"Jericho?" Kanna asked. Her head felt fuzzy and she was tired. The pain in her stomach and gut were a dull ache now but her mind was still clouded by something. "Who was that?" She looked around the group gazing at their faces.
"Who're they?" She pointed at Terios and Krystal. "Where're Yoshi and Karu?" Her head was starting to ache too.

Rin got in her car, and pulled a map out of the messenger style back, and marked an 'x' on the map. "Another bust." She said to herself, as she threw the map on the car's floor. "Next location." She started the car, and drove off into traffic.

Jaden looked over to where Kanna was pointing and saw Terios.
"Hey, welcome back! Any luck?"
Terios sighed and shook his head.
"He's out looking for her. Who knows...maybe he'll find her and she'll be alright, after all. Wouldn't that be nice."
When he saw Kyle out of the corner of his eye, he looked over towards him.
"Well, if it isn't Kyle. I kinda doubt you're just out for a midnight stroll."
Jaden chimed in with a smile.
"It's cool. He just wants to tag along with us since Douglas took over Jericho's group."
Terios' face turned to a grim expression.
"Kyle, is that true? Douglas is taking over for Jericho?"

Jaden turned his attention back towards Kanna, who wasn't looking too well.
"Hey...are you feeling alright? And what are you talking about, anyway? That's Terios and...somebody else whose name I never got. We just got done rescuing-- well, I guess they kinda rescued themselves, actually. And Yoshiko...and Hikaru..."
He hung his head down. He really didn't want to say it out loud.
"I mean...don't you remember?"

Kyle turned to look at Terios. "Yeah whatever's left of it. Most of the members left like I did. Why do you care anyway if Doug is leading the group?"

"I remember it hurting." Kanna said to Jaden placing a hand over her stomach and the bandages covering her flesh. "Not much else." She closed her eyes and started to doze off but pulled herself back out of it. "Uh... What? I think... maybe I should get more sleep." Kanna put a hand to her head. It was pounding now and she felt truly miserable. She looked at the ground she had been sleeping on before and knew that she wanted nothing to do with that. She turned back to Jaden,
"Could you help me to tha car? I wanna go sleep init." She said still holding her head.

OOT: I suck at accents in dialogue >.>

Sytry couldn't stand it with her and left the room. Only to re-enter, wide-eyed, a minute later.
"Get up and look at this."
He dragged her out of the room by the hand, and subtly entered the room which they'd seen earlier. No-one noticed them, as they were all... busy. Some were even watching the TV.
On the screen was Sylvia's previous place of employment.
Or what was left of it.
The place was rubble. Only a few walls and lumps of detritus even indicated that there had even been a building there. On the screen, rescue workers scurried around the rubble, and dead bodies were lying sprawled. The flames that blazed here and there amongst the remains spoke clearly that something awful had happened.
"...reports of a gas main explosion are currently being shouted down by witnesses who swear that it was some sort of military attack. Someare claiming the attack was the work of the urban myth underground military, the Mythic Directive - however, such reports cannot be verified at this time. We now return to..." It cut back to the studio.
Sytry led Sylvia back to the room, and just flat out sat down on the floor.
"I'm sorry. That's what I wanted to save you from."

Slyvia slouched against the wall
"All those people , my co-workers all dead."
she rested her head against the wall
"But...how..I had just quit from there before..."
she looked over at sytry
"well my boss would have said he fired me...but.."
\She shook her head
"How would they know where i work in such a short time? it doesnt add up"
she thought for a moment
"How do i know you didnt order that to happen just to scare me? This seems like something you are capable of doing after what i witnessed at the warehouse. How do i know it wasnt you?"

"You've been with me the entire time," Sytry pointed out, reasonably.
"There's no way I could have ordered that. For a start, as you may check if you wish, I don't even have a phone. Nor have you seen me even vaguely use one. They could have tracked it."
He took her by the shoulders.
"Listen to me. I used to work for these people. You've seen the way I deal with people if they harm my team or get in my way. Now imagine me with a Pentagon's worth of resource and a private army made up of the world's best trained operatives. Against one rogue agent and a former cop who have info they want."
He lifted her chin to make her look him in the eyes.
"These people are experts at finding people. The moment you were seen with me, these people probably knew who you had ever worked for, what you like to eat, your favorite band and TV show, and what color of underwear you prefer. And they know that I'm keeping you alive, because they didn't find you in the rubble. They will raze cities to the ground to come after you now, because they know that I want you alive and they want that info. Once we arrive in Cuba, I know a guy. He can take you off the map, give you a new life, a new start. You can have anything that you ever wanted. Peace, quiet, the whole she-bang."
Then the radio went off on the plane.
"sssssssssskkkkkkkkt...................... we know you're in there...... skkkktttttttt......... give up the data and we'll let the girl live..... skkkkkkkkkkkkkkt"

Then the lights went out.

