Seasonal Fun at the Red Ronin [TSC & Friends]

[Mercy]

Tag: Vestra Tane Arris Windrun
Spies: Acier Moonbound

Everything was going well.

Vestra was handing out the datapads, Arris was being her usual charming self, everything was coming together nicely. Somewhere in the next few months Mercy would finally get the blood-drawing that she had been wanting all this time. All they had to do was-

Oh, shit, that's a gun. A gun in Arris' hand. A gun in Arris' hand currently aimed at Vestra's head.

Mercy blinked... and slowly, but surely, took her glass of whiskey and carefully extracted it from the table they were sitting on. Which was the right call because a moment later Vestra was ducking and then exploding out of it towards Arris to hit her back. She just about managed to catch the shit-eating grin on Vestra's face as she handled her business.

Now that's my apprentice. Mercy thought proudly as she got up, sitting down on the top edge of the bar so she had a better view of the battle.

"Throw a left hook, Ves!" Mercy yelled encouragingly. "Arris, get your arm around her neck, you will get a better grip!"

It didn't matter to Mercy that none of her running commentary had any bearing on the duel itself.

She was having way too much fun watching the girls beat each other to shit. She grabbed some pretzels from behind the bar. "Hey, you got a refill? This might take a while." Mercy asked to the cowering bartender behind the bar.

 

[Arris Windrun]

Opponent: Vestra Tane
Others: Mercy | Acier Moonbound

Vestra ducked, and Arris raised her gun. Her eyes followed the younger woman until she disappeared beneath the table.

Then, the table came back up, flipped towards her.

But Vestra was wrong: Arris was an augmented freak, sure, but she sure as hell didn't survive the Kaggath, including the Emperor's Hand, a renowned technopath, because of her cybernetics - though they did help a lot.

Just like now.

The cyborg raised a bent leg and caught the table against the bottom of her foot almost as quickly as it was flipped. Her cyber legs were built for strength, and all that tension built up in the pistons around her knee had to go somewhere.

Oh, right, an assumption had to be corrected: Most of her lethality came from instincts.

Arris redirected all that energy with a prompt stretch of her leg, kicking the table back towards Vestra while she was still behind it. You put an obstacle in front of Arris? Bet. She sent the damn thing flying.

She stood up after that - gun in hand, though not aimed.

If Arris were in a better mood, she would have appreciated Mercy in the audience, but sadly, breaking a loud-mouthed Chandrilan took precedence.

 

[Vestra Tane]

Opponent: Arris Windrun
Others: Mercy | Acier Moonbound

Arris redirected all that energy with a prompt stretch of her leg, kicking the table back towards Vestra while she was still behind it. You put an obstacle in front of Arris? Bet. She sent the damn thing flying.

Beautiful...

A table to the face served her right for making assumptions. Mistakes in your threat assessment got you hurt, at best.

Except Vestra didn't feel like she'd just learned a lesson.

She'd wanted this for ages.

Any petty fury, any bitterness over Arris's snide remarks, it all melted away as Vestra whipped her head forward in a headbutt, using the thickest portion of her skull to deliver a telekinetic strike to the oncoming hunk of wood that split it in twain.

All that was left was the thrill.

She stood, nerves on fire, in a constant state of controlled seizure, head pounding, heart beating with a rapidity that only-barely escaped classification as a medical emergency. Lightning arced across her body, great gouts of aggression made manifest.

For a second, a split second, she felt like who she was meant to be.

At some point between giving herself a minor concussion and springing to a full stand amidst the table rubble, she'd drawn and ignited her lightfoil, held gracefully in her left hand, and now it was pointed at Arris, and Vestra had assumed a southpaw configuration of her favorite steady, central ready position. Sword-arm steady, but not stiff, blade held at the center line.

And still, she was smiling, while blood spilled down her face from the gash across her forehead.

"C'mon, babe. Let's dance."

 

[Arris Windrun]

Opponent: Vestra Tane
Others: Mercy | Acier Moonbound

Table splinters flew across the space like shrapnel, all from Vestra's head smashing it to pieces.

