Private Jungle Creatures

[Inanna Harth]

“Why do you think I dropped out of the Academy?” Inanna replied. “I don’t get anything. The most I can do is pick up objects and hurl them with my mind.” Which was perhaps no small feat, but in the grand scheme of godlike powers Jedi were capable of, it was quite limited.

Her frown deepened as he shot down her suggestion. He had no clothes to change into, and was reluctant to remove his mask anyway. “I don’t want to go in alone,” she said softly. “I’m afraid.”

She was, in fact, terrified of going in by herself, which at least added an air of sincerity to her words. Dealing with two petty street thugs was one thing; a whole group of political radicals with possible terrorist connections was quite another.

“Maybe we can sneak in,” she suggested, desperate to come up with a plan that didn’t involve her waltzing into the unknown while he stood outside to eavesdrop. “I can blend in with my surroundings, go unnoticed—and you can make your suit go dark. You’ll be like a shadow, I’ll be like a chameleon.” There was hope in her voice, small and feeble, the tones of someone who was used to being denied when it counted most.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

“I don’t want to go in alone,” she said softly. “I’m afraid.”

Yeah, that made sense. Having become so used to it, he sometimes forgot just how intimidating these parts could be. Considering he just got done specifying the brutality of his nemeses, that really only sealed the deal. "Okay. No, you don't have to." Cato's voice grew softer in turn, not wanting to throw her into anything she was scared of.

It left few options, however. The knight took a few more moments of contemplation, before agreeing, "Sure, yeah. That works. Stealthy-like." Better than just rushing in, or shoving Inanna inside by herself. Cato smiled reassuringly, only to scoff and shake his head when he realized none of it was coming through his disguise. "Let's go."

He held up an arm, and fired a grappling hook into the roof of the house. "Going up?" With the other, he extended a hand to Inanna, "I gotcha," Once ready, the grappling hook would slowly reel them up to the second-story window, which Cato then jimmied open with an experienced deftness. Carefully he slid it open, and slid through in turn. Inside was a small dark area, apparently some kind of decrepit refresher room, "You good?"

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

He agreed with her plan. Inanna was relieved, watching as he fired his grappling hook and headed up to the roof. Then he offered her his hand.

Unless he wasn’t really human underneath that suit (which was entirely possible…), his hand alone wasn’t going to be able to support her weight. Inanna looped her arms around his neck as the grapple carried them both up to the roof.

A quick fix with the second story window, and they were inside a ruined bathroom. The door had been removed from its hinges.

“Fine,” Inanna whispered back, wrinkling her nose. The place reeked of old garbage and mildew. “Turn around.”

Provided he obeyed her command, she stripped off the black jumpsuit she had been wearing and began to change form.

“Okay, you can turn around now,” she said, her whispering voice coming from somewhere rather low. Cato would find a rather large rat sitting on the pile of Inanna’s clothes, its nose twitching.

“I think I hear voices downstairs, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.”

Scampering out of the ‘fresher, she headed for the stairs, expecting Cato to follow.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Based on Inanna's reaction, Cato was glad the mask helped cover up some of the unpleasant scent. Though not all of it, unfortunately. He cocked his head at her request. Turn around? Oh.

His face reddened a bit beneath the mask, and he did as asked, waiting anxiously for her to finish and for them to move on. At Inanna's signal, Cato turned around, initially toward where the woman had been, only to realize he had to look down to find her, "Oh." An actual rat. "I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that."

It would work, however, and he offered no other assessment beyond an impressed nod of his head. Their shapeshifting abilities went even further than he realized. "Let's move," The green lights of his suit blinked out, and with the shadows of this dimly lit house he became one, the silence of his footsteps only further amplifying his near invisibility.

Carefully, he began to descend the stairs, stopping once the origin of the voices were within view. A pair of figures currently facing away, toward a holoscreen that offered a lone source blue-tinted light. Unsurprisingly, Cato had no knowledge of either, on top of details being difficult to make out, "Either of those look familiar to you?" He whispered, just barely audible. There could be others still about for all they knew. The knight spared a paranoid glance up the stairs behind them.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

“I don’t know what to expect from you either,” Inanna quipped.

Rather than waste time and energy bounding from one step to another alongside Cato, she scrambled up his leg and made it to his shoulder, spying on the people downstairs from there.

“They’re speaking Shi’idese,” she whispered back. “They’re saying…”

“... it would be a suicide mission, this is true,” said a male voice. “But we have little choice. The Alliance has promised much, but failed to deliver on their promises.”

“And the blasted Jedi were the ones responsible for our loss of the homeworld,” said a female voice.

“I don’t care whether it’s a suicide mission or not,” said a third, more girlish voice, filled with venom. “I would rather die with honor than live as a refugee in a galaxy that doesn’t want us.”

