underbelly

@Vyctor X. When Naalo had first arrived on Teccypso, a literal dead man walking, he naturally gravitated towards the seedier areas of the station. The Underbelly was a place people went to not be seen or heard and many of them died there just as discretely as they came, tossed into the murky runoff from the all the machinery keeping the hunk of junk in orbit. At only the age of eighteen with no other life experiences to go off of except for survival and combat, the pop up underground fight rings and questionable work as hired muscle was how he managed to feed himself before he realized there was another path. Now, as a cop, one might think that this den of iniquity was the last place Naalo would willingly return to, but this was also the only place some of his contacts would talk to him. The risk to life and limb had to be equal.

There was an odd sense of nostalgia (or perhaps that nervous turn of his stomach bordering on nausea was dread. So often they were synonymous for Naalo) as he walked into the crowded fight club. He stopped to throw a couple of bets down on the matches before moving back to the table to meet one of his frequent rollers. They didn't get to business right away, the man intently watching the fights and animatedly chittering about who his favorite slugger was. Naalo had learned to not rush him to get what he wanted and to slowly nurse whatever drinks he'd ordered for the table. It was just as the man was getting to what he /actually/ wanted to know when a sudden caw of laughter interrupted his informant's words and a big, meaty paw clapped Naalo on the shoulder.

"Would y'look a'that! Reminds me o'you in your prime. S'why I put me coin on him. He'll come back! Y'just watch!" The old Nugantu insisted and drew Naalo's gaze toward the pair in the ring, his eyes flashing gold in the low light as he took in the sight of the one who had just been knocked against the cage. Thraicid defectors weren't necessarily uncommon on Teccypso, since they didn't really have anywhere else in the galaxy that would accept them, and Naalo was thankful none of them had posed him any threat. Until now. If the cheers and boos from the crowd hadn't been enough to deafen his informant's questions then the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears was as Naalo rose up from his chair so quickly that it rocked on the rickety legs and clattered to the floor. There were many scenarios which the cop had mentally prepared for in which he would have to make a quick escape, but this was not one of them. Naalo shoved his way through the sea of bodies toward the door and barreled into it shoulder first, sending it flying back on its hinges to smack the outer wall. Then he ran...

@Naalo'yul Z. Xan moved with the practiced flow of someone who lived battle, with deadly grace. Find the weak point and strike fast... In most cases these days, it wasn’t life or death anymore (a plus if you asked him), but the instinct to fight like someone would kill him given the chance was hard to quell. Even in a cage match, with an enraptured audience, it wasn’t unheard of for someone desperate enough to pull a knife or fight with scrap metal between their fingers. Xan had a few new scars and even less faith in the honor of thieves from that kind of thing.

This fight, however, was fairly average. His opponent was fast and strong enough to keep him on his toes, but nothing he couldn’t handle for a few more rounds to really rack up the betting pool. It was about round 5 when a punch caught him in the jaw and sent him reeling back against the chainlink fence of the cage. For a moment, Xan got a chance to look at the crowd and one of the onlookers caught his attention. A thraicid… that he knew and knew shouldn’t be standing there. Maybe the hit had rattled something in his brain, but when he blinked… the burly man was still standing there and it made his blood boil.

The radiation was getting worse in the dregs. Silar and his team had done their best to get the youngest children and elders to the higher levels (closer to the main floors) for more fresh oxygen. But even with constructions in full swing, not everyone could be moved in at the same time. Painful pustules were showing on some on many of the older folk. Hand-foot-mouth disease and a pox of sorts was going around the orphans. Even with scraps and working his off, Silar didn’t have enough money or rations to provide medical care. He got Johnston, a boy close to his age to start studying medicine with stolen books and archives, but it wouldn’t be fast enough.
So, Silar broke his own code; he went alone to the underbelly for resources. It was dangerous enough as a tecc with thin bones and lungs, let alone the dark horizon practically owning the yard. But they needed more metal for oxygen tanks, and parts to sell for credit.
Slipping down in all black (clothes painted with dirt), Silar blended in with the shadows as he kept quiet, moving along the walls till he felt and heard nothing, which he then walked to the edge of the platform before sliding into the mucky water, swimming to the first box he saw, treading water as he inspected each peices of debris, and put recognizable or morphable parts into his pouch tied to his back. With his bare muscle he took tops or soaked parts of containers off and looked into it for findings, rummaging through as softly as possible.