Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Private Edge of the Abyss

Ana Rix Ana Rix

He gave a nod of his head to that and there was a chance for a distraction.. they would and should be able to distract them as he was moving. Two blades slipping from his gauntlet but he was looking at it more. "A distraction, Seastone can likely think of something good." He said it and the four lekku of the twi'lek twitched as she looked up. "I can." Mistral looked over at her. "Of course... I have all these unique plans and ideas and now you get the chance to go all out... I want to see what you can really do." He said it and looked at her as he spoke placing a hand on her shoulderr. "This is your moment Seastone a chance to go all out and you can show how awesome you are." He spoke and motioned with his other hand for them to be encouraging as Aya gave a nod. "Yes this is all you."
 
Ana went very still for a moment. Her eyes shifted slowly from Mistral…to Seastone…then back again, as if she were watching a slow-motion accident she couldn't quite stop.

One eyebrow lifted.

"…I don't like how confident you sound about that."

Her tone was quiet, dry, but not unkind. Just…cautious.

She adjusted her grip on the knife, then exhaled softly.

"Alright."

A small nod.

"Distraction is good. Controlled distraction is better."

Her gaze settled on Seastone, steady and thoughtful.

"So before you go all out…"

A slight tilt of her head.

"…define 'all out' for us."

There was the faintest hint of a smile.

"Preferably the version where we're not part of the explosion."

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

The twi'lek looked at Ana and she spoke. "Explosions.... I don't have an explosives to make explosions... though maybe I could... oh oh oh idea now hear me out. Most bodies here have fat even if you work out and that burns... so what we do it make some torches and set them on fire... once it gets to their bellies the fat will ignite and they will become a pile of ash... no one can find a body if it is dust in the wind." Mistral looked at her. "I don't think we have enough time to burn all of them that quietly." He said it and the twi'lek was looking. "ALright then, we are going to do this the old fashioned way... we're going to get some shovels and tunnel under their positions until we can get inside the buildings and then we come up behind them and sneak attack them."
 
Ana just… stared at Seastone for a moment.

There was a visible pause where her brain tried to process everything that had just been said, failed, and then tried again.

"…I'm sorry—"

She blinked once, slowly.

"…did we just go from burning people into ash to digging tunnels?"

Her voice stayed low for stealth, but there was a very real thread of distress woven through it now.

She dragged a hand briefly over her face, exhaling through her nose as she tried to reset.

"We are on a time-sensitive infiltration…in the middle of a storm…on rock…"

A small, helpless gesture toward the ground.

"…and the plan is to start digging?"

She looked at Mistral, then Aya, like she was checking if this was somehow normal.

"I'm all for creative problem solving," she added, quieter now, "but I would very much prefer a version where we don't spend the next six hours becoming part of the terrain."

A breath. She steadied herself, slipping back into something more grounded.

"We just need noise. Something quick, something controlled, something that pulls them away from that building."

Her eyes flicked back toward the courtyard.

"No firestorms. No excavation projects."

Then, softer, almost pleading, but with a hint of dry humor: "…please."

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

Mistral was listening to the plans and he nodded with Ana and Aya as mentally he was thinking he might have made a mistake saying Seastone could do this. The twi'lek might think outside the box for solutions and they could come in handy sure but her out of the box might be a little to out of the box if they were not careful. "SHe is right Seastone we need to be able to move fast and make a lot of noise for distraction." He said it and the twi'lek looked at them. "Noise... why didn't you say so... we can totally make noise just give me a moment and I'll distract them for you." She said it as she held a hand up. "I got this dude." SHe said it and waited a moment as she looked at the large shark woman there.

"I've always loved your harem. Remember me." She said it and ran off to distract the guards outside. The storm lashed against the walls as the wind was screaming through the with the rain falling. Seastone moved quickly as Mistral was watching her go and was about to say something as she crested the parapet with a fluid grace that belied the treacherous footing, her bare feet finding purchase on the slick stone as if she had been born to such places. The wind caught her immediately, whipping the azure skirts of her dancer's wraps against her legs and tearing at the four lekku that trailed behind her like the tails of a comet given flesh.

She laughed a bright, defiant sound swallowed almost instantly by the gale and spread her arms wide as if to embrace the storm itself. With a flick of her shoulders, she sent her left lekku curling forward across her collarbone while the right pair swept backward, streaming horizontally in the wind like banners unfurled for battle. She began to move, not with the frantic energy of someone fleeing, but with the deliberate, hypnotic rhythm of a performer who knew exactly when to command a stage. Her hips rolled in a slow, sinuous figure eight as she advanced along the wall, her lekku counterpointing the motion one coiling tight against her spine, another lifting to brush against her cheek before snapping outward with sudden, theatrical force as lightning split the sky behind her.

