Welcome To The Machine

[Onley Xiangu]

Maena​

New City - Overlooking Slums​

The Slums were a sprawling monochrome city outside the city - an eyesore, he was sure some would say. He could understand that point of view but the few times he’d ventured out that far it had been no different than the filth that collected in the lowest levels of the New City. People in the volcano just wanted to believe there was some sort of separation.

It was outside that New City where he found his father. The outside of the volcano had been carved in some places to connect to the inside, massive shelves of rock that overlooked the landscape surrounding the capital volcano. From there most places of importance could at least be glimpsed if not seen in their entirety. The spire of the Tower could be seen standing silent sentinel over lava floes in the very far distance, far enough for the inhabitants of Maena to forget its purpose. The Slums were far closer, and the focus of the day. Someone or something was lurking there, murdering mine foremen and leaving their corpses out in the dry air for Matsu’s people to find. It was a grim and foolish message - one that was costing them credits, a more grave concern than the potential danger of whomever had decided to start yet another rebellion.

For the moment though, none of that mattered.

Onley wasn’t known for taking too much in life seriously. But there was something about being near his father that made him pause, settle in to some more stoney part of himself created by apprehension, some desire for approval. He couldn’t decide if he hated it or not.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said, excessively casual as he pulled up to join him. It wasn’t an accusation, just an observation.

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

Sharp blackened nails raked across damp laundry, blowing gently in the smoke filled air. The red visor shifted from the nearby shanty town to which the laundry likely belonged, taking in the scent of burnt ash in the view of the lonesome spire. Despite it being morning, the feeling of twilight persisted in an otherwise fire choked atmosphere. A sort of resilience against shifting weather clung to the sky, grey tones married to earthen and black landscape. Sharp protrusions jutted out from the surface in the distant view, smoldering magma giving off just the faintest hue of glowing red.

An aura of malice and irritation rolled off of him like a strong cologne, hardly contained by the force masking amulet that sat at the small of his back. Everyone was coated in the black dust of the earth, miners and prospectors finding fortune in the hellscape amidst all their suffering. If it were not for the plates of metal that adorned him, he would have fit in. But as it were, he stuck out as a stationary object amidst constant movement. People shuffled around him, like oil filled water around a lone island of shale.

He didn't so much as turn his head when Onley approached. He hadn't been sure how to react, when his lover had informed him of the existence of their progeny. His history with children hadn't exactly been a beacon of good fatherhood. Gabriels children, he had killed. Ijaat, he had tortured to the point of mutilation, killing his wife in the process. He had dark memories of his mother and father, one who aborted him at birth and the other who tortured him from an early time in his life. Though, if given the chance and knowing the future, he would have elected to take the same path. He was certain he and his father would have gotten along, if not for the fact that Loray killed him at a very young age.

While he understood that he offered a valuable benefit to society, in the same way a plague might whittle away the weak, he also understood that some were not so capable of appreciating such long standing profit. And it was those very people that found enlightenment beneath his thoughtful grip and searing gaze. And yet, he still felt an odd sense of patriarchal duty around Onley. As if the realization of having a son might have awoken something sincere in him, a true benefit from the disease and rot he was so quick to inflict.

"Distance...makes the heart grow fonder." He offered the rebuttal with a cold nonchalance, mirroring his sons casual approach to their meeting. Matsu had given him word that something was causing her grief on Maena. If it meant seeing her again, he would happily burn down a forest of corpses or cross an ocean of the dead. This seemed far less consequential.

Head turning, he looked towards his son. "Where do we start?" The question, intentionally vague, could take them anywhere. Their relationship, their intent to snuff out this disruption, or any number of other purposes. He wasn't sure where he wanted this familial link to go. But for the sake of Onley's mother, he was willing to try.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

He certainly wasn’t there to start the conversation with questions that felt distressingly desperate. It wasn’t like he needed a father - he’d lived his entire life with simply the idea of one. That the real thing was standing in front of him felt more alien than complete. There were a thousand things he might have liked to ask, yes. But he was of two minds. One was the older Onley, the one that resented Loray for his absence. And the other was the tiny little piece of his younger self that hoped for something more than the indifference they’d always shown the other outwardly.

That younger, quieter part was fuelled by the idea. He very rarely mentioned Loray but every once in a great while he had a question and would present it delicately to his mother. It was her reaction every time that made him wonder. Whatever she was doing stopped for a moment, her hands hovering over datapad mid-typed sentence as if the mention of Loray were enough to slow every process but memory. Onley always thought of his mother as stone but for those rare occasions she always softened. That his parents shared something strange and unknowable was clear. And it made him curious.

