Private Overcoming Darkness

[Vera Mina]

Laertia had stopped work on her Droid and was examining it. It had been placed upright.

"Okayyz...fynul chex kompleetz..." Laertia said. This was a preliminary test, to see what had to be ironed out.

The Bryn'adul troubled her more than she admitted. Why were so many ignoring the clear level of destruction?

Laertia had no real notion yet of what to do with such an army as the one she was envisioning beyond fighting such threats. They would be fully sapient. They would need rights and privileges. They would deserve them with the sort of things she would ask of them. And what would you do with them once the Bryn'adul were dealt with?

Laertia wasn't even sure yet that Nine's ideas of ensuring Droid Loyalty (Which shockingly often boiled down to actually loving the Droid as your own child) could carry the day on a mass level.

It was enough she was still searching for Khemost in her off time. If she found it early enough, she could supply the SJC with massive wealth, enough to throw at the Bryn'adul, at any enemy, until you won.

She wasn't beyond taking a chunk of it for herself. Khemost had so much wealth it would not miss a few million credits worth, even if most of it WAS blood money.

Laertia normally had personal moral prohibitions against taking her fortunes from such places, but in the face of it all, and what it could mean for the Galaxy, how it could be used to actually do some good, Laertia was willing to make an incredibly rare exception.

She activated the Droid with her will. The YVH Droid stirred, stared at her.

"Orders, Master?" it asked in a low, electronic tone.

"Don'tz callz meez Masstur. Dhat's yorr fyrst orrduh." Laertia said. "Jusst callz meez Laertia ferr nowwz."

"What is my primary function?" The Droid asked without emotional inflection.

"Ask it to dance with you..." Melissa suggested.

Laertia paused. "Wut?"

"Ask it to Dance with you..." Melissa repeated, reclining on the sofa with Meleena and Melinda
"How well it keeps pace with you should tell you how far it has to go."

Laertia blinked at this, then turned to the Droid.

"I polytelee ruhkwest yooz dannce wyth meez."

"I am not programmed for that function." the Droid answered.

"I'yll tryyz tuh teech yooz."

Laertia approached it, held out her hands. The Droid hesitantly reached out. Laertia began a simple two-step.

The Droid was clumsy, and awkward at unconventional, seemingly purposeless movements, however well designed it was for straightforward killing.

"What is the purpose of this, Laertia?" The YVH Droid asked.

"Shhhh..." Laertia hissed.

"I do not understand that verbal expression."

"Droyde, wut wud yoo dooz innz yorr spayr tyme, iffz yooz werr notz aktyvlee carryinngz oytz orrduzz?"

"I would be awaiting to carry them out. I live to serve, Laertia."

Laertia frowned. The Droid was still clumsy...

"What is my designation?"

Laertia thought about it. Hadrian Amox had been one of the members of The Marksmen, a heavy weapons expert. It had been he who had given her advanced instruction in Shii-Cho. The Amalgam had murdered him.

Laertia tried not to think about The Amalgam. Sometimes the Beast would sense her thinking about her and it would draw her to Laertia mentally.

"Hadrian..." she answered.

After a while Laertia ceased dancing with the Droid.

"Hadrian, wud yoo pleez powah offz?"

"Acknowledged."

Hadrian shut down.

"Whole lotta worrkz tuh dooz..." Laertia muttered.

Meanwhile...

Vera smiled at both.

"Then it is settled. I will be aboard my ship filing papers. I'll send Rom out to you immediately. Good luck by the way."

Vera then left, heels clicking across the floor...

Syd turned to Starlin.

"Something was funny about her..." Syd said under her breath. But she couldn't place it. That's how advanced Nine's technology was. As a matter of fact, parts of Vera's brain would greatly influence Droid Brains Laertia would fashion going forward.

Vera in the meantime had already reached her ship and pulled out her Mercenary Dress, sending a message to the colonists that she was looking over their case and was not to be disturbed, quickly initiating the change with the aid of a heat sink she had installed long back, and the gorgeous lawyer's flesh wriggled and writhed, disappearing into a red headed, blue skinned Chiss Woman who quickly put on her white armor, grabbed a DC-15S Carbine, a DC-19 Stealth Carbine, and a Force Pike and she was ready to go. She had already worked out an angle for prosecution anyway.

"Rom" caught the eye of many a colonist as she walked back to where Starlin and Syd were. Rom was beautiful, but out of place.

She soon spotted Starlin again.

"Hello, young man..." Rom said pleasantly to Starlin Rand . "I have been sent to aid you in rectifying a mystery...are you ready to leave?"

 

[Starlin Rand]

The lawyer left. Syd said there was something funny about her. “No kidding,” Starlin muttered. “I’ll be careful around her bodyguard, I guess.”

