Reckoning. (Closed)

[Dire Wolf]

Brilliant green eyes gazed up at the celestial globe as it hung delicately in space. Even the thick transparisteel armor between her and the harsh vacuum of space couldn't mar its beauty, nor could the dim green readouts that hovered just above the surface. The woman gave a heavy sigh as she leaned back in her chair, and simply watched the terrestrial ball slowly spin for a long moment. Rhissai had seen countless worlds just like it, yet each one's beauty had managed to take her breath away. It was hard for her to believe that such a pretty place could have such a rotting, festering creature beneath it.

Metellos was a world rife with injustice. The rich stood on the shoulders of the poor, and lived off of the blood and the sweat of those less fortunate like interstellar parasites. Since her leave from the Order, Rhissai had dreamed of stealing from the wealthy and returning the money to the less fortunate. Much like a veritable Robin Hood, but there is no such comparison in her world. The only issue that stopped her was the fact that she didn't have the skills of a master thief. Slicing was an art that was lost to her, and money wasn't quite as... physical... as it was on her homeworld.

Rhissai didn't come here as a well meaning thief, or some white knight who would liberate the oppressed. The fallen Jedi found herself plummeting towards the world as little more than a vigilante. There was one man in particular who had the pleasure of being her quarry. He was one of the most powerful drug lords in the galaxy.

She had taken a small respite from the war between the mythics and the unum to find her way once more. Regardless of the outcome of their duel, Lamilia had managed to instill no small amount of doubt in Rhissai's mind. Were the Mythics, Kvothe included, simple despots who were interested in nothing more than their little religion and their iron grip on a drug trade?

As time went on, she became less and less sure that the answer was no. These thoughts filled her mind as she pulled her flight stick up, and began her entry into the Metellosian atmosphere. It wasn't difficult for the woman to find a dock to land, nor was it particularly hard to find her contact. This particular Rodian was a spineless one, and would be easy to extract information from.

Or so she thought.

When Rhissai arrived to their meeting place, a deserted warehouse just outside of the Drug Lord's territory, the spineless amphibian was nowhere to be seen. Instead roughly thirty armed and armored men greeted her with malicious grins and itchy trigger fingers. The black haired woman only smiled and looked off to the side. She could run... maybe. It was likely that her ship was locked down the moment she left it. Rhiss may have been a master of Soresu, but thirty men surrounding her was quite the tall order. Crispy would be a perfect word to describe her in the next five minutes, should a fight ensue.

"You're all expecting me, I take it."

The mob smiled at her in response.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

It had taken a bit more of an attempt to fit in with the hustle and bustle of Metellos. The pure amount of squalor he found himself surrounded by made that a fact. It hadn’t, however, been entirely difficult to become a thief in the night and acquire the clothing he needed, and after that it was only a matter of time before he learned the names and territories of the largest local gangs and drug lords. All he’d needed was to let his feet do the walking and keep his ears open and mouth shut as much as possible.

From what he’d learned in his time out in the galaxy, the jedi doubled as deep cover, elite, security forces for the largest and most dangerous smuggling rings, gangs, and drug lords. It would be beneficial to him to start there, on a world that was close to their (the jedi’s) home on Coruscant. Obviously he’d started on that planet, and then branched out as he gathered names and information. If he was going to have any chance, he would need to get the jedi to come to him, rather than chasing them everywhere…and there was no way that he was going to just walk up to the temple and ask if there was such a woman as Talau Firians.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered just how long he was going to go along with this ghost hunt before he simply went back for Ariana himself. That poor child was suffering every day that he wasted out here and he was torn…torn with the knowledge that if he tried to get her back himself it may end with his death and there would be no help for her at all at that point…or, if he continued this absurd hunt and actually found something, actually found the Firians woman…

Shaking his head he pushed the thoughts away as he continued along the dusk-lit walkways. The fading light of day made him more comfortable on this disgusting planet, so devoid of proper life. There wasn’t a single tree in sight, not a bird, not a bit of grass or even any weeds and the sky…it was so polluted he was surprised he was still able to breathe. Only the darkness allowed him to find any small amount of tolerance for this hell hole, and that was why he was so thankful that night was almost upon them.

Still, if all worked out as he hoped, the rodian he was meeting would pave a path to meeting with his employer. He’d already met the man once, and he was a disgustingly weak-minded cretin, no doubt it would be easy enough to work his wiles unobtrusively and earn him some face time with one of the higher ups in their little ‘clan’ of degenerates. Surely someone would give him useful information, and perhaps a bargain could be made if the circumstances proved to be correct. If nothing else he could do a few jobs for them, earn some funds and a bit of reliability and then be on his way…he could always return after that if they proved to be useful later on.

