Who: Kanan Jarrus & Lina Inverse, with NPC!Sherra What: Investigating a suspicious weapon drop-off When: Before Kanan lost his sight Where: Shipping docks Rating/Warnings: Violence via light sabers and magic, criminal underworld talk Status: Complete!
It was a small port, but someone paid a pretty penny to have shipments be received late at night - of that, the sorceress was sure of. Salt in the air, the sea breeze coming in with the waves lapping against the small ships and docks this place wasn’t far from home and that’s what had irritated the living shit out of Lina. It wasn’t as if she kept tabs on every package of smuggled goods coming in or out of the Pacific, but the tip she received had names all too familiar - names so unique, so specific, that they couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.
Maybe the intel was garbled bullshit. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Same with the idea that someone wanted to take the reigns of daddy’s legacy and rebuilt it from the ashes, phoenix rising - and if that was the case then she’d put a stop to it like she did before.
And maybe, just maybe, it was also something else. Someone else. That particular hunch didn’t die down so easily despite her attempts at rationalizing it. Coincidences weren’t uncommon, but she knew how hilarious this place liked to be in the first place - and her conversation with Gourry, the swordsman of her literal dreams, had been on repeat ever since, Now she couldn’t let it go.
“If this pans out to be nothing suspicious, we can sell the stuff and split the cut,” offered the redhead, dressed in clothes woven by pitch-black darkness - a light yet tattered leather jacket, tight jeans and sturdy boots. She and Kanan weren’t positioned far, outside of their vehicle and behind a wall of boxes draped in raggedy tarp. “If this does pan out to be something suspicious, guess we’ll see, but my goal’s to try and keep it quiet. I don’t want to draw more people to us.”
It was an unusually small cargo ship that was approaching with people patrolling, ready to unload it and pack it all up in a truck. Lina counted six, maybe seven men, and from the looks of it ex-military. Not ones to be trifled with.
It had been a year since Kanan had retired from the smuggling business. He only had one major client that he still did the occasional weapons run for. And he was known to do the occasional favor here and there. Ok, so maybe he was mostly retired. He had legit work now. More or less. But retired, semi-retired, or not, Kanan lived for this type of shit. It really was all he knew.
Like the red-headed sorceress next to him, Kanan was clad in dark clothing, a pair of leather gloves covering his hands. The hilt and handguard to his light saber hitched to his belt along with his blaster and a gun each tucked into a holster and easily accessible, should this whole operation turn tits up.
He was watching the boat as it approached, a slight frown on his face, a mostly smoked cigarette between his lips. “Yeah,” he agreed. Best not alert the entire docks that they were there. The size of the ship troubled him. Most smugglers smuggled their contraband among legitimate cargo. False bottoms, hidden chambers. Drugs and jewels stuffed into innocuous things such as stuffed animals or hollowed out pieces of furniture. Kanan wasn’t sure he liked the idea of that entire ship, small as it was, bringing in weapons alone. The presence of armed ex-military personell was also very troubling. Someone certainly meant business.
“Still no idea who’s running the show, huh?” He asked, teal eyes flickering towards Lina. “So, what’s the plan?”
“No clue on the who,” was her honest answer, though there were several theories - none of which could be officially confirmed unless she came here, personally, to see what was going on with her own two devil-red eyes. One that stuck to her like glue (and she felt like it was irrational) was something Gourry had told her, and maybe it was merely a coincidence but sometimes coincidences didn’t exist here. More like ill-fated luck that had you both laughing and crying at the same time.
Lina had a lot of those.
Weapons weren’t necessary for her. Hell, she was her own - a pixie-sized bullet of spell-casting destruction, but she had no plans to go about this fireballs blazing. Subtle was meant to be her approach but, well, sometimes things didn’t always go as planned. “Let them unload the ship, then we’ll go in while they’re distracted. I doubt we’ll get one alive to beat the crap out of for info, so we’ll need to see the guns.”
Nah, these guys weren’t the type for diplomacy. These were killers with specialized training, a lot more than she definitely had in the art of combat, but sorcery would keep her head above water.
