03-13-2018, 02:58 AM
Bloodied, battered & broken, Lana leaned on a minion as she stumbled out of her father’s shop, one arm slung across the young man’s shoulders to keep herself upright. One of her gals with the barest shred of medical know-how had insisted that she and the other wounded cut up some of the less bloodied clothes that had previously belonged to their now tragically deceased brethren and bandage their wounds as best they could.
Something about blood loss being bad for your health. Oh yeah, she could really tell that that girl had been to medical school alright. What an education. Imagine, being able to deduce that losing all your blood wasn't the best idea? Truly astonishing. The way she had slowly and patiently explained this to everyone – as if she genuinely thought it would come as a surprise to them – had made Lana want nothing more than to give her a good kick in the teeth. Sadly, she wasn't exactly feeling all that limber at the moment.
Behind their boss, at the head of the rest of the procession of her followers, came two guys holding Sarah Watt’s semi-conscious form between them, one of her arms over each of their shoulders. Her feet dragged across the ground, she wasn’t even capable of walking, and her head lolled limply. Sarah now wore only a long, grey trench coat, which Lana had insisted on borrowing from one of her men.
The drawback to that werewolf transformation of hers was that it did a serious number on whatever she happened to be wearing at the time. Her stormtrooper armour had been torn and shattered into hundreds of pieces the instant she powered-up… which hadn't really seemed worthy of much consideration at the time, given that Lana and her crew were all a little too distracted by the fucking enormous wolf bearing down upon them… afterwards, though, when Sarah had been beaten to the brink of unconsciousness and had reverted to human form, her lack of apparel had been considerably more apparent. For a minute, the Claw had considered simply leaving the werewolf woman like that, thinking it would be a fine way to humiliate EPD, to show off one of their Primes in such a state. But then some clueless fuck whose name she didn't even know just had to go and make an unreasonable proposition.
Ordinarily, she would have killed the little worm on the spot for even considering something like that. Given her own injuries, though, Lana wasn’t really feeling up to anything even approaching strenuous physical activity, so for the time being, she settled for threatening to gut him like a fish and force feed him his own entrails if she ever heard him suggest anything along those lines ever again. It didn't quite feel as good as murdering the prick outright, but she had to admit that seeing his face turn such a sallow shade of pale was rather satisfying.
In order to forestall any more thoughts in the same vein, though, she had demanded that the first edgy, trench-coat-wearing loser she laid eyes upon take off said coat and dress their foe in it. Lana Augustus was by no means a moral person, but even she had her limits. That done, they left the Hardware Outlet behind them.
No sooner had they gotten outdoors than they spotted the news van, parked just beyond the shiny, new, armour plated vehicles which the stormtroopers had used to get here. Those would come in handy. They’d need to run them by Doreen’s people first, of course, to make sure there weren’t any Imperial tracking devices installed, and remove them if there were, but afterwards, they’d surely be useful things to have.
A reporter came rushing over, a broad yet slightly nervous smile upon her face. A serious-looking cameraman jogged after her. The woman wore a short, black skirt, with shoes and thigh-high socks of the same colour, and a dull red jacket over a white blouse. Her strawberry-blonde hair was long and unbound, falling almost to her elbows, her skin was lightly tanned and her eyes amber. She had a nice figure. No surprise there, the news stations liked their on-screen people as photogenic as possible. The man behind her, though, was gaunt and pale, with bags under his dark eyes and short, scruffy, black hair. He wore a white shirt, black trousers, black shoes, and a frown upon his face.
T5NN. Those were the letters painted on the side of their van. The Tier Five News Network. Not the most imaginative name for a news network based in Tier Five, but whatever. Lana didn’t watch much news, but she’d heard of this lot. Most often as the punchline to a bad joke. Their employees had one of the lowest life expectancies of any company in Coruscant… apparently their reporters were paid well for the risks they took, but it seemed to Lana rather absurd to do what they did even so. What use was money to the dead?
