Log:Sith Empire: Operation Ember

Sith Empire: Operation Ember

OOC Date: September 22, 2022
Location: Coruscant
Participants: Sith Empire: Tamsin Cas, Shadra Nim, Imani, and Darth Ferren

The underbelly of Coruscant is a place strangely bereft of birds when one considers the level of seediness innate to this area. Level 1313 as a whole is emblematic of all the things that make Coruscant Coruscant, but in a special way that has managed to embody the essence of the thing without possessing any of its positive aspects. This particular part of the neighborhood sprawls across its layer of cityscape like lasagna spilled from a takeout box.

And down here in the jumbled heap of neglected buildings that hold up the rest of the city and shantytown lean-tos, the fires of the First Order's citadel have festered. They smolder now, filling the air with acrid smoke and a persistent charred stench that grows stronger the further the Sith councilors follow the street tags sprayed on the walls, a symbol like a glowing coal. It's a red oval, but the grey stylistic smoke layed on above it in soot really brings the imagery together.

"I will credit them with some artistic skill." The robed and helmed Councilor moved at a smooth pace, keeping in line with the rest of the team which had been dispatched to handle the threat of the would be fire, well, not starters, but certainly fire reclaimers. Choose a descriptive name that means 'trying to keep the fired burning and go with that, alright? The faceless helm turned this way and that, as progress was made, "But my taste for modern art only goes so far."Wistful. Even amongst the smoking embers and the towering monuments to inequality Shadra finds something to curl the edges of her lips in to a dreamy, toothless grin. She pauses at the threshold of Nox's Hook and settles her weight on the two meter, graphite pole she uses as a mock staff. The scene is taken in totality. Her blue-eyes sweep from left to right before the examination is punctuated by a deep breath. Still, even taken by nostalgia, there is a nervous energy to her stance that can be observed as she takes up the rear in the phalanx formed by unfamiliar companions. Her fingers tap the graphite in a rhythmic, rapid pace. Tick tick tick. A geiger counter that mimics the fluttering of her heart in her breast.

Shadra is clad in form-fitting fabrics trimmed with a dull gold that struggles to reflect the flickering flames. High boots, and gloves ensure that she is mostly obscured from view. For whatever reason she has deigned to keep her hood drawn down.

Tamsin's comment earns a blink and knocks Shadra out of her fugue. "It is beautiful in a way," she admits. "Even lit up like a birthday cake. When I was younger I would marvel at how tall the towers are and wonder just how far it was to the sky above." She turns then to glance over each shoulder. "Strange that all the fire suppression droids and infrastructure are not working though."

"You'd think eventually they would just run out of things to be burned down here," Imani observes as she tilts her head back, face visible because the helmet is currently at her hip, eyes angled up to clouds of wafting smoke. "It's been burning for so long here. I expect the whole place is just going to collapse into itself at some point because of it." She tilts her head to look sidelong at Shadra. "It hasn't been working down here in years, the fire has been going to some degree for a long, long time, just keeps on burning through the low levels. There are just so many of them that one area gets put out but another one picks up. It's awful."

As if to validate all three of them at once, the trio pass a few broken down fire suppression droids as they wend their way deeper into the maze, following the sign of the ember. Then one of the shanty houses they're passing falls down in a flurry of ash. Then they pass scattered pieces of cast-off, battered Sith Empire fire suppression equipment. Then they round a corner and there he is.

The fire suppression droid whirs in panic, an old model not affiliated with the Sith Empire but rather set loose to roam the city decades prior. Sitting astride the robot's 'shoulders', a youth in their teens with flame-red hair attempts to smash the flashing light the droid wears for a head with a lump of duracrete. Over and over the chunk of masonry falls.

