Private Though Some Call It Magic

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna was feeling a lot better by the time they left the closet, though she was still a little on edge. She trailed behind Moonlighter as he headed for the basement entrance. To her confusion, he kept looking back over his shoulder at her. She wasn’t sure why, but she wiped at her mouth self-consciously afterwards.

Finally, she’d had enough. “What is it?” she whispered. “Is there something on my face?” She thought she had swallowed everything...

They reached a featureless hallway. Cato was convinced the entrance was somewhere in here, and began feeling along the walls. Inanna did the same, without much luck.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

“Is there something on my face?”

Cato sputtered a little too loud, and covered his mouth reflexively, “N-no!” He snorted, scoffed, and cleared his throat, “It’s nothing. I’m just being stupid…” The rest of the way, Cato made a conscious effort not to keep glancing back at Inanna.

He was able to turn his focus to the hallway, thankfully, where they began to scour the walls for some kind of mechanism. They didn’t seem to be having much luck though, “Dammit. C’mon. We can’t have gotten this far in the bad guy’s evil lair for him to not actually have a secret door.”

Then, as if on cue, he felt the slightest of indents as his hand ran over a wall. He pushed a little harder, and a small square cutout of the wall pushed inward. Following that, a larger, door-sized cutout gave way to a descending staircase, “Hell yes! I knew it!” Cato pumped his fist. But any further celebration was cut off by the sound of clanking footsteps heading their direction, “Let’s hustle!” He ushered Inanna to the stairs, before trying to close the door.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

What was that supposed to mean? Inanna shrugged and kept looking for the basement entrance.

Cato was ultimately the one who found it. Inanna stood behind him as the wall opened, revealing a secret passageway. She grinned, then raced through the hole at the sound of footsteps.

The door didn't want to close. Inanna finally forced it shut with her telekinesis. “Stay close to me,” she whispered, reaching for his hand before she headed down the stairs. It wasn't long before she was able to hear a voice coming from below…

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Inanna mangel to force the door shut, allowing them to escape the line of sight of any approaching droids. She took Cato's hand and led them both down the stairs. Soon, a voice could be heard, though its words were inaudible. At the bottom of the stairs they reached a large basement dwelling, one which seemed to function as a base of operations. The space was furnished in the similar, old-fashioned style of the rest of the manor; With old banners, art, and suits of armors along the walls. But it was also now covered in the whirring din of active computer consoles and servers, taking up whatever wall space remained. On the back wall was a large collection of monitors, displaying recordings of numerous different locations, all seemingly on Nar Shaddaa. And staring at them was an armored, cloaked figure in a chair.

Cato huffed quietly, "It's another bot," He began to creep forward suspiciously, but before he could processs that the Force signature in the chair was indeed organic, the figure turned around and raised its hand. Unprepared, Cato found himself thrown up into the air, hitting the ceiling before being left levitating in the center of the room, "Ow."

"I was wondering if you would ever show up," The voice spoke coolly, "Moonlighter, I presume?"

"Sorry, guess I got the wrong address. Should really start knocking first," Cato grumbled.

"Don't play stupid, boy. Clearly you have some modicum of intellect to have gotten this far. And no one else on this planet would be foolhardy enough to try and enter alone."

"I'm flattered. Dathan Carnage, I presume?"

The man seemed to stand taller just hearing his own name, "In the flesh."

Cato looked up and down at his seemingly metallic form, "You sure about that?"

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Though Cato was quick to conclude that the guy in the chair was another droid, the armored, cloaked figure was equally quick to prove him wrong. Inanna sensed a rippling in the Force. A scream tore itself from her throat when he was plucked up and thrown against the ceiling.

"You sure about that?"

“Ah, is this where you would make some ominous statement about my being ‘more machine than man’? How cliché.” Dathan Carnage glanced toward Inanna, who was straining to seize Moonlighter from Dathan Carnage’s clutches with the Force. “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with you soon enough. Whoever you are.”

The criminal mastermind’s grip was too strong for her to break. Giving up the struggle, Inanna cracked her lightwhip at the seated Carnage, hoping that the tendrils of energy would find purchase in a vulnerable spot. But he simply caught the main cord in a gauntleted hand and yanked, knocking Inanna aside.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

"Less 'ominous statement' and more 'joke at your expense', but pretty much yeah."

"And hey I resent that; Calling out a cliche is about as cliche as actual cliches, these days." Cato hmphed, apparently amused by his little incidental rhyme. His amusement slipped away when Carnage turned his focus to Inanna. Between his holding Cato in place, and grappling Inanna's lightship unimpeded, it was clear this guy had more up his sleeve than they realized, "C'mon, Dathan, leave the lady be. I get jealous."

