Utinni!

Posted on Tue Jul 31st, 2018 @ 6:05pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Amare & Reave & Mentis
Edited on on Thu Oct 3rd, 2019 @ 11:30pm

2,948 words; about a 15 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Warehouse Unit 110, Lower Industrial Sector, Nar Shaddaa
Timeline: After "Jawa Jailbreak"
Tags: Nar Shaddaa, Lower Industrial Sector, Mentis, Rex, Reave, Seven-Gill, Karkaradon, Jawa, Rattataki, Smuggler's Moon

OLD

“Our mutual ‘friend’ Rex has gotten himself captured by Seven-Gill,” the Rattataki finally addressed Reave, who had slowed his bouncing to try and listen in on the earpiece communication, “He says we have to meet him unarmed back outside in the loading area. Fancy being the rescuer this time?”

Reave jumped off of the Aqualish, and picked up his grenade launcher, the first weapon Mentis had seen him reaching for. Although it was almost imperceptible, the Jawa's glowing eyes narrowed an iota as he pumped the weapon once with purpose.

"Uuuutinni!"

NEW

"Rynch, please!" Rex bumbled pleadingly, struggling to throw the words from his swollen mouth, his enlarged purple lips sticking out heavily from his battered and bruised face. A thin trickle of blood was running down from his broken nose into those cracked lips, spittle flying as he begged with his captor. "Buddy, honest, it's all a big misunderstanding! Just lemme speak to Grogga - I'm sure we could sort somethin' out!"

The Human stumbled as another punch was delivered into his gut, forcing him down to one knee, although he was quickly dragged up again by his rear-stacked cuffed wrists to face the Karkaradon's many sharp teeth once more. "Creds... guns... I got it all..." Rex managed between bloody coughs, still trying to force a smile onto his beaten features. "Get your operation up an' runnin'... no need... no need for any Hutts to know anything!"

Seven-Gill's toothy grin became a sneer dripping with rancid saliva and a stench-filled breath to put even piles of weeks old dead rotting fish to shame. Point blank in Rex's face, he started bellowing his laughter, and the grunts around him followed suit. Gill knew he was gangster scum--was damn proud of it--but at least he always found humour in any given situation.

"Do ya see deez 'guns', pal?" Gill said after his laughter faded and gestured to one of his ripped arms bulging with corded muscular definition worthy of a Mr. Universe contest. "Does it look like I be needin' any more? Hahahahaha! Dontchu worry. Imma gon break yous soon real good, yeah? Git 'im up, boys. We're takin' a walk. Time fer some fun."

Two thugs brought Rex to his feet and started to force him forwards. The did not move far, however, before another voice rang out, “Here I am, Seven-Gill,” came the calm but stern voice of Mentis as he exited the now re-opened loading bay hatch, coming into view under the dim streetlight. With him, he pulled the Bothan Krath, who now had his hands bound, wearing a look of nervous confusion at the situation he now found himself in.

“I have your man, whether you care to save him or not, “ the pale humanoid continued, now addressing Rynch directly as he slowly paced forwards to meet them, “Regardless, what will happen is that you will release Rex to me or you will see all your men perish before I kill you myself.”

"Mantis!" Rex shouted gleefully at sighting the Dark Jedi, although his reverie was quickly squashed by a heavy swat to the back of his bumpy and bruised skull.

Mentis imagined Axion standing here, making such a grandiose threat as he had seen him do on many occasions. Of course, Axion would not care about revealing his true power to these people, whereas Mentis had to be very careful, lest that very same Master catch wind of a Force-user killing street thugs on Nar Shaddaa and discern his location. He never truly made it clear just how many eyes and ears he had scattered throughout the galaxy.

