#she went into seclusion for a year then returned to take the seat of Imperial Intelligence after killing the original darth jadus

[serenofroses]

darth milf on a throne. Renata Vitali, aka Darth Jadis: [46/?] sw:tor Nevrakis legacy. she/her and they/them pronouns only.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Good Help - chapter 4 - ao3 link

-

The day Wen Ruohan returned, Meng Yao felt ready for just about anything short of an immediate order of execution. He had survived an increasingly frantic set of attempts to murder him – in many instances, his survival was entirely courtesy of A-Jue – and had a list of achievements as long as his arm, each one backed with public recognition and an explanation as to how they fit into Wen Ruohan’s pre-existing orders.

He'd disposed of any dissenters, too.

The return ceremony was no time for someone to blurt out something awkward.

It was intricately planned: first the multitude out in the Nightless City, cheering their Emperor’s return, then the procession through the court with all its ministers and representatives of all the other Great Sects, and finally the entrance to the throne room, which would contain only those most important to the Emperor: his closest deputies, his wives and concubines, and of course the Empress far above them all in her sedate chair.

And Meng Yao, of course.

The innermost hall would be guarded by those guards assigned to it, an honor that they all lusted for, and Meng Yao had abrogated the right of the guard captain to select each of them himself, claiming that all of the disasters in the past few weeks had shown him the need to take especial care of their beloved Emperor’s life.

He didn’t select A-Jue.

He hadn’t even looked for his name in the list. He'd rather deliberately planned on A-Jue not attending, in fact, and A-Jue hadn’t questioned it, only saluted with a bow deeper than any of the (usually ironic and highly irreverent) ones that had come before. Their eyes had met briefly – a glance full of regret, regret and understanding – and they had said no more about it, each going their own way that evening as if everything were the same.

And then, in the morning…

A-Jue had not come.

Meng Yao had not permitted himself to be disappointed.

He’d turned his mind to other things, to preparations, to making sure everything was perfect, and it was. He’d worried briefly about the Empress, that she might refuse to leave seclusion, but she was there before he was, seated and waiting in her place, a larger than life statue in her thousand veiled layers as always. He’d stressed over the placement of the guards, but they were there, shining and immaculate as always, each one carefully selected for their talent at discretion. He’d checked over his multiple plans designed to let him survive.

He was as ready as he could ever be.

Wen Ruohan’s procession took an age, the concubines in the inner hall yawning and shifting from leg to leg, the veiled Empress as unmoving as stone. Meng Yao took her as his model and remained still, refusing to show weakness.

And then –

The Emperor walked in through the doors, a swirl of robes, and no matter how much Meng Yao had prepared himself, he still involuntarily drew a breath when he felt the sheer power radiating off the man. There were those that accused Wen Ruohan of doing dark and dirty things to get his power, those whisperers all dissatisfied and envious, and they were probably right, too. But those that entered his presence, that were subject to his might directly, knew that it didn’t matter how he’d gotten his power.

Power was power.

Strength was strength.

Wen Ruohan had the face of a young man and the aura of a vicious beast, the temperament of an emperor and the emotional stability of a madman – and he had enough power to crush all the rest of them with a snap of his fingers.

He swept into the room like a storm.

Following in his wake were those he had taken with him on his travels: his highest-ranked guards, his most favorite servants, and Imperial Consort A-Sang, veiled and hidden but for his clever eyes, characteristic scholar’s fan held loosely in his hands.

Walking freely, as if he feared nothing.

As if he owned the hall.

Meng Yao was not the only one who tensed at the sight of the Imperial Consort and his blithe unconcern, thinking that the last thing that they needed right now at this moment was the bitter internecine conflict of the harem breaking out.

And then, of course, it turned out that their concern, all those rumors and suspicions and speculations and schemes, were all for nothing.

Wen Ruohan didn’t so much as look at the rest of them – not the concubines he had obtained, unmatchable in their beauty; not the guards he had nurtured, each one as ferocious as a tiger and as precious as pearl held in his palm; not the deputies he valued so highly; not even Meng Yao to who he had entrusted his city, his sect, his empire.

He had eyes only for his Empress.

“My beloved,” he said with a smile and hands extended as he climbed the stairs, Imperial Consort A-Sang left forgotten behind him to quietly retake his proper place among the other concubines. “Have you missed me?”

