Private The Chemist

[Dagon Kaze]

Level 1997,
Coruscant Underworld
Damsy Callat
​

The obtrusive smell of soot and waste enveloped the air. Faulty ventilation, leaking sewers and contaminated filth formed the edifice of neglect that level 1997 was. Blue-collared workers living behind barricaded windows, their only commute in life between there and work in the industrial compactors. Petty criminals molding into small-time protection rackets and depraved offenders living off others suffering. Blasters shots and shrieks of anguish never batted anyone's eyes.

All of this in the heart of the Galactic Alliance.

An inverted mirror of the posh high levels of Galactic City. It seemed as if the better they had at it at the top, the worst it got at the bottom.

Dagon's investigation of the thirty-three corpses found on a freighter from Empress Teta led him to intel on a deal that was about to go down. The culprits? A Sullustan chemist by the name of Adin Fher was supposedly transferring a Cell-X - a chemical agent - to a notorious, local crimelord; Droga. Ruthless and extremely aggressive Zabraki leading a crew of equally violent hoodlums 'specializing' in the spheres of armed robberies and hit jobs. Lots of muscle, very little brain.

So why was there a deal going down? These kinds of trash usually took stuff by force. End of a blaster's barrel's all they understood.

It wasn't too odd that someone else might've hired Droga's goons for the deal. Keep their hands clean. Wasn't a normal practice but neither was it far-fetched.

Overlooking the large, open space warehouse where the deal was to go down, Dagon leaned carefully on the roof railings of an adjacent building. It had been hours with nothing special happening and his muscles were beginning to ache. A few times the personnel door opened for a dirty thug to light up a cigarette and harass his wife on the holophone. The Jedi nearly dozed off when headlights washed over the corner and two vehicles pulled in front of the warehouse. The usual suspects of no-brain, big guns gangsters flushed out of the speeders forming a natural half-circle around Droga. Dagon squinted at an unexpected companion to the party that stood out - a human woman that just simply seemed like she didn't belong. Different cut.

They entered the warehouse and the doors shut behind them leaving only muffled voices of greetings. Dagon moved to act. With a carefully measured force jump, he landed softly on the rooftop of the depot and shuffled to the nearest grating providing him a subtle entry inside. Using a handy miniature blowtorch to cut it at the edges, the padawan lifted the rusty grille and set it aside, then slid inside onto an upper walkway lining all around the shape of the warehouse. At the center below the chemist in a white drape with far too much stains on it and a suitcase next to him surrounded by three hired guns. Before them - Droga and his crew.

Four buffoons on Droga's side, three on Adin's. Eight buffoons in total to knock out counting Droga. Then I'm left with Adin and that odd woman. He bit his lips at the sight of the mysterious lady.

I hate unknown variables.

The Jedi subtly made his way around the walkway to a better position for an ambush; Droga's loud voice and the shadows the light cast over Dagon covered his approach. On any other day Dagon would've waited, observed and gathered further intel before striking. But with bozos like Droga? You never know when they'll just pull out a gun and start blasting. And Dagon needed Adin alive for questioning.

He called on the Force to create a diversion - a crate on the other side tumbled down with a slam and with their backs to him, Dagon leaped down in the midst of the shindig. No lightsaber, not yet at least. Just wits, muscle and the Force. The New Jedi Order symbol embroidered on the upper arm of his leather jacket the only indication of his affiliation.

"Sorry, fellas, party's over." he landed in a crouch and his hands snapped to both sides sending a powerful Force push at both sides. A few of the goons crashed hard into either steel walls or steel crates, the rest came hard on him. Martial arts in unison with the Force kicked in. A slide under one's hook, then a swipe at his feet. Another's jab met the air beside him, then an upper cut sent the assailant back with a nasty crack in his jaw.

Just another dance of justice in the underbelly of Coruscant.

Or was it?

 

[Damsy Callat]

It might have been if that odd woman had found herself on the right side of the law, but no such luck.

