Coruscant - Galactic Throne

[Solus]

A separate shuttle pod landed on the baked ground of Corescant, sending pieces of dried and cooked particles everywhere. With the landing ramp extended, and the door opened, Solus was the first individual to exit onto the planet. 

 

Solus made strides forward, his legs much better controlled then earlier. It seemed the time spent between his reawakening and arrival on Coruscant was enough to become acquainted with his newest chassis. It’s flat feet were deceptively sturdy and quick, and with his spindly arms longer in comparison to his legs, Solus appeared strange to say the least. 

 

Still, as a shard with a droid body, he didn’t seem to mind the heat or the thin layer of oxygen. But it didn’t escape his notice. 

 

“It is strange…” Solus commented to anyone who would listen while glancing at the necromancer who’s very flesh was melting. “I never realized how I don’t feel what you beings feel. The heat, or the lack of it… my previous chassis never could feel those. But I know that it feels like something. It’s just… strange”

 

Solus looked away and focused on the Impossible Geometries. After a moment, he turned to his master. 

 

“And here I believed that Naboo’s destruction was bad. But here, the Dark Side is still swirling. And the death’s happened at least four years ago. Fascinating to say the least, wouldn’t you agree wax man?”

 

“...wax man?” Solus echo came out, followed by a mocking laughter aimed at the necromancer. Despite all the troubles the Sith had gone through, it seemed the Shard still had some kind of twisted humor. 
 

[Solus]

The order to to dispose of the locals was a welcome one. Even as Akheron took care of his share, Solus charged into action. Momentum carried him too quickly however, and at one point he fell forwards. A cry of startlement started to escape his voice box when suddenly he adjusted. His arms went forward and caught grip with the ground. His leg joints bent almost unnaturally far, farther then any organic kneecap would allow.  

 

Solus, a piece of cobbled together machinery, skitterred along the ground almost like some kind of rapid insect. Somewhere between instict and thought, the Shard maneuvered his body with rapid movements, crawling and dashing wildly. His neck twisted slightly, giving him a better view of his targets. The guide looked horrified. The woman had already broken into a mad sprint for safety from the horrifying thing. 

 

The guide was the first to die. Solus didn’t waste time with his blade. The guide’s back was turned, and made it easy for Solus to right himself onto his feet, leap forward, and stab through the chest cavity. Blood stuck his rusty arm like sticky grease. 

 

The woman was much farther away. Solus sighed and reached out with the bloody arm and focused. This place, with all the darkness and death, made the Impossible Geometries sluggish and murky. The woman’s bright, pulsating shapes were simple to pinpoint. A reach through the shapes. A wrapping of anger and envy around the woman’s shapes. She fell forwards, and screamed as she was dragged back to where the shard was. 

 

If Solus could have, he would have grinned. He needed this. He needed some catharsis after his defeat on Nar Shaddaa, even if it was just a helpless innocent. 

Now, the woman was at his feet. With one foot planted firmly on the back, Solus reached down and plunged one of his gripping hands into her eye. True, he didn’t have his scomp link, but he had learned that he needed to think outside the box with such matters. Surely he could drain the information he wanted without that crude instrument, even above the woman’s screamings of pain and agony. 

 

Solus came back to the group, this time on two legs instead of four. 

 

“It seems that there have been disappearances here…” Solus commented. As he spoke, he shook his head slightly, as if sorting through a variety of images on a datapad. “People here have been vanishing. People wander here to see the crater, and never come back. That woman hired the guide to find a loved one. And I felt something…”

 

Solus stopped. He looked at the necromancer then back at Akheron. “I think we all felt it. There’s something powerful here. Something…. Grand. Ooh ho ho, master I feel excited. I haven’t felt something like this since my ascension. Or when you took me as your apprentice. Something powerful beckons. Perhaps the Fanged God brought us here for something more then what we expected. 

 

“Master, may I search ahead? I have developed far more than what I was in Naboo’s waters. Let me prove myself to both of you and explore a path.”   

 

"A path..."

[Solus]

Solus nodded at his master words and gave the necromancer a glance. “I’ll try to not go too far ahead for your sake man of wax. We’d hate to lose our latest initiate into Clan Bragsanu”

 

With that, and a slight chuckle, Solus made his way towards the nearest entrance. 

 

The tunnel, if it could be called that, was tight and claustrophobic to say the least. More than once did Solus have to bend his body to fit forward. Embers and pieces of melting debris littered the tunnels, giving the briefest sparks of light that Solus utilized to see. But sight was not his main sense of perception. 