Arris reholstered her weapon at some point during.

She walked forward, towards Vestra, slow and deliberate, almost more like a battle droid than a person. She didn't hesitate for a second when Mercy's apprentice ignited her lightfoil. Cyber eyes didn't even glance at the weapon; they stayed locked on Vestra's face - it was her eyes they followed.

Vestra smiled; Arris glared.

"C'mon, babe. Let's dance."

Then, the cyborg stopped and stretched a half-open hand towards her. She pulled at Vestra's throat with the Force, intent on dragging her into the waiting grip.

"Only person who gets to call me 'darling' is Mercy, and that's because she calls everyone darling."

The same went for 'babe.'

 

[Vestra Tane]

Opponent: Arris Windrun
Others: Acier Moonbound Mercy

Options.

Vestra had a handful of options.

They raced by in her head. Lightning bombs. Dismemberment. Telekinetic duel. The potential counters, also, soon played out in her head. She'd seen Arris fight; if she wanted to come out of this looking half-decent she'd need to go for killshots. Anything less than that didn't have a chance of stopping the cyborg. Worse, it was disrespectful.

The plan she chose was, seemingly, to relent; she allowed herself to be flung into Arris' grip, and coughed when her throat forcefully impacted against the metal of Arris' palm.

And still, she smiled. Still, she stared at Arris with these wild, manic eyes, full of something that was...closer to kinship than it was to rage.

In the scant seconds she had before the Dark Horse threatened to crush her windpipe, Vestra raised her one remaining hand. She pointed at Arris' face. She made a finger gun.

She had one of these in her before it started to slow her down, she figured. Maybe closer to ninety percent of one. It wouldn't be like Chandrila; the Red Ronin didn't have enough juice, even full of Sith, to pull off what she'd pulled in a war zone. And it required commitment. Anything else, and she had other tricks she could pull at the same time, but this wasn't easy. It wasn't like breathing, not like her lightning so often was.

It was still her best shot.

"Hey. Arris. Bang."

And then came the wave.

 

[Snees D'ner]

Objective One: Party
Gillem

The music followed them up.. just enough to keep the room moving. Downstairs it was chaos. Up here, it was more in control. From somewhere beyond the wall came a burst of noise.. unmistakably violent. Snees didn’t so much as flinch; yeah, whatever lesson was being taught in the next room wasn’t his problem. He learned long ago that survival meant not always being curious.

The space around them was occupied. Dancers stretched across a low couch with a couple of clients who mattered just enough not to be bothered. They looked up, then dismissed the Jawa.

Snees gave them the courtesy of not acknowledging them back. He moved past them and crouched near a cabinet set into the wall. A thick bag came free with a tug. The smell hit first. Brosi always smelled like quiet before a storm. From there he worked methodically. Scale out, it was calibrated with a thumb flick. Two ounces split into two separate bags. After sealing them they were slid across the low table toward the man.

Then a shock rattled the room hard. Snees cursed under his breath, glowing eyes narrowing as a hiss slipped through his teeth.

Does the Covenant need a lone gunman?

Oh, they always did.

Out loud, he clicked his tongue thoughtfully.

“Covenant’s always got use for extra guns. Specially the kind that don’t get jumpy, don’t get loud, and don’t start thinkin’ they’re the point of the story.”

He leaned back against the table, arms folding loosely. “I got plenty of people I don’t like too,” added, almost offhand. “Many problems that’d look real nice solved from a distance.”

Two fingers pointed toward the bags before extending his palm outward for the man to pay up.

 

[Arris Windrun]

Opponent: Vestra Tane
Others: Mercy | Acier Moonbound

Vestra was dragged along her feet by the Force, and her neck fell perfectly into the cyborg's grip. The metal hand squeezed hard, within a few of Vestra's excited heartbeats from crushing her windpipe completely.

If Arris hadn't been so fixed on killing the manic Sith, she might've listened to that nagging whisper saying something bad was about to happen. Vestra's free hand came up... A finger gun?

