Private It All Starts Here

[Darth Daiara]

An inhuman noise caught in her throat, a mix between a gasp and a groan as he cranked her arm. Her desperate nails and wiggling limbs had done nothing for her. She was small, and even though Kaalia kept her well-fed and training hard, she wasn't strong.

She would never do well in a grapple. Zaavik's quick work at restraining her only highlighted the weakness he had breeched.

Her cheek pressed flat into the stone ground, her vision growing murky as blood slid down over her left eyebrow. She painted, not a single part of her relaxing or relenting to the hold.

"Oh now the jedi withholds death," she taunted, hiding her fear behind sharp words. She tried to skim for a way out. It was hard with the man at her back, her thoughts constantly jumping for a sign of the blow that would end her life.

She was terrified, the force twisting and coiling around her she struggled against the situration.

A sith controls the fear. A slave is controlled by it. ​

She let out a long breath, her body slowly relaxing. "Threaten all you want. I'm not helping you."

Her arms clenched, betraying the sudden buck of her core as she tried to dislocate her shoulder and buy herself the inch to squirm out.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

THE CORE // GALACTIC ALLIANCE TERRITORY

​

"Now?" Zaavik added more pressure as she squirmed. "Nothing I've subjected you to would have been fatal. You're the only one trying to kill." He continued to restrain. Fruitless silence got him nowhere. "Give it up," he insisted. She was turning out to be just a stubborn as he was. Maybe it wasn't so surprising for a Sith. "Don't make this any harder than it needs to be, okay?" He would have already sent a signal, but both hands were preoccupied. No way to hit the alarm.

"Threaten all you want. I'm not helping you."​

Zaavik sighed as she began to squirm again. She nearly managed to weasel her way out, but he managed to maintain his hold. "Can't say I didn't warn you." After a moment of hesitation, Zaavik pressed down further with his knee. His hands pulled the arm up and outward, targeting the shoulder with a contortion that it wasn't quite built for. Nothing crippling, at least not permanently. He'd shift to remain in a pinning position, but freeing his hands to hit the device on his wrist.

The silent alarm sounded.

Darth Daiara​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Crack.

The alarm was silent, her scream was not. In retrospect it was foolish of her think she could use a dislocate to escape. The moment he did it himself was the moment the world flashed red. All fight left the body under him, the girl going limp in a desperate attempt gain a reprieve from the contortion.

It did not come. "Stop-stop-No. I'm Aradia. I'm Aradia!" The words fell from her lips in a desperate babble, ten steps ahead of her mind. She half sobbed on the floor, not stubborn enough to risk her body for pointless facts. She didn't view this moment as any real hitch. Until she was dead, there was a chance to escape. It all worked better if she remained intact.

"I just got here-- I didn't do anything to your systems, I just wanted to know! You weren't suppose to come in. I wasn't here to hurt the place!"

Yet.

The pain retreated to a burning throb, a bit of the frenzy leaving her mind. Through the tears and the blood-blurried vision she skimmed the dark room. There was a way out of this. There always was.

"The bracelet, it just sucks. It just burns things out, that's all. Let me up, I can show you."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

THE CORE // GALACTIC ALLIANCE TERRITORY

​

"Aradia," he echoed. One to quickly commit it to memory. That way, at least, if this went south, and she delta'd, he'd have a name. He couldn't help but feel bad. Hearing the scream, watching the crimson slowly pool on the floor. He did what he had to for pacification. Short of killing her, that was. Sith or not, she was a person all the same. Zaavik had empathy, even if putting her to the sword would be an easy and familiar option.

"Fuuuuuck me," he conceded with obvious vexation. Any reservations he had about letting her stand were quelled by an insidious concoction of guilt and the knowledge that more Jedi were coming. Even if she tried something, he doubted she'd get far. Zaavik stood taking a few steps away, pulling his own saber back to him and placing a foot on her unignited hilt. Better safe than sorry, he thought. Though, the irony of that sentiment flew over his head as Aradia was allowed to stand.

"Zaavik," he introduced flatly. Empathy was talking again. Normalize. Maybe she wouldn't run with the mask down? Unlikely. The Padawan produces a rag from an inner jacket pocket and gave an underhanded toss towards the Sith. He didn't expect to get it back. Not that he was going to particularly want it back, covered in her blood. "I've got others on the way. Don't get all shifty-eyed. Just start squealing."

Darth Daiara​

 

[Darth Daiara]

The arm fell limp on the floor when it was released, her whole body slow to respond to the freedom he gave. She pulled herself up, her teeth gritting back the aches. She always knew losing distance was dangerous for her in a fight, but she understood the levity of it now more than ever.

She slid another step back from him, clutching her arm to her core as she found her way to her feet.

Start squealing.

She glared warily, a subtle flinch seizing her body when he tossed the cloth. It went uncaught, the slash across her temple looking more dramatic than it felt. Like she'd want his sympathy, anyway. "I already told you everything," she gritted, eyeing her saber under his foot. As expected, she entertained grabbing it from him. But she had made one vital mistake-- one flaw in reasoning that she cursed out now.

He had dislocated her sword arm.

She swallowed hard, not visually reacting to the news that others were coming. The force, however, swelled around her. Dark and corrosive, she leaned into it.

