Faction A Batch of Trouble: Slicers, Tech Users, and Rogue's Meetup

[Glade]

Planet: Echelon
District 12: Crosswire Twelve, or Shades of Twelve
Zone: Rogue Null | Batch's Bar
Loose Posting Order Intended for casual meetups for anyone and everyone.
Opening Tag: Nøva | Ciri Jade | Abishai Jade | Open to all Slicers | Tech Users | Denonites | Droids | Outcasts | Etc
Posting with Glade/Ghostkey and Possibly Batch

Towering neon skyscrapers, rushing dark speeders; home to corporate climbers, streetrunners, civilians navigating the chaos, with just the right mix of gangs to cause problems. One gigantic district, covering the third-biggest city on Echelon. Inside, Rogue Null, a zone that didn't officially exist in a city that was itself one huge mimic of some of Denon's greatest memories. Some would say only a madman would recreate District 12; others would realize life was mad already. It sold "home" to many old-school Denonites, either stuck in, working for, or longing for the glory days and all the opportunities or risks they brought. You could climb the Crosswire's heights and fall into a memory in all but a day.

It was where Rogue Protocol fell through the cracks, into a small zone they literally sliced from the grid, severing city data spines, spoofing, and cycling ghost-signals through the undernet until the whole block faded off the map, a digital blind spot on a world that trusted data more than your own eyes.

Batch's Bar​

Down a quiet alley, into a double entranceway that wove gridspeak, Denon-slang, and Atrisian glyph talk into motifs for slicing crews. Local artists left their mark, one or two professionals making a low-key contribution, looking like tattoos on the wall. A large Houk bouncer checked that no corporate suits got a look in.

Music on the other side was echelon-pulse and denonlong, not too loud but steady. Inside, there were what looked like signed holorecords from famous singers and bands that had passed through, with an instrument or two in a frame. Closer to the bar, slicing decks from some of the better-known living or dead slicers on the Rim were displayed, each with a message or two for datagrubs (rookies) looking to make their name.

A green Twi'lek woman served at the bar, lit up in enough tech to start a forest fire. On the far left stood a square GONK droid, insistently and often offering noodles if you got too close. Past it was a sushi counter where tattooed Atrisian chefs prepared food in full view. There were comfortable booths, half-rounded acloves, with soft underlighting, and privacy screens you could dial downward. Synthleather and mesh cushions worn enough to feel welcoming but not grimy. Tables had a data screen that could be projected, and neural jack interfaces for undernet, holonet or undervine access.

A group, mostly in the 20's, seemed to be watching a holovid of what looked like a heist gone very wrong. Moving mag-train, crazy stunts, looked like a movie. One or two were excited, some sad. Glade sat in her purple hoverchair apart from them, all misty-eyed with a cocktail far too big for her resting on its consoles. It looked to be choking her up, but in a good way. Dressed in an Eche, sleek cut streetwear, wraps at the hips, and slim utility sleeves for tools and dataports. Not punk, urban slicer culture, shades of purple and amethyst, catching the neon glow like it was her home; it kinda was.

Meanwhile Ghostkey sat at the bar, smoking far too much unhealthy polypast, and trying his 5th fake ID of the night to get served. Behind him in the corner was a darkpatch holoarcade machine for slicer contracts, if you knew you knew.

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Glade
​

Batch's Bar always felt different on the first step inside— like the neon dimmed just enough for her eyes alone.

NØVA moved through the threshold with no urgency, the kind of slow confidence born from too many nights surviving places that smelled far worse than polypast and synth-oil. Her boots hit the floor with a muted thud, each step absorbing the music's pulse until she became part of the rhythm.

She chose her stool by instinct. Not too close to the crowd. Not too far from the exit. A sightline to everything without looking like she cared.

She sat.
Shifted her weight.

Let her shoulders slide down from the tension she never admitted she carried.

Then—the ritual.

Death stick out.
Spark at the tip.
First inhale.
It wasn't rushed.

She pulled the smoke in like someone reclaiming something—calm, space, self. Let it settle deep, warm, familiar. The kind of burn that didn't hurt, didn't numb—just sharpened the edges until everything clicked into place.

Exhale.

The smoke curled above her, drifting through the slanted light until it dissolved into nothing— like she'd breathed out a little piece of the static that had been buzzing in her skull all damn day.

Her optics adjusted as she tilted her head, catching the bartender's shape across the counter. White-tipped blue hair brushed her cheek when she leaned forward, resting her forearm on the metal surface, tapping ash with one lazy flick.

She let a smile—thin, deliberate—hook at the corner of her mouth. "Been thinking about your drinks," she said, voice low and smoky as what she'd just exhaled."Figured I'd come remind myself why."

No demand.
No neediness.

Just that razor-edge flirtation she used instead of greetings— a little dangerous, a little amused, carrying the suggestion of teeth behind silk.

Her fingers traced a slow circle on the bartop — not beckoning, not impatient. Just something for her hands to do while the buzz settled in.

She flicked an ear toward movement at her side—footsteps stopping too close, breath angled toward her shoulder.

She didn't turn.
Didn't blink.

Didn't break the line of her focus on her own reflection faintly shining in the polished metal.

Her jaw flexed once.
The smallest tell.

"Step back," she murmured, barely above the hum of the bar.

"I'm not in a sharing mood."

No threat.
No heat.

Just a simple, cold statement—truth delivered with that same relaxed cadence as her first drag.

The presence lingered behind her for a heartbeat too long.

Her hand closed around his wrist without looking, fingers tightening with augmented precision—precise enough to make her synthskin creak softly. She held it just long enough to make her point, her gaze still forward, still calm.

"You hear me the first time or do you need it installed?"

A twist, subtle and controlled.

Pressure.

Then release—like discarding a thought she didn't want.

She returned the death stick to her lips, inhaled again, slower this time. Let the smoke fill the hollowed-out places inside her. Let it warm the steel wiring in her spine and smooth the edges of whatever glitch had been gnawing her all day.

Another exhale.
Another thin smile.

Finally she tapped two fingers on the counter, soft but certain. "Now," she said, leaning in just slightly, voice dropping to honey over glass shards, "make me something that hits like that first drag."

​

 

[GhostKey]

Tag: Nøva

Callisto the bartender, gave a knowing look for how Nøva handled herself. "Oh. This one's on the house. I hate that guy." A wicked little smile to Nøva as she went to make something with a velvet-laced sting. A glass of violet liquor with thin streams of blue current running through it like tiny cracks of lightning.