“It’s her,” Inanna hissed. “It’s Ash.”

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

“Mkay. So that doesn't sound great,” Inanna wasn’t kidding about the ‘fringe political types’ mention. Whatever they were planning sounded big, if they managed to get through with it. Based on their wording, though, they certainly weren’t expecting to get out of it.

“It’s her,” Inanna hissed. “It’s Ash.”

“Then I see no reason to keep waiting,” Ash was going to put her life on the line for an act of terrorism. Neither of those things were acceptable here. Cato stood up, and spoke louder for the rest to hear, “Ashmedai Hoole.” He took a few slow steps down the stairs, re-lighting the suit to make his presence known.

“I’m taking you out of here. This place isn’t safe. The rest of you need to drop all of this before it’s too late. Whatever you’re planning… it’s not going to make things right.” He stood tall at the bottom of the staircase, but held up his hands non-threateningly in some hope to reason with them.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Upon seeing Cato at the bottom of the stairs, virtually every person in the room drew a weapon. Blasters, slugthrowers, vibroweapons, you name it. Inanna even spotted a few Shi’ido beamers salvaged from the failed rebellion. Yet despite their trembling trigger fingers, not one of them fired a shot.

Mainly because Inanna had hopped down from Cato’s shoulder and proceeded to demorph in front of him. Returning to her typical human form, with white hair cut short and golden eyes, she was instantly recognizable to the majority of those present.

Inanna looked straight at her niece. “Ash, we’re leaving. Right now,” she said in a tone that suggested the teen would be grounded for at least a month.

Ash stuck her hands on her hips—an impressive maneuver, considering she had four arms. “What are you even doing here? I left your ship where you could find it. Leave me alone!”

“Did you really think I was going to just leave without you?” Inanna shot back. “You’re a child. I’m responsible for you. Now stop this nonsense and let’s go home.”

“You’re not my mother,” Ash replied. When Inanna rolled her eyes, the teen stamped her foot. “And Erakhis isn’t my home! Neither is Alderaan, or Aldera, or karking Lujo! Sh’shuun is my home, and I’m going to fight for it!”

Inanna shook her head. Seeing Ash in the midst of all this was almost surreal, and yet many of the other faces she saw were just as young. Her mind flashed back to the stories she had heard about the roving bands of orphaned delinquents who had formed within the Lao-mon Planetary Defense Forces. Their leader had been McGill, an explosives enthusiast…

“Does this ‘suicide mission’ you’re planning involve bombs?” Inanna demanded, her gaze wandering around the group. “What are you going to blow up? A Mawite ship? They’ll just make more. The Jedi Temple? They’ll rebuild it again. You’re fighting a losing game against opponents more powerful than you can even comprehend.”

“Inanna Yomin,” one of the other radicals barked her name as if it were an insult. “You cut your ties with Sh’shuun long ago. For us, nothing else is worth living for. Without our home, we have nothing left.”

“All right, fine,” Inanna muttered. “If that’s the way it’s going to be…”

With a wave of her hand, she deprived several of the radicals of their weapons, yanking them from their hands with telekinesis and tossing them aside.

The situation devolved from there, as the disarmed Shi’ido grew claws and sharp teeth to compensate. Cato and Inanna had an all-out brawl on their hands.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato was happy to let Inanna do the talking. She had a better grasp of the situation, knowing apparently even more of them here than Ash, and was more likely to keep it from turning into a fist fight.

Except that it did anyways. Oh well, "Worth a shot," He commended as he took a stance. They turned their bodies into living weapons, and closed in. Cato reached for his belt, but stopped himself. No lightsabers this time. The knight didn't even bother to strike back at first, content to avoid them with precognitive grace and nonchalance. He used their weight against them, tripping and throwing them over as he manipulated the whipped punches and kicks.

Until one of them got a hit in. They swiped with razor sharp claws, raking across the wound Cato had already been inflicted. He groaned, keeling over to catch his breath, when another kicked his head and sent him rolling. He pushed through, focusing on the adrenaline and throwing himself back up, now delivering force enhanced hits that launched back his assailants on contact.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna, perhaps due to the high stakes emotion of the whole affair, didn’t hold back—at first. Eventually, with her mouth and hands stained with black blood, she realized she had better check herself before she wrecked herself.

To say nothing of the radicals she had torn into. Rage is a funny thing.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Ash heading for the door. She barreled across the room, kicking a man to the ground and using his back as a springboard to launch herself at the girl. Her aim was right on target. They fell to the floor in a heap.

“Get off me!” Ash shrieked, her body becoming slippery as an eel as she tried to wriggle free of her aunt’s grasp.

Inanna just kept sprouting more arms to hold her in place, before kicking down the front door. “Cato, we’re leaving!” she shouted, before running outside.

