Rodent Relations

[Smeg]

The war of the undercity waged on.

For as long as the light had stopped reaching the lowest levels there was a state of perpetual fighting. Who between? Swoop gangs? No, no, you're not thinking deep enough. Go further, where sewage pipes rot and drip putrid shades of brown eternal, where a single visit will grant you a peculiar itch and a smell you can't shake off. Go to the very floor of Coruscant, where the rats reign supreme...

...or at least try to.

So long ago, once human criminals had been cast down to this level of filth and darkness and left to the mercy of time. Without light they grew pale, without education they became stupid, without food they became twisted and adapted to a life of squalor. They became the Cthon, worthless troglodytes, barely sentient, but who needed to be when you were physically stronger than your opponents.

The Skraal.

Being that rodents already thrived in such a nature it was no surprise that evolution came along to help kick-start a race of bigger, badder and somehow more disgusting creatures. They were of course, smaller than their rivals and not really all that much smarter, but they were at least sneaky and bred in greater numbers (likely the reason for their lack of extinction).

The Cthon usually managed to beat back the Skraal with their brute strength, but recently times had been changing. The rodents had been gaining the upper-hand fighting back and sweeping over territory like it was nobody's business. They had began to utilise that sneaky nature, guerrilla warfare became the name of their game but how?

Enter Smeg, the King of Filth.

One Skraal had been born smarter than his brothers and sisters and finally realised that with a bit of charisma and a lot of cheese that his people could be controlled. Of course, to be united by cheddar, is a fragile alliance at best so the Yuuzhan Vong came onto the scene. After all quickly multiplying disease-ridden hordes made for perfect endless cannon fodder. So Smeg gave Tsavong his people, and in return he got to keep playing royalty.

Which came with unexpected side effects. Mainly rodent obesity.

His sedentary lifestyle, coupled with mountains of scavenged junk food had lead to a rather sudden expansion of the Skraal's waistline. Of course, in his society this was so rare that it only made him into a figure of magnificence rather than weakness. Fat is back in fashion, it's regal, bitches.

He lay upon his throne, an abandoned leather couch complete with mysterious stainage, his gargantuan gut wobbled with each laboured breath. This was not a healthy creature, but it was hard keeping up on the latests discarded issues of Rodent Health Magazine when one rarely indulged in any physical movement at all. No, Smeg had a repulsor lift once used for transporting cargo to take him where he needed to be.

“Bruvvas...” he wheezed, “....get King Smeg....some moar...chips....I iz....starvin'!”

 

[Darth Adekos]

[member="Smeg"]

Things were proceeding according to plan. Or they had been, at any rate. The underclasses were repeatedly combed and picked at for Force Sensitives. Those that Janus' agents discovered were either sent to the One Sith academies or sent towards his favorite pupil and her projects. The rest, the painfully mundane, were rehabilitated, educated, and shipped off to underdeveloped planets to... Well, develop them. Janus did not do this because he felt it was the morally right thing to do or because he felt particularly sympathetic towards the poor. He did it because he liked putting people to work towards productive goals, such as contributing to the galactic economy.

As one would expect, this kind of work had him sending agents deep, deep down into the under-levels of Coruscant. As the months went by, they got progressively deeper. Once they reached a certain point, however, agents began to stop coming back. That wasn't unusual, but now it was happening at a more alarming rate. Instead of his agents coming back with tangible results and intelligence, they came back with ridiculous tales of Rat kings and swarms of disgusting, malformed rat people waging war against beggars and lepers.

And also resignation papers.

Needless to say, this could not go on. If Tyrin had to go down there to resolve this situation with the "King of Filth" (what an abysmal title) himself, then he would. He would not go alone, naturally, and so brought with him a contingent of MagnaGuards. Tyrin was not the kind of person who went places alone. Nor did he walk. That was why a shuttle had brought him as close to the supposed location of these rat people and as far down as possible. Then he started marching. Because when bureaucratic Umbarans got pissed off towards those meddling in their affairs, they could not not march with the fury of ten thousand supernova suns.

