Private Contraband

[Zaavik Perl]

Denon, District 7, Bakers Row
Rain, 22:41 Local Time
Contraband won't protect you...
Yula Perl
​

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Working around Yula's defenses had been a tedious, though ultimately trivial endeavor. Zaavik slithered through maintenance shafts, obscured himself with a cloak of stygian and the occasional shift into the imperceptible. All around Yula's dwelling, wires were rerouted, junctions were jammed, several sub-terminals were breached, and it was all topped off with meddling the force into every console he could come across whilst exploring the mechanical web within his mind's eye. The result was a soft lock, all systems appearing operational but stuck in an eternal state of threatless standby. It could have been easier, much easier. With a few pulses of energy, brute force through the supernatural, all systems could have been made to fail. Expeditious, and efficient, but no doubt it would have been telling of what was happening. This way, at least, there was a high chance of ignorance.

Disappointingly easy all the same, even if it was time-consuming and the harder of the two options. Ironic. Perhaps she'd grown complacent? A look of disgust, as if he'd smelled something rancid, was scrawled across his face for no one to see.

After two hours of skulking, Zaavik had arrived at the final step. Standing before the entrance of Yula's accommodations, he unreeled an interfacing cord from the slot on the wrist of his prosthetic. Peeling away the bottom panel of the door control, he linked the interface into a clandestine slot. A rudimentary holo-display lit up on the lens of his cybernetic, allowing small movements of his eye to dictate the inputs of software. The opposite hand caressed the frame of the door, accompanying the breach with extramundane influence. A small flex of volition disengaged the manual locks in time with a successful override of their digital counterparts on the side of his tool. A small tug freed the interface and the cord seethed back into the slot on his wrist until the slot clicked closed.

Crushgaunt servos hissed as cortosis-lined fingers crimped the durasteel panel. Gradually, as if not to make a sound, the extremities galloped along the door's edge, shuddering metal until a small handhold was bent between the door and its frame. An opposing shoulder braced itself against the frame as the arm's hand heaved slowly to slide along its rails. As soon as a subsequent opening was pried, Zaavik slipped through. His grasp lingered long enough to allow the panel to slip quietly back into a neutral position and close behind him. For a moment, he stood motionless beyond the threshold. He could nearly hear his heart beating in his ears, being this close to finally overcoming a block that had plagued his every intention was a particularly potent feeling. It threatened paralysis at the very notion of success.

One small tug broke his hesitation and affirmed his hood was secure upon his head before he skulked towards the center of the dwelling.

 

[Yula Perl]

Gut feeling or not, Yula awoke with a start.

Years passed, and Denon hadn't gotten any better. If anything, the city-planet had gotten far worse. Corpos gunned down shadowrunners in the streets, forcing Yula to get creative with her security measures. Dagon Kaze had disappeared months ago, on the trail of some bust. She hadn't heard from him since. To top it all off, she'd become a struggling single parent to her first cousin once removed; a toddler born from the union of her cousin, Zaavik Perl and his estranged lover Darth Daiara . Yula had come across Aaradia by happenstance when the search for Zaavik had lead them to a mutual location. They hadn't become friends by any stretch, but had formed a tenuous trust upon learning that the young Sith was carrying her cousin's child.

Maybe she'd been stupid to raise Dax, but the kid's choices were limited. Aradia couldn't, and she'd handed over the bundle of pink skin and violet hair on the strict condition that Yula be the one to watch over him and keep him safe from both the Sith, Jedi and his father. It wasn't as if Yula lacked experience with children—she'd watched over Nida and Kyra plenty of times when they were little, but that was different. She'd been something of a big sister to Corin Trenor , helping to raise him, but that was also different. Maybe she'd been selfish to accept, figuring this to be another chance to support her family where she'd failed in so many ways.

Zaavik's rage. Nida's fall. Kyra, broken. Corin, who knows.

What good are you if you can't save the people you cherish most?​

It could have been any one of those memories-turned-recurring-nightmare that caused Yula to stir restlessly in the middle of the night. She couldn't keep track of them anymore, but they'd kept her on edge. Messed with her senses, made her feel like she was always in danger.

Reaching blindly for her datapad, Yula's hand groped alongside the bed in the dark. Her palm landed on the space beside her, usually occupied by Dagon—and her heart sank into her stomach.

Oh.​

In her delirium, maybe she thought he'd be there. Perhaps he'd join the parade of nightmares soon enough.

Sallow pink face illuminated by the bright light of the screen, she scrolled and scrolled. There'd been a stutter in her security system, but at least it was functioning now. Corpos were getting bolder, so she'd grown used to them trying to breech her walls. "Fuckers," She muttered under her breath. At least they'd moved on, or so it looked.

Maybe I should think about getting off Denon, she thought while pulling herself up with a silent groan. Getting real tired of dodging these corpo slicers. Got the kid to think about, too.

