Hollow Beat

[Kuzo]

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The room was silent other than the brush of fabric across the floor from heavy robes, the sound of quietly whirring machinery, and low, steady breathing.

The figure on the bed was still. Oh, very much alive, but dwindling in that space between coma and unconscious. Deeper than asleep but only just. If she had jabbed him with a needle he probably wouldn't have noticed. Honestly she wasn't sure if he'd been conscious if he would. Not a small specimen, this Togruta.

A name, however, that she knew. At least, by reputation.

Oh, barely as Irajah Ven. But as Dr. Vain, she knew at least the broad strokes of the man she was taking care of. A personal favor to [member="Darth Carnifex"].

As Doctor Vain, of course she was ready to (even if that doctor was happy about nothing). As Irajah Ven however, she was very interested in seeing just who this person was to the Dark Lord, the man she sought to bring to his knees.... and find a way to use it if she could.

If she couldn't?

Well, she might decide that taking him from Carnifex would be worth the risk.

For now, however, she did her duty as Vain. She needed to. The earliest stages of her plans were only just beginning. She had too much work to do to just throw it away for a petty revenge. No, she did what needed to be done to maintain her cover. Her force signature cloaked tight, those skills unused. Instead she did what she was required as a Doctor.

Helped the Sith in front of her.

Wrapped in the heavy robes of Doctor Vain, the beaked mask covering her face, she checked his vitals, adjusting a particular line into his arm. The diminutive figure stood beside him, beak tilted toward the read outs.

[member="Darth Pyrrhus"]

 

[Darth Pyrrhus]

The Togruta lay still on the bed. He felt nothing. One would have been forgiven for forgetting where this was, and thinking it was the morgue. He already looked dead.

His right hand? Black. Dark tendrils raced up his arm. These ominous marks looked like his veins, though thick and solid. Even though they were distinctly coming from within, they pushed out so much so that it made it seem as if they were long, thin leeches that had latched on from the outside. Had his blood frozen? Or was this simply the colour of pure evil pumping out of his decrepit heart?

These marks were clearly pronounced on his chest and legs as well, particularly the latter. The corruption had not yet spread to his head, but judging from the marks on his neck they were not far away. Oddly enough, it was the left arm and leg that had it the worst, their counterparts only afflicted in a less pronounced way. But it was there.

All of this was easy enough to cover up with tunics and dark robes. Even so, he looked drained. Typically more radiant, now his rust-red skin was a fainter hue of pink. Far from smooth, his skin had irregular rashes here and there, and was very dry. These details were small in scale but they completed the picture.

Had his eyes been open, he would have looked even more aged. There was a fear in them, in moments of weakness, of his time having passed, of the knowledge he so fervently denied that he had witnessed his peak, and now all that remained was slow rot and decay.

Pyrrhus lay still on the bed. But his mind was anything but quiet. Inside he was reliving the moment, over and over again. Where had he gone wrong? He had sought him out. Stared power straight in the eye. With a combination of deceit and brute strength he had conquered it, he had thought. But it had cursed him in return.

How the mighty have fallen. He needed the good doctor now. This was beyond him, something which he had only been able to admit much too late. The self-induced coma had been the only smart move he had made combating this. It had bought him time. Time, but not life. Just like he had been trained, he had purged all illness and toxins with the Dark Side. Like a brute slamming his head against the wall, he had tried it again and again, applying more pressure, more power. But it only worsened his condition and made the spread more rapid.

| [member="Irajah Ven"] |​

 

[Kuzo]

To save him or not?

It would be very, very easy to let him die. Or even to kill him and simply claim that there was nothing she could do. [member="Darth Carnifex"] would believe that Vain had done all she could. It was very easy to lay the trail that said she had. And Vain was loyal to him down into the cellular level. There was no possible betrayal she could orchestrate. It was hard coded into the clone. It would be so very easy.

Irajah was tempted and she wouldn't pretend otherwise. The figure on the table meant something to the Dark Lord. To deny him that would give her a certain warmth, there was no denying.

