Log:Lekku Jitsu
Harbingers attack in Ko Hentota when Lira meets with a contact and Aza Vidaar goes on the offensive
OOC Date: December 29, 2023
Location: Ko Hentota, Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Lira'una, Aza Vidaar, The Brotherhood
Lira'una threads her way through Ko Hentota, the beat of Nar Shaddaa's lawless heart, where the Night Market sprawls like a living, breathing entity of trade and shadowy dealings. The district, a tapestry of color and sound, buzzes with the energy of the desperate and the cunning. Echo rolls beside her, a spherical little multi-colored BB-unit in white, blue, orange, and green that almost looks like he was assembled from parks. He emits a string of nervous beeps, his sensors flickering anxiously as they scan the chaotic environment.
The air is thick with the aromas of exotic spices and the tang of illicit tech that's enough to be a sensory overload for some beings. The makeshift tents and stalls, each clamoring for attention with their vibrant flags and decorations, form a labyrinth only the locals and the brave dare to traverse. Yet Lira is both, her purpose propelling her forward with a dancer's grace.
Clad in a dark-colored Swoopsuit, something that makes her look like a swoop-racer, something only emphasized by her diminutive five-foot stature and youthful features, she maneuvers past a stall where blasters, untraceable and deadly, are laid out like a merchant's finest silks. Her gaze wanders, and with her hands tucked into the pockets of her leather jacket, she manages to walk some fine line between cautious and disinterested. She's obviously not a 'local,' but nor is she new here. Echo, ever the vigilant companion, mirrors her caution, his dome swiveling to capture the visage of every potential threat.
"Steady, Echo," she muses, bright blue eyes casting down briefly to the nervous droid at her feet.
The market is alive with the din of commerce, a cacophony that masks whispered transactions and silent exchanges. It's a dance of covert glances and knowing nods.
A flicker of a holographic fortune-teller's sign catches Lira eye, and she sidles closer, her movements unassuming -- just another patron in a sea of avarice. Echo bumps gently against her leg, a physical reminder of the danger they court with every step.
Shadowy dealings says a lot, without saying anything outright. Like swimming in the ocean requires the understanding that sharks live there, shopping in Ko Hentota requires the understanding that absolutely everyone is either a pickpocket, a thief, a mugger, a killer, or more than one of the above.
Few really look the part, though. While the dancer and her droid navigate the merchant stalls, Aza Vidaar is just a monster in the deep of the crowd. Smaller than most, barely taller than the Twi'lek, he doesn't stand out at all. If not for the variety of pouches and sheaths around his belt, top-flaps firmly fastened shut to conceal whatever rests within, he might be taken for an easy target.
The Togruta stands among a group who aren't at all interested in the wares on display, in the Night Market. The few of them speak in low tones, each muttering in a different language but all seeming to understand each other.
More beeps from little BB-unit as they drift not far from Aza's little throng.
"We won't be here long," Lira mutters.
Deet. Doot. Dwoo.
"Yes, I know what happened last time."
Beep. Boop.
"It /wasn't/ my fault. I can't help it that people keep getting their heads cut off around me. I'm not even the one doing it. Besides, your head is magnet. I promise, if it pops off, I'll stick it back on."
Dwoooo.
"Shhh."
Lira pauses at a stall festooned with scarves of a hundred hues, her fingers brushing over the fabric, a signal as much as an act of pretense. A subtle nod from the stall owner, a burly man with a scarred visage, confirms the message has been received. She slips a chit into his waiting hand and a folded piece of flimsy fabric into hers, the datachip cunningly concealed within its folds.
Transaction complete, Lira doesn't linger. She turns and nearly bumps straight into the chest of a pair of black-armored figures in what appears to be tactical gear and full-face masks all hidden under long black robes that had swept in like wraiths, apparently having been stalking that particular stall from the crowd and waiting for whomever was going to show up.
Lira halts abruptly and takes a half-step back, looking up at them with a couple of innocent blinks and a weak smile.
"Hey, guys... you making a quilt, too?"
Aza Vidaar, his back to events unfolding at a nearby garment stall, seems oblivious to it all. Short as he is, surrounded by reptilian and porcine "business partners," his attention is consumed by making sure he doesn't catch a knife in the ribs or a set of claws across his face.
Suddenly restless among them, reacting to the sudden stiffening of one of his "friends," the diminutive Togruta shifts his feet to take a step back from his group. That movement turns himself slightly at the same time until, if he was so inclined, he could watch either his companions or else the new arrivals from the corners of his eyes.