Seven-Gill answered with slow, sarcastic claps of his meaty hands as he stepped forward to stare down Mentis. "Yous gots stones, little man," he mocked, let his arms fall to his sides, and tensed up one shoulder, made a joint pop loud, then did the same with the other shoulder. He then proceeded to crack his knuckles as he added, "So, we gun' do dis like men, or should I 'ave Scar o'er 'dere pop one in yer pal's head? BANG! Hahahaha!"

The other men started laughing with him as usual, but Gill held up a clenched fist as a sign to shut them up instantly. He wanted to see what this little tattoo-faced baldy had that made him man enough to stand up to the one and only Seven-Gill. The Karkaradon gangster was so laser-focused on Mentis that he didn't even notice what Reave was up to.

Off to the side, up above, and unseen to all, the diminutive Jawa had assembled all of his most favourite tools in an array before him, each nearly fully-loaded, charged and primed for the fight to come. Spying Mentis as he faced off against the brutish Seven-Gill, Reave could be forgiven for appearing as though he briefly hesitated, but that was quickly dismissed with a little shake of his fashionably-adorned head.

Spreading himself along the platform he was hiding upon, he began making the final alterations to his launcher, carefully twisting and attuning the scope that rode along its barrel. In a few short moments, he would be ready to give everyone present a fine serving of fin soup.

"Hey, uhh... I don't mean to intrude on you guys' big fight an' all," Rex said with all of the confidence of a man not actually in shackles and on the cusp of being murdered, "but don't you think you should be, uhh, using a... y'know." The captured smuggler made something that he must have surmised would pass as a lightsaber ignition sound, and made a peculiar gesture with his body, his head first pointing to the floor and then up the ceiling just behind him, presumably his mind's visual interpretation of the blade itself.

"Huh? What's he talkin' 'bout?" Gill asked to anyone in earshot. His goons had nothing but confused looks and shrugs to offer. "Hey!" He turned back to Mentis. "Yous thinks I'ma stoopid, huh? It's anoder bomb, right? Everbody knows bombs don't sound like dat! Bombs go--"

As if on cue, an explosion ripped through the gathering of Seven-Gill's gathered men behind him, blasting several into small chunks of goon whilst it sent several others off the side of the exposed landing bay and into the rapidly-flowing traffic of Nar Shaddaa below. Before any others could react or process the information, however, another blast detonated alongside a nearby loading vehicle, causing a third explosion of its own as its fuel source ignited.

Several barrels of flammable material were caught by the flying debris, causing a stream of noxious-smelling liquid to flow out and towards the burning remains of the vehicle and surrounding materials, the fluid growing precariously closer with each passing second.

On his platform, Reave was jumping up and down and screaming unintelligible babbles of delight at the carnage he had caused below, even if the two blasts from his weapon had been somewhat indiscriminate in their targeting of the thugs below. On the plus side, he had not hit Mentis, who had been suitably far away from the two blast zones. Rex, however, had been less fortunate.

Collapsed atop the muscular Karkaradon following the blasts, the Human fumbled to find some purchase so that he could get himself standing upright, but with his manacled hands, all he managed to do was run his palms over the gangster's pectorals. "Oh, uhh," he began, seeing Seven-Gill's eyes open again, "hi?"

Being the least disoriented by the pyrotechnic overkill Reave had unleashed, Mentis took only a moment to gawk before grabbing Rex with telekinesis and shunting him over to one side and away from Seven-Gill who would undoubtedly have seized Rex as hostage again once the slow gears in his brain clicked back into place.

“Don’t get any ideas, Karkaradon,” Mentis warned, watching Seven-Gill start to rise, “Reave is still angry at being cooped up all this time and has ammunition to spare. I hope you don’t mind my scepticism towards your proposal of a fair fight, but I feel a lot more comfortable without the possibility of one of your men gunning down Rex when you lose.”

"Unnnghhh...wha...?" Gill coughed up blood several times as he sat up, unaware of a piece of shrapnel the size of an engagement ring box that was lodged deep in the back of his head touching brain matter. His vision was all over the place, and he stumbled onto his feet and started giggling like a drunk idiot. "Dat's....helluva boom! Hehehehe! Whoa..."

