Après moi, le Déluge.

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=14pt]Annaj[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Ayrou Sector[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Early Evening[/SIZE]


Matsu was not the product of how she had been raised, had shown no inclination in her early years for unending violence. In fact her mother had once told her she wasn’t sure she would have been anything at all – she never cried, never played with the things she gave her…sometimes she just found her lying in her crib looking at nothing, lost in a little world she couldn’t imagine. (‘Sometimes…sometimes, I was very sure you weren’t even mine.’) She had simply been born wrong, and over time something had grown and festered in her that had made her incapable of mustering the will to care about most things. She wasn’t laboring under the illusion that every life saved would make a difference, that in preserving a biological imperative she was doing the world a favor. And flesh was so much better…less complicated and verbose than thought and emotion and the endless road map of rhyme and reason everyone seemed to force themselves to navigate.

Après moi, le déluge.​

After me, the end.​

Why should I care what happens to you?​

(Time is a flat circle.​

Everything we’ve ever done we’re going to do again.)​

In the beginning, she had been convinced she’d lost it. (After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast, terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left...) But there were other times, and increasingly more often to the point of turning the tide to believing…that she knew she was main-lining the truth to the universe.

Shaking herself from her thoughts (when was the last time I thought about home?) she brushed a thin layer of bacta over the gash on her right arm, the cooling touch of her durasteel fingers soothing the burn. A trip to Svivreni had not gone exactly as planned, with her plans to convince the planet’s people to mine precious jewels for her turning instead in to a duel between herself and a Jedi Master & Knight. She was just fine, but she wanted her bed, to nod off. (I don’t sleep – I just dream.) She had chosen to return to her apartments on Annaj despite preferring them less than her suite on Coruscant. She was a city-woman at heart, preferring the bright lights and constant bustle of the galaxy’s capital to the relative quiet of blood-red Annaj. But it was a good place to lie low. Her wounds were not even close to life-threatening but a nap was in order.

Lifting herself from her seat behind the stealth cruiser’s controls she made her way down and out of the ship, exiting the private hangar on the planet’s main dock. Her old Master’s position as Governor of the planet afforded her some perks and she slipped out of the spaceport without the same pain and torture some would consider Annaj’s customs department. She chose to walk – unconventional at best, she preferred to hold on to that loner streak she’d started out with, the need to experience, the need to be out in the thick of things and not walled in some vehicle cutting herself off from exploration.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Gabriel clenched his teeth hard and pulled...yanking a chunk of bread from the hollow stick. It was flacky and buttery but felt stale, left out in the air too long, and was colored a sickly mixture of beige and apricot. He crooked his head and let out a sigh as he placed the stick back down, chewing and rolling the hardened dough around his mouth. The stick clanked against the tin plate. The caf in the metal cup rocked on the shaky metal table, a 'fine' cafe in the space port of Annaj. At least the caf was good, he thought, in the same way that air tastes good to a drowning man.

Gabriel's first stop in his trip was Coruscant. He hated that place, the smell, the appearance, the people. He equated their existence to something between a dried out shuura peel and hardened mud stuck in the texture of a boot. Worlds grew cancer but civilization had the luxury of labeling the tumors as these cities, throbbing and swelling and amassing puss until one such as him came around to relieve the pressure. People found ease in their life of crime and gluttony and stupidity, selling themselves to the highest bidder, diminishing their value at every turn of the day for a breath from a pipe or stick. And they went about their days, ignorant and removed, dulled to their own experiences as if it was a weakness. Blue and orange vapors removed from them from reality and to Gabriel, that was the hardest sin to swallow. Why excise the pain, when you can endure it and grow from it, sharpened by it's whetstone like a rag-doll dragged hard across asphalt. The worst things in life are those that come free and a lesson from Gabriel would be the most expensive experience those people would ever endure. And for that time, three would have to settle for an adequate sample of the population.

Reports on the holonet are what brought him to Annaj, but not before that stop to the underbelly of Coruscant, seething with potential hidden behind of veil of blue shining font. Reports read of a young woman and her parents and of the reward they offered for an adult gone missing. His intent was never to follow this trail with the idea of delivering said child to loving parents arms. There was no lesson in that, nothing to be gained but the meager transfer of funds. Instead, he would bring the girl back to her parents and teach her the most important lesson of all, the frailty of life. It was a lesson hardest to truly instruct but the most lasting of teachings, a fine elegance needed in it's conveyance. It was only through anguish that the girl would learn of life and of it's constant endeavors against the grace of sentience, and Gabriel would be the envoy of that message. It was Reverance that truly schemed such plans and put the proposition into motion, manipulating Gabriel to land on ice where the sheet was thinnest. It was methodology likely born from boredom but Gabriel would find solid footing as he researched into the young woman by the name of [member="Matsu Xiangu"].

With enough force and enough strength of conviction, a man can find or buy anything he needs in Coruscant, a place Gabriel considered the hub of galactic information. Especially when the currency is flesh and sinew. Gabriel looked down at his right hand, holding the arm of the caf cup as he sat in the port, and moved his digits to feel the pain once more; pain derived from swollen and bruised knuckles. Fourteen teeth, three noses, two eye balls, and six fingers were the price he paid to three unfortunate ciphers, unlucky enough to meet with him about hacking the various recording feeds and holonet listings. It wasn't something he enjoyed nor relished, but through the sensing of their signatures, he found much darker things that lied beneath and thus, they earned adequate reward. And for the pain he gave them, they gave reward in the form of information.

Accomplished. That was the word that best described the videos Gabriel watched of Matsu Xiangu. Her affiliation with Neuro-Saav lifted an eyebrow, especially at her reported age, if such things could be believed. But what really piqued his interest was not her resume, but her abilities revealed through the blurry lens of holonet videos obtained from battles on Alderaan and an altercation on Coruscant. Not enough to determine her true strength, but enough to show him that she was worth far more than the funds her parents offered.

He brought the caf to perched lips, his crimson eye gazing from beneath the canopy of the small cafe, to see the women in question move through the spaceport unmolested by security and customs. If not for his attempt at concealment, he would have laughed at the notion of her ease. Truth be told, though, his size and appearance gave way to many a search and seizures of goods and was often likely warranted. The table wobbled as he scooted himself away from it and stood up, lifting his hood to conceal only his visage. The robe over top hid armor beneath and an assortment of weapons that required a bit of persuasion to maintain in passage through this hub. He would stalk the young woman, for a bit, to which she made even the easier by the her method of transport - walking. Luckily for him, the Ayrou of this sector towered three-four inches above him, giving decent physical camouflage. All it would take is a single glance at him, though, to know that he didn't belong.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Annaj was, in truth, not a planet many found suitable to live on. It wasn’t inhospitable in the slightest but it was…boring. A dense, fog-covered planet, it was ugly and saved only by its blood-red skies. Matsu rather liked those. Most civilization centered on its capital, a bustling hub of trade and commerce divided in a sprawl that she often imagined as two arms side by side.

At the base of the arms was the spaceport, the only truly state-of-the-art thing about the planet and making up the bulk of Ayrou Sector. It had been deemed necessary to pour most of the free funds in to the port as it was the only thing most visitors saw of Annaj, millions spent on environmental control to hold back the majority of the fog. (She could only imagine the irritation, the bitter looks on everyone’s faces when they saw some would always sneak through – a world as stubborn as its inhabitants.) Ringed by shops and quick convenient food, something to fill your stomach between ports on long journeys, it was populated by both the desperate and the affluent – traders and merchants, the wealthy coming to check on their investments of one of several companies with offices in the city, and those who’d spent their last credits on a ride here and now had nowhere to go.

From the spaceport the two separate faces of the city laid side by side, so close that one could stand between the two with one foot in the residential section and one in the industrial. It was a sharp contrast made essential by the business nature of the city. To the left the Vashan sector spread outwards, thickly inhabited at first by office buildings and headquarters of various organizations, giving way to homes growing sparser the farther one walked. And to the right were storefronts, holoshops, and markets giving way to a jungle of pipes and factories – an area known only as the Fade. Both arms gave way to forests and swamp, a backyard of animal noises and wildlife.

She supposed it had its charms, but she was hard-pressed to find them. So why have apartments here? Why drag herself back? In the beginning it had been necessary – her Master was its Governor and ran much of his business from behind his desk on Annaj. Now that she was out on her own and had her hand in a few pots of her design she could have left the blood-red planet behind. But she was a sucker for nostalgia however unpleasant and besides, it made a good place to recuperate.

For some reason she found herself drifting towards the Fade, maybe drawn by the neons and blanket-disheveled appearance that echoed of Coruscant. Ayrou surrounded her, moving in both directions and moving in languid, wavy motions as they negotiated the price of clothing or food. The greasy smell of something frying wafted across the air and for a moment she was lost, somewhere else, aware but daydreaming – (And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.)

When she came back a Vashan was clicking past her, the sound of the sharp ends of its appendages tick-tick-ticking across the pavement seeming to echo up her spine. (Something’s wrong.) An Ayrou moved closer to another it was arguing with, the sound of their screeching vocalizations only serving to put her more on edge. It was when she looked over she saw just a second of him, just a glimpse of a blank swath of space where an eye should have been, a swirling hypnotic line of scar tissue…

She needed to see that up close. (Just let me look, just one second.) She turned slowly, watching the spot where the Ayrou had shifted back to cover him for another glimpse – she wasn’t one to start a fight where there wasn’t one, but she knew she couldn’t say the same for others. She pushed out in his general direction, a telepathic reach akin to a gentle swipe. “Can I help you?”

___________________________________________________​

“We there yet?”​

​

It took all their Commander had not to hit his subordinate over the head with his MK, wondering why he just didn’t. But their employer wasn’t known for hyperbole and their instructions had said to use extreme caution and deadly force – he couldn’t afford one less pair of boots on the ground against the targets.​

​

“ETA 3 minutes. Ask again and you won’t make it there to see.”​

​

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Gabriel followed her quietly and with adequate space, taking in the sights as they peregrinated through the industrial and mercantile areas, seemingly absent destination. It was a bombardment of senses, motely and varying. The olfactory stimuli where thick and heterogeneous, smells of cooked meat and deep fried vegetables filled the musty air as he navigated the sinuous walking patterns of the Ayrou. Had he not known better, he would have thought his own smell overpowered the lack of zephyr in this created environment. But he knew better, these people were aware of him and overcome with a mixture of disdain and indifference. The ground was dusty, the shops were wooden and dirty, the pipes were rusted and corroded. He spotted, in a wayward glance, scobiform shavings in a delicate pile against the base of a meat shops threshold, the ceiling in view dappled with spots of brown and beige. He rubbed the tragus of his right ear, trying to kick the sounds of Ayrou squealing from his ear as he shook his head in derision, slightly impaired by a sense of inconvenience. Inconvenience for the way in which these creatures communicated.

The lights were perhaps the only thing he enjoyed of this place, the effervescent and lambent features a spectacular foil to the dullness of the world they resided within. Gabriel was deep in the thralls of speculation as his 'prey' turned to him and spoke words of help. He had been made, though he had hardly made the appropriate effort to prevent it. He couldn't help but smile as he pulled down his hood to view the young woman, unimpeded by the cowl. As he contemplated the woman’s exiguous words, he began to pace against the walking flow of the Ayrou. The fowl-like creatures continually filled the space between the two Sith Lords, obscuring their view.

“Can you help…me?” He spoke as if the words thrown into his head were foreign to him, built upon a tone of suspicion. “No one should help me.”