The wrong side needed the right talents for this venture, and she damn near had all of those - minus Force sensitivity. She had not once shown Droga's goons such affinity during her weeks of service, though no real danger had presented itself before now. Maybe she was only masquerading in inability, but who had ever heard of a Jedi, fallen or no, who concealed their gift? The men here - Adin excluded of course - weren't smart enough to follow that line of questioning, so Damsy wasn't that concerned that her nature would reveal itself.

Not even when she pushed off the hard duracrete and glimpsed Dagon's shoulder patch insignia. Her aura would seem cold and flat, entirely mundane, to those who could have felt it.

Her braids fell into her face as she stood, obscuring the world for not longer than a moment, but when she swept the hair away the warehouse had all but physically melted away. Dark flooring had lightened into the sandy roads of Iskaayuma broken intermittently by Confederate barricades and chunks of fallen infrastructure. Everything smelled suddenly and intensely of heat left both by desert climate and dead blasterfire. Sunrisen lights bore down softer but more colorfully than white fluorescents. Under them, Damsy could already feel her exposed skin - face, hands, and a sliver of midsection - tighten with dehydration, though nothing of the sort actually portrayed on her figure.

When the criminal most recent to attack Dagon staggered back from him, and subsequently over his own self at Damsy's feet, she failed to see whatever-his-name-was. Instead, she glimpsed Sergeant Jorgen Fengris. Likewise, when she looked back up, she saw through slightly bloodshot eyes the man who had contributed to the death of Omegas:

Gabriel Volturi.

The name was nearly sung in siren song. Still, Damsy could not recognize the voice in her mind. She hadn't heard it for a while yet, but even if she had she also had never flashed back to Rodia. All there was to do was address the presents she was actively and inactively living. The handle of her shiny new electrotrident flew from belt into hand, prongs pointed to the ground. She righted the orientation with a practiced flourish of the collapsed staff. She wasn't quick in approach, but also wasn't slow, as she waited to impart first counter.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

One of Adin's and one of Droga's lunged at him at the same time, he shuffled away leaving them to bump into each other before Dagon sent them both flying together straight into the crime lord who was just about to get on his feet.

What remained in his immediate area of attention was, well, of course - the enigmatic woman that had caught his notice the moment she had disembarked from Droga's speeder. She produced a trident, electricity sparkling occasionally atop the three prongs.

Exotic.

Unlike the rest of the thugs, she carried herself with an air of battle-hardened confidence that clearly stood out. Dagon tilted his head to the side, "You really here with that scumbag?" he scoffed, spreading his hands.

"Kill that fucker, schutta-- what are you waiting for?!" Droga bellowed from underneath the pile of the two goons; a few of his limbs broken ensnaring his ability to move.

Dagon turned his head back at the trident-wielding, ass-whooping lady before him. His question manifested into a perplexed expression on his face.

"I'm just here for the scientist and his case. You could pocket 'em if that's what you want." the Jedi casually shrugged, unaware he was severely underestimating who or what she was.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Droga's crudeness became a string of words entirely different: "Go on, get 'im, Major!" Damsy lost sight of her target for but another moment by glancing off to a side no one was, but she was sure she saw Typhan Berrezz , crouching behind a bombed-out building.

Letting him down again was not a reality she was willing to contend with. But neither was it one she'd get to pick today. Reliving the past was not redoing it.

She likewise canted her head at Dagon. The scientist and his case? she thought. She wasn't sure anymore why exactly the Agents of Chaos had come to Rodia, but she was fairly confident it wasn't for anything of the sort. His statement might have made more sense in the context of Atrisia, but not here, unless the musings of a madman. Or an attempted distraction. Neither did she put past a Chaotic Force Master like Gabriel. "They my tribe, demagolka; I wouldn't expect you to know the fealty." She gave the trident head a strong shake, extending the staff into its full reach. "Though I assumed you were one to pick fair fights." Ten magic fingers versus an entire squad plus their local escort and all the firepower they packed was not one. She touched an open palm to her collarbone. "My bad."

Honor be damned. She ran a few steps closer in and swept the butt of her staff fast at Dagon's jaw.

Fitting first move - payback.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

W-what?

