A moment for pause and celebration...

[Reverance]

He wouldn't have her make that sacrifice, not if he could avoid it.

His gaze would drift over her as he approached a proximity that brought lustful memories to mind. Glancing down upon her, he inspected her with a curiosity that resembled something akin to a childlike inquisitiveness. With a gentle touch, he gripped her hands in his, lifting them to chest level as he inspected her knuckles. He loved the Vong, as much as a man could love his own people. They were everything that was right and made sense in the world, despite how alien they might seem. But to see her broken into pieces, body parts removed to meld into that group, he couldn't seem to stomach the idea of it. She was whole and right and it tore at him, the selfish notions that claimed his mind.

A hint of a smile as he recalled the nature of the ooglith. "Pain is your price..." He said solemnly, without a single suggestive expression towards the regret of such notions. She was one to often deal pain but she had always been one to partake, for as long as he had known her and prior to their meeting. And those years were starting to blur, the time he lived before her becoming a faded memory. Tilting his head, he gripped her prosthetic hands in his as his gaze drifted down her frame. Just moments ago, he was entangled with such a blend of organics and cybernetics, and it was everything he considered perfect. He could recall her image without a seconds glance, a painter drawing upon canvas, blindfolded.

"Down the hill, there is a training facility. The Vong call it a Grashal, it's merely an organic building like the one before...were the escalation occurred." He squinted his eye and smirked again, contemplating the notion of what was to come. "In order to be fitted for the suit, the shapers must observe you in combat. To fine tune the armor to you, so that you can shape, we must introduce you into a combat scenario and you'll need to fight as naturally as you have always done." He nodded towards the stairs, towards the bedroom upstairs that she had recently been acquainted, after transitioning from the kitchen. "Go get dressed, I'll take you down there and we can get started."

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Pain is your price.
The same as always then.
The link between her and the people he considered his.
Perhaps, that might be hers.

Nodding after his explanation, she turned on her heel to do as he suggested. “This isn’t acceptable?” It was a rhetorical question – she hadn’t seen the point in pants if she was around him, but he had more surprises up his sleeve.

_______________________________​

The Grashal that Gabriel led her to was occupied by significantly fewer Vong than the one witness to the day’s escalations, but somehow felt more claustrophobic. She’d followed a less physical path than many of her counterparts when it came to combat. It made her no less capable of defending herself as evidenced by the number of conflicts she’d walked out of, but it also often made her feel other. But he’d said to fight as naturally as she always had, and that had always boiled down to a little bit of everything. The thought of doing so with an audience had her skin crawling with anticipation.

She’d gone simple and light with her clothes, another of the bodysuits she was so fond of partly because of their practically and partly because of vanity. Her long hair was pulled in to a tight bun accentuating already sharp features. She’d brought only the same knives that she so often carried, but would put them aside if asked.

Looking up when they entered, she let dark eyes follow the arches and spirals in the ceiling, noticeably different from the Grashal earlier in the day though she supposed that was to be expected considering how they formed, a piece of information she knew through the organized library back at the house. She’d started with searching for the things she’d already seen and branched from there to more of the Shapers.

From that reading she could gather that the Yuuzhan Vong lining the wall of the Grashal were Masters of their caste, skin covered in intricate tattoos that made some of their features nearly indiscernible. She was drawn to the headdresses adorning some of them, appendages swaying slightly in interest as the two Sith entered. They looked expectantly between Gabriel and Matsu and what the Sith lady first mistook as a desire for someone that spoke their language quickly revealed itself to be something even better.

“Just you and I then?”

And what was more natural than hurting him?

