--- 20 Standard Minutes Earlier---
It was already shaping up to be a busy night, a night of firsts. Pylon hadn't ever been to Echelon before, for business or pleasure, although he figured all ecumenopolis, massive cities encompassing entire planets like Coruscant, tended to blend together in his memories into a single, duracrete labyrinthine maze. The names of the places, the targets, the scores, these surface level specifics changed, but in the Galactic Trade of Bounty Hunting, certain things always remained the same.
Like hundreds of morally questionable criminals before him, Trayjin Narcada had made something of a name for himself in the shady business dealings of Echelon's corporate games, building up the closest thing to 'credibility' that his ilk could cultivate, all in the guise of securing a promising position in a weapon manufacturing corporation, Weylenz Armaments. Once there, it wasn't long before classified prototype weapon schematics went suddenly 'missing' before showing up on the black market for the highest bidder. While not a complete, bumbling fool like so many prey that had come before him, Trayjin covered his tracks well... Well enough, that Weylenz had to outsource their investigation to a certain Silver-Clad bounty hunter with a knack for sniffing out corruption. If any other merc had gotten the job, Narcada would have been sipping mai-tai cocktail with a twi'lek girl wrapped around his arm within the weeks end.
Unfortunately for Narcada, Pylon Zerga, the Ex-Jedi Shadow turned Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Kadika Rihka, was not 'any other merc'. He and Kara had been able to snuff out his entire operation and slice into the companies records to confirm their suspicions within the first day being planetside. Par for the course. What they hadn't expected, however, Narcada had enough foresight (or maybe it was prey instinct) to realize just how much his life and freedom were at stake, and decided to part with some of his ill-gotten fortunes to hire himself security. That was a first, actually. Greed is a powerful motivator, but Zerga knew just how much more effective fear could be. Maybe someone had tipped Trayjin off about the Mandalorian couple hot on his trails? Maybe he was prepared for the eventuality of Weylenz sending at least someone after him, and that was why he had chosen to hole himself up on the 150th floor of this particular Orange District housing complex.
"You have to give him at least some credit for not being on the top floor. This is so annoying." Pylon griped into his commlink as he wrapped a length fibercord around an armed guard's throat, choking the unaware man to unconsciousness in a makeshift garrote.
"I know! We could have just flown a starship in through his window, use jetpacks to carry him off after having a blaster-fight on the rooftop! It's like these scumbag chakaar have no consideration for the classics!" Kara chirped back, her tale tell snark in full effect in the private conversation between their helmets.
Pylon pulled the unconscious man by the collar around a corner, binding the man's hands behind his back in a pair of flimsy, duraplast zip-ties he kept in one of the pouches affixed to his kama. He was glad he decided to bring these disposable restraints, as apparently Trayjin spared no expense in hiring protection -- these guys were everywhere!
Pylon had already taken out about a half dozen nonlethally on the upcoming floors, while avoiding at least a dozen more with his skills in stealth and not neglectable amount of concealment from the Force, despite the fact that killing the lot of them would have been both quicker and considerably easier. Still, they hadn't done anything to him or Kara personally, after all. They were just doing their jobs -- no need to take their lives carelessly. Weylenz could get the planetary security forces to turn a blind eye to pair of sanctioned 'agents' carrying out their 'reclamations services', but they wouldn't be able to cover up a massacre. He had to proceed with a degree of caution.
"You're messing with me, right? You wouldn't really suggest we crash a ship into a residential apartment megaplex like this, would you?" Pylon asked her incredulously, fumbling through the guard's tactical uniform for any communications devices, eventually finding a patch concealed on his right arm, with large, bold characters "ASF".
"What? Me?! Nooo, nooo. Never!...well, maybe a little one..."
"What is....ASF?"
"Uhm.... Some kind of experimental jizz fusion band?"
"It's on their uniforms..."
"Probably the name of this Private Security company? Why, are they giving you trouble?"
"Be serious, please."
"Fine, I'll see what I can dig up about them. Are you almost done?"
Pylon leaned out around the corner of the stairwell he had concealed his latest victim, getting his visor on another pair of ASF goons standing on either side of an apartment doorway on the other side of the open center, signaling to anyone with a functioning frontal cortex where their target was hiding.
"Yeah, almost. Get the ship ready. I have a feeling I'm about to overstay our welcome on this planet."
"I hate it when you say 'I have a feeling' before you do something stupid. It's not predicting the future if you say 'I'm about to be shot' after making yourself a target, y'know!?"
"Get the ship ready, my love!"
"Well since you sweet-talked me. Go on, go do something stupid."
She wasn't entirely wrong. The entire apartment complex was structured around a center open sky courtyard, with rows upon rows of hollow squares of floors encompassing every side. The intention was to give the residents an opportunity to look up into the sky, get some semblance of sunlight, but all it did was reinforce the feeling of living in a cage. A massive Panopticon for prisoners that were the population, serving to further subjugate a populace into the mindset that they are trapped, no matter where they go. This also made it a strategical nightmare to assault, no matter what way you approached it.
