Faction When Droids Attack [RTL & Allies]

[Cryx Tillian]

Yula Perl Pash Tafo Jared Starchaser Shaye Ares
VILLAGE
======================================

Cryx grimaced as the bolts from his blaster deflected off the shell of one of the droids again and he just let the weapon drop to his side. This was not his primary role. He inhaled slowly and wrapped the Force around him.

"I'll slip into the building and let them know," Cryx called to the others, stepping aside as Pash hurled a chunk of duracrete. This he could manage more effectively, bleeding his heat out through the Force and keeping himself hidden from sensors and infrared.

Cryx slipped to the side of the conflict as the next three trundled towards them and ducked around a corner of a neighboring building before breaking into a run. Weapons fire echoed through the streets and he slowed next to a pile of recyclables and clambered up. He stretched up and curled his fingers around the roof's edge, pulling himself to roll onto the roof.

He knelt there at the edge and listened, scanning across the streets to get a sense of what was going on, before moving to the far side, across the street from the cantina, where he could see the walls have been taking a beating. The street was wide and he frowned, pulling a liquid-cable launcher from his belt and aiming at the top of the cantina. He couldn't hide the cable and himself, so he would just have to hope the droids wouldn't notice. With a light hiss, the cable surged forward and the spike hurtled across the street into the top of the building.

 

[Shaye Ares]

Shaye saw Jared Starchaser deflect a bolt back at a droid. He made it look easy. That was probably a pretty useful skill to have, too. She imagined, for a brief moment, how that might have aided her back in the day – navigating alleyways and dodging blaster bolts as she made off with stolen goods. But this wasn't a deal gone south, and Shaye had to keep her head in the game.

“Right-o,” she replied to Jared, following along behind him.

Shaye ducked in his wake, using the opportunity to let him take the brunt of the fire that came their way. That dude, Pash Tafo, had saved the child and looked like he was doing pretty well. And his companion, Cryx Tillian 's voice came over the com to let them know he was going in. Shaye figured that soon, they'd need to clear a path for the people inside the cantina to get out.

And it looked like they were about to get some company... in the form of droids shooting at them. If anything, Shaye was good at being a distraction. So, she came out from behind Jared and started running – and pulled a blaster from her belt. Her trigger finger worked, pelting the droids with blaster fire that bounced right off them. It wasn't meant to destroy them... only make them angry and hopefully draw their fire away from Cryx, Pash... and was that a wookie? Jared seemed pretty quick on his feet, and she hoped he'd seen what she was going for here and take out the droids that fell for her diversion.

Yula Perl

 

[Jared Starchaser]

He hadn’t expected to be watching out for someone, granted, he hadn’t received any official call to be watching Shaye’s back. It seemed though, that if she was in fact a Starchaser, it was going to be up to him to make sure she could realize her full potential. What started out as a family that weren’t all that outrageous during the height of the Jedi Orders past, but something was unlocked during the recent… decades? How long was his father in the game?

As a Hunter, he knew how to defeat most things that would cause him or his people harm. He was a warrior who defended, a blocker, and he was going to keep his team here protected. If they wanted to harm his people, they’d have to take him down first. Using his saber to block bolts, and the Force to create a physical barrier to get the ones he wasn’t able to swing on.

Moving with the team, he was keeping an eye on Pash and Cryx, who seemed to have their side of things handled. Watching Shaye pull a blaster, he was taken for a second. She wasn’t… Oh, she was. Ok maybe this girl was a Starchaser. He nodded as she moved, and so did he. The girl was going to pull attention and Jared was going to go to disarm them. Didn’t Yula Perl want some alive?

Or sort of alive.



Cryx Tillian

Pash Tafo

Shaye Ares

 

[McGill]

Ido Outpost

It didn’t particularly matter how McGill had wound up in his current situation. A bad decision here, following lousy advice there, culminating in a long walk through the desert in hopes of getting back to civilization only to find himself in a town under siege by cowboy robots. Well, right up until the other people arrived to lay siege to the robots. The timing of that was probably the only reason McGill was still alive, since most of the droids were busy defending themselves from the party of newcomers.

