Private The Arrows of Metallos

[Lucretia Lister]

Wearing: Liar's Flesh

Armed with: Psychic Katana


7 hours after the Maw were driven off Metallos

Lucretia's eyes fluttered open amidst a burned out room, deep within the heavily damaged capital. She had no idea how she got there.

Let it be said that this happens a metric feth ton with various Lucretias.

Her flesh shuddered everywhere, trying to figure out where she was. She saw blaster holes everywhere. No bodies.

The nude Force Spawn walked out of the burned room and began looking for equipment to use, particularly fabric...

The elderly but muscular creature looked out at the slaughter that had been carried out against the city. Many streets were bombed out and destroyed.

"What the hell?" Lucretia muttered, staring out of the window. The whole area felt awash with suffering and death in the Force. It actually shook her up to see the grisly sight. Wherever she was, she wanted to get the hell out of here. The last thing she could remember was fighting here during the Gulag Plague. It had been pirates.

Had she lost?

A few minutes of walking through the heavily damaged building led Lucretia to what looked like an overrun machinegun nest. The Gun itself was broken but the Katana impaled in a mawite was not. She grabbed it and began tearing off the armorweave flight suit of a dead defender and went into a bombed out rest room, throwing the flight suit into the dirty sink, cut open her arm with a glass shard, dull green blood dripping out onto the suit as she chanted, the magic in her blood starting to transmute the clothing. The constant chanting and substandard materials meant it took longer to finish recreating her armor of choice, but it was eventually transformed completely into a metallic gray reflective catsuit, which she slipped on and then chose to make the first order of business to get the hell off the planet.

Lucretia crept out into smoke filled streets and was filled with sorrow at the site of the bodies. Rough deaths. She knew what it was like.

As she began walking, hoping to find a ship, there was a screaming warning in the Force, followed by a rumble.

Lucretia looked up and her eyes widened as a salvo of starfighter grade missiles launched into the air, launched from a place far off in the badlands. Their smoke trails betrayed their ancient nature.

They were coming here fast...

Lucretia was running, running as fast as she could, using the force to boost her bodily capability, slightly increasing stamina and speed. It would not be enough.

She saw a crying child and scooped her up as she ran, diving into the entrance of a damaged factory.

She kept running, even as the missles destroyed the ceiling above and the streets behind. She and the girl only survived by diving into the thick shell of a vat they used to poor molten metal.

After about thirty seconds she crawled out, holding the unconscious girl, bleeding green blood as she staggered out of the now severely damaged, burning factory, coming out to an even more destroyed street. She saw even more people out now, some badly injured by the missile attack, screaming for help...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia kicked open the door of a bombed out building, still carrying the unconscious girl and laid her on a flat burnt table.

The girl stirred. Lucretia's injuries were already healing. The witch took a seat as the girl in the tattered dress woke up, flinched as she spotted the strange, well built but elderly woman.

"Hello, little one." Lucretia spoke pleasantly.

"W-who...who are you?" The girl asked nervously.

"My name is Lucretia. I rescued you earlier..." Lucretia answered. "Do you know where your parents are?"

"Dead." The girl answered. "The Maw killed them."

Lucretia frowned. "My condolences." the witch said softly. She didn't know who or what this Maw was, exactly, but she could take an educated guess.

"Well. The conflict, whatever it is, doesn't seem to be over. Those missiles just launched." Lucretia pointed out. "Let's hope it was the last time."

"What are you doing here? Why are you wearing that?"

"I am a travelling merchant of sorts. As for this old thing, it helps me stay mobile in battle. Robes are so old fashioned." Lucretia replied proudly. "Are you hungry?"

The girl nodded.

Lucretia gave another smile.

"Tell you what, while I figure out what's going on, let's find you something to eat." Lucretia spoke. "Stick with me, for now..."

The girl knew, just by looking at the overly friendly witch in the catsuit that left little to the imagination that something was...off...

But she had no real recourse. There was chaos on the planet since the Maw Warriors had left, and chaos had erupted on the planet in the house since. The Alliance was having trouble stopping the looting. Things were getting savage. As strange as the old woman was, the girl had no other recourse.

"Alright."

"May I have your name, little one?"

"Celina."

"That's a very pretty name, Celina. Let's go look for some food, shall we?"

The girl followed the witch around in the bombed out building. It looked like an old manor.

"A place like this is bound to have supplies of some kind." Lucretia noted.

"You said you were a merchant." Celina asked softly, trying to make conversation. "What do you sell?"

"I sell what people want to buy, which can be a variety of things. I'm something of an expert in getting people what they want." The Witch answered. "Sometimes, its rifles. Other times, it's star fighters. Spice. Droids. Sometimes, it's my own blade. It depends on the Customer."

Lucretia spotted what looked to be a kitchen area where servants prepare food. She led the child into it. It was half smashed, but the cabinets were intact on one end. She opened one, pulling out a package of the local beef jerky.

"Hope you don't mind chewing."

"I don't." Celina said, taking the offered piece of preserved meat. Lucretia handed her the bag.

"Eat it all if you like."

"Aren't you hungry?"

Lucretia shook her head.

"I'm on a special diet, I'm afraid."

The pair explored the place. Lucretia found an intact bedroom and went to a wardrobe, pulling out intact clothes, and then she went looking around the ruin some more, finding the entrance to an old bomb shelter in a cleaning supply closet.

Lucretia handed the clothes she had discovered to the child, drawing her Katana as she descended the staircase. It was closed.

Not wishing to frighten the child, Lucretia told her to shut her eyes. The girl did so, and Lucretia's flesh shuddered disgustingly everywhere as she touched the entry key, Ionic energy flooding off her body and overwhelming the electronics. The door clicked open.

Lucretia's flesh reset on her bones and she told Celina to open her eyes.

It was a very basic shelter with a life support system and supplies.

"Celina, I am going to go a while and look for help and more supplies. But you must stay here and wait. Do not open this door for anyone but me." Lucretia instructed, going to what looked like a weapon rack. Whoever had built it hadn't had time to reach it when the invasion occured.

Lucretia pulled out a rifle and an ammo belt with three spare blaster clips, taking back the clothes.

"Stay safe, Celina." Lucretia told her, before walking out and shutting the door.

Lucretia removed the catsuit, as it would draw too much attention in a situation like this, and put on matching silver-gray work pants and shirt with semi transparent sleeves. She left the suit hidden under rubble and headed out into the streets...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Celina fidgeted as she waited for Lucretia to return to the shelter, and reached into her clothes and pulled out the glowing green crystal she had been hiding, staring at it.

She had found it by accident, clutched in the hand of a corpse from an underground vault exposed by a street bombing. The corpse had been in the vault. Ancient.

She didn't know what had made her take it. But the girl, a survivor, figured it was a gemstone. She had no family left. It might by her a trip offworld if she played her cards right.

She was in too much shock to actually cry. Her parents had died in an instant, she just clear of the bomb blast that killed them. The whole city was in ruins.

And she was stuck relying on the strange unusually athletic and well built old woman for safety.

Celina started to explore the shelter, knowing better than to touch the firearms and searched the supplies, finding bottled water and opening it, along with books.

Curiosity drew her to a red book on the second shelf titled Evolution of Coruscant and pulled at it, but it wouldn't budge, and heard a mechanical click instead.

The floor behind her parted with a hiss and she looked in pure surprise.

Something in the back of her head was telling her to leave the shelter. But her curiosity prompted to go down the steps. The hairs on her started to raise, like static electricity was in the air. What was this place?

It looked like some sort of crypt, though Celina was far too young to recognize it as such, with a lot of symbols for metal elements on the walls. Celina saw strange runes next to those symbols. Celina noticed a large rectangular sarcophagus in the middle and approached, noting it's slab lid was busted open, The whole crypt was cracked, suggesting the bombing above may have had some effect or something else had occured.

Celina crept cautiously to the cracked sarcophagus and peered into the cracked half.

The leathery, emaciated nude corpse of a woman with long hair, unusually still dark brown in color, startled her, making her stumble back, dropping the glowing crystal into the sarcophagus by accident. The corpse didn't look right. The skin was so severely dry as to cling to the Skeleton, yet non of the bones were tearing through the surface of the dried flesh.

Celina scrambled up the steps. She tried to push the book back up that had originally opened the secret staircase, but it wouldn't budge, and Celina didn't know how to open the shelter door.

With a fright, after a few minutes of hiding behind the couch, Celina realized she had left the glowing crystal behind. Knowing she couldn't leave her prize, Celina mustered what little courage she had and started to take a few steps forward to the once hidden staircase, going back down it after a few moments of psyching herself up.

She very hesitantly approached the sarcophagus, trembling as she peered inside.

The corpse was gone. The once glowing crystal had become a simple rock of semi transparent material, irregular in shape.

Celina pulled back, ice in her spine, a cold sweat rolling over her.

Where was the corpse?

She slowly backed away from the sarcophagus trembling, eyes darting around. No sign of movement anywhere.

Celina fled back up the steps, and came to a dead stop as she spotted an elderly woman with long brown hair and tan skin in a black, form fitting gown, reclining on the couch, smiling pleasantly.

"I'm terribly sorry little one, I didn't mean to frighten you." the woman said in an affable manner. Celina was stock still, eyes unblinking.

"I'm the owner of this establishment..." the woman continued. "Did you come in from the invasion?"

"Y..yeah..." Celina answered in a mouse like voice, backing away.

"Who are you?"

The woman smiled. "I am known as The Sorceress of Coruscant. But you may call me Hilda."

Celina didn't blink as she stepped forward.

"Y-you own this place?"

"Yes." Hilda confirmed, smiling. "Aren't you hungry?"

"I ate." Celina answered.

Just then the shelter door opened, and down stepped Lucretia in her silver catsuit.

"Celina, dear?" Lucretia called out softly. Celina ran to Lucretia, wondering where her weapons were.

"Is this your grandmother?" The Sorceress asked.

"She's just Lucretia. She saved my life." Celina replied, hiding behind Lucretia's legs.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance. So terribly sorry for breaking in, but it's chaos out there..." Lucretia explained.

The Sorceress smiled. "It's no trouble, really."

"I confess, I am admittedly quite perplexed on how neither me nor Celina encountered you on our initial exploration of your rather cozy shelter." Lucretia noted silkenly.

"I was... incapacitated..." The Sorceress confessed. "I had a separate hiding spot."

Celina was pale with terror, too scared to speak.

"Really?" Lucretia posited, staring at the hidden staircase.

"You're welcome to stay, of course...plenty of food..." The Sorceress replied.

"I'm moved by your generosity, truly..." Lucretia spoke. "Celina, would you give us a moment?"

Celina complied, going to the entrance.

"Close the door." Lucretia ordered.

Celina closed the door. She heard nothing, but that wasn't what was important. What was important was that the longer Celina thought about it, the less Lucretia's unexpected appearance made sense. Hadn't she taken weapons? Where were those? Where were the clothes the old woman had obtained?

She waited outside for about five minutes, and then Lucretia came back out, smiling.

"Child, I think it would be a good idea if we found somewhere else to make camp..."

"But...what happened? Where's Hilda?" Celina asked innocently.

"Something unexpected came up with her, I'm afraid..." Lucretia spoke. "We didn't do anything wrong, but it's best we leave. Don't worry...I'll take care of you."

Lucretia took Celina's hand and led her away from the shelter.

Meanwhile...

The Lucretia armed with a rifle walked the ruins of Metallos, coming across survivors and helping them out of the rubble with others.

Along the way, she began to piece together in detail the past 48 hours.

This "Maw" had come to the planet, trying to seize their resources. They'd been repelled. Barely. There were a lot of dead. Lucretia felt badly for them, but she had problems of her own. She would try to help as long as possible while she was searching for a way off, but she had no ideas about staying.

She had begun to scavenge more supplies as time wore on, and she began to look for a way off. Let it be said that Lucretia had every intention of coming back for Celina.

She spotted a hand under rubble and immediately went over to the piece of destroyed building the hand stuck out from and lifted the rock, spotting an Alliance Soldier, barely conscious. She delicately set about him with a pilfered medkit, injecting him with Bacta.

"Take it easy..." Lucretia muttered softly. "You've been badly injured..."

"You...you have to warn them...we're...all...in danger..." He whispered, coughing up blood. "MEMNON...MEMNON..."

"What in the world is MEMNON?" Lucretia asked quietly.

"When the Maw invaded..." he coughed, violently choking up blood. Lucretia did her best to stabilize him, attempting to siphon off some of her own life essence to heal him but she was beginning to understand it was a lost cause: If she had arrived here just an hour ago, she might have still been able to do something for him, but his condition had simply deteriorated too much. At best, she had bought him a few more minutes of pain.

