Wrong Place, Wrong Time

[Darth Carnifex]

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Hutt Space
Nar Shaddaa

It wasn't often that the Dark Lord of the Sith sullied himself by mingling amidst the rabble and dregs of society, but recent events had driven him to take drastic measures to ensure that an age old enemy wasn't about to come knocking on his door. Back when the Black Sun had the most prominent force in Hutt Space he had established a thorough net of contacts and agents all throughout that region of space, constantly receiving a steady stream of intelligence on the activities of crime families and other criminal syndicates. With these separate, yet equally similar, events of droids going mad and attacking the general populace all over the galaxy, Carnifex thought it prudent to meet with one of his contacts in person and discern whether or not this bore any resemblance to the OMNI Crisis.

Before him loomed the imposing spires of the Vertical City, a dazzling display of fluorescent lights advertising food, drink, gambling, sex, and anything else you could hope to indulge in during your time on the Smuggler's Moon. Carnifex ignored them all, angling his ship down further below the brightly colored skyscrapers and into the polluted and vermin infested underbelly that thrived at the heart of every ecumenopolis.

The Undercity was seldom traveled by most people, it was the seedy lair of the Hutt cartels and was home to their secret shipyards. He too ignored them, he wasn't here to visit the Hutts. The warehouse platform he settled his ship down on was reserved for illicit sentient trafficking, specifically that of slaves reserved for sexual purposes and other lecherous activities. All around him were mewling, crying slaves being pushed around and shoved into specially built containers meant to transport them to distant worlds while some of the less fortunate ones had become the personal past time of the more callous gangsters and thugs operating the warehouse.

He moved past them without worry, without sparing any of the pathetic slaves a second glance as he made his way up to the foreman's office. Inside was his primary underworld informant, a Devaronian Dark Jedi who went by the name of Doviculous. He had been in league with Carnifex for many years now, dating back to the earliest days of the One Sith when he was just a small-time weapons manufacturer working within the Imperial side of the Core and Inner Rim. He was busted for his criminal activities, but instead of being executed alongside the other refuse the Voice of the Dark Lord took him under his wing and let him re-integrate back into the criminal underworld as his informant.

Now they met face-to-face again for the first time in almost a decade.

Surrounding the Devaronian kingpin were several Neimoidian enforcers, a Twi'lek slave who was unpleasantly grinding on Doviculous' lap, a Rayakkan treasurer, and an Evocii adjutant who looked none too pleased to be anywhere near the crime lord. At the Dark Lord's entrance, Doviculous unceremoniously shoved the Twi'lek off of his lap and onto the ground where she stayed there cowed in fear of physical retribution. "Ah, milord milord! It had been many a moon since you and I have shared the same room! Auhh, what would you like? Drink? Food? Women?" He said that last line quite deviously, and the woman still cowering on the floor seemed to shrink in terror at the mere mention of it.

Carnifex merely raised up a hand to forestall any more of the devil's ramblings, "Nothing so crass, I'm afraid. I'm looking for information pertinent to an increase in droid-on-organic violence plaguing the galaxy as of late. Have you heard anything concrete from the underworld, something that may lead back to the truth of this whole debacle?" To that, the Devaronian idly stroked his chin, his brow furrowing in thought as he reflected back on the events of the past few weeks. Yeah, he had heard about the stuff at Rishi and others, but he hadn't given it much thought until now. That was why Carnifex must be Dark Lord, he can piece things together quicker than someone like him.

Then, a thought popped into his head. He had heard something about droids and people with cybernetic enhancements bumming around Nar Shaddaa recently. His lips parted in a smile, "Well... Now that you mention it..."

[member="Evoros"]​

 

[Evoros]

For all intents and purposes, Yvonne Evoros was remarkably good at being average. On her own, she was neither particularly interesting nor especially offensive, typical in just about every sense. Nothing about her said noticeable until she decided she ought to be seen. When she decided not to be seen, she simply . . . wasn't. She became the background, became irresistibly easy to look past until one couldn't not ignore her.