Regardless, he moved towards the steps carved out of the side of the lower rock balcony of the outside of the city, falling in to step with his father as they descended the walkways and he squashed his questions.

“I’m not sure how much you were told, but there’s at least a few people murdering mine overseers. It was easy to replace them at first but the more bodies we find the less enthusiastic people are about their promotions, especially as each is more mutilated every time we find one.” He paused as they reached the platform below, tapping his security code in to the gate so they might both pick a speeder that would make it easier to cross the dry plain between the City and the Slums. “Someone found another one this morning, so I was thinking of going there first and then heading further out to the shanties. Our best lead so far is a group of men that found someone dragging a body out on to the plains and chased him back in to the Slums. They lost him there, but it seems the best place to dig around with that in mind.”

And then they were off, the wind whipping through past Onley’s cheeks as they sped over dry earth. The dead volcanoes that stretched to either side of the New City loomed behind them like a wall, flat earth billowing dust up beneath their vehicles in their wake. Cropped, brown-green grass held on in large patches to the earth leaving it all a flat color that was almost mesmerizing in its loneliness. It was there, a few miles out, that they found the scene surrounded by a few of Matsu’s security making sure it remained untouched before the pair got there.

From a distance it was unrecognizable, but when the pair walked closer it had obviously once been human. Eyes gouged from sockets, it was laying on its back staring sightlessly up at the gray sky. Arms and legs a tangle it truly appeared to have been dumped. Nothing was arranged beyond the artful y-incision from collar to groin, taken a step further with ribs cracked and pushed outwards like a cage whose door was finally opened. Everything appeared to be inside thought it would take closer inspection to know whether a more buried organ had been taken. There was no blood underneath the body, suggesting the body had been killed somewhere else as even postmortem the sort of wounds seen would have bled at least somewhat.

It wasn’t until they were nearly atop it that Onley saw the spider carved in to its face. What had at first just looked like random wounds revealed itself as an arachnid curling over the victim’s face, its sockets serving as one of eight eyes carved neatly in to flesh. Not a subtle message, but effective.

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

He remained silent as Onley provided answers to the singular question, taking the path of least resistance. That was good, important even: to keep his mind on track. The information was useful and even necessary but between Loray and Matsu, she must have been well aware that he handled problems with his own form of charm.

From the overgrown buildings and the way those mercenaries fell to pieces beneath his force and her prowess, she knew what she was requesting. She sought someone with a certain unquenchable thirst and the inability to compromise. And if that wasn't what she was looking for, she shouldn't have called him to this planet.

Secretly, Loray suspected other reasons. But like any grown adult, he preferred to bottle his issues up and let them fester deep beneath the surface, slowly and menacingly turning towards another addendum to the long line of mental ailments that defined him.

He watched with what could only be described as fatherly disappointment, as his son moved through this world with ease. Struggle and conflict were inherent in the universe, required for growth. And these speeders lent themselves to Loray and Onley as if they had owned them all along. Perhaps he felt the slightest tinge from the saber, nestled deep within his arm, for the mayhem that so often came with his presence. As he continued to slip away into the ether, donning the suit of chitin and releasing the restraints, he realized what sanity was ascertained in the Field of Blades was quickly depleting. Or maybe he just felt the urge for destruction, the desire to take what was his without it being offered.

He remained quiet as Onley continued on, discussing the circumstances that brought father and son together. As they moved through the wasteland, recovering from some unknown affliction, Loray was made aware of the convey that awaited them.

Stepping off the speeder, he lifted his left hand to his face. Wrapping his free voxyn fingers around the cuff, he turned and unlocked the glove. With the seal of air escaping, the free hand was revealed to be nothing more than nearly human. Setting the metal glove down on the bike, the visor of red and menace nearly tore a hole through the guards that formed wall and obstacle. Loray simply stood silent, watching as the guard looked towards Onley. Without hesitation, he nodded to the man in armor to allow him passage.

Loray stepped slowly forward, the helmet turning to deduct the purpose of the body with wavering glances. The corpse had been mutilated but not here, that was rather obvious. There was hardly a tone of metal in the air. Ribs cracked open, face maimed and carved for unknown reason. The image of a spider.

"An insult. Or perhaps a warning." He uttered as he reached down. By and large, externally, the victim was intact. Appendages were still present, shreds of clothing tattered and attached loosely, and ornaments of a particular trade. Much to the irritation and shock of the guards, Loray reached forward to grip a necklace made of bone.

