Private Shot In The Dark

[Aldritch Kaal]

Coruscant wasn't the ideal place Shaze would have liked to been carrying out operations, let alone Galactic Alliance territory. Sith Empire space wasn't home anymore, and if things went wrong there wasn't anywhere to run. This wasn't exactly an assignment from a superior, so she couldn't pin the blame on anyone for her extremely poor decision as much as she wanted to. Coruscant WeatherNet had inconveniently chosen this night not only for rain but to discharge the building electrostatic with lightning. The artificially generated thunderstorm made Shaze's perch all the more uncomfortable. Even with the standard rain poncho, her armor had managed to become near completely soaked. The climate modifications didn't tend to help much when the user beneath the armor wasn't kept sufficiently dry. The cold marination in Coruscanti rain-water made her regret having taken this 'mission' upon herself. The cold caused her teeth to chatter together and her leg to bounce up and down. From her perch on top of a skyscraper, she scanned the windows of the hotel across from it through the scope of her rifle. Gritting her teeth she focused on attempting to identify her target, trying to take her mind off of the cold and wet situation she'd objected herself to.

It was odd that a Zambrano was partaking in aristocratic socialization in on Coruscant of all places. Even more odd, she thought, was the fact that the aforementioned networking was taking place at a charity dinner. Zambrano and charity wasn't exactly a heard-of combination. If there was ever a chance to make a statement to the empire and demand to be taken even more seriously, this was probably it. Putting a blaster bolt into the brain of Evelynn Zambrano was certain to get everyone's attention, and reinforce the idea that they aren't invincible. If any of her superiors were are of what she was doing currently, it would probably result in far less-than-lenient punishment. She'd probably be considered rogue and likely designated as KoS. For all intents and purposes, this was an act of terrorism rather than an official military operation, but sometimes things needed a little push. Or at least, that's how Shaze saw it. It wasn't like the world would truly miss a Zambrano anyway.

Beatrice Govan​

 

[Beatrice Govan]

It was a performance.

Plastic polite smiles had hung off of plastic polite people with perfect posture in putrid pageantry. A necessary evil as her ambition took form in the most unlikely of ways. Charity dinner, indeed. A far cry from the arcane and genocidal reputation that had been bred by her father's Empire. No, this event came from the advice of Darth Adekos, who had imparted valuable knowledge upon the matter of purpose and what a Sith could be.

Unfortunately, her tutor had openly declared as an apostate during these troubled times thus making their contact rather limited, but the woman was still keen to take his advice to heart.

A dip of the toe into the life of Darth Vectivus.

When Evelynn Zambrano returned to her hotel room the fixed smile vanished from her severe face, an irritated scowl being left behind in its wake. The event was over, and at long last, the woman could step out of her overly-pompous skin and relax somewhat, immediately shedding the unnecessary jewellery that adorned her neck, ears and hair.

The charity dinner had been a farce. On the surface it was nothing more than good public relations, philanthropy from royalty. Beneath the surface there was nothing charitable about it, with the discussion largely revolving around the matter of the current Civil War and the appropriate investments required.

Her black, elbow-length silk gloves were shed next, revealing the full extent of her golden prosthetic arm that began at her shoulder. The exquisite work of the alchemist, Darth Maliphant, unfortunately, had to be hidden as her presence upon the city-planet was a more subtle affair, with hopefully only all the right people knowing of her presence and nobody else.

Otherwise all this needless detail had been futile. The dress, the hair, the jewellery, the shoes. A motif of black and gold. All far too extravagant for her tastes (aside from the colour scheme, she was quite fond of that) for in this second life she had found comfort in function over form, choosing to dress more like an Imperial officer than even a Sith. All these flowing clothes were just so terribly impractical.

Head turned to stare out the window from the penthouse hotel suite, that beleaguered expression taking in the dizzying heights as the Emperor's daughter began to undo the elaborate braids that her blonde hair had been set in so that it could return to a far more plain and practical bun.