Today, she was the background.

The agent had been tailing a Twi'lek from the shadows for some time now. A businessman of the wealthier variety, regarded as vaguely important within certain parts of Nar Shaddaa. The less reputable sort.
And secrets. Definitely secrets.
She needed to know what they were.

The routine was intricate, but to her it was utterly straightforward. First she watched from a distance, carefully noted down what he did from day to day, why he did it. Learned what made him tick. He would have a past. Secrets. Weaknesses. Dirt. Everyone had something they wanted to protect. Everyone had something they wanted to hide. Oh, he'd have gone to great lengths to cover them up - she knew all about that. Yvonne was an expert in keeping hers a secret. She knew how people hid things. She knew how to see through their hiding places. She would see through his.

But the Board was not malevolent. They did not rule through fear alone. So when she knew she had what she needed in order to make him do as she wished, next came making him want to. Winning his favor, winning his trust. Teaching him to put his faith in her. Slowly, slowly teaching him to rely on her. Take her word as fact. Even when everyone around him said something else. Especially then.

Then soon she'd be done, and the Collective would have the most devoted new follower.

But that came later. She wasn't there yet. First, she needed to understand his mind. She needed to know what he would do anything to avoid. And she was certain she was about to find it.

Evoros had followed the Twi'lek business man for a few hours, perhaps, patiently waiting, part of the background. He was about to go to meet someone, someone he'd kept secret from his family and his colleagues and his friends. She had watched as he lied about where he was going, as he twisted and turned his path until it was near impossible to recreate his footsteps. He hadn't seen her.

She had no idea that somebody else had.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The bright neon of the moon's upper crust shone brightly to greet the Dark Lord as he reemerged from the seedy underbelly armed with knowledge that may lead him to the answers that he truly sought. Apparently some new group had started making moves in the area, real noticeable off-worlders who seemed to possess a fascination with technology. There wasn't much to go on about these ruffians, but it was better than nothing.

And Carnifex had ways of getting what he wanted out of the uncooperative.

He angled his starship down to land on a relatively deserted landing pad, taking a moment to himself to adorn one of his longest lasting Sith amulets. The item would completely smother the Dark Lord's otherwise fierce and distinct signature in the Force, rendering him completely undetectable unless someone was actively looking for him. Luckily he had come alone and had only informed one other person of his intentions, and he didn't expect her to be so liberal with that information despite the fact she was in charge of relaying Alliance information back to him. And he had not reason to suspect that his quarry would be on the lookout for a hunter, not when they was so intent on hunting another.

He hopped out of his starfighter and shrouded himself in his heavy black robes, pulling the hood completely up to obscure his recognizable face. Then he made his way through the sprawling labyrinth of Nar Shaddaa, making his way towards the falsified rendezvous that Doviculous had set in to lure one of the members of this gang out into the open.

Where he would be ready to pounce.

He saw the bait now, pulling out all the tricks to throw off any hypothetical followers. At first the Dark Lord didn't see anyone, but then he spotted the signs of observation. It was something difficult to pick up, but his many years as an Imperial Agent for the Old Empire had taught him many tricks on how to read behavior, and the woman that he had caught in his sights was truly a master of being unremarkable. Often the best agents were those who were completely average, nothing out of the ordinary about them. However, that can work against them in an environment as abnormal as this.

He wouldn't make a move yet, there were too many people. He'd settle into watching and waiting until she made hers first.

[member="Evoros"]​

 

[Evoros]

He crossed a street. She crossed it after him. He looked over his shoulder. She didn't need to. Too easy. People never realised how easy they were to outsmart. They looked one way and let her in through the other; held up shields and let her drive her blade through the back. He was smart. Most of the time, her prey proved smart. But they could all be outsmarted. They all had weaknesses. Sometimes they thought themselves invincible. Sometimes they didn't realise they were targets. This one was neither. His weakness was lack of thoroughness.

