Reign of Terror

[TheRedChair]

It was not the brightest idea. Kedrick went into the bar, fully armored and with nothing but a matchstick in his hands. He looked like any other spacer fresh off the pier. Coming up to the counter, he waited for the female bartender-- a zeltron-- to come up to him to wait on him before acting.

"Nice getup, sweetie!" she said. "What would you like?"

"Everything," Ked said. "For free." The woman laughed at what she perceived to be a joke before he grabbed her by the collar of her blouse and decked her twice, letting her fall limply to the floor and crawl out from behind the bar, screaming, bleeding, and in pain. By the time the other patrons realized what was going on Ked was already behind the bar.

"Free drinks, anyone?" some of the customers shouted in horror, glimpsing the broken bartender, and one of the bolder ones raised a blaster in defiance and levelled it on Kedrick.

"Get out of here," he said. "You ok, honey? Bart, check if she's ok." Ked grabbed a bottle from behind him, not even looking at it, and threw it as hard as he could at the patron, hitting him in the chest. He lowered his blaster for a minute and Kedrick began pummeling the other bottles behind him, smashing them every which way and activating every liquor dispenser he could.

"Mother--" the spacer said again before another bottle flew at him, this time breaking his nose and sending him to the floor. His friends began to come towards Kedrick, ready for a fight, as others called for a constable to come. Deeming the counter slick enough, Kedrick raised his match and laughed behind his mask.

"Ah ah ah!" he said, shaking the match like a finger. The patrons stopped, calling him insane. The zeltron was carried out of the bar by two of her friends. Kedrick lit the match and the blaze began.

"You're insane!" one of the patrons shouted as he ran out of the bar. Kedrick only laughed, leaping over the counter and running as fast as he could, three men behind him, out of the back door. When they got outside he was already gone.

Climbing a pipe that ascended the building, Kedrick jumped to another close rooftop, watching with pride as smoke billowed out of the previous building like columns of anarchy. The police had arrived, but the fire department was a long way off.

[TheRedChair]

"Put the money in the bags," the bothan said. He was grinning, two of his buck teeth protruding wildly from his face. Another perpetrator-- a human-- ran wildly around the lobby firing his blaster towards the roof. There were at least two dozen customers at the bank, each now cowering in fear on the floor, afraid for their money and lives.

"Please," one of the tellers said. "I don't want to die." There were two other robbers. One of them, an aqualish, ran past the front counter, towards the vault in the back of the bank.

"Three minutes ETA," the human said, holding his fire long enough to look at a watch. The police were coming soon. The bothan began walking in circles around thel obby, grinning wildly over the success of the operation. He didn't intend to share any of the take with the other men.

Kedrick knew each of the others was thinking about this. He was the last robber. As the others handled the money, Kedrick handled crowd control, lacing the customer's hands with thermal detonators and taping them in. Once things had quieted down and the aqualish went to crack the vault, however, he took a dozen bricks of detonite and began planting them at the base of the pillars which supported the dome of the lobby.

"Two minutes!" the man said, firing his blaster twice into the ceiling again. Kedrick's work was done. He stood up and began approaching the bothan, trying to look serious enough with his makeup and all. He had refrained from wearing his armor, afraid it would draw too much attention.

"Boss," he said, looking around suspiciously. The aqualish came falling down the stairs, holding a case and a bagful of hard credits. He said something in his unintelligible language and the bothan looked over to him. The bothan raised his blaster and fired twice, knocking the alien's eyes out and the money-cases from his hands. The other human ran over to grab them, laughing, until the bothan shot him as well, first in the legs and then in the chest. Then he directed his gaze to Ked.

"Nice touch, with the dets," he said. "But I don't plan on sharing the take." He brandished his blaster, but Kedrick quickly knocked it from his hands and broke his wrist in two swift movements. Kedrick hit him twice in the throat and planted his foot solidly on the bothan's buck teeth, knocking him to the ground, writhing in pain. Now it was Kedrick who was grinning.

He brought his face down to the bothan's level.

"I suppose so," he said. He got up and picked up the case and the bag, dumping the money on the bothan's face. It was over 700 million credits-- a paltry sum to few, a grand total to others.

Kedrick bent down and picked up five or so of the plastic cards, and then threw two more at the bothan's face. He coughed, still in pain from Kedrick's assault.

"I'll only take 500. And here's two for the detonite." The bothan swallowed just long enough to ask the fateful question.

"Detonite? I told you to only buy blasters!"

Turning around, Ked began to walk out. "But boss!" he said, feigning some kind of anxiety over the bothan's opinion. "You said the dets were a good idea!"

