Lev Zeno's Story

"Hope there's something good on this thing..."

He said it to no one, nor did he intend anyone to hear him; a good thing, too, because no one was listening. In Lev's mind it was just him and the jukebox, and that suited him fine.

Lev's face throbbed with light, he was so close to the Wurlitzer. His eyes slid over the song list; every song on the thing was somebody's jam, the song that made them cry, the tune that was playing when they fell in love. That's how big the universe was: there were millions of chances for coincidence flaring into being every microsecond, and now and then something locked up. Something meant something to someone else. Like the song titles.

To him, the song titles meant nothing. Oh, he recognized a few -one or two were current in his own timeline-, but not one of them had meaning to him. There wasn't a single one that made his belly jump and demanded his fingers to punch in the code.

He wondered if there was such a song. He sure as hell couldn't think of one at the moment.

"Screw it." He slotted a coin and jabbed his fingers at the keys, randomly, just to see what --

Nothing is sacred
So, give me your soul
Nothing is wasted
On someone like you

Somebody killed me
And tore out my heart, my love
Somebody killed me
Because of you

And there's nothing I can do
The media made you
There's nothing I can do
'cause you don't exist
you don't exist

...huh. A song that, somehow, meant something to him -- well, began to mean something to him. Its lyrics and melody seeped into him, its colors matching the wallpaper of his mind, filling a little gap somewhere like a missing puzzle piece.

A found piece. Punched in at random, devoid of forethought, summoned by...by stabbing at plastic buttons.

So that's how it was going to be, huh? Randomness.

Millions of chances for coincidence.

So he turned around, grinning, and scanned the diner for the next chance...

Halfway between taking up the tumbler and putting it to his lips, a dark-haired young woman leaped past Lev's drinking hand, and headed for behind-the-bar. Lev's drinking hand twitched, swerved and pivoted 'round his wrist, and a mere three drops of soda plinked and fizzed on the counter. He cocked an eyebrow, waited a beat, and took a pull of cola.

Well, I guess it worked.

'It', of course, being his plan for finding adventure -- in case 'adventure' matched the shape of the vacuum in his...

...no, not a soul. No such thing as souls. Anyway, the plan had been thus:

1. Find a place where people congregated
2. Sit down to mind his own business
3. Allow chaos to screw that up

Calm. Slow. Easy. Unflappable. He set the tumbler down onto a faded green coaster, and peered over the bar. The woman was there, and her face hoped for the noise and the shooting and the fireballs and such to stop. He did, too, but...not yet.

"You in some kinda...trouble, sister?" Lev pointed back toward the tumult and flashing. "I only ask because, you know...all of that." He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Kinda putting two and four together, like."

His drinking hand drifted back down to the tumbler, and raised it to her. "Rum-and-Coke," he said to the woman, then took a drink. "Hold the rum. You, uh...y'need a hand?"

The elf looked once more in the direction of the shooting placing a hand over his face as he lightly shook his head at the arrogance of such a people. To start a fight with numerous people around to him was nonsense, unethical, and only spoke of cowardice and dishonor. Cochise with a silent yet with a practiced hand pulled the bow from around the quiver on his back. Cochise methodically made his way past the fellow he began to converse with to a full view of the battle. A small smirk crossed the elf's face at the scene of the chaos in the hallway. The elf raised the hand holding the coveted longbow to his lips with the faint whisper of a word to it.

"What I seek is absolution! De Ogen!" The words flourished from the mouth of the elf strong, firm and somewhat roaring.

The bow then swiftly changed eyes opened up on the bow, staring wildly around some large and others small. Now that the bow was awakened Cochise was given a few more less lethal options.

"Hey, is..." Lev squinted into the dimness of the pub. It wasn't the lack of light -he flew a starship, and how bright are those?- so much as the distance from him to Cochise.

Well. That, and the subject.

"...is that dude an elf? -- Also," he added, turning to the woman behind the bar, "what the fun is goin' on?"

Thomas entered the casino once again as but he immediately knew something was wrong the place looked like a battle field as innocents scattered and ran for cover. What the hell is this crap? He thought as he threw up a plasma shield infront of himself to deflect any stray fire.

He could have jumped into the fray but he decided to wait and as part of the Pandorian Military he knew he had a duty to protect the Alliances Citizens. But the combat part seemed to be covered plus he wanted to try and figure out what exactly was going on. He then realized that most of the shooting was coming from the guards as they seemed to surround bow.

