Ask Difficulty: Boss Level

Poffo Sauvage

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The trio of bounty hunters were out of Corellia's atmosphere, and soon they would be making the jump to hyperspace tracking Mil Ro's ship. Aska and Poffo were a little deflated. That was obvious back on the rock. The first thing Poffo did in the ship was take two bottles of hooch from the bar in the commons area, poured two glasses, put the glasses back on the shelf, and put one bottle in front of himself and the other on the table in front of the seat across from him. Aska said she wanted to get lit. Poffo knew how to get lit. He would be interested to see just how well this broad held her liquor. She talked a big game, and when it came to fighting, she backed it up. He was interested to see if she could back up her big talk when it came to the booze as well. He had a suspicion she just might.

And Poffo needed every drop of it. The idea of getting the drop on Brag Tyllon and snatching him up before he could say "boo" had always been the plan. That plan was all shot to hell now. They had no idea what they were walking into when they dropped into that chop shop. Tairo had made it out like some mom and pop operation. That was far from the truth. It was run by a wealthy Corellian named Luclan who had that placed protected well enough to give himself a fighting chance if the Sector Rangers decided to take a crack at it. Tairo was still tied up somewhere in the back. He could backhand that little Rodian all the way back to Rodia for not filling them in on the whole truth.

The trio of bounty hunters, while certainly badass, weren't prepared for the sort of resistance that Luclan had. Luclan cut a fair enough deal, but Ro was now on the run, and there was no question that he would alert Brag Tyllon. The plus side was that Klied put a tracker on Ro's ship, so if he did run to Brag, they would know exactly where to look. The downside was that Brag Tyllon was not a man that you wanted to give a warning to.

Poffo waited for the three of them to finally make their way to the commons, and Poffo spoke first. "Alright. Bad deal. We all know it's a bad deal, yeah," Poffo said. He took a long swig straight from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. "But we're going to track Ro, likely right to Tyllon. All good, brother." He looked up at Klied. "What do we do if he drops us off right in the middle of Syndicate Space? What if he's protected by the Black Sun or if he's running spice for the Pykes? We have to finish this asshole off, yeah, yeah we do. No doubt about that. He knows we're coming right at him. Either he'll hunt us down like dogs, or we'll hunt him down like dogs."

Sauvage took another long swig and put the bottle down firmly. "Make me feel better about this, brother. How's this going to go down?"


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Kliedden Raxx

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Klied grumbled in response to Poffo's questions as he stood leaning against the wall. It was clear he and Aska weren't happy about him allowing Ro to escape. He hadn't been crazy about it either, but in the moment it seemed the best course of action. The alternative would have been starting a bigger fight with some Corellian gangster, and who knew how deep that man Luclan's ties went. But the situation was far from unsalvageable in the Onderonian's eyes. If anything it was just more interesting now.

"I'm not bothered by the Syndicates." The hunter said boldly. "Tyllon isn't the only one with connections. I've done jobs for the Hutts before. If our scuffle causes problems upstairs I have friends who can sort it out. We just need to worry about us, and him." He came forward and sat at the table, leaning on his elbows and looking between his partners.

"Like I said before, the best thing we have going for us is our reputation. We've beaten Tyllon once already. As much as you play him up that's got to put some fear in him." He said, turning his eyes on Poffo. "And Ro crying about how we busted his entire operation will only nudge him along. He'll be feeling the need to make the first move, to gain control of the situation. That is preferable. We don't want to charge in to this guy's turf, even with knowledge ahead of it. We want him to come out on the hunt."

The hunter sighed as he sat back in his chair. "He needs to think he has the upper hand if we're going to catch him off guard. I'm willing to be the bait here. Maybe we set some kind of double ambush. I make it out like I'm going after him, let him turn it around on me, and then you two come at him sideways." He looked between his partners for some kind of response. He was well aware group morale wasn't at it's highest right now.

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Aska Ryun

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As Kayto brought the ship into hyperspace, Aska leaned back in her seat with a cigarra in her lip while she ran a cloth against one of the blades she had retrieved from the skulls of two thugs back on Correllia, wiping the blood and bone fragments away. Since boarding the freighter from the landing pad, it had been a silent few moments. Ro was away and the tracker was placed but while things had gone swimmingly at first, the plan had quickly fallen apart and now they needed to formulate a new course of action.

As Klied and Poffo began to discuss their next move, Aska set down her knife and clothe before reaching across the table to snag the bottle away from the brawler. As she listened to the men speak, she removed the cigarra from her mouth before taking a long swig of liquor before placing it back down and pushing it towards Klied.

