As they rounded the corner to the street where the embassy building was situated, the duo's suspicions were confirmed as they spotted the two Xiis pacing in the entryway.
Let's play decoy.
Yerbol suggested, Aria sinking her teeth into her lower lip as Zora made a remark about the humanoids looking like they could have been responsible for the carnage around them. The Champion nodded warily in response to both enquiries:
“Be careful.” she knew Yerbol had the strength and skill to hold his own of course, but it didn't stop her from worrying about him despite his reassurances. These Xiis were stronger and less scrawny than the Quensu group had been, more well rested. “They’re fast.” Aria warned the Havoc members, drawing both her sabers to her hands and activating them as Yerbol dashed forward. The pair of Xiis scattered to avoid the onslaught of his double blades, Yerbol darting for the rightmost while Aria and Havoc went to intercept the other on the left.
With Zora right beside her and the other soldiers behind providing cover fire, Aria launched herself into the air and tried to plunge both sabers down into her opponent's chest, but the Xiis had a firm footing and saw the move coming and twirled out of reach, Zora’s knife clipping him across the cheek before he could get out of her reach as well. Aria's lightsabers sank into the paving as if it were made of butter, the Champion cursing as she clocked the Xiis gathering himself for another assault while she tried to yank the blades free. Havoc bought her the few seconds she needed to regain her control by firing at the approaching alien who had to leap and roll to avoid being hit. He lunged for Aria again and attempted to grab the weapons from her hands, the Champion flicking her wrists millimeters to one side to throw off his aim. Renso's teaching had paid off, she wasn't going to fall for that trick again. She and Zora took turns, ducking, parrying and strafing as they fought to push the blue-skinned alien backwards only to have him surprise them both by giving a raucous shout and rushing straight towards them. Zora’s Mirialan reflexes meant she managed to roll out of the way in time, Aria on the other hand wasn't quite quick enough.
The alien’s shoulder connected with her sternum, sending her skidding backwards into the safety railing though thankfully she managed to shut her eyes and slow her breathing to control the momentum so she wouldn't be propelled up and over into the darkness below. Her back slammed into the metal rails, making her grimace in discomfort at the impact. She would tend to it later, right now the Xiis was diving straight for her again, Zora and Bex sprinting to try and intercept him though it was hit and miss as to whether they would make it. The Kel Dor lifted his blaster, took aim, and nailed the Xiis between his shoulder blades. He barely flinched, and kept steamrolling forward. Seconds. She had seconds to do something.
“ARIA!”
“I'm alright!!” she coughed out, forcing her back to straighten again despite the sharp pain that stabbed through her upper back, ignoring the crushing pain she felt in her ribs as the other alien knocked Yerbol to the ground. A fist flew past her left cheek, Aria barely rolling out of range in time, fumbling to throw her lightsabers up to protect herself from his next swing.
Then she remembered the crystals Renso had given her, which she had carefully installed before they had departed from Zinuthra. Shutting her eyes, she tried to block out the other sounds, the concerned members of Havoc shouting towards her and the monotone buzzing of the neon signs above their heads, and focused on the energy they emitted. Breathed deeply, opening her eyes again as she felt a tingle of energy shoot down her arms through the lightsaber hilts. The blades crackled with viridian bolts of energy as she lunged forward and swung. With a shout of final agony the Xiis crumpled to the ground in front of her as the electricity struck him in the chest, her lightsaber plunging through seconds later to finish the job (if there had been any doubt that it would have killed him in the first place).
Slightly wide-eyed, Aria sidled back to the middle of the promenade to join the rest of the group as they gathered again.
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting the lightning to be like but couldn't help but feel giddy with excitement, like a child with a brand new toy.
“That was wicked AWESOME!”
Her features split into a grin as she reached the others, relief flooding through her as she noted Yerbol didn't seem too worse for wear after his encounter. They were tougher than they had been before Nuncata, perhaps quicker of wit too thanks to the various endurance runs he had them partake in.
Thanks, Renso.
“Where did you learn to do THAT?!”
“Can you still feel everything?”
“Do you need to sit down,?”
“You okay?”
The duo were hit with a barrage of questions from the members of Havoc squad. Aria nodded, waving off their concern. “Just a bruise, I think. Or a sprain. Nothing broken.” she hadn't heard anything crack, and it didn't hurt that bad.
That seemed to satisfy their concern, Zora and Elara crouching to examine the alien corpse as Bex and the other gunners scoped out the nearby stairways to make sure there weren't any more assailants headed their way. Regardless, she could still feel a sharp throbbing sensation in the middle of her back where she had connected with the top of one of the rails, leaning slightly into Yerbol's side for a moment (though not too much, because she didn't want to put pressure on his already injured ribs) as he sidled up next to her.
“What ARE these things?” Elara asked as she straightened once more.
“They almost look like Chiss, but....wilder.” Zora commented, wiping purple blood off the blade of her knife.
“We think they're called Xiis.” Aria explained, in the back of her mind wondering if it was mere coincidence that it sounded so similar to “Chiss”. “They came out of Wild Space, too. We didn't even know they existed until Yerbol and I got ambushed by a group of them….but they were a lot less coordinated, weaker.”
The Xiis were getting stronger. Dread settled into her gut like a lead weight.
“Right. We should check the embassy, see if there's anybody holed up in there like the merchants from before.” Elara suggested as Bex and the others returned, announcing that the promenade appeared to be clear once more. Passing through the archway marked by the tattered flags, the group dispersed to search through the ransacked embassy, looking for any signs that could indicate where the Xiis had appeared from, or how many there were.
The embassy itself was just as deserted as the surrounding streets ( or at least no one answered them when they announced their presence despite Aria and Yerbol being sure they could sense other life forms on the other side of locked doors), without any survivors willing to come forward to give them information they needed the group had no choice but to resort to swiping an access card from one of the unfortunate corpses that had not escaped the Xiis' hate-fueled bloodlust. The card gave them clearance to access the files located on the computer systems. With help from Elara, Zora and Bex, Aria managed to pull up a complex set of blueprints or diagrams that looked rather important. Notes and markers annotated them to mark out things like "first sighting??" And "point of origin??" or other such phrases that were followed by several question marks. It appeared as though the Alliance personell had been attempting to track the movement of the Xiis through Nar Shaddaa though the streets didn't appear to be familiar to Aria at all.
When she pointed this out to the others, Yerbol appeared just as stumped as she was (like herself he had only been to the moon a few times before), but after a moment's thought Elara seemed to come up with something:
"It almost looks like a map of the infrastructure." She pointed out various places by tapping them with her index finger as she spoke. "This is the air filtration system under the promenades...further along you have the pipework and filtration connecting to the various living sectors."
"You mean like the undercity on Coruscant? Or the Works in the industrial sector?" Aria frowned as she tried to understand.
"Exactly. Looks as if they were suspecting the Xiis had come out from the lower levels...but that begs the question of how they got there in the first place." Havoc'squad leader sighed.
"Well..." Aria blew out another heavy sigh, glancing between all their companions. "Only one way to find out." Somehow she didn't like the thought of wandering right into a trap...the Xiis would likely hear them coming long before they saw any of them, but they needed to finish the investigations the embassy workers had started.
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