Author's Beginning Notes:
Summary: (AU SW: Knights of the Old Republic/POTO crossover) The Force has mysteriously bonded Erik with the Jedi Bastila, causing a chain of events that will shake the very foundations of the galaxy far, far way 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire...
Disclaimer: I don't own the Phantom of the Opera or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a.k.a. KOTOR.
Chapter 4
Davik, Gangs, and Rakghouls, Oh My
Once Erik and Carth were finished shopping for other necessary supplies, they headed over to the heavily discussed Upper City cantina.
"Cantinas are wonderful," the boy had explained to his companion in a mock-serious voice as he tiptoed across the handrails of the street they were crossing, Carth sorely tempted to roll his eyes at the seemingly juvenile game. "You can always count on pure honesty there, the perfect nerve-centers of information."
"And none of the dancers and drinking don't add to their appeal at all," the elder man wondered out loud as he finally rolled his eyes.
"The beverages aren't nearly as tasteful as one would be lead to be believe, and there's the fact that they impair judgement and deceny far too much for my interest," replied Erik in tones of great disgust, his face set in a grimace that tugged a small smile from Carth's lips. The boy's golden eyes from behind the mask grew thoughtful as he began adressing the second part of the soldier's comment.
"The dancers on the other hand are a more complicated matter; my baser instincts cause me to enjoy their inherent sexuality, my mind critically examines the art in their technique, and my heart can't help but pity them since more often than not they do it out of forced necessity, not from any dream of their own."
"Do you really believe all Cantina dancers are like that? The forced necessity thing, I mean," asked Carth, recalling a few dancers who he had met himself before he had married, and they seemed to enjoy their jobs.
"Well, all the ones I've seen are like that," the boy darkly replied, a faraway look in his eyes.
"...Tatooine?"
"Yes, very observant Onasi; I do refer mostly to the dancers on Tatooine... I suppose my focus on it is a side-effect of my birth having taken place there," spoke Erik in what appeared to be a flippant tone as he flashed an almost childish carefree smile, but Carth could detect the bitterness lacing his voice's edge. Erik abruptly paused, one boot suspended in mid-air during his interrupted scaling of the handrails, his eyes riveted on a point somewhere beyond, where voices drifted into the air.
"You owe 200 credits, not 50," a boorish-looking man growled as he towered over a frail, aging fellow with a considerably bald head and snowy white beard flowing from his wrinkled face, a Rodian in the background waving a blaster crazily about.
"200! But...but...but...but I can't possibly pay that much to Davik," stuttered the elder, his bent form cowering beyond his control. Oh, bloody hell, Erik mentally growled as he jumped off the handrails and made his way toward the commotion, Carth hovering over his shoulder whispering about keeping a low profile.
"They're going to crush the poor wretch over a couple of credits," the boy heatedly whispered back to the soldier.
"I know that, I'm just letting you know I've got your back," Onasi whispered back with the same venomous heat. The boy blinked rapidly in surprise at the man's explicit honesty, then slowly his trademark smirk painted itself beneath his mask.
"So, that whole lecture on keeping low was some preliminary repeating of the things we should do versus what we want to do and are going to do," questioned Erik in a pain-stakingly lucid voice, full of a gloating nature.
"...Pretty much, although I wouldn't really call it a lecture--"
"Of course you wouldn't," replied the boy in a mock-soothing tone reserved for placating small children, and before Carth could retort an infuriated response, the rather psychotic-looking Rodian spoke up, his words translated to Basic in the boy's ears.
"If you can't repay Davik's debt in credits, you'll have to pay him back with your daughter... She'll make a decent enough slave." Erik saw red.
"NO! Not my child, anything but her, oh please, please show mercy!" Through his haze of red the boy noted that the elder was down on his knees desperately begging.
"Mercy," spat out the boorish human, an incredulous look in his beady eyes. "Davik doesn't run his business on mercy old man, he runs it on--"
How this Davik ran his business was never fully revealed at that point, Erik's mechanical fist having collided with the lackey's skull, and since the boy had been aiming to kill, the man dropped dead on the floor with a bloody pulp for a head now. The red still flitting around the corners of Erik's vision, the boy heard the click of the Rodian's blaster behind him, and the sizzling bang of Carth's own weapon, resulting in the soft pattering of a body dropping onto the cold hard cement. Well, we do work pretty well together in combat, the boy considered as he looked down at the elder, who slowly stood up, disbelief etched in the wrinkles of his face.
"Tha--thank you, kind sirs," he stuttered, but not as badly as he had done in front of the 2 thugs.
"We only delayed the inevitable," spoke Erik in a monotone voice as he groped inside his pocket. "This Davik person will probably just send more thugs breathing down your neck for whatever debt you owe him, so..." and the boy removed his hand from his pocket, successful in finding 150 credits. He offered the amount to the elder, whose eyes practically burst out of their sockets.
