Dubrillion

[Qaela]

After resting for a time, Qaela felt better. She got up, showered, and put on a simple black jumpsuit and hardened leather boots. When she was presentable, she went into the galley to address her grumbling stomach. Unfortunately, whatever fresh things she had there had long since expired. With a lip curled in disgust, she threw the fruits and vegetables into the incinerator and rummaged through the freezer and sealed foods in her pantry. There wasn't much that was tasty, but she had several high protein ration bars that would restore her strength without a problem. Taste was always a luxury to her, so she didn't mind the bland flavors.

 

Once that was done, she went to the small armory and pulled out a blaster pistol, a single frag grenade, and a small thermal detonator. Almost everything she had was taken from various marks or people who had tried to kill her, but she was no Jedi and didn't mind using stolen stuff. With a smile, she gently took off something Ca'Aran had identified as a Morgukai cortosis staff. She enjoyed the small spear like staff with its multiple ways to kill and its defense against a lightsaber. It had been a long time since she had held it, but perhaps it was a good time to start once more. It was a lot easier to carry around than her full spear, plus it had the added benefit of being able to cut through things and discharge an electrical pulse. The last thing she grabbed was the two vials she had spent so much energy creating.

 

When she was finally ready, she left her ship and started out to find the others. The guards didn't let her go anywhere unaccompanied, but they didn't seem to stop her. She wasn't sure how they would react if she went somewhere too sensitive, but she only wanted to find Starlisk, Ca'Aran, and the others to see what they had found. Even though her position was vastly better now than it had been just a few days ago, she wasn't going to abandon her search for Faust. She had sensed the danger he posed and wouldn't rest safely until he was destroyed.

[Delta73]

Delta activated his comm link. "Get Nath Corun on the line. His Drug has been used by Faust." He cocked his head to the side, listening to the response. "You heard me, recall the damn thing and get me a chemical property result on my desk at once. No I do not care that he is at his daughter's dance recital. Work comes first. Cat's in the cradle and all that." He closed his eyes and listened to the response.

 

He turned to the Jedi Master, "Starlisk, a full detailed report of the chemical formulae will be arriving shortly to your datapad. The drug is getting recalled best we can, but much of it has been passed off already. Do not worry however. We will purge it from the market, users and all. We should inform the Witch what you have found."

 

A young girl arrived at the side of Qaela and brought her to the data centre. Where the rest of the party was waiting.....

[Onderin Starlisk]

Onderin nodded approvingly at Delta. It was a good step to take against Faust, even if it wouldn't completely stop his plans.

 

Meanwhile, he had felt some pretty strange things from Qaela through the Force, and made a note to ask her about them when they got a minute. It seemed that for the moment Delta was having her brought to them to fill her in, so for now he just waited. Once he was back at the shuttle, he could start sending the necessary communications out to the planetary governments that were on the list. He hoped he still had enough credibility for the warning to be taken seriously.

[Qaela]

Qaela was surprised to see a young girl in a place such as this, but the guards didn't seem to pay her any heed. Her Force senses didn't pick up any threats or anything out of the ordinary from the girl, so she followed her. The two of them and their armed shadows eventually arrived at a massive data terminal station. She hadn't seen anything this large since being in the Sith Temple on Coruscant, but data wasn't her concern now. While Black Sun undoubtedly had many interesting secrets, it was less likely they had any knowledge she sought. That information was possibly lost when the Sith Temple fell, though perhaps someone still had those records backed up somewhere. If they did, she didn't have access to them and would have to do with the Nightsister grimoires she had recovered on board her ship. With those, at least, she would be able to come into complete mastery of many areas of the darker sides of the Force.

 

When they reached the Jedi and Ca'Aran, Qaela waited patiently to see how they were doing. Now that she had her ship back and things were beginning to go her way, she was in a pretty good mood. There was some trepidation over how her recent spellcasting would work out, but she had the comfort of knowing a lot would be settled one way or another. Until then, she would wait to see if the Jedi found what they needed in the time she was gone.

[Onderin Starlisk]

"Qaela," Onderin greeted her as she was brought to their location. "I've learned of a dark side alchemical substance called RAGE which Black Sun was distributing to various worlds for Faust. The Vigo here is retrieving what additional information he can about the substance while recalling what shipments are possible. I believe that it is linked to the rituals that Faust is performing, and that you might have the knowledge to gain additional insight if you could study it." Unless he was mistaken, the Nightsisters knew quite a bit about dark side alchemy, even if the Sith version wasn't going to be quite the same.

 

"Unfortunately, all we really have beyond that is a list of planets where the substance was delivered..." His voice trailed off, but then his comm beeped. "Pardon me a moment," he said, stepping off to the side to take the call.

 

A minute later he returned. "I've just received a tip that there is something going on over Iziz which seems to relate to Faust or his followers. I think we should go there and see if we can pick up the trail."

[DarthBrendo]

Black was burying himself, figuratively, inside the archive room, looking at records relating to himself and his past involvement with Black Sun, and attempting to process it all. He wasn't having much luck though and was becoming quite confused with it all, and thus was relieved when his guide approached and caught his attention, letting him know that his companions were all gathered back together.

