Into the Lion's Den

[Vrag]

Between one world and the next, a Hand's work was never done, and the time for respite was ever hard to find. Even when adrift in space, Vrag rarely did much else than train, sleep, and deal with the piles of paperwork.

Yeah, you heard that right. With conquest came reports, and forms, and files, and Dark Lord knows what else. It was the one aspect of her 'job' that she was more than eager to hand off to the those that occupied the lower steps on the ladder.

In the spirit of procrastination and avoidance, then, the woman liked to flee her Coruscanti office for those same lower steps on the social ladder, seeking the comfortable embrace of anonymity in whatever seedy joint struck her fancy that night.

Without a single sign of rank of fealty to give her away, the firrerreo easily became just another face in the milling crowd, blending in with millions of others who were going about their business and pleasure in those late hours when the underworld of the planet-city was just waking up.

Deft maneuvering and a few well-placed elbows had the woman knocking on a thick blast door in some side-alley in no time, and as a credit chit changed hands, so did the grim bouncer let her in. It was one of the few places in the underbelly where games for players of her caliber were staged regularly, and Vrag had made it her business to always have an in when she needed some well-earned relaxation.

Razing planets was hard work, after all, and even killers need some downtime; this she knew to be true.

With a curt nod of her head, the tall woman deposited her coat and a fat credit chit in exchange for her chips, and within minutes, the Sith Lord was already seated at one of the many tables littering the poorly-lit establishment, her face about as expressive as the skull that usually obscured her features. Through the thin veil of smoke wafting from another man's cigarra, the woman assessed her opponents with a careful eye, judging every minute twitch of facial muscles, down to the widening of their pupils and nostril flares. Even aliens, whose body language presented a bigger conundrum to the woman, weren't safe before the searing scrutiny of her cold blue gaze.

Oh, she had this.


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

Between one world and the next, a traitor never really got their rest. Even if adrift in space or grounded on Coruscant, Kana would rarely find the opportunity for rest. The temporary respite in the nameless Sith Lord’s apartment had been a wonderful exception, but even with the banging performance that without doubt would have left most people breathless, Kana still had to face reality sooner or later. The invasion on Ziost was proof to that.

The last few traces of what Kana could trace down to innocence was gone. She had bit a man, tried to tear his lip from his face in a near-kiss of death. This was what she had become, what she had embraced and ultimately welcomed into her heart. She no longer struggled with the poison in her veins, she thrived off of it. The anger, the indulgences that she had been denied. She was carrying righteous vengeance against those who wronged her wherever she went and those who spoke up quickly learned to bow down in silent fear.

She was free, yet she was forgotten.

A long time had passed and not once had she heard of the Order looking for her, not once had she heard anything from anyone. Her last encounter, physical encounter had been anything but social. Physical to be certain, but not social and even then it was the closest she had felt to anyone in a very long time.

It felt kind of pathetic the more she thought on it.

But that’s where things could be fixed. Kana had approached the grand apartment of her previously benevolent hostess in the hopes of talking to her. Something social, something equally beneficial. With the taste of blood ingrained on her mind like a precious memory she had burst away from the apartment looking to tail her. It was hard, nearly impossible but with a Corellian-like stubbornness to her stride the blonde finally managed. Her boots tacked hard against the ground as she stormed towards the blast door keeping the firrerreo safe.

“Let me in.” Kana announced from across the street. A hand waved in an attempt to trick the guard into doing nothing but. However, it failed and there was little Kana could do but go for Plan B. “I said let me IN!”

A fist planted itself square in the stomach of the man who proceeded to kneel down in an attempt to swallow the surprise and catch his breath. A hand lazily waved at the external camera to let the enraged blonde inside and Kana happily obliged. Figuring a smile and a pat on the shoulder to be enough the Dark Jedi comforted the bouncer ever so momentarily and stepped inside.

The grunt got back up again to assume bouncer duty. A scrawny man approached him, fire in his eyes he raised his arm in preparation. He swung and he hit, but it was not the bouncer that was hurt. The other man was. A chuckle parted the bouncer’s lips as he grabbed a hold of the weak man’s head and with a powerful swing he chucked him straight into the wall.

The man slumped to the ground, a content grin spread on the bouncer’s lips at the slight regain of face.

“It’s good to be the king.” He spoke and smiled wryly at the passers by.

