[Elias]

The Bird of Hermes is    my name                       Eat  My   WINGS   TO   KEEP   ME   TAME Bakiri Retsu  Rui Matsui

Two jobs. He had demanded two jobs of the duo in exchange for the information he offered. Well, technically, it was only the mercenary that was bound to him. Rui could, in theory, take off and do as she wished, but Elias  needed no threads to bind her loyalty. Point her in the right direction, and she would what the Mummy does. Namely, cause trouble. The mercenary, however, Bakuretsu, brought a certain destructive expertise he could use. 

Ouroboros tasked Elias with a rather high-risk mission. Given the investment they had already made and the fact they wanted nothing traced to them, he would need to use his own resources on the coming operation. These two now counted among those resources, and he fully intended to utilize their skills for the actual operation. First things first, though. They had a convoy to raid. 

The security firm Forseti Security Services had recently carved out a space for themselves in Japan. It was a front, really, for a greater organization, the private military company Mjolnir Corp. None of this particularly interested Elias, but their cargo did. Forseti had been developing a newly weaponized gas with anti-quirk properties. It was still in the testing phase, but such a tool could be quite useful to Elias in the trials that awaited him. The problem was that Forseti was preparing to move the prototype out from their headquarters in Tokyo to bring it to another facility up north. The Wish-Maker could not allow that to happen. 

He hadn't clued the others in on exactly what it was they were securing. Only that a small convoy would be vacating the city, and it was up to the three of them to stop it and retrieve something of great value to Elias. The trio were holed up in Tokyo's outskirts, where the highway would veer off outside the city proper. 

"Are you sure you have all you might require?" He'd ask Bakiri.  

There was still time to take proper positions and grab any last-minute additions that were required. For now, they posted up in a hotel room that oversaw the highway. No matter the approach, Elias needed them to succeed. Failing Ouroboros was not an option. 

OWL

[Bakiri Retsu]

Bakuretsu was used to dealing with trouble as it came. While she'd occasionally had time to prepare in full for whichever raid she was participating in it happened far more that she was scrambling to stay on top of the situation. Of course that wasn't to say she wasn't used to preparing in full. She'd been working as a mercenary since she was fourteen and learned a great many things through blood, sweat and tears. Both hers and that of others. She wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, no, she'd use this prep time to the fullest. 

Checking and double checking all of her gear was taking quite a while. Which wasn't a surprise. She'd come loaded for bear. Tightening the strap of her shoulder holster she made sure her pistol was within easy reach, pulling it out and reholstering it just to make sure nothing was off. Next she checked the ammo on her assault rifle slamming a full magazine home and racking the slide before letting it hang from its sling again, the metal briefly clanking against her grenades as she finished her final checks. 

Her thin black camo jacket went over everything to hide her arsenal. Up close it'd barely do anything but from afar the thing broke her silhouette up enough that the unnatural bumps where her equipment stuck out wouldn't be noticeable. Which was convenient since there were quite a few. The straps of her chest rig were loaded chock full of her custom grenades and its pouches carried enough ammunition to make a marine blush. One of the magazines she'd brought in particular was marked with a band of red paint so she wouldn't mistake it for any of the others. She hadn't done nearly enough testing with her experimental explosive ammo to be confident it'd work but in a pinch having it on her was better than nothing. 

Resting her palm on the hilt of the combat blade strapped to her hip she turned to Elias as he spoke.

"Ah do." 

Were this not a mission Retsu would be tempted to fire back with something along the lines of 'course, who d'ya think ah am?' but she knew better than to engage in such things when operating as a hired gun. That was how people got killed and she wasn't intending to go out on an underpaid job. She exchanged a glance with Rui before she continued. There were few she'd rather have with her on a job than the horned devil by now, even if Retsu wasn't quite willing to admit it. 

"Anythin' else we need ta know 'fore we begin?"

She had some ideas of how to go about it but she was no stranger to employers having arbitrary requirements that messed up her strategies. Best to get that out of the way before she committed to a strategy. With her new bike parked outside there were plenty of ways to go about it. Maybe she could even throw Rui at the problem? Thinking about it again that might not even be a bad idea. Mummy could easily survive leaping off the back of her bike and onto one of the transports and with a bit of C4 or a couple breaching strips getting inside would be no trouble either. Depending on how many escort vehicles the convoy had being able to handle multiple targets at once might just end up being crucial to the mission at hand.