"A pincer strategy? Not the worst idea," Aska finally spoke up before taking a drag off her cigarra. "But putting any of our lives in the firing line without knowing what we're getting into seems foolhardy to me," Ashing the cigarra on the floor, the clone stared ahead absently as she contemplated. They were going in entirely empty handed without even any indication on where they were going, let alone what they would be facing. "That sleemo Mil is definitely going to fill Brag in on what we have, which is only the three of us, an irritating droid and an old ship. And what does Brag have... Droids, men... A tank, maybe? Who knows... If he's as hooked up with the Syndicates as you two have led me to believe, we can't rule anything out,"

Turning to Klied, Aska focused her stare on him. "I like the idea of luring him out before Poffo and I close in on his flanks but we need to do some recon when we find where he's stashed himself away... Or maybe..." Pausing for a moment, Aska took another drag of her cigarra before sitting forward. "If his pride is at stake here, then we could just have Poffo or you contact him on the holo... Call him out directly. That should give us the opportunity to watch him and his forces leaving his hole and then we'd know exactly what to be prepared for,"

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Poffo Sauvage

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Poffo leaned back, kicked his feet up on the table between them and continued to drink straight from the bottle. After a long swig where one watching could visibly see the line of booze lowering, he put the bottle down on the table and put his hands behind his head. "Not many ways to go about this and come out on the other end all in one piece, if ya dig. I don't know all the bounty hunter rules, no, no I don't. And what I'm about to suggest may be out of line."

He looked over his massive forearms toward the private bunks. Tairo was still laid out in one of them. "But we do have an option of cannon fodder, and I wouldn't lose one eensy-teensy ounce of sleep if his life went to a good cause, yeah. And by a good cause, I mean us walking away from this deal."

The brawler looked up at the ceiling trying to think. Planning and organization wasn't his strong suit. Bonking heads was his strong suit. He was street-wise and could plan a beating like nobody's business if he knew the terrain, but the galaxy was a little bigger than even the back alleys in all those lower levels of the Capital Planet. "But, I'll leave the planning and shooting to you two. You guys can leaving the beatings to me, yeah."

Poffo snuck a peak at the tracker map and shook his head. "I don't know what the hell I'm looking at, brother." This much was true. Poffo lived damn near his entire life in the underbelly of Coruscant. He had never been on a ship until he met Klied and cut that first deal with him. "Can we tell where he's going already or not?"


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Kliedden Raxx

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Klied listened to the reservations of his two partners as they spoke. Their situation certainly wasn't the most ideal, but he was confident between the three of them they could figure something out. At Poffo's request he took the tracker map and read the positioning, brow furrowing in bemusement.

"Looks like Ro is heading for Teth." He explained, and raised a hand to scratch at his chin as he thought. "That's wild space, pretty far out of the way. It's isolated, mostly jungle with a few Hutt strongholds." He slid the tracker back to Poffo. "Looks like Tyllon is working with them after all. But this we can work with." He looked between the two of them, an idea forming in his mind.

"It's the perfect opportunity to draw him out. Because there's no civilization to speak of, places like these need to be supplied from offworld. All we need to do is follow Ro to exactly which castle Tyllon is staying in, then hang back. We shoot down any ship heading there, or at least scare them off, and eventually whoever's in there will be forced to come out and do something about it." He grinned savagely. "And in the wilderness like that? That's my territory. These murglaks will never see us coming..."

Klied wasn't crazy about the idea of playing pirate, especially when innocent people could potentially end up targeted. That being said they didn't need to kill them necessarily, just be enough of a hazard for them to start avoiding the planet. And in truth it wasn't the nicest people that worked for the Hutts anyway. He knew enough about that personally. If they could coax Tyllon into coming into the jungle to try and hunt them down, even if he brought his own entourage of droids or Hutt mercenaries with him, They wouldn't stand a chance. He was sure of that much.

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Aska Ryun

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Ashing her cigarra once again, Aska watched as Poffo stood from the table and left the bottle unguarded on the table. Reaching ahead and wrapping her hand around it's neck, she brought it close before closely inspecting the contents, or rather the rapidly diminishing contents. Frowning slightly at the brawler as he walked towards the tracking map, the clone proceeded to place the bottle to her lips and took a long swig from it for herself but as Klied joined Poffo, the destination ahead of them caused her to cough slightly, booze shooting from mouth slightly.

"Teth?" Aska queried, turning in her seat to face the two men behind her. She had never been to the world, or at least... Not in this life. Recalling the last meeting she had with Trench before being granted her freedom from the lab on Coruscant, the name of the world hung in her mind. Teth; the home world of the ancient bounty hunter turned Sith that she was cloned from. Thousands of years ago, her genetic material grew from a young girl to a proud and powerful woman here and it seemed fate was pulling her back.

Standing from her seat, Aska did her best to maintain her composure. She wasn't sure if she was prepared to go somewhere that had such significance to her ancestry... Not like her first trip to Onderon. But as soon as the doubt began to manifest in her mind, the holocron she had tucked away within the inside pockets of her jacket began to give off the same warm sensation she had felt from it so many times before. Unprepared or not, she would be returning to a world she had never visited. It seemed the choice was not her own.

"That sounds... like a solid plan," Aska replied, coughing slightly to force the uneasiness from her voice. "We can set up camp a few clicks from his enclave and whenever a supply ship arrives, jump on board this bucket of trash and hit the skies. Light up the freighters close enough to Tyllon that he ID's us and then we leave enough of a crumb trail that he can track us down. That will put the advantage back in our hands when he comes looking for us," she continued, though primarily for her own benefit. Speaking the plan out loud always brought her a sense of ease and she needed the distraction. "You're smarter than you look, Caveman," Aska laughed as she crossed her arms, a sarcastic grin forming.