Perhaps the life of Darth Vectivus was not for her after all.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Staring at the grainy images projected by the scope was beginning to cause a very uncomfortable strain on Shaze's eye, even though her visor. She released a low sigh and lowered the rifle, pulling the helmet up just enough to rub her eye with the back of her hand before putting it back down. Her posterior had gone rather numb with the amount of time she spent sitting atop this cold and rather disagreeable perch. None of this was nearly as uncomfortable as the pain she felt from the base of her neck down to her lower back from all the time she'd spent hunched over with this rifle.

How many hours had it been? Three? Five? Time seemed almost unrecallable to her at the moment. The number of times she'd had to sit, sometimes fruitlessly, in the same spot for hours waiting for a target had all but desensitized her to such grief. After all, good soldiers don't complain, or at least, that's what she had been taught. She turned her head up and raised the rifle again, subjecting herself once again to the remorseless artificial light that assaulted her vermillion eye.

There she was.

Shaze was met with the image of a sickly, pale, green-eyed visage staring obliviously through the window. The excitement and anticipation built in her chest and fingers, only being soothed by a shuddering deep breath. She looked rather unalarming for a Zambrano. Not that Shaze had ever seen one, but her own mental picture of them was much more sinister. She couldn't help but hesitate, especially considering how incorrupt she looked, at least on the surface. Normally these targets were in helmets or actively trying to kill her, but looking straight at someone completely oblivious to their coming fate, having done nothing themselves to warrant aggression was a different feeling, to say the least.

After a few deep breaths, she finally wrapped her finger around the trigger and prepared to fire.

Still, she hesitated. Just pull the trigger, Shaze. Why won't you pull the trigger?

Beatrice Govan​

 

[Beatrice Govan]

As she returned her hair to the simplicity of a bun Evelynn considered the glittering skyline of Coruscant. The thrum of life that never stopped moving here. Resilient, constantly busy little people who had grown increasingly nonchalant in the face of both the Jedi and the Sith. How many times had the city-planet been razed in its storied past? Yet they always rebuilt. There was something admirable about that.

And yet as the speeders below flew by in the waves of traffic that never seemed to cease the Emperor's daughter frowned. It wasn't for her. Simply too busy.

With the privacy that the penthouse offered the woman began to strip, not burdened by the notion that anybody might have seen her. Atrocious heels left by the dresser and luxurious threads of black and gold left crumpled in the laundry hamper to be laundered by the hotel staff tomorrow.

A bath would be divine, perfect to wash the pompous stink of grandiosity off of her flesh but before the woman made her way to the bathroom she found herself staring into the floor-length mirror of the suite.

Evelynn sneered in appraisal of her own nude image. Fragility stared back. A skeletal form, still far too thin for her regal status. The menacing fingers of her prosthetic ran over cadaverous flesh, tracing over the protruding collar bone and gently tracing downwards to her ribcage, which sat visibly over taut flesh.

Truly frustrating, as she had been trying to put on weight.

Her appetites did not lay in food, however, no matter how lavish and as she continued to consider the reflection Evelynn tried to recall the last time she had enjoyed the notion of eating. It was before this life, before she met her infernal father, when fate felt like it could have been anything and everything. A mere girl with all her trivial wants and desires who had yet to know of the horrors that awaited her.

She imagined that not many would regain a healthy appetite if their father had force-fed them their beloved pet.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Shaze took a deep breath once again. She grimaced as the woman began to remove the covers of modesty from herself. It would be rather humiliating to be killed naked and alone. It was the kind of indignity that made this a little harder to swallow. She tensed up, gritting her teeth together again in frustration that she was too much of a coward to pull the trigger on a Zambrano. Zambrano or not she was mostly faultless, this was little more than a political assassination.

Had coming here been a mistake? If any of the other PURGE Commandos could see her now she would probably be ostracized, demoted, even. Relentless training and painful procedures all in the name of killing Sith, and she couldn't even pull the trigger on the first Sith that appeared otherwise harmless. With a low growl, she adjusted the rifle in her grip and took aim.

She refrained from looking at anything besides the side of the Zambrano's face and the crosshair of her scope. Her hands began to shake as she worked up the nerve to squeeze the trigger and end this Zambrano. She bit down on her tongue in frustration exhaling slowly through her nose.

