Bad for Business

[Onley Xiangu]

Coruscant
Late Evening

It had taken years to get to a point where he didn't want to strangle those in the highest ranks of his crew. Trial and error had taught him the qualities he should value in those he kept around to help run things. Of course the lackeys and grunts still karked up, but finally - finally - Onley had put together a team of men and women he was confident could run the ship of their enterprise as smoothly as something like it could sail.

Even so, things happened.

“This is Kresh. Shipment’s down, somebody’s hitting it from all directions.”

Onley nearly broke his transmitter when he clenched his fist. Somebody had to have snitched - that was the only way for some idiot who'd grown too large a pair to attack what was a nearly non-descript shipment of spice. The good stuff, the great stuff that the undercity of Coruscant would shell out their entire week’s paycheck for to get just a sniff.

“We'll be there in two. Kill as many of them as you can. I want to send a message when we're done.”

He made it a point to never be near his shipments during transport - at least not near enough to be connected to them if by chance they were intercepted by some galactic authority. Distance was an alibi, an ostensible argument that he ‘had nothing to do with it Officer’. His men were well-trained and usually got things where they were going without him, but lately Onley had taken to trailing shipments with a second team due to hits from another cartel that had grown bold as of late. Perhaps sampling their own product.

It was the only way to rationalize their stupidity.
The Sith Knight made his way towards the market where the idiots had thought fit to make a scene.
No doubt there would be innocents caught up in the fray.

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

Surprisingly he didn't often find himself near Coruscant.

Last time was... when it was occupied by the Sith, yeah. Few months before the Alliance launched its invasion and they needed quality intel prior to the fight. Took him weeks, before he managed to infiltrate one of the criminal organizations making their ways around Level 1201. Would have been easier but the Coruscant Rotary Club -- not that anyone knew it by that name, besides those in the know -- kept a tight rein on things. Even when the Sith were on the decline the CRC kept their claws tight in the flesh of the Coruscanti underworld.

Had to do a few nasty things.

Nothing pleasant.

But his intel had allowed a cadre of Jedi operatives sneak their way through the underbelly of Coruscant into the main Sith Temple of the new Valley. That helped him sleep at night, if barely.

Now Locke was back and this time around it was for a different reason, even if the execution would be the same. Backwater worlds were being loaded up with guns, spice and other crap, little do-nothing gangs suddenly packed to the brink with military-grade weapons and enough drugs to put down an entire continent's worth of Zeltrons without even trying all that hard.

Wasn't his problem, until it started crossing borders into Alliance space.

Picture Locke's surprise when he tracked down the point of origin: Coruscant, that nasty, diseased old place. They should put it down and out of her misery, but there was money here... a symbol to the greatness of the Galaxy. But you just had to ignore the filth down-under.

He was eating at a street vendor's food stall when the shooting began.

Right on time.

Most people fled, Locke paid his bill and silently looked around the corner of the stall. There they were, faces obscured, but the marks were known to him. There were several approaches he could take here, but at the end of the day joining in... would be a risk. So, Locke did the only thing he could do; took out a cigarette, lit it up and started smoking in comparative safety of his little corner.

Enough view that he could watch, not enough view that he'd be shot through the head.

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Maybe it was ingrained habit after so many unsure years at Silas’ side, or simply rejection of the ways of Jared Ovmar, but Onley worked best in the midst of chaos. Though he held on to the strings that prevented his business from unraveling - a tight ship considering what one might assume from the outside - he didn’t mind the uncertainties of The Life. He accepted chaos as an ironic inertia and battled on. It was a lot easier to deal with problems when you weren’t whining about why they had to happen.

By the time he showed up, said chaos was in full swing. Ten men filtered out from behind him, joining the fray to beat back the attackers that chose to stay the course rather than cut and run when their supposed meal-ticket fought back. Blasterfire lit up the street, near blinding as the level’s ceiling reflected the cacophony below. Civilians were running in all directions to escape the slaughter. Fights between rival gangs were no mystery to those who lived in the lower levels but statistically it was unlikely most would ever be caught up directly in the crosshairs.

Poor buggers.

