Nar Shaddaa, Monday Morning

[myownface]

"Shit, do you think we lost them?" Sparkle's (admittedly very stupid) question had been answered pretty immediately as the hot white glow of a blaster shot just barely missed his head. He squawked and ducked down low before turning wide eyes to Atton. "We haven't lost them."

In case Atton needed the update. Odds were pretty good that he didn't. They'd come to Nar Shaddaa because on some pollen-warped desperate level it had seemed more appealing than Baltimore, what with its distance from Fandom and tendency toward questionable morals and its Twi'leks. Possibly mostly for the Twi'leks. And this had turned out to be a very good idea for them both for a while. Right up until they found out, and not for the first time around here, that perhaps they had been getting a little too comfortable with the wrong Twi'leks.

So, now there was a Hutt mafia boss who was extremely upset (or else bored and feeling especially vindictive, which generally worked out to the same thing when it came to the Hutts in the first place), and Sparkle and Atton were sort of being chased. Ruthlessly. Not by the Hutt, obviously. But by a handful of people who worked for him, who were all, apparently, actually pretty decent at their jobs.

"Shit. Shit, fucking shitfuck fuckshit. How is it that we always end up in the wrong place at the wrong time when we come here?"

See, that was the thing. On Nar Shaddaa, it was always the wrong place, and always the wrong time.

[OOC: NFB for distance, of course, and for that guy!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

"Because Nar Shaddaa is the wrong place," Atton snapped, "So there's not really a lot of right time to go around!"

Which was, admittedly, most of the time why he loved the place, pile of bantha poodoo that it was. Just not when he was being shot at and he hadn't gotten laid since that Twi'lek on Coruscant weeks ago and the entire purpose of coming here had been to fix that. Except now he was being shot at, instead.

"Okay, okay, okay," he said, "Let's slow down and think-- there's a speeder lot not too far from here--"

Another blaster bolt slammed into the wall not far from his head.

"Hey, will you people KEEP IT DOWN?!" he hollered over the crate he was lurking behind. Admittedly, he could probably just kill these people, but Sparkle was here and watching, and he was technically an impressionable student, so...

[myownface]

At this point, Sparkle's impressions mostly just leaned toward, 'They are shooting at me IT IS FAIR GAME,' with a side order of 'Shit, is that the hot Chiss guy I was flirting with in the cantina back there?'

SPARKLE WAS MOSTLY OKAY WITH MURDER AT THE MOMENT.

"Okay. So we... get to the speeder. While they're still shooting at us. And then we get the fuck out of here and pretend this whole thing never happened? That's our plan?"

So far as plans went, it was... straightforward.

[suitably_heroic]

"You got a better idea?!" Atton said.

His hand slid to his belt, where the lightsaber hung off it. "If you get a head start and pick us a good speeder, I can probably hold these guys off for a while."

Maybe whittle them down just a bit...

[myownface]

Be gentle with that Chiss, Atton. If Sparkle was going to be chased and shot at by someone, he wanted to at least be able to enjoy the view whenever he glanced back to see if they were gaining on them.

"It was back that way, right?" He pointed. "I think I can get there..."

He was sizing up the crates between where they were crouched and the most obvious point to just get up and take off in a run. There was a stretch between here and the speeder lot that was just wide-open sprinting space, but if Atton was keeping these guys busy?

"Got it."

He crouched down low and crept as best as he could to the end of that particular row of crates.

"Just say the word, man."

[suitably_heroic]

"All right."

Atton unclipped the lightsaber hilt from his belt, and outstretched his arm so the hilt was sticking out just past the crate.

Snap-hiss.

"Go," he said, and stood up, catching an incoming blaster bolt on his 'saber without a second thought.

[myownface]

Thank you, Fandom, for making this moment not the most recklessly insanely dangerous thing Sparkle had ever done in order to save his own ass. He'd be equal parts amused and pissed off about that fact, maybe later, when he wasn't in the process of trying not to die.