Standing on a porch a few doors down from the cantina, McGill held a pistol pointed at the head of a single droid. The 3-HAW likewise held a pistol pointed at McGill’s head. Both were afraid to move a muscle, lest the other pull the trigger. Off to the side, the shootout between Jared Starchaser , Shaye Ares , Cryx Tillian , Pash Tafo and A ARS VAMI was just beginning.

After a few seconds stuck in their little standoff, McGill cleared his throat. “Howdy.”

The droid didn’t respond.

“I’m just a humble traveler. I don’t know what’s going on here,” McGill said. The floor around him was littered with the blasted remains of the droid’s two companions, whom McGill had already managed to dispatch. “Why’d you start shooting? What did I ever do to you?”

Still no response. McGill waited a little longer, then quickly pulled another gun… only to find himself staring down the barrel of yet another pistol as the droid mimicked him.

Not one to be outdone, McGill drew a third gun.

The droid angled its head slightly downward so that its photoreceptors could hone in on McGill’s previously nonexistent third arm, which was now poking through his jacket, pistol in hand.

“I have a lot of guns,” McGill said, beaming. "Don't move."

The droid’s face was immovable metal, but if it could emote, perhaps it would have scowled.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Rimward Trade League & Allies

//LOCATION: BPFASSH SURFACE
// GOAL: ELIMINATE AND/OR EXTRACT THE INFECTED 3-HAW DROIDS

A ARS VAMI

The duracrete planter hurled by Pash Tafo smashed point-blank into one of the droids who’d been caught off guard. Buried beneath the dense pot, the bot’s mechanics whirred and hissed, sparks leaping from the now-exposed wiring in droves. Somewhere out towards the ridge of the canyon, Yula cringed.

Two of the droids firing at the cantina refocused their efforts on the man who’d flattened one of their comrades. Ocular sensors honed in on the sparking and sputtering of smoke curling from beneath the planter before tracing the image back to Pash. Flanking him from both sides, the duo activated the two repeating cannons embedded within their arms, aiming to catch the Matukai adept within the heavy crossfire. While their assault was aggressive, the use of four heavy cannons—two for each droid—would cause them to slow significantly.

Yet, one of the encroaching droids changed focus yet again after being pelted with fire from Shaye Ares as she zipped by. Her intent had worked, and one of the droids bearing down on Pash would swing his body around, now concentrating on the light footed scoundrel. As the rogue droid rained a suppressing blaster fire down on Shaye, Jared Starchaser did not escape notice by the droids either. From atop a nearby building, a droid sharpshooter (even though they all had the same programming) was concentrating on the saber wielding pilot through the electroscope of his coilgun. Two quick squeezes were all it took, and two slugs lanced through the air, aimed for his chest and shoulder.

Across the street, Cryx Tillian was attempting a stealthier approach. As the rebel rappelled himself onto the roof of the besieged cantina, he’d find himself face to face with the barrel of blaster rifle. The matronly woman on the other end didn’t seem enthused.

“You with them?”

An unmistakable click sounded from the rifle as she glared Tillian. Though she didn’t specify which them she was referring to, the ruckus below made it clear. Trust was thin, and the fact that he was humanoid was likely the only piece of information that kept Cryx from a face full of laser fire.

Three doors down (heh), McGill had found himself locked in the oddest of stalemates with a rogue 3-HAW. With five guns in play, the droid’s brain assessed the scenario and calculated the possible outcomes with lightning precision. The humanoid did possess three live blasters, and who knows how many additional appendages with which to wield them. Surprisingly, the standard 3-HAW model did not come with extra limbs.

Head tilted to the side, he intoned flatly, yet with surprisingly throaty depth.

“Do you know how to use them, meatbag?”

