Private Scum and Villainy with a Side of Cheese

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

It was just another average Taungsday. You know. Out with your friends on a secret Jedi assigment in the heart of Corellia's seedy underworld district. The usual stuff. Everything was going swimmingly, until Brandyn decided to direct his compatriots down a side alley, just a half second after his fellow Padawan Ralia directed their squad down an alley just a few meters across the road. He turned once half way down the alley to find that not a single one of his classmates had followed him.

"Well...I guess that answer that question," he said ruefully.

Down the alley and across the road, he could see the shortest of the gaggle of Padawan following the rest of the squad down the alley opposite Brandyn's. With a discouraged shrug of his shoulders, Brandyn started to move towards his teammates, but two shadows moved. Large hulking formless masses from the sides of the alley pressed in towards him. Brandyn recoiled quickly, taking a step or two to come under a direct beam of light from the many stories above them. Into the dim light, stepped two Trandoshans, tongues darting out and licking their elongated fangs.

"Hey there...boys...girls...Doshies..."

"Well now he has seen our faces," hissed one of the Trandoshans, a deep scar running up the side of its neck clearly defining it from the other, "so now we's gonna have to end him, right Chark?"

"You could have just...not stepped into the light, and then we all could have been happy just to go about our business," Brandyn said with outstretched hands as if to say, 'come on man'.

"Shut it boy," snarled the second, softer but somehow more sinister sounding, 'Doshie', "or we will just split you up here and now..."

"She's gonna be here soon, Chark," said the bassier of the two Trandoshans.

"Shut it Brix," snapped the other Trandoshan, with a literal snap of his teeth. The one identified as Brix jumped back in fright. The height and size disparity between the larger Brix and smaller Chark made Brandyn wonder what Chark was bringing to the party to so intimidate the larger Trandoshan.

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

Oh great, the meet up was compromised. Another job in a string of jobs that ended up a bust right before they closed. Some smug smooth-talker and her contact were up in steam about something. Amea let out a disappointed sigh and stepped into the alley with her hand on her gun.

"Hey!" She called out to the group. "What's going on here?"

The group turned towards her with a hand raised towards Brandyn. "You said you would be alone."

"I am." Amea shrugged and held her out towards the lost Jedi. "Does this look like the kind of moron that I would run with, Brix?"

"Don't know, lady. Do you run with idiots like this?" Brix retorted, smug at his clever comeback.

Amea let out a frustrated sigh and let her fingers rub at her eyebrows. "No, I don't. Now can we get this over with? Let the boy go and we can get back to it."

Brix looked at Chark who looked at the others before they both shook their heads.

"Nah, he knows too much already."

"Come on, Chark. The kid's barely worth the plasma."

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

"Hey! What's going on here?"

The attention of both Trandoshans was quickly pulled in the direction of a newcomer. The new arrival assumed was the 'she' the one Doshie had mentioned, at least Brandyn assumed as much. Brandyn looked about quickly to see if there was any realistic chance of an escape, but even going up was out of the question. He need to go back the way he had come, past the Trandoshans and the newcomer.

Brix pointed at Brandyn, who just raised his hands innocently and shrugged.

"Does this look like the kind of moron that I would run with, Brix?"

"Hey! Now that's just uncalled for," Brandyn said with an finger point of his own, his though jabbing the air in the direction of the woman.

His posturing was clearly not impressing the one called Chark, who turned and spat a slithering tongue Brandyn's way. The Padawan recoiled in disgust a little, which only aggravated Chark even more.

"No, I don't. Now can we get this over with? Let the boy go and we can get back to it."

"Boy?" Brandyn said, hands in the air in protest, before dropping to his hips with a shake of his head.

A little voice in his head just then whispered a few dangerous words. What...would...Dad...do?

"Come on, Chark. The kid's barely worth the plasma."

"OK...I think this is getting out of hand...honey," he said with a glint in his eye. Chark and Brix cast him a curious look. Brandyn responded with open palms facing them, and a subtle mouthing of the words, 'Can I just schooch past here please and thank you?'

The confusion on Trandoshan's faces was hard to pick out, but it was there. There tongues darted nervously, and the shared cautious glances.

"What do you mean by honey?" Chark finally said as he eyed Brandyn all the way over to where the woman stood.

"Look...we just didn't know that we could completely trust you, now we do!" Brandyn said as he attempted to slide up beside the woman, beyond that was the attempt to put his arm around her shoulders.

"We trust them now...don't we...honey?" He said with a glance, and wiggle of his eyebrows.

