Candy in the Rainforest

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] If asked, Matsu would be hard-pressed to explain how she had come to be Bundori’s Master. In contrast to the girl’s bubbly personality, Matsu was reserved – a pall of silence followed her, a deadly promise of the destruction that drifted lazily beneath the surface of her skin. She appreciated a joke and was far less somber and serious than most Sith she knew, but she was still no bubbly, energetic speed demon like her new Apprentice. What could the girl find to identify with in her Master? It was also common knowledge that she was no fan of children. But perhaps it was just that: despite her age and her playfulness, Bundori was no child. She savaged with the best of them – Matsu had seen it with her own eyes – and had a will to learn and succeed that was the key to gaining Matsu’s dedication as a Master.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Said dedication on the part of her student was what had her sitting within one of the training rooms in the Pit as the Fringe called it, a state of the art training facility for its teachers and students. At the request of several Knights and Masters, Matsu among them, hologram rooms had been constructed, and it was there that Matsu sat on the padded floor. Her Tuk’ata was at her side – a puppy still, just a foot shorter than Matsu when standing but curled up in a neat huddle at her side for the moment – and she ran her fingers in a soft pet over and over between its eyes, lulling herself with the motion.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] The room was designed to simulate any environment so perfectly it would feel like being there. It was a wonderful alternative to boring training sessions without leaving the Pit – any place they wanted to be was at their fingertips from one second to the next without the time it took to jump through hyperspace. Beautiful, really. Now all she needed was her confection-haired Apprentice.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]@Bundori[/SIZE]​

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori had been excited as she stood there smiling. In her room here and not on Rakata Beta with her mother, or her sisters or her other mommy.... Sometimes things got really confusing as she stood there looking in the mirror at the bright pink mess of hair while she was running the comb through it. A smile on her face while large eyes looked upon everything with enjoyment and amusement, her hands picking up the different dresses and hair pieces while she danced around a little happy skipping. Her eyes locking on the chainblade before she finished dressing and wore a floral pink dress with lots of white straps.

The straps of the dress being covered by her hair while she made sure her face was clean and walking with the chainsword in her hands a smile on her face while she went through the pit to find her master. The few who knew who she was, knew who her mothers were made a small wake she could go through while she skipped and danced. Coming to a water fountain and getting some while she let it touch her lips and when one of the apprentices bumped her getting her mouth to knock against the metal. She felt her tooth get knocked and there was a pain in her tooth.

Bundori looked up and her tiny teeth were bared while her head turned to look upon the apprentice and she was looking at him now. Bright and large blue eyes starring him down for a moment while the chainblade revved up. "Come play with me." Bundori too his hand and the young boy was moving with her, running and entering the room before he was screaming and the sounds came out. She wasn't as depraved as her mother but when the door opened Bundori was standing there and covered in blood as she wiped it off. "That was fun."

She kept moving towards the teaining room her master had reserved and opened for them, coming in and taking the woman in. She was very pretty and more regal but more then that as Bundori stood there in the pink and white dress with blood splattered on it she smiled. Skipping in and stopping across from her master while she looked upon her with large blue eyes. "I am here master." Bundori was all excited now and it came off her in waves of ecstatic and hyper energy. She just wanted to run around with her chainsword and show how strong she was really like uncle Lucian had shown her.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] She looked up from the blue-black fur of her Tuk’ata when the door slid open and Bundori appeared. There was something deliciously depraved about the seemingly innocent little girl spattered in blood that was clearly not her own, chain-sword in hand and silhouetted by the light behind her in the doorway. It probably said something about Matsu to find the image so pleasing, but nothing someone couldn’t tell by looking at her. She watched her Apprentice pad further in to the room, turning her head to track her and smiling lightly when she announced herself, revealing fangs of her own. “So you are,” she returned, watching as her Tuk’ata lifted itself from the padded floor and stalked over to Bundori. The creature, even as a pup, already towered over the girl but seemed to know this was not someone his Master wanted hurt. Instead it reached its muzzle forward, sniffing at the rapidly drying blood on Bundori’s dress. “And who does that blood belong to, little one?” Matsu asked, drawing herself from the floor.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Perhaps she would be explaining to another Knight or Master later that day why her Apprentice had savaged theirs. The prospect should not have filled her with as much pride as it did.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] But for all the pleasing signs Bundori was displaying, Matsu had yet to truly see if she could be great. It was one thing to revel in violence, to find power in the sick and depraved. It was another entirely to use that power wisely and to its full advantage.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She could practically cut the energy in the room with a knife it flowed so powerfully from the girl – and who was she to stop it? A lesson could be learned from the fun they were about to have. She squatted down next to her Tuk’ata, scratching under his chin before turning her head to look at Bundori. “Would you like to go hunting?” Matsu reached out gently with her mind, initiating the mechanism of the room and building a jungle around them. It was hot, humid, the sounds of animals all around and the birds chattering overhead loud in their ears. “Let’s see what you can do,” the Knight said, standing back up and looking at Bundori with an encouraging little smirk over her shoulder before sprinting off in to the thick of the trees, her Tuk’ata loping at her side.[/SIZE]

