Private Agent Discovered

[Valery Noble]

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Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

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Four bodies quickly fell as blaster bolts exploded through their chests — the coordination between Amea and Valery was simply too fast for them to keep up with. But the fight was far from over, and more thugs approached from within the building itself. They opened fire but between the flashes of light freezing in mid-air and others being redirected, they stood no chance at hitting the pair.​

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Amea then drew her blade and went for the nearest of the group while Valery stepped past her, offering a shield of protecting while she went about clearing the rest of them. None seemed keen on surrender or retreat, so soon their bodies struck the floor as their own plasma was sent back towards them.​

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"Room cleared." Valery said as her eyes turned to Amea, who had the guy pinned down.​

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"I never came here to slaughter your men, Tark. Only you." Her voice hissed over the soldier's intercom to his boss. "You have a minute to bring me my agent before I tear this whole building down."​

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After the message, there was a brief silence before a reply came, "Meet me outside in the courtyard." the man said, but he had no intentions of giving the Agent back. But he had to stop the momentum of the sudden attack, and drawing them into more open grounds while he had a hostage made for a much more advantageous situation.​

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Valery sighed softly and turned her gaze back forward, "Have a feeling this building is coming down before the end of the hour." she said as she looked for a way to the courtyard.​

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"I'm sure they'll have more goons waiting for us there."​

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[Amea Virou]

The response came. Courtyard. The knife twisted in the thug's wound be Amea drew it out and pushed them to the floor. There was no need for this man to die. He had the choice to merely leave and seek medical attention; that option was available to him.

As she rose from the floor she picked her scattergun up again and slung it over her shoulder.

"Count on it." She hissed and began to push for the courtyard. "He can have all the goons he wants. He already knows he won't live to see the sun rise."

It took a few minutes of walking, but much like they would have assumed there were a dozen other thugs at different elevated positions stationed around the courtyard, all pointing their guns on the two women as they stepped into the area.

Water streaked from the glass roof above them and impacted on the floor perhaps six levels beneath them. The dirt caked onto the windows made the passing traffic hard to see as their motors echoed across the hauntingly quiet, vast interior accompanied by the pitter patter of fresh rainfall. The atrium as a whole was no better. Cracks in the pillars that held the balconies in place spoke of a building that had been left unattended to for at least the better part of a decade, the bullet holes and scorch marks told the story of just how many other groups before Tark's had taken up residence here. Cover was difficult to find the further down you looked as the railing seemed to have lost more and more of its railing from unimaginable amounts of struggle.

A shadowed figure stepped into the light from the floor above. Their rotund form in the brightness was far less intimidating than the one they had carried themselves with in the dark. In his right hand was a blaster, in his left a bottle of whiskey as he poked his gun into the back of a red-haired woman with her hands up.

Blood had ran across her face but dried up. The bags under her eyes spoke of a lack of sleep. They had not been kind to her, but this was also to have been expected: she was an agent after all.

"Your agents have a surprising amount of loyalty, Effigy." Tark's voice boomed and echoed across the atrium. "No credits, no bruises or wounds could get this little bird to speak."

"You okay, Clara?" Amea called out across the chasm between them.

"Never better, boss." Their voice hissed, hoarse and dry like sandpaper on crystal.

"Yeah, well," Lark shrugged before he raised his blaster and placed a single shot against the back of Clara's head. "Too bad."

The agent's lifeless body plummeted from the balcony and down into the courtyard proper where it impacted against the cold hard floor. Amea wasted no time in raising her gun in retribution to fire off a few rounds of her own that were all soaked up by the man's personal shield.

"Take care of them, would you?" He asked of his men before he took a hearty swig from his bottle and stumbled back into his office again.

