Private Bad Company

[Capris Halcyon]

Coruscant ​

It was easy to feel unbalanced here.

Every damn layer of this planet seemed to be embroiled in a uniquely unhappy memory, like some Russian doll she had the pleasure of unraveling all over again. Capris flexed her hand against the cool surface of a concrete pillar and watched as lanes of ships zigzagged in the distance.

He was here. Somewhere. She hadn’t the slightest clue why she believed it with such conviction, but that wave of instinct had gotten her this far- like a dog chasing a butterfly, completely ignorant to the fact its prey was elusive. Part of her felt stupid for thinking she could manage this bounty in the first place. Kyric was ultimately the more experienced force user. The one who actually knew how to wield a lightsaber. She'd have a better chance against his corpse, but the stipulations had been clear. He was supposed to be alive, condition negotiable.

“Fethhh, when's your contact supposed to get here?”

Capris turned away from the floor-to-ceiling gap in the wall and towards the Twi'lek mercenary slumped on the floor, currently fiddling with a switchblade between two of his fingers. She’d recruited him in the same scummy bar Talin fished her out of not so long ago, all under the assumption he was just extra muscle to see a simple bounty exchange through.

Jury was still out on whether she was great at lying or that he just happened to be exceptionally gullible.

“Your demon cat is going to eat our brains if this takes any longer.” He spoke again, trying to prod for an answer as he used the sharp end of the knife to clear his fingernails of dirt.

Capris’s attention flickered to the jaguar-like shape with its paws crossed in the darkest recess of the abandoned apartment. It was considerably less blood thirsty than it had been a few days ago, whatever that counted for. In some other universe she may have felt prideful over the fact she’d managed to get its corrupted mind on such a tight leash, but here Capris barely let the coldness of that realization sting. She was treating their lives as dispensable. No better than puppets.

Even for her this was a ridiculously elaborate lie.

“If I knew you were going to whine this much, I would’ve found someone else.” Capris deflected, turning her back to the window, “I’m paying you to look intimidating and flail around a blaster. Trust me, this is the easiest gig of your life.”

Capris closed her eyes, basking in a final moment of rational thought before betting the rest of her plan on speculation and mysticism. She’d need to disarm Kyric if she wanted to stand any chance of getting close. That and she also needed something dramatic enough to draw him out. He’d found her the last two times, and now she could only hope that savior complex of his was still intact after almost getting an icicle stuck through his sternum.

“Alright, first order of business.” Capris turned once more, and the young mercenary lit up at the chance to actually be of use. “I'm going to need you to shoot me in the arm.”

The Twilek sputtered and dropped his knife.

Kyric

 

[Kyric]

Attached firmly to the wall of some club or casino tucked deep within the confines of the lower levels, a neon pink sign flashed egregiously through the night. The light pierced a lone window across the alleyway–a corner 'suite' within a rundown hotel.

Kyric squinted at the intrusion and stood from the desk nestled into a corner of the small eight-by-eight room. He trundled across the room with a scowl. After fiddling with the controls to the shutters, the kiffar abandoned the task after he realized an unknown gunk had settled within the tiny tract which the shutters traveled. He stared silently at the mess for a few short seconds and returned to the desk.

Rather than sit and return to his work, Kyric snatched up the old poncho hung over his seat and made his way for the door. He paused beside Resolute where it hung from a tiny hook. The blade gifted to him by Kale was imbued with a great power that allowed the young Jedi to survive his first true test against the dark side. Though Creuat had taken Kyric's eye and nearly captured him within the Grand Convocation Chamber, Bernard's quick thinking had saved Kyric from an unfortunate fate.

But the blade was... a blade. The damn thing must've been thirty-five to forty-inches.

Kyric didn't want to go through all the trouble to disguise it, but he knew better than to fly the sky lanes of the lower levels without a weapon. Especially not in the aftermath of the Dark Empire's assault on the Core. So, the boy lifted an old black duffel bag from a second hook across the tiny hall and slid the sheathed sword within.

"I need to make a new saber already," Kyric grumbled as he pushed out into the hallway. The luxury of his supposed suite was the single-access turbolift that led directly to a rooftop garage, well out of reach of any of the building's other denizens. He rode it up and stepped out into the frigid, temperature-controlled night of the 1313.

"Can't believe dad was born in this chithole," he muttered to himself as he fished out the key to the garage. It was a rust thing, much like the lock the boy struggled to turn from fear of breaking the only key. Thankfully, it turned when faced with a delicate display of force and Kyric was able to lift the door to reveal the recently refurbished speeder bike left to him by his father.