"Just pull the trigger, you coward." She insulted herself under her breath, hands still shaking.

With a squeeze of the cold, pitiless mechanism there was a red flash and the sound of a muffled, high pitched burst from the barrel of the rife. The weapon kicked back into her shoulder, jostling her slightly. She quickly reoriented herself with the rifle, peering through the scope to check if she had hit.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Futile.

There was little that scathing self-examination could ever do to benefit one's life. The pursuit of vanity had no place within her purpose. The body was nothing more than a shell, a vessel that carried both ambition and power. Everything could be replaced, made stronger. The clockwork heart sat within her chest, and her magnificent golden arm proved such to be true. Although a quick glance caught darkening flesh at the join upon her shoulder between the alchemic and the organic.

A side-effect of Darth Maliphant's work?

Frustrated, the woman physically had to turn her head away from her reflection, the skyline a far preferabl-

Red.

Heat.

Pain.

Chaos erupted all in a single moment as Evelynn's left ear suddenly explOded, glass of the window shattering in tandem with the sudden eruption of incineration. A tongue-less screech as the woman's body moved upon instinct's command before her mind could consider anything more complex other than 'find cover!'

The en suite bathroom was where the woman's feet carried her in a clu msy stagger, any and all sound from her left side distorted and muffled as gritted tEeth found relative safety in the confines of the less exposed room.

Sense could gather now, slowly. Hand clasped over what felt like a misshapen, molten lu mp of fused skin upon the side of her head and the alarm that had been writ large across her gaunt features was beginning to morph into sickening fury. Once upon a time, the Emperor's daughter would have been less concerned with the consequences of her apparent assassination and more enamoured with the pain it served.

Thankfully this was not the case as her thoughts immediately moved to the next move. An escape plan.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Shaze had expected to watch the woman drop to the ground, but she instead saw her panic and stagger out of the windows view. She cried out in frustration and slammed her hand down into the top of the raised safety edge of the building she had perched on. Frantically she folded up the rifle and placed it back into the suitcase-like carrier she had brought it in. She had fired the shot, but even with the most silenced discharge, the sudden flash of light and subsequent shattering of a window was sure to raise eyebrows. She stood up and stared at back to where Evelynn once stood, nearly bouncing up and down with adrenaline.

She took a few steps forward and looked down from the edge of the building. She couldn't see the ground past all of the sky traffic that began about two-dozen stories down and went on for who knows how long. Looking back up to the shattered window she began to quickly make some mental calculations. She began to nod her head as if trying to reassure herself. "I can make that jump," she declared out loud in a further attempt to bolster her confidence. She was seething internally about how much a blunder this operation was turning out to be, but there would be time for her to be angry at herself later.

She picked up the rife-carrier and made a great deal of space between herself and the edge of the building. There was only a fleeting moment of hesitation before she took off in a sprint. At the last second, her dominant foot came up onto the raised edge of the building and kicked off it with all the force Shaze could muster. As she ascended into the air she flexed certain muscles in her feet and clenched her toes inward to activate the jets and repulsors in her boots.

Shaze flew clumsily through the air as her rain cloak fanned out and waved behind her like a flag. She relaxed the muscles in her feet as she began to reach the edge of the window and landed loudly with a tumble that brought her back to her feet in a low position. The armor clik-claking against the ground and shattering even more glass beneath it was an almost sickening sound from inside her helmet. She sat the rifle-carrier down and unholstered her sidearm. Quietly she began to skulk around the rather large suite, looking for wherever the Zambrano fled to.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

The first priority, clothing. No matter what came of this apparent attempted assassination she would not be found naked, not living nor dead. Unfortunately, the en suite bathroom was not the optimal place to find clothing and the Emperor's daughter had to make do with a plush, white bathrobe that sat folded amongst the towels.

Not ideal, but there were more important issues at hand.

Was there a thud just then? Were they in her suite? It was hard to tell with one ear so mangled, muffling sound completely upon her left side. Didn't want to risk stepping out of the bathroom. What if the would-be assassin was still there? Just biding their time until she left her cover?