Hell broke loose once more in this dilapidated apartment complex as more thugs seemed to pour in from the street entrance below.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

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From the floor below, Valery looked up as Tark appeared with the Agent they had come to rescue. With the blaster and a bottle of whiskey in his hands, she got a bad feeling from him right off the bat. The two women had killed a decent amount of his men, he had gotten nothing out of the captured Agent, and stopping the two was a nigh-impossible task. There was only one thing that remained to get to them.​

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Feeling the imminent threat, Valery's eyes widened but it was too late.​

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Bang​

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She watched as the lifeless body fell roughly 7 stories down to strike the cold floor below, but looked up before it struck. The sound of it echoing through the atrium was haunting enough to have imprinted in one's mind. Then from all around them, his thugs began to open fire while even more rushed into the courtyard down below. ​

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"Go after him," Valery said as both her blades ignited to deflect a series of bolts. "I'm securing our way out."​

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Regardless of what Amea chose to do next, Valery elegantly hopped over the remains of the balcony and came down six stories with great power. On impact with the floor, her own fall would be cushioned but the energy she had gathered was released out towards the thugs, sending them up into the air and flying around against pillars and walls.​

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She wasn't going to get in the way of Amea chasing after their boss, who had made this a great deal more personal than it already was and instead opted for covering the woman's retreat. ​

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Tark, meanwhile, was retreating with a pair of guards to what he believed to be safe. He had thrown what remained of his men at the two women — surely that would be enough to kill them?​

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[Amea Virou]

Nope.

Not even.

It all began to blend together. Anger pumped against her chest and she could feel the way that her blood coursed through her body. Whatever happened she could feel the way her hands had wrapped around her gun, the way it pained as if the muscles wanted to bruise against the grip. There were at least a dozen shots spaced between a few minutes that had sent her shoulder rolling in a familiar rhythm.

Valery could hear what was going on above, and if she turned to look she would have seen the men and women executed and thrown over the railing in a manner not too unlike that of the agent that laid splattered on the ground. Whatever was going on above it was an unbridled symphony of anger and hate, and it would be felt in the force. A cacophony of pain and suffering that the Jedi had abandoned — allowed to happen.

The noises grew muffled before Lark's voice echoed from his office.

"STOP!" He exclaimed. "We- we can make a deal- I can- I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT THE SLAVE-"

His voice was topped off by the sound of a scattergun blast before his body too fell down to the bottom floor. From below above stood only one woman amongst the blood of those who had tried to oppose her. The shotgun in her hands leveled before her, her teeth bared as she stared down at the chaotic scene below.

Not a word. Just a glare before she was off and into the office again.

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

After making her landing and thereby blasting several thugs up into the air, Valery moved between them with great speed and precision. While she felt something inside after the execution of the Agent, she did not quite share the anger and hatred she could feel echoing from Amea, who was fighting her way through the last line of guards between her and Tark.​

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So at the floors down below, the thugs fell but swiftly and without any great emotion coming from the brunette. But with each passing second, the scene up above grew worse, and by not stopping Amea, she had allowed it to happen. With a frown, she turned away from the battlefield down below and looked up as Tark came crashing down much as Clara had.​

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"Amea..." she muttered to herself. Should she have tried to stop Amea earlier? Had it been better if Valery had gone after Tark to finish this? These questions ran through her mind as the woman looked up towards where Amea was still going. ​

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Then with great Force-augmented jumps, she began to bounce her way up between the levels of the atrium, using the railings and balconies as intermediate steps to get up to where she had just killed the leader of the gang. She landed and quickly sprinted towards the office, where she stopped the moment she spotted the woman.​

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"Hey..." she said, taking a moment to assess the woman's current state. "The ground floor is cleared but we've definitely drawn attention. We gotta get going." Valery said, wanting to take Amea away from this whole scene so there was time to cool down. As much as lashing out with anger and hatred was against what Valery believed in, she wasn't stupid. You don't calm someone down by telling them to be calm, nor will getting in their way achieve anything in a combat situation like this.It generally had the opposite effect.​

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Right now, getting out of here was the only way to address any of it.​

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[Amea Virou]

Files. Slavers were always the same, always of pedantic stock. The kind that left paper trails because of the merchandise they dealt in. Humanoid resources were hard to handle, difficult to wrangle unless you got them stomped to the curb, pleading for their lives while bruises grew on their knees.

