Eventide, at the edge of an Era (CW Jisu/Ko)

Order up!
One Snarky Cathar
One Nympho Mirialian
and a side of Bastard Jedi Council

Pulling off her helmet, Cera walked into the shady Coruscant bar. Once her eyes adjusted to the lighting, they immediately scanned over the crowd of patrons, subconsciously looking for enemies, rivals, and anyone she could plausibly exploit in a fight. Finally her gaze came to rest on a besalisk sitting alone at the bar.

Cera began moving through the sea of tables, her senses on constant alert, in the direction of the bar. The besalisk was an informant. One who knew the location of her bounty.

The bounty hunter ordinarily tried to avoid the galactic hub that was Coruscant. Too much politics, too much law enforcement, too many jedi, all very disagreeable and boring. But where the hunt lead, she followed, so here she was, walking up to a contact, hoping she didn't wind up with a knife in the gut or irons on her wrists.

"You Jax?" she said, sliding onto the barstool next to the man.

The besalisk turned his head. He gave a quick look up and down the hunter's black and red body armor, his eyes resting for a moment on her blaster before coming back up to her face. "You must be the bounty hunter," he croaked.

"Expecting someone else?" Cera asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nope," Jax said coolly. "Though I wasn't expecting you to be mirialan. Aren't you all jedi? How do I know this isn't a trap?"

"Guess you don't. You gonna tell me what I need to know or what?" Cera asked, her patience wavering.

Jax stared at her for a moment. "I want an extra 200 credits to compensate for the risk to me person."

"You've got to be frakking kidding me," Cera moaned. "How bout you give me the intel for free," she pulled her gun from it's holster and in one swift motion had it pressed against the besalisk's side, "and I don't give you a new asshole in your side," she finished through gritted teeth.

Jax snarled, considering his options. "Alright, fine, fine. The guy your looking for, he's a twi'lek assassin. Goes by Bost."

"Where is he?" Cera hissed, pushing the barrel of the blaster into Jax's side.

"In the lower city! He's staying at this nightclub. It's owned by his cousin or something."

"Name!"

"It's called Pulse! That's all I know!" Jax all but whimpered.

"Thank you so much for your time," Cera said with sarcasm dripping off her every word. She holstered her gun and made a b-line out of the bar, all too aware that most eyes not too drunk to stare were on her. "Slimo," she muttered under her breath.

Heterochromatic eyes traced the Bounty hunter as she came in, something about her seemed almost hauntingly familiar. And then she had taken off her helmet and eyes had narrowed. Mirialan female, almost all of the mirialans in the core were Jedi. At the thought of the Order, a soft growl rumbled deep in his chest. Emiya had once loved the Jedi, once considered them brothers and sisters in the Force. But the disregard they had shown for the one person he had called mother, to so blatantly cast aside her death... he held no love for Jedi any longer, though he himself still practiced the arts they had once taught him, no, he corrected himself, the arts that his mother had taught him.

Turning away from his inner anger, Emiya’s eyes traveled back to the new person. The way she acted screamed no respect for the law, not that the law held very much sway in company such as this, not even on Coruscant where the laws were made. When the informant had spouted off the very same lines he had been given, the former jedi knew that this woman was looking for the same person as he.

With a grace rarely seen in seedy bars like the one he was currently in, the rather tall Cathar rose, not caring that his hood was down, most of the people who knew what to look for would be looking for brown and tan robes, not half armored green and black. And though he knew not how to wield a blaster one sat on a belt at his hip to further take away any familiarity as a Jedi. His saber was nestled, unseen on a hilt at the base of his spine.

Calling out to her outside of the bar, he could not help but comment on her act. “You know, the lower parts of this place may well be classified as another planet entirely...Good job by the way, calling all that attention to you, I’m sure there are a few other people who are now keen on your hit, just to see if it’s really as interesting as you make it.”

Emerging from the shadows, Emiya let himself be seen, though it was rather hard to miss him even with the aid of shadows, with his light tan fur, long mane groomed into a neat tail of hair that was swung forward to rest on his shoulder and bright heterochromatic blue and green eyes. “Or were you aiming for that? Perhaps to get someone else to do the job for you?”

Cera turned sharply at the voice, hand moving to hover over her blaster. She regarded the tall man with analytical blue eyes. Below each eye was a set of three black diamonds, the only tattoos she's received before her family had died. The black marks and her emerald green skin, however, were the only indicators of her species. She held no deep religious beliefs except maybe the worship of sex and her gun, and, as far she she could tell, had no innate connection to the Force. What she did have, was skill with a blaster and sniper rifle as well as a more than healthy amount of trust issues.

"Aaand just who the frak might you be, furball? Someone trying to get between me and my bounty? Not a healthy habit to get into."

Rolling his eyes and managing to make his muzzle set itself into a frown, the Cathar spoke. “Right, you and your blaster scare me just about as much as the rest of the geniuses in the bar. You can have your bounty, after I’ve had my revenge, I just hope you weren’t looking to bring him in alive.”

