Vengeance is a dish best served...

[Reverance]

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Revolving around a secret space stationTM​

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Teleute Class Star Destroyer, Hot Tub​

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Early Evening​

Steam rises and it falls. And he might have considered thoughts towards his own complacency, if not for the discrete pleasure of the hot tub. Time and time again, worries and anxiety drifted away on a tether snipped away with condensed shears. Flung out to the wind to float aimlessly, he contemplated it no more but for the importance it once held. But like a weight thrown into space and orbit, it passed by without a single care for him to further consult.

Would he fall to the path of Darth Krayt? Broken by the ideology of his own success, pushed to a limit he hadn't formerly understood for it's necessity. That something was cultivated on the medium he built, raised to the maturity it now represented, would he now take on the path of the Sith Lords of Old...and falter? It was hard to trip in water, but easy enough to sink, and he could silently investigate the simplicity of his end and how, with outstretched arms, it would serve the same purpose he now rendered from a meaningless existence. Meaningless in this one sporadic moment, charged with the lubrication that would grease and move the war machine - what could deem him more honorable? Honor was long gone, dead and left at the wayside. Pain and misery was all that was left now.

Smoke rises and it falls. From the shaft of the cigarra, cupped between the voxyn fingers of an arm replaced long ago, he replaced the fire within with an exhalation of life in the form of glowing embers. Smell confounded with such increased humidity, raising and heightening the senses to an apex as the tones lingered, he smiled in pause and thought. And for those who claimed a dislike for the taste of such residue, few could argue over the smell - and at such a crescendo, it would nearly overwhelm. And overwhelming was the name of the game for the Wrath and the Warmaster, experiencing life in extremes. Pleasure, pain, hate, whatever would come after. He didn't need to understand so long as the mind could experience and harness what was left.

He couldn't tell if the fluid on his body was the effects of condensation and evaporation, or merely sweat from the rising temperatures. The Teleute would ache and moan in anger for such an inclusion of technology, metallic intricacies defacing the innards of the beast with a taste of heresy - blasphemy with a form of comfort, painted in two coats. He let out a smile as his slicked back hair rested on the tiling, his scarred and inked body nearly floating away from the sidewall.

He had called upon the Hand of the One Sith, not the pinky. The purpose of their meeting was relatively hidden, given the recent adventures upon Coruscant, but it encircled the drunken words spoken upon Redoubt. He wondered: did she think he would forget her confession so easily? Assuredly not, he wasn't one for useless information. And what she provided was hardly capable of falling into that category, despite the libations that preceded it. There was a source of pain there and he would claw at what remained.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

She was seriously considering asking him for a massage, at this point.

They had been soaking in Teleute's bathtub for what seemed like ages, and Vrag couldn't remember the last time she'd felt quite so relaxed. Sleeping with people that didn't break was all fine and well, but they usually struck back, and though the woman relished the fine ache pulsating within her body come morning, it was a whole another animal compared to this.

A content sigh left her lips, and Vrag let her eyes flutter closed as she continued luxuriating in undeserved riches while the Galaxy burned around her. Because of her.

If anything, it was just another proof that gods were dead, or perhaps never even were.

What kind of deity would allow its people — any people — to be slaughtered by the mighty few who had declared themselves kings by the unquestionable authority of lethal force? She had no answer to that question, and if someone did, she had yet to hear it. In the end, it always boiled down to sex and violence. See, now this, this was something she'd figured out, and a long time ago at that. Ample empirical evidence, word-of-mouth, and even history itself were there to prove that those were the two tried and true promotors of action in men.

Not some high-flying delusions about the greater good, equality, or freedom, but the simple human desire to dominate another through either avenue. The best? The best employed both at the same time.

Her lips curled back into a fond smile at the thought, and she extracted a single hand out of the warm water to sweep away the few rogue strands of red and black that kept sticking to her forehead. One resigned groan later, the Hand of the Dark Lord straightened her back as she stretched languidly, showing off two rows of sharp teeth in a lazy yawn.

She blinked, once, twice, and then her blue gaze zeroed in on the cigarra resting between Gabriel's fingers. Like a coiled spring, the woman lunged forward and plucked the object of her desire from his grasp, shamelessly placing it between her lips even as she settled back against her side of the tub.

Coy, challenging eyes met his crimson one, and Vrag could barely hold in a laugh at the sight. Oh, if only they could indulge in little trips like this more often.

"What are we doing here?" the woman finally spoke as she breathed out the last plume of thick, pungent smoke, watching it swirl along with the steam until the unthawed ice settled on [member="Reverance"] once more.

 

[Reverance]

Where were those reflexes, where was that agility and resilience for the perception? Somewhere between him and the woman that sat across from him, now holding his cigarra with a form of challenging glee, he couldn't help but wince at the sudden loss of something mildly important. What are we doing here? He laughed as the words crawled out of those lips and moved across the steam ridden bath house, floating effervescent with that odd tone of sensuous yet mysteriousness sarcasm . What they were doing here, he could only fathom, though the soothing ache in his body implied some sort of precursor of physical activity. Wounded, bruised, and in pain - he contemplated how sated one could be in this instance. Deeply.

Her question would be met by the contemplative quietness she should have long grown accustomed. His crimson eye, soaked in two coats of blood, bore holes in the organic ceiling as his body drifted away from the wall once more. Lifting away from the wall, he waded on crouched knees across the scalding hot tub towards [member="Vrag"]. For now, just like on Selvaris, what would separate them would be less than the water between them as he placed his hands on each side of the rim of the hot tub, trapping her in that odd sense of closeness that he knew she so loved. A push into a locker, a scar across his back - it would signify the pertinence of such an act. And yet, he didn't seem to have any fear of her and more relished the challenge he saw in her youthful eyes - he wondered if he could drown in ice, he wondered if the cold would consume him first. With a voxyn arm, masked in the ooglith, he reached up slowly. To the chin? To the cheek? No, to the cigarra. As he removed it from her lips, he turned it and placed it in his mouth and smiled, scooting away as he sat to her right side.

It tasted of smoke and tobacco and rolled leaves and oils and her. He breathed it in, spitting pieces of the wrapper as he picked it from his pursed lips. "I've been in contact with the Coruscant Flower Company." He paused and smoked once more, blowing rings across the tub. Shrugging facially with a frown, he continued. "I asked Kranos to keep an eye out for interesting requests for slaves and drugs, anything that might keep our pulse on criminal networks." Stretching over, he scooted out of the water slightly and cursed the awkwardness of the activator polyp. In a hot tub, flesh and ink and scars and nothing else, he had long left humility in the rear view. And as he pressed the fleshy button down, he plopped back down into the water as a listing came up. He pointed his fingers towards the villip choir projection, merged with an oogzil to broadcast the marriage of wire and flesh. "We found this listing for a slave request. Of course, Kranos was more than happy to fulfill it until I saw the request." The image began to rotate, overlapping on itself. "Woman, 20-25, Hair black or auburn, tall, over 6 feet." He stopped and smoked once more. "Firrerreo..." He said the last bit as a smile, turning half way towards Ygrdris and estimating the reaction. "Seems pretty specific, wouldn't you say?"

He cracked his neck as the listing shifted to the image of a man, rotating in the view. "I set up a meeting with him, told him I had what he needed. He was more than happy to send credentials...tell me, does he look familiar?"

What are the chances it would be of the same man she spoke of on Redoubt? Slim, but enough to warrant the effort he put into it. There was a bill of vengeance here and he was more than happy to see it paid, even if it were for crimes not yet committed. But on the chance that it was this former master, as he suspected - well, the evening would get that much more interesting. Smoking once more, he would attempt to hand the cigarra back to her. "You interested in going to a space station...for some fun?"

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

There were things to be gained in war, in hardship, in pain, that others couldn't possibly understand. Bonds, dare she claim tethers that would bind her, if weakly, to the people whose blood had mated with her own. Many were those who had shared the firrerreo's bed — or wall, or counter, or shower — over the years, but the line between simple carnal pleasures and passions that ran so much deeper was clear when it came to Vrag.

