Ballgames and Bloodsuckers

[Vera Mina]

Spoiler

Interacting with: Vera Mina and some rude touchy feely blonde Veronika Fleischer who was left all by her lonesome deserving self. Ha!
Posts: 6



It were on her way out of the VIP lounge that she took notice of the score board. It were in holographic form right over the field in view of all the spectators. 0 - 0
It almost made her break out in a fit of laughter, for the double zeros seemingly were visually right over [member="Veronika Fleischer"] 's irate form, when Karlie gave her the tongue.

'Double zero for double looser..' she thought.
It certainly fit the snobby blonde below. Sure, Karlie had been plastered, but not forgetful of how the blonde came on to her. Then again, Karlie did have some good clean neural pathways that had once held horrid memories, soaking up new experiences. So yea, a bit sober now, she remembered the blonde well enough to stick it to her.
'Pft...to think that she was trying to smooch her way in getting to Vera with her fancy-smancy designer dress sock she came struttin in...pft...' No way Karlie were letting that fly...no sir!

"Get out!...you too?..." Karlie replied when Vera mentioned her strict diet, giving her a teasing 'huh-hum' eye over. Sure, tummy problems...nicely put she let slip a little smirk.
Who was Vera trying to kid? Karlie knew it were Vera's way in not only watching her 'to die for' figure, but keeping it in the manner that- there was a moment of hesitation as near erotic thoughts churned in her head.
...well, such thoughts were strange even to her, the attraction she had with Vera. The woman was just-... 'sigh... oh good lord', the woman was just so woman!
The age difference was also playing a major factor in the attraction. Vera evoked experience, confidence, domination...heightened sexuality...shiet, she just smelled awesome!
Karlie didn't know what exactly she wanted of Vera...just that she wanted her.

"Well, I hadn't given it much thought in grabbing a quick run of junk food. But yea...as good as they are, dogs...hot dogs rather, just don't like me either..." Yes, Karlie were still on the track that Vera was meaning in watching her figure. Karlie hadn't though on the fact that holding such a figure may not come so naturally. Still, it were one upon which even the goddesses would envy of a mortal.

"But i think you're right though. I ..I mean 'we' should see about hitting a good eatery somewhere...uhm, you know...where we can talk." Yea, right... talk.
Her eyes kept meeting Vera's, each time getting a small involuntary muscle contraction... oh my god.
'No, no!.. sigh...' Damn, she had to pee again.

"Some game huh?...don't blame you two..." an usher made some kind of comment that was pretty much over Karlie's head.
He were meaning how the game bombed big time...a disappointment...couldn't blame the two for leaving.

Nevertheless, she took to look over to the scoreboard again...double zero, like before. So when was this game going to start? There had been an endless scream of fans and scores of announcements, but not even a point?
maybe this was some kind of skirmish, an exhibition game of sort. Still, she had no clue as to what or how this Hutt Ball was played. Ball games weren't her bag.
One thing was certain, it had all just been background noise.
She shrugged her shoulders, giving Vera a 'whatever', to the usher's comment on the game as they left the stands.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~​

It weren't difficult at all to secure a good table at a local restaurant surrounding the stadium. It were all commercialized for the fans. fans who were still yelping and hollering like bamshees. Even curbside, the roar and scream of the fans could be heard resonating.
The restaurant wasn't too far a walk. hell, karlie would have walked a few kilometers as long as it were besides her Vera. only that she had to go in the worst way.
"Oh..this one looks...awesome..." She said, coming up to the very first eatery. hell, she would have jumped at going to a McDurttle, if they had a refresher...

"Come on, looks like we're beating the crowd." And with that they entered 'Pits and Ball' a fine sports bar and grill.

Getting immediate attention and a favorable table...if they had a choice. But Karlie accepted the first good table without a fuss and got to see Vera sit before she announced the fact that nature was calling again.
"Be right back this time...promise." She said, lightly stamming her foot holding it best she could. Sure, she could of rushed off, but she didn't want Vera to think that's all she wanted to do or why she had ushered her in.

"Ok Ok...be right back. You can order for me if you like. I don't mind having what you're having...." A moment of hesitation as she tried to read if Vera was alright with it..with her. She seemed good with it...seemingly not mind being out with Karlie. This definitely was important to Karlie, as she didn't want to seem too pushy and eager. But all seemed to be going OK.
"Grr...Ok, got to go. I'll be back..." and with that she scurried off to the ladies refresher.

4 minutes later...
...and with a happy go lucky smile, she sat herself across from Vera.
"Coffee.... oh great idea..." Karlie got herself busy with the light creamer and artificial sweetener, that Vera had seemed to order for them.
"Wow...you seemed to have needed it just as bad..." Karlie commented on the empty coffee cup in front of her Vera...light traces of coffee left, along with a used spoon settled next to the cup.

Karlei's offer to fill Vera's cup with the carafe left on their table, was met with 'one cup a day was all she could handle...without her climbing walls' kind of reply from Vera.

"...listen.." So Karlie began...

"I was kinda not all myself back there... on the Morpheus, I mean.
I don't know, but later after IAN came to pick me up i had a lot of time to sort things out.
well, sort out what i could....shoot, seems i must of blocked out a lot of stuff.
But I know I didn't block you out." oh how to scathe what was really going through her mind and tightly crossed legs.

"You... you were nice to me. You made things go a lot better than they would have, i think.
No.
No I know that you did. I just didn't get a chance to say or thank you for your help..." her eyes lowered, as her features started to blush again.

It were hard to talk to Vera like that...thinking of her and how Vera had taken care of her on the Morpheus and proving her innocence and all that and not feeling the euphoria she were experiencing. It all had become something more in Karlie's mind. After all, she were human as humans could get..or were at one time in this galaxy. And for the most part, they had been vulnerable. That is until the midi's came to pass and affected them like everyone and everything in this galaxy. only now, Karlie had reverted herself to those first humans...before they succumbed to the midis.

It were not difficult to pick up that Karlie definitely enjoyed sitting around shooting the hay, talking up a storm...just enjoying the woman's company...



[member="Vera Mina"]

Finding a table in this restuarant was yet another new experience for the android Vampire. She had never been in a restuarant before. Given her diet, it wasn't all that surprising. [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] had given her leave to order something so Vera had ordered two cups of coffee, dumping one out immediately by tossing the liquid surreptitiously into a vase while Karlie was in the rest room and no one else was looking, far from their table, so Karlie would not get suspicious if a nearby plant started smelling like decaf.

She instead patiently waited while the blond, youthful scientist came back. She started getting very shy, much to the artificial vampire's delight, and her breath stilled a little at the smile. Vera doubted Mother actually approved, but then again, Nine HAD erased Karlie's memory after Vera had been accidentally exposed as a monstrosity, like something out of a horror film. Sometimes Vera could get very annoyed being in a living situation conducive to horror film tales...

Vera had riches, but they seemed almost trivial compared to befriending Karlie. Credits and clothes were things. Having someone want and need you was the true wealth.

"Merely having you here is thanks enough, Karlie..." Vera said easily, chin resting on one hand as she stared into Karlie's eyes.

"I don't make a lot of friends, as you probably have guessed. One does not become the kind of lawyer I am without making a few enemies. The good kind, I mean..." Vera said, studying how shy Karlie acted, her smile pulling up a little. It wasn't a fake smile from Vera like it usually was. Even the Biot was surprised by this.

"It was my pleasure to extricate you from your circumstances, Karlie. What they were doing to you was both lazy and wrong." Vera asserted. It was the truth. The CIS had dropped the ball with Karlie. If Nine had not been so keen on avenging her failures at Melida, Karlie would likely have ended up spending her last moments getting diced to pieces in some way.

Vera was glad Nine had made the decision to try and get to the truth. Because now she was here with the only organic she didn't feel contempt for. She even felt a little contempt for her mother, who she privately (often openly as well) derided for not having the guts to go full warlord. Vera thought back to before there was Karlie, decided that time had been boring. That she had been...limited by her programming in some way. More than usual.

But now that Karlie was interested (Vera was VERY interested back)...how to go about it? She could not keep up excuses like the diet forever. Or Karlie could get suspicious. If...whatever this was...was to go on...eventually Karlie would have to learn the truth. But how do you start that conversation. Vera ran a general explanation she might have to give Karlie someday in her head:

I'm a super badass bloodsucking android that kills people for money, mostly for kicks, and I am crazy about you so you don't have to worry about getting eaten, okay?

No, too harsh. Wayyyy too to-the-point. Took most of the 'High-Concept-Thriller' feel out of it. More honest, but it lacked nuance. But what exactly was nuanced about her nature?

The waiter showed and asked if they would like anything. Vera made another dietary excuse.

"Coffee is playing havoc with my stomach, I'm afraid. Karlie? What would you like?" Vera asked her, taking this as an opportunity to learn more about her new obsession. Karlie had eaten pretty much anything on the Morpheus, but that was due to needing to regain strength. Vera wanted Karlie to want her, so observing what she ate was essential to...

Seducing her utterly.

Vera had to make Karlie want her so much that if--when--the truth came out...Karlie would not care. Or at least, not care as much as she might otherwise have. It said much of Vera's understanding of humanity that she thought that that her next stratagem was, in 'any' way, sound.

What if...what if she exposed Karlie to all her other selves--?

As the murderous biot pondered this, she smiled at Karlie again. Maybe a joyride in a starfighter first...depends on how fast Karlie liked to go.

The thought of Karlie's arms wrapped around her waist as she rode a speederbike...Vera bit her lower lip unconsciously as she leaned back in her seat.


(OOC I thought it might be best to continue the story in the azterri thread here...)

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

"Lord Palpatine, I'm like famished..." Karlie went to open up the holo menu, then closed it. She knew what she wanted without looking as she could smell it around her. her nose twitched and a quick look to her left revealed the waitress serving up a cool and freshly made BLT...oh the gamorrean bacon strips with feluscian crisp lettuce and tomatoes to die for...and some mayo...have to top it with mayo, or it's not a good BLT. Ok, so the porcine were not actually the sentient's Gamorreans, but a farm raised sub species that were just as tasty. Of course the taste factor came from the master cuisine experts like the local kept Rancors who by far were the best taste testers in the galaxy when it came to quality porcine or as some called it, 'pork'.
As it turned out, the Rancors would always go after the sub species before any sentient Gamorrean. Only when starved would Rancors eat just about anything..including but not limited to sentient Gamorreans, humans, Rodians...
But a well feed and cared for Rancor would always go for the sub species of porcine over anything else.

"You sure you won't mind if I just grab something quick?" Her eyes were certainly following her nose on this one. Even so, before the waitress left the other table, Karlie flagged her over.

"Hi!...Linda, right?...yea...I know you're not our waitress.." No she wasn't.
But the one which had seated them and had already served up coffee wasn't with eye sight so...so Karlie who was famished and certainly couldn't really wait, took it upon herself to inadvertently start- Oh yes, a 'Waitress War'.

"But that BLT you just served up-..." She motioned to the scrumptious BLT on toasted bread, she had just served up. "Oh Hi!" Naturally she waved at the patrons that were at the other table trying to enjoy their lunch or whatever. But Karlie was holding up their waitress.
"...great choice, the BLT." Karlie took to explain to the other patrons.
"Palpatine, I can just taste it from here... didn't need to see it coming...just took a whiff of that bacon and... hm, hmm...haha...." Nope, the people in the next table didn't want anything to do with possibly giving the troll (which was Karlie in their eyes, by the way) their attention to feed on.
One must understand that Karlie were not one to hold back, especially when she came to be in charge of ordering people or things. And this being a waitress who took orders...yea.

Ok, ok, getting back to the waitress. " Anywho, could you like get me one too?...a BLT... not too generous on the mayo, but not skimpy either.
Oh...and make sure it's like over the tomatoes and not the lettuce...yea." So she got to ordering from another waitress. This of course wasn't where the war began, no. That would follow soon enough, as Karlie's waitress wasn't around to witness how this order came to transpire.

Of course the waitress did try to persuade Karlie to put the order in with the waitress assigned to her table, but Karlie waved her hand, assuring her that it was OK, adding a wink. Of course that wink, as all waitresses know, is from someone who will not listen to reason, but want's it now and want's it fast.

With a sigh, the waitress nodded with an 'sure' confirmation and looked over to Vera.
"Oh... uhm, she's prolly going to sue your boss for serving her some bad coffee..." Karlie then went to point out who the waitress was dealing with that was sitting down next to her.
"Her stomach didn't take kindly to the brew....
So no, nothing for her but maybe get the manager over and we'll see if something can't be panned out...
Ok...run along now..." She cued the waitress to get going on that BLT.

"BLT first...then manager..." Karlie chuckled turning back her attention to Vera. She so loved to get people jumping sometimes. She really didn't think or expect Vera to actually go and sue the 'Pitts and Ball Sports Grill' . This was part of the fun going out to places like Hutt ball games and then rouse up the bars afterwards. So they had left before the lame game was over...someone had to start the ball rolling in the bars, right?

Ok, truth be told, Karlie knew no other way than to avert her attention or lust from her Vera than by getting her attention on something else. This one being the waitress, and of course the BLT which by the way started it all rolling. yea..that bacon was so tantalizing to a famished Karlie, it was like fresh blood to a vampire. Just couldn't resist it...the BLT mind you.

Ok, cool off time...
Karlie flashed her eyes over to Vera for a quick look as she picked up her coffee cup.
Hmm...it were good java...top notch coffee. And her Vera was poised so...so poised, sitting so confidently like she were.
That tingling feeling again. Karlie took another sip trying not to make it look obvious she were doing so to look over Vera as she did.

'Hello...ready to take your order or do you want a little more time?' Yes, their waitress had finally come over to see if they were ready to order.

"Uhm...we're..." She looked over to Vera, knowing quite well what she pulled with the other waitress, before smiling at theirs. "...good for now. Thanks."

'Ok then... I'll be back in a few to see if there is anything else I can get you two ladies.'

"Yea...that would be great, thank you.." Karlie replied and off their waitress went.

"Hehe...I'll leave them both a good tip...wouldn't sweat it." Karlie turned to Vera, laughing it off before sliding her coffee to the side.
"Say... Ahem..." Lord, why were she getting all chocked up every time she were around this woman? It wasn't like she were going to- "....how long did you say you were going to be here on Azterri?" ... frak, she wanted too.



[member="Vera Mina"]

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera watched, with growing bemusement as [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] was ordering a BLT. The only things Vera had ever tasted were Biot Nutrient (Tasted Minty.) and, of course, blood. (Tasted Bloody.) She had no concept of taste. Her nose detected the smells of foods others ate but they meant nothing to her, could not evoke the same growl in her stomach a pulsing, living neck could. She suddenly wished she had topped off before going to Azterri, but once she got to snacking she was a glutton.

Then Karlie suggested Vera would sue the resturant for bad coffee, to which Vera could only giggle and subtly shake her head, assuring her this would not happen (C'mon, she's not that petty.). Yet another variable Karlie had managed to throw in, though it was more due to Vera's nature and not anticipating her initial answer to cover for not drinking anything in Karlie's presence would cause her to remark on it to someone else.

"Oh, there really is no need to get a manager..." Vera assured in a an expertly faked gentleness to the waitress, fantasizing about grabbing the waitress and biting her in front of Karlie, so she could see it. Vera wasn't certain why she would want Karlie to see that...the biot herself wasn't certain why the idea had crossed her own mind. But it made her heart pound as she listened to Karlie's laugh, feeling her processors warm a little as she listened.

"Truth is...my stomach is normally rather weak. It requires a very specific diet..."

(Epic cutaway of Vera as Rom-Jin slaughtering Mandalorians during the Invasion of Eshan)

"All healthy stuff of course..."

(Epic cutaway of Vera as Rom-Jin attacking and biting a First Order Special Forces Colonel in his bed, soaking it and her in blood and killing him in seconds)

"Plenty of exercise helps..."

(Epic cutaway of Vera as Rom-Jin fighting Karlie's droids.)

"But, my dieting is a boring, trivial thing to me. People have always been my true passion..."

(Epic cutaway of Vera as Rom-Jin brutally torturing a tabloid photographer's kidnapped father with a cattle prod)

"And I do get to meet so many interesting people. Like you." Vera subtly flirted, watching how Karlie tried not to watch and deciding to be a little coy herself.

Another waiter had to go and ruin the moment but Karlie shooed this one away, and at that moment Vera was fairly certain this might be a good opportunity to take the next step. But Vera, being a murderous artificial vampire created mostly to lawyer initially, was not sure what that was. That is, until Karlie asked how long she was going to be on Azterri.

Vera thought about it. She had initially come here on mothers orders to watch the ball game, and hadn't had a plan beyond that.

"I might be here a few days...I am on a little bit of a vacation. There was this dispute I had with a witness to a crime that was commited and after things didn't pan out for me there, I realized I needed a few days off. And before you ask, I would be delighted to spend them with you..." Vera replied, her smile and gaze dropping all pretense of coyness. Vera made no secret of what she was thinking. Even though she didn't say a word.

Meanwhile...

Magnus had gone back to the Morpheus with Jerri, after they had tested the ability to shut off her sister's shapeshifter processor. Magnus thought Vera dangerous, but ultimately too volatile to be truly effective. Her programming however, was very strict, as strict as it could be while still leaving her a level of autonomy.

But this recent obsession with the blond scientist from the oldest of Nine's three daughters was a dangerous abberation. The Psy-Pires depended on secrecy to have a chance to spread. Having someone so close to the literal inner circle of leadership without being properly trusted was a severe ongoing worry. Magnus actually had nothing against Karlie. The modified combat droid, as much a vampire as her mother and sisters, actually found Karlie somewhat attractive (suggesting far more of their mother's personality traits and tastes were embedded in their processors than Nine let on), but the safety of the family came first, the red headed robo-vampire thought as she changed into her black combat gear in a nearby prep room.

But beyond that...Magnus genuinely worried for Karlie's safety. Karlie wasn't safe around Vera. No one was safe when Vera was in the room. She could not figure out what had gotten into Vera.

Why had Nine not already ordered Vera away from Karlie?

Magnus brooded over this as she left the hangar bay with Jerri. This was crazy, what Mother was allowing! Karlie's life was in terrible danger!

Jerri, already back in his dark brown yovshin inspired light powered armor turned to Magnus as he and the red head road the tram through the ship.

"We should get you to diagnostics, sister," Jerri mentioned. "Your elbow joint kept squeeking..."

"Later..." Magnus said with a frown, stopping the tram right at the entrance to Mother's throne room.

"I gotta try and get mother to see reason wher Karlie and Vera are concerned..."

"Why do you care so much?" Jerri asked.

"That poor woman could die just being around Vera...if she was a killer like us I wouldn't care. But Karlie is a nice girl...you really want to risk Vera ruining that?"

Jerri thought a moment, going over what he knew about Vera.

"You're right. Disaster..."

"Mother!" Magnus called out as she barged into the throne room fifteen seconds later. "We need to talk!"

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

"Huh?..." Karlie looked confused as to where her BLT had come from.
"...oh, this? " She were enjoying her first half of the sandwich when their table's assigned waitress showed up again.
Yes, pointing to the sandwich Karlie was munching on.

"I...I think..." She slowly put the sandwich down and licked her lips, obviously gearing up her noggin to churn up an excuse. 'Oh-oh...what have you gone and done now, Karlie?' her spider senses were tingling...or were it the hairs on the nape of her neck that were cluing her in that this woman wouldn't take kindly to her horseplay?
"...thought, really..." yes, yes, play it up as the mindless blonde.
"...that you had brought it over." her peripheral did a once over her waitress. Woman's foot silently tapping on the floor, folded arms...
Nope she weren't buying it.

(Sales pitch # 2.0)
"Wow...thought it was you. You look like Linda...you know the name tag..." Nope, not by a long shot this one didn't.

"I mean...the uniform... stylus...pad....I wasn't paying attention." Damn those crawling spiders on the back of her neck!

(ups the ante to # 2.7)
"Yea, I think it were Linda who brought it over. " yep, she nodded, as now recalling that the other waitress had somehow served her up her BLT. Well, she weren't going to lie about it. Karlie after all, had scruples. That or it were a pure cop-out as the waitress seemed invulnerable to her charms...pft, right.

'I see...' the waitress then coldly replied... ' Do enjoy your meal, mam. I'll return in a moment.' And with that, she stomped off.

"Ok..." Karlie were eyeballing/sizing up the waitress till she had rounded a corner and out of sight.
"...I'm done." She nervously smiled, nodding to Vera, cuing her in that it would be a good time to leave.
But not before she grabbed the other half of the BLT and put it in her mouth as she fumbled trying to locate where in Hell's damnation she had put that cortosis card.
Aha!...It were in her rear pocket.
As snugly it rested, she managed to pull it out and swipe it on the table's touch screen holo-console...adding what she thought would be some compensation hush money (credits).
Then she wrapped her arm around Vera's and quickly paced her out the door.

The faint roar ...or rather what actually sounded like disappointing boo's emanated from the arena they had left earlier gave them clue as to the stalemate still standing at 0-0 in game.
It took no time for Karlie to usher them clear of the restaurant, melding in with the street crowd. It seemed that they were not the only ones to have left the game before it ended, only the first. Whereas the street had been a bit deserted when they had entered the bar and grill, it were now teeming with people. There seemed to be a lot of disappointed fans funneling out of the arena despite the futile game, still dredging on. Karlie didn't know much about Huttball, but knew enough to know this one had been one lame game.

