[Atlas] A Cat, A Dog, and A Badger Exit a Bar...

[Burkhart Kelborn]

______________

♣TRACK♣​

He flew backwards through the window just as planned. What happened once he was through was not planned as he collided with one of his own clan. In his hand he had the adhesive grenade still but he had yet to release it. His grip held it tight to only let it go when he wanted.

He recovered slightly better than Revy. Kelborn, friendly was all he thought when he saw the armor of the Cathar. Leandros was Solus, Leandros was di'kut. Maybe that was why Raz was dead. He had thought that earlier that day. Now, he felt that. All these feelings amassed into the action of Burkhart chucking the adhesive grenade, still set to impact, through the center of the window. Burkhart just meant for it to keep his trail covered since the Little Badger was in one of his fits and not likely to aid in his intended low profile after all this hubbub.

The grenade would impact against anyone part of the broad mandalorian right as he crossed the cusp of the window frame. It would not stop his trajectory or slow him down but his entire front half would be covered in the adhesive. Then the Solus War Councilor slammed into the one hundred and seventy some kilograms of wrought iron mandalorian. He would not so much as tackle Burkhart as just meet him and then stop soon after as he would realize his entire front surface and shared facing side of his arms were stuck in a hug like fashion.

The Badger would be able to twist his wrists probably but Burkhart would just do a series of rapid fire punches down onto the upper back of Leandros. His modified shock boxing gloves on his fists would make short work of seeping past the protection of the Badger's back armor and rendering its wearer unconscious, albeit still adhered to the Morling's own body.

@Painus @Caught in Strangereal continuation of this thread. Normal posting order is Leandros, Burk, Revy but leandros has already gone in the shared time posting turn in the previous thread.

 

[Revora Musana Kelborn]

The impact had sent Revy's small frame tumbling a few meters behind burk. The Cathar recovered keeping her eyes locked on the Alor. The Badger was pissed and judging by the strained mashed together compilation of expletives not in a mood to give a [REDACTED]. Though really while the rage was off putting the main thoughts was on her Alor. Did he really think he could get away? That this would blow over like many small minor offenses that could tick off any overzealous Mandalorian? No that couldn't happen. She's gotten in trouble with the law and every time she did she sat through everyone and endured.

Whether it be stealing a loaf of bread, or picking fights anytime she got in trouble she endured the punishment. It was a lesson, most of the time of how to not get caught again but also another one: Actions have consequences. Maybe Burk forgot about that, she remembered her father's words right now. "Those who survive long enough on the battlefield begin to think they're invincible, But learn from me. Death is always around the corner." She often argued and disagreed with him but but this was one of the few times she definitely agreed with the old disabled veteran. She wasn't going to let him run away from this no way.

Noticing his arm twitch she broke out into a sprint. She still had her pistol in her right hand and her vibro-bayonet. Given the way the Alor acknowledge and focused on Leandros he was likely not expecting his own clan mate to attack him. Revy would tackle into his exposed back, when she did this she held her vibro-bayonet forward and plunged it straight into the Jetpack's fuel tank and quickly made a downward slash to cut the tank wide open causing fuel to drizzle. This would likely result in two outcomes. One: The impact of her tackle would hopefully to mess up his grenade toss, skewing it's aim so it wouldn't effectively impact Leandros. The second was obvious cutting the fuel tank wide open would cause the fuel to quickly gush out sabotaging his jetpack.

Hearing the roar of both Leandros and his jet pack Revy tried to quickly break off from the Morlings back hoping to avoid the collision of unstoppable badger meeting immovable dog. Though the chances of Revora's chance of getting involved in yet another Jet pack related crash for the day was high.

@Painus @Darasuum

 

[Leandros Solus]

Leandros was overcome with anger, all of his thoughts switching to the ways in which he would punish the traitor in front of him. He gritted his teeth firmly as he flew, impelled to do battle by instinct alone. In a way, his savagery was like an animal’s, though there was intent behind his hate. Animals could not reason, not beyond natural survival. Leandros, though, was a man whose entire life had been war. Honor and loyalty were the bedrock of his life, and to violate the inviolable was such an alien concept to him that he had no choice but to seek vengeance on the perpetrator.