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

He wasn't thrilled to see her don clothing - so many enlightening experiences had occurred in the absence of them. But without clothes, they assuredly wouldn't make it through the sparring session. It was still questionable, but that would put the nail in the coffin, he had no doubts.

~~~​

​

He entered the grashal, the mirrored floor reflecting his gait as he allowed Matsu her moment of interest and curiosity. Shirtless, with pants and combat boots, he approached a table, seemingly made of bones and chitin and sinew. Along the walls, the Master Shapers sat watching and waiting methodically, for the departure from civility that was standing vigilant at their door steps. Gabriel flexed the muscles across his back, anticipation of pain the second coming from the evening prior, he relished the shiver down his spine. She had that way about her, making promises in the silence that only she could keep. He wanted it all but more than anything, he wanted that anger and fury that he had never truly known. She was a scientist, pragmatic in her approach, but emotionally removed from the subject. Except for lust and arousal, those were keen in presence, and maybe just the slightest tremor of adoration. And if love was there, hatred could creep in, he just had to find it. Not to see it find permanent residence, but merely to know it's fleeting kiss.

Pulling a blade from the table, he turned and dragged it across his right arm, forming a sliver starting at the bicep and slowly climbing down the arm, into it landed upon the wrist. No blood, he cracked his neck as his eye pinned, the skin rolling over like dried wax, coiling together and squirming up his arm, before it encompassed a small ring upon the deltoid. Beneath the masquer, his arm was revealed for the true thing that it was - a biot grafted on during escalation, absent the force, and covered in hardy scales akin to a black lizard. Nails filed to a point, he lifted his palm as the mouth and face imprint moved about the surface of the skin. It gave a silent growl and show of teeth, as Gabriel looked back towards Matsu. Despite his affinity for pain, the removal and donning of the masquer was one of the most singularly painful experiences he had ever known. Not unlike her touch, yet hers had purpose and a soothing promise of caress that followed it. This was blinding pain that drew sweat across his brow.

Reaching back with his 'prosthetic' arm, his left hand reached up to his forehead, tempering the ache that was resonating through his body. The Chom-Huun ignited in an orange pulsating glow in his Voxyn al'Do grip. He spoke words that he didn't believe, conjured to anger the woman beyond the lust for his pain and her desire to see what his insides looked liked. "Yes...and this time, I'm not here to save you." Like on Manan, he almost continued, but the hunger of his arm moved him forward unexpectedly, as he charged towards Matsu. No force for now, just blinding pain that would soon fade, as he struck out to tag her on her left shoulder before crossing with the pivot of his elbow, aiming for a downward swing on her right prosthetic elbow. The attacks were non committal - not fueled entirely by his love for her, though that assuredly would impact him. This was merely the way of his form, a defeat through a thousand blows and strikes.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She watched as the masquer rolled back on itself with her classic sense of detachment, at least outwardly. But it was the small things – the intentness of her eyes, flashes of yellow, the tension in the grip of her hands behind her back – that gave her away. It was a perversion of the flesh, something distinctly foreign that made her want to reach out and touch, damn the consequences. When it showed its teeth she fought the urge to do the same, bare fangs to a creature that did not yet know her. She didn’t understand it enough to know if it would ever make a distinction between her and anyone else, if it mattered to the biot what mattered to its host.

The saber was answer enough when it hummed to life. It would’ve been all that was necessary. But he bites at her, words designed to find the cracks and split them open. Words were just words and from anyone else’s mouth they might have made her laugh. She wasn’t one for rehashing the past, for sitting down and discussing all the ways she might have left that city without the blissful nothingness of floating in thoughts of the thing in his head. She didn’t need to. But still they stung, the split-second fear he might believe it even worse.

Usually when she imagined him without his skin or missing his head or some incomprehensible mess of muscle and sinew, it was out of love. But now it just seemed some imperative conclusion.

Her first instinct when he charged was to use the Force. While she never feared him as she should have, as the rest of the galaxy did, she was also not suicidal – instinct was the immediate response when confronted with a Sith Lord that could easily overpower her. But instead she checked herself. She paid for the momentary sway in her thoughts as his fist connected with her left shoulder (a bloom of dull pain, one she would know later, but not now, never now) when she burst forward to meet him.

As his arm swung down towards her right she set herself to using their opposing momentums, aiming to shove her right arm underneath his and push off her last two strides, using his weight to swing hers up and around on to his back. Claws sprang from the end of her prosthetics, partly to dig in to any muscle she could find to solidify her perch should her move prove successful, and partly to try for her real target: his neck. (In her mind it plays out that she is successful, that she feels the split-second resistance before everything in her way pops, the sounds that always made her weak at the knees, him collapsing underneath her as she waited on top of him, her legs straddling his back as he drowned in his own blood.) That her flight proved true remained to be seen, but the advantages were many if she were successful. Should she manage to even knick an artery…let him struggle in her web, weaken minute by minute until she could sink her fangs in.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Clinging to the dew in the web, he spied the spider circling her pray. Droplets of fluid would jostle against her inertia in tandem to the bounce of her stride, working the invisible lattice structure that his body and arms had suddenly created. He prided himself on his speed but the laws of physics dictated that in such circumstances, he may very well be at a physical disadvantage. Until he could wrap his strength around that frame he was so fond of, testing it's merit against the flexing of appendages - a gasp before succumbing, the squeeze and taste of her desperation that so often mirrored his own in different circumstances - he would find himself constantly catching up.

As she found the positioning of her intention, perched upon him, he felt the dig of her metal claws deep into the flesh of his upper ribs, just beneath his armpit. It felt warm and soothing, the trickle of blood reminding him of something he couldn't seem to recall. The caress of her malice and curiosity against his own desires, to feed and be fed, to bleed and be bled. Would she ravel him up now, in her sinewy web, to preserve for the future? Or would this be the kill before the wrap? A harvester taken to defense of a wound opened and allowed to bleed. Would she find that final departure she sought, the destination unknown and her focus entirely on the sending. He expected that she would savor the moment, however fleeting.