Lumbering to the door, Yula paced into the living room. Messy with half a dozen partially finished projects, the apart had a homey vibe thanks to the holoframed photos of family and numerous plants she'd collected. Or it would have, if Yula knew how to take care of plants and they weren't in various states of dying. Dax's room was on the opposite side, and she figured that checking on the baby would help to reassure her that she was alright. That they were alright.

Her grogginess evaporated the second she hit the light switch.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Inquisitive, Zaavik's golden regard poured over the holoframes. Familiar faces intermingled with strangers who had presumably come into their positions during his absence. Among the various scenes pictured, all of the most interesting featured a child. Not quite zeltron, not quite human, but it did have that decidedly Perl physiognomy to it. Yula and Dagon? No, couldn't be, it didn't look anything like Dagon, nor did any of the pictures with the child feature Dagon. Really playing into the Zeltrosian promiscuity, aren't you? He might have been disgusted was he not above any genuine investment in his cousin's endeavors. Couldn't afford to be, given what he had come here for.

Snap. Fluorescent light usurped the gloam in an instant, snuffing all notions of surreptitiousness. Slowly, the cloaked figure uncrouched from where he had been inspecting the photos on a low table, subsequently swiveling gingerly to greet Yula face-to-face. The two years he'd been away were painfully apparent from a glance. His face had filled out, features masculated, a late bloom into his final destined visage. A new scar presided diagonally across his face, prominent enough to demand attention. Despite the new quirks to his composition, there was no mistaking him as anyone other than who he was.

"Just you, huh?" he inquired rhetorically after a few moments of silence. Metal fingers presented one of the holoframes, the subject facing outward. "It doesn't look like him," Zaavik observed with a mocking tone. "That why he's not here?"

No familial greeting, just an underhanded taunt as if it were all so fatuous.

 

[Yula Perl]

"Hah."

Yula met Zaavik's quip with an agitated grin. It hurt for a different reason.

The last time they'd met, he'd taken her eye on the battlefield of Krayiss II. Now he was standing here, in her apartment, with his own child asleep only steps away. A thousand questions whirled through Yula's addled mind, but she settled on preservation. Let him think that Dax was her affair child that had triggered Dagon to leave—somehow, that was the easier option.

"Look who thinks he's all grown up now."

She spread her arms wide in a mock gesture of greeting while pacing to the side, towards the baby's room. It neither widened nor closed the space between Yula and Zaavik.

A part of her was happy to see him alive. A larger part of her leaned heavily into the danger instinct that flared from the moment she'd hit the light switch.

"Just leave the kid out of it." Voice lowering, she eyed Zaavik. "You here for another eye?" She tapped the glass of her prosthetic pointedly, right in the iris. Her nail made a tink noise against the tempered surface of the eyeball.

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

An aureate gaze stalked Yula's every step, a sneer growing on his face with every inch traveled. Black boots stepped slowly, turning his body to face his cousin's new position. One step kicked a spare actuator that had been discarded on the floor from one of Yula's many projects. It sang metallic scrapes and clatters before resettling against a microrepulsor. Metallic fingers echoed their flesh counterparts, seizing either edge of Zaavik's hood and gracefully coaxing it from his head.

All of Yula's remarks were met with a dismissive stare. "Happy to see me?" he mocked after a pause. An accompanying tilt of his head did little but exasperate the punchability of the patronizing look that had replaced the sneer. A contemptuous, crowing chuckle resonated behind closed lips, muffled into rhythmic hums. "Not here for another eye," he claimed, though cryptic in tone, as if it were a lead-up to something that ended up unsaid.

A small glance around the apartment searchingly grasped visually at the different details. Holoframes, unfinished projects, clutter, but they found nothing to linger on. Zaavik's lips parted with intent, inhaling preemptively to speak, yet the breath did not escape. Rather, silence remained as his mouth pressed closed. Again, his head tilted slightly, this time inquisitive and accompanied by a squint. Malevolent eyes scanned Yula up and down, then spared a glance at the doorway she had positioned herself in front of.

"I sense..." A pause reigned while a foreign feeling stewed in his supernatural senses. "Consternation," he continued. "...On the kid's behalf. You're worried I've come for your child?" Settling back onto Yula, those eyes probed with an indefatigable insistence. "Strange."

 

[Yula Perl]

Happy to see him?

"Kind of, yeah."

It was complicated. Zaavik had been presumed dead, and though he'd attacked her during their last meeting where she'd failed to save him, he was still her cousin. She was glad that he was alive.

The rest of it, she was less enthused about. There was something distinctly predatory about Zaavik now, something harder. Something pained, something sinister.

Yula's face pulled into a sneer at the metallic clank of spare parts. In the organized chaos, she'd insist that everything was arraigned just how she'd liked it.

Still positioned defensively in front of the baby's room, she snorted.

