Rayns Orelous

In the comotion occasioned by the brawl, I waited for Roshan to give his attention to the human to make my move. The turbulant noise clinging all around would give me the oportunity to take my leave. Keeping my eyes on the fight, I swiftly walked toward the nearest perpendicular street, and then made a few turns, carefully hiding my cuffs under my robes. The cuffs were not of the sophiticated kind. I had in fact used them before on the moon of iktotchi. After a few minutes I stopped in front of a pile of junk. It did not take me long to find a short metalic wire. I inserted it into the locks of the electro-mechanical cuffs. Having joined the two locks, I then moved my hands around in small puddle of oily-water. At first I wondered if my ruse would work with this version of cuffs, but the mild electrical discharge that went through my body at the moment when I was able to ground their power reassured me. The liberation of energy was far from agreable but freedom felt as good as always. I hid the cuffs among the pile of junk, and went on my way, but my way was now a way out of the system.

I froze. I froze my cold grip around his neck. I looked at him and showed him my disapproval. The three new arrivals were thugs, criminals with guns, nothing honorable. ''You have fallen low, working with small-time delinquent.'' I released my prey. ''At least in the days, you had a sense of honor.'' I raised my hands in the air, and I rose to my full length. Placed my hood back on my head, as the thugs kindly reminded me to freeze. I went to my knees, placing my hands in a knot behind my head. There was nothing more to do.

Like a boa with its prey, my grip tightened around furry neck of the cat. My hands were long and pale but they could kill. They already did in the past. ''Fool! The events that took place on Bakura don't change the situation at hand.'' I felt like testing if Cathars had 9 lives, but I decided continue teasing death with pain. ''If you want any bit of help from me, you will have to take it the way it is offered.'' Even though he was now armed, I knew the drunkard would not do me any harm. He probably did not notice that I saved his arm a few minutes before, but he knew who was going to swing at him. That is why he just waited for me to release him. Meanwhile I starred straight into the feline's eyes. I know he would not spit on what I offer.

I count to three and grin. Thinking of what had been. I read the path ahead. Upon this ledge of led. Drawing breath like a debt. I left my nest. And much like a bullet I flew silently toward my target. Noiselessly advancing above the feline investigator, along the aqueduct. With soft slippers, seemingly silent as a snake, I progressed significantly. I could feel his last words knocking upon the walls of my cerebrum, and breaking into a multitude of contrasting questions. The interrogations broke on my insecurity and left me with no choice but to proceed with my chase. In a brief pause of exhalation from the cat-man, the flutter of a flag in a strong wind clinched in the damp air, for my wrappings rippled in the air as I flew down from the second storey plateau I was standing on, and in the half-light a red and black obscurity eclipsed the backalley. By landing on the predator, I dragged him on the floor to decrease the speed of my fall. Standing on top him, while the drunk man laid beside, I began my interrogation. First I placed myself over him immobilizing his arms and making sure the rock he was laying on was placed under his spine as I would put weight on it. ''Never threaten me again. You don't know what I'm capable of. '' I punctuated my first complete sentence with a well placed punch, two and a half inches left of his heart: Making his heart skip a few beats. ''I will not kill you. Not because of your theats, but because you can be useful to me. Be sure of one thing, there will never be any easy way with me. Only my way.'' My voice was fast and pungent sinking into his brain as I spoke the words a few inches from his muzzle. With a hand on his throat, I waited for him to produce somekind of answer.[/i]

((With all due respect, Durose, I'd like to know why you are posting in two differant threads, inform me via PM. Thanks)) Out in the alley, the open, the danger, I stood motionless, spectator of this display of petty skills. Meanwhile I kept on fingering the edge of my blade underneath my wrappings. No blood was to be spilled though, not yet; The stakes were too low. I had to play it smart. I had to play it like I did so many times, when the stakes when high, when people counted me, when the Chairman was honorable. This time its differant, and the same. A pocket-sized Utai blade departed from a swift attenuated movement of my wrist, and gathered the attention of both thugs as it landed on an aggregation of wires. The lights gave its last flicker to reveal the absence of my entire person. Only a low flutter carried by the wind marked my faint presence. The conflict between the Cathar and the black man had been distracted but not interupted. My actions had even leveled the odds. I could now appreciate the conclusion from a vantage point. The actors of my theater would be soon show a laughable contest to contemplate while they try to fight in the darkness their eyes try to adapt to.