The air between them exploded like a tidal wave compressed through a metal tube, aimed right at the cyborg's head. Energy expanded so rapidly within microseconds that the bow shock melted through her synthflesh, before the stronger force hammered into her skull like a railgun. It destroyed her right cyber eye instantly, tearing apart the armor past that, and even blew away bone and tissue within.

Or... No, not exactly. Upon closer inspection (should Vestra be capable), there was something different... something very wrong with this picture. Woven through flesh and bone was something else, something synthetic - like wires or tendrils. They all led back to one thing: Arris's co-processor, exposed for the first time since it was installed, attached to her greymatter more like a parasite than an implant.

Worse yet, the Dark Side screamed from the device in a way that eclipsed Arris's own presence in the Force.

"When I look...It's like I'm staring into a dark void. Absent of Light...It's unnatural. Even the Sith I've came across has some form of Light...But it's as if all you are is Darkness...As if you've bathed in it. Yet...at the same time, I don't sense it from You. I sense it from part of you."

It was exposed - vulnerable. Terrified. Alive.

And it projected fear, that of a cornered predator, and baptized the room in it. One would have to shut oneself out of those passions or risk letting them in; of course, that might've been a strategy all to itself, at the risk of petrifying insanity. All the while, Arris held onto the woman's throat, then threw her across the room.

The Dark Side emanated from her in pulses - a cocktail of primordial passion, feelings as old as the Force itself. She used this energy to strip metal from her own arms, exposing the internal mechanisms, to rapidly repair the hole in her face. It fit against her like a makeshift prosthetic.

No one had made Arris feel this threatened since Allyson Locke , and just like then, Arris had lost her fucking mind.

 

[Gillem]

GILLEM

He worked efficiently. Deft fingers removing the scale, calibrating, weighing the product and then bagging. The next room began pounding and thudding and finally a bang. Gillem didn’t bat an eye. If it were really something aimed to damage this next room something would have come flying in.

More than likely it was a deal that went sour. Expected in this kind of place, spies, deals and schemes always seemed to fly about on Nar Shaddaa. It seemed this high end club was no stranger to it as well.

The bad slid across the table towards Gillem, his eyes partly tracking it. Now to complete the transaction. The Jawa waited expectantly and Gillem offered him a smirk as he reached into his coat pocket for the credits.

“Thinking you are anything like a protagonist will always lend you to trouble.”

He placed the credits in his hand. Sure Gillem was not the nicest guy out there, but even he knew sliding money over to someone with their hand out in payment was just bad for business. His interest piqued at the sound of a possible job. Some possible mercenary work was right up his alley.

"Especially the nosey ones."

A chuckle left him.

“In my time living on Tattoine for a few years, I learned pretty early on, ya don’t piss of a Jawa.”

He sat down and held the two bags up, looking over them closely as his mechanical eye broke down its components, making sure it was not laced with something else.

“Vengeful little fethers. But I learned there are two main types, and correct me if I am wrong.”

He inhaled some more of his cigarette before flicking the ash into a nearby tray.

“You piss off a Jawa, you will either wake up with your ride disassembled and up for sale in parts, or your home is riddled in blaster fire and slugs from mercenaries.”

He leaned back some, eyes squinting as he looked at him.

“I certainly hope you are one to hire mercenaries.”

He then looked at his slug thrower he was lugging around.

"Though, you yourself could be the mercenary they send for. So if you are asking for one. I shudder to think of who slighted you and how. The what for don't matter."

