Ask Pyke, Patitite and Punishment

[Cul Laaster]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Vaz Du, or ‘Brian’, was the kind of guy who would run and hide as much as fight, as he proved. He didn’t beg for his life, but he knew that he had met his end in this hunt.

However, whatever happened next was, for the moment, just as much up to him as his hunter.

“Wise decision.” Vaz had tried to explain himself away. Yet Cul would not have any of it. “Now get up, twiglet.” A bit of an insult but the Patitite had it coming for making the Pyke run.

Cul motioned them away from the stage they had created. The show wasn’t over but these two actors no longer needed their audience. Answers, however, were another matter.

Tempted to put him into a box and stuff him in a pocket, Cul wanted Vaz to walk with his eyes wide open. He needed Vaz to feel like his life was in his captor’s hands, but that he might not actually die as long as he provided satisfaction to questions.

So the Pyke walked, the Patitite in tow, by his side instead of following behind, knowing a blaster bolt from Cul could hit either body or skull and end him at a moment’s notice.

Past a crowd, down a path, toward a door by the port that was little more than a maintenance shaft. The Pyke opened, closed it behind, locked it, motioned for his target to stand beside a wall, but not with his back against it, and then came a question.

“Why?”

@Mad Dog

 

[Vaz]

Vaz followed the directives of the Pyke, they didn't walk far but Vaz saw multiple opportunities to run.. but with so many innocents around he thought better of it, as this Pyke would probably not be as careful with his shots as Vaz had been earlier, undoubtedly running from this point would have cost at least one bystander their life..

Vaz followed side by side until they came to a maintenance closet, he watched his captor open it and usher him inside, Is this like a seven minutes in heaven thing? Vaz asked humorously before entering. No reason he couldn't go out with a laugh before the bang..

The room was small, even by Vaz's standards. He did as instructed for now, with his back near the wall before his captor levied an ambiguous question..

Why?

Why what? Vaz asked back with the appropriate amount of confusion. Oh wait... Vaz pondered for a moment, he hasn't actually asked yet, Is this about Abei? Vaz asked, You weren't actually sent by The Pykes, she's the only Pyke woman I've ever been with.. this must be about her.. some sort of spurned lover thing? Vaz prodded. It was a bit ironic, here Vaz thought this man had been hired by the Syndicates to murder him when really he might have just been here because of one of Vaz's conquests.. In truth.. Pyke is not my preferred taste, but.. one must try everything once... he said, which probably wasn't helpful..

@Die Shize

 

[Cul Laaster]

Spoiler: Music OOC

'Why' was the right question, yet flippancy was expected. Vaz spoke. Cul listened. “Cute.” In a deadpan tone, unamused. He might blow off the Patitite's toes for his insolence but the bolt would just make his whole body explode.

Though, the Patitite had no idea about the kind of Pyke he was dealing with. In every sense of the word, Cul was a member of his species, shared their caliber. A low-level soldier, if with a history few could see.

His family, the House of Laaster, once prospered. Their power and wealth ripped away, one day he would restore their name. For their descendent, there would never be any Abei in all seriousness, no such love for the son of Laaster, only legacy. That was everything.

“Shipgate.” The name was written on the former senator’s face. “You sold ships to the kind of organization that led to your impeachment. You fled. A fugitive. But not just from the Senate.”

Cul would read his target’s reactions, any hint on his countenance. “Imprisonment is one thing. Execution is another. You became a loose end, but more than that.”

Vaz had his motives for selling to the Zann Consortium to begin with, for betraying his Republic as far as they were concerned, but making himself an enemy of the Pyke Syndicate was something else entirely.

After all, it wasn’t the Consortium that was going to hit the targets, not directly. Somewhere there was a leak.

“An informant. I’m guessing you tried to sell us out to save your own hide, a complex web of extortion, that takes us to this moment.”

The Pyke looked around the room. Silent. Barren. A perfect place for a rat’s coffin.

“Was it worth it? Squandering the opportunity for long-term profit? Whatever your reasons, you have information, but I don’t need to pry it out of you. Even a former senator, or the smallest of creatures, can help my organization tonight and tomorrow.”