"What is MEMNON?" Lucretia repeated.

"I...was part of an advance team, sent in to create area denial opportunities..." the Soldier answered. "During our initial scouting in the sewers...our scans revealed signs of missile silos."

He coughed violently. Lucretia clutched his shoulder.

"Go on. What about missile silos?" she asked.

"Some sort of defense system from the Plague. Hundreds of them, all over the planet. The system has been inactive, malfunctioning..." he coughed, eyes rolling in his head.

"Stay with me..." Lucretia pleaded.

"It's called MEMNON..." he gasped, starting to convulse. "The battle above tripped one of its sensors...at least that's what most of us thought. Salmon thought someone deliberately reactivated it. Computers are getting the data late, somehow...they think the invasion is still going on. We couldn't shut it down, and it was blocking our transmissions. Damn thing is guarded by B2 Droids and...and something horrible..." he gasped...

"It's already fired." Lucretia pointed out.

The Soldier shook his head.

"It's misfiring. That was just the first salvo. It's got them all over the planet. We...we have to evac...evac..."

The Soldier convulsed more.

"Where is MEMNON located?" Lucretia demanded.

"S-ewers...sewerrrrrsss..."

"Where in the sewers?! Soldier!? Soldier!"

He was dead. Lucretia looked up saw a lone missile streak into the air. The Force screamed at her in warning as it broke apart into eight smaller missiles...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Obviously, of course, Lucretia was unsuccessful in out running the blasts...not that she didn't give it her all, boosting her naturally fast speed, which was that of a trained athlete, to superhuman levels with The Force.

But the shockwave from the nearby missile impact alone was enough to shred her to paste, and shred her to paste it did, splattering glowing green blood and guts everywhere. In chunky gibs it would ooze down debris for half a day after, past ambulances and rushing paramedics until a belated rainstorm began to wash the disgusting, still glowing mess off and it began to run down the walls in disgusting gobs into a crater, which was quickly covered by water.

The water started to glow and bubble the more Lucretia's remains joined in the the puddle.

A woman floated out of the puddle seconds later, middle aged and fit, but with a very different body type and face from Lucretia. Starlin Rand would have recognized her as the Sorceress of Ossus. So would Nathan Bloodscrawl.

Her nude figure touched the ground, splashed by rain. Hissed words of magic recovered the shreds of scraps that had been Lucretia's clothing, reforming it into a simple black gown for her to wear.

The Sorceress blinked. It had been Lucretia way too long. The Personality was incredibly difficult to escape being, even for a veteran like her.

She was torn. On the one hand she had left that poor girl by herself in that bomb shelter. On the other hand, it was her duty as a Light Sider to prevent MEMNON from launching any more missiles.

After a few minutes of pacing along empty dead streets in deliberation, she finally resolved to go back for the girl, because she had promised to keep her safe, and the Sorceress always honored her bargains. Then she would go look for MEMNON.

The Sorceress, though quite beautiful, was completely out of place, seemingly immaculate in the midst of blood and gore from the invasion.

Along the way, she spotted a few civilians fighting over a crate of supplies.

The Sorceress sighed, hissed a spell to suppress their aggression, and calmly walked up to the trio of pacified civilians.

"Going against each other like animals means your enemies win..." she chided very coldly while she opened up the crate, distributing the contents equally.

Soon she was on her way again, the people she had pacified still in a calm state.

She sighed, knowing she would have to channel Lucretia again soon, and be trapped within her. At least the surface personality had been designed to be friendly.

She went looking for Lucretia's weapons, frowning in distaste as she spotted the laser disruptor rifle. She slung it over her shoulder, also spotting the psychic katana. It would have to do until she located materials for proper lightsaber construction.

The Sorceress walked across the ruins of the city, heading back to where the girl was. She healed the sick or injured as she came across them, though they soon became frightened and fled her for obvious reasons.

The latest missile attack had devastated the city even more. She saw mass fires spreading in the distance. And there was no way of telling when the next missile was coming, or even where the control center for this ancient defense system actually was...

Before the Sorceress reached the block where the shelter was she darted into a ruin, and, with a deep sigh began channeling Lucretia. Her flesh bulged and warped and sagged and her mind and body reset to that of Lucretia, who opened her eyes, and calmly resumed her journey back to the shelter.

She grew highly concerned when she saw it slightly ajar and felt an overwhelming, rotting presence in the Force. She readied herself, retrieving her hidden catsuit, and was soon descending as her silver bodied self into the shelter.

She saw white blood everywhere, and rotting yellow organs. But the evil presence associated with them still wasn't faded.

Lucretia was on edge. Just what the hell had happened? Where was Celina?

Suddenly, the blood and organs started to shudder and rushed together, piling up. Lucretia backed off, realizing whatever it was, it was so strong it could feed off the ambient suffering darkening the Force here to regenerate itself.

The blood and guts piled themselves into the shredded remains of a catsuit identical to Lucretia's, before the shredded remains reshaped themselves into a dark skinned woman with raven hair arranged in a long top knot.

"Where is Celina? What have you done with her?" Lucretia demanded.

The Assembly smirked at her.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about her. You have bigger problems..." The Assembly replied, arms arcing with purple electricity.

Lucretia fired off a powerful stream of Ionic Energy just as the Assembly unleashed powerful bolts of lightning. The competing streams of energy smacked into each other...but the Assembly won the bout, and Lucretia screamed metallic shrieks of agony as she was immersed in a massive level of electricity. Her flesh started to bubble and melt and burn just like her catsuit as the Assembly pumped more and more electricity into Lucretia until the elderly witch fell to her knees, flesh and fat exploding into a waxy, rancid mess all over her body as she completely caught fire, keeling over before the Assembly, quite dead.

The Assembly smirked, toed the corpse as parts of the already decaying, rotting, glowing green mess broke down into ash.

"Such terrible luck..." she mocked cruelly before going into the hidden tomb. She hissed in delight, spotting a number of long mummified Witch Corpses, each rich with traces of their essence.

What she didn't notice as she entered the tomb was the green blood leaking out of the electrocuted corpse, moving of its own accord... it formed a humanoid figure, feminine in shape, of burned, curdled green blood, barely able to hold itself together.

The blood figure staggered down the steps, forming her arms into blades.

The only warning The Assembly got was a whisper from the Darkness as the humanoid creature made a deadly swipe she only partly cleared, drawing a metallic screech from the Assembly as white blood spilled out of her newly repaired body. The Assembly retaliated with a blast of lightning, but the blood figure broke down into a puddle and rushed the Brain Demon Cultist.

The Assembly immediately backed away. Blood Sorceress. Very dangerous.

The Assembly began discharging lightning everywhere from her body trying to cook the other Sorceress's remaining blood cells. You had to kill the blood itself completely when it came to their type.

The living puddle of blood evaded the discharge, retaliating with a massive blast of its own green lightning that slammed into the Assembly, making her catch fire as parts of her flesh instantly decayed and fell off her.

Demonic snarls erupted from The Assembly's throat and she belched lightning at the living puddle, blasting away half of it to ash, forcing it to retreat behind Sarcophagi in the tomb.

The Ossus Sorceress, or what was left of her sensed the ancient runes inscribed on the walls, and ran itself across them, channeling it's remaining energies in a desperate, last ditch attempt to survive.

The Assembly screamed as the walls of the tomb lit up with teal colored runes and the Light Side pulsed invisibly in the air, making her skin catch fire as she fled the tomb, then the shelter, starting to rapidly decay.

An ethereal scream of exhaustion at surviving the ambush made the remaining, smaller living puddle of green blood flow down the walls, unable to maintain her shape or coherency, separating into shivering drops with no power to move, yet still alive.

The sudden charge of the Light Side began returning life to the flesh of another Witch...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

When the Sorceress of Zeffo opened her eyes, she awoke in the tomb she had been sealed up in after giving her life to protect Metallos during the Gulag Plague. She immediately rose, skin a pale Ivory color, curly perm hair the color of August. And crawled out of her sarcophagus, nose crinkling as she felt the lingering traces of an evil Witch that had desecrated the resting place of their coven. She felt the psychic Whispers of another injured Witch, or what was left of her, still shivering as glowing green blood drops.

The Sorceress wearing an ancient armor weave ritual gown held out her foot, and the glowing drops of blood flew onto her skin, being absorbed into her.

The Zeffo Witch's flesh bulged and warped disgustingly as she integrated the persona into herself, gaining her memories...

She focused, and saw a hallucination of the Ossus Sorceress.

"We were incredibly lucky, all things considered." The Zeffo Sorceress spoke, going over to the other Sarcophagi and whispering her chants over them.

"Thanks for the save, by the way..." The Sorceress complimented, then frowned.

"I don't see Coruscant down here..."

"She must be with Celina." The hallucination of the Ossus Sorceress said in realization.

"Then Celina couldn't be more safe..." The Zeffo Sorceress replied confidently. "The real problem has become stopping that other Witch and shutting down MEMNON."

"Give me a body and I'll deal with the Cultist." The Ossus Sorceress suggested.

"Of course, but I don't want you going after her. She'll be expecting you..." The Zeffo Sorceress replied.

One of the Sarcophagus lids opened and a elderly woman in her late fifties with long dirty blond hair and carved features, clad in an ancient, shimmering white ritual gown with frills climbed out of her coffin.

"Did someone have a fight in our tomb?" The Sorceress of Hoth asked in confusion.

"I'm afraid so. Rather nasty customer. A Brain Demon Cultist."

The Sorceress of Hoth's eyes bulged.

"This whole area is in danger. Every single person down to the smallest is in danger." she said. "We have to kill it immediately..."

"We will. But I don't want you going alone." The Zeffo Sorceress said.

Another Sarcophagus lid was pushed open, and a woman in a long, ancient maroon gown climbed out. She seemed to be in her late seventies, with pale skin and long, bushy raven hair with very wizened, wrinkled features. She looked exactly the same as the elderly form Starlin Rand had often seen Syd take during his apprenticeship to her.

The Sorceress of Anaxes blinked. "What's going on?"

"A Brain Demon Cultist." The Sorceress of Hoth grumbled.

The Anaxes Copy blinked in sheer alarm.

"We should have been out of here ten minutes ago."

"If not for my new acquisition, we would all have been a part of the Cultist..." The Zeffo Sorceress replied, mind and body warping into that of the Ossus Sorceress.

"There's a young girl missing. One of your coven, Coruscant has her.

"Why did she not revive us?" The Anaxes Sorceress asked, confused.

The Ossus Sorceress shrugged. "I don't know. You'll have to ask her..."

The Zeffo Sorceress retook control of the body.

"We have our work cut out for us, not only is there a Cultist loose, but MEMNON has gone active again."

All the revived witches fell silent. It had taken everything they had just to shut it down the first time.

Another Sarcophagus opened, and out crawled an extremely pale woman with severely red lips and short curly hair the color of spun gold in a dark blue armor weave gown. Her flesh rippled disgustingly for a split second as it came in contact with the moisture in the air.

"Okay, what'd I miss?" The Sorceress of Manaan asked.

"City's a warzone. There's a Brain Demon Cultist loose, and one of our coven is missing along with a girl." The Sorceress of Zeffo. "Oh, and MEMNON is active again."

The Manaan Sorceress sighed. "I had to ask." she complained.

"Manaan, same drill as before..." The Zeffo Sorceress instructed. "Find the most populated areas and start creating barriers to protect from the missiles. Don't draw attention to yourself. You won't have time to explain what you are doing."

"A.I.'s probably even more fethed up than before..." The Manaan Sorceress grumbled as she headed upstairs.

"Hey, what's this?" she asked, looking at the cooked corpse of the Lucretia that the Ossus Sorceress had been a part of before the sheer power of the Assembly's assault. The catsuit had fully repaired itself but even it couldn't fix Lucretia.

"That is potentially a new acquisition..." The Zeffo Sorceress explained as she headed into the shelter, joined by the other witches.

"I am...wary however." she confessed.

"Why?" Manaan asked. "Tissue is still viable from what I can tell..."

"Our new friend was formerly merged with this one. It behaves like an infection. Extremely difficult to break free of..." Zeffo warned.

Hoth scoffed at this.

"It never met me then..." she replied haughtily.

"Better be sure..." Zeffo warned one more time. "Don't fall asleep in her head. It'll be a long ass time before you wake up."

"I can handle it. I'm not some first year acolyte..." Hoth replied.

Zeffo looked at the others. "You're all willing to take the risk?"

The Witches nodded.