His predilection was an entropy that couldn't persist, unraveling and decaying with every chip struck from him. No matter how much discipline and control he exerted, the effort was a losing battle, and he inwardly knew it through the constant antagonizing of his inner psyche. With every moment, a shred of him was peeled away and replaced with cruelty and depravity. | How could she help me…if I won't help myself, if the end is my final play? | His death was as much a desired goal as the burning of the universe, the demise of those unworthy of their own apotheosis. They had been given something of note and had squandered it, just as he had before his rebirth. Some would survive their own ashes and those who did would prove worthy of their exaltation.

| Hopefully I won’t, I'm not sure I could stand it. | The body couldn't last another event and the mind would gratefully accept that end. | An end much deserved. | But until then, Gabriel would fight tooth and claw through the kindling, breathing air into embers where he could find them, each fire suffocated through the breathless oppression of time and resolve of those committed to the wrong side. Fire, he knew, was the only true cure to the slow poisonous dilapidation that weakness had spread through this universe, a grand sweeping of the table, a reset to the universe overwhelmed by it's own complacency. So, he asked himself again: | How could you help me? |

He inspected her in the same manner that she inspected him, a stare and look that could almost cut. She was small, much smaller than him, yet approached him with a sense of cordiality and rapport not befitting him, especially considering the manner in which he stalked her. Dried blood formed beneath his nails, though perhaps that was what made her turn in the first place, the sensing of similar kindl; kindred spirits. His crimson eye traced her form and her cybernetic arm caught his attention. Just as he almost spoke towards the nature of the arm, a micro expression crossed his face, as if taken from this reality for the briefest of moments.

Fingers scuttled against a keyboard, clicking, as words formed on a blue screen lit with white and silver. A man grins, words flow across: Reverance (Gabriel Sionoma) and [member="Matsu Xiangu"]. 5 million for each of their heads. They'll be meeting on Annaj. OFFER ACCEPTED, a Dragonsnake coiled about a tree across the breastplate of an armor, an insignia of green and brown, a mercenary group. Red eye, grin hung across tan skin, the man laughs and hits a key once more. He stands and leaves as the screen fades to black.

Gabriel blinked and stopped pacing as the gap between the Sith Lords was replaced with a stillness, the Ayrou no longer interrupting their meeting. He had noticed the hum, just moments ago, but he didn't think anything of it. Between the sounds of stentorian squawks, scuttles, and the frothing and boiling of grease, he had not picked up on the very distinct sound. He turned, realizing that the memory he just recalled was one given to him, one flashburned away and returned just for this moment. Clarity overtook him as he removed his robes and folded them up, preparing to throw them away, and revealing the armor and deeply tattooed body beneath. The robes would only get in the way now. The air was quiescent for this one moment as his back faced Matsu and he turned his head, his crimson eye finding her in full view.

"Maybe we can help each other..." He spoke, as if he was fully aware of what was heading their way.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Matsu had never been accused of being overly aggressive, never one to jump the gun. If anything her patience and relative friendliness at first meeting tended to put others at ease – a unjustified ease, but ease nonetheless. She had been groomed from an early age to make a good first impression, to light up a room with a smile and a friendly word. Of course, being born with a few screws tightened in the wrong places had made that cordiality twisted – a fascination with the unique and morbid, ensnared by those that could teach her something new or just let her sit and stare and wonder. At first one might wonder, if they knew, why the woman was Sith at all. She had been known to love (as [member="Kesare Salazar"] was living proof of, a best friend she would gladly cross the Galaxy for), to help, to seek paths because they were efficient and not in the interest of the most bloodshed possible. She had spent time accumulating to weeks in the company of other Sith masters, planning and dreaming, and she would always do things a little differently.

But she was Sith because she was selfish, because life and love if they were not her own meant nothing to her. There was nothing that kept her up at night, nobody that whispered she was damned when she closed her eyes. She felt nothing at all except pleasure at her own accomplishments and enthrallment in the esoteric and strange. (There is something WRONG with you Matsu, but you can’t even tell because the very thing you lack is what would make you afraid for yourself. Oh you’ve tried. You’ve tried plenty of times and in creative ways – remember what that man’s brain looked like hooked up to your machines? You tried so hard to find something there that was missing in yours, but you’ll never know. And the truth is, you don’t care. It was just fun dissecting him.)

So a man with blood under his fingernails and – yes, yes, that’s it, let me see – a red line of a scar branching and rolling around what should have been an eye was interesting to her more than annoying or frightening.

She would have liked to ask him to stand still, ask him if she could reach out and touch the scar tissue, feel the same ridges on his face that lined – thin and pink-white and fading – the junctions of flesh and metal on her. Scars were one of those things that she could explain easily if asked why they mattered so much. There was a story, there was a window in to someone else’s life, marked forever in hard, knotted tissue for the world to see. There were not many who knew exactly what had happened to her on Skye, how she’d come to have a set of claws ten times as deadly as the real nails she cultivated to points on her natural hand, but if they asked she wouldn’t mind telling them. (And that chapter is closed, closed, closed – you get to move on now, girl.) She would have liked to hear his story if he were willing to tell it, but instead she caught the split second of vanishing behind his eyes. She was sensitive enough to the minds of others that she could sense a slight shift, but he seemed to have a very impressive set of mental barriers. Even her more insistent probes did not do much more than give her an idea that he was somewhere else for a moment.

The squawking of the Ayrou was fading slightly as they regained their tempers and began negotiating like the fine political machines they seemed to pride themselves on being. The unsettling sound of their vocalizations was background noise, a buzz of otherworldliness to add to her uncertainty. (Did you bring something here to kill me, stranger? Bad choice, bad choice.)

But as his robes fell to reveal a tall, impressive stack of muscle and tattoos Matsu realized whatever was making waves in the Force wasn’t him intending to pull a knife on her.

Maybe we can help each other…​

The group of men poured out from around a corner, rifles held across their bodies as they maintained an impressive semblance of formation despite the Ayrou and humans shrieking in surprise around them, scrambling to get out of the way. There was no subtlety to their movements, dogged determination in the way they ignored an indignant squawk as an Ayrou went over in surprise at their appearance, its perfect stacks of oranges and starfruit exploding in all directions as he toppled over. They seemed to make a cursory glance of the area before Matsu felt a prick of recognition on the weaker men’s minds.

“It will certainly make this more efficient,” she said, watching who she assumed to be the leader gesturing towards her and the stranger before the mercenaries started barreling towards them, a little smirk appearing on her face as she rested her hand on the hilt of her sword.

__________________________________​

“Targets in sight sir.”

The flanking group of mercenaries had left a few moments earlier, getting a bit of a headstart so that they could begin covering obvious escape routes in the opposite direction. Pinning the targets down from all sides could only work to the mercenaries’ advantage. They had taken up positions along the main two pathways breaking off from the thoroughfare the targets had been found in, the glass storefronts not making for excellent cover. But they had been compromised early on – surprise had been deemed the best tactic after learning what was known of both targets.

“Good – engage. We’re in position.”

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

He could feel her, prodding and poking and touching, his mind a steel trap with a woman knocking playfully at it's door. They were quite the foils to one another. She was petite and pulchritudinous, with red lips and fair skin and a sense of fashion that wasn't hard on the eyes. He was haggard and mournful, his body a myriad of scar and tattoos used to hide them that shined green in just the ride shade with overtones of black. His eye was a deep venous red that blemished pain and blushed torment. Hers were a darkness, almost black, the likes to get lost in and he couldn't help but bare his teeth, ever so slightly, as he looked back to see her touch the hilt of her sword. He used to carry a sword, one hammered and forged in his sons names. The sword was Tormund, the sheath was Samson, and both were used in unison to cut and bludgeon. But it had been too long since he last carried it, oil replaced with dust and luster replaced with scuffs. He eyed her nails, sharp and filed, and the mechanical claw that bound itself to her shoulder. It was a sharp and unique contrast, one that offered more distraction than visible insight. He would know of it's price, the pain that she had to endure to obtain it.

They came about the corner in droves, at the helm was a man that seemed familiar to Gabriel. The Sith Lord released control and threw his robe to the side, brandishing the metallic cylinder in one hand and the rancor tooth in the other. He had been employing force conceal for sometime, masking the animosity and feral nature of his force aura. It practically bled and crawled out of him, soaking him in a physical hatred as his eye sight bore down on the grandson, |or was it great grandson?|, of the man that betrayed him so long ago on Tattooine. The mind flashed back to it, that fateful day of a bolt to the back and the slavers clink of the cuffs. A body dragged through the sand and thrown into a cage. | That symbol, that Dragonsnake on the tree. I know it, I knew it. | Those were the days that set him on his path and he couldn't help but let the hatred flow out of him. | It has to be him, it looks just like him! | The sabers ignited in an instantaneous sanp-hiss, hilts modified with gems and power setting to cause such a forceful ignition of speed and ferocity, as he held his arms out and contained the force bellow that nearly tore itself from his throat. He wasn't here to destroy the town, just the forces that stood before him. And they were numerous, crawling out of the cracks and holes and crust and nooks and crannies. Like insects, he would bring them the fate they had been born to fulfill - death was their only true purpose. And he would do it with the help of the woman behind him, his true purpose in this place. His mind drifted back to it and the sudden realization of why he was here, to observe her, to understand her, and to appreciate her significance. He wouldn't spoil this for her, he would let her lavish in the painting they would create together - sabers and swords soaked in the paint of blood, thick and broad strokes flashed upon the canvas of this town.

A sense of calmness over took him as he noticed a smile across the grandsons face, signalling the men to fire upon them. It was the smile that brought the Lord to movement and the idea that he would bleed this pig and send the fat back to the family. Gabriel's hand began to move in a red blur, twirling and spinning, as he sent every bolt back into the forces or back and behind him into the air, piercing armor and flesh and sky alike. He ran forward, snapping his right wrist down and his left up, a bolt into the ground and another into a soldier that had decided that mounting a scope on a roof was a good idea. All the while, he blocked the bolts heading towards [member="Matsu Xiangu"], not that she needed it. But it was his way of taking responsibility for the forces that followed him here. The indignation, the gall, and the lack of forethought offended him beyond understanding. As he ran, his athleticism on display, he clipped the metal lightsaber to the belt and deflected another bolt across the a glass storefront and into the parallel side of town, knocking down a soldier running opposite him to flank their escape. | Like we would try and escape. | Fear and anxiety was quick to take the place of diligence and training as the soldiers frightfully shot into something that wouldn't be shot.

His left hand jutted out as a small storm formed in his palm, inhaling and exhaling and sucking in dirt and debris. He neglected his anger, like a dog let off the leash to chase down his enemies, in order to nurture the small breathing thing in hand. Where anger slept, a sense of determination and resolve found itself stirring from it's brief slumber. He vaulted into the air, releasing the ball of Kinetite towards the ground in front of the soldiers. Where there was aimless firing and dismay, there was now a cloud of dirt and a hole where the ground used to be. The impact stirred up the dust, clouding the Fade with an orange mask and leaving the men hopeless at finding their marks. Gabriel landed, the solid vision of his image obscured and obfuscated by his own accord. With saber in hand, he adopted a reverse grip and looked back at Matsu, his gaze complimented by the weapon in hand. The soldiers were coming from the front and behind and they two would need to start using the environment to their favor, seeking refuge and adopting guerrilla tactics. But not until he saw her for what she was: the woman from the vids, the monster he knew her to be. The bolts and shots whizzed from behind and by him, taking pieces of the dust and cloud with them in small funnels, only to be filled up by more particles eager to accept it's place. He was ever mindful of their destination, pacing as he was overcome with the shadow of the cloud, his eye fixed on the woman now in front of him. He wasn't eager for her to prove herself, he was eager to see consequences of this mercenary group accepting this bounty. He was eager to see her in action and gathered his energy, accumulating it and folding it back over on to himself, excitement as good a motivator as anything else.

