Contending Philosophies: Polar Principles

[Janus Versa]

OOC: This roleplay is closed.

Outside the Galactic Museum the massed crowds were becoming increasingly difficult to calm and subdue. The law enforcement officers should be replaced with Special Forces commandos, the New Republic's finest, were the conclusion of Taro Idol's last public speech anything to go by. Be they cheering praise of agreement or bawling cries of offense, the sea of people - who were gathered in the street running parralell to the stage on which the controversial public figure stood - were becoming more vocal. A prelude to another riot perhaps?

"Diego, watch out for those people to your right, looks like they're trying to get past the security gaurds." Janus spoke into the com embedded into his helmet and through it's visor watched as the impeccably attired lupine advanced into position. He wore a headset so that both could talk back and forth being Idol's personal security although the mercenary fancied himself as his right-hand man more than anything else. To his sides, gloved hands twitched with anticipation above a pair of chromed blasters in holsters resting neatly on his armoured thighs.

"Come on! Come on! Just one small riot, that's all we want." Although his chief responsibility was to protect Taro, the man behind the mask eagerly wanted some action. It had been too long since he'd faced a proper challenge but at least there would be one or two nobodies who would try to take out the crowd-rallying hater of force-users. It was a powerful message he gave and because of it he had become Enemy Number One for near enough every Force-Sensitive on Coruscant for Taro Idol percieved the Force as a plague and he saw himself as the exterminator the galaxy needs.

"Looks like we're going to have a bit of an anti-climax here. No fun for us." He shook his head at an equally forlorn-looking Diego who was stood across the street on the other side of the crowd. The lupine stood next to his employer's transport, sleak and black and extravagant, just like the excentric visionary liked it. Were anything to happen, the 'Wolf Man' was stuck with the task of aiding Idol's escape whereas his armoured counterpart has the task of conducting his own brand of justice on whoever dared try anything. Taro brought his speech to an end, a small brawl broke out between sympathizers and the opposition but was almost immediatly stopped by the police.

"Boooring!"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

The brawl was the perfect cover for Hob to start working his mischief. He gazed out the museum window at the crowd of fools below. They were gullible sheep, each and every one of them.

But the man who will believe one foolish thing can be gulled into believing another.

No one noticed it at first because of the scuffling, but when the police car had risen above the level of the heads of the crowd, it became impossible to notice.

It was also impossible to miss seeing it hurled towards the speaker at the head of the crowd of rabble. Whether it killed him or not was immaterial. Someone would try to stop it, and that someone would get credited with a save too miraculous to be normal.

It was almost too easy.

[Janus Versa]

The moment the speeder started levitating above the average height for such a vehicle, the mercenary was alerted to it and moving. Despite the heavy armour, Janus moved like he were in his birthday suit and was almost at the stage when it soared at his employer. The crowd joined each other in unison and gasped with shock as the police vehicle passed overhead. No doubt Taro had seen it coming but the velocity at which it moved made it unavoidable.

"Son of a bantha!" Janus cursed inwardly and watched as the tall figure of Idol lept to one side, normally this wouldn't be enough except something extraneous aided his flight and his feet were merely clipped by the airborne transport. How he had made it to safety would remain a mystery but would no doubt be followed by investigation and scandal. Idol was no Jedi so hopefully his narrow escape would be put down to mere luck here today.

"He's all yours, Wolfman. Now to find out what the hell caused that!" With that I turned off my comlink and hopped up onto the elevated platform where Taro once stood. He was no being ushered into his transport which had already started up it's engines to race off whilst Janus surveyed the area for any clue as to the origin of the renegade speeder.

"Where are you, hotshot?"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

The dwarf immediately stepped back, away from the visibility of the windowfront. To the casual observer, it may have seemed a chance escape. But Hob knew otherwise. Just before he'd planned to send the car spiralling away in a seeming telekinetic defense, something had given the street preacher an extra shove out of the way.

It had surprised Hob so much that he had not deflected the car as planned, not that such effort was now required. But the kind of precision and effort necessary to achieve that level of telekinetic prowess was beyond the ordinary travelling Adept.

The implications of a Jedi or Sith aiding a Force-hater were vastly complex. Clearly, the dwarf needed to know more.

His small form scurried away from the window, heading deeper into the museum. As he left, he sent out a subtle tremor in the Force, a tremor only the trained would detect.

And detect it they would, as though they were listening to a mocking cackle.

[Janus Versa]

The crowds were being herded like cattle away from the crash site. An officer approached Janus and was on the recieving end of a set of metal knuckles for his trouble and fell to the ground looking like he'd been blugeoned with a hefty baton. There was no order which made it twice as difficult to figure out who could've been behind the attack on Idol. Then he felt it; a tantalizing twitching at the back of his mind, someone was playing around with him and no doubt taking pleasure from it.

"You lowdown, sneaky piece of wookieee fluff!" Janus growled irritably and turning on his heel marched off towards the museum. Dropping from the stage and onto the stone steps, the mercenary carried out a routine check of his equiptment and for measure pressed a button on the control panel on his left forearm. On his shoulder blade a wheel with five protruding cylinders turned systematically until he had the appropriate weapon selected.