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Tags: Elias Rui Matsui

[Rui Matsui]

Her loyalty was cheap so long as the work was fun. Robbing a bank was one thing, assassination? Could be exciting, but the target was never a pro hero. Ambushing and raiding a convoy? Now that was something she didn't get to do every day, especially not in the company of two of her besties, one of which she was hoping to get to know a little better on this excursion. Sitting in the windowsill she kicked her legs dangling just over the floor casually. ''We're allowed to kill, right?'' She exchanged a glance with Retsu, but looked over at Elias while idly playing with her knife. Unlike Retsu she didn't have a whole arsenal to bring with her. ''If we aren't then my job's gonna be harder.'' She leaned back, relaxed as could be despite the mission that was ahead of them.

She didn't mind it, the no-killing rule. Some villains lived by it and while Rui found it weird and cringe she wasn't going to tell her employer no. If anything, reviving dead people was also quirk practice for her. ''Not that I mind, I'd do anything for my besties and a free drink.'' She smiled, figuring she could charm her way to a free drink at club Nirvana after this whole thing was over. While Retsu was a mercenary with a somewhat steady pay rate, Rui was nothing of the sort. Elias had her onboard the moment he suggested a job with a little bit of excitement. She didn't even mind a lower pay, so long as she got a front row seat to the violence and got to enjoy her free drink later. ''Before we go out there, don't be scared to be reckless besties. You won't die on my watch.'' She grinned mischievously. Even if they wanted death she was going to deny them for her own entertainment.

Bakiri Retsu
Elias

[Elias]

The Bird of Hermes is    my name                       Eat  My   WINGS   TO   KEEP   ME   TAME Bakiri Retsu  Rui Matsui

Elias sat in one of the few arm chairs dotting the room. He left the desk to Bakiri and the arsenal she just finished checking over. He carried a simple handgun on him but would be relying more on his quirk. Bakiri was the heavy guns between them. Good, she could hold the security firm's attention. 

"Kill as you please," he started, mentally thumbing through the intel his people had gathered, "otherwise, nothing I haven't gone over already. The convoy may entail anywhere from three to seven vehicles. All are armored to some degree, but the centermost vehicle will be quite a bit larger. I need that one relatively intact. What matters most is we retrieve a secure lockbox within. We may attack the vehicle, but no blowing it to bits."

Elias looked his gloves over. He hadn't operated as the Djinn for over a year now, but duty called, and he would see the snakes fed. If Forseti kept to schedule, it wouldn't be long before they departed. So, he pulled an owl mask over his face. The rest of the villainous ensemble could wait. 

"Forseti Security is without many quirked agents, but they are well trained and heavily armed," he continued. Apparently, the Mjolnir Corp. as a whole was rather devoid of quirk-kind. Only a few in the possession of quirks marked their ranks.

Elias stood from his place and approached the vacant window beside the one Rui was perched on. 

"Get me that lockbox, and I'll see your drinks covered for the foreseeable future," he almost snickered in response to Rui's latter comment, "preferably yes, without me dying." 

Such thoughts were a travesty to leave the world without the perfection he believed himself to be. What would be the point? 

"It won't be much longer now. So then, dear, what is our preferred approach?" 

OWL

[Bakiri Retsu]

"Roite then," Retsu began after giving Rui an appreciative nod. She had the distinct feeling the healer's support might just become instrumental before this job was done, as much as she'd never admit it out loud. Raising two fingers in front of her she continued.

"Ah ken think a' two ways ta do this. The first's Rui hitchin' a ride on the back of mah bike. Ah hit the escorts at the front a' the convoy 'n slow down ta let 'er jump onto ta main transport 'fore ah go keep the rest busy. Risky as all hell but the timing's flexible enough we ken execute it whenever an opportunity shows up."

Lowering one of her fingers she fished out her ENKI phone with the other and clicked through the app before continuing. When she turned the device to face them a map was on display, zoomed in on one stretch of the highway in particular.