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Poffo Sauvage

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A prize fighter, cage fighter, brawler...anyone who has been in bunches of situations where someone was going to get their brains beat in could recognize anxiety and uncertainty. It wasn't some mystical power. It was experience. Poffo saw it in Aska when Klied said that the trio would be heading to Teth. He gave her a long, sidelong glance, but let it be. Whatever it was, it was her business, not his, but the idea of going to Teth clearly had her on edge.

Sauvage, on the other hand, wasn't thrilled about what he was hearing either. The plan seemed to be as sound as they were going to get, but Poffo rather enjoyed urban landscapes. He didn't know what to think about jungles and forests with their snakes and poisonous insects under every leaf. He would rather face a wookie in hand to hand combat- which he had- than worry about what was lurking about in the jungle.

He handled it the best way he knew how. "I'm going to go get wasted, yeah. Going to get hammered like a nail, yeah. Going to pass out with holding this bottle like a child." And he did.
----

Later, as the ship pulled out of hyperspace just outside the Teth atmosphere, the brawler was guzzling water trying to sober up. He perhaps had overdone the booze a bit. After a good sleep, his head was pounding. Sauvage gave long consideration to his favorite method of getting rid of a hangover- to start drinking again. But, he needed to be on his toes. He needed to be alert and his reflexes sharp. He did everything he could think of. He slapped cold water on his face, did some pushups, stretched, and ate some fatty foods. He would have all his faculties about him, but his head was going to be pounding for a while. He looked toward the quarters where they still had Tairo tied up and wondered if he had any spice on him that would give him a jolt. He thought better of it and took a deep breath to work out the nerves of landing in the jungle and pounding in his head.

Ro's tracker had stopped over a tall mesa, but there was no castle there. No sign of life. The large mesa was flat and mostly grassland. There was plenty of room for a large castle or fortification, but nothing. The mesa was surrounded by thick jungle, and after several passes, they still couldn't find any sign of Ro's ship or any structure where Ro could have landed.

Poffo grunted in frustration. "I guess he ditched the tra...That ship's not going to make it, no it's not!"

They all watched as a light freighter was flying straight for one of the walls of the mesa adjacent to the one they were facing. The droid pilot pulled up on the controls to get more altitude for a better visual and swung around to the side. The ship was clearly intentionally flying into the mesa wall, and then they saw it. A huge hangar door opened into the mountain and the freighter flew right through it with the door closing behind it. Upon closer inspection, near the base of the mesa on that same side was an entrance guarded heavily by two turret landings extending out of the mountain roughly twenty meters high with two armed Falleen snipers in each turret landing.

"I'll be damned, yeah, yeah, I will. The castle is inside the mountain, yeah." He looked over to Klied to confirm his plan was still sound. "We still a go, brother?"


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Kliedden Raxx

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Klied smiled and gave a mock bow at Aska's compliment. They might not have been as confident as he'd have liked, but they were ready to go, and he supposed that was enough. In his experience when your life is on the line everything clicks, and your instincts take over. He knew both his partners were good fighters. They just had to be put in a situation to shine.

He used the rest of the time they had to prepare himself, donning an outfit made of laigrek chitin for their time to be spent in the jungles of Teth. It was flexible and cool, which made it more comfortable in the humid environment. Not to mention it provided some very light armor for the worst case scenarios. While Poffo was busy getting drunk he'd practice his knife play in one of the quarters, eviscerating nonexistent opponents with his durasteel blade. In truth, while the danger was high, things couldn't have worked out better for the Onderonian. The prospect of fighting on Teth reminded him of home. A hunt in the wild, where all the delusions of civilization fell away. All that mattered was strength and cunning. If they were the better predators they would survive this upcoming battle. If they weren't they would die. Nice and simple.

What they learned upon their arrival was certainly a surprise, but in Klied's mind it didn't change anything. Even if the palace was hidden within the mesa, their reliance on outside supply lines would be the same. If they could disrupt them, they would force Tyllon's hand. So the hunter looked at Poffo after he asked his question and nodded coldly.

"Yeah. We're still a go." He would direct Kayto to the best landing spot, a good distance away from the mesa where they would still have a good view of the false wall, and be able to scan all traffic. The foliage of the surrounding forest would hide them fairly well from those coming from above. Once on the ground Klied would immediately set out into the wilderness on his own to scout the area and make sure all was clear. If the Hutts had laid any kind of traps out for them, he needed to deal with them quickly, or better yet, repurpose them to serve his own mission.

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Aska Ryun

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As the ship remained seated in the position of Klied's choosing, and after they went about setting up camp, each member of the trio had taken to their own independent tasks. Klied had opted to take to the wilderness, though Aska was uncertain as to why. It didn't matter. It was like the barbarian to never take a moment to rest. Always on the move, he was. Poffo? Well, at her best guess, the brawler was still inside the ship searching for ways to nurse the hangover he had gifted himself while they were still in hyper space. After discovering their destination, Aska was no longer in the mood to drink however.

Sitting on the top of the hull of the freighter, close to the same spot where Klied had positioned himself back on Corellia to fire on Ro and his thugs, Aska tossed off her leather jacket and pulled the ancient holocron from within before placing it on the hull ahead of her crossed legs. It's soft crimson glow pulsed slowly as she gazed upon it, soon finding herself to be so fixated that the world around her seemed to disappear. No longer did she see the violet sky or the jungles surrounding her. No, all that existed in her mind was the holocron and herself.

