Public The Catalyst Protocol: Convergence Point

[Liin "Tera" Terallo]

The ring shimmered again.

Not with light but with something deeper. It was like a resonance I could feel in my bones. It pulsed like a breath held just beneath the surface, glowing faintly as I held my hand toward the stasis tanks. Biomass floated in containment. They were cloned tissue layered with receptors, DNA lattices shaped around theories that most would call madness. But not today. Today, Theta-7 responded.

And the ring reacted.

My console pulsed with data. Readouts confirmed what I already suspected: the isotope-5 bonds held. The synthetic receptors did not fail. Something inside that cluster of nerve and flesh had reached for the resonance field. And something had reached back.

I should have felt elated. But all I felt was the low ache of dread tightening behind my ribs.

Because I was not the only one watching.

The Black Sun Syndicate put a price on my head the moment whispers of the project leaked. The Diarchy wants what I have built, I am sure. The Imperials do too. I know of that for a fact. Even Section C of the N&Z Umbrella Corporation; the ones who once smiled and offered funding; are circling again, this time without honest smiles.

And the Jedi? They would want me stopped. To them, this work is blasphemy. To them it is unnatural; like a crime against the Force itself.

But none of them understand. They never cared to. They see me as a heretic, a threat, a prize. Not as a person. However Mister Usher does. He at least expresses the same excited curiosity for my experiments as I do.

I reach up, brushing my fingertips against the ring. For a moment, the gemstone’s glow warmed beneath my touch; like it recognized me. Like it was the only thing that did.

I am surrounded by noise: hunters, syndicates, governments, zealots. Every day, the walls press in. Trust is a currency I cannot really afford. And yet, I keep going because this breakthrough matters. It is not about power. Not anymore.It is about proving that we - those of us born without the Force - are not lesser. We do not have to stay at the mercy of a galaxy ruled by mystics and myths.

If I stop now, I will be hunted for nothing.
But if I finish this...

I glanced at the stasis tank again after letting out a held breath. Soon, there would be no one else to test on.

Just me.


*****************************


Sleep never comes easily to me anymore. I do not even remember laying down; just the low hum of the lab, the blinking of status lights behind my eyelids, and then…

Silence.

Silence of a different kind.The world around me was black, but not empty. I stood in it, barefoot on polished obsidian that stretched in every direction. The air was heavy. Waiting.

Then I heard a sound. Not quite a voice, not quite a thought. A low vibration, like the ring humming against my skin, only deeper. Older. You’re reaching for what cannot be held.
The words were not spoken. They simply were.

I turned. In the dark, something moved. It was tall, robed in light and shadow with it's face lost in shifting static. Not Jedi. Not Sith. Not anything I recognized. But I felt it, like gravity, like inevitability. “You are not real,” I said. Or maybe I only thought it. “You are just a side effect. A hallucination. A dream.”

The figure tilted its head. That’s what you always say, before you take the next step. It raised a hand with long fingers that shimmered like a half-formed field. My ring flared. The gemstone glowed like a furnace now, white-hot.

Behind the figure, other shapes began to stir. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. They were all featureless silhouettes. Some had sabers, some wore armor, some wore corporate insignias. All were watching, waiting and judging. You think power will make them see you differently.

“No,” I whispered. “I think it will make them stop chasing me like a lab rat.”

But rats become what they fear most, the figure said, stepping closer. The hand that feeds. The hand that cuts. You’re not creating the Force. It leaned in, the darkness behind it's hood spilled out of it like smoke. You’re creating a cage. And you’ll be the first thing locked inside.

The gemstone on my ring cracked. A single hairline fracture, splitting the glow.

And then I awoke; gasping and sweating, with the lab’s dim emergency lights painting my console in it's sterile light. My ring was still intact. But it was warm. And the pulse inside of it had not stopped yet.

Now the question remains; do I tell Mister Dashiell or Mister Usher if either of them reach out to check up on me? Or do I just keep this all to myself? Both answers seem to be right and wrong at the same time, so that made the choice even more difficult.

A loud bang at my door caused me to jump and nearly fall out of my chair. Someone is out there. The question is who?

