The Bad Touch

[Louise]

Karin offered a rather feral snarl in return, she had no need for manners any more. Her whole life had been spent in a haze of biting niceties so naturally the moment that her mouth released a cuss it was completely and utterly liberating.

Already she was too far on the back foot, having to bring up her blade to block his strikes at a frankly manic speed and as already noted had Karin been well-versed in the art of the saber than this could have gone on for a very long time. However this was not the case and just for the sake of the rhyme this was not a pace that she was comfortable with either.

This fact was evident.

“Bastard!” the woman managed to hiss between the constant barrage of strikes.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Yes! I am a bastard, Karin. A monstrous bastard, worse than any devil mortals could imagine in their religions, for I am of corporeal flesh and bone." Kaine continued to batter and crash his saber against Karin's defenses, forcing her farther and farther back across the room. To Evelynn, they must appear as a blur of motion too fast for her untrained eyes to possibly follow. In a single instant Kaine broke through Karin's defenses, battering away the lightsaber's blade to the side, and with a simple reverse of the motion Kaine brought his blade right through Karin's weapon arm at the elbow. He then thrust out his left hand to send a telekinetic push in the Force to Karin's midsection to throw her away from him, and of course to try and throw her off balance in this critical moment. He wasn't done with her just yet... He would prolong her suffering, "And you are nothing."

@[member="Darth Asmodea"]

 

[Louise]

Well that's going to leave a mark.

His lightsaber cut through her elbow like butter, and the arm fell to the floor with a soft thud, still holding her saber. The force push sent her flying backwards, now she wasn't just going to flop to the floor like a sad fish, oh no, a cheeky wee back flip through the air and woman landed kneeling.

Smiling.

Karin Dorn was nothing like her daughter in terms of pain management. To the sorcerer, agony was just another form of fuel. Nothing spurs the arts of the dark side on like a spot of crippling pain. She offered him a baring of teeth, a crooked grin as she grabbed the fresh stump of a right arm.

“Did you know that you can heal through the power of the dark side?” she said in a sickly smirking tone, “It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.”

It was a technique in development, a technique that she had utilised once before. It wasn't very pleasing to the eye, but desperate time calls for desperate measures. A moment of concentration, the raw power of the dark side running through her veins, for a moment time was still. Then black sludge erupted from the stump, it erupted in the form a new forearm, black and dripping a vile ooze.

A technique far from perfection, a new limb born of the dark side.

“You should have kept me close!” the woman spat, whether that was in reference to this fight or in general was unknown. Upon the ground a black mist began to spread...I can imagine you'd better be stopping this sorcery, Zambony.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Kaine was impressed. Karin may not be the greatest warrior, but she might be one of the greatest sorcerers of our age. He would have to tread lightly from now on, but he must keep up his momentum. "You are not the only one powerful in the Force, dear Karin!" Kaine bounded towards Karin, the force powering the leap as he closed the distance relatively fast. Many Sith preferred one or the other, lightsaber prowess or prowess in the Force, and others like Kaine had found a relative balance between both. His left hand sparked with power, and during his leap towards the Sorceress Dorn it ignited in a glorious blaze of blue lightning, which surged outward from his fingertips to snake towards Karin. His lightsaber remained firmly grasped in his right hand, which surged downwards in a diagonal slash at Karin's general body (I.E torso & arms).

@[member="Darth Asmodea"]

 

[Louise]

I feel like, you're going to need that lightsaber again.

She reached out to her former limb, pulling her lightsaber over through the force, thankfully not taking her forearm along for the ride. She caught it in her unharmed left hand, but by this time Kaine was bearing down upon her. The force lightning came cascading down and it struck her, enveloping, smouldering.

She howled. Pain is fuel. Draw upon it.

It was an awkward block, her left hand bringing the blade up horizontally. The power of the hit reverberated through her arm as her body crackled with the energies of the dark side.

