Man with a Mission

[Gaz Fallwen]

.

Mandalore
1453 local time​

Mandalore. A hellhole. A place so barbaric and vile, Gaz couldn't help but grimace as he walked its streets, catching himself making faces quick enough that he managed to prevent himself from looking at someone in the eye; glaring at someone was grounds for a fistfight in merry Mandalore, where civilization came to die.

He had not been to the planet many times before, but each time had been both memorable and traumatic in equal parts. This had been his father's home planet, but Gaz felt no attachment to it. Only malice. If the Empire possessed some sort of weapon of mass destruction, he would ask that it be leveled directly at Mandalore in hopes of making the galaxy a better place by removing one of its most backwards cultures.

But that was not level-headed thinking. It's hard to practice level-headed thinking when you're in your least favorite place in the universe, but the best the Sith could do was try. He didn't want to make a fool of himself.

Gaz was propped up on the wall of an alley, waiting for his contact. She was a private detective from what he understood, and her work had gotten them far enough. She'd managed to track down the kidnapper they were about to capture, which was impressive enough. Whether she could fight was a whole other ordeal, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious.

@Black Noise

 

[Larisa Arkyadvich]

When someone said they wanted to hire Larisa, she wasn't surprised. The Investigator was working to make a name for herself with the intent of rising through the Imperial Republica ranks as quickly as possible. However, when the person who contacted her turned out to be a member of the Old Empire, Larisa was far more than simply surprised. A million things raced through her head, maybe it was a trap, maybe he had no idea who she was, it could have been anything. Whatever it was, however, it still ended up with Larisa walking the streets of Mandalore towards their agreed upon meeting spot.

She wore nothing that would identify her as anything other than another mercenary. Hooked to her belt were her holdout blaster, vibroblade, and flashbangs. In her hands, a scattergun that couldn't be set to anything more than stun. She enjoyed that weapon. It was its inherent non-lethality that allowed her to carry it wherever she liked in the entire galaxy. No matter how hard anyone tried, the gun couldn't kill people. However, she could always cut her enemy's throats once they were unconscious.

Stopping outside of the alleyway where she agreed to meet her contractor, Larisa looked in and quickly spotted him. Leaning against a wall, looking edgy as all hell. To be fair, in her black clothes and blue eyeliner, the investigator really couldn't hold wanting to look tough and badass against him. Sensing his malice, Larisa flashes a fake smile and conceals her presence within the Force. Approaching the man, she held up a hand in a quick wave and called out to him.

"Good day. I'm under the impression you need someone found? I'm the woman you've hired, Larisa. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Can you provide me with some basic information about the target?"

While she spoke, she kept her body prepared to attack at a moment's notice. She would not be surprised if this ended up being a trap. Technically, the two of them were at war. However, she did not intend to let him know of her allegiance, and if he showed any knowledge of it, she would be forced to eliminate him.

 

[Gaz Fallwen]

.

The woman approached, a bit more directly than he would have liked. A passerby glanced at her as she waved, but look away just as quickly. Gaz waved back and nodded.

"Wonderful to meet you. To be honest, all I know is that he's a Mandalorian who works for slavers, and happens to possess some information I'd like to learn as well." He stood upright, taking in the environment just in case she wasn't who she said she was - distrust had been something Gaz hadn't needed to learn in Academy. It was branded deep within him. If she were to attack, she would find formidable resistance, but he sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that. He just wanted to figure out where the hell his father was.

"Shall we? He's in the cantina around the corner in a booth in the far back. Hopefully we don't cause too much of a ruckus, but be prepared to have to fight your way out." And with that, he began walking, hands in his pockets, not straying too far from the hilt of his lightsaber. It would suck to have to take it out on a street full of Sith-hating Mandalorians.

@Black Noise

 

[Larisa Arkyadvich]

For all the darkness he emanated, the Sith was relatively calm and respectful. Larisa could work with that, hell she even appreciated it. Surely not everyone from the Old Empire was like this, otherwise there would be no war. Gripping her scattergun, she nodded followed after the man. She found no small amount of amusement in the fact that this man had hired an investigator to help him find a Mandalorian whose location he already had knowledge of. It was in this case that she wondered if he had hired her to help interrogate people.

Larisa loved interrogations.

Moving with Gaz, she watched his hands move into his pockets. Nudging him, she whispered lightheartedly to him, "Fair warning, if you pull your lovely identifier out here on Mandalore, I will bail on you. Mandalorian police aren't something I never want to meet. Keep it in your pants, ok?" And at that, Larisa moved into the bar.

It was a bustling cantina, dimly lit, with bad music playing from a local band in the back. The jet black haired woman scanned the bar and instantly identified the target. Corner booth, in the far back, shifty looking and totally alone. Once more, she whispered, "Stand in his way so he can't get up, I am going to sit with him." and she moved towards the back. Her movements were abnormally swift, aided by the Force, and she slipped into the other end of the booth before the man had even known what was going on.

A fake smile spread across her face as Larisa introduced herself, "Hey old friend! How are you doing?" Her scattergun under the table tapped against the man's leg once, indicating a weapon was being pointed in their direction. If the man moved to try and push past Gaz to get out of the chair, she'd open fire.

 

[Gaz Fallwen]

.

