Log:Defiance Guild: All Good Things II

All Good Things II

OOC Date: April 4 2019
Location: Levant space station
Participants: Defiance: Kasia Ashkuri, Tarion Tavers, Zhu Yan, Grom, Iggy Odessa, Rheisa Dirleel, Naelyn, Nyla Forr, Jehni'va Cihn, Siha Archer, and Hex as GM

The short story: Defiance is Defiance, one last time. (Part 2)

The long story:

THE STORY SO FAR (please feel free to read it in the clone wars cartoon narrator voice):

Failing to recognize - or perhaps disregarding - all the signs of an Obvious Trap, Hex has jumped to save his kidnapped toddler, Boon, from the clutches of the sinister slave owner ALISTAIR LEVANT, the very man who once owned Hex himself!

Although he arrived at Levant's space station in record time, things seem not to have gone well for Hex. As the intrepid crew of Deflings made their way from the landing area to the lifts, they discovered his duster, his pistol, his cybernetic right arm, and about a quarter of a tattooed lek, chopped off by some bladed weapon! HEINOUS!

Now, the entire group -- perhaps holding the lift doors open for those who arrived late? -- is crammed into a turbolift that was surely not made for that many people. Everyone is squashed. Pressed. Uncomfortably. Personal space? Not a thing. BO? Maybe. Kasia Mom-Perfume? Yes. Tarion stank? Yes. Grom GROM? Yes.

Tarion pushed every single floor button, which was good and helpful, but regardless of his choices, the lift has traveled to a level marked SOLARIUM. Upon arriving there, three closed doors face the group in an otherwise pleasant foyer.

Kasia has been quiet since finding the quarter of the lek, upset for obvious reasons here, complexion gone a bit gray as she tires not to look too worried and fails. They all cram into the lift, and she is definitely among them, with her mom perfume, which isn't so bad, soft, a little flowery but not into old lady flowery, not overpowering. She's considerate. She also seems to be getting some of her color back as the lift carries them, slowly, to the solarium. She's near the front of cluster of people she's gotten to know way too well in this brief period of time, so she's among the first to step out of the lift and breathe fresh air. The lek in her arms is carefully slipped into the bag she has so that she can pull free the large blaster. "I have no idea where to go, so how about this one?" She points to the middle of the three doors, and then starts walking in that direction.

Rheisa's never been possessive of personal space, or one to be super mindful of others' spatial needs, but this turbolift ride....This may be pushing her own tolerance for touch. Every sniff, every bat of lash, every shifting of weight or creak of armor or angsty sigh...she's keenly aware of all of it. FEELS much of it. And it's beginning to add to her own level of stress in this sardine can where occupants are set to 'kill'. At least the curvy slopes of montral and lekku command a /little/ more airspace around her skull. A little. This airspace does nothing to alleviate olfactory overload though, so by the time those doors whoosh open to the Solarium level, she's got a damn fine idea what everybody's had to eat today. An whether or not it agreed.

"Is your mate, your son. You say, we do." she snaps her one functioning eye sideways to blink pointedly at Kasia once bodies begin to thin out and moves forward to the woman's side. Rheisa Dirleel, of the 'broken people' clan is deferring to the true leader and stands by like the loyal guard dog and nanny that she is. Her tongue rolls once over resting fangs, prepared to sink them into someone, and finger brush over the metal slips of throwing knives. Ready to bleed bellies...or ready to scoop baby into hugs. Either will do.

"Nyla is on the way." Jehn announces, shoving her foot with sudden intensity into the turbolift doors, her expression unreadable as it stares down at her datapad. It's in this way that they delay a moment long enough to allow the pilot to squeeze to the back of the turbolift and allow one more to squeeze in. And then they're going. "I feel like this has all been kind of... Guided." She admits with a wince when the doors open again and allow them room to breathe. "I vote left. It seems the, uh, least obvious choice?" She avoids Kasia's eyes when she says this; it feels like an admission that they've as much a part of the Obvious Trap as Hex is... Was...? No. Is. The pilot shakes her head with a sigh. "I... I think left." She grimaces, shifting the shoulder injured by the lasers upstairs. She's normally keen to follow the authority - and, let's be real, Kasia is always the Authority - but... Something doesn't sit right. /None/ of this sits right.

"Ooo."

"Ahhhh."

"Oh look at this one."

That's Tarion every time the lift comes to a halt, the doors open to display the next room, and close again. When they finally get to the solarium level, and Kasia steps out, he follows with a careless grin, the same unfeeling amused expression he always wears, immune to the pervasive wrath/dread/etc that grips the others. He's still not really carrying a weapon in an active sense, with his repeater slung on one shoulder, purse on the other, and Hex's duster warn over his grey armor, an unholy man's robe in this hour of prayer to the gods of mayhem.

"Three doors to go through," he says, stating the obvious. "I'll take the door on the right, because that's my dominant hand. In an alternate reality, I choose the door on the left, because of my cybernetic arm." The bounty hunter steps up to the door he's chosen, squaring his shoulders and humming that sounds suspiciously like a wedding march.

"Anyone ever get the feeling that someone else is wearing your skin?" asked Yan of nobody in particular, his voice filtered by his helmet's mask, when the turbolift doors opened and Defiance spilled out everywhere. Yan, being the first person in the elevator, was crammed UP THE VERY BACK crushed between the wall and ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE, so it was a marked relief when he regained the ability to breathe! And when that handrail stopped pressing into his butt! Yan was going to have to press charges! But later. When everyone was dead. "'Cause I got that feeling right now and I tell you, it is eerie as all sithspawn." Maybe Yan was just nervous, having not killed anyone in a month or so and therefore horrifically out of practice.

For Rheisa's sake, Yan had noodle and vinegar risotto the previous night. Have fun!

"Oh, doors. Kas is right, we should take the middle," advised Yan with a total lack of caution that spoke to how little he ignored the lessons rendered upon him by losing a arm. Striding out of the turbolift and making motions to crack his neck but with no sound because he'd done it on the flight over but forgot, he added, "because if we'd done that last time, I could have JETPACKED!" He salty. Once at the door, he raised his foot and KICKED forward, a mighty display of strength! He hit the door hard enough for there to be a BWONG and for Yan to bounce back on one foot, repelled and repulsed! "Sithspit!" He should have checked the hinges, first. The nonexistent ones. NOT THAT KIND OF DOOR.

"Grom feels as if all Grom-Friends are part of Grom's armor, now," the Houk states with an edge of satisfaction. "Even though.. Grom should be armor, really. Still. Is very poetic," he decides. Leave it to the King of Fale to find being crammed into a claustrophobic tube with too many people to be rather comforting. A grunt and sharp nod as Kasia off-handed decides on the middle door. The other two doors get appraising glances, and the arguments for them are weighed, but in the end, Grom doesn;t care to think too deeply about it, and Groms his way up to the middle door Kasia has kinda-favored. "HA. Flying Turbolift Hugger bounced off door."

Nyla Forr wheezes as she scuttles into the turbolift like a rat going the wrong way onto a sinking ship. "Here," she mumbles with a glance up at the taller woman that held the elevator just long enough for her. Her eyes soak up the tight view around her, but being short has it's numerous downsides. The view at the moment is one of them. Nyla's fingers choke up on the blaster at her side and she closes her eyes during the lift down, sucking down air greedily as they make their way out. Nyla steps to the side and attempts to not look anyone directly in the eye.

Holding absolutely completely still, and keeping his head bowed and his eyes down is how Naelyn spent a majority of this lift ride. Not speaking, barely breathing. There are memories, of being this packed in before and combined with all the other not so great memories he's been plagued with this evening and the variety of unknown variables in uncertain situation have not helped the more analytical part of his brain.

Location is finally reached, and the dancer follows after the others off of the turbo lift, studying the area thoughtfully and he nods slowly at Kasia's decision to head for the middle door. Despite this, he's edging towards the Right door, kneeling down from time to time to check the floors and then straightening back up as he studies each door.

When the doors open and Deflings pour out, Iggy takes a massive exhale. That's right. He held his breath the ENTIRE way, mostly hoping that this would require him to take up less space but it also helped in ensuring he didn't inhale anyone else's smells. "Based on the videos, we're definitely walking into something, so maybe its just best that we split ... just in case. We don't want to be all in one place." That is when the younger Odessa takes a step to the right. "I'll go with Tarion." He's got the brains, Tarion's got the brawn. Together they should make one fully competent human being, right? Reaching over to Naelyn to squeeze the dancer's shoulder, the sweet man offers a soft smile, "Everything's gunna be okay."

