Just Passin' Through (Again)

[Little Rose]

There was a very crisp chirp after the elevator came to a complete stop. The next moment two doors slide back and Arin Lishtar walks out of the enclosed space and into the very familiar clean white vast space known as The Nexus. His dark and polished shoes reflect the solid white ground. He popped his collar as high as it will go, straightened the clinging jacket, and brushed off his shoulders. The light of the elevator against his back caught his mischievous icy blue eyes. At that moment he wondered once more what would happen if he stepped back into the elevator? Would he be taken directly to Omni in the Oververse?

It took the young prime a short time to decide if he wanted to attempt it.

It would not surprise people - those who knew of him and of his ways - that he was a regular here at The Nexus. One does not play the villain and think he can walk The Omniverse without someone cutting you down. There was always a bigger fish in the sea of Primes. It was a way of life, a primal food chain. He sat somewhere in the middle, but on the lower end. This meant he had to pick his prey carefully…

Or he could do what he always did, and push reality to its limits before it began to push back. Buttons were one hell of a temptation, and you would not believe how satisfying it is to push fate’s. He could get straight up high off of just the thought of it, and he was tempted to do so. However, he had other things to do, more productive things.



“Now what was I doing before I died?”



His dark lashes flicked as he blinked several times, slowly… His eyes blank and his mind turning. The world around him sped up as he attempted to process his own death as if it had a dire meaning to his new life. Eventually, it came to him.


“Oh hell, who gives a crap about all that anyways?” Arin said with a laugh in his voice, his body twisting excitedly, especially in the face. “Momma Lishtar always did say that it wasn’t good to dwell on the past, after all~!” He sang, lifting his hand to summon a meaningless cane he has all but slapped in his quick bar. He gave it a twirl and then leaned on it, his leg closest to it slid across the ground to hook into his other foot. The skin tight pants scuff in the absolute and utter boring silence of The Nexus. He looked around the area, nodded to himself, and then planned out loud. “One day I should start trouble here..”

Around him milled about secondaries, sparsely. They dotted the verse like the last few cheerios in your bowl of cereal. Like then, it would take a great deal of effort to kill them all off before another Prime waltzed in. Perhaps even awaken, discard the shroud like he did moments before. No.. Too much effort today.

“If not here, then where do I go?” He asked himself, glancing about in every direction that wouldn’t make him move more than his head as he craned it from left to right. “Enny, meany, miney, moe… Catch a tiger, by the- Huh?”

Movement caught the man’s attention.

There was trouble already starting in The Nexus. He could only assume them to be Primes, a little girl and… Well, he wasn’t sure what the charming red-haired beastly thing was, but that was most likely a Prime. Only Primes start fights in the Nexus. Usually dumb ones. “I mean… The stormtroopers are right there.” He casually warned them, from very very afar.

Not like they ventured too far from their beloved little verse with the Emperor and all that other fun stuff. Arin knew the actual party happened about 5 floors down and it was a waste of space to have such gorgeous buildings towering over the rift-raft as if mocking them with your own glorious life. It will be absolutely tragic when the castle falls around them in beautiful chunks and their diamond necklaces become enslavement collars. The orks will have their fun…

Arin’s eyes lifted, and if anyone was looking at his face they would see the chaotic idea form perfectly in his mind.

He smiled.

“I think I am needed elsewhere in Coruscant…” He said, to no one in particular. Monologuing was a core quality in bad guys, after all. He pulled the chained blade from his pocket and began to twirl it like a pocket watch as he stood onto his feet again walked towards the high tech verse’ gate. “I think I remember a rumor of some prime with a pack of stormtroopers running around in the lower tiers trying to earn brownie points from his new master… I wonder how true the stories are, and how attached to his friends he is…”

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

“True as they come, pretty boy.” spat the man who had just appeared out of thin air, his tone venomous.

His true name was Reginald Bennerton, though he was known to most of his associates by the moniker ‘Shotgun Steve’. He was a grizzled old man, with ice-blue eyes and tanned skin stretched over bones and whipcord muscles like taut leather. His hair was of a pale grey shade, long and loose, whilst for a beard he wore a short, wispy goatee.

As was customary for him, Steve was dressed in an unbuttoned grey leather waistcoat, tattered, baggy, white jeans, and a pair of scuffed, black, steel-toed leather boots. The grey and white represented the gang of which he was part – the Northside Wolfpack; the most powerful gang in all of Coruscant Tier Five’s northern quadrant – whilst his boots were black simply because that was the colour most boots tended to be.

Just moments before he spoke, Steve had been reincarnated himself and had promptly tossed aside his death shroud with no more hesitation than would be demonstrated by any person with more common sense and freedom of thought than a concussed goldfish upon being presented with a propaganda pamphlet proudly professing the many virtues of Palpatine’s government.

