First Reply A Good Idea

[Amea Virou]

The smoke and dust of blasters and debris lingered in the air. One bolt reached for her head but struck the wall and another aimed at her stomach seemed to freeze in place for a second before it continued on its trajectory and into the wall as well. The satchel clung to her shoulder and chest with each step that she took and as she exited the building Amea would throw herself into an immediate right turn towards a nearby alleyway.

The rain poured from above accompanied by distant thunder. The rain's smattering against the cold metal ground was drowned out solely by her own breath as each step that carried her forward with all due haste into what seemed to be every goddamn puddle there was.

“Cap, start the engines!” Amea shouted into her commlink.

From behind her she could hear her pursuers make a break for her, shouting for her to stop and hand the stolen satchel back to them.

Yeah, no, that was not happening. These stolen goods were returning to their original owners one way or another.

 

[Avernus]

A Sith Pureblood came whipping around the corner in focused pursuit. He struggled to keep a good stride with his intrusive outfit but was somehow able to keep up without losing any significant ground. The poring rain pulled off feather after feather off of his ostentation ensemble, creating a floating, colorful trail behind him. His purple lightsaber blade undulated and hissed with every drop of rain that assaulted its plasmatic surface.

"Get back here you reprobate!" The Darth's words were labored beneath the effort of his sprint, and the constant roaring of the pouring rain.

 

[Amea Virou]

And of course there had been a Sith involved. Not the religion, but the actual species. Everything about this had seemed like a bad idea, but the idea of letting these components and their documentation fall into the wrong hands was an even worse idea. Two negatives made for a positive, right? A good idea was only ever truly a good idea once it had seen fruition after all. Amea kept her pace steady and made for a nearby fence, skipped onto a crate and vaulted over the obstacle and came to a stop on the other end.

The man was still following her. Saber ignited, outfit oddly on-fleek despite the rain. A grin spread on the woman's face before she turned around to continue her sprint away from the pursuer. She could at the very least appreciate an individual who knew what he liked. Few ever really seemed like they did.

Avernus

 

[Avernus]

The Sith Lord was absolutely seething with flamboyant rage. His outfit was being ruined, he was soaking wet, and to top it all off he had to chase some wastrel. The soaked feathers that retained their attachment to his outfit began to weigh him down with all of the water they had absorbed. He began to tear more and more of them off with his free hand as he chased this vexing guttersnipe, which only served to make him even more irate. His expression of exhausted exasperation contorted into a scowl as he saw her grin back at him. He suddenly exploded with exuberant fury, calling out to her again after a loud and offended scoff.

"I'll wipe that expression off your face when I catch up to you, you knave!" His voice only cracked slightly as he shouted this time.

With one force-propelled leap, the Darth cleared the fence and the other obstacles with a corkscrew-flip. He hit the ground in a mad dash, having gained a significant amount of ground with such a maneuver, but not quite enough to catch up to her. He reached his right hand out while his left was occupied with his weapon, and using the force he swung a durasteel dumpster into her path in an attempt to stop her.

 

[Amea Virou]

Oh my, he was just full of steam this one, wasn’t he? Knave? As far as insults and names went it was certainly a first even for Amea. Then again, given her general aversion towards more overt exercises such as this it sort of made sense. She might have been a good runner, but most of the time the thing that wanted to kill her was a bit less alive and a lot more worrisome. People she could deal with on her own terms, but a twenty tonne perfectly spherical boulder that was trying to flatten her… Not so much.

Not that they didn’t try to utilize the same methods when it came to stopping her. If this man was a Sith pureblood he was surely adept at using the force. She tried to ready herself for anything, but the problem with being ready for everything is that you never know exactly what it is that you are prepared for.

As the dumpster rolled into her path she tried her best to squeeze past it. Yet a loud thump and clang called out into the alley as it knocked her off-balance and sent her rolling against the ground. It hurt like a mother, but even so Amea pushed herself back on her feet and kept running.

“This would be a lot easier if you stopped!” Amea called over her shoulder towards the man that was just barely out of sabering reach. “For me, at least!”

Breaking out into the main street she dove into the masses and quickly took a left. She did not know exactly where that ship was, but from her general idea… Somewhere maybe to the right, maybe another few blocks down.

To prevent the man from getting too close she took to pulling down a few crates in her path to buy herself some time to rethink this entire situation. It was… A mess to be sure.

