[Exemplary] Imperial Endeavours

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Lieutenant Davion Calrime, Imperial Officer of Coruscant's Empire Peace Division, sat behind his desk, slouched in his chair, still wearing the breastplate that came with his uniform, even here in their own barracks, in what should have been a safe haven in the midst of the lawless abyss that was Tier Five...

In fairness, it had been under a week since their base had been attacked, so perhaps it wasn't really all that surprising that the squad might not have thought of it as being some impenetrable bastion... though Davion being the man he was, he would've worn that armour anyway, even had he been sitting safe and secure in the Emperor's own chambers. Having been promoted all the way up from the ranks of the stormtroopers, the lieutenant was never totally comfortable without a suit of armour on... which, since the uniform of an Imperial Officer did not, in fact, include a full set of armour, meant that it had been a while since he had felt properly at ease. Still, he'd at least removed his helmet, so that was some progress; perhaps one of these days he might end up getting over this strange quirk of his.

Opposite the desk, the 'elites' were lounging around the room. They were the best of his squad; seven stormtroopers who'd been with him for at least as far back as the beginning of their latest deployment to this tier, and even further back than that in most of their cases, as well as two former gangsters, one of whom was a Prime.

Davion was tired. Takanomiya Hijiri had abandoned them, fleeing to Omni-knows-where after Brandon Windvale – an elven stormtrooper who served as the squad's tech expert – had disobeyed him during a fight and gunned down some helpless women... to be fair to the Prime, the girls had been barely worthy of being considered a threat and according to Imperial laws the maximum punishment for insubordination was death, so no one up above would have so much as batted an eyelid if the corporal had gone ahead and executed the elf on the spot... so perhaps they should all be grateful that the rabbit-guy hadn't decided to take that course of action.

Still, it was hard to feel anything besides annoyance. Not only had he fucked off without a word, leaving them potentially vulnerable to more attacks from the Northside Wolfpack – or any other gang, for that matter – but he had also left them with the mess of covering up for him... after all that he had done for them up to this point, none of them had liked the idea of reporting the truth to the uncaring bureaucracy up on Tier One. The Battle Rabbit would have been labelled 'AWOL' in an instant, then court-martialed the moment he showed his face, when he did finally turn up once more.

Perhaps another squad would have considered that punishment justified by his having abandoned them in this way, but he'd be no use to them dead... or off in another Verse somewhere, once he'd respawned at the Nexus. If they really wanted to make this plan of theirs a success, they'd need the support of as many Primes as possible; turning Northside from a lawless gangland into a proper, respectable neighbourhood would be no easy task, after all. As such, it was imperative that the Empire not discover – and punish him for – his transgressions. Luckily, between Davion's claims to have sent him off on a mission to weaken the gangs' grasp on the tier (or the northern part of it, at least) and the many connections, allies and blackmail victims of Michelle Andreas – a telepathic lieutenant stationed on Tier One, who supported their grand objective – they were able to keep the truth hidden from prying eyes.

They'd lost a valuable asset, but they were far from done. Davion had taken the liberty of actually promoting Kroll vor Iechtelsteir to the rank of sergeant. He had never liked that man's ridiculous habit of pretending to be an NCO despite not having any real rank, and he'd hated his decision to recruit new troops without the Empire's official seal of approval even more... but as he had had no luck at all in dissuading him from either of those ideas, and that lunatic Michelle was now apparently on board with them to boot... well, he didn't see much point in continuing to resist.

On top of that, Sarah Watt and Kevin Fischer – both former members of the Wolfpack themselves – had been invited into the ranks of Kroll's 'elite' stormtroopers... the little group who had taken to going around without ever wearing their helmets, despite this being against Imperial regulations, just because they thought it made them look cool, or some such nonsense. All the extra training they had been doing with Sarah and Hijiri (which Davion had found out about only in the aftermath of the attack on their barracks) had amounted to little in the end; they themselves had achieved almost nothing against the Prime who had overtaken the barracks, and so after the Battle Rabbit had been struck down, it had fallen to the werewolf woman to save them all from the wrath of 'Shotgun Steve'.

She alone of everyone in the room had removed more than just her helmet; for some reason, that woman had a serious aversion to shoes, and so her uniform ended at the knee-pads, with her legs and feet being bare below that point. She had been made a corporal; the same rank as Hijiri prior to his disappearance. In fact, they all had. He had mass-promoted every one of Kroll's Elites. It may have seemed foolish... no, absurd, even... not to mention being a rather questionable use of his power – he was still only a lieutenant, after all – but if the Empire was intent on hanging them out to dry, well, he just might have to take some liberties in order to keep things ticking along down here.

No matter what those politicians and civil servants thought about all this, he and his squad were still fully committed to the idea of protecting their district; they were assigned to guard Northside and so that is what they would do. To that end, they had been recruiting... and it had been going well. Perhaps even too well.

“This can't be right.” he said at last, shaking his head as he peered down at the papers before him; a report handed in by Kroll, “These figures have got to be wrong.”

“No.” the pale man's tone and expression were smug as he casually brushed several strands of his chin-length white hair out of his eyes... why that man didn't either tie his hair back or just get it cut Davion simply couldn't understand; it made him look like some sort of failed applicant for a spot in a boy band, “They're completely accurate. There's been a lot of interest. More than we expected, even... it seems that there are plenty of people around who would like the chance at a well paid job that also allows them to keep their families safe... provided that job doesn't involve going through years of indoctrination under the guise of learning.”

Davion was silent for a few moments, then gave a grunt of acknowledgement. He and his squad had been working shifts down here of Tier Five long enough to have picked up on the fact that the Empire wasn't quite so benign as all the propaganda which they'd had shoved down their throats at the academy made it out to be, but as they'd seen with the latest, final and now entirely deceased batch of recruits to be sent down to reinforce their squad, the majority of stormtroopers were not so fond of... outside the box thinking.

“Alright. Okay. So.” his voice was tight suddenly, controlled, yet obviously on the verge of breaking, “We have all these new recruits. Far too many of them for us to hope to be able to pay, since Takanomiya didn't bother to leave behind a single credit when he buggered off, and we've now spent every scrap of Omnilium we had – including our food money – to summon uniforms and weapons for these untrained amateurs, and more are still showing up every day... and we no longer have any support from the upper tiers to count on, and we've barely even been screening these people, so half of them are probably gang members themselves... where's the good news here Sergeant Iechtelsteir?”

It wasn't Kroll who responded, though, but Brandon, who sat on the armrest of a large, leather chair, a tablet-shaped Mobile Dataverse Device in his arms, “The good news comes from Lieutenant Andreas, sir.”

Davion froze for a moment, before slumping slightly in his seat, a soft groan rising in his throat. That woman had always given him the creeps... even before he'd found out that she'd mindraped her ex-boyfriend into a coma one time. Across the room, Trevor Dodson – said ex-boyfriend – perked up slightly at the mention of her name, turning away from the shelves he'd been dusting to peer over at the elf. Davion knew that Trevor had, in the past, been bullied into doing a lot of their chores for the other, less cowardly, members of the squad... yet now that he was a corporal, there was no reason why he couldn't have passed those tasks onto someone lower ranked than him. It seemed to have become some sort of coping mechanism, though, something he needed to be able to handle what was going on down here, to keep his mind off all the death he had witnessed...

“You know my policy on this, Windvale; if Andreas is the one saying it then it's always bad news... but come on then, out with it. What's the story?”

“We have the location of another NSW outpost. For our sakes,” here the technophile's emerald green eyes darted over to Kroll for a fraction of a second. The pale guy had been the one to bring Michelle in on their little plot with no explanation or excuse, so when Brandon said 'for our sakes', Davion knew that what he actually meant was 'at Kroll's behest'. That man, once a proud member of some small planet's nobility in days gone by, had always been dangerous enough for his ambition alone. Him having the support of this psychic psycho certainly wasn't going to improve matters, “she's been expanding her network downwards, beyond just the first couple tiers. It's slow going, of course, since it's such a delicate business, but she's managed to establish a 'contact' in Tier Four, who seems to have been doing business with some sort of minor faction within the NSW.”

“Hmm...” he knew the tone that Brandon used when he said the word 'contact'. Some of Michelle's allies were bribed, some were blackmailed, whilst others were tricked or simply scared into compliance. He didn't know the full extent of her mental powers, but he couldn't deny that she seemed to have a real gift for manipulation, “and so you think it would be a good idea to take these untrained recruits in there, huh? You really think we should just storm the place?”

“Well... yes. I don't see that we have much of a choice. We need money desperately and they should have plenty of illegal goods which we can 'confiscate'. We can't afford any dissatisfaction within the ranks; like you said, some of these recruits may have been – or may still consider themselves – gang members. So on top of keeping them paid, we'd best also make it clear to everyone that we can fight these gangs, if we want all our newcomers staying in line. Hitting that other casino was a much more impressive feat than simply taking out a warehouse filled with supplies, and eliminating a member of their leadership – even if only temporarily, since he was a Prime – will have helped our reputation as well. We need to keep these things up, though; we can't afford to start slacking off now, especially not in light of the attack on our base. Yes, they may have taken worse losses from that than we ultimately did, but it won't seem that way if we start acting scared.”