The second mercenary group tore around their flank like wild animals on ice, knocking over food carts and pushing the natives out of the way, several trampled en route to safety. They honed in on the one massacring their comrades but took special notice of the female. They would open fire given their first chance, as motioned from the man in charge: with a single wave of a hand, he ordered her shot down.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Can you help me? No one should help me.​

Oh…but that makes me want to.​

It was likely a testament to Matsu’s character that she did not question dozens upon dozens of men pouring out of the woodwork with the intent of capturing or killing her. There were any number of things she had done that might invite such a pursuit and it seemed an inopportune time to think on which had prompted this one in particular.

She wished she had a bit more time to observe him in the same way she knew he was observing her despite her inability to walk his mind. (And that is strange, that she can’t dip her head in and read what he was thinking, to know his intentions despite how well they might be hidden. She envisioned his mind like a fog in a glasteel box, impenetrable and dark, streaked through with crimson lightning that cut the clouds in sections with its hellish glow. Punishment, a place to die.) He felt old, ancient even, a man of another time who had seen things that made him feel so much like the stone she likened him too. (But stone doesn’t bleed – and what is the word, the word, the word that you think of first when you look at him? Pain. The giving and the taking. Pain. Dangerous.) At first glance she supposed they were nothing alike, a slip of a woman next to a muscled monolith of a man – tattooed and scarred where she besides her arm was pale and unmarked, a yawning silence where she had been the first to speak a jest.

First glances were, however, often wrong. And this was no exception as the stranger turned his back and let loose a signature in the Force that had her closing her eyes, tilting her head back and letting out a little sigh of recognition, of pleasure – her aura crawled forward, an oil slick shaping to the form of a beast to lay down and soak in the pool of blood she imagined his to be. There is hatred that she does not need access to his mind to recognize and she thinks it feels more personal than the dark’s usual reserves, a dormant creature starving after so long a sleep. When she opens her eyes again they’re streaked in amber, hungry as his hatred as she watches him move with a fluidity she’s almost astonished to watch. (He’s calm, isn’t he? How many have you seen work like that – focused, determined, using rage to their advantage without letting it make them a beast? Few. Very few.)

She was still watching, unflinching as he deflected bolts meant to pass through her brain and moved far less like the statue she’d first seen, when she settled in to gear.

She spotted one of the men he’d redirected a blaster bolt towards go flying backwards in to a storefront, the glass spidering and shattering as he flew through. Reaching her natural hand up she took hold of the shards of glass with the Force, redirecting them towards a group of men sprinting towards the stranger despite the fear rolling off them in waves. (Respectable. Foolish, but respectable.) Her attack sliced indiscriminately, tearing through exposed flesh and anywhere armor didn’t cover, felling them before they even had a hope of making a hit on their target.

Matsu fought in much the same calculated and controlled way it seemed her partner did, not allowing the anger and fear she naturally fed from turn her in to a monster. Instead she was ice, a frozen lake one might drown in – she took her power and let it become concentrated, a white-hot pinprick of the Force in her chest that she drew from with almost infinite reserve. She did not explode in one great show of power only to exhaust herself – she sipped, conserved, fought for hours and with precision.

She turned when she heard the commotion behind her, a flanking group bowling through everything in their path in pursuit of her. Weapons raised and determination dripping off them, devoid of the fear that gripped their brothers as they had not yet seen the devastation created by the male target, they barreled for her on their mission. Pulling Tianzun from its sheath with a cold hiss of alchemical durasteel, Matsu held the blade across her body in a guard to deflect any bolts they might get off before she reached forward and gripped their minds.

To manipulate a group of Force-users would be a task she was up to, but not without sacrificing her safety – mentalism required intense concentration at its higher levels, and the more minds manipulated the more one needed to think. But this was not the case – these men were simple, mercenaries talented in the art of murder, but devoid of the force and weak where it mattered most against her. She latched on to them all and grew an illusion (the shape-shifter, darth yaojing, zip on their skins and wear someone else for a day), sending a bolt of pain to distract them before blooming in to not one Matsu…but twenty, a circle of Atrisian women exactly identical in their appearance and movement circling the group.

T͙̲̣͙̙ͪ̓̈́ͩh̗̮̬̬ͤ̓̔͌i̞͂̋̿ͣͨ̃̚n̗̪̋̐ͮ̎k͆́ͣ ̥͇̾q̘͚̮͇ͥ̑̚u͓̝̫̭ͯ̈́͋̉̀͛i̯̣̽ͬ̉c̲̹͕̼̫͂̊͛k͇̘̗̯̦̲̂,ͨ̄ ͎͉̰͕̣̙̮͑ͫͣ͊͌t̲̫̉͑̋h̪̞̬͚̥̗̎ī̫͔̪̳̙̙n̲̺ͩ͂̓͂k̭̩̻̼͇͎̯̽ͨ ̮̆͊͂ͬͫ̍q͉̗̤͔͗̈ͬ͑͊̓̑u̮̝̣ͮͫ͆̇i̫̱̘̖͋͋̀̀c͚͕̒̉̾͂̾̑̎k̬͉̙̳̱̲ͥ͋ͩͩ̒ ͈͕̯͇͎͗̈͒-̯͒̎̑̃ ̱̳͔̣̼̼̯ẉ̂e͍̝̭̪̗͒͐̓̂̊ͩ ̙̻͚̠́̒c̤̣̄̈͑a̰͍̰̤͑ͥ̅͗̄ͫn̲͔͈͈̺̔ͥ͊̓ ͕͈͓̍͑̋a̺̪̘̲ͫ͛͂ͩ͑̃ḽ͇̬̳̥̫̮͆l̠̻̣̙͗̐ͫ ͍̞̝͈ḣ̪̻͖̗̪͕̤̇ͧ̋ͨ̾̿u̹̦͎r̼͋̅ͦͬͯ̐̎t͖̲ͤ͋ ̗͈͓ͅy̯̱̲̙͐̌͊̌o̱̰̬̤u̳͔̇ͧ̒ͪ̚.̞̟͇͍͚̮̑͂ͫͨ ͓̲̘̙͍̜͋͛͒ͥͬ͒ͅW͔̍ẖ̗̦͙̪̙̤ͫ̃i͇̘̰̮̬̤͈̒ͯ͒̓ͯͥc̠̱̜̞̰ͪ̍̎h̭̦̦͉͉̬ ̩̺̄̿̊̿͐ô̱̣n͎ͤ̒e͎͌̿ ͖ͩͤͭ̏ͬ̐a͔͖̳͚̐̇m̗̱̭ͣ̉̂ ̰̫̯̖̝̫̏̓I̠̅ͮͮͯͭͯ?ͫ​

​

Their panic tasted sweet and she savored it as she made the first cut. She had never moved at all, and she severed the Commanders’ head to incite further disorder. They were well-trained, performing as best they could even without direction as her illusions flung themselves at the group. The real Matsu made quick work, using their confusion to her advantage even against such a large group, pushing back those that caught on faster with blasts of the Force.

Flicking the gore from her blade she spared a glance over her shoulder to the stranger who seemed just fine on his own, not too far from her still. But what shifted her gaze was the line of mechanized warriors turning the corner near him, trained men in armored suits packed with projectile explosives – something more fun for them, in other words. She could hear the buzzing and squawking of frantic orders through the comms of the dead men at her feet and knew despite the size of the first two waves, they were far from done.

Turning to face her partner she raised her durasteel hand and recited one of the incantations she’d learned, the Sith language rolling off her tongue serpent-like and sinister. At first it seemed as if nothing had happened but after a few moments the freshly dead stirred, broken bones cracking and collapsed lungs wheezing as they lifted themselves from the ground to walk again. With a push of suggestion Matsu sent her small army to harass the heavily armored men, slow them down while their targets made a move to higher ground.

The pipes of the deeper industrial areas in the sector seemed the perfect jungle, and she was admittedly eager to watch him work.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Flesh concealed crimson within the cloud of rust and darkness now consuming him, relish and relief pulled itself over and chewed away at hardened callouses and scars. Blaster bolts, slugs, metal carapaces and rolling steel, broken glass and steam gushing from pipes in the holes he helped to create, he felt the heat of it. That spike, that signature, the instant fever, a laser focus from the small Sith Lord, tearing through sinew with a surgeons calm collection. Flesh turned to stone, unimpaired by biotic factors, as the old Sith found himself upon sought after footing, his purpose gently caressing the war torn skin with a flash of hot white, the numbing bliss and the gentle peck. For just that moment, he didn't feel the pain, the agony, the anger. He didn't need to, he was a black hole feeding upon her momentary release of power, overwhelming everything that was sent at her. Ephemeral moments found themselves upon the edge of eternity, stubbornly stretched and thinned by a man who wanted nothing more than to just watch, to feel something else.

He had an eye for a talent and he had an eye for illusion. Never the practitioner, not capable of such dynamic mental power. He stepped to the side, debris following with him in a convection and swirl, as a baton swung from behind and missed, crashing with a thump into the spot where the kinetite hit. His eye never left her, even as he blocked the next baton swing with his forearm. Even then, it was pulling tick from dug in flesh, as he grabbed the soldier by the collar of his armor and head budded him, caving in the helmet. With a flick of the wrist and a fling of the arm, the man disappeared into the building next to Gabriel, tumbling head over heel into thick panes of glass. Blood trickled from his scalp, no pain, no hurt, only euphoria as he felt the grip of Reverance tear at him like a dog looking for release. He smeared the blood across his forehead and flung it against the ground, the spatter clumped in dirty blotches. Sanguine eye caught amber eyes, a noticed change, and the glancing look towards the area behind him, towards the newest of foes to join the ranks against the duo. But more importantly, he heard her voice for the first time in their encounter, something he had not yet considered in their endeavors. It was a convocation, something he was familiar with, having known all sorts with vocal powers. But the rising of the dead, that intrigued him. Where he was a brute of physical prowess, capable of breaking and destroying and annihilating, she was something else. She found use where he would have thought it all but devoid, broken bodies bent and bowed to her vision. Her voice brought power, the most attractive of characteristics. It was only when he turned to see what she noticed, finally pulled away from the pulsating blackness that crawled out from her, that he realized what all the fuss was about.

The dead walked and stumbled, their eviscerations and wounds no longer a tormenting weakness. They were stronger now for the pain they endured, just not strong enough to last it. The price they paid was a small one, a life ended abruptly. It was it's own form of mercy, he thought, as they rushed passed him into the groups of mercenaries to harangue the mechanized forces. Each step was a shudder, a vibration that signaled their arrival, and their metal bodies were large, much larger than either of the duo. And Gabriel considered himself a large man, though he had seen larger.

"Give up, you're only making this harder on yourself." The voice rang out, echoing across metal and wood and brick.​

Voice echoing through the static of a speaker.​

​

The saber extinguished as Gabriel found himself near Matsu. He wanted to feel it again, the proximity and the ecstasy of her potential, as the body let Reverance pour out. Ill intent, malice, blood lust, thirst for everything, it corrupted him and found itself breaking free like fire from a rocket. But it wouldn't break free, it couldn't, Gabriel was as fueled by the power as Reverance. They were both strong, but one was in control now. And the one in control was a lightning rod, easily focusing the energy towards additive momentum. There were no steps back. Only his eye forward, his mind content on seeing what more she was capable of. To feel her keep pace with him, to even exceed it.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] 's play things attacked in mindlessness, tools re-purposed and retconned. The mech's moved about them like giants among ants. Things, stomped and squished, spilled out of their shells like syrup in plastic beads. His vision drifted upward, with a final wayward glance to the Sith Lord he had sought for some time, before he vanished in a force jump that lifted him high. Rubber soles met with the asphalt of the store front roof tops, the mechs following quickly behind. The structures of the storefronts squealed and ached beneath their weight as they jumped and followed behind him in hot pursuit, using the buildings as stepping stones in their path. He didn't have enough time to look to see if Matsu was behind him or next to him, but he knew that she was there. He interested her, he could sense that. She wouldn't let him get away so easily and she had an ease about her, as if this wasn't her first scuffle. So many things pointed to the truth of that.