Meanwhile Kana had already found herself within the club. A janitor team rushed by her to clean up the mess she had inadvertently created. All around there was people of varying size and color, but off in the distance she saw it; her quarry, her target. A grin of her own set on her as for a second she contemplated what to do. She was in a game, but it didn’t seem like it had truly started yet. No bets had been made, no cards laid out.

“YOU!” She announced loudly from across the room. “I HAVE LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR YOU!”

Her boots, the very same boots that this woman had gotten Kana, clacked agaisnt the floor. The sheen of her black leather pants was barely visible in the low light, but the rest of her certainly wasn’t. At least if you overlooked the fact that she was dressed completely in black like a letterbox villain from a cartoon.

The closer to the table Kana got the more rapidly did the men blink.

“You said you were out for a packet of cigarettes, you chit.” Kana let her voice quiet down as her eyes was set ablaze in a feigned fire. “I trusted you. You said you had changed.”

The men around the table all slipped out of their chairs before anything nasty went down. The entire bar looked at the angry blonde, she could feel it and for this reason alone she let the tensions hang. A countdown to three took place and at its end a grin slowly crept up on the Dark Jedi’s face once more.

“Did you see their faces?” She chuckled. The tension around the room lowered slightly as Kana took the seat of Vrag’s former opponent. “I have come to speak to you, business. Nothing personal, yet.”

Kana grabbed a chip from in front of her and began circling it around in her hand. “Well, go ahead, ask me what it is.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Time seemed to trickle by whenever the game got like this; slow paced and calculative, with every opponent glancing at the others' cards with a paranoid glint in their eye. It stood in stark contrast to the way the Sith Lord waged war — hard, fast, and with no respite for the weak — and it was the one thing that managed to grate on her patience with a modicum of success. It required real, physical effort to resist the urge to drum her fingers on the edge of the table, and it was all she could do not to gnash her teeth together in frustration.

Finally, a card fell again, and the players let out a collective breath that none knew they were holding.

Vrag frowned, but whatever profanity was about to flicker through her mind got lost in the ruckus coming from the door. The whole room turned around in a choir of scraping chairs and whining backrests in an attempt to identify the source of the commotion, but found their job already done for them the moment said source opened her mouth.

Well, kark me sideways and call me Corvus.

It was thanks to the fact that she'd been keeping her reactions to a minimum for the last half an hour that that particular sentence didn't manifest out loud, but the firrerreo was forced to bite her tongue to prevent it. Even as the familiar taste of copper blossomed on her palate, the cold blue eyes followed the approaching blonde with as much impassivity as Vrag could muster.

And believe you her, that was pretty karking tough.

The change, especially considering the rather narrow timeframe, was quite radical. Gone was the dejected, empty gaze; the bend in her back; the frown at the corners of those lips. Her approach was full of energy, projecting her presence with a certain assuredness that rang oh so familiar with the Sith.

It was damned difficult, keeping a mirroring grin off her face, but somehow, the firrerreo managed it. Instead, the woman folded her cards neatly on the table, leaning back in her seat as she arched an eyebrow at [member="Kana Truden"].

"That was something," Vrag finally spoke once her eyes had raked down the curves of the woman opposite her. "Never had you pegged for an actress, Kana," she continued with a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, taking the time to properly catalogue the alterations in the former Jedi's appearance.

She could definitely appreciate the changes, but what struck her most was the fact that the blonde had kept the clothes. An interesting fact, to be sure, and one to store away for later use, if need be.

"Fine, I'll humor you," she said and wrapped her fingers around a tumbler full of amber liquid. After a healthy sip, the firrerreo set the one indulgence that carried over between her personas back on the table and leveled Kana with an indecipherable stare.

"What did you want to talk about?"

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana tsked at [member="Vrag"].

“Yeah, well, spend enough time on the run and you learn to sell a lie sooner or later.”

Their eyes met across the dim table. An unsubtle grin was all across the former jedi’s lips, the purpose of this meeting still a looming question mark. Eyebrows furrowed mischievously, eye contact maintained. The chip in Kana’s hand found itself stacked once more in the pile that she had hijacked from the firrerreo’s former opponent.

“Information.” Kana stated rather matter-of-factly. “Information on the Jedi Order to be more precise.”

In front of each gambler were three kinds of chips of different value. Twenty-five, fifty and a hundred credit worth of chips respectively. They were all neatly stacked into pillars of differing heights, but for this session the cash-in of their little gamble wasn’t their monetary value. That was secondary.

“It is clear to me that they do not care. I have been gone for months, yet no measures to even find or arrest me has been taken. For all things considered they have forgotten about me, I want to fix that.” She grabbed a twenty-five credit chip. “We will trade you and I. Twenty-five credits for something small.” The dark jedi planted the plastic cylinder upon the soft cotton-like mat that covered the table in front of them before picking up another chip. “Fifty credit chip for something useful.” She planted the second chip next to the first before reaching for another. “A hundred credit chip grants you an answer to any question you’ve got.”

“The rules are simple, two cards are laid out and you yourself get to keep three. One of us pays the blind which starts out at the lowest of bets, that would be a twenty-fiver. If you want you can raise the bet with more chips of your own. This means I too must call your raise or I would be forced to fold which means that I forfeit the round and admit defeat.” Kana instructed and shrugged. “If your stake in the pot is already equal to mine you get to check which means you stay in the game but don’t really do anything.”

“I forget the name of this game, but it’s the only game I know. Other than sabacc and pazaak, of course, but let’s be real here and try something new for a change.”

“If I win you will tell me about Hal.” Kana said and added a twenty-fiver to the table. “If you win, I will do anything you want.”

 

[Vrag]

Her eyebrow arched even further.

The disparities between the Jedi she'd encountered some months ago and the woman sitting opposite her now were… striking to say the least. If she didn't know better, she'd easily claim that it was actually the blonde's evil twin offering to spill such delectable secrets, and not the former Councilor.

Her breath caught slightly nonetheless, interest piqued as [member="Kana Truden"] set down the chips and explained the rules to their little game.

Hah! Never thought you'd end up playing cards for Jedi secrets, did you?

And they said gambling was useless. Fools.

"Hal, huh?" she replied with the hint of a smirk passing over her features as she rearranged her chips for the game the blonde had outlined.

Space poker. She'd played enough of it in her more prolific years to remain confident that the spoils of victory — information, as the case may be — would be hers before the hour was done, but the firrerreo would definitely watch her hand more carefully than usual. Sabacc and pazaak were her stronger suit when it came to cards, and if there was one thing that the woman truly hated, it was losing.

Especially to Jedi, former or otherwise.

As the last chip was aligned perfectly, her cool gaze met the blonde's again, peering at her over the edge of the tumbler in her grasp. The tip of her tongue peeked out to wet her lips, and a dangerous glint flashed in those icy eyes. She was starting to like this ballsier version of Kana. Compared to the heap of misery the woman had been last time they'd met, this was certainly an improvement.

"Oh, dear," she drawled out with feigned worry, her body shifting forward in her seat as she set down her rum. "You really shouldn't have said that."

Without ever breaking eye contact, Vrag carefully lifted three chips from her pile and placed them in the middle of the table, her expression ever unchanging.

"Raise you a hundred. Tell me, Kana, how did you find me?"

 

[Kana Truden]

“Uh uh, the hand has not been played yet. You tell me what the info is about and if I win I get to hear it.” Kana instructed her opponent further as she took a second look at her cards. Her features were cold, emotionless. Without uttering a word she picked a hundred and a fifty from her pile to raise the . “You get to ask me anything, and I will tell you what I know of the Ossus Academy as a whole.”

The two cards on the tables were flipped to expose their fronts. A swift look at Kana’s hand made it all the more obvious, this hand wasn’t hers to win. The sting of defeat normally burned in situations like this with tempers flaring up, but just this once Kana was actually willing to lose. After all, a loss here was a win in the long run. The Sith had shown her that much at this point.

Cards were tossed at the table, Kana folded and took a deep breath.

“I saw you leave your apartment. I tailed you here.”

Kana let the first hundred drift through the air towards the firrerreo and her stack of chips.

“The Academy on Ossus is as you probably already know an installment deep within the forests and the main academy for all of the Republican Jedi Order. It is built like a fortress, or well, three conjoined fortresses. I know for a fact that there are safety loopholes and Sith throughout my time there has abused it. Darth Praelior being the first name that comes to mind.”

Then the Jedi leaned back in her seat. Grin reemerging she shrugged as her waist hugged against the backrest.

“Go ahead then, ask me anything.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Genuine amusement colored the peal of laughter that escaped her chest, and though short-lived, the act had been a rare one in its sincerity. One had to wonder if the blonde realized just how seldom people had the opportunity to witness what she just had, or if she was too absorbed in her own cards to notice the slight alteration to the timbre of Vrag's voice.

