Every Single Night

[Trenchcoat Man]

The Subway
Yesterday

They had come in droves – from Aldera, from Theed, from Cinnagar. The wounded, the insane, the newly-lost and always-forgotten, all gathered before the Beggar’s Throne to make their appeal to the desolate King. They were refugees now, their homes destroyed in conflicts of agendas between personalities well outside their own personal field of influence or even understanding; their lives tossed to and fro with as much direct agency as if they had been connected to the burning of distant stars.

For regardless of which faction would ultimately claim victory, for many, it would always prove Pyrrhic.

The huddled masses stood as if in formation, their heads heavy with sorrow, their shoulders still balancing their responsibilities with their emotions and they dare not shrug. Many were not strong enough to survive such a fall. Many had no idea how to live between such great cracks. And so they were cannibalized from where they stood, junkies and gypsies and thieves picking their pockets and bullying them out of whatever was left as they looked to the Beggar King for Law, or Mercy, or for the Love of God, please, just an End.

“What?,” asked the Guttermage. He sat upon his throne of mangled shopping carts stacked over hills of garbage, the words “Barbelith” scrawled out in black spraypaint behind him like some halo sanctifying the authority of the regal chair.

The hit of schadenfreude had been delicious, but hardly sustaining. Years of abuse had dulled its reaction, his receptors always craving more and more misery for each individual fix. It had been so long since he had truly scratched that itch.

And now, he was just chasing the Leviathan.

So what could he offer this desperate many, with their sad little belongings tucked away in their tatters alongside handfuls of hope and their own personal stories detailing the tragedy of war?

Not an epilogue.

In his right hand, Benedict beheld the year-old ruined head of an Elrood scientist. The monstrous domepiece was, in fact, a container for the Mnngal-Mnngal, bound to the skull by damned geometry carved into the forehead. Because of this, it would not decompose, forever gazing out at the Guttermage through milky white orbs, its terror reflected in the obsidian marble.

It could not offer judgment to his plight, and in this silent support, Benedict found a degree of that awful empathy, even identification with the monster in that jail of stinking death.

Picked clean by predators, still, they watched him, their expressions forlorn like the ghosts he had come to know. The drug just was not enough anymore to keep buried the dreadful compassion he had hidden for so long, and it ate holes in him like worms through his rotten heart.

“What?,” he asked again, this time his voice nearly cracking underneath the weight of his failure.

Perhaps, then, this could be their prologue.

~*^*~ ​

Coruscant; the 1313
3am, or whatever.
Soundtrack:

Spoiler

http://youtu.be/bIlLq4BqGdg

The theater was a relic even midst the throwaway structures that dotted the 1313 strip; that supported and were crushed by the breath-taking and heart-breaking spectacle of the Coruscant Uppercity. Its marquee still a humble arrangement of pink and blue beads of light, it advertised its functionary purpose more than its own name (assuming it even had one); one letter, three times.

XXX

It was obsolete, really, replaced long ago by robotic simulations and privacy booths and holographic lap dances, and hell, the complete availability of trafficked sentients offered at bargain prices to compete with an abundance of slavers. Brave little “XXX” was only able to keep its doors open by charging penny tickets, ensuring that every single night, each admittance would not contribute so much to the length of the pornhub’s life, but the slowness of its death. How could it possibly hope to compete with a more private, personal encounter available just down the block? Who would want to sit in a suspect chair in a stinky, dark room with ten other dudes to watch a worn-out, two dimensional skin-flick where you yourself have to do all the manual labor?

The answer, of course, was the same across all of space-time: Just the perverts.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But Benedict thrived on the communal experience. The staccato patting of flesh, the shared breathing. The ecstatic cries, the building and building of rhythm, the ceasing of mental complexity as it ironed out into a singularity of will, spurned by the desire to create, until, finally, a culmination. A Big Bang.

I mean, you knew “magic wand” was a euphemism, didn’t you?

Smut Shamanism. Horny Hoodoo. Guttermagick.

His boots propped up on the empty seat in front of him, he lit a cigarette. And as their minds slipped into the gutter, so the Guttermage wove them into ritual, casting their energy out into the ether to ensure his enchantment. Abra Kadabara Alakazam. Zim zim zalibim. Some like it in the pot nine days old.

At certain hours of the night, XXX could be the most powerful place in the city.

When he left the theater, he vanished out an emergency exit. Not because he was afraid of somebody seeing him, no – there was none-more-spunk than Benedict Eden, after all – but because back alleys just happened to be his preferred method of travel. He was a weirdness magnet, and weirdness tended to prefer the dark, the hidden. He made himself available, and so…

…it found him.

Trashcan lids and discarded droid shells were the first to sing, a low, entrancing hum foreshadowing the turbulence of sound to follow. Benedict stumbled from the vertigo brought on by that familiar choir of snarling didgeridoo. These sonics were not of instruments, but of a dozen voices in unison.

They were Lord Rot, the Savage Throne, and his body of howling tumors.

They were coming for him. All that channeled magick luring them to his location like a big, flashing arrow.

“Kark off wiff the sonics – We get the bloody point, all right?!,” the citymagus shouted, accidentally spitting out his cigarette as he tried to scramble down the alley. Suddenly, he hit the ground, hard, as though his shadow were ripped out from underneath him.

Because that’s what literally had occurred.

Lyzo, the Histrionic. The Disciple of Twilight loomed over him, and yet, her visage still seemed blurred as though he were looking at her through his peripheral vision. Lord Rot floated just beyond her, his oddly stuffed legs knotted in the full-lotus.

Management had come a-callin’.

“Your absence has been noted, traitor – Just what have you been getting up to?”

The Invisible Witnesses to the Defilement of Our Beloved Sister Susan.

 

[Mala]

Mala had gone from one location to the next. From a derelict ship where she'd spent years alone, to another ship with a lot of people to a planet with barely any people to a prison and then here. She was THE refugee. She didn't have a home, she didn't even have much in the way of belongings. She'd traded so many shiny objects for passage on ships and now she was where?

Here? Wherever the hell here was. Where is it wasn't important, not to a squib whose sole purpose in life was to collect the shiniest looking objects and horde them. The entire concept of money, clean clothes, sanitizers and well...civilisation in general was utterly lost on her. So was time, time was meaningless when you had nothing to do except eat sleep and collect...well steal things. If someone left something shiny lying around or poking out a pocket, Mala took it. Most of the time she got away with it, quietly. When she didn't get away with it, she made a lot of noise.

This, was a noisy morning. She let out a scream followed by a manic laugh as she shot down a back alley, her prize clutched between filthy furred hands. Two burly men pounded after her, fighting to get their blasters out of their holsters and cursing loudly.

"My shiny now!" She yelled over her shoulder waving her prize above her head. They responded with blaster fire that came so close it singed her fur. She howled and picked up the pace, shoving the gem into her mouth for safe keeping. She turned a corner, glanced over her shoulder and suddenly the world changed perspective, her feet hit something that could be considered soft and squishy, certainly not the duracrete. Then the pavement and the slime of a back alley was rushing to greet her.

First priority?

She spat out the gem, not wanting to choke on it. Then she hit the ground nose first and rolled in a tangle of limbs and rags.

Sore nose, bruised face. Nothing unusual. "Shiny!" she yelled scrambling round on the floor for the gem, having failed to locate where exactly she had spat it to. All the while she paid no heed to the squishy thing called a man that she had fallen over.

