Can and Mouse

[Maou]

​

The recorder flashed, its light bathing a grisly scene in its pale light. As far as law enforcement went on Terminus there wasn't much good that could be said about them. Just about the only thing they did well was pretend to do their jobs, and so a buzz of local police/militia swarmed around body bags, evidence droids, and blood splatters as they tried to figure out what exactly had happened in this office.

The owner was a known sleemo, real deep with local gangs and crime families. The entire office was dedicated to those kind of clients and thus was a well taken care of establishment complete with security droids, goons, and even hidden light blaster cannons. But despite that...All of the people inside were dead and the droids busted beyond repair. One of the security officers passed by a woman, the owner's secretary and sucked his teeth.

"What a shame," he said, his voice slick with suggestive motivation.

And Maou watched it all. From a roof across the skyway from the investigation the large beastly man crouched, like an Atrisian Tiger ready to pounce. The crime war on Corellia had reached a fever pitch, spilling into public view with a recent bombing and so Maou had needed to work off some steam. A gust of wind caused his trench coat to billow, exposing the bright red armor beneath. He tugged at the collar of his coat to keep the thing from becoming too much of a distraction. From behind his helmet he smirked, his thumb toying with a switch. His vengeance on Terminus was a long time coming still...But it was the only place he could really let lose.

His thumb pressed against the detonator and the entire floor exploded, engulfing the upper and lower floors in flame.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Kaito Kiyoshi"]

It made sense that they would have set up a base here, lost items were rarely ever found again on Terminus. The files from Pantora had pointed her here. To this very block, and the very neighboring building of the one she was ascending. The repetitive jazz music that waltzed between four soft tones to a backdrop of wooden percussion and sea waves did very little to ease the mood. Didn’t help either that the speaker was old and busted after a lifetime of use and abuse. Amea felt her entire body tense up along with the sedentary push of the elevator floor as it slowly dragged her up several floors of this very particular building and towards her very particular destination.

A dirty bomb in a dirty place. The thicker the layer of irony grew, the heavier the ascent seemed. Amea wasn’t often one for superstition, but something definitely lingered in the air. It was hard to tell what that would have been, but it had been with her since the moment she stepped inside the apartment building. This wasn’t where she was hoping to go, but she also knew better than to throw a surprise party for a criminal of this rank without making proper preparations. The rooftop opposite his apartment would have to do in terms of planning her entrance and exit strategy.

And then, just for a second, the world grew quiet like an instant quiet before the storm. An ear-deafening silence pressed against her ears before it suddenly erupted into a loud yet oddly muted, thunderous boom that shook the building. There was no fire to accompany it and her carriage seemed fine. Amea felt the elevator continue to push her towards and the anxiety grew ever worse.

A ding called into the empty hallway of the top floor, a maintenance shaft and fire escape that led onto the top of the roof. Out of the elevator doors rushed one Amea Virou who darted towards a door that flew off its hinges with a tackle that had far too much power applied to it. As she rushed out onto the roof she saw only devastation, and it wasn’t just the building that had been set on fire either.

“No.” She exclaimed and grasped her hands at the sides of her head. “Fierf- no!”

Someone was here. Tall, seemed masked. She pointed towards them.

“You.” She said, slowly marching towards the individual, anger seething through her gritted teeth. “What happened?”

 

[Maou]

He sensed her before she came bursting through the door. Standing, his back still to her he took a deep breath through his nose and turned slightly to face her, his helmet's eyes glowing a menacing red and the wind from the growing inferno sending the edges of his trench coat rustling. She surprised him. If anyone he'd expected an Atrisian to find him here...Not this young girl. He felt the anger in her and steeled himself, muttering something remorseful in Atrisian.

"Collecting on a debt owed me and my family," he replied. Yes. Killing her would be best, and would send a message to whichever of the families had been fool enough to send her after him. His left hand, still partially hidden behind the bulk of his body at this angle, gripped the hilt of his vibrosword. His thumb pressed up against the guard as his eyes scanned her up and down. The tips of his fingers on his right hand sparked with dark energies.