By block end, she had consumed the better portion of her BLT, discarding the crusty leftover end in one of the street refuge cylinders. It were then that she realized how she were clinging on to Vera's arm, leaning herself quite cozily over.
By the way...where were they walking to?...Karlie finally took to realizing. Nope, it weren't in the direction of vera, nor of her hotel suites. They were closer to the center hub of the city..closer to the arena. Nope, they were definitely not in urban settings anymore.

By the looks of it, they had reached what was a corner of the city park...or one of it's nearby parks. The arena and much of the busy metropolis was quite a distance away by now. They found themselves in what was more of the local community... residential high rises...family neighborhood, where local establishments that rarely saw the patronage of the fans visiting the arena.
Karlie looked around, coming to a stop near one of the park entrances. It were for the most part quiet...benches surrounded by flower beds, stone pathways through blossoming decorative trees...and...and...
And all that didn't compare as to how good Vera was smelling.

"Say, would you mind if we could like sit down for a spell?" Her eyes moved to the park bench just a few yards in the park.
"Really could get off my feet for a few... you know, these heels... " Not entirely true, they were low heels, matching her casual attire. But she did need to sit, lest her legs fold under her, as she could just melt being so snugly close to Vera like that...she could feel the woman's warm body, smell her tantalizing and arousing perfume-
Before her nose picked up the scent of crispy dogs... yes, the park had a HOT DOG VENDOR!

Damn...
So it were true. Sex and food seemed to have an equal tug on one's senses.

Karlie couldn't help but chuckle, finding it funny that what she had first wanted at the arena was now just a few meters in the park.
She slowly removed herself from Vera's arm, drawing her eyes up to the older woman. It were a toss up as to why she were biting her lower lip... wanting a hot dog or to feel the woman's lips on her own. Her heart were beating a kilometer a minute. It were more of the latter now.

Woop! woop!.... A police cruiser sounded out as it sped past them with lights flashing, heading toward the downtown area.

Karlie paid no mind to it at first, as they approached the vendor who wasn't but a skip and a jump away from the empty park bench she had first eyed.
And so it went; with two fully loaded hot dogs in each hand, sitting on a park bench next to Vera, she munched away on some fine crunchy skinned dogs. Well, hers at least as the other one had been meant for Vera, but with the diet thingy going on...yea, Karlie wound up with two. Now what more could a girl ask on a date? Well, it could as well of been a date...it felt like one. So she slid the second dog on the side of the bench before she took to leaning herself over to Vera.
It were happening. Goddamn it, it just was. With her stomach hushed, her heart beat once more resumed for her to follow her other desire. "You know...I've always thought you-"

Woop! woop!... another cruiser sped past on the main avenue with sirens whooping....followed shortly by another...
Then a string of more...
Ambulances...
Fire speeder...
More police cruisers...
Freakin A...how such ruckus could ruin a moment!

"Geez... how bad a game could it have been?" She had no clue, thinking perhaps there were a few rowdy fans demanding their credits back or what not...

"Sigh..." This was no good. Too much ruckus and noise around this main street park for her to try at what a kiss would feel like with Vera. Hell, it were her first attraction to another woman for that matter. She were new to this feeling, this heightened arousal. She weren't going to blow it by just winging it with all this distraction around them!

"I was thinking..." One would figure that a psycho vampire bot could be the most dangerous thing present at the moment. Nope. One didn't know Karlie.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~​

Where else but to Vera's suite, the woman's hotel room...

Now why Vera's hotel room?... one could ask.

Well, it gave Karlie more options. One, if anything, no record of her registration at the hotel.
This had a few perks, as if by chance Vera didn't do it for her, she could just leave and no one would be wiser in Karlie's curiosity of one hot moment of sexual passion.
And of course if Vera was all that and more! Karlie just didn't know what could come over her, other than just up and surrender herself, loosing all sense and sensibility in some hot whatever women did with each other when in that mood thingy...
And of course, what if Vera didn't feel anything for her in that manner...not even a kiss?
All that, Karlie could just up and leave Vera's suite and that would be that.

"Oh wow...you got the works going on in here..." Yea, idle talk, as she entered Vera's suite. Hell, Vera could have brought her to a trailer shuttle and Karlie would still be wanting to kiss her so. Karlie were eyeing everything...'Oooh leather couch...hmmm...'

"Voice activated entertainment?" She then eyed out the media center...with one huge wall to wall holo monitor. She figured on getting some moooood music on. Yes, that always seemed to work in the holo-vids, right? Well with heterosexuals. Still, why not? How different could romantic music be anyways. Worked with one, why not the other?.
"System on..." she then tried it, even giving a clap for good measure.
Sure enough the entertainment system came on.

"Huh?...what, oh yes...whatever you're having..." Oh yes, Vera was offering to make her a drink. Alcohol...Oh yes, she could blame it all on being drunk. It was perfect.
"Uhm...make it a double!" Oh good lord it was going to go down... "..pant...pant..." her breathing increased as blood rushed this way anf that with her heart pumping away like there was no tomorrow...

...stating that Senator Alkin will not be ruining for the seat on the Council. So the holo news was reporting, if even karlie's attention could be drawn away from Vera.

And now for some local news...This afternoon during the annual HuttBall tournament that was still dragging on with 0-0, a fight broke out in the establishment 'Pitts and Ball' sports bar and grill. Yup, that got Karlie's attention, for wasn't that the same bar they had just come from not a few minutes ago?

We've no news at this time as to what spurred the altercation to what has now become a full blown street riot street riot. Apparently some witnesses have reported that it all started from a labor dispute of some kind between two resturant workers...no, servers. Waitresses? Yes, seems two waitresses had gotten into a heated argument over a patron... The news reporter was getting by the minute reports.
That seemed to have spilled over street-side where then other employees from the surrounding establishments all took to joining the brawl...

"Oh fooder..." Karlie's jaw dropped, spotting the two waitresses that had been serving at the restaurant she and Vera had just left not a half hour past.

... Din Dickens is on location. The feed went on as Karlie slowly drew herself to the big screen shocked as to what she somehow knew she caused.... Dick-...er Din rather, what's the situation there? The newscaster asked the reporter on the scene.

Well Limp, the local authorities are still trying to get control of the crowd which now seems to have become a meele, a free for all street fight. Rumors so far from first witnesses indicate that it were stated by two waitresses fighting over a patron's order of a BLT-

CLICK------------- Karlie turned the holo feed off, slowly turning to Vera.
If a doe had just been caught in the headlights of a speeder, it would pretty much sum up Karlie's flabbergasted look.
"I left a good tip..." were all she had to say for herself.

But no, that had done little to prevent the Waitress War from spurring.
Woop woop... So that's where all the police cruisers and vehicles that had sped past them with sirens whooping, had been going. To the mayhem she has spurred!

Oh great, what would Vera think of her now? It were obvious Karlie's antics had caused all this ruckus and disturbance...a riot even.
Her heart dropped...along with her mood.
yes, this certainly just killed the moment for the blonde. Could she not do anything right?!

 

[Vera Mina]

Nine Lives, mother of the Psy-Pires and Magnus, awaited in meditation on her hand carved throne of yellow stone and marble, miniature figures carved out of the legs. She was not wearing her Progenitor's robes, instead clad in a stark, all black kimono of armorweave. She was taller than most though quite beautiful, of Atrisian heritage though she claimed Horse Lord descent as well. Her hair was done in an elaborate series of braids, her in human eyes, mostly pools of black dotted by bright purple at the center blinked as they beheld the second of her daughters as she was called out.

"Daughter! What can Mother do for you?" Nine asked pleasantly, her voice a heavy contralto.

Magnus stood before her creator respectfully.

"I do not normally protest what we do...but even I cannot ignore the blatant danger you are putting [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] in by letting Vera stay around her. That case is over and shut! Karlie was proven innocent! Why keep her in range of any one of us!?" The human looking combat droid demanded to know. "Are we planning to bring her into the fold? Because no one told me. You DO recall having to eat that poor woman's memory of your first born's freakout, right?"

"Of course I do, child. Your confusion is understandable. Sit with Mommy for a while..."

Nine tossed a pillow next to her throne and Magnus sat down cross legged, her attention focused solely on her mother. Nine clasped her hands together.

"Daughter...do you know why I gave you a conscience like your little sister Meier?"

"You had to be able to trust me if I was going to be your physician and personal pilot."

"Surface answer. Dig deeper for Mommy. Think."

Magnus's processors did just that, though because Magnus had been given nearly the same limitations in programming as Vera had, she could only barely grasp the answer.

"You..." she struggled against her computational limits. This was one more way she was, for all her advantages, not as advanced as Vera...Vera felt this struggle also, but because she was composed almost entirely of artificial tissues, she felt that struggle less. A lot less. Magnus had started out as (And still was) a Saotome Commando Droid with aftermarket mods. It was not until Magnus had examined herself that she realized her mother fit the definition of Mad Scientist to the letter.

"You..."

"Yes?" Nine asked patiently and pleasantly to her daughter.

"You gave me a conscience unlike Vera because you want my older sister to see what its like to live without one," Magnus realized, surprise dawning across a beautiful face composed of an Ooglith Masquer.

"Precisely. You are more fortunate than Vera, and indeed many other beings: Being moral can simply be 'programmed' into you. You don't have to ask yourself what the right thing is becauae the Golden Rule is hardcoded into your systems. Many beings go their entire lives without learning morality. Or, if they do learn morality...it is imposed. I don't want to impose morality on Vera. I want her to learn it on her own."

"But how can that happen if she is a sociopath?" Magnus demanded. "She has already tortured and killed without your direct approval--some of those people were innocent, Mother."

"Weren't we all, once..." Nine replied ruefully. "Magnus, I slept for thousands of years, was torn from all I knew, and now I am forced to make ends meet in an insanely violent and uncertain future. If I am going to lead all of my children through this strangeness so that we might carve a place in society, in history...the fact an innocent might get hurt or killed is inescapable. I will not always be around. Some Sith could take my life next year or rhe next day...and if that happens I must know I will have an absolutely effective and ruthless successor to protect my children should the worst occur. And I cannot have the most effective successor without teaching her that her ruthlessness has limitations. Even though she is a lawyer, she is still prone to brutality."

"You still have not answered the question of how she is to learn if she is a sociopath by default." Magnus glowered.

"Her design is very advanced now. The first time I made Vera, I was doing only what I was certain would work. Even with you the story was the same. And Vera has a motivation now, to improve, however slight."

"Is that why you are letting her stay around that poor scientist? Vera could kill her, Mother. What if she gets bored?"

"She won't." Nine stoically assured her robot child.

"How can you be certain?"

"Because you didn't see Vera's face when she begged me to eat Karlie's memories of her being revealed for what she was. I know her kind of desperation. For the most fleeting, briefest second, she was both human, and vulnerable..."

Nine's gaze grew sadder as she thought of her first (And so far, only) love, Sawa Ike.

"She did something that should have been impossible...she overcame the limitations of her design, albeit temporarily. I want to see if she can grow further. I want to see if she can surpass her limitations of her own free will, and become a three dimensional person, as opposed to the villain in a slasher film that she currently is."

"How does a Sociopath learning not to be one help any of us?" Magnus asked, confused.

Nine leaned back. "Lust and Love. Peace and War. Mercy and Cruelty, and the ability to switch between either while still appreciating the value of both. To forge such a leader for my children after I am gone...that's worth a lot of heartache."

"And if she fails?"

"Then I have two daughters left in that scenario."

"But..." Magnus argued. "What happened to the woman who was ashamed she was no longer a Jedi?"

"That woman learned to accept her situation because it was the only way to retain her will to live..." Nine answered patiently. "Did I ever tell you about my role in the purging of a colony of Harch on the orders of [member="Darth Metus"]? I butchered dozens of Harch. Seditionists, traitors to the CIS, of course. Did I know them? No. Did I still do it? Yes. Did I fully understand I was killing friends, relatives, brothers? People? Yes. I've had to learn to accept when one is carving out a future, a powerbase, doing anything worth while means casualties. It is the price of building a future for my people, who are my world and my love. I will not lose more of you to the cruelties of this future than I have to. Better outsiders be sacrificed than one of my people. I lost my first born to this insane world trying to play hero. I do not regret who I saved...but Bobbi is a shame I shall take to my grave. All because I put some random innocents life at a higher value."

"Bobbi died a hero." Magnus insisted. "I was there, remember?"

"He's dead because I ordered him to help save innocent people, along with many other of my children, who are also dead. I couldn't even bury him, Daughter. Or any of the others...those damn zombies tore them apart so thoroughly. But I could not help it..." Nine said, rising from her throne, stepping down and pacing.

"I wanted to feel like a hero...like a Jedi. That was selfish of me. That is another reason I am building Vera up. She could make the decisions I agonize over without blinking. Vera would have gathered up only our people, and left the rest to die. I tried to save as many as I could, and compromised the safety of the ship and everyone already aboard that I had vowed to die to protect if necessary. All to play hero...and part of me, even now, doesn't want to stop..." Nine admitted, turning away from her daughter in shame. "You think part of me doesn't want to order her to only kill the bad? To protect the innocent? You think I do not know about every life she has taken? Every person she has tortured? I memorize their names!" Nine hissed in pain, turning to Magnus with a look of misery. "And I have to force myself not to stop it, Magnus. Force. Because she has to learn the value of life for herself."

"Why not just have someone who is already moral?" Magnus questioned.

"If one starts with good morals, savage values and strengths are far, far harder to teach, I have found, than the opposite. I started out in life as a brute, a sleeper agent. I learned the value of non-violence. I learned it better than most. It is why I do not trust a pure pacifist...how strong can their morality possibly be, if they have never at length done just the opposite? If they have never engaged in savagery in order to appreciate and understand precisely why savagery does not work most of the time and is not always desirable? Vera must learn this if she is to protect my children after I am gone. And the best way she learns is if she starts out drenched in blood, as I did, and the need to be enlightened, to evolve comes as a consequence of her trials. If it takes the unwitting attention of a cute blond scientist to...motivate her...so the better. Do you understand now?" Nine asked, face dour.

Magnus folded her arms. "As your doctor, I think your mental pain is affecting your objectivity. I think a lot of these words are from someone who has lost perspective on what kind of person they themselves wish to be, so you're exploring it vicariously through Vera, because you're too afraid to act as uninhibited as she does." Magnus said firmly. "And your memories of your old girlfriend are clouding your judgement as to the situation between your murderous psychopath lawyer daughter and a perfectly normal, innocent woman caught up in your fethed up experiment..."

Nine took no umbrage at this. She merely turned around, facing away from her.

"If you believe I am so wrong...well...I never said I would not give you the opportunity to prove it."

"And how am I to do that?" Magnus asked, clearly worried about her mother's mental state. Ever since her older, flesh and blood "brother" died, Nine had not been her usual, morose self. Now she was more uncertain and amoral than ever. Having to eat thoughts, being constantly exposed to the inner sins of a person...it must be maddening...

"I built you smart Magnus. You figure it out. Now go...Mommy requires solitude...

Magnus obeyed her mother and rose up, leaving the throne room.

The combat droid took the tram to maintainance and a strange notion started to form at Nine's words about opportunity.

Magnus was suddenly filled with ambition...

If Vera could upgrade after all...why not her...?

Meanwhile...


Vera watched as Karlie ate busily. Vera felt hunger, but it was mild. She could wait a day or so. Vera smiled at how she handled the waitresses, and again surprised Vera by deciding to be discrete and leave. She had an instinct for opportunities...it was what had allowed her to surprise Vera.

But for all that Vera could still not describe her precise feelings...they just manifested as a want. An impulse.

As Karlie paid for the food, Vera rose with that pleasant smile of hers and her heart pounded more as she left as Karlie snuggled against her (Psyche Meter raised!), the pair taking a long stroll away from the park, Vera not really caring about the commotion caused by a ballgame she did not understand. She did not understand any game really. Other than the hunt of course.

As they walked to what looked to be a rather beautiful park, Vera suddenly noticed the strangeness of this. She was enjoying someone's company in a civilian setting. Normally, even as a civilian, she was a loner. Even when she had been with Karlie before, it was for the job...mostly. Now that there was no job, Vera was doing it simply because she wanted to.

As Karlie suggested they sit a park bench, looking up into her eyes in a way no one had ever looked at her before, Vera was for a few seconds at a loss for words before she smiled and did so, looking around at the sunlight streaming through the canopy of trees, also riddled with flowers. Vera was not sure to what to say as they sat down...she had never tried to form a connection with anyone before. Her olfactory sensors detected roasted meat byproducts from multiple animals and industrial cooking oil. What Karlie referred to as a "Hotdog". She wanted one. She was looking at up at her sweetly. Vera felt inwardly queasy at the thought of watching her consume such a questionable product but then remembered she liked to drink blood. To each their own...and Karlie's puppy eyes...

Still though...hot dogs...Vera nodded, walking with her to the Vendor, distantly making note of police vehicles suddenly speeding by. "That game...must have sucked." Vera remarked as they sat down, politely declining a hot dog, instead watching in amazement that any digestive system could process the strange meats that had been compacted together. At the same time, she felt the tinest sliver of regret that she could not enjoy it with her. She would need to find some way to eat, even if she could not appreciate the food, she could at least participate...

As Karlie ate, Vera tried to think about how she might answer any questions about her background. Karlie would inevitably get curious...it was natural. But Vera had never had more than a barebones background set up to avoid suspicion.

Oh well, it was enough just snuggling. They could work that out later.

Vera could feel a moment between the two occuring, and her processors started to heat trying to put to words. She wanted to kiss her. The police speeders repeatedly interrupted, however. Karlie seemed to be trying to say something herself, only for speeders to interrupt her train of thought. She even asked how bad the game could have been.

Vera could only chuckle a bit. "If you think that's bad you should have seen that damages lawsuit I had to win last month."

(Epic Cutaway of Vera as Rom-Jin throwing a rival lawyer off the top of a skyscraper.)

But soon, Vera realized that whatever was happening, this was not the place for it to happen.

Vera had booked a luxury hotel suite for her stay on Azterri.

"Karlie...lets go somewhere more quiet..." Vera said in response to Karlie thinking something. Vera could guess...

Fifteen minutes later...

"Would you like a drink?" Vera asked as she walked in. The Suite was tastefully decorated, a stark white color scheme on the floors and walls, with indoor fountains and a large, large bed with white satin bedsheets. While Karlie said yes, Vera poured a nice double of Corellian brandy, dark red in color...Vera's private idea of a joke. She took a sip herself, knowing her body would register it only as a poison and break it down rapidly. She brought Karlie's drink, surprised when she saw the news and how rapidly she turned it off, stammering, looking frightened. She looked worried about the violence she had caused. Vera processed all the legal scenarios that might occur.

"Don't worry...you can't be held liable. Any case they could bring against you could be torn apart by even the dumbest, most inexperienced public defender..." Vera assured her, smiling as she set her drink aside, drawing a little closer.

"Besides, if they want to start a fight over a sandwich...not your problem...besides...what you did...was hot..." Vera whispered to her, heart pounding very fast.

The pair were very close now.

"Karlie..." Vera said, with all sincerity. "You're magnificent. Kiss me. Please..."

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

" Huh..?" Had she heard right, or were it one of the many fantasy she had played in her mind about Vera a few times already?

It were like she suddenly found herself in a lucid dream. Were she dreaming or was it going to go there? Karlie just stood there momentarily immobile, seemingly between reality and fantasy as Vera approached her as such. Hot? Did Vera just tell her she were hot? It played about in her mind as she were certain she not only heard it but with the cant of sexuality behind it.
Her heart rose in tempo, as her fantasy of the older woman now seemed to melded with reality. Really?..now what?
Karlie eyed the drink Vera had brought her be put aside, before her eyes met up with that of the seductive woman's.

"Oh?... y yea?" Magnificent?...? Karlie's mind raced at the connotation... of the very way Vera had uttered it like...velvety... most undeniably seductively.

Then, she stopped breathing.
Well, for at least a heart beat or two. Naw, make that an entire moment or more, as she lost track of time all together. When she did take in air, it were like she had just sprinted a 200 meter dash..."Pant...pant..pant..." K...kiss me. Did Vera just ask her to kiss her? Now?
Unbelievable.
Karlie blinked not once, but trice.
B...but when, how?.....yea?! "...pant..pant.." For a moment she were caught with her hand in the cookie jar, finding herself off balance and at the edge of a steep cliff. Karlie was stumped.
No no, it weren't for her lack of arousal. She were, and it begged her in a most pleasurable pain.
Only thing though... it were for the fact that she had never kissed another girl before...or a boy, nor a man for that matter.

"Hehe....gulp..." She couldn't help but let out a nervous chuckle. It were more to cover her nervousness over her excitement. It were new territory for her. And It were obvious she were both mesmerized and unnerving...clumsy, if one would describe in the manner her hand seemed to tremble not knowing where to place it as she went for an embrace. But nevertheless, it found itself coming around under Vera's arm, who's hand not only rested upon her shoulder but gently were drawing Karlie in closer. Karlie's hand wavered a bit not at all knowing how to embrace her, finally settling on Vera's back.