Tilting his head slightly to the left, one of his ears flicked, “The name is Emiya, no last name, not that it matters to you Miss Scary Bounty Hunter, but it seems we’re after the same guy, and I don’t intend on letting anyone else kill the bastard before I can get my claws into him, but I figure that two heads are better than one, and you have potential to be a lot smarter than most of the other brutes that run amok down here, not that that particular trait would be a hard feat to accomplish.”

With a glance downwards, Emiya managed a smirk towards the Mirialan before continuing in a softer, more menacing growl, “and I’m a former Jedi, so please, save yourself the trouble and stop thinking about shooting me. It would do you no good.”

At the word jedi, Cera's ears perked. "Jedi? /Former/ jedi at that? Bet there's a pretty bounty on your head, pretty boy," she smirked. "Lucky for you I haven't seen one yet." She looked him up and down. Now that he said jedi she could see it. There was just something about how those pricks held themselves that no amount of undercity could hide. "Well, it makes no difference to me if the twi'lek's dead or alive. Pay's the same. Although usually I like to be the one to kill them. Regardless," she said with a sigh, "I don't play well with others. So run along and find yourself a different partner. I've no interest in playing jedi with you."

With that she turned, slipped on her helmet, and began to walk away, hand still hovering expectantly on her blaster.

The cathar shook his head, a huff of annoyance being issued at the bounty hunter’s statement, “First, Miss ‘scary’ bounty hunter, they won’t issue a bounty for me because the ‘Lost Ones’ tend to do just that. Get lost in the archives. I’d bet my saber that they’ve probably deleted most everything about me by now, just as they did with a few others.”

Here he waved a hand towards the seemingly endless chasm that was the spaces between buildings, a deep, dark yawning maw dotted with lights and scarred by lurid neon signs every so often.

Secondly, I never asked you to play along. With as large as this Force-forsaken undercity is, I need what little assistance I can scratch out. To be frank, I’ve not the time nor the patience to play babysitter for an arrogant hunter thinking that she’s immortal after being hopped up on a few kills here and there. What I want is a simple agreement for shared intel. If I find something new, I’ll com link you with what I have, and expect you to do the same. This way we both win, you get your bounty, I get my blood and everyone goes home as happy little space scouts.”

Cera couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped her lips.

She turned back to face the cathar. "Well I /do/ love being a happy space scout," she said with a smile that was hidden behind her helmet. "Alright," she relented, "so what you want is revenge. What I want is my bounty. We play nice, share our toys, you get the kill, I get the credits, then I get to pretend I never saw your sexy, furry ass. Whatever. It's a plan."

She again pulled off her helmet. "So I'm assuming you were there meeting Jax, too? Charmer, wasn't he? So you know anything else about our twi'lek or are we on the same page?"

Quirking one eybrow (could it even be called that?) at her, Emiya cleared his throat while stating, in a rather perturbed voice, “As disturbing as your wording was for your previous statement is, yes, I do know a little more about the bastard. I’ve been chasing his slippery hide around the core for the better part of three standard months, but he’s damn good at getting away, he also has an in with one of the local Hutts, and as far as I can tell, with at least one of each of the Core world’s spaceport personnel with access to the log of inbound ships.”

Here he looked up, eyes narrowing despite the dim light that was just barely able to filter down from above, through the haze and traffic. A deep growl rumbled through his chest as he flexed his hands, extending and retracting claws in a contained bout of anger before he continued on, “He’s also a scumbag that prefers to cause massive amounts of damage to get to one target rather than stick to a clean hit, that’s one of the reasons I want to skewer the bastard.”

"Well well. He's got quite the connections. And it sounds like he's been lucky so far. But I think that's about to change. We know where he is. And even better, we know that Pulse is owned by his /cousin/. We have leverage. I say we go take a look at the club, maybe have a drink or two, and take us a hostage," she said with a smirk.

Huffing again, Emiya gave a shrug of his shoulders, idly noting that the armor that adorned his left shoulder was pulling uncomfortably at his fur, “If you want to bank on the slimo putting any stock in familial values that’s all on you Miss Scary Bounty Hunter, personally, I don’t think he’d care even if we took his mother hostage and threatened to feed her to a sarlac.”

Turning away from the bar, he gave the mirialan bounty hunter another look over. “By the way, Miss Scary Bounty Hunter, you never gave me a proper name, unless you’d prefer to go by what I’m calling you already...Which if fine by me in all honesty, the less I know about you the better, don’t need to get weepy when you eventually kick it after all.”

Once again the cathar's words sparked laughter from the bounty hunter. "Yeah, cause I'm gonna kick it before you. I'm surprised you can even exist outside of those temple walls," she said with a glance toward the uppercity where the jedi temple stood. "Name's Cera. No last name, just like you," she added with a smile. "And if you get all weepy over a death, then you might want to reconsider your current trajectory. Cause death is where we're headed. Lots of it, if I catch the vengeance in your voice right. Who'd this slimo kill anyways? Who were they to you?" At the question, Cera's voice softened noticeably and her eyes became less harsh. Were it not for the armor and the blaster, she could even be mistaken for a jedi.