Beside Nøva was a teenager who was practically grafting himself onto Echelon, a teenager trying damn hard to look like the city hadn't already eaten him twice. He rocked a black, ribbed open-jacket with cheap aftermarket cyberware, a scrap-tier neural jack glinted at his neck, some wristware that buzzed when it shouldn't. Not fully Rogue Crew, but tagging along on enough runs to pretend he was.

He knew Glade was trying to shoo him away from the life, but the kid wanted in. Wanted it bad.

"Swear I'm 18, Cal, check it."

He put an ID chit on the counter. Fifth try this month.

Ghost had run this scam so many times Callisto didn't even blink at it. She just shook her lekku in a, try harder, rookie, kind of way and pushed the datachit back along. He deflated and placed his hand on the bar, it still shook lightly, leftover damage from their last run. Clenching the fingers tight, willing them to still, then thumb-lit another polyplast stick. The end glowed a dirty green as he took a drag, blowing the cloud away from the crowds.

"Handle yourself like a pro," Ghost said to Nøva , turning just in time to see the man walking away, muttering how he'd get even, and reaching into his pocket for something. But this was Rogue turf, not just any bar. Ghostkey was just waiting for it really… just...

Whack.

"Out you go, pilgrim!"

Sickle hit the troublemaker with something hard that buzzed faintly, a charged tool grabbed in irritation. With a bit of help, she tossed him to the curb, nose-first through the doors. A green-haired anarchist wearing shredded synth-weave, tucked into steel-capped boots. A cropped utility vest, layered with tags and signal-scram patches. Every piece stolen, or liberated with intent. She gave Ghost and Nova a wink as she swaggered back toward the crew.

Rogue's protected their regulars here.

The holovid ended, and the bar fell into complete silence. All the regulars probably knew what it meant, even if they didn't know the name. An image of young Trix was projected into the center of the room. Trix's grin looped from an old crew recording, glitching out at the corner, like the bar was trying to remember him.

"For Trix," came the call from Glade in her hover chair, raising up her glass. The bar drank to Trix's final legacy run, the one he didn't come home from. "See ya on the far side of the firewall."

Callisto passed Ghost a drink. "Just this once, kid." and another to Nøva.

Drinking to his friend's name, the pink shot went down hot and hazy good, smoking around the rim as it hit his throat. The pink glazed his breath in a thin, chemical cloud A quiet tribute to Trix's homemade smoke bombs, popping with that sweet, stupid brilliance only he could do. The crew folded into each other for a moment, quick hugs, shoulder bumps. Stupid jokes about his disaster-tier experiments, where he nearly gassed the whole alley. Laughter and remembrance. Ghost caught the last of the smoke in his upside-down glass, watching it fade.

 

[Nøva]

TAG: GhostKey


The violet drink hit the counter with that soft, electric shimmer—blue threads of current cracking through it like someone trapped a storm in glass. NØVA didn't lift it yet. She just let her fingers rest on the rim, feeling the faint vibration through metal-laced nerves.

Callisto's "on the house" earned her a look… a slow, angled glance over the top of the death stick as NØVA inhaled. Not gratitude—just acknowledgment. A shared language between women who knew how to survive men like the one now bleeding on the curb.

She took her first sip only after the kid spoke.

Ghostkey was all shaking fingers and fake swagger, a scrap-tier cyberjack that buzzed weakly every time he exhaled. He tried so hard to be seen, to be in, to be bigger than what the city had already chewed through. The kind of kid who still believed Echelon gave you a choice.

NØVA let smoke curl from her lips before answering him.

Her gaze slid sideways—slow, deliberate—taking him in from junk cyberware to the sloppy confidence he wore like it didn't still tremble on his skin.

"Handle myself like a pro?" she echoed, voice low, roughened by smoke and neon exhaustion.

She flicked ash off the death stick, watching the flakes scatter like burnt pixels.

"Kid… I didn't handle him."

A beat.

Small smirk—barely-there, but real.

"I spared him."

She finally took another drink—slow, letting the velvet sting bloom across her tongue, slide down the back of her throat, settle warm in her chest. That buzz hit her bloodstream like a soft digitized thrum, syncing with her augments, loosening wires that had been tight all week.

Ghost reached for his tribute shot. NØVA didn't stop him, didn't comment. But when Trix's image flickered into existence—projected grin freezing the bar—she stilled.

Not emotionally.
Not outwardly.
Just… stilled.

Her optics narrowed at the glitch where the recording failed to remember his smile perfectly. Something about that kind of imperfection always got under her plating.

She raised her own glass, not high, not with ceremony. Just enough.

"For Trix," she murmured, soft enough it wasn't for the room—only for whoever bothered to catch it.

She tossed the shot back in one motion. It burned—hard pink heat, crackling down her throat like a spark bomb left too long in the hand. She wiped her thumb across her lower lip, catching an iridescent smear of vapor.

The crew around them shared hugs, laughter, the kind of grief that grew teeth but stayed gentle when you were among your own.

NØVA didn't join them.
Didn't pull away either.

She stayed on her stool—one foot hooked on the rung, elbow braced against the counter, chin dipped toward her drink as she drew from her death stick again.

The kid beside her inhaled too fast, coughing a little as the stick burned hot.

She didn't laugh.
Didn't tease.

Just let a small breath of smoke drift sideways and said, almost lazy:

"Easy, peach fuzz. Bar'll still be here in ten minutes."

And after a beat—

"Don’t force it kid."

Not scolding.
Not mothering.

Just a quiet warning wrapped in the buzz of a good drink and the smoke of a long night— the closest thing to care someone like NØVA ever let slip.

​

 

[GhostKey]

Tag: Nøva

Spared him.

A new grin broke firm across Ghost's face, sharp and bright. He couldn't stop the small laugh that slipped out. "Lucky him," he joked, realizing he was sitting beside someone he wanted to be like. Always that distance he kept trying to close.

Don't force it, kid.

"Feels like I gotta press," he said quietly. Press harder just to get a shot. Press harder because Glade kept trying to keep him out of the line of fire. But this was Echelon, everybody caught a sting eventually.

Trix pressed. Didn't make it.

"Just wanna be known, y'know? Walk into a bar and… I'm not just nobody." He winced at his own words. "Not like my old man, sitting at home, fishing, waiting for the world to happen to him." And it did.

If you didn't fight to be someone, you got stepped on.
"Not going out like that."

He brushed his hair back out of his eyes.

"N'Peach fuzz?" The kid made an exaggerated wide-eyed face before smirking. "Alright, alright, s'growing in." He angled his jaw like he had something worth showing off and laughed again. "Blah." He shook it off with a grin. "You slice?" He was absolutely about to show her the new deck he'd been cobbling together out of half scrap, half legal parts, reaching into his pack...

