Log:Mad Mandalore, pt 1

Mad Mandalore, pt 1

OOC Date: November 1, 2018
Location: Mandalore
Participants: Hopp Nooram and Siha Archer

MANDALORE.

The sun beats down on Vroxx Canyon City, one of the few (almost) safe places to be on the hostile planet, the air dry and parched, waves of dust drifting on the breeze to coat the nose and throat and make the heat that much more oppressive. An old man in traditional Mandalorian armor scowls fiercely at the entrance to the junkyard, his helmet strapped to his belt, where a pistol rides as well. Wispy grey hair sticks from the ruddy crown of his head, already looking burnt from the sun, deep wrinkles fanning out from the corners of his eyes. "So. You're probably wondering what the hell we're doing here." Deadpan, not really a question to his companion. "I'm from that moon up there. Concord Dawn," his grating voice growls, rooting a cig out from a pouch on his belt and jamming it in the corner of his mouth. "Few decades ago I had the bad sense to try to come back here, settle down, and conquer a section of wasteland, or more like, there were things I could use in the wasteland. Raw materials, shit that nobody's had the balls or the gear to mine, and- and maybe I've got a thing for... strong women," Hopp rasps, lighting up the cig. "So. When I left again, I left behind something, something I need. And no, it's not my kid or some sentimental nerfshit like that," he immediately cuts off, squinting over that way before looking back at the junkyard.

"You made me fly your ass out here for over an hour and you're just now telling me this? What the hell were you doing in my refresher that whole time ..." Asked, though there are obvious questions floating around in Siha's head. One's which she won't just do meta, but ask, "I seriously can't imagine you even having sex, so kids never popped into my mind - but .." She has her helmet off, and is busy unwrapping a candy with her gloved fingertips, leaning heavily on her right hip as her wonky left leg juts out slightly, hair braided back, deep scars on her face inked in small shadows as the sun shines down, "You always, when I first joined up with the Ebon Guard, were harassin' Vraag to show you how to -" She spits down onto the ground, kicking at it with her left foot to bury it down, "- Get to Mandalore. I remember you used to push him hard, so what ..just ..a lie? Or you just never had a way to get back after going to Nar." Ahhh, yes. The candy is finally finagled opened and she'll pop the soft blue chocolate into her mouth, gaze lifted up to eye Hopp beneath slightly bushy brows, head canted to the right as she waits for the answer, "I don't really give a shavit, if I'm being honest, but I just can't wrap my head around it."

"I didn't have a /ship/, and Mandalore isn't exactly a vacation destination, now is it, kid?" Hopp growls at Siha's annoyingly good memory of details from when Mandalore was not somewhere anyone could get to. "Besides, I'm an old man, planets don't stand still, territories change hands, safe zones become unsafe, I- I forget a few things, my memory's not what it used to be," he stubbornly dithers, dancing all around the admission that he forgot how to get here without actually saying it. "And I used to know a thing or two about making babies, kid, but that's all long past me now, so don't spend too long rubbing both of your brain cells together trying to work it out. I mean, hell, I don't have any idea where any of them are now, or... how many there are, or, how many there are left, I expect is more accurate to say," the old man muses, stepping ahead towards the junkyard. "Last I knew, they were out in the Ragelands a long ways away from here, but going there in your ship is not the best plan. Too many raiders, too much attention. We got to get some information out of the locals." A gloved hand smacks against a metal sign, knocking the layer of dust off it to reveal the words 'Rodarch's Roughly-Used Recks.' "And we'll start with Runx Rodarch."

The gate to the junkyard is shut, another sign, too dusty to read, posted further down the fence. Behind the fence, a shanty sits, with a shack sat on top of it where the view is bit more all-encompassing, and the rusted 'recks' are stacked in heaps all around. "You see a way in? Looks like they're closed, but if anyone recognized me..." His narrow eyes narrow further. "Let's hope no one recognized me."

Siha Archer is definitely annoying when it comes to little details others may simply push out of the way, because it's those little things that make up a person and if they alter later on, well. That tells her a lot about a person. Good or bad. She thins a half-smile, nodding her head while still chewing her choccie, wrapped tucked into her belt, "I didn't mean to insult you, I just look at you more like distant family ..and I like to imagine none of them have genitals either." A quick wink of grey right eye and she's exhaling out, hearing his explanation even as she searches around, "I know ..I was just checking to see what you'd say." Limping forwards she begins walking the outer perimiter of the junk yard, striding towards a large warped metal lining used for tin roofs, likely having blown off something somewhere, but large enough for Siha to use it as a plank to walk up and hop the fence, "Hopp, I am here to make sure your ass lives, so if anyone recognized you that you don't want-" She grunts, stopping her limping stride to bend down and pick up the metal piece, putting her knees and ass into it to pull it along, not bothering to ask the creaky old man to help, "-- I will make them regret it." A growly promise, dust kicking up to create a long trail which is picked up by the wind.

