RUSH

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

NAR SHADDAA
RASBORA SLUMS
.∏∏.​

_ Buzzing. Insect wings buzzing. His temple aches, sweaty. Everything feels so heavy, standing still. His lashes beat sluggish blinks. Swollen eyes searching for something on the floor at his feet, they can't seem to place the steel their stuck in. The insect swings by eardrum with another abusing buzzing.

Right crimson lightsaber slashed through a flashing memory, severing a scream short. When, if not then. But not now. The slain pieces tumbled to the floor with searing smoke trails, rolling into another's legs. They screamed too. Pleading innocence and incongruity. Too loud, stifled by another plasmic slice before reason could reach him. The lightsaber hum drowned out their voices.

Overhead now, his scalp felt the humming heat from the burning bulb; boiling those beads of sweat from crown to cheek. The steel scared him, like being stuck in quicksand. It devoured his day dream as he felt a sinking in his gut.

Their hands plunged in from his dark nightmare onto his coat, grasping for mercy. There he was again, but when was not clear. Too many uncategorized moments before the last. He gripped at them and twisted, the crunching of joints twisting his face from then into again once more. Their faces were a little clearer. His hand wagged a miniature model in their pitiful faces. He no longer held his lightsaber, but a switchblade. Held to their lips. Lies must be cut out. But his fingers felt drawn to their tears. He touched them.

His fingertips stubbed into the metal shaft, reality always stopping him every now. It must be now. He focused on his empty palm. He remembered the miniature, the little tower. A fake. That's right. It was a fake. The memories hurt his eyes, stitching through his bloodstream with tiny pointed needles. The lift he occupied took on a more tangible presence to him, and the shadows eased into the cracks of his mind.

The metal box slowed its descent. The door opened. A dank smell oozed into the shaft and he fixed his collar tighter about his neck. At least down here it seemed he could focus better, the Force less chaotic thereabouts. Wet, everywhere. Slippery like the slime he was after: Devario. It wasn't the first time someone gave him bad information. Not likely the last. But that wouldn't stop Síndri from tracing the scum back down the sewers where it came from to get what he was owed. Gang or no gang, he would get his answers.

He just had to go deeper than he'd gone before.

 

[Anz Laggo]

For something to disgust someone from Nar Shadda, to really make the stomach of a Hutt-spacer churn, something had to be truly and utterly repugnant. Which was the only part of the Gourami family operation that Anz could scrape up some respect for, its ability to drive people away. Not just their debilitated spice-den of an apartment building, but the entire region surrounding the 'establishment' reeked in only the most painfully repulsive of ways, like they were intentionally piling up sewage around the building. The tactical purpose of such a move was not lost on Anz, after all he was the only Basadi who came down here to this cesspool. His helmet helped in some capacity, but without proper filters each lungful of sewer air seared his throat and lungs like boiling acid.

He tightened his focus on the task at hand, trying to tune out the pungent odor. He was sure the lifts would be guarded by Gourami guards, so he decided to slip down the target level using manual stairs and ladders. He stepped out onto the floor just two levels above the target area, a broad hallway of slime-encrusted concrete barely lit by a handful of can-fires and flicker overhead lights. Anz could see the blinking, blood-shot eyes of a million pests, urchins, and junkies glaring back at him from the dark like predators in a benighted forest. He wasn't scared of them, they were insignificant, he could lay waste to them all with one blaster and not break a sweat. His real concern was the garbled, formerly melodious chime of the lift a few meters down as its doors slid open. Anz moved back against the wall reflexively, he wasn't about to let someone get the drop on him, he needed to see what he was dealing with. His frame obscured by a long, dark cloak, he poked his head out slightly to see who was crashing his raiding party.

His first instinct said junkie, as the pale, emaciated, greasy, tattered Vahla stumbles from the lift clutching something in his hands, his expression one of mentally distant confusion and agony. But his attire was a bit too fine for a desperate thug looking for his next fix, his stance and movements had the subtle traces of a stalking predator, not a hunched spice-maniac. He straightened his collar, clenched something in his other hand and, with a full-body shiver, began to make his way in the direction of the next lift. The one that took him down lower. Who was he? Where was he going? What was he clenching in that other hand of his? There wasn't anything else of note in this sector of Nar Shadda, and if this was a rendezvous their were a billion better locations throughout the planet.

