Crazy Bastard Wants to Hit Me

[Blackthorne]

Clean the ship?

Two dark brows disappeared within Dahl's hairline as she examined the skull further. There were scars in the bone - this had been a pit fighter. What was it doing here in the hall? Oh look, a human arm in the area of the stomach. Must have broken loose somehow...

"That she was the daughter of a very powerful Sith Lord," she began pulling the fangs free from the skull, depositing them in her bag as she went, "and kept a Kath Hound as a companion. Despite-" two hands latched onto the larger incisor, trying to yank it free without breaking it, "despite her potential she was a feeble apprentice that lacked courage and drive. My mother struggled to find the proper catalyst to unlocking her potential. It took a cliff and the attention of an old skreev to do it."

The fang came free, abruptly, sending Dahl onto her rear. She held it up in the light and examined it through squinting eyes, "She grew to become one of my mother's greatest students of Beast Mastery...and mildly deranged. Apparently that runs in the family, or so I'm told."

 

[Darth Osano]

"Karin Dorn." Maleagant muttered under his breath while she was fiddling with the skeleton's teeth.

Instinctively he almost told her to stop picking at the skeleton like that, largely because it felt like most of his interactions with [member="Blackthorne"] involved asking her to stop. Stop punching me. Stop punching my guards. Stop wandering around the basement level, I know my staff are too scared to tell you to take a hike but stop going in there anyway. Stop antagonizing the crowd. Stop antagonizing the janitors. Stop vomiting all over my ship. It was a long and perilous list and the mere recollection of it threatened to raise Maleagant's already tenuous blood pressure. So he listened carefully, frowning all the while. Not that she was even looking at him to notice.

He scoffed audibly when she said the whole lot of her family were deranged. "Maybe on their side of the family."

Maleagant himself was the picture of perfect mental health. Just look at him. Ignore Cedric. Look at him.

"You can chalk it up to the atrocities committed against them." Maleagant added, somewhat bitterly.

 

[Blackthorne]

Nexus fangs were a prized commodity on the black market. These would fetch a pretty sum of credits if she could find the right buyer. Stuffing the incisor into her bag she scooted forward and continued collected with a sideways look back at [member="Maleagant"]

"Wot, are you related or something? Don't recall the Dorns having stripes..." yank, yank, yank. The skeleton rattled and shifted where it sat, "what are you anyway?"

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant's face burned with annoyance, mostly at himself, as [member="Blackthorne"] asked the question. "No. And no, they don't. Not that I-"

He broke off, silently cursing his name. Maleagant was usually recalcitrant about this line of questioning, so he remembered that fact and turned on his heel, stalking up the stairs. He waved a hand with the intention of it being dismissive, but in fact there was a light popping sound as he accidentally cracked his wrist with the motion. Too aggressive in his waving, a fatal flaw of all Dorns. She would go on another spice bender probably as soon as they landed again and forget the whole conversation.

"I'm a Rakata." He said, nearing the doors at the top. Maleagant was unaware, in his heightened state of fluster, that he had referred to the clearly amphibious founders of the Infinite Empire rather than the tattooed warrior people of the planet they were currently on. "Should be clear."

 

[Blackthorne]

"Oh really," she managed to claim one more large fang from the skull before the whole thing collapsed upon itself, nearly taking one of her arms in the process. Grimacing, Dahl turned and casually meandered off while stuffing the last fang into her bag, "you're a strange looking Rakata, mate."

She turned around to find him gone and for a very sluggish moment as her brain caught up with the whirlly-world around her she was mildly confused. Where...? Ah. Stairs.

Pack slung over her shoulder she wandered after him, taking two steps at a time.

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant bristled, but offered no reply to [member="Blackthorne"]. He flung open the doors and entered, although the only thing inside was another, smaller parlor. No corpses in here, but the furniture was in a similarly sorry state. Everything was broken. A lot of it had been pushed up against some walls, probably to make it easier for the looters to enter and exit. There were also a few bookshelves, noticeably sparse. A few books remained. The rest was dust and cobwebs. Ahead of them were some shattered glass doors that led to a balcony. Two more sets of doors on either side of them leading to... Other rooms. Maleagant could only guess.

That was the problem with rich people and their lavish estates. It was easy to get lost and everything started looking the same.

"Try to be quiet." He said once Dahl finally finished her frenzied romp up the stairs and stopped behind him.

The Acolyte meandered over to one of the bookshelves, inspecting them carefully before taking one of the beaten up tomes that had been left.

 

[Blackthorne]

Narrowed eyes of foggy acid met the burning gaze of [member="Maleagant"] for a brief moment of annoyed incredulity.

"Would you like me to whisper?" she husked at him as he perused the bookshelf, silently shadowing his steps.