Kedrick dismantled the blaster as he walked out, leaving its ruins on the polished marble floor of the CoCo town bank. He slipped the 300 credits into his bandolier and left the lobby, not surprised to see a throng of people watching from outside. He acted incredulous, and ran to them, where they welcomed him as they would an escaped hostage. Someone tried to direct him to a nearby constable to be treated, but for what? Kedrick slipped away from the crowd, crossing at a crosswalk about a block away, in between the lines of floating traffic, and turned around to watch the bank. One of the tellers-- a young, hairless boy-- ran out shouting for someone to arrest the man with the makeup-- Kedrick. Kedrick hit the detonator and the pillars in the bank collapsed in wreaths of red flame.

[TheRedChair]

Kedrick was wearing his armor again. This time, though, it wasn't for kicks.

A trandoshan came into the dark flat, carrying a case and dressed as a cargo loader. He might have just gotten off work. The window to the flat was open and none of the lights were on. The trandoshan flipped the single power control in the flat on, and a single, fluorescent bulb came on in the center of the room. No one was there.

Kedrick was on the windowsill, looking in at the confused reptilian. He smiled behind his mask. He would have done this deal in his civvies, but the trandoshan was only available to make the deal in the night, not to mention that Ked didn't want anyone to know he; that is, the man with the makeup, made this deal.

"Helloo?" the trandoshan asked, in a stereotypical trandoshan growl. Kedrick jumped in from the window, walking into the light and throwing the alien off his balance with surprise.

"You called?" he asked, his voice mechanically amplified by the mask he wore.

"Theatrical," the trandoshan said. Kedrick laughed.

"The detonite?" he asked. The trandoshan walked to the middle of the light, set the case down, and backed up.

"Credits?" he asked. Kedrick threw three chips-- three hundred hard credits-- down past the case, to the Trandoshan's feet; or claws that passed for feet. The trandoshan grumbled and bent down, picking them up. He checked them on his datapad and smiled.

"A pleasure doing business." He turned around to leave, and then paused. "This time next week?" Kedrick laughed. He drew a blaster and brought it to the the back of the reptile's skull. The trandoshan felt it bump into his head and shuddered.

"What makes you think I want to do business with you, crapper?" The trandoshan breathed hardly but didn't say anything. Kedrick laughed loudly and then put the blaster down. The trandoshan turned around, insulted, and Kedrick patted the blaster into his waist.

"Keep it. This time next week. You know the entry code. I won't be here, but the credits will." The apartment was a shoddy one directly underneath CoCo town. Ked's provisional base of operations.

The trandoshan weighed the blaster in his hands and thanked Ked, still intimidated by his spontaneity. He tucked it into his jumpsuit and backed out to the door. Right before he left, he brought up one of his grubby fingers and turned back to Ked.

"Who should I ask for, if I have to call?"

Kedrick laughed loudly, or cackled, really, his voice surprisingly baritone.

"If you're calling me, you have bigger problems than wondering who I am." He turned and brought the case out of the window, throwing a leg over the sill afterwards.

"But you can call me the Black Rakghoul."

[TheRedChair]

"Cool your guns, hot shot," Ked said to the nervous clawdite. The changeling was sitting in the driver's seat of the taxi-speeder, but he had no control over the destination now. Rather, it was Ked's cold threat sitting in his mind.

"Don't say a word." Kedrick had a small, plastic tube he had found to the back of the clawdite's head, tucked so that it wasn't visible in any of the rear-view mirrors. Ked pretended it was a blaster. With his other hand he assembled a bomb made from detonite and a grill-lighter.

"Why are you doing this?" the clawdite asked. Ripples went through his flesh nervously as he tried to find a form that would comfort himself.

Ked finished the bomb and shut it inside the case, setting it on the floor-board of the speeder.

"Because I can," he said. He tossed the tube over the clawdite's head onto his lap, and then opened the door and left the vehicle. Once the clawdite realized his captor had left, he sped off into the skyline of Coruscant.

Kedrick didn't live anywhere in CoCo town; rather, the entire city was his oyster. He went from bar to bar, ripping off petty criminals and money launderers to supply himself with cash to feed his agenda. Tonight, however, he went to a sports bar-- not to eat, or drink, or watch sports, but to see the news.

"Breaking news, from here, in CoCo town!" an anchor said as the float-ball game was interrupted by breaking news. "One of several CoCo-based taxi firms went up in flames, today. Authorities have no leads as to what caused the incident, but the MCU suspects that sabotage may have been the cause!" Kedrick smiled. He took a handful of nuts from a nearby bowl and walked out, tipping the bartender meagrely and laughing all the way.