Ask Anything Can Happen

[Arla]

Arla glanced down at her own hands, thinking about the way the other woman had said that. There was no way she had missed Arla initial attack, and that meant she was coping with the idea very well. That was nice. And unusual.

I'm pleasantly surprised you don't object, she stated. That made things simpler, and with the woman turning back to business, she did as well, heading back for the door.

Of course, this was when things took a sideways turn. The entire cantina they had been inside only moments earlier detonated. Not in such a way that the two women outside were killed or even severely wounded, but the same couldn't be said for those inside as the windows burst outward and Arla was peppered with flying glass and knocked backwards squarely off her feet.

Her aural dampeners kicked in, but even then, her ears were twitching in displeasure at the sounds they had just been subjected to as she pushed herself unsteadily back to her feet.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

"It helps that you don't have a puck with your name on it," Miri gave Arla a smirking glance. The Force didn't mean Sith, and the woman had already said she was an Apex contractor. If Miri believed her at her word, which she had no real reason not to, Arla would most certainly not be breaking any unwritten rules of the Mandalorian clans. If Arla hadn't just displayed the opposite, Miri would think getting tossed around without getting touched would actually be pretty fun.

Unless of course it was due to an explosion. The door was blown outwards, the windows shattering and sending sharp shards of glass across the street. Miri was thrown backwards by the detonation, ears ringing but otherwise unharmed. She picked up her helmet from the ground and slid it on. Nothing was ever easy, was it?

Miri stood, blaster rifle at the ready while the inferno inside finished off the patrons and staff alike of the cantina. Beings of every species, color, and shape all turning to the same blackened ash that would cover the floor when the fire would eventually die. There was enough oxygen and fuel in the bunker to keep that fire going for a good while yet, though. She turned her black viser toward Arla.

"That complicates things," she said, turning back to the inferno. The explosion certainly raised many questions for Miri. Was someone also after Arla? Was someone after Miri herself? Or had this just been a coincidence? Maybe a third hunter was in the mix? Doubt they'd be in the bunker if they were detonating a bomb inside of it though. Miri reached up and turned on her Visor's thermal vision.

There. A figure poking their head just around the corner. Miri pointed for Arla without a word. The colorful thermal blob disappeared behind the corner, and Miri flipped her visor back to normal vision. Guess the duo were on a different kind of chase now.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla stumbled momentarily against the far wall of the alley, stabilizing herself with a hand against the non-burning building. She saw Miri pointing off at another building and blinked several times to try to clear her vision before spotting whoever that was up there.

She paused a moment and the being vanished before Arla started giving chase. She thought teleportation might attract too much attention, and in her woozy state she didn't trust it wouldn't make her symptoms worse, either, so she opted instead for ground pursuit. But even ground pursuit for the Nightsister turned Sith turned assassin was far from normal.

She took off like the wind, sailing smoothly - apart from a pair of small stumbles as her head oriented - over the hood of a vehicle before leaping to grab at a higher level of rafters. Or at least, that's how it normally would have gone. But in this case, her concussion had hit her harder than she expected, and she missed the jump, landing somewhat painfully on the ground a moment later. Perhaps Miri would be able to keep up, but Arla... might have to find another way to track down their attacker.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri took off only a moment after Arla. Where Arla jumped, it was clear that the explosion had caused a little more damage to her than expected. The Kryze huntress winced. Arla’s fall looked like it hurt. For Miri’s part, she took to the air. Her jetpack ignited, and she kept up with, and even passed the fleeing suspect.

The figure jumped up, grabbing a tin roof of one of the buildings to pull themselves up. Miri landed on the opposite side of the room, already raising her blaster rifle to stun the suspect when the tin gave way beneath her feet. The entire roof tilted and caved. Miri went down into the building, which happened to be a family’s home. More specifically, she had landed in a Rodian teenager’s room and wished, even as she painfully hit the floor that she could unsee the things she was seeing.

The figure on the other hand got uppercut in the chin by the tin roof with enough force to fling them back into the wall on the opposite end of the alley. Miri was just going to have to hope that Arla would be able to stumble her way to the figure in time to catch them; there wasn’t much she was going to be able to do until she crawled her way out of the dirty laundry basket she’d fallen into, and dealt with the screaming rodian family.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla finally pushed herself up and could hear the sounds of conflict up above and she tried to shake her stupor from her head. Pain shot through her back and her side where she had landed and been hit by the blaster of the explosion. She clenched her hand at her side and saw that Miri had managed to knock the suspect back down to the ground. To Arla's level.