“Imp...pressive!” she grunted, as they were caught in another lock of lightsabers. “BUT YOU'RE IN MY PLAYGROUND NOW!” Torture racked her body, the scene had been set. They stood in her ever spreading black mist as her dark side tendrils erupted all around them, encasing them in a circle of swiping nefarious energies.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Kaine disregarded the tendrils rearing up from the black mist that swirled around their feet to encircle the both of them, knowing that if Karin died then her sorceress magic would die with her. Over and over again he used his combination of one-handed Djem So and Sith lightning in conjunction to fight against Karin Dorn, creating what would be quite a spectacle in that sea of darkness. Perhaps Evelynn was no aware of how powerful her mother truly was, and how powerful Kaine was in return. "You are wrong Karin, you are in my playground now. My realm... My world! AND THERE IS NO PLACE FOR YOU IN MY WORLD!" Darkness radiated off of Kaine in waves, his skin took on a pale coloration, his eyes sunk in and turned sulfuric yellow, and he suddenly looked many years older than he should be. This was the true Kaine, a monstrous pale creature filled with hate and malice that hungered and fed on the pain and suffering on those lesser than he. "I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER LOVED!"

Kaine kicked out his right foot, aiming to slam the armored toe of his boot into Karin's shin or knee to throw her off balance while he continued his vicious assault.

 

[Louise]

The best light show this side of Coruscant was currently occurring at this moment in time.

He was relentless, keeping up his assault of strikes and lightning. Do you know how difficult it is to keep up the control on dark side tendrils while you're trying to defend yourself from getting butchered by a lightsaber, all the while taking horrific abuse in the form of force lightning? Well, to summarise, it is rather difficult.

The moment came, eyes widened in horrific realisation. She had underestimated him, no, wrong, it was worse:

She had overestimated herself.

As his powers manifested, as his visage took on a more corrupted stance Karin Dorn herself seemed to shrink. The foot lashed out, connecting hard with her unarmoured knee. The concentration was broken, and just as soon as they had come the tendrils dissipated. The sorceress dropped down onto her non-wounded knee. She couldn't.

She looked up at Zambrano, not afraid, never afraid and spat bitter words, repeating a point she had already made on this day, “Get on with it then, I haven't got all day.”

A thought was spared, another moment of telepathy between mother and daughter:

Forgive me.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Kaine smirked darkly as Karin crumbled before him, and suddenly lunged at her to knock her to the ground with him on top of her. He deactivated his saber to pin her down with his strength, but with one free hand he reached out towards his throne. A single compartment opened and a collar sprung forth to land in his outstretched hand, and with his left he landed a heavy slug right to Karin's face with the side of his deactivated lightsaber, enough to stun her and sling the collar around her neck. Once secured the tiny needles on the inside of the collar began to inject Ixetel Cilona directly into Karin's blood stream, temporarily cutting the Sorceress off from the Force so long as the toxins ran through her veins. "Oh no, my sweet Karin. You and me are going to get very close before I decide to end you..." Kaine then rose up off of Karin, and clipped his lightsaber to his belt.

"How the mighty have fallen..."

 

[Louise]

No, of course not, that would be too easy.

Naturally Karin had already predicted that she would not be receiving the most dignified of ends, however for it to occur in front of her daughter was a horrifying thought. She was a caring girl, empathetic to no end and to watch anybody suffer would tear her apart, never mind her own mother. Dorn would have to muster whatever strength she had left to spare her daughter's mind, try to avoid distressing her as much as possible. Quite the ask.

The collar wasn't going to help this mountain of a task.

A wave of nausea washed over the woman as her connection to the force gradually petered out into nothingness. This was a feeling she was unfamiliar with. It was helplessness, Karin Dorn was suddenly thrust into a world of incompetence, suddenly extremely aware of her own frailty. To a sorcerer the force was a vital essence, like blood and oxygen, to be stripped of it...unthinkable.

“Please,” she murmured with a grimace, hands travelling up to the collar, testing to see how secure it was. “You've won. I concede defeat. Is that not enough?”