There comes the voice of Siha in the back of the turbolift, last to step out, first to go in, whiskied and somewhat insulted from beneath her helmet, "Zhu, I find that really, really ..judgemental. I mean ..I would be honored if one of you chose to wear my skin. I mean ..man. So salty against skin wearers." Says the woman with a Sluissi Skin Robe which she may or may not be wearing portions of beneath her armor. "I'mma go this one." Siha says, heading to the left door, sword out already, an awkward situation given the closeness of the turbolift ride they just completed, with her sword held in against her chest with a warm hug. So she'll follow Jehn, and with the new expansive room she has she drops her sword into her left hand, gloved hand squeezing the grip tightly, a firm nod given in satisfaction as she lengthens out her strides, Genosian leg stretching out moreso than her biological one, "Does the door need a secret word? I feel like these are secret word doors." And so, coming in to Jehns right she'll lean in around and call to the door, "OPEN."

The doors are unlocked, and the Solarium turns out to be a lovely place. Despite, you know, the torture chamber.

That's where the left door leads: Into a room with bars and shackles, with electricity surging through the room at random. The torture part isn't so much the voltage as it is the never-knowing, and Jehni'va and Siha find that out first hand when they get shocked. AAHHH. Their way back and around to the relative safety of the middle door is clear, but along the way: AAAHHHH.

The right-hand door leads to NERD STUFF. The room is like a fishbowl, with windows looking out into the rest of the solarium, and a number of consoles and computers.

The middle door leads straight up into the solarium itself: A beautiful space with polished floors, ornamental plants, windows that look out into the vastness of space, the stars looking like diamonds in velvet. Fountains. Lovely staircase leading up to... it's hard to say what. The whole thing has a barricade that doesn't match the rest of the decor, as though blast doors and shields were drawn up to protect an upper level.

Over an intercom, a cultured human voice, male, maybe Tarisian, greets warmly, "I'm so glad you've all come to visit. How are you finding the station?"

Kasia moves toward the middle door as others choose those to the left and right, she's sticking to her choice though. She pauses as the door hisses open to look inside the lovely solarium, and then steps through the doors to be greeted by that disembodied voice. "How are we finding it?" Her voice has returned to the calm, and even tone that those who know her know to worry about. "Just lovely. Of course there are a few things that could make it better. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what those things are, but I will give you a chance to provide them before this has to devolve any further." She still has the large blaster in her hand as she moves further into the room, gaze sweeping the area for signs of... anything really.

AH! Shili'neh!? Marruki? No...is only intercom. Rheisa one-eyes the ceiling and surrounding walls with less than friendly expression upon her striped face. "Drrao sa ghut," a growled threat rolls off her native tongue. She stalks the length of that welcome mat suspiciously, one set of bare toes at a time while her head tips gently to and fro. They are alone, this fragment of pack. But who has been here before? Once it's obvious that nothing's going to pounce upon them from oblivion, she steps off that rug and moves toward the prettier one on the left, slinking between pillars. It's the plants she's gravitating toward and the Togruta bends to a knee to go rustling through them, looking for signs. All she discovers is a twig up the nose.

Everyone has learned a lesson here tonight, and that lesson is: Kasia is always right. "I hate this!" Jehn gasps to Siha as she writhes her way back out of the torture chamber. It takes her musculature a minute to stop seizing and for her body to resume a level of existence that is at a more acceptable level AAHHH. Give her a minute. "I hate this." She repeats at the voice that comes over the intercom, now that she's made her way back to the middle door. The Kasia is Always Right Door, if you will. "Don't go back in there." She groans, bracing one hand against the door and glaring up at the ceiling, as if that is where the voice really originates from. But... She is as good as useless here.

"Damn, alternate-reality Tarion's life sucks," the bounty hunter says as Jehn's declarations of hatred filter back to him from the torture chamber, entering the nerd-stuff room instead. By contrast, this room is nice and peaceful, with a transparent partition, probably transparisteel, between him and the main chamber, and all these delightful glowing screens filling the room with a gentle ambience.

The idea that together he and Iggy form one complete human being is a flawed one, as any equation involving Tarion somehow manages to work out to be less than the sum of its parts. "I'm guessing these computers aren't hooked up to anything important, otherwise like... the door would have been locked," he muses, tapping his chin thoughtfully as he looks around the space and into the main chamber beyond. "There's speakers disguised as Chandrilan ferns mixed in with those plants in the corners. That model runs a good 500 credits a pop, too, you can sell them for pretty good money after you skype 'em from somebody's pool." His hands fall on his hips. "...I'm getting one." Boots step back out towards the main chamber, headed towards Rheisa. As he's crossing, he furrows his brow at Kasia. "Didn't you say we could burn this place to the ground?"

"Di... okay I'm gonna save this for when I see you in person," Yan grunted out, marching with a slight limp (he'd hurt his ankle a bit, oh the pain!) towards the stairs seemingly forgetting he had a perfectly good jetpack on his back to make it easier. The temptation to just rant about how all this was sithspit was strong. Very strong. But the urge to murder won out. Hell, that guy might not even have a mic in here to pick up on what they were saying!

They say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting a different result. Were that truly the case, check Yan into St. Bleemings Gentle House Of Rest For The Incurably Insane: Abregado-Rae Branch, because with a thwump of ringing durasteel he kicked the barricade. "My ankle!" His ankle! Why oh why had he done that again! He rolled it around to ease the pain he'd just instilled in it before standing on it again. It's okay, he's okay. Just a touch tender. "Guys it's solid!" Everyone knew, no one cares, Yan.

"GROM IS HERE," the Houk challenges the.. empty and rather nice Solarium. Gromming along one thundering bootfall at a time, narrow yellow eyes study the chamber, fixing on the steps leading up to another door. As Kasia attempts the diplomatic route, the monstrous mercenary half a step behind her adds, "Also your walls are needlessly windy and of flimsy construction." Rumbling discreetly under his breath (speaking at a conversational volume) to Kasia and the other Deflings, "Grom thinks first we use important doors, rescue all, and then return and celebrate in massage chamber that Nearly Reptile has discovered." Yes, that's the electric torture cell he's talking about. Unless stopped, he blundering right up the steps a moment after Yan toward the important looking doors.

Nyla Forr scoots after Kasia a few feet behind, eyes scanning the seemingly decent foyer of sorts. Her head tilts up at the voice, pausing her footsteps and causing the mechanic to turn slightly with a frown. "Oh. We're being watched," she says almost dully. Because of course they are. Jehn gets a look and Nyla /almost/ goes to her side. But. Pressing matters. She furrows her brow and heads for the fancy fishbowl room, immediately seeking out a console. "Maybe I can bring up whatever monitoring system they have?" Nyla wanders along the controls, ducking down to tap at something. It cranks out an angry beep. "Krif," the mechanic huffs.

There's a meeting of the collective minds...maybe. The dancer moves a hand, gently to touch Iggy's on his shoulder and he lowers his eyes and murmurs softly. "Mistress Kasia holds Hex's heart. But Hex...makes me believe it okay for me to have my own." Then he continues making his way into the Right Room. At another time, he'd probably be aroused for the display of technology and the opportunity of such a challenge.

But instead, he just adjusts the veil that covers his mouth and nose and starts heading for a console. Fingers toy with his tool belt before his fingers trace over foreign yet intellectually familiar keys.

He does look up though, to meet the gaze of Nyla and Iggy, and tilt his head to the side for a moment. Its the voice that triggers an idea. "Mm, brute force attack might overload the system, give us a few seconds as it attempts to reload to enter a new command to keep it from happening. But this is a large system and I do not believe everything is connected to the same central processing unit." He tries a few more commands before just slipping his datapad from its pouch and connecting it to a console with a special wire and then nodding firmly. "Three prong attack, overload the lockout protocol with badpassword attempts, whoever finds the open door first can reset the system. Then someone will need to get access to the monitoring system while another person gets access to the communications..."

His fingers are already flying over the console, and his own device, trying command after command in that attempt to be a techno pain in the ass.

YES! The nerd room! Iggy picked right this time, and he's practically giddy with delight that it's not a lazer from a turret. "Perfect! I told you wer'e gunna be fine," the soft man grin to Naelyn in the fishbowl room. "I'm gunna try and find where that voice on the intercom is transmitting from..." He steps up to another terminal, already getting to work until much like Nyla, his console too angrily BEEPS out at him. "Goodness!"