The thunder that followed was her cue. "Hello!" she sang into the teeth of the storm, her voice pitched to carry, rich and warm and utterly incongruous against the howling wind. "Hello, hello, hello!" She spun, her wraps flaring, and both sets of lekku followed in a helix pattern, twisting around each other before snapping apart like released springs. A guard on the battlement below looked up, his blaster lowering a fraction. Seastone saw him, grinned, and doubled down. She planted one hand on a crenellation, vaulted onto the raised edge of the wall itself, and began to walk it like a tightrope, arms extended for balance.

Her left lekku wrapped loosely around her forearm while the rightmost twined around her waist, the tips curling inward like curious serpents. Rain streamed down their length, making them gleam like polished gemstones in the intermittent flashes of lightning. "I've got a little baby, but she's out of sight," she belted, pitching her voice against the wind with the instinct of someone who had sung in cantinas where the crowd was louder than any storm. She hopped down from the wall, landing in a crouch that sent her lekku sweeping across the stone in a wet fan behind her. "I talk to her across the telephone!"

She rose slowly, letting each vertebra articulate as she came up, her lekku rising with her like a reverse cascade. Now there were three guards watching, their confusion palpable even from a distance. Seastone winked at them actually winked and began to move faster, her feet finding a rhythm that the thunder seemed to echo. She twirled, and her lekku became a blur of motion, centrifugal force sending them spiraling outward in a perfect circle before she stopped dead, planting her feet, letting them all slap wetly against her back and shoulders in a controlled collapse that framed her face like a living headdress.

"Every single morning you will hear me yell," she sang, cupping her hands around her mouth and tilting her face skyward, letting the rain run down her cheeks. Her lekku slithered forward, two draping over her shoulders to hang against her chest while the other two rose behind her, swaying like cobras hypnotized by her own melody. "Hey Central! Fix me up along the line!" She dropped her hands, spun on her heel, and began to kick through puddles with the exuberance of a child, sending arcs of water spraying toward the fortress walls. Her lekku followed each kick's trajectory, snapping outward with her leg, then coiling back as she recovered. The chorus was coming, and she could feel it building in her chest like the storm itself.

When it hit, she threw everything she had at it. "Hello! Ma baby!" She leaped onto a low parapet, balancing on the balls of her feet, her arms thrown wide. Her lekku shot outward in four different directions, straining against the wind like tethers anchoring her to the world. "Hello! Ma honey!" She dropped into a deep lunge, one hand splayed against the stone, the other pressed to her heart as all four lekku swept forward to curl around her extended arm, clinging to it like vines. "Hello! Ma ragtime gal!"

She was moving again, faster now, her feet slapping against the wet stone in a rhythm that seemed to make the lightning pause to listen. Her lekku never stopped twining, parting, curling, snapping, coiling, uncoiling each motion a deliberate punctuation to the nonsense lyrics she poured into the storm. She grabbed a rain gutter, swung herself around it, and let her lekku wrap the pipe as she spun, using the momentum to launch herself into a sliding kneel that brought her to a halt directly above the growing cluster of guards. "Send me a kiss by wire," she crooned, pressing her fingers to her lips and blowing, her lekku rising behind her like a peacock's fan, the rain making them shimmer. "Baby my heart's on fire!"

She lay back against the stone, her lekku spreading beneath her in a wet, tangled halo, and laughed as a gust of wind sent her wraps fluttering up around her thighs. Far below, hidden in the shadows, she knew Mistral and the others were moving. She just had to keep the eyes up here. "Oh baby," she sang to the lightning, to the thunder, to the baffled guards who had never seen anything like her in all their years of watching this miserable wall, "telephone and tell me I'm your own!" She rolled to her feet in one fluid motion, her lekku coiling behind her like springs releasing, and began the whole ridiculous performance again from the top, her voice cutting through the storm like a beacon. "Hello, hello, hello."

Mistral continued to stand there as Aya looked on and she motioned with a hand. "Go go go now." She said it and started running ad Mistral shook his head but he was moving wioth a blade out as he held it but wasn't throwing or slashing just yet. They were distrracted and trying to catch the twi'lek as he was moving and Aya spoke. "Well that was certainly something distracting."
 
Ana watched Seastone go, and for a long, uncharacteristic moment, the galaxy's premier information broker was rendered functionally speechless.

She watched the performance ignite with the singing, the spinning, the sheer, brazen audacity of a woman turning a literal storm into a stage prop. Ana blinked once, then again, her mind momentarily stalling as it tried to categorize what she was seeing.