After Creuat had smashed it into the durasteel rooftops outside the Senate District, Kyric didn't think he would be able to scrounge up the old thing and piece it back together. Thankfully, the psychic trail left behind in his father's memories led the young gumshoe to the most crucial of pieces. What he lacked he scavenged from local scrapyards and smugglers. After a few hundred credits and several weeks of work, the Heartpiercer looked good as new! If new meant it looked like a krayt dragon had chewed it up and spit it back out.

Kyric mounted the bike and activated it with a freshly installed push-to-start mechanism fitted into the riser. It purred with the excitement of a feral beast as the Jedi flew out into the night.

It was maybe two minutes of peaceful flight before a sound like a blaster bolt pierced Kyric's calm. He felt a flash of white-hot pain erupt within his mind's eye and winced as if the wound itself ripped through his flesh. Unable to ignore the call within his psyche, the kiffar turned his speeder bike toward what appeared to be a building that had recently begun construction. Big plastic tarps blocked out the worst of the elements from the innards of what may have once been a residence or business.

Kyric veered towards the tingling pain that called to him from the southwestern corner of the building. He rather abruptly swung the bike around the corner and into a ruined hall. He stalled the engine quick, deactivated the speeder, and slid from the seat with the grace of a cat. The boy raced down the long hallway at a sprint. He turned the corner at the end, collided against the wall with a grunt, and hurried the last stretch into the room which housed his three assailants.

Capris Halcyon​

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Capris had eaten her fair share of blaster bolts with the tact and grace expected of any hardened combatant. But this one came sided with guilt. It twisted and clawed until it sprung a leak in something far deeper than blood. She fought the urge to clamp down on the singed flesh and instead trusted her runes to keep her from feeling the worst of it. Did Kyric have that luxury? Probably not. Did she care?..

Her eyes shut a moment before meeting the twi'lek’s own terrified gaze. “You can leave.” She squeezed the strain from her voice and straightened to her full height.

“I- what?”

“I said you can leave.” This time the words were as flat and leveled as she could make them, seemingly removed from any pain.

The twi’lek shuffled back and dropped the blaster as if it had burned him, “You’re fething deranged.”

Capris grimaced, her head lolling in what could be construed as a tired nod. She wasn’t about to fight that allegation. No sooner than he’d made way towards the door, another presence blistered to life down the hall.

Hm, punctual.

Capris closed her eyes once more and tried to gather the resolve currently unraveling at her feet. By the time she opened them again, none other than Kyric Karis was at her doorstep.

Oh.

Her disbelief couldn't be faked. It was him alright… With the addition of a few memorable scars. The ones she’d only seen before in her dreams.

“Kyric?” She breathed, eyes wide and tracing the discolored skin on his face with something more than shock.

Kyric

 

[Kyric]

Kyric considered leaving the moment Capris came into view. Though she was no less beautiful than in his dream, he couldn't imagine this scene would play out any better than the club. He straightened. His single eye narrowed on the trail of steam wafting off her burned and reddened flesh. Subconsciously, his gloved hand went to faint traces of the now dull psionic burn he felt before as he considered her in full.

Capris' runic magic was still an unknown to Kyric. From his brief passes with her abilities he found himself unconscious in a field, and later spared a painful skewering at the hands of force-formed icicle. Though the kiffar heard his fair share of stories from his father's heyday in the war, the idea of an encounter with an esoteric power such as hers felt far off and out of place–not unlike Capris herself.

"I guess I was hopin' you'd remember this," Kyric admitted with a somber smile and faint tap beside the grizzly wound. "But I'm startin' to think you and I both know I'm a fool in that kinda way." His bare hand, decorated with lightning-like scars crawling from his fingertips to beneath the hem of the poncho, clutched tight to the duffel thrown over his shoulder.

A cold sensation ran the length of Kyric's spine. It felt like his blood froze in place for an instant. The kiffar wanted to remove his blade from the confines of the pack now more than ever, but he held off. His blue-eyed gaze locked on the reoccurring interloper to both his life and dreams.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you somehow brought me here... so... why?" Kyric asked, completely unawares of the hulking monster out of view in the shadows. Everything else in the room paled in comparison to her.

Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Capris remained silent for a moment, cataloging both his duffle bag and the intensity at which he held her gaze. She couldn't help but shift uncomfortably, “So it was real.”