The Skraal he encountered on his journey were generally hostile, and assaulted his person and that of his guards viciously. Tyrin and company left them alive for the most part, if a bit bruised. He had no reason for killing them yet. To do so would probably sour relations before they got started. At least, that had been his original attitude. Then the retinue began to encounter Skraal that had been Vongformed.

Those were killed outright, and usually in a painful manner. Tyrin had no patience or mercy for Vong, their offshoots, and their collaborators. They were all dangerous, malformed extragalactics with the cultural inclinations of Mandalorians- only worse. They had to be culled where they could be, before the problem got out of hand. How unfortunate that his government frequently aligned itself with them, but Tyrin corrected the problem where he could. Whatever game these Skraal were playing down here, it involved Vong, and all that did was incense him to further action.

Thankfully the Vongformed ones were relatively few, so there was still hope to stop this outbreak before it got worse.

All of this should have been sufficient background information for when the doors to Smeg's throne room burst open, revealing three MagnaGuards and one pissed off Umbaran. They stalked into the room silently, stopping a fair distance before Smeg before tossing the disemboweled corpse of a Vongformed Skraal at the foot of his throne.

It was still clutching a bag of chips.

Not exactly the most heartwarming start to negotiations, but it would do.

"We need to have a conversation, you and I." Tyrin began, hands kept clutched behind his back. "You are the one in charge here, are you not?"

 

[Smeg]

Fully functioning droids and humans were more than just a rare sight this far down. Likely because the humanoids that ran the surface would have been more than content to leave the Skraal to their own affairs. Whenever he carried himself upwards to aid in the affairs of the Hrosha-Gul any Sith that caught his gaze generally looked at him with disgust and contempt.

Some even tried to hurt him, and that kept the self-proclaimed King weary.

As soon as the doors burst open his people began to shy away, backing off into the shadows and cramming themselves into any cracks and crevices that could be found. They were cowards by instinct.

Smeg, however, as cowardly as he was had to wear the fear of his people and stand (sit) tall when they were threatened. It was the price of being a leader. So when the corpse of his own vongformed brother hit the ground with a slight squelch the King of Filth's whiskers twitched. Not that the brutality bothered him, it was the name of the game down in the dank but his mutated people were a lot stronger than the others.

With a visible struggle the rotund rodent shifted his bulk, opting to lay on his side to stare at the intruder rather than crane his neck and cause needless discomfort. The couch groaned under the strain and there was a touch of huffing and puffing but eventually he made it, vast gut pooling outwards at gravity's beck and call. Toxic beady eyes glanced to the chips clutched by the hands of the corpse and then back to his guests.

“Yesssss,” he hissed, a scrtch scrtch scrtch accompanying his voice as he leisurely reached into his tatty trousers and itched his regal expanse. He was terrified, naturally, but had to be the pillar of his community. Only bad Kings are cowards. “I iz...King Smeg...” he declared, before continuing, “who iz you.....an' why iz you killin' Smeg's...bruvvas....?”

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Darth Adekos]

[member="Smeg"]

Normally Tyrin would have sensed the fear rolling off of the corpulent underking and basked in it. This time around he was far too preoccupied with his own seething irritation to notice the emotional state of anyone else. For all he was aware, Smeg was as relaxed as he appeared. The thing spoke in a wheezing, pregnant, and completely unsophisticated manner. Just because they lived in abject filth and poverty did not give them an excuse to ignore proper speaking conventions.

Truly, the depravity of these creatures knew no bounds.

"I can assure you that any of your kind that possess that affliction are no brothers of yours." Tyrin said, referencing the Vongformed carcass.

"Which brings me to my presence here. Why are you collaborating with Yuuzhan-Vong?"

