Claustrophobia

[Darth Empyrean]

Maliphant was incapable of matching the spirit’s request, his armor holding back any possibility of him destroying the spirit. Nor did he hold the power of a Jedi, often able to clear the darkness away with pure light; no, Maliphant simply stood his ground as he desperately attempted to rip the abundance of currents around him to his grasp, though never enough to actually release a proper attack, especially not against something like what he faced now.

Instead, he gritted his teeth and furrowed his brow, holding back all but the deepest of growls as every emotion a Sith takes pride in harnessing began to flourish in his heart. Fear, anger, passion, a series of hormones that drew all the currents deeper into him, only as the internal struggle of the unknown artifact began to feed on the various elements in turn; forcing Maliphant’s usually flawless complexion to fall to deep shades of purple beneath the paleness of his skin, while veins began to show themselves and his usual golden smolder turned bright and hot through his corrupted irises.

The Dark Side was taking the man, but against the thousands of culminated spirits turned into this entity, and the hindrance of his armor, he had nothing to respond with. He was weak, lacked the training, the outright power, and he was out of his element. Morrow would have bested him in combat, likely even now, and her lack of fight when it came to the creature was enough to put the final nails in his own coffin.

“Let… Her go…”, was all that he could say as his body desperately healed itself from the previous two assaults on his being.

His mind however, raced with solutions to the problem, raced with any semblance of rational that might prove himself the victor, then the harder he thought, the less that came.


[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

"Oh now this is just no fun." She laughed at his miserable state, a flourish in her tone and a confidence that seemed so vile it was sickening.

With darkening eyes the spirit dropped Morrow to land on her front, no resistance or attempt to catch herself as she hit the cold floor. Looking over her, he'd see the shallowest of breathes fill her chest though everything else was still. Even her signature in the force was horrifyingly weak.

"You'll have to forgive me, though I like the chase. Perhaps a few days here will weaken you down. I'd love to see you beg, just like her."

In half a second the spirit dissipated into thin air, the panel that fell a while ago now slammed shut, the walls remained, and in every sense they were entirely trapped. The energy pulses continued on and the quiet sob returned, now it might come to mind that they were the cries of the damned. The cries of people who were neither dead nor alive, but trapped.

It would only be then that a blinding light filled the room to finally reveal their surroundings, and to no shock, it was exactly what could be expected. A large center room, no furniture, no decorations. Only dark obsidian like walls and flooring; no exits, no entrances, nothing.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The entire facility was designed to fool spirits, a massive catacomb able to hold them within its depths regardless of culmination and spirit. The two who had entered did so out of folly, and the spirit was only capable of leaving with their assistance, whether it knew it or not. Maliphant didn’t know this however, and just as quickly accepted the planet’s death as he ran over to Morrow’s limp body with an unknown tightness in his chest. Morrow didn’t like to see it, but to Maliphant they had at least become friends in the weeks of travel together, and he held a soft spot in his heart for those he considered himself close to.

A weakness amongst Sith, but Maliphant believed far too much in his own power to fall to such fears and paranoia.

With Morrow incapacitated, very likely near death, Maliphant sat and quickly pulled her into his lap, ignoring the mass of walls and obsidian that had become visible. A hand brushed her hair from her face as he held her somewhat close, enough to provide comfort for a soul who could pass over at any moment; giving her as much energy as he could through the force for the sake of assisting with her recovery, though no doubt it was inevitably going to be up to her as a Sith and her willpower, he still held hope he’d be of assistance, in nothing else but comfort.

“Don’t die yet, idiot.”, he said through a painfully tight clench of his jaw.

His arms wrapped around her as he closed his eyes and considered the possibilities of what was to come, how they would deal with the spirit when it came back. Maliphant couldn’t think of a possibility before his mind wandered to the dark pulses that exerted themselves during the span of the engagement, doing little more than unknowingly intimidating the spirit. There was little he could do to pull the darkness from his heart, unknown to him, but whatever power sat inside of him he needed to know more about, and it was his only thought besides the survival of Darth Morrow; his only companion in the depths of hell.

[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

While it had been designed for spirits, they had fallen into a very effective trap for physical beings as well; even worse, they were trapped there with a spirit. Clearly the danger was prevalent enough, they could starve, die of suffocation, or who knows what happened to Morrow.

Speaking of Morrow, the woman in Maliphant’s arms now rested as peaceful as she could, her breathing had slowed, and she no longer twitched or shifted, there was only stillness left. What really occurred in her mind however was not emptiness or suffering, at least not from what the spirit had done; it was memories.

So close to the verge of death, the only thing left in her mind to play was memories, and it was happening at a rapid pace, though what occured so quickly felt like another life entirely to her. It was odd, sitting there Maliphant would have a moment where his mind felt fuzzy, like static, before an image would be projected to him. It was almost comparable to telepathy or force illusion, but an interesting mix of the two.

