Jagged Mirror (ORC Dominion of Alakaha)

[Ria Misrani]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] | [member="Joza Perl"] | [member="Mia Monroe"] | [member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

​

Ria had been in a lot of strange places, she had seen a lot of strange things.

After all, she was more cat these days than anything else. The feline figured she ended up here through some sort of mishap with one of her hoomin's experiments. This is Ashin's fault, leaving her lab open. What in the sweet lekku did she think would happen? I'm a curious purrson. The feline could make out a few silhouettes on the horizon but not much else the wastes were hot on her paws though. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Straight away she noticed some shady looking people, and then she noticed Merrill, or someone that looked like him. And another woman, or two? Hoomins looked the same to her, but the shady people stood out. Still, the wastes were hot and her orange and white fur seemed to blend in some. Carefully she got down on her belly and crawled forward, her natural abilities taking over as she stalked the group from a distance with only her tail swishing in the air on occasion as she tried to see which way the air was moving.

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

[Real-Janick]

"Alchemist Actual, there are some Zero Sith TIE fighters down there, very similar to First Order builds. They appear headed towards the wreckage of the Ruination's starboard reverse thruster looking for survivors"

"The Zero Sith? I never heard a non-smuggler refer to the One Sith as such: is that some sort of bizarro machination?"

Was the chunk of the reverse thruster big enough to still have survivors inside, despite taking a few hits from thermobaric charges? Janick knew that a battlecruiser's reverse thuster would have to be as big as the main engine to be able to back up at the same speed as it would be able to go forward. And thermobaric charges could easily gut a significant chunk, big enough to cause it to detach from the main ship. They may as well be oblivious to what's happening but what value is engineering crewmembers from the mirror-Zero Sith to the ORC? She began to chase TIE fighters in atmosphere, whereby the enemy pilots are oblivious to cannon fire being fired by Janick in a stern chase. She was lucky to be able to set her cannons to 1-second bursts, 3 rounds apiece, and killing a TIE fighter while the second was narrowly missed as it made its descent. They were approaching the area where the chunks of the starboard reverse thuster from the mirror-Ruination fell, more precisely where [member="Jorus Merrill"] was, regardless of whether one is talking about the real-Jorus or the mirror-Jorus.

 

[Joza Perl]

The Zeltron’s cold eyes lit up as her prize was laid out before her, sedated three ways till Taungsday.

“Merrill, you fether.” She seemed to be in a better mood now. “You never disappoint.” The purr in her tone held other implications. Pointing to the anaesthetized man on the ground, she issued an order to her people. “Bind and collar him tightly. This is no normal capture; see to it that he has no chance of escape. Keep him sedated.” It was her best bet considering who he was. It wouldn’t do to have him awake and escaping.

In regards to his last statement about Mia, she nearly rolled her eyes. “You don’t know that. I’ll have her sorted out later when we have time to find out who her connections are. Until then, I think it’s best that we both—“

Her gaze shifted upwards as Jorus spoke, squinting to make out the outline of the escape pods as they neared their area before grimacing. “Not mine. Don’t know what the feth is going on, but we need to leave.”

One hand presses against the commlink in her ear. “We’re done here. Retrieve us and then burn like hell.”

An armored transport frigate began to descend on their location just as the escape pods crashed against the ground and kicked up all manner of dust and debris. Joza lept back, hand tightening on her blaster.

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Mia Monroe"] [member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

Real Mia

"For feth's sake." she growled under her breath, realisation on what was actually going on dawning on her. Otherspace fiends. Reverse of themselves, she glanced at the weeping form of herself and sighed. Of course, the mirror version of herself would be a pathetic waste of space. Still, it made everything a little bit easier. There was only one person amidst that group she had any interest in keeping alive.

Taking a deep breath she reached out to the force, drawing on it with practised ease, letting its energy fill every fibre of her being. Fingers and toes tingled, breaths were heady with the pleasure that came with power. If Velok ever came back from the black hole he was cast into, she really did have to thank him. Fires erupted in the surrounding houses, burning with such ferocity that the lookouts never stood a chance.