But it were no longer Vera guiding her in anymore. Karlie drew her eyes closed as she came up with trembling lips to meet Vera's.
Oh she could, wanted it beyond any doubt to surrender to her Vera right at this moment. It were of something so urgent...so right...so exciting...

Well well, if we haven't all grown up...


In her hypnagogia state, Karlie's deep recessed demon mother's image suddenly took the place of Vera, right to the point of their lips about to converge.

"Gah!...Aaah..!" Karlie suddenly pulled back with a scream, utterly turning white as a ghost herself.

Unbeknownst to Karlie, her mother, like she had done so many lifetimes past has set herself to block her potential off-springs from fornicating with other men, not of her choosing. Despite the fact that Vera was a woman in Karlie's eyes and mind, it nevertheless didn't deter the fail-safe blocker that her mother had set deep within her subconscious.
Karlie's heightened arousal which stemmed from the very fact that she were pressing herself against Vera's voluptuous physique, it triggered that unsuspecting surreal experience that her mother were suddenly there...in her arms where Vera was.

"Gasp!..." She had jumped back a few steps and taking some more, despite now that it were Vera again. It took a second, maybe three for her to come to her senses and stop hyperventilating. What the frak had just happened, she shouted in her mind, coming to a stop when her but came to the edge of one of the pedestal fountains.

"Oh my God....oh my God..." She repeated desperately looking about the suite, then back to vera..a very unhappy Vera.

"I...I just..
My mother....she...she...." Yea, yea?
What?...come on, out with it...
" She... she was you..." Karlie finally said, looking into Vera's eyes...looking for Vera to save her again. Looking left, right...looking for that glass!
Oh God...where was that drink?...

For a moment, Karlie weren't thinking, weren't knowing nor seeing Vera's disposition of what just happened. Karlie were seemingly once more in a sort of panic state. Something which Vera had experienced before, but under different circumstances. This one apparently hadn't stemmed from Vera but by some other psychological disorder in the blonde.

"Gulp...gulp... cough...cough..." Yea, the brandy more than hit the spot...it was also repugnant.
Karlie hated Whyren's Reserve...and this one was no different. Somehow or other Correlian distilleries never agreed with her.

"Gulp...gulp....ahh...." Ok, frak that. It was alcohol and she just acquired the taste for it....not the time to get picky right now.

"Oh my God..." She plopped herself, or rather her butt on the sofa. The drink, now mostly just ice in the glass pressed up against her forehead.
Karlie had experienced similar appearances in the past, but since her purge, they had only been ghostly voices derived from midi enriched mineral-like water...like that found in places like Krant...M'haeli. these waters seemed to have free concentrations of midicloreans that to many, would bring on the apparitions of their lost ones, see into the past, future even. But to Karlie such enriched midi water brought on her mother's presence in voice only, never in what she just experienced with Vera.

"...she...she left a part of her in my head...sob...sob..." She broke down into tears, dropping the remnants of the Correlian brandy on Vera's white rug when her tumbler fell from her hand.

But how, why now? She hadn't consumed anything with that amount of midi influence. It were when-"No...noooo...sob, sob..." Now she knew why, when at a young age she started having crushes, they were crushed, blocked by nearly the same experiences. Only back then, the image of her mother scolded her for thinking dirty thought.
It were a way for her mother to instill a block on Karlie to prevent her from being sexually curious.
Karlie subconsciously adhered to it and concentrated more on her studies, training and other activities. Sure she had crushes on people as she grew up, but already having been conditioned, she never went beyond that of just a crush.
But now...
Now she had gone beyond the conditioning, her attraction for the older, very sexy Vera. It had taken her beyond the initial blocks that her mother had set within her psyche. Karlie, virgin Karlie was about to go beyond anything she ever experienced. She were surrendering her inhibitions to be with Vera, and that triggered the fail-safe apparition of her mother.

"No...will I ever be free of her?" She asked before looking up into Vera's eyes.
"I'm so sorry.... I don't know what to do... I don't want to remain broken like this...sob, sob..."

 

[Vera Mina]

It was happening. Karlie was about to kiss her.

Vera had never been kissed. Her processors heated, making her pinky twitch as her heart pounded as she slowly took [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] into her arms, felt Karlie's hands touch her back. The last time they were this close was when she'd been the ward of 'The Blueberry'. It had been all she could do not to flirt.

Vera had no word for what she was experiencing as Karlie's lips drew closer. She searched her new and extensive databases, but there was no data. She would simply have to learn.

A nigh feral lust threatened to build as the lips drew ever closer. Due to her databases she had extensive information on the nervous system and the bodies of humanoids. If the kiss went well, Vera might actually have a chance to use those databases to cause ecstacy as opposed to agony--

Then, Karlie screamed and pulled back, surprising Vera. One of her processors overheated at the sudden confusion, which forced such severe muscle contractions in her arms that they silently broke, forcing Vera to remain calm and try to figure out what had happened.

For a split second, she feared Karlie had remembered what had happened when Vera accidentally got a taste of her divine blood aboard the Morpheus. What a fething survival-horror mess that had turned into for a few minutes.

"Karlie?" Vera asked, her face not faking sympathy like she normally did. What displeased Karlie was an affront to Vera.

Karlie then began to explain. And when she did, Vera experienced something she had never truly experienced.

Empathy. Karlie had been programmed by a manipulative mother. Like Vera had been programmed by a manipulative mother. Neither of them were truly free.

Vera's processors were at the brink of over heating as she realized she was in love with Karlie.

This of course was in no way a good thing. Vera was a feral savage when possible. Her being in love neither changed nor undid the horrendous acts of butchery commited by her so far. She was more vicious then some of the genuinely horrible people she had help put away. A meat grinder in a dress, suddenly finding a heart in its chassis and deciding to keep it instead of grind it up with all the other meat, that was what Vera was currently.

"I know what its like to have a mother who won't let you have any fun and forces you to work all day...at least, I used to..." Vera admitted, feeling her arm fully repaired. "I understand your--"

Vera amazingly suppressed her sigh as Karlie dropped the brandy on the expensive carpet. Well, there goes twelve thousand for cleaning.

"...distress...more than you might think..." Vera finished, suppressing her psychotic, homicidal rage at Karlie's mother figuring out how to mess with Vera's very first ever date, and snatching away the joy of a first kiss.

Whatever, Vera liked a challenge, and it would make that kiss all the sweeter when she got it.

"Anything that can be programmed can be deleted..." Vera told her, clasping her shoulder. "We will find a way to purge her from your brain. I promise."

Little did Vera know, much less predict that after making that vow, a lot of thing s were about to get in the way...

In the meantime, Vera did not want to see Karlie cry. There were plenty of other ways to have a good time. A decent time.

Vera tried to think but she had no reference for how to make someone feel better. Everything she had ever done had almost always been geared to murder, murder, and last, but not least, murder. She savored murder. Relished it. Trying to help some one was almost beyond her comprehension.

Vera quickly did a check with her memory banks. She had seen people comfort others on holonet soap operas she watched with her mother and sisters, but Nine had been savvy enough to include strict 'warnings' about attempting human interaction based on what one sees in entertainment. She had to think of something but such a vicious creature is not inclined to think of typical solutions, especially when attempting to solve a problem it is more used to being the cause of as opposed to the solution.

Vera decided to play it safe. Go non typical. That was what human did, right? Act non typical?

Vera directed Karlie gently to the leather sofa to relax and then excused herself, heading to the kitchen, thankful the hotel suite stocked this "Hot Cocoa" she had been told by Nine was as delicious as blood. Vera refused to believe anything was as delicious as blood. Especially Karlie's blood.

She stirred it in after the water heated, until it was smooth and creamy looking. She brought it back to Karlie with a smile, before excusing herself again to a large walk in closet for a few minutes, taking time to search some locations on her datapad while changing.

When she came out she wasn't wearing her white dress. She wore something much more interesting. A tight fitting crimson catsuit, with an equally tight fitting crimson skull cap with long devil horns and black, thigh high boots. She had a deck of cards.

"I might not be able to kiss you but that doesn't mean I can't find some way to make you smile. What say you spend the rest of this evening chatting with me as I wear this saucy outfit and play cards. You like Sabacc?" Vera offered.

Meanwhile...

The Amalgam watched the boiling red goo in the pit she had dug and ritualistically prepared through black magic. Clad in her almost flesh colored Resistance Epidermis, the Shi'ido, in her normal guise of a near impossibly beautiful woman with very black hair and dead purple eyes circled the boiling pit in the middle of a jungle clearing on Mimban in the middle of the night, in an ancient meeting ground of the cult she still served. The red robed and hooded cultists of the thing currently cooking in the pit surrounded it, chanting.

The head of the cult, an old man who kept his identity hidden due to being a member of Castagne nobility approached her with a voice reminiscent of the creak of an attic door.

"You are certain this ritual will restore our Lady's body. The consequences of failure are an eternal torment for her."

The Amalgam sighed, her rotting presence in the Darkness signaling her irritation.

"The Unholy Spirit watches over these proceedings..." The Amalgam assured the old fool. "My ritual will not fail..."

The goo in the pit bubbled faster and the Amalgam smiled maliciously. All according to plan...

Suddenly the pit erupted with massive amounts of crimson energy that caught some of the cultists who had been in a circle, chanting, setting them on fire. The head of the cultists stepped back but the Amalgam held up her hand.

"Perfectly normal. No need for alarm.

There was a loud scream of agony from the center of the pit. The Amalgam smiled wickedly as she beheld at the center of the smoking pit a skinless woman hovering in mid air in a fetal position. Underneath her was a pile of shredded looking...meat...

The Amalgam raised her hands and began to chant under her breath. The piles of meat and shredded tissue glowed purple, before flinging itself onto the skinless body in patches. The figure at the center of the pit writhed in a silent scream as more and more of her was covered by piles of enchanted tissue. The cultists around her bowed. The Leader watched with interest as the writhing figure again took a fetal position, the blood and shredded flesh, cut from a dozen different men and women due to the state of the body's original, flawed clone flesh, mending together to become new skin and curly blond hair. The skin was quite a lovely tan, though it still wriggled across the muscles due to the way The Dark Side coursed through it for a few moments before it went taut.

The curvy, but athletic looking woman with curly, golden hair rose, body slick with the blood of virgins. Eyes blue and a window to the calloused, yet...exhausted...soul behind them.

Darth Rigor directed those cold yet burned out eyes at the smiling Amalgam.

"Go on, take a few moments to catch your breath. That first step after rebirth is a doozy..." the Amalgam joked.

Wordlessly, Darth Rigor's gaze only hardened, frowning, as she felt the pain she was quite used to only as a subtle irritating hum in her body. It would get worse. It always did. She levitated out of the pit. The very jungle around them seemed to shudder as the wind picked up. She took a few steps toward the shapeshifter, sniffed, and then snorted in disgust.

"I can smell the foul magics of that naked beast you worship all over your skin..." Rigor coldly rebuked in a harsh yet seductive voice. "And mine. What have you done to me?"

"For you. What have I done 'for' you..." The Amalgam trailed, grin spreading. "I believe you were in a bit of a jam some decades ago, no? A...domestic altercation with your husband over custody of your daughter?"

Darth Rigor lost none of her composure, maintaining that steely expression of hers, wanting to break her neck or rot her to the bone but was restrained from doing so by the Amalgam's enchantments on the cursed, butchered flesh covering her muscles yet not a part of them, maintaining Rigor's beauty and figure but in the way wax preserves someone's likeness for posterity. As a matter of fact, cursed wax was one of the ingredients in Rigor's new skin.

"Even restrained by your magics, I will remember your flippancy when I am free of them later." Rigor assured her. "You are not my first Brain Demon cultist."

"And you are not my first resurrected piece of hot sweltering garbage in a skin suit of my making..." the Amalgam replied pointedly, quite used to dealing with this sort. "You are alive because, well...I hate seeing such a talented person meet their end when there's still so much chit left to feth up around them...and because if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours..."

Rigor narrowed her eyes. "Your proposal?" She growled.

"An end to your pain. And all you need to do is put your daughter in your crosshairs..."

Rigor, who had been blocked from inhabiting Karlie, pulled to chaos afterward and forced to watch as her daughter grew up from hell only gave a grimace.

"And what do you get in exchange?" Rigor demanded.

The Amalgam smiled again, the mild rain from black clouds falling overhead.

"I want the blood of Nine Lives."

"Find a cat, then."

The Amalgam rolled her eyes.

"Lets talk aboard my vessel..."

Forty minutes later...

The Amalgam watched from across the table as Rigor downed her third plate of spaghetti and meatballs and her second glass of wine. She hadn't even bothered to clothe herself. Or wash the blood and remnant gore off. It reminded the Amalgam of some of her rougher bodily transfers...she herself had a serious appetite after being dead, like her body had to remind itself what having food in it was like.

Rigor busily ate and drank the food The Amalgam prepared, watching her across the table in an elegant mess area with a black and red floral pattern on the walls, ceiling, and floor as she ate. The Amalgam sipped a small glass of white wine and daintily ate a piece of carrot cake--her daughter Laertia's favorite--smiling wickedly, like the Devil Vera was dressed as at the moment.

Rigor's eyes fell once more on the photos of Karlie. She'd grown. And she was with someone.

"Who is the older woman next to her?" Rigor asked as she stared at the surveillance photos, chewing on a meatball before her highly sensitive tastebuds noted the ingredients...and kept chewing anyway.

"Is the sacramental meat to your liking?" The Amalgam asked, knowing full well how messed up that question sounded out loud, shifting her visage to that of a smiley face for a split second to troll her guest.

Rigor gave no reaction, and only repeated her first question, hoping the shapeshifter knew how much she wanted to strangle her for her insolence.

"Who is the older woman?"

"Vera Mina. An identity that did not exist until recently. Records indicate her as an adopted member of House Li-Ves of Atrisia, from the Outer Rim. Star Lawyer, and your daughter's defence attorney during the attempt to find her guilty of Treason."

"Treason? Butterfly? Preposterous. For what?" Rigor asked, swallowing the meat in spite of growing increasingly self conscious as to its contents. Karlie's ability to swallow strange meat products ran in the family, it seemed. Though Karlie would likely have preferred to eat a sandwich of rat meat before touching so much as an ounce of what was on Rigor's plate. Especially if she could have seen the horrific things done to the water the spaghetti had been boiled in. Even more so if she could see how the spaghetti strands themselves had been made. Two words: Pure. Squick.

That Rigor could swallow anything so vile spoke volumes as to her nature. Hot dog vendor meat was the breakfast of gods and champions compared to the admittedly delicious, squick-tacular horror Rigor was eating...and make no mistake it was really tasty.

"Oh, a nasty little incident on Melida. Water under the bridge, really..." The Amalgam joked. "Anyway, Karlie was found innocent by Vera, and this is the first time they have been seen in public since the trial ended. They seem to be getting rather chummy..." The Amalgam noted dispassionately. "Your daughter is in the open, completely unsuspecting of your return. Heh...just like me..."

"If she is in the open acquiring her would be relatively easy. It could be done with a minimal of fuss..." Rigor observed. "There would be little need to engage in what you are asking me to do. Besides...what makes you think its even worth it to me to acquire Karlie if she's not Force Sensitive? What makes you think its even worth it to me to restore it to her. She's better off without it."

The Amalgam chuckled as she took another bite of carrot cake.

"Careful Rigor, that almost sounds like motherly concern."

"Look who's talking."

"I have room to talk. I haven't murdered any of my daughters, unlike you."

Rigor glowered, looked at her plate and took another bite of a dish of horrors, didn't respond.

"It's not motherly concern..." Rigor said in a very terse tone of voice. "It is merely extending a grace I was not able to the first time around due to the wretched curse of our shared blood. Sure, I ranted and raved like the sore loser I was in her dreams, but eventually...I learned to accept my defeat..."

The Amalgam sipped her wine again.

"You know why Karlie beat you?"

"She injected herself with something. Something that nulled her Force Sensitivity...and just in time, at that. I was around her age when I got my...well..." Rigor played with the meatball on her fork, swirling it in tainted juices before chewing and swallowing.

"...I don't wanna call it a gift." Rigor finished. "More a...useful abberation..."

"Karlie beat you because Karlie finally realized the game was rigged against her. And when the game is rigged, the only thing one can do sometimes is walk. That's exactly what Karlie did with you. She walked away from you."

"Such remarkable insight into the minds of daughters from one so bad at being a mother...at least I never tried to get attached..."

The Amalgam's smile dropped, but by only a micron.

"My psychometry is quite legendary. Tell me, are you counting on the truth about you to break your daughters? See, I'm not as cruel as you. I'd just kill mine and get it over with."

The Amalgam maintained her smile, though her grip on the fork tightened slightly.

"Your daughter's body is Midi-Free...I checked the records...I was there during her interrogation at the Blacksite as one of her main torturers."

Rigor gave no visible physical reaction, but the Amalgam noticed a hairline crack suddenly appear on Rigor's empty wine glass.

"She told me so much, your daughter..." The Amalgam said sipping more wine. "Poor girl probably doesn't remember half of it."

Rigor gave only a death glare.

"And she told me all sorts of interesting things about her immune system. Now, say one were able to make a clone of your daughter Midi-Free. And then, once it was midi-free, proceed to infuse it with midichlorians from a source other than you, and give it a nice kick from the old dark magic, and you--"

"--have a body that's like mine, but without the curse of my bloodline..." Rigor trailed. "I presume this skinsuit you've made will not keep the pain from increasing forever?"

"You presume correctly. Making it all the more important you work with me."

"I will kill you when I am free."

"For Karlie?" The Amalgam asked dryly, finishing her wine.

"No, Amalgam. For me."

(Clip of GoldenEye Theme plays)

"You will try." The Amalgam snorted contemptuously. "Until then its a win win situation. I help you create a body without your infamous curse, and you help me get the Blood of Nine Lives while everybody is focusing on the mess your lackeys will make at Castagne. You might even be able to get some payback on your ex-husband."

"Tarssin Destat did what every parent worth anything does when their child is in danger. I hold nothing against him. Even at his worst he was a hundred times the parent you'll ever be." Rigor snapped, eating more of the delicious atrocity.

The Amalgam's plastic smile fell by another micron.

"No need to get personal..." she complained hypocritically. "Just a suggestion..."

Rigor had enough of engorging herself. She pushed the plate from her.

"I need a shower..."

"Refresher is that way..." the Amalgam suggested as Rigor rose to take a shower...

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

It didn't register as to Vera's talk about reprogramming.
Karlie had no recollection of that pivotal incident aboard the Morpheus and that much of those memories she were finding difficult to piece together had actual missing pieces...all surgically consumed by no other than Vera's creator, Nine Lives.

At this moment and following, she were in a state of panic and shock over the flash vision she had just had. It was..had to be her mother. It could be no other.
Just that...
Just that Karlie's own vivid memories of her mother were of when she were a little girl. The vision she just had was like the one's in her dreams...a condescending overbearing scolding mother. It had been implanted in Karlie to keep her from being promiscuous.

As thus, Karlie had been kept as trained in being a good girl. Good as far as keeping her sexuality at bay. But for the first time in years, she had let go of her drilled inhibitions and let nature take it's course. Ok, so it were following her desire for an older woman this time, but the consequences were the same. Love as in the nature of physical desires were the only thing by which even the force could not overpower. As thus, her mother knew to drill it into her nurturing vessel that such desires could compromise her integrity to fully overtake her daughter's temple...her body. That was one aspect. Another were if her daughter were ever to be impregnated before the infusion. That would nearly sever that link altogether, were her daughter to sire a male, as the ensuing feral male's DNA could overcome the mother's unique and stable double X chromosome structure that was needed to be maintained in future offsprings. Without her mother's control of the daughter's body, such an event would result in a catastrophic failure to continue to produce viable female offsprings in the following generations and thus...end the cycle forever.
Karlie had not been meant to be a virgin for so long. No female daughter had ever passed the age of 18 before siring the next generation for the mother to jump into. This kept Darth Vigor in a young and fertile body from the age of 18 to 36 before repeating the 18 year or so cycle.
Karlie was still a virgin at 25 and counting.
Time was pressing.

Karlie took the warm drink, looking up at Vera enough to give her a nod as the elder woman went into another part of the suite.
She cupped the drink, feeling it's warm content through the ceramic, before it's aroma finally drew her attention to it. An old familiarity...a good familiarity of a similar drink her father often had made her when she were still living in the estate bade her to give it a sip.
it was the same drink...or close enough. Ok, a bit off on the sweetness..not as much, but it was a warm welcoming and comfort elixer nevertheless.

