Starwarfenstein

[Maple Harte]

Maple sighed. "I was afraid you would say virtually every one if those things, Matsu." Maple whispered as she crept through the poorly lit dungeon, sticking to her noise reduction training as taught to her by Ursula. Ursula, who had taught her to move without making so much as an ear twitch. She followed signs leading to nearby barracks, which were much much larger than the cramped cell she had been stuck to, Five rows of three beds each with a small kitchen and latrine nearby. Along with a small, transparent locker with weapons. Three guards were sitting at a small table, playing sabacc.

"How come no one's heard back from that team sent to investigate the hidden fortress on Dantooine?" One of the Kanzer warriors asked.

"Rumor has it everyone was KIA," another red clad warrior at the table explained.

"Chit, how?"

"You know that break in we got? The skinny little thing rotting in a cell below us? Same cause for both."

"She iced forty of our best men!"

"Lady Ike wants her kept alive. Her suffering is apparantly meant to be heinous."

Maple, while this conversation was occuring, had swiftly moved behind a pillar, armed only with a pilfered knife, and decided to bring her knowledge of magic into this.

She cut her palm, letting the blood seep out. She peaked from cover, whispering the spell, finding it was easier to focus on magic than the Force.

"Mother Nature, a storm of arrows is fueled by blood..." she said, not sure if it would work.

The other guards stirred when nothing happened. Maple repeated the spell, flinging her hand. They snorted and drew their own vibroswords.

Just as they rushed her, Maple repeated the spell one more time, focusing with all her might as they all sprinted at her.

The bright light flared in her hand, and dozens of fiery, spectral arrows came out impacting at twice their normal force and leaving them all human pincushions.

Maple searched their corpses, finding a Mandalorian blaster on one as well as a key card. She swiped it on the reader to the weapons locker and it parted. She didn't know where they had taken her actual gear but she had been getting by without fancy equipment for some time.

Maple spotted what looked to be an old black set of fiber armor inside the locker. It was better than nothing.

Quickly and efficiently sequipping herself, Maple put on the fiber armor, and took the repeating blaster carbine also. She took out her comlink after spotting a map layout.

"Maple to Matsu and Siva. Have acquired weaponry. Located in a dungeon on the lowest level. How far are you and how fast can you get here, because I am seeing a feth ton of sentry points between where I am and where you are. We cause an alert now, they'll swarm us. We might stand a chance together, but they'll tear us apart otherwise. This also looks like where they keep everyone their going to pump full of Rozzum. Matsu, do you have any clue why Evil-You would have wanted to get into my Master's stronghold? Even the guards were talking about what happened at Loste Citadel. Its almost like she was getting directions on that from...someone else..." Maple trailed as she left the barracks...

...and smack into more guards.

Maple's trigger finger was faster. All four had their heads blasted open in seconds.

"Change of plan!" Maple exclaimed as the alarm sounded. "I'm heading to you!"

Blaster fire nearly hit her as more guards filed down from a staircase. Maple ducked behind a pillar close to a cell and sprayed fire in their direction, wounding some. But she was still pinned for the moment...

 

[Matsu Ike]

[member="Maple Harte"]

Matsu looked at the twi'lek and was listening to Maple as they had a chance here to really work on it and make some headway maybe. She would first have to deal with the looming threat. The jedi master moved into a room and she was bringing up the mental map she had in her head as she reached out to feel and sense Maple. Now that she had a connection to her even through the comlink she would be able to use it. "We'll find you just give us a moment." She motioned with her hand towards the twi'lek and spoke. "Cover the door and give me a moment." She was reaching now and could feel it, her mind searching.

She could feel Maple there and had a path before she could feel something pressing against her mind... a presence was there and she opened just enough to look at her. Between the span of a heartbeat she knew the two of them could have a conversation or more but this wasn't something most of them did as Matsu stood there in her mind. Focused on the force and energies around. It was a plain location, dark skies and standing over the swirling ocean on the surface of the water as she could see her dark mirror before her. They looked much alike the outfits were different and their equipment but....

She was looking at the other Matsu with her scar going across her eye and up to her forehead then down to her jawline. Thick and visible leaving her eyes milky white. She stood there and the looming feeling was there. The jedi master could feel it and what the Kanzer and their allies were trying to summon was coming to them. She didn't know what the creature was but it was there. "So that is the plan then, you used the codex or parts of it to open a way and from the Rozzum you pushed to find something older?" She said it looking at her and looked at the shadows as what it was slithered around them.

"Yes is that so surprising, I am much like you... more then you know eve. Thirsty for knowledge and addicted to the thrill one gets with a new discovery." THe jedi master was looking at her and the black scales of whatever it was moved around and the darker one remained there. "Maybe so but knowledge without much of the wisdom that you get from experience." She was watching the dangerous parts here though and was preparing to back out of the small talk but there was something from her. "She was rather certain the two of youwould save her, find her... there is a whole lot you do not know that is coming."

 

[Maple Harte]

Maple blasted another four of the Dark! Matsu's warriors as her bolts found their mark. Her shots were controlled, precise, heart rate kept low through controlled fire that hit joints and visors, never trying to go for a body shot. The shots always seemed perfectly times

This is why Uri Udinia was considered so horribly deadly. Most snipers and sharpshooters have certain tactics. The former attempts headshots more often as sharpshooters often fight from much closer ranges and tend to prefer targeting center mass to have the best chance of landing a hit. Uri was dangerous because not only could she do both, and easily at that, but she possessed the uncanny ability to hit joints and limbs with a frequency that would have made Teepo's Paladins green with envy. Her ability to predict the movement paths of multiple targets at once...without the Force was also a contributing factor. This had made her a horrorshow for many villains.