Hers? Hers was arrogance.

Finally, a destination. A warehouse - ugh. Uncreative as ever. Pity, but it made her task easier. She called on the Force and the cloak shrouding her from noteworthiness thickened. Now Yvonne's presence thinned down to a few notches shy of invisible. You might catch noises across the ground, but they never sounded like footsteps. They barely sounded. You might see her from the corner of your eye, but there never seemed to be anything to look at directly. Unless you knew you were looking for her.

And nobody was looking for her.
Nobody was ever looking for her.
Her mind struggled to find suspicion.

Evoros followed closer.
The agent stood right at the side of the wall - easy to bump into, but her target had already made sure nobody followed him. Dangerously close to her prey and whatever he had come all this way for. He hadn't seen her. He wasn't going to, not yet.

And then, voices. Voices that hid and snuck about. Voices that didn't want you to hear them. But she heard them anyway.

“Did anyone follow you?”

“No.” Yes.

She smiled, a secret grin of satisfaction. Yvonne Evoros did her job because it was her job; because she appreciated what the Collective offered her, offered the galaxy. (Mostly what it offered her). But there was a great deal of enjoyment to be found in her successes. In smiling that they'd never know how they had failed, laughing at their weakness, championing her strength.

He had been hard to keep track of, but not impossible.

They all had their weaknesses, and hers was arrogance.

| [member="Darth Carnifex"] |​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Before him was a warehouse, not unlike the thousands upon thousands of others that littered Nar Shaddaa's multi-leveled surface. It was a tad cliche for a meeting place, but then again a great deal of criminal dealings were conducted from warehouses on Nar Shaddaa, even Carnifex's meeting with Doviculous went down in a warehouse in the underbelly. He wouldn't enter himself, not at this moment. Unlike the one he was trailing, Carnifex was nowhere near as stealthy as he had been thirty years ago, he had transformed his body from lithe athleticism to hulking muscle and raw power. But he was no mere brute, no mere jarhead barbarian who went about smashing everything he couldn't understand.

He was a talented magician as well.

He veered away from the warehouse, only deviating for a short distance until he was sufficiently alone in a dark alley several meters away. He called upon the power of the Dark Side, letting the entropic darkness course through his body like water from an open valve. He poured this energy into his hands and began to mold a being from the shadows that pooled in his palms. Normally he would require a special type of apparatus to form the creature he was currently conjuring, but he had studied for many years on how to bend the elements of the universe to his will, and had found ways to perform such tasks without the aid of technology or reagents.

After a short while, perhaps no more than a minute, a small being had been brought forth into existence within the Dark Lord's muscular hands -- a Sith Familiar. Usually they took the form of scavenger birds like crows and ravens, but for his locale he had decided to go with something that wouldn't be thought of as exotic to the ecumenopolis. This familiar took the shape of a Gartro, an avian creature with bat-like wings, a spiked tail, and a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. Through it Carnifex could bear witness to all that occurred within the warehouse, and without hesitation he flung it into the air where it took flight and made its way back the way the Dark Lord had come towards the decrepit building. From there it squeezes its way in through an opening, and silently crawling along the ceiling until it was directly above the two meeting individuals, its sharp eyes scanning for the woman.

[member="Evoros"]​

 

[Evoros]

"You have what I asked for?"

She couldn't see it, but she could guess how the second stranger had responded. People were easy to predict, easy to anticipate. In her mind's eye, the other man was nodding.

"I need proof."

Good thinking.

For a good many people, words alone were weaponry. Spin the right story and they would need nothing more to believe you (and she was good at spinning words. Storytelling was glorious fun). But this was a cynical world, and plenty more - the ones who more often came up as her targets - wouldn't believe anything they couldn't see. Spoken words were thin as air; what good were they without something to back them up?

