Private The Blooming Below

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

The Marrow Green Research Facility was built into the side of a lush, unassuming moon orbiting a nameless gas giant in Colony space, hidden beneath thick jungle canopy and low-atmosphere cloud cover. Originally established a nearly a century ago to study exotic plant life and ecological healing techniques, it had long since been repurposed into a Jedi-affiliated bioscience station, quiet, ethical and self-sufficient.

At least, it had been.

Now, it was silent.

No pings. No manifest updates. No data handoffs through encrypted Jedi channels. No emergency beacons. Just a deep, unnatural stillness.

The last incoming transmission was a fragmented message: distorted by static, but clear enough to make the SIA nervous. A hoarse voice whispering the same phrase, again and again, until it cut to black.

"They’re inside the walls. They remember the shape of us."​

What made it worse — what forced the mission green light — was the psychic echo that followed: dozens of Jedi across the stars jolted awake on the same night, drenched in sweat, their dreams choked with vines and open mouths full of spores.

Something had bloomed in Marrow Green.

And it was not meant to bloom at all.

* * *​

The shuttle descended through thick, pale-green mist, its underbelly brushing cloud tendrils like fingers. The jungle below was wrong. Not just overgrown, but hungry, vines coiling across landing pads, splitting ferrocrete seams, and crawling like veins toward the darkened structure of the research complex.

Eve stood near the front viewport, arms crossed tight against her chest, the filtered light from above catching in her silver hair and the edge of her eyepatch. She didn’t speak for a long while, eyes locked on the quiet sprawl below them, the facility once teeming with life, now overtaken by something... older.

The ship jolted softly as it touched down.

Isari let out a low, uncertain huff from where she crouched near the ramp. Her silver eyes tracked the movement of vines twisting gently around a landing strut. Nothing attacked, but nothing should have been moving at all.

"You're staying here, Isari," said Eve. There was no room for argument in her voice. The fox whined slightly, but conceded almost immediately, as if grasping the severity of the situation... and the risk.

Eve drew a breath and looked to Tigris.

"They said the plants were meant to help terraform lifeless worlds," she murmured. "Fast-growing, Force-sensitive, adaptable. Healing."

She let her gaze fall again to the vine-choked corridor that led from the pad to the main facility doors.

"What happened here..."

Her hand hovered near her saber hilt, not drawing it yet, but close. She took one step toward the ramp, then paused. The air smelled thick, damp, fungal. Not just rot, but spore-heavy.

She glanced back at Tigris, giving the faintest smile.

"Watch my back, my love, and I'll watch yours."

She took a step, then stopped, her smile then turned into something more mischievous.

"Expecially in that new suit or yours."

Then she stepped off the ramp and into the still-green silence of Marrow Green.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

Tigris maneuvered her ship over a landing pad, angling to avoid the nefarious looking vines that gripped the duracrete so firmly that cracks appeared in the smooth surface. Once the craft lighted upon the ground, she began the power down cycle and moved with Everest towards the hatch. Mack hovered closer, settling into its mount on Tigris' back, while Isara shifted anxiously at their feet.

It was the first mission to which the couple had been assigned together. Everest and Tigris had, individually, been tested through fire and shadow. Now, together, they were tasked with investigating the ominous silence coming from the remote research facility. The couple were well suited for the task. Eve was skilled in living things, plants, animals and ecosystems. Tigris was an infiltrator.

A bronzed palm pressed against the hatch actuator and it slid open, the ramp extending with a hiss to reach the ground. An eerie scene met the padawans. Creeping vines had spread over the compound, some even inched towards the ship, tendrils exploring. It was nothing like the jungles of New Cov. There, vines had moved, attacked, but in the Force, they felt natural. The jungle before them now, at least around the facility, felt definitely menacing. That sense was echoed in the Force.

Tigris returned Eve's glance, tentative, wary. "Looks like science took a wrong turn..." She quipped as her sharp gaze scanned the misty surroundings. "Mack, take a look around." She commanded, the small droid lifting from her back and whirring ahead. Everest began to move down the ramp, Tigris allowing her to take the lead as she gauged the nature of the bizarre invasion of flora, while the Atrisian padawan could keep watch over her.

The heavy mood was broken unexpectedly by Eve's saucy comment about her girlfriend's new gear. Tigris' jedi robes had been replaced by a custom-tailored Atrisian tactical bodysuit that hugged her fit figure. A utility belt hung around her hips, from which her lightsaber dangled. A vibroblade clung magnetically on her other hip. Tigris smirked. "You keep your eyes on where you are going, Angel." She retorted.

Tigris followed Everest onto the tangled ground. It was creepily quiet for a jungle, and for what was supposed to be an occupied facility. She looked ahead at the path to the main entrance, lined with weaving lattice work of the unnatural vines. A beep sounded quietly in her ear comm.

"Mack reports no fauna, but the readings on the flora are not normal... by any means." Tigris announced quietly, as if speaking any louder would awake something dangerous.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

The silence was the first thing. Not the quiet of nature, not the hush of a sleeping forest, but a void, a wrongness. As soon as Eve stepped off the ramp, her boots sinking slightly into vine-choked soil, she felt it press in around her like wet cloth.

The air was humid and dense, thick with the smell of rot and something sour. A faint mist clung low to the ground, curling around their ankles like smoke. The building loomed ahead, partially swallowed by overgrowth, its once-pristine durasteel walls now veined with thick green and violet stalks, pulsing faintly as if breathing.

They passed through the half-pried open blast doors, and the jungle followed them inside.

The interior was worse.

What light remained flickered, emergency strips guttering like candles. Broken terminals sparked feebly on the walls, casting quick, jittery shadows. Something creaked overhead, not metal, but wooden, like branches shifting against beams. Water — or something like it — dripped steadily from a ruptured pipe, echoing in irregular rhythms like a heartbeat out of sync.

Eve's fingers hovered close to her lightsaber, but she didn’t draw it yet. She stepped carefully, the Force stretching out like a whisper, but it didn’t move naturally here. It recoiled in strange places. It clung to the vines, held in them.

They were being watched.

The vines didn’t simply grow, they shifted. Slowly. With purpose. One tendril, thick and wet-looking, inched just slightly along the wall as they passed, curling back as if recoiling from light... or retreating until the moment was right.

Her skin prickled.