It separated cattle-like weakling from those who wielded power in its basest, clearest sense. No dilution, no perversion; just pure, unadulterated authority.

It made her positively shudder in delight.

It also removed the necessity for verbal communication, which was a facet of her relationship with Gabriel — such as it was — that she could greatly appreciate. People, in her experience, talked entirely too much. Time and energy expended in droves, and for what? Purposeless speech? No, thank you; Vrag could do without. What needed to be said was easily conveyed through the color of their gazes, through the minute twitches of facial muscles that were equal to the movements of mountains in message and gravity. It was this… economy of conversation that she truly relished. The fact that they both recognized the utter uselessness of small talk and just enjoyed the silence was one of her favorite things about [member="Reverance"].

And then he had to go and open his mouth, of course.

Except it wasn't the usual musings, wrought from the depths of his scarred mind as he fueled it with the fine blend of cigarra and expensive alcohol, nor was it the gallows humor they so often shared.

She felt as if a living creature started clawing at her gut from the inside, and though her expression barely changed, every ounce of blood drained from the woman's face as those sinuous syllables slid slowly, smoothly from his lips. He might as well have been speaking in Shyriiwook.

The beast in her belly now swelled in her throat, scraping against sensitive flesh that Vrag was sure would break and bleed, flooding her lungs with her own liquid life unitl she drowned on dry land, gasping for breath that refused to come.

With a light tremble of her hand, Vrag wrapped her fingers around the edge of the bathtub, knuckles whitening as she pulled herself from the suddenly boiling water. Unheeding of her nudity — or perhaps too absorbed with the holographic image revolving in the air — the Hand of the Dark Lord strode over to the activator polyp with far more confidence in her step than she truly felt at the moment.

The fleshy rendition of her bête noire disappeared.

Ygdris Val sat down.

"I…" she trailed off, staring off into the distance as the sound of effervescing water washed over her in the hollow silence.

At length, the woman spoke again, turning her head ever so slightly to look down at the relaxing Wrath. She didn't take the cigarra.


"I'll kill him, Gabriel."

 

[Reverance]

He had never seen such measured vulnerability in as dangerous a vessel. The feeling was almost palpable. And where flesh lingered openly in the steamy zephyr, he was distracted by the steeped tones of anger and susceptibility. He had seen this woman do monstrous things, killed with her bare hands and whatever else she could find nearby. And yet, here should sat, nearly diffused by the image of her former captor. Interesting.

Gabriel had spoken to Ygdris once about his father. Skin peeled from flesh to discern regrowth, nails unhinged from the bed to that release and spray and slow seep of red. He recalled the thing, that iron maiden, and his skin grew edges at just the thought. That when wounds are afflicted with the same entry point, repeatedly, canals form there where life no longer lives. A desolate worm hole of scars and dried tears. Would he imagine a relation to Ygdris here, to understand the pain she endured in the dark and dank recesses of a room hidden away? Would he sympathize with her now or would he be elated in that pain, drawing on it with the suck of air and smoke and pleasure. Maybe both, maybe something to share.

Wading to the other side of the hot tub, he pulled himself from the bowl and pulled the towel from the organic hangar, resembling an upwards talon of rusted bone. Wrapping it around his waist, he pulled her towel to him and strode around the pool. As he neared her, he paused and winced, squinting his eye as he puffed on the cigarra. Kneeling down, he caught just the glimpse of sincerity in something that had always dodged these questions and answers. Deferring to the unknown, he would finally have that question answered. That given the opportunity to meet her captor, would she really kill him? He inwardly smiled at the chance to see such a thing in action. And as he flung her towel over her shoulders, wrapped loosely around her neck, he tilted his head and slid the cigarra back in between her lips.

"I know..." A half gesture of a smile, recognition that her words were true for the prophecy that endeared them. Was it something self-fulfilled? Perhaps and largely unimportant. This was the future they would create, to bend beneath their will as everything else did. Pushing just a few strands of auburn away from her forehead, another attempt to make her uncomfortable, he stood and walked towards the door. He was still sore but the night was young and their prey was waiting. "I wont do it for you..."

He held out the voxyn arm, sheathed in the ooglith, as he motioned for her to come along. There was blood to be spilled, running in ravines through a space station and flowing out in cascading falls - to be consumed by the void of space - the innocent light of the stars sheltered from this well deserved reckoning, an amalgamation of atrocities to come. But would she take it, as she had suggested? Was this mans blood different from the countless others, leaving a fearsome trail in her wake? Where they followed her diligently and without choice, this man now stood firmly placed in her past, preceding the Hand. Was he different than all the rest? Unquestionably.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyt9qoEaGJI​

Her mind rarely felt so alive. She was a creature grounded in the world of the material, of the palpable, condescending of those who squandered their lives away by pondering the what-ifs and maybes. It was a fool's endeavor, to seek meaning in a reality that knew none. There was no grand plan, no explanation to it all; no unique truth to assuage everyone's fears and worries; no one solution to save every last soul in the Universe. The path one trode was the path one made their own, whether it was paved with good intentions or blood and sweat didn't matter kark all in the end. All roads led to Hell, to Netherworld. To Chaos.

Vrag made order out of that chaos. She carved her way through the entropy of the Galaxy, forcibly defying the laws of nature that would have her succumb to mortal weakness and while away, alone in the dark. Tooth, nail, or lightsaber; her choice of weapon was merely a reflection of her stature, but not her sentiment. The firrerreo was a creature born of violence, and a creature that would meet her end in much the same way, and it was exactly because of who she was that the thought did not weigh heavy on her shoulders.

The fact that, one day, death would come to greet her, was not a fear she shared with the common man. It was everything that would come before it that had that beast in her belly claw and thrash anew, and it made her sick to the stomach where a whole battlefield of butchered dead couldn't if it tried its damnedest.

She head his wet footsteps as he rose from the water, the drip drip drip of the hot liquid as it fled his marred skin by virtue of gravity, splashing into a myriad of little coruscant crystals against the fleshy floor of the Teleute with the loudest sound. It drowned out all else, in that moment, even the warmth of his breath as he knelt behind her, and the rustle of the towel right before it touched her shoulders.

Under any under circumstance, [member="Reverance"] would find himself face-first in the steaming water before her, thrown over her shoulder by liquid grace and lightning reflexes.

Today, however, the Hand of the Dark Lord had been reduced to a single involuntary shudder. Disgusting, she told herself even as Gabriel leaned in to speak in her ear, placing the bitter cigarra between her lips once more. His words were like poison honey, trickling slowly like syrup from his mouth.

She wanted to tear them out of his throat, make them them unsaid, unspoken. Nonexistent. If they were never there, they could not cut into the hollow of her chest. It required artistry and skill of a master craftsman such as the Wrath to reach through the long dark, to not get lost in the expanse of resounding emptiness, and emerge carrying her pain in the grasp of his scarred fist, pulsating and rich with blood unshed.

Give it back her searing blue eyes spoke as she held his red gaze, give it back.

The cigarra fell forgotten into the water below as Vrag rose to her feet, a strange rigidity to her movements — almost an absence of sorts — and with it followed the towel, pooling on the floor as the firrerreo followed with long steps, bursting past the Sith Lord with an uncanny determination to her step.

"No. You won't."

 

[Reverance]

Steam rises...but does it fall? Condensation, sweat, it all stuck to the skin. And while the Wrath watched the woman mull over her options, the world suddenly out of her control and entirely within it, he wondered what she would do. She could lash out now, fight against him, and he silently mused over where that would lead. Or she could take that anger and that hate and malice and focus it towards the properly quarry. Not that he didn't want a taste of it and in his own way, he was jealous of the former master and his future. To be beneath that knife, sharp and blunt and abhorrent. He wanted it and more but for the time being, he would be sated in the spectacle. A feast for the eyes, for the senses, for that bloodlust shared between the Wrath and Hand.

