Forums » General Roleplay » Shine Bright (1x1)

The scene was best described as disastrous - that is, to a poor innocent girl who'd never been close to so much as a pea-shooter. There she was, however, crouching behind a car with a rifle doo-hickey, a shakey finger poised on the trigger. Not that she really had any idea how to use it, but she'd seen movies, right? Flames burned nearby, it's cause unclear (to this girl, at least) and yet mostly unnoticed between her and the handful of men that surrounded. Not until now had she thought about counting. Figuring it a good idea to keep track in the event one of them snuck off to cause trouble, though she wouldn't really mind if everyone dispersed, she bobbed her head at each - The old man she'd been spending the evening with, and frankly, had grown a strong attachment to, three.. four other men she'd otherwise have little chance against, all taking turns pointing their guns at each other, and one man who lay on the ground, fate already having claimed him. Iphis peeked along the barrel of the gun, aiming it at the most aggressive of the five, suddenly wondering how her day would have gone if it started differently - if she never took pity on the poor looking old man at the cafe. When a gunshot went off and she saw the old man fall - instinctively she pulled the gun up and shot, rather, where she heard the bang. Did anyone even know she was there? Somebody dropped, she saw, and she quickly ducked, hiding her feet behind the wheel of the car as if she were invisible there.
[Essentially just stole this from a previous failed RP yayayay]

Ricin ducked behind his own cover, his heart racing madly as a bullet whizzed past his head.
WHERE THE HECK DID THAT COME FROM?!
He forced himself calm again, sighing and digging in his reddish-brown trench coat for a tear gas canister he knew was in there somewhere. Don't ask where he got it. Aha, there it was.
With a sly grin he set it off and chunked it over his shoulder, having naturally assumed that his acquired target was the one who had been shooting at him. Hopefully this would render him temporarily defenseless and he could go in for close range combat. Sadly, his employer had requested him alive; no fun at all, but a gig was a gig.

Iphis glanced back over her shoulder as she heard the metallic sound, only to find a mist white cloud developing. "Nasty-" she scoffed to herself, pulling the top of her shirt to her face. If there's one thing she knew about mysterious white mists, it's either fog or get out. And this sure wasn't fog.
One hand holding the shirt over her nose and the other clutching the only weapon she had access to (and oh so inconvenient), she threw herself further away from the scene, stationing behind a further car and trying so hard to look like she knew what she was doing when she looked down the barrel of the gun again.
"I can't see anything.." She whispered, frustrated, before turning to see what was visible. The street was otherwise barren of people, a clamor of abandoned cars.. She could easily run. Call the police.. She turned to look the other way, her eyes meeting Ricin's face. A slurry of cusses came from her, followed by a more stern face as she swung the rifle to point at him, her finger resting by the trigger, her eyes demanding answers.

Ricin had stalked around the edge of the tear gas, smiling slightly as he heard pained gasps and coughs and cursing from inside the cloud. He stopped abruptly as he spotted Iphis, however, his red eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
This was not his target.
His target must be somewhere in the cloud... But she had a gun... Now he was getting confused.
Ricin was a natural born killer, but he didn't kill anyone but his targets. This girl was obviously not his target, so he swiftly ducked away from the rifle barrel pointed at his face, straightening the large collar of the jacket around his face in an effort to protect it somewhat from the tear gas.

Iphis' shoulders dropped, relieved, yet somehow disappointed. As she lowered the gun, she smiled. She couldn't help it- Somebody's scared of me! she rejoiced in her head. But, a frog in her throat reminded her of the situation.
She pulled her shirt back over her nose, flattening against the ground behind the cover of the car's front wheels and looked about at the feet she could see. What shoes was he wearing? Was he one of the men I'd counted before? Did he shoot my old man? Eyes darted to where he would be laying, but gas, still dispersing, blocked her visibility. She bit her lip and looked again for feet. Movements and footsteps caught her eye here and there until she found someone still.. She pulled the rifle up again, but hesitated. She had no idea who was up to what, the feet could belong to anybody. She sat up, instead, firing into the sky to test reactions.

Ricin scowled slightly as she shot at the air- completely pointless excercise.
Anyways, back to business.
He came up behind the toughest guy, plunging a needle into his neck before he really knew what was happening. He quickly pumped his veins full of a knockout serum and backed off again, coughing and waving a hand to disperse some of the gas in front of his face.

Nothing.
But something greater was happening before she could regroup. She found herself wanting to stay right in the middle of what she would have otherwise considered dangerous beforehand. She bit her lip, looking at the gun in her lap. That's it. She curled back down, rifle raised. A thump- a body- hit the ground, causing her to jump a little. She aimed away from the sound (jeeze, she wasn't trying to kill anyone, after all.. Yet.) She watched intently for movement before firing again, intending merely to slow down whatever was going on, hoping she'd hit somebody's shin - hoping that would be a good thing.