They deserved no mercy. They deserved nothing less than retribution for the pain and suffering that their ilk brought onto others. Amea picked up papers and threw them across the room. Her focus was on their details, on picking up the trail she had thrown away with a buckshot to a man's skull.

"I know!" She exclaimed as she began to tear open the drawers of the desk that fell apart as they were torn from their wooden joints. "This is Denon, lady." Her voice hissed. "The backup is nothing more than thugs, the investigators at least ten minutes off."

"This apartment is rundown to such an extent even vermin think twice about living here. So, my guess is," She grunted and tore out another drawer to check. Still nothing. "Failed corpo investment. And now, the more crime that is allowed to run rampant, the lower the housing costs get." The third drawer was locked. Amea tore at it. "And the lower—" She grunted. "THE LOWER—" She shouted with effort as the lock budged under the power of her tug. "THE LOWER THE COST…" She inhaled and exhaled with a grin as she uncovered a datapad inside it. "... The lower the price will be when they decide to move in here and make public displays of power and displace the current inhabitants."

Amea put the datapad against her wrist device with a content smile. This was it.

"It is the rules when getting f-" A loud bang called from outside, young voices screamed in terror at the sight before them and what had happened to their friends and leader. "-by those in power."

"We should go back the way we came." Amea said and nodded towards the door. "They will be here in a minute tops."

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

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"I know!"​

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Valery blinked at Amea's reaction but it wasn't all too surprising. The woman had lost one of her Agents, and anger still filled her even after the revenge she had gotten by killing the man responsible. Despite it though, she kept a cool enough head to not forget about the files within the office.​

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"Let's hope that datapad can help bring them down, then," Valery said as she eyed the device Amea retrieved after forcing open the drawer. Her orange eyes then went back to the door, which she approached to take a look down. She felt and soon heard more thugs approaching down below, so it really was time to get the hell out of there.​

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"Right, our new friends likely don't know about our entry point. I'll lead the way." She then turned and quickly moved out the door and towards the railing, where she hopped over to get down one level. With Amea right behind her, she backtracked until they reached the hole in the wall leading into the alleyway. The four bodies of the thugs they dropped earlier were still there, and there seemed to be no other threats.​

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Despite this, Valery was careful when she exited the building and looked around. The area was clear, resulting in a small sigh of relief before she turned to Amea again.​

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"Seems our path is clear."​

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There was still a chance for them to run into thugs through the streets but right now, they seemed to be safe, so she decided to quickly check up on the other.​

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"You okay?" It was a stupid question in a way. Of course she wasn't entirely okay, but Valery more so wanted to check if she was ready for their final push to safety. ​

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[Amea Virou]

Her boot touched ground in the alleyway before it froze and she couldn't take another step. Amea gritted her teeth and her hand gripped at the rebar that poked out from the broken duracrete wall.

"I can't leave her." She exhaled and looked at Valery. "Clara. Her family deserves to know."

And whether or not Valery thought it was a good idea or not mattered precious little. Amea had the information on her and if Valery wanted it she would follow. If not, they could just meet later but Amea was not about to leave a good agent's body behind because of her own cowardice.

The broker ran back to the atrium and skipped over the edge down to the bloodied bottom where her agent's body lay splattered against the ground. The thugs had arrived at the scene, her entrance taking them by surprise as they looked down upon the entrance where their friends also lay.

"First to pull the trigger dies." Amea called out to the men that lined their rifles toward her. "I killed your boss like it was nothing at all. Give me a reason and I will f-" part of the facade crumbled next to her. "-you worse than your mothers already have."