The lieutenant sighed and shook his head, but then voiced an affirmative anyway, “Yeah, I suppose you're right. Fine. I guess we're attacking a... what is this place, anyway?”

“A casino disguised as a hardware store.” the elf informed him without so much as glancing down at the tablet he held.

“A... what? Why...? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't care. Another casino, then, I guess it is we're going after. But we can't take everyone; I won't leave this place unguarded again.”

“Oh? Well then why don't you-” Kroll began, a hint of smugness in his tone, though this time around his facial expression was utterly neutral.

“I'm going with the group attacking this base of theirs. No argument, no debate. I'm not sending our stormtroopers into a battle I won't fight myself.”

“Of course not, of course not.” although his visage remained perfectly respectful, that self-satisfied edge in his tone didn't so much as waver. He'd known Davion would say this and was fully prepared for it, “I'd suggest leaving Corporal Windvale in charge, along with Corporals Singh and Nash, and giving them a third of the recruits. Between them, those three should have no trouble keeping our brave volunteers in line, whilst also being competent enough to actually take charge of the defence of this place if need be.”

“Fine then,” the lieutenant sighed, leaning on his desk as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet, glancing across at Leon Nash and Priya Singh, who shared Brandon's armchair; Leon slouched casually on its seat, whilst Priya stood behind, leading on the back, “since you clearly had all this stuff thought out before you even came to me about it, why not. Let's just go with your plan.”

He picked up his officer's helmet and began fastening it on, “How soon do you want to head off?”

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Four gleaming, white & black vans emblazoned with the Empire's sigil pulled up haphazardly outside the Augustus Hardware Outlet; the building that they had been told secretly concealed one of the NSW's underground casinos...

Now that he thought about it, Sergeant Kroll vor Iechtelsteir wasn't actually all that sure why they went to all the trouble of building hidden casinos in the first place... just so they could discuss their gang business openly? Or perhaps so that they could sell their drugs and prostitute their whores more openly? It seemed to him like they'd probably make just as much of a profit, if not more, if they skipped the illegal stuff and just opened a legit casino chain... it wasn't like there was much in the way of oversight down here on Tier Five; crimes like murder and rape were the sorts of things that the EPD – stretched thin as it was – would still try to deal with...

But operating a gambling den without the proper permits? Maybe selling alcohol to minors? Breaking minimum wage laws? Those sorts of civil matters were pretty low on their to-do lists.

Still, the situation was what it was. Not long after their blatantly Imperial vans were parked coolly and very obviously right in the middle of the road (unlike their previous raid, Lieutenant Calrime wanted this one to attract attention) a quick countdown could be heard over their radios, and then, on 'one', Kroll opened the driver-side door of the van he'd taken, whilst beside him Jallus Reiner – a thin, dark-skinned man – opened the passenger-side door with his new, bionic arm; a replacement for the one he had had torn out of its socket by Shotgun Steve during their recent conflict.

At the same time, every other door on every other van opened as well. Yes, as stupid as it sounded, Davion had actually insisted that they use radios to arrange for all their doors to open simultaneously. It was dumb, but Kroll had to admit that it hadn't taken him long to warm up to his superior's plan; he had always been a big fan of the whole 'looking cool in front of the public' thing, and it felt pretty good to have the lieutenant finally on board with it as well.

And there was no doubt that the public could see them. The Outlet wasn't quite in the centre of Northside's shopping district, but it wasn't too far off, so the street was pretty busy; already, they had caused a traffic jam by stopping here, blocking the way forwards. Of course, the main reason for blocking the road was to make it harder for anyone who escaped to just dive off... but having the additional effect of giving them a free audience was by no means a bad thing. In the aftermath of having their barracks (temporarily) fall into enemy hands, very publicly taking down one of their attackers' hideouts would prove to be the perfect way of demonstrating to everyone that the Empire was still the top dog around here, even down in the depths of Tier Five.

Some of the recruits waved at the rapidly-forming, rather irritated audience, as horns blared and people yelled at them to get the fuck out of the way. The EPD got a lot less respect this far down than they did up on Tier One, but Kroll didn't reprimand them; the 'troopers or the citizens. This was fine as it was, they only needed witnesses, not necessarily silent ones, and it wasn't like it would really hurt to have the EPD seen acting more human, rather than as a buch of mindless cogs in a machine.

Davion didn't leave them long to mess about, though. Just a few moments after they'd left the vehicles, he was yelling commands, which they heeded with a surprising degree of alacrity, given that they lacked the customary training and indoctrination that 'real' stormtroopers received.

After they'd all assembled before him, their Imperial Officer took a moment to regard them in silence – and allow the crowd to appreciated the all too infrequent sight (down here, at least) of a formation of EPD soldiers several ranks deep – before ordering the squad into the building.

Davion being the man he was, though, he chose to lead the way himself, rather than taking up a safer position in the rear, as might have been expected of a commanding officer. Kroll and the rest of his elites followed along behind.

Filing into the store in pairs, they immediately noticed... the interior of a hardware store. It was big, yes, with a very high ceiling and aisles stretching far into the distance, but otherwise didn't seem particularly suspicious. That said, the former nobleman had never exactly been at all interested in hardware, so had little experience with these sorts of stores, he had to admit... for all he knew, perhaps a DIY aficionado could have taken one look at this place and deduced instantly that it was nothing more than a front business for concealing criminal activity.

Still, the timid-looking, pimple-faced teenager who approached the squad whilst wringing his hands nervously (at the same time as a few frightened customers backed away just as nervously) hardly seemed much like a gangster.

“E-excuse me,” he asked, visibly trembling with fear, “H-h-how c-can I h-help you, o-officers?”

Davion glanced across at Kroll, who shrugged, “I guess we just handcuff him or tie him up or something?”

“And the rest of them?” the lieutenant asked, jerking his head towards the other civilians. Whilst they didn't know for sure whether or not the staff and customers were in on the charade, it seemed like a reasonable suspicion.

“Okay, okay. How about just leaving them here with a few guards while we head further in? It's not like we can really drag innocent people into the middle of a gunfight, after all.”

Davion grunted and waved a hand at a few of the recruits. “Alright, you four stay behind. Leben, you're with them. Everyone else, come on, let's get moving.”

Frank Leben, a tanned, muscular blond man, who was the squad's foremost alcoholic, shrugged then nodded, “Sure thing, boss.”

Leaving those five behind, after corralling the seemingly terrified but potentially criminal citizens into a loose group not far from the entranceway, they headed further in. It quickly became clear that, rather than simply building multiple floors, as any reasonable person would have done, the shop's owner had opted instead to simply attach steel walkways to his absurdly tall sets of shelves, meaning that the vast interior of the building – which couldn't have been less than four stories high – was just one huge room.

This made rounding up any clientele and members of staff that they came across a somewhat tricky proposition, since they were technically 'coming across' people who were almost dozen metres above their heads. The ones on the ground floor were little trouble, but those on the walkways often required splitting off a few members of the group to backtrack to whatever set of steps they'd passed most recently, before heading up at least one level, then moving across to the individuals in question and forcing them to walk all the way down.

Attempting to apprehend everyone in this manner was time-consuming work and slowed their progress drastically. So much so that Davion called a halt to it entirely before too long. They still took anyone they met on the ground floor into custody – gathering them up in small groups before sending a couple 'troopers back with them to the holding party, with instructions to return to the main group after having dropped off their charges – but no longer did they go after anyone so much as a single level above them; it was taking too long. At this rate, assuming this place had a back door or two (which seemed a pretty safe bet to make given is size) every actual NSW member might easily have time to evacuate whilst they were busy securing people who may well turn out to be nothing more than innocent bystanders in the end.

So they hurried on as best they could, until at last they came to a large, grey wall, somewhat surprisingly not lined with shelves. It did support multiple walkways, though. Three in total, one a quarter of the way up, one halfway up, and one three-quarters of the way to the ceiling; the same number that were present on each set of shelves. At seemingly random points on the walkways and along the ground floor, were doors marked by little signs that read 'Warehouse Area: Staff Only Beyond This Point'.

So it seemed that there was more to this place than just the one vast room after all... not that they could really focus on that at this particular moment. No, they were all rather distracted by the swarm of grey-and-white-clad goons lounging around on the walkways before them. The thin metal rails wouldn't offer them the slightest bit of cover from the stormtroopers' blaster fire... but there were just so many up there that it likely wouldn't make a jot of difference no matter how many they managed to gun down.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, suddenly the platforms on either side of the wide aisle that the squad had just headed down were also awash with Wolfpack thugs. They had been laying in wait, most likely monitoring them on a security feed ever since they stepped through the doors, or even since the moment their vans pulled up outside, setting up the best ambush they possibly could.

Kroll's lips thinned and his brow lowered into a frown. Not all of those around him were so reserved, though; Davion and a few others cursed openly, and some of the recruits began backing away, their guns swinging madly from target to target, as they sought to somehow cover every enemy at once.

“Well, well, well, what've we got 'ere...?” a female voice asked from on high, its tone smug. Looking up, Kroll saw a young, black woman wearing a white vest, grey skinny-jeans and black trainers. She was leaning casually on the railing, completely at ease, holding some sort of baton in one hand which was attached by a length of chain to some large object (or objects) which sat on the walkway; he couldn't make out what from this distance, though. She didn't appear to be in possession of a firearm and aside from a large, bright pink mohawk and a couple big, ragged scars – one on each arm – didn't really stand out particularly from any of the other goons, “Looks like a few swine just trotted inta the slaughter'ouse, boys n' girls.”

The moment she finished speaking – smirking down at them now – everyone else on the walkways seemed to begin yelling at the same moment. They shouted jeers and insults and curses down upon the EPD soldiers, who, realising how badly outnumbered they truly were, were now instinctively forming a tight circle in the middle of the aisle... it gave them some small illusion of safety, standing side-by-side and back-to-back with their friends and squad mates... though in actuality, they were simply making it harder for their foes to miss.

After a few moments had passed, the woman who had spoken first held up a hand for silence, which came almost immediately, “Alright, no sense dragging this out any longer; unlike Stevie, I don't see the point in 'oldin' long-ass conversations with bitches I'm plannin' to 'ave killed anyways. Do it.”

This time around, the moment she finished speaking, her minions opened fire.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Lieutenant Michelle Andreas strode confidently into the lavish restaurant. Back up on Tier One, the two muscular, gun-toting thugs that followed her would have been met with alarm. Down here on Tier Four, none of the clientele so much as raised an eyebrow; most of them had their own security teams, after all.

The owners of this place liked to think of it as neutral ground... anyone with enough credits could come here to eat, leaving behind any rivalries at the door... though, of course, actually believing something like that would be a good way to get oneself killed. For the big shots of this tier, assassination was a constant threat, so it paid to be careful.

As always, her shoulder-length, auburn hair was kept in a side-fringe which completely obscured her right eye. Unlike usual, though, she wore a tight, shimmery, silver cocktail dress and a matching pair of shoes with six-inch heels in place of a generic Imperial Officer uniform. She was going incognito; in this particular part of Tier Four, dressing this way would make her stand out far less than any EPD outfit. Upon being ushered through to the main dining area by a waiter in a red velvet waistcoat, she quickly spotted her contact at a table near the back of the room, fidgeting nervously as he waited... completely lacking in any bodyguards of his own. As her information had suggested, he was far too frugal to 'waste' money on paying big, tough men to (hopefully) do nothing more than stand around and look scary.

She sauntered across to his table and sat without speaking a word to him, then waived over a waiter and spent a couple minutes browsing their menu before making her selection and handing it back. The contact was already about halfway through his own meal – some sort of white fish in a creamy sauce – and openly scowled at her in spite of the presence of the two looming goons with their black trench coats, shades still on indoors and assault rifles held at the ready.

“You're late.” he spat, “Do you know how long I've been waiting here? Looking like... like this.”

The man gestured up at his head as he spoke, his voice a harsh, low whisper; he wasn't too keen on having their conversation overheard, Michelle surmised. From the neck down, he was dressed much as one would expect of a successful yet bland businessman; black suit and tie, white shirt, black shoes. There were plenty of people – almost everyone, in fact – in this establishment who had chosen much flashier outfits than that... despite its high prices, good food and respectful, well-trained staff, this place had something of a reputation for degeneracy...

The owners had originally intended their policy of absolute non-disclosure (they and their employees would remain tight-lipped regardless of what occurred within these walls) to appeal to mobsters and the like, and whilst it certainly had, they had also inadvertently drawn the attention of other sorts of people... in fact, right at that moment, as Michelle's contact finished speaking, a voluptuous woman strode past their table wearing a long, loose dress that would have actually seemed perfectly respectable, had it not been so astonishingly sheer... and had its wearer not been without any sort of underwear. The lieutenant could not fail to notice her informant's eyes instantly locking onto the woman and following her hungrily as she headed over to her table...

Up above his eyes, though, was the final part of the weasely little man's outfit; a skullcap made entirely from tinfoil. Yes, the fool had actually come out in public wearing a literal tinfoil hat.

She wasn't sure if he was onto her, or if he was just an idiot with more luck than common sense, but it didn't exactly matter. She had never met a telepath other than herself who was rendered helpless by tinfoil – though she had once known a guy whose power couldn't penetrate lead – but alas, that was her weakness. As far as she could tell, this was not the norm in the Omniverse; for most people, any strange and inexplicable weaknesses they had held back home seemed to disappear... though, unfortunately this had not been the case for her. It was embarrassing, though, so it wasn't something she advertised... which meant that, to the best of her knowledge, he could not possibly have had any reason to assume that the favoured headgear of conspiracy nuts everywhere would in any way hinder her abilities... beyond the slight possibility that he was, in fact, a conspiracy theorist himself.

It didn't really matter all that much, though, she supposed. She already had all the information she needed to blackmail him, hence why she had been able to pry the location of that NSW base from him so easily.

“Well, it isn't my fault you insisted upon wearing that stupid hat; it's not like I would have actually done anything to you even if you hadn't, you know. Sure, I suppose I could have read your thoughts to verify any information you gave me, which certainly would have been helpful, but it hardly matters much... knowing what I know, I can say for sure that you wouldn't want to upset me by getting any of our brave stormtroopers hurt due to any false information you had supplied, would you?” her voice was sweet as she spoke these words, but her smile icy.

“O-of course not!” he stammered, nervously adjusting his cap.

“I thought not... which means you must be hiding something else from me... just how many skeletons do you really have locked away in that closet of yours, I wonder?” her expression became sly and she raised her one visible eyebrow teasingly, grabbing a bottle of wine that he'd already gotten most of the way through and pouring herself a glass.

“None of your business.” he snapped, “Now, can we actually get on with this?”

“Easy for you to say; you've already started your meal... I think I'd prefer that you wait until after I'm done.” she smirked at him. Let the man wait there on her meal being brought to her and then for her to finish eating... okay, maybe she was just being petty, making him wait as payback for wearing that ridiculous hat... but so what? She could be petty if she wanted to. This little worm was too stingy to even hire bodyguards, so he wouldn't be dictating the terms of any meetings he held any time soon.

Strangely, though, rather than scowling down at his plate in impotent rage, as she had expected, he smirked right back at her, and tugged on his collar... revealing a small object attached to the inside... a mic? “I wasn't talking to you.”

At that moment, gunfire erupted behind her. Four shots, one after the other, calm, precise, unrushed. People screamed in fear, whilst their guards yelled orders to cease firing. Michelle had bent forwards at the first shot, leaning low over the table to avoid any stray bullets as best she could; not wanting to get caught up in whatever sort of clumsy assassination attempt this was.

When she heard the two bodies hit the floor right beside her, though, a sudden sense of dread swept over her. When her contact began laughing, a smug grin plastered to his face, that dread deepened. Ignoring him, though, she turned to face the gunmen. There were four of them that she could see, though from the way their bulky frames blocked the entrance, there could well have been many more outside, for all she knew. Dressed in the iconic grey on white colour scheme of the Northside Wolfpack, all of them were pretty badly overweight... though one in particular, standing in the middle of the group and being completely unarmed, was far fatter than the rest... though she could tell from his build that there must have been no shortage of muscle under his skin as well.

He wore a white tracksuit with grey stripes down the sides, and under his arms she could see large patches of sweat. Disgusting. His skin was pale yet ruddy, and as well as being wider than his compatriots, he also stood a fair bit taller than any of the rest of them. His eyes were narrowed as he looked over at her. On their heads, all four wore the same silly little hats as her contact.

Her bodyguards lay dead on the ground, apparently never even having realised they were in danger until it was too late. A fat lot of good they'd been. Every other armed man or woman in the room, however, was still standing, and all of their various firearms were now pointed directly at the three handgun holding hooligans and their unarmed commander, who was very slowly raising his hands. The ones armed with the pistols made no such movement, though; their sights were trained directly on her. Michelle stood, and the three adjusted their aim slightly.

She doubted anyone else in this room recognised the man; even if they were familiar enough with the northern part of the tier below to have heard of the Northside Wolfpack, he was someone who kept to himself, almost never getting involved in the more violent business endeavours of his gang, instead working out of some mysterious hideout that she had thus far been unable to determine the location of, and doing what she couldn't say... all that she had so far been able to uncover about him – at the cost of more than a few of her agents' lives – was that he was one of the gang's highest ranking members and that his name was William Darrell.

“My name is William Darrell,” said William Darrell helpfully, “and I am one of the Northside Wolfpack's highest ranking members, one of our 'Four Claws', as our gang's leader has dubbed us. I run our drug production program.”

One of the lieutenant's eyes twitched slightly as she glared at him. More information than she had gleaned on him in the entire time since she had been summoned to the Omniverse, the fat man had just spilled to a whole roomful of people, completely unsolicited, as if such knowledge was worthless. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly as he looked at her. There was no doubt in her head that he was intentionally taunting her.

She reached out with her Power, seeking to crush his mind in her grasp, to leave him nothing but a brainless, drooling lump... but of course, as had always been the case, all through her life, she found herself unable to touch anyone whose cranium was guarded beneath a protective shell of tinfoil. Of all the things to have for a weakness, this one was especially stupid. How they could ever have found out, she had no idea; she hadn't mentioned this flaw once since being summoned, after all; it shouldn't have been possible for them to uncover her secret... and there was surely no way they could have been moronic enough to all believe that tinfoil hats were actually a viable defence against normal telepathy, could they? It hardly mattered now, though; whatever the reason, they had her trapped.

The double doors leading to the kitchen swung open and a very tall man – he must have been seven foot, at least – strode out between them. He was stick thin and ancient, with grey hair, a long, drooping moustache and a sharp nose. He wore a crisp, white chef's uniform with a hat so tall that it almost scraped the ceiling. He carried a spatula in one hand and looked furious. Following timidly behind him were a frightened waitress and waiter; the waiter being the same man to whom she had given her order just minutes ago. The way they stood shoulder-to-shoulder made it appear as if the pair were attempting to somehow both hide in his skeletal shadow.

Michelle's eyes flicked across the room, drawn by other signs of movement, along with the feel of frightened thoughts tinged with relief. The few other serving staff were one and all trying to surreptitiously shuffle or sneak across to join their chef. The old man stopped several paces from the sumo-like gangster and folded his arms across his narrow chest.

“And just what do you think you're doing, young man?” he snapped, casting a withering glare down upon William. It likely wasn't often that the big thug had found anyone tall enough to literally look down on him, but the chef managed it.

“Just taking care of a little problem. No need to worry, we'll be out of your hair in no time. Just let us finish up our business here and we'll be off.” still with the guns of all those bodyguards trained on him, it didn't exactly look to Michelle like William was in any sort of position to negotiate, and yet the old man was 'hmm'ing and bowing his head thoughtfully.

“What is your 'business' exactly, then?” he finally asked.

“Her.” William Darrell nodded across the room at the Imperial Officer, “she's an Imperial Officer. I trust you can see the sense in eliminating one of those whilst you have the chance? I'd imagine your clientele wouldn't be quite so comfortable meeting here if they knew that the Empire was sending in spies to watch them?”

Panicked, murmured conversation rose briefly, before the chef glared around at the customers and they all shut up. The bodyguards were looking less sure of themselves, though. They doubtless all knew that their clients would not approve of Coruscant's government intruding upon their business, after all. The mysterious disappearance of an EPD soldier would be something that every one of them would surely be perfectly happy to keep quiet about, given the sorts of people they were.

“Have you any proof?” the old man asked upon turning to face William once more.

“Indeed we do.” he reached into a pocket and withdrew a phone, tapped the screen a few times, then tossed it to the chef, “A video of one of our bases being attacked by stormtroopers just after our... business partner over there gave up the location to her.”

He nodded across in Michelle's direction again, though slightly past her this time, towards the man still sitting at their table, who was still grinning broadly.

“Yes, I can confirm it,” he said cheerily, “she's definitely an Imperial Officer.”

“Hmph. It's hardly conclusive evidence, but it'll do, I suppose.” he turned his cold eyes upon her, “So unless anyone has any objections, let's just get this over with and everyone can go back to their meals and forget it ever happened.”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Michelle backed away, holding up her hands before her, “These people just burst in here and killed my guards! Are you really going to just let them get away with that!?”

She was met by nothing but stony gazes from all around. No one spoke a word. Then there came three sharp cracks, as three more bullets were fired, followed by three shooting pains in her chest. She stumbled backwards from the force of the impacts, her legs suddenly feeling weak and oddly disconnected. Her vision spun, and the next thing she knew, Michelle was on her back, staring up at a chandelier on the ceiling. Everything was getting darker... she tried in vain to turn her head... she coughed twice, some liquid leaving her throat and splattering on her face, though she couldn't see what...

The last words she heard came from the old chef, “Alright, you're done now. Grab the bodies and get out of my restaurant... and be grateful I'm not making you scrub the floors before you go.”

Light chuckles came from still-nervous customers... if William Darrell made any response, Michelle never retained consciousness long enough to pick it up.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

The bikes drew up outside the barracks. Dozens of them at once pulling to a stop by either side of the wide road. Up on top of the slate-grey building, a stormtrooper recruit crouching by the roof’s edge swallowed nervously. She raised her transmitter to her face and spoke in a harsh whisper, “Command, do you read me? I repeat: Command, do you read? Over.”

A sigh could be heard on the other end of the line, “Yeah Jess, I hear ya.”

Too concerned to berate her fellow stormtrooper on his lack of professionalism for once, the lookout simply ignored the casualness of the response and the laziness in his tone. She kept her voice low, even though she knew there wasn’t much point; her white armour might as well have been bright pink for all the concealment it gave her atop the dark stone of their base; there was no doubt in her mind that the unhurriedly assembling bikers had noticed her already, “Roger. We have an unconfirmed number of potential hostiles inbound. Over.”

“What?” she experienced a moment of slight satisfaction at the sudden concern in his tone, before the guy from the control station deep in the heart of their barracks -- whose name was Mike -- spoke again, “If something serious is going on drop the dumb shit and tell me what’s happening already!”

“Negative, Command. Also, ‘Affirmative’. Uh… to the second bit, that is.” Jess slipped out of her professional tone for a moment to make that clarification, blushing slightly beneath her helmet at her awkward phrasing, “Numerous individuals disembarking from dual-wheeled motorised transports on opposite edges of the street and advancing this way. Parking regulations appear to have been unviolated. All persons concerned apparently outfitted in tanned animal hide garments. They are equipped with a variety of weapons, some even with firearms. Repeat; firearms are present. Requesting authorisation to fall back. Over.”

“Fuckdammit, woman, get a little common sense already and drop the dumb act; you were a hairdresser until last Thursday, I know you can talk normally. Now tell me what’s going on out there...! And yes, get the hell back. You don't gotta ask permission to not get yourself shot, dumbass.” Mike’s voice sounded pretty angry. She wasn’t about to let that guy tell her what to do, though. All her favourite movies about military and special forces personnel showed them talking like this, which clearly meant this was the best way to get across information in a combat situation; it wasn’t her fault the guy they’d put on the comms in command was an ignorant turd.

“Negative.” she repeated, shaking her head even though it was pointless given the voice-only means of communication she was using. Getting to her feet, she began to back away towards the wide trapdoor that would take her down into the comparative safety of the building’s interior.

Blam!

***

“I got him, boss.” growled the six-foot-something bruiser on her right, a moment after they’d all watched the stormtrooper to whom he was referring take a bullet to the brain and trip over backwards in a spray of blood and shards of shattered plastoid.

“Yes, you dolt, I can see that!” the little old woman snapped. Her name was Doreen Withers, and she was one of the Four Claws of the Northside Wolfpack; the direct subordinates of their gang’s esteemed leader, Jarl Fenrir. Since the boss man was so disinclined to actually do any work himself, though, the actual business of managing his crew generally fell to the Claws, which made Doreen and those like her pretty important people around Northside.

Which was what this was all about. These stormtroopers had slain a Claw (admittedly, with the dead one being the only Prime in their group, things could have been worse; he would come back before long, which was more than could be said for any of the other three, should they end up in his situation) and of course, the NSW had a reputation to maintain. Whilst none of them would ever go so far as to claim that they actually liked Shotgun Steve, they had to admit that their gang’s reputation would take quite the hit if everyone started to get the impression that these Imperial dogs could just saunter their shiny, plastic-coated arses right on down here to Tier Five and start killing off the Wolfpack's best people on a whim.

“Alright, brainless oafs!” shrilled the old hag in the black leather jacket, “You all know the plan! Let’s get to it!”

“Yeah!” a few of the well-built, young (well, young compared to her, at least) men and women around her yelled raucously, beginning to jog towards the stormtrooper barracks. After the pavement on the side of the road, there was a concrete courtyard several metres long before one reached the reinforced steel door of the actual building itself. None of the four who'd shouted actually made it more than a couple metres into this yard before stopping and turning to look back at their comrades.

“Uh...” said no less than a dozen others awkwardly, whilst the rest of the crowd simply milled around without uttering a word and waited for someone to give them clearer direction.

“... What are you all waiting around for!? The plan! Get on with the plan!”

“Um… yeah…” a tough leaned down, bending almost double so that he could whisper into her ear, one hand cupped by the side of his mouth, as though to prevent others from picking up on the question he was asking, despite it being blatantly obvious to everyone present, as they were (almost) all thinking the exact same thing, “what was the plan again, boss?”

