Ask Nice Face, Can I Have It?

[Nakoa Singh]

On some worlds, the urban jungle was no less treacherous than the wilds on others. Ord Mantell was one such place, a rotten hive of scum and villainy by any definition. Getting into trouble there wasn't so much as a matter of effort as being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Something a native of Korriban had learned within the first few hours within its filth-laden streets. Aside from whatever reason brought him to this world, Azar was being hunted.

Not all Trandoshans were exactly the same, but one way or another each one was a hunter. This group were slavers and trophy-takers. Rare prey was more valuable both in score and credits, and a red-skinned Sith Pureblood out and about in the galaxy was even rarer than finding a Jedi. Whether these hunters knew or suspected Azar of being a Force user was unknown and didn't really matter. It would only raise the stakes for prize, more points from the Scorekeeper. Predators hunting predators. Which would become prey in the end?

Nakoa didn't know who or what the Trandoshans were trying to track down, but he was curious considering he was tracking the Trandoshans himself for his own ends. He supposed it'd be boring if everything was easy.

A pair of armed Trandoshans stalked down a maze-like series of alleys. It was a place an informant agreed to meet Azar, who was also trying to hunt the Trandoshans right back. He may or may not suspect as much, but it was a ploy to lure Azar into a dead end with covered tops and a single locked door to escape.

"They're called Red Eclipse," the twitchy informant told Azar, who hadn't actually said anything yet for some reason. It was making him nervous. "Based in the docks district." A lie, if Azar could detect such things.

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar wasn’t sure how he got into yet another mess of a situation. He always considered himself slick in hunting others or trying to sell them for profit. In this case, he originally arrived here to kill something called Trandoshans to be made into boots. Apparently there was a huge black market around it. What he didn’t realize was that they were massive humanoids with their own hunting skills. Before long, he found himself as a trophy hunt target.

The Pureblood could only partially understand sentences thanks to his EZPod translating for him. The Ancient Sith translation library was from the AI pulling together information from old textbooks since it was a largely lost language. Some of the translations were downright bizarre. Red Eclipse translated to some different dialect variation of red undergarment.

He had no other obvious options so he listened to the informant. The pureblood eyed the fidgety informant, but he wasn’t surprised to find someone shifty in his presence. His pureblood appearance made most people nervous.

“You come with,” Azar said very slowly, gesturing to the informant and then to himself. His accent was very thick, his voice low and gruff. He wanted to bring the informant around for insurance. If something was off, he was going to be the first to get shanked.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

The informant's eyes shifted left, right, up, then left again. He audibly gulped at the suggestion of going with the pureblood and tried to play it off like a friendly suggestion. "Oh- oh no, haha, I- uh, I'd rather be... Here. Just here, yes." The man's stance shifted several times from foot to foot as he cleared his throat. Something about the surly-looking glare from the scary alien man seemed to change his mind before Azar could even say anything.

"Although, n-now you mention it, change of scenery might be, uh- nice... Haha. Ha. Uh... yeah. So-" A sharp caw abruptly echoed through the alley from somewhere above them from a city crow peeking through a hole in the tin alley cover, causing the informant to nearly jump out of his pants. "Fuck what the hell- damn bird!" He shooed at the bird. "Shoo!" the informant insisted.

"Kraa!" said the crow, fluttering its wings and shaking its tail feathers. It stared at the informant. Then it stared at Azar. Then it looked down across the alley corner neither of them could see and, with a third "Kraa!" it fluttered off. The informant wondered if that was normal crow behavior.

"Erm... after you?" No less nervous- more, if anything- the informant made a sort of strange twitching motion with his arm down the alleyway that was probably meant to be a much calmer 'after you' gesture. Down the alley and around the corner, the pair of Trandoshans approached the corner and, armed with blades, settled themselves in hiding.

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar looked when the crow appeared, but he didn’t jump dramatically like his companion. The informant was oddly on edge to where the pureblood’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. He generally had little patience for nonsense, and this man was practically sweating up a puddle. When he gestured Azar to go first, he shook his head, “No, you,” He said curtly, motioning for him to go ahead. It wasn’t a choice.

As the two made their way down the alley, Azar’s eyes remained where the crow had disappeared. He barely made it across before the Trandoshans jumped out from down the alley. Azar cursed in ur-Kittat, jumping back as there was a slight delay. The Trandoshans hadn’t expected the informant to be there and standing in the way. The way the Trandoshans ignored him and focused solely on Azar told the pureblood everything he needed to know.

