Roleplaying therapy had proved highly effective, and the team were feeling a little more sane by the end of it with some basic grasp of how to human again.
Well, most of them. Exactly what had happened to Marlon was a bit of a mystery. Bross Kemp was still popping up from time to time, but interspersed with Dick Hunter, Kirk Shatner, and a variety of other characters. Fortunately the therapy meant that Requiem was dealing with this pretty well, and had even managed to stop listening to The Smiths and switch to Adele. She had remembered the assassin who attempted to shoot at them during the gang war between Bushido and Stomp Street though. She kind of wanted to kill him, but felt that perhaps questioning him about why he had been trying to shoot them might be a good idea too, especially given that he definitely had high level trauma team cover.
Quinton, having got the assassin's ID details while treating him, looked up his details. His real name was Henry, although he went by a number of aliases inclusing Deadyeye, Heatseeker and William H. Bonny. Also, Arasaka had a bounty on him from several years ago when he supposedly stole one of their cars. A 50K bounty definitely sounded like someone worth finding.
Everyone hit the streets to try to learn more about him, where Nemo quickly discovered that Henry was currently going by the alias of Heatseeker - but more importantly (and annoyingly) the bounty was out of date. Nevertheless, Requiem was still interested in finding him, so the team took a trip to the Afterlife, a solo bar in a rather nicer part of town.
After complaining about the parking fees and the entry costs, the team got down to the serious business of complaining about the drinks. On the second level they encountered a fixer, flanked by two catgirls. He apparently knew all about Heatseeker and could tell them practically everything about him - for a price. Since the price was 50K and all they really wanted was his ICQ number or AIM screenname, they rather lost interest at this point and returned to complaining about the drinks.
"Why is my drink made of petrol and worms?"
Nemo was very keen to find a ninja, having heard there were some in the buildings, so along with Requiem he headed for the third level. It wasn't long before Requiem spotted the ghost suit clad ninja following Nemo, and sat down with a couple of other guests to enjoy the show. Instead, Nemo was invited to visit the fighting pit in the basement.
After a bit of confusion where it was established that nobody actually wanted to fight a ninja, everyone found seats in the fighting pit's spectator area and watched a fight between Average Joe and Mike the Masher. Rolando bet on Average Joe. It seemed like Mike was going to win at the point he had Joe on the floor, sitting on him and preparing to beat him to death. However, this was, as Requiem predicted, the point at which the fight got more interesting when Joe sat up and bit the end off Mike's penis.
Rolando collected his winnings. Requiem, suddenly reminded of earlier conversations, reminded everyone that she had not been on any dates before Ricky and did not have a drawer full of severed penises. Much ribbing speculation then occurred about whether she had them about her person instead. She insisted that she only had one, and it was in the shrine at home. Rolando teasing her about the shrine was not appreciated, and when Nemo backed her up, reassuring her that her pain was justified, she kicked Rolando. It was an impressive and educational display of martial arts, but despite this and her cyber legs, she only gave him a light bruise, much like when she shot Nemo.
Around this time it was decided that leaving the bar would be advisable.
Outside, they were walking back to the car when some of the team noticed something odd: two sedans about to perform some kind of pincer ram on a limosine. (Requiem for once didn't notice, being both irritated and somewhat adrift without anything to focus her obsessiveness on.) What to do? It was impossible to know who the baddies were in this situation. Before they could do anything though, the cars crashed and people got out of the sedans.
Two of them had SMGs. Remembering what happened last time they'd taken on a group involving SMGs, Requiem drew her Arnos and killed both of them. The others started taking down the rest while Marlon, who by now had settled on the character of Bruce Leeroy, attempted to communicate with the occupants of the limo.
The remaining attackers shot rather ineffectually at Requiem, causing only minor scrapes to her cyber limbs. Realising they were somewhat outgunned, some of them got back in their car and started driving away. Rolando shot at them, as did Requiem after taking out the last two people from the other car, but they were unable to stop the vehicle.
Finally, the limo door was opened (largely due to Quinton pulling until it came off). Inside were two frightened looking girls, one of whom was holding a small pistol with the safety on. Quinton went to apply first aid to the unconscious driver, and Requiem got in with the two girls.
"Call that a gun? Now this is a gun."
The girl dropped the pistol, and Requiem put the Arno away.
The girls were on their way to a hotel, and were clearly in need of an armed escort. Perhaps some sort of compensation could be arranged on arrival? Quinton, after much insisting from Requiem that he not be shoved in the glove box (she was sure that's not what Persophone Cardiff would have done), put the driver in the recovery position in the back of the limo, and drove everyone to the hotel.
Will the girls' family pay for the armed escort? Is Heatseeker relevant to anything? Will the GM remember to stop expecting us to be decent human beings and get us railroaded back to the actual plot? Find out in the next appalling episode of Ramos Reportage!
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