Reaching out with the Force to sense a presence gave nothing away, but she couldn't discount her attacker being a droid either.

Possible scenarios played out in the woman's mind. Trying to flee had already been eliminated from the available options. If there was some way to alert her protector, who for the idiotic sake of privacy had her own separate room upon a different floor there might have been a chance at rescue. Did the Inquisitor sense that something was wrong? Was she already on her way? Was there time to wait? Too much uncertainty.

She snarled, standing there in the luxurious bathroom as the notion of fighting for her own life came into play. A prolonged fight would be of no use, she was not a duellist, nor was she appropriately armed for such. Well, except for one golden detail...

Perhaps an ambush of her own then?

Channelling the pain from her still-burning ear the Sith allowed it to f l o w freely through her being, concentrating the power from such base sensation into the alchemised laminanium of her arm. Pointed, slender fingers melted into a liquid before reforming into a simple sharp blade akin to a dagger. She would have to send Darth Maliphant a fruit basket if this machination of his actually saved her life.

With the bathrobe drowning her petite figure the newly formed weapon was concealed beneath the baggy sleeve.

The final part of the plan saw Evelynn place herself in the bathtub, assuming the position of the weak, and cowering girl. She sat, knees pulled up to her chest with her head buried downwards. Raw gasping breaths emerged from a heaving chest, eyes held tightly shut as if she was afraid of what was to come. It was a truly pathetic sight; carefully constructed fakery to draw sympathy should her assailant find her.

Golden blade waiting within her sleeve.

Of course, were it really a droid, then it would all be folly. So many holes to poke into her plot, but really, action was always preferable to inaction.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Each step she took was slow and careful as she skulked through the hotel suite. Extra attention was paid to minimize the sound of her armor shifting and jostling around. She experienced the sight of this lavish suite vicariously down the sights of her blaster, carefully scanning around every corner and waiting for even the most subtle sign of the Zambrano's location. Time was ticking down until someone caught on to what was happening, and the urge to frantically tear these accommodations apart in search from her was almost futile to resist.

During a quiet but hurried scan of the suite's bedroom, Shaze heard what she thought was a sob from the bathroom. She turned on her heels and approached the door slowly. After a second noise she was confident the Zambrano had fled to the bathroom. Naked and hiding in the bathroom? How utterly indignified. She slammed her hand against the door control and rushed in as the door slid open with a mechanical whizz.

She saw Evelyn curled up into a ball, sobbing to herself in the bathtub like a small child. Shaze tilted her head to the side and looked at the Zambron with her own eyes, for the first time unobstructed by the visual apparatuses of killing tools. This really was a sorry sight, and somewhere deep within Shaze's otherwise cold psyche, she felt some kind of sympathy. She knew all to well what it was like to feel helpless and- No. This wasn't the same thing, Sith weren't like everyone else. They deserved no sympathy.

Shaze brought her blaster back up and approached slowly, observing Evelyn once again through the cold and unforgiving eyes of a metal killing apparatus.

Beatrice Govan​

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Far from the regal status of the Emperor's daughter, she shivered in the bath, not seeming like the woman she was but in fact a girl. Just as a normal and scared as any civilian below would have been in this life-threatening situation.

A convincing act.

It was a role that Evelynn knew how to play so very well, for she had been that scared girl all those years ago. She knew how it looked, how it sounded, how it felt when she had lived it so many times before. Like turning back the clock. Pathetic. Pitiful. Shivering. Stammering.

Wretch.

When the door opened, her trembling head shifted upwards from her knees to steal a glance at her would-be assassin before immediately wincing and driving her head back down again. It was the way she used to look at her father when his cruelty knew no bounds. When he took her to pieces only to reforge the girl into something new. Something monstrous. The very action seemed like another subtle part of the act, creating further fabrication and making the scene feel more complete.

When in fact, the fearful peek was only to confirm her attacker's identity. Not a droid, thankfully but the Imperial-style helmet and absolute lack of presence in the Force confirmed worse fears. The inevitability that was the Civil War had caught up with her, and this was somebody no doubt designed to deal with Force users.

