Chapter 10: Group Four
"We ready?"
"Let's do this."
Harry and Revy were standing in a hallway towards the top of the apartment building across from Jackpot Pidgeon's. Harry's Invisibility Cloak was draped over the two just barely. Harry had his wand out, and Revy had one of her replacement pistols in hand. Like her signature Cutlasses, they were Beretta 92s, but they lacked all the custom touches her originals had.
It was a day after they had talked to the women at Rowan's, and after a long time of doing reconnaissance, the duo was sure that they would find Thucrit's new hideout empty after seeing the witch herself leaving. The apartment building wasn't anything special. But the yellow halogen lights gave the hallways an eerie tone, the fact that it was shortly after 11 at night didn't help either.
The pair sidled up to the door of the apartment, and Revy made to open the door, but Harry stopped her. He waved his wand rhythmically for a few seconds, checking for any guarding or alerting curses. Revy kept an eye on the hallway behind them and it wasn't long before Harry had finished his sweep.
"She was crafty with some of the curses she put here. But nothing I can't handle." Harry said quietly.
"We good to go in?" Revy asked.
"Alohomora" Harry said, the doorknob clicking softly.
The door creaked open and the two went inside, still under the cloak. But after closing the door, they took it off and swept the apartment. They had entered a small living room with a kitchenette that was barely used. The couch, which was surprisingly new looking, had a blanket and pillow on it, which Harry found odd.
The coffee table was loaded with news clippings in various languages. Harry was no expert, but he could see Mandarin, French, Tagalog, Japanese, English, and Malay among others. Harry was impressed at the recency of the articles too, they had all been no more than a week or two old.
"Seems like she makes a point of keeping up to date." Harry said, picking up a few clippings here and there.
"Bit of a fuckin' linguist too." Revy said.
"Yeah, sadly I don't think a translator spell exists." Harry said as he pocketed a few English articles.
"I think I can get a bit off this though." Revy said. "I don't know much Cantonese, but I think this is an article on some sort of race."
"A race?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I'm not sure but it could be the Formula One Hong Kong Grand Prix." Ravy said quizzically.
"Formula One?" Harry asked.
"C'mon, like race cars n'stuff. You're British, you should know." Revy teased.
"Whatever, we need to keep going." Harry said as Revy pocketed the article.
The two went down a short hallway with two doors. On the right was a bare-bones bathroom. But on the left was a room which was probably intended to be a bedroom, but the bed was upturned onto a wall and there were tables lining the room. Sat on them were various planter boxes, a few with sunlamps over them. At the far wall in a corner there was a desk that had various papers strewn about it. One of the tables was littered with an assortment of weapons rather than plants.
"The fuck?" Revy muttered as they stepped into the room.
"This is all herbology gear." Harry said as he wandered towards the desk.
"This is some freaky shit." Revy said as she bent down to look at a plant with tie-dye-patterned leaves.
"I don't recognize many of these. They must be native to the region." Harry said as he sifted through a few of the desk's papers.
"Anything good here?" Revy asked, peering over Harry's shoulder.
"None that I can tell." he said, "If I had to guess, these are notes on potions she's been experimenting with. A lot of these ingredients are commonly found in poisons."
"You guys have potions?" she asked.
"Yeah, we use cauldrons like these to make them." Harry said, pointing towards a small pewter cauldron that was filled with a ghastly brown liquid that was bubbling on the opposite corner of the desk from where he was.
"That's pretty neat." Revy said as she looked down at the cauldron.
"I wouldn't get too close to that. Potions can be quite dangerous." Harry said nonchalantly as he reached the last of the notes.
"Probably a safe bet." Revy said.
"I don't see much of anything here. I'll make copies of these however and I'll send them to our experts back in London." Harry said before he reached into his jacket pocket. He produced a large scroll of parchment and an Auto Quill. He set them on the floor in front of the desk and waved his wand. The quill then started to copy the notes perfectly.
"Just how much shit do you have in there?" Revy asked.