They found me. I'm tired of running. I sighed. Ignorance is bliss. The cathar is asking rethorical questions to which he doesn't know the answers. [/i]What is a Pau'an doing way out here? Pretty odd.[/i] He said. He was right. This was a peculiar situation. But that was the last bit of his speech that suprised me. The pathetic lecture about the history of my homeworld was a mere aerial perpective of a world that lives underground. He obviously was no historian. Cathars are more of the ambitious type. I turned away from the man, pulling the tip of my hood. so he could not see my eyes. His shadow still was as clear as crystal on the cement in front of him. If he tried something, I would know. It seemed that he was more interested in talking than anything else. A job for construction and recruitment? To me? My species must have made a strong impression on him, but this is not my field of work. My field is the field. The cursed field. The field that robbed me from everything I had, but I am a cursed man, and that is what I was born to do. I broke my own silence for the first and only time. ''You don't need to know my name, and I have nothing to say to you.'' I departed slowly through the cantina.

Within the rambling crowd dancing in their routine, I whirled aimlessly. The breath of the crowd became mine, their voice welted with my own, and so I dissapeared in the stream of the living river. My mask eclised at every direct gaze that was given to me, as I tried to look as casual as I could. When the mass began to lose some of its density, I deviated from my path and strayed into the darkness of backalleys. Often turning around to verify if someone had detached from the crowd to track me, I was able to feel my heart beating into chest and through to the tip of my fingers. I pulled the tip of my hood further down on my forehead. My eyes still agonizing from the pain of the light. Even as leaned my tall head forward to hide from the growing light, I could feel the neons buzzing in front of me. Their low humming was a description of the place their inhabited. An incoherent rythm of interupted electric tension in the air that depicted the tale of a bar that had seen better days, and bitter nights. I stretch my long neck in the doorway of the backdoor, and entered quietly the unguarded entrance There were three possible escape routes, if things went ill. I tried not to forget it.

The shuttle dove into the correlian atmosphere like a needle through silk, while every gaseous atoms grazed the hull in a furious frenzy. The ardent friction roared along the cockpit that streamed with steaming droplets of water. The vessel flew through the thin grey clouds hovering above the towers of the surface. Finally, the pilot pulled the air brakes and the flaps raised to opose the flow the air. The jerk produced by the deceleration reminded every passenger of the age of the chosen starship. The ship touched the surface of Correlia at the edge of dawn. The broken horizon showed some of its most beautiful colors as the sun crawled under the sky. The marvel of the firmament was nonetheless a pain to my eyes. The accustomance to the subterrestrial lifestyle could not be changed in the flutter of an eyelid. I lowered my head and examined the path ahead, to place my footsteps in the most inconsequential way within my grasp. I tried to become part of the environment. I tried being invisible, until I find what I am looking for. I had yet to realize that concealement scarcely carry comfort. --------- ((This is a first post, an introduction, feel free to interact.))

CHARACTER SHEET Real Name: Rayns Orelous Nickname: Rainman Age: Relatively young for his race, therefore around 50 years old Species: Pau'an (Utapau) Height: 2.03m / 6''8' Weight: 96.6kg / 213lbs Hair: Pau'ans don't usually have hair Eyes: Dark like a giant pupil Sex: Male Homeworld: Utapau Alignment: Neutral, to be chosen Clothing: Crimson and Black Native clothing Weapon: A Utai Short Blade and a blaster pistol Force Sensitivity Unknown Inventory: Comlink Posessions: Credits to get around