"Why don't you plug the bracelet in and see it for yourself. Blue side-- aggressive malware. Always gets in, but leaves a trace. I've just downloaded your records."

To the device hidden in her pocket.

Psyche.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

THE CORE // GALACTIC ALLIANCE TERRITORY

​

Zaavik rolled the hilt closer under the arch of his boot when he spotted a shifting glare. He shook his head subtly, stern glare unwavering. He spun the seized bracelet device around an outstretched index finger. "No, I think I've seen enough," he declared as he slipped the device into his jacket pocket. Instinct told him it was a ruse to fry another terminal. Little did he know what the ruse truly was. Arms returned tucked tightly over one another over his chest. A favored lean on his non-dominant leg posed him to silently surveil Aradia.

"Just do mine and yourself a favor and don't try anything." One eyebrow raised with the demand. He took a few steps forward, boots sounding off with hollow thuds against the stone. "Between you and me? Alliance Intelligence isn't nearly as patient." That surely spoke volumes considering her arm was already dislocated. Arguably it was her own fault. "Just tell me who sent you. Sith Master, blah blah, but who?"

Zaavik felt bad. Did the Sith really send people his age alone so deep into Alliance territory? Sounded like suicide. A girl without a choice deluding herself into thinking this was what she wanted? Maybe. Maybe not. Getting analytical about someone else's Ego against Superego struggle was usually a waste of time.

Perhaps he saw himself; at another time, with a different circumstance, staring back at him in Aradia. One different fork in his path and that could've been him. An inexplicable resonance of tortured volumes that Zaavik was all too familiar with beamed back at him through her likewise blue eyes. Same pain, different cage. Beggar, not chooser.

Was that where the guilt was coming from? Or was it another echo of Korriban trying to trip him up?

Darth Daiara​

 

[Darth Daiara]

He stepped forward, she stepped back. He wasn't allowed any closer to her, no matter how much it pushed her away from the exit. There was another somewhere. Not for the first time she wished she had shown any talent in precognition. As the Force would have it, she did not. Which was likely half the reason she was in this mess.

A hiss of frustration escaped through her teeth, her eyes narrowing at his threat.

"Oh I'm fully aware of what your people do. I've seen how you left Korriban. And Dantooine. And Bastion. I see you," she spat, hatred in her tone.

Kill him.

No time.

With the tip of her boot she drew a line between them, the darkside lingering behind to the mind's eye. She breathed it in, its strength melting away the pain and giving her a burst of endurance. She could practically feel its pleasure in her submitance, its power thrumming through her like a song. She needed it.

She accept that now.

"And we're you're not gonna let you get your way."

Fire erupted from the line she drew, the tips of the flames white with the intensity of the flames. It jumped out at him like an explosion, earning a distraction that would both blind him in the dark and create a momentary barrier.

As the the roar of the inferno died down, he would hear the distance patter of footsteps. Heart in her throat, her saber left under his boot. She ran for her life through the halls of the Jedi.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

THE CORE // GALACTIC ALLIANCE TERRITORY

​

"What my people do?" The Zeltron's lip curled with disgust. He wouldn't speak for Bastion. It was horrific front from every side, every angle, and comatose saw him unfit to provide himself to an effort. Not like he wanted to, anyway. "How are Korriban and Dantooine at all comparable to the countless worlds subjugated and stripped clean by your people?"

Anger.

He staunched his emotions before they could get the better of him. There is peace.

"If you mourn for them, it shows that there is still good in y-"

Bright yellow, radiant orange, and malicious crimson flooded over his vision. Tips of purple locks singed, the smell of burnt hair immediately occupying his nostrils. Heat overwhelmed his face. Fear squeezed his eyes shut and brought his arm up as a snap reaction. Zaavik vocalized a meaningless wail of surprise and anguish, stumbling back and nearly tripping on the saber he pinned.

The sudden conflagration lit a repressed fuse.

The heated singed to the very bone. A young Zaavik heaved, his sensationless fingers gripped around the writhing pile of burned flesh that had occupied the vehicle with him. Blasters, explosions, and screams rang in the air around him. Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead. The wheezing, unrecognizable figure of Jeislan was freed from the wreckage with one final pull.

No hair, eyes, or facial features were recognizable behind the greyish brown meat that the man's face had become. Lipless maw wheezed and hissed muffled screams from behind scorched teeth. The Zeltron fell on his ass, slumped against the mangled durasteel hull with the head and shoulders of what used to be both his greatest torturer and only family in his lap.

His hair had singed nearly to the scalp. Arms and chest screamed with the pain of Zeltros's very sun. He rocked back and forth, wide-eyed to the twisted lullaby of Jeislan's death throes.

"Zaavik!" A gruff voice called out from behind. Another cartelman climbed over a mound of wreckage with a blaster locked in his grips. "They're breaking, push for-!" A bright flash of viridescent turbolaser overtook the image of the man. Blood sprayed in every direction as the criminal was instantly liquified. The blood splattered against Zaavik's exposed skin, niggling every burnt nerve it could reach.

The boy screamed.

Anger.

There was no controlling it this time. Both sides of his saber ignited. Zaavik roared incoherently in shock and rage. The green plasma spun wildly like a sawblade as he chucked it blindly in the direction of the footsteps. The Padawan crumbled to his knees, panic seizing his lungs, begetting laborious hyperventilation.

Darth Daiara​