--

“GET UP”

Small red hands pushed their way off the crumbled dirt beneath her, glancing up a large Zabraki man with dark markings across his arms and face. From the perspective the angle looked up, she couldn’t have been more than six or seven.

Before she had a chance to fully stand a leg slammed into her center, throwing her several yards off. A quiet cough could be heard, some blood dripping to the ground in front of the given vision.

“If you don’t fight back I will kill you now.”

“I don’t want to fight…”

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Maliphant watched as the thoughts ran through his mind, his epicanthic nature making many of the memories a mere blur, yet in the omnipotent presence of the dark side nexus they found themselves nestled in, they still managed to breach his mind’s eye. Bits and pieces, an incomplete story that told more about Morrow than he ever cared to ask, its adolescent nature an obvious hint at the life that helped form the tyrant’s deadly apprentice, something he could recognize even despite her now altered form.

However, as the thoughts seemed to become his own and faded within the same manner, they had another task at hand; survival. There was a few scattered remnants of their supplies, that which they used to get down here, and Maliphant knew it was only a matter of time before the spirit was back. He moved Morrow aside, resting her head on what was left of his backpack, torn asunder during the first strike he had taken by the spirit in his attempt to save Morrow.

Walking around, he pulled what few things he could that weren’t destroyed or would soon be spoiled. Water being the most important, but food coming second as they’d certainly need to regain their strength; he only hoped Morrow would awaken at some point soon. They’d have a far better chance at pulling through if the two were prepared rather than Maliphant alone, but he knew there was always the chance it might come to fruition.

If their lives depended on him, then he would not fail. Not for the sake of himself, or Morrow.

As he moved back to their now forced ‘camp’, he quietly stripped himself of his armor, despite the even chill that had settled over the area. It would do him no good in the coming fight, and so he knew it would be worthless with him, though Morrow might need it. He couldn’t tell what level of damage she had suffered in the possession, but he imagined the physical strain was immense, and instead moved to strip Morrow.

He hoped she wouldn’t wake up in the midst of it, there would be a bit too much to explain.

Dressing her up in his armor, it would soon begin to take its effect, that being the extremely high rate of healing that had saved Maliphant from his own wounds only a moment before, something he had all but recovered from in the presence of the Nexus. Sighing, he sat down next to the sleeping Morrow, now adorned in little more than a backup pair of synth fiber pants he had taken just in case. They were comfortable, if nothing else.

As time began to pass, Maliphant quietly focused on harnessing all that was taught to him by the Sith of eons past, and hone in on the darkness that seems to surge in the presence of the darkness, hunger unending huddled deep inside the prison that was Maliphant’s soul. Something he didn’t understand, something he had to if he intended to survive.


[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

Spoiler

Time flashed by in a second, from a young innocent child to the strong arms of a killer circling its prey. Before him resided what could only be a fight circle in the tribe; hundreds of its people gathered and surrounding Morrow and another in a pit.

"Go on kill 'em!" | "He doesn't stand a chance!"

"Only two more kid." Another voice called from behind her in the crowd, her eyes darting back to get a view of another large man for but a moment. From the angle Maliphant was shown, something was wrong with the girl that made her stand out. She was horribly, vulnerably small. Most of those in the area were at least six or so feet in height and that being the slighter of the bunch, Morrow couldn't have been far off five feet, maybe a few inches more at best.

"Go get em RUNT!" Dark smoldering eyes blinked for a moment before she charged her target at incredible speeds, nailing a six and a half foot prey dead in the chest with a fist, followed by another, and another, and another. It was but a second before this man was on the ground with blood starting to fly. A massacre for position. If they want a show, I'll give them one.

--

Twitching for a moment, her mind flashed to another section of time, snapping her out of the brutality of the kill and into another. Lighting slamming her chest, one strike after another, a hand to the back of her neck and a desperate red hand reaching forward for help only to begin turning black and cracking. Crawling steps into the emperors palace only to be seized and forced to a medical wing seeing her life fall to pieces before her.

"What happened..."

Help me... Please...

--

Weakly her eyes began to open to view the man above her, nearly rolling back into her head as she tried to hold on to what little consciousness she had. Thoughts of her past both far and recent still haunting her as she reached out to grab whatever was closest for some stability of reality. Once smoldering yellow eyes were at the moment a paler yellow red, her skin still grey and body cold as could be.

The armor was doing its work, though with the shape she was in, it wouldn't be anytime soon that her back would finish healing. Several broken ribs cracked inward along with a vertebra or two. If she were lucky to survive mentally, this body likely had to go.

