Private Woken Furies

[Lucien Dooku]

LEVEL 1360, GALACTIC CITY, CORUSCANT
VIBES​

Beneath the affluence and skyscrapers that defined the capitol planet of the Alliance, there were countless sub-levels where the impoverished, the down-trodden and the outright seedier elements of society both lived and thrived. For all the good that a stable government brought to the world, since time immemorial there was always a permanent presence of the underworld that defined the second face to the planet-wide ecumenopolis. The danger of traveling through these various levels was prevalent no matter who one was, and while it helped to be connected or competent enough to take care of yourself, there were always those who saw opportunity where others abstained entirely. Whether it was a gang of thugs that were desperate to score any mark they came across, or even the odd band of rogue droids whose processors had long been corrupt, the chance for confrontation increased with each proceeding floor that one descended upon.

The danger in itself was a deterrent against those who would seek to encroach upon the underworld; the inverse being that the danger was as much of a safeguard as it was a deterrent, for the criminal elements within its society saw a safe haven where others could only perceive threat on all sides. If one knew where to look, safety was all a matter of perception, rather than a state of mind. For Luc, although, the Coruscanti underworld was a place that he'd become familiar with through his various connections with the seedier elements that called the place home. He'd come to the world shortly before Unity Day on a job for one of his acquaintances, but he remained for reasons that pertained to neither the New Imperial Order nor the Hutt who he'd long reported back to having completed the job.

He'd taken it upon himself to look for a local Gang Leader who ran the streets of Level 1360 with impunity. The man was a Twi'lek by the name of Jef who was born and raised on Coruscant, and long entrenched into the undercity thanks to a handful of connections to organized crime groups across the sections both above and beneath his own. Known to the locals as the "Immolater", he'd garnered a reputation for quite literally immolating his rivals and enemies if given the chance. More dead thugs meant little to the authorities, but Jef had developed a taste for expanding his fiery portfolio onto others beside his fellow criminals in the underworld. Coruscanti authorities who dared to interfere with his business for one, and most egregiously, him and his goons would kidnap affluent citizens from the upper levels to demand ransoms, only to send back the charred carcasses of their victims in return.

While there was no question that Jef needed to be dealt with by someone, the truth of the matter was that Luc had no intention of being the man to bring him and his underlings the justice that was long needed for their group. His purpose on Level 1360 was to find the man who was coming after the bastard, the true target of Luc's intention, and a man who piqued his interest much more than a soon-to-be forgotten thug once he was delivered much-needed karma in the near future.

For a long time he'd been mulling on the idea of seeking out those who might share aligning interests with himself, and perhaps the only thing that ever stopped him was his desire to travel the stars alone, avoiding the issues from his past that were far removed from his life as a spacer. Both his ambition and way of thinking had drastically shifted since those times of complacency, and for once he'd decided to leave an ear open to the winds that were the force. Those same winds brought him to the planet's underworld, where he'd come across the name of a Jedi, if his sources were correct, who might just share a thing or two in common with himself. It could've been a fools errand, of course, but his gut told him that their paths were meant to cross. The force may have not willed it into existence, but it whispered enough hints into his ear that Luc had put effort into ensuring the potential of their meeting on that fateful night.

And so he waited inside a seedy cantina by his lonesome, a dark booth towards the rear being his perch for the night while a single glass cheap liquor sat idle on the dusty table in front of him. Jef and a cadre of his men were present across the other side of the room, their presence more of a disruption than the commanding aura which their leader most likely thought he was giving off. Perhaps if his gut was correct, him and the man he was looking for would intersect paths, as Luc had intended. If not? Then maybe he'd collect on the man's head himself.

 

[Bernard of Arca]

Corrosive rain poured onto the streets of Coruscant's 1360th level. Another coolant leak in the lighting platforms that composed a majority of the level's ceiling. The liquid shimmered with a wide spectrum of colours as it pooled on the roads. Bright neon lights reflected off the puddles and painted the streets themselves with a rich sheen of pink and blue, colours that were further scattered by the thin fog that perpetually hung over the lower cities.