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Tsk tsk tsk, Karin! Where's the fun in that?" Kaine said with a giddy, yet murderous tone of voice as he loomed over the defeated Sorceress with his maniac grin plastered across his face. He extended his right hand and levitated the now force-deprived Karin Dorn off of the ground, and moved her in full view of her daughter with her body parallel to hers. "I will make your spawn watch you die a slow and painful demise... She will soon find herself not able to blink, and she will have no choice but to take it all in with excruciating detail...." The fingers of Kaine's hand moved ever so slightly, and Karin would begin to find her body twist and contort painfully at the mercy of Kaine's telekinetic powers.

 

[Louise]

She withered upon seeing the look upon his face, that glee, by his own admission Kaine Zambrano was a monstrous bastard and he was going to prove.

The look upon the face would have been one to savour, it was truly the kodak moment of Karin's life, all of those that she had looked down upon, snubbed and otherwise had scolded in her typical savagely polite manner would have no doubt squealed with delight upon witnessing this humiliation. Dunk the witch, and all that.

I wouldn't be surprised if Kaine had a spare pair of stocks kicking around.

The woman hung helplessly in the air for a few moments, attempting to give her daughter a look, a look that said, don't worry about me. Of course, this was so rudely interrupted by our dearest Zambambino. She screamed. Her limbs and appendages twisted in a brutal manner. Without that connection to the force, pain was merely pain. It was not a source to feed upon, it was simply nerves screaming out in agony.

The body was no meant to be bent like this.

Also, on another note. Bottle up that screech of Karin Dorn while you take a picture. That's some rare stuff. You could sell it on the holonet for like, so many credits.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He laughed.

Oh how he laughed at her suffering, a dark baritone rumble that echoed throughout the throne room. "Yes, Yeeeeeeeeeeessss! Writhe in agony my child, bask yourself in glorious torment! You will be my musical of pain, my gospel of damnation! Ahhh, listen to your voice! So beautiful! It makes me want to dance." Oh, and dance he did, as if he were attending the most fanciest of balls, and Karin was his date for the evening. With each step and twirl her body contorted in response, yanking her back and forth across the air, the bones beginning to break in the process. His gaze moved from the tortured Karin to the hanging Evelynn, "Look at your brave mother, Evelynn. Come to save the Princess from the big bad old Dragon, but I guess she wasn't made of the right stuff to complete that quest!."

 

[Evelynn]

A change of perspective for a moment.

Evelynn Dorn, the most twisted item of decoration in the throne room could scarcely believe that her mother was the devaronian woman. At first she thought it was some kind of cruel joke at her expense, just bringing in some alien and claiming it to be Karin Dorn to play with her head. However there was no mistaking that presence, that sharp voice and trademark sneer, even if it sat on a different face.

There was a brief interlude there, a quick stretch, a threat made regarding the tearing off of limbs. A brief spot of proper torture to really set the mood. Of course, Evelynn had shrieked.

Through telepathy her mother had apologised.

The young girl watched the fight with concern in her eyes. The pressure of her own weight on her wrists was suddenly shifted to the back of her mind as the pair of Sith went at it. They moved in flurry that her eye could barely keep up with, the girl understood that he was on the offence and her the defence but that was about it.

It wasn't until he severed her arm that the panic set in. Well, let's clear that up, the girl felt an inkling of hope at the sight of the devaronian regrowing her own limb from out of nowhere. That was impressive, so far in her studies she had not encountered such an ability. Then they were enveloped in darkness. Flashes of red, green and the occasional blue. If the situation was not so dire, she would have marvelled in the spectacle.

However, when the darkness had subsided, her mother was the one kneeling.

Forgive me.

The girl squeezed her eyes shut as he spoke. The talk of a slow and painful demise, she couldn't bear the thought, well it was hardly a thought when the scene was about to unfold before her. She dared to look. A horror. Come one, come all to Kaine Zambrano's puppet show of dread, featuring the twisted screaming marionette Karin Dorn, watch as her limbs twist in the most unnatural of ways! Tickets only five credits, free for family members don't you know? Best seat in the house!

Between the agonised wails Evelynn could hear her mother's bones beginning to snap, naturally the poor girl was already in the grasp of tears. Helplessly watching as her only parent suffered at the hands of this villainous creature, and for what? To try and save her? The idiot girl who ran off of Ithor with a perfect stranger?

