Private One can never be too careful

[Lirka Ka]

BPFASSH

The Sith Order was a place filled with many a strange person. All sorts of odd and unknowable things that lurked in the darkness, scuttling in the shadows of the Empire and its many Lords and Ladies. Lirka had come to learn something about unknowable things recently.

What she didn’t know, was out to kill her.

Lirka was a paranoid creature on the best of days, and after the attempt on her life at D’Qar she had found her resolved steeled. It was time to be infinitely more proactive to dealing with those things she didn’t know, and those things that could eventually come to slip the knife into her neck.

It was Allyson Locke that had the misfortune of being the newest soul Lirka had decided she didn’t know enough about, and therefore most certainly didn’t trust her enough to not become a would-be-assassin. Yet, Lirka was a woman of science and that meant being making sure to test her theories.

So Lirka did one of the many talents she had picked up in her long years. She waited, she stalked, and she watched. Like the way a predator does their prey. And her stalkings had now taken her to the world of Bpfassh, Lirka had decided the battleground would be the tall buildings and dark alleyways of the Bfassi capital city. Plenty of dark little hovels to hide away in and plenty of building tops for the mighty metal Goliath to leap and glide between - eyes narrowed in on the Corellian “aide's” form. Waiting for that perfect moment where there’d be the least amount of witnesses to pounce. Both literally and metaphorically.

Finally deeming the time to have arrived, Lirka leapt from the building on which she perched. Hurling herself to the earth behind the woman, landing with the loud metallic clang of her boots hitting the earth. Slowly did she rise, looming. The glow of her helmet’s eyes burned bright today, and the brand beneath it itched greater than normal - for she moved with dark purpose today.

The Once-Sephi’s words hummed out, a venom trickling behind the distortion over her voice.

“Now, Aide. Let’s see what makes you so special.”

Maybe, at some smallest of levels beneath the endless layers of paranoia. There existed that minuscule kernel of jealousy.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Lirka Ka //:
//: Attire //:

The day had been quiet. She had wrapped up her mission for the Minister in record timing. It wasn't much, and Allyson felt it was a waste of her skillset, but it seemed important enough for her to be sent. Allyson wandered down the empty street, shoving something into her mouth. As she looked down, she typed a quick message through the secure line, letting her handler know that she was on her way back.

She took another bite of the sugar-covered pastry, but this time, the center exploded with a red jelly. Her eyes widened, seeing that she had found the best part of the doughnut. She mused happily, continuing to eat and walk with a small box of chocolates and a gardenia flower in her hand. She was ill-prepared for the stalker that she had felt in the back of her head.

Allyson had ignored the weird gut feeling a few blocks back but focused on her shopping list. Turning the corner, it seemed it was the time for the stalker to 'strike.'

The ground shook as the mechanical beast landed behind the Corellian.

Her jelly-stained face was shocked by the sudden interruption to her happy musings about home. Stumbling forward, Allyson watched tragically as the flower, the chocolates, and the rest of her doughnut hit the pavement.

Landing on her knees, her eyes widened and fury burned in her throat.

"What the actual feth?" She whispered under her breath as she slowly stood up and grabbed the dirt-covered doughnut. Turning, Allyson came face to face with the Deputy that Madelyn had just appointed. She should have known from the woman's sneering of her cover position.

"You? Do you know what you just did?" Allyson shook the doughnut towards Lirka, an unrelenting anger burning behind the Corellian's eyes.

"You're an ass." Quickly, she threw the doughnut towards Lirka's face and then turned on her heel to create distance between them.

Unfortunately, she'd be going home without gifts this time, but hopefully not with a new bruise. As she ran, the Force surged through her, making her slip out of view of the Elf.

With her bow drawn, she began to climb one of the nearest buildings, trying to gain a height advantage over the creature.

Allyson groaned as this was not part of the mission briefing.

