Back Alley Brawl

Posted on Apr 08, 2015 @ 12:37pm by Raxl Dreyton
Edited on on Apr 08, 2015 @ 12:37pm

Mission: Limbo

=Back Alley Brawl=

(cont'd from "A Day In The Life, Part 3")


LOCATION: LIMBO

SCENE: Fighting Pits

STARDATE: [2.15] 0407.2012



From somewhere far away: "Mister?"



Raxl Dreyton groaned. He imagined a great weight on his chest, tried to struggle against, failed. His chin throbbed dully, and even in his semi-consciousness he understood that the blessed darkness that surrounded him had at least insulated against the worst of the pain. It was a good reason to stay under, and he decided to take it.



That voice again: "Mister? Are you okay?"



Well. It looks like they weren't going to let him be. Millions of souls aboard LIMBO and somehow Rax had gotten his butt kicked next to the one person with at least a passing interest in the well-being of strangers. What rotten luck.



"He's still breathing, must have been stun."



"Check his pockets."



Two voices now, and the second espousing an attitude much closer to what Rax would expect from the people of LIMBO. Of course, Rax didn't have any money for these urchins to steal, but it was the principle of the thing. He struggled against that great weight on his chest again. Consciousness seemed to slip out from beneath him like muddy run-off on a steep incline, but he fought through it. He had always been good at that.



Raxl Dreyton's eyes slid slowly open, revealing an indistinct smear of a world that gradually resolved into two figures, leaning over him. Neither were looking at his face; instead, they'd focused their attention on the many pockets of Rax's outfit, searching for anything of value.



"You get your hand out of my pocket or you're gonna lose it," Rax said. Or at least, he tried to. He couldn't seem to get the beginning of one word to disconnect from the end of the last, and it all fell out in a incomprehensible slurry. But the sound was at least enough to get their attention, and the two figures jumped back like they'd just been burned. Rax blinked his eyes a few times, and saw they were two young human males, probably no older than 17. They looked dirty, and hungry- probably street rats poking around the arena looking for scraps.



"You're awake?" said one of the boys as Rax struggled into a sitting position.



Rax ignored the boy's question, since the answer seemed pretty self-evident, and instead asked one of his own: "How long have I been out?"



"Not long," the boy said. He glanced over at his friend, who was making a noticeable effort to avoid Raxl's gaze. Rax assumed it had been his idea to start rifling through pockets, but he decided to cut the kid some slack; after all, he'd done worse.



"*How* long?" Rax asked. His mind was starting to reboot, all the files put back into the correct folders, and now his most pressing concern was going after Selyara. For that, he had to know how much of a head start the fugitive had on him.



"Five minutes?" the boy said, glancing to his friend again for confirmation. "After she shot you, she cleared out in a hurry. That way."



Rax turned his head to follow the boy's extended finger. The movement sent a bolt of pain down his spine. The throbbing in his jaw had only gotten worse, but he ignored it. Instead, he focused on the exit Selyara had used. Five minutes gone, that wasn't a lot of time... there was every chance Selyara was still in the Pits.



**Especially if she's looking for the Shadow Market,** Rax thought. He smiled, even though it hurt. This job hadn't gone anywhere close to plan, but there was still a chance he could come out of all this with a half-decent payday. And in truth, at this point he could probably console himself with only a little bit of payback.



Rax struggled to his feet, shaking away the dizziness that accompanied the motion. His hand went to his belt, looking for his sidearm, but found nothing.



"If you're looking for your gun, she took it," the first boy said.



"We don't have it," the second boy assured him. Rax glanced over at the other boy and frowned, but he could see the kids weren't lying.



"Well that's just great," Rax said. At least he'd regained his powers of speech.



"You're not gonna hurt us, are you mister?" the chatty kid asked. "We thought you were dead, that's the only reason we were going through your stuff."



"Clear out of here," Rax said, waving them off. He took a shaky step, then another, and decided he was well enough to move, though he also foresaw a bucket of high-grade painkillers somewhere in the future. He made his way to exit, distracting himself from the worst of the pain by imagining what Selyara's face would look like when he caught up to her.