Afraid the dead will wake up? said her voice again, invading the man's thoughts as she snaked an arm past him to pull a book off the shelf for examination. The studious nature of her mother had not sunk in to Dahl quite so deeply as it had with her brother - he likely would have taken a book or two were he here. Pages flipped, throwing dust into the air. It might've been a history book. Could have been something valuable. Dahl snapped it shut and tossed it back onto the shelf with a snort.

They're not here.

And this wasn't the place she wanted to see. The edge of her attitude had begun to bite through her hangover along with hunger pangs. Dahl turned to stalk off to the other doorway and kicked it open, noisily.

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant abruptly seized up when Blackthorne's angry messages popped up in his head unsolicited. There was only one voice he tended to tolerate inside his own head and that was his own. Even if he was finding it rather tiresome these days. He was thinking too much, his father might have said. Better to find someone to work for to do the most of the thinking. Then you'll eventually get yourself into a lofty enough position that you can just pay people to think for you.

He made to grab for the book, but her feckless handling of the tome sent clouds of dust everywhere, so he ended up covering his eyes and mouth with a hand instead. By the time he was done dispersing the cloud by waving and coughing, [member="Blackthorne"] had already haphazardly thrown the book back onto the shelf and stormed off. She kicked open one of the doors, revealing what was probably a study. The room's main feature, a desk, was slumped over on three legs. Its drawers had been torn out and flung to opposite areas of the room, smashed and empty. There were more bookshelves in here, considerably more well-stocked but in no lesser state of disrepair.

One could assume it would be that way for the rest of the rooms they entered for the duration of this jaunt.

Forgetting the book left behind and the books in this room, Maleagant stalked after her, furious. "Don't do that again."

 

[Blackthorne]

Hearing the heel of his boots coming after her was enough to raise her hackles. Dahl stopped abruptly at the center of the room and turned so quickly to face him that she inadvertently tore several books off the shelves around the room with the Force.

"A-don't-" the words slipped from between fangs as she coiled, caustic gaze defiant and questioning, "do what?"

Her mother might've had the decency to stay out of other's heads on purpose; something about permission and privacy. Despite telepathy being a natural trait and gift of the Shamalain twins, Dahl wasn't the asking sort. She also lacked the skill to truly pry or even break through hardened mental defenses, though she'd had plenty of practice tormenting her brother in that way. The idea of antagonizing [member="Maleagant"] certainly had appeal and she eyed him up and down with a look that said as much.

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant watched with no shortage of dismay as several more books were unjustly vandalized. His shocked stare flicked quickly to [member="Blackthorne"] and immediately turned into one of severe outrage. Was any part of this wild, unruly beast of a girl capable of behaving reasonably at any point? Even now she was getting all riled up. One minute she was puking onto cracked permacrete, now this sudden flare of attitude. All because of a simple request for relative silence.

"That." He said, angrily gesticulating to the torn books now littering the floor behind her. "Can't you respect anything?"

 

[Blackthorne]

"I can respect a good right hook," she spat back at him, incredulous and underwhelmed, "I've yet to see one from you."

 

[Darth Osano]

In that moment, Maleagant looked primed to explode.

"I don't care if getting people to," he waved his hand abstractly, as if grappling with the proper phrase to use. "Punch you is how you get your kicks, but keep me out of it."

He, quite frankly, did not feel like he had time for any of this. Maleagant moved to stalk past her, towards the various books now scattering the floor.

 

[Blackthorne]

"Where I'm from it's how you establish a chain of command and dominance over your people," the hybrid snarled, venomous gaze piercing the back of his head as he stamped away, "it's a rite of passage."

Not the left hook, exactly, but the form of physical brutality, strength, and a keen-ness for survival were all parts of garnering respect on the wild jungle planet of Onderon and her moon Dxun.

"I fought my way to the top to gain the fear and respect of the people there - I didn't just swing in on the laurels of being the Beastia's daughter," her frame grew tense beneath muscles pulling taught, coiling, a pitt-viper ready to strike at the next slightly provocation, "I am a gladiator, a pitt fighter, what the feth were you expecting?!"

[member="Maleagant"]

 

[Darth Osano]

There was the vaguest sensation of steam leaving Maleagant's ears. But it was just a sensation. He swung around again to face Dahl, sneering in disgust. "Maybe more than two brain cells to rub together."

What was all this talk of Beastias? It sounded stupid to him, almost as unintelligent as the root word beast implied. There were ways to establish chains of command without punching people or strutting about like a prize Tionese rooster. A chain built on nothing but physical strength and tactical right-hooks at everyone who glanced at you sideways wasn't a chain. It was a string.

"If anyone respected you, you wouldn't have been doped up in my office like a junkie," he continued, manners evidently left at the door. "But you're the expert. Where is your chain of command? What is it you have?"

He started walking slowly back over to her, clearly incensed. It was often that someone tried to tell Maleagant how to do his job, but he had prepared this indignant speech many times on various shuttle flights when he had no one to talk to or something to preoccupy his thoughts.

