The Grasslands Monster

[Nine Lives]

Arrived to Atrisia in: Left Hand (Saotome Envoy)

Wearing: Progenitor's Robes

Armed with: Hundred Handed Giant (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/140489-hundred-handed-giant/)


"Disappointing. Completely disappointing." Nine remarked in her lavish study within her suite.

Her mobile Castle, an ancient heavy command cruiser known as Castle Morpheus, had been in orbit over Atrisia for several days, transporting the bodies of their latest testing of First Order captures. These were some tyrannical little bastards, she had come to learn--and loath--of them. This, coming from a vampire perfectlly willing to let one of her artificial daughters, who she was grooming for leadership, snack on the innocent.

This latest batch from Haruun Kal had not lasted even twelve minutes. It was so terribly disappointing.

Nine was always busy studying the limits of her tech. This often required live--and dangerous--test subjects...but with the First Order's power compromised, the fighting ability of those she had recovered were often compromised as well.

Sometimes she conducted testing on out of the way worlds. Other times, it was on Atrisia. But she had not been conducting any testing, or at least, had not planned to. Merely reviewing the data from spec ops soldiers who had failed to survive her designs.

Nine, a tall woman of Atrisian descent., her figure concealed by a ceremonial hooded kimono of green and white armorweave watched the datatapes, the last moments of various soldiers seen through the eyes of the murderous humaniform robots designed by her, silently. She was going to have to start hunting Sith now, see how far she could really push it.

The ship AI sounded an alert through the kiosk installed in her terminal, which resembled a CRT monitor:

ALERT.

STATUS: GROUND OPERATIONS BREACH.

LOCATION: TESTING GROUND 007

NATURE OF BREACH: UNSANCTIONED, UNCONTROLLED LANDING OF UNKNOWN CRAFT. SHIP SENSORS DETECT SEVERE STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO UNKNOWN CRAFT. POSSIBILITY OF SURVIVORS MINIMAL.

Had Nine known just what she was in for, she would have gone to the crash site personally. Instead, she decided to send a squad of knights down, telling them to keep in contact with her at all times.

Nine knew what side her bread got buttered on. Enemy units from enemy nations were fair game, but civilians were a different matter.

Unfortunately for Nine, she did not yet realize [member="Lev Orlova"] was at the crash site.

The Morpheus Knights, her personal bodyguard, took a Saotome Envoy to the surface, a squad of seven, clad in yovshin swordsman inspired power armor, armed with Vibro-Ninjatos and bullpup submachine guns and tranquilizer pistols...the goal was not to kill, but to capture and prep for memory wipe of discovering Nine's dirty secret...a secret she had been commiting to ever since the First Order darkened Atrisia's skies...

Testing ground seven had been set up near an ancient half rotted Atrisian castle, with wide, grassy plains everywhere for kilometers around. The ship had dropped the knights off close, but not too close, and they could see the smoke from a half kilometer out in the moonlight.

The knights, faces concealed by gasmasks, sprinted forward through the grass after their ship departed, intent on tracking 'any' survivors down. Not one could leave with their memories intact...

 

[Lev Orlova]

"VNIMANIYEH, VNIMANIYEH!" ​

​

Lev's personal ship, a small and inconspicuous craft that suited his clandestine needs, was dropping out of the sky at an alarming rate. He had hit a rogue asteroid while coming out of hyperspace and was careening into the planet at a high angle. As the prerecorded voice of the woman continued to dryly remind him of his situation, the merc reached a hand off of the joystick, not taking his eyes off the viewport, and slammed it down on several buttons. The woman's voice cut out mid-sentence as she was listing off the quickly changing altitude, and after that the various chirps and shrill klaxons denoting various other problems shut off. The only sound inside the ship now was the ozone burning up all around him, a roar slightly below deafening. Lev looked over his shoulder to the special containment closet that housed his breathing apparatus. He was already wearing his combat gear, a greenish pattern uniform that mirrored the grasslands he was descending into and a thick set of armor, but he had yet to don his breathing gear.

