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The streets of Viscara are average. The building Sandra was at is identified in the market place. There’s a deal of neon and plenty of shoppers around this place. It’s clear where Sandra fell as Callista spots the tarp that she ripped throug, and the crack on the ground where Sandra landed.
MOOD MUSIC: Parasite Eve II soundtrack - MIST
Whatever police were there have been gone for some time, but for now, everything seems to be in full swing again
Callista walks along in the rain beside Markus, an umbrella opened overhead and shared with him. She’s quieter than usual — which is saying something, given her soft-spoken nature — and she seems intensely focused. Her eyes dart around all over the market square, noting every light, every sign, every person walking by, and especially the building in question. She eyes the tarp and crack for a moment with a pang of emotion her face doesn’t betray, then nods fractionally towards the building.
“Let’s head inside.”
Markus nods, stepping beside her and doing his best to play the well dressed man, ready to throw his money around. Idly however, he keeps a hand ready to pull his gun at all times his hand usually on his hip or at his side as he draws back on his time on Ord Mantell and the uncertainty of every corner
“Let’s hope this place has a public network, I need to check for that holomail message”
This building is rather plain as most of it seems to be under construction. Various floors are being built up for different modes of entertainment. Mini malls, cantinas, clothing stores in the making, and so on. As a place being under construction, has lots of opportunity for slicing. The cameras, some seem to work and some not, but there are some terminals from construction workers who seem abandoned by for now.
Markus finds a terminal linked to some cameras after some simple snooping.
Counting his lucky Stars, Markus glances around before directing Calli to watch his back while he employs some very simple icebreakers to try and fake the login and gain access to the security footage from a few hours ago.
It takes a few minutes to get the cracking system going and finding the password, but there is some footage. A woman leaving the 7th floor with a missing arm and hopping out the back window, leaving some sort of blood train before exiting. Three floating spheres follow her out the window and that is all…
Callista watches the footage over Markus’s shoulder and grimaces. Seeing the woman on screen sets her blood boiling, and it’s all she can do in the moment to take a breath and focus. “Are you done checking your messages yet, babe? Why don’t we go check out that new cantina upstairs, I’m starving.”
Markus doesn’t seem to share Calli’s outwardly obvious anger, instead a cold look of workmanlike focus comes over his face as he watches, though it’s quickly made more sinister with the application of a cold smirk as he responds to Calli
“Sorry sweetheart, needed to make sure everything wasn’t on fire back at the office. Let’s go grab a bite.”
He replies, quietly heading upstairs with her.
They find the cantina in the works and there’s tarp, ladders, and a half made bar. There’s nothing to note except for an open window and a few spots on the ground following it out. As they peek outside the window, they can see the thin metal stairwell that leads down to the back street. There are some splotches that lead around an alleyway. There are several people standing the the alley below the stairwell. Three fellows, and One woman. They look to be rather chill
Momentarily, Markus considers the woman’s arms, checking if she’d had both and briefly considering if she’d be so daring as to stay around the scene of the crime. Idly he considers wether any of the assembled people have the look of criminals, investigators or bystandards and how much that will effect the likelyhood of him simply tossing a frag grenade into them if the group happens to contain the assassin.
“What do you think? They look friendly to you?”
“Hard to say. Let’s go say hello and find out.”
Callista eyes the stairwell for a moment, but decides instead to turn around and head back to the lifts; approaching from the street level would be less conspicuous.
As Callista goes around from street level, they are all chatting about the latest ball game on Coruscant.
These fellows dont seem to give off any sense of evil doers that Markus can identify with visuals alone. Markus ventures a friendly wave and a winning smile at the group, not quite the slimey-businessman smugness he usually employs but certainly reeking of oily overeager salespitchmen
“Evening gentlemen, and lady, hope your evening is going well.”
The look to Markus
Guy1: We’re not buyin. Girl: Sell later, bye. clearly the salesman ideal is not something poverty wishes to endure
Callista eyes Markus for a moment, letting him work for now but in the process of forming an idea of her own.