For the most part Onley blended in, favoring a blaster over any more unique weapons or abilities at his disposal. There were rumors of course - whispers that the Taigaa were more than the usual type of gangsters making Coruscant’s streets even filthier. But he liked to let them remain rumors. Fear was always more potent when the mind was allowed to fill in the blanks.

However when he saw that one of the crates had been blown open, its precious contents soaking in to puddles from leaking water mains and dissolving like the potential credit flow, Onley felt that rage he rarely controlled beyond a thin leash. The Force screamed in his ear to warn him of danger to the left and before thought even really came in to the equation that terrible emotion lurched up his left arm and exploded in a brilliant crackle of lightning. The rival cartel member that had been coming for him couldn’t even scream as his muscles seized and his flesh melting, his eyes boiling in their sockets. Onley’s face was lit in the blue-purple glow, bared teeth shining.

_____________________​

As the electricity lit up the square, a few cartel members went the route of stirring up even more trouble to use as a shield for a getaway. The majority of them hadn’t signed up to deal with that sort of retaliation, but on the way out they would make the biggest scene they could.

Two of them honed in on one side of the street, knocking down stands and tearing through stalls - heading right for a brown-haired stranger observing the mess.

[member="Elliot Locke"]​

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

Archie.

His real name was Archibald.

A twisting scowl etched its way at the corner of his mouth as the thug saw the goons running through the stalls. Saw how late it was, before they even got to his personal stall. It was either play or get made, it was either kill or be killed in the crossfire. That was the entire shindig when it came to being a SIS agent.

More often than not you were stuck out in the middle of nowhere without any back-up.

You were outside your jurisdiction, couldn't call for help and just needed to go with the flow. The familiar grip of his taser blade felt comfortable in his hand, as he gripped it tight. The first one pushed over the stall and came face to face with Archibald, who followed by planting the butt of his taser blade in Mook #1's face.

Sparks flew past the pummel and took out the lights of the goon. He was gone, at least for the moment, but Archie wasn't done for today, not by a long shot. The second goon was already coming in swinging, no time... no time. The agent took the punch to the shoulder, glancing it off by turning a bit around his axis point. His own fist connected with the thug's throat. Gurgle. Fffff. Music to the angels and devils listening along.

Locke blinked twice and now he was on top of the second goon.

Fists bloody.

Mouth bloody.

The goon, let's call him George... his face gone.

"Feth." He got out, before rolling away from the bloody slurry pool and onto dry land again. Hands brushed against the rough leather jacket of George, cleaning off the blood as best as Elly could.

Dirty, gotta get some water.

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Onley was in his own world, one which needed to have the trash removed pretty desperately. In a place where it piled up so quickly it seemed he was always attempting to remove it. But perhaps that was his personal addiction.

Eventually most of the attackers had either somehow escaped or were dead in the streets in various states of recognizability. “Pull them together in the street,” he shouted to his crew, turning his back on them as they scattered to start collecting corpses to pile together in the middle of the marketplace. He set his attention on a few that had dropped there in the beginning of the fighting. Springing his knife open in his hands, he settled down on the balls of his feet and grabbed one of their heads to set to work.

It was a few minutes later when one of his men caught his attention, pulling his attention from the message he was writing.

“Boss, we found one of the civilians. Seems like he took a couple of the Goyans out,” said the gangster, his fist around the arm of a dark-haired man spattered in blood. “Pretty well too, from the looks of it.” The two rival gang members in question were dragged by to be added to the pile, one of them with his face crumpled in to a shattered skull. Onley appraised the stranger: well-built but unassuming, attractive but not in a way that screamed ‘pay attention to me’ - though that seemed by design. Turning back to his ‘message’, he gave the stranger thought as he curled tattooed fingers around flesh and started delicately teasing the face off the skull of one of the dead men.

“So, you always stick around fights and murder people if they chance by you?” he asked the stranger casually, pulling the skin around the entire face and skull of the dead man off with a slick pop before carrying the grotesque treasure and hanging it on a spike stuck through the top of the pile of corpses. Now that was art.

[member="Elliot Locke"]​

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

Catching himself in the act Elly stopped rubbing his knuckle.

Most of the blood was gone now, but they still felt dirty. Hurt too. There was no doubt in his mind that they would be karked by the next morning. Except if he got his hands on some bacta to heal the little cuts before that. Maybe then he'd pass it over and just settle for some bruising, but Locke was used to pain by now. It didn't feel good, but it was a familiar companion.

