//------------------------------// // On the Hunt // Story: Bounty Hunter Anon III // by Sunny Solaire //------------------------------// https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/#!/BLk1CSFJGvt3BiimeJbn --Somewhere in a hidden region of deep space-- A flash of flickering bluish light reflects off the walls of the shiny corridor on a hidden space station. The flashing lights are accompanied by the sounds of electricity and painful screams. Those screams belong to Limestone Pie, the direct apprentice of Darth Sombra, Dark Lord of the Sith. As she writhes and squirms on the ground at her master's feet, she is being barraged by an onslaught of Force Lighting. Sombra stops his punishment for just a moment, allowing her the time to whimper and cough on the ground. The slight smell of cooked flesh and smoke lingers in the air. There is a momentary silence between the two before he finally breaks it. "Killing Pinkamena Diane Pie and the bounty hunters was your only objective, my young apprentice. Why did you fail me?" Limestone grunts and strains to get to her knees. "M...Master, I...I ran into a problem... Those bounty hunters are...resourceful... And they had help from my other sister, Maud-" "The Jedi..." Sombra growls. Limestone grunts and whimpers. "Y-Yes, Master." Sombra scoffs and looks down at her in disgust. "I have trained you to kill Jedi. What makes this one any different?" The Dark Lord blasts her with another torrent of lightning, forcing her to scream and fall to her side again. "You hold love for them. Is that it? Compassion?!" Limestone shrieks in pain and grits her teeth as every inch of her body is assaulted with lightning. "You are absolutely pathetic. I should kill you right here. You cannot kill a single Jedi. You cannot even kill a pair of bounty hunters." Her cries turn into grunts and growls and she bangs her fist on the ground in pain. "Your compassion for Pinkamena and her Jedi sibling begets mercy, and that mercy makes you weak." Limestone was no longer screaming. It had been replaced by growling. "Perhaps I should get a lowly assassin droid to do what you clearly can not. A constant reminder of your inferiority." Limestone growls louder as she continues to be barraged by lightning. She opens her eyes and glares at her master in pure hatred before commanding herself to rise to her feet. With a growing shriek of pure, unbridled fury, she pushes both of her arms forward and blasts her master with her own torrent of Force Lightning. "I AM STRONGER!!!" Limestone cries. Sombra halts the assault on his apprentice and shields himself from her lightning with the Force. Behind him, the lights in the room pop and explode in bright flashes as Limestone destroys them. A second later, she lunges at the Dark Lord, fully intent on killing him. Sombra merely raises his hand and grips her neck with the Force. Limestone's red-yellow eyes go wide as the air is sucked from her lungs and she is unable to breathe. She grips her neck and squirms around in the air as her master chokes her. "If that is true, then you will kill Pinkamena, the bounty hunters, and any Jedi that stand in your way..." Sombra says. Limestone squirms and wiggles her legs for a few more seconds before Sombra finally releases her. She falls to the ground on her hands and knees again, coughing and wheezing loudly. Sombra looks down at her. "Use this anger and fear to feed your strength, Limestone. You must be strong, but you must also be smart. Exploit the weaknesses in your enemies. The weak do not deserve life." She pants hard and continues looking at the floor. She clenches her fist. The sound of footsteps approach her master from behind. Limestone sees the reflection of someone on the floor. Immediately, she notices that this is not one of the Sith officers Lord Sombra has at his command. Their movements are hesitant, cautious, and fearful around the Dark Lord. This one walks with confidence. Boldness. Limestone looks up at her master and sees the approaching figure. A Mandalorian. Female, but relatively large in stature. Her armor is brown and grey in color, and shows scars from many previous battles. Her visor is red, and reflects the image of Limestone's angry expression. Sombra steps aside to introduce her. "This, my young apprentice, is Gilda. Unlike you, she has a reputation for killing Jedi, and has personal experience with Anonymous. She will be your babysitter for the time being." Limestone exhales and glares at Gilda. "Personal...experience?" Gilda chuckles once and crosses her arms. "Oh yeah. Anon and me go way back. Tracking him down shouldn't be a problem." Limestone's anger grows at her arrogant attitude. "Why