Private Crossed Wires

[Yula Perl]

Trying to remove Agricorp's hold on Denon was like ripping a tree from the ground, leaf by leaf. They were too firmly rooted both above and below, so you couldn't just keep pruning the edges. You had to get beneath the surface, inch by inch.

The Setting: A third-party warehouse contracted as a sorting facility for Agricorp goods. Recently compromised by Darkwire shadowrunners, who either had a previous agreement with the proprietors or made one themselves. Or maybe it's a decoy entirely, set up in one of the many identical duracrete faces that line the avenue.

The What: A speeder truck carrying a single crate of aurodium trim and bezels meant for some AgriCorp bigwig's Luxury 3000 space yacht. Not a whole lot of cargo, but enough. Shortly before departure, it received an update to the pre-planned route. It was scheduled to arrive at a warehouse across town, but hey, it's the busy season—we've gotta account for delays, and the other hub is full or something. The drivers note the change and shrug it off as something that came from upstairs at the last minute, again. The two guards with them wonder if they'll be getting paid overtime for the extra 30 minutes, and one of them unwraps a lukewarm convenience store burrito. They don't get paid enough for this chit.

The Cast: A handful of shadowrunners dressed as warehouse guards who've been tracking the aurodium practically since it left the forge. Standard issue gear dictates a helmet, so you can't see any faces. Stun batons are in full view, and everything else is hidden. Headlights from the approaching speeder truck reflect across the visor of the shadowrunner 'guarding' the loading dock door. It's go time.

The Interloper: Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

CROSSED WIRES
ROUGH JUSTICE vol. I
Issue #3 w/ bae Yula Perl

It stank. The most recent defence spending bill passed in the Senate was heating up the money printer like there was no tomorrow. Value of savings was plunging as inflation was turning up and the price of Aurodium, a natural hedge against inflation, should've been going up with it. It wasn't. A number of precious metal companies were reporting excessive supply, one of which was Denon's favorite Agricorp right there on the forefront. Hold a few people upside down on the 104th floor and you get the rumor mill running. Fake Aurodium.

But why? Who's got interest in devaluing the common man-- scratch that - who doesn't? Civilization runs on credit, someone had told Dag once. He had no idea what it meant back then but now? Lotta things were starting to make sense. Especially when you go through the Denon experience. So the only question remained - why? Spike prices up in the black market and sell it there? Sounded way too simple for something seemingly so big.

Well, Hugo Brene - the big shotcaller in AgriCorp - oughta know. Issue is, man's holed up on that fancy-looking, fortified as a fortress in the skies boat far south of here. A yacht of vice and sin, and there was no way he was getting a ticket for it. Not really the high-priced doll was he? There's other ways playin' dress-up could get you places. You just need to get through the stench first.

It stank. No, not the aurodium's sinking prices but the damn burrito Bubba out here decided to unfold. For all the grit, grim and bloodied knuckles of the streets and for all the glamor, gold, and ruthlessness in the high rises, it's a surprise how someone like Bubba exists on Denon. The man's a paradox. A simple guy with simple needs and wants and none of the tough, rough character corpo guards usually carried themselves with.

"You wann' a bite?" Bubba offers, catching the Knight's stare at the wrap.

"No... thanks." look, Huttaburger's classy junk. Corner shop ain't gonna cut it.

"More for me." he shrugs, then starts chewing the thing, humming a satisfied tone at its taste, "...say - what was your name again? Sorry, I can't see the badge without my glasses."

A blink, two blinks, three blinks, "I-- I'm three feet aw--" Dag shakes his head. Paradox, "Onasi."

"Tsk, Onasi? That's not much of a common name around here."

"I'm from off-world."

"Thought so." Bubba jerks his head at the raven-haired foreigner. Yeah, let's talk about disguise-- about style. Gold rim transparent aviators a hotshot smuggler or a cop down on his luck working guard duty on his off-days would wear. Difference is - these are special. A bit of tech, a bit of the Force - he looks practically the same but remains unrecognizable. Don't ask how, Dag's not really got an answer for it. So that's why there's a fake moustache and sideburns to complement his undercover work. Space truckin' lookin' guy and still somehow charming. Chiselled face, after all. It's a Kaze thing.