"And this is why I kept the gun."

Sylvia jerked her face away from his hand when he lifted her by the chin
"Why do you want to keep me alive? Im nothing to you"
she shook her head
"You could have called to have it done when you knocked me out"
she ran her hand through her hair and froze when she heard the radio and then the lights went out
"Can this day get any worse?
she looked in the direction Sytry was
"just let them take me, why keep me, why protect me when you dont even know me, Im not one of your team im just a stranger you ran into on the street"

Sylvia felt Sytry guide her to the wall.
"You're right. You're a stranger that I ran into on the street. None of this is your fault. Which is why I can't let them kill you just for making the mistake of running into me."
There was the sound of footsteps, then two red laser sights shone through the dark.
"You take one, I'll take the furthest away," Sytry whispered into her ear, before slipping away from her.
The two lights looked around, searching for their targets.

"but.."
she turned and looked towards the lasers. She pressed her back against the wall and slid down tile she was sitting on the ground. she started crawling towards the man closest to her til she was just a few feet away. she waited for him to either spot her or move closer.

There was a grunt, and the sound of metal hitting flesh. One laser sight tumbled to the floor.
The other whirled around, facing away from Sylvia.
"Give up now, make it easy," a nervous voice sounded as he searched for Sytry, perhaps thinking Sylvia was in another room.

Sylvia took the opportunity and kicked her leg out knocking him to the floor, kicking his legs out from under him. She moved quickly to try and take the gun from the man so that he couldnt shoot it

Rin parked her car, and grabbed the messenger-style bag, and got out of the car, as she crossed the bag over her chest. "So...they're supposed to be around here...supposedly." She said to herself.

"Hey there, you must be Rin." He said as he stepped out from the shadows. The suit and fedora were a bit cliche but he liked the style. It had worked for his grandfather when he was in this business so it would work for him too. "I'm not sure if they told you who you were supposed to be meeting or not. You can call me Steampunk." He gave her a polite bow. "I'm supposed to help you on this job until I'm no longer needed."
He smiled at her. "Before you tell me to piss off, I have some contacts with useful information to use. Plus I can get into some places legally that you probably can't."

Codename: Steampunk
Sex: Male
Age: 24
Weapons: Butterfly knife, throwing knives

Spoiler:

Rin folded her arms. "It figures they'd send you." She commented. "I guess they were getting tired of the bribes they had to pay." She tilted her head slightly. "So, Steampunk, these contacts of yours...do they have information we can actually use, and not a wild goose chase?"

Nephilim had stalked Kanna to wherever she was, Silently watching her. He waited paitnely for a moment when she would be alone. And when He saw the opportunity of her in the truck. He Gently moved her to the passanger seat, hopped into the vehicle, hotwired it, and began to drive away slowly. Letting Kanna sleep. He drove off through the darkened paths of the night.

"They've been reliable in the past. But what you're trying to find..." He sighed and shook his head. "I'll be honest. Half the people I've asked about this all tell me I'm wasting my time chasing after a fairy tale. The other half could only produce the same old worn out tales and crackpot theories." His look was serious now.
"These people though, I only go to them when I can't get my info anywhere else. When they get asked something they take it seriously and don't ask why I want to know. It's how we in the information business operate. The high tier ones anyway."
He knew a little of Rin, not too much about her past or her motives for taking this job. He believed in professional courtesy after all. But she was a new agent and while not on her first job she was still relatively inexperienced.
"But we can get in touch with them soon. Right now I think finding those people should take priority." He walked by her heading for her car. "I have someone in MD who might be able to point us in the right direction. There have been a few additions to the list of HVTs. I'll drive."
He waited for her to belt herself in before putting the vehicle in drive. "Okay so you know about Jericho, right? Good. Now he's been chasing a ragtag group of misfits. First thing he does is capture two of them. One is a girl named Krystal and one of his former comrades named Terios. This is after the group these two were with ambushed an MD team and stole the info they were supposed to pick up."
He dropped a small bag in Rin's lap.
"Those are the files on the group. The apparent leader is this Sytry guy. Used to be with MD till he went rogue and was the brains behind the ambush. Next up you have a highly trained duo from Japanese covert ops. Yoshiko and Hikaru Tadashi, married. Plus Terios and Krystal. There was another guy too, named Aizen but he was killed by one of Jericho's men right before the kidnapping.
"Anyway, right after Jericho made his move on them Sytry started tearing the city apart trying to find them. Three more members join his group during this time. You have this girl named Kanna, she doesn't seem like much of a threat but she comes from a history of mob violence. Jaden, who was once a comrade of Jericho and Terios. Then there's Slyvia who was a police officer until she quit the other day. Her involvement seems to be due to a poor circumstance of wrong time, wrong place."
The traffic was kind of heavy as he drove near the airport but he kept their car on back roads to avoid the worst of the congestion.
"Now the last known location of all of them was this warehouse outside of town. Apparently something went down there judging from all the blood. But other than that the place is deserted. Which brings us to our current objective."
He pulled into an alleyway and drove slowly down it. "You get all that? Any questions? We're about to meet up with my contact."

