01-12-2017, 04:24 AM
***
Luci grins at Passion Flower as the Deathblades show them around their hood, a ten-block section of suburban Coruscant. Passion Flower looks uncomfortable.
Princess Hellstab, a seven-year-old samurai princess, skips through the Phaser Street park, her flaming katana dragging on the ground behind her, leaving a trail of scorched grass. She talks quickly and animatedly as they go, pointing out landmarks or people.
"That's Psycho-Blood's house, his mom makes the best Kool-Aid," says Princess Hellstab. "That's the jungle gym, it's where we duel. That's Death Assassin, he's so annoying, he's always pulling my hair, but then I'm the one who gets in trouble for chopping his finger off. Those two kids fighting over there are Justice-Man and Ninja-King."
The trio stop to watch Justice-Man and Ninja-King's mock duel. It is impressive. Fire and lightning clash with steel and flesh as the prepubescent warriors throw themselves relentlessly into the fight. They stop very suddenly and look towards the street. A black, unmarked sedan with tinted windows creeps by the park. The Deathblades stationed around the park watch silently as the car rolls out of sight, then resume their various activities.
Princess Hellstab breathes a sigh of relief. "The issue is, we can't get anywhere near them with those guns of theirs. The orc that shot Face-Puncher, this really ugly pig called Karg, he put little tubes on the end of his gang's guns so they can shoot further. We need those vests," she says as reaches into her jacket and pulls out a wad of cash. She tosses it to Luci casually. "Be careful with this, it's a lot of fucking allowance."
***
Luci sits quietly as Polywhirl drives through down Teir-6, smoking a cigar with his strange mouth. He takes her into a parking garage and drives the car in a slowly winding downward spiral into it's depths, stopping at a innocuous looking wall. He parks the car and gets out, Luci following his lead. She feels nervous, and wishes she had Moss or Passion Flower around to watch her back, but the small Rebel cell was very strict about security protocol. Polywhirl reaches down to a manhole cover and taps several times in short secession; a code.
A gnarled, clawed hand lifts the top of the manhole cover, two bloody red eyes peering through.
"Come," the voice croaks. "Bring the girl."
Polywhirl glances at Luci, who shrugs, and follows the Pokemon into the sewer.
***
The Rebel hideout is noisy, cramped, and multicultural. Hackers rub elbows with Jedi, a Ferangi argues with a Plutonian over a map of Teir-2, and the walls of the makeshift shooting range do little to dampen the noise of the shots.
"So," says the creature with the gnarled hand as he steps into the light. "I'm Ralph. You're the girl who walks through walls. Let me get a look at you, then."
The pale creature squints up at her, his back twisted at a cruel angle. His yellow eyes bulge out of their sockets as he takes her in, his oversized teeth poking through holes in his lips.
"You don't look away, you don't look like you want to throw up, this is good. Diplomacy is important to a gangster. You ARE a gangster, than?" Ralph asks in a wheezing voice. The Rebel cell seems to have gone oddly quiet.
Luci looks around. She closes her eyes for a moment, focusing, and two lines of prismatic war paint appear on her face.
"Westside Knife Ear Warriors, sir," Luci says calmly, staring at the creature. The cell continues about their business.
"A noble clan, I'm sure," says Ralph. "But you'll want to see the merchandise."
The monster limps over to a pile of blank white boxes by the shooting range.
"Pick one," Ralph says, giving a hacking cough. Luci picks one from the middle and opens the surprisingly light box. A child-sized vest is inside, made of some strange puffy vinyl-like substance.
"Made for gnomes," says Ralph. "Not much we can do with them, so we offered them to the Death Blades at a good price. Try it out," he says, indicating the shooting range.
Luci and Polywhirl step into the "gun range", a small white room with crude noise-dampening and a dirt hill behind mannequins and paper targets. Ralph and not a few members of the Rebel cell stand outside the plexiglass walls to watch. Polywhirl straps the vest onto a child-sized mannequin with a guilty look, and hands Luci a very strange gun that she has become intimately familiar with.
The simple looking device is, at it's core, simply two tubes jammed into a blue ball of crackling energy. One tube is held in the hand, the other tube is the barrel. When a button on the first tube is pressed, a ball of crackling blue hellfire is released, searing through flesh and bone.
