An Unexpected Encounter. (Reiger v. Ruri)

[Cisco]

(OOC: This is just a quick battle between one of mine and Ruri's Characters.)

Raxus Prime was apparently at one time a beautiful planet but now, Now it was just a scrap heap. Broken down droids, ships, and small structures covered her surface. Though the place was a living hell it still had a breathable atmosphere and was often salvaged from. It wasn't a place most people would go if they had a choice. Most would probably avoid it like someone would try to avoid being shot. Not everyone did though, Down on the surface one Roran Grey sifted through piles of junk. Looking for usable parts or metals. He wasn't having much luck.

"You'd swear half of this stuff is made of rust." He mused to himself as he poked through some scraps before standing to his feet and beginning to walk off, crossing over a metal girder that bridged the gap over a toxic river. He'd been running around the planet for a few hours now. His search proving fruitless.

 

[Ruri]

Raxus Prime, such a fitting metaphor for the rest of this depraved galaxy. All is transient; power is as fickle as it is commanding. Despite all of the glory one may have attained, it is all too easy to fall from grace and be succeeded by another. Eternity is a ludicrous concept.

A ripple reverberating through the sickly, tawny cloud cover of the planet was all that signaled his coming.

Seemingly from nothingness, a slender form materialized and dropped about twenty feet onto the ground, landing with the lithesome grace of a feline in one of the few areas not covered in various heaps of scrap. A low, reverberating hum like the purr of a sleeping gundark rose and then slowly fell, causing the air to tremble in its wake before slowly settling down. With that, the only sounds were the blusters of the modest wind with the far-away sounds of come form of construction or salvage occurring.

And the sound of the Prey, though he hardly needed auditory assurance. He could smell his presence, practically taste his life-essence in the very air. His coiled probosci trembled within his cheek-pouches with the excitement of it.

The Jedi is near.

With the slow, deliberate grace of a felinx awakening from its nap, Kyros Aurion drew himself to his full height and surveilled his surroundings with a golden gaze that oddly matched the hue of the world he had landed on. His nose squirmed a bit upon tasting the toxin-laden air, and he reached up with his hands to adjust the wrappings of the long, ragged scarf coiled about his neck. Pulling them tighter over his airways staved off the stench of slow, metallic decay. Though his body was far more resilient in the face of poison than that of a human, it didn't mean he enjoyed the stink of this forgotten husk of a planet.

The Anzat was dressed fairly simply today. A sleeveless leather tunic over matching leggings was cinched at the waste with a belt bound by golden buckle. His hands bore his characteristic black gauntlets worn over longer leather under-gloves that stretched up his arms past the elbows, but still left the distal portion of his deltoids and part of the upper arm bare. The noxious air bit at his bare skin inhospitably, making him wish he had covered himself more completely. Worn leather boots protected his feet from the gritty, greasy soil beneath their soles.

Where weaponry was concerned, Kyros had decided to opt for the basics for this particular mark. While his modified FC-1 Flachette System was a tried and true killer of both Jedi and Sith, he had found that recently he eschewed efficiency for something of a challenge in his work. On this particular day he carried a conventional one-handed blaster pistol on the right hip, whereas an odd-looking silvery metallic whip danged in tight coils from the other.

And then, there was of course the lightsaber.

This would be his first time bringing the weapon on the hunt. Typically he only used lightsabers if he somehow came across one in the middle of a job. He was not confident enough to trust himself with one, and especially not against a Jedi. However, the weapon had, in ways he could not begin to explain, somehow convinced him otherwise. Thus, he had cautiously brought it along as a backup weapon that, if nothing else, perhaps could take the Jedi by surprise. It was lashed to his hip not in the traditional spot, but rather horizontally across the back of his hips where it was less conspicuous.

Despite the rancid smells permeating the air and constantly assaulting Kyros' shrouded nostrils and mouth, the Jedi's presence was as clear to him as a star against the inky black of space. It was not true scent that Kyros pursued so viciously, but rather his very presence in that cosmic entity the Jedi referred to as "the Force". Such a foolish concept, but then again it wasn't even the dumbest thing the loose collection of ruling sentients had come up with over the millennia.

I have seen this planet the head of a beautiful kingdom, and yet now look at it. It is the galaxy's scrap heap. One day, the rest of it will follow suit. And through it all, I will watch and survive where all others fail.

It was a moment more that the Anzat assassin surveyed the scene before he moved with a liquid, cautious grace towards the Jedi presence. He had brought his ship in a fair distance away so as not to be noticed, as even with the extensive low-observable features of his ship, the Seraph still made noise. His movement bent and extended into a loping jog, carrying him nimbly up the side of a scrap pile and around its side rather than over its crest. He was careful to keep a sharp read on the Jedi through reverberations in the energies about him, remaining out sight range by using the trash heaps for cover while simultaneously closing on the youth's position with a patient leisure that was completely silent. He was careful to leap between large, well-supported bits of scrap to avoid jarring smaller pieces loose and giving himself away.