It took Mentis a moment to realise just why the large thug was speaking like an infant. It was an unnerving sight to see the brutish Karkaradon smiling so innocently, like a madman but with razor sharp teeth. Nevertheless, the dark Jedi stepped forwards, squinting to find some trace of deception in his foe's eyes, but they were shining with the same mirth as his grin.

"Looks like you took a bit of a beating there," Mentis spoke carefully, eyeing the metallic shard in his rubbery aquatic skull and wondering if he should just ease it a little further in and be done with it, "Do you remember what's going on?"

"Uhhh..." Was all Gill could muster as he pointed at Mentis with squinting eyes trying to figure out the world. He didn't know if he was even dead, alive, or a little lost fishy boy looking for his mama.

Nearby, one of his downed men that was previously guarding Rex was barely conscious, blaster pistol in a shaking hand from a prone position, struggling to level his aim at Mentis for one last shot with his dying breath. He squeezed the trigger and slipped into the longest nap-on-the-job possible.

The shot whizzed towards Mentis’ chest, but his precognition saved him, warning him to dart sideways and allow the energy to dissipate into the shutters behind him. However, the blast seemed to startle Seven-Gill, who had now noticed his deceased colleague who had fired the shot.

It wasn't so much Mentis as it was the shot in the Rattataki's direction that made Gill see red and growl his disdain and fury at the ex-cultist. He opened his street boxing combo with a big, meaty, and easily dodged left hook at Mentis followed by a large-caliber right cross and a left jab that was far less fluid and snappy than it should have been.

Mentis dodged the slow but heavy punches thrown at him; Rynch was still a powerful foe but his senses were a blur and he could not keep up with the Force-aided warrior. Ducking under a massive fist, the Rattataki threw a firm punch into his opponent’s belly but Seven-Gill did not budge an inch; his hardened muscles and tough skin absorbed the blow and Mentis was caught so off guard by the ineffective strike that Rynch had the opportunity to grab Mentis by the neck and hoist him into the air with ease.

The Karkaradon brute had a razor sharp toothy sneer for the captured Mentis ready to open up and bit his head off. He normally had words for triumphant moments like this, but the words simply weren't there; he was beginning to forget how to even speak. His sneer turned to confusion, but his grip held fast.

Seven-Gill’s jagged teeth hung before Mentis, sharp enough to tear his pale flesh right down to the bone. While the hold on his neck was terribly tight, he summoned his strength to reach down to his side, where his lightsaber lay concealed. With a bit of desperate grasping, he found it and, as quickly as he could, he pointed it forward and ignited the crimson blade.

That thick skin and muscle could not hold off the focussed plasma energy and Rynch was swiftly impaled through his abdomen. The grip on Mentis’ throat weakened so he disengaged the blade and slipped out. He shot backwards to be out of reach and watched as the Karkaradon stumbled and fell to the ground once again, now holding the clean cauterised entry wound with his other hand.

Seven-Gill was beyond death's door and saw clarity for the first time in his miserable thug-life. It was true after all...you really did see your whole life flash before your eyes at the end. He didn't have much of a memory, but he did recall one last thing before the end, going right back to his childhood, at the point of abandonment which had set him upon the dark path that led him to this ignoble point:

"Maw-maw...wher.e..a....r......e......yousssss.........?"

With a final exhale, the man was dead, the last of his rotten crew to fall that night; Mentis stepped forwards again, looking at the vacant eyes that seemed almost to plead in their final moments. His own eyes were drawn down to the lightsaber wound through Rynch's lower body. He had hoped not to kill anyone with the lightsaber, for fear of it being reported. He doubted anyone would notice the cuts he made in the shutter, given the whole building was collapsing down, but Grogga might take note of a favoured enforcer, killed by a Jedi weapon.

