OOC: Formatting later tonight got mad at the supreme court

Dark Snores Rising

The blaster bolts streamed past the overturned table that Ned and Darcy ducked behind. Each shot screamed as it flew over, sparks flying outward with every collision, Ned covering Darcy's face with an outstretched arm. The bright white of the explosions blinded Kaye for a short moment as he reached for his blaster, firing a few stray shots over the makeshift barrier as it rumbled from blaster fire. With a steady breath Ned closed his eyes and readjusted himself, opening them to see Darcy pick up a holdout blaster pistol slid over to her left.

“What are you thinking, Darce!?” Ned shouted, a hint of uncertainty in his voice as he watched her psyche herself up to begin shooting. Her free hand slapped against her cheek as she tried to hype herself up for the gunfight.

“I'm kind of getting shot at, too, Ned, I was thinking I oughta defend myself!” She bellowed back, slightly panicking under the unfamiliar stress of the situation.

Ned fired once more, making a direct shot on one of the assailants before ducking back down, visibly impatient.

“I can handle this! You just focus on not getting hurt!”

“I can take care of myself! Just shut up and let me help out!” She darted upward and scattered blaster bolts toward the door before nearly getting tagged by one herself without the intervention of Ned pulling her back into cover.

“I think they're getting closer, Ned...” Darcy muttered with a dread to her voice, not familiar with the sensation of simulated death.

Ned tried to find something reassuring to say, but could only force out, “Yeah...”

All of a sudden, a loud thermal implosion rocked the room as New Republic guards flooded into the room calling out for the honorable senator as they finally approached Darcy and Ned. With a relieved sigh, the two deflated somewhat, happy to have the tense moment depart quickly. As Ned pulled himself up, he offered a hand to Darcy, gladly assisting her to her feet as he dusted some of the debris off of himself before being met with a slap across his jaw. She stared him down incredulously as he he rubbed the spot on his face she had so kindly left a mark of her palm on.

“Why are you so resistant to the idea of me helping out on this stuff?” Darcy demanded, a little tired of Ned's behavior as far as the simulation was concerned at this point. He glanced to the side and shook his head a bit.

“Look, can we not talk about this right now?” Ned spoke quietly, as if he was hoping decreasing the volume of his request somehow made it more likely to be accepted. Ellis was not sympathetic to this, as plain as the annoyed glare glued to her face.

“No, we're going to get this out of the way because I'm sick of being treated like some number two in your bullshit! I'm doing things, too, and these misadventures affect me a lot whether you like it or not! So, yes, I am owed an explanation!”

Ned took a deep breath and began to speak, only to feel his ability to rapidly becoming more difficult. With a frightened, silent stare he looked to her, his words choking him as he attempted to force them out, each moment ensuring his ability to do so diminished rapidly. As Darcy's eyes connected with his, he could tell she knew the horror and this sensation and was experiencing it in tandem. They were going to be stuck again, watching an incident lightyears away....

Or so it seemed.

The monitors across the cityscape lit up, all showing the imposing posture of the towering Grand Admiral Bourb, gazing down at the denizens of Coruscant with a disapproving eye, though his words were primarily absent for the time being. After a few moments of quiet, Bourb finally spoke.

“Coruscant. You have been under the rule of usurpers for far too long and-uh... I'll be honest guys, I don't really give a damn 'bout the gov stuff, but I do want to watch a few guys get blowned up, so I've amassed a bigass fleet and I'm putting a shitton o' guys on it and then I'm gonna just blow y'all up until I have something more fun to do. Bye, I guess.”

The transmission ended as Ned and Darcy fell to their knees, the return of their complete lucidity as painful as it had been prior. A sharp pain chiseled through Darcy's head while Ned hid his face towards the ground, even as her headache subsided.

“Ned..?”

“You know how I had those wrestling groups I was apart of..?” Ned asked with a gentle voice, obscured by the ground.

“Yeah... Yeah, I know.”

“Well, they weren't just some big nothing groups to me. They mattered a lot, Darce. And when I lost both of them... it hurt. And it hurt to know how much pain and turmoil I had ended up causing to them. I don't want to be that for anyone else, least of all you. You've been really patient with me, even when my deserving of it has been utterly questionable and I thank you for that. But I can't just take your help without feeling guilty. Without knowing that all of the same mistakes could happen again...”