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

Had he known Amea, had he known what she had been through, he would not have even considered doing what he decided to do. It wasn't her intent to hurt him, it wasn't her intent to have him around either. As he did his act, as he began to insinuate that they were a couple and as his arms began to wrap around her shoulder there was a brief moment in which it all began to sink in again.

The fear.

The panic.

The blood.

Her hand grasped at his wrist to tug it off and away from her before she thrust her elbow firmly into his nose. Her foot swept at his feet to throw him down onto his back. With her hands free she pulled the gun from her holster to push it firmly against his cheek before she even began to realize what the hell had happened. She let in a few breaths as she began to come down from the stress.

Her adrenaline was spiking, the anger slowly pumping in her veins until it all burst. Plasma bolts were unleashed in their direction and Amea deftly moved off of Brandyn to rush in the direction of their attackers. One of them raised their gun, she leaned to the right to dodge their shot before she kicked it out of their hand. Her hand latched onto his wrist with a sickening crunch as the servos in her prosthetic arm began to clamp down on the henchman's arm with an indiscriminate pressure.

They tried to shoot her, they tried to tick her off, but Amea had already lost it. Red tunnel vision seized her mind. She needed to kill, she needed to be safe, she needed Chark to stop, and she needed her damn package.

"Take her out!" He barked and hissed. "Grab the kid!"

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Brandyn’s eyes grew as wide as a Lothcat’s mouth, and he uttered a brief protest. “Wait!” But it was too late.

Crack.

OOOF.

Jedi reflexes or not, he was not prepared for a swift elbow to the nose. The disorientation left him open for the leg sweep and he found himself laid out upon the hard ground of the alley, appendages splayed out in gangly mess. Blood was already issuing forth from his surely broken nose, and tears streamed without invitation from his eyes.

”Argh!”

His vision was a mixture of amorphous shapes and bodily fluids. He could make out only the general colour of each Trandoshan, and the figure that blocked their form must have been the woman.

Chark’s order was just in the process of being obeyed, when Brandyn noted the blob that must have been Brix. In a moment of pure self-preservation and pain induced power, Brandyn thrust his hand forward sending a blast of Force energy into the chest of Brix. The Trandoshan flew through the air, rotating a few degrees as he did, and his back collided at full speed with he woman that had only moments earlier left Brandyn a bloodied mess.

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

Her hand eased its grip as she finally let the man go. She skipped into range of another, thrust her knee into his stomach, and then… Was hit by a body that struck her from behind. She hit the ground with a heavy thud before she tried to claw her way out from under the unconscious man that had landed on her. She could feel the way they stirred on top of her.

A heavy boot connected to the side of her head. The world got blurry and with it, the panic set in even deeper. She wasn't going to let herself be taken again. A telekinetic blast pushed those in her immediate area off their feet as she clambered back up again. It was hard to see, but she was on her feet. Something trickled down her side which most likely meant they had hit something important.

Not her brain though, that one had been fried a while back.

Didn't mean her head wouldn't still hurt from the kick though, in fact it very much hurt but she was far too prideful to let that one show. Amea's hands extended towards the first person she could see as the vision cleared up; Chark.

"I told you this flerking moron wasn't with me, Chark you double-crossing krifbag." Her voice hissed as her clawed hand dismantled his gun in his very hands. "Now hand me my package before I paint this alley red with you and your so-called thugs."

The trandoshan looked at Brandyn and then Amea with a mad growl. His lips parted as if to say something...

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Brandyn wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, it was meant to be an easy solution for the moisture issue, but instead he managed to manoeuvre an eyelash into his eye. The single little hair became an instant irritant, and tears began to well before streaming from that one eye.

”Blast it all,” he said as he scrambled to his feet and blinked furiously to clear his vision and see the catastrophe unfolding.

He though, just for a moment, about leaving right then and there, but as he did so his saber hilt tapped his thigh. He had a higher ethic to maintain, and wasn’t doing a great job at it. He needed to diffuse this moment before anything else went wrong. He searched his mind, back to a library visit and debates about when aggression was justified, but found not resolution to his internal questions. So, he defaulted to his base ideology - carry the bigger stick.

Brandyn reached for his saber, brought himself to an opening Shii-cho stance and moved his thumb to ignore his blade.

”Fine. Have it,” Chark hissed, stepping over to a darker corner of the alley and pulling out a small box. With a swift action, he threw it at the feet of the woman, a glasslike shattering sound momentarily being heard, “enjoy what’s left of it, and don’t expect to do business with Chark’s Boyz again.”

The Trandoshan was clearly hurting, but wanting not to show it. Brandyn paused for just a moment, leaving his saber unignited. Perhaps the problem would resolve itself?

