RPG - Battledome II: The Cleansing (Page 3 of 9)

Up high from a spectaters box, Jax could see the carnage in the view screens all too clearly: In one screen, he could see a Wookie's head blasted off as it reached for somthing, in anothere he could see a Zabrak clubed to death by a Tuskan. The crowd cheered as the Zabraks was face was beaten in. And there were many more viewscrrens leting one see all the detail one could want.
Jax turned away in disgust.
He steped out onto the balcany, he could hear the screams all the way from here.
Forcing himself to move forward, Jax made his way down the stairs and to the end of the ledge. There he got himself into the zone. He closed his eyes and forced up images from his past: Mother and Fathter. Father and Mother both dead. Both killed before him. Both died...slowly. While forced to watch. Tears were brought to his eyes. He played the images over and over and over again in his mind. Intill his rage built up inside him. A small flicker of fire at first then a raging inferno. The fire swept threw him, inflaming him, pushing him towards the brink. But Jax had done this before.
Jax pushed back, keeping himself from falling into insanity.
His hands were balled up into fists, intill his fingernails were starting to draw drops of blood, his lightsaber appeared in his hands with out him noticing, and with the help of the Force, he leaped down into the arena.

Landing with out feeling a thing, surronded by the trees of the North end of the arena, Jax attacked everyone insight: Mostly weak prisioners would had gone many years with out a decent meal, but with a few well armed Mercs here and there...Jax beheaded them all.
One of the Mercs, a strong and powerful looking rodian who was able to stay alive longer than the others snuck up on Jax who was finishing off a female prisioner who was begging for her life, seemingly catching him off gaurd. But as the Rodain slowly rasied his vibro-blade for a killing move, Jax turned, his pupils completly black. "I sense you fool."
The smell of a burned rodian filled the air.

Reviin stood silently against the wall of his cell, prisoners were running left and right to get out of the cell block. He knew where the passages led, whispers of a great arena he'd heard...better yet...a Battledome.

"Gerba you persistent son-of-a-chakaar." Reviin looked around and most all of the prisoners had cleared. He crept cautiously out of the dank cell and down the east passage, which opened up to a wooded forest setting. Distant blaster fire and yelling could be heard echoing through the massive structure. Reviin walked out into the not so subtle chaos which ensued in the arena, odd no one had attempted any cheap shots at him so far...
Just as the thought entered his mind, someone brought down an orange lightsaber right where he had previously been standing only half a second before. It was an unarmored Bith with tattoos all over his large bulbous head. Reviin dodged left and did a side roll to dodge the sluggish attack. Again the Bith swung, missing by mere inches this time.

"You're no Jetii."

The mad Bith flew into a raging flurry, Reviin dodged best he could, but nicked his beskar a few times.

...enough nonsense...

Reviin grabbed the hilt of his massive knife, drawing it from it's leather sheath. He held a defensive stance, avoiding a few more of the Bith's attacks, then saw an opening in the alien's primitive form. He spun sideways, bringing the cleaver down hard across the Bith's shoulder. Reviin grabbed him, pulling his tattooed head closer to his cracked blood-spattered visor.

"You lose."

He jerked the knife out of the Bith's stomach, causing him to fall to the ground oddly, almost in two. Reviin pried the lightsaber hilt out of the deathgrip, observing it for a moment before putting it on his belt.

"First blood."

With professional contempt, Rando had dispatched the nuisance. He had practiced breaking a being's arm other than a human’s; it had been a learning experience. Maybe it was just him, but Twi’leks seemed a little more brittle, just not by much.
Upon reentering the Audience chamber, he found himself alone. Apparently the festivities had started without him, although he could have deduced that just from the overall atmosphere. With so many screams, joyous and alike, it was no wonder. Gerba had found a niche market for himself, perhaps there’d be another battledome sometime in the future.
Noticing the leftover foodstuffs, Rando snatched an odd fruit Gerba had imported in constantly he’d never tried or investigated. Before he had a chance to take the first bite, a hand tapped his shoulder. Not only did he wheel around, but stopped short of a debilitating strike. Flying W of all people had escaped from his cell.
“Looks like death is in the air bodyguard, going to join in?”
“Are you kidding? I already have a job here, and that’s bad enough as it is.” Rando took that first bite, and tossed it as although the taste was a citrus the texture was like eating a flimsy.
W raised an eyebrow, the way Rando wished he could, and spread his hands as if beckoning.
“I can’t hold this for very long, come visit soon.” Flying W blinked out, like a colored hologram.
Rando, used to the craziness that accompanied the prisoner, kept on. Eventually joining Gerba as the slug watched the killing, a little barbarism stowing that nag on the tip of his thoughts. 