Arla reached both of her hands, her fingers twisting up into a Sign as she touched the Shadow, condensing the condensation in the air into ice that leapt up from the ground under the suspect's feet, skewering his legs repeatedly through. Blood mixed with melting water and the being cried out a guttural cry of agony.

Arla darted over to the man - she could now see he was a Pantoran - and slammed her fist across his face, letting the Shadow flow through her hand to reinforce it against the otherwise bone-shattering hit.

And then she plopped down on the ground, still hearing Rodian yelling inside but figuring Miri would sort it out. It felt more like anger and fear than genuine hostility in the Shadow.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri could speak many different languages, including rodian. The translations became lost when a family of six were all angrily screaming at her. With a groan, Miri got to her feet and brushed herself off, pushing past the rodians. Along the way she grabbed a frying pan, holding it out in front of her as she backed her way toward the door. The rodians followed like pack of angry bugs, kept at bay only by a Mandalorian wielding a fry pan.

The moment she was out the door, she threw the frying pan back inside, and shot the door controls. The door slid shut; the rodians would have to call someone to repair it to get out, but they would be fine. Miri let out an audible sigh. It would take quite a bit of time to get whatever the hell she just saw out of her memory. A lot of time and alcohol.

She turned around, black visor fixing on Arla and the Pantoran culprit. There were a few questions that sprang to mind, one of which being all the blood. “Hm,” Miri hummed, giving a shrug as she let the questions go. Sometimes hunting got messy. It was pretty clear that Arla was no stranger to it. Of course, a knocked out suspect couldn’t give them any answers until they woke up. That gave the two time.

“Are you alright?” Miri asked, fixing her black visor on Arla. She reached behind her with her non-blaster rifle hand, pulling the medical pouch from her belt to offer Arla. If she didn’t have one of her own, the pouch would have the majority of what she needed, barring any broken bones. Pretty good painkillers to boot too.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla actually laughed when she saw Miri emerging from the nearby apartment wielding a frying pan in hand as if it were a deadly weapon. It was somewhat funny but also the result of the adrenaline finishing its course through her.

Miri came over and offered her medical supplies, but Arla waved it off, taking her own medpack out and motioning toward their captive.

Stabilize him, she said, and as she drew closer she would see the array of ice spikes poking out of Arla's latest victim. For her own part, she pulled one of her pain killers out and stuck it into her thigh. The pain slowly began to subside and she pushed herself to her feet.

I'm fine, I just need some rest, she said. We need a place to hold up and interrogate him, she said. Oh yeah, this guys was going to have a bad night, but preferably not out here in the middle of the alley.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri nodded, kneeling over the unconscious pantoran. Her red eyes assessed the ice spikes sticking out of him. If they had been made by anything other than ice, Miri would have left them in to help stop the bleeding; but since they would melt over time she had no real choice in pulling the out one by one. The questions of how the ice spikes got there drifting away with the wind. Arla had already shown she could use some form of magic, Miri was just glad it wasn’t on her.

It took a minute to get the pantoran pumped full of drugs, and get their wounds compressed, clotted, and wrapped. They were in rough shape, but they were certainly going to live. Took just about everything in Miri’s medipak though. When she was finished making sure the pantoran was stabilized she patted him down for weapons, and satisfied that he didn’t have any, threw him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry as she stood up.

“Well I know one place that’s off limits now,” Miri quipped, pointing at the door she had come out of with her thumb. There was at least a ninety-percent probability that the rodian family was not going to let them stay in. “I’m sure that ithorian from earlier would be hospitable.”

The two of them showing up again, with an unconscious and bloodied pantoran after the bunker cantina exploded, that ithorian shop keeper would probably soil himself again and skip out on the whole planet. “There’s also a motel,” she added. The motel would be the most discreet, but giving the ithorian a fright just sounded like fun.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla pushed back to her feet and her head started to feel like it was clearing up, though rest wouldn't go amiss right now. She thought about their options, and although a seedy motel sounded preferable in a lot of ways, in a place as small as this one, she didn't really trust it. Perhaps holding the Ithorian as a... "loosely cooperative conspirator" was a better option.

