Premise:

It's the late 2010s and Hostage has had a LONG time to figure out how to handle Hunt Chick. She's come a long way, but she is NOT to be trusted on a murder mission off leash. (It has to be surgical and precise) (she's fine being alone on any other type of mission)

She wears a headpiece, like with the closer, but also a camera, and almost VR like motion sensors on various part of her body that get fed back to a 3d model hostage has so he can read her body language.

IMPORTANT: THERE ARE NO PERSON SIZED VENTS UNTIL THE LIGHTS GO OUT

~~~~~~~~~~

Hostage: Black Swan, do you read me?

Black Swan makes the expansive gesture of a single 'thumbs-up'.

Hostage: Great. Glad the tech is working. Is it comfortable? The sensors aren't too weird?

Hostage: How's your range of movement?

They methodically stretch for their boundaries inside the costume-- one leg first, then the other.

They let off a disgruntled mumble.

Hostage: Better than we thought, but not ideal. Still, you can't beat this camouflage.

Hostage: Shift change is in 15, let's go over the plan in the mean time.

Hostage: You'll infiltrate the region posing as one of the guards. We aren't sure exactly which room is the Target's, but that's fine. As long as you aren't too visibly skulking, you can just knock on any door you want and pretend you're doing a bit.

Hostage: Do you need anything before we go live?

There's some rustling as they check for 'pockets', which there are an infuriatingly little amount of. They halfheartedly try to shake the helmet off in protest.

Hostage (sounding like he's trying to talk down a velociraptor): Okay. Yes. Complaint noted. But we've been over this, right? There aren't a lot of shadows here. Blending in with the staff is like the shadows right? Camouflage, just like normal.

Hostage (sounding a little bit strained): You wouldn't want to be exposed? Would you?

There's a bit of a low snarl. They stop trying to fight against the helmet, and give an even less enthusiastic thumbs-up in response.

Hostage: Right. Okay. I think the shift change is about to happen. Be ready.

In the distance, you can see a steady stream of cars start parking around the windowless concrete bunker.

Black Swan prepares to unite with the featureless drove of costumed characters, which is not at all concerning behavior in any scenario.

No one seems to notice as you join in the back of the crowd. An extremely peppy TEAM LEADER is shouting encouraging things about 'happiness quotients' and 'staying in character'. By the body language of your fellow costumed characters it is WAY too late to be dealing with this level of energy. Especially with how their voice echoes uncomfortably in the highly polished bare concrete walls and floor.

ENTRANCE

They appropriately attempt to capture the body language of tired and unalert behavior to moderate success, yet standing as still as humanly possible.

No one seems even REMOTELY considering the possibility that there's an infiltration. Various names get called out and assigned to 'zones'. Everyone starts walking away with purpose.

On cue, Black Swan proceeds to walk out with SOME purpose following the footsteps of a slightly more motivated trio of soldiers, hoping to blend in with them and hope they're going ANYWHERE useful.

You'd be ashamed at the terrible level of security here if you thought these costumed soldiers were it.

Looks like they're headed towards...the cafe? Definitely no sign of your target.

CAFE

They start looking around to figure out WHERE these people are positioning themselves-- and spend some time futilely trying to pry off the armguards.

Another of the costumed soldiers glances at you trying to pry it off.

"Psssst! Hey! Don't do that in public! We ALL get docked pay if a guest sees you out of costume!"

They nod curtly at whatever-- whoever-- is talking to them. Then proceed to stare off at them in order to gleam further information.

Mostly the cast seems to be marching about and staring into space. It's late enough there's only a single guest morosely picking at a trey of luke warm food near the back.

Hostage: Black Swan? We don't know the layout since its hush hush. But at the very least right here isn't where the rooms are. You need to move.

They nod again at nothing in particular, beginning to move towards... not here. Somewhere where there are rooms or room-like structures.

You find yourself in an upsettingly long hallway filled with identical doors. There doesn't even seem to be room numbers.