The men looked at each other and…

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

As Valery was about to step back into the alleyway with Amea, the woman stopped and expressed her desire to go back for Clara's body. The lingering force of incredibly angered thugs was the only point of hesitation, but Valery understood how important this was to the woman. She would never leave behind the body of a fellow Jedi either if there was even the slightest chance of recovery.​

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"I'm with you," Valery said, and together they'd move back through the atrium.​

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Dropping down, they entered the bottom floor where only a few thugs looked at their fallen friends. Above them, other armed figures drew their weapons but Amea's voice quickly echoed through the atrium.​

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"First to pull the trigger dies." Amea called out to the men that lined their rifles toward her. "I killed your boss like it was nothing at all. Give me a reason and I will f-" part of the facade crumbled next to her. "-you worse than your mothers already have."

The men looked at each other and…​

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There was only silence — fear ran deep into the hearts of those who stood around them, as they all realized that the two women before them had already killed so many, seemingly with little effort. As angered as they were, all reasons to fight had been taken from them already. There was nothing to gain, only more to lose.​

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But then a pained voice spoke from behind a pillar.​

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"You killed my brother..."​

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A younger man appeared from around the crumbled support pillar — he was barely old enough to be considered an adult, but he held a slugthrower pistol leveled with Amea's chest. Tears were running down his cheek and without a second wasted, he pulled the trigger in an attempt to kill the woman who he believed responsible.​

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[Amea Virou]

A brother. Amea turned to face the young man as he raised his gun towards her and lamented their loss. There was nothing to say here, nothing to argue. The kid's hands shook as he flexed his digit around the trigger. The metal squeaked for little more than a second before a round fired off and sent Amea down onto the ground.

Her body hit the ground with a thud. She felt the air get knocked out of her lungs, the pain in her chest. Eyes rolled up at the ceiling one more time before they slowly, but surely closed. The pain disappeared. The world faded as her eyelids swept heavy across her brown eyes.

For all intents and purposes Amea was dead. The kid's breath shook for a moment before he lowered his gun and began to approach. The closer he got, the more the gun seemed to rise back up again until eventually he stood over her. Gun pointed at her head as the hammer began to lean back.

"For my brother." He scowled before the trigger clicked against the grip with no bang. He let it sweep forward with a limp dangle, pulled it back again with another click, and then repeated the motion for a few more tries.

"Your brother…" The dead spoke and the boy froze up. "Killed himself." Amea said and grabbed onto the kid's hand that rested against grip of the pistol to point it away from herself as she rose up from the ground. "By running," She continued to explain as she gently placed the barrel against the bottom of the kid's chin pointing straight up. "With slavers."

"Now you have the choice to do the same," Amea growled as she remained hunched before the kid. "To either put that gun down and rethink your life. Or kill yourself, just like he did."

The others around them remained frozen in place. Any shot was as likely to hit the kid as it was likely to hit Amea.

"Three seconds, kid. You make your choice."

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

As the young man appeared from around the pillar and fired his weapon, Valery's eyes momentarily widened. In an instant, Amea had hit the floor and the thug was ready to finish it to avenge his brother. But she could sense that Amea was alive, and doing more than well enough to deal with him.​

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He tried to shoot again but several times in a row, the gun seemed to jam. It was only when Amea began to rise back up and spoke that he understood how futile his attempt had been. There really was no winning here for him and the others — they could only lose more, and Amea made this even more evident as she continued to speak.​

"Now you have the choice to do the same," Amea growled as she remained hunched before the kid. "To either put that gun down and rethink your life. Or kill yourself, just like he did."

The others around them remained frozen in place. Any shot was as likely to hit the kid as it was likely to hit Amea.

"Three seconds, kid. You make your choice."