Telepathy was useless here, there'd be no talking out of this. At least not in a dignified manner.

“...p-puh....pea,” her tongueless mouth stammered, voice hoarse from disuse as she dared to look up once more only to find herself confronted by a blaster trained right on her position. She would only have one chance to strike, “...o-oo...hu-hu...hu...muh-me...”

The robed arm that wasn't concealing her golden blade was raised in trembling surrender, emeralds wide and scared until the assassin was close enough.

And then Evelynn suddenly lunged, eyes still wide but demeanour shifting immediately into feral venom as her flesh-made left hand shot out to grab the sidearm by the muzzle and pull her tiny frame towards her towering foe. Her right sleeve fell back, revealing a glint of gold that was seeking the flesh of her attacker's neck.

Well, at least in theory. In reality, Evelynn Zambrano's combat prowess severely lacked in the face of trained opposition.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Her finger had finally wrapped itself around the trigger, ready to get this over with when the Zambrano suddenly lunged forward. It was hard not to be caught off guard when someone who appeared to be helpless and was cowering before you suddenly lunged. She should have expected a Sith to pull something like this, but she had let her guard down when she saw the rather convincing display. For her mistake, she received a golden blade plunging toward her jugular.

She tried to pull the blaster away, but the sudden retreat coupled with Evenlyn's attempt to pull on it caused Shaze to fumble. The blaster clacked against the tile flooring and bounced several feet from them. She tucked her chin downwards and arched her back to move with the blade and attempt to protect her vitals. Her other hand coming up to contest the momentum combined with the previous maneuver was enough to spare her from a sudden impaling through the neck, but not enough to stop the assault entirely.

There was a loud pop as the alchemized blade somehow found its way through the duraplast plate that protected her upper chest. The alloy broke inward, cutting into the upper left part of her chest just below the collarbone. The sith's weaponized arm followed after a split second of natural resistance, sinking into her flesh with a sharp and fiery agitation. A quick inhale through her teeth and subsequent tensing of her chest muscles followed as the pain shot through her like a biological alarm system on high alert.

Her left hand wrapped around the alchemized arm and stopped it from going any further. With her left hand, the much larger woman reached for the Zambrano's face in an attempt to grab it with her palm centered on the noise. Should she be successful, she intended to push off on her back foot and use all the strength she could muster in her right arm to send the back of the Sith's head careening towards the bathroom wall.

Beatrice Govan​

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Much to the dismay of bared teeth and molten fury, the blade did not penetrate soft-vulnerable flesh in what would have been a killing blow her cybernetic blade found her would-be assassin's chest plate instead, it's Force-imbued power managing to pierce the armour inwards.

In another scenario this might have been gratifying, knowing that she had inflicted the sweet kiss of pain upon another being. However, this was not a situation that Evelynn wished to prolong, knowing full well that her chances of survival hinged on getting the job done swiftly. The longer this farce went on, the more likely her demise.

She tried fruitlessly to plunge the blade in further, to twist it and cause as much damage as she possibly could but resistance came in the greater strength of her foe, who gripped the golden arm with one hand and with the other, her face.

There was a sickening dull thud as the back of Evelynn's head smashed into the tile behind her, the blonde woman's head splitting open upon impact and that warm, wet sensation already beginning to envelop the new wound and stain the white tile behind her.

A throaty growl came in response alongside a vicious snarl as the sudden rush of pain stoked the fire of her infernal engine. The Emperor's daughter may have been broken easily, but as long as she could still function her sufFEring would only pro ve to fuel her power. She no longer had the element of s u r p r i s e, but at the very least her capacity for pAin could still be underestimated.

She sought to create distance, her free hand shooting upwards as it became the focal point for all of her gathering monstrous energies.

The woman would be limited in what she could do through the Force to the void that stood before her, but she wasn't entirely without options as her open pa lm fired off a shockwave that would hopefully bLAst her opponent away and give her some time and space to recuperate.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Shaze had raised her fist to follow up the head-slamming with a haymaker to further ensure that the Zambrano would be down. Before her strike could make contact she was suddenly assaulted by an opposing force of unseen energy. Her body snapped backwards as her arm reached the apex of its swing, causing a sickening pop as the opposing forces reached their peak and tore her arm halfway from her shoulder socket.