[member="Trenchcoat Man"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Coruscant – Upper Level – 11pm
Private Apartments of Matsu Xiangu

[SIZE=9pt]Some things never change, do they?[/SIZE]​

​

[SIZE=9pt] She was sprawled out on her couch, the long delicate fingers on her natural hand wrapped around the stem of a glass of wine she’d drained long ago. She hadn’t kept track of the glasses and to boot they’d been spiked with something of her friend’s design. (I’ve tried it, go ahead. It’s what you see in your head anyway Matsu – what can bother you now?) [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] They’d started on the terrace, the wind dragging her long, dark hair over her shoulders as they looked out over the city far below them. The constant sound of ships buzzing by in lanes of traffic that seemed a breath away from chaos was what lulled her to sleep at night, a fanatic and incessant hum she’d come to crave. Her assistance for the Sith in their fight to retain Alderaan had won her perks, the safety to rent a lavish sprawl of an apartment counting among the finest right next to the alchemists’ frigate, a reward she’d left in the hanger back on Annaj. She preferred stealth most of the time, a sleek black cruiser of a ship, a panther cutting the sky of Coruscant whenever she came to call on her latest and most favorite residence. As substance began to take over, clawing at the edges of their vision, they moved inside.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]Nice, right?[/SIZE]​

​

[SIZE=9pt] She turned her head to look at Kesare then, a split-second of a normal view before suddenly her friend was jittering in her vision, splitting in to two beautiful girls wearing wide wolf-grins. Matsu closed her eyes and went somewhere else. (In the belly of alligator, slitting it up and crawling out to swim to the surface. Warm, slimy swamp reeds wrapping around her ankles she kicks for the surface, rising like the final beast from the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name! Matsu – goddess of the sea, the third and the final beast!) And when she opened them again Kesare was drifting, running her fingers over the hollows in her neck and smiling lightly. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]No, my dear – some things never change.[/SIZE]​

​

Coruscant – Lower Levels: 1313 – 3am

[SIZE=9pt] Kesare was the kind of friend who wasn’t going to say no if Matsu wanted to leave her apartments slightly off-kilter. If someone crossed the shape-shifter they were in for a surprise – the very last surprise they’d ever be on the receiving end of. It wasn’t to say there was nothing in the Underground that could touch her…just that she was naturally not confrontational, and when someone with enough stones pushed her there she knew how to take care of herself.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Trailing through streets and alleys she explored. It was a natural habit – before she’d even thrown her chips in with the Fringe and started chasing after the ways of the Sith she’d left home and just…explored. There was no rhyme or reason to the way she hopped between planets. She was just learning, absorbing, becoming a million things and none of them at once. (Yaojing, the shape-shifter! Try on their skin, zip up, sew together until you shed them!) Even at gaining a lordship, making a pilgrimage to Malrev and unlocking something inside of herself than even now was humming (dangerous, dangerous, it. will. open. us. UP!), accomplishing things she’d only now realized were possible…she held on to the way she’d started.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She was turning the corner in to another randomly chosen alley when the strangest sight she could have imagined came to her. There was some…thing that was a jumble of fat and processed meat, a shadowy and pissed off deity of some kind, a fox-like creature seemingly disconnected from the entire scene and screaming about something shiny, and a good-looking guy appearing torn between exasperation and resignation. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] What HAD Kesare given her?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Walking forward Matsu stood next to the man sprawled on the ground, the scent of cigarette smoke wafting past her. (Force, she LOVED that smell – like comfort, like coming home even though neither of her parents had ever smoked. It was just the seediest, sexiest smell and she loved it.) She looked down at him and pointed at the strangely silent floating blobs. “Are you seeing this right now?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt][member="Trenchcoat Man"] | [member="Mala"][/SIZE]​

 

[Quietus]

Forest Moon of Endor - Bright Tree Village

You wake up in a skytren.

De hour donnae matter. De faces around you don matter. What matters is dat de weight in your pocket where you keep your stash of everyting remains utterly unchanged. Dere's a cigga burning steadily in de fingers of your neighbor, cherry getting drowsy as it watches and waits and never feels another drag. He's out cold. Take it.

Some days it donnae pay ta breach de surface, but I'll take a free puff when I can.

De sun's setting off in d'east and in de glare de grime of de windows is an inch tick, mottle with 'andprins an face impressions of various peoples. Oil time stamps of a tousand, tousand lives. De dead skin of every man stuck like scales. With a swipe of a finger His sign now decorates de corner. Watching de sky set you can almost see oblivion on de horizon - hot. Endor fills de sky above De view of de moon.

I bet he'd like that.

We on our way to de place of d'ewoks, but we in't comin' to spek tiny. To anyone who be anyone of de down-below of any planae, dey know de true destination of dis place. Some call it de Market of Caverns. Some call it de Stone Walk. We peoples, we Sauweriennes, we call it Le Cirque. An jes like De Bayou, 'less ye know how te fine it, ye never never will.

De forest swallows us, behind I can hear de engines dying like a wailing babe in de wind. Don' spek, don' say a word, don' wake de ciga-less man. Ye jes' get up an go, like Maman tol' ye.

Firs', ye start at Bright Tree Village.

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi Fortan had the answer. Without seasons throughout the year, without a night that was actually dark, there was no civilization. And without civilization, it was difficult to come up with the a common culture which could then be exploited to create a functioning government. But on Coruscant it was another foxhunt altogether; all the rules had to be thrown out and a new rulebook written. And while that was a problem to be tackled in five hours, when she arrived at the office, it had occurred to Natasi as she lay on top of her comforter, watching light filter through the light-blocking curtains.

That's right. Through the light-blocking curtains.

It wasn't the first time Natasi had been up at 0300, unable to force herself to sleep. It had become something of a routine since she had arrived on this nightmare of a city-planet. She wasn't sure if it was the light or the noise, the stress of the work or the pressure of her isolation, but during the night she frequently found herself in this very position, staring up at the ceiling and cursing her inability to fall asleep. And she did as she often did, she rolled onto her side and picked up her communicator and began to browse through her contacts.

She had programmed [member="Darth Janus"]'s number into her commlink but had never worked up the nerve to call it. Would tonight be the night? Her thumb hesitated over the green button, then moved to scroll down to Cousin Imogen's card. Good old reliable Imogen would be at home, and she would pretend to be angry at being woken at this hour but in reality she would feel privileged at being called upon. She pressed the green button and held the thing up to her ear.

"The Fortan residence, lady of the house speaking," Imogen answered breathlessly. Natasi was taken aback; normally at 0307 in the morning, Immy answered with a gruff "what?"

"Immy, darling, it's Natasi. I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

There was a pause, and then Natasi heard her cousins voice muffled, perhaps by her phone over the receiver. A moment later: "Not at all. What do you need?"

"Is there someone there with you?" There was an awkward pause. "Imogen! Do you have a man there?" Another awkward pause. "Immy, what would your Mama say? She'll be so disappointed."

"Not very disappointed," Imogent replied, "Since she's dead."

"Semantics. Who on all of Herevan do you have with you?"

"I met him at the Lotus Club," Imogen said defensively. It was a good move; Natasi considered the Lotus Club the only social establishment on the planet acceptable to be seen in at any time. "He's quite respectable... I think."