With his intrigue piqued, Anx pulled his cloak up tighter around himself and hunched down tighter, shuffling out of the shadows and into the light closer to the figure. His helmet garbled his speech, enough so that he hoped the Vahla would assume he was just speaking an alien language. Anz had resolved to take the next lift down with the spindly stranger and see exactly where he was going.

"Kind sir?" He called out in Basic. "Can I please, please take this lift with you?"

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Sound shocked Síndri from behind, shoulders shirked, and the bulb within the previous lift burst with sparks to the flux of nervous pressure of the Force. He whipped around on instinct, red saber firing alight in right fist. What few lights were immediately powered there coincidentally dimmed around him eerily, red plasmic aura coloring a sickly face in the dark by his leg.

"Who is that," he snarled in contrast to kindness. But then they all became clearer, each one of them destitute and filly and drawing his eyes from one to the other; empathy reshaping his face and rounding his widened pupils, softer then. The weight of reality felt different than the whims of his splintered mind, as the smells became more pungent then before; warping his face a bit further with slight disgust.

All the while, his left fist trembled at his side; squeezing.

Behind Síndri, a shadow shifted in the distant corner to the disturbance. It's arm lowered from a folded lean, hand careful to take its time in stealthily retrieving the weapon without notice. Cautious but decided in eventual action, the shadow prepared to catch Síndri unaware if he decided to approach the new lift.

 

[Anz Laggo]

An Exile.​

​

A karking Exile, here, in this inglorified cistern. Of all the places to run into one of those maniacs it had to be down here. Perhaps that distinctive crimson light-blade could have been explained as a bounty hunter's trophy or something bought from a war-junk dealer. But he didn't know any bounty killers that could shatter and flicker lights without touching them. ​

​

But there was something wrong with this one, and not just because he was a mass-murdering sociopath with mental powers. He'd snapped back less in anger and more in fear and confusion. He had tremors in his left hand, and his face was plastered with the same expression as a spice addict having a paranoid episode. He was scared, even if he was hiding it behind one of the most dangerous personal weapons in the galaxy. Anz could work with this.​

​

He inched out further into the light, keeping his old cloak pressed close as he continued to hunch and shuffle to maintain his urchin cover. ​

"Please, please, there is no need for violence." He raised two open hands slowly, revealing his three thick, fur-covered Ualaq fingers to the figure. Looking up at the Exile from the shadows of his hood, Anz caught the sight of something moving behind the Exile, a large figure moving behind the nearby pillar. They were being watched, although by who or what would need to be seen.​

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

"Oh..."

A poor beggar, said the pity in Síndri's softening expression. Head leaned and his saber lowered slightly, foolishly searching the stranger's clothing for signs of poverty and his steps for signs of injury in the absence of proper medical care. Just another sod in this sea of desolation. But Síndri's eyes stuck on the urchin's shuffling feet, shuffling. Shuffling forward. Closer and closer. Raising Síndri's heartbeat.

"No!" Síndri's lightsaber sharply pointed up at the urchin's throat, to stop him there; at least before he got too close. A wild and angered mistrust now plagued his fear even further, like a cornered dog. He squinted at the urchin's fur-covered fingers, meaning to question who he was or what he was doing there but instead asked: "What are you?"

 

[Anz Laggo]

Jumpy, wasn't he? The flash of a few furry fingers and his sphincter closed up so tight Anz would have sworn he heard a sharp snap. He slowly lowered his hand, but made sure it remained in the Exile's line of sight, no need to make him think he was reaching for a weapon. He moved his second hand from the confines of his cloak in the hopes of calming the Exile's rampant, paralyzing paranoia.

"Just a local Aqualish." He paused, realizing that he might not even know what Anz was talking about. "Aqualish? Fuzzy hands, big tusks? Yes?" He felt like he was conversing with a toddler, but the Exile was a child with a lightsaber and the capacity to snap his neck with a thought. He had to be cautious.

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

His wide eyes followed the furry hand down. His stiff neck subtly trembled. Eyes raised back up. Waiting. But the urchin's answer was unsatisfying, and bland. A dull look of doubt fell over Síndri's face.

"Aqualish," he echoed like a first time user of the Basic language. He blinked, and then found resolution with an involuntary bobble of the head. He settled into the low level of mistrust he would have of anyone, a fickle and fleeting current that could carry his mistrust with the slightest ebb of emotion.

