Mad's Dash

Dumb

Pancake
“……”
Ralmia carefully considers her choices, taking a deep breath before setting her cup on the table.
“Very well, we shall take your request and promise to return with your daughter. However, I am quite interested in the TR6…whatever it is…”

Chomping on the chocolate bar, Ao bargains whether to visit the town. Food and rest are certainly good, but there is no telling if the target also comes here or continues her way, if it is the latter…
Ao’s stomach suddenly rumbles, stopping her thoughts.
“Yep, food and rest are good.”
Muttering to herself, she sway towards the town, and stopped in front of the largest inn. (motel? hostel? not sure which would be better suited for the development status of the town) Like before, she packed her bike into a suitcase, and approach the front counter.
“Hey there, want a room with a good view, and grab me some chows if possible. Say, is there a girl in her 20s arriving here just now?”
Ao slowly lifts another gold coin, and slowly twirls it around with her finger, waiting for a response.

Pancake

Dumb
“Thank you, honestly, I can’t thank you enough..”
Mads’ father wipe up the ring of water left behind by his mug and than set the mug back down onto the table, this time using a coaster.
“Oh.. and if it helps… i got some old photos of Maddy and that Damn TR6… The uhh, TR6 was an old car that she bought and then started repairing as a project of her’s.. If you’d excuse me for a moment..” Mads’ father would go upstairs, and then return shortly after with a collection of photos of not only the TR6, but also mads.

The Motel would seem to be a touch old, and also relatively small but would be perfectly fine for the time being. Before Ao could even get into the Motel, they’d notice a Small Green sport car parked out in front of the Motel, it seemed exceedingly old compared to the much more modern cars parked next to it; Fitting most of the descriptors that the clerk at the Petrol station had told them.

The person behind the desk was a nice old lady, seemingly in her 70’s. “oh yes… She came in not too long ago.. about five minutes before you..” the sweet old lady would smile warmly at Ao. “Are you two travelling together? I could instruct you to her room if that’s the case..? I remember a trip i went on with my friends once, I had a great time”

Dumb

Pancake
“Ah a car….”
Ralmia looks puzzled, perhaps imagining how to allocate enough space for an entire car back in their hideout. After remaining mute for a couple of minutes, she let out a soft sigh.
“Anyhow, thanks for the tea and the talk, we will be returning shortly.”
Ralmia stands up from her seat and slowly wanders toward the doorway, doing stretches and swinging her arms along the way. Upon leaving the roofed area, she did a little girly jump, and instantly she disappears, leaving only a white smoke trail stretching to the sky.

"Mm indeed, ah, grab me an extra portion, i reckon she hasn’t eaten as well, I’ll bring the food upstairs.
Ao settles the coin on the desk, and pushes it towards the nice lady.
“Here’s the pay for our room and the food, thank you so much.”

Darkstar

By the order of some mysterious benfactor, the sloop Ghoul would be laying in wait, listening to the radio traffic coming from Kolde’ta.
The Ghoul is nothing special to the eye, an older out of service sloop that had managed to dodge the naval shipbreaking yards. Since its years in serivce, the sloop had some major upgrades made to its armour, and its sensor systems.

The Ghoul was captained by a man who simply went by Hayes, who was wondering why he had received a message to come to this backwater rim, belonging to a politcal group he had never heard of.

As he listened to the radio traffic and heard the issuing of some womans arrest a dozen time, a new message from his employer had come in, find and escort the woman known as “madds” off of the planet.

Hayes moved his ship closer to the planet, hoping its governing body would be friendly to his arrival.

Pancake

Darkstar
As Hayes pulled his ship towards Kolde’ta, a message requesting his ship go through customs would pop on the ship’s HUD, or whatever it’s equivalent was. Included in this pop-up was a series of directions to the nearest Customs checkpoint, which was luckily within visual range of Ghoul. There was no queue for customs so the Ghoul was free to pull right up to the gate

Assuming Hayes would go through the proper procedure expected by him and the ship would go through Customs, he would be asked the same boring old questions that most customs officers had become accustomed to; How long he planned to stay, the purpose of his visit, if he had anything to declare to customs such as heavy weaponry, etc. While the wholly unenthusiastic customs offer asked his questions, a scanner would pass over the ships confirming that the Ghoul wasn’t carrying any contraband, or that Hayes had declared everything of note.