Truck finally stops just as Bubba wrapped the burrito back half-finished. Not a lot to hear from outside except muffled words. Truck's got some solid plating on it. Guess to compensate for Bubba's guard skills. No Arthur to tell Dagon they aren't where they gotta be, concerned the yacht would've had its security strip him naked for bugs and whatnot.

The back door opens with a slam and there's no suit and tie security goons waiting. Just black helmets and stun batons out to get ya. A warehouse setting in the background and Dag already knows he's been duped. Bubba's hands go up, the burrito flying off his hand, and the Jedi lunges from his seat into a dropkick at the nearest thug. He's onto the other with an elbow to the face as he tries to make sense of his surroundings. Warehouse, not too far from the City given the colored lights thrown through the windows, and helmet thugs outnumbering him as usual.

So what's the gameplan? Beat 'em up and get answers.

How challenging could a bunch of run-of-the-mill bandits be, right?

...right?
​

 

[Yula Perl]

Don't you hate it when the other guys are…actually competent? Yula sure does. She was ready, though— prepare for the worst, hope for the best. A little something she'd picked up from Dagon himself in the most ironic wisdom.

One stun baton to the back of his neck, and all 250+ lbs of Bubba was out cold before he'd even left the truck. If Yula had a moment to slow down, she might've felt sympathy about the unconscious, twitching pile of flesh on the van floor. Had to keep moving though, there'd be plenty of time to think over this night's escapade while she was weighing aurodium later. Bubba'd wake up with a nasty headache and a smattering of contact bruises, hopefully not much more.

The other guy, though—this ain't no ordinary guard. Makes up for Bubba's useless ass ten times over, and Yula doesn't want to stick around to see who'll win. She wants to leave with the aurodium and the Agricorp shills in the dust.

Mystery guard lands a solid kick on Gears and drops him almost instantly. By the time he elbows Killswitch in the face and shatters the shadowrunner's visor, Yula's pulling the stunned body of the driver out of his seat. The second driver—intel didn't say there'd be two—take a swing at her. She catches his fist and twists his wrist with such an acute sharpness that it snaps in three places, and his driving days are over. He joins his friend on the floor of the warehouse.

Yula turns the ignition and presses both palms to the console, revving the vehicle beyond what it should be capable of.

Time to shake Deputy friggin' Law.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

CROSSED WIRES
ROUGH JUSTICE vol. I
Issue #3 w/ bae Yula Perl

There's a really simple way of separating your common goon from the professional thug. The goon's got a one-dimensional line of thought. You come at him - clearly outmatching him and his buds - and he's gonna stand there and like a wild animal trying to fend you off even if the outcome seems inevitable, losing complete sight of the bigger picture, of what the goon really came here for. It's all knuckles and teeth.

The professional? She - yes, she in this case, hard not to notice the curves - was already piling driver bodies on the warehouse floor. It's training, it's muscle memory, it's a thousand hours and more of being in a tight spot with the odds against you, and learning from it - keeping the mind intact with what the big goal is. The big hit. It's not too different when it comes to investigating a crime - you always gotta aim for the bigger fish. Otherwise, it's just knuckles and teeth, and no actual work done.

A loud bang resounds across the warehouse and smoke billows from the exhaust - truck's hitting the red RPM for the first time, pistons are crying like a gym first-timer. Dag's gonna be swallowing the dust if he's not on that truck. If any of the other bandits were standing back up or not - he didn't pay attention, the disguised Jedi leaps with a force-enhanced jump straight into the professional, tackling her. It's a moment later when he realizes his mistake. There's hardly much space to grapple and quickly decommission her. As flexible as he is, Dag's still six three and she's way more nimble.

"Not on my watch, lady." ah, yes - episode 63, season 4, Deputy Law. The iconic line he uses every time he encounters a female nemesis - one that's always a lazy-writing, stereotypical femme fatale.