"You're giving him that many credits! That's...pretty damn generous," muttered Carth impressed, his eyes riveted on Erik's offered gloved hand.
"I can stand the loss," the boy whispered to his comrade as the elder gladly accepted the credits, almost snatching them from Erik's glove, the boy's face betraying no offense; relief could be overwhelming, Erik noted... The elder cupped the 150 credits in his hands, bending his stooped form even further into a bow.
"Again, I thank you both... I only wish there was some way I could repay you..."
"There is a way," Carth put in eagerly. "We're new here on Taris, and we'd like some information--"
"In particular, our curiosity is really quirked about this Davik person," Erik joined in, already fully certain that the man was some sort of crime lord.
"Davik!.. Well, he's certainly not someone you'd want to get involved with, but you've probably already figured that out," the elder began with his arms spread helplessly apart, the credits Erik had given him safely secured in his own pocket. "But, it would be best not be ignorant of Davik, ignoring him will just invite trouble... The man is the one and only crime lord on Taris, and he's more than enough. It's been said that he's a member of the Exchange--you know, that intergalactic criminal organization--and there really hasn't been anything to dispute that. As crime lord, he covers all the shady business on Taris--assassinations, slavery, the black market, among other unsavory practices." The boy's reckless imagination burrowed into twisted ideas of what 'other unsavory practices' Davik did, ideas Erik dared not share with anyone else.
"That's about all I know about Davik... Is there anything else?" The boy was more than a little surprised, sure that the elder would only tell them about Davik... He was willing to help more?
"Do you happen to know anything about the escape pods in the Under City," questioned Carth while the boy had been shaken by shock, but once he snapped out of it, Erik frowned, wondering if the soldier was being a little too obvious with that particular question? But no, this man won't give any trouble, considered Erik as he once more examined the elder.
"Nothing else besides what you've already said," offered the elder in an almost apologetic tone.
"Well, do you know how we can get to the Under City," Erik asked, knowing full well that he was pretty much doing the same thing he had judged Carth harshly on just a few seconds ago.
The elder looked shocked, even horrifed, but he stuttered out, "There...there are elevators to be taken, but they can only go one level, so that means you would have to take the elevator here in the Upper City by the Equipment Emporium to the Lower City, and then take that place's elevator to the Under City, and you're there... But you don't want to go there."
"Why wouldn't we," the boy challenged with an arched eyebrow beneath his mask and a frown to match, curiosity buzzing in his brain.
"The Lower City is gripped in a vicious gang war between the Black Vulkars and the Hidden Beks, and the Under City is filled with ravenous rakghouls," answered the elder, Erik noticing how he shivered, and didn't seem conscious of the gesture.
"Rakghouls," Carth questioned, a flicker of foreboding in his eyes.
"They're horrible, flesh-eating monsters, but that's not the worst part... The worst part is that if a person is afflicted by their poisonous bite, they're infected."
"By a fatal disease, no doubt," the boy stated in grim confidence.
"No, worse than that...the infection can cause the person to change into a rakghoul himself." Now it was Erik's turn to shudder, not at all thinking about how he was wrong, preoccupied with the thought of the horrendous transformation of your very being into something completely foreign...
"Now do you understand why you don't want to go there," whispered the elder, undoubtedly noticing the boy's shiver, and Erik inwardly kicked himself viciously for another blatant display of weakness.
"Thank you sir for the information," Carth whispered as well, turning to leave, and the boy automatically followed his move, his black cloak swishing in his wake.
"No, thank you," the elder corrected as he too turned to go, waving farewell as he went, and Erik returned the gesture, although his arm felt like lead weight, and it wasn't even his mechanical arm, not that it still felt like lead weight...no, the boy had gotten used to the false limb long ago...
"...He said near the Equipment Emporium, right?"
"Yes, he did... Can't believe we didn't spot it ourselves," the boy muttered in an annoyed voice, hiding his gratitude to Carth for easily getting themselves back to business.
"Well, we weren't looking for it in the first place, you know, just shopping for supplies," the soldier offered up, and Erik just shook his head.
"True, but we really should have... Elevators were the obvious answer to getting to the lower levels."
"Well, it could've been stairs."
"...Stairs?"
"What?"
"Carth, were you thinking when you said that? I mean, come on, stairs in this day and age?"
"Hey, it could happen."
"Whatever," the boy replied as he rolled his eyes, folding his arms behind his head carelessly, yet Carth's smile began to irritate him.
"What," he finally asked the man exasperatedly as they neared closer to the Equipment Emporium.
"Well, it's just," but the soldier cut himself off as he began to laugh, and Erik had the mad urge to shut his face up with his fist. "It's just...it's just, well...saying 'whatever,' it's the first time you actually looked like a kid to me." Erik just gawked at him, for a rare moment being struck silent.
Author's Ending Notes: