Desert Cogs And Springs

[Veritas et Lux]

Clementine was already half way to the junkyard by now. Her adrenaline began to pump- she knew she had to get in to her locker quietly so she'd be able to grab her blaster, but before she knew what was going on the ground, buildings, and sky had seemed to meld together in a bleeding whirring jubilee of optical confusion. When her brain had caught up with her eyes she was sitting up in the sand with both legs extended outwards, shaking sand from her shirt. The girl had force pulled her, and at first it seemed as if she was hostile. Clenching her fists together and jumping to her feet at once, Clementine had actually thought for once and assessed the situation. Nuala wasn't holding a lightsaber, and she wasn't in any stance or position of attack. Still though, Clementine was pretty confused even as she unclenched her fists and threw her arms up in the air.
"The poodoo- Kriffing- .... Wha-?", she began for a moment before actually letting Nuala talk.

The girl made sense, even if she didn't like it. It half-way insulted her, considering that she was a mandalorian and her mother and father were both prestigious beyond measure in the culture of her people and all, but at the same time in the reality of things Clementine wasn't neither her mother or father- she was Clementine. She had to get back into the junkyard though, that was for certain. Taking in a deep breath, holding it, and letting it out again, Clementine had to convince Nuala to help her. It wasn't an option in her head.
"Okay, Nuala. I'll take your advice, but remember... I am a mandalorian, and I've been bred and taught to wage war. I have a locker in the main building, and if we can get to it I have no doubt that you and I could cream whoever is in there waiting for us.", she began, raising her arm to hold her hand out to Nuala.
"So what do you say? Help me out some and I'll help you. I can get you anything you need for your mission or otherwise. Credits, parts, intel- anything.""

 

[SoloWing]

Nuala actually looked hurt at Citrus' words. To put it in terms of her old world, Citrus was one of the gang now. You didn't turn your back on a pal who was in trouble. It was something that just didn't have to be said. Sure, Nuala might have spazzed about seeing Citrus going in all gung-ho, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to help. Far from it.

"I don't give two figs about your rewards. I give a whole lot more than two figs about your well-being." Nuala accepted the girl's hand. "Anyone who messes with my pal has to mess with me. So let's do this the smart way and bring these dastards to justice."

Ugh. The Jedi really were rubbing off on her. Of all the things in the universe, Nuala had never quite expected to hear herself say that. A sun must have just gone supernova or something just from how unlikely it was.

"Let's go get your locker and show these guys a thing or three."

 

[Veritas et Lux]

Clementine paused for a moment in silence, brushing off the rest of the sand from her shorts. Things didn't really make sense still, between adrenaline, being jostled around, and having her vision collapse into a blur; she was caught for a moment as if lagging to keep her brain and body in sync. Then she remembered! The room with her locker in it had a window that poked out to the left side of the building near the rusty aluminum fence that cut off and surrounded the junkyard. She rubbed her eyes for a minute and made sure that she was the least bit oriented before actually continuing on with Nuala.
Shaking her head back and forth, sort of shaking off everything and getting back into the right state of mind, Clementine pointed outwards to the right side of the building. "Okay, okay. We got this."
Clementine's goofy grin started to come back, the kind that said 'I am Clementine! Bite me!'
"Look... There's a window on the right side of the building. If you can help me through it, I can grab my guns and clear the way for you to enter through the front door.", she finished off with a fist pounding down into her palm.
"Sound like a plan, girlscout?"

 

[SoloWing]

"If you think I'm a girlscout, then you need your eyes checked." Nuala deadpanned. She was a self-admitted thief, that was hardly a picture of sainthood.

Normally, Nuala would make some crack about asking the midget girl to give anyone a boost. But this wasn't a normal set of circumstances. Nuala had the force on her side now; that was a royal gamebreaker.

She then continued: "But you've got a plan. After you, Citrus."

 

[Veritas et Lux]

And with that, Clementine chuckled, turned with a running start, and threw her arm over her shoulder beckoning Nuala to follow her in a hasty dash to the right side of the building. "Come on, Nuala. Hurry!", she said before her back was completely turned to her jedi friend. In a frenzied fury of sand being kicked up by the two as they ran fast so not to linger about in the open, Clementine had immediately taken a small smirk at the nickname that she hadn't really noticed until now. 'Citrus'.... She liked it....

