Quite abruptly, the doors to the Dirty Babe burst open as if violently kicked, drawing the attention of anyone who wasn’t used to sudden loud noises - and in particular those of Rutabaga and Mister Person. The silhouette in the portal, features partially obscured by the light streaming in from outside, was nonetheless recognisable by their clothing, and by the overdramatic pose they promptly took, arms crossed over their head and legs crossed beneath them. They looked quite silly indeed.

Half a second later, they seemed to explode into a shadowy cloud, spraying blood across a wide area of the room and sending ethereal bats flying everywhere; at the same moment, a second cloud of shadows and blood coalesced into a humanoid form, joined by a few of the bats to ultimately form the same figure, now clearly masculine and seated upon the barstool right next to Rutabaga and Person. He promptly raised one knife-toed boot, and slammed the heel hard on to the counter, cracking the surface with the force of the impact.

‘Nice to see you care about showing up on time,’ Rutabaga quipped angrily, scowling at the black-clad form of Zzyxx von Killstealr. He always had to make a scene, didn’t he? The nearest barmaid seemed to share this impression, sighing as she went to grab a mop and bucket to clear up the mess the newly-arrived agent had just made.

‘I am never [i]late,[/i]’ the edgelord replied, kind of snarling his voice in a way that would have been cool if he’d actually done it correctly, or looked the part, ‘nor am I ever [i]early.[/i] I arrive... [i]precisely[/i] when I mean to.’ This last sentence was accompanied by an exaggerated hair flip that only really served to throw his hat off his head.

‘Ripping quotes from Tolkien’s work isn’t safe when they’re still popular decades later,’ Agent Person replied as Zzyxx bent down to retrieve his headgear. The red-eyed glare he received back rather implied that Zzyxx either believed he was being original, or was trying to hide the lack thereof as he slowly placed the pseudo-fedora back atop his head.

‘Anyway, we’re an hour late to start,’ Baigo continued, ‘and we still don’t have everyone here. At this point, I can’t be assed to wait any longer. Hey!’ he yelled at the bar, drawing everyone’s attentions again. ‘If you were called in for the special assignment, get over here!’ The relevant assassins would know whether that was them or not - not least because for plenty of them, they’d had direct prior contact with at least one of the trio leading this particular assignment.

‘That includes you, too, Omnivore,’ Mister Person uttered to what was apparently thin air. ‘You’ll have to get to know these people sooner or later, it might as well be now.’ He took another drag from his cigar before noticing the weird looks his fellow agents were giving him, perhaps due to the box covering his peripheral vision; he elaborated ‘One of my assassins has hacked into one of our phones remotely. I know that because she’s done it many times before.’ The words “to me” went unstated. ‘She’ll be right along.’