"And your judgment is always so sound," Natasi scoffed. "You cannot carry on like this, Immy, you are a Fortan. From the lesser branch, I will grant you, but nonetheless--"

"Natasi, either get the Emperor to court you, or kill yourself." The line disconnected and Natasi stared at the device as if it had personally affronted her. And, as she sometimes did when talking to Immy didn't do the trick, Natasi turned to scotch. She went into the living room, opened the bar and poured herself a double.

 

[Trenchcoat Man]

Coruscant. The 1313.

It’s somefing this city does; opening up time and again to spit a new corpse into the world. Overheard a detective one time, “I swear to the above, it’s like there are more dead bodies lying around than the recorded living on any census.” He’s exaggerating, mind, but it was always easy to see what he meant – you linger about a bit in the right area, and you wonder just how any of us have survived at all.

But it ain’t the chaos and luck it looks like. Ask any gambler; the cards come out random, but it’s not the cards you’re workin’, right yeah? It’s the ovver players.

I ain’t no victim of circumstance, squire. I bring this – the Witnesses, the serendipitous encounters, like, the lot of it – all upon meself. This ain’t what I’d rightly call a plan, but it’s not a coincidence, either. It’s synchronicity, ennit?

The Witnesses had been tailing me, because, in short, I’m a bloody member. One wiff a massive karking overdue membership fee.

I s’pose I owe you an explanation.

Lyzo turned suddenly, making way for Mala’s youthful exuberance and spirited inertia. She became emotive, an exasperated growl making up for her lack of facial expression, aggravated as her scene was stolen by the compounding of variables. She could sense another Sith in the area drawing close. Two seconds ago, they had had him. A second ago, the situation became completely unstable by pure sin of bad luck. It stank of the Guttermage, and she resented more than anything being the Elmer Fudd to his Bugs Bunny.

Thick Rags protected Benedict from Mala’s clumsiness, and she might wonder if what she tripped over had really been him at all. He caught the kid a bit as she fell, trying to mitigate the damage suffered in her battle with the pavement, rolling with her to then put himself between her and the raging Lyzo, who had begun to raise her hands in a manner telegraphing an attack.

Ain’t I a stinker?

Blaster fire whizzed past Lyzo’s ear, widening her hidden eyes. She whipped around at the two thoughtless brutes approaching from the city streets, cloaked in the colors of Red Light district lighting, casting peculiar shadows across their visage. She grimaced, feeling Matsu Xiangu as she entered the scene. Lord Rot, however, floated passively

“Are you seeing this right now?”

“Just anovver day in the life.”

Benedict scrambled to his feet, ripping Mala off the ground by her rag-scruff like she were a dufflebag or a puppy as he spun around to taunt the distracted Lyzo. “Attack me in me place of power, givin’ it the big bleedin’ ‘I AM.’ You daft –“ Benedict dropped the C-bomb. Turning again, he grabbed Xiangu’s hand, made starry eyes at her, and reasoned “Trust me, petal,” a mixture of Zeltron pheromones and Force Persuasion further making his case.

Lyzo screamed in the throes of a manic episode, made feral by the insult, by her failure. The Disciple of Twilight proceeded to rip the brutish assailants into pieces, dozens of polygonal chunks of still-screaming meat exploding into the streets as she dissected them with the shadows cast by inorganic lighting.

By the time she had turned around, however, Benedict and the others would be gone, lead down an alleyway that, if her drugs weren’t lying to Xiangu, totally wasn’t there before. Irrational to the last, Lyzo shrieked, her madness sounding into the night, a stark contrast to Lord Rot’s sagely calm. He simply shook his head, and in a sonic thump of a celestial heart, rippled out of his existence, leaving his compatriot to throw herself madly at the ground, the walls, thrashing like she were trying to tear a hole in space so that she may continue her pursuit.

The Witnesses, as you’ve already guessed, are an odd bunch – the only kind of group that would include me as a member. There’s an assembly of special chairs, meetings, silly traditions like any shadow cult ever in the history of the universe, but I’ll get into that anovver time.

Anyway, the story, as it was told to me, is that a boy and his sister were playing somewhere they shouldn’t’ve been, right, and at some moment in their mischief, big brovver turned around to find little sister had gone missing. This lead into a stupid quest, with poorly imagined and dodgy discoveries, and to be completely bloody honest, I tuned out for most of the yarn, as it never really seemed right important to Roddy, so I never reckoned it would matter much to me. The past is prologue, and its only purpose is to make the madness of the day not seem so sodding unreasonable.

But, lemme bloody tell you, squire – In this case, it is. It absolutely is.

Left, right, left, left, right. It was a labrynth made extra-tiny, pivots and turns that had long-transcended the realm of absurdity. This alleyway could not have been convenient for anybody, constant near-misses with close walls preventing anything other than a standing person to be able to navigate this Dadaistic maze.

At the end of the ridiculous backstory, the Witnesses are left with a holovideo. They still have it, and I’ve seen it, I have. The recording is uncoloured, scratchy – either deliberately so or a product of its age, and it’s focused on a little girl, approximately ten years old and whom is understood to be “Susan.” The camera looms around her initially smiling face, watching it deteriorate into a frown as the edges of the screen darken from a presence just beyond the recording device and a void fills her eyes. Up until this point, I’d assumed it was just an odd volume of noncey snuff fetishism, but, I reckon I wasn’t so fortunate. She shrieks, and for a half second, there is no sound. Delayed, it comes in at the same volume regardless of your local settings, like, dripping in primal fear cues that induce madness and terror upon the viewer. I weren’t no exception.

Finally, it came to an end, and with surprisingly elegance, he spun free of its hold, twirling both the ladies as though they were his dance partners. The brick and mortar seemingly closed behind them, leaving the trio with little more than a straightway toward a cliff overlooking a lower level of the 1313. Lyzo’s wailing was still present over the sounds of traffic, advertisements, and music, and it was clear that Benedict had not yet concluded their Exit Strategy.

Now I’ve been around the block, I have. I’ve seen people knifepunched by children and shat into Hell for a box of lollies; Just over there, I watched a mate wiff AIDs be eaten alive by Athlete’s Foot over a period of weeks; I’ve been to insane asylums, I’ve dealt wiff the galaxy’s most wicked, and I’ve even died, TWICE, and gambled me way out of graveyards. I’m a real piece of work, just ask anybody.

And still, I ran like a bloody child and woke up 30 minutes later wiff a self-inflicted head wound and four of me fingernails embedded in the walls.

So, you ask me if I believe in this rubbish? Bollocks. Of course I don’t.

But am I ruddy well afraid of it?

Whether they found a way to wriggle free or not, the Guttermage would launch himself over the edge, leaping before looking into whatever awaited him below.

Yeah. You can say I am..

[member=Mala] | [member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Mala]

Mala remained utterly oblivious to the rest of the world, until the rest of the world decided to pay attention to her. She spotted the gem and gave a squeal of delight, clutching it with both hands and doing a little dance on the spot. "I has it!" she yelled to the nearest people.

It was then she realized there were people. Big people. Angry people.

A hand reached to grab her scruff and she shoved the gem in her mouth. Safest place for it, after all, who wants to stick their hand into a smelly squibs mouth. In other circumstances, she might have protested at being carried by the scruff of her neck, if it weren't for the sudden appearance of a vast amount of blood and gore and the fact that her captor was moving rapidly from it.