He tries to lock her arms, evidently struggling with the lack of space.
​

 

[Yula Perl]

"MOTHER F-""

Competent Guard with the stupid ass sideburns all but tackled her in the truck cab. Her foot was already on the gas and they peeled out of the loading dock and into the skylane, welcomed by a chorus of horns as they cut off some guy in his lambo. The truck jostled back and forth, nearly side-swiping an agile speeder bike that managed to swoop out of the way just in time.

It was hard to steer with one arm literally being twisted behind your back. The guard—big fella, not as big as Bubba but certainly more athletic—was trying to grapple her, a difficult task in the confined space of the cab. There wasn't all that much room, and he was taking up a lot of it.

"Get—mmph!" Distorted somewhat by the helmet, her voice conveyed a familiar irritation. Dag would be pissed if he found out what she was doing, but it wasn't just them at home anymore. There was an apprentice and an expectant mother to look out for, Jedi in hiding—credits couldn't come fast enough, even from fake precious metal.

In essence, she had to lose this persistent weirdo.

Leaning to the side awkwardly, Yula aimed to kick him in the face, hoping the pain would cause him to lose his grip on her. That, or he'd now have her by the leg. In all the flailing, she decided to go for something that would hurt. No, not there, something she had access to. With her free hand, she lashed forwards and ripped off his mustache. It came off cleanly, in one swipe, and way too easily.

That caused her to pause in surprise, as did the sticky residue on the backside of the fake mustache. "Whaa…" Someone was hiding something. She pulled them out of the skylane with another sudden turn, nearly taking out three civilian speeders in the process. It wouldn't be long before the red and blue would be flashing in the rearview, so she had to work quickly.

Edging closer to the duracrete faces lining the boulevard, she scraped the left end of the truck—the end with her pursuer—against the solid wall of an old brewery. The truck would be ruined by the end of the night, and if she couldn't pilfer it for parts, she'd leave it in a smoking heap. Might be better that way.

"Who are you??" She yelled over the shriek of metal on duracrete, trying to push him out.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

CROSSED WIRES
ROUGH JUSTICE vol. I
Issue #3 w/ bae Yula Perl

Huh?

There was something about the way she said MOTHER that surprisingly rang familiar. Something in the tone that even the vocoder had a hard time disguising. He knew he'd heard it before but for all the wrinkles in his brain toiling hard to find the connection, Dag simply couldn't make it. The distraction served the masked thug well, with him already struggling to find space where there was none, she... plucked his mustache right off.

The truck rammed its side into the wall of an old brewery, metal against metal sending scorching sparks at his back as he held with all the strength he could muster to remain inside the vehicle.

If the voice wasn't enough, the reckless driving surely was.

"STOP THE DAMN TRUCK, YULA!!" with a flash of his hand, the glasses were down on his nose and the magical disguise is gone. The irritation behind his voice drowned under the strain of keeping himself aboard.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

This was deja vu all over again.
​

 

[Yula Perl]

"STOP THE DAMN TRUCK, YULA!!"

She did.

Slamming on the brakes with both feet out of sheer surprise, Yula sent the truck whirling back into traffic. They cleared the margins of all six skylanes by a hair, horns blaring and curses being hurled from those who swooped just out of their way. A few bottles even smashed against the windshield, sending spirals crackling from one corner of the cheap duraglass. In response, Yula threw what looked like a fancy aurodium button out the window, aimed at the perpetrator. Or at least, who she thought had hit them with the bottle.

The nauseating spin and sudden momentum were enough to send Dagon in the opposite direction, away from the precipice of a death drop and right against Yula. With what little control she had left, the frantic Zeltron guided her stolen craft into a nearby alleyway. Several tweakers scattered when the speeder truck, now smoldering from several places, screeched into their hideaway.

For a moment they were alive. Yula thunked her head against the seat rest, breathing heavily.

When she opened her mouth the berate him, Yula cut off by the impending sirens. A shot of adrenaline hit the thief's bloodstream and she wrestled her way out of the truck.

"Do you have any idea what you've just done?" She snarled, clambering her way into the alley and yanking open one of the back doors. The crate had broken during the rough transit, scattering aurodium findings along the floor.

"I'm not dating a fucking Agricorp shill!"

