Ghost Hunting

[Iona Immarya]

Iona's mouth opened and closed as she tried to make sense of what was going on. Land of the living? Third mission? Losing another Padawan? What? Did they come off an assembly and were like losing the keys? More to the point, he was still crushing her against very, very painful stone steps that were digging into her lower spine, the half that was still very much all her. Finally, he got off her, "Watch the knee," she grumbled but took his offered hand and hoisted herself back up to her feet.

"I didn't hear you," Iona said simply, her eyes looking at him blandly and she did her best to paint her face to convey the galaxy wide 'Duh' expression that everyone had mastered in their teens, stating what should have been obvious, "How can anyone hear anything with all the screaming and like.." She paused, her left hand rolling in the air as she tried to find the right word, "groans? Yeah, groans down here."

It was then she realized, they had stopped, "Well, I mean, before, before it was deafening, I had just started to tone it out, its gone though which makes me sound crazy, did you really not hear it?"

Her confusion was interrupted by a new flood of confusion as Vaun spoke to the man, who was obviously a sith but considering the situation, she had bigger issues to deal with then wanting to add that to the list, plus, so far, he had been helpful. He was on the, 'problems for another day' list right between her laundry and finishing her report on the Fundamental Principles of Alteration. Something about training and order, once again, she found herself blinking a few times in confusion. Had he offered to train Vaun? That was a huge no, in her book, but it seemed he had taken care of it, which was great as that would have made for an awkward conversation on the way back.

Iona nodded, more then happy to take the compliment, "If you eat your veggies," she chided, "you may become as brave as myself." of course, she decided she wouldn't mention how terrified she was when she was making her way towards the altar and how, once, she had gotten so petrified she almost couldn't take another step, but she wasn't about to spoil the positive image he had. It was rare anyone had a positive image of her and who was she to deny him that?

As the totally Sith walked away, apparently to leave, Iona looked between Vaun and the Sith, had she done something wrong? Was this one of those 'bromances' that was big with the young gangers.. and pretenders?

[member="Lord Demone Rosso"][member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

As Mereel watched Iona giving him her best "Duh, you idiot" face, his HUD's view modes began rapidly switching, and froze on a thermal view mode.

With a sigh, he took off his helmet, clipped it to his belt, and failed to keep his eyes from widening when Iona mentioned deafening screams. He pulled his rifle from his back, and activated the flashlight attached to the bottom of the rifle's underslung rail.

He rolled his eyes as Iona made her 'eat your greens comment', and started rifling through his belt pouches. As he pulled out a frag grenade and clipped it to his belt proper, he began muttering, "Osik, no you're definitely not crazy ner vod. You read the report right? Screaming ghost monsters almost killed me the last time I was here, I would be a fool to not take your wo-"

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement up the staircase.

A pitched wail rang out above, and an amalgamation of rotted flesh and bone rapidly charged down toward them.

​

[member="Iona Immarya"]​

 

[Solan Charr]

"Huh, and here I thought there would be more Action, maybe a bit of romance. I could just see this ending with one of the two kissing the other, but it would appear I was wrong." Solan appeared behind [member="Iona Immarya"], quite literally as he looked out from behind the red haired woman and at [member="Mereel Vaun"], who he gave a wave to and yawned. His eyes looked tired and he looked around the area with his hands placed inside the pockets of some kind of some kind of jacket. The man appeared to have no weapons on him, no blaster or saber, and was largely unassuming.

His hair was a dark color, almost black but not quite. His eyes an icy blue color that looked through people rather than at them, staring at them but not in a hostile manner, quite the opposite. Even though the icy color could be unsettling, it was a rather kind look inside of the eyes, something that welcomed people rather than attempted to shoo them away. His eyes were ringed by a pair of glasses, which seemed highly impractical these days considering how easy it was to simply repair or replace the eyes if they were so bad as to require glasses.

It was then that the man paid some attention to the creature that had appeared, the one noticed by [member="Mereel Vaun"]. With interest he stared and watched, curious to see what those here would do as he continued to just exist in the area. It would be expected of the two to become hostile towards him, considering his rather quick appearance but Solan put his money on them being preoccupied while he was treated to a rather interesting sight. One of the creatures would probably come towards him, or one of the Jedi might be in need of aid later down the line. In both cases he would help them, but for now he was interested in seeing what they could do.

 

[Iona Immarya]

When [member="Mereel Vaun"] removed his helmet, Iona assumed he was doing it to be courteous, to try and listen for the voices she had heard, not that it would do much good. They wouldn't start now that he was listening, because that was never how these things worked. The second he put his helmet back on though, Iona was willing to bet the credits she didn't have that they would start up again because the Force wasn't fair and why would life be any different? She was pleasantly surprised to find out this wasn't the case, he believed her! But her elation sunk down to that of an almost ashamed, bashful child as she had distinctly not read the briefing.