Personally insulted by this digital slight, he frowns but nods at Naelyn's plan and agrees, "Okay we can try that. I'll go the communications route once we're in. Though someone should also try and get into the security system. I'm afraid our meddling might trigger some sort of trap for everyone..."

And then biting his lip, he too dancing his chubby littler fingers across those keys with a dexterity the rest of his body has never seen.

Sudden racuous shrieking laughter erupts from Siha as the electricity courses through her, most of her organs, half her skin and a leg being cybernetic means a weird ticklish sensation is what is transmitted to her brain. For the first time ever (and just her luck) in her adult laugh she is not in control of how her body reacts to a stimuli she worked hard to supress over the years.

Her body spasms as she awkwardly walks, her Genosian leg extending fully which means she rises up like a full foot an a half above her natural height, leaving her to topple to the side awkwardly onto her natural one, the cybenetic leg dregged, fully prostrated, behind her in her bid to escape the horrific cybernetic tickle room. She slams into the door frame briefly, rocking back, grip on her sword tight thanks to the current running through her, but by the grace of the Jawa Lord her leg, in a spectacular mis-fire jettisons her out like a grasshopper out of the room. Springing forwards she slaps into the wall across the way and into the wall beside the turbolift.

"NOT COOL. Not. C-cool, I hate this. I did /not/ consent to that! I hate this." She agrees whole heartedly with Jehn, awkwardly pushing up against the wall she smacked into to a proper stand, leg re-calibrating, the woman's skin FLUSHED A BRIGHT PLUM because woo, all her cybernetics are recalibrating and sending weird signals and weird pauses as they do so. A lasting shiver hits her, eyes forced closed, systems jolting back into place, "Oh I ..I am primed for this ass now." Groused out as she shuffles her t-visored headed self down the middle section as she follows Jehn, "Give me /something/ to destroy //right now// or I'mma lash out with this energy in a /not/ good way." Brute force!? Siha is all about that! Make her anger useful! Or kick one of those spying pots.

"You know I knew that you'd visit? You're all an entertaining group. You really are. I'm not surprised in the slightest, Heksash'kuri always was a contrarian," the Tarisian voice over the coms continues. "I think the shocking part -- truly shocking -- is that /all/ of you apparently have the same problem solving strategy he does, which is 'blunder blindly forward and hope that you have enough durability and firepower to be left standing among the smoldering wreckage.' Braaaavoooo." Slow clap over the comms. "Would have thought Kasia -- it is Kasia isn't it? -- had better sense, at the least. Ah, well. Why's Heksash'kuri in such terrible shape, anyway? In several respects? Honestly." This must be Alistair Levant, and he's so disappointed. "Who ever heard of an omoa'ikha player with a cybernetic hand? You all really have no idea what a loss of talent this is. Anyway! Where was I? I have a gift for all of you."

Hatches in the blast shield hiss open, and from there, a variety of people mosey their way out from openings that snap shut behind them. "Presents for everyone! Have fun murdering them. Or getting murdered. Whichever," Levant comms carelessly, and then the voice shuts off. Indeed, this odd assortment of folks starts eyeing up their nemeses, and they seem to be doing it at almost a one-to-one ratio.

Toward Rheisa: Sehkrat the Shistavenen tribeswoman, growling and licking her chops, ears back fangs out ready to PARTY. "I will feed your corrrrpse to my pups and I will feed your memorrrrry to the uncaring void," she grins.

Toward Yan saunters a Smokin Hot Lady with a jetpack of her own, and formfitter armor. This is Alia Smaxxx, who is Feisty Yet Feminine and probably has Curves in All the Right Places. Her name has multiple x's in it because it does. She hovers lightly over the floor and winks.

Toward Siha is Bjanca, Mandalorian exile, who filed her teeth into points and went insane because she's from Mandalore and that's what being from Mandalore does to you. She has a T visor but the panels are out so she has a T-shaped crazy eyes viewport. She's mumbling crazy things in mando'a, like "you're not my supervisor."

Toward Tarion marches a Drall, short but positively buried in a mess of exquisitely crafted (not) junk armor. "You can never stop a FLAGGINS," he warns, as the camera pans to a serious looking human mercenary who is.....

Kasia's ex boyfriend, Thio Scrappe. It wasn't anything serious. It was like two dates! He should have got over it. He apparently didn't. "I LOVED YOU, DEVIL WOMAN," he hollers at her in a choked voice, and grips his rifle. "IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, NOBODY CAN." Two years ago he sent her four sweet datapad messages, and then one calling her a bitch and declaring that no one wants her anyway.

Jehn's opponent Deelan Toke is a gangly fella with a man bun and a pistol who just looks over it and warns her, "Seriously don't even know why I'm here," before of course all are distracted by -

The most beautiful Houk woman anyone has ever seen. She has an axe. Nearly 8 feet tall and burgundy in hue, she is a creature to BEHOLD! "I AM HIRGA, QUEEN OF WYN!" she bellows in a sonorous voice that rattles the planters. "YOU ARE GREETED, WORTHY...." she squints, and assesses. "MOSTLY WORTHY FOES. HIRGA GREETS YOU, SMALL AND ONE AVERAGE SIZE FOE! HIRGA, QUEEN OF WYN, IS GREETING THE WOR--!" she would have just kept going forever, maybe, but Alia Smaxxx complains, "Oh my god stop it!" and then it's ON.

---

The nerds are making progress there in nerdsville, starting to gain insight into potential avenues they could use: things like fire suppression systems and you know, the entire station self destruct. But they aren't there yet.

"I'm sure that you did know," Kasia's tone takes on a slight edge, expression reading as wholly unimpressed with the arrogant voice oozing out of the speakers. "If you're so disappointed in Heksash'kuri and his lost talent, you won't mind letting him go, will you?" It's honestly a rhetorical question, they both know the answer, they both know that the other knows the answer. "I don't suppose you've kept the reciepts?" she asks in a really, really dry tone as she sees a man that she might not even recognize on the street, were it not for the desperate way he speaks to her. She's gotten the sobbing messages in the past. "Seriously? This is sad." It's hard to say exactly who she's addressing, though she's looking up as she says it. She lifts her blaster at the same time as she lowers her gaze, giving Thio the only response a guy like him really deserves. Which is to say, she fires her blaster at him. She misses, but it's still an answer.

Fruitless noise ferns. Tarion is welcome to them! Rheisa's tempted to utilize one as an outhouse before they proceed onto whatever horrors await, but there's little time for defiling houseplants and this jumpsuit armor wedge up her bum is too big a hassle to shimmy out of right now. So. Later. Also, the welcome wagon's just arrived! Rheisa turns from her contemplation of spyplant to witness a very motely group of foes join them in this lovely room.

That 'Hirga' ...Grom... that is worrisome. The rest of the enemy clan? Rheisa's fairly confidant they can be bested. Snarl is met with snarl as lips the color of gray death peel back to unfurl glistening points of her own in a spray of saliva. For the uneducated, this is Togruta venom! For the educated...it's just hiss and spit, probably loads of space pasturella. Either way, being bitten is unideal. A low whine grows pitchy in the back of her throat around actually formed syllables that shape into something passably Basic, while the headtail stripes intensify into something more defined and lek flex stiffly, subtly away from her skull. "I am Rheisa Dirleel, daughter of Shili, sister to all sa'darra, sister to Heksash'kurrrrri, to Kasia, mother to Umak, to Boon." She postures all big, stance wide, heels stomping, palms smacking her own breast in a form of rhythmic kata to accompany her words while she points a judgemental finger at the approaching furball. "My sons will grow fat on my breast while yours starve in an empty den. *I* have defeated the mighty Akul, my brother, and you are but a hair upon his mighty tail..." she Exhales forcibly through nostrils, sees her chance when enemy takes pause, then lets a blade fly.

Jehni'va Cihn is no warrior, but it appears, at least... Neither is her weird dopple-face gangbanger? Does her hair really look that stupid? Of course it does - but the pilot doesn't seem to mind too much. "I should have gone into the computer room." She groans, eyeing the man up and down as she is reaching into her pocket... She pulls out a joint. "I'm only here to rescue my friend. Boss. Whatever." She doesn't look at him as she lights it and lets it dangle from the corner of her mouth. She puffs, she puffs... She offers it out. "Wanna just sit over there and watch?"

