Cat Hunt

The shrill sound of the fire alarm going off startled Nawi off of the ceiling, her hands reflexively going to her ears to drown the noise off. Staggering through the painful noise, she hobbled to the back of the balcony, inhaling deeply for any sign of the fire the alarm would indicate. The only fire had to come from downstairs, from where the cooks were. Her improved night vision wasn't making out any increased glow from neighboring apartments that would indicate a fire.

It was like someone had pulled the fire alarm at random. Or had they? If this "Carbonell" had a bounty on her head, then there were more of these thugs than had already appeared. Instinct told Nawi that it was bait, though her human empathy wanted her to makes sure there was really no fire. For that she needed a bird's eye view from the top floor, where obstructions were likely to be minimal. Donning a face covering, the former prize fighter leapt over and up between balconies, scrambling with catlike grace as she made use of her increased strength to boost her leaps and her agility to grab handholds.

This side of the resort had only a handful of balconies - one stacked over the other like Lego blocks. The lowest balconies lay below a sheer wall with windows, while having other balconies to either side. The luxury suites, however, were stacked atop each other like stair steps - and so were their balconies. With one of her strength and agility, they may as well be stair steps. And with the sound of chaos outside as hotel guests began evacuating, the chances of her being spotted going to the roof were minimal.

With her vantage up top on the empty roof, she saw no smoke coming from either side of the building. She was keen to trust her instincts that someone was trying to funnel her out. The only smell of burning came from a wood grill near the pool for hotel guests. But, in this combination of wood fire and sea air, there was something very distant and familiar - drowned out by being handled, but still there. Faintly, she followed the scent to one of the edges, a growl working its way into her through as it began to register.

She never once forgot his scent. The scent of a man who had forced himself on her, who had put her through prize fighting matches with other Meta, who had sent the very people that turned her entire life upside down.

Rajabu...RAJABUUU!!!

With a hiss, she dug her claws into the clay side of the building, making her descent toward the scent. His scent, carried by a female - something he had handled that the woman carried. Nawi took her time, trying to minimize her noise level, though the fire alarm - painful as it was - was doing well in masking her noise.

It might have occurred to Eevi that the flashbangs, binoculars, night optics, and collar she now carried were previously handled extensively by Rajabu. And Nawi was homing in on those scents, which got stronger as she approached. If she could cut through the noise long enough, Eevi might be able to make out the sound of stray pieces of clay and plaster - half the size of her fingernails - impacting on the clay tiles behind her...

Eevi’s senses were on high alert. The fire alarm blared throughout the building, giving her the cover she needed, but it wasn’t enough. She needed to saturate the area with a variety of scents—blood being the strongest. Her mind raced, tracking the faint yet familiar sounds of Nawi moving behind the walls and down the exterior of the building. She was fast, too fast, and Eevi knew she had little time.

As she made her way toward the kitchen, passing by confused and disoriented guests evacuating in a flurry of panicked steps, Eevi’s focus remained sharp. The moment she entered the kitchen, a group of back-of-house staff halted mid-motion, their faces reflecting confusion and unease as they saw her approach. One of the men, his brow furrowed in worry, tried speaking to her in rapid Spanish, his words lost to her ears.

It didn’t matter.

Without hesitation, she raised her hand, miming the shape of a finger gun, and pressed her fingertips to his chest.

"Bang," she whispered quietly.

The force of the concussive blast was immediate. The man’s chest exploded in a shower of blood and bone, sending a violent spray across the walls, the floor, and onto the others in the room. The smell of coppery blood filled the air as a hush fell over the kitchen, the remaining staff frozen in shock, their wide eyes fixed on her as if time had stopped.

Eevi didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate. She met their stares with a hollow, detached calm, her voice low as she spoke, her words in Finnish, knowing full well they wouldn’t understand.

"I’m sorry, but I need this," she lied. She wasn't sorry in the slightest. She gestured vaguely to the blood-soaked mess around her. "I need as many different scents as possible in here."

The terrified silence of the remaining staff was enough of a response for her. She lifted her hand again, her fingers mimicking the same pistol shape.

"Bang."

Another blast, another body collapsing to the floor as blood sprayed out, adding to the mixture of chaos she had created in the kitchen. The copper scent grew heavier, more suffocating, exactly what she needed to confuse and mask the air around her. She could feel the blood soaking into her clothes, clinging to her skin like a second layer, her hands steady as she surveyed her work.