 

Black followed his guide absentmindedly through the Black Sun complex and caught Onderin telling the others that they needed to go to Faust, as that appeared to be where this Faust fellow was.

 

"Iziz? Never heard of it. Will it be in the navicomputer in my ship?"

[Qaela]

Qaela eyed Starlisk for a few seconds before slowly saying, "I was not the most powerful in that area, but I am not without knowledge. If you can provide me with a decent quantity of the substance, I can see if I can't find something about it while we travel to this Iziz place." She hadn't heard of such a planet, but she hoped it wasn't one of those places where people blew themselves up or beheaded people for one crazy religion or another. She didn't tolerate such stupidity very well and it would be a shame to unleash her frustration on a crowd of them in front of the Jedi.

[Delta73]

Delta frowned and listened to the words of the esteemed jedi master. "Would you like to take something more powerful to Iziz? Something like my corvette? Qaela knows the one, it was used extensively during the events at Naboo and Cloud City....Though I am sure there are some galactic rules against such a thing....But you being a jedi.....It might help?" He laughed and talked to one of the many aides standing about. "Prepare a force large enough to take a city!"

 

((Sorry I was not able to connect to jedi.net!))

[Onderin Starlisk]

((We'd better move.))

 

"We shouldn't need an invasion force... but then we don't know what we're up against," Onderin said. "The shuttle we came in should be fine for Ads, Arleigh and myself. I assume Qaela and Black will want to take their own ships." Qaela would, of course, have even more freedom to leave whenever she wanted now that she had her vessel back, but she'd always had that option and he anticipated she would see this through. The threat posed by Faust was equally felt by all.

 

His commlink buzzed again. This time it a short text-based message showed up on the screen: CHECK THE HOLONET. TRIPLE ZERO UNDER ATTACK.

 

"Change of plans," he announced. "We're heading to Coruscant."

 

So saying, he gestured for Ads and Arleigh to follow him and made haste back to their shuttle. As soon as he was aboard, he got departure clearance and took off. On their way toward deep space, he drafted a message to be sent out to all the planetary governments that were on the list of those who had received RAGE shipments. As soon as they hit hyperspace, he tuned into the holonet to see just what Faust was up to.

[Qaela]

Whatever message Starlisk picked up, it must have been serious because he quickly scrambled away for his shuttle without waiting for the others. It was a good thing, Qaela decided. It seemed he picked up something serious and the uncertainty was gone. They had spent too long flailing blindly, now they were to hopefully take action.

 

She looked over to Ca'Aran. "We may find use for your armies. My ship is open to you if you wish to make the journey to Coruscant with me. If not, I will fall in behind your forces." She gave him an almost coy smile and turned to go back to her ship. The two vials she had laboriously crafted could wait, especially if this was Faust's final move. She couldn't figure any other reason for Starlisk rushing off to Coruscant other than that Faust was there and she couldn't see any other reason for Faust to be there unless this was his final move.

 

She moved quickly to her ship, but not so quickly that Ca'Aran couldn't catch up. It would take a little time to warm up the engines after such long inactivity. Once they were ready, she would take off and join Starlisk. The ship she had wasn't a warship, but it would get her where she needed and with a more helpful arsenal than she had possessed in her small satchel of things brought from Dathomir.

[DarthBrendo]

Black moved with the rest of the group, back towards the hangar bay and after entering the cockpit, and maneuvering the ship, set the navicomputer towards Coruscant. He didn't know what message Starlisk had received, but it must have been something insidious based on his reaction. Black wrapped his hands around the hyperspace lever, and sent his ship, with a faint flicker of pseudomotion, into the star-streaked realms of lightspeed.

[Delta73]

Ca'Aran followed Qaela at distance of a few feet. Speaking into his commlink. "I will follow you to whatever end Qaela, you know that." As they boarded Qaela's vessel the sound of countless engines spooling up could be heard. Delta ushered his guard inside the ramp and went to stand beside Qaela at the forward prow. "So Black Sun returned to Coruscant, not to enslave, but to liberate. How the times have changed us all." He let out a bitter laugh and sat down on one of the crash couches. "Plot the course, and the armies will fall in behind."

 

Even then communications were being sent to all undercover agents within the Core to prepare for War.

[Qaela]

"I will follow you to whatever end Qaela, you know that," Ca'Aran said.

 

Qaela hadn't known it, not after meeting him on Coruscant. Those words gave her hope, hope almost enough to drag him away and live as far from hostilities as possible. If she thought that either could escape what Faust was up to, she might have done just that. He needed to be stopped and everyone knew it. She didn't care one lick about the number of people who died, but she did care about what the repercussions of such misuse of the Force would be.

 

"Good to have you aboard," she said with relief on her voice. "If Faust is really here, it is going to be one serious fight and we will need all we can get."

 

She left him to the business of coordinating his own forces while she readied her ship. When it was powered up and the engines hot, she took off and meet with the Black Sun fleet. As soon as her navicomputer calculated the route, she pulled the lever and sent them into hyperspace.

[Vothe Kyrik]

((It's weird because right after Smash nearly destroyed the base, a series of posts take place that just assume it's here again.))