Burkhart flew back and Leandros flew forward, perhaps a poetic foreshadowing of what was to come, though the poetry of the moment was certainly lost on him. Leandros, having a mere split-second to react upon seeing Burkhart's grenade, violently twisted his body to the side to avoid the direct impact. The window was large enough for the massive Burkhart to fly through, and, because Leandros was not nearly as big, there was ample room for him to maneuver laterally. The grenade burst behind him, blocking any chance of being followed, as well as coating the backside of Leandros' legs in adhesive. Shortly after the grenade toss, Burkhart's own Kelborn clan mate lunged at and tackled the morling from behind. Simultaneously, she plunged her vibro-bayonet into his jetpack, carving through the metal like a knife through hot butter. The jetpack would spark and protest, oily fuel spilling out from it and, hopefully, over Burkhart, rendering the device inert.

Leandros was committed to the tackle and slammed into the morling. Though Burkhart was dense, Leandros was not without significant weight of his own, and his bulk only added to the impact. Burkhart was already unbalanced from moving backwards and being tackled from behind, which was enough for Leandros to be able to shift his immense weight around and prevent him from getting solid footing. His goal was to simply push Burkhart back and keep him unbalanced, not embrace him like a brother. As soon as he felt the morling give, he gave one last shove back and threw his own weight backwards to kill his forward momentum. He deactivated his jetpack and landed a few meters from Burkhart, drawing his beskad with a sharp metallic hiss.

”After everything we’ve done for you?!” he shouted at the man, his voice thick with animosity, ”You would spit on Raz’s memory?! She died defending di’kut’s like you!”

@Darasuum @Caught in Strangereal

 

[Burkhart Kelborn]

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Leandros came through the window and somehow managed to twist his body to avoid the grenade impacting directly on him. Osik The man slammed into him. But the War Councilor was not the only one. He felt the weight and tug of Revy as she grappled with him too. Her melee weapon cutting into the jetpack's housing making it no longer usable. In addition Leandros didn't even get his backside coated with adhesive, only a portion of his legs.

Burkhart tensed as the Badger's body slammed into him sending his feet skidding backwards on the ground. The War Councilor had his jetpack to thank for that move. His feet dug into the dirt, using his own Clanmate's sudden weight as an anchor. After he stopped he felt Revy's grip loosen and Leandros's voice come up again. The Morling with the red right hand barred his teeth and grabbed leandros back so him letting go was not up to Leandros anylonger. He had chosen to get in close. Burkhart would show him the mistake he had made.

Leandros would shove him but there would be no release. The Little Badger had just stuck his hand in a bear trap and was going to feel the consequence. Letting out a ferocious roar he pulled Leandros off the ground continuing with some asssitance of momentup and leaned back pulling Leandros over him.He hoped Revy was out of the way unless she wanted to be crushed underneath their shared weight. This was intended to slam leandros into the ground behind them. If it did not hurt his body it would also at least damage his own jetpack. Unless of course he twisted again and had the force directed towards another part of his body.

The force of it causing even Burk to loose his grip and for the two of them to separate by a few meters. Burkhart knew that would not stop Leandros. Some guys you just know will go a couple rounds before they stay down. As he came up back to his feat he opened his left hand slightly. From his sleeve came the handle of a lightsaber. He had it mounted on a NEWDA and thanks to his jacket it had gone ignored up until now. The one that entered his right hand was one that would glow purple if he had activated. For now he held it unignited like he was almost ready to punch with it. If Leandros was still intent on drawing a weapon then so too would Burkhart brandish the blade of energy.

The War Councilor would also probably still want to say something. He always did. But Leandros was not in a state of mind for Burkharts words to have any effect even if he cared enough to explain himself. He had been there when Mandalore had been attacked. But Leandros had it set in his mind that Burkhart was some sort of coward. Burkhart knew to not trust the word of a coward so any explanation was unlikely to satisfy him.

