Questing at maximum effort [lightsaber hunt]

[Miss Blonde]

Going back to Dredd for the third time was probably a bad idea, but this time it was a absolute necessity. They weren't after drugs or guns, no this time they were tracking their prey. For a while now the lightsaber of Darth Maul had been floating around in the galaxy going from darksider to darksider and today that was about to change, the Black Ties were on the case and as of late were preparing for their run at creating something larger than themselves.

So aboard a dropship of a Hades class cruiser a team of two was assembled to track down and elongate the Sith Knight who was in possession of the saber. So naturally Miss Blonde was going to see this done herself, and along side her she had brought along her tech guru [member="The Black Hat"] for navigation purposes. Also she was fairly sure if it came down to a dangerous situation she could outrun the kid.

wearing her spare set of Reclaimer power armor the woman looked over to the black hat from behind her visor and smiled, today was going to be different. Today she was armed with a pulse rifle, pistols, and a spare lightsaber to make things a little easier. But down there it wasn't the punk rock cannibals or the psychotic dictators that worried her, it was the vast darkness of the South Pole. A billion people up and vanishing into thin air out of nowhere, that just didn't happen.

"Stick with me and we'll be fine kid." Patricia said as the dropship door sealed and the craft went out into the dead of space.

[member="The Black Hat"]

 

[Nyx]

Fantastic. She was going back to Dredd. And they weren't even attending a concert this time. They were after the saber of some ancient Sith Lord or something. She didn't particularly care, honestly. It wasn't about the prize for the Black Hat, no; it was about the experience, the thrill, the rush of the adventure. And so far, [member="Miss Blonde"] had delivered on the excitement as long as the teenager had known the woman.

On the ship, Black Hat was simultaneously messing with the frequencies emitted by her collar, and with a datapad in her hands. The collar she was adjusting to intercept any signals they could get on the ground, and the datapad she was using to play Angry Ewoks. She had gotten through level seven, without paying a single credit so far, which she was rather proud of.
She could see the Boss Lady suiting up in some rather cool looking armor, and readying some rather heavy firepower. Great. The lady she was escorting was going to make enough noise to wake up a bantha.

"How about you stick with me, and your ass doesn't get lost, blondie."

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

"Trust me when I say this, if it's anything like the time before. You're gonna want to stay with me." Patricia said as she slapped a sound dampener on the weapon and activated its suppression field.

"The last time we came down to the dark zone, there were smoke demons. You know what a smoke demon is kid? It's a monster about eight feet tall with an immunity to blasters. However mister explosive pulse rifle and lightsaber will take care of them. Also zombies, thralls leftover from Yuuzhan Vong warlords. Needless to say when I say stick with me its for your safety." the woman said with a firm voice from beneath her helmet.

"So the map has been uploaded to your systems, and the last known location of the Sith has been plotted. Just get us there and keep us off the main streets and we'll be ok." Patricia offered the kid a blaster in case she would need it.

"I know how you feel about killing, but trust me. Ain't nothing down there that's alive."

The ship broke atmosphere and was soon on its way to the South Pole, aka the dark zone. It was late afternoon there and the sun was starting its dip into the evening. Which meant they had a limited amount of time to move through the day before everything came out to bump in the night.

This meant the Sith down there was probably using the dark focal point to draw in power during the day, more than likely he or she didn't want to be caught out there at night either. So that meant that the Sith would be a slippery one wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. There was a slight bump as the cabin shook and passed its way into the dark skies of Dredd, breaking past the clouds the ship hovered over the South Pole then shot down.

On the edge of the city the ship paused and the doors remained closed waiting for Blonde's command.

"You ready?"

 

[Nyx]

If [member="Miss Blonde"] was trying to scare the teenager, then she was succeeding. Black Hat swallowed air as she tugged her hood over her face, covering her crystalline blue eyes, which were trembling in fear. Dammit, why did the boss have to say that?
As she explained, Black Hat loaded the map onto her datapad, translating it into binary. Call it insurance, since she was pretty damn sure her escort didn't read binary. She was one of the greatest slicers out there for a reason, after all.