 

A light freighter of the ubiquitous YT-series popped out of hyperspace carrying a duo of Black Sun agents tasked with assessing the state of the long-standing installation on Dubrillion. The base had been through a lot: originally established under Smash Daisaku's command by an operative named Luthis Vandren, it had gone through a series of changes in management over the years. At one point, the entire complex had been leveled by a disgruntled Mandalorian former agent named ShadowFett. Black Sun had rebuilt it, and it had continued service until Smash Daisaku himself had committed suicide here, taking with him most of the upper echelons of Black Sun leadership and dealing substantial damage to the base with a series of EMP blasts.

 

As Vothe brought the ship in for a landing, he performed a sensor sweep to survey the area. It seemed that at least someone had started putting work into restoring the location yet again, but it was very much a work in progress.

 

Hitting the boarding ramp, he gestured to Terra. "After you." He planted the words telepathically in her mind, as his people were known to do, no longer relying upon the spoken word due to being in the presence of Black Sun executives as he had been on Coruscant.

[Terra]

Terra glanced across the vast expanse that had once been the Black Sun Base on Dubrillion, displayed on her holoprojector. The ruins were a dour testament to the wrath of a Suicidal Smash Diasku. She watched through the viewport, her crimson eyes narrowing as the shuttlecraft broke through the cloudlayer to reveal the remains of the base. There was work being done, clearing mossy permacrete and killing squatters. As the boarding ramp lowered, she winced, Vothe's voice projecting within her shattered mind

 

...After You...

 

The sandy-haired girl adjusted the black duster which was only doing a half-decent job at covering her beskar'gam. The filtered Dubrillion sunlight played off her pale skin, causing her serpentine tattoo to gleam a deep garnet, like fire held to a bleeding ruby. Terra stepped down the ramp, spitting a bit of blood from her mouth, staining a pile of crumbled permacrete red. It glimmered like spilled wine, catching the rays of sunlight. Terra's gravely voice was sad and reflective,

 

"Ason had that ability. To speak into the mind. His tortures corrupted my marrow with cancer, it makes them overactive..."

 

The assassin kicked rain of dust over the drying blood with a blackened boot.

 

"Thus the blood. He enjoyed his tortures, and blood-magic was his curse on me. I am Grooting Krath."

 

Terra eyed Vothe with a distant expression of pain

 

"So, what shall we do with these ruins?"

[Vothe Kyrik]

"I can speak if you prefer," Vothe said aloud. He didn't fully understand what had happened between Ason Antilles and Terra, but she did not seem to like being reminded of it, and he could respect that. At least it explained the continuous blood drainage, which still couldn't have been pleasant. "First let us make certain that no one--"

 

"You there!" a voice called out from the direction of the nearest building, which was only about half standing. Two men were emerging from the ruin, brandishing blaster rifles. Wearing garish metal masks and patchwork armor which looked like it had been scavenged one piece at a time from droid parts and bodies of the fallen Black Sun agents who had once guarded this place, their burly figures were tatooed in a way that was no doubt supposed to be intimidating. Vothe found the whole ensemble to be utterly cliché, like something they'd borrowed from a holofilm about a group of raiders living out of the wastes of some backwater world preying on innocents and rival gangs in an endless war for territory and resources. "What do you think you're doing here?"

 

He stepped towards them, his relatively lithe cloaked form seeming unimpressive compared to theirs. "We have come to take back what belongs to us," he said calmly.

 

The two men looked amused, glancing between Vothe and Terra. "You and what ar--"

 

His words caught in his throat as a long silver knife embedded itself there. Vothe moved like a blur, sweeping past the man as he drew the blade back. The second man swore in shock and disbelief as he brought his rifle around to face the Anzat, but a small blaster pistol appeared in Vothe's other hand and made its percussive report. The first shot struck its target on the mask, which absorbed most of the energy but twisted its wearer around, and the second bolt hit him in the back of the head, his body dropping next to the other.

 

"It seems we have vagrants," Vothe said to Terra. "Up for a bit of light sport?"

[Terra]

The young assassin watched the fluidity in Vothe’s movements, the throw of a vibrodagger, the quickdraw of a blaster pistol. The way the shots took down the two vagrants was hauntingly beautiful. She admired the Anzanti’s precision and grace, something she, even as an Echani often lacked. There was a time for grace, and there was a time to use raw power. Moving her duster to the side, she pulled out her assault rifle, thumbing the safety off with one gloved finger.

 

"It seems we have vagrants, up for a bit of light sport?"

 

Terra laughed bitterly, shouldering the rifle as several more of the raiders stepped from the shadows, enraged by the deaths of their friends. She could hear the echoing sounds of screams for reinforcements filtering through the rubble

 

“I’m always up for sport Vothe. You’re up by two…”

 

She squeezed the trigger, letting a bullet fly into the rubble, watching through the scope as the richochet embedded itself into the skull of an emerging vagrant. His enraged expression went blank as the back of his skull, and most of his greasy scalp exploded outwards, carrying with it the minced bits of drug-addled brains. As his body dropped Terra continued

 

“Make that one...”