​

Through the ruckus, Yula hadn’t seen Aeshi lurch away from the blast. While the electromagnetic pulse disabled some of the droids for a moment, it also temporarily powered down her arms. Yula also missed the very cool telekinetic use of slugs against the droids—her attention didn’t turn to the others until she’d managed to rewire one of the droids back to factory default. While that was all well and good, she still needed at least one of the bots as they were now, preferably disarmed.

"It's not your apology I'm looking for,"

"Well sor-rry for being sorry!"

Once the rogue droids had rebooted, she set to work dodging what she could, aided by the crossfire from her comrades—but the droids were gradually pushing them further towards the edge of the cliff. Like Aeshi, the Zeltron focused on disarming. Literally. Charging in with her saber, she’d already used the yellow blade to slice off an arm—a droid arm. Said droid didn’t take too happily to that, and had responded by bludgeoning her in the face with the butt of his coilgun, bloodying her nose and loosening a few teeth. “Mother f—” Yula stumbled back, free hand covering her bleeding mouth. “I made YOU!” She roared and swung her saber around in a sharp arc. Off went the other arm. The droid arm.

About half a dozen rogue droids remained standing, and although they were thinning the herd, the 3-HAWs didn’t seem to mind their fallen, or turned comrades. While Aeshi Tillian fought her way through, one of the droids surged towards her by the repulsors in his feet, aiming to knock her off balance and hopefully, off of the sharp drop of the cliff. Dagon Kaze and Audren Sykes would find themselves on the receiving end of several small, pearl-shaped objects being tossed their way. Benign in appearance, the tiny stun grenades packed enough of a charge to temporarily knock out most organics within a small radius.

Oh, and one of them was filled with glitter instead of concussive force.

 

[Pash Tafo]

There was a satisfying crunch of metal and the spitting of sparks as the duracrete planter smashed into the HAW droid. Even as the Force-imbued wan-shen whirled in his hands in a blur, Pash was suddenly under the withering hail of blaster cannons from two more of the droids moving to shred him in a cross-fire. The Matukai danced as the gleaming head of the polearm deflected the blaster bolts, but the assault was proving too much, and even as he dodged and block with great quickness, Pash could not last long. Black, burning holes appeared in the robes whipping around him, and a searing glance of a bolt grazed his shoulder. Pash swallowed the pain.

Suddenly one of the droids blazing guns swung away. Pash seized the Force and darted aside with lightning speed for a moments reprieve from the other droid's pair of cannons. In that breath, Pash directed the Force into his wounded shoulder to dampen the pain and gathered his surroundings. It was Shaye Ares who drew off one of the droids. He reminded himself to buy her a drink. She saved his life. Jared Starchaser surged forward towards the droid now aiming at the young woman, drawing fire from further off somewhere. And, from the corner of his eye, Pash saw what seemed to be a three armed man in a bizarre stand-off with one of the HAW-droids on a porche nearby. Cryx Tillian had slipped off, surely to infiltrate the cantina.

Pash knew it would only be a moment before the rogue droid targeted him again, and the Matukai darted forward, his movement hyperquick, erratic and designed to shake a target lock and dodge fire. If he could get close enough, he could destroy or disable it with the wan-shen.

Yula Perl McGill

 

[Aeshi Tillian]

Yula Perl Dagon Kaze McGill Pash Tafo Jared Starchaser Audren Sykes Shaye Ares A ARS VAMI
=====================================

Aeshi grunted in acknowledgment of Yula's apology for apologizing, but then slipped aside as the butt of a coilgun hissed through the air. It bounced off her shoulder and she winced as it through her off balance, before she spun around, locking her cybernetic hands around the arm and letting the Force amplify the movement to sever the cables within the arms to disable a chunk of the weapons.

She laughed a short laugh at Yula's comments. "Sucks when your kids decide not to like you very much, I bet, right?"

Aeshi spun to one side as another weapon spun past her and a blast of weapon energy sizzled past her torso.