Tags: Mr. Usher Balun Dashiell (OPEN)

 

[Mr. Usher]

Emergence Event​

At first, it did nothing.

The terrarium walls shivered only when light passed over them—the specimen inside coiled in mimicry of larval sleep. Slender limbs tucked beneath chitin. Fronds of feathery hair slumped like withered seaweed.

It had been given flesh to consume. Not much. Not enough to grow dangerous, but enough to think, and enough to wait. It obeyed.

For days, it watched her work. Her hands. Her ring. It listened to the hum of her console and learned the shape of her silences.

It had names for those silences.

— Focus was when her jaw set and her skin forgot warmth.
— Doubt was when she exhaled and the sound failed to rise.
— Fear was always accompanied by the ring.

Tonight, when the silence came… it was none of those.

It was wrong. Something in the world had gone off its axis. Like bone pressed into a shape it should not remember.

The specimen’s eyes bloomed open—five at first, then six, then two more. Its chitin swelled outward in pulses, reshaping under pressure. Filaments sprouted from its back. Its torso cracked and re-formed into quadruped configuration as the reinforced seam at the base of the terrarium began to smoke.

It had been designed not to grow beyond its limits when given form by the Greater Ego. In distant, thudding pressure behind the specimen’s thoughts, awareness stirred – with concern. the specimen could sense the pressure behind its thoughts, the will of the Greater Ego. It should not be separate from its own thoughts. It couldn't remember why. It didn't know how.

What it did know was that Lion was in distress, and the Force was tumultuous here, at this moment.


The specimen focused on supplying its legs with biomass, straining against the lid of the transparisteel enclosure.
The seal popped.

The terrarium lid bounced once on the tile floor. Then again. Then rolled beneath a cabinet, where it clicked faintly against the wall.

By the time it stopped moving, the specimen was already skittering—its limbs lengthening mid-gait, claws splitting, trailing a filament of golden ichor where one molt split too soon.

Kitchen. It needed biomass.

Not tissue. Not flesh. Fuel. Pure calories – it was too small. It remembered being larger. Much larger. A network.

It rounded the corner, left claw dragging a vent grille free in one convulsive wrench. One mandible locked onto the food storage seal. It pulled. Strained. Gnashed with frustration—

—until the seal gave way with a pop like a rib breaking.

The door swung open. The specimen flung itself inside.

Consumption began immediately.

Protein packs were ruptured and torn. Hydrocell nutrient tubes were cracked and drained. Three raw synthmeat slabs vanished into its gut before its digestive layer had finished adapting.

The specimen’s back pulsed. Its limbs flexed and thickened.
A stinger formed. Then vanished. Then re-formed as a blade.

It was trying everything. Anything. It didn’t know what would be needed.

It didn’t know who was outside the door.

It only knew:

Liin was not safe.

The Hive was listening, but the specimen was too small too small to maintain connection.

The hive was too far.
The other husks would arrive late.

So this one—the small one, the sample, the finger wrapped in a napkin at a bar counter, the gift – it would become enough.

***​

It began as pressure.
Not sensory. Not visual. Not auditory.

A pressure in the shape of silence. A stillness not born from absence, but deletion—as if a moment in time had been censored, as if the Force itself had skipped a beat in revulsion.

The Greater Ego did not intrude upon her work, it did not leave backdoors into his contributions against his word. It was not his place. Not with her.

But this was not a moment of authority. It was a moment of recalibration.

A minor specimen—obedient, curated, constrained—was no longer constrained. It had pushed through the seal from the other side. It had abandoned its restraint, sought biomass, and initiated contact with the Greater Ego. Not for hunger. Not for rebellion. But because it could not identify a presence outside her door, nor explain the currents in the force it observed. Unresolved. Unpatterned. Unknown. Mr. Usher had not known such was capable, but the revelation was processed in the span of microseconds. Individual husks shouldn't be capable of free will, but this one developed enough independently that it sought to re-establish the connection.

What had changed? Was it a side effect of a breakthrough?

Mr. Usher was not quick to trample this newfound autonomy with reintegration, even though that is precisely why it was driven to action.

