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The skies were cloudy today, the bright Armarian sun was being blotted out by the heavy and thick clouds. Rain was in the forecast, but then again, the weatherman was usually wrong. One time it snowed it the middle of August, that was a pretty wacky day.
Heirou's combat boots made a light tap upon the sidewalk, which was a contradiction all of it's own. He moved at a rather steady pace, but how did his boots make such quiet sounds at that speed? That's a question for another day. With his hands slipped up those cavernous depressions he called sleeves, he took a quick glance towards the air beside him with a puzzled look.
"Zau? Where'd you go?" What happened to the blonde girl that was accompanying him on this day? Midori had scolded him about not doing anything with one of their newer members, so he took her out for a mission! It didn't exactly help that she was vanishing every few minutes.
"Oh, there you are." With a slight shift of his neck, he caught her in his gaze once again, Zau was about two whole feet shorter than Heirou, it wasn't every day that he was so much taller than someone. It was a little disorienting. A little? It was way disorienting for the guy.
But hey, it also wasn't every day that Heirou had a cute blonde girl walking next to him. His lost love, Mary was also blonde, but she was taller and had much more..... what's the word, appealing proportions. But he had already spent a few minutes performing his classic moment of depressing silence about it earlier.
Looking down at Zau his mismatched grey and blue eyes, he said "You ever think of getting platform shoes?" Oh yeah, as if that didn't sound like a short joke..

Heirou smirked at the thought of Zau wearing platform boots, quickly coming up with another thing to tease her about. Maybe he should keep it up his sleeves? Could be a good joke for later. Probably not. Heirou was never really much of a joker, that didn't keep him from thinking he was funny of course. Jokes were for later, just like how Trix were for kids, now was the time for formulating a strategy.
"The guild didn't give us any info about the guy aside from his name." He stated dryly, responding to the question about their target's species. "We don't even know if he's got bodyguards.."
As he spoke the average brick and cinder surroundings slowly and gradually gave a way to a less gritty environment. But, of course, that depended on what you called gritty. The two were treated to the pungent stench of burning trash, mixing in with the oh-so-colourful aroma of the civilians of the city.
Welcome to the subway system!
The loud screeching of trains along the iron tracks were the loudest thing the two heard. It was a plethora of things unpleasant to the senses.
"Get your hotdogs 'ere! Hotdogs!"
There was a hotdog vendor, standing at the bottom of the soggy stairway, his face was painted with grease, and he smelt of burnt rats. The things he was selling weren't too inviting either, come to think of it.
"Hey, blue boy, hows abouts you and your girl there have a hotdog, right off of the grill!?"
"No thanks." He held up his hand, dismissing the offer and continued to walk with Zau underneath the dancing fluorescent lights. They seemed to have somewhat of a beat to them, once one went off, another went on, and after that, another went off, only to be replaced with yet another one.
Another train zipped by, screaming out to Heirou and Zau like that annoying friend who always felt the need to shout at you as they pass you in their car, even though it happened almost every day.
"You know what, Zau?" He halted in his tracks, fidgeting around in his jacket sleeves for the picture of their target. "I honestly don't think the boots would make much of a difference." And of course, he felt the need to snicker at his own idiotic joke.
And he wondered why Mary wouldn't get back together with him..

After having his short day dream about times past, which was the usual emo crap, Heirou came back to reality, reality being two of Zau's fingers all up in his grill.
"Now, now, I never said anything about not having a picture.." Heirou began to speak, tugging out the object necessary for identifying their target. The guild often crapped out on a lot of things, but pictures were not one of them.
After taking a gander at the man on the slip, he handed the image over to Zau, passing it across his body into the waiting hands of his partner for this mission.
They were looking for a Caucasian man of average height, muscled build. Not much stuck out about him, aside from his red, neatly trimmed hair and the fact that he toted around with him a small collection of guns, mostly shotguns and handguns. But they were out for everyone to see! The only short ranged weapon he had was a short sword, and even that was outfitted with two guns.
"Amateur." Heirou spat, expelling saliva from his lips onto the already soggy ground on the floor. Just the thought of someone carrying around their guns like that disgusted him!
He raised his hands and put them together, his palms visible for the first time since this mission began. "Now, how are we going to find this one guy in this crowd?" He pondered aloud, while slipping his body between a heavy man and a business woman. Surely, this was going to grow into a major problem!
It wasn't as if there was someone who could use some sort of magic to find the guy, yeah, Midori may have told him that Zau could do all sorts of mystical tricks, but they were all simply parlor in his mind. Even after having seen a couple of them for his own eyes!

