Private You Had One Job

[Cato Harth]

Cato followed Cas’s lead, using the initial surprise to their advantage and leaping into the fray as the door slid open. As the guards gathered their bearings, Cato picked up their own ship captain from the ground, “You’ll thank me later,” He said, before chucking him out into the hall with the Force. At least there he wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.

A familiar piece of shiny metal went sailing through the air, the glint catching Cato’s eye just in time to find the hilt of his lightsaber returned to the Knight’s hand once again. He cradled the weapon for a moment, the gaze in his eye like that of one reunited with a long lost love, “I missed you.”

Three prongs of glowing white light erupted, and Cato readied himself into a defensive stance as the pirates began to surround him. The Dowutin ignited his “own” lightsaber in turn, facing down Cas. Without his own weapon, it would be a challenge. “Tag me in!” Cato yelled back, Force jumping over the pirates to between Cas and the captain.

“Need a blaster?” He asked, offering the one he took from one of the security guards, just before tanking a heavy overhead blow from the captain. The two locked in a bind, with Cato noticeably straining. “Keep those guys busy, will ya? I’ll get your saber back in a sec.” He nodded to the pirates, before flashing a wink, and he’d return his focus in full to the threat ahead.

“C’mon… I figured this would be tougher, given your… girth.” In spite of his words, Cato winced under the pressure of their struggle, before the Dowutin’s overwhelming strength brought Cato down to a kneel. “Hmph,” was all the Captain snorted, before using his free hand to smack the Knight across the room and into a console.

“Ow.” Cato groaned, shaking his head to orient himself. The captain snarled before charging forward. He was strong, but reckless, and obviously not a trained lightsaber user. Cato rolled to the side, dodging the attack and beginning to play keep away with his dance partner, biding time until he could disarm the brute of his weapon. So long as Cas could keep the blaster fire off of him until then, they’d be golden. Probably.

Cadere​

 

[Cadere]

Cas prepared to defend himself against the Pirate captain but luckily, Cato intervened handing him a blaster do. "I give you back your lightsaber and all I get is a crummy blaster." Cas quipped with a smirk before leaping away and leaving Cato to face the captain. Although he wanted to help and this may be a factor playing into his vision, there wasn't much he could do without his lightsaber.

So, he needed to keep the other distracted. Thankfully, their captain was safe and thus wouldn't need to worry about him. Landing in the middle of the bridge with a combat roll forward, stupidly surrounding himself with pirates, Cas quickly quick-shotted two pirates in quick succession and with opening himself up to the Force, he allowed it to flow through him and guide him and his reflexes through his instincts. Swiftly jerking his head out of the way of one blaster bolt, he backrolled out of the way of two more before countering by sending a blaster bolt at one of the pirates to his right.

Extending his free arm, Cas swivelled himself around in a circle and as he did so, unleashed a Force wave that knocked anyone out in its path. With the limited time he had as the pirates began getting back up from being knocked over, Cas sent out a few more shots, killing some of the pirates but that wasn't enough. And to make matters worse, the blaster jammed, "Of course." Cas muttered at himself before hurling the blaster at one of the pirate's head before proceeding to dive toward and below, into the crew pit.

"How're you doing, Cato? Dead yet?!" Cas quipped, preparing to launch a chair at the first grotesque pirate face he'd see peek into the crew pit.

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

The Dowutin swung with heavy, overpowering strikes. Enough to break Cato’s guard instantly, if they weren’t so easy to read. “You can do better than that, bud! Show me something exciting!” He commented, sidestepping the beam of heated plasma, now mere inches away from his face. Just as Cato began into get into a rhythm, the captain displayed unforeseen ingenuity. He swung overhead, just close enough to get Cato to try and counter the attack with his own weapon. As he did, the captain reached down with his other arm and snatching Cato, his massive hand easily encompassing the lower half of the knight’s leg in his grasp. “Ope.”

With overwhelming strength, he lifted Cato off the ground and slammed him onto the other side like a ragdoll. Pain flared up in Cato’s old injury from Voss, a particular bursting sensation signaling to him that the wound had reopened from the impact. There was little more reaction to give than a faint whine, before he was lifted again and slammed back down onto his back.

"How're you doing, Cato? Dead yet?!"

"Never... better!"