-
Below deck, Flying W sat in his cell. Maimed bodies stacked three high all the way around him. He smirked, coming out of his meditative mindset. Proud to see he still had it, blood was still his friend. And there'd be plenty of that around wouldn't there?
It brought a tear to his eye, just such an emotional event. He went back to work, focusing again on the spilled life. Closing his eyes, legs crossed, he smirked.

It had been hardly a few minutes since Gerba had released his prisoners, yet already Nossk emerged onto a tableau of chaos. There were dozens of humanoids already on the surface and moving fast, generally towards the Northern forests or the southern village and armor cache. The Trandoshan’s cellblock had been at the Western side of the compound, making the small village his closest landmark. Nossk made for it at a dead run.

Some of the prisoners were engaged in their own little battles, either individually or with allies, but for the most part they seemed to be unconsciously having a race for weaponry and armor. Nossk snorted in disgust. The key to being a warrior was in your body and your spirit, not your gear…or your head. Not that he shunned weapons or armor, far from it; he just didn’t see them as the first priority – his being finding someone to fight.

A  lithe, almost skeletal creature leapt from another entrance to the cellblock – the doorway Nossk would have exited through had be gone to the other end of the hallway – completely without warning. Nossk’s adrenaline flared, and with alacrity some would consider impossible for a creature of his size, ducked and sidestepped two quick jabs from the stick-figure man. Nossk had always considered himself a straight-up bruiser - huge, strong, and tough as a Juggernaut Assault Mech – but his time in the neglectful prison had reduced his muscle mass considerably. He was still strong compared to any standard humanoid man, but it didn’t measure up to his former glory. As he was learning, however, (slow as always) he had become quicker on his feet with the loss of mass. He wasn’t sure if this contradiction of his style pleased or dismayed him.

An educated man would recognize the attacker as a Yevetha, a lithe humanoid species most often characterized by the retractable claw that was hidden under each wrist. Nossk was most definitely not an educated man, and so all he saw was a skinny man with a pair of blades in his hands and a set of oversized shoulder pauldrons that he’d gotten from Force knows where. The agile prisoner was no doubt quick and perceptive enough to get through the minefield to the stash of armor, but the pickings must have been slim for him to have made such an ill-fitting and ineffective selection. Nossk, however, was absentmindedly thinking that the shoulder armor would look just about right on him…

Regaining his balance, the Trandoshan made a wide horizontal slash with his new axe. The Yevetha leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding the attack by bending back at the waist; he could feel the air rush just above his chest. Nossk followed up his right-handed swing with a savage left kick, unthinkingly using his momentum to make the strike that much more powerful. From the Yevetha’s horribly unbalanced position there was only one thing he could do to dodge the follow-up attack, and it was simultaneously the worst thing he could do. He dropped to the ground.

Nossk’s foot cleared his opponent’s head and returned to the ground, just in time to launch him forward at his grounded enemy. The Yevetha began to move his arms upwards, hoping to use the Trandoshan’s own weight to drive his claws through the thick scales as the reptilian fell on top of him. At the same time Nossk began to bring his vibroaxe down. The two bodies came together; blood ran in a thick river where they met.

Nossk stood up without so much as a glance at the long streak of Yevetha blood staining his prison coveralls. The Yevetha had failed to bring his deadly natural weapons into position fast enough, and was punished for his mistake with a vibroaxe buried in the center of his chest. The Trandoshan wrenched the weapon free, splattering more gore onto his clothes, and took a few minutes to acquire the dead man’s oversized shoulder armor. He could only imagine what he would look like with no other gear on, but he was an admitted fan of shoulder-tackling, and they were better than nothing.

Toting his second bit of acquired gear, Nossk straightened up and took off for the cluster of buildings yet again, anxious for cover and the lure of close quarter combat. The final stretch was an uninteresting one - no ambushes, long range attacks, or even a separate fight to observe or intervene in – and so another couple minutes of his long, powerful strides saw him pressed against the side of one of the village’s faux-houses, panting slightly. The Trandoshan caught his breath and walked around to the front door; it was still intact.

