Purification

The station was quiet, and no one bothered her as she moved quickly through the corridors, her tattoos removed, her hair and clothing concealing her implants. Unlike her last attempts to infiltrate a hostile station, she acted as if she had every right to be where she was. She had followed the directions Shalee had given her to board the station to the letter, and now walked the corridors, her face not betraying the turmoil in her mind, with her Innocence at war with the necessity of what she was about to do.

With Houla being in Minmatar hands for so long, the Tribal Liberation Force openly had offices and workers about, even in the 24th Imperial Crusade station. Kat was confident that her target would be near those offices, as he was on their business. As she was approaching the office she brushed past a hooded man, whose demeanor marked him as a capsuleer. She ignored him as any baseliner would, and kept a slight distance from him as she approached the TLF office. He looked back and watched her continue on silently, then a slight grin crossed his face under his hood as he walked briskly away.

Kat entered the TLF Military Intelligence office, looking like just another office worker. She walked into the station chief's office and held out her hand as in greeting. The station chief took it, a slightly perplexed look on his face, clearly wondering who this was. As their hands met, Kat jerked him up and quickly but quietly snapped his neck, but not before her Innocence recoiled at the needless murder that her logical mind knew was unavoidable. She crossed over behind the desk and called up the personnel jacket of the man she was looking for and noted his current location. She turned off the screen of the terminal and quietly left the office. As she returned to the corridor she did not see the hooded man slip into the station chief's office and sit at the desk, ignoring the dead chief and turning on the terminal to see what she was in such a rush to find out. He notes the location in the file is on the same station and decides to head over there, curious as to why an Amarr capsuleer would do this herself.

She approached the door to the apartment her target was in and took a deep breath, and quelled the slight shake in her hands. She opened the door and walked in boldly, taking a scrambler pistol from behind her. Her target was sitting on a couch, watching the screen as some program flickered on it. His back was to her, but she didn't immediately shoot him. Instead she quietly went into his kitchen and grabbed a bag of chips, remembering a time when she would do this not to her brother the enemy, but to her brother she loved and idolized. She walked behind him and dropped them on his lap, then walked back and sat on his bed while he scrambled up and turned around. "What are you doing here, Kat?" He asked with a sigh once he'd determined who it was.
"You should know, you're the one that's been striking at me for years, and now attacking my friends. Do you remember why, Michael?" She sighs, but keeps the pistol in her hand, as her Innocence insisted she not do this.
He looked at her with a look of raw hatred. "How could I forget what you did to our sister? To our family?"
"What I did to our family?! You're the one who literally damned his soul by working with blooders, the Minmatar, and God knows who else just to get revenge on me for a mistake!" Her voice started to waver as her volume increased, then softened. "A mistake which cost me not just my little sister I adored, but my older brother I looked up to, and devastated our parents."
Even though her tone softened, His tone gained in anger. "Oh accident was it? An accident that you happened to live when your ship died? An accident that it happened that you had never lost a ship before that?"
She sighed and wiped tears from her eyes, and visibly got a grip on herself. "If I'd had even the tiniest of ideas that it would happen, do you honestly think I would have taken her? Are you really that blinded that even now, years after, you cannot accept the possibility that it was an accident?"
His eyes tightened and his voice was cold and hard, "I don't care if it was an accident, you're still at fault, you and that fancy capsuleer training. It made you into an abomination that doesn't care about anything or anyone but yourself."
She stood up slowly "You're wrong. I'm not the one who has spent the last two and a half years fighting with heretics to kill a member of your family, and dishonoring the family name. I'm not the one who forsake the faith in some misguided revenge quest against the immortal. And I do care, I'm doing this now because you threatened my friends and colleagues." The pistol flicked up and her Innocence was shrieking and pounding at her, trying to stop her. She fired once and he dropped without a fuss, and her Innocence said nothing.

She calmly holstered the pistol and left, not bothering to hide anything, and simply closed the door. She paused outside, and turned to face the hooded man from before. As she reached for her pistol, he lunged forward. He grabbed her left arm as she got the pistol out of it's holster, and began to twist it into a submission hold. She allowed her knees to buckle and turned to prevent him from pinning her or breaking her arm, and grabbed his collar and pulled him down. As he fell she pushed herself away and rotated so her legs were interposed between the two of them. He grabbed the fabric at her knees and jerked them out of the way. He lunged at her and landed on top of her while wrapping one arm around her neck and squeezed. She struggled to remove her arm as the corridor faded to black.

She woke in a bed, unbound, but with her weapons removed. She sat up, and her green eyes scanned the room, locking on to the shadowed hood of the man who had captured her. "Who are you? And since this isn't a TLF prison, what are you going to do with me?"
He doesn't move, and in the darkened room, it is impossible to make out his features. "To answer your questions in order, I go by Silence, and as for what I plan to do with you, well..." He shrugs as if to indicate that he hasn't made up his mind.
She sighs, "I can't beat you, and you've taken my suicide measures. But I won't give up, I promise you that."
He laughed, not unkindly. "You've got heart, I like that."
She stands and begins to walk to the door, which he's sitting near. She aims a sharp kick at him, which he catches, and follows by twisting her foot savagely, which threw Kat to the ground.
"Would you like to keep this up?" He stood over her threateningly.
"I said I wouldn't give up, and I meant it." Her expression said she was about to start fighting him again, but there was a spark of despair in her eyes. He backed off with a small chuckle and helped her up. "Come on, lets get you out of here."
"What?" She looked at him incredulously.
"You heard me, I'll helping you get back to Egghelende."
"What? Why? I'm your enemy, and I just killed a TLF operative, and yet you help me?" She looks confused as he leads her into the corridors.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out that said TLF operative was your brother, and it also doesn't take a genius to figure out that he was no more loyal to the TLF than he was to the Blood Raiders. " They entered a hangar containing a Crane-class Transport. Silence turned to face her, and grasped both her arms lightly.
"Your technique was sloppy though, if I'd wanted to it would have been a trifling matter to stop you."
She nodded, remembering the ease with which he had taken her captive.
He smiled, "So come back and see me, my dear. I'll show you how to do that without anyone the wiser. And with less bruises!" He grinned at his last comment.
"I'll keep that in mind, thanks." Her face was a study of warring emotions, wondering both what the offer meant in terms of her relationship with the 24th Imperial Crusade, and if she really wanted to become....that. Her Innocence was silent on the matter, as it had been since earlier.

Kat boarded the Crane, which promptly undocked and started heading back towards Egghelende. It docked in the University of Caille station in Egghelende a while later, and undocked a few minutes after, warping to the Sisiede gate, after which it's destination was anyone's guess. Kat sat in her quarters in the station, a glass in hand, contemplating the offer that was extended to her by the Minmatar capsuleer.