As Siha drags the piece of metal along, the vibration shakes the dust off the other sign, which is found to read 'BEWARE OF AKK DOG', and Hopp stands there for a good few seconds squinting at it before plopping his helm onto his head for a few seconds and taking it off again, strapping it back down on his belt. "Beware of Akk Dog," he informs his partner, pointing at it, while stepping through the gap in the fence she's opened like he's entitled to be there, puffing away at his cig. "I don't see one yet. Damn fool probably put that sign up hoping that would be just as good as a real akk dog, and- and doesn't even have the sense to realize no one can read the signs," Hopp growls, glancing towards the shack. "Let's see if ol' Runx is happy to see me. He always had a thing for my woman. He'll know where to find her if she's still topside." His boots thump on the dusty turf as he steps towards the shack, armor and gear rattling slightly against his bony, thin frame. "I'm getting too old for this shit," muttered to Siha.

"Yeah I saw it." Siha grunts out, the paneling pushed off to the side, "If he had real akk dogs they'd have been howling at us from a mile out and would already be chewing on our asses." She too will reach back to snag her helmet off her belt, free hand running back over her braids before the bucket is popped on and secured with a few clicks of her fingertips, HUD initiated. A whole new view of the world pops up in her vision and she'll sigh heavily, "I never understood territorialism over a person .." Muttered as she steps through the gap, limping her way forwards to follow the old man, "So funny you mention that ...I was just saying last night to an old Akk dog and some dude who went on your last drug mission ..I am getting too old for this shit." Said in a companionable way, "You know, I forgot I turned twenty eight. I've lost years and didn't even know it till I realized the other day. /Twenty eight/. I thought I was twenty six." Gettin' way too old for this shit. As they come closer to the shack she'll draw out her sword with left hand, sniffing deeply, "You wanna kick it open or shall I?"

"Yeah, you're telling me, I turned sixty-one yesterday," Hopp replies, adjusting his belt by shoving two thumbs through it and shifting it around on his bony hips. "At least I think I did. I drank a lot of whiskey. It doesn't slow down, either, it gets faster, every day of your life that passes makes the next day that much smaller of a percentage of the total, and your perception of time keeps on accelerating until days feel like hours used to, and... you can barely keep track of time as it is, without it flying by, kid, I- you might have it right, dying young like you're after." Did she actually say that? No.

The old man doesn't bother to put on his helmet, but he does slide his gun out of the holster with a grumbled "Just in case." Tired eyes stare out from under wiry brows at the door for a long moment before he lets out a sigh. "...you do it, and I'll shoot anyone who tries to jump you." Unbeknownst to Hopp, the junkyard is quietly filled with what might be best described as raiders doing an excellent job of hiding in the wreckage, a good half-dozen of them in various modes of armor and weaponry. "And twenty-eight's /young/ still, you probably haven't even got hemorrhoids yet." Gun held at the ready, directed towards the shack, while all the others are behind him in the junkyard.

Well, she didn't say it, but it certainly seems like she's on that path. Willingly or unwillingly, "I already don't know what day it is half the time or how far I am into one injury before I get the next ..Last night I found myself in the undercity and I have no. Idea. WHY." CRACK. Down goes the door as Siha kicks it HARD with her left foot connected to the gimpy leg, grunting with the impact as the door smacks forwards to flop dustily down into the shack. Chest rises and falls heavily as she cants a look back over her shoulder like she's looking back to Hopp, but that t-visored gaze is counting out those she spotted on her way in, "So, wrong on the hemmorhoids, and .." Briike and Ghez move in on the pair, slow and steady, listening as Siha keeps talking as she tracks them to either side, acting like she's still talking to Hopp about life and death.

"And you know, I'm always wondering how the hell I keep waking up every damned -- DAY." Said as she suddenly spins around on her left foot, crouching down to bring her sword out across the thighs of Briike who had been about to jump/stab Siha in the neck, only now she lets out a surprised screeching yell, the ..is it a chick? Let's say it's a chick, Siha's an equal opportunity killer, "AND then ..WHEN I DO WAKE UP, I'M SO, DAMNED. ANGRY." SNKKKKTTTTT, the sword switches hand with a small toss, Siha swinging it around to stab at Ghez who has come at her with a knife in one hand and a pipe in the other, Siha getting him across his belly, nearly eviscerating him entirely in half. He stops, hunches over and coughs, and he's down while Briike bleeds out quickly as both thighs are sliced through arteries, "Where is Runx. Because I'm not going to stop killing you all until I find him." Said beneath heavy chesty breaths, Siha's suit once more splattered, ebony and gold bearing the recently deceased lifeblood, "And even then I might just still keep going." Sword is used to help her rise up from her crouch, stabbed into the ground, puddles of red splattering with the motion.