Azar used the delay to his advantage to use the Force to hurl the informant bodily right at the Trandoshans.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

The informant had no choice but to go first. But he hadn't expected to be thrown first. Trandoshans jumped out hissing first in triumph, then frustration as the informant was directly in the damn way. Then the informant was abruptly yote through the air at them. They blamed the informant for this turn of events.

He hit them and they stumbled back off balance. Then, in an odd variant of space hot potato, the largest of the two Trandoshans picked the informant up by his shirt and hurled him right back Azar. Naturally, the informant was screaming incoherently the entire time all this was going on.

"A fighter, yeesssss?" hissed the other reptile, stalking forward ahead of his partner. Patient, predatory. There was no fear in them, only the hunt. "Yeesssss," hissed the larger one. This red-skinned being would make a fine trophy. Or perhaps a slave, if it could be broken.

All at once, both Trandoshans would charge down the alley toward him, swinging their blades for Azar's limbs. Back behind the pureblood where the dead end was, an ominously audible click-clunk sounded as the locked door unsealed with no obvious cause. Another option for escape, maybe? A trap? Was something besides wild birds watching?

Would Azar fight, flee, or take a third option?

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar was no hero. As soon as he threw the informant and it became clear this was an ambush, he had little desire to stick around. He unleashed a pulse of the Force to throw back anyone that chased him or the informant that was thrown at him. He was best when he was getting the jump on someone, not the other way around. Azar knew it was a dead end, but he hoped to attempt climbing instead.

He ignored whatever was happening with the door and assumed it was part of the ambush. Instead, the Pureblood looked to the side, spotted a dumpster, jumped up on it and looked for ledges to hop up. He had little desire to take on a group of Trandoshans head on and not on his own terms. If he found a ledge, he would hop up easily and keep scaling till he reached a roof to get a vantage point.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Azar's choice of exit was for the best, judging from the hiss-yelling going on in the alley. Compounding things, the EzPods might not be able to reliably translate Trandoshan-accented Basic and was likely feeding him gibberish audio.

But Azar was in luck! A very dirty but solid enough ledge let him leverage up to climb the building to the roof. Somewhere behind him a hatchet clanked off the brick and metal, narrowly missing his legs as he climbed, followed by a tri-voiced chorus of frustrated hissing.

And as fortune would have it, the roof Azar found himself atop was higher than many others around it, granting a good view of the city and the three- yes it was three now, the door had been a trap after all- Trandoshans working on clawing their way up to chase him.

Then there was an ominous creaking, and a crack. The roof Azar stood on fell straight out from under him in an avalanche of pigeon scraps, gross roof water, and cheap roof tiles that hadn't been changed out for nearly a century.

Once the dust cleared, Azar would find himself in some decrepit old Nemoidian's living room. As they rocked on an old chair and watched Galaxy's Top Bachelor reruns, they didn't seem to notice their new guest or hole in the roof.

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar thought he was in the clear. He had no intention of engaging the Trandoshans once he had his vantage point - he needed to separate them first. However, the ground beneath him collapsed. He didn’t scream as he fell right through the roof and into the home of some random tenant. The senile man kept watching his programs, the smell of mothballs and pungent chimki cabbage prominent.

The Pureblood tilted his head back to take in sight of his bearings before slowly rising up to his feet. He walked over to open a door, grimacing as it was a closet. He next crept past the messy apartment, almost tripping over a walker as he made his way to the front door. There were a thousand deadbolts and locks, and he silently worked to undo all of them.

After a while, he finally broke out and was in the middle of a hallway. Completely disoriented, he walked down the end of the corridor, hoping to find a way out the opposite side of the alley as where the Trandoshans met him.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Down the hallway and thoroughly layered with aged drywall, dust, and several other fascinating new smells, Azar was, oddly enough, sort of blending in. The whole place was in terrible shape. Trouble in the area was common enough that only a single middle-aged woman with the smallest, yappiest dog one could possibly imagine peaked out through a crack in a door before slamming it shut again as the Pureblood passed by.

After trekking across a suspiciously crunchy carpet in an unfortunate shade of yellow-green, the corridor came to an end. On the left was an obviously kicked-open door with a stairway visible beyond. On the opposite wall was an elevator- out of order, according to the crooked sign. Directly in front of Azar between the stairs and elevator on the wall was a yellow-tinged window, slightly open.

Sat there on the outside windowsill was a crow trying to crack a nut against the already-cracked window. It spotted Azar, then whipped its entire beak around to bounce the nut off the window's right side. "Kraa!" said the crow. Then, fluffing its tailfeathers, it fluttered off into the Mantell smog.

A collection of voices echoed from somewhere. It was distant and hard to tell the origin, but clearly near enough to hear and obviously reptilian.