What was that- he didn't even?! That was a parlor trick, smoke and mirrors! There was no way Zau could have possibly pulled off such a feat!
It took Heirou a little while to notice that they weren't still in the busted up crater within the wall, and as a result, his nose turned a ruby red upon it's collision with the gross walls...
"What.. the.. hell?" He was at a loss for words, turning around to observe his new surroundings. This wasn't the disease infested subway system of which they were just exploring, this was some.. some....

Where were they, exactly? A rat infested alley would have to do for now, for that's what they came across. Rats, rats everywhere! On the floor, in the trash bin, on Zau's shoes, and in Heirou's pants.
"Zau, what the hell did you do!?" He shouted, infuriated with the result of whatever the short lady had done. Heirou had attempted to free himself from Zau's grip, but it seemed the presence of these rodents had given her some sort of ultra tight grip! Kung-fu grip, if you would.
And then before he could release himself from the jaws of life, he was yanked to the shadows of irritation!
"The hell did you do!?" Heirou demanded to know, tugging his arm free. His forehead folded in upon itself and his eyebrows sharpened. "Did you knock me out or something? Drugs!? Heroes don't do drugs, if you didn't know!" He tossed his arms down, his sleeves moving a full second behind him.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and turning towards the sidewalk.
"Where ever you took me, it's probably somewhere important.. So I guess we, stake out until he passes by?" He looked towards a fire escape, thinking about how they could use that to get up onto the roof for a bird's eye view.

"Yeah, I'm the expert." Heirou repeated, trying to embed those words into Zau's head. He was the leader of this operation! The hero! She was the sidekick, and sidekicks always play second fiddle to the hero.
Well, maybe that's not how he felt, he just didn't like the slim chance that Zau may just have been more useful than him.
Well, so it's both. But still, his name isn't Heirou for nothing.

Heirou leaped up and clutched onto the ladder to the fire escape.
You know, since they're using it to go up, wouldn't it be a fire entrance?
Either way, Heirou began to swiftly jog up the several flights, up the stairs, spin around the steel grate floor, and up another flight of stairs. Fifteen in total.

He took a hop and a skip more and was up on the rooftop! The cold, rooftop winds blowing through his icy blue hair, making it look like an ice cold sea, where was that Coke polar-bear when you needed him?
Or was that Pepsi?

Changing his pace from a brisk jog to a casual strut across the roof, Heirou perched himself upon the edge of the building, placing his right foot precariously upon the edge as he rummaged around in that coat that could have qualified as something that would go on that MTV show that should exist: "Pimp My Jacket".
His arms stopped for a second, and out popped two pairs of shiny binoculars, sporting the Fallen Flames' signature colour scheme!
"Hey, shorty, take one of these and start looking, you know what he looks like." He looked over his shoulder to his partner in heroic crime and offered her one of the tools. "Smoke and mirrors aren't anything compared to good, hard work, after all!" And with some friendly encouragement to boot. If you could call insulting your partner and your leader's current best friend's field of expertise encouragement.

What, didn't know Midori liked Zau so much?
Well, she didn't force her to do her bidding as of yet.. Probably never will, too.

Well, that propped up Heirou's self esteem. He took a quick glance over towards Zau and how amazed she seemed to be when looking through the binoculars herself.
"Little bugs crawling around the street." A phrase heard so many times, yet never got old! Oh, how it still tickled his ears! Hearing those words of praise simply put a smile on Heirou's face!