He didn't speak, he just nodded, picking out the next stack of crates with his eyes, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, and then making a run for those crates like somebody had lit his ass on fire.

Given all the blasters at play here, somebody kind of was trying.

[suitably_heroic]

At least Atton hadn't been sleeping through any of the lessons on Soresu back when Meetra was still alive. Multiple blaster bolts pinged off of his lightsaber - at least one or two might've buried themselves in somebody's knee as they bounced back.

"It's a Jedi!" one of his assailants yelled.

"But I thought they were dead!"

"Apparently not! Keep firing!"

Atton rolled his eyes as he backed slowly after Sparkle, keeping his lightsaber moving. "Trying to kill someone wielding a lightsaber with a blaster," he muttered. "Idiots."

[myownface]

The yelling coming from behind him was reassuring. Sparkle wasn't going to look back, not so long as they were freaking out about Jedi and not concerned about the little punk who was making another dash for another crate.

There weren't many more between here and that final sprint, and now Sparkle was wondering if they were distracted enough that he could just break into a full run now. After all, a Jedi who was actively facing them was far more interesting than an unarmed kid on the run.

It was a gamble, but he was going to take it. One good long sprint was probably better for his stamina than starting and stopping so many times in quick succession anyway, and it wasn't like adrenaline wasn't on his side, here. Sparkle ran, past the crates and into the open street, leaving a blue streak of swear words in the air behind him.

[suitably_heroic]

Sparkle was off? Awesome.

Did that blaster bolt just deflect into someone's face? Whoops. Must've been an accident.

There were a lot of them, though, and that Chiss guy Sparkle kept going on about was particularly annoying. Eventually, Atton saw himself being driven back-- too many blasters all at once. Not enough to get through and kill him, but enough that he wasn't going to hang out for much longer if he could help it.

He reached out into the Force, asking it nicely to let him know where Sparkle was hanging out right around now... (please be at the speeder lot. Please.)

[myownface]

Guess who was at the speeder lot! And who was nodding along and pacing as he checked out the speeders, looking for ones that at the very least weren't actively falling apart. Falling apart would be bad, here.

That one looked new, and was familiar enough that Sparkle was pretty sure it was the same make and model as one that Atton had driven before. Whether it was one that Atton had driven without bitching about it was another story, and Sparkle was too paranoid to be able to think that far back.

It was really hard, for the record, to both keep low and look casual while mulling around a speeder lot. Who knew?

[suitably_heroic]

All right, good. See, the reason Atton had made Sparkle go first was because Sparkle couldn't do things like launch himself up off the ground and onto a sign several feet up into the air. And then speed, one Force leap after another, up and forwards, towards the speeders.

He was going to ignore the fact his gut kept screaming at him over it. People were shooting at him. He didn't have time to deal with lingering injuries from the last time he'd been an idiot.

Force projecting emotions wasn't entirely his specialty, or at least not something he was heavily trained in-- so the 'hey, do we have a speeder?' he tried to pass on to Sparkle mostly translated into a blast of psychic ???????????s.

[myownface]

Sparkle had no idea what to do with a shit-tonne of ?????????s suddenly smacking into his brain, and he actually jumped a bit, wide-eyed, with something of a !!!!!?!?!? in response.

Here he was, minding his own business (his business was 'not getting killed') and giving dirty looks to anyone who wandered close enough to the speeder he'd staked out to have them sort of side-eye him and pick another one, and then there was just this wave of Atton-flavoured-question in his head and he wasn't completely certain for a few moments if he'd just gone insane.

More insane? Everything about this was pretty crazy fucked-up, dammit.

[suitably_heroic]

For Force's sake, how long had you been on the island, Sparkle? And you'd never run into anyone with weird psychic powers? For the love of-- Atton let out an irritated noise that was lost on the empty air he was currently occupying.

