Biomedical Firesale

[Fromikeable]

”Comm check. Talk to me Freq.”

”Got you loud and clear.”

”Good. How’re the droids coming?”

”They’re working on bypassing security. Syntax keeps throwing things at the ones whose input ports are too fucked up.”

”Just make sure she doesn’t break any. Some of them are being held together with spit and hope.” Rolling his shoulders his seat, Vance pitched his speeder up a little, rising out of the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa toward its surface. Going anywhere on the moon now required a dive deeper into the city structure where the Archeri had less of a presence; there was simply too much city for them to completely occupy down there and keep working on… whatever was happening in the pit.

”That reminds me. How’s the pit?”

”Haven’t heard anything back from the teams we sent out yet. I’ve been assuming the worst.”

”What about Algo and that remote-control recon shuttle she was trying?”

”She got it to do a lap around the Eye, but I think she mentioned needing to replace some sensors.”

”Keep me posted.” As the speeder rose to Nar Shaddaa’s surface, the night time sky above offered little in the wave of light. Entire sections of the moon sat dark as well, unpowered and in varying states of post-bombardment smoke, abandonment, or worse, improvised defense as pockets of people clustered together and held out. In the distance, a tower shone bright with neon while snipers walked the roof. On the street below, a horde of the Archeri rushed a building, blaster bolts from within causing flashes throughout the night. Transmissions patched through Vance’s comm at random, some desperate cries for help, others vicious warnings to stay away.

It was a chaos that made the moon’s normal routines seem downright orderly. The only constant was Nal Hutta off in the distance, a bright purple light sitting before it.

Vance only dared to stare at it for a second. There would be time for wondering about the meaning of it all when there weren’t fungoids trying to kill them all.

Continuing to keep his speeder as low as he could, he finally spotted his destination; a small tower with an oversized broken neon bandage hanging from its side. Slamming the breaks just outside, Vance made sure to seal his helmet and armored suit before opening the door with a pneumatic hiss, air rushing in from the outside. Poking his head out, he kept still for a bit, his presence creeping out into the surrounding area with practiced precaution.

Finding nothing, he stepped out and turned the speeder off, sealing it back up. Looking up at the tower, the sign remained, a good bit of covered with purple spores:

BIG KILROY’S MEAT REPAIR AND REPLACEMENT SUPERCENTER

Popping the trunk to his speeder, Vance produced a duo of empty canvas bags. As he did so, he swapped over his comms to the pre-planned channel, waiting for it to beep in approval.

”Thel to Vivi, I just parked outside. How close are you?” It took two to go raiding for medical supplies, after all.

[Karl the Unfettered]

Ever since this Plague shit had arrived, Vivi had felt just miserable. Which was really strange because usually she just didn't get sick! She had always been super healthy despite her lifestyle, so having this junk getting her down was just... just the WORST!

Well. No. The worst worst was watching Missus F getting sick and having to hole up in the casino. The bright side was that Vivi didn't seem to have it as badly as some folks did; some of the others couldn't go anywhere without throwing up or shitting their pants, or they just couldn't get up at all. All Vivi had to deal with was a head cold! Sneezing and headaches and a runny nose that had blood in it!

It also sort of felt like she was getting superpowers? The sort of thing Missus F had? They were pretty weak altogether and she had resolved to ignore them. They'd probably go away once this Plague shit was sorted out.

In any event she was one of the healthy ones so it was her job to go out and get shit now and then. Which was a little nerve-wracking sometimes but it was better than sitting around waiting to die! And the great thing was that she didn't have to play nice with the invaders either! So she was on her speeder bike, breath mask on her face as she zoomed through the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa, down where the Hutts used to build their secret ships. Fat load of good those ships had done!

The bike had comms, and now and then she caught snatches of the chaos up above. Fighting and marauding, all acting as a grand distraction for her mission here. It was a simple mission too; meet up with Vancy (!!) and break into an abandoned clinic for medical shit! So simple a womp rat could pull it off!

The radio in her ear beeped, indicating Vance was trying to reach her finally. "Hold yer horses bub! I'm almost there!" she yelled back, pitching the bike around a tower and up toward the "surface". There was that garish neon sign, so she zoomed towards it and brought the bike to a halt next to Vance's speeder.

"Vancy! Long time no see!" she called out as she hopped off and skipped towards him. "Ain't been followed so we oughta be good ta go, right?" She approached the entry way, shrugging her hammer off and holding it casually in one hand.

