Nau'ravi(Arya and Co.)

Arya coughed, eyes watering from the oppressive smoke. The cabin behind her was no refuge as the door had been open and it was also filling with the billowing white smoke. Unable to see or aim, she thumbed the setting on her blaster to stun. With a much wider area of affect, she was more likely to his something with a stun blast than with a regular energy bolt.

A third grenade banged onto the deck plates, and she threw herself backwards into her cabin despite the smoke, shooting blindly down the passage towards the hatch opening.

Hugo waited for the whine of the blaster bolt to subside; though he hadn't seen it, he had caught the flash of blue through the smoke, and the different fequency pattern that indicated a stun blast. That was a reassuring toward his survival, but didn't fill him with confidence in his chances of success: even firing blindly, there was a definate risk that Ravenwing might at least graze him with the stun blast, and he had no desire to try and tangle with a mark with one of his extremities incapacitated.

He threw another fake grenade into the frey, then snapped a quick few suppression bursts from his blaster, the crimson bolts lighting up the smoke cloud as they sailed through; he followed close in their wake, keeping low, soft-footed, and fast, and ducked behind the first patch of cover he could find.

His eyes glanced down at his blaster, checking the charge on the power cell. "There's no way off this rock for you, Ravenwing," he called over his shoulder, flicking the weapon to stun now that he was safely inside. "How about you come quietly, and then neither you nor the little girl winds up getting hurt, huh?"

She coughed, her head still aching from the stun grenade but she was shrugging off the effects faster than this bounty hunter probably thought she could. Chalk one up to her genetics. "How about you go away, and then you don't get hurt?"

The droid brain of Wing of the Raven was thinking. Where there was smoke, there was usually... The fire suppression system was activated, and both smuggler and bounty hunter were blasted with thick white fire retardant foam. Arya had been moving from one side of her cabin doorway to the other, and she slipped and fell, finger tightening on the trigger and sending another blue stun blast down the passageway.

Hugo heard her fall; he glanced out from his hiding place, and barely managed to duck back behind it to dodge the errant stun blast. He cursed, but she was momentarily incapacitated, and that provided him with his opportunity.

He rose and, free hand grabbing every possible surface for added stability, sped down the causeway as quickly as he could. He slipped and slided a few steps, but for the most part stayed on course; planting the treads of his boots over a slight ridge in the floor, he held himself steady enough to plant a heavy kick into her hand, sending her blaster tumbling from her grip and across the cabin.

He levelled his own pistol squarely between her eyes, his own eyes narrowing to focus through the smoke. "I'm sure that's not your only one," he warned, making a deliberate show of flicking back from stun. "Toss the others aside, slowly, and I won't turn your pretty face into a crater. Deal?"

She clutched her wounded paw to her chest, nostrils flaring as she stared up past the weapon aimed at her head to the eyes of the man holding it. Arya slowly reached to her holster, buckled on hastily over her coveralls, and pulled the railgun out. It was larger than a normal blaster, and if she could have shot the bounty hunter with it, at this range he would have had a hole in his chest large enough to grow a indyup tree though.

She threw it aside, and it splashed into and disappeared underneath the slippery foam. Arya didn't look away from the bounty hunter, her lips peeling back in what someone might have mistaken for a smile. Her eyes were a predatory yellow.

Without warning, a grey blur flew from the foam, front paws out with claws bared as needle-like teeth opened in a vicious maw. The Vornskr pup had grown from when she'd first come aboard - now instead of barely a fourth of Feathers' quadrupedal size, she was nearly half.

She reared up in her leap, her weight barreling into the man who'd intruded, and her jaws closed down tightly on the arm that held the blaster leveled at Feathers while terrible claws tore at his midsection.

A growl, stuck somewhere between that of a cub and a grown beast sounded, and she wrenched strong neck muscles to shake his arm from side to side in an attempt to severe it.

Not for the first time, Hugo was greatful for the bulky weight of the jacket he habitually wore: aside from offering formidable protection from the elements, it did the same from some of the smaller creatures that he found himself battling against over the course of his work.

Instincts kicked in like reflex, and he twisted his arm, allowing the force of the Vornskr's jaws to tear free a chunk of his sleeve - and unfortunately, several chunks of his arm, as well. A sharp kick followed, sending the juvenile tumbling back across the foam-filled cabin; he crouched, snatched up the blaster that the creature's assault had shaken free, and levelled the blaster at it instead.

