Private Nar Shaddaan Nightmares

[Isar du Vain]

NAR SHADDAA,
UNDERCITY - DARKLANDS

Night lay over Nar Shaddaa, but the urban sprawl refused to sleep. Far below the reaching fingers of its skyscrapers lay the undercity. Much like Coruscant, it was place of squallor and utter lawlessness. Only worse, for on Nar Shaddaa the corruption ran far deeper, down to the very core of the moon itself.

Beneath the Red Light Sector, a turbolift shaft led to the Darklands. A place utterly devoid of electricity, where the worst denizens dwelled. Standing in front of the turbolift was Isar, the nearby neon playing shadows across his face as he puffed on a cigarillo. He'd a hand stuffed into his spacer jacket and leaned against the permacrete of the shaft with a bored expression.

Few people passed by in the alleyway. Never alone. Not the type of place you walked alone, absent a certain caliber of hunter. Which Isar happened to be. He'd been given a job by the local Syndicate rep. Someone had been snatching bodies off the Red Light. Made it tough to do business when people were freaked to even go there in the first place. Oh sure, they knew it was seedy, but that was one thing. Getting disappeared was another. Isar had managed to track down the source of the problems, sort of, to a gang of slavers - operating without the consent of the Syndicate - right under the Red Light sector in the Darklands. They'd use those tunnels to go straight to a nearby spaceport and then traffic the bodies elsewhere.

Isar's job was simple: kill them all. Send a message, right?

And since the job was killing slavers, he figured it would be the perfect opportunity for his new acquaintance, Alcariel , and so had dropped her a line. Now, he waited. Odds were, she'd show. Not every day you got to go practice shattering minds on some hapless slavers.

 

[Alcariel]

​

Seedy or not, it was probably unwise for Sael to walk anywhere alone. Sure, her eyes and the depth of red of her skin were startling, striking even, but nothing about her composition imposed.

Ashline Terminal was probably the only place on Nar Shaddaa she could walk around with some levity and not look like someone's next meal ticket.

Thus she did not walk alone this night either. So close to her side was a giant Lasat, long leather jacket, massive fists, that they looked companionable.

Far from it. To the massive cat creature, Sael was the only alluring thing that could keep him from drowning in the sea that shouldn't have belonged on Nar Shaddaa. But he was now convinced that this low down, the world could burst and flood at any moment. And the only lifeline was the little red, white haired Zeltron. He glowered menacingly at anyone whose eyes lingered too long, cracked his knuckles if anyone stepped too close.

Mercy didn't necessarily approve of Sael's readiness to accept Isar's invitation — for two reasons: Misandry (of course) and trying to encourage Sael not to give second thought to slavers.

But it was impossible not to. For all the power she was coming into now, she'd spent her formative years in terror. Lost her mother and her only friend. How could she say no?

And besides, Isar fascinated her.

"Retrieval services?" She asked as soon as she saw him, bathed in a neon glow and puffing away. Was he high? He said often..

Recalling the crash after the high, her stomach flipped.

"Hell of a location. Coincidence or you keeping tabs on our mutual Mercy?”

She stepped forward, just a foot or two away from her bodyguard.

But the Lasat did not depart just yet. Even though he was fascinating, she wasn't sure she could trust him fully. And Mercy would kill her if she'd come all this way to meet the tattooed Zeltron just to be taken advantage of.

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Isar du Vain
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​

 

[Isar du Vain]

The orange-red ember of the cigarillo pulsed with an indrawn breath, a tiny hearbeat in the shadows cast by the glare of neon signage, then flickered dark again. Threads of smoke curled up around Isar's face. Through the haze, a lilac stare studied Sael and her imposing, furry friend. Isar took a moment, seeing past the physical toward those strands of emotion threading between the Sith and her companion. Fear and subjugation could turn even the most imposing warrior into little more than a meat puppet.

Isar took his cigarillo between finger and thumb and tapped out some ash on the ground, which he ground beneath his heel, actions disguising the flicker of disgust that flashed across his face.

"Depends. She the one what's snatching blokes off the Red Light and sellin' them?"

But no. Not exactly Mercy's speed. This tamed Lasat though? It had Mercy written all over it. He tilted his chin back, peering down his nose at the odd pair.

"Cute. This her idea? He even have a name?" he jerked his chin at the looming behemoth, who puffed out his chest even further in response, if that was possible.

Oddly, the sight of Sael with the Lasat made him think of Jogon and he wondered what his Dashade friend was up to these days. They'd cut a similar sight, only he hadn't been liquifying Jogon's brain the whole time. Maybe he should have.

"Nevermind. Doesn't matter. I found a hideout full of your favorite type of people, slavers, yeah?" He jerked a thumb toward the turbolift behind him. "Figured you might enjoy blowing off some steam. Practice and such."

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Isar already knew the answer to his first question. She could feel it. Sael only gave a sly, tight lipped smile in agreement to his conclusive no.

But the idea? Yes, sort of. Mercy looked at Sael like a tiny little thing. And at the Kaggath, she'd been very concerned someone would take advantage of her. And this district Isar had invited her to reminded Sael of every dirty place she'd ever been before — where she'd been small and unprotected. Now, she could solve half of the problem.

"Partially." She answered, despite him giving her an out.

Should she feel bad that she didn't know the name of the Lasat at her side? Names were precious things. Born of love, usually, a gift from mother and father to child. Something they could wear and grow an identity from. She'd never been given one properly. Just a price tag, again and again, until For Sale became her stand-in.

"You can name him if you like." She pat the giant's arm and looked toward the lift. The sound from the Lasat sounded almost like a purr.

"But he's not for you, don't worry. His job was to keep the streets from taking advantage of me." Her eyes slipped from his violet watch to his moustache and back again.

"You're not going to take advantage of me," .. again.. "Are you?"

White hairs slipped over her shoulder when she tilted her head to the side, considering a fresh thought.

"He wasn't going to come with us. Unless you want some extra muscle?"

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Isar du Vain
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​

 

[Isar du Vain]

"Don't care, love." Isar flicked the cigarillo away into the street. "Bring the nameless slab of meat if it makes you feel better."

He punched the turbolift button for "down" with a finger. A low, whirring hum came from below, along with some rattling. Definitely needed to be serviced.

"But seeing how I wasn't the one who wiped his mind, bloke's not my responsibility to name, savvy?"

Some wisdom? Nah. Isar just didn't want the emotional toll for when the big guy got his head blown off without knowing where, or who, he was. Sael wanted that burden? She could have it. Isar had done more before. And worse.

The tattooed Zeltron pursed his lips and looked down at her with dead eyes.

"As for taking advantage of you..."

The turbolift chimed, door squealing open.

"Not unless you want me to." His lips twitched, the memory of a smile.

Isar stepped into the turbolift, pushed the symbol for the lowest level, then tucked his hands into his jacket.

"You coming?"


Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Having the Lasat tag along did make her feel better. At the very least, it was a good exercise for her ongoing manipulation.

​

Silently she entered the lift. So did the Lasat. The thing was ill-maintained to the point of wobbling a bit under the duress of the sudden weight change. Isar and Sael were relatively normal, the Lasat added an unaccounted for extra poundage. Sael put her hand out for balance.

"What's your plan with this? How does this usually happen?" His invitation had been vague, but it didn't matter. She'd been delighted at the concept. All he had to say was killing slavers.

She appraised him, leaning against the lift's glasteel wall at an intersection of bar supports.

"You look lightly armed."

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

"Well, people like you and I are never unarmed," he tapped his head, then pulled open his coat slightly, showing the butt of a blaster pistol peeking out from a shoulder holster. "But I always bring insurance. We go in, turn them against each other - there's a thing I can show you. And then-"

Grimacing, Isar got pressed into a corner as the bulky, furred alien stomped into the turbolift to join them. The vacant-eyed Lasat took one look at the buttons for the various floors, then started poking at them, a small smile on his too-big head.

"Hey, stop that."

The Lasat lowered its finger slowly, looking disappointed and distantly threatening. The buttons for a half-dozen other floors now glowed brightly.

"Fuck's sake." What had he been saying?

The first floor dinged. The doors opened. Isar stabbed the button to close them. They started downward again.

"Anyway, shouldn't be too hard to find them. Nobody else lives down here. We'll sense them and-"

Ding.

Floor two. Isar stabbed at the close doors button again, then closed his eyes and let his head thump back against the glasteel.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Drawing a blaster and using her mind and chemistry to manipulate someone were two very different timetables. She'd rather be armed with something that could truly pierce a hole through a chest, rather than the delay of trying to sort through fears and emotions and finding a way to use those against someone.

"You trust your mind to work as fast as pulling a trigger?" She asked, voicing her concerns. Maybe that was the thing he'd show her: Speed.

Part of the reason she liked Isar's company was the familiarity. While Mercy was all muscle and brawn, she didn't understand the nuances of mentalism. Just found herself in awe of it from time to time. And she'd said she would set her up with another fearsome mentalist but Sael had enthusiasm and doubt of equal measure. What would be the benefit to this new teacher, what would she want from Sael in return?

Isar was a little clearer — he was stoked on kinship.

And — hung in the air, finished only with the mechanical ding of the lift. The Lasat looked vaugely pleased, eagerly looking at each floor as the doors whirred open. Despite being gateways to entirely different worlds, no level looked remarkably different than the previous. Just...neon and grime at each stop.

"And..?" Sael encouraged, leaning from her spot to close the lift door.

They descended one more. And then two more, and for a brief moment, it seemed as though the lurching stops would end— oh, nope. The Lasat had only missed two floor's buttons. The rest still glowed.

Ding.

"Hopefully timing isn't everything tonight."

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Isar du Vain
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​

 

[Isar du Vain]

Isar muttered something under his breath and started patting his coat for another smoke. He thought he might be out. That was just his luck.

"Yeah. We sense them. Then we kill them."

The man sniffed, mustache twitching, and jammed his hands back in his coat pocket as they continued to stop at nearly every floor on the way down.

"Don't over think it."

That was his motto. And he'd gotten here this far hadn't he. Where "here" was and how far he really wasn't sure, but he was still amid the living and as long as he could get a drink, a smoke, or a f-

The Lasat suddenly yawned and stretched both arms out in the cramped compartment, making Isar retreat further into his corner.

"Overgrown monkey lizard."

They finally arrived at the bottom floor. Isar tugged at his jacket as they exited. He was starting to regret bringing the meat puppet with them. Stretching out in front of them was a long, utterly dark alley. Isar pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on, showing that the alley led to a larger plaza at the other end. Probably used to be like a market square, back when this place had people instead of insects and traffickers.

"Why don't you have him wait here and guard the exit." Isar thought that sounded like a plausible excuse for saying this idiot isn't coming with us one step further.

Reaching out with his mind, he felt for presences in the Force of living beings. Just as he thought, it was not so difficult. Unfortunately, there were a lot more than he expected. Over a dozen. And he couldn't tell if those were the slavers... or the slaves. Probably the slaves.

"Got them. They're across that plaza, probably an abandoned warehouse back there that they use as a camp."

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Don't overthink it. Was that good or terrible advice? She was sure to find out one way or another. Probably by the end of the night.

​

The absolute distress her Lasat guardian caused Isar did not go unnoticed, and she couldn't help but giggle. In her past life, this never would have flown. Any discomfort she caused to others, intentional or otherwise, always came with punishment, not begrudging tolerance. It was another flavour of freedom and she revelled in it.

"You don't want to keep getting cozy?" Sael grinned, stepping from the lift and giving a pat to the Lasat's furry elbow. It grunted in response but crossed his arms to look like the lift's personal bouncer. With a gentle brush, Sael delivered the suggestion across the ridges of its mind and it took no further steps to follow the pink-red pair.

Sidling up next to Isar, Sael stretched out her own awareness. Not that she didn't trust him to report faithfully, this was his job after all, but she wanted all the practice she could.

It felt revolting. The whole place reeked of the worst kinds of wants: Petty greed, desperation, hunger. All muddied together until she almost missed the sharper thread wound through the plaza.

So many of the feelings, she understood, felt familiar, and pulled at her gut in the worst way — albeit they were fuzzy and not clear enough to deeply understand. But the whiff was enough to incur nostalgic tremours. She moved her hand up to pinch the inside of her elbow, snap her out of a recessive state. She pushed herself beyond the familiar, seeking the foulness she'd detected earlier.

She followed the most pointed, and traced the anxious flickers in the dark to one of the men. His fear was sharp, metallic. The edge of a knife. He was afraid of losing his voice. Somewhere in his mind, she saw the image of him gagged, throat cut open, the sound stolen from him forever. A slaver who lived by barking orders, reduced to nothing but a silent, useless mouth.

Sael took another step forward, deliberate, toward the far side of the plaza. Her pulse thrummed with the urge to peel him open and see how far that fear could stretch.

"We should get closer, I've found a hook." She touched the back of Isar's hand, the only exposed part of him readily accessible with his jacket, and probed for him to open his mind to her. When, and if he did, she'd share what she seen.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

"Eh?"

Burgundy eyebrows pinched together at the touch of her fingers against his hand.

"Not really the- oh. Yeah, sure."

He let her in, their minds flowing together as oil and water, mixing but never quite losing themselves in depth of the other, just dwelling upon the surface tension. Isar saw as she'd seen and the corner of his lips quirked up. Create a mute? Not bad, not bad.

We can do better.

Infect his mind with the fear and watch how it fractures his willpower, then, when he's at his weakest. You dominate his mind, like you did that Lasat's. You break it and turn him on his fellows. He'd be only too willing, yeah?

Their footsteps sounded absurdly loud in the alley's absence of sound and they quickly crossed out into the open plaza, where Isar felt the glare of his flashlight was more of a beacon calling all that lived in the shadows to come take a bite than provide any further light.

Goin' dark.

He clicked it off and stowed the light, then pulled out his blaster pistol and checked it. Full meterage. Safety off.

Go time.

Walking confidently, enhancing his night vision with the Dark Side, Isar led Sael to the entrance to the warehouse. Ahead, he felt the presence of a guard posted outside. They could just blast him, but that would alert everyone inside. Better to start with that distraction.

Do it. Break the Mute's mind. Let's see what you can really do when you let loose.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

With moderately more tentative steps, be it from her lightfooted ways or more caution as she adjusted to the darkness, Sael managed to stay a pace or two behind Isar's longer, confident strides.

​

Hold on. In the darkness, she grabbed at his wrist, asserting enough of a tug to slow his roll if not stop him entirely before they rounded the bend to the lone guard.

Wasn't there something you wanted to show me? Sael asked, holding back from the initial attack until he either confirmed that the steps he suggested were the big reveal, or if there was something more, later.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

Huh. Oh, right.

He'd almost forgotten. Part of why she was following him around was on account of his sack of tricks and all. That and killing slavers.

Once inside the mind of another, options became as endless as imagination. Isar favored the dream state, but other techniques could be employed. Let's see. Mind Twist, make him think his lungs were full of water so that his body automatically began shutting down? That would be nasty. She could also put them into a catatonic state, trapping them in a nightmare loop - one of Isar's preferred outcomes, to be honest. Not exactly the distraction they needed. What they needed was mania. Panic.

You have the basics, yeah? Follow the emotions, find their fears. Good, but you can be even better. You're afraid of going back in a cage again, yeah? Now I could make you think you're in a cage again, n' you'd be terrified. But if I made you think someone else was about to put you in a cage, eh? That's the ticket. They walk toward you, but I make you think they're holdin' chains in their hands. Slight touches. Don't go crazy.

His eyes found her in the darkness and he rested a hand on her shoulder.

Nah, don't get twitchy on me. I wouldn't do that to you, he said into their mental connection. Project an illusion of the fear that only this slaver can see. Overlay it over one of the others in the room. Make him think one of his mates is comin' up, vibroknife out, to slit his throat, or take his tongue out. That'll get a rise.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

As much as she detested the explanation he gave, it certainly made a point. She hadn't even realized her involuntary flinch at the descriptions — the mere possibility of going back to that which she was trying so actively to shed. He described something that appeared to go beyond the mind, an illusion of sorts, but in real time.

Sael nodded once and let go of his wrist, moving in as they'd originally intended.

In order to execute the suggestion, she needed a better visual of who he worked with. Or did she? Getting closer was a risk. Even though it was pitch dark, what good would a guard be if they weren't on alert of two encroaching figures? She clicked her teeth together and considered the best way to implement his technique.

No, she didn't need to get closer. She didn't need to know any more than one mind; whatever the fellow came up with, she'd lean into.

With a breath in, she stretched out. Searching, prodding, reaching, until something prodded back. The feeling of warm fear suffused through her awareness and she adjusted the position of her hands, separating her fingers as if each emotion the man felt were attached to her nails and she could pluck and adjust like a harp. Fear was the strongest, attached to her index finger, and she pulled it in tandem with a ring finger attached to boredom.

She twisted the strands between those two fingers, letting the tones of boredom hum louder in his mind until they drowned out the vigilance he should have had. His shoulders sagged under the weight of monotony, his eyes drifting unfocused as if the warehouse walls were closing in with the dull ache of routine.

Then, she flicked another thread, a sharp, quick pluck, and agitation bled in like a sour note. Why'd Garrow make me take over this shift? What's he doin' instead? His heart picked up. Sweat prickled his neck. Possibilities ran in concussive bursts through his mind, and Sael felt anger tie around one of her pinky fingers. In the murk of his thoughts, resentment coiled tight: the image of a fellow slaver whose shift he'd taken last week, the one who'd laughed about it and walked away with an easier night. That petty anger was already there, and Sael only had to twitch her tiniest finger to set him off.

Anger clouded his judgement, eliminated the possibility that he might be wrong, and made clearer the image of the slaver that had wronged him. Sael saw Garrow in the man's mind's eye, and with her understanding of his appearance, fed the irrational side of him the visual Isar had suggested: Garrow crossing from the shadows.

Just a flicker. Enough to make the guard panic, demand to know who was there, and start to draw his weapon.

Garrow moved unseen a few more times, enough to make panic and fear the strongest emotions built on the foundation of frustration and simmering rage.

When Garrow finally emerged from the shadows, someone that the guard could see and recognize, he was armed.

"GARROW, DON'TCHA DARE!" The guard yelled out, reaching for his blaster and aiming it at his fellow slaver. "YOU SET ME UP. YOU SET ME UP FOR THIS SO I'D BE ALONE!?! YOU SET ME UP!"

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

Not bad.

Now watch.

The air hummed around Garrow, who sniffed and blinked at Stede and the business end of Stede's blaster.

"Kev, Stede's been dosing again," Garrow called out.

Pretty obvious from the way Stede's blaster shook and his pupils dilated. Hang on. He squinted as something fuzzed at Stede's pant's pocket. Was that his copy of Twileks Gone Wild?

"Hey, karker, that's mine!" he jabbed a finger.

"Shut up! You set me up for this," barked Stede, blaster rifle still pointed at Garrow.

You're not going to just stand there while he's pointing a blaster at you, are you?

Thoughts, when they entered Garrow's mind, didn't usually stick around for very long. This one did. Persistent. Yeah, he probably should pull a gun on Stede, but he and Stede went way back. They'd even taken care of that Gamorrean together. He couldn't just ventilate Stede over a magazine, could he?

Yeah you can.

Yeah. Yeah he could. Stede had always been kind of an nerf herder, now that he thought about it. And on top of that he'd stolen his mag! Hell, he wasn't just going to stand there and stare down the barrel. Garrow pulled his slugthrower and clicked off the safety.

"Give it back you karking trog-brain."

Kev the Gran ambled into view, a flechette launcher on his shoulder. Kev's three eyes went from Stede to Garrow and back again.

"What is going on with you two," he bleated, "We've got a shipment to finish."

What are they up to.

Wait a minute. The Gran's square-pupiled eyes narrowed. The two of them were up to something. They were always up to something, plotting behind Kev's back. Kev had always hated Stede, the absolute junkie, but Garrow was also a piece of work.

"I'm gonna kill you, Kev." ​

"What you say to me?" Kev lowered his flechette launcher.

"Huh? I didn't say anything," growled Garrow, "This guy stole my magazine!"

"You set me up!" shrieked Stede.

"I'm gonna kill you and I'm going to eat you. Like a sheep. Ba-a-a-a."​

The Gran froze. No. No they couldn't. That was just like his nightmare. Wake up to people eating him. They were gonna kill him and eat him. They kept calling him sheep. Asking him if he tasted like sheep.

Well do you?

"I don't taste like karking sheep!" Kev roared.

BANG.

BWHOP BWHOP.

BANG BANG BANG.

Flashes of light from blaster and slugthrower discharges lit up the shadows, deafening.

Outside and apparently unbothered, Isar finished snorting something off the back of his hand and rubbed at his nose. The glitterstim hit his system and he felt a surge of energy.

He held out the vial of powdered stim to Sael, an eyebrow raised.

Gives you a mental boost. I'm serious.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

And watch she did, with wrapt attention. Like a holodrama, the characters revealed themselves and saw themselves motivated by an unseen but deeply felt voice. She admired the boldness with which he so casually suggested what they were capable of, unafraid to conceal his voice. And even more, taking his words and projecting their sound over it. Sael loved it. Every second of it.

Her eyes were so fixated on the scene that she saw none of Isar's movements in the dark until she heard a sharp, sudden inhale, thought something might be wrong, and looked over.

At the arena, there had been no need for snorting. Every breath had been laced with the drug.

She glanced at it, hesitant.

Last time she'd thrown up. Violently.

But then again, the dosage had been significantly more. And the effects had been divine. Maybe with a lesser dose the concentration of her power would be purely on the easy access to the colours of emotional threads, and not the giddy desire to dance and laugh. And not come with the horrible rush that made her crash so hard.

I thought you said this stuff kills you. She said pointedly, but reached for the vile anyhow.

Meanwhile, the flashes of weapons stopped, and three distinct thuds sounded.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

Everything kills you, love. We're all dying. Why not enjoy it?

If anyone deserved to live large it was her - trapped in a cage or in chains most of her life. But Mercy had her head all wrapped up in dreams of power, trying to make her hard and cold. Like a weapon. A tool to be used. A twitch of disgust pulled at his lips. Being hollow and empty, what worse fate for a Zeltron, who could drown whole oceans with the depths of their emotions. And yet isn't that how he'd been feeling for a while? The sober, waking world was his nightmare.

Earlier, he felt fixation, her admiration - another type of drug entirely.

Look. Mercy, she might show you how to protect yourself. How to be cruel and ruthless or whatever she calls it, yeah? But she's not ever going to be able to show you how to live. Too focused on climbing to the top of the monkey ladder.

Obsessed with ambition, no matter how much she might feign to blow about on the breeze, constantly sorting people into categories: "weak" or "strong." Reeked of it every time he went near her.

Anyway. There's only a few more. I saw the captives in one of their memories. There's about seven or eight all chained to the wall piping. Why don't you show me what you can really do.

What Isar missed, somewhere deep within the warehouse, was the whir and the clanking of a being, all circuits and wires - programming malevolent and rogue, lurking within the warehouse. A being neither of them could sense.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Sith could be immortal. Death didn't have to be the end of the line. She'd heard that from Mercy before, found the concept intriguing. The idea of life everlasting — and in all those years, she could still enjoy it.

It had been a wonderful experience the last time, so colourful, so freeing. And that had been an overdose, surely a little snort would only heighten her natural affinities, not entirely overwhelm them. She flashed her teeth with a sharp grin and gave in.

Tapping her nose, she handed back the vile.

You and Mercy seem to disagree over many a thing. She'd thought he had been safe, initially, because he'd said they worked together. And Mercy confirmed it later. I take it the last time you worked together was a one-time only job?

Wall piping? She scowled, and let the venom of her own history root deep beneath any initial joy that started to rush her bloodstream. Their arms would ache, their necks too, and everything would be sore with no way to resolve other than a walk and a stretch — all at the whim of their captors. Sael closed her eyes, hummed, and let the colourful threads of emotion glow against the night.

Into the compound she wove, moving as lightly footed as one would expect of her size. When she stepped over the first body Isar had been responsible for finishing off, she giggled.

I loved how you did that. She complimented. Just showed up as your own voice with the power of suggestion.

Coloured threads started to show, the Glitterstim taking effect. Fear, as always, was the first spark she felt. Sharp, frantic, alive. Fear of what was to come. Fear of what they had already lost. But when she touched it, wrapped it around her finger, it changed to other colours. Beneath the terror of being chained was shame. A ragged, private thing that glowed faint pink in her mind. Some hated themselves for being caught. Others hated their bodies for betraying them, for being too weak, too soft, too slow. She stroked that shame with the same care she might give a bruise, and it swelled, luminous. She brushed her fingers over the shame that pulsed in their veins, over the hopelessness that dulled their eyes, until she found what she wanted. Desire.

She recognized it keenly. It was buried, but still alive: the yearning to breathe air not recycled through chains, to stretch out their arms until the ache stopped, to choose where their next step would fall. A raw, simple hunger to live differently. Sael seized it. Fed it. Wove her words along the thread the same way she'd fangirled over Isar's voice.

"You don't have to wait."

Insistent, her thoughts spilled into them, weaving their ache for freedom with the memory of motion: How good it felt to walk, to run, to stand tall. She let them feel it in their muscles, phantom relief so real their bodies trembled with it.

One prisoner shifted. Then another. Wrists pulled instinctively against binding wire, shoulders rolling like they could already feel it loosening. Sael's grin flashed white in the dark.

"Yes. Just like that. Move. Stretch. Shake them loose. You already know how."

The slaves began to strain, some awkwardly, some with sudden, frantic resolve. Threads snapped taut with panic, then sang bright with determination as she tugged and tuned them.

Then her expression flatlined and she looked at Isar, speaking plainly in a sharp whisper:

"I can get them to wiggle, but I think they might actually need physical help getting out of those binds."

This was a warehouse, right? There had to be some kind of tools around to shatter those chains.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

"What, no lightsaber?" Isar made a face, pulling out his pistol. He'd left his behind because, well, he forgot. Not that he'd even built the thing - didn't know how. Stole it off one of the padawans he and Jogon killed.

Whatever.

A whole lot of rattling was going on inside the warehouse as people chained up to the piping threading across the wall started to strain and struggle against their shackles.

Isar scratched at his temple with the barrel of his blaster. Hmm. "If I'm being honest, and since we're up in each others minds we may as well, this is the part where I usually let Mercy or Jogon do some smashing."

They seemed to enjoy it, the smashing. And Isar was happy to sit back and watch. Except, they left their version of Jogon behind. Whoops.

"Ehhh. See, this is why Mercy and I work together, no matter what I said earlier. Brains and brawn. That's fine, we'll just have to figure out a brains solution to this predicament."

Isar walked straight into the middle of the warehouse floor. A few shop lights on tripods, the industrial kind you see at construction sites, sat around the floor and cast harsh light over portions of the floor. Enough to see the row of chained up slaves making all kinds of rattling and raucous as they pulled against their bindings.

Two human men stood near a bunch of cargo boxes, one with an electric whip, the other with a blaster rifle. They were arguing. Isar didn't care, he raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, repeatedly. The loud whine of the blaster discharge shrieked in the air, bolts of hot plasma ventilating the blaster rifle guy's chest, then the kneecaps of Mr. Whip standing next to him. They both keeled over, but only the whip wielder made a noise, screaming as smoke pouring from his ruined knees.

Isar walked up and kicked him.

"Lookie here, got you a present, love."

Why keep the guy alive, coulda just blown his head off. Simpler. Definitely didn't have anything to do with that giggle, or those fawning remarks of hers. Nope. Not one bit. He could care less, or whatever. Yeah.

Guess in this scenario "brains" meant repeat blasterfire. Isar started looking around for something to cut the prisoners loose. They were all making plaintive cries like "Hey please, help me," and "oh thank the stars," and such. Isar picked up a plasma torch from a toolbox nearby. Yeah. That would do.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Amber eyes blinked. A lightsabre. Should she have a lightsabre? Mercy had never suggested she have one — and frankly, the idea of going toe to toe with someone else who had a lightsabre didn't seem like a good way for Sael to invest her time.

Uh, no. No lightsabre.

​

That made..sense actually. To Sael, Mercy had the brains of as an overlord should, but she could readily understand her Master's readiness to accept the brawn position. The lady of Tion was no less than a mountain. And that mountain would have cracked the poles the slaves were attached to right in half without a second thought, or breaking a sweat.

Evidently the brains solution turned out to be nearly as violent as the brawn solution. But Sael didn't flinch from the pews of the blaster.

Elsewhere, however, the unseen being stirred — roused by the disturbance.

​

A present. Her eyes widened at the weapon, holding out her hands to accept it. Thank you.

Isar gave her the space to observe the thing for a few moments, busying himself with problem-solving. But he'd probably still feel the warmth of her thoughts, the pure savouring of the generosity. The last gift she'd received had been her freedom. It had also been her first. Now, this whip, was her second. Turning it over in her hands, she appreciated it for what it was, but did not understand the first thing about how to use it. She knew what it was capable of though. She had scars on her back that matched the lengths of the coil that would snap out from the grip she held.

Holding tight to the metal grip, she thumbed it on and gave it a testing flick. And it, unlit, slapped unsatisfactorily against the duracrete. Sael frowned and squinted at the power cell. Ah, she had to turn another button on too.

Just as the rope-like spiral ignited, so too did a red strip against the darkness on the otherside of the warehouse.

Servos whirred. Heavy durasteel feet struck the floor, each step echoing like a hammer in the vast chamber. From the shadows, the hulking frame of an droid emerged — plating scarred, optics glaring, weapon-arm already raised.

<Targets acquired,> it grated, voice metallic and final. <Priority: eliminate insurgents. Contain organics.>

A volley of bolts spat from its arm-cannon, sizzling past Sael's shoulder and smashing stone from the walls. Exploded bits and scattering sparks spewed across the chained slaves. The captives cried out, hope snapping back into terror as the ancient war machine advanced.

Wha! I can't..I can't feel it. I didn't even know it was there — she hated how desperate her thoughts sounded, how readily panicked she'd become. But Isar was so closely wound through the ridges of her mindscape that she couldn't hide her fear.

The chained slaves shrieked and cowered as the first bolts cracked overhead, their threads snapping taut in Sael's mind. Terror, raw and unfiltered. Too strong, too many at once. For a moment she staggered, nearly dropping the whip, drowning in the tidal wave of panic. But Isar was down there, amidst the throngs of petrified slaves. And he was a target.

She swallowed and let her fear balloon out into the colours of the room, her spike in emotion heightening her glitterstim experience.

No! No, no! Don't break! She thought, forcing a crispness to the command in her voice throughout the room, echoing the method that Isar had used earlier. Her fingers flexed to pull the emotions together, tugging at each thread until she could draw their panic tight into something sharper, something aimed into a terror that would help them be useful to buy Isar time.

Braid. A meat shield. If she weren't so high, she'd feel disgusted with herself. You'll be safe together. It does not want you harmed.

Mr. Whip cried out in agony, still wounded and now afraid that he'd be lumped into the target category of the massive war droid.

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Isar du Vain
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​