 

Solus almost chuckled to himself, now using all four limbs for locomotion. This was invigorating. Perhaps it was a carryover from those bystander deaths, but the dark and the tight spaces made him almost joyful. He was being put to a test. He was pausing every now and then, a spindly silhouette of a being, only his yellow sensors betraying his position. Audio sensors listened for the slightest noise. A fall of some debris. A scuttle of miniscule life. A gust of heated gas. Anything. 

 

And then there was the Impossible Geometries. Solus almost shuddered when he thought back to the depths of Naboo. Back then, he was eager to prove himself, but also in a rush. And he paid the price. He had gotten swallowed whole by that thing, that Colo Claw Fish. If it wasn’t for Master Akheron, he would still be in there. No no no, Solus shook his head slightly. He would not make that mistake again. Every so often, he would pause and conjure his envy, and send it out into the Impossible Geometries. Like a piece of Sonar Technology, Solus would not be sur-

 

Solus stopped. The tunnel branched off ahead. The right resulted in a dead end, but the left appeared to open into a cavern. But that wasn’t what made him stop. There was something there. The shapes there revealed life. Life? In this lifeless place? True, the heat had dropped considerably, but still. And the darkness…the shapes there were doing something odd. There was something there, calling him. 

 

Solus focused backwards. He had made a considerable distance between his master and the necromancer. Should he go back? Or should he continue onwards, and see what this was?

 

Curiosity won out. He would not be surprised, and so far there were no dangers to the others. He would report something to his master and the necromancer. So he took the trail to the left and followed it downwards, not realizing that the force, in all of its twisted darkness, had subjected the Shard to a hallucination of its own. The path on the right did not end in a dead end. Even as the Shard moved, the earth churned and the path on the left sealed itself up silently without notice, as if it was never there to begin with. 

 

True, both paths led to the same destination, but the journey would be wildly different. Such was the way in the darkness. 

[Solus]

Solus was unsure where the surfaces changed. He was unsure when the very air itself began to be different from the heavy air of Coruscant to the musky air of his old home. The presence in the Impossible Shapes was still the same, with the chaotic mess being impossible to track. Solus was unsure of a lot of things. 

 

Including how, in the name of all the things that were named, that he was back in the depths of Ishvara. 

 

It almost felt like the crystals in the walls called out to the Shard. Their electrical impulses danced within alluringly, tempting with thought and company. But beyond those, the Shard remained focused on the thing before him. The feminine figure dissecting and mutilating the corpse of the monster, All of the darkness here was focused in this one place. This figure, who radiated with something both unnatural, and familiar. 

 

When she turned and called him ‘son’, Solus stopped. Of all the responses Solus expected, including threats, questions, subtle jabs, snarkyness, of all the responses, this was not expected.   

 

Solus didn’t reply at first. He let the stillness of the air hang for a few moments, the darkness in the Impossible Geometries crawling. 

 

“You are neither a Shard…” Solus started, his right hand gripping the handle of his weapon tightly, readying himself, “...nor Roshan. Who are you?”

 

Who are you… 

[Solus]

“Shuburoth…” Solus repeated the name slowly, its sound echoing over and over. It was like something from an old memory hidden inside of a dream. It was familiar but distant. Something from before. Even as Solus tried to put a finger on the name, unable to precisely place it, the feeling from the name alone rang true. 

 

And that made him nervous. 

 

Her drawing of her blade was met with his own. Instinct had kicked in. This Sith’s otherworldliness drew out his battle-lust, despite the dream-like state he felt himself in. Or was the battle-lust drawn because of it? 

 

“I am neither…” Solus started, reading himself into a battle position. He couldn’t draw himself away from this woman. This thing. This…what was this? It called to him and he was answering it in the only way he knew. 

 

“I am Solus. I am the Dragon. The… Ascended!”

 

Solus sensors flashed from yellow to red. Even as the scene had changed around him, he felt like he had changed with it. The idea of being a servant affected the Shard. The Force began to ripple. His body morphed and bent over itself and expanded with heat. It was no longer that chassis of the EV-series, nor was it that custom chassis made by the sorcerers of Bragsanu. It was that of the Hutt Security droid. It was the chassis of a slave and an infant. 

