Log:Sith Empire: Love in the Club
(Not the kind Usher's on about.) A Sith taskforce undertake and operation to secure a target wanted by the Empire.
OOC Date: December 17, 2021
Location: Coruscant
Participants: Sith Empire: Midne, Tamsin Cas, Tarq Najjic as Self/GM, Xavier Harcourt
[ Tarq Najjic (T)]
In walk the Four Horsemen.
There's no record scratch to cue stillness in the club, just the sense of clear and present danger radiating out from Sith at the lobby. One could perhaps mistake Tarq Najjic and Xavier as members of an edgy subculture. Less likely Tamsin, with her helmet. And cosplaying as Sith stormtroopers during an invasion just /isn't/ a thing. One woman screams but it ends in a gasp. Colorful fashions prevail in this shining beacon of Level 1313, a trend disrupted by the interlopers.
"Razp Chior." Tarq Najjic's voice is flat. "Chiss. This man is wanted by the Sith Empire, and he /has/ been here. Tarq Najjic hopes - he still - is." He pauses to concentrate. "He is. Find him. Better dead than escaped." And he holds his position blocking the entrance to the dance floor. No one leaves until the Sith have what they came for.
[ Xavier Harcourt (Xav)]
Xavier stands next to Tarq unmoving and silent; brown eyes looking from face to face as they inevitably turn towards the quartet. A sea of faces each wearing any number of expressions. Confused. Enraged. Indignant. One or two are so spiced out of their minds they blink several times thinking they are hallucinating phantoms. But none of them are Chiss, no. Those are rather easy to pick out to start what with the blue skin and the like.
A step forward and Xavier starts to weave into the crowd. At first, the mass of bodies refuses to move either out of sheer shock or sheer stubborness. A shift in his cloak and the reveal of the blade in his hand seems to trigger their survival instincts and the crowd begins to pull away around him. "This would go faster -- smoother -- if we were pointed right to him," Xavier notes casually to those as he passes by. "The longer we stay, the messier this becomes."
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
It was unlikely, that the robed and helmed Sith paid much mind to the fashion of the day, despite the rather fashion forward look of her robes. Likely only a passing similarity to current trends, surely, as Tamsin made her way in with the rest of the small group. helmed as she was, it was not, really, possible to see to whom she ewas looking or where, but that was entirely the point.
There was the slightest tilt of her head, as she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye and began to ford her way through the crowd. Those who moved of their own volition were ignored. Any who did not move...would be moved, as Tamsin made her way towards the stairs. <"I see someone who might be useful. I'm heading to cut him off at the stairs. Twi'lek, male, green, vertical striped-suit.">
[ Midne (Mi)]
There's no sense in trying to blend in. Only a glowing neon Hutt in a sequined bikini would stand out more than a trooper dressed entirely in the crimson red plating of a Stormtrooper of the Sith Empire. What stands out even more? The symbol of The Mark on her chest, which, if anybody in the club recognizes it, will indicate that she isn't just a trooper.
SN-6428 marches through the crowd, not bothering to squeeze between dancers and servants. Holding an F-11d blaster rifle at the ready between both hands, she steps directly to the bar. "Razp Chior," she demands as the customers on either side of her clutch their drinks and scurry away. One, a Togruta, turns back as he flees to snarl at the trooper, which luckily for him: goes unnoticed.
"Chiss. He was just here." She flips the switch that keeps the rifle's cooling unit dormant, and with an electronic whine, the cooling unit powers on and the blaster is ready for fire.
She probably intimidated him a bit much. He's frozen in shock. "This can't be happening...this is NOT happening...."
[ Tarq Najjic (T)]
As Xavier proceeds through the first floor, people do step back. Swords are sharp and they know it, but it's more than that. It's also what he represents to the people of this world. A past they thought they escaped returning as the future. There's a new set of faces here; perhaps one of these is the man or an associate.
Tamsin's experience is similar as she makes her way to the stairs. The manager starts moving faster, and he's at the very top of the stairs as he starts pushing people roughly out of his way. The jig is up and he knows it.
Midne's bartender is having a bad day. He's stopped repeating "This isn't happening!" but it's not certain that he's yet accepted it. Now he's backing away slowly, but bumps into the liquor out on the shelves. One bottle of clear fluid falls from the top shelf, cracking on the counter and splattering him and the floor. Then another follows. He's trying to back through the bottles, and that's just not going to work.