“P-p-p-please! STOP!! D-D-DON'T HUH-HURT HER!!!”

@[member="Darth Vornskr"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Kaine stopped, and stared up at Evelynn with the gleam of amusement twinkling in his eyes. Karin's body stopped twisting and distorting, although by now many of her bones had been broken, and her body was bruised and battered. "Stop? Why should I, Evelynn? Do you wish to bargain for your mother's life with your own? I already own both, and your bodies as well. With your mother robbed of her ability to call upon the force, she is just as helpless as you are." To emphasize his point he let Karin fall to the ground with what would no doubt be an agonizing thump when she hit the ground, and then grabbed her unbroken arm with the force. He brought his hands together horizontally like he was holding a staff, and began to twist them like he was wringing out a towel that was soaked. As he did, Karin's arm began to move in the same way, no doubt absolutely snapping the bones within in the most horrible way imaginable.

"Karin Dorn will die today, Evelynn... But you will not, you will not get off that easily. I have plans for you, big plans! You and me will spend a long time together, and I will make you mine."

@[member="Evelynn Dorn"] @[member="Darth Asmodea"]

 

[Louise]

Silly girl. Don't speak.

Unfortunately without the force thoughts were just thoughts, no telepathy, and she refused to verbally communicate with the girl in front of him. He could not take those moments of intimacy between mother and child, he could not, she would not allow it, suffering be damned.

Inwardly Karin managed to remark her daughter's stammer, she was so fragile, too fragile.

The woman came crashing down to the ground with a great thud, a pile of broken bones and fractures, a heap of a former sorceress rasping at the physical torment her body was being put through, and it was far from over. The arm was next. The sound of it was horrific, a slow grinding culminating into a series of pops and cracks. The woman howled. The limb looked unnatural, so wicked and crooked, not at all human.

“HA hAaa....! She'll...NEVER...be...YOURS...”

Karin Dorn both stubborn and irate until the very end.

@[member="Darth Vornskr"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Oh? I think with enough... motivation I can make her see my way. She is nothing but a newborn babe, and she does not have the fortitude or will to resist me." He snarled at Karin's defiance, and with his utter control over her body he caused her to contort again for her stubbornness. "And neither do you, not anymore Karin. I think it would have been in your best interest to have stayed dead, although I blame that harlot Circe as well. Always sticking her nose where it didn't belong, doing things that are questionable. She will be next on my list, but not after I have had my fun with you, Karin." From his outstretched hand spat forth arcs of blue lightning, not strong enough to kill or mortally wound her, but strong enough to be a tidal wave of agony that would consume her body.

Kaine looked up at Evelynn, "Look at her, Evelynn. She's weak... and she's made you weak by hiding you away from your heritage and birthright, but once she has been eliminated I will show you the true nature of the Force."

 

[Louise]

What, do you not like this shade of defiance on me? I think it matches my skin tone quite well, frames the face. Easy. Breezy. Beautiful.

The easy path here would be to lay back and accept it, accept the suffering, the humiliation, the thought that when she was finally put out of her misery her own flesh and blood was left in his monstrous hands. Give it up. Shrink away into the least dignified end in history. In the end what does defiance offer but prolonging the sentence?

This train of thought was easy to follow when caught in the throws of force lightning. The woman's body convulsed, the already broken bones objected to this harsh treatment and she soon began to smoulder. How does smoked devaronian smell?

However, Dorn was nothing if not difficult. Stubborn. Persistent. A rotten witch to the very end. Through the burning agony, the writhing pile of woman on the floor began to cackle. She laughed, she howled, through a stiffened jaw and with manic glee Karin Dorn laughed. She laughed at the thought of her daughter, her lovely, beautiful compassionate Evelynn being shown Kaine's variant of the force, she laughed at the powerless state she was in, how naked she felt stripped of her innate connection and she even laughed a touch at the thought of Circe Savan's demise being quickened through association.

“M-m-mm-mu-mother! Ss-st-STOP IT! P-puh-p-p...”

And that stutter. What a ridiculous stutter. A hilarious stutter. Just a laugh riot up in here.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

You're no cover girl, Karin. Silly goose.