“The plan!? How could you forget the plan!? It was so simple! The plan was-! The plan was… the. Plan. Was… the plan... was…” Doreen’s voice, so infuriated only moments before, grew remarkably quieter and less assured as she muttered to herself. Eventually, though, she did come to some conclusion, and her eyes flashed triumphantly, a small, smug smirk tugging up her creased skin around the corners of her mouth, “ah, yes, the plan. The plan was to call William as soon as we got here and ask what to do next. Yes, that must have been it. Ignorant cretins, why didn’t you remind me!?”

She swatted ineffectually at the towering slab of muscle, leather and denim standing before her. The man didn’t so much as twitch. ”Sorry boss, I forgot.”

“Hmph.” the hag fished a sleek, black phone out of her jacket pocket; it was one of these shiny, new, expensive contraptions, with all sorts of confounding features like a four-ghh Dataverse connection and a set of blue teeth, apparently. She never normally used it, but as she had completely forgotten what her part of the plan was, she hardly had much choice at this point.

She tapped the screen a few times. This silly thing didn’t even have any proper buttons, it just sensed her finger when it touched the glass, somehow… it was creepy. Nothing much happened for a while, but after a few false starts, the screen turned black and an interesting-looking message in blocky, white text popped up in its centre: ‘Do you wish to perform a factory reset?’

She wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but she clicked ‘Yes’ anyway. Even if this was the wrong thing, she could just try jabbing more random areas of the screen afterwards. She’d find the actual phone bit eventually.

‘Are you sure?’ showed up on the screen. Frowning slightly, she hit ‘Yes’ again.

‘Are you *really* sure?’ she hit ‘Yes’, scowling now.

‘Do you actually know what a factory reset is?’ once more, she went for ‘Yes’ her lips pursed in annoyance as she pointedly ignored the fact that she did not, in fact, know what a factory reset was at all.

‘Really?’ her screen asked her. ‘Yes’ she told it.

‘And you’re absolutely sure you want to go ahead with it?’ this time, the two button-images beneath the text were labelled ‘Oh, get on with it already!’ and ‘Wait! No! I’ve come to my senses!’. Glaring at the stupid piece of modern tech, which she was sure that that fat bastard William must have intentionally reprogrammed to insult her, Doreen stabbed the former option with one gnarled, twig-like digit.

The screen went black.

“Uh… boss...” came a deep, sonorous voice from behind her, and only then did the shriveled old lady realise that several of her bikers had crowded around her and stared down at the phone whilst she worked. The speaker was a woman with more muscle than most of the men around – which was saying a lot, given her current company – small, dark eyes, weathered, tanned skin and a head shaped like a particularly lumpy potato.

“Yes!? What is it now!?”

“I... uhh... think you just deleted everything on your phone...”

“Huh? Don’t be absurd! Of course I didn’t!” Doreen snapped shrilly, scowling up at the block-headed dolt.

“No, you really did.” another woman replied. This one slimmer and a damn sight younger and prettier, though her crew cut and multiple nose piercings gave her a rough sort of look. Her skin was the hue of dark chocolate and her expression was one of mild disinterest. This one, Doreen even remembered; her name was Vanessa, and she was one of the best damn drivers in the entire NSW, as well as being an excellent mechanic. She was also one of the only four people who had actually announced that they knew what to do when Doreen had told them to follow the plan.

The hag still glared at her, though with significantly less vehemence than she had given the other goon. Her mechanics were her breadwinners, the heart and soul of her personal division of the Northside Wolfpack, so she was rarely as strict with them than with the others.

“Hmph.” she turned her head away after a moment, roughly jamming the now useless phone back in her pocket; with her contacts all wiped, she no longer had any way of reaching anyone… it wasn’t like she could actually be expected to remember phone numbers, after all, “Alright, fine. If I can’t phone anyone then I suppose our only option is to go off and find them, then come back later.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vanessa give her an incredulous look. William Darrell had insisted that they time this perfectly. Both Doreen’s and his own groups were to lie in wait near their designated locations but not engage their targets until Lana’s group, at her father’s hardware store, had launched their attack. It was to be timed perfectly so that none of the swine would be able to contact their comrades and warn them to flee… so it came as no surprise to the elderly motorcyclist that her engineer found this decision appalling… but what choice did they have?

“Boss, I remember the plan. Me and those three.” she spoke slowly and patiently, and gestured over her shoulder with a thumb, indicating the trio who, like herself, had headed for the barracks without asking for any explanations, “Couldn't you just ask any of us?”

“Oh.” Doreen stared at the young woman blankly for a moment… briefly too surprised to be embarrassed for not having thought of something so simple. Then she coughed into a fist abashedly, averting her eyes once more. “Right. Of course. What was it then?”

“Storm the place. Kill the swine. Head down to the basement where they keep their prisoners locked up and rescue the survivors of Steve’s crew who got themselves captured before.”

“They have prisoners in there?” it was Doreen’s turn to sound incredulous. Normal Imperial procedure was to transfer captives to proper prisons ASAP. The facilities in their barracks and stations were really only holding cells, the likes of which a drunk might be thrown into to cool off overnight. Whilst she was as aware as any of the other Claws that these particular stormtroopers weren’t all that popular with their commanders on Tier One right now, she hadn’t realised that their disagreements were serious enough for them to have not even been able (or, perhaps, ‘willing’) to transfer their prisoners.

“That’s what you told us after your meeting with Will an’ Lana.” Vanessa gave her a noncommittal shrug.

“Oh. Okay, then. Let’s kill these fuckers, boys!” the little old lady shrieked, punching the air enthusiastically. A resounding roar of approval burst forth from the crowd of bikers – both the men and women amongst them, despite her use of a gender-specific pronoun to refer to their entire group – and, as one, they stampeded away from their neatly parked white and grey motorcycles (gotta show off them gang colours!) and towards the barracks.

Doreen was swept along with the crowd, though her short legs and arthritic joints made it a trial to keep up with the horde of much fitter men and women around her. Fortunately, the charge lasted but a few moments, before the mob slammed against the locked steel door.

There was a great pressure all around her, and for a few moments Doreen feared she might be crushed amidst her own subordinates. She soon ran out of patience, though, and snapped her fingers.

Doreen was a gangster with an intense passion for motorbiking… but she had not always been such. In fact, when she had first been summoned to the Omniverse, she had been on the Camelot side of the divide. She was a witch. And even though she now preferred a good helmet to a pointy hat, her skills of old had not abandoned her.

The moment her skeletal digits clicked, several small puffs of greasy, oily, black smoke puffed into the air around her out of nowhere. From each of these little clouds of grime, a dark, dirty raven burst, squawking madly. Hardly pausing for a moment to get their bearings, the summoned familiars began pecking and clawing at everyone in sight who wasn’t a mean and vertically-challenged old crone.

After a loud chorus of cursing and swearing from her crew – along with a whole lot of backing off whilst swatting and flailing at the vile creatures attacking them – had cleared some space around her, Doreen waved her gnarled caricature of a hand out before her, fingers curled and claw-like. Instantly, massive rents tore through the bodies of her creations, as though she had just shredded them with actual talons. A fraction of the briefest of moments later, their forms collapsed, returning to being nothing but tiny, filthy clouds, drifting in the breeze.

“Get out of my way! Get out of my way!” whilst her elbowing and shoving could have scarcely hurt her collection of massive bruisers in the slightest, they parted before her nonetheless, not particularly keen on getting attacked by anything more fearsome than a small bird. Her magic allowed her to call upon practically any animal she could envisage, and to keep with Jarl Fenrir’s ‘werewolf’ theme, she had grown accustomed to making use of wolves whenever possible. Obstructing her path when she was pissed off was a good way to get themselves gnawed on, her frequent associates all tended to learn pretty quickly.

Upon reaching the door, she pressed a palm against the lock, before spitting a word that split the air like thunder. Her people backed off a little further. None of them really knew how much she was actually capable of, outside of the Jarl himself, though occasionally she would give them a little hint by displaying some other minor – or not so minor – spell.

In this case, more of that oily smoke from before leaked out from under her palm, which she held in place for a couple seconds, before jerking back suddenly, as though stung. Despite this reaction, those closest could see that she was completely unscathed… which was more than could be said of the poor door.

Below its handle, the lock had melted away completely, all the way through, leaving a two-inch-wide hole in the thick lump of solid steel, that metal having seemingly been transmuted into some sort of gritty, black ooze, which now dripped down the door, giving off the harsh, acidic stink of some sort of chemical waste.

She grabbed the handle and tugged hard, visibly straining to throw it wide… she managed to budge it by about half an inch before backing off, panting from the effort and shaking her hand a little, “You there! Open this blasted thing!”

The individual she had indicated by jabbing one crooked finger towards – the largest man in her field of vision (which wasn’t all that wide, considering how much bigger than her everyone else here was) – stepped forwards and, with no apparent effort, swung the massive slab of steel aside.

A dark and twisted grin stretched the woman’s withered features, and when she spoke next her voice was much quieter than before, yet filled with a horrid sort of savage glee, “Now, get in there and tear this place apart.”