He debating on intervening but once again decided to remain non-combative and merely made a larger shield extending the wall around a small area to provide cover for anyone that wished to avoid the fighting.

Lev, who did not wish to avoid the fighting but wanted to be on the right side if he got froggy, eyed up the newcomer. Military? Cop? Lensman? Hard to tell which, but one of those for sure.

"Hey." He said it casually, like talking about...say, mufflers, or the menu at AstroBurger. "This kinda thing--" he indicated the melee with a finger, making a mixing/swizzling motion "--happen often around here?"

Char jumped from his stool when the fighting broke out, the claws becoming unsheathed. His orange eye becoming a red targeting system and his blue eye fading into a purple hue. He was about to jump into the fray, when he noticed how much was really going on. This may not be the best idea with all the fire that could hit him directly. Then he sheathed his claws but his eyes kept with the red targeting system and purple hue. He simply sat at the bar stool and watched the fighting to see if he could learn a thing or too.

((Note: This is Char the android cat, not Char Ge'kyrayc))

Thomas turned to Lev and then looked at all the shooting. He had to shout a bit so he could be heard over the gunfire. "Not that I know of this place just opened!" He said, "I sure hope not though..." He added with a slightly quieter tone. He kept his blue plasma wall up as he glanced around looking for the staff.

He spotted the kid who had been working the counter and seemed to be leading an attack on the thing. He was only suppose to be on here on midtransfer leave so he wasn't even sure who in the military he could contact but it seemed they probably already would have been given the situation. He debated on attacking once more but again he decided it would be best to say back and let the others handle it Plus if things got really bad at least he would have energy in reserve to mount an attack on what ever the thing was destroying the Casino.

It was two factors that would lead to Bo's salvation here, the first being the mist covering her exact position from most people and the second being an old trick of her fathers. See, cat ears (and other features) were kind of noticeable, even when wrapped in fabric. So to get around this her father had always worn a rounded helmet to give a more human-shaped skull under the mask. And what was better than that, he had long since learned he held a vulnerability to psychic magics and enchanted it with wards against such attacks. So naturally when he taught Bo to be an assassin he gave her all of his tools. Bo would never be aware that a psychic assault was launched at her, too busy locked into the heat of battle as she now turned into mist to let her own melted chain fall for her body, only to miss and probably fall on the unfortunate guard she had engaged in melee range or the floor, only to reform a moment later drawing a scroll from her belt.

The scroll would flap open to reveal symbols, characters and runes, which would have a hand placed to it to call forth three weapons, or five items in total. One flashbang grenade, two similarly functioning pellets and a two electronically based exploding ninja stars. More equipment from her father, who she would absolutely refuse to thank if she made it out of this. She would scoop those items into her arm, held against her chest as a deft flick of her free hand whipped her chain back towards her own body to wrap around her arm. She would have to pick up her melted metal in a minute, but for now she dipped low, flipping the pin off of her flash bang and laying on top of it. For four seconds she would be happy to lie there, pressed flat to the ground with only a hump in her back to show she was on something, and on the fifth she would turn into mist to let the grenade explode. The results would be violent to anyone caught close; blindness, deafness and severe disorientation and loss of balance. She was counting on her own body to hide it until it was too late.

As for the guards, well they would be firing into a fog; low vision with Bo already at melee range to one guard so that would probably incur a crossfire, which with her flowing in and out of mist form would probably result in more cases of friendly fire than shots on target, especially with the forcefield walls locking all that pulse-power inside. Force had to go somewhere.

Hmm. Well enough, he thought to himself.

"Well enough." Lev wasn't as good at the fast-draw as he was at looking good doing it, so he certainly made a dashing figure when he skinned his particle cascader, however slowly. 'Scader in hand, he nodded to the military man. "I'm game for keeping the new wallpaper up; how 'bout you?"

[OOC: I, the player, have no idea what's going on. Is there a monster or something trying to tear up the casino? I looked back through old posts but can't parse it out. Whatever it is, Lev's ready to get fighty on it.]

Maybe he was just over-eager. With two seconds gone and no reply from the military fellow, Lev hopped up onto a bar stool and surveyed the situation:

1. Big red mandroid shooting at crowd and demanding payment: Probably real bad news.
2. Chick behind the counter: Instigator. Maybe.
3. Little kid doing a Merlin impression: Possibly also an aggressor, but could also be an innocent. Hard to tell.
4. Nice new casino: Getting messed up. Most likely not desirable.
5. Dashing, handsome space adventurer with nerves of freon: Him.