"Any chance you droids could still answer the questions? I used to run with the Metal Lords, you know." A steel fist hammered into her mechanical arm and she stumbled back. "No need to be rude." But then a few rushed towards her to try and push her off the edge and she dropped to the ground, rolled aside away from their rush and kicked at one to try and push it past the edge.

 

[Cryx Tillian]

Cryx hissed through his teeth and stumbled backwards as he very nearly ran into the barrel of a blaster rifle. He perched on the edge of roof, arms windmilling momentarily before he pulled himself back into a position where he stood perched on the edge.

"Them?" He stared at the old woman for a second, trying to sort through who she might be talking about. "Oh! I'm with the Rimward Ranger Corps." He shrugged after a moment. "We picked up a distress signal and came to help."

He pointed a thumb behind him towards the drop to the street. "Can I get on the roof? I'm here to help people get out of the cantina and sneak away from the droids."

Combat still sounded across the street, but he set that aside for the moment.

 

[Shaye Ares]

There was a rush of satisfaction. Aw, yiss... the plan totally worked! Shaye aimed a small, careful glance over her shoulder. The droids were firing at her now. Wait – they were firing at her now. Yeaaaaah, she hadn't quite thought this through. Her plan actually started with do it and stopped just short of see what happens after.

The bolts found the ground just behind her heels and then the bolts singed her boots. Time to move faster! Shaye pushed the force to her legs and used it to power her forward in a quick burst – and propelled herself behind the cover of a large something. What was this, a strategically placed crate? It would do for a quick minute.

She ducked and stayed down, catching her breath.

Now, Jared Starchaser would do his part to disable them. Shaye was pretty confident. She'd seen his skills just a little white before, after all. And it looked like Pash Tafo was making good on the diversion she'd provided.


Cryx Tillian , Yula Perl , McGill

Spoiler

Sorry, I've been so slow!

 

[Jared Starchaser]

They were droids. They could only become sort of alive. It was fair, and Jared would do what he could to disassemble them well enough. It wasn’t like they could really do much damage if they were just a head. Did these ones have teeth? The Hunter didn’t think so. Get rid of the limbs and they would be fine.

Unless for whatever probably-his-father-influenced-reason Yula Perl put some form of self destruct on the droids. It wasn’t that his father would do that, but his Uncle, Marek? That was definitely in that wheelhouse. But what he knew about Marek, was that it wasn’t Yula’s father. Or an influence to the Zeltron. He could hope.

With the people they had here now, though? They could fight these back, keep the pressure up. Well, that was his intent. But as he was paying attention to the charge of Shaye Ares , he didn’t quite notice or sense the droid on the roof with the coilgun. Two shots came, and the Force gave him the insight of incoming danger and the Jedi moved his lightsaber, catching and melting a slug, molten remnants hitting his armor as he threw up a wall of the Force, sending the other slug off its course, grazing the armor he wore. Looking to the roof, he shook his head and called on the Force.

He ripped the coilgun down with the Force, reaching for the droid’s arm itself, intent on tearing it from the body while pulling it all down to the ground. The Force was the pathway to some abilities…

And he was a Starchaser. Like Skywalkers of the past, they were a family bathed in the Force. But even his family had to recoup and couldn’t throw it around without reproach. “Got some snipers.” He called out to those nearby.

Cryx Tillian Pash Tafo

 

[Audren Sykes]

He had to hand it to Yula, the droids reacted quickly. Two shots came close to hitting the Sephi and were returned to the one he wasn't currently rushing at. A single, smooth arc of a slash resulted in a double-cho sun: both arms were severed while the head was very narrowly missed. He continued with a shoulder check that knocked his target to the ground and allowed him to keep moving on, both to avoid any ground-based kicks from the disarmed one and keep to solid footing to confront the next in line.