Whatever caused his sudden change in posture and attitude causes his dark-green upper lip to curl up and away from his lower off-white lip to reveal sharply-tipped teeth. Togruta smiles may look genuinely creepy, but even on such a small male this snarl is blatant and downright ugly. He may be far from intimidating, but he looks like he already tastes blood and wants more.
There's an ominous click as one of the Harbinger's helmet-modulators activates.
"Give us the data-stick," comes his deep, threatening monotone.
BB-BB rolls backwards far enough to bump into the table of silks, startling the vendor Lira had just purchased that slip of fabric from out of his startled reverie. It sets him to the task of quickly packing up his most valuable items and ducking out of the way so that he wasn't in the 'background' when the blaster bolts started flying. This obviously wasn't his first time setting up in the Night Market.
"What datastick?"
Lira is... not a good liar. She never has been. Maybe it's the innocence that permeates every part of her that makes it so obvious when she's being dishonest. Or maybe it's just that she's never had very much practice.
Either way, the words are barely out of her mouth before one of the Harbingers produces a set of magnacuffs and the other a stun baton from within his cloak. Evidently, they didn't expect it was going to take more than one of them to subdue her. After all, she didn't even have a blaster on her hip. All she had was a wooden stick dangling against her thigh.
Click. "Enough of this," comes the voice of the other, almost indistinguishable from the first except for a droid or some species with very acute hearing. "Just take her."
The first Harbinger raises his stun baton, and as Lira's weight shifts to the balls of her feet, she reaches for her stick.
By now the whole group of shady characters, including Aza Vidaar himself, has focused their full attention on the black-armored interlopers. Unlike the others, the little Togruta is not transfixed or rooted in place. Instead he takes an impossibly long side-step away from them, considering how short his legs are, before he starts toward the backs of the much taller slavers. Lira'una and her droid are totally ignored, as if he doesn't know or doesn't care that they even exist.
The snarl has gone from his mouth, replaced by a thin, tight-lipped line which in any species' body language screams, 'Bad intentions.' Simultaneously his left and right hands move to his belt, each hand lifts a concealing flap on a short sheath, and then the fingers of both hands slowly withdraw retractable durasteel spears. Collapsed, each weapon is the perfect length for someone his size. With those pointed to the ground, held cautiously alongside his legs, the Togruta moves quickly and silently up behind the menacing Harbingers.
His business partners, seeing their little companion fast-dancing toward certain doom on the balls of his feet, suddenly disperse and vanish into the crowd.
The little lavender Twi'lek is faster than she looks. The Harbinger holding the stun baton shifts that stun baton, its blunt metallic end crackling with energy, and moves it towards the girl's middle. They obviously weren't trying to kill her. They might even be trying to prevent damaging her more than they had to -- it didn't play well back at base to return with broken merchandise that had to be repaired before it could be sold.
But as if Lira had predicted the path of that baton, she took hop backward from the crackling end even as she was jerking the 18-inch-long wooden staff free from her belt.
"Come on, let's talk about this..."
The Twi'lek's prehensile lekku curl at their ends, sliding up around her shoulders and wrapping around her neck as she places her free hand on the mostly table that used to display scarves, hopping up and finally standing head-and-shoulders above the Harbingers.
Before, they'd blocked out the crowd around her like an eclipse, but this new vantage point gave her her first glimpse of spear-wielding Togruta behind them.
"Oh, be careful!"
It's a squeak of a warning, and the Harbingers obviously think it's directed at them as the second one draws his baton in his free hand, the first one groping for her to seize her by the ankle.
BB-BB, for his part, rolls quietly out from the mess and around the corner of an adjoining table, peeking out nervously as the scene unfolds.
As the Twi'lek facing the Harbingers gives her little bark of warning, the Togruta rushing silently from behind the Harbingers leaves the ground with such an effortless flex of the legs that he seems to simply lift off mid-step. He launched himself at the back of the Harbinger who isn't already engaged, having tactically chosen the one best-equipped to respond to a surprise attack.
Aza Vidaar's body is already positioned, in flight, so that when his chest impacts his target's armored back he hooks both legs around the enemy's waist while one arm, extended by the collapsed spear in his hand, around the enemy's neck. So mounted, his other arm drives its spear *hard* into the armor. Hard enough for the durasteel tip to penetrate the outer shell and the inner flesh.