That was too many maybes. He'd spent too much of his life weighing out maybes, staying his hand and taking no risks; it was time to be a man of adventure, and adventure takes action.

Lev takes action. Take action, Lev.

He struck a badass pose -quite as an aftereffect, really- and squeezed off a trio of particle blasts in the direction of the red guy. That armor looked heavy, and he had his 'scader dialed low -- his fancy shooting may do no more than turn the kill-bot's attention to him.

But, hey -- at least he was doing something...

The Casino itself was actually still running, surely nothing to do with the increased music and the fact even more security arrived. Also, the factors that made Bo's helmet protective would ONLY protect her mind. Telekinesis and telekinetic attacks would affect the rest of her body, maybe a bit reduced but not ineffective. Additionally, the Forcefields were more like sponges, not rubber. The force would be absorbed instead of being bounced off.

Therefore, when Bo released this gas, Jeremy used all his might to force the gas into itself, and into Bo. Therefore, no one but her would be affected.

Also, as a spot of luck, no real damage had been done. Maybe an elevator wasn't completely operational at the moment, but tye Casino itself was still in top shape.

Jeremy would continue to use his Telekinesis to force anything Bo threw back at her.

Also, seeing as how she seemed to make no effort to avoid it, the liquid metal Jeremy threw at her before hit her spot on.

(Mentioned the liquid metal in previous post, and I didn't see any indication you tried to dodge it)

Silas frowned behind his visor at the combat as it unfolded. This child, in addition to his ability to sling space magics like some ancient wizened space wizard or something, had taken a pair of flashbangs as well as the residual effects of his 'vortex' rounds without so much as batting an eye. In fact, if he didn't know better he'd almost think the kid had literally just ignored the massive amount of over-pressure and it's effects on the average person.

With the small target elevated in his mind to a much higher threat level, he prepared to use some of his less gentle nonlethal equipment when suddenly some manner of particle weapon fire erupted from the bar, splashing into the forcefields he hand't quite noticed until now and presumably dissipating in the fields' entropy before they could impact his armor. Still, even low powered particle weapon fire was enough to have his HUD chime about six different kinds of warning and label the attack with no less than three different warning symbols, which he cleared with a slash of his left hand, an interface into the Augmented Reality HUD.

"Me'ven? Tion gar ganar nuhur? Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod? Ni shukur gar kriffin kovid, ori'haat bat ner buir!"

In the heat of combat, he didn't think to wonder if the shooter would understand Mando'a, but he doubted it. Not that it mattered with the conveniently intervening shield in place. Best to deal with the more dangerous threat first. Flicking the selector with his thumb, he switched the blaster to it's stun setting, taking aim on the small dar'jetii and firing off a hammer pair, in other words a pair of shots so closely squeezed off together that they practically sounded like a single round. The DC-15 would belch the concentric rings of azure light and send them downrange at the kid in rapid order, hopefully ending the combat before he started breathing lasers or pulling ships out of orbit or something. Seriously, who throws fireballs?

Xas expected the effects of one flashbang, but then another went off, as well as several bangs without the flash. While he managed to not get blinded, the loud ringing of deafness overwhelmed his senses, and the world seemed to suddenly become the largest tilt-a-whirl he had ever been on. The cop swallowed hard in hopes of quelling any urge to empty the contents of his stomach, as he chanced a look up at the combat. This chance look brought with it the information that Xas had fallen to one knee, but he had managed to hold there. The small assailant seemed to be missing, in her place a low fog. In his disoriented state, it took Xas a moment to realized what had happened, a stray thought as to how Jeremy had fared much better than himself, when the kid was much closer to the blasts.

There wasn't much time to debate possibilities as the red armored man fired off at the kid, so Xas quickly flicked what looked to be a NyQuil capsule at the miniature zaku. Whatever it managed to impact, it would burst into a large amount of white foam that hardened to about the strength of concrete within seconds. He didn't bother to wait and see if that was effective or not, as he had to close his eyes and clam a hand over his mouth as he forced control over his stomach and balance. Slowly gravity seemed to become a thing again, and Xas was able to return to his senses.