... until Ibis swept in, arms around him.

She looked like a walking galley piece, ice blue visor, hair in streaking coils, cropped jacket with hand drawn sigils. Every bit an artist. She smiled to Nova before going to the arcade machine. She was the most known of the group, because she left her tags everywhere.

Tight crew. Even when they bickered like they were slapped together out of spare siblings..

Ghost picked up a hexagonal holomarker, looking over something, like a choice he was making in his naïve mind. "Got my way in too, somethin' nobody can touch." He glanced sideways at her, whispering. "A package. Fast run. High rooftops. Quiet. Just the jumps and gravity. I make this delivery, and they said everyone would know my name."

 

[Nøva]

TAG: GhostKey


NØVA leaned back against the booth, the faint blue haze from the holo-sign catching on the smoke drifting off the end of her stimstick. The buzz crawled warm under her skin — not enough to slow her, just enough to steady her.

She'd stripped out of her half-jacket a few minutes earlier, letting the stuffy heat of the bar roll over the exposed lines of her body.

She was all lean-lithed danger — runner's muscle, augmented precision — a beautiful contradiction wrapped in synth and skin.

Ink mapped her from ribs to shoulders: geometric fractal lines, glowing faint under the ambient light, each one laid over scars she never bothered to hide.

Some were thin like surgical whispers. Some weren't.

But the one that caught every eye — was the stylized demon spread over her heart, horns curling up beneath her collarbone, fangs etched in luminous crimson.

A sigil she chose.
A reminder she owned.

She took another pull off the stimstick, exhaled slow, violet eyes gleaming under the red data lenses.

Then she looked at him.

Not unkind.
Not indulgent.
Just… real.

"Kid…"

Soft. Sharp. Danger wrapped in velvet.

A slow drag. A click of her teeth.

Smoke rolled over her tongue as she leaned back, one knee rising, ink catching neon.

"You wanna be known?"

A small huff of a laugh.
Not unkind.
Not friendly.

"Names get you killed."

She tapped her temple—metal against bone, a quiet clink.

"Ghosts? Ghosts survive."

Another drag.

Her gaze drifted away, like he wasn't quite worth the full weight of her attention yet.

"Anyone can run a package."

She exhaled warm smoke through her nose, voice dropping.

"Not everyone comes back with their spine still inside their body."

She finally turned her eyes to him—really turned. It was like being x-rayed by a star.

"You wanna matter?"

Her lips curved just barely—a predator's grin softened for a kid she didn't want to break by accident.

"Do the job clean. Quiet. No glory. No noise."

A beat.

"Be the one they swear they imagined."

She took another drag, chin tilting up.

"That's how you get known without ever being seen."

Her knee brushed his, light but deliberate, like she was anchoring him to the truth.

"Don't force it, peach fuzz."

A small chuckle. The first real warmth she'd given him.

"Just haunt the city."

Smoke slid from her lips.

"Let it say your name for you."

Then as she finished her last sentence a smirk that seemed it had no place belonging on anyone, one almost filled with perverse pleasure curled into her lips as her violet eyes brightened, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper almost.

“And kid? For the record — I do it all… the difference — you won’t know I was there.”

​

 

[GhostKey]

Tag: Nøva

Ghost was totally not admiring her tats, no ma'am, even if his eyes stayed a second too long tracing the lines of that ink. Got to get his own! He tapped the polyplast stick and let it burn just a beat too long before rolling it between his fingers; that way people do when they're pretending they don't need both hands to keep themselves grounded. His fingers curved around the plastic like it was something familiar and steady, the dying ember glowing against his knuckles edge.

Ghost nodded as she spoke, hair slipping forward, head low as he spun an empty data-chit on the bar. The one he'd been saving to fill for the day he actually made it into the Intrepid bar with the best of the best. The one he'd take that big score in like a prize. She talked him down with her razor-soft honesty, reminding him of things Glade used to tell him… even the Mandalorian's lecture after the last heist. But still, that blank chit kept spinning under his fingertips while she said things that made a heavy kind of sense.

She nudged him with her knee, and he nudged her back, a tiny contact that felt like a win.

"Yeah." he said slowly. "I guess."
It came out quieter than he meant and softer, like he was looking up to her without meaning to, hanging on the words, her attitude, her rep. And those glasses: where'd she lift them! He pushed his hair out of his eyes again, stealing a glance.

"Sounds lonely though."
His voice dipped with a hollow kind of streetkid honesty, like someone had punched the wind out of the identity he was trying so hard to build, not accusing her, or questioning her, just… realizing the weight of what she carried. Reality settling into his bones like new durachrome mods.

Then he glanced toward the crew, Ibis lighting up their arcade corner, and Ghost brightened like a refresh on a fading terminal screen, catching a new jolt of life.
"Want to meet the crew?"
A few of them had gathered around a tabletop for Static Jinx, named after a denon street legend. The bar's regular's game, six holo-dice, each face flickering with glitched symbols, players bluffing through static distortions or distractions as they tried to bluff their rolls or throw their opponents off. Half poker-face and half code, all attitude.

He moved his head toward them, a grin bracing.
"They won't bite."

 

[Batch]

Tag: Open

Batch was easy enough to read, a boisterous, broad-shouldered Atrisian chef who loved his customers like an extended family and treated food preparation like a holy pilgrimage. Loud, joyful, and fast. He held deep respect for anyone who walked through his doors, but to his own staff?

Tonight's debate, which knife made the cleaner cut; the kind of thing two Atrisian chefs could fight about for an hour and then revisit days later. Cutlery clanged in the kitchen behind him as the other chef gave up. Victorious, Batch hummed a tune,, an old Atrisian serenade about neon rain, and lost loves wandering late-night street markets, longing for food to bring back memories of what was, his voice rolling like he'd sung it a thousand times before. Chop chop chop.

Confident and swift. Sushi assembled! Rolled up and sliced. Another plate placed forward with a booming laugh that shook the hanging counter lamps.

"HA!! Welcome! Welcome! Batch serves only truth on a plate. Sit and eat, leave your ghosts and datadebts at the door for a byte! But if you walk out hungry, I will chase you down and feed you myself!"

GONK
"Fresh Noodles?" A voice repeated.

The big man leveled a knife at the GONK droid, waggling its blade, eyes narrowing with showmanship-like intensity. "Gonk, I swear by Dataway do not interrupt…" The droid froze mid GONK. Batch boomed a laugh, the threat more affectionate than serious, then flipped the blade in his hand and brought it to a strong chop.