Oh dear, what would all of the other thugs think?

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

CROSSED WIRES
ROUGH JUSTICE vol. I
Issue #3 w/ bae Yula Perl

"What I ha-- ow!" he groaned as pieces of window glass fell from his back. His partner, his lover, his other half had literally driven him through a dozen blocks on a grand theft auto rampage. Yet, she was the one mad?

"What I have done, Yula??" Dag barked, pocketing his sunglasses and following her to the back of the truck. The aurodium was all over the place. Very representative of their fiasco. "Do you know what you have done?? A whole operation down the drain. MONTHS of work on this case only for a bunch of THUGS to throw it to the wind!!"

It was ranting hours, "I was this close - this close - to Hugo Brene, Yula! Now it's god damn over, that's for sure." he crossed his arms, internally fuming, "Maybe I should start busting your whole ring of shadowrunning larpers first, then I'll have a clean straight to the big bad."
​

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula reared up in defense, wild hand gestures and all.

"Are you kidding me? I had no idea you were going after Brene, suddenly this is my fault??"

Weird thing was, they were both after Agricorp in their own ways.

"You know what this is?" She gestured wildly to the aurodium scraps littering the truck floor. "It was supposed to be this month's rent. You think grocery credits for four people just come out of thin air? Do you? No, because you don't care about the reality of the situations you people in, all you care about is being a big damn hero!"

Yula sighed in frustration, deeply from her chest. Her head thunked against the side of the truck when she spoke, quiet but angry.

"This isn't a holo, Dagon Kaze."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

CROSSED WIRES
ROUGH JUSTICE vol. I
Issue #3 w/ bae Yula Perl

"Oh, there. you. go. again. Excuses! I told you I can get more from the Jedi fund if needed and if not - I can take a daytime job if I have to." stirred up, he shook his head, "I don't get it, Yula. I just don't get it - why the hell do you insist on hanging out with criminals? What is it? The high? The what?" his recent misgivings and failures were leaking through, sharpening his tone.​

 

[Yula Perl]

The fething Jedi fund.

"Save that for the folks who don't have another choice." She hissed through gritted teeth before whirling around on her heels to face him. Until now, they'd never delved into what exactly drove her into criminal dealings.

"Because feth Hugo Brene an' everyone like him, that's why!" She hoped Bene's ears were burning. Bursting into flames, even. "They take an' take an' take from the little guy like fething leeches! Government and cops do feth all because they either don't care or they're in on it to, somebody's gotta fight back. You understand that, don't you Dag?"

She paced, rapping her knuckles absently against the side of the truck as she struggled to come up with more words to describe what was going on in her head. So many emotions and anger was only one of them. They were both worked up.

"I'm not bringing in what I used to since we had to, uh, rearrange the garage. Can only take about…half the jobs I normally do."

Yula glanced over her shoulder at Dagon, eyes lingering on his face, his posture. Something about his…way made it feel like this was more personal than usual. This hadn't been the first time they'd clashed in the streets.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

His fists were clenched, tight as the hold of corruption on Denon. He looked back at her but saw nothing. He heard her words but didn't listen. They were just part of the noise filling the crime-ridden air of the world. Life on Denon, its toll weighing down on her shoulders - it drowned under the blinding light of his service. Of what was right.

"Like this is so much better. Like one of your runners wouldn't have cashed this hit on a shot of S or some sick braindance. Like snatching these bricks of aurodium from the man who burns them for lunch's gonna hurt him any more than a mosquito bite would." his nostrils flared up, "I was so close, so close to bagging this scumbag, Yula!" he gestured with his thumb and index finger, "Ugh!..." biting his lip, he grabbed the illusionary sunglasses, and hurled them with the Force at the wall. They shattered into pieces like his patience.

"...I'm getting real tired of being tripped all the way... especially from those that should be on my side." his words were both cold and vacant from the events here. The Council, the Hyperspace War, Aeric, Krayiss, Denon, and so on - an inevitable conjunction of bitterness and discontent. A boiling point of issues he'd buried inside. Issues he'd tried solving by drowning himself in countless, sleepless nights of work, concealed by the self-righteous guise of duty.