Mia moved out of her hiding place, out into the open as the flames filled the sky and the escape pods kicked up clouds of dust. She stood for a moment, picking her targets to dwindle their numbers, the thugs that would try to over power her, not too close to her primary target though, she couldn't risk burning Jorus.

Fire rained down upon them as Mia advanced.

Spoiler

OOC: you've no idea how long i've wanted to use that gif XD

Verse-Mia

She might have begged and pleaded more, perhaps tried to make the zeltron see the truth of what that man was saying. 'Merrill' yes that was his name...It sounded vaguely familiar, like she might have come across it watching the holonews. It had all sorts of bad stigma with it.

"I can give you a list of names if you-" a backhand from a thug silenced her. She bit her lip fighting against a fresh wave of tears. All she wanted was a foot massage, some decent shoes and a comfy bed with a good book to read. It wasn't such a big ask was it? For her to simply to back to a few hours before she'd left her comfortable apartment.

She followed their gaze, watching the escape pods crash, suddenly aware of the rapidly increasing heat levels. She turned at eth sound of soeone screaming, eyes gazing at the fire. They were being rescued!

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Joza Perl"] [member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Mia Monroe"]

“I got a feeling,” said the pirate. He squinted up at reentry trails, ship debris burning up in atmo. Several were just dots. A very bad sign. “That feeling is navigational. We need to head that way.” He pointed in an ostensibly random direction. “There's more crashdowns coming our way, I'd say a minute or less. Better move with us, Perl, or this sand will get a pink tint when it turns to glass.”

He took a long look around at the desert and the ruined buildings. Not much in sight apart from a fuzzy feline - and, of course, Perl's merchandise. He slung a leg over a swoop.

“Leave the slaves if they slow you down. Can always get more once we're offworld.”

Fire bloomed across the sky and the derelict buildings. “What the kark. Fething fuel tank coming down, maybe. Time to run. Get on, Perl. I'm betting you know how to ride something fast.”

 

[Ria Misrani]

Mrow?

Not again, Misrani.

Things were crashing down around them, fire in the sky. Was this Demonsgate, again? It didn't matter. Ria was not going to stick around, NOPE. The ball of fur who came charging toward the group that was [member="Joza Perl"] and friends. See, Ria was getting a feeling too and that feeling said to find all the hoomins and hide. The hot wastes beneath her paws as the white and orange cat rushed with frenzy furry (fury). Seeing the pink skinned hoomin was fairly easy, and easier for the cat to see really if she were, to be honest. And in what seemed like the most epic of sequences, the small ball of cute leaped up from the pits of sand and burning. Seeming it flew but rather was just falling with an undignified grace and style as the cat landed either on someone's face or their shoulder with claws out and ready to dig.

[member="Mia Monroe"] | [member="Jorus Merrill"] | [member="Janick Beauchamp"]

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

[Real-Janick]

One down, one more to go. It was a race against the clock as the mirror-Zero Sith pilot continued to dive at full speed near the area where the biggest chunks of the mirror-Ruination fell. As it turns out, the enemy TIE fighter was able to outrun her, and ended up seeking cover behind a dune; here however, Force-sensors allowed Janick to find out behind which dune the enemy pilot may have been hiding, especially with the signature of a Graug pilot. Especially with what she knew about the prime-universe One Sith, something's not right. But the pilot came at such speed towards the dune that it could now fire head-on at Janick, who promptly tried some evasive maneuvers, resulting in a near-miss. Hitting the radiators when attempting to flank him shortly afterward ended up making the fighter spin out of control, crashing against another dune and hence giving Janick free reign to land near the wreckage of the reverse thruster. As she landed in the sand, oblivious to [member="Ria Misrani"], [member="Joza Perl"], or even [member="Jorus Merrill"], [member="Mia Monroe"], she began her approach towards the chunk of metal that used to be a reverse thuster, sensing that somehow, someone was still alive onboard, if a little heated.

 

[Joza Perl]

It dawn on Joza that they’d overstayed their welcome as escape pods came crashing down and several homes burst into flames seemingly out of nowhere. Had her thugs damaged any gas appliances during their scuffles? No, there was no explosion before the eruption of flames. Something tugged at her senses and she scowled.