@Bundori​

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori looked at her master and the tuk'ata it was pretty and cute and adorable and it was taking everything in her not to jump up and down and giggle or reach her hand out. She wanted to pet it, she wanted to hug it and cuddle it... Oh she was so excited and then it was over there sniffing her as she brought her hand out and touched the dried blood with a smile. Her eyes looking wider then possible for her face but she was twitching while she stood there not hearing her master for a moment and then she spoke. "Ah well he pushed me at the water fountain and like mommy always says unless they are valuable kill don't maim. Yep yep yep."

Bundori looked at her master now as she came closer and she kept her smile on her face. All that energy rolling off the woman came to her as the tuk'ata looked so adorable and she was nodding her head to her masters question. Oh she was excited and enjoying the idea of hunting something while her grin reached her eyes. That only seemed to get larger and bluer as the time went on and she was enjoying it, the chain blade revving up and she watched her master run off with her pet. Bundori was alone in the forest and she could taste it, feel it, smell it while her head went around.

It was so beautiful and her eyes roamed around the area as she skipped into the forest and sang to herself under her breath a ballad of her master. "She's an evil enchantress, She does evil dances And if you look deep in her eyes.... She'll put you in trances, Then what will she do? She'll mix up an evil brew, Then she'll gobble you up, In a big tasty stew." Bundori stayed silent for a moment and hopped into a tree and stood on the limb while she was giggling to herself and "Soooo... Watch out!" She dropped down on a holographic creature as the chainsword went into it."

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] Matsu’s Master had preached modesty, a quiet and conservative approach to business. She’d been born with the instinct to do the exact opposite, a powerhouse of a girl with unchecked rage. Between instinct and what she’d learned she’d landed somewhere in the middle – a woman with the ability to savage but the patience to work in ways others would not expect. Her goal in training Bundori was not to make her fit a mold that she did not belong in. The girl was clearly unique and trying to break her would serve little purpose – and be wasteful besides. No, Matsu’s goal was to enhance Bundori’s natural talents, to help her become dangerous and as powerful as her potential.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] And there was such potential. As the soft murmur of some sort of theme song drifted through the trees as her apprentice hunted Matsu couldn’t help but allow herself a soft smile. There was poetry to the juxtaposition of violence and adorable banter in Bundori – what could she be when she was older? Terrifying, vicious – a sick parody of what she’d grown up as.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] There was silence as Matsu climbed one of the trees, slamming her durasteel fist in to the bark and spidering up its length until she was crouched on some of the branches. She could track Bundori by the bright color of her hair and she didn’t miss the vicious downward attack on the creature below her. But Matsu knew what kind of violence the girl was capable of. They had spoken briefly about Bundori’s goals and Matsu could have sunk her teeth in right when she mentioned illusion as a school of interest. She had come to the right place if that’s what she sought. Matsu had chosen the title of skin-walker to honor the path she’d chosen – shifting herself to appear as something terrifying, something alluring, something that would draw her victim in until she could have exactly what she wanted.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] But Matsu wasn’t one for theory – she liked hands-on practice.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Warping the room again, a village of more primitive people appeared a ways off in the distance, the smoke of their fires wafting up in to the air above their canopy. Reaching out Matsu spoke in to Bundori’s mind, keeping herself quiet as she crawled through the treetops to her Apprentice.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] “There are many ways to catch your prey. Some are easy – they travel alone, they are weak in body or mind, they are overconfident, or perhaps they are merely stupid. But some are hard – strong, many. What do you do then?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She came like a black widow from within two branches, gliding on to the branches next to Bundori.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] “Be something else. Someone else. Set your mind free – imagine yourself as what you wish.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] And in demonstration Matsu pressed outwards with her mind, touching Bundori's gently and warping her black eyes in to eight, beady spider-like orbs watching her apprentice before they returned to normal. "Anything at all."[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She was being purposely vague if only because she wanted to see what Bundori would conjure – there was no limit to her imagination, to the ways she could wipe that village clean.[/SIZE]