"Strange? That a mother would think to protect her child first against an intruder?" Both brows arched as she countered, though something burned inside of her as she spoke the word mother.

"Nobody breaks into my apartment in the middle of the night just to talk,"

It was her turn to look him up and down, taking in the full visage of her cousin as he prowled.

"What the hell happened to you, Zaavik?"

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Strange? That a mother would think to protect her child first against an intruder?"

"Your aunt doesn't possess that instinct," he snapped. There was clear abnegation in the refusal to call the woman in question his mother. "I figured it was a congenital absence among self-absorbed Perl hags. The twist I sense in your intentions betrays your attempt to save face. As if you could prove anything to me."

A fist gripped the neck of his cloak and liberated it from his body with a firm thrust. Stygian fabrics fluttered to the ground and collapsed into a haphazard pile atop a landscape of technological components. Garments beneath the cloak were of a twin shade of black, silver belt buckle gleaming against the fluorescence. Mutilated arms contrasted the black threads, maimed skin grotesque in the vermillion ripples of old burns. Yet, somehow, the focal point of his figure was the eager hilt that hung from his belt.

A small shake of his head strangled the notions of parentage and history despite the feelings of deception her claims evinced in his psyche. "It doesn't matter, I have no quarrel with some... child."

"What the hell happened to you, Zaavik?"

"Nothing happened," he retorted. After a brief silence that could have well been an eternity, he claimed; "I am what I've always been."

A force of will unclasped his hilt and pulled it into his awaiting metal grasp. It twirled unignited around a curved index finger with a small motion. "You were correct before, I'm not here to talk. We've done enough of that already." A dismissive gesture transitioned to indicate vaguely around the apartment. "Now, find your blade and we can get this over with. Make it count, this allowance is the only mercy you'll receive from me."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

"Perl hags?"

Yula's nose crinkled in distaste. The Zeltron had been called a lot of unsavory names, but hag had never made the list until now.

Self-absorbed hit the mark though, and it hit something inside of her too. Yula's greatest source of guilt was being too caught up in herself to see the wreckage of her family. By the time she'd tried to do anything, it had been too late.

"Once a brat, always a brat I guess."

Still, Yula gazed at Zaavik with genuine grief as she spoke. The eye he'd taken from her had been replaced with a cybernetic implement, and it nearly burned the socket while spitting out all manner of data on her cousin. Yula ignored whatever the readout was trying to tell her. None of it would help.

Instead, she reached behind her, pulling the hilt of her lightsaber from where she'd stashed it in the waistband of her sweatpants.

The pale yellow blade ignited at her side with a practiced flourish, intending to draw his eye. At the same time her free hand extended forward, sending a surge of unseen energy forward that would send the Dark Jedi crashing into the adjacent kitchen.

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Precognitive senses twinged with a notion of peril. Zaavik braced, his knees bending whilst his left arm came up to shield his face. Rubber screeched upon the flooring, his boots defiantly grounded as the pulse sent him sliding back into the kitchen. Sinistral grasp on his lightsaber whipped down from where it had raised in front of his visage, a crimson candescence exploding from it with a plasmatic shriek. Instability undulated across the saber's radiance, raining intermittent, fleeting sparks that died before they could singe the floor.

"Cute," Zaavik mocked, unimpressed.

A manus shot forward opposite his saber, its burned and shriveled fingers outstretched with the slightest, sickening curl. White-hot hatred scorched the air with the crackle of electric tendrils surging toward Yula. Holding this current, Zaavik would utilize it to cover his slow approach across the apartment. His wrist dipped, allowing his saber to cut against the ground and adjacent obstacles, the volatile blade hissing and popping against everything sundered in its path.

A buzzsaw flourish cleaved the edge of a sofa and accompanying coffee table. Using its whirlwind of momentum, he'd throw a haymaker stroke from overhead, clamoring a growl of aggression in its wake.

 

[Yula Perl]

Part of Yula was glad that Zaavik managed to resist being ragdolled into her kitchen cabinets. It was hard finding a trustworthy contractor on Denon, and replacing the broken dinnerware—cheap as it already was—would have been a hassle.

Almost glaringly so, that would become the least of her worries when he unleashed a storm of crackling lightning from his desiccated hand. The briefest flash of horror would overtake her face while she raised her saber to intercept.

"What th-" Teeth grinding, Yula wrapped a second hand around the hilt of her saber as she struggled to control the current that seemed to be fueled by Zaavik's hatred. Perhaps it was the meeting of two empaths with history, but it gave Yula her first insight into the powerfully raw feelings of her cousin.

Pain. Anguish. Determination. Her heart broke for him at the same time she feared the outcome of this confrontation.

The plasma could only absorb so much, and crackling tendrils surged down the length of her saber and over the hilt, trawling over the pink skin of her arm.

