A Bitten Hand | Scherezade

[Malok]

T A T O O I N E​

This was a lesson as old as Time.

When the modern Confederacy was yet a toddler learning how to walk, it stumbled into a Galaxy ripe for conflict. A clash of ideals was imminent between the champions of Democracy and the heralds of Imperialism; and it seemed choosing a side was inevitable. Neutrality was not an option purely due to proximity to the ever-swelling borders. If the Confederacy did not take a stand, they, at that early stage, would have been completely consumed. Thus, the nation made a difficult decision and chose to stand with the Alliance Bloc during the Great Galactic War. And in so doing made a bitter enemy and rival of the neighboring Galactic Empire. For months, their eventual conflict built up until Tatooine became their first battleground.

And during this offensive, the Confederacy opted to utilize the folly of the Empire as their advantage. For, prior to the Great War, the Galactic Empire seized Tatooine by means of eliminating its Hutt Overlord and his local support structure. In an effort to utilize the criminal underworld to their advantage, the Confederacy then brought a successor to the Imperial regime to Tatooine to coronate within Jabba’s infamous palace. But this was not an act done out of the kindness of the Confederacy’s heart. No, they expected a relationship. In exchange for a triumphant return to criminal dominance, the Hutt would agree to two terms: abolish slavery within their sphere of influence and a cut of all proceeds goes to the Confederacy.

Lo and behold, the sovereign of Jabba’s Palace opted to get comfortable in her throne. She decided that her days of paying back the debt owed to the Confederacy had come to an end. And she deluded herself into thinking she could do whatever she damn well pleased upon their soil. So many had such a low opinion of Tatooine - dismissing her as a backwater world - that all sense was often forgotten. Yet, when the Knights Obsidian caught wind of this sordid state of affairs, their report eventually made its way to the Vicelord’s desk. He was the one who had initially approved of the installation of the Hutt. Therefore, he wanted the pleasure of being the one to rectify this grievous offense.

You see, one did not get to bite the hand that fed them and live to tell it.

Typically speaking, Darth Metus tended to operate alone in these instances. But, due to how many eyes from the Viceroyalty were on this, it was not wise for the Vicelord himself to venture into a potential demise solo. Therefore, he willingly selected a single, exceptional member of the Knighthood to accompany him to the confrontation. One Magdelena, who had a stellar recommendation from his brother Cardinal. Together, they would rendezvous on the rise overlooking Jabba’s palace before embarking on the mission as a unit. Ever punctual, Darth Metus arrived at the appointed time with minimal fanfare. He was garbed as any other Knight Obsidian, as to best obscure his identity from his prey - though Magdelena would certainly know who he was.

For the time being, all he had to do was await her appearance and they could begin.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Madalena Antares was a Pathfinder with the Confederacy's Knights Obsidian. She had signed up after deciding to officially join the Confederacy in general, and had been working her rear end off since that very first day on Felacat to prove her worth to the organization. Her record showed mission after mission that she took, rarely taking or even needing personal time off. Until recently, anyway. With the return of her brother, she'd asked for some. But then her brother had simply taken off to enjoy some other part of the universe, leaving her to a few days off that the Sithling didn't know what to do with. When the ping regarding this Tatooine mission with a grubby Hutt came up, she grabbed it with both hands. A chance to fight those gigantic slugs was always welcome, and whether or not she would be recognized as the person who spearheaded the Hutt Breeding Program was always a mystery. So far, not a single Hutt had come to collect the debt. Madalena eagerly awaited the day they would.

She showed up at the meeting point a mere few seconds after [member="Darth Metus"]. They had been at the same place numerous times before, courtesy of various Confederacy events, though she could not recall having ever spoken with the man. Still, the fact that she was one of his daughter's best friends sprayed more nervous kernels in her than the fact that this man was at the head of the Confederacy. Parents were usually tougher than big bosses. Still, she offered him one of her big smiles, the same smile the woman could give when walking into a room and cause almost everyone in it to instantly like her.

And while Madalena was part of the Knights Obsidian, her Knights Obsidian armor was squeaky clean, and hanging in her ship, as she only wore it for related ceremonies. For missions, she preferred her own, and she wore her armor that day. She'd been gifted the armor by the same friend who made the Glitter Bullets she carried and that friend disappeared some months ago. Of course, she did not know that this friend had never actually existed, and that the armor she wore was made by that friend together with the Vicelord. Memory spells were funny that way.

