Pretty Hate Machines

[Matsu Xiangu]

Even on a planet like Corvani, an Inner Rim planet home to plenty of the rich and famous, there was a certain amount of filth in the streets. Even Coruscant had its mysterious oceans deep underneath the planet filled with the refuse of dirty lives a few floors up and beyond.

For all intents and purposes, Matsu was normal. Living far from where most of the garbage collected, she was not the girl that parents warned their children away from, that shopkeepers refused to slip a sweet to for fear she’d come around more often. The little Atrisian had perfected grace and childish charm early on, and her parents were well known on their section of the city. She spent most of her days terrorizing the alleys with Kesare though never in the way they would become known for later in life.

But sometimes she went down to the gutters by herself, or with Kesare in pursuit of something for herself. A thousand-thousand things found their way down to the bottom of Corvani – trash, rotting food, lost treasures…and dead things. It was the last that Matsu was primarily interested, pulling the corpses of animals out of the dirt-water and selecting those intact enough or large enough to provide her the best experimentation. She liked to cut them open and discover their insides, follow the lines of organs between one another to figure out how things worked in a way reading only gave her the fundamentals of. She almost always had peace down there to do as she pleased, arranging pieces of carefully cut intestine at her side before going in for more.

Every once in a while someone her age would come down the run-off, following the path of all lost things or simply looking for somewhere to escape. They would come across Matsu and stop, stare, war with a natural instinct to fight her for her abomination or flee. They always left when she turned her head and looked at them, waving a hand over her masterpiece as if to invite them closer – look, do you see? How beautiful!

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[SIZE=14pt]Naboo[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Late Afternoon[/SIZE]


In a lot of ways she didn’t recognize that little girl anymore, but the Atrisian that strode towards the entrance to Nastass-Tech still played the part of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. These days her visibility made that intermittently difficult, but most of the time she was very…very good at it. Her contacts in the Coruscant Rotary Club had afforded her the codes to slip through Omega guard over the planet easily enough, her personal stealth cruiser, the Shibito, breaching atmosphere and guiding her over the opulent planet of Naboo.

Despite the dangerous ground on which she was treading, she strode in to the offices of NastassTech with confidence, accompanied by the clicking of her impossibly high heels that disappeared in to fitted slacks. She looked every bit the part because she was (even if she’d left the corpses in the sewer behind for the ones she pulled off battlefields or killed herself).

“Excuse me ma’am – do you have an appointment?”

A cute Twi’lek woman (nice touch, Nastassia…) sat primly behind the desk, looking expectantly at the stranger.

“No,” she answered in her characteristic smooth, cool tone. “But please tell Ms. Nastassia an old friend is here, and that said friend would hate to have to crush another speeder to get a meeting.” Matsu sat herself in one of the plush chairs dotting the lobby, crossing her legs primly and picking up one of the spare holomagazines tossed on the coffee table. Not a care in the world.

[member="Xenia Nastassia"]​

 

[Xenia Nastassia]

Naboo, Theed;
NastassTech;
Xenia Nastassia.

"Oh hurry it up."

Xenia jeered from over a combat ring's raised viewing platform, leaning on elbows and cupping her hands over her mouth so as to better direct the shout. Below her was a mostly metallic spherical ring surrounded in raised fencing. Inside, hustling and springing into embezzled rolls and recovers, were two humaniform droids, both sleek in design, both the obvious result of money and genius. One of them, the more slender and darkly colored of the two, raised its head in acknowledgement of Xenia's apparent orders. The other, a towering, polished beast of shined durasteel, loomed ever nearer with a constant, ebbing whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It's weapon and the noise's creator was a sparkling and livid spear with two ends which it whirled round itself with alarming efficiency. Detox, the first droid of mention, seemed only able to retreat against the fully equipped battle droid opponent. Skipping to the side and letting the armed oppressor weave through on its own momentum, or feinting a movement to one side, then jerking suddenly and springing to the other. Both machines before Xenia were precious works of art, prototypes in their own right and expensive models which the public hadn't yet seen.

