Jonny Hong hit the street, and the street hit back. Hard.
Deagle in hand, he ducked behind the row of traffic, a fixture of the traffic-pulling streets of Artoc city in the year 2574. Mankind, forced to abandon the cradle of this once-great race, had fled to the stars after the invention of the light-pult devices  that allowed Bullet-Ships to travel beyond the confines of the debris belt that circled the planet, allowing ethnic colony worlds like this, a backwater of the stellar body known to the world in general as G3X-989, but to the poor unfortunates that lived there, simply Nova-Kong.
All Jimmy had done was follow the instructions of his liaison, the man known to Jimmy as The Tall Man, known to the police as Nova-Kong's Most Wanted, and to hushed tellers of violent tales everywhere, simply The Rose.
The Rose claimed to work for what he simply termed the "Oldest Syndicate", but his tattoo, a golden serpent swallowing an apple, didn't fit with any of the Dragon Triads he knew.
Obeying the strange man, Jimmy had headed to the hospice on the corner of 2nd and ninth, and tried to whack the head nurse, a tough lady named Alliandra Stewart.
He got inside, slid back the action on his piece and, with great satisfaction at the sound of well oiled chrome smoothly sliding over itself, prepared to earn his first big score since starting the hitman business. Only it hadn't happened like that. Freeing his custom Deagle from it's underslung holster, he raised his arms to a shooting stance, pulled back against the trigger, and froze at the sight of the split-second readied weapons of everyone in the room, turned on him.
During their (eventful) careers, most of the trigger men (and women) of the city had needed Mama Stewart's no questions asked medical care, and were in no way disposed to let some punk deprive them of those services.  By the time Jimmy left the building, there was so much lead chasing him every church in the known universe could have re-roofed for free.
Once out on the street, most of his pursuers fell away, and those that remained quickly lost interest, and Jimmy was safe.
He kept thinking that right until the nine at his temple ended Jimmy's thinking for good.
A small jade figurine fell from the unseen assassin's hand, and, as it fell, the green angel seemed on the brink of flight before it hit the chest of the shell that once was an aspiring  button man called Jimmy Hong.

 

Polishing his nines, the man called Thorn stepped away from the cooling body, tossing one of his trademark statuettes onto his chest as he vanished into the night.
Another young soul, turned to Rose.
Thorn was, of course, also a hitman.
But unlike Rose, whom he despised, Thorn followed the ancient code set down by the Originals: Never kill an innocent, never kill an unarmed man, and never involve others in a personal matter.

Rose had broken all three.

 

Chapter 2: Blood Feuds and Bloodbaths.

For as long as either could remember, Rose and Thorn had been warring. 
Brothers, Rose had been favored from birth, right up until the point where he rebelled against his father.
Betrayed, his father shifted his attentions to Thorn, grooming him to take his place in the family business, and eventually punish the errant childe.
Of course, it was far more interesting things than business he learned, and from a thousand people more interesting than his father, and so it was that Thorn gained a knowledge of the arts of the fighting, and the killing, and use of the weapons of the old times.

And, from his greatest teacher, he learnt of honour, and of mercy, and of The Code.

So it was that when the time had come (Or so he thought) to settle the score with his estranged brother, He left his families estate, and went forth to seek his revenge amongst the stars.