"A tradesman, living on the sell of goods within the slums." He shook his head. "Poor decisions, bad trades, he was in the pocket for the wrong sort of people. My type of people." Had Onley been able to see Loray, he might have seen the intensity of his eye as it shone with the power of psychometry. And he might have seen his father close his eye, focusing on the other senses. "He was blinded before his death, though he lived for some time afterwards." He paused again before sticking the nails of the voxyn arm between the mans teeth. Having been sealed shut via rigor mortis, the former Wrath pushed upward, cracking the jaw. "They pulled his tongue out by the root and forced him to...eat it." Loray stifled a laugh, nearly consumed by the thought of how both cliche and interesting that form of torture was.

"He didn't see his killers. Just the sounds of laughter, metal being sharpened, and the stink of his own stench."

Releasing his grip on the item and retracting his vong arm, the mouth slammed shut and Loray stood upward. With visor lifted towards the sky, he took a deep breath, raking the metal of his armor with sharpened nails. "I'm rarely defensive. But I don't take threats to your mother lightly."

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

He knew, either through tales from his Mother or the overheard gossiping of guards who’d been with the Xiangu’s long enough to have witnessed Reverance, that the man had a particular way of handling a situation. Onley had a number of ideas and assumptions as to why Matsu had asked for him - that whatever Loray did would send a message of an entirely different kind than hers, that the Slums were the sort of environment in which he thrived, and some instinct to find a way for her partner and their son to search for common ground were all good guesses. He would bet on a mixture of the three.

Regardless, Onley choked back on some sort of admiration he hated to allow as his father winnowed down some trail of stranger’s memory. His Kiffar heritage was just a little too diluted to give him the same kind of clarity when he attempted to read an object. Sometimes he had feelings or guidance from concentrating on something but he never got memories or images as Loray described. Throughout the description Onley’s face didn’t change. The voxyn arm was something unexpected, strange to behold. He could not imagine the effort it must take to contain something like that. But he’d seen enough that not even the crack of the man’s jaw under force of hand bothered him - though...he noted the low laughter at the missing tongue. No wonder my parents found each other.

When Loray stood and spoke through the staccato tick of sharpened fingers against armor, Onley nodded. For a moment his face - a puzzle piece of features borrowed - settled in a perfect combination of his father’s terrifying determination and his mother’s coldness. In this he and Loray stood on perfectly even ground. “Neither do I.”

He paused, considering his options. Thus far he was doing a good job of helping protect the planet, but he wasn’t so foolish as to believe he had nothing to learn. That Matsu had called for Loray was evidence that there were ways to handle things cleanly and finally, and from that Onley would absorb as much as he could. That being said, he wasn’t worried that his tactics would meet with disapproval - merely that he knew he could be better. He wanted to be better.

“These people are obviously aware we’re looking for them, but all the same I’m hesitant to send people looking as we really don’t have good leads. My concern is that it would just send them deeper in to hiding,” he explained as he gave the men a nod to confirm they could begin documenting and dismantling the scene. They seemed eager to get to it before it could be tampered with more. “But I’m hoping your experience will help root them out. I have someone I’d like you to meet - it’ll bring us in to the Slums.”

The river was shallow since it hadn’t rained in two weeks, and so Onley left the speeders behind in favor of crossing the rest of the open ground on foot. It wouldn’t take them very long - but long enough to create a silence. Usually Onley didn’t mind quiet. Perhaps it was just genetics, but he never felt the need to fill that open space. Now though, the tick of some insect creaking out of the longer patches of grass the only thing between Onley and his questions, he felt the need to do so.

“So...what’s the story with the arm?” he questioned, nodding towards the voxyn monstrosity hidden within armor.

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

"You are concerned that they will go into hiding..." He paused, having never considered that. It wasn't his mentality to dive into such hypotheticals, especially one as vexing as this. Whether it was apparent or not, there was a sense in the air. The smell of metal, the warmth of the scorched earth, and the feeling a creaky bridge has just before it collapses. There was never a broader stroke then Loray, as much a counterpart to Matsu as he was a foil. She was the scalpel and he was the hammer. "Don't be."

It wasn't a command. More a request. Onley might be more then certain when such a thing comes down from the man in his armor. But for now, it was simply of matter of assuaging any concern there may have been. Loray had no intent of leaving this planet until this matter was settled. And if there was one thing he pulled from the dilapidated mental corpse of his twin, it was the twisted pride in perseverance. A rail gun would sooner retract it's fired payload then see Loray approaching through the cross hairs. At least, that was the impression he hoped force upon others.