Every breath she drew felt damp in her lungs. Spore-mist hung faintly in the air, catching the light like dust motes, but heavier. Some of it glowed faintly yellow or green where it clustered. Eve held a hand close to her mouth and nose, already feeling her head begin to fog.

"This place is... wrong," she whispered to Tigris, barely audible.

Then she saw it.

Just ahead, half-crumpled against a wall of ruptured plating, was a figure. At first, Eve thought it was just a body, slumped, discarded, lost like so many others. She froze, breath catching in her throat. The light flickered again, and she took a cautious step closer.

What had once been a person was contorted. Twisted. Skin bloated, flesh pulled and ruptured by something inside. From his throat and abdomen sprouted thick fungal stalks, spotted and grey, like decaying coral. His limbs were bent wrong, the hands curled inwards like claws. Mold bloomed over his eyes.

Eve gasped aloud.

It was sharp. Too loud.

And the thing moved.

Its head jerked, first once, then again, as if testing the weight of its own neck. With a sickening crack, it looked up, and even without eyes, she felt it see them. Its jaw twitched, then fell slack, a wet gurgle bubbling from somewhere inside.

And then it launched forward.

Not upright. Not walking. Crawling. Fast.

Limbs scraped the floor with jagged, twitching movements, like a spider half-dead, dragging itself forward in erratic, jarring lunges. Its back arched unnaturally, hips popping, bones snapping beneath its own momentum, but it didn’t stop. The vines moved with it, flaring and twitching as though feeding off its energy.

Eve stumbled back, heart hammering in her chest. Her hand reached for her lightsaber in an instant, a brilliant light shining through the half-light, as she steeled herself.

Down the corridor ahead—movement. Shadows shivering in the mist. More shapes.

They were coming.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

The couple crept along, nerves on end, perplexed by what they saw and the ominous danger that lingered in the putrid, humid air. As they stalked in through the doors, Tigris paused. She was still acclimating herself to the new bodysuit. It was so light, it had the strange and liberating feeling of being almost nude. It's unique features made movement so instinctive, her muscles more on cue, her reflexes instant, the black glove played on her greatest strengths and magnified them.

And every muscle and nerve was coiled as they entered. Tigris marveled at the utter invasion of the thick vines. The Force was distorted, the place unnerving Tigris in the deepest recess of her psyche, where primal fear dwelt. Eve's statement said it all. It was wrong.

Tigris had hoped her botanical girlfriend could offer more of an explanation, but logic was defied. It sounded as if the very building groaned in the clutches of its intruder. And the Atrisian felt as if she were being swallowed, surrounded, and it put her on edge.

Tigris halted with Eve, seeing the...thing. It was a horror. It had been...someone. But not anymore, like the structure itself, the invasive vine had penetrated the person. Eve crept closer, Tigris lingered, wanting to keep a watch over the Echani.

Eve's soft gasp sounded like a bell in the haunting silence. And it awoke.

Tigris watched aghast as it moved in grotesque movements, a mockery of life, no longer a person, but a monster. It began to crawl and claw its way towards them. "Eve!" Tigris gasped, so repulsed all she could think of was to kill it, kill it immediately.

In an instant her lightsaber was in her hand and ignited, her body lunging forward to cleave through the thing. But not only once, Tigris sliced at it several times, her disgust seizing her until the thing was in pieces.

Only then did her head turn to see Eve frozen, her own blade lit and readied. More...somethings... were moving from the dark towards the jedi. Tigris stood next to Eve, crouching low, her blade held ready. The Force moved around them, through them. Tigris was alive with it, amplified by her suit, her bracelet, the echo stone, and most purely and strongly, through Eve. She was a live wire under precise, deadly control.

"Together..." She said with a determine glance to Eve.

They had vowed to go through everything together. In that moment, they were in a very real, dangerous way.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

The creatures came in a shambling wave, half-human, half-something else. Their eyes were blind, milky, their mouths slack, but they moved with an unnatural twitching coordination. As if guided by something deeper in the roots.

Tigris didn’t wait. Her blade hissed as it passed through layers of pulsing fungus and bone, severing it cleanly. But even as the corpse crumpled, the vines in its chest writhed like worms, spasming in death. Eve watched, stunned for only a heartbeat, before the next wave came. Tigris' eyes met her own.

"Together..."

Eve nodded.

"Together."

Three more beasts spilled from the corridor, their limbs jerking, legs snapping with each step but refusing to collapse. Eve raised her saber just in time to deflect a clawed swipe, flesh bloated and splitting at the joints, spore-clouds puffing off every movement.

She danced back, then struck. A diagonal cut, then a parry, then a thrust that drove her blade through the skull of one creature. It crumpled, shrieking wetly. Another lashed out behind it— she ducked, rolled, and cleaved low, slicing through its knees. The final one lunged, mouth open wide, and Eve thrust upward, through its jaw, until her hilt met its chin.

Beside her, she felt Tigris moving, graceful, furious, efficient. Her strikes came in fluid arcs, limbs severed with precision, bodies dropped before they could fully close the gap. It was not rage she moved with, but control honed to a blade’s edge. And through their bond, Eve could feel her: focused, lethal, alive. She was incredible.

But it was hard. The bodies did not fall like normal foes. Every strike sent spores into the air, and each creature seemed to fight until completely destroyed. The final creature hit the floor with a wet, crumpled thud, steam rising faintly from the sizzling point where her blade had carved through the spore-riddled skull. The room was still again — not silent, but breathing in a strange way. Like the vines around them were listening.

Eve stood in the thick of it, heart pounding against her ribs, her chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. Her lightsaber remained lit, casting a faint white glow across the clustered growths and half-destroyed consoles. Spatters of blood — or something thicker — clung to her robes and her arms, her silver hair streaked with sweat.

She turned her head slightly, searching through the haze of spores and flickering shadows until her gaze found Tigris. The sight of her — alive, moving, still with her — steadied something deep in Eve’s chest.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly, her voice still low, hoarse from breath and tension.

She then turned again to the corridor ahead — a yawning dark mouth half-choked with vine. Her grip on the lightsaber tightened. The silence that followed was the kind that made her ears ring. Not safety. Not calm. Just the hush before something else.

She took a step forward.

And the vines, once still, twitched.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

The area was confined, given the pervasive, ghoulish vines that clung to the walls and wrapped around equipment and furniture. The jedi couple fought side by side, with barely enough room for the arching sweeps of their lethal lightsabers, white and green blades that seared through a gruesome abomination of flesh and wood.

