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This place was disgusting, and he was bored.
"It is neutral ground." His Master, Darth Dyn, had said, "Don't antagonise anyone or we'll get thrown out." Yeah, in other words, come to a horrible place like this Nar Shaddaa and don't have any bloody fun. He didn't even know why he was there, the meeting was his Master's thing, though why his Master was talking to that Republican Senator surrounded by those Jedi scum instead of ramming his lightsaber into their abdomens and painting the Promenade red with their blood was beyond him. So, he was stuck on a backwater, sat in some dingy bar just off the Promenade, nursing his Vasarian Brandy, and attempting to ignore everyone.
"Oh come on Troskohn!" One of the other Sith sat next to him had started poking at his shoulder, completely and utterly piss drunk, "You're such a downer. Yeah, this is boring as, and we don't get to kill anything, I know. So the best thing to do is to drink enough to forget this ever happened and get to the killin' later!" She'd been saying pretty much the same thing since they had landed, poking included. Troskohn just lightly moved her back onto her seat and returned to his brandy with a snort, downing the remains of the glass. The bar was surprisingly busy given the hour, with lots of people coming and going, and most of them ignoring the bunch of drunken Sith. From the place they had seated themselves, Troskohn had the good opportunity for people watching, though what he saw he didn't really like.
There was something that did catch his yellow eye though - a couple of Humans dressed in what was likely gang clothing judging by the matching designs, one of them pulling along a third person. Small and green - skin or hair colour he couldn't tell from this angle. A slave perhaps? Troskohn snorted in annoyance, yes the Empire did use slaves, but he didn't have to like it. Why were aliens slaves and Humans Sith? After all, Sith Purebloods were certainly not Human, and suggesting such a thing will get you Force Choked - Troskohn should know, his Master was Sith Pureblood. The three stopped by the bar, the one holding the green person roughly shoving them into the bar, laughing as they stumbled to the floor. He could see them better now, the green colour he had seen were the tops of a pair of striped ribbon-adorned lekku - a green Twi'lek girl, a young teenager if he had to guess her age. Her clothing was ratty, her feet were bare, a silver-coloured shock collar attached to the back of her neck the only thing that seemed to be shiny and new. They shoved her around, one ordering her to give the other a box of some kind - Spice if Troskohn had to make a guess. He was annoyed at this show, but what could he do? He was barred from acting, on account of the likely stabbing he'd get from his Master, and the drunken lot would probably not back him up. Idiots, the lot of them, not even when an opportunity for blood arrives...
They pushed her again, this time into the bar while she held one of their drinks. She dropped it, the glass shattering, cheap beer splashing to the floor. One of them struck her, she fell into the puddle of alcohol. She screamed. A stool went flying into the one who struck her, striking them to the floor too. No one had touched it, the Twi'lek certainly hadn't.
She was a Force user.
Troskohn got immediately to his feet.
They were scolding her now; one holding her arm, the other still on the floor, going through their pockets, likely in search of the control device to the shock collar. Troskohn wasn't going to let them find it. He approached them, intimidating his way through people to stand directly before the one on the floor. Upon seeing the swirl of black cloak by their ankles, the one on the floor looked up, straight into burning Sith eyes. The question from the blond Sith though was likely unexpected.
"What do you want for the Twi'lek?" The question was almost spat out, Troskohn felt dirty for even saying it, but it was the most non-confrontational way he could think of; his Master's skill of solving situations diplomatically hadn't really rubbed off onto him.
"Ain't for sale, creepy." Came the response in rough-spoken Huttese from the one still pulling on the girl's arm, she was visibly wincing from the grip on it. "Hurry up and get the control thing!", what was then said to their partner, ignoring Troskohn entirely. Irritated with being ignored rather than feared, Troskohn looked between the pair,
"Is she really worth your lives?" The one on the floor stopped his ruffling and the one grabbing the girl stopped pulling.
"What's that supposed to mean?" The one on the floor pulled himself to his feet, puffing their chest in an attempt to look big, despite being a good foot shorter than the muscular Sith before them. A crowd had started gathering at that comment. Good, just what Troskohn wanted. With an unnatural swiftness, he grabbed the Human's shoulder; silently and deftly snapping their neck, dropping the body at his feet.
The other Human looked between the huge Sith, the body, and the Twi'lek. They ran, leaving the green girl behind. The crowd erupted, mostly into drunken cheers at the violence. All in all, much cleaner than he would have liked, but hopefully clean enough for his Master's talks.