The villain turned his steely gaze to Cato, unamused by the attempt at a first name basis, "Dathan Carnage will do as he pleases." He dropped his hand, throwing Cato onto the ground and holding him there.

"Okay. Referring to yourself in the third person is a new one." Cato grunted, "Pretty fancy powers for a guy living in his parents' basement, D. What's your shtick?"

"Shtick?" The man repeated venomously, "This is not some child's game, Moonlighter. As much as you might like to pretend it is one." He raised his head proudly, "No— But I want the same thing you want."

Moonlighter looked at him quizzically, "Have you ever seen me rob a bank?" Just then, he threw one of the metal suits in the room at Carnage with the force, hoping to catch him by surprise.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna rolled with the throw and landed on her feet. Just in time to see him slam Cato against the ground. He had so much power, and so much contempt for them. Like they were little more than ants.

Clearly he didn’t consider her much of a threat, given that he was focusing most of his efforts on Moonlighter. A furious Inanna began to rapidly skinshift, increasing in size until she had taken on the form of a juvenile rancor. While Cato threw a suit of armor at Dathan, she reached toward the metal-clad man with her claw, trying to pluck him from his throne and bring him up to her teeth-ringed mouth.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Dathan finally seemed to take Inanna seriously, when she shifted her form into that of a young rancor. He batted the armor aside, but could not stop himself from being lifted up. As she tried to bring him between her jaws, he simply pressed a hand against each, keeping them pried open with impressive strength. The villain chuckled with an air of familiarity, "I have tested my mettle against many rancors, changeling. You have their visage, but not their ferocity."

He then began to mutter an indecipherable incantation, and the suits of armor around the room, including the one Cato threw, became animated not by technology, but by magic, "Hello…" Cato watched the sight unfold, whatever theories forming in his mind put on hold as he was assailed by Carnage's automaton doppelgängers.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna roared something incomprehensible, Dathan prying her jaw open with his arms preventing it from being understood. She pulled him from her mouth and threw him across the room like a toddler tossing a ragdoll.

She reached down to pluck up one of the animated suits of armor. It broke into parts in her grasp, which then reformed after it had all fallen to the ground. Now that’s fething irritating, she thought. How do I kill these things if they just reconstitute themselves… oh. Right.

Using telekinesis (and considerable effort—what was that armor made of, solid phrik?), she crushed one of the suits into a ball of crumpled metal, which she flung at one of the suits that was coming after Cato. "Need a lift?" she asked him, holding out an arm.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Carnage was tossed aside, skidding across the floor until he came to a stop. He rose slowly, irritation present even beneath his stoic mask.

Cato, meanwhile, was preoccupied with the automatons, finding himself harried on all sides. Two of them grappled at his arms, and another approached to deliver a gut punch— The same strategy employed by the droids at the bank heist. But the one readying the hit was struck by a ball of metal that used to be one of its allies. Cato sighed in relief for his abdomen, and used the weight of his grapplers against them, throwing them to the floor as he rolled his body. He stood back up to see his rancor girlfriend offering him some help, "Thank you kindly, ma'am."

Cato clambered atop her form, riding atop her shoulders and finally igniting his lightsaber tonfas, "Neat tricks, Dathan. Where'd you learn 'em?"

The villains swished his cape defiantly, "You won't live to know."

Cato rolled his eyes behind his mask, "Alright— Well can you do this?" He threw both of his blades like daggers. But Dathan Carnage just raised his hand, stopping them before they reached him.

"Yes, actually." He spun them around and telekinetically launched them back.

"Look out!" Cato ducked, unable to counter the counter in time before the sabers were upon them. Futiley, he pushed on Inanna's shoulder, as if trying to make her duck.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna's first instinct, born out of habit, was to catch the blades with her own telekinesis. But Dathan's grip was still too strong. She managed to divert the course of one saber, causing it to miss her head by mere inches, but the other tonfa burned through her right shoulder.

"He's not going to let go of those!" she shouted, her voice marred by pain. The blades were circling back around for another strike. She ducked this time, but something would have to be done.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato saw one saber diverted off course by. Only one. Anxiously he looked down, to see the other burned right through Inanna's shoulder. He grit his teeth in anger, but before he could give Dathan a piece of his mind, the sabers came back around. With little time, Cato ignited his cross guard saber, normally reserved for his alter ego, swinging it at the first tonfa. The blades collided, batting the smaller weapon off course. Just in time, he managed to reach over and hit the second tonfa, albeit hitting the hilt and destroying it in the process.

