I Saw It First!

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=18pt]Coruscant – Undercity[/SIZE]
[SIZE=18pt]Late Night – 2am [/SIZE]


Matsu was not a restless person. Of course she felt emotion to its fullest – anger left her clenching her fists, sadness had her plotting revenge for its creator, pleasure had her seeking its continuation in any form. But she never had trouble settling herself when things were quiet. She lay her head on her pillow at night without so much as a moment’s thought to the things she’d done, to what lay in ruins by her hands. She slept like a baby. So the agitation she felt that night came as a surprise, an unfamiliar jittering that had her clicking the durasteel claws of her left hand back and forth in a metronome that should have lulled her but instead convinced her she wanted to sink them in to something. Work always settled her mind and it wasn’t long before she’d slipped on a bodysuit and dark robes to swath herself in – something hooded, billowing to hide her diminutive frame as she exited her apartments in the upper levels of Coruscant to head for the shadowy, seedy levels below.

Though she lived in luxury relative to the levels below, she hardly noticed the increasing squalor once the night sky was no longer in view, replaced by the artificial starlight of the city’s inner workings closing all its inhabitants in an ever-increasing slum.

This place was perfect.
No one cared who disappeared.

It had been a while since she’d had a chance to sit down and do some real research. She didn’t consider herself a scientist of any sort – she spent too much time in the esoteric, the abstract forms of the Force and its less concrete aspects…the mind, magic. But she’d thought there could be practical applications of the former and it hadn’t taken long to realize she was right the first time she’d spirited someone away. She’d initially thought that if she could learn which part of the brain to tag to stimulate a certain response she would be more effective; the concepts had proven less straight-forward than she made it appear, translating physical properties to something as fluid as the Forces’ effects, but she was on the cusp of understanding.

She wanted a bigger subject, something with a brain large enough to make it easy to see what she was working on. The undercity provided ample opportunity and she prowled along piping and eaves, staying off the street and instead stalking from above – a spider walking the edges of her web.

It wasn’t long before she spotted…a Gorach? At least that’s what she thought it might be, though she couldn’t quite believe her luck. A violent species, it was rare to see them in such low numbers and certainly so quiet and not trying to turn an entire planet to their ownership. She went in closer, preparing herself to drop down and take what she considered hers.

[member="Viktor Romanov"]​

 

[Viktor Romanov]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Viktor operated his lab in the undercity of the city-planet Coruscant, and there was no place he would rather be. The undercity had many different species that were ripe for plucking, many of the galaxy's refugees had ended up down here without a dime to there name or anyone to care. It was these reasons that Viktor was able to spirit the denizens of the undercity away to his laboratory where he was able to practice his alchemy and biometrics on them. Viktor was able to operate under the local authorities view by hiding in his secret laboratory, a place that had many different passages and secret pathways that only he could personally navigate it.

But today he was looking for a beast that had piqued his interest for a significant amount of time, the Gorach. It was rare that one would be seen on a city-planet, especially one of the core worlds such as Coruscant, but this one was even a more peaceful being. Viktor liked pacifists, they offered little in the way of resistance and could be stolen before anyone bats an eye. Viktor wanted this gorach to become the baseline for the prototype of his elite forces, due to the Gorach's special abilities. Gorach's were immortal to ageing and could only be killed after a brutal death, but what interested him most was the warmongering of the creatures.

With a swift movement Viktor left his lab with a handful of stealth droids in an entourage as he swaggered down the streets of the undercity, with citizens hiding from his gaze. Viktor was well known to the denizens of the nearby area, to them he was known as The Undercity Butcher, a name Viktor despised but felt was semi accurate due to his habit of leaving... parts behind.

Eventually the beast was in view, it was a magnificent creature, one that had chose peace over war, it reminded Viktor of his past, but not for long. The stealth droids quickly surrounded the beasts and engaged it, with Viktor standing by with a tall and menacing stature. He watched as the Gorach tried to defend itself, destroying many droids, but it wouldn't last long at all. Soon it would be under the dissection table.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Entering the mind of a species unknown to her was always a learning experience, like dipping one’s toes in to water of a temperature you had no conceivable way of knowing. Every species seemed to have its own mental atmosphere, if you will, to Matsu – a way of viewing things, colored even further by the myriad nuances of the individual. At first she could feel the drum-line hum of war, a frenetic shake of violence from a creature bent on conquering.

She began a crawl from the shorter rooftop she was on, slithering through the pipes that linked and bent at sharp angles all along the bottom of the walkway above the street below (a spider circling her kill deeper in the web). She wanted to drop down, let it see her before she took its brainstem between two mental fingers and wrested control in a heartbeat. But instead she felt an approach. The stealth-droids were properly named, silent in their arrival though what she’d sensed was the push of their master’s mind joining the fray. Their intent was clear – they were both here for the Gorach, a creature seemingly oblivious to their intent but thirsty for their blood nevertheless.