He chuckled quietly when she nudged him, keeping his eyes ahead but muttering back. "Trust me, alerting these barbarians is the last thing I wanna do right now." Gaz shifted his hand to his pistol. "I'll pretend I don't have it with me if that makes you feel safer."

The two entered the cantina without getting any glances from the patrons, their outfits blending them in with the mercenaries they were surrounded by. The Sith made a beeline for the back, brushing past people so fast they didn't even notice him. Gaz took up a spot right in front of the only exit the Mandalorian had possible, so that his only escape would be climbing over a table.

He glared at the man as Larisa greeted him, and recognition dawned on the bounty hunter's face, mingling with the tenseness that followed once the barrel of her blaster touched him. "Well hello there! Great to see you again." he remarked with a forced chuckle. No one nearby had been alerted yet, although the bartender was looking at Gaz, who still hadn't sat down. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.

The man switched gears and began muttering under his breath, vision shifting to Gaz. "I know you. You're Visrik's boy-" he spat, the latter sounding more like a bitter accusation than a remark. "-the one that took out a handful of my men. Nice of you to bring your lady friend for me, but I can't help you - what was it? Gus?"

Gaz's grip tightened on his pistol, but his facial expression remained the usual pokerface. "We just have a few questions. Would be nice of you to answer them and then we can all part ways." He spoke quietly enough that no one around besides the Mandalorian and Larisa could hear, and his voice was dripping his malice. "Would hate to make a scene." Suddenly, he slapped his hand down on the slaver's shoulder and erupted in laughter. "But that's just the typa stuff you see on 'Shaddaa, y'know? Funny shit, man. How have you been?"

Gaz telepathically sent a message to Larisa, since it seemed she would be doing the questioning. Ask about Visrik Fallwen's whereabouts. @Black Noise

 

[Larisa Arkyadvich]

Larisa rolled her eyes as the target and Gaz conversed with each other. She found such personal small talk to be so useless. If you talked to someone like they were a person, then the brain started to humanize them and it became more a difficulty to put them through a living hell. The black haired woman preferred to see targets like this as insects, or small vermin. It was so much easier then. Torturing them became something so mundane and easy, like tearing the legs of a spider and watching it crawl around til it died.

Tapping the gun against the man's leg once more, Larisa cleared her throat once Gaz sent her a telepathic message. Her voice never rose very loudly and never dropped to a threatening tone. Indeed, she kept a kind tone at all times, teasing even at certain points. Looking to the man, Larisa started speaking. "Please, my friend, this is a conversation between you and me. Now, would you like to know what little me has in my pocket? It's a DS-2 Stun Scattergun. Very legal, very nonlethal. I prefer it that way, you know! No matter what you do, if I hit you by 'accident' then you'll survive, all will be well.

"See, if you don't answer our questions, some very simple and very quick things will happen. I'll shoot you, which will stun you. We'll apologize to the bartender, explain that we are bounty hunters, then we'll drag you to a nearby hotel room. There, I'll gag you and have our mutual acquaintance here remove the mattress from a bed and bind you to the steel. I'll hook the power pack of my lovely scattergun, so very nonlethal, up to the bed frame. From there on, we'll electrocute you over and over til you tell us what I want to hear. Then who knows! I may keep electrocuting you til you shit yourself, piss all over the floor, and die in a heap of your own fluids."

Once more, Larisa tapped the weapon on the man's knee, "So, do you know a man named Visrik Fallwen? Kinda need to know where he is!" All the while she spoke, she was fully prepared to open fire on the man at any point if he dared move a single inch. She would cut off her speech as needed if anything out of the ordinary happened, then she'd fire.

 

[Gaz Fallwen]

.

Gaz could tell the Mandalorian was damn near about to shit himself, despite his facade. Then again, they'd interrupted him in the middle of a casual meal and thrown him into a life or death situation, so it was quite understandable he'd react that way.

Their "hostage" sighed quietly and looked at the plate in front of him resignedly, hands at his sides. His eyes didn't move from the meal - a simple omelette - for a few seconds, and then he took another deep breath. "We sold him off to some slavers on Kessel years ago. I wouldn't have even remembered who the hell he is if this oaf here,"--he jerked his head toward Gaz--"-hadn't come knocking a couple months later." Neither of the two budged, and the Mandalorian could feel their eyes on him. "I don't know their names or anything. I don't even know if your guy is still on Kessel or not."

It was still unsatisfactory though. The man genuinely seemed as though he didn't know much more, but it was kind of strange for a mercenary to know so little about his clients. Perhaps there was more lurking through his subconscious, but finding it would require that they use more invasive means.

Gaz nodded to Larisa's blaster and then to the Mandalorian. Let's hope Mandalorian motels are cheap. @Black Noise

 

[Larisa Arkyadvich]

Hours later

Larisa stood beside the nearly nude body of the Mandalorian, his corpse neatly charring on the bed, and finished reassembling her scattergun. It turned out he didn't really know much else, but the pair did have a location now. Turning to Gaz, who had just listened to Larisa torture a man to death for hours, the investigator would remark coolly, "So, how you feeling. Nothing turned your stomach? We have our location for your man, Kessel. There are a lot of slavers on Kessel, but they tend to keep good records. Just a little asking around should do the trick."

Wiping down the area of her fingerprints, Larisa kept meticulous track of everything she touched, the Investigator headed out of the building. Their next stop had been easily decided, and it wouldn't be long before they arrived.

//End

@The Matt