Boost THE FIRST GALACTIC KAGGATH - RUMBLE ON RUUSAN

[Sael]

​

Not wholly in control of anything to do with her body at all, or mind for that matter, Sael immediately surrendered to Isar's touch. His command to her felt like relief — as if they were ushering toward the future, vast, bright and boundless. Wrapped up like this, it was as though she could feel him pulsing in her veins. Addictive and intense. Threads of emotion and thought looped between them like twin needles pulling a single stitch.

Breaths mingling, he was so close she could feel the heat of his exhale. Feel the tickle of his moustache! She'd never been so close to a moustache before. She'd never been so close to anyone like this before! Hadn't she seen a close up image of that moustache somewhere? Didn't it have some element of importance? And she tilted her head back and laughed at the absurdity of it all, giddy and mad with delight.

Somehow, over the vibration of her joy, she heard his question and felt it all at the same time. It raced up her spine and bloomed out at the base of her skull.

Woozy with warmth and ease, the enormity of her desire built and built, taking over everything so completely that she had no room left for anything else. The promise of what they could wield together, the pandemonium of their power.

She had desire now, amplified by the spice and shared chemicals between their species. It was all she could see: Her want to control everyone around her. And he'd shown her they could.

Sael raised her arms above her head — slow, fluid, deliberate. Her thin fingers twirled, wrists folding like ribbon in the wind. A mimicry of dance.

And across the stands, dozens of others followed. It began subtly. A Twi'lek near the railing lifted her arms with no idea why. A man behind her swayed on his feet, hands loose at his sides as if listening to music no one else could hear. Then more. Rows of them. A ripple of clumsy, but obedient, choreography. Their movements lagged behind hers by only half a breath. Off-beat marionettes. Puppets to the pulse she set. A man laughed as his arms floated upward without consent. Sael's body was the fulcrum, her sway the axis on which they turned.

"Let's dance," she hummed against his mouth, sliding her hands down his arms until her fingers circled his wrists. She held him there, arms outstretched, a cue for him to spin, yes, but more than that: A silent command for everyone entangled in their shared web to twirl with him.

____________________________________________________________
Isar du Vain
____________________________________________________________
​

 

[Isar du Vain]

Those movements. Hypnotic. That voice. A mesmer. The curve of those lips, the laughter, the elation. A contagion.

A manic bark left Isar's mouth and he gripped her slender wrists in turn, feeling her urging, her thoughts, and spun them round and round in a crazed circle in the stands. They looked insane to everyone else. No. They were insane - the whole arena was insane! All of them, spinning, spinning, spinning to no music.

No music?

That wouldn't do. Reaching back into the recesses of some night at a club on Nar Shaddaa, Isar pulled forth the thrum of bass and haunting vocals and mainlined the reverberations of that memory into the minds of all of those around them. The song blared within their minds, wildly out of place in the blood and carnage of the stands, but it didn't matter.

They could die now, right now. That maniac upstairs with the finger on the orbital barrage could send another one down and incinerate them all in the bat of an eye. All they could eek out of existence was right here, with this laughter, this thrill, this wild movement of bodies round and round.

Spinning Sael about, he pulled her close and breathed in the smell of her, as intoxicating as the glitterstim and oh how badly he wanted more of both. Can't end well. Won't end well. The crash from the high... if only the high weren't the only thing in life worth experiencing. His lips crashed against hers, maddened by desire, then he was spinning her around again and they were dancing to the music.

And around them - all around them - the people in the stands danced with them.

"This. This is living."

Sael

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Arris Windrun //:
//: Attire //:
( happening before she wandered off )

Allyson glanced towards the gift. It was well-crafted and willing to work. In a sense, Allyson could feel the arm's longing to be something. She didn't mention it; most of the time, when she said stuff off the cuff like that, she would get weird looks. The only other person who listened to her was Ember. The man would muse over the "feelings" of his ship as Allyson worked.

A small smile crept across her face as she thought about how it looked for the man to have a fourteen-year-old as his lead engineer and mechanic.

Leaning over, Allyson gently reached for the arm, examined it, and then looked back at Arris.

"We can definitely get this to work. I can make some quick modifications to attach the Sith sword to it if you'd like. - great for going against lightsabers if one of your opponents has one." Allyson continued to examine both items, seeing how much she could push her own mechanical skills.

Arris asked her a question, and then Allyson remembered the reason she was here.

"Oh, mechu deru, well. You know how the Force is within all of us. Well, Mechu deru users like myself, and from what I can see, it seems you are like us as well. We sense the Force in technology. Most items give off electromagnetic waves or 'auras.'" The Corellian made quotation marks in the air after putting the arm down next to the sword.