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

That crow. There it was again. Azar thought to ignore it once more, and he started to turn to look for another path out -perhaps a set of stairs instead of the elevator. However, once he heard those familiar voices in the distance he had a feeling it was coming from the path he was about to choose. Golden eyes flashed towards where he saw the crow. The first time had been odd, the second time was no coincidence.

Grumbling to himself, he ran towards the window, climbing right through it and jumping down to a ledge below. He intended to follow the stupid bird this time. He could tell himself he was being silly later, for now he chose to believe there was something to the creature.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Climbing through the window was, frankly, awkward and undignified. It was yet more filth and didn't want to open properly, but the Pureblood made it through in the end. The ledge was within jumping distance of a fire escape across the alley, but could also just drop down into a path that eventually lead into a larger street. Repulsorcraft and pedestrians passed by a short distance away.

The crow was there too on one of the fire escape ledges, hopping back and forth. It pecked the metal railing insistently, ding ding ding.

There was a stumbling and smashing somewhere behind where Azar came from. "Wherrre the fffuuuck?" could be heard, followed by snuffling and a chorus of eager hissing. "There." A reptilian armed clawed through the open windows, the Trandoshan trying to shoulder through. The entire thing came out of the frame. He might get through eventually.

"Give up, ssssmoothskin! Give in! We're not going to hurt you, hsss ss ss."

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

This was stupid. He was being stupid. He was following a crow. A small-brained, random, stupid bird that- wait! He spotted the creature tapping insistently at a ledge opposite from where he was. Logic screamed at him to drop this silly chase, but another part of him suggested this was the right way out of his sticky situation. He could hear the reptiles behind him and he used the Force to send a few dumpsters flying behind him to serve as a hindrance.

He hoped it would distract from his path as he hopped up and scaled the ledge where the crow indicated. If he got out of this alive, he would make a point to bring the crow whatever food it craved. Azar was way out of his depth here, and he knew he couldn’t take on an entire group of Trandoshan by himself.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

"Krau!" called the crow as it waggled black tail feathers and flutter-hopped up the fire escape, a simple climb for fit beings with wings or working hands. Azar was guided along building's metal railings, sturdier than the layers of rust implied. Down behind them, Azar would find his distraction more effective than he hoped. The flung dumpsters crowded the Trandoshans as they all awkwardly tried to get through the window, separating them out and stalling them in starting their own climb. There was a muted crunch; one unlucky reptile got his hand caught between a filled-up metal dumpster on wheels and the brick wall.

Hop-hoppity-hop sprung the crow, fluttering along the cheap-but-durable catwalk until they reached the street, fully on the opposite side. Red-orange twilight painted itself over the city from the sky. Among the various landspeeders, an old speeder painted in bright yellow cab colors was parked at the street corner nearby. A flickering sign on the door indicated it was 'on break'.

Flying free from the building, the crow dropped in free flight to land atop the cab.

"No, not getting away!" Finally losing patience with the chase, one Trandoshan drew an overlarge blaster pistol from its belt and fired a shot at the irritatingly mobile Pureblood.

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar cursed as he ran, hearing the movement behind him. The reptiles were crashing, falling and stumbling, but they weren’t quitting. He was too focused on his escape to avoid the blaster. The bolt shot through the air and hit his arm, and he yelped. Azar stumbled, but he didn’t fall, clutching his arm as he practically torpedoed himself into the speeder. He only hoped he wasn’t expected to drive the thing, because he was entirely out of his element here.

The Pureblood briefly looked back behind him, using the Force again to send one of the Trandoshans that was aiming at him flying. The wound on his arm was unbearable, but the adrenaline rush kept him going.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Rattling to life, the cab's engine abruptly shot it forward over the filth-lined streets. Azar's spike of pain and adrenaline threw one Trandoshan's aim awry, bolt careening into an already half-broken window. Other shots flew past, a lucky couple hitting the cab's rear before it was out of pistol range.

This left Azar sitting in the worn and ominously-stained cab back seat. The open-topped model was common as dirt and piloted by a similarly-common droid that was oddly silent about someone hopping into the vehicle. Atop its shoulder, the crow now perched backward to face the Pureblood. It tilted its head and made a warbling sort of sound. For a moment, its eyes looked gold. Perhaps a trick of the light.

Several turns later, Azar would find his rusted chariot slowing to turn through a parking area on the border of Ord Mantell's industrial sector. A neon sign for a dive bar blinked unevenly, declaring it the Rusty Spork in far too many colors. The cab rolled to a stop just beside the bar and the crow winged off.