Although she would dispose of the kitchen staff coldly and methodically, she let a twisted smile creep onto her face. She had so missed her work.

The scent...it was moving. Moving and blending into other scents.

Fresh blood, and yet, no scent of burnt propellant. Damn it. Whoever was after Nawi was trying to play on her sense of morality. And the worst part is, in spite of her instinctively knowing full well that it was a trap, she couldn't let this go unaddressed. She was going to find out if this person was working for Rajabu...then, she was going to eviscerate them. Hang them by their intestines as a warning to anyone who would dare to try what they had. Let them know that Nawi was not going to extend mercy to slavers or their puppets.

Initially, she was going to sneak to the kitchen, but a bullet lodging itself into the tile where she had just landed forced her to move faster. She quickly pieced together that she had two separate parties after her. One was luring her into a trap, while the other was content to kill her outright. The scent of Rajabu was covered by the blood. As she leapt into the kitchen, evading the sniper outside, she knew she was between two different traps. With a trained flick of her tail, she moved a fallen knife into her hand and flung it at one of the alarm speakers, dampening the noise slightly.

The place had been turned into a damned slaughterhouse. Whoever was after her had slaughtered everyone. The lingering scent of fear was in the air, mixed in with blood. Although a faint scent was moving in the air, it was drowned out by all the blood.

"Well..." Nawi trailed  from behind her concealment. "You wanted me in here. Here I am. Sniper outside. Keen to kill me, and your plans for me are unknown. I'll take my chances figuring out what your game is. Then...I'll repay blood with blood. I'll hang you with your entrails, nice and slow - a quick death is too dignified for you."

Eevi stood just beyond the blood-drenched chaos of the kitchen, hidden in the shadows cast by the flickering emergency lights. She felt the weight of Nawi’s threat resonate through the silence, her voice dripping with a raw ferocity that sparked a flicker of respect deep within Eevi’s calculated mind. Nawi had spirit—that much was certain.

But Eevi wasn’t here to be cowed. She’d set this trap with meticulous care, knowing well the kind of predator she was dealing with, knowing the scent of blood would draw Nawi in just as it had. Her powers tingled at her fingertips, her hands forming her signature finger pistols in anticipation, hidden just enough to be ready without revealing her position.

“Hang me with my own entrails?” Eevi’s voice echoed from the darkness, calm and laced with an unsettling casualness. “Now that’s poetic. But you’re getting ahead of yourself, Nawi. You want to talk about blood? About deserving vengeance? You have your enemies, I have mine. And tonight, our interests align.”

The fire alarm continued to pulse, its shrill tone muted by the shattered speaker, casting a strange beat to the tension simmering between them. Eevi stepped just close enough for the dim emergency light to catch her figure, though her face remained shrouded, blood streaking her clothes, splattering across her cheek like some unholy war paint.

“Think of it as…an opportunity,” Eevi continued, keeping her tone neutral, just the faintest hint of a dare woven through her words. “I didn’t slaughter these men for fun. They were in my way. Just like that Rajabu you hate so much has been in yours.”

Her gaze fixed onto Nawi’s concealed form, catching the glint of her eyes peering through the cover. The sniper outside still posed a threat, but Eevi knew Nawi’s instincts would keep her aware. There was a dance here, one that she would let play out until the right moment.

“You can try to tear me apart. Or…you can listen. I’m here because, like you, I’ve got a score to settle. Rajabu’s got his claws into both of us, whether he knows it or not. You want him gone? So do I. The man disgusts me completely and entirely. And if you let that primal rage of yours focus a little, we might just have the means to finish this for good.”

Eevi held her stance, knowing her words could just as easily provoke as intrigue. The thrill of the hunt, the challenge of facing another predator—it ignited something in her, a flicker of a dark enjoyment hidden beneath the cold precision.

“Your choice, Nawi,” she murmured, her voice barely above the hum of the emergency lights. “I’m not asking you to trust me. Just to recognize an opportunity when it stares you in the face.”

Eevi’s fingers hovered over the flashbang, ready to release it the second Nawi made the wrong move. She kept her stance steady, her other hand still positioned as a finger pistol, ready to fire off a silent shot if she needed. Her pulse was calm, steady, even as she calculated her next move. If Nawi chose to pounce, Eevi would be ready to blind her, to throw off her hunter’s instincts and force her into a disadvantage.

