Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Private Bolted On





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"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper Hubert Starhopper

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The chamber had been prepared with her usual precision.

Stone walls rose into darkness, their surface scarred by Malachor's storms, but polished smooth where her attendants had set their tools. A long table of blackened alloy dominated the center, its surface swept bare save for a single holopad and a chalice of red wine. To one side, a scattering of mechanical parts—deliberately placed, unassembled—waited as if abandoned mid-project. They were not abandoned, of course. They were bait.

Darth Virelia stood at the head of the table, her presence filling the chamber with the inevitability of a tide. Tyrant's Embrace clung to her frame, its alchemized plates gleaming with a faint, unnatural sheen that caught the violet fire of the chamber's sconces. The armor was more than protection—it was testament. A resonance of will and domination, the echo of souls bound and bent into the steel. Every movement of it was quiet thunder, each joint articulating like the hiss of a blade being drawn.

She did not sit.

The mechanic would be brought to her soon enough, and when they entered, they would see her exactly as she intended: a figure immovable, waiting not with impatience, but with the poise of someone who already knew how the conversation would end. Her questions had been prepared hours earlier, carefully sequenced, though she would depart from them at will. Precision was useful. Surprise was necessary.

She allowed herself a sip of wine, savoring its bitter weight before setting the chalice down without sound. Malachor's air was dry and acrid, but the taste grounded her.

This was no ordinary interview. The Dark Court did not recruit blindly. Every new addition had to be weighed like a coin, inspected for flaws, tested for strength. A mechanic was not a warrior, but she valued them more than most warriors ever understood. Flesh broke. Steel endured—if shaped correctly. The Court needed hands capable of more than maintenance; it needed vision disguised as pragmatism. Someone who could coax loyalty from circuits and miracles from wreckage.

The holopad blinked once. A quiet signal: the mechanic had arrived at the fortress gates and was being escorted down. She tapped it once, dismissing the notice. Her gaze shifted to the unassembled parts on the table—scrap metal to most eyes, but with one or two unmarked pieces that required insight to place correctly. She intended to watch closely whether the mechanic noticed.

The chamber's heavy doors groaned faintly on their hinges. Soon they would open. She stood utterly still, armored gauntlets folded behind her back, her breathing calm, her presence coiled like a serpent at rest. She thought of all the others who had sat in that chair before—the smugglers who thought charm would carry them, the killers who mistook obedience for loyalty, the scholars who drowned in their own words. Most had failed. A few had surprised her.

She wondered, as her violet eyes fixed on the door, which path this one would take.

pIe9OeK.png


 










Objective: Complete interview



Tags: Darth Virelia Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-kit, Custom Low-Caliber Blaster.



-----------



It has been about a week since he had received the invitation to present his mechanical know-how. At the time it was given to him, his ship, the Star-Scraper was out of commission, and given how short he was (and still is,) on credits, gathering parts for said rebuild was a challenge in itself. The pile of junk was already recommissioned the first time that Hubert put it back together. This time, it was just short of an abomination. The gyro-core was just barely salvageable, and finding a new one within his price range was out of the question, so after what repairs Hubert could manage to it, he started it up, and made his way to the coordinates given to him.

The Star-Scraper rattled the whole voyage due to its partial stabilization, literally resulting in Hubert having to quick-fix a few panels and wires that popped out of place along the way. As he entered the planets atmosphere, he began to break into a sweat from both the heat flaring against his ship, and the anxiety coursing through his veins at the thought of his landing. For taking off was all he had concerned himself with, landing had just now entered the facilities of his conscience.

Alarms both audible and visual began to blare throughout the old scrapper, warning Hubert his approach was anything but slowing as he grew closer to the designated landing point. In a last-ditch effort, he pulled up on the controls to his ship, cranking the nose of the ship skyward. He converted every ounce of power he had to his thrusters, their pulsing roars echoing through the sky as they rip through the clouds. After a few seconds, his decent begins to slow, and Hubert pushes the controls forward again. Be it by skill, or by luck, the ship slams down into the platform on its landing gear, and bounces back up into the air once, the metal hull groaning and screeching as it comes back down again.

He leans back in his seat, and lets out a deep breath through pursed lips. He brings up his arm, wiping the sweat from his face, smearing the light layer of engine grease across his face in a long streak on his forehead. He made it, and now hopefully the armed guards that are approaching his ship are doing so out of expectation rather than alert.