@Bundori​

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori listened as her master came to her, seeing the village and her understanding of it was there but she was curious now. More because she knew there were ways to work on disguising ones self. She focused seeing her master shift her eyes and it was really pretty but Bundori was focused now. She was looking at what she could do while the village in the distance had her interest. The people, old, young, strong, sick and healthy. So many different souls and while they might be holograms as she set the blade down her hands clenched once... twice.... three times testing. Her imagination working overtime to try and nail down a single idea of what she wanted to try.

Bundori took a breath, a sharp intake through her teeth and her large eyes closed while she pushed that energy just like she had been shown through the cells of her body. Wanting it to settle over her skin and be focused be mailable and Bundori was pushing it to wrap around her like a masque the vong used. Something of a second skin you could wear and as her mother called it that warm sheet of anger. It kept you warm in the snow, it burned away doubts and fears and if the boogie man came you used it to lash out and make them hurt more then anyone else. Bundori slowly held that energy ad she shifted her body more and more. Her hair getting longer, her eyes wider, her body itself smaller and less defined.

Her head turned to her master as she spoke showing small dainty teeth as she looked around five years old and large blue eyes. "Have you seen my mommy? I've lost my mommy. I'm scared." Her eyes were less kind the large blue orbs showing malice and evil intent while her words came out like a child who was frightened and not going to plunge a hand into your chest and tear out your heart. She even managed to have those small tears almost at the corners of her eyes and heave her chest like she had been crying for hours. "Hehehehe" She gave a small giggle that sounded like silver bells laced with tinges of psychotic intent. "I love my master she makes things fun."

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] The way her Apprentice used anger was almost palpable, thick in sheets that radiating through the air. Matsu did not know the Lady Exedo personally – only by sight and in passing during business for the Fringe – but she would have to speak with her about what a beautiful job she’d done with Bundori. It was a feat to mold anger without purpose, without drive. Any Sith could release a burst of power when they had something to feel rage about, or someone to hate. But to call on anger and use it without a target was something else entirely and boded well for Bundori’s ability to maintain her image under pressure in the field.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] That remained to be seen.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Years shaved off the girl’s image before Matsu’s eyes and it took all she had not to let out a wicked slip of a laugh at the perfectly designed little lost lamb impression Bundori offered. Half of skin-walking, of altering one’s image in another’s mind to fit the bill, was possessing the ability to play the part. No one would believe you to be, for instance, a large and powerfully built man if you still pranced about like a dancer. To alter yourself was all or nothing – otherwise, illusion shattered. But it didn’t seem that was a lesson she needed to press. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] “I try Bundori, I do. Now – let’s make this even more fun. There are…” She paused, counting the number of lifeforms she could sense. “…16 of them. Strong. Able. The lesson is this Bundori – you have power limited only by what you can imagine, but what you attempt is breakable. If you lose concentration the illusion shatters. Anger, rage, hate – those are where your power comes from but you need control. You control the situation, don’t let anyone shatter your hold,” she advised before grinning again. “Now, let’s see you kill them all.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She would be interested to see the girl’s strategy and if she put the lesson to practice. Matsu was ready to pull the strings of the holo-people and pose a challenge.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]@Bundori [/SIZE]​

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Kill them all.... Her masters orders were there and turning her head she looked at it all happening. Sixteen people all strong and able and she was supposed to kill them all... Well she would have to get started as she moved closer to the village stopping only to scuff her shoes and cake some dirt, her hands grabbing some and smearing it while she ran into a tree out of view of the others. She looked like she had been beaten up while the small girl bit her lower lip to get a small bit of blood. A yelp here or there but for the most part the illusion was her age, the rest practical effects that made it all real and she was moving.

She had abandoned the chainsword for now but with a little dirt in her eyes the large blue orbs became moist and she started to well up with tears while stumbling around towards one of the men. "Mommy?,,,,,, Mommy?" The man looked up and at her as she walked around speaking softly. Slowly he approached alone and she latched into him with a childlike vice grip. Hands going around his leg while she searched with her fingers for... it. That light pulse simulated in the holosuite for training but lifelike meant the same rules applied. Her finger nails digging in and as he gasped she penetrated into the flesh until it was under her fingers.

The rapid pulse as more blood flowed and Bundori tore at it, her dainty fingers coming away with a small chunk as she was climbing up quickly to connect with her head up his jaw. Keep him silent and falling over into the dirt. Her head hurt but she was prone there looking at his body for a moment before turning her attentions to the others in the village. She was thinking of way to handle them and without direct confrontation... without trying to overpower them while she moved the pieces to conceal the body. Her tiny hands straightening her hair while she moved going for chemicals and cleaning solutions. Slowly working as she go ta container.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] Truly, Matsu would never try and stunt her apprentice’s creativity. If out on the field Bundori wanted to tear apart her opponents with her chainsword or her teeth or perhaps grow strong enough to use her bare hands, Matsu would be the very last person to stop her from doing so. But so many thought the sweeping, destructive path was the best – all Matsu wanted to instill was the idea that sometimes, quiet and stealth and cunning were equally as viable options. To hold your cards up your sleeve was valuable, especially when few would see Bundori coming – with the right disguise and technique she could carry that innocence with her for the rest of her sinful life.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She watched from afar as Bundori went to work, working her abandoned child act so well that Matsu felt she should have made some popcorn to snack on during the show. But there was much to watch from there – Matsu had set what she knew was a difficult task before her apprentice in sixteen fighting-quality men and women. But she had to be ready and Matsu wanted to see that she was.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] With one down – and messily – Matsu turned her attention to the other fifteen, shifting the dynamic in the group slightly as she tugged at strings in the holosuite. Three were asleep in their primitive huts, the walls enough to hide them from the rest of the group. Five were around a huge fire they’d built. Two more were preparing weapons for some kind of hunt. The other five were close together in another hut preparing food to bring out to roast over the fire. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] Four distinct groups. Some armed, some so harmless as to be asleep.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=9pt] You are smarter than them, and possess something they do not understand. Be patient and reap your reward, she thought softly to Bundori.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=9pt] Now was the time for that popcorn.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]@Bundori[/SIZE]​

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori listened to her master and stood there slowly going over what she could do to the other groups. Her first stop would be the sleeping one, who wouldn't make a sound and the ones working on weapons could stand to have a few accidents here or there. She thought about the ones preparing the food and there were so many ways things could be done as she tapped her chin and got an idea or at least hoped it would work. Holodeck suite not withstanding as she moved to the hut men with weapons and was focused not on the large things but on the small things. Hunters had knives for traps and cleaning, her hand gripped one tightly onto the hilt of one sharp blade. The edge gleaming and she slid it behind her back.

She slid away moving slowly but carefully in measured steps while she thought about what could be done and went into the hut where the sound of snoring came. She was looking at the being and slowly brought her own breathing in tune with their shallow breathes that made her small chest rise and fall. She took the knife and focused for a moment clenching her hand while she held her breath grabbing the pillow and in a rapid motion aided by the force slid the blade in deeply until she felt the resistance of bone. Dragging it before the gasp could come and the pillow went over the woman's face. Bundori held the pillow and silently pressed with all of her strength enhance by the force.

Then she was looking at the others and focusing on them as she moved silently a small angel of pink hair and death that worked on silently letting them bleed out. Their hands convulsing and flailing but once the blade finished Bundori stood there in the room and looked at what the three people had while checking. There was other thing, plants and nature around her while she worked on what mommy had taught her about nature. manax root was gnarled and rich in the earth while she searched. Edible or as her knees went down into the ground and came away with it. She squeezed and brushed at the roots while fiddling with the holosuite, the Fringe also had a chance to use cryptberries.

