RUSH

[Anz Laggo]

"Indeed I am!" Anz had waited until the gang was focused entirely on Sindri's little hostage stunt before he made his grand reveal. After Sindri had distracted the guards, Anz slowly sat up and drew out his weapons, his carbine in his right with the stock under his armpit, and his pistol in his left hand, both aimed at the remaining goons' backs. Anz didn't wait for a reply or an acknowledgement before he started putting bolts in their backs, hoping to put down as many of their number as he could before anyone tried anything funny. These men were either mercenaries or murderously loyal to Devario, so in either event they were not resources he could recycle, instead they were merely obstacles between him and his goals. And obstacles were made to be overcome. Or in this case, ruthlessly obliterated.

 

[The Storyteller]

Devario smiled as the Exile yanked back his hair, revealing his bloodied teeth, and kneed his own crotch. While certainly painful, the young thug couldn’t help but chuckle. “How’d you know I like it rough?”

While Devario was initially dazed, bloodied and confused from the earlier attack, he had quickly stepped out from the mess of his mind and readied for his next move. As the Exile spoke to his own guards and failed to counteract the blade in his hand, he snapped his head back and head butted the strange assailant. Any shot from the gun would graze past him as he then delivered a biting stab into the Exile’s arm, just to force them to unclasp their grip on his weapon. Then, he would slip out from their embrace.

However, at the same time, his guards would be decimated by the other attacker, who was still alive, as they were shot from behind. Their bodies would fall limp into the ground, leaving Devario now outmatched and outnumbered. Still, fists raised, he would fight to the last breath if he had to.

@Acedia

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Hearing the Aqualish's voice brought a sigh of relief to Síndri's static nerves, eyes right as though he could see the old man's face in the shadows there despite him actually being clear across the way. But Devario's raw animalism put Síndri's mental imbalance to shame, revealing Síndri's true colors as just a scared little boy, embodied in the lost look Síndri lifted then.

The moment sank through a dip in time, pausing in the numbing sounds of Anz' blaster fire. In the mirror of time, Síndri admired this sinking feeling as something stung his soul. Hugging Devario in his arms, Devario's wild ferocity outmatching Síndri's fear, cowering within his shattered mind despite the savage claw marks all around its cage. Síndri was damaged, like this man. But was he broken?

Stunned, head-butted by surprise, Síndri's cheek and jaw took the brunt of the hit; but his finger squeezed the trigger by accident, though previously aimed at Devario's throat would have probably narrowly missed but might have grazed a burn through Devario's left shoulder before he managed a clean escape. Still, if not for Síndri's off-center-right positioning and daydreaming, he'd have taken the headbutt straight to the nose. But it didn't seem to stop Devario's knife in left hand from swinging around from left to Síndri's right, cutting a shallow slice through Síndri's forearm and forcing Síndri to fully release his captive. "Ah!"

Síndri staggered back from the light of the lift's fluorescents, into shadow.

"Rrrah!" Enraged by the little knife's sting and all the pain riddling his body and Devario's suffocating madness as they started to face each other, feeling the walls of his past close in around him, Síndri roared with one last effort as a dark malice washed over his eclipsed figure. Síndri scraped up both clawed hands into the air before him, the Force strangling shackle-holds of both of Devario's hands and crushing them into bonebreaking fists. Whatever Devario now held, be it knife in one hand or both knife and blaster, those weapons slowly struggled against him; angling up toward his own throat to his doom without a chance of firing them at the young Exile across from him. Síndri shook and shivered, gritting teeth in a feral anger that bled strings of saliva down his chin as his hands slowly lifted higher; shuttering against Devario's will and turning his own hands against himself. Síndri offered no clever words of irony nor satisfying rebuttals. His was the look of rage, pure crushing rage.

Looking back at him from cloaked shadow were two eyes churning with orange flame. Devario would face his end slowly, painfully. First his knuckles would crack. Then his fingers would bend and break. His nails would dig into his palms as he was forced to watch his own weapons rise towards his neck. His wrists would shatter. His skin would bleed. And his weapons would come closer, and closer, and closer. Síndri would see it to the end, see what Devario was made of.