The second droid hadn't stopped firing. A couple of the bolts had glanced off its sibling unit as Audren closed - doing little visible damage - but continued tracking the Jedi as he moved. The accuracy was impressive and the orange lightsaber was forced to stay in constant motion to deflect the bolts that came close...which was most of them. Singed armor was now a thing. He needed to get closer to end the engagement but the closer he got the faster he had to react to avoid getting hit, putting him in a nice conundrum. One that was only added to when a second droid stepped up and added its own firepower to the assault. The elfin Jedi's answer was to raise his left hand with palm facing the sky, then suddenly clench his fist. What he sensed as threads of Force power wrapped tightly around both droids' arms and raised them so the blasters were shooting into the sky, then their two hands suddenly jerked together as if held by binders.

"Hands up."

It would have been very satisfying to simply throw his lightsaber at the two. He had his choice of options: aim at the arms and disarm them (literally), the legs and leave them hanging in midair, or even their torsos and turn them into scrap metal. He kept a level head however. If Yula really could fix them, they could be useful. Never mind their long-term use as local law enforcement, they could help contain the other haywire droids. Assuming re-infection wasn't a possibility. He'd personally much rather face a small army with an army of his own. But the longer he held them, the greater the strain as their mechanical gears continued to fight his control.

With eyes on the two droids - and mainly their raised arms to keep his focus - he caught the glint of several small objects flying towards him. They were slow so his lightsaber wasn't the right response. The blade, anyways. His right hand shifted slightly and the signature Jedi weapon took the aspect of a conductor's baton. A twitch was the physical manifestation of another telekinetic effort, shifting the objects he could see drastically off their course. Not over the edge of the cliff, he didn't want to have to go jumping over and climbing back up if they were important. Not too far away either...but far enough away. Just in case. Satisfied with the new trajectory, his attention returned to the two droids. Their gun barrels were just about re-centered on him when his focus snapped back and caused the servos to whine in protest at being forcibly raised again.

"I didn't say you could put them down. Fix them fast or check scrap prices, Yula."

Yula Perl | Aeshi Tillian | Dagon Kaze​

Sorry for the couple weeks of mental checkout.

 

[Yula Perl]

Something strange happened.

The Rimward forces continue to clash with the rogue droids, fighting the 3-HAW units tooth and nail. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they began to slow down. Their quick reflexes became sluggish, even their balance seemed to be off as they stumbled like wayward drunks rather than killing machines.

Yula’s voice crackled over the comms, sending a message to the others.

“Something’s slowing the droids down—take them out while you can!”​

The droid who’d been hammering Pash Tafo with blaster fire stumbled back, arm canons swaying in the wind and spraying rounds into the ground. Even the droid’s monotone voice seemed to slur.

“Helloooo my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime summertime gaaaalllll-”

The droid who’d been following Shaye Ares stumbled over to where he’d seen her disappear, all but collapsing over the crate she’d been taking refuge behind.

“We’ve been trying to reach you about your starship’s extended warrantyyyyyyy…”

Along with his movements, his voice slowed and deepened as he conked his head against the shipping container. At that exact moment, the sniper Jared Starchaser had pulled from the roof landed on top of the insurance scam bot with a loud crash.

“I always wanted to be a protocol droid insteeaaadddd”

From atop the roof, the matronly woman lowered the barrel of her gun away from Cryx Tillian . “The who? Bah! Nevermind. Suppose we’re grateful an’ all that someone got the distress signal.” Her brows shot up. “Think a feller like you can hold off—” The shooting had lessened, and she swung her rifle around to peer through the scope down below to the staggering droids.

“Wot in tarnation?”

--

The kick delivered by Aeshi Tillian landed with just enough force to send the droid over the edge of the cliff, landing with a rock-meets-metal crunch at the bottom of the gorge. The pair of droids in the grasp of Audren Sykes went from struggling to limp, seemingly content with their situation. Or at least, far less uncooperative. Their heads lolled to the side, and one of them called out to the Sephi.

“Don’t shoot, man.”