As blood wells from the mark's back, darkening the shiny spear shaft, the Togruta lets out a sharp hiss that sounds like, "Ssah-vuh-thahr!" The sound could as easily be a passing breeze as a word, audible only in the ear near his multi-colored lips.
Whatever momentary glimpse of surprise Lira's eyes had held quickly fades when it becomes fully apparent that the Togruta wasn't simply asserting himself where he didn't belong. The group of slavers known as the Brotherhood, and especially its growing number of Harbingers that were infesting Nar Shaddaa like a disease, were becoming both feared and reviled and equal measure. It wasn't exactly like Lira was used to people coming to her rescue, but she hadn't wanted anyone else getting hurt on her behalf. It didn't seem like that was going to be an issue, though. The Togruta didn't respond like some white knight that was just giving her time to escape. He was merciless in his attack, as the Harbinger he'd mounted discovered first hand.
There was a synthetic-sounding screaming as the spear found home and sunk into the Harbinger's neck. He gave up grabbing for the lithe Twi'lek instead writhed, flailing to try to swing his stun baton around to hit the creature he couldn't see hanging off of his back.
The second Harbinger was already in motion, swinging his baton towards Lira with one hand while he gripped those cuffs in the other. He was so focused on the girl that he barely seemed to notice his comrade in distress.
Lira knocked the stun baton aside with the stick in her hand before gripped it with her other hand and twisted. The staff split into three sections with a crackle of energy, and wasting no more time on taunting banter, the Twi'lek bright the staff to bear with three swift motions meant to disable as quickly as possible. Instead of aiming for the armor-clad men with the blunt sections, she swung her San-Ni staff around so that one of the power couplings caught the Harbinger nearest her in the neck, sending him jolting back and falling to the ground. The second swing was a quick attempt to clobber the man the Togruta was riding. It missed, but a third quick change in the staff's direction brought another coupling around, shoved into man's arm pit. There's another pop, and that one, too, loses balance, going down with the Togruta still on his back.
The whole thing is a ballet of movement that's over as quickly as it begin, with Lira's hands twisting and drawing the staff closed again, leaving her to leap gracefully from the table in concern for Aza's well-being.
Aza Vidaar had driven the spear home and was already preparing to dismount his target when Lira'una's energy weapon put him down. As quickly and fluidly as he had launched himself off the ground, the little male unhooks his feet from the Harbinger's waist and props them against the small of his back. Still gripping by the arm around his throat, ready to use that leverage to push himself off, he's aware of the rush of crackling energy which barely misses his arm and hand while missing the Harbinger, but the Twi'lek is just too fast... if she'd landed that attack, he might have lost a finger!
In something like a panic, the Togruta pushes *hard* with both legs as his ridden mark starts to fall, so with the clench around the throat that puts him up and over the top of the armored corpse's head while the Harbinger falls. The spear he drove into the slaver's back is lost when the little green-and-white alien backflips off his falling mount, so after spinning once in the air his booted feet slam to the duracrete ground.
Still tense, his mouth still set in that grim line, his horned head whips left and right as if looking for another target. Finding none makes him relax suddenly, deflated and depressed, and he looks outright *surly* as he steps up beside the fallen foe to grip his spear-haft and yank it free. When he starts stabbing the downed foe again, and again, it seems a bit petulant. When he quits stabbing and steps over the first to repeat those wounds in the other, it's clearly just professional competence at work.
When he finally raises his crested head to give Lira'una a direct look from his black, pupilless eyes, he growls, "Slaver scum." Apology for intervening given, he sheathes his clean spear and then crouches by the fallen to find a cloth part of their uniforms by which to clean his bloodied weapon.
"Are you--"
Lira's words die in her throat as she watches the Togruta go to the merciless work of not only finishing off his prey but also ending the life of the other that she'd simply knocked unconscious with a power coupling. She opened her mouth as if to protest, but it was too late. And besides, who really wants to get between a predator and his quarry when there's that much visceral rage being unleashed?
And anyway, he was obviously fine. So...
Lira's smile is thin and a little awkward as she waits quietly for the stabbing to be over. Only when the Togruta man meets her eyes blue eyes with his black and he growls out that... apology?... does she finally hook the staff she'd used back onto her belt. If he was after 'slaver scum,' she apparently had nothing to fear from him, even if her gaze did wander briefly down to dead man whose robe he was using to clean off his spear.
