Location: Arena Works within the Carnivora
Objective: Misdirection (Team One)
Allies Nearby:
Enigma Iuda
Ria Misrani
Max Arach
“
It’s so quiet back here, what’s going on?” Daiya wondered in a low voice. An unexpected growl from her companion drew a look from the girl, and she directed her attention toward the ceilings. Every so often, there was a vid-screen mounted. Not a holo-vid display, but an old fashioned box-type display. The image was grainy and small, but she could make out the action of the arena it portrayed, a four-armed cyborg running headlong across the sandy field. She turned away from it, just as uninterested in the gory combat as before, and did a double-take as something small and orange padded by them.
Was that a cat?
Before she could beckon it back to her, the girl’s hands itching to stroke its tawny fur, Tawrro nudged her and pointed to an alcove in the hallway. There, a couple of workers stood, eyes glued on the screen as the sounds of the crowd piped through tinny speakers. There wasn’t much work being done, it seemed, everyone was too occupied with the fights.
So much the better for them. Daiya shrugged in merry contentment as they continued. She didn’t offer conversation, taking in the dim corridors of the arena works instead, staying on alert for anyone who
wasn’t inattentive to their duties. Without her blaster, Daiya wasn’t much of a combatant, and the close quarters of the works made it that much easier for someone else to grab or trap her. She was lucky to have Tawrro, but his stupor coming out of the arena stands did not instill confidence in his ability to react.
They walked the hallways in silence, following the directions on her datapad, and skirting around entranced workers or more dutious ones who could be sidestepped by ducking into a side corridor or turning around to find another path. The arena control room was their destination, but it seemed tucked away in an absolute maze of corridors and locked doors within the arena works. The sooner they reached it, the better, Daiya thought. She felt naked without a blaster on her.
“
This is the only way,” the girl said as she and Tawrro considered their options at the furthest point in the works they could reach. All of the other paths wound up at areas too populated, or terminated in dead ends in the form of locked doors —it seemed that Daiya’s costly keycard was a one-trick blurgg. Before them lay a single point of entrance...watched by an actual security guard. A gigantic Houk sat squarely in front of the door, impassive and resilient.
Tawrro growled back, but Daiya frowned at him. “
It’ll work, I promise! I have great acting skills!” The Wookiee gave her a dubious look. “
What, it’s true! Did I tell you I played the lead in a school play—” Tawrro interrupted her with a series of barks, an amused tone for him to take. “
So, I have told you! Well, then you know I can pull it off. You just have to act your cheery self! That can’t be too hard.”
A barking whine that Daiya had always a approximated as a Wookiee laugh uttered forth, and the girl threw a finger to her mouth to quiet him, failing to hide a broad grin behind her slender digit. She forced a frown to stop from laughing herself, and then urged Tawrro on.
He stepped into the corridor alone, and his tall Wookiee legs covered the distance in just a few strides. Daiya could hear the chair shift under the security guard, and his booming voice filling the small space, “
Hey, what are you doing out of your pen?”
She could barely make out the low growl of Tawrro’s response, but by the guard’s reply, he hadn’t understood it. She nearly snickered at his sass, but decided to quietly plead instead, whispering, “
C’mon, Tawrro, give me the cue.”
“
Where’s your tamer? I oughtta have a—”
That was her cue, like it or not.
The girl burst forth into the hallway, filling the space with her energy if not her form. She beamed broadly as she ran up to the massive Wookiee, babbling out a stream of mildly coherent gushing, “
Oh my stars, it is you! Tawrro, I’m, like, your BIGGEST fan. You don’t know how many of my friends would just die to be here right now, I can’t believe I’m actually standing next to the famous Tawrro!” She jumped in place, squealing and clapping her hands, and then spun around, letting her long hair fly, coming to an abrupt stop a moment later as if she had just noticed the massive guard sitting there.
“
I’m sorry, I know I’m probably not supposed to be here, but I couldn’t resist when I saw Tawrro! Did you know he took down 15 enemies by himself last season, two of them were Gammorreans with vibro-pitchforks. I couldn’t believe the way he smashed through those Zabrak, either, did you see the size of them? Can you say ‘hashtag #thicc’ with, like, twenty creshes?!”
The big Houk stood, rising to his massive height above her. She had to admit, it was properly intimidating. “
Little girl, you need to get out before I call security on him. He’s dangerous, and he’s supposed to be in a pen with the rest of his ilk!”
Tawrro growled loudly, but Daiya ignored it. Then she gasped, and began to reach into her bag, rifling through as if looking for something, “
I completely forgot, you want money. That’s what works for your kind, right, a bribe?”
