Preying on Mantis

Posted on Mon Jun 25th, 2018 @ 6:35pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Mentis
Edited on on Mon Jun 25th, 2018 @ 6:37pm

2,844 words; about a 14 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Nar Shaddaa
Timeline: The morning after "Second Chance Encounters in the Sarlacc Pit"
Tags: nar shaddaa, grogga, hutt, Karkarodon, Rynch, Seven-Gill, Reave

OLD

"I can make myself available to assist you," Mentis spoke agreeably as he leaned back, pocketing his trinket again, "What sort of work do you have in mind?"

The gambler gave a short laugh, downed the last of his drink, and scooped up the remainder of his winnings with the same enthusiasm he had won them, before rising up with vigour from his stool. "All in good time, my mad new companion," he declared as he smacked Mentis on the arm in a comradely fashion, and he was already swaggering towards the exit of the cantina before the Dark Jedi had barely a chance to clamber up from his own chair.

Stopping just short of the door, Rex suddenly whirled around and fixed Mentis with a very serious expression and a near-jab of a finger in his robed chest. "Just one thing: you do have one of them laser blades though, right?"

NEW

The thrums, screeches and blaring horns of various hovering, scraping and flying vehicles filled the morning air of Nar Shaddaa, if that is what it could truly be called. The same thick smog that typified the skies of the previous night remained ever present in the Hutt's prize moon's dawn. The sky was dark, save for the garish neon lights adorning the many misshapen and poorly-built constructions that haphazardly reached upwards from an invisible surface, miles beneath the platform Rex had told Mentis to meet him on.

All manner of stall and trading post managers were wheeling open their shutters with ageing and cheap mechanical pulleys, entirely amiss in the millennia-long age of technological prowess that had claimed the galaxy, yet seemingly refused to develop, an unnatural stagnation having gripped most cultures for countless generations.

Businesses that had determined the night economy was their target had closed shop or handed the reins over to different sentients, the shift in management often being accompanied by a hasty rescribbling of signs, or a dramatic alteration in displays. The pungent smells of the over- and undercooked foods of the previous night were replaced by all new overpowering stenches, with whatever passed for a Nar Shaddaa breakfast now being thrust before passersby and familiar patrons.

One particular stand had several stools arrayed outside of its sheet metal exterior design, nearly all of which were occupied by sentients shovelling unfamiliar and aromatic creatures/food into whatever form of mouth(s) they had. Amber-skinned, shiny creatures hung from the slight awning that covered the alcove from which the proprietor served his wares, dangling with lifeless, elongated limbs, awaiting a patron to select one to have cooked and consumed. Or not, as was the case with one particularly enthusiastic one-armed Dug.

Sat on a stool next to the diminutive figure was one much familiar to Mentis, food being inexpertly prodded into his mouth with two small sticks held within his calloused hands, but sat exactly where he told the former cultist he would be.

"Mantis!" Rex declared between mouthfuls of what appeared to be taupe-coloured noddles, a few thin strands slipping down his jaw as it worked the words out between gulps. "Glad you made it, buddy!"

Drawing in a deep and instantly regrettable breath of the stale morning air, the pale humanoid nodded back towards Rex, “It's Mentis, actually, and we agreed to meet so here I am.”

The dark-skinned Human quickly slurped the rest of his bowl down, muttered something in Huttese to the Aqualish chef stood within the stall, and rose up, arms extended high in greeting to Mentis. "You had a good night at Urma's?" He half-asked, half-stated as he slapped a heavy hand onto Mentis' robed back, cheerier even than he was last night after his pazaak win. "Y'know, that place ain't never done me wrong." With one arm still around the Rattataki's shoulder, Rex positioned himself next to the other man and looked out into the distance, gesturing broadly with his spare limb. "One good night there, my friend, maybe with one of Urma's Falleen 'daughters', can cure even the grimmest of a sentient's Nar Shaddaa blues!"

The lodgings Rex had found for Mentis had been far more comfortable than his last few nights, being shuttled to the smuggler’s moon, but he had not appreciated the rather chubby Askajian hostess who kept parading green-skinned females before him. She had finally stopped when the Rattataki lost his temper and threw one of the young women to the floor with his powers, before storming back to his room.

“I probably won’t be invited back,” he stated, choosing not to mention details, “But I am rested enough for whatever you have for me today. Are you ready to tell me what I have to do?”

"Yeah. Sure, sure," Rex babbled quickly, guiding Mentis along the walkway before them, his arm gently pushing the pale humanoid alongside him. A slight gust whipped the base of Rex's brown longcoat against Mentis' legs, along with carrying a sharp, acrid stench that neither man received well. "Do you, uhh, know much about how things work on Nar Shaddaa? The kinds'a people we're dealing with here?"