The walk wasn't something he was unfamiliar with, though the pace felt alien. It lacked a sense of rush, an urgency married to delicate deeds. A surgeon, forced into open heart surgery, but required to act diligently. And the empty space between he and Onley was filled with the sound of a question. One that required an answer of shame and pride, mixed together.

He wasn't fond of telling stories. They lacked the pain and the symphony of the moment, the way a singular event stood on the precipice between finite measurements of time. A story, spoken in words, was an image without color.

"Your mother and I lived on Selvaris, a once hospitable jungle filled with natives and indigenous." A red visor looked out into the distance. The slums became something bigger than what they were, a goal post that seemed to shimmer in the illusion of heat. "I changed it, took it over, conquered it. And when someone questioned my authority and dedication..." He lifted the blackened fingers, twisted and curved, with a tongue just barely protruding from the mouth. "I cut off my arm and replaced it with something better...to prove them wrong." He looked towards Onley. "And to confirm that I could."

"It serves many purposes and requires very little..." He stated with a certain stoicism, facing back towards the slums. "Does it bring you discomfort or disgust, to see such a thing?" It was with that question, as much a test as anything else, that they neared the outskirts of the slums. Shanty towns of browns and blacks, various races all coated in the ores of their professions, and a lackluster shine of the sun. The vibrancy of this planet was devoid anything remarkable, leaving the world coated in a dust that removed all luster from view.

If the world had a sound, it would have been muffled or muted. The way people moved seemed closer to the steps of drones and robots, pushed to the brink of survival at the expense of greed and satiation. Loray couldn't help but feel the slightest tinge of instinct, a sudden desire to see the slash of violet through the droves of them. What purpose did they now serve, if not to simply muddy the gene pool? He would be doing them all a favor if this mask of indifference were replaced with passion.

If metal suddenly became chitin.

And if he became himself.

"What is this persons profession?"

[member="Onley Xiangu"]

 

[Onley Xiangu]

He felt a wild discomfort as they trekked towards the Slums. Not so much with the mode of transportation itself; a more conventional, if inconvenient way to the get to the broken down shanty city would make them less noticeable. Where the New City harbored racism and xenophobia at average levels that were to be expected of a place filled with hundreds of alien species co-mingling, the Slums was a settlement that existed long before Matsu’s intervention on the planet and displayed an open hatred of outsiders. It had been primarily humans and near-humans then, and the influx of aliens and droids coming in to try their hand in the mines had tensions running high. It had never been a safe place for travellers, and was growing increasingly angrier by the day. Already they would draw attention - best to get in to the place without drawing the entire city down on them.

But the aforementioned discomfort had less to do with their task as that bridled need, a violet streak across Onley’s vision manifest from his Father’s hold on his own reins. It was something Onley shared, but in a tempered way - truly, half and half. He tried not to allow himself thoughts of their rift growing larger, what seemed a chasm created simply by time but capable of being bridged suddenly filled by something toxic out of the difference in the way they saw the world. It irritated him how he couldn’t be rational about it - he did not have to be the same as a person for them to like him, so why was he worried about that with Loray?

Shoving aside his less rational thoughts, he considered the question of the arm. He’d not heard of Selvaris but then again, he supposed he wouldn’t. Once he’d stepped out in the Galaxy at large it had become increasingly apparent that most force-users seemed to devour tasks and goals as if it gave them as much sustenance as food. Their lives were always changing. It was most likely one of a thousand places much the same.

“No,” he said, his tone perfectly honest. “It’s not much stranger than the dead people walking around on the other side of the planet. I’ve just...never seen anything like it before. But useful, I’ve no doubt. Does it do anything cool like light up when you say ‘go-go gadget arm?’” He nearly made a surprised expression at his own joke. He had a naturally sarcastic sense of humor, no harm meant. But he hadn’t expected it to surface with his Father.

Regardless, the Slums were nearly upon them. The noxious smell of refinery fumes wafted past them, an acrid scent drifting from the nova crystal refineries making the valuable gems stable enough to be shipped and sold for astronomical amounts of credits.

“He’s a...hmm.” Onley coughed mid-sentence, knowing it would sound foolish. “I guess a scry of sorts. Psychic? I don’t know what the right word is. He can find and see things in the world. Not futures or anything. Present stuff, hidden things.” Onley paused, as he shoved past a epicanthix giving him a nasty look, bumping shoulders instead of deigning to move out of the way. “Probably just scamming the miserable people out here but he let slip to one of my men that he’s been having people coming in asking him to try and scry strongholds for the larger deposits found in the mines.”