Síndri rose tall out of his aggressive stance and deactivated his lightsaber, stuffing the hilt back under the fold of his coat onto his belt without the courteous calm this stranger gave him; selfishly unaware, as though the Aqualish was the only one needing to prove himself unthreatening.

"I don't have any money if that's what you want." Síndri condescendingly addressed the non-human with a side-slanted glance before flicking his focus around the area, round about and back to the Aqualish. "Or medicine."

He groped his pockets as an inelegant ogre until finding a partly wrapped, half-eaten food bar and then tossed the charity at the urchin's chest.

"Here. Now go away, I have a Gourami rat to cook." Síndri nearly turned and started for the next lift, but got the idea to ask for directions from the urchin local. So he looked back to the urchin and thumbed over his shoulder and asked, "The Faro Candiru this way?"

 

[Anz Laggo]

So he was after the Gourami too, huh? A strange target for an Exile, but then again this was a very strange Exile so perhaps his choice in places to decimate made some logical sense to him. In any event, Anz now had a potential ally, or at least a potential distraction, in the fight against the Gourami thugs and he was not about to let this opportunity pass. He raised his hands in refusal of the bar before continuing, raising up slightly from his hunch.

"You misunderstand, I also seek the Gourami, and they are indeed this way. Perhaps we could walk together, yes? Two are better than one, as the saying goes. At the very least we're more than enough for the guard who's been gawking at your back for the past few minutes." He pointed past the fidgety human and toward the guard still peering from behind his duracrete barrier like a frightened rat. Once the Exile's attention was drawn away, Anz subtly slipped a hand back into his cloak and drew out his blaster pistol, stepping to the side and pointing it at the guard so the force-wielder would not mistake his intentions.

"Come out then, we both know you're there now." He shouted.

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Shock elated from expression, Síndri's head lifting from his spine. He hadn't sensed hostile intent, but then wasn't focused most of the time. Síndri spun around with a diving swoop of the skull, lowering into a predatorial leer while gullibly stepping into formation with his new ally without thought to Anz' blaster being drawn beside him. It just felt right in the moment. A suspenseful moment, as the now spotted guard hesitated to reveal himself in the distance.

Then charging footsteps of padding bare feet echoed from behind.

Síndri spun back around again and held out his hand. A sickly skeleton of a man with a rusted pipe held over head was snatched up by the grip of the etherial Force and thrown by his own weapon sideways, smashing this second attacker into a pillar; landing onto another vagabond.

The guard in Anz' sights thought to use the commotion he heard and seize the moment, stepping out into view and aiming to fire at Anz.

And a few rodents scurried from the violence, splashing through shallow puddles and squeaking and squeezing back into their holes in the dark.

@Anz Laggo​

 

[Anz Laggo]

It appeared that the human slid right into place at Anz' side, ready to accept the danger lurking behind them and respond to it. He had been prepared to just simply shoot the offending guard when the sound of frantic footfalls forced Anz to spin around, just in time to see some kriffing homeless fool with a pipe hanging in the air, apparently under the power of the Exile's force. It was certainly an impressive feat, to lift a man off the ground and strangle him to death without laying a hand on him. It would be more impressive if he could focus on both the gutter rat and the guard, but Anz wasn't about to complain. At least not openly.

When he turned back around, the guard was already raising his weapon, but since Anz had already draw his pistol, he was able to fire twice into the chest of the guard before he got off a shot. If that didn't kill him, he certainly wasn't happy right now.

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

The fierceness faded. Sunken eye sockets sank lower and tightened cheeks loosened, reddened passion cooling to skin's natural pale hue as he looked on at what lay broken before him. And his stature began to buckle. Síndri scurried toward the defeated starveling and hovered over him there, lowering to his side with his end in the air and turning his cheek to the pavement; nose to nose with the bloodied face. Síndri's hand carefully raised over the old man's ear until middle finger pressed into squishy wrinkled eye-folds, smooshing the leathery skin down the side of the nose and onto the mushy mouth; smearing a thin line of blood onto Síndri's finger curiously, watching how it glistened on the tip of his index finger. There in the dark crimson he saw a mistake. He remembered something else about bare knuckles bashing into a flimsy nose and the blood stains coloring the tops of those fingers. It was wrong, he concluded. Why did this happen, asked the frown darkening upon his face.