"The pocket's expanded, I can fit all my luggage in here." Harry said. To showcase his point, he reached in again and after a second's struggle, he pulled out the Galil Rico had given him for the heist.
"God damn!" Revy said, ogling at the feat.
"I'll teach you the charm to do this later, but we need to find a place to hide this." Harry said, exchanging the rifle for the stolen hard drive which he also had in his pocket.
"Right, I think I have an idea." Revy said. Harry nodded and handed her the hard drive.
"You go and find a hiding spot. I'll get these squared away." Harry said as the Auto Quill died down.
Revy nodded, "You have a flathead screwdriver?" she asked.
Harry nodded and reached again into his pocket, producing a small screwdriver which he tossed to Revy.
The gunslinger chuckled and left the room. She went back inside the living room and went towards the kitchenette oven. Above the stovetop there was a small air vent. Revy screwed open the cover and placed the hard drive inside before re-screwing it shut.
"Will that work?" Harry asked.
"Look at all this shit, the bitch doesn't use any of this. And if the guys Chang sends are half-competent this will be one of the first places they check." Revy said.
"Okay, I trust your judgement." he said.
"Before we go, did you look at those guns she had in the other room?" Revy asked.
"Not really, no." Harry said, "I doubt your pistols are there though."
"They better fuckin' be." she growled, storming back to the room with the plants. Revy went over to the table where an assortment of weapons was laid out neatly.
"God damn, this is a collection." Revy said.
"How so?" Harry asked.
"Look at this." Revy said, picking up a pistol, "An original CZ 75, only like twenty thousand of these were made. And here's a goddamn SAR 80, little shit's hard to find nowadays." Revy said, handing Harry the weapons.
"What do you want me to do with these?" Harry asked as Revy ducked down to check a cardboard box under the table.
"Pocket them dumbass. There's so much stuff here the bitch isn't gonna miss them." Revy said.
"Fine. But I don't see your Cutlasses here." Harry said as he stuffed the weapons into his jacket.
"Oh man! I'm not even thinking about them, look at this." Revy said, beckoning Harry next to her. He crouched down and investigated the box. There was a strange mounting mechanism attached to a large metallic sphere sitting inside, a spare sphere was also there.
"What's this even supposed to be?" Harry asked.
"This is a Brunswick RAW, it's a giant fuckin' rifle grenade." Revy said, a giddy tone in her voice.
"A rifle grenade?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, you mount it to the end of a rifle, and when you shoot a grenade goes with the bullet, but this one is designed to take out vehicles and walls." Revy said, shoving them into Harry's hands, who in turn stuffed them down his jacket.
Harry smiled, "This all sounds fun and all, but we really ought to cover our tracks." he said, taking out his wand. "This is the Disillusionment Charm." He tapped the box with his wand and the shimmering form of the RAW launcher appeared as if it weren't disturbed at all. Revy gawked at the apparition and tried to grab it, but her hand went straight through it.
"You gotta teach me! Rock's gonna be pissed when I-" she started to say as Harry got up.
"You won't learn that for a while yet. It's a nonverbal spell." he said, making forms of the CZ 75 and SAR 80 appear on the table.
Revy looked deflated, "Buzzkill much?" she said.
"That's Hermione's job." Harry said. The two laughed and left the apartment, making extra sure to leave everything in the way it had been before they had entered. Save for the few newsclips they had taken.
Tie ready, pants pleated, shoes polished, mind clear, plan set. Rock was ready to face Chang again. He stood outside of the Triad's building and looked up to the top floor where the penthouse was. Revy sat idle in the Lagoon Company car, ready to take him away when he was done. Meanwhile Hermione and Harry were sitting across the street at a café incognito, keeping an eye on the proceedings and ready to jump in if Rock felt under threat.
While the gang didn't have much reason to distrust Chang. It was actually Rock who insisted on having everyone there. In his own experience with Chang, he knew that he was a hard façade to crack, let alone break. But considering the damage that Harry had done physically, and the stress that Thucrit was likely exhibiting mentally, Rock wasn't sure what Chang's state of mind would be.