“
Look, if you want an autograph, you’ll have to get it from one of the fighters with sentience. This one is—”
Nobody could hear the Houk’s next words over the deafening loud roar issued from Tawrro’s mouth, his jaws wide open to show his bared teeth. Daiya had just enough time to get out of the way before her companion launched himself at the security guard. The two struggled in a vicious hug, violently wrestling for dominance between them as the girl tried to press herself flatter against the wall, hoping against hope not to get hurt in the fray. She watched with horror when the guard pulled an arm free, reaching for the blaster at his belt.
Then Daiya heard the sickening crunch as the guard’s arm bent backwards, cracked down against the chair by Tawrro’s might, with enough force to break the chair and the guard's arm both. The Wookiee bellowed in triumph, but kept on the attack. The guard’s cries of pain slowly diminished in volume as Tawrro’s blows hit vital areas, rattling organs in their fleshy cage and spewing fluids from broken skin. The Houk’s protests were barely a whimper by the time Tawrro had the guard’s arm in a vicegrip with one giant paw, using his other to brace against the guard’s neck as he stretched the captured limb.
“
Tawrro, no!” the girl cried, but her voice was lost in the war cry of her friend. She ran to him, pulling at the hand which held his captive enemy. “
Tawrro, let him go! You got him, he's down.”
Her partner was deaf to her pleas, and the girl’s voice grew louder as tears welled in her eyes. “
TAWRRO!” she screamed, to little avail.
He was frightening. Hair stood from all over on his body, where it wasn’t matted down by blood and spittle. A fiery rage burned in his eyes, which were little squints above his open mouth, an endless roar uttering forth with the effort he applied. Tawrro looked like everything she had feared in the first moment they met, a giant beast only bent on killing. She could picture it as clearly as yesterday, a ferocious roar, the mad bellow of a bloodthirsty monster, ready to slake his thirst on the object before his eyes.
None of that had happened, and yet Daiya saw as if he had. The tears streamed freely down her face, a river of fear and pain and loneliness that echoed the little girl whom Tawrro had found that day. The little girl whom Tawrro hadn’t harmed that day, but instead assumed the role of her protector. Justice was his driving purpose, not murder. Not this.
“TAWRROWALDR!”
She shrieked again in a voice filled with terror, sobbing freely now as she faced the being she thought was her friend. A last, desperate attempt to pull him back from whatever edge he was falling from, to rescue him from whatever horrors the arena had reminded him of. Her voice, her mind, her body, her spirit, all resonating in a wailing harmony that seemed to ripple out from her, screaming at him to stop short of what he was about to do, of the act he was about to commit.
Enemy or no, the guard didn’t deserve a torturous end.
The moment seemed to stand still. His roars rang echoing in her ears, her mindsplitting scream tumbling from her lips, and the guard’s arm hanging distended from its weakening socket. And then it changed. Daiya watched Tawrro turn to her, and a pair of beady eyes blinked. His roar lost its voice as he stared at the girl he had guarded and nurtured as the closest thing to a father in her life. His might lost its strength as he gazed at his arms, and the Houk strung between them, the guard a shriveled version of the behemoth from seconds earlier. Tawrro let out a short breath, and released his grip on his enemy, letting the creature slump into the broken remains of the chair on the floor.
Daiya stood back, her eyes red and puffy as tears dripped down, staring with wary eyes. She shrunk back as Tawrro reached for her, the Wookiee’s gesture only reigniting her fears. He stepped back, a defeated look on his face. It was brief, replaced quickly by a glimpse of shame before he turned his head down to his feet. Her chest shook as she sobbed, unable to stop it, unable to quell her intense despair. Tawrro had done what she wanted, he’d stopped. She should feel happy, elated even, but still the girl was consumed by dread just being near him.
Her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, burying her head in hands, embracing a darkness over her eyes that was her only comfort. It felt like she cried for hours, days even, as if she would never be rid of her fear. She had lived with it every day for years, it was her closest companion behind Tawrro, but now it encircled her with unhindered glee. She shrank from its touch, but it pursued her, reaching her in the darkest corners of her existence, ready to stamp out the last of her happiness.
A growl.
That’s all it took to banish it, a single growl. The years of friendship and camaraderie and rapport could never be summed up in such a fleeting remark, and yet a single apologetic growl stood, bared and naked, waiting for judgement anyway. Daiya kept her eyes shut, unwilling to see the beast who had frightened her so. But she could feel her chest loosening, her sobs wavering until they broke, leaving her breathing heavy but breathing free of her quickly-fading fear. She pried open her eyes, and saw him crouched in front of her, a hand hovering just over her head, afraid to make contact. Her lip quivered, and her heart sprang as quickly as she moved, throwing herself into his giant frame, burying herself in the darkness beneath the waves of his thick Wookiee coat. A darkness which did not banish her, but welcomed her into its safe embrace.
They had little time in their newfound safety as a screaming alarm sounded throughout the works, causing the pair to look at the bloody trail left behind from where the Houk once stood guard.