The kitchen, filled with the scent of fresh blood and terror, had become a perfect trap—a hunting ground that worked as much for Eevi as it did for Nawi. The flickering lights cast shadows that danced across the walls, merging with the dark pools beneath fallen bodies, and Eevi’s eyes never left the subtle shifts in those shadows, catching any hint of movement.

She tightened her grip on the flashbang, her voice steady and with a hint of a taunt, barely masking the thrill she felt. “What’s it going to be, Nawi? You take one step toward me, and I guarantee you will regret the next minute. Or you could actually hear me out. Time to prove if Nawi is JUST the runaway slave or something more”

Her gaze was unyielding, and in her stillness, she was the picture of control. The only hint of movement was her thumb on the striker, poised to release the pin with lethal precision. In that moment, Eevi felt herself sink further into her element—this was what she was made for, the fine line between predator and prey, the delicate balance of control that only heightened her senses.

It was up to Nawi now. One wrong move, and Eevi would make sure she wouldn’t even get close.

"You stank of him. Come to take me back, like that Revenant man tried to," Nawi trailed as she tried to keep some form of cover between her and her would-be abductor. "Perhaps he claimed the reason he wanted me back is because I was his best fighter in the underground Meta fights. It's more than that. He has delusions of being a warlord - he wants me to bring him many 'little warriors'."

Nawi let the sentence linger as she regarded the figure of her potential abductor, noting the brutality with which innocents were killed. Every instinct told her that the woman was untrustworthy. And while Nawi wasn't a walking lie detector, her senses were sharp enough to spot tells when someone was lying. The slightest increase of a heartbeat, the increase in perspiration, the occasional nervous twitch, the potential shift in breathing patterns. The circumstances made the former two methods nearly impossible to use, and her assailant was rock-solid in stature, making the use of the other methods difficult. Nawi was willing to bet money on the possibility that the woman was used to uttering lies or tricking others.

"Leaving aside the fact that that's not how the Great Ones' gifts work, he actually did force me, once," Nawi finally said. "A stillbirth. I thought I had torn his throat out when I escaped. Clearly, I was in too much of a hurry."

Nawi's stance was tense, ready to dash if Eevi made the first move, her eyes picking out every nook and cranny she could hide and conceal herself in if things went sideways.

"And now you come with an offer," Nawi said. "I'm supposed to consider it genuine...why, exactly?"

Eevi kept the flashbang steady, her expression as unmoved as a stone statue. A glint of something—a mix of disdain and dark humor—flickered in her eyes at Nawi’s question. She wasn’t here to paint herself as some hero or sell a dream of redemption. But, hell, if she didn’t have standards. All professionals do after all.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Eevi said, her voice dripping with a calm ruthlessness, a mocking humour chuckling out at the thought of her offer coming from a place of “good”. “I’m not about to give you some redemption arc. I’m no saint, Nawi, and I’m not pretending to be. But men like Rajabu? They’re bottom-feeders. They’re the kind that give people like me—those who understand there’s no light waiting for us at the end—a bad name.”

She let her words hang in the air, her finger still tight on the grenade, eyes never wavering. “He’s a parasite, Nawi. He wants control, power, by any means. All to feed his delusions, thinking he can mold us, own us. There’s no profession there, just self-righteous scum. I don’t hunt his kind for morality’s sake—I do it because the underworld doesn’t need more wannabe emperors who think they’re entitled to us. I already have a megalomaniacal man in my life and I am a one partner kind of woman.”

A slight smirk curled her lips, but it was humorless, the kind of smile that carried venom rather than warmth. “If you think I’m here to bring you in for him, you’re mistaken. I’m here because he and his type ruin the game. No standards, no sense of the professional code, just a power trip.”

Eevi tilted her head slightly, studying Nawi’s face for any sign of movement, betrayal, or distrust she could leverage. “But whether or not you believe that, that’s on you. Now, you can take your chance against me or listen. Either way, I’m not here for him—I’m here to ensure his kind don’t last.”

"You're in this for money...aren't you? Whatever his offer is...I imagine he's paying for more alive," Nawi said, her voice a caress.

"You can walk away with what he's paying and I can make sure he actually dies this time. Even so, you'll have to pay the toll for all this..." she nodded at the bodies around them. "...some day. If you were going to rat him out the whole time, all you really would have had to do was knock on the door. None of them had to be killed."