He busied himself checking his weapons and gear, preparing for the mission ahead. The bodyguard, Rom, arrived a few minutes later. She was a Chiss with red hair, beautiful and dressed in white, but with a deadly, almost poisonous quality to her beauty that Vera lacked. Starlin didn’t feel the same pull of attraction to her, which was good given the circumstances—he wouldn’t be distracted.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Starlin said. He was eager to figure out what the deal was with the earthquakes. Standing up, he turned to Syd. “I’ll meet up with you later. Bye, Syd.”

He gave his master a wave before following Rom out. While she had a certain scariness to her, Starlin had no problem speaking to the Chiss bodyguard. “So, we’re going to check out the giant tuning fork. I assume its emergence is causing the tremors. Any ideas on what it might be, or what’s causing it to appear all of a sudden?”

Vera Mina​

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Wearing: Liar's Flesh (Skintight Gray Armorweave Catsuit)

Armed with: Double Agent (Blue Saberstaff)

Falsifying Needle (Blue Light foil)

Turncoats (50. Caliber Semi-Auto Pistols)

Objective: Investigate Force Anomaly


Lucretia Lister felt slighted even having to come to this place.

She had put in a fairly generous some of money to fund this colony, and she had not been getting what she paid for.

She had expected a safe planet. One she could proudly put her name to. She had fired all her middlemen when news of this strange anomaly rising from the earth had come to light.

She was going there to resolve the matter personally. If you wanted to solve anything, you'd have to do it yourself.

She descended into the atmosphere in a metallic dark green J Type Barge. She was doing this unofficially, so she had not seen fit to inform the locals of her arrival.

She landed the vessel as close to the crystal tuning fork as she could, to the point she began to experience slight malfunctions in her cockpit controls. Nothing too serious however.

A tall, but well built elderly woman with a shock of platinum blonde hair, wearing a skintight reflective gray catsuit of armorweave, Lucretia was no stranger to violence, and while she did not seek it out, she was prepared to inflict it. Besides, the challenge of subduing... whatever this was...was too much to ignore.

She stepped off her vessel, dismissing her Droid attendants and began promptly walking towards the gigantic crystal tuning fork, amazed at the sight of it. The secrets she might pry from it...

No, first things first. Protecting the colony was more important.

Lucretia walked across the desert ground, the light gleaming off her suit. In her hand was her gold and pearl grip saberstaff.

She sensed danger as she got closer. Very faint but noticable. She ducked behind a rock as she spotted armed men from very far away, all setting mines around the perimeter of the crystal tower.

This would not do.

Lucretia began striding forward at a brisk pace keeping her blade unlit.

"Excuse me!" She called out haughtily, as though they were just particularly incompetent waiter's. "Excuse me! This is a disaster site. I'm going to have to see identification."

The soldiers, looked up, hands going to their blasters.

"Pointing that thing at me would be a most unwise prospect, of that you can assured of." she said in a raspy but feminine contralto. "Why don't we resolve this peacefully. Let's start over. My name is Lucretia Lister, and I am one of the major contributors to the funding and settlement of the colony here. You shoot me and on the low hypothetical of you actually successfully killing me you would all still accrue a bounty on your heads so high you wouldn't be able to go near a civilized system. Now, would someone mind explaining to me just what you are doing mining the perimeter to this unfortunate geographic eyesore?"

The weapons were pointed at her, and she sighed as she heard the power up whines.

Lucretia gave a huff of annoyance.

"I am so trying to be nice about this. I really am. Won't you reconsider and just tell me what I want to know?" Lucretia asked.

One of the blue blades of her staff snapped on as she deflected a bolt. She sighed.

"Guess not...pity..."

Lucretia was deflecting dozens of blaster bolts in her direction as she closed the distance, breaking one shooter's jaw and delivering a powerful kick to his ribs. She flipped and jumped over and past shots through the Force, deflecting now with both blades as she dashed through her attackers, carefully, methodically disabling their weapons, and doing light, shallow cuts to minimize permanent damage to them.

One of the especially big ones managed to get a punch him, her face deforming like putty on contact, only for it to reset back into place. Another few blows sent her reeling, yet she did not feel pain, or even really get all that stunned, her flesh merely setting back to its normal position as hammerblow after hammerblow came. She suddenly grabbed him, a discharge of Ionic Energy across her body coursing through him and flinging him back, heavily stunned.

Lucretia sighed, shutting off her staff as she pulled out one of her fifty caliber pistols, walked up to him, and pointed it at his head while he struggled to remain conscious.

"Now..." Lucretia hissed. "What is going on?"

Her eyes widened when she learned the whole story...