Now, alongside the eastern wall of the place, Clementine pointed to a window up high near the point where the wavy aluminum fence met part of the building's wall before continuing. She could probably grab the ledge with a jump, but she'd need Nuala to give her that extra umph to get inside quickly.

"Okay, here it goes.", she said before taking in a deep breath and leaping to grab the ledge with her fingers.
"Come on, Nuala! Push me in!"

 

[SoloWing]

Bossy, bossy, bossy. Nuala ignored the urge to ram a force push up into Citrus and just chalked it all up to excitement and general bloodlust. According to stereotype, mandalorians were supposed to be all warmonger-y. Maybe Citrus was just feeling a bit of that now.

Nevertheless, she moved forward and grabbed the girl's foot. A grunt escaped her lips as Nuala braced herself and then hefted, propeling Citrus up and into the window. Once that was done, Nuala took a step back and surveyed the situation. So far, so good. No one around.

"S'all you, girl." Nuala waved Citrus on.

 

[Veritas et Lux]

She felt Nuala's hands beneath her feet as her body seemed to become lighter. Quickly, she pulled herself up into the room before sliding her stomach across the windowsill and falling into the room. Clementine kept her arms out in front of her, but it wasn't enough to keep from clumsily crashing onto the tile beneath her. Hearing Nuala from outside, she quickly made her way from the awkward position on the floor to her feet. The locker room wasn't exactly a 'locker room', but more of an office with a few lockers on one wall. Clementine remembered the first time she'd came into the place, she was reluctant to put her blaster up just in case if someone, anyone were to steal it. Man, how she wished she wouldn't have put it up now.
"Alright, I'm getting my stuff from my locker now... I'll create a distraction while you go back around to the front door.", she said back to Nuala as she rushed over to the green metal panel lined up on the wall. Quickly, she punched in her code and the thing swung open to reveal a battle carbine, marksman rifle, and two holdout blaster pistols along with a pack, her gear.

There wasn't much too it either, simply throwing the marksman rifle around her back by the strap, tying the two sheathed pistols onto her armor (one on her chestplate and the other on her cord), and finally looking down the sights of the carbine, was enough for her to be battle ready that instance. For a moment, she had thought about the gun that she'd designed that was now sitting in her hands, and then she couldn't help but to feel sorry for the first asshole to get his armor blown through when she decided to open the door into the storefront. Clementine was loaded with the safety off, standing in front of the beaten-looking green metal door. She wanted to wait a minute longer for Nuala to get into position, but she wasn't really sure whether it had been long enough or even too long... "Wellp... I guess I'm about to find out.", she chuckled inside, took a deep breath, and cleared her mind....

SLAM

KRA-pew, KRA-pew, KRA-pew, KRA-pew

SLAM

KRA-pew, KRA-pew

"Eat this!"​

Only three sounds were heard at first; The metal door slamming open... Clementine's carbine going off... And finally, merc blood painting the tiles. After that, aClementine was so jacked up on adrenaline that she couldn't even remember what was going on until Nuala was inside with her, her lightsaber flaming.

 

[SoloWing]

"Well..." Nuala rendered her verdict. "That was... borderline anticlimactic. Poor guys must've put all their eggs in one basket, expecting to just pin us in as we came charging through the front door. Too bad that they never bothered to check their six. But that's hired help for ya."

From her position just inside of the doorway, it was easy to follow the trail of destruction back to its starting point. The multiple dead bodies had fallen like dominoes, each one pointed away from the source of the disturbance-- the back door. Evidently little Citrus lived up to the mando name.

"Recognize any of 'em?" Nuala asked.

She stepped forward and nudged one of the corpses with her foot. This guy kinda looked like one of the thugs that they'd taken down in the alleyway, but it was hard to tell after he'd taken a blaster bolt to the face. Facial features didn't tend to stick around after being subjected to superheated plasma.

 

[Veritas et Lux]

Clementine's hands were shaking from the adrenaline high that she had. The room was a bit covered in blood, about eight men dead, which was a bit ridiculous to Clementine. She stared at them all for a brief moment each, checking their faces. However, she just couldn't shake the shakes, man! She was borderline freaking out inside, even if it didn't show it. Her heart beat was racing still and her mind was hard to focus, yet on the outside she just seemed to stare blankly at all of the men- the dead men. It frightened her, honestly, the idea of all the blood that she just shed when she had blacked out.
Clementine struggled to breathe in and out deep breaths through the nose and out of the mouth in attempt to calm herself. She didn't really recognize any of the men here, they must have been fresh mercs sent to clean up this place... Didn't matter now though, they were all dead anyways and Clementine was sure that they were working for whoever the assholes that tried to rob her in the alleyway a few hours earlier were working for.