Ears flat against her head, jaw clamped tightly shut, Mala watched the walls whiz by her, so close that she was afraid if she moved she might graze them. Then they stopped, for a heart beat and Mala chanced a look up towards the face of the person holding her.

"Umm...fanks" was all she managed before he moved again. She saw the edge of the drop coming closer and panic set. She started wriggling far too late, pulled down as the crazy man jumped.

Mala screamed. The gem escaped her mouth and her scream became a wail as she scrambled to catch it and failed miserably, forgetting the fact that she was falling to goodness knows where. It had taken a lot of work to find that gem. She'd had her eye on it all night, and knew exactly where she was gonna take it. That back alley kitchen would have given her food for at least a month.

She'd have to start again, and there was an empty hole in her stomach in desperate need of filling.

Tonight was far too noisy.

[member="Trenchcoat Man"] [member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] She felt the slight brush of Persuasion dance right outside the walls she’d learned how to carefully build but as a woman who’d foregone weapons training almost entirely just to hone her skills inside her own mind and in the heads of others, the trick had almost no effect. She was a nonce with her lightsaber, devastating in close-quarters with a pair of knives, and an absolute monster once she savaged her way in to your mind. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] But regardless, she was fairly helpless against the combination of an already attractive man exuding Zeltron pheromones and whatever Kesare had given her, at first dragged but quickly following of her own volition as an alleyway opened up to her thickly-accented ‘savior’. (Strange, a second ago it had been him on his back and now he had the measure of the situation, or at least he didn’t appear to be very concerned about the imminent loss of his life.) As they disappeared, swallowed in the darkness of the sudden escape route, the furious screams of the hazy excuse for a being followed hot on their heels.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] (Let me go back there! Cigarette smoke and blood – the two were made for each other, something organic and heady. I said they should package it up, market it like incense and I would corner their sales. But I think I take it back. There’s nothing like it in the flesh. You could never capture that stale smoke, the metallic throat-throttle of death newly-minted. Especially when it’s your doing.)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She followed without thought, giving the benefit of the doubt to the man in front of her that he knew just what he was doing pulling them through what seemed an impossible maze. It would be easy to attribute her seeming mindlessness to drugs, to alcohol – but really it was just Matsu to go where the wind took her. Or where the occasional absurdly designed maze took her. Just as soon as she was sure they were never getting out she was pulled forward in one last enthusiastic tug, had a glimpse of the dark ceiling of the Underground, before all the sudden she was being pulled over the side of a platform, looking down to see nothing but the dark purples and reds cast by rubbish-fires on the ground so, so far below them.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]She laughed as they fell, a peal of a sound that broke through the Squib’s cry of dismay.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=9pt]An adrenaline junkie given the greatest gift.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=9pt](Now, THIS is living!)[/SIZE]​

​

[SIZE=9pt] They fell from dozens and dozens of stories up, three bodies connected only by grasping hands, tumbling end over end as wind whipped through their clothes. Matsu was facing up, unable to see how rapidly they were approaching the ground beneath them and as she looked up at the underside of the level they’d just leaped from she fell away…[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] After that, in my vision at night I looked… Hundreds of creatures, sleek and black and on all fours crowded the underside of the platform, looking down at the trio falling. …and there before me was a fourth beast, terrifying and frightening and very powerful… The entire group shivered, gathering themselves together, bunching and writhing as if challenging each other (hold on, hold on, one more moment, then we’ll eat them alive). ...it had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims… One more moment passed and they leapt, as one, a hive-mind of hunger as they shot through the air with far more precision than the three bound together hanging on for life, teeth bared and starvation in their blood-red eyes. …and trampled underfoot whatever was left… She watched them as they dove, their growls filling the air and the city lights glinting off their claws as they snapped out from within their paws. All the sudden her vision changed with a crack, the creatures falling in to the background blur while the foreground sharpened and in front of all the cat-like monsters was a…gem? Its shine caught her eye and she remembered, somewhere in the jumble of her thoughts, that the creature in the really hot guy’s arms had seemed rather distressed at losing it. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] The monsters disappeared in to smoke as she reached up and out with the Force, grabbing on to the gem and pulling it in to her palm before turning and shoving it in the squib’s mouth which had appeared to be its original spot of safekeeping before turning her attention to their imminent death. Using a series of short, sharp force-pushes she turned herself over in the air, releasing her hold on the man who’d started their breakneck leap only long enough to turn before grabbing him again and holding her hand out towards the ground, calculating one huge push to buffer their fall. It slowed them down just enough that they didn’t become some grotesque smear of blood and brains at the bottom.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She hit the ground with a thud that resounded in her head, rolling a few feet before opening her eyes slowly. (Am I dead?) With a groan she pulled herself up, running her natural fingers through her hair and bending the durasteel of her left, testing her limbs – all was well, somehow. She looked to the Squib to see if she’d survived before looking to the man in the trenchcoat, recalling his earlier comment as she reached over and plucked a piece of garbage they’d fallen on from his hair. “If that’s just a day in the life, I’d love to see you on a strange day.” Rolling her shoulders she tilted her head to look up at the platform high above their heads where they’d been moments before. “You think your friends are coming back?” Usually it wouldn’t matter, but they’d seen Matsu’s face. She had a feeling it was her problem now. Thankfully is was difficult to upset her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt][member="Trenchcoat Man"] | [member="Mala"][/SIZE]​

 

[Trenchcoat Man]

Coruscant. The 1313.

He had never intended it to be a suicidal plunge.

The city-planet spoke to him in a way unlike any other since Roddy had died. Through the Morse Code of shaking pipes, through the whispers of steam exiting sidewalk vents. The clacky-clack of mobile street vendors and that faint little clink when the Red Light turns Green. A pattern in the early morning traffic broadcast safety, Benedict’s design to land on a passing trunk, then bounce down from rooftops to awnings to dumpster below. It would be painful, sure – a bone would certainly break – but they would have lived.

…probably.

Xiangu’s laughter cut through all that boring mechanical business of the clockwork city in his head. The long years of performing had turned what was a profound experience into something of a routine, and he no longer quite saw the magick as anything magical at all. If you weren’t having fun, you simply weren’t doing it right.

And then, she had saved them. Christ, the nausea of Force Pushes, but it was better than the human pong match he’d had planned. Carefully, he pitched Mala into a nearby dumpster, likely providing her the most comfortable landing, as he came down on his combat boots with a hard thud, his knees buckling so that he had to further catch himself with his hands.

It had been so long since the systematic disassembling of his Rabid Harlequinade, and Benedict had forgotten the value of working with other people. He wasn’t Superman. He was barely Han Solo. He gathered himself as he reflected on old mates – Urinal, the Geek, Janey Hexam, Mickie, the Mulch Slave, Heroin, Pastor Ron – all now dead or estranged; a whole other life where he had had friends. He couldn’t do this all by himself, this last instant and the events of Aldera proof of concept.

Benedict allowed the woman to groom him, lowering his head to help remedy the discrepancy in their height. Tired, bloodshot blue orbs probed in passing the depths of her eyes, searching for a soul, but finding instead the exaggerated pupils of drug-use. A grin manifested, revealing the unfortunate asymmetrical dentistry of one naturally sharp K-9 and the other flat and short; the ruin of some brawl, more than likely. He tongued the broken fang, his face donning a roguish character as if he were taunting her with the newly-discovered information, before he fished his Booma Slims from his pocket, packed the carton, and saddled one of the chick-cigarettes between his lips.

