Furina, Goddess of Theives Discovered

[Ardgal Raxis]

How do you catch a thief?​

The words mused through Ardgal's head like nothing else as he moved through the streets of Commenor's lower sides. His armor ((in Bio, Ardgal'gam)), wirred with each step, moving forward through the streets. He had heard the whispers of the girl, the one they called Ross. He wasn't sure what exactly had enticed his person about her. As a rule, the God of war was one to hate theives of all kinds. They were law breakers, he was the law embodied. They stole, and for that--they deserved to repent or die.

But, he was a merciful god, that was true more than not. A merciful god who needed adherents of certain skills. Skills he did not posses. He could move around with some stealth, well at least for a man who was in 30 kilogram heavy power armor that made as much noise as a freight train. It made him wonder how he looked to the outside world. Did he appear to be a robot to the force users? He was, after all, force dead, with no sign of life in him. He wondered if he was like an ambling corpse to them, a shell of metal and flesh in unlife.

His mind turned to the last time he had been here, a murder had been done--or rather a suicide. One he was asked to tend to by--well, through a very convoluted set of circumstances that still made his head spin. But for now, he was here, going to catch a thief and doing it the best way he knew how. Being the bait and catch for his own trap.

[member="Roshki Belawiiks"]

 

[Roshki Belawiiks]

[member="Ardgal Raxis"]

The air of Commenor reeked with the stench of bodily filth, garbage, and poisonous gases. Puffs of smog floated here and there like dirty, grungy little clouds that would kill you with one inhale. Trash littered the streets, where the only light was from the neon signs advertising their enticing offers of sin. Despite the late hours, there were still bodies ambling around, souls of sinners and the lost, whose only direction came from lives of crime. Mutterings from the crowd mingled with the distant wails of sirens and, on occasion, the cries of a young child.

Perched above the cesspool was a crouched figure, garbed in a dark, tattered cloak looking like it once belonged to a Jedi. Beside it sat a fat blob of some sort, motionless. It was this blob that the figure reached over to pet.

"Relax, Maxi, nothing's going on yet." Key word being "yet." Having grown up on Commenor til my parents shipped me off, and returning at least four months ago, I knew this area of Commenor like the back of my hand. I had a love-hate relationship with my homeplanet that had only been magnified by my reasons for coming home.

Ah, yes, my return... After leaving the Order, I'd spent at least three or four years travelling the galaxy, searching for my Master and turning up...nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Though my credits demanded I give up, Karr had done too much for me to simply give in and stop looking. At the same time, though, I couldn't ignore my need for credits, so... I returned to my home planet, intent on building a home base for myself while building up the resources to keep looking. I wasn't quiet about my presence, either. I couldn't be. Now that I wasn't moving around, I needed to leave a bread trail, in case Karr came a'looking.

In the meantime, I'd been busy. In need of credits, I'd not only started pickpocketing people, but I organized a bunch of street urchins and began to employ them under my leadership, teaching them all the tricks of the trade. When I ran into trouble with the local gangs, I merely used my Force abilities to either scare or persuade them into leaving us be. After what I'd been through, they no longer scared me. My actions invariably earned me some notoriety, but that was ok. The more the merrier.

Now, though, I was observing the streets for...something. I'd first sensed it, an anomaly in the Force, if you will. It was as though there was a pebble blocking the flow of the Force, and it was my job to investigate.

"Is it just me, or does it seem too quiet tonight?" I glanced up to see my ever-present annoyance, Grey, hovering in front of me. I instantly went on alert. Usually - not all the time, but usually - Grey only showed up when there was potential danger.

"What do you mean?" I stretched out my senses, both in the Force sense and physical, trying to see what she meant. But my hallucination merely pointed down the street and faded away. I sighed. "Typical Grey. What do you think, Maxi?" But my Blarth - no longer a pup - merely let out a whine. He was used to my conversations with thin air, not that he cared either way.

Taking the advice of my craziness, I focused my attention on the street she'd pointed to, before sitting up straighter. There it was! ​The anomaly! "Come on, Maxi. It's time to go." The Blarth scrambled into my arms, where I fastened him to a homemade harness. I never went anywhere without my baby, including the rooftops. His tail wrapped around my waist and the little nubbins gripped onto my belt. Once I made sure he was snuggled in, I gathered the Force about me, and ran.

I leapt from building to building, relying on my skills to keep me from going splat! on the pavement below. It wasn't long before I drew close enough to observe the anomaly. Actually, "anomaly" was too much of an understatement. I had no idea what this thing was.

It looked like a droid a Sith might employ, with bits of metal sticking up from its armour like the fashion trend from my heyday. There was an ethereal blue glow to it too, but that wasn't what attracted my attention the most.

