From where he was standing, with his back to the door of the small shop, Finn was shocked to hear his leader shouting loudly and crazily from inside. Xirane was a very nasty individual, to be sure, but Finn had never known him to be excitable or in any way unhinged. Actually, he could not even remember the last time her even heard the Falleen raise his voice. The commotion he now heard, however, was definitely not normal. Finn took an educated guess that the girl was somehow responsible for some of the craziness that was going on inside.

As he entered the building, he wasn't sure that he was seeing correctly, but he quickly realized that his earlier intuition about the girl was correct. She was standing in front of the main counter twirling what looked like a long metal rod in her right hand. The speed at which it was spinning was so impossibly fast that it blurred the outline of her body behind it, making it look like she was actually holding some kind of electronic shielding in front of her. In her left hand she somehow held Lorn Tekk's blaster which was very odd because Finn saw that Lorn was standing across the room from her pointing his empty hand in her direction.

Before Finn had time to guess what had happened in the moment before he walked in, the girl burst into motion so fast that she almost disappeared from sight. The entire group of thugs, except a bewildered Lorn, opened fire on her. Every one of their shots converged on her position but, incredibly, she was no longer standing there. To Finn's eyes it seemed like she launched in three directions at once.

Using the spinning rod, she bashed the Weequay named Janqe, who was standing behind her, on the head without even turning towards him. His head jolted so hard that it hit the wall behind the counter making him drop to the floor like a rock. She was gone, however, before he even made contact with the ground, moving like a supersonic projectile towards the Battledroid. As she got within two feet she fired the blaster at the behemoth's left knee, damaging it and making the droid tip slightly in that direction. A quick whack with the lethal stick to its unsteady metal body broke the stick in half but more importantly toppled the Battledroid. The girl was on top of it in a flash and jammed the half of the rod she still held down into the arm cannon that had been pointing at her just a second before. Finn heard a loud electrical crackle come from the arm of the robot followed by a flash of light. Smoke started to pour from the obstructed cannon opening as the girl jumped upward off its prone body.

She sprung into a tight mid-air somersault and Finn watched slack-jawed as somehow the other half of the broken stick flew into the girl's open hand while she was upside down, almost as if she had commanded it to come to her. When she landed, she made a hard outward push with both hands even while holding the broken rod in one and the blaster in the other. An overturned table flew forward from in front of her like a shot into Xirane's midsection. The impact of the flying table knocked him off his feet and sent him tumbling across the room, with him eventually coming to rest in a heap.

Once again, Finn was frozen in place. He had just witnessed a young woman disarm three violent members of his gang along with a Separatist Battledroid in a matter of seconds. Daagh was the only one left that was still holding a weapon but as he tried again to shoot the girl, she was already back in motion. Finn watched with shock as she executed a lightning fast forward roll towards the center of the room. When she came out of it into a crouch she blasted the Daagh right through his forehead without even looking in his direction, bringing an inglorious end to his membership in Xirane's crew.

Finally, the girl turned towards Lorn Tekk, who was now looking at his empty hand with a dazed look. She slung the half metal rod that she still held at him. It flew through the air, spinning end over end parallel to the ground before it struck him squarely in the neck. Finn heard a loud gag right before Lorn fell to the floor, holding his throat and gasping for air. The entire group was now indisposed and Finn felt a lump form in his throat as she snapped around, faced him and pointed the deadly blaster she still held right at him.

Surprisingly she remained paused in this position and didn't fire her weapon. Maybe she felt some sympathy for him as a fellow human or maybe she didn't feel threatened because all Finn could do was raise both empty hands up slightly into a don't shoot pose. Whatever had made her hold back, Finn was surely thankful for it. She seemed to be studying him and Finn had a very disconcerting feeling that she was looking through him or INTO him somehow. Before he could make any sense of it, though, motion in his peripheral vision caught his attention. The Battledroid had risen and was quickly moving towards the girl.

"Look out-!", Finn cried out to the girl.

As the words came out, however, he realized they were said too late to help her.


Something made Lara hesitate to blast the human belonging to Xirane's crew who had come into the room unnoticed while she was dismantling the others. It might have been the fact that he seemed unarmed, but she knew that it was better not to assume anything…he was one of their group after all. No, it was something else that stopped her as soon as she raised the blaster and pointed it at him. Lara could almost see the thoughts swirling in his mind. He was not really sure what was happening…probably because he had never before seen anyone push back against his gang like this. She could also sense he was emotionally conflicted. He felt that he should do something to help, but he didn't actually want to fight back. She was considering lowering the weapon when she heard him speak.

