47 walked out of the Yellow Flag into the cool night air. With weather like this, it could make someone forget that Roanapur was a humid, fiery hell during the daytime. He walked through the streets, tailing his targets, trying to determine where they resided. Sunglasses in the night were not uncommon in this place, so he was able to keep his head down and not have anyone look too closely at him, especially since the CIA was on to him now.

As he walked, he watched the one called Revy continue to make advances on Rock as they made their way to the car. After walking for the better part of half an hour, following the disgruntled pedestrians and fresh skid marks on the pavement, 47 came upon the same car he had seen the two get into, parked outside a ratty apartment complex. There was no guard to speak of, so he walked inside, listening as he went. After following the sounds of loud thumping and creaking bed frame, he eventually found the apartment they belonged to. In an effort to blend in, he sat down outside said apartment and leaned against the wall, pretending to be a passed out drunk. But it wasn't too long before he heard the sounds of

"Oh yeah, Rocky-Baby! Give it to me! I love your hard dick pounding my pussy fucking senseless!" Emanating from the walls of said apartment.

Despite the vulgarity of the situation, Val had to crack a small smile. Ah, to be young and in love. While not something he would ever seek again, he did know the feeling. He had once though he found such a thing, with a woman back when he was a citizen in the good ole US of A. Back then, his name was Chris. But like all sad tales leading into a life of crime, she had betrayed him. She attempted to frame him for killing a prominent business man whom she had been cheating on Chris with, in an attempt to collect all his money. She had gotten him to change his will to leave everything to her, then she murdered him with Chris's gun in an alley. The mans family, not willing to wait while the cops sorted out the truth, believing Chris's ex girlfriend's story (she was his most trusted secretary after all), and being rich enough to hire a thug to kill Chris, did just that. The only saving grace for Chris was that he had gotten up to get some water in the middle of the night and heard the thug come through the window of his apartment. Flush with anger and a lot of adrenaline, he grabbed a stapler off the small desk by the kitchen and beat the would be killer to death with it. After seeing what he had done, knowing that now the police had a real reason to arrest him, he fled the apartment with what little he could shove in a backpack.

With his life in shambles, prison a sure thing now that he had killed, and some extensive damage to his psyche, he decided to disappear. Wandering for months, he survived by finding and killing other criminals for their money, or just stealing. At first, he thought himself to be doing a righteous deed. Drug dealers were scum and should be eliminated; murders who escaped custody ought to murdered themselves; and rapists suffered the worst of all at the hands of the currently nameless man, for their crimes were unforgivable. But a life of murder has a nasty habit of changing a person, and soon the man who now called himself 47, found a particular pleasure in these "off the books" jobs. He chose the name 47 as his now ex's first name had 4 letters and her last name had 7 letters. A perfect tribute to the woman who had started it all.

He soon found himself reaching out the the criminal underworld, desperately seeking employment; a desire to eat is a powerful motivator. Despite his lack of experience in this particular field, murdering people and such, he had always been meticulous and strived for perfection in all aspects of life. Coupling that with what would turn out to be several undiagnosed mental issues, 47 became a name only the best could afford. His first few jobs were a bit of a learning curve, especially the one where he had to "remove" a dictator from a worn torn country so that a mafia could insert their own person as leader. 200 armed guards on high alert is no easy feat. But careful planning had made short work of it. He spent a month eliminating rivals of the group who hired him, taking their money to build a stockpile. Once he had enough, he was able to pay a sizable group of "promiscuous women" to make a trip up to the mansion and distract the guards. Once a large portion of group had their attention diverted, it was a snap for 47 to sneak his way in and deal with his true target. His employers were ecstatic at his results, especially considering that he had crippled most of their rivals in addition to the target they had paid him to kill. And he didn't even ask them for more money. Said that he was paid to complete a job with precision, and that's what he had done.