A few minutes passed, the two traversing through seemingly nonsensical criss-crossing of alleyways. Kids in filthy clothes kicked a half-deflated ball back and forth. Skinny stray animals darted across their path. The constant low rumble of scraping, starving life hummed everywhere. Eventually, down a dirty alleyway, the low-quality filigree half-gone from a storefront announcing ‘Dr. Inqui’s Answers’. One neon eye burned in the single dirty window. At one point it might have blinked too but the pattern seemed to be broken and it twitched instead. Neons were an extremely rare sight out here in the Slums - perhaps Dr. Inqui was attempting to imitate his ‘betters’ in the New City.

“If nothing else, it’ll be entertaining,” Onley murmured before he and his Father entered the dark shop.

[member="Loray Tares"]​

 

[Loray Tares]

"It has eyes, a mouth, and can consume..." He stated such in a hushed tone, veiled in a sense of ambiguity. It bolstered his strength, could see auras in the force and guide him, and was filled with toxins that could cause all sorts of nervous system damage. But those were hidden beneath a sense of ownership, a sense armor. These were abilities best held at a distance, revealed only when needed. In all his memories, he couldn't ever recall an instance of fully explaining the powers of the arm. Not to Matsu, not to Aver. It seemed that would stay the case with Onley as well.

The feeling of the slums was more than just smell and appearance. A sense of downtrodden and depression raked out from hungry eyes, looking towards the duo as they moved through narrow passageways of ad hoc structures and glorified shanty towns. A sickly pale yellow poured out over the horizon, sweltering and enveloping, as it hung low above the buildings. Lights, incessantly flickering, dangled from lamps and shined even without need during the day. Insects flocked to them, sparking blue and orange, as they fell to the ground or were caught in the fires of the bulbs. Children looked up from below, keeping count with hopeful eyes and irritated swats at the ones that got away.

The Epicanthix that didn't remove himself from Onley's path got a more direct approach from his father. Not necessarily defensive, more irritated at the gall. He moved towards the Epicanthix and ran him over, knocking him to the ground in a puddle of god knows what. All arms and teeth, the Epicanthix looked up towards the man who was introduced solely by the flash of armor and a red slit. Where Onley was content to let things go, the mania of his father shone through. And more than that, the dead silence of the act was a disconcerting as the act itself. With no words towards the figure, Loray looked back to Onley with flexed fingers and an aura of indifference.

Perhaps he was looking for a fight.

Perhaps he wanted to see if there was anything of value in the Slums.

So far...he wasn't intrigued.

"Sounds like someone worth speaking to, at the very least." He mentally shrugged, thinking that the powers sounded a good deal like psychometry. Nothing mystical or magical to someone who actively used the power, though he could appreciate how the locals might perceive it. There was a potency there, in manipulation, and he couldn't blame the scry for trying. But that ounce of respect wouldn't stop him from yanking vocal cords free with a singular snap if he thought it might improve the situation. All it took was the wrong word from someone who meant nothing.

Loray stopped in his tracks as he looked up, eyeing the emblem that hung over the door. A sort of faded magenta, like the blood of a foreign beast, dripping down the humming icon of a soothsayer. The alleyway around them was reminiscent of the underworld, the way the stench clung to brick and mortar like adhesive. The way children ran by, smacking pedestrians in the legs, only to steal their goods as they tumbled and disappear into the faded light. This was the place for monsters and villains, the sort who couldn't muster in the world were conquerors lived.

Stepping into the shop, he was hit by a thick haze of potpourri and incense. He would have stumbled at the sheer cliche of the shop, if he weren't distracted by the baubles. Shrunken heads hanging from twine, figurines that indicated some sort of shaman use, and glass displays of vibrant lightsaber crystals. Some of the things seemed like trash, other things seemed far removed from the station of such a poorly placed shop. Loray approached, pressing his blackened fingers across the hilt of a deconstruction lightsaber.

"You break that, you buy it!" A figure came out, toothy and all smiles. "Who am I kidding, that thing was broken a long time ago. So I'll give it to you for a good price!?"
"I'm not interested."
"Was it the fact that it was broken that turned you off?"
"I can't count the reasons." Loray leaned over the counter top. "We're here to see the Doctor."

"Is...is that so? You don't seem like the usual clientele." Shifty eyes and a poorly kept mustache shifted as attention transferred to Onley.

[member="Onley Xiangu"]​