(OOC: Just to clarify, this thread takes place some time before A Small Town Crucifixion, in "the girl's" past.)

None of us become who we are by chance. While destiny and fate may play equal parts in the creation of what we carelessly define as our identity, it is our own hands that shape, mould, bend and break. We are all a product of choices. Even if they are not our own, it is our action and reaction within these choices that defines us as an individual being.

~ Tutor annals, Lesson i

***

The land of stone and steel never sleeps.

It has been described as many things, and not all of them pleasant. Coruscant is a great many different things, depending on whose eyes you view it through. To some, it is a ticket to the big time, a place where opportunity is ripe for the picking and where any being - whether they are humanoid, alien, male, female or asexual – can find what they are looking for. To some, it is home- a vast interconnecting series of cities, districts, towns, villages. Often called the center of the universe, the hub, Coruscant plays host to thousands upon thousands of species, and billions of inhabitants, ranging from the richest of aristocrats and high-society socialites to the lowest of scum and villains.

At any given time, on any given day, it is possible that someone has just died on Coruscant. The probability of homicide, genocide, fratricide, patricide, matricide and suicide is scores higher than on any other planet in the galaxy. With such a high concentration of people, it was hardly surprising. Coruscant was a powder keg just waiting to explode.

Like a parasite, the girl observed, the sentient beings of the galaxy had swarmed over the planet. They had drained it of its every resource, spat out what waste they produced and built buildings atop the excrement to ensure that not a single microt of space was wasted. They had raped Coruscant.

Yet, she was pleased to conclude, they made a good cup of stimcaff.

For the fourth time in five minutes, the girl checked her chrono. Huey’s Diner was an all-night eatery with smoke-stained walls and chipped plastisteel tables. Out of the corner of her eye the girl would occasionally see the creature behind the bar, a gelatinous thing with a single eye, watching her nurse her lukewarm drink. It had been just over an hour since she had arrived (early) and the same cup had not left her gloved hands since.

“You-gonna-buyanotha?” the owner slurred in a single breath.

The girl did not reply. She had not, Huey observed, moved during her entire stay on his barstool. From time to time, he would turn his back in an attempt to bait her into doing something. In spite of his efforts, she remained static. Hunched over the bar as she was, he found it difficult to see anything beyond her youthful face. His single eye rolled hungrily over her body, trying to pick out any detail of the body beneath the heavy coat she wore. Huey, though he would not admit it, had a secret liking for humanoid females and their peculiar looking bodies. Though the sight of their two eyes made him a little queasy, he could overlook this one imperfection in the girl’s case.

Then, all of a sudden, she spoke.

“I don’t like violence. I really don’t. It pains me to see others in distress. I take no satisfaction from watching a man stub his toe, or fall, or take a wound of any kind, no matter what size. However,” she continued, “that does not mean that I do not, and will not, continue to be a violent person. Should you continue to watch me as you are, I will be forced to remove the pistol I have stored in this coat of mine. The pistol, I can assure you, is loaded. It does not have a stun setting. A single shot from my pistol will leave you first blind, then dead. I would hate to deprive the people of Coruscant of a good cup of stimcaff by putting a slug in your beautiful eye, Huey.”

With this said, the girl took a sip of the caff. Huey looked as though he might speak, before he sloped down to the opposite end of the bar, his lips turned into a scorned frown. His eyes fixed firmly on the door to the café, he watched for any new arrivals in the hope that some equally bitter and sour old regular would arrive and happily listen as Huey imparted his own version of how he had just been threatened by a customer, a young girl no less. He did not once look back at the girl.

Minutes passed, and the door swung open. Huey looked up hopefully for a familiar face, but saw none. A gaunt, bald figure in black lingered in the doorway for a moment. The girl rose from her seat and Huey watched as, without words, the pair moved to one of the booths that faced out onto the sidewalk. They sat opposite one another, rigid and silent, until the girl spoke.

“You’re early. I haven’t finished this,” she remarked, swirling the dregs of the caff in her cup back and forth.

It was nothing short of irritating when the woman spoke to him. He would sit there, silent as a corn mouse and she would ramble on about things that Troy really couldn't give two craps about, he was here for a job not to sit a talk about idle things and chit chat about sexually frustrated cyclops that served her a cafe one in a while.

No, he was here to do the contract he was set, get it out the way and move on, and more often than not he worked alone, silently, destroying his target and then walking away never to be seen. Only this time he had to work with a partner, a woman that seemed to know these parts reasonibly well and kno where to go for infomation. It was a neccesity to work with her and if it meant getting his money then he would do it, but they would be doing it his way not hers.

' I'm on time, your early...' Troy said straitning his blood red tie from its slight left disposition. Troy wore a black suit, white shirt and red tie, he was as natual as one could get and he liked it that way. All that fancy armour and blasters were not in his favour. The only thing that made him really stand out was his completely smooth, bald head. He had little facial hair, if any and he had frost blue eyes that shone in the artificial light.