As he came upon the werehouse, he felt the presence of others inside…a good number of others. He knew he was quite early, but did this mean that he’d stumbled upon a trap in the making? With both curiosity and anger rising, the man slunk inside through one of the half open doors and slunk through the shadows toward where he could feel the others waiting. Keeping what tumbled and discarded boxes were left in the large building between himself and the others, grey eyes studied the scene. He had to bite back a sigh as he saw a familiar form there, the others in the room aiming weapons at her.

Did that woman go searching for trouble?

Knowing this was going to prove troublesome, he decided that it would simply be better to wait and watch for now…at least until he knew more about what he was seeing. Still, he got the feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to hide his abilities as a practitioner of the Winds from her this time around, and that was a shame indeed.

[Dire Wolf]

Rhissai held up a single finger before speaking to the mob of men with rifles, vibroblades, and other menacing looking marvels of death and destruction. "I'll give you one chance to turn around and not hinder me any further. One." The black haired woman waited for a few moments only to have them shake their heads and laugh in her face. The ex-Jedi only smirked at their laughter, and allowed her eyes to close.

Vision was a superfluous and redundant when one had command of the Force. Eyes lied no matter how observant one was. The Force never lied. In that particular moment Rhissai was a creature of action and reaction instead of a planning and conniving. The first bolt ripped through the air from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and would have struck her square in the chest had she not deftly twisted her torso out of the way.

Rhiss' form turned into a super-human blur shortly after that. Lightning charged fists slammed into various parts of the closest man at blinding speeds. He fell to the ground like a limp strip of bacon before one could blink, and the woman was long gone by the time that he even touched the ground. She purposely moved to the center of the group, eyes still closed, in the hope that they would be more leery about how they fired at her.

Her assumptions were correct. The few bolts that were fired at her were deftly evaded only to strike some hapless thug who happened to be on the opposite side. One man sprinted at her with his vibro-blade held back, and thrust it forward. For a moment the thug believed that he would finally be the one to slay the schutta who had defied his boss. Instead the woman turned into yet another flash and he found his blade buried hilt-deep into his friend's chest. The thug's face found the back of Rhissai's fist shortly thereafter, and he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

Then something unbelievable happened: as Rhissai's leg was swept from underneath her as she was avoiding another blaster bolt that would have killed her. Acidic green eyes flashed open in surprise just in time to see the world turn into a blur, and hear the roar of the wind as she fell to the ground with a slam. Three men were on her before she knew it; one sat on her stomach, and two kneeled on her forearm.

They thought they finally had her.

Those crystalline green eyes closed once again as they cooed taunts at her, and whispered what they'd do once they had her in a more compromising position. She screamed. This scream was no scream that a person's ears could hear, however. This scream was one that could only be heard in the mind. It's power sent the men touching her unconscious, and all the others reeling back from the sudden, searing pain they felt within their skulls. Even the darkest light would have been too bright, and the slightest sound far too loud.

Rhissai leaped to her feet in one of the more infamous stances of her people: one that looked completely casual. "I'll give you all another chance: go away." They, unfortunately, didn't heed her orders. Once they had recovered, one of them fired a stun bolt. In her arrogance, she had stopped trusting in the Force to guide her movements... and was struck with the debilitating circular beam. She crumpled to the ground, cursing and seething with rage.

She could do nothing as the thugs approached her...

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

Eh, was gonna continue, but decided to let Rhiss have another go if she wanted

---

Even though he’d fought alongside the woman before, Rakesh hadn’t exactly gotten a chance to see her fight. That android had kept the two of them far too busy with its nonsense for any chance to study her, but it seemed that he was going to get a prime chance to do so this time around. In fact, as he watched, he got the distinct feeling that these men were going to actually going to come out worse for wear. It was a thought that actually made his typical wolfish smile creep onto his face.

His instincts seemed to be as correct as ever since the woman handled herself more than admirably. Using her speed and agility against them, the thugs who faced her found them doing more damage to each other than to her. Still, someone among their number apparently had some form of brain as the crowd collectively stepped back for a moment as the woman fell backward to the floor, her feet knocked from under her. As they pinned her down, Rakesh waited with an air of anticipation around him. This moment would likely tell him what he needed to know: if she was more apt to use the physical or metaphysical sides of the force when cornered.