 

[Lirka Ka]

It was almost amusing. Almost. Had Lirka actually known the true reason for Allyson Locke 's being here, the Once-Sephi might have tried to strike her on the sheer principle of it all. Sweet treats? Romance? Enjoying oneself in ways that didn't involve some sort of mayhem, murder, or general unpleasantness? Well. That was simply heresy under Primordial Darkness.

Alas, it was only Lirka's other delusions motivating her today. Lirka noted that the woman's possessions were odd for an assassin, but she knew that the knives aimed her throat came from all sort of odd and unsuspecting places. Though perhaps it spoke more to Lirka's impeccable timing that she decided to land at the worst possible moment and yet the best possible moment to make the biggest mess of the situation.

What had she done? Lirka knew damn well what she had done. And told the Corellian as such through the mechanical distortion of her words.

"I know what I've done. I've revealed a rat."

And, continuing with the grand timing of the night. The pastry splattered itself upon Lirka's face-plate. The Once-Sephi stood there, unfazed, though perhaps flabbergasted beneath the emotionless slab of plundered beskar as the thing slowly slid down the shining metal. Leaving a trail of red jelly in its wake. An ass!? Lirka had been called many things before in her life. But an ass!? Well that was simply too crude. It felt almost unbecoming for a monster of her stature, and frankly, she was offended.

And in Lirka's world, offense was solved with blades and fists.

Watching the woman's form burst away, Lirka noted the speed. She knew that sort of force-enhanced movement well, from a different time, with a different face. It fed into her delusions even more. Just who was she dealing with? A tsis'kaar perhaps! She knew those devils would get start sulking for her eventually, vengeance for the handful of times she had come to blows with them many years ago. And Lirka gladly shared her theory, for such was her self assurance that the prospect of being wrong was simply impossible.

"Run, little assassin, run! It'll make it all the sweeter when I crush you under foot!"

Lirka had her own speed, it took a moment to get started but soon those metallic-tree-trunk legs began to get into motion. Servos and mechanisms whirring and groaning as Lirka's massive form thudded after Locke. Her electo-whip crackling into being as Lirka's claw-like eye slits looked up at woman's climbing form once she finally sprinted long enough to get her back into view. Not one to allow a foe an easy time, Lirka drew the weapon back before sending it out towards Allyson with the sparking crackle of electricity being released, yet it was a strike intended to startle more than maim. Almost as if she was toying with her quarry some.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Lirka Ka //:
//: Attire //:

Allyson climbed the tall building using the rickety ladder as her best means. It didn't take much to hear the monstrosity of the Slavemaster drawing closer. Allyson could listen to her and feel the machines through the Force - something she would keep in her back pocket if necessary. As she drew near the top of the short building, the crack of the electro whip made contact with the brick wall she was climbing. The sound of the weapon startled her, causing her to lose grip on one of the ladder rungs.

Slipping and hanging by one hand. The Corellian dangled as her feet kicked, trying to find the ladder's footing, but her weight was starting to wear on the old building's ill-treated ladder. It wasn't meant to be struck with the whip and rapidly climbed. On top of its shortcomings, it was old and unkempt. The metal creaked as it began to bend with Allyson's body.

"Oh, chit." Allyson felt the weight beginning to give way. Under her, the elf seemingly waited for her to fall. Looking down, Allyson frowned and pointed towards the creature. "A rat?! You've got to be kidding me. What gave you that impression?" She figured now it was as good as any to show the mechanical deputy who she was dealing with.

Holding on for dear life, Allyson focused the Force on the humming and the whirring of the mechanical servos that helped propel the elf forward. Her focus was mainly on the arm that holds the weapon. Her hand was outstretched, and she squeezed, trying to stop each of them through mechu deru. If she could disable the arm for long enough, she'd be able to escape.