They’d left quite a bit of carnage in their wake.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato continued to fight the radicals off, but was progressively slowing down as time went on. At Inanna's signal, he was all too happy to break things off for now. He could clean things up later. For now? They needed to get Ash out, and he needed to staunch the fresh flow of blood from his reopened wounds.

The knight ran for the door, and on the way out, cast a smoke pellet into the ground to cover their exit. Around that same time, one of the recovering radicals reached for their discarded blaster pistol and fired. In the combined mess of events, Cato only just managed to move his face out of the way in time for the blast to graze the lens of his mask. It sparked, breaking the glass and damaging the internal electronics.

He grunted, toppling onto his knees out the door. Hazily he looked up towards Inanna, the damage now revealing his tawny eye underneath the lens. After a beat, Cato forced himself back onto his feet, trying to catch up to her and Ash, grabbing them both to reel into an alley to make sure they broke line of sight, "That should get them off our trail." He panted, "Coulda gone worse."

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Amid their rushed, panicked escape, Inanna became aware that Cato was struggling. His chest wound, maybe—although as they stopped to hide in the alley, she saw that he had picked up more injuries during the scuffle. A gaping chest wound caught her eye in particular.

“Chit,” she muttered. After less than a moment’s consideration, she sprouted another arm and offered it to him as support. “Come to my ship. No questions, let’s go.”

Inanna led them back to the courier, where she finally let go of Ash. The teenager had finally stopped screaming and cursing at them somewhere along the way, and was now giving Inanna the silent treatment.

“If you’re going to act like a child, I’ll treat you like a child,” Inanna warned her. “Don’t test me. Nar Shaddaa is no place for you or any sane person to be.”

Ash scowled, then lapsed into reticence. She laid down on the top bunk bed, rolled over and faced the wall.

Inanna guided Cato to the bottom bunk, more or less forcing him to sit down. She quickly retrieved the medkit, cracked it open and began fumbling through its contents.

“I’m no healer, but I know the basics,” she said, hoping to reassure him. As she examined him more closely, she saw the hole in his mask and feared the worst. “Get this thing off now, or I’ll cut it off you.”

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato stopped, and could almost see the thought brewing in Inanna's mind. He raised a hand, the glove now sticky with blood, "Ey, it's nothing, I'll be alright let's just-" She had none of it, going so far as to sprout yet another arm to support him, "Okay-"

Back at the ship, Cato was shoved into the bottom bunk, no longer bothering to fight the assistance, "She's right, you know." He chuckled to Ash with a bit of strain. The knight might as well be insane simply for bothering to actually stick around this place.

"Can't be any worse than me," Cato had experience in what one might call 'street medicine'. Not exactly refined or proper in any way beyond a few basic bits of knowledge, just what could be managed to survive.

Then the dreaded demand came. Take off the mask. He blinked slowly, the sight now visible through the missing eyepiece.

"...Alright, alright. If that's the only choice I'm gonna get in the matter…" He raised a hand tentatively, gripping at where the mask met the collar, and pulled up. Slowly it revealed that underneath was a man in his mid-twenties, with lightly tan skin and a mess of short black hair. His eyes were an atypical orange-brown, and he had a faint diagonal scar across his left cheek. The actual Cato, behind the silly costume and superhero persona. "...I'd rather not have to make a whole new one from scratch."

He offered a cheeky smile, and dropped his shoulders as if a heavy weight had been removed, "Do your thing, Doc."

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna watched the whole dramatic reveal of Cato’s true face, then shook her head.

“Take the whole suit off, you moron. You’ve got a chest wound that looks like something took a bite out of you, and it’s been bleeding for the past fifteen minutes at least. I don’t give a damn if you’re naked underneath it, either strip down or risk bleeding to death.”

Stress tended to make her snippy, but at least she meant well. She dumped liquid disinfectant onto a sterile cloth and blotted at his wounds (it stung), then surveyed the damage free of blood.

“Feth if I know,” she said to herself, before slapping an extra large bacta patch over his chest wound. (It also stung, though not as much.) Then she examined his eye, looking for cuts or bruises. She handled those with extra care, all too aware of how sensitive human eyes could be.

“All right… I think you’ll be okay. I think.” She sighed. “How do you feel?”

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato smirked and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, I'm gettin' there," He removed the entire upper half of the suit, revealing that he was in fact wearing nothing else underneath (at least up there). The rest of his chest and arms were marked with a number of other worn scars from fights past, both in his days as a jedi and a vigilante. The bottom half he opted to keep on, adamant that there were no injuries that needed treating.

Cato watched with some curiosity as she patched his wounds, unable to help but flick his gaze back and forth between his gradually mending injuries and the woman helping him. But aside from the occasional dry "Ow," from some of the more painful treatments, he said little until they were nearly done.