So she found a recording device on her person, searched for an opening in the wall that it could listen through, and hit record.

A conversation unfolded, and she caught every word and nothing at all. Tomorrow? Yes. Same time, somewhere else. Like where? You know the one. The other place they don't know about. Fine. Make sure not to let her grow suspicious. Wouldn't want a repeat of last time.

Where did they not know about? Who were they? Who else had her prey kept in the dark?

Spoken words were thin as air.
It was a start, but it wasn't enough.

There would be something more inside the building, surely. If this was one of two places they did not know of, they had to have used it before. Left something behind. Perhaps something more damning than any words she caught hold of.

She had to go inside.

Evoros waited patiently as they slunk away. One took the front entrance, silent as anything. The other delayed, making sure there was pause enough between their departures. As far as he was concerned he had raised no suspicion, after all - attracting attention now would be fatal. He took a side exit, crept away with painstaking caution.

A delay of her own to make sure they did not plan to return just yet, and then the agent picked her way past a locked entrance. Getting inside was easy - from here it was too straightforward. She would be in and out within minutes.

She did not notice the Gartro.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The beast crawled along the surface of the ceiling, quietly descending down until it rested atop one of the crates that littered the warehouse. It would remain there, unmoving, as the two individuals finished their business and began to depart the building.

It wouldn't vacate its current location until [member="Evoros"] picked her way through the door and started to snoop around.

The Gartro flapped its wings and soared down over the woman's head, letting out a shriek as it did before it clambered up another nearby crate. It peered back over the edge as if taunted the woman to retaliate against it, baring its mouth full of sharp teeth before screeching loudly.

The door Evoros came through opened and then closed, a profound sense of dread permeating the air as the lights of the warehouse flickered and died one by one until everything was shrouded in darkness.

The winged creature again hopped down, but this time it slunk to the floor and scuttled across the dirty permacrete to plop down right in front of Evoros. It regarded her curiously, its eyes glinting in the shadows before it opened its mouth impossibly wide to reveal multiple rows of fangs. From somewhere within its gullet emerged an eerie green illumination followed by billowing emerald corrosive fog that blanketed the ground, causing the metal and stone to degrade at a visible pace.

A beam of energy exuded from the creature's mouth, arcing through the air towards Evoros to leach the vitality from whatever it hit.

 

[Evoros]

She started in surprise as the creature suddenly burst from its shroud of subtlety, watching the soaring Gartro with an almost hostile wariness. Those were commonplace in these parts, but she didn't like its presence. It was the strangest kind of unsettling - the kind that shouldn't be present at all, the kind that seemed to be all in your head but crawled beneath your skin all the same.

But it was in her head, surely.
So she glared at the creature perched by a crate, then filed caution away and kept going.

Creak.

Her head snapped around, gaze whirling to follow the sound. It was the door. There was nobody outside. Of course there wasn't anyone outside. Her target hadn't let a single soul notice him (Evoros didn't count), and neither had she.

Cree e a a k..
Thud.

The door was shut.

A Gartro she could write off without much difficulty. Evoros was good at compartmentalising, at locking things like fear or frustration or attachment away when her mind made them obstacles. She could forget that the winged creature had her on guard. She couldn't ignore that it was a perfectly clear day, not a breath of wind through the air, and all the same a door had opened of its own accord.

And she didn't have to wait long to confirm her hunch. A heartbeat passed - hers; heavy against her chest, worried - before one by one, the lights left the building in darkness. The sense of uneasiness thickened as though it was being handed to her fistfuls at a time. She couldn't blame this on coincidence.

Someone was here.

Chit. Chit, chit, chit. Who had seen her? How?

The Gartro darted on clawed feet to catch up to the agent. Time up.

She had a blaster somewhere on her person. Never went into a mission without one, no matter how tame. The winged creature snarled at her and fog escaped past its fangs, covering the floor with shimmering green. Not so commonplace, she supposed. She couldn't be happy about being right.