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

“Ahahaha! This is brilliant!” Lana Augustus yelled ecstatically, leaning over the rickety railing at a downright dangerous angle, to be afforded a better view of what was going on on the walkway one level beneath theirs. She was on the central of the three slender steel platforms bolted onto the wall, whilst the object of her attention was on the lower, having just burst up the steps from the ground floor, savaging any of Lana’s goons who dared get in its way.

The creature was a werewolf… an honest to goodness werewolf. Their gang had a reputation for lycanthropy which they’d earned way back when, after a bunch of brutal murders were grossly misinterpreted by the press. The Jarl had loved that so much that he started calling them ‘the Wolfpack’... but still, she hadn’t known until just now that they’d ever had a real werewolf amongst them.

She had immediately recognised Sarah Watt upon seeing her. The black woman with the mysterious aversion to shoes was a Prime and had been a member of Shotgun Steve’s crew prior to her capture and subsequent betrayal of the Northside Wolfpack… yet Lana had been as shocked as anyone else when the woman transformed. Steve certainly hadn’t mentioned anything about her being able to do that.

Knowing him, he’d probably been planning on using the werewolf as some sort of secret weapon for when he inevitably turned on their master. Not that that had worked out all that well for him, of course. Still, as funny as it was to muse over all of that asshole’s plans coming apart at the seams, no amount of entertainment changed the fact that Sarah had turned traitor, which just wasn’t the sort of thing that Lana could overlook.

As she watched, the massive wolf was charged by a pair of her fanatics, one wielding a chainsaw, whilst the other swung a jackhammer like some sort of battering ram. Like Lana herself, the core of her personal forces frequently made use of power tools as weapons, regardless of the inefficiency of it. It was her personal shtick, in no small part because her father owned this store and was generous enough to giver her pretty much whatever she asked for. Her devotees did it to impress her, she was sure... not that she was about to complain; the more hardware her guys n' gals purchased, the happier (and richer) it made her dad.

Sarah’s head darted past the chainsaw, her maw chomping down on the thug’s skull even as his weapon brushed up against the fur over her left shoulder, barely cutting through the strands which seemed to be strong as steel. Jaws tightening, the man gave a hellish shriek, before his head caved in and he went limp. The chainsaw fell, its blades blunted by her hair, leaving nothing more than a shallow laceration in its wake.

The jackhammer was even less effective. It was batted aside with her right forepaw, which then gutted its wielder, striking him with such force that he was sent flying back into the wall, at the foot of which he landed in a crumpled heap. Still, the others came on, rushing madly to their deaths. Lana laughed some more. Oh hells, how she loved her little maniacs. William’s lot may be more professional, Doreen’s bunch might be much more buff, and Steve’s… well, okay, no, Steve’s crew were pretty shit, actually. Hers were the best by far, though, even if not necessarily the most effective.

Sarah Watt was wonderful, though. The Claw couldn't keep the grin off her face as she watched the great, elegant predator tear through her ranks as if her goons were naught but scraps of paper. All told, the beast that the woman had become couldn't have been much less than twenty feet long and ten feet high. The humans just couldn't do a thing to harm her.

All her stormtrooper squad-mates were dead and gone by this point, and so every available gun was firing on her, for what little that seemed to be worth; the most they were apparently achieving with those was singeing her coat. This was going nowhere fast, and so Lana knew what she must do; it was time she put an end to this herself, whilst she still had minions left to boss around.

Hopping over the railing without a thought for her safety, the young woman swung herself down to the level below, dropping onto the walkway in a crouch before the maddened beast. Sarah hadn’t taken it all that well when her comrades and allies had been gunned down all around her. To say that she had lost all self-control would have been somewhat akin to calling a tsunami 'a little damp'. Strings of blood and drool hanging from her mouth, bulging eyes darting from target to target and every muscle tensed to burst forwards and tear apart any who failed to flee before her, the massive creature was a killing machine made flesh. At the sight of their leader and her absurdity of a weapon – the 'Buzzflail'; a device consisting of a long hilt, nine lengths of chain sprouting from its end, and a buzzsaw welded to the end of each of those – even the most foolhardy of her gangsters took a good few steps back.

Pulling on a cord at the opposite end of the hilt from the point at which the chains connected, Lana brought her mad contraption roaring to life. Immediately, the buzzsaws on the ends began skittering madly around the walkway, their wheel-like blades dragging them around as they spun.

“Come on then!” Lana taunted, throwing her arms wide and yelling to be heard over the racket of her preposterous contraption, “Come at me, bitch!”

Dressed in a white vest, grey skinny jeans and a pair of black trainers, the Claw wasn’t protected in the slightest from the claws and fangs of the beast. Unsurprisingly, Sarah took the bait. As she charged, the gangster laughed and swung her right arm with all the strength she could muster. All nine buzzsaws were yanked off the steel flooring and sent flying forwards. One of them, though, which had whizzed around behind her whilst on the platform, jerked up not quite as high as the others, and so rather than shooting past harmlessly overhead, it struck Lana in the back.

Her laughter transforming into a shriek of pain as the razor-edged disk tore into her flesh just to the right of her spine, only a little way beneath her shoulder blade, the young woman nevertheless maintained her composure, even as the momentum of her arm and the chain fixed to the saw dragged it forwards still, tearing a deep and ragged gash all the way up her back and across her shoulder.

As badly as she had been affected, Lana had only been struck by a single saw. The remaining eight had landed more or less right on target. The enormous wolf became tangled and tripped, the remaining blades digging into her body, albeit with slightly less efficacy, given the great resilience of her hair and her vast bulk. The wolf's momentum carried her forwards in spite of her having lost her footing. Sarah slammed into her, and Lana was borne down beneath the beast. She screamed again as her fresh wound struck the walkway, the torn flesh like a line of fire up her back. Her foe sought to rip her apart, jaws snapping at her and massive fangs aiming to bury themselves in her body, as the werewolf snarled loudly and spattered its victim with a revolting mix of blood and saliva from its mouth. Ugh, its breath stank so bad, though.

Repulsed and in pain as she was, the dark-skinned woman grinned nonetheless. She grabbed each of Sarah’s jaws with one hand and focused all her strength on keeping the huge creature at bay, dropping the hilt of her mechanised flail. For a short time, this worked, even if it was quickly becoming apparent to the gangster that between Sarah's full weight pressing down upon her, pressing and scraping her injured flesh against the steel latticework upon which she lay, and the blood loss she was suffering from that cut as well, she couldn't hope to outlast her opponent.

That all changed – for the worse – when the werewolf raised her head. Not wanting to let go and risk those jaws darting back around her before she could get her hands in place to stop them a second time, Lana simply clung on. She laughed, and had been just about to taunt her foe, making some witty remark or other about how Sarah would never manage to toss her off, no matter how much she shook, when the wolf dashed her against the ground.

Lana screamed, her back arching and lights bursting and flashing before her eyes as that line of agony stretching from her shoulder halfway down her back flared up once more, a searing pain burning like the heart of a star. She would have sworn that the wound must have somehow been cauterised with the heat, had she not still been able to feel the hot blood flowing from it and soaking her clothes.

Sarah brought up her head once again, before slamming the gangster against the walkway once more. Then… rinse, and repeat. Over and over again, until it seemed certain that this fight could only end one way. Fewer men and women were firing upon the wolf now; only those with a good enough vantage point to be sure that they couldn't possibly hit their leader by accident... and it wasn't like their shots had been doing a lot even when they had been going all out.

The chains of that ridiculous Buzzflail had fallen to the ground by now, along with their attached hardware… behind them, though, the buzzsaws had left shallow lacerations on the beast’s flanks. Those wouldn’t be nearly enough to take her down, of course, but when one of the power tools spun towards Lana’s head – its blade screeching horribly as it tore across the steel lattice that was the floor of this gangway – the gangster made a split second decision.

Removing her right hand from its place on the werewolf’s lower jaw, Lana grasped at the incoming armament, narrowly avoiding losing a couple digits as she reached for it, sweat-slicked fingers slipping across its smooth surface for a moment, before she had it in her grasp. And then, giggling hysterically, she swung her newly acquired weapon into Sarah’s mouth. Not the side of her jaw, no; actually within the wolf’s maw. The blade bit down into the soft flesh of the creature’s tongue, shredding the tender meat.

Lana laughed with joy at the pained squeal that came from her mighty adversary’s throat… for a moment, at least. And then those great jaws slammed shut, the fangs brutally rending the flesh of her forearm, and snapping the bone like a twig.

She shrieked, losing her grip on the buzzsaw and relinquishing her hold on Sarah’s upper jaw as she scrabbled and scratched madly at those great teeth in a futile effort at pulling them back and freeing her arm. As it happened, though, she need hardly have bothered. The werewolf swung her head around and opened her maw, sending the Claw tumbling backwards through the air until she crashed down onto the platform's steel surface, jarring her ruined arm and bashing her back.

Despite the abject agony she was enduring, after only a few moments on the ground, breathing heavily and shuddering, Lana pushed herself back up to her feet. Still somehow managing a shaky smile. Her vision was dark around the edges and she felt dizzy. The blood loss? The pain? Whatever the cause, she could barely stand up straight. She wasn’t sure when she had begun crying, but it was only now that she had been given this brief respite from being mauled to death that she had noticed the tears streaming down her cheeks. She laughed.