Avernus

 

[Leenic Ellsil]

[removed]

 

[Avernus]

The Pureblood juked his way around the dumpster, doing his best to avoid losing too much speed. He gritted his teeth together as he heard her call out to him. Such insolence, all of this. He held his lightsaber above his head as he weaved through a crowd of people on the street, trying to draw as much attention as possible as he began to call out; "I will pay fifty-thousand credits to the first person who stops that thief!" His left hand pointed in her general direction, though line-of-sight wasn't entirely clear. He hoped one of these idiots would at the very least pick up on the fact that she was running.

He pushed several crates to the side with the force as he found himself on the path that she had taken. The amethyst stick of plasma that protruded viciously from his hilt sliced through several more of the crates in his path, sending various materials spilling out of the molten holes. This wasn't exactly the most effective way of getting through, but try telling a Sith to be practical when he's angry. At this point, the pureblood was practically devoid of any modesty above the waist, having all but tarnished the feathery ensemble he had been wearing when this all began. With a rather dainty attempt at a roar of anger, the Darth waved his lightsaber in a wide arc above his head and tossed it towards the fleeing woman. The droning lavender wheel of hot death spun through the air remorselessly in a near-desperate attempt to hit it's mark.

Amea Virou​

 

[Amea Virou]

Amea ran and yet amidst the chaos she heard the man’s voice call out for people to stop her, and with a fifty-thousand reward to boot. Part of her had to hold back the impulse to stop by her own accord and turn herself in. Fifty thousand was a pretty sizable amount and far more than what she was already making for this run, that was for certain. Yet given the hum to the wind, the hisses and whines that rapidly came her way… He had hurled the saber at her.

Amea was about to duck when something hooked her leg. Unprepared, she fell. Her elbow hit the ground and her upper arm dragged against the ground as the saber flew overhead. A boot placed itself firm against her back as one of the soon-to-be-fifty-grand-richer bystanders kept her down.

Now, picking up facts was one thing. Understanding them, well, that was a very different thing.

“That will be fifty-kay.” The Rodian man said and extended their hand towards the Pureblood for the deposit. “Easiest money of my life.”

Beneath the foot, Amea crawled against the ground, her hand wrapped firm around the strap of her bag as she pulled it up to her head to grab one of the items inside, unbeknownst to the local thug. Not as unbeknownst to the Pureblood.

A happy, almost innocently stupid smile spread on the Rodian's lips. “As soon as you are able, place it in my hand, please.”

Avernus

 

[Avernus]

The Pureblood started at the Rodian with narrowed eyes for a silent moment. His yellow eyes began to dart around between the Rodian and the Thief as he made some mental calculations. After taking note of the number of potential witnesses bystanders, he decided not to stall the Rodian for the few more seconds it would take for the saber to return and decapitate him. He held his hand up, passing the Rodian's outstretch hand and pointing a finger towards his forehead.​

​

"Oh no, look out," Avernus said in a dull and unenthused tone, not putting much effort into feigning urgency as he pressed the tip of his pointed fingernail lightly on the center of the Rodian's forehead. He reached out with the dark side and forced unconsciousness onto the Rodian, sending him dropping to the ground asleep right as the lightsaber returned to Avernu's left hand, arcing right past where the Rodian's upper chest would have been. Quickly he attempted to point his lightsaber in such a position to prevent the thief from getting up and fleeing again.​

 

[Amea Virou]

Classic sith move. Make a promise, fail to keep it. Amea pulled the gun out of her satchel and spun around on her back to find herself with a saber pointed at her chest. She raised the blaster towards the sith’s chest with a clearly frustrated frown. Still, she wasn’t dead yet.

“You’ve got me.” She said and sought eye contact with the man pointing superheated death at her. “But if you make a single move I don’t like, I’ll give you one right back.”

She gave the hand with the gun a gentle wave to bring his attention towards it. Part decoy, part threat, all part of her escape plan.

“Let me stand up, and we can talk about this.”

“Just… Talk. About this very big misunderstanding.”

Of course, in reality the thoughts went along the lines of ‘please do not kill me’, ‘I am not dying like this’, and ‘try me.’ All of which seemed to circulate like a singular whirlwind inside of her head.

