Private In Vivo Veritas

[Arris Windrun]

NAR SHADDAA
THE DARK LANDS
Tags: Nilira Vornix

A few weeks after To A Flame...

Arris summoned Neriah back to the Smuggler's Moon, down into the Dark Lands. There, like a setting star, the restored power plant glowed. It was a beacon now, something that few down there could ignore. When Neriah got closer, she'd see they were no longer alone. A handful of thugs guarded the entrance as a small crowd gathered around.

The acolyte was the only one allowed inside. The guards spared her the glares and hostility they showed the rest. If anything, there was almost a cold reverence, like to them she had power they answered to.

Inside, Arris could be found at the top - the control room converted into a small base of operations.

"Neriah," the cyborg greeted with a glance over her shoulder. "Remember that Gamorrean?"

She had since repaired her vocal emulator.

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"Of course I remember."

That was one thing Neriah prided herself on. Her memory. Of course, it also meant that she remembered every the good and the bad. And for the past few months, all she had been remembering was the bad. Not that it mattered either way. Not that she complained about it anymore. Neriah had learned that complaining was pointless. It only made her more vulnerable. More of a target.

"What's come of it?"

She had assumed there was something wrong with the Gammorean. No-one looked the way it had, naturally. Even when she had dissected it, it seemed off. Not that she was an expert on xenobiology. Most of what she knew was history. Not science. Biology, chemistry, physics? The complexities were lost on her.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Tag: Nilira Vornix

Arris waved the young woman along and walked down a hall, into the back of the facility, where a storage room was converted into a makeshift lab. She had hack scientists working around the clock, the kind of people who undoubtedly had the backgrounds, but lost their licenses and legitimate careers for one reason or another - ethical violations, substance abuse, fraud...

There were corpses on the table, a variety of sapient species, and all had the same growths as the Gamorrean they found. A few of them were in rather severe states of growth, as if whole trees sprouted from their rotting flesh.

"It spreads, apparently." She said. "The growths themselves are inorganic, too, so it's exotic if natural..."

One of the technicians perked up. "Bioweapon... has to be." He returned to his work and kept mumbling about it.

Arris shrugged, then looked back at Neriah.

"What do you think?"

Whether she was an expert or not, Arris apparently trusted the acolyte's perspective.

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

Her gaze flickered over towards the technician, glaring at him for a moment. Even if her face was still expressionless, there was a cold gaze in her eyes as she tilted her head to the side, folding one arm along her front as Neriah seemed to stand her ground against this techincian.

"If it was a bioweapon, what's the purpose of it? Death? Infection? Control? If it's for death, it's not fast. It's dragged out. If it's infection? How does it transmit? How infectious is it? Are there immune? And if it's for control? How are they being controlled? Have you seen if they respond to radiation? Radio-waves?"

...Whilst she still may not have been an expert on things, Neriah at least knew what an expert would more than likely be looking for. If they did respond to radiation and radio waves? Well...She had no response to that. Instead she walked over towards the corpse, pulling her glasses down for a moment to get a better look.

"Where are they being found? Are they all in this district?...What do they all have in common? It could be a bioweapon, and they're using this place as their testing grounds. Or it could be targeted. Some kind of serial...infector who thinks they won't get caught out here."

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Nilira Vornix

Arris gave Neriah a playful slap on the back, then grinned at the technician.

"See?" She snickered. "I told you she likes to talk."

It was good to hear productive words this time. The cyborg remembered their last discussion in the Dark Lands - illuminating, but heavy, and not the kind of conversation Arris found herself comfortable having... it reminded her too much of pain better buried.

The technician answered the acolyte's question. "Nothing in common 'cept they're all from the Dark Lands," he confirmed her second inquiry.

"Only thing is the numbers. If this was an attack, why here? No one gives a fang rat's ass about this place."

A door on the other side of the room opened, and a woman walked in. She carried a black metal box, worn around her neck by thick straps, with dials and a small screen on one side, and an instrument on the other. She placed it on a table, and the technician explained.

"We need more samples. The scanner is tuned to the inorganic compound, it can sense it within seven meters. Once you confirm a match, collect a live sample and place it in the device tray." He opened up a small compartment on the bottom, releasing a haze of icy fog. A freezer, essentially.

Arris looked to Neriah expectantly.

"Well? Put it on. I'm sure you can figure out how it works."

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

Neriah didn't even react to the slap against her back, minus a small stumble. Instead her gaze was still focused on the corpses, frowning as the Technician elaborated that they were all found in the Dark Lands.