A delicate bluefish, a common fish elevated by his preparation beneath his knife. He shaped it into a curved, flower-like shape across the rice, adding a dash of lumi-sauce that glowed faintly pinkish under the counter lights, finishing with a special pinch of his own spice mix.

"There!" He declared proud of his efforts, "sushi fit for every lost and found soul in rogue null" He grinned, his metal teeth showing, cheap enough fish for the streetrunners, and made with heart.

 

[Nøva]

TAG: GhostKey @OPEN


Ghost's "sounds lonely though" hung there between them like a wire pulled too tight.

Nøva didn't cut it.
Didn't swat it away.
Didn't grin her way around it.

She just… breathed.

A slow inhale through her nose, synthstik burning hot between her fingers. A drag that wasn't for the buzz — but for the space.

Her jacket was still draped over the barstool beside her, her skin bare to the neon haze. The ink and scars along her ribs caught the light, that demon over her heart looking like it was ready to crawl off her skin and bite the next threat that got too close.

Lonely.

Her eyes dipped, not down — inward.

She'd been that word since she could crawl. A thing sold. A experiment broken open to see what made her twitch. A kid raised by alleys, wannabe gangsters and whatever stranger didn't lock the dumpster that night.

Lonely wasn't an insult.
It was the mother that raised her.
But she didn't give him all that.

Wouldn't.
Couldn't.

She exhaled smoke slow enough to suggest she'd decided which shard to show him.

"City teaches you early," she murmured, voice low, a little rough. "Attachment's just… rent waiting to get collected."

She rolled the synthstik between her fingers, ash drifting off like drifting code. Another quiet beat. Something unspoken passing through her expression — gone just as fast.

Then she angled her head toward him, violet glow faint but present, studying him with that unblinking cybernetic precision.

"Don't get twisted, Peach Fuzz," she added, her smirk sliding back into place, crooked and razor-edged. "Lonely ain't tragedy. It's survival."

Another breath. Another pulse of that violet light. Soft, but unmistakably there.

"But wanting?"

Her fingers drummed once on the bar.

"That's different."

Not admitting.
Not denying.
Just acknowledging — a forbidden crack in the armor.

She pushed her glasses up into her hair and finally looked him full-on, the glow of her eyes free, unhidden, brightening bright violet for a second, something she didn't seem aware of.

He asked if she wanted to meet the crew.

Nøva's lips twitched — the closest she'd come to a real smile all night.

"Yeah," she said, sliding off the stool with that quiet, lethal grace. "Let's go see what trouble you children get into."

She took one step, then paused — something tugging her back just enough to glance over her shoulder at him.

Not soft.
Not sentimental.
But real.

"It's Nøva."

A name given like a loaded weapon placed in his hands.

"Don't . . make it weird."

Then she jerked her chin toward the Static Jinx table.

"C'mon, Peach Fuzz. Show me your pack."

​

 

[GhostKey]

Tag: Nøva | Open

Ghostkey had this great big stupid grin on his face, like she'd just said the magic word. He missed Trix like a limb, and it felt good to have someone to hang with again, if only for a night.

"Nah," he said with a shrug. "Never weird."
Then he pulled the hair out of his eyes.
"Well, meetin' people's always weird. Everyone's nuts to me."

He hopped up from his stool, still riding that little rush of confidence she'd given him. "I get ya." He really thought he'd cracked something in this bar matching her tone, some weird little break in the code. "Nobody can afford the rent here anyway." For the Rogue's rent mostly wasn't credits that people were backstabbing you for or calling in; it was data, favors, open-source debts, and the occasional organ donation if you were unlucky. Everyone was in the red somehow, but a few donated their winnings to friends or family, knowing they'd never get free.

First stop, they passed someone she probably already knew. "Batch," Ghost said with a grin, "the owner."

Batch was mid-service, cleaver flashing under the lamp lights. He gave her a small bow of the head and boomed, "Welcome to my table! where hunger dies happy!"

Ghost leaned in almost conspiratorially. "Not just sushi he sells. Guy knows more angles than a nosey astromech droid." He steered her clear of the Noodle GONK before it could harrass them again.

The Crew Table:

Four of the crew were already playing, with a few onlookers pretending they didn't care about the pot.

"New players!" Ghost dropped into an empty chair and patted the seat next to him. Totally casual. Extremely not weird, yeah right. Very Amadis see and do.

"Nova, this is..."

"Glade," she answered before he could from her purple hoverchair, holodice cup alight. The smile she gave was warm, but her tech-visor hid whatever the Trix memorial had stirred up inside her. "Heya. Nice t'meetcha."

"Sickle," the pale-green-haired anarchist from earlier, tossed up a lazy two-fingered greeting shaped like a lightning strike; the signal cut sign, no masters, no leashes. Shredded synth-weave vest, signal-scrambler patches and durasteel toecaps "Welcome to the chaos, sister," she said with a grin.

"Chronicle," the older one by a few years, nodded once. Dark, quiet, almost mysterious. He checked the chronometer strapped over his sleeve as if cataloging the exact second she arrived. He always was. Counting time like it owed him.

"Hound," the young Corellian built like a world of trouble in a jacket, lifted two fingers to his brow in a loose mercenary salute. "Evenin'." Wearing a battered flak vest from jobs he never talked about.

A streetrunner hovered eagerly behind Ghost, practically bobbing up and down.

"And..."
"I'm Crash!" the kid blurted out, beating Ghost by a word. Rookie energy, a live grenade ready to blow.

Nearby sat Ibis, sketching digital art in soft blue strokes. Savant, the Chiss with a mind like a databank on ice, sipped his drink and quietly observed everything. And Juju, their bad-feeling Hapan vault specialist, raised her glass in a silent hey.

A mess of styles, misfits, and broken or outcast people who fit together like spare parts nobody knew where to put, but the engine ran anyway, dialed way past the redline. That was the Rogue's.

Ghost slid an upside-down cup toward Nøva.
"If you're in… 6 holo-dice, one console to distract the others, and a whole lot'ta lying." No real rules, just say what you have until someone doesn't believe you. They weren't playing for credits, it was a pot. Tasks they'd do written down, dares they'd do, encrypted files, favors, homemade tech, corporate keys, and dumb little keepsakes.

"Go ahead." He nudged her if she hesitated, "they ain't gonna care what you bet." Ghost slid over a digitally signed holophoto of a slicer called Nix Kade, which nobody really cared about, but he did, looking at his dice as the other began to 'lie'.

 

[Nøva]

TAG: GhostKey


Nøva followed Ghostkey across the floor with that hunter-smooth gait she had — like she wasn't walking so much as threading herself through the air. Jacket slung over one shoulder, fingers hooked through the collar, violet eyes low and bright.