Darkstar

Pancake The ship would move towards customs, and once it got within range, Hayes would reply. “Yeah… I got nothing to declare”. The Ghoul was lightly armed, carrying nothing more than a single Javelin anti-ship missile, the same ones carried by the big navy ships he tended to stay away from. Hayes had plans for a single point defence to be mounted on the ship, but the costs of getting one of those on the black market were slimmer than ever. The only reason he had ship missile was from his numerous contacts on Tabrine, which housed a group smuggling arms right under the nose of the BAF.

Hayes became annoyed at how long the scan was taking. “Can ya hurry up?” he barks in a gruff tone, waiting for it to finish.

Pancake

Dumb
“Best of luck to you!” Mads’ father would wave goodbye as she rocketed off and clear off the dishes before going back to his daily life. “… And godspeed..”

“oh, you’re so thoughtful.. I’m sure that she’ll appreciate that..” The lady would turn to reach for the second set of keys to the room that Mads was currently staying in. “I’ll have to call the kitchen for your food, it shouldn’t be too long before it’s ready.” She’d reach up and pull a the spare set of keys off of a peg-board, and then start to turn back to face Ao. “Now, dear.. She’s in room Number seven, which is right down the hall and to your l-”
She would stop mid sentence and pick up the coin from the desk, looking at it for a moment. “Oh my, is.. is this real Gold..? Mam… I’m afraid that you’ve over-paid by a large amount… I’m not even sure if we can accept gold like this for payment…”

Dumb

Pancake
(skipping ralmia)

“Ah, just keep it, there’s probably a bigger hassle soon so you might as well treat it as a pre-paid compensation. That said, can you also give me a big drape and keep our arrival a secret? Ya know, teenage stuff”
Ao looks around, seemingly fond of the status of the place.
“Say, how’s business in this week?”

Pancake

Dumb
The lass would let out a touch of a smile and chuckle. “I’ll go get you a set of bed sheets you nice fellows could use if that makes you feel any better, oh! i’ll make sure not to tell anyone you two stopped through…”
“Business has been moving along in a nice orderly fashion. A bit slow at times, but, then again it picks up from time to time.. Just the other week we had a group of peoples pass on through, there was about 16 or 20 of ’em…”

“booked all the rooms we had all at once. Biggest rush we done had in a while i’ll tell you what..” she’d let out a sigh “Oh! I almost done forgot about those sheets you wanted.. I’ll go and grab those now before i forget. Might as well go check on the food while i’m at it”

She’d return in a little over a minute or two, carrying a set of Beige bedsheets. “The kitchen said your food’s only gonna be a few more minutes before it’s done and that they’d bring it over to your room when it is.”

Dumb

Pancake (Tbh i originally planned on putting the drape on the car to cover it up…but now it just makes me feel bad if i waste binged sheets on that XD)
“Ah that’s great, Thank you so much.”
Having a stack of bedsheets on her one hand, she reach into her backpack with her another, grabbing a little spherical device, a one-off personal force field to be exact, and tuck it inside the sheets, all while walking down the hallway.
Upon arriving in front of room seven, she gently knocks on the door, holds her breath, and waits outside.

Pancake

Dumb
Mads was laying on her bed staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. Her mind was a mess, constantly running how the fuck she was going to get herself off world, and out of the mess she’d just gotten herself into. She kept thinking about her family, what they’d be thinking of this whole mess. When suddenly, and without warning, there was a knock at the door.

Suddenly, her thoughts changed gear; who was at the door, and more importantly, why were they at the door.
Mads fumbled around in the dark for her glasses, and flicked on the lights. Immediately, she regretted doing that, now she had to go answer the door. “Shit… nice going genius..” she put on her glasses and crept up to the door as quietly as she could. Looking through the Door’s peep-hole, she saw Ao, and instantly panicked. “Ah shit… that’s not housekeeping is it..” she thought to herself.

Mads once again crept away from the door and grabbed her .357 off the nightstand and stuck it into her waistband, she had left her EM-2 in the car and was now wishing she hadn’t. The handle was obscured behind her jacket, but, it was still visible if you looked hard enough. She then meandered back over to the door as if nothing had happened, and opened the door. “Yes..?”

Unfortunately for Mads, the blinds to the Motel room’s window were wide open the whole time. Mads clearly hadn’t noticed in her panic, but, Ao could see her bumbling around the room and collecting her things like a blithering idiot before she came to the door. Mads stood at about 5′4″ and fitted the initial description given by the bounty. She was wearing what seemed to be an old army jacket that was a plain olive green, with a pair of pants that looked to be at least two sizes too big and were tied off via the drawstring at her waist so they wouldn’t fall off. Her hair was brown and fluffy and curled slightly. Mads looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept properly in a few days.

