The Good Guys: Babylon Burning

[Byl Laprovik]

<font size=-2><center>City's on Fire, by Third Strike:

Burn
My city's on fire
Burn
Modern day tragedy
Crime on the rise
Police brutality
My reality's B-A-D
Cuz the F-A-C-T of the matter's
Getting sadder

Check it
No unity in my community
Everyone for themselves
That's they way it's gotta be
Don't think twice in this false paradise
One step ahead
Or you'll end up dead

Burn up, burn up
My city's on fire
Step the hell back
That flame's getting higher
Bleed with me, bleed with me
Bleed with me
Forever now
Done my time in a world fulla crime
It's my turn to watch Babylon burn
Bleed with me, bleed with me, bleed with me

Now you gotta pray to God cuz it's on
Defeat from the street
Now I know I've been beat burning from the heat
Hotter than the flames of hell
Straight scorching me torchin' me
Dirty ashtray dreams, busting up scenes
It's everyone and everything
The effect is direct and clean, from the peasant to the king
No way out, this battle's more than we can handle
The town's a slaughterhouse and we're the damn cattle

Soul shakedown
Headed for a breakdown
My town, your town
It's about to go down, throw down
Forget about tomorrow
Cuz you can't pay back all the time that you borrowed
It's too late, on streets of hate you await your fate
I tell you brother you were gone from the gate
Just another kid swallowed by the streets and retired
I can smell the smoke my city's on fire

We were cursed from birth, incarceration planet Earth
Sentenced to die and smile on the face of the outcry
Criminal-minded blinded, I'm barely getting by
Reminded, constantly I'm nowhere that I want to be
Cuz it's real in this battle field
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide
Eventually the other side
Will catch me slippin' on the tripwire

I can smell the smoke
My city's on fire
I can smell the smoke
My city's on fire
I can smell the smoke</center></font>

"Change it, Ced. I hate this song."

Byl crossed his arms as he sat in the speeder's passenger side. His driver had the same look of pensiveness that he did. They were caged animals, doing little things here and there to keep the bars from being bent apart by the beasts.

Across the street, two people were talking. Their words were distant and muted, and neither the driver nor the passenger could hear them. One, a Twi'leki, signed something unknown with his lekku. The other one smoked a stim, and responded to something with a nod.

"It's looking promising over there."

Byl glanced back at Ceddra. The plan was, as all of the others, convoluted. The two gents across the street were Ro No Tussa - Twi'Leki mafia. They'd consolidated in the year since the Hutt clans had loosened their grip, and were exporting their name beyond Ryloth. Unfortunately, these two street toughs were generals on the losing side of an internal turf war. Their leader, Rai Toneesta, held the high ground in the No Tussa set. His rep was bigger, and he had more muscle backing him.

In situations like this, people get desperate, and do unorthodox things. In fact, Byl hoped on it. He bet on it.

"How much petty cash can we burn on this? These guys need guns, but I'm not about to put a dime on their gear if I expect the tools to come pointing right back at us. These guys had better be solid."

Then there was the question of who to buy from. Being on Imperial Center, Byl couldn't exactly tap directly from the Rebel Alliance's armory. With that unavailable, Byl had a few motley options in the form of gun runners, mercenary outfits, and others. The problem with these was that the margins were too small. Byl wasn't about to be relegated to an account in some arms dealer's credit log.

[Ceddra Tavqus]

She thumbed through the dial, eventually turning the radio off. Her fingers drummed a light beat on the wheel of the speeder as they watched the pair of twi'leks. Ro No Tussa.


"How much petty cash can we burn on this? These guys need guns, but I'm not about to put a dime on their gear if I expect the tools to come pointing right back at us. These guys had better be solid."

"I know, I know. Are you sure these tentacle heads on are the level?"

The radio was turned back on, for another spin through the stations. Ceddra hated being in the middle of Imperial country, but it was where the action was.

[Dhamon Grimwulf]

Dhamon walked down the street towards the twi'leks. He wanted them both dead. They had money. Dhamon needed money. He had to get money to pay the Dark priests.