Before him, commerce had turned into industry and factories and refineries and wastewater treatment centers sprouted up like copper lilies in the dull springtime snow. Where brick was once the dominant constructive resource, aluminum and brass and steel branched out of buildings like limbs that coiled about on themselves, snakes intertwined and intermingling with the native construction. Light became something scarce, fading away as if something unwanted and soiled, as the buildings began to grow monstrous and multilevel, blocking any form of sunshine that may have pierced the fog heavy planet in the early evening. His foot steps were quiet as he ran, even more so compared to the monsters that gave chase. And it wasn't just them, it was men with jet packs and men with grappling hooks. The pipes became their temporary anchors, using the environment to pull themselves forward. He slowed his pace, bolts from the mechs splashed wood and metal up at his feet as he rolled, the force gathering not to his limbs, but to his mind. He envisioned the mech, it's circuitry and sprockets, it's body within and the human that controlled it. Another bolt hit the rooftop beneath him, caving it in. Instead of rolling, he jumped towards a pipe and spun, flinging the Sith dagger unsheathed towards the mech. It hit, just at the fracture point of the glass, splintering through and piercing deep within the chest of the pilot. The mech crashed forward and fell through it's own footing and inertia, down into a factory that was busy manufacturing some sort of garment upon trains and trains of conveyor belts. He yanked himself up, taking a moment to see where his new companion had found herself. In the brief moments to collect himself, he dived further into the reservoirs. Shatterpoint was hardly something that spent him, but the power he planned to use could do just that.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Matsu had a tendency to view all confrontation as a game in a sandbox, the worst threat a prolonging of the time between periods of leisure. But running beside him then, the crunching-click of her heels along the rooftops as she sprinted only slightly behind his pace, there was an element of excitement to the situation she usually didn’t experience. She was bouncing off him, stellar radiation from the deep gravitational well of her power reflected in the juxtaposition of his. She wanted to understand, absorb him in the same way she collected everything unknown to her.

She was, admittedly, beyond intrigued.

The dead could only hold out so long against something the size of their current pursuers, limping on broken bones and attacking with half-torn bodies but they did the trick. (Like syrup in plastic beads, like ripe grapes with skin snapping between her teeth before the flesh melted.) It was several jumps before she felt the vibration of the mechs joining them on the rooftops above, earthquake ripples of weight rippling up her senses. Their jetpack counterparts sway in to her vision, a buzz-shake static image registering as she keeps track of their swings. Eventually the canopy of their industrial jungle becomes so thick they move by factory-light, the occasional patch of red sunlight reaching their playground, but otherwise they are among her element in the shadows.

It is here Matsu becomes herself – the Final Beast, the black hole.

As the rooftop beneath their feet cracks and gives way she sprints up a splintering section of rebar and leaps, pushing off with the Force to soar through the air towards the mazework of pipes ahead of and above them. She turns just in time to catch the mid-air use of the kind of precision she’d seen other men crave, imagining the shatter-shock sound of an impending end for the man inside the mech-suit, the sound whistling across the distance to her. What she wouldn’t give to observe, to stand there and prowl along the pipes, invisible and predatory to watch him work with his mouth in a hard line, pupils set in oceans of blood wide with easy concentration. As the mech falls to the factory below, its impact radiating showers of machinery and flame as chemicals were exposed to the air (oh, Ovmar will be so cross), she turns to follow him deeper in to the jungle. (Breathe in, breathe out, breath in, breathe out. Kaleidoscope, pipes turning at right angles to each other, an oceanic labyrinth swallowing the sinkhole of her thoughts. Two wild animals stalking those not fit for the turf, amber and scarlet, flashes of color.)

She can feel, she thinks, a gathering – a collection of the Force in pieces, lapping at his call. (Something big, something big!) This is what she wants, a show of what she can only guess is locked in a place she can’t break in.

And she can give him time.

She pauses on a horizontal section of piping, the sound of jetpack exhaust push-push-pushing in her senses as she crouches down, feet planted and pressing her palms to the metal. (Animal, creature – the final beast!) Closing her eyes she reached out and took hold, snapping her grip around the brainstem of any man or woman in reach and bridging out an illusion easy in its truth. She opened her mouth and darkness poured out, an oil slick blackness crawling down her body and over the pipes, slipping dense and thick over the industrial maze and swallowing anyone near her in its grip. (She was a black hole, unknowable, an unavoidable force of nature. In space she floated without a sound, bending light and warping the stars around her – everything was dead, whole systems stripped bare by an immense nothingness. As they come in contact with the starry oil-slick there is only silence, Matsu sitting in the middle of a vast field of nothing and watching as their eyes hollow and they grow soft. She kept expecting them to blink. It wasn’t hard for her to comprehend their panic – the sticky, tacky feeling of her skin as their emotions leeched outwards was proof that what she’d taken from them was an insurmountable transgression. But they just looked so utterly surprised as they gazed eternal in to the distance – a sentinel to her power, her black hole made sentient.) Any of the jetpack wearers caught within the web of her illusion froze, wordless and blinded. Some managed to maintain a grip on their anchors, floating aimlessly around the piping, while others let go and left their controls full throttle, whizzing off to crash messily against buildings and the jungle surrounding them – a symphony of shattered helmets and static-scream radios as they were disconnected.

When she opened her eyes again she focused in on the stranger, her eyes shed of amber to return to their bottomless black pits. She’d destroyed the first wave of jetpackers, but more came behind them, and the surviving mechs. She had tricks up her sleeve, but she saved herself for after whatever was growing. (Show me, show me, show me.)

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Gabriel gazed unblinkingly into the ominous hold, at awe over the mental prowess of his battle companion. He had seen the darkness of the space, he had traced the edges of dark holes, and he had been anchored to things so dark and tenebrous that he had felt nothing could surprise him any more. Like a student watching a doctor operate, Gabriel could feel the intense void slithering out of [member="Matsu Xiangu"], the slick residue and oily nothingness that spilled out of her and encapsulated her victims. A spider laying siege to her victims.

He felt the emptiness creep into his stomach and pull at him, twisting and churning. He had wondered, from the surveillance videos, about her true capabilities. And beyond her physical dexterity, he now knew that her powers resided in all things conjuration and illusion. She was a master of powers that harkened back to the ancient ways of the Sith, back to times when fights could be concluded purely from intellect. He had always known the capacity to combat such powers, but had never known the talent to conjure such things. He was but a brute in her shadow, one he was grateful to not have to combat. A brute that held firm capacity for the things he could see, far removed from abstract abilities. If not for the pressing need for action, he would have watched her as long as time allowed, playing with her victims in ways that mystified him. But the end of her show and the subtle change of hue revealed to him a certain urgency, one he couldn't ignore.

The mechanized units moved back, as if on their own natural convey belt, removing themselves from the source of their fear...Matsu. Gabriel could feel it, could feel the change in attack methods. The mercenaries would draw the two out of the temperate and metal forest, thick with pipe vines and iron branches, with the oncoming onslaught of projectiles. Unfortunately, they had waited too long, they had given the Lord of Pain all the time he needed.

Spoiler

[media]https://soundcloud.com/abhishek-2010/the-good-the-bad-the-weird[/media]

​

​

Muscled body dropped from perched position, rubber soles clacking speedily against interwoven rooftop pieces of green metal and rotten wood. The sound was as much a blur as his movement. The first three missiles launched from three mechanized unit's canisters, squealing little monsters intent on blindly following orders. Gabriel leaped and spun, the first missile dragging by him and falling into the roof top that was his platform, far behind him, to devour more splinters and shrapnel in a haze of monstrous and explosive appetite. Reaching out, he gripped each of the other two missiles by the shafts with telekinesis, just outside of reach of both his hands, focusing and hating and angry and pent up. Continuing his spin, he reversed the direction of the missiles, sending them skyward in a retaliatory strike against two Jet-pack mercenaries in flight. One blew out, in smoking chunks, against the side of a much larger factory. The other was but a deflated ball, bouncing upon the rim of the factory hole the mech had created previously, before circling the drain and tumbling into the factory fire below.

His spin continued into reinvigorated momentum, the jump but a brief repose from the sounds of his feet upon intent and wood and metal. He reached forward, mid run, and gripped the missile canister of the forward Mechanized unit. As he closed his fist and pulled back, he dislodged the three chambered cylinder from the mech's shoulder and buried it into the rooftop. The impact ignited the two remaining missiles, flinging the entire object back into the unit and creating another hole to another part of the factory. The metal unit toppled over and fell off the side of the building like a limp puppet with the strings cut. They had learned their lesson, it seemed, and switched to Gatling guns that tore a path of destruction on it's way to the stampeding Sith Lord. He wasn't going to be stopped, not by bullets and not by missiles.

Gabriel cut left mid sprint, the orange and yellow smacks of metal followed him like newly blossoming flowers on the forest floor, as he jumped against the factory building where the mercenary splattered from the wayward missile. Using the momentum, he jumped off, the bullets not far behind and cascading up the wall, aiming to send himself into the hole created not moments before in the rooftop, leading down into the factory. Just as he plunged shallowly into the factory, he gripped a ceiling beam below, and flung himself up and through the roof. With a reactionary back flip, Gabriel found himself mid air and at center of the remaining five mechs in this area. Strong grip and fortuitous location allowed him to latch on to the back of the first mech he could reach, without ever touching ground. He reached out with the remaining hand, his closed fist at the epicenter of the pentagon of the five mechs. The force gathered in collected tempest, a storm trapped but in the iron constraint of his hand. Like releasing a lassoed tornado, he let go of the powerful force wave, two directional in its focus and stretching out past his body ten meters. The blast wasn't blunt but instead sharp and cutting and completely devastating, especially to those five mechs as fires and smoke erupted from their metal bodies in response to his force. As the smoke cleared, body parts and debris lied against roof and building and ground below. Only the portions of the mechs that were on level with Gabriel's body were destroyed, the legs and the lower portion of the hull were left standing. Uncooked eggs chopped in half to let the yolk out.

Gabriel stood up from the kneeling position, at the center of the destruction, smoking and bits of char hanging from his armor. He climbed up one of the mechanized units, hydraulic fluids and blood leaking from the inside as if it was all the same. At this point, it pretty much was. Smoke rose from the pilots dismembered legs within the enclosure, the hull filled with meaty and metallic soup and smelled of cinder and ash and visceral death. He looked over his shoulder, and away from Matsu, towards more incoming Mechanized units and Jet-pack utility users. They surely weren't going to be happy about this, but Gabriel mentally noted the seemingly endless amount of forces. Apparently they would need to create a more lasting impression.

He aimed a hand down into the hole, down into the factory, and force pulled the sith dagger to palm. Covered in gore, he sheathed it uncleaned and turned back to Matsu, attempting to discern where her interests now laid. Simultaneously, he dismounted from the mech and force pushed the partial carapace off the side of the building. It tumbled down and broke into pieces, caving in the street below. He was prepared and ready, ready to continue his attack. Adrenaline at the helm, anger and memories of pain and betrayal his fuel.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

It had never occurred to Matsu to become the kind of physical being that her partner was. She was petite and very short and did not have the kind of build that lent itself to overpowering opponents unless they were of a particularly small species. She was deadly with a pair of knives in her hands and she could move like water, cut someone open and dodge arterial spray in the same motion. But she had never taken to learning more than the very basics of the step-riposte of makashi and she simply didn’t have the sheer power needed to conquer in a fist-fight. She had gravitated to mentalism partly out of the desire to never repeat the most terrible experience of her young life, and partly because she did not see the world in the way everyone else did.