He followed her out of the hot tub room, distracted and hypnotized as any man might be. But for the sake of time, he too would refocus towards the task at hand. Getting dressed.

~~~​

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Sharpened blade dragged across the face, the scratch of metal against skin as Gabriel stared across to the mirror. Tired, battles etched into the flesh, and the steam of the shower remained as he prepared for the adventure to the space station. There was a thirst there, an itch he couldn't scratch, as his mind traced the possibilities of a night amidst the air of vengeance. So much blood to shed, he wondered if it would be enough.

Rubbing his hand across the mirror as it continually fogged up, he tapped the razor against the sink and wiped his face clean. Salt and pepper tied up with a strand of black, he dressed himself in unusual garb, especially for his station. Black pants, thousand credits and fitted, a white fitted shirt with gold cuff-links and arkania blood diamonds in the center of the prism. The jacket slid over smoothly, fitted for his built frame. Lifting his foot up on the the bed, he tied the shoelaces on the polished shoes meticulously, as if memorizing the order. It had been so long since he had worn something resembling the expectation of his lineage. Even on Marna, the quality didn't compare. And he hated it.

But it was the rouse sold to the former master. Profitable upscale sales man, part of the Coruscant Rotary Club with an inkling of style. He did one more check in the mirror, a green emerald and gold ring on his right hand. "Well..." He said as he hated the thing he saw, fueling the resolve for the purpose he now shared with [member="Vrag"] . Was it sacrifice or maybe he hated her for this moment, putting him into a predicament he didn't care for. Hate? No, that's not right. Or is it? He hated something and the attire confused him more than it should have, a mind certainly more fragile than it should be.

A knife on the ankle, no room for a lightsaber. A small pistol, a dissauder, in the small of his back, and a pair of cuffs, he exited the room to find a shaper waiting on him. With a disapproving stare, Gabriel lifted his hand. "I know..." Stretching out, he pulled his hair out from the collar of the jacket and straightened himself. "Is the vessel ready?"

"That piece of blasphemy?"

"I have a short fuse right now." He lifted his hand once more, attempting the cessation of incessant bickering.

"Yes, it's ready. Have a nice night."

He was sure she meant it, steeped in sarcasm. As he entered the belly of the beast, the mechanical vessel seemed at odds with the world around him. Stepping in, he fired up the engines and waited for his co-pilot. Of course, as soon as they left the bay, tractor beams would initiate auto-pilot and bring her into the station. But Gabriel was at the helm now and the pilots always got the comfortable seats. He started messing with the overhead switches, firing up the navigational systems and tying it back into the navbrain of the Teleute.

 

[Vrag]

Not you.

It was the singular thought raging through Vrag's mind as she moved through the fleshy corridors of Teleute like a shambling corpse, body working on autopilot as she got dressed in her plain garbs and went to wait for [member="Reverance"] to do whatever he needed to do. The woman was a world away, her usual awareness and presence in the moment completely shattered by the knowledge of where she was and who she would soon see again.

It had been more a decade. A karking decade, and yet still, where was she? Conqueror of worlds, destroyer of men, unbridled and unchained, yet here, even at the hint of his visage, her achievements, her power… all was swept away like sand castles in the wind, reduced to amorphous mass with no shape or purpose. It made her burn inside like nothing else, the vicious, bitter sting of bile rising in her throat like a call to arms. The acid ate at her flesh, at her hollow chest, at what little remained of her soul.

Before his shadow, the Hand of the Dark Lord no longer led millions into battle; no, she was reduced to little more than a child, swallowing her tears at the hate and anger directed at her in hopes that one day, it would pass. It never did, of course, but the girl had eventually grown taller and stronger until one day, she'd gathered enough gall and ire to break free.

Not you.

She would repeat it over and over again, because the awful, inescapable truth staring at her if she opened her eyes was not something she wanted to gaze at. For the first time in, well, a karking decade, Vrag refused to face her problem head on, with tooth and nail and anything else if need be. The only urge she could feel at the moment, and it was all-encompassing in its power, was to curl up and simply… weather the storm.

She could not, however. She did not have the luxury, never had, and never would, and not you screamed at her to get up, to open her eyes, and to grab that damn combat knife.

So she did; wrapped her fingers around its handle to put it in its holster, but the weight of the blade brought forth memories and fantasies of arterial blood bathing her face red and warm. Oh, for that blood to be his.

Vrag shuddered, and opened her eyes. As if a barrier had been removed, the world around her rushed back in, and she could suddenly hear Gabriel's voice coming from the corridor, his hoarse lilt interrupted by the barks of the Yuuzhan Vong tongue. Time to go.

She joined him on the ship without a word, settling in the back with a face devoid of all expression as she resolved to stare out the window. The station hadn't changed much. Its jaws, carved into the face of the comet, were still every bit as threatening coming in as she remembered them coming out, and as the shadow of the tunnel settled over the vessel, the firrerreo felt the flames in her chest flare ever higher.

It wouldn't be long, now.

Not you.

 

[Reverance]

:: Incoming vessel, state your purpose ::

Crimson eye, reflecting on the view as the station encapsulated their ship in a mechanical form of phagocytosis, looked across to the empty passenger seat next to him. Turning, in a more than careening fashion, he looked back through the body of the ship to find Ygdris sitting quietly. As quietly as a storm from afar, catching just the drift of wind as it approaches. He smiled, just a bit, as he put a hand on the communication headset in the empty seat. The request was muffled, he didn't fully catch it.

:: Incoming vessel, state your purpose or be turned away ::

Gabriel tilted his head, watching the shadow overcome them as they thrust in, slowly, to be accepted by this port. He wondered if it would be enough. Activating the voice masker, he spoke.

:: Vessel from Coruscant Rotary Club, proprietor of the Coruscant Flower and Funeral Company. Name Walter Avius. IFF Code 4875FR84 ::

He clicked off the communication device as they checked the credentials. Kranos helped lubricate the transition into such places, Walter Avius being on the books as a shareholder for the company. An old mercenary alias used by the Wrath, prior to the One Sith, it was handy to have numerous names available for disposal.

:: Where are you heading to?::

:: Pickup and drop off at the Cosmic Relay ::

Coded terminology for the exchange of goods at the local club, called the Cosmic Relay. Not so much a pointed deceit, as every individual in the station was likely in on the bartering and trade of humans and near humans. Ygdris landed in that category, there was beauty in the simplicity of this plan. But it required her to be level headed, something Gabriel sensed might be more difficult than normal. There was a lot on the line for this specific task.

:: Very well, you're cleared for entry. Welcome to the Station. ::

Placing his headset back down, he leaned out of the seat and walked back through the transport, sitting down next Ygdris. Straightening out his suit, he pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to the Hand. For passage into port, to help bypass any security measures, Kranos had made things easy once again. "We are meeting a middle man at the Cosmic Relay. Once he decides that you are up to the requested characteristics..." For this, he had no doubt she would surpass the qualifications. He wasn't quite sure if it was normally the case or maybe it was fogged up by the steam of blood dripping from wounds, but her anger was nearly overwhelming. His interest was piquing, especially at the notion that he could have the opportunity to claim a lion's share of that hatred. "I'll escort you to your former master where we will make the exchange."

The ship locked into the port with a thud and Gabriel twisted his arm, checking the miniature datapad for the time. This plan was simple but with emotions on high and bloodlust running thick, he suspected a few hiccups. Nothing the Wrath and Hand couldn't overcome. In fact, he found himself looking forward to blowing off some steam. "Ygdris..." He whispered. "Are you ready?" Her face seemed blank of expression, that usual giddy anticipation for the fight was absent now and in it's place, wariness and the memory of a life before the one she had now.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

It twisted something in her chest for reasons she could not understand, or even begin to try and understand, for the woman had long sacrificed her heart to purpose. Once, ages ago now, it seemed, Ygdris too, could feel. Younger, gentler, softer; sentiment was a concept she still understood and partook in as much as the next person, and though it brought her little joy, the girl — for she had still been a girl then — gave to it. Everyone else did, so why not her?