[Fromikeable]

Vivi was, without a doubt, the only person Vance could even imagine skipping during the moon's invasion. Between her hammer and her demeanor, it was a wonder that she was sick at all; she was handling it extraordinarily well. Maybe it was just her regular attitude being ironclad in the face of a horrific invasion, mass plague, and the threat of orbital bombardment. Maybe it was a coping mechanism. Either way, Vance decided not to dig.

"Ought to be. We just need to keep quiet and move quick." Tossing her one of the empty bags, Vance closed the trunk of his speeder and waved for her to follow. Jogging up the steps of the large medical center, its automatic doors refused to move. Stopping for a moment, Vance plucked his saber from his belt, popping it on just quickly enough to stab at the lock before waving a hand. The doors crept open only just, allowing him to squeeze through sideways after restoring his saber to his belt.

Inside, the welcome was eerie. The once-busy medical center was dark, abandoned, and both uncomfortably quiet and filled with random, distant bangs. Emergency lights provided the only light to be seen, security bars and drawn down over most of the windows. A few doors leading deeper into the first floor sported make-shift barricades of furniture, potted plants, and other random heavy objects.

What few bodies were there to be found were decaying in a decidedly unnatural way. At the very least, most sported bullet wounds, suggesting that they had died before their infections had gotten too far.

Not sure if that's mercy or not. Humming quietly, Vance paused before a map of the building, flicking on his helmet's headlamps. "Do me a favor and call me 'Thel' while we're out here?" Scanning the map's index, he spared her a glance. "Fake names will help us out, just in case we run into anyone around here." An unlikely event, but not as unlikely as Vance might hope. The entire moon was dying; they definitely weren't the only ones interested in medicine.

Tapping the index, Vance finally found their destination. "Infectious disease ward is the fourth floor. We'll take the stairs, I don't really trust the lift right now. Get up there, fill the bags up with as much as we can, and get gone, agreed?"

[Karl the Unfettered]

Vivi sighed, and wondered when people would stop trying to send her on quiet missions. Quiet just wasn't her style! Well, not her usual style anyway. Hopefully something noisy happened that needed her to be noisy right back! Then again if that happened they'd be late getting the stuff back and Missus F and the rest of them wouldn't be so happy with them. The thought of Missus F being less than pleased with her performance gave Vivi the resolve she needed, and she followed along behind Vance for now.

"Shitty door," she muttered, glaring at how Vance had slithered through. How did he expect her to do the same, considering her equipment? Not to mention her weapons and gear, either! She huffed a bit, and stepped closer, gripping the sides of the door and shoving outward; a screech of metal on metal heralded her success, and she slipped through to join Vance inside the clinic.

"Don't say nothin'," she warned preemptively, waggling a stern finger at him. She mouthed the word 'Thel' to herself a few times, trying to make it flow off her tongue. It refused to do so and she frowned. "You expectin' to run into anyone? Apart from useless tweakers, a' course, but th' door'd be open if anyone was already in 'ere."

Unless there was another way in, apart from the front door. But surely if there were, they'd be taking it right now? Vancy and his obsession with discretion surely wouldn't have overlooked such a detail as that, after all!

"Stairs, eh," she drawled, studying the map, head tilted to one side and finger held up to the corner of her mouth. "Hmmm. Okay! Lemme lead the way, I'm tougher 'n you are!" Hefting her tricked-out gun she went for the stairwell, but the door was jammed. "Hi-YA!" she yelled, kicking it down and ducking through on the momentum of her attack, swinging the gun side to side as she checked for hostiles. "All clear, bub! C'mon already!" and she started up the stairs, on point for anything janky.

[Meira]

How they scurried.

Nar Shaddaa so different now. All at once, familiar... alien. It was wrong, and it was home. What she had once felt so connected to was crumbling away. Those things that she thought had tied her to the place were breaking apart and dying like the false things that they were. From them, the truth grew. Her real home was becoming. She smiled, leaning on the balcony of some tall building that would soon be gone. Her eyes swept over the cityscape, lingered on the pit. She could feel the song surge through her, the power of it practically lifting her into the air. She thought of the credits Forte had bid her to move on Saki and chuckled. She looked over at a row of windows on a nearby building and each one exploded outward in turn; she'd only barely thought of it and it was done.