He lifted the girl up and carried her back to the cabal of Sith, who where chanting and cheering along with the crowd at the violence. He sat the girl on a spare seat next to him and covered her over with his cloak, opting to spend the time until his Master's return learning how to remove shock collars.
As it turns out, the action wasn't clean enough for Darth Dyn, and upon returning to their reserved rooms, the elder red Sith gave Troskohn a sizeable thrashing for it. This was swiftly followed by a scathing lecture, something that his Master always seemed to take pleasure in, any attempted interruptions to this being met with another beating and the lecture being considerably lengthened.
"What if those Jedi found out?" He was shouting between strikes, the green Twi'lek had hidden herself inside Troskohn's cloak in the corner of the room, but occasionally a little purple eye would be seen peeking out, "What if it angered the Hutt Cartel? This is their space, they have no trouble forcing us out. What then? A score for the Republic? No, not on my watch!"
Troskohn had given his objections, and had voiced that if his Master didn't let him keep the Twi'lek, then they were just handing her over to the Jedi in a box decorated with a gift bow - that one had earned him getting whacked across the head with the hilt of the red Sith's lightsaber. Following the conclusion to his lecture, Darth Dyn went over to the little Twi'lek and checked on her to ensure she wasn't injured, seemingly surprised that she was Force Sensitive but entirely unfazed by her being an alien. He retired from the room to get some rest, grumbling about how much Jedi disgust him all the way, promising he'd work out what to do with the Twi'lek girl in the morning. Troskohn sat himself down before the mirror on the desk, almost knocking off his lightsabers he'd thrown there earlier, nursing over his new bruises and wounds. The little Twi'lek moved from her hiding place, wrapping herself in the long black cloak as she came over and wordlessly handed him some tissues off the desk to help him.
The day couldn't get any worse, could it?
Troskohn had dozed off in the chair by the desk, or at least he believed he had done so. Some time had passed, and even the Twi'lek girl had fallen asleep next to the bed, still wrapped in Troskohn's cloak. What caused Troskohn to wake also woke her though - a ripple in the Force, and voices. There were people just outside the door. With the sound of frying electronics, the door partially opened, and was soon wrenched all the way by a brown gloved hand. Troskohn stood, standing himself between the door and the Twi'lek girl. He knew what this was, the Force told him clearly.
Jedi.
The Jedi who had wrenched open the door entered the room fully - a Human of much slighter build than Troskohn, with bright ginger hair pulled into a high ponytail, hazel eyes looking down his nose to fixate on Troskohn's form. He was followed by a slightly larger Jedi, a silver furred Cathar with brown mane-like hair and piercing red eyes. Troskohn could also sense two others, though they did not enter the room. The Cathar's nose crinkled upon red eyes meeting yellow, the Human sneering before pushing aside his brown robe and disengaging a lightsaber hilt from his belt. Aggression, arrogance, hatred. Why these Jedi openly displayed emotion was not something Troskohn had time to contemplate, quickly turning his dominant shoulder forward, Force-summoning his own pair of lightsabers from the desk to his hand and activating them, the sound of the red plasma blades energising as the ginger Jedi charged him.
The Jedi's posture - shoulder forward, blade down - it seemed to Troskohn that he would be going for an upward strike, diagonal...aimed for zone two, right arm, very poor zone two strike, who trained him? Keeping his left arm and blade in a protective posture so the Twi'lek would not be hit, he shifted his right arm in an attempt to parry, a vertical downward strike against the upward movement of the Jedi's blade. The hum of both blades through the air did not break as both missed their mark - the Jedi missing due to Troskohn's shift in posture, Troskohn missing as the Jedi's speed was greater than his. Not that he had much time to contemplate or counter, as he was swiftly struck by a wall of Force energy. He stumbled backward, trying to stop himself before he stumbled into the girl, who was cowering against the back wall with her arms covering her head. Bastard Jedi and that pushing technique almost making him stumble into her.
Hmm, aren't those push techniques usually followed by another?
Troskohn turned his attention away from the girl, swinging his right hand blade quickly before him, and well he did. The Jedi's incoming slash - he seemed to be favouring a lightsaber technique commonly known as the pushing slash - was this time parried by Troskohn's red blade, the force of the parry resulting in the Human almost fumbling his blade, letting out a small yelp of ill concealed surprise. Troskohn let out a good laugh before he was once again struck by a Force push, stabilising himself against the wall while the Jedi backed off. Foolish thing hadn't realised Troskohn was stronger, despite the Jedi's greater speed. Troskohn regained his previous position and resumed his protective stance, the silver Cathar asking of his Human partner if he required assistance, being brushed aside by the Human while he resumed his own stance. Ignoring the Cathar's objections, the ginger Human tried again, confidence oozing from his posture as he made to attack Troskohn again.