Dagon's eyes squinted trying to make sense of the woman's words. Grinding the inner workings of his mind to the fullest, she suddenly sprung and yjr Jedi felt his jaw nearly fall at the point of impact with the butt of the trident. Only the instinct to pull his head back saved his teeth from taking off. Leaned back, he used the momentum to take his heels off the ground and flip back landing on staggered feet.

"Do we... know each other?" Dagon asked, wiping blood off his lip, then held his fists up in a standard guard. The familiar, almost like instinct, resistance to use the Force to pacify her rose up. Curiosity. His innate desire to ask questions and learn more. He couldn't count the times how often that curiosity nearly killed the cat.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

First blood too.

"Soon 'nough, Gabriel," she grunted before righting her weapon, three points now trained on Dagon.

A shiver ran up her spine. Shock didn't have time to spill over her face and instead settled deeper into the creases of a focused frown.

She knew its owner by holofigure well, but how did she know that name?

Typhan had told her, hadn't he? . . .

No matter. She shook her head.

"When we're done here, all you're gonna think about is the Siren of Kamino." She thrust out generally at his midsection.

. . . But, after the fact.

After. Right, but why after?

The answer hung heavy in the air, but not even three languages could quite decipher it.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Gabriel. Siren of Kamino.

Nothing rang any bells. As much as he strained every fiber of his mind, Dagon couldn't piece any of it together. Not even a fragment.

And no time to think over it.

Her trident came flashing once more, straight for the chest. This time he was more prepared, stepping to the side and then lunging for the handle of the weapon to try and snatch it off her hands in a tug of war.

"I've no idea who Gabriel is, lady, but maybe if you tell me who you are, I might help you." he held on tight but moved in a more intimate distance. The closer he was, the less of a threat this trident was. Eyes locked together as if he would find the answer on his own plucking out of her deep blue globes.

Something foreign inside shifted.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

. . . because, beca—

Damsy screwed her eyes closed when Dagon's aura invaded hers. He might have felt a nudge of neutral Force energy. Harder done than said, but she had managed not to feel out with the Force in months (otherwise, she might have sensed his hostile intentions up on the catwalk), but now that much was involuntary. And intensified, like walking out into the unadulterated sunlight after trying to see in pitch darkness. Bright light turned on under his skin and seeped through the cracks in between her eyelids. Syreni might have hissed, Damsy let up her grasp on the trident, but otherwise the action of the moment simmered away. And stayed away another more.

Calm before the storm.

…Jedi?

Damsy fought hard to squint open one of her eyes. Faces flickered from one she thought she knew to one she emphatically didn’t. Sorting through the features was like swimming against the Kaminoan Equatorial Countercurrent – something that had almost killed her back when. Finally, in a few eons stretching but seconds, Dagon’s visage stared back into her soul.

Who…?

Sssssith insssolence.

“No! don’t want your help!” she exclaimed not to him. Ice shot through each and every one of Damsy’s veins, quickly giving way to magmatic sensation that ran down her arms. The darkside was an ever rapid-spreading plague. This case, noticeable both to him and her, had come out of nowhere. She urgently opened her eyes, let go of her weapon, and jumped away. A glance over at Droga revealed the crime boss rather than who else he might have been instead: the figment of her half-brother or then-lord-commander.

Five strings of pressure tapped themselves onto the side of her neck, pointed tips pressing into her skin to draw will rather than blood. They together wrenched her head forward, attention back to Dagon, then fell down under her chin. She glanced by eyes only to her right wrist. Some silver light glowed under the blue leather of her jacket.

Dammit.

Surfacing her vision, she begged with the only two things she yet felt control over - sight and voice - over the mechanic hum rapidly gaining volume.

“…Please let go.”

Her arm went out in a half wingspan against her will. Whatever he had done with her trident since in effect being given it, the padawan would begin to feel a magnetic pull on the weapon in the direction of the light – about ready to take him for a ride.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Cautiously keeping his distance and keeping his blue eyes planted on her, Dagon reached out softly with the Force only for her to inadvertently reach back. He slightly narrowed his eyes as if to determine if the sixth sense hadn't deceived him. Her contorting facial lines vaguely reminded him of his own internal turmoil and the sunken weight within the oceans of his soul.