"You were right." Remy said to her, half the planet away. But his voice was as clear in her mind as if he stood beside her. She still could not grasp that power as he did, but it hardly mattered. She looked back at the pit. Soon, she would shed the weak body she now occupied. Soon she would be all.

"Thel is nearby." he told her. "You're to go see what he's up to. That strange one is with him. The one with the hammer." He filled her mind with the image of a building, its sign, of Thel's speeder.

She sighed. Somehow, she didn't think that her reunion with Thel would be quite as productive as the one with Forte. A figure appeared beside her. Sacha had stayed behind when she and most of the other Jolly Janitors had left Nar Shaddaa before. He'd managed to feign immunity for some time, but had to abandon his spy efforts when the news of her actions on Bothawui had spread to all of the Blind Eye crew.

"Let's go." she said.

---

Sacha landed the speeder on the roof of the building. From the back of the speeder, he pulled a heavy blaster rifle and slung it ot his shoulder. Ylva had a knife at her hip, but she wasn't likely to use it. She had a better weapon now. There was only a hatch with a ladder leaning down to the top floor. She'd considered ramming the speeder into the building but decided against it. Thel might have heard of what she'd done, but he had been a Jedi at some point. They were supposed to be all about finding the good or something like that. Maybe he'd still want to talk. If nothing, that would give her or Sacha enough time to get the drop on him. Or not. Not all voices were destined to join the Chorus, after all.

They found the door to the stairwell and began their descent. Sacha was no Remy, but his ability to sense was still stronger than Ylva's. He'd confirmed Thel and Vivi were below. The sudden bang from several floors down was further proof. Not Thel's style... but certainly Vivi's. Well, since they weren't sneaking around anymore, Ylva decided to follow suit. She leaned over the stair's railing, looking down through the center drop and whistled. Two long notes, one high followed by one low.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

[Fromikeable]

”We’re in an unlooted medical center on an occupied moon. I’d rather be safe than sorry.” Vance was obviously more concerned about the Chorus than any other group on Nar Shaddaa at the moment, but that didn’t mean that the rules of running a criminal syndicate had stopped applying. Just as plenty of people affiliated with the Exchange were still on-world, so too were plenty of people with the Hutts, with the non-major players, and of course the regular people that all came together to number almost ninety-five billion people.

Letting them hear his real name might not matter today, or tomorrow, or next week. But if they any of them lived through this, it might matter much, much later.

Vivi cleared the door with gusto, and Vance stayed behind her, more than willing to let her take the lead. Their jog up the stairs produced more noise than he would’ve liked, but between the duo of doors that had screamed in protest by this point, it was moot. Reaching the fourth floor, the only sounds to respond to them were the rumbles of a tall building left abandoned, a distant bang or zap traveling at faint volume.

That was, of course, until they reached their desired floor, when a two-toned whistle traveled down the stairwell.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are." Vance’s presence didn’t have to snap out very far to find a familiar, twisted swirl in the Force.

Only giving himself a second to pause, Vance rushed past Vivi, smashing the door to the fourth floor in and obliterating any locks it might’ve held. Giving Vivi a quick shove in, he turned on his heel to smash the doors back together, the metal warping a hair as he worked quickly.

”Ylva’s back.” Darting his head around to gain some rough sense of direction, he pointed at the door. ”Block this door, do what you can to slow her down.” Identifying the main medical office for the floor, Vance grabbed both bags and took up a sprint toward it, his comm crackling on to finish his thoughts to Vivi.

”She’s telekinetic. Be ready to run when I say so.” Whether or not they could beat Ylva wasn’t the issue. How long they had before Ylva might call for help absolutely was.

[Karl the Unfettered]

Ylva? Oh right, that janitor chick with the horns. Supposedly she was all fucked up by the Plague, or so Vivi had heard. Whatever! It didn't matter how fucked up she was, she wasn't getting past the Hammer! "Keep yer hands to yerself, pal," she said absently, turning to face the door.

Dammit, what was she supposed to do, stand here and wait for that horny hag to try and bust through? No, Vancy had said block the door. She looked around, saw a cabinet and went to shove it toward the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Dammit!" she swore, stomping the floor.

Hm. This Plague shit gave people superpowers, right? What had Vancy said, about Ylva being telekinetic? Vivi wondered if she was telekinetic now too. "How does this Jedi shit work, anyway," she muttered, feeling a bit foolish as she reached out, leaned into the cabinet with her mind...