"Your masters were foolish to send such a young girl to stop me. May your ancestors welcome you with open arms and curse the men who sent you to this fate." He didn't wait for a response. His movement enhanced with the Force he set upon her. He gripped the hilt of his blade with his right hand, waiting until he was within striking distance to pull the blade from its scabbard. As it cut the air, the low hum of the vibrating blade drowned out the roaring fire that lit their secluded rooftop.

Fire services were on their way and in the distance more sirens could be heard approaching. This needed to be handled swiftly.
[member="Amea Virou"]

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Kaito Kiyoshi"]

She had come too far to let it all die now. As the building had gone up in flames, so had the last trail of the investigation into the bomb. This person, this supreme gehlak had single-handedly thrown it into disarray. Normally she wouldn’t have concerned herself with it, but these were extraordinary times and an investigation that she had put far too much of herself into to simply quit now.

Debt? Masters? Amea shook her head, still not letting her watchful eye fall away from the man. She knew far better than to let her guard down. After all, people rarely dressed as a demon without good reason, no matter how bad said reasons could have been. As he gripped at the hilt, got into a well-practiced swing that seemed to want to dissect her, Amea stepped to the side, her hands raised into an equally well-practiced defensive position.

If this was how he wanted to go about this then she wouldn’t be the one to stop. She had taken out men just like him before and learned that it was almost always a matter of keeping them going, to have them grow weary or cocky enough for you to land that hit that took them down.

Tiny forcefields covered her fists with a vague shimmer. She considered her first move. Usually it would have been to try and disarm them, but to say the man had an actual advantage was just a little bit of an understatement. He had the layout of the area, and he had a sword. That made for just about two things Amea herself did not have.

And so rather than strike she backed further away to merely look at him and get a feel for who it was that she would be fighting. There was something to him with that demon mask. She had no knowledge of who he was but the faint traces of cybernetics across his entire body was hard to miss. As much as she would have loved to disrupt what was going on and cause a quite literal system shock, that kind of maneuver also took a focus she could not afford to split from his onslaught just yet.

“I was sent by no one.” She said, trying to buy more time. “This doesn’t have to end like this.”

 

[Maou]

She dodged his strike. Telegraphed as it may have been, it had come out so quickly that he didn't expect to miss. When he saw the vague shimmer around her fists he wondered if she had some sort of new tech in use but quickly let that train of though die. He shifted into a relaxed stance, recovering from his whiffed attack and stared intently at the woman.

It was unlikely that she was actually sent by no one. Who had or hadn't sent her wasn't the crux of the issue though. He'd been seen back here on Terminus. And that he could not abide. As far as the scum here knew, Maou was long gone.

But maybe he was being overly cautious. He did just blow up one of the family's book keepers. Despite this he didn't lower his weapon.

"Say I believe you...Why are you here then if not to kill me?"

[member="Amea Virou"]

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Kaito Kiyoshi"]

The glow of fire and the smell of dust began to spread towards them accompanied by a rising smoke plume. The winds whipped the locks of Amea’s hair against her cheek as she stared the man down. She knew better than to let fury get the better of her. She knew far better than to let that bubble up but she was at the end of her straw, and this man right here was carrying a lighter.

“He had information I needed. I had to make plans.” She said as her teeth began to grit. “Something big is going to go down if this trail goes cold, countless of lives will be lost, but that doesn't really concern you, does it?.”

Amea kept her fists raised in a guard.

“Who did he work for?”

 

[Maou]

“Something big is going to go down if this trail goes cold, countless of lives will be lost, but that doesn't really concern you, does it?.”

Another gust of wind blew over the roof, causing his coat to billow again. The tall man, or droid, or whatever he was cocked his head to the side, as if contemplating the question posed to him seriously.

"No," he said curtly, "I do not." He didn't bother answering the second question as he made his move. He wasn't concerned with the people of Terminus as far as requiring warm bodies to fulfill his ambitions. Even then he had established himself once again on Corellia. Terminus was just a canvas for his revenge now.