Either way, the show went on as both players kept up their carefully crafted appearances — whether out of habit or practicality, she didn't know — exchanging witty remarks as well as credit chits. Not that the money really mattered; Vrag had enough to pave her way from there to her apartment, and [member="Kana Truden"] was playing with kark knows whose credits. Come to think of it…

The firrerreo forcibly yanked her gaze away from her opponent and to the crowd watching them from a safe distance, scanning their darkness-enshrouded faces for the one that previously owned the chips in front of the former Jedi. Upon realizing just who it was that Kana had effectively robbed, Vrag was forced to hide her grin behind the rim of her glass with a swift gesture, her eyebrows climbing again as she listened to the information so readily laid out by the blonde.

Her smile faded somewhat as she considered how much she'd gained with so little effort, cool blue eyes boring into the silver embers of the fallen Jedi. It was almost… too easy.

Vrag pensively worried the tip of her tongue against the sharp edge of a canine as she continued to scrutinize the blonde's impassive features. If she didn't know better — and were the scenery a bit different — the firrerreo could easily picture her standing stoically still in some boring Council meeting, kark knows what all running through her mind while she maintained that same staid façade.

The offer that next spilled from the Jedi's lips was oh so tempting, but the Sith resisted her innate urge to ask the dirtiest question she could possibly think of, focusing instead on things of greater importance.

"What's the easiest way to approach the Academy undetected and breach its defenses?" she finally asked as she dealt a new round of cards to them both, then promptly placed the lowest-value chip into the middle to satisfy the blinder.

 

[Kana Truden]

The grin kept on going as Kana let go of the backrest and leaned back over the table. A finger circled around the edges of a fifty credit chip before her eyes set on her opponent again. A chuckle emanated between the two, a shallow gesture to suppress the real humor she found in the entirety of the whole ‘security’ question. Last Kana had known the security was awful. A mutilated corpse had been able to get hung at the Temple ground in the midst of the night with the perpetrator able to get away as if they had never been there.

“Land a few clicks away from the academy and take a hike towards whatever part of it all you want to attack.” The fallen jedi spoke as her hand circled around the edges of the fifty credit chip still. “Such as the enclave of the Jedi Shadows.”

The grin on Kana’s lips found itself flashed by a mischievously raised pair of eyebrows. The chip was planted at the center of the table in a raise.

“I know where it is.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Now this… this was a whole different animal, Kana playing the offensive with a grin sharper than the claws of Vonduun. And Vrag? Well, all things considered, she'd gladly admit that she liked the change of pace.

Especially when it was wearing such a lovely face.

She was thankful that she'd held off on taking another sip of her rum when the next words left [member="Kana Truden"]'s mouth, for she surely would've choked on the expensive alcohol.

"Jedi Shadows?"

This was good. Priceless, even. Her blue eyes flashed behind the rim of her glass with something far harsher than mischief before she yanked on its chain and constrained it back to the depths where it lurked on most tdays, but she doubted the expression had gone unnoticed by the former Jedi. Not that she really cared; one glint of bloodthirst in her eye was just a drop in the ocean that was her track record. Whatever opinion the blonde had of her, it had formed long before the Hand had ever even met her.

"Do you, now?" she asked slowly as she leaned closer, propping her chin up with a lazy gesture of her hand.

Her gaze darted to her cards, then back to those intriguing silver eyes as she called the bet and promptly fell back against the comfort of her seat. Another quick glance about the room forced her to make slight adjustments to her overview of the gambling den, recalculating the best routes out of the place should the situation take a turn for… southern waters. More people were gathering just outside of the circle of light emitted by the sole bulb hanging above their table, and from what she could discern in the dusk settled on their features, none of them looked happy.

Well, no matter. If anything, it would offer her a chance to really see how much the former Jedi had changed, or if the whole encounter was simply chock-full of bravado and good acting.

She placed another fifty credtis worth of chips on the table and leveled her opponent with a seemingly impassive gaze. To anybody outside their little pool of light, it would look just like another bullying tactic to gain the upper hand, but in reality, Vrag was doing her damnedest to convey what was going on around them.

The interested audience, it seemed, was being replaced by a horde of vengeful players with a bone to pick. Good times.

 

[Kana Truden]

‘Oh that got her attention.’