Not all are so easily cowed, however, and multiple blaster shots from the corner table across the way on the first floor head out towards Tamsin and Xavier. A few even hit people in the crowd; they're being indiscriminate. Standing there are a Trandoshan with a carbine, a Gran with two pistols, and a humanoid with gray armor carved into the shape of a skull over his face but not much on his body. He holds a cleaver in each hand. Bounty hunters? Gangsters? Soon-to-be 'The Heroes of the Euphoria'?
[ Xavier Harcourt (Xav)]
The music has stopped but the lights of the club are still bouncing and flickering as if it never ended; drenching each patron in several shades of colours. Red, yellow, blue, purple, green... then a kaleidoscope. Still Xavier stalks through the crowd, his form kept a suffocating black as every light wave hits it and is absorbed into nothing.
A pull in the Force jerks his head to the right. A twang on the threads like the pluck of a spider web. The audible flutter of his cloak seems to lag behind the quick, almost inhuman movements as he steps away from several shots; leaving the patrons around him to take the blows without so much as a hint of care from the man.
"A volunteer." Xavier grasps the air in front of him; an unseen noose tightening around the Trandoshan's neck then a yank of his arm sends the hapless creature in an arc through the air.
And slamming into the manager attempting to flee up the stairs.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
There was something to be said for supernatural awareness, and as the shooters rose from their seats, it did not stop Tamsin from moving forward, precisely, but it did inform her actions. A gloves hand reached out, grabbing the jacket of a human male, who looked, for all the world, like a recent secondary school graduate just learning how to sow his wild oats. He would sow no more, as Tamsin's hand grabbed and yanked, bringing him in line with the incoming blaster fire, his unarmored frame taking all of the bolts aimed in Tamsin's direction.
And then, Tamsin's hand released, the meatshield having served his purpose, and she continued on, keeping a good pace as she watched the Trandoshan soaring through the air, directly towards her target. Well, that would work too, as Tamsin drew her blade, the crimson light a wash at her feet and along her side as she moved in to cut the body down where it had landed. A bit of bladework might get the manager just where she wanted him. And by bladework, she meant cutting down the trandoshan into two component parts, both of which landed on the manager, pinning him to the ground.
[ Midne (Mi)]
A blaster shot rings out from a different position - from the bar. And directly in to the bartender's leg, shattering it at the shin. That's not healing.
"The Chiss!" She shouts, stepping over the man as he crumbles to the ground, and aiming her rifle directly at his face. Powering on that cooling unit before apparently wasn't an idle threat. "It's you or him, sleemo. If you go in to shock I'll have the medics bring you back so I can do it again!!" Her tone of voice is venomous - the soldier's voice coming through helmet modulation and clearly not in the mood to entertain humor.
As the fighting for the manager ensues further down, SN-6428 keeps her attention (and blaster) focused on her prisoner, but is sure to stand behind the bar so she can take cover once the firing inevitably comes her way. After all, not everybody's so dumb as to fire at the lightsabers.
[ Tarq Najjic (T)]
Tarq can be heard at the entrance. His lightsaber activated shortly before Trandoshan and Gran started peppering the crowd with blaster fire in an attempt to find the Sith searchers, though he drew no fire. "Born on Cheunh, 1132. Graduated with honors from House Academy, 1150. Direct commission as lieutenant junior grade on destroyer-" He's lecturing his rapt, unwilling audience about all the details of their target. Maybe one of them will snap from the tension and spill information? Otherwise he's just playing with his food.
That Trandoshan is no longer Xavier's problem, for his two pieces are on the stairs. The two aggressors in the corner, though - the one with the meat cleavers comes charging in full reckless abandon, roaring. Some sort of berserker, apparently? He comes at the Councilor with broad slices and direct vertical chops. His compatriot's three eyes are rolling different directions, looking for a way out of this mistake, but the only way he sees is through Xavier, so he offers fire support.
Tamsin's stairs are much less eventful, with everyone who matters dead or weighed down by the dead in the most physical sense. The manager can be heard breathing, "Please. He threatened-" He takes a deep breath. "He said to always - leave room four - for his friend, and no one else can go back. Have not seen him tonight! I swear!"
Midne is making friends. Her first friend, the bartender with no shin, screams at the pain and falls to the ground. "He- was smoking when my shift-" He swallows, "oh goddess.... maybe he went in the back door. The rest of us aren't supposed to- not anymore, but- agh, my leg! Why me?!"
[ Xavier Harcourt (Xav)]
Xavier may not be getting any useful information but he is certainly doing his part in drawing aggro. Neither of the two remaining aggressors are Chiss. That much is clear even in the seizure-inducing lights. But the dance has been joined and cannot be broken. Not with a berserker charging up on him paired with a volley of blaster bolts raining from elsewhere in the room.
