Gatekeeper Myst Part 2

Myst dove behind the starship and tried to avoid screaming as he banged his bad knee on the ground in his frantic attempt to avoid getting shot by the last two stormtroopers that had chased him down the hallway trying to kill him. ‘I’m bringing grenades next time.’ He was really happy that he hadn’t tried to use lightsaber to start with because he’d probably already be dead. He was just glad that the rest of the enemies he’d been hunting down had been unarmed droids or he might have had more of a problem. 

The worst part for his ego was that he was fairly sure the guys he’d been shooting at were the rejects of the imperial army because he was still alive. It didn’t say much about a couple of professional soldiers when they couldn’t kill an out of shape writer that hadn’t done any proper combat training in at least twenty years and very little for the last ten. “Parley?”

“Die rebel scum!” one of the stormtroopers shouted.

‘Probably,’ Myst admitted to himself as he tried to think about something other than the pain in his knee. He glanced at the glowing blue panel that boosted his attack near the edge of the starfighter he was using for cover. ‘Let’s hope this helps.’ He tossed his canteen toward one of the other ships then dashed for the panel.

He winced as his knee buckled and he took a tumble. He tried to ignore the spike of fear as he opened fire in the general direction of the stormtroopers from his spot on the ground. He briefly considered saying a prayer to the patron saint of lost causes as he managed to hit the first stormtrooper in the neck after several shots bounced off the trooper’s armor without doing any appreciable damage.

Myst tossed himself back behind cover as best he could as he heard something bouncing his way that sounded suspiciously like a grenade. He scrambled around the ship as the grenade exploded, barely managing to avoid the shrapnel. He brought his blaster up and held down the trigger as he pointed his blaster in the stormtrooper’s general direction.

Myst grimaced as one of his wild shots managed to hit the trooper in the groin as the man turned to gun him down. “At least nut shots work,” he muttered as glanced at the base panel ten yards or so behind him. He flexed his right knee and winced at the pain, he’d certainly hit something at the wrong angle. ‘Screw dragging him, I can always try again once it doesn’t hurt to move.’

Myst shot the incapacitated soldier twice in the head to make sure he didn’t recover and shoot him in the back when he went looking for the rest of the droids. He shivered slightly as the man faded and he found himself in a different and slightly smaller hangar filled with ships and repair droids. He glanced down at the base panel he was standing on then glanced around at the brightly colored panels to see if anything might be useful. His smile went almost manic when he realized the green panels granted regeneration while you were standing on them.

He quickly hobbled over to the nearest green panel as he worked on shooting the droids heading in his direction. He sighed in relief as the pain in his leg vanished between one second and the next as the panel’s healing energies washed over him like a hot shower on a cold day. He did his best to ignore the weird sensation coming from his mouth and right leg as he worked on shooting the droids.

Myst scowled as something pressed into his gums then dropped into his mouth as he tried to finish off the last couple repair droids before they could reach him. He shifted his weight to his left leg as his right knee tried to give out completely. He shot the last droid then took off his helmet and spit the junk in his mouth into his hand. He stared at the three bits of ceramic like material in disbelief. “Fillings? What the hell?”

He scanned the area to make sure it was clear of droids and people then took off his glove and felt his teeth, everything seemed fine as far as he could tell which meant that his teeth had probably regenerated and pushed the fillings out. “Hell yeah… shit!” He quickly loosened the straps on his greeves so he could sit down and pull his pants off as he felt something on the inside of his leg being pushed out. Thankfully it wasn’t overly painful just weird and more than a little unnerving as the metal and plastic was pushed out of his leg like the skin was water.

“Creepy as hell…” he trailed off as his artificial knee fell to the ground with a clatter in the otherwise silent hangar. He flexed his right leg, ecstatic to find that it worked better than it had in almost twenty years. “Magic… glorious fucking magic!” He started laughing as he realized he might actually survive his Item World trip.

“Screw the Force, I have magic!” Myst said gleefully as he put his pants and greaves back on and stood up, feeling better than he’d felt in years. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the waves of healing energy for a second then he opened his eyes and stepped off the platform. “Better than coffee...” he trailed off as one of the doors to the hangar opened and a rather attractive human female technician walked through the doorway holding a wrench. “Parley?” he asked hopefully as he looked at the attractive girl with brown hair.

“Imperial scum!” the mechanic shouted as she charged Myst.

Myst dropped his blaster as he blocked an overhead swing with his armored forearm then grabbed her by her coveralls and rolled backwards as he tossed her onto the base panel. He laughed as he watched her vanish, happy that he’d managed to pull off the throw he hadn’t practiced for a long time. He winced slightly as his arm let him know that he really shouldn’t block heavy wrenches regardless of his armor. He picked up his blaster, walked over to the green panel and smiled as the twinge of pain vanished. “Yeah, certainly my favorite type of geo panel.”