No friend. Just the strange uncle who keeps slumming on the couch every few weeks or so.

"Depends on if they destroy my favorite foodstall, jump into my face and start waving a blaster around." Elly retorted just as casual, but his eyes were following the edge of the knife as it worked. Cut, cut, snip and snap, edged off and the face was gone.

Just like that.

Was that what made an identity? Just a face? Maybe a name? Or was there more to it than that. His fist tightened slightly and Archie coughed.

"I'd prefer not to be added to the art-piece, tho, kinda used to the face I got, right now. It works, you know."

He wondered if he'd have to break the atrisian's face as well. It was a pretty face, pretty enough that he'd be a bit sad if it was shattered. Just a bit sad. But that was the way of the Galaxy and the particular brand of Nar Shaddaa. Sometimes you just had to break a few skulls to make an omelet.

 

[Onley Xiangu]

He nodded in a way that said ‘fair enough’ when the man gave his reason for seeming unshaken by his recent murder of two men who’d tried to murder him. It still didn’t settle exactly kosher for Onley, but then again - he had no problem with murder for no other reason than something miswired in his head. He wasn’t unique in that and he may have just found another like-minded individual. Either way, he let the brunt of the issue drop for the moment.

Admiring his handiwork as he took a step back to look at the skinned face spiked on top of a pile of enemy corpses, a smirk drew on to his mouth at the stranger’s comment about wishing to keep his. Kinda used to the face I got. It works, you know. The Atrisian Knight turned his head to look at Locke in full, dark eyes skimming his features in a way that wasn’t entirely lascivious, but also was far from neutral. Predatory.

“That it does,” he retorted, crossing his arms so the muscles corded under sea-serpent tattoos on his forearms. The moment passed however as he considered the man further.

“How would you feel about getting back at the people who destroyed your favorite foodstall? Pay’s good, revenge is even better.” He declined to offer an exact figure, leaving it to the stranger. Crime hardly had a payscale or average salary, but anyone who spent time around the life would be able to estimate a figure for a job. A small, subtle test.

Some of Onley’s men were kicking a head around in the street, laughing as it tipped end over end in their grotesque game of soccer. Tigraa was still expanding, its territory small relative to some of the enormous criminal syndicates the galaxy boasted. But that Onley Xiangu owned the ground he walked on in this part of Coruscant was obvious. He stood without fear in the middle of a marketplace where he’d seen fit to massacre the competition, surrounded by people loyal to him to a fault. He did not worry about repurcussions. The credits he had started to make off clandestine deals running firearms for small gangs on populated planets, shipping spice, moving organs off Maena - it had all made somewhat invincible in the territory he’d carved out for his own.

And those that got too bold had to be reminded of that fact.

[member="Elliot Locke"]​

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

Pay's good.

Pay would be crap, it always was when you first started out. But Archie didn't care. Archie wasn't in it for the money, at least not as the end-all term of it. No, Archibald was in it for the knife's edge. For the blood dripping and streaming. For the bile rising up at the back of his throat every time he took the stab and the cry crying out at the front of his mind.

Couldn't get much better than that.

"Money's good, revenge is better." There was acid in there. Just a little edge, just enough to suggest there was more to the food-stall story than the stranger first mentioned.

From his breast pocket of his shirt he got out a pack with cigarettes. Took one out, lit it up and let it burn. He eyed up the tattoos, the rolling muscles, before nodding with his pack. An offering. You smoke with a man, give him a blunt of your pack and it changes the perspective.

That moment on you two aren't just stranger.

You inhaled the same smoke, tasted the same blood, different, see?

That was Archie's take anyway.

"What's it you thinking?" He mumbled from between the smoky stick, while calmly studying the alleyways. There were people watching, always people watching, but this felt different. Not the usual gawkers. There was calculation in those far-eyed orbs and Locke's instinct started trickling at the eye of his awareness.

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Onley didn’t have his mother’s ability to read minds. Maybe he should have asked Ovmar for lessons but at the end of the day it was easier not to owe that man for anything more than he had to. In compensation he’d learned to read other people down to the letter, quietly and invisibly. It wasn’t foolproof, but it helped. (Seems at ease. Accent, but not specific to one place. Traveler. Loner? Almost certainly. Yellow stains at the fingertips. Smoking isn’t part of an act at least.)