Then one day, she stopped. Reason had won over, and hard efficiency set in its place. Gone was the depth and intensity, though the gamut remained, as did the ability to recognize emotion when it stared her in the face. Every face, but the one that gazed back at her in the mirror.

So what was this? What dared swell and scream at the hollow in her breast, what had the audacity, the nerve to tread those forgotten mindfields?

It was a feeling more severe, more cruel than anything that had ever gripped the woman in recent memory, and even back then, when he ruled over her… NO.

Her expression hardened, and it might as well have been fashioned from beskar, for all that it conveyed. Jaw set, ice blue eyes staring straight ahead, and then the firrerreo rose from her seat, brushing past the Wrath as if he weren't even there.

Whatever had surged up towards the surface had been brutally shoved down again, whether to swim or drown she did not know, nor care to know.

"Yes."

The reply came with a few seconds of delay, a quiet, level word that would have fit in any conversation. It would be impossible to infer the depth of hatred contained in that single syllable, and attempting to unveil it would lead to a swift, painful demise.

It was as if she'd stepped out into her past. Everything looked so intensely familiar that she might as well have been taking a literal trip down memory lane, with souvenirs of a past life screaming at her from every wall — there was the old gang tag, washed out and scratched, but still recognizable — from every corner — Valto's used parts shop was still open, with that same stench of stale stimcaf and motor oil wafting out to the street — from every face. Him.

She couldn't believe her eyes. His right-hand man, Sherrk, was standing there at the edge of the crowd, puffing thick plumes of smoke from between his scarred lips every time he removed the expensive cigarra. He looked older, with a few new injuries to boot now marring that ugly mug, but Vrag would recognize him even if she were looking at his remains after he'd been introduced to a thermal detonator.

And then the noghri turned his head, and his eyes widened comically to reflect the much more bridled surprise being mirrored in the ice of Ygdris' eyes.

He laughed, and the firrerreo narrowly resisted the urge to bury her knife in his forehead. She gnashed her teeth and swallowed, bowing her head with a herculean effort as she deferred to @Reverance.

Not you.

She had a role to play.

 

[Reverance]

She was hot...to the touch. The sort of sizzling honey that burns on the way down, the fire charred roast that scorches the pallet but tastes just as good as it looks. Her anger, her malice, her loathing and anxiety - it all stirred something within the Wrath as he watched her storm from the ship in silence. She might as well have been screaming for the pain currently being endured and the Sith Lord lassoed it, gripped it hard and didn't want to let go. No matter the depths and darkness to which it took him, he wanted to taste and experience every ounce of misery that she was building up within herself. A fortress of piked heads and blood covered stone, moss blasted free from the hurricane of his recent efforts - to clean the slate of her past, to start fresh, he couldn't be happier with the results. And for every time they had partaken in a fight, cleansed their path in storms of blood and sinew and bone, he had never experienced such a notion from her. True struggle, true internal conflict - it was a side of Ygdris he had never seen before. That scalding plate that claimed his attention. Like a druggy on a trip, he never wanted it to end.

Straightening out his jacket, he followed her with pocketed hands. The station was like numerous ones he had seen before, a small city within space. Vendors peddling their wares, harlots on the corners serving skin and talent of the flesh, and henchman around every turn. Vice was commerce here, slavery and drugs and trafficking the norm, and money the means at which life revolved. That was the report given to him by Kranos, whom Gabriel had figured was interested in the location for an expansion of the Coruscant Rotary Club. But as it turned out, the man was just tripping at the images of the pretty lights - just another day for the CRC. But where the report couldn't express the experience, it lied in the stimulus of the senses. The smells, the sights, the sounds - everything was churning together to make this elastic hodgepodge of a world - devoted to the dark and dank and tasked with making it look pretty. And it did, neon lights of purple and blue and pink preceding entry into the Cosmic Relay.

It was there that the duo met with the Noghri, went by the name Sherrk. Gabriel could feel the tense struggle beneath the electric blue eyes of the Firrerreo, a rubber band frozen for fear of breaking when stretched. Gabriel stepped in front of her, blocking the view for the Noghri, and tilted his head as he gave a hand forward. "Walter Avius, Coruscant Rotary Club." Style and swagger wasn't normally the Wrath's main weapon, but here he held it in spades. The Noghri laughed, not returning the hand shake. Gabriel withdrew and pocketed his hands once more, looking up towards the light.

"Nice place you have here...Sherrk."

"We'll take the girl now."

Gabriel stepped in front of him as he tried to walk past. Smiling, he rubbed his mouth as the Noghri stepped away. "No. I'll get my money first and I want it directly from your boss."

The Wrath assumed he had heard a small growl from the Noghri before he transitioned to a smile. "I don't know who you think you are...but if you want to get out of this alive, you'll take the money when we decide to give it to you." Gabriel looked towards the flow of the room. Despite the over abundance of dancers, there was a transition, vultures circling the dead or dying. Too bad they had gotten the sniff of something else, something far from it. "There is only one way out of here and you just walked through it."

"I know...that was sort of the point." He smiled as he dropped his hands. "Tell ya what Sherrk, take me to your boss...and I'll let you live. Hell...I might even let you keep your arm."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_3sdIEhkNA​

This plan was dead in the water, that was clear. But thankfully for the two of them, this old gang had chosen a location they assumed was protected. And it was, but not from them. The Noghri growled and reach back before pushing forward, attempting to punch the Sith Lord. But he had prepared, called the force speed to his senses and to his right pectoral muscle. Accelerating his voxyn arm forward, he punch the moving fist before full extension. That crunch, that break in the metacarpal bones, the Wrath wasn't done. Even before the recoil from the hit, Gabriel had grabbed the now broken wrist with his left hand and leaned down. Punching upward, the elbow bent in the wrong direction, as he leaned in and punched again, right along the midline of the humerous. With a singular move, he felt the tuberosity disconnect from the glenoid cavity. The skin gave way and Gabriel punched one more time, this time breaking through muscle and sinew. Just like that, the arm tore free from the chest and the monster fell to the ground, spasming, as the Sith Lord threw his arm through the crowd of dancers, sliding across the floor with a trail of oozing blood following it. They dancers unphased by the carnage, the movement far too quiet to overcome the music, or far too lenient to overcome the high. "Too bad about your arm."

Gabriel turned to Ygdris, swiping his hair back, as he turned against a runner coming towards him. Knife pulled, he yanked the aimed gun free and held the brandished arm out with his own left hand, stabbing deep into the armpit. Collapsing, Gabriel uppercut a table, flinging into the line of blaster fire, as reds and greens made way for the flashing neon lights. It was then that three bouncers were on him, much larger and wrapped in skin tight black clothes. He backed up slowly to where he assumed Ygdris might still be and smiled.

Now, now he would feed on that anger. The ebb and flow would soon become monstrous as she joined him in this bloodbath, for the reckoning that would descend upon this whole club. Just like her former master, he wanted to see her perform. Difference being that Gabriel was willing to pay in whatever currency she demanded, consciously or subconsciously. It was turning into a lovely night after all.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg14Ocs03xA​

Vrag had experienced many situations in her life. She never thought she’d be pretending to be a broken bag of flesh and bone ever again. The real thing had been enough for not one, but fifty lifetimes. When she'd left more than a decade ago, she had sworn she would never kneel for another creature.

Oh, how foolish that young girl had been. How naïve to believe that she could go through the rest of her life without bowing. Without swallowing her pride to reach a goal.

She snorted, deprecating, and peeled her blue stare off the floor.

Ygdris Val had been many people in the months and years that followed her escape. From a gang runner to a gambler to a con artist, she'd tasted the whole gamut of crime before settling in Sith space. She went on to commit heinous deeds that reduced everything else to youthful transgressions. In battle the woman had found the heart she'd left on the side of the highway to Netherworld so many seasons ago. Encased in ice that burned harsher than the mightiest of suns she'd gazed upon in her travels.