"I'm sorry, sir, but the museum will be closing a few minutes. It's best if you waited until--" And the doorman got a broken nose for his trouble. "--Yeow!"

"You're sorry now aren't ya, pal?" Janus laughed as he stormed inside the museum and activated his infrared, heatseaking visual mode on his visor. The sun was beginning to set on Coruscant and the interior of the large museum was poorly illuminated. The lights had been dimmed in order to tell visitors it was near closing time. "This wont do. Gamma."

At his command the visor switched to a highly textured, bright green day vision mode so that he would see anything threatening coming his way. Despite his objectives, he walked casually through the large hall until he went down a secondary hallway which branched of into two areas; "Popular Music Throughout the Ages" and "History of the Jedi Knights". The bounty hunter smirked, it was comically cliché but he folllowed his instincts and headed to the left where he'd come to the Jedi section of the museum.

[Evil Hobgoblin]

The Jedi section began with a large, arched doorway, from which a large scale model of the original Jedi Temple was easily visible. Around the room, strange and curious displays called to the eye, beckoning attention to some fascinating part of the ancient Jedi lore.

"You're an angry one, aren't you?"

The grovelly voice echoed around the high-domed room, giving no good clue as to where it came from. It could be from behind one of numerous statues or busts, or it could be from among the cases of non-functional Jedi weaponry from long ago. The large array of materials used in their construction meant that scan readings could be inaccurate.

Abruptly, the lights cut off.

"Museum is closed, get out," the voice said, this time on the verge of cackling.

[Janus Versa]

"So you want to play games, eh?" Janus grunted from within the darkness, the effect of the lights being cut out had minimal effect on his vision, the strength of his visual readouts becoming intensified and constantly readjusting focus. He smirked and kept his hands ready to unholster the blasters by his side.

"Why don't you just show your face, slimeball, surely you can't be that butt-ugly!" He shouted out and almost immediatly two security gaurds stormed in with cries of "Freeze!" and "Put your hands up, buster!"

Without thought nor hesitation, the chromed WESTAR-55 Mark 2 blaster pistols were in his hands and through the shadow soared two bolts of red blaster fire, both hit their targets with pin-point accuracy leaving a large smoking hole in their foreheads. The pair of bodies collapsed to the floor.

"Enough of your games, prankster!" The mercenary called out, flicking between visual modes hoping to catch a glimpse of the hidden cackler. Cautiously he surveyed his surroundings walking through the silence with his knees slightly bent so as not to make too much noise whilst stalking his prey. "Show yourself!"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

"My games? Playing games, you are. Old Hob only adds to the fun."

Movement to Janus right caught his eye and he spun. The side of his helmet spun to meet him, scan panels smashing into his chin and nose.

In the surprise of the moment Janus' blasters were torn from his grasp. They flew a short distance away, clattering to the floor.

Janus' free hands immediately twisted his helmet back into position. The dwarf was still standing as he had been.

"Recover quickly, you do. Trained strongly, one might suspect." The dwarf's lips curled into a grin. "Are you so foolish as to throw away such strength on one who would kill you to take it from you?"

[Janus Versa]

There was a click when the helmet interior collided with Janus' nose, blood ran from it and he could taste it's bitter, metallic property on his tongue until he twisted his headpiece back into place. The balaclava made of durasilk and stericloth was now damp, but with a hard, slurping sniff the hunter was able to stifle the blood flow. Now that he could see straight he looked across the room to where his shimmering blasters lay on the floor and further still stood his attacker.

"Hob." Janus repeated reflectively. He coughed up a curt laugh at the dwarf in front of him whose course features were suddenly bathed in a clumsy red glow as the back-up lighting kicked in, switching to regular visual mode the mercenary noted it was still relatively dark even with this new eerie illumination. He approached the peculiarly spoken half-pinter with determination in his clunking stride, the heavy boots clanging with the marble floor beneath them.

"You know nothing of me, dwarf." He spat. "Take care not to let your presumptions cloud your judgement, it could be your downfall." With a flick of his foot, the blaster on the floor was launched up in front of him, snatching it in his grasp Janus unleashed a glaring red bolt of blaster fire at him. Flying overhead, it merely singed Hob's silvery white hair, the mercenary laughed. "You have keen senses."

It appeared that the dwarf had anticipated the shot and was aware that the bounty hunter hadn't intended to kill him, at least not yet. Nevertheless Janus kept his ready stance, blaster aimed at his pointy-eared antagonist. "What is it you want?"

[Evil Hobgoblin]

"To understand the game you play at," Hob cackled. "For games are fun things to play."

A tall statue of a Jedi from ages past suddenly teetered forward, threatening to fall on Janus from behind. As Janus made to reply to this move, Hob leapt into the air, landing atop a glass case. With another leap, he was clinging to the back of a different statue, momentarily concealed and protected.

"What is it you want?" Hob said, throwing Janus' own words back at him.