Information trickled from St. Percy's into ASRI's human intelligence Diaspora over the course of several weeks, and in another month, it led back to the laboratory of Dr. Iellis Havendaro. He was not a man who wanted to be found, and not too easy to find; his undoing, however, was his lack of experience in remaining undercover and his incredible need for money and resources to keep his research afloat.
Jol Harazid, one of SPI's most recent and most advanced 'security consultants,' accompanied Aaron Shaw on the winding path they were taking to the laboratory, letting the other man take point, and yet he could not help but question it...
"Shaw - are you quite sure this is your thing?" The man's smile was the cruel sort of teasing, an arrogant little smirk. He kept one hand inside of his short jacket, on his gun. Just in case. "I do not mean any offense, but, eh, I do not think there will be many people to shoot up."
"You 'ave a problem with the orders, you know you can always just blow it out your ass, Harazid." Shaw looked back upon the man with something akin to the excitement he seemed to grow possessed by once a mission was getting underway. But this was a very delicate operation. Everything was perfect, and all three guns weighed comfortably beneath his weathered jacket and in his pants, both shoulder holsters and the big one latched on the inside of the jeans.
"I 'ave experience enough for the mission, so rest easy."
"Oh, there is no problem, Shaw... I merely have to question why the Boss sent you out on this little errand. It does not suit your... how to say... bravado." His smile grew, clearly enjoying himself. The laboratory was close, about to come into sight - the front door was, apparently, completely unprotected.
He chuckled in a vicious sort of way as they came out to sight of the lab. At that point, he quieted and brought up a hand to stop the other. His whisper was slow. "Y'don't know my bravado 'til you've seen all the sides've it. I got a quiet part here or there. I'm goin' 'round the back, through the maintenance door. You clear the lobby out, quietly, an' by the time you?re done I'll probably've completed the whole damned mission."
Shaw chuckled under his breath, and made his way into the adjacent alley, a silenced handgun moving in an almost perfect tandem with his eyes over every surface and abnormality.
"Too easy," Harazid muttered under his breath once Shaw was out of sight. He hurried to the door, tried the handle - locked - and kicked it in.
The lab was empty and completely ransacked. Whatever Jol Harazid was taking care of, he was doing it quietly and out of Shaw's way. The vital equipment and materials had been removed, with stray pieces scattered and broken on the floors, along with the remains of several small fires... Someone had been burning paperwork.
Shaw was good, and he got in through the maintenance door without sounding any kind of alarm or annoying "door open" sound-off. He made for the on of the largest rooms he could find, passing a rat and a bit of random, lost paperwork along the way. When he'd reached the larger office, with more than one desk, he began to rifle through them until he'd found... Nothing.
The next desk proved much more fruitful than the last, turning up a binder left beneath a drawers false bottom. Someone had been careless when they'd gone and gathered up all their goodies for the big move. "Hrm." An amused sort of sound, before he moved through the rest of the desk to find worthless accounting equipment and a few other choice pieces of broken trash. Shaw's path took him out, and through several more rooms before he began to head back towards the entrance hall.
It might have been some spell that Jol Harazid used to augment his stealth; the fact of the matter was, he came out of nowhere to step up only a few feet from Shaw's side with a pistol aimed at him, pulling the hammer back.
"You know, Shaw... as much as I dislike you, I had hoped you would not find those records."
"I really can't f*****g stand traitors, Harazid. You at least cover all your bases?" He stood up straight, and turned his head towards the man. "You know everything about the situation? You know nothing can go wrong with your little insubordination?" Because he had to know.
It was necessary, more or less.
Harazid heaved a sigh, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, Aaron... if only I could erase your memory... Wait. I forgot." He smiled cruelly. "I can." Then he shifted his aim for Shaw's head and squeezed the trigger.
Shaw's hand began to move when Harazid's pupils shifted in that subtle way that lets someone know they're about to get shot at. By the time the bullet left the barrel, everything was in place. The slug would certainly bruise the skin of the palm it fell from, but that was the extent of it. When his hand shot forwards for the gun, it was noticeably darker than the skin on the other side of the scars, and had a mind to wrench it loose or crush Harazid's hand to it. The other hand was already moving for his throat, to cleanse him with that merciless touch.
"F*****g traitors!" Made it out there somewhere in that mess.
Harazid jerked one side back, but the other lost the grip on his gun - he had not been expecting this from Aaron Shaw... whatever the man was. "Tricky bastard," he muttered, grinning up at his adversary even as he stumbled back into the wall with a thud.
"I'll give you a little advice, Mr. Shaw, before I go..." He cracked his knuckles one by one, part of him fighting the urge to lunge. "Leave ASRI. Don't have anything to do with Alain's little groups ever again... because you should understand something... We have our people everywhere, in everything, and we will win. This little incident is the first and last of our setbacks - trust me," he finished with a growl through his toothy grin.
"Oh, Harazid, y'sweet talker. Lemme tell y'somethin' about what it is I do.." Shaw's hands were a deadened, frostbitten black as he flexed them, every bone popping out of and into place. The gun was crumpled like a piece of paper, colors warping and the material stretching out the longer it was in contact with his skin. His smile was that of a madman, plain and simple. "I kill everything."
That was when he shot forward; a dog fresh out the gate, springing after the rabbit with those hands, twitching and pulsing with a life all their own laid overtop Shaw's.
This time, Harazid was faster. Before Shaw could reach him, the devil said "au revoir" and threw something like a smoke bomb at the ground. There was a red flash, a teleportation, and the traitor was nowhere to be found.
He gave pause in the smoke, giving into himself when another's presence was no longer felt. His hands shook, though more like an addict's than someone enraged, and his accompanying voice was similar to it as well. ".. F**K!!!" A fist crashed into the wall where Harazid had been, before Shaw shook it out and walked away from here, from this building and this place with what little he could scrounge in those accounting records.