haven't you killed him yet, if it would be so easy?" "If you're good at something, never do it for free." Gilda replies. "Rest assured bounty hunter, you will be compensated handsomely." Sombra grins and turns back to Limestone. "Find Anonymous, Sunset Shimmer, and Pinkamena Diane Pie. They know too much. Kill them. Do not fail me again, or else I will kill you." Limestone coughs once again. "As you command... my master..." With that, Sombra turns around and walks toward the doorway, leaving his apprentice behind with Gilda. Gilda watches Sombra leave before turning her attention back to Limestone. "Alright, dweeb. On your feet. The sooner Anon dies, the sooner I get paid." Limestone grunts and shakily gets to her feet before glaring at the Mandalorian. Gilda turns around and walks down the hallway. "Darth says that you need help finding him. He's right. Hate to break it to you, but with all the trouble he's caused, Anon is going to take extra care when covering his tracks. He's good at that." Limestone follows behind Gilda. "You mean you don't know where he is?" "Not at this very second, no, but I know how to start tracking him down." Gilda replies. "It's like Darth said; you need to exploit his weakness. Draw him out of hiding." The two warriors turn a corner and head toward the turbolift. "What is his weakness?" Limestone asks. Gilda stops and turns to face her. "His friends are his weakness." Limestone pauses for a moment before Gilda resumes walking. They both step inside the turbolift and begin their descent toward the hangar. Gilda continues. "Anon is short-tempered, stubborn, very blunt, and intimidating. He does not make friends easily. But, the ones he does make, he cherishes." Limestone stays silent as they reach the hangar level, and they step outside. After a bit of walking through the hallways, they reach the hangar bay. They both approach a ship that is unfamiliar to Limestone. The word "Griffon" is inscribed on the hull. They step aboard and head into the main hold. Gilda activates the ship's computer. "Once your master told me he was after Anon and sent me all the information he had on him, I took the liberty of working on narrowing down the search for some bait." The ship's galaxy map appears on the holographic display, illuminating everything around them in a reddish color. The map highlights systems like Nal Hutta, Malastare, Tatooine, Dantooine, and Ottega, among others. All systems that had recently been visited by Anon. "He's clearly been busy with contracts lately, but what's interesting is that it's not often that he takes them from the Bounty Hunter's Guild. Most of the time, the Guild is the first one in the know for posted bounties. Lots of the big-name targets he collected on recently either never showed up in the Guild's database before he collected on them, or they did show up mere minutes before he got paid for them. No one is that good." Limestone stares at the map for a bit longer. "He has a contact?" Gilda nods. "That's what I'm thinking. He knows someone. The coward is cheating by skipping that extra step and avoiding the competition." Gilda presses more buttons on the console and a highlights a few systems on the galaxy map. "Here's where all the recent contracts in the guild's database taken by Anon and Sunset had been accessed. I don't know where they were marked 'closed' from, but they were all seen by someone on these planets." Limestone crosses her arms. "Then that means his friend is on one of them." "Exactly." One by one, the planets appear on the display. There are four of them. "Nal Hutta, Tatooine, Malastare and... Cato Neimoidia. Interesting." Gilda hums. "Cato Neimoidia..." Limestone stares at the image of the blue planet. The world was known for regality, unlike the other three worlds listed. "What information do you have on this world, bounty hunter?" Gilda searches her computer's galaxy database for information on the planet. Images appear of massive cities suspended on bridges, stunning architecture, and multiple mentions of fashion designs by someone named Rarity. "This woman, Rarity, is pretty popular here. She's not a politician, but she is well-known. Looks like she's got a hand in nearly everything going on around the planet." Limestone stares at her picture for another long moment. "That's her." She growls. "That's Anon's contact." Gilda looks over at her. "You think so?" Limestone nods. "I can feel it. She's powerful enough on that planet that she'll have connections and influence. If she's not Anon's contact, she'll know who is." Gilda looks back at the image of Rarity for a moment before shutting it off. "Sounds like a lead to me. Let's go pay this Rarity