"I have the money. I have the contacts, the soldiers, the allies. I have the starships, the weapons. I have the Syndicate." He stopped his advance on that note, as if remembering he was above all this. Maleagant looked like he dropped a few degrees in temperature. His tone resumed its usual cold indifference. "You let me know when your idiot rites get you anything other than your sad cut of the winnings."

[member="Blackthorne"]

 

[Blackthorne]

She would have struck the moment the very first syllable hit his teeth.

In fact she meant to, but something entirely not of self-control and willpower was keeping her rooted to the spot. Dahl's gaze grew increasingly poisonous the longer he carried on, all manner of deeper anger at her own unfortunate standing beginning to well up. Images of Onderon, of the empire that should have been hers. The power taken from her all for a simple word. A singular name.

Sunblade.

The image of his face at the forefront of her mind grew a hideous grimace on her face, lips peeled to reveal the wall of pointed fangs within. It would have distracted her from the pain of her right arm had it not gone from a simple burning sensation to the very feeling of molten steel in her veins. Dahl's hand seized, flexing and straining against the external force seeping and spreading from the limb to the rest of her body. She felt her lungs stutter and fill with the taste of ash.

"Hck-"

Sweat began to bead visibly on her forehead. Dahl felt hot. Really hot. Like holocaust scene - the words searing and flesh flashed within her mind.

Then her vision faded, like a fog filling her eyes. The lids pulled tightly shut as the pain reached a crescendo and all at once Dahl's presence within her body felt the overwhelming power of Her assuming control. When she opened her eyes again they were black and they peered at [member="Maleagant"] not with defiance and rage, but a cold indifference. She straightened, but not in the coiled manner she usually stood - something more fitting of regality that mirrored his own assumed posture.

Her right hand lifted to gesture towards the man, ensnaring him within a miasma of overwhelming Darkside energy, pinning him and his body where it stood.

"So," the voice issued from her mouth was an amalgamation of tones, "you are the one that continues to draw the attention of my Apprentice. What is your name."

 

[Darth Osano]

Why was it that every time he had the chance to gloat about power and control, it was suddenly taken away from him? For a few moments he thought he might have accidentally hit her with Force Fear and given her an epileptic fit. Then that business with her eyes started and now, before he could leave, he was ensnared in some sort of witchcraft. He struggled in vain, though his issuance began to slow as the [member="Blackthorne"] started speaking again. Or not Blackthorne, but the amalgamate that was speaking through her.

If this was going to be a regular occurrence now, someone was going to be walking home from Rattatak.

It wouldn't be Maleagant.

The Shi'ido peered with a mixture of suspicion and annoyance at the new, regal, pompous Blackthorne. He opted for another alias. "Melwas."

As a rule of thumb, Maleagant tended to skirt the truth when speaking to unknown entities.

 

[Blackthorne]

"You are lying, Melwas."

Not an accusatory tone, but a statement of fact. The grip upon him dissipated as this new presence within Blackthorne gave a cursory look about the room. The longer it stayed the more it began to meld with the body. Black veins had begun to spread from the eyes and a veritable shadow developed as a corona around her figure. It seemed to pulsate very, very slowly.

"The Colosseum. Where is it."

 

[Darth Osano]

The spooky amalgamate seemed to be aware of his lie. It did not seek to punish him for this, it seemed, instead releasing the grip it held on him. Maleagant decided to encourage the continuance of his freedom by being honest. That, and taking a cautionary step backwards. This new look for Blackthorne might have been enticing in that weird, terrifying sort of way if she hadn't just ensnared him in magic he could not defend himself again. A hand instinctually fell to his lightsaber. He was not considering a fight, just estimating how long it would take to carve a hole large enough for him to jump through in the wall behind him. [member="Blackthorne"] was obstructing the doorway, after all, and that made it a less appealing avenue to travel down.

"An hour's flight from here."

There was really no point in lying about geography. The Colosseum was a fairly well known landmark on Rattatak; anyone could have looked up its exact whereabouts on the holonet.

 

[Blackthorne]

"The Cauldron..."

A secondary glance around that seemed to penetrate the walls was given. This place was a ruin - abandoned for whatever worth it once held, but it was very, very unlikely that the Cauldron would have remained so. It's worth was beyond measure to the peoples of Rattatak. Whoever held the Cauldron very likely considered themselves the rulers of this planet. He would need not worry about escape. After his answer the vessel of Blackthorne turned and promptly exited the room, making way back for the stairs before descending them.

No haste in her movements but simple, unadulterated purpose. She was heading for the entrance of the building.

[member="Maleagant"]

 

[Darth Osano]

As quickly as necro-Blackthorne entered the photo, she was now trying to leave the room. Maleagant concealed his surprise, lingering for a few moments to process what had just happened. Then it crossed his mind where [member="Blackthorne"] would be heading and he abruptly stumbled after her. Maleagant either had nothing to say or refused to say anything, but he followed her wherever it was she was going regardless.