Amazingly it worked! "Fuck yeah!" she cheered, using brains and brawn in tandem to coerce the heavy furniture into place. Not flush against it like a moron, because who did a bonehead thing like that? Morons, is who! No, she set it to lean against the door, so all its weight was weighing it down. Take that!

Vivi grabbed a few more random heavy objects and jammed them against the door as best she could in the time she had left, piling them all beneath the cabinet against the door as well as atop it and behind it. There! Totally impenetrable! Then she gripped her machine gun once more and waited for hell to break loose.

[Meira]

Ylva and Sacha sauntered slowly down the stairs. They had all the time in the world, after all. It was the likes of Thel and Vivi that felt the clock ticking. What was a few more moments compared to eternity? Ylva smiled when she felt an odd bump at the edge of what she was learning to be her own presence within the force. It brought to mind an image of one of Lidah's favored "sons" and she understood what it meant. I see you... she thought, but had no way of knowing if Thel could hear it or not. She had no control of such things.

"Fourth floor." Sacha said, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance.

"Five it is." she said, stopping at the fifth floor door. "You go on." she added. "Keep the chipper one busy. She might like you."

As Sacha continued downward, Ylva leaned against the door to the fifth floor to swing it open. She put her hands in the pockets of her rancor leather jacket and stepped along the grout line of the tile floor. She had no control of what she could feel around herself, but that was little matter. She knew this building, had done some jobs here. She could also feel Vivi now. She wasn't as strong within the song as Sacha, but she was there. Ylva walked over and past her, whistling as she moved.

Sacha reached the door and pushed. It didn't even budge. Ylva slid her foot along a patch of floor, leaving a dust cleared swipe in its wake. Sacha put his shoulder into the door and pushed, but could not move it. She tapped her foot and a rumble rippled through the floor. Not there. He took a breath and threw his shoulder to the door, causing them to quake and the cabinets beyond to shudder. She slid her other foot along the tile and tapped. Another rumble. Not there. Sasha took two steps back, breathed deep and called on the strength of the Chorus. With a growl, he sprang toward the door, the force concentrating around him. Ylva slid again and tapped. Bingo.

With a concussive BANG, the fourth floor door flew open off its hinge, knocking the furniture backwards into the room. Sacha came through after, tucking into a roll before hopping back up to his feet and bringing his rifle up at the ready. Further away, beyond more doors, the ceiling collapsed, causing sparks from wiring to fly in all directions and a cloud of dust and debris to fill the air. As the dust settled, a figure dropped from the floor above, landing in a ready crouch. Her eyes scanned through the haze until they settled on a familiar form.

"Hello there."

[Fromikeable]

The door to the medical office shattered as Vance charged through it, a small swell of the Force ensuring that all of the pieces of shattered glass went flying away from him. A quick glance about gave yield to a large closet marked "Pharmacology"; it too was demolished in a swift, barreling motion.

Within, Vance was confronted with racks of injectors, pills, inhalers, and paraphernalia. Swearing under his breath, he began searching in earnest, calling up a list on his HUD. Grabbing a few medications at random, he quickly began to put together the way they'd been sorted, a sort of staggered alphabetic system, and began to hunt down specific shelves.

That was when the rumbles began.

The first few failed to concern him, distant enough to be chalked up to where he had left Vivi. They were almost a good sign; thuds meant she'd built the barricade quickly. Someone was having trouble getting in, at the very least.

But with each sound, the pounds started coming closer and closer. Not daring to snap out his presence again, Vance began to be less and less picky with which drugs made it into the bags. The first few had been plucked out by name, but as the rumbles sounded just overhead, he abandoned finesse. Finding the the shelves that the last few medications should've been on, his arms shot out to sweep every drug upon them into the bag indiscriminately.

Then the ceiling came crashing down, the room flooding with dust. Vance could feel the figure crouched among it all before he could see her, his headlamps doing little but providing her silhouette amongst the thick air. Her greeting rang out somewhere between a fond greeting of an old friend and a predator teasing her prey.

Vance resisted the urge to answer. Instead, he dropped the bags, reached out his hands, and swirled the Force about the room with practiced skill. With a flick of his fingers, most of the shelves about the room jerked collectively, all of them falling inward toward where Ylva had entered. Above them, the bags of medicine rose from the ground and zipped through the open door, spinning outward into the hallway beyond.

