Foreigner

[Disciple]

[member="Vrag"]​

Imperious​

Hyperspace​

​

Red eyes snap open, glowing softly in the dim light of the medbay. The Chiss struggles momentarily, wondering why he's underwater before he realizes his eyes aren't stinging, and he's got a breath mask on. Stripped naked save for some underwear, he's floating in a tank of what he could only presume was bacta. Good, you're awake. A frown creases his lips. An eye twitches.

He scans the medbay, eyes taking in the monitors, the pumps. There's no clock or calendar, he doesn't know the day or how long it's been. He just knows he's alone, that no one is here. The lights are low. Perhaps it's the night cycle. A doctor will probably be around shortly to check on him while the others sleep. You don't leave patients in critical condition alone. The eye twitches once more.

Break out.

"No." He rasps, voice muffled by the plastic covering his mouth. Reaching up, he pushes on the lid, finding it not budging. He frowns, putting more pressure into his shoulder as he presses it up. "Lusk." Fine.

Feeling the well of power open up within him, he uses the Force to tear the lid from its hinges, setting off alarms. The world devolves into the incessant beeping of a heartrate monitor going into overdrive, and the hiss of a locking door as the medbay seals. Containment protocol, most likely. They don't know him. They don't know his medical history. For all they know he carries diseases they've never seen or heard of.

Pulling himself from within the tank, he tears the breath mask off the moment he is able and lets it fall back into the liquid. Stretching himself out, finding his pain gone, he blinks and slicks his hair back atop his head. Standing in front of the door, he waits until it clicks unlocked, and a pair of guards in hazmat gear enter. They carry weapons, though they aren't raised. The first is knocked out with a fist to the windpipe.

His compatriot finds himself on the receiving end of a blaster rifle stock to the temple. Hefting the weapon, he steps outside, looking to the doctor. "Sith. Organic armor. Where is she?"

The faint glow suffusing the Chiss subsides, and he rolls his neck with an audible cracking and popping. "B-Bridge, most likely." Astaire smiles, the gesture entirely without warmth. They'd likely been alerted he's awake.

He doesn't care. They don't know what to do with him. He doesn't even know what to do with him. You're quite prone to violence. "That was you, Lusk. Not me." Making his way to the end of the corridor, he opens the turbolift and steps in as the alarms are shut down. Keying in for the bridge, the semi-naked Chiss stands patiently, waiting for the lift to take him to his destination.

 

[Vrag]

Unlike her companion on the escapade a few hours prior, Vrag hadn't suffered any injury worth of note. One of the guards had gotten a knife between the plates of her left arm, slicing deep into the underlying extensor muscles as it cut through the bodysuit. An unpleasant side-effect, to be sure, but nothing some sartorial magic could fix.

Her forearm, on the other hand, was already as good as new. Apart from some residual stinging along the line of the wound now denoted by a thin silver demarcation, Vrag was completely unburdened by the evening's events.

Well, save for the urge to put a dent into that bottle of Corellian whiskey she kept in her desk, a temptation to which the woman had promptly succumbed some minutes ago.

The amber liquid was slowly burning its way down her throat and into her belly when the alarms started blaring, and it was only through sheer force of will that the woman managed to keep the fine drink down. It would be a shame to spit it all over her workstation for several reasons, chief among which was the delightful taste of the quality alcohol.

The alarm? She wasn't terribly concerned, and whatever worry had arose was quickly put to rest once she'd pulled up the relevant footage.

[member="Drana'stair'eno"] was awake.

Predictably, a holocall soon followed, and the firrerreo responded with a poorly concealed chuckle to her voice as the officer on the other side tried to babble his way into certain death. Honestly, what was so difficult about a simple 'I'm sorry'? Vrag had never understood the need for all the rampant begging and pleas the sycophants were wont to throw her way when things went south.

"Yeah, yeah. The bridge, sure," she dismissed him mid-sentence and dropped the call as she rose out of her chair, fiddling with the flapping material of her bodysuit for a moment before deciding against it. Her left arm shot out towards the shallow aquarium against the wall of her cabin, and a small smile played at the edges of her lips as the Vonduun crabs happily crawled out of their pool and wrapped themselves around her limb with well-practiced motions.

She let out a hiss as the legs sank in place, and then the Sith Lord and her organic armor were off to intercept the chiss with an attitude problem before he started chit on the bridge.

Because no one started chit on the bridge but her.

 

[Disciple]

She's not on the bridge. Astaire blinked, the lift already slowing as it neared its destination. "I'm sorry, Lusk. Did you just tell what I think you just told me?" Technically you didn't think it. I did. Astaire snarled, lips curling with disgust. Part of his saucy demeanor was that he got it regularly from Lusk, and thus had an intense desire to dish it out to anyone nearby. Which is likely why the first thing the mostly naked Chiss did when he stepped onto the bridge was grab the nearest man by the collar.