Kana smiled ever so smug as she too leaned above the table. The smoke and shimmer of the parlor began to slowly fade, at first Kana paid it no mind but as the rest of the club seemed to circle around them, well, there wasn’t much she could do but try to pretend it didn’t phase her. Because it didn’t. The impassive look that the Sith Lord had gotten acquainted with before returned as the fifty was placed in the middle of the table.

Anger radiated off of the observers, it didn’t take a genius to figure things were heading to the point where fighting was inevitable. Until then there was little Kana could do but simply play along. A twenty-fiver was placed by the 50 but try as she might the observers struck her nerves in their unspoken silence.

“Yes, I do.” Kana responded as she slowly placed her hands around the small heap of chips that she had. A quick hand proceeded to pocket her hundreds as she slowly looked to the man next to her. “This is a private game. Back off.”

Her hand withdrew from her inner pocket. The plastic pieces hugged against her ribcage as she stood up from the table. Her hands locked onto the edge of the gambling table, her head bowed down over her chips.

“I will give you until three.” The former jedi allowed no eye contact with whoever the other man was. “You have no one but yourself to blame if you are not gone when I hit zero.”

Kana finally looked up at the man.

“One.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

It was… a skill, being able to watch your opponent, the chips, and the gathering crowd of hostiles, but it was a skill that Vrag possessed; in fact, she would go so far as to claim that she'd honed it to a fine point that was nearing mastery these days. Despite the small lull in practice that had befallen her gambling expertise, the woman had been able to pick up without much detriment once she'd gotten settled in her position nice and good. She would even go so far as to claim that the occasional game — never on the same day; she'd hate to make a habit of it — helped her relieve the stress generated on the job.

Because, despite all the facets of it that the firrerreo enjoyed, being a Hand of the Dark Lord was… taxing, no matter which way you spin it.

In light of that, the prospect of watching a former Jedi Councilor beat up a presumptuous thug with a poker table was, well… exciting didn't quite do it justice.

The chips on the table were easily forgotten as the blonde stood up to threaten the man in the coldest voice she'd heard leave those sumptuous lips to date, and Vrag couldn't help but smirk as a different kind of warmth pooled in her stomach in response. She shifted in her seat imperceptibly as tensions continued to grow, her icy eyes sparkling in anticipation even as she prepared herself for what was likely the beginning of a full-out pub brawl.

Delightful.

For all her fabled self-restraint, sometimes even the firrerreo faltered, and this, it seemed, would be one such occasion.

"Oh, for kark's sake," she scoffed and finished off her drink with a nearly radiating nonchalance as the menacing eyes all turned to her. Except Vrag wasn't looking at any of them; she was staring directly at [member="Kana Truden"] with perhaps the most overt offering to take a life that had ever danced in those frozen blue eyes.

A knee to his stomach, then an elbow to the neck. Grab his hair and slam him into the table. It'll turn over, a cover for when they pull the blasters on us.Then I'll break the rum bottle and draw the knife, and you'll tell me about Jedi Shadows as we give this place a new coat of red paint.

Vrag cocked her head slightly to the side and winked.

 

[Kana Truden]

‘Nah, but thanks.’

“Zero.” Kana announced as her grin turned into a bitter frown. Her teeth gritted, her hand placed itself behind the remaining chips that she had hijacked. Her eyes connected with the previous owner and in an instant she pushed on through the stack like a hyped up speeder sending the chips flying straight for the man’s face.

Ripping at the force for aid she promptly grabbed a hold of his head. Her temple connected to his nose bridge, her feet to his shin and just like that the man cried out in luscious pain. It was like a true testament to the only reality Kana had grown to accept and all that came with it. Kana’s eye twitched just like her shoulder did. It was as if a terrible itch was going rampant in her entire body which perhaps in a sense was truth.

She wanted to taste it.

No, she needed to taste it.

Pain.

In a rapid stomp she let her foot connect with the man’s neck. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive either. Not for long. Eyes shot out at Vrag in affirmation that the heat was on, that she was welcome to join in as well.

“Their enclave lies on Ossus,” Kana ignored the whole ‘telepathy’ thing. “Well-guarded, many security checkpoints from what I hear. The shadows themselves are very hush-hush about it, but there is most certainly ways to get in. That is after you ‘deactivate’ the drones and guards, of course.”

“Oh and,” Kana punched the next man. Big burly thing. “I hear it doesn’t look like an actual enclave, so there’s that.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Zero.