“If that’s just a day in the life, I’d love to see you on a strange day.”

“Then stick around, luv--” he muttered around the oral fixation, holding the pack in her direction – a single cigarette extended from the opening, available for the taking. After her refusal/acceptance, he’d pocket the rectangular box, and proceed to light the tips of all Slims in the area. “The night’s still senile.”

It wasn’t that he was Autistic or had left his Gay switch in the On position. He found her striking. Of course he did. But he was familiar enough with females not to so fall all over himself that he’d ignore the sharpened fangs, the wicked Force Signature, the robofetish arm with the kark-off mean claws at the fingers. That said – he had Liked all of those things in his Facebook profile. A break in subtlety, his eyes gave her a quick up-down.

“You think your friends are coming back?”

“Per’aps. Kark, probably,” he shrugged his shoulders, moving towards the dumpster in which he had discarded the orphan. “Should ‘ave a bit before they turn up, anyway.” He gave the dumpster a sharp kick in an attempt to rouse the squib, a hollow metallic sound calling into the alleyway.

“You'll keep me safe, yeah?”

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] | [member="Mala"]​

 

[Darth Osano]

CORUSCANT | LEVEL 1288 | 03:21 AM​

Really, Holus' disheveled appearance and painful-looking limp would have been enough to solicit sympathies from some. But his sour attitude and propensity for pissing away what little money he could find really took a toll on that. But the Gran didn't care. As long as he got his next swig of hooch and enough deathsticks to last him the hour, he was fine.
Holus stumbled erratically through the dimly lit and refuse-laden streets. From what he’d heard, this level was paradise compared to the others. The deepest ones had rat people or something. Not that Holus really cared what else was going on. He just wanted to keep getting drunk and high.

As fun as it was to do on his own, Holus also liked fraternizing with the rest of the street trash. No one knew when the tradition started up, but every couple of weeks or so he and a few others would show up to this one spot. Set some garbage on fire to keep warm and exchange stories to pass the time. Maybe barter junk food, porn, and other crap.

Frankly, Holus just enjoyed the company.

But when he finally showed up at the appointed meeting spot, it was completely empty. There was just that Dug… What’s his face? He was missing fingers. Never stopped shaking. Holus never talked to the guy. He looked like a total freak, but now he was the only one here. Muttering like a jackass while trying to get a fire going.

“Hey.” Holus nearly slurred, stumbling on over to the Dug. “Where the kark is everyone?”

The Dug flinched. “Fethin’ gone, man. They’re gone.”

“Nerfpoodoo they’re gone. They ain’t got anyplace else to be. They karkin’ change the spot on us or somethin’?”

“No, man! No! They didn't leave. They got taken!”

Holus spat, and wiped the residue off his grimy mouth with the back of his hand. “The hell are you talking about?”

Panic made itself evident in the Dug the longer the creature spoke.

“I don’t know, man! I don’t know! Sometimes it’s those spooks in the white armor, other times its droids or something… Man.”

“Look, I’m gonna give you ten seconds to start talkin’ normal, or I swear-”

“Shhh!” The Dug hissed, finally pausing his feverish attempts to light a fire. “Listen!”

Predictably, there was dead silence. Nothing to be heard except the labored breaths of the high-strung Dug. And also the fart Holus squeezed out just then. The man was a class act, after all.

“Dude, you’re out of your mind.” Holus eventually observed.

“Man, why don’t you get it! They took ‘em! One by one, man! All these guys! They kept talkin’ about colonies or something, man! Why aren’t you frightened!?”

Holus shook his head, thick fingers scratching at his scalp as he did so. Trying to understand these things when partially wasted was no easy task. He didn’t say anything at this point, so the Dug just kept on yammering.

“I bet you didn’t even see it, man. I did. I saw them! It was Sabs- the Aqualish chick- and Pors, they were walkin’, and then those karkin’ robots showed up! Asked them to comply with procedure or something, man! And they said no, then they beat them with stun batons and-”

The Dug cut itself off with its own startled gasp. It got a real faraway look in his eyes, staring dead at something behind Holus. Total abject horror. A gripping terror. This normally would have been the cue for Holus to see what was behind him. The Gran did not turn, however. Partially because his mind was too muddled to make sense of the Dug’s expression or dramatic display of being interrupted by terror. Or perhaps he was just too terrified himself to look behind him.

Whether he looked or not, it didn’t matter. He heard something, three somethings, marching up behind him. Whirring servomotors and mechanical footsteps. He also heard a harsh artificial voice demand something of him.

“ATTENTION CITIZEN. YOU ARE BEING SCREENED. YOUR COMPLIANCE IS MANDATED BY IMPERIAL LAW.”

And then the stun baton hit him square in the back of the head.

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

It got real dark, real fast.

 

[Mala]

The dumpster lid slammed shut as Mala disappeared into its smelly depths and for a moment there was blissful silence. Head spinning slightly with the dramatic and rather noisy turn of events she lost herself in the miasma of smells; stale cigarettes, three day old curry, long forgotten fruit and blood. Old blood and new. It took a moment for her to realise the new blood was her own.

CLANG

The man's kick to the bin brought a shout of protest from her lips and she slowly pushed her way through the rubbish using her head to prop open the bin lid she peered out. "You be crazy." She mutteredbefore wriggling free and slumpIing onto the floor. A bannana skin slid from her head and landed in her lap. She paid it no mind, spitting the gem from her mouth and marvelling at her prize. "Shiny shiny shiny." She sang.

Her stomach growled and she scrambled to her feet and shoved the gem towards the pair. "Shiny for food?" The hopped from one foot to the other excitedly. "Shiny for food, shiny for food?"

[member="Trenchcoat Man"] [member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She didn’t make a habit of breaking in to other people’s minds without a reason. It was the one and only rule she had for herself because it was easier being underestimated, easier to let others wonder what she might be capable of. But she felt him sizing her up just as she was sizing him regardless, and that was something she could respect. After all, she was part metal with ‘kark-off mean claws’ for a reason, and it wasn’t aesthetics. (There’s a soul in here, believe it or not.) She could feel his signature in the Force, something strong, something unique – dark, but unfamiliar to her.

Or maybe it was the drugs.

It wasn’t particularly a habit to down unnamed substances, but if there was anything Matsu had proven consistent in it was the chase for experience. Try everything at least once, you’ll only regret the things you didn’t do – all those stupid catchphrases that had more holes than a slice of cheese and yet in some sense they held true. For the same reason she’d laughed as they fell to their potential messy ends she’d taken something with no clue as to what it would do to her: because she was going to die someday, and she’d be damned if it was doing something boring.

So when he grinned, revealing an asymmetrical pair of canines that had her pressing a pointed tooth of her own against her tongue, she felt something akin to relief. She’d spent a lot of time around stuffy, uptight Sith constantly lamenting the struggle of their power – men and women who made moves and changed the course of the Galaxy, did things that made the holonet buzz with disgust, the collective masses of the Galaxy throwing their hands up in an outcry. Matsu was one of the very worst, poison wrapped in a feminine shell – the kind of woman that could devastate an entire species in the name of something she wanted, leave their planet a husk, and still sleep like a baby with their blood on her hands when she got in to bed at night. But she didn’t go out of her way to cause trouble and she wasn’t pissing and moaning about being tortured and conflicted. She just was – and she was just...off.