Avernus

 

[Avernus]

The undulating violet blade crackled with instability as it slowly followed her upwards. The rain continued to create an odd beat of hissing and sputtering as it fell upon the hot plasmatic stick of hatred. His eyes drifted between hers and the blaster, maintaining a half-scowl beneath heavy breaths from all the sprinting. His lip began to curl upward in disgust as she spoke, unveiling his bladed pureblood teeth.

"I can sense the deception from you, miscreant." His reply was loud and with a particular sharpness to his diction.

Beyond the deception, he could feel the odd storm of defiance and fear that swirled around in her psyche. He could feel his own arm muscles practically twitching as he debated internally whether or not to end this in one quick stroke. "Talk," he repeated her words as his eyes drifted down to the blaster once more.

"A misunderstanding, yes, of course," he said in a rather convincing fashion. "A misunderstanding, just like this-"

The Pureblood cut himself off as he quickly flicked his weapon hand's wrist in a circular fashion. The blade quickly dipped under her arm and began to quickly rise in the same motion as Darth Avernus attempted to strike at the wrist, or at the blaster itself at the very least.

 

[Amea Virou]

Avernus

Crap, right, sensing things. Amea grimaced for a second as the man called her bluff. The saber remained pointed at her heart as beads of sweat began to mingle with the rain that poured down from above. He seemed to buy it for a second, was willing to talk… Aaaand…

YES! Saber pointed away. There was not much time to think, the opening was there, Amea pushed herself out of the man’s reach, got herself back on her feet and grinned at him. It was the small victories that counted in situations like these.

“So you knew of my deception,” She said and slowly extended her arms before her in a sweeping motion. “And yet you fell for it anyway.”

Amea kept her arms raised before her and yet the smell of cauterized flesh began to spread around the area. Amea’s face contorted into a look of confusion before her eyes finally set on her as-of-now handless right arm. Her eyes blinked open and closed in quick succession before she finally looked back at the hand as it laid before her on the ground along with her gun.

“Huh.” She quietly mumbled for herself. Those brown eyes locked onto Avernus’ with an indignant frown before they glanced at the nearest exit again. The satchel remained around her shoulder. Soaking wet, but still in her possession.

A single second passed before she set off in another spring, her remaining hand reaching out towards her other hand to pull it over towards her. It arched above her, began a descent that would let her catch it with ease, and yet as her right arm extended to do just that she saw it fall to the floor.

“Fuck. Right.” She hissed as the pain started to kick into gear. Her left hand extended towards the decapitated hand yet again to catch before she pocketed it into her satchel, making it just about the most morbid thing Amea had ever stored in it before.

With a firm push against the crowd she sought to buy herself time by hiding therein.

 

[Avernus]

"Oh!" The Darth exclaimed with a sarcastic sense of remorse. He looked to the severed hand with a sinister grin crawling across his face. "We can talk about this, right?" His sadistic sarcasm continued as he looked up to see the stunned look on her face. Her expression was bringing him closer to the precipice of full-on maniacal-laughter. "A big misunderstanding," he mocked, taking a slow step forward with his lightsaber still at the ready.

It may have been cut off by her adrenaline, but Avernus picked up empathically on the sensation of each of her nerves in the wrist cauterizing all at once. It was an utterly exquisite feeling, or at least it was when it was inflicted upon someone else. He licked the front of his rigid, Pureblood teeth with a morbid grin of satisfaction.

More.

He quickly flourished his saber and prepared for another strike while he had her. Unfortunately, or, fortunately for her, she managed to have the grit not only to snatch her severed hand but to begin to flee once more. Despite everything, he had to admit it was rather impressive to still be functional after that.

As she began to press through the crowd Avernus slowly followed her. He lowered his weapon to the ground and allowed the tip of the lavender blade scrape across the ground with a sickening squelch and droning as it carved a trail through the concrete. He wanted the sound of her incoming plasmatic doom to stalk her as her fate approached.

"Come on!" He began to shout to her from within the crowd as he did his best to follow her movements through it. "I thought you wanted to talk!"

Amea Virou​

 

[Amea Virou]

Avernus

It burned against her skin like a fire that she could not see. Amea’s left hand grabbed at the flap to her satchel to withdraw something and yet as her right hand reached to dig inside she found that the limb that she still felt was quite clearly there was in fact not there at all. Frustration flared up against the pain that began to sear against her mind, each breath that parted between her gritted teeth throwing more spittle than the next as she stumbled through the crowd and away from the man that had taken her hand. He taunted her, tried to get her to give away her position. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have given him the delight, but under normal circumstances she also had both of her hands.