Then light shot towards her and she swore as she tried to move. She moved. It wasn't enough. The beam struck.

"Feth-"

Fading. She was fading. It was draining her.
No. Keep going.
Feebly, she tried to conjure a shield.
Fading...
She failed.

| [member="Darth Carnifex"] |​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The creature closed its mouth, cocking its head to the side as the woman collapsed once her strength to remain conscious had been completely sapped away.

But the darkness did not dissipate. There was a weight to it now, a malevolent solidity that snuffed out even the faintest of illumination that filtered down from the gaudy skyscrapers above. Something was there, watching with eyes that burned like hellish coals, a veritable demon given flesh and made manifest in the world of man.

The air seemed to quake as, without warning, the body of the collapsed woman was violently yanked across the floor by some unseen force. She tumbled for a moment over the permacrete floor before ultimately disappearing deeper into the building, the sound of her body sliding across the floor echoing throughout the empty building. Then, one by one, the lights flickered back to life until the entire warehouse was bathed in illumination once more and the Gartro melted away into nothingness.

​

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​

The next time [member="Evoros"] would open her eyes she would find that her surroundings had changed considerably. She was no longer in the warehouse, or at least she wasn't in the same part she was before, and the entire chamber was bare except for a metal dolly covered by a stained white sheet.

She was strapped to a makeshift gurney that had been elevated at a forty-five degree angle, and what looked like a bulky metal shock collar had been tightened around her neck.

Any attempt to call upon the Force would be met with dizziness and nausea followed by a keen sense of loss as the realization set in that she, for whatever reason, could no longer tap into the Force. Whatever the device around her neck was, it had successfully stripped her ability to use the Force through some unknown means. But as her surroundings came into focus the collar was the least of her worries.

She wasn't alone.

The sounding of calm, measured breathing could be heard reverberating through the chamber, a sound that did not originate with her. Whomever had captured her was in the room with her, but she couldn't see him, couldn't pin down where the source of the breathing was coming from.

Until it was right in her ear, hot air blowing against her neck, and a voice like breaking stone whispered harshly.

"Who are you?"​

 

[Evoros]

She couldn't move.

Evoros inhaled sharply. Her surroundings were a blur, but it was a side concern for now because she couldn't move. It had barely registered that the Force had been snatched from her reach. After all, she had made a point of being able to operate fully without the Force. But if you couldn't move, you couldn't run. You couldn't fight.

The metal that gripped her neck reached her awareness then. Wary, the agent flexed against her restraints - no immediate change. Unsurprising. She didn't expect breaking out would be easy (not that she would have complained if it had been, of course) but she had to know what her circumstances were before she could know how to escape them. So Evoros reached for the Force, ready to send it at her bindings- spinning. Her head was spinning. And the Force was gone.

She let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding in. This wasn't good.

The hazy mess of the room was tightening into clarity, and through dread and a schutta of a headache she fought to focus, because she needed her bearings back, and fast.

Evoros focused.

She had company.

Think. Information was painfully sparse. There was only one fragment of the truth she could be certain in currently available; she was alive. Evoros could have been killed at any point between the warehouse and wherever this was, but she was alive and that meant she had something her captor wanted. And although she liked her material objects as much as the next girl, everything she had of value was inside her head.

A voice hissed into her ear, and she flinched.

If you couldn't move, you couldn't run. You couldn't fight.
That left two options.
She could cooperate, or she could not.

Yvonne Evoros was always careful to shy away from full loyalty to any organization, purely for fear of the inevitable. But her captor was asking about her only full loyalty - about her. She went to great lengths to keep her identity every kind of elusive. Then again, she went to great lengths to keep herself alive. And she knew full well she could die if she played her cards wrong.

Decisions, decisions. But she made hers quickly.

Her expression flattened, mirthless and filled with a grim sort of anticipation. If the collar allowed she'd turn her head in the direction of the words, as carefully, quickly, Evoros picked out her own.

"That depends," the agent replied quietly.

| [member="Darth Carnifex"] |​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The presence behind her seemed to ripple with... mirth? Annoyance?

It was difficult to tell from her position.

After a moment the being came into view, but its form was shrouded in hazy darkness that obscured any discernable features. To [member="Evoros"] it appeared nothing more than a vaguely humanoid shadow, rippling with tangible malice. What passed for its hand reached out and gently brushed surprisingly solid fingers against her jawline, cupping her chin and maneuvering her head as if the creature was examining her features. There was another ripple of shadow, definitely laughter this time.

Power seemed to coalesce in the being's other limb, small discharges of lightning raking the shadowy surface as a small blade, no more than forty centimeters, emerged from behind the curtain of darkness. It held the dagger like any other being, and brought the blade in close as the hand that was previously caressing her face grasped it roughly and held it in place.

"For every question that goes unanswered, your penance will be extracted from your body."

The blade drew near, its tip grazing against her porcelain flesh until stark crimson began to well up around the blade as the skin was broken. The beast's grip was firm and the speed at which he enacted her punishment was meticulously slow. He dug the blade around in the meat of her cheek, carving a crude hole through to her mouth before he pried loose a misshapen hunk of flesh from her face. He held it before her, letting her eyes watch as a dark fire exuded from the shadows and burned away the offering.

"What is your name?"​

 

[Evoros]

There was a figure now, but it had no face. She couldn't read something that didn't have a face. He'd made himself a mystery in the same move that was tugging at her own secrecy. And Evoros wasn't sure which side of that she hated the most.

But her expression stayed flat, composed. She held a wince behind clenched teeth at a hand on her jaw, stared levelly at where she imagined his eyes might be.

And it laughed.
That wasn't good.
The ones who enjoyed work like this had to be feared.

She hid a pulse of fear. Fear was useless. Showing fear was worse than useless. The eyes that latched onto every movement they could catch were curious and neutral over the panic that brewed invisibly, an animal watching the darkness move about as it readied to run the moment something pounced. Force, if only she could run.

And she watched this shadow with wary, excruciating precision. Faint crackles of lightning. A dagger. It was small, but that blade was sharp. Then a harsh grip had her face and her head couldn't move and she could see the glinting edge of the dagger in closer and closer detail as it drew forward, ever so near. Her eyes were still allowed movement, but they didn't dare leave the blade. Tension tightened her jawline, and she braced herself. Evoros could guess what came now.

The edge of the blade was cool against her skin.

She waited for the pain, for the air to smell like blood.

And she hissed as she felt it arrive.

Through clenched teeth she waited out the seconds that ached and stretched out, impossibly long. Field work had finetuned her senses, sharpened them to knives. In field work, it was an advantage. Here, it gathered the pain up and heightened every movement of the blade across her skin. Her mind's eye could've perfectly drawn the shape it cut through her face. But that wouldn't do. She fought to let her mind past the pain, to think of something else until the dagger was gone, but each cut was anchor that dragged her back into how it hurt.

Gritted teeth.
It's fine.
Don't think about it.
It was easier said than done.

A whine escaped her throat as the dagger finally tugged a piece of flesh loose, and she tried without succeeding to suppress an immediate attempt to bring a hand to her face. Her restraints remained firmly and unforgivingly there.

Eyes watched as flames caught her flesh. She let out a breath she'd not realised she'd held in.

Every question she didn't answer meant punishment. More of the same. He wouldn't kill her yet. But how many questions before he ran out of patience? Before she ran out of strength?

This time, she answered him.
"Evoros."

He was still a mystery, and she was losing hers. She hated it.

| [member="Darth Carnifex"] |​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

There, that wasn't so difficult.

The dagger drew back from [member="Evoros"]' face, but it did not disappear completely from view. It would always be there, lingering, an ever looming presence and an insidious promise laying in wait should the shadow not be pleased with Evoros' answers or lack thereof.