"Directorate," said a male voice sharply.

As if she had barely noticed, Xenia turned on her heels to face a handsomely dressed security detail. Not because she relayed simple messages through security teams, but because only those of specific military rank were allowed admittance into the deeper reassesses of the NasstassTech Corporation grounds. "What's the meaning of this?" With the added waving of her hand, Xenia's brash tone made the welcome almost threatening. "A... woman in one of our perimeter buildings has requested your time." To this, Xenia only lifted her eye brow and sent a cautionary wave of appraisal over those gathered before her. None of them appeared to be sick, under stress, confused. "I've told you already, I'm not taking visitors today, direct them all to--" Officer Styzer spoke anyway, overtop Xenia has he had done many times in the past. He seemed excited, like he was giving good news which couldn't wait.

"It's Matsu, mi'lady."
"Matsu Xiangu?" Xenia asked rhetorically.

Styzer nodded. "She's here. Shall I lead you to her?" Xenia seemed to consider the offer, then shook her head. "Instead you will lead her to me." "Understood, mi'lady." In an unspoken yet understood dismissal, Xenia turned her back on the man and he, afterword, pivoted to the side and lead his contingent off. It didn't seem he much cared for the stigmatism of the Sith, the rumors which surrounded them and their brutal treatment of any they considered subordinate. The chatter of a lightsaber's activation spat aloud behind and out of site, Detox's stolen weapons defending against another aggressive advance from its metal made friend.

"NN-T, shut down. Detox, we'll soon have company."

Entrance Building;
NastassTech Perimeter;
[member="Matsu Xiangu"].

In mere minutes officer Styzer emerged from one of the posterior entrances and into the same greeting chamber which held the esteemed Xiangu, accompanied by a surround of sophisticated automata wearing capable weaponry though not brandishing it in any one obvious direction. Matsu represented more than Xenia's personal connection to Neuro-Saav, her rank alone set her apart from anyone else who might enter NasTech in such a direct fashion. The woman was a warrior of terrifying power, given abilities Xenia wouldn't have believed without actually seeing them transpire with her own eyes. Surely if the Sith's visitation was one of violence the weaponized droids would barely distract Matsu, but this was for appearance. But most importantly, Matsu was a woman Xenia found the need to impress. A show of strength between combatants of different techniques, friendly but solid and secure. As Styzer drew nearer to Matsu, two of the sleek NN-K models pushed to the front and began to shimmer under the effect of their holographic projection units. Eventually, they dropped their previous visage broke down into grainy, then clear blacks, then all at once their image mirrored Matsu's own in staggering perfection. At first, they both wore the same styled, fitted attire as the woman they copied, but in the next few steps the clothing changed and took shape as the droid pleased. Already the droids had committed Matsu's physical proportions to memory, now shifting through Xenia's wide array of clothing programs and dressing her in elaborate trimmings and hanging jewels, finally finding one and staying on it.

"Your highness, Xenia will see you now. This way, if you please."

