Showdown on Korriban: Tick-Tock and the Gunslinger
Posted on Thu Sep 5th, 2019 @ 10:14pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Reave & Mentis & Tolmin Voq
Edited on on Thu Oct 3rd, 2019 @ 11:29pm
4,102 words; about a 21 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Red Raptor Landing Site, Valley of the Dark Lords, Korriban
Timeline: Showdown on Korriban, Day 4
OLD
The crew of the now destroyed Janna found themselves joined by the younger blue Nautolan, facing down Axion's favourite pupil Nala and the pyromaniac of the cult, Tolmin Voq. The third cultist was a Rodian and not known to Mentis but the lack of a lightsaber and the empty look in his large glassy eyes told him he was not destined to be much more than a pawn within the cult.
Mentis had not seen Nala since the night he had killed Trey and fled from the cult. A part of him wanted to appeal to her, but the way she looked at him now with that self-assured smirk told him that he was just another victim to her now. He felt the rising fear and trepidation that came from facing those who he had seen in combat time and time again. Now he had so much more to lose; newfound allies and friends. It was a new feeling, but also a quiet strength knowing he must fight for more than just his own life or for the glory of something he no longer believed in.
He allowed that fear to become his power. He stepped forward.
NEW
OOC: Music for the fight: The Gambler, the Craven, and the Gunslinger
Tomin Voq couldn’t hold back his bored yawn as he and his Rodian stooge approached the only faces in the gathered crowd holding blasters.
“Really? I get the scraps this time?” he dismissively whined as he sneered at Rex and Reave. “Nala and Kel always get the fun ones. Hey! Duster boy and womp rat! Ol’ ‘Tick-tock’ Voq at your service.” He brandished his saberstaff, held vertically in front of him, igniting one red blade, and then the other. With his other hand in the same motion, he dug into his side-pack and withdrew a shiny thermal detonator, flipping it on and setting it to a delay blast. “Here, catch!” He hurled the bomb straight at the human and the Jawa with an expression of satisfaction with what was left of his natural mouth hidden under his black scarf.
"Oh, seriously?!" Rex jabbered in panic, knowing completely how outmatched he was by the array of opponents facing him, and how injured and under-prepared he was for any sort of showdown with (Dark) Jedi. He had gone this long in his career of engagement with ne'er-do-wells and gangsters without ever facing someone down who he knew to have even the faintest connection to the Force, let alone wielding a (double-ended!) lightsaber.
Even so, he had had his fair share of thermal detonators thrown at him, and it was only a trifling matter of quickly spinning Cindra upwards from his hip and firing once to end the detonator threat before it even became one. The explosion, nevertheless, was large enough, making the feat of marksmanship seem slightly more impressive than Rex was comfortable with. From his perspective, he felt like it probably made him more of a threat than he actually was, and he now smiled awkwardly at the Devaronian cultist.
"Heh," he laughed nervously, throwing his hands out to either side with his fingers splayed, his blaster dangling by its trigger from one digit. In the distance, he spied Brick, somehow, reaching the Red Raptor behind the carnage. "Lucky shot?"
"Awww! What the heck, bro!" Voq shouted, his face in mock incredulity. "That was my baby, Mathilda! Nobody shoots one of my favourite girls and gets away with it!"
Reave, unlike his Human companion, did not feel nearly as shy. Capitalising on Rex's good shooting and the momentary opportunity to attack the horned warrior approaching, he leapt to stand in front of Rex and swung his oversized heavy repeating blaster to bear upon Tick-Tock and opened fire, a hailstorm of red bolts flying chaotically towards the Dark Jedi.
A whirling windmill of scarlet light spun in front of Voq as he worked at deflecting and sidestepping the blaster barrage. The shots came at him faster than he ever had to content with before, and thus each deflection was sloppy, most striking the ground nearby, or bouncing off skyward. One shot flew and grazed the Rodian cultist that was attempting to make a beeline for Reave with his cortosis sword. The Rodian toppled over face first and desperately tried to scramble to take cover behind an errant large rock to get out of the line of random fire. Voq, getting overwhelmed, performed an aerial cartwheel to the side, deflecting more shots with the stylish evasive maneuver. Landing on his feet, he punched the air in front of him with his left fist, and from his cybernetic gauntlet, he let loose a small wrist rocket to try and counter Reave.