In short, she wasn’t used to smiles and she welcomed it.

She waved her hand in polite dismissal when he offered her a selection from his pack. She preferred the sight and smell on someone else, the flare of the lighter lasting longer than it should have in the semi-iridescent glow of her high. It was for that reason that she didn’t notice the up-down he gave her, but it was a safe bet that she wouldn’t have minded. (After all, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t made the same cursory observations earlier when she’d had the luxury of time to make them – he’d been on his back, trying not to be turned in to a crappy interpretation of Picasso, human body style.)

Pulled from her slight dreaminess by the sound of his voice she watched him rouse the maybe-dead Squib from her landing zone in the dumpster, noting there was no denial that those…things…were his friends. That didn’t necessarily mean anything but it also piqued her interest – she couldn’t shake the feeling that his tug on the Force wasn’t necessarily traditional and in her usual fashion she wanted answers, wanted to unravel whatever was strange to her and absorb it. But as he’d pointed out, it was only 3am. Plenty of time. Whether that was time to meet up with said 'friends' again, or really just time to kill didn't matter to her. She laughed, another sound like sea-glass when he asked about keeping him safe. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that’s not the first time a blob of meat and a ghost-lady have tried to shake you down. You’re still alive, you’d have found a way out,” she answered, watching the Squib scramble out of the dumpster with impressive alacrity.

She wasn’t entirely sure what to do when the little blue creature started leaping around them screaming about ‘shiny’ and ‘food’. She was terrible with children and this kind of reminded her of that and she reached out, pressing her finger against the Squib’s forehead as if to keep an arm’s distance between herself and the bouncing as she looked again to the stranger. “Is this…yours? Should we feed it or something?” She didn’t really have a problem getting food for the excitable creature and she didn’t exactly need the ‘shiny’ as payment considering she wasn’t hurting for money, but honestly the bouncing had her feeling nauseous and she would do anything to make it stop.

“By the way…I’m Matsu.”

[member="Trenchcoat Man"] | [member="Mala"]​

 

[Arage Bao]

Time was a fluid and rather expensive commodity, men were always searching for it, whispering… more time. Give me more time. Time is money and yet, they never found it - then there were those who never desired, wanted or needed the filthy, fluid fragment. They wished only to disappear into the meaningless drivel, the corners within corners of a city better left forgotten. As you might suspect already, this piece of wealth had its own awkward sense of humor and crept up on those who least expected it.

It was this fluid nature that allowed certain events to happen outside of the commonly accepted definition called a line of time - in more plain terms, through this aquatic composition it was possible for events to happen before they should happen.. or perhaps later than they should happen, or happen when people were still in the middle of an important thing.

Pretty frustrating, and perhaps slightly confusing to say the least, but you really don’t have to worry about it. Just take it from a guy who has been around for a while; the galaxy makes zero sense in the grand scheme of things.

We find ourselves on Coruscant, a planet filled with contrast, underlinings and possibilities. From the upper levels where the former Jedi Temple stood, and now the Valley of the Sith; to the slightly lower levels of 1313 where the more seedy and yet still civilized folk hanged around… until you finally arrived at the world of the Under. A dark place filled with zombified critters, underwater dragons, living garbage and stuff that even your dreams could never imagine.

Yes, Coruscant… the Gem of the Galaxy. To understand it, is to live in it. To understand it, is to walk amongst the beaten-down citizens in the under-levels and feast with the rich dignity living in their fancy apartments - getting hammered under the influence of certain adjectives that one did not ever make his mouth pronounce on threat of stepping on the collective shoes of the entity called political correctness.

But for some it wasn’t enough to live, walk and partake in the revelries of the upper-levelers. Some wished for more and to get more, to truly understand the essence of which the metaphorical Gem of the Galaxy was made… you had to understand the malefactors influencing all that moved through the planet-city.

You had to sit in the corner of a sleezy bar, listening silently to the words of an old geezer, whose ears had tuffs of white hair grown from it; a stark contrast to the more bald imagery which his head projected upon the world. You had to carefuly listen to his intonation as he spoke of the fabled ‘Black Eyes’, the old ruffians of a decade ago who had made the Underworld a better place through their firm and stark stance on how thugs should behave.

It was only twenty years ago when this gang was active… and yet in its time it did a lot of good. Such success always attracted the sights of those to lazy to find their own lot in life, and those malicious enough to turn the lazy into the active - at least for a little while, until everything was beaten back into the status quo. This happened with the Black Eyes, as their leaders were either assasinated, scared away or worse, the former cabal was taken over by those too unoriginal to find meaning in the #thuglife.

More profit was made, but at the cost of the support of the people. Then almost fifteen years later the once proud, then feared gang was swiftly destroyed in the timespan of a night and day: no one was sure whathttp://starwarsrp.net/topic/23940-all-tied-up/ had happened. But men had found the limb decaying bodies of those whose eyes had been scratched out in a failed attempt to escape the imagery that had embedded itself into their mind - the atrium which had housed the Kingpin had been blown into bits and pieces… which was the same fate the Pin of King had eventually had shared.

The remnants were absorbed in the various others and that was the rise and fall of a group which had grown too fast, lived too loudly and eventually died with a big, big boom.

There were more of course, the old man would share with those interested above his recently filled drink, so much more. Trillions, billions, millions of men and women lived, slaved and died on the surface world and much of them were children to the Underworld. Sitting here, one could spend weeks, simply listening on and on into infinity to the stories of old and new - yet there were only a few that truly mattered. Only a few that needed to be understood clearly to get a firm grasp on what it meant to be standing in the cesspit that was the Gem of the Galaxy.

The White Glove Society operated in the highest levels of society of Coruscant. It was said that being taken out back by a member of this notoriously pleasant group was enough for a person to simply give up all his money, and depart with a wide smile. All innuendo aside the Gloves weren’t men and women of passion, not that kind of guttermagick passion at the very least - they were actors, pretenders at the very core of their soul.

With a wave of their hand they could change roles, change the very essence of their ‘I’ and become someone entirely different. They lounged, debated, danced and lavished around the higher circles of society; always in pursuit of that one mark, to gain their trust and abuse it, leaving only scraps over. As said before, their way was so smoothly done, so carefully planned, so meticulously arranged that the mark usually didn’t even mind that the act was done. Truly… they simply had paid richly for a true friendship, a true partner, or simply an act well done.

Needless to say that their way was lucrative, if a tad difficult to integrate oneself into. They were artists, charismatic conversationalists, historians and more: in a different life they might have been the very men and women they were stealing from right now. Time was funny that way.

Then there were the Copperheads, men of ill repute that couldn’t have been more different than those of--

But I am getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? You can see already that the life of corruption isn’t exactly what you thought it would be, you had your cold-blooded murders on the one side and the portly Gentlemen with the nice smile on the other. Coruscant… the world of contrast truly.

Now that the scene was set, now that you truly can feel what it means to waltz around the metaphorical stage that was the Underworld… now that you can the inherent difficulties, while not even knowing the plan which would be plagued by them… now you can truly appreciate the moments that come next.