"There is something to appreciate in the architecture of every planet, I suppose." The sight of destroyed and partly deconstructed droids slowed the Councilor's pace, but only so much. The sound of stone on metal drew them back to normal speed, though those steps fell back to stillness once they drew close enough to see the 'attack' after a fashion, underway. "Well, if nothing else, we have one person to question." That distorted voice betrayed neither gladness or anger. "Or, at least, someone out of whom to make an example." The Councilor's helm tipped, only the slightest, as an invisible force slipped from their body, snapping like unseen lightning to wrap around the teen, tightening like a fist as the force pulled their body from the shoulders of the droid and tugged it towards where they trio were standing. At no point did the body hit the floor, instead hanging in the air as if suspended on invisible marionette strings.

Shadra's breathing is faster than one might expect, her fingers continue to dance along the force pike as she steps. Each thud of the butt end of the weapon counts the second as a metronome might. She eyes the broken fire suppression droids leisurely. The crumbling building causes her pause. She lingers there long enough that she has to scurry to catch up to the group. Then they are presented with the teenager.

Tamsin's much faster reaction is met with a slack-jawed and wide-eyed awe as Shadra watches the woman's telekinetic force draw the child from such an extreme distance. She blinks rapidly and then shakes her head briskly. "Focus," she mutters under her breath. With a switch her weapon is flicked to stun and she strides forward to take up a position at the teen's flank.

"We have a few questions," Shadra drawls in basic.

Imani hears the crashing sound and immediately unclips her helmet from her hip, lowering it over her head so that the generally happy expression is eclipsed by the more featureless mask. With that in place she turns to look at the yoinked teen. "I have to admit, I don't understand why you would be destroying something that can protect you from the fire," she says to the teen in a conversational tone. "The rest of this, sure, break it down and sell it for parts because you have to get by somehow. Not that I am encouraging that, but I get it. It makes sense to me. But something to suppress fire when fire has been an actual problem." The helmet turns side to side as she shakes her head.

"Holy krif! Holy KRIF!" the teen exclaims, eyes wide in an echo of the suppression droid's earlier panic. "What are you doing to me, put me down, holy KRIF!"

The droid, for its part, seems wholly pleased by this turn of events and lowers its arms to a ready position, trundling off to find something to spray.

"I'll tell you whatever you want, just put me down!" The fall to the ground is rough and unceremonious, and the ground is hard. The teen thumps with an outcry of pain, coiling inward and pushing themselves up onto hands and knees with a venemous look at Tamsin's helmeted figure. "Not like /that/, what's wrong with you people? Don't you know this is Smoking Tomb territory? It's like, all over the walls down here."

"Yes, yes, Smoking Tombs Territory." Somehow, that distorted voice even managed just the edge of sarcasm, before it returned to its more neutral presentation. "Unfortunately, you can't claim what never belonged to you in the first place. So, you can either lead us to the rest of your little troupe...or, you can find out what it felt like to be that droid." The Councilor did not move to engage the teen, nor to stop them from moving themselves. "Something to create a new sense of appreciation for the suffering of others."

Allowing Tamsin to take the lead, Shadra paces idly with half a mind paid to the teen and his plight. Nostalgia takes hold of her idle hands and coaxes her to roll through a rendition from her past. The graphite stick, non unlike the thin practice weapons she had used in her youth, felt curiously familiar in the acrid environ of the burning underbelly of the city. She twists and turns the weapon intending to make a show of her casual prowess to further unnerve the teen without actively causing him harm. Inevitably her journey down memory lane brings her to the near past and her hands stutter in their remembered routine. The clatter of graphite is paired with her own pause. She freezes as if time itself had paused.

"Krazzsch," Shadra spits under her breath. She coughs in to her sleeve and moves to retrieve her weapon off the duracrete.

"Are you one of them?" Imani asks curiously, looking around for the marking on the walls that indicates the territory ownership. "Honestly I don't think we really care about who wants to say they own the territory, as long as they respect some rules about the people who actually own all of this." She steps closer to the teen, a hand resting on her weapon, though she makes no move to pull it or really menace all that much. "And sure the Tomb people could come and try to shoot at us, but they probably won't be able to hit my friends here, I also tend to get pretty cross when someone tries to shoot me. Anyway, are they your friends? Where are they?"