The Empress ignored him, silent and unmoving as always.

Wen Ruohan did not take offense the way he might have with someone else – the way he would have, with anyone else.

Meng Yao had heard people say that Wen Ruohan was mad over his unspeaking statute of an Empress, but his time in the Fire Palace had made it difficult for him to believe it. Wen Ruohan enjoyed rape, among the multitude of torments inflicted there, and he took sadistic pleasure in snatching would-be brides or daughters, sometimes even sons, from people he disliked and forcing them to become concubines; the more he disliked them, the more time he spent in the beds of their loved ones.

He was a man who enjoyed violence and humiliation above all else. How could such a man fall in love?

Much less with the Empress, of all people. The frigid, silent Empress, who had no political backing to prove her worth, who had been there by his side for years and years – long enough for any man to grow bored, much less an Emperor who commanded the wind and storm, who could have anyone he pleased?

Meng Yao couldn’t believe it.

And yet, it appeared – he was wrong.

Wen Ruohan’s gaze as he walked up to his wife went beyond passion and into obsession. The miraculous treasure he had obtained in the south, a powerful spiritual weapon in the shape of a lamp that was said to increase the speed of the bearer’s cultivation a dozen times over, was placed in front of her.

“Do you like what I got for you?” Wen Ruohan asked, and the Empress turned her veiled head aside, a clear gesture of rejection. “So picky, so picky. I could pluck the moon out of the sky for you, my beloved, and you wouldn’t care…”

Any normal woman would yield to such persuasion.

Any woman who knew fear, knew Wen Ruohan’s fickle moods, would seek to at least temporize, distract.

The Empress ignored him.

“Same as always,” Wen Ruohan sighed exaggeratedly, and put his hand upon her cheek, turning her face back to him. “You never do change, do you, A-Jue?”

A cold sharp shock spread at the base of Meng Yao’s spine.

The Empress permitted her head to be turned, to be raised to regard her imperial husband.

“Fuck off,” A-Jue said, his voice painfully familiar, and attacked.

-

“Would you like some more tea?” A-Sang – Huaisang, apparently, Nie Huaisang, just as A-Jue was apparently the long-thought-dead heir of the Nie sect, Nie Mingjue, and obviously had never even once been a guard of any hall whatsoever – asked Meng Yao, patting his shoulder sympathetically yet again. “You’ve had a hard day.”

“No, thank you,” Meng Yao said, both because he didn’t know where he’d put the needles he used to check tea for poison after the last cup and also because he wanted to keep some room in his belly for the barrel of liquor he intended to find and down at some point later on.

He rather thought he deserved it.

A hard day. He scarcely had words to explain how much Nie Huaisang was understating things. A hard day!

Meng Yao still had blood splattered on his face from standing too close to the throne when A-Jue – Nie Mingjue, he needed to remember that – when Nie Mingjue decapitated the Emperor right in front of all his deputies and concubines, which was immediately followed by half of said concubines pulling out knives or swords or other weapons and moving at once to hold the other half hostage. The shrieks of those concubines that had not been in the know acted as a signal to those outside the hall, the roar of fighting breaking out at once, and Meng Yao didn’t even want to think about the gigantic mess they’d undoubtedly turned the Sun Palace into.

(But that was still better than thinking over and over, with no little amount of hysteria, I’m so glad I never ordered him to serve me in bed!)

Nie Mingjue had stalked out to the door, the frankly gigantic saber he’d always carried around everywhere finally drawn – it felt almost alive to Meng Yao’s admittedly inferior senses, alive and vicious and cruel and bloodthirsty, and he remembered how he’d once laughed off A-Jue’s claim that death would inevitably follow if he drew his blade – and he’d been greeted by shouts of acclaim and admiration from his followers, cries of dismay and despair from his enemies. He’d still been dressed in an Empress’ robes, which he’d torn apart for more mobility, but no one had cared one bit.

I guess the problems really did start in the harem, Meng Yao thought to himself, and thought he might still be a little hysterical.

Jiang Cheng had shown up at some point, wielding some sort of lighting-whip; he’d only stopped long enough to pull Nie Huaisang into a brief embrace before continuing onwards, his voice snapping out orders as sharp and vicious as his weapon, his orders obeyed by what might or might not have been a secretly resurrected Jiang sect. And he was the least disturbing of their visitors – the Lan sect apparently had been hiding a demonic cultivator away in their placid and boring little mountain retreat, just waiting to bring his unique brand of necromancy to cause havoc in the Nightless City – !