@Deviant @The Captain​

 

[Anz Laggo]

With Devario's men now laying in a bloodied and burnt heap on the floor, Anz leapt to his feet as Devario escaped from Sindri's grip and prepared to fight them both off, a humorous prospect given that Anz had two guns aimed directly at him. The situation became less comical, however, when Sindri, having been wounded by the gangster, lashed out in a violent and manic rage at the criminal in a display so strange and alien that even Anz found it unpleasant. He watched as Devario's hands were loudly crushed into a tightly balled pulp, before being forced upwards at such an angle that it began to force his own weapons up to his neck as blood and broken shards of bone began to fall from his twisted hands.

 

[The Storyteller]

Rage, unadulterated rage. He realized his guards were dead and that the odds were now set against, especially with another enemy at his back. However, not even that brought greater fear, greater horror, to Devario than the Exile before him. The stab had not debilitated or crippled them, but rather the opposite. Power extended from their fingertips, seized each of Devario’s hands, and crushed it with terrifying weight and forced him to bring both hands to his throat. Fortunately, he had left the knife in the man’s arm, giving them no weapon to use against him. Still, that only made matters worse.

He felt the bone in his hands and his wrists fracture and crack. His fingers break, skin snap and trail forward with blood. Worry and fear quickly twisted in pain, and Devario bit on his lip with both fury and torment. Then, he bellowed, releasing the pain that built up inside him in the form of a bloodcurdling wail. There was nothing he could do now, nothing but wallow in the suffering and watch as his hands get mauled and mangled through this invisible, intangible power.

But he couldn’t watch it for long, however. The sight alone wasn’t just gruesome, it was beyond grotesque. Enough to force Devario, a man who had witnessed bloody deaths and strangled the lives out of random strangers, to faint. Eyes rolled into the back of his head, he succumbed to shock and fell flat on his face into the ground. Then, there was silence.

@Acedia

 

[Síndri Vaēsahd]

Pity. It was not hate that burned these watery eyes, the body coddling the emotion swollen within large spherical stare; wetting the dry surfaces over dark hollowed pupils. But rather pity.

Devario humiliatingly fell to his face, right before his enemy's glare in heated moment of triumph. So then, Síndri lost influence of power. His hold of the slime's hands fleeted. All that was left was a stare, Síndri's clawed hands hanging empty in the air. Empty hands, like his empty heart. What had he accomplished here today, he could not decide. He had wanted this man dead, to twist his fate into his body until the last breath; to see the light fade from his eyes. Síndri wanted some kind of achievement, some form of self-assurance even as he had boasted with his confident entry into the lion's den. But he was granted nothing. All he had seen was a reassurance that he had no control, no confidence in himself nor his desires. And even less, he couldn't tell what those desires were now; because he didn't want Devario's death anymore, not out of spite. He might kill the animal with decision of finality, turning the page to move on in conclusion of events. But there was no lasting animosity toward the animal. All Síndri had learned was that he was no great fighter, no hero of his cause. He was a boy, inside and out. He was weak. But perhaps that was something. Maybe that is at least who he is. But he couldn't appreciate anything now, feeling only emptiness. Feeling only drained.

"Anz..." he quietly called with a weak tone. Síndri's face was dreary and long, mouth hung open from fatigue. His jaw reached forward, bottom lip stretching down and jutting bottom teeth out as dulled pain throbbed in his cheek and skull. His darkened eyes peered down as jaw lifted, breath heaving rhythmically. Until finally his hands could no longer hold there, their purpose lost to drop and dangle at his sides. And so too did Síndri drop, to his knees; raggedy, with shoulders unsteady. Then to his hands by weak arms as his head dropped down between his shoulders. He just needed a moment, just a second to rest; eyes closing sleepily. Then finally he dropped to his side, rolling off his shoulder and to the dirty floor: spent.

 

[Anz Laggo]

This entire damned operation had gone to kark so fast it made Anz' head spin. First the Exile, then the guards at the elevator, then the waves of reinforcements, then the grenade, culminating in the two figures on the floor. A gangster with his hands crumpled into balls, and the lunatic who did it, both unconscious as far as Anz could tell. He started by making sure Devario was out cold before tying the man up feet-to-hands and leaving him for Sindri. As for the boy? Anz could have just shot him, taken his saber, and walked off with the reward, but at the same time he pitied the mad little kriffer, and chose instead to tuck him into a corner with his prize, hoping he would wake up before his prize did. As for Anz? He was going to get wasted and forget this ever happened.