Forcie.

Someone, from this verse if they were unlucky enough, had figured out that they were here. Part of Joza hoped that it was another version of herself so that she’d get to rip the queen apart with her own hands, but now was the time to flee with their prizes rather than fight a bloody battle against who knows what.

Like it or not, Merrill was her only ally right now.

“Load the girl and Merrill up and let’s get the feth out of here—calm the dinko’s nest.”

That last part was scoundrel code for ‘leave a coded proton detonator behind and I’ll blow this place up once we’re out of range so no one survives’.

Maybe it was she couldn’t have them, or maybe she just didn’t like to leave survivors.

Either way, the two captives would be loaded up as Joza slipped onto the back of Jorus’ speeded, just in time to be blind sighted by the furry fury that leapt from the chaos and onto her face.

The Zeltron flailed and swore, nearly losing her balance before managing to grasp the attacker by the scruff of her neck, holding out the kitten at arm’s length and giving her a glare that was intended to melt kittens.

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Sanya Val Lerium]

Mirror-sanya (Pure Evil)

The woman's burning orange eyes would watch out the window of the lifeless vessel of the libita. Although this one had sufficed major damage to it's outer hull as it had suffered battles after battles. The core of the ships systems ran on automated it's weapons controlled by droid brains. The air side smelt stale and a heavy sent of blood. She could feel it, something on the edge of this world for her to drain the life of. It was intoxicating and so luring she couldn't resist the temptation. The collosal vessel dropped out of hyperspace bringing debris with it. Within moment the front of the libita collided with one of the zero sith ships. The vessel in front would brake apart as fear leaked out and amount of death created a small echo in the force. Every world she'd been to an echo had been left behind to create one much larger. She thrived off of them as a scorce of grater power. Many of those worlds were under the authority of the zero sith. She didn't care for their name or their masses of force users. They are all food that feeds the lust.

Weapons began to fire upon everything that had a power generator inside. The main spinal weapons locked onto a battle cruiser that had already sustained damage. It's movements where slow as the damage was to the engines. It took a moment for the weapons to power up before it released it's load leaving a long red trail. The impact would shatter through the back of the ship creating a large explosion of superheated plasma that was inside the large shell that the ship had fired.

 

[Ria Misrani]

MEEERROOOOWW

Ria had landed with all four paws, and all claws as she dug into poor [member="Joza Perl"]'s skin.

To the near-hoomin's credit, the pink-skin managed to pull, yank and grab the furball by the scruff and glare in the middle of an otherwise dramatic action sequence. The cat merely looked at the woman and while normally Ria would've done something about this. She was not phased, for one she had landed in this crazy fest of reality or dream. Second, she'd gone toe to toe with Spencer Varanin after daring to steal the lady's clothes. And this was as a human (note, as a cat, Ria seemed to dare death, erm, Spencer on more than one occasion) and thus the feline gave a grin and thought a moment. She could use her collar and bring up her force shield but right now she needed this pink skinned lady. Ria's collar had a tag and it read.

MITTENS VARANIN​

THE ROYAL CAT OF ESHAN​

​

She swung her little body until she had enough momentum to flip and grapple onto [member="Jorus Merrill"]'s shoulders, and dig in with her claws while swishing her tail in Joza's face.

[member="Mia Monroe"] | [member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

[Mirror-Janick]

The mirror-Ruination being traversed by a long red trail fired from the spinal mount of some unknown ship belonging to a third party, passing through where the starboard reverse thruster was, it managed to hit a reactor of the Primeval battlecruiser, causing her to suspect that it was going to explode, causing the Exalt to take the brunt of the shrapnel debris, whose commander struck its colors, or whatever its space equivalent is - a rarity for the Zero Sith. So mirror-Janick takes the captured Mustafarian Sith lord to his cell onboard the AT-AT barge, but at the same time suspects that a dark presence is afoot, under the form of a carrier that is also plowing through the Zero Sith fleet in orbit. Handcuffed, with the Compellor and the Roadblock both firing at the mirror-Libita's hangar doors, after taking heavy shield damage from the and even some holes in the hull, the flagship of one mirror-[member="Sanya Val Swift"], codenamed Darth Sanya, not realizing that the rest of the Zero Sith fleet over Alakaha is in disarray, with Darth Sanya's flagship being the only remaining ship left to fight that hasn't been destroyed or struck its colors.