She was bound by gravity and the laws of the universe, but those were the only things that kept her tethered.

So when he moved, so did she, spidering over the pipes – all arms and legs, crawling with unnatural speed, a black widow stalking his progress with eager eyes while she found a place on the edge of the pipe-jungle to view him on the rooftops. The sounds surrounding them were a symphony of their own: the siren-screech of weapons peeling through the air, the scream of metal buckling under the crashing weight of felled mechs, a disturbing wheeze and thunk of gears and mechanisms in the suits themselves – it all rang in her ears as a backdrop to the wide strokes of crimson and flesh in the painting unfolding. She could have watched forever and as he intercepts the first missile, sending it crashing backwards in to the platform in a dandelion-wind bloom of shrapnel and splinters she grips the hundreds of tiny projectiles and whips them sideways towards a group of jetpack-wearing mercs, hair framed wild around her face as she bared her teeth and watched them explode, the tanks of their packs pierced by her attack – little fireworks to complement the action below.

With her distractions cleared she could watch with a creeping sensation stuck somewhere between admiration and jealousy. Somewhere in the brutal thud and ricochet of his movements there was the efficiency she craved married with the explosive results her tactics often lacked. It wasn’t to say that she wasn’t just as successful, but there was no ground-shaking when she took an enemy down. (Silence. Outer space. Pulled in to her gravity.) And for a second everything was silent, like a breath held before the trees flatten in the face of nuclear explosion, before sound came roaring back behind the pop-pop-pop of air compressed and releasing from the force of his push. A sound like a sword unsheathing cut through her ears as the mechs froze and halved, sliding backwards with palms to the sky (and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath).

He reminded her of legends told by conquerors, tributary lines of blood streaking his armor as he rose from the sea.

She leapt down to what was left of the rooftop he was standing on, the hiss of white-hot steel dripping with oil and blood filling her ears as she cut across the space to him.

Just as she was about to reach out, drag her fingers through the blood on his armor, when the whistle of projectiles pierced the ambient chill of their reprieve, grenades shot along the edges of the roof – dozens. And even better, she recognized the spiked appearance: force-breakers, something she’d seen a few times out in the field working for the Fringe. She had to admit that those without the Force were getting clever about combating it but this…this made her angry. It felt like having something stolen from her, the most precious thing, and she’d be damned if she allowed them that upper hand. (This is MINE! Just try and take it.) “Shield yourself,” she said, assuming he would be just fine if he was capable of performing the kind of things she’d just seen him use.

She gave him only a second before drawing that white-hot collection of the Force, pressing pressing pressing until she let it explode outwards, a repulse so powerful it shoved away everything around them and sent the grenades flying off the edges of the roof to fall towards those who’d launched them.

“I don’t know about you,” she said quietly, pulling her two Mohc knives from their sheaths behind her back and letting them spin in her fingers, “but I think it’s time to nip this.” It couldn’t go on forever even if she’d taught herself to fight for hours – frankly she didn’t feel like hearing her old Master complain about the damage to his city, and she had too many questions for the stranger she’d fallen in next to.

She stalked to the edge of the roof, putting one boot up on the rim as she looked over to guage the situation below, pulling her hair up and tying it back in casual preparation. When she was done she leapt, the wind whipping through her clothes as she let herself free-fall towards the mercenaries gathered below. By the time they’d realized the Sith Lord was speeding at a suicidal pace towards them it was too late to raise their rifles, a force push meant both to slow her pace for landing and to flatten them scattering the group just in time for her to land and immediately start a frenetic slaughter.

​

Let’s have done. And then you & I can have a chat.​

Who ARE you?​

​

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

He turned to meet her incoming movement, interested in what she would have to say. She had moved, it didn't surprise him, as it was time for the two to set out and push back. To remind the mercenaries that they fought against not mere mortals, but things of ancient ascendancy, long removed from the ranks of the living. A exalted mysticism they could never understand.

Just as she was about to reach out, fingernails extending from an elegant hand, her gaze diverted and he could feel the transition of her attention. It was something behind him, something coming towards them, though more pressing issues pulled his mind to another place: the place right in front of him. He felt the force peel away from him, a convection current in a vacuum with limited release, or so it felt. The blackhole. The wooziness when the doctor draws too much blood, the echo of her voice and the need to shield himself. She had confidence in his ability, it was well placed. He stared down as she gathered and released that heat, that push back in all directions. Before him, his sanguine trance followed the clear sheen of translucent dark energy that bent in concave around him, the silent personification of the forces wishes to serve and protect. The dutiful slave, as always. The force blast tugged at his shield, a soapy bubble in a strong wind, and he couldn't help but stand in emotional applause as he watched the volatility rush up and around him, threatening to pulverize what protection he had conjured so hastily. He glanced towards the holes that formed where the translucence disappeared, as if he had never seen such a thing before, the compression between the two powers pushing his deflection to it's breaking point. The rotten boards around him rattled and shook, flinging rusted nails in the direction of the incoming projectiles, before coming lose entirely and flying away from the duo. He didn't need to look, a layer of nonchalance embodied him as the deflection field dropped with the subsidence of the force repulse. The area around the two was destroyed in Matsu's influence and Gabriel's defense, a stone that stood against the rushing of a tide, leaving dirt and cobble stone in it's wake.

He took in the clarity for that split second, the embrace of their force auras but breaths away, a caress that shook him in his own tranquility. A castle of stone bolted by tremors. Outwardly, he just stared at her, though the blood-red orb that hung lazily behind lid told more truths than he would have liked. She spoke, her voice much different than the words that echoed in his mind through telepathy, a vague physicality that he couldn't place. A sultry crispness that reminded him out how much he preferred the spoken language, the casualness of force speaking often lost on him. He was a traditionalist, force speaking reserved for those of more intimate occasions. Though, what could be more intimate than sharing in the enemies suffering?

She pulled the blades from enigmatic origins, twirling them with a certainty that gave evidence to much time spent in use. Time spent pulling life from flesh. He smiled as she spoke of nipping things, taking care of business. He had his mind set on a certain message he would send back to the family, to those who wore the crest of the dragonsnake. "Let us end it, then."

He followed her down, though he ventured further down the building to land in a different nest not far removed. He jumped from the roof with a sense of indifference, feet first and arms out to act as methods of reduced acceleration. Just as he hit the ground, the force escaped him in a blast of telekinesis that crushed the pavement in several residual circles that overlapped with cracking and smoking formations. The compression of the air beneath him produced a heat caused by the intense increase in pressure, a sure method of energy production, that gave the ground a softness that insulated his landing. The men didn't have time to escape, the force rushing outward toppled them in droves due to their lack of planning. How long did they anticipate that the two would run? It was obvious that they had underestimated the duo. Just as Gabriel landed, the two sabers found their respective hands and ignited in blazing and incomprehensible speed. As if stepping down from a small ledge, Gabriel placed foot on ground and honed in on his target. Not the mechs, not mercenaries, not the weapons they held nor the haphazard metal sheets they used for shields. No, he focused his anger and hatred on the grandson of a lineage marred by betrayal and deception and ignorance and stupidity. The woman, the titan behind him, laughed maniacally but this Sith Lord only let out a guttural scream, shaking the men in his way not with force, but with fear. They were about to be on the wrong side of hell and Gabriel was intent on getting his message back to the patriarch, back to the grandfather he knew still lived. A blade to the back would soon be returned, forever removed and plunged deep into the beating heart of the last in his line.

He spun the lightsabers in front of him, deflecting the first bolt back into the defense formation, penetrating metal shielding and dropping one soldier to her knees. With that, Gabriel stood ready to charge, sabers jutting out from him and parallel to the ground, as if the embodiment of his very reach. Red tendrils that extended from him solid, prepared for the moments of death and destruction that would soon follow. He reached out to [member="Matsu Xiangu"], speaking to her with the force for the first time, and gave a wayward garnet glance over his shoulder.

<<Come, come and dance with me...>>​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejsM0VF-Os

In the same way her power is quiet, concentrated, so is the way she fights – there’s a background of silence pierced only by the rhythm of her movement, the sound of her breathing in her head. (One, two, three. Shift. The gasp-suck wet sound of a neck sheared open. One, two. Shift. The clatter of armor as she pulled a man’s feet out from under him, a telekinetic shift of the shield on his helmet before she pierced the heel of her boot through his eye, through his brain. One, two, three. Shift. The sensation of a resistance followed immediately by compliance as the strength and weight of her durasteel arm came to bear, bones shattering in blows enhanced even further by the Force.) Her expression almost never changes, not even when blood spatters across her face, not even as she runs her tongue over where it scattered over her lips. She can feel the other Sith Lord behind her, his power in contrast to hers. If she is the black hole he is the sun, a brilliant volatility held in check by the same thing that made it dangerous – its own enormity, its own gasping, breathtaking power. The wave of fear he presses towards the incoming group feeds her as it doubles in their minds, has her wishing for a moment to tilt her head back and close her eyes.

But instead she hears his voice in her head and it reminds her that it isn’t what she had expected it to be. Perhaps she’d romanticized somewhat – he felt so incredibly ancient that she’d thought he’d open his mouth and maybe he’d sound not like one man but several, a god, a twining of the deep and dark made manifest. But instead he sounded surprisingly human – thick, deep, rasping – but human. She liked it more than what she’d imagined. (Who. ARE. You?)

She looks over her shoulder to catch his glance and feels more animal than human.​

FORCES of NATURE.​

Stellar giants fusing.​

Bending the stars.​

STARDUST and SIN.​

Her power feels raw, frenetic and begging for release as she resheathes her knives and turns to move towards him – one, two, three strides after she speeds herself with the Force – until by the time he’s moving she’s drawn even by his side, bearing down on a group of prey shuddering like dead leaves in the wind. Her saber ignites in one hand as she gathers energy in the other, responding to him as the black hole yawns open and she speaks in Ancient Sith.

D̹͇͐ͅw͍̪̒o͕͙̫̊ͮ͌̄̈́ͯ̾m̱͙̰͙͙̥̹̈́̓u̗͔̭̯̹̪̾ͯtͤ̓̃̈́̊̒s͔͆̃ͬi̳̺͉̪̥͎͆ͯͅq̫̙͖̟̯͇̗̃͒̏ͦs̝̗͈̬͚ͅa̒̒̿ͤ̾̐..̱.̮̜̠̖̃​

​

​

At first there is nothing, a silence that sucks every joy, every hope, every happiness. But then…then something seeps from the pavement beneath the mercenaries’ feet, a viperous hissing as smoke billows up out of the cracks. It takes form as it rises – blue-black sinew, a pillar forming itself, fingers pressing against the asphalt, shoulder blades rolling as it pulled itself from the ground – and she looks to her partner as it completed itself. This spell summoned demons, a creature to take the image of the viewer’s worst fear - snakes, spiders, whatever kept them up at night. But this demon was them: a towering thing with two faces on either side of its head, the sound of its creation like bones cracking as it rolled its neck. When the first face opened its eye, it glowed blood-dark and hungry in a mass of smoke. The other opened a mouth filled with fangs, too-bright white. She wishes then she could touch his mind, build the illusion of the touch of her hand along his neck, press the sense of her bloodlust on him.

But she settles in to step with him, and this is a dance she knows well on her own. In front of them they fall even more easily, some already out of their minds in the face of her smoke-demon. There was something visceral to the sensation of moving next to him, cutting outwards as if swarmed by ants (nothing, nothing, insignificant). Some fell in two, their hiss of their wounds cauterizing as she sliced through them arching through the air. Others she exacted a more prolonged death on, any that came at the Sith Lord beside her with a particular confidence in their eyes – these she pinned to the façade of the wall behind them, speared through the gut by a bolt of sith energy she’d collected in her palm. By the time they’ve cut through the majority of the forces thrown against them, there are only a few of the mech-suited warriors left and she’s running on so much rage and adrenaline she can’t help but run forward, saber down and slightly behind her as she sprints towards one of the suits and leaps (streaks of color, wide swaths of red, new moons on Annaj, the Coruscant skyline, the forests of Endor, snow, rain, wind, the desert, wild animals screaming in her ears, wild animals killing each other in shows of hunger and frenzy, humans killing each other in lust and rage, jerk jerk jerk as she tilted her head, noise and color and sound and life and hate and pain and sorrow and joy and happiness and peace and war and love and new and pain and ancient ancient ancient gods) only to land with a foot on each shoulder, pulling her saber up before shoving it down to melt through the bubble of reinforced glass that formed a viewport. The smell of circuits frying, metal melting, technology screaming in death shifts to give way to flesh and by the time she’s melted all the way through the mech is falling backwards.

Yanking her saber out she jumps just as it crashes to the ground, landing a few feet from the stranger. (Is he a stranger anymore?) There is only one person left standing, one man among the waste they’d laid. It seemed prophetic that he, and he alone, had survived in the middle of such slaughter and when she looks up at the Lord beside her she realizes that it might have been perfectly intentional.

This one is his.​

​

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

Attraction. Attraction had to be the right word. Or perhaps it was lust. Lust, a quickening of the spirit by pain inflicted and torment given, the spray of blood across the face, the warmth of it. Men dropped to there knees, slumping piles of steaming nothingness, flesh and blood and soup serving no purpose but towards their own affliction upon the sewer systems. Dirt trails of brown and red formed thick paste in running ravines that ran across this battlefield, filled with liquid and organs and bile and decay. And he could do almost nothing but gaze into it, the lingering convection between the force aura of him and his partner who battled furiously at his side.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GDxKddP39Q

The Sith Lord looked into those changing brown eyes, just as words of the ancient ways were spoken, and gave the most intimate expression he could in such a forum. The expression of dropping his mental defense, just for that one moment, so that she could gaze into his mind and understand his true fear. No snakes, no dragons, no spiders, no monsters. Not monsters of the typical sense. Just a man that crawled out from the pillars, crimson eyed and sculpted and staring, staring menacingly from that sepulcher. He didn't fear that man, the one tucked deep inside. No, he feared the survival. He feared the everlasting, the life never ending, that when the fires washed over the universe and are extinguished with the passing of time, that he would survive the cinders. And just like that, the image was gone, and the fear of it vanquished by the mind nearly always protected.

Even as the enemies succumbed to their fear, he relished in their passionate struggle against their own-self, gouging eyes out to not see, pulling ears from skull to not hear. Matsu led the charge and Gabriel mopped up. That was fine by him, he enjoyed watching her work. The way she moved, those words she spoke, the adrenaline and the rage, it all poured into him, a conduit that gave energy where it was quickly depleting. While Matsu moved forward to destroy the incoming forces, Gabriel dealt damage in devastating blows of his own against those that would attack her from the back. Falling behind, caused by a slowing of the run, he confronted another mech. A spin, a twirl, the red sabers connected with the metal of the legs, shearing torso and resulting in a sufficient explosion to blast hair and dust. A fling of the wrists, a jump of the legs, the Sith Lord leaped into the air as his dual sabers bounced against chests now opened and cauterized, returning to his hands in boomerang like style. Rocketing, fierce and fiery, he crashed down into a pile of men that sought vengeance when they should have sought survival. A ravenous storm of red sabers lopped arms and legs and heads off, a chef frantically tossing salad, as he sent the seven beings in armor quickly to their grave.

Red, everything red, the anger was potent and intoxicating. And her presence did nothing but add to it, a machine gun with the trigger held down and the safety ripped off. He could feel it, the heat of the ache, the weight of his arms, as he breathed heavy, looking lackadaisically at the last mech unit in his way. He blew the bangs from his face, 'sheathed' his lightsabers, and disappeared in a flash, a run, a stampede, as he jumped and shoulder bashed the mechanized unit. The thing toppled over as Gabriel wrestled with it, before mounting it and head butting the glass casing, reaching in and yanking the soldier from it, throwing him through the air. Before the mercenary could hit the ground, Gabriel sent a devastating force push that connected hard and blasted the warrior into pieces. A head, a torso, arms, and legs, split evenly and given back to the masses. Hopping down from the mechanized unit, Gabriel looked on at the destruction that his partner had caused, actions sensed and seen through the periphery. If it weren't for the tunnel vision, sight on the last man left standing, the Lord of Pain would have been equipped with the most endearing of smirks, indication of a job he assumed well done. Instead, he walked right past her, unsheathing his Sith dagger, still stained with blood and mercenary bits.

"I'm going to break you..." Gabriel growled as he approached the leader of the pack. The young man didn't even have time to speak words of retort before he pulled out a dagger to protect himself, his ammunition long spent. Gabriel dodged a jab with a left step, stabbing downward, right through the attacking elbow, in between bracer and bicep armor. The mercenary let out a yelp while back stepping and cradling his wounded arm. He re-equipped himself with a sense of purpose, primarily to survive, and changed attacking hands. The Sith Lord paused and smirked, nodding his head, and giving the typical 'not bad' expression before pressing forward to attack. Another missed attack, a slice of the ribs. The Sith Lord danced around his new victim, cutting shallow and cutting fast, as if in constant pirouette, a dancer. Gabriel cut behind the knees, along the thighs, along the waist, along the neck. The man dropped to his knees in a exhalation, not being able to tell where the blood on the knife ended and Gabriel's hand began, before the Sith Lord kicked him over and straddled his chest.

The Arkanian hybrid began to search the armor of his victim, sitting on top of him, before he pried the small orb from the chest piece and suspended it in air, the power of the force stretching out from the man who was all but spent. Behind the lens, the Grandfather watched from safety as Gabriel looked across the universe to his enemy, smiling, staring into that digital cam.

"Today...your line ends. In these streets..."

Then it truly began, the onslaught, as Gabriel took all of his hate out on that young mercenary, both arms swinging violently into the mans face. First he punched flesh and cartilage and eyes and teeth. And when that peeled away, he punched bone and tendon and muscle. And when that collapsed, he punched bone and brain and all the inside bits, flatting everything into organic flapjacks of red and grey. Plop, thump, plop, plop. The body had long stopped it's death spasms from the shock, now only recoiling from the movement of the man on top, who kept hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting. Until there was nothing left but the sound of his fists against wet ground. With a sigh, he flung the camera into a nearby building, not even gesticulating as he could hardly feel his arms, let alone lift them. His face, his armor, his body, was covered in the blood of the slain and of his own blood, giving the visible tattoos an almost oily sheen. The blood trickled from his scalp, a wound suffered early and re-opened with blind hatred. His hand shook as he reached to his left side, just beneath the armor, and felt a small rectangular piece of metal stuck into the abdomen. Must have been from that last explosion, he thought, trying to trace his memory back through the last few moments. All he could remember was her grace, her movement through the streets, that bolt of energy from the palm, the knives and the sabers.

His hand trembled sporadically, not from pain, but from muscle exertion, as he yanked the piece of metal out and dropped it against the ground. It sounded in a clank, a trickle of blood flowed out to soak his already soaked pants. His posture was that of exhaustion as he looked back to Matsu, smiling, near toppling over. He sucked in air, the burn and the pain had his synapses firing like popcorn freshly cooked. The silence was nearly overwhelming.

"I knew we could help each other..." Truth was that he had caused all of this, in a multitude of ways. Half the city had been destroyed by their antics, he had put her in danger, and had put himself at risk. And he regretted not a single moment of it. She had assisted him in a bit of revenge that he would not soon forget, even if consciousness slipped through his fingers like watery gelatin.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She watches as he passes by her, a monolith cut in hard lines of tension and building (promising) violence and tilts her head as a brief thought fluttered across her mind.

Attraction.
(Foolish.)​

​

She had no idea of the crimes the lone and temporary survivor of the battle had committed, but she didn't care either. This man's reasons were his own and who was she to stop him when in truth she craved his revenge? She stalks around them as it begins, pressing the call on her commlink to send for her ship as the sound of the planet's authorities approaching screamed closer, keeping her distance and contemplating the tableau in front of her (judith slaying holofernes, the last judgment, a triumph of horror, saturn devouring his son). She wanted to reach out and touch his mind again, even tried though she brushed up against that same resistance that he'd dropped for only a moment - a glimpse she would contemplate later, later when she wasn't begging to (FEEL his face crack under her hands, feel the impact begin as a hard smack against bone and cartilage and get progressively meatier, a wet sound as brain started spattering outwards over the asphalt. She kept seeing just his jaw left, teeth sticking out from ruined skin in something too close to a mocking grin. Destroy that too. Leave a butterfly sickness, crooked and split in half, a skull halved and shattered like messy inverted rorschach).

It takes the sound of shrapnel dropping after he pulled it from his skin to bring her home, drag her head out of places his brutality had taken her.

It doesn't occur to her that she is tired until the silence is so loud it aches, a ringing buzz that winds back and forth between each ear. She isn't as bloodied as him save for a few punctures and gashes, though it's more due to the fact that she simply isn't capable of the kinds of hands-on combat he is. But she knows that near topple, the fatigue post-victory and she feels herself smile a lazy offering as she moves closer. He has questions to answer, a curiosity to satisfy and she hopes he is not too tired to forego his responsibility. (She would stay up to know who he is, why he feels so ancient.)

He owes her after all - even gods have someone to answer to, and Ovmar would be none too pleased about the destruction of his city.

"Oh? Well, come. You can help me further - shoulder half the burden of listening to this city's Governor berate me. Besides..." She looked up as the sound of repulsor lifts hissing cut the air, her sleek stealth crusier piloted downwards in to the street. "You have a few questions to answer."

_____________________________________​

​

​

It isn't long to her estate outside the city, a place she hadn't planned on going to before the stranger had caught her eye. But her apartments within the city were meant for a sort of privacy, ironically. Despite being centrally located she went through great pains to be sure that no one really knew she stayed there except for Kesare. It was a quiet place as opposed to her estate on the jungles' edge, a compound - for lack of a better word - that she'd conducted business and held parties in. And slept, when she remembered to. Though she was fully aware that the man filling the space of her cruiser was a threat (finally, finally, FINALLY a real threat) she felt comfortable enough bringing him somewhere that wasn't expressly a secret.

And as the larger of her two properties on Annaj came in to view it was obvious why there was no point in attempting to hide it. The edge of the city dropped off in to the jungle, almost the entire surface of the planet used for mining and forestry. But several of Annaj's wealthier inhabitants had homes built off the main drag, lifted above the treetops like a high-tech Kashyyk. She dipped her crusier down to the one below them and perched on the landing pad.

Sitting had let the ache settle in, muscles stiffening and shortening, and she got up slowly (a hint of frustration because she can't get even a flicker of his thoughts) to make her way down the ramp and outside.

White, white, white - a compound, marble-like and cold. Sprawling and extravagant, this place was one of her not-so-guilty pleasures, quiet and private. As they moved beneath the overhang covering the entrance two women, armored and armed, watched the stranger next to Matsu pass before continuing on their rounds. Matsu liked employing solely women - her ship's crew were female, the group of trained mercenaries that followed her in to conflict was female, as well as everyone guarding this place and anything else she owned. She found them especially brutal.