 

With a wink at Vothe, she stepped forward into the rubble, feeling the permacrete grind against her armored boots, her rifle still shouldered. She put a bullet into the throat of a young woman that jumped from concealment, holding a crude axe. The bullet vacated the girl's throat, tearing a fist-sized hole as it passed. The girl moved forward a few steps before falling into the dust, hands grasping at her throat, her heart pumping her body's blood supply through grasped fingers into the unforgiving dust. Soon the dust and dirt would mix into dark mud.

 

A much younger boy, perhaps twelve standard years old jumped from the dirt, his arms extended in surrender. Terra let a bullet pass through his kneecap, ripping his footing from under him, leaving him screaming in the rubble. The assassin advanced forward, placing a foot against his neck, silencing him. She ground the barrel of her rifle into his forehead, watching as a the heat of the barrel seared into his grimy flesh. She indicated to the blood gushing from his leg with an armored hand

 

"Don't you think it's beautiful? That rosy red that spreads only where the body is wounded. Shall I paint you in that lovely red, little boy?"

 

With a laugh, she pulled the trigger, feeling the warm blood spray onto her pale face and armor. She turned back to Vothe, long drips of blood running down her face, her sharpened teeth displayed in a cruel smile.

 

“Shall we work together or split up?”

[Vothe Kyrik]

Vothe wasn't where Terra expected him to be when she turned to speak to him, seemingly having ghosted into thin air during the time she was savoring her kill of the adolescent. In truth he had bounded forward, gracefully and soundlessly ascending a pile of rubble and leaping to the top of a broken wall. He effortlessly took three steps along the narrow remaining edge of the fractured barrier before dropping down on the far side, landing softly back on his feet behind another squatter who was moving toward the sound of conflict outside. His silvery knife, already streaked with red, thrust forward, rending skin and penetrating muscle until it pierced the man's heart before retreating, twisting as its razor edge cut its path back out.

 

In ceaseless motion, the Anzat appeared to almost float towards a blown-out window as he rolled through it with no momentum lost. Two more targets were on the other side, a male and a female whose spotty clothing and armor seemed to feature form over function. They both pulled weapons on him, no doubt believing they had him dead to rights as there was scant cover aside the very window through which he had passed.

 

But Vothe Kyrik had many tools at his disposal. The Force came to him when he called upon it, and with only a subtle application he adjusted the aim of the man so that when he pulled the trigger, his blast struck his partner in the back at kidney level. She screamed and fell and his face wore a mask of horror and confusion until Vothe erased it with a single shot from his blaster pistol. He swept over to two fallen comrades, the pistol tracking downwards and placing another bolt in the crumpled woman as he passed overhead, his cloak trailing behind him, his hood still raised.

 

More were coming.

[Terra]

Terra breathed out a small sigh into the cold Dubrillion air, the humid air from her lungs causing a small billow of water vapor as it cooled quickly. Naturally the Anzanti wasn’t where she had left him and was undoubtedly running up the score of lives taken. The air was cold upon her bleeding lips as she spoke

 

“I suppose we’re not going to tag-team these meatbags then…”

 

A vision from her days working alongside the great Lord Ar-Pharazon came to mind, while they had hunted Kitt Fitt and the annoyingly religious ScorpJediKnight. Saying Tag-Teaming would have undoubtedly elicited a giggle from the Sith Master, but Vothe probably had no such humor. With precision she strapped the assault rifle to her back and scrambled up several meters of fragmented permacrete and twisted rebar.

 

Her hands finding purchase on the crumbled wall of what might have once been an ornate wining and dining chamber, or perhaps a place for Smash to holonet and chill, she scrambled to the rickety parapet. All about her she could see ruined outlines of the Black Sun Fortress of Dubrillion. The destruction of a madman, one she had once respected and tried to emulate. Perhaps it was time to put the memories of him to rest. To turn a page on history.

 

“Where are those kriffing intruders Bell? There was only two of them! They should be dead by now!”

 

Terra glanced down below her perch, following the sound of a guttural male voice, observing four raiders, three males Weequays and a female human. All four were dressed in tattered finery and scraps of Black Sun armor no doubt salvaged from the ruins over the years. The female had tattoos of bright blue, matching her hair and carried a heavy blaster rifle, marred heavily with rust.

 

How Convenient...

 

From her belt, the young assassin fetched her tomahawk, an evilly curved ax of pure black, the serrated vibroedge stained a permanent ruby. In her other hand, the grip of the flechette pistol Sanguis Exhaurire felt sturdy. A chill ran its way up her spine, the Sith-forged weapons were thirsty for blood.

 

You will soon gorge on their lifeblood...

 

As Terra steadied her footing on the crumbling surface, one of the Weequays, with blackened fangs, placed his armored hand over the woman’s stomach, kissing her tenderly on the cheek.

 

“Love you’re in no state to fight... “

 

Terra’s eyes narrowed slightly, a grin spreading over her face

 

She’ll count for two…

 

With the agility stereotypical of her Echani race Terra leapt into the midst of the vagrants letting her fall transform into a roll. Sweeping out with her legs, her armoured boot found purchase with the sinewing knee of one of the Weequays who went down hard with a clatter of curses and mismatched armor. Rising from her roll, Terra squeezed the trigger of the revolver, savoring the weight of the pull, before the kick of the release. Her shot caught the black fanged weequay between his sunken piggish eyes. The hail of explosive darts exploded out of the back of his scaly skull, the white phosphorus catching his black blood aflame, before carrying into the chest of the last standing weequay, driving him to the ground.