"You stand accused of genocide, wanton massacre on Kaeshana, Mustafar, Asmeru, Barkhesh, Skor II and Bespin"

"The real culprit is Darth Sanya for the massacres you accuse me of!" the Mustafarian Sith Lord told Janick while handcuffed.

"If Darth Sanya is responsible for those massacres, where is she?"

"I'm not telling you anything more about the Zero Sith's chain of command"

[Real-Janick]

Meanwhile, after landing to the crash site of the mirror-Ruination's starboard reverse thruster, the only survivors she could sense in that area came from an escape pod bank whose launching mechanism was disabled in the attack. Perhaps severing that portion of the reverse thruster might have disabled the escape pod controls for what real-Janick knew. She carefully approached the premises, the flaming chunk of metal whose flames were smothered somewhat upon impact in the sand, in search for the escape pod. She can easily imagine the panic of the crew realizing that they may as well be the ORC's prisoners, especially since the ORC destroyed the mirror-Ruination in orbit. As she enters the hunk of torn metal, she has to tread lightly and carefully so as to ensure that she won't get hurt, and neither will those people trapped inside the escape pods that didn't detach in time when the reverse thruster got torn apart. Thus far she could not sense anyone else still living inside the hunk of metal other than the people inside the escape pods.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Joza Perl"] [member="Mia Monroe"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Sanya Val Swift"]

Jorus dreamed, the next best thing to lucid. At some level he knew he was cuffed and flopping in the back of a speeder, dust clogging his throat. That awareness brought a sense of trappedness, unendurable despair - and so he stuck with the other parts of the dream. Starships crashed in orbit: ORC Tahree-class cruisers locked horns with ships of several allegiances, all of them from the same mirror universe that had spawned his double.

Speaking of the double, his yowl of pain and shock penetrated Jorus’ drugged dream. The Jedi smiled in his sleep.

Mittens Varanin had struck a blow for justice.

The remaining speeders and swoops, comprising two gangs and a few high-value slaves, accelerated out of the area where ship debris was crashing down. They would pass quite near Janick.

 

[Mia Monroe]

Verse Mia

She didn't bother to fight against the hands that hauled her into the back of the speeder truck, in act she went willingly, the flames were disturbing her. Instinct made her draw close to the other captive, only now, looking at him did she see that he was identical to the other one. Three thugs jumped in behind them before the repulsor engines kicked into life their noise drowned out by the cacophony of rendering metal and crashing escape pods.

Bound hands sought the clothes of the unconscious man beside her and she shook him. "Wake up." she hissed desperately.

Real Mia

Fire dust and general chaos allowed her to get closer, her scattergun rose cracking off a single shot into the back of the last thug to get his leg over on a speeder bike. She hauled his dead body aside and climbed aboard. Scattergun swinging over her shoulder, she swapped it for a bolter, with explosive rounds and twisted the throttle roaring after them.

She came level with another speeder, whose driver glanced her way, and did a double take when he realised that it was not his comrade. He shouted something un-heard over the roar of the engines, Mia swung the bolter round and fired once. The rear of the speed exploded, spinning the remainder into the sand and kicking up a fresh cloud of dust. Bending low the opened the throttle full, speeding after the truck holdng Jorus.

[member="Joza Perl"] [member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Janick Beauchamp"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Joza Perl"] [member="Mia Monroe"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Sanya Val Swift"]

Lord Admiral Jorus Merrill of the Outrider Brotherhood was not having a good day. The main culprit was a woman who, in other circumstances, he'd gladly have seduced or hired or sold as merchandise: Mia Monroe, currently shredding his rear guard. All question of her attractiveness or worth faded in the gunfire. He'd have shoved her into hyperspace if he had the energy, but his recent show of force precluded another. Instead, he relied on his powerful navigational instincts to stay one swerve ahead of each nearby shot.