Once inside, their footsteps echoed as they trailed deeper and it was the first time she was acutely aware of his presence. Of course it had been impossible to ignore before but then they'd been surrounded by hundreds lined up to be cut down. The cold silence of her home magnified that if she'd made a mistake one of them would cut the negative space of white on white on white with streaks of red. (And yet she likes the thrill, the idea that he could turn on her. No one makes her wary anymore - so nice, so nice.)

It wasn't until they'd reached the more lived-in sections - and here she's on display, color, nightmarish art, plush carpets under leather furniture - that she speaks again.

"There's six or seven guest rooms up that way - you can take your pick to shower or rest or whatever you'd like. But...not until you tell me who you are and why you're on Annaj."

She has dozens - perhaps hundreds - of questions that she would usually be able to answer for herself in one light read of his mind. But only the one she'd asked already was important for the moment. She was in no rush - a predator, full and sated and content.

[member="Reverance"]​

 

[Reverance]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

Blood clotted and blood dried, like paint against a moving wall, so easily peeled and gone. Memories of those who dwindled and perished, removed from thought as quickly as soul from body. But the feeling of their release, the feeling of the hand painting such delicate strokes against building and road alike, that was something that would last forever. Hands covered in sanguine latex stretched and ached, bruised and bloody, a body suit for the digits soon gone with the scratch of finger nails and the rub of the palms and the loss of life that it signified. An eye glazed over in thought, the recent movement from street to ship to estate was something performed in silence, wondering gaze upon the woman who trusted him enough to embrace him for the time they spent together. Eye dilated, transfixed upon the white stone estate against the backdrop of greens and browns, a moment of civilization cut into the harshness of things wild and things unchanged. Stilts, Kashyyyk, the mind brought to the forefront memories of times spent on that planet, in the throes of another empire, one far more feral. Cannibalism, murder, necromancy and the roads it leads to, all things considered the norm. A means to an end, he told himself, as he sharpened the blade and pulled more flesh from muscle. A philosophy betrayed in pursuit of love, or what he had thought was love. But it's so easy to assume that when a life is filled with pain, that the pleasure associated with it's absence can be so relieving, so confusing. And then when the pain returns, one wonders if it wasn't love all along, a thing missed and a thing nourished when brought back to life. A love removed becomes a love in and of itself.

The universe was a harsh place, especially for those capable of causing the sort of damage these two had. And where his body ached with a tenderness he had not known for some time, his mind was even more exhausted. Long had he spent in such endeavors, combating the likes of not one but two Sith Lords, prying and prodding and trying to get at the meaty inside bits. He didn't blame her, not in the least. Had he the same power, he would looked past the eyes of hers and into that soul, answering questions that he neither dared to not speak nor was too lazy and preoccupied to utter. Questions of the origins of her power, where she had learned such skill, and what could have caused such soft skin to be torn from flesh and replaced with rough metal. These were the questions, and more, that plagued him persistently.

Entering the home, he followed her in step, noting the gait, admiring the dichotomy of her power and her figure. He was a thing of obviousness, those in the room knew of his potential from the moment that foot met with flooring, hand met with glass, body with chair, fist to face. But her, she was something more. The beauty of form and the power intermingled to make something quite deceiving, a spider lying in wait. He had recalled the industrial section of Annaj, her web of deception, her powers against the weak and strong alike. And now, he would be even more mindful of it. Was this another web, was this the last place he would ever see? He hoped not, the battlefield was his end, burning and blazing and killing everything in his way. But sometimes, people don't always get what they want and he mentally shrugged, too tired and too interested and too curious and too involved. If he had to die by someone's hands, it might as well be from someone strong and capable. A clean cut, someone who could finish the job.

Fingers traced the edges of a macabre scene, gruesome violence painted in frozen time against a wall of white. His bloody fingers, turning from red to black with coagulation, felt the texture of the painting as his mind lingered upon it, a child-like curiosity to something so mundane and so...normal. Normal for him, normal for a monster, normal for something that had caused far worse damage than the images that were depicted upon these walls. Transfixed, he felt the grooves of the paint, the transition of the colors, the vibrant display. He couldn't help but relate it to work done and men sent on their way, the happiness he felt for tying up the lose end was apparent. A blade in the back was sent back to the grandfather, a line cut loose and hung out for all to see. It was a scene of a man upon a hilltop, red moon and red sun, nearly coalescing to form a Venn diagram, shining orange light against a man stapled to the mountain with spikes. Carrion feeder, wolves ripped pieces from the man and tore bones from limp flesh. The oddity of the picture was the mans face, long hair descending from his head to follow the natural fracture of the hill. No pain, no struggle, no anger. Just acceptance, a virtue Gabriel could relate to. A man stuck to a fate and forced to accept it, one takes pleasure where they can, even amidst the sea of pain.

"Gabriel Sionoma..." He spoke, knowing that he had the advantage of her name since the very beginning. He wondered, quietly, how far he would tumble down the hole to reveal his intentions. Perhaps he would go all the way, not fearing the consequences. He was too tired, mentally, to care. As he spoke, his defenses began to falter, a mind stumbling drunkenly from the bar and slipping on wet pavement. "Coruscant first. I gathered information about you, information to complete task from your parents, your retrieval. Truthfully, I had mind towards taking you to them and killing them in front of you...for their pretension." His fingers continued to trace the landscape, the snow covered hilltop painted in blood and red light, the edges painted with a thicker layer to provide the illusion of 3D. He contemplated the notion of insulting her, going too far in his plans to mutilate her family, to help her become something more. But it seems the words escaped mouth before mind had chance to stop them. "But I see now that you have already suffered...and have learned much from it." His head turned to catch a glimpse of her, that thing he had seen dance so elegantly, before leaning against one of the leather seats, his crimson stare fixed upon her. He knew very little of her but in the same vein, felt he knew her better than any other person in the universe. He had seen her imagination, her creativity, he had felt her force and the blood that splattered out from her victims washed over him and filled him with her passion, filled him with that loathing and dark void. The final beast. A pointillism of her form, her fight in the street, was a fixed fixture in his mind, one that he couldn't seem to release.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] When he says his name she can feel his mind unwinding, an opening like a sigh as all at once she had an opportunity. And yet…she didn’t take it, hovering right at the edges and sipping. He feels like pain – given and received, a calling, a mission, something mirthless and serious; like decades and decades, memories she didn’t have hope of watching unless she sank all the way in; like…other, the sensation of never, ever being truly alone. She won’t move deeper out of the one value she holds herself to, leaving the minds of those she respected or liked alone unless they invited her. Those who threatened her, those that she needed something from quickly and without fuss, and those that were simply in the way were fair game. But even if she hadn’t known him long enough to know if it was smart to like him, it couldn’t be argued that he commanded respect. If he turned on her it would change – and somewhere in the back of her head she knows this is her only chance, that if the tides shift and he makes his move that she won’t have this opening to go deeper, to know all of his secrets. But she doesn’t really care. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Her expression doesn’t change despite her surprise when he mentions her parents. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Until that moment she’d been watching him observing the art covering her walls but she sank in to one of the couches when he leaned against a chair, considering his explanation. (And she thinks, distractedly, shouldn’t this image be something on her walls too? What would they title this, two creatures black with old blood, watching each other?) She wonders if this talk of mutilation, a casual mention of eviscerating her Mother, is supposed to upset her. A touch of his mind was all she needed to know to supplement the impression that he wasn’t the type to say things merely for a rise – if she had not moved past his expectations she would almost certainly be on her way to watch her Father spilled on the pavement. But when he speaks of his plans she feels nothing but curiosity, both for what such a thing might have looked like and his motivations. “I hadn’t realized they were looking for me. I haven’t seen them in…a decade.” She’d left without a word, nothing on her back but what she was wearing – it must have looked like she was taken, like she’d been spirited off. (But no – I was just headstrong back then, naïve. I had a galaxy to see.) [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] It is hard to move her to anger. In all other emotions she is passionate – hate, love, joy, sadness, excitement, lust – but rage comes slowly, a forced crawl that came to the surface only with the most powerful of reasons. So despite the notion that this all began as a bid to galvanize her creation it registered as almost nothing. It had been anger that led to losing her arm, anger that led to every loss she’d ever known. She still fed from resentment, from the idea of revenge, from every negative emotion that existed…but she would not let it control her. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “It is flesh,” she answers in response to the idea of her pain, to the evidence he could see of what she’d lost. The true suffering had been more abstract. At first it had been the dying, the silence as she weakened in a snowy patch of her own blood. She had never been good with quiet and it had been total, the snow swallowing everything as she drifted. And even then she might have died without every knowing suffering beyond pain.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] It had come when she woke again, in the dark, in a stranger’s home with what had been left of her arm gone. She can remember the weightlessness with perfect, cutting clarity – it had been the sensation of what she’d come to fear: nothing. Being nothing. Where Gabriel (the messenger, harbinger) feared the immortality of something ‘other’, Matsu feared dying as she almost had there on Skye, with nothing to say for herself. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She feared the death of a red-dwarf star, a collapse that left a glint of stardust, a burst of the elements before disappearing – completely, totally, finally.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “Perhaps if they’d spent all that money they planned on paying you looking harder themselves they may have found me,” she answers, not needing to be aware of the details to know her parents had offered a reward for information or Matsu herself. Money had always made them lazy – someone else would always jump at the credits to do work they could have lifted a finger to do themselves. She couldn’t be sure why now, ten years later, they’d decided to put serious effort in to her finding her but she considered making plans to pay them a visit. “Maybe you should do it anyway.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Not that she wouldn’t assist. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] When her commlink goes off she looks to the larger readout on the wall, letting out a sigh when she sees it’s exactly the man she’d predicted would be hot on her trail. Jared Ovmar – her old Master, crime lord and scoundrel – would display an impressive swath of colorful language that would amount ultimately to a bag of hot air. She knew as well as he did that between the two of them – not to mention the deep, deep, deep pockets of the Fringe itself – that they had enough credits to rebuild the city without feeling a dent in their pockets, money garnered both from hard work and off the backs of others suffering in the streets. Blood money, grudge money. “Excuse me for just a moment?” (A study in dichotomies, a petite woman hiding a red hypergiant’s supernova in curves and durasteel – a quiet thing, all mannerisms and delicate movements capable of the kind of bloodshed committed only half an hour previously, rolling her jaw to break the dried feel of someone’s blood on her face.) Their conversation is short, full of the back-and-forth that characterizes a friendship based primarily on irritating each other to the point of madness though it’s obvious neither truly means it. As predicted he gives her grief because he must and not out of any true anger. If anything she thinks she hears something like pride – he’d always been attentive.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Her gaze shifts back to him when the call is over – named now, the archangel – and she wonders on why he’d even taken up a call he could very well have ignored. “Why does their pretension matter to you?” She imagines it has something to do with that vague sense of ‘mission’ she could sense in her brief foray around the perimeter of his consciousness but she wants to understand.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She was hungry and wanted a hot shower, and part of her knew they couldn’t curl up like snakes in the sun forever. But where do they have to be?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Reverance"][/SIZE]​

 

[Reverance]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

A cold red eye stared out from the mans face, an almost expressionless visage bent on internalizing her questions, analyzing the answers given in such curiosity. She was headstrong and stubborn, he could feel that just from her unrelenting nature. Maybe you should do it anyway, the words echoed within, resonating to the core of his reasoning. Should he? What purpose would that serve? Would it serve a purpose at all. If he even could. He mentally denounced the idea, already long ago deciding that the plan of the past would stay there, fully enveloped in the blood they spilled in their intricate creation of art and vandalism. He mourned it, as his eye wondered and wandered along the edges of her jaw line, drifting from the blood stained against delicate cheeks to the art on the wall. Regret touched him, that perhaps the climax had been achieved, that he had seen what he came to see and would see no more. Dénouement, the final end. Denouncement once more, regret washed away with the promise of things to come. There was so much blood left in the universe, so many more who were so deserved of the final moments that these two could give them. A charity, tapestry and fibers, soaked in red and left to dry in the sun. The tethers of the universe, all those quantum consequences of actions not yet taken, so readily soaked in that warm life force. From red to brown to black. A back rested as the body is apt to do, sitting down in the leather chair across from her. How did I get here? Wasn't I just leaning against the chair?