And then, it happened. It was like a surge, memories that he didn't know he had exploding unbidden from somewhere in the dregs of his mind. Ravenwing. Vornskr. Lupine.

Lupine.

His face twisted into a snarl, an uncontrollable rage boiling inside him as he stared down the blaster at the canine beast. The Lupines were vicious; evil; dangerous. The galaxy needed to be protected from their insidious scourge; it's people needed to be kept space from monsters, creatures, and beasts like these. They deserved to die; or better, to be captured; taken to her; where she could study them; learn from them; hone better defenses -

Taken to her?

His eyes widened in realisation at the thought that had just flashed across his mind. He'd spent a lifetime hunting beasts like these Lupines - creatures capable of unnatural feats of transformation or power, that placed the lives of innocent sentients at risk - and so at first, the hatred hadn't seemed out of place. But it had boiled beyond what he was used to. And then, as her icy-eyed visage resolved in his mind, he realised where those unbidden thoughts had come from: not from his mind, but from her; or at least, from some seed she'd planted in his subconscious.

The realisation flushed clarity through his mind; he sized up the Vornskr, and compared it to what he knew: too small for an adult Lupine like Ravenwing. Which could only mean -

The girl. "Oh, gods." His stomach sank, realising that it must be the child who sat at the end of his sights. And yet, try as he might, his arm wouldn't respond to his control. He couldn't shift his aim; it took every ounce of effort to wrestle his fingers away from the trigger. Whatever she had planted wasn't merely knowledge and rage; it was control. She'd broken him to her will; and there was nothing he could do.

Though he couldn't draw his gaze away, his focus shifted to Ravenwing, words clearly directed at her. "I can't stop myself," he confessed. "If you don't, then I'll fire." His voice was tight, issued through a jaw clenched by effort, and through regret over what he knew he was about to do.

"Stop me. Please."

Arya surged to her feet as the bounty hunter kicked Tak into her cabin, fire retardant foam dripping from her body and flying everywhere as she threw herself towards him. In that moment time seemed to slow down and everything around her snapped into sharp relief. Tak's anger and fear was acidic in the air, and the hunter smelled of remorse.

"Stop me," he said, finger on the trigger, his face constricted.

Gladly, thought Arya, barreling into his chest and knocking him off his feet, throwing his outstretched arm up towards the ceiling. She was holding back the Change through sheer willpower, and the odor of his flesh and the hot blood hidden inside smelled a little too good.

* * *

Her own natural reflexes took hold, and s'Il darted back and to the side, away from the surge of stun energy that he'd shot at her. It was a conscious thought to suppress her usage of the Force, but she was determined to keep Arya from losing her mind.

Further she moved, away from Wing of the Raven, in the hopes to draw Ecks away from his original intended target. If she could split the two hunters up, it would allow Arya a better chance against the one who had stayed behind for her.

The X-wings, having come around for another pass, swooped low to the ground, their wing-mounted laser cannon spitting fire that purposefully missed Ecks' ship.

In the aftermath of the thunderous assault, the Lupine leveled a finger at her adversary.

"That was your second warning, Ecks."

He snarled, letting her draw him a little further away from the freighter, but he didn't intend to let her get anywhere near the ship she'd come down on.

Ecks toggled his comm with one hand while he snapped off repeating shots towards s'Ilancy, concentric blue rings of energy arcing out towards her. "Hurry it up, Montegue." All he got back was static.

s'Il ducked behind a large chunk of upturned rock, its' blackened and scorched surface still smoking in places.

From her best judgment, the Jedi hoped that the distance they'd put between them and Arya's ship was enough to dissipate a small usage of the Force, and breaking from her cover, she bolted to the side, mindful to keep her trajectory headed still away from Arya's position.

Her arm moved then, in a quick jerk, and her awareness tugged gently on the Force before shutting it away once more. But her touch had been enough, and the blaster that the hunter gripped crumpled as if by an invisible hand, the barrel distorting and buckling into itself.

Ecks cursed and dropped the weapon, the air around him flooding with pheromones as he jogged to cover and pulled the blaster rifle off his back. He wasn't as fast as her, but he wasn't exactly a slouch, either.

He rounded the rock and peppered the ground in front of the shapeshifter Jedi with blaster bolts, halting her progression. "Your shuttle is the other direction."