"…I—"

The sentence died in her throat. There wasn't a string of words in any dialect from the Core to the Unknown Regions that could fully encapsulate the spectacle. Another flash of lightning arced across the sky, illuminating Seastone mid-spin like a chaotic deity.

Ana exhaled slowly through her nose, the sound a mix of exasperation and weary marvel.

"…Okay."

A beat passed as she recalibrated.

"That is definitely…a distraction."

The disbelief was still there, a faint vibration in her tone, but it was being rapidly overwritten by the cold, pragmatic logic that governed her life. Because, absurd as it was, it was working. The guards weren't sweeping the perimeter; they weren't checking the shadows. Their heads were tilted back, eyes glued to the sky.

They were looking up.

As Aya gave the signal, Ana's gaze shifted to Mistral, her expression hardening into the professional mask she wore like a second skin.

"We're really doing this."

It wasn't a question. It was the sound of a woman accepting that the plan had officially crossed the line into madness, and her only choice was to be the most efficient madwoman in the room.

Then, she moved.

She dropped low, her silhouette bleeding into the dark as she advanced with a controlled, predatory grace. Her attention became a rhythmic flicker of checking footing, marking sightlines, calculating the exact moment of exposure. Her grip on the knife was tight but measured, a lethal constant in a world of variables.

"Remind me later," she murmured, her voice barely a ghost of a sound as they slipped into the deeper gloom of the fortifications, "to never doubt her again."

There was a micro-pause. The briefest hesitation in her stride.

"…Or at least, not out loud."

Then the wit vanished, replaced by total focus. She kept pace with them, a quiet shadow moving through a world distracted by thunder, letting the beautiful chaos above buy them the silence they needed to bleed the enemy dry.

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

His movements were more automatic... mostly cause he was still mentally processing Seastone's distraction. He really had to think before he made plans a pre-planning of the plan to something... maybe pre-plan the pre-planning session for the plan. That might help or drive everyone crazy. Either way it made more sense as he and Aya were moving with Ana while Seastone having finished and distracting the men was running as several gave chase with the others going towards lights and speeders to try and hunt her down. The large shark slipping into the shadows and she was picking a few off so the three of them could get inside.

He moved quickly though from the wall to the building as he didn't so much jump down as slide and grip the rrooftop swinging himself into the doorway quickly. Boots smashing into the face of a guard as he went down after running full force into him. Mistrral would have to call it when reporting orr retelling skill but luck was amazing sometimes when he used it to stop his momentum and roll to the side catching the guard next to him unaware enough to drop him quickly. He cleared space for the others while working quickly to secured their limbs and mouth but also move them into places that were covered and obscured.
 
Ana followed him in without a second of hesitation, her transition from the stillness of the shadows to the fluidity of motion appearing almost instantaneous. She slipped through the doorway on his heels just as the first guard went down; the heavy thud of the impact echoed through the corridor, a sound far louder than she would have liked, but she didn't let it distract her.

There was no turning back now.

Her gaze swept the room with clinical precision, bypassing the downed bodies to map the space's structural reality instead. She catalogued the entrances and calculated the sightlines, identifying every variable that could pose a threat in the critical seconds to come. As Mistral neutralized the second guard, Ana dropped low beside him, her hands moving with practiced, efficient grace as she pulled a strip of fabric from her pack. She secured his wrists and gagged him in a single, continuous motion, tightening the cloth just enough to ensure silence without obstructing his breath.

"You call that luck," she murmured, her voice a low, steady vibration that barely carried across the floor. "I'm calling it momentum."

After a final, decisive tug to ensure the knot was secure, she dragged the body deeper into the gloom, adjusting his position until he was completely obscured from the doorway's line of sight.

"We've got maybe a minute before someone realizes the silence is intentional," she added, her eyes already darting back toward the corridor. Her hand hovered over the guard's belt for a heartbeat before she mirrored the motion of a predator, flicking the comm device off and sliding it free from its holster. "Comms are active, and they're going to expect check-ins sooner rather than later."

She looked back toward Mistral and Aya, her expression an unreadable mask of focused calm as she lifted the small unit between two fingers. "We either move fast enough to outrun the alarm, or we use this to buy ourselves the time we need."

She let the silence hang for a beat, a silent prompt for a decision. "Your call."

Without waiting for the answer, her attention had already shifted forward again, her entire being tuned to the frequency of the building as she prepared for the next move.

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

He was looking at her and gave a nod. "Try for the stall but we are going to be running, if there are tunnels down there we are going to want to be mobile as staying still long enough means we can get boxed in and if there are a lot of rooms we can be herded." He was looking at it while he was moving towards the pathway down into the tunnels but breathed in and then outwards for a moment allowing his body to loosen up but he had some of his throwing knives before he was taking off. Eyes trained on the stone walkway but he scraped the wall and marked it as he was moving with a quick swipe with the direction back towards the entryway they came thicker and the way they were running lighter. He listened to the tunnels with a nod of his head as Aya was moving with him so that they were able to go quickly.
 
Ana didn't hesitate.

The moment he moved, she was with him. Falling into step just behind his shoulder, her pace light but controlled, careful not to outpace him or drag the rhythm. Her eyes tracked the mark he carved into the stone, committing it instantly, mapping it the same way she would a system layout.

"Got it," she murmured under her breath, voice low and steady. "Fast in, faster out."

Her gaze swept the tunnel ahead, then flicked briefly to the walls, the ceiling, anywhere shadows might break wrong.

"If they're using these regularly, we'll see patterns," she added quietly. "Wear on the stone, airflow shifts…anything that tells us which paths matter."

She adjusted her grip on the small tool still in her hand. Not a weapon, not really, but held like one anyway.

"And if they try to herd us…"

A slight pause as her eyes narrowed, thinking ahead.

"…we break pattern. Don't let them predict direction twice."

Her attention shifted briefly to him, just long enough to confirm she was aligned with his pace and intent, then forward again—focused, alert, already adapting.

"Lead. I'll track and call anything off."

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

He gave a nod as he was running and didn't stop as a pair came around the corner. He was moving and jumped up with two knees going to the face. of one.. the sound a crash but he was able to ride him down tot he ground and roll as Aya tackled the other with her shoulder going into the mans gut as she was moving. She nearly fell over with him but was still going into the roll as she didn't fully like it. "I prefer being on a boat as least there I have a cannon." She said it and Mistral was moving with a hand for Ana to be able to follow before he threw a blade at an approaching soldierrs. Eyes canning the room he had come from but he grrabbed a helmet and thrrew it into the keypad they had put on. "Might work."
 
Ana didn't slow.

She slipped past the bodies as they dropped, keeping tight to Mistral's movement, eyes already scanning ahead and then snapping to the keypad as the helmet struck.

"Crude…but effective," she muttered, stepping in just long enough to glance at the panel. "If it jams the input, it buys us seconds."

Her gaze flicked back down the corridor, tracking movement.

"Keep moving," she added, falling back into stride with him. "They'll reroute fast."

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

He gave a nod of his head as he was moving and the small look as the doors were ignored for the moment. HE was running and more searching as the end of a hallway came out into a larger room. The monitors that were set up looked more like a rebel base but then there was plenty of other things. He could see the pen area with an energy cage as they had some people inside of it. Weapons, spice crates around but also some bodies of selkath. "Looks like we missed the party." He said it and the people in the cage looked scared as they were moving and Aya walked over. "It is okay." SHe said it while going for the controls and the one guy spoke.

"No we are good here, those things come back we want to be safe." MIstral looked over as he was investigating the bodies. "What do you mean?" He asked it and the man spoke with a look. "THey came out of the walls, pale and large the others got off some shots but mostly they were dragged into the shadows." He said it and was pointing as Mistral looked at the wall.. and didn't see anything but he knew that didn't mean much. He was checking it when he stopped and motioned with a hand. Driving his sword in and prying as a small crack appeared and he kept at it until he could fit hands in there and then his back to push open.
 
Ana slowed as they entered the room, her attention tracking from the cages to the walls and then to the monitors. She wasn't just reacting to the horror; she was cataloging the room, syncing her pace to Mistral's as she processed the layout.

"Not a party," she muttered, her voice low and steady. "A feeding ground."

Her gaze lingered on the Selkath bodies for a moment before shifting to the section of the wall where Mistral was already focusing his efforts. While the surface appeared solid, she followed his lead, looking for the same inconsistencies he had clearly already spotted.

"You're right about the hidden access," she said, moving to cover his flank while he worked. "If they're using the walls to move, there has to be a layered network behind this. Maintenance shafts or smuggling routes, most likely."

She glanced back at the cages, then turned her full attention to the seam he was prying open, her hand hovering near her kit in case he needed a second set of eyes on the mechanics.

"And they're probably still using it," she added.

As the crack began to split wider under his strength, she shifted her stance to mirror his, bracing herself. She wasn't giving an order, simply sharing the same grim realization they both likely held.

"If this opens," she said quietly, her voice tightening with shared anticipation, "we should assume we won't be alone on the other side."

