[i]Vropda should be on her way. Do not do anything stupid. By stupid, I mean anything I would call stupid, since your own sense of judgement is not to be trusted.[/i]

Nick couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. [i]That[/i] was the precise response he'd been looking for. The shapeshifter had taken and analyzed the message, devouring it like a pot roast to a starving man for all the little nuggets of information that the text provided. Such was in his nature, psychologically geared to pull every little detail from his environment for knowledge of value. [b]Should be[/b] on her way. That denoted uncertainty. Not [b]is[/b] on her way, not [b]will be arriving shortly[/b], SHOULD BE on her way. What that meant to Nick's storied experience in espionage was that they had no idea when she would arrive and possibly not even where she was at or what she was doing, which gave him roughly 20 minutes to an hour of alone time to do as he pleased. Very fortunate considering he only needed three. In a perfect world Nick would have been the last to board where he could be supervised and controlled, where the Fleet Council members could leave without incident. In this gritty reality they happened to be in the most destructive and unpredictable member of the crew was left to his own devices with the only control mechanisms being a stern warning and two pitiful guardsman that had already fucked up bigger than they knew.

They had left Nick by himself.

It was just as he intended for them to do as soon as he met them, putting on a pathetic facade where he let them manhandle them and spoke nicely and joked around, giving off the impression that he wasn't the most vicious murderer they'd ever heard of let alone had the incredible luck to shake hands with. He'd gotten there first, where they had to watch for the reception of their beloved General and Council. He'd let them think they had control of the situation. No one had control of the situation anymore, not even Nick. His entire plan was to hover his finger over the proverbial nuclear football and dare anyone to spook him. Nick paced about the dock as he put everything together, prowling like a caged tiger as his primal mind let itself spin into a chaotic frenzy as his plan went into motion.

The receiving hold was mostly empty. It was a small ship, a jumper, its only purpose to make landfall and shuttle people to their destination before taking off back to the ship. Among that, a utility hold, and the pilot's cabin, there wasn't much to look at. But that was fine. No one wanted Nick in the pilot's cabin. The shapeshifter waltzed up to the titanium airlock doors holding the ships most vital systems, chewing his tongue as he looked the thing up and down. Breaking though it would be stupid and impossible, faking past the lock would be incredibly difficult and require a lot of luck, soooo...

Nick began to play with his hair pins, winding them around each other and bending the tips until he made approximately what he wanted with them. An allen wrench. The miscreant began to remove the screws on the plate, slowly and surely taking the entire metal casing off. Carefully, soundlessly, using his jacket on the ground to mask the noise, Nick placed the plate in a specific point on the ground before beginning to play with the wires inside. He didn't know what he was doing and he didn't need to, stabbing each wire with the pointed end of a screw until he felt a vicious burning current... and hooking it up to the plate. Proud of his work, straightening his posture with a bit of accomplishment, the deviant chucked his glass bottle on the ground with a loud smash.
[color=39b54a]"I DIDN'T DO IIIIIIT!"[/color] he called out in a childish tone.

[center]_____________________[/center]

The first thing the lone guard sent to investigate laid eyes on was a hunched form with its grimy little hands wedged inside the access panel for the pilot's cabin. Shouldering his ice cannon, the grunt issued a commanding "Halt! Hands out! Now!" to an apparently startled Nick. The shapechanging menace scrambled to his feet with his arms up and a sheepish smile on his face like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
[color=39b54a]"Whaaaat? This? It's nothin', just be cool for once,"[/color] he dismissed jokingly, fully aware of what was about to happen. Unknown to the guardsman, the usual thing that happened i.e. Nick getting beaten and shocked was not about to happen this time. When the mook attempted to maneuver around the mess of whatever gunk the shapeshifter had smeared on the floor his foot caught the shoelaces tied between the seats, as he'd been looking at the man fiddling with the ship's security boxes and not his footing. As he stumbled Nick swept in with surprising speed, guiding a powerful palm to help the unlucky security guard to his face... and right into the plate he'd set. Smeared with mustard, a surprisingly good conductor, the lights on the ship dimmed a tad as the man screamed bloody murder and convulsed, his trigger finger tensing and spraying vicious ice shards to smash across the receiving bay. 