If you were to ask someone like the legendary Two Hands or the leader of Hotel Moscow, they might have questioned 47's tactics; sneaking around and playing a long game that would make even Rock jealous of his skill, instead of just charging in with force. Strength through violence and such was usually the first resort of people like Revy or Balalaika. But 47 had a fatal flaw; a flaw that should have gotten him killed, given his line of work. He didn't take any pleasure in the death/harm of others and hated collateral damage to innocents; hence why he only distracted the guards as opposed to killing them. They were merely paid to guard the dictator, and the dictator was the only target 47 was getting paid to eliminate. Sure, it could be argued that the other criminals he killed on the path to the dictator were "innocent" in this particular instance, but in all reality each of them had done horrible things and eliminating them would likely result in less bloodshed in the long run due to a lesser chance of gang conflict.

Fitting for a man who though he still had morals, most of 47's beginning jobs were eliminating other criminals from the face of the earth. A service he could justify in his mind as something close to a moral prospect. But eventually, as he slipped further into the darkness of his new life and became more addicted to the challenge of a hard job, he began accepting jobs to kill anyone so long as the contract was worth enough money; or transporting them, as the job may be. Unfortunately, this was how a group of unlucky women had been brought to Russia from their native land of Thailand (unbeknownst to 47, this was actually a job for Hotel Moscow, but they had gone through several layers to cover up any evidence of their involvement). This job did a number on 47. After handing the girls over to the contact in Russia, he had caught part of a conversation pertaining to the fate of these girls between some guards. They were to be sold as sex slaves to the highest bidder. Innocent girls, who had done nothing to these men, were now going to become expensive, glorified sex toys for wealthy individuals; most of them likely dead within the year. He finally saw the truth of what he had become, nothing more than the criminals who had turned his life to shit. So he eagerly welcomed the job to capture a known criminal and return her to America for who knows what. At least he could pretend that he was doing "a good deed" as opposed to sex trafficking. It truly was the perfect job to try and ignore the monster 47 had become

So here he found himself, pretending to be sleeping drunkard in a hallway, listening to a very pregnant Chinese-American gunslinger have sex with her Japanese ex salary-man boyfriend. How Val's life had fallen. Eventually, the noises died down, the couple presumably going to sleep; finally. Val got up, stretched for a moment, and began walking out of the apartment complex, now unsure of his next move.

The original mission had been to retrieve Two Hands and bring her back to America. There had been no mention of a pregnancy until he saw it with his own eyes. Deep Throat, being far removed from the actual situation and not caring about the job as long as he got his cut, thought that now would be the perfect time to capture her, given she was not nearly at full strength and might be more likely to avoid an all out gun fight. 47 had to disagree, given how accurate her shot was at the Yellow Flag, and for other reasons as well. The most prominent being his misgivings about completing the mission with Two Hands in this state. He sure as fuck wasn't gonna take her while she was with child. That was a line he wouldn't cross (Funny right? He captured a bunch of women to be sold into sex work, but won't kidnap a pregnant woman, he had mused). But that presented more issues than it solved. His client wanted her brought back as soon as possible. At this point though, he was content to wait until she gave birth. The client knew that they were paying for the best, so they could wait. Plus, this would also give him time to think how he was going to match skills against the whirlwind that was Two Hands.

Val walked out of the complex and onto the street, lighting yet another cigarette as he began the walk back to his seedy motel room. He only needed to capture Two Hands, so he really didn't want to have to harm the other members of Lagoon Company; they were not his targets. He did need to get them away so he could take her. But he refused to take her while she was pregnant. So he had to wait until after the child was born to capture her. But he wasn't going to leave the child to die because he took her mother away. So he had to make sure that Rock, who he correctly assumed was the father, was around to find the child and care for it. This was already a complex issue, only added to the fact that he was now aware (After the exchange he listened to in the Yellow Flag) that Lagoon Company was on friendly terms with both the Hong Kong Triad and Hotel Moscow. They would fight against him if Lagoon asked for their help. So Val either had to be quick about his capture, before anyone caught wind of what he had done or distract 3 different groups in order to capture his target. This gave him less than 2 months to come up with a complicated plan to outsmart everyone.

I'm starting to wonder of this job is even worth it. Val thought as he walked. This is far more complicated than the customer originally described. Definitely not worth the price of this job. But for now I'll bide my time. Maybe something will change that will work in my favor.

A/N: After Reviewing this one, I decided it was ready to post. I think I might be able to post the next chapter today as well, but I'll have to see. Hope you Enjoyed this part"

-NightSteed out