Lucretia was then charging the ground with Ionic Energy from her body, trying to detonate as many mines as she could feel so innocent people wouldn't suffer if they came across it. She'd feel terrible if one of those poor colony children were harmed in any way. Then she located what appeared to be a large, Ancient doorway within the crystal and went inside.

Ten minutes later...

"I am afraid I am as in the dark about this strange tuning fork as you are..." Rom admitted to Starlin Rand as they began their journey. "Currently, my best hypothesis is that the settlers have inadvertently activated an ancient security system. My second best is that if it is not an ancient security system it is some sort of amplifier device, though what it would be amplifying is a mystery.

Rom was about to ask him all about his apprenticeship when she heard the sound of mines detonating around the fork carrying far and loud.

"We must hurry. It would seem someone is already making a play of some kind." Rom noted, taking off with an inhumanly precise sprinting motion, half battling the urge to kill. It would not do if a Jedi saw her go crazy...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Rom presented a couple of theories about the construct, both of them plausible. Before Starlin had a chance to reply, he heard the rumble of a series of explosions in the distance.

Starlin struggled to keep up with Rom's running on foot, so he abandoned the ground and instead began to float, using the Force as Syd had taught him on Kashyyyk to fly towards the construct. He held the hilt of his lightsaber and his shoto in either hands, inactive but ready to fight whatever they might face...

Vera Mina​

 

[Vera Mina]

He can fly? Rom thought to herself as Starlin Rand floated off to the construct.

While the Narrator attempted (and pathetically failed) to avoid humming the Superman theme, Rom increased her speed to maximum to keep up, and came upon a large number of people in military gear unconscious and a bunch of exploded mines.

Rom studied the mercs. All alive, but heavily stunned. Shallow, non fatal Lightsaber cuts.

"Not a Sith..." Rom remarked, examining the wounds. "None of them would be alive if that were the case. Probably not a Jedi either though..."

Rom stared up at the crystal tuning fork. It seemed to have grown more...and she could spot an entrance.

"Padawan, I'll take point..." Rom said, striding ahead and into the entrance.

The interior was a rough crystal, and Rom smelled an organic with a funny scent.

"Whoever took out the guards went through here, I'm sure of it..." Rom said, finding strange crystal shards on the ground she walked.

"No Electronics of any--" Rom started to say but stopped as she saw the pathway ahead.

The interior was bigger, vastly bigger, on the inside. An interior of stars with floating crystal paths leading to a great temple of the same material. It was far taller than what they had seen on the outside.

(Doctor Who theme Plays)

Rom grinned. "Ah, it's the little details of this job that still do such a good job of surprising me on occasion."

She turned to Starlin. "Well...I dunno about you, but I believe this is my first real encounter with Eldritch Forces...kinda honored actually. Maybe we should contact your master before we go further. This seems like it's about to go to bullchit level real fast."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin likewise surveyed the strange scene from above, counting the number of bodies. None of the mercs had been killed, only knocked into a stupor. Weird…

Rom announced that she had discovered an entrance into the crystal structure. Up close, it looked less like a giant tuning fork and more like a facility of some kind. Ancient, made out of crystal… Huh…

“Color me fantastically intrigued,” Starlin said as he followed Rom inside. He continued to hover, avoiding stepping on the shards of crystal that littered the floor. Instead, he swooped down and picked one up, examining it. The light played off the facts of the crystal, making rainbows. He tucked the shard into a leather pouch on his belt for safekeeping.

From there, their journey into the crystal only got weirder. Upon laying eyes on the stars, crystal paths, and temple, Starlin was left speechless and wide-eyed. Rom mentioned contacting Syd.

“On it,” he said. Flicking on his comlink, he tried to call his master. “Syd, can you hear me? It looks like the crystal thing is much bigger than we thought. Rom called it ‘eldritch forces’. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds ominous…”

Vera Mina​

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia walked the crystalline halls with an unsettling grace, feeling the power of the Force everywhere, supercharging her arteries. The flesh on her face would unpleasantly shudder on occasion as she went through its halls, stopping as she came upon the remains of what seemed to be a long ago massacre.

Her concern grew as she examined the scene of ancient carnage, strewn about an ancient promenade of crystal fountains, constructed of odd sharp angles.

She had spotted what had looked like an all too familiar catsuit. Tattered and torn open, the dessicated corpse of a Lucretia copy laying smeared across the crystal floor, a busted open protocol droid next to it.

Lucretia knealt down on one knee and picked up the Droid head, closing her eyes.

[Playback Initiated]


Lucretia of the Crystal was flung backward by a shotgun blast as her personal servant Droid watched. Bright green blood and muscle splashed out, rapidly solidyfying into green bits of crystal

("Terminated" by Junkie XL Plays)

A pair of white boots stepped on shattered bits of crystal blood, cocking the pump action shotgun dramatically as Lucretia rose, this version looking considerably younger than most later incarnations would.