He was determined that their next conversation would go much differently than their last one had.



=[/\]=



SCENE: Outside the Pits



Jake could already hear the excited roar of the crowds as he and Russ made their way towards the entrance to the Pits. Most of the traffic was moving in the same direction, and Jake and Russ had been caught up in the crushing tide of the crowd, but at least they were moving along at a decent speed.



"You think the fight's started yet?" Jake asked.



"All these people are still headed inside," Russ said, glancing around. "It's probably still the pre-show."

"Hard to believe all these people turned out just to see Kass."



"See Kass get *killed*, you mean," Russ corrected.



Jake didn't want to entertain that possibility, especially since Kass's would-be executioner was Kalenda the Black. He knew the marine could take care of herself, but Kalenda had to have a hundred pounds or more on Kass and was hardly a pushover herself. The disparity in size and weight might be too much for the marine to handle.



"Hey, is that Thomas?" Russ asked.



Jake followed the FCO's gaze, and stopped in his tracks. The figure shouldering his way roughly through the crowd ahead of them was definitely Thomas Varn... the wings were a dead giveaway. Varn was moving through the crowd like a man possessed, shoving his way past slower-moving pedestrians ahead of him. It wasn't the kind of behavior Jake would have normally associated with Varn, who had always struck Jake as fairly soft-spoken.



"Tom!" Jake called, but either Varn couldn't hear him over the crush of the crowds around them, or he was in too much of a state to care.



"Come on," Russ said, as he started to push his way more deliberately through to try to reach Varn's position. Jake followed, trusting Russ's years of FCO experience, dodging nimbly around dangerous spatial anomalies, and a few moments later they were close enough to catch Varn.



"Whoa, slow up," Jake said, putting a hand on Varn's shoulder. Varn shrugged it away angrily and turned, and Jake's eyes widened at the sight of the winged man's eyes, shot through with red. They were almost the same color as the blood that stained Varn's hands.



"What the hell?" Russ asked, looking over at Jake as if to confirm that they were both seeing the same thing.



Thomas' features softened a little at the sight of his crewmates, but only just. He seemed to want to turn again, to keep pushing his way through the crowd, but hesitated.



"It's..." he started. "It's..."



"What happened?" Jake asked. "Tommy... your hands..."



"It's Solomon," Thomas finally managed to say.



"What happened to him?"



"He's... dead..." Thomas said, his eyes dropping to the floor as if saying the word aloud had taken all his remaining strength. But then his face came back up, and his eyes were once again shot through with that angry red. "And I think Evangeline Montoya helped kill him."



Jake blinked. That was a name he recognized.



"Montoya? From GATEWAY?"



"She was here!" Thomas almost shouted, like he was pleading with Jake to believe him. "I *saw* her! I tried to follow, she led me away from Solomon, and he... he..."



"Solomon can't be *dead*," Russ said. "Maybe he's hurt, we can get him to Sickbay or something, but he can't be--"



"He's *dead*," Thomas said again. "And Montoya is going to pay for it!"



"Slow down," Jake said. This situation was already on a razor's edge, and it threatened to spin wildly out of control. If Varn went off on his own, to find Montoya and hurt her, or worse... things could deteriorate past the point of no return.



"She's getting away," Varn said. "Are you going to help me find her or not?"



"Thomas, even if she *was* here--" Russ began.



"She was!" Thomas shouted. "I *saw* her! Solomon is *dead* because of her!"



"Why were you on the station?" Jake asked, hoping to calm Thomas down somewhat. "Why did they target Solomon?"



"The scanner," Thomas said. "The scanner to find Selyara. The killer took it."



"Seth," Russ said, glancing at Jake. "It must have been Rawyvin Seth."



"And if he's got the scanner, then he can find Selyara," Jake realized.



Solomon Arn was dead, and Rawyvin Seth was closing in on the very reason they'd come to LIMBO in the first place. Things had officially gone from bad to worse.



