10-28-2017, 03:39 PM
They had lost twelve of their twenty two reinforcements in the previous day's battle, meaning that once again Davion had been forced to request more from Imperial Command... this was appearing entirely too common for Hijiri's liking. Rather than focusing on actually wiping out the gangs down here, it seemed as though what Command wanted was more like simple damage control; they were just sending down a steady stream of sacrifices to keep the criminal scum busy enough that their evil would be prevented from spreading to the upper tiers.
In fact, judging by some of the information available to Davion (and through him, to Hijiri) they appeared most concerned at the moment with the fact that some random Prime had beaten up a few stormtroopers in the Nexus, crossed Coruscant, and left to the Vasty Deep; one of the neighbouring Verses. Whilst he did understand that an individual capable of bypassing imperial security with apparent ease was somewhat worrying – especially considering the fact that the Emperor, King Bradley and the rest of the Council all lived on Tier One, and so could theoretically be threatened by such a person – he couldn't help but feel that maybe if they cared that much about cutting down crime on the lower tiers then Coruscant would be a much safer place overall.
When he mentioned this to Davion, though, the lieutenant had simply laughed. He then told Hijiri of one incident which had occurred recently in which another Prime with a bounty on their head had shown up in the city; and in her case had actually managed to make it all the way down to Tier Five before being caught. The Prime in question had been some sort of demon, judging by what Davion had heard, and so command was taking no chances, they sent a whole squad of stormtroopers, backed up by one of the Empire's finest; an actual Space Marine.
Hijiri had never met one of these imposing men, but he had read about them on the Dataverse, and so was familiar with their reputation, and some of their capabilities. As such, he knew full well that he could never have defeated one in a fight. Which meant that the force sent to vanquish that demon had been more powerful than their squad the previous day, when they'd raided the casino. This was all the confirmation the Battle Rabbit needed that Imperial Command cared more about one individual Prime than a whole mob of regular criminals...
Though it wasn't until the lieutenant told him how close she'd come to killing the Space Marine that Hijiri realised they might actually have a good reason for prioritising going after Primes, even if it meant letting lesser threats roam around freely. Who knew what kind of damage that woman could have wreaked, had she simply attacked people at random after entering the Verse, rather than trying to get down here... hell, if they'd sent the squad after her without its Marine, she'd likely have mown them down like blades of grass.
It was as they were discussing this that some rather more urgent intel – to their minds, at least – finally came in. Although the reports of the three raiding parties would have been sent out the previous day, it was only now that Command had finally deigned to inform them of the situation...
And what a situation it was. As they already knew, their group had lost twelve stormtroopers. Another one, without a Prime to help them out, had suffered the exact same number of casualties. Hijiri could only assume that they must have had a leader who was actually competent, or something... as unlikely as that sounded.
The third group, though, had not been so lucky; they had failed to report in entirely. They had been completely wiped out, and by the time anyone went to check up on the warehouse they'd struck, it had been stripped of anything and everything remotely valuable. Losing a casino and a warehouse must surely have been a heavy blow to the Wolfpack, but they'd also managed to slaughter a full thirty-person squad, keep a lot of their gear, and doubtless inform the rest of their gang that their locations may have been compromised...
They'd still have to go ahead with their planned interrogations of all their prisoners, of course, no matter how low the likelihood that any of the bases would still be occupied when they went and checked them, since it would be just typical if they were to not bother with an interrogation only to then find out later that the NSW had been too stupid to move their operations, and so could have potentially been dealt with.
***
“Takanomiya!”
“Hmm... yes? Is something wrong?” Hijiri looked back at the doorway, turning away from the bald, bearded thug he had been repeatedly punching in the face in an attempt at extracting information.
The Battle Rabbit was strong, but he'd never had to question the ogres he fought back in his reality, so all this torture stuff was completely new to him, and he wasn't really all that skilled at it. He should really ask Jallus for advice on the matter at some point; that guy had already broken three of them today, he had an almost worrying level of... ingenuity, when it came to interrogative techniques.