"We basically use that, with the Force, to manipulate machines. Cut them off from other bits as if their flow of energy is blocked. You can over-ride programming, change and bend cybernetics to your will."

Pausing, she removed her eyepatch. The cybernetic eye spun to life as she blinked and smiled.

"I control this with my usual bow in tandem with Mechu Deru. You can do the same thing, focusing on feeling your cybernetics - through your central nervous system, but feel the way they ebb and flow within the Force."

It had been a long time since Allyson was a teacher; Zaavik had been her last attempt, and he had gone down a path she couldn't follow. Sitting beside Arris, she grabbed the mechanical arm and then pushed her own influence over it. The machine came to life, fed by the Force instead of being connected to a power source.

It moved, waved, and wiggled its fingers, then went dormant.

"The other technique is using the energy created by the electromagnetic waves and manifesting it into a sharp surge, like an EMP. Using that on someone who has cybernetics could disable them. But to do that, you'd need to focus your mechu deru and your own will to not be disabled to protect yourself."

Allyson paused as she got a bright idea for the arm. Shifting, she sat on the floor and opened her hand, forcing the paneling of the cybernetic to open. In the vein, she began to work the blade from the hilt.

"This sword will require you to channel energy into it, dark side force energy, which also enhances the dark side. So that will help focus your mechu deru. I know it's a lot, but whatever kept you going in our fight. Hold on to it. That's your will, that's your battery to the Force."

Allyson continued to work, pulling out a small tool kit to begin working the sword's blade into the arm.

"After I finish with this, I'll recalibrate everything I messed with during our fight. I have a pretty good assessment of how all your cybernetics work, and I can add some fun modifications through them - show you how it feels to have the Force benefiting them - then you can go into your next fight knowing how it feels."

A slight grin spread on the Corellian's face, "No dying, I've grown fond of you, Arris Windrun."

 

[Sael]

​

"Oh wowww," she exhaled once the sound bloomed out and became as much a reality as everything else in their shared madness. It was mesmerizing, forgone from anything she'd ever heard before and it made uncaring movements so much easier.

The kiss landed — frenzied, hungry — but it felt more than the press of lips. She was inside his mind. Around it. Through it. Beyond it. The contact acted like a circuit closure: their thoughts spun into a double helix, looping tighter and tighter. Feedback. Echo. Merge. She could no longer tell which pulse was hers and which was his. Maybe there wasn't a difference anymore. It felt grandiose and finite all at once.

She spun and spun, twirled alongside him, guiding the throngs of helpless people below.

"This. This is living."

"And you do this all the time?" She asked, a mix of voice and thought. Spoken word seemed superfluous when everything shared between them was already so intimate.

____________________________________________________________
Isar du Vain
____________________________________________________________
​

 

[Mauve du Vain]

MINUTES BEFORE THE SEMI-FINALS...

She slipped two fingers into Mauve's dress pocket. "I'm sure most of it can end up right here."

A plucked brow arched, delicately. "Oh?"

Mauve craned her neck just so to look up into the cyborg's face with wide, violet eyes. "Like how Razmir's was in yours? Or," she pressed closer, conspiratorial, "did you mean to make more promises?"

Idly, Mauve wondered what would happen if Arris lost even more of herself in this upcoming round, shedding pieces of her organic self and replacing them with cold metal and wires. Would she still make such advances, or would they be an errata - excluded from calculus?

Pushing away, Mauve examined her fingernails, "I keep mine." Mostly. "Stick to the terms of this little arrangement our mutual friend hammered out and I'll see you get more than you bargained for." The viewscreens all lit up. A countdown. "Now... looks like we've both places to be."

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris turned into the main Skybox and walked back towards the elevator.

"I expect a ride off this rock when it's over."

She said as the elevator doors closed.

Mauve du Vain

 

[Isar du Vain]

"Often enough, love."

But not with someone who rivaled his own abilities, a woman from Zeltros no less, who understood the constant barrage of others' feelings, like the long stretching halos of street lights at night, with Isar too drunk to pilot.

"This, though. This is new."

Thoughts pooled, swirled, reflected ecstasy in the mind mirror. But cracks shivered through the mirror, webbing their way across the bond. The effects of the glitterstim - a crazed rush up, up, up. And now? Now came the valley floor. Isar broke apart as pain throbbed in between his eyes, stabbing and violent.

He stumbled away, clutching at the back of a chair. His other hand shook from the effects of the glitterstim. Blinking rapidly, he shook his head a little to clear it.

Bollocks.

"Guess I should have mentioned," Isar said to her with a wan smile, "this shit'll kill you."