The Pyke didn’t lie. “This doesn’t need to end in death. You still have value in the shadows, Vaz Du. Who else knows? Did you work alone?”

@Mad Dog

 

[Vaz]

So that's what it was, his initial thought had been correct, as if there could be a Pyke who wasn't a criminal? He was somewhat ashamed of himself for thinking.. no hoping it could be possible.

I worked alone.. Vaz admitted, this was the truth, the former Supreme Chancellor had given him a form of permission to conduct private sales to organizations outside the republic to flow credits into the Republic to avoid economic collapse, though obviously he hadn't intended for one such organization to be the Five Syndicates, but nonetheless, Vaz seized opportunity when it became available, A pair of lowbrow knuckle dragging individuals, Alton Hackett a sector ranger at the time, and a private investigator named Flynn Rider headed the investigation, seemed the senate themselves couldn't be bothered to launch an investigation, so some wanna bes did it themselves. I never saw Flynn Rider though, so I couldn't help you with a description.. Vaz explained.

I gave up no one.. Vaz added sternly, they had taken a short recess from his case when Vaz fled, And so you know, the only organization cleanly expressed by the Republic as being involved was the The Zann Consortium, the Pyke name wasn't even brought up.. Vaz said. His energy was leaving him, this Pyke had suggested he still had value, but Vaz knew if he were ever recognized he'd be tossed into a cell in a hole in the ground on some distant that no one had ever heard of. The senate wouldn't take kindly to being embarrassed and worse not even being able to catch their offender.

Vaz sat down, running was useless, and there was no way he could fight the Pyke, so the least he could do was get comfortable, sitting on the cold ground, back now against the wall in a relaxed position. So..? Vaz said, his voice defeated.

@Die Shize

 

[Cul Laaster]

Spoiler: Music OOC (Recurring)

The Patitite spoke and the Pyke listened. Silent. Lifeless. Gazing with his violet eyes in the quiet, still nothingness that was this maintenance chamber.

Vaz gave names, Cul filed them away, and whether he recognized them already was another story entirely.

The ex-senator claimed that he had given no one up, including the Pykes, and that matched the public records to any extent. Cul watched Vaz carefully, as a snake watches its prey, and what did they say about snakes?

Some said that they represented lies, deceit, deception, and all manner of adjectives. Yet, for this Pyke, it wasn’t the lies that he expressed, but the lies that he could sense, and he detected none in Vaz Du’s eyes, hearing as much from his tongue.

Value in the shadows. There was truth to this. In one manner of definition. Best case scenario, Vaz stayed hidden. He was good at it. Forget the senate. Or being embarrassed. He could get and be given connections for information.

As if. This was all nonsense, in the end, and the Patitite knew it. The Pyke could see it in his eyes. Vaz Du lowered himself. There was nothing left to tell. Nothing left to do. No more game to play.

Then again, sometimes a dying man’s last words were said for better or worse in the sense that they either revealed everything, or nothing. The final breath before the end.

“Any last words?”

@Mad Dog

 

[Vaz]

That fhtagn Pyke didn't even say anything, no response to all that he had said.. there was nothing more to be done or said.. but still, Vaz would enter the afterlife relaxed and prepared, Just a moment if you would please.. Vaz said, pulling a pair of death sticks from his pocket, slipping one in his mouth, and tossing the other toward the pyke. After lighting his, he would offer his lighter to the Pyke, but chances were the size of the death stick and the lighter would be too small for the pyke to make use of.

Still seated, Vaz took several deep drags of the death stick, a rare occasion for him, and only a habit he'd picked up since landing on this planet. I'd like to ask a favor of you, Mister Pyke.. Vaz would begin, knowing full well he was in no position to request anything.. taking another deep drag off the death stick and exhaling it into the cramped room, Would you please make it quick? Avoid any unnecessary and messy suffering and what not.. Vaz asked, his tone was even, but there was some desperation in his words, he wanted to die with some dignity..

Vaz closed his eyes, took a long drag, finishing off the death stick, aptly named it would seem...