The Dowutin pinned him onto the floor as raised the saber high, plunging it downward to Cato’s chest. The Knight’s focus returned just in time to respond with a split-second counter, the chance he’d been waiting for. With his one free arm, Cato raised his own saber and diverted the strike, the beams sparking as they dragged along one another, before the Dowutin’s became locked in Cato’s crossguard. The blade itself narrowly missed Cato, instead running against its user’s hand, which made him recoil in pain. Using this newfound leverage, Cato disarmed the Captain of the lightsaber, snatching it, leaping up, and throwing it back to Cas in one fluid motion, “Heads up!” Hopefully, Cas heard the first time, because Cato wouldn’t get a chance to repeat it as he felt a familiar heavy hand grip onto his coat from behind.

Next thing he knew, Cato’s vision dizzied as he was whipped around in an arc, and then hurled with impressive velocity, also in Cas’s direction.

Cadere​

 

[Cadere]

"Never... better!"

Cas heard... from somewhere. However, it did prompt a quiet chuckle from Cas "That's great! Keep it up!" he quipped, putting on the voice of a "proud parent". Then he saw it, a Weequay pirate peak their stupid head into the crew pit "I really wish you were a beautiful Zeltron." Cas teasingly lamented, curling his fingers inward and summoning the Force to rip a seat from nearby and throw it at the pirate's face, sending the Weequay flying into the sealing.

Then he heard the blessed words "Heads up!" which could only mean one thing, he got his baby back. Cas leapt out of the crew pit in order to meet and grab his lightsaber during its descent towards him, bliss filled his chest but it quickly turned to dread when his brown eyes caught Cato's form coming straight for him. "You gotta be kidding--" unable to finish his sentence before Cato collided with Cas, sending them both into the bridge's closed door - denting it.

"Oh kriff, mybackmybackmyback!" he groaned as he slid down to the floor, taking the full force of being slammed into both Cato and the bridge door knocked the wind out of him as well as caused his scar on his back to flare up. Cas wouldn't have long to catch his breath as blaster fire focused on the two of them straight away once they hit the floor. Pushing Cato off've him, Cas immediately began deflecting blaster fire despite his lungs desperately wanting air. Getting up to his feet, he continued deflecting "Wanna trade again?" Cas asked rhetorically before leaping toward the Dowutin.

As Cas was mid-air, on track for the Dowutin, the hulking captain surprised the Jedi Knight by pulling out an Electrostaff and swung for Cas in a left-to-right horizontal strike once he was close enough. Reacting a split second later would have resulted in the end of the Jedi's life, but luckily the reflexes of his cybernetic arm intervened with Cas quickly countering it perfectly with an overhead strike. Using his momentum, as well as the two blades' locking as a springboard, Cas propelled himself into a forward flip over the Dowutin's head, leaving him with a parting kick to the back of the head before he landed.

"Whoooooa, almost! But not quite, Tubby. You're fast though, I'll give you that." he quipped, narrowly avoiding another attack as the captain swung back around to hit Cas which he managed to block, although the impact sent tremors through the forearm of his organic arm and staggered him slightly.

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato flopped face first onto the ground after he and Cas were slammed against the door. “Karking CHIT, dude.” He complained with his head still smushed against the metal floor. The blood from his reopened wound began to stain his shirt, and he reached over to touch it before a blaster bolt struck the floor next to his face. “Ah!” He yelped at an unexpectedly high pitch, about to spring up onto his feet reflexively, only for Cas to shove him off first.

Rolling back up, Cato ignited his own weapon and began to defend himself from the blaster fire. A trade was proposed,, and Cato glanced at the Kiffar as if he were crazy, laughing to himself, “Do you? Be my guest.”

The latter leapt into the fray with the captain, leaving Cato to clean up the scraps. He straightened up, forcing himself to ignore the pain in his side and focus on the danger at hand. “Alright, alright. One at a time, guys.” He said, beginning to close distance between himself and the pirates, blocking shots all the while. “Maybe a single file line? That would make this a lot easier for me. You mind?” With the Force, Cato pulled three of them together, effectively lining them up as intended, “Aw, you guys do know how to follow directions.” With a burst of speed, he dashed to the side of the trio, the white flash of his saber cutting them down in a single, decisive strike.