"Maybe Buli was right after all," Aska whispered to herself as she stared. "Maybe you really have been pulling my strings all along,"

She had lost track of time, sitting there and staring at the artifact. Had it been an hour? Two? Six? She didn't know. Klied and Poffo still didn't seem to be anywhere near by though she knew that by now, they had likely found something productive to be working on and she should have been doing the same. Tossing the jacket over her shoulder, the clone picked up the holocron and started to make her way down off the hull but as she did, the device began to grow warm in her hand once again. Simultaneously, what had been a nearly windless day in the jungles from what she knew, a soft breeze began to pick up. Looking to the prism she held, her feet now back on solid ground, she wondered if it was trying to speak to her as it had back on Onderon. The answer was soon discovered as a gnawing feeling began to grow within her, forcing her to spin around and look to the sky.

"A ship! We got another supply ship coming in!" Aska called out as she rushed back into the freighter. "Kayto, get this thing fired up! Get on the turrets boys!" As she slipped into the co-pilot's chair at Kayto's side, she opened the channel between the cockpit and the guns. "Might be a bit of a tight fit for ya, big guy. Try not to break anything with those shoulders, yea?" she joked to Poffo as she activated the shield systems before diverting the power towards the guns.

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Poffo Sauvage

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"Kark, Poffo! I don't know nothing!" Tairo screamed. "I swear it!" Poffo was slapping him around, making sure he didn't know anything about this fortress. He was an acquaintance of Tyllon by virtue of both working for T'lol before Klied and Poffo put an end to that little organization. There was an off chance that he had some communication with Brag. He had led them to Ro, afterall, and just because he said he didn't know where Brag was....well, Tairo wasn't the most trustworthy individual.

"You know, I'm not real sure I believe you, yeah!" Poffo yelled at him. "Maybe it's that scaly round head of yours or that stupid little snout of a mouth?"

Before Tairo could provide a retort, Aska started screaming about a ship and get to the turrets. Turrets? She wanted Poffo to take the guns and shoot? That wasn't his strong suit, but he figured the turret wouldn't shoot itself. Aska mentioned that it would be a tight squeeze, and damn if she wasn't right. He slid into the seat and the turret cockpit was not meant for a man with the shoulders and arms the size of Poffo Sauvage. He was incredibly cramped, so much so that his elbows were pinned were against sides. Poffo had never fired a gun from a ship and he didn't know he was looking at.

"Hey, bolts!" Sauvage said to Kayto over comms. "I don't know what I'm doing, brother."

The droid said in a rather nonchalante voice, "It's quite simple. Just point the turret at what you want to shoot and pull the trigger."

"Oh, that's all it is, huh smartass?" Poffo shot back.

Aska pulled the ship up above the treeline, and the ship came into the view. It was XS light freighter, a freighter commonly used for smuggling. The pilot caught on to the ambush and took evasive action by bailing off to the left, the side that Poffo was on with the turret. Poffo, despite his best efforts, did not come reasonably close to hitting the ship, but he did drive it so that it curled around the backside of the ship to Kayto's side. They had scrambled a crew to fire their own guns and started firing back. Luckily, Kayto was significantly better at shooting the turrets than Poffo. and he hit the freighter in a sweet spot on one of the turbines. The ship began to careen and veer and tilt as the engine blew suddenly. The pilot tried to self-correct and make for the opening in the mesa, but it became quite clear that the ship would not make it.

The pilot gave up too late, and despite his best effort to veer away from the mesa wall, the ship crashed in an explosive display about 40 meters from the hangar door. "Ooooh, yeaaah," Poffo said into his comms. "Well, we wanted to make an impression. Mission accomplished."

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Kliedden Raxx

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While the others stayed close to the ship Klied took his time familiarizing himself with the surrounding jungles. He wanted to have knowledge of every nook and cranny, every beast that made it's nest in the area, every plant and what it's effects were. He laid snares and other traps for anyone that might try to approach the ship by foot, and caught a few small animals for food later. He would return to the ship just in time to hear Aska calling that they had company incoming.

Klied dropped his haul and sprinted back to the freighter, climbing aboard just as it took off. He was more skilled with hand blasters than laser turrets, but thankfully it wouldn't make that much of a difference, as Aska's droid was able to take down their enemy in short order. The hunter watch it explode against the wall of the mesa and sat back in his chair with a sigh as he listened to Poffo celebrating.

"One down." He piped up afterwards. "Let's see how many more we need to take down before we have their full attention..." Thankfully he doubted that would be very long. The ship crashing into the side of the Hutt's hidden fortress would do well to make their point. They knew they were there, and they were here to make their lives miserable. Sooner or later they would send someone out to make them go away, and odds are they'd send someone with Tyllon's particular set of skills.

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Aska Ryun

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Flying was never one of Aska's strong suits. Rather, she was horrible at it. Sure, she could get a ship from point A to point B with relative ease but when it came to ship to ship combat? She'd always been of the mind that it was better suited to droids. And Kayto proved that fact quite well. Blaster fire rained from the turret that Poffo occupied, missing the supply freighter by a long shot and as Aska assumed control of the stabilizers of their own craft, she laughed into the comms.