The art of blaming yourself for everything.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

There it was—that vacuous stare, the one that meant he was tuning her out. She'd seen it before, most recently when he'd brought Jem home for the first time without warning. Out of every aspect of this interaction that angered her, it was being ignored that hurt the most. When things got rough, her protests were relegated to…nothing.

It made Yula wonder, beyond her the companionship, how much she was really worth to Dagon. She swallowed thickly, but her anger didn't go down.

"You knew who I was when we started this." And she knew who he was, but that didn't make this any easier. Frustration prickled in her eyes, a layer of sheen covering the white of her sclera while fists clenched and unclenched at her side. "I'm tired of you putting everything else ahead of me, like I'm just some…some asset."

Her eyes shifted to the wall, following the path of the glasses that were now in pieces. Since when did he have those?

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

When emotions take over, your mind goes dark. Coherence, rational thought, even truth, and honesty get all sucked away by the spiral of vehement desire to clap back like a caged animal. Especially when the person you wish to lay it all down upon's the one you see in the mirror.

There is no peace.

"And you knew who I was! Don't go putting that on me, Yula!" Dag tapped his finger on his chest in annoyance. He didn't bother denying her allegation. How could he? There where emotions boiled, facts evaporated. "What? So that's what it boils down to? Attention? Really?? Why don't we just call it a day and flee to the OutRim, hmm? You'd like that, wouldn't you? Be like the rest who cowered when they were most needed."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Cower in the OutRim.

He knew her weak spot, and his words and all that they implied scorched Yula down to the bone. She stared at him, open-mouthed, refusing to let the heat of her anger trickle down her face.

The alley, the sirens that wailed in the distance, the truck full of her next payday, it all fell to the periphery. Neither were their best self, nor could they step away from this mess just yet.

"Is…that what you think of me?" Her breathing quickened, her pulse pounded—first in her wrist, then her neck, then jumping all around. Something about her was frantic, threatening to…she didn't know what.

"Didn't I stand by you on Kreeta? And Sev Tok, and Csilla, and Krayiss, when you…"

"..."

Her jaw set before she could be swallowed by the painful memory. Her head lifted sharply, the motion jostling tears from her waterline that cut a path through her smudged mascara.

"I may be selfish and unruly, but I am no coward!"

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster​

Weak spots.

When you bag a bad guy and put him on the chair, finding their weak spot is essential in getting them to talk. But when you find it, more often than it's not a key that you just turn and let it all out. No. It's a crowbar. A rusty crowbar. You force it in and pull and pull till the whole thing's pry open and apart. It's an ugly business but often necessary.

But when it's the one you love you put on the chair, it's no longer ugly.

It's grotesque.

Zoned in and consumed by the whirlwind of emotions, Dagon opened his mouth for another battery but no words came out. The tears running down her pink cheeks left him without a voice. The grimace abated, replaced by regret. On his lips a wish hung, a wish to turn back time, to unsay what he did not mean... to turn his back on the Krayiss library.

"I--" there's a thousand thoughts running wild in his head and a thousand things he wants to say. A thousand issues he'd buried inside, only for him to have released them in the form of a hammer to batter his other half. The war, the streets, Jem, Valery, his brother, Kyric, names, places, the past, the present, the future... everything, everything that boiled simmered down and disappeared.

And the only thing that remained on the surface was them.

Just the two.

He looked up above to where the roofs touched the sky and his feet itched for liftoff. For duty. For escape.

To fly.

I am a man who can fly...

His eyes averted from the stars back to Yula.

... but it's this woman who sweeps me off my feet.

"I-- no..." he sighed as his shoulders slumped "...that's not... what I think of you."

"Yula--" cautious, slow and tired, he began closing the distance between the two, "--I didn't mean... I just... don't know what..." he stopped at arm's length, wary of touching her. A slap was the least he deserved. "...you're the bravest person I know, Yula and I... I'm... ...sorry."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

The moment she felt tears beading down her cheeks, Yula pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. Even the air around them seems to shift, anger and frustration diffusing into the grime of the alleyway.