Vrag burst from her chair like a coiled spring the moment the last syllable left [member="Kana Truden"]'s lips, yanking the combat vibro-knife free from her boot — the same boot that had previously innocuously rested upon her knee — and vaulting over the table that separated her from the hostiles on the other side.

The plan she had shared with the former Jedi was just one of the many she'd devised between one poker strategy and the next, one of the few habits she'd allowed herself to pick up over the years. Plan A wasn't viable? She'd move on to plan B, and then C, and on and on, however far she had to take it to succeed. Not that she expected that level of resistance and difficulty when going up against common thugs.

As the blonde worked with zeal to break a man's face, Vrag was already disposing of her empty rum bottle, the hard way. With a hollow sound, the angular flask was introduced to the similarly angular features of another guy who'd found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The poor kark had no idea just how outmatched he really was in this little fight he'd picked.

One down, two down, three down.

The blade in her grasp cut with unsettling ease, leaving wide gashes gaping in the flesh of the criminals who sought to swarm them. Fools.

A duck, a redirect, and another attacker was sent colliding with his buddy who had tried to flank them. One by one, the not-quite-Jedi and the not-quite-Sith punched, kicked, and even bit their way through the mess of bodies and limbs, all while chatting about a top secret enclave of a sect in the Jedi Order that no Sith — proper or not — should ever know about.

It spelled destruction for the Shadows on a level they couldn't possibly fathom, and that idea alone kindled the flames first started by those searing silver eyes. The fact that the blonde was right there, heightened heartbeat pounding in her throat as she downed another hostile stranger… kark. If it weren't for the fact that they were in the middle of a brawl, Vrag would have her pressed against a wall already.

"What does it look like, then?" she called out to the woman in question over the sound of breaking glass and groin-shot aftermath.

That is to say, pitiful, pitiful cries of anguish.

 

[Kana Truden]

“Not a clue.” Kana shouted back at her frenemy as she shrugged mid-dodge.”Gotta ask yourself how you’d think if you were a secretive organisation of destruction and you wanted to remain incognito.”

Swaying to the side Kana dodged yet another attack. She felt the rush of excitement at having dodged the attack but that didn’t prepare her for the rapid follow up. The man raised his elbow towards her face. Her head arched backwards in searing pain. A trickling sensation ran down her nose and slid along the edges of her upper lip. She did nothing to stop it, she couldn’t. Her mind was blanking out, her rage building up.

“Feel that did ya?” The man gloated.

“Feth off.” Kana retorted.

The drop of blood ran along the edges of her labial commissure and as if on instinct her tongue reached out to stop it dead in it’s tracks. She tasted the copper and the pain but it didn’t have the right taste. This was her pain. Her hands curled up into fists. Discrete cracks reverberated between the two brawlers as eyes locked onto the burly man.

He was already dead.

He just didn’t know it yet.

She leapt at him. Nails digging into the side of his cheeks she felt his terror, his surprise. It was a desperate move, almost, but it had worked. The fire in her eyes, the bright shining orange indicators of her own self-righteous fixations. The man couldn’t avert his eyes. He tried to, but he couldn’t. Flat on his back he peered into his impending doom, the gloating delight in the mad woman’s eyes.

“Messed with the wrong woman.” Kana whispered gently as if to ensure she got herself the last word.

Fingers still dug in deep into the man’s cheek she grinned as the tip of her fingers began to crackle with electricity. The man cried out in pain. His body tried to twist and turn in agony but quickly found itself pinned underneath the weight of a woman disinterested in giving him the satisfaction. His voice broke and moments later it was silent.

“Hidden in plain sight!” Kana called out at [member="Vrag"] leisurely. “I don’t know what it looks like, but it is most likely hidden in plain sight. A regular building with abnormal amounts of security.”

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtRhi-P_MjM​

Oh, well. There goes that.

"Do I look like I do secretive destruction to you?" she shouted back with a wild grin on her face as she repeatedly bashed someone's face into the wall. Point, meet case. When a reply didn't come, a quick glance as she ducked beneath a wide haymaker confirmed her suspicion; Kana's lip was split and bleeding, leaving red trails down her pale chin and neck.

Before she could get distracted, a sharp pain in her side pulled her back into the reality of her situation, and with a quick turn, the woman wrenched the offending wrist into a direction it was never designed to bend, a fact announced by a loud, unpleasant crunch followed by the familiar snap. On a good day, she could probably tear the hand clean off, but the pub brawl was just getting into full swing, and it was only a matter of time before it got too hairy to control anymore.