"Amea..." Valery muttered, mostly because of her method.​

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The kid, however, did not hear Valery and simply gulped as the gun was forced against him, ready to blow his brains out. He took a few steps back, looked at the others for just a moment, and began to run as fast as he could, leaving behind everything and everybody just to get away from these witches.​

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From all around them, the men who had been aiming down at them were growing even more hesitant as well. They had just seen her take a shot at point-blank range, and she seemed hardly phased by it. So they too, decided to withdraw, leaving the two women alone in an atrium filled with bodies.​

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"Let's retrieve Clara's body and get out of here," Valery said, still not entirely happy with how everything had progressed, but at least not more blood was being spilled.​

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[Amea Virou]

The kid whimpered and ran off. The gun hit the ground and within three more seconds the round went off and began to ricochet around the open atrium. Valery urged Amea to do what she was already about to do. Her knee to the ground, her back arched to pick Clara up. The agent's blood was on her hands, the smell of burnt skin hard to miss as she leaned into Amea's shoulder.

"You have a choice here, Jedi." Amea muttered as she stood back up again. "You can let me come with you and gut these fethers."

She took the first step towards the door.

"Or I will do it for you."

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

Valery quietly watched as Amea retrieved the body, only occasionally turning her eyes away to make sure nobody had lingered to ambush them again. But the area was clear, and her gaze quickly returned to see Amea rising. ​

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"You have a choice here, Jedi," Amea muttered as she stood back up again. "You can let me come with you and gut these fethers."​

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"Or I will do it for you."​

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Without thinking about it much, Valery's grip around the hilt of her lightsaber tightened a little, and her eyes narrowed. But after a few seconds, she turned around and took her first step towards the door.​

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"You need to cool down."​

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"Luckily the walk to the spaceport is long enough."​

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Valery then began to move towards the exit point, not wanting to waste more time in this compound. Investigators were still on their way here, and she'd like to get out before their arrival.​

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[Amea Virou]

"Don't," Amea punctuated as she glanced over her shoulder. "Tell me. What to do. Okay?"

Valery wasn't Evelyn, she wouldn't have known just exactly how much Amea withdrew when told to do something. How much she despised the idea that anyone other than she herself would be able to influence the actions she made and the words that she spoke. Even as she walked into the street with a dead corpse in her arms she wasn't beyond the almost childish temptation to throw a tantrum at the Jedi Master who had so instinctively grabbed at her sword.

"A long walk will do nothing when the fruit of my labor still runs warm between the crags of my fingers. A long walk will not recover the losses suffered today."

"Your orders will fall on deaf ears, my actions are my own. We either share the same goal, or we go our separate ways until we meet again at the end. In person or not."

"I will kill those that were involed in killing my agent. I will teardown everything that they ever loved, and I will have them driven before me before they die."

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Ship: Factory link​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

Valery had already returned her weapons to her belt by the time they left the building and looked over her shoulder as Amea seemed particularly frustrated with what she had said. But Valery was very much unaware as to how much it really bothered her. ​

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"You're right." Valery began, "It's not going to bring her back, but killing everybody involved for the sake of revenge won't either." she said as her gaze turned back forward a moment.​

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"You saw that kid back there. Likely manipulated into this life at an early age. Does killing him to avenge your Agent really make you feel better? I doubt it, or why else did you let them go in the first place?"​

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Her eyes shifted back to her.​

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"If you're going after them for revenge, I will not join you. You'll get your payment for the information and that's where our paths separate."​

 

[Amea Virou]

For the love of god, deep breaths. Amea closed her eyes and let in a long, deep breath. For all her pride there was perhaps some form of wisdom in what Valery was saying. More often than not a campaign of vengeance was costly. At first in cleaner costs and later in wrapping up loose ends, cattle marking those that would potentially act in response…

She shook her head.

"Fine." Amea didn't answer the questions. "But I want the man behind the mask. We can play by your rule, on one condition."

"I want the one behind the organisation. His files, the names on his ledger to make public for everyone to see."