"FUCK!" She shouted as the electrical burn seeped into her skin. With a pained grunt and a reshifting of her stance, she managed to forcefully redirect the electrical tirade to the side. It struck a framed photo of her and Dagon, shattering glass and leaving a singed hole in its wake before trawling its way over the holotv and reduced its screen to splinters.

Arms aching fiercely, Yula stumbled back in time to avoid his heavy overhead strike, nearly tripping on a rusted calcinator.

"Fuck is wrong with you??" She hissed, angry and hurt. Punches has been pulled on Krayiss. Not here.

Hand extended, she'd call the larger half of the coffee table to slam into him, sharp edge first.

A pitched wail sounded from the other side of the wall, and Yula's narrowed gazed widened. The sound made her heart stop, then beat a staccato rhythm.

"Oh great, you woke the baby!"

Her outstretched hand tightened, fingers curling fiercely as she telekinetically sent the fragments of glass hurtling towards Zaavik with ferocious speed.

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Oh great, you woke the baby!"

"You're the one shouting-"

A pang of danger sundered his retort with a startled inhale. Zaavik pivoted and recoiled, trying to evade the trajectory of this unseen danger. Alas, he was not quick enough, and the table smote the back-right side of his head with a resonant crack. White flashed over his vision, pain banishing all other stimuli from his perception for a fleeting moment. His grip faltered on his lightsaber, sending it clattering amongst the clutter. Bootsoles squealed against the floor as Zaavik stumbled two half-steps to regain his eminence beyond the thought-crushing ache that had overtaken his head.

"FUCK!" he shouted, an ironic echo of the conduct he'd nearly had time to ridicule.

Warmth began to pour from the nexus of anguish hidden somewhere beneath his hair. Crimson reached his neck by the time another flash of impending doom came over his awareness. Curled fingers clawed through the air, limb swinging with abject rage. Glass shard sent his way dissipated in the air, shattering into pieces no longer than dust. A blood-curdling bellow emanated from the depths of Zaavik's being, sending wave-like disturbances through the Force along with the sudden burst of sonic anguish.

It was louder than their quarrel could have otherwise hoped to be. Glass shattered, objects rattled, and ears were overtaken by stabbing aches. Pain, anger, frustration, it all fueled a repugnant surge of resilience within Zaavik. With newfound power, a shriveled hand grasped into a fist in the air, coaxing the dark side into a paralyzing force focused on Yula, intent to hold her in place. Vermillion skin around the fingers began to fade to a pale pink as the intensity of his grip began to cut off circulation.

Holding this power, Zaavik's prosthetic hand caressed the back of his head searchingly and came back before his regard with a veil of blood over the thin cortosis lining. A visage contorted from pain and conniption scrutinized Yula with a glare born of mindless animosity. A growl crepitated behind bared, grit teeth. Slowly, he began to approach with a slightly disoriented wobble in his step from the strike he had taken to the head. Metal fingers lowered, and opened to meet the hilt of his saber that flew across the room back to his grasp.

Screeching, the blade extended between steps.

"You," he hissed, pausing for a moment as he trudged forward in spite of the dizziness.

"I'll kill you," he seethed aimlessly.

The presence of a child had become a total afterthought beneath his vacuous fury.

 

[Yula Perl]

As if it were instinctual, Yula couldn't help the way her upper lip curled into a satisfied snarl as the corner of her coffee table met the back of Zaavik's head. His reaction to being struck was disturbingly similar to her own, possibly a reflection of their shared blood, and at times, their intertwined upbringing.

Yula was only a little surprised to feel her next few heartbeats surge with a pang of regret. As angry and defensive as she was, it could only bury the fear and anguish of facing Zaavik like this so deep.

"Serves you right, ya little—urk!"

Zaavik's enraged voice rippled through the air so fiercely, so quickly and at such close range that Yula didn't have the time to try and counter him. Nor could she block her ears, not without dropping her saber—and her hands would hardly provide enough insulation as her cousin's Force imbued scream of rage vibrated the walls and rattled glassware.

A speeder alarm went off somewhere outside the apartment.

"FUCK!" Yula echoed, stumbling back as a sharp pain lanced through the delicate bones and inner membrane of her ear. A high pitched whine settled into her ears, and Zaavik sounded as if he were speaking underwater as he stalked towards her.

Oh fuck. Fuck. He's really going to kill me.

Dread settled into Yula's stomach like a bad roll of tibanna station sushi. A shudder crawled along her spine, trawling through her limbs, numbing every nerve in it's path to an uncomfortable degree. The hand wrapped around her saber's hilt stiffened into a clench. Yula tested the flex of her free hand, finding her ability to move not completely deadened, but severely limited. It was as if she were swimming against a rip tide.

One by one, Zaavik was wearing away at her senses.

Dax was wailing up a storm, something even Yula could hear through burst eardrums. Zaavik began to close the gap between them, the sway in his stride not due to hesitance. His injuries only seemed to incentive his desire to kill further.