"Evoros." His voice was hard, but there were murmurs of amusement still rife in every syllable. "Who do you work for? You are no mere independent, trailing useless meat through the alleyways of Nar Shaddaa. Around you I sensed purpose, and saw the threads of servitude binding you to something other." The shadow shimmered as it spoke, conveying what it had seen when it stalked the smaller woman through the labyrinthine wastes of Nar Shaddaa. Perhaps Evoros would realize that it had been watching her ever since she had started to trail the Twi'lek, or perhaps she would fear that he had been watching her long before that.

How long had he known of her?

How long had he been watching, patient and hungering?

None of that mattered in the face of -- what would he do to her once he had gotten all that he wanted from her?

 

[Evoros]

Evoros tried to steady her breathing, slow it to something more controlled.

Her eyes never left the dagger. She wanted to be ready.

Who she worked for? Quick as she could, she smothered the thoughtfulness from her features. The appearance of uncertainty worked in her favour. But behind a levelled expression, her mind raced. She had guessed from the start that she, by herself, was not the target. Evoros was not stupid enough to make personal enemies. Of course it would be about those she held ties to - but her captor didn't know who they were.

She'd let that sit as she worked it out (when she knew what answers he was looking for it was easier by far to spin this exchange the right way) but for now she had to pick an answer.

Evoros had worked for the Collective by choice from the start, and she'd been careful to play her cards so that they'd always lack both the means and the motive to find something to force her to loyalty. When the risk of working for them was one she knew she couldn't overcome - when the stakes meant death in no uncertain terms - she could turn on them in an instant and not bat an eye, not shed one tear of remorse. But she liked her job enough to hold off betrayal until it was the only alternative she'd live through.

The silence was threatening.
She wanted to lie, but her loyalty would convince nobody if she could spill it so quickly.
So she did something even stranger, and told the truth.

"I'm a mercenary," came the carefully weighed words. "I work for whoever offers most."

Now the lie.

"This contract was anonymous."

She knew this 'contract' had been set up. She knew he would spot her lie.
Evoros watched the dagger, and braced herself for the pain.

| [member="Darth Carnifex"] |​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Contrary to what he threatened her with earlier, he did not immediately go for the dagger again.

Instead the shadow growled, shimmering with displeasure as it loomed uncomfortably close to her face. Hot air blew in her face as a harsh raspy voice berated her, "Do not believe yourself so clever, Evoros. Arrogance has made you careless. Perhaps when you first came to Nar Shaddaa you would have been more difficult to track, but now even slavers and thugs were able to notice your patterns." A hand grasped the side of her face, rough and uncaring, fingers digging into the pale flesh with great intensity.

"The people who employ you don't want to be known, yet they hire such a reckless little worm. Perhaps I'd save them the trouble and cut out your tongue."

The hand grasping her face suddenly moved to pry open her mouth, almost unhinging her jaw in the process. The dagger came in, but it lingered in her open mouth as the shadow contemplated. Slowly, the dagger retracted from her mouth as the beast relinquished its hold on her jaw.

Instead, the dagger was drawn downwards and began to slice a neat line through the center of her clothing, his now free hand tearing away the fabric as it was cut. "Then again, I still need you to talk to me. So I'll busy myself with your flesh." The shadow pinched the skin of her chest and slid the now impossibly thin dagger through the skin, slowly separating the skin from the muscle in the pattern of a four by four inch square. Like the bit of cheek he extracted previously, the flayed skin would too be devoured by unholy fire.

"So, I will ask. Who is your primary employer?"

​

[member="Evoros"]​

 

[Evoros]

She had been entirely certain her lie would not go unseen. Not because she had expected her captor to search her mind her confirmation. If that had been an option she wagered this would have gone by a good deal faster. But because her words had painted her as oblivious to the fact that this had been a trap. That would have been her second lie, but her plan was that he didn't spot it.