With a deep sigh, Black Hat tugged at her metal collar, staring at the doors to the outside. Whatever was on the other side, she was glad to have a mean blonde woman in power armor to help her out.
"Ready is a subjective term."

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

"It's going to be alright Hat, trust me." Patricia put a firm hand on the teenager's shoulder and gave her a firm grip.

However that was slight of hand, placing a tracker on the kid's back she knew that the techie would never consent to having a tracker placed on her. But this was Dredd and she didn't intend on losing anyone else to this planet, so even if she wasn't getting off this planet the kid was. Looking over to the pilot of the ship she gave him a thumbs up and the door opened up to show a rather gruesome sight.

The hanging bodies of former trespassers were on display from road signs, buildings, anything that could support them. Patricia simply stepped in the child's view and looked towards death.

"Keep your head down and don't look up until I tell you." She said with the authority of a mother speaking to her child.

Stepping down from the ship she gazed forward at the outskirts of the city and began to walk with Nyx behind her, hopefully she would follow her word and not see the rotting corpses of Nova City Angels, Rocket City Racketeers, or any other of the planets population left up there to dry.

After a few minutes they made their way past the corpses and into the city where long shadows cast themselves out and blurs of movement could be seen from within them.

"Get us a path through the light." Patricia said as she raised her rifle at the shadows.

"Their last known location from the Hades imagery was at the convention center."

 

[Nyx]

As the doors opened, and [member="Miss Blonde"] stepped in front of her, Black Hat almost pushed her out of the way. She wasn't some damn baby that needed to be led around holding her mommies hand! In fact, she was raising her arms to do just that-
But then the smell hit her.
By the Force, it smelled like. . . like. . . death. Like rotting meat, like a meat processing factory abandoned for three months. She could hear the flies buzzing, and the cries of scavengers as they feasted on whatever was producing that smell. It permeated every last inch of Black Hat's being, making her want to vomit.
But she didn't.
She followed the boss, her eyes glued to the ground, her fists clenched tightly.

They made it past what Black Hat refused to believe she knew, and she could see the shadows.
"Okay. I can do this."

Calling upon the inner coward within her, Black Hat darted forward, twirling and twisting to avoid touching the shadows, hoping Blonde was right behind her. Having memorized the layout of the street upon first glance, Hat danced gracefully in the light, never stepping less than an inch from the shadows.
Maybe those bird wrists were useful after all.

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

Miss Blonde was right behind the girl every step of the way, bouncing from place to place the powered armor allowed her to do more and keep up with the child. Normally Miss Blonde didn't care for armor, she preferred her dresses and whatever lounge wear, but this planet was different. Here it was always nice to be prepared for anything, because everything was trying to kill you here.

"Right behind you." Blonde said to Nyx from a few feet away.

The dance of keep away from the shadows continued for a few kilometers as they worked their way deeper into the city. But as time went by so did their chances of getting out without a fight, it had started to shift into the evening. The sun was beginning its dip towards the horizon and the shadows began to grow and lash out of them. Miss Blonde tried to pay them no mind but she could see the evil within them, she could see the dark wisps of fog and tendrils extending out of them begging to be set free for another night.

"HUD tells me we're a kilometer out, we need to pick up the pace. I think we have forty five minutes maybe an hour at the most." Patricia said as she hoped past the looming shadow of a parking garage.

They would be able to see the arena from where they were, the top of its once regal form. Only a thousand meters out and Patricia would feel the darkside within building power to try and take control of what darkness lay here. The Sith was ambitious and they were probably using the saber of maul as a focusing point. All that hatred and madness, it's what she'd of done as well.

It was up to Hat to get them there.

 

[Nyx]

"Okay. . . Okay. . . Let me look here. . ."
Hat's eyes roamed the stream of binary code, occasionally glancing up to confirm the numbers. If this was right, they just needed to go this way, then that way, then a right, and a left. . .
As she lead [member="Miss Blonde"], she began to wonder what she was doing with her life. She was sixteen, on a planet where the shadows literally kill you, looking for an ancient piece of crap she could never use. Why? Why the hell was she doing this? Well. The simple answer was the Boss asked her to.