Upon reaching them, the young lady turned her back to Lana and looked into the camera. The pair stood silently like that for several seconds, then the cameraman, who had some sort of earpiece on, held up one hand and counted down from five with his fingers. When he was done, the reporter spoke up immediately, “Hello, Tier Five! I’m Kelly Rodgers, reporting to you live from the Augustus Hardware Outlet in Northside’s 342nd Street, where we are going to attempt to interview some interesting and rather battered-looking people who have just left a building raided by EPD soldiers only a short time previously.”
She turned to Lana, “Good day, Miss, would you mind if I were to ask you what has happened here?”
The gangster remained silent for a moment, then sighed. Most criminals would kill someone on the spot for trying something as audacious as broadcasting their faces to the entire tier, even if it wasn't live. The reporter looked even younger than Lana herself, and at this job, likely never had more than a month left to live, “Before I answer that, do you mind if I ask how long you've been at this job?”
“Huh? Oh no, not at all.” normal reporters likely wouldn’t allow their interviewees to so easily change the subject… but then, normal reporters didn’t have to worry about being brutally murdered if they upset the people they were speaking to, “I was just an intern until three days ago, when one of our other correspondents, Leah Houston, was eaten alive by a cannibalistic serial killer she was sent to interview.”
Kelly’s smile wavered as she sought to stay positive despite the grimness of the subject matter, “Fortunately, the Terror of Two Hundred and Twenty Second Street, as he called himself, allowed our cameraman to record the entire event, so we were able to broadcast that in place of the interview. Sadly, the EPD showed up to arrest him not long afterwards, which was unfortunate. Our directors were hoping they might be able to make that into a regular segment.”
“They… what? No, wait, I don’t want to know. Your station is stupid. Anyway, you answered my question, so I guess I’ll give you a little rundown on what’s up.”
And then she did just that. At some point whilst she was talking, both William Darrell and Doreen Withers showed up, each with several members of their crews in tow. Both remained silent until she had finished. This public disclosure hadn't really been intended to be part of the plan, but as the whole point of this endeavour was to let the Empire Peace Division know not to put too much effort into stamping out Northside’s gangs – and their gang, in particular – a little extra publicity probably couldn't hurt. So the other two Claws waited patiently until she was done speaking.
“Sooo. You two manage alright?” Lana asked upon finishing her spiel.
“Of course.” William beckoned one of his sumo-sized attendants over. The woman brought a metal box along with her, which she opened when she reached him. The Claw reached in and grabbed something. He lifted it out – a female head, held by its hair – and tossed it down on the ground. It bounced once and rolled a little before coming to a stop. Lana recognised it immediately. Michelle Andreas. A lieutenant from Tier One who had been supporting this stormtrooper squad from the shadows. From what they’d heard, she had amazing psychic abilities, so Lana could only imagine the lengths that he must have had to go to to overpower her. She was sure it must have been an extremely costly operation.
The two turned to Doreen, whose face was pale and whose eyes were puffy, as if she had been crying. The hag snapped her fingers, and two of her big goons stepped forwards, holding a large bucket between them. They heaved it forwards, sending the contents flying, to splatter all over the pavement. Kelly gave a little yelp and stepped backwards. Lana couldn’t blame her. This was fucking repulsive. Utterly brutal. She had no idea how or why the bikers would go to such lengths to tear their opponents into such little pieces.
“You see that?” Doreen pointed at something amidst the offal, “There was only one elf stormtrooper in that barracks, and that’s one of his ears… we got the bastard.”
“Uh… sure.” the younger woman wasn’t too sure why the crone seemed so concerned with some random elf, considering William’s group had taken down a powerful Telepath and Lana’s had beaten a Prime... but she supposed that Doreen had to say something to make her own accomplishments out to be as impressive as theirs... poor lady, getting stuck with such an easy task. It was an important job that had had to be done, but there wasn't anything glorious about walking into a poorly guarded building and slaughtering a bunch of hapless idiots.
