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Meetpoint Station, Market Quarter

Barrah sat on her own in the far end of one of meetpoint’s less dingy bars which bore the name of “The Endless” in bright holographic letters outside likely referring to the endless amount of alcohol that seems to flow out of here daily.

The Hani captain sits by a far window in a half booth that faces out into the bustling main market quarter, her face reflects feelings of disappointment as she slowly nurses at a blue drink in her hand, her ring covered ears laying nice and flat against her skull.


Other then this she was rather beautiful and accomplished looking sporting enough jewels to almost escape the assumption of being a common merchanter captain had it not been for her red silk clothes giving away her rank,

She seemed bored and alone in a room full of lively conversation, perhaps somebody could change that.

A tall slender woman with light gray skin and long silver & gold hair, dressed in tattered dusty navy blue war general uniform walked in, clearly roughed up. She strolled to the bar a sat with a sigh. She called over the waiter and ordered a large mug of ale and a meal. As she sat waiting, she observed the other bar-goers, taking note of each of them. She than looked at the counter and let her head hang, tired from a long five months of war.

Barrah turns her head from her drink, some braids clacking together as she did toward the pale faced woman who sat nearby. In a rolling accent the Hani spoke up not directly looking at the other.

“You seem to have been thrrrrough the rrringeer Miss?” She said.

As Neoma received her meal and ale she took a quick swig than nodded. Her body ached but it was worth it to keep her home safe.

"Ha.... guess you could say that... Had to do all the work since the boys were either sucking n their thumbs or crying to their mommies."

She chuffed

“Suppose I know all about that..our males are at home being pampered all day, mostly because they’d probably kill people if they were let up here” she purrs

“You seem very shaken”

Neoma smirked a little, recalling all the battles she'd been in and how many soldiers she roughed up. She chuckled to herself.

"Nah, this is nothin'. Though I'd probably say that if I were dragging my dying body in here too..." She shrugged, took a swig of her ale, and a bite of the steak she'd been served.

From a far-off corner in the seedier and smokier reaches of The Endless, two pairs of adventure-weathered eyes watched the aloof exchange between Hani and Moon Elf unfold, sucking in every detail they could catch. These curious gazes, not at all uncommon in pubs of this caliber, belonged to no one less than an equally unlikely duo of an abominable feline gumshoe and his scrappy not-quite-human partner in crime; both were dressed in their most unassuming get-ups, and both were armed to teeth with a drive to get a scoop of the latest clue on their list, come what may.. "Y'think tha's her?" Sprite mumbled, gulping down her last few drops of her sour AstroAle™. Her glowy-eyed friend Randle flicked his tail in reply. "Haven't seen a whole lot of 'lion-like' folks enter after her. I'd be willing to bet far more than I'm able that she's who we're looking for. Just look at the bling-" Golden rings dangled from their target's ears. A total tell-tale sign of a merchant who knew her trade. It had to be her. But how were they to approach? Not only wasn't it very professional to bust right into the friendly chat she was having with the tall, elvish chick nearby, there was also the matter of.. not wanting to draw too much attention to their business. One slip and they'd be kicked off the station, for good this time. "Lemme do t'talkin', I got this." Their steel bench groaned when Sprite bounced to her feet and began her journey towards the lioness's booth. Randle hissed under his breath. "Sprite, wait- no!" Alas, sensibility wasn't on the charts for that reckless punk. Good Goddess.. With a sigh, he got up as well and followed behind his scruffy-haired companion, hoping their sudden approach wouldn't scare or at least startle the Moon Elf and cat-woman. Speaking of, the Elf certainly looked like she'd seen better days. Would that be for a case to come, or just a personal dispute? No matter. He still had to make sure Sprite didn't suffer the same fate by ambushing their POI with questions. "Eyy there, golden-ears! Y're a trader, arn' y'?" Sprite greeted the well-dressed feline, leaning a cocky, beefy arm across the backrest of the woman's seat. She held back on the smirking for now, but there was a lot of misplaced confidence in her face nonetheless. "M'associate Rando an' I, w'gotta couple questions 'bout some prime merchandise y've allegedly been movin'. Nothing serious, no need to get y'mane inna twist, it's uhh.. just bizz." No, nothing weird or suspicious about what she said at all, of course! "So far, so good," Randle thought, catching up with his buddy at the lioness's booth. He shot a small glance towards the battered Elf, hoping that for her sake, she wouldn't have to get involved in this freakshow of a case they had on their hands.

“I didn’t think so..wars rarely happen nowadays..drink doesn’t help mind you” she nods

Neoma glanced over at the two who had approached the lioness-like woman who she had been talking to. She thought of extremely rude, but considered not being rude herself, so she finished her ale and meal casually glancing over in their direction every once in a great while.

