myownface | Nar Shaddaa, Monday Morning

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Nar Shaddaa, Monday Morning

"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!]

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"It's not that hard," Atton yelled, already crawling up and out of his seat. "Just hit the throttle and keep the thing pointing forward!"

Sparkle, probably wisely, decided not to ask which one was the throttle as he made a kind of desperate lunge for the controls to straighten out the speeder again.

Okay. Okay, he could do this. He was going to swear a lot, but the first thing he hit was apparently the throttle because they were speeding up, so that was good, right?

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..."

"Calm down, I've got this," Atton snapped.

And Sparkle hyperventilating wasn't going to help anybody.

Atton crawled up onto the back of the speeder. Okay, Sparkle's Chiss buddy was still lagging behind, but the other flunkies were right on their tail. He aimed and fired, landing several easy bolts dead in the center of the enemy speeder, which started smoking alarmingly.

A moment later, it plunged.

"I am completely fucking calm!"

Okay, not at all true. But there was one less speeder in the chase now, so that helped a little. A lot? It was helping, since the one guy still on their tail was far enough back that so long as Sparkle kept on the throttle, he could at least take a few deep breaths or something.

See? Completely fucking calm. Or at least not driving them into any buildings, which was good too.

Atton sucked in a deep breath. Mostly for his own sake, since okay, his faith in Sparkle's driving skills wasn't huge.

"Just keep this going straight, all right?" he said, narrowing his eyes as he tried to get a good shot going at Sparkle's Chiss friend. "Just got to take down this one guy and we should be home free..."

Sparkle was still kind of shaken, otherwise he might have made some sort of 'I don't do anything straight!' quip. He'd lament not doing that later, too. Instead he just nodded, not letting himself look behind them, and kept his eyes ahead. Just keep going. Going was good. Not going into walls or other speeders or into the ground or any of that was even better.

"Got it!"

See? You could tell Sparkle's wits were running thin when that was the best he had to bring to the table.

At least he didn't shout 'pure pazaak' every five seconds?

"Okay, got him, got him..." Atton muttered.

And suddenly, the other guy's speeder took a nosedive. "...Crap, he's diving!" Not that that was going to keep the guy hidden or anything, courtesy of Jedi senses, but now he couldn't actually get a clear shot.

"What do you mean, he's diving? What the fuck do I do when someone dives?!"

Sparkle couldn't drive a car in two dimensions, how the hell was he supposed to fly a speeder in three with a guy on their tail who could fly and shoot this was not doing well for his composure.

"Do I dive too? Do I go up? Do I stop?"

"Just keep going!"

Atton had thought the stupid thing. Which meant Atton was already doing the stupid thing: clipping his blaster back to his belt and standing up on the back of the speeder.

"I-- Okay! Okay, I'm go- What the hell are you doing??"

Yes, Atton, Sparkle had done a shoulder check and now he knew you were about to do the stupid thing.

"Remember," Atton said, grabbing his lightsaber. "Straight line."

He activated the lightsaber. He held it pointed down. He waited for just another second...

...and then he stepped forward and dropped off the speeder, lightsaber-first.

"I fucking hate you so much right now," Sparkle muttered to thin air.

Because... besides continuing to drive straight ahead, there wasn't a hell of a lot else for him to do, here. Sparkle didn't even know how to land.

Atton's feet hit the Chiss's speeder exactly as planned, the lightsaber burying its way into the speeder's engine.

The Chiss was not amused, so Atton took a swing at his blaster. ... Okay, he'd say later he was going for the blaster. Removing the man's hand was completely accidental, honest.

He kicked the guy in the face, then jammed the lightsaber into the speeder again for good measure. Then he looked straight up and tried to make out where Sparkle had gone.

Not much farther than the speeder that Atton was standing on had gone, really. Sparkle was too damn paranoid to take off ahead, especially since he didn't trust himself to not die horribly on this thing without Atton around to drive. He had, at least, sort of gotten a feel for going up and down, though, so that was good? It meant that Sparkle was at least slightly closer to the ground than he had been before.

Mostly because, in Sparkle's head, the closer he was to the ground, the less distance he'd have to fall before becoming a smear down below when he inevitably creamed this thing.

Right. Well, Atton's poor, abused injuries were going to have to deal with just one more spot of pressure, as he took a final Force Leap up and right back into the passenger seat of their own speeder.

Into which he landed with a grunt, and a half-collapse. Yeah... maybe he'd overdone it a little.

"Dumbass," Sparkle muttered, sounding relieved and glancing sideways at Atton as he slumped over. "You took care of him?"

He would still find you hot with only one hand, Chiss Guy!

"Yeah, yeah." Atton shut his eyes, calling on a very brief healing trance he'd perfected over the months they'd been chasing Sith Lords around the galaxy.

When he opened his eyes again, at least he could breathe.

"Gimme the controls."

"Sure, happily," Sparkle replied, and now he was... pointedly not looking down as he shimmied back and way from anything that had anything to do with steering. "And, um, then maybe let's go hide out somewhere or go home or something."

This had been fun, in that sort of way that meant that it had really, really not been a great time.

"I'm just gonna go park us somewhere," Atton promised, "Then you can call out for a portal."

He shifted into the driver's seat with more difficulty than he'd admit to and took the controls. He let up on the speed and instead steered the speeder into a normal flight path, bringing them back to a nearby Nar Shaddaa platform.

Sparkle nodded just a little, and sat there quietly until the speeder had stopped moving. A few moments more, and he was actually remembering to gather up his blaster and put it away.

"How're you doing?"

That had been a lot of funky acrobatics, and Sparkle was pretty sure Atton hadn't been fully healed before this super smart expedition.

"I'm fine," Atton said.

Sagging in his seat, but could you blame him? "Just gotta wind down for a minute."

"Okay," Sparkle agreed, content to sit in his seat and chew the inside of his cheek for a while before digging around in his pocket for his phone. He was ignoring how his hand was shaking. Sometimes, you just had to do that, okay? "We can sit here, I think I can get Portalocity to send us a portal for... soonish."

Soonish was good.

"Works for me," Atton muttered. He shut his eyes again, calling back on that healing trance.

His mind was clear for the first time in days and it wasn't really the relief he'd been hoping for.

Sparkle took a few more minutes to kind of wind down. He wasn't completely certain that he wasn't going to puke for a minute there. But once he'd taken a few more deep breaths, he was hitting the speed dial, and the phone was ringing.

It was probably the most numb conversation he'd ever had with a possible gnome in his life. But at least there was a portal on the way.

"Twenty minutes," he reported. And then, trying lamely to lighten the mood, he added, "Maybe next time I visit Coruscant, I should take, like, driving lessons."

Atton went from healing trance to completely aware in under a second; it had the odd side-effect of his face snapping towards Sparkle suddenly and his eyes flying open. "Yeah," he said, "I'll make sure Mical hooks you up with some speeder lessons, or something."

His heart didn't really sound like it was in it.

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