The shambling creatures set the hairs on the back of Tigris' neck to stand. The relentless plant zombies reminded her of the horrors of the night terrors she used to suffer, where her past victims ambled from the grave to tear her apart with broken, dirty nails and rotting teeth.

Tigris could see from the corner of her eye Eve's body move, her weapon flourish with skilled lethality. She wished she could watch Everst fight and obxerve how graceful the Echani defended herself.

But the Atrisian could not indulge in such luxury. The things kept coming. Tigris felt as if she were more than just her. A strange concept. Not only was her body coursing with the practiced employment of the Force to hone her strikes, but that connection was amplified by the new bodysuit and the bracelet wrapped around her wrist. It was as if her muscles almost anticipated her thoughts, as she ducked and weaved, wielding her weapon like an extension of her will to cut down the poor wretched, mindless abominations. The bond with Eve, without thought, fed Tigris her strength, as if together they could defeat not twice and may foes, but an exponetially greater number.

One shall slay a thousand, two shall slay ten thousand...

Tigris made a lightning stab that penetrated, then drove upwards to cleave an attacker in two. Feet gliding precisely avoided a lunging reach, both limbs lopped off as a Force-fueled blow of her fist crushed a vine-wrapped skull. Spores clouded the dimly lit room, obscuring vision, clogging nostrils. She was almost surprised when another wasn't lumbering behind her last foe. The onslaught had ceased.

But the uneasy presence was still there.

Tigris looked to Eve. She too panted, more lightly though. The bodysuit wicked away her sweat beneath it, cooling her carefully tuned body. Yet, strands of black stuck to the sweat of her face. Flecks of the same substance that spattered Everest also stuck to Tigris' face, but the substances presence on her suit blended into its inky color.

She nodded in response to Eve's question. Aside from a scratch on the back of her hand, Tigris was unharmed. It seemed, and the bond suggested, taht Eve too ws uninjured.

They had to press on if they were going to unravel the mystery of the facility's demise. Tigris left the mackie droid to hover in the entrance as a sentry. Then, lightsaber in hand, the Atrisian walked side by side with Everest as they moved deeper into the structure. The vines moved, malevolence clinging to the air as thick as the spores from the destroyed zombies.

"They did something wrong here. Didn't they?" Tigris mused. Her unease kept her nerves on end, her muscles ready to react instantly. While she felt an urge to reach for Eve, they could not afford not to be independantly ready to respond. No matter, she held onto the bond between them, more secure and intimate than any casual contact.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

Eve didn't answer Tigris' question. She wanted to. Wanted to say yes—but the words caught somewhere behind her teeth and stayed there. She just kept walking.

The silence between them wasn't empty, though. Tigris would feel it, tight as a wire, aching through their bond. Not fear exactly. Not yet. But a kind of mournful dread, a bone-deep knowing that something here had once been alive and hopeful, and had twisted into something ruinous. Something wrong.

Eve's gaze flicked across the curling vines that pulsed faintly against the walls, following the length of the corridor. The lights overhead buzzed, flickering intermittently, as if uncertain whether to die or stay lit. The air was thicker now. Heavier. It smelled of damp rot, but also… floral. Sweet. Cloying. Unnatural.

She exhaled softly through her nose, trying not to choke on it.

They came to a flickering terminal. Eve crouched, brushing strands of invasive growth from the rusted console, and tapped the screen. It came alive with a painful whine, lines of static running across it. Her fingers, still stained from the earlier fight, navigated the brittle interface until the first of the logs began to play.

A woman's voice, calm and clinical.

"We've made significant breakthroughs by removing GA oversight. Here, we're finally free to explore the upper thresholds of botanical synthesis without ethical bottlenecks. The moon's natural biology offers unique resonance to our spliced growth strains. It's... promising."

A flicker. The next log.

Live trials continue. Failure rate remains... high. Subjects exhibit rapid biomass destabilization within seventy-two hours. The compound's aggressive propagation is beyond our initial projections. I've advised halting Phase IV, but—"

The voice cut off into static.

Another log started mid-recording.

"—getting worse. Not just physically. They scream. One of them sang to the vines last night. Stars, the sounds on the roof... like slithering things, dragging nails across the durasteel…"

Another.

"No more volunteers. We can't contain them. We can't kill them, either—not really. We tried burning them but they wept in the flames. I think… I think we've gone too far."

One more.

"—inside the walls. They remember the shape of us. They're inside the walls. They remember the shape of us. They're inside the walls. They reme—"

The logs ended in static and silence.

Eve stood slowly, eyes still fixed on the blackened screen. Her expression was unreadable for a moment. Then, slowly, she looked at Tigris—and the grief was there. And confusion. And that quiet terror that made her heart press up against her ribs like it wanted out.

She didn't speak. She didn't need to.

The tension in her shoulders, the slight trembling of her hands, the way her eyes lingered too long on the dark corners of the room, they all told the truth.

Her voice, when it came, was barely more than a whisper.

"…What were they trying to do?"

She didn't expect an answer. And yet, they had to go deeper.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

Tigris stalked down the corridor alongside Everest. Her dark gaze traced along the hallway. The vines surrounded them, ran down the walls, clung to the ceiling. It left Tigris with an unnerving dread, as if any moment they would come alive, like they did in the forest of New Cov. But these vines were more than menacing, they felt malevolent. Even the smell took the usual scent of living flora and turned it into something sickly that made Tigris hesitate to breath deeply.

Eve didn't' answer her question. The Echani didn't need to. Tigris concluded that she was right, that something went wrong with the research. She also knew that Everest would have a slightly different perspective. She loved growing things, the vibrancy of plants. This was almost a mockery of that. Though not ignited, Tigris' saber remained in her hand, thumb on the igniter. Tigris drew on every thing she had, the bracelet, the bodysuit, anything that would heighten her senses in the natural and in the Force. Her being was on a trigger, ready to react.

They stumbled across a control panel. Tigris looked over Eve's shoulder, and then over her own. Everest managed to access some logs, and in the eerie flickering of the straining light bar, they listened.

Tigris' countenance darkened in horror. Many of the terms were not as familiar to her as they would be to Everest, but she got the gist. Live trials, volunteers, can't kill them.... wept when we burned them. Everything about the logs screamed unethical. Tigris might've called it mad science. A cold sweat broke out over her skin. The new bodysuit wicked it away, but it clung to her forehead, lingering in the humid air.