"Second one's a bit more time sensitive but ah'd say it's much less likely ta get us killed. There's an overpass naht too far from 'ere. If ah hit 'em roite when they're goin' under it 'nd aim ta block the side lanes it'll force 'em ta rush through the center. Makes 'em easy ta predict. That'd be where you two come in. If ya time it right as the center transport's movin' past Rui ken drop from the overpass roite on top a' it 'n get in. Ah dunno 'ow good y'r control with those strings is but ya ken prolly make sure she sticks the landin' if we go with this one," she shrugs, "and if y'all miss it ain't 'ard ta get a car from the overpass ta the highway. Y'all ken catch up while ah keep 'em busy and worst come ta worst we'll wing it from there."

Shutting the screen off again and sliding her phone back into her pocket Retsu cracked her neck and her knuckles before looking at each of them in turn.

"What'cha'll think? Plan A or Plan B? Ah'm open ta suggestions too."

She left unspoken she'd only do that so long as they weren't dumb. Retsu would proceed to wholeheartedly ignore them if they were. She couldn't quite put her finger on why but something about this whole thing felt off. In her experience a security firm with mainly quirkless employees could mean three things. They were either desperate, had some serious issues up top or had a specific reason not to include quirkers. If she were a betting woman she'd put her money on it being the latter.

And what d'ya know? She was.

Which meant she wasn't gonna hold back in the slightest. She was gonna hit hard, hit first, hit fast and hit once. Because she knew chances were she wouldn't get the opportunity to hit a second time otherwise. While superpowers gave certain advantages the absence of them allowed for a far more controlled environment and the usage of old military tactics, practiced and improved through centuries of conflict. If that was their modus operandi and the reason for their choice of employees this was bound to be tough. Which didn't make the alternative any better. That they had a different reason to purposefully not include anyone with a quirk in their ranks. Her brow furrowed.

Perhaps there was a reason Elias had singled her out in particular for this. Her eyes briefly flicked to Rui. She doubted she was right but after seeing some of Azazel's tech in the arena she had this nagging feeling that they might need to prepare themselves to work with significantly less 'extra lives' than either of them thought.

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Tags: Elias Rui Matsui

[Rui Matsui]

''Lockbox, sounds easy. ~'' She was giddy at the thought that she could kill freely. Because of her unique power it wasn't uncommon for her to have to maim or kill people, only to bring them back right after because they were a target that needed to be taken hostage or something like that. She never understood the bigger picture, but she didn't have to either. People paid her and she did her job. ''All loaded up?'' She smiled, acknowledging Retsu's nod.

''Without quirks? Who do they take us for? Waving a few toys around won't be enough to deter us.'' She was still twirling the knife in one hand while holding a red flare in the other that she stashed away. When Elias addressed her again she stopped spinning the knife and grinned over at him. ''This is why I like working with besties.'' She wasn't even worried that Elias or Retsu was going to die. In her mind her quirk was perfect and infallible, no one was going to die on her watch. She blinked her eyes and looked over at Retsu as she began proposing a plan, or multiple. When did she have all that time to think so much?

When Retsu pulled out the map on her phone she slid down from the windowsill and stretched before walking a little closer so she could see it as Retsu was talking. ''Whatever keeps you sane, besties. If you wanna risk it I'm right there with you, if you wanna play it safe I don't care, I came along for the thrills.'' It was true, she really wasn't the strategizing type and perhaps it was a little bit of personal growth for her that she realized that. ''I'm a gun. You just point me at them and pull the trigger and I'll do my thing.'' She thought about it again for a moment. ''That being said, plan A is more risky? I think plan A sounds fun. ~ Magic Bestie?'' She looked to Elias.

Elias
Bakiri Retsu

[Elias]

The Bird of Hermes is    my name                       Eat  My   WINGS   TO   KEEP   ME   TAME Bakiri Retsu  Rui Matsui

And it was in this regard, perhaps, that Elias differed from Rui most. He didn't like risky. He preferred a controlled environment, a scenario in which he and his could account for every variable. No unknown quantities. This is why he preferred the confines of his club. Risks could be mitigated, and his advantages were plenty. Not out here, though. Not in the field. 