Snees D'ner​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa - Red Ronin Club

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Raised voices bled through the wall, sharp and fast, no longer contained by structure or intent. Whatever planning had been happening fractured. Ace caught the change immediately and dismissed the rest just as fast. That was it. Eavesdropping was over.​

​

Once people stopped talking and started fighting, there was nothing left to learn. He didn't need to hear the specifics to understand the shape of it anyway. Arris and Vestra weren't aligned. Shared the same ambition, sure, but from opposite directions. Clearly. This was the kind of partnership that only held until someone pushed too hard.​

​

He let the wall go and brought his attention fully back to the booth. Ghruna was watching him again, waiting.​

​

"The Dark Side Elite." Ace said. "Solipsis's dogs. Dark Jedi, fallen Knights. They don't answer to anyone but him. On Chandrila, Lysander helped me finish it."​

​

His piercing dark eyes stayed on Ghruna. Almost like he was relishing in the memory.​

​

"I took his head."​

​

Ace leaned back slightly, posture easy, voice low. The brief life in his eyes receded once more.​

​

"Malthyl sounds… honest." He added. "Messy. But honest."​

​

Then the air punched. Not an explosion... something worse. A sudden, violent displacement above that rippled through the structure, rattling glass and sending a tremor through the booth beneath it.​

​

Ace didn't flinch. He let it pass through him without reaction. When the noise settled back into chaos and cheering and confused shouting, he was already steady again, gaze returning to Ghruna as if nothing had happened.​

​

"But..." He said calmly, as if the building hadn't just been reminded who was sitting upstairs. "You've made me curious. What does go on at a Maldrani party?"​

​

Ghruna | Arris Windrun | Vestra Tane | Mercy​

 

[Vestra Tane]

Tag: Arris Windrun
Others: Mercy Acier Moonbound

Vestra slammed against one of the lounge's walls, and tumbled to the ground.

She coughed, and rubbed her throat, already turning purple, and then...

She puked. Bile bubbled up from her gut and forced its way up, up out of her throat, spilled out of her mouth along with the remains of whatever she'd been eating earlier. She flexed her free hand, and called her lightfoil back to her grasp, as it rattled and flew back from where she'd dropped it.

Her grip was shaky. Feth. She hadn't had nerves in forever, not like this.

The waves of fear, of rage and hate and frustration, they seeped deep into her bones. She soaked in them, but that wasn't what had rattled her so much.

Arris was...the Sith had struggled to explain her feelings on Arris, especially to herself.

Admiration. Kinship. Competition. Something deeply, unhealthily parasocial in there, too, though she'd never admit it. They hadn't been friends, she reckoned, not in any meaningful sense. But still. Arris saved her life on Kattada. They had drinks together. She dealt with all of the Academy chit Vestra couldn't be bothered with. Hell, Arris even liked her stupid, stupid crash missile idea.

Vestra wasn't having fun anymore.

She smiled again, and blood seeped from her gums to mix with the vomit trickling down her face. Her sword-arm steadied a little, and she brought it up into a guard again.

"Guess you don't wanna call it, huh?"

 

[Ghruna]

Acier Moonbound

Ghruna felt the shock roll through the structure. The booth rattled. Glass clinked. A fight that no one moved to interrupt was finally something reminiscent of home.

She watched Ace instead and the way he let it pass. That told her more than the words about Chandrila had. Still, the story of his victory interested her. She felt a flutter of excitement. A strange tension, like she needed to go and run for a mile.

"So you fought this elite warrior who answered to Solip.. Soliss..."

She shook her head. Basic was actually her third language after maldrani and massassi sith and this particular name caused her trouble.

"...and you delivered the killing blow."

She grinned, exposing fangs. There was more light in her gold eyes.

When he asked again about Maldrani parties, her expression shifted.

"I did not intent to make you curious," she said sharply. Then, after a moment, she continued.

"We do not call them parties," Ghruna said. "They are gatherings. After hunts. After wars. After births. After deaths."

She leaned back as far as the booth allowed, which still was not far, and set her feet more firmly on the floor.

"People tell stories of their battles. There is fighting," she continued. "Not arranged. If someone is angry, they test it against another body. If they are weak, they learn. If they are strong, they are remembered."

Her tail moved once behind her, slow and deliberate.

"There is food cooked whole. Meat torn apart with hands. People eat and drink until they cannot stand straight." A pause. "Then they stand anyway."

She glanced at him again, eyes steady.

"There is... coupling." She shrugged one shoulder. Her embarrassed had her gaze slide away for a moment. "Often after a fight to stake a claim. If it ends badly, that is between them."