The revelation that Alistair Levant has somehow gathered enough information to match all of them up with their pseudoganger is lost on Tarion. "Hey there, little fella," the bounty hunter says to Junkmaster Flaggins, giving the Drall a cocky grin and holding out one of the speaker ferns. "Look, whatever this guy is paying you, I'll double it in fern-speakers. They're worth five hundred credits, easy, and there's gotta be..." His head turns to scan the room again, "at least three in here. That's fifteen hundred credits of fern-speakers!" The trash knight isn't wearing his own junk armor today, but the combo of his standard outfit and Hex's duster is still pretty jarring. There's no way the speakers add up to more than whatever Flaggins has already been promised.

Nemeses! Golly! This just made Zhu Yan's day! And as they all emerged from the blast hatches he was standing right next to, he noted that he'd gotten the hottest one! Underneath his mask he was smiling like a Wook on Life Day. "Hey yo! I'm Zhu Yan, Zhu's the surname Yan's the first name," he introduced himself, rapid-fire like the world's worst speeder salesman, sizing her up and noting the jetpack, armor, and LACK OF HELMET.

Perf.

Yan, obviously the nicest guy in the room, shifted the Tracker to his left hand fully and held out his hand for a handshake, like a very thoroughly reasonable person. "Gotta say, loving the kit, FormFitter makes you slower but the Mitrinomin's good hardware and you need the output to lift that much weight!" Burn! "How much is the bad interior designer paying you?" Still salty. "If you've done your research, and judging from the fact that we're all fighting our equal and opposite numbers," my goodness he was talking fast, because she was hot and Yan might be getting nervous, "then you know who I am and you know my bank account and you know I'm good for paying you double to come work with me. Easy-peasy, no strings attached."

The thing about this lie was that it was completely believable. Zhu Yan COULD well do this. He had the money, and if anyone looked at his file, first they'd see there's nothing there from age twenty or earlier, and second, fat stacks of cash. Of course he'd never hire her, he'd get a lot of satisfaction from murdering instead (kinda raises a lot of questions but that's not why we're here). But it's the thought that counts. "So whaddya say?" Yan at least had a helmet on. She didn't. Easy peasy, right?

...Right?

"AH HA, the doors surrender and lower themselves before the might of-" Grom begins to rumble, with satisfaction, until the array of evil(orderly?) opposites is revealed. "What are these tiny foes sent against Grom? Some sort of.. UN-Defiance? GROM MOCKS YOUR COMPLIANCE," he informs the scraggly lineup of- "GASP." Would you behold that one? Grom bellows at Smaxxxxxx, "DO NOT INTERRUPT, PUNY FLOATING HUMAN." Narrow yellow eyes glare back to Hirga. "You stand before the MIGHTY GROM. King of Fale by! Conqueror of the Sky Road! Champion of Nar Shaddaa, who has slain the Anakkona for his Crown, defeated the Little- BUT POWERFUL Wizard King of Corellia, and beheaded the armored Rancor of some Stupid Human! DECLARE YOUR DEEDS IN TURN."

Nyla Forr leans back, ticking an ear towards Naelyn with a nod. "Aye, cappy." The tiniest nerd settles in, flicking around on the console panel as she squints until her eyes looks closed. "There," she grunts as data stars to fly across the screens. Nyla leans over to the most uncluttered terminal, popping up with a laugh. "Let's level this fraggin' playing field, huh?" Tap tap tap and Nyla even spins a little nod. That is probably for effect. "Hey uh--!" Nyla blinks at Iggy. Had they met? "Uhhhh. Kid. Keep you eyes on the screen. Sneaking into the higher security loop of cameras in this pisspot of a place."

3 sets of fingers are flying across consoles, and 3 sets of eyes watching codes scroll by on screens as the Nerd Brigade is currently handling a different type of battle. Once the 'doors' or open so to speak, Naelyn nods slowly in belated compliance with Iggy's concern about security as he shifts his focus from forcing his way into a system, to now doing the techie version of 'checking for traps', pulling in the screens of data about how their security system is set up and being that person who keeps watch.

"Perfect Nyla! You did really good!" Iggy brightens, as the data starts rolling in, reflecting off his glasses. With a heavy, furrowed brow, he tongues his cheek and gets to work, figuring out where the hell this voice was coming from. While he's not fighting a nemesis, he certainly is sweating like he is. TECHNOLOGY IS HIS NEMESIS. "This is a really confusing setup guys ... just not good, I'm almost -" And he stops short, eyes widening and when he yells out, "GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!"

Glancing up to see everyone full engaged as they deal with past demons, Iggy holds his tongue, instead opting to mutter to his nerdy companions while they all put their brains together and continue their work.

You sense: Iggy Odessa mutters to Naelyn and Nyla, "Guys ... Levant is BEHIND THAT DOOR where the mercenaries came from. But everyone is so busy fighting, it's no good to alarm them. You guys need to try and locate Hex and Boon first. And once we find out, we can let the others know..."

It takes a few spastic blinks from behind her own t-visored helmet for Siha to finally speak, squinting hard as she looks at the reveal. A long silence. Right hand on her hip, left hand sticking the tip of her sword into the floor beside her Genosian foot which curls it's toes and uncurls it expectantly, "Are these gifts like ..personalized for us? I mean ..I .." An exasperated sigh, her hips shifting weight from one to the other, a throat clearing occurring, face completely concealed so her face is just, it's just not emoting. But that sassy body language with a dour note of disappointment, "Wait--" With how Zhu is talking, and Jehn, Siha clicks with the situation.

"OH COME ON, WHY DO I GET THE DEFECTIVE ONE." Her sword lifts up to point accusingly at the Mandalorian, "Come on, what is this, some bantha-shavit refelction of our true inner selves or some bloody, //man//. Look at it! I ..dude. She's got curves, //this is mocking me//. Oh." Twisting around on her feet, "I WANNA SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR. THIS IS //insulting//. She's like all the parts that were rejects from the dejects department in armoring and brain holing. And he's from clan Smell. //Smell//, look at her armor, she doesn't even _know_ why that's not cool." Sword stabs in the air, Siha turning back around and grunting, "I ..it's like beating a Rancor without teeth or claw I ..girl? Woman? Hey." Free hand lifts and waves in the air to get the muttering woman's attention, "You wanna fight or like ..I could, you know ..give you tips. On. Like. Better armoring. I just .." Deflate. Down her shoulders go, "I just ..whatever." Come at her, girl. For advice or stabbins'.

"I could have been nice to you!" Thio shrieks at Kasia as she shoots at him, "I would have treated you better than anyone! WITCH! UGLY WITCH," men like him always have the snappiest comebacks. He returns fire, because she broke his heart, guys, she broke it. He was such a nice guy, too.

Sekhrat is putting up a good face, but Rheisa's a little too much for her -- that display? Yeah, Levant isn't paying enough. Especially not when there's knives following it. She does what any wild creature would do, which is recognize when she can't win this particular territorial dispute, and slink off to live another day. Bleeding, she runs out! Rheisa understands.

As for Jehn, Deelan Tokke looks like she just lit his hair on fire. "You think I want that?! A PRE ROLL?!" NO THANK YOU and he fires at her with his puny gun!

Junkmaster Flaggins is likewise uninspired by Tarion, but he's not shooting yet. "20,000 credits," he demands, "I like money, give me money and I'm happy to say I never saw yas. Hell for fifty I'll fight on your team!"

Alia Smaxxx is not impressed by Yan, and flies upward on her jetpack. "I do believe /you/ have ungentlemanly notions in mind," she purrs. She purrs because her name got multiple x's in it. "Shame on you, lieboy." She fires, but the theatrics of using the jetpack cause her to miss. She doesn't need a jetpack but she brought it anyway. Sometimes people do that.

So there's HIRGA, and she listens to GROM, bobbing her head as she takes it all in. "YOU stand before the MIGHTY HIRGA," she replies in response. "Slayer of the IMPRESSIVE KINRATH, the SURPRISINGLY RESISTANT TO STOMPING CAVE DIONAGA, and the battler of a WIZARD QUEEN OF CONSIDERABLE SIZE. CONSIDERABLE SIZE," she adds, to make it clear that the wizard queen is ~better~ than whatever twerp Grom fought. "QUEEN OF THE QUEENDOM OF WYN! FEARED BY ALL!" She seems ready to scrap, and hefts her axe.... only to suddenly reconsider something here. Cause damn that a fine looking hunk of reptile. "SHOULD YOU WISH A BATTLE-AUDIENCE WITH THE QUEEN AT A TIME THAT IS NOT THIS TIME. HIRGA WILL GRANT YOU THIS BATTLE-AUDIENCE." Guys it's a date.