She turned back to the reporter, and explained to Kelly the meaning behind the severed head and… bucket of slop. All traces of the stormtrooper squad which had opposed them had been wiped out. All but one. Out there somewhere, in hiding, remained another Prime. The one who called himself ‘Takanomiya Hijiri’. From confidential sources within the Empire, they had learned that he was supposed to be on some sort of secret mission for the squad’s leader… one of the men who had been gunned down so effortlessly by her forces.
With all his allies lost, he’d likely do his best to disappear… or perhaps escape to a higher tier, or even leave Coruscant altogether. If he ran, fine. But if he tried to stick around in the city, then he’d be tracked down before long, and would suffer the same fate which was about to befall his comrade.
“And on that subject,” the Claw said cheerfully, removing her left arm from around the shoulders of the goon who had been supporting her weight and managing not to wince at the pain that shot through her back the moment she moved. With her one working hand – her right arm was currently ‘bandaged’ and tied up in a sling crudely made from cut-up old clothes – she pulled a small vial of purple liquid from her belt, “Let’s get on with this already. Make sure to get this bit on camera. It’s important that everyone learns what happens to Primes who think they can stand up to the Northside Wolfpack.”
“Of course! We really appreciate you letting us film this,” Kelly gushed, still doing a pretty decent job at faking a cheery and enthusiastic tone, “Are you going to torture her? Is that some sort of acid? Or poison?”
“Torture? Oh no, this is much worse than a little torture.” grinning, she flung the vial as hard as she could towards Sarah Watt, stifling a gasp as the sudden movement tugged roughly at the wounds she bore, sending a pulse of agony through her body and a wave of dizziness through her mind.
Her aim was on point, though. The vial shattered almost directly beneath the werewolf in human form, and the instant its contents met the open air, the fluid burst into flame. Hurriedly stepping back, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the burgeoning conflagration, the two who had been holding Sarah simply dropped her into the fire without hesitation.
She groaned, but didn’t scream. The immolation spread about her, but didn't burn her. Instead, the violet fires formed a ring two metres wide, within which several thin lines of flame overlapped, forming a pattern; a five-pointed star.
“A pentagram? Is that a-?” the correspondent asked, so shocked that she forgot to act happy.
“Yes.” Lana said smugly, “Yes it is.”
Apparently having been jolted back to some semblance of awareness by the knock to her head when she landed face-first on the pavement, Sarah groaned and shakily pushed herself up onto all fours… then seemed to realise what she was kneeling in.
“No. No!” staring out past the flames, her wide, horrified eyes meeting Lana’s, she started to back off slowly – too slowly – shaking her head in denial and whispering to herself, “You can’t. You can’t.”
The wolf-woman’s tone was one of utmost disbelief. Lana simply smirked down at her. Then the flames flared up suddenly, the circle transforming into a blazing, magenta pillar, almost a dozen feet high, for a moment, before the fires died down across the span of only a millisecond or two, leaving behind nothing but the pentagram symbol, like a brand burned into the pavement. Of Sarah Watt, there was no sign.
“Y-you banished her.” Kelly’s voice was timid. Apparently even for someone willing to accept one of the most ludicrously suicidal jobs imaginable, the prospect of being thrown into hell itself was still something capable of inspiring dread.
“Yes, we did.” William Darrell stepped forwards, taking up the mantle of speaker, despite his position as the lowliest of the three remaining Claws. Neither of the other two objected. The hag seemed lost in her own little world and Lana was focusing on doing her best not to visibly squirm. She could feel her injuries bleeding freely now… she must have loosened the bandages… or torn open some more blood vessels. Fuck. The sooner this was over and done with, the better. She really needed to go find a doctor before she made a fool of herself by passing out in front of everyone.
Looking directly into the camera now, the fat man continued, “You have all seen here what we are willing to do to those who cross us, so let this serve as a warning to any who would ever consider such a thing, Secondaries and Primes both. Northside belongs to us, forget that at your peril. And to you, Takanomiya Hijiri, as my colleague said previously, know that we are coming, and you can’t hide forever. Not even the uppermost levels of Tier One will place you beyond our reach, so if you want to avoid a first-hand introduction to the Underverse, leave Coruscant now, whilst you still have that luxury.”