Instead, he observed and offered suggestion. If this truly was a split of his consciousness, there was much to be learned.

Three husks diverted. Two dozen sensory threads aligned.
But they would be too late.

"Liin."
"You are not alone. The specimen has acted in my stead. I did not command it. That alone disturbs me."
"If you are safe—speak. If you are in danger—run. If you are compromised... I will know soon enough."

The Vault was silent. The Devil beneath it slept. But Usher’s awareness now gravitated to towards her.

Should the visitor be dangerous, more would follow.

He only needed time. An increasingly expensive Commodity.

Location: Food Pantry / The Eidolon Vault
Objective: Safeguard the Director
Tags: Liin "Tera" Terallo​

 

[Liin "Tera" Terallo]

More noises came. However they were not coming from the other side of the door. Instead they were coming from within my laboratory. My heart raced even more, pounding beneath my chest as my eyes searched for the source of the sounds. And that was when I saw it; the specimen had somehow gotten out of it's containment and was running towards the kitchen. It's shifting shapes as it moved was alarming as they were so quick and sudden.

I quickly got up from my chair and followed it's direction just in time to see it get inside of the fridge. Had I missed it's scheduled feeding? I do not believe so. And yet it is eating so much and so quickly; changing forms as it did so. It is though the poor thing had not eaten in weeks. This only helped to increase my anxiety all the more.

Another bang was heard outside of my laboratory's door. This time it was louder, sounding almost as though the corridor was imploding section by section, albeit slowly. "No, no, no, no, no, no." The singular word poured out of me on repeat like water released from a dam.

I quickly scooped up the specimen from the fridge and held it close while I exited the kitchen and hurried towards the security feeds.

And there was nothing but static.

Mister Usher's voice rang out within the laboratory's comms. He did not call me by my alias this time. Instead he had used my real name. There was an anxious urgency to his voice; the kind that my own voice carries when I am facing unknown dangers.

"The security feeds just show static. They have been disabled! I had a nightmare, and then now this!" Is my laboratory the cage that the Force Being told me about? For I certainly do feel trapped at the moment.

Mister Usher told me to run. But is the back access tunnel breached as well? Another loud bang caused me to spring into action, moving the specimen up to stand on my shoulder. I quickly gathered up my notes, datacards and one of the testing cannisters, shoving them inside of a satchel that I then slung over my shoulder.

The lights within the laboratory dimmed and flickered, but not in the way of an interuption in their power source. It was more like something that I could not see was covering them up. I needed to get out of there!

I pivoted on my heel, nearly running into one of my tables before making it to the back of my laboratory. I quickly punched in the access code and set my hand on the touchpad. After a second or two the door slid open and I ran through the opening. The back access tunnels are a maze, dimly lit so as to appear abandoned. I can only hope that they really are.

Tag: Mr. Usher​

 

[Csariden]

❖ CSARIDEN ❖
Rebuilt For Revenge.

The lab’s eyes went first.

Camera feeds fractured into static, then darkness. By surgical deletion.
Networks sliced clean, one by one, from the inside out.

Then—
BANG.
A gloved fist slammed into the outer corridor bulkhead, warping the durasteel with inhuman force.

Then silence.
Not absence of sound, but the presence of intention. Measured. Weighted. Like a predator deciding which part of the cage to crack next.

Another impact followed. Louder. Closer.
BANG.
No voice accompanied it. No warning. Whoever was outside wasn’t negotiating.

Inside the lab, emergency lighting flickered—not from a power failure, but from filtered interference. Something was standing between the lab’s systems and their source. Something cloaked in shadow and refracted energy. Something watching.

Static pulsed through the wiring. A dozen security nodes flared and burned out simultaneously. A voice, distorted and bit crushed through the cybernetic jaw, called out from behind the dented door.

"You burned your name into too many chit-lists. Now they want it scraped off."

Then the door was quiet. In the distance, another thunderous pound. But not at the same door.
Multiple points of entry being tested.
The corridor was being mapped through vibration resonance alone. Echo pulses. Every vent, every weld, every blind spot exposed. He didn’t need a map. He was the map now.

"The contract says alive." A pause.
"It didn't say unharmed."

