Vera choked white blood as The Amalgam hurled her against the wall.
"Such a disgusting beast..." The Amalgam hissed, spitting on Vera as the damaged android struggled to rise, only to be hit by a laser bolt in the arm and knee by her captor's pistol. "Though I confess, such a creation might...occasionally have its uses.
"I w-w-will c-c-cut your h-h-heart out and f-f-feed it to y-y-you..." the android replied, its vocal programs glitching as she fixed dead eyes on eyes just as lifeless.
The Amalgam force choked Vera brutally, making her cough more white blood as she stood over her.
"You have just the most ill-tempered mouth, don't you?" The shapeshifter sneered at Vera, who was quite helpless on the floor of the security room.
Vera gargled more white blood. "At least I don't dress like I got a cyberpunk fetish."
This earned her a kick to the face that broke her nose. Vera's processors glitched heavily as her vision went red, seeing static intermittently.
"I will find that girl, and make you watch as I skin her."
Vicious rage built in the Amalgam and she almost blew the android's head off right then.
"Enough!" The Mech-Queen snarled over the P.A. "You win. Take the book!"
"Have it dropped off at my ship." The Amalgam commanded, stopping herself at the last moment.
"I'm gonna reach down her throat and pull her fething heart out!" The Android snarled, knowing it would escape the Mech-Queen.
The Amalgam Force-Pulled Vera's throat into her hand.
"You are so lucky the Queen will be the one to kill you instead of me..." the Shi'ido hissed.
"You haven't delivered on your deal yet." Vera taunted, blood leaking out of her eyes.
The shapeshifter smirked, dragging the android by her throat out of the security office, down an elegant passage that soon revealed bodies shot up by Vera.
"Your technique is good but too...common." The Amalgam said of her method of carnage, dragging her to where the Hangar was located. She wanted that book badly enough to spare the android. Otherwise Vera would have been eviscerated for her insolence. It was bad enough for the dark evangelist that she wouldn't get to do it herself
"I hope the erasure process is a painful one." The Amalgam smirked as she neared the hangar doors, opening them with a wave of her hand...
...upon which she was greeted by a flying kick to the chest from Maple Harte. The Amalgam dropped Vera flying backward and dropping the bag containing Darth Rigor's organs.
Maple was wearing her black Sasori Armor, which looked both metallic and organic at the same time, her green eyes zeroing in on the Amalgam who shot back up, smiling with great wickedness.
"What a surprise! What a delight!" The Amalgam exclaimed, her purple blades sliding out of her hilt as she saw Maple's sabercane go active, its viridian blades sprouting.
Vera crawled away as Maple walked closer with a glare.
"However did you find me? Oh, we're going to have such fun, you and I!" The Amalgam proclaimed. "First, I think we should get you some new armor...something white, preferably...blood shows up much better on the background..."
"Planted a tracker on Sawa's ex once I got close to her. I didn't trust Nine Lives. When she disappeared into the Mountain I feared the worst. I was right. But I was also wrong in thinking it was Nine I should be worried over."
The Amalgam gave her a series of happy little claps.
"Oh, you're just so cuddly when you start using your brain."
"What are you here for, Amalgam?"
The Amalgam tilted her head to one side in disbelieving contempt, though her ringed saber began to spin.
"Uri, dear, you don't expect me to explain my evil little plan just by asking, do you?"
"Fine. I'll strap you to a chair and pump you so full of truth serum you won't know your ass from a kyber on a cave wall." Maple snapped, twirling her cane.
"Oooo, can we segway into torture afterward?! I know some fantastic tips to get you started. Just warning you, though, I get a little woozy after the first few gut punches..." The Amalgam trailed.
"She is after the organs of Darth Rigor, and a book..." the bloody Vera called out, heavily damaged.
The Amalgam narrowed her eyes.
"Another word, and I get the can-opener!" The Amalgam snapped.
Vera stuck her tongue out at her.
Maple snarled and charged her hated nemesis, using her drunken Ataru to try and confuse her even as she leapt and spun to her.