=[/\]=



SCENE: Spectator Stands, the Pit



The announcement that the main event was finally going to start elicited a fresh roar of delight from the crowds, but DaiMon Snek hardly noticed. Between the PADD he was holding, as well as the gentle touch of his attendant's fingertips tracing along his lobes, Snek's attention was totally accounted for. The lobe massage was nice, of course, but it was the PADD that Snek was really paying attention to, as it refreshed itself every five seconds, searching for data networks. As soon as the Shadow Master's private, encrypted network came online, the Shadow Market could officially begin, and Snek wanted to make sure he was able to start placing bids as soon as possible.



He was, of course, of mixed-feelings about participating in the Shadow Market (something of a misnomer, he thought dully, since it was really more of an auction than a market). On the one hand, the Shadow Master was competition, and none of the money trading hands in this place would be going to fill Snek's coffers. On the other hand, the Shadow Market had been a reliable source of quality goods, including drugs, weapons, ships, and slaves, and Snek was never one to pass up a bargain. He'd hoped that Aella and the bounty hunter would have returned by now, carrying information that Snek could use to discover the Shadow Master's identity, but those two had been out of contact since they'd left the Ferengi Trade Mission, and Snek was getting close to writing both of them off as a loss.



**Oh well,** Snek thought with an inward shrug. **At least they weren't an expensive loss.**



The PADD's display winked a green affirmative at Snek, just as the combatants of the main event stepped out into the arena. One of them, Kalenda the Black, was a minor competitor of Snek's, having had the market on illegal weapons cornered since before Snek had come to LIMBO. The chance to see her bloodied up a little was certainly appealing, but not as much as the message that crawled slowly across the PADD's display:



THE SHADOW MARKET IS OPEN

LET THE BIDDING COMMENCE



And then the screen changed, filling up with a catalogue of illicit goods and services. Buyers could place bids, sellers could upload a description of their stock and watch as the bidding commenced, and somewhere, behind it all, the Shadow Master filled his or her pocket's with a share of money traveling in either direction. It made for good business: transactions free of the tax that Tella Yavin would impose, and with a guarantee of anonymity for both buyers and sellers. All the Shadow Master had to do was activate the network, then sit back as the profits rolled in.



Snek vowed that this money-making enterprise would be his to command, but today he was content to buy and sell like any other customer. He uploaded info about the goods he was offering, mostly things with too low a profit margin to be worth selling under Tella Yavin's draconian taxes, and then clicked over to the list of slaves on offer. Snek had lost a few of the serving girls at the Ferengi Trade Mission recently, and today represented a good opportunity to fill the gaps without having to worry about his money winding up in Harad-Sar's pockets. The Orions always did a brisk trade in slaves, but Snek's principles forbade him from buying through a competitor.



The Shadow Master excepted, of course.



=[/\]=



SCENE: Outside the stands



Selyara took the first opportunity to duck into a side passage, away from the commotion of the main arena. Judging from the sound of the crowds, the main event was about to get underway. Selyara didn't care. Bloodsport was of academic interest to her only; it sometimes didn't hurt to study the way the gladiators fought, just to pick up pointers, but witnessing the act of killing gave her no thrill. Violence was a tool, to be applied as the situation warranted, nothing more.



That was why she hadn't killed the bounty hunter... there was no reason to. He'd been subdued and disarmed. She'd made her point rather eloquently, and she doubted that Raxl Dreyton would be coming after her again.



In her pocket, she felt the weight of the bounty hunter's weapon. Next to it was her datapad. She took it out as she moved, sparing only a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her. She glanced down at the datapad and inspected the readout. The Shadow Market had opened, and the bidding had started.



Selyara wasted no time. She opened the tab for starships and scrolled through, looking for discrete transport off the station. She was somewhat low on funds, but she still had some information worth selling, and she was confident that she could make enough on it to cover the difference in cost. She uploaded what she had to sell, placed a few bids on transport that looked feasible, and raised her eyes just in time to see a shape emerge in front of her, a dark shadow with a wide, toothy grin set against a roiling sea of midnight.



Rawyvin Seth.



"Hello there," Seth said, his grin widening. "We didn't get a chance to finish our conversation last time."



