Private Mr. Crowley

[Eloise Dinn]

Eloise had barely spoken a word to Diogo since they left the Blue Inferno. It may have seemed like she was giving him the cold shoulder, but in truth she was simply emotionally depleted after their explosive confrontation. The anger had faded and now all that was left was bitterness and hurt. She did regret some of the things she had said and done in the heat of the moment - and there were other things that remained unsaid and undone - but it would all have to wait until Anton was dealt with.

Diogo's chatter about stolen goods prompted her to glance at the GA logo on one of the warehouse crates. "Where were you when the Alliance fell?" she muttered, only half expecting an answer from him.

"How do you wanna do this?"

She wanted to charge in lightsaber blazing, but that would be neither smart nor the right thing to do. "Sneak in," she replied. "Avoid detection. Use those holographic disguises Nika gave us." For demonstration, she turned on the device clipped to her belt. It made her invisible in such a way that even high-tech cameras and droid photoreceptors were tricked. "I can't sense Anton, but if he's in there, we'll find him. Kill him and get out." She didn't much care about his approval anymore, but she did wait for him to respond, at least.

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

Diogo gave her a full answer. What the hell did it matter now?

"Denon," he said. "I was trackin' down a contact." He paused, just long enough for a smidge of emotion to spill through his otherwise stoney face. Sorrow, mostly. "You remember Charlotte? She was more involved with those underground types than I thought. Someone owed her a favor - I cashed it in. Got me closer to finding Anton... I saw it all on the holonet. Atrisia... Arkania... Seemed inevitable, in retrospect...

You?" he asked.

Diogo watched as she turned on the cloaking device and her corporeal form disappeared. He blinked, once or twice. There was a faint shimmer of light he could detect, being this up close, but otherwise the disguise was perfect for their purpose. He followed suit and activated his.

"Solid plan," he murmured. Truthfully, he liked the killing part. Didn't much care about the getting out part. "Should we head upstairs first?"

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Eloise said nothing, her jaw clenching ever so slightly. Sure, she remembered Charlotte - one of many people she saw die on Hapes. There was even a point during those six agonizing months when she had wondered if Charlotte was the reason why Diogo left her, despite his claims that it wasn't like that when he said,

"I think I loved her."

Not in the sense that he was unfaithful - it was a bit hard to cheat with the dead. But considering the circumstances of his departure, right after they slept together for the first time, it had certainly fed into her insecurities. Maybe I just wasn't good enough for him had been her weepy mantra for a while. But, no. He left in order to protect her from Anton. And once Anton was dead, he would leave again to protect her from himself.

That's just fine by me. I won't wait for you to get your shit together. I saw what that did to my mother.

"I was working as a healer on the front lines," Eloise replied. "Bandaging soldiers' booboos and hacking off limbs too damaged to be repaired, even by the Force." It had been hell, but it kept her mind off of things. Kept her occupied. Kept her... doing something good.

"Depends on what's going on downstairs," she replied. "Better be prepared to improvise."

She headed through the tunnel. Even before she reached the end of the passage, she could hear loud music muffled by the earth and stone, the throb of the bass shaking the walls. There was definitely a party going on...

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

Diogo's lips were shuttered. Her use of the puerile word booboo's was jarring, given the harrowing context, but she was the one knee deep in severed limbs, not him, so casting judgement was unbefitting at best. And who was he to judge... he'd fled, deserted, abandoned his duties.

More guilt gnawed at his gut. His departure made no difference to the GA's fate, but responsiblity was a stubborn beast. Try to tear its claws from your flesh and it just dug in deeper. For all her faults Eloise was there, accepting her responsibility.

That sudden realization hit like a full-throttled speeder. If only he could take back what he said to her earlier.

When they reached the end of the passage a pair of servants scurried down the large marble stairs, muttering something about porgs on the loose. Diogo raised an amused brow.

The corridor was small, and no crevices were carved into the walls. No place to hide. They had no choice but to sweep through the Chandrilan-style double doors and into the boisterous party...

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Though the servant droids were an unexpected obstacle, Eloise quickly adapted, slipping unseen through the double doors - and right into the heart of the party.

Colorful, flashing lights revealed a chaotic scene. The sunken living room, which was as big as some people's entire houses, was packed with dancers. Some of them were guests in plain clothes, while others were clearly hired entertainment in glittering outfits.

Eloise searched the room, darting to one side to avoid a collision with a server droid carrying a tray laden with booze and snacks. That was when she saw him. Dressed in all black, his gray hair buzzed flat on top, Anton Crowley walked across the floor. One of the scantily-clad dancers, a blue-skinned Twi'lek, started to approach him. He politely declined her advances, heading for the sliding glass door leading to the swimming pool.

Every entrance and exit had an armed thug standing guard. Eloise booked it across the room, relying on the Force to guide her path. She caught up with Anton just as he opened the door, slipping through on his heels.

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

The party was lively and colorful, with a profound stench that assaulted the moral senses. One would hardly know, cowered in the opulent living room of the Undine family mansion, that the Galactic Alliance had fallen, that the Sith were steadily marching toward Frego blazing a trail of genocidal destruction.

He hated it. He hated everyone in this room.

Diogo spotted Crowley at the same time Eloise did. Hot on her heels, he ducked a servant droid's tray and danced around a wobbling porg with two droids whirring after. He felt hot in an instant; his yellow eyes spun into molten gold, and it took heroic effort to restrain the proboscises threatening to burst forth from his cheeks.

When he slipped through the glass door, restraint gave way. He shoved Eloise aside, not unkindly. Though how kind a shove could be was, like most things, open to interpretation.

"Anton Crowley," he growled.

Diogo found he was holding his lightsaber in a white-knuckle grip.

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

No sooner had she made her way out, Eloise was pushed aside by Diogo. Her holographic disguise flickered and shut off in response to the stimuli, leaving her out in the open. In an instant, the guns of every guard in the area were pointed straight at her. She reached for her lightsaber.

"It's all right," Anton said, holding up his arms. "These two are with me."

At this signal, the guards lowered their weapons. Eloise still clutched her hilt, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

While Diogo growled his name, Anton hardly broke his stride. He strolled around the edge of the pool, his gait slow and lax. "Hello again," he greeted them as if they were old friends.

His careless demeanor annoyed Eloise. "We're here to kill you," she snapped, not caring if the guards fired on them.

"I know," Anton replied. "I don't want to keep you from carrying out your mission. But there is one thing I'd like to ask you first."

She was in no mood to indulge him, and for all she knew it could be a trick or a trap. "No," she said, igniting her green blade.

"If I'm going to die tonight, I want to know what happens next," Anton continued anyway. "What will you do after you kill me?" He glanced at each of them. "What becomes of Eloise Dinn and Diogo Talon?"

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

Diogo's nerves were on a hairpin trigger, and as soon as Eloise lit her lightsaber his jolted to life too. His head was heavy, his blood boiling. Anton was so... so... casual. If this nerf herder wanted to know what happens next, Diogo was damn well not going to satisfy his curiosity.

He sped forward, his blade driving towards Anton's throat.

That was his answer.

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Diogo lunged forward, thrusting his blade at Anton's throat. The elder Anzat waited until the boy was mere inches away, then moved aside in the blink of an eye. His foot swung out to brutally trip Diogo and send him tumbling into the pool.

He was toying with them.

"I would've expected such brashness from you, not your boyfriend," Anton remarked to Eloise.

"Ex-boyfriend," she muttered. Her gaze darted between Anton and Diogo, her mouth tight. It was becoming clear to her that this wasn't going to work as long as they were fighting over which of them was going to kill Anton. They needed to work together, or else they'd both end up dead.

"Ah." Anton nodded his head at the relationship status update. "It was never going to work out between you two, anyway."

"What makes you say that?" she asked. Making conversation with the enemy might've seemed absurd, but she was trying to keep him distracted. Give Dio time to recover, and then... what? The two of them weren't exactly in sync right now. They needed a better plan of attack.

Anton stalked around the edge of the pool. "Apart from the obvious reasons? This one doesn't have the strength or courage to do what needs to be done. You noticed that even before he left, didn't you? It made you realize your own victimhood. Only you grew out of it... and he didn't."

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

The pool announced his arrival with an undignified splash, and Diogo, stupid reckless Diogo, sank to the bottom. Frustrated as all hell and terribly, terribly angry, the water muffled an elongated scream.

He rose to the surface after a few ticks of a chronometer and climbed out of the pool, lightsaber still clasped in hand. His hilt had a waterproof casing - a personal touch - and whether Anton knew it or not, the blade would still work. He kept it unlit for now.

"Strength or courage to do what?" Diogo demanded, voice slightly raspy. He entertained the conversation, if only for a moment, to catch his breath and look for an opening.

He was still determined to do this his way. On his terms. Just the thought of Eloise still being here ate away at his insides. If she came into harm's way now, after everything he'd done... no, it just couldn't happen. Everything would be for nothing.

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Her own victimhood. Was he right? If Diogo turned his anger inward, she had turned hers outward. She made victims out of the people around her, tearing them down with her words and actions. It was the galaxy's fault that she had endured so much pain, not some vampiric nature.

Diogo emerged from the water, coughing and sputtering but ready and eager to fight still. Anton smirked at his question. "To do something about the lot handed to you by nature, whether by destroying yourself to protect others, or finding a way to circumvent your hunger. Wallowing in self-pity hinders you, boy. It makes you weak. Worse, you project your weakness and cowardice onto others."

He gestured to Eloise. "You've reduced this woman to a mere prop in your turgid passion play, someone to mourn you while you crucify yourself. You barely know who she is, let alone what she is capable of - because if you did acknowledge her power, you'd have to admit that you're not so helpless against the forces of fate."

"Enough!" Eloise interrupted with a snarl. His words smarted, but it was all a distraction. <Dio, you can't take him on alone,> she spoke to him telepathically. <We need to work together, or you'll get us both killed.>

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

He chewed on his lip.

Anton's assessment had some truth in it. A lot of truth, actually, harsh and stinging, enough to sober the drunkenness of Diogo's rage. It wasn't biological imperatives that made him weak, but fear. Being an Anzat made him strong, quick, and resilient... yes, to cower from his nature was to reject his potential. Potential for more than just self-sacrifice. Redemption need not come at the end of a blade turned inward.

He'd sought the elder Anzat's wisdom once. He never expected it to come now, not like this.

But true to form, Diogo's skull was thick, more duracrete than bone. A stubborn little shit.

"My father went feral. You... I don't know what you are. What drives you. But I know you feed, no matter how long you may delay the urges, you feed. And, well... that's every Anzat I know. So why would I be any different? It's inevitable."

Diogo glanced at Eloise after her primal snarl. It seemed like she'd had enough. Her telepathic voice found purchase in his mind.

<You're right,> he said, finally willing to listen. <Let's finish this together.>

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Anton held Diogo's gaze through strands of the latter's dripping hair. "I am not you," he replied. "You are not me." There was a hint of a smile on his lips. "I made my choice long ago, to put myself before others. I don't care if you follow in my footsteps or not, but this whiny attitude of yours - it's insufferable."

Eloise wasn't afraid that Diogo wouldn't hear her voice in his mind. She was afraid that he wouldn't listen. Whatever had happened in the six months they had been apart, she didn't know who he was anymore. If he was so consumed by vengeance and convinced that he needed to protect her that he would turn their mission into a disaster. But she managed to break through that ferrocrete skull of his. He listened.

<Let's attack him together. Use the Force to sense not just him, but me. If we anticipate each other's movements, we can build on each other.> It was an old cliche, but it was like a dance. They needed to know the steps or they would end up stepping on each other's toes. <Strike... now!>

She moved quickly, swinging at Anton's neck. The elder Anzat dodged the blow with equal speed. A vibroblade appeared in his hand, ready to parry.

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

Anton's know-it-all attitude previously made Diogo angry, but the incessant yapping gave way to indifference. The conversation all but over, it was finally time for their blades to do the talking.

Diogo heeded Eloise's instructions. He sensed her intentions, anticipated her movements. He felt her in a way he hadn't in a long time. It was a dance. Like back when they used to fight side-by-side, or back during their first meeting on that Dantooine dancefloor.

Once Eloise swung, Diogo did too. He hoped to catch Anton's blade and force him into a lock, so his next defensive maneuver came slow, if it came at all.

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Despite all the time and anger and hurt between them, Eloise and Diogo were able to find their old rhythm. Soon they were attuned to one another again, moving in sync, fighting on equal footing.