No, it was the fact that this thing couldn't have been a droid. Droids I could still vaguely sense within the Force. But this thing? It wasn't hiding in the Force, it wasn't sinking in the Force. Oh no, it was completely removed from the Force. This thing, whatever it was, was like a, a...

"Like a pebble blocking a stream," Grey said quietly. "Be careful."

"I don't need a hallucination to tell me that, thanks."

Grey scowled. "But you do need one to warn you not to go down there. This is going to lead something you'll regret, trust me. Just turn around right now."

I shook my head, still clinging to the side of the building. "I can't. It's... It's my duty to find out what that thing is. I can feel it."

"Please. Since when did you ever care about duty?"

"You know the answer to that," I said quietly. In a louder voice, I added, "I'm still going down there. Either way, it's in my territory, and not welcome."

Grey merely shrugged. "Suit yourself, then. I'm just trying to keep us alive." With that, she faded away again, and I looked back down on the figure.

"Maxi, I'm pretty sure this is a trap. Oh well." With a sigh, I released myself from the building and sailed down to land in front of the dead droid, unhooking Maxi so that he landed next to me with a soft thud. One hand on my lightsabre, I held another up to the figure. "Stop. You are in my territory. State your name and business, or so help me I will kick your metal butt from here til next year. Understand?"

 

[Ardgal Raxis]

Ah there it was. The person he knew he was looking for. The one called Ross. How did he know? Oh, that was easy, you could always find someone who was notorious, someone who was a thief, and didn't care. If he was a pebble blocking the stream--well he supposed she was making ripples in the sand under it. The sand of the material world that the remaining 99% of the galaxy had to deal with, to work with, to change, to flow.

He inclined his head slightly to the left, it was Interesting to say the least to hear her threaten him. He wanted to ask if she knew who he was or if she knew what he was, a god of war, the embodiment of Justice, the warrior of the people, the hero of the masses, the one to help bring the people to their rightful place of justice, security, hope, and prosperity. He wanted to tell her that he was the embodiment of the new age, the new order, the new hope that would soon spill over into the rest of the galaxy, righting what was wrong and avenging the evil. He wanted to tell her that the age of darkness was over, for he was the light.

He spread his arms wide in a grand gesture, "I am what I am."

The scanners in his helmet ran a constant feed of secondary sense into his cyborg implant, one that was set in there to keep him sane, one that made his armor an extension of his body. Through the data he could tell she was running high on body temperature, her heart rate was up, and her breathing was indeed elevated. There was a 98% chance she had just undergone intense physical activity. The chemical activity in her brain indicated a disturbance, a disturbance that was trying to reverse itself and reach homeostasis once more. To the saber blade in her hand, Ardgal had to stifle a laugh. She was a Force user? That was nice. He was their anti-thesis.

"I am the savior of this galaxy," he said, "I am the one who was sent here to bring change. I am the alternative to oppression. I am the god of justice, I am the one who slays the evil one. I am the one who killed Abbadon. I am the one who Dies yet Lives. I am the one who makes mortals gods. I am the one who created the killer of the gods. I am the one who makes hope from the darknest nights. I am the one who breaths order into chaos."

He removed his helmet with a soft click, revealing his chisled, warrior's face, "I am Ardgal Raxis, the god of war, the god of justice, the god of society. And I have come to give you live and give it to you abundantly."

[member="Roshki Belawiiks"]

 

[Roshki Belawiiks]

[member="Ardgal Raxis"]

"In other words you're a nutjob who thinks he's a god. Gotcha."

I unclipped my lightsabre, feeling a sense of comfort slip over me at the familiar hum of my weapon. Being what I was, I normally didn't care one way or another if someone was loose about the head, but... This man or whatever he was presented a danger not only to myself but to my territory and the citizens within it. And even without my stint with the Jedi, I knew I wouldn't be able to let him stay here.

Beside me, Maxi crouched down in a ready pose. His skin was thicker than most Blarths, as a result of all the fights we'd gotten into. He was tougher, too. My little baby could hold his own in a fight. Grey, too, had appeared, and was waiting to assist. It was weird, how much my hallucination had matured.

"Told you he was trouble. But nooooooooooooo, you had to be an idiot like usual. Just because I'm a figment of your imagination doesn't mean I wanna die!"

Nevermind. She was as annoying as ever.

With my paltry team assembled, I glared at Raxis. "Look, I don't know what you're rambling on about, but I like my place here, and I'm warning you, if you don't go now you're gonna seriously regret it."

 

[Ardgal Raxis]

For a man with a god complex, Ardgal was rather humble. That being said, for a normal being he was incredibly arrogant, hardheaded, and uncorrectable. She had told him to leave, and well, reaching for his weapon, didn't help things much either. He wasn't one to back down from a challenge either. He gave a slight smirk, barely visible. If it was a fight she wanted, well, it was one he would give her. Besides, the whole number about him not being a real god got under his skin. He wasn't about to let that slide. She would learn.