A shift of his weight. A bend of his waist and a twist of the shoulders. Xavier dodges the onslaught as those unfortunate enough to be nearby panic and try to run away. Try. There's an awful lot of bodies crammed into this bar-turned-slaughterhouse.
"I'm losing my patience," the dark-haired man sneers, his blade deflected twice before finding purchase in the skull-faced attacker's spleen.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"I don't think //his// threatening you is what you need to worry about right now." Tamsin's voice, even through the modulation of the helmet, dripped with sarcasm, as the toe of one of her boots kicked out, knocking the body parts off of the manager's prone form. It wasn't that the action was strictly necessary, it wasn't, but it added a bit of flair, don't you think? "Com along, let's go for a walk." Not that the manager //was// walking, as Tamsin flicked her wrist, and the manager was hauled up, bodily, and upside down by his feet, his body clamped down tight as though he were wrapped in a mummy's bandages as Tamsin took the stairs.
Ah, bodies attempting to make their escape. Her voice rose, augmented by her helm, "This is how this is going to go. All of you will get back to your tables. Hide under them if you like. Or...." Tamsin allowed the silence to linger for a beat, "I will cut you all down and walk over your corpses." And then, Tamsin began the long walk down a short haul, manager on the one hand, blade raised in the other.
[ Midne (Mi)]
"Don't worry about why you," SN-6428 snarls as she produces a pair of binders from behind her waist, clasping one end around the man's left wrist and the other end around the water line that runs along the bar, close to the floor. While he's laying on the ground, minus one leg, some brave (or stupid) soul could still try and 'rescue' him. Not that they'd get far, as she steps just out of reach of him, crouches behind the bar as quickly scans the room for the other source of blaster fire. A Gran. The Mirialan props her blaster rifle and aims it at the Gran. Annoyingly, club goers are fleeing this way and that. Her intention is to stop the Gran from firing at Xavier, and civilian casualties, while not a major concern of hers, would be a waste of time. She needs to wait for the right moment.
In the few seconds she has to wait, she tilts her head slightly to the left, triggering her comm. "Councilor," she reports, her voice less harsh when she's not addressing her new prisoner. "Back door. Look for a sign that disallows employees from entrance."
It's all the time she needed. A pair of Zeltrons clear the space between the trooper and the Gran long enough for her to take her shot, striking the Gran in his side.
[ Tarq Najjic (T)]
The Gran fires twice at Midne, when he takes a shot - the first time he's been hurt. His first shot isn't too far off, though it's definitely not close, and the second is far wide. He's leaning back up against the wall and booth to prop himself up.
The skull-faced berserker is not retreating. His roar was interrupted by the cut to his torso, but he's not slowing down despite losing blood. Instead, he grunts with each swing.
Upstairs, the crowd attempting to flee out the locked exit had already panicked. After Tamsin's threat, there's mass hysteria. Some are trying to get out of the way, but others are just backing away from Tamsin without thinking, or kicking tables down for cover. The crowd is now higher energy, but half of it is still between Tamsin and that door - the door Midne just pointed out really does have an exit. There's the sudden sound of shouting in Huttese from beyond the door, and there's a loud thump. It sounds like they're barricading from inside.
Midne's bartender isn't going anywhere.
[ Xavier Harcourt (Xav)]
His patience, indeed, is running thin and he can sense behind him that progress is being made. Plus he can hear with his ears with the music gone and the screams of the fleeing patrons moving away from him and towards the exits instead. Ripping his sword from Skull Face's flesh, the blade clangs in against the onslaught of attacks against him with a hand-numbing reverberation.
"Enough of this." A cold, brittle statement. A fact not a suggestion. Xavier's words have power behind them -- real and raw -- which slams into his aggressor with chest-caving pressure. Yet the sheer bulk of the target keeps him from enjoying the same fate as the Trandoshan.
Xavier can see it in the other man's eyes: wild and mad with bloodlust. Undeterred.
Instead of turning to rush up the stairs to join Tamsin, Xavier's free hand gestures behind him towards where he heard Midne's voice. "Join her!"
And there he remains: to stand his ground against the berserker.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
And so it began. One almost corpse dangling beside her, and a sea of bodies before her. Tamsin acted with a surprising economy of movement, as she began to cut her way through the bodies that stood between her and the door she needed to get through. She was a woman of her word, true enough and what bodies did not fall to the left and right of her, she did indeed walk over on her way towards the back.