The night had crept without any noise between the buildings missing like teeth. The causeway, similar to a river feeding on the melting ice, began to flood with people. I did not like the feeling of the crowd, so I retreated taking shelter behind a corner, where I leaned on the wall, gathering my senses away from the agitation. Truth hit me like a shovel. I had killed someone. Strangely it didn't feel any more unusual. I mean I had already seen it. I already seen someone die, but I had never been the one responsible. I raised my hand and touched my shoulder, and I felt death and how it grazed me. A few moments later I realized I was staring at the sky with no good reason... I closed my eyes, filled my lungs with all the air I could find. When I opened them, an idea had taken hold of my body, I walked backward, not too fast, making sure I was doing the good thing. I turned around and cut through the ever growing crowd, trying to find the ....exit. That is where I saw the man who had asked me the most particular question earlier. I took no heed of him, and I purposely brushed passed him. I headed straight toward the gates I had escaped from, and then, just before reaching them I took an abrupt turn in a small corridor smelling like sulphurous vapour. I had started running, trying to find what I was looking for before it was too late. Ventilation was the obvious classic, on my path. I crawled in those large tunnels where I wished I was a mouse, with each angles scratching my side repeatedly. Obviously, I took shortcuts that made me come back to my starting point and to every other exits I did not want to find, until I got heard the sound that I was waiting for. There was a vibration in the surface of the ventilation tunnels, and a continuous low sound. The hangars weren't very far. The exit of the tunnel came fortunately behind small boxes and unfortunalty in broken glass. I rose from my rodent position, and became a cat. The voice that had been all over my mind earlier was coming back. Whispering, murmuring, blowing a windy message in my mind. ”œ...fly...fly...get away...fly...fly....fly........”

Adrenaline had stopped being secreted into my blood for its stream was slowly decelerating. My senses were still very keen though, for I was facing an unknown environement. This planet had a familiar feeling to it, yet it was unique. The exit I had taken led to a large footbridge, where walkers were rather few and far between but shining with prescence, and motives most ill. It didn't bother me to be antipathetic in this jungle, for I knew it was the natural selection that ruled this place. "Might I inquire as to what the cause for your haste my be?" said a stranger, lost in his interfaces, data, thoughts, opinions... ''I just made the world a better place, but I think that some people around here don't agree with me on this call.'' My answer could have been more specific but it would have given this man a bit too much think of. He already seemed confused by my words... Since I did not want to be rude, I point out that I had been a bit too rude with my hosts at the palace behind me. Since this discussion was going no where I continued on my way, thinking the man knew enough.

I could hear myself breathe heavily with my teeths clenched like a bull about to charge. Guards around the room began to close in carefully...carefully. ”œDo not Push me!”

On my left foot rested the scalpel fallen from the hands of the butcher who had started his job on my right leg. With a light kick, the metalic blade lifted in the air, scintillating from under the dust covering it. In my right hand the scalpel landed like a bird taking a stopover. The laughs were interupted dramatically. Suddenly the surgical blade transformed itself into a dart as it was launched with hate and passion toward the criminal leader's forehead. It all was going down between the man and the beast lookin deep into each others eyes. Eventhough we both knew the weapon would find its mark, the kingpin remained menacing never acknowledging defeat, in his perpetual defiance. It would unfortunatly be the last time he would scare someone.

''Royce Colos?, never heard of him.'' My voice was as clear as arctic water, and as true as a child's reflexion. I had never heard of anyone of that name, even though the name Colos was the same as the one who had brought me to Tatooine. I thought it was useless to reveal such a detail. ''And, I serve under no one, I have no alliegance, I am free, that is why you will let me go, you will release me.''

The Force is everywhere and every thing, but the Force is not the only thing that rules our lives; Fate, Chance and some inexplicable coincidences play a tiny part in the grand scheme of things. One of these on that day, saved my life. As my muscles crisped with pain and my blood tried to stay within me, adrenaline closed my right hand and projected it like a bull on the butcher's jaw as the lock opened miraculously. I don't know what I was trying to do; I was outnumbered, wounded, and on unknown territory, but I always hated being tied to a place. I could not stand being tied to one place or simply be kept from my free will. I could not acept to have stopped moving, sometimes one moves too far. I guess I have been too far for quite some time already. I opened my cuffs and stood on my own two feet in front of the fallen surgeon and the Hutt that seemed to find it all too funny for me. I would not go so easily. But I had a feeling the questions were merely a test for something more important. ''What do you all want with me.''