He lets out a breath and runs his hand through his hair letting the salepitch angle bleed out a little “Hah, right right…Luckily you caught me outside of business hours, I’m just out on a walk with the little lady right now. I’d wanted to take her for a bite at the cantina upstairs but it looks like it’s not done, probably because of the workplace accident.”
Guy 2: Yea, that was crazy. They say some woman was pushed from the top of a building and LIVED. Can you imagine that?
Guy 1: No way, she died. There’s no way someone can survive that.
Girl: For real. I heard the crack from here.
Guy 2: No, for real! They couldnt find a body and everyone was dispersed.
they passively muddle to themselves for a moment
A gamut of emotions runs through Callista’s head for a moment before she widens her eyes and steps forward, injecting herself into the gossip. “Yeah, we heard about that! Can’t believe the conditions Czerka puts people through. Apparently there was another woman who lost her arm, too?” Her eyes wander the alley for a moment to find the blood splotches on the ground again, noting their location for later.
Guy 1: Lost an arm? Aint seen nuttin about that. Everyone was surprised someone would be pushed off a building. Now that’s some hate.
Girl: Ye, musta been a grudge or something. Cooold blooded.
Cally can see some dried splotches in a pattern that leads around into an alley way.
“Sometimes the stress of the workplace gets to people and they just, snap I suppose, All we can do is wish the poor woman a speedy recovery and hope whoever did this to their co-worker gets put away for a long time.” Markus interjects, briefly glancing in the same direction as Calli to see the blood splotches she’s looking at, all the while gently putting a “protective” arm over Calli as gently and as unintrusively as can
Guy 3: Dun matter anyways. Pushed off a building, shot, stabbed, it’s all a day in the life. Anyways, did you need anything?
Callista glances upwards to the stairway above, then to the blood splotches on the ground. “You’re sure you didn’t see anything? You heard the crack from here, right?” She looks to the group questioningly, reaching down and plucking a credit chip from a pouch at her belt. “We just wanna know the full story…”
They laugh a moment, then the girl walks up Girl: How much, blondie?
She looks the girl in the eyes evenly. “Five hundred. We make it our business to know what goes on in this town, and we take care of the people who help us out with that.”
She shrugs
Girl: Better than Zero. takes the chip
Girl: Some lady came bouncin down the stairs up here. Ran off into the industrial park. I peeked and saw her runnin to some old mills that seems shut down. Could go gawking in there.
“Thanks. Buy yourself something nice.”
Callista gives the girl a nod before glancing back to Markus.
they resume their chattering
He nods to Callista and directs her out of hearing range
“Looks like we’re headed to those old mills if the source is correct, should I make some preperations, hire some help? How do we wanna go about this?”
“Find whatever supplies you think you need, but keep it to just us. The bigger the group, the easier she’ll see us coming.” She walks with him through the alleys to emerge in the industrial park area and looks around, arms folded in a light self-hug.
“…I’ll scout the area out.”
There are rows of buildings with speeder trucks of wood and shaved fibers. Most of the buildings are fairly abandoned with the exception of a few where there is 1 or 2 people mostly moving remains of the dead area around. It’s fairly quiet and there’s not much to gain from sight alone. There are a few drop stains barely muddled by saw dust towards a building 4 rows down
“I shouldn’t need much in the way of prep, I’ve got enough grenades and with a little bit of string I can make some tripwire traps for them.”
Markus states as he looks to the trail calmly, still following Calli
“Plus I’d rather you not be alone at the center of the spider’s web, she’s almost certainly prepared for being chased down, especially by a you know what.”
She comes to a stop a good distance from the building, looking it over quietly, a conflicted look on her face. There’s a long moment of silence.
“Let’s just find our way in. I need to calm down or I’ll do something I regret.”
He nods and scans the building for entrances, before pausing for a moment, and opening up his coat, revealing his collection of grenades, two Ion, one gas, one concussive and one fragmentation and quietly offering calli one of the Ion grenades
“Remember, don’t breach right away when we find the entrances.”
The building has three ways in. The door on the west side and east side, and the larger gate for shipping. The blood stains seem to enter the large building that’s 3 floors tall and semi rounded, through the west side
Callista accepts the grenade and gestures to the east side entrance.