The Jawa's angry little golden eyes grew brighter and wider in alarm at spying the oncoming explosive, taken aback by the unexpected move by the Force user. With his weapon overheating and unable to take out the rocket in the small window of opportunity he had, Reave sprinted and leapt aside.
Rex, whilst also fast, had not appreciated soon enough quite how close the rocket's target zone was to him as well. Fortunately, like Reave, years of facing down bounty hunters and mercenaries across Hutt space had informed his natural intuition enough that he was able to spin himself about, only staggering slightly, before springing off towards his own errant rock to hide behind. Both his and Reave's launches were 'aided' by the explosion of Voq's rocket behind them, flinging them unceremoniously into the sodden dirt ground behind cover.
"Kriff, kriff, kriff, kriff!" The smuggler cursed as he scrambled about on the ground behind his conveniently-sized rock, the bottom edges of his duster having caught fire from the cultist's attack. "Y'know, Tick-Tock," he called out to the Devaronian as he hurriedly patted down the little flames with one hand and prepped his blaster again with the other, his back against his cover, "you've got a real funny manner and skill-set for a death-worshipping evil cultist!" He spun out from cover very briefly and loosed a few blaster bolts at the Rodian's cover, the intense bolts smashing into the rock and raining debris down on the injured insectoid. "Shouldn't you be runnin' jobs for the Hutts, or somethin', making some real dough?"
Voq allowed himself a hearty belly laugh in reply. "Oh, but I did! That's how I converted almost two-thirds of my body into all this sweet hardware." He turned to his Rodian minion and tilted his head in the direction of the cowering smuggler and rowdy Jawa as he slowly tread closer. The Rodian crept low, using the Force to partially blend in with the environment and the Korriban evening darkness, every footfall almost entirely silent when otherwise would have made distinguishable sounds.
"I can see you're a working man yourself," Voq added as he sauntered closer, spinning, whirling, and lazily slashing the ground in front of him with the twin blades of his saberstaff. "I respect that. You have a business to run. Tell you what. Since I'm feeling generous, all you gotta do is toss me your weapons, and I'll let you go. You can take that Corellian rust bucket there and ditch the rest of these fools. I'm only in it for the Jedi killing truth be told. You're just cannon fodder to those robed morons anyways. Whaddaya say? One-time special offer, hey?"
Rex huffed a little, amused at both Voq’s suggestion and the sheer madness of the situation he now found himself in. As he made a few tweaks to his blaster, he threw a glance over to the nearby Reave, who was shuffling angrily behind his own cover. The Jawa pointed furiously through the rock towards the approaching cultist, jabbing his little fingers as though it meant anything to his Human companion. Rex just shrugged (a gesture that still hurt, the injuries from his crash with Mentis still hurting), and found himself starting to smile inanely. A small chuckle was also threatening to gurgle up from his throat.
Just a few short months ago, if someone had told him that he would be sent halfway across the galaxy – for no pay, as well – with a crazy ex-death cultist, to chase Sith-loving former Jedi loons to the dusty ass-end of nowhere, only to then be facing down some cyborg murderer with a double-ended laser sword and an unknown reserve of explosives, having already crashed his prized ship on aforementioned ass-end planet, Kalen “Rex” Vickers would have laughed them off the pazaak table and finished his refreshing beverage. Naturally, there were women on either of his (unbroken) arms in this rendition of his life.
“And a temptin’ offer it is too, Mister Tick-Tock,” he said cheerfully back to the horned death machine, narrowing his eyes as he tried to work out what exactly it was he was spying Reave doing. Within a few short seconds, he finally realised, as the diminutive Tatooinian finished binding three globular chunks of metal together. For the first time since they had fallen from Korriban’s skies, Rex saw Reave’s eyes light up with glee.
It was not something Rex usually enjoyed seeing.