Nossk kicked the door down without checking to see if it was locked, and stepped into the building. The first room appeared to be a kitchen, with a refrigerating unit, table, chairs, cupboards, and sink all placed neatly throughout the gently lit room. An overheard fan spun softly in the otherwise quiet air. The Trandoshan waited for an attack to come, but there was nothing – it appeared that he’d actually selected an empty house as his first destination. He cursed his bad luck.

What the imperceptive lizard-man failed to notice, however, was the single open window standing out among its closed counterparts, or the faint footprints visible on the countertop where someone or something had entered the house.

The Trandoshan went first for the refrigerator, throwing its double doors wide and peering in hungrily: empty. It made sense that the Hutt wouldn’t bother stocking his fake village, but Nossk was nonetheless disappointed, and extremely hungry. He gulped greedily at the water streaming out of the thankfully functional sink, but while it hydrated him it served the double purpose of sharpening his hunger, much to his dismay.

Nossk pressed on, only glancing in the living room long enough to see that no one was there (again missing the finer details like the one missing chair or the wrinkled tablecloth), and ignoring the fresher altogether. He started up the stairs of the small prefab home, already bored.

There were only three rooms on the top floor: two bedrooms and a fresher. The fresher room was empty, and it was only in the first bedroom that Nossk finally found something interesting. He had just opened the door, throwing it open and stepping into the room with reckless abandon, when something fast and hard struck him in the face. He staggered backwards out of the room, crashing into the stair railing; the railing creaked and bent, threatening to snap and send the Trandoshan on a short trip back to the first floor. Nossk recovered and shook his head in a vain attempt to scatter the multicolored dots decorating his vision. He could make out his assailant well enough, however. He was human, and he stood in the doorway with a distinctly haughty, confident aura about him. His ruffled hair and devilish, cocky grin identified him as the typical Corellian smuggler to most people. To Nossk, he was just a skinny human holding a chair leg.

“You really are about as subtle as a Rancor aren’t you?” The smuggler asked, condescending as can be, “I mean I practically left a window open for you, and still you bust down the door. Then you just walk into a room without even a shadow of caution, and expect nothing to happen. What’s with all the blunt aggression? You trying to compensate for something, or are you really just that stupid?”

Nossk raised his vibroaxe and growled low in the back of his throat. He dug his clawed feet into the carpeted floor and launched himself at the human, reducing a section of the doorframe to splinters as he swung the weapon in the constrained space. The Corellian simply sidestepped and let the Trandoshan rush past him, then cracked his makeshift club against the back of his neck. Nossk stumbled, tripped over his own huge feet, and slammed headfirst into the wall. The plaster buckled inwards from the impact, showering Nossk with a fine white powder. He got groggily to his feet.

“Yup, you’re just that stupid.” The human commented smugly, bouncing his improvised weapon up and down in his hands.

The Trandoshan snarled angrily and charged yet again, bringing his axe down in a stroke that should have cleaved the Corellian’s torso from his left shoulder down to his right hip. The rogue ducked down and to the left, and rather than be neatly chopped in half he kicked at the reptilian’s legs as he leaned forward to put his weight into the axe-stroke. Nossk toppled forward yet again, and with the added motivation of a sharp strike with the smuggler’s chair leg, crashed into, and through, the closet door. He hit the wall with a room-shaking thud, and slid to the floor.

The fight was not, by any means, going well.

“How the hell have you stayed alive for so long?” The Corellian asked, looking disgusted, “Have you really gone your whole life fighting like this? Running at someone and swinging as hard as you can? Ya, because that’s a smart way to fight, I mean look how far it’s gotten you now.”

The Corellian shook his head and smiled, reaching into his pocket with his free hand. He produced a small, hold-out blaster, and pointed it at his grounded opponent.

“It was in one of the kitchen cabinets, not that you bothered to look, I’m sure. I didn’t think it would do much to a big guy like you as long as you were hyped up and kicking, but I think it’ll do ok as an execution weapon.  Beating a man – lizard-man, whatever – to death is so uncivilized.”

How in the Scorekeepers holy name, Nossk thought, a rare occasion in and of itself, did this happen? He’s so much weaker, so much smaller, so much less bloodthirsty, how can I lose?