As the other member of the detail guarding the ship entered, spurred by the commotion, he was greeted by his partner on watch. Slumped over, in the arms of a maniac with his weapon in the killer's hand. Without hesitation the grunt hefted his chain gun and began to bark his warning order.
"FREEZE! HANDS WH-"
[color=39b54a]"Oh give it a damn [i]rest[/i] already!"[/color] Nick moaned, training the dead man's [i]Get Down[/i] on the new intruder to his fucked-up little domain.
[color=39b54a]"You already lost! Tell me, who do you think's got the better odds of surviving a gun fight right now?"[/color] The soldier visibly paused, the barrel of his weapon lowering just ever-so-slightly. A twisted smile crossed Nick's lips. It was everything he could've asked for and [b]so much better[/b] than waiting around and getting told what to do. But the shapeshifter could sense the tenseness in the security troop's body, and interrupted before he could do anything monumentally stupid.

[center][img]https://68.media.tumblr.com/f01034a52ef3c0a6c06e434e64dc3b11/tumblr_ou13j0WBP21sx8cwio1_540.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][color=39b54a]"Don't even think about taking me out in some incredibly stupid heroic grand effort. Unlike you, my gun's not silent. I [i]will[/i] attract attention and [i]when[/i] I manage to kill you I'm gonna waltz out there and shoot as many people as I can until they put me down, both you and I know I can't even care at this point! The most heroic thing you can do right now is [i]exactly as I fucking say[/i]. So I'm gonna talk and you're just gonna stand there and listen, how'zat sound?"[/color][/center]

Nick bared his teeth in an incredibly hostile smile toward the grunt as the his weapon lowered from Nick's head area down to the floor.
"[i]Greeeeeeat,[/i] that's just swell. Now I know by now we've established that everyone local from the Fleet from the highest echelon to the lowliest security guard such as yourself with their infinite wisdom and superior technology is absolutely incapable of stopping me. You're keeping me here with your presence! ...but not because you're a threat. Y'see, the only reason for me to stay in this hanger right now isn't the threat of death or injury or whatever the hell because I [i]know[/i] you can't kill me and so do your superiors, just ask! [i]Nooooooo no no no[/i] the reason I'm still here is because of you. [i]Because you're today's entertainment.[/i]"

The sinister smirk began to extend past Nick's lips, eyes bulging as he stifled a chuckle from the events that were unfolding before him.
"The only thing preventing me from leaving this receiving bay for something a little more engaging is we're going to play a little game. It's called [b]Simon Says[/b]. If you do [i]exactly[/i] as I tell you, you'll probably get to live! Well, at least I can guarantee that [i]I[/i] won't kill you. But if you refuse to play people are gonna start to get suspicious from the gunfire coming from the empty ship and two corpses aboard, [i]understood?[/i]" The mook didn't move nor did he make a sound, but Nick could feel the resignation in the tenseness of his posture.
"...good. Now, Simon says throw me your weapons." The guardsman hesitated toward his holster, pausing for a moment as he was thinking it over. Too bad Simon didn't say [i]contemplate the consequences of Simon's commands[i].
[color=39b54a]"I said fuckin' drop'em!"[/color] barked Nick, the playful pretenses absent from his voice. With a movement from the shapeshifter's shoulders as if charging his weapon the man threw his own to clatter against the deck. Nick grinned once more as if he had never been angry.
[color=39b54a]"You're pretty good at this! Alright, now turn around."[/color]

Doing as he was told, the security detail turned around. Nick lowered the body to the ground slowly, noiselessly as he approached in light footsteps.
"Awesome! But just in case you forgot..." He swept over low, like a predator to pop back to whisper in his ear.
[color=39b54a]"...[i]I didn't say Simon says.[/i]"[/color] The guard attempted to swing his arm back to disable the threat, which might have worked in ordinary circumstances that weren't Nick who had been prepared for it. He grasped his helmet with a clenched hand, blocking the elbow with an arm and swept his legs out from under him, cracking the faceplate of the helm on the metal ground before following his head with a swift boot to the neck.

[center]_____________________[/center]

Chayylial/Drekavac's commlink would buzz with an alert just as soon as the deal was agreed upon, being the Fleet Head of Security and everything. A very familiar alert considering it happened about two to three times a week. It was a distress signal, a generalized panic alert that a ship security could activate in times of distress wordlessly and without motion. First applied to personnel as a means of responding quickly to perceived threats were action was paramount but a full report couldn't be given, these soon gave rise to a secondary situational use: they triggered whenever Nick was left unsupervised around the men, typically followed by casualties.

[@Zverda]