With Ylva given something to think about and the medicine removed from her immediate vicinity, Vance finally gave a verbal response, grunting as his saber snapped from his belt to his hand. Green light flooded the room as it hissed to life.

”You’re fired, by the way.”

[Karl the Unfettered]

Almost immediately, things started going wrong. Footsteps overhead told her at least one of them had taken the fifth floor hallway and was bypassing their little barricade entirely. Dammit! Why hadn't she thought of that?! But there was only one set of steps, so...

Thumping on the barricaded door told her a second person was outside. Vivi swore to herself and gripped her hammer, but she was distracted by a sudden onslaught of sensation. She could feel people close by! There was Vancy, panicking off in the distance, and that presence up above which she was gonna assume was Ylva herself.

So this dork outside was... was some underling? "Not fucking cool," Vivi swore again. Whoever it was, they were attacking her barricade with more and more force each time, and she had the sinking feeling it wouldn't hold up. Goddamn superpowered assholes anyway! She'd just have to be a BIGGER superpowered asshole! And no one could be a bigger asshole than Vivi the Hammer!

She glanced up, saw some old sprinkler pipes, and acting on instinct she leaped up and grabbed them tightly, clinging to the ceiling; a second later Sacha burst through the door, scattering her precious barricade all over the place! He came to a stop almost directly below her!

It was simple enough to drop down in the next split second, land on him with all her weight, and wrap her arms around his head to start choking him into oblivion! Or try to anyway, she thought as she pushed down and sprung through the scant few feet separating them.

[Meira]

The words had barely left her mouth when a sudden thrill ran up Ylva's spine. A barely perceptible moment later, the shelves of the room all fell quickly toward her. Ylva sank to one knee, calling on the Chorus to shield her. Her eyes closed tight, and she braced for the impact of metal. But it never came. Opening her eyes, she saw that the shelving had all stopped just inches from her skin. One shelf, broken loose from its framing, hovered perilously close to her eyes.

"You're fired, by the way." came Thel's voice, accompanied by the hum of his green lightsaber.

Ylva chuckled. It was a slow, but hearty sound. It started low in her stomach and bubbled up. All around her, the metal shelves groaned as she pushed herself back up to standing. Some contorted, some simply slid off the others, but none touched her as she squared off against Thel once again.

Further away, Sacha's sweep of the entry room from the stairs showed no targets. There was a moment of confusion, for the large man could feel that the woman was nearby. Before he could think to look up, however, a sudden weight landed on his shoulders. The blaster rifle fell from his hands, dangling from its strap which held it looped around his torso. What had fallen on him was a chaos of limbs and Sacha reached his arms up in an attempt to grab anything that might give him the purchase to throw the woman off. Her landing on him threw off his balance, and for a moment he stumbled to and fro to keep from face-planting to the floor. Widening his stance, he managed to keep from tumbling, but the woman was too squirmy to grab in any helpful way. With a growl, Sacha changed tactics and began to move, picking up speed and aiming for a solid looking wall. If he couldn't throw her, he could smash her until she let go.

"Thel..." Ylva said, her voice the kind of tone a long suffering might use with a particularly dense child. "Why all this hostility? It's me! You know, you were always my favorite of Lidah's pets."

It was not the right thing to say, she was fairly certain, but there was no way she was going to convince Thel to willingly give himself over to the Chorus. But maybe she could crack that suit he cowered in. Choice was a nice illusion for many, but some people just needed the extra nudge. She eyed the lightsaber, wary that it would be the biggest obstacle she faced here. Maybe she could knock it from his hand. Flexing the fingers of her own to hands, Ylva felt for that hold she could make on objects and gripped tight to the various shelves around her. Maybe a taste of his own medicine.

The muscles in her arms twitched and then two shelves sprang up, flying toward Thel. She had not, however, paid particularly close attention to which shelves she'd grabbed. One had been close behind her and grazed her arm as it flew by. Gritting her teeth, Ylva stepped sideways, one hand gripping at the already bruising spot on her arm. But her mind remained fixed on slamming the shelves into Thel.

[Fromikeable]

Thel did his best to ignore Ylva's response as the Force twisted around her mutilated presence. He could feel the horrid, unnatural way it flowed as she called upon it, her presence flaring less like that of a trained Force-user and more like an addict reaching out for greater portions of the world around. The shelves halted and warped accordingly, her control wild and rampant with little finesse.