“I vote that one. Should we go in together or one from either side, sandwich her in?”
He glances to the building and thinks for a moment before speaking
“One from each side, but try to move in cover and if you actually see her, back off for the moment and keep your distance. I want to be close enough to smoke her out with a gas grenade or shut down one of her pets with an ion before we actually start trying to light her up”
Callista draws her blaster pistol for a moment and checks it briefly, setting it to stun ahead of time. Re-holstering it, she then checks her bag and makes sure she has the magnetic separator Sandra had given her some time ago.
“Good idea. I’ll set up at the east then, you take the west, we’ll go in on your signal.”
Callista’s door isnt even locked…? Markus’ door to the west is unlocked as well. Inside, there is a speeder with logs on each of their sides just obstructing view from major angles. There’s narrow pathways that lead upwards to the upper sections where a main office is seen and two side rooms for what is likely storage. Cally sees the blood trail goes up a ramp to the second floor and loses sight of it by the first store room
Callista creeps in slowly, keeping close to the walls and obstructions. She eyes the blood trail but doesn’t follow it just yet, peeking around the log-bearing speeder and looking carefully around for any sign of surveillance.
Markus very quickly pulls out his frequency scanning device, setting its speaker to the lowest setting possible and holding it up to his ear, in case theirs any ongoing audio frequencies he can detect
Once she’s satisfied nothing is going to follow her up to the next level, Callista moves upstairs and progresses at a cautious pace, taking slow, quiet breaths and mentally reciting the Jedi Code to herself.
Markus puts away his scanner and puts a hand on his massive, kho khan original blaster pistol, staying a few paces behind Calli to quick-draw and shoot on anything that might get the drop on her, his eyes darting around for any traps or tripwires or the telltale glow of a primed explosive
Markus picks up some frequencies from the shed that Cally is walking to. There is an eerie feeling… a sense of dread in Cally. As they approach the shed, a beep from far above them shines and darts off. Then a laugh…
“Welcome, everyone! I see the Murderer isnt the one who gave chase. Who’d have thunk such filth has friends.” the speaker fills the room with her voice
Markus pauses, grimacing and adjusting his tie, he decides to channel his nervousness into spite and bluster for the time being
“A murderer eh? Don’t count your warcoas before the hatch my dear, I’m sure I can squeeze some murder into my day once we meet face to face.”
Callista freezes in place and looks up above towards the beeping sound, making no outward reply.
The thing that beeped seems to have flown away
“And what have I done that is so wrong to entice two others to come and kill me in her stead?”
He tilts his head
“Who’s…“her”? I only know there’s people paying a lot of money to rub out some cartel brat who’s been throwing a very loud, very obvious tauntrum.”
She frowns and looks around, trying to spot where the woman might be viewing them from.
There are three rooms. The room on the second floor where they stand by, one on the thrid floor, and a command office on the other end of the second floor
“Why don’t you make this easier, Dinally? Play your cards right and maybe our bosses will just hire you instead of snuffing you out.” Callista straightens up a bit, pistol still at the ready, but she keeps looking around for appearance’s sake while she stretches her senses out, concentrating on the Force and its flow through all living things…
There’s a detection on the second floor’s command room.
“And what do you have to gain? No one else would have followed me here. Your only ‘boss’ could be the murderer.”
]
“Other side,” Callista whispers to Markus with a minimal nod towards the command room. She starts heading up towards the third floor despite her indication. “Who do you think hired this ‘murderer’ of yours, Dinally?”
Markus slowly creeps towards the command room, working from cover to cover and prepping a flashbang
As Cally gets on to the second floor to take the third floor stairs… part of the stair well explodes to pause Cally.
“EYAAAHHAHAHA! I see, you’re getting nosey now. Alright, let’s play ‘kill the redhead’s friends!’ game!”