Ultimately the first thing that needed to be settled was getting these creatures to cease their partnership with the Vong. If that was not an option, then he would have to skip a few other plans and move on to extermination. The next thing to do would be to see about cordoning them off to certain areas of the lowest levels to end their clashes with his agents and those of their equally impoverished but more varied rival.

Since the rumors about the Filth King were evidently true, Tyrin would go out on a limb and say that the Beggar King was just as real. He would have to be dealt with next if things were going to get back on schedule.

 

[Smeg]

Affliction?

Smeg of course didn't understand what the intruder was referring to, affliction was his game, as a species they were mostly immune to diseases of most varieties, the benefits of living in such stinking squalor. What the Sith Lord likely didn't know was who actually created the vongformed rodents. It was not Tsavong, nor The Hyrda Queen, they had bigger fish to fry, or rather mutate into horrible abominations.

It had been Smeg.

Part and parcel of the entire deal in which the King of Filth sold out his people for cannon fodder was that Smeg himself would benefit and the Skraal wanted to be stronger. Of course, there was no instantaneous growth that turned him into a hulking beast, no amphistaff arms or eyes that spat venom. No, he was gifted the gila stomach, which granted him the ability to...well...

...to vomit.

Okay, that's underselling it. He vomited the vongspawn virus, a useful ability already successfully used in the field of battle, but not only that, he could turn his own people. Make them stronger, turn them into thralls that wouldn't betray him, well, as long as he didn't betray the Yuuzhan Vong.

Smeg would have to trade carefully here. Smoothskin comes down here asking about the Yuuzhan-Vong. He'd seen Darth Mierin and Tsavong interact, he understood that they were only allies in a loose sense of the word.

“Why doez you....want to know...?” he gasped, as junk food crumbs made his position upon the Throne Couch uncomfortable. This time he strained to sit up, his abnormally thin legs flailed awkwardly as he did so. The pendulous gut shifted, laying across his lap like a furry beach ball.

So sexy.

[member="Darth Janus"]

 

[Darth Adekos]

[member="Smeg"]

The fat, sluggish creature processed Tyrin's inquiry for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually it was able to reply, taking a similar amount of time in forcing the words from its bloated diaphragm. Tyrin was actually getting a little saddened just looking at the thing. But he was a Sith, so these sentimental feelings were shoved into a tiny box and brutally repressed.

Tyrin had absolutely no idea Smeg was a Vongspawn himself. It could have been a number of things. Smeg was obese and fairly far away. Since it was an internal modification that had been made, it probably wasn't even visible to the Umbaran anyway. He couldn't notice everything, naturally. Otherwise this would have devolved into more of a skirmish.

"Vong are degenerate parasites and their presence on this planet represents a threat to all of its inhabitants."

The Umbaran narrowed his eyes at the royal Skraal.

"Including you. Now answer my question, if you'd be so kind."

 

[Smeg]

OOC: Sorry for the late reply, beeb. I lost my funk. Gettin' it back now. [member="Darth Janus"]

Those are some big words there, buddy.

Degenerate flew straight over his patchy and matted head but parasite clung on like lice. He knew parasite, after all that's what the Skraal was, and he their Parasite King! They clung onto the unfortunate lowest echelons of Coruscanti society and fed. Killing and bringing forth a unique brand of fester.

However, a parasite he might have been but he was in no way, shape or form a clever one. As soon as the notion of personal threat came into play the creature shifted uncomfortable in his throne, huffing and puffing as he was so accustomed to. The Yuuzhan Vong wouldn't dare hurt him! Well perhaps Tsavong, but he had grown inconsequential as of late. However his Queen, his Queen treated him well! She was even not so repulsed as to avoid touching him.

“No!” he hissed, furry rat jowls dancing as he did so. It wouldn't be that easy for dear old Tyrin, “YER LYIN'!”

From out of the various cracks and crevices came further hisses and squeaks in the general direction of agreement.

“Da Queen wud nevah hurt Smeg!”