"Pathfinder Antares reporting for slug duty, Dudelord," she said quietly with a humorous grin, the knives strapped to her body, some of which in the open and some beneath her armor, ready to be used.


[member="Darth Metus"]

 

[Malok]

The Security was tight, but not anything they could not handle.

In the few moments preceding the arrival of the Obsidian Knight, Darth Metus busied himself with getting a rough gauge on the enemy positions. To this end, a simple pair of macrobinoculars were held up to his eyes, providing a drastically magnified view of the Palace entrance. The level of zoom was something that the Sith had become accustomed to over the years, as the majority of his helmets had one such device built in. Therefore, it was not jarring when he could literally make out the beads of sweat dripping down one of the Gamorrean guardsmens’ faces. However, his assessment came to a swift conclusion once [member="Scherezade deWinter"] arrived. He introduction was...far more casual than he was used to, to say the very least.

But he wasn’t a man who placed too much emphasis on the title he bore - especially moments before the battle. Turning, his sulfuric gaze settled upon the young woman...and he lofted a brow. Though the woman’s physical features had changed a bit over the year, there was no mistaking his own handiwork. An alchemist of any worth would recognize anything that they put their hands on - and Scherezade’s Armor was no exception. Thus, she earned a pass, as there were few people in the Galaxy who would elicit a smirk upon simply joining his side. Scherezade, the woman who got away with stabbing him in the back, was one of those few people.

”Well, it’s certainly been awhile.” he began, before returning his attention to Jabba’s Palace. ”Glad to see you’re doing well. Here.” His words were punctuated by the presenting of the macrobinoculars for her to take. ”The entrance isn’t too guarded, just a handful of thugs. They don’t seem to be armed with much more than the usual blasters and vibro-weaponry. However, I don’t want the Palace going into high alert just yet.”

He flexed his fingertips, coaxing the Force to do his bidding. Literal darkness began to billow upon the palm of his offhand. ”So, I think we should go with a decoy. As you are not wearing your Obsidian armor - and good call on that - you should bring me there as a prisoner of the Hutt. That’ll at least get us close and we can raise Hell from there.” Darth Metus raised the shadows to his face and allowed them to claim his features. In mere seconds, gone was the iconic face of the Vicelord, and in its place an unremarkable male stared back.

”Any questions before we go? If not, cuff me.”

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

It had been a while? Madalena blinked in confusion. She knew who this man was, of course. Her casual introduction was nothing other than how she generally was people, laid back. Even her higher ups weren't safe from that outside of official diplomatic setting where calling someone Vicedude could cause a diplomatic clusterkrak. But she was pretty darned sure she'd never actually met Darth Metus before in any sort of proximity that would make him say it had been a while.

But with a careless shrug, she let it go and took the macrobinaculars from him, leaning over to gaze at their target. There was nothing for her to offer against what he had to say about the guards. She knew that even she could easily take them out, but it seemed Darth Metus had something else in mind. Personally, Madalena loved getting everyone up on high alert, but more than once she held back because of orders from the higher ups.

When he changed his features though with literal shadows, Madalena almost dropped the macrobinaculars and grinned. "When this is over, if you have the time, I'd love to learn how to do that," she commented as she produced cuffs from her butt-pocket, quietly hoping Darth Metus wouldn't ask why she had them and why she'd bring them on a mission like this. Especially since they were covered in pink fur and could probably be broken by someone who did not possess half his strength.

"You're lucky I'm the one assigned to this," she laughed as she cuffed him, perhaps with a touch of too much glee, deciding not to tell him exactly why just yet. "Now come along, Dluke. That's your new name, by the way. Dluke."

Yanking on the attached chain that the Sithling seemingly produced out of nowhere, Madalena began to walk, carrying her prisoner behind her. Every so often she laughed, drawing the gazes of onlookers. A stranger could have easily thought this woman was enjoying the display.

"Hey, buttholes," she spoke in Basic as she turned to the guards at the entrance of the Palace, "delivery for Boss Jabba. Fresh meat. Very mellow. Good price. If you put him in a bikini he'll dance for you."