BOSS BATTLE MOOD:
The 3rd Birthday: Parasite Eve - Arise Within You [Extended]
5 quick mini drones go to take cover behind the log trucks from earlier by the entrances
Quietly Markus shifts his hand from the flashbang to an Ion grenade, activating it and attempting to huck it in the middle of the drone group
Callista ducks back and shields her face from the explosion, thankfully far enough ahead not to actually injure her, but she quickly dives for cover of her own, bringing her pistol up.
The drones are pretty quick. They simply dart to the other side of the room under the other wood speeder. It seems that a distraction may be in order. But in the meantime, they begin to light the truck on fire and the wood slowly begins to burn. On Cally’s end, two more larger drones come out from the store room and begins to fill the room with a deftining array of noise. Perhaps to what Sandra noted earlier, though the metal chamber doesn’t help Cally and Markus much in that regard.
Markus grits his teeth, both from pain and aggrevation as the sound reverberates in the room, snarling in frustration and anger Markus simply looks up to the sonic screamer droids attacking Calli and attempts to devert their full attention from her with some blasts from his massive pistol
“Don’t forget the surprise I gave you, would be a good time to use that.”
Barely able to even hear Markus speaking to her, Callista squeezes off a few shots of her own at the drones and scrambles for the grenade she was given. She fumbles at it briefly to prime it, and then hurls it towards them, making up for her inexperience with grenades by guiding it along with the Force. It explodes with a crackling, booming ZZAAKOOM, catching both of them in its ionized electromagnetic pulse.
The two sound drones sputter and land on the first floor. Meanwhile, the 5 quick drones all dash up to Markus suddenly and begins to rain quick sonic blasts at him. With the speaker drones out, the mystery woman primes her Scattershot and comes out of the room she was in in the Command Room, looking up on Callista and firing several floor panel shaking rounds
“TIME TO DIEEEEE”
Callista yelps and ducks low behind cover, just barely avoiding a gruesome wound. She grits her teeth against the vibrations pummeling against the floor and wall around her, quickly crawling along the floor to reposition herself and remain as small and hidden of a target is possible. Her eyes are focused on the third floor room, knowing she’ll have better cover there.
Shouting and thrashing at the sudden assault of sound, Markus yanks the pin out of the frag grenade holstered on his jacket and in a desperate maneuver, tosses the entire jacket with its payload of multiple grenades, pockets of combustable fuel, odds and ends and bits of scraps in the middle of the droid pack, hoping to catch them in the inevtiable explosive burst of shrapnel and concussive force, even if it also hits him as well
While this Hail Mary works for Markus, the whole side of the structure is blown out. The 2nd floor walkway that he’s on begins to collapse or weaken. The command center on the same floor begins to rattle, pausing the shots taken at Callista. Only one of the speedy drones managed to get away. The light of day shines through the now open sheet metal.
Callista even feels the shaking of the fragile walkways from the explosion as she makes entrance to the store room on the 3rd floor. It seems there are some remaining materials from wood working such as basic tools. There’s not much else in here.(edited)
Feeling the ground underneath him getting more precarious, Markus grabs his precious blaster pistol off the ground, having dropped it in the agony and begins to beat feet very hard towards their shotgun toating target, pressuring her with running potshots as both their ground seems to be losing out fast to the massive explosion.
With the distraction provided, Callista climbs to her feet again and rushes out the other side of the store room, line of sight now broken with the woman. She holsters her pistol mid-run and turns on a dime to grab the railing of the walkway and vault over into a twisting flip down to the second floor, where she drops feet-first just by the other side of the command room, lightsaber hilt in hand now but not yet ignited.
Marcus fires shots at the Woman, but she takes one in the side and screams, getting off two of her own shots at Markus as he runs right at the woman with a Scatter shot, closing range, making it easier for her. She’s clearly here to either die or fight at this point. So she makes her stand as she fires on Markus, screaming in rage as the fires begin to burn. Callista now flanks the woman opposite the room and the smoke and heat of the wood burning begins to fill the room. The last speed drone comes up to fire at Callista with sonic blasts.
Callista’s ears throb with pain as sonic bursts scream by her. She flings a hand in the drone’s direction and waves it wildly aside, sending it hurtling into a wall nearby before she rushes into the command room with singular focus, charging at the woman now and igniting her saber.
