning up against it. "Without it, we're fucked a [i]lot[/i] more, because we just lost our edge over the other gangs - even those fuckers NEST."  Khan continued. "We're getting fucked extra hard by NEST right now and [i]this[/i] is the last fucking thing we need."

"Well, I may have a solution to our NEST problem, my lord," Plague said, trying to be extra ass-kissing. "It happens that after the raid this afternoon, what remained of my men and I travelled through the sewers and ended up in the Ghost town in Isabella Isle. We found a fairly well-fortified location on one of the middle floors of a skyscraper there. At present, the Fiends have no other connections on Isabella besides this one. While there is a heavier police presence on Isabella, we might be able to use this to our advantage. Using this base, we can both spy on NEST and possibly attempt to attract some of the students from Academy Twelve, boosting our forces and allowing us to know when NEST is coming before they get to any of our burrows." 

"That said, however," he continued "I lost many men in the last fight against NEST due to reinforcements from the National Guard. I only have four men remaining. In order to properly spy on NEST, I need reinforcements." 

An interesting plan... Khan thought Plague had some real balls setting up shop right in the heart of NEST terroritory. Hm. At this point, Khan was willing to do anything to get an edge. To get out of this situation. "I'll give you plenty." Khan said.

"Thank you, Lord Khan," Plague replied. "However, I would like your permission to choose these men myself. This job is going to require a good degree of...sensitivity, and while I see value in all of our fighters, having the wrong type of men for this assignment could spell its doom." 

"... And here I thought that the crackheads made great meatshields," Khan mused. "At this point, I don't even give a fuck. Just get it done, Plague."

"Very well, Lord Khan," he replied. "I will survey our forces and make my decisions. Thank you." He bowed his head gently and turned to leave the room. 

"Oh, and Plague," she said as he turned to leave, "Don't fuck this up." 

"I will not fail you, Lord Khan," he said. "They stand no chance." 


[hr][h1][color=dimgray]Sam Clarke[/color], [color=dodgerblue]Lihua Vuhong[/color], The Nightingale, and [color=gray]The Dreadnaughts[/color][/h1][hr] 

[h2]Part I[/h2] 


(A stupidly-large and long collab between Maxx, Mr Allen J, Spoopy Scary, and He Who Walks behind. Enjoy) 

This was a goddamned headache. Sam leaned back against a brick wall and rolled his eyes in Nightingale's direction. He looked around and noticed that his shouting had attracted the attention of a few passersby, who looked at him as if he were a circus freak. [i]Fuck[/i]. He turned and began to walk down the street, nodding for Nightingale to follow. 

The Nightingale whistled affirmation, keeping her arms folded casually over her chest as she followed. Her hair was pinned back in a bun, ideally too short for someone to grab onto if things got messy. 

Normally, they didn't get that close.

Anastasia kept close to Sam, keeping a watch where he couldn't. Radios were distracting. Noise in general was.She generally kept hers off, or silenced it mentally so she wouldn't have to bother flipping the switch all the time. Perhaps her gifts weren't as flashy as some, but they were ever so useful. Anastasia was quiet, a nightingale on her perch. They could bicker on the radio all they wanted, Caesar and Lihua and Sam. No difference to her...no difference at all.

"... Listen here," Lihua intervened. "This is starting to get really annoying. Clarke, the decision to hire the Dreadnaughts came from someone above our pay-grade, as you'd say." Personally, Lihua wouldn't have approved to hire the Dreadnaughts in the first place. It just makes NEST look desperate, and every agent look even [i]more[/i] incapable of handling this.  

"While I don't necessarily condone Caesar's little outburst, you can't end the operation like this. Information like what I got doesn't come [i]easily[/i], and this might our only chance to bag a Fiend lieutenent." Lihua continued, taking a break to take a sip of her coffee. "Everyone has one end goal; the arrest of the Fiends responsible for the attack on the Summer Festival. They're just here to assist."

Caesar rolled his eyes at the woman back at the NEST Headquarters spoke. He was glad she spoke up to rectify her subordinate, but felt she didn't have all the cards in her hand, so to speak. Their goals were a lot more... thorough. He turned the wheel of the van and swerved into an alleyway in the Chinatown district. Finally meeting their destination, he put it into park and took a closer look at the live-feed satellite imagery that was streaming on the screen beside them, getting a good look on all the people in the area. A green dot was hovering above a warehouse. Baron must have done his job right, then. Grit, on the other hand, was just glad to hear a familiar voice on the channel.

"Aw, it's no biggy!" Grit said cheerily - one could practically feel his face beaming through the radio. "Worst comes to worst, we can take care of it ourselves. But the more the merrier!"

"Fine," Sam growled. "I don't like this one bit, but I guess we have no alternative. Just tell grandpa to keep his temper. We're a block or so from Chinatown now. Unfortunately, some locals have spotted us. Lihua, what is the address of Long Dragon's last confirmed location? 