Dhamon neared the two. He drew his pistol. He looked down the long barrel at the back of the twi'leks head. The other one noticed him, and tried to draw his weapon. Dhamon was quick. He pulled the trigger. Killing the first twi’lek. The stim dropped from its mouth. He pivoted to his right avoiding a slug. He pointed his pistol and fired two shots. Both tore through the twi’leks stomach, and exited the other side. Blood leaked all over the sidewalk.

Dhamon walked over to the two bodies. He searched them; he found 1,000 credits, a pack of stims and a data pad. Dhamon smiled. He tossed the stims into the street and pocketed the rest. He began to walk down the street, when he spotted the two in the speeder. He smiled and drew his blaster.

Today is my lucky day. I get four bodies and a speeder.

Dhamon stood there absorbing the moment. His blaster pointed directly at the passenger’s blank face. It was an oh, to common look. The look right before a slug tears through your cortex. Spraying your own blood all over yourself. So many people gave Dhamon this look. It almost saddened him.

[Byl Laprovik]

"You son of a bitch!"

Byl snarled his frustrations and lunged toward Ced, jerking the lateral control stick his way. With speeders being free-floating craft that were at ease floating on repulsors, the lateral controls made things like parallel parking on a planet like Coruscant a breeze.

It also made parallel parking over the body of whatever stillbirthed jackhole who crapped all over your game more or less a snap.

The speeder lurched to the right, causing the gun-toting killer to eat a face full of broken glass before the metal door handle had a get-together with his crotch, sending him into a heap as the repulsors whined over him.

"Gun it!" The rebel op shouted at Ced. As much as he'd like to make this guy bite the curb for the inconvenience, Byl wasn't about to stick around what appeared to be a gang hit that he had no business with.

[Ceddra Tavqus]

The twi'leks head exploded like a ripe fruit, the second ones stomach getting ripped to shreds by two slugs. Blonde turned towards them, aiming the barrel of his blaster straight for Byls' head.

The next thing she knew, the speeder lurched to the right, slamming into the freak and sending him underneath them. Her foot mashed down as hard as it could on the petal, the speeder giving a hard jerk before speeding down the street.

"Jesus frelling..what the hell just happened?!"

[Dhamon Grimwulf]

Dhamon felt the speeder smash into him. His body was sent hurtling through the air. Ground came up behind him instantly. Pain surged through his lower half of his body. Then the speeder ran over him flipping his body and dragging it. Dhamon groaned in pain. He laid their whishing he was dead. A few seconds passed and Dhamon was filled with anger. He lifted his head spotting a speeder.

[Byl Laprovik]

"I don't know, I don't know!"

Byl rode low in his seat, giving quick glances behind as he drew his piece from a concealed holster.

"Something's gone sideways. The shooter wasn't a tail-head. Everybody on Imperial Center knows that Rai has beef in his own set, so why would he contract out?"

Silence. Byl kept an eye on Ced's driving.

"Hang a left here, then punch it to the upper levels."

More silence, punctuated by Byl punching the dash repeatedly with his empty hand.

"We go back to the deal, we just might get fingered in this and burn on it. They might already know that something's gone down.

What about Rai? Could we flip on this and cut the same deal with him instead?"

[Dhamon Grimwulf]

Dhamon pushed off the ground and grabbed his gun. He walked toward the speeder. A fat man was eating inside of it.

"Sir, my I have your speeder?"

The man turned his fat head to look at Dhamon. The man began to laugh. His whole body shaking.

"Now I asked nicely. I'm going to ask you ONE MORE <smallfont color=#8BDEFE>-Swearing is Not Allowed-</smallfont>ING TIME! May I have your speeder."

The man stopped laughing and glared at Dhamon. He put more food in his hole of a mouth. Dhamon reached out and grabbed his food. He began stuffing the man's throat with it. The fat man coughed and sputtered, but Dhamon kept feeding. Dhamon then blocked his air way. The man's face was blue. He grabbed his heart and keeled over.

The Speeder was hurtling after the man and the woman. The mans body was left armless on the street.

[Miranda Tarkin]

thread is on hold until the previous post is edited for tripping the swear filter.

thread warned