The Trandoshan looked into that cocky, half-smiling face that belonged to his soon-to-be killer, and was overwrought with shame and hate. He turned his head to the left, momentarily forgetting about the shame it would bring him not to look the man who’d beaten him in the eye as he died, and gazed upon a miracle. Lying there on the floor, hidden from the Corellian’s view by the remnants of the closet door, was a large slugthrower pistol in a leather holster. Nossk fell on his side and groped for it, clawing the carpet to shreds as he tried to drag himself towards the handgun that was just out of reach.

“Please, don’t crawl. Watching you flail around like an idiot was bad enough, but don’t degrade yourself before you die. Have a little pride man, for Force’s sake.” The smuggler said, probably wondering if he could bring himself to kill not only a beaten man, but a broken one crawling on his hand and knees.

He shook his head and took aim at the prone Trandoshan. His finger tightened around the trigger.

Two thundering crashes echoed through the bedroom, accompanying a pair of large holes that had just appeared in the intact portion of the sliding closet doors. The smuggler reeled once, then twice, and lowered his pistol. He bowed his head to look at his chest, and was more than a little surprised to see two large, red holes that hadn’t been there before. Meanwhile Nossk pulled himself to his feet, and approached the dying, but still standing smuggler.

“It was in the closet, not that you bothered to look, I’m sure.” Nossk hissed, breathing heavily but revitalized by his miraculous victory. It was one of the wittiest comments that the Trandoshan’s mouth had ever uttered, and may well be the wittiest it ever will utter.

The Corellian looked back up to regard the Trandoshan with a combination of hopelessness, confusion, and resignation. He fell first to his knees, never taking his eyes off his towering opponent, and then onto his face where he lay still.

Nossk took a few moments to catch his breath, and then went to work. He returned to the closet to grab the holster and two remaining magazines for the slugthrower pistol and strapped them on. He considered taking the smuggler’s small hold-out blaster, but his fingers couldn’t even fit inside the trigger-guard, so he left it with its last owner’s corpse. In the Corellian’s pockets he found a pair of small ration bars, probably pilfered from somewhere else in the house. Inspired with the new life lesson that he’d learned at gunpoint, the Trandoshan checked to make sure there was nothing else of interest inside the ruined bedroom, and moved on to the next one. In this room’s closet he obtained a small machete, which he hooked onto the back of his right shoulder by the strap of his pauldron. Nossk even went back to the bathroom he’d ignored, and in the medicine cabinet found a small, opened box of rations that the smuggler must have found earlier. Nossk ate four before shoving the rest into his pockets and moving on. The remainder of the house turned up empty, despite the Trandoshan’s belief that since it had worked twice, just about every room should have something special in it; he felt disappointed at the disproving of his new, and perhaps first ever, theory.

His neck and back throbbed with a dull ache where the smuggler’s club had struck him, but that would be gone soon enough. He’d been hurt exponentially worse on a number of occasions and come out alive, and so was not particularly concerned about his injuries. Stretching the muscles out anyway and raising his new slugthrower, Nossk stepped out of the cleared house and proceeded on to the next one, perhaps the tiniest bit more cautious than he’d been before. Mayhap the Battledome would become a learning experience for the thick-headed reptile, as well as a proving ground, bounty hunt, and means of escape.

"Nekkel juuvar obwegadada!!!" Igwig was mad. He had lost his "Grenade" to a bald, white-skinned humanoid. For some reason, she didn't kill him. Igwig thaught that that was strange, since killing was the whole point of the battledome. Maybe he could get her to join his clan.
     After a while, Him and his Jawa friend (who Igwig found out was named Smicbit) spotted another Jawa. Smicbit asked him if he wanted to join Igwig's clan and he accepted.
     The clan started moving and they encounterd a Zabrak. The Zabrak puuled out his gun and shot at the Jawas. The newcomer to the clan screamed "Ny shootogawa!" But Igwig shouted "UTINNI!" and shot his gun 3 times, one shot zoomed past the zabraks head, the other went through his chest and the last one went straight up into the air.
     During this little shooting, The blast caused Igwig to fly backwards, doing 4 flips in the air before landing on his feet. The other jawas just applauded.