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=9pt] She was used to being feared. Fright was no longer an emotion she was familiar with, a feeling who’s impression was a ghost among all the shells of human trappings she’d once possessed. Fear had had been cut out of her, off of her, removed with every limb that she lost. Enlightenment had come in the form of dismemberment – perfection through pain, every weak emotion had been burned out of her flesh. She ate everyone else’s pain, pushed her way in to every dying creature’s mind to understand its last moments, to attain a degree of perfection unheard of. Every apprentice that found it within themselves to call her Master knew agony, forced trial. (There is no way to rise if you do not taste the end.) She kept their pieces in jars, every hand and arm and leg and eye they sacrificed to know the Dark. She kept them because they were beautiful, not because she needed them. (Of all the gods, only Death does not require gifts.) The ones who were weak were fodder for necromancy, corpses she could raise again to work for her. Those who survived were fitted with replacements and sent out in the world to further the Sith machine. Though it could be said she was both woman and machine by the uneducated, she was neither.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She spent her days around creatures that looked like her and spoke like her and fought like her. Their blood was the same color. They could breathe the same air.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] But she was other.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt]In silence she always lapsed in to the white and almost imperceptible drone of massive engines, imagined solar radiation. She could close her eyes and forget anything else in the metronomic melody of expansion, stars devouring their cores in the centuries-long race to eventuality. Here she often imagined things beyond comprehension, a mind that curled in and out on itself a thousand times over when she was alone, thoughts connected with the turning ease of the removed. When she left the silence she was surrounded by billions and yet alone in a way that had no resolution, sitting cross-legged on the other side of a gulf created not by her power or position but by a fundamental differing of biology and time.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] It was a thing she couldn’t even explain to herself, but she felt caged by a million lightyears of galaxy to roam. Not enough.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] And yet, looking up when she heard the sound of droids marching perfectly in time with one another, she understood how one might feel terror looking upon even one of these coming at them. There was something brutally efficient and yet impossibly streamlined, creations designed with both fashion and function in mind. She lifted herself from her seat when they morphed to replicate her image, the fascination on her sharp features mirrored on their exacting copy. Impressive. She almost didn’t hear the Officer beckoning her deeper in to the facility.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She followed where he led, eyes darting over every facet of the place Xenia had managed to build around herself. They’d met once – a sad fact, and one Matsu was glad to be rectifying – but she wasn’t surprised at the success the woman had obtained. She had a powerful personality. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] The whirring sounds of machinery hard at work greeted her as she was led to the raised platform above the arena which Xenia had been spectating before Matsu’s arrival. Styzer left her to her own devices then and Matsu moved to stand beside the brunette, wrapping her fingers around the railing and looking down at the action. The Atrisian was a little different than the last time the Directorate had seen her: instead of one cybernetic arm both were plexisteel and phrik, blackened and incredibly sleek to match the rest of her appearance; her features had sharpened slightly, the Dark Side’s influence serving to make her even more of the demon she’d taken as a moniker; and eyes that used to be nothing but black pools now hosted circles of amber surrounding them, an eerie fire that never left. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] She watched the two droids below, tilting her head in interest as one darted and deftly escaped harm every time. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=9pt] “Is that Detox? He looks exquisite.”[/SIZE]

[member="Xenia Nastassia"]​

 

[Xenia Nastassia]

NastassTech HQ;
Central Innards;
Droid Pits;
[member="Matsu Xiangu"].

Xenia needn't reply really, at least not right away. Detox did all the talking, speaking with movements. For all the hulking power of the NN-T prototype, it was unable to land a hit on its smaller, evasive cousin model. Even so, with each tossed roll or strategic out maneuver the NN-T adjusted and improved. It was clear, however, that Detox fought with a clear handicap in that it wasn't meant to damage any of the unique tech. "I'm confident there's no droid like Detox." But Matsu wasn't here for the machine, Xenia knew that. Her smile faded quickly, but naturally, shifting her body weight to more properly behold her guest. Immediately Xenia regretted not looking to par, her own garments derived of a far more casual tone. Her hair was pulled together and thrown upward in coils and bands of silver. Around her neck wove a lacing of aurodium craftsmanship which eventually held up Xenia's shirt. Her shoulders were wrapped decoratively in the hood of her jacket, the brim of which bursting thick tangents of white fur from Hoth's savage wampa species. The rest of the coat fell low like a cape, nearly touching the ground while Xenia remained without heels. Instead, her gemstone inlayed sandals laced emerald round ankles with a similarly stylish appeal.

"Matsu."