Kanna was woken from her sleep by a rather large bump in the road. She yawned and looked at the man next to her. He didn't look like anyone she remembered, but then again she wasn't entirely sure if she was remembering correctly. Her head was fuzzy and it hurt.
"Who're you?" She mumbled sleepily. "Where we goin?"

Rin looked through the file, then looked at Steampunk. "I think I have it all." She replied. "Is there anything I need to know about your contact before we see them?"

Just a few moments after Jaden had taken Kanna to the truck, he heard what sounded like the truck's engine as he was walking back to camp. He quickly turned around to see the truck pulling away with Kanna still in it.
"Oh, no. No-no-no-no-no!"
He tried to chase after Kanna and her kidnapper, but it was already too late.
"Not good. Definitely not good."
He ran back to camp as fast as he could.

Terios sighed and looked down.
"Douglas looked up to Jericho the most out of any of us. I'm thinking...well, I'm just afraid that he might follow in his footsteps, too."
He shrugged and looked back up at Kyle.
"But, I guess there's not much we can do about it now. So, how about you? You wanna stick around with us for a while? We could always use someone with your talents on the team...besides, it'd be fun for us to start working as a team again."

Jaden interrupted their conversation as he ran right up to them. He stopped to catch his breath and started talking almost in a panic.
"Guys...Kanna...in the truck..."
He took a breath and tried again.
"Somebody stole our truck and kidnapped Kanna! We've gotta go after her!!"

Terios clenched his fists as his face turned to an angry expression.
"No...if they took the truck, we don't have any way to chase after them! Even if we did, we have to wait for Yoshiko to come back."
He punched a nearby tree in frustration. After taking a moment to calm down, he turned towards Kyle.
"I swear, it's never a dull moment in this ragtag little band of ours."
He turned back to Jaden.
"We don't have any choice in the matter. Once we get to town tomorrow, we'll make searching for Kanna our top priority; then we'll find out where Sytry went. I don't know how yet...but I'm sure we'll turn something up."

Hands gripped Sylvia's wrists, forcing them apart, trying to get her to hand over the gun.
A face, twisted with anger and fierce with hate, loomed at her out of the darkness.
Then -
Thuck.
Crunch.
Splat.

The face vanished, and the air became thick with the salty tang of blood.
The lights flicked back on, and the man Sylvia had been struggling with was lying on the floor, half his head crushed. Brain matter oozed out of the splintered skull. The other guy was lying near the corner of the room, his head turned 180 degrees on his neck like an owl.
Sytry, his face streaked with blood, looked back at her and tossed her one of their guns.
"I don't think you want yours back." He showed her the butt, and it was dripping with blood and brain fluids.
"He hurt you? You ok?"

Sylvia quickly turned on her side covering her mouth from the sight that laid next to her . She shook her head
"No..he didn't"
she took the gun that was tossed at her
"Thank you im fine"
She kept her back turned from the body
"can we get out of here?"

"I'm still a merc Terios so unless someone is willing to pay me-" He started when he heard Jaden come running. After the two said what they wanted Kyle spoke up. "All right Terios clam down. Think. How did I get here? So who's riding with me? I'll bill you once the job is done."

"Well he's one of the more... persuadable members of MD. I knew him a long time ago once, before he became the soldier he is now." He let out a sigh and then looked over at Rin. His eyes were hard and his expression serious. "I know it might feel like I've sort of taken over your operation, I'm sorry for that. But right now i need you to do as I say. Okay?
"..."
"Good. I need you to stay hidden. We're supposed to meet one on one but since he's with MD I can't trust him completely. We could easily be going into an ambush. His only reason for seeing me might be for information control. If you here any yelling or shooting I don't want you running in. I'm sure you know that these people are not to be messed with." He flicked open his knife and checked that the edge was sharp then patted various places under his suit coat checking that his knives were all in place.
He pulled the car up in front of a vacant building hidden from the main road by newer establishments and strip malls. The windows were boarded up or busted out, bits of glass covered everything. The building itself looked dilapidated and seemed to lean in one direction. It seemed on the verge of collapse.
"We're here."

Rin merely nodded her head, then looked at Steampunk when they arrived at the building. "I guess I'll stay here." She looked at the building. "Take my shotgun out of the trunk, just in case." She told him...not knowing if he had weapons or not.