A flush of red graced her cheeks, as if suddenly held accountable for every soft comment and caress she’d lent out. Accountable for how stupid, and vulnerable, and pliable she allowed herself to be around him. Turns out it wasn’t just some indulgent fantasy, but a joint effort. Part of her had to have known it was, she wouldn't have gone to such lengths to bait him here otherwise. There was something undeniable linking them, ready to transverse any realm in order to do so.

She couldn’t help but think that was wildly unfair to the boy across from her.

He’s Caspian’s death. Focus.

Capris straightened, her runes smoldering in accordance, already working to repair the damage up the length of her arm. She fought to keep her gaze off the corner which stored a slowly rousing Sithspawn and instead watched Kyric. Her eyes conflicted. Unsettled. Defensive like always. What bastard did this to him?

“I don’t think you’re a fool.” she said after a moment, softly. She didn’t know why she felt the need to insist as much, but the words fell from her lips anyway, balancing between mistrust and a strange desire to comfort him, “Though you could probably work on your self-preservation.” It was a layered comment, and a weak attempt at humor, one punctuated by the dull pain burrowing into her arm. “We both could.”

She moved away from the pillar and into a lazy half circle, trying to position him with his back to the Sith spawn. He would notice it soon enough, stalling did her no good.

Capris decided to stall harder.

“I- I needed proof I guess.” Her eyes fell to the ground, as if struggling to articulate her words past the shame swallowing her “That I’m not alone in this.” She vaguely gestured before her hand cringed back in protest.

This. A loose implication towards whatever it was they were feeling. Whatever had consumed her from the past months.

“I don’t know, it’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. I just…”

She looked back up at Kyric then, something hidden in her gaze. A silent plea to give her something, to give her any reason not to go through with this.

“..need it to make sense.”

Kyric

 

[Kyric]

Self-preservation wasn't a bad idea, but Kyric felt rooted to the floor. He watched Capris circle out to one side of him. Her words spilled out in uneven spurts that betrayed any attempt to maintain composure. He could feel there was more at play than what he could see, but the web of emotions woven between them made it easy to ignore the quiet voice in the back of his head even as it screamed out in warning.

"I'm not versed enough in space wizardry to field a guess," Kyric admitted with little hesitation. His honesty felt like second nature even in the face of such a strange encounter. Whatever potential danger awaited the kiffar, the connection to her itself did not trouble him. Their shared dream exposed a side of the young bounty hunter to the Jedi Knight he couldn't of expected. Her cold persona hid a certain warmth rarely exposed to the galaxy at large.

From where Kyric stood, Capris' looked more vulnerable than in control. Some part of him knew it was the same instinct that drove him to her aid. He felt the pain buried beneath a lifetime of terrible decisions. She wore them like a shield of thorns. They encased her heart in a prickly and cold wall meant to separate her from something he had yet to deduce. It was a mystery he felt obligated to solve, as if the universe itself dropped the puzzle that was Capris Halcyon at his feet and goaded him with each encounter.

"Learnin' takes time, Capris. And commitment," Kyric held up his hands at the moment. His vulnerability created the perfect opportunity to strike him at his weakest, yet he maintained a level of control and discipline that permeated the space around him in an almost tranquil afterglow.

"I understand the Order wasn't for you. And I'm not for blamin' you, neither." Kyric didn't move closer. He remained between Capris and the sithspawn poised for his back. "But you can't keep puttin' problems between you and your past. It won't end well."

Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Something about him weakened her grip on the situation, frayed nerves running from her. He had to know something was off. Dangerously so. And yet he elected to stay anyway?

Part of her wanted to stumble through the rest of this encounter, abandon her goal and leave with whatever dignity she could muster..Maybe see if he wanted to grab some bantha burgers and forget about this whole thing.

Because truth was, she felt so incredibly small in the face of his certainty. Dumbfounded by the control he extended trying to anchor her. What exactly did he see standing before him? Some vulnerable shell of a girl, wrapped in barbed wire and misplaced anger, desperate for someone to lift her from the hole she'd dug for herself.

It was self serving, and more than she could ever ask of someone.

But he was Kyric.

"But you can't keep puttin' problems between you and your past. It won't end well."

"I know." she whispered.

Her head tilted, eyes narrowing in what seemed to be confusion.

"Don't you think I know that?"

In the following moment, several things happened. With a stab from the Force, the sithspawn turned on a dime, its languid form blazing to life in a show of packed muscle and agility as it lunged to pin Kyric to the floor. Then, nearly simultaneously, a spire of ice crystallized before her, poised to strike.

"But believe me." Capris schooled her expression. Hardened, cold. As if everything that came before was simply an act. "I'm not in any position to stop."