"Either way," Nawi said, "We're in a dilemma - the sniper is watching the front side of this hotel, and I can't smell if anyone else is coming around the back with all these bodies. I imagine Rajabu gave you something to dampen my abilities. Here's how this is going to happen: sabotage the device. As long as my claws are covered, he won't know the difference. For either part to work, we have to get out alive."

She very faintly heard someone on tile approaching from the window she dove in through. The smell of grease was faint with all the bodies, and barely noticeable. The faint sound of a weapon's safety clicking off reached her ears - time seemed to slow down as Nawi glanced behind to the window. A single man with a suppressed MAC-10 was peeking through. She had no way of closing the distance before he pulled the trigger, so she dove for cover, instead.

Eevi scoffed at Nawi’s words, the faintest flicker of amusement crossing her features. “Pay a toll, huh?” Eevi murmured with dry sarcasm, barely concealing her amusement. “Get in line. You and Rajabu can keep each other company with the rest of the crowd waiting to take their shot at me.” To her, the bodies scattered around them were just another job, a necessary calculation. She wasn’t about to underestimate Nawi’s instincts or her own need for caution.

She caught the faintest sounds of footsteps approaching, and her grip tightened on the flashbang, her finger holding the striker pen in place, ready. Nawi’s instinctive dive for cover confirmed Eevi’s own suspicions, and with a quick, practiced release, she sent the flashbang flying toward the approaching gunman, who had yet to spot her entirely.

The grenade clattered against the tile floor, rolling to a stop just in the gunman’s line of sight. There was a single heartbeat of tense silence before—

BANG!

The flashbang detonated, flooding the room with a blinding white light and a deafening noise that ricocheted off the walls, drowning out the sound of the MAC-10’s suppressed shots. Eevi had instinctively turned her head, shielding herself enough from the brunt of the flash to keep her bearings. The concussive wave rolled through the space, leaving anyone within the line of sight reeling and dazed.

In the brief aftermath, Eevi stayed low, eyes darting through the disorienting haze of smoke and light as she kept her attention on any movement. Her posture was tense, ready to strike if necessary, but she remained still, watching and waiting as the chaos unfolded.

“Let’s get one thing clear,” Eevi said, her voice flat, cutting through the post-flashbang haze. “I don’t care about the bodies. They were a means to an end, and if it kept you off my back for five minutes, I’d do it again without blinking. I had no knowledge of if you would jump me on sight nor how fast you could accomplish it. By all accounts it worked and look at how civil we’re being now.” She didn’t bother hiding the disdain in her voice.

“As for you coming after me someday?” Eevi shrugged, eyes flicking briefly toward Nawi’s cover. “Join the club. I’ll welcome the extra challenge. Half the world’s got a grudge, and if you’re still around by the time I’m done with the rest of them, feel free to take a swing. Until then, I’d like to think we can hold an accord long enough to deal with whoever’s crashing this party.”

Her gaze hardened, fixing on the direction of the now-disoriented gunman as she prepared to move. “Once they’re dealt with, we can have a nice, honest talk about Rajabu. But until then, let’s keep this civil.”

The hitman at the window didn't manage to get back into cover before a clawed hand separated his head from his shoulders.

"Methodical, calculated..." Nawi muttered. "If more like you were doing what I was doing - removing the scum of the Earth - for its own sake, I imagine the world would be a far better place."

The reaction when she saw the followup M26 frag grenade coming through the window was to use her tail to redirect into her hand and throw it back. A high stakes game of hot potato, with a fragmentation grenade going off as the consequence. Lucky for both Nawi and Eevi, whoever remained outside didn't think to let the grenade "cook" before tossing it, and it didn't detonate before clearing the window.

"Not too late for you to change...not just yet," Nawi said. "But the meter is running until it is. And as much as I don't like it, we're in this together until Rajabu is dealt with. If you're up to it, help me deal with this 'Carbonell' joker, afterwards."

Nawi tugged in one of the mortally-wounded hitmen who were hit by the shrapnel. Most of his body was mangled, but he had a standard Mosquetón Model 1954 bolt-action rifle with a jury-rigged suppressor. The scope was a bit beat up, but if it still held zero, it would likely prove helpful in countering the sniper.

"Can you get a shot on the sniper if I bait him?"

“Falling in love with me too, is it?” Eevi’s voice dripped with mocking humor, her eyes glinting with an edge of amusement. “I thought that spot was filled. Sorry to disappoint, i’m a nightmare, not a daydream.”