She only heard him say only one word, however, before a mind-numbing, painful jolt to her lower back sent her flying forward and off her feet. Lara felt as if she had just been hit from behind by a supersonic racer. She found herself tumbling over in midair before crashing hard into the wall at the front of the shop, impacting about a meter above the ground. As she dropped down to the floor, her head smashed violently into an overturned chair making her vision swirl for a second before the twisting colors in front of her eyes changed into was what looked to her like white static on a computer monitor. The pain in her back was now dwarfed by the throbbing in her head that felt like a spike had been plunged into her temple. She could feel blood beginning to trickle from her forehead as she struggled to sit up and focus her currently impaired vision.

I need to get on my feet and move, Lara thought while trying to wipe the blood and sweat from her brow before it got into her eyes.

She tried rising to one knee but the muscles in her back locked, making her crumble back to a prone position on the floor. Panic was starting to creep into Lara's thoughts now. Her vision was thankfully starting to come back, but as her eyes began to refocus on her surroundings, the panic amplified. She now knew the reason for her unexpected catapult across the inside of the shop. The Battledroid was back on its feet and methodically marching in her direction. It lurched forward towards her and she noticed that the metal rod she had jammed down into its arm cannon was still stuck there causing the arm to shower sparks as it approached. The realization that it could not fire on her was small comfort, though, because Lara knew that if she could not rise to flee soon, this behemoth would grab hold of her and easily crush her body in its mechanical grip.

"STOP-!", came a loud but groggy sounding voice from the right. Lara recognized it as Xirane's.

She also felt a blaster suddenly pressed hard into the side of her head. He must have snuck up on her position as she was watching the robot approaching.

The droid immediately stopped moving but let out a series of incomprehensible electronic grunts that sounded like a question.

"Because she is MINE-!", the Falleen answered quickly, with rancor in his voice.

By now, the surviving members of the group were regaining their faculties. The Weequay was slowly climbing out from behind the counter over which Daye's body was slumped, rubbing the back of his grotesque head. The other alien whose blaster she had snatched had risen to his feet also, but was still gagging and coughing from the trauma of the metal stick crashing into his throat. Lara turned her head slightly to look at the young human and noticed that he still looked somewhat confused and hadn't drawn his weapon at all. She had an idea that when this was over, his inability to come to the aid of his friends would result in a punishment that would be none too pleasant for him.

She felt the blaster press even harder into the flesh on the side of her head.

"Keep your eyes straight ahead-!", Xirane barked. The cold and calculating calmness that he displayed in all their earlier interactions had left his demeanor. He was now very agitated and Lara for the first time had a sinking feeling that she was not going to make it through this encounter alive.

"You will die very soon like your friend over there...Look at him", he confirmed with an eerie laugh that suddenly brought back the hot rage in Lara.

"What are you waiting for, you piece of bantha fodder. DO IT-! Unless you don't have the stomach for it.", Lara shouted defiantly, fully resigned to her fate and ready for the darkness.

What happened next, strangely, was not the end of her life as she had anticipated. She heard a blaster sound, all right, but miraculously she found that she was still alive with no hole in her head. Lara felt the metal barrel of Xirane's gun suddenly fall away from her temple as the alien simultaneously howled in her ear so loud she thought she might have suffered a broken eardrum from the volume. She quickly looked to where the sound of the shot came from and what she saw made her jaw drop.

The human was no longer unarmed. He was running towards her holding a very small blaster in his hands and it was pointed in her direction. She immediately glanced at Xirane and saw that he was looking at his arm, or what remained of his arm, in horror. His entire hand and lower forearm were gone, blown away by the young human's shot. The gruesome wound was spouting blood everywhere. She could see exposed muscle, tendon and bone but even scarier than that, was the pain and rage she saw in the Falleen's eyes. Xirane was still screaming in agony, jumping backwards away from her when the human arrived at her side in a jog. The human had become ashen pale upon seeing the horrible wound he created close up and she didn't think the horrific sounds that his victim was making were helping this man's mental state either.

There was no time to stand around, however. Lara had just gotten a second lease on life thanks to this young man and she was not about to squander it. She had to take control and do something right now or else they were BOTH going to die.