@Painus @Caught in Strangereal

 

[Leandros Solus]

Leandros charged forth, ready to keep pushing Burkhart back, not caring about the other Mandalorian in the way. The man’s bulk slowed the War Councilor, especially once he slammed into Revy. Leandros felt his grapple be met by Burkhart’s own grapple, and soon the two found themselves tangled up. With a grunt, Leandros tugged against the bigger man’s grip to no avail. Very quickly, he began to realize that Burkhart was going to do something painful, and so he braced himself for the impending slam. When Burkhart leaned back to slam Leandros on his back, he twisted his body in his grip, rotating somewhat.

As he felt himself lift off the ground and Burkhart’s grip loosen, Leandros twisted to fall more on the side of his back, rather than allowing it to directly slam down on his jetpack. As he hit the ground, he tucked his chin and rolled forward on his shoulder blade to recover more quickly. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of him, but Leandros was a skilled fighter, and his adrenaline kept him from feeling the pain of the blow right away. He staggered out of his roll several meters and turned, looking at Burkhart, chest heaving as he caught his breath. He wanted to punish the traitorous Mandalorian, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. They had fought so many battles alongside each other, and he desperately wanted to believe that he would not deal with the Sith, even if he was seen gambling with the Empress.

He was deeply conflicted, but eventually he let his shoulders sag, shaking his head. ”Go,” he said with a groan, ”Run from here if you must. Know that you’ll never find peace in the afterlife.” Rather than draw his beskad, he pointed the direction for him to run. ”Today’s not your day to die. Go, Dar’manda, and let me avenge our fallen Mand’alor in peace.”

With that, he gave a look at the other Kelborn and pointed towards the bar wherein a great battle was taking place. ”Your place is fighting the Sith, Cathar, not traitors.” His tone was commanding, but weary. Today was not the day to shed Mandalorian blood. Not while there had been so much spilled. If Burkhart didn’t try to intervene and left, Leandros would return to the bar, looking in a window on the other side of the bar from the one he flew out of so as to avoid the leftover effects of the adhesive grenade. He readied a quickdraw and his beskad, eager to avenge the fallen.

//exit thread, returning to the other thread. Sorry for posting out of order, this fight just felt out of character.

@Darasaurus @Caught in Strangereal

 

[Burkhart Kelborn]

______________

He was ready for Leandros to charge him, to swing at him, anything. But the man stayed there looking back at him, the posture of his body saying he was staring daggers at him. One tended to get that sort of thing when such a significant portion of their life existed inside emotionless helmets. Instead the new Mand'alor the Crusader stayed there, shoulders sagging.

It pissed Burkhart off. He should have felt relief but it just enraged him. This guy, who knew him so well thought he was going to get off scott free for coming at him. Then he continued to speak. Always with the words.

When Leandros raised his hand to point Burkhart off like some dog that had been bad. The man had hated anything that was not human enough for him. It was about time the Morling had got his compensation. He would not kill Leandros. But he would kick his ass so that he never talked to him without its deserved respect again lest he wanted the lesson repeated.

Burkhart reached down and pulled a frag grenade with his free hand, activated it and tossed it to Leandros's head with some arc. It was set to four second timer to explode but it would either conk the mandalorian on the head or make him try to catch it. Whatever Leandros did Burkhart would lunge forward while he was distracted and give him a one two strike with his fists.

Meanwhile, this whole time, Revy had apparently had the wind knocked out of her when she was nearly crushed by the two larger mandalorians. She was still on the ground probably trying to regain he breath. But at least she would not be able to interfere to greatly with Burkhart and Leandros.

@Painus @Caught in Strangereal Revy timed out.

 

[Revora Musana Kelborn]

Revy was not expecting the impact to affect her as badly as it did but she felt the wind get knocked out of her petite frame. Before she had time to process and begin functioning again she felt the weight of Leandros crash into her. Things weren't going well for the Cathar as she cried out in pain briefly and found herself trying to recover from the fact that the laws of physics were kicking her ass today. She had drop and lost her pistol in the altercation and armed with a knife and still having one pistol holstered.

