Private A Shootist on Atrisia

[Maple Harte]

Wearing: Armor

Armed with: The Cane Without Fear

DC-17 Commando Rifle (All standard attachments)

ACP Gun

Arrived to Atrisia in: The Silent Erika


Location: Sacred Ancestor Crash Site, Isle of The Horse Lords

Maple struggled to stay in reality as she piloted The Silent Erika, a glistening black J-Type 327 Nubian with red tinted windows.

Nine Lives had called her for a Bounty. Looters had discovered The Sacred Ancestor...the gravesite of Nine's Mother, the Mad Admiral and Shadow Vampire O-Cho Li-Ves.

The mission was simple: Subdue the Looters, recover what already been stolen, and make sure O-Cho's grave was undisturbed.

The Nubian Starship had all stealth systems engaged as it landed in the frosty regions of the Horse Lords Isle. They were a society of warriors and nomadic seafarers who went out to conquer surrounding islands. Times had changed. The land had not.

The crash site's wreckage glittered, even this far out. It had once been among the earliest of the Star Destroyer types, specially built by an ancient Atrisian Emperor's commission with a golden transparent hull. Its wreckage dotted the flower filled canyon that now hid it.

Maple stepped off the ship in her black and white Armor, armed with one of her favorite old school shooters, the Commando Rifle from the Clone Wars.

She had been in hiding for the most part since Kar Shian. Since learning the truth about the Amalgam. She had been devastated by it. Drank more often. Tge nightmares about tge Brain Demon had ramped up. Maple was now having to sleep with enchantments. But she could feel that monster still. Skip. Maple was nothing but a shoemaker. Skip. Back to reality.

She stopped as she came across the frozen body of a man in armor. He had a haul of ancient junk. Shot in the back.

Maple went even more alert. Who else was here?

Signs of struggle became apparent, even through the snow...lost of spent clips and a pervasive sense of evil...

She proceeded onto the path to the valley...keeping an eye for threats...

Bat Rum Hilt

 

[Bat Rum Hilt]

Bat Rum had left the Discourteous in orbit along with her crew, choosing to make planetfall in his B-Wing instead. Not knowing what to expect, the pirate captain thought it best to scout the location himself before deciding what other resources to commit.

The tip had come from a bounty hunter who'd picked up a distress signal from the planet's surface while passing by. She hadn't stopped, as she'd had a particularly difficult prize she was trying to turn over, but had put out a simple message saying if anyone was in the area, they might check it out.

He'd passed the remains of a firefight, including a corpse, and mentally cataloged the scattered prizes the dead man was surrounded by. It looked as if the shooter were looking for something specific.

Bat closed his eyes, ran his left hand through the air above the treasure. He'd always had a sixth sense for valuables. Almost as if they spoke to him. His right hand absently checked the Clone Wars-era antique pistol he kept in a cross-draw holster; the prize of a previous expedition. He didn't know why he kept it on him; the thing didn't work. The power cell itself had been replaced with something else entirely. Bat couldn't identify it, but it gave him an odd feeling, a mental tingle that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as if he were being watched. Still, something told him to keep it on him as a talisman, and Bat rarely went against his instincts.

There.

The pirate's left hand came down, plucked something from the ground. Opening his eyes, he saw a fragment of ceramic, with faded letters in a language he couldn't read. Without hesitation, he brushed the snow of off it and dropped it into a pocket of his coat, rose, and kept walking toward the ancient wreckage of the ship, the only logical destination.

Suddenly, up ahead, he saw a figure perhaps three hundred yards away, moving carefully towards the valley. The killer? The corpse behind seemed too old for that, but what were the odds that two people would be following the same dead distress signal?

Bat Rum moved carefully, following.


Maple Harte

 

[Maple Harte]

More dead. Frozen for at least 007 hours. Slashed apart. Wild animal. No tools used.

She began following tracks. Clawmarks. Her danger sense perked up but she sensed another person about three hundred meters behind her. How had he found this place?

Maple had no time to really think about it when she heard the snarl.

She heard it darting across the snow from behind and to her right, seconds from reaching her.

The Hunter whipped around and sprayed the rakghoul in the head with half a dozen shots.

More emerged from the snow around her like trap door spiders. These beasts were as pale as the snow around them, their jaws dripping with mutative disease that would transform anyone bitten into one of them. She didn't have Rakghoul Serum.

Maple drew her ACP Gun and dual wielded it in a 360 degree pattern as the monsters rushed her from all sides.

Her training was like a a horrible oil slick on her soul now after the revelation at Kar Shian. She no longer took much joy in her past. It helped her kill her enemies. But it meant nothing more than that. Could never mean more than that now.