Arrogant. Careless. Worm.
It was working.
Good.

Evoros held her breath and she flinched as she stared at the shadow, searching its rippling dark for eyes. There was nothing. Injustice, that she was fighting to hold up her cloak of secrets and didn't get so much as a flicker of insight in exchange. But life wasn't fair. This was how it was. If she wanted power over how it would be, she'd have to keep working. Keep searching, keep fighting.

And she was going to keep up her shroud.

Her jaw was clenched and there was a noise trapped at the edge of her throat as she resisted, waiting to be let go (she couldn't answer questions like this, could she?) - and then she wasn't. Evoros could not for one minute pretend to be strong enough to fight off a grip like that, but she tried anyway. And she failed, of course she did.

He wouldn't do it. All he had was a name that could be tied to a thousand places and none at all. She knew he wouldn't (but wouldn't he? She wasn't the Collective's only agent. Certainly not the only one who could be caught. But he wouldn't, surely, would he?), not when she still had so many answers to give, so many secrets that could be dragged out of her.
It was an intimidation tactic.
It worked.

It was the first time she had let herself look afraid. Her face was relieved as it realised she wouldn't lose her tongue yet, figure shaking almost invisibly in the second she saw the blade draw back. Almost invisible. But she knew it hadn't been missed.

But her eyes hadn't left the dagger, and she could almost watch as it slid through fabric. Evoros went tense as she felt her skin tighten at her chest. It almost looked like she was going to watch the blade slice off flesh, but the agent forced her eyes shut a second after its point went through her skin. Breathe in. The pain didn't spread at once, not until the dagger retracted at the end of the line it drew - just for a moment, before it kept on carving as pain blossomed now. Breathe out. Breathe in - blood. Metallic, like copper. That smell sickened her.

She would've kept on holding her breath until he was done, but he sliced at her skin with aching patience. This shadow had all day to draw answers from her. All sorts of methods, intuition murmured. Eyes closed, she breathed slowly and tried not to shudder each time she inhaled.

Evoros felt her flesh finally peel away, and she waited for the sound of flames. Waited for it to be done.
When she opened her eyes, they were missing the flatness of no.

"I'm sworn to secrecy," she said slowly, numbly. No names yet, but here was insight where she'd offered refusal, names that meant nothing, easy lies. Here were words that said she'd debated her options here and cooperation had started to win. "If I say anything - to anyone - they'll know. I've seen what happens to traitors."

She was afraid, and confused, and in pain. She couldn't feel the Force and bits of skin were missing in two places. Evoros could only hold on so long before she went looking for a way out, even if it meant the wrath of her employers.

Her narrative flowed perfectly.

Too bad it was all a lie.

| [member="Darth Carnifex"] |​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Indeed?"

He doubted that her employers, whomever they were, couldn't inflict as much suffering as he could. To him the torture induced thus far was foreplay, the barest tip of the iceberg. For many decades he had practiced and perfected the art of torture and interrogation, and he had ways of inflicting grievous wounds while simultaneously keeping his subject alive for far longer than what was considered natural. Agony of the flesh was one thing, agony of the soul was an entirely different atrocity.

The shadow moved out of eyesight for a moment, and the sound of rustling boxes and the clinking of glass against glass could be heard in his absence.

He returned sometime later with a glass jar filled to the brim with thick maggot-like creatures, which writhed and squirmed over each other in the confined space. The shadow unscrewed the lid and gently plucked one out from the mass and held it up so that Evoros could see.

"This is a Muscle Maggot."

And that was all the shadow cared to elaborate. The next second he had closed the distance between himself and his victim, and pressed the single maggot up against the open skinless wound he had inflicted upon her chest. Bare, wet muscle sent the grub into a frenzy as it writhed for several more seconds before finally latching onto a piece of flesh.

And burrowed in.

[member="Evoros"]​