A2:TR - Official Reports Thread

[Amorphous]

As he finally reached shelter, Bullet_MaGnEt found himself struggling slightly for breath. Master Assassins from the old times who could take bullets to the chest and not even blink were not something he wanted to deal with, but his tired limbs were demanding rest. He cautiously peered out and checked the path down which he'd run; it appeared that Red5 had given up some time ago. He was probably safe, then.

He sat down on a nearby bed and allowed himself to sample the comfort for a few moments. He would just rest here for a few minutes, just enough time to let his body recover, and then it would be time to find a real safehaven.


Some time later, Bullet_MaGnEt awoke to the sound of a slamming door and cursed himself for falling asleep. He could hear heavy, military-issue boots moving around in the next room accompanied by what sounded suspiciously like monkey screeching. Wedging himself in the corner he sat with his gun trained on the bedroom door, the only entry/exit to the room other than the window.

Moments later it was thrown open by a member of the Hit Squad. Bullet_MaGnEt opened fire, hardly bothering to aim, and kept going until the clip was empty.

In the following silence, he saw the Hit Squaddie slowly topple backwards which was in turn followed by a monkey screech. The monkey, apparently not capable of functioning without commands, gave Bullet_MaGnEt a long hard stare before turning tail and running.

Bullet_MaGnEt sighed to himself. Definitely time to find a safehaven. If one Squaddie thought knew he was here then chances were others would be along shortly.

[Amorphous]

Yesterday the Hit Squad continued their rampant fanboy-ing of Bullet_MaGnEt by staking out his place of work, dressed as a variety of plants you might expect to find casually lurking among the St Mary's Quad greenery.

Codename:Rhodedendron shuffled around on the spot as he attempted to find his radio. Succeeding after a few minutes of hard work, he used it to call to his teammates, to the extreme alarm of someone wandering past at the time. "Codename:Hollybush, what's your status?"

"Ow," came the reply from Codename:Hollybush. They'd drawn straws earlier in the day. He had lost.

" 'Ow' what, Hollybush?"

Codename:Hollybush sighed. "Holding position. No sign of Bullet_MaGnEt. I think someone tipped him off."

"Understood. Codename:BigTree, what's your status?"

Codename:BigTree reclined on one of the branches. "Very comfortable, Rhodedendron."

Codename:Rhodedendron sighed. After the drawing of straws had come Rock, Paper, Scissors. BigTree had won.

"Also no sign of Bullet_MaGnEt. I concur with Hollybush, somehow he knows we're here."

Codename:Rhodedendron sighed again. "All right, everyone, fall back, mission failed. We'll rendez-vous at the Botanic Gardens. Try not to stick out."

[Amorphous]

Lunchtime, Thursday.

At the back of the Hard Luck Café, two waitresses conferred while looking with concern towards one of their customers.

"I think he's in some sort of trance," one of them whispered.

The other waitress shook her head. "I've spoken to him since he sat down. He mumbled something about he'd like another cup of Pegasus so I took him some more coffee and he didn't seem to mind. I think he's a little bit weird."

The first waitress nodded. "Guess we'd better leave him to it, then."

Wild Bill, for his part, was almost totally tuned out to what was going on around him and therefore deaf to the above exchange. All that mattered to him at that moment in time was the house opposite. There had been no movement for some time, but Wild Bill was patient.

He'd just have to keep waiting.

[Amorphous]

Slightly later than lunchtime, Thursday.

A sting operation was in place inside the Bute Building. Hit Squad members had considered camouflaging themselves in some fashion but eventually reasoned that, as the place was liable to be crawling with med students, they were unlikely to stick out as being particularly odd in their behaviour.

One of them stuck his head out into the corridor, had a quick look up and down, then ducked back into his hiding place and searched for his radio. "Agent Max, this is Agent Sam. The leg bone is connected to the hip bone, over."

Elsewhere in the building, Agent Max was busy glaring suspiciously at a purple tentacle in a nearby specimen jar. It looked like it had evil intentions. He jumped at the sound of his radio and then winced to himself as he tried to remember the code he and his colleague had agreed on earlier. Leg to Hip meant no sign of Bullet_MaGnEt, possibly. "Copy that, Agent Sam. The hip bone is connected to the... erm... head bone, over."

