A Day at the Fair

[Thor]

The sun was high in the sky, the Nerfs were fed and Serah was free for the rest of the day. She was excited, the annual Lothal fair at the capitol was well underway and it always landed near her birthday. Today she was to meet her two best friends at the fairgrounds, a green skinned Twi’lek girl around her age called Oola and Arribacca, the hairy son of a Wookiee merchant her family had dealings with. While her father was busy tending to the farm, her mother was free enough to go to the fair with her.

The fair itself was huge, spanning four city blocks and had just about everything one could imagine. It was loud, colorful and noisy. As Serah ran off to find her friends, she wondered what to do first. She had been on Lothal her entire life and had been too the fair every year but it was always changing. The fair always had a central theme to it, last year it was the world of tomorrow and had all kinds of cool looking future tech in it. This year the theme seemed to be old western. Serah had told her friends to meet her in the south eastern end of the fair grounds where there was a lot of cool rides, shooting galleries and old timey saloons to get some food.

 

[The Captain]

It was rare that Imran Bhol got to see his homeworld of Lothal anymore, let alone stay long enough for anything grandiose, but he'd accumulated enough legal leave-time and goodwill with his superiors to earn him a nice few days stay on his homeplanet, and right in the midst of a nearby town's annual festival. He could remember back to when the settlement was little more than a Podunk, and the annual festival was more a formality than an affair that you took time from your day to spend at. In the years he'd been gone it had grown both in size and scope into a worthwhile gathering, complete with themes. He'd come into the fair with his younger brothers, all five of them, and any families they might have started over the course of their lives. Now the infamous uncle to a rambunctious band of Lothalians, he was content to stand back and wander the fairgrounds as the children had their fun. Not that he thought they should be around the blaster pistol he had tucked under his rather large nomex poncho. Old military habits die hard...

 

[Thor]

Unbeknownst to the families having fun and enjoying themselves today, a sinister plot was afoot. An assassin hired by a rival clan to the Khans had been assigned to take out a certain Echani woman. Wearing a tan wide brimmed hat, a cotton shirt with a black vest complete with a sheriff's star and Nerf hide chaps, the assassin looked as though he could be one of any of the workers at the fair. He even sported a voluptuous handlebar mustache, as an added kick. He had carefully stalked the Khan party as they entered the fairgrounds, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Meanwhile a group of excitable Lothalians darted to and fro trying their luck at the fair games and goggled at the concessions. Serah watched with glee as her friend, Oola, took down a droid in a quickdraw game, and Ooo’d at Arribacca as he almost broke the bell at the test your strength game. After their fun, Serah dragged her mother over to one of the food stands where they sold fired everything, from Jogan fruit to Nerf-bacon. As they walked around, a parting in the crowd appeared and a tall figure dressed as a sheriff gave an evil grin at the family as he pressed a button and chaos came galloping in. A huge explosion, screaming families, shots being fired. Serah had been knocked back and fell unconscious, critically injured by the blast, sames as her mother. Her friends were lucky enough to only sustain minor injuries, however, in all of the confusion the sheriff had vanished into the crowd.

 

[The Captain]

The sound of the explosion ripped through the fair, along with the shockwave and the intense burst of heat. While most of the locals burst into hysterics or dropped to the ground, Imran's hand flew straight to his pistol and he dropped into a more tactical stance. That blast was too strong for an accidental detonation, it must have been a deliberate explosion, although from who was a mystery. Gesturing for his family to double back away from the pillar of smoke, he bolted in the opposite direction, tearing off through the crowd. Upon arriving at the bombsite, he found, thankfully, that no one was dead. Severely injured, sure, but all alive. Racing over to the nearest victim, a young Echani girl, he slipped an arm under her and began to slowly pull her from the smoldering wreckage.

 

[Thor]

Arri woke up in a daze with only minor injuries. After making sure that Oola was fine, he ran over to where most of the carnage was to look for Serah and her mother. While most were running in panic or screaming from pain, a rescue team was already helping people out of the blast zone. He felt relief as a militant looking person helped carry a familiar looking girl from the wreckage. But that was turned to fear when he noticed how badly injured she was. Arri rushed forward to help and look for her mother. When he found her, she looked if even possible, in worse shape than Serah.

 

[The Captain]

Once the Echani girl was free, the rescue crews moved in and took her from his grip. Turning around he spotted another young Echani leaning over the older woman. The realization hit him like a charging nerf bull, that was her mother, and the young woman he pulled out first was probably her sister. Moving over to the two of them, he eased the younger girl back so he could get a better look at the mother. She was in terrible shape, with several burns and shrapnel wounds all over her torso and forearms. He couldn't tell if she was going to make it or not, but from his perspective it didn't look good.