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

What was the saying about poking bears, again? All that Amea heard was the shattering of the glass canister in front of her as a thick golden-brown liquid began to pour out into the street from the gaps in its packaging. Chark may have thought to have had the final word, but the way that Amea's knuckles paled begged the difference. She wasn't about to take this slight and some of Chark's 'boys' were aware of this from the way they seemed to slowly edge backwards.

A chuckle blew from her nose as she tried to calm herself down.

"That." She said as her eyes lingered on the broken crate. "Was supposed to be a gift for someone very special to me."

Chark stopped in his track and began to look over his shoulder for a moment as Amea clearly spoke to him.

"See, I'd hate to fail her like this. Technically I already have by attacking your friends— right? She's a bit more of a… Pacifist, if you would. A saint in comparison to who I am. A bright star in the bitter." She punctuated each word with a dose of venom. "Darkness." Her brows began to sink in anger as her hands opened towards the stars above. "Of the fething skies above."

"Now you've done gone and ruined my very kind gift to her, a perfectly preserved — rare as spice at a convent — bottle of Eshan Rum." Amea said and finally came to a full stop. "No, this is personal now. Do you think I care if there are witnesses for this, Chark? Do you think this boy here will be able to stop me even with a lightsaber at hand?"

Her hand jiggled before her, fingers spraddled as far apart as the synthskin could muster before she lowered it again to point at Chark.

"You have three seconds to get down on your knees to grovel, beg, and pray for forgiveness before I personally turn Chark's Boys into Huool's Boys." Amea said and pointed at a Trandoshan who seemed surprised that she knew his name. "Three seconds."

"... Three…"

"... Two…"

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Through the occasional blurriness of a watery eyelash annoyed eye, and the ringing in his head, Brandyn found himself flicking back and forth between looking at the Trandoshans, and at the woman. After what he had been privy to in the past few moments, he was not convinced that this whole affair would not result in the death of everyone in the alleyway.

More Trandoshans were beginning to step out of the shadows, one seemd more hesitant after the woman addressed them specifically.

Brandyn glanced quickly behind him. He had no back up. What would his teachers in the academy tell him to do?

THERE IS NO TRAINING FOR THIS.

He blinked as the woman began to count. Three.

A whisper of a thought entered his mind. Calm. Peace. Not fear. Be present. Do right. Two.

He blinked, and when his eyes opened his saber was on and he was stepping foward. His saber spun about in his grasp and he thrust it down into the ground to the left of the woman. He circled her cutting through the metallic ground of the alley until it gave way like a can opening inwards. Brandyn fell into the chasm like warehouse below, and landed sharply on a railless catwalk some ten metres below.

His shoulder hurt already, there was no blessed delay brought on by the adrenaline, just searing white hot pain. He had broken something.

But he knew that trouble was not over, he glanced up between winces to see if the woman had made the journey downwards with him.

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

"... One…"

The ground beneath Amea hissed as the saber made a quick cut around her. Her eyes set on the kid, rage flashing in her eyes as she bared her teeth at him. What was his play here? What was he doing, and more importantly why was he getting involved? He had no reason for this, no idea what she was willing to do if he messed with her. As the ground cracked she raised a brow, and as the metallic roar of failing support pillars shrieked in the alley she felt it give way beneath her soles.

Her eyes closed, hands extended by her sides to catch the fall only to find the hard, cold embrace of a metallic walkway. The air was knocked out of her as she hit the ground. The whole structure seemed to shake for a moment, but as the shakes stopped she slowly began to roll over on her back. A hiss parted her lips as she spat out the dust that had entered her mouth. For a moment longer she swept away the worst of the debris from her forehead.

Above them she could see that the kid had taken out a bigger chunk than he had intended, but that didn't mean that her work here was done. Amea was not one to give empty threats, especially not to people who crossed her. This was no different. She knew how Chark operated, she always knew how those that she dealt with operated, it was part of being a good information broker. If Amea was ever surprised in her dealings during a job then she clearly hadn't done what she was supposed to do in the first place. No, Chark was a creature of pride. He would ensure that the worst had passed before he'd approach the end to ensure that the threat was truly over.

With a swift hand she unholstered her gun and raised it by her hip to point it up at the opening. She gave it to the count of five. One moment t0o catch his breath, another to look at his crew, two more to assess the damage, and one to walk on over. Smug smirk and all.

Sure enough, as his precious moments slipped by he eventually popped out like the curious little gopher-lizard that he was. Amea let her iron shine with the red glow of superheated plasma death as the trigger clicked against its guard. For little more than a second, the gang leader went real rigid before his limp body fell over and into the hole, one chest wound richer.