It was the morning after Harry and Revy had made the drop and before they came here, they made sure that Thucrit was in her hideout thanks to a signal from Rowan's girl. This takedown had to happen fast, before she found the planted drive.
"You'll have to hang here Two Hand." one of Chang's goons said as he came to escort Rock.
"Yeah, yeah. Tell Great Brother Chang I send warm regards n' shit." Revy said sarcastically.
"Noted." the guard said sternly before he led Rock inside the building.
The elevator ride up this time around wasn't as pleasantly nostalgic as it was last time. Rock was thinking too hard about what he wanted to say to Chang, how to correctly phrase everything. The hydraulics of the elevator made him consider a more corporate approach. Maybe treating the situation like a project and Chang like the project lead would be the best approach. But Rock knew he had to keep an edge to everything. Decorum only went so far when you dealt with people like Chang, Balalaika, Ronnie, and the other rulers of Roanapur.
The salaryman walked out of the elevator and was met by the same security as last time in the foyer. They patted him down and then led him inside. The guards were oddly silent compared to last time Rock had noticed, the heist might have struck a little too close to home. He really hoped Feng could get those files decrypted.
"Rock!" Mr. Chang called from a room that Rock had just entered. It looked like a halfway between a study and a war room. A desk that stood in the opposite corner from the door was littered with diagrams and reports, all written in Cantonese to Rock's dismay. Chang himself was sitting in a large brown leather office chair, his suit jacket on the back, sunglasses gleaming in the window's sun.
"Mr. Chang." Rock said, giving the boss a small bow as the guard left the room.
"I hope you have some good news for me, it's the one thing that seems to be alluding me right now." Chang said.
"I do in fact." Rock said as he approached a chair at the other end of the desk. Chang waved towards it and Rock sat down.
"I wanted to tell you this earlier, but that heist near the hotel shuffled the board, and I wanted to do more digging before I came to see you." Rock said.
"Understandable, now out with it." Chang said.
"Mr. Chang, I don't know the full extent of this situation you are in, but I have in fact concluded that the people who killed those men in the morgue and the one who attacked you are in fact different." Rock said.
Chang's face twisted into a look that said, 'Duh!' but Rock continued.
"However, I think after my investigation, the more systemic threat to you right now is Malee Thucrit." Rock said. Chang remained stoic in his presentation, Rock wasn't sure if that name would get a reaction out of him, nonverbally or otherwise.
"How did you find out about her?" Chang asked.
"The heist." Rock said, "I had been tracking her for some time, but I didn't know her identity until afterwards. One of the Hotel's working girls had seen one of the crew get unmasked briefly and could ID Thucrit."
"And this Russian girl just gave this to you for free?" Chang asked.
"Not at all, it took Revy and a few hundred dollars, but we got what we needed." Rock said.
"I see, go on." Chang said, his body language relaxing a little bit.
"After I learned her identity, I tracked her down to the hideout she is currently using. And I think it's ripe for you to take." Rock said.
"Could be, where is it?" Chang asked.
"The apartments across from Rowan's, top floor, room 518." Rock said, "I had one of Rowan's girls who also lives there track her comings and goings for me. I also have reason to believe that whatever was stolen is probably being kept with her. The other members of the crew were just hired guns."
Chang nodded and looked past Rock while he thought.
"Very well, but I still want whoever attacked me to get their fucking due, keep on their trial." Chang said. Rock stood up and shook the boss's hand before he left. Technically, it was mission accomplished, but the secondary objective of getting Chang off Harry's tail wasn't yet done. Rock stopped by the doorway and turned back.
"If you don't mind me proposing some conjecture." Rock said, Chang was silent, "I think it might be possible that whoever attacked you and yourself might have the same objective. It might be worth allying with them instead. You can blame the attack on Thucrit after she's captured if you want to save face."