 

Somewhere, Solus could hear the music of Korriban beat out as he slithered and charged forward, blade ignited in hand and brought down. He was not a servant. He couldn’t be. But he wasn’t a master either. He had no planet to destroy like the necromancer. No apprentice like Akheron. He had no family like Roshan or his Shardmates. He had nothing but himself. 

 

“I am not a servant!” Solus roared, nothing more than a child’s cry of denial. With a desperate and scared fury, Solus began to bring his lightsaber down on this woman. 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Solus

[Solus]

The battle, if you could call it that, turned sour faster than milk under Tattooine’s hot suns. The furious blows of Shard turned into frantic deflections and blockings. There was no style in the Shard’s form. No etiquette. No technique. Just instinct and emotion, and hardly anything of substance. 
 

Solus’ own emotions were palpable under the woman’s words. As strange as she was, her presence carried power over the Shard. He did not know her, but he knew of her. He did not recognise her, nor understand her being. But he knew her, in the only way that an abhorrent descendant knew their twisted ancestor. 

Finally, the woman’s words struck at the Shard’s inner fear. Failure. He had failed too many times to be anything more than what he was. He had failed over and over in his time since his ascension. He didn’t kill Tear. He tamed the demented hound, dooming it to a life of servitude. He had not navigated the Naboo Abyss properly. He had been swallowed by it’s passageways of darkness and danger. He had not killed a single Jedi on Nar Shaddaa, nor even a single foe. He had been slain by the enemy of his fearless deity. 

This life, he had so proudly declared, was nothing  more than failure, and this being knew it, even as she drove her blade in for the killing strike. 
  

 It was this moment, in cold realization and terror as the woman’s blade stabbed the robotic heart that held the chassis, that Immortos’ power from the Baptism of Blood touched the Shard once more. The moment of the Aaris III returned in full force. In that time on Aaris, Solus had become something else briefly. A beacon for something incomprehensible and foreign by all senses known to mortals and deities alike. For things that In the vast stretches of space dwelled. Things that were aeonian and exotic.
  

 It was these unnameable things and horrors, in this moment of madness and terror, that rushed into the Shard’s moment of weakness. 
    

The lightsaber that plunged into the Shard was shot back. Following it, an eruption of flesh blasted outwards. Fat, veiny, pulsating flesh of unknown monsters, churning with gristle and bone flooded at the apparition of the woman, and everything around the Shard. It mattered not where it came from. The Force, and all of its dark intricacies, did not care for the laws of physics or conservation in this world of the esoteric and the arcane. What mattered was the willpower of those who, as Lord Roshan had said, ‘were conduits of the Force’.

 

This flood of meat and gristle, did not slow as it consumed the dark apparition. It flooded the entire area. The entire area, nothing more then the dark side trying to consume something alive, was subjective to the devouring nature of this meaty storm. The dark side would feed on the dark side, like a hunting parasite would feed on a dying predator. 

Even if only in turn the nameless horror that consumed Solus’ soul would feed the darkness that dwelled in this place. 

It was fueled by the Shard’s rush of emotions, and its envy was still its strongest one yet. Envy desired what others had. It desired what it could not have, and would destroy it. This thing used a mask of flesh. And so, a flesh mask for the Shard would be fitting. 

In the flood, the meat returned to its source, coating and forming over the Shard’s chassis. Though nothing more than illusionary, it sought to give Solus something it lacked. Skin flayed itself, revealing blood and tissue, which in turn boiled and burned itself to a hardened, thin layer of scab-like skin. It was nothing more then an illusion at its crudest. It provided nothing more then a cosmetic change in appearance  But even the appearance of fat occasionally bubbling with invisible heat, and tendons throbbing with black blood, spoke levels of terror to those who saw it. 

Solus, back in his original form, but now with that illusionary covering of false meat, looked around in shock. The nameless horror he had just witnessed refused to cling to his soul completely. Much like a waking nightmare, it seemed to escape his memory. Only the feeling, and the knowledge that it had existed, still remained.  Having defeated the apparition, Solus moved forward through the dark tunnels. The sounds of battle were ringing out somewhere. Blade still in hand, Solus rushed forward. 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Solus

[Solus]

Finding his master was surprisingly easy. Enough training and spending time with his master had led the shard to an innate connection to the sith. One that, combined with Solus' natural sense of direction, made navigation magnitudes easier. 

 

There were also the sounds of slaughter  that Solus could follow. That alone was unmistakable. 