Remembering this was her first time on the stuff, he eyed her for adverse effects, even as he patted a pocket down and produced a card with his contact information: ISAR, RETRIEVAL SERVICES.

Everyone had a day job.

"But, Sael, you want to learn more about what it is we can do, you give me a ring now."

With that, the Bounty Hunter stumbled toward the exit, the heel of one hand pressed to his forehead, as he felt the onset of a blindingly ferocious migraine.

Sael

 

[Mauve du Vain]

"WHAT. A. SEMI. FINAL!" ​

"These contestants gave it their all, but only two can advance to the finals. Your FINALE for Grand Champion of the Galactic Kaggath will be...

...

MERCY

VERSUS

KYRIC"

Antar | Kyric | Mercy | Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris stepped into the locker room looking like absolute chit. Woke up on a medical bed two steps away from operation before she left. One arm, one eye. No jaw. Melted and scorched. Frayed wires stuck out of open wounds in her hull, and critical levels of poison ate their way inside of her.

Yeah. Like chit.

Why fix what isn't broken? Such a change of heart for the woman who had been remade time and time again just to push forward. Yet, in that last burst of memory and agony, moments before she and Mercy struck final blows, the nobody who entered the tournament thought she was going to have it all. Didn't even consider that there was one match left to go. Who else was worth defeating than the one Sith left standing?

As usual, the place was empty. Even emptier since the stack of her winnings had disappeared, and her locker was stripped bare, save one item. The cyborg struggled over to it, barely able to stand, and just stared.

She wasn't sure how long it lasted--that pause. Her eyes stared the whole time at that gun. The worn pistol that belonged to Vagabond, the same gun she managed to find among the burning wreckage of the great tree. The gun she used to blow his heart out. The gun she thought she had left behind.

It seemed it was someone's idea of a message, but to her, it was an offer.

All of that hate and fear fled up her throat like a gasp, and it left her fragile and empty. Slowly, her broken arm began to twitch, and Arris tried to reach for it, but the outstretched wires and metal could not form an arm she no longer had.

Robbed of victory.
Robbed of control.
Robbed of the gun.

The weapon began to shake and slowly drew towards her as if by a phantom's grip.

She wanted to--

"So you lost." The familiar voice cut through her. The weapon fell.

How did she not notice him, the spectacled Herglic sewing patches on a torn-up jacket? Her partner in crime through so many fights, save that last one. But she didn't turn to face him.

"You fought hard," he sewed slowly, trying to make anything out of the ruined leather. "You chose every advantage. Hells, you even cheated, didntcha?" He chuckled, though his old accent only ever bled through when he was upset.

He stopped sewing and glared at her something mad. "And ya still lost--didya think it was in the bag? Didya think cuttin' deals with the least trustworthy sods meant anything? No. It did not." He scolded, then paused to let it linger. "Get used to it, loser girl."

"Do the one thing they won't do: take it and walk away."

He returned to the needle. "But take a breather first," he smiled gently.

 

[Tai Corde]

//: Arris Windrun //:
//: Attire //:​

---

A small chime would echo on Arris' device. Allyson, being the terror that she was, lifted the signal from the cyborg's comm.

<: Hey, it's Allyson, saw the fight. :>

<: You did brilliantly. Unfair, the brute won. You've got potential. If you think you can handle it, you can learn more. You'll know where to find me. :>​

The message ended, and what followed was a pair of coordinates attached to a highly encrypted map. At the bottom would be passcodes to get through the Blackwall if Arris so desired to find the Corellian.

---

In the crowd, a woman in a suit stood. She tipped her hat to the people around her, and she pushed the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. It was a good thing she was able to hide most of her injuries with bacta and the Force, but Tai Corde walked with a bit of a limp and her shoulder slumped slightly.

"You alright, Ms. Tai?" A man who only knew her as such opened the door to her speeder.

Tai smiled, "Ah, you know, as you get older, sitting in one place is never good for ya." The thick Bespian drawl came out as she climbed in and tossed her hat to the other side of the long back seat.

"Varonat, this time around, the wife wanted a jungle vacation -- she's meeting me there," Tai spoke again as the man entered the car to drive her to the spaceport.

"Yes, Ma'am -- do give Mrs. Corde Madelyn Lowe my regards, I was sad to not see her come with you this time around." He responded as the speeder began to head off.

"Mm, same, I reckon though she'll be happy to see me…hopefully."

The pair laughed.

 

[Arris Windrun]

The Talusian was ready to snap back at her friend, even though his words struck somewhere deep.

However, all of that was interrupted by a sudden and UNAUTHORIZED call.

<: Hey, it's Allyson, saw the fight. :>

<: You did brilliantly. Unfair, the brute won. You've got potential. If you think you can handle it, you can learn more. You'll know where to find me. :>

Attached was a whole lot of confusion that the cyborg would need some help navigating. For one, Arris did not own a ship, and she never learned how to fly one.