Markus’s tries flatten himself against the wall to evade the shotgun blast, but his reflexes are that of a smuggler, not a jedi and his armored jacket isn’t there to take the majority of the flack as the first shot tears into his side and rips open a huge gash on his left, even as he moves to dodge. Thankfully able to make his profile smaller though some shots to burn at his back. Still, even holding in his guts the Smuggler squeezes the trigger of his pistol and aims a hose of full-auto blasterfire back at the woman, determined to make closequarters as painful for her as it has been for him(edited)
They trade fire and their shouts fill the room before Callista can easily finish off any thing remaining of the woman. The blasters trade like an epic cowboy showdown. Bolts ripping through the air, filling the spot with an O-zone sensation
Once Callista reaches the woman she gives a wordless shout. Her lightsaber shears through the scatter blaster, followed quickly by an upward kick to knock the remains of the weapon aside and throw the woman off balance. With a twist and pivot as her foot comes down, Callista then throws her other leg up to follow with a swift kick to the woman’s face and a thrust of her palm, knocking her down and then slamming her against the wall. The blonde Padawan stands over her with an icy glare that suggests she was holding back from doing much worse.
The injured woman groans from her blaster shots, pain from the lost arm, and agony from being kicked and slammed. The cracked helm reveals long slivery hair and a bloodied face, looking on Callista with tired green eyes
“Are you alright, Markus?” Callista asks without breaking eye contact with the woman.
Markus coughs a bit steadying himself on the wall as its clear even for all his attempt dodging and weaving he’d taken quite a few pellets as well as some bits of shrapnel that were sticking out from his “hail mary” explosive gambit. Idly he takes his tie and applies it a particularly nasty looking wound on his side
“I’ll live. I’d get out a bandage…but they were in my coat.”
The woman coughs and leans one way weakly
“…Just finish me…”
“I can do that…”
Markus says cheerfully as he holds up his blaster, though from the way he’s wobbling and the fact that he’s only got one free arm, he likely wouldn’t be able to handle the recoil
Callista grips her lightsaber tighter, but forces herself to pull back and disengage it, stowing it away again.
“Don’t. Call the police instead. Let’s make arrangements for miss Dinally here to go live with her dad…”
“…Was it worth it? Was she worth finding me and… leaving me to die and suffer…? I’ll basically die in prison… tragic. Why did you do it? Why?”
He gives a shrug
“Same reason you decided to slap on fetish gear and run around hunting a single woman as if that’d repair all of your father’s bad decisions crumbling down onto his head.”
“Someone decided to fuck with what you cared about…I’d think of all people you’d understand that.”
Idly he starts dialing the police
"I hope you appreciate that I’ll need to slip away once the boys in green get here. Not exactly eager to get thrown into a cell next to “Daddy’s Girl”.
Callista nods. Folding her arms, she stares down at the woman.
“You have no idea the things I was ready to do to you… but lucky for you, I’m not like that. You’ve got two options now. Die in prison like you said, just a broken girl who got too hooked on revenge… or turn things around and do something worthwhile for once in your life.”
She reaches down and takes the woman’s helmet off, tucking it under her arm. Then, stepping over to Markus, she reaches a hand out and concentrates on healing while he’s calling the police.
“I suggest you start thinking about your decision before it gets made for you.”
“…Sweet words, speaking from a position of power. Change your life or die, like it were like a sweet wisp on a wind…” The silver haired woman closes her eyes “Death then. I’m too …tired. Too demoralized to restart. Too weak to continue with an aching soul.”
Those words give Callista pause, and she hesitates for a moment. She thinks back to a conviction she set for herself not that long ago. “…Dangit…!” she huffs lowly, reaching over and pressing a button on Markus’s comm to hang up before the call connects.
He tilts his head to Callista and then looks over to the silver haired woman, pondering her silently “You’ve gotten this far, even if its only off of blind rage and spite. People would be able to use less than you’ve wasted to live…for whatever it is they want to live for.”
