07-03-2015, 11:04 AM
The fall felt like it took forever.
Tiers swept by the mouse as he screamed bloody murder. Within seconds, the pomp of Tier One had all but disappeared, the levels passing by him seeming rougher around the edges. After he’d spent about twenty seconds tumbling, a platform below approached him at incredibly fast speeds, and he quickly conjured one of his Bubble shields around him, bouncing harmlessly off of the metallic surface.
The shield dissipated as he regained his footing. He stood in the middle of a small bridge between two larger platforms, each populated with huge, skyscraper-like structures. For all intents and purposes, he might have still been on Tier One, were it not for the fact that the upkeep of these buildings had sort of fallen to the wayside.
Despite their decrepit-looking appearance, the buildings on this tier lit up with bright lights. Various signs illuminated the streets that seemed to be shrouded in a perpetual nighttime, including one that towered over the street reading “WELCOME TO TIER FOUR” in big, blue letters. So, the mouse thought to himself, Three levels down. His eyes turned to look up, but the ledge on Tier One that he had slipped off of had long been obscured by whatever stood between this and the very top of Coruscant. Those stormtroopers would not be able to find him here—not for a while, at least.
The mouse contemplated, for a moment, trying to make his way back up the levels, but in the end, that seemed like folly. For one, the moment, he stepped onto one of the more affluent tiers, the Empire’s guards would surely be upon him. And another thing: he didn’t really know exactly how to get back.
Why had those troopers attacked him, though? The thought resurfaced as the memory of the attacking, white-armored soldiers rushed back into his mind. He hadn’t done anything against the law; far from it, in fact: he’d actually tried to help the Empire capture a fugitive. So why had those guys seemed so dead set on bringing him in and locking him in the slammer? The question puzzled the mouse.
Mickey stepped tentatively off the bridge and into the concrete jungle that made up Tier Four. Around him, the denizens of this area seemed to mill in and out of seedy-looking establishments with a certain level of discreetness, and it immediately became clear to the King that all the rumors he had heard about this level were true. This was not a place of wealth, like the top levels of Coruscant. Rather, this tier thrived on something altogether unlike the pageantry he had become used to in his days on Tier One. Here, there seemed to be no illusions of grandeur. Things were tough, and people were going to be tough to get what they wanted. It all of a sudden seemed very uninviting to the mouse, reminding him just a bit of Dante’s Abyss.
Don’t get him wrong, though—at the end of the day, this place still held on to civilization much easier than Karl Jak’s island. Mickey had heard some nasty stuff about the lower levels of Coruscant, and he would much rather be stuck in the seedy underbelly of Tier Four than travel down to those lawless places.
Unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea which direction to turn. Thrall had sent him to Coruscant to find answers, but thus far, he had come up with absolutely nothing. He had paraded around the city for a few days now, hoping that he would just stumble upon something that would lead him to the answers he sought. Of course, that had been a terrible idea—it wasn’t like someone was just going to walk out of the shadows and offer him the chance to learn more about that yellow energy beam he had somehow managed to conjure, or even more information on how to get the heck out of the Omniverse and back to his lady love.
And that was when he saw it.
“BREAKING: Camelot Dignitary Reported Missing.”
“…what the heck?”
The news report droned out, echoing over the many other whirrs and whizzes of the city surrounding him. “According to reports from friends, the female, non-human Minas Tirith citizen disappeared a little over a week ago. At first, the ladies thought their little friend had just gone on a short trip, but when they could not make contact with her after a week, they reported her missing, believing her to have possibly been abducted for unknown reasons. Here is a picture of the missing person, whose name we are not at liberty to disclose.”
On the screen, the video of the newsman dissolved away to reveal the picture of the possible kidnapping victim. The mouse’s eyes went wide. Big ears, a red dress, and a glimmering golden tiara. Mickey stared at the monitor, and Minnie Mouse stared back at him.
Tiers swept by the mouse as he screamed bloody murder. Within seconds, the pomp of Tier One had all but disappeared, the levels passing by him seeming rougher around the edges. After he’d spent about twenty seconds tumbling, a platform below approached him at incredibly fast speeds, and he quickly conjured one of his Bubble shields around him, bouncing harmlessly off of the metallic surface.
The shield dissipated as he regained his footing. He stood in the middle of a small bridge between two larger platforms, each populated with huge, skyscraper-like structures. For all intents and purposes, he might have still been on Tier One, were it not for the fact that the upkeep of these buildings had sort of fallen to the wayside.
Despite their decrepit-looking appearance, the buildings on this tier lit up with bright lights. Various signs illuminated the streets that seemed to be shrouded in a perpetual nighttime, including one that towered over the street reading “WELCOME TO TIER FOUR” in big, blue letters. So, the mouse thought to himself, Three levels down. His eyes turned to look up, but the ledge on Tier One that he had slipped off of had long been obscured by whatever stood between this and the very top of Coruscant. Those stormtroopers would not be able to find him here—not for a while, at least.
The mouse contemplated, for a moment, trying to make his way back up the levels, but in the end, that seemed like folly. For one, the moment, he stepped onto one of the more affluent tiers, the Empire’s guards would surely be upon him. And another thing: he didn’t really know exactly how to get back.
Why had those troopers attacked him, though? The thought resurfaced as the memory of the attacking, white-armored soldiers rushed back into his mind. He hadn’t done anything against the law; far from it, in fact: he’d actually tried to help the Empire capture a fugitive. So why had those guys seemed so dead set on bringing him in and locking him in the slammer? The question puzzled the mouse.
Mickey stepped tentatively off the bridge and into the concrete jungle that made up Tier Four. Around him, the denizens of this area seemed to mill in and out of seedy-looking establishments with a certain level of discreetness, and it immediately became clear to the King that all the rumors he had heard about this level were true. This was not a place of wealth, like the top levels of Coruscant. Rather, this tier thrived on something altogether unlike the pageantry he had become used to in his days on Tier One. Here, there seemed to be no illusions of grandeur. Things were tough, and people were going to be tough to get what they wanted. It all of a sudden seemed very uninviting to the mouse, reminding him just a bit of Dante’s Abyss.
Don’t get him wrong, though—at the end of the day, this place still held on to civilization much easier than Karl Jak’s island. Mickey had heard some nasty stuff about the lower levels of Coruscant, and he would much rather be stuck in the seedy underbelly of Tier Four than travel down to those lawless places.
Unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea which direction to turn. Thrall had sent him to Coruscant to find answers, but thus far, he had come up with absolutely nothing. He had paraded around the city for a few days now, hoping that he would just stumble upon something that would lead him to the answers he sought. Of course, that had been a terrible idea—it wasn’t like someone was just going to walk out of the shadows and offer him the chance to learn more about that yellow energy beam he had somehow managed to conjure, or even more information on how to get the heck out of the Omniverse and back to his lady love.
And that was when he saw it.
“BREAKING: Camelot Dignitary Reported Missing.”
“…what the heck?”
The news report droned out, echoing over the many other whirrs and whizzes of the city surrounding him. “According to reports from friends, the female, non-human Minas Tirith citizen disappeared a little over a week ago. At first, the ladies thought their little friend had just gone on a short trip, but when they could not make contact with her after a week, they reported her missing, believing her to have possibly been abducted for unknown reasons. Here is a picture of the missing person, whose name we are not at liberty to disclose.”
On the screen, the video of the newsman dissolved away to reveal the picture of the possible kidnapping victim. The mouse’s eyes went wide. Big ears, a red dress, and a glimmering golden tiara. Mickey stared at the monitor, and Minnie Mouse stared back at him.
![[Image: 2agonyw.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/2agonyw.png)