Watching as Nawi effortlessly redirected the grenade, Eevi smirked, clearly impressed by her partner’s reflexes despite herself. She listened, head tilted slightly, her expression halfway between detached and bored.

“Change, huh?” Eevi’s tone was flat, dismissive. “Not sure the world’s got time to wait for that. But while we’re playing nice…” She cast a glance toward the mutilated hitman, hardly sparing a blink. Blood splatters meant little to her; they were simply the cost of business.

At Nawi’s question, Eevi considered her position. “Fine by me,” she said, flexing her fingers in the shape of a pistol. “You bait, and I’ll end it. And maybe we’ll see if this guy’s any different from the rest.”

She positioned herself near the window, her keen gaze scanning the rooftop, her senses honed for even the faintest movement. “Let’s make it quick, then we can get to business with Rajabu and your ‘Carbonell.’”

To bait the sniper into firing, Nawi covered one of the dead hitmen with some form of tablecloth in order to obscure his identity and tossed him out the window. The weapon report was so muffled as to be imperceptible, but the bullet itself still cracked through the air as it passed the sound barrier. But there was no trace of muzzle flash from where she looked.

Flash and sound suppressor...this was going to make pinning the sniper's location down without repeated shots difficult. And at night, picking up any light reflecting off the scope was going to be nearly impossible. Nawi was going to have to put her head on the line to make the sniper expose himself. Eying the angle at which the body had been hit, Nawi rolled out into hard cover and took aim in the general direction of the gunfire. Tracing pulling the trigger, she let the .30-06 round fly, noting that the bullet flew slightly to the right and below to where the crosshairs were oriented.

The frag had knocked the scope off of zero, but Nawi had no time to sight the scope back in. She worked the bolt again, noting there was rustling in the trees and vegetation. Wherever she had hit must have been very close to the shooter's location. If she had to guess, the shooter was somewhere within 400 meters west of the hotel.

Nawi's enhanced night vision allowed her to see into the trees beyond, but there was a lack of vision focus that made it difficult to see anything beyond three meters with any clarity. The downside of having a panther's night vision meant that while she could see better at night than a normal human, image sharpness took a steep dive. After seeing some more rustling in the treeline, Nawi took aim and fired.

Abruptly, the rustling stopped - but she saw no blood splatter, or immediate indication that she had hit the shooter. Then a very faint glint of the moonlight hitting the scope met her eye as the shooter's muzzle was leveled at her. Sliding into the next point of hard cover, Nawi than vaulted up the stairs to the second floor.

"Well, it looks like we've found our friend," Eevi muttered, watching Nawi vault up the stairs with predatory grace. The faint glint of the sniper's scope had been enough to draw her attention to the threat's location, albeit briefly. "Impatient, are we?" She smirked to herself, tightening her fingers into the familiar mimic of a pistol.

She scanned the shadows and mentally mapped the likely angles from which the sniper could strike again. "Alright, let's see if I can keep your little game going," she whispered, moving through the corridors with the silent fluidity of a shadow. Eevi positioned herself near one of the windows on the second floor, calculating her line of sight. If the sniper was smart—and judging by the suppressor and tactics, he was—he’d be repositioning soon.

The crack of a branch outside confirmed it.

"Time to make things a bit more exciting," she said as she steadied her stance and aimed her finger pistol out the window. "Bang," she murmured, sending a force projectile out into the night toward the glint of the scope she'd seen. If she could just make him flinch or move, it might give Nawi the window of opportunity she needed to close the distance.

"Time to see who’s better at this little hunt," she added under her breath, feeling the adrenaline start to pulse through her veins.

"Let's make some noise," Eevi whispered, retrieving the pistol she had taken from the guard earlier. She gripped it with one hand, feeling the cold metal press into her palm, and positioned herself by the window. She knew this part was a gamble, but she needed that sniper to reveal himself.

With calculated precision, Eevi fired off a series of shots into the night, the sharp, echoing bangs cutting through the cacophony of the fire alarm. Each shot was carefully placed to mimic an aggressive, desperate attempt to flush the sniper out. As the clip emptied, she watched and waited, eyes flicking back and forth across the tree line. "Come on, take the bait," she muttered, the pistol now discarded on the floor at her feet.

Then she saw it—a faint shimmer, a subtle shift in the dark, the glint of a suppressed muzzle. The sniper, thinking his prey exposed, was positioning for the kill.