She knew Eve's question was rhetorical. Tigris also knew that Eve would not stop until she knew what was going on. The couple may have uncovered something far more sinister than they anticipated.

Tigris' hand brushed over Eve's shoulder. "Come on." They had ventured to the remote station to discover what happened, they couldn't turn back. She turned to continue further into the facility.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

Tigris led the way, stepping lightly over a pair of slumped bodies half-buried under layers of vines and dust. The remains were barely recognisable as people. Faint traces of clothing peeked through the growth. Sleeves, a boot, an officer's insignia. Eve followed close behind. She winced as her foot brushed a pale hand protruding from the undergrowth. A soft gasp escaped her lips, almost a sob.

She brought her hand up over her mouth and nose. The air was thicker now, syrupy sweet and sharp with decay. It made her eyes water.

We should have brought rebreathers… Too late for that now...

Around another corner, a corridor opened into a wide space lined with small doors. The rooms beyond were strewn with battered toys, overturned beds, and dust-choked blankets. Vines hung like curtains over walls scribbled with childish drawings. Eve paused, staring through the open door of one room. A faded plush tooka doll lay on the floor, half-consumed by creeping moss. Her voice cracked when she whispered to the dark.

"Ch-children…?"

Her hand clenched over her heart as if trying to steady the pain inside. She swallowed back tears, shaking her head sharply as if forcing herself to keep moving.

They emerged into another lab. Light panels flickered overhead, sputtering with an electric buzz. The air here pulsed faintly, as though the room itself breathed.

Against the far wall, a mound of twisted plant matter rose like a grotesque altar. Petals of slick, dark red bloomed and closed in slow rhythm. Thick vines curled from the mass, spiking into the ceiling and floor.

And in the centre... a woman.

She was suspended a metre off the floor, her body wrapped, pierced, and held upright by vines like a marionette. Her skin was pale, streaked with green veins. Her hair, matted with sticky sap, hung limp around her face.

Eve stepped closer, horrified.

Suddenly, the woman's eyes snapped open, impossibly wide, and she gasped, a ragged, wet intake of breath that ended in a shriek.

"NO—NO, DON'T—DON'T COME CLOSER—!"

She spasmed in her bonds, vines tightening and loosening around her ribs with each ragged breath. Her words tumbled out in a broken rush:

"It's… growing… down below… you have to… have to stop it—"

She retched violently. A spurt of thick, green-black bile splattered the vines beneath her. They twitched as though drinking it in.

"W-we can help you," Eve said softly. Her voice trembled with grief and compassion.

"NO!" the woman screamed. Her body strained against the vines. "No… can't… too late… it's all… it's all inside me… It... remembers... the shape of us..."

She panted hard, eyes rolling upward before snapping back. A sudden lucidity flickered in her gaze.

"My… my access card… for the lower labs… I—I don't know… where it went. You... You must find it, h-here, in the... lab... I'm… I'm Dr… Dr. Veleth… Sera Veleth…"

Eve swallowed, stepping closer, tears brightening her eyes.

"Dr. Veleth… we can get you out of there. We can help. Please."

"No," Dr. Veleth whispered. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, merging with the sap. "Please… you have to… you have to kill me."

Eve froze. Her breath hitched, her eyes glimmering with moisture. She reached out a trembling hand, but didn't touch the vines.

"I…"

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

Creepy didn't even begin to describe the haunting, horrific scene through which the Jedi couple tread. Tigris moved with practiced poise, every nerve on edge, her senses reaching even as she recoiled at the thick, humid stench.

She stepped over the vaguely human figures, taking no time to ponder the nature of their death. She prayed Eve didn't either. Everest had come a long way, but her heart was still worn close to the surface. They continued to explore, their progress revealing more doors. Things were going to get worse.

The quarters were empty, but their residents could be discerned by that which was left behind. The trace of children appeared, toys, clothing. Tigris, had the gift, or curse, of being able to compartmentalize emotional responses, and didn't allow herself to be moved by what the rooms suggested.

She glanced back to Eve, hearing her exclamation. Tigris reached through the bond to steady her, to give Eve an anchor in that moment of pain.

"Keep moving." She said softly.

Moving on, they entered a larger room. Even with the prolific vines, it was clear that it was, or had been, a lab. This room felt...different. Life, twisted, more so than what they had encountered so far, hummed in the room. Tigris gaze fell on the gnarled mass of vines, wood, stalks against the far wall, and the planty tentacles that extended into the cracked floor and ceiling. It was the source of that tainted life she felt.

It took a moment, under the sputtering lights, to see the woman among the plant matter. The sight made even Tigris feel a shiver up her spine. She was suspended by the vines that wrapped around her...and through her.

Tigris saw Eve step closer, and her hand reached to stop her, but hesitated. "Eve...don't." she said in a near whisper.

Suddenly, the captive woman echoed the plea.

It was grotesque. She writhed in the binding vines, vomited some vile ichor. Everest offered help. Tigris knew it came from Eve's broken heart, not from any real hope that the woman could be saved. After seeing those they encountered earlier, the woman was sadly doomed.

Tigris stepped up next to Eve, placing a hand on her shoulder as they watched the woman struggle to speak. If they were going to stop the...thing...they had to go to the lower levels, and needed the doctor's badge.

And then Dr. Veleth told the Jedi they must kill her.

Tigris knew it as true. She would become like the things they had killed upon entering, a fate worse than death. She reached and gently pulled Eve's hand back by the wrist.

"We can't help her, I'm sorry angel... except to do it." she spoke softly into Eve's ear. "If not, she will become like the others." Then she turned to Everest, looking her in the eye. "Look around for the ID badge." She instructed the Echani. Her dark gaze drifted to Dr. Veleth. Tigris had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of what she must do.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

Eve stood frozen, silver eye glimmering with tears, unable to tear her gaze from Dr. Veleth's trembling form. The vines pulsed around her like a monstrous heartbeat, slick petals glistening under flickering lights.

"There has to be another way…" she whispered, but her voice cracked, the words tasting hollow even as she said them.

She reached out through the Force, searching desperately for a glimmer of light within the woman's body, but all she felt was rot and pain, seething corruption twining through every vein. It recoiled from her touch, a darkness too deeply rooted to be cleansed. A tear spilled down her cheek. Her breath shuddered.

Her eye shone, brimming with tears that spilled one after another down her cheeks. Her gaze never wavered from Dr. Veleth, even as the vines pulsed tighter with each tortured breath.