He looked back to the viewport as he began to pass through high altitude clouds, obscuring his vision completely. His arms shook terribly as he pulled back on the stick with all his might, his eyes glued to the holomap displaying his ship about 30,000 feet above ground level. The merc grimaced, pulling his lips together tightly and reaching up to flip a few switches. Several flaps popped up all the aerodynamic portions of the ship, shuddering violently as they threatened to rip off. The lights inside the ship turned a dark red so as to accommodate his eyes to the darkness outside. Quickly slamming his hand down onto the autopilot function, he leapt out of his chair and ran to the closet containing his breathing gear. The ship shook with great ferocity as it hit an airpocket, throwing the Czelosmertian down to the ground. He struggled to his feet, gripping the edges of the closet and jamming his finger on the button. The closet door slid open and a light shone on the special breathing mask and large breathing tank/backpack. He grabbed the gear and with great caution made his way back to his seat, just as an airflap was sheared off. The ship shook as if it were about to fall apart, and Lev was thrown so hard into the side of his chair he wheezed as the armrest gut checked him. Personal items flew from their secure cabinets, with a few even pelting him as he retched from the hard blow he had received.

Gripping his stomach, he pulled himself into the chair and buckled himself in, securing his breathing mask into his helmet, which were integral parts. He leaned forward and grabbed the hose from the two tanks of his backpack and reached behind his head. On the back of his helmet was a female pair connector for the hose, which he fumbled with from adrenaline and the shaking of the ship. Finally, the hose clicked back in. He looked up to see his altitude at about 12,000 feet now, as he dropped out of the thick rainclouds. He could see some sparse cloud formations under him lit up by the moon, but further below was a vast darkness. To his relief the flight computer said it was mostly soft and flat grasslands. He threw his backpack over his shoulder and gripped the joystick again, flipping a switch to release the autopilot.

The joystick immediately kicked in and he was pulling his own weight again, with the ship's leaking hydraulics assisting as much as they could. The stoic merc had cold sweat dripping down the side of his head, though his whole ship was creaking, groaning, and shuddering, all he heard was his heart in his ears and his hard breathing through the breathing mask. 7,000 feet, now he had mostly leveled out the ship and what thrusters remained were able to keep him at this angle for the whole way down. 4,000 feet, the moonlight twinkled in some small lakes below. 2,000, he could barely make out the tall grass swaying in the wind. He gripped a free hand on the throttle and slammed it all the way in reverse, the emergency reverse thrusters cutting on and drastically slowing him down. He lurched forward, his seatbelt keeping him from being thrown into the console.

. . .​

​

Lev was startled awake by another set of loud klaxons and the feeling of an intense heat at his rear. He instinctually unbuckled himself and sttruggled with legs like a newborn bantha to his feet. Without even thinking he walked to the weapons closet, grabbing his Mirvasa assault blaster and several charge packs. His shaky hands shoved them into his carrier vest, as many as he could. He cocked his head as the feeling of heat grew more intense, swerving like a drunk to see the engine compartment room spewing out smoke and flame. His soot and ash covered astromech droid slowly rolled out of the blown open door, its head sparking off a large electrical fire as it chirped its last error message, bumping into a wall before unceremoniously falling over and shutting down.

Lev made his way to the escape hatch, pressing a safety button and pulling a large red lever down and initiating the bolts sealing the hatch to explode, sending it flying a few meters off into the grass outside. Lev made it halfway out the escape hatch, when he remembered something. In his shocked stupor he had almost forgot. He calmly walked back to the center of the ship as sparks shot off around him and a fire roared behind him. He knelt down to pull off a secret panel in the floor, revealing a large explosive bolted into the hull. Flipping his nightvision on as the lights inside the ship cut out, he pressed his authorization code into the device. The bomb chirped, and he selected a detonation time for 10 minutes. The bomb chirped again and showed a timer confirming the countdown. Lev turned and calmly made his way out the ship, still shellshocked as he stumbled out into the cool night.

He looked all around at his surroundings as he exited, glancing behind his ship to see the long drag marks the ship had made in the hard landing and the several small bushfires left in the wake. Without looking back, he moved into the tall grass with an awkward, limping gait, hefting up his assault blaster and slamming a charge pack in it. A normal human would have died from that hard landing, but the stoic Czelosmertian merc was only put into a temporary shock. His ears still rung, his right eye was bleeding from a popped artery, his head pounded, his stomach was pummeled, his heart AND his second cybernetic heart were pounding, his legs ached, and he was leaving a metallic-blue trail of deoxygenated Czelosmertian blood in his wake from all the small cuts and lacerations caused by shrapnel... and come to think of it, his side was REALLY starting to hurt.