“How did I miss all this?” Meng Yao found himself asking Nie Huaisang, who smiled at him.

“Scale,” he said. “You were so close to everything, and your ascension so abrupt, that you had no chance to catch us – by the time you were put in charge, everything was already in the works. You would have only been able to see the patterns as they were, not as Wen Ruohan would have had them be.”

That made sense.

“You came pretty close a few times, though,” Nie Huaisang added thoughtfully. “I had to deal with more than a few frantic messages from my brother – thanks for spilling that, by the way.”

Meng Yao could not, for the life of him, tell if Nie Huaisang was being sarcastic.

He did feel marginally appeased that he’d come close.

“Was it always supposed to happen now?” he asked, curious. “The lamp he retrieved – was it –”

“Oh, no, no, we’re three months early! The lamp wasn’t important at all; it was just something I dug up a reference to because I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist going after it and we needed him out of the way to set up the last few things we needed. And then da-ge got into a fight with him so that he’d get the idea to drag me with him – he’s vindictive like that, but also predictable – and that gave me the opportunity to keep on poisoning him. The whole thing was actually supposed to be at his birthday banquet, after he’d gotten drunk…it’s all your fault, you know.”

“Me?”

“He was going to execute you, as you’d suspected,” Nie Huaisang said. “Your methods would have forced his hand – he couldn’t have done it publicly, not and keep his self-image of the merit-rewarding Emperor intact. But he promised your father that you’d be dead before the month is out, even if he had to cause an ‘accident’ himself.”

Meng Yao shuddered. That’d been the one weakness of his plan: his weak cultivation, which Wen Ruohan could have used to excuse a death from a supposedly ‘friendly’ interaction.

Still, that wasn’t the key part of what Nie Huaisang had said.

“You sped up your plans – for me?” he asked, confused, and Nie Huaisang nodded. “Why?”

“My brother likes you! He doesn’t like just about anybody, really,” Nie Huaisang said, voice blithe and merry as it had always been, something that raised Meng Yao’s hackles more than relaxed him. Clearly Nie Huaisang wasn’t anywhere near as useless and head-in the-sky, dreamy and idealistic, as he’d appeared for years. “Especially when it turned out that you were easy enough to convince into not continuing to commit atrocities as long as another route was offered – you don’t know how hard some people find that, and of course you did come out of the Fire Palace, very suspicious, but all in all you passed your trial period with flying colors. So obviously we couldn’t let you just die, could we?”

“…this humble one thanks you,” Meng Yao forced himself to say.

Nie Huaisang waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, you’re a good administrator,” he said. “And there’s still the Nightless City and all the Empire left to manage. You don’t mind, do you? There should be fewer assassination attempts now.”

Meng Yao frowned. “Those attempts…?”

“We spread word that Wen Ruohan was planning on keeping you,” Nie Huaisang said, and he didn’t even sound apologetic. “Obviously Wen Ruohan had already encouraged all those he thought were his enemies to attack you, but we tried to lure out the rest of them: his most faithful servants, the greedy and the vile – that part of the plan was before we got to know you. Or, well, before my brother did. He felt so bad after a while…I don’t see why. He protected you, and together you got rid of any number of the people who would have been our fiercest enemies! So what if you had to endure a little stress?”

No, Nie Huaisang was definitely not useless and dreamy and idealistic.

“Now there’s really only one problem,” Nie Huisang mused. “It’d be strange if you went from being Wen Ruohan’s viceroy to being ours, so we need to give you a new position. But what would suit…?”

“Huaisang! Meng Yao!”

They both turned.

A-Jue – Nie Mingjue, why couldn’t he remember – strode towards them. He’d changed into proper robes at some point, dark ones that could handle bloodstains, and he looked like a war-god, shining with power as bright as sunlight. He was every bit as powerful as Wen Ruohan was, in his own way – the blazing sun to Wen Ruohan’s dark and ominous hurricane – but that wasn’t so much of a surprise, given as he was such a ridiculous cultivation maniac…and, oh, they’d made jokes about the Empress right in front of him. They’d joked about her dual cultivating with the Emperor in front of him – !

No wonder he was so powerful. Wen Ruohan literally shared his spiritual energy with Nie Mingjue, presumably for years, the cultivation making them both grow more powerful and creating a connection between them, a connection that Nie Mingjue had used to drain all that power away from a weakened Wen Ruohan – Nie Huaisang’s unspecified poison, presumably – and then to sever the bond between them when he severed the erstwhile Emperor’s head.

A-Jue smiled at them both, just as free and easy and straightforward as he’d ever been.

“I’m so glad you’ve finally met!” he said, beaming. “You’re very similar, in some ways; I think you’ll get along excellently. Which is good, because I’ll need all the help I can get –”

And then he started talking about a publicity campaign, rearranging the army, and tax reform, about implementing Meng Yao’s system of random audits for more than just wheat and expanding the Watchtowers concept across the entire Empire, and Meng Yao stupidly felt a little like someone had given him flowers and romantic poetry written just for him.

At his side, Nie Huaisang started giggling.

“Oh,” he said. “Well there’s always that, I suppose. It’ll work quite well. I think you’ll make a very nice Empress, Meng Yao – perhaps a bit more sociable than our last, wouldn’t you say?”

The pinnacle of power, Meng Yao thought to himself, and shrugged, accepting his likely fate with a smile that he thought was even genuine. And why not? He could have everything he’d had under Wen Ruohan, except with a leader that would actually listen to him – that he had already trained to listen to him – and it would good for them, too. They’d keep him around, he was sure of it.

After all – good help was so very hard to find.

[wizardsnwookies]

FOC011718 - New Friends(?)

“Shail is still recovering from the public bombing of political hopeful Numb Nib several days ago. The final total of those killed were 27 casualties, three of which were Numb and two of his personal guards, the rest almost entirely civilian. While Nar Shaddaa is not unfamiliar with shady dealings and organized crime, the collateral damage has the public stirred up and on edge.

“While repairs are being made to the area local Imperial officials as well as Shail Metropolitan enforcement begin a troubled investigation. Sources say the organizations are still struggling with jurisdiction, the imperials far more concerned with the death of one of their own, while local enforcement point to the heavy casualties as grounds for a local investigation.

“In the political world Traad Araan has suggesting that rebel sympathizers are behind the attack. He says, quote...

‘The war has been brought to Smuggler’s Moon, there is no longer any denying it. If we are to stay safe and independent, we must take no sides in the matter. Nar Shaddaa has always conducted things its own way, there’s no reason to change that now.’

“Viewers may recognize this neutral stance as the platform of the ever elusive Polski Marr who has continued his campaign in seclusion for unknown reasons in the last few months. His office has released a statement on the bombing however, condemning the actions of those involved and offering his condulences to the families the victims.”

Rugor clicked off the holos. He was getting bored. They all were. Aisha had contacted them immediately following the bombing, and from her tone she did not seem all too pleased. The message was brief, and cold. Stay low. Let the heat die down, and she will contact them when she had made a decision.

“Made a decision.” Vrssl didn’t like the sound of that. Graalbar grumbled about never trusting her to begin with, but then the same argument between the two just ran through it’s circles once again for the millionth time.

Graakus couldn’t be trusted. Aisha was a convenient way out of that relationship. It was the same territory tread over and over again. Rugor found himself hanging out in the cockpit more and more just so he wouldn’t have to hear it, making minor setting adjustments, and tooling around on the holonet to see what he could get away with.

It was on the third day that the comm link finally rang. Rugor sent the call to the lounge and stood from the pilot’s chair. It was about time.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m not happy gentlemen.” Aisha’s voice was hollow, she spoke curtly through the connection and frequently spaced her words, choosing them carefully.

“What’s the problem? He’s dead isn’t he?” Vrssl waved off a sour look from Graalbar.

“Yes, but so are 25 innocent civilians.”

“Meh, you make an omlette...etc. etc.”

“Sigh...it makes me wonder about our relationship. Believe it or not I care for these people. I built my organization around helping the community, not taking advantage of it like Graakus.”

“Well, choose your words more carefully next time.”

“I wasn’t so sure there would be a next time...but, unfortunately due to your skills and your position I have decided you are too valuable assets to waste.”

Vrssl smiled and nodded towards Graalbar. The wookie still wasn’t convinced of anything with this Tongruta.

GRAAAHHHH ROOONK

Over the comm they could hear Aisha breath heavily through her nose at Graalbar’s grunts. “I suppose you can’t continue working for free, no. Fine. This one LAST chance to prove yourselves will be paid for, regardless as to whether or not our relationship continues beyond.”

RAAARW

“How familiar are you with the workings of the Arena?” Aisha ignored the comment and moved on.

GRAAAAH RRAAAWR

“You’re half right. Not all the competitors are voluntary. As I’ve stated before Graakus deals in slaves, but it’s much more than that. His arena and the surrounding complex lives on the backs of slaves. His personal attendants, the Gamemaster, and a full stable of fighters are all claimed as he personal property.

“Not only that, but a significant amount of money, his money, runs through that arena whether it be profits from gambling or laundered through it. Shutting it down would be a significant blow to him and his filthy organization. It would also spare the lives of dozens of slaves.

“That’s your job. Prove to me we are on the same wavelength. Shutter the games, free the slaves, and then we can work together. You have two days.”

Everyone in the room just sat and thought for a moment before Vrssl leaned forward and muted the transmission.

“Well, what’s everyone think?”

GRAAAAH RAAAWWR

“I know you’re not, but I’m not a big fan of the slave trade.”

“Neither am I.” Rugor chimed in. “What’s his problem?” Shirwook was still evading him, and he didn’t have his translator tablet on him at the moment.

“He doesn’t want the games shut down.” Kara explained. “I’m ambivalent frankly. It made us a lot of money. Not to mention I’m not too keen on giving that bitch everything she asks for just because she wants to have the warm fuzzies.”

“Either way, this is a point of no return for us and Graakus.” Vrssl thought aloud. This was the chance he was looking for, but there was one thing. One possible complication that had been on his mind. He looked at Kara. “What’re your thoughts? You’ve been with him, what, a few years?”

“Five, what’s your point?”

“I dunno, are there any...loyalties...we should worry about?” Vrssl studied her carefully. He liked Kara, maybe even trusted her...mostly....but the question was a valid one.

“Not really.” She shrugged. “I’m sure we can find someone who pays better, and is less temperamental. Besides, just because I’m human doesn’t mean I’m a fan of the alien slave trade. I’m down for whatever you guys want to do.”

“Good to know.”

“But you’re right on one thing. This is the point of no return guys. We screw over Graakus, we need to get out of the system as soon as we can.”

“Agreed.”

RAAAAAAAWRRRR

“Oh, absolutely.” Vrssl and Kara both smiled. It seems Graalbar was also of the mind that a job of this magnitude would have to set Aisha back quite a few credits. “So, we all in agreement then? We take the job?”

There were no objections, and so Vrssl leaned over the table and switched the audio receivers back on.

“Ok, we’re in...for 1 million credits.”

There was stark silence over the comm, followed by a whispered curse. “I don’t know what I expected. You are mercenaries after all. I’ll have to think on this. I’ll contact you this evening with my decision.”

---

“It’s a shame this is the right ship. Saw a cute pair of brown eyes heading his way to the hanger next door. Maybe once I have a few drinks in me I’ll get lost and ask for directions.” Charmer smarmed his way up the ramp a cheap bottle of Rot dangling in his hand. Although he never really dressed on occasion to begin with, he still managed to look far more casual than they were used to seeing him.The sabaac table was already set up in the lounge, and as he rounded the corner and saw the green felt his eyes lit up. He didn’t usually get personal calls from clients, but when Vrssl mentioned cards it was rather easy to stop asking questions.

He had been good on his word, surprisingly, and hadn’t visited a table since they found out about his little debt to Aisha but that little inconvenience was no longer an issue. When he went to make his latest payment it was rejected with a message claiming all debt had been forgiven on his account. Again, it was rather easy to stop asking questions and take this little blessing. He got so few of them

“Kara, always a pleasure. Glad to see the boys got you back safe and sound.”

“Took them long enough though.” Kara teased, pouring herself a drink from the dry bar setup on a fold down table on the wall before finding her seat. 

Rugor was already shuffling the deck, the chips already in place.“We could have just taken our money and left your scrawny ass there.” He dealt out the starting hand one by one. Graalbar took his seat next to Charmer, putting him inbetween the wookie and Vrssl around the table.

“My ass is many things-- toned, tan, perfect to name a few --but scrawny isn’t one of them. What’re the stakes?”

“Good question.” Charmer smiled at the comradere between Kara and the three aliens. He’d known her since she started taking jobs for the Hutt five years ago. She was always the loner type, but somehow she had found a place in this group and seemed to be fitting in rather comfortably.

“100 credits, each.” Vrssl took up his cards and reviewed his hand, immediately tossing in a chip to the pot to mark his acceptance into the round.“500 at stake? Chump change for you guys now isn’t it?”

“We’re just having fun here tonight, no need to go overboard.” Vrssl shrugged. “You in or what?”

“Oh, I’m in.”

---

Charmer leaned back in his his seat and surveyed the damage, which didn’t take long as there was a vast spance of empty space on the table in front of him. Meanwhile everyone else had some amount of chips piled up, either braking even, or in Vrssl’s case, cleaning up completely.

“Well. I think this is where I bow out. Thanks for showing me a good time, this uh...actually doesn’t happen all that often.”

“You keep bringing the credits for us to take off your hands and you’re welcome back anytime.” Vrssl smirked.

“Yeah...oh, speaking of which.” Charmer leaned forward a bit and lowered his voice to a whisper, more out of habit than anything. “Just between you guys an me. There’s another arena battle going on tomorrow night, if I were you, I’d bet everything on the house.”

GRAAAAH RONKKK

“The house?” Vrssl translated.

“Yeah, no champion and challenger this time. This is something special. Every now and then Graakus has a someone he wants to...be rid of. If he thinks they’ll put on a good show for the crowd, he’ll have the Gamemaster setup a no-win scenario and lets nature takes its course if you know what I mean.”

Looks were exchanged between the table. Here was the crucial moment. They had discussed it at length before the bookie arrived. Graalbar knew his role and made a show of stretching and moving about the room as if to give his muscles some exercise after the long game. He conveniently positioned himself between the Charmer and the nearest exit.

“It’s funny you say that. Graakus actually gave us a job along similar lines not too long ago.” Vrssl looked down at the chips in front of him, methodically stacking them in neat towers as he spoke.

“Aisha? Yeah, I heard. Whatever happened with that anyways? Heard you guys were sent running with your tail between your legs...no offense.”

“Of course...and we’re working on that little venture, but that’s not what I was referring to.

“See, Graakus wasn’t too happy when we told him that Nik the Dick had managed to get the information on our little trip to Siskeen.”

Charmer suddenly felt his heart leap into his throat. His eyes shifted as casually as he could manage, making note of the door and the large wookie standing in front of it. “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah. He knew that meant he had a leak in his organization, and he hired us to...well...plug it.” Vrssl locked eyes with the scarred face of the human across the table. All subtlety was gone. In that moment, Charmer leapt from his chair and made way for the door, hoping beyond hope that he could somehow maneuver his way around the massive hairy arms reaching for him.

The wookie found a firm grip on the back of his neck and dragged him back towards the table, spinning him around to face the rest of the room. Even Kara had a look of dead seriousness about her now.

“Awww jeeze, come on guys don’t do this!!”

“Calm down Charmer. If we were going to kill you would we have sat here and played Sabaac with you all night?”

“Sure, to take my money!”

GRAAAAAH

“He’s right, dead men are easier to rob than poor players.” Vrssl stood on his chair and leaned against the back rest.

“Then...why tell me?”

“We wanted all the cards on the table, so to speak. See, we’re taking down Graakus, and we wanted to give you the heads up but we needed to make sure there weren’t any loyalties that would lead you to rat us out.”

“In which case we WOULD have to kill you.” Rugor pointed out.

“You...you’re taking him out?” Charmer blinked, he still wasn’t fully reassured as to his own safety, if anything, this kind of information endangered his life even more with the hutt than before. “For Aisha, I assume.”

“For the 1 million credits she just agreed to pay us, yes.” Vrssl walked across the table to put himself eye to eye with the human nearly three times his height. “But we have to do it before tomorrow night, she thinks she’s some kind of idealist and wants all the slaves freed before the next battle.”

“So while we appreciate the insider info, we probably aren’t going to need it.” Kara smiled, finishing her drink and setting it down gently on the table. 

“...so...you aren’t going to kill me?”

“No.”