Another brief pause.

"There is dancing and music," Ghruna said. "And everyone says what they mean. No guessing."

Her gaze flicked upward, not to the ceiling exactly, but in the direction of the ripples in the Force.

Then, blunt as ever, she added,

"It is not safe. But it is fair."

She studied Ace for a moment longer.

"You would not be bored," she said and this time she laughed just once.

 

[Mercy]

Tag: Arris Windrun Vestra Tane
Spies: Acier Moonbound

Somewhere along the line a fun duel (Mercy's idea of fun) turned into something a little bit more serious.

Her eyeballs flicked from one duelist to the other like a ping-pong ball. She forgot to eat, to drink and if you listened very closely you'd notice that Mercy even stopped breathing. With quite literal baited breath she leaned in and watched. Her eyes bleeding amber as hunger seized her. She had long since stopped calling out humorous suggestions.

Instead she was an observer with the best seat of the house.

Who would kill who? It wasn't a metaphorical question anymore. The way they moved, Mercy's killer instinct knew that one of them would expire, or both and that would be okay.

Because it would be earned.

Both of them deserved to feel the exquisite feeling that Mercy has had several times. Hot blood bursting out like a geyser and bathing you in liquid death. At that moment you were as intimate to your prey as ever before. It was almost a religious experience, taking someone's life. But then as quickly as the fervor arrived it left again.

"Enough."

One heartbeat was all it took before Vestra and Arris could no longer see each other. There was a mountain in between them now. It stood rigid, solid and it was no longer amused.

Both Vestra and Arris had spend more time with Mercy than most people. It meant that they had had more time... with her eldritch arm. An influence that bound people to Mercy, willingly or not. Seeping into the cracks of their psyche, corrupting metal, sinking into flesh. They weren't marionettes like her Graspborn, but when Mercy spoke... they'd feel it tug underneath their skin.

She had never been afraid of death. Not even as a child. But ever since the Galactic Kaggath that lack of fear had calcified into something more. If she ever had a concern it was going out before she had time to make a mark. That was over now. She had made her mark many times over. And then at the end of the tournament, when she faced a Jedi in the Netherworld, she discovered something that brought her immeasurable joy.

After she died, she'd have a home in the Field of Blades. She'd spend her death the way she spend her life. Fighting, killing, ripping and tearing.

So there was no fear as she separated the two killers with her physical body. Mercy didn't mind if they killed her. That is what Sith did after all. When a boundary was given, when chains were put, you smashed through it and broke the chains. A challenge necessitated a challenger.

"I thought we came here as friends, buddies... pals. Who want to see an Empire bleed and collapse in front of us. But if one of you would rather fight someone right here and now? Fight me." Mercy said, less calm by the moment as hunger seeped into her tongue. Her attention shifted towards Arris. "Do you want to, Windrun? Is this a challenge? First take out the Apprentice and then take on the Lord?"

Licking her lips as the mountain moved, now pivoting fully. Her back to Vestra. Possibly a mistake. But she hadn't fought anyone in a hot minute... she hadn't felt flesh come apart against her fists in such a long time.

"Or will it be the Apprentice... aiming for Lordship. Are you ready for that, Vessy?" She didn't turn, didn't even look over her shoulder. Mercy could see the co-processor knitting itself back under the flesh.

It would be a mistake to give it an open back to target.

"...or is it going to be both?" She almost growled that last word in anticipation. Oh, how exquisite would it be? To dance here with them now. All three of them were coming undone. Cyber-psychosis, a mental break and now Mercy... the Dark Side running through her. Shadows slowly gathering around her shoulders, an imprint of her connection to the Nether.

 

[Arris Windrun]

Tags: Mercy | Vestra Tane

Arris didn't respond to Vestra's words.

The cyborg walked towards her, again with that same deliberate pace - a predator no longer cornered; she had exhausted her prey and now savored the kill. It was hate that drove her. Not hate for the Sith on the floor, but hate that she could ever be so vulnerable... that Vestra of all people met her within inches of death. Had Mercy's apprentice done better, had she more power, then the Dark Horse of Ruusan would've been missing a head.