“Yeah, no, the opposition proved to be a handful.” Amea groaned as she grasped at a nearby fruit from a crate to toss at him, arching the fruit above the heads of the bystanders. On Avernus’ end there was one fruit, and then there were two at once that in a rapid chain of fruits turned into sixteen before the crate itself came hurling from above. In reality it was a distraction, a means to buy herself time as she reached the other end of the crowd and got back into open space. Enough fights had passed her by that she understood that there were times for fight and times for flight. This was the latter. Very much so the latter.

With her dominant hand out of play, pain burning ever so increasingly bright against the forefront of her mind she really only had one plan: get away. The captain would have prepped the engines, the ship would be practically ready to go as soon as she arrived. She just needed to get there, and that was the part that had gotten increasingly difficult with how events were unfolding currently.

No, she’d need to find a way to slow down the Sith that was chasing her. He had acquired a taste for her blood at this point, or simply seemed to enjoy the simpler things when it came to dragging out the murderizing of his enemies. Either way, not a good seat to be in.

Keeping on her feet Amea glanced around for something better than a fruit crate. It was just a matter of time before it found her, right? The rain continued to pour from above. There was something she could maybe do. It was a gamble, but...

No, for now she had to keep moving. This was not the place for it.

 

[Avernus]

A handful, huh? The urge to roll his eyes was overwhelming to the point where resistance to it just manifested in rapid twitching of the lower left eyelid. With a sharp exhale from his nostrils he shook his head and continued pursuing her. She may have just lost a hand, but that was no excuse for such distastefulness. Who in their right mind still has the inclination for puns at a time like this? Disgusting.

He began to shove people aside with his right hand in order to cut through the crowd faster. He flourished his saber impatiently as he waded through the bystanders, eager to finish the job. The risk that came with witnesses was becoming less and less concerning to Avernus the more impatient he grew. He could still pick out her mental presence from the monsoon of thoughts and emotions from the crowd, but he couldn't catch up to her.

As the shirtless, crimson man broke through the crowd, he was immediately met by the blur of a fruit screaming towards his face. With a droning wave of his saber, the blade hissed through the produce. "You know I could always offer-" The decaptiation-fueled hubris rendered him unprepared for the second fruit that nailed him right in the nose. The pain was far more immense than it had any business being, given that the Sith had just recently healed from a broken nose. It took a lot of extra pain to make sure it went back to how it was before.

He began to swing wildly, obliterating each fruit as it came his way. Another in the stream of projectiles made its way through his defenses. "For f-" and then suddenly another. He sputtered angrily as he continued to miss every other fruit only to be tagged in the cheek or shoulder. "Stop throwing fruit at me you fucking degenerate!" His voice cracked wildly on the first syllable, rendering it but a squeak.

The frustration in his mind began to tingle down his right arm as he tensed up. As he threw his arm forward, the frustration reached his fingertips and condensed into a wild spread of white-hot hatred. The electric assault maliciously reached out to her with erratic and remorseless movements akin. A jagged seizure of white light hell-bent on melting the skin from her face.

Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

“Oh, I’m the fucking degenerate?” Amea shouted back and raised her hand to catch the lightning in her hand. Which incidentally was also the only remaining hand she had. “Tell me what it feels like to know that your race’s pathetic little legacy is something so easily perverted by those that hardly understand it, what it feels like to know that a mere mortal has so easily twisted it into a means to make others serve him, and not you.”

The electricity crackled against the tips of her fingers. For each second that passed with the electric onslaught she’d feel an intense burn against the surface of her skin. A root-shaped scar spread across the entirety of her wrist and arm. A deep frustration tore at the calm she had tried to keep still beneath her skin but it was starting to feel all too pointless. A fire had ignited, and Amea wanted nothing but to retaliate.

“I may be a degenerate, a thief, and a criminal,” She scoffed at the man before she twitched her arm stump back towards Avernus to send his own lightning hurling towards him in an equally white-hot return-to-sender of her own. “But at least I am not some would-be pretender’s lap dog.”

The onslaught continued.

“You are little more than a weak mimicry of what history has made you out to be.” The woman shouted before the attack ended. “There is no struggle, no conflict. You’re more interested in growing fat off the land and keeping to the status quo than you are in seizing the power that is so clearly being withheld from you by a single person.”