Luci takes a moment, aims, and shoots the mannequin square it the chest, leaving a smoking hole in the vest, but not deep enough that she could see that white of the mannequin. She fires again, this time blasting the vest off the target. She lays the gun down on a table as she and Polywhirl inspect the target. The mannequin's flesh is only singed.
"We promised one shot with no damage," the Pokemon says in his bizarre English accent. "This vest can clearly take two. Do we have a deal?" he asks, holding out his hand.
He grins as Luci shakes it, the two of them exiting the shooting range as Luci slips a wad of cash discretely into his hand. She bends down to inspect the merchandise further.
"How are you planning on getting them in?" asks Ralph with interest. Luci grins and removes a vest from one of the boxes. She shakes her spray-can and a cloud of orange mist settles over the vest. When she is satisfied it is completely neon orange, she tucks it back into the box. She shakes her can again, and sprays a rainbow mist onto the white box. She blows on it to dry, and shows it Ralph. An icon of a lifeguard stands behind a logo that says "Coruscant Life Savers", with a black-and-white square underneath saying "Child Life Vest".
Ralph nods.
"Get out, I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon enough."
***
Polywhirl helps Luci load the trunk and backseat with the vests. Despite the Pokemon's protest, Luci paints his car white, and the pair leave to meet up with Passion Flower and change cars. The pair smoke together in silence for a moment, the Polywhirl chewing his cigar in his strange mouth, Luci flicking the ash of her cigarette every few seconds.
"So Ralph likes you," the Pokemon says after a while. Luci does not respond. "I like you," he says, getting a smile from Luci. He puts a cartoony hand on her leg, and she giggles warmly as she removes it. "That was some amazing shooting back there," Polywhirl continues, acting as if the exchange didn't happen. "Where did a good girl like you learn to learn to shoot like?"
Luci continues to smile, but says nothing.
The Pokemon snorts somehow. "Keep your secrets then, gangster," he says as they pull into the drop spot.
***
Luci sits in the front seat of a white cargo van as Polywhirl and Passion Flower load it up with vests. She has her set of glowing markers out and is working furiously on a last minute revision to Passion Flower's fake I.D. card, adding a watermark of the Emperor's face. She squints as she rounds the lines of his jowly face. After nearly twenty minutes she is satisfied with the forgery, and hops out of the car.
"Oh cool," says Passion Flower as he examines the I.D. "Melvin Pondscum. Uh, that's ok, I guess."
Luci ignores him and starts painting on the side of the van, producing the "Coruscant Life Savers" logo on either side of the van. The trio finish loading the van, and Polywhirl shakes the pair's hands.
"Truly, a pleasure doing business with you," he says as he gets back in his car. "I should hope to do it again sometime. Good luck."
***
Melvin Pondscum smiles nervously as a storm trooper stares at his I.D. intently alongside the elf's face. A single bead of sweat did not roll down his forehead. A river of sweat, however, did. The storm trooper does not hand the I.D. back.
"What are you hauling?" he asks through his helmet.
"Uh," stutters the elf convincingly.
"Uh?" asks the storm-trooper. Luci, concealed beneath boxes in the cargo hold, feels her blood run cold
"Uh?" he repeats loudly, as other storm troopers notice and start to crowd in. "Uh, how about you uh, get the uh, fuck uh-uh-up out of here Melvin?"
The storm trooper and his squadron burst out laughing as they mock Melvin, who keeps his gaze down and drives into Teir-5 with a sneer.
***
Later that night, in a Phaser Park, a drive-by shooting is in progress.
The Orc Mafia is done playing games; they want protection money from the Deathblades and they aren't going to wait any longer.
Two black sedans with tinted windows pull up to the park. Four rifle butts extend and start pumping balls of blue fire at any child they could see. The orcs think they got ten, at least. One of the shooters, a young albino orc named Ahg, lights a cigar with his smoking rifle tip. He takes a deep drag, closes his eyes, and bellows his war cry. When he opens them, Ahg sees a distinct lack of dead bodies littered around the park. He turns around in time to see a burning katana jammed through his drivers skull. His partner in the backseat is slumped over, a shuriken in his forehead. Ahg feels a steel chain wrap around his neck and pull him through the window of the car, then smashing him into the street. Ahg watches as the Deathblades dismember the orcs in the second car in shockingly violent ways.
His eyes follow the tip of Princess Hellstab's katana as it drags along the street, leaving a trail of sparks.
When she bends down to whisper in Ahg's ear, it is with a deathly sweetness.
"Where is Karg?"