"Alright, pal," Cato leapt from Inanna's shoulder, landing across from Carnage, "Hit me all you want, but the rancor's off-limits."

Dathan lifted his nose upward in disdain, "You presume to have any sway over Dathan Carnage?" He looked to Inanna, "She is close to you. But— if you insist." He raised a fist, quicker than Cato thought he could manage, but was still able to duck. But as soon as he did, the villain lifted a knee to meet his face mid-descent, causing the two to collide with a painful metallic crack. Dazed, Cato was unable to react to the gut punch that followed, and the twist of his arm that allowed Dathan to steal his lightsaber before he even had a chance to use it on him. But rather than try and strike down Moonlighter with his own weapon, Carnage examined it, "Impressive design," He then crushed the hilt in his grip, causing the beam to dissipate, and shards of metal to fall to the ground, "Construction lacking, however." He raised the crystal between his fingers, "Synthetic?"

Cato tried to stand up, and was met with a heavy punch to his head, knocking him down once more in a stupor, "You're faster than ya look… And stronger." He groaned, struggling to gain footing.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Cato pulled out another lightsaber, this one with a crossguard, and used it to bat away the tonfa blades. One was destroyed when the burning blade hit the hilt, exploding in a brief burst of energy and scattering of metal shrapnel. The other spun away into the darkness, both Dathan and Inanna fighting for control over it.

Dathan finally released the weapon—but only because Moonlighter had moved in to attack him. While they fought, Inanna seized the remaining tonfa blade in her oversized fist and lumbered over. Cato was in a daze, barely able to stand.

Dathan Carnage may have far outclassed her in power, but Inanna refused to stand there helplessly while he beat her boyfriend into a pulp. The computers on the walls began to rattle, then sparked as their wires were torn free. Inanna flung them at Dathan all at once. She didn’t expect it to deal any damage to him—he was covered in phrik armor and a powerful Force User to boot—but she did hope it would distract him long enough for her to get a flame going.

Pyrokinesis was a power she had never mastered and rarely used. Its destructive potential was immense and notoriously hard to control. She was running out of options. If there was anything left in him that wasn't a machine, it would burn. She searched for the man behind the mask with the Force, and turned up the heat.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

"You might have been a useful servant, Moonlighter. Turned your crusade into something worthwhile." He lifted up Cato by his throat.

The knight sputtered a chuckle, "I thought I was the one getting hit in the head. What part of your delusion makes you think you're the good guy here?"

Dathan Carnage took that personally. He lifted his fist, which became charged with a sickly green flame, "Because I'm the only one willing to make real change!" He struck the vigilante, releasing an explosive gout that sent Cato backwards. His costume was torn up, including half of his mask. Blood and burns marked his unhidden skin. Some of the lights on his costume flickered or went out completely, and his remaining lens was cracked. Carnage stood unmarred by the skirmish, spare some slight frays and tears in his cloak. "You play dress up, and pretend like anything you do matters here. But what has it gotten you? Is Nar Shaddaa any better because of your intrusion?" He shook his head, "Under my rule, this world will finally be purified. From Chaos, I will create utopia." Dathan planted a heavy book on Cato's collarbone, "I am what you could not be. You and your-" He looked up to find Inanna, who was already ripping off electronics and hurling them his way.

Cato shielded his face from the debris, while Dathan tanked the impact, batting some of them away and sending sparks flying across the room. But it had all been a distraction. Suddenly, his face began to heat. The metal began to glow. Now, the villain didn't seem so invincible. He let out an uncharacteristic cry, clawing at the mask now searing his flesh. He stepped back, giving Cato the chance to stand up. He pulled his remaining tonfa back to him from Inanna, "Same old story, Dathan. I'm tired of hearing it." He used not the blade, but the hilt, striking metal against metal, right where it was being overheated. There was a painful clang, and Dathan fell to the ground with a fresh dent in his mask. Cato fell to the ground as well, the momentum of his own swing brining him back down, as he used the last bit of his strength.

Carnage, was down, but propped up on his elbow. He finally ripped off the faceplate, revealing a freshly disfigured half of his face. He was ghastly pale yellow, and had now scathed designed tattooed on his flesh, and small horns above his brow. Dathan panted, and caught a glimpse of himself in the dull reflection of his mask, "Y-you…" He looked to Inanna, channeling another magical flame of his own with what strength he had left. But rather than aim it at her, he aimed it at the incapacitated Cato once more.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Her pyrokinesis effectively cut Dathan’s evil villain monologue short, as well as burning half his face. In retaliation, he fired back, shooting a gout of magical flame at Moonlighter.