Bjanca replies to Siha's whining with some kind of feral hiss-scream. Why'd the defective one go to the chick with the Geonosian leg - we may never know. The attack isn't any better than Bjanca's armoring though.

TEAM NERDS get a message that pops up on the console: a/s/l? It has to be a mistake. Or there's another team of nerds out there.... every action seems more difficult than it ought to be, as though they are opposed in some way from afar. Nonetheless, Naelyn finds access to environmental controls and no traps, and Iggy traces the comms to Levant behind the curtain (blast shields). Nyla's video feed confirms it, as well as spotting Hex and Boon back there.

He could have been nice to her. Kasia is rolling her eyes so hard she might actually strain something, turning enough as she looks at the others on her side, which exposes her phat backside as a target. This 'nice guy' takes advantage of it, and she's hit, right in the fleshy curve of her tush. She staggers to the side as she grunts in pain, one hand lowering as though to touch the wound, but stopping short of actually doing so. "I can't imagine why I never wanted a second date with you, Thiro." It's the wrong name. It might be on purpose. She straightens up, tries to line up a shot, and squeezes the trigger, which misses again. The walls of the solarium are going to be damaged at least, take that, Levant. She might not be able to hit the broad side of a barn tonight, but she's going to cause him some moderate grief by having to pick out new paint colors for the wall. Ha-ha, ugh. "Can we electrify their part of the floor or something?" she shouts back at the nerds, because it's left up to her, she's going to be fighting Thio for a while.

Rheisa /does/ understand and she's a touch relieved to be staring down the Shist's tucked tail of retreat. She doesn't chase after, leaves her to lick wounds in peace. "Dunga ba!" the whiny guy shooting her gal pal in the rump becomes her next target and she chastises him with cussy words appropriately while darting aside to better her angle. Two more little blades whip through the air, aimed for HIS tush.

HE SHOT HER! Jehni'va reels backwards, thrown to the ground by the blast through her shoulder. The same shoulder through which she was shot - really, the pilot shouldn't be here. She's been shot, electrocuted, and shot again, and none of it was in the least bit surprising and was almost certainly her fault each time. But, here we are: Jehn is shot by a bougie kriffster, and as she falls, fumbles her own blaster loose. Trying to get it out of her pocket, she accidentally fires it twice - both shots landing on her new nemesis, Party Foul. Puff, puff, pass in peace, Deelan. She doesn't kill the guy, but he does high-tail is out of there... And, still sprawled on the floor, Jehni'va solemnly blows smoke from the tip of her blaster. This is done despite the weapon's lack of smoke. "He shot me." She realizes, a moment later and still on the floor.

Jehn isn't looking too good, and she struggles to get back to her feet, leaning heavily on the wall. "I hate this place. I hate this guy."

"Well, that's a shame, because there is no kriffing way I am paying that. That's spacelane robbery, what have you done to deserve that many credits? Nothing. I'll give you a raise when you- I mean, wait." Tarion stops mid-complaint, confused, frowning. "What just happened there. I didn't like that!" In a fugue of displeasure, he pulls his repeater down off his shoulder and a moment later there is a distinct ka-PAPAPAP as he opens fire on Flaggins. "I'll give you a quick death, I'm- I don't know if I respect you or hate you over here so, just... DIE." But the Drall does not die, he's not even hit.

"Well if you're gonna be like that...!" exclaimed Yan, feeling the fuzz of energy flying past him and, knowing his bluff was called, proceeded to move on to Plan B. It was basically Plan A, but without the element of surprise.

The Bryar possibly literally burst out of its holster and into Yan's hand, an ungodly BLAM of fully-charged yellow energy goodness slammed full on into the adult video star's impressively armored torso as she hit the skies, and the second deafening shot bored a dent into the armored barricade plating that served as a backstop. All in the amount of time it took for Yan to say "You're not wrong!" The quickdraw was the oldest trick in Yan's now sizeable playbook and it was still by far his best.

For dramatic effect, and because Yan's a sucker for flashy fights when he's not ending them before they start, let this duel take to the skies! The FormStar on Yan's back, rated for mainly his body weight plus armor only because Yan knew his own power to weight ratio (and maybe his inadvertent burn had caused some sting, that Mitrinomin was going to send her into the wall, he assumed), created a beautiful plumage of smoke behind him as it lifted him into the air. The battle is joined! Fie at you, sexy knave!

As Yan weaved evasive maneuvers, flitting about the room in defiance (lol) of the fight below, matching dodge for dodge, and shooting one handed since the Tracker was still cradled in his left arm, he roared, "YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN WEAR A NICE JACKET!!"

"Hurmmm. Yes. A BATTLE-AUDIENCE with the Queen of Wyn it shall be. In a place without FLIMSY WALLS, and where doors are high enough that MONARCHS NEED NOT LOWER THEIR CROWNED HEADS. Or smash through doorways." Let's be real, they smash through doorways. Grom looks especially pleased. Well, until he looks back and notices Kasia's difficulty. Frowning and peering at 'Thiro', the Houk fires an almost annoyed blast from his massive blaster rifle. "CRYING HUMAN. Stop trying to hit that ass." The shot misses and annihilates one of Tarion's prize remaining planter speakers. And the ferns. And the planter. His eye might have still been on Hirga (It was).

There is a pause as Naelyn's eyes flick between that security feeds that Nyla pulls up and then the information passed over from Iggy as the Three Nerds wage their own war. He taps/tabs through a few screens before his jaw twitches and he nods slowly to both Nyla and Iggy. "Together, we can get the wall down...then we need to have an exit route mapped out so someone can set a self-destruct after the others get Boon and Hex...and get on their way..." He takes a deep breath as he works on their next task of focussing on getting that blastwall down.

Iggy Odessa leans over to peak at the footage on Nyla's screen - Levant there with Hex standing next to him and Boon in a cage not too far away. "Taxidermied??" Panic floods his face, when he asks, "You don't think they turned him into a vegetable do you?" Shuddering at the thought he simply works harder, typing as fast as he can while taking in data at lightening speed. Per Naelyn's instruction, Iggy helps to get the blast shield down for the others. Hearing a satisfying beep come from all their consoles, the where Levant stands slowly begins to open.

The armorer puts a thumb and forefinger in his mouth to resound a LOUD, SHARP, WHISTLE. To the rest of the Defiance crew he yells from the fishbowl, "HEADS UP, LEVANT IS BEHIND THE SHIELD! TAKE CARE NOT TO HIT HEX AND BOON, THEY'RE WITH HIM!

Bop. Siha attacks first with the hilt of her sword because it just feels wrong to take advantage of someone so clearly lacking in all departments of usefulness, but the hit does nothing to stop the hissing feral woman who is clawing at Siha's armor plates. 5tFor those with keen eyes they may be able to see the subtle tilt back of Siha's head, likely due to a roused eyeball roll as those fists of fury do nothing but irritate Siha and rock her body with the tiny hits. At this close of distance there is more difficulty, but ..after her first useless attack she's feeling inspired (plus she's annoyed it did NOTHING to stop this puppy of a woman), and so Siha swings her left arm back, hinging at the elbow to swing the sword up and into the soft belly of the woman and up and out her ribs in the back, drawing her in even closer as she leans in, "I can kill you, or ...I can let you live and take you back in my ship, to ...a middling doctor with tiny weak forearms who can probably save you, and take you under my wing to show you how to take your crazy and weaponize it."

Her voice springs forth from her helmet in a gutteral hiss, Siha pausing on dragging that sword up a centimeter more to cull the woman completely, "I already got two stupid dogs I feed, but they listen //real// good, but I'm feeling nice and --" Iggy's yell has Siha's ears perking beneath that helmet, "I'll give you a second to decide-" Lifting her foot up she kicks Bjanca in the uterus to get her off her sword, leaving the woman to decide by pure will whether to live or die as Siha swats her sword to either side to rid it of the other Mandalorians' blood, stalking towards the shield, "LEVANT. I'M GONNA EAT YOUR SPLEEN, READY YOURSELF FOR ME."