She took a step back from the man and then another as she began to make way towards her nearest escape route.

“Let me go. You have someone else you should be upset at, someone else who deserves your anger and hatred more than I do.”

Avernus

 

[Avernus]

Big money paused, a legitimate moment of surprise came over him as the woman clapped back. Slowly that sudden feeling of shock morphed fluidly into a rage. His nose and lips twitched, unable to unconsciously decide whether to smirk or scowl. The pendulous tentacles that hung from his visage convulsed in a repugnant fashion. They mirrored the sentiment inflected by the restless, unconscious indecisiveness on the rest of his face. His eyes were frozen in a wide-eyed stare. For a long a tense moment he did nothing but stand across from her, menacingly.

Suddenly, the pureblood's visible form became little more than a blur. His vague shape collapsed in on itself, seemingly blinking out of existence. With a small droning sound and a faint gust of wind as the air was expelled from the spot he suddenly began to occupy, Avernus appeared behind her. Very close behind her, likely uncomfortably so. His lip curled as he leaned down to put himself at eye level with her, jutting his finger into her back in a accusational fashion.

"You boldly speak of things that are far greater than you could ever hope to be. You'd do well to acknowledge your place in the world, while you still live." His finger poked aggressively once again towards the back of her head, or what might have been her face by now. "And I-" his voice cracked as his expression wavered from anger to exasperation. "-am no one's lapdog."

Amea Virou​

 

[Amea Virou]

Avernus

People put in a spot either had two reactions depending on how badly you hurt them, Amea had found. Sith were known to be prideful, and they were known for their philosophy more than they were known for their actual species. Of course Amea didn’t hold the beliefs she uttered just a few moments ago at heart. It was laughable to even consider, but she had needed to find a nerve to pinch and after all that she had seen it was the only one she saw fit to attack.

Problem being that pinching a nerve did not always have the effect that you desired.

The red man disappeared with a blur as a blunt poke reached between her shoulders. She shuffled forward and turned to look at the finger he raised to point at her rather accusingly. A wicked grin spread on her lips as he started to talk about greatness and places in the world, one small errant breath parting her lips in a chuckle and a scoff all at once.

“You speak as if I care about greatness, or my life.” She said and began to pace just to keep the blood pumping. “I could die here and none would ever be the wiser, or care.” A simple fact, stated in much the same way. “But that doesn’t mean I will. That depends on whether or not you decide to try anything.”

Keyword being try, hopefully he had picked up on that by now.

“Plenty of fruit crates around.” She said and motioned her stubbed arm as if to sweep over all the crates that surrounded them. “Let me go.”

 

[Avernus]

His grin wavered beneath an inquisitive squint. It lingered for a long moment, his golden eyes staring at her in silence. The sudden hiss of his lightsaber retracting broke the silence as he returned it to his belt coupling. The shirtless Pureblood gave her a look over, hand moving from pointing at her to holding his chin with thumb and index finger. His other arm crossed beneath the first, holding it up by the elbow. He nodded lightly to himself as if ignoring everything she had declared before.

"Alright, tell you what. I'll make you a deal, and that deal will facilitate the cease and desist of my pursuit, sound good?" that shit-eating grin returned. A devious look in his eyes sparked alight as he made eye contact with Amea. His visual form collapsed on itself once again, reappearing the other side of her with a droning-pop. His arms were spread out in a grandiose and condescending fashion.

"Sure it does, right!?" His arms came back down to his sides as he took a few more steps forward. The trajectory of his pace eventually shifted to circle Amea slowly. He jerked his head backward, sending his hair flipping out of his face.

Amea Virou ​

 

[Amea Virou]

Avernus

The pain was starting to kick in. Amea struggled against it as the man decided to put on a show for some sort of metaphorical camera. Despite his effort to throw her off, Amea kept her eyes firmly set on his red shape as he circled around her. He tried to sell something.

Amea had only one currency.

Anger.

“Get to the fucking point already!” She exclaimed as her left hand grasped at the burned stump on her right. “Spit. It. Out.” her voice growled like the owner of a dog that tried to swallow something it really oughta not. “You have. Three. Seconds.”

A shift of anger to hatred burned behind her eyes as she stared into his.

This man was flirting with danger, and so was she.