The silence (from the woman) that followed tingled against his consciousness, causing him to reinforce his mental barriers out of habit. It was a good thing, too, since a moment later he (and the rest of the unsavory characters in the warehouse) were pummeled by an emotional and telepathic blast from the woman a moment later. Unlike the other men, however, the Nai’maithe simply lowered his head to weather the storm as anyone might do to a battering wind or pelting rain. They didn’t have that option.

Still, as he worked to shake off the remainder of the discomfort he’d felt from it, he couldn’t help but think that the woman’s confidence upon getting back up was…perhaps…overconfidence. This thought was only confirmed as she was hit with a stun bolt that she (very likely) could have avoided if she’d not warned them again and instead just gone on the offensive. Instead she crumpled under the attack, cursing rather than doing anything productive about the situation with telepathy.

Resigning himself to playing hero again, he reasoned that perhaps she knew something more about this drug lord than he did and would be more useful to him alive and…un-pillaged.

Taking hold of the closing window of opportunity he had from her scream, Rakesh sprinted forward…out of the shadows that had concealed him and into the midst of the men. Between their subsiding pain and now their confusion, some of them fired blindly in his wake, hitting their comrades as he passed out of their shots path in the next instant. Unlike Rhiss, Rakesh did not wait for them to fire before doing damage himself, and he never allowed them time to gather around him. In fact, he preferred them to be spread out. It took more effort to move from one to the next, yes, but he had stamina enough for that and his seemingly erratic movement from one person to the next kept them guessing where he might go next.

Considering she’d done a fair amount of damage to the men previous to his ‘arrival’ onto the scene, Rakesh didn’t have quite so many thugs to worry about, but the ones he did have to deal with he was sure to make disarming his priority, just so he could have more time actually beating them to a pulp later on. It was, actually, a welcome change to the ‘comrade’ or associate roll he was playing to these days. There was only so much of that he could stomach at one time before he felt the need for a release…and this provided the perfect outlet.

He never aimed to do much damage to one person, instead striking like a snake once or twice before moving on. What couldn’t be seen with each attack, however, was the fact that he was doing twice as much damage mentally, using the physical pain he caused to further break down what little barriers they might have so he could rip into their minds. It was because of this that he hardly stayed at any one person for more than a few moments, allowing himself to continue his mental attack as he moved before switching to his new target. Once they were disarmed, however, and still reeling from the first round of attacks he worked more methodically at completely pummeling those who dared remain.

It seemed, however, that many of them weren’t quite that interested in death, now faced with not one, but two force users…even if one had been stunned. A stun bolt didn’t last forever, after all.

[Dire Wolf]

Defeat was not often a flavor that Rhissai was used to tasting. At least not until lately. It started two years ago on that force forsaken space station with that monster of a man and culminated there and then with her hubris and a stun bolt. It felt as if the Force itself had begun to hate her, and conspire against her well being. Her capture and subsequent torture at the hand of a Sith Lord on Onderon lent credence to the truth of this, and even more to the skill it has taken to survive on her own for so long.

Arrogance had kept her from continuing the assault on the mob, and in turn ended up with her face first on the ground surrounded by angry men. An indomitable will mixed with a lofty ability in the Force kept her conscious after the stun bolt, but she found it difficult to move or even think while the men began to close in around her. A disturbance rippled at her senses, but it was no more than a simple displacement. Regardless of the source it seemed to distract the mob long enough for her to gather her bearings, pick herself up, and survey the scene.

The sight she saw was most surprising: Rakesh Skandrannon had saved her. He saved her from certain death, somehow managing to track her this far. A single shake of the head later and the mob had finally begun to pay attention to her instead of the man that had harassed them. One had already begun to level his blaster rifle on the woman, and she was still too disoriented to effectively call on the Force to move fast enough to evade the incoming bolt.

A flash of silvery light ignited in the large warehouse just long enough to deflect the screeching bolt of plasma, which was flung back into the sender's chest. The thug had been wearing enough armor to spare him, but not enough to keep him on his feet from the force of the impact. Using a lightsaber was like pulling out a rocket launcher. It was so high profile that everyone in the room began to focus on her.

White Fang's blade had been sheathed and on her hip moments after her life was saved. An ignited lightsaber, while useful, made her far too easy to track and shoot at. Rhissai was a blur once again as she dealt with one thug at a time, never spending more than a few strikes on a single man. Her own hand never once killed a man during the engagement, but thanks to redirection and impossibly fast reflexes many men lay dead from their friend inflicted knife wounds, blaster bolts, and even one tomahawk wound. After a few more knocked out or dead men (she wasn't really sure), the woman glanced at Rakesh. "New meaning to the term space stalker, huh," she smirked over to the man.