Conquest had taken her from one corner of the Galaxy to the other, with blood as her oil and corpses as the earth she trod. The cries of thousands as the tune to which she marched, on and on and on. The warmachine was ever hungry, and the Hand was ever eager to provide.

And therein lay the grave error of Sherrk the noghri enforcer. He believed her to be the same broken of bag of flesh and bone. The same girl that had fled with fear and courage vying in her heart. He assumed that she still had a heart. That she still cowered when words struck cruel, their sting keener than that of a whip.

Not you.

The shimmer of her old self stood behind the noghri as he exchanged threats with the Wrath of the Dark Lord. He was blind to the danger as his bloated ego drowned out the impulse of self-preservation. The stink of fear sharpened, but she remained quiet beside Reverance, observant and unassuming.

They knew. The guards and bouncers, the watchmen and thugs, posted around the Cosmic Relay. All aware of the peril they were in. The common criminal only survived by relying on the basest of his urges. Those urges were screaming to turn tail and run while they still had legs to run with. The firrerreo could see it in the way the lines of their faces deepened with worry and terror. In the way their hands drifted towards the weapons they carried. In the way their breath shuddered; they knew that no amount of firepower could save them now.

Death was here, wearing a well-tailored suit. Let no-one ever say the Sith lacked style.

Then the conversation was over, cut short by that sound a bone makes when it's made to do things it wasn't made to do. A sound she knew well, a sound to which Gabriel and Ygdris would dance below the flashing lights of the night club. It was its own melody, older and colder than the heavy beats thrumming through the lounge. They would move to its rhythm with the skill of those who had been born to its tune.

She in time with him, falling into a crouch as she retrieved the blade from her boot, back flush against his. They only lingered behind cover until the thugs unloaded their powercells into the tables. The beauty and the beast rose again with every intent to run the station red with blood.

Goes with the rust.

Then she was off, bursting forth like a streak of black. Her grin promised swift demise as she descended upon a stunned, wailing Sherrk. She slit his throat with a fluid motion from the shoulder, rewarded with a hot spray of blood. The thugs scrambled to cram new ammo into their blasters with clumsy, sweat-slicked fingers.

Demise came, and it was neither swift nor painless.

Her fist caught a jaw, and the woman hissed just as the man did, but she did not falter. Another blow, and his skull snapped back against the wall like that of a doll. She jerked his limp body back against her by the lapels of his jacket to sink a few hasty laser bolts.

With a heave, she slammed the cooling cadaver into the shooter and buried him under his comrade. He would get out, but she had enough time until then. Time to devote her unwelcome, lethal attention to the third member of the detail.

Her sharp teeth gleamed in the many colors of the lights above them, and Vrag stalked forward.

The stink of piss filled her nostrils. She barked a hoarse laugh and stuck the vibro-knife under his ribs. Then she yanked down, and the acerbic smell of half-digested food spilled into the open. She paused for a moment to wipe guts and fat from her shirt before rolling to the side to avoid another burst of fire. She ended up on her feet in a crouch behind the counter, blade still in hand.

Full circle.

Icy eyes found the sole crimson orb in that handsome skull, and no words needed uttering as they set off again. To ambush the men holding out behind a pile of tables on the other side. To slaughter them.

People like them knew to share in the delight of a good kill as much as they knew how to kill well.

 

[Reverance]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmHDhAohJlQ​

He didn't need to see her, need to hear her, only to feel her. The mineral taste, that sickly smell in the air, that hint of vengeance and blood lust as she let loose. He smiled as he caught those eyes starring back at him, distracted just for that briefest moment against the three bouncers before him. But it wasn't enough to pull him from his own fight as he put his hands up, preparing himself for the onslaught. But at the last minute, he ran forward and slid, yanking the pistol out from the small of his back.

​

Legs wrapping around the front bouncers bracing leg, he twisted and brought the man crashing to the ground. Rolling over him, he placed the barrel of the slug thrower in on the back of his head and pulled the trigger. Without a pause or beat missed he aimed up and fired off seven rounds, three for the one on the right, four for the one on left. Relieving his first victim of another pistol and his clips, Gabriel stood up and strode over to one of the downed bouncers struggling for air. Four more rounds into the chest, the slide locked as Gabriel released the clip onto the carcass. He looked up, the descent of madness prevalent in those around him as more men surfaced from the crowd.

Placing the spare pistol in the back of his pants, he ran forward and jumped, planting both feet hard into the chest of another bouncer. Anticipating the fire from another, Gabriel pulled the man over him to intercept the fire. The plaste of the hot metal flung blood and flesh and cloth into the air like colored paper mache as the Sith Lord lifted the gun from beneath the corpse, unloading four rounds into the assailant. He dropped like a soggy bag of potatoes, leaky bag spilling on the floor and outward. A dancer could slip over that. As Gabriel pushed the man off him, he stood up to see the upper railings, men lining it with guns traced downward.

"Ah..." He pushed off with one foot, running and jumping over the counter into the bar area. The blaster fire and stray slugs smacked against the assortment of bottles and drink mixes, raining down alcohol in the Sith Lords wake. The bartender moved forward, coming at the rolling Warmaster. As he came to, Gabriel delivered a punch to the groin before planting the barrel of the gun against the jaw and firing twice. Visceral spray, alcohol in the air, the pretty pretty lights. The body recoiled against the fire, body splayed against the inside of the bar as if some sort of mannequin in observation of his efforts. He smirked, idealogy interrupted by fire as he ran from it, kicking the half door open and intercepting a strike from his left.

He barred his teeth and placed the barrel against the chest, unloading three rounds and pushing the brute back, toppling him over a round table. He wiped the blood from his face and moved quickly back over to the bar, firing over it towards the rafter, as he used the coverage for his benefit. But for the peace he wanted, another came out him with a knife, slicing through the jacket and coat and flesh across the ribs. This one was well garbed, ruining Gabriel's outfit. He grimaced and punched the dancer in the mouth with the barrel of the gun, knocking out his front teeth as he choked on pieces of red and white. Grabbing him by the tie, Gabriel slammed his face hard into countertop before unloading what was left of the rounds of that pistol into his temple. As he released the body, he looked around and tossed the gun, pulling the secondary from his waist band and searching the dance room for his partner.

Partner, was that the right word? The wiped the blood from his face again and fired two rounds up to the rafter. Too much blood. No, not enough. He laughed as he looked towards and over the bar, feeling the soak of the blood on the inside of his jacket. He put his left hand in and pulled out, blood dripping from his digits. Just then, another attacker, hitting Gabriel hard across the jaw and up against the bar. Blood in his eye, he ducked beneath the next hit and kicked the mans legs out from underneath him. Pressing his knee against his beck, he placed his left hand on the back of his head, restraining him against the floor, as he shot upwards towards another incoming attacker. Once downed, he planted the mouth of the barrel against the man beneath him and depressed the trigger twice.

He knew there was an end somewhere in this darkness, amidst the lights and neon screens. He kept focus on the entrance, making sure their prey didn't make a quick escape. He scanned the room, the tempo changed, as he released the clip and loaded another. Once a Mercenary, always a mercenary. He kicked the thought from his head and searched for those blue eyes once more.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-Sahfy7Hg​

It was the sweetest melody she'd ever known, the cacophony of screams and the sound of a vibroblade sliding against the shattering bones of your enemy. Like a master virtuoso, each of them played the bodies of the attackers as if they were the finest instruments in the Galaxy; with their hands, and fists, and knives, Vrag and [member="Reverance"] carved their path right through the club with impudence.