“Speaking of, I hope you, uhh, kept your mechanic’s number,” he continued prattling, nodding to Reave as he rose up from behind his stone, hands raised in the surrendering position, his blaster dangling from one digit once again. As he did, Reave scurried out as well, and lobbed the three hastily-taped together thermal detonators right at Voq. As soon as the trio of explosives were closer to Voq than Rex, the smuggler spun his weapon about on the finger and loosed five rapid shots at the detonators.
It might have been hubris, or just the result of a long day of killing Jedi and blowing very expensive stuff up, but Voq made the critical error of letting his guard down slightly, just enough to not anticipate an old bomber's trick that was right up his alley. Where his mind wasn't all there, the Force within reacted to what his eyes saw, and the hydraulics in his legs pressed down and launched him back the very instant blaster bolts blew up the bomb belt.
The explosive yield wasn't as intense as one of Voq's payloads, but it was enough to rip the clothing and most of the synthetic flesh from his lower legs. What remained caught fire, and Voq's plated torso was shredded with jagged bits of shrapnel, along with some small pieces embedded in his face. He howled from the extreme pain as he thrashed and twisted his smoking body on the ground for a few seconds before snapping up to his feet, a severely pissed off look crossing his exposed face. He threw aside his charred black scarf, and his mechanical jaw was exposed and had been partially damaged; only the upper half of his head was apparently organic.
"You are going to pay for that in blood and credits!" he screamed at Rex and Reave as he reignited his blades, his normal sounding voice now sounding tinny and very much synthesized. He threw himself into a headlong charge at his targets, not caring about using any of his tricks or powers. Now it was personal.
Rex’s brief moment of victory was immediately swept away by the cultist’s grim visage. The small self-satisfied grin of achievement Rex had been wearing fell as quickly as he realised he was about to forcefully bear the fruits of his daring-do labours. “Well, that is just horrific,” he managed to say as he only barely managed to duck out of the way of a massive thrusting double-strike from Voq’s saberstaff, his skin singing from the near scrape.
Not quite as deft as he would normally be, courtesy of his slow recovery post-starship crash, Rex fell forwards onto his two hands, screaming in pain as his broken arm took on his full, collapsing weight. Rolling onto his back, his gun having rolled away, he sighted Voq just quickly enough to manage a frightened yelp and roll out of the way of a stabbing motion into the stone, which showered sparks over the Human.
All patience and tolerance had evaporated from Voq's mind as he reached out and telekinetically pulled and dragged Rex directly to his hand. With the ex-captain of the downed Janna's throat in the furious Devaronian's grasp, Voq hoisted the human up by one hand with considerable cyber-enhanced ease.
"Try not squirm too much," Voq said in a low voice with a predator's sneer as he slowly constricted his fingers around Rex's neck. "It'll only make this hurt more." He brought up one end of his saberstaff to within mere inches of the side of Rex's face.
“Utinni!” Reave’s sudden battle cry pierced the air, louder than the roaring thunder of Kelderesh’s raging Force storm overhead, and the undersized enforcer sprinted with surprising alacrity to close the gap between him and Voq. Launching himself up from the ground with feline agility, the Jawa spread out both hands to latch onto his Devaronian target’s back, saving Rex from any further assault.
Screaming loudly in more expletive-laden Jawaese, Reave began tearing away at the exposed cybernetic components about Voq’s neck and back area, his little hands working rapidly with reckless abandon, proving true to his species’ unshakeable technological stereotype as he hurriedly dismantled whatever he could grasp, sparks fizzing as various wires and components were dislodged by the manic creature.
"Gaaahh!!" Voq let out a shocked howl of surprise. He couldn't remember the last time anyone got the drop on him, but the suddeness of the Jawa's ambush made him lose servo control of his right hand, forcing him to drop the saberstaff and release Rex. He twisted and heaved himself side to side in a Herculean attempt to try and throw Reave off. "Kriffing....rodent! Get...off!!!"
"Raaaggghhh!" screamed his Rodian henchman in a reverberated battlecry. The minor cultist flung himself, weapon-first at Voq's back in a wild attempt at tearing the mad Jawa off his Devaronian superior.