As the crew turned toward her, she didn't shy away — she measured.

Glade - She angled her chin, eyes catching the faint hum of the hoverchair's repulsorlift array.

"Clean build, sick color" she said, a little impressed despite herself. "Stabilizers aren't cheap. Someone knew what they were doing."

Glade's visor brightened; Nøva let the moment sit. Women in the game? They were rarely the problem — and there were two damn few of them in her opinion… well at least good ones.

Sickle's grin was met with something sharper — not competitive, just mutual recognition.

"Nice cut-sign," Nøva drawled, nodding at her fingers. "And that vest? Means you've survived at least three situations you shouldn't've."

Cordial. Respectful. Real.

Chronicle - For him, she paused — not dismissive. Calculating.

"Chronicle," she echoed. "Figures."
No insult. No warmth. Just Nøva acknowledging another person who watched more than they spoke.

Hound - He got a simple nod, a glance at the flak vest, and:

"Vest's got stories."

Neutral. Even. Nøva didn't mind men; she just didn't reach for them.

Crash practically vibrated out of his shoes.

Nøva blinked once — the closest she came to smiling at a kid.

"Easy, sparkplug," she murmured. "You're gonna ricochet into the ceiling."

He beamed. She pretended not to see it.

Ghost slid the cup to her.

Nøva set her jacket on the back of the chair and finally sat — not slouched, not stiff, just that coiled-limbs tension of someone who never really stopped being ready to run or fight.

She flipped the cup upright with a two-finger tap.

"I'm in."

Simple. Solid. Not social — just truth.

Her fingers brushed the dice, and that's when it hit: the spark.

Whatever dullness had cloaked her at the bar burned off. Her eyes brightened — that subtle violet luminescence pulsing behind her pupils like a reactor spinning up. Not hunger. Not frenzy.

Just investment.

And she pulled a slender metal tin from inside her half-jacket.

A soft click.

Two custom rolled synth-spicestiks, hand-wrapped, gold-thread seal.

She set them on the table between them with a quiet tick.

"My bet," she said, taking one and striking it.

A long drag — her lips quirked around the inhale, that familiar slow exhale curling out in a thin violet-tinted plume.

"These burn clean, and kick harder than a drunken Rancor…" she added with that sultry smirk that seemed to come so naturally to her, voice low as she looked at Ghost through the smoke. "And they're real. Not street sludge."

Her foot brushed his under the table — not intentional, not flirtation. Just proximity she forgot to guard.

Then:

"Your move."

The glow in her eyes brightened — not warm, not soft — but alive.

Ready.
Engaged.
Dangerously present.

​

 

[Glade]

Tag: Nøva | Open
Batch's Bar: Static Jinx Table

"Easy, sparkplug," she murmured. "You're gonna ricochet into the ceiling."

Ghostkey and Glade both burst out laughing, with Sickle trying hard not to crack. Glade covered the back of her hand over her mouth like she always did when she was trying not to snort.

Ghost whistled to one of the streetrunners at the end of the bar. They slapped a new track into the tune-droid, Kaneway, heavy echelon-pulse with solos. Crash immediately started nodding, jaw clenching like he was resisting the urge to full-body dance. Kid worshiped this guy; he had a cult following.

Glade's smile curled tiny but so so real when Nøva complimented her hoverchair. The droid inside beeped in a tone very close to pride.
To Glade, though… She brushed her hair off her visor again. "Thanks. Lot'ta…" She tapped one of the chair's surfaces, lighting up under her hand, layered signatures, sigils, notes from stories or people that had come and gone. "…memories, y'know." Then her visor scanned Nøva's jacket. "Kinda love your jacket. Armoweave?" Her visor blinked. "Looks like it's seen things."

Glade checked under her cup.
"Two threes." Low bid to start. Soft voice, little boost of confidence. A holographic garden shimmered above her console as she bid, like the undernet gardens she tended where code grew stubborn and untamable. Glade dripped her visor toward the tin as Nøva lit up. "…damn," she whispered, soft and genuine. "Those are boutique. Trix would'a lost his mind over your blend."

Sickle admired Nøva's bet like royalty, "respect for the art," leaning forward, chin propped on two neon-green fingernails. Jobs she shouldn't have survived? "Only Three?" she repeated with a crooked grin to Nøva, anarchist daring in her smile, bidding her own rep up a bit higher with the dice. "For you?" She rolled her shoulders, green hair swinging. "Four fives. And if I'm wrong, the system can eat me or shove off."

Chronicle sat back, unreadable as ever, as he looked at Sickle.
His obsidian skin caught the light like polished stone; his darker eyes didn't twitch, shift, or even drift. He didn't check his chronometer either.
He just declared. "Five sixes."
Crash made a tiny noise, high, strangled, like a speeder overheating. He hated Chronicle's unreadable face.

Hound wasn't buying it. Rounding on him immediately. "Liar," he called out.
Cups lifted. At least five sixes among them all, four of them Chronicle's. Hound was out already.

The young blonde-haired Corellian just snorted, shifting his flak-vest straight. "Figures. Should've worn the lucky vest." He folded his arms, looking over to Nøva "Yeah stories. Most of 'em ended stupid. But it's kept the important parts inside, so I can't complain. Seen a few?"

Round reset. One fewer player meant each bluff had more danger.

Ghostkey got his new dice, grinning at the little nudge Nøva had given him, encouragement the kid sorely lacked. He was gonna win those smokes if it killed him. "Never gonna catch me in a lie," he bragged, glancing a confident look.

He popped the board's distraction console with his own slice early, everything around them glitching in and out as holo-static flickered over the table and chairs, a subtle beat to the static to match the music flaring up, a bit too much flash.

"Three twos."

Her turn, she had to bid higher in numbers or dice, or call him out.
Ghost tried a smug grin to Nøva.

Crash couldn't hold it together.
"Nøva, if you call him out, I swear I'll buy you noodles."
He looked sheepishly around at the crew.
"…I mean, uh, someone else can. I'm broke. But I'll… help them buy it?"

New kid was trying harder than GhostKey. Somehow. No chill but all heart. They started too young on Echelon.

OOC: All Npcs free to use.

 

[Nøva]

TAG: GhostKey Glade

The music hit — that deep echelon pulse vibrating up through the floor — and Nøva felt something she hadn't felt in a long damn time:

A lift.
A buzz.

A little reminder that she was built for surviving… and for winning.

She leaned back in her chair with a slow, luxurious drag on her spicestik, violet eyes half-lidded as the smoke curled past her lips in a thin ribbon. The little glow behind her pupils pulsed with that familiar high — not spice-high, but adrenaline-high, the kind she only got when she was about to run a mark, play a table, or ruin someone's perfect bluff.

