Meeting on the Balcony

Tsubake meets with her confidant on info regarding her past...

03:35pm, On a Balcony overlooking traffic in a secluded shop on Coruscant....

Tsubake looked out over the balcony, tapping her cybernetic hand impatiently against the table as it made a steady tink tink tink sound. Her hair loosened into a frivolous flow, with a part of the top rolled into what someone might call a "Hair Rose". She wore her more casual combat gear, the kind that was both comfortable and made her feel flattering enough, the top cropped off to show mid-riff as well as what she believed to be a decent amount of cleavage. The chair she was leaning back in was balancing on its two hind legs, as she carelessly kept her feet up on the edge of the balcony. The view across the city was, of course, breathtaking, and despite it being a republic city, she had managed to secure a personal transport to the shop overlooking most of the city. The flow of traffic below and across the skies was relentless and seemingly never-ending, as was the view from down below. Miles and miles of traffic flew about, the lines of vehicles blurring the further down one would look, and making it seem as though there was no bottom, but only an endless pit of traffic flow. Tsubake had been contacted recently with regards to information about her past, namely her birth parents. The answers she desperately wanted, was coincidentally enough in the hands of a Bounty Hunter she had personally kept a professional deal with. In her desperation to find out what her real birth name was, having been given the name Starburst to carry on as a legacy, she did not question the small details that did not make sense. They gnawed at her thoughts, but she dismissed them as she had placed a higher priority on the supposed information she'd be receiving. She scowled and looked towards the center of the table, a small holographic display flashing "03:42" on it, with some intricate decorations along the side. The rest of the area around her was for a lack of a better word, abandoned. Her contact had reserved the whole floor just for them, so as not to be disturbed, and so there were tables with empty chairs littered about, yet in an elegant way as though as restaurant was about to debut it's grand opening.

"Ugh.... This dumb hunter told me she'd be here by three. What's taking her so long?"

She sighed and stared off into the distance, along the skyline of the city, and got lost in thought. She wondered of the kind of people her parents might have been, how they met, and if they were also sensitive in the force like herself. Her thought process was interrupted as another Chiss lady, similiar looking to Tsubake but with a more rugged appearance, stepped out from behind a pillar nearby. Her hair was put up into a ponytail, albeit a messy one, and she wore what looked like jeans and a jacket that was completely unzipped, her bare chest almost completely exposed if not for the strip of clothing running across the middle of her chest like some sort of sports bra. Her facial features would almost be exactly the same as Tsubake's if not for the softly spotted freckles across her face. She had two blaster pistols strapped to her thighs, both sleek in design and model, as a Bounty Hunter of her caliber would carry for precision.

"I take it you're still doing your sith thing so you'd like to be addressed by your silly little tittle, huh?"

She spoke in a smug tone, looking at Tsubake with an uncaring and cold demeanor. Tsubake leaned up and stood out of her seat, angrily slamming both her hands onto the table with open palms.

"You said you'd be here by three! Three! I THOUGHT you were a professional! This information is important to me, and I'll not have some common thug belittle my accomplishments simply because they have something I want!"

The Hunter furrowed her brows at her, raising both her hands up and making an attempt to keep a calm attitude as she responded.

"Woah woah, easy, Your Highness. I've been here a while. I was simply doing my job to secure the perimeter and ensure we were alone is all. I have what you want, and yes, I am a professional at what I do." The hunter narrowed her eyes at Tsubake and continued to speak "Which is why I still honor our agreement, and expect the correct payment for this service."

Tsubake flared her nostrils and crossed her arms, looking off to the side and pouting as she replied "Fine. I'll pay your usual fee and the amount you asked for this information."

The hunter reached into the inside of her jacket pockets, pulling out some pads with holographic images and writing etched onto them, holding them up in one hand for Tsubake to see, before walking over to her and holding out her other hand with an open palm towards Tsubake, obviously expecting some form of payment. Tsubake quickly reached out to try and swipe it away from her, only for the hunter to react by jerking back the pads with the info and glaring at her before speaking in a cold yet stern tone.

"You know the deal. You pay me, then you get what you want."

Tsubake angrily closed the distance between them, her face a few inches away from the Hunter as she blurted out

"I am altering this deal! That information is too valuable to me and I need to verify it's authenticity BEFORE I pay anything to you. I will not be talked down to by the likes of you! I am the one paying here, and all you have to do is hand me some petty files. NOW HAND THEM OVER!"

The Hunter had taken both her tone and demeanor personally insulting, as she glared back at Tsubake and locked her gaze, trying to keep her cool and deciding she'd give Tsubake one last chance to be civil. The hunter responded in an increasingly stern tone, but still managed to sound cold and unfeeling.