Selyara turned and started to run. In an instant, Seth had a handful of her hair and was yanking her roughly back to him. Selyara's datapad clattered to the floor as she fumbled desperately at her pocket, reaching for the bounty hunter's weapon. She drew it quickly, but Seth hoisted her and slammed her hard against the wall of the corridor, and the phaser pistol tumbled uselessly to the floor. She saw Seth kick it away into the shadows as his hand found its way to her throat and seized it, tightening, tightening. She felt his lips moving against her ear, and the intimacy of it filled her with a sick combination of revulsion and panic.



"You're dying, pet," Rawyvin Seth cooed in her ear. "Would you like to tell me what it's like?"



Selyara tried to drive her elbow into Seth's stomach, anything to put some space between him and herself. The blow landed, but Seth only tightened his grip and pulled her closer. She could feel his breath, hot and ragged, against her ear and the nape of her neck. It seemed like a hundred years since she'd taken a breath, or a thousand, and Rawyvin Seth's implacable grip seemed to promise that she'd never again feel her lungs swell with oxygen, never again taste the stale, recycled air of this place...



There was a sound then, and suddenly Seth's grip eased. Selyara wrenched herself forward out of his grasp, tripping over her feet and sprawling on the floor. She wasted no time questioning her good fortune. Instead, she clawed her way on hands and knees away from Seth, sparing a quick glance over her shoulder and seeing why the psychopath had released her.



Someone had wrapped a burly arm around Seth's neck and wrenched him bodily away from her. It was a parody of the way Seth had been holding her only a moment before, and Selyara had to admit she was enjoying the sudden reversal of fortune. But who was her savior?



From behind Seth's shoulder, a familiar face emerged.



"Hey darlin'," Raxl Dreyton smiled. "I never got to thank you for that drink."



=[/\]=



SCENE: The Pits - Entrance



Jake and Russ followed Thomas into the arena. They were looking around- for Seth, for Selyara, for any of their crewmates- but spotted nobody familiar.



"The fight's started," Russ said. "Maybe they're in the stands?"



"No," Varn said, almost to himself. "She's hiding."



Jake realized Varn was looking for Evangeline Montoya, and he couldn't blame him. They'd both known Montoya, nicknamed "Sedna", in their time on GATEWAY Station. They'd gone through a lot together: the closing of the Bajoran wormhole, the Dominion blockade and subsequent attacks, the Second Dominion War. The war had been hard on everyone, but Jake didn't want to believe that the young Flight Lieutenant he'd known those years ago had changed so much that she could be in league with someone like Rawyvin Seth.



"Should we split up?" Russ asked. "Better chance of spotting someone."



"I don't think so," Jake said. "We've been dividing our forces since we got to LIMBO. I think it's about time we show this place a united front. We need to find the others, find Selyara, and get the hell out of here."



"We need to find Montoya too," Varn said.



Jake nodded. "And Montoya too. If only to get some answers."



"What's this?" Russ asked, and Jake followed his gaze back towards the entrance. A large cadre of black-armored guards were filing in, each of them carrying what looked like disruptor rifles. As they filed in, they were shoving any spectators, vendors, or bystanders away from the gates and towards the center of the arena.



"They're corralling everyone inside," said Varn. "What's going on?"



"I think we need to find somewhere to hide," Russ said.



Jake agreed.



=[/\]=



SCENE: Side passage



Raxl recognized the creepy guy from the pictures Selyara had shown him. It was Rawyvin Seth, the psychotic asshole that she'd told him was chasing after her. It was nice to find out that not everything she'd told him had been a lie, but now that Rax had the lunatic in his grip, he wasn't exactly sure what to do next.



Deciding to bluff, Rax dug a knuckle into the small of Rawyvin Seth's back.



"Feel that, cupcake?" he asked, as he tightened his grip around Seth's neck. "That's the barrel of my disruptor, ready to turn your guts into soup if you don't calm yourself down."



"I *hate* surprises," Rawyvin Seth muttered, but at least he stopped his struggles, which was good. Rax still wasn't 100% after the beating Selyara had laid on him, and he'd started to lose his grip on Seth.



"Here's what's going to happen," Rax said. "I'm gonna kick your ass out of this alley and you're gonna run off. You so much as turn around to wave goodbye and you're slag, you get it?"