Calming her self some, Clementine turned to Nuala, taking in another deep breath before letting it out.
"That was the first time I've ever actually killed anyone... I- I don't know what t- ... say....", she began, Clementine's tone began slowly changed around a bit and seemed a lot more serious than before.
"I- I mean, I've went through training and practice, b- ..... never ...."

It was a horrible bit shocking, having to kill someone unexpectedly, and even more so to storm a room and kill eight unexpectedly, or however many she had killed before Nu had shown up, however, to sit there and look them all in the faces afterwards was a different story. The mere presence of them all around here made her nauseous.

"Come on, Nu... Let's get ready for whatever's out back, okay? I'm sure there's more, and I need to hurry up and get off'dis rock...", Clementine cocked her carbine and locked it while pulling out her marksman rifle from around her back. She'd find a vantage point in the open junkyard, and maybe the two could sneak around without causing too much alarm. If she was going to kill someone, she wanted it to be quick and clean, systematically.

 

[SoloWing]

Nuala shot Citrus a questioning look. Her first time? Oy. That was never a good thing. She frowned for a moment, recalling how her first kill had felt. It was one of the sickest sensations that she'd ever experienced; made her glad that she didn't have to do it too often.

But Citrus had never before been in this situation. Nuala couldn't just let that go. Behind the brave face and the bravado, she knew what Citrus had to be feeling. That had to be addressed.

"Hold up a second." Nuala said. She stepped over to Citrus and put a comforting hand on the other girl's shoulder.

"You did what you had to do, kid." The inflection in her voice made it obvious that she was quoting someone else and not using the term to be condescending. "It was them or you. Maybe that doesn't make it right-- or even sane-- but necessity doesn't care. Remember this feeling. Remember it every time you find yourself in this situation and ask yourself whether you've really got to snuff out the life or if there's another way.

"This sort of horror is a good thing. It means you're human. The moment that you lose that horror then you might as well put that pistol to your temple and pull the trigger, because you've become the very thing you hate." She paused for a second and then continued. "That's what I've been told, anyway. It's worked out alright so far."

 

[Veritas et Lux]

Clementine stood there, Nu's hand on her shoulder. The room was ragged and smelly, the damned wallpaper almost all of the way off and the furniture looked like it was still from the agrarian ages. Flies were already starting to swarm around the dead bodies within the place, and the smell of rancid meet filled the air from thee depths of the moldy ceiling tiles. Outside, Clementine could see the sand swirling around and around in the heat of the light. All was silent, and all seemed to reverberate with a hum of even more silence.
Clementine had taken in what Nuala had to say, her voice of reason. She let it sink in before breaking her trance of staring into the sand outside.
She smiled before rubbing her forehead back and forth.

"Yea, I guess you're right, Nue. I just, uh.... I guess it's better to get that out of the way now instead of just ignoring it for the rest of my life. Heh.", with her hand reaching around to touch the back of her neck, Clementine took another deep breath to recompose herself before patting Nue on the back. "Now come on, I've just got a few things out here I need to get, but the mercs aint it."

She turned, walking towards the open back door and pressing her body against the wall. She knew the junkyard better than Nue did, so she'd probably have to lead the way through, but leading Nue through the backdoor wasn't her plan at all- nah, she'd learned better earlier when it came to the front door. Kneeling down she made her way beneath the window and peaked out. There wasn't anyone... It was a little bit too quiet.

 

[SoloWing]

Nuala followed Citrus across the room. It looked like her mando friend was learning, since Citrus hadn't conveniently framed herself in the doorway for any other thug to pick off.

Nue paused by the window and let herself get a feel for the force. The tugs and swirls of the force stretched through the junkyard in a thing of beauty; she traveled along those lines. It was easy enough to pick up where there was extra life in the junkyard. Some of it was much too small to be a threat-- probably a mynock or something-- but the rest... that was another story.

"Looks like there's at least three guys out there camped behind the junkheaps." Nuala explained her findings; pointed towards the offending heap. "I can feel 'em through the force. I doubt that they're friendly... I might be able to whip up a distraction, though. We'd just have to book it once it goes down."