Dumb

Pancake
Ao let off her breath, she was originally prepared to get immediately shot at, but seeing the current situation, she is still relieved that things can still be eased.
“Brought you some bedsheets, dinner’s also coming so I suggest you go make some space first.”
Ao lifts her stack of sheets and slightly tilts her head towards the direction of the front counter.
“May I come in?"

Pancake

Dumb
“That depends on who you are, and why the bloody hell you’re here..” Mads would study Ao for a moment looking them up and down. “and also if you’re armed.. and you’d better be honest about that.”
Matilda would look at the sheets, and then reluctantly take them. “and uhhmm… Thanks for the sheets..?”

Ao would be able to look past Mads and into the motel room to a limited degree. The room was very neat and tidy, with all of her things arranged in a way that they could be grabbed rather quickly, and then hauled out to her car in short order. Worryingly however, there laid a few loose rounds of .357 sitting on the nightstand that Mads had seemingly forgotten to collect, along with a Magazine to her EM-2 rifle.
Of course her EM-2 was stowed in her car, but Ao didn’t know that.. and it was dead clear that the magazine was for a full sized rifle of some sort, not for the .357 that she had grabbed.

Dumb

Pancake
“Well you know about the bounty already, so guess I don’t need to answer the first two questions.”
Ao hands over the sheets, revealing the now glowing metal sphere in her palm.
“As for the third, people in this particular profession are always armed, regardless of how harmless their looks seem to be.”
She slowly shifts her backpack to the front, bringing up assorted daggers, throwables, and even things that Mads doesn’t seem to recognize, yet clearly made for killing. After showing them like candies from a Halloween basket, Ao put them back into the backpack and slinging it backward again.
“Now, may I come in?”

Pancake

Dumb
Mads’ face would go pale, as she contemplated her next course of action. Ironically enough, she hadn’t actually thought about what to do in scenario that Ao had actually been here to collect her bounty.
So, she panicked and acted purely off of instinct. Mads would toss the sheets up into the air, and directly at Ao with a grunt. Quickly, as they were still flying through the air she reached for the .357 Magnum Revolver she had tucked into her waistband, and pointed it square into Ao.

Mads’ hands were trembling, it was clear she had never actually pointed a gun at anyone before, and had no intent of actually firing the damn thing, even if she didn’t recognise that. “What you can do is drop that sodding bag to the floor, and then kick it over ’ere.” Mads, in her haste, hadn’t even pulled back the hammer on the single action revolver, though, it would appear that she hadn’t noticed.
Despite Ao having quite a powerful revolver pointed square at her, it was evident that she was in no real danger.

Dumb

Pancake
“Sigh…freshly washed sheets, all fluffy and light, and you just gonna defile them like this…”
With a twirl of her hand, a stack of sheets reappeared on Ao’s hand once again, albeit way less than before with some getting tossed into the air and landed on the ground.
“You still think a gun like that would do anything huh? well pull the trigger, try me.”
Ao lowers her stance, with one hand and the stack of sheets in front, while the other hides behind her silhouette.

After flying for quite a while, Ralmia notices the TR6 parked outside the motel, and begins slowly descending from the air.

Pancake

Dumb
Mads would begin to slowly take a step back. She was terrified; The act of what she could only perceive as magic rattled her to the core. Never before had she seen anything like it, or even remotely similar to it. She looked down at the old six gun in her hand, and then back at Ao. “Y-your hand… move your hand to where I can see it..” Her other hand would grab the revolver in a futile attempt to steady her aim. “i don’t care what hocus-pocus bullshit you’re capable of… Cold hard lead is still cold hard l-lead..” Mads’ breathing would become shallow and irregular. “P-Please..?”

As Ralmia descended from sky Mads would move her gaze off of Ao and out of the window. “…”
Mads would suddenly turn and bolt for her bag and the loose rounds she had left on the nightstand, then, for the Bathroom, locking the door behind her. Her plan was to climb out of the window and then make a break for her car, but she had left the keys to her TR6 sitting on the bed, and her boots next to the door. In a mix of Foolhardiness, early celebration and a misplaced sense of victory should would shout “HA! TRY GETTING ME NOW MAGIC LADY!”