Pylon could have strolled up on either side of the hallway to the guarded door, the entire time risking exposure and coordinated crossfire from any stationed ASF on the upper or lower floors, rushed to deal with the two guards as quickly as possible, and then breached the door to deal with any number of additional forces inside. As eventful as being riddled with so many blaster shots would be, he didn't feel like testing the durability of his shiny Ultrachrome armor so early into the night. No, he needed a more...direct approach.
"Well this definitely toes the line on 'stupid'." He muttered to himself as he fished a pair of small silver, circular disks from one of his pouches, each lined in a ring of curved razors, faint blue glowing activation studs in their centers. He cupped one in each hand, before reaching down to unstrap the leather thongs securing his customized pair of DC-15s sidearm blasters on his thighs, readying them to be drawn quickly. As quick in action as he was in mind, and ever the daredevil acrobat, Zerga realized the quickest way through that door....was to dive right through the approximate fifteen meters of open courtyard.
In a blindingly quick burst of speed he ran full force from the corner of the stairwell to the first banister separating his side of the hall from the opposing doorway, the Force already amplifying his already impressive athletics abilities, turning into a silver-blur of motion as he stepped up onto the banister, kicking off of it to soar through the air. About halfway through his jump, Pylon flung both his hands forward to send the silver disks spinning through the air at lightning quick speeds, the circular blades lining their sides springing out to form a spinning buzzsaws through the air, already sparking with blue jolts of electricity along their razors edges. The high-tech shuriken buried into the chests of either guard standing post before they could even register what was happening and level their weapons at the approaching silver hawk-bat flying at them from out the shadows, as a sudden, bright net of lightning arced between the two highly conductive silver disks, sending hundreds of thousands of volts through their bodies-- both threats neutralized before Pylon even touched the ground.
Not that he would. Instead of landing on the other walkway, Pylon brought both his heavy metal greaves and boots together in front of him just milliseconds before making contact with the durasteel door, using an additional burst of Force to propel himself forward and turn his momentum into a high-powered battering ram! The door broke free of it's hinges like a chained dog breaking it's leash, as an ear shattering screech of metal upon stone filled turned the safehouse apartment into a verily Not-Safe-House. Pylon rode the dismounted door in through the opening hallway and into the main living area of the apartment like a sled down a hill, before tucking forward into a roll as his hands drew his blaster-pistols to life in perfect sync.
The entire event seemed to proceed in slow motion for him, aided by both the Force and years of rigorous training and instinctive muscle memory, as bright blue bolts of plasma arced out in triplet from the barrels of his pistols, each finding their mark in the same pattern on the bodies of the bewildered security forces, still trying to ready their weapons -- each receiving a bolt to the solar plexus, the heart, and then to the forehead. In a blur of carefully placed, simultaneous series of rapid burst fire, the Mandalorian's blasters seemed to be extensions of his own, hyper-focused spatial awareness, seemingly punching out blue bursts of blasters like he was punching them from a distance. Pylon didn't even realized he had been firing with his eyes shut until he finally opened them, seeing only a cowering, shaking, and rather useless grey-skinned Rodian attemping to hide underneath an open desk, peering out at the carnage before him from behind suction cup tipped fingers.
"Always time for a dramatical entrance, cyar'ika?" Kara chirped in his ear, clearly having been watching his visor's feed in her of HUD, always ready to rib her husband for his flashy, showboating performances. Pylon was especially thankful only he could hear her, after all.
The Ultrachrome-clad Mandalorian finally broke the chorused silence of sizzling flesh from blaster fire and settling debris, his voice disguised and amplified into a menacing, mechanized growl, addressing the terrified Rodian, who's huge, black orbs of eyes were clearly trying to search for an escape, antenna like ears twitching in anticipation.
"Trayjin Narcada, I presume? Your former employers at Weylenz Armaments would like to have a few words with you. Seems you left without collecting your severance package."
At which point, as if to accentuate his point, Pylon -- no, Kadika Rihka, rehoused his blasters into their holsters on his thigh plates, before curling his cybernetic right arm up to quickly draw the high frequency virboblade from his back, it's beskar blade singing to life as it sliced through the air in a buzzing hiss, cleaving the solid desk the Rodian was cowering under in half, splitting open like a blooming flower as the severed halves fell to their respective sides, leaving the cowering Narcada exposed.
"Are...Are they....dead...?" Trayjin managed to squeak out, pointing a cup-tipped finger from behind his sniveling snout out to one of the bodies of an ASF guard, faint blue arcs of electricity still occasionally causing his body to convulse.
"Hmm? Them? No, I don't think so. They're all have a very bad night though. So long as none of them had a heart-condition or something..." He mused, centering himself briefly with a deep breath, extending his presence from inside his body and outward, projecting a bubble of Force to sense the other lifeforms around him, detecting several weak, but steady, heartbeats in the immediate area around him, and then several dozen more, quickened, confused pulses on the upper and lower floors, as the reports of his dramatical entrance went out across the ASF comm-channels.
"Kara, please tell me you're on your way to me with the ship."
"Okay, I'm on my way to you with the ship."