"You people got some weird ways," the teen finally allows after Tamsin's threats and Shadra's martial arts routine (5 out of 10). "Pulling people up in the air and swinging your stuff all around. My pal Tak, he'd just shank you right in the kidney when you bent over to pick that up if he was here, and then what?" the red-haired youth asks like a lawyer resting their case.

Then Imani comes in. "Own? /WE/ own this stuff, I just got done saying this is Tomb territory, open up your ears. And you're right, they'd definitely shoot you. Tak's a Tomb, I'm not sworn yet though, you gotta pass through the flame before you're sworn," they jabber. "That one over there."

A grubby finger indicates a particularly sooty hole, about person-height but narrow and jagged, on the side of one of the more permanent structures in this area that does the actual work of holding up the rest of the city.

"Perhaps we should take some inspiration from your pal Tak." The Councilor's left hand gloved and empty was suddenly filled with a darkly silver hilt. That familiar snap-hiss came and a crimson blade ignited, "Tell me, which of your kidneys shall we experiment with? The right or the left? Do you have a preference? I do like to be accommodating." Although the Councilor's mask did not turn away from the red-headed youth, her tone shifted slightly, clearly speaking to the other two with them, "At least a dozen inside on this level." And then, as their attention returned to the youth, "Do hurry and make your choice. You do not want me to make the choice for you."

Shadra peers in to the flame-kissed passageway the teen indicates, then her attentions drift along the hovels and openings that span the cavern the trio occupy. The warning Tamsin issues encourages her to adopt a more tense stance with weight evenly distributed across both of her feet. She lifts her hood up. Her gloves whine with the strain of her ever-tightening grip about the graphite shaft.

"Figures," Shadra intones flatly, "in the windows but paying much mind. Maybe." Her trepidation is short-circuited as she catches the glow of Tamsin's weapon in the corner of her eye. Transfixed, she swallows hard and returns to her vigil.

"Oh, no. No you don't," Imani tells the red-head in a gentle tone. "It's really cute that you think so though, and I admire the spirit, but you really do need to learn to recognize and cooperate with the people who are actually in charge. It makes life a lot easier on you when you do." He points out a hole in the wall and she turns, studying it for a moment. "That there? That is your test?" She turns to march right over to it, then in and through as neat as you please. She didn't exactly expect the gout of flames that shot out, which maybe worked out for the best because she wasn't worried about it, and didn't fumble, managing to get through without being burnt. "That was a little more exciting than anticipated," she calls out from within the building. "Not a whole lot in here but I think more stuff to make more fire? Tamsin if I die in here tell Ferren to distribute my stuff equally." She has no stuff beyond her weapons and armor, so that's an easy job.

Tamsin starts talking about shanking kidneys, and that has the youth backing away from her with upraised hands. "Look, Tak says the same sort of thing and we get along kapootzo, alright? I told you what to do, you gotta-" the lecturing and threats continues from another angle, and the red-haired teen pivots towards Imani. "I mean, 'we' is probably generous on account of I haven't been sworn, but-"

And then Imani dives through the hole in the wall filled with fire. "Holy krif, she /passed through the flame!/" Eyes wide with reverence, they pivot towards Tamsin and Shadra, bony hands falling to narrow hips. "If you guys just wanted to join up, why didn't you say so?"

On the other side of the veil of flame, there's an old bedframe, another giant street tag, and lots and lots of tanks of propellant, stored worryingly close to the two pyrotechnics creating aforementioned wall of flame.

"Of course. I will tell Ferren exactly that." The Councilor could make allowances where necessary, but their attention soon returned to the youth, "Now, I am going to ask you a question, and you are going to tell me the truth. Is this the only lair of these 'Smoking Tombs'? And if not, where else are they holed up?" The tone of that voice did not change, but each word inside the red headed youth's brain was like a dagger twisting behind their eyes. "Go with Imani, if that is your choice." That was to the last of the trip still with her. "I will be right behind you."