[member="Darth Metus"]

 

[Malok]

He was a deer in headlights.

There were certain occurrences where the Vicelord let his humor take the wheel. For example, he didn’t bat an eye at [member="Scherezade deWinter"] addressing him as Vicedude as that was the particular flavor of madness he had come to expect from the woman. She, admittedly, got away with murder due to the fact that she was family - at least by [member="Katrine Van-Derveld"] ‘s definition. Family. So, as long as she didn’t do anything illegal, Darth Metus typically let the woman’s Obsidian superiors address and deal with any of the laxatives she brought to a fight. But. There was always an upper limit. A glass ceiling through which not even Srina’s bullchit could pass freely.

And when the Sith found himself the prisoner of fuzzy, pink handcuffs, his eye twitched. The surprise raging through his mind was enough that he allowed himself to be led, silently, up to the doors of Jabba’s Palace. To those standing guard, he would have appeared as a meek man - for his gaze was fixated upon the chains that held him bound. They might have thought he was lamenting his fate - to be paraded before a Hutt and possibly thrown in a bikini. But truly? The gears were turning upstairs.

The guards stepped forward to verify the woman’s claims - with one putting the pointy end of their weapon underneath Darth Metus’ chin. A rude twist of their wrist saw the man raise his now-sable eyes to look them in the eye. And it was at that moment, they knew, they karked up. His eyes shifted, burning back to their typical shade of sulfur. The handcuffs shattered against the force of his recoil, falling from his wrists into the dirt below. And telekinesis roared forth as a mighty column. The first guard found himself slammed clean through the mighty door of iron, thundering and screeching to a halt within the Palace interior.

The second...well, Darth Metus simply made a motion akin to prying his eye out from afar. And the Force did the rest. The guard was reduced to a screaming heap, clutching his face - and the Sith now had a juicy pair of whites within his hand.

”Scherezade.” he breathed. ”Change of plans. We leave none alive.”

And with that a roll of his eyes, he kicked what remained of the fuzzy handcuffs towards her feet as he strode calmly into the hornet’s nest.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She had not expected that. The orders were simple enough, and as was the plan that accompanied them – infiltrate, then raise hell. But the man with her, the man who could change his appearance at the blink of an eye, decided to change the plans. She'd been so focused on being friendly and smiling towards the ghamorreans that she herself had missed the cues of what was about to happen.

And then a moment later, it was too late. The vicedude was already fighting two, but the entrance had not been guarded by them alone. Emerald green beams erupted from her lightsabers as ten Czerka knives slid from beneath her clothes and armor into the air. Madalena Antares did not fight as one person; she carried enough punch and her control of telekinesis was enough worth as much more than that when dealing with simple grunts.

She was done with the remainders of the handful of guards more or less around the time that the change of plans came in.

Mdalena hurried to walk besides theVicedude.

"Look, it's not that I'm against carnage, massacres, dancing inside of larger creatures' corpses, all that sort of stuff," she explained as they marched, her knives still floating in the shape of a fan around her save for one pause in which one of them slid upwards almost into the ceiling, returning to formation only after the body of a hidden guard fell to the ground behind them, "but that joke is seriously old. My name is Madalena Antares."

The time for debates would be short lived though. The rumbling of the floor indicated the stampede that was behind them, and a taste of the Force confirmed; there was a horde of grunts coming behind them.

"Hope you don't mind jumping through windows later, boss-man," she said as she reached to the ceiling with her hands.

Many people thought that Tatooine architecture was meant to last. Many people were wrong. With the dryness of the desert, many things took much longer to disintegrate than they normally ought to, despite the terrible heat provided by the two stinky suns. Combined that with the small amount of natural resources the planet had to offer, you got buildings that were perfectly fine to stand for years and centuries with only little wear and tear, but… Not when facing things like earth quakes (rare to never), rain (never), and people like Madalena (third time in under a year).

Her knives returned to their places as she screamed, first sending punches into the ceiling above them, causing the cracks in the stone that made the building, and then pulling, bringing them all down, effectively blocking the hallway behind them.

Madalena and the Vicedude had only one way left to go.

Forward.

[member="Darth Metus"]