The man’s taste for revenge didn’t prove much, but it seemed genuine.

The Atrisian pulled a cigarette from the box, using his own lighter. He didn’t smoke out of habit but he certainly wouldn’t deny one offered like the extension of a hand for a shake. Smoke curled lazily in the controlled atmosphere of Coruscant’s lower levels, adding to the smog.

“We know who they are,” he explained, unsure why he was explaining this like he and the stranger were old associates. “Some start-up harassing larger groups to try and get a foothold. Feel like someone would have told them it was a quicker method of suicide but I’m getting tired of them trying.” He walked a bit around the pile, making sure the message looked just as he wanted it. “We also know the level they mostly work out of, though where on that level we aren’t exactly sure. My plan is to go down there, have a good time and see if we don’t notice a bit of something going on when the news reaches some of their people.”

Always looking for a reason to kick back.

When he reached the stranger again, he held out his hand for a real shake as if to solidify the offer of the cigarette. “Onley Xiangu.”

[member="Elliot Locke"]​

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

Locke listened.

But he watched as well.

Not at what there was, but what there wasn't. The man in front of him seemed calm, eerily so considering what his hands had been doing just a few moments ago. Sociopath? Maybe a psychopath. In truth he didn't have much experience with psychology, if he had the time and opportunity, he could probably have kidnapped this guy and brought him back to a SIS black site. The boys in the kitchen would probably enjoy working on this one.

"Archie Sult." Archibald, but he hated that name, made him frown just thinking of it. "Xiangu, eh? Relationship with?"

That complicated matters.

He never assumed that this little shindig was gonna involve a Sith, especially not the son of gorram Matsu Xiangu. She wasn't Zambrano, no, she was worse than the Black Iron Tyrant. Because she was quiet. Illusive. Zambrano liked to make a show, but Xiangu enjoyed sending a message.

Feth.

As they shook hands, something caught Locke's attention. Behind Xiangu, far off in the alleyways. There it was again. The back-end of his mind had caught it prior, but assumed it wasn't yet time.

Instinct went from trickling to gorram firing.

Sult yanked at Onley's hand, pulling him down, just as a shot rang out from the alleys. The bolt would have pierced straight through his back, but instead burned through the side of his shoulder and sending him spinning. He fell to his knees, grimace tugging at his mouth and pain flaring.

"Feth." A growl from between his teeth.

More shots. This hadn't been a clean wipe-out mission, this was a gorram ambush, taken them right when they were comfortable in their victory.

 

[Onley Xiangu]

Most of the time mentioning his surname didn’t cause a problem. A galaxy as large as theirs combined with his Mother’s subtle nature didn’t lend itself to the same instant recognition as a name like Zambrano. But there were - of course - those either plugged in or simply observant enough to recognize the Atrisian by-word for ruin. It was another tick in Onley’s growing page of notes about Archie Sult.

“Yes. She’s my Mother,” he answered, figuring honesty was the best policy here.

Besides, it hardly mattered when his sense in the Force immediately wound up from nothing to a cacophony. Before he could move he felt Archie’s hand on his pulling him down, an ill-timed and inappropriate joke crossing his mind before he settled in to the situation at hand. The smell of burnt flesh reached his nostrils, dark eyes pulling over the wound in Archie’s shoulder.

Why did he care?
It was one thing to duck and cover in the line of fire, but he’d made the effort to help Onley too.

All questions for later, a dark set pulled at the Sith Knight’s features as he reached for the fabric of Archie’s shirt near his uninjured shoulder and pulled, getting them both behind cover long enough to get their bearings. “Funny, they’re not usually this smart,” Onley said in irritation as he heard those of his men who’d survived the first wave coming together to fight back. He had faith they could hold the attackers off while Onley and Locke went for something a little more definitive.

Looking over the lip of the overturned cart he’d gotten them behind, he assessed the scene. Looking up over the wide alleyway from which the ambush at begun, a thought popped in to Onley’s head. “You a good shot Archie?” he asked, nodding his head towards the waterline that took a turn to run down the ceiling of the alley. If Locke could break it open enough to send the pressurized water spraying down on the ambush, Onley could fry them in one fell move.