After a moment of standing outside of his ship, the guards bear witness to the drop ramp slowly beginning to open, and getting stuck mid-way through.


"ARGH! Wait! Hold on, almost got it!-" Hubert calls from the ship, a few metallic bangs resonating along with his voice. After the fourth slamming of cold metal under Huberts' boot, the ramp comes crashing down the rest of the way, wrapping against the platform with an explosive slap of scrap metal.

"Ah! There we go! Evenin'." He says, standing at the top of the ramp with his hands at his hips, a grin stretched across his face despite the horrors he had just went through. A light film of sweat still clings to his skin as he descends the ramp, with his hands raised up by his head. After explaining his expected arrival, and showing proof, the guards began to escort him down the walkway, towards the massive structure. A feeling of dread begins to shroud over him like a wet blanket.

It wasn't long before the guards brought him to the room his interviewer waited within. A woman clad in dark armor, which didn't ease the sense of dread that sat within his gut.


"Hey, uh... I was invited here for a possible job." His words, despite this negative shroud, are calm and collected, an essence of charm behind them. Not as show, but as a means to carry himself with the confidence he sports in a more comfortable environment. He is wearing a dark coverall jumpsuit, with a bantha-leather jacket over it. His hands and face are covered in grease, as if he had just crawled out of an engine.

"I really hope this is the right place..." He says, a nervous chuckle slipping past his false confidence.



















 




VVVDHjr.png


"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper Hubert Starhopper

LE6AcRs.png

Virelia did not move as the man was ushered in. Tyrant's Embrace caught the chamber's firelight in subtle flickers, its violet runes whispering with a life of their own. She studied him in silence for several long breaths—the sweat, the grease, the attempt at charm that barely disguised exhaustion. The smell of engine oil clung to him like a second skin. He was not polished, not prepared, not elegant. But he was here, and that counted.

Finally, her voice cut the air, velvet edged in iron.

"
You survived your landing. That is already more than some who come to me." Her tone was not kind, but neither was it cruel—merely observational, as if survival itself was the first box ticked on her list.

She shifted one step closer, the weight of her armor carrying a subtle resonance in the stone beneath them. Her eyes, bright as violet flame, lingered on the streak of grease across his brow before rising to meet his gaze. When she spoke again, her words carried a slow cadence, like a melody sung for no one but herself.

"
You may call me Darth Virelia. You are here to prove your hands and your mind are worth the resources of Malachor. I am not interested in hollow bravado, nor excuses, only truth. And so—" she let the pause hang, the silence itself a pressure—"we begin."

Her gauntleted hand moved to the table, fingertips grazing the unassembled scrap waiting there. She never looked at it, her eyes never leaving his.

"
First: what is the most difficult machine you have ever coaxed back into working order? Tell me what broke, and what you did to make it obey again."

Her voice softened fractionally, but only to sharpen the next blade of inquiry.

"
Second: what do you value more—the life of a crew who flies a vessel, or the vessel itself? Be honest. Your answer tells me how you calculate risk."

She turned at last, strolling toward the head of the table, a predator's grace disguised as casual movement. The wine at her place gleamed like fresh blood as she reached for it.

"
And third: what do you want, truly, in exchange for your service? Not the surface desires you would tell a recruiter. I want the root of you. Your hunger."

She sipped, violet eyes still on him over the chalice's rim. A small smile ghosted across her lips, licentious, dangerous, and strangely inviting.

"
Answer well, and we may continue."
pIe9OeK.png


 










Objective: Prove His Worth



Tags: Darth Virelia Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-kit, Custom low caliber blaster



-----------



The anxiety ceased, but the sense of dread lingered. Something, no, everything about this is making that little voice in the back of his mind tell him to turn around and leave. To reject this proposal of a position of work, and set back into the stars from whence he came...

But curiosity also lingers within his mind, convincing that little voice to keep quiet for a little while longer. His eyes follow the shift of her gauntlet, and his eyes meet the table strewn with scrap. He approaches, leaning closer to the surface the pieces rest upon to inspect them more intricately. However, his hands remain away from the table, and its contents as he was not instructed to do anything with them, and he isn't quite sure if "impatience", would be a part of this test.

