Contract for Disaster [Open]

[.:Falcon:.]

Larrine saw the grenades hit the ground. "Darn." she muttered from between clenched teeth. She wormed her way out between the stools, out of the cramped space below the counter, and vaulted over the counter. She ran into the kitchen, took a different route than that the crazy man had taken, keeping things between she and him at all times. She had no idea what that idiot would do next, but it wouldn't be good.

She gained the outdoors easily, and came into the smoking-hot atmosphere of Tatooine. Great. Right back where she had started.

[Ashi]

Miran, just exiting the speeder, reflexively flinched when the grenades went off. "What in hell was that?" She frowned, looking back at the cantina. "It looks like half the place blew up." Darren smiled behind his helm as his HUD began calculating the various distances involved. "Would you relax? The explosion was only a few meters in. I'd say a half dozen grenades or so."

Miran sighed. "You and your logic. It was a figure of speech. Either way, how are we going to pull this off? Standard breaching methods seem rather ineffectual about now." Darren's helmeted head shook mildly, "Look again, Cyar'ika. They'll be perfect. The couple, still bickering, walked up to the door and tossed eight metallic objects in successive order. Three seconds later, the first sonic grenades went off in the front corners of the cantina, followed every second after for just over four seconds as the remaining grenades went off. (Grenades were tossed roughly equidistant along the side walls, starting with the front corners and ending with the back corners.)

"You ready?" Miran asked, and at the nod the two armored figured burst thru what little remained of the door. Firing crimson bolts at every figure to be seen. If chaos hadn't been rampant before,..

[Kella]

ooc// Be forewarned; the following is semi-blecky... //

Glem was well traveled. And while the most useful effect of that was an intimate knowledge of almost every major metropolitan area, the most interesting effect was that Glem knew very, very many explicatives. In several languages.

And as she crouched low to the ground, muttering them under her breath, she'd almost exhausted her repertoire. In light of that pesky blonde, her plan had suddenly gone from Rescue Greek, Escape, to Escape, Rescue Greek, and there was an aggravatingly stark difference between the two!

Glem might have followed directly after the one who had decided to so chivalrously rescue her Gizka, but any plans of running were cut short by another volley of shots in her direction, which forced her to dive Flush to the ground. This dive, and the resulting loss of sight of her Gizka, was narrated by a colorful string of Huttese Curses.

I hate Tattooi--

Ting, ting followed by the sound of rolling metal... A small cylindar came to rest mere feet from Glem's gaze. A grenade.

What Glem next uttered would have made a seasoned spacer blush.

She dove to the side, suddenly deafened by the BANG half of the flash-bang. She'd been facing away from the cursed grenade, and so her vision was still hers, but she was entirely numb to every sound, save the pitchy ringing in her ears. That ring cut through her skull to strike up a splitting headache, but Glem refused to stay down for long. Deaf though she was, she stumbled to her feet and fled for the nearest exit -- the one she'd seen the Blonde go through.

Humans, think they own everything, think they can do everything better than everyone else... Rescuing my own Gizka, right from under my nose!

Glem crashed through the door, stumbling and still disoriented by the flash-bang. Slowly, the loud ringing was fading, and she could make out individual noises...

Like the shudder of another round of explosives. The pressure beat the door behind her open again, and another wave of air passed over her, even hotter than the Tatooine ambiance...

Glem skipped to the next building over, and scaled a wall, perching atop the roof. The heat was even more intense, if that was possible, but the view was worth it... her dark violet eyes surveyed the Cantina, but quickly passed into the streets... and then she set off, to recapture her Gizka from the clutches of that elusive, heroic Blonde.

[Dire Wolf]

(Warning: This post may contain hints of blah and shoddiness. I also lurv how everyone kind of ignored the chair that Lanara threw at Rome >.>)

The brunette woman barely popped up from behind the overturned table before she saw a familiar blur whip into the room like a maglev train. This blur was predominantly crimson with little bits of tan and blonde. Yellow eyes grew wide as dinner plates as the brain behind it realized just what this blur was.

It was Remiel.

Suddenly she felt a pang of fear smash against her heart like a heavy hammer against a brass gong. It reverberated throughout her body and forced an "oh frack" to leave her lips in the smallest whisper. It wasn't long after the mumble that another completely foreign thought entered her mind. Goose bumps prickled at her skin and the hair on the back of her neck raised on end at the... unsettling... feeling of having a thought that wasn't hers. --Lanara answer me if you can!-- The words of Remiel echoed throughout the halls of her mind over and over again. He may not have intended for the echo, but there was little he could do to stop her own mind from latching onto the thought.

This distracted her more than long enough for the wretch to empty out his shotgun, the final shell going into the circuit breaker. As expected, this almost instantly caused the lights to wink out of existence and random electrical fires to sprout up out of the antiquated system. The woman was about to answer Rem's thought when she saw the bright aura that clung to an arm flail about at the door. Then a series of metallic tinks. Again, the arm flailed about. Again, another series of tinks. This happened a few times before she heard one that was fairly close... unfortunately she didn't quite realize that these were grenades until the first one went off.

Until, of course, the first one screamed out at her. What happened next was an auditory overload, one that caused her to release the pistol in her grasp and press her palms against her ears. Her pistol clattered to the ground at her knees, but was still beyond the woman's grasp as the noise rended her ears. No. It rended at her mind. For a long moment she found that the splitting pain in her brain was all that she could feel, and the minor ring in her ear drolled out the rest of the cacophony of the bar.

