The Contagiously Convoluted Cantina

[Jet Almeara]

Welcome to the Contagiously Convoluted Cantina

Location: Coronet City, Corellia
Faction Orientation: DJO

More commonly referred to as The CCC the entrance of this infamous and notorious bar is rather nondescript, located in the back alleys of Coronet, with only a sometimes functional neon sign setting it apart from the garbage bins and occasional body, dead or drunk..

Once in the door people are greeted with a battered, painted sign full of rules which seem somewhat..odd. Beyond that, the inside is a shadowy, well-stocked and well-used cantina. The old style charm is disrupted only by the presence of a high tech security system which seems somewhat out of place for a simple bar.

The second floor is given over to private rooms: Some for rent, some requisitioned by DJO members or familiars. Adjacent also is a small hangar for the occasional patron on the fly, a fully automated kitchen, and a wine cellar that has more magnetic locks on it than the cash register.

The CCC is owned by the DJO, and has long been the favored meeting place of criminals and lawmakers alike. Such a mixed clientele often leads to various displays of violence which has led to the CCC's reputation as the most dangerous bar on Corellia.

And yet people flock to it. On any given day quite a few typical citizens can be found lurking within, braving the known dangers for the chance to rub elbows with the galaxies most famous, and most infamous.

[Avery Heartshorn]

A message had arrived to Avery earlier. Taaru's voice rang over her ship and sounded normal- although laced with a small tinge of urgency...perhaps, even excitement?

She pushed the hood of her jacket back as she stepped inside the main room of the CCC, glancing around as she ran her fingers through her hair- adjusting and fluffing it back into place where the hood may have pressed and smooshed it.

Slowly, she neared the stairs. He had told her to come upstairs to his room, but to be honest- she had never been upstairs in the CCC. It seemed odd...and strange to move up those stairs where she knew the more "important" people roomed.

She could hear music spilling out from a room and out into the hallway. Muffled, but easily heard. When she stood in front of it, it read "B12", taaru's room.

She looked back towards the hallway as she knocked on the door.

"Taaru?.... It's Avery..."

The hallway, which although there was the soft noises of music, remained mostly silent and dark. She considered if he could even hear her and she knocked again louder just to be sure.

[Taaru Masako]

Avery was left standing at the door, with nothing ti answer her knocks but the din of furious RAWKING OWT beyond the door. It was obvious, from the door's heavy, wooden construction, that the muffling effect was considerable: Whatever Taaru was playing, it was very loud on the other side.

Loud though it was, Avery, and anyone near her, would have clearly heard the loud "THUMP", quickly followed by the sound of breaking glass, and the guttural roar that seemed to be getting closer and closer to the door...

[Avery Heartshorn]

The sound of breaking glass was what instantly caught her attention. Her head snapped up to look at the door and lean forward to press her ear against the door, but the sudden roar was what made her jump back from the doorway.

She found a decent sized table in the hallway, meant to be one of those sorts that sits next to a wall and holds an arrangment, or books, or something. She quickly ran to it, grabbed it, and pulled it out from against the wall and kicked it over. She squatted down behind it and watched the doorway.

[Taaru Masako]

Serendipity is a fickle thing, and often unappreciated because it chooses the most inconsequential times to show itself.

In this case, it's presence was duly felt as Taaru was bodily thrown against and THROUGH the doorway to his abode with the sound of meat against splintering wood, JUST as the music launched into a progressive crescendo. It was like a script to an action holo film, bizarre as that would be.

The door came clean off its hinges, showering the immediate area with bits of door frame mixed with blood. It landed against the opposite wall at an odd angle and was further shattered by Taaru's propelled weight. The sound of air escaping from his lungs was painfully audible, and the impact bounced him off the broken door and onto his stomach, producing a second grunt.

Seconds behind him came another figure launching out of the doorway: Masked and clothed in a black, tactical bodysuit, with a slight frame that belied its physical strength. Whoever or whatever it was came leaping out into the hallway, intent on pouncing its fallen contender.

It was dreadfully surprised when Taaru snap-rolled onto his side and punched the air immediately under it. If she had paid very close attention, Avery would have seen the air between his fist and the attacker's midriff warp for an instant, then explode outward with an audible snap, sending the attacker bouncing into the ceiling and further down the hall towards the lone window at the end.

The well-timed Force burst gave Taaru the few seconds he needed to extinguish the stars from his vision and pick himself off the ground, using the wall as a brace.

His focus was shot, but the rage in him welled up like a storm on Kamino, so palpable that it left an acrid, burning smell in the air.

Actually, the smell turned out to be actual burning. As Taaru stood, he settled into a braced position, arms at his sides, fists clenched. The veins on his forearms became visible just as his arms began to shake, and the hallway around him began to smoke, with the odd bits of textile and cloth bursting into flame. A high-pitched resonance became audible, as if every molecule in the building's frame was vibrating past design specifications and the laws of physics. Or was it the growl deep in Taaru's throat?

The attacker, stunned by being hurled against a ceiling and down a hallway, only had enough time to get up on one knee...

And serendipity, her timing flawless but her subject matter questionable, chose the moment that Taaru set the hallway on fire with an air burst strong enough to punch a hoverbus through solid durasteel to switch the music into a riotous cacophony signaling the songs break down.