Her first question brings one memory alone to life, making his teeth grit slightly out of a subconscious act of cringe in recalling the first time he pieced together his ship.


"That'd be the Star-Scraper. Biggest challenge I've had since I started off on my own." He pauses for a moment, his brow furrowing in contemplation. "Well... Mechanically-speaking, that is." His eyes shift from the table and meet hers, his arms now folded over his chest as he leans against the table with his hip, barely resting any weight against it, but rather just taking on a comfortable pose. And right now, comfortability is much needed on his part. This place is giving him the creeps...

"If you want the receipts, hell..." A hand raises to rub at the back of his neck, his eyes meeting the floor in a distant gaze as he tries to recall every last detail. "It was an old scrapper. Found it wrecked out in the dunes near where my family and I were kept. Beat to hell, it was. Talking inside, and out. Hull was cracked and torn open from the crash the last guy had. Cockpit was smashed in, panelin' was missin' but the frame of it was salvageable." He shrugs, pulling a cigarette from his coat and placing it between his lips, however his lighter remains tucked away as he is unsure if he is allowed, and doesn't want to interrupt her questions for a question.

"Thrusters were good but the fuel-lines and injectors were shot. Literally. Had a shot puncture straight through it's major components. But when all you do is dream of freedom, any ticket out is a ticket taken, y'know?" He looks back up to meet her gaze, the cigarette between his lips bouncing around with every syllable of his words. "Worst part was the gyro-core. Was worse than I ever could'a thought. Jawas got to the thing before I could. Was completely missin'. Took me months, sneaking away from our owner, gathering parts, wiring, screws, welding supplies- all of it, anywhere I could. Scoured dumpsters outside'a speeder shops, stole from garages, junkyards, junk vendors... Anywhere.

Took me even longer to put it together. Our master was, coincidentally enough, the owner of a speeder-shop. So most of what I knew was useless for a starship. Had to teach myself through book learnin', and good 'ol trial 'n error to be good enough to piece that monster together. Oooohhh, and monster she was. Most'a her parts came from some abandoned sandcrawler I found a ways out. Looked like it took a tumble over a cliff, an' landed on its side. Poof... Forgotten..."
One of his hands raises outward a bit at his last words, his fingers separating outward from one another as if to mimic an explosion.

"Stripped the hull of it for paneling with any tools I could find, salvaged its wiring, and found a lot of decent parts that I was able to make work. Years, I blackened my fingers, blistered my skin in that sun, slaved away the days just to spend the nights building my family's salvation. Then, I couldn't..." He sighs abruptly, quickly, his gaze gaining distance and splitting from hers again.

"I freed us. And While I was doing it, they left and I never saw them again. So I stole a gyro-core from my owner, and fixed the rest with what I had taken from the crawler." Another sigh, this one slower, deeper, and purely nasal.

Her second question dances around in his mind for a moment as the memories of his past begin to slip away, and find themselves replaced with the current presented dilemma. After a moment, he begins to answer, his brow furrowing again, in a state of contemplation.
"Honestly? It would depend on the crew. If I'm hauling a ship full of allies, leaders, friends... If I were pilot, I would make it my top priority to bring 'em to safety. Prisoners, grunts, so on... My concern tends to drop just a bit. And I'm making sure I have a ship to fly. Safety-belts be damned." His words sound padded with that essence of charm he tends to carry himself with, however they are as cold as they are true. Too many times has he been the butt of one of the Galaxy's cruel jokes, so his care and empathy for randoms is next to nothing.

Her third question puzzles him most of all...

No one, no one has ever asked him that before. "What does he truly want?" Should he say a roof over his head, guaranteed meals and his own garage to tinker in? The ability to wipe his bounty clean, and wash his hands of the blood that stains them for all to see? Should he ask for help finding his parents, who as a youngling, abandoned him to his own survival?

No...


"I want the galaxy to shiver when they see my creations. I want the slaves to look to the sky, and see their hope suffocating their prison-planets' orbit..." His voice begins to rise, and his arms unfold, his palms tilted towards the sky with crooked fingers as he gazes past them, through them, even.

"I want to fill the very skies they live under, SHATTER the chains that hold them with the weight of my making!