Hat finally looked up for the last time, staring up at an imposing building, one that even a normie like her knew was permeated with that Dark stuff. This was their destination.
"Well, we made it, Boss. What's the plan?"

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

"We're going to walk through that front door, step into the arena, and I'm going to put a bullet in that Sith's head." Patricia said as she checked her weapon's breach.

"There's a reason why he's here, one place in the entire city where the lights still work. Maybe it's generators I don't know, but they are in there and they aren't coming back out."

Stepping through the front door Patricia cautiously stepped through with her rifle pointed up, Nyx was to stay behind her and stay safe. All around them the ruined arena reeked of the dark side, the bad mojo oozed everywhere from the dilapidated floors and walls to the shattered glass windows. The entire building was simply horrible to be inside of, and once they left miss blonde was certainly taking a shower.

"Their up here. Stay extremely quiet." Blonde said as they worked their way down through the halls.

Coming up on one of the entrances into the main arena Patricia and Black Hat crouched behind a row of seats. Taking her rifle the woman flipped up slowly to see a hooded figure at the center of a smashball field meditating with the saber out in front of them. There it was, it was in their sights.

"Marking target." She whispered as her eye aimed down the scope.

"Don't look. This will be messy."

 

[Nyx]

This place was straight out of a damn holoflick, she swore. The shadows seemed to creep out of every corner, blocking out every scrap of light possible. The teenager was regretting coming to this place, now. She could be in her apartment, slamming back energy drinks and hacking the Republic. But now she was stuck on Dredd, where every damn thing was going to kill her.

But she trusted [member="Miss Blonde"] to get her out of here safe. She just had to do whatever the woman said, and she would be fine. Right? Yeah, yeah. Just listen to the scary blonde lady and she would get out of here alive. And the thing she wanted more than just about everything was to make it out alive.

So when she told Hat not to look, she cast her gaze down, not willing to watch the Sith killed. She hated death, in any form.
"Tell me when it's done."

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

The darkness had finally crept it's way upon them and covered the arena, the sounds of howls and roars came from outside and the artificial lighting came on inside the arena to keep the monsters at bay. However it did cause the sith to break their concentration on meditation, and with that gone the force rushed to them informing them of the danger that was Miss Blonde.

The sith stood up immediately stretched their hand forward in the blink of an eye, and just like that a wave of force energy hit miss blonde hard sending her flying towards the wall with a grunt of impact. Slamming against it hard the woman was knocked out and stunned leaving only Nyx to fend for herself. The sith had not seen her however due to her low force signature, they had only felt miss blonde.

"Company, and who is it we have here." The sith said in a very sophisticated and evil voice as they stood up and gripped the saber.

The blade activated and the sith began to walk towards the stairs still unable to see Nyx hiding beneath the seats, however Miss Blonde's unconscious body was out in the aisle between the rows of seats. So this gave Nyx a few choices, run into the shadows and try not to get got, wake Patricia and reveal herself to the sith, or take the blaster Patricia had given her and take the sith by surprise. Either way the time was coming and sith was growing closer and closer down the aisle.

"You tried to kill me? Me of all people?! No I think not, I'm going to love peeling the flesh from your bones." The man said as he grew closer and closer to the point of being within ten meters of Nyx.

 

[Nyx]

Hat stared at the unconscious body of [member="Miss Blonde"], eyes wide. Chit, chit, chit, chit chit! This was not going according to plan! She could hear the psycho getting closer, the snap hiss of their lightsaber activating, and the heavy sounds of their footsteps.
She slapped a hand over her mouth, trying not to make a single noise. What would she do, what would she do, what would she do?!
Think, Hat, think! Wait. The blaster, she gave you a blaster! She reached into her hoodie and pulled out the small weapon, taking a moment to figure out how to prime it.
You can do this, Nyx. You can do this.

With a deep breath, and her eyes squeezed shut, she turned out of cover, squeezing the trigger as many times as she could, too terrified to look to see the results of her little escapade.