The Amalgam's blades spun on their tracks as she caught the viridian shoto at the bottom of Maple's cane. Diagonal, vertical, horizontal slices all linking with one another, so fast the Amalgam had to just dodge as opposed to parry, but it was difficult, her Master's saber had been made to be used by her master, not her, it was a little bulkier and heavier to defend with, forcing the Amalgam to go on the offensive more than she liked. To her delight, Uri did not stay still, always leaping and flipping away from her attacks.
"You've improved!" The Amalgam gushed, trying to score a nicking wound on her arms to end the fight. Uri was not going for it, her twirling attacks becoming more focused and vicious aiming for the obvious vulnerable spot, the ring track on her blades. The Amalgam shut off one blade, to more appropriately duel the focused attacks.
Purple and silver-green blades locked together.
"You can't win, Uri." The Amalgam taunted, "Just as before, you were not expecting to face me today."
"You ain't cut my fething arm off yet." Maple snapped, trying to hold the lock, but The Amalgam, even without the Force, was slightly stronger than her, and could grow stronger still.
"And reduce your Force Potential?! For shame, Uri."
"You will die for Kadmus." Maple pushed back.
"You hate me. Good. But...its all for your own betterment, Uri. All of it."
The Amalgam began to push back herself, drawing on the darkness to slightly enhance her strength. Her muscles bulged slightly, dead purple eyes getting bloodshot as she forced Maple to one knee during the bladelock. Maple was forced to give ground, rolling away, the Amalgam's blade biting into the floor.
"I'm not even going full strength! You still can't handle me." The Amalgam taunted as Maple got back up.
Maple was fending off savage chops and stabs that her already unreliable Force Speed could barely keep up with. Maple gave ground, parrying , because she could not outright block The Amalgam's enhanced strength. She had to leap, twirl, and dodge the vicious attacks as she was driven back into the hangar, which was actually worse, because now The Amalgam was free to employ both blades.
Maple forced a moment of total focus on herself, fighting off the madness. She backed away as the blades on the track began to spin.
"I see there is room for improvement." The Amalgam sneered. "Still holding back."
"I don't get you..." Maple breathed, still backing away as The Amalgam drew closer, the blades held out in front of her, spinning on their track at max speed.
"What's to get, Uri dear? I want only the best for you..." The Amalgam trailed silkenly. "It's just...enlightenment isn't worth the expenditure without the pain..."
Maple guarded. "I will never serve you. I won't let you become The Mindbinder."
"Uri, by the time this is all over, you will help me become your future."
"Go to hell."
"Not until I know you'll be going with me."
This, for lack of more eloquent terminology, creeped Maple the hell out.
"Can't you just be a normal dark sider that wants payback?" Maple protested.
"Payback? You'd think I'd waste my time on just payback. Dearest, you're a long term investment. Well, okay, in all fairness, I have wasted my time on payback in the past, but seriously, I'm trying to do better--"
Maple held out her hand. "Mother Nature, a volley of arrows flies towards my foes."
Purple, arrow-like bolts of energy flew out of a light made by her hand, but the Amalgam used the helicopter function of her staff to temporarily propel her upward out of their path, firing multiple heavy bolts of lightning. Maple ducked behind some ancient shipping crates, retrieving a Mandalorian Assault Rifle, switching it to full auto and opening fire. The Amalgam snarled, forced to smack away the heavy bolts that hurt her wrists with the impact as she dropped to the ground, ducking behind a hover-forklift whose hull was slowly stripped away as Maple blasted at it. The Amalgam squealed in amusement and delight, letting her own insanity have full reign in the moment as Maple roared, trying to murder her.
"You're so adorable when you're furious!" The Amalgam called out from behind the forklift, laughing. She then triggered another mechanism on her blade.
Maple blinked as the world went almost black.
"Is the darkness really so bad, Uri?" The Amalgam's voice issued from what seemed to be everywhere as Maple came out of hiding, trying to feel where the corruption was. She felt it, intense and dark enough that even her addled mind could not miss it.
"Are you not more alert? More alive?" The Amalgam hissed from what seemed to be right next to her, startling her. Maple wheeled and opened fire, only to hear The Amalgam laughing from everywhere.
"All it takes is letting it into yourself. Just a little, and suddenly, your whole life changes for the better...you gain power over it. Draw strength from it."
"You can achieve similar things with the light!" Maple said.
