Log:Cheap Seats for a Bar Fight

The Cheap Seats Pit Bar is filled with the familiar blend of engine fumes and exotic concoctions that envelop the senses. Neon lights dance off polished metal surfaces and worn durasteel beams, casting a colorful glow over the bustling crowd. The thunderous roar of engines from the holoscreens mixes with enthusiastic chatter, creating the bar's signature symphony.

A figure weaves through the throng of patrons, her petite frame slipping easily between groups of rowdy swoop racers and their fans. Lavender-skinned, with leather-wrapped lekku that drape gracefully down her back, she looks no more than twenty-standard-years-old. A robe drapes from her shoulders, light and movable, doing a decent job of keeping her figure from being the first thing that anyone notices about her -- as well as mostly concealing the blasters on her hips. Her eyes scan the room, searching for her contact.

The bar is a patchwork of artifacts and salvaged machinery, each piece telling a story of swoop racing's history, and at the helm, Barge, the burly Corellian bartender, navigates the chaos with ease, his booming voice cutting through the din as he keeps the drinks flowing and the rowdy patrons in check.

Lira catches his eye and offers a nod, which he returns with a subtle tilt of his head towards a corner table.

So, she makes her way to the table, sliding into the seat opposite them, her senses alert.

"You have something for me?" she asks, keeping her voice low.

The door to the The Cheap Seats Pit Bar opens with a slight hiss. Behind it stands the well muscled, athletic form of Viktar Kravek. He takes a step inside and allows the door to slide closed behind him with the same slight hiss. He pauses a moment to observe the dive bar and its occupants, a small smirk tugging at the side of his maw as he says, "Now this is my kind of place..." he then begins to make his way towards the center of the bar, pausing to slide onto a seat near the center and wave down the bartender. Soon a frothy mug of Corellian ale is placed before him, which he lifts to his mouth for a long drink, before turning his chair to further observe the Cheap Seats and its clientele from well...the cheap seat he's in.

As he scans the bar, the lithe Twi'lek does catch his eye, but for now he is content to sip his mug of ale and await the next Swoop Race to go down...

The figure nods, sliding a datachip across the table. "These are the latest shipments," the hooded figure across from Lira whispers. "But we need to be quick. The place is about to get hot."

The Twi'lek's eyes lift, glancing briefly around at the crowd. It's chaotic, but it's a bar. There's no overt signs of impending doom. Not to the casual observer, anyway.

Lira's purple lips tug into a smile. "Don't they always?"

The figure shakes its head. "Not like this. The guy in the brown with the yellow stripes is packing too much heat... moving like it's a hit."

The young Twi'lek blinks her too-blue eyes. "A hit? Like... they're going to kill someone?"

"One of the drivers. Not sure which one."

"And you're just sitting here?"

"Not my fight." The figure drums a finger on top of the datachip. "But this _is_ my data. So, pay up -- or scram, kid."

Lira drops a credit stick from her pocket onto the table, scooping up the datachip, and as if on cue, a loud crash erupts across the room.

A swoop racer is towering over another patron, fists clenched, and it draws in others like a wildfire, threatening to turn into a full-blown brawl. The figure in the brown stripes is moving ever closer to the racer, hand slipping into his coat.

"Great," Lira mutters, slipping the datachip into an interior pocket of her robe. "Stay low and get out if you can."

"Worry about yourself, kid," the figure says with a little hat-tip. "I'm good. It's CorSec you gotta' worry yourself about now."

Viktar 's canid ears pick up bits and portions of the conversation, but it's not much out of the ordinary for an afternoon on Nar Shaddaa. He takes a long sip of his ale and quietly peruses one of the talking heads discussing the next swoop race. He shakes his head, muttering to himself, "Baz Kalekti? He's got no chance against Golen Huaranger..." he shakes his head once again, grimacing at the hot take.

Then, as the loud crash is heard, his ears perk up again, swiveling in the direction as he turns his head. He sets the drink on the bar and grins slightly, "I knew I'd like this place..." he says with a grin as the thickly muscled Shistavanen rises from his seat, ready to defend himself just in case. He reaches into his pocket and seems to be fishing around. For those with a keen eye, he's slipping his fingers into a set of brass knuckles. He focuses his attention on the swooper fight and makes his way a bit closer to see JUST what is going on!

That figure isn't wrong. The data itself was expensive enough. The last thing Lira needed was to have to bribe CorSec to look the other way if they caught her with it.