”œ...let them take you away... let them take you away...”

Pain had become a part of me and as I was treated my dreams changed and reached a new intensity as they reached their peaks to finally die and let the harsh reality claim me again. This blackout inertia held my thoughts as they revolved and perfected. Frame by frame the world opened itself to me when my body formed an arc of fragile rigidity. This twilight world, black and blue, showed me needles and the damage done, the gunshot and the hole it makes. I don't want to feel this way forever... I was dropped like a blanket and I moved to the rythm of the air, my breath while my wounds like craters crawling back the slope of time, tried to close. I don't know why but I turned on my back. I don't know what I expected to feel... hatred... love... but it was just cold concrete... ------ ''What do you want from me?'' I barely whispered in the darkness.

Why do I burn on and on and not just fade to ashes? I coughed some blood, and the coarse roof became my bed as I lost sight of the light. I could hear beyond the walls of my consciousness for an instant and I knew there was more to my fate than this day. I would wake up, in fact my eyes were only closed, as I laid over the body of dead barman, hoping not to meet the same end. Caught in the crossfire, it was too late to find a better way out of this, with the finest regards, i lost on the cracks of this roof. The story goes on, and I remain calm like a bomb.

OOC: The next actions are to be inserted before Andon's intervention. ________________ IC: Face to face with the masked fighter, I could feel the tensions of both life and death pulling me toward their intensions, but through my heart the pressure of my arteries pushed me to break free of all the strings keeping me in leash. Nothing would keep me under control, not even the limits of my body. Suddenly, I was rash and reckless, roaring like a tiger without anything to lose. I raised my arm with rage. Squeezed my jaw. Closed my eyes, and my elbow swinged toward its target, going through the visor of the bounty hunter, and breaking it like a thin glass leaving nothing but fragments in his vision. Bloodied by the shock my elbow came back with a renewed symetry for now my two arms were decorated with the courageous crimson of the field. As my enemy took a step back I saw the snipers all around our position, raising to support their mercenary. The bullets would soon be flying by or flying through us. I tackled my enemy to the ground, taking him as a shield and a weapon.

Sailing the sea of reverie, the winds carried my vessel where telephones were tin cans on a string and where I fell asleep, with you still...talking to me. You said you weren't affraid to die, and you'd always be with me. Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more than when you turned away, when you passed the door and didn't turn around. I could did not have enough candles on my cake to talk, yet I wanted to scream. My clothes were soaking wet from my mother's tears. How many times have I wished to say such things I can only pretend... Father, father will you show me how to die the right way someday.... I don't want a second and third chance. My eye lids flickered under the arid sun, and I switched between reality and reverie. The pain from my leg began to flood through my whole body again. At counter-current, like a dam being crushed by the torrent, determination began to flow through my veins to fight the ever-growing urge to let go. My jaw was firmly tightened, giving a hard time to my teeth that wanted to fall to bits and I raised on one leg looking through my hair drenched in sweat that were covering part of my vision and hiding part of the dirt on my face. I had risen from paralysis, I was a statuette craved by a boyhood bravery. I staggered in the direction of the rocketman, confronting death, and all the peace within. Covered in blood and dust, I stood without threats. ”œI'm not going to watch myself die.”

It hurts to live. I have so often thought of how peaceful death must feel. Death... a void, an emptiness of worries and weight, a long serene sleep without any nightmare or hard pillow, while on the other hand life, like a blanket that always leaves your feet to the mercy of the breeze. You try to stretch it, it will never be enough, you always want more of it, but it always ends up slipping from your fingers. Three bullets, three tons over me. I could not move, three nail were keeping me to the ground, one in my thigh, one in the arm of the same side and the last thigh again, as if the pain was not already enough. My position had seemed secure from my point of view but through the walls I had taken my rest against, came the bullets leaves holes into the cement like structure as it fissured to try and slow it down only granting me the chance of keeping the bullets inside of my body instead of having them go right through like a hot knife through butter. What a luck... I had no weapon, a harmless, wingless bird on a rooftop. What were these bullets for? I fell asleep thinking about this question, passing out as the twin suns pierced me with their thousand knifes.