She wasn't looking for those but was looking at the dangerous part of all this, the roots cleaned as much as she could make them and slowly Bundori went towards the fire, towards the people and looked for it. She listened for that trickle of water while they prepared giving her the darkness and shadow all around them. She pulled and tore at the roots to squeeze the juice and liquid within it into the water, she started tearing the rest into small pieces until they were floating into them. The poison was hard to cure and fairly fast acting while she went towards the ones preparing the food, the knife clenched in her hand tightly until the knuckles were white. She was more looking at the five in the hut making the food.

Her body moved switching directions and going at the two free ones with the weapons. Their work being a more dangerous situation until she had a great idea looking at the large things, all the shiny toys and weapons that made her want to coo and creen. She watched the two of them for a moment listening to the men and women at the fire get more wter to drink and went to work focusing with the force as she used he force to loosen the fittings and things that held one of the weapons. Ready for the sounds but she had to play it smart while she started crying and moved into the hut sniffling and holding her hands up to pull at one of the swords. As the man turned to her and the other came picking her up the blade flung off the wall, her knife going up.

And they were gasping, one with a shocked expression on his face and the other trying to open his mouth while she looked up with large eyes, the blues hiding the depths pf madness behind cuteness and she was moving again. hoping out of the mans arms and towards the fire as the people there were gasping, She looked towards the main hut the one that was left and would have to be fast with this, her hand going to a piece of wood as she wrapped some of her dress around the tip, plunged it into the fire and came away as she started running around to the ones gasping by the fire setting their clothing, then the weapons hut and the one with the sleepers. She slowly walked around the main one and lit it in several places before coming to the front entrance.

Where she was pulling and pushing with the force to keep it closed as sounds came, screams and gasps of surprise with choking sounds that had Bundori giggling. One women jumped through the hut and was on the ground screaming while the fire engulfed her others seemed to stop fighting and still one pushed at the block she had until he flee to his knees and laid there peacefully going to sleep before the fire started burning him away. She let up on the force energies and was panting while the simulated heat still made her sweat and it wasn't pretty. Her dress was in tatters, her brow covered in soot and she had blood staining herself in some places but she was having fun while one of the men at the campfire was still alive despite the fire burning him.

Her small shoe came down and kicked at him until he stopped and ceased in those movements getting her thrilling undulation of glee. She was happy and hoping she had passed her masters test but one could not be tooo sure of these things. She knew her mommy preferred tests you couldn't win and that had no easy solution it was how she got to twist and turn people into those on her racks. Bundori skipped around and made sure everything around her was dead or dying before she put her hands to her hips and nodded her head in triumph against the evils of the holo suite. "I am the great and powerful Bundori and you will learn to fear me. Tremble mere mortals and know that your destruction's is at hand from Darth MOE"

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

There was a part of her that didn’t see Bundori as a child anymore. It would have been easy at first not to dismiss Bundori, but to at least assume she wasn’t capable of the kind of violence Matsu had seen adults commit before they ate lunch. And in the end that had been the reason that despite her distaste for the younger beings in a species she had taken the confection-haired girl on: she was not a child. Maybe it was the influence of her mother, or maybe it was simply because – like her Master – she had been born with something missing or a combination of both that had let her grow in to a nine-year-old monster without inhibitions but instead a predatory single-mindedness.

Matsu was glad to see that Bundori did not rush headlong in to her test, instead clearly mapping out a path through the group. The girl could have taken out the entire camp in one violent explosion of power though Matsu had never said so…because that hadn’t been what she wanted to see. Bundori had done just what would make her Master most pleased: she had shown an ability to calculate, to put rational thought before the promise of bloodshed.

Leaping from the tree she sped her way to her apprentice’s position, slowing once she’d entered the border of the village. Up close the destruction was clearly deftly handled – surprising really, how much had the Lady Exedo imparted on Bundori before she’d entered a more official apprenticeship? This had a guided feel to it, augmented by natural talent. She smiled as she glided, the panther in their jungle, up to face Bundori. That the girl had chosen a Darth name for herself meant little to Matsu though she knew some Masters preferred the privilege of naming their students once they reached knighthood. Matsu had chosen her own Darth name – Yaojing – for herself, so why shouldn’t Bundori? “Darth Moe, hmm?”

She squatted in front of the girl, reaching out and running her fingers through the trail of blood that had spattered over her apprentice’s face. They were both Atrisian, but multiple dialects led to multiple meanings of the same word. “Do you know what that sound, ‘mo’, means in my language?” She smiled, her fangs peeking out. Bundori’s first test had been good, and she expected sensational in the future. “It means demon.”

