"I'm not going to tell you again, friend. Pick it up."
Dan hesitated, taking one last long moment to stare down the bounty hunter, Boba Fett. He knelt down slowly and then picked it up, cautiously, slowly, making his motions slow and deliberate for the man holding the gun on him. He picked it up and held it in his arms, hands loosely gripping it, and he looked back at Boba Fett.
The Doctor looked back and fourth between the two men. He felt a strong urge to back away from the two of them and get as low as possible, perhaps behind something.
"Put it back on the shelf. Now," Boba said, gesturing with his gun.
"Of course, buddy. Of course." Dan grinned and looked at the Doctor, then back to Boba. He then suddenly started laughing. "Hahahahahahahahahahaha!"
"Hahahahaha..." Whooves laughed nervously.
"Hahahaha..."
"That's it," Boba said, and raised his rifle. He aimed it right for Dan's smiling face. "You had your cha-"
There were a couple of ways it could have started. Dan could have swiped upward with the giant Toblerpone box and knocked the weapon out of Boba's hands. He could have tried to block Boba's shot with it and ducked behind cover. He could have even tried to fire the RPG inside the box and shot it at the bounty hunter. But Dan liked the most direct approach and that meant that when there was something in his hands, he wanted to get rid of it as fast as he could and then use his hands for what they were meant for.
Dan threw the bar at Boba Fett. Blaster bolts from the hunter's gun scorched the outside and would have gone right through to hit Dan in the head, if wrapper inside the candy bar box had not been authentic. Even the fake giant Toblerpones were wrapped in tin foil, absorbing the laser blasts by reflecting the light of the bolts. The bar hit the bounty hunter's gun in the muzzle but it never hit the floor; Dan had tossed the bar and charged at the same moment.
"Aaugh!" Dan tackled Boba Fett. The force of the tackle combined with the weight of the box knocked Boba Fett to the ground, causing him to drop his favorite EE-3 rifle. He still had plenty of other weapons in his arsenal, but with Dan so close to him, he wasn't able to use them.
Dan, however, had two weapons he was able to fully use against Boba Fett: his fists. Using the Toblerpone to pin Boba's limbs, Dan punched at his helmet. It was made of metal, which was tough on Dan's hands, but he was used to it. Plus, each jab knocked Boba's helmeted head into the concrete floor as well, doubling the effect. Every clang of metal on the floor reverberated through Boba's head worse than if he had been wearing nothing at all.
It almost seemed as if Dan had planned this entire set up. From the moment he tossed the candy bar, Dan had been in the advantage against the most feared and dangerous bounty hunter ever. And he was now beating the piss out of him.
Boba had had enough. He bent the Toblerpone box and punched Dan in the side of the head. He punched through the box and delivered three more blows to the side of Dan's head before he finally got hold of the human with the other hand and forced him off of him.
The two got to their feet at almost the same time. Dan had a deep gash in the side of his head from where the bounty hunter's gauntleted fist had landed, but was no worse for wear otherwise. The unarmored human knew Boba would have used one of his other weapons if given the chance, and to his credit, Boba was about ready to whip out the flamethrower. Dan lunged at him again, going for his waist before the hunter could respond. But Boba Fett, the veteran of countless battles and wars, was expecting that.
Boba blocked Dan's lunge partially with his left forearm, the same arm that contained his ripcord and his flamethrower, as well as a lot of other gadgets. They slammed into the shelf behind him, nearly knocking it over. Smaller candy bars and other items fell to the floor. Boba gripped Dan's face and whipped him around, smashing him into the shelf. Wasting no time, the bounty hunter kept Dan pinned and delivered a jaw-cracking punch to Dan's face. He then grabbed Dan by both his shoulders and prepared to give him a 'Mandalorian kiss', meaning an armored headbutt to the face.
Slacking his shoulders, Dan lowered himself and was able to duck just in time. Boba headbutted the metal shelf, clanging his helmet on the rack instead of Dan's forehead.
The bounty hunter recoiled as the metallic ring echoed in his own cranium. Dan used that opportunity to tackle Boba to the ground yet again. The bounty hunter's jetpack clattered and his armor clanked every time he hit the ground, like a metal patchwork of iron plates loosely connected to the same frame.