"Right as rain, Inanna." Cato grinned, the irony tangible. His body ached, but he'd live. He then offered, more sincerely now, "Thank you. It's not often I've got somebody on my side around here."

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

“Good. Finally, I can lose some of these fething extra arms.”

The appendages were promptly absorbed back into her body. It was then that she realized her own nakedness. Subtle molding of her flesh to look like clothing had stopped anyone from gawking at the sight of her, but the interior of the ship was chilly, and she felt the cold. Her jumpsuit was still lying on the floor of that rotting refresher room, so she went to grab some real clothes.

“I suggest you stay the night,” she called out from around the corner. “You’re in no condition to be going anywhere, and besides, you called your apartment… a chithouse, I believe?” She poked her head out. “Also, I want to monitor you, see if things get any worse, like you catch a fever or something. There’s another bunk room down the hall, if you want some privacy.”

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato watched amusedly as the woman retracted her excess arms, none the wiser to the secret, unintentional exhibitionism he was actually receiving. Inanna stepped away, and he carefully stood up, testing his footing and giving his torso a few twists.

At her sudden suggestion, he blinked, looking over in the direction of her voice. On instinct he was ready to reject the hospitality, not wanting to intrude any further on their lives than he had already. But he couldn't deny it… sounded nice. And his apartment was indeed a chithouse, even if that's not what he said. The knight chuckled, "Actually I believe I called it a trash hole, but, yes. Thank you again." He gave an awkward half-bow, and walked in the direction she had mentioned to the spare bunk, "I'll take that far room, give you two some space."

Cato plopped onto the bed, and slumped against the wall. He lifted up his damaged mask in a sort of poetic contemplation, before flipping it inside out to assess the damage to its internal circuitry, "Cato Harth, what have you done this time?" Nearly got his face blown off, then revealed said face to a woman he had just met earlier today. The fact that he didn't mind the latter all that much struck him as funny however, considering how much it still seemed like an excuse to panic.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

She waved her hand. “Same difference. Trash hole, chithouse...”

He headed into the other room, and Inanna, now wearing a loose-fitting dress, went to get some spare bed linens. She walked through the doorway just in time to hear him muttering to himself.

“Your sheets have arrived, Mr. Harth,” she said in a chirpy, faux-elegant voice reminiscent of an employee in a ritzy hotel… that sounded a remarkable lot like the real thing. She was a perfect mimic, after all. “Freshly laundered and folded.”

She handed the folded blankets to him, suppressing a smirk. The fact that he put so much effort into hiding his identity, then proceeded to utter his full name in her presence unknowingly was clearly very amusing to her. “Do you need anything else?”

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato dropped his head as she entered, shaking it with a wry chuckle. Such was his luck. "Sorry, guess after running solo for so long I tend to monologue." He limply took the sheets, running a hand over the soft fabric, "No, I couldn't. This is already more than enough."

The knight spoke as if she were showering him in lavish rewards rather than offering basic accommodations. "I'm just uh-" He paused abruptly, unsure of what he was even planning on saying, or if he was merely making noise for the sake of it, the words changed, "How's Ash doing?"

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

“Oh, I wouldn’t call blankets more than enough.” She was back to her normal voice. Well, the usual put-on voice, like the rest of her appearance, but no matter. “Maybe tucking you in would be too much.”

He asked about Ash. “Sullen, but quiet,” she replied. “I… have no idea what to do when it comes to her.” Though it was a cliche which Ash had uttered in defiance, Inanna wasn’t her mother. They barely knew each other, and had been thrown into life together through tragic happenstance.

“I haven’t tried as hard as I probably should have,” she confessed. “Things have just been so insane for us. But this is a cry for help, if ever I heard one. So I’ll try to listen this time.”

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

At the mention of tucking him in, Cato couldn't help but quip back, "Does it come with a goodnight kiss?" As soon as the words left his lips, he sealed them back up and sat a little straighter. Perhaps now wasn't the time.

The topic moved on to Ash, and he then leaned forward with invested interest. Insane was probably the understatement. He couldn't claim to have been there, but he had heard of what had been going on with the Shi'ido diaspora all the same. They had been left to suffer under the Maw's wake, struggling to find hope in a galaxy they had long seemed so distant from. On top of whatever more personal conflicts were at stake here, he didn't envy the position.

"...I'm sorry." He offered, opening his mouth as if to speak something more thoughtful, only to realize he simply didn't have the words. Perhaps a bit of sincerity would be enough, "There's not really any better way to put it, but for whatever that's worth. All of this, it's… I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

Cato shrugged, "But you're still pushing through. And the fact that you actually came here yourself to bring her back is a good step in that direction." Far be it from him to avoid a little bit of lightheartedness, "Can't say I expected those moves from ya back there, but they were impressive."

Inanna Harth​