"....Okay, but are you?"
"I would be, if I wasn't also doing the other ten billion fierfeking things you asked me to do!"
"What could possibly be more important then providing exfiltration for your beloved husband, who you love, I remind you, who is currently in the middle of an entire megaplex filled with private security force goons!?"
"Providing my beloved husband with specifics of said private security force goons that he has so expertly ticked off? Those ASF guys? They're just the rank and file, typical ten-cred-stick-a-dozen hired muscle. This company's real selling point is their ATRD!"
"Aye-Ese-Eff, Aye-Tee-Are-Dee, Dee-Tee-Eff, so many acronyms! Just say the thing!"
"Apex Tactical Response Division! Straight-up max-tact, stone cold commando killers! You know, the kind of operators that make getting a bounty out alive really, really difficult?!"
"....Yeah that's way scarier than an acronym."
As he said that, bright flood lights of a pair of armed shuttle transports filled the ceiling-high windows of the apartment, illuminating the destruction of the once-safehouse. Pylon quirked an eyebrow at the sight, letting out a deep, regretful, groaning sigh.
"That's them, isnt it?"
"Oh, almost certainly."
"And you're not on your way yet?"
"Well I am now! Don't take them all yourself again, Mister Selfish! Save a couple for me!"
"Yeah, I'll be sure to do that..."
"How you doing on toys?"
'Toys'.
She always had a way to boil down his prized technological accomplishments down to their most insulting reduction. It illustrated just how well she knew him, however, as at that time he was already retrieving the pair of electro-shuriken from the chests of the two guards outside the apartment, still occasionally getting a steady jolt of electrical compliance every so often. He returned them to the half dozen sets on either side of his hips, before going through his menagerie of gadgets and throwable devices. Everything from ring-pommeled kunai-shaped throwing knives strapped to his chest, to programmable throwable vibrorangs, flashbangs and smoke bombs, Pylon prided himself on keeping a variable arsenal of tools to conquer any of the wide degree of problems. What he didn't have, however, was a jetpack, or anyway to fly for any amount of distance actually away from the building crawling with armed resistance quickly closing in on him.
"I think I need a jetpack."
"Cant Jedi fly?!"
"What, no!? The Force isn't wings, I can't fly!"
"What about all the jumping through the air and acrobatic nonsense you do? I thought you could at least levitate!"
"I...legitimately, can not tell if you're messing with me right now or not. I'm going to die, you realize that right?"
"You'll be fine! I'm on my way, just keep them off of you until I get there, avoid them! You're good at all that Shadow Nonsense!"
Seeing that his wife was either far too comfortable with her husband being in constant, mortal danger, or completely immune to his plight, Pylon defaulted back to his usual method of scheming. As far as he could figure, he had more or less cleared the lower 150 levels on his approach up, save for the few dozen ASF members who were likely being gathered on the ground floor, in preparation to sweep and clear the floors for the intruding Mandalorian, with the upper 149-or-so floors of stationed ASF to cut off his escape to the rooftops. Strategically sound. He would also have been willing to bet they had already shut off the power to the lifts, ensuring no way to skip past the closing net. At least, not conventionally. Instead, he'd have to get creative.
Trayjin, all this time, had been slowly working up the courage to crawl over to the nearest convulsing bodyguard, long slender cup-tipped fingers about to curl around the handle of one of the discarded blasters, only to squeal in horror as the digits of his fingers fell from his hand and to the ground before settling in pools of green blood.
"Trayjin, stop that!" Pylon ordered with the same calm, gentle correcting you would tell a youngling to stop climbing on the furniture, even as he replaced the still humming vibroblade to it's sheath on his back in a single, twirling flourish. "This is shaping up to be a very long night for the both of us, and it'll will all go much smoother if I don't have to keep removing parts of you to cooperate with me!"
It was clear Trayjin wouldn't be needing an additional lesson in acceptable bounty-behavior, as he clutched the still bleeding stump to his chest, cursing and hissing to himself in his native tongue, assuredly calling the Bounty Hunter every disrespectful name in his lexicon. That was acceptable, the cursing meant that was the only fight left in them.
"These damn mercs! Whats so 'apex' about these idiots!? A complete waste of money, since apparently some typical Mandalorian merc off the street can take them out!"
"Alright, first of all, I don't know what anything you've seen tonight has made you think I'm 'typical'? Trust me, I just make this look easy. Second of all, you're clearly getting your money's worth, since they dispatched their Tactical Response Division for you. Normally, I'd expect them to just shoot you and take your credits so you can't live to leave them a bad review. Although, the night's young. They still might."
Narcada seemed to consider this a moment, as well as the fact that there was still time for Apex to rescue him, before settling into a decidedly smug calm, clear he would 'wait and see' what the night would bring. Pylon on the other hand, was still scheming. Weighing his options. Weighing....and counter weighing.
"Hey....About how much do you weigh...?" Pylon asked, his grin able to be felt by Trayjin, even behind the Ultrachrome helmet, causing the Rodian to gulp in nervous anticipation.
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Pylon Zerga