It seemed fitting – adorable little demon.

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori looked at her master and listened hanging on each word with a small flush of heat to her cheeks. She loved the meaning of the name, mommy had found shows on Atrisia when the Fringe had invaded it, had brought them home to her to watch adorable children with wide eyes. She didn't know much of the Atrisian language aside from those few who had stayed within the Fringe with the taking of their world, her mommy only really knowing what some of the tutors could say who didn't like coming before her.... Bundori guessed her mommy gleefully using a chainsword on them before their emperor bowed and joined was kind of a disappointment."

" I love it master." She said with a smile on her face at the thought of her name. She loved the idea of being called a demon, she relished it and while her mother might be mentally ill as the doctors said she wasn't... unless love of extreme violence and being a killer was mentally ill then a good amount of the fringe were as well. Bundori gleamed a little as she stood there brushing her hair out from in front of her face for a moment smiling. "I can be No, your little demon and oh the fun we shall have." She giggled to that and more dangerous things flashed in behind her eyes while she wanted to jump up and down clapping going 'YAY ME!!!' but she didn't, an outburst like that wouldn't be proper for now at least. "What are we going to do next my master?" She wanted to learn more illusions to better stay like this forever.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

They had discussed Bundori’s wishes for the future before the day’s lesson – briefly, very briefly – and Matsu had been pleased. There was a wolfish quality to her apprentice’s tactics, a sneaking silence that used her seeming weakness to make it her strength. She hadn’t meant to go farther than this today but when she saw Bundori control herself, harness the instinct to jump up and down in excitement, Matsu could not deny her what she wanted – it was proof her lesson had taken at least a bit of hold, and that deserved reward.

Illusions came in three flavors: mental, sith magic, and white current. Matsu was an apex user of mentalist illusions but she was well on her way to using the magic variant. Once mastered her illusions would enter a new and dangerous realm: despite coming from her mind they would be capable of harming others, even causing death if they weren’t stopped. They would fool electronics. They would be limited only be her imagination and ability to fuel them. She couldn’t teach her apprentice just yet, but the ability to change her appearance? That was simple mentalist illusionism at its finest.

Snapping her fingers the jungle around them disappeared, returning them to the gray padded walls and floor of the holosuite. She sat on the floor, folding her legs beneath her and letting her robes fan out around her.

Illusions were part innate skill and part practice. It was important to find a weakness in the opponent to exploit – strong emotion, a frail mind, distraction of any kind – and sneak in before they could realize what was happening to them. It was possible to build your mind to resist these same attacks and Matsu had promised herself no one would enter her mind without permission ever again. “You won’t be little forever Moe, at least not truly. But you can make me think you are.” Settling herself on the floor she opened the smallest hole in the back of her mind, something Bundori would have to search for and perhaps not even find.

But then again, she was a little demon.

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori looked at her master and smiled at that, she had feared it might be over this session of fun. Their enjoyment of the moment it was all very exciting. All very new and something she wanted to have keep going for a long time, who knew what she might learn from all of it as she went off to smile. She held it in and stood there listening to her master for a moment before she watch the woman sit down and Bundori followed suit flipping her hair back to expose the small tips of her ears while she thought about her own illusion. Keeping herself small, keeping herself young and deceiving the others was the best and most fun idea of all.

She crossed her eyes where she was sitting and placed her hands on her lap for a moment while looking at her masters eyes and her large blue ones flicked around looking. It was interest and affection... not the kind she had for her mother, that was love in a way the kind of love you could only find while scoping the insides of a slave out and enjoying them, this for her master was the kind of affection you had for people you didn't think about killing more often then others during the day or wondering what color their insides looked like. "I will do the best I can to stay small and innocent master, the jedi do not expect children."

Now she was focused on her master, the woman was sitting there and Bundori's energy flared around while she searched her face for a sign of what to do. Brushing between the face and her masters aura before she was searching and trying to sift thoughts. Illusions were about knowing the person and how to make them see what you wanted them to see, make them think like you wanted them to think and she was searching for a way in. Doubtful she would break through her masters mental defenses but the fun could come in the trying and lessons were meant to teach. What better way to teach then to try and fail as Bundori focused trying to slip into her masters thoughts.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Something her apprentice said stuck with her, pleasant like the soft bending of meat between her teeth.