"You ain't fooling me, Uri. You're attracted to the Darkness. More than you will admit." answered back a demonic, yet feminine voice in the dark.
Maple got closer to wear she felt the corruption. She looked through her her scope. The Amalgam wasn't there, but her saber was.
Arms like stone, tight and unyielding, closed around her neck, putting her in a chokehold.
The Amalgam chuckled as she felt Maple go still, dropping the rifle, knowing her foe's arms were in a neckbreaking position.
"You can't kill me. You need me, right?"
"I do, but if I did have to break your neck, rest assured, I know of plenty of ways to ressurect you."
"Then why not just do it?!" Maple asked, tempting fate. "You control the resurrection process, I could come back thinking whatever you want."
The Amalgam snorted at this, fingers idly playing with Maple's hair, letting brown locks the color of chocolate glide inbetween them.
"Because that's not enlightenment. Just me winding you up like a watch. There is no joy to be had in such a victory..."
Maple struggled not to vomit in disgust as The Amalgam's fingertips petted her scalp lovingly.
"You're sick." Maple accused, quietly, trembling, wanting more than anything to get away.
"Just like you. We're two peas in a pod, Udinia, can't you see that? the shapeshifter responded quietly, her voice taking an edge of frustration to it. "You could make this so much easier on yourself, on me, if you would just give yourself to the Dark Side. We could take care of seventy five percent of the song and dance that way...you'll become as powerful as I am! More powerful, possibly! And you'll be made beautiful. All I want is to make your soul beautiful..."
The Amalgam wasn't even bothering to hide the crazy in her voice.
"You must join me..." The Amalgam whispered darkly. "You, me, maybe even Laertia if I can swing it...we would be unbreakable."
Maple moved very slowly with the shapeshifter as she began to move to a white, sleek vessel after retrieving her lightsaber and disabling its darkness effect, still in a chokehold.
"I remember when I used to find your ship and break into it after I first awoke. I would watch you sleep..." The Amalgam trailed. "Oh, it was torture, Uri. It was torture, not being able to speak to you right then, like I always wanted. I contented myself, took little snips of your hair--blessed the locks with blood, blessed your room with it--"
Maple elbowed the Amalgam in the stomach, diving for the assault rifle.
A burning pain on her ankles caused her to stumble, tumbling to the ground as she cried out in pain, choking suddenly. The Amalgam grinned, her hand in a claw grip.
"This is what I love about you." The Amalgam hissed, watching her daughter gasp desperately for air, but still struggled towards the rifle.
"Still fighting, still squirming. You could make others squirm like this. You only need the courage to ask for the power."
Maple struggled to the rifle, close to blacking out. Her fingers grasped it, only for The Amalgam's skin tight white boot to come down on the gun, sliding it out of her way.
"No. No guns. Fight me."
Maple struggled to concentrate, vision black at the edges, face red as she rolled on the floor.
"You aren't fighting hard enough and you are annoying me..." the shapeshifter trailed menacingly.
A slender arm wrapped around the Shi'ido's neck.
"You ever dance with the Devil, by the pale moonlight?" The damaged Android asked before wrenching backwards with all her remaining might.
The Amalgam's neck snapped, her body tossed to the ground a second later by Vera. The Amalgam's body soon decayed, the suit suffering damage as the body underneath self destructed, burning through parts of it as spoiled fat erupted through the decaying flesh on her face, erupting in purple flame.
"Guess not." Vera remarked, watching the body become ash in the damaged suit.
The Android stared at the barely conscious Maple.
"No need to thank me for finally getting rid of your stalker. Even 'I' was creeped out by the way she was speaking to you." Vera said.
"You didn't get rid of chit." Maple snapped as she watched a faint purple light leave the suit, heading to the sleek white ship.
"So...she downloads into a new body?" Vera remarked, whistling with a damaged face that exposed the white muscle underneath partly. "How curiously droid like."
"You bought us maybe three minutes..." Maple choked out, pulling herself up, grabbing the rifle. "C'mon, we gotta go. Where's your master?"
"I am uncertain. We were separated. How did you find your way in?" Vera asked.
"The slaughter at the entrance was kinda hard to miss."
"Oh."
Maple could feel The Amalgam's evil spirit touching her mind, even as it evicted the tenant of her new body.