"Zaav…" She groaned as a thin trail of blood slid wetly from the opening of her left ear, over and down the ridge of her lobe. It dripped grimly against the curve of her neck.

Yula's free hand fought against the stasis of his grasp, fingers painfully extending in an effort to reach out to her wayward cousin, pleading for him to come to his senses. She inhaled a labored, rattling breath. Her fingers curled as if she were latching onto something.

The Force surged from her fingertips, and Yula unleashed a concentrated assault on the cybernetic prosthetic that had replaced Zaavik's left arm.

It was funny, she realized, how similar they'd turned out. Cursing aside, they both favored manipulation of the senses—screaming and paralysis, it seemed. Where they converged most of all was a penchant for technology.

It would have been easier had she actually been touching him, but that wouldn't happen without her beheading. Brow creasing and teeth gritting fiercely in intense concentration, Yula sought to overload every circuit, rip and tear at every connection of Zaavik's metallic hand. She could feel every component that made up the bionic limb, no doubt constructed by the Dark Jedi himself. She'd constructed dozens of cybernetics and had blown up even more, favoring technopathy to scramble what needed to be scrambled, control what needed to be controlled, and destroy what needed to be destroyed.

Green iris rimmed by bloodshot sclera stared savagley back at Zaavik. Her assault was both wild and precise at the same time, aiming to cripple her cousin's hand before he became her murderer.

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Not so chatty now, are we?" Zaavik rebuked.

The monstrous, vile wave of ardor that had only moments ago fueled a surge through him to generate a sickening aura of power was now beginning to calm. Fury and loathing became tempered with a rational, calculated edge. All the same, Zaavik held onto the throes of that previous empowerment, maintaining the paralysis he'd conjured onto his cousin.

"You really wanna know what happened?" he asked, referencing Yula's pre-quarrel inquiry.

Both of his arms slowly outstretched, halfway and lax, elbows half bent as if to present himself. Paralysis lingered over Yula even without the focus of his hand gripping the air. The Dark Side heeded his intention by sheer force of will. "I've become myself," he asserted. "I've known what I was supposed to be since the night my hatred kept me alive in spite of the fire that was supposed to kill me." His emaciated hand, forever since maimed by an inferno, drew the attention of his regard. It closed back into a fist, causing a subsequent tightening of the telekinetic restraint he had over Yula.

"No more pretending. Last time we met, I was..." Images of the Sith spirits on Krayiss flashed in his mind. Anger still festered on those memories, indignation still came to life at their mocking, accusatory laughter. "Naive, weak, holding onto something I was never meant to be." A shake of his head ushered in appending sentiment; "No more. I've become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. I've learned to do things that you... You could hardly wrap your little tramp head around."

"Zaav…"

"Shhhhhh-" he whispered, waving his hand dismissively toward her struggle to reach out to him.

"There is no pleasure in this," he assured. "Invisible ties are the strongest, and I have to cut them. Even if it pains some hidden part of me."

Crimson blade flourished with foul anticipation. "It has to be this way. You understand."

Zaavik's arm raised backward, preparing for a final horizontal stroke. Yet, at the last possible fraction of a second, Yula's perseverance threw another spanner into what should have been a smooth work. Tenacity, yet another way that they'd turned out so similar, aggravatingly so. Artificial grasp wavered beneath the sudden electrocution, wrist servos spinning at full orbital oscillations. Plasma retreated into the hilt at the lack of grip pressure, the hilt clattering to the floor. Zaavik snarled, emanating an annoyed crepitation.

Manufactured nerves spasmed, all joints flexing in unintended directions. Dull, phantom pain shot up his arm in a line. Arcs of energy writhed outward haphazardly, sending sharp jolts whatever they could reach. Despite this, Zaavik's grip on Yula was maintained, although it wavered significantly. Ignoring the catastrophe taking place at the pinnacle of his dominant limb, his other arm moved slowly, deliberately, swinging a still-suspended Yula the air away from the wall of the Child's room.

"You're only-!"

Thud. He hurled her in the opposite direction, slamming her into the apartment wall.

"Delaying-!"

Wham. Once again she met the wall with confounding force.

"The inevitable!"

Crush. Wall plaster crumbled into fragments, leaving a cloud of dust growing from the point of impact. Synthwood studs and their metal braces snapped as Yula went through the wall and into the child's room on the final strike.

Now free, the offending hand grasped the metallic wrist, indifferent the electrocution it was subjected to. Zaavik's own supernatural sway over the mechanical endeavored to tame the storm. His ring finger exploded, sending a spark to singe the skin over his right cheekbone. Force of will battled the unseen usurper for several agonizing moments, eventually freezing the hand into a hooked position, far from something fit to wield a lightsaber.