Leon stood in the doorway, glaring daggers at him. “We're supposed to be going out on patrol in five minutes! Why are you still in here!? Get that bastard back in his cell and get that blood out of your clothes! I don't want Calrime and Iechtelsteir whining at me just 'cause you couldn't keep track of time properly!”
“Shit, really? Five minutes? Sorry, Nash.” his ally's whiny voice was a little annoying, but that was to be expected; no one had been at all surprised to find that he was upset at not being paired with Priya.
Davion had decided to send them all out in pairs, on staggered patrols of the streets around the base, making sure that there were always people out during the day monitoring the area, and always some more back at the 'racks as well, awaiting any orders from Command. The problem was that he hadn't let them pick their partners, so many of the veterans were being teamed up with the recruits, and Hijiri had been the one unlucky enough to get paired with Leon.
He may not be quite as annoying as Dodson, but without Priya around to babysit him, the guy had a tendency to start brooding and get real miserable real fast. To be fair, his girlfriend had been killed, like, only last week, so it wasn't exactly surprising that he hadn't gotten over it yet...
Hurriedly freeing the prisoner from the restraints which held him in his chair, Hijiri then roughly bundled him to the door. When they approached Leon, though, the man suddenly spoke up.
“You'll never win, swine, no matter how hard you try. Even if your Empire does beat us someday, it'll take a whole lot more than you lot to do it, so you can be damn sure none of you'll live to see the day it happens.” He spat a mouthful of blood on the stormtrooper's nice, shiny white breastplate.
He had held his patience whilst the thug talked, but this was a step too far. So quickly Hijiri barely saw it coming, the trooper grabbed the NSW goon by his head and slammed it with all his might against the doorway. The man collapsed immediately.
The two stared down at the unconscious body for a few seconds.
“He shouldn't have spat at me.” Leon muttered defensively.
“Let's just get him back in his cell. Afterwards I'll clean up this blood, then we can head out on this patrol you're so eager not to miss... what's the deal with that, by the way? Didn't Singh leave an hour or so ago? Why aren't you off moping somewhere?”
Leon glared again, “You could at least try sounding like you care, you know...”
Hijiri just looked at him sceptically. They both knew that he wasn't in the habit of accepting sympathy from anyone other than Priya, so would have just complained even more if the Rabbit had tried to be nice.
The stormtrooper sighed, and they both bent down, picked up the thug, and started dragging him off, “Iechtelsteir says I can't keep working with Priya if I don't make more of an effort... he's gonna keep splitting us up at every chance he gets...”
“You... do remember that he's not actually a sergeant, right? He can't order you to do anything you don't want to.” the Prime reminded the other man.
“I guess...” came the non-committal reply.
“Well, whatever.” they had reached the correct cell by this point, so they hauled their captive in and tossed him none too gently onto the cheap bed which sat in one corner.
Leaving the small room, and locking the door behind them, Hijiri then turned to Leon and focused his mind on collecting Omnilium. The rainbow-coloured bubble expanded outwards around them both as he did, and then they waited... a few minutes later it retracted once more, taking with it all of the man's blood.
“I've gotta admit, that's a pretty neat trick.” Leon commented grudgingly.
“I guess it is... it certainly can come in handy at times.” the Battle Rabbit agreed, looking down at his perfectly clean suit as he did. Being able to absorb Omnilium from anything he wanted given enough time was proving rather convenient indeed.
Collecting it from blood and other grime wasn't all that productive, of course, but with all the valuables they'd stolen appropriated from the underground casino during the raid... well, once he got around to breaking down all of that, it would certainly go a long way towards helping equip the squad, that was for sure.
That was a matter for later, though. For now; “Come on Nash, let's get going.”
“Sure.”