@Die Shize

 

[Cul Laaster]

Spoiler: Music OOC

A deathstick. How fitting for this occasion. The Pyke caught it, but didn’t light it like his counterpart did, and pocketed it. Didn’t have a reason or a need for it. He was composed, alive, not like his opponent, whose life was his at that moment.

So the Pyke declined the lighter, offered his pistol in return, the handle filling his grip, naked and apparent, no longer needing to hide the weapon. His target began to speak his last words, nothing fancy or elaborate, and rather simple, really.

Granted, the Patitite could be forgiven for not knowing the kind of Pyke he was dealing with. It was no sadist in his presence.

Pain was purposeless unless the occasion called for it, for to be as cold as him meant having a goal, unfettered, and undisturbed by vice. In other words, suffering was not a part of the former senator’s punishment. Only death.

Sure, he had offered him the prospect of living, but the gig was up, and the cards were on the table, face up, here at the end.

In this game of thrones, though, there was only one end, with or without a crown. You win or you die. Thought a Pyke. There is no middle ground

“Cul,” he formally introduced himself to Vaz Du. “Of House Laaster.”

There is a tool for every task, and a task for every tool.

Cul Laaster had a blaster and an ex-senator, but only one had lived up to its task.

-PHWAM!-

And, like that, a bolt struck Vaz Du in the chest, executing him in an instant.

@Mad Dog

 

[Vaz]

Vaz let go the final exhale as his last roommate introduced himself, a man of a house no less.. a litany of things passed through Vaz's racing mind as his final moments began to draw to an end, things he could have done differently, things he should have done differently.. and perhaps things he ought not to have done at all.. Vaz supposed each person had their own destiny, and his culminates here.. in a dingy city maintenance room.

It was a pleasure meeting you Cul.. Vaz would say, his eyes still shut, fearing what was about to come. Only a second would pass before Cul's finger, or whatever Pyke's called them, depressed the trigger on the blaster, a bolt nearly as wide as Vaz himself emitting from the business end and quickly finding a burning home in Vaz's chest and abdomen, a non mutilating shot, Vaz would appreciate that, at least this way his family could identify his body and bid their farewells at his funeral..

With much of his vital organs heavily damaged, Vaz would not even let out a last gasp, he simply slumped over to the side, his head falling the short distance to the ground as his brain struggled to comprehend what was happening to his body, flashing through any and all memories of his life to try to evaluate the situtation and enact a survival plan. However his body and brain had never before encountered a situtation quite like this, a truth it would come to accept in a few moments once it ran its course through Vaz's whole life story, as witnessed by Vaz himself...

[EXIT THREAD]

@Die Shize

 

[Cul Laaster]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Witness. The word did fit. Vaz had witnessed his own life and death. Cul had witnessed his demise and end. No, he had ended the former politician, the Patitite, himself and, if there was a hell, then Vaz Du would remember Cul Laaster as well.

Witnesses, however, would not be left. In this maintenance chamber, there were no fingerprints, there were no cameras. There was only the quiet, only the dim light, only the shadows within, only a cloaked Pyke.

Holstering his pistol, Cul surveyed the room. It wasn’t so much a closet as an entrance to a deeper section. He heard no voices, saw no one, as he walked with a body in his pocket.

There. That instrument would suffice. No, it was perfect, like the Pyke Syndicate would be, like House Laaster would become, when all was said and done. Cul had promised that Vaz could help his organization, tonight and tomorrow. That he still had value in the shadows. He didn’t lie.

He just would not help by being alive.

His death had been quick. He had not suffered. But there would be nothing left of him to be remembered, except for the evidence of his death that a Pyke had collected.

There would be no funeral. No farewell. For, as Cul Laaster opened the door, placed Vaz Du inside a smaller chamber, closed it and pressed a button, the furnace came to life, and it consumed every shred of fabric, flesh and fragment of bone, and it ate the ash, and it swallowed the name.

When you play the game… Cul turned away, curled his fingers in, as if the future was in his fist. You win…or you die. The Pyke made his exit, from grave and planet, for business could not be delayed, the Syndicate could not be made to wait, and he had another name to chase: Rafe.

[END THREAD]

@Mad Dog