She'd been hit with a sonic grenade before. Hell. She'd been hit with five. However, that didn't mean that she was immune to its effects... all the training in the gorram 'verse couldn't do that... and it sure as hell didn't mean that she was above slumping to the ground and writhing about. One sonic grenade was enough to stun someone for a time. Three in a room was enough to incapacitate. Eight sonic grenades was enough to kill someone, or leave permanent damage.

Was this a bit excessive? Heh... yeah.

Lan would have come up with a witty response to that writing if she had the capacity to think, or hear, or even feel. In that brief amount of time she found that it was all she had to simply exist. Fortunately, her firearm was close to her, and on the same side of the overturned table from the mando'ade. They'd better get the hell out of dodge while she was down, because once she recovered their would be a heapin' helpin' of hypersonic ten millimeter slugs punching through that armor of theirs.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

(short shatty post *shrug*)

He gritted his teeth as those grenades flew over him. Cursing silently in rilan, he enveloped himself in a defensive sphere of the force…there hadn’t been time enough for him to do anything else. Certainly it rendered him immobile, but it would protect him more easily from the concussion of the grenades…though…that didn’t do much for the ear rending sound. It was all he could do to keep himself shielded from the pulse of displaced air that threatened to shatter his eardrums. No sooner had the last one detonated than he was moving…deaf, but moving. He’d caught a glimpse of Lanara as the lights had gone out and now he could only hope she was still alive after the battering…she’d only just healed completely, he could only imagine what this might do.

Moving over to her, he knelt down and extended that protective bubble to include her as well. Luckily, this form of shielding didn’t have a glow like his regular force shield did…unfortunately, he was still learning how to use it at full strength, and that meant limited (if any) movement and more swiftly depleted energy reserves.

[Squee]

((Sorry for the wait.))

Melody tipped a table and sat three quarters to the back of the room. She sat her bottom down, watching for a moment as the last remaining patrons skittered out of the door. The table between her and the psychopath, and the gizka on her arm, and the subtle buzz from the alcohol made Melody strangely content. She didn’t have a major urge to move as long as the freak stood on the counter. Going to the door, he would spot her. Though it seemed that his opposition (Lanara, Remiel… Life, who knew who else) was hindering the crazed blond man, he was definitely fighting back.

Because the second Melody had sat and gotten comfortable, the lights were shot out.

Melody jumped, and the gizka gave a startled cry to match her action. She held onto the creature though, and now glanced at the exit door. Well, now the Death-embodied man would not notice her going for the entrance/exit. With a slight grunt as she rose to her feet, Melody adjusted her grip on the poor gizka and darted for the door.

The metallic clacks on the hard floor made Melody stop. Either she was mistaken or something bad was about to happen. Either way, the clanks didn’t sound good. Just as Melody was regaining her thought that she should press on to the door, a grenade went off several feet from her. She cried out against the burn of the flash and threw herself against the wall. Her ears went deaf and her forearm was glued to her eyes as color play went on behind them.

Grenades!

“Arc!” Force, where had he gone in the chaos? Melody cradled the feeble gizka, her ears still deaf and splotches still in her eyes. Rubbing them seemed to make the bright flashes worse. Her brain, hindered by alcohol and now damaged with grenade flash, struggled to gain orientation. Melody felt her panic drive flip on and a sense of claustrophobia began to fill her as the feeling grew stronger. Out, she needed out, or she might not survive. Out, she needed out, needed to run. She needed out, to get as far away as possible, to hide, to survive. Out. Away. Run.

Run, her instincts howled. Yet, Melody couldn’t bring herself to move. Fires were lighting around the bar setting, igniting tables and flaring across spilled beverages. The gizka squirmed in her numb arms, panic reaching the core of the critter as well. The creature slipped between Melody arm and body, dropping to the floor. The smuggler didn’t notice.

“Arc!” RUN!

Her fingers were against the wall. Last conscious thought she had had before the explosion was getting out of the door. The door… wall to her left, door to the front. The door was now to her left. The gizka… The gizka! Melody felt a brief wave of sadness that it had gotten away from her. All the while, she was sliding fingers against the wall and she stumbled toward the entrance. As she approached that door, her target exit, something hit the toe of her shoe. Upon glancing at it, in the obscure vision she had, she thought she noticed the circular shape of a…

Force damn! Who is it who’s bloody grenade happy?! Should just paint a face on those little balls! Ask who wants a damn smiley face! Such a thought was followed by kick-started adrenaline. The blonde threw down cautious, balance retaining steps and lunged forward. Surprisingly, those two or three steps that carried her out the door were even and steady until she tripped over herself. One foot caught the back of the other as she went to step again. The awkwardness contributed to the balance issue Melody already had. The intent to go forward was suddenly coupled with a buddy: down. Down was perhaps the safest way to go, for two figures rushed past either side of her as the fresh set of grenades began to detonate.

The sand coated in foot prints roughly caught Melody. She had enough sense to protect her head still, and that only fell onto the ground when she dropped it with a faint, “ugh,” departing her mouth. Dusty, faulty hearing and sight, people throwing grenades, gizkas, falling, shooting, ugh. And Arc. Melody let out a sigh and lifted her head some, glancing back into the dark cantina interior, seeing dark red streaks flash. Who were those fools? Where was Arc? Was he all right? The fools weren’t shooting at him, were they?

The previous panic was beginning the fade, and the claustrophobic feeling had died, leaving Melody relieved. Her breathing was still shallow, but it was easier to take those shallow breaths.

“Arc?” she whispered under her breath, as if expecting to see him come out of the cantina entrance.