The Man in White took aim as she conjured a Force Bubble arround her.

"Your approach is crude..." the Witch said with a delicate rasp. "But effective."

(Cutaway of HK-47 giving the reader a thumbs up)

"And I thought T'sid's experiments were insane." Zabka Bisclavret snorted.

"If I succeed, this world will be a haven of light. As a Jedi, how can you not want that?"

"Because if you fail, the planet will be torn apart. You already screwed up the moon! Wasn't the Moon enough?" he asked. "I, personally would have stopped at the Moon."

"For all your power still you lack ambition, like so many Jedi." Lucretia muttered.

Zabka fired and the buckshot bounced off the shield but hit the Droid and caused it to topple, heavily damaged.

"For all your power you still can't think ahead..." Zabka replied coldly. "That's why you're willing to risk the planet."

"Its uninhabited. Not like anyone dies if I fail."

"That's not the point. You can't use the Force to risk this much just to prove your fethed theories." Zabka replied. "Surrender."

"I'm afraid we are at cross purposes." Lucretia replied, wound starting to heal. This place was making her stronger by the minute.

Zabka unloaded the shotgun in her direction , the intensity of each blast weakening her bubble until it finally burst on the last shot, a pellet grazing her neck and drawing blood.

She staggered back, Zabka loaded another round into his shotgun, cocked it, then fired right at her face, which she only mostly dodged, taking out part of her face and eliciting a metallic sounding shriek of pain.

Zabka began loading another one, but her flesh shuttered, and dozens of spikes of crystal were flung at him from the walls and the ceiling, forcing him to drop the shotgun and dive, drawing his twin heavy blasters and destroying the spikes, somersaulting and twisting his body through the air constantly to evade the projectiles, though one managed to nick him in the sides as it flung past, breaking his concentration and causing him to tumble forward and hit the floor. He yelled as one crystal spike was jammed into his shin.

"I do not wish to kill you. But this experiment is too important..." Lucretia said, drawing her blue bladed lightsaber, flesh shuddering violently as she began to approach.

The Man in White hissed a strange sounding spell and Lucretia hissed as her flesh shuddered from the effects. Jedi Words of Banishment. He was attempting to seal her power.

She fought it, but his will behind his sorcery was impressive and parts of her began to petrify into crystal as she began hissing various counter curses, Zabka patiently countering each of her counter curses, with a counter counter curse of his own, a literal war of words between them as their potent sorceries struggled to overcome the other.

Lucretia's flesh began to hiss and split open on part of her face, the rest of her body bubbling as Zabka witdrew into the Light Side of the Force, seeking its strength to bolster his efforts.

Rivulets of bright green blood began to flow out of her everywhere, flesh now violently bubbling as she screamed, her face starting to warp and distort as her body started to fail from the sheer power Zabka called on.

She staggered back, her own discipline failing her as each spell he uttered rent her apart a little more, for nothing less at this point would put her down. She violently burst apart in a shower of gore.

Much of it got on Zabka, who grimaced in disgust as the power to the Droid finally cut out...

[End Playback]

Lucretia looked at the burst apart corpse of her dead self and sighed.

Jedi. Always a visionless sort.

Lucretia would of course, do everything in her power to resolve the crisis. But it was becoming clear things had just become vastly more complex.

A pulse of Force Energy from deep within this inner realm of crystal passed over her body, and her entire body violently distorted for a second as it absorbed and metabolized the energy, before kneeling to examine the corpse again.

Too much time had passed. Too little energy left to absorb anything from the body. Even the saber crystals had no juice. the previous Lucretia's killer had been expert in his curses. Her essence was probably joined to this tower...

Regardless, Lucretia had to fix it. The colony depended on it.

She strode forward, even deeper...deeply worried now knowing she was responsible and feeling more than a little guilty.




(OOC will make a follow up post as Syd, Starlin Rand )

 

[Syd Celsius]

What was only a pulse inside the crystal tower was a massive wave greatly amplified outside it.

It was this that damaged every communications device, making it impossible for her to reply. And neither of them knew it, but the crystal was a dead zone that would prevent communication via telepathy.

It was also so powerful that it destabilized her elderly form bacck to her red headed form, than rapidl at random between every other person in her, flesh tugging away from the skeleton violently for thirty seconds before it warped back to its prior guise. This deeply frightened everybody present and more than a few dozen were sent screaming while Syd pleaded for them to wait.

"It's a monster! A MONSTER!" one woman cried.

All the other patients started freaking out, both from the unfortunate display, as well as the earth quake that helpfully sprang up to make everything worse.

