last_kallig | AU: Bar Crawl

"It's true, he's like a bottomless pit for sweets," Ibani replies. "Doesn't care for tea much at all, but he puts up with my little habits."

Ibani pushes a chair behind the chef with one foot. "You might as well sit down or you'll never get any peace, he's stubborn when he's made up his mind on something."

She leans back in her chair and smirks. "How he caught me, as a matter of fact. Don't think you're quite old enough to hear that story though." .

Hopefully, there are enough distractions that no one will notice what she's REALLY doing as she pours herself another cup of tea. The tea in the pot and the other cup will be poison free shortly, albeit rather hotter than they should be thanks to various chemical reactions going on.

Ibani is terribly aware of everything in the Bar, especially the Weequay with her hand on her blaster. It would not be in the best interest of her health to draw that blaster, not when Ibani has people to protect.

The chef sits, his body language stiff and uncomfortable. "You weren't this friendly last time you were here," he says at last, his gaze challenging.

Ibani gives the chef a WTF expression. She's never been here before in her entire life!

Edited 2020-08-15 19:01 (UTC)

Ben makes his glance over that the weequay visible and reassuring. He meets her eye in fact, smiles and shakes his head. No need for that, he promises. Then he turns a raised eyebrow on the human.

"What happened last time we were here?" he asks, with the slightest nudge in the Force - no hand waves, just a gentle push towards telling them the truth.

The chef swallows nervously. "You threatened us. Said if we didn't pay you regularly you'd come back and destroy the place. We're already paying the Hutts, we can't afford to pay you too."

"I would definitely remember doing that," Ibani replies, "and I don't."

The Weequay relaxes, and the chef and the waitress do too, if slightly less than the armed Weequay.

"Can't have people leeching off our reputation, that's how you make a living in this business."

Which is both true and likely a more believable reason for potential interference than the goodness of their hearts.

"You have any information about our doppelgangers?"

"No names," the chef replies. "But I overheard you," he says looking at Ben, "er, sorry, HIM, say something about a safehouse near the palace of Jarlo the Hutt."

Ben catches Ibani's eye and rolls his when she obviously decides they're going off to catch a protection racket instead of their continued fun times. Maybe he just wanted a drink?

"And has he been bothering all the businesses in the area?"

"I don't know," the chef says quickly. "I think... maybe? Why would they single us out?"

A few reasons, Ben reflects, but none that he'd keep from them. He helps himself to one last cake, and looks back to Ibani.

"Have you had enough tea, my dear?"

Ibani gives Ben her very best innocent expression at the eye roll!

"Yes, I believe I have, dear," Ibani replies, smiling fondly at him.

"I'd incinerate anything that was in contact with the tea, if I were you," she tells the chef as she stands up. "That particular blend can linger in surfaces and give you nasty surprises down the line."

"How aren't you...?" He begins.

"Trade secret," Ibani replies, winking.

She takes Ben's hand again and leads them out the door.

"The racket can wait, if you'd rather," Ibani replies. "I could tackle them by myself another day. Although it sounds like it IS on the way to where I was headed next in any case."

"Another day could bring them back here," Ben says, and sighs. "No, I suppose we should put our quiet evening on hold for an hour or two. And here's me with only a crude blaster."

Ibani squeezes Ben's hand gently.

"Crude perhaps, but effective in their way," Ibani replies. "Although.." She pauses for a moment, reaching out to the Kyber crystals in her lightsabers. "One of my lightsabers would let you use her for a time, if it comes to that."

She grins. "Possibly my feelings for you are rubbing off on them."

"Interesting choice you made for my cover," she remarks, tone slightly teasing. Yes, she noticed that Ben chose 'wife' as opposed to anything else as a cover relationship.

Ben, no stranger to using other people's lightsabers, nevertheless declines her offer, for now.

"Let's hope it won't come to that," he says, before shooting her a sly grin, and lifting his hand, of which Ibani has yet to let go.

"Thought it might be more believable."

"Asking nicely might work, or asking not so nicely," she says when he says that he hopes it won't come to that.