Mine.
She pinched the Gorach’s mind, holding it tight and taking away all thought so he couldn’t run or fight before she turned to the stealth droids.

She paid their owner no heed beyond a watchful consumption of his emotions as she set to work on his droids. Theirs was a strange combination of militant and martial arts as they attacked. She had two modes when fighting: an icy concentration with a focus honed on her objective, or a rage fueled by her surroundings. The former was on display as she raised a hand to dismember the first two droids, their arms and legs splitting from their torsos in a shower of sparks. The other two had a few seconds to gain on her as she disassembled their brethren so she let out a burst of energy from her cybernetic palm, wide and only a fraction of her power as such things usually needed to be developed.

If it did the trick his droids would be lying on their back and she’d only have him in her way. She reached out gently in to his mind, speaking softly. “The Gorach isn’t attacking only because I’m controlling him. How do you think you’d fare if I let go?”

[member="Viktor Romanov"]​

 

[Viktor Romanov]

Viktor was surrounded by an air of achievement as his prize was so close to capturing the Gorach beast, the stealth droids quietly surrounding the clueless beast ready to subdue it and bring it to his lab. He would finally be one step closer to creating his own army like the great Exar Kun, he smiled at the thought of his own achievement, blinded by his own smugness. It was during this blindness that everything began to collapse around Viktor as his smile turned to a bitter frown behind his mask.

His prize had somehow been unjustly taken from him by this woman who emanated a dark side aura that was so putrid it would make most people gag, though if he was not what he is now Viktor would have missed it. The woman was obviously very strong, even Viktor could not deny her that. The way she had so quickly and efficiently made the Gorach completely submissive to her aroused Viktor's interest in her. Though that didn't stop him from being disappointed at the loss of his prize, the beautiful specimen stood there in a dazed trance that he could not awake from.

Any chances of Viktor being able to save this mission from complete and utter failure disappeared along with his stealth droids, Viktor was amazed by how she easily destroyed all of them finally settling in his mind that she was obviously of a master calibur. He still kept his defiant pose through the entire unfortunate event, not showing any signs of shock or submissiveness. That's what you need to survive in the Sith, they were as like to cut each other's throats more than any Jedi's.

Then the woman bartered for his attention, which he gladly gave.

After the threat had been made Viktor raised the beam cannon on his right shoulder and stared defiantly, sure in his own righteousness. "I do believe I could manage, but I need that Gorach alive. He is to be the patriarch of my experiments" Viktor was in no place to throw demands, but he could not show weakness to his superiors. So he stood there with his apathy and ambition showing for all to see.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

If she had wanted she could have ended the conflict then and there, gripped his mind and made him still so she could dismember him with ease. He didn’t feel quite as organic as most minds she was used to but it was a quality she recognized in herself; her cybernetic arm gave off a scent most mentalist’s would chase, a clue – a void – that would give them answers before they saw the monstrous wrought durasteel and titanium. He felt distinctly more…changed.

But regardless what she might have done and what she would do were entirely different matters. Her Master had been Jared Ovmar, a man who at the time of taking her on had been a Sith Lord. Before his death though – or disappearance, shift in the temporal plane to another dimension, who even knew with him – he had named himself a rogue (though never, ever to be accused of being less underhanded and get-what-I-want than he’d always been). It could be safely assumed that Matsu would never follow in those particular footsteps, bad-apple as she was, but an apprentice was allowed her intellectual differences with her master. However, in most things she agreed with him wholeheartedly and here, in front of this stranger, one of their core and mutual beliefs came in to play: it was better to play a situation to one’s advantage with care and thought than set something ablaze simply because one can.

The word ‘experiment’ caught her attention amongst the boast (a claim she could respect, a harkening to the prototypical Sith). All she needed was the creature’s brain. “What kind of experiments?” If he would give her use of the creature’s mind while it was still alive and unharmed, he could do whatever he wanted with it after. If anything it would just eliminate any work she would have to do removing its carcass from her facility, and Matsu was all about expediency.

However she wouldn’t share with just anyone.

Without another word she snuck in to his mind, subtle and slithering, crawling over the surface before burrowing her way in to brain matter. It was a simple thing, pain – a basic sensation, a biological warning: move, move, you’re not safe! If she used anything more complicated it was unlikely he would escape her grasp. She’d cracked Jedi and Sith far more trained (because she could feel the Force licking at his heels). But if he could fight her off with any measure of competence she would share. Perhaps.

[member="Viktor Romanov"]​