When Tigris urged her to look for the badge, Eve shook her head fiercely.

"No. I’m not leaving her."

Her voice was ragged but certain, trembling as much as her hands. She stepped closer, ignoring the sweet, choking stench, and lifted her palms as if to cradle Dr. Veleth’s face from afar.

Through the Force, she let gentle currents ripple outward, a soft, silvery glow that brushed against the woman’s frayed mind and battered body. It couldn’t heal the corruption twisting through her veins, but it brought a fleeting balm of quiet and warmth.

"You don’t have to be alone," Eve whispered, voice shaking as tears fell faster.

Dr. Veleth’s convulsions eased, if only slightly. Her wide eyes focused on Eve, shining wet in the flickering lights.

"You… have a kind heart… More than I deserve... for all my sins..." she rasped. Her voice was softer now, though each word still cost her pain. "I… thank you. Both of you."

A fresh tear slipped from the corner of Veleth’s eye, merging with the sap that matted her hair. She looked to Tigris.

"Please…" Her breath hitched. "Make it quick."

Eve’s lips parted as if to protest again, but no words came. She swallowed hard and simply shook her head, silently pleading for the universe to be different. Still, her Force presence remained wrapped around Veleth like a silken veil: love, sorrow, and compassion intertwined.

She reached for Tigris’ hand, gripping it tightly, unable to look away as the impossible choice lay heavy between them.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

The moment was frozen in time. Time that was fading for the tormented doctor. Tigris did not press Everest. She could feel the pain her partner accepted and embraced as she empathized with Dr. Veleth. It made Tigris' heart ache. Not for the doctor, though it was a sad fate the woman faced. No, the ache came from t the echo of Eve's despair resonating through their bond. Seeing the horror and impotence twist on the Echani's face hurt Tigris, the tear on Eve's cheek tore at her heart.

The Atrisian followed loosely as Eve moved closer, as the Echani offered comfort and solace to the dying woman. Tigris looked in amazement as the woman she loved spilled out mercy and compassion like an ever-flowing fountain. That was her Eve.

It was only when Everest took her hand that Tigris squeezed it and nodded to the doctor's request. The older padawan knew she couldn't make Eve look away, though she wish she could. Tigris didn't want Eve to see her do what had to be done, for fear it would change how the Eve saw Tigris.

Looking at Everest, Tigris squeezed her hand. "I hope you can forgive me." She murmured, her gaze deep, sullen and sincere. She didn't want to do it. But it was more merciful than letting the woman die a slow and torturous death being consumed by the dreadful plant entity.

Tigris' hand slid from Eve's as she stepped up to Dr. Veleth. She had to climb a little, standing on the ominous, thrumming vines. She held her lightsaber hilt in one hand.

One of the wicked skills the Seyugi had taught Tigris was the anatomical weak spots in most of the galaxy's races. The former assassin knew how to kill Dr. Veleth almost instantly. She looked into the woman's eyes, one of the only things left relatively untainted by the terrible vines. As if on behalf of Eve, Tigris lifted her hand and caressed the dying woman's cheek. It was with a soft affection, with something Tigris had not consciously realized she had within her. Her gaze was loving, not of Dr. Veleth herself, but of the doctor as a person. With the love for a fellow human.

"We will make this right, I promise." Tigris vowed, ensuring whatever sin lead to the unleashing of the wretched fauna would be redeemed by the two jedi.

Then, carefully placing the tip of her light saber against Dr. Veleth's body, Tigris activated it. The green blade light up for only a flash, enough to do what it needed too. Dr. Veleth made no sound, her body didn't flinch. It was instant. Tigris reached to softly slip her eyelids closed, and retreated back to Eve's side, avoiding any reaction from the plant-thing.

She took Everest into her arms, as much to comfort herself as it was to comfort Eve. "We have to finish this, for Dr. Veleth." She whispered.

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

Eve didn’t look away. She held the doctor’s gaze as the Light bloomed for just a heartbeat, as the body stilled. The Force, once jagged and wrong around the woman, slowly quieted, fraying into nothing, like smoke pulled into the sky. Eve felt it go, watched her eyes lose the last of their brightness, and still, she didn’t look away.

Only when the stillness truly settled did she move. Her arms came around Tigris wordlessly, forehead pressing against her shoulder, tears slipping soundlessly down her cheek. There was no blame in her. Not even a flicker. She let the bond speak — the shape of it soft and aching, but unshaken. I’m here. I know. It’s alright.

They both hurt. But neither of them was alone. Eve didn’t try to speak for a long time. When she did, it was quiet, nearly lost in the ruined room.

"…We will make it right," she softly echoed.

She leaned up and kissed Tigris' forehead, warm and lingering. Then broke away, slowly, breath catching as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

The office was half-choked in overgrowth, but she made herself focus. One step at a time — each footfall deliberate as she picked a careful path through the wreckage. Papers were fused to the floor with resinous sap. Desks upturned, drawers half-encased in thorned stems. She moved gently, peeling back layers of tangled green and charred cloth.

The silence wasn’t total. There was something — faint, far — shifting in the corridor beyond. It didn’t sound like vines. She paused. Listened. No voices. No footsteps. Just a faint dragging sound. Wet.

Her throat tightened. She forced herself to keep moving.

Eventually, she found it. A drawer wedged shut beneath a fallen screen. She pulled, fingers digging, and it gave, just barely. Inside, half-buried in dust and dried blood, lay a bent metallic card with the faint shimmer of a clearance chip. Her breath caught.

"I... I found it—"

She turned.

From both ends of the corridor outside, shapes were emerging. Dozens. Maybe more.

Bodies, hunched and dragging. Skin burst open with roots. Empty sockets weeping sap. Joints broken and re-bent the wrong way. One of them had no jaw. Another, a collapsed skull held together with nothing but flowering tendrils.

Eve stumbled back, eyes wide. Her saber snapped to life with a sharp whine — white light flaring in her hand.

"…Tigris—"

The wave was coming.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

As they embraced, the Force bond opened, emotion flowing through it, one to another. Tigris felt the mournful ache of her lover. She knew how painful it was for Everest to watch something die. But there was no condemnation in that flow, only the resolve that what was done was out of mercy, and mercy was shown to the hand that dealt the deathblow.

