She watched as the credits, eight figures, rolled across the screen as the deal was completed.
She hadn't left Maena for any substantial amount of time in years. The planet was a goldmine of resources big and small, the planet's best artisans kept her in designer, and an almost endless stream of credits rolled in as she choked ever tighter on the city's largest crime families. Extortion, at this point, was a tired game. But for a girl who'd grown up in a cardboard box, being this rich would never get old. Besides, a planet so old and rich in history held endless adventure when she occasioned outside the poison city's walls.
"A pleasure, Drayvus," she said, a smile reaching her milky-white eyes at the displeasure in the mobster's as she slid from the sound-proofed alcove. Too easy. She didn't even have to flex her mind around these people.
As she was walking past the bar, the Force tugged at her in warning.
At first she thought perhaps Drayvus was foolish enough to try and renege on the deal, his thugs planted to take her out despite the fact that it would be a short fight.
It was only when she reached out with her mind, searching for the whispers of threat…
Blackout Protocol. Target. Initiate. Sith Order.
The problem with never leaving was that she was also easy to find once one knew where to look, and no doubt her previous affiliation with Darth Ophidia would have made it even easier. Perhaps someone else might have questioned what was about to happen but Matsu was no fool. Sith were always eating their own tails in a quest to protect them.
The three Tsis'kaar that materialized from in the crowd were on her in a flash, knives and short sabers flashing and causing the crowd in the packed club to run and scatter in a panic of screams and warnings. The fight was a flurry, her world shrinking to her breathing as a vicious battle of attrition began. It was a close thing at first until the first of the three assassins got caught in Matsu's swing, the strength in her cybernetic arm pinning the woman's head to the bar where the Atrisian ejected the claws embedded in her hands and lobotomized her.
Darth Ophidia would not accept just anyone in her ranks, and were she any less enraged at this intrusion on her home and her sovereignty Matsu might not have survived the encounter, but as it was she was nearly blind with anger. The second of her attackers was separated from his head by a clean, shrieking slice of her lightsaber and then she was locked in with the third - another woman who looked nearly as determined as Matsu did.
Their fight lasted far longer than the Sith Lord might have estimated, blow traded for blow as the two women grew increasingly more bloodied. Her attacker fought with a knife, at one point cleverly disarmed Matsu so her lightsaber went flying. Everywhere they went the crowd scattered in horror, making room for the two combatants (but this was Maena, and no one would go so far as to miss this sort of thing, standing back to watch as the music blared and the screens plastered over every wall pumped out their dizzying matching visuals).
Matsu's attacker had one eye swollen shut from the multiple punches the Sith Lord had landed, but even still she rushed the smaller Atrisian with her knife swinging from a reverse grip to a forward jab aimed at her heart. At the last minute Matsu brought her cybernetic arm up to block, sparks ricocheting in to the air as the knife was directed a few inches to the left to plunge in to the cybernetic lung beneath. There was a gasp as the lung started malfunctioning, its system trying to redirect all processing to the functional lung but compromised as the knife allowed blood to start pooling in. She was going to drown.
It was ever her way to settle in to herself, to gather and use that concentration over blind rage. And so, she did so then, staring at the assassin over their locked arms and concentrating. Of course the hitwoman was trained, but Matsu had spent a lifetime perfecting this craft, and this craft only. By the time the Sith Lord was done, the assassin lay on the ground staring at the ceiling, head ticking on reflex, mouth opening and closing absently. There was no art in eviscerating every inch of the stranger's neural network - like taking scissors to thread and hacking - but it had given Matsu great pleasure to see the light disappear from her attacker's eyes.
She collapsed to her knees, pulling the knife from her chest and gurgling like a death rattle as blood splattered on to the floor. It was hard to breathe even as the one broken lung started draining through the sucking wound in her chest, one hand instinctually pressing to her breast in pain.
She spat in the face of the woman staring blankly up at the ceiling, stained red as she drowned.
"Next time, he could just fething ask," said the tiny Atrisian, rage seething for this so-called Emperor who did not see fit to leave her be.