“No! don’t want your help!”

She snapped but something within her snapped louder...and darker. Dagon's grasp over the trident tightened instinctively and a small frown began to form over his brow. A flicker of light on her wrist took his attention further reinforcing the Jedi's caution as his heels itched expecting a physical rebuke from the conflicted woman. Her eyes lifted up to meet his, a visage of fragility enveloping the irises.

“...Please let go”

Dagon's knees bent slightly anticipating an attack, only for the trident to violently yank out of his grasp and land in her hand. So lost in his curiosity, and the woman's odd reminder of himself, he inadvertently allowed for tunnel vision to set in. The Force stirred within him and manifested in his need and desire to protect, "You need to snap out of it, alright? Don't...let go." he said as his soothing aura through the ethereal reached for her.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Her hand - moved through the air by Syreni's will - met the trident halfway on trajectory. Another thing followed along too, entirely less welcomed: another ripple of that damned light. Blinding, irritating, painful behind the eyes. Both personalities reeled from it. Their shared body stumbled back onto CDC Avenue. How had Gabriel disarmed her? And why did he feel like that?

As she idly flourished her arm, its beskar jolted her skin with more than static, but the translation she had been chasing:

Because you weren't there, Callat!

No, of course not. It made sudden unbearable sense. She had gone to Talay and left Typhan in charge of Omega Squad on Rodia in her stead. This duel then, couldn't be happening, not with him.

Voices changed mid-sentence as Dagon egged Damsy on:

"You need to snap out of it, alright? Don't...let go."

She couldn't have agreed with the sentiment more, but Syreni was the one hearing too. What did a wild animal do when you tried to take its meal away? Bite. Or, throw something, as it were. Damsy didn't have time to warn him. With another 180-degree flip of her staff, she rent a red wake in the etheric plane, and sent a nearby cargo crate careening along the imaginary arc towards Dagon's head.

"She don't much like that talk..." the sithspawn informed through clenched teeth.

Alright. Obvious.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The empyrean blue aura tenderly touched the hem of her mind, for a moment there was nothing, then it coiled and snapped back; like a disturbed viper it bore its venomous fangs. Dagon withdrew, reminded too closely of his own predicament, and reversed his senses back to the material world. Cold dread ran down his spine upon the realization of what was going on. Not unlike the unwelcome presence of his father, she also carried a curse contorting her mind and bending her will.

What little time he had to assimilate the information was interrupted by a heavy cargo crate flying at him; the dark side latched in its trail. The padawan instinctively raised his arms in a cross, the ethereal materializing a barrier to shield him. Too late, too little. The crate swept him off his fleet and sent him into a nearby pillar, the impact sending his vision in a momentary lapse of darkness.

Chit.

Dagon pulled himself up with an inaudible groan and faced the conflicted woman. His shoulders tensed with hesitation over the options laid before him. The last psyche he had barged into was his brother's, in a last ditch attempt to flood his mind with their childhood memories and pull him out of the dark side's grasp; the outcome was catastrophic - their father's presence corrupted their twin bond and used it to latch unto Dagon. His shadow loomed over Aeric, as it did within the depths of Dagon's mind.

Caution led the way.

For now.

His hand jolted forward and another cargo crate took off, this time at the woman aiming to pin her at a pillar holding the warehouse. A tentative reach for her mind followed, manifested in his encouraging voice, "Fight it back! Reach for me!"

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy’s body surged ahead despite how hard her mentality was trying to dig its heels into the warehouse duracrete. A well-placed, counter flourish of her free hand sent Dagon’s offensive far off its mark. As it make some dull sound out of her sight, she imagined that it had nailed her square in the face.

Syreni would never let it happen, but a host could hope.