He held his left hand to his side slightly off, his Coretosis Ardgal'Kal ((in a la sig)) leapt to his hand and slid out to its full length with a series of hiss-clicks. He brought the one and a half handed sword up to bear, in a lose right front battle stance. His feet were planted, the left further back, bearing 80% of his weight, further from her than his right, and harder to hit. His eyes shifted, glimmering with amusement at this young woman who really dared challenge him. He was a god, after all, one who was not to be trifled with.

"When you are ready," he said with an air of confidence, "You may strike first," he cocked his head to the side slightly, "But strike hard, Ross, you won't get a second chance."

[member="Roshki Belawiiks"]

 

[Roshki Belawiiks]

[member="Ardgal Raxis"]

"Motherkarking son of a bantha," I breathed. I'd been hoping Crazy would take my advice and skedaddle, but it appeared he was more than willing to call my bluff. Still crouched in a ready position, I considered my options. I couldn't really run and fight, but at the same time this guy would slice me in half if I tried to attack him directly. Nor would I concede defeat.

So what could I do?

"You're so stupid some days, honestly. The fact that you survived this long is in of itself impressive."

"Gee, thanks for that," I muttered.

"I'm not finished. What's one thing you've always been really good at?"

"Umm... Lying?"

"No, you twat!" Grey pinched the bridge of her nose. I began to pace back and forth, with Maxi keeping in time with my steps. "Do I really have to spell it out for you? Ugh! Use you surroundings, stupid!"

Oh. Duh.

"Duh, indeed." The hallucination pointed to the trash and debris on either side of the street. "It doesn't take much to get this moving, does it?"

"...no?"

"Good. Use that, and then use Maxi. Idiot. Honestly, why can't I be someone else's hallucination?"

My eyes darted back and forth as the wheels in my brain began to turn. Of course! I really was stupid. Flashing Raxis my trademark smile, I straightened up and, deactivating my lightsabre, clipped it back to my belt. "Tut, tut," I said nonchalantly. "Clearly you know my nickname, but you don't know me. You don't know who I am. And...." Here, my grin became more malicious, probably even more than what Karr would've liked. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into, freak."

Fact: I didn't know how strong his armour was. Fact: I didn't know what his fighting style was, not really. Fact: He was way too big and strong for me to take head-on. Fact: I couldn't sense him through the Force which, if he was what I thought he was, meant too that I wouldn't be able to affect him with the Force. But that was okay; I'd never really been good with the mental aspects of the Force. I was more of a physical kind of gal.

And physical I did get. Quick as a whip, I planted both of my feet shoulder-distance apart. "Maxi, puke!" I shouted. Holding my hands out, I centered myself in the Force before reaching out, feeling the tendrils weave around all of the pieces of trash. As if lifted by a bunch of invisible beings, the trash and rubble rose into the air and sped towards the armored man-thing. It was pure, stinky chaos.

Beside me, Maxi had finished upchucking a nice-sized blob of phlegm. Grinning evilly, I patted his head and, scooping it up, chucked it at my opponent. As soon as it flew into the air, I stretched both hands towards it, guiding it speedily towards the face of the hunk of metal even as the rain of junk subsided (After all, I couldn't do both).

 

[Ardgal Raxis]

The god-general watched as the torrent of literal garbage came flooding at him. His instincts kicked in, his right arm rose, covering his face against the deluge of well--crap. It splattered and clinked on his power armor with a set of nasty "splats" and "splashes" and all those funny sounds that rotting refuse makes when it hits something metallic. Not that the writer was used to throwing rotting garbage at houses or anything.......

He lowered his arm with a humored face, "Is that all you--"

And like slow motion he saw the blob of ick headed towards his face. He, of course, had wade through literal crap before in sewers, streams, and open cesspools to get to objectives. He had been in fights so thick that the bodies piled around him in natural barricades. Or other fights where he had to stack them to help make barriers against the onslaught. That was a short list of disgusting things he had witnessed and been through. But this blob of phlegm headed his way--that was a whole nother level. The General barely managed to raise his hand in time to cover his mouth and close his eyes before it made contact with a rather nasty splat. He opened his eyes with a slight glare of annoyance.

"Alright," he said as bits of it dribbled off onto his armor in a green ooze. "My turn."

The god of generals lunged forward with a heavy stop, quickly building momentum and halfing the distance between them. As he moved forward, his arms went over head, preparing for a heavy, two-handed downward slash. His second step closed the distance as he propelled himself forward. The downward slash was a feint to draw her attention away. His left (and dominant) hand came off the hilt. It was covered in some of the nasty goop from the garbage and the slime she there at him. His hand, covered in this bilious ilk, came aimed at her cheek in a pretty much harmless, but germ-sharing slap. If he was going to be covered in groodie, well she would be too!

[member="Roshki Belawiiks"]