Squaring her shoulders she waits. And watches that shield begin to lift, "This is ...this is real slow and ..awkward." And she's got the blood lust. A sniff, a glance down to the left, Siha giving her sword hand another shake or three to further rid the blood, "I bet he didn't even hear me. I ..the moment is gone." Mutter. T-visored gaze watching. That. Shield. Slowly. Raise. Sigh.

You know who has absolutely had enough of this? Deelan Tokke, that's who. Regrets burn strong in him like the cherry on the end of the joint he didn't accept. Shamed by his failure to puff puff pass, and also burning with terrible PAIN right now, he yells, "No way, cark this!" and then runs away in the same direction that Hirga and Sekhrat vanished. Jehn has vanquished her foe!

Thio is openly crying now. "WELL IT'S THE ONLY WAY I'LL GET TO TOUCH IT," he sobs at Kasia, while dodging Grom and finding himself plagued by Rheisa-knives.

Bjanca falls unceremoniously to Siha's blade, and was not - as Grom and Hirga would decree - a worthy foe.

As the fighters struggle to send their enemies packing or into the afterlife, so too do the team of intelligent, thoughtful individuals in the fishbowl! Slicing into an unfamiliar system takes time, and all hands on deck, but they manage to lower the blast doors at the top of the stairs, and then, all is revealed.

At the top of the stairs is a dais of sorts, because this man is pretentious enough to enough to have a chair you'd have to consider a throne. The dais is decorated with oddities; more rare plants, the head of some creature on the wall. Crystals. A mysterious glowing object that seems unwise to touch. A wookiee-skin rug... awful! Levant himself is there, a man in his 50s with a sword, and a cage next to his throne in which a small purple toddler is crying. It's Boon! And as for his father... Hex is there. He's been fitted with some kind of rudimentary new right arm, with which he grips a vibro-blade, and an attachment like a circlet boring into his head. It has some blinking lights. It seems likely to be the reason he's just standing there, bloodied and duster-less, missing part of a lek, non responsive. "There, that was fun, wasn't it?" Levant greets cheerfully. "Good job Alia, keep at it! Ah but for my heroes.... you could destroy me, but to do it... you will have to fight your way through HIM." He's so proud of himself. Soooooo proud of himself. He missed something in his calculations here, which is that most of Defiance has wanted to beat Hex's ass for years. Even Kasia. Especially Kasia?

Junkmaster Flaggins avoids Tarion's fire and frowns. "Literally just waiting for someone to pay me," he reminds everyone. "Levant, I need a raise."

Kasia's backside is throbbing, and burning, and she's still listening to the sobs of the annoying man she had the misfortune of going on a couple dates with years ago. "Can someone please just kill him?" Her voice booms out as she points to Thio, not bothering to try and shoot him again. Maybe he'll just cry himself to death. She doesn't seem to care all that much, especially not when the new opponents appear, her eyes slowly going wide. Wider. "No." The word is soft, and then she rounds on the rest of Defiance, taking a few steps back so that she's doing something really unwise, which is turning her back to an enemy. "We're here to SAVE Hex, if anyone makes that not happen, makes this not possible, I will kill you." There might've been circumstances in the past where she's issued threats to these people before, but they were usually not serious, often jokes, or at least not something she really means to do. This though? This isn't a joke. There's something dark there in place of the warmth Space Mom often emanates, something angry, and then she rounds on Levant, and Hex. "Boon baby, it's alright. It's going to be alright. We're going home soon. We can read stories."

She draws a deep breath and takes a slow step closer, eyeing her apparently mind controlled spouse. "Hex? Ka're, just turn around and stab him, that man who did all of this to you, then we can go home and this can all be over." It's definitely not going go be that easy, but she's sure as hell going to try.

Blasterfire! Shouting! Repulsor spits'n'sputters! There's a lot of noise happening in this space, but in the middle of it all, Rheisa picks up on a muffled, shrill sound. Her head swivels, pinning the brainiacs behind the window with an owlish stare(even if 1 eye is 'staring' slightly askew). Shield? Behind shield? She squints, then swivels her head the other way to watch as the blast shield sloooowly disengages from the floor. "Daark'a dai slava," she spits yet another insult, uncaring whether his ears are tuned to the sound or not. A coward, he who hides behind slaves.

When at last the surprise is revealed, Mr fancy house gives his spiel, and Rheisa does the mental math, she tucks the remaining lil knife back into her belt. They might've had some tiffs over unlabeled foods in times gone by, but she isn't keen on bleeding HIS belly. Or facing Kasia's wrath.

One hand reaches over shoulder to tug the blowgun from her back. "Ehm eh det drrago trrre and meh'ta..." shaky and meek at first as eyes don't leave the imposing figure of dad bod, her voice eventually swells into something smoother, melodic, and dripping with the accent of mothers and grandmothers gone millenia by. It's a lullaby, probably one that Boon's heard more than once. One that invites slumber on bed of sun-warmed grasses under trees in the warm valley. "...eh det Suun mig..." Dusky orange fingers slip a lovely little stun dart into the hollow tube before lifting it to her lips and ...

• FWIP*

Way ahead of you Kasia... Kind of. As soon as Hex rounds on them - as soon as it becomes clear, even to Jehni'va, what is happening - her blaster goes away. The Persuader is shoved into her holster, and without a second thought or word, the pilot charges with a wild shout so full of rage that it could make Grom proud, her arms thrown wide to tackle her boss. Friend. Fashion idol. Whatever.

Jehni'va charges forward, head ducked, arms pumping - and then a burning pain rips through the back of her thigh. Like the slow-motion footage of a zeer shot while running, she crashes to the ground, clutching her leg with a cry of pain. She looks up from the ground... To see her ex-girlfriend pointing a blaster at her. "Really?"

"Someone give this /kriffing/ rodent a raise!" Tarion demands in solidarity with Junkmaster Flaggins, with a plaintive wave towards the other as the blast doors open. "I /also/ require a raise or at least some assurance that there's no penalty for blowing the pants and possibly limbs off of Hex before I proceed, because this blaster definitely does not have a stun setting, ok ka. It does have a grenade launcher though!" It's a quandary. Instead of waiting for approval (and if he did, he would have heard that he's not allowed to /kill/ Hex, which seems to allow dismemberment), he instead grows distracted by the glowing object, and wanders forward, possibly bringing himself in range of Hex in the process. The hunter's eyes are fixed on the shiny, glowy glow of the glow-thing. "Glowy," he murmurs quietly to himself, reaching out and laying his hand on it. He starts rustling his purse around to take it with him, assuming it doesn't explode or anything similarly catastrophic. At first, nothing happens, and he goes about his business getting the purse open before abruptly flinching back, shaking his hand and grabbing his wrist. "Ouch, what the krif. it was unwise to touch this!" he says, putting it into his purse anyway.

"Alright, where were we," the man in grey mutters to himself as he straightens up, cocking the charging handle on his repeater and glancing over to see Jehn trying to tackle Hex. "You are never gonna get him that way, Jehn, you poor misguided simpleton." Taking far less careful aim than the situation likely calls for, a smattering of blaster fire is unleashed from close range on the boss, ha, boss fight. "Hex, I brought your coat!" he yells as what might be an apology.

Kill her now, or take out the final boss? Kill her now? Or take out the final boss? On one hand, she was trying to kill Yan (and Yan was trying to kill her back in turn, fair is fair), but on the other, the final boss was the absolute worst interior designer. Decisions. It was made for him, though, when his kicking leg was shot out from under him. Under him? He was flying so it wasn't supporting him. But still, he now had a smelly ozone crater on his thigh that HURT LIKE HELL.

All thoughts of witty repartee and cheeky banter left Zhu Yan as the long-forgotten red haze filled his vision. Letting out a sound of pure, choking ANGER, he stopped his wild dodging (not that it did him any good anymore) and fired a precise, aimed shot straight into the jetpacking schutta's... jetpack.

As Alia's pack sputtered and sent her plummetting directly into the ground, Yan landed gingerly next to her. That leg was burning something fierce and he put his weight on his left as he surveyed the damage to his assailant. No jetpack, no armor, heavily wounded, broken bones, Yan came to the conclusion that this was going to be easy and, as he readied his Bryar, a little sad.

"Should have taken my offer," he said, sounding in no way remorseful or upset or anything but quietly smug, then he aimed the barrel straight at Alia's artificially pretty face and forcibly rearranged it with a full-powered, coup de grace headshot.