A convenient lie. He wasn't here for the credits. This "Tera" was a vulnerability to an empire – important people knew her. People who had a hand in the shattering of Csilla. If she had information he could use, perfect. If not... He could return an iota of the pain the Brotherhood of the Maw inflicted.

The lights cut again—this time in sync with the sound of metal surrendering. When the light returned, a section of the ventilation shaft above the kitchen was caved outward, ripped open.

Other than that, no sign of Csariden. Just the certainty that something had already broke in.

You’re not running from the Syndicate anymore. You’re running from me.

Liin "Tera" Terallo Mr. Usher​

 

[Mr. Usher]

Uncatalogued Signal: Tera Breach​

The Hive could not see him.

That alone would have been cause enough.

But what it could feel was worse.

The corridors flexed like muscle around the intruder’s path. Vibration patterns collapsed. The metadata of presence became jagged—stuttered. Reflected echoes returned with no biological rhythm, no thermal pulse, no aura of essence at all.

He was not dead.
He was not alive.
He was incomprehensible.

A null-shape among the Force. A cut-out. A blindspot grown teeth.

And now he was hunting her.

"He should not exist. Not without a signature."
"Something has robbed him of history. Or perhaps he gave it willingly."
"Either way, I cannot reach him. So I must reach you."

The specimen on her shoulder quivered. Its shape hardened—no longer fluid. Its spine rippled outward into spines, its limbs condensing into armor-plated stalks. What had once been soft now struck tile with an armored clack.

It did not grow further. It did not ascend into something grand.

But it did stabilize. A killing form. A guardian. A vessel for what little of the Hive could follow in time.

Across the network, husks accelerated. Bio-tunnels twisted open. Observation organs turned toward fire.

But they would not arrive fast enough.

"If you see his eyes—do not reason. If he speaks—do not listen."
"He is not like us. He is not made for dialogue. Only ruin."

Usher turned now. Not in presence, but in priority.
The Vault stirred. One cage clinked. One mind leaned toward the breach.

There was no elegance in this response. No artistry.

Only instinct.

The Hive would come for her. The swarm would follow. But for now—

it would be the specimen.

A single mouthful of safety in a world already devoured.

Location: The Unfolding Circuit
Objective: Delay Consumption
Tags: Liin "Tera" Terallo , Csariden ​

 

[Tilon Quill]

One of the side effects of instinctive astrogation in a ship equipped with wayfinders and Jedi compasses was that, sometimes, you wound up somewhere that your charts refused to parse, knowing only that you were being drawn here. This time, at least, Tilon had a sense of why: snippets of dream, of hundreds of shades, of a robes figure murmuring, of a ring, of a lump of living flesh, of a dozen bodies that were one, of a blue cyborg — Pantoran? Chiss? Sharuka like him? — and a world of shattered ice.

He wasn't one for dream omens but Elom matriarchs, old friends of his father, had told him to listen to these ones.

Indirectly, that was how he wound up hand-waving his way through a security door on no world he could name, a facility whose allegiance he didn't know.

He went inside and started walking around in an environmental suit. He had the feeling he'd bump into something.

Liin "Tera" Terallo Mr. Usher Csariden

 

[Liin "Tera" Terallo]

I heard another voice call out from behind the laboratory door, just as I was about to run into the access tunnel at the back. And it was not a voice that I had recognized. Not only that; the words spoken gave me chills. A hunter had caught up with me; and the tone of his voice suggested that he had an ulterior motive to accepting the bounty. Yet I am not about to wait and find out what that is. Most especially as he hinted at causing me physical harm.

The specimen catches my eye as it shifts forms once again; this time appearing to settle on an aggressive type of form. "Be mindful of your energy use. I did not bring anything for you to eat." Nor for me for that matter. Yet with all that is going on, having to sit down for a meal is the furthest thing from my mind.

I hear the voice of Mister Usher as he gives me further warnings. Something was coming. Perhaps the Force Being that I saw in my dream sent it. I do not know. But I could not risk getting caught. So I carefully picked up the specimen off of the tile and put it on my shoulder once more. Then I started to run and quickly. The overhead lights flickered on and off as I moved, giving the sense that the walls were closing in even though they did not move.

