Another body clipped the back of his chair, causing his whiskey to spill as he raised it in a dramatic gesture. Jon exhaled in a huff, letting the slosh of alcohol add effect to his drunken demeanor, even if he hadn't intended to start spilling his drink just yet; it was good bloody scotch, after all. He also tried not to let any annoyance rise at being jostled for the twenty-somethingth time. The drifter was used to packed spaces. But the thing was, when there was only one bar on an entire scrapball planet, and a whole bunch of pirates, smugglers, and skalliwags of all kinds flocking to it so that standing room only was a joke, it got a bit more claustrophobic.
And he had to keep shouting to tell his stories. But such was the life.
"...so there I was, chased to the ice caves of H-- hic! Hoth. By this relentless Sith!" The Mirialan had actually claimed to be trying to help Jon, not turn him in to one of his maaany Hutt bounties, but these Shroud folks didn't need to know that. "He said he was going to cook me alive with his lightning..."
"That a euphemism?" one of the other sabaac players asked, scratching a pinkie inside his porcine ear.
"No, they really shoot lightning, I seen it," growled another, a Bothan with Crimson Hound tattoos. There were hundreds of gangs on the Godless Matron alone, nevermind the rest of the Syndicate. Jon just needed to get in good with a few of them and get some friends set up here on Nancora, now that the Herald had taken a new interest in it. That information would go back to Odan-Urr, and keep his Consul better appraised than if Jon was back on Kiast, wearing his nobleman skin and rubbing elbows with increasingly desperate Vatali nobles.
"Where did you see it?" deadpanned another as he tossed his ante into the pot. It was about time for Jon to start losing more hands, and getting "drunker." He just needed to--
Someone bumped his chair again, this time hard enough to topple the man. The spacer hit the mysteriously sticky floor with a grunt, hat flying off his head, and of course nobody so much as stopped to help him up. He only got his fingers stomped on and snarled at for being in the way. Yelling back for show, thr Human climbed back to his feet and wiped his hands on his trousers, hoping it was drink and not piss that was so damn sticky on his skin, and turned to pick up his hat.
Only it wasn't there.
Stiffening, he looked around harder, the dim confines and flashing lights and jostling bodies a whole new deterrent that had been perfectly homey seconds before. Still, nothing. If someone had stepped on it, he would--
"...time for a new fight! Who's up next? Betting starts now!" came the typical jeering from the holoscreens broadcasting the backrooms above. Jon'a eyes barely passed over them before snapping back.
There!
His hat was there. On his own head. In the bloody ring.
Someone looking just like him was stepping in. Wearing his hat. Waving and winking at the cams.
What the kark?
It had to be some kind of trap or something. But they had his hat. And Jon couldn't let that go.
He tossed his chits down and ran for the backroom, slipping through packed bodies and pushing past pirates.
"I'm in!" he said to the bouncer, announcer, whoever the Enforcer running the show was. The man did a double take, looking into the enclosed ring then back at Jon, and guffawed.
"What's this, a gimmick? Alright, sure. Guy kicks his own ass. Ante up. Five hundred cred."
Jon emptied his pockets and stepped inside. Only when the gate closed behind him did the reality of the tight confines really begin to close in. He didn't have his lightsaber. He didn't even have Artemis here to call-- the ion storms had made his droid feel sick when they landed. There was nowhere to even duck for cover and get a shot off. The cistern was barely big enough to run across.
And whoever was in here was, what, wearing a mask of him?
"Oh!" said imposter crowed as the lights flashed and mechanics whirred underfoot. The Shroud gangster started counting down while counting bets. The noise projected in was roaring, speculative, booing, laughing. "Oh, shite, hey, mate. Well isn't this just tickling? Didn't think you'd notice."
"You stole my hat."
"It's a fun hat. I got a collection going. Tell you what, you can have it back, if you win."
Jon's hand settled on his pistol. Six shoots, he thought. The rounds wouldn't have the distance here to gain maximum velocity, but he could still shoot.
"Why don't you just give it to me now, and we can have a chat? Maybe a drink?" Even from here, he could smell the booze on the imposter. They were practically bathed in it. His own face gave a smile back at him that just kept going and going, splitting his skull into a toothy, grinning maw.
"Mmmmm...no. I think today, I wanna play, so hey, what do you say?" Pressure built behind Jon's eyes, a growing headache. His doppler cackled, the smile splitting down their throat now, like some opening carnivorous plant. "Bring it on, won't you, Jon?"
That's what the headache was: they were in his head. A Force-User. The Odanite locked his jaw and focused, pushing away all the noise until it was just him and a star map, a clear plane. His opponent frowned, the maw inverting, tone pouting.
"Is that a no? Don't be so."
"Fine. I'll ante up." His thumb spun the barrel. The lights flashed again, warning. Ready.
"FIGHT!" roared the announcer.
His arm whipped up, and Jon cracked off a shot. Five. The mini-rocket whistled as it exploded across the ring, directly into his target, who hadn't even tried to dodge. The arm his shot was embedded in was no longer humanoid; in a flash and twist of something Dark and seething even to Jon's green senses, it had become something thicker, stronger, monstrous. It lowered from its crossed blocking position over not-Jon and flexed a three-fingered, taloned hand the size of his torso.
The other laughed. Then they swung that massive arm, burying claws into steel with a shriek, and ripped out one of the floor tiles in a spit of wires and disembodied metal arms. Sparks flew seconds before the whole panel came flying right at Jon, thrown like a disc, aimed for his head.