Instead, Thel was halfway to moving his hand toward one of the neighboring walls when two shelves catapulted forward at him, one grazing their commander in the process. Dropping his arm as quickly as it had come up, his saber hummed as his knees dropped and settled, his Soresu stance low and steady. One hand's fingers twitched with practiced motion as the other swung his saber in two big, controlled arcs, each coming to bear on each shelf as it approached. The metal was silent as both were slashed in half, the four total remnants splitting to his sides. The last, however, failed to deflect as perfectly as he'd tried, smashing into the side of his armored leg and producing a sickening sound as he buckled. Falling to that knee, his HUD flashed red in distress as it reported damage.

He needed out of this room.

Retracing the movement he'd been in the middle of in double time, Vance's free hand shot out toward one of the side walls. His fingers bent in a crunching motion as the wall trembled once, a solid, roughly-circular break appearing at once from ceiling to floor. With a quick pull, it flew inward, ripping a hole in the wall as the section came smashing through the warped shelves at Ylva.

Vance didn't wait to see if it would hit, sprinting out the hole it formed. Locating the bags he'd tossed out, a call of the Force tossed them down the hall back toward where he'd left Vivi, the sounds of scuffle coming there as well.

"Save it for a worse-trained pet." His voice raised to a holler as his radio crackled to life, yelling into the air and across the comms.

"Vivi, we're fucking leaving now!"

[Karl the Unfettered]

Whoever this guy was, he was kind of big? Bah! Vivi had brought badder dudes to heel in less relaxing circumstances than this! It didn't matter how hard he could hit, she could handle whatever he dished out! "Drop the act, bozo!" she yelled, clawing at his face and digging her thumb into his eye. "You can't kill me THAT easy!" She didn't care what "Thel" said, she wanted to beat this guy into the floor and that was all there was to it!

Before they hit the wall, Vivi tried her new superpowers again, tightening her grip around his neck and TK pushing backward, throwing even more momentum into his wild charge! She wasn't sure what running into a wall was supposed to accomplish considering she was clinging to his back, but whatever! "Gimme a second, I'm havin' FUN here!" she yelled back at "Thel", too busy with wrangling her new bull to worry about that stick-in-the-mud.

They'd all know once she decided to take this seriously, after all. That was when the hammer would come out.

[Meira]

Sacha roared at the fingers digging into his face. Teeth gnashed, biting at any stray digit that came too close. He felt her add some power to his charge toward the wall and might have laughed. At the last moment before impact, he curled his form so that she would be the one smashed into the hard surface. The impact was strong enough that it made an audible boom echo through the floor. But the wall he'd selected had been a load bearing one, and so was much stronger than the others. A spiderweb of cracks formed from the impact, but the duracrete held strong... for now.

Not far away, another wall blasted open. Ylva, on the other side, was obliged to hastily crouch behind the twisted shelving to avoid the debris. When it settled, Thel had run through the hole, shouting back his retort as he retreated with whatever medicines he'd come to get.

"Already did!" Ylva shouted back at him as she stood and walked through the hole he'd made. "It worked so well, I thought I'd try again."

Another boom echoed through the building as Sacha smashed Vivi into the wall again. Ylva watched the two struggle and chuckled at Vivi's refusal to leave the fight. "Yes, stay a little longer Thel. She's having fun. Besides, you know all of that is only going to delay the inevitable." she added, gesturing to the bags.

Sacha finally managed to get a handhold on the flailing woman. Whatever he'd grabbed, arm or leg, he gripped like a vice and pulled with all his strength to rid her from his back. He then moved to throw his own weight onto the woman, hoping to pin her to the ground if possible. He'd crush the life out of her if he could, though he imagined Ylva would stop him. She was, after all, at least somewhat attuned to the Chorus.

[Fromikeable]

Fun wasn't exactly the first word that came to Vance's mind given their current situation. Resisting the urge to chew out Vivi for indulging herself and completely forgetting about their original objective, Vance snapped his saber off before summoning the bags to himself. In a rushed motion, he slung one across each opposite shoulder, creating an X with the straps across his chest and back. It was cumbersome, but if he wasn't going to get any help, it was up to him.

He didn't care about fighting any longer than he had to.