"W-Well, I browsed it.. Kinda." Iona said quietly not quite able to look him in the eye as she spoke. What was the big deal? They were just thugs, okay, creepy cultist creeps of creepiness, but still just thugs, she wasn't sure what was so 'monstrous' about people like that, really, they were closer to being sad needing some kind of group to make them feel less like outcast, to give the illusion they had a family that would care about them if they stopped showing up at the kitchens. Her life had been filled with those kinds of people, she knew this because she was one of those kinds of people.

Iona snapped her gaze to the top of the stairs and her jaw dropped, "V-Vaun," she started, her mind trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It... that thing wasn't a thing. It was a thing but it was a thing that shouldn't be a thing. It looked like it was barely holding itself together, a monstrocity straight out of an old holovid, and the smell, by the force, the smell alone. She had been trapped in cutter gang hideouts which were gangs who abducted people off the streets and stole their organs, grinding the remains to be sold as 'discount meat byproducts' to unsuspecting people who cannot afford anything more and didn't want to know what it was. But this, this was worse, "What the hell is that!?"

Her body was tense from surprise, confusion and fear, when she sensed a presence right behind her, felt breath on the nape of her neck, she spun around on her heel, her saber at the ready... As her eyes fell on the man, the man who certainly was not the man from before, her foot slipped as she had turned too swiftly, her heel passing just an inch too far off the ledge. For a moment, just a moment, Iona's world slowed to a crawl as her stomach plummeted... followed quickly by the rest of her body, as the world sped back up.

She fell ass first, smashing into the dense stone hard enough to bounce off, her body turned reflexily trying to protect her body as much as it can as she smashed her hip, then shoulder, then upper spine, which wasn't as bad as that was entirely metallic, and it continued as she tumbled down the stairs to come to a crashing stop at the bottom. Iona laid on her back, her blue eyes staring up to the dark abyss above, her crimson hair had broken free of its bond and lay around her head, splayed out over the cold stone. Her body hurt, she could almost feel her skin bruising even more then when it had when a certain someone had tackled her into the same stairs. If anything, the fall had knocked some control back into her, the waves of pain flooding her body doing wonders to clear her confusion.

'Why..' the thought crept through her mind unbidden, 'Why do they keep doing that?'

[member="Solan Charr"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

The sudden and unexpected newcomer and Iona falling were placed on the backburners of his mind. He knew that he could take out these creatures with a a few good shots from his rifle - or at least that had been the case on his earlier mission. But if the shadow monsters were ever given an opportunity to get up close..

Mereel raised his rifle and with ease he pulled the trigger back. The first shot surprised him, the second and third were deliberate. The first azure streak sailed true toward its targets head. The creature reeled back, feigning or perhaps feeling real pain. The second shot went too high, and went over the creature's head and up the staircase. Fortunately, the third shot had been too low, and caught the creature in the leg. It began tumbling down the stairs, past him and the newcomer, heading directly towards [member="Iona Immarya"].

"Osik.."

[member="Solan Charr"]​

 

[Iona Immarya]

Iona let out a groan of pain as she flexed her right hand as she ran through a check on her body, seeing if anything was broken or battered. Outside of the dull, throbbing ache at the bottom of her, all too human, spine, everything seemed to be in working order. Which was good, she did not want to explain to the medics that she had hurt herself because people kept popping up behind her and she had fallen down the stairs and, unlike many abused people, she truly had fallen down the stairs.

Her thought process was interrupted by a very distinct sound that of [member="Mereel Vaun"]'s blaster firing. Motivated by her instincts, Iona rolled to her feet in time to see the abomination tumbling towards her, right past the man, who she didn't have time to examine but had rudely crept up behind her as if it was some kind of fad running around, and right at her. She didn't have time to consider how much the force truly hated her and had it out for her, or the various great mysterious of the universe and how crazy the odds must be to have her in this position at this moment in time, instead, her body was moving. As the abomination tumbled to the bottom step and towards her, Iona turned on her heel and swung her lightsaber, holding it out perpendicular to her body.

The blade sizzled as it cleaved through the thing's flesh, but something was wrong. She didn't know what, it was happening too fast for her conscious mind to analyze, while thing smelt revolting, there was no smell of burning flesh which always accompanied a saber wound, there was also no 'impact' weight that she could feel. The saber passed all the way through the creature which let out a horribly scream as it body toppled into two pieces and then disappeared. It was then, in that moment, that she felt it. The wailing. It wasn't something that filled the air, but the mind, the stone object pulsed against her chest and Iona dropped her saber which clattered against the stone and deactivated.

She felt it, and in her mind, she saw the face of the stone mother holding onto her daughter and heard her screaming then she heard a loud crack and did not need to turn to know the statue had shattered and then.. nothing. Iona's eyes watered and she brought her right hand up to her mouth as she tried to process what just happened, that thing had been alive. It had been a person. It was still a person. some part of it, some time piece of it was still that person it was before. She had killed it. Harmed it. She could still feel its pain in her mind.

[member="Solan Charr"]