To this day, Maple still had mixed feelings about her abilities in marksmanship. It had saved her life. It had also corrupted her. Each pile of spilt viscera, bones shattered by lead, faces deformed...it all stayed with her. It had been easy for Laertia...Laertia had been immersed in the violence of the streets...she had built up a tolerance to it. An expectation of it potentially wherever she walked, because 'any' direction as a child inevitably led Laertia to violence...but for Maple...who had not been conditioned to it as a child, who had to learn real violence at fourteen, it was clear she had not adjusted well at all.

The soldiers fell as she was finally able to advance through the dungeon complex, searching for either [member="Matsu Ike"] or Dark Matsu, musing still whether her evil alternate self had a beard...provided of course, there WAS an evil, alternate self of her running around this place. She hoped there was not. She could not stand the idea that there might be. Certainly could not stand the idea of a version of her being evil and ALSO having a beard. Evil, she could handle. Evil AND From another dimension AND Beards? Only the devil or a highly logical alien could get away with it. The logical alien would likely look badass but that would be pure speculation.

Maple knew the lull was temporary. Knew there would be more reinforcements soon. But she had a window to move.
Sticking to the shadows came easy to her, Ursula's expertise in stealth being drilled into her. The stealth training from Ursula had been so demanding, so exacting, that sneaking was one of the first things they covered when she was recruited. She hadn't been allowed to progress until Ursula literally could not hear Uri sneaking up on her. A process that had taken weeks.

Uri moved through the shadows, darting from one to the next, disappearing into the shade as though it were a black hole, manuevering through swerving camera paths that just barely missed detecting her as more soldiers stormed dungeon access, a few of them wretching as they saw the carnage left in her wake.

"By the Gods, she's killed them all!" one of them exclaimed. "Spread out! Nothing leaves this dungeon!"

Uri left dungeon access and closed the door behind her, but not before taking a cluster of grenades she had taped together, pulling the pin on one and tossing it deep then broke into a run...

Siva, in the meantime, had done just as Matsu asked, watching the door of the chamber they had retreated to, buying a momentary reprieve from the onslaught. "Maple..." she called out in her comlink. "Do you copy? Matsu's zoning out here...she's in some kind of trance."

After a moment, there was a response.

'Give her space, Siva. Its probably weird Jedi stuff she's up to."

"Well did she have to do weird Jedi stuff in the middle of a warzone?" Siva hissed, hearing the shouts of men and women. The Twi'lek spun her pistols and waited for the inevitable breaching attempt.

"Uri?" Siva called out in a hiss. "Uri?"

Maple did not respond. That wasn't good. Siva shut her comlink off, thinking this could only get worse from here.

 

[Matsu Ike]

Matsu continued to focus on the force and then she was back... being able to feel them in the force as many more minds were around. She kept the focus and the interest there until she came out of it and could see the twi'lek in the force and her own eyes. "I know where she is." She said it and was certain her mind expanding and making a field around her that went through rock and metal and earth down into the bowels where she could feel maple and her mirror self. She moved looking at the twi'lek and spoke with her eyes focused looking around to get oriented to find Maple and she focused to sense and feel her as others seemed to be dying around them where Maple was able to attack them. "There isn't much time, what is being done here is just a part of a larger whole and it is much much more dangerous. They don't actually know what can happen without a complete codex or what could be unleashed." She said it but was opening with the force and shaping a section that went down more towards Maple and she spoke into the force detecting and finding her to brush. "Maple we are coming."

 

[Maple Harte]

Maple was creeping through what looked to be an ancient generator room that the warriors had gotten working again by way of fixing most of the internals with haphazard workaround circuits. It was connected to the rest of the complex and the weaknesses of the carbine were quickly catching up to her. It wasn't that she could not hit the weak spots, its just that outright stopping power has its benefits.

She saw the dark priestesses controlling the computers at their seats, and made sure to reduce her emotions to a very low level to avoid triggering their danger sense as she headed to a weapons locker with a lockpick. She picked it in seconds and opened it, eyes widening. Well...they certainly weren't screwing around, she'd give them that...

(Zelda Acquisition Theme plays)

(New weapons obtained!)

(New Gear obtained!)

Weapon: DLT-20 HEAVY BLASTER RIFLE (FLAMETHROWER ATTACHMENT)

Spoiler

Deadly Single Shot Heavy Rifle with Thermal Scope and long range. 50 shots. Comes with Baragwin flamethrower.

Weapon: MANDALORIAN DISINTEGRATOR

Spoiler

One of the single most lethal disruptors ever made, often a choice weapon for Mandalorian Officers during ancient wars. Twenty shots, personal range.

Maple pulled down the rifle first, then the disintegrator, which looked like an old trophy weapon. Normally, Maple never touched disruptors these days. She had used them as a Marksman, but that was going after extremely dangerous targets. She was well aware that the taboo against disruptors had never lessened. Even today, you could be executed on the spot by legal authorities just for having one on some planets. Only militaries could really get away with it, and even then...

But there were no such rules here.

(BFG Division by Mick Gordon plays.)

Maple blasted a witch in the back, pressing the trigger, adjusting for recoil. She liked certain blasters, and then there was the DLT. She had always bore a fondness for it. Sometimes classics just get it right the first time, like her J-Type.