Don't run, Uri.
Maple began to run, the damaged Android hobbling after her.
Meanwhile...
Nine, as soon as she had found the location of the Royal Panic Room, had began cutting viciously through the defenders in her path, ripping and tearing through golden armored yovshin.
This mechanical Empress bothered her, the more the Vampire thought of it. So similar were they. Both isolated, both trusting only their most loyal warriors and servants, both reliant on technology for a real leg up on the competition.
The great vault door was in the distance, a small army ready to defend it to the death, but a small army meant nothing to two ancient vampire shinobi yovshin Force Adepts. Before the question need be asked, yes, Nine had a business card that said exactly that. She hadn't distributed it.
Nine savagely beheaded one swordsman who dared stand against her, relying on brute attacks rather than finesse. This was Nine the terrifying swordfighter, who'd killed more Sith with a katana then she had with a lightsaber. She would leave the magic to [member="Sawa Ike"] while she would use pure physical skill and strength.
Nine was a buzzsaw, delimbing apmost on whim, the enemy's blades hardly coming close to touching her. Its golden blade slashed apart its former, now magically animated owners, revealing skulls, dried bones, even robotics once you got past it. But Nine never stopped attacking, fully letting loose to protect herself and Sawa, stabbing and chopping through opponents in a disturbingly elegant number of combinations, sliding, elbowing, throwing her sword, yanking it back out once she was close, enough. She disarmed another, stolle his golden katana, and suddenly it was worse, Nine savagely striking out at the stubborn defenders, giving a battle-cry as she beheaded three at once, manuvering her stolen swords around her. But the yovshin made her pay for every inch, and more reinforcements were now pouring in from both sides...
Meanwhile...
A weakened Maple and heavily damaged Vera ambled along a hall of the dead, neither quite trusting the other. Maple hadn't expected an assassin android. A mere droid with kill protocols is bad enough. Assassin Droids with skin were nightmares. Maple had encountered combat androids before. She always came incredibly close to dying in those encounters.
It had taken a few minutes before Maple had found a directions map, scavenging ammo like the android. But neither were in much condition to use it.
They had found a security center, which showed what floor Nine and Sawa were fighting on in this mountain fortress. Nine was a killing machine at close range that could give Laertia herself a run for her money at the blade, Maple realized, and Sawa...well...Maple already knew what kind of damage Sawa could do...
As messed up as they both were, they had to try and help. They made their way to a turbolift.
A snarl from within The Force made her turn around.
The Amalgam was back, clad in a skin tight black combat suit that exuded an incredibly strong corruption, much stronger than the old armor's nature. She was at the other end of the passage, both purple blades active.
"I haven't finished your lesson, Uri, my dear. Please...come back to your tutelage." The Amalgam requested, smiling sadistically.
Maple and Vera opened fire on her as the Amalgam charged, her spping blades deflecting the spray of bolts, her muscles bulging immensely as her eyes turned black. She would be on them in seconds, even with them firing.
Maple spotted a piece of shrapnel, cut her palm on it, screaming.
"Mother Nature, a sacrifice of blood angers the wind."
A hurricane strength blast of air flung the Amalgam backward brutally into a wall, the Shi'ido giving inhuman, wailing shrieks of rage at both being kept from her daughter as well as said daughter's continued rejection.
The Amalgam slid across the floor, the blast of wind still going, but she bit her saber into the floor to stop herself from being flung back any further.
Vera tackled Maple to the ground to avoid the retaliation of lightning bolts at high intensity from The Amalgam's hand, the turbolift finally sliding open. The Android lifted her up with her and hurled her into the lift, firing to keep their foe occupied as the doors closed.
The lift went up at high speed.
Maple exhaled. Vera sighed.
"I will need to adjust my weapons loadout for Force Adepts..." the android remarked.
Maple looked up at her with a death glare. Vera, her face still partly demolished by the Shi'ido's earlier kick only smiled crookedly, a piece of her masquer hanging from her cheek, revealing all white muscle. Maple wanted to be sick...
Uri. Search your feelings. You KNOW you would be better off under my guidance... The Amalgam whispered in her mind.
Maple shuddered, closing her mind off from the fiend.