Still, there was only so much one could do against Force-enhanced aim while starship components plummeted from the heavens. Lord Admiral Merrill glanced back. His last mortal sight was the muzzle of Monroe's bolter.

As he vanished from the sternum up, his remaining mercs angled their speeders and bikes in all directions, a panicked and formless escape attempt. A meteor, a falling engine, embedded itself in a dune and pulverized one of the cargo speeders. The gang's loot, such as it was, disappeared in a fireball.

Meanwhile, the speeder containing Joza, the cat, and the drugged Captain Merrill - the Merrill of this timeline - skewed out of control.

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

[Real-Janick]

What she found in those misfiring escape pods, upon arrival, were... Charon. These Charon tried to break free and break the transparisteel frames of the escape pods while Janick was approaching them. How could the Zero Sith even attempt to deal with the Charon? Were they dealing with prime-universe Charon or mirror-universe Charon? Anyhow, to Janick, it meant that the Zero Sith was somehow involved in Otherspace affairs. As the Charon were finally free from the chains of these escape pods, the Zero Sith Charon crewmembers began to attack the swoops and speeders that were arrayed in a panicked and formless escape attempt, using their assault blasters and firing at the vehicles as well as the captors among the gangs; Zero Sith protocol demanded of the Charon that they shoot at the gangs before attempting to capture the slaves; they were trained to determine who were the slaves and who were the captors. Oh and the remaining Charon would be gunning for the remains of the totaled cargo speeder, taking its contents as loot. Janick approached the wrecked cargo speeder, looking for more people:

"En garde, little heathen!" the Charon shouted, while drawing its lightsaber and charging towards real-Janick.

"There is only one reason why you Charon, of all people, serve the Zero Sith: they are monsters!"

"Monsters? How dare you call the 0S monsters while they do not consider all life to be an abomination?"

"They perpetrated genocide on Skor because evil!"

And thus Janick began the fight by using pyrokinesis on the Charon's lightsaber, making the arachnoid arm of the Charon burn while it was still wielding the lightsaber. But she found her Force-senses impaired by the whirlwind of violence; she couldn't readily tell whether the 0S crewman was a Force-user or not. Or did she confuse the Zero Sith with the First Order? Even then, the mirror-0S operates more or less where the real-First Order does.

 

[Mia Monroe]

There was something deeply unsettling at seeing the not-Jorus ripped apart by an explosive round. Something told her she'd be having nightmares about that one. The fact that he wasn't the real Jorus was neither here nor there, he had her friends face, and while she had killed millions without batting an eyelid, they had all been faceless. Murder had much more of a psychological impact when there was a face to remember.

She veered after the out of control cargo speeder, the thugs inside were bailing, some bold enough to fire her way as it ground itself into the sand and to a halt. She locked open the throttle, pointed it at one of them, and bailed last minute pinning him between speeder bike and cargo speeder in a messy fashion. The others fled as she came to her feet, firing off a few rounds in peoples back for good measure.

Sure they'd got the message, she holstered the bolters and hauled herself into the back of the truck.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Xin Boa]

[member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Joza Perl"] [member="Jorus Merrill"]

The Fleet couldn't cross the galaxy in a matter of days, as the fastest ships they owned could. For one the largest refinery ships did not approach the speeds of military grade hyperdrives. Secondly they single didn't have enough fuel to move the entire fleet that far. They had to work for their supplies and that took time and effort. No, whilst his survey ship could cross the Galactic disk for a scouting mission the fleet would take years to traverse the core.

Although this wasn't where they were going to head. They needed worlds they could settle. They didn't have to be perfect and they didn't need charity. They would have to find a harsh place they could make their own with sweat and blood. But this wasteland couldn't support much more than its current population.

It also had a gang problem that seemed to have peaked just after his arrival. Also crashing spaceships. Xin knelt in the dust behind the remains of a building wall. He checked the power metre on his Glie-44. He'd only discharged two shots but had forgotten to out a fresh pack in for a few days now. Several bikers had shot at him so he'd fired back. Not far away it sounded as if someone was firing a cannon. Xin edged around the wall and snapped off two shots at the bikers who were circling. One of them took a bolt to the chest and tumbled off. His bike spiralled ahead and smashed through several chain link fences. He caught sight of more bikers and a speeder. Someone was firing at them with the weapon that sounded like a cannon. With the time delay with what he saw and heard he didn't realise it was the rounds exploding he heard, rather than the muzzle.