Maple kept squeezing shots off, utterly wrecking the consoles for power regulation, ripping through the bodies of warriors and priestesses. She would rip this place apart to get to Dark! Matsu. Fires and explosions sounded as the generator gave out and Maple kept firing moving forward and setting a computer console on fire with the flamethrower undermount. Kind of weak for a flame thrower...never got above 451 degrees but the baragwin design, modded to work on a rifle, did not use the fuel other flamethrowers used, and despite the short range, could be used almost indefinitely. Maple burned a priestess, watching her scream. She returned fire through the explosions, slamming kanzer warriors backward, or burning them as they got too close. The rifle kicked hard with every trigger pull, but Maple kept firing until she was out of ammo in the rifle, then resorted to just using the flamethrower, coating whole sections in fire before exiting, spraying flame into a corridor just as Dark Priestesses and Kanzer Assassins rounded the corner to confront her. Maple burned them all, torching one even as they thrashed in agony in front of her, blasting open the thick plating on one red armored warrior. When it got too difficult to aim and manuever, Maple pulled out the Disintegrator.

Everyone who saw it panicked. That only meant they were sane. Some tried to retreat as she aimed, shoving others aside in a desperate attempt not to be hit.

Maple fired the bulky pistol, goldplated with an old faded clan symbol she could not make out, and a bright light erupted.

The white bolt traveled, fast, towards faces already widening in horror. It hit one assassin, who screamed in horrific agony as the bolt blasted through her chest, turning a good chunk of it to vapor. Maple fired again and again, emptying the clip in their direction, watched as parts of them got turned to vapor or ash. She got out her carbine and let loose a spray of automatic fire that cut down any who tried to retaliate the power throughout the whole facility dead at this point. Her one handed use of an automatic carbine did not make for great accuracy but at these ranges you didn't need accuracy.

She ducked the occasional bolt as she moved into other rooms, dual wielding into whole rooms of warriors. She had stumbled onto the barracks. Virtually everyone was being mobilized to try and stop her. Her deadly accuracy cut down more as she moved through them, killing at point blank ranges, ripping them open with pilfered weapons. Soon everybody in one room was dead, and Maple was collecting blaster clips and grenades. The alarm was still going in this area. Maple shot the klaxon. She began to search for orders and spare weapons she could carry but found none else until she accidentally hit a hidden panel on a stone wall...

(Zelda unlocking theme plays)

(A secret is revealed!)

Maple stared at the small alcove of hidden aurodium ingots, a gold, jeweled goblet full of Pontites and Krayt Pearls, and a bag of credits with a medkit. She blinked, unable to believe someone thought in holo vid-game , let alone FPS holo-vid game. People were fething strange these days. She had been in this business for years and she had never come across anything like that. It just didn't happen.

Maple took the medkit, a pontite and a pearl, and a small ingot, putting it in a small pouch on her armor's equipment belt.

The snap hiss of a lightsaber alerted Maple to an enemy. She wheeled around, opening fire on the Dark Jedi in all red robes, face covered by a blank, pearlescent white mask. She didn't take risks, being so outnumbered, immediately grabbing the DLT and torching everything his way. He protected himself with the Force however, and began moving between the beds, disappearing into a Force Cloak. Maple panicked, trying to sense him, but her skills were too atrophied. Far too atrophied. It took her indiscriminately spraying the area with fire to catch him, part of the flame catching his robe. She immediately hip fired with her carbine and pistol, using telekinesis to lift the rifle above her and press its secondary trigger. He blocked, getting closer in Shii-Cho, avoiding the spray of her flamethrower floating above them. Maple forced the world to slow as she took aim at him with the pistol. She waited until he was seconds from reaching and then fired as the swing of his red lightsaber began. His head dissolved to smelly, sticky ash as the disintegrator bolt hit it. His lightsaber tumbled from her hand but Maple caught it, gazing at the red blade. Good for selling.

Yet...

Maple had sold plenty of red blades...part of how the Marksman had funded themselves was selling off the spoils of the enemy not interesting enough for them to keep...

...but she had never kept one.

Maple hooked it to her belt. Never hurt to have a back up weapon.

Maple gathered more clips of ammo before heading off to continue her purge of the facility. Nothing would stop her from reuniting with Siva and [member="Matsu Ike"] .

More assassins began shooting at her, and Maple took cover behind a support arch before bringing her inner Wick out again and moving forward, snapping shots from her heavy rifle at anything that looked like a head or torso, making organs burst and cook, dodging fire with seemingly impossible twitch reflexes, spraying a blast of flame right into a warrior's mouth (GLORY KILL!!!) Everything seemed to explode around her from return blaster fire, including the cover she ducked behind before grabbing an adhesive grenade, tossing it at two seconds left and watching some scream as heavy, sticky glop covered them and got thick in seconds, allowing her to rip them open with more blaster or disruptor fire. She always moved, highly aggressive, her schizophrenia convincing her doves were flying about like she was in some sort of action film with themes of redemptive violence.

Men and women fell as she fired, only taking cover to reload and sometimes not even that, just switching to a fully loaded weapon, burning through her ammo reserves, but making up for it by generally hitting what she aimed at, some tearing in half until she ascended up a passage, trails and trails and trails of dead Kanzer behind her, coming across warriors surrounding a door they were too breach. Maple emptied her disintegrator in their direction, then her carbine when they fired back, then her DLT. The door behind them exploded from a sonic charge and Siva the Twi'lek jumped out, twisting in mid air as she drew her own pistols, blasting the survivors from Maple's wrath dead as she hit the floor. Maple ran up to her. "Siva, you okay? I'm sorry I lost contact. I knew you were both in trouble, so I had to fight my way here."