Instead, Vestra barely steadied herself, and Arris slowly raised her revolver. The barrel finally met her jaw when--

There was a mountain in between them now. It stood rigid, solid and it was no longer amused.

"Mercy." The cyborg growled.

"Do you want to, Windrun? Is this a challenge? First take out the Apprentice and then take on the Lord?"

"No, just you." Rippled from her in the Force.

Arris didn't give a shit about this 'apprentice' or 'lord' nonsense, which was a bit ironic, since those labels technically applied to her and Darth Adekos , respectively. Ignorance was angry hot bliss, it seemed.

With the Champion between them, the cyborg's attention shifted entirely to the woman who ended her run. She was just waiting for an excuse, honestly. Her revolver now pointed at Star-Arm, accelerator on, and Arris pulled the trigger - a dense metal slug, accelerated like a mass driver round and wrapped in an energy sheath, flew towards Mercy's heart.

 

[Varin Mortifer]

Distracted by such a small stature he missed the statement Lysander made about warning him and Varin somewhat crouched down to get a better look at her.

Varin watched as Lys motioned for the top balcony, looking up to it as well. Personally to him, he would rather be in the pit, but perhaps he could take some time off from fighting to just hang out with his brother and guests.

“I don’t think I have ever sat in a top balcony room before, hell I have never really been to a club until now. Count me in.”

He smirked as Seren gave a slow nod.

He looked down at the small one as she started to make conversation, Varin could not help but stare.

“How old are you?”

The music thudded around the group as Varin asked his question.

“Children don’t usually get into clubs, you must be rather sneaky.”

Lysander von Ascania | Riffraff Ranat | Seren Gwyn​

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Seren accepted the introduction with a measured ease, her posture relaxed despite the density of bodies and sound around them. Nar Shaddaa clubs had a way of pressing in on people, urging reaction, but she seemed content to let the moment breathe.

She inclined her head to Lysander first, acknowledging the polite assessment with a faint, knowing smile.

"It is good to meet you in person finally," she said, her voice calm and even beneath the thrum of music. "If this place reflects your philosophy, then I understand why it has endured. Spaces like this survive because someone knows when to hold and when to adapt."

Her gaze shifted briefly to the surrounding crowd, then back to him.

"As for curiosity," she continued, answering Varin's question without haste, "I find I'm more interested in what people choose to protect than what they choose to display. Clubs, temples, empires. The guarded spaces usually say more than the loud ones."

At Varin's commentary about the smaller figure, Seren's lips curved just slightly, not quite amusement, not quite admonishment.

"I would suggest," she added lightly, "that assumptions are a dangerous habit in places like this."

Her attention returned to Lysander as he gestured upward. The invitation did not surprise her. If anything, it felt inevitable.

"A breather sounds reasonable," Seren replied. "Noise is useful, but perspective requires distance."

She glanced once at Varin, a quiet check-in rather than a question, then back toward the stairs.

"Lead on," she said.

Varin Mortifer Lysander von Ascania

 

[Vestra Tane]

Tags: Mercy | Arris Windrun

Killshots. Killshots. Killshots.

The Lights flickered in the lounge as Arris approached, while Vestra summoned every single spare watt that she could reach out to and force her way. A hot enough bolt of lightning could -

"Enough."

One heartbeat was all it took before Vestra and Arris could no longer see each other. There was a mountain in between them now. It stood rigid, solid and it was no longer amused.

The Sith blinked, and suddenly she went cold. Her fight-instinct chilled, momentarily held at bay while Mercy talked. She wasn't quite so whipped about it as the graspborn proper were, but the Star-Arm still had an effect on her. As little as she liked to admit it. So for the time being, and more than a little grateful for the interruption, Vestra listened. Besides, focusing on Mercy kept the nausea at bay, too.

"Or will it be the Apprentice... aiming for Lordship. Are you ready for that, Vessy?"

She managed a scoff.