He darted to new cover and kept out of sight of the bikers trying to hound him down for a moment. Was that Jorus Merrill he saw down there? The Jorus Merrill. The moment he had that thought the man exploded from the waist up. Xin hoped he had been wrong.

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

[Real-Janick]

The Charon engaging the swoop gangs made a bloody mess of said gangs, leaving vehicle explosions, scorch marks, and other casualties in their wake, with dead swoop gangster bodies strewn across the sandy landscape of the area where the starboard reverse thruster of the mirror-Ruination fell. It was not a pretty sight: the swoops even had SAWs in their possession, which enabled the gangsters to kill a number of Charon, with very few Otherspace-dwellers left in the firefight's wake. The few survivors moved in and swiftly carried the slaves on their backs, and in chains, back to the totalled speeder truck, where more could be found. Meanwhile, Janick had to be careful about staying out of the Charon's reach while the formerly-lightsaber-wielding insectoid pounced in on her, and sought cover among the ruins of the reverse thruster. Behind said cover, she fired a particle gun at her pursuer's abdomen, in hopes of stunning the beast or even injuring it, while it was entirely possible that she wouldn't kill it. Upon hitting the Charon's abdomen at point-blank range... the 0S crewmember had its clothes burned by the hit, and also the remaining Charon were stunned into position, while she could sense, in the distance, the Neimoidian Yacht coming down to the surface to collect the prisoners and other survivors.

"I surrender, little Jedi"

"What was your aim in firing at the swoop gangs?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Xin Boa"] [member="Mia Monroe"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Sanya Val Swift"] [member="Joza Perl"]

The truck jostled and ground to a halt in a hail of stray blasterfire. None of that woke Jorus. What woke him was the scent of Charon ichor. Smell it once, never forget it. Adrenaline flooded him; he tried to sit up and found himself face-down with a throbbing nose. He scrambled around to sit against the back of the cab. His eyes refused to focus, but he still recognized the woman climbing into the bed of the truck.

“Gorramit, Mia, I didn't know you were around.”

He meant to say that, at least. Maybe the gist got through; maybe not. He wiped his mouth and glanced over the side of the truck. A firefight seemed to be winding down: Charon, mercs, and maybe Judges.

“There's another me running around somewhere. Clone maybe. Light him up if you see him.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Janick Beauchamp"] [member="Xin Boa"] [member="Mia Monroe"] [member="Ria Misrani"] [member="Sanya Val Swift"] [member="Joza Perl"] [member="Dax Fyre"] [member="Bryce Bantam"] [member="Aeshi Tillian"] [member="Nathan Sandusky"]

No question about it, Alakaha had seen better days. Of all the dusty, rusty worlds in Wild Space, Alakaha stood head and shoulders above the rest for sheer grunginess. Where the Outer Rim Coalition might have just left a better world to fend for itself, though, Alakaha inspired empathy, a sense of kinship. The Coalition stood to gain nothing except a bit of border stability by clamping down on the temporal incursion. Nevertheless, Uukaablian dreadnoughts exited hyperspace over Alakaha to assist the beleaguered patrol force.

Parallel-universe Sith vessels and their Charon minions had their strengths, to be sure, but the alien cruisers outmatched them along multiple axes. Stunningly tough, armed with golden plasma-lance cannons, the Uukaablians chewed into the threat implacably.

Smaller ships - Pimbrellan League fast-attack frigates - broke away and cut into atmosphere like manta rays through water. Their beam weapons scorched deep furrows in the sand. Charon survivors boiled in their chitin. Outer Rim Coalition landing forces began setting up a firm perimeter to contain the haphazard landing.

Alakaha, something of a peripheral or affiliate member of the Coalition, had little in the way of government. Presence defined sovereignty; possession was nine-tenths of the law.