The last thing Allyson needed was a scene on a planet she had just scooped for information for the Minister. Remembering that, Allyson shouted. "You're gonna be in trouble, you know!" The Force continued to bear down on the arm of the once-Selphi. "The Minister ain't going to like you messing with me while I'm WORKING," Allyson shouted, emphasizing that she was working particularly for Madelyn.

Another creak as she tried to kick back to the ladder. With her movements and the strain of her weight, the ladder's weak metal snapped, causing her to plummet and lose focus briefly, giving Lirka's arm a sense of reprieve from the Mechu Deru. Allyson could catch herself for the most part, but then she remembered she couldn't control the speed of her fall with the Force. She wasn't like that; she wasn't built for that action.

So instead, she landed, letting her body crouch with one hand out and the other pressed against the concrete. Silence stretched between them, the air tense in preparation for combat.

Then suddenly, a loud groan as Allyson struggled to stand back up, her body protesting the idiocy she had just done. Her head whipped up, and she looked at Lirka. Allyson stood with the bow back in hand. "Seriously, is this because I gave you a dirty look at the meeting? Or is it because you probably suck at your job and got demoted?" She smirked, trying to hide the overwhelming pain in her lower back and legs.

 

[Lirka Ka]

Plenty content to see Allyson Locke stumble ever so slightly from her crackling blow, a low mechanical rumble coming from Lirka’s hulking form that might have been some sort of heavily distorted chuckle.

Locke’s pointing was met with barking accusation, Lirka evidently was very much not kidding. That hint of madness trickled out of every word - the Minister kept some odd company.

“Rodents are wretched things, skulking in the dark. Squirming, writhing, murderers and assassins. The knives in the dark.”

To call Lirka unhinged would really be putting it too likely. D’qar had awoken some of the darker impulses within her armored form that had been better off forgotten. Quick to judge, quick to strike. Quick to “interrogate” out whatever information she had deemed pertinent. There was perhaps some kernel of humor in it all, Lirka did rather exemplify the expression “every accusation is a confession”

Soon, Lirka could feel the mechanisms of her arm fight against her. The Once-Sephi tried to move regardless, sinew and muscle straining against servos and steel. Mechu-Duru was something Lirka had only the vaguest of knowledge of, having read about it perhaps once or twice in the massive storages of lore held within the Kainate’s vaults: to little surprise, such abilities interested her little. But to her delusions? Well, it made sense that a possible assassin gunning for her throat would be able to make use of such esoteric powers

She responded to her newfound helplessness with a snarl, the likes of which should have come out of an animal more than a person. The caged beast hungry to strike after being denied.

“We’ll see, won’t we assassin?”

It was perhaps an unfortunate thing to cause such strife for the Minister, but Lirka knew her cause was just. The quest for knowledge bowed to no one, and the Once Sephi knew the blade at your side was as good as the blade in your back. She needed to understand, an unseen angle of attack would be her undoing - she knew that much well enough. Allyson’s cries of working went to unsympathetic ears, met only with scorn.

“Working on stuffing your face and indulging in trinkets, assassin?”

Lirka’s thoughts were revealed rather quickly, and perhaps her scorn for the profession that once upon a time Lirka herself had partook in. In a different time, and with a different face.

Glowing lenses watched the Corellian’s tumbling fall with some amusement, Lirka waited for her to thud to the ground before taking her lumbering steps closer. While under normal circumstances, Lirka’s blade would have been alight and gunning for her quarry’s throat - these were not normal circumstances. Lirka needed to know first, kill second. In that brief freedom her arm let the whip crackle through the air again in a display of preluding violence.

Another rumble of frustration came from the mechanical monster at the Corellian’s quipping.

“Idiotic. I was subsumed. Not demoted. No, little rat. You are an unknown variable - I do not tolerate unknown variables. You aren’t in the records, you aren’t in the history books. You simply appear one day, walking the dark path. You appear upon the Malsheem, and no one bats an eye. You walk among the Sith’s high society for their ridiculous little games. Yet…who are you? What makes you so special, Rat? What blade hovers before me now, waiting for the chance to slip into my neck when I least expect it?”

And with it, Lirka’s paranoia was revealed bare. It was a hard life to live sometimes when invisible assassins lurked in every shadow, waiting for the moment of weakness.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Lirka Ka //:
//: Attire //:

"Wow, you're messed up. Messed up."

Allyson stepped back, hands tightening around the bow and its string. Something was happening with the former slave master, making her think Allyson was the enemy.

A small part of her mind wondered: Did my secret leak? Had the announcement in the Tsis'Kaar meeting reached beyond where it was supposed to? Allyson had been under the impression that those flying under the snake charmer's banner had no real ties within the Empire. Their devotion to their leader was supposed to outweigh their loyalty to the Emperor.

This meant that if Lirka had known, the Minister might have also known. The thought of that secret escaping before she was ready only made her hate the Tsis'Kaar more than ever. Still, they were a good cover for now.

She frowned, watching the Elf continue to ramble her nonsense. "I have more history than you realize." It was almost insulting. But if no one could dig her up and figure out what she was doing inside the Empire, then she was doing her job right.

Another thing: the Elf hadn't mentioned Madelyn. That meant their brief encounter aboard the Malsheem hadn't drawn attention. Whatever they were, whatever secrets they carried remained intact.

Her life might be built on secrets, but Allyson didn't always enjoy living in them. In a better world, things would be different. But this was hers, and she'd learned to live with it.

"It's not my fault you're not important enough to know what I am or who I am." Her grip shifted to the lower curve of the bow's arm.

Then she stepped forward and swung the heavy weapon toward what looked like a less-armored section of the Selphi's massive frame. "I'm the galaxy's greatest spy."

As the blow came down, her mind locked on the servos in the woman's frame, the delicate tech that powered her movements. Allyson aimed to stop them, freeze them, pin the woman in place, and make her take the full brunt of it.

"I am Allyson fething Locke, you bantha turd."​

 

[Lirka Ka]

Messed up was almost an understatement. Lirka Ka had walked a long, hard, path - one entirely of her own selfish doing, but it was a path that did not exactly leave people the most sane.

What was happening to Lirka? Fear. Lirka Ka would say she knew no fear. But that was simply untrue. She feared often, she feared specters and shadows that loomed and waited to take her to the gallows. She feared, and she hated what she feared. Propelled by the judging gazes of her own ghosts scorning her for what she had become. Real swell stuff.

Yet, Lirka’s hatred compelled her to blame many things. Most of all, a Tsis’Kaar. For the simple fact she had disappeared for long enough that last time she dealt with them, they had been in all but open warfare. And to someone like Lirka, wars never truly ended in her most ancient of mind, bearing most ancient of grudges. “200” years of living, and most of them entirely devoted to simple pettiness in a veneer of grandeur.

Lirka hissed out in frustration, in a perfect world she would have liked to simply “interrogate” out the answers she wanted and be on her merry way. But alas, things were rarely so simple. When Lirka spoke, her frustrations were palpable.

“Obviously. Or I wouldn’t be here. Be so kind, and rattle it off - before I pluck it out of your skull”

She had assumed well enough Allyson Locke wasn’t some sort of vat-born freak like so many of the Kainites. She didn’t have the odd smell that lot did. A reasonable soul might have realized there and then, that this was folly. But Lirka was not reasonable. And she was having a day that was less than lucid.

Rage simmered within her, Locke had cut deeper than she realized. Lirka’s importance, Lirka’s pure replaceability had been something of a sore spot. Her veteran status meant very little when she was a glorified cudgel - the Sith did not lack those. For as much as she could try and speak pretty words, and wait years to plan grand schemes. She was no Madelyn Lowe . Perhaps that is why one was a Minister, and one was but a hound.

She wanted to quip, to say something to prove her wrong. But she simply couldn’t. Not this time. And that kernel of darkness within her soul grew ever so slightly bigger, and foul, cruel, ambitions grew stronger. She would become important, no matter how many worlds would burn, no matter how many skulls she’d stand upon, no matter how many tears would be shed from friend and foe alike. They would know the name Lirka Ka, she wouldn’t allow anything less.

Yet, Lirka got her dribbling of information to drag her out of the pit of self loathing. A spy? Almost as frightening a prospect as an assassin. Yet her pondering was also cut short, as the bow slammed into the woman’s side with the clang of denting metal. Lirka could feel the blow rumble through her frame, a sharp pain surging through her being as a metallic exhale escaped her helmet.

Lirka welcomed pain. Always. She enjoyed it, really. More things to ponder, more anger to be felt as she strained against the mechanisms of her suit to try and force locomotion into being. The groaning strain of servos battling against the cosmic might of the force, and the crude strength of gene-forged musculature.

She had a name finally. But it offered Lirka little satisfaction.

Who the hell was Allyson Locke? And why was her middle name as vulgar as Fething?

“Know this…Allyson Fething Locke. Your little tricks can only help you so much. Lirka Ka suffers not scuttling things.”

Allyson may have focused on locomotion, and it would force Lirka to have to do the one thing she hated most. Remove her “second skin”. The suit began to whir again, new mechanisms springing to life as other died.

It was beginning to open up.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Lirka Ka //:
//: Cool bow & Arrows in Sig //:
//: Attire //:

"Oh, you're into that?"

Allyson stepped back after the bow had thwacked Lirka a few times. The metal creature almost seemed like she was enjoying it? Maybe Allyson had bitten off more than she could chew. She'd known a little about the Kainites—but no one had mentioned the whole masochist angle. Her mind wandered briefly as her eyes widened slowly, "Are you all into that?"

Today, she learned.

Her lips pressed into a tight line as she watched the armored shell that housed the furious elf begin to peel open. The creature had finally grown tired of being puppeted by the Technomancer.

Allyson watched, fascinated, yet horrified, as the suit unfolded, and revealed the woman. A rank, foul stench followed. Her nose wrinkled instinctively. This armor wasn't just gear but a containment unit, a shell that kept Lirka's fragile form stitched together.

She took another step back.

The moment was dramatic, perfect for buying time. Allyson considered bolting, gaining some ground, and disappearing into the shadows.

But then Lirka opened her mouth again.

"My middle name isn't Fething. It's like... a cool line you say for emphasis." Allyson blinked. Was Lirka not understanding the dramatic delivery? Maybe the Kainite was the one who'd fallen, not her. She sighed, feeling a headache starting to form.

"Okay! This has been great, but I gotta go," Allyson shrugged. "I've got a meeting with the boss, and you get it." Snapping her fingers, the Corellian vanished from view. Using the shock and awe of her vanishing act, Allyson crept a way, her footsteps silenced against the pavement.

Something was deeply wrong with that woman. Staying in close quarters was practically begging for a nightmare.

Adjusting the arrow she'd grabbed, Allyson made a minor tweak—setting the payload to explosive. No more armor meant the soft underbelly was now exposed.

Gaining distance, she popped back into existence, raised the bow, and fired. The arrow struck the ground near Lirka's feet with a whine as it exploded the moment it touched the pavement.

"Go back to the sludge pit you crawled out of, Lirka Ka."

 

[Lirka Ka]

In Lirka's case, it might have even been worse than simple masochism - pain had become a holy thing, one of her few tethers to the living world: like she was some sort of bizarre Sith-branded parody of the Yuuzhan Vong's crueler elements. Lirka could feel something squirming inside of her wretched flesh as the bow ceased its assault, things bruising, writhing, and melding in the wake of the assault.

Words hummed from her helm, Lirka was not shy about her relationship with pain.

"Pain is the vector by which enlightenment is gained."

And like a true zealot, she always had some sort of mantra to spout out about pain, misery, and general unpleasantness at any given moment. After her days living on the foulness of Rhand and its Sorcerous inhabitants, Lirka had come to view herself as actually a rather tame masochist compared to those rotting nihilists.

It was a rare thing for Lirka to leave the suit so publicly like this, Allyson Locke should have been proud of inciting such rage within the Once-Sephi. The suit clicked and slid, like a shell coming loose. Bonding studs disconnected, armored gauntlets clanged down to the floor alongside the blank helm that Lirka so often used as her "real" face. Chemicals filled the air, a mixture of what it seemed to be some strange mixture of bacta, preservatives, and Force only knew what. The concoction glistened upon the blackness of Lirka's undersuit. She was a wretched thing, uncanny even, like a statue given fleshy life - bulging sculpted musculature, features too symmetrical and sharp: the type of monster that only ever could have been made, not born.

And of course, most importantly of all as Lirka lunged from her second-skin, noticeably shorter.

"I suppose I am just from more sophisticated people."

With pale-pink skin exposed, Lirka's obnoxious grin was freed from her helmet. Evidently, the monstrous thing had its own obtuse sense of humor. Expecting a chance to fight, Lirka's lunging form slashed out at nothing. There was never any accounting for the tricks of scuttling things, a bestial snare formed where her smirk had once been. Annoyance oozed from Lirka's being.

And with it, Lirka's hubris had been laid bare. The arrow landed true, the flash of the explosion sent Lirka's unarmored form tumbling with globules of some inky blackness that must have been blood flinging across the pavement. Pure, unadulterated frustration roared out where pain should have been. Evidently, the talk of the "boss" hadn't done much to soothe Lirka's maddening desire to know

Her form was marred, shrapnel buried into her flesh where her undersuit hadn't simply been seared off. Exposed flesh writhed as if it had a life on its own, the sickly essence of the Butcher King mixed with Lirka's own foul gestalt blood oozing from the wound and already beginning the process of clotting. Whatever pain she felt, she seemed to pay it no mind as a maddened roaring decree escaped her lips.

"I didn't come from a pit!"

People had been insulting her one too many times these last couple cycles, and while under normal circumstances, she may have brushed it off. There were some sore spots in her iron bulwark, and with Lirka already having a bad day, well...insulting Lirka's grand masterwork of her own being left the monster throwing quite the tantrum.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Lirka Ka //:
//: Attire //:

Lirka was a fascinating creature—Allyson had to give her at least that much credit. The armor, the grotesque, soft pink creature that slipped free; all of it was unique. She'd seen and interacted with other Selphi, but none had been like Lirka.

Some of her wondered what bad day had created someone like Lirka Ka. What events in her past had steered her down the twisted path toward the Kainites and the Sith? Allyson always believed everyone's journey could be traced back to "one bad day." For her, that day had been Corellia's breaking.

The explosion ripped violently through the area. Allyson knew this wasn't the wisest course of action; Madelyn had repeatedly drilled the necessity of secrecy and silence into her. The Spy had been handpicked for those reasons, but Lirka made restraint nearly impossible.

She'd heard how the Sith ate their own, forever caught in the vicious cycle of killing and betrayal just to claw their way to the top. What drove Lirka to turn her aggression towards Allyson? She posed no direct threat; she'd even accepted the slavery arrangements Madelyn had granted the Kainites. Allyson's eyes narrowed, watching the pink creature writhe and scream amidst the flames and insults.

An uncomfortable memory resurfaced briefly, drawing a sharp ache in her chest.

She remembered her leg pressed softly against Madelyn's at the Kainite meeting, just a quiet reassurance, a moment she now wondered might have been too reckless. They'd sat together in a den of monsters, and Allyson, foolishly needing comfort, had reached out. The Malsheem had breathed the dark side like oxygen, filling everyone who crossed its threshold. Allyson, still holding to the remnants of the light, had felt it claw at her, desperate to consume what remained of her.