"The Sith." He hisses, eyes darkening and breathing rate increased. She was not here. They'd been led astray. Though, really, it had been Him that had done the misleading. A Sith was not impossible to find on a ship of sycophants, after all. Through the background noise one need only find the heart of darkness and go from there. Where did the noise avoid? Where was the empty space?

You have found your Sith. A babbled response comes in his way, though Lusk pays it no mind. She was on her way. Astaire lifted his head, sniffing at the air like a bloodhound finding scent. His eyes shift, moving towards the turbolift. The blaster drops as the barrel is pointed towards the ground, the deck officer being released in the same instant. Exhaling through parted lips, he shifts about uncomfortably.

Where they were, why they were, he wasn't sure.

But perhaps [member="Vrag"] could actually prove to be of more assistance than medical.

 

[Vrag]

She stepped out of the lift to a scene she wasn't used to seeing on her ship, or on any other ship that happened to be under her command. That being said, it was a very familiar one despite of it, because the typical Sith Lord thought it prudent to punish their crew for no good reason, and then had the audacity to be shocked when said crew eventually organized a mutiny and shot them in the back.

Sur-karking-prise.

"Touch my people again, and I'll vent you out the airlock in pieces."

Why say hello when you could threaten lethal violence right from the start?

"I see you're healing well," the woman continued without missing a beat, motioning for the blue boy to follow as she started down a side corridor. "Any particular reason why you tore out of the bacta tank?" And rejected my hospitality? Her tone wasn't harsh, or daunting, or anything else in that vein, but there was an edge to be felt that could possibly alert the man that he was treading a rather thin line.

Well, it would possibly alert the sane man to the fact. What the possessed chiss might do was far more unpredictable, and really the only reason why Vrag had chosen to keep him around. Unpredictable could be… unpredictably fun.

Plus there was something she needed to put to the test, and who better to do it with and/or to than an expendable madman she'd picked off the street? It was practically Christmas.


[member="Drana'stair'eno"]

 

[Disciple]

Ha! You tempted fate yet again. "Shut up, Lusk. That was you. You're the reason I am where I am." And don't you ever forget it. Following the woman as she made for a side corridor, blaster held in a light grip, he blinked a bit. Only a Sith would be unfazed by a crazy man in his underwear on their bridge. See. She's agitated. "Hatch wouldn't open. It was locked. I don't enjoy being trapped. Lusk may or may not have taken things into his own hands."

Honesty may work for you in this case. I doubt it, though.

Exhaling slowly, eyes scanning the corridor, Astaire trailed after the Vong armored woman-man-creature-thing, entirely unsure as to where they were off to. He had a feeling he didn't much want to know. There was a purpose to her stride that said she had a plan already. That could go either way, ultimately. "Where are we going." Not them - the ship. He wanted to know where he was going to be let off.

Where did this ride stop?

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Lips threatened to curl back into a sneer beneath that helmet, and try as she might, Vrag couldn't care quite enough to resist the urge. The man, for all the downsides of his crazed mind — or split. or shared. Whatever — was quite amusing in his madness, and entertainment was the one thing that the woman found to be sorely lacking in her life. There was a fine difference between unadulterated hedonism with which some of her fellow Sith pursued the pleasures of the flesh, opiates, or even Dark side, and light-hearted mischief that soothed the soul, if but for a few moments.

The firrerreo, to her own surprise, was growing fed up with the former and starting to crave the latter. Odd, really, but there was nothing to it. It was simply how she felt.

"Right. Muzzle that rabid dog, or I will," she said, cocking her head to the side to glare at the man through the sockets of the skull.

"Nowhere. We're here for the time being." In space. The thought didn't amuse her.

"Get in," she then added and gestured to a set of intimidating blast doors that would lead them into another elevator and then further down into the bowels of the massive ship, towards a particular lab — if it could be called such — that the woman kept on the Imperious for times when pressing matters kept her away from Selvaris.

"You tolerate pain pretty well, don't you?"

[member="Drana'stair'eno"]​

 

[Disciple]

[member="Vrag"]

Blast doors. Elevator. A highway to Hell, or whatever foul ending befit individuals like them. "I can attempt, but... Sith are not easily restrained." He says, giving her a pointed look. Stepping into the lift, he set the blaster down and clasped his hands together in the small of his back. Did he tolerate pain well? That depended. He tolerated it long enough to get something accomplished.

It bothered him, in that way pain is wont to do, but not unduly - generally speaking. "That would depend upon what the pain is for." Be careful what you say. She may just torture you for fun.

Astaire smirked.

 

[Vrag]

The woman pointedly ignored the glare boring into the side of her helmet, arms crossed on her chest as they rode the elevator down. Levels of the ship passed them by in momentary flashes of light, and it seemed like they would never reach their target until abruptly, the lift came to a stop.

The Hand stepped out and started down the corridor with long strides, trusting that a healthy mixture of fear, greed, and curiosity would urge the man to follow.

It wasn't long before the firrerreo pushed open another door, back straightening with lines of pride as she observed the din of activity in the lab. Before her stretched a spacious hall divided into smalle workstations and isolated rooms where figures moved with intent and purpose from one space to another. Shapers, aliens, and humanoids alike worked side by side, undeterred by their cultural differences in the heat of discovery.

