Private Shock and Aww

[Xuko Pagoi]

Location: Nar Shadda Underworld
Time: Present; one standard week after the events of Road Trip: What Now?

Xuko knew he was in trouble when the bastion lifted and his next opponent was revealed. Scratch that- he'd known that he was in trouble as soon as he'd started feeling dizzy at the job site. He should've thought twice about accepting a drink from one of the overseers at the shipyard during a break. Kindness, like everything on Nar Shadda, came with a price.

Xuko hadn't expected that price to be his freedom.

Shortly after passing out from whatever drug had been in the drink, he'd woken up in a grimy cell adjacent to an underground shockboxing ring. The clamor of a drunken crowd and a ringing bell told him that fights were well underway, while the pair of mismatched gloves in his prison confirmed the unwilling role he was to play. Part of him had felt strangely vindicated- he'd been identified by strangers as a worthy combatant- but he'd quickly quashed those feelings as he realized that he had no idea where he was and no way to call for help. His commlink, along with the rest of his few possessions, had been confiscated by his kidnappers, and Xuko was internally grateful that he'd thought to leave his lightsaber with Klar. While he'd initially been reluctant to leave the Pathfinder without a weapon, the kind of manual labor he'd found had left little opportunity to properly conceal a lightsaber.

Klar. Xuko thought back to when he'd last spoken with the Codru-Ji earlier that day...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Location: Nar Shadda Shipyard #469XR
Time: Earlier that morning

"I am afraid that we cannot currently leave Nar Shadda" Xuko said, frowning up at his girlfriend as he double-checked his math. "We do not have enough funds to pay the exit fee". The past week of travel following their crash landing on Ulmatra had seen them steadily exhaust their limited supply of credits, despite their best efforts at frugality. Xuko also didn't realize that the so-called "exit fee" was nothing more than a bribe collected by the dockmaster, but even if he had, the Pathfinder was not the kind of ship that warned off troublemakers; it was clearly a reconnaissance ship, not a warship. "We shall have to find temporary employment."

Xuko ever so narrowly avoided using the singular pronoun, trusting Klar to advocate for herself. He hoped that she was doing better a week after her near-death experience at the Battle of Coruscant, and besides; he knew better than to base his ideas in chivalry. Besides, a double income would halve the time it took for them to raise enough money to leave this place... and Xuko had found himself missing the routine of his Jedi training. Of course, he'd fallen into some routines with Klar that he quite enjoyed, but the training had been good for him. And, he reminded himself, the Sith that had nearly killed his girlfriend was still out there.

"There is a job board by the entrance to the transit terminal" he explained, dumping a half-dozen job fliers he'd collected while holding onto one looking for temporary help unloading boxes from ships. It was hot, dangerous work, and Xuko didn't want to know what the cargo was that he unloaded, but the physical activity would be a welcome change after nearly a week in space. "Do any of these appeal to you?"

Klar

 

[Klar]

When Xuko had taken a job moving heavy things around, Klar had been a little concerned. Not because he couldn't handle it - he could. But because she couldn't follow. Her arm was still in a brace, and the dock wasn't exactly looking to hire people who didn't fit the laborer profile. She'd found a job nearby, though only in spirit - working out of a warehouse that was more of a storage facility for cleaning supplies, working for a cleaning company. It wasn't bad work, and Klar was certainly good at it. She could turn a bed like a champion, after all. But it wasn't exactly Jedi work, and it barely paid enough to keep the ship docked. Everything else came from Xuko - mostly food, and then what little was left over went to parts or a fund to get off of the planet. It wasn't much.

She didn't want to think about how long it'd take to save up enough to leave.

Running the numbers had been terribly concerning, up until her boyfriend didn't come home. And then continued not coming home. When she contacted his work, they said they'd never hired a Zabrak. When she buzzed his holocom, he didn't pickup. She'd been thrown back to the worst kind of feeling, the hopelessness she'd felt watching her defenses shatter under a Sith's frenzied assault with trembling children behind her.

She tried to take stock of how far she was willing to go while pulling her jacket on, and didn't find a satisfying answer.