Could this confrontation fall out of that single slip? Allyson couldn't be sure, and she wouldn't risk confirming Lirka's suspicions if they weren't already there. Instead, she resolved to slam the door shut firmly in the creature's face, letting her know there were consequences for reaching too high carelessly.

Another arrow was swiftly drawn, Allyson's cybernetic eye humming quietly as she focused it sharply on the throat of the roaring, baying monster before her. The Kainites were strong; she knew she couldn't simply kill Lirka outright. Doing so would reflect poorly on the Minister's office and Madelyn herself. Allyson cursed quietly under her breath, adjusting her grip and focus as she loosed another arrow. Mid-flight, it split into three, then fractured further into four each, creating twelve small flechettes screaming toward Lirka amidst the flames and debris.

"Give up, and we can both walk away from this, Deputy," Allyson shouted, already drawing another explosive arrow as she cautiously maintained her distance. "And the Minister won't have to know."

 

[Lirka Ka]

In transience, we become strong.

It was one of Lirka's many mantras, and one of those core tenets she held close to her cold dead hearts - just another aspect of her cruel and delusional quest for survival. The coveting of strength had isolated Lirka into something other, she was unique. She transitioned into something beyond what nature had bid for her, she was beyond the Sephi that littered the Galaxy in their meagreness. She was alone, the monster that was once a Sephi.

It had been 202 years of living in her mind, nigh 70,000 days.

And a lot of those were bad ones.

All that was left of the woman-who-was-once-Lirka were her bad memories, her suffering, the deaths, and the killing. Murderous ambitions that had propelled her to the Sith, had caused her to burn Moridinae, commit grand patricide, and lead her down the inescapable path of damnation that left only the seething beast before Allyson Locke

Where did it all begin? Lirka didn't even know anymore, when life was nothing but murder and philosophical grandstanding to justify the killing - it all became a blur after the first handful of decades. In truth, the answer was rather simple. It started the very day she woke up in that tube on Kamino where the long-necks couldn't keep dead things dead.

That is why she seethed so violently. Graug came from pits. Sithspawn came from pits. Minister Lowe came from a pit. Wretched things born came from pits. Through clenched teeth, Lirka spoke to herself.

"I came from a tube."

Things were grown in tubes, they were made in tubes. Lirka was a monster made by her own design, every muscle, every bone, every foul writhing thing inside of her had been built to her own specifications when she had evolved into her current face. A meager lie she could hold close to her chest and deny just how much of a hand the Kainate had in her rebirth. Yet, now with the brand upon her head it was all but undeniable - the proof of her foul "marriage" to Carnifex that danced between a mark of power, and a mark of shame all the same.

Yet, what did it have to do with "poor" Locke who had been chosen at all but random to gain the monster's ire? It was nothing grandiose. No suspicious relationships, no hatred for old allegiances, or really even for the grave insult of misattributed birthplace. No, it was petty, it was childish, and so unnecessarily violent: for that was the way of Lirka Ka. Born of self loathing, and paranoia. She didn't know. And what she didn't know was out to kill her.

The Sith ate their own; Lirka ate some of them rather literally. And that simple fact drove a madwoman even deeper down the path of murderous insanity.

Rising from the dirt, Lirka's writhing form thunked as the flechettes bored into her unnatural flesh and let more of her rancid and viscous blood seep out of its "container". Whatever pained coursed through her, she did not show it this time. Those eyes, dyed unnaturally blue stared at the Corellian unblinking. By all metrics, she should have given up, for the sake of her health and newfound career. Slowly she thudded forward, chest puffed out with unreasonable pride.

"So what, rat? That you can slit my throat later, dangle this over my head like another knife? I'm supposed to just trust you? Trust some scuttling thing!?"

For as much as she stared and barked, it was almost as if she wasn't really talking to or looking at her newest of foes at all. As if she was going right past her, at specters that only Lirka could really see.