Something about blood loss being bad for your health. Oh yeah, she could really tell that that girl had been to medical school alright. What an education. Imagine, being able to deduce that losing all your blood wasn't the best idea? Truly astonishing. The way she had slowly and patiently explained this to everyone – as if she genuinely thought it would come as a surprise to them – had made Lana want nothing more than to give her a good kick in the teeth. Sadly, she wasn't exactly feeling all that limber at the moment.
Behind their boss, at the head of the rest of the procession of her followers, came two guys holding Sarah Watt’s semi-conscious form between them, one of her arms over each of their shoulders. Her feet dragged across the ground, she wasn’t even capable of walking, and her head lolled limply. Sarah now wore only a long, grey trench coat, which Lana had insisted on borrowing from one of her men.
The drawback to that werewolf transformation of hers was that it did a serious number on whatever she happened to be wearing at the time. Her stormtrooper armour had been torn and shattered into hundreds of pieces the instant she powered-up… which hadn't really seemed worthy of much consideration at the time, given that Lana and her crew were all a little too distracted by the fucking enormous wolf bearing down upon them… afterwards, though, when Sarah had been beaten to the brink of unconsciousness and had reverted to human form, her lack of apparel had been considerably more apparent. For a minute, the Claw had considered simply leaving the werewolf woman like that, thinking it would be a fine way to humiliate EPD, to show off one of their Primes in such a state. But then some clueless fuck whose name she didn't even know just had to go and make an unreasonable proposition.
Ordinarily, she would have killed the little worm on the spot for even considering something like that. Given her own injuries, though, Lana wasn’t really feeling up to anything even approaching strenuous physical activity, so for the time being, she settled for threatening to gut him like a fish and force feed him his own entrails if she ever heard him suggest anything along those lines ever again. It didn't quite feel as good as murdering the prick outright, but she had to admit that seeing his face turn such a sallow shade of pale was rather satisfying.
In order to forestall any more thoughts in the same vein, though, she had demanded that the first edgy, trench-coat-wearing loser she laid eyes upon take off said coat and dress their foe in it. Lana Augustus was by no means a moral person, but even she had her limits. That done, they left the Hardware Outlet behind them.
No sooner had they gotten outdoors than they spotted the news van, parked just beyond the shiny, new, armour plated vehicles which the stormtroopers had used to get here. Those would come in handy. They’d need to run them by Doreen’s people first, of course, to make sure there weren’t any Imperial tracking devices installed, and remove them if there were, but afterwards, they’d surely be useful things to have.
A reporter came rushing over, a broad yet slightly nervous smile upon her face. A serious-looking cameraman jogged after her. The woman wore a short, black skirt, with shoes and thigh-high socks of the same colour, and a dull red jacket over a white blouse. Her strawberry-blonde hair was long and unbound, falling almost to her elbows, her skin was lightly tanned and her eyes amber. She had a nice figure. No surprise there, the news stations liked their on-screen people as photogenic as possible. The man behind her, though, was gaunt and pale, with bags under his dark eyes and short, scruffy, black hair. He wore a white shirt, black trousers, black shoes, and a frown upon his face.
T5NN. Those were the letters painted on the side of their van. The Tier Five News Network. Not the most imaginative name for a news network based in Tier Five, but whatever. Lana didn’t watch much news, but she’d heard of this lot. Most often as the punchline to a bad joke. Their employees had one of the lowest life expectancies of any company in Coruscant… apparently their reporters were paid well for the risks they took, but it seemed to Lana rather absurd to do what they did even so. What use was money to the dead?
