Meeting Between Warriors

[Mars]

Concord Dawn, 0700 hours.

The Mandalorian camp was bustling with activity in the morning sun. Weapons being moved by the crate, training excercises with the Basiliskan War Droids a few miles away, officers keeping their soldiers in shape through PT. The war camp on Concord Dawn was the largest one to have accepted non-Taung to be housed there, the Mandalore slowly but surely working towards getting them onto Mandalore without riots and unneccesary deaths. This particular base was home to over five thousand sentients from all walks of life, all of them united under the banner of Vincent A'den.

The past few months were especially trying for the tall Near Human hybrid. He'd been bouncing around knocking out clan leaders to prove his worth and ended up bringing Kal Solus, a former Mandalore herself, back into the fold. His recruiting efforts saw the Mandalorians nearly double in size thanks to allowing non-Taung into the fold as well. Many complained at first untill they saw how hard the others were capable of training, despite the fact that they'd never be as respected in the eyes of the Taung as they prefered. Slow and steady, Vin always said to those angered by this, slow and steady.

The Mandalorian leader wore his usual gunmetal Beskar'gam, arguably one of the most advanced suits of armor in the whole of the galaxy. The crushgaunts covered his hands, his beskad strapped to his back, a Mandalorian ripper holstered on his thigh, MK26 rifle slung across his back and a few grenades attached to his belt. To most he would appear dressed for a full-scale battle when in reality he was wearing his day-to-day kit. Today he'd invited a particular Hutt warrior to take in his beloved society. Haveti was his name, supposed to be one of the most deadly close-combat artists of war in the galaxy. Vincent had preppared a bit of a tour for the technosamurai to entice him to join.

Though, he couldn't help but wonder how effective it would be. The man was notoriously hard to impress.

 

[Jake]

He could feel every eddy that swept through the air around him, combing like fingers through the grass underfoot, tickling the soles of his metal boots. His mind was in total sync with the suit; a good thing, too, if these Taung were anything like what he had been told to expect. The transport sat down outside the camp and the Taung pilot exited the cockpit, swearing violently about how goddamn inappropriate his passenger was.

Haveti gingerly stepped down the boarding ramp, swaying in his inebriated stupor. He cradled a bottle of Gamorrean gin in one arm. After him, dressed in a crisp pinstripe suit, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and with a perfect side-part to his hair, Dexter Penrhyme, lawyer extraordinaire, took his first step onto Concord Dawn. His eyes were slits behind the transparent frames, and his chin was tipped just a centimeter upward so he could look down his nose with all its vestigially long and pointed glory.

His voice was a high-pitched tenor on the border between a feral animal's dying scream and Grannny Butterworth's call for dinner time back on the plantation. "Careful, Haveti." He said the name with a certain emphasis on the second syllable that the drunken technosamurai wasn't particularly fond of. His tall, broad-shouldered form approached with measured steps the border of the Taung encampment, dress shoes curiously unscuffed despite their surroundings.

No doubt Mandalore could tell who he was from a mile away... Lawyers. You could always recognize them by their bad pockets. Lawyers always carried drugs, Dexter included, and it had a way of ruining the lining of their pants. Every so often a particularly spirited gust of wind would dip into the man's pocket and retrieve a grain of glitterstim.

Haveti approached until he stood face-to-face with the Taung leader, only two meters' worth of distance separating them.

"I would caution you against saying anything incriminating, Haveti. My glasses tell me your blood-alcohol levels are dangerously high. In fact, perhaps this meeting should be postponed, until you are in a better state to proceed. After all, this could be a potentially life-altering occ-"

Haveti spun to face him. "Do yourself a favor, you tragic-looking old pisspot... go someplace and eat a lightbulb."

Dexter looked flabbergasted. His mouth gaped slightly, as if he was a frog waiting for a fly to land upon his tongue. "I- I will excuse that little remark, Haveti, on account of your current... state."

"Eat shit and die, you greedy karking leech." A mental impulse activated the vents trailing down his calves, filling the air with the pungent stench of burning ozone. Of course, Haveti and Penrhyme were utterly unconcerned with that, reason being that Haveti had just slammed into the lawyer at ungodly speeds, metal fist dislodging artificially perfect teeth from the gums that held them. Enamel snowflakes drifted to the ground in shards. Blood spurted from the man's broken nose, cartilage flattened against the side of his face and shoved a centimeter or two back into his skull. His jaw hung slack.

The lawyer took a moment to grope at his new features and staggered back before collapsing. A pair of Taung medics may have come to lift him away to the infirmary; Haveti didn't know and he didn't care, because he was now sober and his bottle of gin had shattered against the ground. He pivoted back to face Mandalore and walked briskly towards him, extending his bloodied hand to offer a firm shake. A few pearly white fragments clung to his hand.

"Hi. I'm Haveti. I smoke. I take drugs. I drink. I wash about once every six weeks, and then only with a beautiful woman of my choosing who by the end of the night will have stopped being beautiful. I masturbate frequently and fling my steaming poison semen down from my window into your hair, your food, your passing baby strollers and your godforsaken fruitbowl hats. I'm a rich and respected enforcer of the Hutt Empire. I live in a variety of gated communities across the galaxy in-between military conflicts, usually with a harem of girls running the gamut from humans to formless energy beings. I am living, occasionally breathing proof that being a bastard works. I take it you're Mandalore?"

 

[Mars]

The confusion etched on Vincent's face was glorious, and most likely hilarious. He expected a more....refined soldier then the drunken technosamurai before him currently. He stumbled drunkenly over, rather messily for what is supposed to be a graceful artist of war, shortly before punching out what appeared to be a lawyer with the force of a small vehicle. A quick rant about how awesome he thought he was and then he asked if Vin was, well, himself. Vincent chuckled a bit before answering, his wide-eyed look fading off quickly.

"Yes, I'm the Mandalore. I've heard a lot about you Haveti. The famed veteran of countless battles and co-leader of some hidden squadron of Dark Jedi and Hutt commandos. King of personal combat and apparently fancies a drink. There's no alcohol like Mandalorian alcohol. You'll find that out later though. If you look around, you'll see the daily movement of an operational war base. Over there, behind me, are the sparring circles, probably one of the places that'll interest you most. To my right is the hangar that houses the Basiliskan War Droids, to my left the armory with the majority of our guns and the center of our base defenses."

He wasn't exactly sure what Haveti wanted to do first, so he left that part open for him to choose. Vincent was open to pretty much anything with some sense of reason.

 

[Jake]

((Short post but I saw no reason to be extravagant yet.))

"I see my reputation precedes me. That sucks almost as much Gamorrean genitalia as the good lawyer standing behind me." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where he imagined Dexter was lying in a ruined heap. "I sure hope you guys have sake, though. That shit they gave me on the transport tasted like water... although I guess it does take entire jugs of sake just to give me a light buzz..."

The last sentence he spoke half to himself, because why would Mandalore care how much it took to get him drunk? That was a man's own business and if he wanted to find out he could hustle over and pry the knowledge from Haveti's cold, dead lips.

"Let's hit the sparring circles. I'm interested in seeing what you Taung boys come packin'."