He put his helmet back on then waited another five seconds to make sure he was in perfect health then headed for the door he was assuming led to the rest of the base. He tossed himself back out of the hallway as he saw a young woman dressed in leather pants and a jacket step around the corner with a raised crossbow. ‘Shit!’

Myst ran for the closest starfighter to the base panel and rolled behind it as a crossbow bolt hit the ship half a second after he rolled behind it. ‘Great, this place is going to kill me,’ he thought as he got to his feet. He clipped his blaster to his belt. ‘This better work,’ he complained mentally as he listened to her footsteps get closer. ‘At least they’re direct,’ he thought as he charged toward the base panel. 

He screamed as the girl shot him in the side with her crossbow and the damned bolt went right through his armor, thankfully he was already heading toward the woman so it was easy enough to grab her and sort of stumble in the right direction so that he landed on her and the base panel. He let out another scream as she vanished out from under him and he dropped to the ground, driving the metal bolt further into his side.

“Stupid fucking plan,” Myst grumbled as he worked on half dragging himself and half crawling to the green panel before he bled out. “Fucking hate this level,” he complained as he managed to flop onto the green panel. He sighed in relief as the healing energy washed over him, pushing the bolt out of his side and repairing the injury. He yelped as he got zapped in the ass by an astromech, “Hey!”

Myst pushed himself to his feet even as the astromech zapped him again, thankfully it wasn’t nearly enough electricity to disable him, at least not while he was standing on a regeneration panel and wearing decent boots with rubber soles. He shoved the droid as hard as he could then reached for his blaster only to stop as the droid actually went over backwards much to his surprise and amusement. 

“Not nearly as satisfying as knocking over a fucking Dalek but I’ll take it,” Myst muttered as he grabbed the droid’s ‘leg’ and started dragging the droid toward the base panel, doing his best to ignore the droid’s angry sounding beeping and whistles. He smirked as he rolled the droid onto the base panel despite the droid’s attempts to ‘right’ itself. “At least they’re nowhere near as heavy as they would be if they were made out of steel.”

He grabbed his blaster and made his way back toward the green panel as he saw several repair droids file into the room and head his direction. He pointed his blaster at the droids and opened fire, not stopping until he’d managed to destroy the three droids. He frowned as he glanced at the ammo display on the side of the blaster. “This would be easier if I could read the display.”

He made a mental note to talk to someone about teaching him the symbols for the numbers then brought his blaster up and waited for the droids he knew were coming. 

0o0o0

Myst waited until the large mechanic charged out into the hangar then shot him several times until the mechanic vanished as did his surroundings. He blinked as he found himself in a bright hellish looking desert town complete with several merchant stalls and merchants that didn’t seem to be jumping to attack him, it was a little bit bit disconcerting. ‘Looks like Tatooine,’ he thought, not that he knew of any other desert planets in Star Wars. 

Reaching for his belt to grab his canteen so he could see what they’d give him for it, his hand hit a second blaster which caused him to blink and look at his shiny new and unexpected weapon. ‘Okay, what the hell? Did someone reverse pickpocket me? Is that even a thing?’ He looked the blaster over then put it back on his belt. “Probably an end of level thing…” he trailed off as he wondered if he’d gotten anything from the first level. He quickly checked his belt pouch and found a large number of silver coins that hadn’t been there before he’d jumped into the Item World.

“Huh, I must get something every level, neat.” He walked over to look at the nearest merchant stall that was ran by a toydarian. He kept part of his attention on the merchant as he looked over the man’s merchandise. Sadly it was mostly parts for various speeders and engine bits or at least that was what it looked like as he didn’t really have a clue what most of them were for.

“What’s your pleasure, human?” the merchant asked.

“How much to repair armor?”

The toydarian looked at the hole in the armor then said, “Twenty silver.”

“Deal,” Myst said knowing he could afford it and that the money wouldn’t do him any good if something killed him before he could escape the Item World. He took his helmet and chest piece off then handed the chest piece to the Toydarian as well as twenty silver coins. He grinned slightly as he saw a roll of wire on the table and a pair of used wire cutters. ‘That might help for making traps.’ He moved the wire and cutters to an empty section of the table then grabbed the roll of stuff that looked remarkably like duct tape with a snicker. ‘There isn’t much enough duct tape can’t fix.’

The toydarian finished fixing the armor. “There you go, as good as new.”

Myst looked at the chest armor, a little surprised that he couldn’t tell that it had even been damaged. “How much for the wire, cutters and tape?”