Syd watched helplessly as everyone fled in fear of her. Everyone except one old man. Syd desperately approached him, hoping through him she might reason with the others.

"Sir, you've got to get them back, they don't understand, they're in terrible danger-"

The old man wheeled around and Syd's flesh bubbled violently as she was forced backward, her body puffing up and deflating everywhere rapidly as the man held out a strange talisman shaped like a leaf.

"Only thing this 'ere colony understands is that everything has gotten worse since you, the boy and that Lawyer that's conveniently disappeared off to her ship arrived." he said in a gruff fashion, an outer rim accent carrying through.

Syd collapsed into a pile of flesh, unable to maintain her basic shape in the presence of the Talisman...

She had been stripped of her clothes and her neck, arms, legs, and torso had been bound in alchemized chains that left her heavily weakened and almost emaciated, flesh rippling everywhere at random, skin and muscles occasionally sagging off the bone before resetting.

The entire colony was gathered around her, looks of fear and terror everywhere on their faces. Amazingly, someone had found a pitchfork.

"What the feth is it? What the feth is going on?" one of the women asked.

(Judgement Day theme plays for a few seconds)

"This is what I never could stand about Dathomir in the summer." The old man muttered, smoking from a white corncob pipe. "All the damn Witches."

"That's right. You were a Witch Hunter, weren't you?" one of the civilians asked.

(Cutaway of Riddick holding up a sign that says, "please for the love of God try to forget about that film.")

"Thirty damn years. But the real freaks like her are rare..." the old man answered. "But rest assured...things won't go back to normal till we figure out what kind of spell she cast and make her undo it...

"Listen...you got it all wrong, fella..." Syd got out through constantly melting lips.

"I can't find the Lawyer!" one guy yelled as he came back from the outside. "They must be working together!"

"Burn the Witch!" one shouted.

Meanwhile...

"No response. Huh." Rom noted, the chiss like woman tapping her foot impatiently. "We can try again, but that last pulse came more quickly than the one before it. What do you want to do?" she asked Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin received no response from Syd either via comm or telepathy. The crystal must’ve been blocking both.

Rom asked Starlin what he wanted to do. The boy blinked, then shrugged. “I’m not sure. If this crystal thing were less… huge, I might suggest blowing it up. But I don’t think it’s that simple.”

He looked around. “The only option I can see is continuing to explore this place, see if we can find… I dunno, a control room maybe? But making sure no civilians get hurt should be our top priority.”

The boy was of course unaware that his master was currently being harassed by a group of said civilians, but even then his priorities would not change.

Syd Celsius​

 

[Vera Mina]

"Of course..." Rom replied. "Wouldn't want it said I was careless."

Rom went ahead, making sure Starlin Rand was never far from her. And it wasn't long before she started to hear things in the walls. She got out her double ended Force Pike. This crystal "realm" played with her senses, giving her strange feedback.

"Padawan, I'd get your weapon out..." she said.

She saw a wall in the distance crack apart, revealing an alcove out of which stepped a humanoid made of faceted diamond, shaped almost like it wore senate guard armor.

Rom went into a guard.

"Halt. Identify!" Rom demanded.

It was on her almost faster than she could react, and to her surprise found herself genuinely struggling to hold off its ferocious attacks with its crystal sword, and no blows she actually scored with the pike did more than scratch the body of it.

Its sword tipped sliced open her right cheek, and gray blood leaked out, eliciting a metallic shriek from her as she backed away and it advanced relentlessly, slasshing and stabbing, and the creature in the long but revealing white dress somersaulted and flipped, executing cartwheels to evade it's deadly blows.

But she got unlucky.

The sword bit into her shoulder, slicing deep into her torso, severely stunning her, and only brute superhuman strength allowed her to snap the blade off and rip it away with her good arm, smashing into it and sending it backward.

She dropped to her knees, pulling the blade out and smashing it, gray blood and strange gray muscle exposed in the ghastly cleaving wound.

She got out her blaster as it rose, and went full auto, blasting away at it but it kept advancing, though she noticed it started to heat up as it advanced, getting slower.

"Jedi! *Could use some help!" Rom shouted...

 

[Syd Celsius]

It was a rare thing for Syd to be totally helpless.

But when Syd was helpless, she was helpless.

The chains that wrapped her suppressed the Force, and since her very physiology was so reliant on it, she could barely think, let alone move. A constantly melting bubbling naked horror that was on its knees, starved for energy.

She saw the others regard her with fear and disgust. Perhaps she deserved it, she mused.

The freaked out colonists dragged the humanoid abomination through the streets. A large flame had been prepared for her in the town square, large and roaring. Cut off from the Force, she didn't know if she would survive.