"Noted." Chang said sternly, shooing Rock outside of the door. He sighed and turned his chair to look out the window. His hands found their way to his chin, intertwined and thinking.
"Well, it coulda gone worse." Revy said as they idled at a red light.
"Yeah, that's true. But for now, I think we should focus on Thucrit. We can deal with the Triads later." Rock said.
"I suppose so, but it's worth thinkin' about a solution ain't it?" Revy asked.
"I'm sure that the other two have some tricks up their sleeves. Maybe we could change Mr. Chang's cognition or something." Rock said.
"I don't know about cognition." Hermione said.
"What about memory?" Harry replied.
Revy was surprised to hear the two and almost swerved off the road. Hermione reversed the Disillusionment Spell she had placed on herself, and Harry whipped off his Cloak.
"DON'T YOU FUCKIN' DARE DO THAT AGAIN!" Revy screamed, glancing back at the other two.
Hermione smirked, "We thought it would be funny." she said.
"It kind of was." Rock said, a smirk forming on his lips. He had been startled too but didn't show it much.
"God! FUCK!" Revy shouted, pounding the steering wheel in frustration.
"Anyways, we do have the means to change memories." Hermione said.
"I don't think we could teach you about it though, it's really advanced stuff." Harry said to Revy.
"Yeah, yeah, no fun spells for me." Revy said.
"It's not like that, it takes years for most people to do what you already can." Hermione said.
"I wasn't being serious." Revy said, "We should figure out how to deal with the witch bitch though."
"This is true." Rock said, "I don't see the Triads getting her in their assault. If I had to bet, she will try to escape from the hideout, and when she does, we grab her."
"What if she does that Apparition thing again?" Revy asked.
"We can place anti-Apparition jinxes on the building and surrounding area before the assault." Harry said.
"I can also place Caterwauling Charms around some of the alleyways nearby so we can catch her no matter where she goes." Hermione said.
"Good idea." Harry said.
"Did Chang tell you when he'd start?" Hermione asked.
"No." Rock said.
"If I had to guess it won't be until tomorrow at the earliest. He'll need to form a game plan then gather men and weapons for the job." Revy said.
"Agreed, we should wait till then." Rock said.
"What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way. What a wicked thing to do, make me dream of you."
"God this music is ass!" Revy said.
"And I don't want to fall in love."
"I don't think it's the music that's the problem." Hermione said.
She was sort of right. The crew had decided to stay at Rowan's to stake out the apartment building. Despite the brisk hour of 9 am, the strip club was in full swing, with soft rock tassels and enough skin to satisfy anyone.
It was also a struggle to find an open window in the club that faced the apartments, but they were lucky enough to have found one by a table where they sat sipping on drinks and being cautious of where they placed their hands. Everything had a strange stickiness to it.
"The spells still active?" Rock asked.
"Should be, if they were lifted it would be noticeable." Harry said.
"And what about the garage? Is there a range limit?" Rock pressed.
"No, that should all still be fine." Harry said. During the night the crew had gone back to Hermione's safehouse and set up a makeshift prison in the garage, complete with iron bars and anti-Apparition jinxes. Rock was still fidgeting, however. He was set to be the wheelman for the crew if things got too spicy. He had wanted to just use Apparition, but Harry and Hermione were too cautious about either of them bringing both themselves and either Rock or Revy, plus Thucrit in one go. And assuming how hot things might get, multiple trips weren't the right play.
Rock was about to ask something else, but it was right then a few blacked out sedans pulled up in front of the apartment building. Several Triad hitmen got out of their cars and went inside with no hesitation.
"They're quick!" Harry said. The gang scrambled up from their table and ran out of the club, the other patrons too distracted by the dancers to really notice what else was happening. By the time they got outside there were already gunshots coming from the inside of the building and there were civilians running out from the front doors.
"Rock!" Revy said, "Go and get the car started, be ready to pull up out front when we come out." Rock nodded and ran to a side alley next to Rowan's where he had parked.