So wait and watch was the current plan and Kanan was alright with that. Diplomacy wasn’t his speciality either and he was perfectly fine letting these guys do all the heavy lifting for them. Kanan took a final drag off his cigarette before putting the burnt out butt into a cylinder he kept in the breast pocket of his dark jacket. “Good enough for me,” he stated. “I’ll wait for your word.”
Briefly, there was a flash of something that caught her eye - a flicker of a silhouette of someone small, too small to be part of this illegal rouse. Could have been a trick of the moonlight, could have been something, but she nudged Kanan as a sign to keep on high-alert in case that something became a problem.
“We’ve a third party lurking, I think,” she mumbled under her breath - they couldn’t act on it without giving themselves away, and the shipments were beginning to roll off the ship’s ramp. There was nothing spectacular about the containers, either, but they were metallic, so hopefully hard to damage in case things got a little…
Wild.
Lina would throw the first curveball of distractions to segue their grand interruption. Her eyes squinted, and her fingers drew a circle in the air in sync with a hushed chant under her breath - and as her finger moved, so did some dirt around the closest armed minion until there was an indented circle around him in the ground.
“Dill Brand.” There was a mini-boom underneath one of them - nothing that’d blow their legs off but it knocked them off their feet after tossing them up the air and giving them a particularly rough landing. It alerted the rest and caused them to ready their firearms, their focus like dogs of war, and the sorceress let out a low whistle. “Alright, Kanan. Screw on the subtle. Let’s fuck ‘em up, you Jedi Master, you.”
Hey, come to think of it? She hadn’t seen him put that light saber in action. Lina was looking forward to it.
Kanan felt something a split second before Lina nudged him. Not a disturbance so much as a subtle shift in the air, as if to warn him that he and the sorceress weren’t alone out there tonight. Kanan couldn’t tell who exactly was out there or why, but whoever it was didn’t give any kind of ill intent. Still, it was more than a little unsettling that they had an audience for what was about to go down. He was about to flex his connection further when Lina decided now was the time to get this party started.
Now, technically Kanan wasn’t a master. Depa Billaba and Yoda, they were masters. Until recently, Kanan had been a lowly Padawan who had never officially finished his training. He had received his knighthood in an old disused Jedi temple, however, after an extremely intense fight with a trio of temple guards. The guards, as it chillingly turned out, all were vestiges of the Inquisitor -- the same man who had pursued Kanan and his crew relentlessly on behalf of the Empire -- leaving Kanan with the unsettling realization that he had once been a Jedi. It had become clear that Kanan Jarrus hadn’t been the only one to fall when the Empire took over.
Not that he was going to correct Lina. Master had a certain ring to it (Be mindful of your ego, Caleb), and Lina sounded like she wanted to see just what a Jedi could do. Kanan was only happy to show her. He may have been mostly retired, but he really lived for this shit.
He didn’t get to say amusing magic words in order to use his telekinesis to hurl three thugs into the water with a wave of his arm before they could get a few pot shots off at them. He turned and with one hand pulling back towards him, caused another thug to ram into another hard enough to knock both of them out.
Sadly, that was all Kanan really had time to do before the bullets had started to fly. Kanan’d had a year to perfect his skills with his lightsaber to deflect those bullets. He hadn’t quite gotten the knack of being able to redirect those bullets, but at least he wasn’t getting shot.
Oh, yeah, definitely so much for subtle - Lina didn’t know the definition of it sometimes, and her methods weren’t the least bit roguish. More like wrecking ball of utter, flashy destruction that left craters and ash. Kanan’s method was meshing well with her usual way of doing things, grin breaking across when the ones blasted off landed in the water with cannonball-esque splashes. They wouldn’t be down for the count so easily, either.
“Don’t let ‘em put a hole in you!” she cheered, using the leverage of a levitation spell to hop out of cover and into the open, floating in the air effortlessly and streaming from her fingers was electricity, golden-white that sizzled - and like bolts of lightning, the triggering chaos words allowing it to fire off, she let out scintillating blasts of charged currents into the water.
Good timing, too, as they were beginning to climb back onto land with every intention of getting even, but they weren’t going to get that far. The water lit and flashed brightly and the bodies convulsed, twitched, and were left floating with steam rising from their skin.