Still, it intrigued her. She stood, stupid, as the Herglic continued to sew. "Is something wrong?" He decided to bite.

"Huh?" Arris snapped out of it like a bad dream. "Oh, I just... Received a message." She'd have smiled a little if it weren't for the missing jaw.

Now, Arris had an idea. "Hey, can you call my Jedi friend?"

Seeva gave her the kind of look that said 'you've been ass' followed by much skepticism. Though he nodded, and proceeded to send a message to one Tilon Quill .

she wants to see ya

throwing a

pity party

dont bring any gifts

lockers

Yeah, he was the type who chronically hit send.

 

[Tilon Quill]

she wants to see ya

throwing a

pity party

dont bring any gifts

lockers

Was he supposed to be not bringing a gift? Or rather, was he supposed to have been bringing a gift and now no longer be doing so? The norms of grammar and friendship eluded him. He'd had a very long day in the stands, despite Lurkvap's pleasant company; he'd butchered an awful lot of that hive mind's biomass and was still feeling raw about it. A stimulant drink took the edge off en route, down from the stands into the locker areas. He got directions from a Rodian in Rodian and made reasonable time.

After several rounds, the locker room district smelled as anticipated. Tilon let himself in, giftless.

"You did good out there. I know Mercy about as well as I know you; she's a juggernaut. I was glued to the fight. No idea how the other half went..."

He tried to get in a decent look at how Arris' injuries and mechanical damage were holding up and coming together. Not a pretty sight by any means. Probably why he was rambling and certainly why he was wishing he had any knack for Jedi healing skills.

 

[Arris Windrun]

For some reason, stupid or another, Arris was surprised.

She half-expected Tilon to be upset with her after the whole 'choose who you want to be speech,' but then again, she's only gotten that once before in her life, and it was from her street dad. And it was because she stole an airspeeder from someone who didn't deserve it.

"You did good out there. I know Mercy about as well as I know you; she's a juggernaut. I was glued to the fight. No idea how the other half went..."

"You know her?"

The cyborg turned to him. Whatever damage she incurred, she wasn't exactly showing the harm, but it clearly wasn't good.

"I really thought I had it," she groaned. "I felt great..." There was a but in there somewhere, yet she filled that space with silence. Seeva wasn't wrong; she was absolutely throwing herself a pity party over it.

She sat down on the bench and offered him a seat next to her with a gesture from her sword-arm.

"I need a lot of help." Understatement. "I need to buy a ship, I need to learn how to fly it, and I need to find a teacher."

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

"You know her?"

The cyborg turned to him. Whatever damage she incurred, she wasn't exactly showing the harm, but it clearly wasn't good.

"I really thought I had it," she groaned. "I felt great..." There was a but in there somewhere, yet she filled that space with silence. Skeeva wasn't wrong; she was absolutely throwing herself a pity party over it.

She sat down on the bench and offered him a seat next to her with a gesture from her sword-arm.

"I need a lot of help." Understatement. "I need to buy a ship, I need to learn how to fly it, and I need to find a teacher."

Tilon Quill

He took the offered seat.

"That's one school of thought," he said. "The other school of thought is that you don't. I signed on with expeditions — that's how I met Mercy — and I've been to half a dozen galaxies and I'm still borrowing the family shuttle. I'll get my own ship when the time and the money and the ship are right. It's not something to rush into.

" The teacher part...depends what you want to learn and who you're comfortable around. I could run you out to Kattada. Unaffiliated Jedi, Wardens of the Sky, space witches, a beach."

 

[Arris Windrun]

"That's one school of thought," he said. "The other school of thought is that you don't. I signed on with expeditions — that's how I met Mercy — and I've been to half a dozen galaxies and I'm still borrowing the family shuttle. I'll get my own ship when the time and the money and the ship are right. It's not something to rush into.

"Do you know how many chit shuttles and transports I pay for every single time I wanna hop a rock?" She groaned. "Maybe you're right, but I just got coords for a place beyond the Blackwall, and I don't know much of anyone who can get me there. So I thought I'd try on my own."

" The teacher part...depends what you want to learn and who you're comfortable around. I could run you out to Kattada. Unaffiliated Jedi, Wardens of the Sky, space witches, a beach."

"Wait, a beach?" Arris tilted her head, then shook it. "An opponent mentioned 'Mechu Deru' and chit like that. Said it would help me have better control over my cyberware..."

That was certainly part of it, but deep down, Arris was afraid. Maybe that fear emanated from her to others in the Force, not that she would know.

Tilon Quill