The Jedi do not expect children.

Matsu, even as someone with no particular qualm with the Jedi, could see the value in maintaining the appearance Bundori was striving for. The goal was, of course, to guide her in to making illusions so thorough and well-designed that no one – not Jedi, Witch, or Sith – would be able to detect that she was not what she appeared to be. But if for even one second a Jedi felt her true intentions, felt something darker within the child they saw – that could turn the tide. She could imagine a Jedi wrestling with himself, convincing himself that he needed to harm the child in front of him, to struggle with his own morality and perhaps go to sleep that night and wonder where in the world he had gone so wrong. Every Jedi they turned was just as good as a dead one.

She hadn’t given Bundori instruction on purpose, waiting to see what she would do on instinct. She could feel her Apprentice’s reach fluttering around the walls of her mind and she nodded her head in approval. That was the right idea. She did not open her eyes as she explained, her voice quiet as she stayed behind the wall in her head.

“Everyone has a different tolerance for your ability to touch their minds. There are those who are weak-minded naturally, and those who cannot keep their defenses up when under pressure or feeling great emotion. They are the easiest to control. There are also those like myself who have trained to make their minds a fortress, or possess a natural defense like the Epicanthix. They require great power to overcome, if at all. But the majority of beings will fall in the middle – perhaps they have training in defending their mind, or they are simply very stoic. The key is to find the one spot where they aren’t guarding. Wait until they get angry or scared or sad or feel through the Force for a weak spot…soft like a fruit left out too long, easy to break open…”

She could feel Bundori in her head and she left the hole she’d usually close up tight if someone tried to walk through her mind, giving her apprentice the chance to find the soft little weakness and tear it open.

In the same way Bundori gave her the privilege of being someone she didn’t regularly consider murdering violently, she gave her Apprentice the privilege of going somewhere no one was ever allowed: Matsu Xiangu’s mind.

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori slowly found it, her breath catching as she peeled away at the layers of her masters mind she was allowed to see and entering it. while she sat there in the grey room. The holograms disappearing. She was glad to see she was special with her master and slowly as she went in her mind was working to interpret the images and make sense of another person/s Things running by fast while her eyes flicked back and forth in her skull. The sound of rushing water, the clicking of metal and plasteel as Bundori was standing there in the middle of a field and looking at the plains. The image of her master before her.

Matsu was dressed in a Harlequin outfit with red and black patches, her hair short and almost a bowl cut as she heard her masters voice going on after a few moment. "Glad that you're feeling well, thought we might lose ya, don't just stand there sing a song....... This is Ilusia." Bundori was wider eyed then normal and looking at all of it while her master danced around singing. The fields becoming a little darker in harsh light. While her master was going about and things were appearing. "Bundori be warned, Bundori beware! By closing your eyes you'll see what isn't there. Bundori be calm, open your eyes, Lies may be truth, and truth may be lies"

Bundori still had her large blue eyes wide and disbelieving but it was her mind trying to make sense of her masters or go deeper into it. Like a mental maze you faced challenges and had to find a way to solve a problem while facing your minds... but this wasn't a psychotics mind it was the mind of her master through the eyes of a child. Death and destruction had less meaning here, they existed in the realm of make believe and grown up stuff. Something she didn't like and wanted to stay away from for as long as she could. Matsu was there dancing and held out her arms as a wheel appeared.

"Fate is a wheel, it will reveal, All you've become, all that you feel, Destiny knows what has to be And you'll pay the price, nothing is free." She continued to move around dancing, spinning and taking Bundori's hand. " I'll be your guide, take the hand of your muse, You just might lose your way in the land of Illusia!." The lights around her blacked out as Matsu stood in a white light. "Illusia is music, a world built on rhyme, It's carved out of space in the absence of time, You've tasted how evil and good coexist,The bitter and sweet of it." Suddenly the image of [member="Ashin Varanin"] appeared with glasses on "All in the lips that you kissed."