Another frustrated grunt, and he resolved to pull the backup blaster he was known to keep holstered at the back of his waist with his organic hand. Thumb flicked the safety off, causing tibanna cartridge to whine as the gas was pre-condensed for a shot. Doggedly, Zaavik skulked forward, blaster at the ready as he stepped through and into the child's room.

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula wasn't unfamiliar with the Dark side. Not on a personal level—she'd encountered those who'd harnessed the malicious part of the Force in battle countless times. They were different. Faceless, impersonal opponents she had no ties to.

What kind of hatred forced you to kill your loved ones? The pursuit of power? Destiny? She couldn't understand it. Yula thrived on bonds; familial, romantic, and platonic alike. Everything else was useless if you became untouchable and thus, unable to touch.

Her body crashed through the cheap lumber and Yula was discarded into a heap on the floor of the baby's room. Her world was spinning, underwater, and somehow it felt like she wasn't even there at all. Fists curled and uncurled against the carpeted flooring as she struggled to find purchase enough to push herself up, but even the slight flex of her abdomen coaxed a shudder of pain along her trunk. A shaking hand drifted over her ribs and she counted.

One...ouch, tw—fuck.

Bruised or fractured, it all hurt the same. Dax's wail grew louder, cutting through the muffled sensation of burst ear drums and a concussed brain, right to the heart. She may not have been his biological mother, but as far as she'd been concerned, Yula saw him as her son. Reputation for being a tramp be damned.

She had instincts, too. Right now they were screaming at her to get them both out.

Attempting to right herself, Yula stiffened, head lolling to the side as a gurgling gasp gave way to bloody vomit. The Zeltron knew that this wasn't a fight she had wanted, but now it had become clear that this was one she could never win. Not without sacrificing her morality.

Hands splayed out beneath her, Yula dragged her beaten form closer to Dax. "Shh…" She tried to soothe the crying child, using the posts of his crib to support herself as she rested her busted ribs against the railing. "It's…" Yula inhaled sharply, finding it difficult to speak. It hurt to even breathe, but the critical nature of this scenario and a fierce surge of adrenaline kept her broken body moving.

For a moment, Dax quieted. It was strange. The toddler had been standing at the edge of his crib, and now a tiny pink hand was placed atop Yula's bruised one. He stared up at her with watery eyes and a messy, tear-streaked face. Violet hair like is father. Eyes like his mother. Above the crib, framed on the wall, was a pair of baby booties and a single coin that had been slipped into them. A gift from his biological mother before sending the infant to live with the only blood relative of her child she'd come to trust.

Zaavik stepped through the threshold of the crumbling wall. Hovered over the baby, Yula exhaled a sharp breath in resignation of what she'd have to do next.

Zaavik and Dax were both her blood. She'd promised Aaradia that she'd keep her son safe from the influences of both the Jedi and Sith—but which one did Zaavik count as? He'd disappeared. They'd assumed he was dead. He was here to kill her. It had been a long time since she'd trusted him to do the right thing.

Yula's nostrils flared as she leveled her gaze on Zaavik. Every desperate instinct she had—love, protection, preservation—swelled in the Force, giving her the strength to muster a final stand. She fell back on one of the earliest skills she'd been taught by her mother: the creation of a simple barrier, combined with the advanced manipulation of energy she'd learned from Caltin Vanagor . The result would produce a titanic wave of unyielding, electrified Force that came crashing towards Zaavik, framed by a raw scream of desperation and anguish.

A few seconds. That's all I need.

The moment her assault ended, she opened the window and wrapped her arms around Dax, hoisting his weight against her bloodied figure. A recognition dawned on her addled mind.

It's not that I'm nothing to him. It's that I am something.

The adrenaline would run out soon. She had to make this last.

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Urgency wracked the mind, calling forth a reflexive raise of his left forearm a split second before the arc of energy reached him. It hit him like a blunt object before dissapating into a surge that overtook his figure. Stray strands of hair began to raise under the influence of imbalanced charge. Muscles seized across his upper body, even his fingers, one of which coiled involuntarily around the trigger of his blaster. A scream erupted from the muzzle, throwing a bolt of red across the room and into the wall just above the child's crib. Plaster-dust expanded rapidly into yet another haze, this time accompanied with distinct smell of burning domicile.

Defiantly, Zaavik flexed against the electric seizure of his arms. Force of will directed the energy assailing him into his prosthetic, causing yet another overload that detonated the remaining extremities down the frame. Energy dissapated by expansion, causing the air within the immediate area to become highly charged with forceborne electromagnetics. Static pins and needles flickered behind his eye, agitating the vestigial remants of an optical prosthetic long ago replaced by a biological implant. Every inch of his face felt like it was on fire, contorting into a painful grimace as he pressed forward.