"I'll go around back and make sure the bitch doesn't escape that way, Harry, you're with me. Hermione, keep a low profile out here and watch the front." Revy then commanded. The two others nodded and drew their wands as Revy clicked the safety off her pistols. The Triad cars were all empty thankfully, but Revy suspected that since they didn't leave drivers, the hit squad was expecting to take a while.
The shooting coming from within the building was intensifying and Revy didn't even want to imagine what was happening inside as Harry and her reached their position.
A puff of dust came just before the crack of the gun. Malee had suspected something was off. That stripper from the first floor had been keeping an eye on her for a little too long, and this was the result of that.
She cursed internally and ducked back into her apartment from the doorway she was standing in. She then rushed back to her greenhouse and grabbed the first shotgun she saw, an Ithaca Model 37 M&P which had a sawed-off barrel and no stock. She then grabbed a bug-out bag she had prepared with essentials. She also hadn't forgotten her most recent prize, strapping a leather chest rig to herself which housed the two Cutlasses she had stolen from Revy.
Malee hadn't been expecting to move from this place so soon, but nonetheless, she didn't have the time she had wanted to pack everything, so as she left the room, she set a spell of Feindfyre on the plants and weapons still there. She then went to the bathroom across the hall and stood silently with the shotgun pointed at the wall that was shared with the hallway outside.
In her silence she could hear the people who had shot at her walking through the hall. She focused on the footsteps. Five-man stack, all holding pistols or submachine guns, no tactical rigging, must be wearing lighter clothing, moving close together, likely trained or former military. She didn't think the Triad would've found her so quickly, let alone assign her blame for that stupid truck robbery.
She focused again on the footsteps she heard and expelled any idle thoughts. She took a deep breath and as soon as the stack came squared to the wall she was aiming at. She pulled the trigger without hesitation and through the resulting cloud of dust she could see a well-sized hole in the thin wall. A man's head was half-gone, and the guy in front of him fell too with a chunk of his neck missing.
Malee was quick to change positions. By the time return fire came through the walls, she was in her living room. She sent a small ball of fire towards the sofa and her table of news clippings. Nothing would be left behind for the Triad.
She then went to the doorway and swung open the door. She crouched down and leaned out into the hallway with her shotgun. She saw two of the three hitmen out of action, and she fired off some more shells, turning the others into a pile of blood and lead. She wanted to make a break for it, but she was shoved back inside by a flurry of rifle fire from the end of the hallway. She reloaded her shotgun and heard someone step into the hallway.
"HEY SHITASS!" the man yelled to her in Cantoneese. Shortly after she heard him, a grenade bounced perfectly off the doorframe and just inches from where Malee was.
Thinking fast, she whipped out her wand and levitated the grenade. She pushed it out of the room and with a flick of her wand sent it flying back down the hall.
The explosion sounded like it hit the mark and was punctuated by several squelching sounds that presumably once was the original thrower. Malee straightened up at the doorway and peeked into the hallway. It was empty.
"COME ON OUT SO I CAN SHOOT YOU LIKE THE LITTLE BITCH YOU ARE!" she shouted to her adversaries.
She checked the hallway again with her shotgun and saw through the thin clouds of dust one of the men who had come for her. He was standing almost casually at the end of the hallway in a daze. His right eye was swollen shut, his ears bleeding, and his left arm gone just above the elbow.
Sensing no one else around, Malee quickly went down the hallway towards the dazed man. She saw his eyes were glassy and he was subtly mumbling something in broken Cantonese. She decided to end him and put a shell to his head, shattering him to the floor.
To Malee's relief the grenade she had thrown back did more damage than she had predicted. She saw almost six other men piled on top of each other, a few were groaning, however. Malee saw one reaching for a spare pistol that was laying on the floor and she emptied her shotgun into the bodies, confirming the kills. When she ran out of ammo, she checked her bag for more but growled when she saw no more shells. She threw the weapon aside and went downstairs, drawing her stolen Cutlasses.