He had walked for about 100 meters now, thinking only about getting away from his ship, but he looked down to the pounding, sharp pain in his right side. A piece of shrapnel, glistening in his night vision from his blood, protruded from his side. Lev dropped to a knee and reached for his medikit, placing it on the ground as he set his rifle over his shoulder. He was starting to come back to himself now, his thoughts were clearing up. The soldier snorted loudly inside his mask, sucking up some blood dripping down from his nose to his mouth, as he gripped both his hands around the piece of shrapnel. For a human, it was best to leave it in so as not to rupture more organs, but for the hardy mutant offshoot it was just a large metal thorn in his side. He took a deep breath, counting to three in his head before pulling with all his might. The piece came out, a spurt of gunmetal grey blood spraying over the ground and grass.

Lev bit his lip so hard he left teeth marks, letting out a loud, angry and pained groan. His shaky, blood covered and gloved hands reached down to the medikit, and grabbed an instant cauterize kit. He took a menacing, 7 inch combat knife from his boot and sliced the side of the uniform open to completely expose the wound, and without giving himself a second chance to think about it immediately began spraying the bacta/sealant solution over the wound. He gritted his teeth, hissing sharply in pain, but atleast this was a good pain, a healing pain. He'd get over it. It seemed that was the worst of his medical problems, he'd take a bacta injection and let his hardy Czelosmertian physiology do the rest. For now he gathered himself up mentally, panting heavily as he leaned against his knee. The shock slowly subsided, and his hearing came back to him as well.

He could hear only the howling wind of the vast plainlands. An eerie calm that contrasted the coffin he had barely escaped from. The merc tossed aside the spent medical material and stood to his two feet, gripping his blaster rifle again and marching on. His limp had subsided and his bleeding was now under control, his body, with the aid of the bacta injection, quickly mending his wounds. His first real coherent thought was of finishing the job and finding a ride off of this planet. He walked for another hundred meters before coming to a clearing. He walked to the edge of the clearing, seeing several man-made pits in the center. Seeing it as an unexpected sign of civilization, he curiously approached the edge of one of these pits, his head on a swivel as he did. Off in the distance was a large, dark silhouette of an imposing fortress of some kind. Assessing that the area was clear of anyone, he peered down into one of the rectangular pits, his eyes trying to comprehend what he was seeing as his night vision pulsating to a higher setting to accommodate for the darkness. After a quick adjustment, he realized that they were bodies. Not just any bodies, tens of First Order soldiers, bloodied and massacred, crumpled together into a mass grave. He peered over all the mass graves around him, seeing the same situation.

Lev stood in silence, his mind taking all this information in. First Order, out here? They were relatively freshly dead, and killed in a very brutal and unorthodox manner. Only the wind seemed the mourn their death, howling as another gust rolled over the plains. Suddenly, a massive explosion. Lev's ship went up in flame, pieces of debris being flung in several directions as secondary explosives and ammo being stored within the ship cooked off as well. Lev turned slowly to see flaming wreck of his former ship over his shoulder, then back to the mass graves.

Time to go.​

​

And with that he dissapeared back into the thick grass, moving toward the castle beyond the mass graves, his blaster rifle gripped tightly in a readied position.
[member="Nine Lives"]

 

[Nine Lives]

"No one at the site?" Nine asked from the comfort of her study.

"Affirmative, Mother. Site was free of inhabitants. But we found tracks leading to the castle..." chirped one of her knights over the comlink.

"Pursue. A witness to my experiments would be a disaster." Nine ordered.

"At once mother." The comm shut off.

Nine sighed, sat back. She really had gone crazy with The First Order. What she could not do with force of arms she compensated for with individual acts of attrition. She had experimented, tortured, or fed on them in equal measure, all in the hopes that in attrition, she could some how weaken The First Order of its special forces personnel. What had started out as mildly amusing acts of sticking it to the First Order had devolved into cruel and unnecessary experiments, mainly because the thought vampire was taking out her frustration at Atrisia being conquered on the special forces of the wretched empire.

Some days, a part of her missed the open nature in which she had used to operate. But her vampirism made socializing with those outside the circle of trust a dangerous prospect. People fear vampires, and with good reason. Nine didn't need or want it known to the public that she was one.