"Still drunk, Muscles? Maybe we should just throw the Caveman on the hull and let him do the dirty work!" she cackled to herself. There was one thing to be said of the entire situation; the excitement of being what was essentially a pirate broke Aska from her demoralizing train of thought.

"No need, Mistress. I believe I have the situation well under control," Kayto stated from his position in the pilot's seat and as he brought the nose of the craft in line with the enemy ship, he let off a volley of fire that brought their prey to a fiery demise.

"Not bad, droid," Aska leaned back in her chair with an expression of delighted shock. "Not bad at all,"

As the vessel began to make their way back towards the campsite, a beeping came from the dash panel.


"Boys, we're getting a comm hail. You two should probably get up here,"

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Poffo Sauvage

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It took a few minutes for Poffo to pop himself out of the tiny turret cockpit. He would be 100% satisfied if he never had to squeeze his huge thighs and broad shoulders into that seat ever again. He shot like crap, but in his defense, he could barely turn in the seat, plus...he was a crappy shooter. He much preferred to bash heads up close and personal.

"Boys, we're getting a comm hail. You two should probably get up here," Aska said.

Poffo worked his way up to the front to hear what the Hutts inside had to say. And better yet, to hear who was going to say it. Poffo was jittery, ready to fight. His adrenaline was already high from the last bit of excitement, and he was absentmindedly pounding one fist into the other palm.

"Good afternoon, Poffo." It was Brag Tyllon. Calm, cool, and collected. "Pull up above the tree line so you can see the hangar door, please." Poffo nodded to do it. He wanted to see what Brag had to show them. Klied was somewhere out in the wilderness doing...something. No telling. The ship rose above the treeline. The hangar door was wide open and now protected by a shield represented by a light pink bubble in the opening. There stood Brag Tyllon and Mil Ro. Ro looked much more confident standing in front of Brag Tyllon. His fists were propped up on his hips, just begging for someone to try something with Brag Tyllon behind him. It was like he was pretending to take on all comers if someone wanted to get to Brag. A sort of, if you want to get to him, you have to get through me first, stance.

"Sauvage, I want you to know that I was prepared to let bygones be bygones." You could hear his sigh over the comms. "Yet, here you and the hunter are. As if that wasn't enough, you brought some other poor soul into certain death. You know I try to be a reasonable man, Poffo. But some things, well, some things are beyond forgiveness. You have hunted me twice now, Poffo. This will have to end. Even if you leave now, I will hunt you and your friends down and leave you all dumped like trash wherever you fall."

Poffo was trying to think of a retort, but Brag continued. "So many mistakes made, Poffo. I can't abide any of them. I can't abide idiots. And what sort of idiot, knowing they are being followed lead bounty hunters right to the doorstep of a Hutt and his best friend?"

Brag pulled his blaster out of his holster, put it to the back of Ro's head and pulled the trigger. A hole blew it's way through the Nautolan's head and the body slowly started to lean forward until it toppled over the hanger door and the pink film, falling hundreds of feet to the bottom of the mesa. It banged hard against the mesa wall and bounced off until it landed with a sickening thud and splat on the ground.

"And I liked him, if that tells you anything. I truly did. Now, you can stay put and I can come out and kill you, or you can make it a chase. You can hide in some distant system and give me the pleasure of hunting you down. It is your choice."

Poffo clicked on the microphone and said, "Oooooh, yeah, Braggy Boy, we ain't going nowhere, dig it?! We're going to be right here waiting on you and whatever else you throw our way, yeah!"

Brag could be heard laughing on the other end of the comm. "Poffo, you are an entertaining son of a bitch. I will give you that. If you weren't annoying son of a bitch, I would feel bad about killing you, but rest assured, I won't. See you soon, Poffo. And please give your friends my greetings."

The comm clicked off and Isen looked at Aska as he popped into the comms so that Klied could hear. "Undercard is finished, brother. Brag made it clear that the main event is about to begin."

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Kliedden Raxx

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Klied joined Aska and Poffo in the cockpit to listen to Tyllon's threats. The hunter was unfazed by the mercenary offing Ro, watching the display with a neutral expression. After the com shut off he just sighed and looked to his partners.

"Guy likes to hear himself talk even more than you do doesn't he?" The Onderonian asked Poffo with a thin smirk. "Well we're not going anywhere. Let the bastard come, we'll be ready." He patted Aska on the shoulder. "You can put us back down in the jungle."

After the ship was back on the ground Klied would walk the others through just what he had been planning, sketching out the surrounding area from memory on a datapad and showing it to the others. Several trapped areas were marked with red X's. "We'll leave the ship out in the open as bait. You two will make your way out into the forest to this location, I'll be on standby. When Tyllon come to investigate he'll likely bring a posse with him. I'll take a few potshots to draw them into the brush after me. It'll be easier for me to keep ahead of them in this environment than it would be for either of you." He traced a line right into the middle of an area filled with traps.

"I'll lure them here, and that's where we'll really start picking them off. Once Brag is all by his lonesome we'll move in for the kill. Three on one and the murglak won't stand a chance." He looked up at the others expectantly. "Well? What do you think?" He would be taking a great risk putting himself in Tyllon's sights, but the mercenary needed to think he had the upper hand if they were going to pull the wool over his eyes. Not to mention Klied felt he owed it to the group to take the worst on this one. He had admittedly made some missteps.