The contingent who came for her directly weren't the only ones who came, however. As Malee started down the flight of stairs leading to the second floor she encountered a Triad guard. She made the snap decision to dive towards him. The guard, who had not expected the move, never stood a chance. She unloaded fire on him, and although inaccurate, a few of her shots found a mark in his head.
Malee used the falling body of her foe as a cushion, but the landing wasn't easy regardless. She groaned and got up from the floor, her shirt being stained with the man's blood. She dusted off and continued down.
"Mother fuckers!" she said idly when she reached the door to the lobby. She found it locked. She tried the Unlocking Charm, but the door was barred from the other side. Seeing no other way, she quickly turned, trying to Apparate, but nothing happened.
Malee growled and decided to go upstairs again, deciding to jump from a window. She stomped to the second floor and kicked in a door leading to the apartments. There was a Triad guard on the other end. He only managed to raise his weapon before he got two bullets to the chest and one to the head. A perfect Mozambique.
She reloaded her pistols and kicked in the first door she saw. Inside sat a family of three. The father had backed his wife and child into the kitchenette and held his arms over them. Malee saw the defiant look on his face and sneered at him. She then went over to the window that overlooked the back alleyway and shot out the glass.
Malee holstered her pistols and took out her wand. She cleared away the glass and put one leg out. She got a foot on a small ledge and used the support to shimmy out fully. The drop was a good fifteen feet if she had to guess. Malee leapt from the ledge and aimed her wand at herself.
"Arresto Momentum" she said, the charm slowing her velocity enough to make her landing more manageable.
Despite her slow speed she didn't land quite right, and she fell to her right. She heard a slight pop in her ankle and a sharp pain went up her leg. She tried to get up but when she put weight on her right foot, she growled animalistically in pain, having to duck into a wall to stay standing. The pain felt like every muscle in her leg had been pulled at the same time, and she could barely stand it.
She aimed her wand at her foot to numb the pain, but she heard footsteps behind her. She turned quickly but was met with a fist to the nose. Her head jerked back, and she could feel her wand gripped by another hand.
"NO!" Malee shouted. A new burst of strength ripped through her, and she threw off the attacker.
Revy landed with a thud on the ground, not expecting such a display of strength from someone who had just sprained their ankle. She expected to have gotten shot through with a spell, but Tucrit instead whipped around again, throwing up a Sheild Charm just in time to block one of Harry's stunners.
"Expelliarmus" Harry shouted, expecting Thucrit to have quickly retaliated with an attack of her own. But his intuition was wrong. She kept the Sheild Charm up and the spell rebounded perfectly onto the Auror. His wand shot out of his hand and into the air.
Harry's expression was shocked and Thurcit looked at the wand hungrily as it flew, end-over-end. She reached her hand out to catch the wand, but Revy wasn't out of the fight yet. She scrambled up and tackled Thucrit over the shoulders. As the two toppled to the ground Harry ran over and grabbed his wand. Thucrit wasn't expecting the move at all and was quickly being subdued by Revy.
Revy was quick to act, she broke Thucrit's grip on her wand and took it for herself.
"Steupify" she said, stunning Thucrit into submission.
"Petrificus Totalis" Harry said, another beam of magic hit Thucrit, causing her to stiffen up.
"That should do, let's get her to the car." Harry said.
Revy nodded, but before she did anything else, she took back her prized pistols. She grinned at her weapons and turned Thucrit over onto her back. The witch bitch was still conscious, and her eyes were darting back and forward.
"You kept them clean, but you never steal from me, cunt." Revy said to Thucrit. She then raised a boot and stomped down on Thucrit's face, causing her nose to break with an audible crack.
Blood was leaking from Malee's nose, and her eyes were burning with hatred. On the inside she could barely believe she had somehow gotten bushwhacked by these two. She would bet anything they were the ones to have sent the Triads here in the first place too.
"Wingardium Leviosa" Revy said, lifting Thucrit into the air.
She and Harry walked back out to the street where they found Hermione and Rock sitting in the car, ready to go.