She distanced herself from watching the heads and chests of Rakghoul explode from her bolts in short, controlled bursts.

(Cutaway of Hudson being pulled into the floor by a Xenomorph)

She managed to finish off the remaining few with the last remaining shots in both clips, than quickly began reloading both, snapping her Rifle in the direction of Bat Rum Hilt once he was in range.

"Man I sure hope you ain't here for me, 'cause I ain't the 'Taking Alive' Type." Maple muttered at him. "What are you, a scavenger? Pirate? Pirate-Scavenger? Used Vehicle Salesman? Wait, you sell Ice Cream, don't you?" Maple wondered, her schizophrenia momentarily making her lose track and go on a tangent.

"Out with it! I came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass!"

 

[Bat Rum Hilt]

"Nononono WAIT!" shouted Bat, throwing his hand in the air. "I'm not any of those things! Well, to be honest I am some of those things. But I don't sell ice cream!'

We could kill her, said a voice in Bat's head.

"I'm not going to kill her!" said the pirate, turning around to see where the voice had come from. Spinning back towards the woman, he called, "I'm not going to kill you! I don't even know you!" He took several tentative steps forward. "I...look, I was just passing by. I have a ship in orbit." With one hand, he pointed to the sky. "We got a distress call passed on to us. I figured I would check it out." Without lowering his hands, he attempted to motion around them. "This is what I've found so far. This, and you, and the rifle you still have pointed at me."

Is this a parlay? asked the voice in Bat Rum's head.

The pirate hissed. "Who are you?" he whispered.

It's a surprise, replied the silent voice.

Bat Rum narrowed his lips and shook his head. Perhaps he was going mad. "Look," he said aloud to the women with the rifle, "Could you maybe lower that? We could work together, find out what happened. Get some...get some ice cream. My name is Bat Rum Hilt. I'd like to say it's nice to meet you, but it really isn't yet."

Maple Harte

 

[Maple Harte]

Maple kept the rifle pointed at his head. Skip! Squirrels! Skip. Back to Bat Rum.

"Well damn...I really wanted an ice cream sandwich...Hey Narrator! Make sure Ice Cream is in one of the loot drops later on!" she shouted at the sky, convinced her bones were made of candy for about thirty seconds.

She then refocused on him.

"Bat...you picked a bad place to salvage! This area we are in? Its the location of wreckage that was once an extremely ancient warship! Whole damn place is infested with rakghouls, and if they bite you, you turn into one eventually!" She warned. "If you got a distress signal its likely from the looters who bit off more than they could chew."

She glanced at the Rakghouls.

"Now, normally, I can handle Rakghouls. But I don't want to watch out for both Rakghouls AND Looters. I got a bounty for the Looters alive. Tell you what...you watch my back, and I split the Bounty with you...My name, by the way, is Harte. Maple Harte."

(Clip of Bond Theme Plays)

She at last lowered her rifle, but not so much that she could not easily raise it to fire.

"What say you. Friend...or Foe?"

Bat Rum Hilt

 

[Bat Rum Hilt]

Bat Rum rolled the woman's words around in his head. Creatures that turned you into creatures if they bit you, an ancient ship possibly filled with treasure, and a potential partner who thinks she can handle the lot but is willing to split the bounty and the loot.

What could go wrong?

"Tell you what, Maple, I won't say friend until you lower the rifle, but I will say partner. I'll let you lead the way to the remains of the ship; you can tell me all about it as we walk."

Maple Harte

 

[Maple Harte]

Maple sighed.

"Dammit I wish I had Two-Face's coin, we could have made my decision a TON more dramatic."

She lowered her rifle.

"Alright, we're in this together..." Maple spoke...

(Cutaway of cartoon Batman and Robin shaking hands.)

Twelve minutes later...

Maple led Bat Rum Hilt through a pass into the snowy valley proper.

She could make out the glittering, wrecked remains of the Sacred Ancestor. Its ancient hull had been of a transparent material as tough as Matrix Armor, lard over a cage of titanium and durasteel.

"Its one of the earliest Star Destroyers ever made. It nearly laid waste to this planet thousands of years before. They barely succeeded in destroying it. They are secrets aboard its corpse best left alone..." Maple told her new traveling companion, stopping in front of a wall of golden, transparent wreckage in front of them.

"Holy Creepy Space Wreckage, Bat Rum Hilt !" Maple exclaimed, unconsciously doing her best OOC Burt Ward impression. She scanned for an alternate route and spotted a crack in the wall, directing him to follow her through it.

She heard wind chimes, spotted lit lanterns...and a scene of gore. Three dead looters, torn open at close range. One had an open chest of tear opals nearby. Maple went to examine them, spotting a trail of blood that led into the warped hull of the golden wreckage.