They headed away from the holding cells, through the building, and out down the path which lead onto the streets. So far none of the patrols had come under attack today, despite them being only in pairs, and as such, much more vulnerable than usual. With any luck, that meant the various criminal elements realised that attacking EPD soldiers in the immediate vicinity of an Imperial Barracks was a really dumb thing to do... and so weren't likely to attempt it during this shift either... he could really do without the hassle of another life-or-death struggle right now.
In fact, judging by some of the information available to Davion (and through him, to Hijiri) they appeared most concerned at the moment with the fact that some random Prime had beaten up a few stormtroopers in the Nexus, crossed Coruscant, and left to the Vasty Deep; one of the neighbouring Verses. Whilst he did understand that an individual capable of bypassing imperial security with apparent ease was somewhat worrying – especially considering the fact that the Emperor, King Bradley and the rest of the Council all lived on Tier One, and so could theoretically be threatened by such a person – he couldn't help but feel that maybe if they cared that much about cutting down crime on the lower tiers then Coruscant would be a much safer place overall.
When he mentioned this to Davion, though, the lieutenant had simply laughed. He then told Hijiri of one incident which had occurred recently in which another Prime with a bounty on their head had shown up in the city; and in her case had actually managed to make it all the way down to Tier Five before being caught. The Prime in question had been some sort of demon, judging by what Davion had heard, and so command was taking no chances, they sent a whole squad of stormtroopers, backed up by one of the Empire's finest; an actual Space Marine.
Hijiri had never met one of these imposing men, but he had read about them on the Dataverse, and so was familiar with their reputation, and some of their capabilities. As such, he knew full well that he could never have defeated one in a fight. Which meant that the force sent to vanquish that demon had been more powerful than their squad the previous day, when they'd raided the casino. This was all the confirmation the Battle Rabbit needed that Imperial Command cared more about one individual Prime than a whole mob of regular criminals...
Though it wasn't until the lieutenant told him how close she'd come to killing the Space Marine that Hijiri realised they might actually have a good reason for prioritising going after Primes, even if it meant letting lesser threats roam around freely. Who knew what kind of damage that woman could have wreaked, had she simply attacked people at random after entering the Verse, rather than trying to get down here... hell, if they'd sent the squad after her without its Marine, she'd likely have mown them down like blades of grass.
It was as they were discussing this that some rather more urgent intel – to their minds, at least – finally came in. Although the reports of the three raiding parties would have been sent out the previous day, it was only now that Command had finally deigned to inform them of the situation...
And what a situation it was. As they already knew, their group had lost twelve stormtroopers. Another one, without a Prime to help them out, had suffered the exact same number of casualties. Hijiri could only assume that they must have had a leader who was actually competent, or something... as unlikely as that sounded.
The third group, though, had not been so lucky; they had failed to report in entirely. They had been completely wiped out, and by the time anyone went to check up on the warehouse they'd struck, it had been stripped of anything and everything remotely valuable. Losing a casino and a warehouse must surely have been a heavy blow to the Wolfpack, but they'd also managed to slaughter a full thirty-person squad, keep a lot of their gear, and doubtless inform the rest of their gang that their locations may have been compromised...
They'd still have to go ahead with their planned interrogations of all their prisoners, of course, no matter how low the likelihood that any of the bases would still be occupied when they went and checked them, since it would be just typical if they were to not bother with an interrogation only to then find out later that the NSW had been too stupid to move their operations, and so could have potentially been dealt with.
***
“Takanomiya!”
“Hmm... yes? Is something wrong?” Hijiri looked back at the doorway, turning away from the bald, bearded thug he had been repeatedly punching in the face in an attempt at extracting information.
The Battle Rabbit was strong, but he'd never had to question the ogres he fought back in his reality, so all this torture stuff was completely new to him, and he wasn't really all that skilled at it. He should really ask Jallus for advice on the matter at some point; that guy had already broken three of them today, he had an almost worrying level of... ingenuity, when it came to interrogative techniques.
Leon stood in the doorway, glaring daggers at him. “We're supposed to be going out on patrol in five minutes! Why are you still in here!? Get that bastard back in his cell and get that blood out of your clothes! I don't want Calrime and Iechtelsteir whining at me just 'cause you couldn't keep track of time properly!”