She stood up, extending a hand out to Ned as she gave a soft smile, doing her best to give him some sense of assuredness.

“Look, I'm all grown, dude. You don't have to worry about handling stuff for me. I can do a lot of this myself, just trust me when I say I can, okay?”

Ned nodded, taking her hand as he made it to his feet, looking over at the New Republic soldiers handling the room, escorting only captured assailant that seemed to still be living. The restrained creature was an alien, dark grey skin covered with a strange fur that looked unlike any being he had ever seen before. Darcy side-eyed the alien before wagging her finger in front of Ned's face, speaking with a tad bit of confidence.

“I think I know what's going on here and that alien is about to make things a lot easier on me. C'mon!”

TO BE CONTINUED

-----



“Christ, Bobby, I'm surprised at you.”

“Not that you're doing anything particularly different, but that you abandoned the appearance of looking even mildly respectable for this bout. Maybe all that time with TK is making you reconsider the use of euphemism. This is fine by me. You choose to be a piece of shit; might as well be plain with the world about it.”

“But the most disappointing part of it all is that somewhere deep inside you, likely where your head is always located, is a desire to be a little, teensy bit better, but the compromise of acknowledging that doing that means effort and, for you and your ilk, effort is for pussies. You are worse than morally bankrupt: you're apathetic towards the proposition of self-betterment. You are the face that smiles and waves so that your little dipshit squad can funnel money into your back pocket stained with blood and pain. I want to reiterate this, Bobby: we are not alike. I accepted help to start challenging myself to become better. You accept help that is unconscionable at its core. People thought Main died, Your Excellency, you included. Did this shift a change in your perspective? Did you start looking for ways to make a change or make a buck? Why is it that your conscience endlessly takes a lap whenever things get dicey?”

“We both know the answer. It's pretty goddamn clear: you don't care. You have wholeheartedly accepted the position at the head of the table of fools, ignoring the fact that there's only enough food for so long until they start eyeing you. This isn't even a case of the blind leading the blind, this is plucking out your eyeballs because sight is lightly associated with Raion Kido. If you were any more full of shit, Bobby, you'd be legally recognized manure. And yet again, the apathy sets in for you. Retribution is the only thing that can jog your mind, the only response you can react to in any sort of logical fashion. You are convinced that might makes right while ignoring that your might is not nearly as centralized as you need it to be. It's another pipe in the hand. It's another way to “represent the XWF” while hoping people forget that you would gladly endorse the murder of any of its stars just to keep you and your boys in the spotlight. But the truly pathetic thing is that armed with all of this attention and branding and marketing success, you still do nothing at all with it.”

“You couldn't seem any less enthused about this company if you downed a bottle of vicodin prior to cutting a promo, which ironically is what Charlie Nickles does every time its ten minutes 'till he's on camera. That's not to disparage you or Nickles from confronting your personal demons or make light of the ones you two might face, but you could still stand to avoid being assholes while getting better. But no, you instead wanna grandstand on Twitter about how you “got me by the balls.” Buddy, your hands aren't big enough and even if they were, I don't think your company is gonna be super macho talking about Ned's sack in your hands. I'd turn my head and cough, but I fear it might break your wrists.”

“All of this ends up begging the question: Who actually is Bobby Bourbon? Your partner might make claims about me being bland, but if you ask people what I'm like, what I enjoy, what I respond to, what I regret, what I wish to do, people can give you straight answers. You have no values, Grand Admiral. Not even power considering how you and the boy's club shitcanned Rob and Page alike. If I'm struggling with something, I fight all the way through it. You're too lazy to even conjure up a consistent worldview outside of “likes hanging out.” That's not a personality, that's an activity. Wait, you're also loud about it. I suppose that makes up the for rest of the missing pieces. You know what else was loud, Your Highness? The roar of the mighty rancor and as focused as you might be on my crotch, it wasn't the waist that got caught between the door and the ground. It was the neck. Your efforts have been a repeated exercise to see how fast you can tie a noose around yours. The door is about to shut on this short era of “BoB exceptionalism.” I'd say don't let it hit you on the ass on the way out, but considering how they've closed prior, I'd call that a best case scenario.”

"You can't run from yourself."