Glade

Nøva flicked her gaze to Glade's visor, catching the soft shimmer of those glyphs and their ghosted signatures.

"Memories," she echoed softly, dragging another pull from her stikk.

"Yeah. I know that kind of wiring."

She tapped one nail against Glade's hoverchair frame — a soft, lazy ting of metal meeting metal.

"Whoever tuned your lift coils? They knew balance. That's clean work. Stable. And custom."

Her eyes warmed a fraction.

"Rare someone's mods actually tell a story without glitching."


Sickle

Sickle's daring grin pulled one out of Nøva — a sly one, sharp as a blade.

"For me? Four fives?"

Nøva's brow rose.

"That's cute."

Not flirt. Not insult.
Just challenge.

Chronicle

Chronicle laid down five sixes like he'd been born with the dice in his hand.

Nøva didn't look away.

"Mm. Stoic type," she murmured. "Always fun to break."

Crash squeaked. Chronicle's expression didn't change.

Hound

When he mentioned his vest's stories, she didn't smirk or roll her eyes — she just tilted her head and let her gaze drop, slow and deliberate, to the stitching.

"Not bad," she said. "Most Corellians overcompensate with shoulder plating. Yours looks like it's actually taken a hit."

He blinked.
She moved on.

The Bet

Ghostkey pulled his "never gonna catch me" grin.

The table flickered with holo-static.
The music hit harder.

Nøva exhaled smoke in a slow, delicious ribbon, the violet glow in her eyes brightening like someone had lit a fuse in her skull.

Her grin was lazy. Dangerous.
Half invitation, half promise.

"Three twos?" she echoed, licking her thumb before she touched her cup.

"That all you've got?"

Crash practically vibrated.

Someone else said her name — she didn't hear who — because she was already shifting in her seat, leaning forward, letting the room's hum soak into her spine.

Then Glade’s question about her vest hung in the air.

And Nøva — smiling like sin and trouble — hooked her thumb under the strap of her tank and pulled it down, slow.

Just enough.

The top swell of her breasts caught the neon. The demon tattoo over her heart — all jagged geometry and wicked ink — glared defiantly.

Beneath it, faint lines: the scars where the subdermal plating fused to her ribs.

She didn't mean to show the whole table.

The table just happened to be in the blast radius.

But ——

She let them look.
Just long enough.

"You think the jacket's impressive — let momma show you something better…" she purred, voice dipping into that velvet-smooth danger she never used unless she meant it.

She snapped the strap back into place.

"It goes…… everywhere — Vital."

Her eyes lighting up — small, dangerous, and gone just as fast.

Crash choked on nothing.
Sickle muttered "holy shit."
Hound seemed to forgot to breathe.

Then Nøva tapped the table with two fingers.

"Two sixes , and snake eyes.”

She took another drag, pupils bright violet.

​

 

[Glade]

You probably couldn't see it under the visor, but Glade absolutely had a blush on her cheek about the chair. She'd spent cycles tuning that frame with her little droid, and the compliment hit her deep. Old stories and lives that hurt like an ache that never went away.

"Yeah, we tried… um…" she said softly, voice wobbling and folding in on itself.
Sickle patted her friend's arm, grounding her.
"Thanks. Means'alot." She gave Nøva a warm smile.

"Five twos," she added, forgetting to slice her distraction in, pulling her visor up and blinking her bright eyes free. As her arm drifted toward her drink, her wrist caught the faintest touch of light, swirling lilac tattoos like atrisian incense, delicate enough to look born into her, soft, feminine, and full of memories. Ibis had a talent and just enough downtime.

Glade missed her distraction. But Sickle was already nodding, fully buying into the game.

She leaned in, neon-green nails catching the light.
"Those inks you're rockin'? Like someone mapped a rebellion." Probably the highest praise she could give. Then she jerked her vest open with her thumb. "Check this." Up her ribs ran a stylized band of chaotic green-and-black ink, spiraling around an old burn scar, the whole thing shaped like a stylized dagger. "Artist owed me. Or maybe I stole it. Don't remember." She laughed. "Anyway… five fives, and throw in a pair of twos for the hell of it. May the system choke on my bid."

This time, she slammed a shot back and then her distraction key:

A grinning metal skull burst above her console, glitching in and out, chewing on a holographic corporate AX Apex logo. A middle finger rendered in green pixels popped out of the skull's eye socket.

Crash's eyes went wide. Like he'd just seen a nightmare.

Seven dice to match. Chronicle finally turned, giving Sickle the longest look he'd given anyone all night. Not hostile. Measuring. He checked his watch at last, tapping to a silent count before saying:

"Eight sixes."

Ghostkey zeroed in on that tell like a guided missile, Chron kept count of things that mattered to him. "Uh-uh." Ghostkey wagged a finger. "Flip 'em. You liar."

Players Cups were lifted.
...
...
Not even close to eight sixes between them all.
Another player out. - Dice reset. Chronicle left the table.

Ghostkey looked over his dice and then to Nøva, took his time with lighting another polyplast, slow, dramatic, like he was frosting a cake. Yeah…. In a minute.... He looked under his cup.

"Four threes… and four fours."

Eight dice to match. He turned to Nøva deadpan, then raised his eyebrows twice in a watcha yer gonna do way. Teasing, playful.

Nøva

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Glade GhostKey


Glade's blush caught Nøva first. Subtle. Sweet. And dangerous in its own quiet way.

Her cyber-violet eyes pulsed once — a tell that no implant could hide — before her smirk curved slow, deliberate, knowing.

Sickle's comment about her inks earned a soft, low hum from Nøva — appreciation wrapped in smoke. She leaned back, stretching just enough to let her gaze linger over the spiral of ink circling the burn scar.

"Rebellion traced right there, and those lines tell stories—" she murmured, voice velvet and slow, pulling a drag from her deathstik. "I like stories I can touch...."

An “oh my” escaped someone’s mouth from somewhere in the room at her comment to Sickle — but: Nova’s focus had already shifted, drawn to Glade like gravity remembered her name.

When Glade lowered her visor, revealing bright eyes and lilac tattoos rippling faintly along her wrist, Nøva leaned forward, forearms resting on the table, eyes tracing every subtle movement.

Her violet gaze softened only slightly, warm curiosity folded into predatory precision.

"Pink suits you," she murmured, low, slow, letting the words linger like smoke over hot metal. "Better than it should."

Heads turned — a few, inevitably — but Nøva didn't move for them. She didn't look at anyone else. Only Glade in that moment.