---

It'd taken some doing, but Klar had found her boy. Negotiation, taking a risk with their small amount of remaining funds, trying to infiltrate the seedy underbelly of Nar Shadaa armed only with her wits and advanced understanding of Hutteese - it'd gotten her pretty far. And then she'd hit a wall. And then that wall had hit back. Strong words had been thrown around. Somebody had hit her in the back of the head.

Klar barely had time to process the fact that she was dressed up in the least flattering 'protective gear' she could imagine with heavy shockboxing gauntlets strapped to her hands before she was pushed out into the ring. Blinded by the spotlights, her eyes eventually fell on her opponent, her Zabrak, wearing the same gloves and dumbfounded expression she imagined she had. The arena announcer did some crowdwork, hyping up the debut rookie match. All of it was noise passing over her. From the sounds of it, they expected her to lose.

He was alive. She'd found him.

Hard part done. Now they just had to get out.

Klar clapped her gloves together and put up her dukes, giving Xuko what she hopped was a challenging smile. It mostly came off as apologetic.

Let's put on a show?

 

[Xuko Pagoi]

Shock, dismay, relief, and rage flowed through Xuko in quick succession. He had had been ready to tear through anyone in the galaxy in order to get back to Klar's side, but for some reason she now stood across the ring from him; gloves raised in a boxing stance and a half-smile that was somehow brighter to him than any of the spotlights flashing around the arena. The whole situation incensed him, which would've been fine if there had been someone opposite him that he felt he could punch. But in a cruel twist of fate, the galaxy had managed to find the one person he refused to lay a hand on as his opponent.

Xuko let out a string of curses; most in Iridonian, some in Basic, and even one in Huttese that he'd learned while on Nar Shadda. HIs eyes raked the stands as he sought to identify who was responsible for this charade, but all he got was a sudden flash in his eyes from a moving light that left him blinking spots out of his vision.

Xuko's mind raced as the bell rang and the crowd started urging him or Klar on, depending on how much money they'd wagered on one outcome or another. He had no idea what a win or a loss would mean for either of them; furthermore, Xuko saw no good options. His competitive spirit refused to throw the match, while his care for Klar prevented him from trying to win. Complicating the matter further was his awareness of her injuries. The Codru-Ji was neither helpless nor fragile- far from it- but there was no honor in fighting a wounded opponent; something the person responsible for this setup didn't care about. Xuko caught Klar's nonverbal offer and shook his head. If she wanted them to put hands on each other she would have to ask again in a much less public setting than this.

An idea was forming in his head, and he hoped Klar would forgive him for it. It involved tricking the crowd into buying into all the false narratives about her that she didn't like- to dismiss her entirely as a threat- and then to introduce an unpredictable element of danger into what was already a perilous situation. The plan, of course, hinged on Klar being exactly the capable fighter Xuko knew her to be, but it would only work if he could convince the crowd otherwise.

Xuko gestured at Klar and looked back around at the crowd, eventually finding the arena announcer and singling him out. Thankfully, it was a small enough arena that the voices- and screams- of the combatants could be heard. He tried to look insulted, which wasn't that far away from angry, so it probably worked. "You call this a challenge?" he shouted, gesturing again at Klar. Already, he imagined apologizing to her. "She's wearing a karking cast! Is that the best you can do?"

Some boos began raining down as some in the crowd either agreed with Xuko or were angry that there was no fight happening. A metal can filled with some liquid sailed through the air at him; poorly-aimed, but close enough. Without missing a beat, Xuko lashed out with a glove, intercepting the can and blasting it against one of the walls of the arena; reveling somewhat in the explosion of liquid and electricity that the impact caused.

"I am the most dangerous humanoid in this room!" Xuko shouted, slamming his gloves together before pointing a finger up at the announcer, "and I will prove it!"

"Me and the injured Codru-Ji against any two of your other fighters! A fatal four-way!" He didn't know where the term came from- it probably wasn't even the correct term to describe the kind of event he'd just proposed- but throwing around words like 'fatal' tended to have an effect on crowds.

The crowd buzzed- whether from excitement or discontent Xuko couldn't tell. But he hoped that Klar would understand his idea, if it even worked at all; draw all the attention of their upcoming opponents to him, which would give her the opportunity to spring the trap.

Klar