A hand crawled out from the folds, resting on the arm rest, as the Sith Lord felt something he had not known in some time: Comfort. A thing avoided, a thing left for those who needed it, he could hardly stand it. And yet, he couldn't seem to bring himself out of it. A statue caught in the moment of it's own reflection, a man cut and haggard, taken to the role he seemed so adequate to perform. Why does their pretension matter to you? He smiled, absentmindedly, as she spoke of her parents and the obvious chagrin she held for them. He felt, in many ways, the same towards his own kin. Well, his father anyway. A story for another time, he thought, as his hand moved lackluster and lazily from the roundel of the arm rest to lie just beneath his chin. Thought, it didn't come easy, a dam that had all but run out of water. Rest and deluge, that's what it needed now, and the potential for comprehension that would draw itself out, a snake finding sun in the midst of winter. But now, she was unrelenting, and he found admiration in such things. That she had the energy for such endeavor, despite the most recent tasks, kept eye open when it wanted nothing more than to close.

Sticky stickiness, he shifted against the leather, finding that blood stained skin was likely to adhere to tanned animal skin. He pulled his arm free before inhaling loudly, taking in the air of the estate, before resuming his statuesque position for the moment. This time, crimson eye remained transfixed on the woman before him, a piercing red thing, vibrant against a body that seemed so opposed to the inherent energy of his sight.

"It was an excuse. A happenstance, card drawn from the hat." It was true, he thought, as he pondered the reasoning for what it was. Something that occurred entirely out of chance, a mind drifting over the tens of thousands of bounties provided on the boards of the holonet. Blue shifting colors, a stream of consciousness, and he just happened to be lucky enough to pick the one that would provide the most inspiration to a man that was...bored. Boredom was the answer, boredom could be the reason for anything, could start fires where none had existed, could draw blood where bone and flesh once remained intact. It wouldn't be the first time, especially for him.

"I care nothing for your parents. But their request...irritated me. As self-entitlement and self-righteousness are oft to do...And I was bored." He paused and smiled, tonguing his canine tooth to feel the sharpness of it, laying bare his idiosyncrasies in these moments of exhaustion. "So I researched you, watched videos of your fights, the things hidden from holovid interested me. I proceeded to Coruscant to procure information. Several teeth and finger nails later..." He inspected the nail beds of his free hand currently not cemented against his cheek. "And I had your location. The rest you know."

He paused, eye staring and fixed upon the subject of his interest, a person as intimate with physical pain as he had ever been. Perhaps she could understand the mental torment that afflicted him, the nagging sensation of another always pulling, always tugging, ripping out memories to leave the building blocks scrambled across the floor. Perhaps she could understand the acts he had committed, family murdered before they had the chance to cause impact, an act that forever formed the foundation of Gabriels being. A being captivated by it's own loss, by the nothingness that remained when everything else was gone. It brought to formation something that lived both in the future and the here and now, a junkie held within the clutches of his addiction and forced to justify it.

"I would sooner cage a Ralltiir Tiger...then take you back to your parents now." This moment, this being he admired in celestial form, was not something so quickly thrown away to the likes of those so emboldened by their own sense of worth. No, his disdain for the likes of them and the likes of those who valued money in such ways was obvious. He had no use for it and nothing but time for it, the aberrant and apparent condemnation of such appreciation of monetary value gave way to his actions. It was a weakness he would gleefully prey upon. And against his own thoughts, a curiosity crawled out, a mind of it's own. "What about you? Why am I sitting here when I could pose threat?" Was it trust? He didn't know, wasn't sure. Maybe her actions were spurred by the same notions as his. Boredom and interest, curiosity, lust. Nevertheless, she wasn't the only with questions, with things to ask.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] She has no reason to believe he’s lying when he says following up on her was chance. But despite being young she has been around long enough to adhere to the belief that nothing was as random as it seemed. Perhaps it’s just the fact that she deals so much in the abstract – dreams, visions, hallucinations, skin-walking – that she’s prone to connecting dots where maybe there were none. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Regardless, her gaze was stuck where his tongue toyed with his canine, stopping herself from doing the same.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] The idea that what she’d done to Krius Syonis was captured by street-cam wasn’t surprising, but that someone had bothered digging through hundreds of different feeds to find the ten minutes of conversation and sixty seconds of conflict that had marked the man’s death was. For eight years she had dreamed of his end, pushing the limits of her imagination in to evermore elaborate scenarios. In some he burned like she had, screaming and screaming and screaming until he sloughed in to nothing. In others she made it slow, she made him beg. But when it had come down to it she had been quick. Imagining him in agony had been cathartic but when faced with the chance she had seen fit to end him swiftly – he was not worth the exertion. He had never been worth the exertion. She had ripped him in half with a crack of his spine splitting.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She hadn’t even stayed to watch him die. (The horror was enough. That he’d suffered the same realization that his body was broken before he died – and she hadn’t, victor of the conflict between them – as she had almost a decade before was enough.)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] A smile lifts the corners of her mouth, a hum of a laugh as she rests the side of her face in her natural hand and watches him. His question is a good one and the answer is convoluted, born both of her fascination with the unique and her past. “Because you taste ancient,” she answered, the flavor of his mind in the few sips she’d allowed herself on her tongue as she considered her reply. She would have to be a fool to trust him completely – it had, after all, been perhaps an hour at most since she’d first laid eyes on him – but there was still some sense of shared experience, of understanding after working as they had. Boredom? In a sense. She spent much of her time in the company of other Sith Lords and even a few Jedi within the Fringe but their interactions were compulsory, business and planning. But somewhere along the sweeping path they’d cut through the city she’d felt ease in stepping to his rhythm, complemented by his strength. She had felt awake, more engaged than the mindless slaughter of dominion or invasion. “If you came to Annaj because of an excuse, you’re sitting here because of curiosity. There are very, very few I cannot read and you…you I can’t even touch. It's...exciting.” She doesn’t mind admitting it – a defense like that was built intentionally or through enormous pain and he was clearly aware. She wasn’t going to hammer at him and that left her no recourse but to have him across from her, lounging and languid.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She watches him for a moment or two, the patch of blank, sewn space on the right side of his face calling her, a juxtaposition to the intensity of the eye watching her in return that made her hum. (What have you seen? Where have you been? Why do feel like infinity? Who was the man I glimpsed in your mind?) A thousand questions. She shakes with them, pinging off the inside of her skull, a vestige of the bloodlust, the last part of her to come down from the high. But not now.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Another day, or perhaps never.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt] And with the possibility of never in mind, she takes her chance.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Lifting herself from her seat she closed the few steps between the two of them and looked at the blood that had flecked off him. “Now, you’re getting blood on my furniture. So you can either come shower with me, or you can get out of my house.” Hypocrisy aside as she’d left blood behind where she’d been sitting herself, she turned from him and left the decision in his hands, turning the corner and disappearing down the hallway.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Reverance"][/SIZE]​

 

[Reverance]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

He was ancient, an ancient thing of ancient ways and ancient predilections. Practices long left to ruin, states of minds abandoned for progress and the more sound. He can remember it, the feeling of parchment and paper beneath his fingers, scholars looking upon the written word illuminated not by bulb but by iridescent candle. The embossed stature of letters written in dried ink, sometimes even blood. Methodology formed out of their own necessity became things of culture, of ritual, and slowly faded like words from stone tablet. But was he really that old? He had never been able to track down his past beyond the reflections of memories in the water, liquid and void of substance, gifts given by the mind within, once flashburned to nothingness. Like appetizers to an entree that would never arrive, he was left waiting, left craving, for that thing that he could never retain. In lied the paradox of his situation. Even if memory were to be returned from prying hands, it could just as quickly be stricken away, leaving him exactly where he had began. To think of it was maddening, many a night spent deciphering messages and accounts of his person, only to realize that his skills and efforts had pressed to prevent these very things. Memories gone, accounts gone, and he was left with a feeling of helplessness over his ancientness. A relic with no potential for carbon dating.

The mental wall, that thing of strength now dwindling, was one of habit as much as one of Gabriel's volition. A selective breeding of the mind, traits found formidable allowed to survive while all others were thrown to the wayside. A coldness enveloping his persona, a fortress of ice that thawed and cracked at his choosing, but found homeostasis in it's frozen form. It wasn't his fault, no he claimed no responsibility for the defenses coerced into existence by the one within. That old and monstrous thing, as old as Gabriel, that ate away at the ice, chiseling away layers to get at the mind and memories deep inside. With each strike, parts of Gabriel were stripped away, leaving only Reverance there staring back in the mirror. All semblance of the man that stood opposed would soon be gone. A process expedited without the defense of the mind, the binding claws wrapped around the brain to lock away the secrets that found safety in it's frigid embrace. These secrets were the only thing he had left to treasure. These secrets were exciting to her, the chance to experience someone immune to her prodding, fiercely stubborn in his own ways. And to get at the revelations within, what emotion would that provoke, he wondered. Would it be that same excitement, or would excitement turn into fear or anger or disgust? He didn't know enough to answer those questions, but maybe time would change that. Time had a way of affecting change far beyond his own manipulations.

As she spoke to him, a lingering word, the sound of tongue against teeth and cheek woke him from his inner thought. Words of showering or leaving. Perhaps it was just the temporary conclusion to the events of the day, the natural climax. Or perhaps it was a fortuitous meeting of kindred spirits, standing in the shadow of each others curiosity, mesmerized by the potential. A meeting spurred from boredom that found purpose in such intense interest, such exhausting excitement. And in that thought, he had found that longing again, that desire to drink of her presence that he was forced to watch from afar on the canvas, hypnotized by the tone and hue of it. Would she speak those words to him, whispering in the tongue of old, phrases producing fear and entrapment? Would he be able to resist her this time? Would he want to? Or perhaps for the time they spent together, he had realized that he had resisted her for long enough.

It was obvious the choice that would be made, though he silently mused over the notion that just moments ago, she offered six to seven rooms with showers attached. And now his options were down to one. Where did those other rooms go, he wondered, as she turned from him. He certainly wouldn't complain. And he certainly wouldn't be leaving the estate in this state, though his desire to clean himself of the disarray was hardly the motivation that would remove him from his seat. The lips parted against reinvigorated face to give way to a smile, as he spoke not a word in return. Yanking his sticky skin from the sofa, he gazed over at the bloody imprint of her body against the seat, a silhouette of her form solidified by the days work. Or was it pleasure? Both.

As he slowly moved down the hallway, tired arms un-clipped the armor from torso and placed it on the floor, just next to the corner, of which Matsu drifted beyond and out of sight. The armor stood on it's own, blood dried and stiffened against armorweave likened it to leather tanned and molded. With a lingering hand, he felt the bacta patch on his abdomen, blood dessicated and hard, leading towards likely scarring beneath. Another scar, another memory pressed harshly against the flesh in it's own attempts to survive, to be remembered. Disappearing around the corner, he followed her slow padding footsteps, and the duo left nothing in the room but their bloody imprints against the sofas, to be cleaned away and forgotten by nights end.