Still, it wasn't like striding out the front door as if nothing was wrong was an option anymore -- two tables had already been toppled over, and one guy was currently in the process of breaking a chair across another guy's back.

Splinters of metal and other bits explode from the impact, along with a howl of pain as the one guy goes down.

Across the other side of the bar, for no apparent reason, another fist-fight breaks out (this one actually started because somebody carelessly toppled over somebody else's drink getting up to check on the original commotion). And that? Well, that turns into a big scaley body being tossed into another group, then getting tossed out of _that_ group, and even _more_ fighting.

The Swoop racers are all for it. Most of them, anyway. It takes a certain breed of death-defying lunatic to be a swoop racer, so most aren't scared of a little bar fight. The prissy ones are easy enough to spot. They're in the most expensive suits and are backing up to the edges of the room, rather than getting involved (They can't get involved! They have sponsors!).

Amid all of this is one trapped Twi'lek that needs to find an exit before people start getting arrested. She doesn't look panicked -- not yet, anyway -- but she is _obviously_ looking for a clear way out, rather than a way to get involved. And yet, even amid that searching, her eyes are cast towards the man wearing the brown and yellow-striped clothes... his inexorable approach towards the Swoopsuit clad racer, like the specter of death itself, a big heavy blaster finally clearing a hidden leather holster and coming to bear.

"...This is a _horrible_ idea," Lira mutters to herself, throwing herself out of the booth and racing a few steps across the bar. Her leap across a fallen chair is effortless in its grace, a swirl of black cloak rising up around her just before she drops her shoulder and _plows_ her entire body weight into the back of the would-be assassin.

The blaster goes off, scorching the ground well off-target, but the entire place seems to take a breath. Suddenly it's not just a bar fight.

Someone just brought weapons into it, and that takes it to a whole new level.

Qar-duun must figure 'Sure, you pull up to space-Chili's in your crisp dark robes and your terrifying oni-mask on an achingly-rare speeder and people start whispering about a Zabrak Sith Lord again--' what can it hurt your reputation? 'Surely the old one can't still be alive? Are there multiples?! How much of this one is spidery cybernetics--' or maybe he just wanted a Corellian whiskey-and-soda. "Well, kriff this." he hisses, through down-pitched vocoding.

Viktar was maneuvering to join in on the fun with the swoopers and to make sure the smaller one didn't get pummeled too bad. However, when the blaster bolt goes off, he immediately spins on his heel, just in time to see the small Twi'lek girl throwing her body weight into the would be assassin. He snarls his teeth, baring them and then turning to sprint towards the man with the blaster. As the man stumbles with Lira's assault, he pulls his hands from his coat pockets and quickly closes the distance, deftly hurdling a table and winding up with a full on punch to the face with his brass knuckles. "No need to spoil the fun my friend!" he growls as he throws another strike at the man, moving on to help Lira pin the man down amidst the chaos of the bar fight.

Qar-duun leaves the hilt at his belt, for now(?) whether that's rare or there are rules about it who's to say! He wades in with his fists alone, shod in the dark-toned armor he wears as an aspiring Sith: controlled breathing, measured exertion, minimizing any *grunts* or *wheezes* through the mask-- he swings a haymaker surging with the dark side, and follows with a hook!

Lira isn't much more than a wisp of a thing, to be honest. To anyone that's ever seen her perform in the past, she's a fine acrobat, but a heavy-weight wrestler she is not.

Still, when most humanoids get hit unexpectedly in the back by a flying mass -- even if it's only Lira-sized -- they move. The blaster goes off. The man takes a stumbling step. Lira lands on her feet, quickly regaining her balance, and then... well... this is where the plan falls apart.

It's not like she knocked the guy out, and he is _not_ happy when he wheels around on her, blaster already in his hand, cocked, moving towards the middle of her pretty lavender lekku.

That's precisely when a Shistavanen arm goes flying past Lira, a glint of metal knuckles the most defining feature before it sails directly into the brown-clad man's face. Once. Twice.

Lira's blue eyes go wide, and she takes a step back as the man stumbles back, off balance, dazed and searching around a room that must surely be spinning...

Only to be hit _hard_ in the face by Qar-duun's haymaker that literally sends him flying backwards a whole meter, collapsing a table in half. The blaster falls out of his hand, and the man is out. Cold.

That doesn't mean the war is won, though. There's still plenty of brawling going on. It's just that the man that started it all (unbeknownst to most of the people brawling) is now unconscious, his clever distraction so he could have shot at his target amid the chaos foiled by perhaps one of the most unlikely trio imaginable.