Everything happened so fast. Blaster shots, grenades, broken glass and this light hum in the back ground as if a powerful generator was being turned on, slowly spinning to gather its charge. After a loud deflagration, I was thrown off my feet up on the counter of the bar. Between spilled liquors and lonely cigarettes, I remain, half conscious, because of the concussion grenade that had projected me. When the symptoms dissipated, I found myself in the open like a sitting duck with the barman almost pushing me to the floor. I twisted to a more comfortable position but with my hands on the sticky surface I found broken glass to cut myself pathetically. I was still dizzy with agitation but the shock of the glass cutting through the palm of my hand penetrated me and unleashed a flow of up to my brain and adrenaline kicked in. Fate has a strange way of doing things sometimes, if lucidity had been mine earlier I would probably have had the reflex to get back on my feet on the electrified ground, but my hesitation and well placed bad luck had given me to the time to realize that the fight had stopped and everyone had found a peaceful spot on the sticky soil. The hum had left its place to a crackling sound that seemed to penetrate the body of everyone that strewed on the ground. The way out was shut, but through my hazardous position I had been more lucky than I ever had thought possible, for the barman that had pushed me aside had in fact taken a step on the counter to get to a ladder formed by well placed pipes and structures. The man was obviously not at his first brawl, since the customers had a bad tendency to bring trouble in their wake. What I also assumed was that this coup was probably arranged with the man behind the establishement and I guess, he wouldn't have stayed til the showdown if he had not planned an escape route. From my position I still had an easy shot at the ladder. I made my way up with a noisy haste, for I knew the situation was soon going to go from bad to worse. The ladder was in fact a escape going directly to the roof where I fell face to face with the barman, laying dead, pierced with multiple sniper shots. The idea of him being in league with the enemy quickly dissapeared from the reconstitution in my mind. The man had already saved my life, but he would help even more in his death. I guess he didn't expect that as the bullets went through him from every angle. I pulled my own weight on the roof, and I layed next to his cold flesh. Carefully I advanced like a snake in the water, barely making any ripple. When I got to a wall on the side of the building, I drew a well-deverved breath that tranformed itself in a long sigh for I was somewhere relatively safe, for now at least, so I layed passively thinking of a way to make my luck last.

The spaceport of Coruscant and the Mos Eisley cantina converyed a similar feeling of failure influcted through every patron cruising between tables and boxes. On a stool next to a high table, I exacmined the world that surrounded us in a disturbed unison. My presence next to Andon's and his friend's appeared to me like a useless addition of a decimal at the end of an exponential equation, yet the fact that my identity remained unknown to the enemies of the galaxy gave me a full house to thrown on the table at the oportune time. What I didn't know was that I'd have to go all-in before the end of the hand.

We left before the dust had time to settle, and the our lungs be filled and emptied. The childish comment of the new stranger in my environement left me with an disinterested look on my countenance. Yet on the inside, my heart was pounding like a racing steed with dual cadency. A furtive smile its way to my lips as I looked down into my thoughts. No one really caught a glimpse of that moment of sympathic display of colors, but before any word was thrown into the already voluble atmosphere, I was flying like swallow between boxes and spacecrafts. The course was like a kindergarten's recess at its paroxysm. After a dozen of spins and turns, I took off. My feet left the ground and I flew in the air and landed rolling on the tip of Andon's E-Wing. So like an acrobat I slid to the passenger seat, a seat I was sick of occupying, but I assumed the role with patience. ((Off to the next stage))

I remained between comprehension and apprehension. My role in this story was somewhat blurry, but the faith Andon seemed to display, convinced me to follow him no matter what. What other choice did I have anyway, between raptures and rupture, the choice wasn't too hard, my taste for adventure would always succumb my greatest wits. ”œAlright, I sighed. Let's get this show on the road.”