"They haven't been dead long. An hour tops." Maple spoke, hallucinating Darth Maul playing the saxophone next to her very softly. His notes were velvety.

She looked at one looter. She knealt down, picking up his weapon, inspecting it...

"Here Bat. This is your first time in a dungeon scenario...you'll need something with stopping power..."

(Zelda Acquisition Theme Plays)

(Bat Rum Hilt got a new weapon!)

Weapon: ELECTROBOLT ASSAULT RIFLE

Spoiler

Blaster model firing electric energy bolts instead of standard blasters, highly lethal and accurate. This particular model is set to single and three shot burst.

Maple then saw people in the distance withing the wrecked hull, their lights moving about within.

"What the hell is going on?" Maple grunted.

Maple then dived as her Force Senses screamed. She barely evaded a sniper bolt.

"Cover! COVER!" She yelled at Bat returning fire at a glint positioned on an arch of wreckage. She dived behind a trunk of stolen goods. As another bolt of red was sent her way. "Stay down!" She yelled at Bat.

Maple switched out her rifle mod for her sniper attachment, took aim and countersniped at the glint.

Her bolt of blue killed the sniper, going through the scope and his eye.

Maple didn't dare come out of cover as two men in white snow gear came out of a crack in the super massive hull, firing blaster chainguns at their position.

"Cover me!" She yelled. "They're worth fifty XP!"

 

[Bat Rum Hilt]

Bat Rum rolled his eyes before checking that the energy cell was still active and ensuring the safety was off.

"You're using words that sound like Basic, but somehow I still have no idea what the hell you're talking about!" said the pirate, popping up from behind the carcass of a dead luggabeast that must have been brought by the scavengers. For the first four shots he didn't even bother sighting down the barrel of the rifle, he simply opened fire in the direction of the ship. A quick round of suppression fire later, he set the rifle properly on his shoulder, to see one of the figures had already fallen.

"Whatever an XP is, you owe me fifty!" he called as his partner darted forward.

Maple Harte

 

[Maple Harte]

"Each one is worth fifty XP apiece! That means you and I get it split by twenty five XP for both of us!" Maple replied to Bat Rum Hilt as she shot another one in the head. Skip. She was the leader of a band of generic watered down for television superheroes. Skip. Back to reality.

Out came the cane. She triggered Force Speed, dodging the chaingun fire from the remaining man even as she got closer and closer with flips and twirls.

Flips and Twirls taught to her by Ursula Sandraven.

AKA The Amalgam

Her beloved/hated master had never been real. Merely a False Persona created by a murderous shapeshifting witch that could break the fourth wall just like she could. She should have been looking for a solution to truly killing her, but in truth was so heartbroken by the revelation that her mentor had been a lie, that she herself had been secretly the apprentice of a Sith in control of that lie that she had spent the weeks since hiding out and drinking from the depression. The nightmares of The Brain Demon, The Amalgam's wretched Dark Side Goddess increased in frequency to the point she was having to sleep with enchantments to keep it out of her head.

Her cane sliced through the chaingun, then his leg. Her boot was on his throat in a swift, and fluid motion afterward, just like that Beast had taught her.

"How many others...don't try and lie, because your speechcheck has no chance in hell of making it past me..." she growled at the screaming man.

"Thirty...treasure room..." he gasped before passing out...

Maple sighed, grabbing his grenades, and silently gesturing for Bat to follow.

"Move slowly. I sense great evil here..." she warned...

 

[Bat Rum Hilt]

"Thirty?" asked Bat aloud. "You do know how to show someone a good time."

The pirate kept his newly-obtained rifle close, barrel pointed upwards, as he flanked Maple Harte , his eyes scanning as they walked.

Tarentatek, said the voice in his head.

"Do you know what a Tarentatek is?" he asked Maple. "I think there's one ahead waiting for us."

Before he could get an answer, a loud voice called "Get them!"

"It's a trap!" yelled Bat. "They're trying to herd us towards whatever a Tarantatek is!"

Instead of bringing the rifle up, the pirate instinctively raised his open hand and thrust it forward and upwards, as if he were trying to open hand punch the air. With a rush of energy, an ancient wall of the great ship shuddered and collapsed, raining debris on the pair's latest pursuers. It was a Force power, apparently; one he'd used in the past, but only when under severe duress. Not thinking, not waiting, Bat Rum then snapped his rifle up, opening fire as the wall fell, in an effort to ensure their safety.

"XPs!" he said over his shoulder, still not understanding what it meant but wanting some anyway.