"Already did!" Spinning on his heel, Vance's saber snapped back on as Ylva emerged from the hole he'd made. "It worked so well, I thought I'd try again." The words took a second to hit him, but the effect on his expression was immediate once they did. A concentrated, hard-knit scrunch lessened for a moment with revelation, then scrunched harder in a look of borderline murderous intent.

... that stupid, air-headed, ungrateful, mentally-deficient piece of absolute- Cutting off his own line of thought with a hard inhale, Vance leveled a finger at Ylva.

"Look, I'm only going to say this once as a courtesy." He flourished his saber, his free hand motioning at it as it hummed.

"I'm trying really hard not to cut you the fuck in half right now. Only reason is that I'm really, really holding out hope that there'll be some way to get you off of whatever this-" His free hand waved at the lingering spores that hung in the air, the motion disturbing their lingering pattern, "-is." A boom from Sacha and Vivi's fight rang through the hallway, giving him a chance to take a breath.

"But I'm taking these two bags and leaving. And if I see you or that dingbat come anywhere near us, or anyone we're protecting?" His voice dropped a little, the bass coming out as he gave a single shake of his head.

"We'll see how well either of you can sing without a neck." Staring her down, Vance's free hand pointed toward the end of the hall. At its end a fair few doors down, the large tinted window there shattered loud enough to ring its way back toward them, the glass heaping in on the floor. Keeping his eyes deadset on her, Vance slowly began to back away, saber at the ready, bags in tow.

"Finish up, Vivi."

[Karl the Unfettered]

"Oof!" Vivi grunted as Sacha powered into the wall with her. But she just laughed and held on, scrabbling at his face until he somehow got a hold of her arm and flung her to the floor. She laughed harder, and rolled out of his blundering way so she could kick him in the head.

"Why can't you evah talk that kinda sweet talk at ME, pal?!" she demanded over her shoulder toward Vance. Or, no, "Thel" as he was going by right then. "Gotta be careful or a girl'd get the wrong idea!"

It was easy for her to ignore the spores, she'd been breathing that shit in for weeks now. "Quit flirtin' 'n fuck off already! I got these two clowns!" She kicked at Sacha's head again, then reached back for her hammer, flicking it on and listening to the lethal radioactive energetic hum for a second. It brought a slightly dopey grin to her face for a moment, as it never failed to do.

Enough showing off, she told herself as she brought the weapon up to her shoulder, skipped toward Sacha and swung for the fences, hitting a second switch at just the right moment to kick the little mini-rocket on and add a whole lot of extra force to her swing!

[Meira]

Thel's face was so open as the realization dawned on him that she didn't need the gift to see the thoughts racing through his mind. As his brow furrowed and his face contorted with rage, her own opened into a wide, predatory grin. He brandished his saber and she raised her eyebrows, mouth opening in a mockery of shock and fear. At the rest of his threat, she merely shook her head, like a parent gently disapproving of a child's foolish actions.

Several paces away, the woman managed to scramble out of Sacha's grip. She kicked at him, but he blocked with one meaty forearm and pushed himself to his feet. Vivi was moving in on him, a weapon drawn and humming. She swung, and a small roar of some sort accompanied the weapon as it closed on him. With a motion, Sacha created a barrier of energy between himself and the hammer. As the weapon collided with the barrier, he felt some of the force ripple through to himself, sliding his hulking figure back a few inches but nothing more. He let out an amused huff and swung a powerful right hook at the woman's face.

Ylva debated chasing after Thel, but at this point she knew that he would tolerate no more goading. She had no doubt that, if pushed any further, he'd turn that lightsaber on her as he promised and she'd be done for. Too bad she didn't have one of her own. Letting him flee, Ylva instead turned her attention on the woman.

"Vivi, right?" she said, raising her voice slightly in order to be heard over the noise of that ridiculous weapon. "Now that Thel is gone, how about you and I talk instead? Do you feel... fulfilled in your current position with the Exchange?"

Outside, several Archeri were moving in on the building, their senses tuned to Ylva and Sacha. They sensed the guarded one and the imperfect woman as well. A few more minutes and they'd be upon them, ready to assimilate or destroy as necessary.

[Fromikeable]

"Suit yourself." Keeping his eyes deadset on Ylva, Vance didn't dare spare a glance to see how Vivi's fight was going. By the sound of her hammer, he assumed she was going all in; whether she'd live to tell about it was up to her. Ylva, meanwhile, looked perfectly content to let him leave. Had this been some sort of genuine appeal?