There's a lot going on in the junkyard all of a sudden, the door crashing into the shack to thump onto the floor with a hollow *THOD*, and then the splatter of blood and guts to the dusty ground, the parched earth greedily soaking up the fluids as they spurt and drip into the dirt. Another bodily fluid is spilt as one of the ambushers straight pisses himself, urine running down his pantleg before he turns to run back into the junk, away from the two strangers.

"Runx is aliit and we will die before we let you take him!" a big man with a vibroax yells back to Siha, cobbled-together armor sporting spikes in various places as he stares her down. "Rodarch is not cowed by your threats. I will bleed you here in the dirt and give your body to the sun to bleach the agol from your taakur, aruetiise."

BOOSH, a bright blast of blue energy goes streaking from Hopp's pistol into the monologuing Mando, the old man growling a surprised "Shit" in the process. "Wrong gun, this one's for Runx," he mutters, shoving the blaster back into its holster and fumbling out another one. "I remember why I left this scrapheap. Everyone's bound by honor to fight to the death if you look at their cousin wrong. Keep it going, kid," the old man busily charging up the other blaster.

In the meantime, the two that didn't bother with flowery speeches come into combat, a blaster bolt sailing past Hopp's wispy head and a battered vibroblade singing in at the katana-wielding spectre of death.

Awh man. Siha gets hit GOOD by that vibroaxe which cuts down hard into her hip. A hip. She doesn't cognitively know /which one/ but it misses major arteries and clanks into the metal that has been fused into her bone to repair already broken bones. Plates inserted by Hopp, as a matter of fact. Her vision fills with red, but Rogarr is close enough and working on trying to pull the axe out of her hip with yanking grunts, "Ne shab'rud'nio, ky a' kyr'am." Hissed out as her sword is suddenly sticking out from the middle of the man, driven hard in through his belly button and up into his abdomen and out his backside, the man staring at her with bugged out eyes, his axe vibrating angrily, "Did you get that? I am Death, and I will eat your soul and spit it out into haran."

Whispered in through her helm into the mans ear, Siha drawing back with her sword, Bossan screaming and rushing her and grabbing that axe handle, the thing yanked out but before he gets a chance to raise it past his shoulders his head is rolling off his neck and toppling over, his body crumpling soon after, "Jorhaa'ir aruetii." Speak, traitor. She says this to Lorka, the last one standing, her sword lifting up as she begins a slow advance on the blaster wielding individual, limping heavily, bleeding, rage incarnate, "I'm still thirsty though, so if you don't I won't cry." Vox'd voice rings out, her breath coming hard, jaw clenched so her words are equally as rough. Hopp, well ..she did as he asked and kept it going.

Siha may look like she's about to topple over and only her top half will keep coming, desperate to throw souls howling into oblivion, but Hopp is still in one piece and standing there with a famous piece of Mandalorian hardware in his hand with it pointed directly at Lorka's head. "I know what you're thinking, kid," the old man growls, his skin looking like the bark of a gnarly old tree. "You're thinking, does the old fool still got it? Does he have the guts to pull the trigger, if this psychotic human asharl doesn't flay the skin from your face first? That really a chance you want to take, there, kid? Because your odds aren't real good, I'll tell you that much, okay."

"...I'll talk. Haar'chak, I'll talk!" Lorka replies, throwing her rifle down. "What do you want, chakaar? You want Runx? He's in his shop, hiding from /you/. He heard you were back and gave us a call, we came running, he is aliit. But aliit ori'shya tal'din. Take him, then, chakaar."

"Much obliged," Hopp replies flatly, keeping his pistol on the woman, eyes skimming towards Siha. "You want to...?"

Siha Archer isn't intimidating at all, not clutching at her hip with her right hand pressed in against it, though her left hand still holds that katana as she listens to Hopp threaten the girl as she tries to keep herself upright. "Of course he's in the bloody shop. Bloody bleeding blistering bubbling festering damned /hip/, we should have hit the farkin' blurging shop." Her voice rises in anger, Hopps' question getting one sharp SMACK of her sword into Lorka's ribs from the left, slicing into her chest, Siha trying for another swing as the girl spits up and does the bloody face thing, barely having a second to scream out 'no' before she's culled down. The second swing however has Siha falling down onto her left knee, exhaling out with a series of soft swears, "Shit ..losing ..losing my ..style ..Okay ..fucking workshop ..where's his fucking workshop."