Taaru let it go with a yell, his stance elongating down the hallway as his two fist punched forward. It lit up, the potential energy converting to kinetic, and the rectangular shape of it seemed to corkscrew slightly as if tremendous forces were twisting the entire building along its length.

It sent the attacked further down the hallway.....and through the window....and through the wall of the building opposite.




Exhaling a puff of air from his nose, Taaru relaxed his stance, and the firestorm he spawned extinguished itself with a gesture of his hand.

He turned to look at Avery, noticing her for the first time, but also as if he expected her to be there all along.

She would have seen a very angry, very bloodied man, muscles tensed and defined, with steam rising from his skin and odd bits of his clothing still on fire.

"You come at bad time...I haf other guests. Please be waiting one moment..."

With that, he began a deliberate march down the hallway, and leapt across the gap between the two buildings he had just renovated, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

[Avery Heartshorn]

As the second man came out into the hallway, she ducked behind the table, sitting down on her butt and her head bent forward so she would see her.

Her thoughts came jumbled, "oh osik, oh osik, oh osik."

There we loud thuds, and a sudden heat rolling down the hallway. She slowly turned and lifted her head over the table to fine half the hallway gone, and the edges of it the gaping hole on fire.

As Taaru addressed, her she just sort of answered by nodding dumbly.

"uhhh yeah, of course."

[Taaru Masako]

Taaru returned within minutes, leaping across the gap, the lifeless body of the attacker draped across a shoulder.

He dropped it as he reached the CCC's hallway again, dragging it by a foot, back into his room.

He beckoned Avery to follow.

As she did, she would notice an anteroom that had degenerated into chaos. A skilled, forensic eye would have noticed that the scuffle had broken out in an adjoining bedroom, with the bedroom window being the attacker's point of entrance, and then had progressed to just about everywhere. Imagine everything that possibly fits into a bachelor's apartment, and imagine it broken, strewn about, with flecks of blood here and there. That's about right.

Taaru dragged the body into the middle of the anterooms floor, then dropped the leg.

[Avery Heartshorn]

She stood slowly and followed him inside the room. Her eyes quickly assessed the damage.

"I see you've uh....had a busy day...."

She looked to lean against something but found nothing but the wall- which she did eventually lean against.

"You going to tell me what happened?"

[Taaru Masako]

Taaru didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he bent down, next to his attacker, and removed the "hood," which actually turned out to be a very hard, textile-based helmet of some sort.

The face it hid was female, and fairly young. Whatever beauty it once held was wiped away by the rigor of a quick and traumatic death.

Taaru grimaced briefly, then tossed the helmet aside.

"Pity," was all he could think to say.

He glanced up at Avery, remembering her question: "She," he pointed at the dead girl in his anteroom,"come through window with flashbang. Try to kill me. I throw her through building, as you saw...ask her who sent her, what she wants."

He broke eye contact with Avery and sighed. "Then I break chest cavity and stop her heart."

He stood again, stumbling into the kitchen, and tried to wash the blood off of his hands.

[Avery Heartshorn]

When the helmet was removed, she suddenly felt a bit sick. She pressed a hand to her stomach and glanced back to Taaru, as his story progressed, she swallowed hard and glanced again to the body. She felt a bit nervous. What was she falling in line with? She had no force abilities that she knew of, nor did she have any brute strength.

"Do you have any guesses as to why she came here?"

[Taaru Masako]

He turned to her, drying his hands on a cloth that had gone from white to a sickly color of pink.

"She was no doubt after same thing I- we are," he corrected himself. "She knew I had your father's notes...mentioned him by name. Unfortunately for her, I do not keep them here..."

He tossed the towel in a rubbage bin, and looked around his kitchen, which actually remained rather intact, as the scuffle had not progressed this far.

"I knew we would have to contend with competition....I did not think it would be so soon.....," he stared back out into the anteroom," or so direct."

[Avery Heartshorn]

"I didn't either..."

She looked back at the body and she looked distressed.

"Maybe I should start working out or something... if they come for me.... I mean, obviously I wouldn't tell them anything.... but if they came to kill me, it would be easy..."

She stepped out to join him in the kitchen and saw the bloody towel lying in the bin.

"Was that the force you used? Earlier...in the fight in the hallway?"

[Taaru Masako]

"The Force? You could call it that....though eet ees a personal variant. I am not like silly Jedi or Sith."

Her earlier comment caught up in the race for his attention, and he quickly glanced at her hips.

"You do not carry blaster I give you? Physical training and force mastery take years, Avery, but you can learn how to shoot blaster in a day."

[Avery Heartshorn]

"I guess I'm not used to picking it up when I walk out the door I guess...."

She shrugged lightly.

"A variant?"

[Taaru Masako]

He had progressed to picking up his datapad and typing a missive to Jet, who would have to sign the necessary documents to make sure Taaru wouldn't have to deal with local law enforcement.

He didn't look up while he was compiling a report.

"Far to bore you with details....yes, a variant. Jedi use the Force in absence of emotion, because eet ees fickle and uncontrollable. Sith use the Force in passion, for its power, but suffer consequences.

I use force," he stops typing and looks up contemplatively,"......hmmm.....eet ees difficult to put in words. I use force....in humanity. Eet ees like combination of Sith and Jedi, but separate entirely, you understand?"