Upon reaching the heap behind the Jedi's position, Kyros took a furtive gaze around a shredded hyperdrive casing to see the man for the first time, crossing over a rusty girder that granted passage across an acidic river. He carefully absorbed all sensory data that reached him from his surroundings, analyzing them with a machine-like efficiency to decide on the best attack angle. Climbing to a higher vantage point while still remaining out of sight and perfectly noiseless, Kyros prepared for his attack.

He knew full well that it was quite possible the Jedi had his wits about him and had been mindful enough to sense his coming, but he had killed enough Jedi to be reasonably confident he had the drop on him. It mattered little anyway. The Jedi would inevitably fall, and would make a remarkable meal at the same time. He had not fed in some time, and the prospect of such a succulent morsel within his grasp was simply mouthwatering, even without so many credits promised for his head.

Death came to all, and today it was the Jedi Roran Grey's turn.

 

[Cisco]

The Jedi had continued making his way through the heaps of garbage that had been packed down over the years. He climbed over some junk as he made his way around, scanning over the piles of junk. He was oblivious, almost painfully so, to what was about to transpire. His movements were relatively slow as he dodged through scraps of metal and wrecks that seemingly made up the only landmass on the planet.

He didn't have the looks of a Jedi. No, one would expect a Jedi to be clad in robes or something. Rather than he was clad fully in grey painted armour that covered most all of his body leaving little unprotected. Whether this was actual armour he wore or just something to prevent him from catching tetanus was debatable.

That was not the only thing off about him though, at his waist in addition to a firmly secured object, which could have been anything, there were a pair of blasters holstered on each thigh with brown leather straps. If it wasn't for his strong yet untamed presence in the force one could have easily thought him to be just another man.

Slowly he would continue on. eventually making his way through the path in the garbage heap to what seemed to be a dead end. A somewhat round fifty by fifty foot piece of metal that was probably part of a space ship with walls of garbage stacked at least twenty feet high. He stared up to the wall of garbage blocking him from progressing any farther. If he wanted to walk around he would have to go back. As he looked though he was still unaware of that which stalked him.

 

[Ruri]

The besmirched, acidic clouds of Raxus Prime scattered the light of the sun and distorted it into a yellowish haze that rested on the surface like a fetid mist. The overcast skies hid the shadows and made Kyros’ approach all the easier. He was but a whip of the wind moving over the surface of the scrap heaps, a dark brown blur that was gone before the double-take. As the nescient Jedi worked himself unwittingly into an area blocking his escape in three cardinal directions, Kyros rippled like a sudden whirl of dust behind the trash heaps well over the man’s head.

The armor threw him for a loop and brought a curl to his lip in irritation. The Anzat came to rest on his haunches just below the lip of the scrap heap directly in front of the Jedi and behind the great steel slab that halted his progress. His ragged scarves curled into a fluttering rest on a jagged slap of transparisteel behind him as his gauntleted hands stabilized his position with a touch here or there. Kyros had not dared observe the Jedi from the air for fear of alerting him to the approaching death. As a result, he had taken this mark to be like most Jedi: avoiding heavy armor in favor of lighter robes that enabled greater freedom of movement and fostered a nonviolent stance. His weaponry was geared towards one who was dressed in such a fashion, and was rather useless on the whole against such steel raiment. Then again, it made little difference. It simply meant his already uncannily precise strikes would have to be aimed at joints and weaknesses, and he would have to use his superior position and cunning to his advantage.

And if there was one in the galaxy best suited to these tasks, it was the mythic Shachath.

The aura of the Jedi scintillated in ribbons through the current of the life-essence about them. There was little that was able to subsist for long on this planet, so even with his eyes closed and scrap blocking his vision, Kyros could still just taste the man blazing from below. The Anzat had to reign in his natural tendencies for the moment; he typically preferred certain other prey, but it had simply been too long since his last meal. It seemed that as the years passed, Kyros grew evermore ravenous. The hunger gripped his chest at that very moment, flexing his fingers against the hard steel with the feel of the savory creature that was so very close to his grasp. The Anzat forced back the feeling and wrapped his mind in a steely calm that was as sharp as the broken steel bits all around him. And with his body and mind so stilled, he reached out to touch the Jedi’s mind.

The Anzat’s influence came as subtly as a change in the wind, as powerful as the ocean against a fishing boat, and yet as luscious as the lick of a lover against the skin. Anzati were blessed with natural powers of mind control akin to a Jedi’s mind tricks, and even experienced Force-users had been easily seduced by them in the past. Kyros settled his powers around the Jedi’s mind calmly but quickly, like a deadly constrictor settling its coils around its prey. His presence was entirely non-threatening in feel, attempting merely to subdue the young man and calm him into a thoughtless submission. He breathed the warm breath of the Anzati into the Jedi’s very soul, quivering in anticipation of the Force presence that he was even then beginning to feed on even as he silently shifted his position yet again. Aurion’s influence would be stronger were he closer (and even more so if she were a woman), but he didn’t really need to control him for long.

