"Hey man, are you alive?" a young boy asked, as he kicked a man on the ground.

"I...I think so..." the man replied drowsily. "Where am I?"

"You're in Zephyr Hills (made up place ;) )." the boy answered.

"Zephyr Hills...I meant what planet am I on?" the man asked.

"Coruscant. But we'll worry about that later. You need to come with me, you're looking rough. The name's Tarka." the boy said.

"Nice to meet you Tarka. You can call me..." the man trailed off. He couldn't remember his name. "Do you happen to know my name?"

Tarka turned around and looked at the man oddly, then replied. "Maybe it is Standard."

"Where did you get that from?" asked the man.

"It's tattooed on your arm."

"Oh. Well, guess you can call me Standard, since we have nothing else to go by." the guy said.

Tarka started walking through the streets and alleys until he got to a building. There was a huge sign out front that said "The Sweet Dreamer". Standard followed the boy into the building to discover that it was a strip club. The two headed to a back room, where a large neat looking man sat in a chair.

"What did you bring in this time Tarka?" the man asked.

"Dad, this is Standard. I found him in Zephyr Hills while coming home from Jandon's." the boy said.

"Well, hello Standard. I am Zed Sporelli, Tarka's father." the man said.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Sporelli. Nice business you got here. Seems to be rolling in the money." Standard said. He felt like he had met this man before, but did not say anything.

"Well, it does pretty good. But Mr. Standard, you need to see a doctor. You're beat up pretty badly."

"I'm ok." Standard replied. "I just need a little res..." Standard collapsed in the floor. Zed immediately called the hospital and they sent some people to pick him up right away.

THREE DAYS LATER

"Wha...where....am I?" Standard asked as he opened his eyes for the first time in three days.

"Is that what you say everytime you wake up?" a cheerful Tarka asked. "You're at the hospital, you collapsed three days ago in my dad's office. Do you remember?"

"Yes I remember. But..." Standard paused for a second. "I don't remember anything before you came and found me."

"What do you mean?" asked Tarka.

"I mean I have no idea what my name is, where I came from, how I ended up on Coruscant, or anything. Do you know where my clothes are that you found me in?"

"They were thrown away." answered Tarka. Standard sighed, but then the boy continued. "However, my dad did take everything out of your pockets before the medical men got there."

"That's great!" said Standard. "Can we go now?"

"Sure!" replied Tarka. "My dad should be on his way to sign you out. They said you'd be waking up right about now."

Just then a nurse came in and checked the monitors next to Standard's bed. "Mr. Standard, you are all ready to go now. Mr. Sporelli has already signed you out. You're free to leave." The nurse unhooked all the wires connected to Standard.

"Thanx." Standard said as he got up. He walked out of the room with Tarka, and Zed greeted him eagerly outside the hospital.

"Thank you Mr. Sporelli. You didn't have to do that." Standard said.

"Yes I did. I couldn't just let you die like that." Zed replied. "Now go change into these clothes and we will head back to the Sweat Dreamer. I want to have a little chat with you." Zed handed Standard some clothes, and he went to change. When he got back Tarka was gone.

"Where did your son go?" Standard asked.

"Off to one of his friend's houses." Zed replied. "Let's go now, get in the car."

Standard was suprised at Zed's harshness, but he didn't say anything. This man had been very generous. They arrived back at the Sweet Dreamer in no time, and went into Zed's office.

"Do you remember anything about your life before my son found you?" Zed asked.

"No sir, I seem to have a case of temporary amnesia." Standard paused for a second and then continued. "It should go away soon though, shouldn't it?"

Zed frowned. "The nurse said you may never recover your full memory."

Standard sighed. "That sucks man."

"But I want to help you. I have these items that I got from your coat pockets before they took you yesterday. Have a look." Zed told him.

Standard saw that there was a bag of credits, a passport, and two silenced pistols. "What...why do I have these pistols?"

"That I do not know, and I do not wish to find out either. I want you out of here before you get your memory back. I have an X Wing you can have, just leave" Zed said.

"Sir...I am sorry if I caused you any trouble. I will be going now. Thank you. And so good bye to your son for me. I would be dead if it wasn't for him."

"I will." Zed replied.

Standard walked out of the room and exited the building. That's when he first ran into trouble. Two huge men came out from behind a corner and jumped on him. But before they could get one lick off he had both on the ground with broke necks.

"What the....how did I do that?" Standard asked himself. It had been a reflex. "What did I do before I lost my memory...?"


ooc: this is an introduction of my new character. he looks like the main guy from Hitman (pic at www.hitman2.com ). that's all he knows, so that's all you know lol
EDIT: had to fix the link.

<Oh, this is interesting. I like assassians... *points him in direction of GDI. We could use you for the Shadow Hand.>

Some things in this galaxy just didn't make sense.

That was the though on Ton Karlos' mind as he stalked the narrow allyways of Coruscant's less-then-pretty underbelly. Dispatched to the former New Republic capital as part of a 'clean-up' operation, the Shadow Hand Executor had spent three weeks roaming the underground, breaking up the various criminal organizations and, in general, playing the good cop.

Don't they have real cops for this? What's a highly-trained Executor of the Shadow Hand doing here?

If there was a reason for it, Ton didn't know it. And that was rare, because members of the Shadow Hand had an uncanny knack for knowing everything and anything that had do to with intelligence at large.

Presently, Ton was walking down a shady street, covered overhead by a thousand tonnes of duracreet and metal, out of the rain. He was somewhere near the Zephyr Hills, an area that was said to be especcially bad for gang warfare and drug use. Certainly not the place a normal person would go for an evening stroll. For that matter, though, most people on Coruscant could go for an evening stroll without stepping foot outside.

Walking along the sidewalk, pondering his thought, the Executor didn't even notice the tough-looking, bald man before he walked into him.

As he stumbled backward, he caught two things: the two blaster pisols tucked into his belt, and the word tatooed across his arm:

As soon as Ton ran into him Standard had his pistols drawn and aimed at his head. He kept them pointing at Ton while talking.

"Who are you?" asked Standard.

In his long years of training, Ton Karlos had learned how to react quickly to any situation. As he hit the man, he drew his blaster pistol and, as he rose, found himself in an akward position.

The two men stood their for a long moment, guns levelled at each other's heads, until the bald one spoke;

"Who are you?"

The Executor didn't blink as he replied;

"Ton Karlos. Pleased to meet you."

"Call me Standard. These guys yours?"

Standard motioned his head in the direction of the two men who had come after him. He didn't think Ton had sent them, but he asked anyway. His fingers were on the triggers of his guns in case Ton tried to make any sudden moves.

He took his eyes from the man's face for only a second to glance at the other men.

"No."

The two strangers moved forward, and Ton could now see that they held blasters.

Standard figured he could trust the man for a second, and he turned to look at the two men. They were getting up, and both had blasters.

"I thought they were dead..."

Standard shot one in the head and the other in the leg.

"Who sent you?"

Standard kept one gun aimed at the living attacker and the other at Ton.

"Sp...Sporelli sent me..." the guy said.

"Sporelli? That lying sack of bantha!"

Standard shot the guy in the head and looked back at Ton.

Ton watched in shock as the bald man calmly shot the first of the intruders. Such actions were not uncommon among the Shadow Hand, but to do so here, in cold blood, to a man that he didn't know a thing about...

"Who sent you?"

The intruder sputtered a name that Ton did not recognize, but he put it away for future reference. Whoever he was, he had certainly made this 'Standard' mad.

When the bald man turned back to the Shadow Hand Executor, Ton had placed his blaster back into his holster and removed the access-only badge that contained his name and a rank of Commander within the Galactic Defence Initiative Shadow Division.

The true nature of and ranks inside the Shadow Hand were, naturally, hightly confidential.

OOC: GDI? I had no idea. Pretty sweet, I was thinking about joining them.


IC: "GDI eh? That's good enough for me."

Standard put his pistols up and looked back up at Ton.

"What are you doing out here in the middle of a Coruscant gang neighborhood? Shouldn't you be off with Isstal taking over planets or something?" Standard grinned at the man. He seemed nice enough, but then again so did Sporelli, who sent two men to kill him.

Ton smiled at that.

"Who says I'm not?" He asked, with a wink. It was common enough knowledge that the Initiative was at war with the Republic, so the presence of any kind of GDI officers on the former capital would be unexpected.

"The Supreme Commander has been pondering his resignation, you see. And if all goes well in the near future, the Ashar Corporation and our fine organization shall become one. LFX Industrial, as it were."