"Why did you do that?" At first he whispered, but it quickly raised to be heard. "Why did you kill him? He didn't need to die."

Síndri crawled back up to his feet and turned around to face Anz. But the man behind Síndri let out a labored breath, a wad of red oozing from a bubble in his nostril. Yet Síndri didn't notice. Instead Síndri slanted his gaze at Anz until his glare turned past Anz and to the double-tapped guard laying on the ground. So Síndri started barging toward Anz' side, to pass Anz and reach the focus of his anger.

"Why did you do it!? You hurt him! You hurt him!"

If allowed, Síndri would approach the guard shot in the chest and begin thrashing the body with bare knuckles; ripping off any pieces of armor that obstructed his face.

 

[Anz Laggo]

This man was disturbed on another level. That was the only thing Anz could conclude from watching his intimate moment with man he killed, dying gruesomely on the floor in a puddle of blood. He'd seen plenty of young thugs with killer's remorse, but none of them unfolded, or perhaps more accurately exploded, in such a way. He actually had begun to back away from the decrepit figure when he sprang up and began shouting at him, asking him why someone had to die. In his clearly fractured mental state Anz couldn't tell if he was talking about the homeless thug or the dying guard. What he did know was that the man was stomping toward him, glaring and shouting like a lunatic. Anz had been prepared to club the kriffer with his stun baton when he barreled past him and rushed the guard, before tearing into him with his bare hands.

"I admire the enthusiasm, young man, but I think you got him." Anz attempted to ease the Exile back off his victim, moving in slowly to see if he could reel him back into sanity, or some semblance thereof.

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

"I got him?" Síndri breathed heavily, oily hair strands draped over his face; a dark veil trapping him within this strange dream. He wiped his face, pushing his hair back and smearing blood up his forehead. And he giggled. "Ya."

He felt a sting in his hand and held it within his other hand, cradling the pain as he turned around to face Anz.

"Did you shoot him? That was pretty good. I don't like blasters usually, but I can get that. That was skill. You want to walk? Okay. I could use somebody to watch my back. But what do you want with the Gourami? That boozer steal something from you?"

Síndri was still in his own world, despite collecting himself. An arrogance governed his words. And a naivety narrated his unbalanced yet sociable disposition. And something else. While he parleyed pleasantries with his new partner Anz, Síndri walked towards a seemingly dead, emaciated slum-rat and wrestled a jacket from the body and brought it to his victim to Kindly drape it over this body instead of that. It didn't seem wrong of Síndri to take one dead's jacket to cover up another's for Síndri's own personal comfort in murder, nor that Síndri didn't even consider using the coat off his own back.

 

[Anz Laggo]

"Slow down son, slow down." Anz watched with an admittedly very morbid curiosity as the stranger put the jacket off of one dead body onto the other dead body. A psychologist could have a field day with this Exile, if he didn't disembowel them and apologize to their corpse first. He wasn't just unhinged, the entire doorframe was gone, the entire structure of the house was shot to kriff. But at this point he was the only potential backup that Anz had on this solo operation, so having a lunatic in his corner wasn't entirely without benefits.

"I have my own reasons to seek the Gourami, but I assure you they involve ending their miserable lives. It seems we have a common enemy, so working together would be the most advantageous strategy for us." There was no way in the karking Force he was going to shake hands with this rabid animal, but siccing him on the Gourami gang was entirely within the realm of acceptability.

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Slowed by Anz' hushing, Síndri's breaths finally normalized.

But his skin prickled to the sensation of being managed. Síndri slanted a suspicious side-glance at Anz, distrusting the ease of their union in the Aqualish's coldness and concealment; his reticence and seemingly shrewd intelligence. But Síndri wasn't that sharp. So the corner of his lip curled and he walked over toward Anz, extending one bloodied right hand to shake in accord.

"Alright then. Partner."

 

[Anz Laggo]

"Partners." He shook the bloodied hand, taking a second when the boy wasn't looking to wipe off his hand on the inside of his cloak. Disgusting. "By the way, if we are partners, we should know each others names. I am Anz Laggo, who are you?"

It was probably a good idea to figure out who you were working with before you started working with them. Granted it was a little late for them at this point, having already stacked two bodies on the potential pile.

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Síndri cringed to the man's grip, wincing a distracted recoil and wiggling his fingers to the side; realizing the state of his Vahla hand and puzzling through recent events to recall how it got so bloodied. And then a wave of realization washed over his face as he remembered mostly everything. It was more than enough time for Anz to wipe off the blood, unnoticed.