"Mission accomplished?" Rock asked as Thucrit was loaded into the back seat.
"Just about, need to make sure the story is set straight here." Harry said.
"Already taken care of." Hermione said, "Seems like only one survivor made it out. He'll be reporting that she was eliminated in an explosion, no body recovered."
"Good work, let's get going then." Harry said. At that, Rock pushed the throttle and darted out of the street as police sirens started to sound in the distance.
The Lagoon car pulled up to the garage where the gang had constructed a small cell for Thucrit. In the middle of the room was a small cage of iron bars that extended from the cement floor to the ceiling. The only way in or out was a small magically locked hatch that connected from the floor up the iron bars of one of the walls. It was just large enough for someone to crawl through. The amenities were Spartan, even by Sparta's standards. There was only a bucket, a roll of toilet paper (Hermione's insistence), and a cot.
Harry got out of the car first and dragged Thucrit out with Revy. Together they levitated her into the cell and onto the cot. Harry then went over to her.
"You'll be here for a while, at least until we are ready to hand you over to the Ministry." he said, "I also wouldn't try to do any magic in here. We've placed jinxes and other precautions here. I would advise that you simply do as you're told. But for now, we'll let you sleep." He aimed his wand at Thucrit, and her eyes bored into his just before they closed, her breathing becoming more measured and even as she fell asleep.
"I'd think we should probably do that same." Hermione said. Despite it being mid-day, the four of them seemed to be out of it. More from stress than the physical demands of what they had done.
Harry led the way inside and closed the door behind everyone. Revy was the first into the living room. Her posture loosened and she drew her pistols. Inside sitting in an armchair was a smartly dressed old man. His legs were crossed, and his head was covered by a copy of The Daily Prophet.
"Who the fuck are you!" Revy shouted.
The man folded the paper down, "Albridge Stanley, at your service."
X
Author's Notes:
I usually have a policy of keeping A/Ns minimal when I write fic but I read recently that some authors like to include some research notes/general thoughts in this section, so I'll give it a go because there is some interesting things that I've been coming across while writing that you might also find interesting. Or, if you just want to ignore these, go ahead! I'm not your dad (unless you're into that, I guess).
-Anyways, one thing that I added to the start after I wrote it initially was the weapons table in Thucrit's hideout after I found a small reference book on small arms. I've always been a fan of the original CZ 75s ever since I got into Gunsmith Cats (might do a GC x BL crossover after this), and the SAR 80 was a rifle I saw from that little book which I think is not only aesthetically pleasing but is interesting for its design history. And since the Singaporeans and British borrowed so much from the M16 design, I threw in the RAW launcher as a useful tool that will hopefully help the gang later.
-For you fellow Formula 1 fans out there, I know there is not a Hong Kong GP, but I want a cool setting for the final act and a race works well, but I don't see the FIA hosting a Roanapur GP. I won't be using any real names from F1 either, fic that involves real people in a significant way just rubs me the wrong way.
-Note on the Disillusionment Charm, I know that it just turns things invisible, but I wasn't too sure what to use for what Harry needed to do, and that was the closest spell. I'd love to be proven wrong though! Either way, my excuse for even doing that is that magic is magic, explaining it aint gonna un-Disillusion the RAW launcher.
-Wicked Game was a last-minute addition, I wanted a more dramatic transition, and I've found songs do quite well. I also did some research, and that song was apparently quite popular in strip joints in the 90s. I also think Group Four by Massive Attack is a perfect vibe for Harry and Revy's B&E.
-Thucrit's fight through the apartment was entirely written off the cuff, never intended it to be there but I was rewatching some videos on Max Payne 3 and I wanted to include some sort of bullet-time-esque thing. Not to mention the "Hey Shitass" meme, which always gets me. And if you don't know what the Mozambique Drill is you should totally look it up, it's fuckin cool.
All that said, thanks for reading, this fic is seriously one of the only things keeping me positive right now. Any constructive criticism is welcome too, I'm always looking to improve. Have a good day/night :)