"Well, I think this is it," Hopp sniffs at the shack that Siha's already kicked the door in on, pausing to pull out not a medpac but a cig to tuck into the corner of his mouth. THEN he pulls out a medpac after holstering his pistol, again, just long enough to root out a bacta patch while he squats down on lanky legs next to Siha, knees groaning and protesting woodenly, a pained wince creasing his face. "Here, let me... I'll... shit, what the... we'll deal with it later," he grunts, giving the patch a sharp slap, but like... it's only really adhered to her armor, not the flesh below, and it's not helping. It might be hurting.

It's hurting.

Then the stun pistol comes out again. "Alright, let's get this bastard and get some answers." Hopp's boots tromp through the bloody dust and thomp onto the thin wooden porch and clunk over the door that's now part of the floor as he strides right in like he owns the place, squinting around the room from behind his pistol. The furnishings are the opposite of sparse. The ramshackle shanty is jam-packed with all sorts of odds and ends, random parts, furniture, curios, everywhere. It's a hoarder's dream, a minimalist's nightmare. "Yeah, this is Runx' place alright," the old man comments dryly, looking around for Siha. "Get in here, help an old man. My eyes aren't much good."

Siha Archer is in a lot of pain, but ..it's a familiar old pain. As that scraggly old hand slaps out to hit her hip she grits her teeth, the man actually ..somehow making the injury /worse/ than it had been. But she's fine ..she's fine. She'll limp in over top the door she knocked down, bracing right hand against the door frame as she squints in, pain overwhelming her vision as it fades to near black. She grunts, slipping forwards a few heavy limping steps, right hand drawing off the frame to slap her right hand into her helmet hard. A quick shake of her head then, vision clearing up really, really well after the juke-box like knock against her own brain hole. Sniffing in deeply she will step in further then and begin to look around all of the junk the mans collected, "What a shitty workshop ..." Muttered, Siha spotting something moving off in a corner beneath some large front end of a speeder which has been partially bowed over some table, "I think he might be under there, hiding like a scared akk dog."

"Get out from under there, Runx, if you know what's good for you," Hopp rasps, but it's not all that convincing, the old fellow just not really mustering the fire after the staredown in the junkyard taking it out of him. "Krif, I'm too old for this," he complains then, blasting at the end of the speeder wildly. "COME OUT OR I'LL KEEP SHOOTING, you piece of shit! I'll blow up every chunk of this depressing monument to mediocrity!"

The shot sends a scrawny, jaggle-toothed old man, shorter than Hopp but just about as thin, scampering out from under the table like an oversized lab rat. "Alright, alright! What do you want! You killed my kin, you shot up my place, can't you just go back to whatever hellhole you dragged that kaden kal out of?" he cringes, collapsing back against the wall, eyes darting over towards the limping woman.

"You're gonna tell me where my woman was last." The blaster stays on Runx. "Tell me quick and tell me true or I'll gun you down where you stand."

"Alright, alright. She's out in the ragelands, past marker fifty-seven. Got one of her brood with her still."

"One of mine?"

"How in the hell should I know?"

Hopp spends a long moment considering this, scratching at his chin, the loose skin moving easily under his fingertips, before he turns to nod to Siha. "Do your thing, kid."

"Wait, what?"

"You know, some other stupid kid called me Armor Girl after he told me I was too manly to get laid. I liked that one, but I like angry blade better." Through her helmet the words come forth, Siha limping heavily forwards, coming a few feet away from Runx, sword hanging at her side, still dripping blood from her last kills, some biological matter still stuck to the blade edges.

Impassively, or at least it seems so behind that black and gold t-visored helmet of hers, she watches and listens to everything between the two men. The scratching of that loose skin grates in Siha's ears and she'll set her jaw, head tilting one way, then the other, "Goodnight, Runx." She makes it quick, dropping down to one knee heavily as she brings her sword up and swats off his head, cutting into the wall behind him, the mans consciousness ..maybe 2-4 seconds but no pain. Surprise, perhaps. It seems likely. The hollow thud of his head rolling in under the place where he had been hiding mingles with the spurting of blood from within arteries in his neck. Pressing down on her knee hard with her free hand she stands up, swaying a little, "So ...I'd like ..like ..a drink or something ..before we ..go to that marker, if ...if you don't mind. Like .." Up her hand swings as she sheathes her sword with the other, pinching fingertips in front of one eye, "A small bit of whiskey .."