Just long enough to think nothing of avoiding the great fifty-foot piece of steel, as it tottered before his very eyes and began to fall, threatening to flatten him easily upon its landing.

 

[Cisco]

Roran's mind had pulled a blank as he stood there. The sound of metal creaking, trash moving, and even the smell of Raxus Prime was all but non-existent to him to him as the metal disk fell downwards towards him.

"Oh no." His eyes suddenly widened as it dawned on him that there was a gigantic god damned fifty foot chunk of steel falling down towards him. He didn't have much time to react and even less to get away. He began to fall backwards. "Fire!" His voice echoed out as, His Jet pack suddenly coming to life as it violently shot him back, leaving him to tumble across the ground, ending up on his knees with a slight slide.

The metal disk came to the ground with a crash, rattling the ground and causing some chunks of garbage to fall from the heaps and to the ground. The area ahead of him had been opened. There was something amiss though, He could have sworn that that thing was firmly stuck into the ground, and it was weird, how he blanked out like that. Something was Amiss and he knew it.

He stood to his feet and walked forward onto the metal, his boots slapping obnoxiously with every step. He glanced around him as he continued onwards past the metal. He couldn't see or sense anybody. But he had a feeling they were there, For now he would have no choice but to move on and keep his wits about him.

 

[Ruri]

For a long moment, all was silent except the clanking footsteps of the Jedi as he ambled cautiously across the fallen piece of metal. The durasteel hull kicked up clouds of dust at its impact, which even now swirled about him in their sudden fury at having been awakened so rudely. However, though it seemed for a moment that the dust was settling, it suddenly began to rise up and whirl around with greater tenacity. The air around the Knight became thick with grains of dust blackened with oil and bits of rust, vision becoming virtually impossible. Aside from the licks and whips of the suddenly fell wind, all was as silent as the grave.

Then, from somewhere up and off to the Jedi’s right, there was a muffled twang like that of a spring release. In the blink of an eye, a dark object blasted out of the sandy swirls at the Jedi Knight, with what appeared to be a thin cord behind it, whirling in a spiral as it raced after the dark object it was fastened to. It was aimed not at his chest, but rather for his right arm. Though it was a blur and moving too fast to see clearly, it appeared to be a small, bladed circle akin to a throwing star. As the object reached the Jedi’s arm, there was a sudden yank on the rope that was designed to change its flight path and cause it to whip around the Jedi’s arm. If it struck properly, the flexisteel cord would wrap tightly around the Jedi’s armored arm. Once pulled taught, the arm would be effectively useless to the Jedi. Simultaneously, from the general region that the rope led back to in the opaque swirls of dust, came a barrage of blaster pistol shots aimed primarily at the hips and upper legs.

The objective was clear to anyone who might be watching: with the Jedi’s dominant hand so disabled, he could not draw his lightsaber with it and perform the precision movements required to deflect blaster shots. Even if he managed to draw it with his other hand, it was less likely he’d be able to deflect effectively without his other. The blaster bolts were aimed at the hips because that was where his weaponry was localized, and if damage could be inflicted before they were drawn the Jedi would be likely to be subdued much more quickly.

Kyros needed him alive...well, at least for a few minutes.

 

[Cisco]

Roran had continued to walk across the fallen metal, the dust sweeping in. Just when it would seem to begin go settle down though it would start back up unnaturally stronger than before. He stopped in his tracks, it was like he was looking through a thick dark fog, that stopped him from seeing very far. It was unnatural. He already knew he was being hunted. It seemed like it'd be a good time for someone to strike, He beginning to understand though. First the mind screwup earlier, and now.

An Illusion?

The thought had but not a moment to think about that as a faint 'twang' echoed through the air. Moments later his arm was hit by something and as he looked down he could but watch as the device wrapped a few times around his armoured wrist and pulled tight. He knew what was coming next but he did have the advantage in this situation. He wasn't right handed.

The lightsaber at his waist flew to his open left hand that was already in motion. Igniting on contact it cut through the cord attached to his arm like a hot knife through hot butter. The bladed hook unraveled and fell to the ground with as he continued to move his arm downwards and pointed the blade down as he began to block the shots. His movements were minute as he moved his downward pointed blade side to side, deflecting the short barrage of bolts.

He continued to stand there, lowering and pointing his lightsaber down towards the ground, his feet spread shoulder width apart. He was far from uninjured though, in the first motion he made to free his arm he had been hit twice, once lightly along the side and the other into the left thigh, another seemed to have glanced along the side of his waist and one he deflected had glanced off his shoulder. Black marks had been left in their wake, the two that hit solidly left small holes in the armour burning the skin beneath but the damage itself was largely absorbed and Roran himself seemed completely oblivious and unaware of the damage, almost as if he simply didn't feel it.

I know you're out there!

He called out as he began to focus, allowing the force to flow through him as he tried to detect the enemy and anticipate his next movement. He wouldn't allow himself to be taken by surprise again. No, He'd make his enemy have to come to him.