Shadra casts her eyes up the length of the plascrete support beam. 'Bith spit,' she curses in Basic. Clarity comes to her and the fidgeting ceases altogether. 'I think we have bigger problems to consider.' She calls up her short-term memory and swivels her head to hunt for the fire suppression droid that was wandering about in some aimless fashion. Fortunately, it has not traveled far and lingers next to one of the buildings. Shifting the pike to one hand, she jogs towards the droid. Pausing, she focuses on the length of her throat and its anatomy. It roils, bubbling like the scum floating to the top of boiled bones.

"Droid, please focus your attention there," Shadra points back towards the trial opening. "There is an explosive cache in the room there. It threatens the structure of the support column."

Now that Imani is inside the room on the other side of the testing she takes a moment to properly look around. Hm. This definitely looks like code violations, but she's not here to write up tickets for that sort of thing, she's here to deal with some punk ass fire jockeys. There's a door as well, which she eyes for a moment before leaning toward the fire hole again. "There's a door in here, I'm gonna go see what's on the other side." She doesn't quite yell this, it's stated loudly enough to let someone nearby on the other side know, and then without waiting for a response she moves to the door, cracks it open and peers through. "Huh."

Whatever information Tamsin was hoping to get out of the teen pledge is lost in the wake of the squeezing their brain receives, sending the ragtime ruffian first to their knees with a wail of misery and then out cold as every pain receptor in their red-hot head yells 'FIRE!'

The suppression droid, busily splurting lines of inconstant flame retardant jelly onto the building's wall in areas of questionable need of the same looks over at Shadra's unusual glottal cadence and gives a herk, a jerk, and starts ambling that way, orienting its spray arm at the pyrotechnic spouts and blaring "FIRE!"

On the other side of Imani's door is a large, blown-out space that looks as though the condo block this once was has been renovated via a targeted explosion from a shaped charge. Walls and floors from three levels have been demolished, meaning that the armored woman emerges at the rim of a crater, though the ceiling (mostly) remains. In the rubble, and having made the place a very fire-themed gang hole-up, is the Smoking Tomb gang. A dozen sooty faces turn towards the intruder, and a voice cries out "FIRE!"

"Disappointing. Clearly, this was why you never braved the flames." The Councilor made no movement towards the now unconscious teen, as they stepped away, moving at speed towards the hole, barely slipping on the fire retardant, the crimson blade snapping out of existence. The extra momentum to propelled the Councilor inside and towards the cluster of life forms they had felt before, "We will simply have to work with what we have." The blade ignited as they moved, and while the sight of the blade was not enough to cause them to scatter, it was enough to ensure that the blades first strike did not hit flesh. The second was more successful, and one of the group was cut down, before the Councilor advanced, the blade striking out a third time, driving back one of the members close to the wall, but leaving them uninjured.

Shadra winces and tilts her head to one side as she reconfigures the length of her throat, her steps carrying her in the wake of the fire suppression droid. Crisis averted for now. The sheer carelessness of it all for the sake of some religious zealotry worms its way in to her mind. Too many questions spiral through her mind that begin with 'why' that she is unable to answer. She gives in and darts after the far more experienced Councilors.

Paying little mind to the nature of her target, Shadra pivots, flicks the pike in to kill mode, and forcefully throws her weight in behind her first blow. Her first target is younger than the others, less gruff. None of these make them any less complicit. The weaker weapon finds purchase and skewers flesh - its virgin wetting staining its tip crimson.

There is a whole room full of fire crazy people here, and Imani takes only long enough to register that fact, /and/ the fact that they register her. "Guys," she calls back, and then like the mad woman that she is, she rushes in right at them, weapon in hand. Her first swing is wide and misses, but she spins around to take a second try and lands a brutal hit on the side of the fire crazy kid's head with a crack. It leaves more than a mark, making the gang member fire cultist person topple over dead.

The gang found at last, the battle is joined as the three Sith councilors leap in to do battle with the dozen gangsters. Numbers are on the side of the gang, and certainly someone should mention the tanks of propellants stacked in the middle of the 'room' like an altar. The whole vibe of this place should make it abundantly clear why the fires have not gone out in this particular part of the city.

