Week 90: Prodigal's Return

He was bleeding as his bike slowly carried him to the door of Oracle HQ. He clung onto the bike limply, as if half deflated. His skin was an angry red mess of burn scars and molten metal clinging here and there. As he reached the front door, he went to brake, and missed, slipping and tumbling to the ground into a heap. He struggled to pull his battered body to the door.

Sitting in her office quietly ignoring how she had so much money to spend, Dani had been doing some market research for potential investment projects, but wasn't going anywhere new for the past hour or so. She sighed and grabbed her thrower case, planning on heading out to Keng's for some noodles to clear her head. Then she saw it. No, not it, him. It was... "Han...?" She patted herself down to find an emergency medpack and pulled it out of her back pocket, bending down to the beaten mess to find a good point to inject it. "The fuck happened? They on your tail?"

Han weakly brushed aside the medpack. "Need...food. Burned too many calories. Cybes are shutting..." he broke off into a wracking cough, some blood ending up on Dani's boot. "Sorry...need to eat. Can't heal anymore without fuel..."

He was shaking, and closer inspection showed his cybernetic limbs moving much more sluggish then they normally would.

Carmen, meanwhile, had been outside the front door for about ten minutes. She was smoking a conana-flavored synthspliff the size of her forefinger. She normally didn't indulge, but something about this building just.. set her on edge. She watched Han drive, crash, and bleed without moving. Her eyes were wide. As Dani ran from the building, Carmen blinked, and slowly began moving over. It was the music box guy. What the fuck was this corporation into?

She stood a few feet away, somewhat uneasily, and offered in a smooth Mandarin, "Uh.. I have a candy bar...?" She was still holding the intoxicating drugs in one hand while she patted her trench coat pockets.

"Guys, Han's at HQ, totally wrecked. Something's gone down, we might need to act fast."

Han snatched at the candy bar, cramming the oversized snack into his mouth like it was the elixir of life. There wasn't a dramatic change or sudden healing, but the discomfirt on Han's face lessened significantly, and his body relaxed a little.

"Thanks. I needed that. Carmen, right? The hacker?" He looked around, trying to assess the situation a little, before sitting up. "Uuuuugh, just gimme a minute."

Carmen's hand which held the candy bar was still extended, and for a moment she thought about helping him up. It was only for a moment, though, as Han was.. Much bigger than her. She took her hand back and frowned, instead. She only gave a breif nod at the mention of her name. "What the fuck happened to you?" The hacker took another long drag from her spliff, holding the smoke in as she spoke next, "And I have some mints in here, too, wait..." She exhaled and pulled out a small plastic container of pill shaped mints.

"I finally found them. Got Legacy right where I want them." Han grinned. "Course, they sent 6 Guan Yu suit users after me, so that was fun." Han experimentally flexed his right arm where the 3rd plasma barrage had hit. The servos were shot, the arm would need replacing. Again.

Meanwhile, in the depths of the HQ, Fenris was researching into the UIG, reading through news report after news report, but at least her AI was making this go faster. BUt then Dani smeaked, and she looked at the security feed. "Fuck!" There was a Han shaped bloody mess on the door of the HQ. Fenris grabbed her weapons and ran to the elevator.

There was an impressed whistle at that revelation. A whole Guan Yu division, and yet he was still so... intact. Dani knew Han had a lot of skill, but that was really something. "Well shit, big guy, you done good. They still coming? Do we need to arm up?" she asked, ready to call in her Tornado from the G.E.T. station.

Han's smile faded, replaced with a determined grimace. He raised his left hand and placed it softly on his forehead. "Not so much. I ditched 5 of them in under 3 minutes, when I used my jump jets to kick 2 of them off the roof. But the last one...they were special. Faster then I've ever seen a Guan Yu go, made turns I couldn't make in street clothes." He shook his head in disbelief. "That's not getting to the weaponry. Some kind of bullshit phase tech, saw it rip a dumpster in half with one shot. And when I finally pinned him down and dumped 4 shells into his face, they just took it! Didn't even phase the fucker!"

Han was becoming more animated with every word, clearly affronted at the concept of an enemy he couldn't shotgun.

Fenris was meet in the corridor by Amets, activating her tactical assault shield as she waited for the lift doors to open. She nodded to Fenris, looking even more pale than usual, but the lift doors opened before she had to say anything. The hacker stepped in, drawing her plasma pistol as she did so.

