Refugee Sector

Na'an had been jogging for a couple minutes when she felt the Force flare out from her left. Not in a good way, either--this was painful, tinged with darkness. She turned without stopping, aiming towards the sharp tang of fear bubbling up from a nearby streetfront.

"Leigh?" she yelled, slamming through another corner. "Leigh, what's--"

She skidded to a stop after bolting through another narrow alley, taking in the scene she'd stumbled across. A little girl and a man, curled up at Leigh's feet, one of the two throbbing with dark energy. Leigh frozen, unable to respond without fear of triggering an attack of some sort. She had to be waiting to a good solution to present itself...but there wouldn't be time for that. The events Na'an had missed had caused serious damage to the opposite storefront, blasting a hole through the bottom of the wall. The false front was wobbling dangerously. As Na'an started forward, about to call out to her friend, it began to fall on the trio below.

"Hey, hey hey hey hey hey--"

There was no time to wait before taking action. She pulled a silvery tube from her pocket, thumbing the activation stud even as it spun in her hands. A short crimson blade shot out, the heat flaring against Na'an's hand as she gripped the saber hilt and hurtled forward. The wall was falling slowly at first, but accelerating, and Na'an poured on the Force Speed, powering forward...

She flexed through the Force, and Vidalu Na'an flew high over Leigh in a flash of scarlet light.

Flipping once, she pulled the blade in front of her to flash once, twice, five times through the solid circle of the opposite wall. The chunks of wall exploded outwards with a Push from her other hand, leaving a widening hole over where the wall would have fallen on Leigh and the humans. She spiraled through the hole as they both fell, landing and dancing across the decline of the wall's opposite side. She skipped a bit to keep her balance as the wall crashed down, crunching loudly against the storefronts on the opposite side--and not crunching against her friend's dome.

When the sound died down, she looked around, training her Force sense momentarily inward to check for damage. Without a scratch, she then turned back to scowl at Leigh.

"Am I," she said thunderously, "the only person in the known galaxy that ever looks up!?"

Leigh stared, then snorted Her hologram flickered, a smirk playing across the freckled, projected face. "Maybe. But why would we have to, with someone like you around?"

Na'an blinked. "Wait, what?" Her eye flitted from Leigh to the girl, who had broken loose of the man's grip and had started backing towards her, fumbling and screaming. "Does she mean me," she asked Leigh, "or him?"

Leigh shrugged, tensing her arms once again. "Hard to say. She's being chased, but then, she's the only one who's been taking any shots."

"Oh, really." Na'an's cool grey gaze fixed more strongly on the kid, who at a second look was trying to pull a blaster or something from her belt. 

"It might be best if she were restrained before she can cause any more damage." Leigh indicated the man still at her feet, his burnt arm bright red against the fading light.

"Right." Na'an nodded, then deactivated the lightsaber. Returning the hilt to her back pocket, she reached out with both hands just as Kent approached her, gripping her upper arms strongly and supporting her weight. Gods, the kid was tiny--she couldn't be older than twelve.  "Hey, hey, breathe a second," she said, keeping her voice light. "You're the one causing a ruckus. Slow down and tell us what's got you so scared."

*At the warning he was given by the big robot, Anven covered his ears as it called out loudly. After that things began to happen quickly, blaster shots fired, rocks falling then a girl flying through a wall who broke down crying right after that. Just when he thought things were finally over he found he was sorely wrong. As the he had felt near by came out and held the girl, trying to calm her things went hectic again. Rocks began flying towards them, walls started crumbling and out of nowhere a blur came flying.

Finally when things calmed momentarily again, Anven saw the robot's companion standing on the other side of the rubble with lightsaber in hand. He looked around and saw the collapsed wall had fallen around them instead of on them, which was good. The girl on the other hand was freaking out again, going for a blaster on her hip. Thankfully she was stopped and instead went rambling on and so, Anven just stood there minding his own business so not to cause more trouble.*

It can't be that easy. No one would go through all that trouble and walk away. It made no sense to Kent's mind. It didn't make sense. It had to be a trick, a trap to lull her and this new person into thinking it safe and then he would go after them both.

Kent began to struggle to free her blaster hand.

Its a trick! Its a trap! It has to be! GET HIM!