With a telekinetic field closing in Bo retreated to a form she felt much safer; into mist. If the field continued to press in around her she would be able to be compressed down to a substantially smaller size, a round ball a little smaller than a skull of a person. If compressed to this size she would be mostly water. But fortunately for her she would be all but immune to the worst of the flash bangs and gunfire. And if for a moment she was freed from the telekinetic field she would be springing into action.

A little whistling, some mayhem, and a particular individual up against the backside of the Tarosi was humming a tune. An odd figure, pale flesh, black hair, and a coat of mottled red. And gas cans.

Lots, and lots of gas cans.

"A fight, a frolic, eye for eye tooth for tooth." Oh course, anyone that recognized this particular individual and wasn't of the stern, unflinching kind was likely going to run like hell. Jack Thirteen, one of Terra's most unpredictable, certifiably insane residents, tended to have this effect. And currently, was muttering nonsense as he liberally doused the back of the building in gas, braced a small fueling stations worth of flammable liquids at the base of the wall, and stacked more than a few sticks of good old dynamite in for good measure. Stepping back to admire his handiwork, the man reached down to withdraw one more thing from his duffel bag of naughty fun. And with slender fingers, tenderly armed the incendiary bomb liberated from the a Wing City SWAT van, caressed it a final time, yanked the detonator and tossed it in the mix.

He started walking down the alley, humming his little nonsense ditty to himself as he listened to the chaos reigning inside, smirking at the thought of what they were about to experience. Clearing the alley, he found himself across the street, sighing. Now time for his favorite part.

Fireworks. Click went the detonator.

And boom when the show.

All said and done, Jack couldn't be certain how much damage would result, but seeing a fireball boil a couple hundred feet in the air and debris come boiling out the alley? Damn priceless, and he cackled like the madman he was. The wild glint in his black, soulless eyes reflected the raging inferno's light, even as he took off down the street at a sprint, quickly leaving the scene. Cops? Didn't give a damn. Evidence? Add it to the pile.

Catching him and actually getting him in a cell?

No such luck yet.

Now, one might wonder how a Terran got so far off of Terra? Courtesy of some idiot leaving his ship unlocked for the docking crew to clean and refuel. By the time anyone might be getting around to looking for good old Jack? On his way back to Terra, in his nice shiny new ship.

He glanced over at the lawman as he tossed something at him, and his instinct was to swat it away with his left hand while keeping the weapon on target with his right. He was honestly surprised when the tiny capsule burst in his hand, swiftly foaming up to many times the volume the small pill looked like it should have held and shortly thereafter hardening to a nearly steel-esque strength.

He flailed his left arm briefly to try to clear the mess off, but it was pretty firmly stuck in place, coating his hand, arm, and wrist and partially covering his elbow, all but completely rendering his left arm useless. Small bits of the foam had splashed elsewhere on his armor, but his kama protected his legs from the worst of it, and the rest was little more than an annoyance, hardly a hindrance in the slightest. Still, with only one arm he'd be hard pressed to fire the rifle accurately, and as such dropped it to hang from it's sling.

Rifle thus rendered mostly useless, his hand dropped to the pistol holstered on his right thigh, pulling the sidearm in a smooth motion and leveling it at the lawman. He fired a round at close range toward the man's torso, aiming to do the most damage possible with the special purpose rounds he had loaded.

The .45 ACP round would clear the chamber at just under the speed of sound, the subsonic rounds containing less powder for a lower muzzle velocity and reduced impact on target because of it. The blunt plastoid round would move until it impacted something, the kinetic force of impact activating the tiny repulsor capacitor inside. The round's terminal velocity would be low enough to where it might break skin if the target were wearing thin clothing or it hit bare flesh, but thick clothing would stop the soft plastoid round from leaving anything more than a harsh bruise and possibly a welt. The purpose of the ammunition wasn't to kill or even wound, however, but instead to create a shock response. The kinetic force generated by the repulsor capacitor in the center of the round would be roughly equivalent to that imparted by a grown man's hard swing on a club or baseball bat, spread over an area of about a half meter. The effect was bruising and could unbalance targets or even knock them over, but the real purpose was to trick the body into believing it'd been hit by a projectile much larger and more damaging than it actually had. Thick clothing usually minimized the ensuing shock response, but a hit to the torso could also rob a target of breath, which was another useful side effect.

Of course, the shot had been fired from the hip and without a proper stance, since that would require two hands, but the range was short and a glancing blow would be enough for him to immobilized the cop long enough to talk, hopefully.