Maou sank into the Force, his lust for the death of those enemies fueling his rage and his power. The large man moved faster than he looked, propelled by the Force, and with great strength he brought down his vibrating blade, cutting through the air and hopefully through the girl before him.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Kaito Kiyoshi"]

The breeze turned cold as the man opened his mouth to speak. His words burrowed into Amea’s ears and mind to bash against the floodgates that she had maintained. He didn’t even answer the real question either. He made his move, raised his sword for the skies and brought it down towards her. On instinct she let her hand move up to knock it out of its trajectory. The forcefield around her wrist made contact, but the force was far too great for her. Her shoulder twisted, her arm forcing her into a hunch as a brief but sharp pain burned against her cheek and shoulder.

Amea backed off, her hand gently touching against the cheek to feel the warm blood that had begun to run against her skin. Driplets tickled against her cheek and jawline as the fury that burned beneath began to boil against the better judgment of her nerves. The gritted teeth tightened, as did the fists of her hands.

This man was not the only one who could use the force to his advantage.

Amea locked on with an anger that she had tried to conceal for so long. Anger at herself, anger at the man, anger at everything that had gone wrong since a long time before this investigation had even started. Amea had liked to think that she was a good warden. In fact, Amea had once liked to consider herself a real damned good warden. Raised by a Jedi, molded by Merrills, daughter of a false god of the Outer Rim, and sister of a former Jedi General of the Alliance.

The need for lies and deceptions were gone. Amea Virou had taken the hit to the shoulder but it was Kaili Talith that bled.

There were no words, no smart comment about the situation they were in. She wanted this man to feel the overwhelming sense of defeat that grew on her. The overwhelming sense of defeat that he inadvertently had put upon her. She wanted him dead, and she would see to it that he came as close to it as she could manage. The force signature around her grew larger, the concealment no longer necessary for what she was trying to do.

A fist set off to smack the sword out of the man’s hands and even the playfield before she made for a kick to his stomach, she too digging into the force to enhance every move she made.

 

[Maou]

The man stood again, taking an open stance. With a satisfied grunt and a flourish of his blade in one hand he spun the blade clean of the girl's blood. He inspected the sword a moment before looking back at her with those glowing red photoreceptors. Was it some sort of technology she was using to keep her blade from cutting her? With the amount of power behind the vibration motor he should have cleaved her arms in half.

No...It was something else.

And then he understood as her pressure increased causing him to take a step back. Was that fear? Or maybe caution. He grimaced behind his helmet and took a ready stance-

The blows came faster than anticipated. He was only barely able to keep his grip on his sword and the kick sent him onto his rear. He grunted but dug into the Force to kick himself back onto his feet. A hand touched his stomach gingerly. Even through the armor, with the power of the Force behind that kick he could already tell he was starting to bruise.

His left hand fell to his belted holster and he brandished a heavy blaster pistol and let loose a flurry of red bolts in her direction. Her...abilities let stop his sword but what about blaster bolts?

[member="Amea Virou"]

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Kaito Kiyoshi"]

With confidence came overconfidence. There was an instant sense of satisfaction that spread throughout as Amea whacked the blade out of his hands and even a greater one when she felt her foot crash against his armor with a dull thud. But she got cocky, the grin on her lips fading in an instant as a heavy bolt threw her back and into the nearby billboard with a power that was hard to really describe.

There was a bruise forming on her entire back, her shoulder still bled and the back of her head throbbed but she couldn’t quit now. She focused on the anger, the lingering belief that she had come here to do the right thing for the greater good of many others. This man, this creature was little more than an obstacle. The sound of metal groaning under the force shrieked into the dark skies above as the rain began to fall as a cold reminder that it wasn’t over just yet.

She should have absorbed the shot. She had the ability, but she hadn’t focused. The torn metal shifted into a position before her and began to grind against the ground towards the man like a mobile impromptu cover.

“Who. Did this man. Work for?!” Amea screamed behind the cover as she approached the masked man again. “Tell me, goddamnit!”