Rex, still on his back, skin slick with sweat and chest heaving with the pain and excitement of the whole affair, was struggling to make sense of what was happening. Still suffering from his earlier injury and now half-choked by a cybernetic cultist wizard, the Human's eyes were rolling about his head, barely focusing on the chaos around him.
With one arm, he was just about able to spin himself around once more to look over at the fight unfolding nearby. To his alarm, he could make out the distinctive screams of his Jawa partner; the little warrior was interchangeably latched onto the Devaronian cultist's back, tearing away and exposing yet more components of the half-machine killer, and leaping onto the Rodian. Even to Rex's untrained and wearied eyes, he could see that the Rodian did not have the speed nor the finesse of his horned commander, but he was still artful with his cortosis blade, only scraping Voq's machinery once or twice. At one point, Rex even saw the point of the sword cut up and into the brim of Reave's hat, which, as expected, only incensed the Jawa further.
Although the Tatooinian mercenary was doing an able to job of fending off two Force-wielding maniacs, Rex could see quite plainly that he was struggling, as the two Dark Jedi became less panicked and more focused. Rex's eyes searched about him quickly, his head pounding from both the lack of oxygen and the remarkable rainstorm smashing down against the ancient Korriban rock. Very briefly, he spotted the Ithorian and Cathar facing off a peculiar batch of hissing lizards - Where in the many Hells did those come from!? - and also noticed the increasing lunacy of the lightning smashing against the nearby mountainside. It was almost too much for the Cartel supplier to take in.
It was as panic was beginning to set in, not being able to see his beloved blaster in the haze of the battle and the storm, that he spotted something nearby. Something dangerous. Something, Rex assumed warily, that just might do.
Rising up from the ground, just about managing to steady his feet and still ignored by the two cultists, Rex fumbled just briefly before the twin crimson blades of Voq's saberstaff snapped alive, which caused the Human to jolt back in mild surprise. The bloodcurdling echoing scream coming from by the crazy Cathar and Ithorian duo did not help that.
"This can't be so hard!" Mantis does it! He assured himself, the activation of the weapon immediately drawing the attention of his enemies. Not wasting the opportunity, finding a surprising reserve of bravado hidden within himself, Rex lunged at the cultist with Reave currently on his back: Voq.
With a clumsy downwards strike, he aimed for the cyborg's still-working left hand, his voice cracking as he tried to muster a war cry.
With Reave now violently occupied by the Rodian cultist, Voq had just enough awareness in him to ignore his malfunctioning technical predicament and take back motor control of his limbs using the Force. Unarmed, legs wobbly, stray wires sparking and dangling off his exposed back, but not yet beaten, he countered Rex's attack on his left arm with his left palm. The palm was up, and Rex's momentum met sudden resistance that barely prevented the swing from connecting. With the red plasma blade stopped just mere inches shy of his flesh, Voq further directed his power to loosen the fingers of Rex's struggling hands.
"Let... go," Voq said in a low voice with an angry scowl as he struggled against Rex. He found the Human's determination to fight against his stream of power remarkable for a non-sensitive, and also was afraid how weak the Force was acting through him. He wondered if the Jawa had done more damage to his overall health than he realized.
A few of Rex's fingers loosened, but not enough to release the saberstaff. "Let...go...now!" Voq pulled back his hand as the weapon fell to the ground again. His old military instincts kicked in and he instantly stepped forward like a boxer and dug a heavy, hydraulic-assisted right punch into Rex's stomach, making him double over in pain. Voq then followed up as he grabbed the scruff of Rex's shirt collar with his left hand, forced him up, and delivered a hard punch to approximately where his left kidney was, and finished the combo with a quick haymaker square on the smuggler's chin.
The flashes of pain shot through Rex at light speed, the Human unable to properly process the rapid Force-imbued strikes as his body was flung up and backwards, the lightsaber hilt flying from his grip. He fell with a heavy thud onto the damp sandstone ground, ribs cracking from his own weight and momentum. He grunted and called out in pain variously, crumpling up in a foetal position as Voq continued his advance on him. It was all Rex could do to not vomit, but he coughed out a hefty glob of blood that splattered on the ground beside him, one loosened tooth hidden within the crimson pool.