Dumb

Pancake
“Hey there!…um did i messed things up again?”
“Eh not yet…Pick up the rest of the sheets and stack them nicely, I’ll handle this.”
“hm…whatever.”
Slightly annoyed, Ralmia swoops in from the window, and begin tidying up the mess, meanwhile, Ao stops in front of the bathroom floor, removes her backpack, and once again lowers her stance, still the hand with the sheets in front while the other hides behind her back.
“Target’s father wants a happy reunion, so don’t cause too much bruising eh?”
“Well Mads, you heard her, stay away from the door.”
Slowly taking in a deep breath, and putting the sheets-covered hand just slightly in front of the door, Ao closed her eyes, visualizing the channeling of energy between different muscles and carefully calibrating them for an optimal state.
Then, as a small whisper escapes Ao’s mouth, her right fist connects with the door-
“寸勁…”
Instantly, the bathroom door went flying to the opposite end, bounce off the wall, and clatter on the ground. From the smoke and bits of falling debris from the collateral, Ao slowly pace into the bathroom.
“hide n’ seek’s over, seize, or else."

Pancake

Dumb
Despite being wholly unprepared for an encounter of any capacity, Mads was stubborn lest all else. “Im not Fuckin’ going home!” Mads held her breath and fired the revolver into the doorway where Ao was standing so ominously. It was the first time she had ever fired a gun at another person and hopefully the last. The blast and noise from firing a .357 Magnum in such a confined space was deafening, especially without any ear protection. “You’re going to have to scrape my cold dead body off this floor!”
Mads pulled back the hammer a second time and stood up from behind the loo firing again, though, this shot had missed quite dramatically and went into the wall beside her. Quickly she fumbled for the hammer again, trying to pull it back.

If the noise and concussive blast from firing the first shot in such a small room hadn’t at least partially dazed Mads, the second one definitely did. Her ears were ringing ever so slightly and she was definitely disorientated. As she cocked back the hammer a third time very clearly intending to shoot Ao again she extended her arm and began to line up the shot.

Dumb

Pancake
Meanwhile, the first shot did directly hit Ao, a perfect headshot in fact, if not for the personal shield generator. The bullet stops inches from Ao’s face and the sound of glass shattering follows. Ao sighs at the scene, both to the stubbornness of Mads, and the usage of the shield generator.
“There goes my lunch money…your bounty be better worth it.”
Ao immediately dashes forward, which for the small size of the motel toilet, it’s almost as if she had teleported right in front of Mads. Immediately after the second shot of Mads, Ao’s punch connects on the handle, twisting a few fingers and sending the revolver to clatter on the ground. Before Mads can react, a kick follows, scoring a clean hit on Mads’ jaw and knocking her unconscious. Standing victorious, Ao halts back from any further aggression, and picks up the revolver instead while inspecting her fist.
“You good? need any patching up?”
Ralmia enters the bathroom, and notices that Ao’s right hand has slightly swollen up despite the cushioning of the stack of sheets.
“Yea, been a while since there’s any chance punching comes as an option.”
Ao blows onto the swollen site and uses one of the sheets to wrap it up.
“Help me fix her jaw and fingers though, don’t want her dad to chew on me for being too harsh on her.”
“On it, anything else?”
“Eh….and stay for dinner, room service should be here anytime, and i can’t quite finish a double portion by myself.”
“Yay!”

With some simple tidying and fixing, the room looks more or less the same as before, with the bathroom door back on its hinges (albeit still slightly curved from the impact. Mads is relocated to one of the bed, Ralmia’s still fumbling with the different pieces of metal that she finds on the bed, while Ao just sits there waiting for her meal.

Pancake

Dumb
Mads fell to the floor and rather miraculously avoided bashing her head off of anything pointy or sharp, Though, the thin frame of her glasses broke upon impact with the ground. Upon inspection of the six gun that Matilda was firing, it was extremely old. Older than she had expected. The hammer needed to be cocked back fully before each shot, and had nothing in the ways of a safety. The Revolver was a Colt Single Action Army, which meant it could’ve literally been a museum piece.

Letting the hammer down slowly and gently rather ironically wouldn’t have rendered the gun safe either; The firing pin was attached directly to the hammer. This meant that something as simple as a slight bump on the hammer would cause the firing pin to strike a live cartridge and fire.

There was a knock at the door, it was room service bringing them their food. The cart was visible through the Motel room’s window, looked like they would be having Pork and Beans for dinner.

Pancake

Darkstar
“well ain’t you patient..” a few more seconds would pass by before the Ghoul would be cleared for entry. “enjoy your visit..”
Hayes was now met with his first choice, Kolede’ta only had a handful of major spaceports, the most prominent of which was in the capital city of Blackpool-Upon-Sea. Blackpool was roughly two thousand miles away Paramo, which is where Mads’ previously used to live. Paramo did have the facilities to dock and land at, but was also a much smaller town and lacked a sizeable spaceport. The Question was, where to begin his search?

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