Grom bellows cheerfully to Boon, "Do not lament, little Tree-friend: this will be just like the time the wise and cunning GROM caught your father eating all the donuts, YOU WILL SEE." Letting his ridiculously large rifle fall to the ground with an echoing *clang* He bends down to listen to Kasia's instructions. "Grom understands," he rumbles with a nod. Tromping directly toward the Puppet King with massive hands curled into fists, he roars, "SNAAAACKS," for Boon's benefit. It begins as it often did between them, before: Grom lumbers at him swinging, Hex dodges.

There is so much going on that Nyla has to duck back into the terminal for a whirlwind of a moment. She grabs her datapad in one hand and her blaster in the other. "Keep jamming it!" She says as she moves out of the room. "Hit his arm off! Hit it off!" Nyla is chanting to herself as she dashes, raising the blaster to hit the vibroblade Hex holds, or the arm itself. Whichever will do. But instead a gangly giant of a pilot woman flies into Hex and Nyla's bolt blasts off into Jehni'va's leg. "OH WHAT. YOU GET SHOT ALL THE TIME!" Nyla shouts as Jehn questions her. Trembling, she aims a thumb hard into the port of her datapad, causing a whirring BZZT. "Krif!" Nyla chucks it at Hex's head. "We gotta break that control thingy!" she shouts over her shoulder. Sorry, Kasia.

This is a time where Naelyn's brain has to shut off, his feelings, the emotion, the daring to feel. When the dancer/slicer see that circlet and Hex and hears that /goddamn/ bragging/boasting from the slaver. He sees Boon in that cage and he goes cold, then he just shakes his head quickly. Then he's working on pulling up some data and just passing it over to where Iggy is at the console as he starts crossing and jamming frequencies and signals from where he is, he tugs a knife...a special one that Hex gave him. Elegant and curved he glances up at it from time to time where he rests it on the console for inspiration before finally speaking. "Iggy, you beautiful handsome amazingly intelligent male creature." He practically purrs, as his fingers continue to fly over the keys. "Look at the keys, listen to the keys...listen to my voice, I'm watching you on those keys. Every finger, every precise touch and would I that console, you'd bring me to the heights of completion with just the dexterity of your fingers. When we get through this...it will be you, me, a console and a strategic star mining game for hours...on end. Whether its me or the dice you caress that evening...we will just have to see..." He murmurs as he continues his work.

"... They did make him a vegetable ..." Iggy looks at the battle field before him, shaking at his terminal unsure of what's going to happen. He has to squint a bit through his glasses but he could just make out the circlet around Hex's noggin.

"There's gotta be something in here to disable that thing on his head," he says nervously to Naelyn. As his team gets hit around him while he sits comfortably like a goldfish in its fishbowl, he pressure overwhelms him and before he knows it hot tears are streaming down his face. "Naelyn ... this whole system is a mess. I'm running into dead ends left and right ... we're never gunna do this ... we're gunna have to kill Hex!" This soft man is in flat out SOBS even as the dancer offers some sexy rewards for a job well done. "I want /Ryo/ ... where's Ryo??"

Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys." Siha says in sudden rapid progressively louder words, "TAKE HIM TO THE TICKLE LIGHTNING ROOM." And then she turns her head to look back over her shoulder, making a waggle with her brows that goes UNNOTICED because of her helmet, "Because .." She's stage whispering now, "It really TICKLED with my ~/cybernetics/~ and //forced a reset//." She nudges her head back towards Hex in a total inconspicuous manner, and raises her sword to go in after Levant, trying to sneak in around Hex but missing pretty hard, near swinging herself around "And Hex has a real pretty ~electrical~ crown and arm with ~pretty~ /lights/, and it would be a shame if the room TICKLED HIM TOO and maybe did what the chick whose name escapes me right now said." Lookit her, winking hard with a curled upper lip to really drive the point home, but ..again. UNSEEN. DAMN YOU HELMET.

"Or ...some other cool electrical current aimed at his head. Maybe the glowing unsafe looking thing? Push him into it?" Asked mid-stab at Levant again, "Damnit, Hex, you're making it hard for me not to want to hit you, MOVE. Damnit." She hovers back half a step, grunting again, "That fat adorable intellect is /right/, we need Ryo. WHY IS RYO NOT HERE. He'd just /rip/ open a wall panel and whip Hex with the /wires/ with a sexy waggle of his hips and act like he didn't mean to be so effin' taut for a man his age." Breathe. Siha. Breathe. INHALE. And she holds it. Force the calm. So weird she's /this/ conflicted about maybe Hex having to die. Dear lord. Maybe he is a friend. Goddess damnit.

Boon is sobbing. He's been through all kinds of things he doesn't understand, he's been calling for his Kapi for hours and Hex won't respond, mom is not here, this is not home, he is in a BOX. But familiar voices are starting to arise, and he cries, "Mama! Meh'a!" toward Kasia and Rheisa. Help him, let him ooouuuut!

As Thio runs away and Alia Smaxxx meets a grisly end at the blaster-point of Yan's good will, Levant laughs, safe behind the protective cover of a Hex he bound to his will. Again. "You're not going to stab me," he assures the captive bodyguard, at Kasia's suggestion. Elegantly, he gestures at her. "You're going to stab her. For me."

And he is. No question. Despite having to duck Grom, despite the blaster fire from Tarion, ow - Levant said attack Kasia, and that's where Hex turns and lifts the blade, ready to cut her down and --

Hex stops abruptly as all the lights go out on the circlet, stopping to stare. "Kasia?" he's trying to make sense of it for a second, then turns around to swing at Levant himself instead. He's surprised, but he's fast. "Escho'ka ni tal'kan, akei ka SCHUTTA!" How rude.

This is her family, her child is wailing and calling to her, Hex his so hurt, in so many ways, tortured by the man that lurks behind him. The hand that grips the blaster trembles in anger, knuckles turning white from the strength of the grip, and then Kasia's fingers relax. The blaster slips from her fingers as her hands both lift, the weapon clattering at her feet. One of the weapons. When she attacks, it's with a force that can't be seen, but it takes hold of Ailstair Levant. If she were clear headed she might have some clever quip to go with her attack, but all that comes out of her mouth is an angry sound that's part growl, part scream, and then Levant rises up in the air, yanking so that his feet whip out from beneath him so that when he's slammed back down onto the ground, it's flat on his back. He lands HARD, hard enough to snap bone, maybe rupture some squishy bit or other. Then she lets go, drawing in a ragged breath as she rushes over to the cage where her child is being held.

Oh man. What was about to be so bad has just become SO much better. Rheisa finishes her slink up the dais steps to pace a comfortable berth around the grisly fate that's falling upon Hex's former master and slaps her dartgun back into place. What Alistair's got coming to him has got nothing to do with sedation. Her gentle crooning continues as she approaches the caged Boon and crouches down to serve as a slight curtain of distraction. What's better than Aunty's songs and stories? Aunty's snacks. A strip of jerky is wielded between unbloodied fingers and she offers it through the bars. And what's better than Aunty's snacks!?!!

MOM. Kasia's battle cry is to be expected, but the inexplicable toss of man by invisible forces!? The Togruta's stare grows wide and she edges back from the cage to give mother and son their much needed time. She'll hover around the remaining violence until it's at end and then make good on her promise. A reach into whatever's left of his torso to grab a fistful of mush where maybe chest cavity used to be...

Mrrgo du behm.

Which means all that'll be left to do on her agenda later on the way out is to pay those noise ferns a final visit and leave her mark. Defiance was here.

Hex awakens and Iggy gasps in relief, taking a moment to lean against his console and bury his face in his hands for a good, old fashioned CRY. Roughly wiping away his tears with his arm, shakes Naelyn's shoulder and says, "Let's go! Let's get this b-a-s-t-a-r-d." And leaving the fish bowl, he fumbles awkwardly with his blaster, clumsily trying to reload it, dropping the powerpack the first time and then getting it right the second. And Iggy Odessa runs out, guns blazing. Although he's not shooting at anything in particular. He's just shooting. And crying. But he's here! And he's a part of this beautiful thing!

Jehn is not doing well. Once she goes down this last time, the hapless pilot takes a long moment on the floor and it doesn't seem like she is trying to get up again... But she does draw her blaster. Her eyes are dim and unfocused as she fires off a shot that buries into the wall behind Levant... And then he is floating, and the dim connections that flash and struggle in Jehni's head turn her towards Kasia, her mouth hanging open. That explains so mch. He slams down, and the pilot grits her teeth. "Nu're..." Jehn grunts, planting her palms and blaster against the ground. "...Koa jun..." She straightens, levelling her blaster once more at Levant. "SUPERVISOR!" Jehni'va fires off another shot, and it rips into the downed slaver with a satisfying burst of light... And it doesn't appear to be the only one.