Dust swirled in his wake as he dashed through and out of the bedroom, following Yula on presence alone where sight was obscured. As the dusty veil evanesced with proximity, Zaavik reached forward with the hook-shaped frame that still remained of his prosthetic. Charges equalized on contact, crepidating a painful shock as the hook snatched her shoulder. With one tug he'd terminate Yula's attempt to flee, spinning her and and by extension the child around to face him. Zaavik wanted her to see him, know what she faced before he did it. Blaster raised, he slid one step backward, bringing the gun just out of reach of a defensive wrest.

It could have ended there, a simple squeeze of the finger to bring his intention to fruition. Yet, he found himself stricken with an inexplicable paralysis. It wasn't another Yula's tricks this time, but rather the horrifyingly familiar verdant regard that gaped at him with abject fear. In person, the visage of that child struck him like lightning unlike anything the force could conjure, a current that he could assert no influence over. Air was snatched from his lungs, and his heart painfully skipped a beat.

Nothing he'd ever experienced was this staggering.

"No," he croaked in disbelief. At once, understanding began to rush in. As if those eyes weren't unequivocal enough, he could feel the truth emanating from the boy's very presence; a radiance in the force unlike any he'd felt before. This wasn't Yula's child. Zaavik teetered a step back, head shaking in noncompliance to the reality that had suddenly struck him, grinding violent trepidation to a eerie halt. "No fucking way," he contended, desperation gleaning through fury.

Apprehensively, the blaster lowered from it's dead-centered aim between Yula's eyes. That descision remained at disharmony with the murderous intent that still burned. Benath it, a miniscule, enduring semblance of empathy scratched at the force from somewhere sealed in the back of Zaavik's psyche. Empathic space became flooded with a roil of uncertainy and competing intentions. Revealed truth was the nexus of that storm, one of the few circumstances to ever scramble his pertinaciousness into indecision.

"How did you-? When did-? What? What!?" he stammered, eyes shifting between his cousin and his son.

Every plan was now little more than mnemonic rubble. Reality demanded a different course. How could he have known? What could he have done? What do I do now? Being at a loss for direction and answers only frustrated him further. Blaster snapped forward again, barrel staring down the space between Yula's eyebrows. This time, the intention felt more desperate than malicious. "Answers," he demanded. "Everything."

 

[Yula Perl]

The corner of Yula's mouth twitched upwards. A smirk. Not exactly the expression of triumph, but an acknowledgment of how fucked up this entire situation was.

How did they get here? How had she gotten here, alone and battered and holding a baby as her cousin shoved a blaster in her face with murderous intent?

Yula's hazy gaze tightened on Zaavik. The shock of recognizing his child had temporarily chased away the animosity.

"W-"

Even the vibration of her own vocal cords hurt, sending a painful shudder though her abdomen. Yula paused to hack to one side, leaning her wright against the crib.

"We thought you were dead."

There wasn't really anything to gain from lying, even convincingly. Maybe some small part of Yula thought that this would inspire some humanity in Zaavik.

Dax clung to her chest, sniveling as Yula wrapped her arms tighter around him. The Force had been a chaotic backdrop to their fight, and now she drew upon it, gradually but steadily imbuing the baby with a measure of light-sided protection.

"She trusted me to protect him from the Jedi and Sith alike."

Yula thought back to her first meeting with Darth Daiara . They'd both tracked Zaavik's last known location to a safehouse, surprised to find each other but no Zaavik. Aradia hadn't even known she was pregnant at the time, but a tenuous level of trust began to form between her and Yula. That culminated to a baby on her doorstep. By the Force, she was becoming her mother.

Dax pressed his face into Yula's collar and began to wail. He was frightened. So was Yula. She pressed a hand to his back, rubbing gently while staring down Zaavik sternly with two rapidly developing black eyes. The protection she'd imparted into Dax would likely be enough to shield him from a killing blow, just once.

"What will you do next, cousin?"

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"We thought you were dead."

"You should've known better."

It was almost disparaging; the assumption that he'd perished. They were so quick to draw conclusions as if everything he'd done didn't prove how capable he was. He could have cared less what they thought about him or where he'd gone, but such a blatant and pointed lack of faith struck an already tender nerve. A sneer crept across his face, nose turning up whilst the accusing point of his blaster steadied notably.

"She trusted me to protect him from the Jedi and Sith alike."

"She trusted you?" he restated as inquiry, tone laced with doubt.

Radiant with contempt, Zaavik's magmatic gaze narrowed. Scrutiny contorted across his face, disbelief reigning despite his inability to sense deception. in Yula's claim. Aradia could hardly trust her own shadow, never mind a stranger. It felt like a foolish notion to think she'd give up their child, yet undeniable evidence to the contrary was right in front of him, fearfully clung to Yula's chest.

"What will you do next, cousin?"

"Shut up!" Zaavik snapped.