Upon reaching them, the young lady turned her back to Lana and looked into the camera. The pair stood silently like that for several seconds, then the cameraman, who had some sort of earpiece on, held up one hand and counted down from five with his fingers. When he was done, the reporter spoke up immediately, “Hello, Tier Five! I’m Kelly Rodgers, reporting to you live from the Augustus Hardware Outlet in Northside’s 342nd Street, where we are going to attempt to interview some interesting and rather battered-looking people who have just left a building raided by EPD soldiers only a short time previously.”
She turned to Lana, “Good day, Miss, would you mind if I were to ask you what has happened here?”
The gangster remained silent for a moment, then sighed. Most criminals would kill someone on the spot for trying something as audacious as broadcasting their faces to the entire tier, even if it wasn't live. The reporter looked even younger than Lana herself, and at this job, likely never had more than a month left to live, “Before I answer that, do you mind if I ask how long you've been at this job?”
“Huh? Oh no, not at all.” normal reporters likely wouldn’t allow their interviewees to so easily change the subject… but then, normal reporters didn’t have to worry about being brutally murdered if they upset the people they were speaking to, “I was just an intern until three days ago, when one of our other correspondents, Leah Houston, was eaten alive by a cannibalistic serial killer she was sent to interview.”
Kelly’s smile wavered as she sought to stay positive despite the grimness of the subject matter, “Fortunately, the Terror of Two Hundred and Twenty Second Street, as he called himself, allowed our cameraman to record the entire event, so we were able to broadcast that in place of the interview. Sadly, the EPD showed up to arrest him not long afterwards, which was unfortunate. Our directors were hoping they might be able to make that into a regular segment.”
“They… what? No, wait, I don’t want to know. Your station is stupid. Anyway, you answered my question, so I guess I’ll give you a little rundown on what’s up.”
And then she did just that. At some point whilst she was talking, both William Darrell and Doreen Withers showed up, each with several members of their crews in tow. Both remained silent until she had finished. This public disclosure hadn't really been intended to be part of the plan, but as the whole point of this endeavour was to let the Empire Peace Division know not to put too much effort into stamping out Northside’s gangs – and their gang, in particular – a little extra publicity probably couldn't hurt. So the other two Claws waited patiently until she was done speaking.
“Sooo. You two manage alright?” Lana asked upon finishing her spiel.
“Of course.” William beckoned one of his sumo-sized attendants over. The woman brought a metal box along with her, which she opened when she reached him. The Claw reached in and grabbed something. He lifted it out – a female head, held by its hair – and tossed it down on the ground. It bounced once and rolled a little before coming to a stop. Lana recognised it immediately. Michelle Andreas. A lieutenant from Tier One who had been supporting this stormtrooper squad from the shadows. From what they’d heard, she had amazing psychic abilities, so Lana could only imagine the lengths that he must have had to go to to overpower her. She was sure it must have been an extremely costly operation.
The two turned to Doreen, whose face was pale and whose eyes were puffy, as if she had been crying. The hag snapped her fingers, and two of her big goons stepped forwards, holding a large bucket between them. They heaved it forwards, sending the contents flying, to splatter all over the pavement. Kelly gave a little yelp and stepped backwards. Lana couldn’t blame her. This was fucking repulsive. Utterly brutal. She had no idea how or why the bikers would go to such lengths to tear their opponents into such little pieces.
“You see that?” Doreen pointed at something amidst the offal, “There was only one elf stormtrooper in that barracks, and that’s one of his ears… we got the bastard.”
“Uh… sure.” the younger woman wasn’t too sure why the crone seemed so concerned with some random elf, considering William’s group had taken down a powerful Telepath and Lana’s had beaten a Prime... but she supposed that Doreen had to say something to make her own accomplishments out to be as impressive as theirs... poor lady, getting stuck with such an easy task. It was an important job that had had to be done, but there wasn't anything glorious about walking into a poorly guarded building and slaughtering a bunch of hapless idiots.
She turned back to the reporter, and explained to Kelly the meaning behind the severed head and… bucket of slop. All traces of the stormtrooper squad which had opposed them had been wiped out. All but one. Out there somewhere, in hiding, remained another Prime. The one who called himself ‘Takanomiya Hijiri’. From confidential sources within the Empire, they had learned that he was supposed to be on some sort of secret mission for the squad’s leader… one of the men who had been gunned down so effortlessly by her forces.