"Very well then. Let us begin." Zeffo said

The Witches all gathered in a circle around the corpse. What was left of its burnt, decaying flesh began to bubble as the Force coaxed life back into its cells, the organic mass flowed out of the catsuit, breaking down into a pulsating lump of bubbling, pale flesh. Pieces of itself began tearing off itself, flying towards their exposed faces, which bubbled as they absorbed the lumps of flying flesh under their skin again and again until there was nothing left of Lucretia's corpse.

Their bodies bubbled everywhere horrifically as they began to chant, their gowns warping into the enchanted silver catsuit Lucretia wore, along with their bodies and minds warping to that of Lucretia herself.

The copies all stared at each other.

"Why, it's a regular convention. Delightful!" The Lucretia who was actually Zeffo said.

"We all have our tasks..." The Hoth-Lucretia said. "Let's get to them."

All the Lucretia's exited the shelter.

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia and Celina had gotten as far from the shelter as possible, making their way through dangerous ruins.

When the second missile strike had been launched, all she could do was scoop the crying girl up again and run for her life.

Unlike the Ossus-Lucretia, the Coruscant-Lucretia had been relatively lucky, and barely cleared the blasts, finding safety in what remained of a smelting factory that had been desperately fortified at the last minute before the Maw invaded.

The well built witch placed Celina on a work table. She was still crying about having barely escaped death.

"There there...shhh..." Lucretia whispered. "It's over."

"But what about the next missile?!" Celina complained, and not without justification.

"I will protect you. I promise..." Lucretia replied. "I'm going to find you something to eat and drink--"

"Don't leave me! Please!" Celina pleaded.

Lucretia sighed.

"Alright. But no wandering and you do exactly as I say." Lucretia warned. "Deal?"

Celina nodded, hopping off the table and happily joining the Witch, taking a chromium covered hand as Lucretia led her deeper into the factory. The smelting equipment was entirely inert.

Lucretia finally found what was left of the break room, found a bunch of sandbags piled around it.

She sat Celina down and quickly began rifling through the cabinets.

"So Celina, after all this is over, do you have any relatives at all to go back to?" Lucretia asked.

"No." Celina muttered.

"Then you'll become a ward of the state, which is its own brand of headache..." Lucretia muttered as she found some old sandwich spread that hadn't expired yet and applied it to a somewhat dry loaf of bread for Celina.

"Tell you what, Celina...a position has just opened up in my business and I would be delighted to have you occupy it..." Lucretia announced. "How about "I" look after you?"

Celina blinked.

"You'd do that?"

"Why not. I have the means. I have the money. I could probably provide for you better than the state could hope to." Lucretia offered, walking over to Celina with the sandwich. Celina took it and began eating.

"What happened to Hilda? Why did we leave her?" Celina asked.

"Staying at Hilda's place came with far too many complications, I'm afraid. She had unusually strict rules..." Lucretia answered matter of factly. "I determined it was best we leave, rather than get into an argument."

"Oh. She scared me..."

"Did she now?" Lucretia asked.

Celina looked up at Lucretia as she ate

"I think she was a corpse a few minutes before I met her...there was this strange room with bodies all dried up..." Celina answered as she ate.

Lucretia frowned before patting Celina on the head.

"Then it's a good thing I got us away. Now, after you finish eating, what say we find you somewhere to sleep?" Lucretia suggested.

Celina nodded.

Lucretia nodded sagely, waited until the child had finished, and they began looking for somewhere secure in the building for her to sleep. Celina stuck even closer to Lucretia than before.

They soon came across the office of the facility supervisor, and Lucretia opened it, found a busted computer terminal, and a sofa.

"This will do for now..." Lucretia said, and led Celina to the sofa.

"Now, let's see about blankets..." The Witch said, looking through the cabinets until she spotted a number of emergency thermal blankets and pulled one of the thin samples out, giving it over to Celina, who started to curl up with it.

Lucretia stayed with the child, watching over her as she started drifting off to sleep. And once she was asleep she left the office to immediately begin scouting for supplies.

The first place was to head to the machine shop. They of course had a properly working molecular furnace.

The Witch had barely gotten a few feet from the office however, when she heard a commotion. She immediately went to investigate. She found a group of thugs all surrounding one scrawny looking survivor

"Not your luck today. Shouldn't have crossed our territory. Elrin Street's ours. Especially since the Maw."

"Fethin' gangsters! You're all crazy! When the Alliance manages to restore order, you'll be executed for what you and your friends did after The Maw left! What kinda maniacs reactivate MEMNON just to cover their tracks?!" the Survivor barked. He was human with tan skin and chocolate brown hair with blue eyes, in his late thirties, wearing tattered civilian clothing

The gangster, a large, muscular Nautolan, clad in cheap spacer clothes snorted, flicking his cigar away.

"So you found out about MEMNON, huh? Well it makes the question of what to do with you a lot simpler..."

The other gangsters held the civilian down who began struggling in mortal fear.

"Should have kept your face hole shut, kiddo. I'm a generous man. Worst I would have done prior is just break your legs. A week or two of Bacta at best. But now that you know what we've done...I gotta kill ya'.

"Chit, just bribe me! The man begged.

The gangster shook his head. "Sorry Kiddo. Can't take the chance. Besides, you just blurted out what you knew! Sang when it got you nothing! You'll let something slip eventually no matter how much I could pay you. You'll let it slip even if you don't mean for it to slip."

The Gangster pulled out a disruptor.

"No traces. Full setting. It'll hurt, kiddo. It'll hurt like nothing you've ever felt. But at least it'll be quick..."

Lucretia loudly and obnoxiously cleared her throat.

"Pardon me, gents, I couldn't help but overhear you..." she said, smiling as she stepped out of the shadows.

Everyone, the civilian included, was instinctively unsettled by just how skintight her catsuit was, how it reflected everything around her.

"Lady, you picked a real bad time to play interloper..." The Gangster snapped, leveling his disruptor at her.

"It depends..." she replied with a shrug. And then she was moving faster than they could blink.

Her fist swiped aside the gangster's disruptor pistol as he fired and the bolt went wild, disintegrating one of his lackey's. Her mercury clad foot smashed into his gut at full speed, sending him flying and knocking all the air out of him.

She transitioned the kick into a flip maneuver to her nearest opponent, quick strikes breaking his rib cage and then his jaw before he too was sent flying by a well placed kick.

Cartwheels executed at unnatural speed carried her over to the last thug, where a flying knee smashed into his face.

The tell tale chirp of a thermal detonator sent her sprinting towards the civilian, grabbing him and shielding him as she caught the edge of the blast, which tore open her back with shrapnel, spilling glowing green blood everywhere as they were both flung away by the entrance collapsing. The gangsters had escaped.

Lucretia rose up.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly, shrapnel being pushed out of her body in front of him.

"Y..yes. Thank you for saving me. I'm Gareth. Gareth Fox. You are--?"

"Lucretia Lister..." Lucretia said, holding out her hand. "Adventurer and Philanthropist."

He hesitated before shaking it.

"Poor soul. You must be exhausted. Let's get you to safety."

"They'll be back. Hosnia Hulluck doesn't like getting humiliated..." Gareth muttered as he followed her.

"That's the name of the guy who almost turned you into an ashpile?" she asked.

"Yep."

Lucretia blinked.

"Hosnia Hulluck can go space himself."

Ten minutes later.

"He and his gang were always a problem in this area. Parasites." Gareth explained as he sipped on the instant coffee Lucretia had found in the break room, preparing him a cup.

"But when the Maw invaded, bastard took it to the next level. He was ambushing our own civilians during the invasion with stolen alliance uniforms! He robbed and murdered them. And then, when I snuck into his territory to try and find the evidence? I overhear two of his idiot pals talking about how he activated the fethin' MEMNON Defense Grid to kill as many potential surviving witnesses!" he exclaimed, clearly quite agitated over nearly being murdered.

"And then you were caught and chased all the way here." Lucretia supplied.

Gareth nodded. "Don't let his easy talk and 'Kiddo this' and 'Kiddo that' fool you. He's a monster, Miss Lister."

She folded her arms. "Where's his stronghold?"

"Used to be deep in the urban centers..." Gareth answered. "But he sent some creds to the right people and now he's nice and cozy in what's left of a high rise on the south end of the city. Some kind of fancy luxury hotel. Bubble shield protected it from bombardment."

"Hmmm..." Lucretia muttered, folding her arms.

Gareth looked at her.

"Miss Lister, I beg you, whatever you're considering, don't do it. It's suicide, trying to get into that place if you ain't military or one of his creeps."

"As you have no doubt seen..." Lucretia trailed playfully, hands going to silver covered hips.

"These muscles aren't just for looking fabulous. Just like this catsuit isn't just to show it all off, I can handle myself, I assure you."

Gareth shook his head. "I would never forgive myself if something happened to you because I said something."

"There are no assurances in this life, Mister Fox." Lucretia purred silkenly.

But then she smiled. "Aside from the fact I'll always rock a catsuit of course."

Gareth stared at her "You really think you can do it?"

Lucretia smirked. "I can handle myself..."

 

[Lucretia Lister]

"The plan really couldn't be more simple." Lucretia explained, having gotten a Holonet terminal and downloaded the schematics of the building from what was left of city databases.

"You simply let him capture and do Force knows what to you?" Gareth asked in confusion.

"You said it yourself, Gareth, assaulting the place directly IS suicidal. The best way is to make them think they have won. Hence, I need to put up a convincing struggle, but not enough to win."

"How do you know he won't just murder you once he has you?" He asked.

"Because I'm a mystery, my darling Mister Fox. An anomaly. A man like that abides neither..." Lucretia replied smoothly, producing a print out on flimsi of the Hotel layout.

As she glanced over it, she struck up another conversation.

"So what do you do, Gareth?"

"I'm an accountant. Reason I got on Hulluck's scent was because I had the dubious fortune of surviving one of his ambush gangs during the invasion. I lived, but a good work buddy died. I'm not gonna rest until he gets justice." Gareth answered.

Lucretia nodded, an intrigued smile playing on wizened features.

"Unusually bold for an accountant..."

"Didn't have much choice. And the thought of letting that creep get away with what he did burns me up. I'll testify against him in court."

"I do so enjoy a stickler for justice..." Lucretia replied admiringly. Flirtatiously. Gareth hid a gulp.

"Now, if I were a chithead gangster, I would be attempting to sequester myself in the highest point of the building..." she noted. "I would have lots of guards. Lots of guards concentrated at the top, with heavy weapons." Lucretia said, switching subjects.

Lucretia decided she would not construct a lightsaber for this. Hulluck might simply take her for an exceptionally skilled mercenary. If he was aware she could use the Force, his guard would go up by a factor of ten, and he might take measures that were too much for even someone like her to overcome. Exceptionally lethal bounty hunters, after all, get their reputation for a reason.

"This still seems like an exceptionally bad idea. Are you sure about this?" Gareth asked.

Lucretia shrugged. "What's the alternative? Let him get away with it?"

"We could always inform the Alliance and the Jedi." Gareth suggested earnestly. "I don't want him to get away, but I don't have what it takes to survive a direct fight. The previous fifteen minutes proved that."

"He'll smell them coming a parsec away. By the time either one got ready to roll on him, he'd already be on the other side of the Galaxy." Lucretia dismissed. "My way is the best. I can do this."

"Be careful Miss Lister. He's a jerk, but he's smart. Don't underestimate him."

"Noted. Now, he'll be looking for you, and we don't have time to relocate you, so we need to find you and Celina a safe place they won't think to look..."

"Celina?" Gareth asked.

"A young girl orphaned by the invasion. I'm looking after her. Speaking of which..."

Lucretia headed over to the office where she had left Celina. The girl was still asleep.

"Celina?" Lucretia called out softly.

Celina woke up.

"What's up, Lucretia?" Celina asked.

"Celina, new information has come to my attention about the missiles. I think I may be able to stop it, but I have to leave you for a while...but I won't leave you alone. I ran into another survivor. He's an accountant."

"You'll be back?" Celina asked very quietly.

"I promise." Lucretia replied. "And I always keep those. But we have to hide you and him a little better."

"You promise?" Celina asked again.

Lucretia stroked Celina's hair.

"You've been a very brave girl, so far. And I need you to be brave just a bit longer. But yes I promise. I will return to you in some way or another."

(Cutaway of J. Jonah Jameson laughing uncontrollably)

"Alright..." Celina replied.

The child accompanied Lucretia, who introduced her to Gareth. Then they all went looking for a better hiding spot in the factory.

"Where are you from, Lucretia?" Gareth asked as they walked.

"Coruscant..." Lucretia answered. And it was the truth. From a certain point of view. Every iteration of Lucretia remembers being created at Coruscant.

"I was born into money. Never quite fit in fully with high society."

Only partly the truth. The latter sentence, that is.