Tigris felt something too. She had killed so many. Even as a Jedi, on Woostri, she killed without regret or remorse. But this one, Dr. Valeth, left an ache of its own. She had at times looked into the eyes of those whose lives she ended, but never like the doctor. In the doomed woman's strained gaze was gratitude, relief at the freedom Tigris' lightsaber offered. An unexpected cord of the Atrisian's heart tugged in the weighty moment of the doctor's final breath. The profound nature of it leaving a mark.

The embrace ended with a reassuing kiss on the head from Eve. That small gesture was such a balm to Tigris.

Both determined that Dr. Veleth's death would not be in vain and the couple began to search for the ID badge. The lab was a disaster of tangled vines and debris, all illuminated in the flickering of light bars. Tigris tasked Mac with helping, the small, hovering droid sifting through toppled cabinets and bins.

Their efforts paused with the sound coming from beyond the room. Ominous, unnerving and closing. Tigris glanced at Eve, both feeling an urgency to find the badge so they could move on. The sound was drawing closer, tension drawing tighter as each tick passed.

Then Eve announced the find. Tigris let out a soft sigh of relief. But that relief lasted only a breath, as shapes appeared in the entryway. More abominations. Dozens. How many people had worked at the facility?

Eve breathed Tigris' name in a voice thick with gravity. Eve's green lightsaber ignited as well. She looked around. Was there another way to get to the lower levels?

turning back to the entry, Tigris hand shot out, lifting a small filing cabinet with the Force and throwing it at the first shambling things to enter the room, knocking them back into those behind them. But their sluggish pace persisted, only delayed momentarily as they clambered over the battered cabinet and their fallen peers.

Tigris glanced at Eve. The former Force assassin had many skills, none that worked against mindless, anatomically hodgepodged fauna atomatons. It would be brutal fighting. Adjusting the hold on her lightsaber to a firm but limber grip, Tigris moved to defend. Her lightsaber whirled and thrust, her finely tuned body wrapped in the enhancing bodysuit easily dodged and avoided the lumbering attacks of the...things. But glancing blows did nothing to deter or stop them, as they would a wounded sentient. Each had to be nearly cleaved in half, beheaded or otherwise severely damaged to still their incessant assault.

As readily as they could be killed, the true horror and danger was in the endless wave of creatures, who didn't cow in fear, or flinch as others were cut down before them. Would the Jedi couple prevail to the end of them, or would exhaustion overtake the pair, and in turn, the mindless monsters overpower them?

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

Eve didn't scream. She didn't flinch. But something in her cracked when the wave came. They were already moving, her blade springing to life with a snap-hiss, pure white against the sour flicker of the lights overhead. The shambling hordes filled the office like floodwater, faces twisted, incomplete, sagging with fungal rot and bone. They made no sound. Only the wet slap of their limbs and the dragging scrape of ruined flesh.

It was too much.

The first came lunging. She moved on instinct, cutting low, taking off a leg, then the head. Another behind it. Then another. Every swing was precise and economical. But there were too many, and they didn't stop, didn't slow, didn't bleed.

Her heart pounded. Her body ached. Her movements were clean, Echani form woven with the Force, but still, it was like fighting in a nightmare. No emotion to read. No resistance to sway. Just blank, walking death.

A limb caught her shoulder — a blunt swipe from a half-formed thing. She grunted, spun, and cleaved through its torso. Another stumbled into its place. Her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her eye burned. The air reeked of rot and sickly pollen and the metallic sting of old blood.

She pivoted, breath laboured, and nearly stumbled, catching herself only at the last moment. Her arms were beginning to shake. Her jaw clenched tight.

I can't…

The thought rose, unbidden, and she crushed it. But the pressure didn't leave. Her hands were slick. Her chest heaved. She didn't know how many she'd killed already, or how long they'd been at it. All she knew was that the only way out was through.

A sharp cry left her throat as she drove her saber forward, impaling one through the chest. Its clawed hands grasped her forearms even as it died, and she had to wrench herself free.

Behind her, she could sense Tigris — moving like fire, precise and flowing, cutting through the horde. The bond between them pulsed — grounding her, if only barely.

Don't fall apart now. Don't.

Eve turned, spinning in a wide arc that took two more creatures down. She let out a shuddering breath.

She didn't stop. She knew she couldn't. She fought on, even as her muscles screamed and her vision blurred. Even as every breath tasted like death and fear.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

Tigris hyper-focused her mind, marrying it to her muscle movement in an integration she knew long before she learned to use a lightsaber. She had woven the Seyugi martial art into her swordplay, just as Eve had done with her Echani fighting style. They stood as a wall of whirling beams of plasma, cleaving, skewering, cutting down. Each moving with the grace of a dancer, each with their own choreography. But a dancer could only dance so long.

Tigris had an advantage. She maintained a rigorous physical fitness regime that was practically religious. And her bodysuit was designed to work with her body, to enhance and sharpen movement and strength. But even that could not prevent fatigue from creeping into continuously stretching and contracting muscles that worked feverishly to keep death at bay.

The Atrisian felt Eve struggling, her body failing but the woman's fierce determination not letting it quit. Within Tigris a sharp pang arose, a potent cocktail of worry, of anger, and of desperation. It wasn't a question of if, it was when Everest would falter, would fall. Eve's life was exponentially more important to Eve than her own. It all ignited a hot, fierce flame within her, even as the taste of bile rose to her throat.

They would not end like this. There was no damn way that was happening.

Like a possessed woman, Tigris split one of the wretched things down the middle, planted her feet and without a thought threw her hands out in front of her and screamed with abandon.

A burst of the Force erupted before Tigris n a wave that buffeted against the horde of blathering abominations, the front ranks were thrown into those behind them. Already twisted limbs were splayed in awkward, inhuman positions. The undying pile struggled to right themselves, to twist arms and legs enough to become ambulatory again.

Tigris panted, eyes wild, spittle flecking her lips as she panted desperately.

"Eve...we have to get out of here." Her voice was hoarse and gritty, almost seething. The whole place needed incinerated, pulverized by orbital bombardment, imploded with some powerful ordinance. Her skin crawled to think of the vine tangled halls full of those horrible mockeries of human life. How could the two of them make it to the "root" to kill it?

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

The hallway was slick with blood and sap, strewn with bodies that didn't stay down. Eve's arms burned. Her shoulders screamed. She didn't stop. She carved a path through them, blade flashing in tight, desperate arcs. Her body moved like muscle memory, but slower now — dulled by exhaustion, blurred at the edges. There was no rhythm to it anymore. No grace. Only motion. Only survival.