"...Is it something to do with electricity? The lack of it? Maybe it operates better in darkness. Or maybe electromagnetic fields have some kind of effect on it..."

Theories. More and more theories were coming to her mind as she cupped her chin between her index finger and thumb, frowning in thought. Though her eyes then flickered over towards the Technician, giving a nod towards one of his comments.

"That's it. No-one cares about this place. None of the people here are under the protection of a Syndicate. Anything that happens to them, no-one will care. People are a resource. Some of the Syndicates know that. They'll look after their people...to an extent."

And then came the black box. A small sigh escaping Neriah as she knew it was going to be her newest fashion accessory for this mission. Running a hand down her gaze as she started to throw it over her neck, making sure that any straps were tightened.

"Time for me to be the guinea pig, I suppose."

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Nilira Vornix

"Yeah yeah," Arris said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Let's roll."

Together, they ventured deeper into the Dark Lands, well out of range of the power station's glow, until they were reminded of the district's moniker. The people who lived there were many, like anywhere else on the Smuggler's Moon, despite the limited power available to them. They made due with generators, and some with chemical fires. Anything to heat, light, cook...

But they weren't here to be xenoanthropologists. Arris stopped, turned, and looked at Neriah when the acolyte's device began to click.

"What is it?"

They had stopped at the center of a small community, maybe a few hundred people at best, within a converted warehouse. A common experience on the Nar Shaddaa. Fortified microcosms, united by something or another. Reminded Arris of home.

Somewhere among these people was an infected being - perhaps more than one, and it was Neriah's job to determine who. Hopefully, their state wasn't as severe as that Gamorrean.

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"It's obvious as to what it is."

Neriah said rather simply, as the device began to click. Right now, her focus was on the job. The task at hand. It was time for her to prove that she could do what she was told, to the letter. Do what was needed. So whilst in the past, she might have felt pity for the community, she cared little for it. She had to figure out what was going on. And how to stop it from spreading...Well, the spreading part wasn't that important if she thought about it.

For now, she just took her glasses off her face for a moment, and focused. Letting the Force flow through her gaze as the walls and people seemed to grow ever so slightly translucent. Her eyes scanning along as she slowly paced through the community, hands held behind her back as she paced throughout the warehouse.

"You. Head outside. Stay out there. You as well. And you."

One by one, she seemed to point her finger, demanding that the people she pointed out obeyed her. She didn't scream authority. Not at all. But any who didn't listen to her would feel a sudden intense burning sensation, wherever Neriah's gaze seemed to focus on, which swiftly lead to them hurrying out of the warehouse...Though Arris would perhaps notice another thing the Acolyte was doing. Apart from dealing with the people, Neriah was seemingly...blocking off exits. Some side doors would be welded shut by her lightsaber. Holes within the warehouse would have crates or barrels moved into place with the Force...

"...That's all of them I believe."

With that, Neriah walked out of the warehouse, assuming that Arris would be right behind her. Yet the Acolyte stopped before reaching the exit, turning her gaze towards a drum, roaring with flames, used to keep the people down here warm, with the lack of electricity alongside acting as a source of light...but for Neriah, it was about to be a source of purification. She held her hand out, willing the flames to grow. To burn hotter. To escape their confines and as the flames were at their hottest...Neriah Pushed the barrel over. Letting the flames escape and spread amongst the people and what little furnishings they had, before simply stepping out and using her lightsaber to weld the people inside.

"Can't risk it spreading. In case I missed someone."

Then her gaze simply turned towards the four infected Narshians that stood outside the warehouse, their own gazes transfixed on the sight of the warehouse they had called home and a community spewing out fumes and smokes out of the available windows.

"...Well. Let's get going. Shall we?"

She said rather simply, emotionlessly and cold, pushing her glasses back up onto her face...and turning her lightsaber towards the infected.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Nilira Vornix

Somewhere along the way, this stopped being what Arris wanted. But she didn't stop it. The cyborg followed the acolyte in silence, even as the young woman's twisted plan became painfully aware to her. Something sank in her stomach, one of the parts of Arris that was... well, Arris. Meat she grew from the day she was born. Her vagus nerve commanded a phantom body to squirm. Impulses otherwise suppressed by complex cybernetics, unless Arris allowed it.

And she did - resisted the urge to suppress those feelings. There wasn't a purpose to it; she was just afraid of being numb to this.

When Neriah coaxed the flames and knocked the barrel over, it was a point for her to stop the madness. To stay the acolyte's hand and explain this wasn't the plan at all. They needed samples, after all, but Neriah saw a plague to contain. It was the Talusian's fault for not explaining her plan more clearly, however. Her fault for not interjecting or stopping her.

"...Well. Let's get going. Shall we?"

Arris was only a leg away from introspection when the indigo-headed woman pulled her back to reality.

Fingers clawed through messy blonde hair to scratch her head. A rare bit of 'ganic instinct that offered no relief to her numbed scalp.

"We need one."

One.

"Fuck."

This was dark, even for her.

Something else twisted up inside, but it wasn't disgust...

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"Oh."

That was her response to Arris saying they only needed one. Neriah had thought she was being smart by getting more. It gave them more samples to work with. More living samples. But...Arris knew best. Neriah wasn't here to think for herself. She was here to do what she was told, as she ignited the purple blade once more, advancing onto the infected, even as they started to back away from her.

Heads most definitely rolled as she slashed the blade over at the first one. Then came the second one, having ran a fair distance already as Neriah raised her hand, before flicking it to the side as the second infected collapsed down to the ground, their neck snapping with her hand movement. And as the third one held their hands out, as if to beg for their life...Neriah simply cut through both the hands and their neck, letting them drop down to the ground, before she disgnited the blade, clipping it onto her belt, as she glanced over towards the fourth infected, frozen in fear.

"Congratulations. It's your lucky day."

Neriah said simply. Clinically. Unblinking. In the same way she had taken the three other infected lives in a matter of seconds, without breaking a single sweat. But it was simple enough to kill those unarmed. Her gaze flicked back over towards Arris.

"...Did I do it right this time?"

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Nilira Vornix

Was it really that easy?

Again, there was that new feeling inside her. She wanted to see how far Neriah would go; how far she could push her.

She watched the acolyte carry out her instructions with no discernible hesitation. It was like watching a droid follow its programming. What wasn't clear, however, was whether Neriah's obedience extended beyond her. The thought made her angry, until she realized it had, and then she felt...

Arris turned away and ejected her guts as soon as Neriah began to kill them. Blood, coolant, and bits of -- rotten flesh? That was new.

Then, there was a twinge of pain. Like she had been stabbed in the stomach.

When Neriah threw her gaze back to Arris, she'd see the cyborg with arms folded around her gut. Arris stumbled away from them, throwing up more until all she could do was dry heave.

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"Did...I do it wrong?"

That was what she thought the problem was. Not that she had slaughtered a bunch of innocent people in cold blood. Not that she had done what Arris had asked without any hesitation. Without any question. Because...none of those thoughts came to her mind. She wasn't here to be some moral guiding compass. She was a tool. A tool that dealt with whatever problem Arris had pointed at.

"...Are you getting sick?"

Her gaze hardened for a moment. They only needed one infected. If Arris was sick...then...Her eyes flickered over towards the fourth infected who seemed to be having the same thoughts as Neriah, evident by how much they seemed to be panicking. Even as Neriah seemed to step towards them, slowly but surely, like the cold approach of death.

"...It's getting bigger. Y'know. That darkness inside your head. It doesn't hurt to look at anymore."

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Did...I do it wrong?"

Arris managed to look over her shoulder. Still hunched over.

"No - the only thing wrong here is me," she thought, but did not say.

Was she getting sick? Funny. This had happened before. Several times. For a long while now. Long enough that she forgot when it started. Long enough that it was normal... for a little while. Until now. Until she looked down at her hand and saw flesh. Whatever she threw up, it wasn't food. Arris didn't eat. Not that she couldn't, she just never needed to. There were more convenient ways to supply her body with energy for longer.

Neriah approached the fourth. Arris drew her revolver and put a slug square into the infected's skull. Then, the revolver fell out of her hand with a heavy thud as it hit the duracrete.

"...It's getting bigger. Y'know. That darkness inside your head. It doesn't hurt to look at anymore."

She wasn't aware of it until Vestra Tane exposed her co-processor to the world. But now she knew exactly what the acolyte meant, and recalled her former words.

"...The Force flows through all parts of the body. Naturally. It flows equally. But...not with you. It's focused. It hurts to look too hard. When I look...It's like I'm staring into a dark void. Absent of Light...It's unnatural. Even the Sith I've came across has some form of Light...But it's as if all you are is Darkness...As if you've bathed in it. Yet...at the same time, I don't sense it from You. I sense it from part of you."

The way Arris now looked at her wasn't with fear or self-disgust... She was sad.

It had been so long since Arris felt sadness that wasn't self-pity, since even before she fell to the Dark Side.

When she looked at Neriah now, she realized something. That all of this was disgusting. That they - She, Mercy, Vestra. All of them. The whole fucking Covenant needed to be put down.

"No."

The cyborg felt the command with clarity. She felt no longer in control, as if her body belonged to another mind, but she was fully aware of her senses.

Arris walked towards Neriah. Steps turned to stomps. An angry march. A glare on her face. She stopped short of the acolyte and swung the back of her hand, not to strike metal to flesh, but to unleash a wave of telekinetic force.

"You're too distracted." She lied, her voice low and cold.

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

She had done it all wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong. The word just repeated over and over in her head, dozens of times before the infected corpse even hit the ground. She couldn't even do orders right. What could she do right? She couldn't even die right. Her body refused to let her. As much as her mind and heart might have wanted her to.

You're wrong. Everything you do is wrong. You move wrong. You talk wrong. You breathe wrong. You do everything in the wrong way. You're an affront to everyone who looks at you.

They were back. After so long, the voices were back in her head. And with them...came an overwhelming sense of sadness. Sorrow. No anger, no fear. Just...simple sadness. So strong that she couldn't even stop herself from crying. Neriah didn't even realise she had been crying as the tears were running down her face. It didn't feel natural. It wasn't as if it was Neriah's own sadness. More...as if it was compounded. By all the death. The torment coming from the burning warehouse, as soot started to fall from the air, staining the crying Acolyte's face.

"I'm-I'm sorry...I-I'll do...I'll do better next ti-"

Neriah never got to finish her sentence. The sudden wave of telekinetic force catching her by surprise as she was sent hurtling through the air, before rolling and scraping against the cold hard duracrete ground beneath her, her glasses smashing on impact as the ground scratched and cut away at her face, bringing back a feeling that she had not wanted to come back.

Pain.

Not the kind that filled her with her anger. Not the kind that filled her with rage. No. It was the kind that caused the Acolyte to pull her knees up to her chest. To wrap her arms around her legs, and to just...sob.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please! Stop hurting me. It hurts. I'll be good! I'll do what you ask! Just stop the pain."

For as emotionless and apathetic as Neriah was...There always came a breaking point. The dam couldn't always hold it back. And this had been her breaking moment. Within time, the dam would be fixed. She'd go back to being cold. The pathetic crying version of herself would be shoved back down where not even sunlight could touch...but in this moment? That version was out. Visible. The side of Neriah she had been trying to hide. The part that had wanted to be a Jedi. The part that had tried to bury itself so deep it couldn't be hurt again.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Nilira Vornix

She watched the acolyte fly across the empty street as if an effortless feat. That was the power of the Dark Side. A Jedi or a particularly technical Sith might try to classify or define what Arris had done to Neriah, but the cybernetic mutant never would. She was angry, and she struck Neriah; that was all that happened.

Whatever bitter feelings Arris had felt moments ago had been denied. She continued to march after Neriah, only slowing her pace as the distance was swallowed. Her hand reached down to unclasp a holster, metal fingers inching their way across the grip.

Arris looked down at the young woman. A cold look of contempt, or at least an approximation from those lifeless cybernetic eyes.

She saw through Neriah... or at least made sense of what she saw, and believed to had found the truth. Her fear.

"I died once," Arris said. Her voice was no less low. "And here I am." She had always guessed at the truth, but it wasn't until recently that she accepted it.

"If you die... If you die - I will bring you back, just the same. And you will live, just like I do."

The Dark Side rewarded her words with pleasure. Like a hit of spice that she had never tasted, had built no tolerance to. It was great.

"The way you are now?" Her hand wrapped around the grip, and slowly she drew her revolver.

Arris chuckled. "Shit... You don't know how bad it gets, kid."

She gestured to the acolyte's lightsaber; that act alone gave it a nudge with the Force. "But you're lucky to feel that way, yeah?"

The end of the barrel faced Neriah. "Because you'll need everything in you to stop me."

She fired a single round right past her head. The slug buried itself into the duracrete, splashing little pieces of it like shrapnel.

"So come on then. What are you going to do?"

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"No...No...No...I don't want you to bring me back...Please. I just want to...sleep. Forever. This pain..."

