Awkward....

[Eralam]

[member="Sifa Tirel"]

Coruscant could be many things to many different beings. To some, it was the cosmopolitan center of the galaxy, a brilliant jewel in the crown of civilization. To others, it was a wretched maze of canyons and tunnels, where they'd live out their short, miserable lives. The grease trap of the galaxy, in other words.

Eralam wasn't too concerned with the soaring spires and bright lights. What he was after could be found in the deep dark holes where sunlight never reached. There was a...well, not a man, but a thing. Accounts varied. Some said it was a terrifying beast who ripped its victims limbs from limb. Others said it was a ghost that lured its victims to their deaths. No one knew for sure. All they knew was that it left a single white flower in the eye socket of its victims.

The Iron Knight wasn't much for bounty hunting, but this case was special. He needed a particular strain of neurotoxin for his collection, and the only guy in the core who could make it lost a friend to the killer. Eralam wanted the toxin, and the chemist wanted the killer's head.

That was why the Shard was skulking around in the city's underbelly, and he didn't like it, not one bit.

 

[Sifa Tirel]

[member="Eralam"]​

​

There was something to Coruscant that Sifa couldn't help but detest.

She had been told by her Masters in the Jedi Order that it was the jewel of the galaxy, that it was the lifeblood of the core. It held thousands of years of history, eternities worth of knowledge. Yet there was something about this world, something about its hard edges and cut lines that bothered her. Perhaps it was because it felt so unnatural, it felt so...fake.

This world had been built by man, it had been ravaged by man. It seemed that nature was lost here. Sure there were gardens, great museums and pantheons to trees and plants, but it all seemed so constructed and planned out. It all seemed...very wrong.

Maybe it was just her own feeling, or maybe others felt the same, in the end it didn't matter. Sifa stayed here because it was where the Sith were, it was where her goals lay. So she would crawl through the underbelly of Coruscant, she would trudge through the muck and scum, and do as she had been told. It would only be for a little while, only for a small amount of time, and then she would break free.

How sweet that would be.

 

[Eralam]

Eralam stepped in something that looked like a puddle but smelled like straight osik.

He swore violently.

For most people, that would be a poetic way of saying that they said something particularly foul. For the Iron Knight, it was a little more literal than that.

What followed was about a minute's worth of unprintable obscenity, accompanied by the soundtrack of near solid waves of Force smacking into things. Even as ticked off as he was, Eralam knew better than to damage anything really important. It wouldn't do to bring the entire megascraper down on his head.

Honestly, the things he did for a hobby...

Some people collected stamps. Others built models. Eralam collected weapons. He had quite a lot of blades, blasters, slugthrowers, and everything in between. Just recently, he had started collected poisons.

Why? No clue. Impulse, mostly.

Well, the neurotoxin he was after was allegedly one of the most potent in the galaxy, but he had been duped before.

No matter. No one ever survived crossing him. Not more than once, anyway. Honestly, people thought that the Sith were scary, what with the whole Dark side thing. Eralam knew better than to think that the Force gave a damn about Light and Dark. Those were constructs of organic minds, the filter through which they experienced the Force.

Still, the Iron Knight had something of a temper, and he had no problem unleashing it on a worthy target. Some people needed killing.

Right now, he was more or less wandering aimlessly. There wasn't much in the way of clues to go on. The killer left no physical evidence, and while some beings might be able to able to pick up on the Force impressions left behind, Eralam wasn't one of them. His powers were more oriented towards practical matters.

So that meant a lot of walking, crawling, and generally looking like a tasty morsel for any lowlifes that might pass through. They could attack, he could capture them, and use them to bait the trap. Hopefully, he'd be out of here in the next few days.

[member="Sifa Tirel"]

 

[Sifa Tirel]

[member="Eralam"]​

​

The deeper she went, the more distasteful this world was becoming. There was something ugly to it, something broken that she couldn't explain. Her skin crawled, her nose shriveled, and her tongue seemed to flick in a desperate need to get an awful taste off of itself. Coruscant's underworld was no place for her to be, not comfortably at least.

Yet she had come here at the behest of her Master's, and she would find what was asked of her.

A killer.

He wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, but he was a link, something that would help the Sith get what they wanted. Sifa had been assigned because of her specialties, because of what she knew in regards to toxins and deals of death. She was to find this killer, collect him, then move on to the scientists who had the knowledge that she sought.

Sifa thought it was foolish, she should have gone after the scientist directly, but her Masters had insisted that she be friendly. The request had caught her off guard, but as always she would fulfill her duties, if only to further her own goals. So as she moved deeper into the underworld, her senses began to stretch out, the force peeking under every rock and in every hole to find what she was looking for.

 

[B'arin Fett]

[member="Eralam"]

B'arin's fighter made a smooth, beautiful landing as always. He took a long look into his helmet's visor as he thought "Why here? What would my prey be doing here?" He shook his head as he put on his helmet and hopped out of the cockpit. "Well... here we go I guess..."

 

[Felista Rakk]

@B'arin Fett | [member="Sifa Tirel"] | [member="Eralam"]

I walked down the slanting road into the under belly of Coruscant. There was history here. This planet was were the histroy of the jedi was kept, and thousands of jedi lived and trained here fore millenia. I froze in my tracks at the sight of a mugger. I ran towards the man and ignited my lightsaber, it glowing a brilliant crimson. I hesitated not, and within seconds, the mugger was in two halvesat my feet. the man thanked me and I walked away. I wasn't bad, but I was a sith. A true sith. One that stands only for the destruction of my enemies. That old man was not my enemy, The mugger was.

Ibegan to contemplate my life as a sith, as a nomad. Although I lived a life of wandering amongst the stars, Ziost was my home. Nothing like coruscant. Icy cold days and arctic nights where my home. And here on Coruscant, I will spit on every insolant Jedi that crosses my path.

 

[B'arin Fett]

[member="Felista Rakk"] l [member="Sifa Tirel"] l [member="Eralam"]


Pew

B'arin didn't want to use his blasters on anyone other than the bounty, but he had to. He'd never ignore a person in need. Besides, he hates robbers, pirates, and other assorted street scum.

B'arin walked further, until he was at where he needed to be: the underbelly.

"Bounty says he should be around here... somewhere..."

He slid out his beskad and readied it, waiting and watching...

 

[Eralam]

There are literally billions of languages in the galaxy. An experienced translator droid might be familiar with hundreds of millions. A less specialized protocol droid might be able to boast millions.

Eralam was only fluent in around 800,000, but he knew all of the best swear words.

Running at the highest compression speeds, it took him almost a minute to say them all, but rest assured, he did when the seemingly solid floor turned out to be a thin veneer over a seemingly endless chasm.

Had he been stuck with the reflexes of a mere organic, he'd have tumbled in when his foot punched through the crust, but for the millionth time in the last year, having the reflexes of a war droid saved him. The Shard threw himself to safety with the Force, and proceeded to curse mightily.

"Nothing is worth this," he muttered, once the tirade was finished.

He had no choice but to backtrack. It was then he discovered that he wasn't alone. Someone, or something, was watching.

 

[Sifa Tirel]

She doubted that she was the only one.

The man that she was searching for was a high value target. He had a bounty on his head as she understood it, and a substantial one as well. She wasn't sure exactly who would come after him, but she was sure that someone would, sure that in the end she would likely have to fight more than just this killer.

Her footsteps began to quicken, her grip on her lightsaber tightened.

The alleyways she moved through seemed to become seedier and seedier. Men and women seemed to slump against the wall, Skrall began to appear, dozens and dozens of thieves, homeless men and women, countless down trodden massive that seemed to be so pervasive down here in the underworld. They swarmed and moved en mass, watching her as she trudge through the dark night.

Sifa flexed her fingers, moving towards the sense of something beyond the next building. Her lightsaber fell from its place on her hip and into her hand, her fingers tightening around its hilt. Something was wrong.

 

[B'arin Fett]

A crackle is heard, and B'arin twitches to the direction of the noise, squeezing the hilt of his beskad; the blade glistening in the faint light. He could have sworn he was alone.

"Show yourself, besom!"

B'arin lifted one of his hands off the hilt and reached for one of his blaster pistols. He can feel something... someone else is here besides his bounty.

"I said show yourself!"


[member="Eralam"]

 

[Eralam]

[member="Sifa Tirel"] @B'arin Fett

You're going to have to use your imagination to fill in what Eralam muttered under his breath. Apparently, not only were there others close by, but they were angry.

His left hand plucked a revolver out of its holster, a 5 shot long barreled .45 that could hole a bantha. With his right hand, the Shard drew his lightsaber, the silver blade flashing to life in the dimly lit tunnel. He wasn't about to step around that corner without a better idea of what was going on.

"You first, friend. I might have been born under a rock," he drawled, not bothering to mention that he actually was a rock, "but that don't make me stupid. Come on out, keep your hands where I can see 'em, and this ain't gotta get ugly."

 

[B'arin Fett]

[member="Eralam"]

B'arin was smart enough to holster his pistol and drop his beskad onto the floor, walking into the dim light slowly.

"I'm not looking for trouble... just... put the saber away..."

B'arin kept his breathing steady, making sure to look as calm as possible. After all, he didn't want to piss anything off that is armed with a lightsaber or a revolving blaster.

 

[Eralam]

Kriffing Mandalorians.

Some were really great fighters. Some, not so great. All of them had that infernal armor that made killing them such a pain. Eralam could do it, usually, but that wasn't why he was here. Instead, he lowered his slugthrower, deactivated the saber, and put it back on his belt. He kept the pistol in hand. The Mando probably didn't think much of anything handheld, and that would be a big mistake if anything went wrong.

"You mind telling me what you're doing down here?" he asked. His tone was friendly, but there was an unmistakable air of menace to it. He doubted the Mando made the connection between lightsaber and droid to Shard and Iron Knight, and most lightsaber wielding droids were more or less disposable target practice for Jedi. Very few liked to build anything that was actually a threat, if only because it was expensive as all get out.

@B'arin Fett
[member="Sifa Tirel"]

 

[B'arin Fett]

He might as well tell "him".

"Well... isn't it obvious? Why else would I be down here in full beskar'gam?"

He slowly walked toward the shard

"I could ask you the same thing, friend. What's a droid armed to the teeth doing down here?"

 

[Eralam]

"Oh, I'm just down here for some good old fashion killin'," Eralam drawled as he gathered the Force around him.

Mandos were no joke in close quarters, Force be damned. If the guy made like he was going to be a threat, he was going to get put down. Hard.

"It seems there's a serial killer on the loose. I'm out to make sure he gets kilt himself. Or herself. Honestly, there's really no telling these days."

@B'arin Fett

 

[B'arin Fett]

"No kidding..."

B'arin quick drawed his Westar-34s and fired a few rounds at the droid, missing purposely. He then reached for an EMP grenade and threw it to the shard's legs (If this doesn't work, I'm screwed...)

[member="Eralam"]

 

[Eralam]

In between the blaster bolts and the Shard, a wall of telekinetic force sprang to life. The wall was at an angle that allowed the bolts to glance harmlessly off into the distance.

The EMP grenade would have been a problem, if Eralam had been a normal droid. He wasn't however, he was the Force-damned Robot Space Ninja, and a master of Absorb to boot.

The energy pulse washed over him, but instead of short circuiting him, the Iron Knight sucked all the energy up and incorporated it into his own prodigious reserves. He couldn't hold that much energy for long, no one could, so he put it to good use.

Eralam visualized a massive hand reaching out and picking up the Mandalorian, hopefully slamming him into the wall hard enough to knock him senseless. If that didn't work, he already had his revolver out, and it would be a simple matter to start aiming for gaps in plates. With a little luck, however, it wouldn't come to that.

 

[B'arin Fett]

B'arin crashes into the wall, a small force field barely protecting him. Blood oozed from his nose and cheek as his helmet fell to the ground.

"Bad time to slam me into a wall..."

(Yes he is force sensitive... VERY)

He picks the shard up with ease, simply chucking him across the underbelly into a pillar, hoping to buy him some time to escape. B'arin picked up his helmet, but froze... something was very wrong about this.

"Why are we fighting like wimps? Why not go close quarters? Unless you're afraid to take on a vod of the Mando'ade! Especially a Fett!"

 

[Eralam]

"Really?"

Eralam felt the throw coming, and instead of allowing himself to be thrown, he countered by going with plan B: shooting at gaps in between armor. And since the Mando had been nice enough to drop his bucket, Eralam aimed the first shot at his head.

At close range, with the projectile travelling at about 259 meters per second, it would take about .038 of a second for it to cross the distance between the barrel of the gun and the exposed face of the Mandalorian. If it struck, that was game over. Even if it missed, it should be enough to throw off his concentration, thus interrupting the throw.

 

[B'arin Fett]

The bolt knicked his face, making him drop the shard to the ground and reach for his cheek.

"That... is the last mistake I'll ever make. I know you're a shard... and frankly, I'd have my rear handed to me if I even tried... so, I'm just gonna drop it."

B'arin knew that he wouldn't be able to face a shard. Especially one that can tear him apart in a second.

[member="Eralam"]