The sudden influx of pain from her shoulder was suddenly met by another as she slammed back-first into the tile wall of the bathroom. The shattering of tiles and the sudden rumble and pop of wavering plaster beneath it filled the suite as Shaze was sent through the materials like a battering ram. She landed back-first onto the floor of the lounge area, her head whipping back into the floor as her helmet was sent slipping over her head and bouncing away,

Had it not been for the impact gels, she might well have broken a few ribs. With a groan, she rolled on her side and lifted up before dropping all of her body weight on her shoulder. Another sickening pop as her arm and shoulder returned painfully to their normal positions. She made it to one knee and looked up towards the Zambrano through the rather large hole she had made in the wall. With one hand she moved backward the wavy dark blue locks that obscured her crimson eyes and began a low profile sprint towards Evelyn with a loud, growling roar.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

As her attacker was violently sent flying into and through the bathroom wall Evelynn knew that she had to act swiftly, the distance now between them offering a quick reprieve for the woman to gather her composure and prepare for her next move.

The Emperor's daughter stumbled out of the bathtub, her feet unsteady after such a vicious blow to the head that had rattled her brain beyond healthy measures.

Upon the floor, the fumbled blaster caught the blonde's eye and with little hesitation, she rushed to pick it up. While she had been training to use her non-dominant left hand (as to not become too dependent on her prosthetic) with Darth Adekos it was still a learning process, and the weapon felt particularly clumsy in her delicate grip. Not to mention her lack of formal training.

Unfortunately, this cost too much time and before Evelynn could even attempt to aim the blaster at the assassin the now revealed Chiss woman was already charging her down.

The disadvantage was all hers, the back of her bleeding head a testament to fresh imbalance and her complete lack of hand-to-hand combat ability was evident as the brute strength of that armoured shoulder collided with her delicate frailty.

The loud crack of her sternum was a truly horrifying sound to behold as Evelynn found herself rag-dolled and crumpling in a face-down heap, the blaster sent flying out of her grasp and skittering to the tiled floor.

She coughed and writhed, small squeaks of agony escaping the girl's mouth involuntarily through haggard gasping breaths. Each pump of the woman's lungs causing a sharp shooting pain to erupt through her chest and feed more fuel to her fire. Should have bEen more than enough to take a girl of such a weak frame out and that seemed to be the case as she squi rmed in suffering, trying to wriggle away from the formidable Chiss, the now-dishevelled blonde bun upon the back of her head heavily stained with contrasting crimson.

Yet tucked beneath her the goldEn arm shifted, the b l a d e melting away to refO rm as a hand once more...

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

A sharp flash of pain shot through Shaze's body as the natural flexing of her black muscles and compression of her torso upon the tackle's impact agitated whatever had happened to her back when she was sent through the bathroom wall. The rolling halfway off of the smaller woman was almost involuntary as her body reacted to the pain. The pain radiated from her spin to the tips of her fingers and tones. Excruciating.

Shaze could hear and feel the Zambrano begin to wriggle and writhe her way out from underneath her. She rolled back over just as Evelynn slipped out from under her. Quickly, Shaze's hand reached out and snatched Evenlyn's ankle with a muffled slap of armor-on-skin. The Chiss came to a knee as she pulled the bleeding woman across the floor and over towards her.

Her main hand reached out and grasped Evelynn by the lower side of her jaw. Shaze's large hand wrapped around the top of her throat, just below jaw. Her fingers pressed into her cheeks, pushing the sides of her mouth together in a terrifying artificial pucker. There was a brief moment where Shaze's crimson eyes gazed with what almost looked like pure malice behind the curly dark blue locks that had fallen in front of her face.

She gritted her teeth and pressed her tongue against the roof of her own mouth as her shoulders straightened and her neck tightened up. She leaned back slightly, leading with her shoulder before throwing her head forward in a fast and vicious fashion. The middle of her forehead was aimed to drive right into the bridge of the Zambranos nose.

