Isobel Brandt \\ Persephone (praxidike) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-04-14 09:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: space, issan ren, liriael d'lander |
the enemy's right up in your face
Who: Liriael D'lander & Issan Vox.
What: Backdated like woah; Liri is guarding a shipment on board a Corellian freighter and ends up duking it out with a pre-KoR Issan.
Where: Asteroid field along the Corellian Trade Spine.
When: Before Issan was a member of the Knights of Ren.
Rating: A for Action?
The Wraith hovered amid a cloud of asteroid dust and rocks, waiting patiently for its target: a trade freighter making its way along the Corellian Trade Spine, directed toward Bespin. The current leg of its journey put it in the small stretch of empty space between Nkolln and Riflor.
Clad in black, form-fitting clothing, Issan made ready in the docking bay of her master's ship. Glasya was at the helm; it was her duty to quickly and quietly board the ship, acquire the item they were looking for, and then escape. The plan had worked for them a myriad number of times before; sending one person rather than a whole squadron of armed mercenaries was a dangerous endeavor, but Issan was confident that her Force abilities gave her the advantage. Her handmade lightsaber hung attached to one hip; a dagger tucked into her boot allowed her the smallest amount of reassurance.
She pressed one hand to the wall as the Wraith disengaged from the asteroid it had been using as cover, her form tossed perilously without proper safeguards. She'd have to talk to Glasya about adding some handhold if they were going to keep doing this; it would serve no one if she was knocked out before she could even board the enemy vessel.
Their quarry put up a bit of a fight, but a quick blast to their external drives dropped them from any capability of hyperdrive. Glasya moved the Wraith closer to the ship, catching hold of it with practiced ease. His job completed, Issan pressed herself to the far wall as she watched both their ship and the attacked freighter's doors forced open, allowing her a way in; sparking wires and smoke covered her entrance long enough for her to disappear along one hallway.
Though their prey wasn't quite large enough for Issan to completely avoid its inhabitants, her cloaking ability was more than enough to allow her to bypass one man, coughing from the smoke, who ran by with a box of tools in hand. She pressed on, feeling outward; the object she sought, a Jedi artifact, was ensconced in a storage area off the starboard side. Along with it, Issan could sense another presence; there was something about it that was slightly off putting, but she cleared her mind of such thoughts for the moment. Whatever challenge was presented to her, she'd deal with it.
The doors to the storage area opened and closed seemingly without a body to activate such a procedure.
“No, no, no,” Liriael was muttering to herself as she checked her blaster once more. She had taken all number of bodyguard jobs, meaningless little security bits, and even her share of piloting some trumped up jerk from one spot in the galaxy to another. But this was much more important to her. Anything related to the Jedi was important, and she couldn’t stand the idea of it being stolen. Damn it, if it disappeared into the black market somewhere, she’d never track it down again. Gritting her teeth, she stood aside as the captain and his crew made a feeble effort at escape, knowing her suggestions wouldn’t be welcome, before she abandoned the bridge and headed straight for the storage area. She’d throw her whole body on it if she needed to. The ship jerked and lurched, and she ignored the pain as she was slammed into one wall during her run to the artifact. Boarding party. She didn’t want to have to kill pirates or looters, even if they were coming for the ship, but she had to do what she had to do.
Taking up residence in front of the packed crates, she drew her blaster, and then extended her senses outward, feeling carefully. A crewmember stumbled by outside, coughing on smoke. She ignored him, tuned him out. There was the telltale creak of docking doors being forced, the hiss of electrical outputs pushed past their normal boundaries. All of this, she catalogued and set aside. People, she needed to track people.
However, for a long moment, she thought there was no one. Odd, no pounding of feet, no hurled commands, not even blaster fire. She had not mistaken the sound of the docking ring being locked, indicating that the ships were pressurized together and shared an atmosphere. They were open, vulnerable. So why did she not-
Hissing out a breath, Liri caught the brief sensation of an intruder, and her nerves went cold. A Force user. At least one, although she hoped only one. Now that she understood what she was looking for, she could feel past the subtle suggestion, make out the slow form in the smoke. Lifting her blaster at the door, she waited until they irised open, and she leveled her sights on the target.
“You’re not getting past me,” she ground out, firmly.
Issan made the calculated move of staying close to the wall, moving to the left and away from the doors; the presence of a second Force user, though inexperienced, gave her pause. Her eyes roved over the woman, peering at her from one side of the room, hidden behind a stack of crates; she looked roughly similar in age and build to Issan, if a little taller. This was going to become minimally more difficult, but Issan couldn't help but smirk: she did so enjoy a challenge.
"I think I already have," she replied loudly enough for the woman to hear her, arrogance gaining a foothold over her better judgement. She reached out with her Force sense and grabbed the blaster, jerking it from the woman's grip. "But I think we ought to level the playing field a little, don't you?"
Liriael winced as the blaster was torn from her grip, her fingers stinging. She dared not grab for it again, not with this woman advancing on the cargo. She wasn’t too worried, yet, as her hand to hand skills were likely better than her aim anyway. And now she could pinpoint the intruder. Speaking up was going to be her first mistake. “Sure,” she replied. “Let me know when you’ve leveled it.”
With a mighty push of the Force, Liri shoved the crates against the wall, attempting to pin the other woman there.
Issan darted to the side, away from the falling crates; the movement had her skidding on her knees, but she quickly came back to her feet, one hand on a shelving unit.
"Ooo, you're stronger than I thought." Her hand idly toyed with her lightsaber, but she ultimately decided against it, at least for the moment. This was supposed to be a quick, in-and-out job, and she knew Glasya would be irritated if she dallied, but it had been some time since she'd been presented with an interesting opponent.