It landed again on the shoulder of a man. Old and bent, with visible skin like well-tanned leather and a thick salt-and-pepper beard. A cigar clamped between his teeth smoldered, acrid clouds of smoke wisping around him. His wrinkled hand waved Azar toward him.

"Trouble with Trandoshans?" he laughed a wheezing laugh. "Come. They won't find you here."

The cab would leave the moment Azar disembarked.

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

The Pureblood groaned as he walked out of the speeder, his arm hanging uselessly on his side. He watched the crow fly off and land on a man. Azar didn’t bother trying to wonder the who’s and what’s, he followed him into the bar. He was furious - furious at the Trandoshans, furious at himself and furious that he was caught so off guard.

“Your…bird..follow me?” He asked with his low, guttural voice and thick accent. How did the bird know to be there from the beginning? The Pureblood still clutched his arm, sparing a glance to see the bad burn and the stench of cooked flesh. The shot got him bad and he needed medical aid immediately. He wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t walking into a new trap, so he kept his guard up. He took in sight of his surroundings, spotting all possible exits right away.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

The old man let out another laugh as they walked through the bar. It was poorly lit and semi-dusty aside from the bar counter itself, old wood worn with generations of spilled drinks, patrons' hands, and cleaning solution. A radio was tuned to some mid-rim rock station. It was neither busy nor empty, little groups having formed in different corners and left one another alone.

A fire exit was visible with a worn-out sign near one side of the bar. Multiple tinted windows, likely ordinary glass, could serve as escapes in a pinch. There could be a service entrance somewhere behind the bar through another door into the back. Gambling game tables were littered about seemingly at random, some occupied. A few glanced over, but most minded their own business.

"Not my bird, young man," said the old man as he led Azar down another set of stairs into what looked like a somewhat cramped office. He retrieved a medkit from a wall mount and shuffled back toward Azar. "I'll handle it, Uma." Another voice spoke in accented basic as its origin strode through a side door.

Amber-gold eyes found Azar, hawk-like and analytical. The figure wore fairly ordinary attire aside from a well-geared utility belt; tunic-like shirt with rolled sleeves, pants, and boots. Colorful tattoos rose up from their wrists, scars crossing the flesh. Ink-black hair was drawn back into a tight, professional braid. They stopped a few steps from Azar. "If you don't mind."

@Sreeya

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Translator turned ‘not my bird young man’ to “no chicken small boy”. Azar’s face furrowed in confusion, but he chalked it up to translation error or general rudeness. He didn’t care either way. The Pureblood followed through the doors into the office. He jumped a bit at the other voice, though he didn’t lash out just yet.

The night was going in directions he didn’t anticipate and he kept meeting figures that made no sense. Azar studied the new presence, his yellow eyes running over the tattoos and the almost delicate features. The eyes held intelligence, but in a dangerous way. Azar said nothing at first, only moving to lower the hood that had been covering his head. He made no moves to hide what he was, revealing his multiple piercings and vivid yellow eyes.

It was only then that Azar registered that the translator had attempted to suggest that the bird did not belong to the original man. Which meant the bird belonged to this new person. The Pureblood slumped down into the chair next to him, wincing at the pain on his arm.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Those dangerous eyes looked over the Pureblood. A moment later they became almost breezy, unbothered, yet with a hint of curiosity. Whatever this new figure was, they were either unperturbed by Azar's general appearance. How often was it one met a native of Korriban? Not on Korriban, no less. While the old man settled behind his desk, Nakoa opened up the medkit.

Luckily for Azar, it was his off-hand that received a the pistol shot. Nakoa would casually sit nearby and remove any burnt clothing in the way before very precisely applying a basic bacta patch over the injury. "You're far from home," he commented before retrieving a small, spherical pill from somewhere on his belt and offering it to Azar. "Take it. Medicine."

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar hissed in pain as the stranger tended to his wounds. He looked away, his yellow eyes burning holes into the wall across him. Nothing about tonight made sense, and he was nowhere close to hunting down any of the Trandoshans. Instead he was on the run. The entire evening was botched. The pureblood eyed the pill suspiciously, but didn’t take it for now. He may have been a foreigner to the wider galaxy, but he knew better than to take pills from random strangers.

“Why your bird bring me here?” He asked quietly as he gazed at the other man. He was very pretty for a man, and Azar had seen his fair share of humanoids of all genders. The lack of facial protrusions was unfortunate, but the piercings were certainly appealing. The Pureblood moved on from his appraisal rapidly, suspicion taking the front seat again.

“Who you?” He asked gruffly, not expecting an answer. In fact, these guys seemed weird and cryptic. He was only stalling to avoid getting killed. Once he felt better, he would slip out.

@Mr. Teatime