Beatrice Govan​

 

[Beatrice Govan]

There came a feral snarl as she felt the brute's hand roughly grab her ankle, her meagre frame unable to fight back on a good day, never mind with a cracked sternum and a probable concussion. It made the woman feel like a useless child in the hands of an adult and that feeling only spurred on a deep venom within her.

The hand that then gripped her jaw only cemented such vile sensation as Evelynn looked to the Chiss, her own violent expression squished by the fierce crush of fingers. The Emperor's daughter imagined that the armoured hAnd could have c r u s h e d her mandible right there and then, with pain's perverse callINg demanding suchSick satisFac tion.

Not now.

This was not the time, nor the place to succumb to such self-destructive deviance.

As the blonde still wheezed in great struggles for a proper breath her organic hand reached up for the one clutching her face, skeletal fingers trying and failing to pry open the grip of the barbarian in blue. Her prosthetic hand would have surely made a better job at that, but she wished for her foe to forget that the skeleton key even existed. At least at that moment.

There was little Evelynn could do to brace for the forehead that smashed into the core of her face, nose instantly broken, a vicious gash now sitting atop a broken nasal bone and crushed cartilage. Eyes welled up in accordance to the blow, the body's natural reaction to such an injury as the woman cried out, teeth-gritted PAIN.

Her reaction in kind was shockingly swift as the crimson began to trickle down her now-disfigured visage, the golden arm whipping around in retaliation as a savage open-handed slap was sent hurtling towards the Chiss' cheek. A slap alone might not have been a considerable threat, but with the repulsor generators activated within the cybernetic, it had the potential to tear skin and break bone.

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

Shaze closed her eyes at the moment of impact, feeling the woman's nose give beneath the impact of her forehead. As the Sith's face slipped from her grasp upon impact, she began to raise her fist to prepare for another strike. As her eyes opened, her field of vision was met with a golden blur sent directly towards her face. A split-second later there was an impact, sharp pain with a sickening crunch, subsequently followed by black nothingness.

A moment later Shaze's eyes opened again, met with the blurry image of the tiled flooring. The pain in her jaw radiated to every tooth, and through the entirety of her skull. Despite the ringing in her ears and the feeling that the world was spinning around her, she managed to raise herself up and out of the face-down position she had landed in.

Pain shot through her jaw and head as she moved, irritating the side of her jaw that hung free from its socket and gave her a half-slack-jawed expression. Through the pain, she dizzily stagged her way over back to Evelynn, putting her foot down hard on one of the Sith's ankles in an attempt to stop her from wriggling away again. Through the constant high-pitched bombardment in her ears, she could hear the approaching sirens of the Coruscanti police.

She took another step over the Sith, most of her weight coming down on that ankle for a split second with her stationary foot. She reached down and snatched the golden arm in an attempt to restrain it before sending her other hand for the Zambrano's throat. When and if she achieved a firm grasp on both, she'd release the Sith's ankle and begin to lift her up by the neck, her crushgaunts squeezing harder and harder, slowly going beyond the grip strength the average hand should be able to achieve.

Beatrice Govan​

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Oh, now that felt good, undeniably so.

As the brute was sent sprawling to the floor Evelynn joined her. Her eyes still brimmed with tears and the crimson now flowed freely from her disfigured nose but a glorious smirk still enlightened damaged features. What a beautiful sound that was. Give me the other cheek, I want to do it again.

No, no. More pressing matters at hand.

Much to Evelynn's dismay, the Chiss was made from tougher stuff, her incapacitation too brief a window to grant much of a reprise. She'd only managed to breathlessly wiggle a few feet away before the blue queen was standing again and back on the hunt, an armoured boot crashing down upon her brittle ankle.

Through the melted flesh of her ear, the sound of sirens became evident. This wasn't exactly the territory that either of them wanted to get caught upon by authorities, but at least one of them was a frail blonde woman in a bathrobe with an alias. Much harder to disguise that armour.

All she needed now was time.