Siva looked at the trail of dead, smoking bodies in Harte's wake.

"I forgive you, since you went all 'Order Sixty-Six' on these bastards."

Maple glowered at her. "Not funny."

Siva sighed. "Oh c'mon, its a little funny."

Maple thought a moment.

"Okay, it is..." she admitted a second later, turning to Matsu. "Any idea where evil you is?"

 

[Matsu Ike]

[member="Maple Harte"]

She looked at her as the feelings came... a sensation within the force as she could feel Maple moving now and she was going to town with weapons... something to remind the jedi master just how dangerous the woman could really be when she stretched out with her senses towards guiding herself and the twi'lek down towards her. She moved a hand and brought a saber to her hand as she moved, her body gliding through the cooridor that they were in and she found some of the creatures they were fighting. The silvery white sabers in her hands spun around like a whirlwind when she moved down the way and kicked off of the walls or ran along them.

Finding a vent shaft she could feel the force itself around her and her mind went towards one of the few times she moved like this trying to find someone else... Chora..... The thoughts were there and she had been on Coruscant when battle came to it. She hadn't wanted to fight like that but her hand was forced and the jedi master ran along the hull of a starship in high atmosphere as it was being brought down to theground after being smashed with a derriphan class. Chora had been there and giving into the darkness she had tried tot empt but then kill everything realizing how much she had done.

Then they were finding her and Matsu raised an eyebrow at the order sixty six reference with a look on her face where they were in the caves and facility. Natural formations aside there wasn't a lot that told them how far in or where to go to get out. "If I had to guess, she is going towards an exit... maybe not to flee from us but we have disrupted the operations here... that will go a long way and she needs to regroup or find another way to bring forth one of these force gods from beyond the galaxy." She said it and she knew what the creatures were and where. "I talked to her and what I felt was ancient.. something we learned about from the bedlam."

But she wasn't done and came over to look at Maple with a larger look on her face of concern. She was trying to make sure she wasn't injured but with the Roosum and kanzer here being aided by her mirror self it was a dangerous situation. She was looking to try and better reinforce it all, she wanted to try and help her out but Maple seemed to have handled herself fairly well enough. "I trust nothing to bad happened... I know she can be a little intense in some areas and exudes danger." With a bigger look on her face when she turned back towards the twi'lek and gave a nod of her head.

 

[Maple Harte]

"Oh, I'm doing great, Matsu. Peachy, in fact!" Maple muttered. It was in this case her madness really flared up.

"Once the super insects come, they will purge this place of heresy! FOR WEREWOLF OBI-WAN KENOBI!" Maple proclaimed, lost in one of her delusions.

Siva just eyeballed her. "Uri...what was that?"

The madness left Maple's eyes for a split second and the loose objects in the room fluttered about from uncontrolled telekinesis.

"What was what?" Maple asked, having forgotten the previous seconds.

Siva had a look of deep concern on her face as she watched Uri go ahead.

"If Dark Matsu is trying to leave we should try and catch her..." Maple said, trying to get an idea of where could be the best, most efficient escape route in a place like this. She began to think of everything she had seen in this place so far.

"Siva..." Maple trailed "if I had a big evil underground stronghold that was in truth a coffin once it came under outside attack...where would I put the escape route?" Maple asked.

Siva thought a moment.

"Right at the bottom...in the Owner's quarters..." Siva suggested. "There's mine networks so..."

Maple spun the Mandalorian Disintegrator. "We go lower..."

Fifteen minutes later.

Maple and Siva stuck close to Matsu Ike as they moved through the oddly luxurious stone passages Maple spotting murals of the ancient, apparently Zeltron Queen. Her schizophrenia would later cause her to dismiss this entire incident as yet another scenario that had never occured. It would not be until later events that Maple would realize this experience had been all too real.

They met little in the way of resistance as they met, a few Kanzer warriors, assassins guarding the odd checkpoint as a stop gap, anything to slow down two extremely deadly former Shadows and a Bounty Hunter. It was clear that Maple, Matsu, and Siva had slaughtered an incredibly large amount of Dark! Matsu's forces. Even the labs where the Rozzum was being made were relatively undefended when Maple quietly hacked the door and entered, disappearing expertly and silently into the shadows. Siva entered, both pistols trained in front of her as she advanced. No sign of any other mine workers, just corpses, test subjects for failed Rozzum infusion. Siva was no more certain of the direction Dark Matsu might be headed, or even if Uri's hunch was correct.

Siva tried not to think about Uri's unexpected outburst for there was far too much danger present. She had to focus on making it out of this death trap alive, along with who had given away Loste Citadel's location. Dark! Matsu might have taken advantage of the knowledge but it was clear, at least Maple believed it to be, that someone had provided the information to her for their own reasons. Ursula's hidden lab was certainly one reason.

Siva had never like Ursula. The Twi'lek Shadow had paid her good money but something about her, the effect she had on Uri and that poor girl Laertia...it made Siva instantly mistrust her from their very first meeting. Ursula didn't feel like a Jedi to Siva despite her rhetoric. Uri had not either. Only Laertia even approached that level, and even then she was some ways off. Siva knew that unlike Uri, Laertia could never be made to truly question Ursula or her cause. Siva deeply pitied Laertia for this.

Siva noticed one of the Rozzum cannisters had been removed. She went for the computers, trying to figure out where it had been taken and why...