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

Miss Blonde knew Nyx's feelings on killing, she not only wanted to protect her from making a choice she'd regret, but she wanted to make sure she didn't end up like her. So when the black hat squeezed the trigger multiple times it wasn't red bolts of death that exited the barrel, but rather stun rings that caused the sith to scream in pain and seize up before falling to a single knee.

Starting to stir a bit Patricia heard the commotion and her vision began to come in and out. She could see Nyx's boots and the sith that was struggling to fight against the stuns the blaster gave out. So with the information coming to her it meant she had to act right now.

"Get behind me!" The woman growled as she lifted up her assault rifle.

Taking it she pointed it at the Sith's head as she stood at a single knee as well. Coughing deeply the woman switched the safety off with a click and the sith spoke.

"Mercy..." He said weakly and in a pathetic tone.

"Nope." Was the only response he'd be given before the woman pulled the trigger.

The burst of bullets poured into the man causing sprays of red blow out of exit wounds which explode in gushes of blood. The sith fell backwards clearly dead and Patricia collapsed down breathing hard. She had been hit hard and her cage was a little rattled still.

So in that moment where she was heavily disoriented a few rounds had missed their intended target and hit s fuse box on the other end of the arena. Everything went dark and soon the howls of the night began to sound around them from outside the stadium.

"The saber... grab it and help me up..." she said as she struggled to get to a knee.

 

[Nyx]

As soon as [member="Miss Blonde"] told her, Nyx dived behind her, discarding the stun blaster. She was disoriented by actually firing the weapon, and couldn't look away in time. The teenager watched as her boss slaughtered the Sith, their blood spraying through the air, including Nyx's face. Feeling the warm liquid on her face, she took a deep breath to begin screaming-
Only to whimper as the lights went out.

Chit, chit, chit. The only light in the area was the bright purple glow of Nyx's collar, the teenager glad she had the damn thing, now. Feeling around in the darkness, Nyx winced as her hands brushed against the still ward corpse, her pale skin stained with blood as she found the lightsaber.
She scrambled over to where her boss' voice came from, helping her up.
"We are so fething dead."

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="The Black Hat"]

With the black hat helping her up the woman pressed the teenager's head to her shoulder and patted her back, it was a slight gesture of comfort but at the same time a way for the woman to hold on to her. It was time for the two of them to get out of there as the shadows closed in around them, the red eyes of smoke demons saw their way into the black and various thralls were running at them with howling screams of bloodlust.

"Pick up on my twelve..." She said weakly.

With her weapon sitting at half a magazine she wouldn't waste the rounds on the incoming thralls, rather she lifted it straight up and fired a spray of explosive bullets at the retractable rusted roof. With the rifle clicking empty she tossed it aside and gripped Nyx tight as if hugging her own daughter, who was only two years younger than the teen really.

"Hold on tight!" The woman yelled as she did her best to break through her concussion.

But with the thought of her child out of her head the woman's jetpack activated and the two shot upwards as the thralls and smoke demons barely missed grabbing hold. Patricia almost like superman lifted her fist and used the power armor to burst through the roof of the arena and up into the night sky.

The dropship that had dropped them off was above them and they only had one shot at this. The doors were opened up and with the amount of weight, speed, and distance the jetpack only had enough fuel in it for this snatch and grab. With the wind pressing heavily against their heads Patricia adjusted her arm that Nyx was being held to her side with one and in the other her open hand was reaching for the ledge of the ship.

With the jetpack starting to fade the two of them seemed like they weren't going to make it. But with one last push of fuel Patricia's hand clutched the ledge of the ship, and in her other arm dangled the small teen over the pit of monsters that wished to devour her.

"I got you!" the woman yelled to the teen as the wind blew across them.

Grunting in pain and discomfort the power armor did what it did best by augmenting the woman's strength to allow her to throw the girl into the cabin of the gunship then pull herself up. Crawling her way towards Nyx Patricia didn't care about the saber at the moment, only the kid. Taking off her helmet the woman leaned up against the wall of the ship and took a deep breath.

"I got you, kid. Get us the hell out of here." She said to the pilot as the ship began to fly away from the dark zone.