 

Terra pivoted to the woman, kicking out her leg to knock the girls ankles together. As the raider tumbled, Terra drove the shimmering blade of her tomahawk into her breastbone. She could feel the blade bite through the light armor before entering flesh, slicing through viscera and bone like Bantha Butter. Pulling on the leather-bound handle she cut down and out of the woman’s ribcage causing a wet gurgle to escape the woman’s lips. Letting the eviscerated corpse fall to the dust, Terra advanced on the two fallen Weequays, who were scrambling to rise from where they had fallen. One was struggling to breath, the flechettes having turned his lungs into Alderanian Cheese, but the other was still very much alive and attempting to escape.

 

Her long steps quickly overcame his crawling and with a gloved hand she grabbed him by his horned scalp, impaling his spine with the vibrating serrations, driving the breath from his lungs. Swinging back the tomahawk she brought it down on his neck, decapitating him, showering the assassin in a gout of black blood. Blinking away the stinging acidity of the blood, Terra stood smiling over the slowly expiring Weequay, slowly drowning in his own blood supply. Opening up her comlink she commed Vothe

 

“Vothe…"

 

A gurgling cry interrupted Terra’s gravely voice

 

“Any sign-"

 

A whimpering exclamation of mercy in Huttese crackled in over the comlink. The girl sighed and the wet sounds of repeated tomahawk blows came forth along with a cacophony of muted screams

 

“Ahem… Any sign of their leader?”

[Vothe Kyrik]

Spinning between a pair of goons, Vothe's knife cut through the axillary artery in one of them and his blaster made its report to drop the other as he answered his comm. "No visual contact yet... but I can smell him," he said. In this case he did not mean literal olfactory sense like a human might use to sniff out a particularly malodorous villain, although he had little doubt that the leader of this gang possessed such a stench given the apparent lack of operable sanisteams in the area. The Anzati instead possessed an additional sense, an ability to detect the quality of an individual's "soup" or "luck", as the concept was commonly translated into Basic. Luck had a way of clinging to very experienced people, highly charismatic or intelligent ones, leaders, and especially powerful Force users. The leader of this gang, however unimpressive it was, seemed to posses some quality of luck, at any rate, enough to remind Vothe that he had not fed in some time.

 

Eager to get a chance to remedy that situation, he darted forward with Force-enhanced speed, leaping clear over another ruined wall and landing gracefully on the far side in the presence of the Vagrant King. The man was huge, over seven feet tall and built like a mountain. He wore a mask that it looked liked had been carved out of an enormous bone and was self-styled to appear Mandalorian in nature. He was missing his entire left arm past the elbow -- instead he had affixed there an enormous circular saw blade upon a durasteel facsimile of an appendage. His armor was more protective and more complete than those of his underlings, more than half of it Imperial stormtrooper armor painted black and etched with patterns, tally marks, and other glyphs of an origin and script unknown to Vothe. In his functional right hand he carried an assault rifle, which he seemed quite capable of wielding with that limb alone. He sat upon an impromptu throne of twisted metal, and at his feet a vicious nek hound snarled.

 

Also of some significance to the scene, Vothe found that the "King" had surrounded himself with six of his associates, each also armed with rifles and various vibroweapons, holed up as though they were prepared to make a stand here against whatever army must have been assailing them. Surely they were prepared for the lone assassin that had just dared to breach their inner sanctum.

 

But they weren't even in the same league as Vothe Kyrik. Another weapon appeared in his hand that he had not thus far drawn. It looked at first to be a metal cylinder about thirty centimeters long, but as he thumbed the activation trigger, a long silver blade of energy sprung forth.

 

One of the raiders swore at the appearance of a lightsaber as the gang opened fire and Vothe started cutting his way through them, deflecting incoming fire in equal parts to making them miss altogether, his hood still not even disturbed, his footfalls still soundless.

[Terra]

Terra’s boots kicked up dust as she sprinted through a deserted corridor, she had heard Vothe’s message, and was eager to join into the coming battle. She had no powers in The Force, any such attunement to its power had been rooted out by Ason and ripped from her mind to make her into his demon, but what she did have was an instinct for warfare. The rubble beneath her feet changed its texture, from crumbled permacrete to shattered stone, sharp and hard.

 

Kriff, I must be nearing the inner sanctum by now…

 

Sunlight filtered through the partially destroyed roof, what would have once been one of a hundred upper floors, the rays of gold coming through in patches, scattering shadows about her. Each footstep brought her further from the light of day, and into the darkness, the corruption of a long destroyed capital of greed and filth. It was only fitting that vagrants and bandits had taken over after Black Sun had moved out.

 

Terra’s crimson eyes picked up the slight tremor of movement as she rounded a corner, coming up behind a middle aged man, lightly armored, running in the same direction she was. Perhaps a reinforcement to defend against whatever Vothe was doing. Without slowing her pace, the young assassin brought up her flechette pistol, squeezing off a round into the man’s lower back. The round shredded through his spine and ribcage, the razorsharp darts eviscerating his liver and kidneys, punching out of his stomach leaving an exit wound the size of a child’s head. As the man collapsed midstep, paralyzed from the waist down, Terra cupped the side of his head in a gloved hand and dashed it into the sharpened stone of the wall as she passed. The stone stained red, leaving a section of his hair stuck to the ragged edges. She skipped over the body and came to a poorly constructed wooden door. Through which filtered light and the sound of battle.