Burnt flesh among the briny waters, gross. It smelled like a kraken’s barbecue.
Kanan could do subtle, but there were times in which it was just so much fun not to be. And tonight he was having a blast! A break in the gunfire aimed in his direction gave him the chance to use Force powered telekinesis to yank their guns right out of their hands and send them skittering across the dock and into the water, or under some of those boxes they had so carefully unloaded from the ship.
Thank god, because no sooner then he’d disarmed those trying to shoot him than Lina had fried the poor fuckers in the water. “Ugh!” Kanan clamped a hand over his mouth and nose. Those powers were nothing to fuck around with. Kanan was extremely thankful for being on Lina’s good side -- and prayed he was never on her bad one.
If it hadn’t been obvious to the remaining hired muscle that they weren’t dealing with anything normal here, some quick decisions had to be made. Stand their ground and fight, or cut their losses and run?
Thick muscles didn’t always mean there was compensation for a lack of brain - part of the gig involved intelligence, knowing when to back off when they were outpowered because no one could pay enough to have them lose their lives like this. Lina didn’t see the point of chasing after them when they locked themselves into their truck and drove off, wheels screeching against the cement, burnt rubber making the air that much more unpleasant.
They were fucked, anyway. What kind of employer was going to believe a man with a lightsaber and a little woman with witchy spells was responsible for messing all this up for them?
“Sometimes the smartest thing to do is be a pussy,” shrugged the redhead, landing softly on her feet. That left one more loose tie, though. One she hadn’t sensed that left yet - there was someone still looming around the outskirts, either too brave to leave or too afraid to. “Alright, you can either come out or we can make you come out. My friend and I will rock-paper-scissor it.”
There was the sound of incoherent curse words, a shift through some tarp and leaves not far off, and emerging from the shadows was a woman. Thin, young (and pretty, with emeralds for eyes), midnight hair zig-zagged into a braid and wearing a jacket that hid a handgun. Her hands were up in wise surrender. “It’s me,” she sighed, like she knew one of them. And she did, technically. She knew Lina. “It’s me. I’m not here to fight. I was just here to -”
“Check the shipment,” said the sorceress, narrowing her eyes. “You’re someone I haven’t seen in awhile. You’re a little green for this situation, aren’t you?” There was a huff from the stranger and before she could retaliate, Lina interrupted to motion to Kanan. “Kanan, Sherra, Sherra, Kanan. She’s harmless. Probably scouting for her dad.”
Who obviously didn’t care if his daughter was in the fray of danger but whatever, that was a can of worms regarding a family that was not hers at all.
In the chaos of combat, Kanan had almost forgot that other presence that had been watching. Almost. He turned his attention towards the incoherent curses, light saber still at the ready. Just because he didn’t feel any malicious intent didn’t mean he and Lina were out of the woods just yet. The emergence of a petite pretty woman didn’t necessarily mean there was no trouble brewing either. Kanan had learned that lesson very early in his career. Eyes remained sharp as their guest emerged and presented herself.
A quick glance towards Lina finally confirmed that there was no threat here. The blue blade of his saber deactivated with a hiss and Kanan reattached it to his belt before moving to check the box. He glanced at the woman’s direction when Lina made the introductions, giving Sherra a nod. “I’d say nice to meet you, but given the circumstances…” he shrugged. He looked at Lina and then back at the young woman. “Who's your dad?”
Sherra swallowed. Morbid curiosity had kept her watching everything unravel - the man’s powers, that sword thing, the flying and lightning summoned and her gut had screamed at her to run. None of this was normal, she hadn’t done shrooms today, this whole thing shouldn’t be real but she had come here with a purpose, and would get in trouble for returning without confirmation.
To deal with it was her only option, and while it hurt her pride, she’d cross her fingers for mercy. All she could hope for was to stay in their good graces, and having an acquaintance in all this helped her odds. Somewhat. Lina wasn’t inherently cruel.
“No one worth naming,” was the redhead’s answer for the girl. Sherra’s lips pressed into a flat line and she glared. “A militaristic asshat, really, but she’s one of the many grandchildren of the big boss. And if she’s checking the shipment all by herself, she’s here to confirm that these weapons aren’t part of the family money flow, huh?”
“You’re here to confirm the same,” Sherra countered dryly, eyes flickering over to Kanan. “With a friend. I don’t think we’ve met before. You’re in the business or are you tagging along for the ride? Either way, hey.”
She winked.
Kanan frowned a little. He would have preferred to have had a name for the individual who thought the activity at the docks tonight warranted special attention, but if Lina wasn’t concerned then he supposed he had no reason to be either. He glanced at Sherra and when the girl made no attempt to contradict Lina, shrugged his shoulders and went back to opening the crate. “Hey,” he greeted Sherra back. “Little bit of both, I guess you could say,” he went on as he used a crowbar to pry open the lid of the crate. “I was in the business, but I’m retired now. Mostly. So tonight, yeah, kind of along for the ride.” And it had been a fun ride too.
He glanced up at the young woman, caught the wink and couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t think Sherra was a part of the network. He didn’t remember seeing her name among the list of people who routinely posted, not that that meant anything. There were plenty of lurkers. Still, he doubted she was One of Them. She hadn’t turn tail and run when the Jedi and the Sorceress had gone to work and Kanan thought that was kind of impressive. “What are you going to tell your dad?” he asked next.
His name wasn’t mentioned because that’s not why they were here. No, Sherra’s appearance proved otherwise. Unless the family was feuding like usual - the children playing tug o’ war with who’d inherit the boss throne, the grandchildren caught in the crossfire - but it didn’t stink in that kind of way.
Could be wrong, though. Lina couldn’t pretend like she understood what the hell made that entire cesspool of genetics tick because she didn’t - not nowadays.
“I tell him whatever you guys find out,” Sherra confirmed, though there was a change of pitch in her tone. The mention of her father had her nervous, and the sorceress herself knew that the family was everything but kind, even to their own blood. It was always business first. “That’s it, that’s all I’m here for, that’s all I need to know.”
Lina sighed, turning to Kanan, and peering over the contents of the crate once he opened it. What a gentleman! “Think about how it was for us starting out in this gig when we were younger,” she said, pulling out the unnecessary fluff - all the disposable protection around the firearms. Whoever was doing this was a little too bold. “Don’t complete a task, even the smallest of ones, your ass gets beat. And don’t worry, your pops isn’t going to whip you. You’ll get the intel, kid, but it’d be in your best graces to not mention us.”
With a snap of her fingers she summoned a lighting spell. Literally, just a ball of illumination floating above them to provide disperse the shadows and allow them a better view of what they were dealing with. Shabranigdo had dabbled greatly in ghost weapons. Untraceable firearms that were in high-demand in the criminal underworld, though the types weren’t all that varied.
These were military-grade weapons, several kinds with uniquely made ammo to pair. With a signature.
It was subtle, blending in with the black steel, but she felt it on the bottom. The embellishment of a star. A dark star. A tiny watermark, an easy identifier, and in her opinion a stupid thing to do but when someone could be both elusive and smug, they wanted to make sure their name was known.
Tossing her head back, she groaned. “Dark Star. Big wig. Frenemies with Shabby back in the day.”
Gourry’s big brother, too. That had her worried. Really worried.
There was a difference between smuggling a few rifles and handguns and smuggling into the U.S. and military grade weaponry. Back in his day, Kanan had smuggled that kind of fire power out of the country. Usually to a buyer in Europe looking to corner a market in the continuous warzone that was the Middle East. There had been times he’d brought these weapons directly to the Middle East itself. It was rare, and concerning, to see them coming into California of all places.
Kanan looked up when Lina announced the name behind the shipment. He reached in and picked up one of assault rifles himself and sure enough, there was the mark. Wow, this dude must have had balls of freaking steel and was very proud of his work.
“Great,” Kanan grunted. He glanced at Sherra. At least she had gotten the intel she needed to bring back to her father. Yeah, Kanan remembered what it was like when he had first started doing intel gathering missions for Janus. He’d been a little younger then Sherra at the time. No one paid any attention to a 15 year old “begging” around shipping warehouses except to shoo them away.