"I craved excitement. Glory."

The absolute truth for the one that had originally created Lucretia.

"But we'll have plenty of time to discuss me after we get through this." she finished as she eyed a broken down industrial trash compactor. It's motors were totally disabled. Looked empty. Oily smell. But tolerable. There were small service hatches on the side to conceal oneself in.

"Hulluck's men will be back here soon. Now whatever you hear, do not come out until after they sweep the area." she instructed.

Gareth and Celina nodded and hid in the service sections of the broken compactor.

"And now we wait..." Lucretia said to herself as she walked off.

One hour later...

Lucretia lazed about on the wreckage that covered the front entrance of the factory. She did not look at the large crowd of gangsters that gathered at the entrance. She observed they had stun weapons.

"Took you long enough..." Lucretia remarked, hopping down finally.

"So. Who wants the first dislocated jaw?" she asked enthusiastically.

Her mercury clad body dashed into the first two as they raised their weapons. Silver fists and legs arcing into weapons and torsos. Each kick smashed a rib. Each punch knocked a tooth out.

She then made a deliberate mistake in the midst of this schooling and got pelted by multiple stun blasts. She eventually keeled over, heavily stunned. She was further stomped before being dragged off.


Meanwhile...


Lucretia wandered the streets, her mercury covered figure reflecting the devastation around her. She felt traces of the Assembly and was hot on her trail. The longer The Assembly was free, the more the whole city was potentially at risk.

As Lucretia turned a block, she spied a large fire in an apartment complex.

Ducking back inside, the Hoth Sorceress had her confidence rewarded when she easily suppressed Lucretia, her flesh and mind warping back into the long haired Sorceress.

She felt suffering. Just because she intended to turn the Assembly into paste did not mean she could slack on the protection of the innocent.

The Hoth Sorceress walked out of the ruined building and straight to the burning complex.

Her mastery of Cryokinesis, allowed her to reduce the flames nearest her, as well as the flames and embers threatening to escape to other streets. She went straight inside, eternally cold, heat vanishing in her wake. Frost covering surfaces as she passed by them.

It was a brisk walk, a breeze following the extinguishing of flames. She journeyed up steps, the air now chilly. The very smoke grew heavy with frost and fell to the ground.

The Hoth Sorceress heard crying from one apartment room, and she breathed super cold frost onto the door and shattered it easily with a tap, walking in.

"Hello?" she called out softly.

She heard screams from underneath rubble and instantly rushed over to it.

She lifted a teenage man who had second degree burns and heavy bruises and cuts out of the debris. He was coughing.

"You'll be okay. Get out of this apartment, it's no longer safe." she instructed as she left the room to resume her quelling of the flames.

She would flash freeze a few more objects to free trapped inhabitants, not stopping to even receive a thank you, because there was no time. She was growing a feeling of unease. She felt like she was being stalked.

She cried out as a blast of raw purple lightning smacked into her, sending her through the wall.

The Assembly, still wearing her own Lucretia-Catsuit, stepped through the hole, emaciated looking from her experience in the tomb.

"So predictable, knowing you would try and stop the fire. Common sense never was the Lightbreach Coven's strong suit."

"And knowing when to quit was never a virtue of your cult." Hoth spoke.

"You really think making things snowy will save you from my lightning?" The Assembly sneered.

"It's not the snow I'm gonna use to kill you..." Hoth replied coldly,

Objects ripped themselves from the walls and smacked into the Assembly, flinging her backwards.

The Abomination snarled, casting sinews of purple lightning at the Hoth Sorceress, who blocked it by tearing away a piece of the wall and sending it hurling at her...

Hoth hurled more and more debris at The Assembly, ruthlessly capitalizing on The Cult's (and indeed, Force Spawn in general with the Hoth Sorceress herself being among the rare exceptions) weakness to telekinesis...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia silently worked in the remains of a speeder repair shop, having gathered the tools she needed. Sparks flew against her welding mask as she combined the parts together to form of a cylindrical hilt of crude make and finish. But it was supposed to be functional as opposed to flashy. She hadn't bothered with advanced features. Just a simple device...

But she had a problem. She needed a crystal. And the kind of crystals you needed for a Lightsaber couldn't exactly be bought at a store.

She found herself smashing apart a monitor to retrieve the high resolution crystals they used for their displays, trying to see if any were of sufficient quality for imbuement with the Force. By luck, she found precisely one, inside one of the internal laser parts and took it. Her flesh shuddered as she began focusing her energy into it. The little bronze crystal began to glow faintly. When she was satisfied it had been infused enough with her essence, and then installed it into the hilt, turning it on.

It is difficult to describe a bronze colored lightsaber. The color of its blade aura wasn't quite brown, but it wasn't quite orange either. She swung it around, sliced a rebar beam in two, was satisfied it was working, and shut it of, clipping it to her belt.

She would need at least this much if she was going to confront MEMNON.

Lucretia exited the repair shop and proceeded back on her route to where she had been forced to flee the soldier. She thought almost constantly of Celina as she moved through wreckage and collapsed buildings. She couldn't see many people on the streets now, most were too terrified of the missiles launching again.

She reached what was left of an avenue, found a large group of gangs looting whatever wasn't nailed down in all the chaos, and sighed. This simply would not do.

The silver clad Witch walked casually towards the crowd. She had a confidence in her swaying, runway model strut.

"Am I interrupting?" she called out politely.

A large number of the looters turned their attention to her.

"You all seem to be having so much fun, I couldn't help but notice..." Lucretia remarked before her tone grew much more cross with all of them.

"I mean, it's not enough for you that all these innocent people had their livelihoods completely destroyed. No. You gotta get what's yours, right?"

The gangs all grew wary when they saw the crude lightsaber dangling from her belt.

"I'm going to give you scum one minute to get out of my sight." Lucretia snapped.

The gangs, knowing even on their best day a Lightsaber User would still absolutely slaughter them, wisely started to retreat.

"I'll be watching!" she called out. "And if I see you looting I will find you eventually!"

They were long gone by the time the minute ran out.

Lucretia sensed another source of life and turned, watching a young man in his late twenties with blond hair and tanned skin and green eyes in tattered civilian clothing. He was lanky, looked half starved.

"You...you drove them off. I'm grateful, really. I'd been hiding in what was left of my father's shop for days. They were way too close to finding me. I kept praying to Ashla, and then you showed. Are you a Jedi?" he asked.

"Not exactly. My name is Lucretia Lister. I'm a simple visitor, just trying to help."

"I'm Renald. Renald Red-Nebula." Renald introduced himself. But as his adrenaline wore off, his hidden studies made him realize something.

"Forgive me but, your catsuit..."

"No shame in admiring how good I look in it." she assured him with a flirting smile.

"Uh, yes, but also...your reflective catsuit marks you as a Force Spawn."

Lucretia raised an eyebrow.

"How refreshing, to run across a scholar..." Lucretia purred, stepping closer. "I commend you on your discerning eye. But what of it?"

Renald---very slowly, reached into a pocket and pulled out an amulet depicting a bleeding beehive.

Lucretia's face twitched, then bulged, sagged, warped, and melted along with her mind back into the extremely pale skinned, curly auburn haired Zeffo Sorceress.

"Can it be? Do Acolytes of the Lightbreach Coven still persist?" Zeffo asked.

Renald got on his knees.

"I am the last of the old acolytes, Sorceress of Zeffo. How might I serve Ersethy's enlightened fragment?"

Zeffo did not snort at this last descriptor, for it was the truth. Just as the creature Starlin Rand knew as Natalee, as well as Cidd Cinndurr had been, Zeffo---or at least, the original Sorceress of Zeffo---was a fragment of Ersethy's corpse that had split off from the forever decaying body and developed sapience. But unlike most fragments, which were evil at birth, Cidd, Natalee, and Zeffo had developed different. It might have something to do with the fact that all three were the single largest chunks that had ever become ambulatory. Even later samples that had broken away and gained sentience, such as the chunk that had morphed into the original Lyli Dragi , had not been as large. No one was really sure why all three started out as light side users.

"You can start by letting me heal you..." Zeffo replied gently, lifting him off his knees.

Ten minutes later.

Renald had thrown open the door to his store basement, and Zeffo beheld a shrine to Ashla, as well as an extensive library of her own writings.

"I'm deeply flattered, Renald." she said as she placed the Lava Crystals she had created from her own, inherently incendiary flesh, placing them around him on the stone floor as he brought her up to speed. Her flesh shuddered horribly as she focused the Light Side through the crystals, creating an invisible web of heat and life that entwined with his own life force and began to rejuvenate him.

"But you took an awful risk reaching out to me like that. That could have been anyone under the face of Lucretia Lister. You must never be so bold again, for your own safety." she warned sternly.

"I was at my wits end Mistress. I had no choice but to take the risk."

Her gaze softened.

"Lie still." she instructed, as she went over to the Library and pulled out her own texts.

"There are procedures. We clearly must walk you through them again..." Zeffo spoke to as she flipped through the pages.

"So is the route the Coven made to MEMNON still viable?" she asked.

"Afraid not, Mistress. That tunnel collapsed soon after you all exhausted the energy in your bodies shutting the entire system down during the Plague. It presumably took decades of work to locate, exhume, an re-bury your bodies. The Plague hit Metallos bad so no one was left alive who knew how to revive any of you."

"Perfectly understandable." Zeffo replied. "It was very brave of your family to protect our secrets."

"What's the plan now, Mistress?"

"The plan is I go down there again, close to where the original entrance collapsed, and try to make my way back to the mainframe. That system has had two centuries to degrade, it has to have weakened by this point, given how badly its launching schedules are off." Zeffo answered. "But one way or another, I am ending this nightmare."

Renald sat up. "I think I have a means to help you get there."

"Healing first." she chided.

He respectfully waited until her ritual had been deemed complete and then pulled loose a few brick in a wall, retrieving two large, lacquered boxes.

He opened them both and Zeffo glimpsed two white porcelain Death Masks covered in red runes, each modeled on the visage of completely different women, both obviously quite beautiful.

"The Sorceress of Telos, and The Sorceress of Mygeeto. Both renowned Light Adepts." Renald explained. "I bought them at a damned flea market last year, if you can buy it. Nobody knew what these were. I couldn't believe they were intact."

"You've done very well, Renald..." she assured him. "If you will permit me..."

Renald stood aside and she placed a hand on each mask. Her flesh bulged and rippled everywhere on her body disgustingly as the masks crumbled, the essences of two powerful Witches being drained into a new host. Her face took on their likeness for a split second as each were fully absorbed before it went back to her own visage."

"Yes...these will do nicely. I don't suppose you have any spare lightsabers lying around, do you?"

Renald shook his head.

"Sorry Mistress. I was lucky...but even I wasn't that lucky."

Zeffo chuckled softly. "It's ok, Renald."

She strode around.

"Do you think you will be safe down here, for now?"

"I know my faith was not in vain. I can survive meteors."

"Heaven forbid it should come to that..." Zeffo replied sincerely. "As the head priestess of your church, I strongly advise you to relocate to our tomb. You will find safety there."

"I'm not armed, Mistress."

"Do not fret. I shall make certain you arrived unharmed. Another Lucretia shall arrive to escort you to safety. Go with Ashla."

Renald bowed in respect.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to go to incognito soon. But first, I politely request you kneel."

Renald went to one knee obediently.

Zeffo took a nearby knife, cut open her fore head, and traced ancient runes blessings on his forehead with the glowing green blood that came out of the cut, which sealed up and vanished in a span of thirty seconds.

"May your faith ever guide you." she said gently. And then her face and mind melted and submerged underneath that of Lucretia's.

Lucretia blinked, the witch within her making her blow him a flirting kiss as he rose up.

"You've been a most gracious host Renald." Lucretia complimented as she turned and headed up the steps.

"I would love to be a guest any time you'd have me, but I really must be going. Do take care. When I come back later, I'll knock three times."

Lucretia left and he was soon alone.

"Talking to one is actually stranger than even what my own father described..." he said to himself as he gathered his stuff and prepared to depart...

Meanwhile...


Hoth slammed debris into The Assembly again and again, driving the sick murderess ever backward. But The Assembly held out, using her lightning to deflect or destroy the largest, most heavy bits that would have killed her instantly and ended the fight. But Hoth never let up, knowing exactly what would be at stake should she fail to kill the Assembly here and now, while she had been greatly weakened.

Hoth tore off a massive chink of the ceiling and hurled it at her foe weakening the Assembly ever further as she used a massive blast of lightning to disintegrate it, who grew more and more emaciated and mummified looking the more of her precious energy she expended.