Killing Mercy wold be nightmarishly stupid, even if she were in a killing mood. The Covenant would collapse - Vestra didn't have the raw charisma to keep things together. Neither did Arris. Besides, she liked Mercy, as much as she was able to. Which wasn't to say taking a shot at the Boss was off the table, but she'd need way more than a title to tempt her.

Her revolver now pointed at Star-Arm, accelerator on, and Arris pulled the trigger - a dense metal slug, accelerated like a mass driver round and wrapped in an energy sheath, flew towards Mercy's heart.

And there came the nausea, racing back. Vestra hyper-charged her nervous system again, and leapt for cover behind the lounge bar. Electricity flowed from various outlets and pieces of bar equipment towards her hand, dancing in her palm with jittery, nervous jumps that matched her mood.

The last time these two fought, she'd sat, in rapt attention, and lost a few thousand credits on the brawl.

She wouldn't assume a repeat.

 

[Riffraff Ranat]

Tag: Lysander von Ascania Varin Mortifer Seren Gwyn

"Well for starters, I'd get this big lug-nut a brochure on non-human species if I was you."

She said dryly, hooking her thumb at the gawking giant before continuing on answering Lysander.

"But organizationally? Yeah, ya need more people that can fly under the radar both figuratively and literally."

Riffraff fished for something in one of the front pockets of her overalls, pulling out a thinly rolled smokable of some kind— it had the look of a custom job. The purple ranat grimaced as the unmistakable but muffled sound of a gunshot rang out somewhere above, her ears flattening briefly before she continued on. It was a good opportunity to show she understood discretion or the power of not drawing attention to that which didn't involve you.

"No need to hire me," she resisted the urge to refer to him as a 'kid', young as he was.

"I can keep getting the lay of the land and I'll pick a decent job to do gratis, capeesh? Or if ya got a specific favor that needs doing, I might be willing to provide so you know I'm the real deal. Smuggling, slicing, disposal of unwanted items, all the dirty work lordly types like yerself don't want bothered with."

A pause, sly eyes getting a read on the young man, before finally she turned to his nearest companions.

"Yer bird is right, skyscraper man, might wanna adjust assumptions before makin' a real nerf outta yerself."

Riffraff raised the cigarillo expectantly, yellow-orange eyes gleaming with what seemed to be mischief.

"How's about you gimme a light, and I'll forget we got off on the wrong foot?"

​

 

[Mercy]

Tags: Arris Windrun | Vestra Tane

The only thing that saved her from having her head torn off of its neck was knowing the attack was coming.

She liked Windrun.

A hungry creature, messy and ambitious. She took a shot at Mauve without a second thought and then took over her territory. No hesitation, or at least none that Mercy had spotted. You didn't trust a creature like that, but you liked it. Bald bold ambition was delicious when presented in such a perfect fashion.

She swatted the bullet away like a fly.

Anyone else, it would have ripped her arm off and blasted a hole through their chest. Mercy wasn't anyone else. Her hand, shaped like a boulder, smashed through the energy containment and fractured the metal slab. It turned into shrapnel that hailed the room and the micro-explosion caused Mercy to skid back... a fraction.

"Nice." Mercy murmured as blood began to stream down her flesh from multiple shrapnel hit-points along her body. Her hand scorched, smoke coming off of it.

They could see it. The muscles bulging in Mercy's neck, her shoulders set, biceps flexing and hips angled. She was ready to go. Ready to rip Arris from limb to limb, until she could force her branch-like fingers into her skull to drag her brains out. To see what made her tick.

"But that's all that you are getting." Voice tight, barely contained and growled in tension, as Mercy forced the joyful fury down. "You got something you are carrying around. Fine. But I am not gonna play along, not when we are this close to making the Empire bleed. Pull yourself together, go take a walk, grab someone to fuck, I don't care."

Her hand squeezed around the biggest part of the slab, crushing it under its force, reducing it to particles.

"When you come back, your shit is in check or we will go for the Core without you."