"Just keep your eyes out for anything extremely shiny.." He reminded, keeping his voice as professional as possible. After all, heroes were very, very professional, if you didn't know!

Down on the street, things weren't exactly average.. But then again, what is an average Amarian day? Point is, there were lots of cars driving by, windows completely tinted. A couple of trucks chugging along with the pack, carrying armed mercenaries. That wasn't too odd, aside from the fact that the guild wasn't issuing any Urgent missions here on this day, and only one of the trucks actually had the Guild's symbol on them. Which that in itself was peculiar, the guild never gave rides to Mercenaries to missions, only back. And if they did, all of the vehicles would be from the Guild.
A huge truck passed by, seriously obscuring the duo's view of the street.
But when it had passed, there was a glimmering light coming from the alleyway across the street.

Heirou didn't quite see the shining object in question, far too busy staring down at the street, having spotted someone who might've been Mary over in a coffee store on the other side of the street.
And that's when Zau ended up pointing some shiny thing out, and sounded like she thought Heirou had seen it too!
"Wha- oh, yeah. Inconspicuously..." He said, returning from his spaced out condition.

He shifted his vision from the big breasted blonde and shifted it over to the shiny thing in the alleyway. He stood upright and stuck his hand into his pocket, keeping the other one up to press the binoculars to his eyes.
"If we didn't have to follow him back, I could shoot him from here..." He muttered. The one time getting a shot off was easy, and he couldn't take it. Typical mission scenario...

The blue haired gunner took a moment to think in solitude, stepping away from Zau to pace around and brainstorm.
When he did got an idea, it came to him in a flash of lightening! Only that this storm was very, very small.
"I'm just going to suggest a plan, you use that magic stuff of yours to get up close to the guy, use your nonexistant feminine powers or whatever, while I keep moving from the rooftops, I'll keep an eye on you, and take out anyone who might be on your trail." He pointed to the alleyway, the man had reached the other end, exiting onto the next street and out of their sight. But it wasn't too hard to keep track of him.
"And when we reach his base of operations, you kill him, and I'll burst in sand save the day, like a hero!" He smirked, imagining it all play out like a play. Zau would be the damsel in distress, and Heirou's be the hero! Swooping in and rescuing Zau, right in the nick of time!
"So, what do you think?"

Heirou's one good eye practically leaped out of his eyes when his brain actually managed to process everything that had changed. It seemed that Zau had suddenly become a woman! Well, she was a woman before, but now she was a woman in the whole metaphorical and or metaphysical aspect of it.
"Whoa..." His jaw dropped, he nearly walked off the building and broke his legs just because he was so caught up in all the bounces and curves that had suddenly become noticeable.
Oh and that shoulder! Heirou was completely captivated by this woman named Zau! Hell, was she even the same person?

He followed Zau from the roof tops, watching her travel from the alleyway, across the street and into the opposite alley. And it actually took him that long to remember what he was supposed to be doing, for reasons already stated.
He tucked his binoculars back into one of his many coat pockets and made a beeline for the next rooftop, showing off some of those skills that made him be known as a skilled mercenary.
Not many people knew him, anyway. Everyone was all about Midori, they just knew him as the guy with the coat and the jumping around and the guns.

He leaped off of the roof adjacent to the previous one, having it been a slanted one that swooped downward to the street, and pounced atop of a streetlamp.
Yeah, he was somewhat visible, but still somewhat difficult to spot.
From here, he jumped across the street to one parallel to it, and from there onto the opposite building, climbing up past it's lit up windows to once again catch a bird's eye view upon his suddenly attractive partner in mercing.
***

Down below, the bald rogue mercenary was just trudging through the alleyway, accompanied by three or so others when this, blonde haired vixen approached.
"Whoa," One of the masked mercs gawked, the other two were equally as surprised and interested with this short girl with the shiny necklace.
"Hello Miss," Cage turned around, not appearing to be hostile, well, his voice seemed to naturally sound hostile, but it's not like his tone was. "Do you want something?" He crossed his arms, one of those furry brows raised.
His head shined in the moonlight.
Why?
Cause he's bald.