"This is not a path you want to tread on, Lord Lady of the Sith. I am not your enemy, and you do not want to test me. I suggest you honor our deal, much like I have been while I've been working under y-"

She was immediately cut off, as Tsubake decided she wasn't having any more backtalk from the hunter, and promptly lifted her cybernetic hand into a cupping gesture, using the force to lift The hunter off her feet and choke her. The hunter dropped the pads and grasped at her throat, gasping for air, as she struggled to speak. Tsubake kept a steady grip on her, not enough to injure, but simply to cause a great deal of pain and close of just enough air so that she'd remain conscious and still have difficulty breathing. Tsubake spoke to her as she continued to struggle

"Now you listen here, you mercenary excuse for a warrior! I EARNED my right to my tittle! I fought to get where I am today, and I will not have my reputation or status sullied by the likes of you! You are NOTHING to me, and-"

As Tsubake spoke, The hunter managed to get a word out through her ragged gasps and strained breathing

"Fontana", she spoke, as it was met with a beep from her right blaster pistol, signaling the voice command was accepted, and she threw up her leg at the same moment. Her weapon fired while in the holster, the blaster bolt spewing out of the bottom and grazing Tsubake on the arm she was holding up the hunter with. The sudden hit had caused her to drop the Hunter, who had immediately kicked the table off to the side and flung her wrist out towards Tsubake's belt. A swift little magnetic dome-like metal object, attached to a metal wire, flew out of the cuffs of her wrist as it attached itself to Tsubake's Lightsaber. The hunter pulled Tsubake's weapon off of her belt and threw it over the edge of the balcony, before Tsubake could reach for it. Tsubake however, was not feeling very inclined to allow herself to be disarmed, as she threw out her hand over the edge of the balcony and reached out to retrieve her blade with the force, only to be met with a paralyzing shock from below the edge. A trap had been sprung, and below Tsubake, on the very outer walls of that balcony, had been a few small makeshift turrets attached in a half circular pattern, all pointed up at her. They had activated via motion sensor and promptly riddled her arm with needles, carrying a paralyzing toxin, causing her to stumble backwards and fall flat on her back. The Hunter loomed over her, an unamused expression on her face as she grabbed Tsubake by the scruff of her collar and dragged her back away from the balcony edge and pinned her against a wall. She glared at Tsubake, who was now both fearful and still quite angry, as she spoke

"You arrogant fool! You really think I'd walk in here and not have at least four different ways to end your life if you decided to turn on me?! I expected you to at least be one of the good ones, but you know what? My patience AND my compassion for you has run dry!"

She dropped Tsubake and walked over to pick up the pads with the information, lifting them up and tossing them at her with disdain. The hunter gave her a sinister look before she continued speaking

"You wanna know your past huh? Well how about I tell you the truth! These are false documents! You never had any parents, your life is A LIE! You're not even a real person!"

Tsubake's expression grew more and more fearful by the second, her confusion being very visible on her face as she replied

"Wha-...No what do you mean?! My parents died in-"

The hunter interrupted her, shouting over Tsubake and continuing to reveal more to her

"Your parents never existed! It was all a fabrication to hide who you really are! Did it not ever occur to you how strange it was, that there was never any record of any ship called The "Archemedes Bane"? Or how you can't even recall anything before the academy?"

Tsubake had felt her heart sink, her mind raced, and her eyes darted every which way across the room to avoid The Hunter's gaze. The hunter kept speaking, as she slowly approached Tsubake.

"You're nothing but the by-product of a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and the insatiable lust to live forever! You're a clone, same as me! Your memories were implanted to ensure you'd never question it and to spread her insane legacy across the stars!"

She stood over Tsubake, looking down at her with disgust and contempt, as tears streamed down Tsubake's face while Tsubake repeated over and over to herself out loud "I'm real! I'm real!"

The hunter leaned down close to her and continued to speak, using a lower tone but making it obvious she was in charge

"You're not even the first clone. You're number twenty three, out of roughly seventy. I was hoping you were one of the good ones, but I can see you're nothing more than a shadow of that genocidal maniac."

Tsubake pulled her legs up and backed into the wall, curling up into a fetal position against the wall and trembling. Incoherent murmuring could be heard as she sobbed, muffled by her legs. The hunter simply leaned in and whispered in her ear.

"You're not a real person."
Tsubake suddenly unleashed a massive burst of the force, springing up onto her feet and throwing much of the furniture, as well as the hunter herself, off the balcony. The walls and some pillars had crumbled beneath the pulsation that ebbed outwards from her, causing a great deal of it to also propel outwards. Tsubake dropped to her knees and shouted at the top of her lungs, the makeshift crater surrounding her, crumbling slightly and the very dynamics of the stone under her legs shifting in and out of place. She screeched as loud as she could, emptying her lungs out and releasing her anger and frustrations outwards into pulsations of the force, as they gradually grew smaller and smaller. Soon she was just kneeling in an almost perfect sphere of ashen stone, carved away by her fury in the force she released, and silently staring out at the city. Her mind was still racing, and her voice no longer functioned enough for her to speak. As she stared off into the horizon, she started whispering to herself, repeating the same thing over and over.

"I'm real."