She doesn't answer his sly grin with a sly grin of her own, but her grin is slightly mischievous. "Hm. True. Although on this moon I expect most anything would be believable. Partner, Friend, Lover, Mistress.."

As they near the location of the expected safehouse, Ibani stops suddenly, as something familiar just brushes against her senses in the Force. Predatory animals, but not entirely natural ones. These were modified by the Sith in ancient times with the Dark Side.

"What in the Force are Tu'Kata, Sith Hounds,doing here?"

Edited 2020-08-21 23:32 (UTC)

Ben stops with her, looking at her face curiously before turning slightly away, letting his focus reach out into the Force to see what she sensed.

What he finds has him tilting his head, a curious expression corrsing his face before he turns back to her.

That's new.

(Well, to him.)

The Tu'kata are predators, their ancestors modified by the Dark Side. They are aggression and predation and frustration that the prey is out of reach to his senses. They feed on the Dark Side as much as flesh.

"They're unnaturally aggressive predators, pack hunters" Ibani explains, letting go of Ben's hands and speeding up into a jog toward where she can feel the Tu'Kata. "Modified by the ancient Sith with the Dark Side to make them better guard beasts. I tried to calm one with the Force once when I was eleven, came within a hair's breadth of dying for my trouble."

The presence is coming from a warehouse and when Ibani kicks the door open, two humans are huddled up on some shelving while five Tu'kata snarl and leap up at them from the ground. There are five empty cages, doors torn off, that suggest how the creatures GOT here, at least.

Funny, there is a distant resemblance to Obi-Wan and Ibani in the two humans, possibly the extortion racket they were looking for?

Ben jogs up behind her, stops at her shoulder and peers over before shaking his head sadly.

"They look nothing like us," he complains softly. "Look at that beard."

He rubs his own thoughtfully, but doesn't draw his blaster. Instead he walks calmly into the warehouse, giving some space between him and Ibani, so when the Hounds turn, attracted by the sound of the door being kicked open, they can choose between two targets.

"So what does work with them?"

Ibani makes a face. "Definitely not, far too scruffy to look anything like you. And as for HER," Ibani eyes the woman. "It's mostly the outfit we've got in common."

"Calming them might work if you put more oomph in it," she says as the hounds approach. "Was never my strong suit and I was just eleven at the time."

"Otherwise, well, stabbing or blasters are probably our best bets."

"Oomph," he mutters, as if the careful blancing act required to communicate with living organisms and overcome forced and deeply engrained instincts was a matter of oomph.

"You go and talk to our impersonators, then. Stay out of their way."

And she's going to have to move fast, because one of the Tuk'ata has broken into a run, beginning to charge them, and Ben isn't moving.

Ibani grins at his muttering and leaps up onto the shelving. A normal human wouldn't be able to make that kind of jump, but the Force can be useful like that.

"Who the flark are you?" the woman demands of Ibani. "I could be asking you the same question. I don't appreciate people using my and my husband's reputation to run a protection racket."

There are more Tu'kata after the first, intent on reaching the only readily available prey.

He's fairly obvious prey as well, standing where he is as they charge, one hand towards them, and closes his eyes.

He's never sensed this much Dark Side in a non-sentient being. Animals are creatures of emotion and instinct, and he's senses fear before, but this level of hate...

He keeps his eyes closed, keeps his hand out as they race.

He breathes, carefully and calmly, and reaches out to them, past the twisting of the Dark Side, towards their minds.

It feels like it takes forever, every second lasting an hour or more as they close in.

And then, everything gets a bit calmer.

He cranks open an eye and looks down his arm to where the hounds are snarling a few feet away, their desire to tear his throat at in clear conflict with a very strong desire not to do that.

Without letting them go, he flicks his glance over to Ibani, just to check how she's getting on.

The duo is staring at the Tu'Kata in shock, and Ibani takes the opportunity to press on them a little.

"It would be in your best interest to stay away from this moon from now on, if you catch my meaning."

She glances at the Tu'Kata, sure that the imaginations of the two criminals will fill in all kinds of threats.