Soon, the Assembly could barely stand. Hoth tore up massive parts of the walls and floor with telekinesis, prepared to smash The Assembly into paste with them. Unlike Coruscant, Hoth would be more thorough. She would freeze the Assembly's remains solid, keep them frozen, then cast each piece methodically into the nearest fire she could find that burned the hottest.

The Assembly had one play left however.

As Hoth prepared to hurl all of her projectiles at once, The Assembly cast a single ball of lightning out that ricocheted off a wall then the ceiling, before smacking Hoth from behind with high voltage before she could react.

Hoth screamed a metallic scream of shock as she was violently electrocuted, dropping to mercury covered knees, as The Assembly, almost a totally dried out corpse at this point that had minutes to live, pounced on her, the enchantments in Hoth's own copy of Lucretia's suit rendered totally disabled, and her unable to defend herself from what came next especially with as much pain as she was in.

The Assembly snarled, focusing all her hate as she clasped Hoth's screaming face and began to drain her life energy, personality is and knowledge, mummified skin swelling and rippling under the suit while Hoth slowly decayed, making sickening choking sounds as her many times over copied soul was absolutely devoured into the Assembly, utterly subverting it. The Assembly's face looked like Hoth's for a split second before it reverted back to her own. The Assembly stood up, fully restored, while Hoth's dried out corpse collapsed into ash along with her suit.

The Assembly smirked, letting her mind and body vanish under that of the completely subsumed Hoth persona who didn't realize she had lost the fight.

Hoth decided to go check up on that young man she had rescued...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Renald waited patiently in the basement, fidgeting in anticipation.

He almost jumped at the sound of three knocks on the cover above, and hesitantly called out "I'm here, Lucretia."

The cover opened and Lucretia's silver skinned figure jumped down. She was armed with a scavenged double edged Vibro long sword.

"Such a pleasure to resume your acquaintance, dear Renald. Shall we go?" Lucretia asked pleasantly.

Renald nodded, climbing up first, Lucretia force leapt from the basement out and shut the cover behind her.

Renald saw the parts of the city that were on fire had gotten worse. He could hear shouting and looting in the distance.

"We cannot dally I'm afraid. The situation in the city is getting worse since the second missile salvo. Everyone is panicking, and the Alliance is desperately trying to locate as many silos as they possibly can so they can turbolaser them from orbit. The next salvo could very well go across the whole planet." Lucretia explained.

"Let's get going then!" Renald exclaimed.

But as they ran, keeping behind vehicles and staying away from main streets, the warning of the Zeffo Sorceress bubbled in the back of his head.

How could he be sure the Lucretia Lister that had just found him was friendly? He had no idea who was under that face. It could be anybody. What if the one sent for him had instead been intercepted by another? How could he tell?

"Don't be frightened, you're doing great Renald, we're making excellent time..." Lucretia encouraged as they went through another back alley. "And it's perfectly okay to stare."

Renald blinked. "Huh?"

Lucretia turned, smirked.

"I don't wear this to hide my physique, Renald. Do keep up, will you?" she purred, teasing him with a wink as he blushed. She resumed their journey, and try as he might, occasionally, just occasionally, he found his eyes being drawn back to her swaying hips and toned, carved abdomen, and sculpted legs...

They both came to a stop, however, as a gang of thugs burning down properties in the back alleyway came in sight.

Lucretia silently gestured for him to stay behind her and strode confidently forward, her silver suit reflecting the perplexed look on the thug's faces.

"Care to clear out of the way, sailors?" Lucretia asked politely.

"And why would we wanna do that?" one of them asked, not looking at her as they thumbed the tip of their knife.

"Because I am trying to be ever so nice to you." Lucretia claimed. "I'd so hate for there to be a misunderstanding."

"Catsuit looks like it's worth a lot. Gonna be interesting getting a price for it. Nice sword."

"Sorry, Catsuit stays with me."

"We can do this the easy way..." the thug said, eyes glittering in the fire-pierced darkness with malice.

"Or the hard way."

"What you consider difficult, I consider a house chore. Walk away. Last chance." Lucretia instructed crisply.

"If there's one type I don't take orders from..." The thug trailed pointing his dagger at her. "It's little old ladies in get-ups too tight for common sense."

The gang surged on her, but Lucretia was greased lightning, her sword flashing about as she expertly evaded wild swings for her face with improvised weapons. Her sword flashed in brilliant arcs, destroying a weapon every time, her evasions almost ballet-like as the thug's exhausted themselves, now clearly frightened. Lucretia hadn't touched them.

The gang ran for their lives. Lucretia sheathed her sword, turning back to Renald.

"Are you ready to depart?"

"Uh...yeah..." he answered, stunned. "You spared them..."

Lucretia only smiled. "I'm not a Savage, Mister Red-Nebula."

But in the back of his head, to his disquiet, he found himself still wondering. If it was an infiltrator, why wouldn't it act nice and merciful to maintain its cover as long as it had to?

He didn't like it. But he was sweating bullets. He reached for his amulet, as the magic inside it compelled a Force Spawn to reveal the persona actually in control of a given body.

He had to be sure.

"Wait..." he said, as she started to walk away.

"Look upon this..." he said nervously. If it wasn't a friendly, he would know immediately, likely followed by an agonizing death.

Lucretia stared at the amulet and her face twitched. Her flesh everywhere shuddered and sagged and bubbled as the changes were induced, and Lucretia's mind and body changed utterly. Her body became slightly curvier, with less muscle, and her elderly features vanished under the face of a young, very beautiful gold tanned woman with long, strawberry blond hair and teal eyes.

Renald peered closer at her face as she smiled at him, and realized he recognized her face from the death mask he had given Zeffo earlier.

"You're the Sorceress of Mygeeto..." he trailed in surprise.

She beamed. "Yes! Guilty! Thank you so much for taking care of my mask!"

"No trouble..." he replied, almost on the verge of breaking down from the anxiety he had suffered during her transformation.

It had literally been a freaking coin toss. And he wasn't dead.

This time, he thought darkly to himself.

Mygeeto smiled again reassuringly, and his agitation lessened only slightly.

"I trust your fears have been put to rest as to your bodyguard's allegiance?" she asked gently.

He nodded, vowing to never get separated from her unless he had no choice.

"Very well then." she replied. "We shouldn't be long, another twenty minutes at most taking this route."

Mygeeto noticably chose not to turn back into Lucretia as she escorted him to his destination. He followed silent, jumping at the sounds in the distance.

"Do not be afraid. We're almost to safety." Mygeeto assured him.

She perked up and then dived at him, tackling him out of harm's way as the wall behind him exploded.

Mygeeto was up first, pulled a coughing Renald back up as they stared at what had destroyed the wall.

A looter had managed to acquire some antique Phase Three Dark Trooper Power Suit. Big, lumbering, slow, but undeniably tough, powerful, and deadly.

"HOOOO WEEEEE. I should have stolen this first!" shouted the half drunk madman that had somehow figured out the controls.

"Sir, I strongly advise you to step out of the armor so we can help you." Mygeeto urged, genuinely not looking for a fight. "I swear to you, on my honor as a priestess of Ashla, I will do everything within my ability to help you get through this crisis I can feel in you."

"Ah, GO TO HELL, LADY! AH HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Mygeeto turned back to Renald and shrugged with an almost childish "Oh well" expression and exaggerated shrug.

He leveled his arm mounted heavy plasma blaster cannon at both of them.

"You look like you both got a good amount of credits!" the man in the arm exclaimed.

"I swear, we are dead broke." Mygeeto promised.

"I'll be the judge of that. YOUR SWORD!" he challenged.

Mygeeto blinked, slowly, reaching for it.

"You want my sword?" she asked innocently. "Fine... by all means..."

"Toss it to me."

"As you wish..." Mygeeto replied, whispering a spell onto her blade before she tossed it.

He caught it, but the spell was a booby trap, designed to find the shatterpoint of the armor any foe wore.

The instant he touched it, it was a cascade effect. The armor cracked rapidly and increasingly into tiny little pieces, revealing a squat, short man with dirty clothes, staring at her in shock.

"Antiques..." Mygeeto sighed. "It must have been poorly preserved."

The man dropped the sword and ran. Mygeeto calmly went over and picked it up.

"You might want to think about going to the ER, what with the injuries to your enormous ego, sir..." Mygeeto called out after him.

"That was amazing. Was that Shatterpoint?" Renald asked.

Mygeeto turned.

"Good eye!" She complimented him. "It's my personal specialty..."

They resumed their journey.

"Oh and Renald..." Mygeeto trailed.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Remember what Lucretia said? About it being okay to stare? Goes double for me..." she purred, winking at him.

Renald's face went beet red as he followed her.

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia moved between the crowds, fixated on the trace essence of the Lucretia that had left with the girl. She had to find her. She had to.

The Witch, more than once, had to fight her way through the streets. Her fists and legs carried her through the most unruly crowds, who quickly learned to avoid the silver garbed fighter as word of her skill spread.

Inevitably, she came across the smelting plant with it's collapsed entrance, and rendered her entire body completely soft and pliable, allowing her to squeeze through gaps in the wreckage, reforming on the other side. She immediately went to where she sensed life.

She smiled as she spotted Celina, who upon seeing her, while seated at the break room leapt up and ran to her.

"You came back! Just like you said. Gareth! Lucretia's back!" Celina called out happily.

"Of course I did, child. Why wouldn't I?" Lucretia replied smoothly as Gareth left the Manager's office.

"Did you do it, Miss Lister? Did you shut MEMNON down?"

The look she gave him chilled his blood. Not because it was a look of disdain or concealed hatred.

But because it was a look of non-recognition.

"The situation has changed. I have to get you both out of here. MEMNON's system proved too difficult to hack. But I found a Shuttle waiting to take us all off planet--"

"I'm not leaving until MEMNON is destroyed." Gareth responded firmly.

"I...admire your bravery sir, but respectfully, I gave it the old college try, and I barely escaped with my life."

"At least tell me that Houlan is dead." Gareth muttered.

"Houlan paid for what he did, I assure you." Lucretia replied. "He'll never hurt you again, Gareth."

Celina kept her smile, but had gone a bit silent.

Lucretia clapped her hands together.

"Now... gather whatever belongings you have, our ride is about a block from here."

Knowing there were no streets in these parts large enough to hold even a small shuttle, due to years of his father going to work in this area to put him through college, Gareth nodded, and escorted Celina back to the break room. Celina grabbed a kitchen knife silently, face momentarily betraying the inner terror she had been desperately hiding, even from herself. She hid it up her sleeve.

No easy exits. Cornered.

Gareth struggled to stay calm. But he couldn't figure out how to get away from the Imposter. All options seemingly ended in death.

Then he stopped. He remembered he was in a smelting factory.

He mouthed the words "Distract her."

Celina nodded.

"Hey Lucretia, what do we do once we're off planet?" Celina asked seemingly eagerly, bouncing up and down as Gareth lingered behind as they passed by giant furnaces.

"We will find your parents, I promise you. But stopping MEMNON comes first."

"I guess I won't be needing this, then..." Celina said, taking the knife from out of her sleeve.

"Celina..." Lucretia spoke crossly, taking the knife, and examining it. "You shouldn't play with knives. They could seriously hurt you or someone--"

Lucretia was screaming as Gareth shoved an arc welder that still had juice into her side...and jumped back in horror as her body warped and deflated like dough as metallic screams escaped her mouth.

Celina kept screaming and screaming as Lucretia burned and melted, fat exploding across her body as she caught fire, until finally she collapsed in a melted, rancid mess of rapidly burnt and rotting flesh, the arc welder having overloaded.

Both, for what should clearly be understandable reasons at this point, didn't want to get near the corpse. They just sat there, staring at it, in shock from the horror.

Finally, Gareth summoned the will to move, and after he comforted Celina, assuring her that he wouldn't let anyone hurt her, he grabbed a shovel.

"Child. Go. You don't want to see this."

"Are you kidding?" she breathed. "I won't sleep until I know it's dead..."

Gareth sighed. "As you wish."

He smashed apart the corpse, breaking it off into smaller chunks he could shovel into a furnace. The blood had been so badly burned by his attack there was no longer any telling what color it had originally been. When he was done, he turned a furnace on at low setting and watched her remains turn to ash. Then he went over to Celina and collapsed in a metaphorical heap.

"We can't stay here. " he spoke. "What if more imposters arrive?"

"What if the real Lucretia shows?" Celina asked.

Gareth had no answer for that, at first. It was enough to know he had dealt with one Imposter who clearly wasn't human--

He paused a moment. Now that he really stopped and thought about, did Lucretia actually behave all that human?

Not really...the back of his head whispered. Everything about her was unnatural, from the way her aged face didn't match her body, her unnatural poise and patience with others, and certainly not her athleticism.

"Well, we've already dealt with one Imposter..." Gareth said standing up and helping Celina to her feet.

"The odds that they would have two Imposters of Miss Lister is highly unlikely." he added as they looked for an emergency exit.

(Cutaway of J Jonah Jameson laughing uncontrollably)

After a few minutes wandering, trying to follow all the signs in the facility, they finally found an old fire exit. Gareth pushed open the door, stared at the fire and heard the shouting. He saw riotors moving and Alliance troops trying to contain the population's fear of being killed by missiles, trying to keep the arson from getting worse.

Gareth's face fell. They couldn't go back out into that. They had to stay.

"Do you think the real Lucretia will find us soon?" Celina asked.

"She's resourceful. She'll figure it out..." he asserted, not at all certain anymore he wanted to be found by Lucretia...

After all...how could he be certain it was her?

He closed the door back up.

Meanwhile...

Lucretia sat patiently on an empty seat in her holding cell in the Hotel, glancing at her gloved hand occasionally as though she were checking her nails.

Just then another, larger group of thugs came in, all pointing Sonic Disruptor Rifles at her.

Lucretia raised an eyebrow.

"Really, all that for me? And I don't have to do burlesque?" Lucretia joked. "You could at least let me buy you dinner..."

"You won't be all smiles and laughs once Hulluck decides what do with you. Get moving!" one of the thug's barked.

Lucretia sighed. "As you wish..."

The Witch rose up and her hands were put behind her back with cuffs slapped on.

"Tighter, please." she flirted.

This creeped out every thug present as she was forced to accompany them...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Lucretia had at last reached the old underground mag train station entrance. It looked badly collapsed but there were enough gaps that she was able to squeeze through in an almost liquid state of moving her mass and reform on the other end.

Her bronze bladed lightsaber was activated and she lit up the interior with it as she moved down the steps, feeling old, bloody history here.

"A pity, truly..." Lucretia remarked to herself. "It must have been magnificent in it's day..."

She went to examine old posters and advertisements. The Gulag Era had led to the absolute decline of the underground railways. Getting past them to reach the deepest parts of the sewer systems where MEMNON was located hadn't been easy even when it was still practical to go this route. And as she examined what was left of the direct route ahead, she realized this would be even more of a trial. It really HAD completely collapsed.

She began walking along tunnel parallel to the collapsed passages that would have taken her directly to MEMNON. None of the others by themselves led directly to the deep sewers, but if she pieced an indirect route through them, it could lead her to the other side of the collapsed passages. At least, that was what she hoped.

She heard sounds, voices. She sighed. MEMNON was dangerous. She had a duty to warn the innocent away.

Lucretia took a detour to where she heard the voices. Her eyes went wide when she saw the explosives being wired to the wall. Saw some well dressed gangsters doing the wiring.

She had no time to ask. She just had to wait for when and where to act. There would be no way to reach MEMNON. No way to stop the defense system from firing unless she stopped them first.

Lucretia threw out a wave of the Force that heavily slowed all five present and she zipped forward, lightsaber active. Her blade targeted the weapons first cutting through them as quickly as possible before pinballing to the next. Ballet-like athleticism carried feet and fist to knees and ribcages. All of them were down eventually, and Lucretia grabbed one by the neck and lifted him up.

"Who ordered you down here?" she demanded.

"Hosnia... Hulluck...our boss..." the human thug breathed.

Lucretia squeezed harder.

"And what does this Hosnia Hulluck want with destroying these tunnels?"

"Trying...to...cut...access to... MEMNON..."

"How many more groups? Just this one wouldn't be enough." she asked in a hiss.

"Four more. Got...hostages..."

"Where?" Lucretia demanded.

"Figure it out yourself, schutta..."

Lucretia strangled him unconscious, made sure he was still able to breathe after she ceased choking him and then dug through his pockets, looking for blueprints she knew they had to be carrying on them.

She finally found them. They were on a definite schedule...she likely had fifteen minutes to clear out and expose them. But there was no way she could do it by herself. Not on her best day.

Lucretia sighed. She'd have to split the difference.

She got on the floor in a meditative position, the flesh on her face bubbling and shuddering as it detached from the rest of her body, sprouting tendrils on its silent screaming maw as it went off to grow.

(Narrator stops to vomit copiously into nearby bucket)

(Narrator refuses to elaborate)

(Resumes writing)

Lucretia then took off running. The other copy, when it was fully grown, would know what to do and where to go. Her face hadn't even regrown yet, do to how much energy had been put into growing a copy of her as quickly as possible to full combat strength.

Five minutes later.

"Guess today isn't your lucky day, is it, Jedi?" one of Hulluck's Gangsters asked a young Rodian Knight with teal skin, who had been found trapped under here by them during their initial efforts down here.

Lots of people had fled underground to survive the ground invasion. And many had been sent in as rescue teams to retrieve the desperate. The unfortunates the gangsters had come across were too isolated or injured to escape them.

The Knight, injured with broken ribs and legs, was in too much pain to respond.

Y'know, if it was up ta' me? I probably wouldn't be doing this. I'll admit it: Hulluck reactivating MEMNON was total overkill, but when you are looking at the kinds of charges we were looking at, you just know that is a journey that can only conclude with swinging at the end of a rope for treason."

The other gangsters busily set the explosives on the walls.

"The Alliance should actually be thankin' us, y'know that?" The Gangster asked, dribbling ash from an expensive cigar on the Knight's face.

"I mean, think of all the business them corporations that actually own your government will be able to do here when everything has been leveled? They'll be able to rebuild it from the ground up, in their image, get rid of all the remaining riff raff or buy 'em out. Gentrify the place, y'know?"

All their lights and the electronics in their blasters were knocked out

"Your plan is as evil as it is brutal." came the Coruscant accented voice of a woman in the dark.

The Gangsters all stood up, pointing their weapons into the dark, only to realize seconds later that none of them worked.

They heard heavy footsteps. One gangster drew his now dead but still sharp Vibro blade and went searching in the dark.

There was just enough light that you could see her once you got close.

However, due to the circumstances, an accelerated growth produced... deformities...

Trust me, if you had seen what he saw up close your reaction would have been about the same: a dose of extra concentrated, high octane nope.

The Lucretia Copy came out a twisted, over tall tree of teeth and misshapen limbs, most of her body a crude parody of her silver catsuit. Her face was only partly intact, and had multiple mouths on her face.

He had only time to scream a short moment before tentacles shot out of her mouth from her insides, grabbing him by the torso and slamming him into the ceiling, knocking him out cold.

The others, you couldn't quite see, were paralyzed with fear. The Copy had night vision.

A wave of mouth tentacles and every thug present found their movements slowed.

An inhuman roar and it charged brutally swiping aside all it's targets, when it was close enough to be seen by the captured citizens they started to scream also.

Its tentacles ripped apart their bonds and they all understandably ran away as soon as they could. But it simply didn't have time to chase them all down to explain.

It had no choice but to move on to the next group.

It restrained the gangsters with whatever it could find. It could already feel it's genetics starting to break down from the stress of being so active. It had to finish this quickly, because very soon it would be dead...

Meanwhile...

Lucretia, armed with her bronze lightsaber, face only starting to regrow very slowly, had it's green muscles and obsidian skull, it's teeth being the only exception to the rest of its jet black color, was exposed in the open Air, it's green blood giving off a faint glow in the dark as it channeled the ionic Energy in it's flesh.

The expenditure would weaken it, put it on the defensive considerably, but it was the only solution to prevent the criminals from being able to set off their stolen weapons.

She stood still, only a few dozen meters from the next area where charges were being set.

Her flesh bulged and distorted horribly, pulling away from her skeleton in all directions, rendering her emaciated as the ion wave left her body. The lights ahead cut off, but she still saw perfectly.

She moved swiftly, noting that the gangsters ahead were trying to get their flashlights to work. No time to drain. It would be too loud. They needed to be dealt with swiftly.

Lucretia sprinted with cat like stealth to the nearest gangster and cutting off the flow of blood to his brain by putting him in a sleeper hold, leaping over him with the Force and landing silently, the act of which rendered her a little more emaciated looking as she skittered across the floor like a four legged spider, as she silently tackled and choked out the next gangster. Part of the reason Lucretia resorted to fisticuffs and weapons first was because each major usage of the Force drained her, weakening her ever further until she was no longer able to maintain control of her host. She had to be judicious in her usage. She could splurge occasionally, but not too much.

And even in her emaciated state, she still retained her supreme athleticism and strength. She just couldn't take as much direct damage, and tired faster in extended combat.

The Gangsters realized gradually that something was terribly wrong as one by one they lost contact with each other. Panic set in, calling out for names, growing more panicked by the second.

Lucretia did not stop after the first group was taken down, immediately moving to take out the second and final group on her end, traversing over and under collapsed, rusted rails to reach the final group, who had managed to find material to make and light torches. A slight use of the Force confirmed the innocent, terrified life form they held hostage, having already set all their devices. They had all thought to bring knives too, and shotguns. One had a shotgun pointed directly at the hostage but there were lights of pipes to climb on.

A hissed spell made Lucretia double over as an aura of frost covered the whole area, dampening the torches.

"Why is it so cold?" one asked shivering in fear.

Lucretia silently climbed over the pipes, feeling herself growing woozy and weaker as she dangled over the gangster directly threatening the hostage and put him in a sleeper hold with her feet, heavily emaciated now, she dropped down, saw the hostage was blindfolded. He looked like a janitor. Young, early twenties. Tanned skin and brownish hair, almost sandy.

Lucretia grabbed her lightsaber and went to town, the bronze blade flashing through weapons in the cadence of form six with fierce speed, her almost mummified state horrifying the ones she attacked as she removed a limb or two from these criminals who, given what they were planning, so, so, SO had it coming.

The hostage panicked as he heard a horrible sucking sound coming from somewhere nearby.

"It's alright..." came a voice with a feminine contralto, and he felt a hand pulling away his blindfold. He glanced up at the red headed Zeffo Sorceress.

He was of the outer rim, and had heard enough of the legends from the Gulag Era to be instinctively terrified of her reflective catsuit.

"You're perfectly safe." Zeffo assured him.

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Renald and Mygeeto at last reached the Shelter that hid the tomb of the Witches, and Renald breathed a small sigh of relief. The chaos out there had gotten truly bad. Even with the shelter securely closed and locked, he could still hear the rioting outside.

"Is there nothing we can do for them?" Renald asked sadly as he sat on the couch.

"I would go out there to help, but I'd do more harm than good at this point." the voluptuous blond witch replied as she plopped down on a couch opposite him.

"Besides, since learning of your existence, the Coven has designated your survival a priority, especially given the danger beyond MEMNON." Mygeeto explained patiently, calmly walking him through it so as to not overwhelm him.

Renald blinked. "What's worse than a malfunctioning Missile Defense System from the Plague Era?"

"Try a Brain Demon Cultist."

Renald's eyes widened in alarm.

"Here? On Metallos? Why?"

"I suspect the one we encountered was here for us. But my other suspicion is that the Cult has aligned with an unknown party to activate the system and devastate the planet."

"Makes sense. It's a major industrial center. That's why The Maw struck. The destruction of so many innocent people would darken the Force, cause the Alliance to divert resources from other places to fix the damage. The Cult would thrive in the chaos." Renald posited.

Mygeeto nodded sagely. "I understand why Zeffo sees such potential in you."

"Thank you, Mistress."

"No need for such titles. After what you did in preserving me, I consider us friends." Mygeeto replied with a smile. "Call me Myg for short."

Renald desperately tried to hide his blush.

"As you wish, Mis--"

Mygeeto raised an eyebrow.

"--I mean, Myg. Sorry."

"It's okay, Ren. Besides...I find your blushing adorable..." she added, playfully.

"Heh..." he chuckled with all the nervousness of a man who knew that even if the beautiful woman in a Catsuit that looked painted on opposite him wasn't a humanoid abomination in reality, she still would have been out of his league.

"Say, while you are here, would you like to help me in fixing up the tomb?" she asked.

Renald nodded and followed Mygeeto into the cold and dark tomb, where multiple Sarcophagi had been opened.

"Here, help me with the lids." Mygeeto said. "After we straighten them out, we must bless the entire tomb..."

Renald knew it was busy work meant to keep his mind off the chaos outside. Still the fact she was treating him like a trusted colleague rather than as a servant spoke volumes as to why the Mygeeto personality had integrated so well with the head priestess.

"I have a bit of a confession to make."

"All ears." Mygeeto replied as she helped him move a lid into place.