Batting the smuggler’s long jacket from his side, Mentis felt his hand brush against his lightsaber hilt, concealed under his own jacket, which he had picked up last night. Feeling the weapon’s weight at this side gave him some comfort as he stepped into this unknown venture. His new outerwear was a puffy, grey, sleeveless coat, padded with what the retailer claimed was real kelpcotton from Savareen, not that it made any difference to the Rattataki now wearing it. The arms of his black robe underneath were visible, but it was now not immediately obvious that he wore the garb of a Force-user.

“I have dealt with gangsters, bounty hunters and slavers,” he answered, the last occupation lingering on his tongue with distaste, “I presume these are the kinds you deal with in your line of work?”

Rex nodded, only appearing to have been half-listening to Mentis' answer. "Yeah, yeah. That's good enough. And, uhh, what kinda skill do you have with that, umm, well... that?" Having withdrawn his arm from Mentis' back, he discretely jabbed a finger towards where he must have presumed where the former cultist's lightsaber was concealed.

Following the man’s assuming gaze, Mentis instinctively brought both his hand to that side once again, checking it was still with him, even after having felt it just a moment before, “Hmph,” Mentis exhaled, attempting to seem more irritated that relieved, “I have trained with a blade since I was an infant in the Gladiator Games on Ratattak. You needn’t doubt my ability with the saber… or the Force.”

Rex's eyes dipped and his brow and mouth furrowed almost comically in an expression of doubt as he looked his dark-robed companion up and down. "Y'know," he said after a pregnant pause with that look on his face vaguely unchanging, "you talk kinda funny, like a pasty prince. Where'd you pick that accent and, uhh, way of speaking up?" The smuggler then leaned in towards Mentis with one of his amused faces washing over him. "Was your old master a bit into that sorta thing then, or somethin'?" He nudged Mentis with a friendly, but intrusive, elbow.

Mentis scowled at the man and his overly-familiar elbowing, wondering what the smuggler stood to gain from knowing about his accent. However, his joking came with a shred of truth: he had often moulded himself to his masters; first of all, the Siniteen who had acquired him as a child and placed a sword in his hands. When Axion had found him, Mentis’ outward appearance was little more than a street urchin. But when the dark Jedi had claimed him, his manners sharpened and his accent became more practiced in the hopes that he could someday be seen in the same high regard as most people saw Axion. He wondered if he should hate that trait in himself; to be so willing to give up all that made him unique, if there ever even was a real Mentis to begin with.

“Something like that,” Mentis stated, choosing not to fully voice his feelings to the man he had just met, “As you said, he is my OLD master now, so you needn’t keep mentioning him.”

Stepping forward to create a little distance between the pair of them, Mentis looked out at the busy morning market sector on Nar Shaddaa. It was one of thousands on the moon’s surface, but the way the vendors shouted and shook their wares at the variety of alien faces that shuffled by made it seem like the only one that mattered in this moment.

His gaze was drawn to a group of young sentients who were lurking about behind a particular market stall, eyeing some large chunks of imported meat. After carefully timing the stall-owner’s own movements, a young boy in the group slipped forwards and grabbed a leg of meat, quickly squirreling it away without anyone batting an eyelid. His companions followed shortly afterwards and Mentis saw them begin bickering over the spoils as soon as they were out of the vendor’s sight.

Mentis wondered whether they had some cruel master to impress of whether they were simply out for themselves. Either way, they all had to eat and this world was not in the spirit of giving without taking it fair share away. Pushing memories of his own childhood aside, the pale former-cultist turned back to Rex, “Now perhaps you can bring me up to speed with your plan, unless you had some story about your own accent you were planning on sharing.”

"Could I have a go?" Rex suddenly asked, as if he had not heard what the Rattataki had said, an innocent expression on his carefree features as he pointed to Mentis' lightsaber.

As Rex's hand drew close to his side, Mentis grabbed it, freezing the human in momentary terror, "No!" he exclaimed with briefly furious eyes, before nervously glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone had taken interest at his sudden outburst. He hushed his voice, "Listen, this had better not be some setup where you keep me chatting until some bounty hunter shows up. If you can't give me a good reason to stay, I'll walk away right now, lightsaber and all."

"Awright, awright!" Rex said, raising his hands defensively in that exact same mannerism as he had to the losing participant of his pazaak game in the cantina the previous night. "Sithspit, you're a touchy guy, but I get it. It's all cool," he added with a shrug before then turning to keep their former pace going.

The exuberant Human kept one hand firmly planted within a trouser pocket whilst he continued to speak emotively, apparently using his free hand to punctuate his sentences. "You see, I work for a very lucrative organisation that I know you've had at least one run-in with in the past, and as you know, they don't take kindly to, uhh, being swindled or otherwise irked. Really, I'm-ma middle man, and I often get dragged in to all sorts of shades of snot which I can't always get out of with my dashing good looks and wily charms." Rex offered Mentis a mock incredulous look. "Crazy, I know."