Boba's weakness was his reputation... and his core. His beskar'gam, the ceremonial Mandalorian battle armor he wore and was known for was also ancient. He felt more from Dan's blows than if he'd been wearing MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor or anything more modern. His weapons were on his arms. Dan, more of a street fighter, got in close and focused his attacks on the bounty hunter's midsection between his arms, preventing him from using his deadly arsenal and also hurting him where his armor was connected.
And that wasn't his only weak spot. Dan grabbed the bounty hunter by the neck with both hands and started strangling him. He gripped hard, shook the armored man, gritting his teeth in sheer fury. Boba gripped Dan's hands as the pale man squeezed his neck through the connecting armor of his neck, desperate to get his hands off his throat. Boba's own teeth were gritted under his helmet's mask.
But Dan's grip was ironclad. Boba deployed the razors from his gauntlet and swiped at Dan, forcing him to release him.
Panting, the pair rose to their feet again. With his gauntlet blades deployed, Boba forced Dan to change strategies; getting close was not going to work.
"You had to pull out the damn can opener."
"Sorry. It was next to my lighter." Boba raised his arm again and unleashed his flamethrower. A jet of flames closed the gap between him and Dan, searing the air. Dan dove into the shelves, knocking products aside as he plunged through them and into the other aisle. Boba panned over with his flamethrower and scorched the various oversized candies, setting row after row of products ablaze. The fires burned, but Dan had already disappeared to the next aisle.
It was time to get serious. Boba had the advantage now with Dan retreating. Seconds made the difference in the fight, but so did position. He activated his jetpack and flew upward. No doubt Dan was already preparing his next attack or trying to flank him, but as he couldn't fly, Boba could gain some height and keep him at a distance.
Boba had to admit he hadn't had a fight like this in a... ever. No opponent on any of the countless worlds and countless universes had ever come so close to finishing him, pushed him so far that he had to use everything he had. In a way, it felt good to be challenged again, the thrill filled his every nerve. But it also pissed him off and made him realize how dangerous Dan really was- as dangerous as him.
Boba reached the top of the aisles. And Dan was waiting for him.
Dan grinned, one arm behind his back. "It's over, Boba! I have the high ground!"
"Ha," Boba mocked him. "That's just a worthless meme. It doesn't mean anything."
"I also have your gun."
"Son of a bi-"
*BLAM*
Dan's shot caught Boba in the shoulder. The EE-3 rifle was designed and specially modified by Boba himself to fire in powerful, penetrating three-shot bursts. It was a bounty hunter's weapon designed to incapacitate the armored and outright kill anything that wasn't armored, helping him take down larger targets and deal with riffraff like Dan easily. Until they used it against him.
The powerful shot spun Boba and caused him to crash into the top of the other aisle and fall. He hit the concrete flat on his stomach.
"Haha. Another happy landing." Dan raised the gun and aimed it at the bounty hunter's jetpack. He wasn't the best shot, but he figured he could at least take out his flight capabilities.
Until Boba, lying prone, fired his jetpack-mounted missile into the shelf Dan was standing on. It exploded underneath him, the heavy rack absorbing the damage as various other candies were incinerated but the shelf collapsed. It fell backwards, taking Dan with it.
"No... no... nononoNONONONONONONONONONOOOOOO" The racks fell, crashed into the aisle next to them. Dan scrambled to climb to the top of the next one just as it was leaning into the next aisle. A domino effect began and each of the shelves crashed into the other and fell over, crashing into the next aisle. Hundreds of thousands of products of all kinds spilled onto the floor- boxes of all sizes, novelty items, home, house and office wares. Dan scrambled up each rack of shelves as they collapsed from the oversized candy aisle all the way to the outdoor camping section on the other side of the building.
"DOC! DOC! DO SOMETHING!!"
"I'm getting a fire extinguisher!"
"WHY?!"
"Because of the all the bloody fires! You'd think the sprinklers would activate with all the burning candy around but I guess safety isn't the first priority for assassins at Pone Depot."
"DOC!!"
Dan was exhausted. Fighting was one thing, but physical labor, that sucked. Climbing was taking a lot out of him. And finally, he reached an aisle with boxes at the very top, the kind people rarely bought and had to have people get on scissor-lifts to get up to. They blocked Dan and prevented him from climbing further.
"Had to be the camping section. It just HAD to be the camping section," Dan remarked as the shelves fell over.
But this time, they only hit the wall at the opposite end of the building.