Before he could get back up, Cato was forced to whip his saber around behind his back, blocking the vibroaxe swung from overhead, narrowly cleaving into the knight’s spine if he had been too late. The culprit, the hefty Gamorrean pirate from before, squealed angrily and prepared another strike. Cato backed up and regained a proper defensive stance, “Yeesh, careful where you swing that thing!” Their weapons collided again as the Gamorrean struck repeatedly with berserk fervor. He was strong, but even more sluggish than the Captain. It didn’t take long for Cato to counter, finishing the duel with little more effort as he spun around and impaled him from behind. He held his hand to his heart and muttered in faux-grief, “We coulda had something, you and I.”

His attention turned to the remaining pirates. Numbers dwindled, but a few were still left. Cato called out to Cas, sparing a momentary glance in his direction before he was made to refocus on his own fight, “How’s it going, bud?!”

Cadere​

 

[Cadere]

Cas let out a pained grunt as he was backhanded into the Bridge's viewport - cracking it on impact. Best to avoid getting knocked into it again, otherwise its game over for everybody. The Captain rushed over to Cas, ready to attack, the Jedi quickly kipped-up and rolled in between the captain's legs just before he could slam his electrostaff into the ground. "Okay, seriously, are you on some new age spice? Can I have some?No way someone as big as you can move that fast!" he quipped, spinning around to face the Dowutin and attack with a horizontal slash.

The Dowutin managed to block Cas' attack, and pressed on by smashing the electrostaff into the ground once more. Quickly jumping to his side and dodging it, the Kiffar then planted his boot on the safest part of the staff to hold it in place (for as long as he could) and attempted to behead it the Dowutin. However, the Dowutin used his superior strength to swing upward and spring Cas off of the staff - transtioning into a backflip, Cas landed firmly on his feet. "Boring. You've got no grace, no fight IQ. It's just smash, smash, smash with you." Cas teased dodging and blocking two attacks as the captain threw strikes at Cas with both ends of the staff.

As the two enemies struck toward each other at the same time, they would engage in a blade lock with Cas on the backfoot. He let out a snicker at Cato's question "Having the time of my life!" he yelled back, although his back was really flaring up. The Captain finally disengaged the blade lock by thrusting Cas away, nearly staggering him but he regained his footing as the pirate captain went in for another attack. Quickly throwing his arm forward, the Jedi Knight unleashed a small Force push that would knock the Dowutin off balance, granting Cas enough time to use the Force to rush toward the Dowutin, somersault over him and deliver a fatal strike to his spine, driving his lightsaber upward from the Dowutin's lower back to inbetween the shoulder blades.

Throwing his head back and yelling out in pain, the Dowutin desperately tried to reach for his back but Cas intercepted by severing the Dowutin's arm at the forearm, swinging his lightsaber downward in a diagonal motion. Crying out louder, the Dowutin dropped to one knee, defeated. With that hopefully over with, Cas' shoulders slumped and he let out a deep exhale.

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato spun around, swinging his lightsaber into an upward guard as another pirate charged in from behind with a vibrosword. As their weapons were locked in a bind, Cato reached down and unclipped the pirate’s blaster from its holster with some quick sleight of hand, firing it into the pirate’s exposed chest and kicking him back.

"Having the time of my life!"

He spun his head around to check again, juuust to make sure Cas wasn’t doing worse than he said he was. The two were still fighting, but the Kiffar at least seemed to have things under control in the brief moment he saw. “Always nice to see the kids getting along.” Cato rolled to the side behind cover, waiting for the pause in blaster fire before springing up, delivering a quickshot to each of the two remaining pirates before they could react, in sync with Cas’s defeat of the Dowutin captain. He spun the blaster around his finger, blowing the smoke away from the barrel for extra flair before recklessly tossing the weapon aside.

“Alrighty! That was fun.” Cato exhaled, planting his hands on his hips only to be met with a sick stickiness. He looked down to see the now larger red stain on his abdomen. “Oh gross.” He mused casually. “Guess I should get this checked out, huh? Let’s clean up here, get what we came for and uh, make our exit.”

Cato spared the defeated Dowutin a passing glance, “You messed with the best, pal.” He accessed the bridge’s communications, sending out a ping to hail for the nearest law enforcement ship. “A detail should arrive on site relatively soon. Let the local authorities handle proceedings. We got some artifacts to deliver.”

Cadere​

 

[Cadere]

Thankfully Cato had taken out the remaining pirates because Cas was just about done with this day. Noticing Cato's blood stain near his abdomen once attention was drawn to it, Cas' nostrils flared and he made a face of genuine disgust "Aw man, gross. Here..." he said, digging through his belt, he pulled out a Stimpack and flicked it over to Cato "Don't die before we get back home. Otherwise I'll be very upset." he quipped.