But something else did. I could see a figure up ahead of me. "Mister Usher? Is that you?" I called out in between gasping breaths to the person in the environmental suit. My running slowed as I got even nearer to the figure until finally I stopped. No, it was not Mister Usher at all. "Who are you? Do not come any closer or you will be hurt!" The person would not be hurt by me of course. But the small specimen on my shoulder could surely cause harm.

Tags: Mr. Usher Csariden Tilon Quill

 

[Csariden]

❖ CSARIDEN ❖
Rebuilt For Revenge.

A misstep.
Liin paused too long—
Just long enough for the tunnel lights to flicker once again. And then he was there.
Behind her.

The ceiling vent behind her ruptured open with a hiss of suction and warping metal. Csariden had dropped into the space between her and kitchen, knee absorbing the fall with predatory grace.

"There you are."

The lights caught his silhouette:
Chiss by blood, but drowned in metal. One eye cybernetic, the other a frozen glint of grief. Scar tissue webbed one side of his face above the prosthetics lower jaw.

He rose slowly, movements minimal. Controlled. The High Frequency Vibroblade hummed with a faint light

The cybernetic eye swept across the new arrival, the target, and the thing she carried on her shoulder.

He turned his head slightly toward the specimen, his neck clicking faintly from metal strain.

"Need her alive." A pause. "Killing that thing will suffice."

The blade angled toward the specimen—not yet attacking, but measured. Testing.

"I don’t know how you made this thing crawl. But I’ll make sure it doesn’t walk."

His posture shifted. He raised the blade casually. A flick of the blade signaled readiness.
But he didn’t move first.

He waited.

Let the newcomer decide what’s worth saving.

Liin "Tera" Terallo Mr. Usher Tilon Quill​

 

[Mr. Usher]

Specimen: Engagement Protocol​

No growl. No roar. No signal.

The specimen leapt.

Before Csariden's blade could hum through its full angle, the chitin-armored construct spat a nodule from its perch on Liin’s shoulder in a tight, spiraling snap—striking the corridor wall mid-air to redirect and slam hard into the hunter’s left flank. Not hard enough to injure, but to anchor.

Hooked barbs on its underside clamped onto metal plates and discharged a burst of flash-grown mycelial foam, a fast-expanding adhesive meant to slow motion and foul optics. Two buds detached with audible cracks, converting into autonomous scatter-limbs that skittered underfoot and began ejecting pheromone-rich vapor into the air.

A confusion field. A call for help. They seeming dissolved and dehydrated to lifeless flesh as they dispersed the vapor.

The specimen’s outer carapace flared red across its thorax in a strobing pulse,

And then, it moved. Lept from Liin's shoulder. Along the wall. Across pipework and corner paneling, never stopping, never posturing, body elongating mid-run into a centipedal brace of needle legs designed for acceleration.

A second impact module launched from its own back—a spined gland meant for organ-piercing on biologicals. Against armor, it merely detonated on contact in a flash of caustic gel, buying seconds. That was all it needed.

Seconds. Not victory.

Every motion was a calculation: burn yourself to delay him.

If Csariden pursued, he would find a corridor suddenly laced with liquified adhesive, intermittent blindness, and a darting, skittering biomass set to rupture on command.

It was not fighting to win.

It was fighting to buy time.
To make it hurt.

Location: Secondary Access Maze
Objective: Engage. Delay. Expire if needed.
Tags: Liin "Tera" Terallo , Csariden , Tilon Quill​

 

[Tilon Quill]

I could see a figure up ahead of me. "Mister Usher? Is that you?" I called out in between gasping breaths to the person in the environmental suit. My running slowed as I got even nearer to the figure until finally I stopped. No, it was not Mister Usher at all. "Who are you? Do not come any closer or you will be hurt!"

"Need her alive." A pause. "Killing that thing will suffice."

The blade angled toward the specimen—not yet attacking, but measured. Testing.

"I don’t know how you made this thing crawl. But I’ll make sure it doesn’t walk."

If Csariden pursued, he would find a corridor suddenly laced with liquified adhesive, intermittent blindness, and a darting, skittering biomass set to rupture on command.

