Illuminating The Dark

[Subject 37]

Panatha
[member="Laguz Vald"]

Rigor stood in a dark alleyway it's body shrouded in a heavy black cloak and his face obscured by a heavy hood. The odd green glow that normally came from it's face was dimmed to be barely recognizable. It could have used its built in holographic disguise matrix, but the bright blue flash of light required for its utilization would likely have given away their position and drawn attention, it was simpler to pose as a medical droid, a damaged medical droid.

Slowly the droid turned to its companion.

[The Cities facilities must be mapped out and properly prepared] It's tone was a hushed whisper, or rather as hushed as the droid could be. [Once finished we are to retreat to the outskirts and await further instruction]

Simple. Very simple.

They were not working under their own prerogative now, but rather someone else's.

This was different than Kamino had been, here they were hired by someone else, here they were preparing, not acting. The mission was a simple one, reconnaissance and preparation for a later operation that would take place within the city limits, or that was the plan. For a moment the droid paused, waiting for his companion to respond to his outlining of the mission before them.

 

[Laguz Vald]

Laguz had been filing xir nails when the contract had come in the form of a garbled holocall. No face, no name, just a contact number and a sum that would've made anyone's head spin. The shifter's almost did, but xe resisted the urge and put the file away instead, grabbing xir favorite contract buddy as of late. The merc had long internalized the adage "traveling light" and wasted exactly three minutes getting xir gear together before hopping onto a transport to join [member="Rigor"] at the designated location.

Panatha.

Getting in was easy enough – who doesn't love a corrupted regime, eh? – and within one day of the call, the pair could be found lurking in an appropriately dark alley at the fringes of Canthar, watching the crowds die out as night slowly crawled across the horizon. Sure, the main streets would no doubt be illuminated by marvels of the modern age and/or medieval torches – it's for atmosphere, you understand – but the narrow, convoluted maze of architecture and jungle encroaching upon the massive city at the edges would be enough to hide people of lesser skill.

Laguz and Rigor? You can bet an obscene amount of money that nobody would ever know they'd cased the place. Xe was half-tempted to help xemself to some of the goodies they would no doubt find stored in various vaults all across the sprawling capital, but professionalism held xem back. For now.

"What do you want to hit first?" the shifter inquired quietly, fingers tracing the edge of a combat knife as xe leaned idly on a cracked façade of a crumbling house.

 

[Subject 37]

[member="Laguz Vald"]

For a moment Rigor didn't respond.

The droid never really considered what it wanted, mostly because it wasn't programmed to do so. Mission efficiency as well as work order of logic was what drove the droid, more importantly it was what had brought it success in the past. So while it attempted to answer Laguz's question Rigor simply stood there, calculating the chance of success as well as multiple variable it would have to take into account here within Panatha's capital.

[Blackblade Outer Guard Stations] The droid answered simply. [Routine mapping will be most important for initial strike]

The Blackblade where the guard here, security that measured to match even Saeva Incorporated. Rigor and Laguz would have to be careful about them as they went about the city, even more careful when they eventually went for their target. [Suggested path to the south. Once completed, charges set as distraction at regular intervals]

The eventual strike would be a major effort, and the busier the city was the better. It would likely lead to civilians being harmed, but they hardly cared about that. Rigor simply considered it an obstacle in completing the missions and the droid knew that to Laguz it would hardly matter. Sometimes the innocent had to get hurt, it was simply the way of things.

The organics could always create more.

 

[Laguz Vald]

Xe nodded slowly, assessing the logic behind [member="Rigor"]'s suggestion before pushing off the wall, the gesture a clear indication of agreement.

"Let's get going, then," xe said simply, and then xir visage changed completely. In the span of a few moments, Laguz transformed into an old, frail lady with creases so deep they could rival the pocked surface of a meteorite. Though her eyes were small and dark, they glinted with a keen intelligence in the shadow of her brow. Her hair was whitened by age, back bent and legs crooked.

Suffice to say that the senior citizen guise would up even under close inspection. Why the elderly gig, though? Well… an old madam with a bad limp like herself, nobody would bat an eyelash at a medical droid at her side, and they were currently all about not batting eyelashes.

Laguz offered the nook of her arm to the droid that was made for all but helping people, flashing a set of very healthy teeth at the artifical construct.

"Time for some sightseeing, methinks."

 

[Subject 37]

[member="Laguz Vald"]

Had it been capable of frowning, perhaps one would have caught the expression on Rigor's face. It made sense of course, the disguise, no one would suspect them, no one would even look twice at them this way. Yet there was something unsettling about that. Rigor did not feel that way of course, it wasn't capable of it, this was simply logical. However, it still found the approach rather...odd, or rather, the fact that Laguz had arrived at it so quickly.

[Yes] It said quietly. [Sightseeing]

Of course, along that way Rigor would be recording and taking sensor logs, scanner data, and likely buying time for Laguz to plant explosives all along the way.

That was part of their mission, not just scouting out the city, but rendering distractions for when they initiated the main operation. The Droid shifted slightly, moving out of the alleyway with Laguz at his side. A few glances shot towards them, some second looks, but most seemed to completely an entirely ignore them. Rigor's face shifted slightly, it's datascreen slowly cycling through a steady rythm of different algorithmic readings.

It wouldn't take the droid long to map the city and once that was complete finding the designated position for explosives would be even simpler.

 

[Laguz Vald]

Any good disguise needed its props, and Laguz quickly appropriated an abandoned cart from another alley they passed along the way. One man's trash, another man's treasure… or in this case, an assassin's portable explosive carrier.

The merc, in addition to traveling light, also liked to live dangerously, carrying the explosives they would eventually plant all around the district right there on xir person. The generous flaps of fat that came staple with the old lady disguise hid them well enough, but just in the case that something went south and xe needed to lose them fast, the shifter slowly regurgitated the explosives in question into the rickety cart as they made their way downtown.

Street by street, the senior citizen and her droid helper advanced on the Outer Guard Stations, passing many a Blackblade patrol on their way. Despite the curious looks some of them shot them, nobody ever stopped the inconspicuous pair, and soon enough Laguz had all of the explosive components ready in the cart, covered by a blanket and some assorted rubbish collected on their journey.

"How goes the mapping?" Laguz croaked once the easternmost Station popped up on the horizon, glancing at [member="Rigor"] before smiling amicably at a passerby. Little did they know that underneath that flea-ridden blanket, the old lady was assembling a bomb that would take out half a block once they set it off.

 

[Subject 37]

[member="Laguz Vald"]

[47% complete] Was the terse answer that Rigor gave the shapeshifter.

The sensory data that he was receiving was little more than basic sonar. He sent a signal to the nearest communications dish, that dish bounced the signal back to him and then that data was derived into a sort of map. The technology was old, ancient really, but for this it would work out well. It wasn't as good as getting direct blueprints of course, they wouldn't know what the inside of every building looked like, but they would know every street and every rooftop within the city.

[First mark] Rigor stopped suddenly, his hand raising towards a tall building located at the corner of the square. [Left side, base of the structure, thirteen point four centimeters up]

It was a structural weakness within the building.

The explosive charge would cause a significant break within the buildings structural integrity, causing it to eventually collapse and fall onto the square itself. Civilian casualties were all but assured, though again Rigor and Laguz hardly cared. They were making a distraction after all, the bigger the better.