Wearing:
Ritual Gown
Armed with: Subverter's Blade (Double Bladed Red Lightsaber)
Objective: Fight the Demonic hoard
It had been a peaceful few weeks as herself.
Vivian, an elderly, red headed Force Spawn with pale skin who did work in the CIS as a school teacher when not moonlighting as the murderous, insanely lethal Countess Arianna Belasko, one of the biggest influences in the sheer brutality the Nuetralizers displayed towards their enemies, had been glad to be herself once more.
She had had to really struggle to get free of Arianna this time. The risk of getting lost in character was incredibly severe.
Vivian, for her part, didn't like being Arianna. She was insufferably smug to those outside House Io, and even when Vivian did her best to reign her in, Arianna could barely be controlled when she got going. She always had to personally intervene when Arianna got overwhelmed by her bloodthirsty nature to prevent her from killing Civilians, no matter how young.
She had been in the middle of a field trip through the capital of Naboo when the bombs hit from above.
In an instant, the repulsor bus she was traveling had been hit, and both she and the school children had been shredded apart by the blasts.
Normally, any one getting Instagibbed like this was Game Over. But Vivian didn't die so easily.
She had been shredded to bloody chunks by the high impact blast, but the Alchemized Shard crystal that served as the center of her spirit had resisted the blasts, being flung far into the air from the repulsor bus, landing close to a large pile of rubble as portals opened throughout Theed, while hell descended from above.
There it had lay, until tiny tendrils of flesh and muscle started forming as deposits across it's pitted, dark green surface.
Slowly, over the course of hours, it had started to regrow, until it was basically a half formed Skeleton with it's muscles and organs exposed, pulsing with slick glowing green blood. It was still half formed. It would not survive a real battle in this state.
The mutilated creature staggered back to where the bus had been, trailing blood until it reaches the burst apart site, feel a dark rage curdling inside it as it beheld the blasted apart bodies of its students.
Upon seeing that horrid sight, Vivian genuinely wanted to spend the rest of her afternoon and the next few days after killing whoever was responsible. But the demons were overrunning the streets.
It had been forced to stay out of sight through whatever back ally it could find as it tried to make its way to Countess Belasko's estate undetected, still steadily regrowing, trailing blood behind it.
She heard a snarl behind her just as she reached Countess Belasko's estate, which was on fire.
It took every ounce of focus she had to summon a dagger of Light Side energy and hurl it at her attacker as it leaped for her. The dagger of light pierced it's hide, bursting it apart.
Now severely weakened, barely able to think, Vivian knew she would have to feed on psychic energy immediately, and the only place available to do that easily was her estate. But she was so severely drained that the amount of energy she would have to feed on might very well result in an accidental overdose, and try as she might for self control, even she had slipped up now and then.
The Force Spawn staggered across formerly impeccably tended to gatherings of white flowers, now burned to a crisp like a good chunk of her manor.
She walked through a blasted open hole, finding a great number of things had been looted in the panic. Priceless statues, paintings, all taken. At least a billion credits had been lost.
For the first time, Vivian herself was starting to appreciate House Io's reluctance to permanently make station on any planet. Only Khemost's wealth was worth staying for, plundering.
A terrifying thought occured: Had the use of planets started to become obsolete?
Vivian shook it off. She could ask herself the question in private later. Right now she wanted
vengeance on the animals doing this.
The bloody mess of organ and muscle and bone limped across shattered Marble floors, past the fires that the extinguisher system was barely starting to get even close to putting out.
Surely her reserve was still there. A collection of batteries taken from Katanas made by Castle Morpheus, a stored victim in an armored stasis pod. That vault had better be worth what she had paid.
When her regrown right eye laid eyes in the vault, she knew she was going to let Arianna kill the one who had sold her the vault.
The damn thing was open. It's massive, Durasteel Matrix Armor electronically controlled door had suffered a malfunction and swung open, and some one was looting it.
"What the feth is this stuff? There should be way more treasure! There is only a few aurodium bars. What are all these batteries for?" A voice in the vault asked.
"Feth if I know. This Arianna Belasko is loaded though. Like crazy loaded. She could fund an army kind of loaded." another answered back. "These batteries here are pretty high tech. Maybe they're worth something to the right buyer... Aurodium is an obvious win, though."
"Did you say her name was Arianna Belasko?" the first voice asked as Vivian drew closer.
"Yeah."
"Strange."
"Why?"
"There was an insane Noblewoman in the Gulag Plague. A Baroness named Alexandra Victoria Arianna Belasko. She lived on Naboo too."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Sick. Very very sick. She butchered people and bathed in their blood. Ran hunting parties on jungle worlds where the goal was to hunt, torture and murder a kidnapped victim. Real depraved puppy kicker sorta chit. Her crimes were exposed and they burnt her at the stake. I wonder if they're related."
The one who hadn't known this information prior, a Rodian in a black jumpsuit, immediately smelled a brewing horror scene and decided to bolt while her still could.
"Y'know, I'm out..." he said to the other, a Devaronian in a light combat suit.
"You kidding?" The Devaronian asked. "We're gonna need liquifiable assets. You leave now, you're spacing yourself."
"Nah, I'm cool. I'll take my chances with the demons."
He quickly left the vault, barely missing the humanoid mess of bone and organ hidden behind rubble, which then quickly lurched towards the inside of the vault.
He was still stacking bars of aurodium ingots, trying to figure out how much he could take with him, when he noticed the horror that had entered the vault. He froze, deer in headlights syndrome in full effect.
"I can promise only this..." vivian hissed, reaching for him.
"You won't remember a thing..."
She was faster than she looked. She managed to seize his arm as he started to draw back. He screamed as he lost consciousness, Vivian's muscles and skin now rapidly regrowing, greedily drawing in his Psychic Energy.
She tried. She really did. Tried not to take too much. Tried to remain Vivian.
But even after she had fully healed, she continued to take more. And more. She was simply too hungry. The blast had taken too much.
Even at the last moment, she tried to hang on. But she reached the tipping point and kept draining, triggering the transformation. Her flesh melted and sloughed and reset hidiously across her body as she let go of the unconscious man.
Countess Arianna Belasko opened her blue eyes, the youthful, pale skinned blond Sorceress stood naked in the vault over a man she thought was dead. In truth he would have severe amnesia when he awoke.
The Sorceress hit a hidden panel and out popped an enchanted gown.
Vivian might not be willing to kill a mere looter but every invader and Demon would suffer. Arianna thought it strange she wanted to remain and go on a killing spree, rather than do the sensible thing and evacuate, but Vivian was enraged by what she had experienced.
Vivian was going to give Arianna near unrestricted freedom to kill as she pleased.
The Countess retrieved her double bladed weapon, just as her Emergency Transceiver beeped.
Arianna hit the receive button.
Darth Xiphos flickered in blue miniature on a nearby holoprojection pad.
"Mother? Are you alright?" Xiphos asked.
"Of course I am, dear..." Arianna said with a smile.
"Thank the Gods. We have to evacuate you."
"Not so fast, dear, Julia...I may be able to figure out how these portals are being opened. Perhaps I can close them if I do..."
That was certainly a good enough excuse. One her daughter would buy, and Arianna would indeed look into that.
But in truth, she was mainly looking to get a rush of endorphins from the act of butchering people.
Xiphos clearly was skeptical of this, well aware of just what kind of monster the real Arianna had been, but let it slide. If there was a chance the portals could be shut down, it had to be sought...
"Fine. But if you can't, don't dally. Get the hell off the planet. House Io needs you..."
"Don't worry, Daughter. I'll be careful..."
Fourteen minutes later...
Arianna strode through the streets barefoot, conjuring tentacles of water from the moisture in the air to break the bodies of the brigands and demons attacking this place, her flesh shuddering occasionally as she channeled her Abilities, false mind dancing in perverted glee at watching them explode if she squeezed them enough with the tentacles.
A bolt from a sniping blaster glanced off her head, leaving only a faint sscorch mark, which her gown immediately began healing. Arianna herself had a naturally high resistance to energy weapons, even Lightsabers.
Another few bolts hit her face then chest, and this time it drew glowing white blood.
Arianna stared in the direction from which the shot had come, and conjured a dragon construct made of water, which attacked the rooftop the Sniper was firing from. She sneered as he was ripped to shreds by it.
She then sensed the presence of the Dark Side.
She turned, finding a dark Warrior in Yovshin inspired armor, wielding a red Lightsaber, charging for her.
Arianna let out a Force empowered shriek, a continuous sonic wave of damage eminating from her throat that hit him dead on, shearing off his Armor, then his flesh. His corpse slid to her feet.
Arianna wanted to kill more, and kill more painfully at that. She wanted to bathe in the blood of the invaders for reasons she didn't understand, only that she had to do it.
She enjoyed it intensely.
Arianna hissed a spell and called down a few thunder bolts from the sky to demolish the Demons charging at Civilians. Hmm...The Demons could pass through...perhaps they were the key.
Arianna was delighted to see squads of Model 3 Nuetralizers moving through the streets, bent on ripping and tearing the demons also. Oh, her Grand Children learned so well from her. She sneered a bit at the evacuation of Civilians, the Model 3's loading them into drop ships for escape, and regarded the Civilians as little but food if they were not House Io, but she respected her daughter's choices.
She aided a squad of Nuetralizers, conjuring a water construct shaped like a hammer to smash apart a particularly large demon that was killing scores of them. The tall Model 3 units finally noticed her nearby and stood at attention.
"Countess Belasko!" one Model 3 exclaimed, saluting.
"Greetings, my darling Grandchildren. It pleases me to see you. I wish to indulge in slaughter and require supplies and victims. Bring me live invaders and parts of demons, would you? I have a theory I wish to test."
"As you wish, Countess..." the Model 3 said as others continued firing their DC-15LE rifles, modified for explosive shots into invader and demon alike.
"You three, I'm assigning you immediately to guard detail for Countess Belasko!" the Model 3 Commander told three of his brothers nearby.
"We shall guard you with our operating cycles, Grandmother..." They said.
Arianna smiled warmly.
"You're all such darlings. Remember what I taught you. Kill painfully. Make them fear and hate you in equal amounts..." she advised lovingly. "Protract your killings if at all possible."
"We have not forgotten your combat doctrines, Countess, rest assured, Grandmother, the enemy shall know suffering this day.
Arianna sighed with happiness as she conjured water spears and used them to brutally impale a number of demons about to advance on her position. She strode in front of her Grandchildren. No leader of House Io leads from behind. It was one of the things the Countess admired about how Laertia had set up the House.
Arianna led squads into combat to hold this particular square, getting closer to one of the open portals, conjuring more water spears to skewer whatever came out of it...