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Aska Ryun

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The entire conversation between Poffo and Tyllon seemed almost surreal to Aska as she remained in her seat, observing the exchange. While she couldn't quite make out features of the two figures standing in the hangar bay doors, the violet skin and tentacles told her that one of the men was indeed the same Mil Ro they had chased from Corellia. Of course, she knew he was here but it brought a great deal of frustration when she saw him standing next to their quarry, a smug pride displayed through his posture. Until that pride died along with him, his body soon falling into the wilderness.

"That's a shame," Aska cooed with a smirk. "I was hoping to be the one that brought an end to the sleeze ball,"

Following Klied's instruction, Aska and Kayto soon set the freighter down back at their campsite and as the four entered the main chamber, Klied began to go over his plan. Aska watched intently and found she had little to no issues with it. He was right in assuming he would be better off being the prey of pursuit though she held little doubt that she would be able to accomplish the same.

"Hey, I played bait once already so if you want to be the one with a target painted on your back, feel free, pal," Aska joked. "But if that sleemo damages my ship in any way, I don't only expect compensation but I want a chance to make him bleed a little before Poffo buries him," she continued but suddenly, a tugging sensation began to grow in the back of her mind paired with a growing heat from the holocron in her jacket caused her smirk to fade. Why did it keep doing that? She couldn't figure it out. Maybe returning to Teth was drawing on it's power? Or maybe she was simply losing her mind...

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Poffo Sauvage

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Listening to the plan, Poffo started to wonder if this bounty hunting thing was going to work for him. He would have to learn to shoot, really shoot to keep doing this. The marks that they would be chasing would be killers, gunslingers, bad to the bone boys and galactic, genocidal gals. Not being able to handle a gun or man a turret correctly was going to get someone killed...and he was the most likely one to die. That was going to have to change.

He held out arms and ducked his head in a "whatever you say is best" motion.

"I'm smart enough to know that I'm not real smart, yeah," the brawler said. "Just tell me where to be and when to start snapping into it, and you'll get the madness, oh yeah."

Poffo started popping his joints in impressive fashion, rolling his neck and stretching his arms. He looked at Aska and said, "I don't care who buries that panty waste, no, no I most certainly do not. I would be most satisfied if he wasn't buried and the bugs and scavengers fed off of him and picked him off bit by bit, yeah. I just want to be one that delivers the death blow, yeah."

He made his way to the exit and looked back over his shoulder before lowering the ramp. "And his last gift to me will be my first class ticket in the Bounty Guild. Yeah, his last act will be to provide me a career."

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Kliedden Raxx

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Klied nodded to each of his partners in turn. It seemed they were all in agreement. As Aska and Poffo moved off deeper into the forest towards the previously agreed upon position, Klied set up in the tree line just outside the clearing where their ship was resting. He climbed high into one of the better covered trees, pulled out his cycler rifle, and sat back and relaxed. It was something he had done countless times before, although hunting sentients was a new twist. But he certainly didn't lack for patience. Several hours passed with the hunter barely moving a muscle before his prey finally appeared.

As he usually did Tyllon sent in a handful of probe droids first to sweep the area. Thankfully with Klied's camouflage and the overabundance of life in the jungle they weren't able to pin him down. Shortly after the droids departed the Hutt's men started to emerge in groups of two or three. They too did a quick survey of the clearing before calling out Tyllon. Watching them closely Klied counted fifteen, including Brag himself. As they wandered around looking at the freighter they began to speak to one another.

"No sign of them here... Should we scuttle the ship?" One of the thugs asked. Tyllon looked over the freighter with a calculating eye. His response came slowly.

"Not just yet... See if you can get inside, there might be clues as to what they're up to." He briefly glanced around the clearing. "And be careful about it..." The mercs agreed and started to get to work slicing into the door. That's when Klied decided to get the ball rolling. Raising his rifle's scope to his eye he took aim. Of course he could just go for the headshot and take out their worst problem right off the bat. But something made him doubt Tyllon would go down that easy, and he doubted Poffo would appreciate him stealing his kill. So instead he took aim on one of the men supposedly watching the perimeter and fired. The slug went straight through the center of the human's forehead, killing him instantly and sending him flying to the ground. Immediately the group reacted, fanning out and making for cover.

Either Brag knew where he was the whole time or was damn good at tracing where the shot came from, even from a slugthrower. He immediately spun to face Klied's position in the tree and raised his blaster rifle, letting loose a volley of fire. Klied cursed under his breath and leapt from his position just in time, sliding down the trunk a little ways and then leaping into the next closest tree like a monkey. This made noise and rustled foliage, giving away that he was there. The other mercs followed Brag's lead, and soon he was being bombarded with a hail of blaster fire.

Klied grunted as he took a glancing blow to the shoulder, and picked up a few more scrapes and cuts as he half climbed, half tumbled down towards the earth. By the time Tyllon called for them to hold their fire they had practically eviscerated the canopy, leaving branches littering the ground everywhere and a lot of sunlight now filtering through the tree line. Klied hid behind a thick trunk, slowing his breathing and trying to stay still.

"Did we get him?" One of the men asked. Tyllon seemed uncertain.