 

"My Master…" Solus greeted Akheron. With a slight bow, he saw his now fleshy covered chassis and realized how strange he probably looked. 

 

"I agree. This nexus is amazing to say the least. As for this…" 

 

Solus reached and pulled at a strand of illusionary flesh off his body. A long piece with bits of fat peeled off at the pull, squishing the entire way and oozing slightly with puss. Solus seemed to give a slight gasp as if somewhere  in between pain and pleasure

 

"It is wonderful, no?"

 

…Wonderful, no?

 

Solus stumbled when the ground shook. That was the only indication he could give before it gave way and he and his master tumbled downwards. Instincts took control of Solus like programming. The reflexes of metal and electricity, combined with the force-given talents of the Shard, enabled a magnificent feat of survivability. Hands had briefly caught grip of the outer wall, with fleshy bits torn off like scabs. Solus only used the wall a moment to slow his descent, as he placed his feet on the wall and push away, downwards and into an opposing wall. Again, Solus pushed and jumped further down. Faster and faster, the shard leapt wall to wall, a leaping pile of metal and flesh like some kind of mad insect. 

 

It wasn’t until the bottom of the pit did the Shard come to a rest and looked around for his master. 

 

“This place… it grows more hungry…” Solus commented, helping his master as needed. 

 

Solus’ body suddenly tensed and grew still. He felt it. Surely Akheron could feel it to. The power had been awoken. Whatever it was, the source that the group had come to find had been discovered. 

 

And, to the Shard’s amazement, it was a feminine figure. 

 

It was simultaneously surprising and unremarkable in Solus’ eyes. He had no idea what he had expected. He didn’t know if the source, or the epicenter, or whatever the dark side nexus was, was a being or an object or something less tangible. Perhaps it would have been more of a feeling, or an entrapment, much like what he himself had experienced earlier. 

 

But for him, who had just encountered something beyond imagination of mortal mind, a simple, feminine figure did not live up to what he had hoped to find. But with the hallucination from earlier still fresh, and the oozing pustules still growing on his illusionary body, his thoughts knew there was more then met the sensor. 

 

When Innmortos called upon his own army of the dead, now inhabiting a new, more reptilian body, Solus had to brace himself. Calling upon the Impossible Geometries was an easy task to do here, but even his abilities struggled slightly against the wailing spirits that sought to claim whatever they could find. 

 

After Innmortos had spoke, Solus had almost begun to speak up. The necromancer spoke words of blasphemy.  The Sith Empress, who had demanded the servitude of each Sith at her coronation, still lived. And yet, Innmortos, with his new body, had found new loyalties. 

 

But remembering who’s presence he was still in, Solus silenced himself. Instead, after looking the feminine figure over once more, glanced at Akheron. He was still his master, and Solus had made an oath to the Sith. But if the Lord of Rage so easily abandoned his oath to the current avatar of the Fanged God, then perhaps Solus needed to requisition where his own loyalties lied. 

[Solus]

His master’s response didn’t exactly disappoint the apprentice. Akheron’s words erred on the side of caution overall. He didn’t say that their current empress was undeserving of her title, nor did he say that this being was her successor. Just a potential candidate to back. 

 

Solus memorized this moment for later use. A good learning moment if there ever was one. 

 

However, the necromancer crossed a line. 

 

The Shard took a step forward between his own master and Innmortos. 

 

“I’d be a bit more respectful, wax-man” Solus started, hand still holding his lightsaber that desired to be activated. The pulsing envy it generated in the Impossible Geometries demanded death, and this necromancer had earned enough ire from the Shard to consider giving into its desires.

 

“It was my master who allowed you to join our clan and study our own texts. And it was my master who gave you a ship to lose. If he dishonors you, you don’t have to remain part of our clan. We could leave you here, and you can always call for help from home. After all, your planet of lizards will always take you back.”

 

Solus wished he had a workable face on all of the meat that covered his body, if only so he could sneer at the last comment. 

 

If Solus had known better, he may have stopped here. But as he spoke, he felt his own spirit rise. Perhaps it was because his blade was still in his hand, but his envy and jealousy  expanded in the Impossible Geometries. The shard saw an opportunity, and now he would seize it. 

 

“I may be young for years in the clan, but you are younger. The Fanged god demands death, and that's it. He would be with us even if the avatar wasn’t here.  If this…woman…is the avatar of the Fanged god, then let her prove it, as my master says. And she isn’t then she dies. And if she isn’t then you truly show your stupidity.”