It was faint at first, but there was no denying the scent that carried itself on the air around them. Stopped by the fire from his rifle, she turned on her heel, feet shifting beneath her as she steadied herself. The orange blades of her sabre came up in a cross position, ready to block any other fire that he might choose to send her way.

Gritting her teeth, the Lupine gave a throaty growl, shoving away the thoughts brought on by his pheromones - it was no easy task, and her free hand balled up into a fist, nails biting into skin.

She focused on the pain, watching him warily.

"You fight without honor," she hissed.

"Honor got me this," he said, pointing at his metal eyepatch. "You're in the same boat, I see." As he spoke he fired at her again, but not aiming directly at her.

Just close enough to keep her in place and worried about defense. He'd heard the rumors that Jedi could reflect the bolts of a blaster back at their attackers, but didn't put too much stock in it.

A noise came from the freighter - heavy footsteps down the ramp. Ecks' mouth curved up in an approximation of a smile. "I think we'll be going now, Jedi."

After she slammed the bounty hunter's head into the deck plating a second time, Arya turned back to where Tak's pup form was struggling through the foam. "C'mon, kid. I think I heard someone else outside."

She smelled her too. Loklorien. The smuggler pushed up on the hunter's chest from where she'd been straddling him, fished her railgun out of the foam, and turned back to scoop up Tak. The kid was getting big, but she didn't fight her as Arya carried her out of the ship and down the ramp, the extra weight making her footsteps loud.

As soon as they got clear of the freighter Tak perked up and struggled, forcing Arya to drop her.

The smell that hit her, faint as it was mixed in with the smoke and haze of their crash site, had been enough to send her into near fits, and Teagan struggled in Feathers' arms. Dropped, the pup hit the ground, scrabbling along the rocks and dirt to regain her footing before darting away.

To Dama.

Dama!

DAMA!!

She looked the same as the last time they'd seen each other, on Schwartzweld, and the little Lupine let out an overjoyed bark.

DAMA!!

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of Arya tromping down the boarding ramp, her arms full of...

A gasp, and she momentarily froze. The little grey vornskr pup squirmed until dropped, letting out an excited yelp as she ate up the ground. The scent was unmistakable, and the elder Lupine flashed her eye back to Ecks. He'd been expecting his partner, and she used this sudden turn of events in her favor.

A burst of energy brought her from a shocked standstill, surging forward, her sabres cocking back as she bolted for the bounty hunter, using this distraction to propel herself on a trajectory that would take her around her enemy and toward her daughter.

But, there was also a terrible vengeance in her eye as she kept the Falleen in her line of vision - he had shot down Arya - who had happened to have Teagan with her.

This was now unforgivable.

Ecks roared his anger, wondering where the HELLS Montegue was, and how the FRELL Ravenwing was loose and running about out of the freighter. He was now outnumbered two to one, and one...canine... His mind filed that away to work on in the background while his body went into action.

He threw himself out of the way as s'Ilancy ran past him, her lightsaber blades close enough to make him nervous. He rolled to a kneeling position, leveling his blaster rifle at the Jedi, but then the canine was too close. Somehow he just knew that the kid Ravenwing had been transporting was that grey furred beast. He shifted his aim to the smuggler, and found that she was aiming a no-nonsense weapon at him.

Before the railgun could spit hot metal in his direction, Ecks dove behind a large volcanic rock, his heart thudding with adrenaline as the slugs tore up the surface of his cover.

The big green bounty hunter was alert, and got behind cover before she could shoot him full of holes. Arya sent enough hot metal in his direction to keep him where he was, and then jogged towards Loklorien and Tak.

"Some welcoming committee you've got here," she called to her. "With friends like these..."

She was only half listening, as most if not all of her attentions were on the vornskr pup in her arms. She clutched the animal tightly to her chest, eyes closed as she buried her face into soft grey fur. The little Lupine whined out her own happiness, nuzzling her cold nose into the crook of Dama's neck, taking in a scent that was the most comforting of all.

Still holding Teagan, s'Il lifted her head only slightly, cracking her good eye open to cast a look to Arya. It was plain to see, the tears that had formed and now began to seep from her eye.

A small laugh, and her mouth pulled into a rueful smile.

"I thought they were yours."

But, they still weren't entirely safe. Not yet. Even with the X-wings overhead, it was readily apparent that Ecks held their presence in no regard, and would continue his own personal mission whether they were there or not. Moving past Arya quickly, the elder Lupine nodded her head in the direction of the shuttle.

"Let's go."