The water pattered stiffly against the plasto-canvas overhang that kept the Gung Pao Wak's clients dry. Gung Pao food was largely lacking in depth of taste, and subtlety for that matter. The noodle soup possessed barely any flavours other than a pepper's heat and was steaming hot to boot; it completely overwhelmed Bernard's sense of taste. He found it a far cry from his usual palate of cooked roots and vegetables. Although the vehement insistence of its assault on the senses was an apt reflection for many of the lower levels' inhabitants, he thought.

Following his unofficial departure from the Jedi Order, he'd settled down within the undercity. Crime thrived here, and the streets were bustling with activity at any time of day. The streets were filled with crowds large enough for one person to get lost in quickly and any sign of the greater galactic powers was as rare a sight as a trinary star system; it was an ideal place to lay low and simply disappear for a while. Though, Bernard hadn't done so as prudently as he would have liked to. Every day he'd encountered crime of some kind. From petty theft to extortion rackets, the lower levels were a den of villainy without reproach. Each display of injustice had added up, eventually enough to stir his compassion and shake his icy demeanour to action.

For the past week, he'd been tracking the 'Immolator'. A twi'lek ganglord who'd managed to become the highest authority on level 1360, coercing even the Marshals of the Galactic Alliance into avoiding the districts he called his own. During this week, Bernard had managed to connect with one Marshal whose conviction had outweighed his sense for personal safety.

Bernard's attention was drawn away from his food as the beaded curtain separating the open dining area from the street was quietly disturbed. A gruff nikto in an official Marshal uniform sat down next to him, waving an order to the droid cook before he turned his attention to the arkanian on his left. Bernard regarded the man with a slightly arched brow but didn't offer any greeting.

"Not much of a talker, are you," the Nikto remarked.

Bernard shook his head, barely, the swaying of an array of noodle strings still caught between his lips indicated the gesture more than he did. The marshal scoffed with the smallest hint of amusement.

"Fine, suit yourself," he muttered.

He reached into his jacket, trying to be subtle about it by looking around to either side of the street, though ultimately only succeeding in making it seem like more of a crime. Not that it mattered anyway, they were in Immolator territory here, lawless country. The nikto produced something small from an internal pocket and set it down on the table. The object was a small rectangular diskette, barely larger than a thumb and as thin as a sheet. He let it sit for a moment before he slid it over to the arkanian.

"The holovids you lent me two cycles back. Very accurate, couldn't find many historical discrepancies and you know me," he tried to force a chuckle.

Bernard rolled his eyes, taking the data chip and slurping up the last of the noodles.

"Just tell me where," Bernard replied.

"There's no subtlety with you either, is there," the Marshal sighed, then continued "The Revolution, but I have good information they'll-" before he could finish Bernard had hit a handful of credits onto the counter and stormed off.

"Hey wait, you can't just- ugh, cloaks," he shook his head. He looked to the droid still preparing his meal for a few seconds before he finally got up to follow the Jedi.

-

The pneumatic doors of The Revolution opened with a hiss. Through the open doorway stormed Bernard, rainwater still streaming down the dark brown leather of his jacket. The arkanian only took three quick strides into the room before he leapt into a full dive forward, carrying the momentum into a roll. He interrupted the motion more than half-way through when his shoulders came flat to the ground and used his hands to push himself upwards. His body shot off the floor and in between two of Immolator's guards that stood gaping awe-struck. With a quick twist, his feet struck their jaws with wet cracks, carrying enough force to knock them unconscious. His momentum carried him through a slow backward spin until he was upright again when he landed.

White eyes locked with the twi'lek's, staring down the man as his cigarra dropped onto the table. Bernard calmly shifted into a battle-ready Teräs Käsi stance, beckoning the man forward with a brief gesture.

Lucien Dooku

 

[Lucien Dooku]

vibes~​

From his isolated and dark corner of the cantina, Luc was afforded a clear view of the cantina and its patrons without worry of being bothered by either the Immolator, as he called himself, or the inebriated fellows that mingled together to escape the grim reality of their existence. If asked why Coruscant was not his favorite place to visit, Luc had to point no farther than the current level of the planet-wide city that they were inhabiting as the prime example for his opinionated view on the world. The wide expanses of the city-planet were covered in figurative gold while its underbelly was soaked in the blood, sweat and tears of those unfortunate to be destined to poverty. Crimelords were aplenty, and they sat comfortably in the middle, reigning over the poor and forcing their will upon all those who dared to challenge their authority on the levels that they unceremoniously claimed as their own.