Thinking about all those bodies, at least half of them made by her, the other half by her creations or her people, led to Nine recalling another pile of bodies she had made...



Many thousands of years ago...

Nine Lives burst from the bedchamber Darth Shojo had kept her in, intending it to be her deathbed chamber. She was clad in a soft white kimono, her black hair hanging loose and straight down to her back. She was armed only with the straight sword that had once been a gift from Sawa herself, before Nine had realized Shojo and Sawa were one and the same.

Shojo had kept her here in this necropolis of hers, in this city of death for a century, torturing her. She had survived, but WOW had her sanity taken a hit.

The skeleton themed arches, walls and ceiling flickered in the weak light of a nearby torch. Nine was bent on escape, and had only just barely gotten in touch with her vampirism when one of Sawa's court lackeys, one of the more annoying business associates who had teased her endlessly during captivity. He was a mousy, old man with wisps of fading gray hair on a pale scalp, clad in fine regalia. Apparently he had been to check on Sawa and got her instead.

Nine was over to him without a sound...a gift of her new vampirism, though she did not know it at the time, sticking a sword in his gut with the practiced coldness of what her father had taught. He let out a scream however, causing Nine to start swearing, backing against a wall...and to her shock, crawling up it by instinct. Nine stared at her hand, wondering half jokingly if she should take up insect-themed superheroics just as a door filled with Sawa's private guards, men in powered battle armor wielding heavy blasters.

Nine had crawled comfortably all the way to the ceiling by this point, however, prepping an ambush as much as musing on what sort of superhero costume she could wear. It would need lots of greens and light colors...

She dropped behind the group of men, silently landing, sword drawn.

Whatever was left of the Jedi Consular she had once been, made her speak.

"Lay down your weapons and escort me out of this hell, and no one else will die...I give once chance on this..." Nine commanded.

The men stared at her for a moment, and then snorted and opened fire. Nine sighed, deflecting one shot with her sword while using Force Speed to dash in to them, her sword moving like a wheat thresher as it ripped away at their weapons and then their exposed skulls, the rage of a century of torture overcoming her. She would pay Shojo back, she decided, as she beheaded one man. She would pay Shojo back for all the misery. She would leave her ex-friend a pile of corpses to drive home just how pissed she was.

Nine fell back on her swordplay, which had grown savage in the short time she had been a vampire, Sawa's aggressive, seductive thoughts and memories swirling around in her head, even as blood splashed across her face. She had not expected Sith thoughts...or thoughts at all...to have such taste.

It was a taste she liked. It was a taste she would get used to.

No sooner had Nine finished gutting the initial welcoming team than a few more arrived, firing at her on sight, given the carnage in the large passage she had been found in. Nine hissed, dodging or deflecting with her sword, almost parrying both blade and hand to hand attacks without thought, due to her battle madness, a thing which had been prized in her family. How fitting she should finally go mad only when she had truly nothing left. It said much of The Jedi she had been that she had endured the torment so long without cracking.

When mere sword kills began to get tiresome, Nine began to start blending in her hand to hand knowledge as well, breaking bones, ripping out eyes, even a face at one point. (FATALITY!!!: 80 XP) But the men and women sent to make sure she did not escape just kept sending reinforcements, so she kept ruthlessly butchering them until she was covered in blood and gore, the soldiers around her torn to pieces or broken by her palm strikes stopping their heart with enough force.

So it was that Nine began the Purge of The Necropolis. No one would be spared the horror of her gaze or her sword.

(BFG Division by Mick Gordon plays)



"Mother?" blared the link again.

A silent, contemplative Vampire answered.

"Speak."

"We're nearing the castle..."

"How bad was the crash?"

"Bad..." the knight on the other end answered. "Only a true badass could survive it. We found tracks by the graves too. Its a male, definitely. Made good time though."

"Hmm...be very careful...bastard's probably gonna be a cornered rat..." Nine warned.

"Understood..." the knight answered, signaling three to go scouting into the castle ahead. Their light power armor had a faint hydraulic hiss to it as two held out tranq pistols and vibro swords before the massive, rotted castle of Atrisian design, the faded statues of guardian lions crumbling in front of the great rusted iron gates. They went forward, disturbingly quiet and nimble, their ears waiting for any sound that would give [member="Lev Orlova"] away...