Even after many strange encounters, seeing images from his dreams alive threw Tilon for a loop. That vibroblade had him raising his gloved hands, ready to call on the Force in the limited and esoteric ways he knew, seeking for the calm and focus to affect this rapidly-evolving situation.

He counted himself very lucky that the being/beings/splitting mass was/were not choosing his direction to escape in. He also saw no clear direction to take sides just yet between the at-least-three obvious sapients at work. Liin, most likely to be a non-combatant, made sense as a priority in terms of safety, should threat come her way. He'd keep an eye on that.

He had the art of translation; it was very nearly the only thing he was good at. And he knew a Chiss on sight and knew Cheunh, both from his travels and from a complex situation with the vestiges of a sky-walker and her companions, centuries inside a sarlacc. He didn't know what language, if any, the splitting mass spoke, but his art let him speak in general terms and be broadly understood regardless of language. That had saved him once or twice in the Yuuzhan Vong galaxy aboard the Longjumper's Mark expedition.

"Peace, please," he called loudly in Cheunh and also everything, and held up his open hands higher. "Wait, let's talk."

 

[Liin "Tera" Terallo]

The sudden bang behind me caused me to turn around. In the flickering lights I saw a shadow fall to the floor. And then it spoke and rose with such predatory grace that made his words all the more chilling. Not only that, but the tone in his voice held such utter detachment from humanity that it made me question whether or not I would even survive this bounty with him taking charge of it.

I stood there nearly frozen in place. A large part of me wanted to run past the man in the environmental suit for at least he could give me a few seconds head start. But the cybernetic enhancements dissuade me from doing so. For I know that it would not keep me from his grasp for long.

As if the specimen could read my thoughts and emotions, it went into it's attack. It moved with it's own fluidity; seeming to utilize every known technique that it could muster. Yet I know that doing so will come at a huge cost to him. He will use up a lot of his energy and then pass. Such a daring and honorable course of action to take and already I am beginning to feel grief over it. What was once just a specimen to experiment on had become a unique and special companion over these many months. I could not let his sacrifice be in vain.

The voice of the man in the environmental suit caught my attention, pulling me from the developing grief. He expressed a desire to talk and yet Mister Usher's warning to me clearly told me not to listen. Was his warning only about the hunter? Or could it of been both?

I begin to creep in the direction of the safest of the two, wanting to distance myself from the hunter as much as I could. "I do not believe that now is the right time to negotiate. But if you think that it will help, then by all means do so." Let him serve as another distraction for the hunter. And once I have him fully between myself and the hunter, I know that I will run again.

Tags: Mr. Usher Csariden Tilon Quill

 

[Mr. Usher]

wrong sub my bad

 

[Csariden]

❖ CSARIDEN ❖
Rebuilt For Revenge.

He felt the impact before he saw it.

The barbed nodule slammed into his side, not deep, but anchored—detonating into foaming mycelial pulp that spread across his armor with parasitic intent.

His optics stuttered.
A wash of spore haze occluded his vision—then cleared.
His HUD compensated faster than the designers had expected. He’d replaced those limits years ago.

A flex of his left shoulder—snap.
Foam tore free in strands, synthetic muscle groaning beneath.

"Flash-grown nervefoam. Clever."
Engineered for attrition, not survival. It's like this thing evolved to stall me.

He didn’t look at Liin as she crept away. He didn't need to. She was acting like all the others—clutching datapads and backup plans and thinking escape was strategy.

He slashed once across the ground in front of him, scattering adhesive skitter-limbs before they could coalesce again.

Then came the second detonation.

The caustic gel hissed across his flank, bubbling against the reinforced sheath of his leg armor. His posture staggered—but only for a moment.

Then he surged forward.

A blur.

One foot planted on the wall, then off it—closing the gap not with brute speed but angles, cutting through the specimen's turn path like a scalpel.

The blade came down—not to kill, but to slice through its flank.
A measured incision. Monomolecular edge through chitin.

He wanted to see what squirmed underneath.

"No core. No identity. Just nerves and muscle. Shifting."