HALLWAY

Given no other option, Black Swan starts knocking on the first door they see. There are. There are a lot of rooms.

You give it a minute but no one opens the first door.

Knock on the second door, then.

Also empty. Man. For how many staff there are this sure isn't too popular.

The one thing they are, is persistent. Keep knocking on doors as long as no one is looking.

When one finally opens up you see a middle aged man with a receding hairline. Not the Target. He grins broadly. "Aren't you a little short for a Storm Trooper?"

They nod, breathing heavily through the helmet, then close the door, resisting the urge to slam it. Keep moving a few more doors before plan B.

Luckily, you find a MAINTENENCE CLOSET before plan B activates. For some reason it is ENTIRELY UNSECURED. God, who even runs security here.

CLOSET

They proceed to further investigate the MAINTENANCE CLOSET to examine the actions that are available to them.

Looks like there are MOPS, SPRAY PAINT, A FUSE BOX, and CARDBOARD BOXES! You get the DISTINCT impression that at least one of the boxes is a mime.

Hostage: Black Swan. Kill that box.

They only get to say the word 'kill' before the deed is already done, razor mysteriously appearing to stab the absolute shit out of it.

Good. Another mark that thought it could run, dead. This is good.

Hostage: Jesus. Yeah. Yeah okay. Good job.

They whisper a 'you're welcome' as they go directly towards the fusebox.

It's poorly labeled, but it LOOKS like you can try to disable power to various sectors of the facility one by one, or en masse.

Upon failing to understand what any of the labels mean, they decide to just flip them en masse and start heading back from whence they came. Act. Natural. Or something.

The power goes out with a sickening finality. You're not sure the electric grid can actually handle going down all at once like that. You start hearing guests panicking throughout the facility.

Good. Go examine one of the rooms while the panic ensues. There HAS to be a way to get around this maze.

It looks like some guests left their rooms to go find STAFF and others are holed up in and refusing to respond to knocks. None of the doors are budging.

Well, fuck this noise. Look for vents. There has to be vents. It's dark so here has to be. This is PRINCIPLE.

You find a VENT set into the low wall on the side of the hallway across from the MAINTENENCE ROOM.

Stupid suit be damned, they crawl into those vents with no care for how simple it would be if they weren't encapsulated in plastic sci-fi armor.

Hostage: Ah. Okay. I see the time for subtlety is over. Okay. Welp.

Hostage: Thank you for keeping the armor on. I really appreciate it.

You army crawl with loud plastic on sheet metal THUNKS through the vent system. You see room after identical room that looks like satan designed it. Some have people in it. Most are empty. No sign, yet of the Traitor.

ROOM Z

Make a mental note to create a sleeping area akin to those nice holes in the wall, while ignoring the rest of the travesty in this actual prison cell. Keep looking for the Traitor.

You finally find the Traitor half a level down, where your vent opens up directly into the bunk where he is sitting up wide eyed, staring directly into the vent that wasn't there before, clearly agitated by the clonking sound of hunt chicks steady progress.

SLEEPING BUNK

There he is. They pull out the Razor out of seemingly nowhere and lunge at him, ready to kill the fucking bastard.

Hostage: Excellent. Good work, Black Swan. Now for the hard part. We need to get you out of here before anyone finds the body.

Black Swan first checks their armor for any blood, which is one of probably the most suspicious things to have on your sci-fi costume.

They are absolutely *drenched* in blood. They've never exactly been a subtle killer. Luckily the power is still out.

Well, this armor is useless now. They shake off the armor without much resistance, dropping the helmet near the dead body for the little [REDACTED] fan in them to enjoy, or whatever.

They stare at the body for a couple more moments, then seem to point at the body then make some sort of stabbing motion towards it, as if asking for permission.

Hostage, sounding resigned: Sure why not. May as well let people know it was a Family Hit.

This is what people get if they cross us.