In the privacy of her mind, Amets was, truthfully, rather afraid. She knew Han Ji to be one of Oracle's long serving and most dangerous agents, and his return worried her far more than she let on. (Lying and Acting pass by 4)

Carmen frowned harder, and continued smoking. As Han spoke, she scanned the rooftops around the HQ. She shook her head, sighing a cloud of smoke. "We should go inside. There's a med bay, and you'll need more food." There was a paranoid edge to her voice, but she didn't stop inhaling long drags off her rapidly diminishing spliff. She was already moving toward the doors.

Fenris nodded to Amets, but didn't say anything, she was busy checking her bow to make sure everything was working fine. It would have to if someone was going to attack the HQ. Soon enough the Elevator opened, and Fenris sprang out.

It was at this moment that Fenris came bursting through the doors, bow drawn and an arrow notched. "Han! What the fuck have you done this time?" She was obviously concerned, but quickly moved past Han to watch for assailants.

As Fenris burst through the doors, Carmen ducked with impressive speed, hands raising to cover her head. When it became obvious that the object of her alarm was just her friend Fenris, she gave everyone a wide eyed look, chuckled to herself in an uneasy and self-depreciating way, and walked inside to watch from the clear glass doors.

FENRIS! Han roared with delight. "C'mon, help me up! I need to get some food in me, and my legs aren't working that great right now. I have STORIES"

Han's face held a smug grin. "I've got the Ai-Jinn's secrets by the balls." He attempted to stagger to his feet, panting as he did so. His body sagged against the wall as he nearly lost his balance.

Fenris, being the most heavily armed person standing, glanced pointedly at Dani, while maintaining her watch. "You can tell me inside, and perhaps underground. Street Rats tend to be more comfortable down there, or so I'm told." the attempt at levity notwithstanding, she was rather impatient to be heading inside.

"C'mon, big guy, let's get you to the medbay," Dani said as she began to lift Han up, looking at the others in a "hurry up and give me a hand" kind of way; she was good at lifting thanks to all her cybernetics, but Han armoured up was a lot of weight to support.

Once Han was settled in the medbay, with fresh coagulants knitting his more seeping wounds together, and about 3000 calories of nutribars in his stomach, he looked around the other agents, seeming much more like his old self.

"Well, that's a bit better. The cybernetics are gonna need repairing, and the suits a write off, but I'm alright. Sorry for worrying all of you. Well, those of you I know. I'm not sure we've been introduced?" He said, indicating Amets with a tilt of his forehead.

Amets, who had been quietly hanging back, one hand on her plasma pistol, glanced up from her PDA at her name. "Amets Basamortu." she replied, nodding back to Han. "You gave us all quite the surprise Agent Ji."

"Well, it's nice to meet you." He chuckled. "Trust me, I'm about as surprised to back as you are. I honestly thought I'd have to spend a few months fucking with Ai-Jinn partrols and low level grunts. Didn't expect them to send a hardcase right off the bat. Guess my rep precedes me."

After making sure her friend was ok, Fenris found herself a decent seat and made herself comfortable. "So. You promised stories." She said casually. "You must have found more than a few patrols." She then pulled out her PDA and began tapping away.

Inside Dani's head, plots were forming. If Han was serious enough news that they'd send a Guan Yu squad after him, maybe they could use him to lure one or two out, disable one of them so she could get her hands on it...

Carmen, now finished with drugs, just stared at Han. She was standing to the side and a little in front of Amets, and every now and then she looked back at her. She seemed much less paranoid now. More sedate. "I'm shocked every Ai Jinn Agent on Earth doesn't have your face tattoo'd onto their eyelids." She chuckled a little at her own joke.

"What, and distract themselves with my handsome face all the time? They'd never get anything done." His hand subconciously moved the deep scar running down his jaw, where knives and fists of the Ai-Jinn had mangled it to near uselessness. "Not that'd be such a bad thing of course."

He paused, and softly chewed another nutribar, tasting it this time. "Well, as most of you know, I decided I needed to go deep cover, see if I could uncover a substantial lead on Legacy. So I figured I'd try and track down their supply lines. They have all this weird tech that keeps showing up, that stuff needs fancy components and materials. So I've been following the leads I had already, got pretty good at tracking them down. Built up a lot of data on their movements, but I could never bring any of Legacy out far enough to track them down personally."

"That's when I started sneaking into drop sites and removing the specialised components, leaving every other bit of the shipment intact. I figured if I sent Legacy the message it was them and only them who were being targeted, they'd send someone to investigate for sure."

"And I was right. Last night, they sent a squad of 6 Guan Yu troops to intercept and kill me."

A smug grin ran across Han's face, almost manic in it's glee. "All according to plan."