Amea began to cough and spat out the worst of the blood that had begin to pool at the back of her mouth. The crimson liquid splattered across the metal surface for a moment as the rest poured down the nickel-sized holes embedded along the length of the suspended corridor. This wasn't exactly a new situation to her. In her time as a somehow even more reckless thief she had felt this sting of broken ribs before. She had felt her mind spin from enough falls and punches to know that while having a concussion was far from any optimal state, she would push through it.

Once she was back on her feet she slowly brushed herself off and looked at the kid.

Who the hell was this?

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Brandyn could see what was about to happen. Even through the haze, he could see the woman looking upwards, weapon trained on the spot where Chark might soon stick his head out. “No,” Brandyn said, but it was nearly inaudible.

He tried to push himself up to his knees, but found the searing pain in his shoulder to be unbearable. He slumped back down to the ground, but his focus was still on what was transpiring in front of him. “It doesn’t…have…to be this…way,” he said in soft blood splattering words.

Trust in the Force. Find your centre.

Eyes closed, as Brandyn began to mutter the age old words of Jedi self-centering. “I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.” Slowly, Brandyn raised to his feet, the feeling of triumph lifting him being shattered with the loud clap of a blaster shot. Brandyn jumped in shock.

He opened his eyes to see Chark falling into the hole, and witnessed his body ricochet lifelessly off catwalks and into the darkness below. Lifting his eyes, he looked up at the clearly insanely violent woman. He was next. Brandyn knew it. The next person to die this day, was Brandyn Sal-Soren.

”I…I’m sorry,” he said, spluttering on the blood that refused to stop coming up with each breath, “please spare me.”

A sense of shame rose in his cheeks. He was just a little boy, pretending to be a Jedi and now begging for his life.

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

He begged for his life but Amea was not one to take it, or so it would seem. Her eyes remained fixated on the boy. Her fists tensed up and paled as she threw herself into him to tackle him to the ground, a red bolt of plasma just narrowly missing his head as they fell to the ground with a clang.

"I won't kill you for being an idiot." Amea groaned as she leaned over him and pushed back on her feet. Her hand extended towards Brandyn with a sigh to help him back up and lead him behind cover. "But they will."

Blaster fire roared from above as bolt upon bolt seemed to fly their way. Most of them colliding against the metal panel that now acted as the sole barrier between them and certain death. Amea glanced over her shoulder towards a nearby door.

Her hand latched onto Brandyn to tug him up and away before she unholstered her gun again and fired a bolt in response to their message of disapproval. As they ran through the door she forced it closed behind them.

"Okay, listen up," She said and proceeded to block it further with a nearby crate. "You are in a life or death scenario now. I technically caused this, so I will technically also get you out of it. Do you understand?"

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

She was getting ready to strike, her fists clenching. Brandyn readied himself for defence, but found most of his limbs uncooperative. He winced, closing his eyes just enough not to see her coming with a tackle. He went down just a flash of bright light went burning past his face. He let out a groan as they impacted the metal of the catwalk.

”That is…unexpected,” he muttered through the pain. Briana and Blaire would likely not have been as compassionate as this supposed psycho.

“Haven’t they had enough already?” He said with a frustrated shake of his head, before welcoming the help up onto h is feet, “thanks.” His words still held a fairly large hint of caution.

Her promise to deliver him out of the situation was another wound to his pride. He was supposed to be becoming a Jedi, not someone that needed a hand out or pity from a looney, metal-armed maniac. “No…I do not understand…any of this,” he said in protest, “my fellow Jedi will be back for me soon…I can take my chances until…” His words were cut short by a coughing fit that saw sprays of slightly congealed blood flying from is mouth. Thankfully he had aimed his face downwards into the abyss below.

| Amea Virou |​

 

[Amea Virou]

Brandyn Sal-Soren

They were gun-wielding criminals in a state of shock. Having had 'enough' was not so much on their agenda as 'put an end to it' and 'die!' As for Amea herself it was more a matter of principle. Well, that and the fact that she too was stuck in this situation. So perhaps for Brandyn this was just a case of being at the wrong place at the right time, as opposed to five minutes ago when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Mhm, I told you." Amea chuckled and shook her head. "That bleeding will only get worse unless we manage to get out of here. Neither you or me want to drown in our own blood, so for the sake of this evening — I propose we work together."

"I find you the medical supplies that you need, and then we get out of here." She said and patted him on the arm. The deal was sealed, he had absolutely no input on the matter. "Good deal."

She began to look around the room to get an idea of where they were. There had to be something here. Or at least nearby.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you actually going to help?"