"Ha... haha! Ahhh, thank you great outdoors." He propped himself up on the rack and took a minute to catch his breath. He wiped his forehead and a fire extinguisher landed in his lap.
"Found the fire extinguisher!"
"Great, why don't you call customer service so they can help check us out when I finally have a fuck to give?"
"No need for such language."
Dan heard a whistling noise and had time to drop between the shelves to the floor before another missile exploded on the rack he'd been clinging to. It exploded, setting several boxed tents on fire.
Boba landed again, stepping on several action figures as he did so. The floor was almost completely covered in random items from the store shelves, most of them still intact. The bounty hunter was done. He ignited the flamethrower and torched everything in a circle around him, then in a massive cone in front of him. He would find Dan eventually and when he did, he would disintegrate the man where he stood as he should have done when he first saw him.
Shots from his own blaster whizzed by. Dan wasn't the best marksman with most weapons, especially weapons of a type he was completely unfamiliar with. The EE-3 was a crude rifle and took a steady hand to aim but was meant to be just as effective aimed or fired from the hip. Dan, trying to aim it more like a long rifle, was having trouble.
Still, even unskilled could get a lucky shot in. A trio of bolts came close to his head and shot off Boba's scanner, the bounty hunter ducked. Dan came at him, peppering him with fire.
The sprinklers turned on. Very quickly, water sprayed down on the entire building's interior, coating everything. Boba fired his ripcord at Dan and scored a hit, wrapping wires around Dan's torso. He yanked hard and Dan fell over, dropping into the scattered products on the floor. Even in the rain of the fire suppression system, Boba's flamethrower and jetpack would still work, and he was planning on introducing that to Dan.
With Dan still attached, he jetted up to the ceiling. But Dan was still in the fight, and fired Boba's blaster, cutting off the ripcord. The force from the jet ascent sent Dan sliding, still bound in wires, into one of the aisles.
Quickly, Boba landed nearby. He opened up with his flamethrower, torching where Dan landed in a pile of assorted boxes of industrial-sized toilet paper. The bounty hunter torched everything, walking closer to Dan until finally his flamethrower's fuel cells were exhausted.
"Now, you know I'm the best. You know my reputation speaks for itself, friend. You should've listened," Boba chastised.
"I did listen," Dan said. He rose from the charred boxes holding the fire extinguisher. "I JUST DON'T FUCKING CARE!" He sprayed the hunter with the extinguisher, a jet of white frost engulfing him.
Boba's flamethrower worked fine in rain but not against icy fire suppressant. And even though it wasn't much, it prevented his flamethrower and jetpack from working. His vision was obscured and the fight was over. Dan charged with the extinguisher can and smacked Boba Fett in the head with it. He followed it up with another whack, then another, then another, side to side so he couldn't tell which direction it was coming from.
Dan swiped up with the extinguisher and caught Boba in the jaw. His helmet flew off and hit the wall, landed to the floor and cracked. Boba staggered backwards, blood running down his nose and mouth. Dazed, for a moment, Dan's face looked almost exactly like his except for the goatee.
Dan grabbed him by the collar. "You should have NEVER messed with me... or my friends. THIS is for Nicky." He slugged him so hard in the face he felt something break. Boba's body went slack and Dan dropped him like a big Toblerpone.
"Clean up on... whatever the hell aisle this is," Dan announced. No one else was around to hear it except the Doctor.
"Well, that was long, unnecessarily violent and likely very unproductive to say the very least," Doctor Whooves remarked. "Exactly what was the point of picking a fight with heavily-armed, easily agitated legendary bounty hunter in the middle of a hardware store? Does it just unsettle you if you're not clearly the biggest... jerk in any given room? Honestly, WHAT is it we get out of this, hmm?"
Dan lifted up the unconscious Fett's form. "We get a jetpack. And also a disguise."
The Doctor looked unnerved. "You... you're not going to kill him, are you?"
"Nah. Now help me get his armor off and then we'll tie him up."
"Why are we doing this?"
"Doctor, focus," Dan said. "Okay? This is very simple. We are robbing this douche and then we are going to steal everything in this store and put it on his ship, which we will then steal after pinning the blame on him and the Gyro-Hydrogen."
"GenoHaradan."
"Whatever. Take off his metal pants."
The Doctor shook his head. "I don't think I will ever be comfortable around you."
Dan nodded. "Then we're finally on the same page."