The branch for which she clung was flesh and bone intermingled, not so nearly immovable as the web she might spin with anger and imagination and bloodlust and dark magics. And as her second attack came, he would tilt his neck to the side, her arm moving just beyond his face and not gracing him with that metallic and synthetic touch he was so accustomed. As it passed, he would reach up with both hands and grip it, to fling her forward and remove her from his back. If successful, her gripping hand may shred additional flesh in the interim upon departure, game meat pulled before smoking. Even now, the pressure from within was released in this blood letting, as he felt the trickle descend down muscle and scar and soak into his pants.

In the corners, the Shapers watched with clicking fingers. Their heads snapped to an unknown rhythm, chaotic and seemingly removed from human understanding. The Masters of the Caste watched with fervor, eyes unblinking and tattooed faces in the appearance of black and ivory glass. The world around them was their oyster, but in this regard, they worked for a commanded passion to understand and expand the shaping practices of the Legion Yun'Do. And it would all begin with this small Atrisian, currently making work of the Warmaster. A tall bald headed man, glasses fixed upon his nose, took notes with excessive effort, standing far removed from the Shapers.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Knowing him didn’t seem to be an advantage. Multiple centuries of time seemed to lend him a combination of innate knowledge and mechanical reaction, some lexicon of references to fighting styles he could access if he needed to though she would stand by her theory that his body knew what to do even before his mind did. As she was made for sorcery, he was made for battle, and in that she would always be catching up to him. He seemed as immovable as the web she could weave, as if she might kick him and feel a hairline shattering crack up her bones, a breaking against stone.

She could smell his blood, feel the holes at the tips of her fingers where her claws had continued to penetrate his side. While she never claimed to have been careful when playing with him before, she had no regard now. Lung, kidney, or liver, she would pierce whatever she could find underneath ink and scars in her pursuit to take him down.

His hands wrapped around her forearm and she felt herself ejected, the motion of his pulling forward lifting her from his back. She would not leave without a prize, digging in to his side for the moment she had left before her fingers came away with flesh. Her insistence left her flight pattern away from him slightly skewed. Where she might have flown right over his shoulder, legs over head only to be righted and facing away from him, her hold on his side led her to twist and face him as she was yanked over his shoulder, still searching for a grasp with her free hand. Bloody fingers slipped off the hard muscle of his shoulder but she kicked out with as much force as she could muster towards his head as he tossed her. At close range it would have less force, but the face was delicate and she hoped to break his nose or crack the socket around the eye he had left, effectively blinding him within a few minutes of its swelling.

She hit the ground on one foot, dropping to lower her center and gain control of her footing as she skid across the floor a few yards from him. Facing him, she was up as soon as she had balance, unwilling to let him out of her sight.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

An intensified crouch, the beast rests after such wasted effort, the foot would find no purchase against the already tattered visage of the Sith Lord. In her landing, normally it would be met with the ferocity of the Sith Lord who often didn't quit - yet, she would instead find an ounce of peace as the Warmaster crouched and grit his teeth, the voxyn arm finding the opened flesh with ease. Squinting, he panted as the arm gulped of the blood, consuming and recycling back into the dilated veinous walls. Each pump, each gulp, pushed the fluid back into the heart, only to be surged back out of the wound. The smell was something sultry and palpable, the hunger of the Voxyn for his own flesh was disturbing and riveting and something entirely foreign. He couldn't seem to place it yet decided he didn't wish to pursue it any further, quickly slapping a neathlat bandage over the wound from the back pocket.

The pain, the burn and ache, nearly crippled him as he stood up and rested his weight on his right leg. He had never known the touch of Matsu in such cold and calculated endeavor. Despite what some might think, beyond that analytical and obsessive tendencies, there was passion behind those umber eyes. And for everything he had experienced the night before, it seemed it was all but wasting away now - washing away like the blood against the grashal mirror floor. Perhaps, for that slightest moment, he regretted the unnecessary insult to her abilities. If she could pierce the interior of his mind, the thing so well defended against her specialty, she would know the falsehood of the words he spoke. But beyond just the consequence, currently spiraling through his synapses like lightning cut through the heartwood of a pine, this was the intended path. So that the shapers could understand how monstrously capable she was in combat - a suit fitted to her unique specifications. But he wouldn't lie to himself - he longed to pull down that zipper once more, to reveal her for the thing he knew her to be and consume her.

He recalled the plunge into hell with the women, the forest of the dead, the ocean of corpses, the ship of bones and the rattling cage of lust. He longed to explore that thought in her sharp and rapturous embrace. There was a static recollection there, the phantom feeling of legs and flesh wrapped around his - and he would settle for proximity now, until the shapers needed nothing more.

What spatter of blood didn't find homage back in the fleshy receptacle it originated now lay wasted against the glass like floor. The expression of the force came forward, hounds running to the end of the chain only to break the weakest link. Force speed came forward in a gale of stamina, moving his body when it wanted nothing more than to lie down and accept this tremendous fate - the nights adventure had a lasting impact, black tattoos and rose scars turn pallid with the loss of blood against white sheets and granite countertop. Beneath his steps, the building would quake not in response to his power, but merely his presence, as coagulated blood sublimated to vapor and steam, blood boiling and leaving the imprint of it's extent in the recent past. A chalk out line in the reflective surface, rouge and lasting, as the building screamed for the friction now beneath his feet. His would find the distance between the two voided in the split second of the force speed enhanced lunge. Where his body found purpose, his right voxyn hand would surge forward. He but needed to land finger nails against skin, the Voxyn neurotoxin would do the rest. And where it would pull initial desperate swing - across the stomach, just beneath the belly button.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​