Kyric

 

[Kyric]

Despite the difference in locale and context of their earlier encounters, Kyric noted certain consistencies about the troubled girl poised to capture him.

Capris bore the instincts of a predator. Never did she directly place herself in the path of danger without the beginnings of a plan. Her ploy on Pantora was hidden behind the veil of aid, and the way she handled the bounty hunter in the club here on Coruscant came only after she postured to take the kiffar's life. She was a practiced hunter with a keen enough intellect to pick apart her targets and use their weaknesses against them.

Kyric knew that placed him at the utmost disadvantage. Even as Capris' ephemeral command washed over the monstrosity at the kiffar's back, he found it difficult to look away from her.

Primal hate roared within Kyric's mind as the briefest glimpse of the future scoured away all else.

The sithspawn pounced for him in a bid to pin him to the floor. Under the threat of its superior size and razor sharp maw, the Jedi expected he would make little use of his abilities or blade.

Foresight quickly gave way to reality as motion exploded from the pool of living shadow behind Kyric. His body blurred in turn. He twirled on his backfoot and ripped the duffel from over his shoulder. The thin fabric caught on one of the creature's fangs as the Jedi lodged it, and more importantly its metallic contents, against the hinges of the creature's jaw and wrenched with overwhelming force to the side. Psionic power flooded the boy's muscles in answer and the panther-like monstrosity was driven off course.

Unfortunately, Kyric could do nothing but watch as his only weapon was ripped out of his grasp.

"Bleh," Kyric emoted before he dashed toward the window. Still enhanced by ethereal strength, each stride carried him further along than even he expected, and within seconds, he sailed out into the Coruscanti night with a spirited whoop.

Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

And just like that, whatever fragile spiderweb of trust hung between them incinerated.

"Dammit."

Kyric sailed out the window before she could do much to stop him and immediately her mind went to all manners of damage control. But there was no pretending like this was some kind of misunderstanding.

Shame burned away under the oppressive heat of determination in the next moment however. No matter. He was unarmed. It had to happen this way. Of course he wouldn't make it easy.

With one hand resting on the creature's snout, she used the force to yank the bag free along with its contents, a metallic clang resounding on the floor. Capris scooped up the weapon, turning it in speculation. She'd never seen him with this before. A new sword to go with a new look maybe? The girl grimaced at the reminder of his current condition before slinging the sheathed blade over the Sithspawn's back, doing the same for herself a moment later.

Reacting poorly to being ridden like a horse, the beast shrugged under her weight, but Capris overwhelmed its own senses with her intent like a brand against skin. The creature wrested its head at the intrusion but nonetheless a path emerged in its mind Follow.

With that, the beast soared after the ghost of Kyric, his firey presence an unforgettable supernova against the backdrop of Coruscant.

At least to her. At least now. With him ever so slowly slipping from reach.

Kyric

 

[Kyric]

Kyric fell fifteen feet before he slowed his descent in time to avoid a full on collision with a speeder. The break in momentum gave him time to draw out a grapple gun from his a holster on his left hip. He took aim, pulled the trigger, and fired the ascension capable into a passing vehicle. The cable caught and yanked hard, nearly tearing the Jedi's shoulder from its socket. He held on long enough to put a few blocks between him and the building he escaped, then he detached the cable from the gun and dropped to the rooftops below.

A bubble of psionic power surrounded Kyric in time to prevent injury on impact with a series of thick tarps strung up across the rooftop. The speed of his falling form carried him through what the kiffar recognized to be a makeshift bivouac within the recesses of the Lower City. A few homeless denizens shot up in shock, but they could do nothing more than watch Kyric's passage.

So uh.... what's the plan here?

Kyric winced at the question. The bubble of energy deposited him on his feet at the entrance to an old stairway His hands fell to his side where he quickly drew out his second and final ascension cable, which he quickly fed into the grapple gun as he descended between two residential blocks. Aside from the tool, Kyric had his WESTAR tucked into the holster on his right hip, and his spare knife tucked into the back of his belt. Both potent enough against the everyday hunter.

The esoteric force witch and her strange animal companion proved a greater challenge.

Capris' words struck Kyric as off. Her omission of being powerless in the face of an ambush didn't sound right, but the Jedi had little time to piece it together.

The stairway gave way to a long hallway full of people.

"Feth," Kyric turned back and considered his descent. Ten floors between him and the roof. On panther-back, Capris would cover the distance in half the time the instant the sithspawn's paws touched down on the durasteel rooftop. He charged upward anyway. The split-second decision put him up a floor before the sound of his pursuer's entering the stairway reverberated down the mesh walls.

