Golden Girls

[Belle]

Tier Four. Belle had to sigh. Of all the places in the verses, of all the places in Coruscant, it had to be here.

It was night, as it almost always was on this level of Coruscant. Buried three layers deep beneath the verse's surface, the yawning darkness above was devoid of starlight, filled instead by the glitter of headlights as hovercars flitter to and fro. On the upper tiers, they at least projected the holographic visage of a sky above to trick you into thinking you were anything more than a buried bug under the ground. On Tier Four, however, illusions were reserved for the wealthy. And the closer you got to the center of the Tier, the brighter those illusions became; towers rose, shining brightly, seeming like the fingers of giants reaching upward, as if trying to scrape its way out of the earth. Streets radiated outward like spokes, each one named for a different gemstone - a seemingly literal road of riches.

Such dreams faded quickly, however, ebbing into a sea of low, drab, run down buildings. Neon lights advetised escapes of all kinds - in bottles, in needles, in flesh - their harsh glow playing across the hollow eyes below. It was here that the Empire had placed her upon her waking in the Omniverse. It was here that the Empire disposed of its trash.

Belle wasn't sure how long she had been among the Tier's uncountable homeless. She did know, hoever, that if she hadn't been rescued by her friend, Lily, that she probably would have been rotting in a gutter by now.

The club that the men had retreated to wasn't exactly hiding: its front face took up an entire block. Harsh blue lights flooded the street, flashing. Bright white letters stroked themselves across the canvas of bulbs as if from a painter's brush, spelling out the name: Junior's.

"Not exactly hiding, is he?" Belle muttered, squinting her eyes against the glare. Even the Midnight Rose wasn't this annoying.

"Like I said, he's not the kind of guy that's hard to find. Junior isn't exactly the subtle type," Yang explained, shrugging. "Looks like he's been enjoying himself here. Heh. I wonder if the door is any stronger than it used to be."

Belle sighed. "I was going to ask if you wanted to go in quiet or go in loud," she said. "Stupid question, I guess." As in-your-face as the club entry was, it might as well have been a whisper in a firecracker factory compared to Yang's seeming approach to, well, everything.

"Can we at least try talking before making things go boom?" Miss Marvel suggested. The woman was getting plenty of stares from passersby. Belle couldn't exactly blame them - on these streets, the superheroine did look like she was advertising some fetish wear instead of declaring herself a symbol of justice.

Belle glanced at Alex, only to find him already looking at her. Again. He kept doing that. "Do I have something on my face? Or ass?" she asked, frowning.

Alex held up his hands, opening his mouth to say something, but was interrupted as Miss Marvel let out a loud sigh. "Guess not," she said.

Belle looked around to see that Yang was already gone from their side. Not only that, she was already across the street, her hands on the transparisteel doors. With a mighty heave, she threw them open, slamming the two guards on the other side and sending them flying.

“Hey, boys!" Yang sang, her cheeky grin flashing from behind her yellow curtain of hair. "Guess whoooos baaaaack!”