Another wave of light. Her heart beat in her head with a new vigour. The sun never broke through the cloudy atmosphere on Kamino after one of its harsher storms, or else ever either. Damsy was glad it hadn’t because this was how she could only stand to imagine it: sudden and uncomfortable, but not just on virtue of its brightness, in its capacity to alter her reality. Its eureka was so very different than anything she had known.

Reach out? She could do that. She had done as much in Serenity’s Glade. Syreni had resisted entering, too, though not quite as homicidally. Admittedly, there hadn’t been anyone else to direct that, this, survival instinct rage onto until much too late. Until the light was inescapable and enveloped nearly all of her. If she could do that here – wander too deep into Dagon’s influence to let Syreni follow – why then…he’d be safe.

But she wouldn't be.

A complex knot of fiery rope coiled itself in the pit of Damsy's stomach. Dreadful anticipation. She gave a primordial scream, perhaps audible telepathically, and extended a cold, amorphous hand across the void between herself and the mystery man as far as she could bear. She felt her mistake immediately, then constant reminders bore into her head with every millimeter more she stretched, but she resisted the urge to flinch away. Her Force sight began to cloud, double, flare.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Dagon's presence punctured through the outer envelopment of her mind and he found himself staring down upon an endless ocean. In the primordial dimension of the Force, there was only one sense that existed - the sixth. Inexplicable as a sense, but describable through words. The woman's mind reminded him of his short trip to Pamarthe, at night with a forecast of a storm. Rolling dark waves, chaotically weaving and turning over each other in an impeccable pattern. Thick dark clouds concealed the horizon, for all that mattered there was only the ocean and her.

And something else.

Something dark and wicked. Something inhospitable that ruled this realm with an iron fist. An inescapable grip.

It permeated the air, the currents, the clouds. Its tainting hegemony spreading all around the fabric of her mind and suffocated all light and drowned all foreign interventions.

Much like a plague. Much like Dagon's father's specter walking his own psyche.

It took him by surprise and pulled him into the waters, he felt his lungs fill with water; he flailed wildly, panic ensnaring his control and threatening to disrupt his tether to her mind, push him away.

He nearly folded.

Nearly.

A cold hand caught him, reached for his extended grasp. Its frigidness unlike that of the silent death that reigned over this domain. It was her. The realization steeled his nerves, shattered his trepidation and Dagon called upon the empyrean to yank her out of the ocean and back into the material world of the dull warehouse.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

As he latched on, she gave one last effort to stave off Syreni for both of their sakes, prevent her from returning again to the physical realm: tapas. The target, herself. It had to be, but it would effect both equally - or so she hoped more and more a pickling of internal heat flooded her body. It seemed enough to repel the hydrophilic squaloid, but the threat of dehydration didn't end so easily for Damsy.

Her spirit was flung back into her body. She stumbled onwards a few steps, doubling over closer to the floor with each stride, until she crumpled over her center of gravity. She let go of her trident. It fell to the left to the tune of metal on manufactured stone, and the fizz of dying electricity.
The delicate glass tubing sewn into her jacket shattered as her full weight came upon it, and the volumes of water held within leaked quickly through fabric and leather. A few of the crystalized shards worked their way into her skin, and even more as she drew in sharp breath and instinctually jerked over onto her back.

Magma again flooded her veins, but the blame fell on this personality, good intentions or no. It was as if the climates of humid Rodia, then Ryloth, then Mustafar had come to rest over her. The pressure quickly became overwhelming and dryness pushed its way through her skin in practiced patterns, along lines of least resistance that began to betray her true nature. Swaths of her neck and hands were first to erupt into patches of faintly-blue-grey scales. Matching mist rolled over the whites of her eyes one by one. Her throat started to clench closed as a gill slit opened underneath her chin. Oxygen went scarce throughout her body as its gaseous form phased from her system.

Damsy's chest convulsed, convex, as she struggled to gasp for the air that meant nothing to lungs that were actively shutting down. She had to get some dissolved oxygen soon, but she didn't suppose that her saviour had a copious amount of water on him...?