Turned her maned head toward the presence forming beside her the many jingling decorations in her mane shine in the low light.

“It’s hardly proper conduct to barge into a bar and harass a merchant isn’t it? Makes you seem about as legitimate as a Kif in some dingy maintenance hallway….especially when my cargo manifest isn’t public….”

She seemed mildly annoyed turning away toward the elf again where she smiled.

“I can assure you~ aside from the bad salesmen Meetpoint is fairly safe..” she said reaching out to tap the eleven women with her clawed hand.

(sorry Gar didn’t notice you at first wasn’t ignoring you)

The Hani was all alone in this bar which already was a bad idea..especially with all her glittering jewels…not just anybody can know what your cargo is

She looked over her shoulder and nodded.

"I'll take your word for it. By the way, I'm Neoma."

She turned to face the lioness woman. A small smile as a partial greeting.

"Bad salesmen?! Why y'-" Yep, this was already spiralling out of control. With a sigh, Randle put one of his large clawed paws on Sprite's shoulder, persuading her without words to step aside and let him do the talking instead. Maybe someday she'd learn the ropes.. "I apologize for my pal's lack of tact here, m'am," he said to the lioness, knowing very damn well that his reassuring tone of voice was easily drowned out by his ominous looks. "We're not looking to buy or sell anything, nor do we wanna risk your business in any sort of way. Name's Randle Pentecost, my associate Sprite and I are private investigators." At this point, Randle'd grown used to being considered shady-lookin', yet despite coming from the biggest hive of scum and villainy herself, Sprite hadn't. She'd made it abundantly clear to him that she wanted to turn her life around, grow from being the chaotic insurgent soldier she used to be, and hence she very much took it to heart when she was looked upon as a thug. Or that was what he theorized, anyway.. "A bigshot by the name of Admiral Xalloth hired us to find an elite agent of his that's supposedly gone AWOL; personal business to him, that's why he picked us. Either way- we're currently after a valuable ornamental urn that the agent sold shortly before they left, since we have found reasons to believe that it might contain some information of where they've run off to." Could they possibly have come across the wrong Hani merchant? How many of those walked around this specific station anyway? Heck, for all they knew, their contact might've been mistaken and their real POI would be a Ferae lioness instead! Awaiting the cat-woman's reply, they felt it was only right to give the Elven woman a nod when she introduced herself- they didn't feel quite at home enough to give her a verbal response, though at this rate it seemed that keeping her out of the covert conversation was outta the question.

Blinked several times at the sheer Absurdity on display before her shaking her head as she mentally delt with all this, her many rings jingle pleasantly on her ears while she shifts her hips thrn looks off into the distance.

“I do happen to have a rather nice Urn…it’s been chartered to be taken back to Hani space and I’m not going to let some random aliens go near such a valuable piece..because they made up some gods rotted story about being sent by an admiral” She promptly laughed at the two exerting an expected amount of resistance.

Not impressed. Randle uttered a groan, Sprite's eyes spewed blazes.. but all they could really do is stand and be patient. Fair enough, not all PI's actually wore their iconic trenchcoats these days, and fair enough, they had indeed not made the best first impression. But ridiculing them, really? "She's a scrappin' idiot, arn' she," Sprite whispered to her companion, her hair-trigger temper putting her right on the threshold between punching everyone that made a wrong move, or worse. Randle shook his head, and grumbled back: "Hani aren't particularly known to be the most trusting sort to outsiders, I've heard. Just.. give her some time, and Goddess helps us if ya do something rash again, kid." She, rash? Never! Doing her very best to keep her annoyance in check, she bit down into the flesh of her cheek and looked elsewhere, waiting for the lioness to stop cackling and let the other cat-person in the company work more of that silly detective magick of his. That was when she saw it.. Strangers. And a whole bunch of them, too. Every dank space station has its share of Stranger fanatics, of course, and Meetpoint was no exception. Thus, there they were: up to fifteen hooded, tentacle-masked freaks, wandering around the adjacent market place like they scrappin' owned it! "Hey, we've worked with less cooperative folks. Thanks for the ti-" "Rando-" A tug at Randle's sleeve. The Strangers hadn't noticed them yet, which was for the better with their appetite for eradicating anomalous species and whatnot- no, instead, about half of the mob seemed to have flocked around a single market stall, likely harassing whoever owned it. Bad news.. "Right then. We'll leave you two in peace." For now, they knew all they needed to know. A more urgent matter was about to arise; and one of life and death, nonetheless. Randle and Sprite turned away from their former POI and carefully approached the pub's exit, ready to act if the cruel display at the marketplace took its turn for the worst.