"Yeah..."
It's a shared sentiment, but there's still regret in her voice and wistfulness in her eyes. It obviously wasn't the way she would have chosen to leave things, but what was done was done.
"Thanks, by the way." The girl's eyes shifted back to the older Togruta, her smile obviously trying to fix itself so she looked more relieved and less... nauseous. "They sort of... came out of nowhere." After the datastick, which she had claimed not to have.
All around them, the crowd had stilled once the fighting broke out. It was an eerie thing, the way they didn't really scatter -- they all sort of just made their own decisions about whether they were going to ignore it or defend themselves. Since no one else needed to step in, everything went back to normal like a record being dialed up to speed again. The hustle and bustle of the market resumed. The crowd continued to shift and undulate around them and the largely ignored bodies on the ground.
Even BB-BB rolled back out of hiding and over to Lira's side, beeping and tweeting something that sounds remarkably like, 'I told you so.'
"Bro, this is /not/ my fault!"
Such is the nature of the Lawless zone. Life is cheap. It doesn't matter if it's the life of a citizen stolen by slavers, or the life of a slaver ended by a runt who's keeping score and always tallies himself in the red. The mutilated-to-useless Pain Collar which hangs loosely around Aza Vidaar's neck should speak for itself, and himself, in this instance. Far from concerned about local police response, the little Togruta takes his time in cleaning and even polishing his spear tip and shaft before he puts it away.
While Lira'una awkwardly addresses him, Aza Vidaar focuses his attention on the business of looting the dead. He probes everywhere with his fingers, slowly and carefully, searching for the release-clamps that remove the armor pieces. It's just business as usual in Ko Hentota, no different than trading credits for colorful scarves. Each piece is removed and carefully laid aside, near the Harbingers' dropped stun batons.
As the Twi'lek converses with her droid, without looking up from the grim task of stripping the dead, Aza Vidaar mutters, "These committed suicide. Nobody's fault but their own." He pauses, looking up at the woman and putting his elbows on his crouching knees so the arms drape between. "Fifty percent, no more, no less," he announces. It's not an attempt at negotiation, just a flat statement of what he expects from Lira'una.
Deet. Doot. Dwee. 'That's what you said last time,' says the BB-droid.
"Whatever. It's still true," Lira sighs, still kind of just standing there while Aza goes through the armor as if she didn't really know what to do with her hands, anymore. She certainly wasn't about to jump in there and start looting the bodies with him. She lacks the desperation that some others in this district have -- a scavenger instinct to make the most out of everything. Anyone that was suffering down here would have been down there competing for weapons and armor to make sure they got their fair share. She doesn't seem to have any interest in it.
Suicide, though. The word brings Lira's gaze back to Aza.
It's a grim but pragmatic viewpoint, if her grimace is any indication. Making the decision to initiate a confrontation in Ko Hentota was always knowingly putting your own life in jeopardy, but in fairness, they were two fully grown and 'competent' soldiers who were after a tiny, teenage Twi'lek girl with no obvious friends or accomplices in the vicinity -- and she was armed only with a stick. It probably didn't feel like suicide to them at the time.
"Fifty--?"
The girl blinks, then looks down at the armor and back up to the Togruta again, shaking her head. Her lekku slither back off of her shoulders to rest against her back again, and she finally seems to decide on holding her lavender palms up to wave off the 'offer' and then clasping them loosely in front of herself, rocking a bit up onto the balls of her feet. It's an antsy sort of thing, like something in the back of her mind was tired of standing in the same spot for so long.
"Oh! No.. no thank you. That -- that's all for you. I'm -- I'm good."
Beep. Dweet. Dwooo. 'Can we go home?'
"Um..." Lira's eyes shift to the droid and then back to Aza for a pensive moment. "Do you..."
Boop. 'No,' Echo tries to interrupt.
"...this probably sounds...'
Boop-Doot. 'Please don't.'
"...are you okay, down here?"
One of the Twi'lek's hand lifts to touch one finger to her throat, her smile apologetic.
Beep. Deep. Dweet. 'Why??'
"It's called compassion," Aza Vidaar answers the droid's last question brusquely. "It's a trait shared by prey items, sentient and otherwise." His dark eyes flick up in Lira'una's direction, his two-toned lips curling in a darkly amused grin which displays the sharp tips of his predatory teeth.
