Ask Time In A Bottle

[Zad Ruzed]

Spoiler: Music OOC

The creature, the alien, the sentient life-form otherwise no different than Human or Ewok or Pyke, was much closer to the Pyke in terms of how ruthlessly it walked.

Yautkans, they had a history as unique as anyone else, had since gone from hunting a solar system to trading within it, but not all.

There were some of those Yautkans who refused to conform to galactic standards, refused to follow weak leaders, who instead chose to follow the old way, and Zad did not like meeting them.

For so many of us…
He thought as he watched the massacre unfold before his very eyes, and thought of little else to do for the moment.
...It isn’t the old way at all…
An Ewok dropped right in front of the foliage that hid the Ranger.
“...It’s the only way…” He didn’t wait. “Cover me!”

Wrapping his fingers around the handle of The Proposition, that handcannon of a blaster pistol in his right hand, the old man began to dance between the trees.

Ewoks shrieked away at his left, shrieked back, sounding like confused animals unsure whether to fight or flee.
Animals. I’m hunting an animal.
That was fine, it took an animal to hunt an animal.
An animal does what an animal has to do to get it done, always did.
That’s all this hunter did for the past few years.
He hunted animals with Proposition, with six daggers and seven swords, with his fists, because that’s the kind of Ranger that Zad Ruzed was.
Do. Done. Did.

-PHWOOM!-

The earth blew up around the Ranger’s feet, a cloud of dirt above a wave of mud.
Zad had just missed that big blue blast as he dove into the trees, looked around, cursed himself.

“Dank farrik, Zad Ruzed!”

He had the badge, but was a Ranger without his blaster?

@Sicadorito

 

[Zaia Krodas]

The bolt missed, and the Yautkan faded into the trees once more as the fleeing Ewoks kept coming. Where is it? It was going to be difficult to cover Zad if she couldn’t even see their enemy. As she looked around, tried to find where it was, she caught sight of another bloody Ewok being thrown out of the bushes and a blast that landed a little too close to the Ranger’s position.

“Zad! You good?” she called, but she couldn’t wait for an answer before she saw the same blue zap come at her. Jumping upwards, she activated her jetpack and let it take her to the top of the trees, safe from the blast. From here, she had a bird’s eye view of the scene, and when she saw the Yautkan hiding behind a tree trunk close to where the Ewok’s bonfire was, she drew her pistols and fired in that direction. The Yautkan moved aside, crouching to avoid the bolts before appearing on the other side and firing back. When the blast hit the tree she was in front of, she was barely able to avoid the giant branch that broke off.

Fortunately, the Yautkan had moved into an area with fewer tall vegetation, and it was far easier to spot now. When he tried to approach any sort of cover, Zaia would fire back, forcing him back into the open.

“Now’s your chance!” she would call as he glared up at her. To do what, she didn’t know, but the Yautkan’s attention was off him for now.

@Die Shize

 

[Zad Ruzed]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

He saw the blue zap, saw a tree fall, saw a Yautkan, but the Ranger had no gun. But he's got a grenade.

“Now’s your chance!”

The monster’s back was turned, the blaster on its arm firing into Ewoks, into trees, scoping out a Mandalorian.

Zad ran, and the old man ran fast, even though he had no gun.
Snatched a branch, made it a stick. The broken end was sharp, sharp enough to stick.
The back was turned. There was no metal at the back of the head.

The Yautkan fired again. Zad’s legs did the same as he closed in and, two hands on a sturdy branch, he stabbed.

The hair on the Yautkan’s head whipped around as an arm whipped backward and whacked Zad across the head.

The Ranger fell, kicked his burning legs, swept the Yautkan off his feet—and threw himself upon him.
Stabbed a dagger for the neck, stuck a hand instead, ripped off a faceplate and paused.

“...You are one ugly mother kriffer!”

“I AM KAR-VUL NAZZAT!”

The Yautkan roared, threw the Ranger off, but not before eating a live grenade that blew its head apart, mandibles and all.

Apart from “Kay-den! Cher-riss!” in the background once again, all was quiet as Zad crawled to his feet.

"Reckon I'm gonna feel that in the mornin', ain't no mistake."

He walked over to his kill, patted him down.
The dagger was familiar, belonged to whatever Dagger was the Yaut's kill.
The comlink was bloodied and had a "6" on the back.

In time the Ranger cracked the device to reveal a partial transcript:

Our employer will arrange for the transfer shortly. Good work. We are the last of the six. We must rebuild. Expand. You on Endor. Me on . . .

“I thought I might leave here emptyhanded, Zaia.”

Zad rarely used her name. They were friends, no, partners, but she was always Pardner to him, Mando, Kid.
Daughter. As close as an old man gets to have one.