 

Stealth be damned…

 

Keeping her momentum, she lowered her shoulder and barreled through the weakened wood, bursting through it in a hail of splintered wood. Rolling through the momentum, she tangled her legs with a large hentchman, bringing him down in a heap with herself on top of him. He let out a yell of anger, which turned to a gargle as the barrel of Terra’s pistol shattered the few remaining teeth in his mouth before she pulled the trigger, sending his brain and skull into the crumbling stone.

 

Swinging up to an attack stance, Terra’s eyes were drawn to the shimmering silver of Vothe’s lightsaber blade as it spun in a beautifully practiced arc, cutting through henchmen like bantha-butter. The older man’s efficiency at dealing death was a thing of beauty. The serpent's tattoo that wound its way up her neck and onto her pale face, shone maroon in the blade’s light, as did her eyes.

 

Flipping her revolver into its retrieval mode in a fluid motion while whithdrawing one of her vibroswords, shooting a line of liquid cable into the back of one of the retreating henchman, a short Rodian, dragging the screaming Rodian onto her blade. The Rodian’s scream intensified as the vibrosword drove through his shoulderblade, piercing his heart, which ripped itself to shreds on Terra’s blade as it desperately tried to pump his lifeblood. She let his body drop and focused on the Vagrant King. She let two Flechette rounds fly at his kneejoints while her gravelly voice rang out into the clamour

 

“Feel free to vampirize this bastard, Vothe…”

 

She smiled as one of her shots found its mark, ripping through the tall man’s joint, sinew, and muscles, causing him to stumble, finding his leg only hanging to his body by a thread of bleeding flesh. She spoke in Huttese first, letting the sentance flow into basic

 

“U kulle rah doe kankee kung... Go get him Jeedai…”

 

Her last word was emphasized with the dark venom of a gloating demon

[Vothe Kyrik]

Vothe's discerning blade of silver light neatly separated the incoming bolts into the dangerous and the errant, returning the former to their origin and letting past the latter; it cut the unified line of vagrants into disorganized parts; it divided the bodies and their limbs upon its edge. It did all of this in the hands of a being who made the entire fight appear as one rehearsed, a single continuous movement that took into account events that had not yet transpired as the Force allowed him to glimpse into the future.

 

He was in the moment as an empty vessel. He was not pushing himself physically, he was not pumped full of adrenaline. He knew no emotion, caring not about the lives he was ending, feeling not malice nor sorrow nor fear. He simply knew his purpose here and his skills and the Force served him as he moved across the battlefield, unthinking but rather acting according to carefully-honed instinct, riding upon the tides of chaos that swept around him, in his wake leaving pain most keen and death's withering grasp.

 

Terra entered the room and joined the fray, and Vothe registered her words without a thought given to them. He twisted in the middle of a jump, skewering another of his opponents upon his blade and reaching out with his left hand and applying the Force to the Vagrant King. The man fell upon his remaining knee and what was left of his other one, his eyes bulging as he found himself unable to move, all of his life's work amounting to nothing. The chaos had ended and the room fell into silence as Vothe deactivated his lightsaber and approached the being, ripping off his bone mask and looking into the scarred visage that it had concealed, finding there sweat and dirt and terror.

 

Normally appearing human, Vothe revealed a difference between him and the more common, younger race. His cheek flaps opened like maws and his twin proboscises uncoiled, springing across the gap like striking vipers and penetrating deep into the man's nasal passage, then up into his cranial cavity, where it began siphoning out the delectable gray matter there. The man continued to live during the process, completely paralyzed as his blood continued to soak the ground and all sensation slowly faded away, though to the Anzati assassin this was no act of cruelty, but the simple act of meeting his biological needs.

 

The taste was something exquisite, however. Vothe allowed some of his pleasure to radiate off of him telepathically, enough perhaps that Terra could sample it.

[Terra]

Terra watched with demented amusement as the Anzanti Assasin made his approach on the disabled Vagrant King. The light had changed when the silver blade of Vothe’s lightsaber had been extinguished, fading to the shimmering orange of the surrounding torches. The crackle of a fire filled in the silence of the moment, not a sound other than burning wood and a trickle of flowing blood from torn wounds. The Vagrant King was silent in his fall, and through several meters between them, Terra could see the slight tremoring of shoulders indicitive of intense terror. Terra’s nose filled with the smell of tang of ozone and burning flesh, mixing with the copper of the fresh blood spreading upon the ground.

 

The man whom had led these petty thugs was no more than crippled prey before the eyes of the Anzanti. Terra watched the assassin’s movements as he closed the gap between them in a single stride, ripping the mask from the King’s face. Vothe’s body seemed to hold a tension within it beneath his cloaks, a stance Terra had often seen reflected in wild beasts about to strike a finishing blow. It was a primal elegance that fascinated her. She glanced across the scattered and shattered corpses with reflection. Her own kills lay tattered, faces frozen in the absolute terror of coming death, screaming into the void. Vothe’s kills were far more… Clean. Efficient. Without evoking the primacy of slaughter, he had showed her up.