He needed silence, he needed to think, he had to think. Frustration blustered, emanating thick psychic distress onto the air like Corellian smog. Every dot connected, every calculation hastily considered contributed further to the aura of mental suffocation. Teeth clacked and ground against one another, succumbing to the influence of the mental roil. The Child's presence was an interloping appeal to compassion and moral rationality, anchoring itself atop what was left in its Father's mind that remained capable of that flavor of consideration. With every passing estimation, the ends grew less and less justified in the face of his means.

Grasp trembling, the intent around his blaster grew progressively darker before hitting a wall. All at once, his drive to squeeze the trigger diminished along with the arm that pointed it forward. Plummeting to the end of his arm's reach, the handheld armament swung faintly at his side, all ferocity that had once gripped it now utterly flaccid. Zaavik spat something half-hushed and particularly vile in his native vernacular, lamenting for another failed attempt to end something on account of some lingering glimmer inside of him he'd been unable to quell.

"I didn't know," he maintained as if it weren't abundantly clear. Conception was the farthest thing from what they had intended, but such was the nature of youthful folly. Looking back, the outcome seemed inevitable one way or another, but the overwhelming indignant sentiment that it shouldn't be like this wouldn't budge. It felt vexing, unfair, and devastating all at once.

Nonetheless, deep defiance was branded on his soul; a refusal to be like either of his parents.

Now, anger began to preside once again. Aradia had done their son as his mother had done him. Zaavik hadn't known, hadn't been there, but here he was now, ready to cross a bridge he'd never intentionally burned. Fingers were going to be pointed, but so far he was the only one not willing to toss his progeny aside. Never in his life had he been so resolute about anything. Decisive, certainly, but here and now he felt immovable in this conviction, not just stubborn. Perhaps it was a sudden parental instinct or even spite towards the wrongs he'd suffered. Both, most likely.

Yula was going to have a hard time believing such a shift. She was hardly in a position to stop anything, but for the sake of tiptoeing around this new, delicate obstacle, he'd play the game as he had to.

"What's his name?"

 

[Yula Perl]

One dark eyebrow arched upward.

"We were?"

The intervention of his child seemed to curb Zaavik's murderous haze, at least for the moment.

Yula watched him carefully, still steadily drawing in esoteric power to coalesce around the child she was cradling protectively. The realization that he'd unknowingly procreated was a lot to handle, and Yula felt a trickle of sympathy for the turmoil Zaavik must have been going through.

Just a trickle, though.

One hand clasped around Dax's exposed ear, the other having been pressed to her collar when Zaavik cursed in their native tongue. Yula shot her cousin a glare for swearing around the baby.

"You were gone, Zaav. Neither of us could reach you, and by the Force, she was a scared kid all alone an' pregnant. What was she supposed to do?"

Some would say that the Perls were cursed. Disappearing dads, chaotic lives, and dramatic twists. At least things never got boring.

Yula bounced the distressed child as he whined against her, pressing her lips soothingly to the crown of his head.

"Dax." She muttered, but her voice would carry in the tense silence of the room. Sirens wailed on the road below, passing the block entirely. Yula glanced towards the window, then icily at Zaavik.

"You should leave."

Zaavik Perl

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Dax."

Zaavik echoed the name thoughtfully, a hint of recognition apparent in his voice. That was a name he recognized, the name of a Perl relative, though he'd never met them personally. A realization set in almost immediately: There was no way she would have known that name. A quiet, wry snicker swelled into aggrieved laughter that lacked any real vigor, failing to rise above the volume of conversation. Outrage boiled behind every emittance, the rhythm slowing to a sinister cadence.

"She didn't even fucking name him."

"You should leave."

"No," Zaavik seethed. "You know what has to happen now."

It was the inevitable conclusion to Yula's revelation. Whether she lived or died no longer mattered. Now, it was a matter of refusal to repeat the transgression of his parents and estranged lover. Nothing short of death would see him fail now. Slowly, the blaster raised from his side. It remained low, though once again trained on Yula. Twitching, the prothestic claw reached out expectantly, arm raising and parting to one side.

"I will not allow him endure the same fate that I and his mother had to. You will surrender him to me, or I will take him from you."

There was an almost Jedi-like certainty in the declaration.

"Whatever you choose, the outcome remains the same. The only variable is how you come out the other side of this."

 

[Yula Perl]

Every word Zaavik spoke rang in her head, tasted metallic in her mouth. Yula knew that she was fading fast, exhaustion and blood loss creeping in as darkness at the edges of her vision.

She'd prolonged her consciousness enough through sheer will and manipulation of the Force, but even that esoteric power had its limits.

"If you don't want him to grow up like you guys did," Yula slurred, fighting back the oblivion that threatened to swallow her. "You'll leave us alone."

Yula gasped, sinking to the floor with Dax cradled in her arms. Lips unable to move, her whispered voice would echo in his head, playing on that thin thread that still tied them together.

What can you give him besides your pride? Do you know how to be a family, Zaavik?

Slumped protectively over the toddler, Yula grew still and silent.

Zaavik Perl