Clenching his fist again, Emiya bit down a snarl. His eyes were closed in a vain bid to refrain from calling up the sight of a broken body, of the feeling blood that flowed lazily and the heavy scent of death that he could not forget. But it came to him still, and how her eyes, which were always so bright and vivacious, had dimmed in an unseeing stare, gazing into exactly nothing. “My Master, the woman I called mother...The reason I left, is exactly for that. The temple is not as kind nor as welcoming as many Jedi would have you believe and there are far more ‘rogue’ Jedi than you could believe...A lot more.”

"I'm sorry," Cera said softly. "I know loss. I also know the rage and thirst for revenge that comes with it." Now her tone shifted to one with more severity. "One thing needs to be cleared up right now. This is /not/ a suicide mission. If we're working together, you need to be level headed and wanting to stay alive. Otherwise, people frak up, make mistakes, get killed. And that just ruins all my plans for later this week." She finished with a jocular tone, though her message was dead serious.

The tall cathar did a double take at Cera’s words, “Now hold on Miss Scary Bounty Hunter, who in the Force Forsaken pits said anything about suicide? I am quite content with my continued ability to draw breath and am not looking to change that any time soon. I just need a little closure for a few issues, maybe punch a few Jedi, but there’s no need for the orderlies to watch my meds.”

"Good to hear," Cera said with a smile. "Punching jedi /does/ sound like fun...but let's stay on target. I want my credits, so to Pulse. I'll drive," she gestured with her thumb toward the small landing lot beside the bar. "See that sexy thing? That's my ride," she said with a proud smile. "Come on. Just...watch the claws on the upholstery?"

Emiya one again raised a brow (seriously, what would you call that? An Eye ridge?) at his new 'partner' of sorts. "You do realize, that Cathar claws are fully retractable, and it is entirely voluntary, right? No civilized cathar would walk about with claws drawn, that's just bad form," he stated as he circled around the sleek vehicle.

"Well as much as I would hate to leave my transportation here, I do not think a flashy speeder like mine would do well in the underbelly of this place.." Here he gestured over to a slim, single rider speeder with a silver and white paint job. "You do know where the Pulse is, right," he asked in a deadpan, looking towards Cera with mismatched eyes.

Cera raised her own eyebrow back at him. "Do I look like the sort of person who wouldn't know where a nightclub is? Especially one called pulse? Give me a little credit here. I may not like this planet, but my work brings me here often." With an admiring glance at his speeder she added, "Nice bike, by the way. Maybe after this is all over you can take me for a ride on it." She added in a wink - just for good measure.

She hopped over the side of her own speeder and into the driver seat. "Hop in," she said as she moved her sniper rifle from the passenger seat to floor in the back. "And uh, no hard feeling about the claws, yeah? Besides, you've made your own assumptions about me. You see a jedi every time you look at me, don't you?" she asked as the speeder lurched off the pad and Cera directed it into the ever flowing stream of traffic.

Emiya shrugged as he watched the traffic of the skylanes, "Mirialans tend to be Force sensitive and get snapped up by the Order to be Jedi, they aren't a rare sight to see wielding a saber, not like Cathar or Wookies. It is hard to reconcile an image once formed." He paused to look down at Cera without moving his head, "And you do give off a slight presence. Small and almost dismissible, but still there."

Cera shrugged. "Yeah, I was...drafted, I guess when I was a little kid. But my father had a stick up his ass about the Jedi, prevented me from joining the order."

A traffic light changed yellow in front of her and she thrust the speeder into high gear, just making it through as the light changed again to red. She reveled in the rush of adrenaline, but that was simply a pleasant side effect. As she sped through the light, she cast her eyes on her new partner, watching his reaction to the risky maneuver.

"Fine by me though," she continued, "I doubt I would have fit in there anyways. All you people do is sit around all day and meditate, right?"

The Cathar frowned, her question bringing up memories of the woman he considered mother, of meditating with her, of the difficulties he had in stilling his thoughts to reach the Force, of 'training' in the salles in the more acrobatic moves.

"There is a good deal of meditation involved in being a Jedi, yes," he rumbled softly, "but we are not all natural born monks. All younglings squirm when it comes time to keep still to daily meditation, even some Knights find it hard to be still for more than a few minutes, and instead find their peace while practicing various Kata, not that the Council embraces a more active mindset, conservative old bastards that they are."

Mismatched eyes looked out of the speeder. "If you were taken young, you would have fit in, especially since you are mirialan. The Temple makes sure their initiates are all well adjusted before attempting to teach them anything."

Again Cera shrugged. "Whatever." She said as she suddenly spotted their destination in the distance.

"There's Pulse," she pointed. A minute later they were parked and making there way toward the entrance to the club.

"All right mister /former/ Jedi. What was your plan? Lets see if it's any good."