Even as her lightsaber was nudged, Neriah's hand went out for it. Her body was screaming at her to fight, even as she kept her hand pressed down against the ground. Her mind didn't want to fight. Not anymore. It was too much for her. The emotions rushing through her mind. The sorrow. It was so much easier when she had been working off apathy. Hatred and anger had been excellent fuel for her, but that had ran out. And whilst she was filled with sorrow and dread, it wasn't something she could use. Manipulate as easily as the rest.

The Acolyte didn't even flinch as the round went past her head. Even bits of shrapnel shot off, some snicking past Neriah's skin, the Acolyte just pushed herself up to her knees. It was pathetic in a way, how she was begging. It was true, whenever she told herself she wasn't a Sith. She wasn't. A Sith wouldn't be on their hands and knees, wanting the pain to stop. They'd make it stop themselves. They'd use their own strength. But Neriah had none of that. She had no strength.

"I don't want to stop you."

It was the truth. She didn't. Arris might have believed that she had found Neriah's fear. A fear of death. But she was wrong. It wasn't something she hid herself away from. That she ran away from. No. It was something Neriah was seeking out. In her own way. Something that would just exhaust her to the point that she couldn't fight it.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Nilira Vornix

She approached the acolyte slowly and knelt in front of her, maybe half a meter away; if that. Her eyes were locked like a predator's gaze, with violent intentions emanating from her glare.

The cyborg slammed her gun into the duracrete like a fist.

There was a moment of reflection, for Arris alone to know. She slid the barrel of her revolver across the ground with a scraping drone until its cold, metal frame pressed against the young woman's cheek. Her other hand reached to grab her by the collar, and Arris rose at the knees, dragging Neriah to her feet and then off of them until suspended.

She leaned forward, towards her ear, and whispered. "Don't mistake what I meant... I wasn't offering you death. I'm denying it. You can't hurt me, so why would I kill you? And I'm much too interested to let anyone else kill you instead."

Arris leaned back so Neriah could see her smirk. "Face it, girl. This is your life now."

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

Wails. That was all that echoed through the sky, even blocking out the roaring flames of the warehouse nearby, as Neriah sobbed. There wasn't anything she could say to this. Nothing she could do. There was no anger. No wrath inside of her. Just pure sorrow. Pain. Suffering.

She could have released it. Let it all out. But to her, Arris had made it plainly clear. She did not care for when Neriah thought for herself. When the Acolyte did what she thought would impress the instructor. No. She wasn't meant to have a will. Wasn't meant to make her choices. She was meant to do what Arris asked of. After all, Arris had said this was her life now.

And so she sobbed. She wailed. The Acolyte broke down in this exact moment, unable to do anything. The safest thing for her to do was just to just...shut off. Which is exactly what happened as in the blink of an eye, she stopped. The tears. The sobbing. All of it vanished, even as her face was streaked with tears, and her eyes were red and puffy, the Acolyte just...stared ahead of herself.

​

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Shit."

She looked down at the girl. How was Arris supposed to be angry now? She wanted to be, but she couldn't. And she couldn't go back to feeling guilty about it either.

Arris looked around, eying both ends of the street, then brought her gaze back to Neriah.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Arris confessed. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

It didn't really matter if Neriah understood her or cared to.

"I'm not going to kill you..."

There was a pause for the words to hang in the air.

"And I won't punish you for wanting to die."

Of course, why would the acolyte trust her now? Arris looked down at the weapon in her hand and felt disgusted again, but who did she feel bad for? Was it the broken girl on the duracrete before her, or was it the one whose shell she was trapped within?

Without knowing what else to do, the cyborg sat on the ground beside her.

Nilira Vornix

 

[Nilira Vornix]

Tag: Arris Windrun

"I just wanted to make someone proud. My master. You. Anyone. But it's pointless. Making anyone proud. Making anyone happy. It just causes pain. More pain. More suffering. No matter what. I can't do anything right now."

Neriah just knelt down on the ground, her gaze just firmly staring ahead of herself. Not looking at anything in particular. There wasn't much left in her now. At this current moment, she was more than a small shell of herself. It didn't matter how much Arris tried to explain herself. Tried to justify it. Her words were no longer being taken in.

"I am not strong. I am not brave. I am not smart. I'm...pathetic. Always have been. Always will be. I'll never be on the same level of the others. You have proven that. They earn praise. They get pride. But when I try...I only get hurt."

It was a repeat of what she had said earlier. No matter how hard she tried, it ultimately just led to more suffering for her.

​