"Before the Head Priestess showed...my...my faith had started to waver. I was the last for years, Myg. Do you know what that is like? Being the last of the old anchorites? I was starting to ask what the point was, hoarding all these secrets."

"I know all too well what you mean." Mygeeto replied sympathetically. "Faith can be extremely challenging to keep under such circumstances. I'm honestly impressed you held out as long as you have. As is Zeffo. But you're not alone anymore..." she assured, going over to pat him on the shoulder.

"And don't consider yourself the last of the old anchorites. Think of yourself as the first of the new..." (LEGENDS REFERENCE #533475454: 90 XP)

Renald nodded. "I will, Myg."

One by one, they straightened out every open lid. Mygeeto then went to a far wall and touched a hidden panel, and a secret compartment slid open with a grinding of stone as the panel retracted and split apart, revealing a ruby red mask carved in the likeness of the Zeffo Sorceress.

"The Master Copy..." Mygeeto explained, kneeling down in the middle of the tomb and raising it above her head, her flesh shuddered and bubbled as the mask glowed with light and every rune in the tomb lit up. Ren got on his knees and gave thanks to the light side.

Mygeeto rose up and placed the mask in a stunned Renald's hands.

"Guard this with your life, Ren. A Force Spawn's Master Copy is one of their most precious possessions. It stores not just our mind, but every mind we integrated into us at the time of its creation."

"I'll guard it with my life, Myg." Renald promised

Mygeeto smiled.

"Ren I have to show you something..." Mygeeto said, beckoning him to follow her to the back of the tomb, where she hit another hidden panel under a stone and a secret entrance opened up. He followed her down ancient stone steps to a hidden chamber. It had more basic furnishings but was no less habitable. He blinked in surprise at the speeder bike at the mouth of a long straight tunnel...

"At the end of that tunnel..." Mygeeto explained, pointing "There is a hangar. It contains a Lambda Shuttle hidden in the arid desert. If we can't stop MEMNON, or find and stop that Cultist, you are to flee to that hangar with the Master Copy and head to the planet in it's databases."

"I understand, Myg." Renald replied.

Mygeeto smiled. "I figured."

Five minutes later.

As Mygeeto covered parts of the shelter floor in runes composed of her own glowing green blood, runes that would vanish soon after (A process she had initiated in the underground speed tunnel at key sections without explanation), Renald examined the ruby red Master Copy. He couldn't tell what it was made of. He just felt an electric tingle when he touched it.

"As beautiful as the mask is Ren..." Mygeeto teased, having been sitting in the seat across him for some time, observing how he seemed almost hypnotized.

"Aren't those eyes better spent with their gaze... elsewhere?"

Renald looked up. Mygeeto smiled at him.

"It's just fascinating, is all. I mean..."

Mygeeto nodded. "True...but so am I. And unlike the mask...I stare back." she flirted in a low voice.

"Heh." Renald said, blushing.

Mygeeto leaned back in her seat, legs crossed.

In spite of himself, he couldn't help but glance over her glistening, silver clad figure. Mygeeto was silent, still smiling, letting herself be admired.

"You were going to say something earlier..." she offered.

"I forgot."

Mygeeto chuckled. "I know."

Unexpectedly, her flesh bubbled and shuddered everywhere as her mind and form vanished back into Lucretia Lister's much more sculpted physique.

"I confess, your gaze is just doing wonders for my enormous ego..." Lucretia said playfully, getting up from her seat...and sitting down directly next to him.

"By all means, do continue..." she purred in open lust.

Renald blinked. After a few moments hesitation, he decided to flirt back.

"I hope you like what you see as much as I do." he said, trying to be as smooth as possible.

"Very much." Lucretia purred, but with Mygeeto's voice speaking instead of her own.

Meanwhile...


Lucretia was escorted to the office of Hosnia Hulluck. As many as twenty guards surrounded her as she confidently entered the vast office, full of tasteful modern sculpture and wallpaper. A large window the length and width of a wall giving a superb view of the city, even in it's ruins.

The muscular Nautolan that had escaped her earlier by the skin of his teeth stood in front of the window in his expensive maroon business suit, hands folded behind his thick, muscular back.

"You know, when I was young, I swore, I would get what was owed me by the Galaxy-"

Lucretia cut him off immediately. "Please..." she said acidly, her contempt leaking out of her gaze. "Please no Crime Lord Monologues. They're insufferable in cinema and especially insufferable in real life court testimony. At the end it just boils down to a dolled up excuse to do terrible things under the guise of some nebulous, flimsy excuse for stewardship."

Hulluck turned, walked with thick heavy footsteps to his desk and poured himself some FlashFire into a crystal drink goblet from an equally crystalline decanter.

"Fair enough." he conceded patiently, taking a seat, then a sip.

"Where's that civilian you bailed out of my grasp?"

Lucretia yawned, seated, with her hands and legs cuffed to a durasteel chair welded to the ground.

"Do I look like I keep track of every civvie I happen to take momentary pity upon?" she countered. "Guy was running from me even harder than he ran from you, probably."

Hulluck shrugged, took a sip.

"Doesn't mean you dunno where he is." he replied. "If you didn't know where he was, why would you be guarding the place you were when we found you?"

"I happen to like smelting factories." she answered smugly.

His massive fist cracked his expensive marble desk as it slammed against it.

"Don't get cute with me, old timer. I'm a generous man. I can make it worth your while. I can also have you ground up in a bottle recycler."

"I would take nothing from you." Lucretia snapped. "You're a vicious coward prepared to sentence an entire planet to death just to cover up your own selfish, predatory behavior."

Hulluck thought about it a moment.

"Maybe." he conceded. "But I'm gonna be a triumphant vicious coward. MEMNON's gonna wipe the whole slate clean, and I'll have a premium view to watch it all."

"You sadistic little chit!" Lucretia exclaimed in genuine exasperation. "Who activates a fethin' Missile Defense System to wipe out evidence of highway robbery? Let alone wipe out a whole planet just to cover up crimes that occured in one city?!"

Lucretia paused. "How did you even reactivate MEMNON anyway?"

Hulluck smirked.

"I thought you weren't a fan of Crime Lord Monologues."

"Indulge me." she replied.

He took another sip of his drink.

"When I was young..." he said slowly, "I promised myself I would get what was owed me by the Galaxy. I won't bore you with the details. Because I fully admit it: You're absolutely right." he chuckled. "Anything I'd tell you would be a dolled up excuse."

Lucretia rolled her eyes. "At least you admit it..."

"I suspecting you don't like to make excuses for what you are, either. Good." Hulluck muttered. "Cause when I was young, hadn't yet worked my way to the top, I'd stare up at this hotel, how it glittered. And I swore that when I got what was owed me, I would be sitting right at the top of this building when it happened."

He refilled his glass. Took another sip.

"I hustled. I murdered. I clawed my way to the top of this building through sheer effort. And it worked out even better than I could have imagined. See, I learned that this hotel, was built just after the threat of the Gulag Virus was declared over Galaxy Wide. It was built to encourage the perception that civilization was going back to normal. Pretty ritzy hotel, too..." he trailed pulling out an expensive cigar...

"But the owner, in order to get the approval, had to agree to a secret deal he made with the Metallos government at the time..." he continued, clipping off the cigar tip and lighting it with a match.

"He had to agree to install a secret turbolift access to a route in the deep sewers that led directly to MEMNON. As time passed, and records were lost to Force knows how many successive invasions, political coups, uprisings, even the Government forgot all about the lost access route."

"Lucky you." Lucretia replied. "You'll never get away with it."

"I been getting away with it for the past few days or so. And I figured, since you're gonna die anyway, it doesn't matter."

"What happened to being generous?" she asked.

"That ship sailed after you continued to mouth off." Hulluck replied.

"Silly me." she replied snidely.

"No more games, you old bat. The civilian, where is he?"

"On the contrary..." Lucretia trailed. "The games have only just begun..."

Lucretia shattered her bonds and executed a helicopter like spin kick against the guards around her, pinballing between them as they opened fire...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

Hosnia Hullock's guards were outclassed in sheer speed and strength as Lucretia broke wrists, crushed fingers, broke ribcages, arms, necks, grabbing weapons and outright blasting others, that they were soon trying to get as far from her as possible as reinforcements poured in to protect Hosnia.

She had to be careful. Had to conserve her energy. Expending too much of it would weaken and emaciate her. She had to take her time, use pure natural skill.

Silver clad fists caved in faces. Silver clad feet kicked weapons out of hands. And still more reinforcements came.

Suddenly, during an opening in her slaughter, a spear was flung into her head so hard she was pinned to the wall, a pig like squeal erupted from her throat as she struggled to remove the spear from her forehead, only to fall limp, eyes open, stone dead a moment later, green blood dripping out her mouth.

Hosnia had been the one to throw it. He approached the corpse pulled the spear, which had half it's length buried in her, and her corpse slumped the ground, lifeless...

"Get this garbage outta my office." Hosnia barked, gesturing to her corpse...

The Spirit of the Coruscant Sorceress, stunned by her own demise had been set free by the death of her body, watching as "her" corpse was dragged away.

She felt herself weakening by the second. Soon she would be pulled into the Netherworld, unless she found a way to resurrect her body...or found another to inhabit...

Frantically she scrambled for an idea, before her fading power, skill, and memory recalled a "rainy day" supply. It would take her far from here, but it meant she wouldn't have to risk going back to the tomb.

She just hoped she wasn't pulled into the Nether before she reached it. Even now she could feel her time on this mortal plain slipping away quickly.

Her invisible spirit left the building desperately trying to reach the area where a spare body had been stashed before she would fade away...

Fifteen minutes later...


The Spirit of the Coruscant Sorceress was starved...

Even fifteen minutes had expended much of her remaining energy. The pull of the Nether, and it's unknown horrors, beckoned her.

The ancient chapel where her spare body had been stashed had sustained heavy damage. So much so she feared it's sarcophagus had been damaged also. It grew harder to think, and as she sped to the chapel's crypt, reaching where her stored body should be...

...she realized she was in much deeper chit then that...

She stared at the armor clad Marauder of Io driving his red lightsaber against the surface of the enchanted sarcophagus, when he stopped, looking about in confusion a moment. He sensed her, but because she was so weak (and getting weaker), he didn't know what he sensed.

The Sorceress' Spirit felt the Nether tug at her harder and she had a decision to make.

If she focused her full power, she might be able to knock the Sith unconscious. But she wasn't sure how much of her remaining energy she would need. Too much and she might not have enough juice to open the coffin. Too little and she would alert the Sith to her presence, allowing for her to possibly be destroyed by his sheer power. There would be no coming back from the death he would give her.

But if she used too much juice to knock him out, the worst that would happen was that she would get pulled back into the Nether. And while that would be very, very bad for her, it still wouldn't be death.

There was no easy way to do it, her very being felt pain as she coalesced as much power as she dared and sent it into the Sith's very being to stun and knock him out. He swayed, then tipped over and was out cold.

The Spirit felt as though she were freezing, the yearning of the Netherworld pulling her ever so slightly more to it as she worked her will to open the Sarcophagus, frantically flying into it and the body within,

What crawled out was a misshapen horror, barely moving flesh over an enchanted skeleton. It had ten minutes at most to find an energy source, and she was almost feral in this state, staggering away from the unconscious marauder. Her face sagged at the lower half all the way to her stomach.

Thankfully, the Sorceress was very forward thinking, having prepared for just such an occasion. It was only a little further in the tomb. She just needed the strength to reach it, it was hidden behind an alcove.

She at last reached it in her horrible, almost rotting, terribly emaciated state as she twisted an old torch sconce to the right. The alcove slid open, revealing a wall with a hidden fusion generator.

She entered and resealed it, praying the enchantments she had long ago placed upon it would prevent the Sith from detecting her as she fed on the ancient generator, her flesh rippling as it metabolized the rich energy.

So focused was she on feeding that she almost didn't notice the mummified corpse to the right of her.

She turned, and with a shock of dawning horror slowly realized it hadn't been her emergency body she had inhabited...

Her flesh bubbled, warped, pulling horrifically in all directions as the energy restored the screaming Spirit, her mind and essence being absorbed into the one that had been hidden in the corpse, hidden, until it was fed enough...

It was not the Sorceress of Coruscant who opened her eyes, but a different woman of more robust shape, with pale skin, black hair, and dead black eyes.

The Collage, looked at her new, restored body, one Sorceress richer, fetching a dark, monk like dress and putting it on, flesh rippling as she exited the alcove, her plan having worked perfectly.

She came across the unconscious Io Marauder, scanned his mind, realized he served her Cult, and used the Dark Side to wake him up, moon shaped cuts appearing on her forehead, neck, and bare upper shoulders and leaking white blood as he stirred. When he saw her, and saw the symbols on her flesh, he went to one knee.