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

It may have felt like hours had passed in their arduous escape, but only a heartbeat had passed in the material world. Dagon's eyes blinked rapidly and his legs trembled for a moment threatening to lose his footing, he took a solid step forward. The dull colors of the warehouse were extremely vibrant in comparison to where the Jedi had just been, bright enough that his vision blurred before it got better.

Ahead of him, the woman laid flat on the ground, convulsing menacingly as began to...transform. Mutate. Skin turned to scales, fog befell the color of her eyes and gills ripped open her flesh. She gasped wildly as if the air had just disappeared and she was flung into the dark cold embrace of space.

Then it hit him. The ocean. She wasn't drowning.

Around them, the thugs along with the chemist were already fast scattering and fleeing away from the scene. A heavy dilemma befell his shoulders, made him grind his teeth in frustration.

Chit.

He rushed at her, his mind cycling fast through options. Not many realistic. Dagon couldn't just summon a massive aquarium and toss her in it. But fighting crime in the underbelly of Coruscant had taught him a great deal about situation awareness and using the landscape around in his favor. Sprinklers. The Force heeded his call before the thought had even passed through his mind.

Multiple pipes above their head whined before they gave in with a loud crash and water spurted out. Dagon slid down next to her, picked her in his arms, and turned her over on her back. Without even a second thought if she, or whatever hid within her, would lash out.

"Breathe, breathe, breathe..." he repeated, almost inaudibly, as water splashed over them from above. The Force around him, instinctively, reaching to embrace her with tranquility.

Muffled alerts blared at the back of his mind. The water, most likely, would end at some point, but he couldn't think about that.

It was all about the now.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

By the time Dagon approached, Damsy’s dorsal fin had already emerged from her skin, ripping its way down her spine. That long piece of humanoid flesh lay on the floor where it had fallen spent when he took her into his arms, the first and last of her molt. And when the two were quickly, completely saturated, her boots began to burst at their leather seams. A finely pleated frond of silver-blue blossomed in their wake, in between her feet until two were one. The innermost silhouettes of legs likewise finished zipping themselves together, leaving torn ribbons of cloth laying over their collection.

She would have been screaming if she had the extra air. She might not have shifted for months, but the experience was not one to simply seep between synapses. It was as painful a process as it looked – would be even if she had been able to breathe easy. Not, made it worse. So much worse.

As did the rain, in part rather than entirely. It was water, but it was fresh water. Her gills gulped down all the downpour they could; the liquid stung going in slightly less than it did oozing back out. The scaleless blubber around them puckered with red-hued hives and salt-like crust.

Suffocators couldn’t be choosers. At least she was breathing, but she wouldn’t be able to take much more of this either.

Damsy clung to Dagon, battling hard to connect her mind's will with the newfound control of body even through both bouts of pain. She won a small battle; fingertips – not nails – that had calcified into talons lay harmlessly across his back and around his arm. The sithspawn’s nerves began to calm as her every fascia, muscle, piece of cartilage acclimated to its new orientation. As her mind fog lifted, she reached realizations both similar and different than Dagon’s, and she was able to take hold of the enveloping light once again. It restored her own power, which she focused into herself.

Slight hums reverberated from her body and dark clouds rolled over her aura. The darkside again, though but not as pressuring a presence as before. It was her, not it. Shadowy, lightless, frigid, and sucking like a hopeless vacuum, but not maleficent.

Dagon might have felt the soft shocks of static, but not much else. A network of electrons danced from her hands over her body. Little by little, the pools on her skin became steam barely visible at first and then suddenly unmistakable as rising clouds into the air. At their zenith, the energy collected in a field that shielded the pair from the sprinklers.

Was it even Force Tempest so…defaced? Stripped of its sadism and given control?

As she began to shift back, pulled herself away from Dagon in time to convulsed again and collapse to the floor. The dorsal fin buried itself back into her skin, talons become fingers again, but her tail flute shed itself. She flipped herself over with reseparated thighs and breathed a sigh heavy in relieved effort.

Very little was left of her outfit, so she tried not to move any further. She began to speak instead, staring up at one of the broken pipes that only now dripped water at spaced intervals. No carefree quip came across her mind. Just as well. It wasn't the time for that, what, in the wake of an attempted murder.