 

[Veritas et Lux]

Clementine looked at Nuala, nodding her head in comprehension. Clementine saw where she was pointing, and knew the junkyard pretty well. She crouched down, peaking around the door to turn left behind immediate junk piles near the back door.
From where she was at, Clementine could easily pick off anyone coming from behind the piles, considering that there was only one way out from behind the junk piles over there, and it was a bottle neck.
"Nuala... Draw them out, and when they come through there I'll pick them of, okay?"

 

[SoloWing]

"Well, that's not quite what I meant, but I'll see what I can do." Nuala said slowly.

Now... how to go about doing that? She turned a critical eye on the surrounding junk piles and tried to figure out the best way to flush out some varmints. The immediate answer was obvious enough. But even if she could topple all of the scrap heaps, Nuala didn't exactly want to bury anyone alive.

She needed some sort of reason for those guys to abandon their posts and come charging out into the open. If they hadn't budged for blaster fire, then what would make them move? That put her right back where she started.

Welp, it didn't look like it could be helped. Nuala set her gaze on one of the far junk stacks and gathered up a wall of force energy. All at once, she cut loose and sent it slamming into the top of the junk heap. The tower of trash groaned dangerously and then began toppling over. Debris and loose garbage began raining down into the canyon.

If that didn't make those guys move, then Nuala didn't know what would. She gathered her force reserves and struck again. Even more garbage rained down on their foes.

 

[Veritas et Lux]

Clementine waited for the witless idiots to be funneled into scope, but what was even more ludicrous was that Nuala had actually toppled piles of garbage down. That was by far unexpected, but hell, it worked good enough.
As dust and sand rose up into the air, little miniscule particles floating into Clementine's scoped view, she awaited for them to come out at any second.

It was a gut instinct... Kind of weird, but it seemed that she just knew when to hold her breath and brace for that first guy coming around the corner.
Miliseconds passed and blam! A head was right within her crosshairs.
She squeezed her finger, and now all that exist was a charred face.

But it didn't stop there! After that first shot, those that were already running didn't even have enough time to comprehend what was happening so to stop running before....

BLAM!
BLAM!
BLAM!

Each and every shot coupled with the familiarity of a bolt-action sniper rifle....

"Nuala, come on! Search for anyone else!", Clementine hollered out, taking her carbine back from around her back.

 

[SoloWing]

Nuala suppressed another flash of irritation at that. She wasn't quite sure why Citrus' quirk of putting her name in front of the orders gulled her like that. It just did. Or maybe that wasn't what was irking her and her frustration was just latching onto something else.

Right about the time that the thought crossed her mind, so did understanding. Nuala grunted over it. This was the first time that she had ever actively hunted anyone down. Sure, she'd defended herself and fought off a few attacks here and there. But going out of her way to attack other people? That was a new one for her. It was a nasty feeling; she didn't quite like the taste of it.

Thankfully, she wasn't the one killing these people. It was a technicality, but one that Nuala was going to hang on to for all she was worth.

"There's one... maybe two... more out there. But its faint... whoever it is or was, I think they're booking it." Nuala frowned as she listened to the currents of the force. "There may be more out there, but I can't tell from this distance."

 

[Veritas et Lux]

(i didn't mean to type it like that. it should have been Nuala, come one, let's search for anyone else.) :/

 

[Veritas et Lux]

hey solo, i'm sorry but I'm going to be honest and say that I'm not in any condition to finish this thread. Already being backed up with mando faction high command duties along with write ups and collaborating and basically helping ender pull the faction out of a pile of shit and the real life, I just couldn't finish any small threads. Now though, some more stuff has hit me RL and I'm basically not even in any position to be on the site and the only reason im actually on is to help ender. Im sorry... this was an amazingly awesome thread and probably the best of its kind that I've had and it sucks that I have to put it down... but i have to. Ill write a short summary of what happens right now: )


Clementine nodded at Nuala and went to get the things that she needed out of the junkyard. She easily replaced the converters on the engine and it was ready to be sold. Later that day she would make a large lump sum off of it. She hugged Nuala and thanked her for everything, saying that if she ever needed her to get ahold of her. She continued to trade contact information and more, hugging before Clementine finally walked her back to her jedi friends.
"Good luck, Nue! I hope you stay safe!"

 

[SoloWing]

((No worries. Stuff happens and, believe me, I understand that. We'll just remember the thread for what it was, not how it ended up. ;) ))

 

[Veritas et Lux]

Gosh. This has got to be one of my most favorite threads.