"Buir'kriffin' siite ad'ike goorar tracyn'rugam bal gotal'ur abiik'gaide. Ibic cuyir ne'akaanir, bic cuyir di'kutla go'naasir be tebec!"

As the explosion went off Tom and those behind his plasma shield were shielded from the immediate scrap metal but not expecting it the shield dropped almost moments later and tom was knocked across the room. Everything went black for a moment.

It was the smell of smoke and the sound of the fire alarms that awoke Tom. Normally most would still be out or at least on the ground trying to figure out what was going on but this is where Tom's training kicked in. He dragged himself up onto a knee as he looked around his ears were ringing but he surveyed the situation. BombHe thought instantly.

He brought up two plasma balls as he looked around for any sign of hostile movement. Something had triggered no longer was he looking to stay out of the fray choosing moral values over violence. No it was clear something was triggered deep down something cold and calculating resulting from his extensive training.

Mentally Accessing his comm he contacted military command. "Code black at the Tarosi, Code Black. I cannot ID a suspect." Tom said as his eyes still scanning through the smoke looking for movement from survivors or attackers.

Maarat stopped the stranger from shooting Thomas by creating a Forcefield, while a bunch of security officers that were running onto the scene. Jeremy tried to hold Bo, but because of everyone throwing flash bangs like coins, he became disoriented and unable to hold her. As soon as Jeremy recovered though, he would attempt to trap Bo again, but he noticed an explosion as well, and got really tiled off. It wasn't visible by any of the patrons, and the nanites would repair it, but he didn't like people blowing his....his father's place up.

Meanwhile, Antongrad Cops, SWAT, Pandorian Alliance Service of Protection, and more arrived. However, thanks to Thomas calling in a Code Black, 10 Gunships that could fly at 300 MPH and be able to shoot a pin into a needle going at a faster speed armed with heat seeking bullets, rockets, and various other weapon types.

The cops were not like normal cops though. They had a variety of weaponry types, including pulse weaponry. They had the pulse weaponry set to setting 4, so if Jack was hit by any of the Pulse weaponry, he would get knocked back on his ass, and since Pulse Weaponry is an AoE effect shot up until setting 7, the max setting, it would be really hard to miss no mater how fast he was running. The gunships, which were armored, shielded, and bad ass looking, would be firing upon Jack with deadly accuracy.

If Jack thought this would be easy, he was dead wrong. Along with Pulse weaponry, the Antongrad Police and the Pandorian Alliance Servicemen and women also used Crystallic weapons, regular ballistic weapons, energy weapons, thermal weapons, laser weapons, plasma weapons, Robotic Hunter Kiler Drones (different and better then what you are thinking), and various other types, so they were equipped for any emergency.

They don't fuck around, and they aren't pushovers.

(sorry if I missed something someone said. Everyone has been so patient while I dealt with a project yesterday, I wanted to get this out ASAP).

The air was driven from Xas's lungs as Char's shot hit its mark at about mid-chest, causing the cop to double over for a moment. His first reaction, beyond trying to drag air back into the protesting organs, was to draw his pistol, and point it at the offending Mandalorian. Though Xas's underarmor had taken most of the edge off the shot, it still hurt, and for a moment, Xas thought that he had even been actually shot. He didn't get time to process what exactly happened and if the man in red even warranted a couple of shots from the hand-cannon.

The back of the casino exploded into flames, and suddenly priorities were shifted considerably. Xas shoved the pistol back into its holster under his jacket, and pointed at Char to let him know this wasn't over, just postponed. He shouted at the guards who still seemed intent on taking out the ball of mist that Jeremy had tried to hold with whatever powers he had.

"Are you blind?! Get the civilians out of here!" He jabbed a finger at Marat,"And you! Get a forcefield around that fire! See if you can smother it a little! Everyone else, make sure that no one is left in the back area where that explosion went off!"

Xas then took off himself, holding up a hand as a silvery spell circle opened up in front of it, allowing him to step though the forcefield that had blocked off the fight. He then shouted to the panicking casino patrons, relying on the translating spell contained in his dogtags, and organized them to evacuate. He didn't see Tawny anywhere, and wondered for a moment where the girl and her owl had gone, and what she had to do with all this.

(the bar isn't on fire. There are nanites repairing all damage, all fires were put out near instantly, and no one is in danger)