"Go check it out." He said with a nod towards some of the other mercs. Two men slowly crept forward, inching closer and closer to the tree line, until one suddenly yelped as the ground caved in beneath his feet and he fell down into a hole. The merc beside him cursed and immediately turned his attention towards the hole, looking for his friend. Klied used that opportunity to duck out from behind cover and squeeze another shot off, doming the distracted man. Tyllon and the other mercs immediately opened fire again, and Klied broke off in a sprint deeper into the jungle. With him gone several men ran up to the hole and looked inside, finding their comrade horribly injured, impaled by wooden spikes through the thigh and shoulder, crying out for help.

"Leave him!" Tyllon hissed at them angrily as he changed the clip in his rifle. "After the hunter! now!" The men, some hesitantly, followed Tyllon's lead, following Klied right into the highly trapped area. And right towards the other hunters...

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Aska Ryun

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Waiting... The powers that be knew fully well how Aska hated waiting and today was no different as the woman sat on one of the larger branches that grew away from the trunk of a tree she had opted to climb. The foliage provided her adequate coverage from any prying eyes on the ground but still allowed her the ability to see anyone advancing on her position. It had been hours since Poffo and her had left Klied with the ship, Kayto securely locked away inside to protect it should anyone manage to slice their way in, but it felt as though she was going to spend the rest of her life here... Waiting... Then again, maybe she would do just that and she should be enjoying the fact that she was 'home' for the first time in thousands of years.

Resisting the urge to call out to Poffo for some idle chat, despite not knowing where the brawler had taken up to hiding, Aska mused at the fact that she couldn't even see the man. It would take a lot to hide something as enormous as that crude bantha but he seemed to be doing quite well. As well, she had to force herself to not light a cigarra. Not just because she was hiding in a jungle and the possibility of sparking a forest fire was very real but the glowing ember and smell could give her away. So instead she sat in silence, insanity creeping up on her with every passing moment until finally blaster fire could be heard from the direction of the ship.

"Finally!" Aska hissed as she pulled her legs up on to the branch and she began to watch the surface intently. While no one showed up immediately, the voices of advancing men grew and soon two of Tyllon's men entered the area below, rifles drawn. Pulling one of her vibrodaggers from her belt, she held it close to her chest and watched.

"Where are the others?"

"I don't kriffin' know! I was following you! Did you get us lost in this god forsaken jungle?!"

"Uh... I think so,"

"Great! If we ever get out of here, Brag will have our hides and feed us to that pet of his back at the base, you moron!"

"I hate it out here... Why couldn't we operate somewhere with a few less... jungles?"

"Like where? Tatooine? Trust me, jungles are better than deserts. Now focus! Either find that hunter or get us back to the group before we wind up dead!"

Rolling her eyes as the men below bickered, Aska took the last statement as her cue. Dropping from the tree, the clone landed on top of the more agitated man's shoulders and wrapped her legs tightly around his neck as she cut off his air ways while they soon hit the ground in a struggle. Startled by the sudden assault and further egged on by his anxiety, the second man flinched away and tried to find cover behind the tree that she had been hiding in before spinning back to watch the struggle between his companion and their hunter.

"Ragik!" he cried out, raising his blaster and trying to get a clear shot on Aska. Two red rounds of energy launched from the weapon but the woman threw the weight of her torso to the side, narrowly avoiding the shots while simultaneously snapping the man's neck with a sickening pop. Satisfied he was dead, Aska then proceeded to roll away from the next volley of blaster fire until she disappeared into a large bush. "Come out of there! There's no where for you to go!" the man bellowed before repeatedly squeezing the trigger and laying waste to the foliage... But she was gone.

The thick jungle provided her with the cover she needed to circle around the remaining man undetected and as she was light on her feet, he never heard her approach from behind. Reaching her vibrodagger ahead of the man's neck with her right hand, she used her left to grab the tuft of hair on the top of his head before yanking back hard. The man cried out in pain but as she drug the blade across his neck, the noises he made soon grew silent while blood began to spill on the damp jungle floor.

"Little schuttas..." Aska hissed as she spat on the two corpses before running further into the jungle and towards the position Klied had indicated for their rendevous.

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Poffo Sauvage

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Poffo wasn't the climber or as agile as his partners. He was fortunate to find one of the huge trees of the Teth jungle dying and with a large hollowed out section of the bottom. He had to kneel inside of it, but the tree was large enough that if he tucked himself in the back of the tree-cave, he would be in complete darkness and fully hidden from view. As the time passed and passed, Poffo was regretting his hiding spot. He was hunkered in, and if he tried to stretch, he risked exposing himself to any passers-by. Hours, but it seemed like days, had passed when Poffo finally heard some talking. He couldn't make out how many goons were talking or what they were saying, but he recognized the unmistakable hisssss of a Trandoshan.

The closer they got, the more he could make out.

"Did you see that shot? Holy kark! Blasted his brains dead center. What do you think? 200 meters? 250?" He laughed. For some reason, he thought one of his comrades getting a slug through the forehead was funny.

"Ssssssstop it," The Trandoshan hissed just as they were passing by the tree. "It could jusssssst asssss easssssssily be one of usssss, next."

"Nark, you worry too much," a third voice said. There were at least three.