Charmer let this process for a moment. It still didn’t add up to him. He was a nobody, a two bit jobs broker with a busted face and a hopeless gambling addiction. He worked all the angles, trying to work out how helping him out benefitted them in some way, and he found nothing.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

Graalbar reached to his belt and pressed a button on his vocoder and a hollowly pleasant voice sounded a single word.

[[FRIEND.]]

“...r-really?” Charmer looked back and forth between each face in the room, stunned.

“Well, you have made us a LOT of money.” Vrssl laughed.

“Guys...I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. In fact, you CAN’T say anything. Not a word about this to anyone.”

“No, no of course not. I’ve got no loyalties to that hutt, even before he hired you to kill me. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just lay low, we’ve got this covered.”

---

“I’m sorry sir, but you really can’t be here.” The twilek looked up at Graalbar with overall air of annoyance. The wookie had shown up unannounced and strode his way through the staging areas of the arena demanding to see tomorrow’s fighter. He wasn’t expecting trouble, there was no possible way he knew who it was that would be in the arena tomorrow. The wookie was arrogant, brash, and saw himself as a great warrior. He had assessed this over the several times he had met him over the past few weeks. There was no threat here. Still, it always paid to be cautious, thus the pair of Magnaguard droids flanking him in the hallway.

GRRRRAAAAAAH

“The contender is resting at the moment. And besides, you can understand our policy against private assessments of fighters before public wagering has begun.”

Graalbar had hoped he would have gotten a bit further into the complex before being stopped. Just beyond the annoying man and his tin cans he could see a bustling hallway of attendants making preparations through a transparasteel window in the security door. That was where he needed to be. 

RAAAWWRRR GRAAH

The twilek’s manufactured politeness dropped and his smile faded. “Why don’t you do that. See what he says about it. I’m sure he’ll tell you the same thing, that is IF he feels like explaining his policies to mindless fighters like yourself.”

Graalbar bared his teeth in a wide smile, hiding his frustration. This wasn’t unexpected, and in that very moment “plan B” was crawling its way out of his fur and skittering along the walls and hiding among the ceiling tiles. Still, he didn’t like wasting his time.

GRRRAH

“Good choice. Have a nice day, and do feel free to place your wagers anyways. It will be quite the match I assure you.” His phoney smile returning, the twilek turned on his heels and disappeared beyond the security door, droids in tow. Unseen by all, Vrssl’s tiny spy droid followed in the brief moments before the durasteel slab slammed shut behind them.

The hall beyond was a buzz with activity, and peering through the open doors and transparasteel windows it became clear why. Beyond that door held the entirety of the slave quarters. Attendants made their way up and down the hall, carrying various pieces of equipment and datapads. All of them stopped to report to the man in charge, the Gamemaster. Dressed in flowing blues he personally addressed everything that was brought before him, making adjustments and orders as needed to prepare for tomorrow’s execution.

“How many do you count?” Vrssl broke contact with the viewing screen to ask Rugor. On the right side of the hall, rows of large holding cells ran the entire length, each holding a what appeared to be dozens of slaves both human and alien.

“47, including the Gamemaster.” Rugor checked his datapad. “Aisha’s estimate makes an even fifty.”

“Margin of error?”

“One or two, not five. What about there?” To the left Rugor pointed out turn in the hall. As the droid skittered along the ceiling it revealed a short passage with large security doors on either side, about half dozen in total.

“Bingo.” Vrssl changed the droid into flight mode and hovered dead even with the observation windows for each door. These cells were different, smaller, obviously meant to hold only a single prisoner. The insides were softer, no sharp angles, hard surfaces, or exposed light fixtures. Their occupants made the reasoning for this abundantly clear.

They had found the missing five within the cells, the hard cases. In one a small human female sat bound to her cot, a plastisteel mesh covering her face, her eyes burning with intensity. An aqualish paced the floor in another cell, large gashes in the padding hung on the walls. Everyone looked like they very much belonged there. They were dangerous, vicious. 

That was until they found the oddity in the group. In the final cell on the right side sat a young human male who, by all appearances, was wholly unremarkable. He sat on his cot, leg bent at the knee as he stared off into the distance. Vrssl couldn’t tell why he was there. As far as he could tell, he was just a regular human, with short straw colored hair and a tan jacket. That was until he saw the emblem emblazened on his shoulder. It was the unmistakable red wings of the rebellion.