There was no need for communication between the pair of dancers, for each thud of a fallen body was signal enough, giving rhythm to the song woven of dying cries, torn out of hoarse throats as lungs struggled for last gasps of air. The atmosphere, heady with smoke and alcohol, now bore hints of an older, far more opulent an aroma; the iron and salt so dear to the hollow in her chest seeped into their very surroundings, bearing heavy on the few that still remained standing. It was no joke, cowering behind a pile of upturned tables and listening to your comrades being slaughtered by a couple of newcomers.

She had known that feeling of utter helplessness for more than a decade, and she could practically taste it now, in spite of all the other smells wafting around her. The stink of fear, of regret, of an awakened conscience pleading to repent for its past mistakes. Dear kark, did she know that feeling.

A tip of a tongue ran across sharp teeth as she clutched the knife to her breast, breathing slow and paced in near-comical contrast to her situation. Once upon a time, Ygdris would have been the one sobbing in a dark corner, praying to absent Gods for a shred of mercy. For absolution.

Then, at one point, the girl had realized that they could offer neither, because they never existed in the first place to hold that kind of power. And with no divine punishment hanging over her head, life became so much simpler for the girl — no, the woman. Somewhere along the way, artifacts of her past, of her childhood had all been erased, destroyed, or forgotte; all but one.

Not you.

With that thought clear and red against the black rage climbing her throat like choking, encroaching tar, Vrag rose from her spot with a wide smile and wild eyes. Ice burned hotter than all fire as she flung a makeshift molotov fashioned from a bottle of something strong, never faltering in the face of the explosion. A few more strides, and the woman vaulted over the disfigured tables, heedless of the flames licking greedily at her arm as she slammed someone's skull against the wall with her boot. The firrerreo crouched upon the crumpled cadaver, using the soft flesh to cushion her landing as her hand shot out to sever another's hamstring tendons. He collapsed onto his back, mouth open in a silent scream — an amusing rictus that was halfway between surprise and pain, as if the man couldn't quite decide what to feel — and Vrag finished the job with a quick, precise jab between his third and fourth rib.

It was only when she rose from her haunches that she noticed that the sleeve of her jacket was on fire, melting the material into her skin at an alarming pace.

Still, the Sith stood there for a few more seconds, watching the aberrant patterns snake across her forearm before slicing off the fabric and yanking it off with a single, brutal motion. Her nostrils flared and her eyelids fluttered in what could've been either agony or arousal, and then the woman unceremoniously let the sleeve drop to the floor along with ragged ribbons of her skin and muscle, dappled with spots of char and the crimson of raw meat.

Just like his eye.

Vrag chuckled to herself and climbed back over the scorched tables, using the gurgling bouncer as a stepping stone before dropping back down on the other side. In the absence of automatic fire and screams, the silence was almost deafening.

Almost.

There was the faint drip drip drip of her blood against the pools of the liquid lapping at her boots, and if she squinted hard enough, Vrag could almost see the waves ripple outward from where the droplets of her life met the dark surface.

Lake Cosmic Relay.

"Gabriel."

When she called out to him, the Wrath was kneeling over someone's wretched form, pistol and blood in hand. Lord, they had baptized the place in it for ten lifetimes over.

"They're all dead. Let's go."

______________________________________​

​

​

"Sir."

"Sir!"

"What?!"

"Sir, we're getting strange reports from the Slouk."

"What do you mean 'strange reports'?"

"None of your men are responding, sir, so we aren't really sure wha—"

"Out with it!"

"Well…"

"Don't test my patience, Batar…"

"It would seem the deal Sherrk was supervising has gone… south."

"…"

"Tell me, Batar… is there a woman in that video?"

"Y—yes?"

"Is her hair red and black, by any chance?"

"How do you kno—"

"Organize the defenses and close all the blast doors. Now."

"Sir?"

"Did I fucking stutter, Batar?"

 

[Reverance]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBN-1Q0_Fiw​

That visceral spray, that carnal sensation, that ultimate pleasure. A wash in red, that seep of blood from the wound. The feeling of life, burning bright, and that cold and swift cut down the middle. Where men once stood in droves, they now laid in rows of corpses. And that succinct expression of the fragility of life, taken in the snap of the fingers and neck and the pull of a metal trigger, it left the Wrath inflamed with the throb of the pulse he could hear in his ear, spreading out through pressure in his temple. Crimson viewed, the panorama of the scene soaked in glistening red with the hues of pink and oranges and blues, Gabriel couldn't snap free from it's hold. A flag flying at full mast, he couldn't hide his desire to roll in it, an animal caught in the scent of the dead. Everything was blurred and shallow, noises and sounds dull to the beat of his heart and the cessation of the man's beneath him. He bared the white of his teeth, casting a glow in the light of the club, as he breathed heavy.

The loss, it was everything he wanted when he concocted this plan. Ygdris and her closure, she came first. But this swelling feeling of anger and hate and pain and pleasure, it was a close second. And as he heard her call out his name, he came back from that euphoria of the moments past, longing for it to never end. As if a shock to the body, flung from a sauna into an ice bath, that thump of his heart lowered to a regular rhythm just as the radios chimed on across the waist of one of his numerous victims. Lifting the jacket, he tossed his empty gun across the blood scorched floor and belted another, lifting the radio to his ear. Smiling, he wiped the blood from his face with a smear across his black jacket. Walking forward to that warrior woman, as wounded as he was now, he tossed the radio to her and felt the injury inside his jacket.

A smile as he fingered the gash, the warm ooze of blood from the cut. Most would wince at the pain but its intensity had all but toppled him long ago, overwhelmed with broken sensations long and historically confused from mistreatment and torture. A tree bent by the wind now broken, he clawed at the bark to reassemble some meaningful form. "They've seen your work. Seems they are ready for us now."

Hell hath no fury, the old homage was true. And even more so for his nearly silent dancing partner. A bloody and fanatical saber dance, they both prayed and preyed upon this sensation. That mineral taste, it was a conquest that demanded their constant attention. And in the comfort of this like mindedness, Gabriel pulled the pistol from his back and yanked back the slide. With a pull of the trigger, the primer compression blasted a slug into the camera on the wall. His blood hued eye drifted from the cracked lens and metal body to the woman at his side, residing somewhere between Ygdris's head and feet with an almost animalistic veneer. But after his long exposure, he fixed upon her wounded arm and scratched his face with the barrel of the hot gun. Across the scar, he felt a breath of life, as he belted the gun once more.

"Come...then." He said with a warm smile, the type that might cause a stirring of suspicion from anyone other than Ygdris or [member="Matsu Xiangu"]. But here, in this environment, he was more comfortable than in any other. And this dance with her had long been overdue, two sides of the same coin spent at different venues. But as he approached the narrowed hallway, the thing that would eventually lead to the sealed blast doors, his left hand reached out to touch the cold of the duracrete wall. He was burning hot now, wick cutting into the wax, and the differential provided a modicum of sharpness. This was her show, her time for vengeance, and so he would allow her to lead the way with him at her side.

For the lake of the cosmic relay that lied behind them, ahead would be the tributary that fed it.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNSAbhu3Dnk​

They neared each other, like two jagged, broken pieces of something greater and far more fearsome than they were on their own. Like fragments of metal inevitably succumb to the attraction of polarity, so did they always migrate closer to that which played on their strings; violence. And they had sowed violence aplenty from the moment they had set foot on the station, for it was what fuelled their being. To receive and to inflict it, to partake of that forbidden fruit where pleasure and pain existed in perfect balance. Violence had a name, and her own jagged edges that fit along their own fault lines, and made that beast complete. She had eyes so black that even stars themselves shied away from their depths, and a soul so endless that one could drown and never even notice that their breath was gone and their body limp. She would persist long after the Hand perished and the Wrath drew his last breath, doomed to roam the spaces between the suns in her eternal hunger. Time, a mere illusion, a crutch for the mortal and the weak. It was hard to tell how much of it had passed in the murky half-shadows of Point Nadir, how many beats of the heart since they had left the vessel and set down the crooked and weaving lanes of the station. The colored lights made reality seem a little farther away, and the dreamscape of the glitterstim-addled mind just a little closer.