"559 Redwood Street." Lihua was quick to inform Sam. "Look for the large warehouse, you can't miss it." 

In the meantime, Lihua will be keeping an eye on things, consulting her contacts, and tapping into a camera or two. Though, it wasn't the Fiends that worried Lihua; it was the two agencies clashing that worried her. If they met face-to-face, she knew that a conflict would break out. The kind of thing that ended with bullets.

Let's just hope everyone can contain their pride and tempers enough to keep things under control. Faster they get this done, the quicker these Dreadnaughts will be out of their city, and back killing African leaders like the band of dogs they are.

It took every bit of Washe's restraint to keep him from crushing the microphone in his hand into pieces, with him grinding his teeth together. [i]'This is a grown-ass fucking man acting like a bitch-ass child, that whiny fuck.'[/i]

He took a deep breath to steel himself and spoke, though his voice was steady, it was like steadily grinding two stones together. It was easy to tell he was trying hard not to rip Sam's ass in twain.

"It doesn't matter," Washe said, "I've got live-feed of the whole area. The warehouse is on Redwood, but the whole space is crawling with uniformed mooks. FALCON, move around south by the main road and flank the block west-side to meet with [i]me[/i]. Grit will station himself on top of the apartment building just down the street that meets Redwood at a T-intersection. I still don't know who the fuck NIGHTENGALE is or what they can do, but I want them to cover Grit while he makes his shot."

"... Remember we'd like them [i]alive[/i]." Lihua was quick to note. Personally, she'd gladly kill all of them, but they do things differently in America. They believe in "[i]justice[/i]".

"Well then, [i]shit[/i]," Washe retorted, "I sure hope no [i]accidents[/i] happen." Washe looked to Grit with a look of annoyance, and made a gesture with his hand crossing his throat. Grit smirked in understanding, and pulled a ski mask over his head. Off to the side, he grabbed what looked to be a camera or a screen of some sort, and made sure to secure it tightly to the side of his rifle.

Lihua quietly chuckled into the comms (A unprofessional move). "Oh well." She knew what Washe was up to, and what his Dreadnaughts were planning... and found it hard to care. The Fiends brought it on themselves if they attack a festival full of families and kids with the intent of [i]killing[/i].

Dogs like that can't be rehabilitated. They just need to be put down.

"Roger that, Caesar," Sam said. "My apologies for the hostilities. Let's keep this professional." He nodded to Nightingale and covered the mic on his bluetooth with his hand. "Time to go meet grandpa grumpy," he said. 

The Nightingale raised an eyebrow. [i]Well, Sammy darling, you're not exactly too chipper yourself at the moment...[/i]   


[hr][h1][color=powderblue]Taylor Pierpoint[/color], [color=Teal]Santiago Woods[/color], and Jasmine Chang [/h1][hr] 

Taylor groaned and walked back out of the kitchen, leaving a cup of black coffee on the countertop. She looked over at Ratchet. 

"It wus on my vnatee," she said. "I lefft it tehre so poepel wouldn't fuccck wit it." She looked up and saw that Johnny had assembled the team. "It's ok, tho. Theill find it. That one gurl cain reed meindz..." 


So now Johnny was going to take over. Taylor was quite intoxicated and didn't quite feel like she'd be of any real use. Yet again, she wasn't sure if she trusted Johnny with her jewels. Knowing him, he'd pawn them off to pay for his girls or something. So she followed the battalion of drunken meta teenagers up the stairs. They walked up the second story staircase to the third, and then up onto the roof.  

"Come on!" she shouted to Ratchet. "Let's cach these fuuuckres." 

Santiago reclined on a pool lounge, rifling through the night's catch. Diamonds, sapphires, this jewelry box was worth at least twelve-thousand dollars on the black market! He chuckled as he picked up a large diamond pendant and let the large diamond on it swing like a pendulum. Hell, maybe he'd sneak into the party later and celebrate. These teens wouldn't know the difference! He picked up a martini sitting on a small glass patio table to his left and took a sip. Fruity. Life was good, and this lounge was comfortable. He could almost fall...

The door to the pool level exploded open and a very drunk Taylor staggered out, followed by a small army of teenagers. Santiago looked up with surprise and stowed the jewelry box in his drawstring bag. She scanned the patio, looking for anyone suspicious, but didn't see much of anything but a pile of towels sitting on a patio lounge. She turned to Mika. 

"So whur aer tehy?" she asked drunkenly. Gecko dared not move a muscle. He hoped the disguise would work. 

Jasmine looked up at the newcomer. This did look awful suspicious, a girl in her underwear being dragged down the hall. She thought quickly and easily came to a simple lie. 

"Looks like she had a little too much to drink," Jasmine said. "Could you help me get her into an empty room?"