Neoma sat there, just within earshot to hear bits and pieces of their conversation. She truthfully didnt care, but if they had started to fight or try and apprehend the lioness she would've most likely jumped in to help. Though she had known the woman for very long, she could tell that she wasnt all that bad. She leaned back on her stool and looked up into rafters of the bar.

She saw that the PI's were leaving and somewhat gave them an untrusting glance than she looked back up into rafters. A small rustling came from her satchel which she had on her. As she went to see what was rustling, she opened up the bag and an oversized ladybug-like alien flew out and landed on the bar. She looked down at small creature with a motherly scold. "Simon! What the hell are you doing here?! Were you in there during the battle too?! Actually never mind, I don't wanna know. Next time I'm out on a mission I'm putting you in your enclosure." The small creature let out a small sad 'Woo' noise as it found its place on top of Neoma's head.

Watched carefully with slitted eyes, leaning back to get a slight glimpse of whatever the two had spotted, black clad figures harassing somebody? Kif perhaps, was their modus operandi to be shady pieces of work.

“The last thing you’d want to do on meetpoint is upset the Kif” the Hani spoke up sipping some more of her drink “They’re likely to start shooting if you are planning what I think you are planning..so maybe it’s best you come back over here”

Barrah had been seen talking to these two by a bunch of different aliens by this point, she couldn’t afford the slightest association with some sort of ruffian that would go and poke a bunch of Kif in a neutral station as ballsy as that would be.

The exclamation from the elf girl made her turn, seeing a smaller alien appear, she tilted her feline head to examine it “Hmm..cute” she commented.

// A Hani suddenly blitzed past the two PI’s in their exit, young and mostly maneleess with blue silk pants instead of the scarlet the captain wore, and a single ring adorning her ear.

“”C-Captain…” she tried to keep silent as she not so subtly stopped by the older female

“Jana, what’s wrong?” She answered in a fairly authoritative tone

“That really expensive case we just bought? Some Kif rolled by and stole it, showed some weird station papers which I’m not sure are legitimate..either way they wouldn’t let us say no”


//

The woman went wide eyed, standing up with a feline hiss “Seems your Vase is Of some interest to you know who~ I only hope you know what you’re doing.”

Neoma glanced over at the now two felines. Simon trembled and bolted back into the satchel he came from. Neoma turned her head to the two and with a questioning brow raised.
"I'm sorry but I couldn't help but hear your situation. I happen to have extremely heightened senses. Anyways, my question is would you like some assistance with anything?"

A Man wearing a hoodie and shorts is seen laying face down on the bar counter after having passed out, hood up over his head and someone having tossed a blanket over him. A few empty bootle os Whiskey sit or lay by the man. Whoever this was, they must have one hell of a party.

Neoma glanced at the man on the other side of the bar from her. She turned her head to him and with her smooth Russian accent asked, "You awake, friend?"
She could smell the booze emanating from him. She wrinkled her nose and covered it with her golden silk mask. The small creature even exclaimed in disgust as he also had heightened senses.

"Yeah, if only they were Kif- these are Stranger cultists, we've dealt with them before. We're not trying anything until- HEY NOW!" Right when Randle was about to make a concluding observation, another Hani individual came racing past; not quite able to knock the 277 kilograms of metal frame and Huskleather of his feet, she did indeed startle the detective duo. "Eyy!!" Sprite drew her mythical war axe from underneath her coat; Randle immediately pushed down her hand, certainly not wanting to add more unnecessary spice to the situation. "Easy, kid! Come on, we'll let them be." However, as it turned out, fate wasn't planning on letting them go seperate ways just yet, for the speedy cat'd brought some curious news.. "Aha! So Hani space m'ass," Sprite cheered when they were approached by the lioness yet again. An expensive vase they'd just bought? Getting an honest answer about that cleary a privilege a bunch of outcasts like them couldn't enjoy! "Case gotta whole lot more interestin' than b'fore, that's for sure. 'Tis mean y'gonna take an interest in trackin' it down with us, now?" Her trademark smirk was finally showing on her lips. This wasn't the sort of action her trigger-happy self'd been expecting, but she welcomed it nonetheless. Scrap, maybe they could start seeing eye to eye someday! "Any clue where the Kif'd wandered off to? Can't say I've gotten the 'pleasure' of dealing with them a lot, yet," Randle asked the younger Hani, not realizing that the Moon Elf, too, was starting to let herself in on the conversation. Sprite was quick to give her an answer, though: "Eyy, can't say we need 't but a coupla extra eyes's always prime. Y'sure y'arn' too roughed up t'get y'hands dirty, though? Neoma was it, right?"