Vrag didn't have any illusions about fighting in a crowd, and even with all the skill and Force in the world, both of them would get gutted eventually; it was time to get the hell out of dodge before hell caught up to their dodges.

As she backhanded another assailant with her broken-off rum bottle, the familiar smell of scorched flesh filled her nostrils, the acute, acrid fetor of sizzling fat. Kark!

With a knee to the groin, Vrag cleared her way to the blonde, her step faltering only for a moment as she saw the scene before her (kneeling, fingers clawing at flesh. burning, charred, twitching. neck exposed, two behind. one chain, one switchblade. MOVE) and she did, snapping forward with a flash of speed as she called upon the Force, slamming the taller of the pair onto a poker table.

Chips were sent flying everywhere, but the Sith wasn't deterred, rolling with the momentum instead as she followed through the motion and landed on the other side. There she pivoted on her heel and helped the other guy fall on his own sword — well, switchblade, as it may be — all while choking the first one with his own chain.

With immediate threat of death removed, the firrerreo wasted no more time in pulling the blonde to her feet, icy eyes keeping on the lookout for potential hostiles. At the moment, however, it seemed that attention had shifted from the duo, with the bulk of the fighting having moved deeper into the seedy joint.

"Dead giveaway, then," she muttered more to herself than to [member="Kana Truden"] as she made a beeline for the door, unwilling to spend a second more gambling with her life.

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana was, however, willing to spend a second more gambling with her life. Perhaps in the end the real differences between the two ladies (if the firrerreo could even be referred to as such) wasn’t as big as the former Jedi had been lead to believe. In this very moment she wanted to keep going, but the tug at her shoulder said it was time to go.

Kana too made a beeline for the exit. However, there was a last stop before she did. Her hand dug into her pocket and she planted the chips she had taken on top of the cashier’s desk. The man looked terrified, Kana did not. With her back towards the chaos she could not see the rest of the club and their bar fight. Not that anyone was coming her way, but you try to stay calm when a woman comes up to you demanding a cash-in while the area behind her was slowly applying blunt trauma to each other’s face.

“I’ll take my chips and leave.” Kana grinned at the man who merely nodded and obliged. “Not my type of place. Just way too... ‘laxed ‘round the rules, y’know?”

The actual credit chit in her hand were enough for her to get by for a month, all in all a plan that hadn’t -- and couldn’t -- go wrong.

And it wasn’t theft, not really. Or well, kinda was.

Stepping out into the now rainy Coruscant.

“Anyway, where were we?” She chimed up. “Ossus, right?”

“The shadows.” She started fresh. “Look, it’s really simple. Look for the wareh-”

And just like that one of the men from the club whacked the Jedi in the back of the head. She stumbled over onto the ground, catching her fall with her face.

“You don’t just walk away like that.” The rodian thug said.

“Naw, you don’t” The thug’s friends agreed.

“That’s my friend’s money you got there, blondie. I suggest you hand them back.”

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Karking rain.

Her dark hair stuck to her skin in a matter of seconds, cooling the blood that had boiled in the heat of the moment. The sound of breaking glass, chips hitting the floor, and people having glass broken on their person burst onto the street along with the former Jedi, and their dishevelled, blood-smattered appearance earned them a few odd glances from the passersby.

It took her just a moment too long to realize that a sight like the two of them was entirely too common in the underbelly of Coruscant to alarm its denizens.

When her unlikely companion collapsed mid-sentence, Vrag pivoted on the spot in a flash, blade and fist at the ready as she came face-to-face with the reason for all those fear-stricken expressions flitting about in the crowd behind her.

Myrks Kardisk, better known as the Major, the leader of a thriving criminal syndicate out in the wilder regions of space. She had a few ideas as to what he might've been doing on Coruscant of all places — all of which she would address to one [member="Roger Kranos"], later on — but at the moment, the firrerreo was too busy slitting the throat of his burly bodyguard to voice any of those questions.

Myrks, true to his reputation, moved to pull out his sidearm with astounding reflexes, taking a step back through the gaping blast door to avoid the glistening vibro-knife in Vrag's grasp. He fired off a few shots at the Sith, but the woman tugged his dying thug between them fast enough to sink two of the searing blaster bolts.