Voq spat a thick dark yellow wad of saliva at the downed Rex, and summoned his saberstaff with his left hand. "Regen mode," Voq said to himself aloud, activating the self-repair systems throughout his body. He stood over Rex, a grim visage on his demonic face as he activated a single blade pointed at Rex. "You should've let my grenade take you out. It would've been so much easier for you. But nooo, you had to be the hotshot hero." He raised up the lightsaber with both hands in preparation for a coup de gras thrust. "Let me show what happens to heroes that mess with Lord Axion. Say goodbye, trenchie."
The blade came down, the great weight of the elongated lightsaber sure to cleave the smuggler in two. That would have been so, if it were not for the swift uppercut from another red lightsaber that appeared in the blink of an eye to Rex’s left side. The Force of the blow was incredibly powerful and it was just enough to tip the sparking cyborg off balance and allow the new red blade to slide horizontally and cut into the hilt, destroying the delicate circuitry of the saberstaff and sending Voq back in a blaze of discharge from the weapon.
The wielder of the weapon ducked down, shielding Rex from most of the bright blast; while not as deadly as a grenade, the blast could still leave a significant plasma burn and fry most retinas if looking directly at it. When Rex’s eyes adjusted, he could perceive his saviour lying atop him: Mentis.
In time with the explosion, the storm appeared to be dying away, at least for the moment.
“I’m not quite sure how I got here,” the Rattataki looked somewhat bewildered, “I was running back to the ship and I saw Voq bearing down on you like that and I just… I don’t know what that was…”
"Man-Mantis?" Rex coughed, grimacing as he struggled to reach out and clasp the former cultist's shoulders, only really managing to smear his blood over his friend's rain-soaked robes. He managed a weak smile, a pale imitation of his usual winning toothy grin, but it was quickly cut away by a visible pang of pain. "I'm, uhh... I-I'm not so good, man."
Leaning back from his defensive position atop the man, Mentis observed the sorry state Rex was in: a series of gashes on his face, with a particularly nasty gash in his lip and his arm now wrenched into a terribly unnatural position, now given up on trying to keep the broken bone steady. That would not be a simple fix, particularly way out here with whatever was available on the Red Raptor.
"We'll get ya' fixed up, Rex..." Mentis spoke in an unnaturally soothing voice, with that Rattatak street twang we occasionally fell back into. He did not seem to notice it this time though.
Nearby, Voq not having returned to the foray, little Reave could be heard and seen to be concluding his battle with the Rodian. Whilst much of their fight had gone unseen, it had ended up in much the same way as nearly all of the Jawa's other melees: the Rodian was crumpled on the floor, his head angled up at an unnatural angle against a nearby large rock, thick blood pooling around what was left of his skull. Sat on the dead cultist's back was the victor, who was repeatedly smashing a smaller (but still large for a Jawa) stone into the pulpy remnants.
"U-TI-NI! U-TI-NI! U-TI-NI!" He shouted in his violent chant, each syllable punctuated by a moist thump into the Rodian's squashed cranium.
Noting that the servos and motors in Voq's arms were attempting to pull him upright, Mentis motioned for the triumphant Jawa to leave his kill and come towards them before the mess of Devaronian cyborg completed his regeneration. The Rattataki began to get Rex onto his feet, although the pain made the human wince.
"Di-did w-e wi-?" Rex just about managed to ask, looped heavily around Mentis and unsteady on his feet. Blood was still pooling around his mouth, and bruises and lumps were already forming over his heavily-beaten face. As he asked the question, though, Mentis could feel the Human's weight growing heavier, as Rex began to lose control over his limbs, his consciousness sagging from his injuries. His last word became a heavy breath, and his body slumped.
Reunited again, the final crew of the Janna hurriedly shuffled their way towards a new vessel. Mentis looked at the still-panting Jawa, running on the adrenaline of taking down the cultist. The little Tatooinian had been willing to fight Mentis' enemy and very nearly died for his efforts. Rex too would have been killed doing the same if Mentis had not intervened. He still did not know what strange power had summoned him to the man's side. But there was a strength there; a strength that did not require any fear.
MENTIS
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