"I get it," Seth said. His tone wasn't right. It wasn't fear that Rax hear there. It sounded like... *excitement*.



"Good," Rax said. "And if you come sniffing after me or my lady friend here again, it'll be a short trip."



"Start the countdown, friend," Seth said. "You'll be dead soon."



Rax dug his knuckle deeper into Seth's back. "You can knock off the creepy psycho talk, cause my gun isn't impressed."



"I don't believe you," Seth said. It was exactly the thing Raxl *didn't* want to hear, but in for a penny, in for a pound.



"You'll believe it when I leave a smoking hole in your spine," he said, hoping his tone was menacing enough that it would cow Seth into compliance. But his luck since coming to LIMBO had been terrible, and there was no reason it was going to change now.



"Shoot me," Seth said. "Now."



Rax blinked. "What?"



"In a moment I'm going to kill you," Seth said. "So shoot me now and save your life."



And in a moment, Rax realized that Seth *wasn't* bluffing. He could feel the man tensing up under his grasp, preparing to wrench himself free.



"Oh hell," Rax sighed.



Rawyvin Seth suddenly slipped easily out of Raxl's grip and spun around. He drove the heel of his palm into Raxl's nose, whipping the bounty hunter's head back painfully. Another blow followed, ricocheting hard against Rax's temple. Then came another, to Rax's stomach.



Operating on instinct, Rax lashed out. Seth dodged the sloppy blow easily and responded with a chop to Raxl's collarbone, and the bounty hunter could feel it snap. Pain radiated through his shoulder and down his arm, but Rax pushed it down and kicked out. He surprised Seth, who'd expected the bounty hunter to drop by now, and Raxl almost cheered as he felt his booth make firm contact with Seth's knee.



The momentum on his side again, Rax pressed his attack, delivering a powerful haymaker blow to Seth's nose. It connected, spraying blood across the front of Seth's clothes, but Seth's eyes were still bright with excitement and rage, and his smile only seemed to widen.



Rax struck again, and again, raining blows down on Rawyvin Seth. Seth managed to evade some, deflect others, but many of them found their mark. Seth's face was bleeding from the nose and from a few cuts that Rax had opened on his forehead, but the psychopath seemed no closer to dropping, and his smile never faltered, not even when Rax slammed his fist solidly into it.



Fatigue, as well as his injuries, was slowing Rax down, and Seth took advantage. He ducked under another blow and responded by shoulder-checking Raxl into the wall of the corridor. Before Rax could recover, Seth's hands had wrapped around his throat and slammed him against the wall again, then again. Raxl's head bounced hard against the durasteel wall of the corridor, setting of explosions of pain behind his eyes each time. Meanwhile, Seth's grip tightened against Raxl's throat, cutting off his air and any hope of regaining the upper hand.



Raxl's eye rolled wildly in its socket, and he realized that in the commotion of the fight, Selyara had taken the opportunity to rabbit. Part of him was a little disappointed she hadn't stuck around to save him, as he'd just done for her... but mostly, Rax was glad. She'd gotten away again. That was more than Raxl could say for some of the women he'd met lately. Even though their time together had been defined by deception, manipulation, and more than a few hard blows to the head, Rax realized he'd developed something of a soft spot for Aella/Selyara, and if these were to be his final moments, he could at least console himself with the thought of her once again evading Rawyvin Seth's grasp.



But then the grip loosened somewhat. Rax snapped his eyes over to Seth, and saw that the man was no longer looking at him. Instead, he was staring out of the corridor and into the main part of the arena, eyes wide. Rax didn't know what the man was looking at, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He slammed his arms down against Seth's, breaking the man's grip, and took off down the corridor. He looked back to see that Seth wasn't pursuing him; the man's attention was still fixed on whatever was happening near the main entrance of the Pits.



"Black Stars..." Seth said quietly. "Selyara, you *bitch*."



=[/\]=



NRPG: This one got a little long, and didn't quite wrap up where I wanted it to, but I think we're good for the finale to start to properly get underway. Hope everyone noticed the army of Black Stars corralling everyone into the arena and sealing the entrances...



ALIX, JUSTIN: Hope I did okay with your characters!



Shawn Putnam

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX