Tunxis State Forest, 28 Miles from Farmington CT, 11:00 PM...
The Forest Ravens rode for hours upon hours on an open road. They were more than familiar with these low traffic highways, some could say that they even owned them. Still, this was much more out of their way than usual for an arms deal. Normally they wouldn't even humor this kind of sudden contact, probably just some hick crackheads looking to set up a poor man's ambush, but it was the name behind the contact.
Fei
Biker gangs were very far from an exception to the criminal underworld, and just like every other scrappe of scum, they too heard that the notorious Juno Fei had flown under the radar. Some whispered that is was for good, others saying it was part of some long con on her behalf. Some even spoke of a million dollar bounty on her head, courtesy of her own father, "Boss" Fei. The Raven's couldn't care less about the bounty, as they knew what kind of heat and reputation that would bring down on their heads. No, they were merely interested in purchasing guns from a reputable source. Nothing more...
The bikes revved and roared through the treeline, Chapter Head Sammy's GPS pinging positively as they reached their destination. "HOLD UP BOYS! We're here!" Sammy informed his brothers, the gang dismounting and stretching their legs.
It was certainly a beautiful meeting spot. Lush greenery smothered the gang's proximity on all sides except one, where a sheer cliff presented the State Forest down below in a breezy nighttime view. Sammy walked over to the cliff, sparking up a cigarette and took in the sight. His right hand man, his comrade and his brother Jared walked on over beside him, silently grabbing a smoke from his captain.
"We really doin' this?" Jared looked over while taking a drag.
"We've been on the pavement for six hours, and now you're asking a stupid question like that?" Sammy snorted along with his question, spitting off the cliff.
"No, no. What I mean is... Well this might not even be her, you know? She's supposed to be ghost, so what the hell makes us think she's showed up in antique buttfunk hell Connecticut to do business with us... Isn't she supposed to be a funking globe trotter-?"
"That's what I'm supposed to be at least!" A familiar voice called out from the bush. The dozens of bikers present pulled out their pistols and SMG's towards where it came from. Sammy sharply turned around, pulling his revolver out of it's holster, and tugging on the hammer with his stubby thumb.
"Show yourself! If you're who you're supposed to be, you got nothin' to worry about!" Sammy shouted into the forest, his revolver cautiously raising by the second.
None other than Juno Fei casually stepped out of the bushes with her hands held high, a mocking grin stuck on her plain face. She was dressed head to toe in her old smuggling gear, almost unrecognizable from the gothic style she had adopted as of late. To these bikers, however, this was exactly how the smuggler Juno Fei was said to look like.
"Evening boys!" Juno grinned at the many weapons pointed her way, her raised hands producing points at said barrels fixed on her person. "Don't suppose you could get those out of my face? Otherwise you all spent a really dumb amount of cash on gas money getting here." The smuggler's tone never broke from pure confidence, only amplified when the biker's complied with her demands.
Sammy shoved a few of his men out of the way, stomping towards the Dealer aggressively. Juno mirrored his approach all the same, until the two were face to face. After a brief moment of uncertain tension, they both spat into their palms and slapped their hands together to form a firm shake. "So, you're Juno Fei, huh? Or are we callin' you Ms. Fei for business?" Sammy sneered, to which Juno cracked a grin in retort. "Juno's fine, "Ms. Fei" is for someone a lot sexier and tougher than you, big guy" She chuckled, giving Sammy's hand one more shake before taking a step back.
The Raven's captain looked around, his hands gesturing out to their forested surroundings. "Well I see you here... But where the funk is the product?" He asked sincerely, even underlined with caution, as these were normally the first signs of an ambush.
Juno picked up on those fears, easily reading his body language like a coffee table pamphlet, and waved her hand dismissively. "Calm down, baldy. Your product? We're standing on it."The smuggling witch stomped her boot on the ground firmly, to which everyone else looked down at the branch covered floor as well.
Sure, it was disrupted soil, but it didn't look like anyone had dug a pit anytime recently. This is exactly what Sammy was thinking, looking back at her with a raised brow. "You pullin' some kind of funking prank here? There's no freaking way you dug a hole big enough and covered it up this good. Not without an excavator or somethin'." He pointed to the ground in annoyance.
Juno rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue, looking at Sammy while twiddling her fingers theatrically. "What if I told you I did it with maaaaagic, oooooOoooOOOoh!"She burst out laughing, knowing these goons had no clue that she quite literally did just that.
Her humored uproar was cut off, however, as her ears perked up at a noise far out of earshot to an average person's hearing. "Huh..." Juno stood upright, her eyes wandering off to the sky as her mind tuned to her other enhanced senses. "Hey uh, Sammy right? Any chance you brought some backup in case this went south? Or am I lookin' at everyone you brought on this powwow?" Juno put her hand up as a sign to relax, carefully drawing her grandfather's Blaster out of it's holster.
Sammy picked up on her cues, giving his boys a nod of his head to ready their weapons. "Can't say I did, Fei. You're lookin' at everyone...."
"Neat, neat, neat... Soooo... Yeah... Duck and shoot..." Juno pursed her lips almost awkwardly, slowly getting to a crouched position with her ears still tensed. There was a very unsettling silence, with only the cricket's song as ambience before...
*SNAP*
All it took was the breaking of the smallest twig, and Juno fired off a searing hot blast from her energy weapon. It burned through the treeline, scoring someone enough to make them yell out in fatal pain.
"COOK THESE MOTHER FUNKERS"
Another voice screamed from the trees, just barely cut off by an uproar of orchestrated and lined gunfire from all directions. Both Juno and Sammy dropped to the ground in an instant, each of them firing off as many shots as they could before getting pinned. Bikers left and right dropped like rocks. The rest of the men that weren't cut down by the immediate barrage took cover behind the thick oaks that dotted the meeting spot, returning their own fire in kind for their fallen brothers.
"FUNK ME! It's the goddamn Road Headers!" Sammy shouted over the ruckus, emptying the chambers of her revolver to reload.
"SHUT UP SAMMY! I'M COUNTING!" Juno casually punched Sammy in the arm, her lips flapping quietly. Little did the Raven's leader know, the smuggler was counting down to when these shooters were going to run out of ammo.
She finally counted down the remaining seconds on her fingers, leaving just three fingers stretched before grabbing the Biker Captain by his leather vest and getting up to their feet. "Up and Adam, baldy! You can't pay me if you're dead!" She screamed, shoving Sammy to safety behind the largest tree nearby before she leapt off of the sheer cliff, turning around to grab hold of it's ledge.
Her eyesight might be better than any average person, but there was no defeating the veil of night itself. Slamming her blaster to the soil, she continued to utilize all of her hearing to locate these mooks, and fired off blaster round after blaster round in the trees. Bullets kicked up the dirt around her, not being able to penetrate the entire cliff her body dangled off of for cover.
She could use it at any second. She could just summon the accursed Staff of Blodam itself and end those who tried to end her transaction right here and now. Yet, Juno chose not to. No, she wanted to prove to herself that this was her game, and her world. Besides, risking the possibility of serious blood loss wasn't an option right now.
Instead, Juno reached into her satchel, pulling out a handful of circuited orbs. "Spider drones, search and destroy protocol!" She verbally commanded the tech she held before throwing them blindly over the bikers and into the tree lines. The little orbs sprung and shook to life, sprouting tiny mechanical legs that allowed them to crawl about in the dirt, seeking and destroying.
Almost simultaneously, sizable explosions erupted from the trees, coupled with wails and screams of those who were caught in their blast.
A hush fell over the bikers as the dust settled, carefully stepping out of their wooden cover to see what the hell just happened. Juno Fei is what had happened, and she felt good about it. She crawled back up from the cliff, getting back to her fight right beside Sammy, who stared at her with impressed awe.
"Goddamn, kid." Was all he could mumble, his head nodding along with his words.
"Oh, you think that was cool? Check this out." Juno replied with an absolutely giddy tone, reaching out her hand to her side to everyone's mutual confusion. It wasn't until five seconds later they'd switch to utter shock and bewilderment as The Staff of Blodam flew through the sky and breached the opening of the cliff, gently yet firmly placing itself in Juno's extended palm.
The smuggling witch slammed her Staff's bottom to the ground, peering through the golden circle to gain focus. "Show me the goods."She commanded, her voice becoming slightly distorted in tandem with the Staff's sudden obeying glow. All it took was the minor cut on her hand from the forest's debris when she clung to the cliff, the Staff sucking up the required blood payment to return a spell in Juno's favor.
The ground suddenly started shifting aggressively and unnaturally, with something rising from it's soil at a slow but powerful pace. Juno didn't even wait for the spell to finish before sending the Staff flying back up into the air at a bullet's speed, now walking over to the petrified Sammy and resting her arm on his shoulder.
"Twenty Spas-12, riot model, full choke shotguns. Thirty Mossberg pump action "super shorty" models. Both batches have their serial numbers eliminated, that's an extra charge. Five crates of shells, one crate of fragmentation grenades and ten kevlar vests. Sammy my boy, you're looking at a final price of $134,539.00. Now... Cough it up..."
Twenty minutes later...
"WHOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!" Juno stuck her head out of the Van's window, the flaps of her pilot's cap flapping in the wind as she sped down the empty highway. In the back of the Van was sixteen duffel bags stuffed full with cash, cash she earned. "I DID IT! I DID IT I DID IT!" The smuggler slapped her hand against the steering wheel. Her amber eyes looked at her own face in the rear view mirror, looking at herself in her attire she buried weeks ago after the Academy... After she changed...
"To hell with it" She told herself days ago, coming to an assertive realization. It was Venilia, her partner, her confidant, the woman she loved who gave her the confidence boost she needed to do what she just did. It wasn't going to stop here, not with just providing for her family, her Outcasts. No, Juno decided that she wasn't going to run from who she was. She wasn't going to run from this uniform, or her blaster, or her ship. They may have been things that her abusive and terrible father, Xiang, gave her and clung to their presence. But it was Juno who was going to own them. Not only that, her mind was finally made up...
She was going to kill her father, and take his empire...
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