Wait for it...wait...now!
Troskohn's twin blade attack was intended to strike the Jedi's arm in order to disarm him, but he had misjudged the Jedi's speed. Instead of striking his arm or weapon, Troskohn's humming red blades cracked into the right side of the Jedi's face, and he dropped like a stone.
Troskohn soon found himself lifted off his feet and thrown against the wall, the surprise of the action causing his concentration to fumble and both his lightsaber blades deactivated. That Cathar had wasted no time after the Human dropped, and he continued to hold Troskohn against the wall. Troskohn wriggled in his Force hold as the Cathar called out to the Jedi outside the door.
"Bastard Tooka! Let go! Coward!" Troskohn shouted as the Cathar ignored him, adding some much more colourful terms as he continued to be ignored. The two Jedi that had stayed outside the door during this mess entered when called and, as the Cathar soon ordered, grabbed the still cowering Twi'lek girl and dragged her out kicking and screaming - without being able to move pinned to the wall, Troskohn could do nothing to stop them. An expletive and insult tirade was hurled in the direction of the Cathar as he peeled the Human Jedi from the floor and headed for the door, Troskohn dropping to the ground with a painful thud as soon as the Jedi left.
He sat for a time on the floor, head atop his bent knees, trying to process what had just happened.
Darth Dyn was roused from his happy dreams of Jedi slaughter by a mix of persistent chimes and loud banging. Grumbling, he dragged his half dressed red form from the cheap linens and, determining that the incessant noise was coming from the door, plodded over to the door and opened it, his tendrils beginning to quiver in annoyance. He rubbed at an eye as he tried to discern who was at the door, his jaw clenching as he deduced the figures at his door were the irritating Republic Senator he had been stuck negotiating with, and one of his Jedi bodyguards holding another Jedi. The second Jedi, Darth Dyn could gladly sense, was dying.
"I expect you didn't bang on my door to let me enjoy a Jedi's death, so what do you want?" Darth Dyn's voice was blunt and laced with his sleepiness. Much to his delight, the stuffy Senator seemed to inflate in anger as his face turned a colour that was not far off Darth Dyn's crimson shade.
"First your idiot apprentice goes and kills someone," the Senator's shrill voice was something Darth Dyn couldn't stand, "and then attacks one of my bodyguards. You know our agreement, you fix this!"
"Fine, go dump it in a Kolto tank and I'll pay for it." Darth Dyn was being rather dismissive, but he was tired and couldn't bring himself to care. He moved to shut the door on them, but the Senator stuck his foot in the way, preventing its closure.
"He will be getting treatment on Coruscant, but he needs to get there first."
"He'll die first," Darth Dyn could sense it well, the Jedi would certainly not live that long. He would rather see it die, stupid Senator making him accept stupid agreements, "Go get him frozen in carbonite or something then and leave." The Jedi holding the dying one growled low,
"That would kill him..." Darth Dyn did nothing to hide his exasperated sigh, rubbing at a temple as his tendrils quivered more visibly.
"You want something that will keep him alive as he is now? A temporary cybernetic perhaps? Work it out!" The Jedi and Senator looked to each other at the suggestion and nodded. With a grumble, Darth Dyn went back into the room to retrieve his datapad and called up a directory, locating a possible place and directing the Jedi to it. With the Jedi gone, he attempted to shut his door again, but the Senator wouldn't budge.
"I want to see what your little apprentice has to say for himself."
Darth Dyn could tell something was wrong immediately. The door to Troskohn's quarters was open, jammed open by force. He cautiously stepped inside, the Republican Senator close behind him. All that was there was Troskohn, sitting on the ground, knees hugging his chest. Twi'lek wasn't there.
"They took her..." Troskohn spoke quietly as the two entered, "the Jedi broke in and took her away...I tried to stop them..."
"It was self defence?" Darth Dyn had barely managed to say before the Senator booked it from the room. "Well, I hope that the Jedi dies, or is in so much pain he wished he did!" He shouted at the retreating form, before coming over to Troskohn. He wrapped his arms around the Human.
"I'm so sorry..."