“Shit, really? Five minutes? Sorry, Nash.” his ally's whiny voice was a little annoying, but that was to be expected; no one had been at all surprised to find that he was upset at not being paired with Priya.
Davion had decided to send them all out in pairs, on staggered patrols of the streets around the base, making sure that there were always people out during the day monitoring the area, and always some more back at the 'racks as well, awaiting any orders from Command. The problem was that he hadn't let them pick their partners, so many of the veterans were being teamed up with the recruits, and Hijiri had been the one unlucky enough to get paired with Leon.
He may not be quite as annoying as Dodson, but without Priya around to babysit him, the guy had a tendency to start brooding and get real miserable real fast. To be fair, his girlfriend had been killed, like, only last week, so it wasn't exactly surprising that he hadn't gotten over it yet...
Hurriedly freeing the prisoner from the restraints which held him in his chair, Hijiri then roughly bundled him to the door. When they approached Leon, though, the man suddenly spoke up.
“You'll never win, swine, no matter how hard you try. Even if your Empire does beat us someday, it'll take a whole lot more than you lot to do it, so you can be damn sure none of you'll live to see the day it happens.” He spat a mouthful of blood on the stormtrooper's nice, shiny white breastplate.
He had held his patience whilst the thug talked, but this was a step too far. So quickly Hijiri barely saw it coming, the trooper grabbed the NSW goon by his head and slammed it with all his might against the doorway. The man collapsed immediately.
The two stared down at the unconscious body for a few seconds.
“He shouldn't have spat at me.” Leon muttered defensively.
“Let's just get him back in his cell. Afterwards I'll clean up this blood, then we can head out on this patrol you're so eager not to miss... what's the deal with that, by the way? Didn't Singh leave an hour or so ago? Why aren't you off moping somewhere?”
Leon glared again, “You could at least try sounding like you care, you know...”
Hijiri just looked at him sceptically. They both knew that he wasn't in the habit of accepting sympathy from anyone other than Priya, so would have just complained even more if the Rabbit had tried to be nice.
The stormtrooper sighed, and they both bent down, picked up the thug, and started dragging him off, “Iechtelsteir says I can't keep working with Priya if I don't make more of an effort... he's gonna keep splitting us up at every chance he gets...”
“You... do remember that he's not actually a sergeant, right? He can't order you to do anything you don't want to.” the Prime reminded the other man.
“I guess...” came the non-committal reply.
“Well, whatever.” they had reached the correct cell by this point, so they hauled their captive in and tossed him none too gently onto the cheap bed which sat in one corner.
Leaving the small room, and locking the door behind them, Hijiri then turned to Leon and focused his mind on collecting Omnilium. The rainbow-coloured bubble expanded outwards around them both as he did, and then they waited... a few minutes later it retracted once more, taking with it all of the man's blood.
“I've gotta admit, that's a pretty neat trick.” Leon commented grudgingly.
“I guess it is... it certainly can come in handy at times.” the Battle Rabbit agreed, looking down at his perfectly clean suit as he did. Being able to absorb Omnilium from anything he wanted given enough time was proving rather convenient indeed.
Collecting it from blood and other grime wasn't all that productive, of course, but with all the valuables they'd stolen appropriated from the underground casino during the raid... well, once he got around to breaking down all of that, it would certainly go a long way towards helping equip the squad, that was for sure.
That was a matter for later, though. For now; “Come on Nash, let's get going.”
“Sure.”
They headed away from the holding cells, through the building, and out down the path which lead onto the streets. So far none of the patrols had come under attack today, despite them being only in pairs, and as such, much more vulnerable than usual. With any luck, that meant the various criminal elements realised that attacking EPD soldiers in the immediate vicinity of an Imperial Barracks was a really dumb thing to do... and so weren't likely to attempt it during this shift either... he could really do without the hassle of another life-or-death struggle right now.
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)