They stopped cold as a man's voice ripped through the jungle followed by the unmistakable sound of two blaster shots. A pause, and then another series of blaster shots. Poffo let them get started in that direction but emerged from the tree just in time to grab the last one in line, Nark the Trandoshan, in a sleeper hold. The two other men heard the struggling, wheeled around with blasters in hand and started lighting the place up. More accurately, they lit up Nark. Blaster bolt after blaster bolt ripped into Nark's body. Poffo dared not let go. Nark was acting as a shield. They fired so many shots into Nark, they ripped right through his rancor-hide armor, his thick, scaly skin, and ravaged his insides. Poffo's forearm did not fair well as it was exposed. He took no direct shots, but the energy dispersion from all the energy blasts acted like a hot iron on the skin. Shot after shot, the heat and energy sent ravaged his skin.

Poffo had to act fast, so he charged the two men with the dead Trandoshan acting as a shield. He threw Nark's lifeless body on one of the men and was able to hit a hard left hook on the other before he could fire his weapon. The man that Poffo waffled was about to fall to the ground, but with the brawler's lightning reflexes, he caught him by the back of the shirt and his arm and quickly tossed him back toward the other living goon. Just in time too. He had finally discarded Nark's body and fired...right into the gut of the guy that Poffo tossed toward him. Two dead goons and one really shocked, bewildered one. Sauvage charged and clotheslined the man hard to the forest floor. Sauvage stepped on the man's wrist that held his blaster and calmly reached down and took it from his grasp.

"Not your best day, no, no it is not." Poffo raised the weapon, pointed it at his head and fired. The others were dead also, but just for the sake of thoroughness, Sauvage fired a round into the heads of the other two corpses as well. Poffo would worry about his arm later. It burned like hell, and he could smell the cooked flesh on his left forearm. For now, he had to make his way to the rendezvous point.


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Kliedden Raxx

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"He went this way! I saw him!" One of the goons shouted as he tore off into the forest, getting a lead on his comrades.

"Jand! Slow down dammit!" One of the others called back as they tried to keep up with him. The only gained in time to watch as their friend crossed the threshold between two fallen trees, tripping a wire and causing two wooden rods with barbed spikes to pop up and stab him in the chest. "Kark!" The merc exclaimed in shock as Jand sputtered and fell on his back, coughing up blood. Two more men, a Sullustan and a Dressellian walked up to join him looking down at the dying man.

"This guy doesn't mess around..." The Sullustan muttered before looking at the Dressellian. "I told you we should have blasted that ship out of the sky as soon as we knew it wasn't one of ours. Didn't I say that?"

"You did say that..." The Dressellian agreed, still looking at the injured merc as he spat up one last glob of blood before going still. The first merc just turned and started walking away.

"Kark this!" He shouted fearfully. "I don't get paid enough to die in some god forsaken jungle. I'm going back inside and telling them to send out some fighters and just level this whole-" The man cut himself off as he tripped another wire, cursing before a swinging log smashed into his body, shattering dozens of bones and sending him flying several feet away. As his brutalized body collapsed in a quivering heap the other two mercs crouched down for cover and began looking around.

"This isn't happening..." The Sullustan muttered nervously, only to be answered with a slug to the head. The Dressellian panicked and began firing wildly in all directions, having no idea where the shot had come from. In the trees some distance away Klied sat back and pulled the lever on his rifle, releasing the used shell. He frowned, somewhat disappointed in the fight these mercs had put up so far. Was this really the best Tyllon had to offer? He raised his scope to his eye, taking aim at the panicking Dressellian. That's when he noticed a slight buzzing beside him.

Klied slowly pulled his eye back from the scope, shifting his vision to the right without moving his head more than a fraction of an inch. In the brush just a few feet away, almost completely hidden from view was one of Brag's probe droids. Clever... The mercs were just bait. Brag was ruthless. Klied quickly started to turn to try and fire at the probe droid instead, but before he could the small machine exploded. A self-destruct mechanism! The force of the blast threw Klied backwards from his perch, sending him falling towards the earth below. The hunter let go of his rifle, grabbing at whatever he could as he fell to try and slow himself. He still hit the ground quite hard, groaning as he started to turn over onto his hands and knees. That's when Brag appeared from the bushes, blaster rifle in hand.

"Hello again Mr. Raxx." He said, and quickly raised his rifle and took aim as Klied reached for his holster. "Ah, no thank you." He raised his head a little and called out to the Dressellian. "Doman! Quit your wailing and get over here!" The blaster fire coming from the other merc stopped, and the alien slowly started making his way over. Brag looked back at Klied with a smug grin. "You can try and draw on me if you like. But I'm still faster than you."

"And you still talk too much." Klied spat back before the hitman could go into another long winded speech. With the merc's eyes on his hands he kicked back with one of his legs, tripping another wire. Another swinging log came right a Tyllon from behind, but the merc managed to dive out of the way in time. With the distraction Klied made a break for it, only for the Dressellian to open fire again, this time hitting him in the ribs. The hunter only grunted and stumbled over the side of a hill, rolling down into the brush below. Above, the remaining two mercs showed up to rally with Brag and the Dressellian. As Klied crawled into a dead log for cover, he hoped beyond hope that his allies were close.

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