A burghal burning, Niango left glaring with an orange glow. Harsh discord rasped diabolically, a din of endless crackle and the howl of maddening death. So loud. So loud. A type of raucous that defied even the most feracious legends and tales of conflict. Agonizing screams scratched and cried at the very fabric of reality, that strange, subjective thing, that they were soon to be vanquished from en masse. This was not War. It was a spectacle of frightful dread, something so sinister that would never, and could never, be shaken away from the nightmares of night and slumber.
As [member="Artemis Lux"] treaded fearlessly forward, her arrival at the very edge of the City was saluted by bloodletting and carnage. Mountains of innocent bodies that lay drowsy with death. Torn, broken, bleeding. Her path inwards walked through a narrow alley that forced the Mandalorian Queen to step and climb over the carnage. The discarded vassals of a consciousness ruthlessly removed, or rapidly fading. Some thrown from high looming windows, some left to phlebotomize in languid slopes of flesh.
This was a towering scaffolding of lifeless limbs, the make of which ranged diversely from Human all the way to Rodian.
On loop, the music continued on ceaselessly. But as the Warrior Woman was breathed further in, new sounds began to resonate above the buzz and babel of strife.
"AHHWOOAAA" it sang inhumanly, a primitive pitch of voice. "AHHHWOOAA AHHHHWOOOAAAA!!!" It was a lyrical cry that was equally as terrifying as it was indecipherable to the Human ear. "AHWWOOOAAAA!!!!"
As if the grave melody of extermination, the rattle of thousands of weapons, and the scrawled emulsion of carnage she had to wade through in this first seventy feet were not enough. Artemis now would be left only able to guess at the creatures that bellowed these violently growls.
Niango now, no longer, clutched such splendid beauty in it's sprawling streets.
At least, not the charm, nor the allure and artistry, that it had been known for during it's lengthy history as an established settlement of Felucia. Most assuredly not the type of place one, Artemis Lux, in her surprise and intrigue, when informed by the Cantrosian Big Boo, could have pictured. In Niango's palm, where the bloom of polished elegance had gripped swirling pathways that webbed like the creation of some Pan-dimensional Spider, now rot with the butchery and misery of the most infernal trappings of some Cosmic Hell.
That. . . malodor. . the. . . fetid. . . . stench. It was a thing so foul, so awful. Proceed further, move faster. It would take the Will of a Lioness. The strength and testament of a creature profoundly driven and scorned, to enter the the slashed wound of Niango's oozing abdomen.
"No no! PLEASE! NO! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!!!!!" an aghast voice begged with horrid craving to clutch on yet one moment longer. Not ready, unprepared, not like this. It was a woman, young and so full of life she had yet lived.
Artemis was so close, the scene unfurling before her like some vivid terror that came to seize you from your deepest coma in the dark black of night. For the first time, the Warrior was able to discern one of the Mercenaries responsible for this wretched display of torment.
It was a massive monster, hunched forward, hair matted and crusted in the filth of combat. Even from here it's steep height and robust power was a sight to behold. Like a child's toy, the Kordan towed begging woman through dirt and debris by ankle, with a single hand. Pulling her, shredding her clothing, and fraying her bare flesh over the coarse approach to the City's center, with such ease it was almost a stomach churning thing to witness.
From somewhere below, a hand grasped at Artemis' own leg as she steadily slog forward. A mangled and ruined thing, with three fingers bent at dramatic, unnatural, angles. Whomever it belonged to could not be fully seen, some hapless innocent, buried beneath the weight of dozens of bodies, and caught in the middle of a War for lucrative resources and the reactionary blood shed that an unwelcome Jedi Task Force demanded be paid for their unneeded interference.
Their morals were not needed here, their attempt to force the Peace and Justice of their own personal code and view, entirely, wholeheartedly, rejected.
Smoke, ash, the crackling drift of burning embers. All hang like a thick, foggy curtain. When the resilient Woman of the Mandalorian Faith would finally work herself in to the gaping wound of Niango, it would become instantly clear that much of the hostility had fled towards the circular city center of this sallow, ghostly place. Blood and bones, the dead would lay all around her. Gore not meant for a human to witness.
But she would have to worry herself with the carnage, the Kordan, and the revulsion at some later point. This particular Battle was not hers, her purpose for being here was not to wade blindly. She had been given very specific instructions, and not far from this very spot where dying hand grossly grasp her leg for help that could not save it, a particular Droid had been hired to converge with her and her mission.
It was, assuredly, a one-of-a-kind Machine of Murder and Mayhem. A Connoisseur of Crime. An Aficionado of Annihilation. Damned Demon of Decimation. Eternal Emperor of Extermination. The Titan of Terror and Torture. Six-O was sort of special, to some extent, a Snowflake of Slaughter. The Garroter of God-Kings. The Executioner of Edgelords.
His list of Titles extended on, precisely, for another twenty-nine thousand, seven hundred and sixty entries.
For now, however, he'd keep them holstered away in the confines of his digital memory. Sorting, resorting, silently viewing them in 5,999,999 different languages and forms of communication. He needed something to do, after all, in that frightful space between seconds.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh3Kk5tZSmo[/youtube]
Then there, behind the cloak of soot and fire, a different sort of music began to emerge against the howling war cries of the hideously large Kordan and the discharge of devilish weapons reaping life with each and every shot fired. Something, offbeat, unusual, fantastic. If when she came upon the street, she squinted just so, the bloom of dozens of blazing red sensors sat astride a spire-like head of metal and malice.
This was the Droid she was looking for.
In the grasp of a single claw-hand, Six-O held a Magnetic Reaper, in the forefront of a wall, that appeared to have been feasted upon by hundreds of loosely aimed shots, a frail man, deeply aged, stood with his palms pressed out towards the Droid. Sweat and dirt leaving him greased in the filth of the day long battle that seen this city eaten alive.
"Don't do this. . I beg you." He whimpered weakly, his body quivering harder as the notes of music flooded over him, the warmth of urine streaming down his leg, shame heavy on his heart.
His frail resolve meant nothing to the Droid. It fired a single round.
Below left eye the hyper-sonic pellet entered flesh, birthing a ripple that waved through the entire face and skull of this pitiful thing. A Black Hole of gore that was driven inward upon the smallest point, an artificial gravity that consumed face through a pin prick. Seams opening all across it's inferior facial plating, the features that were unique to this particular organic, vanishing in a single, bloody, second as that brief grimace was driven through the back of the skull. A cracking blossom that cried louder than the music the Droid's vocoder sang. Blood and brain soaking the tattered wall with a sudden splash like a thrown bucket of mop water and filth. The body giving one, final, thrust of limbs, as it jerked backwards and folded up before falling on to a pile of a dozen more that had died just like it.
Progress.
Now, where was this woman thing, he was supposed to meet. And would she arrive before, or after, the Droid dispatched this rapidly approaching group of eight men, unwilling to go quietly in to the afterlife like the worthless dirt that they were.