"Thanks," Lira voices above the ruckus, first to Viktar, then to Qar-duun, her smile weak. "I saw him go for his gun and -- "

But whatever she's going to say is cut off when somebody grabs her robe from behind and pulls her backwards, off balance, slending her sprawling on the ground.

Viktar watches as Qar-Duun jumps into the melee as well, offering him a nod of appreciate for finishing the man off. He then turns to the petite Twi'lek and nods, "No problem, thought you might need a hand with that one. I..." the conversation is cut off as Lira is grabbed by the robes and tossed backwards. Viktar immediately gets back into a defensive stance and begins to move towards the offender.

He's never met these two before, but they seemed like, at least for the time that they were the best to have his back and to be worth fending off the typical Nar Shadaan riff-raff. He snarls once again a low gutteral growl emanating from his throat and then he rushes forward, again striking at the assailant and trying to free Lira from the grasp of the being. Two more strikes are thrown, this one a well set up low hook to the side of the body and a cross directly at the person's nose!

Qar-duun swivels to the next available 'targe-- enh, fully-independent person who deserves autonomy and respect?' Maybe another day, because while the dark side surges through a Zabrak QAR-DUUN SMASH. If those robes aren't rip-stop fabric he's Lou Ferrigno, teaching the next sentient he can grab what it feels like to have one's bones broken by a biker!

It's hard to punch what you're aiming at when there's a flailing Twi'lek between you. She's pulling at her robe more than she is trying to _actually_ fight back, just wanting to get free more than she seems to want to even try to hurt anyone.

Yes, she has two blasters on her belt, as well as a stick-baton-thing that looks like a wooden version of a fancy collapsable staff, but she doesn't reach for any of that. She just wants _free_! Admittedly, she's not making much progress with that until Viktor's fists comes flying past her again (this time with a little squeak and a pinching closed of her eyes).

The first hit goes wide, but the next connects and Lira finally gets the sleeve of her robe free.

"Thanks... again," she mutters, getting back to her feet and brushing hersel -- the brushing stops, abruptly, when she has to jump to the side to avoid the man that Qar-duun sends sprawling in her direction, head snapped back and windmilling for balance that he won't find, especially after tripping over the fallen chair that Lira had leapt over earlier.

"As much fun as this is..." Lira looks between the two of them, both of whom have demonstrated a _much_ higher capacity for holding their own in a bar brawl than she has, and offers a sheepish smile. "...I should..."

She's already starting to move towards the door (at an excruciatingly slow pace) when she's brushed aside by the one Viktar had punched on her behalf, now out for revenge. Two of the friends of the man Qar-duun punched turn to him, but there's hesitation... maybe it's the Zabrak's appearance that gives them pause. Nevertheless, they throw themselves into the fray seeking revenge!

Qar-duun *points,* two-fingered. "Which one of you wants to be collapsed like a tin can? Pick."

Qar-duun's comlink displays a holo of his lover, (a pink Zeltron in a bathrobe with glowing blue eyes,) 'making come-hither entendres' just then? Timing, son, *timing.* "Kriff, I've-- I should take this." He holds up one finger like: 'Wait.' Do they wait?

The goons do stop. At least for a few seconds, too drunk or otherwise easily confused to process what the hell is happening in front of them -- except that there's suddenly a hot, scantily clad Zeltron hologram in front of them, and the scary freaking Zabrak is literally holding up a finger to stop them.

So... yeah. They stop.

At least for a few seconds, until they both look at each other, get angry, and then decide to charge again...

...directly to their peril.

You see, the rest of this fight goes the way these sorts of fights always go. Either the law shows up (whatever that happens to mean in any given area) or the best fighter in the room is left standing (in this case, that surely ends up being Qar-duun and possibly Viktar, if he sticks around) and everyone else is either left to be taken to the medical center or they scoot before they get _really_ hurt. _Then_ the law shows up. Sometimes.

Lira's in this latter category. The trip to the door isn't easy, but it's one she makes without much of a glance back. She's small, after all -- five feet tall, if that, and not even twenty years old. She _obviously_ doesn't belong in a fight like this.

It has _nothing_ to do with trying to keep CorSec from getting their grubby little mits on the datachip in her pocket -- the one she'd originally come in here to trade for.

Honest.

It's just the fight thing.

The fight doesn't take that long to wind down, though. The ones that wanted to fight were knocked out or worse. The ones that didn't left. That leaves the bar pretty quiet as the staff go about the process of cleaning up -- just quiet enough to notice one last glimpse of lavender lekku as Lira slips out the door.