*Gavin gave the smallest of nods. It'd be a while before Kent would regain herself, but only with him gone. It was unclear what truly made her fear him. It couldn't have been when he went in the hole after her. It had to be before, when she was at the speeder. He could only imagine what she had been through to so quickly assume what his intentions were.

But it didn't matter now. The fighting had stopped and many had went their own ways. Just him and Na'an were left and Anven who was a bit away. He hoped for her safety beyond this point for it was all he could do now.*

"Take care of her. I've had enough of watching others perish into chaos." *With one last look at Kent, he made his way passed them and progressed on slowly towards the spaceport.*

Na'an held her securely, making sure she didn't fight loose. As the other man passed, she caught a chill. The Sith she understood. Sith were all alike in their ambitions, once they'd gotten in deep enough to admit it to themselves. This guy, however...he was still just far enough out to almost seem reasonable. He still thought he was a good guy.

"Yep," she said absently, watching him go from the corner of her eye. "You'll get used to that after long enough."

And that was that. As far as Na'an could tell, there wasn't really anything more to fight over. She let go of the girl's arms, flexing her fingers and her arms and looking back towards her friend. Leigh was pacing through the rubble, dodging large chunks of duracrete and gauging what sections of the fallen wall were stable enough to hold her bulk.

"Your timing was later than expected," she said, kicking at a pipe sticking out of the mess. "I assume this means you opted not to use Babylon after all?"

Na'an shook her head. "No need. Val's gone, we've managed to either fight or spook off everyone else...It's over, either way." She took in the mess with a look of vague dissatisfaction, rubbing lightly at the black patch over her eye. "Either way. Sith and secret bounties...I could use a drink."
She turned her attention back to the girl. She'd come to enough to hold her own weight, and was looking around with the dizzy, startled look of a concussed Kushiban under all that blonde hair. Somehow, kids always seemed to have that look after a fight--like they'd just woken up from a bad dream. "What about you? I'm sure you've had a hell of a day. My treat," she said brightly.

"Oh? And why's that?" Na'an met Kent's eye with her own, looking quizzical. "You got somebody back home who'd get mad?"

"I see."

Na'an stepped back, and looked at the girl fully for the first time.

She had all the signs of a scrapper who didn't win many scraps. She'd said she was fifteen, but didn't look much older than twelve, and didn't have much meat on her bones. She moved nervously, speaking in starts and stops and always hesitating, even in her anger... she hadn't looked Na'an in the eyes once, even when Na'an tried to talk directly to her. Her hair was by some miracle clean, and pretty enough, but scraggy and needed trimming. She'd been strong enough in the Force just now to pull her own home to pieces in a fit, but that was all that it had been--a fit, the same way a cornered rabbit would bite and kick for release. She was a kid, alone, scared of everyone, and trying to force herself to be an adult who could deal with a nasty hand by herself. It was...sad.

And familiar.

"I see."

Na'an backed away a couple of steps, brushing dust off her jacket. "I'll tell you what, I'm not going to force you to come along with us. I'm not looking to get shot, and I'm sure you're not looking for some magic solution. I've been there--there's never some easy way out that you can trust." She bent down slightly, making a point to talk in any direction but directly at Kent. "But the offer's open if you decide it's worth the gamble. Corellian Sector. Place called Palecki's. Ask for Na'an.

She turned her back to the girl, continuing to stretch her arms as she paced by Leigh and towards the alley that had spit her out. Leigh fell into step behind her, keeping her visual array trained on the kid behind them. "This seems harsh," she said, modulating her voice down to murmur. "You did help carve a hole through her house...she can't stay here. She's got to go somewhere or she won't last the week, and from the look of her she doesn't have many choices."

"Which is why I can't make the call for her. If she wants our help, she'll follow us." Na'an's voice was light, but the look in her eyes was set, serious. "If she doesn't...then it's not our choice to make."

Leigh whirred, the electronic equivalent of a sigh. She knew that this discussion wasn't over--hell, she had more than a little verbal drubbing to subject Na'an to later. This had been nothing but a stupid mistake, and they'd be lucky to get offworld with Noba's credits intact. But it could wait, at least, until they got to Palecki's. Leigh had learned enough to tell that this was one of those strange, intangible moments that organics seemed to value so much. Interrupting those moments only seemed to annoy them.

They paced together, the understanding unspoken between them, back around the corner and towards where they'd left Cao waiting.