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

"Fine."​

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Valery blinked at Amea's response, not having expected it. Typically when people were out for revenge, powerful emotions had already taken control, and any nudge to take a different route would be met with anger. But that didn't seem to be the case this time. ​

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"That is fine with me," Valery said as Amea made clear what she wanted.​

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"I wasn't quite done with the organization yet myself, but how and why I go after more is important to me." She then gestured for the datapad Amea had with the files from Tark on it.​

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"I was hoping that we'd be able to find out more using that. Transaction records, travel logs, cargo manifests — anything that can point us in the direction of the big man behind it all."​

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[Amea Virou]

Valery Noble

"Mhm." Amea mumbled as they continued the walk. There were faces turned their way, a lot of strange eyes with gazes that questioned why two brown haired women were carrying a dead body through the streets of Denon. Questions with no answers.

The attention had faded away by the time they reached the ship. When inside Amea placed the agent's dead body on the floor in the cargo bay and slowly knelt down by her side to place her hands above her chest to let her rest in a more dignified position.

"It's…" She exhaled with a chuckle. "Intoxicating. The anger."

"You think you do progress, but then something like this happens and the spiral just starts over and over and over again."

"I, uhhh…" Amea exhaled again with another mirthless chuckle. "I promised someone once that I would stop, but… That thrill is hard not to seek out once you get used to it."

"I just never really knew anything else for a long while."

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Location: Terminus​

Valery: Appearance​

Outfit: Factory Link​

Lightsabers: Link!​

Tag: Amea Virou ​

​

"I know the feeling," Valery admitted as they entered the ship and Clara's body was gently placed down. The walk towards the ship had been rather strange, as many had looked their way. But she was more focused on Amea and the 'problem' she seemed to have to contain her anger.​

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"I'd like to think that I'm quite good at controlling myself. But if someone or something were to hurt my family..." she paused and looked away for a moment, the thought alone being somewhat painful to her.​

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"It would be hard not to feel that desire to strike back at what hurt me." She let out a soft sigh and turned her orange eyes back to Amea, as they began preparing for departure.​

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"I suppose we all have something that can push us over the edge. But maybe that's why it's important to have someone to keep us from falling as well when our own control slips for just a moment," she said before a soft smile came through.​

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"I'm glad you decided not to go back for revenge and I'm sure whoever you made that promise to would be happy as well. We're going to make sure this organization is taken down, but without losing ourselves."​

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[Amea Virou]

"Valery, what I am about to tell you…" Amea sighed. "I will literally cut you to pieces if you tell anyone."

And with that casual threat out of the way…

"I have no, uh… Family." Amea said and shook her head. "I have no real… Anything. My agents are the closest thing I have."

"My 'birth' was me waking up in a bloodied apartment covered in the blood of men that had wiped my mind against my will. The second thing I ever saw was my friend bashing in the skull of the last one alive."

There was a rush of different emotions. First came anger.

"I tried to forgive them and get over it, I was just an accidental victim and all. But even then it all just sort of came back to haunt me. I saw the things they did to others, vividly before me. I was one of the lucky ones. The others were wiped and enslaved for… Nefarious purposes."

Anger. Amea's hands began to tense up into balls, fists ready to throw punches at the wall.

"So I… I sort of took matters into my own hands. Started with the one person. Then groups. Then entire warehouses of their men. Sort of hoping I would just die."

Hate. Movement felt restricted.

"But then I ran out of people, so I moved on to the next organisation. Ran thievery gigs between each job to make ends meet and to seek thrills when the rush died down."

Nostalgia. Her lip curled to the side.

"Until eventually I crossed wires that I couldn't untangle. Hid away in a hole for four days until eventually I called for a friend hoping to throw them under the bus and make my getaway. Except…"

Fear and regret. The smirk thinned out into a slow frown, her tears stinging for a moment before she shook it off with a headshake.

"Except she saved me. Guarded me as I slept and then came up with a plan to make things right again, and we—"

"We are still together, and I keep failing her."