Yula’s face scrunched in the most confusion she’d ever been in, before a spark of understanding leaped across her face. The lax speech, loose movements, and lack of aggression started to add up. “I think this is…a test program I never removed. I tried to make them more, uh, likable?” She cringed.

Four droids remained now; the two Audren had in his hold, and another who was stumbling around looking for his ‘lost hat’. The last droid was the one that Yula had turned, who still stayed sharp, seemingly unaffected by electronic inebriation.

“But this is…beyond what I did. Their programming is borked, that’s for sure.” She shook her head. “Can you guys restrain them while I signal the others?”

Tapping into the comms, she sent out a signal to those who’d been working in the town.

 

[Pash Tafo]

Fierce concentration was required as Pash surged forward, dodging the droid's cannon-fire and deflecting the glowing bolts with the Force-imbued head of the wan-shen. He not only needed to protect himself, but he had to avoid accidentally hitting one of his companions in the hail of ricocheting beams. The air was filled with the cacophony of blasters, then there was a sudden drop in the noise.

The Matukai saw his assailant teeter, it's weapons aimed at the dirt, kicking up a storm of debris. And it was....singing? Behind his serenading droid, Pash saw one on the roof of the Cantina shoot towards the ground. Following its trajectory, he could see Jared Starchaser had yanked it from its shooting position. It crashed into the droid already collapsing near Shaye Ares .

Something systemic was affecting the droids. Had Cryx Tillian done something? Did Aeshi Tillian and Audren Sykes find a way to mess with them? There was no apparent explanation, but there was a very apparent course of action. Pash took several Force-driven steps forward and leaped into the air, his trajectory aimed to bring him down on top of the haywire droid, driving the Matukai polearm into the thing to disable it.

McGill

 

[McGill]

“Do you know how to use them, meatbag?”

"Oui," McGill replied, not sure if he was grinning or gritting his teeth. "But we don't have to shoot at each other, you know. We could become partners, go on adventures together. You can be my droid brother."

He was being quite serious. These cowboy robots were cool as hell, and he imagined one would make a fantastic companion. It would be a real shame if he had to riddle this one with blaster fire from three guns simultaneously.

Yula Perl​

 

[Audren Sykes]

All of the sudden the droids Audren was restraining stopped resisting. In fact, they went darn-near limp with both heads even lazing to the side. They weren't powered down though, since one of them called out to not shoot. That in and of itself was kind of odd since Audren wasn't the one holding guns. That said, he suddenly had dead weight of two droids to hold up. The unexpected strain had him taking an unwitting half-step forward and using his lightsaber blade like a conductor's baton again as the words slipped past his conscious mind.

Yula's didn't however. Restrain them. With a frown, the Sephi's clenched fist rotated ninety degrees; were the hand holding a blade it would be exactly vertical. This was accompanied by a mental shift: the effort that had gone to holding the droids upright slipped through and they fell bonelessly to the ground. The arms were still held together and blasters raised to the sky - which was technically a bit more dangerous now that they didn't have to lower them so far to hit the targets - but he no longer had to focus everything on them. He hadn't expected restraining bolts to work and who used binders against droids?

Now that things were winding down the tunnel vision of combat was fading away. This was a test program unlike any he'd ever seen. Though he'd only written a few personally he'd supervised many more...the engineers tended to get sloppy when they thought others weren't watching. But typically test programs were made to, well, test something. Even if this was indeed beyond what Yula had put in he couldn't quite see where the jump-off point had been. Not that it really mattered. With droid arms fully in mental hand the Jedi looked back at the case lying on the ground. He hadn't even had a chance to take one of the pieces of the new toys out, just two pieces of ammunition. Even that had been improvised; they weren't built for manual triggering. Come to think of it though...

"How the frell were these things so contradictory? Smart enough to somehow leak the location of their 'base' and smart enough to ambush an assault team based on that leak, but too dumb to just shoot before we knew they were lying in wait. Then for some unknown reason they all reset to a test sequence out of the blue?"

Yula Perl | Aeshi Tillian | Dagon Kaze​