It had been a pleasant surprise, to say the least, to return to the land of the living just in time to pick up on some would-be villain monologuing to himself about travelling to the city to go mess with the very people who had killed Steve just a week past. Back in his world of origin, the old guy would have called this too good to be true… here in the Omniverse, though, dumb shit happened all the time. There was rarely any need to look too deeply into things.

“And who might you be?” the young man demanded in a sceptical tone of voice, turning to face him even as Steve’s own eyes drifted to his right; his attention arrested by the spectacle which had previously distracted his younger counterpart. By this point, the clown was busy gnawing hungrily on a screaming stormtrooper.

The gangster fought down a shudder and sneered instead. It was revolting and unnerving, but he put it out of his mind; any new-born Prime could slaughter stormtroopers… they were about as effective as training dummies filled with straw. Just because it could harm them, that didn’t mean the ugly jester could in any way pose a threat him... besides, it seemed to have chosen some little girl for its victim in any case. She’d probably keep it entertained for a time.

“Shotgun Steve,” he held his head high and looked down his nose at the kid, “one of the Four Claws of the Northside Wolfpack. One of Tier Five’s toughest gangsters. If you wanna fight that bunny-eared freak and his little plastic-coated soldier buddies, then you can tag along with me or get in line.”

“Oh really?” Steve could hear the amusement in the blue-haired Prime’s tone. He frowned, his jaw clenching. Did this little, ribbon-wearing bitch really think he could hope to best him in a fight? He must have, surely, to speak so disrespectfully, right to his face. Even without his guns, the gangster was confident that he could’ve taken this loser no problem. With them? It’d be like taking candy from a baby whilst on a walk in the park. How much damage could a few lengths of floating fabric really deal, after all?

“Yeah,” the old man growled, “that fucker killed… well… sorta was involved in killing me, anyway. Point is, I owe him and them EPD swine a lotta payback, and I intend to get it. So here’s yer choices, kiddo: you can come with me, accept a place under me in the gang, and get to fuck with the police all ya want… or, you can refuse, and make me put you down. Hard. It’d be nothin’ personal, of course, but I couldn’t have you screwing up my revenge by getting there first, y’know?”

He gestured behind him. As was generally the case when a Prime respawned, his weapons had rematerialised with him. Just a few feet from where he stood was a massive pile of double-barrel shotguns, along with plenty of ammo for them; some shells still in their little boxes, others strewn haphazardly at the foot of the mound, “So tell me… do you really think I ain’t got the firepower to manage that, ribbon-boy?”

He would’ve liked to grin smugly at this juncture, but the young man before him seemed utterly uncowed by his threat, which was more than a little irritating, to put it mildly, and so in place of a broad smile, Steve's visage was twisted into a sullen glare.

In line with the new Rule on Death, as he has been deceased for over 2 OOC weeks, Steve is not experiencing Resurrection Sickness.

[Little Rose]

Arin was perched on his cane by the end of all the jaw jacking this Mr. Shotgun had been doing. His weight pressing the curved grip of his cane into the palm of his slender hand. He lazily swung the blade on his chain while he tried to measure up the large and imposing man. Thing was, though, he wasn’t really in the mood to play nice with a bunch of mongrels.

“I have another idea,” Arin spoke, catching the blade by the end of the chain and pocketing it into the sheath positioned on his leg. He stepped up to Steve and with the hook end of the cane he pulled him closer. Spiritual flames ignited as he began to activate his power of hypnosis. He wouldn’t waste more energy than he had to, but the larger man would feel a force pushing up into his mind.

His magic inflicted his will onto the other Prime, digging razor-sharp talons of mental anchors into his brain and effectively taking hold. Shotgun Steve felt nothing immediately, unaware of the ghostly glow of his own eyes before it fades. Instead, he got upset about being manhandled and began to pull away before Arin continued.

“I think you should take me to this guy, and we cause him a little trouble by ourselves,” Arin explained. Secretly it was a command, his voice and intentions hitting the switch he planted into the intimidating Prime’s mind.

Mind control only needed to be forceful if it had to be, and even then it was still relatively a fragile leash. The key was that no one could kill anyone with Hypnosis without delicate wording. It was especially hard if you pushed the potential deadly suggestion too hard. Arin has been at this for a bit, and he knew even the dumbest people were smart enough to understand simple logic.

That wasn't the case here. Shotgun Steve was an intelligent enough figure, but Arin did not intend him to die for the case. The opposite. The longer he remained the longer he would be useful.

The other Prime thought about the suggestion. He was inclined to answer with a fist in the clearly less experienced male’s face, especially with this hooked by the neck move he pulled. However, he pulled back and rubbed his chin in thought. If he could get revenge on that bunny bastard, then the sooner the faster. This kid, whoever he was, was making sense. “Aye.” Is all he said in thought, before taking the lead and heading towards the Coruscant gateway.

The strangely dressed magician just followed, swinging his cane in a very musical way while he tried to come up with a rabbit trap.