Instead:

“I’m, uh—”

She stopped herself just to trying again with more emphasis on the first word.

“I’m Damsy.”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Her shifting, the linger presence of the dark side - it all reminded him of Kai, the odd sithspawn he had...saved and brought to Coruscant from Dahrtag; only this one wasn't taking his appearance. Some silver lining that is. The thoughts came and left, his own mind focused on manipulating the flow of the water at her. The talons on his back loosened, the convulsing began to cease and they seemed to be at the final stretch. So was the water and what then-

Hums resonated from the woman. Hums, like rolling waves, growing darker. A frown slowly converging on his brow, alertness starting to sound louder. Yet, no backlash came out it; only faint static shocks that tickled his skin, her hands galvanized, the electricity extending its dance over her body evaporating the dampness before the dynamization formed a protective layer against the water. The rising questions were answered when the convulsions began once more and she left his embrace.

Panic began to build up until he saw the aquatic features begin to morph and give way back to familiar characteristics of the dark-skinned near-human. Through the Force, the Jedi sensed the pure torment of the change, it made him squint and nearly made him groan. The reverberating suffering held him in a place, oblivious for a few seconds to the fact that there were barely any clothes left on her. Only when she began to speak did he snap out of it.

Damsy.

Dagon hastily slipped off his leather jacket, it had held off some of the water from breaching but not as much as he had hoped to. The padawan laid it out over her exposed form, "Here, it's still a bit wet but-- ....yeah"

She lived!

Just in time as the final drops of the water from the pipes dripped down the cold floor of the warehouse.

"I'm Dagon-- Dag." he introduced himself, "How're you feeling?" concern still evident in the undertones of his voice. His thoughts went back and forth between the chemist who had escaped with the last lead of his investigation and the curious case of Damsy. He settled on the latter; he wanted to say it was out of lack of choices but even he knew he had an unhealthy knack for trying to save people.

He remained crouched beside her, his eyes locked on her, "Need to get you somewhere you can dry up and I guess some clothes would also be a good idea. I've got a...place not far from here." more like a safehouse he used when he was deep-diving into a case for days, weeks or even months in the lower levels of Coruscant. Without really being aware of it, Dagon was taking the reigns. Again. Maybe the remarks about his natural leadership weren't really meant as jokes.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Propping herself up off the floor with one elbow and covering her chest with the other, Damsy accepted the jacket with her first hand. It's aight, she thought but didn't say. If she could barely even hold eye contact with him, how was she going to have a conversation? Turning from him and dressing started to dampen the shame gnawing a hole in her stomach. The feeling was a few fold:

Her bare skin crawled with the anticipation of needles. Medical implements. She had spent twenty some too many years as a Kaminoan experiment free to put in a bacta tank and poke and prod.

It had never gotten easier to let people see her shift. From the moment she set off to explore the greater Confederacy, one offworlder had turned into a handful had turned into entirely too many. Their collective humanity, truer than hers in virtually every way, never stopped haunting her. Before today, she would have said she had long since stopped counting those ghosts, but it was difficult to not mind this newest set of bright eyes staring her down.

It felt like Dagobah all over again. To be suddenly swallowed up by part of yourself, one that you had been in control of for years...well. This shark had almost drowned once, caught in an ocean current stronger than she could swim, and it felt like that. None of the same physicals dangers she remembered surrounded her now - no raging whirlpool, no jagged rocks - but she still felt them. Rather their effects, the overwhelming pressure where her gills had sutured and the adrenaline rush to her mind. It whispered to her that this Jedi, like all of them, was dangerous. That crashing into him would start a darkside hemorrhage she couldn't hope to stop.

Maybe that was what she wanted, but it wasn't what she could survive.

And, tides dammit, he was being nice about it all. The attempted murder, the plan foiling, the split personality, the metamorphosis. What a tactic.

"How're you feeling?"

Dammit, he asked a question.