We'll try him, she agreed. The other woman had already hoisted up their hostage, and now it was just a matter of getting back to the Ithorian without drawing too much attention. The weave through the alleys and backstreets waiting for people to pass made it so their progress was slower, but eventually they arrived, and even in an alien mind, Arla could feel the fear radiating off of the Ithorian. It was satisfying in its own way to hold such sway over a being that the mere sight of you was enough to cause them to metaphorically tremble.

You would like to provide us with space to rest and tend to our captive, she said, reaching out to the Force to reach into his mind and tug at the strings of his intent. He nodded along and spoke in his native tongue which translated to an almost identical repetition of what Arla had just said.

Arla suppressed the smug smile as they were led back to a back room that wasn't quite "spacious" but wasn't cramped either. Do you have cuffs for him? she asked, assuming that if not they would have to scavenge a rope or some cords from around the area.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri let Arla lead the way through the alleys to the Ithorian’s place. Once again, Arla amazed, using the Force to mind trick the poor sod. She could have probably done it without the Force, to be honest, but Miri wasn’t complaining. The Ithorian practically handed them the keys, and scurried off to the motel that the duo would have been at had they not chosen to come here. Fair trade, all in all.

The Mandalorian reached behind her on her belt, pulling out a cuff shaped ziptie. They were only easy to get out of if you allowed the person wiggle room. Miri pulled the Pantoran into a chair, places his wrists together behind the chairs back, and cuffed him as tight as they would go. Buddy wasn’t getting out of this one. Miri cursed herself internally, though. She’d used up her bola, a good chunk of jetpack fuel, her medical supplies, and her one ziptie cuff. She might as well be a blaster at this point.

When the Pantoran was secured, Miri turned to Arla, pulling her helmet off and placing it on a nearby table, and pulling out an EZPhone from her pocket. “Stirfry, burgers, or pizza?” If they were going to spend a night interrogating their little prisoner, might as well have something greasy and delicious to down out his cries of mercy, and to torture him further with when he got hungry himself.

Was a real shame the cantina was nothing more than a crispy bunker now, would have been nice to get a couple drinks too.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Stirfry. Something with a lot of meat, she said. Despite taking after her father's predilection for veggie snacks, on Dathomir Arla had grown up with a largely carnivorous diet that the Dathomirians ate. Often it was still her preference.

You did good work out there, she said. She could only hope that whoever they had captured here would actually lead to the quarry. After all, this was possibly all a dead end, though the coincidence was a little bit too stiff for Arla to believe that.

What she did know was that she had now begun to grow a curiosity about Miri that extended beyond the one line explanation she had. She also knew that not prying was often a valuable trait in a partner.

You looking for more long term employment? she asked, deciding to just blurt the question out frankly because, well, it was Arla. Social subtlety wasn't something she had a lot of patience for and this was basically her trademark at this point.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

With a nod of agreement, Miri looked up local stirfry delivery, ordering them both rather meaty meals that still had quite a few vegetables. Contactless delivery, of course. She would pay before hand through the application, so the delivery person could drop, knock, and leave. That would be best for everyone involved, Miri thought. She pressed the confirm button on her EZPhone, turning a red gaze up to Arla as she complimented her work.

“You too,” Miri sad, a smirk growing on her lips. It wasn’t every day Miri met Force users that were willing to work with her, even rarer that they didn’t become instant enemies. She had said she worked for Apex, which ruled out being a Sith. Though, the Sith were a deceiptful group. The question of longer-term employment caught Miri a little off guard, considering.

“Hm,” she hummed. If Arla was offering her a job with Apex, that would be some gainful employment compared to the hunts she had been doing. Of course, nothing would stop her from continuing those hunts even she did work for Apex, so it seemed like a win-win. “I wouldn’t say no. What did you have in mind?”

Miri’s phone beeped, notifying them that the food was now on the way. Good. Her stomach was beginning to growl. The excitement of the day had run through what little she had to eat in the morning. Was probably the same for the other huntress, if not a little worse from the concussion.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

I want you to come work for me at Apex, she said directly. There was no point in beating around the bush. Of the PMCs in the galaxy today, Apex was arguably the most up and coming of any of them, and those who got in on the ground floor would likely do well for themselves. Arla was always looking for exceptional operators, and Miri had done nothing but impress her.

You've shown yourself to be a skilled hunter. Apex excels in solo bounty hunts and small team strategic assaults. I think you'd fit in well, she said. They weren't the largest numerically, but when Apex showed up they made a difference that far outweighed their numbers. In many ways they were like the Jedi or Sith: force multipliers, which Arla only now realized was likely a contributing factor in the back of her mind.

As the food arrived, Arla also didn't hesitate to dig in, gulping down the delicious food and even savoring the smell reaching her nostrils. Sometimes food was just excellent.

In the meantime, her mind turned back toward their target, thinking about how she was going to extract the information from their captive and wondering if he would survive the mental invasion.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri removed her helmet, placing it on the table. The offer was tempting. Being gainfully employed, and doing what she loved to do? Seemed a whole lot better than going out and hunting for food and letting the finances be taken care of by her siblings. Granted, there was nothing more important than her siblings, though they weren’t around much anymore. Never knock something ‘til you try it.

“Then I guess I work for you now,” Miri said, a smile creeping across her lips. When the food arrived, it had barely been set on the table before Miri joined Arla in digging in. After appeasing her empty stomach, she turned to their target. Interrogations weren’t her strong suit at all. Unless one concerned an armored fist to the face repeatedly to be an interrogation. She’d done that more than a few times in her life.

“How do you want to play it when he wakes up?” Miri asked, setting what was left of her carton of food down. Miri half wanted to see just what Arla was capable of with her magic. She’d thrown people around, moved quicker than lightning, an even impaled the guy with ice spikes. Far be it for Miri to be terrified, but she was far too curious for her own good to not be in awe of it. Mandalorians running around with such power would be… a sight to see.

On the other hand, Miri never knew a good fist to the face to fail when it came to someone who was running before they blacked out. People that ran like that weren’t the type to be loyal to who hired them, especially when their life was in danger. What good were knee caps and elbows if not to shoot them for information?

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla was glad to hear the woman say that she accepted. Apex had a little bit of everything for those who were willing to make their own way in the galaxy and excelled at violence.

I'm going to rip the information out of his head before he wakes up, kill him, and we'll catch our target, she said. The man had been willing to blow up an entire cantina just to throw the two of them off his trail, which meant things were higher stakes than she had first thought.

She moved over to the unconscious, half-alive victim and extended her hand to the man's head, hovering over it and closing her eyes. She focused her energy in the Force onto his mind, rifling through it even as the man began to stir. Not that he was waking, mind you, but more so the uncomfortable distress of a man experiencing a bad dream that he couldn't wake up from.

Arla didn't stop, either. She didn't care if she turned this man's mind to mush just as long as she got what she was after.

It was several moments of the man flailing before Arla finally opened her eyes again.

Our target's hiding out in the docking port, she said.

Stealth will be important or he'll flee, she said. Are you ready? she asked.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri raised a brow at the mention of ripping the information out of his head. Her red chiss eyes watched Arla do her work, shifting her gaze from Arla to the unconscious man and back. There was a terrifying nature to what Arla was doing. At any given point one could have their memories ripped out, their minds turned to mush. And above all of that it wasn't even a nice dream that played when it all happened. The man looked worse off with Arla running through his head than Miri could have ever made him look; not that it wouldn't have been fun trying.

The corners of Miri's lips curved upwards into a confident smile when Arla revealed where the target was and mentioned stealth. Miri grabbed her helmet and slid it over her head, locking it into place. Stealth was her specialty, because beasts is what she did best. She wasn't the type of hunter to sit in a tree and wait for prey to come to her; she tracked it where it lived, where it's natural predators if it had any dwelled, and killed it on ground of its choosing. She gave Arla a nod.

"Stealth hunts are my favorite," she said. Miri grabbed took a quick glance down at the man who had calmed down from his flailing, but would soon most likely be dead. Serves him right. She grabbed her E-11D from the same table her helmet had been on and stepped aside so Arla could finish the job on their victum, her black visor staying on Arla. "The docking port's bays are all open topped. I can get on top of the building and effectively cut off any escape via ship. No one will know a thing."

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla liked what she heard from the other woman, nodding her head in agreement. Good, I like that plan. If you get on the roof, I can flush them right to you, she said. They'd run for the ship and Miri would be there to gun them down. Odds were that it would only be a couple of people at most and if they were lucky, it woud just be their one target.

Arla didn't like to assume she'd be lucky.

She glanced back at the man at her feet, and pondered a moment before shrugging and walking away. She had no idea if he would recover or not, but she didn't really want to add the extra body to their count on the planet. Particularly given they were leaving him behind in the Ithorian's shop.

Maybe he'd bleed out, maybe the Ithorian would kill him, Arla didn't really know or care.

They headed for the spaceport in question, and the docking bay looked almost abandoned. Two men sat out front looking bored spitless with blasters strapped to their hips, and Arla had to assume this was the "guards" that their quarry had hired.

Head up, I'll flush them to you, she said, motioning up toward the top of the port and waiting until her partner was in position before beginning her approach, lightsaber lighting up in hand. That got their attention.

Some batted bolts away and they were retreating back into the hangar, hopefully into the waiting arms of her partner.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

Miri followed Arla up until she said to get into position. The mandalorian nodded and dipped down an alley and out of sight of the guards. Conserving fuel was a must, especially if she was going to make the leap to the roof of the starport, so she found a sturdy pipe that ran the side of a two story building and began to scale it. Once she was on the roof, she hopped from building to building until she was face to face with the starport in the guards' blind spot.

Just like before Miri ignited her jet pack mid-jump, soaring up and over the side of the starport wall before disengaging it. She landed on the thick ceiling with a thud, rolling to cushion to the blow. She made her way to the edge just enough to see Arla below and gave a quick wave before turning back to the landing bays. The docking bay had three of them, and Miri carefully moved along the roof to a position that gave an excellent overwatch of all three. If anyone made a run for the ships, she would see them.

The huntress proned out, resting the buttom of her blaster rifle on an exposed water pipe to use it as a makeshift bipod. Miri settled in, finger just barely feathering the trigger, and the stock of the rifle planted firmly in her shoulder. She could fire a hundred bolts at a cyclic rate in this position and they'd all hit within a twelve inch diameter. Every Kryze had a strength, and it just so happened this was hers. Still wasn't as good as hunting a pack of reek while fending off nexu though. That would always be her true favorite.

Now it was up to Arla to do her thing.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla reached out with the Force and gripped one of the fleeing guards, crushing down on his body with tendrils of green energy until she could hear bones crunching. She swiped her lightsaber along his throat and dropped him to the ground.

The other man fled, firing shots back that Arla batted to the ground. In short order, Miri would see two men running toward the ship. One was a nobody, and the other she would recognize from the bounty puck as none other than their target.

She would have only a second to fire before he was inside the ship and away, though Arla was still in hot pursuit. Or... moderate-speed pursuit at least. Should her partner miss, there was still a chance of Arla catching the man before they managed to take off and clear the atmosphere.

@TheDudeMike

 

[Miri Kryze]

It didn't take very long at all for two men to come into view. It was pretty clear which one was the actual target. The one being protected would always have the least amount of weapons on them, and would be entirely focused on getting away. Like a spooked herd that forgot they had young with them. The sights of Miri's blaster rifle immediately snapped to their target's back, then up and left to lead him before she squeezed the trigger.

The E-11D barked and the red blaster bolt screamed through the air until it slammed into the lower back of the target. The blood under his skin would flash heat and rupture his veins and skin, but the kinetic energy displaced into his spine would break it. While the man would live for now, he wasn't going to be able to walk; it was apparent the way he folded backwards like a lawn chair, screaming in his native tongue. But Miri was no longer focused on him, training the sights of her braced rifle on the second man. He'd make it no more than half way up the ramp to the ship before Miri put a blaster bolt into his back as well, this time a little off-center and to the left, right where his heart was. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Miri waited for a second or two, deciding it was time to descend only when Arla came into view. She kicked her legs underneath her and scrambled to her feet, getting a running start before leaping down into the landing bay. Her jet pack ignited, slowing her descend until her feet touched the duracrete. "Like I said- my favorite," she said, falling in beside Arla. She was now cradling the rifle that had done the deed in her arms, almost completely relaxed, though she did turn around every three steps or so to make sure they weren't being followed or ambushed.

@Phoenix