At the door, Tamsin nodded, and adjusted the line of her saber, beginning to cut her way through the locks on the one hand, and the hinges that held the door in place on the other. The way was not immediately clear, however, as she stepped back, the door falling back into the hall, and on top of a few bodies and body parts, but, bonus, making a nice ramp, and revealing a desk, a pair of chairs, even a beanbag floor poof all piled up where the door used to be. And just beyond, a Twi'lek and a Duros, blasters in hand, standing in the hall. "Ah, company."
[ Midne (Mi)]
SN-6428 crouches behind the bar as the return fire sizzles through the air around her, alert enough to hear the command from Xavier. Her helmet turns down at the prisoner on the ground beside her, moaning and groaning while his shattered leg twitches out in front of him. She reaches a hand to test his binders. Secured. A red helmet peeks over the bar as she ensures a blaster isn't aimed at her and ready to fire, then hops over and sprints toward the stairs.
Holding the rifle in both hands, she forces her way between fleeing patrons, once more not going around, but rather -through- all of them until she joins Tamsin. She offers the Councilor a single nod of unity and then opens fire on the barricade beyond! Synthwood, fabric and light durasteel chunks are blasted in to the room as she clears some of the path. She keeps sure to stand out of the hovering manager's reach. It would be embarrassing to have to blast another team member's prisoner.
[ Tarq Najjic (T)]
Skull-face is slowing down. He's still got that relentlessness about him - as long as he has his strength, he'll keep going, but he just got the wind knocked out of him by being slammed against the wall by an invisible Force, and that squeezed a bit more blood out. Still, he squares off once more, switching his grip on his left cleaver, and stomps back towards death with wide, bloodshot eyes visible through his mask. Is he smiling? He might be smiling. His scything blows arc towards Xavier once more. His buddy the Gran glances towards the entrance, where Tarq is still lecturing the crowd while waving his lightsaber, and decides to shoot at Xavier again.
When Tamsin brings down the door and reveals the best obstacles these gangsters could provide on short notice, then Midne blows the rest of it away with her blaster rifle, there's a moment's hesitation from the Duros and Twi'lek. The Twi'lek looks towards the door, and with renewed resolve, looks back at Tamsin, raising his blaster pistol. The Duros, though, sets his blaster on the ground and backs up. "Not paid enough." He points towards door four, and then turns to run down the stairs.
"You coward!" The Twi'lek seems angry, but somehow the thought of standing alone against a Sith is just unenticing, so he sighs, pulls out a set of keys on a ring, finds one, inserts it in the door lock - and sprints after his buddy. Will they make it to freedom?
When door four opens, it reveals three things.
First, the walls in here have been soundproofed, as has the door. Nobody in here has heard anything. Second, there's a Rodian tied to a chair bleeding from multiple open sores. He's been tied to this chair for at least two days.
Third is the Chiss currently cutting on the Duros with a razor blade. Delicate work, almost as if shaving, except he's making tiny cuts on the Duros's skin, who whimpers. His voice is soft and sympathetic: "It doesn't have to be this way. You just have to tell the truth. You /want/ to tell the truth, don't you? It sets you- What did I TELL you about interrupting me while I'm-"
Yes, that's Razp Chior, rogue interrogator. He went to work for the Hutts. Oops? And he still has his back to you.
[ Xavier Harcourt (Xav)]
Boots scuff against the flickering dance floor; a rainbow of squares beneath them splattered with blood of aggressors and innocents alike. Xavier's stance is that of casual but annoyed readiness. The vibrating threads of the mission's progression twanging in his head while he has been made a dancing target for some incredibly bad decision-makers.
Skull Face rushes forward into the depths of his destruction; never given that moment of cognitive consideration that other options had been open to him. No. This moment is robbed from him as Xavier drives his blade straight through the neck and out the other side; diverted only slightly when metal met spinal cord.
A yank to the side rips the sword through and drops Skull Face half decapitated onto the cherry squares of light to blood out to the unheard beat.
Xavier follows his blade around and quickly closes the distance between him and the fleeing Gran; the first slice cutting the hamstring to send the three-eyed creature crumbling to his knees. His scream for help quickly silenced when forged metal pierces the back of his skull and through the center eye.