There was a pause, then a crackle of static, then a response in a tone of annoyance: "Agent Max, what you just said is not anatomically sound."

Agent Max frowned. "Look, I only know the Monkey Island version, okay? He's not here and his tutorial's started already. Either his intel is very good or ours is very bad."

Back in his part of the Bute, Agent Sam nodded and then realised that the effect was somewhat lost over radio. "We'll call it off for now. One day, we'll get him."

[Amorphous]

Evening, Thursday.

In the midst of a St Andrews gale, Bullet_MaGnEt stood on Bridge Street huddled into as small an object as possible and lurked. With any luck Wild Bill would return home soon, hopefully tired and less alert from his own stake-out efforts.

Time passed, as did buses and some lorries.

Bullet_MaGnEt was eventually forced to conclude that Wild Bill was either already home or not coming back for a while. Giving the street one last wary look, he slipped back into the shadows and started planning how to further evade the Hit Squad.

[Amorphous]

Friday morning.

Wild Bill approached the Physics building stealthily from the East, creeping along the banking and using the nearby wall for cover. Going in through the main entrance would be too obvious, he'd be too easily seen, so he busied himself trying to find a sneaky side way into the building. Eventually his search efforts yielded an abandoned office; a few moment's work took care of the window and soon he was crawling in.

Hearing some sort of commotion outside in the corridor, Wild Bill decided to wait in the office until things had calmed down. After a few minutes of silence he carefully opened the door and peered out; the place was abandoned in both directions. From now on it should just be a case of making his way unimpeded to the lecture theatre and waiting for Pegasus to emerge.


As Wild Bill walked the empty corridors of the Physics building, he found himself getting more and more suspicious. Unimpeded progress was one thing, but he hadn't seen a single person since entering the building - the place was far, far too quiet. Every lecture theatre he'd passed so far was empty, too.

His thoughts were interrupted by the stomping of heavy boots several doors ahead. Quickly he took cover and then found a spot to watch as the doors were suddenly thrown open and a group of uniformed men ran through. For a moment his heart raced as he managed to make out the word 'Squad' on their jackets, then calmed briefly as he realised the preceding word was not 'Hit' but 'Bomb', then raced again as he realised this wasn't much of an improvement in fortunes.

It probably explained the commotion in the corridor earlier and why the building was suddenly empty. More importantly, it meant he should get the hell out of the building as quickly as possible. Bomb scares meant hours of delays, so Pegasus had probably gone home anyway.

[Amorphous]

Pegasus kept a wary eye out as he left his lecture. Since the bomb scare on Friday going to lectures at all had seemed like risky business, particularly when he knew there were others out there hunting him down. In desperation he'd ended up hiring a 'minder', a bodyguard-type to keep an eye out for him.

Paranoia had meant serious navigational changes, too. Slipping out the back exit of the lecture theatre and, further to that, the back door of the Physics and Astronomy Building had become the norm, as had the unusual choice of taking South Street back to his place of dwelling, his minder with him all the way.

Speaking of which, minders needed paying, and money meant a cash machine. Pegasus indicated to his minder to pause, earning a silent nod in response as the minder tightened his grip on some sort of concealed weapon. Pegasus had never asked his minder about his methods, and the minder has never volunteered the information himself - nor, indeed, any other information about his life, his identity or his background. It was as if both parties had decided by mutual, silent, agreement that it was better that way.

Nevertheless, as Pegasus stood at the ATM and began to enter his PIN a peculiarly trusting mood began to descend on him. Perhaps it was the lack of action in the past few days, the fact that the streets were so quiet, or just waking up in a good mood that had buoyed his spirits; whatever the reason, he found himself in an unusually sharing mood for one who normally placed his confidence in so few.

"You know," he started quietly, speaking loudly enough for the minder to hear him but no-one else, "I was thinking I might try and find out who the Hit Squad Leader is and give him an early Christmas present. Not that I don't have faith in your abilities," Pegasus added quickly, "but moving around town would be much easier for us with the Hit Squad off my back. If I slip the leader a few hundred and ask him to look the other way... well. You know."

The minder was stoic and gave no visible sign of having heard, his eyes hidden behind unseasonable dark glasses. Inside his head, however, he was turning over all the words, straining for every sound, including the approach of a potential assassin and the beeps of the cash machine.