The dude was out for the count. Time to collect the bounty.
He pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his coat and slapped them on the now unconscious man, dragging the guy backwards out of the gas cloud. Maybe he'd take a break after this one until someone offered him another decent sum of money.
He paused a moment, wondering about the other random people who had been around. Eh, they weren't important. He only brought in the ones his employers asked for; the extras would just be dead weight. Leave them.
He didn't exactly notice Iphis, since he was too busy thinking about what he was doing and going to do.

Iphis raised an eyebrow as somebody came into sight. Actually, somebody dragging somebody. No, that guy dragging somebody. Eyebrows furrowed as she tried to figure out the story. Curiosity peaked, and with one hand clutched around the rifle, she pushed herself up.
"Now wait a minute-" she called, accusingly. Woop, bad idea. Shoulders dropped almost immediately, her grasp on the gun tightening.
"Um, where do you think you're going?"

Ricin glanced over at her, his light green gaze calculating her carefully.
"Back to my employer. I'm just doing my job," he replied, going back to dragging the guy away. "Why are you so keen to shoot me? Cuz if you're going to then hurry up and do it and get it over with and let me get on with my day."
Typical Ricin response.

She bowed her head at him, straightening her posture and stepping forward to maintain distance. She glanced at the rifle in her hand and shrugged.
"Uh, you know. One minute I'm talking to some old guy, the next, somebody shoots him. What's a girl to do?"
She looked back at the scene that seemed so easily dismissed.
"So like, what kind of job is this? Killing people? Because I think you missed a few." Herself being one of them.

"I don't kill people for a living. That's a serial killer. I'm a bounty hunter, and I only kill my targets if my employers ask me to. It's a lot more fun if they give me that liberty." He smiled slightly, looking down at the dude he was holding with a single hand. "I mean, how little ricin would kill this guy? Not much, I wouldn't think."

How fun!
Iphis trotted up, partly to get away from the dispersing gas, partly to get away altogether, partly because this guy was super interesting. She smoothed down her coat and looked at the man being dragged with intrigue.
"So what did he do? Who hired you? He's still alive? What's ricin-?" Each question came and went without much thought before she asked. She cut herself short and bit her lip, eyes moving accusingly to his face. "Who are you?"

"I don't ask the first question, I just follow through with my orders. I won't answer the second one either. As far as I know, yes he's alive. Ricin is an extremely powerful plant-based poison, very hard to detect, and once it's diagnosed it's normally too late. One of my favorite stealth kills, to be honest." He glanced down at her at the last question, an eyebrow raised.
"My name's classified. But I'm called Ricin, since it's pretty much my signature." He shifted his grip on the man's shirt collar, watching her cautiously. Nobody had ever really taken this much interest in him before, not even his employers, which was really kinda sad if he thought about it too much.

"Mysterious." She bit her lip, looking back down at the unconscious. Her eyebrows furrowed with curiosity. "So you don't know why they want him? How much are they paying you for him? What if he wakes up? Did you check if he's still armed?"
She sighed and searched the unconscious with her eyes. Nothing dangerous seemed to jump out about his attire, but who knows what sneaky tricks he could have.
"Do you know his name?"

He shook his head at her first question. "I think something around $25,000, cash. I have it written down somewhere. If he wakes up, I'll just knock him out again. If he's armed, well, it'll just be more interesting, won't it? And he has a wallet, if you're really dying to know all there is to know about him."

Iphis smiled a bit, shaking out her shoulders. "Tah-wenty-five big ones" she sang, "What, is that not a lot to you?" She skipped up behind him and looked to the man he dragged. "I mean, I feel like we should at least know his name." She ducked down, reaching into his pocket to find the thing. Black. Simple.
"I don't know if I want to know. We could make one up. He looks like a.. Morris." She smiled, fingers poised to open the wallet, looking up for a reaction.. "Jesus. How tall are you?!"

"I've gotten larger payouts before," he replied honesty, watching her with a deadpan expression. "And I'm roughly six feet five inches tall. You ask a lot of questions, don't you? This is the most I've talked to anybody in ages. Normally I just kill them and don't stop to chat."

She was holding one hand, still flailing the rifle around, above her head, trying to measure how much taller than her he was. His last comment stoked a fear in her eyes, locking on his for a moment. Her voice softened a bit.
"Well yeah, you're probably not going to tell me anything if I don't." She raised an eyebrow. "Five inches sounds about right." She set her attention to the wallet, glancing back at Ricin here and there. "What's a wanted man doing carrying around a wallet, anyway?" She pulled it open, not sure what she was expecting. "Clint?!" She scoffed, turning to the poor man. "Nice to meet you, 'Clint'. Do you think that's his real name? If somebody was looking for me, I wouldn't carry around my real name in my pocket."

"He doesn't look exactly all that smart," he pointed out, ducking back a bit as the gun muzzle was waved dangerously close to his face. "Watch where you're swinging that thing, you'll shoot/poke someone's eye out. Here, hold it like this-"
He took the rifle from her and demonstrated the proper and safe way to hold the weapon so she didn't pose a threat to herself and others. "Like so."
Poor little oblivious Ricin didn't even know that he had freaked her out with his little comment. Completely hopeless, isn't he?