Behind her, the elevator waited. Vines had grown over its frame like ribs around a heart. The panel flickered when she slapped it — half-lit, smeared with something brown. The lift groaned somewhere above. Too slow. She turned. They kept coming. Broken jaws, flowering torsos, eyeless faces. Hands that reached for her like they remembered what she used to be. She couldn't breathe.

Not yet...

She planted her boots and threw her arms forward, drawing in everything she had left. The Force pulsed through her, wild and ragged, and burst out of her in a wide wave. The hallway shattered. Bodies slammed back against the walls. Bones cracked. Vines ripped from their roots. It bought them seconds. Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the panel, chest heaving. Tigris was beside her, still fighting — still holding the line.

Then the lift arrived. Eve spun, gripped Tigris' arm, and dragged them both inside. A hand lunged through the door as it slid shut — twisted fingers groping for her neck. She didn't hesitate. Her blade came down in a clean, wet line. The hand dropped to the floor just as the door slammed shut, severing the wrist with a dull thunk.

Silence.

The hum of descent began. Eve let the saber fall from her hand. It deactivated mid-air and clattered at her feet. She pressed back against the elevator wall, eye unfocused, blood cooling on her sleeve. Her lungs still dragged for breath. The Force felt... so wrong down here, like it was receding, like it was hiding.

She turned her head. Tigris stood across from her, panting, blood on her face and arms, hair half-loose. Eve didn't say anything, but her eye lingered. Concern. Hurt. The helpless ache of someone who didn't know how much more she had in her. She knew they couldn't stop. She knew they wouldn't. But something in her... just wanted to scream.

The lift shuddered to a halt. The doors opened.

Mist curled in like breath. A sickly humidity pressed against her skin — warm and wet, with a smell that made her stomach turn. Pollen. Blood. Rot. Sugar.

She stepped out. It was like stepping into a jungle that had forgotten what sunlight was. Twisted vegetation curled from the ceiling and floor. Leaves the size of bodies hung above them, trembling in the air. Roots shifted underfoot like living nerves. The corridor was gone. There was no more facility here — only the inside of something that had swallowed it whole.

They moved slowly. Eve's boots sank into moss. Vines brushed her arms like reaching fingers. Shapes lay half-hidden in the undergrowth — some bone-white, some still dressed in tattered uniforms. She didn't look at their faces.

The pulse was stronger here, not just sound — a low vibration that hummed through the floor, through her legs, up her spine. Steady. Rhythmic. Alive.

She didn't speak. Her heart had already climbed into her throat.

They reached a glass wall, or what remained of it, that curved in a wide arc, half-shattered, veiled with vines and dew. Behind it, past the mist, was…

Something.

She stepped closer, hand lifting, resting on the cool, cracked pane. Her gaze struggled to understand what it was seeing. At first, it looked like a flower. Vast. Unfolded. The petals a deep, blood-dark red, lined with something that shimmered like veins. But it moved. It breathed. A rise and fall, huge and slow, like an animal sleeping with its mouth open. Light pulsed at its core — dim and golden, like an ancient heartbeat. The sound matched it. Deep. Low. Wrong.

And then the scale hit her. It wasn't just large. It was colossal. Its body stretched far above them into the canopy, but also deep into the ground, too far to see the bottom. It wasn't resting. It was rooted.

She stepped around the curve of the glass, through a gap in the wall, onto a balcony that circled the chamber. Her feet moved without permission. Her breath slowed. The air shimmered around her.

"What... is this...?"

She didn't realise she'd drifted forward until her fingertips brushed the rail. Her eye was wide, unblinking. She felt it. Something pulling at her mind, slow and soft and sticky. She swayed. Then—

She blinked.

The spell broke. She took one small step back. Her balance returned. Her breath caught.

And that was when it moved.

The core of the thing shifted. An awful wet sound. Something folded open — not petal, not leaf. Flesh. A slit. And from inside, slowly, a single eye opened, huge, yellow, slit-pupiled, glowing from within.

It looked directly at them.

The pulse changed. The light grew brighter. The air thickened.

And then she noticed—

The bodies, dozens and dozens of them, all hanging from the vines, strung up across the chamber like decorations, heads tilted down, faces slack — and they moved.

Their heads lifted, eyes still closed, and in perfect unison, mouths full of root and rot opened wide.

The words came all together. One voice, dozens of throats.

"̸H̷U.̷ ̶M̷AN.̸ ̷F̶RIEND.̶ ̸O̵R. ̷F̷OE.̶"̶

​

​

​

 

[Tigris Aphra]

​

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

The only way out was further in. Tigris spared a fleeting glance behind them, seeing the turbolift. But they couldn't take a moment's reprieve from their defense to make for the escape. Even her highly trained body, even the bodysuit designed to make her stronger, faster, they could no longer fend off the fatigue of continual combat. The explosion of the Force she expelled earlier was no longer possible, she was too drained.

Tigris sensed Eve. The Echani was fit, but not to Seyugi standards, nor did she have the advantage of Tigris Atrisian armor. Tigris felt Eve as much as saw her beloved begin to slow. Tigris never thought it would be their end, it wasn't her, and it wasn't Eve, to give up. There would be a way, somehow.

The reviled horde didn't relent, creatures unnatural, nauseating bastardizations of what must have been human once. Tigris' disgust fueled her failing body as much as her desire to protect Eve and survive. She despised even herself, at least her physical state. She was spattered with, dripping with unidentifiable substances reeking of the sick sweet of decay, some abominable cocktail of blood and sap, gore that was neither flesh nor plant, stuck to her as sweat plastered her hair to her face and threatened to sting her eyes.

Then, even while Tigris thought Eve was about to stumble, she too found something in the Force. Tigris felt a bright spike in the Force bond between them a moment before it happened. With a pummeling blast, Eve expelled a wave of the Force that shredded the ranks of sickening creatures assaulting them. The hallway shuddered, vines clinging to the bulkheads torn away.

Tigris stood her ground as Eve struggled to get the lift door open, a fresh mob shambling eerily towards them, faster than she had seen before. The tone announced the lift's arrival.

Tigris felt Eve's tug, allowing herself to be pulled into the lift. Tigris stumbled, fell to the floor, back against the wall. She saw the groping hand reach past the closing door, and the glow of Eve's lightsaber severing it from it's owner. It landed between Tigri's legs. With a grimace, she hammered it with her fist, venting her disdain.