Then he hurled himself off the roof of the building he'd just landed on, slamming into the speeder next to Sparkle's with a loud thump.

Feet-first, so he was technically upright and ready to go, but seriously, last week's injuries weren't enjoying this one bit.

[myownface]

You know, he actually hadn't? Which Sparkle would have considered nothing shy of miraculous under most other circumstances, but right now it was just sort of looking more and more inconvenient.

At least he didn't jump quite as much when Atton landed, since he'd sort of been expecting something like that to happen anyway. But now that Atton was here, Sparkle was heaving himself up onto his own speeder and giving him the side-eye.

"So, now how close are we to losing them?"

Sparkle really needed to stop asking that question.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton looked over his shoulder.

"Get in the seat quick," he said, jumping out of the one he'd landed on and practically vaulting into the driver's seat.

[myownface]

"That close, huh?" Yeah, Sparkle didn't need to be told twice, planting his ass down and grabbing onto anything stable on the speeder that he could get his hands on. "Great. Good. So, let's go, then!"

As much as Sparkle wanted to just sit around and chat, the sound of the Hutt's lackeys barking orders to one another was getting louder, and Sparkle was getting appropriately paranoid in turn.

[suitably_heroic]

Sadly, they couldn't just hit the pedal and go-- Atton reached down into a compartment and yanked out some electronics. Luckily, he had some experience with this (though he was trying not to think about the last time he'd ridden a speeder in a hurry on Nar Shaddaa) so it didn't take long.

The speeder pulled up into the air and zoomed off, at speeds that were probably a little too fast for it. "Okay, now we just need to get... to the other side of this moon, probably!"

[myownface]

"Oh! Great! That shouldn't be hard!"

When Sparkle was afraid for his life, he tended to say stupid and utterly untrue things like that, so sue him. But it beat screaming a lot? And looking over his shoulder really wasn't helping him calm down, since now this had gone from being a shootout to... yep. There they were, pulling out of the speeder lot behind them. A speeder chase. With blasters.

[suitably_heroic]

The sad thing was that it wasn't Atton's first speeder chase with blasters. Or his second. Or even his third. Though he was hoping at least this one wouldn't end him breaking out of some Hutt's prison again, because that hadn't been fun the first time.

... or the second.

"You still got your blaster on you?" Atton yelled.

A quick glance over his shoulder and he could tell there were some pretty angry specks behind them, kicking up the engines a notch. Sigh.

[myownface]

Sparkle had been really, really stupidly hoping that this wasn't going to come to that, but he was making a grudging reach for where his blaster was tucked away all the same.

"Yeah," he called back, swallowing and looking at the damn thing in his hands. "Pretty sure I can't manage that crotch shot from here, though."

[suitably_heroic]

"Just clip their speeders!" Atton yelled.

What? It was a better alternative than 'Just shoot them in the head!'.

[myownface]

"That is a slightly easier target," Sparkle called back, swallowing before taking aim. The little angry specks were becoming little angry guys on speeders, which was going to make this whole thing easier still.

Right? That was how it worked?

Sparkle hated everything.

[suitably_heroic]

"Did somebody's grandma design this speeder?!" Atton growled, hitting the pedal as hard as he could. "Okay, we're in luck, I sense just two teams of 'em. We should be able to handle two speeders, right?"

[myownface]

"I picked the fastest of the like three speeders I recognized," Sparkle protested, taking a few shots at the incoming speeders. "And two? Two's not so bad!"

No, two was still pretty terrible, considering they were much better shots than he was. But there was something to be said for false bravado, right?

[suitably_heroic]

False bravado was great! You could coast on that for quite a while!

Coast right into trouble, most of the time.

"Just got to cripple them and then we're home free," Atton agreed. Home free to limp back home and, at least in his case, an impending case of blue balls. Fantastic.

The speeders were starting to get close-- close enough you could just about identify the barrels of those blasters firing at them, now. "E chu ta! Okay, evasive maneuvers!"