 

Her crimson eyes widened as she watched the sides of Vothe’s cheeks open and the probosci dive deep into the nostrils of the fallen King. The Vagrant’s terror was complete, a living death was far worse than dying to a lightsaber or a hail of flechettes. The man was to die slowly, the grey matter being eaten slowly away, each strike dissolving away memories and emotions as neurons were removed. His face reflected his terror at he watched his own mind dissolve away, as if his whole life had been submerged in acid.

 

The dread and horror that emanated from the man was truly beautiful, but what came to her from Vothe was fully different. She drew close, placing a hand on the back of the dying man’s head, feeling the sweat through tangled black hair. She had to see the panic in his eyes, to watch him fade, to cherish in his death. A warmth echoed into her mind, not formed from within its darkened and shattered realm. She turned to Vothe, feeling his pleasure wash over her like a powerful wave, driving itself into her pale and scarred flesh. She felt a blush rise to her scarred cheeks, mixing into the maroon tattoo. Her voice came soft, with its usual harshness replaced by longing, her hands moving across the vagrant’s head absentmindedly

“From his suffering, a delight is born… Can I taste his wretchedness? I long to savour it, bittersweet between my lips...”

[Vothe Kyrik]

His eyes breaking contact with those of his victim as he continued to drink, Vothe's gaze came to rest upon Terra. There was a deep darkness in that one, a soul twisted by ancient Sith magics. Her emotions were not hidden from her countenance nor from the Force; she seemed to have developed an admiration of him and an envy of the ability he was now demonstrating. An ability that allowed him to feel a physical satisfaction from causing death that perhaps mirrored the psychological pleasure she derived from the act, which he in turn lacked.

 

Perhaps she did not know herself what it was that she sought from him. Vothe was young for his species, but Terra's life was but a blink from the perspective of an Anzat. He could live for centuries or even over a millennium if he managed to keep his skills sharp and find quality luck upon which to consistently feed. Humans were a curiosity at best... and to most of his race they were merely plentiful prey. For the lesser races, to walk beside an Anzat was to walk beside death.

 

And yet he found himself ever so slightly intrigued by her. At the very least he had no reason to alienate her, and she had a proven talent for the taking of lives that he could perhaps refine until she was a potent weapon indeed, in service to Black Sun and to him.

 

He extracted one of his proboscises from the Vagrant King, who made a coughing sound as the appendage cleared his nasal cavity, revealing that he yet clung to life. The proboscis extended quivering toward Terra, a fleshy tube still full of gray matter. "Open your mouth and receive," the vampire told her telepathically, not wishing to vocalize while feeding. "Though you may not find it to your taste."

[Terra]

Terra’s black-gloved hand brushed a lock of long golden hair from her vision, trapping it behind a slightly pointed ear, marred only by a small loop of silver set into the scapha. She desired to watch the feast through her crimson eyes with no obscurity. She was so close to Vothe, within reach of her armoured arms. The Anzanti smelled of twisting ozone, with the distant aroma of spice, as if carried across a valley of violence by a soft wind. She could almost smell the perspiration through his robes, even a man as fit as him would be sweating in battle. The blush rose from her cheeks, spreading its warmth to the tips of her ears. A distant whisper crawled across her spine, causing her flesh to tighten, and a cold breath to spread across her neck.

 

Terra’s crimson eyes widened slightly with a slight tremor of excitement, watching the tendril of wriggling flesh rip from the Vagrant King’s nose. His cough was wet and weak, the fading desperation of a dying man, his mind slowly devoured. The cold whisper wound its way about her body with a primal cry of warning. There was something within her very blood that cried out for her to flee, but she was transfixed by the fluttering of her heart. The Assassin’s voice broke into her mind, overpowering her primal screams.

 

"Open your mouth and receive, though you may not find it to your taste."

 

She leaned forward, digging the fingers of her gloved hands into the King’s scalp, to accept the offering. Terra parted her lips, allowing the wriggling flesh to pass between them, the tip of her tongue feeling the moist proboscis. The taste of the flesh was earthy, coated with it the inherent slime found in the nasal passages of the humanoid upon which Vothe had been feasting. She was cautious to not let her sharpened teeth cause him harm, leaving her tongue to retrieve his offering.

 

As she would taste of him, he would taste of her. The scarlet stain of her Echani blood mixed with his flesh, and he would find traces of Sith corruption upon his palate, born within her marrow. Her lifeblood was strong, and within it one could find more than the corruption of Krath magic, for within it she carried the entirety of her history, scrawled upon its crimson parchment. She let her tongue linger a moment, before accepting his gift of soup.

 

The bitter taste sent a wave of nausea through her body, but she pushed it aside, letting it instead channel into her hands, where her tightening grip on the head of their victim was its only evidence. The consistency was that of a thick paste, salty and fatty, and upon her tongue it fell into several oily chunks. It tasted as strong as a pate of Bantha Liver, but it carried with it an overpowering spiritual taboo, which set her body on edge.