“Five silver,” the toydarian said eagerly. 

Myst handed over the coins then put his purchases in his pouch. “I need some grenades, do you know anyone that sells them?”

“I have a cousin, just down the way,” the winged alien pointed off to the right.

“Thank you, pleasure doing business with you,” Myst replied as he glanced at the various humans and aliens walking around the marketplace. ‘At least they’re not attacking.’ He put his armor back on and was a touch surprised to find it fit perfectly. ‘I could get used to this.’

Myst grinned as he looked over the stall next to the toydarian’s stall. He looked over over the strange and alien produce, and spotted something he was almost positive was a xenomorph egg. ‘Fuck that,’ he thought as he walked to the next stall, wanting nothing to do with alien plants if he could help it.

The next stall proved to be a scattered collection of knives, vibroblades and even a bowcaster. He looked at the price tag on the bowcaster, it had a lot of symbols, certainly more than he had on him. He sighed as he turned his attention to the much smaller line of symbols beneath the deadly looking vibroblades. “How much for this one?”

“It saysss it on the ta-ag hu-man,” the reptilian alien lisped.

“I was just wondering about a possible discount,” Myst lied, not wanting to admit he couldn’t read the local writing, as he was sure to get cheated if the merchant knew that. “Give me ten percent off and I’ll take it off your hands right now.”

“No, the pricess iss 13 ssilver solid, no dealss,” the lizard hissed firmly.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” Myst replied as he paid the man and took the knife, knowing he needed something for close up work. He walked to the next booth that was run by another toydarian. “Explosives…” He looked over the collection of explosives with a grin. “So, tell me about your explosives, I need to set some traps.”

“Ah, a man after my own heart. You has coin, right?”

“Yes,” Myst replied with amusement. “Give me the best price you can and you’ll have lots of coins.”

“Excellent. Why run down the pray when you can blow them to smithereens and cook the remains,” the alien said excitedly. “Revenge and lunch!”

‘Someone isn’t all there,’ Myst thought to himself as the alien launched into a fairly practical, enthusiastic and imaginative tutorial on how to use the explosive devices.

Myst left the stall with a spring in his step, a backpack filled with various types of explosives, and a lot less coins in his belt pouch. ‘Easy come, easy go.’ He glanced around then continued looking over the various stalls. He paused as he noticed the twi'lek girls that were apparently being sold in one of the stalls. ‘Ah, right, Star Wars.’ He frowned slightly as he turned his attention to the jawwa behind the next counter selling odds and ends, including a pair of what looked like rocket boots, with some suspicious looking stains that he was sure was blood. ‘Even if I could afford that, not happening.’

He took a quick look at the rest of the jawa’s stuff then continued walking. He glanced at the scantily clad slave girls as he walked past, taking note of the six heavily armed guards the greasy looking man behind the counter had and decided there was no point risking his life for people that weren’t even real. He knew it was a little callus but he wouldn’t be able to help anyone if he ended up dead.

He blinked as he walked a few feet past the stall which happened to be the last stall over to a gap in the wall. ‘Looks like it goes out into the desert. I’m nearly out of coins anyways, might as well take a look at what I can find.’ He glanced through the gap to make sure nothing was waiting for him then stepped through only to twitch as he found himself on a base panel with a solid wall behind him. ‘Great…’ he trailed off as he saw a bunch of tusken raiders in the distance start shooting in his general direction. He quickly glanced around then lunged for the green panel that granted invincibility this time. He laughed as a bullet bounced off his armor without leaving a mark.

“Bring it!” he shouted as he brought his blaster up and started shooting at the aliens, content to stay on the panel that granted him invincibility until all of the aliens were dead. He briefly considered trying to toss one of the sand people onto the base panel then realized they weren’t worth dealing with. 'Maybe if I find a jawa wandering around…” he trailed off as he finished destroying the aliens and a cloaked figure burst out of the sand and ran at him in a sort of clumsy loping charge, the damned thing looked exactly like Jar Jar Binks. “Jar Jar?”

“Messuh gonna kill you!” the alien shouted as he tossed a grenade at Myst while charging across the sand toward him.

Myst quickly moved the blaster to his left hand then caught the grenade with his right. He pushed the button to arm it then tossed it back to the alien as he shouted, “Catch!” He stared in disbelief as the Gungan caught the grenade and held it up proudly a second before the grenade exploded and turned him into chunky salsa. “I need a pensieve.” 

Myst smiled slightly as he went back to shooting the next group of sand raiders that came around the corner of the wall and started shooting at him. He had to resist the urge to shout, ‘I’m invincible!’ as he worked on shooting the rest of the aliens.