Excellent. She immediately scoops out their eyes then proceeds to shake off the rest of the armor, climbing back onto the vents and racing out towards SOMEWHERE before the lights can get turned back on.

Wait. Wait wait wait. She has one last idea. She rushes back in. She swears they keep a camera in here SOMEWHERE.

In a hint of vaguely inspired "5 minute sketch" energy, she tilts the now-eyeless head towards a corner of the room, then sets their hand hear their face in an 'i see you' pose.

This is very satisfying. Revenge has been served cold. Back to work.

(((okay so the room where the view is towards the lil sleeping cubby, if you can do an edit where theres old half scrubbed blood all over where the traitor was, and then just a sketchy shadowy ghostly figure of his corpse in that pose, i can make it be a single frame flicker in the cctv. it'll all be black and white and fucked up so doesn't have to be too good)))

((that would be hilarious))

Hostage: Right. Artistic Merit. But uh. I think they're starting to find the flashlights...

Yeah, yeah, she hears him, she hears him! She proceeds to stop stalking through the vents and begins more outright speed-crawling through them, before she decides that there can be no witnesses.

Hostage: If I'm reading your body language right. Noooo. Stop. That's the point of Sending a Message right? Gotta be people to see it. You're almost out.

Hostage: Can you get your. Uh. Magic. Wall. Tunnel. To exit outside?

She shrugs as she continues running on, seeing to wherever this actually leads her.

Hostage: *audible sigh*

You eventually find yourself back in that terrifyingly open lobby. Guests and costumed staff members are milling about there, with several flash lights.

ENTRANCE

Absolutely not. She starts trying to mentally mark down a path around those guests-- there has to be a way to just sneak out of this hall of endless concrete.

You find yourself...Outside? No. It's a ....indoor...garden?

GARDEN

Windows. Those. You can break those, right? She climbs up through the vertical pottery, seeing if there are any windows-- or if she can just chuck a fucking rock at it.

You scurries up the pottery like a little murder creecher and breaks a window. The cool summer breeze immediately caresses your cheek.

Yes. YES. She immediately pushes herself up and starts climbing down. Victory is always a little rewarding-- it's hot as hell on this roof though.

Hostage: Congratulations

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The Mission:

The Mark has been stealing secrets from the family in order to sabotage them. They're out for revenge on Hostage in particular. They're betrayal was a few years back, but only now has the Family tracked them down. They're a known coward so its expected to be an easy job.

i wonder

1. why they got a grudge

2. why they, while being a coward, have decided to take the honestly ballsy route

jadedResearcher - Today at 11:34 PM

they must have been HELLA confident that they weren't going to be caught maybe they were the family acountant?

no one checking over their work, you know?

they would know DAMN well how little the rest of the family understood the books embezzel a bit, set something up abroad and just

vanish one day

books and all

maybe they're almost as good at numbers as flower chick is not one for physical altercations

but that brand of benedict cumberbatch confidence when it comes to intellectual things

IC - Today at 11:39 PM

nod nod

oh shit

number user 2

jadedResearcher - Today at 11:40 PM

so that might be our hook

he's brutally intelligent and a coward

if we get him CORNEDED he'll beg for his life but

no way he isn't prepared for a possible hit

he probably heard RUMORS of the eye killer but ...

i mean, logical man like that, he probably didn't genuinely believe she was a spook

probably figured there were gimicks

so if he had to step foot in the states again

he definitely booby trapped everything

lots of clever little traps

plus the security guard

its a fancy house he's renting (JR NOTE: From future, i forgot original it was a generic house but we turned it into that star wars hotel)

comes with paid security for whoever the vip of the week is

IC - Today at 11:42 PM

oh yeah you bet

jadedResearcher - Today at 11:42 PM

so we have a context for hunt chick to be behaving super weird as she just

instinctively avoids the worst of the traps

occasionally gets hit by one that just does barely anything to her but piss her off