First Reply Panic at the Tavern

[Todblaz Graker]

Outfit | Ranger Armor
Equipment | Z240 Revolver ; Kriin Sentinel
Tag | Open!

Tod sat at the bar, sipping his drink, the blue liquid sloshing with each sip. The bar buzzed with multiple conversations, a low hum filling the air. Suddenly, an uproar erupted from the other side of the bar, drowning out the chatter. Turning to observe the commotion, Tod witnessed a man throwing a punch, sending a tall furry creature sprawling.

The creature rose angrily and stormed out, uttering unintelligible sounds. The man who threw the punch laughed, joined by his friends. Tod overheard them boasting about how they had "put him in his place" and belittling his gang as "pointless and weak." Those last words gave Tod pause.

As he set down his drink, a crash reverberated through the room, followed by the distinct clicking of thermal detonators. Tod tried to leaped over the bar just as they detonated. He didn't make it, which caused him to be propelled through the glass centerpieces.

Grimacing from the impact, Tod found himself on the opposite side of the bar. Shouts filled the air, accompanied by the smell of smoke. Getting to his feet, Tod ducked back down as blaster fire erupted through the broken window. What had started as the bar continued to descend into chaos.

 

[Damien Dooku]

​

A bar-fight or two were no deviation from normal for those who fancied cantinas as much as himself. The cheap liquor and temperamental company made for a pleasant viewing experience-- when you weren't the one involved. What should've been his evening entertainment had somehow turned sour after the current showing of drunken idiots decided to take things just a little too far over the line. Blasters and vibroknives would've been manageable, but thermal dets?

It was his luck that he chose the VIP booth, which while shoddy as your average dive across the Rim, did provide him with a durasteel table meant for a friendly game of dice or cards. His compatriots for the night would not prove as lucky as him although, as by the time the scoundrel was kicking the table onto its side, those aforementioned dets had just about set themselves off.

One ear-ringing explosion later and his eyes popped back open, Damien's entire body having been punted back against the wall, but the improvised cover of the table having saved him from the worst of it. He couldn't say the same about his two fellow gamblers, or what was left of 'em anyway. Instead he focused on propping himself up against the table and assuming a low firing position with his ears still ringing fierce. He blind fired over the top a few times, letting his free hand, dig into his ear in a vein attempt to speed up the process of recovering it in full.

Loud thumps pelted the opposite end of the table, to which he'd return with several more shots of his own, though he made an attempt to aim at an unlucky Nikto first, and his Ugnaught companion second. The former took a shot square in the stomach and fell, with the latter having a much heavier pistol, and the advantage of size to hide his profile much better.

Damien let off the remaining shots from his blaster's cartridge before dropping it to the floor and reloading a fresh one. He aimed down the sight, then pulled and held down the trigger long enough to activate its secondary firing mode, a single disruptor shot aimed where the Ugnaught should be.

Boom!​

It rippled across the bar, slamming into the side of a table and vaporizing it and the Ugnaught in one go. But no time for a victory lap, as the familiar beeping of yet another thermal detonator left him wide-eyed and scrambling away from the table. The Short-lived dash ended when the detonator went off, forcing him off his feet and into a spiraling tumble across and over the bar. Broken glass and debris rained down on top of him as he shifted himself onto his rear, then pressed his back up against the bar for cover.

"So much for clean sweeping the table." He groaned out, removing a bit of broken glass from the side of his wrist as his face settled on the stranger taking care to his right. "If this is your bar, you're better off pissing inside of a Mandalorian's helmet in front of 'em if you think i'm leaving a tip." Another volley of shots from his pistol were blind fired over the top of the bar in the meantime.

Todblaz Graker

 

[Todblaz Graker]

Outfit | Ranger Armor
Equipment | Z240 Revolver ; Kriin Sentinel
Tag | Damien Dooku (Thanks for joining!)

Taking a moment to collect himself, Tod glanced up at the charred remains of the former bartender hanging over the bar. Gripping his Kriin from his side, he inserted a cylinder of blaster rounds as another thermal detonator detonated nearby.

A towering Talz figure stormed into the bar, wielding a T-21 and firing indiscriminately at patrons. Despite taking down a few, most of its targets were already corpses. Rising to his feet, Tod aimed and fired three rounds at the Talz, two hitting its chest and one squarely in the face. The creature staggered backward before collapsing, its weapon firing wildly as it fell.

With the blaster fire from outside died down, Tod focused his attention on the window. An head peered through the window, looking around for survivors. Tod fired a shot at the individual, the impact audible as it struck its target. A yell followed, then the thud of something hitting the soft earth outside. In response, another barrage of fire erupted through the window, forcing Tod to take cover.

Another volley of thermal detonators came through the window, their explosion sending the former bartender's body over the bar and onto Tod. He pushed the dead man off him and waited for a time to respond to the shooting. Standing briefly to return fire, he immediately got pushed back to the ground when his Beskar chest piece took a hit, causing him to struggle to breathe from the impact. He pushed himself back up to the bar, trying to focus on his breathing.