With all his allies lost, he’d likely do his best to disappear… or perhaps escape to a higher tier, or even leave Coruscant altogether. If he ran, fine. But if he tried to stick around in the city, then he’d be tracked down before long, and would suffer the same fate which was about to befall his comrade.
“And on that subject,” the Claw said cheerfully, removing her left arm from around the shoulders of the goon who had been supporting her weight and managing not to wince at the pain that shot through her back the moment she moved. With her one working hand – her right arm was currently ‘bandaged’ and tied up in a sling crudely made from cut-up old clothes – she pulled a small vial of purple liquid from her belt, “Let’s get on with this already. Make sure to get this bit on camera. It’s important that everyone learns what happens to Primes who think they can stand up to the Northside Wolfpack.”
“Of course! We really appreciate you letting us film this,” Kelly gushed, still doing a pretty decent job at faking a cheery and enthusiastic tone, “Are you going to torture her? Is that some sort of acid? Or poison?”
“Torture? Oh no, this is much worse than a little torture.” grinning, she flung the vial as hard as she could towards Sarah Watt, stifling a gasp as the sudden movement tugged roughly at the wounds she bore, sending a pulse of agony through her body and a wave of dizziness through her mind.
Her aim was on point, though. The vial shattered almost directly beneath the werewolf in human form, and the instant its contents met the open air, the fluid burst into flame. Hurriedly stepping back, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the burgeoning conflagration, the two who had been holding Sarah simply dropped her into the fire without hesitation.
She groaned, but didn’t scream. The immolation spread about her, but didn't burn her. Instead, the violet fires formed a ring two metres wide, within which several thin lines of flame overlapped, forming a pattern; a five-pointed star.
“A pentagram? Is that a-?” the correspondent asked, so shocked that she forgot to act happy.
“Yes.” Lana said smugly, “Yes it is.”
Apparently having been jolted back to some semblance of awareness by the knock to her head when she landed face-first on the pavement, Sarah groaned and shakily pushed herself up onto all fours… then seemed to realise what she was kneeling in.
“No. No!” staring out past the flames, her wide, horrified eyes meeting Lana’s, she started to back off slowly – too slowly – shaking her head in denial and whispering to herself, “You can’t. You can’t.”
The wolf-woman’s tone was one of utmost disbelief. Lana simply smirked down at her. Then the flames flared up suddenly, the circle transforming into a blazing, magenta pillar, almost a dozen feet high, for a moment, before the fires died down across the span of only a millisecond or two, leaving behind nothing but the pentagram symbol, like a brand burned into the pavement. Of Sarah Watt, there was no sign.
“Y-you banished her.” Kelly’s voice was timid. Apparently even for someone willing to accept one of the most ludicrously suicidal jobs imaginable, the prospect of being thrown into hell itself was still something capable of inspiring dread.
“Yes, we did.” William Darrell stepped forwards, taking up the mantle of speaker, despite his position as the lowliest of the three remaining Claws. Neither of the other two objected. The hag seemed lost in her own little world and Lana was focusing on doing her best not to visibly squirm. She could feel her injuries bleeding freely now… she must have loosened the bandages… or torn open some more blood vessels. Fuck. The sooner this was over and done with, the better. She really needed to go find a doctor before she made a fool of herself by passing out in front of everyone.
Looking directly into the camera now, the fat man continued, “You have all seen here what we are willing to do to those who cross us, so let this serve as a warning to any who would ever consider such a thing, Secondaries and Primes both. Northside belongs to us, forget that at your peril. And to you, Takanomiya Hijiri, as my colleague said previously, know that we are coming, and you can’t hide forever. Not even the uppermost levels of Tier One will place you beyond our reach, so if you want to avoid a first-hand introduction to the Underverse, leave Coruscant now, whilst you still have that luxury.”
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)