Xenia spoke kindly, tilting her head, "It's been a long time." She took a moment's pause to obviously, if not a bit theatrically study the Sith's wardrobe choices in nothing but approval. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't show," Xenia said behind warm, practiced smiles. "What brings you to Naboo?" Raising her hands, then pointing to her testing droids, she excused herself by "I must admit I wasn't expecting you. Aren't surprise visits from you Sith the nightmare of many?" She seemed fearless, understanding that in her casual and friendly, enigmatic tones, nothing sounded harsh. Another crunching from below, sending static eruptions in shivers across the fight ring's magnetic fencing. The NN-T's electro staff had nearly punctured Detox's chest, diverted only by the red glow of a Sith's lightsaber. In turn, the deflected attack had crashed headlong into ray field panels to generate the noise. Deftly, Detox deflected its more crude counterpart's staff attack with a carefully administered soresu defense. Spinning out of danger, Detox added a meter's distance between the two, then lashed out in a rather sudden strike aimed at the staff's center. The bright yellow orange coils of electro-energy faded from either end as the staff snapped in two, accompanied by the acrid scent of burning technology. A quick kick sent the NN-T staggering backwards, and when it recovered Detox had but to will other droid into submission, unleashing a digital sleuth of override commands and non damaging viruses. The NN-T fell first ceremoniously to its knees then shut down with its arms to either side, as if in reverence to the match's victor. Detox, after a moment's pause, turned to face Matsu from below and nodded its head similarly to Xenia.

<<Welcome Empress. You've been busy.>>

For roughly a second, Detox's entire frame lit up and took the form of a security patrol officer. A random female first, then a male, both of which smiling and shifting faster, faster, faster. And for a fraction within that second, in between the rapidly transforming genders, Matsu's own image. Her smile, Matsu's eyes staring back at herself. Then the black metals of a droid, glimmering with whatever light had been left over from its previous projection. The droid stepped forward, raising its arms to stimulate the use of other, dormant modules. Another brilliant flash of holographic projection, a series of headlines and images which appeared around Detox, floating news pages, pictures of the woman running wild on the battlefield. Matsu's public reputations, her locations, her accomplishments in war, all floating around the machine's metal frame in a three dimensional array, then again nothing. <<It'll need a more sturdy weapon.>> Detox waved its lightsaber in the buzzing direction of the bisected staff, humming the weapon in arcs before deactivating the blade and sheathing it.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Had Matsu been in Xenia’s head – an absurd notion, given that she wouldn’t touch the minds of those that had, in some way, gathered her respect – she might have found the brunette’s disconcertment with her outfit amusing. It was just so Nubian to feel underdressed even in some of the finest jewelry and fur Matsu had seen in a while.

Her lips, painted dark, pulled up at one corner when Xenia teased. Matsu, though highly visible within the One Sith and especially on Coruscant, was one of the quieter among their ranks. It lent her a mystique that worked very well for her when it came down to torturing their enemies. Few knew exactly what to expect of her. In her beginnings she hadn’t seemed a threat because she was petite – a tiny little Atrisian girl with a fire in her belly but not much else. She could sneak in and out of places, worm her way close to the enemy before they could realize what was happening, when it was too late for them to fight back. These days her victims (spider, spinning silk around something quickly approaching corpse-like, full on blood, fingers twisted in guts) knew she was dangerous, but didn’t know how. Not until it mattered.

“Why? Do you have something to fear?” she asked, her tone just as casual. Her connection to the Directorate was strange, not solidified, but there was something promising and easy that Matsu couldn’t – shouldn’t – ignore. “I heard you were doing quite well for yourself. I wanted to see.”

It was truthful enough.

Her gaze turned to Detox when she heard his characteristic tone, narrowing her eyes as she watched the flow of faces (mine, mine, is that what I look like staring back up?) before the last year of her life quite literally flashed before her eyes in words and pictures. She answered, her tone far-off as if she were lost in what he’d shown her: “I have. The One Sith hasn’t known rest for quite some time, though I suppose that’s how we like it.”

She blinked, a beat of silence she seemed infinitely comfortable in, before turning her head back to Xenia. Perhaps the greatest difference between the Matsu that Xenia had met, and the Matsu now, was the step back from humanity she’d taken. Normal expressions and movements seemed to require thought. (Blink. Blink. Remember to blink.) “Though it would seem the same could be said for you. Directorate. That has a nice ring.”

[member="Xenia Nastassia"]​