He raises his hands, too. Nothing to see here, no sir, just a sickly-looking twink and his admittedly pretty terrifying foster sister.

Glowy keeps twitching his eyes back and forth. "Yeah. Yeah, you just wanna leave, huh. You just sailed into a locked harbor by accident, no idea what's goin' on, didn't touch nothin', didn't see nothin', dressed like runners, shining like, shining like runners-"

"Man, my boat just came in and dropped me," Ariel says. "I didn't hear anything about a locked harbor. If we're not supposed to be here, it's because we're being set up."

"Yeah!!!" Glowy cackles. "Yeah, you're bein' set up, nothing suspicious, nothing weird about that, nothing's wrong at all, just let you waltz on through! It's all a big misunderstanding!"

Ariel tilts her head from side to side, not quite cracking her neck. An old signal. I'm going loud in five... four... three...

Oh joy of joys. He stretches his shoulders a bit, which is also an old signal: hold.

Then he looks directly at glowy. "It is kind of weird, I agree, but there's no reason for us to fight if this is a misunderstanding. Can we chat a bit first? I'm Hak Jauhung; what's your name?" He says all of this in a casual, unworried tone, like of course we can all solve this just by having a conversation like the civilised folks we are, without making any suspicious movements and keeping his hands in the air.

Glowy looks at him, sort of disarmed just by the confusion. "Knife Eyes Yan. I'd say nice to meet you but it isn't."

(Ariel... holds.)

"I'm sorry, aah suk, it's gotta be stressful to be here." His face softens, as he says that. He understands and sympathises, really. Especially if Yan is expecting a fight, that could be really dangerous! But it's alright, they can just chat. "What were you warned about? Maybe we could reassure you, if you think something was stolen, that we didn't steal it, or something like that."

His brow furrows a bit. "I-I did get a tip. Not that specific, just that something was goin' down at the harbor. And it is. You seen how many bastards are crawling around? Triads, runners, HKCP... you're just the first ones to come into our lot."

"...really?" Genuine surprise, and a tinge of worry. "No, we... actually didn't see them. I didn't even realise anything was happening, before, the gate was open when I came in..."

"Shit, you are bein' set up," Yan mutters. "Listen, you wanna get out of here? Get out of here fast. Before whoever wants you dead decides to kill me too."

     "What if there's a bounty?" asks one of his goons.

Yan rounds on him to loose a stream of invective. "You want to try to take a bounty that's got people shutting down the goddamn harbor, sending tipoffs to gangs all over the district, half a dozen runners, HKCP in their pocket, find out if there's a bounty for him and try to collect, hope they decide to pay out instead of killing you -" He breaks off into more elaborate compound obscenities, occasionally punctuating his point with darts of sizzling arcane energy for the goon to dodge.

"Thank you, aah suk. We owe you one. Please be safe, too."

Great, that worked amazingly, is Ariel ready to go 'cause he is so ready to go.

Ariel is very, very ready to go.

"...you haven't lost that," she notes once they're off the lot into a different, equally shitty lot. "Your... charisma."

"Is that what we're calling it," Jauhung drawls, returning to his more quiet and subdued persona. He leans against a wall and lights himself a cig because that was a pain in the ass and he needs a drag.

"It isn't magic," she points out. "I know how magic works. So yeah. I'll call it charisma."

He blows a puff of smoke at her face and shrugs. "Suit yourself," he says, tapping the cigarette with his index finger to drop some ashes onto the ground then bringing it back between his lips. He pushes himself off the wall and starts walking off. "Let's go."

She squints, at the smoke, but doesn't cough.

"You're such a dick."

But they go. Glowy was in a loading dock between ports 44 and 45; 45 is empty, and they can reach the gate back into the port authority complex.

Ariel pauses. "More dragon lines in there. Better dragon lines. Worse for us."

"So, you don't actually know what this is all about? What did Raymond tell you?"

"He told me he needed my help. I figured he meant the killing-people kind; I'm not great at most of the others. But I wasn't expecting assassination attempts this early in the process."

"Ah." So this is about them, then? He should've just stayed home and told Raymond to come to the restaurant if he wanted to talk so badly.

Well, is there a way around these dragon lines? Maybe they could swim.

"If you want to swim in Kowloon Bay, I can cure any of the fifteen diseases you get after, but somehow I get the feeling you're joking."

"I'm not going to swim. Let's just... figure it out as we go."

They go through the gate.

It's... quiet. The power's out, but it's got windows, so it's not dark inside, just weird.

"Feel like I'm in a middle school at 7PM," Ariel mutters, going towards the exit. She sticks to what shadows she can, but keeps moving.

Jauhung is in a thick dark coat so after he gets rid of his cigarette he's almost stealthy! Being deathly pale kind of ruins it but what can you do. He tails her quietly, surprisingly spry and agile given everything else about who he is as a person, and tries not to make any noises.

Some guys run through one of the gates and start firing shotguns at them!

"Fuck," Ariel hisses. She mutters something and gestures, and there's a cloud of searing volcanic ash around those guys, eliciting a great wailing and smell of seared pork. But more guys are coming through other gates, and some of them are close enough to the exit to block it off.

Oh so they don't even get any chance to talk, it's just walk in, guns blazing? What the fuck did Raymond do, who did he piss off? Well, Jauhung isn't bulletproof, or even bullet-resistant, so he should try not to get hit. And probably... try to run...? Wait, no, the exit is blocked off, fuck.

Honestly if he were on his own he'd probably just sit and wait to be filled with holes, it's not like he's particularly attached to being alive. It'd feel kind of shit, he'd have much preferred to die in some more personal way, guns aren't any fun, but still, he hasn't really been expecting to live a very long life. But he kind of doesn't want Ariel to die—go figure. Can he just sit on his thumbs and wait for her to mow down some people...? He'd rather sit this out if possible.