Forgive my failure, Mistress, I was not aware of any Cultist save The Assembly on this planet."

"There are two now..." The Collage replied patiently and politely.

"I have no excuse for my weakness."

"Tell you what. You don't mention to The Assembly I am here, and I see no reason to think on your lapse in discipline..." The Collage replied silkenly, still digesting the Coruscant Sorceress internally. She always tried to leave underlings an out over minor screw ups. Besides, if he had not failed, she would still be dead. He deserved a little slack.

The Marauder nodded. "Thank you for your generous discretion, Mistress."

"No problem..." she assured in a kindly manner. "I'm sure you're working hard, and that you must normally do an absolutely phenomenal job. No need for a single lapse in strength to define you."

She began to depart.

"I have some witches to kill...hold the fort down for me, would you?" she asked politely.

"Of course, Mistress..." the Marauder nodded as the Collage left to locate Celina and Gareth...

 

[Lucretia Lister]

The Collage was not stupid. She was just sadistic. Sure, she could no doubt kill them upon sighting, but a Brain Demon Cultist feasted on suffering. She would give them false hope as Lucretia first, and then, THEN, once they were lured into a false sense of security...

Then she would erupt like a sore from Lucretia's pleasant form and devour them.

There was a problem however.

Devouring the Coruscant Persona had been nothing. But Lucretia was a different matter. You lost your grip on her, you could be stuck as her for a very long time.

Channeling Lucretia for even a very short time was dangerous. Constant focus on control and binding with the persona as much as possible was taxing. Too firm a grip and you couldn't stay in character. Too loose a grip and you were STUCK in character.

And the longer you were her, the more difficult it became to maintain that balance.

This was going to be very tricky, the stocky Cultist concluded. Given the strength. It probably wouldn't be safe to channel it for more than an hour max.

She walked the damaged, ruined streets of Metallos, seeing multiple victims for the taking. None worth absorbing, however.

She felt hungry when she spotted a hospital set up for wounded people, and strutted into it, smiling emptily with a dead stare, head tilting as one of the orderly's went up to greet her.

Her smile grew wider, and she whispered something in high Sith that silenced all noise within and around the immediate radius of the hospital. Her flesh shuddered as agony ripped through all the patients, leaving nothing but ash as she ate their souls, juicing up.

"More." She snarled, leaving the Hospital.

She soon came across a Triage camp full of injured elderly. Her flesh shuddered as she whispered a spell that spread darkness around the camp temporarily. No sound escaped. She left the dome and there was no one there when the spell ended, but her flesh bubbled subtly. Now she was more topped off.

Ducking into an alley, she hissed something dark and ancient, ripping off her crude gown, body taking on Barbie-doll like anatomy as her hair receded into her head, eyes taking on a solid black color as black, pulsing veins spread across her body as she sprinted rapidly on all fours, looking for more victims. She kicked the door into an apartment building when she sensed a family of four huddled in the remains of their devastated home. She didn't even bother to try sounding human as a monstrous roar escaped her throat as she scrambled on all fours up a flight of steps. When she found the door that led to the family there was nothing but her roars and the screams of the family before she scrambled back down the steps in an almost primate like fashion, still snarling and squealing inhumanly as she sprinted down the alleyway, spotting a dazed looking man in his mid twenties wandering the streets, in shabby clothing. The youngest victim yet.

A beastly howl escaped her and her flesh shuddered as she charged at her prey. He wheeled around. Eyes widening in terror as she closed the distance. He dropped to his knees, tore the front of the shirt open and The Collage came to a dead stop as she beheld the jagged half moon symbol of her Cult. He was a worshipper.

She stood upright, completely losing her animalistic gait as she calmly walked up to him , flesh still bubbling.

She leaned down and planted a motherly kiss on his forehead, cut her forehead open with a sharp nail and white blood leaked out, and she traced a half moon on the area she had kissed.

"Rise and be at ease, worshipper..." The Collage commanded, having given the traditional Cultist Blessing.

One hour later.

The Collage observed him patiently as the man worshipped her on his knees in the meager remains of his burned home. The Maw invasion had brutalized what had once been a thriving neighborhood.

The Collage, still in the nude, ghastly form she had taken when going on her killing spree, sat on a make shift throne surrounded by candles.

"Much was destroyed in the invasion. I preserved the sacred texts but I was forced to resort to extreme means." The Worshipper told her.

"Your devotion in the face of hardship shall be rewarded at the appropriate juncture..." The Collage assured him. "I sense the foul presence of the Lightbreach Coven on this world...what can you tell me?"

"I saw a Sorceress of Manaan Copy prowling about earlier, healing the sick. Your feeding will no doubt draw the heretic to us."

"That one will not be easy to defeat. She must be weakened beforehand..." The Collage noted.

"I have access to a lightsaber. A red one."

"Excellent." she complimented. "Would you give it to me?"

"Of course..." The Worshipper said, rising to retrieve it.

"Your name?" The Collage asked.

"Lorun. Lorun Greenstar." Lorun answered.

"Lorun, in light of your difficult circumstances, I want to say I deeply appreciate your assistance in these matters..." The Collage said with all seriousness. Cultists do not behave as typical Sith with even very low ranking subordinates like Lorun. It was what made them exceptionally dangerous. More than a few could command actual loyalty in spite of their psychotic nature .

"Thank you, Collective Collage."

"So...is Madame Zeffo here?" The Collage asked. It was Zeffo who had originally reduced this particular copy to its desperate survival state.

"I do not know." Lorun answered. "Missiles from some ancient defense systems are launching rapidly at random and---

Lorun and The Collage looked up as air raid sirens went off. Missiles traveled fast over the air. These ones dispersed bomblets.

The Collage moved to protect Lorun, shielding him with her own body as a bomblet landed closed and detonated...

Meanwhile...

Renald had been busy flirting with Mygeeto-Lucretia, and to his own surprise, he found himself enjoying the game with Lucretia even more than he did Mygeeto, despite knowing they were essentially the same person.

Lucretia lounged lazily on the couch next to him, and Renald found himself stealing slight glances at her muscles, adequately displayed under her skintight mirror-suit. She made a wonderful cup of tea. It wasn't long before they had occasionally started kissing. Lucretia was a master seductress when given enough time.

"So Renald...once our business concludes here...just where would you like to go?"

"Go?" Renald asked, blushing...

"Naboo has such wonderful lakes..." she purred, running a silver clad finger across his jawline. "And the cuisine...tell me..."

Silver covered fingers brushed teasingly across his chin, making him gulp.

"Ever had the pleasure of a beautiful woman feeding you grapes?" Lucretia asked, drawing him in for a long, passionate kiss.

"I...hahaha..." he chuckled nervously, utterly at a loss for words.

Lucretia only grinned at this, and kissed him again, but then she perked up as she sensed something at the entrance of the bunker.

Her flesh and mind warped and shuddered back to that of Mygeeto's.

"Excuse me Renald, I have to get that. It's Hoth." The gorgeous young blonde Sorceress said.

She smiled again. "We'll just have to continue our discussion some other time..." she added using Lucretia's voice for a moment as she rose up to go get the bunker door, making Renald blush slightly as Mygeeto opened the Bunker Door, staring at the Sorceress of Hoth, who seemed unusually perky.

"Hiya, Myg..." Hoth replied, stepping in wearing a copy of the very same Silver Catsuit Mygeeto wore, stepping in.

"How goes the hunt for Cultists?" Myg asked.

"Slow..." Hoth answered. "Traces, but nothing hot. Nothing I can act on...who's this?" Hoth asked of Renald.

"He, he is the last acolyte of the Light Breach Coven." Myg answered.

"I'm Renald, Miss--?"

"Hoth." Hoth answered, offering her hand.

Ronald shook it. Hoth felt cold to the touch.

"Oh, wait, before I forget..." Renald slowly reached into his coat pulling out the medallion.

Hoth didn't react. She only grinned, taking it.

"I haven't seen one of these in ages!" Hoth said, examining every facet..."

Renald breathed a sigh of relief. Myg took a sip of her tea.

"Hoth, have you heard back from Manaan or Anaxes?" Myg asked.

"Afraid not." Hoth replied, before turning to Renald.

"A last anchorite...you have done well to hold out so long..." Hoth congratulated.

Renald bowed his head. "Thank you, Mistress."

Hoth's wizened face rippled like water for a few seconds as she went to the tea kettle by the stove...

"Zeffo hasn't responded to hails. It's pretty bad out there..." Hoth said as she reached for a tea-cup.

She screeched as her fingers touched it, bright red hairline cracks spreading through her entire body, as she turned into crystal that splintered into a pile. Renald jumped back, while Myg's hands went to her hips, the gorgeous blonde frowning.

"The shatter point ritual revealed the truth. Hoth was taken over. Good thing I altered her teacup..." Myg noted.

"The Medallion didn't show it..." Renald breathed in terror.

"It must be an exceptionally powerful Cultist. I almost didn't catch her.." Mygeeto said heading over and kneeling to pick up a crystal shard, closing her eyes.

"The Assembly...chit..." Myg breathed. "One of the most vicious Cultists... extremely difficult to defeat head on...better to use subterfuge...if she hasn't acted on Hoth's love of tea, I might not have caught her."

Myg stood up, closed her eyes, and concentrated, her body bubbling as the shards flew into it, embedding themselves beneath her skin as they were absorbed, her face becoming The Assembly's and Hoth's for a split second before it resettled into her own.

"Not a strong copy...only Hoth's persona was part of it. Probably sent here as a probe..." she surmised... "Which, if I remember Cultist tactics...means they'll be coming in shortly after they sense that their probe failed. And they'll be coming in hard, too, so we need to leave..."

"I've never faced Cultists before..." Renald whispered.

"Don't worry. You have me..." Myg said sweetly. "Come, we're fleeing down the escape tunnel..."

They both booked it for the escape route underneath the tomb bunker.

As they approached the route where the shuttle, was, Myg signalled him to get behind her as she spotted beautiful women in white catsuits that reeked of the Dark Side to Myg. The one advantage she had above all else was that the alterations to the catsuit made her difficult to sense. They had cursed the shuttle, placing white blood runes all over it.

Myg got behind some crates with Renald, watching them.

"Swordfighter Fragments ..." Myg whispered. "Very deadly."

Renald then spotted the dark skinned woman with a long top knot of raven hair walking in a revealing white gown. The Assembly. One of the most insidious of the Cult Members. Copies of her were infamous for their devious nature.

Myg hissed a spell to cloak their presence slightly better...and grew alarmed when the Assembly copy vomited up snakes made of purple lightning that began spreading out across the floor...

She gestured for Renald to follow her. Escape on the shuttle would not be possible.

So Mygeeto used her advanced shatterpoint ability by stomping her foot hard in a particular section of the floor.

The earthquake was sudden, immediate, and horrendous. Everything shook as a wide crack spread out from where she had stomped her silver-clad foot, traveling across the floor, walls and ceiling as the rumbling grew worse.

The fragments screamed as both the floor and ceiling above them gave out, some of it smashing into the shuttle. Only the Assembly Copy's quick thinking allowed her to use Force Rage to leap over the crumbling floor and lightning blast the falling debris into smaller pieces, coughing at the debris clouds.

Myg-as-Lucretia leapt from one of the clouds and launched a flying spin kick at her face, sending the Assembly Copy flying into a wall. Due to being amped up on Force Rage however, The Assembly quickly recovered launching a heavy lightning blast that Lucretia barely dodged, retaliating with a heavy stream of Ion energy that stunned the Assembly but for a moment before she was hissing out Sith Curses that made Lucretia's flesh shudder violently as she attempted to ignite Lucretia at a distance. The suit barely allowed her to withstand it. Barely. Lucretia hissed spells of her own and the Assembly was momentarily covered in ice before her sheer rage allowed her to punch through it--

--only to have her head split in half by a sword stolen from one of the fragment corpses by Ronald.

Lucretia tackled Renald as the The Assembly copy's shriek was followed by an absolutely massive explosion that hit with the force of a thermal detonator set to maximum.

Lucretia helped Renald up, stroking his chin with her finger.

"I love it when a man takes the initiative..." she purred seductively.

"All in a days work..." Ronald replied, still shaking from the Adrenaline.

They both stared at the rubble. The shuttle was beyond wrecked.

"Looks like we'll need a new ride..." Ronald remarkable.

Lucretia stepped over some rubble and over to one of the dead Swordfighter Fragments, scooping up white blood from one of the corpses, concentrating until the darkness was purged of the blood, turning it green, which then seeped into her body through the suit, her flesh shuddering violently.

"I know where we can find one..." Lucretia said with a smile...