Just like him.

Vrag smiled at [member="Reverance"], her smile as sharp and cold as the edge of the knife in her hand, and her eyes lingered only for a moment on his bloodied face before flickering down to his abdomen. A wide cut yawned there, peeking out behind the folds of his tattered shirt, soaking the material in dark red. An expensive recoloration, indeed.

"Our work, Gabriel," she corrected him with a soft voice, heedless of her own wound as she reached out to touch his. Hands sought to sink into the heat of his body, digits pushing into the weeping muscle of his abdomen as they shared the same breath for a moment. Few things were more intimate than exploring blood-engorged flesh with one's fingers, smearing the warm fluid over every inch of exposed skin.

"They will never be ready for us."

The statement had a sort of finality to it, the tone leaving no room for argument. It was a cosmic fact, like death and taxes.

The firrerreo pulled away from the Wrath, wiping their mingled blood on a bouncer's shirt as they moved forward. The radio in her grasp was useless now, for neither Vrag nor Ygdris were prone to mincing words. She could intimidate him, of course; pour decades of finely-tuned vengeance into her voice as she sought to put the fear of something far worse than God in him. She could convey all the horror she had seen, and wrought, in her absence from His company, and explain in lurid detail the fate that awaited him at the end of the line.

She could, but she wouldn't, because both Vrag and Ygdris preferred to manipulate in the truest sense of the word, not its figurative progeny.

Long strides carried the woman down the last corridor, and it might as well have gone on forever for the time it took her to reach the doors. A gate before the next chapter of her life. The last.

Ice blinked out of existence as Vrag closed her eyes, and just like that, Ygdris poured out of her, a thousand aching souvenirs from a past existence. Like removing ancient shrapnel, the memories tore her flesh as she pulled them from the deepest recess of her mind, jaw set and teeth nearly shattering from the force; but she never stopped, not for a moment. Every muscle in her body was a taut string, on the verge of snapping and extinguishing her flame right there and then, veins blue and bulging with effort. She never stopped.

With a great heave and a cry, all the pain and regrets and hatred erupted from her, spilling out of Ygdris like a seismic wave, and she was its epicentre. To sweep away all in her path. To eliminate it. Cleanse it.

To take revenge.

The doors gave out with a great metal scream, crashing into the room beyond.

Vrag and vengeance followed.

 

[Reverance]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKxDzyHPo0o​

Playing with his wound like that, already teasing the notion of pain and pleasure mingling seamlessly - she was practically pawing at him. He was long beyond the point of hiding it, she might has well have been the puppet master for the way it made him dance. The synapses, the knowledge that what he felt was given to all those he had touched, and that she felt it now just as he did. He was drunk off it, staggering to the next bar bewildered and gripping the ally way brick walls for balance. And her relishing in the power, in the vengeance and the blood and the pain and the ache and the tactile feeling of that loss of life - he held out his arm, dragging a blade across the top of his forearm, jacket pulled back. He was no good to her now, distracted and drinking the iron. As the blood welled up from the wound, he drew back from the edge and followed her, sheathing both the wound and the dagger across his hip. The pain brought him back to focus, iron turned hot from the heat.

Following her, it was like chasing a runaway train. Set for demolition, the count down had been started years ago. Slowly trekking up the hill that was her life, it hadn't always been easy. Not like now, not like how it was so right. Once, hearing the words come out from those lips, he knew that a struggle had brought her here. And there were times, he had felt it, where the drive was the only thing keeping her going - a train without a conductor. Just violence, for the sake of it. And while it was beautiful either way, purpose gave it power. Gave it influence, capacity to change. Him, her, both of them. And now, with everything that had happened, the train had pushed beyond the hill. There was one last turn, one last push, and then the climax. And for the life of her, most of those who could have been a part of it were lost in the inertia. Except for that last passenger, the one thrilled just as much as her to be near the end. Cause once it's over, it'll be one hell of a hit.

And there it was, the force confiding in her some form of mad strength that turned blast door into wet paper. With a smack, it might as well have not been there at all, sending pieces of paper and mess into the room in front of them. But in turn, that paper was metal and hot and sharp. And with that wet sound that flesh makes when it gives way, those unfortunate enough to be paid high enough to guard the door found their luck all dried up. Slumping to the ground, bean bags cut down the center and left to think on things, Gabriel walked forward to be birthed from the massacre that would soon be remembered by the duo and none who were present. Except him.

Gabriel spit blood from a cut lip, singular eye boring down on the former Master. In another life, the Wrath might have felt bad for what was coming, the sins of the past fleshed out by the sins of the present. But in his own way, Gabriel envied the promises made so long ago when Ygdris exited his purview. Leaving all these things behind, becoming something to return later, to make things right. In all the wrong ways.

Unsheathing the dagger, Gabriel ducked as a guard reached forward to punch, and sliced across the open chest. The man recoiled by attempting to knee upwards, an action met with a downward elbow that drove a cramp straight into the femur muscle. The guard staggered back and Gabriel smiled, holding out his left hand as he dragged the blade across his own palm. Unhinged, the guard screamed and charged. His attacking forearm hit the Wrath against the face hard, pushing him against the wall, as the knife bit deep into his abdomen. Gabriel let out a shallow laugh, rubbing his bloody hand across the mans face before twisting the blade and dragging it across the stomach. A bag of meat swimming in brine and cut open, it splashed at his feet as the guard dropped to the ground in what was left. Gabriel breathed in heavily, with eye closed, before opening it to see what was left from the carnage by Ygdris. Hopefully something for him to play with, to pass the time on this high.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adoYTrEpbMM​

We have seen aeons together, have we not? We come and go, you and me. And her. We change our face, our name, our skin, but we will ever ride united. In this world, and the next. In all that have come before, and all that will follow after. One to love, one to kill, and one to watch.

Which role do I play today?

Are you the Observer? Am I?

Vrag watched with some amusement as she wrapped her scorched, bleeding hand around a half-molten piece of metal and bashed a man's skull in with it, heedless of the sizzling blood that spilled down the curves of the burning alloy and onto her fingers. His body slumped down in a mess of red and white and pink, and his comrade nearly tripped over him as he lunged at the woman with a desperate yell and wide eyes.

We will kill each other in the end, like we always do. I will succumb to greed, you to love, and she… she will succumb to us both. We repeat and complete, in cycle after cycle after cycle until this creation goes to hell and us with it.

Will we ever break it, Sionoma?

Her lips curled back into a feral sneer as bone and teeth cracked under the pressure applied by her fist, with almost surgical precision. The white shards peeked out from under the broken skin like the first shy flowers under the blanket of snow after a long winter, glistening with blood and aqueous humor as it oozed from the eye hanging limp and hollow in the misshapen socket above. Like the thin shell of an egg.

Pop.

I want to stand on the edge of creation and see it come undone.

Her creation, in this life, was him, and she his thankless progeny. One last King to topple, one last time to play the role of the Usurper, with [member="Reverance"] as the willing Witness. Who'd have guessed?

With a slight hiss, the firrerreo released hold of the blood-cooled metal bar in her grasp, now shaped from the squeeze of her fingers and interactions with body parts who weren't designed to withstand meeting an accelerated object of such hardness.

Shortly put, they were now corpses.

All but one.

There were so many words in her throat, that she almost feel breathless for it. So many… and yet so little. What was there to say, truly? Look at me now, Master. Am I good enough yet? Strong enough?Powerful enough for you?