Extinguishing his lightsaber, Cas patted the Dowutin's orange dome and turned to make his way to the bridge controls "I know you can try and walk outta here Tubby, but I wouldn't recommend it." Cas quipped with threatening undertones. Wrapping an arm around Cato's shoulder, he grinned as he stared beyond the cracked viewport "I'd say we did pretty good, all things considered." they took down the pirates, no one died and most importantly - his vision didn't 100% come to pass. Well, Cato opened his wound but he wasn't as in bad shape as he was in Cas' vision. That was a win.

It didn't take long for the detail to arrive, an hour at best, and not that long for the crew to clean up the pirates that were... still alive. Turns out these were wanted criminals for theft, murder, and obviously, piracy - seemed the Force willed this encounter today. During the time it took to detain the pirates and as the Dowutin was carted off, he gave one last menacing glance at the two Jedi "When I find you two, I'll make you wish you never spawned from your mother's--" he started before quickly being cutoff by Cas "Wow, and how long will that be? You're looking at a life sentence, sir." Cas teased with a smug grin before the Dowutin was finally shoved off out of view by the authorities.

Turning to Cato, he held out his fist in order to receive a fist bump "Gotta say, you're a nice change of pace from the usual Jedi I'm partnered with. I wouldn't mind getting into more trouble with you." he complimented Cato with a mischevious grin,

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Catching the stimpak, Cato unceremoniously stabbed himself with the injector. “Aw, gonna miss me already?” He smirked back, finalizing the SOS message that was soon pinged by a nearby patrol. “It’s better than I can say for most jobs. There’s usually a few more explosions. But the property damage here was impressively low.”

The authorities arrived in short time and cleaned up what was left of the mess. He and Cas saw the Dowutin off, and Cato grimaced in preparation for what it seemed like he was about to say before Cas cut him off. “Yikes. He’ll cool off.”

Cato had prepared to step away when the Kiffar, offered a fist bump, which he returned in kind, “I work with a lotta more… stuck up types myself. So, yeah, this was a nice change of pace.” He replied with an equally mischievous smirk. “I’m sensing a deeper connection here,” Cato pressed two fingers against his temple and spoke in a sarcastically philosophical tone, then motioned between the two of them, “It would be to turn our backs on the Force, if we did not make use of this… natural synergy more often.”

Cato took a step in the direction of their ship, ready to make his way back so they could finish the job, and more importantly, go home. Though he wasn’t looking forward to whatever earful they’d likely receive from whoever was on site. Naturally, he couldn’t help but leave an air of competition between them. If they were going to work together more, Cas needed to be able to take the heat, “Oh, but uh, I’m gonna need you to work on your quip game from here on out, yeah?” His smirk turned more smug by the second, “It’s one thing when I’m working with a straight man, but when the other guy is just constantly trying to play catch up with my witticisms?” He clicked his tongue, “Tsk, It’s hard to watch.” With a lazy salute, Cato rounded the corner to head back to the ship.

Cadere​

 

[Cadere]

“Oh, but uh, I’m gonna need you to work on your quip game from here on out, yeah?

Cas immediately stopped in his tracks following Cato's statement, "Huh?!" he exclaimed, Cato had struck a nerve. Cas' face scrunched up and he pointed a finger at the Jedi Knight, who was already on the ship and wasn't even in sight "Catch up? Give me the spice you're on! My quip game is on a solid... 8. You? Your quips are like, a 6 on a good day and I'm just being generous--" Cas then stopped abruptly, realising what just happened. A smirk grew large on his face, and Cas' shoulders jolted up and down as he began chuckling - he realised what was happening, so, Cas would attempt to flip it back "Very funny, Cato. You're projecting, I get it. You just feel insecure about your quip game compared to mine." he started, making his way onto the ship.

"It's okay though, I mean... who knows? Maybe one day your witticisms will be on par with your skill to get tossed around. One day." the Jedi teased with an equally smug grin, as he found Cato onboard Cas gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and wandered over to his seat before the ship resumed flight to its destination.

As he got comfortable in his seat, fidgeting for a few seconds, Cas leaned back and rested his palms on the back of his head and let out a satisfied sigh. Turns out getting captured by pirates and almost botching this entire assignment, only to turn it around at the last second was the perfect boost Cas needed to jump back into the field once again.

Cato Harth