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

He gave a nod of his head to that as he forced it opened and Aya was looking at the bodies. "If they got attacked in here it is likely whatever guards the ruins and auntie is not here to say we are alright and to be left alone." She said it as the notion of hem walking through the ruins before they hadn't touched anything and ignored the buildings... and now they were in here trying to force it opened. "Yeah I am thinking that and it is only going to get worse." He managed to get it opened as it was dark in there with a look over at the pair before he drew his blade with a nod of his head. He was going in and debated the light again as it would help as much as announce them as they were coming. His hands rested for a moment though as Aya released the cafe. "In case they come back you can at least run."
 
Ana didn't move right away when the opening gave.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark, not trusting it, not trusting the silence either. The air felt wrong. Too still, like something had already passed through and was waiting to pass back.

"Light helps us," she said quietly, already reaching to dim the output on her small tool until it was just a faint, controlled glow. "But not enough to announce us from across the tunnels."

She stepped closer to the breach, staying just behind Mistral's shoulder, her focus shifting between the opening and the walls around it.

"If they're using this as a network, they won't just come from ahead," she added, glancing briefly back down the corridor they'd come from. "They'll loop."

A small breath, steadying.

"So we move quickly, stay unpredictable, and try not to get comfortable."

Her gaze flicked to him, then to Aya, a silent check-in before she angled slightly toward the opening.

"After you," she murmured.

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

He agreed while he was moving and allowing himself to breathed in and then outwards... focusing when the scents of the tunnels came to him. The smell of the sea was there as was the sound of rushing waters. He was orienting himself in terms of their movement and he knew they had to be slightly near the wall but also the cliffs... under enough that they likely had an escape passage that would be able to be used or worse. He looked when he stopped and there was something at him feet while he was checking and his hand came away with blood in the faint light. He moved but was checking it as the tunnels were going and opened into a larger canal as the water was rushing but he looked at it going out into the storm. "Either drains or escape tunnels."
 
Ana didn't answer right away.

She stepped past him, slowing just enough to glance at the blood without stopping. Fresh enough to matter. Old enough to be trouble.

Her gaze lifted as the tunnel opened into the canal, tracking the flow, the structure, the way the water moved with purpose. Not natural. Designed.

"Both," she said quietly. "Drainage…and an exit."

She angled slightly off the opening, listening past the rush of water, eyes flicking along the reinforced edges.

"Controlled flow. Clean channel." A brief pause. "Whoever used it last knew exactly what they were doing."

Her eyes shifted once. Toward the storm outside, then back into the tunnel behind them.

"Question is…did they get out" A beat. "or are we about to meet what followed."

Mistral Mistral
 
Ana Rix Ana Rix

He gave a nod of his head to that... if they had went through there he was looking at some of it and it went outside. If there wasn't some sort of platform they could use to get down it was like jumping from the cliffs into the sea below... not ideal when he looked back. The sound of the water while he was crouching and allowing himself to focus. The sounds filtering through his head when he was working to try and track whatever there was around them. He didn't have the force but he had instinct.. and maybe some luck but he was moving up the channel as it was going under the fortress. So that he could see more of it and the ceiling arrched to show more chambers but also channels that wrrapped around and through parts of it. The rainwaterr coming down while in the center was a larger garden and he moved around on the edge. The fires in sconces was there but he was looking for threats.
 
Ana didn't follow him straight down the center.

She drifted off his path instead, keeping to the edge where the stone was worn unevenly by water rather than foot traffic. Her gaze moved constantly, not searching for threats, but for structure. For repetition. For anything that felt… intentional.

The garden caught her eye, but only briefly. Too visible. Too centered.

Her attention shifted outward instead, tracing the channels as they wrapped through the space, the way the runoff split and rejoined, how the arches above weren't uniform.

Not decorative. Adjusted.

"This wasn't built clean," she said quietly, more to herself than to him. "There's too much overlap for it to just be drainage."

She slowed near one of the sconces, watching the flame for a second. Not the light, but how it moved. What fed it? Then her eyes lifted, following the lines upward, mapping the way the space connected rather than how it could be fought through.

"It loops," she added, softer now. "Not randomly. On purpose." A brief pause as her gaze dipped to the water again, tracking how clean it ran despite the storm.

"Whoever uses this…" her tone stayed even, thoughtful, "…they're not relying on one way out." She finally glanced toward him, just for a moment. "So if something's moving in here, it already knows where it's going."

Then her attention slipped back to the structure, to the seams and quiet inconsistencies, as if she were reading something just beneath the surface. "I'd rather figure out the pattern before we guess the path."

Mistral Mistral
 

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