It wasn't often that Eloise felt like she and another person were on the same wavelength. For a few moments, it made all the bad blood between them seem like distant, petty squabbles. Such a rare thing wasn't to be wasted, after all.

Anton put up quite the fight. It was easy to see why the old parasite had lasted so long. He kept up with two opponents battling him in sync, making sure every opportunity was taken, every blow matched. But he couldn't hold out forever.

Eloise saw an opening - not for her, but for Dio . The revelation radiated outward, transmitted not as a coherent telepathic thought so much as an impulse. There. Take the shot. Finish this.

Kill him now!

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

He felt a psychic nudge, his spine pulled like a puppet's string.

His blade carved upwards, its sizzle a roar. Diogo smirked, and Anton's arm from the bicep down plopped pathetically to the ground. Next came a shatter pistol, suddenly firm in the Jedi's hand. Point blank, Anton's knee, an explosion of flesh and bone. A crueler injury. There was some satisfaction in that.

Now came the final blow. The drawing of the curtain. The death of Anton Crowley.

Diogo's lightsaber arced, mighty, sharp, the full weight of vengeance...

Then it just... stopped.

The blade hovered mere inches from the elder Anzat's neck, singeing hair but not biting flesh. Illuminating his pale neck with a suffused blue light that seemed almost calm.

"Stand down, Anton," Diogo commanded, with labored breath and chest held high. "It's over."

Mercy? Offering mercy? That was interesting. Hadn't been a conscious choice.

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

"Stand d—"

Heedless of Dio's words, Eloise's lightsaber sliced cleanly through Anton's neck before he had a chance to collapse from his blasted knee. Breathing hard, covered in sweat and a bit of blood from where his vibroblade had nicked her, she stood over the headless corpse of her enemy and roared.

Battle was often cathartic for her, but this fight was particularly satisfying. She had hunted down and eliminated the man who had nearly eaten her brain, one of the most brutal and grotesque ways to die out there. Of course she was glad he was dead. She'd even take pride in having killed him.

But then, realization transmitted through their battle bond. She looked at Diogo, eyes wide. "You were going to let him live?" she asked incredulously. "Why?"

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

Diogo watched, mouth agape, but otherwise lacking facial expression. Anton was dead. Relief should've washed over him.

His golden gaze shifted uneasily to his roaring companion, and her wide, green, incredulous eyes. She appeared crazed; bloody, sweaty, breathing hard. He wanted to reach out but he didn't dare.

Eloise had always found catharsis in battle, he knew, and though it could be unsettling at times, it never quite scared him - until now.

Nevertheless, he tried to answer her inquiry.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I think I wanted, or needed, him dead too bad."

He tried to wrack his brain, to find someway to explain it to her. "That probably doesn't make sense... It felt like a craving, like an Anzati one, and somehow I found the strength to resist it."

Eloise Dinn

 

[Eloise Dinn]

His explanation was... fine. Eloise didn't really get it, but it made more sense to her than the moral grandstanding she had heard from other Jedi. As if killing a mass murderer in a duel was somehow worse than every atrocity said murderer had committed.

"Well, I killed him to stop him from eating any more brains," she said. Her danger sense flared, and her lightsaber swung around, deflecting a blaster bolt from a guard back at him.

The partygoers inside the house had watched the whole thing, their rapt faces pressed to the windows. They didn't seem to care about the loss of life. It was just more entertainment for them.

"We need to get out of here," Eloise said, deflecting another shot. She started running toward the pool gate, blocking blaster fire as she went.

Diogo​

 

[Diogo]

Diogo got the impression Eloise wasn't convinced by his reasoning. Couldn't blame her really... he didn't expect her to understand, as bummed as that made him. Perhaps one day she would, if she ever confronted her mother. If she ever freed herself from being trapped in the armor of her own psychological defenses, that thing which made the galaxy so black and white.

"Sending his ass on a one-way trip to Azreal would've achieved the same," he replied.

And he could keep your mother company, he didn't say, for fear he'd up like Anton. Diogo had grown quite attached to his head, empty as it was.

"Where to?" Diogo asked. He ran towards the gate, deflecting blaster fire with practiced ease.

Eloise Dinn