Despite the initial fusilade, Imani's words ring true; her friends are hard to hit, even if she herself is not. A man with a poker lunges in while she's braining his compatriot and shanks her in the kidney.

The Councilor continued to try to push back the gang, none of their strikes hitting flesh, but, if they were lucky, perhaps pushing the gang members back closer to the walls, "Get that droid in here! This is far too dangerous for this part of the level!" Whether the others in the team would do anything related to that, they did not look back to check, only attempting to keep the focus on themselves.

"Why would you destroy your own home?!" Shadra shrieks the question even as she pivots and stomps to add momentum to her weapon's forward thrust. The weapon sinks deep in to the flesh of another pledge: the penetration wounds, it's the twist she adds that ravages internal organs to make things lethal.

There's a manic edge to Shadra's eyes. They are wide and limned in red as tears mix with the acrid air and begin to irritate her eyes. There's a whisper then, some nagging memory in the back of her head that calls to her. Her grimace fades to be replaced with something more placid bordering on the edge of shock. "Love?" She straightens and turns to the source of the voice only to find one of the other pledges taking advantage of her focus on one of his peers. Slipping under the weapon with an eerie grace, her face contorts back to one of animosity.

What happens when you charge into a room full of gang members? You get shanked, that's what. Imani did so well with the first one, but what she didn't see was the man with the poker. This is a new and unpleasant experience, getting stabbed with a poker. She staggers forward away from her assailant and drops to her knees, the weapon unfortunately pulling away as she does. She's usually shot, or stabbed with lightsabers, it's a rare thing that she has an injury that actually bleeds much, and she doesn't particularly care for the sensation. Still, there is murdering to do and so she forces herself to her feet, probably doing herself more harm in the process. She allows herself about two seconds to breathe, and then she lunges forward, missing the intended target with her weapon, but an unfortunate second fellow is caught and pierced with the sharp point.

The gang fights with neither precision nor grace, and the kind of boisterous energy they engaged the Sith acolytes with initially quickly shifts to an animal ferocity as they realize that this is no petty turf war where a few stabs are exchanged and everyone goes home in need of stitches and a tetanus booster. This is a fight to the death, and the realization shows in the way that the gangmembers increasingly cast furtive glances between exchanges towards the exits, including the windows.

"Claiming ownership of something is not the same as holding it." The Councilor continued to move, edging the remainder of the gang away from any route of escape. One strike to push back, another to eliminate a target, another to push back. It was slower work than they might have liked, but not every day could be a day to run towards victory. Many days, in fact, were nothing but chipping away at a stone.

The whisper of warning fades once Shadra's attention is focused on the punk and her heart sinks with the weight of the memory it had evoked. Her animosity pivots to melancholy. It only takes her one more step to dodge the clumsy blades hurtled at her person before she identifies an opening. Shifting to one side, she tosses the pike to one hand and skewers the young individual's torso. She whirls around then, head on a pivot to hunt for assailants and drink in the macabre scene in all its lurid detail. The pike has been left in its target and sticks up like a flag planted in a newly discovered moon.

"Why," Shadra crumples and drops to her knees. Her palms face up. "Why would you destroy such a thing?" The question is posited to the dead once more.

"I'm bleeding pretty bad here," Imani says to let the doctor among them know that things aren't all peachy. She's flagging a little bit, but not so much that she can't swing her weapon at one last member of the gang. It hits, and down they go. Which is a good thing because she staggers back after that, having to brace herself against a questionable wall so she doesn't just fall over.

After an admittedly brief but furious exchange, the true believers of this budding sect of spare but prolific firebugs are killed off, leaving those less invested to flee the nest through any available egress, leaving their tanks of propellant behind and likely on to more traditional forms of crime.

"Guys, watch out," a familiar, nasally voice calls faintly from the hole in the wall. "They passed- they passed through the flame!"

In the wreckage of the erstwhile condiminiums, written beneath one of the many tag signs that decorate the ruined walls, a simple epitaph scrawled with a finger in soot answers Shadra's question: 'to see it burn, and stand alone amid the ashes'.