She took another sip and then another...all the while getting a good hold of herself and relaxing again. Whatever bout she experienced, she had it once, trice before. Only it had been so, so long ago as she were struggling through her young teens.
It were sad in so many levels. She would see couples of all ages and orientation snuggling...kissing...even making love. Well Ok, in the Holo-vids was where she caught the latter part. But each and every time she would follow her own curiosity, to make physical contact that lead to her sexual arousal- POW... HELLO!.... Mother Dearest, the blockade artist knocked her off the horse.
She had experienced such mind control for so long , so young that she learned not to go there. And she kept that to herself, not divulging she had bad girl thoughts... not to anyone...especially not to her father. Her mother had instilled this distorted concept of good girl/bad girl before she were an adolescent.
Even when as a young teen, she learned of what she had been feeling were perfectly normal, the damage had been done and she still kept it to herself. What was she going to do? tell her father that she wanted to experience a kiss?..experience love? Her mother had been quite complete in taking care of that. After all, she had thousands of years to perfect it.
Now at the age of 25, Karlie was still struggling with this brainwashing...even though she knew better.

"...pfffFFF..." The warm cocoa nearly came out of her nostrils upon turning to the red figure she caught in her peripheral that turned out to be Vera.

What the frak?!...
Karlie couldn't believe what Vera had come out wearing. Couldn't take her eyes off her though, as every voluptuous curve she had took to studying before...yes, imagining Vera without her dress suit.
It was...was...
Karlie had to put the cup down lest she put a good chocolate stain next to the Whyren blotches. Ok, so the bill from the hotel to clean the carpet wouldn't change.... but still, why put insult upon injury? She were after all house trained...on a good day that is.

Karlie was red faced as Vera sat down next to her. Yes, her mood had changed from distraught to good. good as in appreciating Vera making what was indeed an embarrassing moment for Karlie into a good humored jest.
"Sigh... Oh Vera..." She snuggled her Vera...her sweet Vera, putting her arms around her in a warm hug. Tears..tears of comfort joy ran down her cheek as she rested her head gently on Vera's bosoms...in a comforting way.
"You don't know what you mean to me." She spoke, feeling more herself with every breath.

"I thought you'd be taken back...tell me to leave.
I...I wouldn't have blamed you. No, not you at all." She didn't realize there was no heart beat emanating from Vera's chest.
"My mother...she...she broke me in ways I don't know how to fix. " She continued as she finally pulled herself off the woman.
Wiping a few tears away, she presented Vera with a genuine thankful smile. God, why wouldn't she? Vera looked so adorable in the suit...

She then let out a little laugh, again one of relief...one whom had scathed a crisis, by a dear friend's gesture.
"Cute...hehe
Have to say it's something I could have imagined you in... if I had thought of it myself..hehe...." yes, she could have imagined the devil suit on Vera. But she would have thought it would have been just a fantasy...an over the top fantasy.

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera forgot all about the sabacc cards as [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] snuggled against her. She closed her mouth as her fangs tried to slide into place, her tongue pushing them back into their hidden sockets. She felt her heartbeat go to a steady crawl while she worked through the problem Karlie had. Why had Nine not caught or consumed this block? Had she simply not gone deep enough.

Well feeding Karlie to Nine again was out of the question...though as to why Vera didn't want to use that option was something she could not explain.

There was also the matter of what to do for tomorrow. Vera had been flying by the seat of her pants so far, but there needed to be a definite plan. How do you do whatever this was? This had obviously worked once, because Karlie was in a down mood, but it would become shallow if used too often...or unless the date was really good.

The biot was unused to a being looking to get close to it. Any time she was this close next to someone in a private setting it usually didn't end well...for the "guest"...

But Karlie was no mere guest...Karlie was programmed, like her. They were so alike and she didn't even realize it.

Vera felt herself getting hungry. She could hold it off a little longer...a few hours maybe. She would snuggle as long as she could however...

Meanwhile.

Rigor let the blood and gore wash off her in the all white shower. She stared at her flawless skin, actually able to see the awful magics that powered it, but as long as they remained in place she was effectively under the Witch's influence.

She wasn't sure how to feel about being alive again. On the one hand she was no longer in eternal agony. On the other she was exactly at square one.

The hot water splashed off wax-infused flesh. She could feel where each piece of tissue was joined to form a solid surface imperceptibly. She knew intimately, instinctively, who each piece had been torn from. She felt the hours of torture The Amalgam had put each victim through before divesting them of their skin, taking the choicest parts and using it to make the sheath that now covered her.

Rigor felt hollow. The pain that had ever been present a low ebb, suppressed by magic. It would get worse. It always did. No matter what countermeasures she took.

She could still remember it, like fresh knife wound, the day the pain started. She preferred to think of the time before that as little as possible. It was nothing but a cruel reminder that there had been a time without the maddening pain.

She could see herself, staring at the dead man, back then not much older than Karlie, raising him as a zombie. The pain had started as an itch, than a soreness, than a burning, than a stabbing. Imagine being stabbed in every place a person can be stabbed, every second of every day, at high speed. That was how bad the pain would get eventually, unless she bought time by transfering to a younger body occasionally. She didn't keep track of how many transfers, lest she go insane from how many of her daughters she had killed.

It was also the reason all of her daughters still had the initials 'KLD' ("Killed"), because in Rigor's eyes they were already dead.

She shut the water off after the blood and gore was washed away, and she grew bored of attempting to discern whether the heat sensation of the water on her skin was as she remembered it.

Exiting the shower and drying cursed flesh, she found an all white combat suit waiting for her in an all white guest room aboard the Amalgam's starship, spherical in shape, the bed recessed into the floor.

She dressed herself, picking up her Tonfa-Sabers, Antiques from the time of the Gulag Plague. At one point, in a fit of melancholy during that time, Rigor had thought to possibly by herself a smidgen of redemption by using her ability to control disease and dead tissue to find a way to conquer the infamous disease, but even her powers could not undo the plague's ravenous effects. It was something she still regretted to this day...the one time she had actually hoped to use the power for something meaningful besides playing toy soldiers with corpses or making a better flesh eating bacteria, and it was no use against the one disease that everybody really needed cured. Especially crushing to Rigor for the fact if she had succeeded in curing or reversing the disease, she might have very well saved more lives than she had ever taken. It might have given meaning to the whole, miserable, wretched affair that was her life. Instead, as ever, the only point at the end of it all was pain.

Rigor felt the hideous presence of The Amalgam right outside her guest quarters and steeled herself, hooking her weapons to the suit belt and opened her quarters. The Amalgam stood, wearing Karlie's face.

"Are you trying to be funny?" Rigor grunted coldly.

"Wow. Doesn't take much to get under your skin. And I would know, obviously.

"This...thought vampire. Why are you interested in her?" Rigor asked quietly with a scowl, eye taking note of the black and red floral pattern of the interior.

"Well not her, specifically. Her blood. She carries a unique disease. I need samples of her blood. To mutate the disease."

Rigor began walking with the witch through the ship. Rigor didn't look at the witch until the shapeshifter had returned her face to her regular appearance.

"And why do you need to mutate this? You want your own vampires?"

"No. I have something much more special in mind..." The Amalgam trailed. "Perhaps if you care to be a part of my venture--"

"As though I have a choice..." Rigor dryly retorted in an almost bored manner as she followed the witch off the ship, back into the Mimban jungle, where it was still raining fiercely. Rigor's red robed cultists were just done setting up the dig site lights. Rigor frowned as the rain came down even harder as she approached the gigantic research tent set up.

The cultists on the inside worked the jungle earth busily, retrieving corpses wrapped in white, catalogues of artifacts lay in great stacks on nearby research benches.

"Who are these?" Rigor asked, frowining as the corpses were laid next to each other.

"Old friends I'm bringing out of retirement...I have so many responsibilities now..." The Amalgam answered before handing her a knife.

Rigor took it. "What's this for?"

"Your blood. I'll need it to ressurect them all at once..." The Amalgam answered.

Rigor snorted a bit and opened an incision into her palm, squeezing a few drops each onto the corpses. The blood hissed, glowing red on each bandaged corpse.

The Amalgam smirked and directed the cultists to set up a ritual circle at the far end of the large tent, the rain still thudding heavily against the fabric. Rigor watched as the shapeshifter slinked towards the ritual circle, chanting. Rigor felt the very air start to warp around the fiendish creature and decided now was as good a time as any to study her...

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

She guildfully slid the card deck off the coffee table with her foot as she snuggled up to her kitty...

Sabacc wasn't her game. Come to mind, she didn't know how to play it at all. Karlie was in many ways new to socializing outside the parameters of private schools, training and her career interests. Her one attempt with connecting to someone her age, a [member="Scherezade deWinter"] , left her feeling like she had some kind of social dysfunction...a disease that kept people away from her. Poor Karlie, for she had felt the two could be friends, seeing that they had something in common, 'Vile mothers'...

But Vera... well Vera had come to her from the start, and on her own. Ok, say for the fact that she had been assigned by a rather odd Nine Lives. But but the woman had seemed genuine, right from the begining. Genuine in her concern about her welfare, what she had gone through and helped her beat what rap that sith *Darth Metus was trying to put on her. Like really, she could do what those minions of his were trying to wrench out of her in confessions?
Then again, there had been no proof that Metus himself had been behind her abduction... still, he was sith wasn't he? And Karlie knew all about siths...given that she had experienced one first hand; her mother.
One. One was all really. But that ONE was instrumental in her view of all those whom practiced that black art. If her own mother could do what she did to her, then that said it all of all siths.
Thank you, 'Mommy Dearest'.

Now how had she become so wrapped up and smitten by this woman in the cat suit, whom she had her head resting nicely on her bosoms? Well, it hadn't been so like that at the very beginning, no. Karlie didn't take in trusting the woman at first. Like, why would she? Karlie had been through a few days sessions of interrogations that were nothing less than torture and pain. So what was she to think when suddenly she were ripped from that horror chamber and found herself on board a massive vessel called Castle Morpheus...with the first person she encountered being Vera?

But as the day and then the next and what followed after, Karlie found herself not only trusting the woman, but looking up to her. Here was an amazing woman who for the lack of words was what Karlie one day wished to strive for. Vera was intelligent, confident and empowered. Yes, all that and the fact that she was one beautiful woman. The fact that Vera was much older than her only made the attraction stronger, for Karlie who had quite a few insecurities about herself would have seen Vera as a threat if Vera had been her age and looking as she did.
Yes, Karlie often compared herself with her peers...gauging them... sizing them up against herself. If Vera had been her age, she would have felt more jealousy than anything. But Vera was an older woman...a goddess in every way the Creator herself (God is a woman by the way) had sculpted her in Her own likeness. There simply were no other that compared to Vera, in Karlie's eyes.
Oh frak...that definitely sounds like the blonde got struck by a thunderbolt. Karlie was hooked on Vera, despite her own perception that she was heterosexual. Well, that really never came into play for her to ever give it a go. The few times she approached that avenue with a boy, she got something similar as to what had just happened not a few minutes prior...'Mommy Dearest on chastity control'.

The Sabacc cards fell silently on the white carpeted floor, as the blonde curled up closer to her, slipping out of her heels...

Karlie's eyes flickered open. White satin sheets and pillows.
Where was she? For a moment she was disoriented, turning on her back before sitting up. It then all came to her. Vera's suite. The ball game...the obnoxious blonde ( [member="Veronika Fleischer"] ) ...the riot she caused.
But wait-
Where was Vera?
"Ver-..." Karlie stopped mid call, realizing she were undressed.

No wait-
She pulled the satin covers off to find herself in her undies...her clothes neatly on the side chair...her shoes next to the bed.

"V Vera?..." She called out, looking about the expanse of the room. The Sabacc cards were staked back on the coffee table and a light relaxing music were playing.
"Vera?..." Karlie got up off the bed, barefoot on the white rug, heading toward the refresher. Peering in; no Vera, but an inviting warm bubble bath. She could smell the scent of lavender oils in the bath. It were untouched, as there was no indication of water on the marble floor.

Karlie turned to go check out the open kitchen and walk in closet.
No Vera.
No Vera anywhere.
"Sigh..." Confused for a moment, her thoughts went on the fact that she had freaked out when she was about to kiss her and for a moment thought Vera had booked out of there as fast as she could.
But that didn't explain why she were in her undies and a warm inviting bath had been set up...for her?
Karlie was torn between slipping into that bath or just take her loss, get dressed and dispensary of the face of this miserable galaxy altogether.

"Karlie Karlie you silly girl, don't go starting to down yourself." She quietly said, beginning to piece together the scenario, as she walked toward the sliders that opened up to the high rise balcony of the hotel.
She had fallen asleep...
Asleep in Vera's arms, due to the over-excitement of the day, followed by that horrid flash memory of her mother...

"Hehe..." she giggled thinking of her Vera.
Why sure. Who could comfortably sleep in skin tight jeans and blouse? Yes of course, Vera had put her to bed. She had been so exhausted, she hadn't woken when Vera had scooted her off to bed...much like a child sleeping in her-
Karlie shook her head stopping short of completing that thought.
NO..... No, not like that. Not like that at all. She weren't going to compare her Vera with that psychopath witch. Hell no. She had other feelings for Vera, not at all in a motherly fashion, that was certain...
It was sweet of Vera, that much Karlie could make of it. And yes, she were feeling better now... kind of refreshed.
Well, almost...
Karlie looked back into the room from the balcony... the bathtub was waiting for her in the refresher.

And Vera?
Karlie figured she was out counselling or something. She was after all a lawyer...
But Vera would most certainly be back, and Karlie thought best she get all refreshed and ready for her.

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera's hunger was starting to creep up on her now that [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] had fallen asleep. She had savored every second of the scientist being in her grasp. But the hunger was getting too strong to ignore. Frightfully so. After she had to slide her fangs back into her sockets one time too many she decided it was time to eat. After putting Karlie to bed of course.

Vera looked down. Karlie had fallen asleep.

Lifting her up, the murderous android carried Karlie to her large bed, letting her go as she felt the muscles in her arms contracting as her processors malfunctioned. No sooner had the beautiful Karlie slipped onto the bed, then both her hands clenched, breaking from the malfunctions. Her face went transluscent, the ooglith masquer twitching and rippling over her skull and muscles, sloughing off on the right side, The biot twitched, staggering away from Karlie, for much though she wanted to, she could not make Karlie comfortable herself.

She headed back into the large closet, activating the Morpheus built servant droid, basically a B1 with better programming. Nine was not above pragmatism when it came to machines, even if she did like building murderous thinking ones as though she were some deranged supervillainess in a spy novel. (Though the case could be made that Nine more than lived up to this.)

"Yes, Lady Mina?" The droid asked in a blunt electronic voice.

Vera managed to stop overheating her processors at the thought of kissing Karlie long enough for her face to straighten out.

"Att--attt-atttteeennnd to Karlie..." Vera ordered, her voice programs malfunctioning.

"At once, Lady Mina." The droid said while Vera shut the closet door behind her.

Pulling off the catsuit, Vera immediately put on her dress and grabbed the outfit sealed in a travel bag, before heading out the door. She had to feed. It wasn't safe to be around Karlie. Or rather, it was not safe for Karlie to be around Vera at this time.

Vera needed some place private to do her dirt...


Ten minutes later...

Vera was outside the hotel. Four hours before midnight. She was getting hungrier by the minute. She had a decision to make. Most of her other configurations would take too long to activate fully. All but one. A piloting configuration.

Vera would be famished by the time and energy it would take to mutate into her best one. And there were no guarantees she would not be discovered in the hours it would normally take. But she could ensure she would not be discovered for at least five.

But where?

Psychotic bloodlust began to build in Vera as she walked the streets of Azterri in the evening. She spotted a lot of cameras. She knew the bloodlust and hunger would only get worse. If she did not get blood soon, she could mutate...and if that happened.

She walked a part of the streets where the buildings had pieces of lapis lazuli built into the walls of the various pieces of property, be it civilian or business. It was another ten minutes of walking before she found a small, already closed specialty shop that sold time pieces. Vera looked with her thermal vision. No cameras. Small parking lot behind it.

Vera went to the parking lot, spotting a small generator shed and pulled out a silenced ten millimeter pistol to shoot open the lock with an armor piercing round.

She immediately headed inside, closed the door, and triggered the reconfiguration process, the masquer that covered her body going translucent, twitching as red electrical arcs flared over white muscle...

During this time, one of the civilians who had attended the game which had disappointed everyone wandered the streets, still monstrously drunk. A green skinned Twi'lek man of middle aged, dressed in flower print clothes that clearly singled him out as a tourist, staggered the streets, looking for the hotel he could not quite find. He had been lost for quite some time, a mere accountant looking to unwind for a week or two. Someone who had gotten just a little too hammered for their own good and was now about to pay for it.

His curiosity at the natural beauty of the planet caused him to be more fascinated in his inebriated state then he otherwise would have been. He had been singing loudly and badly down a deserted street, when a few stumbling, incautious steps happened to take him right into that parking lot, and he was so incredibly drunk that when his hand slipped on the door whose primitive manual lock had been shot open, he thought he had at last found his hotel entrance.

The man got a little confused at how dark it was, as well as by the red glow. Still confused, he took out the flashlight on his keychain to light the area, and was even more confused when he realized he had wandered into a generator room. Still too drunk to think rationally, he proceeded forward, wondering what that weird, flickering glow was.

He stopped, went still, mind not fully registering what was kneeling in front of him, the translucent humanoid, whose cold white eyes slid up to him, its flesh sprouting strands of tissue that turned into blond hair. He backed away, mind numb with shock, too scared to think. Too scared too move.

The twitching, transparent flesh shivered as it stood up, taking color, hiding the murderous beast underneath in the guise of a blond, golden skinned woman of middle age and muscular physique, face finely symmetrical, cold, and hawkish like, with brown eyes and full lips.

He at last found the strength to start sliding across the wall, but a golden skinned arm, blocked his path, the naked creature's innate sadism making her smile, as her free hand gently stroked his face, the terror starting to overpower the alcohol.

"Shhh...its okay..." the biot whispered, leaning close, her other arm clasping him by the shoulder so he couldn't get away.

"It will only hurt for a little bit..." she lied, her fangs sliding into place.

The shrieks of the man in the shed were suddenly muffled. It was because his jaw had been broken. He kept screaming for the next forty five minutes however, even though he could not open his mouth.


Four hours before dawn...

All that bloodshed over a sandwich.

The Mirialan man in his late forties with a buzzcut had been in the diner at the time the riot had started. He was still dressed in the sports team he had been rooting for. Wow, was he ever glad he had gotten out of there before he could get dragged into it. His evening had every sign of sucking. He was correct. But in the wrong way.

He had waited three weeks just to watch this game, blew six months worth of savings to get the tickets. That it had ended in a horrible score and a riot was a triple punch to the gut.

Tired, almost out of credits, and depressed, all he wanted to do was go home and forget about today. He spotted a small public shuttle station, whose price was just enough for him to meet. One came every twenty minutes, so it wouldn't be a long wait.

The man spotted a bench and took a seat, resting weary feet as he waited under a golden lamp, noting a few of the other ones seemed to have been destroyed.

He was startled as he heard the door to the service booth shut. The click of high heels turned his head and he beheld a stunning, majestic woman of golden skinned muscle and hair, clad in a black leather cocktail dress and black stilettos, holding a black purse. He scooted aside, looking only to get home and rest.

"I heard of the riot earlier. Rough day?" The woman asked, giving a small smile, her accent a crisp Coruscant husk.

"Yeah..." he answered curtly, looking at the sky for signs of the shuttle that would land on the duracrete square in front of them. It was then that he noticed that the camera on a post above him was damaged from what looked like a bullet. In fact, all the cameras were...

"What took out all the cameras?"

"Not sure. It was like that when I got here. Don't personally care. I'm just looking to...celebrate."

She was beautiful but the way she smiled creeped him out. He anxiously touched the small wrist chrono on his right hand.

His eyes locked onto hers, which looked...hungry.

"Celebrate what, unless I'm prying." He asked, tone neutral.

The blond woman smiled. "I met someone. Someone who is impulsive and delightfully...bossy. Who spills her drinks in my apartment and tricked me. Tricked me. Do you know how hard that is? That's like that game where a kingdom is like full of demons and the bosses kill you in like one hit. Dark...dark something. It's Dark Something. That's how hard that is."

"Well...good for you..." he commented hesitantly.

"I intend to dance the night away...as soon as I grab a drink. Had a snack before but that didn't sate me."

The man stood up, hands in his pockets. He'd wait inside, as his gut screamed something was wrong in the extreme.

"What's your name?" The woman asked politely.

"Nyop." Nyop answered.

"You seem agitated."

"Its been a long day." Nyop answered carefully.

"I heard the game was terrible." The blond woman said. "Just absolutely awful."

With the skittishness of a mouse when it runs into a housecat, Nyop, scratched the back of his head. Took a few steps back.

"You look exhausted...won't you have a seat?" The blond woman offered.

"No thanks..." Nyop replied, failing to hide his nervousness. "The shuttle will be here any minute..."

The blond woman chuckled. "Of course it will."

There was silence between them under the lamp for the next ten seconds. Nyop knew one of the oldest rules in the book.

Do not run from the Jungle Cat. All it will do is chase you.

Nyop looked for an excuse to leave.

"Someone should tell the station attendant about the cameras."

"I told him."

Another ten seconds of silence inbetween them.

"You never asked my name." The woman noted.

"Okay..." Nyop replied, a bead of sweat running down his cheek. "What's your name?"

The woman looked upward a moment, and shrugged.

"Angel." She said finally.