Limping heavily and unsteady, Jehni'va - the girl who wouldn't steal a bus - slams her heavy boot across the dead man's face. "Are they okay?" She pants, turning around - there are Kasia and Boon, and Hex...?

"Stupid lights are defeated!" Grom booms in triumph when Hex 's (mechanically imposed) confusion is lifted. For a moment, his roaring good cheer is deflated when he realizes, "This means no more massage chamber, Nearly Reptile." But nothing can dim his mood for long, not when Hex is back, Kasia is blasting the cursed foe with great blasty vengeance, and Grom gets hold of Alistair Levant's left wrist, idly curious whether it will rip off at the elbow or the shoulder (it's the shoulder). "GROM-FRIENDS WIN." Spinning the arm around happily, watching the Levant-patterns splattered on the floor, he muses further, "Grom never knew Secret Wizard was a Wizard. YOU ARE VERY GOOD AT SECRETS." Still blithely cheerful he giiiiingerly pats Hex on the meat shoulder and states, "You may get as fat as you like, now. ALL THE SNACKS."

From the back of the room was the noise of an ungodly large blaster pistol dispensing another bolt of deathmurder into Alistair Levant, and judging from angles of approach it went poetically right into the family jewels. It was Zhu Yan, Tracker in its sling on his other, unwounded leg, helmet in his hand, hobbling into the room holding his Bryar aloft and with a look of sheer murder in his eye. Last time that look was there, he'd lost an arm. And unfortunately he was both too late and in no state to do a jetpack-assisted shoulder-charge like he wanted. "This is what you get for being a SITHSPIT interior designer, craphandler!" he bellowed, his own reason for hating this man clearly were as important if not more than anyone else's. Kasia's outburst didn't register to Yan, who was too possessed by bloodlust to think it was any more complex than pre-placed wires and mirrors.

"I'm honestly not sure what you expected when you messed with /Defiance./" His rifle is out of power, and the bounty hunter slings it back over his shoulder, reaching into the reptileskin bag to pull out a pistol instead and taking a shot in the general direction of the idiot who thought luring them here wouldn't end in disaster of one form or another. Leaving that particular pleasure for the others, he pulls the glowing object out and holds it to his body with his cybernetic hand. The other slips down into the bag again, and a dozen tiny beeps simultaneously emit from out of it.

Twelve black metal orbs tumble onto the floor. A grey boot scatters them in every direction, red lights winking as they roll to all sides of the room. "Five minute timer, guys. No tomb for Allthestairs Le- that guy."

While the others excise their brand of justice, he steps up near Hex, crossing arms over his armored chest. "Ah, there you are. You motherkriffer. You tool. You owe me big time."

The circlet is down, and Naelyn moves towards Iggy. He pauses and reaches out to squeeze his shoulder before Iggy charges into the fray. "Dry your tears, we will go and find Ryo." And then Naelyn takes off running towards the fray, having snagged that dagger from the console. There's a serpentine grace to his movements, graceful...quick and poised to strike. His eyes track the invisible attack from Kasia, and he almost flinches slightly. His lashes flutter and everything goes calm for him as he crouches next to the prone form of Levant. He leans in and adjusts the grip on that curved dagger. He moves a hand to press two fingers to Levant's lips going 'shhh' as he leans in, almost close enough to kiss as Levant's body is being savaged by attacks.

Then a flash of a blade as he stabs the blade down into the man's chest and draws the blade down to open up his chest for a very specific reason. And he reaches in and rummages around for a moment before pulling sharply and he lifts something into the air. Yep. Its a heart, rivulets of blood trailing down his glove and his jaw sets. "I keep my promises." And he raises gracefully to his feet and drops the heart at Hex's feet. He doesn't speak. He just looks between Kasia and Hex and then Boon. And then continues walking, so he can map out their exit route.

Nyla is too distracted with the sight of the man flying up into the air to aim any good shots. As the room rings and things start to settle, Nyla steps back and lets her gun arm swing heavily down. "Krif," she mutters. Nyla's eyes pick up and scan the cluster of Deflings. Her frown presses in a sort of almost... disappointed way. "Did anyone see that?" she wonders, but to no one in particular. Her scan stops at Jehn and she pauses. "Hey. Nice job in there," the mechanic says to Iggy and Nae as she scoots over to nudge under Jehn's arm. "C'mon. Keep standing. Hex might still turn on us at any moment. I can see it in his eyes," she jokes and remains mostly quiet as the group... celebrates? By cutting out hearts? Eh, she'll take it. Nyla smiles as she leans more into her hurt pilot.

WWWWEEEE-OOOO. WEEEEE-OOOOH. Whatever that crazy siren sound is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R31s35u8ywM) cues up in the brain hole of one Siha Milicent Bea'tryce Archer at the words of Hex who seems to snap out of it, the power of love maybe compelling him to sense?! OR ..more likely the fear of incurring the wrath of Kasia?

"YEAH. EAT HIS DICK." She calls out from behind her helmet, joining in on the feral attack but she will stop suddenly, mouth dropping open as Kasia goes like, super feral without ...touching the man, "WHAT THE HELL KAS, LIKE, A YEAR AND YOU WHIP THAT OUT NOW? ALL THOSE TIMES BEFORE? WOULDA BEEN HELPFUL BEFORE."

Unable to keep those words from snapping out Siha is on edge, and everyone else is smashing Levant or shooting him to death, so, with a heavy sigh she'll step over to the man, resting in on her bug leg, her sword jabbed in a sort of listless way into the chest of the man, mainly just so she can be part of the blood bath and lust, a glance given to the rug, "Dibs on the wookiee rug - five minutes you said Tavers?" SCHWING. Into the sword-holder-doo her katana goes, Siha marching over to said bloodied rug to tug it out from beneath that chair, "I'm paid in full with this." SNIFF. SNORT. Shiver as her cybernetics cycle failsafes, Siha joltin' briefly in place mid-swing of the rug over her shoulder, "Shhhheeeeeet. I hate this place." She's gonna be hit with those all damned week. Turning round to face the group she'll exhale softly, "Hex, you buggery bugger, you need a long arsed trip in the vacation box." A glance to Kas, tilt of her head, little Boon taken in too, "All of you. Somewhere nice." She hugs the Wookiee pelt in to her side, it's head nudging against her knee in agreement.

Few things can withstand Defiance in its full wrath.

Alistair Levant proves not to be one of them.

When Naelyn, Iggy, and Nyla manage to wrangle their way back into the computer systems to disengage the remote operation of the control circuit, Levant's loss of the Hex shield proves a fatal mistake with almost no time to react. They're upon him, all of them, guns and fists and knives and swords and -- and a power beyond reason, beyond understanding, the force that holds the universe together employed to bring this villain to his knees. Justice. Anger. VENGEANCE.

It ends almost as quickly as it began, until the arrogant, slave holding maniac is reduced to dead flesh on the floor, and not all of it intact. They killed him. They killed him hard, they've possibly never killed one single thing this hard before. And then it's quiet, and Hex is standing there in the beautiful solarium where he played beautiful music for fifteen years, in a puddle of blood and flesh-gobbets that used to be his master. Surprise wizard Kasia bundles up a panicked Boon into her arms, and Hex takes a step back. "Ten years. Ten years," he says, and then laughs, catharsis. "I thought I had it but -- it took ten more years to get free. Now I'm free. Now I'm free." Little bit broken. But free.

Free to get as fat as he wants, per Grom, free to observe the incautious nest of bombs Tarion just dumped all over the ground. Hex tilts his head at them, observing the way in which yes, that is completely what one should expect here, and then remarks, in the words of the classics: "Let's blow this thing and go home."

And they do. Worse for the wear. Barely ahead of their own problems. Smoldering wreckage and blood splattered walls behind them. Sassy, trashy, ridiculous, dangerous, temperamental, brave, stupid.

Defiant.

Post Script:

Some time after the bombs go off, Junkmaster Flaggins crawls out of the crate where he was hiding, and informs the now empty solarium, "I can negotiate to 15."

-(OOC)- Tarion Tavers says, "fuckin soulmates"