"I like you. Anz Laggo." He wagged his finger. Then patiently proceeded with a subtly threatening tone, "But that hurt."

But Síndri wasn't one to hold grudges, especially when he couldn't remember whose fault it was his hand hurt. He assumed they deserved to be beaten and that shaking hands was all in all a friendly gesture, but he decided he wouldn't be shaking Anz' hand again. Not for a while at least.

"I'm angry. I got rotten info on a smuggling operation using miniature models and now a small merchant gang want my credits. The pusher swears he got it from that junkie Devario and I'm going to find out. We do whatever it is you're here to do, but that slime Devario is mine; Síndri Vaēsahd's."

He thumbed his chest with emphasis and then started walking past Anz again, towards the lift without thought to strategy or the odds against them. He'd only dug into enough information to discover this location and verify as best he could that this was indeed where the Gourami's hid their operations. He didn't actually know anything about the layout or the guards or the people living within, despite hearing that it was a living community.

"Come on."

 

[Anz Laggo]

So this maniac had credits bound up in this operation? Credits based apparently in some kind of miniature model smuggling ring? Was that a thing? Anz liked to keep his ears close to the ground on hot-ticket contraband, but he hadn't heard anything about miniature models. He shrugged off the strange context of this 'Sindri's' situation and instead refocused on the task at hand; not getting shot to pieces in their raid.

"Devario is all yours, but perhaps we should formulate a plan first? I've heard this operation isn't without substantial firepower." He moved between Sindri and the lifts, reaching for the datapad on his belt. He drew the device out and pulled up the architectural schematics of the housing complex, complete with his notes on the operation. He had called in several favors and wrung quite a necks to get as much information as he could about the Gourami. Most of the guards were either on the first floor or the same floor as the armory on the top floor, with a kark-ton of civilians between the two.

"Most of the guards, according to my sources, will be on the first and top floors. Between them are mostly civilians and spice-junkies."

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Sīndri stopped to Anz' persistence, insisting on devising a plan. So Síndri rolled his eyes and achingly sighed with immaturity, swinging his chin to shoulder and flicking a sticky strand of hair from his brow. Leaning onto locking left leg, Síndri popped his hip and waited for something interesting. And bingo, the datapad displayed the architectural schematics of the housing complex and Síndri ogled the details of light the device depicted.

Assured that Anz gave no fuss to Síndri's claim on Devario's head, Síndri did however blow a teasing breath through his lips; mocking Anz' cautionary phrasing of 'substantial firepower'. Though the structure's size did translate into Síndri's understanding of what he figured to be a pretty large complex. So he opened his coat and planted his hands on his hips, revealing his shirtless and tattooed torso with strapped sabers and switchblade.

"Huh," he contributed dumbly, an equally dumb expression on his face. He considered the civilians and spice-junkies with no short dismissal, calling his attention to the very same types that lay sparsely scattered around them now; spoiling his attitude with a softened look of concern. His eyes focused on the body he'd stolen the jacket from, but flicked away to return to Anz. Thoughtfulness, or most any other thing really, was short-lived on Síndri's mind. Then Síndri shifted weight onto the other hip and folded his arms. Problem solving wasn't his strong suit either, though not a stranger to creative improvisation. Then he brainlessly waved a flopped hand about and asked, "What, do we have to go in through the first floor?"

 

[Anz Laggo]

He wasn't actually studying the map and thinking about it, not really, anyway. Sindri was just displaying the same animalistic attraction to that which is shiny that all animals possessed. It didn't matter, Exiles had powers and weapons far stronger and stranger than the rest of the galaxy. Anz was sure that even if he just cut Sindri loose on the gang's garrison he'd carve through at least the first floor without dying. But having an Exile in your pocket couldn't hurt either, so he decided to bring the little maniac into the fold.

"Technically we could use the fire escapes to reach just about any floor we want, but we'd have to fight the first floor guards eventually, and I'd rather not get sandwiched between the roof and them." He gestured to the first floor and the array of tables laid out inside. "We could enter through the front claiming to be customers. They might ask for our weapons once we are inside, but in those tight corridors their numbers start to mean less and less. We carve our way up through the complex to reach Devario, you do with him what you wish, and we loot their little criminal empire. Sound good?"