And yet, like Bakiri, he had considered their enemies and the factors they presented. 

"And yet, what is the threat of death to those aligned with she who breathes life into friends?" He mused, looking back and forth between the mercenary and the mummy from behind his mask. "Plan B would leave our enemies predictable, true, but tactics and strategy will be their game as well. In this rare instance, I think it best we err on the side of chaos. Leave them in unpredictable waters with limited time to think and react. Plan A." 

To bottleneck Forseti's options would be to bottleneck their resources, to concentrate them on what could and would likely be done. Keep them spread out and confused. That sounded like the truly safer bet. 

"You are what you dare," he muttered before continuing in his typically confident tone, "you two hit the convoy from the front. I'll come up from behind. We spread their attention out to minimize the focus, and gunfire, on little Rui, giving her the best chance to bring the main transport to a stop."

Though simple firearms weren't going to put the Mummy down, the force they delivered might toss her off the vehicle, and the longer the convoy moved, the lower their collective chances were of taking the package he required. Elias didn't very much like putting himself in direct danger, but he couldn't afford to fail his benefactors. If they were all agreed, it would be time to move out. 

OWL

[Bakiri Retsu]

Retsu took a brief glance at her 'toys' before fixing Rui with an unamused look. Clicking her tongue she looked away. What would Mummy know? With a quirk that was akin to winning the lottery was it any wonder she thoughts so little of those who didn't have one? Retsu didn't care about her opinion on the matter. Restrictions breed innovation and hers have led her to create her own strength one day of sweat, blood and tears at a time. By now her climb to the top has brought her so high that when she looks back she can't even see where she started anymore. She wasn't jealous in the slightest. Not at all. Nor was there any reason she looked away when Rui continued speaking.

Pocketing her phone she decided to ignore what she saw as Rui's next unintentional insult before her lips twitched at the comparison. It was an apt metaphor for the lethality she'd seen the little demon display recently. She herself had racked up quite the count as a hired gun too. A gun. A tool used by another without being in control of its own fate. Retsu's mood soured. Was that how Rui saw herself? For some reason that didn't sit right with her. Maybe she ought to pay extra next time she needed healing.

"Plan A it is then," Retsu agreed while throwing a pack of breaching strips and a piece of C4 at Rui. She highly doubted some jumped-up security company had anywhere near as much experience using chaos to their advantage as they did. Nevertheless she prepared herself for the worst. The fact that this is the version of the plan that would keep both herself and Rui away from Elias and that his means of participation would make it impossible for them to determine he wasn't double-crossing them until it was too late didn't slip her mind. She'd be keeping one eye open, that was for sure.

---

Rubber tore across asphalt to the tune of a roaring engine as Retsu maintained a steady speed, her brand new motorcycle carrying both herself and Rui down the highway.

"Oy, Ruister. The code ta set off the C4 ah gave ya instantly is one two three four," Retsu shouted over her shoulder, raising her voice to be heard through her helmet and over the wind roaring by them. She was lying of course. The correct code would allow the user to set a timer long enough for them to take cover but explaining that the booby trapped activation would serve Rui's purposes better would have taken far too long. Not to mention needlessly add confusion into the mix. "Pack a' breachin' strips works the same!"

It seemed she'd finished giving the reminder just in time as an opportunity finally arrived. A car arriving from an access road crossed lanes, providing a brief blind spot to one of the two frontmost escort vehicles. Retsu hadn't survived until now by passing up on opportunities like that. The second she was out of its line of sight she lobbed a sticky grenade over the top of their cover to land on the hood of said escort vehicle. While it was still in flight she made another throw, this time with a piece of C4 aimed right at the vehicle that still had eyes on them. Screeching tires let her know they'd reacted far faster than she'd expected them too. Retsu clicked her tongue. Competence like that would make this a very troublesome fight.

A press of her remote detonator sent the vehicle skidding, thrown off course by the blast but not quite out of the fight yet. It'd have to be enough.

"Brace y'rself!"

Hitting the brakes to slow them down just as the vehicle they were using for cover began to swerve out of the control of its panicked driver Retsu firmly pressed her legs into both sides of the motorcycle to steady herself. Both of her hands reached into a deep pocket of her cargo pants each. From within she withdrew one of her 'firecracker' pattern explosives, a set of grenades connected by a thin steel wire tied to their pins. Her arms came up and spread wide like a conductor at the climax of their performance, unspooling the wires and drawing the firecrackers in their wake. At the apex of their ascent the wires almost seemed like an extension of her arms, metal catching the light to give the impression a massive set of wings, like an angel descending onto the battlefield.

A Valkyrie.

"Fly!" Retsu shouted back at Rui as they drew close to the main vehicle, her grenades coming loose one by one with metallic clinks and scattering over a wide area to add a cacophony of chaos to the scene. The Rubicon had been crossed. It was now do or die.

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Tags: Elias | Rui Matsui

[Rui Matsui]

Rui was one big, proud grin when Elias mused about her abilities making their deaths tonight much less likely. ''Let chaos reign!'' She cooed enthusiastically, looking towards Retsu, getting all the confirmation she needed right away. They were all onboard with plan A, plan chaos. This job was surely going to be a fun one. When Elias further laid out of some of their plan she gave a quiet thumbs up. She was being put right in the center of it all. Center of attention just the way she wanted, was everything just coming up Rui? ''It'll stop real dead!''

She inspected the breaching strips and the C4 with the same curiosity one might a rubik's cube. Ever since her and Retsu had started working more closely together she had started to get familiar with grenades and bombs of all kinds, but she mostly still watched Retsu set them off, she was Bomb Bestie after all.

---

She held onto Retsu as they barreled down the road. ''Got it! One Two Three Four!'' She shouted back, already having heard the code wrong, not that any of that would ultimately matter. Suddenly, all at once hell broke loose. Retsu was already attacking with the opportunity they had been given, now all she had to do was wait for her own time to strike. It would have been so much easier if everyone wasn't driving vehicles around.

Being in the middle of it, surrounded by a symphony of explosions she would have been content to just watch all this unfold, but most of her jobs weren't this exciting, when would she get the chance to blow something up again? With a manic grin on her face and highly dangerous explosives on her person she leapt, having a much easier time doing things like this thanks to her parkour training.

''Special Delivery!!'' She shouted to no one in particular, grabbing onto the roof of the car by wrapping her bandages around anything that could hold her in the place long enough to get a grip without needing a quirk. All the while she was deploying the breaching strips and getting the C4 ready. She didn't pay attention to anyone else in that moment, whether bullets were coming down on her, or other special weapons. She was hellbent on tanking it all as she typed in the code. One two three four.

Elias
Bakiri Retsu

[Elias]

The Bird of Hermes is    my name                       Eat  My   WINGS   TO   KEEP   ME   TAME Rui Matsui & Bakiri Retsu

How fine the weave of fate Elias had spun, however unintentional. When his fingers danced across the loom and its many threads, he hadn't expected to garner the support of one angel, let alone two. Yet, from his position at the rear, he watched as the angel of death delivered her promise with torrid heat, force, and shrapnel. He knew the mercenary had earned her reputation, but to so brazenly assault their enemies and without much in the way of immediate riposte meant she had truly taken them by surprise.

Now it was his turn. 

A sea of innumerous threads unwound from Elias's body, then wrapped around the man. Yet more grew from his shoulders until it all solidified into a suit of black covered in gold armor and framed in red threads. Between his new attire and the mask, his identity would be fairly safe. 

The Wish-Maker sped ahead, closing in on the rear of the convoy. There were three heavy vehicles behind the armored transport, and three ahead- including those Bakiri had attacked. One of the rearguards veered right, ready to accelerate in support of the forward crew. Elias moved with his target, riding a motorcycle of his own. 

One man, clad in a black BDU, popped out of the small opening atop the vehicle and drew an automatic rifle, taking aim at the more obvious of the convoy's enemies. Elias whipped his hand to the side, unleashing more threads from his fingers, then flung his hand forward. The threads latched onto the man and ripped him from the vehicle, dropping him onto the highway. 

That was the only surprise opportunity he would be offered. Everyone was deploying now. Militants waving the flag of security leaning out of the ports and windows of the other transports. Some opened fire ahead. More than a few turned their attention to Elias. And this was when chaos struck in full. 

Civilian vehicles screeched to a stop. Others sped forward. Everyone vying for distance from the fighting. Elias weaved his vehicles one way, then the other. Serpentine movement to throw off the Forseti troop's aim. He whipped his hand about, snatched up another "guard," and tossed the man aside. Then, his motorcycle took a few rounds. Gasoline poured out the vehicle's side. He was going to need to vacate sooner rather than later. And there were only so many choices left open to him. 

OWL

[Bakiri Retsu]

If the skidding vehicle hadn't obscured its third partner's view Retsu would have been dead. Fortunately for her it stopped them from getting a bead on her just long enough for her to hit the gas and speed ahead once more. In engagements such as these where a hundred things happened every second there was no time for thought, contemplation or planning. Retsu ran on pure instinct, legs clenched around the bike as she pulled more grenades off her harness. She had to both keep the vehicles at the front busy long enough for Rui to do her thing and try not to die in the attempt.

Neither of which looked like they'd be as easy as she expected it to be. Which was telling given how much of a pessimist Bakuretsu tended to be. Somehow not just the one that swerved but the one her sticky had hit head on had survived. Of course the damn things were blast proof! She didn't exactly have the caliber of bullets to get through the armor either. 

That left the wheels as the winning strategy. Left uninterrupted it was a throw she could likely time right but she doubted they'd allow her to. Swerving in front of the one she'd damaged the hood most of she did her best to ensure none of them managed to flank her by throwing grenades in the path of any vehicles that tried to speed up. There were far too many firing ports on the sides for her to survive that. Keeping the same distance while the vehicle alternatively tried to ram her and slow down to gain enough distance for its allies to get a clear shot took razor focus. Her engine roared as she danced on the edge of the knife, a wide smile behind her helmet the entire time. 

An incendiary went below the vehicle behind her to hinder and slow anything further down the line. The next time it tried to ram her she bent and lobbed a piece of C4 underhand and up to jam it into the grills, set to detonate three seconds after she tossed it. With her full force she pulled free a smoke grenade and tossed it as far ahead of her as she could while speeding up and pressing the detonator, obscuring her for a valuable moment as she finally managed to put one of the vehicles out of the fight, should the detonation do as much as planned of course.

She abruptly swerved left and hit the brakes to throw off the other assailants' predictions. The moment she was out of the small gas cloud she'd made she throttled the engine and burst as fast as possible towards the front of another car, already seeing guns sticking out of ports to lay down a hail of fire on her. 

That was bad. Another firecracker pattern was pulled free and thrown one-handedly to the side and behind her to obscure the other escorts' -because fook, of course another had joined them from the back- view while she sped ahead on a collision course. One bullet hit her in the hip, another whizzed by her helmet so closely she could hear it even through the ear protection and several more peppered the front and side of her bike. Sparks lit up the ground combined with a metallic screech when one of her wheels popped. She swore in her head. Once more it was do or die. Luckily for her very few training manuals covered how to fight an opponent that was batshit insane. She hit the gas and kept her bike under control for as long as she could before leaping off and onto the front of the Armored Sentry, a piece of C4 pulled out mid-air and held against the bottom of her foot.

'Ah, this is gonna hurt.'

Hitting the hood with a thud and sliding across she kicked out once she got close enough for her leg to reach the window, her C4 slamming into it and her heel smashing the code pad hard enough for several keys to be pressed at the same time and detonate it instantly. With some luck that'd wreck the bulletproof glass enough for her to fly through and into the car instead of bouncing over it and crashing into the highway face first. She didn't like her odds if it failed. Being on foot while everyone else had armored cars wasn't a winning strategy and chances were she'd be on the wrong foot regardlessly, what with the blowback likely taking her good one out of the commission until she could pay a visit to Rui. Would it be enough to completely screw her over though if everything failed?

Nah, she'd win.

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Tags: Elias,Rui Matsui