As Revy lied on her back trying to recover from blow. Once again relegated to being an observer in this duel of wills. She was hoping desperately that he would just go. She wanted to fight the Sith not a person who was up until half an hour ago had been someone she would have taken a blaster bolt for. The Mand'alor was right leave and go fight the Sith. What was the point of killing each other today?

That all went out the window when she saw Burk reach for a grenade. She couldn't believe it and was frustrated beyond belief seeing him chuck an explosive at the Mand'alor the one who reunited the clans! Instinct took over as she drew her other still holstered pistol and fired 2 shots aimed at the Alor's unarmored lower legs hoping to get a clean hit and injure the Alor. If she had to personally beat the snot out of the Morling to put some sense back into him, then dammit she was going to find a way to drag her injured body up to do it.

@Darasaurus @Painus

 

[Leandros Solus]

Leandros gave him a chance to walk away from this. A chance to leave this place and never be seen again, knowing that in the eyes of their gods he was nothing more than a soulless traitor. He gave him the gift of escape and Burkhart spat in his face and refused. Something in the morling refused to walk away from it all; perhaps it was what little bit of Mandalorian culture he had in him still held on for dear life and would not allow him to simply leave a fight. It was a shame, and Leandros decided that peace could never be an option anymore. He disgraced Raz’s memory and the memories of every Mandalorian who died defending their home with his acts, and now he spat on Leandros’ one-time offer of nonviolence. Fine.

Burkhart reached for a grenade as Leandros told him to leave, which set off every alarm in his head that he would not be listening. With similar reflexes, Leandros reached down for his impact-triggered concussion grenade and quickly flung it at the ground in front of the very large target a few meters ahead of him just as he had let his own grenade fly. The previous slam, combined his subsequent roll and stagger, put about four or five meters between the two, giving him ample room to maneuver.

With Burkhart set on charging directly forward (regardless of what Leandros did) into his concussion grenade and the morling’s timed explosive heading towards him, Leandros jumped up and activated his jetpack’s combat function, sending him several meters in the air angled away from Burkhart – well out of the blast radius for either grenade before they could blow but potentially leaving Burkhart within the radius of his own frag as he committed to running forward. The shrapnel might not breach his plating, but the concussive force of the explosion, combined with the total disorientation of his concussion grenade, would completely floor and stun the morling. Simultaneous to his jump, he intended to draw one of his quickdraws and let off a quick one-shot burst of two bolts towards Burkhart’s legs, leaving his other hand free as he hung in the air for a moment before landing about seven or so meters from his jumping point. He didn't want to kill the man he had worked alongside for so long; he needed him to just... stop.

Before he could get his shots off, however, a massive explosion erupted from within the bar beside them. Suddenly burning fragments of wood and metal came rocketing towards them, blown apart into deadly pieces of shrapnel from... something within. The explosion was so powerful that it detonated the buildings adjacent to the bar. A chunk of wood and shards of glass flew at Leandros and knocked him aside mid-air, sending him off-course from his backwards jump. He was still out of range of the grenades, but the sudden blast surprised him. Chunks of debris and wreckage flew all around them and suddenly the three had to deal with heat and rubble exploding towards them. His thermal undersuit would protect him from the heat and his armor would block most of the debris, but being rocked around like that was certainly disorienting.

Leandros reoriented himself and groaned, looking at the bar. He scanned the wreckage, wondering who had died within, hoping the Sith inside had gotten punished. This was like an act of divine intervention by the gods, and he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. With the sheer scale of the explosion, it was unlikely that this battle was going to continue. He groaned again and began to push rubble off of him, aiming to get to his daughter and get the hell out of here. Nothing could have survived that blast, not even Sith.