Eventually the lightning subsided, and an eerie silence blanketed the throne room, broken only by the smoldering of Karin's flesh and whatever remained of her cackles. "Defiant until the end, even in the face of certain death. An admirable outlook, but all the more futile... However; I have one more final torture to inflict upon you before I kill you." He knelt down beside the broken form of Karin Dorn, and placed his right hand across her bloodied forehead. "I defeated you in combat, severed your connection to the force, and broke your body beyond repair... but there is one thing I had left unmolested until now... Your mind, Karin. I wonder how many secrets are hidden away... I wonder..." Kaine's hand began to glow with a hellish aura that spread to Karin's head, and then he began to use the Dark Side technique of Drain Knowledge upon her.

He would not be satisfied until he was able to learn as much as he could from her head, even if it destroyed her in the end. I mean, who cares? He's gonna kill her anyways, so why think of how she will end up?

 

[Louise]

By the end of the assault it was difficult to tell whether the woman was laughing or crying, if it was sheer defiance or if she had been broken. It was really up to one's ego to decide if the once great Karin Dorn had just been snuffed out like that, or if there was still that fight, albeit a fight trapped inside a useless broken body.

“....pah...”

A feeble response that crept from a bloodied mouth. She couldn't recall when that taste of copper had tinged her taste buds but you know what they say, you can't twist a Sith Sorceress without causing some internal bleeding! What? You don't know? But it's such a common saying.

The mind of Karin Dorn was a precious thing, if one was truly to drain it I could imagine that it would take quite a while to raid all of the contents.

A peculiar sensation, drain knowledge, it was torture of a different kind. It wasn't so much an aspect of physical pain but more of a harrowing malady, like a sickness. Ripped, piece by piece chunks of memory, knowledge, techniques, all of those spells that she had slaved over, scrolls that she had spent so much of her time translating stolen.

There would be strange glimpses, visions from the Dark Lord nigh undecipherable, like nightmares from another plane of existence. Visions that could make the mightiest Sith Master feel like a mere mortal.

The odd memory. Completely useless to Kaine. The vision of a girl, a blonde girl with sharp features that didn't want to go to Korriban, that didn't want to be a Sith. A sad little girl that wanted to be a history teacher when she grew up, have a family maybe, be loved and love in return. A girl who had such dreams of normality crushed, who grew into a bitter old shrew.

Take the spells, take the magic, the encyclopaedic knowledge, it wasn't unique but the memory, the true vulnerability of Karin Dorn, now that was priceless.

“...stop...pleASE...STOP...”

 

[Darth Carnifex]

So much knowledge, and at first it nearly overwhelmed Kaine, but he regained control of his senses and surfaced from the literal ocean of knowledge Karin held within her mind. Slowly, oh so slowly, that information began to trickle from Karin's mind and into Kaine's, but boy there was quite a lot of information to shift through. Kaine would have to narrow his search, and hope Karin would survive until he had stolen what he wanted. He absorbed knowledge of spells and rituals, secrets and lore, and even caught a glimpse of something so dark and terrible it nearly shattered his connection all together. Luckily he was able to bring back his mind after it reeled in unwarranted surprise and shock from the darkness he found there, and he began to probe the edges of that thought, but found only a darkness that had completely smudged the memory. Not even Kaine could gleam it's full details, but he knew that Karin had seen something truly demonic.

Then came the girl, and Kaine oddly felt himself find much of his youth imprinted on the young Dorn's features. Unabated, Kaine imparted some of his own memories to Karin, and the first image that would cross her own ravaged mind was a young boy no more than nine years of age. It was obvious that it was the image of a young Kaine, his bright emerald eyes already burning with a hidden ambition yet untapped, and his short black hair already showing signs of growing longer and longer. "Truly it is the sins of the father and mother that create monsters... My parents sin was my birth..." The scene shifted; the young Kaine growing suddenly into a young adult no more than eighteen, an elongated hatchet raised up and then brought down upon the necks of his parents.

"And what of your child, Karin? Will she grow to be a woman, a whore, or a monster?"