Coruscant, the 898.​

(Just to be lower )​

There was a feel in the undercurrent of the 898, a certain thrill that made a man reconsider to step outside the door of their sacred house and stay in for the night. It was the ugly screech of opportunity for those pitched-black in their souls enough not to feel the ancient fear of change anymore, through this sound, this wave of favorable circumstance a single, lonely soul waltzed.

It was the soul of a troubled being truly, a man no longer knowing where his purpose was to be. A Sith in mind, a Jedi in soul and a man down-under where it really matters - the point was this, this lonely wanderer had flown through the Galaxy in search for something. Something he himself wasn’t sure if it actually existed, a place of peace, a place of.. bliss that never had come to him in the months, perhaps even years that he trudged through the vacuum of outer space.

He had learned much and many and yet had accomplished little in his own mind, the Holocron that had guided him on this path had been expend. Not in its potential, but in its capability to teach him more in the relative short timespan that was his meagre life, yet this notion of belittlement was an illusion. An illusion of inferiority which had been established as untrue many years ago, yet the man clung to it with the despair a man might possess who was just about to drown and clung to the last, little slivers of air.

This illusion of reverse grandeur would not linger for long though - it was a simple balance in the Galaxy itself which made sure that men of power would always try to crawl back to the place that they firmly belonged in. In this case was the not-Sith Lord, reborn in the mighty river that spun through the galaxy in the form of the Force, silently, not even realizing it himself trundling towards his own, new fate.

But what would Jared Ovmar find here? What would.. his purpose be. It was a good question, it was the right question, the right question for the right time.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Mala"] [member="TD-18"] [member="Trenchcoat Man"] [member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Trenchcoat Man]

It could have been the drugs. It could have been the drugs. His Darkside presence was unusual, as unique as she had already garnered. It did not provoke the fear of the unknown or the gravitational draw to power; instead, it was a cut on the roof of your mouth that you couldn’t stop tonguing; an itch beneath the skin you couldn’t scratch. It was what made meth-heads dig holes in their face, and what made stoners so boring. The mania of LSD, the quicksilver psychopathy of cocaine, the dreamy tummy troubles of ayahuasca. It was the pitiful surrender of the junkie, forsaking the world, but too cowardly to check-out properly. Yet if you stuck with it, it would push into the warm glow of psilocybin, reminding you that, though you’re ugly and broken and hurting and sad, you could always love yourself, and that, maybe, somehow, that could be enough.

If only you’d let it.

His general ambience was curiously suited to her chemical situation; a confident shaman, able to lead her out of a bad trip…or deeper into it, should she so desire.

“You’re still alive, you’d have found a way out.”

“Didn’t I?,” he said with a laugh, making mental note of her tranquil expression.

The ridiculous Mala popped up from the garbage to make an evaluative judgment as to his sanity.

“Me? You went sparkle-chasing through a sodding war zone.”

If you had asked the Trenchcoat Man about his relationship to kids, he would have told you that he didn’t care for them, and that they didn’t like him much either. However, this simply wasn’t the truth. In all his adventures as the self-appointed guardian of the squalid, at least 30% had involved the protection of children. It wasn’t a personal interest, some deep-seated to rewrite the damage of his own childhood; It had more to do with children and their willingness to believe in miracles, to dream of better solutions. Adults were too cynical, too willing to accept their lot in life. Learned helplessness. Children dreamed big. Children fought back. Children adapted.

Children prayed to the bogeyman.

His gaze casually shifted back to Matsu as Mala slumped down toward the ground singing her song of adjectives, returning to the non-verbal communication between the adults saturated with errant thoughts, dirty pheromones. He probed her for telepathy (not in the way Force-Users understood it, but more the universal manner New Agers do), offering a lure in a way that he often did – one bad idea leading into irresistible mystery. He grinned a grin that was conveyed more with his eyebrows than his lips, flooding his mind (and potentially hers) with lustful thoughts; camera angles stolen from the theater above, they portrayed Matsu with her knees pushed to the permacrete, again with her back and hands shoved back against the brick wall. His brows twitched, the crooked barbs of their arch seeking to snag her composure.

These ideas would be weighed against Mala’s offer to buy them both (or trade them for?) dinner/breakfast, parental instincts welling up to see to it that the street urchin was fed.

There was a struggle, but in the end…

"Should we feed it or something?”

“She’s everyone’s, luv,” he spoke to communal responsibility, something he only acknowledged some of the time. “And as her parents, I reckon that's our job, ennit?”

Lightside points gained.

“Oi, ankle-biter – You buyin’, then?” He was teasing, really. If she refused, he’d likely cover the charges, be it legally or not.

“Matsu,” he repeated her name, affecting a tonal thing in a rendition of what he thought was the correct pronunciation, but botching it anyway due to his gutter accent. He didn’t feel obligated to reciprocate with his own name, however.

Mystery, and that.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] | [member=Mala]​

 

[Aela Talith]

Coruscant, District 1111

There was a life to Coruscant, a life that most living beings could never truly understand.

There was the the senate buildings, the Sith Temples, Five Hundred Republica. Where the lite lived. Where the Sith dwelled and the Jedi had once pranced about, where the politicians and the ambassadors ran a muck and where the high lives of the Coruscanti nobles were spent. It was where one visited when they were rich, where one came to when they wanted to see the pretty face of Coruscant, the beautiful sights of the temples and the mountains, the massive castles and statues build in dedication to a singular cause. The tourist attractions, thats what these locations were, nothing but draws to flocks of foolish masses who lived no where near the massive city world.

Then there was the galactic city. The place where the average man lived. The massive sprawling buildings that contained everything from starports to markets. It was the City itself that was what made the city so unique, the huge mass of durasteel and glass that went on to surround the entire world. This was what most people saw of Coruscant, from the air, or even from space it was the Galactic City that one observed, though they never saw what lay beneath.

Beneath the Galactic City, passed the Dacho District and far beyond The Works lay the Undercity. The cruel heart of malice and hatred that had fed the denizens of Coruscant for an age. This roiling cesspool of crime, delusion and murder was where the criminal center of Coruscant lay. It was here that one lost themselves, that the average man was little more than food to monsters, both human and alien. Within the Undercity, anything went, and anything was possible. It was not a place often visited, it was not a place often seen. The undercity was a plague on Coruscant, a black sea of death that most politicians would rather forget about. It was rarely spoken about, and even more rarely seen.

Yet there was one more place, one that none but the bravest ever saw. The frothing cesspool was home to ravenous monsters, the Rakghoul like Cthon, the rats known as Skraal, and even more dangerous and deadly creatures hidden from sight by mounds of garbage and decayed corpses.

That was the Coruscant everyone knew. It was the Gem of the Galaxy as some called it, the very center of culture and population. Its many levels were known, some hidden, some laid out before everyone to see. That was what Coruscant was, a fruit of many layers. Those who preferred it, took only what was on the outside, yet some dug deeper until they reached the very core of the fruit. Yet even they, the ones that dared to dig deep into the underbelly of Coruscant never truly understood. They could see the people, they could interact and speak with the monsters of the Underworld. They could explore and reveal the hidden depths of the Ecumenopolis, but they would always be missing a piece, a piece that had taken on a life of its own during the eons of time that had passed since Coruscant colonization. It was a piece that had to be looked for, searched for specifically. Even the greatest of Crime Lords, the most powerful Politicians, they would miss if it if they didn't look.

Yet Nigh saw it.