Back to collecting loot. "I am Ssah-vuh-thahr," he answers, the name suddenly dropping from conversational tone to a stage whisper. Louder than when he made deadly contact with the Harbinger, from surprise, the name sounds like an ululating hiss. It could have been inspired by a snake, or the wind blowing through dry leaves, the kind of sound that wouldn't startle a feeding herbivore even if it was given as a sharp warning. "I've been living here since I was younger than you are, long before you were born."
One corpse stripped to the bare ass, armor and clothing and weapons and personal items set aside in the pile nearest Lira'una's feet, he straightens up enough to step over that body and starts stripping the other. "Fifty percent of the loot assumes fifty percent of the labor," he mutters irritably. "If you want to offer me the job of watching your back, we can discuss it when we aren't surrounded by vultures and parasites who might grab our stuff and run."
They obviously don't teach how to react to a bundle of blooded armor, clothing, and weapons being set at your feet at whatever schools Lira's attended. It takes the girl a moment before she couches, ignoring BB-BB's protests and collects the bundle, scooping it up into her arms like so much dirty laundry. It's bulky and awkward for her slender arms -- and heavy. She doesn't seem overly strong /or/ overly adept at handling piles of armor.
"Thank you," she says, her voice soft and sincere. Maybe she detected the note of irritation and decided it was easier than arguing the point. Or maybe she was experimenting, trying to understand. Either way, she didn't seem at all interested in getting on Aza's bad side.
"I'm Lira'una." She offers a small, hopeful smile, perching the bundle on top of her thighs for the moment while she waits for him to finish with the second body. "Everyone calls me Lira. I was born here... well, up in the Corellian district. I've been in and out a lot since then, though. I'm sorry we didn't meet under less.. um... violent... circumstances, but I'm not exactly going to fit into any of this. Maybe we could go back to my ship? It's docked in Gearhead. The old Rigging Zone, you know? And in addition to discussing that job, I could give you a cut to sell this stuff for me?"
That soft, genuinely hopeful smile makes her look SO young, and she has the faintest hint of a true Rylothian lilt in her voice, but it's so faint it's almost imperceptible.
BB-BB's domed head focuses skeptically on Aza for along moment before he emits another series of disapporoving beeps. 'This is a bad idea.'
"He's right, you know," Aza Vidaar intones in his deep basso voice that sounds just plain weird when it comes out of such a small example of a man. "Absolutely anyone might have done the same thing I did, for absolutely any reason. Not everyone who digs you out of shit is your friend."
Finished with the second one faster than the first, since he already knew the armor's layout, he swiftly bundles the gear up inside an impromptu bag made by wrapping the Harbinger's cloak around it all and tying the corners together. When he finally straightens up and looks to the Twi'lek, and sees how she struggles to manage the whole mess, his mouth and chin draw up in a little expression of sad surprise. "Put that down," he says, his tone more gentle than before. "Take this one," he gestures at the bundle he just pre-packaged. If she complies, he'll bundle all of that up quickly and then heft it for himself. If not, he'll just keep hold of his own and indicate that she should lead the way.
That is to say that, having echoed the droid's warning that engaging with him is not a good idea, he has indicated that he will follow if the Twi'lek chooses to lead.
After Aza echoes Echo's warning, the droid beep again in vindication.
Beep. Dweet. 'See?'
Lira sighs, sounding defeated as she looks over at the spherical BB-droid and all its mismatched colors. "You're not smarter than I am just because you're paranoid. Do you think someone that wants to hurt me would point out what a bad idea it is to invite him back to my ship?"
Beep. 'Yes.'
"What if /I'm/ the one that's luring /him/ into a trap?! You ever think of that?!"
The BB-unit sits there. Staring at her with its big, black eye. Unmoving. Silent.
The Twi'lek girl groans, but she follows Aza's instruction almost without conscious thought -- as if she was used to being told what to do and simply complying. She sets the bundle gratefully back on the ground at her feet where she'd found it and reaches for the other which, though it doesn't seem any lighter than the first, is at least easier for her to manage as a heavy bag in a two-handed grip that she stands and hoists over her shoulder like a purple Santa.
Even as Lira starts towards the taxi area and Aza starts to follow, Echo doesn't move.
"I /will/ leave you here," the girl says without looking back.
Echo still doesn't move.
"Look, if he stabs me and steals my ship, you can tell my corpse you told me so."
There's a vaguely sad beep, then, and Echo finally shifts, head tilting forward as he starts to roll after the duo.