***
Luci grins at Passion Flower as the Deathblades show them around their hood, a ten-block section of suburban Coruscant. Passion Flower looks uncomfortable.
Princess Hellstab, a seven-year-old samurai princess, skips through the Phaser Street park, her flaming katana dragging on the ground behind her, leaving a trail of scorched grass. She talks quickly and animatedly as they go, pointing out landmarks or people.
"That's Psycho-Blood's house, his mom makes the best Kool-Aid," says Princess Hellstab. "That's the jungle gym, it's where we duel. That's Death Assassin, he's so annoying, he's always pulling my hair, but then I'm the one who gets in trouble for chopping his finger off. Those two kids fighting over there are Justice-Man and Ninja-King."
The trio stop to watch Justice-Man and Ninja-King's mock duel. It is impressive. Fire and lightning clash with steel and flesh as the prepubescent warriors throw themselves relentlessly into the fight. They stop very suddenly and look towards the street. A black, unmarked sedan with tinted windows creeps by the park. The Deathblades stationed around the park watch silently as the car rolls out of sight, then resume their various activities.
Princess Hellstab breathes a sigh of relief. "The issue is, we can't get anywhere near them with those guns of theirs. The orc that shot Face-Puncher, this really ugly pig called Karg, he put little tubes on the end of his gang's guns so they can shoot further. We need those vests," she says as reaches into her jacket and pulls out a wad of cash. She tosses it to Luci casually. "Be careful with this, it's a lot of fucking allowance."
***
Luci sits quietly as Polywhirl drives through down Teir-6, smoking a cigar with his strange mouth. He takes her into a parking garage and drives the car in a slowly winding downward spiral into it's depths, stopping at a innocuous looking wall. He parks the car and gets out, Luci following his lead. She feels nervous, and wishes she had Moss or Passion Flower around to watch her back, but the small Rebel cell was very strict about security protocol. Polywhirl reaches down to a manhole cover and taps several times in short secession; a code.
A gnarled, clawed hand lifts the top of the manhole cover, two bloody red eyes peering through.
"Come," the voice croaks. "Bring the girl."
Polywhirl glances at Luci, who shrugs, and follows the Pokemon into the sewer.
***
The Rebel hideout is noisy, cramped, and multicultural. Hackers rub elbows with Jedi, a Ferangi argues with a Plutonian over a map of Teir-2, and the walls of the makeshift shooting range do little to dampen the noise of the shots.
"So," says the creature with the gnarled hand as he steps into the light. "I'm Ralph. You're the girl who walks through walls. Let me get a look at you, then."
The pale creature squints up at her, his back twisted at a cruel angle. His yellow eyes bulge out of their sockets as he takes her in, his oversized teeth poking through holes in his lips.
"You don't look away, you don't look like you want to throw up, this is good. Diplomacy is important to a gangster. You ARE a gangster, than?" Ralph asks in a wheezing voice. The Rebel cell seems to have gone oddly quiet.
Luci looks around. She closes her eyes for a moment, focusing, and two lines of prismatic war paint appear on her face.
"Westside Knife Ear Warriors, sir," Luci says calmly, staring at the creature. The cell continues about their business.
"A noble clan, I'm sure," says Ralph. "But you'll want to see the merchandise."
The monster limps over to a pile of blank white boxes by the shooting range.
"Pick one," Ralph says, giving a hacking cough. Luci picks one from the middle and opens the surprisingly light box. A child-sized vest is inside, made of some strange puffy vinyl-like substance.
"Made for gnomes," says Ralph. "Not much we can do with them, so we offered them to the Death Blades at a good price. Try it out," he says, indicating the shooting range.
Luci and Polywhirl step into the "gun range", a small white room with crude noise-dampening and a dirt hill behind mannequins and paper targets. Ralph and not a few members of the Rebel cell stand outside the plexiglass walls to watch. Polywhirl straps the vest onto a child-sized mannequin with a guilty look, and hands Luci a very strange gun that she has become intimately familiar with.
The simple looking device is, at it's core, simply two tubes jammed into a blue ball of crackling energy. One tube is held in the hand, the other tube is the barrel. When a button on the first tube is pressed, a ball of crackling blue hellfire is released, searing through flesh and bone.
Luci takes a moment, aims, and shoots the mannequin square it the chest, leaving a smoking hole in the vest, but not deep enough that she could see that white of the mannequin. She fires again, this time blasting the vest off the target. She lays the gun down on a table as she and Polywhirl inspect the target. The mannequin's flesh is only singed.