Mercy didn't turn away from Arris. She was her friend, her ally, her babe, but right now she was afflicted by the Dark Side. If anyone knew how that could turn you into a feral incoherent beast it was Mercy.

"You still breathing there, Vessy? Have some crackers to settle your stomach maybe."

But those amber-flecked eyes stayed on Windrun, her friend, wondering if she'd have to put her down before she threatened the whole project.

 

[Arris Windrun]

Mercy Vestra Tane

One of the slug pieces ricocheted off the cyborg's new face plate. She didn't flinch - all her anger remained singularly locked onto Mercy. Nothing else mattered. Even her own mortality was just noise like the rest of the galaxy. Yet, there was something Mercy had said that struck her. She probably shouldn't tell Star-Arm that it was her words that pierced through her today. Not her strength, not her influence, but something she said.

"When you come back, your shit is in check or we will go for the Core without you."

"Without you."

Words that sank like a shovel and dredged out something deep in the mud of memory.

Sooner or later, Arris thought, they would move on and leave you behind. Because where Mercy was going, Arris reckoned she couldn't follow.

"Damn that!"

Arris struggled; that much was plain. On her face. In the way she seemed lost to her own thoughts, distracted. Most overtly, though, it was the fact that she had her revolver still trained on Mercy, and her finger fondling the heavy trigger. Were it any lighter, she would've discharged a second time already.

Finally, the cyborg relented. She pointed her gun up and fired a single shot into the ceiling - shattering a light above them, and sending sparks flying before casting them in a softer light.

She made a noise, somewhere between a groan and a growl, then drew her other gun and dropped them both onto the floor.

"Hold onto them for me until we reach Tapani."

Arris turned and moved towards the exit. Before she passed through the door, she looked over her shoulder at Vestra. For a second or two, that violent, dead glare. Then it softened, and she left the room.

When Arris reached the bottom of the stairs, she first noticed Acier Moonbound and Ghruna conversing with one another. She couldn't help but give the not-quite-a-Jedi a knowing grin, a subtle promise that more bloody work was ahead of him. Of course, she looked different than when he saw her disappear up the steps. Shrapnel wounds scored her neck, and half her face was replaced by a makeshift metal prosthetic, made from metal torn off one of her arms.

The cyborg kept walking, making her way towards the bar.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Nar Shaddaa - Red Ronin Club

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace listened without interrupting. Absorbing it all. It was information, cultural context. When she finished, he was quiet for a moment, eyes unfocused - not on her, but on the idea of it. The structure. The rules. Or lack of them.

"Sounds straightforward." He said. "Violent. But straightforward."

His gaze lifted briefly, tracking the lingering turbulence in the air above them, then settled back on her.

"Fighting when there's a reason. Eating when you're done. It's kind of nice."

Then she mentioned coupling. Ace stilled for a moment. Just enough to notice if you were watching. For a brief second, he glanced sidelong and scratched the side of his nose.

"Oh." He said. "Yeah, that's... different." His tone wasn't judgemental, nor amused, just... slightly caught off guard.

At her last line, the corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but something close enough to acknowledge the truth of it.

"Guess you're right. Actually..." He deliberated. "....I can't see anyone getting bored at that."

He didn't say anything else after that, not immediately. To him, this was a simple conversation: two fighters comparing worlds, finding overlap.

"You miss it?" He asked, tone unchanged. "Or are you here to learn something new?"

Then again... this was the Sith Covenant. You didn't join because you want to. At least, that was the general consensus.

Arris came down the stairs not long after, and whatever had happened upstairs was written all over her. Shrapnel scored her neck. Half her face was gone, replaced by torn metal ripped from her own body. She walked like none of it mattered.

Then her eyes found him and the grin she gave him wasn't friendly. It wasn't triumphant either. It was a promise. The kind that assumed complicity. Ace held her gaze for exactly as long as it took to understand. Then she was past him, swallowed by the bar crowd.

Something cold twisted low in his stomach. It wasn't fear, it wasn't even shock. It was recognition. More was to come regarding his 'working relationship' with Arris.

Ghruna ​