"Everything hurts... But I can't feel anything at the same time..." The woman's voice was quiet, soft. If there was ever a time to show weakness, now was not the time, but she couldn't help it.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Maliphant simply shook his head, clearing the memories from view as they lost their cohesive nature. Whatever it was Morrow was dreaming about, it was nothing something he should care to remember too deeply; lest he say something he doesn’t mean to, and she ends up beating him. Their fight didn’t last long the first time around, but ‘Zabrakian Pride’ was a notorious trait through the galaxy, and he didn’t feel like hurting that ego, not today at least.

Readjusting her head in his lap, using his legs as some form of cushion so she didn’t have to deal with the harshness of the obsidian, he looked down at her for the first time in a few hours. Up until this point, he had been exploring the interior nature of his soul, meditation in the metaphysical, for the sake of finding whatever it was that hungered; something he could feel growing in the darkness. In truth, all he found was a seal placed in his heart some time in the past, giving an unknown credence to the rumors he wasn’t actually who he thought he was.

Pushing the thought aside however, he looked to Morrow and quietly spoke, ensuring he wouldn’t hurt her if she had a headache;

“I don’t doubt it. If you were awake, that armor would have healed you by now, but it’ll do its job regardless… The nexus we’re in will see to that…”, he said as matter of fact.

Still, he offered a soft sigh and looked down to his friend;

“You doing alright, Morrow?”, he said with a surprising amount of generosity, despite how much he knew she didn’t appreciate such. Such was the pride of Sith, it seemed.


[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

She offered a small chuckle that was cut off by a quiet cry of pain and a deep inhale.

"I can't feel my legs... and everything's cold... Such a cliche right?..." Morrow rested her hand on one of his, taking slow deep breaths. Her eyes alternated being open and closed every few seconds as she tried to hold onto what little wakefulness she could. She knew how it went, if she died now it would be so much harder to crawl her way back.

Her breathing hitched an she winced tightening her grip on his hand harshly, the light in her eyes flickered for a moment as she twitched, her form shifting slightly from the waist down but reverting itself instantly. "I-I can't fix it..." Biting down on her lip she tried to sit up, her skin stretching on her back as a rib pressured itself in a contorted position, at this she simply gave up and remained on his lap.

"We need to get it back in here and trap it... If I know its coming maybe I can constrain it into submission... You just need to let me be a target this time..."

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

In truth, Maliphant understood the damage that she had taken during the assault. He had enough medical training from teaching [member="Thesh"] that it was easy to see that she had a broken spine, but what he lacked was the ability to tell her. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, and it was already very likely she could tell even now what had occured. Given a few days, she could very likely heal from the injury with the armor’s help, but it wouldn’t be anytime soon she would be fighting.

With a soft shake of his head, he offered her a reassuring smile;

“No.”, a surprisingly stern response to her proposal.

“Don’t move so much, you’re just going to hurt yourself.”, he said as he let her grasp his hand for some sign of comfort. His gaze moved around the room as he thought on what to say next, taking a few moments to let her enjoy the silence before he spoke once more;

“No, when it comes back, I’ll deal with it. I have a plan.”

It was true he had a plan, but the plan really consisted of him being able to undo the seal he had discovered, and hoping to all heavens that whatever was behind it wasn’t going to decimate the two in a worse fashion than the spirit itself. However, they were running out of options, and the idea of dying of his own fruition seemed to fit him a bit better than falling victim to enslavement.

“I’ve been thinking, by the way, and… Well, I think that spirit is made up of thousands of souls. Those that died on Barbatos, sucked into the core of the nexus, and it spit out this.”, he said with a slightly shake of his head.

“I’ve heard rumors of them, just didn’t believe it to be true. Guardian’s once, I suppose, of whatever is down here.”

That last part he wasn’t sure about, but at least it was a decent guess.


[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

These moments reminded her so much of how close she had come to death prior, however, before she had [member="Darth Carnifex"] to save her. Now she had Maliphant against a thousand souls. The chances weren't looking that good in her mind. They never should have been so greedy to think they could handle any challenge on their own, especially not this. The obsidian should have been her first hint something was wrong however she ignored it in her search for power.

"I need its power... If I can absorb whatever I can for it... maybe I can heal myself and we may stand some semblance of a chance..." Every word she spoke was laced with pain and suffering. She had never felt so beaten and broken. Certainly never so close to death.

"If Imperia crawled back from the void... I'm sure I could as well... Though I don't really want to take that chance when we are so close to something so great."

Morrow looked up to Maliphant with pale eyes. "You have to trust me. I don't want to die hiding, that certainly isn't a respectable way to go."

As she said this the light in the room faded again, leaving the two in the dark as Morrow took another deep breath of agony.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

“What you need is to shut up and worry about healing.”, he said with a soft sigh.