"We promised one shot with no damage," the Pokemon says in his bizarre English accent. "This vest can clearly take two. Do we have a deal?" he asks, holding out his hand.
He grins as Luci shakes it, the two of them exiting the shooting range as Luci slips a wad of cash discretely into his hand. She bends down to inspect the merchandise further.
"How are you planning on getting them in?" asks Ralph with interest. Luci grins and removes a vest from one of the boxes. She shakes her spray-can and a cloud of orange mist settles over the vest. When she is satisfied it is completely neon orange, she tucks it back into the box. She shakes her can again, and sprays a rainbow mist onto the white box. She blows on it to dry, and shows it Ralph. An icon of a lifeguard stands behind a logo that says "Coruscant Life Savers", with a black-and-white square underneath saying "Child Life Vest".
Ralph nods.
"Get out, I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon enough."
***
Polywhirl helps Luci load the trunk and backseat with the vests. Despite the Pokemon's protest, Luci paints his car white, and the pair leave to meet up with Passion Flower and change cars. The pair smoke together in silence for a moment, the Polywhirl chewing his cigar in his strange mouth, Luci flicking the ash of her cigarette every few seconds.
"So Ralph likes you," the Pokemon says after a while. Luci does not respond. "I like you," he says, getting a smile from Luci. He puts a cartoony hand on her leg, and she giggles warmly as she removes it. "That was some amazing shooting back there," Polywhirl continues, acting as if the exchange didn't happen. "Where did a good girl like you learn to learn to shoot like?"
Luci continues to smile, but says nothing.
The Pokemon snorts somehow. "Keep your secrets then, gangster," he says as they pull into the drop spot.
***
Luci sits in the front seat of a white cargo van as Polywhirl and Passion Flower load it up with vests. She has her set of glowing markers out and is working furiously on a last minute revision to Passion Flower's fake I.D. card, adding a watermark of the Emperor's face. She squints as she rounds the lines of his jowly face. After nearly twenty minutes she is satisfied with the forgery, and hops out of the car.
"Oh cool," says Passion Flower as he examines the I.D. "Melvin Pondscum. Uh, that's ok, I guess."
Luci ignores him and starts painting on the side of the van, producing the "Coruscant Life Savers" logo on either side of the van. The trio finish loading the van, and Polywhirl shakes the pair's hands.
"Truly, a pleasure doing business with you," he says as he gets back in his car. "I should hope to do it again sometime. Good luck."
***
Melvin Pondscum smiles nervously as a storm trooper stares at his I.D. intently alongside the elf's face. A single bead of sweat did not roll down his forehead. A river of sweat, however, did. The storm trooper does not hand the I.D. back.
"What are you hauling?" he asks through his helmet.
"Uh," stutters the elf convincingly.
"Uh?" asks the storm-trooper. Luci, concealed beneath boxes in the cargo hold, feels her blood run cold
"Uh?" he repeats loudly, as other storm troopers notice and start to crowd in. "Uh, how about you uh, get the uh, fuck uh-uh-up out of here Melvin?"
The storm trooper and his squadron burst out laughing as they mock Melvin, who keeps his gaze down and drives into Teir-5 with a sneer.
***
Later that night, in a Phaser Park, a drive-by shooting is in progress.
The Orc Mafia is done playing games; they want protection money from the Deathblades and they aren't going to wait any longer.
Two black sedans with tinted windows pull up to the park. Four rifle butts extend and start pumping balls of blue fire at any child they could see. The orcs think they got ten, at least. One of the shooters, a young albino orc named Ahg, lights a cigar with his smoking rifle tip. He takes a deep drag, closes his eyes, and bellows his war cry. When he opens them, Ahg sees a distinct lack of dead bodies littered around the park. He turns around in time to see a burning katana jammed through his drivers skull. His partner in the backseat is slumped over, a shuriken in his forehead. Ahg feels a steel chain wrap around his neck and pull him through the window of the car, then smashing him into the street. Ahg watches as the Deathblades dismember the orcs in the second car in shockingly violent ways.
His eyes follow the tip of Princess Hellstab's katana as it drags along the street, leaving a trail of sparks.
When she bends down to whisper in Ahg's ear, it is with a deathly sweetness.
"Where is Karg?"
***
![[Image: V4Dvvfy.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/V4Dvvfy.gif)