With a thought, the smoke in the room suddenly doubled through one of Issan's illusions, choking what little oxygen was left for the two combatants. Issan rushed at the blond, moving behind her to strike out with an elbow that connected with the back of the woman's head.
Liri’s moment of satisfaction was short-lived, as the smoke suddenly doubled. She reacted automatically, backing away from the smoke even as her lungs seized at the intrusion. Extending her senses, she peered through it, searching for her opponent, but pain exploded at her nape as Issan’s elbow struck her, knocking her down to her knees even as she coughed, violently.
Using her new position as leverage, Liri swept her leg in a vicious arc against the other woman’s feet, as she started to regain her breath down below the billowing, noxious smoke.
The woman's maneuver connected, sweeping Issan off her feet; she twisted like a cat, landing on her hands and pushing herself back to her feet. She couldn't fight back the smile as the woman remained low, believing wholeheartedly in her illusion. Issan took a step back, and instead slashed out with her Force abilities, unmaking the woman's skin along one cheekbone and opening a shallow cut.
Liri let that slip by her, only hissing slightly at the pain as the skin parted, a trickle of blood sliding down her cheek. Already she was coming to her own feet although she kept crouched low, and then ran at Issan, throwing her whole body weight into the blow.
Issan was bowled over, surprised by the sudden and coarse tactic. As she went down, she rolled, coming up off to one side. Gritting her teeth, she extended her illusion to the floor, making the thick smoke cover all available areas. The heat in the room also rose, implying a fire somewhere in the vicinity. Moving slowly through her own self-made cover, she approached the woman again, striking her with a knee followed by a strong hit to the back of the woman's neck with a fist.
As the smoke became impenetrable, Liriael reached out with her senses once more, only to be confused by the sensation as both the smoke and the woman’s movements melded into one. Suddenly angry, she tore through the smoke and heat with her mind, succeeding in dissipating it only where she stood, long enough to begin to realize what it was, but it was too late. Issan’s knee took her in the side, while her fist connected to her neck, causing pain to explode through her head and make her dizzy.
Shoving that aside, Liri immediately rounded on the other woman, with a swinging kick meant to take her right in the abdomen. She followed it with another uppercut, having to force her senses through the confusing aura of smoke, heat, and Force user.
All breath left Issan's body as the foot connected with her stomach, her chin knocked up; she could feel her teeth cut into her lip, tasting blood. She grinned, tongue making a clumsy circle over her lips.
"Feisty," she commented. "At least you're making this fun." She punched outwardly to push the woman off her guard, followed by a cross and an elbow that caught the woman in the same cheek where she'd received the earlier cut. She grabbed the woman's arm, pulling her forward while she was still thrown off by the former blows, and brought a knee up into the woman's stomach.
Too predictably, Liri flinched from the punch, and white pain exploded behind her eyes as the cross hook and then the elbow pounded into her jaw and cheek. She staggered, as her arm was yanked forward and the knee forced the breath out of her, leaving her choking and gasping on her knees. The blow had been so hard that she’d heard a rib crack, felt the jagged edge pressing into muscle with agonizing pain. She wasn’t going to have time to catch her breath, so she held it as she punched as hard as she could into her assailant’s stomach, which was at chest level for her now. It lacked power because she did not have a secure stance, trying to push off with her knees, but she just needed the woman far enough back for Liriael to snatch a breath before she suffocated.
Issan was knocked back a step, but she kept her grip on her opponent. She kneed her again, striking hard against the cracking bone; her Force ability gnawed at the area, forcing more snaps from the woman's ribcage.
"It's my thought that you should give up now," Issan drawled, throwing the woman to the floor. "Or we can keep going. If you just let me take what I came to get, you'll get out of this alive. Mostly." She kicked her in the stomach, directly in her bruised and broken ribcage.
For a second, Liri could not think past the pain. She coughed still from the smoke and the loss of breath; a wet sound of blood splattered on the metal floor, and each heave of her lungs sent fresh waves of agony. However, she still managed to roll away from the next kick, coming to one knee a few feet away.
“Do you even know what you are doing here, pirate?” she spat, her teeth red as she bared them. “Stealing something only of historical value, wasting it on some fat Hutt on the black market for a few credits?”
Issan made a tsk tsk sound. "That you think I'm simply a lowly pirate tells me that you're very much out of your depth." She walked over the woman, scanning the boxes with her eyes and her Force abilities. The package she sought came quickly to hand, sitting plainly on a shelf for all the world to see. Issan wasn't sure if they were going for a 'hiding in plain sight' strategy or if they'd really been that foolish, but she didn't bemoan this part of her infiltration being simple. She pulled the box down, setting it on another two and popped the locks to see the artifact whole and intact within.
Smiling, she closed it all up again. "Trust me, this will go to a far better use than whatever you had planned for it." She put the box on her hip, and raised a hand, then paused. "You'd do well to remember me for the next time, because I have a feeling we'll run into each other again. The name's Issan, and I certainly hope you'll be better prepared." With that, she waved her hand and cast the illusion ability again, disappearing from sight. The smoke that wafted through the room still created an outline, but for all intents and purposes, she was invisible.
She headed for the door, carting her prize along with easy agility.
Liriael tried to talk, to protest, but she didn’t have enough breath. One of the broken ribs had punctured a lung, so she could feel the suffocating sensation creeping up. Still, she tried one more time to reach out, to stop Issan from taking the artifact. Reaching out with her hand, she tried to pull it to her, calling on her imperfect grasp of the Force, still untrained and weak. It backfired spectacularly, sending a shock of pain through her temple and she dropped her hand and lay weakly on the floor.
“Issan,” she whispered, to herself. “Damn right, I’ll remember.”