a little visit then." She heads into the cockpit and Limestone follows. Gilda sits down in the pilot's seat and starts the ship up. "I hope Anon really likes her. It will be fun to see his reaction when she dies in front of him." Gilda chuckles. "Yes..." Limestone sits in the co-pilot's seat as the engines whir to life, brooding. "Yes it will..." The Griffon hovers off the hangar floor and exits into the blackness of space. Gilda makes the necessary preparations for lightspeed before hitting the throttle and zooming off towards Cato Neimoidia... --- "Anonymous, darling, are you sure this is a good idea? It sounds risky." "I know, Rarity. But this is the best thing we can think of right now." You are sitting in your ship's armory, talking to Rarity privately on the video screen. You, Maud, and Pinkie are currently en route to Geonosis. Rarity took a closer look at the planet and discovered that Discord is indeed going to be there for some monster fighting event in the grand arena. Pinkie had mentioned before that Discord was always fond of Rancors, and according to Rarity's new intel, a few Draconequui pirates had recently been spotted around the planet Dathomir, which is where Rancors are native to. You're willing to bet that he's captured a few of them for this event, which is why you're heading there. With Pinkie's past experience, you're hoping to infiltrate Discord's ship, cripple his gang, and capture him. It is of the utmost priority that you capture him, not kill him. Mandalore told you that he was willing to lend aid to the Republic against the Sith, and had sent word to your people to prepare for war. However, since you killed Hoity Toity, it's unlikely that the Republic will listen to you. Discord is going to be your bargaining chip. You're hoping to deliver him to the Republic for free, in exchange that they listen and hopefully come to an agreement to help each other fight the Sith. Once the Republic is willing to listen, you're going to present all of your evidence against Hoity Toity to them and defend your actions on Coruscant. Then you're going to show all your findings on the Sith to them, and hopefully get them to agree to put your differences aside to put a stop to their plans, whatever they are. Rarity has every bit of information that you need to make your case. She's going to send it all to you once you've captured Discord. You don't know what the Sith are planning. You don't even know where they are. But you're clearly onto something. Jedi Master Maud Pie even sensed it. The fact that they came out of hiding to openly attack you and the Republic over Kessel proves it even further. Rarity licks her lips nervously before looking back at you. "Alright, darling. You do have a contingency plan in case it does not go smoothly, yes?" "Of course." You nod. "Sunset is on standby with a few other Mandalorians, along with the Republic soldiers Applejack, and Big Mac. They're going to come in and secure the perimeter to prevent Discord from escaping, if things go according to plan. If things go wrong, they'll come in early for fire support." She nods. "Alright. Just knowing that other Mandalorians, and a Jedi Master are involved puts me at ease. I worry about you." "You're very sweet for caring, Rarity, but don't worry. We've dealt with worse." You smirk. She smiles a bit. "How is Pinkie doing?" Your grin softens. "She's fine. She hasn't been as happy-go-lucky since Kessel, which doesn't surprise me. She has been feeling a lot better though." A part of you is glad she hasn't been her usual self. She was obnoxious a lot of the time. But you still feel bad for her. Despite her obnoxiousness, she had become a valuable ally. You might even call her a friend at this point. Finding out her sister had turned to the Dark Side and had tried to kill her was clearly distressful. "Do you think you'll encounter Limestone again?" Rarity asks. "I'd be surprised if we didn't." You reply. "What I'm mostly concerned about is Pinkie's reaction if we end up having to kill her." "Let's hope it doesn't come to that then, darling." Rarity says. "She may be able to turn away from the Dark Side's influence." Revan was able to, so that is a possibility. You aren't holding your breath though. The Dark Side seems to have Limestone in a vise grip. It will be damn difficult to pry her loose. Another console on the wall beeps, and you see that you're getting close to Geonosis. You take a deep breath. "We're here. I'll contact you when we've finished." Rarity nods. "Alright, darling. I'll await your transmission." You shut off the video screen and stand up, grabbing your helmet and putting it on before heading out to the main hold.