But then she raised her gaze proper, and looked him in the eye, and he was but a man. A trembling, tight-lipped man with sweat beading on his forehead and the whites showing as he stared back at her, his gaze flinty, and burning, and completely, utterly… powerless. She'd been dreading this for years. A sporadic, hellish nightmare that hounded her indiscriminately during her waking hours as well, sinking its cold teeth of fear and annihilation into her flesh. She'd grown so strong, since then, and taller, and he seemed… smaller, somehow. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his hands were shaking as he clutched his weapon, an animal backed into a corner. His knuckles were white, and so were his teeth, as he bared them in a pitiful attempt to mirror her expression. Soon his bones would glare naked at the void of space, forever. Or until the stas took him.

She spat.

Reality, she found, was oft far removed from dreams. Even hers.

"Remember me?"

They all knew it was a rethorical question. Of course he did. It was etched in the deep, fearful lines of his face, in the broken line of his mouth, in the tense curves of his body. The tables had been turned, their roles reversed in this retelling of the original. Much bloodier, and with far less remorse. The thespian and the playwright had both grown up since then, through different means, and to radically different ends.

And he… is the Devoured.

"Goodbye."

I have to. You understand.

He fired an awkward shot or two, tearing through the side of her abdomen with a searing heat that felt like the icy touch of death upon her skin, but her hands were already wrapped around his throat, squeezing and wrenching and ripping as they both went down. Someone was laughing, and someone was screaming, but she couldn't tell who was who. Maybe it was both, or maybe it was all in her head. She couldn't rightly tell, and the heady rush and the pounding of her heart — the heart she'd abandoned long ago — were drowning out all other sensory perception to the point where the only thing still existing was him, and her.

And then just her.

 

[Reverance]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gSD0SdjVh4​

The floor was a soup, a melting pot of poor choices and bad decisions and lives spent dawdling and wasting and dangling from the cliff-face. It was a fondue fountain, overflowing in scarlet, hands dipped deep into the perversion to taste that metallic residue and pull from it, thick and viscous syrup, ever wholesome. Joy, happiness, anger, pleasure, pain, love. What was the good of bodies if they couldn't be used and in this time, this frame, he would find an assortment of unseemly manner to enact such truths. A body trips, slips, and cuts open and what happens to the floor after, but a second coat for the entertainment. And where Gabriel existed was somewhere between release and asking for seconds, the wounding upon flesh the icing to his cake. He felt heavy, his arms like bricks as the knuckles dragged a trail and wake across the blood coated floor, a slug line that meandered from the beginning and wouldn't stop.

He felt the rejuvenation of that high, the lingering reminder of his fixations and his addictions. Now, it was blood and by the gallons, and now, it was watching Ygdris kill her old master. A long time passed and where an animal was wounded by the owner, it ran off into the night. To lick the wounds, to find others to do the same. Wounds came in many forms and she had amassed them, hidden behind a shell of indifference and apathy. But where time was allotted, where opportunity was afforded, the invincible became vulnerable as she dropped those barriers, assuming the role she was always meant to. The Sith Code, the one that neither of them truly followed, dictated the importance of emotions. That part it got right, it wasn't about hiding behind them but instead, accepting and integrating them. Harnessing them, tasting the blood, like thick syrup.

He watched as she went through the turns, the maze stretched out straight to form the narrow corridor. The path was clear, she had made this promise to him on that night, that given the chance, she would kill this man and go through the motions over and over again. He wanted that, it made sense that the vengeance would arrive quickly but be slow to leave. The sort of visitor no one wants, except for the sadistic and masochistic. Both of which categorized the Wrath and the Hand, a match made in their Heaven and just about everyone else's hell. And with crimson eye watching slowly over the struggle, he felt a shiver run up his spine and looked down to view his abdomen leaking. Pressing his hand against it, he stumbled over to the counter top. It was in this moment that he realized, the back room office had been fashioned into a torture room. The likes of which was meant to hurt someone as much as it was to keep them alive.

Shuffling through the cabinets, he pulled out a clear bottle and a plastic gun. It was all in slow motion, the sound of Ygdris and her struggle echoing loudly against his mind. Pulling his shirt and jacket off, he stretched the wound and splashed alcohol into it, feeling the burn run deep. Looking over to the squirming, Ygdris mounting the man and strangling the life from him, Gabriel felt a cold burn of jealousy and envy for his position. And then the pinch and pull of trigger, he winced as the staple bit down on the flesh. And then again, and again, and again, until the wound was sealed. All in an instant, this would be another scar, one he would label and remember as the day that Ygdris claimed her final prize. And he was more than happy to be a part of it, to enable such a massacre.

And just then, like sound returning in a mute canyon, he walked over to the two but instead of engaging, he found a semi conscious individual, on their way out, and the specimen diverted his attention. Sitting on his chest, knees against the blood streaked floor, Gabriel blew air upwards and puffed, pushing the hair from his face. The flecks of blood glistened against his chest and back and arms, intermingled with beads of sweat, tattoos and scars. He looked down at the guy, grabbing a hand full of hair and smacking him in the face. "Hey...wake up." His left arm was still cut, his palm still open, but he cared little for that now. The time was coming, and when it was over, it would be back again. Just like him.

The man came to and Gabriel smiled. The man smiled in return, delirious and likely in shock. Gabriel continued to smile, punch after punch into the head, until he was smacking nothing but hard tile and bone and soup. And thick syrup.

[member="Vrag"]​

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZhf98IydQ0​

There was a stark, stark expanse of nothingness, and it burned. Like staring at the clouds on a sunny day, it made her eyes water with unwanted tears, prickling at the edges and threatening to spill over at any moment. Do monsters cry? Because she felt, truly, for the first time in her life, that she'd crossed that final threshold somewhere along the way. It was hard to tell when it was, and even as she turned and looked upon her life laid bare before her, Ygdris could not point and say 'then'.

It was a process. Her very own metamorphosis, from larva to chrysalis and now to… well. She couldn't — or perhaps refused to — put a name to the creature that had emerged from the cocoon, but she knew its harsh lines intimately, for they gazed back in the mirror at the start of each day.

As did he.

In some sort of cosmic joke, the circle had finally come full, two severed ends coming together at last in a great display of violence, like such things are won't to happen. Stars go out in supernovae, new ones are born in the searing heat of fusion, and they in turn are again consumed by the their dead ancestors, doomed to depths from which no light escapes. The cycle of life, extant on every order of existence. The creatia of the Universe, filtered down from unfathomable entities to the very smallest specks, painted with red and black and every color in-between.

With a trembling gasp, one star had gone out, its life snuffed out forever, and in that hollow space, a new sun would grow, brighter and harsher than the one before..

If she could just open her damn eyes.

It was empty here. So, so empty.

Because there's nothing left.

Vrag leaned forward and touched her forehead to his, and felt a salty wetness carve its way down her cheeks, matted with sweat and blood and gore. It dripped from silver skin to the strangled blue hues below, meandering along the jaw and into the mess of hair splayed out against the ground beneath them. She sneaked out her tongue to taste the foreign liquid, and on her tongue the flavor of iron blossomed instead.

That, she knew.

"You're dead," she murmured, loud still in the silence that follows calamity.

"You're dead, and I'm alone."

The new star would grow, and consume, and usurp, and all tears would turn to dust upon its flesh of fire.

The last of Ygdris' remorse was left to dry on the lifeless face of her former Master as she stood up on shaky legs. Though she would put no name to the beast emerged, the molting was complete. Her old husk lay abandoned on the road behind her — no, not a road, a swath — and in spirit and in body both, the woman stood tethered only to herself.

"Not you."

A whisper, and a last goodbye.

She walked over to the only other living being in the room, stepping over the carnage they had wrought upon man and structure alike. A firm hand would rest on his shoulder to still the next strike against the goulash of brain and bone smeared across the floor and his knuckles. There was nothing here for them anymore.

"Come," she spoke, and her fingers would drift higher, threading through the slick black hair. Clenching of their own accord, Vrag would dig into the flesh of his scalp, yanking his head back as she bit her lip.

"I want to celebrate."

[member="Reverance"]​