She steadies her breathing, a trick Val had taught her to keep her head in heavy situations.

Breathe, in and out. Count to ten. Inhale, one. Exhale, two. Three, four. Five, six…

"I-- no..."
"...that's not... what I think of you."

Yula picked her head up, both eyes wide, her organic orb rimmed with moisture and red from the sting of tears. It wasn't as if she hadn't cried in front of Dagon before; they were close, closer than she'd ever been to anyone in this sort of way. They'd been vulnerable with one another, and he'd felt the blunt end of her emotions more than once. Now that the shoe was on the other foot—or hammer in the other hand, depending on how you look at it—Yula wasn't sure that she deserved to even have tears.

It was confusing. But he was here, approaching the raw instability of her passion with a cautious hand.

Yula sniffed, a reflex rather than a reaction, and used the sleeve of her jacket to rub underneath her eye. The urges to yell and hit were there, but the strangeness of the situation and the earnest regret from Dagon gave her pause enough for those baser desires to pass.

She reached out, less cautious, to stroke bits of glass from his hair. "Sorry about the….driving." Yula had always proclaimed that she was the better driver because she got them there quicker and took traffic laws as gentle suggestions at best.

When there was no more glass to pick out, her fingers instinctively drew small, slow circles against his scalp. The same way she did when they were nestled against one another in bed after a more...favorable encounter. "This past year has been…" A lot. Tough. Nearly impossible. Pick one—they'd all mean the same in the end. This aurodium bust had been the last degree in the pressure cooker for them both, and slowly Yula was making sense of what he'd left unsaid.

"…You really think that I'm brave?"

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Sorry about the….driving."

Dagon squinted in anticipation but a slap never came. Instead, her hand gently plucked away the bits and pieces of shattered glass from his hair. The adrenaline and heat were subsiding, exhaustion, regret, and pain filling in the vacuum. The wounds on his back from dragging his flesh across walls at eighty miles per hour were starting to bite and sting.

"This past year has been…"

...way worse than my back.

A year that often left me wondering why...

... why go through this hell with me.

And there's no answer, not a rational one, at least. Nothing an investigative work can find. Nothing I can deduce through cold, hard reason and sense.

Cause the answer lies in the depths of our hearts.

And it doesn't give a damn about logic.

"…You really think that I'm brave?"

"More than you know, pink..." the Jedi finally closed the divide between the two with a step, his hand reaching to cup her cheeks. "...more than you know." a thumb gently brushed tears and mascara away. "C'mere." he pulled her in a tight hug and he held her for dear life.

He said nothing more, leaving the words to the beats of their hearts until the sirens drew too close for comfort.

Those aren't cops.

Private security.

Meaning Bubba and the drivers were already up.

"Take whatever you can carry to your contract. I can buy you some time."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula's heart sank when Dagon flinched in expectation. That was…something she needed to work on. The way her anger and frustration came out sometimes wasn't fair to him.

The gap between them vanished, and Yula found herself squeezing Dagon back in a prolonged embrace. At some point, she'd nestled her chin into the crook of his neck, bringing the dark smudges around her eyes down even further.

Who knows how long they would've stayed there—not before encroaching sirens broke up the moment.

"Take whatever you can carry to your contract. I can buy you some time."

The Zeltron pulled back, stunned that Dagon Kaze, Man of the Law would even suggest such a thing. Was he…covering for her? Anyone else, and she'd assume this was a setup. Dagon knew better.

"You sure?" She didn't seem sure, but time was running on a razor thin line here. Reluctantly, she broke away from him, hand lingering on his arm for a moment longer before making her way to the half-open truck. Swinging the door wider, she crouched while scrabbling for the aurodium findings and stuffing them wherever there were pockets, finding a few makeshift ones along the way.

Glancing up to the buildings that surrounded them, Yula paused before making her getaway. She surged forward, almost stumbling, and grabbed Dagon's arm to pull him in for a sudden kiss. "I'll wait up for you." She murmured quietly against his lips, knowing full well that neither of them would get back home before dawn.

Yula turned, gathered the Force to her and ascended to the nearest rooftop—just as Dagon had taught her.