@Darasaurus @Caught in Strangereal

 

[Burkhart Kelborn]

______________

This was the second time Leandros somehow did something he should not have been able to do. But it was not like Burkhart could object to the gods and say it was unrealistic. His fragmentation grenade chucked at Leandros still cluncked hard against the man's helmet since he did not see much point in avoiding it or smacking it out of the way like the Morling had expected.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Revy draw her blaster. She was low to the ground and her barrel was aimed low too. He did not know what part of him she was aiming at but that was the benefit of his bulwark shield still being active. He got low as yellow blaster bolts impacted against his energy shield. But Burkhart did not hear it fizzle out like it usually did, signalling it needed to be recharged. Instead a defining blast from the impact set concussion grenade caused him to falter.

Leandros had been standing five meters away from him and the edge of blast radius belonging to his own fragmentation would go off. He had never intended on any of them being in the blast radius. He would have kicked it out of the way of Leandros or Revy.

The shocking explosion of the fragmentation grenade was felt still as was the loud blast despite his deafened and dazed state. The canine's mouth was contorted as the ringing continued. But another blast came from behind him, from the bar he had just been in. Even Burkhart's massive form was thrown into the dirt from being closer to the building.

The relatively gentle fall of wooden planks, pieces of debris, dirt clods and probably body parts, began to shower everything in the area. By the time he got up and could see or hear well enough the dar'manda could see Leandros had felt the wave from the explosion the same as he had.

Groaning, the ex-field marshal got up. He could feel his right cybernetic armor was not working at its best capacity, like a sore muscle or like he had recently hit his funny bone. The red right hand flexed into a fist and then opened again. It was working well enough still.

With a look over his shoulder though he put his beef with Leandros behind him. The bar he had been in seconds ago was a shell of what it had been. So much of it was on fire and even more had been blasted away. He began to walk away from Leandros towards the ruins of the bar. Members of his crew had been in there. The empress and so many others had been inside. He wanted to know first hand who had perished. He pulled out his renegade heavy blaster and kept the purple lightsaber un-ignited in his right hand.


@Painus @Caught in Strangereal //exit thread. going back to the original thread

 

[Revora Musana Kelborn]

Sometimes you think you have an understanding of what's going on. For awhile caught in the narrow focus of their individual combat revy just figured that the bar was likely a deadly shootout of blasters and force attacks. Truth be told she was glad Burk had managed to deflect the bolts she fired. She wanted to stop him nothing more nothing less. The bar exploded along with the concussion and frag grenade in a deadly cacophony of noise and death. Revy was glad in that moment for her Thermal undersuit and armorweave as it manage to negate any residual heat and shrapnel being kicked up in the mess before her. Other than the severe beating she took from being part of multiple mandalorian sandwiches today she was fine.

That didn't stop her from just staring vacantly at the burning wreckage before her. A few things came through her mind in that moment. One: She should have been dead, had she not gotten thrown out the building by the collision with Burk she would have been caught up in that with little chance to escape. To think in her moment of rage she nearly ended her life. Revy was more of a skeptic than her fanatically religious father, still that didn't mean you didn't have moments where you had to stop and think. Maybe this was a chaotic soup of elements and variables crashing together to generate this outcome, maybe it was 'the will of the force' or hell maybe this was straight up divine intervention but she didn't die when she should have. Maybe her time and fate wasn't to die in some crappy dive bar on a criminal world. Maybe there was greater things she was meant for. Maybe something knew how devastating it would be for her to die like this with her family abandoned. She didn't know but she would definitely spend nights after this in deep contemplation mulling everything over.

The Cathar dragged herself up from the ground, wiping dust and ash off her armor as a thin layer began to cake it. Her visor turned to look at Burk who seemed to be in a similar state to her. It was clear that their fight was over and really to try and kill each other. She felt a layer of guilt start to come over her seeing that many good Mandalorians died today in such a bad way. This wasn't a warriors death. She figured the least she could do was go and help gather the bodies and give them the Mandalorians the burial they wanted.

She could barely look at Burk or talk to him as her mind was tied in a gordian knot of emotions and thoughts and feelings. Maybe silence was the appropriate way to go about this. Still picked up her weapons holstering them. Then she contemplated going out to the wreckage to help any survivors, or maybe she would head out to her ship to just crash and rest, she didn't know at moment.

@Painus @Darasaurus //exit thread. May go back to original thread if it's ok.