Jol Harazid, one of SPI's most recent and most advanced 'security consultants,' accompanied Aaron Shaw on the winding path they were taking to the laboratory, letting the other man take point, and yet he could not help but question it...
"Shaw - are you quite sure this is your thing?" The man's smile was the cruel sort of teasing, an arrogant little smirk. He kept one hand inside of his short jacket, on his gun. Just in case. "I do not mean any offense, but, eh, I do not think there will be many people to shoot up."
"You 'ave a problem with the orders, you know you can always just blow it out your ass, Harazid." Shaw looked back upon the man with something akin to the excitement he seemed to grow possessed by once a mission was getting underway. But this was a very delicate operation. Everything was perfect, and all three guns weighed comfortably beneath his weathered jacket and in his pants, both shoulder holsters and the big one latched on the inside of the jeans.
"I 'ave experience enough for the mission, so rest easy."
"Oh, there is no problem, Shaw... I merely have to question why the Boss sent you out on this little errand. It does not suit your... how to say... bravado." His smile grew, clearly enjoying himself. The laboratory was close, about to come into sight - the front door was, apparently, completely unprotected.
He chuckled in a vicious sort of way as they came out to sight of the lab. At that point, he quieted and brought up a hand to stop the other. His whisper was slow. "Y'don't know my bravado 'til you've seen all the sides've it. I got a quiet part here or there. I'm goin' 'round the back, through the maintenance door. You clear the lobby out, quietly, an' by the time you?re done I'll probably've completed the whole damned mission."
Shaw chuckled under his breath, and made his way into the adjacent alley, a silenced handgun moving in an almost perfect tandem with his eyes over every surface and abnormality.
"Too easy," Harazid muttered under his breath once Shaw was out of sight. He hurried to the door, tried the handle - locked - and kicked it in.
The lab was empty and completely ransacked. Whatever Jol Harazid was taking care of, he was doing it quietly and out of Shaw's way. The vital equipment and materials had been removed, with stray pieces scattered and broken on the floors, along with the remains of several small fires... Someone had been burning paperwork.
Shaw was good, and he got in through the maintenance door without sounding any kind of alarm or annoying "door open" sound-off. He made for the on of the largest rooms he could find, passing a rat and a bit of random, lost paperwork along the way. When he'd reached the larger office, with more than one desk, he began to rifle through them until he'd found... Nothing.
The next desk proved much more fruitful than the last, turning up a binder left beneath a drawers false bottom. Someone had been careless when they'd gone and gathered up all their goodies for the big move. "Hrm." An amused sort of sound, before he moved through the rest of the desk to find worthless accounting equipment and a few other choice pieces of broken trash. Shaw's path took him out, and through several more rooms before he began to head back towards the entrance hall.
It might have been some spell that Jol Harazid used to augment his stealth; the fact of the matter was, he came out of nowhere to step up only a few feet from Shaw's side with a pistol aimed at him, pulling the hammer back.
"You know, Shaw... as much as I dislike you, I had hoped you would not find those records."
"I really can't f*****g stand traitors, Harazid. You at least cover all your bases?" He stood up straight, and turned his head towards the man. "You know everything about the situation? You know nothing can go wrong with your little insubordination?" Because he had to know.
It was necessary, more or less.
Harazid heaved a sigh, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, Aaron... if only I could erase your memory... Wait. I forgot." He smiled cruelly. "I can." Then he shifted his aim for Shaw's head and squeezed the trigger.
Shaw's hand began to move when Harazid's pupils shifted in that subtle way that lets someone know they're about to get shot at. By the time the bullet left the barrel, everything was in place. The slug would certainly bruise the skin of the palm it fell from, but that was the extent of it. When his hand shot forwards for the gun, it was noticeably darker than the skin on the other side of the scars, and had a mind to wrench it loose or crush Harazid's hand to it. The other hand was already moving for his throat, to cleanse him with that merciless touch.
"F*****g traitors!" Made it out there somewhere in that mess.
Harazid jerked one side back, but the other lost the grip on his gun - he had not been expecting this from Aaron Shaw... whatever the man was. "Tricky bastard," he muttered, grinning up at his adversary even as he stumbled back into the wall with a thud.
"I'll give you a little advice, Mr. Shaw, before I go..." He cracked his knuckles one by one, part of him fighting the urge to lunge. "Leave ASRI. Don't have anything to do with Alain's little groups ever again... because you should understand something... We have our people everywhere, in everything, and we will win. This little incident is the first and last of our setbacks - trust me," he finished with a growl through his toothy grin.
"Oh, Harazid, y'sweet talker. Lemme tell y'somethin' about what it is I do.." Shaw's hands were a deadened, frostbitten black as he flexed them, every bone popping out of and into place. The gun was crumpled like a piece of paper, colors warping and the material stretching out the longer it was in contact with his skin. His smile was that of a madman, plain and simple. "I kill everything."
That was when he shot forward; a dog fresh out the gate, springing after the rabbit with those hands, twitching and pulsing with a life all their own laid overtop Shaw's.
This time, Harazid was faster. Before Shaw could reach him, the devil said "au revoir" and threw something like a smoke bomb at the ground. There was a red flash, a teleportation, and the traitor was nowhere to be found.
He gave pause in the smoke, giving into himself when another's presence was no longer felt. His hands shook, though more like an addict's than someone enraged, and his accompanying voice was similar to it as well. ".. F**K!!!" A fist crashed into the wall where Harazid had been, before Shaw shook it out and walked away from here, from this building and this place with what little he could scrounge in those accounting records.