The third, however, passed just low enough that it missed the bodyguard's bulk and burned its way through the side of her thigh, prompting an angry hiss of pain. Her nostrils flared as she pulled on the Force surrounding her, reveling in the ease of the act that was usually impeded by the plates of Vonduun Skerr Ygdris covering her body. With a mighty heave, she sent the dead weight of the enforcer slamming into his former employer, delivering them both back into the fray inside the gambling den.

"Sithspit." Vrag growled through clenched teeth as she turned to face the last member of the trio, and upon meeting his widened eyes, the Sith let the rictus curl into a sharp, sharp smile.

She stepped over the prone body of [member="Kana Truden"] without averting her piercing gaze, never severing the eye contact even as she sank her blade into his gut with terrifying calm washing over her features. He let out a gasping gurgle before dropping like a stone, the firrerreo never moving to catch him as she retrieved her weapon from his abdomen and returned her attention to the blonde.

"Get up," she ordered curtly, her tone compounded in severity as she passed her fingers across the injury in her side. The jacket she'd been wearing was burnt at the edges, but none of the fabric of her shirt had thankfully gotten into the wound. It was always a queen to heal apart half-healed flesh to extract foreign objects.

"So, a warehouse?"

 

[Kana Truden]

“Sithspit.” That voice of [member="Vrag"] echoed around her, the lights grew brighter and for each blink the warm embrace of consciousness slipped further out of Kana’s mind. “Get up.” The echoes continued but Kana obeyed. Her arms shakingly pushed her off the ground and not long after she was back on her feet again. Her head pounded, her eye sight worse than a Miralukan.

“So, a warehouse?”

Kana squinted at what she believed to be her temporary ally.

“Yes.” She managed underneath her breath. “A well-guarded warehouse though, mind you.”

The silence was allowed to linger.

“Look, I... We... I can’t see anything. We need to find someplace to rest.” Kana latched onto Vrag. “That hit. Head. Spinning. Eye sight. Fainting.”

 

[Vrag]

Gingerly the incognito Sith Lord brushed back the wet strands of hair sticking to her forehead, heedless of the blood she was likely to smear all over her pale skin as she did so. If the current weather continued, the red would be gone in a matter of minutes anyway.

As she stood there, listening to the sound of rain against metal and duracrete and flesh, another sound, a voice, broke through. A slight nod of her head to the side was the only indication that she'd heard the former Jedi speak, and it was only when the blonde's timbre wavered dangerously that Vrag turned around, and rather quickly at that.

Right on time, too.

The arms of [member="Kana Truden"] wrapped unbidden around her shoulders, and it seemed for a moment that the firrerreo turned into a cold marble statue as they did. Her features hardened into a flinty mask that might as well have been chiseled out of bone, her icy eyes boring holes into the messy strands of blonde cascading down her back.

"Are you karking kidding me?" she spoke, more to herself than to the half-fainted woman, each word measured and deathly calm as it left her lips. Vrag did not appreciate being touched without permission, much less when it was as intimate as this, but the precariousness of their situation for once outweighed the urge to teach that particular lesson to the Dark Jedi.

Later, the firrerreo promised to herself before accepting the human burden for the time being as she replaced the vibro-knife in her boot and called to her grasp one of the blasters left behind by the thugs she'd sent flying a few moments ago.

She afforded one last glance to the gambling den to ascertain that pandemonium reigned there still before promptly disappearing into the oily blackness of the underworld crowd with a woman on her arm and a chip on her shoulder.

 

[Kana Truden]

“Nope.” Kana muttered. “Can’t see.”

The situation was precarious. Somehow Kana had managed to break the barrier again between enemy and friend. Arms around her former enemy Kana tried to not prove herself too burdensome for the Sith Lord. Weight was shifted from the arm as if Kana’s body was merely asking for support.

“The Council sits atop of the big temple.” She continued spilling the information. “Something about them and hogging all the good sights for themselves.”

“I personally think we should disband though. We serve the Order no purpose and...” Kana realised she was using ‘we’ again. “They. They serve no purpose other than place themselves in a holier-than-thou spotlight. They place themselves up top and look down upon the rest of the Order.”

Kana spat on the ground. “It’s disgusting how hypocritical the Order seems once you have separated from them.”

“There is a great Jedi library on the planet as well.” Kana slowly began to let go of her pillar of support. “No doubt they will try to evacuate that one first. If you act fast enough and lock down the airspace they won't be able to.”

“Corvus loves her holocrons. There is no denyhing that.” Kana shrugged. “If you want those holocrons and datacrons you will definitely need to hit that first, and fast.”

[member="Vrag"]