Well, the orders also helped.

"How about exploration of new horizons, Astaire?" she spoke, gesturing to the people rushing below. "Are you a coward…"

"or are you a pioneer?"

[member="Drana'stair'eno"]​

 

[Disciple]

Into the bowels they went, to where he wasn't sure. But he got his answer as they stepped into a research center of some sort, no doubt one devoted to more... flesh-concerned pursuits. Inhaling deeply of the scent of forced change and blood, he gave her a studious look, lips curling into a ghost of a sneer. To most, it was the barest of shifts in the line of his lips, but to a Chiss it was an overt display of emotion.

"I have a ghost in me that says I plunder the depths no matter the risk." He retorts.

You dig your own grave.

Astaire's eyes shifted in that manner that said he was now addressing his passenger. "And you need mind your tongue." The Chiss had a sharp, snappy tone, one that equated to a verbal lashing.

"Show me what horizon we march towards, Sith."

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

She scarcely spared the man a glance as he entered another short-lived bout of argument with the ghost in his head, her eyes content to roam the bustling activity below. It would be false to claim that her heart swelled at the sight, for the woman had long abandoned those properties of the organ that did not directly serve to keep her alive, but something did stir inside her; something that one might call pride.

It wasn't exactly her labor, the many creations stirring and hissing and undulating in the laboratory below, but there was a fair amount of sweat and blood involved, some of it certainly provided by the Sith herself (though perhaps not in the conventional sense).

"Come."

The thud of her chitin boots against the metal steps was easily drowned out by the din of activity coming from the many creatures populating the large hall, many of which weren't even close to human; some towered well above the level of the elevated entrance through which they had come, some were too small to be seen by the naked eye, and others still looked jarringly… ordinary. If there was anything Vrag had learned in her many years of dealing with the scum of the Galaxy — and staring at it in the mirror, from time to time — it was that the worst of monsters hardly ever looked the part.

Instead, they were in the innocent smile on the street, in the curious glint of a fleeting gaze, in the passing touch of a stranger. They were, by and large, utterly unmemorable.

"Astaire, this is Shaper Yarla Kwaad."

"Bow."

Like, say, an unassuming chiss with a wide grin and merry eyes.

[member="Drana'stair'eno"]​

 

[Disciple]

Astaire knew a set up when he smelled one, but sometimes you didn't care if you were being set up. Sometimes, the outcome was actually enjoyable. He doubted that would be the case here, but for some reason he found himself none-too-perturbed by the situation at hand. Vong and scientist worked on all manner of beast, all of which could be ostensibly termed 'ugly.' But that was alright, not everything need be pretty.

Sometimes the most beautiful creatures were the least attractive.

The Chiss blinked at Vrag, and then shook his head. "I bow to no Vong." He says, having puzzled out that this Sith was not Vong herself.

[member="Vrag"]

 

[Vrag]

Vrag quirked an eyebrow at the response, then let out a short, bark-like laugh. The chiss, for all his insanity and dialogues, reminded Vrag of herself in many ways. It was rather odd, to be honest, and even somewhat unpleasant, to have a mirror of yourself walking beside you, however broken in might be.

But broken as he was, he would not bow.

"I like you," she said and clapped him on the back. Grasping him by his bony shoulder, the woman would lead him away from Yarla Kwaad without so much as a glance back to the Shaper.

"So you do bow, just not to Vong?"

The odd wording required some clarification, and the Sith wasn't one to work with variables. She liked her facts clean and laid out on the proverbial table. Even if they came from the mouth of a madman. Besides, asking him questions would distract him from the reality of where she was leading him.

A lamb to slaughter.

Okay, not really. More like a lamb to shearing, but that sounded less dark and edgy, so let's go with 'slaughter' for the purposes of this post.


[member="Drana'stair'eno"]

 

[Disciple]

[member="Vrag"]

"Sometimes, in the name of survival, you will do that which you normally would not." He intones solemnly, Just as most Sith bow before the might of their Masters. It is not uncommon, slave, for Sith to bow. But perhaps your answer has pleased her. He shambled alongside her, a metaphorical zombie clad solely in medically issued underwear. Sapphire skin was darkened by all the oxygen being pumped through the ships systems, but his gaze was vacant and fixated forward.

There seemed little indication he cared for where they were going.

Perhaps he didn't.

 

[Vrag]

"Fair enough."

He had a point. In fact, he had a very good point. It was a simple, clear-cut way to live. Dignity and honor often prevented people from sticking to it with any fidelity, but [member="Drana'stair'eno"] and Vrag weren't exactly the types to entertain either of those two useless constructs. Survival was always the endgame, and the price never really mattered, because on the other side of that scale was one's life, and that always, without question, outweighed everything else.

With that, she would show him to one of the closed-off testing chambers, with a firm hand on his shoulder that conveyed his lack of choice on the matter. It was for his own benefit, really.

The bastard would probably enjoy it anyway.