"One more chance, Witch! How do you stop the spell!?" The Old Witch Hunter asked.

"Told you... don't... know..." Syd hissed through melting lips.

"TOSS IT IN!!!" one of them yelled.

A powerful purple thunderstrike slammed into the crowd.

Syd watched in horror as more lightning strikes slammed into people, exploding them, hurled equipment over.

It was the Assembly, cackling like mad as she roasted the colonists, the survivors scattered, if which there were many, scattered into the desert...

The dark skinned witch in the white gown killed and killed, until none in the Colony were left standing.

The Assembly hopped down, striding up to the imprisoned Syd.

"What a golden opportunity..." The Assembly sneered. "I'll probably never get another chance as good as this...what delicious irony too!" The Assembly added. "It's not even me that did the hard work. But the very people you came here to protect."

The Assembly crouched next to her.

"I'm going to consume everything, just so you know..." the Witch hissed. "I'll wear your face, drive you to say and do things that won't make sense, things that will confuse her Padawan...and then...one day...when he trusts you more than anyone else...he'll watch you become me. And that will be the last thing he sees...you... melting away... melting into me...and before he can react...my thumbs will be in his eyes. His soul, screaming in my stomach as he's eaten piece by piece by everyone inside me...and I shall declare myself the new Darth Phyre. All while wearing. Your. Face."

The Assembly's thumbs went towards Syd's eyes...but a Pulse from the Crystal Tower would shift the odds, slamming into both of them, and breaking the enchanted chains that held Syd as she was hurled backward, flesh still unstable and bubbling everywhere like the Assembly's was.

Syd rose, flesh rippling and bunching up everywhere and broke to a dead run for her ship. If she didn't get to it she was dead.

A hand clamped down on her throat from behind and Syd resisted the attempt to drain her by The Assembly, whose facial flesh started to shudder and gain Syd's features, while Syd started to take on the features of her guise as an elderly woman who managed to deck the Assembly in the Jaw but the damage was done.

The elderly Syd turned as the Assembly rose, flesh shuddering until she took on the Appearance of Red Headed Syd...

Darth Phyre opened her eyes, thirsty for souls, and spotted the Nude Sorceress.

"So, stronger than I thought..." The Assembly sneered. "No matter...your power is almost mine..."

"You only absorbed a quarter. Enough to assume my appearance..." Syd replied.

"More than enough to finish the job..." The Assembly sneered, hurling heavy Fireballs at Syd, who blocked them.

"You may be skilled, but you don't know everything..." Syd replied.

She held out her hand and the Assembly screamed as Syd pulled her power back from the Assembly through sheer might, the flesh shuddering and burning as Syd's features vanished from The Assembly's and reappeared back on Syd's body, some amount of knowledge also getting taken by accident. The Assembly collapsed and thrashed about, shrieking as she burned up from the inside, her cells having completely overloaded, reduced to smoldering molten ash.

Syd breathed hard from the exertion...and then her flesh bubbled and warped across her whole body as the Tower pulsed again.

Syd's body...all of it, broke down into a mound of flesh that constantly changed skin tone and pigmentation, screaming female faces across it's surface before the mound separated into 007 distinct piles of flesh, each forming into a different Witch within Syd, including a new one... Lucretia Lister, a copy in the mind of The Assembly having slipped into Syd...

Each Witch opened their Eyes, Syd was to be found among none of the Witches, though each which had a fragment of Syd residing in themselves.

"The Tower's pulses have grown strong enough to break up our magical cohesion..." The elderly, red headed Sorceress of Zeffo, leader of the Coven within Syd, said, the flesh on their bodies unstable and warping constantly.

"If it's strong enough to break up the magic bonds that held Syd together...in a few hours it could be strong enough to kill us!" The even more elderly looking, dark haired Sorceress of Coruscant said in clear panic. "Syd could be reduced to base components. We can't be..."

"Ideas?" The new made Lucretia asked.

The Sorceress of Zeffo turned to her. "Who are you?!"

"I hitched a ride..." Lucretia explained gibly.

"Welcome to the Coven." The Zeffo Sorceress said.

"So what are our options?" The straw blond Sorceress of Ossus said, wrinkled features bubbling occasionally. "Those pulses are only getting stronger."

"We could try reforming into Syd..." The young, crimson haired and fair skinned Sorceress of Kashyyyk suggested.

The Zeffo Sorceress shrugged. "Worth a shot."

The Witches held their hands together and changed...only to be violently repulsed back from each other.

"This calls for an emergency measure..." The Zeffo Sorceress hissed in irritation. "I propose a Forced Fusion."

"Madness." The Yurb Sorceress snorted. "You're proposing forcibly joining us together with the magical equivalent of Super Glue and pray the resulting form doesn't break down or explode."