Her right arm hung useless and limp, the lower half of her forearm hanging on by little more than a few strips of meat, feeling as if she had just dunked it in a vat of Fluoroantimonic acid. Her left, though, Lana threw wide, much like she had done earlier, inviting the monster before her to attack once again.

“Come on if you think you're hard enough!” she roared, and after a moment, Sarah did just that. By this point, the sustained fire of the gunners had actually achieved something, with her hide being covered in spots of charred fur and skin, not to mention the numerous gashes she had received from the Buzzflail. None of these injuries seemed to hinder her in the slightest.

The wolf bore down upon her and the gangster grinned up at it, knowing by now that she was completely and utterly fucked, but not able to even consider backing off. The adrenaline pumped through her veins, as it always did in any decent fight, making her feel more alive than she ever could in calmer times. It was brilliant, amazing, spectacular. Even in spite of the waves of raw agony that wracked her body, the thrill, the high she felt at times like these more than made up for it.

Just as it seemed she was about to meet her end, though, a roar came from behind her, along with the sound of many pairs of feet pounding on the rickety walkway, and suddenly her people were all around her, their items of weaponised hardware swinging madly, more than one of them accidentally hitting an ally rather than the wolf.

For a moment, it seemed Sarah would hold fast against this latest tide of frenzied lunacy; her maw snapped shut on the closest man and she heaved him up into the air, shaking him wildly until he stopped screaming, before tossing the body aside, over the railing.

When she bent her head back down to try that again, though, one young lady jammed a drill into her right eyeball and cried out in triumph as the werewolf shrieked its agony. Stumbling to the side, trying desperately to get away from that horrific pain, Sarah bumped into the flimsy railing on her left, which promptly bent, buckled and broke beneath her weight. She fell, flailing madly to try and find some way of keeping herself from slipping off the platform. She failed in that, but did manage to rake her claws down the face and chest of the drill-woman, who had recklessly darted forwards after her, trying to keep her weapon embedded in the creature’s eye socket for as long as possible.

Sarah slammed into the solid stone surface of the Hardware Outlet’s floor with a sickening crack, whilst her attacker crumpled to the ground, clutching at her face and screaming in anguish. A few foolhardy fellows leapt down from the hole in the railings to confront the beast, but after seeing what became of them – one’s trajectory took him too close to the wolf, which unpurposely disemboweled him with a paw whilst scrambling to get back up; one landed on his feet and promptly collapsed as his leg broke beneath him; whilst the last somehow managed to hit the ground face first, breaking his neck with a snap – the rest of the fanatical psychopaths turned away from the gap and meekly took the stairs.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Now

They were loud, harsh breaths, for such a small woman.

Timidly, a six foot seven bruiser with biceps like watermelons crept towards the little old lady, through the the thick, charcoal grey smoke. He licked his lips nervously, “Uh… b-boss? You… better... yet?”

Things turned to face him. He shuddered, and gulped. He could only see them out of the corners of his eyes, but there was no doubt that they were there. He could hear soft, padding footfalls, as light as breaths of wind. A shape that might have been a bear lumbered past on his right. He had only caught a glance, and even that had been obscured by the haze in the air…

But he knew that it had been watching him, like all the rest. Something brushed up against his leg and he whimpered, flinching away, only to almost topple over as he stumbled on something. Looking down, against his better judgement, the smoke seemed to clear a little, as if something wanted him to see what was down there.

White armour stained crimson, the plastoid plate shattered as though it were no more durable than a dinner plate, half a disembodied hand lay discarded in the centre of a pool of blood. The thumb, index, middle and ring fingers were all there, though the pinky and most of the palm were nowhere in sight.

Wrenching his gaze away, he forced one foot in front of the other, “Boss, please, it’s over. It’s over, y-you can stop now.”

“Yes.” a small voice whispered hoarsely. Doreen Withers was bent over, kneeling on the ground, “It’s all over. All over. All dead. So many dead. We have to get them back. We have to make them pay.”

“No, boss-” he began. She had responded. That was good. He had felt a flicker of hope when she first spoke, though it was quickly snuffed out, like a match in a gale, by her words. She hadn’t taken it well. Not well at all. She didn’t even realise that she had already done everything she was contemplating.

“No? No!?” she whirled to face him, her lined old face tear-streaked and racked with grief. Grief, and rage. Around him, the sounds of shuffling beasts grew louder, and a few low growls echoed dimly through the passageway. From somewhere he couldn't quite pinpoint, all noise somehow being warped and concealed by the miasma around him, came the sound of wings beating furiously, and a raven’s caw, “You want to let them go? You want to let them get away with what they've done!? Traitor!”

“No! I’m not! I’m not a- Aaaaaaarggh!” just moments after her condemnation, they fell upon him. Even then, he got no clear view of any of them. It was no surprise to him at all that these abominations had so easily torn their way through the Empire's forces so easily. Claws, talons, spines, beaks, fangs, mandibles and stingers of all sizes and shapes shredded his flesh as he screamed and writhed in their grasp. He fell, their great combined weight crushing him beneath their bodies. He coughed, choking, unable to even cry out any more. The smoke was much, much stronger now, as though it were seeping from the pores of the beasts themselves.

The thug sought feebly to shove them away. Their fur, feathers, scales, or whatever else they might have felt greasy. Oily. Filthy. He hardly had time to ponder these impressions, though. There came an agonising, wrenching sensation in his gut, and he did manage to find the air to shriek this time, though from where he knew not. Before him, a hazy figure whose silhouette somewhat resembled that of a gorilla reared up, the gangster's intestinal tract dangling from a maw filled with needle-like teeth that no gorilla he’d ever heard of had been equipped with.

***

Down the hallway, in a small room, cowering and whimpering and weeping in a corner, were some of the survivors of Doreen’s crew. Big, tough men and women all, they huddled in fear, trying to block out the screams and cries of the man who had sought to calm their leader. Just as they had done when this same fate had befallen the two who had preceded him.

They'd closed the door, but even so, the smog was finding its way in. It was already a foot high off the ground, and still rising steadily. If none of them could calm her, or the old woman didn’t manage to calm herself, somehow, then before too long there would be enough of the smoke in here for things like those outside to begin forming. And when that happened, the whole group was convinced, that would be the end of them all.


A Short Time Earlier

Vanessa Cartwright was burnt. She supposed she ought to have been grateful that these Imperial fuckers loved their blasters so damn much. Cauterised wounds didn’t bleed, after all. Better this than a bullet wound, she told herself. It wasn’t much of a comfort, not with a hole punched in her left shoulder and that arm flopping limply at her side.

It hurt like hell, she may well be crippled for life, and the boss was gonna be seriously pissed off at her. Doreen hadn’t even wanted to bring any of her engineers originally, but when Vanessa and a couple others had insisted on coming along, she had ("against my better judgement", as she put it) eventually conceded, as she often did when her favourites wanted something. She was going to be insufferable when she got wind of this.

The young woman smiled in spite of her pain, though, and in spite of the lectures and the punishment detail still to come. Getting this far had cost them good men and women – too many good men and women; these self-proclaimed ‘elites’ and their supposedly untrained stormtrooper recruits had put up more of a fight than they had been anticipating – but they had finally reached their destination. The command centre.

From this room, those three motherfuckers had orchestrated every misfortune the NSW bikers had faced thus far, and now the swine were about to pay dearly for it. Oh yes, she was going to enjoy this, “You ready?”

“Yah.” rumbled a mountain of a man standing before the door. The rest of them – Vanessa included – were all crowded into the passageway behind him. There was going to be one hell of a mad rush to be the first inside once that door came down. They’d all lost friends today, and none of them were in a forgiving mood.

“Alright Carl, hit it.” the thug, Big Carl, slammed his Enforcer (a type of handheld battering ram) into the door. Once, twice, thrice… and so on. It didn’t take too long. And then they were struggling and shoving against one another. The woman cursed and swore and bit her tongue to keep from screaming whenever anyone bumped too hard against her injured shoulder.

Eventually, she was in. Immediately, she noticed that something was wrong.

The bikers were tearing the place apart, shooting at or hitting or kicking or throwing everything they possibly could. The gangsters were so sure that their quarry must be here that they were destroying everything in sight in their efforts to root out their hidden prey.

In the room’s centre was a raised dais, atop which was a ring of computing equipment. Very hi-tech, very Empire. Beyond the platform, other desks spread out in concentric circles. All completely unoccupied.

She was forced further in by the tide of people at her back. Before she had gotten more than a few metres, though, lights flickered at the centre of the dais, and three faces she was getting to know all too well appeared before them. They were holograms, their entire bodies comprised of nothing but blue light. All three wore stormtrooper armour, sans helmets. The one in the middle, reclining casually in a chair, was an elf with delicate ears that slanted backwards and must have been a good foot long. The pair standing at his shoulders were humans. One male, one female.