A burst of Disintegrater fire from Maple hit the cloaked Assassin above Siva about to try and pull an Ezio on her. He tumbled from his hiding place on the supports above. Four more hit the foor from their own hiding spots, chests turned to molten ash. It was clear they had suffered, brief as it had been. But they were Kanzer who helped put this crap into innocent people, so feth 'em.

"They want samples to restart their operation elsewhere..." Maple said, stepping out of the shadows, Disintegrater barrel still smoking. Siva checked the computers.

"I've got a route, alright. There's a hidden tunnel they are moving to three levels down. But I'm betting she has all her remaining forces set to stop us..."

"I'll second that bet..." Maple said, going over to the computer system and hacking it. She saw them on camera imaging, forty five in all, guarding the only route to the Queen's chamber.

Maple got a deranged look in her eye that made Siva stiffen in fear for her old paramour's state of mind. How bad was Uri doing?

"CYBORG COUNT DOOKU!" Maple yelled, dramatically cocking her DLT. "I GOT YOU, MOTHAFETHA! I GOT YOU!!!"

She then skipped out of the lab like she was playing hopscotch.

"Holy fething chit." Siva whispered turning to Matsu.

"I need you to tell me everything you have observed about her since you first met her...but after we stop the other you..." Siva said to Matsu before running after her old love, desperate to get her away from here to properly examine her.

She also was going to kill anyone who stood in the way of that. She had lost her sister to cancer. She could not lose Uri to madness. It would break her...

 

[Matsu Ike]

Maple Harte

Matsu was listening to Maple and walking as she had to share a look with the twi'lek in agreement. Maple seemed to be getting worse and what she had thought was a quirk.. everyone had something as a means to handle situations and jedi shadows were well... depending on who was running the shadows because in terms of them.... Maple and this Ursala had been in shadows more akin to the covenant... ones people in the newer jedi order migrated to because it allowed them to appear edgy as opposed to what the shadows had been before... to what they had been once upon a time as skilled fighters who didn't go out. She was more like that and had the power to cleanse compared to some and handle things by herself... but she controlled it and had her own limiters in place.

"When this is over we shall talk." Then she was moving and allowing her speed to keep her mobile while Maple and Siva would be able to use their weapons. The force concaling around herself and them to make them harder to sense when her blade came up and the silver blade shimmered with energy going down the length of it. Where Matsu stepped and began to open herself up to the force to try and feel her dark mirror. There wasn't a lot here left.. and if they were going to begin again it could be something easier then she was suspecting... the rozzum were in their own pocket dimension that would be able to be found with enough power. She was moving to confront them and getting deeper as her hand came out and was ripping open the earth beneath hem to get down instead of using a lift or chokepoint stairs.

 

[Maple Harte]

Siva and Maple once more fought as one as they reached the chokepoint, providing Cover for Matsu Ike as she used the Force to rip away chunks of the earth to get to the private chambers faster. Siva's precision pistol fire cut through weak points in the armor of their foes, killing them much sooner than they might otherwise have been. Maple had settled on sheer destructive power in her use of the disintegrater, bursting people into clouds of ash as they hit. There was once more a synergy between the two. Siva was covering Maple's flank, Maple's white bolts blasting through whatever she pointed at. Maple's skill had clearly not diminished.

Her mind on the other hand...

Maple's eyes were telling the story. She would hesitate occasionally, confused somehow. Siva would end up having to cover her. Then Maple would kick into overdrive and gun down ten more seconds later, shooting their way lower and lower past the checkpoint.

There were far more than initially thought. Dark! Matsu must have left her very best behind. It would not be enough.

Maple might as well have been a turret with how she fired. A turret with top spec auto targeting protocols. It always seemed to be headshots from the both of them, the combination producing many disintegrations and instagibbings as henchmen fell, unable to land a hit on either. Anyone who got close Siva quickly destroyed at hand to hand, breaking limbs and using living shields. The whole section lit up like it was daytime as they fired, the sounds almost deafening as they did.

Maple swooned and froze, and Siva tackled her when she left herself vulnerable to getting shot, shooting the last five with her pistol.

Maple looked like she did not know where she was. Siva's medical training skills from before her dishonorable discharge kicked in as she observed the symptoms.

When she had still been in the military there had been a chemical accident on the base she was stationed at. She'd never been able to figure out the chemical, but every victim of the accident she had examined she had diagnosed on site as schizophrenic. She knew this because she had cross training in diagnosing psychological trauma.

"No..." Siva whispered. "Not you, Uri...oh no...why didn't you tell me?"

Maple had finally become lucid, snapping out of a hellish delusion. She looked up at Siva's horrified look and knew instinctively she had found out.

"How long, Uri?" Siva asked. "How long have you known you were schizophrenic?"

"I learned about it when we were still seeing each other..." Maple whispered, tearing up. "Its Shrodinger's Syndrome."

Siva's heart sunk into her stomach. There was no treatment for that one. It would steadily get worse, until she would be confined for her own good. And then she would forever be lost in her delusions.

Siva felt like she had been punched as she hugged Maple, not letting a growing grief win. She would not lose Maple. Not like she had lost her sister. Maple had helped her through her sister's final hours, when the pain had been the greatest for her. Maple had brought painkillers to ease it. They had barely had any function. Both their hands had broken from her sister's death grip. But her sister's pain was long since over. She could not watch Maple suffer an even worse fate.

"Whatever happens, what ever is coming, Uri, we will find a cure..."

A shoulder was touched by Siva's hand.

"I swear it..."

Maple could only nod, Siva's worry like a knife in her. She headed to the entrance of the bedchamber. Hopefully Matsu Ike had gotten through her own way and could open it from the other side, because they would be stuck otherwise.

 

[Matsu Ike]

The jedi master could feel Maple Harte and Siva as their emotions were something she hadn't been expecting and she opened up a section of the tunnels so that they could get down and into a lift. She could feel her dark mirror further in and was moving as the tracks made it easier to get there when she was using one of the tracks with a portion of cart she could propel and control, direct with the force itself. What was happening with Maple was big and she knew if wasn't the greatest but she could do what she might be able to while they headed deeper into the mountain. "Maple." Matsu looked at her and the twi'lek as she was trying to be focused and held a and out allowing the force to work and try to share energy for healing.

"Whatever is happening, we can try to help a little but it might be safer to pull out of here. I don't know how far this tunnel goes or where it might lead to." She said it but was remaining focused and allowed the force to breathe outwards around herself... to allow it to calm and steady them within a bubble as she was reaching out into the rock and earth around them to make sure they were on the proper track and trail going forward. THe jedi master knelt down and was focusing the force energies as she brought her wrist up and used the wrist mounted datapad to bring up the jedi AI and scanner. "Hold still and we can try to work on some things."

"Oh this is going to be interesting." The AI was standing there and quiet was watching them but she brought up some information. "I have been goioong over the data from passive scans of the planet and what has been being seen... the Kanzer are pulling out at pockets and making space for others to see. We have moved the ship into deep orbit and ready to come in when you activate your beacon." The Ai continued to speak and she was looking at the three of them but bringing up more information about medical scans as the medical AI chimed in and brought up information... a combat AI showed what they were seeing from the Kanzer and some of the other soldiers.

"We have been running a full suite of coordinated scans and information gathers... we sent out drones to get into their holonet connections and review all of their logs and search or communication records. I am setting areas for investigation and areas that go into the unknown regions that are known strongholds from old Kanzer records and based on what we know of the mirror universes residents we can try to predict where your dopplegangger would be trying to go master." The AI looked up and Matsu raised her eyebrow as she was seeing it and feeling like she might have crerated a monster able to do a whole lot more.

Then she felt something and the tracks ended a massive chamber that opened to the skies of the world itself and it was deep still but high up she could see much more. "There." The jedi master was pointing and looking at it as the rift that had been torn was there... the rozzum poured forth from it and then there was more... they were thicker... larger and being swallowed before she looked up at the night skies and could see it. An enormous mass of black tentacles covered in slime dripping mouths and short writhing legs. The rozzum are seperating from it as they move along the ground and most are recaptured and pulled back into the miasmatic form.

 

[Maple Harte]

The Bedchamber entrance opened and Maple and Siva walked in, The A.I. of Matsu Ike relaying tactical data. In the meantime, Maple and Siva took a look around the ancient bed chamber, seeing the ancient murals of the Zeltron Queen still in near mint condition.

Maple cracked the ancient computer in the room first, looking to see if Dark! Matsu had stored anything worth knowing. She obtained another list of planets, these containing lightsaber crystal sites.

Maple noticed an ancient, unopened stone chamber nearby, and began tapping the security system controls until the door to it unsealed and slid open.

"Cha-ching!" Siva joked.

Maple rolled her eyes as she and the Twi'lek strode in, looking to see what sweet sweet loot was inside.

Maple snagged the parts to a secondary emitter on an ancient stone shelf, eyes widening as she spotted ancient writing on old tablets recessed into the walls of the old chamber with an ancient workbench.

She reached out to touch one of the tablets, shuddering as she got a taste of the fragment of knowledge within. She touched all of the tablets, each time getting a boost of insight...

She levitated off the ground to Siva's shock, eyes rolling into her head as she was permanently changed...

(Plasmid Acquisition Theme Plays)

(Maple has learned new Magic Spells!)

(Maple has learned new Magical techniques!)

Spell: SUMMON SWORDS

Spoiler

Summon floating etherial constructs with the power and shape of average Vibroswords to relentlessly attack an opponent for a short time. As skill in spell grows, number of swords that can be summoned increases.

Spell: ENERGY IMMUNITY

Spoiler

For a short time, become immune to the effects of energy. As character advances in skill, length of duration increases.

Spell: MAGIC HEALING

Spoiler

Speak a spell that very slowly, gradually reverses all received wounds at the length of an average bio restorative underlay, even while in combat save for fatal wounds to the Brain or Heart. After wounds are healed, requires fifteen minute cooldown. No Ranks to this power.

Spell: PSYCHIC ARMOR

Spoiler

For a short time, become immune to all Psychic attacks. As skill in spell advances, Duration of spell increases.

RITUAL: ENERGY INSCRIBEMENT

Spoiler

Inscribe magical tattoos to protect against a variety of effects. Character must be selective as magical enchantment will be difficult to break once applied

Infusion: MAGIC

Spoiler

Exposure to magic within this sanctum has permanently increased Maple's capacity for learning and understanding magic to 007 times that of regular human.

Maple dropped to the ground, unconscious.

Siva was immediately at her side cradling her, immediately getting out her scanners before Maple woke up, shocked.

She looked up at Siva, brushed the green skinned woman's cheek with her thumb, got up and went to join Matsu as though nothing had fething happened.

They soon caught up, listening to the rest of the briefing as they traveled with Matsu, Siva covering her favorite Alderaanian. They soon came across the chamber and Maple's eyes widened in horror.

"Okay...how do we close it?" Siva asked.

"Click our heels three times?" Maple suggested with her best imitation of a holonet trollface.

"Make out passionately until it goes away?" Siva suggested with just as trolling a grin.

Maple scoffed. "That only worked once. And we had already killed most of the Shinobi at that point."

Siva shrugged. "We could try uncreatively shooting it?" She asked.

"Oh, my, yes, let's try that..." Maple spoke, pulling out her Disintegrater.

Siva pulled her close before the chaos erupted again, kissing her.

"For Luck." Siva said.

"I thought I was the Leia in this situation..." Maple breathed, smiling before focusing on the task.

Both Siva and Maple fired at the tear and the Rozzum, trying to buy the actual heavy hitter here time to do something and find some fantastic Deus Ex Machina, because The Star Wars theme was starting to play OOC, and that meant a whole mess of Kanzer were starting to swarm from other areas in the chamber like a souless, unstoppable army of Stormtroopers. Maple devoted her time between shooting at the rozzum to shooting the other Kanzer with dual wielding, while Siva did the same.

 

[Matsu Ike]

Matsu stood there listening to Maple and Siva's well planning for the situation and she had to admit that she would like something like that.. well okay maybe not like that. Few could beat or come close to Hanna Ike who she loved with everything and the Hapan didn't have to be different but she enjoyed someone to travel with and a companion who could quip. Hanna had brains and looks but she liked staying in the city or in their home as opposed to this.. she wasn't a fighter and that was just as wonderful when she moved forward and looked at the two of them. A smalltightness... a sadness to her eyes as she had seen this before with Chora and spoke remembering what she had told her daughters.

“You’ll only realize that you truly love someone if they already caused you enormous pain. Your enemies can never hurt you the way your loved ones can. It’s the people close to your heart that can give you the most piercing wound. Love is a double-edged sword, it can heal the wound faster or it can sink the blade even deeper.” She had told them that... to explain why she wasn't around anymore and she looked towards the big writhing thing and.. yes the best course of action she could think about handling it was to shoot it.... excessively... with explosive weapons and keep shooting until everything stopped moving... which given how many limbs were on it she could see being quite awhile.

The jedi master was looking at the pair of them and she slipped one of the blasters... yeah she had a saber and she preferred using it but... there was a point where sometimes you needed to be able to use a saber. The stinger style pistol was accurate from longer distances, packed a decent punch but it was designed to have a sustainable energy pack that would be able to recharge as they needed it to. The jedi master stretched her mind outwards and allowed the force itself to augment her body before she was looking more and pointing towards it. "I think I can disrupt the rift if I can get close. Dimensional shifting isn't easy but it requires a lot of precise calculations so throwing it off a little will close it."

 

[Maple Harte]

"We'll cover you!" Maple assured Matsu Ike .

Maple and Siva were athletic mobile turrets as they ripped and tore the Kanzer open with blasters, trying to clear a path for Matsu. Siva was amazing and fluid in how she transitioned from shooting one person to shooting the next. Maple was just vicious, using everything and anything to help protect her friends, from using telekinesis to impale someone with debris, to acquiring a Kanzer Assault Rifle and switching it to Semi Auto so she could precision-pop a head open repeatedly as she charged into the fray. A little bit of Uri Udinia showed in every kill. The lack of hesitance. The efficiency. Shots were not expended based on what was in front of the shot but who or what might be behind it. Maple maximised her kills in this manner, killing triple what Siva did.

Maple spotted a series of grenade rounds being fired from an entrenched position at Matsu. Snap-shots caused them to burst in mid air before they could reach her, some showering the enemy in shrapnel.

Siva had begun breaking bones again in the meantime. Whatever Maple didn't finish off, Siva did, and quickly, her hands and legs fluidly connecting, transitioning to gunplay at a moments notice to maim or kill between opponents.

Finally, both reached the the very fringes of where the Rift was, careful to avoid the flow of Rozzum.

"Set up a defense perimeter!" Maple yelled at Siva, who just got done breaking the neck of a Kanzer Assassin. Siva nodded and joned Maple back to back, shooting anything moving that was not Matsu.

That was when this big, huge, ebon creature punched its way out of the rift, sheathed in black, supernatural smoke, its badassery was without question, because it had just gotten done murdering a version of The Amalgam from another reality that had accidentally been trapped in its realm via trickery. As with all versions of The Amalgam, her death had been protracted, excruciating, humiliating, and bloody, emphasized when it spit out her shiny, unnaturally white skull, shaped to the end like a Human's, gnawed clean of flesh. Maple, Siva, and Matsu were unaware of this, but it is a plot point to consider for later.

The intense taint of darkness remained on the skull, and it caused Maple to shiver when she saw it. But her concern about the violent nature of that beast made it all the worse.

It pointed silently at the three of them, and then began to rain bolts of black smoke on the three. Maple and Siva, not wanting to find out what happened when the black smoke hit them, began firing non stop, shooting and destroying the bolts in their direct path.

Meanwhile the bolts that hit the ground turned into shadowy, smoky, humanoid figures that began to slowly advance on them...

 

[Matsu Ike]

Maple Harte

The jedi master was moving, her mind and body immersed in the force as it super cooled the world around herself and overheated her own. It was a lesser used skill... something she had rarely needed or tried to use because of how dangerous it could be but she needed the speed as it were and the accelerated capabilities as the force vibrated through her muscles. She had heard Maple and for a brief moment the woman and the twi'lek were practically frozen in time.. a moment as the jedi master expanded the chill to the molecules and atoms effectively slowing down the progression of the universe as the expansion was slowed. Not true time travel but it did make it seem more like she teleported.

The offset was it was cold.. very cold like ice crystals forming on her skin and trying to seep into the body cold which was why her body was working on an overclocked temperature to counteract the effects of it. As she moved and got close seeing the thing in front of her and averting her eyes cause madness and logic were dangerous things here. She could almost see more of it... see within what had been happening as the force energy was very much raw and powerful. She was focused and allowed the force to flow freely from her body as she was moving and drawing in more of it. Dimensional shifting was different as it didn't just happening you needed to understand some mechanics of multiverse.

The jedi master was letting her mind work on it for the moment and her body was keeping the force enhanced coldness at bay for the moment as she breathed in and then out. FInishing but it wasn't going to be pretty, disrupting was thankfully a little easier as she began to back out altering the vibration of the molecules that were excited and could see much much more... time and distance were not a factor as opposed to normal space time... she had been to the heart of the universe and gotten a shard after all she knew about consciousness expansion and how not to get lost which is what made witnesses the fourth precept so much more jarring.

She could see massive eldritch beings that most wouldn't even understand.... things that were not even given names because no one would believe they could have existed and they had waged war... the universe was built upon the ashes and something had shared it with the early force users who recorded it for future generations. Backing out of it as she stood there and closed her eyes letting steam practicall rise off of her shoulders and body as the temperature rapidly rose around her. The hissing sound coming before the rift closed and tendrils flopped around trying to smash and crush everything around them.

 

[Maple Harte]

Maple and Siva opened fire on the shadow abominations, trying to buy as much time as possible for Matsu Ike to say or do something badass. And badass she pulled, beating up the physics engine with a titanium baseball bat, Pesci-style and nearly bankrupting the studio budget by how much FX she called upon to seal up the evil doorway. Maple and Siva were nearly dry by the time the doorway closed.

"Well, we stopped an immensely evil God thingy from crossing into our realm. That's gotta be worth..." Maple trailed, counting up to Nine on her fingers.

"Nine Thousand XP, easy." Maple finished, smiling. "And we did it without respawning!"

(Cutaway of Cal Kestis staring pointedly at the reader)

Maple swooned. "Whoo! I better be careful about making Fallen Order references. Don't have the budget!" she said, her schizophrenia causing an OOC reference to pop out of her addled mind.

"Huh?" Siva asked.

"Nothing..." Maple answered quickly, whistling not-so-innocently.

She went over immediately to see Matsu, to see if she was injured, the sudden chill in the chamber starting to disappear.

"I'm glad you aren't hurt. Let's get out of this place. It seems Dark Matsu has escaped...

"Where would she flee next?" Siva asked.

"Don't fret, Siva. I assure you, convenient plot point is just around the corner. Besides, my bones are made of living squirrels. I can't run after her without crushing all the cute squirrels my bones are made of."

Siva looked at her in alarm. Maple continued as though she hadn't said anything odd.

"Let's get the Sweet Loot, then figure out where Dark Matsu went and who she is allied with."

Maple and Siva began to spread out and search Darth Maranon's former sanctum...

(9000 XP received!)

(Maple has Leveled Up!)

(Maple has regained her mastery of Small Arms!)

(Maple gained new items!)

Item: SITHSPAWN SKULL

Spoiler

Skull belonging to a version of The Amalgam who met a messy end in a dimension full of shadow abominations after being tricked into it by her very own Uri Udinia. Tissue remnant is alchemized and seethes with The Dark Side but may prove useful down the Road as a channel or ingredient...

Item: ROZZUM FORMULA

Spoiler

Thorough search of the facility yielded the chemical formula of the mind enslaving drug as well as the requirements to produce it.

Item: JEWELRY CACHE

Spoiler

A cache of ancient jewelry, consisting mostly of finger rings worth thousands of credits. Some are fit for enchanting

Later on...

Maple had managed to bring in the Silent Erika and with Matsu and Siva's help began cataloguing what they found. Maple had not liked the recovered skull and had it sealed in Nullification Resin as soon as she could due to its unholy aura.

Maple then began to put the data together, using her Bounty Hunting skills as well as her days as an assassin to deduce where Dark! Matsu had gone.

But Maple and Siva were exhausted, and wounded and in no condition at the moment to follow.

"Matsu? Any ideas on how to best approach the next search?" Maple asked, reclining on her ship sofa, bacta patches everywhere next to Siva, also quite injured.

"I feel like I have been stepped on by a Rancor..." Siva complained.

"I AM a Rancor..." Maple said.

Meanwhile, across the Galaxy on Katanos 007, the Spirit of Maranon stirred...

 

[Matsu Ike]

Maple Harte

The jedi master felt the exhaustion in her body... each muscle tensing and spasming as she sat there with the ship flying and talk of the next part of the search... she wanted to look up and at her but... at the same time she was thinking about it. "In an hour... maybe two after these old bones get a chance to relax." She said it and sat there but she was looking at Maple and it was good they had all been there... two top shooters was an impressive thing to get for backup when you were a jedi who used a plasma sword... yes that was what she had to go with as she thought about what she had seen and remained there. "But she is trying for something bigger, grander. Breaking down in some cases the barriers between dimensions but that is much more dangerous." She said ti and didn't know how to explain what she had seen.. she barely understood some fo the really lore lore and she was one of the few jedi who looked into things like this... instead she stayed there until she felt relaxed enough to move and looked at the two of them. "We can find her though, much much easier then she likes since of all the things in the universe she stands out dangerously unique to the senses."