[Locked] You're messing around with other people's lives. Not everyone who plays that game survives.

[bigtimebackwash]

There's really no delicate way to take hostages. Half the time, it's going to involve some public place and someone's always gonna get shot in the kneecaps and no one really wants to clean that up. Sometimes it's necessary though and mostly this whole scenario involves a hell of a lot of stalking, because you can't just lure people out into the

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[mademeaweapon]

It's been a long day for Sydney. Not as long as some, but you try spending all day worrying about a friend who insists he doesn't need to be worried about, and still trying to deal with the fact of your father's existence, on top of Chicago being Chicago without getting a little stressed out. The answer to this, obviously, is vodka and ice cream with Will, which Sydney has left the Tower to get. Because what you want to do when it's twenty degrees outside is get cold things to eat and drink. Her logic is best not questioned.

She's acquired a shadow too, in the form of a certain young woman who used to be a certain teenage girl of Sydney's acquaintance. ...Sydney's still trying to get over how weird that is. Hearing about it is one thing, seeing it another entirely, but actually seeing that April's alive does make Sydney feel a little better

[bigtimebackwash]

It's apparently Cole's lucky night, if clearly not Sydney and April's. He's sprawled in the aforementioned backseat when he receives the buzz of static from one of his men indicating that the targets are headed for his position, which... Well, he thought it might be a possibility. Hell, that's why he's here, but very few people in this business are lucky.

He makes a vague gesture to the two guys in the front seat to go in through the back and makes another call to the guys on surveillance to make it a point to gather at the convenience store just in case either of them put up a fight before he fights dirty and gets them both unconscious... Given what he knows of both of them, it's not an unlikely prospect.

Waiting game is officially over. Now it's time for the main event.

[girlorgun]

"No one ever wants to let me drink," April says absently as they near the convenience store, "even though I'm certainly of legal age to do so. It's somewhat frustrat...ing." She stops walking, about twenty feet short of the convenience store. Their tail was far enough back she wasn't really paying attention to his thoughts but there are other people now, and...

Her eyes widen. "We have to go," she says. Whirls around to face one seemingly innocuous man who's moving towards them. :: STOP :: She puts all the force of her training behind the command, and the man does, much to his own surprise.

This... this is not good. "Ō, zhè zhēn shì gè kuàilè de jìnzhăn..." she mutters as she sees them close in. "We're humped."

[mademeaweapon]

"Well, you are- What?" Sydney stops when April does, because it's Chicago, and because you don't doubt the psychic when she does something that could point to trouble. She follows April's gaze to the man closing in on them... and then there's more than one man, and Sydney winces a little. "As if I didn't have enough to deal with today..."

She's looking at this a little less fatalistically than April. She's not exactly helpless herself, and she's seen April fight, so if the two of them can just disable then long enough to get away... "You want to tell me what they want?" she asks April softly, because this looks a lot more organized than some random gang or... whatever.

[girlorgun]

"Us," April responds, her mind rapidly forming a strategy for taking them down and getting away. She's got a few, and none of them are very viable. Mostly because she knows about the car and the tranquillizers. "They want us."

One of them starts to say something over an unseen radio headset, and April whips around, her foot making contact with his knee with a loud crunching sound, and then to the side of his head as he drops, and by the time he actually hits the ground, he's unconscious.

It's an unspoken signal (a very very obvious one), and the rest of them start to close in, despite the fact that the little girl just took one of them down in two kicks.

Yes. They are humped.

[bigtimebackwash]

Okay. So. Basically, this is clearly not going as well as Cole would have hoped, which is kinda what happens, and really considering the last time he and Pigtails met, it went down similar to this, but still. One scenario where his men don't the fuck kicked out of them is all he's asking. It's not that he can actually see that's what's happening- it's just when people fail to communicate shit over the walkies, it usually means they are dead or getting pummeled. He learned from SD-6!

Whatever. Given how many men he's got out there, they can't be watching every opening. He'll just take advantage of the distraction, pop them both, and be done with it... Well, 'done with it' in a manner of speaking, since this is really just the beginning.

He loads another gun with tranquilizers, muttering to himself about how apparently anything done right requires you to do it your damn self, and gets out of the car with the intent to come around the side of the building and take aim the minute the girls are in range. Fun times for all.

[mademeaweapon]

"That much was a little obvious," Sydney mutters, and she would ask for a little clarification, but April's already moving. The man drops, the rest of them start to move in, and Sydney starts wondering what the hell she ever did to deserve this.

Of course, as she's wondering that, she's also moving toward the nearest thug, throwing a hard punch and then sweeping her leg under his, knocking him flat on his back and... No time to actually disable him, because there's another one closing on her, and she turns to deal with him, growling a little under her breath. Who the hell sends this many goons to deal with two women? Alright, it's her and April, not just any women, but still. If she can just get a gun from one of them, she can end this before she or April gets seriously hurt and get them the hell out of here.

[bigtimebackwash]

McKenas Cole. That's who sends a bunch of goons to deal with two women. He learned his lesson that first time. Not that Sydney has any memory of that and not that Cole knows this, but whatever.

And oh look, there's Cole. He doesn't so much walk out into the open as take a good look around the building, wait for the moment when Sydney and April have their backs to him in the course of their fighting, and then fires two shots with the precision of someone a little too accustomed to shooting people in the back.

He gives a long-suffering sigh and walks out into the open as soon as they're both down, growling and flailing a bit. "Do I gotta do everything myself?" He takes stock of his men and grimaces. "If any of you idiots can actually walk, wouldja mind gettin' them in the car? I got a message to send."

And then Phase Two begins.