And yet....

Breathing in deeply, she took a risk.

While she was acting as Vain, Irajah was keeping her force signature tightly under wraps. Keeping it small and weak- mimicking that of the actual Vain. The only true way to maintain that for the long periods needed also required that she shun the use of the Force except for the most trivial things that the clone had used it for. Floating a cup of caf for example. The good doctor had shunned her training in the Force to focus on the science, just as Raj had done in the early days. So while she was here in the lion's den, Irajah kept a lid on her actual capacity and abilities screwed on tightly.

No one was here, and the Togruta was unconscious.

Carefully, Irajah tapped into Shatterpoint.

A thousand threads. A thousand cracks. Oh, it didn't let her see the future with any clarity. But it allowed her to view the potentials of this moment. She drew in a shaky breath, and it was gone again. A flicker in the Force and then capped again.

His death could do nothing to further her intentions. His life however....

Irajah set to work.

She would be there when he awakened.

[member="Darth Pyrrhus"]

 

[Darth Pyrrhus]

He floated there, near the top of the roof. The room seemed strange to him, strange and foreign. A medical facility perhaps? There wasn’t much to go on besides the equipment. Medical facility, or a morgue? he thought, as his attention honed in on the Togruta laying there, unmoving.

Wait… A thought stirred within him, then louder, louder, until it was all he could think and hear. That creature… is me! But this version of him looked aged, diseased. Was this a vision of the future? Was this how he met his end? A slow decay, a victim of disease? Poison? No, that couldn’t be…

And then he remembered. All at once, flashbacks washed over him in rapid succession. They were gone as quick as they came, and spared no extra time to explain themselves. But he remembered. Trahir.

The name brought back alive the burning hatred within him. With the hate came the fresh taste of the Dark Side wrapping itself around his slender fingertips, waiting to be unleashed… But then it bit him. As soon as he tasted the Force, he tasted pain, fire, decay. And just in that moment his mind’s eye turned to the creature sitting next to his unmoving body…

A beaked creature. His heart rate increased. What is he doing? What is he doing to me? He was not accustomed to being at the mercy of someone else.

In a sudden gasp for fresh air, he opened his eyes. No longer floating, he was back within his body. This came with a cost, as he could feel the fruits of all the trials set upon his flesh. Shocked, he had sat up from the bed, but immediately been met with a sharp pain to his chest, forcing out a pained groaned as she slumped back.
He felt exhausted. He had so many questions. But no air, breath or words found him. All he could do now was stare at that beaked creature from his vision, looking down on him.

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

The machines presaged his return to consciousness before the outward indications. She had warning, the soft ping indicating the shift in brain activity as well as the changes in heart rate and blood pressure.

A gloved hand reached out, firm but not aggressive as it pressed against his shoulder.

"Do not try to get up."

The voice was buzzing and distorted, the vocoder in the mask making it impossible to get much about the speaker. Species? Gender? Other than the diminutive stature and the capacity to speak basic- assuming it wasn't being translated by the mask itself, were the only clues. Swathed in heavy robes, masked, gloved, the usual form of Doctor Vain Jar'He hidden, as always.

That amused Irajah herself to no small end. Multiple layers. Even if the mask were removed she would still be wearing the good doctor's face. Their genetics, so closely identical that it would take an expert to tell them apart and only then if they knew just where to look. With her presence in the Force cloaked and shrunken, not utilizing it beyond the ways the otherwise inept clone had, she greatly appreciated how the clone's habits had, in the end, only benefited her.

A reminder that the clone, and everything she did, ultimately belonged to Irajah Ven, not Kaine Zambrano.

"You have undergone a severe series of events and your body is pushed to its limits. Rest." Buzzing, almost insectoid.

"I am Doctor Vain Jar'He. Emperor Zambrano's personal physician. I am sure you have questions, but you must rest."

[member="Darth Pyrrhus"]