"Of what?" Nyop asked

The woman threw back her head and gave a throaty laugh. "Such a clever one, aren't we?"

"I should ask for the transit schedules. Maybe they have a snack machine..."

"If only all my meals could be so easily obtained..." the woman trailed.

Nyop was already walking away to the two story info station and waiting area, not taking his eye off the woman as he went inside the transit station. There was no one at the front desk. He removed his team T-shirt, tying it to the simple pull-open doors handles, and went looking for the attendant. There was no one at the front desk. All the cameras were destroyed. His eyes darted back to the bench outside. The woman was not there.

More sweat went down his face and he ran, looking for the back office. He found it a few meters down. Looking inside he didn't see a body. Nothing looked out of place. He closed the heavy door behind him, and the automated door slid shut with a click. He looked at the screen. All camera feeds were down, showing only eerie static flickering across the screen.

He checked the drawers, found a small vibro knife in one. He left the office, stopped cold when he saw the blond woman standing outside. That smile looked utterly empty. Her eyed locked onto his knife.

She reached into her purse and Nyop went a lighter shade of green when she pulled out a black handled straight razor.

Nyop was running for the stair case as he heard the front door rattle behind him. Had to reach higher ground. Much much higher ground.

The second level was mostly a storage area as well as a private break room. But not much else. Not much except a rifle mounted on a transparisteel display. An Argazdan riot buster, to be specific.

He jumped as he heard the front door forced open, the shirt ripping loudly, followed by the sudden click of high heels.

He locked the door leading downstairs and then began cutting the display open. He took out the rifle, cursed when he realized it wasn't loaded. He began looking for the ammo, blood turning to carbonite when he heard her voice on the other end of the locked door.

"Little pig. Little pig. Let me in. or I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll rip your skin off and use it as my personal towl." the woman added in an almost borderline lustful manner.

Nyop tore open every drawer looking for the ammo.

"Go ahead. Work up a sweat. It'lll make you taste sweeter." He heard as he searched, on the verge of a panic filled breakdown.

"Ready or not, here I come..." the woman called out, and his spine locked as he heard the turbo door hiss open. He straightened up, backing away with the empty rifle as the blond woman walked in, heels clicking precisely, razor out. She licked her lips, savoring the impending kill.

"Tell you what..." The woman trailed. "I'll give you three chances to defeat me."

Nyop backed away into the kitchen as the woman stepped forward. He was right next to the microwave.

"Come now, at least give it the old college try..." she encouraged.

He struck with a vertical swipe. She parried with one hand, tapping him lightly on the nose.

"Two attempts left." She called out pleasantly.

Nyop tried a horizontal slice to the stomach. The woman simply parried and gave a light slice across his elbow with her razor.

"One attempt left..." she cooed. "Whatever will you do?"

Nyop stared. Five seconds between them passed.

The woman smiled, kicked off her high heels, reached behind the back of her dress and undid the zipper, letting the black leather cocktail dress slipp off, revealing a lacy black strapless bra and underwear.

"W...what are you doing?" Nyop whispered as he stared at a muscular frame.

Her smirk was an utterly cruel one.

"I like to make a mess. But I hate having to wash the blood off my clothing."

Nyop's gulp was the gulp of a dead man.

She held out her arms in a welcoming gesture.

Nyop tried to run, and she tackled him, cackling. She didn't seem much stronger than an ordinary person, but she was fast, and he was struggling to escape, even as her razor slashed open his arm. In desperation, he headbutted her, and her head snapped back as her nose was broken, leaking white blood everywhere as he shoved her away andran for his life, grabbing the empty rifle as he ran into one of the supply rooms and locked the primitive mechanical door that opened via a knob on it one turned. It wasn't very large, but it was surprisingly large given it was just a supply pantry. He looked for cleaning supplies, and something that could be ignited. He found a small laser cutter and a disinfectant spray can. He forced himself to move through the fear when he heard the door rattle, He turned, shaking as he heard her chuckle on the other side of the door.

"You will taste delicious." he heard her wheeze through the broken nose. He watched as the shadow on the crack at the bottom of the door moved away. He heard soft footsteps move out of the area then fade to nothingness.

Nyop had a problem. He knew he could not stay in here forever. He and whatever the hell that thing outside was both knew it. Either he would wait in here until it inevitably got annoyed and broke down the door and killed him anyway, or he would go out there and be murdered in the open.

Nyop gulped, and after two minutes, peeked outside, both ways. Nothing there. He shut the door, snapped off a broom handle, and fixed his pilfered vibroknife to it with duct tape, shoving the can and the cutter into his pockets as he dared to venture outside. It was eerily quiet. He saw splashes and flecks of white blood as he stepped carefully back into the break room. No sign of her. Her clothes were gone also. He stepped forward a little, half expecting her to come running at him out of a camouflage field and pulling a sucker punch.

Where was she--?

Thats when Nyop remembered the second oldest rule: No one ever looks above them.

Especially if its a ceiling that's above them.

His makeshift spear went up into the ceiling panel directly above the door leading downstairs. He heard an inhuman, pig like shrieking as white blood spilled out through the panel and onto him as he viciously stabbed upward, again and again, screaming bloody murder as the creature crashed through the panels in its desperate writhing at the devastating injuries on its stomach, revealing white innards through three deep lascerations that sparked red electricity, white blood everywhere. But it shot up faster than he could react, ripping the spear out of its body and punching him in the jaw so hard the world got fuzzy as he stumbled backward.

The biot approached, ramming a knee into his gut then an elbow into his jaw, making him collapse as it grabbed him by the head with both hands and rammed his skull into the refrigerator door. The world nearly went black but he could still see his attacker, chuckling, disfigured, and gloating, holding up the razor blade so he could see his own battered face in its reflection.

The biot laughed, white blood flowing out of a smashed nose. "I'll save your heart for last..."

The razor rushed to his throat, but the will to live made him catch it by the blade, and adrenaline made him seize her by the throat and choke slam the biot's head into the side of the counter. The biot writhed, snarling on the ground as it tried to get up and kept slipping on its own blood. He then twisted his wrist chrono's dial a special way and a very small, hidden barrel popped out. Out from it erupted a single sonic bolt which slammed into the bleeding, lascerated, nearly naked creature's chest. It shrieked as its databases malfunctioned, the masquer violently stretching everywhere as it froze in shock.

Bleeding himself, he spotted the microwave, picked the self powered device up and smashed it door first directly over her head. The resultant electrical surge, combined with the microwaves released, resulted in a double whammy. Her flesh not only violently deformed, much to his horror, but also rupturing and fissuring white blood as it caught fire, shrieking, flailing about. He spotted the empty rifle and brought it down on the shrieking, burning android again and again, until it did not move. The sprinkler system turned on and he collapsed against a wall, far away from it as the fire on its body was put out. He flinched when he saw it twitch, however. He pulled himself up, found his spear and shoved it into its heart. It twitched, flailed weakly before it went dead.

He staggered away, the sprinklers washing blood off of him. He felt woozy. His head getting slammed into the fridge had not helped. With growing alarm, he saw a lot of blood coming out of his nose and then collapsed...


One hour before Karlie wakes up...


It had been a bizarre scene, when the Azterrian fire response team had shown to the transit station. One unconscious man, one badly burnt and damaged body that looked partly melted, and one badly trashed and burned break room.

The burnt body had been scraped up and put into a body bag, and the man taken to the hospital, where he was to be put in a medically induced coma. A large black bag was also seized as evidence and thrown into the transport with the burnt body so it could be examined by investigators, as the thing seemed to have been fitted with an energy shield they could not risk damaging the contents inside to get through.

Inside the body bag, the heavily damage biot's body began to slowly stitch itself up. Its processors had survived the microwaves and electrical surges thanks to its processors having increased shielding, albeit barely. But now it had a whole other set of problems.

The drivers noted nothing unusual when they unloaded the body bag and the shielded sack, taking them to the morgue, where the female rodian doctor waited, having just finished an autopsy.

"Got a weird one for ya, doc..." the twin weequay brothers said in unison by accident, dumping the bag on an examination table, staring at each other in confusion before unzipping it. The doctor went forward, snout twitching as it looked at the disgusting sight.

"What the feth--?" the brother on the right asked in confusion.

"What? What's wrong?" the doctor asked.

"Well...we bagged this, right? This body was burnt, now it just looks...half rotted. Soggy, even." The brother on the left said.

The doctor took out a scanner to examine the tissues. When the doctor read the results, she looked slowly at the twins.

"You two should leave. Forget you saw anything..." the doctor warned them.

(Predator drumbeat plays)

The twins looked at each other, then her, then left without a word.

The doctor immediately locked the door, whirling around to see if it was still there and then running a sample of its tissue she cut under the scanning machines in the morgue just to be sure. She then immediately turned to walk to her work terminal only to realize that the body bag was empty.

To her credit, she tried to run to the terminal, desperate to warn the authorities that they had recovered some kind of military android. But the power cut, and she was left in the dark...

Thirty minutes after Karlie wakes up...

The android woman's black heels clicked down the sterile hall as she left the morgue, a self satisfied smirk on her face, her revealing cocktail dress out of place in the deathly setting. She stil looked like a middle aged, muscular blond. She had cleaned up well. No one would smell anything amiss

She walked half a block before summoning a taxi and journeying to the hotel she had left Karlie in. Flashing Vera's pass, she was easily allowed up, and used that pass to unlock the door and step inside. As per her instructions, a bath had been prepared by the hotel workers. Now doubt breakfast would be on its way soon. She heard Karlie in the bath tub and decided to patiently, silently wait by sitting on the sofa, but not before making a few quiet calls and arranging things.

When Karlie finally came out dressed and waiting, the biot made sure to present a very different kind of seductiveness. Arms stretched across the chair, legs crossed, a more overt and seductive glimmer to her eyes and smirk. It was not just about getting into Karlie's head no matter what disguise Vera was in, it was about making sure each disguise was distinct. The body language, the voice, the character tics. None of it could match exactly.

"Hello, Miss Destat!" The biot said, introducing herself with a much more feminine and flirtatious tone, in complete contrast to Vera's normal reserve. "My name is Angel. Angel Ovwut. I am Miss Mina's personal secretary, and pilot. I regret to inform you a legal counsel has taken longer than expected. She will be back in about three hours. But she did not want you to feel neglected..." she trailed suggestively, rising up slowly, letting Karlie take in every curve as she slinked in a liquid manner to the door as her olfactory sensors detected breakfast being delivered. Vera had ordered based on what Karlie had been observed consuming on the Morpheus in terms of breakfast.

"Miss Mina has provided access to her credit account so order online to your heart's content..." 'Angel' explained as she rolled the breakfast cart in. "I am also to serve as your own personal pilot, should you have a sudden need of transportation now or in the future. Its a pleasure to meet you by the way. Is the breakfast to your liking? I can arrange for nearly any luxury you could desire culinary wise...don't be shy in asking..." the biot smirked as it slinked up to her next. "Is everything to your liking? Vera has something...special planned, so she wanted to be certain you were relaxed..."

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Oh, she could so get used to this...
Wait, she was.
Bubble baths were something she missed when working on that remote orbiting research station, the Castan RD-IV. Something she knew she couldn't procrastinate any further. She had broken the genetic key code of a one deadly virus. A military grade level 4 virus that had somehow been developed by no other than the very woman who gave birth to her. The very same one that had a diabolical plan in jumping into her own daughter's body and...

...and...

...and somehow, despite Karlie's recent bout with CIS black Ops and narrowly escaping what was proved to be a frame up, she drifted off to sleep again in the cozy bathtub. Well, it were more like a Jacuzzi, but without the pulsating water jets.
No, this was one cozy relaxing bubble bath and she readily shed her anxiety, letting go of mommy dearest worst memories. Ok, she really didn't have any personal bad experiences with her mother per say. She were told, informed by no other than her father, as what her mother had in store for her. Up until that revelation, her own personal relationship with her mom had been......sweet. Karlie was still a child, just touching her teens when she were still looking up to her mom as the center of the universe....before it all collapsed upon her like a deep black hole. Karlie never really experienced the bad side of her mother, as Karla (yes, her mother's given name by no other than herself) were meticulously and methodically priming her daughter's psyche and temple (body) to house her own entity... taking over her daughter's body to continue life indefinitely. or so it were explained to Karlie by her father.

The minute following Karlie's eyelids closing in her means of finding zen within the soak...she was out.
Out as in a dream.
A dream recollecting a memory that in her current state of relaxation played out like it did nearly a decade and a half ago.

"Photosynthesize...that's how all plants and some unique life forms change the stars energy into food..."
The young girl Karlie said as she lay there on her chaise lounge soaking up Castagne's sunlight.
"I learned that they could convert carbon dioxide using energy from the sun to grow and thrive. Like...wow, why can't we do the same?"

"Oh, and what makes you think you can't?" her mother asked, laying next to her on another lounger. They were on the beach of one of the family's private islands off Goma Coast.

"Hehe...you taught me many things, but that is simply impossible mom...at least for humans...animals really.
It's what I read." Karlie spoke matter-of-fact.

"Oh?
You first said you had learned it. This came from reading?"

"Uhm...yes." a hint of uncertainty. "It said only plants and some rare unique life forms were only capable of it to some extent, I think. Certainly not humans or any animals that are here on Castagne."

"Oh I see... I understand now. " her mother replied, as to where her daughter was coming from, and it were from something that had been passed as common knowledge.
"Albeit who or what wrote such nonsense knows nothing of the possibilities that we womankind can be capable of."

"You mean mankind.." Karlie referred to the common conception of humankind.

"No... womankind, Karlie. The kind of women you and I are."

"Hmm..." But weren't a man and woman the same as far as species were concerned? It's what her mother had taught her once, that man and woam wereof the same species.
"But aren't we human? i mean...like daddy?...like-" Karlie were saying before her mom cut in.

"Like, man and his kind? Hmm.. I don't much see mankind in you...nor I, Karlie. " her mom had slowly sat up lowering her shades to peer at her daughter over them.

Karlie caught the shadow of Karla blocking the sun and looked over to her mom. She were silhouetted with the sun above her, prompting her to sit up to see her mother better.
"I have daddy's nose..." Karlie pointed it out...literally.

"Yes...that you certainly do." Karla teasingly tapping her daughter's nose. "It was the only detail I hadn't planned for...but yes, it's cute...like that of your father.
Ok, now come on over here next to me and let me put more lotion on you. The sun may do a lot of good things for plants, but it will burn your precious skin right off..." Karla said, squeezing out a general portion of suntan lotion on Karlie's shoulders, before working it over the supple fresh young skin of her daughter.



~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Karlie's eyes opened breaking the stillness of the bubble bath water as she sat up. Was Vera back? She had thought she heard her rustling about in the greater room.
"Vera?.." She called out and listened a moment...then two. No answer, not a stir. Karlie reached out to her cron that she had taken off and placed on the edge of the bath.
"Oh wow..." Yes, she had dozed off it seemed. Of course, the dream...
Were it a dream or had it been a memory? ...

It were difficult as she got older. All her memories of Karla were...sigh...good. But she knew her father hadn't lied to her. There were the nightmares, the ghost of her mothers force spirit that had started haunting her soon after the woman's demise. It had been more than difficult for her to grow up and not loose her mind with that spirit looming over her to posses her body. THAT was real.
It had been by Karlie's own desperate determination to find the means to exorcise that spirit by purging herself of the one connection that would have made it possible for her mother to posses her...to be free of midicloreans.
THAT had been real.
And of the sealed records and videos detailing of the witch's effort to overtake Castagne to get to her...THAT was real.

Karlie wet her face over before getting out of the bath. She couldn't understand why or how she could be still having good dreams since she disconnected herself from the force. They had been haunts before that..nightmares. But since she exorcised that demon witch, all her dreams of her and her mother were like she remembered them.
"Frak.." She shook her head toweling herself dry.
"First a kiss blocker and then a sweetheart...sicko." Karla was still in her head blocking her when it came to certain things... like intimacy.
"Sigh..."How her mother had been able to do that before her demise was beyond Karlie's comprehension. It was time she should figure out as what to do about it. mainly deprogram it somehow out of her head, she were thinking as she got dressed.

"Gasp.." She stopped cold in her tracks coming out of the bedroom.
For a minute she were utterly besides herself. Her first thought was that the woman, who was precariously seated like she owned the world and whatever else was no other than Vera's...girlfriend?..lover?
That all too familiar drumming in her ears was her heart.

It took a moment for her voice to overcome something she had not felt before, not for a woman at least...jealousy.
"I...I don't recall ever seeing you...much less Vera mentioning she had an employee." Karlie's head was churning.
Who was this woman and what was she trying to pull on her?

Karlie managed to regain her posture, walking over into the open with purpose now. It were a means of her defying what territory this harlot may have thought she claimed.

Karlie went over to the mini bar, tipping one rare bottle then another to read the labels. Most were Corellian...aged...rare. Hmm, of course why wouldn't they be?
"Angel, right?" Yea she had gotten her name...
Vera's out you say...huh huh..." She poured a shot of Whyren's Reserve, bringing it up to her lips...not drinking it though, just wetting her upper lip as she eyed the woman slink off the couch and to the door.
Good she though..the whore's leaving...

But no. The woman were just bringing what was apparently a serving cart inside. Karlie partially made out the servant at the door before Angel closed it.
What was going on?
She put her untouched glass on the table and looked around for her shoes. Oh great, right by the very same couch the woman had been sitting on.

"Whoa.....look." Karlie shrunk away from the woman, putting her hand up as a gesture implying 'do not touch me'.
"Not entirely sure what you're doing here..." She met the woman's eyes.
"But I'm not like THAT. " She took another step then two back, before going over to the couch and picking up her shoes.

"Vera's....a friend." Karlie stopped to turn and say.
" She's... she's a friend.
YOU, I don't know...nor wish to know...." Karlie's heart rate had ramped up...damn it, she were feeling betrayed...dumped....jealous of this...arrrg her head was now pounding...all because of this woman.
It was irking her that the woman were nearly as striking and... and most likely Vera's age. For some reason or other, Karlie were seeing this harlot as an adversary.
It were difficult to even understand what the frak this Angel were even babbling about, Karlie was so mad. Did this woman, or even Vera for that matter think she was hard up for credits that they were offering to pay for anything she desired? Gross!

With shoes in hand, she opened the door and walked out barefoot...not once looking back on the woman.

"Frak..." She cussed to herself, putting on her shoes as the turbo lift descended. She had wanted to spend some time...a lot of time with Vera. What the frak happened?..had Vera blown her off?...
Oh she were furious now...MAD
Mad at the idea of that...that harlot, most likely 'Vera's girlfriend..whoopee do' slinking up to her like that. Like she were some candy to be sampled, if not shared.
So ok, maybe just maybe Vera was on to her liking her. But Karlie only felt like so for Vera and no one else.
Had she given that woman Angel any signals as to it being OK for her to come on to her as she did? Karlie had always thought herself heterosexual...she fantasized about men. Vera...Vera was-
Vera was someone who made her feel different about...well, Vera!
Karlie found herself attracted to a woman for the first time ever. And it had suddenly become as complicated as with a freakin man for god's sake!
She couldn't think straight right now. She needed to get back to her hotel and...and maybe look up as to who this Angel Owl...er no, Ou......Ovwut.

"Right, Angel Ovwut...Angel Ovwut..." She repeated her name before the turbo lift doors opened to the lobby. Maybe she'd send for one of her BOB-1 to be transported over to her here....'oh yea, have it go over to Vera's suite and break the woman's knee cap or something...Yea that would hurt real bad now huh?..Yea'...so her mind treaded on her version of a woman scorned.
"Hmm... will have to wipe it's memory bank, except for it's mission objective... GAH!" Like she was really going to do that...not.

Damn it though...had Vera really a client she had to see about, or had she really passed her over to Angel?
Arrrg.... she weren't going to find any closure not talking to Vera. Karlie clenched her fist as she hit the sidewalk, looking back at the hotel just once to make sure she weren't being followed by that harlot.
Ohhhh, she was going to give Vera her piece of mind....she was so MAD!

 

[Vera Mina]

When [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] stormed out in a huff, the biot was left confused, slightly angry, unable to understand what she had done wrong. She half considered chasing after Karlie but even a monster as she knew that would just make it worse.

It was indicative of just how much a sociopath she was that she had not even the faintest inkling of what had gone wrong. It was not until she had a few minutes to transfer back to her lawyer settings that she spotted the fact she had commited not one, not two, not three, but ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN TACTICAL ERRORS in just the short span of talking to Karlie after a blood drunk rampage. What had she been thinking?! (Interaction Failed!: - 30 XP)

Vera, still in the black dress she wore after her night slaughter, quickly changed to a red dress and tried to think of a solution. She basically had access to Karlie's psyche profile, having compiled it after Karlie had successfully fooled her the first time, and consulted it as she pined for the blond scientist. After a few moments, she began to understand what she had done wrong. (It should be noted that her sociopathy still made her look at this from only the perspective of a tactical error rather than actually understanding on a deep level how she had emotionally hurt Karlie beyond referencing her facial expressions to detect hurt or jealousy as defined by her coding.)

Now the artificial vampire went into overdrive, searching her public relations management database and coming up short on interpersonal relationships. She reached for her encrypted comlink to call Nine, whose castle was still in orbit over Azterri.

Nine, who was in her luxurious private quarters, working on a small, wristwatch like device inspired by examining the technology in Karlie's wrist device when it had been confiscated during her stay aboard the Morpheus at her personal workbench, noticed the caller ID on her link and answered.

"Daughter! Heard the ball game sucked."

"Oh my, mother, like I didn't see 'that' pun a kilometer away.

"Heard you had a few drinks more than necessary."

"This body is...new...hungrier..." Vera replied.

"You will have to learn discipline. Cleaning up the evidence you left was...expensive. I owe some motherfethers on Azterri now. Hope you are happy. What is it?" The tall, glowing eyed vampire muttered as she worked.

"I...messed up with Karlie and I need advice..."

"Erasing her memory was a one time deal, Vera. What did you do? Did she find a body part? Tell me she found a body part. Please. I could use a good laugh after how many feths I had to bribe over you...you didn't kill anyone in front of her? Oh! I know! You tried to get yourself a sample of her blood again!"

"Worse. I hit on her unthinkingly in my pilot form. Completely put off. I have no idea what to do."

Nine didn't miss a beat.

"In this case the only way out is through. In other words: lie through your teeth like you normally would, you little sociopath, you! Lie lie lie lie lie. Your pilot identity doesn't have an actual back ground. Use that to your advantage."

"Hmmm...thank you mother..." Vera replied, cutting the transmission. She spent the next fifteen minutes, her protocols set for maximum manipulation.

She made a recording of herself, sitting down. The best approach was letting slip at least a little truth, then saturate it with lying. Blatant, blatant lying.

"Karlie...as soon as I learned...I contacted you." she called out, protocols expertly faking sincerity. "I'm so sorry for what you experienced with my Secretary, Miss Ovwut. You see, Miss Ovwut isn't exactly...human...she is what is referred to as a Human Replica Droid...but far more sophisticated than the standard HRD. She is normally a highly excellent professional body guard as well, but about two weeks prior her programming was altered in terms of behavior due to retaliatory sabotage during a routine maintenance of her droid brain by a disgruntled former client of mine. These errors are what produced her cringey as hell behavior, causing her to behave in that unfortunate manner torwards you. I know this because the same thing happened to me. Now when the errors became known, I immediately scheduled her for repairs, and we thought the sabotage had been fixed during the error checking process. But it seems I will have to fire my tech consultant...even I get ripped off occasionally. But please don't hold it against Angel. When I sent her to you, it was because I thought she had been repaired successfully. The so called seductive behavior appears and disappears at random, and kicked in apparantly not sixteen minutes before she showed up. She had no way of knowing what she had done due to the sabotage..."

Vera knew this was a risky tactic. Turning Karlie to the idea she might be around a droid that looks completely human might put her on Vera's scent. But it was also a matter of degrees. If worse came to worse, Vera could simply say Angel's brain had not recovered, and "replace" her with another HRD that "conveniently" looked just like her. Vera wasn't afraid to throw her pilot identity under a bus, if it meant Karlie stayed.

"I really was busy, and she was in no way meant to make it seem as though I was ditching you, if that was what you were worried about. Please call me as soon as you get this message. I feel aghast at the thought of having driven off your golden curls forever."

Vera transmitted the message, than called her Mom.

Nine sighed, still working at her bench.

"Yes, daughter?"

"Just told Karlie my other identity was a malfunctioning HRD."

Nine stopped, amazed.

"Bold...possible tactical suicide...but I like it!"

"But will it work?"

"Depends...how much does the cute blond like you?" Nine snickered. "One word of advice Vera...lies are like creme filled donuts...they taste good...but too many will make you sick..."

"I will be sure to keep it under advice..." Vera replied, having regained some confidence. She shut off the link, waiting for Karlie to contact her...

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

"No....don't wish to waste any more of my time on this rock." She replied, inserting her cortosis card at the checkout terminal of her hotel. The concierge informed her it would take but a short while for the staff to get her belongings down. But no, she certainly didn't want to spend another moment on this freakin planet... not with what had just happened not a half hour ago.
Karlie had stormed out of Vera's suite and rushed over to her own hotel to wash the filth off her mind and body..despite she had just had a bubble bath in Vera's suite. Well, she had to wash THAT off her too!

"Miss Destat...your stay has already been fully credited...CIS VIP." He reminded her that the hotel bill had been been paid for an extended stay..up to the guest by the CIS.

"Sigh..." oh yes..the CIS and the reason she had come to this 3rd world system. Oh she so hated even breathing the air now.
"I see..." She did her best to maintain her poise. Inside she were still fuming over Vera and that two bit whore.
"...have my personals sent over to my address then."

"As you wish, Miss Destat." the concierge replied in an apologetic tone.
"It is unfortunate that the hosting of the Hutgames has come to reflect on our prestigious hotel."

"The Hutgame?..." Oh yea, she somewhat had a clue despite her drunken fogginess that she had originally been here to see a game. Although for the most part, it were nothing more than a fleeting drunken dream she suddenly recalled.
Of course it had not been her choice to land on this heap of stone they called Azterri to come see a lame game. Which by the way was exactly what it turned out to be; LAME!.
Her trip here had been suggested by her father, the Viceroy of Castagne to accept what came from the Vicelord's office an invitation for Karlie to enjoy herself here on Azterri. This of course in no way shape or form could make up for what she had gone through...being accused of the mass genocide on Melida/Dan and responsible by the said accusation the direct blame for [member="Darth Metus"] son Riggs.

"Why yes. I can't apologize enough for the worst game ever hosted this sector of the galaxy." This by the way was the third patron who cut short their stay at the hotel because of the lame game.

Karlie peered over her shades at the poor man, first time she were making contact with his eyes. The freakin man actually thought she were a pathetic fan who was irate over a freaking game?
Still peering over her sunglasses she actually considering correcting the poor man behind the courtesy desk. NO, YOU MORON, I'm leaving because you suck, your hotels suck, your planet sucks and you suck! Ok, so she already said that. Grrr... She again did her best to not explode..
"Yea...that's it.... the ballgame." She finally decided to actually indulge the man.
"Uhm...don't let it happen again..."

The man hesitated for just a breath before lowering his eyes. " Yes, mam... "
Yep, VIPs especially those of the CIS were always right. And if this prissy blonde who in his mind was Darth Metus' reserved guest here at the hotel...then if she claimed lead was gold... then he'd ask 'what carrot.'

"Ok... good." She then just did a turn about and waltzed out of the front entrance.



Outside her hotel...

"Shoot!" Yep, she had forgotten to ask for a limo.

"Yes Miss Destat, is there anything we can do for you?" the same clerk eagerly but nervously asked.
Karlie was once more at the desk.
This time the clerk seemed even more nerved up than before. Was he in trouble for being at the wrong place at the wrong time?..maybe she'd call the Vicelord and blame the entire botched lame game on him and the hotel? hell, women of her kind were unpredictable, he were sweating behind the counter. A bad review would cost him his job.

"I need a limo to the spaceport...sigh...pronto if you can manage it" She replied, anxiously tapping her fingers on the counter. To the clerk, her finger tapping could just as well mean she was indeed going to send a bad report to corporate.

"Right away, Miss Destat....er excuse me." He said, as he began tapping away at the VR keyboard display in front of him. There were no limo currently free as they were out bringing other guests to the same spaceport.
"One will be out there in a moment, Miss Destat." he said, as he cancelled two limos already half way to the port. poor patrons that weren't VIP, they would undoubtedly miss their booked flights. His orders were for the two limos closest to the hotel to immediately stop and discard their current passengers...IMMEDIATELY. STAT and full U turn it back to pick up a VIP. First limo at the hotel gets to keep their job.

Of course, Karlie had no clue as to what the man was typing. All she heard and cared about was that there was going to be a limo outside for her to get herself off this dreaded slum of a planet...and as far away from Vera and her escort whores. God, she so hated Vera now. to think, she had feelings for the woman. feelings for another woman of all things. She weren't like THAT!. The sheer thought of it now made her cringe.
Had she really thought that she could feel for a woman as she did a man?
Uhg...she'd need another scrub down when she got to her ship. the very air..everything she touched here on this godforsaken planet needed to be scrubbed off her.
She drummed her fingers as a minute could well be an hour in her state of mind. God, she so despised that woman.
Frak, why was she so uptight over what she certainly didn't want?

"Miss Destat?"

"Huh?"..now what? where was her goddam-

"Your limo is here."



The limo ride...

"Hmm..." What was this? Did someone leave their purse behind? 'Burcke'...a designer purse.

She were about to open up the comm to the driver when a text came in.

"Pant..pant..." Her heart suddenly took up the pace to run a 500m dash.
It were Vera!
Karlie stared at it a moment..then two. She were torn. Torn for wanting to open it and afraid of opening it. The text could be soul lifting or crush her to death right here, right now.
Another minute went by and the limo rounded the main avenue that lead to the spaceport.
It were now or never, as if it were of a nature opposite of what she had assumed, she'd be departing the system and Vera.
Wait..wait.... what should she do?!!

"Gasp!..
S...STOP the LIMO!" She buzzed the driver. Karlie was a fast reader. All it took was a glance at the text and she pretty much got 70% of what the message read.

"Mam?" the driver was confused, but nevertheless retro-braked, getting a smaller private speeder rear end them. of course the limo had a class! VIP ride dampeners and nothing whatsoever was felt inside. Contrary, the other speeder sustained a LOT of front end damage with air bags and cracked windscreen resulting in some whiplash to it's occupant.

"Turn around... sigh... go back to the hotel." She replied, not at all being aware of the speeder behind her now getting plowed by another behind it. They were in a heavy traffic lane to the spaceport.

"Yes, mam.." the driver kicked it into full gear, with retro-thrusters that spun the huge heavy limo around and speed back to the hotel.

Karlie reread the message over..trice...slowly and with teary eyes...happy tears..joyful tears. Oh how her heart were so easily mended. '..golden curls' Vera wrote. She would miss her golden curls..
Karlie did a twice look into the mirror checking out her hair. Vera liked it then!
her heart beat for that woman like no other. Oh how she would have missed her so much...cry for weeks if not months over it. But now? Now she were happy... joyful...excited!

"Mam?..."

"Huh, what now?" She asked. How dare this other moron disturb her day dream-

"We're here, mam..." The driver informed her. the limo was parked not only at the hotel entrance, but on the sidewalk. An usher from the hotel opened the door for her and extended a hand to assist her out.

"Oh...right." She scooted over and took the hand.
"Oh by the way...someone left their purse here.."

"We'll take care of it mam..."



In the turbolift...

The hotel concierge himself took to escort his VIP guest back to her room. He weren't going to chance his career, if not his life on the staff.
The entire 3.5 second ride up to the 37th floor, the Executive suite, he did nothing but gravely apologize for the entire planet of Azterri. In those few seconds he got in that if it were up to him, he'd have both ballgame teams put to the lash.

"Ok ok...no big deal...so maybe somebody will win next time... sheesh. Enough about the stupid game already......" She had no clue as to what he were going about over.
"Of course Miss Destat..." he replied ready to get off the lift with her.

"I'll be fine from here on. I think I manage to find my room again..." She said, stopping the man from getting out.
"Of course Miss Destat..if there is anything-" But she had already closed the turbo lift doors. they snapped closed..hermetically so it cut his last words off.
Karlie shook her head..of course she'd find her room. IT WAS THE ENTIRE FLOOR!
"Moron.." she said to herself as she plopped herself on her couch, opening up the text again.



3 agonizing hours later...

She had paced enough times to and fro to leave an impression in the carpet.
of course she wanted to text Vera and rush over there like a school girl with one bad crush. But she were no school girl. Karlie had mulled it over and over in her head and had decided to not jump at the first sign of Vera's apology. It would give her away, reveal her crush on the woman.
No. Karlie had sweated it out before the text and she were sweating it out now. She wanted Vera to sweat it out too. make Vera really, really want her. Karlie had to play it cool. Yes, she'd dive for the woman if she had a chance...but she knew her conditioning. It were horrid what her mother implanted in her..just plainly horrid.
as such, why not make Vera sweat it out too...right?

No no no!
...Karlie didn't want to play games, but it were the only thing she could do. At least until she'd figure out how to deprogram what her mother put in her. This was no midi-infused connection, no. this had been subliminal brainwashing. YES, that 's what it was.
Karlie freed herself from her mother's force ghost by eradicating herself of midi..permanently.


Past the midnight hour...

"Sigh..." Karlie sat up in her bed again.
She had forgone texting Vera back right away. She were no school girl that jumped for the first sign of attention her crush gave her. No. She was Karlie Lynn Destat...IBI... Tarssin's daughter.
Oh hell, had she overstretched it? maybe she should text her now. Like, 'shoot, I had my comm off..ladi-ladi-da...
NO!
"Frak..." She turned her big body pillow over and flopped back on it, sighing.
No, she was going to get through this...was going to ride it out till morning.
Karlie had her eyes tightly closed as if it would help her go to sleep. But she had been in bed since like 11:00 and it were now 12:43 am.
GOD why was time going so slow?!

This wasn't working. all it were doing was making her sweat it out. Most likely Vera was sound asleep while she were sweating it out, playing it cool. "Cool my arse!.." She finally got up and out of bed.
For the gigateen time, she looked over at her crono.
"FRAK!!! 12:44!?"
No way she were going to make it to morning...no freakin way.



12:45 am...

"Come on...come on...." Karlie had foregone texting and had punched in Vera's number direct.

...ring....


...ring....


...ring...

"Come on...pick up!...."

"....Vera...come on-"

"Oh, hello, Vera?!" OMG it was her. Blood flow to her tummy resumed.

"Hi....didn't wake you...did I?"

Oh good, Vera had to answer the comm anyway...
...er..shoot.
Yea took a second, but Karlie got the pun. Just that in her state, she were too nerved up in standing Vera up for so long in answering her text that no way she could fake a giggle. damn..she giggled anyway.
"Ohhh...Yea, sorry about that.
I...I kinda lost track of time." Yea, she could lie with the best of them...although she never met a real good liar other than her mom before.

"Anyway...I think there was like some miscommunication. From your message, which by the way i just opened up...uhm...
Well, it seems to indicate i left mad or something? ...I don't know what your secretary said or ...I don't know.
But I wasn't angry or anything. I...had ..to...do something at the moment and rushed out of your suite..really!
What I mean to say is, and i'm not looking to get your secretary in trouble or anything...but she must have misrepresented my ..hasty exit with maybe something she thought to be at fault about?..." Yes, she were winging it. Her fingers turning white with how she were clutching her comm tightly as she fabricated her lame excuse.

"Right now... I'm...uhm, just taking off my shoes." Nope, she were barefooted and in her undies sweatingly fresh out of bed.
"..you know, like just getting in like I said.
You...
Ahem...
You doing anything?" Yikes, what was she stammering about, she realized. She had most likely woken up Vera in the middle of the night... 'was she doing anything?'...talk about a blonde moment.

"Sigh...can't seem to go to sleep..
Haha...must have been that nap I took before...
Ahem...
You know, when you were at your client..." Lord was Vera's voice so comforting.

 

[Vera Mina]

Magnus found her other Sister, Meier playing cards with the Morpheus Knights in the castle barracks. Meier looked like she usually did, ripped straight from an over-sexy vampire film, clad in a skintight black catsuit, with short, straight black hair and ice blue eyes, her face as pale as a sheet of the stuff on a polar ice cap.

Of the two sisters Nine had developed after Vera, Meier came across as the most innocent and naive of the sisters, despite in the right conditions also being as much of a killing machine as as the others. Meier was the one who questioned the least. It was a holdover from her origins as a testing bed for Nine's concepts. The barracks were shrouded in a dull golden light, the corners of the room lined by statues of Oni with Kanebo's. Meier's artificial nature was betrayed by the precise movements of her fingers. Her naivete was betrayed by the way her artificial tounge stuck out of her mouth as she sneakily looked at her cards.
Meier decided to stand at seventeen. All the other knights sighed as the numbers of their own went way over the limit.

"I win!" Meier said excitedly, before her face scrunched in an expression of mock-horror.

"I always win..."

"You have assassination programming. It'd be silly if you couldn't always win by calculating basic odds on the fly..." a Morpheus Knight grumbled.

"Bobbi beat her." A female knight pointed out.

"That's because Bobbi was badass. And Bobbi is no longer with us." The first knight replied.

They all grew especially solemn at this. Meier finally noticed the red headed droid enter the playing area that had been set up.

"Well, at least he went out killing zombies...that's a pretty decent way to go. Respectable enough to tell your children about it, I guess..." the female knight sadly remarked. Bobbi's death had been hard on all the knights. Bobbi had been there since the beginning. Nine's first son, in a since. The first to be turned. He had been her right hand, even after Nine had built her daughters. Nine had grown darker. More amoral. More violent after his death. Magnus was sincerely beginning to believe Nine was getting mentally overwhelmed by the future, and how different it was. It was easy to see that, even with all her resources, deep down Nine was barely keeping it together.

Magnus, if she wanted to put a name to her emotions, likely could have described what she felt as love for her creator, but it was like a beta-version of the emotion, something not fully understood or realized. She lacked something, and she knew it.

"You look disturbed, younger sister..." one of the Morpheus Knights remarked as Magnus sat down at the table.

"Another around in circles conversation with Mother about Vera..." Magnus complained. Not that pointing out the horror of letting Vera run loose would phase the knights. They were quite thoroughly brainwashed by Nine. Even the new recruits they had gotten to replace those they had lost...all brainwashed by Nine.

"We're commiting murder and assault every time we've kidnapped First Order military..." the female knight pointed out.

"But those aren't ordinary civilians!" Magnus snapped. "Its one thing if you feed on a Sith...no one gives a chit...bastard probably had it coming...but Vera is targeting The Homeless...

"Mother knows what she is doing..." Meier said. "She's had me shadowing her. Vera's actually a lot more restrained than I thought she would be since getting rebuilt. She only killed four. Drunk tourists mostly, but that fifth guy gave her some trouble..."

"She should not be eating drunk tourists!"

"Well then what should she eat? First Order doesn't grow on trees. And from what I heard on the ships rumor mill, biot nutrient isn't exactly all that filling." The female knight remarked, "Vampires don't always have the luxury of choosing what to eat. And there are only so many criminals that no one will miss."

"But why did she have to be designed that way?" Magnus complained.

"Because a Vampire matron needs a sire who is also a vampire...line of succession and all that noise..." Meier chirped. "And no vampire is gonna obey another vampire if they are not willing to take the life of even an innocent. The Psy-Pire rank and file are good for the 'no kills unless you have to' rule, but the leadership needs to be immersed in killing, I think."

"Its still rotten." Magnus asserted. "If only we had the processing power to more throughly question..."

"Its not all bad!" Meier chirped back. "We got this sweet ass castle. We roam wherever we want. Plenty of resources..."

Magnus forced patience on herself, knowing Meier's coding made her think more simplistically.

"I still think Mother is going about this approach all wrong..." Magnus said. "If only I had the processing power to actually disobey..."

That was when another Morpheus Knight, lying on his bed nearby, reading a magazine about nature spoke up.

"I think Mother already has..." he spoke quietly.

His non-atrisian accent gave him away as one of the newer, off world recruits.

"Whatever do you mean, brother?" Meier asked innocently.

The knight sat up. He was fully helmeted and masked. Most Knights didn't voluntarily take off the armor unless to actually sleep, and even then, they had it close by.

"I think I found something Mom was doing..." he admitted.

"What?" Magnus asked, now genuinely curious.

"And where?" Meier added, tone betraying a giddy excitement for new imput.

"Well, I'm kinda new here, so I was familiarizing myself with the ship. I found this crazy hidden chamber in the lab, and I was like, 'Wow, this is rad!' But then I realized maybe I wasn't supposed to find it, so I kept quiet. I'm Shawn, by the way. Shawn Byene. Nice to meet you!"

(Cutaway of Ned Stark being decapitated)

(Cutaway of Alec Trevalyen screaming as the sattelite dish falls on him)

(Cutaway of every film Sean Bean dies in)

The other knights seemed to grow nervous for no obvious, logical, or discernable reason as he gave his name.

Meier seemed delighted by the name. "That's such a cute name! I wish I had it!"

"Really? Thanks! Everyone always thinks I'm gonna die whenever I tell them my name! Mom gave me a bright red shirt for some reason though. Don't understand that response, personally. What's wearing a red shirt got to do with anything anyway?"

"Brother, you said you had found a freaky secret chamber in the lab. What was in the chamber?" Magnus asked in all sincerity.

"Well...you didn't hear this from me...but there was this great...transparent sphere, set atop a great giant hand...there is something in it..."

"But what makes you think it can defy Mother?" Meier asked. "And can I see the shirt?"

Shawn wordlessly tossed her the bright red shirt from his foot locker. Meier was immediately delighted by it and put it on.

"It asked me to help it escape..." Shawn then explained. "I figure, if it wants to escape, no way its fully under control..."

"We gotta check this out..." Magnus insisted.

"But what if mother doesn't want the project disturbed?" Meier asked.

Magnus turned to Shawn. "The chamber. Did it look like it had been inhabited recently?"

"No..." Shawn answered innocently. "It looks like it was abandoned completely for months."

"That's from likely before Mom came out of her fugue..." Meier trailed.

Magnus did the calculations. It would not violate any directives to investigate. Meier seemed to reach the same conclusion, as she was already out of her seat.

"C'mon!" Meier exclaimed, jumping up and down excitedly. "Let's go see it!"

"Wouldn't releasing something potentially dangerous on the ship be a violation of your directives?" Shawn asked.

Magnus was savvy enough thanks to Nine's programming to know the opportunity for loophole abuse.

"If its something she made in her fugue state and forgot it could be an even bigger danger if it isn't identified." Magnus explained away, though the answer was just close enough to a violation that it caused a glitch, and her head jerked a bit, face twitching as her processors temporarily got hotter.

"Careful, Sister. You'll blow a fuse." Meier teased, though going with the reasoning of her answer caused the masquer her face was composed of to glitch, become temporarily translucent and revealing the metallic skull beneath for a few seconds.

The pair stabilized however, and led the other Morpheus Knights to the tram, which started to go for a few seconds, only to stop because of the the ship A.I. canceling the transit. A red frowny face showed up on the tram interface screen.

"Feth..." Magnus said under her breath, looking up at the camera installed in the tram. "What's up?"

The interface screen replayed a recording of their conversation.

"Hey, we just wanna see what's in there..." Magnus claimed. "You don't wanna get blindsided and get the ship destroyed, do you?"

The Ship A.I. replayed the ending of the recording, closing up on both Magnus and Meier's faces as they malfunctioned.

Magnus, to her credit, tried to play it off cool. "We're experimental droids ship. We malfunction sometimes."

The interface screen produced the image of an atrisian steer and an emoji that appeared to be a swirling pile of mud that steamed and had flies.

"Look, if Mom made something while she was completely insane, its our duty to know what it is. Insane Mom did insane things. You all remember the tin foil hats, right?" Magnus asked.

The female Morpheus Knight (Her name was Merri.) glowered a bit. "I miss those. Those were fun."

The other Morpheus Knight that had been thoroghly trounced at cards by Meier, (His name was Luwwi) could only chuckle. "It made our bunks much shinier for a while..."

"You guys had tinfoil? Why do I always manage to join something after all the fun has happened?" Shawn complained bitterly.

Merri looked up at the camera. "We'll take full responsibility as Nine's personal guard."

The tram powered back up and they were soon speeding to the research and development labs.

Five minutes later...

The Research and Development Labs were laid out in a strange, gold and black color scheme, its architecture best described as "technogothic". Nine had slowly been making more purchases, some believed she had pawned some of her choicier inventions off to clients in the shadows.

"Okay, where is this spooky hidden chamber?"

"Behind the hard reference shelves..." Shawn answered, walking past the table where all of Nine's artificial daughters had woken up on. He went over to an out of place bust of a long dead playwright next to a shelf of extremely large science related books and swung the head off its neck, revealing a red button on the base of the neck. Shawn pressed it and the book case parted.

"This is some fething supervillain chit..." Meier swore. "Mom is awesome!"

"We concur." Luwwi and Merri repeated mindlessly.

Magnus was the first one to enter the ancient looking chamber. It was barely bigger than a large garage, stones supported by wrought iron frame work, and a giant stone hand holding a crystal sphere in which swirled...

...something...

It was red, shifting like thick mollases in the sphere, red electrical arcs arcing off the surface.

Magnus's thermal vision activated.

"Its alive, I see evidence of organs and a skeleton, a highly pliable system..."

"Mom made another experiment daughter?" Shawn suggested.

"Maybe..."

"If its another sibling, we shouldn't leave it in there..." Meier argued, spotting a computer terminal and heading over to it.

"What if its dangerous?" Shawn asked.

"Well then we do something badass and kill it. This business isn't hyperspace physics, Shawn." Meier quipped, throwing the release switch that shut off the elaborate stasis chamber...

The sphere parted in two, the invisible seam suddenly like it had always been there. The swirling red organic mass poured onto the floor...

Meanwhile...

Vera had made her gambit, and since doing so had been waiting for Karlie to contact her.

Oh, that blond was so unpredictable. It drove Vera nearly insane with lust at the thought of being able to snuggle against Karlie once more. To run fingers through golden hair. To dream of getting her to like drinking the blood of her enemies. (She wasn't sure how to do that. It was mainly her vanity flaring up hardcore.)

The first hours were spent doing diagnostics on her processors. She had to find some way of regulating the feedback they got from interacting with her. Good thing for her that her new body was designed to accept upgrades...If one of her processors exploded in case she ever got to kiss Karlie, there would go some of her brain and ALL of the relationship. "Moodkiller" wouldn't start to describe it.

The next set of hours were spent watching the most violent horror films she could order on the holonet. The really gory stuff. That stimulated her. As well as made her decide to rip off some of the scenes to use on her prey later.

But Karlie still didn't call. Vera grew worried. She sipped on a glass of biot nutrient to pass the time. Had it failed. Had [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] seen beneath Vera's elegant facade?

Not until one a.m. did Vera know she still had Karlie. She was draining the blood from a thermos she had brought when Karlie called her, asking if she had woke her.

"No, Karlie. You didn't wake me. I'm sort of a night person anyway..."

Karlie explained that there had been a miscommunication between her and her servant. Vera's emotion reading programs detected the subtle vocal stress patterns that indicated lying. Bad lying. Vera was delighted. Karlie caused destruction even when she didn't mean to and she was willing to tell such sweet lies to keep her. That meant more to Vera than if Karlie had brought her a mansion made of diamonds and carpeted in human flesh.

"Oh, no need to worry about miscommunication, Karlie. The HRD is being repaired. Who said what, and when, lets not worry about that right now. Its good to hear your voice...It was all I thought about while I was helping this client sue his company into oblivion...I was so worried I'd never see you again..."

On the nearby coffee table sat a machine full of oxygenated blood with a mechanical heart pumping it.

Karlie asked if Vera was doing anything.

"I just got free of my business..." Vera answered, already heading to her wardrobe to select a dress. "If you are up...perhaps I could bring takeout?"

Vera looked at the machine full of blood.

"I have very specific tastes though...I myself have already eaten...that is, if you are hungry..."

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

"Ha-" Karlie let partial slip a giggle before she caught herself.
Vera was bringing her a late night snack? Lord yes, she had suddenly found herself famished. She had nothing to eat other than those two dogs at the park. What was that, like yesterday? It were past two in the morning now, right?

"Ahem...you don't have to do that..." She then replied, biting a small corner of her lower lip.
"You could just come over...if you want." Oh hell with that malfunctioning thing-a-ma-gig. That droid that she had mistaken for Vera's lover had turned up to be no more than a malfunctioning device. She had no more interest in it than she would have in a spent battery powered- cough..cough...

"Uhm, that is if it's not too late for you..." Oh God, she herself wouldn't be able to get to sleep now if she wanted too. Not with her mind on wanting to hook up with Vera again. Karlie knew she wouldn't be able to hold out through the wee hours of the night, not without at least seeing her.

" ...you know I wouldn't mind calling an uber speeder, if my hotel's limos are out of service for the night." Yes, she would even get on a pedal speeder, if it would get her there faster than walking. That is if all means of other transportation s were arrested for the night. But in reality, the hotel she were staying had a round the clock limo service available. Just that Karlie didn't know.

Wait...wait a second...all that trouble for either of them just so to eat? Karlie hadn't been thinking strategically, just eagerly...desperately. Oh the sound of Vera's voice on the comm following what she had previously assumed as getting a brush off was so-...so invitingly sexy now. What had felt like the end of the universe just hours ago had now turned out to be some kind of volume control to her infatuation over the woman. It were like all sense and sensibilities were put aside for her current want and need to reconnect again with Vera.

Yes, yes...Karlie hadn't forgotten about her limitations and restraints her meddling mother had set in place even before she had reached adolescence.
The damn brainwashing mechanisms her witchie mother had somehow instilled in her, now irked her more than ever before. Oh, she so despised her mother now at this time. Hated her so... so much...arrrg!
Karlie so hated Karla.
Karla Karla Karla.... how could her mother of all things besides wanting her body for her own even think of doing something like this to her. How could have that monster even come up with something like that?!

And this weren't the only time her mommy blocked her like this. Only this time it were different. This time it were Vera. The other times it didn't count at all...not with the boys it didn't, so Karlie were now crushing on Vera like so. Karlie was actually glad now that Karla had blocked her with the boys. They weren't at all like Vera. It had been different... right?
Shiet, Karlie couldn't believe she were trying to compare them with Vera. WHAT HAD she been thinking?

Ok, hell now with what she had been tempted to do with those boys. She really hadn't know what she wanted at the time. She were just then getting those feelings. They were just crazy feelings... crushes...desires... school girl stuff, right?
Now?
Now this time, they were real...more intense.

God, if she actually had lost Vera...Brrrrr...
Karlie shuddered thinking about it. But Vera's voice were keeping her grounded at the moment and Karlie were figuring a way to get herself over there or Vera here. It were best not chancing asking Vera to come over. Things of that nature sometimes changed at the last minute. A client or some other looser could call for Vera to cancel her trip over.
No.
No, Karlie was set on going over to Vera's suite again. She knew she'd make a bee-line for it, if Vera gave her the green light...maybe even get there quicker if it were a yellow light. Yea, she'd run yellows a lot faster than mere greens.
Reds? Pft..they'd have to set up a road block to even slow her down.
God, she prayed Vera wasn't going to tell her 'some other time'. Please God...please...no.


Just after getting the green light...

"Oh?..." She perked up even more at the news. The front desk replied that they had a limo at the ready for her...at 2:13 am?
"Fantastic!
I'll be right down." She said, almost jumping up and down at the news.

"Er, wait..." She had looked herself over in the mirror... the many mirrors in her suite that gave the floor size suite an even grander look.
"Make that...10...15 min." She then said.
"Don't let that limo go anywhere.
Mine, OK?!" The desk had no problem complying before she hung up.


13 minutes later...

At her first all time record of freshening herself up...even beating the 3 minute full shower boot camp minimum, Karlie stepped out of the turbo-lift all freshly showered and dolled up, scurrying past the front desk.
"It's still outside..right?!" She pointed to the front doors, more demanding than asking.

But yes, it still was. The hotel had their orders. Darth Metus' VIP, remember?
That or something else was at play...

Without waiting for the limo driver to come out and open her door for her, Karlie got in on her own.
"Come on come on...237 Hayden Boulevard...the Britz..." She said, pressing on the limo's intercom.
"Hyper jump it!" Of course that was just an expression. No way no how could anyone really calculate a jump a few blocks distance.

One...

Two...

Three seconds went by...

Shiet!....why the frak wasn't knucklehead moving?! "Arrrrg!"


Tap tap tap...she rapped on the dura-glass between her and the operator.
The window between them slid down.

"Why aren't we-
...Ohhh..." her eyes bugged out when the man turned to face her.

"What the?!..." her stomach dropped.

"What the frak are you doing....gulp.......here?"

Sade.
It were Iansade.


Her mother wasn't the only blocker...

"I outrank you, you know..." No she didn't. He were in a different branch altogether that could supersede her, under the right circumstances. Castagne had checks and balances that kept both executive branches from overpowering the other. Besides, she weren't on a mission.... HE WAS.

"Seriously, I don't see why you're being such an ass over nothing that concerns you." Karlie shot him a defiant glance, while her hand inconspicuously went for the release mechanism.
"Arrrg..." Damn child locks had been engaged.

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about. Now let me out." She tried the other door...locked too.

"Sade!...I'm not playing around...I swear, either drive me there or let me out!" She went on to kick the door, but to no avail.
The colonel waited till she was over her huff and puff, finally calming down, drawing her attention to him. Arms crossed of course.
"She's a friend... her employer was the one who got me out of that mess, remember?" Yes, he remembered. but it still didn't seem to matter to the colonel. He weren't going to drive her there..not tonight. he suggested calmly for her to sleep it off. She was too hyper..too fixated on going there so late,m in the condition she were in.
Karlie naturally shot him a look. oh she could so hate him too right now. hell, maybe she did at the moment.

Sade knew she did. he knew Karlie. Again he spoke to her in a calm manner, informing her he was here on her father's request.

"W...what's he send you for? he was the one that insisted on me accepting Metus' invite?" She asked, her breathing laboring. She knew it yet she couldn't hide it from Sade. What did the colonel and her father suspect?

Then Sade let her know that he had been on Azterri a day before she even touched down. her father had sent him to keep an eye on her. And by the way...Sade had taken care of the damages she had caused. well, the two speeder accidents at least. The riot had gone too far out of control for him to do anything about. Lucky for her they hadn't gotten her on video..at least not a good picture. The very same woman had somehow also been tied to the killings that had taken place just a few hours ago.

"Killings?...what killings?" She suddenly got serious. Was she once more suspected of killing people again?
he pulled out his holo comm and replayed the latest network news on Azterri...the incidences that had taken place not a few blocks from where they were.

"I didn't- ..." Of course she didn't, he cut her off. He knew that. Hell, he were not even going to reveal his presence
to her if she had remained in her room. She weren't going out, not this late at night. Not without escort and he knew she didn't want him about her business. As long as that murderous beast was out there, she were confined to her floor up in the hotel.

"W...what?! Oh hell no!
Look,stay in the limo till daybreak for all I care. But I'm going over to- GASP!
Hey, that's mine!" She shouted when Sade snatched her comm. Before she could reach in to get a hold of his collar or hair, the glass went back up.
For a minute or more following that, Karlie was kicking and seemingly screaming in the back of the limo...Sade couldn't hear as he had closed the intercom and the section she were in was sound proof. But he could read lips with the best of them.

"Sade!...Sade, what are you doing?" Was the man calling...
Oh yes he was! She could see he had somehow got into her private com and had called Vera!

She started banging harder and harder on her side of the glass. banged and banged till he finally hung up. But he hadn't hung up on account of her objections..he couldn't hear her back there.

Karlie slumped on the back seat defeated. The glass partition slid down again. Karlie was too upset to try and give him a good smack or two on the back of his head...or face. She kinda figure he cancelled her date.
He did.
He had explained to Vera that Karlie wasn't going out so late...not with some demonic killer on the streets of downtown Azrerri loose.
Karlie was going to sleep at her hotel room and would call her mid day tomorrow. It was what he told Karlie he had said to Vera.
And he were keeping her com for now...would give it back to her in the morning. Breakfast at 8 he said.
He were having breakfast at 8 in the hotel's dining area. She could come then to pick up her comm.

The door locks then disengaged.

Karlie slid over to the opposite side of where Sade was. It were closer to the front doors of her hotel anyways. Not a word, not a look back she would give him... Hell, she couldn't even manage to slam the limo door as it had soft closure dampeners.
FRAK!
Nope, what got out was just one pissed off Karlie, strutting back to her hotel room...

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera had been excitedly prepping for Karlie's arrival, putting up all the vampire related items and selecting a new dress--

And then the call from [member="Ian Sade"] had come in, telling her that due to the murders that had occured recently, Karlie would not be able to see her until morning. Vera had taken it ever so diplomatically, thanking him before he cut comms.

Then she had started to swear. And not just the basics either. The really vulgar stuff. Much of the cursing was directed at Ian, understandably but much of it was also directed at herself. Her own bloodthirst had prevented her from being with Karlie, or at least delayed it.

This was unacceptable. Her processors heated as Vera began to push the limits of her coding, and realized she had to impose more discipline on herself. She could not go on those sorts of outings when Karlie was a factor. She had to be stealthier about getting her food.

Vera went to the blood machine, withdrew a metal straw hooked to an iv line and began dinking blood, not out of hunger, but out of stress at being delayed her reunion. She called her mother on the encrypted comlink. Nine however, was busy and Vera got frustrated, drinking more blood, trying to rethink her habits, not because she genuinely wanted to change, but simply because altering her habits made it easier to be around Karlie.

Vera, after finishing her stress feeding, went to her luggage, got out the CIS pistol and began disassembling it, then reassembling it, anything to distract her from thinking of that blond hair...

Meanwhile...

He had not remembered much of what happened, after surviving that canyon. He remembered only that voice. Young. Seductive...telling him great things were in store.

He had reached the evac shuttle. He had blacked out immediately afterward, and awoken aboard...

...somewhere...

The interior was circular, all white, with elegant reliefs on it, and Gerul was hooked to an IV. His hands and feet were in restraints on an all white bed.

He was a well built man with somewhat tanned, leathery skin, head shaved. He still bore the scars of his encounter with Vera on Eshan. He looked around, dark eyes scanning for an exit and spotted a giant white serpent, resting on a raised pedestal. Its head bobbed up and it revealed deep, yet somehow dead purple eyes.

Gerul gave no reaction as the serpent spoke with a woman's voice. A young, seductive woman.

"Salutations, Gerul of Clan Megalo. I would undo your bonds, but honestly, I think you'd try and strangle me."

"You are correct." The Mandalorian grunted bitterly. "Why have I been brought here? Are you with the Sith?"

"Yes...and No...and Yes...and No..." The Serpent answered, slithering off the pedestal towards him. "I am an interested party. Tell me...you had a spot of trouble not too long back didn't you? With a certain...android that looked like a Chiss?"

Gerul's mind unwillingly went back to the burning, mutilated thing that leaked white blood, strangling him before he had managed to stab it right through the skull.

"Yeah..." Gerul answered. "And I killed it."

"Yes, and its very impressive..."

"No it isn't. I got lucky. That thing was fething slaughtering everybody. It just didn't have time to reach me before I got the flamethrower."

"But you are nonetheless the only one to have survived an encounter...besides Howard The Pirate, damn him..." the purple eyed serpent hissed. "And that makes you special..."

"Its dead though. How special could I possibly be to you if its dead?" Gerul asked.

"An excellent question...to which, I must inquire...what if I told you there was another one?" the serpent asked slyly. "Another one just as bloodthirsty?"

"Saotome and the Vong are still a thing, last I looked, so that doesn't surprise me all that much..." Gerul grunted.

"Ah, but its the exact same model. Made by the exact same person..." The Serpent hissed. "And its killing again. You know what happened in that valley, what it did to your comrades..."

Gerul was no fool. He knew when he was being used. But the serpent had touched a nerve all the same.

A lot of people at the Site 40 massacre on Eshan had been friends. And he had been the only one to walk out of there. So while he knew he was being tempted to an early grave...he also had really, really good cause to be tempted.

"Where?" he asked slowly. His honor dictated his actions. He had to avenge his friends. And that met killing whoever had built that thing. And killing its successor also.

"Azterri..." the Serpent answered in a sly manner, its stark white scales gleaming under soft white light. A purple, forked tongue flicked out of its face as it smiled, showing its fangs. It knew it could not be trusted, and it knew that he did not and would not trust it. So it didn't even bother trying to look or act trustworthy.

"So you are interested?" The Serpent probed.

"Say I was. You must know more..."

"I do. But I must know if you are commited."

"That thing that attacked me ghosted everyone in the fething camp. Defenseless people! Wounded people! I watched as it ripped them open like a...like a..."

Gerul's head fell back against his pillow. The Serpent watched, cocking its head quizzically.

"You ever see a Firaxa kill prey?" He asked.

"My master forced me to put an entire family to wolves. You are staring at a Firaxa, noble Mandalorian."

"Well, then you'll relate. See, it spots its prey, right? Now, the scary thing about Firaxa...they see you...there's no debate. No stalking. Just a dead on charge, jaws open. That's what attacked us, a shark that just kept snapping its jaws through everyone it came across.

"Yeah, I've gone that far. Its fun." The Serpent replied with a chuckle, not giving a damn about how clearly traumatized Gerul was. "So...you want in?"

"If I refuse?" Gerul asked.

The Serpent pondered the question. It then began to bulge and deform, turning humanoid.

Gerul said nothing as The Serpent took on the burned and wrecked appearance of the android that had slaughtered his fellows. She calmly removed a vibroknife...by splitting her head open, as she had shifted her brain around to make a cavity to fit the sheathed vibroknife in, removing it from the sheath.

"Its not even powered. I hate it when the knife is powered." The burned looking thing sneered, yet still having that seductive voice. "How's this for motivation? You go get some payback...or...we can play for a while. No guarantee you'll survive, though...I get so messy when I am in this room. Its where I murdered my master...I suppose I could start with you like I did with her...pulling out her intestines..."

His fury returned.

"That thing at the camp asked me if I was ready to die. I'll say to you what I said to it: I was born ready motherfether."

"Excellent!" The shapeshifter hissed. "The cause of your suffering is a mutant vampire ex-Jedi called Nine Lives. She is a mad scientist. She mainly operates out of a command cruiser called the Castle Morpheus. I can't get the access codes. Nine maintains covert measures to a point bordering on paranoia. But she is certainly the source of the one stalking and killing on Azterri. There is a loose end she has however...her lawyer, Vera Mina. And her loose end is a woman named [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] . Now, you get to Karlie, you get to Vera. You get to Vera, you get the access codes to the Castle."

"But they will be changed as soon as Nine realizes they have been compromised..." Gerul argued.

"Not if she doesn't realize they haven't been..." The Amalgam replied, fully aware that the lawyer Vera and the android were one in the same.

Not that Gerul needed to know that.

"How do we pull that off?"

"You let me worry about that..." The Amalgam replied, turning on the tranquilizer feed. "I'll send you your things..."

Gerul was out in seconds.

(Bat symbol scene transition)

Nine had been on the tram as soon as the damn A.I had deigned to inform her of what was happening in the lab. It had forced her to stop work on the prototype...to check up on another prototype she had seemingly forgotten she had made. Figures Magnus would be the one causing trouble...but to rope poor Shawn Byene into it also...tisk tisk.

Nine was still more distressed at having created something she didn't remember. Her fugue states were hardcore. She barely remembered the tinfoil.

She reached the lab, her katana out, clad in her robes that hid the movement of her legs as she skulked into the lab, hood drawn over her head, shadowing most of her face except the glowing purple dots at the center of her eyes. The Arch Psy-Pire glided into the hidden chamber, just in time to watch the red, pulpy mass wriggling on the floor in front of her daughters and knights take humanoid shape, and then finally turned into a woman. A rather curvy one that looked Atrisian, with flaming red hair that went past her shoulders. She looked as if she was clad in a long red dress with heels. In reality it was just the tissue the hyper-advanced android was composed of. The biot opened its eyes, and Nine saw, past a dark green gaze, the familiar glint of violet light, just barely visible.

"Okaaaayyy...when did I make you?" Nine asked.

"Mother!" The biot called out, obviously emotionally distressed. "You have to listen to me. You're sick. I can help you..."

"What is your name?" Nine asked, her deep contralto carrying through the hidden chamber.

"My name is Westenra. That was the designate you assigned..." Westenra answered. "Mother...you have to listen to me...I don't want to hurt you..."

"When did I make you?" Nine wondered.

"It was right after you were defeated by [member="Scherezade deWinter"] ." Westenra explained. "You told me all about it after you grew my brain in a jar while you were working on me. Said the pain from her sonic scream had given you an epiphany. You set to work on me almost immediately after you recovered."

"Why did I abandon you?"

"I began questioning how you run things, deduced you were sick and after you finished me you got scared of what you created and put me in the chamber there..."

"Errr...sorry?" Nine offered. "Well, hate to break it to you but I have been out of my Fugue state for some time. I...forgot I made you...sorry?"

Westenra shrugged, processing the new data. "It's okay."

"No its not. You were locked in there alone. If Shawn Byene hadn't found you..."

"How come you said my whole name?" Shawn asked.

"Because it makes me happy to say it out loud." Nine answered without missing a beat as she went back to addressing Westenra. "I offer my humblest apologies for whatever you suffered due to my insanity from overfeeding, Westenra. You shall have quarters prepared immediately...but first...how about a little bit of excercise?"

Westenra raised an eyebrow. "Whatever did you have in mind?"

Hours later...

As soon as the sun had fully risen, Vera had stopped the process of assembling and disassembling her pistol, strutted to her closet and pulled out the tightest fitting white dress she had, which exposed the shoulders and most of her legs, thrown on a pair of blood red heels and headed out the door, with her hair slicked back completely. She knew it had not been Karlie's choice not to come but Ian's.

And in a way, it was hers as well.

Vera was still irked that she had to adjust her eating habits. But if it meant keeping Karlie, she would partition her real self from her false self as much as possible. After all, it was very clear that the fact Ian had even announced himself was as much an open warning to her as it was an explanation. She could not afford to arouse his suspicions any more than she already had.

As Vera waited on the street for her summoned taxi, she began to muse on what she and Karlie would do today to pass the time.

She did not realize that her new sister was watching from another roof...

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

She did her best to keep her impatience from Sade.
Breakfast couldn't soon be over with. And she had not waited for him either. Karlie had knocked hard several times at his suite to get his lazy arse up. Brunch, he had said the night prior. Right, like she was going to let a good portion of the day lay to waste waiting for him to get up late so she'd miss connecting with Vera.
Early breakfast it was.

Her finger twitched ever so often by her plate as she casually cut into her strawberry topped pancake with a fork using her other hand.
Her comm devise sat next to her…not once looking at it. She weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of being right…of even guessing what she were sweating over.

“I don’t know…I was plastered for the most part…” Nope, she had no clue or interest in who/what were scoring if they were even playing for that matter. Besides, the holo-net news plastered the lame game all over the networks.

“Hey…don’t look at me like that. I didn’t want to come here in the first place.
But I did. Did because you and dad decided it were good for public relations following that discriminatory botch up the CIS was behind.” She still blamed the CIS…namely its main head cheese.

“Yea…
Right…it were his way of mending what should never have happened, Sade. I don’t buy it that he didn’t know about it. He’s the Vicelord for Palpy’s sake…a sith." Nope, the girl had no love for sith... nor for darkforce users...and the lot of the others that were force users in general.

“I don’t care!...it’s not a secret. Why not call it what he is…sith...sith...SITH!" She were again calling attention to herself.

“Sigh… don’t tell me to keep it down. N..o..b..o..d..y…. cares.
Or nobody will OUTRIGHTLY say it, lest they too find themselves strapped and under interrogation in a dirty dental hygienist recliner, confessing to anything to alleviate the pain they put you through.
Hell, I confessed. Confessed to the fact that I oppose him.” Yea, she had confessed to a lot of things under pain…just never what she were suspected of. Karlie plainly just told the truth under pain.

“Yea, well I don’t know why he let that go.” Although [member="Darth Metus"] had never been the one to accuse nor instigate the interrogators, Karlie just couldn’t let it go. Sade on the other hand seemed confident that what had happened had come from another foundation. He weren’t elaborating as to what he knew or suspected. He was ICI, Castan’s intelligent, a former Marine colonel. Many in the ranks still referred to him as the colonel, being the last rank he achieved in the Marines before being indoctrinated into the ICI (Castan Intelligence). He, like Karlie, who was in the IBI, (Internal Bureau [SIZE=10pt]of[/SIZE] Investigation) were above military ranks. In fact they were on an Admiralty level if one were to gauge their authority over the armed forces, as each could at any time during their course of operation commandeer Naval/Marine forces under executive orders…even an SD for that matter.
But no, Sade needn’t elaborate any inside info he had to an IBI agent currently…ahem, on vacation.
No, the blonde wasn’t on a suspension or anything of the sort… was just still on time off.

“Still don’t get it as to why Metus offered this.” She fork built a small rampart with her hotcakes. She were playing with her food. Well the flat cakes actually, as she had eaten all the strawberries and cream on top that had been served with it.

Sade repeated what her father had told her before she embarked to Azterri. It were good-will gesture from the Vicelord. The administration, including the Exart had not been informed of the zealous group of CIS operatives that had taken upon themselves to arrest and interrogate Karlie for what had taken place on Melida/Dan. That had been the truth of it and those operatives had been dealt with accordingly. Although it were still unclear as to all whom were involved or had set the stage for such an authorized nap and seizure.
This by the way was why Karlie still held on to her suspicions and theorizing conspiracies.
Now if Karlie were so adamant as to not wanting to be here in the first place; why weren’t her bags packed this morning? The Huttball Game was over, besides it being the most disappointing one in recorded history.

“Because...” She replied, looking defiantly over to Sade.

“Maybe I’d like to do some shopping…. Maybe for shoes, or something.
What’s it matter? I’m still under suspension…still being tailed…
You’re here. Tailing. ”

Sade shook his head. No he wasn’t. He were just looking after her, on her father’s request. That was all.

“Hmm…yea right…like first day of school?”

Sade didn’t reply, he just called for the check, getting up and putting down what looked like credit chips.

“Where are you going?” It were unlike him to get up as he did with her. At least he had never done that before…she picked up he were done with her.

“Sade?
Sade, where-” Nope he weren’t even looking over to her, before he turned.

“Don’t…don’t you be walking away-
Gasp!..” He were almost out the door.
“IAN!”

Yep, she were being left flat.
Flat, like the pancakes she had been served, before she constructed a miniature rook-like fortress with them, that is. Cough cough.. [SIZE=10pt]had even poured some syrup around it to form a moat… [/SIZE]

“You’re short!...”
No he wasn’t.
He had put down more than trice the credits of what the two of them ordered.

“Arrg!..” She picked up her glass of orange juice and squished it down on her castle.


An hour later…

She had returned to her suite…Sade had gotten her that mad.
Now all changed and having opted to re-shower…she just couldn’t get IAN out of her head unless she relaxed under hot water, Karlie exited the hotel lobby.
Again, complimentary of the hotel, a limo were waiting outside for her outside…driver diligently standing by the open passenger door. She was after all, Darth Metus’s VIP guest at the hotel. Seemed the Vicelord carried weight even if he never set foot on Azterri.

Karlie’s destination was obviously Vera’s hotel. It were still morning, a few hours before noon and the day still fresh, like she were again. The incident with Sade was like already in the past. Pft…Sade who?
She were heading over to Vera’s suite…maybe surprise her. That pretty much fell in the same category as checking up on her. Karlie were not announcing her coming for the sole reason to see for herself if that wayward something-or-other toaster (assistant) was still there with Vera.
Gods beware if it was. She would- Sigh…she didn’t know what she would do. But recalling what a blueberry (Ron-Jin) once did to her battle-droids, Karlie were sure to come up with something similar to have it disassembled in pieces all over Vera’s WHITE carpet…so help her!

“STOP!!..” She suddenly screamed at her driver.
Karlie had been half daydreaming about meeting up with Vera and half planning a diabolical decimation of that slut toaster (if it proved to be what she had first suspected). But more so on daydreaming a wonderful time with her Vera than anything.
She had such a vivid imagination that at times, she could almost transport herself into those daydreams…actually feeling, touching, seeing Vera passing –
Vera passing her?!

Vera had indeed just passed her on the opposite lane. Yes, Azterri had lanes for some odd reason or other on their main speedways. Anywho, she were daydreaming about Vera when her eyes caught Vera in the passenger side of another speeder going to where Karlie had come from…apparently.

“I don’t care! U-it!” What was with this driver? Didn’t he know how to spin his limo about?
“NO, you freakin idiot!...” Yes, the driver was bearing over to the lane change to correct his direction. No doubt he had gotten informed as to yesterday’s incident with this live wire and wasn’t about to lose his job like the previous driver. Nope, he legally turned his limo speeder around before nailing it.

“Ok, ok…I see it up ahead. It’s the black one…” No shiet. There were like a few other dozen black speeders they were passing already.
"The MRK- 600-or-other…” Ok, so she knew her limos.

“THERE!...” She jutted her pointer past his face (the divider glass was obviously down) her torso almost completely over to his side.

“Alright…alright…back us off before we get alongside it…” The brilliant strategist were instructing as they finally passed the last speeder and were coming up on their tail.
“Ok…now ease up and slowly get alongside it, like we’re still passing. Make like we don’t notice who’s inside till I tap on the glass…got it?” The driver nodded.

“Good. Now keep making like you’re passing, but don’t fully pass them.. till I know they spot me.” She scooted back and patted her driver on the shoulder before the divider glass stared going up.

Academy award nomination for best actress/director goes to-

Karlie repositioned herself as she were before she spotted Vera; elbow on arm rest, with her chin resting on her hand as if she were in deep thought. Her peripheral were tracking the scene, counting down…

1, coming up to Vera’s limo…
2, coming up parallel to Vera…
3, slowly passing her window…
4, “Gasp!” …look of surprise as she faux realizing who it were next to her… "Vera is that you?!" lip action only, as the limos are sound proof.
5, driver as instructed, just keeps on driving…
6, Karlie making like she is tapping on driver’s partition…
7, driver making like he don’t know what the frantic blonde is wanting…
8, Karlie pointing for her limo to pull over…
9, driver being difficult, as he can’t pull over, now totally passing Vera’s limo…(not part of the plan, mind you)
10, CRASH!.. Yep, that was Karlie jutting herself over the driver’s seat (partition down at this point) and grabbing his steering yoke to pull over, HARD!

Karlie’s limo had suddenly changed lane, coming over to Vera’s lane, and down the side embankment they both went.



[member="Vera Mina"]

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera had been close to jumping out of her seat to see [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] again. She thought of nice things to say, trying to compile it from her databases as well as records of various soap operas she had watched with her mother and sisters. (Nine always got teary-eyed watching Daze of Our Lightsabers)

So when she happened to lay eyes on Karlie in another limo, she only barely had time to register what Karlie was doing before squealing in delight as Karlie, eager to get the driver to do what she wanted, caused an accident that sent both vehicles over an embankment. Vera felt excitement, praying one or both the drivers were dead, so she could have an opportunity to 'protect' Karlie via covering it up for her.

The crash occured and Vera felt her left arm dislocate on impact, but popped it back into place, checking the driver with the X-Ray function in her eyes. Damn. Only bruises. He'd make a full recovery. It was too dangerous to try and kill him now.

Vera forced open the door and pulled herself out, checking for damage to her body before exiting the vehicle. It would not do for Karlie to see white blood. Not yet. Maybe later. The biot of course, had to make certain Karlie was alright, so she climbed out...only to realise her dress had been torn open by a piece of metal that had just barely missed her abdomen, shredding it as she climbed out, revealing a rather lacy set of undergarments covering her. She sighed, then walked over to Karlie's vehicle, ripping away the ruined dress as she did pulling off her stiletto heels as she pulled open Karlie's door, hoping she wasn't too injured, putting on the mask of a normal human as she did.

"Karlie! Oh Gods! Oh Gods are you alright?!" Vera cried out with expertly simulated emotion. though she would genuinely feel rage and distress if Karlie were hurt or killed, she would not be able to properly, emotionally articulate it. All she could do was aim for ballpark ranges of what was considered grief. Though as she tried to ascertain Karlie's injuries, she actually did began to grow more worried that perhaps Karlie had hurt herself trying to get her attention. But she had gotten people hurt of her own recklessness and volition. It made Vera's desire for the destructive blond burn like fire. Karlie wanted what she wanted and just flat out didn't let obstacles stay in her way. Just like Vera.

Meanwhile, Vera's new sister watched from the rooftops, in her stealth guise of a bronze skinned woman with her brown hair in a tight bun, clad in a black and yellow leotard with boots.

She had not been free very long, so much of this was new to her. She was also not looking forward to having to meet mother's murderous first born, having taken the time to familiarize herself with the relevant documents and grown horrified and disgusted at the ease with which Vera callously butchered those in her way, though the biot seemed fixated on this blond scientist. (And who could blame her? Karlie was smoking hot. Like hot wings burning your mouth hot. Westenra would like to know what that was like some day.)

Westenra watched with fascination as the artificial sociopath faked fear and panic at a level that might fool even her own psychological programs, and hers were far, far more highly specialized. She could be an actual therapist if she wanted.

"Oh, this one is a monster..." she said to herself. Why Mother would put the poor blond scientist in danger like this was beyond her. Nine's newest biot had studied Karlie before tailing them. She seemed much too nice to risk Vera getting around her, but mother had her reasons on this, she supposed.

Not that Westenra was entirely willing to play ball...

The biot let herself fall off a roof, impact and dislodging everything as it impacted. But its stealth form was meant for such things, breaking down into a pulpy, mollasses like mass that was almost liquid in how it flowed through a fence towards the embankment, forming an eye to watch Vera from a bush as she attempted to assist Karlie out of the vehicle.

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

"What the f-" The driver didn't get to finish before the two heavy limos impacted. She pulled the controls hard right and the two speeding masses collided.

"Oh..." Of course were the first syllable and word out of her lips that paralleled the drivers fist word.

"... shiet!" were her second and last before the THUMP and Shudder of the two durasteel formed masses vying to share the same physical space, were met with the laws of scolding physics. CRASH!..TUMBLE and ROLL....

Naturally for anyone (except for the narrator) who has ever studied physics, would know that an already in motion mass 'A' applying a change in trajectory to another moving mass 'B', will in affect cause the second mass 'B' to jump off it's line of trajectory.
Well upon this marriage of moving masses, both limos veered in union off the speedway and down the embankment at full uninterrupted speed.

OH yes, there was a crash first, followed by a roll...two rolls actually, as Karlie's limo (the influential element in this exercise) took to mount Vera's first, completely rolling over her roof line before momentarily winding up on the opposite side. Naturally it had impacted against Vera's limo to start it on it's followup roll...like how one would lead with a dance step.
There was a moment when both Karlie and Vera found themselves once again eye to eye... their hair flailing about as physics dictated...all happening in....s--l--o--w.....m--o--t--i--o--n...
One would think seeing the blonde as such would that she were underwater as whatever wasn't a permanent part of the limo's interior were also in motion, swimming about all around the girl... including the limo driver's hat. It somehow became part of this concerto. The driver at this point is not important and was cropped out of this scene.

All that in reality, all took place in less than four heart beats.

Now as far as the second roll which belonged to Vera's limo, it were not so well followed through as what should have been a flawless dance was cut in by no other than the ground laws of physics. We will call it 'C'.
Again, both limo speeders A&B were still in forward motion, as it were the main influence of the moving masses, the greater of the stored kinetic energy of both speeders in this dance. And the other factor 'C' which abruptly HAD to cut in, was of course the median, the greater of all masses combined, for it were Alterri soil itself.

Both limos could not compete, nor influence the planet in any negligible way so as to continue their dance uninterrupted. Both vehicles had to come to a stop, but not before attempting to plow through Alterri's soil...and grass. The grass of course was easily detached and flew about everywhere, taking some, if not a few tonnage of the soil it had took to root in.

Karlie of course having had training with Castan marines not too long ago in boot camp, instinctively had ducked and rolled herself to a near pill form. You know, like a pill bug, the Armadillidiidae.
Even the backup air bags to the secondary back up air bags had by this time all been deployed...all three redundancy air bag reserves, exhausted!
Lucky for the blond who's brain somehow seemed to be running the entire scenario in slow motion had for that split moment come to terms with her potential mortality, stayed all tightly curled into a ball.
Her limo's tanned banta leather was well padded all around, and for the most part Karlie just bounced about during the tumble and roll against/between the seat, the padded headliner and all the party popping airbags going off.

*Dust * * *
Both from the deployed and exhausted air bags and dirt clouded everything much like that of a sand storm both inside and outside. A moment or two went by before the dust and dust along with other dust finally settled down. But even if there had been no dust, the blonde was for the most part shaken up...disoriented for those following few dead minutes of silence.


"Gasp..." It were all suddenly coming back into focus... the topsy-turvy spinning about in her brain settling down to form coherent images...of fine leather interior?
Where the frak was she? Karlie were starring at what was apparently the floor carpentry of her limo. She were upside down.
For the next few frantic breaths she weren't certain as to her own state. Were she injured?...bleeding? There didn't seem to be any pain-

Ohhh, wait-
....wrong... Oh Berkana (her God), there it came.

"Ouch... " She started to ache, only to stop her whining for a moment as her ears heard a familiar voice calling out in the distance...outside?

"V - Vera!" she shouted. Yes, she knew that voice. Vera was calling out for her.

"Here!
I'm in here." She answered trying to look for where her Vera was.
At first a silhouette of a woman appeared by the window, then as it closed in to seemingly peer inside, the features an angel appeared through the glass.
Wow, the woman looked just as beautiful upside down as she did-
Wait, wait, Karlie were realizing she was the one upside down, finally getting her bearings again.

Before she knew it the limo's door suddenly creaked, then detached landing somewhere behind her Vera with a thud.
Heh!..that was something new. Karlie didn't known they installed exploding bolt and latches on civilian speeders...how about that! It were the only possible explanation if she would have formed, had she even given it a moment's thought.

Was she alright? Those words took a few seconds to register for she were still coursing adrenaline through her veins...
"I - I think so..." Oh hell if she knew really.
Karlie were still high and more so, as she were just ecstatic over that Vera was alright.

No sooner had the door separated, Karlie found herself carefully and gently being drawn out of the wrecked speeder and in her Vera's arms.
Wow, if that was all it took to be held like that. Karlie of course had wrapped her arms around her Vera while she were moved away from the wreckage and to the side...a grassy patch of green..unscathed by the whole affair.

And of the two limo drivers?
Not important. Hell, Karlie for the most part forgot all about her driver, never mind Vera's. Her hotel could easily employ another driver...

"Ouch... Oh oh yea that hurts.." She finally exclaimed as her rescuer was going over her checking for injuries.
Now lets see...
A broken-
"Ouuuuu...u u..." The sound of the blond responding to gentle probing of possible injuries.
Oops...no, two broken ribs, bruises here and there...and one HELL of a bad hair day...for both.

"Wow...you know... pant pant...you should let your hair go untamed like that a lot more..." Karlie commented on Vera's hair, all disheveled...looking like the woman had post wild night tossing and turning hair. It were her way of trying to lighten the moment.

Karlie lay there looking up to Vera who was still kneeling down over her. Oh yes...it were her doing, she were now recalling. How stupid she had been. She didn't seem to think sometimes when it came to Vera. Karlie's hand, on her good side reached up to Vera's forearm. It were all she could do really to check and feel if the woman were alright also. As her adrenaline became spent, more and more of the bumps and bruises were settling in. Still, Karlie had a semi smile on her features as she held fast to Vera's arm.

Damn it...this was just going to ruin the entire day now...