"Got you," Eevi whispered, raising her hand in the familiar gesture of a finger pistol. "Pop," she breathed, sending a silenced force projectile with lethal accuracy.

The reaction was immediate. The sniper's silhouette jerked violently, a strangled noise cut off before it even began, and his body crumpled backward into the brush. Eevi allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. "That's one less to worry about," she said, glancing toward where Nawi had taken cover. "Now... let’s finish this."

Leveling the rifle one more time, Nawi took aim across to where there was another rustle. The sniper must have been partnered with a spotter and they must have split up after Nawi's initial shots. Following the rustle to where a small clearing in the brush showed, she let loose another shot, aiming up and to the left of where her intended shot was meant to go. Within 400 meters, there was basically no time to find cover before the bullet flew into the side and came out the other end. From where she was looking, she had severed the abdominal aorta, put both an entry and exit wound through the liver, basically guaranteeing a bleed-out.

Nawi's blood-drenched hands basically obscured any fingerprints she would have otherwise left behind. In order to avoid being witnessed by anyone who may have still been near the front lot, Nawi swung around to a different area of the hotel before dashing across the street. She lost traction on the tile floor but was able to clear the street without being witnessed. Nawi could average around thirty-four miles per hour on flat terrain, but could peak out at fifty if she pushed herself.

She checked on the spotter, seeing that he had already gone into shock, with unconsciousness and cardiac arrest soon to follow. The smell of another recent body nearby drew her attention, along with older blood. Likely Eevi. A piece of paper was on the spotter's body. But there only one word; the rest had been torn away.

"Juárez..."

A person? Or perhaps a place? It was a common Spanish surname, rather than a given name. Unlikely to refer to Carbonell. Ciudad Juárez - a city south of the US-Mexico border, might have been what the paper referred to, but she had no way of knowing for sure. Nawi packed the paper away, walking the twenty or so meters to find Eevi near the sniper's body.

"I smell no one else around," Nawi said. "We should clear away before the authorities - legit or crooked - find us, and work out how this will go."

“Efficient work,” Eevi remarked as Nawi approached, noting the paper the other woman held. Her amber eyes scanned the area briefly, ensuring Nawi’s words held true and there were no lingering threats. “Juárez, huh? It’s either a name or a breadcrumb. Either way, we’ll figure it out later.” She nodded toward the paper in Nawi’s hand. “Hold onto that. It might save us some legwork.”

Eevi wiped her bloodied hands on a rag she’d taken from the kitchen, unbothered by the gore coating her gloves. Her movements were methodical, a stark contrast to the chaos that had just unfolded. She crouched briefly by the sniper’s body, rifling through the pockets. “Nothing personal. Just business,” she murmured, finding nothing useful on the sniper aside from ammunition.

Standing, she adjusted her coat, concealing her finger tattoos beneath the folds of the fabric. “You’re right, though. We need to move. The only thing worse than crooked cops is honest ones with something to prove.” She gave a slight, humorless laugh. “You got a direction in mind, or are we just making this up as we go?”

She gestured toward the surrounding area, already beginning to pace back toward the shadows. “Personally, I’m a fan of a quick exit and slower planning. Whatever Rajabu’s game is, we’ve got enough blood spilled tonight to make him sweat. Juárez might hold the next piece, but I’m open to suggestions if you’ve got a smarter idea.”

Eevi turned briefly, her gaze settling on Nawi with a hint of amusement. “Oh, and try not to fall in love with me too. I don’t think I can handle another admirer.”

"Oh? Another admirer?" Nawi said as she guided Eevi away from the area. "If you've got an admirer, he must have the patience and tolerance of a god."

"I suspect 'Juárez' may refer to Ciudad Juárez, south of the US-Mexico border. Considering the timing of this attack - mere hours after my convention talk - it wouldn't be a stretch to say this 'Carbonell' was hired by one of the officials in the convention center, and that these are his goons. Investigating there can come later. If I still know Rajabu as well as I think, he'll have moved from one spot to another while you were busy. You can get your payment and still help me out," Nawi said. "He's clever when it comes to negotiating with the criminal world, but he's still on the unintelligent side with regards to technology. What did he give you to capture me with?"

Depending on how subtly Eevi decides to sabotage the power-suppressing collar Rajabu had given her, he may never suspect a thing. This is especially true if they disguised Nawi's claws in some manner.