A Night Hawks Battleteam report, wherein Muz brags about the team's perfect record so far, and talks about some upcoming competitions. Includes your USDA daily requirement for fiction, plans, minor changes to the telegram, and solicitations for feedback.

Auxillary Level 9, Subsector 3
Kar Alabrek, Tarthos

The whirring of computers cycling up and hologram projectors stirred in the otherwise silent room. Pale light came from flickering overhead chemical lights, warming up before they could cast their light on the thick blast doors and over-engineered walls of the hidden base.

"Overkill is underrated." Marcinius chuckled as he watched the heavy door slide shut behind him. Even the hallway to the facility designed with areas for cover fire, funneling any potential threat into a killing field. He smiled as he turned around, walking toward the display. The violet glow of the holo casting eerie shadows on his face, on the faces of the Lion, the Nightsister, and Bukhari. The Wookiee, the Gambler, the Madman and the Berzerker watched on through the holonet, their forms flickering with the blue ether of holoprojectors.

A hand motioned, and tendrils of the Force leapt from his fingers, controlling the main display, the light rearranging itself to tell the story to all of them. Marcinius had seen this holo before. Surveillance footage of the woman, tattooed in crimson and sable. Scars and thin tendrils of flesh dangled at her cheeks, somehow reminiscent of legends heard long ago. He had watched this too many times, memorizing every movement, every step and breath as she hacked her blade through soldier after soldier, tearing them apart before the feed broke apart like the armor of the Nephilim did. There was steel in his gaze as he turned his attention back to the man.

Darth Ira.

All he had was a name and that holo. Everything else was rumor, legend, mist.

Until now. Muz motioned again, and the holo flickered, showing data streams from the core worlds. New feeds popped up, surveillance footage showing the same face deep inside of hooded cloaks among the skyscrapers of Corsucant.

A million questions sprung from his mind, thoughts hurried and unfinished, but discipline kept them behind his teeth. Why she was on Coruscant, when rumor said that Coruscant had been devastated, how many did she have with them, did they know where she was going, how would they catch her from across the galaxy. Discipline. There was a plan. There was always a plan.

The Lion looked at him and nodded once, then turned to projector again. "Three days, be here." The words had gravity to them, drawing their attention immediately. "Our hunt begins."

Night Hawks!

When a challenge is thrown, we all rise to meet it. 100% participation in 'The Path to here...' which meant upgrades on our shinies, and everyone received at least one Cluster of Ice for their entry (except me, but that's okay), created an update for their wiki article, and have brought their character fictionally to where they joined the Night Hawks. Work with a purpose is the best kind of work, above and beyond the shinies we can earn.

Which leads us to the next couple of competitions.

Bad Habits is a fiction competition that explores your character. A common theme in the "Tell Muz what you want to get out of the Night Hawks" was to improve your writing and to just have fun. Every one of us here has the capacity to be a great writer, and I am going to encourage this to the best of my ability.

Our protagonists are not one dimensional constructs. We create them with personalities, strengths and flaws. All too often, we get carried away with the things that our characters can do, what they do that makes them heroes in our own eyes. It's what we want to see, and very often fun, considering most of us are not jetting around in spaceships, shooting blasters at aliens, using a lightsaber to cut lumber or lightning to short out the toaster.

I want to show you a more rewarding path, and one that makes your character ever more real in your mind. We all love our characters, so we need to not make it easy for them. Bad Habits is to be a fiction about one of your character's flaws. This could be myriad points on the spectrum, from being addicted to deathsticks all the way up to being an actual serial killer. Yet this isn't about 'How dark can you make the character and make them seem badass'. This is about how that habit absolutely turned things terribly terribly wrong for them. It should be a story about how something that your character loves that really they shouldn't caused a major event in their life. You don't have to have a happy ending, in fact, I discourage that. Our scars make us who we are, and our characters should be no different in that regard. Explore that damage. Yes, this is a bit more somber in tone than others (I'll make it up to you all, i promise), but consider it an exercise and a challenge.

Challenge? Yes. In addition to whatever crescents and Clusters are up for grabs here, I'm going to lay down a bit more of my personal time on the line for this one. If we get 100% participation for this event as we did last time, I'll make every one of us a graphic of their choice. That could be a robe/armor set, a weapon or saber, or an item, or even a character image. Your choice. But first, you need to get the work done.

And as usual, I will be creating an entry for this as well for you all to read and hopefully enjoy. I'll be working on it this weekend and sending it out. Maybe Locke will even put me in for a COI for it, hint hint ;)

I am going to start that event on February 28th, and have it run for three weeks, ending March 20th.

Also, starting March 1st, the first official Night Hawks runon, the Heart of Coruscant. I will open the runon on the first, and send out a separate 'structure and planning' email. Fair warning, this is not the kind of runon that you're probably used to. I have a long history of owning the face off of runons, and I intend to show all of you exactly how you too can do it. There is a lot more involvement between us, the authors, off the page, to help us all tell a cohesive story and avoid the pitfalls of people just running off on their own. At the end of the day, Runons are Team Events* and we need to act with that goal in mind. There will be plenty of time for each of us to explore things with our characters and accomplish our own character development, but there will be a line showing us how to do that while keeping with the rest of the team. For those of you who have never been a part of that, it may seem a bit intimidating, and I can appreciate that. But trust me, it is a lot more fun than maybe it seems on the tin, and it will bring us closer as a team, as friends.

Today, after watching the channel for the last month, we decided that our Telegram channel, which was previously in-character only, would be better served by being out of character as well. Just watch the room name to see what mode it is in (IC added to the name means in character only, which I imagine will be done only for specific events).

Also, I am thinking another round of trivia is in order. Please post in the comments what time and day would be best for you. We had it on IRC last time, but I'm open to having it on G+ hangouts or on telegram. Just let me know.

Of course, no leader report is ever complete without showing off what the members did, so here we go on that front:

Raistlin: SA society rank V, Dark Maven of Flight, 95 CFs, 5 CEs, 3 CI, and an Anteian Cross

Ophelia/Tarryyhn: SA Society rank VIII, 1 CF, 8 CIs, 1 LoS, and an Anteian Cross

Teu: 1 CI

Macron: Dark Maven Philosophy, Anteian Cross, 10 CIs

Ashia: 1 CI and 1 LoS

Maelous: 1 CI

Marcinius: 2 CIs

I don't need to tell you all that you rock, because you all should know that already. But since it is always nice to hear it anyway, here you go: Every one of you wrecked faces this month. Keep it up!

Have fun!