“Then… it is wasted. Go on, necktie, shoot me. Let the rage and spite end. Let the wasted become waste. If you want to torture me, go ahead. I don’t care. You’ll all go home to your lives, with your loves, your murderer, your joys. I’ll dream of mine in the afterlife.”
He ponders for a bit holding up his blaster and turning it over in his hand
“Y’know on any other day I’d take you up on that.But, then again…I don’t take orders from the self absorbed little spawns of crime bosses any longer. I’m certainly not your triggerman, and I’m not here to let you abdicate responsibility.”
“You wanna curl up and die, you’d better get started I guess?” He gives a shrug
she laughs weakly
“…I think i’ll do that then.”
The speeders holding the wood explode violently and the wood all lights on a roaring blaze. Clearly the part about traps warning was no joke. Smoke begins to fill the room rapidly and the flames lash up.
The Timed trap seems to finally go off. She clearly never planned to be here long enough for this to happen.
The weakened walkways tremble and buckle more, and Callista wobbles on her feet uncertainly, coughing at the sudden rush of smoke.
“Markus! We’ve gotta get out of here!”
He nods and looks over to the hole he’d made with his earlier explosive antics even if the path there is quickly being engulfed by flames
“We can make a break for that exit, try to escape through there!”
He says as he sprints in the direction of the hole, wincing in pain as he drags his battered, shattered body to the massive breach
The flames lash up to lick Markus as he attempts to sprint through the severely heated section.(edited)
Callista turns and grabs the woman from the floor, hoisting her up onto her shoulders as she turns and rushes the other way along the command room. Her saber ignites again and she quickly slices through the railing of the walkway to form a gap wide enough for her to walk through and hop down from to the bottom floor between the raging flames.
She reaches into her hair and takes out a pin to stab Callista with
Ouches on her shoulder
As Callista lands on the ground level and her shoulder is pierced with the hairpin, she crumples a bit from the sudden shock and pain of the injury, crying out. The woman drops from her grasp onto the floor again and Callista staggers to one side, reaching around with one hand and shakily grabbing at the pin to yank it out.
“Let’s die together? Hahahaha!”
Moving from the burning walkway he was trying to pass, Markus runs towards the commotion and seeing the woman on the ground laughing about dying together and Calli with a pin in her neck, finally makes a snap decision and lifts up his gun, firing off a blast into the woman’s face
“Within my right as a citizen concerned for you life, C’mon.”
He says as he tries to assist Cali in moving
Callista’s only reply is a grunt of pain as she tugs the pin out and clutches her hand over the wound, staggering along with Markus. With both normal exits blocked by flames, they head for the larger cargo door instead, and Callista waves a hand at the nearby control panel to activate it.
The cargo bay doors slowly slide open with a screeching creek
The light of the sunsetting opens up to them…
Markus sprints as hard as he can, heedless of the wounds he’s probably opening back up as he tries to aid Calli in also getting out of the burning hellhouse
Callista is able to move more or less unhindered, her one shoulder wound being much less serious than Markus’s scattershot and shrapnel injuries, and once the initial burst of pain wears off she keeps up with him with no trouble. She looks back briefly into the mill with a frown as the flames spread, now starting to consume the vengeful silver-haired woman’s body. Turning around again, she focuses her eyes forward and her efforts on helping Markus along.
“I tried to give her a chance…more than she deserved,” she mutters. “Let’s get you to the med center.”
“You weren’t wrong…But our options were a bit limited at the time. At least she didn’t die in the fire.”
FINAL THEME: Genshin Night in Lyuie
As the pair makes their way from the site, it is no wonder to them the difficulty of such a woman who had transpired to kill a former Shadow, but alas… the weight of the day becomes clear in their fatigue. Markus is properly tended to, likely expecting a scolding from Sasri later. Callista is left with the weight of the day, knowing her love is no longer in direct danger. And the both are standing through the sunset of a Viscara evening… a chill to remind them that they are alive. So their day falls to a close. Such is a normal life. Such is a normal day in Sandra’s own life.
The times of truth and peace are always paved by the disasters of the past. No matter your decisions, they echo to another, and then another.
END