The silence beginning to make him uneasy, now, and the ATM temporarily forgotten, Pegasus grew a little impatient. "Well? What do you think?"

Slowly the minder cleared his throat, shuffled on his feet slightly and then turned to face Pegasus. "I don't take kindly to bribes," he eventually announced. Before Pegasus could ask what exactly that statement was supposed to mean, the minder had unsheathed a knife and stabbed his charge in the neck in one fluid movement.

As the pacifist assassin fell to the floor, the minder - or undercover Hit Squad Leader as he might now more appropriately be known - pushed him to the side and stood in front of the cash machine. As he'd thought - Pegasus had got as far as entering his PIN and no further. A few button presses emptied his account of as much money as was possible at an ATM, and then the Squad Leader pocketed the card and looked down at Pegasus' body. Undercover - the only way to get it done. He'd have to tell the rest of his Hit Squad.

[Amorphous]

(Author's Note: Before I start, I'd like to apologise for the Star Wars reference in the title as it of course refers to the 'new' trilogy and not the - in my humble opinion - older, better, original trilogy. Also I'm fully aware that Revenge of the Sith was Episode 3, not 2, but this is the second run of Assassins so I went with it. Kthx.)


It was mid-afternoon as a Hit Squad member walked along the roads towards their intended target, Bullet_MaGnEt. After six attempts on this highly dangerous criminal, in which three of her colleagues - more than that, close friends - had died, this Squaddie was not taking any chances. From head to foot she was armed with a total of 5 blades (2 throwing-knives, 1 dagger, 2 combat knives), 6 assorted guns, 2 smoke grenades, 4 regular grenades, a range of very carefully wrapped poisons, a taser, a police baton and a radio with which to call in an air strike on the immediate area should she deem it necessary. Until recently the Hit Squad had not known the meaning of the phrase 'collateral damage', but since having it entered into their dictionary they'd rather taken to the idea.

"Oook," commented a small voice at her feet. Ah, of course - she was also armed with Eteyn, the still-angry monkey since the death of his previous master. If all else failed, she had faith that the uncontrollable rage of her small simian friend would get the job done.

Striding up to the house, she didn't bother with the courtesy of knocking and instead battered the door down, a gun and a knife in hand. Instantly Eteyn charged forward and bounded up the stairs with an enraged screech, having apparently smelt something untraceable to the human nose. The Squaddie tried to bound up the stairs after him, though weighed down considerably by her munitions, and reached the top in time to see Eteyn hopping up and down in frustration at a locked bedroom door.

Automatically she raised her gun to fire, then paused to think. The monkey calls would have put Bullet_MaGnEt more than on edge, and the second the door swung open it was obvious he was going to start firing. This required some manner of tactics, not just charging in with guns blazing.

Reaching for her belt, she retrieved a smoke grenade and pulled out the pin. As it began to dispense thick purple smoke, a well-aimed bullet put paid to the door-handle and she dropped the grenade through the gaping hole left behind. Almost immediately afterwards, coughing sounds began to emanate from the room and as smoke began to pour back out of the hole in the door she decided it was time to act. Kicking open the door, she began to fire blindly into the room, unable to make anything through out through the dense purple cloud. Bullet_MaGnEt answered with his own bullets which went wide, most impacting the wooden door, and then suddenly the air was filled with monkey screaming, merging and becoming indistinguishable with the siren of the fire alarms as they detected the smoke in the atmosphere.

Ducking for cover, the Squaddie hit the floor and then rolled so her guns were trained on where she suspected Bullet_MaGnEt was. The ear-splitting sound continued until she realised after a time that she could no longer hear Eteyn. Either he'd calmed down or he was dead.

The smoke grenade canister now spent, it was simply a matter of carefully opening the window and then ducking for cover again as she waited for the air to clear before crawling forward and finally risking raising her head.

Bullet_MaGnEt lay motionless on the bed, in a way that sleeping people - as if anyone could sleep through being attacked by a monkey and the sound of the fire alarm - generally didn't. Curiously, there was no sign of the monkey himself though if the trail of blood was anything to go by he'd left by the door quite recently.

Standing, the Squaddie gave one last long, hard look at the corpse of Bullet_MaGnEt. So. He was finally dead.

Hopefully they'd be able to move on now.