A yelp, as her ankle received the full wEight of her assassin, the time that Evelynn required seeming to become a precious commodity as those hands wrapped around her prosthetic and throat. The Emperor's daughter was already struggling for breath as it was, never mind now that she was being held aloft by her slender neck, gauntlet slowly squeezing and beginning to cut off the flow of both blood and oxygen.

As the crimson pooled in her head, nose pissing blood all the faster and her enraged expression turning scarlet the Sith attempted once more to loosen the alien's hand with her own free skeletal fingers. Utter futility as before but this time her golden apparatus was unavailable, held restricted by her attacker's other hand.

Just needed to hold out until the Coruscanti police got here.

Easier said than done, each breath grew ever impossible and the blonde could feel the top of her head begin to buzz with a not unpleasant sensation, the mask of rage melting away to one of panic and desperation.

“...H...OP,” she protested with a great strangled difficulty, her free hand being held up with her palm facing this Chiss, all she could hope was that her surrender was obvious,“....I....UEN...ackkk...UEN...ER!"

Shaze

 

[Aldritch Kaal]

The azure-skinned woman scowled as she began to squeeze even harder, despite her victim's protest. Her half-slacked jaw, the swelling in her face, and the scowl all combined into an ugly and sinister display of malevolence. Tighter and tighter, she squeezed on the lithe, porcelain neck of Evelyn Zambrano. The passage that allowed air to enter her lungs began to close beneath the strength of her grip. The wheezing sound of every fleeting breath was a sickenly satisfying beat to Shaze's ears.

A little more pressure and the upper section of the trachea could collapse. Even more pressure and her neck just might snap like a twig. She had never given the crushgaunts included in the design of the Tenebrae armor much thought. Now, however, that the full might of the gloves was laid out before her, the possibilities began to run through her head in that instant. Rather than losing herself in the sadistic ideation fueled by the morbid possibilities of ending Evelyn right this instant, she managed to regain her focus and remembered what her adjusted objective had been.

Ironic that what was supposed to be a quick and simple assassination devolved into an all-out brawl with the objective of taking her alive. Thinking quickly she lifted the woman's shriveled form as far upwards as she could manage. She threw her arm forward and pivoted her right shoulder forward. Stepping with this motion she bent her knee as she came down, sticking it out and in the path of the Zambrano's fall like a rock at the bottom of a cliff. Some extra downwards force at the apex of the motion created by her arm would attempt to ensure her non-lethal demise.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

The grip grew tighter as Evelynn's surrender was apparently deemed unacceptable judging by the monstrous expression that clung to the swelling face of her attacker. Perhaps spitting upon the Chiss would have been the better option, certainly the more satisfying one.

Was this how it was supposed to end? Ah yes, Evelynn Zambrano, daughter to the Emperor strangled to death in a hotel suite wearing nothing but a complimentary robe.

How utterly undignified.

Yet the thought of her second demise came creeping in to occupy the space where oxygen no longer flowed. The tightening hand making every subsequent breath a painful impossibility, until there was nought but impotent rasps and wheezes. Panic began to descend, her golden arm struggling against the secondary grip as her left returned to impotently trying to pry the crushgaunt from her meagre throat, bare feet kicking uselessly against armour and causing more self-inflicted damage than anything.

Face purple. No. Eyes bulging. Not like this. Head tingling. No. Struggles began to cease. Relaxation creeping in, smothering resistance. Raised higher in the air. Hard to think. Fading. Falling.

CRACK!

Back to reality and the woman found herself face down upon the tiles, an indescribable shock reverberating through her spine. The pain buzzed in unrelenting waves, every newly gasping breath a struggle but with her mind clouded by oxygen deprivation, Evelynn couldn't even begin to fathom using it as power.

In fact, she could barely fathom moving at all.

Limbs weren't responding properly, a feeling of numbness spreading from the spine with only the fingers of her prosthetic reacting as her broken nose trickled a crimson pool upon the tile. Broken girl with a broken back.

“...aaa,” Evelynn half rasped between another desperate gulp for air, this farce was over, "aa.... fee.... hep..."

Dire, but ultimately preferable to death.

Shaze