Granted it wasn't anything new to Luc by any means. His dealings with the seedier elements that inhabited the galaxy's underworld had brought him into the presence of many who claimed a similar fame as this so-called Immolator, and while he preferred to deal with those who still held onto some of their scruples in spite of their profession, business was still just that, business, at a certain point. The nuances of working in the underworld would be lost to most without the same level of insight into his previously active profession. Luckily for him, recent events had brought about a change in his employer, and while his presence on Coruscant was brought about under the guise of completing a job for an acquaintance in that aforementioned underworld, he had no qualms with abandoning that contract in favor of pursuing his true objective.

It was just a matter of waiting for his objective to arrive, if the combination of information acquired, his deductive skills and Jedi intuition had amalgamated into something useful on that bleak, rainy evening. The bait had been set in the form of the Crimelord seated across the cantina, and soon enough the reason for his being there would make his appearance in a manner that he wasn't expecting, for the most part. Entering the bar with a clear lack of hesitation in his movements, the figure strode across the cantina to deliver a magnificent showing of violence against two of the Twi'lek's guards, knocking them out cold long before the man rose back up to his feet.

Luc remained seated despite the appearance of the one who he was looking for, instead choosing to observe the next few moments of his interaction between him and the Crimelord in question. The man rose to his feet, his remaining guards he had posted with him inside the cantina joining him on their feet as the cantina's patrons hastily began exiting out the front and back doors to escape whatever was to come next. A hail of insults were delivered in the Twi'leks native tongue, and while Luc had no grasp on the language, it was safe to assume that the man was not too enthused at the white-haired man knocking out his men and goading him into a fight.

The string of rhetoric spewing from the Immolator's mouth would come to an end as the Twi'lek smirked, a sharp set of teeth on display as he rolled his eyes across his remaining men who were beginning to encircle the lone figure accosting their leader. Vibroknives and pistols were brought out to bare by the man's goons, while the Immolator himself reached behind his waist, producing an expensive-looking disruptor pistol that had a number of tally marks etched onto the side of the barrel. The toothy smirk on his face expanded after the pistol was brought out to play, the Immolator switching up to heavily-accented basic to continue laying onto his assailant. "You fucked with the wron--"

Unfortunately for him, a severe lack of situational awareness would cut his speech shorter than he'd expected. From the inconspicuous booth in the corner of the room, a single knife emerged into the light, cutting across the air with a faint whistle before embedding itself through the center of the man's hand which currently held onto the pistol. The blade sliced clean through both sinew and flesh, slicing the tendons as it reached deeper into the flesh and locking the man's hand permanently in position, much to his dismay. Words emerged from that shadowy corner, the lone occupant sitting casually in the dim light of the booth having reached out to deliver a small warning to the cornered Arkanian through a simple trick of the force known as telepathy. <"Three to your rear, one on your left. Reposition yourself, unless you want to find out what happens next.">

A red light emanated from the base of the knife after he finished speaking, the feint red glow pulsating until the color had shifted into a deep, blood-red tone. A moment later and the pulsating had ceased, leaving in its wake an explosion that removed the man's hand from the middle of his forearm down. The visceral remains of his hand dropped to the ground along with the charred remnants of the disruptor pistol, and Lucien casually slid out from his booth, an ornate dagger gripped within his hand by the time he rose to his feet. The infamous Crimelord of Level 1360 was brought to his knees, writhing in agony from the loss of neary half his arm in a miniature explosion, while his cadre of guards were left shocked in the wake of what had just happened. Luc's eyes focused on the Arkanian, half of a smirk sitting on his face. He'd hoped the man had taken his message for granted; it was a test, in a sense, but also a genuine warning for what was eventually to come. Having ventured this far down beneath the upper levels, the last thing Luc wanted was for the one he was searching for to end up riddled with shrapnel by his own hand, after all.

Bernard of Arca