Inanna was in the process of demorphing from a baby rancor to a woman when she felt the heat approaching. In a panic, she managed to throw a barrier in front of him with barely a second to spare. Basic failed her in her fury and she resorted to expressing herself in her native tongue. Whatever she shouted at Dathan in Shi'idese, it certainly didn't sound very nice.

She swung her lightwhip, striking at his now unprotected face.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Dathan Carnage was too consumed by his anger to react to the lightwhip in time. A fleeting moment of realization passed his face before he was struck. The villain slumped to the ground, uncoscious ,and his face seared by the flames and the lashing alike.

Cato meanwhile, was still laying across from him on the floor.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

With Dathan down, Inanna rushed to Cato’s side. “Moonlighter!” she called to him. “Can you hear me?”

He looked bad. Bruised, burned, and bloodied, this was the worst beating she’d ever seen him take. She checked for a pulse, fearing the worst.

“You’re alive,” she said, her tone wry with relief. Tearing the Star from around her neck, she clasped it around his. One arm carefully scooped him up, while the other grabbed Dathan.

---

She dumped Dathan at the nearest police station, then headed for the hospital. Cato may not have trusted Narsh healthcare, but if it made the difference between his life or death, she wasn’t taking any chances. It was a little weird showing up with him in no clothes, but the staff had probably seen much stranger things than a half-naked Cato. Just made dunking him in the bacta tank easier.

She stayed by his side, sans her costume, waiting for him to wake up.

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato muttered something barely audible, his visible eye lacking focus on his surroundings, until he saw Inanna in front of him. His conscious faded in and out as his injuries fully caught up to him, but he was alive, stubborn as ever. When she lifted him up, almost as if recognizing that he was in good hands, he stilled to rest.

---

The bacta tank bubbled when Cato stirred once more. He opened his senses to the viscous liquid, inundated by its cloying pungency. He reacted with confusion, surprise, then a grimace, scrambling to reach the internal system that would drain the tank. It soon did just that, at which point he ripped out the rebreather and slid open the glass to spill out onto his knees, "Uch... Bacta sucks."

Cato immediately turned to where he saw Inanna, and smiled, "…Hey," But the clinical setting didn't go unnoticed. He grew suspicious, "Aw man… Don't tell me we are where I think we are." The knight stumbled to his feet, nearly falling back over but catching himself on the medical bed next to him.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

When Cato awoke and drained the tank, Inanna was there by the glass. As he tumbled out of the tank, leaving a puddle on the floor, she dropped to her knees at his side and put her arms around him as if to lift him. Instead she wound up just holding him there a while, not caring that he reeked of bacta and was smearing the slightly slimy stuff all over her.

"…Hey."

"Hey," she echoed, hauling him to his feet.

"Aw man… Don't tell me we are where I think we are."

“Yes, we’re in a hospital,” she replied, making a sound that was somewhere between a nervous laugh and a choked sob. “You were really beaten badly. I had a hell of a time explaining how it happened to the doctors. Although they didn’t seem to care very much…” Another weird little giggle escaped her as she helped him up onto the bed. No one else had come over to assist or check on them, not even a medical droid. This place was overworked and short-staffed; if she hadn’t had the money to buy Cato some time in the tank, they might’ve refused to treat him.

“They said you might have brain damage from being hit in the head,” she went on, handing him a towel. “I didn’t know if you would wake up. Or if you would be a vegetable, or not know who I was. Like something out of a holofilm. Now I’m babbling. I haven't slept since I brought you here. Are you in pain? I can make them give you stuff for the pain…”

She fell silent, reaching up to push his wet hair back. His face was still dark with bruises, but it was healing. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Inanna's presence was a welcome warmth, in contrast to the chilled vat of bacta Cato had been submerged in. Through her, he grounded himself amongst otherwise overwhelming, and unfamiliar surroundings, "They didn't… See anything, did they?" He asked vaguely. Moonlighter worked because it was secret, and his paranoia over others finding out was what kept him away from hospital records. But as Cato asked, he seemed to pick up on Inanna's distress. He took the towel and patted his face, before shifting subjects.

"…Musta been pretty bad, huh," Some of the events leading up to his unconsciousness were jumbled and hazy. He had a general understanding of Dathan beating him up, but ultimately being defeated by Inanna. Cato frowned slightly when she apologized, "…No I'm sorry. I don't want you to worry."

"If there was any brain damage we probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway," He lightly bonked his temple in jest, even still wincing slightly and breaking character for a fleeting second, "But I'm okay."

"Are you?"

Inanna Harth​