I want the slave owners to feel fear when they hear my name... And if they dont,

Make them..."
His voice has leveled again, his eyes met with the woman before him.

"That's what I want, to make my name, and the creations spawned under it, strike fear to the ones that do the very same to the people they buy and sell like cattle. If you give me that, I'll live on the ship you put me in."



















 




VVVDHjr.png


"Young blood."

Tags - Hubert Starhopper Hubert Starhopper

LE6AcRs.png

Virelia listened without interruption, the way a hunter listens to a storm breaking across the horizon—measuring, weighing, savoring the currents of his voice. His story was unpolished, his words carrying more grease than gilding, but truth had its own perfume, and she inhaled it like incense.

When he finished, silence stretched a heartbeat too long. Then she moved. One slow step, then another, armor whispering against itself, until she stood at the edge of his comfort. Her presence carried heat and weight, the faint scent of cold iron and wine filling the breath between them.

"
You bled years into broken steel and made it fly," she said softly, almost admiringly. "That is not luck. That is will sharpened into craft." Her eyes flicked down to the cigarette dangling at his lips, and with a curl of her fingers the lighter at his belt snapped free, floating into her palm. She struck the flame and held it steady, her violet gaze never leaving his face. "Smoke, if you must. Here, truth is more important than propriety."

She let the lighter drift back to him and circled behind, her voice low, rich, licentious in its cadence. "
You value life only when it is bound to you—crew, comrades, family. The rest are cargo, ballast to jettison if necessary. Cold, yes, but efficient. It tells me you will not waste resources on sentiment."

Her gauntlet brushed the table's edge, tracing one piece of scrap with almost sensual care. "
And your hunger…" she paused, savoring the word, "is not for comfort or safety, but for dominion. You wish to forge terror into steel and let it blacken the sky. Not for them—" her head tilted, a wry smile touching her lips—"but for you. To leave your mark in fire and shadow."

She stopped before him again, close enough that her armor's alchemic hum resonated faintly in his bones. One gloved hand rose, not to touch, but to hover just before his jaw, an unspoken question of intimacy and power.

"
Good," she murmured. "The Dark Court has no use for tame men with tame dreams. But know this—" her voice sharpened, steel under silk—"dreams alone rot. You will be tested. You will break, or you will ascend. If you succeed, your name will not merely strike fear. It will be synonymous with inevitability."

Her smile deepened, equal parts invitation and warning. "
Tell me, Hubert… do you still want that?"
pIe9OeK.png


 










Objective: Prove His Worth



Tags: Darth Virelia Darth Virelia

Gear: Tool-Kit, Custom low-caliber blaster.



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He hesitates for a moment, a mixture of her armors' resonace seemingly reverberating through his very marrow, and the deepening smile that appears to keep crawling across her face striking him frozen in thought. This was nothing like he had anticipated, to join the Dark, to aide the very power he had always been taught to distrust. Years of hope that the Jedi would break his family's chains, years of teachings that the Light Side brings peace, while the Dark only brings suffering. Years of judgement to those whom allied themselves among those in the shadow of the Dark...

...All seem so wrong after this meeting. Everything he had grown to hate, fear, and resist now stands before him, a cold, yet accepting embrace extended only inches away from his face, speaking words of understanding, and truth. What good has the Light ever done? While they waged wars, Hubert waited in chains, when they sought peace, all they exibited was conflict. While they proclaimed freedom throughout the galaxy, Hubert only heard of slaves freed to benefit their cause in some way.

"I've broken enough." He says clearly, his gaze sharpening as it locks to hers, her words seeming to have ignited a flame within him that now roars white-hot. No longer shall he wait idly by, hoping for a better future, he shall make it! No longer will he scrap together what he can find in hopes to get by, he will forge his own pieces! No more shall his name be smeared across the galaxy as a murderer...

It will be FEARED amongst the galaxy...

He takes a long drag of his cigarette, his gaze never faultering, excepting his slight shift to blow the smoke away from her. "I'm ready to ascend."

His tone is cold, determined, in one solid pitch. His mind has been made. A new world of opportunities is opening right before his very eyes, shutting the door to his past behind him. No more bounty hunters, no more runs-gone-wrong... Just the infinite expanse of what mysteries lie ahead.

"I want it. I want to bring them the fesr they brought me."






















 

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