The lift slid downward. Tigris looked up as Eve leaned heavily against the wall, her lightsaber clattering to the floor. Eve looked like hell, as filthy as Tigris, her face pale and drawn. Slowly, Tigris took up Eve's weapon, pulling herself to her feet. She leaned against the wall, meeting Eve's gaze, echoing the exhaustion and concern she saw in the Echani's face.

By the time the turbolift settled, the eerie void of Force presence was notable, and unnerving. They stepped out into a whole new horror.

More plant than building, the level was choked with the invasive foliage that carried the same stench as the upper level, but manifold worse. the moist air clung to her, filled her nostrils, repulsive. There was movement where no air moved. Shadows hid things Tigris didn't want to understand. They tread not through a facility, but a twisted, demented garden. The pulse had become a thrum, reverberating, sentient.

Tigris' nerves were on end, vomit threatening to rise to her throat. It was all so wrong, that her body reacted viscerally. And only her training kept her sanity from beginning to unraveling. They tread forward, until they came to the fractured glass.

Part of her didn't want to know what lay beyond it, part of her craved to see it.

Moving next to Eve, Tigris peered in. Another chill tingled along her spine. A small gasp escaped cracked, stained lips. Eve stirred beside her, moving... closer to the edge. A hand reached to stay her, but paused. Everest stepped out onto the balcony. Tigris followed.

It was fascinating. Horrible, terrible and fascinating. It was alive, not like flora, but it seemed to breathe. Massive, pervasive, Tigris scowled at the sight of it.

Eve stepped forward, against the rail, leaning. "Eve..." Tigris said in a hush, not liking the way Eve moved. When Everest paused and stepped back, Tigris took her arm, as if fearing something was luring her away.

The giant eye revealed, giving a creepy sentience to the giant thing. But what came next had Tigris' skin to crawling. The victims, kept alive but not really human, lifted in a myriad of voices crackling across the space in unearthly unison.

It spoke.

The question puzzled Tigris. There was an option to be friends? Perhaps, if it was left alone. The Atrisian's dark gaze turned to Everest. She thought about it, about turning and leaving the cursed place, leaving the thing behind. But that didn't seem right. If it had been created somehow by the facility, it could be seen as their duty to ensure it didn't continue. "Eve..." She whispered. "What in the hell is it?"

 

[Everest Vale]

Outfit: Robes
Equipment: Lightsaber, Bracelet, Earrings
Tag: Tigris Aphra

​

She couldn't hear Tigris anymore. Her voice was there — a whisper, a tremor at the edge of sound — but it didn't reach. Eve's eye was locked with the one in front of her. That eye.

It didn't blink. It didn't move. It just stared, open and unblinking, slit-pupiled and luminous, golden light bleeding out from the raw, wet folds it had peeled from.

Her breathing stuttered. Her knees nearly gave out. Every nerve in her body was screaming, but she couldn't move, couldn't breathe right, couldn't do anything but stand there, trembling, her gaze fixed to something that wasn't supposed to exist. It wasn't just what it looked like — massive and meaty and impossible — it was the feeling coming off it. The pressure. The size of it. The sound of it in her bones. The way it pulsed, low and slow, like it was alive in the way a heart was alive. A whole living planet wrapped around a single organ. And within it all, something else came from its heart.

Raw, primal fear.

The voices came again, louder.

"̸F̶RIEND.̶ ̸O̵R. ̷F̷OE.̶"̶​

Eve flinched. The bodies still hung from the vines, heads tilted toward her. Blank, slack-jawed, silent. But the sound had come from them. From all of them. Her lips moved before her mind caught up.

"F-friend..."

She barely heard herself. It came out hoarse and small.

There was a moment of stillness.

And then — it screamed.

Not just the bodies, but the thing itself.

A sound tore through the chamber that wasn't sound — more like a low, guttural pressure that rattled the floor and ripped the breath from her lungs. The eye contracted and swelled, light surging around the edge of its iris like fire under skin. The tentacle-vines all twitched at once, a single violent spasm.

The scream wasn't a noise. It was a command.

"P̵͍̔̇A̷͔̜̹̎I̶̺̒̓IIIN̷̨̞͂̀̈.̴̱̥̆ H̵̫͉͒̏͘E̶̛̮̰̓̍L̷̥̠̾̂P̸̛͔̞͝.̷͇͍͋͜ ̷̟̄̚F̴̜̒̉̅Ŕ̸̹̥̏͜͠Ì̷̡̤̂E̵̩̅͛N̷̘̹̕D̴͎͍͠.̸̨͈̩̃͗.̶̧̲͆͜"​

Eve staggered backward, her hands clutching at the rail. Her heart pounded in her throat. Her ears rang. The air was wrong — thick and heavy and cloying, like trying to breathe through warm sap. Her head swam. Her vision narrowed.

The word echoed through her.

She didn't speak.

She didn't blink.

She didn't breathe.

 

[Tigris Aphra]

​

Equipment: Kurohana Bodysuit, Lightsaber, Bracelet, Echo Stone, vibroknife, Mackie Class Droid, NJO Utility belt

Tag: Everest Vale

Tigris had never been so unsettled. Every nerve of her body screamed alarm, her skin crawled cold and prickly. The thing was monstrous, enveloping, and the single grossly inhuman eye proved a frightening sentience. She wanted to kill it, but had no idea how. She wanted to run, to leave the planet behind. She could do neither, for Eve simply stood and stared. Tigris could see Everest trembling, feel a tension in their bond, the connection being squelched.

They both flinched when the voices, no longer human, sang in chorus again the question. Friend or Foe. Eve answered.

Friend.

"What!?" Tigris gasped aloud in surprise, far less in control of herself than she would ever admit. How could she call something that had hurt so many people is such macabre and terrible ways be a friend.

Then it erupted in a marrow-melting sound that shook the whole facility. In reverberated in Tigris' bones, wrenched at her insides. It was startling and for Tigris...terrifying.

It spoke again, simple, desperate. It was a plea.

Tigris wanted to retch. She could see Eve stagger, impacted hard by the thing's presence, its pain. Tigris hurried to Everest's side, clutching her hard against herself.

Eve!...Eve!" Tigris yelled in desperation.

A fierce anger came over her. Still holding Eve tight against her, Tigris turned to the giant wet eye. "Don't hurt her! What do you want?" she screamed at it.