To one side of him, Reave had made his way down from his perch and seemed to be trying to help Rex up despite lacking the required height to pivot the smugger to his feet. Mentis abandoned the corpse for now and wandered over to assist, "Seem's that's one gang you don't need to worry about any more," Mentis almost smirked as he offered a hand down to Vickers, "There's no way you're backing out of this deal, now that you've put me through that."

"Hey," Rex said with the ease of a man who had not been roughed up and thrown about in a Nar Shaddaa gunfight as he brushed imaginary dust off of his jacket, "Rex Vickers never backs out of a deal." At seeing both the doubtful expression on Mentis' face and the suspicious telling cock of Reave's own head, the smuggler quickly amended his statement. "Well, not with people I like, anyway. You and and me, Mantis..." Rex clapped an unwelcome hand once again upon the Dark Jedi's shoulder, "...we make a helluva te-"

Rex's words were cut short by the sudden loud and repeated screeching of Reave's oversized weapon lancing superheated beams into Seven-Gill's corpse, the Karkaradon's remains jolting about as each brightly-coloured bolt tore away at the dead man's once-rubbery flesh. Even with Mentis' Force-attuned sight, he would struggle to keep up with the speed of Reave's hyperactive trigger finger, as the Jawa gleefully pelted his former captor's lifeless body with blast after blast.

"Uhh, Reave-" Rex tried to intercede, wincing at the bright blur of beams melting Seven-Gill in front of him, one steadying hand still resting on Mentis. "Reave," he tried a little louder, "I think you, uhh, you got- Nope. Okay." The man clenched his free hand close to his mouth as he watched uncomfortably.

It took a few more seconds of sustained blasting from the Jawa's weapon before he finally halted his violent barrage against his downed opponent, leaving little more than a smouldering pile of sinew, charred flesh and unpleasant-smelling embers. Of course, where Reave had focused almost entirely on the Karkaradon's bulk, the gangster's elasmobranch head and distinctively aquatic lower limbs remained almost perfectly intact - barring the smoke rising up from the apertures in Seven-Gill's neck and face.

"Good shootin', Reave!" Rex declared in mock-support of his little friend, who did look back, seeming to not hear the Human.

Instead, Reave's glowing eyes narrowed at his weapon, its barrel now contorted and clicking unsatisfactorily as he pulled at it. With a few unintelligible grumbles, he flung it to one side and marched past - indeed, almost through - Rex and Mentis.

Watching as the Tatooinian ambled off, his little shoulders hunched angrily and his hat cocked in what passed for Jawa mysteriousness, Rex gave Mentis' shoulder a quick rub. "Aw, he grows on you. Honest," he said, taking a step away. "But seriously, you did real good today, my crazy new pale friend. Thank you." He extended his hand to the Rattataki.

Taking the smuggler’s hand, Mentis found himself somewhat more sympathetic to the Human; while he had already seen several instances of the man’s cowardice, he was indisputably a free agent, as was his Jawa companion, “I cannot say it was a pleasure, but it has all been tied up now, thanks to Reave there.”

Mentis relaxed his posture and placed a hand on his waist, close to his hilt, which had been returned to its concealed position underneath his new casual garb, “So, I take it you were satisfied finally seeing my blade in use? It is a particularly elegant weapon, isn’t it?”

"Well, I feel like you coulda whipped it out a little earlier, maybe saved us all some time - and maybe I could still see outta both my eyes without needing a night tucked up with bacta patches... but sure," Rex gave a little shrug, "super elegant."

Rex’s comments aside, the Karkaradon had been a strong opponent, even in his final state and Mentis was not keen on facing any further trials here on the smuggler’s moon, “So, let’s talk about what’s next. How do you intend on getting me to the Red Raptor crew?”

"Why," the battered man answered with a crooked smile, "with a little bit of charm, a smattering of luck, and a whole load of Rex Vickers schmoozing!"

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