 

Solus raised a fleshy claw, dripping with puss, to point at the necromancer. “If you support this…being…” Solus gestured towards Calypso, “Then maybe you know her name. Her desires for all of the Sith. Can you prophesize how she will succeed our empress? How will she avenge our losses from Nar Shaddaa? Or do you only know from what you have read and not from what you have personally discovered? Will you drop your loyalty to her as soon as another ‘worthy’ being comes along, like you are doing now?”

 

Solus turned his head, so his sensors focused entirely on the subject of everyone’s talking. Now it was time to let loose some of his envious feelings.  

 

“This thing is nothing more than a corpse-hopping ghost, and a disrespectful and stupid one at that. He killed his own world in service to our dark lord and wastes valuable resources that could have been used for our wars, and finally he drops his loyalty to her at the drop of a hat. Will you be so foolish to trust him so easily?”

 

Trust him so easily?  The words echoed, almost tauntingly so. 

 

Solus remained quiet after this. He had spoken his mind. He wasn’t sure if the others noticed it, but he knew his annoyance at the rise of rank for the necromancer had been obvious from the beginning. This necromancer, who the shard had killed once, had an entire planet to himself to destroy, had been given a ship and crew by the Shard’s master and not his own, had been shown that his talents at information interrogation were not unique at Falleen, and had not rushed into battle like the Shard had been. 

 

If this woman, as powerful as she felt, was truly to succeed the Empress, Solus the Dragon was sure to not let the necromancer hold a prestige position while the Shard and the Lord of Rage deserved so much more. 

[Solus]

"Necromancer, gather my army. Whichever one of you has a ship, get us and my new troops aboard."

 

“If you and my master both allow it…” Solus spoke up quickly, eager to prove himself again. “Allow me to lead the way. I have a natural sense of direction and memorization. You will not fail in trusting me.”

 

…trusting me

 

With that Solus quickly rose and began to lead the way. Every word he said was true, and he was eager to prove it to this newfound ‘ally’. As he had discovered in the Naboo abyss, and as he stated earlier to his master, Shard physiology seemed to have a natural sense of which direction was north, and in turn, a decent ability at navigation. 

 

But there was more to what Solus wanted when he lead the way. Part of it was to show he was useful to this female, despite not knowing if she was an ally or not. The rest was that he wanted some time to think to himself.

 

The conversation the group had, with the history of the state of the galaxy, had revealed much to the Shard. Most of his learning had been military and spiritual, not historical. Most of everything Solus had seen so far was through those kinds of lenses, with a perception focused on the Fanged God himself. But having received a crash course in galactic history, Solus had to process the fact that life had just kept going. 

 

And more so, some galactic events he had known about beforehand without realizing it. The death of a previous sith emperor by his own apprentice. The crashing of the moon into a populated planet. Exterminations and rebirths. Deities fighting deities with blades of fire. So many events, all witnessed at one point or another by the shard. 

 

What did this mean? Even as Solus led the way, he couldn’t find an answer. 

 

The Shard stopped, surrounded by piles of debris and trash. The shard only stopped because he realized he had made a deal of progress ahead of the others and needed to allow them to catch up. 

 

As he waited, Solus glanced down at his own chassis and almost gasped in surprise. The flesh, the meat…it was all gone. Having journeyed far enough from the epicenter of the dark side nexus, the thing that had clung to his body so easily no longer carried the fuel to maintain itself. It had faded away into nothing, revealing the old, rusted and practically useless metal beneath. 

 

“I guess part of the reason we came here included salvage for new parts…” Solus commented and began to sift through the metal. One group of parts stood out. A humanoid metallic shape, with a short stature and large eye sensors. Plucking it from the debris and holding it by a breaking leg, Solus studied it and nodded approvingly. While partially broken in places, the parts from his current chassis would serve to fix it. 

 

Plus, its height actually suited Solus. In his time with the chassis given by the sorcerers, he had grown accustomed  to being short and agile. This larger, more oddly shaped chassis was bothersome. 

 

“Yes, yes, this will do…” Solus commented. He turned his head at the approaching footsteps. The party had finally caught up.

 

“Just past this way, the heat becomes unbearable” Solus warned the others, carrying the droid chassis with one arm. “I suggest you find a way to protect your skin, wouldn’t you agree wax-man?

 

“But beyond here, the transports await us. Come! The galaxy awaits us!”