'You take us to the worst of places at the best of times it was lucky i found the place.' He said smoothly, playing the palms of his leather clad hands on the table, covered in coffee rings and sugar granuals.

' Whats the deal?

A slight smirk played the girls lips, but she dismissed it as quickly as it had come. As could be seen simply from looking at them, they were not old friends, not past lovers or acquaintances here to reminisce over past days spent together. There was nothing habitual or friendly about their mannerisms, even in the casual way that the man drummed the tabletop and the girl idly toyed with strands of her rust-red hair.

The thought that, given their line of work, there were really no worst places to go crossed her mind. She entertained the idea of explaining to Troy that when you were in the business of depriving people of their lives and limbs it would seem logical that you would grow accustomed to the squalor and filth of the world, that some how you would become desensitized to it.

It was only a fleeting thought, however. As much as she would have liked to have believed it, the girl knew it was not true. Perhaps the man sitting opposite her had the capacity to become numb, but she did not. She could only abide it, and wait for the day when all of this would be a distant memory.

In the end, she settled for: “Judge not a book by its cover, but by its contents. Or, in this case, a diner by its caff rather than its odor.” Usually, this would be the time in the conversation where the other person would laugh, or at least smile, but the girl knew that was expecting too much from her partner. She waved a dismissive hand and, her voice dropping to a barely audible whisper, continued. Her eyes moved for a split-second to the one-eyed bartender, who had now resorted to mopping up the café counter with a dirty rag.

“He knows something we don’t know. He has the key codes for access to the storage warehouse.”

Troy briefly raised his eyebrows and then turned, illusivley, to glance at the bartender. Troy, who had had a momentary laps in his emotionless features quickly regained his composure and turned to look back at Vega. He had seen she had noticed his rather brief impressed look and corrected her quickly. ' Dont wet your pants, im not that impressed'

Troy looked around the bar once again, catching the eye of a Rodian eating his late night meal and a human female in some sort of uniform, possible small time security for a office or something, sitting at the counter with her back to them. He looked down at his gloves for a moment and then back to Vega who looked just as ready as he was.

Sean gave a nod and stood up. In the same motion he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a silenced pistol, black with a chrome handle, cocked it and pointed it directly at the security officer. The barrell was much larger than normal indicating a rather large supressor had been attached completely drowing out the sound in a situation when fired, it was custom made. Cost a pretty penny.

Troy fired and the shot was almost silent. The bullit ploughed into the womans back and blood burst from the vessel it had broken. it seemed the blonde haired woman resigned herself immediatly and she slumped forward over the counter.

Troy took his pistol in two hands and pointed it towards the now gaping Rodian, food pouring from his mouth.

' Leave...' troy simpley said, his eyebrows so low his eyes were barely visible.

Averting her eyes from the bloodshed, the girl casually tapped a small circular button on the windowsill to her left. As she did so, the sound of metal against metal could be heard. The inner-workings of the mechanism that lowered the diners blinds clearly needed oiling, but still managed to lower the shutters downwards. While the slats slowly descended over the glass, Vega rose from her seat and watched as the rodian, who had entered only moments previously, darted out into the street. Without even thinking, she felt her fingers twitching for her gun as the thought that the alien might call for help crept into the back of her mind. She stayed her hand, however, on the basis that if Troy thought it was safe, then it was safe.

Nonchalant, she walked towards the counter. Beside the dead woman, who was now bleeding profusely onto the diners – admittedly already dirty – floor, there was a small plate. A puff pastry filled with cream remained untouched. The girl sat her now empty caff mug down beside the dainty dessert, next to the lifeless hand of the dead security woman. She picked up the tarlet (taking a small bite from the pastry), and – raising her voice over the racket of the blinds – said:

“Huey, we have some questions.”

Holstering his pistol only after the blinds had shut and the bolts slid across the door locking the bar up tight did Troy venture casualy up beside the dead body of the woman and wrap his arms around the body. He tugged the security officer out of her chair and dragged her into the womans restroom, blood wiping on the tiled floor as he went. he would give Vega the satisfaction of interigating the cyclops while he cleaned up, she knew him better than Troy did anyway, and Seans idea of interrigation was far more bloody.

After closing the womans restroom door behind him Troy walked up behind Vega and took up the coffee the woman had just orderd, taking a sip casualy as if nothing of the sort had just happned.

Quietly, from behind Vega, he watched as she questioned him, his eyes menacingly watching the one eyed creature, if he made any move suddenley, The bartender would be dead in a flash.

Under the stony gaze of Troy, Huey did not move. The mans eyes seem to will him to do something, anything, just enough so that he would have reason to use that gun of his again. The creature would not given him the satisfaction of doing so. For all he may have been in a difficult situation, he knew that it would not be long before someone came to look for the dead woman, or saw the suspiciously closed blinds on the 24/7 café. Or at least, he hoped someone would notice.