[member="Elliot Locke"]​

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

"Push rats long enough and they start to pick up a trick or two." Sult growled out, while trying to ignore the pain flashing at him from all sides in the moment.

Why the kark had he saved Onley Xiangu? Dead would have been easier. Dead... would have turned this entire operation into a potshot with the three-eyed tiger gang into his meal. But if Sult was anything, it was an animal who lived by the moment and in the moment, this time around it meant forgetting about the kark-up and living with it.

Then again.

Probably meant he would have an easier time getting close... closer than they were even now.

"Better with my knives." Sult responded frankly, before following Onley's gaze and nodding. "Yeah- though, might be better to keep one of 'em alive."

"Questioning."

The scent of his burned flesh gave him a taste in the mouth.

Nothing good was gonna come from here, but at the very least he could get his pound of flesh after this crap. That wasn't just Sult talking.

From the back of his belt he got out a gun. Vanir disruptor, beautiful thing that packed a fethton of punch. Probably enough to demolecularize a grown man in one shot. Sometimes he was a little bit tense when thinking of the firepower just hanging off his belt every moment of the day.

Just a bit.

He took a quick shot from over the kart, before ducking just as fast when a plasma bolt came whirring down the lane.

"They really want you dead, lad, probably didn't like what ya did with those faces."

 

[Onley Xiangu]

He nodded - it was a fair point. To get an informant would greatly reduce the amount of later leg-work required to squash these idiots. Though his tactics for disposing of rivals was suitably gruesome, Onley didn't much believe in torture if it was simply to extract information. Sometimes it was necessary, but he preferred to make his legend loom so large through tales of the bodies he left behind that someone might find giving him what he wanted to simply be easier. Torture was just a waste of time he could be using to do something else.

“Alright,” he said, eyes on the weapon the man revealed. Nice. Also not something you'd see the Average Joe toting. The mystery got deeper but there was no time to chase it. “I'll get the lucky survivor. And THEN you give me water,” he said, disappearing over their cover before there could be argument.

The men who hadn't been killed in the first shots of the ambush were pushing back. Onley picked his way carefully through the fray, moving between points of cover as quickly as he could without approaching suicidal risk. And then the alley was upon him, a chokepoint that the opposition had sent enough men through to control. Considering his options, Onley made him a target, his lightsaber igniting both to draw men towards him and show Archie where he was in the fray. Like moths to flame, those rival members closest came running.

One.
Two.
Three cut down.
A rhythm.
A meditation.

And the fourth he reached for, wrapping his fist around the top of a bulletproof vest and yanking him around the wall with saber to his throat. With any luck, Archie could see from there but just in case Onley reached out. The mind he found was confusing but he spoke to it anyway.

“Got one.”

[member="Elliot Locke"]​

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

One nod and Onley was already off into the fray.

Brave man or a gorram mad one anyway, Locke wasn't sure which one was better, but then he reminded himself this one was a forcer. Those always had it easier than the regular joe, what with their lightning streaming of their tips, the mesmerizing mind tricks and other crap they could do on every other day. It was annoying at the worst of times, but this time... he was kinda happy they had one on their side.

He wouldn't have jumped into the fray himself at any rate.

Woulda been a death sentence with that screen of plasma fire screaming past their ears. A lightsaber ignited in the distance- it was the kind of sound you don't forget after hearing it for the first time, suddenly the plasma fire diverted itself from their position.

They saw a forcer and thought he was the only threat that mattered.

Locke's disruptor roared and burned straight through a support bar holding up a little veranda which carried two mooks. The veranda went down with a groan of twisted metal and wood shattering, two seconds before they would have loaded up Xiangu with plasma bolts from their automatic rifles. Fething forcers and their insane desire to die.

Then a voice filtered through his focus, Onley's voice. Karking hate when they do that.

"Get clear then." He had no idea if Onley heard him, but he thought as hard as possible into his general direction.

Ten seconds later the waterline was being burned through with a barrage of disruptor fire. Water exploded next- some of the smarter mooks immediately knew what was going to happen next, seeing as they had witnessed Xiangu's usage of lightning a few minutes ago. But some of them just grinned at each other, before resuming their fire on their position.

Give 'em hell.