Matsu stood there off to the side as auntie Ashin was dancing "Nexu and nerf, shriek-hawk and snake, To live or die... It's a choice you've got to make, Can you undo what you create? Step through the wheel... Follow your fate." The image of Ashin was joined by her mother Shinju, her uncle [member="Sargon Vynea"] and her uncle Dranok/[member="Darth Arcis"]. The four of them were on a wheel with her master spinning it as they stood there dancing awkwardly.

"The fates have a fix on you, We can play tricks on you. We deal in truths you're too troubled to face, Gamble the worth of you, on the rebirth of you. Don't turn away, don't start to fade. What's still unwritten... You can erase." They were moving and grooving to the music as she couldn't believe her uncle Dranok was doing the wookie. It was a sith lord smash and catching on in a flash. Her master had a smile on her face. "Your mothers villainous infamy tortures your soul, Decent into evil must levy its toll. The darkness that empowers you has brought you to this."

Mommy then cut in as she bounced up jumping into Ashin's arms like a cabaret dancer. "Surrender serenity, suffer sweet misery..... Sin seeks its cursed abyss." Her tongue came out before she dropped down and Uncle Sargon danced doing the can-can with uncle Dranok. "Oh Bundori, with death there is always rebirth." "Come see with a vision denied you on Anajj." Uncle Dranok popped his mask off to show his silly faces he could make with his face tendrils and everything going around.

Her master spun the wheel again as it started to make a portal she could step through to enter her masters mind and try to figure out her deeper thoughts. The layers peeling away with each verse of the song as she started to get into it and move around to dance with them. "Illusia is waiting, we'll show you the way But all consequences are your own creation, And there is a price you must pay." Her family was still moving and now it was getting crazy as the portal crackled and the lights flashed crackling.

"The fates have a fix on you, We can play tricks on you. We deal in truths you're too troubled to face, Gamble the worth of you. on the rebirth of you. Now is the time this is the place." Her master took her hands and they were dancing around now faster and faster as she spun around on the grass with it slowly becoming blood soaked and covered in body parts. Fresh limbs and then her masters voice. "What's still unwritten you can erase." Matsu had made it go faster and faster as her pink hair was spinning with her whipping her face.

"Illusia is music a world built on rhyme....It's carved out of space in the absence of--" Bundori was flung at the portal and flung herself back as she woke up in the room and was shaking her head. her masters head was really really strange and she spoke opening her eyes. "That was fun lets do it again master." She didn't know if her master had seen what she had saw it was hard to know what one might see when they were opening their mind to others but a realm of dreams and fantasy where a child could make sense of the fantastical.... She wondered if the galaxy really was on a disc a top large beasts on the back of a giant creature sailing the universe.

[[note song is not mine all credit to
Music: Joseph LoDuca
Lyrics: Pamela Phillips Oland]]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

When Matsu opened her eyes again, it was with the strangest sense that she had been to a place she hadn’t even known existed in her own mind. The amusement-park feeling to their antics had been so outside of her realm of normality that she was almost certain that maybe Bundori had looped them in to her own mind instead. That would make more sense. Even though in truth a bowlcut wasn’t as bad as she had initially pictured it on herself. But Bundori had without a doubt unlocked the knowledge it would take, what it felt like peel someone’s covers back and peek inside.

She could still smell the blood, a metallic-copper harshness that clashed with the sugary-sweet aftertaste of the song that would be stuck in her head for days. (What’s still unwritten, you can erase…)

Playing with one of her fangs with her tongue for a moment, she watched Bundori, wide-eyed and seemingly innocent after her display. “Good. Very good. It won’t always be so easy, and sometimes it may even be impossible. Practice, practice, practice – what you want to do in maintaining your illusion will require you to wear it like a second skin. Mind powers take concentration so the more you become familiar with the technique the less thought it will take.” She paused, standing up in their holosuite. “I should go figure out who’s apprentice you killed before they find me.”

The words were meant to be reproachful, but her tone was nothing but pleased.

 

[Bundori]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Bundori looked at her master taking and keeping her seat quickly while she listened. Practice practice practice would beimportant and she could do that.. She was liking the idea and then her master was looking at her and wasn't happy... Maybe the moment in her head had been displeasing but Bundori had found it awesome and fun. So much and there was no concept of danger it was a place for children to go and have fun. "Yes master, he was a very nice boy. do you want me to come with you?" Bundori looked at her master who had gotten up and she bowed her head with hands in front of her looking like an angel with large doe eyes.