 

[Maple Harte]

"A big fething Nasty Beast that makes John Leguizamo from when he was the creepy clown in Spawn look like a cuddly cute kitten. Its resistant to lightsabers. Why?" She asked Bat Rum Hilt as she went inside the broken frozen interior proper spotting Atrisian architectural schemes. The remnants of a vast hangar for launching fighters.

Suddenly she heard a shout. Bat yelled it was a trap but before Maple could quick draw like Han Solo, Bat threw out an impressive wave of energy that collapsed one of the ancient walls of the ship interior, and crushed the ones shooting under debris.

"Holy Surprise Force Powers, Bat Rum!" Maple exclaimed, and began running deeper into the wrecked ship, lamboring over fallen internal debris and statues. She heard the enemy in hot pursuit.

Maple spotted a wrecked, and ancient repair bay and directed him inside, using telekinesis wo seal the doors momentarily to hide them, directing him to keep quiet as the enemy passed by a passageway they had been in.

"Who are these people, why did you say they had a Terentatek?" Maple asked in a whisper once she felt all enemies pass them by. They were by no means safe.

"And how long have you been able to do that?" She asked, curious.

To her disquiet this reminded her of the questions she was first asked by the Jedi...and even more troublingly when she was recruited by Ursula...except this time she was the secretive Assassin with dark secrets and Bat was the newbie...

She suppressed a shudder at the parallel...

 

[Bat Rum Hilt]

"What, shoot a rifle?" whispered Bat in response. "I learned when I was a child. I held a blaster before I held a girl's hand." The pirate chose to ignore any reference to innate, undeveloped powers that he may from time to time exhibit. "I'm not sure the Tarantatek was theirs, but I think they know the Tarantatek was over that way." He pointed in a direction to the left of and beyond the door they were safely behind.

Without waiting for Maple Harte to respond, Bat turned away and began exploring the hanger bay they'd hidden themselves in. A gaping hole in the ceiling, wide enough for an X-Wing to fly through, let in enough natural light for them to take in their surroundings.

The repair hanger appeared to have been exposed to the elements for long enough to ruin the equipment: long-rusted bays, crumbled carts, vermin-chewed cables and mysterious puddles seemed to be all that remained. Somewhere across the room a slow, rhythmic drip of water marked the centuries.

Bat Rum closed his eyes, extended his hands, and slowly began walking, letting his sixth sense take over to see if there was anything here worth salvaging. To Maple's surprise, he steered clear of all obstacles as he moved, as if he knew his precise location without having to to see.

 

[Maple Harte]

Natural evasion artist, Maple thought of Bat Rum Hilt .

The ruined hangar was silent save for the howling wind in the gaping ceiling. Maple avoided obstacles with just as much alacrity as he did.

"If it is a Terentatek, it isn't native to this place, she thought. Skip. She was secretly the last of an intelligent race of rancors and had finished serving a 007 hundred year sentence for unpleasant restuarant reviews. Skip. Back to reality. Back to Bat Rum.

"I got my start at shooting a bit later than that. At Mustafar..." Maple admitted quietly as she followed him. She noticed the Atrisian Gothic architecture and saw how similar it was to the interior of The Morpheus . The Oni Statues lined even the passages of this dead hangar, faces of Atrisian demons leering on the supports and archways.

She could feel the echoes of Nine Lives as she wandered the Hangar with Bat Rum. A terrible battle had once raged across the entire ship. Echoes of the swords of Mother and Daughter clashing in Maple's schizophrenia addled mind made her even more wary of this place. She could feel the Darkness. This ship may be a corpse, but it still festered with maggots.

Unwillingly, she found herself drawing on 'Ursula's' teachings, seperating herself from the eerieness of the frozen, golden glass ship around her. She hated the fact that she only continued to survive because of what that horrible, murderous witch had taught her. She could only imagine Laertia was in the same sort of turmoil.

She heard the snarl of rakghouls, spotted them leaping over the hole above but not entering.

Her madness causing her to get OOC Metro 2033 vibes, Maple readied her weapons.

"Get ready..." she warned. "I know rakghouls. They'll filter in through any opening they can find. Two minutes, maybe less before they try and swarm us.

Howls of rakgouls rang out in the distance.

"Correction. Thirty seconds..." Maple trailed, aiming down her sights and blasting the head off a rakghoul forty meters from Bat's position. She began sniping more as the rakghouls began clawing through gaps in the hull everywhere, including deck plating.

"They're coming out of the walls! THEY'RE COMING OUTTA THE DAMN WALLS!" Maple shouted, spotting a passage that she knew from supplied schematics led to engineering.

"Follow me!" She yelled, shooting more as she broke into a run for that passage...