The pair narrowly navigated around a bumbling one-legged Gran who had no compunctions over almost barging Rex into the pockmarked permacrete ground. The ageing oversized orange man went on to mumble something offensive in an unknown tongue as he continued to navigate his way along incompetently with a gnarled walking stick. Rex returned the profanity before continuing.

"As you know, I'm not really the rootin'-tootin' fighting type," he said, making a blaster-and-barrel gesture with his free hand. "But it doesn't mean I go unprepared for these sortsa things. I can't always rely on the kindness of sociopathic Mandos or magical Rattataki. So, whilst I handle the business and charisma side of things, I have a, uhh, small partner-in-crime who takes care of the... y'know. Other stuff." Rex added a shrug to his words. "Mantis stuff."

As the pathway they were on became more busy and dangerous to idle beings such as themselves, Mentis stepped back and sat himself upon a crate of shuura fruit, “I can believe that,” he stated dryly, shuffling slightly as he tried to calm his feelings towards the man who, as well as continuing to get his name wrong, had yet to get to the point, “So why is your muscle not having this conversation right now? Is he or she otherwise engaged or have you managed to upset your partner?”

"Reave's always upset," Rex grumbled, once again shrugging and looking up wistfully before his queerly intelligent eyes locked upon Mentis after. "And he's always upsettin' the wrong people, too!" He exclaimed waving a quick finger in the darksider's face. "And that's what I need you for, you see, and that's why he's not chattering away angrily at you now. That business in the Sarlacc might have gone a very different way if he'd been around. Phwoo, I tell ya. That little guy's got a temper on him."

While he suddenly had many more questions about this so-called 'Reave', Mentis desperately wanted to get to the point of all this, "And I suppose that your friend Reave managed to upset someone he shouldn't have?"

"Well, there are a few local, uhh, big shots around here who like to wave their blasters around," Rex explained. "Nearly all of 'em work for the Hutts in some way. The smart ones who wanna live do, anyway."

"I thought you were in with the Hutt Cartel too," Mentis queried, his patience for being polite wearing thin, "Or are you not one of the smart ones?"

"Hey," the Human gesticulated his hands in mock offence, gesturing to himself, "we both know I'm not gangster. But I accept that I do work for a few. Mostly Grogga, but there are others. In this particular sector of the moon, you've got a couple of Hutts that work inside Grogga's little slice of patogga for him, as well as few other undesirables looking to cleave their own juicy morsels. One of the less, uhh, obedient of these fine ruffians is-" Rex paused, glancing around to see who might be watching or in earshot. "-is Rynch Seven-Gill, an especially unpleasant and stabby/chompy Karkarodon."

As he said the name, Rex produced a small circular device from inside his jacket, which beeped as he pressed his thumb against it. Half a second later, a static-laden blue holographic rotating image of a scarred Karkarodon shimmered to life. Once again, the Human glanced about him, wary of who might see him showing Mentis the image.

Mentis focused himself slightly at the sight of the perpetually-frowning Karkarodon now being shown to him. All he had was an image, but he could tell this gangster was the sort that everyone imagined when they thought of a Hutt enforcer: thick-skulled and violent, with an ego that you did not want to cross. It seems that Reave did just that.

"So, he has your friend, huh?"

"Yeah, he's the nasty bastard who took my boy Reave," Rex said, turning the device off and quickly slipping it back inside of his jacket, still offering nervous glances to every passerby. "Now, Seven-Gill only escaped a Republic jail a few standard weeks ago. He was spitting in the face of Grogga months ago, before all that kriff with your lord and the Jedi. During that time, Grogga's been scrambling to assert himself again, and ol' razor-mouth has been making the most of it since getting back to Nar Shaddaa. Seven-Gill's been getting his old crew and operation back together - probably getting bankrolled by another greedy Hutt - and doing whatever he can to make life hard for all of us, uhh, honest folk. Shakedowns, shoot-outs, robberies... you name it, Seven-Gill's doing it - and now he's got Reave, too. Karking sleemo's probably torturing the little dude to death!"

"So, by helping you against this gangster, I'm really helping all the downtrodden folk in the sector?" Mentis chuckled, "You know, you don't need to make an appeal to my conscience; I just want to look out for myself right now so, assuming you have a strategy that won't get me killed, I will help you save your violent little friend."

"Hey, that's great news!" Rex exclaimed, clapping Mentis on the back, once again invading his space. "I can already tell we're gonna be great friends. And besides, Rex Vickers always pays his debts."

Although, given the manner by which he delivered the line, it was doubtful anyone would truly be reassured by that final statement.

TBC

 

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