 

The young assassin allowed the Anzanti’s proboscis to withdraw from her lips, giving it a parting touch with the tip of her bloodstained tongue. Terra tilted her head backwards towards the ceiling as she swallowed his gift, forcing her body to accept it. As she swallowed she cracked her neck with a series of satisfying pops. Her pale lips formed a smile as she looked into Vothe’s eyes, a small drip of her blood tracing a scar from the corner of her mouth.

 

“Teach me to be like you, to hunt… To strike and devour…”

[Vothe Kyrik]

Vothe's eyes were dark like still, deep waters, emotionless. He had to give her credit for having the conviction to follow through with the act of cannibalism in defiance of her body. Whatever she had been when Ason Antilles had found her, now she was well and truly degenerate, a reprobate down to her alchemically-cursed marrow. On some intellectual level Vothe thought it might be best to kill her, to spare the galaxy the sorrow she might write into the hearts and minds of some of its citizens. Indeed he had spent time with such men that might say it was his responsibility to end her life in a timely fashion, and he had nearly done so once in the Citadel. But he also had been given the opportunity to study her, and perhaps to shape her. Antilles had made her into this; who could know of what else she was capable?

 

The Black Sun assassin finished his meal, draining his victim of his remaining soup and finally granting him the death he no doubt sought, then withdrew his proboscises and sealed his cheek pouches, once again appearing very human. He began to walk slowly around Terra. Not a sound did his movement make, not a footfall upon the metal floor nor a rustle from his cloak. "We are as ice and fire, Terra," he said, using his voice this time. "My path is one of patience and restraint, vision and focus. You are passion and chaos."

 

He began to move towards the room's exit. "Let us remain together for a time. If you can learn to empty yourself, I will teach you all I know."

 

But there was still work to be done here. The vagrants had been cleaned out, but the base was in shambles. Vothe made his way around the structure, surveying the disrepair, running estimates in his head. Eventually he found a working comm transmitter, and he used it to make his report up the Black Sun chain of command -- "The Dubrillion base is in shambles. I recommend sending a salvage team to recover working equipment and materials, then rebuilding elsewhere if we wish to maintain our presence on this world."

 

That was all that Krales had asked of them. He spoke to Terra. "If you are prepared, let us also visit Bespin. I suspect it will be considerably more operational."

[Zalis Krales]

A message came in for both Vothe and Terra on their comlinks from Zalis.

 

..:: Make a stop by Golden Link Casino. I have new toys for you to try out. Zalis. ::..

[Terra]

Terra’s wicked smile faded from her face, replaced by a warm grin. She hadn’t expected the assassin to take her up on training her to become more graceful in her killing sprit. With a gloved hand she activated her chronometer, which gave off a small chirruping alarm. From her armored wrist came a small holographic alert, displaying a scene of carnage on Coruscant, with a rising death count. Her crimson eyes met Vothe’s and her voice was grim

 

“Looks like our organization has been busy in our absence… Taking down an apartment complex and CorSec headquarters…”

 

She cracked her knuckles by pressing her fists against each other, making a satisfying popping that disturbed the silence. When she spoke again her voice was filled with dark undertones

 

“To Bespin? Or should we head somewhere else?”

[Vothe Kyrik]

The Anzati's face was a mask of calm as he watched the report, his black eyes flicking back and forth over the image as he took in the details. When it finished and Terra spoke, those eyes lifted to look at her. "No, I am not going to Bespin," he said. "Nor to the Golden Link as per Zalis' request."

 

He began to walk towards his ship. He continued mildly. "You see, Terra, the path I described to you insists that my actions are founded upon reason, and that I kill to satisfy a coherent objective. In the years that I have served Black Sun, it has suffered and diminished under the folly of three different Underlords. Having recruited Zalis Krales into the organization myself from the lowly ranks of cat burglars, I had hoped she would make a better leader than her predecessors. But if terrorist attacks and brazen assaults on police forces are among her first orders, then I no longer associate with her vision."

 

Vothe knew that he would sooner seek to thwart Black Sun than descend with it into ruin. He did not regret the work he had done for Black Sun, and he had been able to choose his jobs or through his counsel influence the course of events. But any hope he'd clung to that the crime syndicate could flourish without devolving into senseless mass murder had now perished.

 

The assassin looked at Terra carefully now. He knew that the Black Sun had a policy of not tolerating deserters. But Black Sun's direction did not change his desire to turn her into something greater than she currently was. "I am going to seek more legitimate employment," he said. Even seemingly upstanding organizations had uses for someone of his talents. "My offer to teach you stands, if you wish to follow me, but here my path diverges from Black Sun."

[Terra]

Legitimate…

 

The word hung like a fog between the two assassins. Terra mulled his words for a moment, spitting a stream of blood into the dust to her side. One benefit to being constantly bleeding, as she had now discovered, is that it had washed the taste of human brain from her tongue. Her voice took on a hint of concern, raising the pitch slightly from its natural gravelly evil

“Do you believe we could both go legitimate, Vothe?”

She crossed her arms over her small chest, cocking her head to the side, her mind working over the logistics. Black Sun had never supported her ambitions, and the only leader to whom she had loyalty had killed himself in the rubble she now stood upon.

 

“By the Emperor’s Black Bones, why not? I’ll follow where you lead.”