"And even if it doesn't..." The Coruscant Sorceress added in derision. "The result might become so strong it becomes permanent, and all of us mingle and lose all distinctiveness from one another, our thoughts blending together totally. It's not Death. But it's very close to it."

"Our Apprentice is still in that tower, and individually we lack the power to combat this threat. Only together do we stand a chance. The fusion's reinforced binding will protect us for a short time against the magical pulses..."

"Not us...not really... whatever we fuse together into..." The Yurb Sorceress said glumly.

"I'll start drawing the relevant runes..." The Lucretia among them said casually...

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin retrieved his blades, holding them at the ready. Sure enough, within a few minutes they encountered the crystalline guard. It attacked Rom first, wounding her in the shoulder before Starlin had a chance to react.

The Padawan lunged forward, using Force Flight to dodge the guard’s blows. He also noticed how the creature slowed down as it grew hot, so he made sure to make good use of his shoto. The lava crystal within the hilt produced a blade that was hotter than usual, though both it and his lightsaber would certainly heat the creature up considerably.

He fought hard, until finally he plunged his blade through the guard’s chest, melting its heart. As the crystalline guard fell to the floor and shattered, Starlin felt a sudden intense wave of pain and terror. Dropping from the air, he sank to his knees, overwhelmed as he sensed the deaths of the colonists at the hands of the Assembly.

“Something’s wrong,” the boy gasped. “The colonists… Syd…”

His connection to his master was rapidly fading… or at least, something strange was happening to it. For a few moments, he actually felt Syd being split into her many different selves, before the connection between them grew fuzzy and undefined. Not cut, but he couldn’t get a proper read on her anymore.

Starlin wasn’t totally panicking (yet), but as he staggered to his feet, he was a lot more worried and sobered by the experience. “We have to stop those pulses now,” he said to Rom. “I think it may have killed the colonists already. And Syd… she may have survived, but I think she’s wounded. Can you keep going even with that shoulder wound?”

Provided she said, he'd break into a determined run, trusting the Force to guide his way.

Syd Celsius​

 

[Vera Mina]

"I'll live. We must move very quickly." Rom agreed, running along with Starlin Rand deeper into the Complex.

"We have to locate the central power source for this place! I literally cannot see another way this ends." Rom spoke.

"You fight pretty good by the way..." she remarked. "I haven't worked with Jedi before. Force Adepts, yes, but not Jedi. You're actually the first Jedi I've ever worked directly with."

She began to notice signs of power being directed along crystal channels built into the vast space, bigger on the inside than out.

"Let's try following these channels in the walls..." Rom suggested.

As they moved Rom took point, trying to make sure Syd's Padawan came back in one piece a Cryospray Turret a sprang up. She was not fast enough to dodge it

Rom screamed as she was bathed in intense cryo spray, her flesh rendered unstable, bubbling, sagging and freezing over her compromised muscles as she fell over stiff as a board, her cracked breaking flesh rupturing...

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Thanks,” Starlin said. The fact that she claimed to have worked with other Force Adepts, but not Jedi, didn’t quite register in his brain. He was wholly focused on reaching the central power source and stopping the threat it posed.

Alas, their progress was halted by the emergence of a cryospray turret. Starlin darted into cover, but Rom wasn’t so lucky. “Rom!” he exclaimed. But there was little he could do to help her so long as the turret remained active.

He flung his shoto toward the turret, using the Force to guide its path. The molten blade sliced into the gun, disabling it.

Starlin rushed to Rom’s side, only to gasp in dismay at the sight which greeted him. “Rom, I’m so sorry…” he murmured, believing her dead.

But there was no time to mourn. He pulled himself away from the sight of her ruptured, cracked body, turning to head deeper into the construct. As she had advised, he followed the channels on the walls, hoping it would lead him to the power source…

Syd Celsius​

 

[Syd Celsius]

The Witches had busily arranged the ritual, a measure of blood from each of them at a specific point of a pentacle they had created. Each worked feverishly, busily, not knowing when the next pulse from the crystal tower would occur. They had gathered Syd's blue and gold suit at the center to serve as a focus.

That was when they heard the click of a rifle.

Each of the nude witches, whose flesh shuddered unnaturally even now, turned to see a frightened villagers, a teenage man, leveling an assault slugthrower at them.

"Stop this ritual! Stop whatever you're doing! Now! he yelled.

The Witches each looked at each other.

"You want this one?" The red headed Zeffo Sorceress asked of the Coruscant Sorceress.

The elderly Coruscant Sorceress shrugged, her eye twitched, and the metal rifle flew out of his hand to his shock and in to hers.