Surveying the scene, Tod saw no signs of life among the remaining patrons, from where he sat. "Anyone still breathing out there?" he called out, hoping for a response amidst the blaster fire.

 

[Damien Dooku]

He kept his head down for the most part.

While bodies continued to drop in and outside the cantina, and the concussive heat of thermal detonators continued to find their way into the cantina, Damien could only wonder just what in the hell he'd gotten himself into by the time things grew quiet. The sound of boots weighing upon broken glass and debris broke the eerie silence that arrived in the aftermath of it all. The voice that followed led him to peek an eye over the bar to see that it was the familiar figure he'd momentarily ran into before the cantina fight had reached its finale.

He dipped his head back down, dropping his blaster's spent cartridge to the floor and reloaded a fresh one in its place. Damien raised up from behind the bar with deliberate caution in his movements, a hand lingering close enough to the blaster now holstered on his hip in case the interaction needed to be cut short and deadly. "Hell of a party– shame I can't seem to find my invitation." He was obviously playing coy, and though the playfulness in his tone was meant to disarm the stranger, a calculating pair of eyes tracked his body language closely for any signs of hostility.

Damien's eyes scanned left to right, taking in the carnage. If he felt some type of way over the smell of burned flesh or the viscera exposed by repeater fire and grenades, the scoundrel didn't appear anything other than playfully apathetic. "You got a name stranger? Or are you one of them silent, brooding, "Speaks with their blaster" types." His lip curled into a smirk, a hint of challenge laden in his tone, but lacking the overt hostility that led to massacre the two had miraculously and skillfully survived.

Todblaz Graker

 

[Todblaz Graker]

Outfit | Ranger Armor
Equipment | Z240 Revolver ; Kriin Sentinel
Tag | Damien Dooku

As the fighting subsided temporarily, the scent of charred flesh filled the air, a grim reminder of the recent violence. Oddly enough, it wasn't as repulsive as one might expect, resembling the aroma of cooked meat.

Standing up, Tod surveyed the scene, noticing a stranger emerging from behind the bar. Reacting instinctively, he aimed his pistol at the newcomer, but relaxed as the man made a disarming remark. Though blocked by his helmet, a smirk likely played across Tod's face.

Flipping his trench coat back to reveal a holster on his left hip, Tod returned his pistol to its holster. "I'm not exactly known for my subtlety, I'm afraid. It'll probably be the death of me," he quipped, concealing the holster once more. "Name's Todblaz, but you can call me Tod. And who might you be?"

Turning back to the window, Tod heard shouts in an unfamiliar language from outside. "Seems our new friends might pay us another visit to finish their drinks," he remarked, still gazing at the broken window. "Care to join me in greeting them, or are you more of the 'hit them in the back of the head' type?" Tod said this to playfully mock the man's previous question.

 

[Damien Dooku]

He was skilled, which may have been a issue had the man's intentions were to leave him lost among the sea of corpses littering the blown-out cantina. Luckily for them both, any immediate concerns seemed to leave the room once Tod holstered his weapon and responded back in kind with his own brand of crass humor.

Once his name had been given, Damien relaxed his hand away from the weapon at his hip, and stepped from behind the bar to get a closer look at the other survivor. "Damien." He replied in kind, though he wouldn't be given out his last name to this stranger anytime soon. There was power in one's identity, and there was also danger in it too. It was something he'd learned early on after leaving the nest back on Coruscant.

A warning followed their short introduction– his keen ears having picked up the sound of boots moving with a purpose outside of their shot-out abode. Damien crouched low and moved up to one of the shot-out windows before lifting his head up just enough to see out of his periphery. He counted out at least a dozen, but at least they hadn't brought out the heavy artillery.

Yet.

They always brought out the heavy stuff whenever he was around.

He dipped below the window once more, drawing his blaster out of its holster and switching the fire-mode to its disruptor shot. He offered a smirk across to Todblaz Graker , even letting out a low chuckle as the weapon in his hand continued to warm up. "I prefer whatever it takes to get the job done– Nothing more, nothing less."

Damien lifted from his knelt position and extended his arm outwards in one fluid motion, sweeping across the targets until his weapon settled on the one unfortunate soul who stood out among their group. It was one rancor-sized wookie, if you asked him, and had he been forced to fight the beast one-on-one, in a fair and even fight, then maybe he'd be shaking a bit in his boots.

But as the disruptor shot blasted from the end of Damien's pistol and reduced the Wookie's head into atoms and dust, he was feeling decently confident in getting out of this situation alive.

"How about hittin' them in the front of the head while they're not looking instead?!" He snapped back behind the cover of the wall with a grin, dodging a flurry of blaster bolts that peppered the outside of the cantina.