Xavier has official run out of patience.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"Thank you, trooper." Tamsin had caught Midne's arrival out of the corner of her eye, and she waited until the debris had fallen away enough for ehr to walk through the now doorless doorway. It was a short walk, from there to the door to room four. The door, ahving been unlocked, was easy enough to swing open, which Tamsin did, revealing their Chiss quarry and his guest (that's what we're calling them now), in the room beyond. <"We can deal with the detritus later. Unless you'd like to go take care of loose ends."> The manager, well, he suffered both a better and a worse fate, as the blade of Tamsin's saber swung up, slicing with a surgeon's precision through his achilles tendons, hobbling him before she allowed the body to drop onto the hall floor beside her. She had more important things to deal with. The Chiss' admonition did not receive a rely. Instead, Tamsin simply directed her focus in that direction, and those bands of invisible force wrapped around her quarry, tight enough to make breathing difficult. <<Tarq, you want us to bring him to you? Or are you coming up?">
[ Midne (Mi)]
Barricades down and guards fled, SN-6428 follows the masked Councilor in to the back room, and once she's semi-secured the Chiss the armor-clad Mark makes her way to the emergency exit. She slams the mag-lock in place once the two guards are out and firmly plants herself between the Chiss and the door, the bulk of her armor helping to take up more space before the door's frame.
Without needing to look, as any soldier of the Sith Empire knows their weapon, she presses her thumb to a toggle along the right side (yep! Left-handed blaster!), setting the weapon to stun in case the Chiss tries something silly. The Rodian only gets a cursory glance. Not her problem, and not part of the mission.
[ Tarq Najjic (T)]
<<"Oh, good. Bind him, bag him, bring him out.">>
The Gran and whatever-he-was in the skull mask have certainly learned their lesson. Other people will have to pass it on, though. There's a lot movement near Xavier suddenly, as Tarq walks to one side and gestures people out. For those upstairs, there's just the sound of a few screams and furniture falling and lots of people running. Lots and lots of people. <<"Cracked the seal. Should be easier getting down than up.">>
The Duros only looks up when the cuts stop for a minute. Against all the inhibitions he's gained in the last day, he slowly looks up and over his shoulder at his captor, now a prisoner himself, and past him, to Tamsin. His Basic is broken, and his mouth is incredibly dry. "Pliss. Pliss."
The Chiss says nothing. Nothing at all. He knows the game, and he knows if he doesn't get free in the next few minutes, he likely won't ever be.
[ Xavier Harcourt (Xav)]
Xavier slams the sole of his boot between the shoulder blades of the newly deceased Gran currently being held aloft only by the skewer in his skull. A hard kick frees Xavier's blade from the corpse, leaving it to fall lifeless on the multi-coloured floor still bumping and pulsing to music that may never play again.
A flick of his wrist flings some viscera from his weapon and Xavier unceremoniously runs the length of the blade along the impossibly black sleeve of his robe. "Brown eyes watching the crowd scatter and flee, knowing this night will be forever sealed in their memories. That nightmares will plague them. Word will travel on their lips and the course of their lives marred and changed.
And finally the dark man grins.
[ Tamsin Cas (Cas)]
"Trooper, your binders. Hands and feet, please. Hobble him, permanently, if you need to." He didn't need to be able to walk to talk, yes? Tamsin, who kept the Chiss under tight control, made another light flick of her fingers, as those bands of force pulled the Chiss' arms behind himself, wrists together, ankles together, so that he could be bound. "Keep him secured while I see to this one." She indicated the Duros. Once the Chiss was well in hand, Tamsin would allow her saber to wink out, resetting the hilt on her belt while she dealt with the injured Duros. Never let a good source of information go to waste, yes? Then all that was left was to extract themselves from the club.
[ Midne (Mi)]
SN-6428 nods firmly at the command, setting her blaster back to kill and slinging it around her back on its strap. Two pairs of binders come from that pouch behind her waist (how many restraints does this woman carry?), the Mirialan locking each wrist securely in place before squatting down to do the same to his ankles. She sets the ankles extra tight.
The Marked watches Tamsin quietly as she sees to the torture victim until it's time to start moving. She helps Tamsin move the Chiss out first and then returns to the other side of the bar, offering Xavier a 'sucks to the them' kind of gesture at skull-head, she makes her way around the bar, checking on the bartender. He's still alive. He's mumbling something about how he was only covering someone else's shift tonight but SN-6428 has none of it. She un-clasps the binder around his wrist, leaves it fastened to the bar and helps him hop weakly toward the door on the leg that's left. "This one will need some attention after we get back," she says in to her comm to Tamsin. "I intend to put him on my pay roll. Cybernetic leg - something nice, but not too nice. I want him to still have to work."