“Hello again, vile intruders,” the elf said smugly. Unlike Lana’s group, who were no doubt having an easy time of it, having been the ones to spring an ambush of their own upon the stormtroopers, Doreen’s people had been hit hard by all the tricks and traps that the Imperials had, it seemed, wisely opted to put in place in the aftermath of Steve’s botched attack on their base, “and once again, goodbye.”

He held up both hands, his right with middle finger and thumb pressed together, whilst his left was curled into a fist. Slowly, he unfurled his left index finger. He was pointing at something above their heads. The ceiling? Vanessa, along with many, many others, turned their faces up in the indicated direction. There were six small spheres somehow stuck up there. The hologram snapped the fingers of its right hand, and with a mechanical click, something was released, and the half dozen orbs began to drop.

The young woman had never seen anything precisely like these before, but could guess their purpose easily enough. She flung herself to the ground, heedless of the threat of being trampled by her own allies in her desperation to avoid the detonation of what she was sure must be grenades.

There was a flash of blue light. She never felt a thing.

***

Moments later, when the survivors from the hallway – those who had been far enough back from the entrance to escape a plasma bath – poked their heads into the room, they were, to a man (or woman), horrified by what they saw. Which was molten metal, mostly. The entire room looked as though someone had tried to use it to contain a miniature sun for a few hours. Aside from the ash and embers mixing with the red-hot liquid that was the floor, nothing even remained of their comrades.


Back Before That

“Oh no, you won't be getting through this way.” the holographic elf informed them smugly, before turning his head to his right and waving at someone, “Over this way!”

That prick was standing in a landing of sorts, where three corridors met. Not far from him, in the main passage, were one of the groups that Doreen’s bikers had been split up into for the purposes of this assault… and judging by the sound of running footsteps headed their way, the corridor which connected to theirs at a right angle, on their left, into which they could not see, must be filled with rapidly approaching stormtroopers.

Leo – a blond guy with shaggy hair, a goatee and tattoos all down his arms, who wore a grey denim waistcoat, matching jeans, a white vest and black combat boots – scowled. He, like the other few here with more than two brain cells to rub together (i.e. the bunch who had succeeded in memorising their extremely simple plan), was a member of their engineering corps, the old hag’s elite, her brainiest bunch… not that that was exactly the highest praise, considering the rest of the meatheads who filled out her ranks.

It was for this reason, though, that he had been placed in charge of these fools, and it was because he was in charge that the big lugs listened to him when he barked at them to stop shooting at the intangible, glowing, blue man in front of them. How on Earth those pea-brained cretins had yet to realise that blue light meant holograms, he had no idea.

It wasn’t like they’d been seeing them infrequently or anything. Practically the entire time they’d been inside the confusing and winding corridors of this damned building, these fuckers had been showing up constantly, taunting them, luring them into ambushes or distracting them. They had a huge numerical advantage over the swine, and their guys and gals were way hardier and tougher than their foes in their little shells of plastic, so they oughta be winning…

Yet instead, it seemed they were being outmanoeuvred at every turn. It did occur to Leo that perhaps he wasn’t the best person to serve in a leadership role, given he was just a mechanic with absolutely no experience at command whatsoever… but as the rest of his comrades likely weren't bright enough to count past ten without taking off their shoes, he was left with little choice but to do the best he could. He sure as hell wasn't about to let one of that lot take his place.

He ground his teeth together, trying to make a choice. He could hear the clatter of many pairs of booted feet charging down the metal hallway, aiming for the junction they had also been headed towards. It sounded like a lot of them. Maybe even all of them. Could it be possible that the barracks’ entire complement of troops had just formed up into one single group and was simply marching around their base obliterating any of the smaller squads that Doreen’s people had split themselves into, whenever they came across them? Possibly? Maybe?

Leo would be the first to admit that he knew nothing of the ways of strategy and tactic, but it seemed a reasonable enough plan… and if an accurate assessment, it would make sense for he and his followers to back off for now… the only thing was, this had been happening entirely too often. On the rare occasion that they had crossed paths with other bikers amidst this mess of a maze, those teams had also reported hearing large numbers of stormtroopers running about the place. It seemed highly unlikely that they could get around that fast… and the presence of their helmetless tormentors already proved that there was some sort of hologram tech rigged up throughout the building… so who was to say that these armies too could not just be mere phantoms?

It was a risk, but they could never hope to win if they allowed themselves to continue being corralled like hapless sheep, “Stop.”

The dozen or so bruisers around him, who had been starting to back off slowly, hesitated. Leo was a lean figure, never the sort to be called scrawny, but beside the goliaths that made up most of the crone’s biker gang, even he seemed short and skinny. One woman – almost seven feet tall, with her butter-yellow hair in a chin-length bob, a nose that looked to have been broken at least three times, and a belly like a keg of beer – spoke up, “Huh? You sure, Leo? They prob’ly gonna shoot us when they get here, y’know that?”

Sally, she was called. To publicly denounce her as being thick as a plank would have earned anyone numerous objections from Lana’s DIY aficionado group, who would none too politely inform the denouncer that they didn’t make planks that thick, and what they might be thinking of could more accurately be described as ‘logs’, or perhaps ‘tree trunks’.

“Just wait. Be ready to fire back if I say so.” there was no point in trying to explain anything to her. Not only would his words just go straight in one ear and out the other, but they didn’t have time to even attempt it.

He steeled himself for what was to come, tensing his muscles, preparing to dive to the ground if those really were actual stormtroopers approaching. Alongside him, his crew fidgeted nervously. They may have been a big bunch of toughs, but even they were bright enough to realise that plasma bolts were still deadly no matter how bulging your biceps or how prodigious your pecs.

The stormtroopers rounded the corner and opened fire. His own people shot back immediately, in blatant violation of his order not to do so unless commanded. Leo breathed a sigh of relief, too pleased to care that they had ignored him. Brandon, the holographic elf, scowled. The swine he had called over were nothing more than a recording. Ghostly blue images projected into the air around them. They were shooting, but their attacks were no less intangible than their bodies.

“Stop firing! Stop firing!” the mechanic roared, and gradually, hesitantly, the bikers did as ordered. The stormtroopers continued blasting them, though of course their bolts did no harm. Slowly, the fools Leo had been saddled with seemed to realise that they had nothing to fear and began grinning and laughing amongst themselves.

Brandon snapped his fingers and the illusion vanished. He sighed, irritated, “Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time until one of you cretins proved bright enough to work out what we’ve been doing. Tch.”

After casting a parting glare are Leo, the elf vanished just as had his imaginary troops. Brimming with satisfaction, the mechanic strode forwards, “Come on! They obviously don’t want us headed this way, so what do you lot say we follow this path and see what it is they’re so desperate to keep us from, huh?”

“Yeah!” with a roar of agreement, his group of a couple dozen leather- and denim-clad bikers charged after him. They headed straight on, past the intersection and down the long corridor ahead of them.

Or they would have done, at least.

Just as he was almost across the little landing, Leo felt a furious, firey pain lancing through his gut. He stumbled, looked down. A smoking hole on either side of his stomach. The plasma bolt had passed straight through. But… how…? Where?

He turned. Vision blurring, dizziness threatening to overwhelm him. As much as this hurt, he was sure it ought to have been even worse. Was he going into shock? There were screams around him, and flashes of light as his team were mown down like blades of grass… they were faint, though. The noise of his own ragged breathing seeming to be the loudest thing in the vicinity. Facing the junction he had bypassed, Leo saw them now.

He couldn’t make out numbers, not when everything around him seemed to be doubling and tripling up of its own accord. But he could tell that they were stormtroopers easily enough. Lying in wait halfway down the adjoining hallway, their first row knelt on one knee as they fired bolt after bolt, whilst those lined up behind them stood, shooting over the heads of their compatriots.

Another blast took him in the shoulder and he stumbled back, gasping at the sharpness of the heat, tripping over something – someone – and falling, landing on his ass. He struggled to stand, but then was struck a third time, on the right side of his chest. He toppled. Leo was no expert on human biology, but he knew where his lungs lay. Without immediate medical attention, he knew he didn’t have long left to live.

A blue light flickered into existence before him. That damned elf. Back to looking smug. Brandon Windvale's ethereal form stood with hands clasped behind its back, smirking down at the gangster, who coughed. He could taste blood in his mouth. His wounds burned, but for some reason his extremities felt icy cold. His eyelids were getting heavy.

“Oh yes, you saw right through us. However will we stand up to such wisdom and cunning?” his tormentor taunted, his words seeming to come from a great distance away. He then chuckled softly. The screaming had mostly ceased by this point, though the sound of plasmafire continued unabated, now with a chorus of moans and whimpers supplementing it from the background.

Leo closed his eyes, wheezing softly. He coughed again. Blood escaped his mouth this time, a few drops spattering on the steel-paneled floor, whilst a trickle ran down from his lips. He could feel it on his skin. It was one of the few things he could still feel. He wasn’t sure if the fighting was over or whether the elf still spoke, but there was no noise now. He relaxed, letting the welcoming numbness envelop him.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

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.”