A quick glance revealed an empty and derelict hallway.

"Better than nothin'," Kyric said before he broke into a sprint. His speed tripled as Force-imbued power carried him down the long hallway toward an empty courtyard. The loping footsteps behind him offered him enough time to break into the courtyard at best, so he abandoned any thought of an immediate escape.

Kyric pirouetted with the grace of a dancer and passed out of the tunnel with his back to the yard. He smoothly drew his blaster from the holster. Rather than level the weapon on Capris or her mount, he aimed instead for a pipe bolted into the wall just over the threshold and popped off two shoots. Red hot plasma melted the durasteel and released a heavy spray of steam in his wake.

Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Capris folded her body against the beast, her vision cut to a thin strip as they bobbed and weaved through the landscape. She couldn't rightfully tell where its bullheadedness ended and hers begun, especially not when her thoughts were entirely occupied by the sound of claws tearing through metal.

It wasn't until the Force bubbled in warning mid-pursuit that she exercised any amount of caution. Yanking back a tuft of fur, she narrowly avoided steering head-on into the waterfall of steam. The Sithspawn growled while Capris loosened her own series of choice words.

For a prolonged moment the only thing to accompany her shallow breathing was the hiss of steam. Closing her eyes, she cussed again, and slid from her mount with a wince before approaching the curtain. With the phantom pain of her lost limb bristling in reminder, a rune burned along her back, one she had rarely exercised. Shield.

She stepped through the veil in the next moment, some soft ephemeral barrier keeping the steam from her skin.

"I didn't appreciate that," she remarked, voice strained from overexertion as she tried to orient herself. Strangely she trusted Kyric not to strike her when she was down. With the addition of a shrug she then added, "Not that I can blame you."

Capris rose to her full height in the next moment, finally searching for Kyric amidst the greenery. "You're going to have to kill me if you want me to stop, you know that right?" Feeling like a passenger in her own body, the words left her mouth like lead weights.

Maybe it was a lie, maybe it wasn't. All she knew for certain was that this would end horribly for both of them

Kyric

 

[Kyric]

Kyric twirled the blaster thrice before holstering the weapon. "Jedi protect life. We only end it when its necessary." He knew from experience the circumstances that could drive one to kill in the heat of the moment. But the rationale didn't make it any better. And the kiffar still believed they could both walk away from this alive.

"I'm not sure why it is your chasin' me to begin with," Kyric sought an escape while he spoke.

Having spent his earliest years in a city-sprawl not unlike Coruscant, Kyric was no stranger to urban transportation. Wire-link fences made for perfect handholds when woven between old durasteel machinery and permacrete ledges. The problem wasn't how he could do it. It was more an issue of the multi-legged cat monstrosity that would cover the same distance in less than half the time. And the girl with all manner of tricks who came to collect.

A sinking feeling settled in the kiffar's gut as he realized there would be no easy escape. He would have to improvise when things went bad.

Kyric stopped seeking an out and focused on Capris. "Yer' thinkin' this won't end well, which makes me think there is still a part of you in there willin' to talk this out." He raised both hands. "Is it about the credits? I'll pay you off, really."

Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

"I'm not sure why it is your chasin' me to begin with,"

Capris watched like a wild cat surveying its prey. She took a step forward, then another.
"I'm a bounty hunter." The girl answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I hunt."

"Yer' thinkin' this won't end well, which makes me think there is still a part of you in there willin' to talk this out." He raised both hands. "Is it about the credits? I'll pay you off, really."

She looked at him then with an almost pained expression, as if there was some dark confession bubbling against her lips.
Capris swallowed it and instead offered her signature dry and emotionless stare.

"You mean the part of me that left you for dead in Pantora? The part of me that nearly turned you into a kebab? That part?"

Self hate roiled beneath her surface like storm clouds, some of its misdirected heat extending to the boy in front of her. Such the negotiator, with a seemingly infinite offer second chances. It felt like she was polluting some unreachable standard of good by just being near him. She hated that, hated how he made her feel.

"There's nothing you have that I want Kyric. Not your credits. Not your pity. Not your help."

Everything felt like acid in her mouth, like there was some inner force screaming at her to shut up.

"I just need you out of my life."

Her hand stretched out behind her just in time to meet the duffel bag and it passed through steam and into her grip. The weight was awkward in her hand. Brandishing the sword anyway, she looked back at Kyric.

"So you can make this easy for yourself and come with me, or we can stay here circling each other all night."

Kyric