His thumb lightly stroked the back of her hand, hoping to comfort her in her moment of weakness, his gaze looking away. He didn’t want her to feel alone, but he knew it likely didn’t sit well with her how weak she seemed in those moments; especially to someone she very likely had little trust in. Only when the lights turned off did he look back, no longer seeing the pain in her expression.

“You won’t die-”, he said with a calmness that he hoped would reassure her. “All you have to do is trust in me. You’re in no condition to fight.”, he reaffirmed with some sternness.

With that, he let silence fall for a moment before considering just what she had said, reminding him of the first time they had met, the things Morrow spoke of. How apparently he knew of Imperia, that somehow this stranger had history with him, but to what degree he didn’t totally understand; but with the discovery of the seal hidden within his soul, he supposed it wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn who exactly he was.

“Morrow… You spoke of Imperia.”, he said through the darkness in a slight whisper.

“Who was she, and how did I know her?”, he said as he finished.

[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

"We fought... to be her apprentice..." Taking a deep breath she still held onto his hand. "I beat you in hand to hand combat and won. She was a weak woman... You were better off not staying. A few months prior to this I absorbed most of her power, stripped her of knowledge and escaped before my form crumbled. "

"You had been a slave she picked up somewhere, I never cared much more than that. All I every cared about was the power..."

"In truth, it's still what I care about-" Her voice trembled as she took another hard breath, forcing herself to sit up and look down to her useless legs. "But unfortunately your weakness has rubbed off on me a bit." Whether she said it in jest or a moment of her own weakness was unknown as she focused on the approaching force signature. Her mind had already been set, take in the spirits and force them into submission, then one by one rip them apart and absorb their power and knowledge.

Her mind flashed back to when she ripped the very same thing from Darth Imperia. In truth, she did so out of anger, frustration. All the things she ever held back from Morrow finally in her hands, and out of the less deservings.

I'm ready to surrender. The message called out to the distant spirit, hoping to draw it closer.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

The story didn’t ring a bell with Maliphant, didn’t pull some unknown memory from his psyche, and instead forced a slight annoyance in him. A slave? Imperia’s apprentice? Was Morrow even speaking of Maliphant himself, or was there truly something here to mind? Holding back an annoyed groan, he did little more than shake his head in the darkness. Maybe it was best he didn’t learn anything about his past.

“Sleep for now, we can speak more when you awake.”, he said as he adjusted his lap for his own comfort; still supporting her head as he closed his own eyes.

In truth, he hadn’t slept yet, but it wasn’t the first time he had committed to such actions. Days had gone by in constant training regimes and cadences, that the thought of staying up a few more days from where they were now didn’t strike him as too concerning; letting The Force hold him up, guide him through the darkness, ripping from its grasp the very will to stay awake and bring his entire attention to the seal that now stood within.

Quietly, he would fall not into sleep, but a form between such as he once more moved to tamper with the seal his previous self had established. An invisible hand chipping away at it, increasing the power that hungered endlessly behind those closed walls, a desperate attempt at survival as Maliphant hoped and prayed that whatever was on the other side would be willing to work with him, at least in the moment.

Hours passed as the seal was weakened from both sides, undisturbed by the encroaching spirit that very likely had honored Morrow’s call. It wasn’t here yet, but it was only a matter of time, and its beckoning presence only pushed Maliphant’s efforts that much further.

Eventually, in the early morning hours of the day, or what they perceived it to be, Maliphant could feel the first levels of power that The Darkstaff held, its infinite presence almost as potent as the planet wide nexus they stood next to, and it almost terrified him. He took a sharp breath in the darkness, loud enough to awake Morrow if she had been sleeping, until a small amount of sweat had begun to bead on his forehead.

Whatever he had opened, was far more than he imagined, and the terror of their situation began to set in once more.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[member="Darth Morrow"]

 

[Darth Morrow]

It didn't take long before the woman drifted back into a forced slumber, her body unable to handle remaining conscious and dealing with the damage it had taken. Soon after she closed her eyes she slipped into another dream, or rather, this one could be called nightmare.

Before her she saw the swirling mass of souls screaming in agony, her own drawn to its core by an unstoppable force that terrified her. This really only began to occur as the actual spirit passed into the room in her sleep. Maliphant would hear a passage open once more, the room remaining dark as it once had, and the same voice now collected and narrowed as it had in Morrows form spoke.

"Have you chosen to give in, or may I have my fun." The spirit took on the form it had in her body as well, landing to the ground and shaping into the olive skinned red haired woman torturing Morrow. Piercing smoldering eyes locked onto him as he rested on the ground with her in arm waiting for her answer.

Whatever had happened in the time of their arrival, the spirit had been collecting power, swirling energies from the nexus they neared clung to this being as well, a clear confidence in the posture and mere signature it held was obvious.

[member="Darth Maliphant"]