“But I know where the last Dagger is. I know because I already caught the other four and some Yaut killed the fifth.”
He thought back, thought of those prison cells, how empty they were.
“And the sixth, Zaia…”
Zad wrestled with laughing or crying as he looked up from the comlink, showed it to Zaia.
Would you laugh or would you cry, Aemi?
“The sixth is on a moon called Sevenmoon…in a city called Gravenell.”

@Sicadorito

 

[Zaia Krodas]

“Wha- where’s your blaster?!” Zaia had expected Zad to shoot the Yautkan, but instead he just ran up to him with a sharp stick. Osi’kyr! He’s going to get himself killed! She dove down, ready to knock their opponent away from Zad before she saw the grenade in her partner’s hand. Ohhh… That was smart. Very smart. She got out of the way, landing a good distance away as the Yautkan’s head exploded.

“That was amazing!” she exclaimed with a wide grin, taking off her helmet as she ran up to Zad. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You sure you aren’t Mandalorian?” She punched him on the shoulder before peering at the commlink he held.

“Gravenell?” She noticed his change of tone and calmed herself down a bit, placing a gentle arm around his shoulder. All those Daggers… thinking of Aemi? She would bet on it.

“We’ll get that last one. The others didn’t escape you— and with two of us this time, they’ll have even less time to run, yeah?” She smiled, hoping to encourage him a bit as she wrapped him in a quick hug. “To Sevenmoon we go, vod.”

@Die Shize

 

[Bo'roth Nazzat]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Bo’Roth Nazzat had been hunting the forests of Endor like the rest of his kin.
Only, like the rest of his kin, he hunted alone.

The Nazzats were not afraid of working together. They just, well, could not work together.
They were just as likely to hunt each other as they were everyone else.
Such was the way of the hunter.

Yet, this hunter was on the trail of those who had hunted his kin.
It wasn’t vengeance. It was curiosity.
Who, or what, could have taken out the Mad Marauders?

What is this?
The Hunter’s vision was sharp, it had to be, and it led to a tree.
It knew what a tree was but the object at its base was curious.

A blaster.
The Hunter knew what a blaster was but this one seemed more like a handcannon.
He crouched, picked it up, turned it this way and that way, tilted his head to what was printed on its barrel.

“The…Proposition…”

He looked up, saw the sky, yearned for his ship, and his ship was Blight, and his ship was hungry.

And then:

"ARE YOU THE ONE!? HUH!?"

The Yautkan slowly rose, turned around, stared out from behind its armored faceplate.

"I SAID ARE YOU THE TELEPHONE TOUGH GUY?"

“I am Bo’Roth Nazzat,” he told the naked man.

“Oh okay so let me just carry the one cross the i and do my math over here and oh yeah so ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT THE MOTHER KRIFFER WHO STOLE MY DRUKKIN' SUIT?”

The Hunter tilted his head this way, that way, stroked the barrel of his new pistol with a lone finger.

“Look, buddy, I ain’t got time for yer shenanigans!”
Naked man gestures. Rubs moisturizer onto what appears to be a very violent case of sunburn.

“Clan Hippo has given me THREE STINKIN’ DAYS to get my beskar back over my balls before they transfer me to Clan Ortolan.”

“...”

“AND CLAN ORTOLAN IS PINK AND BLACK AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MANDALORIAN COLORS GO TO WAR”

“...”

“I got a Yautkan cousin in Clan Ortolan, come to think of it, twice removed on my second mother’s thrice removed grandfather’s vodfather’s side, o’course,”
Sniffs. Continues to rub.

“...”

“AND THOSE DIRTY DI'KUT ORTOLANS DON’T LET YOU WEAR ANY ARMOR EXCEPT FOR THE KARKIN’ HELMET"

“...”

“Hmm, ya know, don’t I have an uncle in Clan Orangutan, come to think of it?”
Rubs his chin.
“Yeah them vods only let you wear the suit without the helmet.”

“...”

“Then there’s Clan Coconut, those bucks don’t let you wear the suit OR the armor, kinda like what's happening to me right now.”

“...”

“...Ssoooooo the no-helmet-just-suit Mandos and the no-suit-just-helmet Mandos beat each other up on a daily basis, I hear, and sometimes the full-suit Mandos and the no-suit Mandos jump in, and so…H-HELLO? ANYONE ALIVE BEHIND THAT OPERA MASK, YA DI’KUT?”
Waves his hands. Snaps his fingers.

“Say…”

The Mad Marauder tilts his head, runs a lonely finger down the hilt of his flensing knife.

“...What do you plan on doing with all that skin?”

“..."

Fortunately for the naked man, Bo’Roth was the kind of hunter who cared more about killing than hurting.

He would make sure this man died peacefully after cutting his head off, saving that for a trophy, leaving the corpse to hang upside down from a branch, flayed raw, but the skin would be burnt.

After all, what kind of a monster flays people alive and drapes their skin on the wall?

/END THREAD

@Sicadorito