“What does this mean, though? Why is Dark Star bringing weapons like this in to the U.S.? I used to ship them out.” This was extremely concerning indeed.
“That’s usually the trend,” Lina groused, scratching the top of her head in thought. War was an economy - often times even the government sought out the best gunrunners for certain operations to help them overseas, but those bids were difficult to win without strings attached. And to have the flow of it reversed? It wasn’t very common. “More like someone wants to do some serious damage here, but the political climate’s changing so who fuck all knows what’s going on in the belly of the beast.”
Sherra listened, careful to not just sprint off into a general direction. She watched with curious eyes the floating ball of light - wondering if that could explode at any time - but the other two weren’t so concerned, and she settled her gaze back at them. “What are you guys even planning to do with them?”
Good question. There wasn’t much of a desire to dip her hands back into that particular pot - it’d been awhile but her reputation was a little notorious, now that everyone was sure Shabranigdo was dead and spread rumors of who could have possibly done it. Her name popped up enough in the gossip. “What’cha think, Kanan? Got any ideas for these babies?”
Kanan eyed Sherra carefully. The girl had admitted to being here in an info gathering mission. She had said she was going to leave Kanan and Lina out of whatever it was she reported back to her father, but Kanan didn’t lend trust very easily, especially to people he’d only just met and who had been spying on him. A nagging itch reminiscent to a garrote around his neck a year ago also reminded him that even “friends” could turn out to be enemies.
“I don’t know if we want to open this kettle of fish,” he said. “Someone is expecting these weapons. I’m not fond of the idea of letting them have it, but I’m also not fond of the idea that the people expecting these to come looking for them, either.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I may know someone, though,” he said carefully as a certain Commander on the network came to mind. “And she may have an idea what to do with these that keeps them out of any troublesome hands and to keep those same hands from around our necks.”
Lina couldn’t help but agree. Last thing she wanted was that particular Big Bad to start snooping around, especially when Gourry was doing his best to avoid brother dearest. “Let me know who,” she said, arms crossed over her chest. Above them the lighting spell continued to shine bright like a lantern. “Just so we’re on the same page. I don’t doubt someone’s going to come around to investigate what happened to the precious cargo.”
“And no one from our end wants to draw his attention,” Sherra groused and cocked her hips. “That I can promise you.”
Not that the sorceress really believed it, even if she could tell the younger woman did. If only she could pull her out of the business, but she remembered how thick those family ties were. Almost impossible to cut. It was a battle she was familiar with - and one she’d lost a long time ago.
“Then it’s settled. Let’s pack what we can and - you?” A glance was spared at Sherra. “Go back home. This isn’t your territory. Come back and we’ll show you what else we can do, and we won’t go gentle.”
It was a merciful threat, Lina would argue, and considering their unexpected guest had witnessed what had gone on with the buzzing light sword and the flair of magics that resulted into corpses lying around, she knew there was weight there. Sherra swallowed nervously and nodded before disappearing into the thick of the woods on foot.
Maybe one day, she’d smarten up and get out like they had.
Kanan watched the girl take off. She was young enough and had seen enough to take Lina’s threat seriously. Or so Kanan hoped. He still waited until he no longer felt the girl’s presence before turning towards Lina. “Jane Shepard,” he told her. “I work for her as well as occasionally do a few runs here and there. She’ll definitely know what to do with this and hopefully we can wipe our hands of it.”
He looked at the gun in his hands again. Kind of a shame about the watermark, really. He could have made an easy mint off of this. Gotten something nice, shiney and loud for Carolina to play with and squirreled the rest away for Katou for whenever he made up his mind about what he was going to do now that high school was done.
Kanan shook his head. Too bad. But at least he and Lina had kept them away from whatever or whoever they were intended for. Their good deed for the evening. Hell, the entire month.
“I know the one,” Lina nodded - secret government work colleague, that sort of deal. Plus, redheads, they usually liked to form a gang and know each other for backup. “Let’s get these out and loaded and find a body with a wallet. Maybe there’ll be cash on ‘em, because the dead are going to be buying us a round of drinks.”
Not like they were going to need their money anymore anyway. Why let it go to waste?