Rando sighed, already tired of the bloodshed. His room was probably broken open, looted by now. It wouldn't be a terribly large surprise, and his employer wouldn't even consider paying him back afterwards. He'd have to work twice as hard to make the money back, it was a sad moment in his life.
But served to expediate his hatred of the Hutt, of his retainers. It almost made Flying W standable. He headed to the lift down, prepared to enter the Battledome for the sake of his hard-earned room, even if it was in the dingy dungeon.
Even so, his hand shook a little, he couldn't bring himself to pressing the button that would open the lift. Dieing just wasn't on his list of to-do's for today. Somehow he convinced himself that the combination to open the lift in the dungeon would still work.
He stepped out into anarchy, cramped hallway anarchy. And knew he was trapped, without trying the lock, it was obvious. Gerba would never allow a guard to lead a group against him, someone who knew the precious combination.
"You should have thought this through deary." To make it better, Flying W was still alive.
W carried a limp body deftly in one hand, dropping it on a stack of bodies in his former cell now six or seven high.
"Who are you damnit!? What are you?!" Rando grabbed the revitalized prisoner by the neck. Flying W was unfazed.
"I'm the guy, who's going to keep you alive, a few seconds longer."
A pact was formed between the sometimes fool and the desperate prisoner.

Rro nodded "Yes."

The human, who he assumed to be Otto, spoke up "I dont care who you are, if you make one move I dont like your dead."

"The same to you ootman, now once we have finished showing our hospitality I suggest we move, staying in the same location does not seem like a good idea." As if to approve of his evaluation, a blaster bolt flew through the door and hit the ceiling, raining dust down on Rro.

"Fine then, where do you suggest we go tusken?"

"Anywhere but here sounds good to me" The Rattataki said. Rro nodded, climbed through a window, and the other two followed.

Rando and Flying W, rehashed tiptoe through the tulips as they moved over the bodies. He was surprised to see the door to his room hadn't been torn off or at least opened. He did see a few bite marks on the edge he didn't think he could easily explain.
They stepped in, the overhead light coming blearily on as they did so. Most of the power was being redirected to the Battledome then. Rando moved to a corner of the room, beside his bed, and slammed a fist against the wall. It popped up, he pulled the loose panel up and grabbed his carbine.
W had attached himself to a pair of broadswords that used the same sheath. He grabbed an extra sword belt and tied it deftly, expertly.
"I'm glad you kept these, I didn't know what to do without them!" Flying W looked awful familiar in the low light, almost like the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa...then it hit him.
"Skies above no...Maro Rocol..." Rando couldn't say much more. Recognizing the now older visage of his former friend. Who had, he thought, fallen to his death.
"Yeah, Flying W was Maro Rocol. I suppose how I am now isn't him."
It had been that day, when he'd recieved the the end of one set of training. Before he'd moved on.
"How'd you survive?"
A yell and sound of a fired blaster escaped from outside.
"A question for another time. I think."
Those broadswords had been a trophy from a match he'd fought for money. A completely different person...but that was a question for another time.
They exited, heading for the faux city. Cutting through those weak and restless, unarmed but for themselves.

Gerba smiled with glee at the carnage beneath him. There was already a significant amount of deaths but it was a small percentage of the whole prisoner population. Gerba smiled and looked around at his fellow companions sharing the box.

Katray stood a little way back from the balcony, his head turning slightly as he scanned for possible threats. The rest of the party were much more enthused by the bloodshed. An orange Twi’lek dancing girl was whooping with delight every time she saw someone die.

Gerba grinned as he finally saw the krayt dragon emerge. The fact that it was fighting with a rancor was fabulous though it was pretty certain that the dragon would win. Its larger size and ferocity almost guaranteed it.

It made up for his earlier disappointment when one of the prisoners had figured out how to get to the weapon and armour pile. Gerba had been hoping for more splattering of limbs. But then it was only a matter of time before all the mercenaries joined in with their superior fire power.

Gerba rubbed his hands together, everything was going as planned.

???wtf does that have to do with the story???

Doran's appearance seemed totally random. Tressah was confused as to what Weequay he was talking about. They were in the middle of the Battledome, hardly a place for chitchat. Yet that seemed to be what was happening more frequently to her.

Before she could say anything a Weequay actually opened fire. The blast took out a chunk of building wall and it only just managed to miss Otto. Tressah didn't bother answering Doran instead she used the mortar launcher and fired at the Weequay. "Run!" she shouted as the mortar did it's thing.

Rro and Otto followed her, Doran seemed to go off somewhere else.

"I think we need to visit that weapons and armour pile. The Mando cleared a path, I suggest we get something before it goes." Tressah said as they ducked and weaved between buildings.