“We only want to know two things, Huey. Two little things. Once you’ve told us, we’ll go, you’ll never mention this to anyone, and everything will be grand. Understood? … because if either of us do hear that you have been discussing our little chat with anyone, there will be consequences.”

The girl paused and took another bite of the pastry to finish it off, nodding appreciatively. “Nice cake,” she smiled, licking her lips clean and wiping her hands dry on a napkin procured from a dispenser on the bar top. “Anyway, as I was saying, I just want to know two things. The first of those is the location of the Barr brothers warehouse.”

Huey’s eye widened. From the moment the girl had entered, he’d known she was trouble, and now he knew exactly why. “You thinking you can-a be walking into Barrs warehouse like this, amateurs?”

“Now, Huey...” the girl crumpled the serviette in her hands.

“Of course I don't think that. That’s where the second piece of information is verrry important. First, you’re going to tell me the location of the warehouse, and then you’re going to tell me the code I need to get in.”

The one-eyed creature spat something that the girl thought was in a foreign language, but understood the tone enough to know it was a curse and an angry one at that. “I tell-a you nothing.”

Her eyes dipped and, with a sigh, Vega took another step forward, sliding back into her stool at the bar.

“Do you see the man standing behind me, Huey? Yes. The tall pale fellow. For now, he’s quite content to watch us chatting away, while he sips at his coffee, but he won’t stay that way for long. His tolerance is about as low as the bantha meat content of your steaks. It doesn’t take much to set this man off, Huey. You saw what he did to that woman. Now do yourself a favor, and tell me what I want to hear.”

Troy, now, as Vega had said was content to stand and watch while she did her thing. But time was on the move and the bald Hitman was loosing a little patience with the fat bastard that lumbered about behind the bar as if it protected him. The one eyed creature 'eyed' the hitman carefully before waving a dismissive paw, clearly thinking his contacts could protect him from the untolerant Troy.

' I tell-a you know-a...' He said turning his back towards Troy and Vega ' I shall tell-a you nothing!' he blurting loudly, spitting bits of previous food into Vegas face before pressing a previously unseen button. A whirling noice banged up and a click broke. The bars shutters instantly snapped and flew down a flash, security bars went down with it and threatned to crush Vega and impail her at the same time.

Troy saw this comming mear mili-seconds before it happned and grabbed the girl and flung her roughly away from the chopping metal of the security blind.The girls blody fell over a few stools and hit the ground hard. her methord of interrigation had now finished. Kindness never paid off.

' Now its my turn...' Troy said pulling his pistol out again. he walked around the side of the bar and vanished around the side of the blinds, looking for a way in. ' Come on...' He growned nastily.

The girl hit the floor with a yelp, almost bruising from impact. Had she not been so preoccupied with getting beyond the bars that now protected Huey, she might have glanced down at the ground beneath her and wondered about the layers of grime and who-knows-what that she had just fallen in to. Luckily, she avoided such nauseating thoughts and whirled up to her feet as quick as she had fallen.

As she pushed forward, the girl scooped up a metal mug from one of the vacant tables and hurled it into the blinds. It ricocheted down to the floor with a clatter – the metal was not electrified. The owner was, evidently, reluctant to spend money on anything. Vega drew her gun, sating the early need she felt to get her hands on the light wood grip. It felt good in her grasp, and she held it with steady aim as she followed Troy’s lead and began to search.

The pair moved in opposite directions around the counter, and were each presented with a door into the kitchen. Two chefs, passing idle conversation about whether to spit in the next customer’s food, were killed in silence. A third screamed, but fell as quickly at the hands of the girl and her gun. She turned, then, following the hit man’s eyes as they focused in on the door that could only lead to one place – the bar.

The lock broke off under a shot from Troy’s heavy guns, and he finished the job by kicking the frame and sending the flimsy door swinging open, right into the one-eyed creatures face. Huey was knocked backwards, and let off a shot of his own in surprise, the gun he held slipping from his hands. The man in black kicked the pathetic excuse for a pistol out of the grasp of Huey’s fat fingers within seconds, as the girl dropped a knee into his monstrous gut. “What did I tell you, Huey?”

Her gun was a breath away from his eye. Once, twice, he strained under her, thinking she would be light enough to topple, but found she had a surprising amount of strength – which she illustrated by cracking the butt of the gun against his skull before fixing it again on his eye. “I don’t like being violent, but when you do this, it’s difficult for me to be anything but. Now are you going to tell me what I want to know, or do I have to start removing invaluable pieces of your body – that you will miss – with this?” she rasped, her eyes alight, as she snatched up shard of glass from the now broken door.

' Let me get once thing strait before we continue...' Troy said finding a stool to sit on from amoung the wreckage of the door. Scratching the temple of his head with the barrell of his pistol Troy looked up at the fat, one eyed, thing and shook his head. ' These Barr brothers, they trusted you, YOU of all people with the codes?' Sean frowned comicaly, clearly confused. ' Well i can see these so called brothers are a few short of a six pack.' Still frowning, Troy said.

' They the ones that installed the so called Security doors to?'