Then she straightened, reaching for her shot, tilting it back in one fluid motion. The burn hit, and she exhaled with a satisfied hum, dragging her thumb along her lower lip. Fingers hovered over the dice, deliberate, teasing.

Ghostkey's challenge came next. Eight dice. That eyebrow. That smirk.

Nøva let a soft, amused laugh escape, a sound both reckless and controlled. "Cute," she murmured, rolling the dice between metal-tipped fingers. "But I don't fold that easily."

She lifted her cup — slow, deliberate — and set it down gently, a contrast to everyone else's clatter.

Eyes glowing faintly, she let her bluff speak for her.

"Eight fours," she said. Calm. Measured. A bet big enough to shake a lesser ego.

Then a tilt of her head, a slow curve of her lips.

“Your call peach-fuzz.”

​

 

[Glade]

Peachfuzz! Ghost almost called her out for that.
"Livewire," a name tossed her way with a smirking challenge.
He just gave her that oh I'm getting you next round look.

Glade's chest hitched on a quiet inhale. Her tongue tapped the tip of her teeth, lips pressing together, color climbing soft and warm across her cheeks. Her head dipped, hair spilling forward in a curtain that tried to hide the glow.

"Like stories I can remember…" she whispered, voice so light it barely reached the table.
Her fingers drifted across her sleeve, somewhere nestled between shy and bold. A little breath and spark.

Sickle tossed back a shot. Then another.
"Stars damn," she called, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "You're dangerous," anarchist respect. to Nøva, letting it hang.

Waiting a sec before glancing toward Glade again.

"Nat?" she asked, in words so quiet nobody else could probably hear.
Glade hesitated… then inched her sleeve up, tilting her head just enough for Nøva to see the lilac ink along her skin.
Just gentle, composed, offering something small but real.

"Eight fives," she breathed, soft, precise, like lace falling.

Peach-Fuzz wasn't rolling over!
Ghostkey charged his engines, the kid cutting in early.

"Sorry Glade... ya lyin'."

She shook her head, revealing four of them.
Sickle had at least three more.
The table made it all told.

"What... ah, man…"
Ghost let out a long tfffhhhoooo through his teeth, slumping his arms out across the back of his chair dramatically.

And then there were three!

Sickle tapped the table with her nails, sharp, teasing a scratch of trouble.
"Let's raise the stakes."

She glanced between Nøva and Glade, a little flame burning in her grin as she struck a synthmatch across a chipped black lighter frame.

"Winner gets…"
She dragged the pause out, enjoying the tension.

"…one truth.
No names or pasts.
Just one real thing you don't tell the world."

Spark on the match, flame on the fingers. Not even checking her dice.
"Seven sixes," she added, curling her hand to her face for a smoke, watching Nøva first, then Glade, eyes blazing like wildfire.

Nøva

 

[Nøva]

TAG: GhostKey Glade


Nøva didn't blink when Sickle raised the stakes.

A truth.
One real thing.
No names. No pasts.

Even Glade felt that shift — the way the air tightened, the way Nøva's posture stilled by fractions instead of inches. A freeze you'd only notice if you'd survived something too.

Then the call hit — seven sixes — and it was Nøva's turn.

The table watched her.
She watched the dice.

Metal-tipped fingers tapped once against her cup.

Twice.

A third time — the tell no one ever caught, the one she didn't even know she had.

She tipped the cup.

Dice scattered.
Two sixes.
That was it.

Nøva stared at them for a heartbeat too long.

Then she huffed out a quiet, disbelieving sound — half a laugh, half an exhausted curse breathed through the nose.

"…well, shit."

She leaned back in her seat, letting her head tip just enough for the neon to paint her jawline in wicked violet. Fingers slid across her spice stik, pulling it to her lips. The inhale was deep — like she needed it. The exhale slower, drifting in thin, metallic vapor ribbons around her face.

Her eyes glowed hotter.

Not flirty.
Not teasing.
Dangerous.
Radiant.
Unarmored.

"I lost," she said, voice low, edged. "And a bet's a bet."

She saw Sickle's grin sharpened.
Then, she noticed Glade straightened, worry slipping through her blush.

Nøva didn't look at either of them at first.

She looked at the table — at the empty space between the players, like she was measuring it, weighing it.

Then she spoke.

Not loud.
Not dramatic.

But with the kind of precision that stripped everything down to muscle and nerve.

"I don't have a childhood," she said. "Just… rooms."

Her jaw flexed.

"White, sterile, humming with machines. No windows. No names. Just numbers on screens and kids screaming in the next beds over."

The room stilled.

"They opened us up," Nøva continued, voice steady but coiled. "Sawed bone. Rewired nerves. Replaced pieces to see which ones broke and which ones didn't. Pain was… the only constant."

She tapped her chest lightly — over the demon ink, over the cybernetics layered beneath.

"These?" she gestured to her tattoos. "They're the pretty parts. They make the rest of it look intentional. Sexy, even."

Her laugh was short.
Bitter.
Beautiful.

"But I'm in pain every day. Real pain. Doesn't stop; doesn't fade. They built me to endure it. To use it."

She took another drag from her spice stik.

Shaky?
No.

Controlled.
Like a blade.

"I wasn't supposed to escape," she said. "But I did. I burned their facility down with half my body failing and still ran."

Her eyes lifted finally — first to Sickle, then to Ghostkey, then to Glade and the rest of the room.

"Freedom isn't a luxury to me. It's not a choice, or some poetic scrap you chase when you're bored."

A pause.
Slow. Heavy.

"It's sacred. Because I wasn't supposed to survive long enough to have it."

The table didn't breathe.

Nøva leaned back again, lifting her spice stik, the faintest smirk touching the corner of her mouth — not flirty this time, not sharp.

Something tired.
Something honest.

"There," she murmured. "One ugly truth."

She set her dice aside.

"Don't say I don't pay my debts."

​

 

[Glade]

Tag: Nøva | Open.

The Booths went silent. Not because anyone rejected what she said, but because they all felt it. Something real, none of them tried to fix or soften.

Ghost leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, the cigarette burning low between his fingers. He nodded, slowly. Like she'd said something the Kid understood more than he wanted to.

Sickle's jaw tensed, neon nails scratching. "Frakkers better have burned," her voice cut, no sympathy or pity, just rage she'd lend Nøva for free. She wasn't the only one.

Smoke drifted in the stillness, and no one moved. It felt like letting Nøva's truth settle was the only respectful thing to do.

Glade straightened in her hoverchair, no hesitation, just heart. A soft, steady look to recognize and meet her eyes if they came. "Every day we're still here? That's one more frak-you in their eye," she said quietly, voice carrying more bite than usual.

Ghost rubbed his chin, eyes lowered to his boots. "Yeah. I… know that kind of nothing." Just that, no more from the kid.
From the next booth, Chronicle spoke without looking up: "My sister lives because I work. That's all." A simple truth.
Sickle tried for levity, dark and crooked. "Me? I just burned the wrong building," she said, pouring more shots like a ritual. "Didn't regret it then. Don't now." Passing them out around the table to everyone, and to waiting hands from the next booth.
Ibis didn't look up from her sketchpad, hand up for shot as it found her. "Senator," she said. One, short, bitter word gulped down, but enough for the hell it caused.

Glade's hoverchair hummed over, arm guard lowering, Glade easing forward just a little so she was beside Nøva. No pressure, just presence, a place to sit outside of judgment or pity. She reached into the pot, Sickle nodded, and beside Nøva Glade placed her thin braided bracelet, woven from repurposed threads, with tiny miniature lights laced through it. In the center a blank memory slot, empty and waiting. "For… holding on to now" she said softly, eyes warm and tired too.

A Kiffar girl who lived inside her own memories, offering Nøva a place to store a new one here.

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Glade GhostKey


The Booths were quiet. Not forced, not polite—quiet because they felt it, the weight of her truth settling like smoke over still water.

NØVA downed her shot, slow, deliberate. The burn of it was small comfort, but it focused her. She drew hard on her spicestik, letting the violet glow curl around her fingers, the scent cutting through the haze of the bar. Her chest rose and fell like a drum, a rhythm only she owned.

She rose from the booth with a fluid, deliberate sway, boots clicking against the metal floor. Hair tossed over her shoulders, catching neon lights like fire, a slow, sensual arc that made even the air pause.

Tank strap sliding off just enough to tease, not reveal, and the subtle glimmer of subdermal plating catching the light—she wasn't performing for anyone but herself. Yet everyone was watching.

She approached the mic like a predator and a worshiper, curling her fingers around it, and for a heartbeat, the room held its breath with her.

Then she whispered, soft, trembling, metallic:

"Do you hear me now? City of steel… do you hear your daughter?"

The band answered, careful, low at first. Then the pulse built. And her voice—the contradiction of it—rose. Pure, angelic, trembling, guttural, impossible coming from someone who moved like a weapon, who carried herself like a storm.

She bent into the notes, let them coil around the bar like smoke and fire.

She tilted her head, hair falling over one eye, lips parted. Her violet eyes flashed under the bar lights—predatory, vulnerable, electrifying.

Every inflection of her voice, every slight curve of her lips, every arch of her eyebrow screamed this is mine, every inch, every heartbeat.

She let the chorus tear through the room, ghost in the wire, spark in the frame, just enough to let them feel the raw pulse. Then she stepped back, body swaying to the low bass, letting the silence after her note crash over them. Her breathing was heavy, her chest rising, the lights glinting on the tiniest tattoo along her wrist, her shoulder, her collarbone. Danger, sex, fire—and the girl behind it all, finally revealed.

A pause. Her hand brushed the mic stand, thumb trailing along the metal like she was claiming it, marking the space as hers. Then another line, higher, trembling, more confessional:

“The city tried to kill me but I learned to rise,
A violet-flare martyr with fire in her eyes.
Freedom isn't gentle—
it's a blade you hold tight,
A truth you bleed for in the middle of the night.”

She closed her eyes, tilting her head, hair cascading, letting her voice break and stitch in the same breath—baptizing the room, claiming the moment, letting herself be fully, painfully alive.

The crowd could feel the rawness. Not just in the voice, but in the way her body moved, how the light clung to her, how her chest rose and fell with the tempo of her confession. The song was hers, but she gave them a slice of her soul. Dangerous, sexy, broken, holy. All of her, in a single, shattering performance.

By the end, she leaned back, just slightly, a predator resting after the hunt, a girl laughing at herself in the echo of her own power. Breath ragged. Hair wild. Eyes molten violet. The mic still humming. Silence wrapped them like a blanket.

Then she let her smirk play, a whisper cutting through the haze:


“If no one would save me, I learned to create—
My own divine
. . . as a ghostwire saint.”

And with that, NØVA returned to the booth. Not asking for applause, not looking for permission. She had given them a memory, a confession, a baptism—and nothing would ever make them forget the Gho$twire Saint.

​

 

[Glade]

Tag: Nøva | Open.

Whispers rippled through the booths, softly instinctive, like everyone knew something important was about to be carved into their nights. Glade dimmed the room lights just enough to matter, her hover-chair humming lower as she tuned the room in a gentle and unspoken way.

Smoke drifted in slower spirals across the bar. A glass clicked lightly down, and a hush fell over the crew, the kind that wasn't forced only earned. Ghostkey turned in his seat, arms hooked over the edge of the booth, young eyes bright but quiet.

And when her voice hit…
the Cityworld listened.

Every face lifted up. Even the ones who tried not to. Nøva's words didn't just land, they sank deep, cut to the core and stitched things that needed it. Glade felt her chest fold in on itself. Music always took her, but this found all the vulnerable places she watched for, looking out of rainy windows alone when she couldn't sleep. She swayed where she sat, a small dreamy motion, Sickle's arm draped around her friend's shoulders like a shield.

Ghostkey felt the floor fall away under him. As the song pulled him out of the booth, way out of the bar, into some memory he didn't know was still living.

When she reached the line…
If no one would save me, I learned to create—
he whispered it back almost to himself.

"I hear you… Nova."
A thread of awe in understanding. Like she'd spoken something he didn't know he shared or was missing.

As she walked up, Sickle eased her arm off Glade and let out a low whistle. "Damn," she said, in an anarchist soft grin. "Girl just rewired the room."

Glade, cheeks warm and eyes glassy gripped her shot glass like a lifeline not to lose. The music still echoed to her bone and into the crystal. She tucked the glass away into her chair's side compartment, a psychometry keepsake for later, something she'd replay when those nights got a lil heavy.

"Never stop singin'," she said quietly, a dreamy small smile blooming. "Or dreamin'. Feels kinda like… a reminder I needed." A small strand of hair fell over her face; she puffed it away with a breath, eyes bright with something fragile and fierce.

Batch appeared, silent for once, which was miracle enough! He bowed his head, not loud or theatrical, just a simple, respectful nod. And then he tapped two fingers over his heart. An Atrisian sign of deep honor. Reserved for warriors and survivors. People who fought their way out of places no one else could see, Sickle took note.

He didn't say a word when he walked back to the bar.