It was hard to care about it too much. He was still hung up on how absolutely annoyed he was.

"The speeder leaves in a minute." Backing toward the window a bit quicker, Vance peeked over his shoulder as he approached the edge. Raising his voice to a final yell, he rolled his shoulders, getting ready.

"Be in it or don't." With a final breath, he hopped off the ledge, plummeting toward the street below. The four-story drop went quicker than he would've liked, but with a practiced motion, the Force swelled around Vance as he landed with far less force than he otherwise should've.

Life experience had taught him how to handle mighty falls, after all.

Checking his suit's seals one last time, Vance clipped his saber to his belt and ran for the speeder parked on the other side of the building. The evening was still dark and dim, the distant sounds of fire, terror, and battle ringing out in pure ignorance of his encounter. As he neared, Vance popped the back door of the speeder open, threw the bags in, and quickly slid into the front seat. Firing up the engine, the vehicle began to hover off the ground.

Before he did anything else, he poked the console on the speeder, bringing up the HLS. A few fingerstrokes brought him to his holomail, where he began to type away with a mixture of excitement and fury.

[Karl the Unfettered]

Vivi ducked the right hook and backed away, annoyed at how easily this big ol' slab was brushing her off. Wasn't she Vivi the Hammer? Why weren't these idiots dead yet? She wished she'd had time to plant some demolition charges while they'd been here, bring the place down with hopefully these two inside. But no, they'd probably use their dumb superpowers and sniff them out!

She didn't exactly have much time either, there were things moving in on their location. She hated running away from a fight, hated it! But what good was sticking around if it only got you dead? "I'm totally fulfilled, girly, but c'mere 'n I'll fulfill ya with th' butt end a' my hammer!" It came up abruptly and she threw it right at Sacha's head; whether he caught it or not, Vivi turned and skipped away toward the window, throwing Ylva the finger with both hands as she went while Sacha and the hammer both flew through the air as well!

"Ride 'em cowgirl!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, swan-diving gracefully through the frame, catching her hammer and yanking Sacha along with her. She caught the big lug and twisted in mid-air, so that he landed first and cushioned her fall! "Walk it off, beefcake!" Vivi taunted as she flipped up to her feet, aiming one last kick at his head before skipping back toward her bike, throwing herself on and gunning it to life. "Quit textin' 'n let's fuck off a'ready!" she yelled at Vance.

[Meira]

When Ylva spoke, Sacha had turned his eyes toward her. It had been a mistake. The tiny woman's hammer flew toward him, catching Sacha off guard and knocking him backward toward the window. Before concern for her underling could fully register, Ylva had chuckled out loud at Vivi's retort. ill-informed or not, the woman was snippy. In a man's world, that always warranted appreciation. Luckily, the concept of a man's world would be entirely irrelevant soon. In the Chorus, all were one. Genitalia would be obsolete. It was something that her current self believed she would miss, even as her higher connection to the Chorus knew that missing anything was pathetically laughable.

These were the things that Ylva pondered as the ambled over to the window after Vivi jumped out. She leaned out in time to see Vivi maneuver the still dazed Sacha to be her landing pad. An outstretched hand and a pull through the Chorus ensured that landing was slowed enough to keep him from breaking. The kick to the head would leave a nasty knot, but Sacha was anything but fragile. And soon enough, that body would be gone anyway. A moment later, the man stirred and coughed. Ylva dropped from the window as well, cushioning her own landing and waited patiently for the man to bring himself back to his feet.

From around the corner behind them, four Archeri came into view. Three of the rushed in the direction of the speeder while the fourth slowed and stopped before Ylva. She marveled up at the creature, perfection personified. A moment later, something like a searing pain flared in her skull. She understood this as the Archeri attempting to communicate directly with her, but she could not comprehend its voice in her mind. The Archeri lashed out an arm toward her, grabbing the Zabrak woman by the throat and lifting her into the air with ease. Her vision went suddenly white, and then flashed as the scenes of the previous encounter played back in double time through her thoughts, pausing and then jumping forward, back, and forward again. The focus seemed to be on the assimilation status of both Vivi and Thel. When it was obvious that Ylva had failed to expose Thel, she was dropped unceremoniously to the ground where she gasped for air. Not far away, the other Archeri had begun to unleash crystal volleys toward the speeder, though they did not seem to have arrived in time to catch the retreating vehicle.