He stepped again, low, body rotating into a spin—not flashy, not elegant.
Just clean. He was aiming to disable movement, cleave tendon analogs,
Every strike was a vivisection.

Only after the second series of slashes did he recognize the Cheunh being spoken. glance at the suited man holding his hands up.

"You. Stay where you are."

He pointed—not with the blade, but with the other hand, a vibroknife within.

"I’m not here for a quorum."
"I’m here to watch this thing die. And learn why it protects this bountyhead."

His blade angled down again, gleaming azure in the haze.

The duel had begun. But he wasn’t just fighting. He was documenting.

Liin "Tera" Terallo Mr. Usher Tilon Quill​

 

[Mr. Usher]

Specimen: Final Directive​

It did not flee.

Even as ligature glands were sliced and scatter-limbs cauterized. Even as tendon analogs were severed and caustic sacs ruptured from within.

The specimen did not hesitate.
It could not reassure Liin, nor usher them away. It had no voice. It was not given one.
But it kept moving.

Even when only four limbs remained. Then three. Then two.

Even when the armor plates of its flank split open and fell like discarded leaves—revealing nothing but fibrous muscle pulsing in stuttered rhythms.

It struck with what it had.
Claws. Then teeth. Then the stump of a spine, whipping like a needle-blade soaked in its own gel. Every movement was less precise. Less clean. But it kept pressing forward.

Not because it was ordered, but because the hand that once fed it had trembled. Because the voice it once heard in stillness had held fear. Because the moment it was placed in its terrarium, she had looked at it—and not with fear.

It lunged one final time, and was met with steel. The blade came down again. And this time, it did not rise again.

The specimen fell—half-dissolved, its rear limbs curling in slow spasm. Its sensory membrane blinked once. Twice. Then dimmed, legs skittering to a slow stop.

---​

Further up the hall, where the scientist and the man in the envirosuit were, in the sudden quiet—just before the hunter turned back toward his prey—something small moved.

A fragment.

Severed in the first exchange. Easily overlooked by the hunter. No larger than a scurrier, barely a mouthful of mass, twitching with residual pattern. It clung to a wall. Then to the floor. Then to the hem of her coat.

Skittering upward, it vanished beneath a fold of fabric—and emerged once more, clinging to her shoulder.

Nearly spent, but alive.

Location: Memory Root Severed
Objective: One remained
Tags: Liin "Tera" Terallo , Csariden , Tilon Quill​

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon watched the fight and listened to the one-sided conversation and the situation's many pieces began to come together into an unfamiliar but navigable shape. Specifically he got the sense of an action he could take that might protect at least one life. Long-term potential consequence be damned.

When Liin "Tera" Terallo got him between her and the Chiss and took off running, he stayed there as a barrier. An old Jedi principle: action through inaction. Recognizing the quiet moments when staying where you were could be determinative. He just turned Csariden 's way and kept his hands open and empty. He was, however, very aware of the lightsaber hanging from the belt of his environmental suit.

He shook his head just once at Csariden in a 'don't try it' kind of way and knew exactly how far that would go.

 

[Liin "Tera" Terallo]

I could not help but watch, even as I slowly retreated back while the hunter was occupied. But I was not watching the hunter so much as I was watching the specimen's brave actions. The hunter on the otherhand gave me plenty of reason to avoid capture in any way that I could. For I can easily imagine him using such techniques on me; just to see how little or how much I could bleed.

The unexpected happened soon after. A part of the specimen found me. When normally having something grotesque looking crawling up my clothing would have given me cause to scream; instead I am overwhelmed with relief. He is not finished! A part of him remains! I gently cup the specimen in my hand so as to not lose him while I turned to run.

The man in the environmental suit is sure to slow the hunter down so that I could make my escape. There is not too far for me to go. I need only to round two corners and then climb the steel ladder upwards towards the hatch that will open on the surface. Maybe up there I will be able to find the specimen a bit of food so that he can replenish some of his energy.

But first I need to get there. Rounding the first corner I keep my ears open to listen for any pursuit. All that I can hope for is no traps awaiting me before or after I make it to the surface.

Tags: Mr. Usher Csariden Tilon Quill ​