"Young man, we're working..." The copy of Lucretia Lister called out to the teenager, who was already running away.

"I really do hate that reaction sometimes..." The Ossus Sorceress nodded. "Hurry. Another pulse goes off now and I think we'll be broken down."

The Witches began chanting, gathered in a circle around the ritual marks.

As they changed, it was easy to see how nervous they were. What they were doing--forcing themselves together like lumps of wet clay--was unnatural even by Force Spawn standards.

They could be stuck permanently together. Or explode after a few minutes which the magical release from the explosion being enough to perma-kill even their very collective soul.

But the price of not stopping that tower...

Their flesh shuddered and bubbled violently across the surface of their bodies, pig like metallic shrieks escaping their throat as their forms broke down, pulled to the center of the pentacle as a lump of flesh full of screaming faces and arms and torsos across a bubbling sphere of skin formed, before violently forcing itself inside the suit, forming a basic humanoid shape that rapidly turned into a middle aged woman with pale skin and very dark hair.

She rose from the center, flesh supercharged, and not a moment too soon, because the tower let off another pulse not thirty seconds later, and her flesh only rippling slightly in response.

The Coven tested herself, effortlessly making the ground shake, plants to sprout, metal warp and twist to a shape of her choosing, clouds to gather.

She took off for the tower with Force Flight. She wanted to look for survivors, given the massacre, but due to the serious danger of the tower, she realized it would be an exercise in vanity, because she could save as many as possible, and the tower might still kill them all in spite of it.

Still...she did not feel good about leaving all those poor Civilians in disarray.

She kept her beeline for the tower...

Starlin Rand would likely be able to hear her telepathic calls, though her mental voice would sound like every witch he had encountered, along with the voice of Syd herself.

Starlin? Can you hear me? The Coven called out. Its me...sorta. we have a serious problem outside but I am heading to you because we both need to shut down whatever is causing this, and I can do no more good out here...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin? Can you hear me?

"Syd?" Starlin whispered. Feeling foolish for speaking out loud, he closed his eyes, switching to telepathy. <Syd? Where are you?>

Its me... sorta. We have a serious problem outside but I am heading to you because we both need to shut down whatever is causing this, and I can do no more good out here...

<What's the problem?> he asked. Then, on a more sorrowful note, he added, <Rom is dead. I'm trying to reach the power source inside this construct. I think I'm getting close...>

Syd Celsius​

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia came across a great crystal obelisk, one that stood in front of a great crystal door. She felt great power from it as she approached, her flesh warping violently, the magic from the pillar draining her of energy, rapidly leaving her completely emaciated looking, mind going completely feral in its need for energy, her eyes totally white with no pupils, flesh on her face and the rest of her body sagging as she crawled around on all fours, animal like snarls eliciting from her throat. If she didn't find some form, any form of energy, she would outright mummify, cells completely dried out and starved.

The feral, aged creature scrambled about like a spider on the ground, constantly snarling but moving away from the pillar as it sensed a powerful energy that provided the pillar it's strength.

Not really having a plan the feral creature made its way through non euclidian architecture, a shambling, sagging horror that skittered on the crystal, suit and flesh bunching up disgustingly in certain parts as it came across a glowing blue gemstone in a chamber whose energy flowed invisibly.

The feral creature snarled and gave a metallic squeal as it skittered up to the gem, clasping it and drawing it's energy into it's greedy body, rapidly, her flesh bubbled, filling out in the suit, losing its nearly mummified look as Lucretia's sanity came back, he'd body restored to full health, completely draining the gem, and with it, depowering the magic of the obelisk.

Her flesh shuddered for a few more minutes before resetting. Lucretia gasped, having almost over charged her cells, which would have been just as bad.

Lucretia felt Starlin Rand closing in and immediately went to investigate, taking the path she used to reach the obelisk.

When she spotted him, and saw he had a Lightsaber, she kept her hands up.

"I mean you no harm..." she called out in her soft Coruscant accent. "My name is Lucretia Lister. I have investments tied up in this colony, and have been investigating the nature of this tower myself..."

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Ayo, what the feth?!” Starlin blurted as he turned a corner and immediately came face to face with a little old lady. Well, she wasn’t little, and he wasn’t sure if a lady would be caught dead in a skintight getup like that, but she was pretty old.

The woman quickly introduced herself as Lucretia Lister, and claimed she was investigating the tower. “Sounds like we have the same goals,” he said. “We need to destroy this tower before it does any more damage to the colony.”

With all the craziness that had been going on lately, he was disinclined to fully trust a random stranger. Syd also still hadn’t replied to his telepathic message. That was worrisome.

“Have you found anything?” he asked Lucretia, hoping she would have more answers than him.

Syd Celsius​