She's impressed at Ben's ability to hold them like that, something she doesn't think she could do!

"Fine, fine!" the man replies, his voice shaky. "Just, just let us get out of here!"

The desire to not tear Ben's throat out is winning, slowly. The snarling is dimming to growls, hackles lowering just a little.

It's a struggle, and there's a determined edge to his expression that she won't have seen for a while, not even when he had a lightsaber in his hand. This is a very different process.

Slowly, as if having to consciously think about every move, Ben circles around the group of hounds, and they make unconscious steps together, a little more like nerfs that a pack of predators, although with the occasional snarl and shift of claws to remind eveyone of what they really are.

He steps towards them, and they shuffle back a shorter distance, so while the group is moving in the direction Ben wants to go, the distance between him and those teeth starts to close.

After a couple of steps there is a clear path between the rest of the humans and the door, and without looking away, Ben makes a hurried beckoning motion behind his back.

Edited 2020-08-23 09:33 (UTC)

"Move!" Ibani hisses at the two criminals, then she 'helps' them down with the Force. "But DON'T run." She's not sure anyone would be able to hold them back from chasing running prey, after all!

The criminals are out the door and gone as quickly as they dare and Ibani is standing at the door herself. Seeing Ben like this, with such a determined edge, such strength in the Force and such control is ~~kind of hot~~ hitting all kinds of cultural buttons that Ibani's only partially aware of having.

The warehouse has a sense of calm growing in it, right at the edge of sensation. The hounds are now in a pack together, one of them whimpering, another scrambling at the floor, and yet another just placid, head tilted and eyes up at Ben like an Akk dog.

The struggle has eased since it was only him and them at risk, although there's still a conflict of wills.

He approaches them carefully, and they back away, towards the cages at the back.

Feeling Ibani's presence in the door he speaks gently.

"Any chance you can find something to fix those doors?"

He doesn't like it, the cages are too small. But he doesn't have any other ideas.

"I can fix them, I think, looks like only one pin gave way. And Force lightning can spot weld in a pinch."*

Ibani gets to work straightening bent metal and welding it in place with Force lightning. She IS good at fine control.

When the cages are done, she steps back. "I'll place a holocall, I think I know someone who can take them home to Korriban, unless you have another idea?"

(OOC: Using force lightning to spot weld is something I've seen in fanfic, I think by fialleril on Tumblr?)

Edited 2020-08-23 09:58 (UTC)

One by one, they back into their cages, some of them fighting more than others. But once they are all in to some extent, Ben crouches down by the pack leader. He releases his control but not his influence, leaving a hound in turns whining and snarling, worrying the cage door in its frustration.

Against all common sense he places a hand on the bars. Against all rules of universe, he doesn't lose that hand.

"What will happen to them on Korriban?"

They're just dogs, under it all. Bred to be violent and corrupted by the Dark Side, but there's still an animal under there.

"They'll be released into the wild," Ibani replies. "I'd ask my contact not to put them anywhere near the Sith Academy, it's a dangerous location for a drop off and the Tu'Kata there get accustomed to eating people quite quickly."

She smiles softly at Ben placing his hand against the bars. She's never met anyone else with so much compassion.

After a moment, Ben stands, pulling his hand back while keeping his eyes on the hound. As one final mercy, he nods again and four of the five settle down quietly, heads on their paws for what looks like might become a nap. The fifth, too strong willed, paces quietly, growling.

"Do let me know how they get on," he says, and steps back, into her shoulder with a tired rub of his head. "And maybe find somewhere actually quiet this time?"

It was hard work!

"I'll make a call," Ibani says quietly. "And I know somewhere that will definitely be quiet, if you're up for an air taxi ride."

Ibani sends a text message to a contact, calling in a favor. She wraps an arm around Ben, running her fingers through his hair in an attempt to ease the tiredness.

She smiles. "Might as well make use of that Sky Palace I bought as part of my cover here. Got it at a discount after one owner took the wrong Sith artifact in as an art piece and it killed them and the next three buyers. It got a reputation for being haunted."

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