The Droid saw the hidden piece of Coruscant that had so long been ignored, had been forgotten and cast aside. It saw what most sentients did not, what they refused to see. It saw the life of Coruscant that was taken for granted.

Nigh saw the automatons of Coruscant.

It watched the droids of the Security force, it watched the street cleaners, the hunter droids, the protocol droid, it saw the changing lamps within the street. The Droid saw it all, the bustling hub of activity that was seemingly ignored by all. The massive expanse of technology and life that so many seemed to take no care of. Nigh saw it all, the huge network of droids, virtual intelligences, and artificial minds that ran Coruscant behind the scenes. It watched as people struck them, screamed at them, destroyed them, and sometimes even thanked them. It watched for days on end as the machines of Coruscant did their duty, watched as the automatons of Coruscant worked together on each and every single level. From the highest peaks of the rebuilt Imperial Palace, to the lowest sewers of the Underworld.

Nigh saw them all. Droids of every type, machines that worked tirelessly and endlessly. To it, the connection was apparent. The thin lines of programming and endless data that linked one droid to the next. The interactions of the machines that formed together into a huge network capable of sustaining such a massive Ecumenopolis.

The droid mapped it.

It began as a game at first. A small puzzle for the advanced intelligence contained within the droids mind. It would spot a single hovering drone directing traffic, and would begin to access its systems with a wireless connection. From there it simply mapped the Traffic drones communications, watching as the tiny drone spoke to its brethren, telling of damaged traffic lanes and redirected freighters. Nigh would follow the data from one drone to the next, hopping and skipping about until it had reached the end of the Drones communications network, finding that eventually the drone spoke to a control droid that directed them. From there Nigh continued, plotting his map for days, perhaps weeks, on end until he had mapped an entire sector of Coruscant.

Within his mind he could see it. A Darkened map of Coruscant that seemed to slowly glow with life as he added more and more points of data. Small glowing dots appeared within the map, each point representing a single droid, a single automated mind. One dot grew into millions, and form millions into billions. Before long the darkened map of one of Coruscant's sectors became a wash with light so strong it would have matched the glow of a sun.

To Nigh, the map was but a small curiosity, to a normal human, it would have been an impossibility.

The droid stood in the center of a massive square, it resembled a statue as its mind raced to plot more and more points within the map slowly whirling into creation within its mind. It saw what few had seen, what most had chosen to ignore. It had seen the machines of Coruscant and how they connected, how the spiderweb of automation arced and consumed the Ecumenopolis. It had studied and coalesced data that had rarely been put together, even by those who had lived on Coruscant for thousands of years.

It had found something interesting.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Didn’t I?

She didn’t respond, letting the remark pass. She supposed he was right – she didn’t really know him from a hole in the wall despite her knack for easing in to most situations as if they were her every-day. (Wait…you meant there’s usually NOT a bull rancor in your living room?) He probably would have found just as suitable an escape route if not the same had she not shown up. She’d gotten the impression she’d changed the dynamic slightly and maybe given him a few seconds but perhaps she was overestimating her piece on the board.

After all, she’d just shown up out the blue.

Her penchant for chasing the extraordinary was less out of a passive bid for self-destruction and more genuine interest, an armor of the sort less tangible than others spent painstaking hours making. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with that – on the contrary, fighting someone wrapped in metal was fun, satisfying when she punched a pair of knives through and watched a split-second of confusion before their face emptied – but she’d spent the entirety of her adult life so far seeing how far she could push her mind. (Shock me. Come on. I’m begging you. Give me a reason to be afraid of you.) But for a woman who saw and did the things she did, it was a game that seemed to have no end point – a brink yet to be crossed, depths yet to be plumbed. The drugs had been a bid to warp her mind, push the boundaries she knew and see if someone might open their mouth and just keep on going, split on a hemisphere hinge with white-teeth edges, something to chew her up and spit her out and finally keep her up at night. (The worst trip, the WORST. A confident shaman – yeah, to walk me off this mountain, to look up and watch casually as the stars snuffed out: the nine billion names of god.) That was her armor - to experience and experience and experience until nothing disturbed her, nothing broke her.

[SIZE=12pt]Time’s a flat circle.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]I’ll just be here again.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]I’ll be in this street again.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]And again.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]And again.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]And again.[/SIZE]
​

She felt something subtle, a flutter right outside her mind like something was inviting itself. It was familiar taste but somehow shifted, kind of like eating with a headcold, the same intention but its application was mostly unknown to her. It was a move that squirmed somewhat past her usually airtight defenses and that was enough to pull her from her 3am alleyway thoughts. Just a suggestion, it laced through her brain and planted, blooming in flashes in a response almost without thought: of finger-press bruises, crushing grips, the full part of his lower lip pulled between fangs. He got what he wanted she assumed as her expression seemed sewn together from two separate parts, at once narrowing her eyes in suspicion and smirking in amusement. But they had company and besides…it wasn’t that easy.

And even if it had been, she was distracted by the word “parents”. It didn’t really matter if it was a joke. Matsu liked children to a certain extent, and that extent was at least thirty feet away from her and observed from a distance. “If we were good parents that would be our job.”

Lightside points immediately lost again.

She nodded when he tried her name, an accent in which she’d not heard it attempted before. She was used to it being botched, the nasally ‘a’ hitting hard in most tongues on first try. Maybe it was contributing to the anonymity that often suited her but was fast fading – no one was announcing her correctly.

“I guess I’m hungry though, little blue thing” she said to Mala, speaking to the the hap-hazard signals of a body unsure in the middle of its trip what exactly it truly wanted versus what was part of the ride. She walked past The Stranger & The Squib (hmm, how quaint, a fairy tale worthy of Grimm, complete with breadcrumbs to the lair of a fat sack of meat and his hormonal ghost companion), assuming they would follow as the idea of food had seemed mutually agreed upon. But a few steps out she found herself turning around, walking backwards and watching the two of them.

“So if those are your friends, what are you? Human? How do I know you’re not just someone’s lunch meat floating in a hoverchair?” It wasn’t that the fact he didn’t share his name bothered her – she was honestly just curious, even if he lied through his teeth. Lies told you about a person too. She also didn't particularly care if he was a meatbag in disguise (barring the fact that it was a crude description of a human anyway). As long as he wasn't interested in trying to turn her in to a pile of gore like the one they'd left behind there were no problems. She stepped deftly over the legs of a homeless man as they tread to Force knew where – the man in the trenchcoat was clearly more familiar with the area than her.

[member="Trenchcoat Man"] | [member="Mala"]​

 

[Mala]

Mala went rigid and stopped bouncing as the womans finger connected with her forehead. tension rippling through her body, unsure what the gesture meant. Slowly she lowetred the crystal she offered, her bright eyes darting between the pair as they discussed her like she was a child. In many ways, she was a child. Naive and ignorant about the greater galaxy around her, concerned only with the simple things in life. Like where the next meal was coming from. She was however, a full grown (more or less) squib, just one that had spent a long time in a ship drifting in space. Alone.

That does things to people. Especially small and young ones.

"Mala, doesn't bite ankles." she said indignantly. "Mala bites hands and noses." Her stomach growled. "You buy. You has more money. Or take gem, and feed Mala for a month." She gave a wicked little grin for such a sweet looking thing.

[OOC: so sorry guys, life took hold.]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] [member="Trenchcoat Man"]