She turned back around, clutching his jacket closed with one hand and half expecting a lightsaber to the gut. Bits of steam harmlessly rolled off the leather to dissipate into the air. She cleared her throat of its dry, crackly aquatic character, and answered, "Peachy, 'side the rashes." She was only being slightly facetious; though her body was battered, a pleasant and physical lightness ran through it too. It felt nice to be rid of Syreni, even if just for the time being. "Uh, thanks, dog." Did she know it was Dag? Perhaps. Was she simply avoiding his name? Even more perhaps.

"I've got a...place not far from here."

Then Damsy laughed. She still wouldn't meet his eyes. "You always try to pick up the sithspawn ladies, or am I just that lucky?" The quip absent before rushed back now, though it did little to alleviate the awkwardness settling like mud on the abyssal floor. "So do I." She started to stand, pulling her legs under and maneuvering until she was crouching on her feet. "Just need a minute." After a quick scan of the room, and a quiet sniff at the air, she pointed generally towards a stack of crates untouched by their brawl. "If you hup two, you might still catch them. I won't get in your way again."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The reluctance to eye contact, the pause before speaking, the deliberate mispronunciation of his name, the witty remarks - he snorted in amusement. Even if Damsy had, just a moment ago, attempted to kill him, Dagon couldn't help but embrace her light-hearted cheekiness. It was all more amusing due to the fact she'd just ripped her clothes off and now wore an oversized jacket of a Jedi over her. When she had confirmed his sithspawn suspicions with an off-handed quip, the padawan pushed hard the rising concern and dread underneath the smirk on his face.

He followed her pointed finger, the smile growing thinner as she reminded him of the reason he had initially ventured here. Dagon shook his head, "I'll catch up with those later." Dagon replied coarsely as he stood back on his feet. The long night's exhaustion coming back to settle for good.

The Jedi offered her a hand to stand up, "Hope you've got a good drier for that jacket back at your place." he said with the lopsided smirk making a return. As much as he wanted to follow the thugs, and even more to lay his head down for a rest, Dagon couldn't leave his eyes off from a sithspawn potentially running amok on Coruscant.

He knew perfectly well the dark side lied dormant only for a time.

And when it came back for Damsy, Dagon was obliged to be there.

As any Jedi would.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Dank farrik.

What she had just said wasn't meant as a vice versa suggestion, but a rejected invitation.

He was kinda dense for all his heroics, huh?

She wasn't going to take his hand until her legs started shaking even as she crouched, but then she had no choice - not if she didn't want to let go of the jacket anyway. All things considered, she pulled away not a moment later than she could. Something kept her within meters of him though - an ache permeating her every muscle. There was simply not enough kinetic energy in the universe that could help Damsy shake a Jedi tail from here to her place. She guessed she just had to take him home then.

"Hope you've got a good drier for that jacket back at your place."

"Shouldn't hold your breath," she muttered as she walked over to where her trident lay. Sticking her now-bare foot under the shaft and extending her free hand, she flicked the weapon up to catch it. Yes, she could have summoned it with the Force too, but she had been handling her arms in a more mundane manner long before she became Sensitive. "Please tell me you got a speeder." She turned back towards him, huffing, after collapsing her trident. The only thing to do was hold it, as the belt loops that normally did the job hung busted open at her side. Only now did she look to him. "It's been a long half hour."

Or so. Like he didn't know.

…

Hopefully, Dagon would get lost behind her as she pushed through the semi-dense crowd leading towards her apartment building. The numbers thinned substantially when Damsy led the way inside. It was easy enough to visually track the sithspawn as she wound up the narrow staircase between her neighbours crowding around, but perhaps he'd get distracted by some of their obvious illegal dealings.

He did have bigger, and literal, fish to fry, though.

When she looked over her shoulder in front of her door, she repressed the urge to sigh; he had kept up after all, so she turned back to the biometric hand scanner, took her free hand off his jacket's NJO patch, and put it to the screen. Orange light pulsed over her skin in an uneven wave. The waiting - her landlord kept saying there was nothing wrong with his tech; that it was just a bit sleepy - was silent until she realized she had something she ought to say. "'ey, fair warning, Dragon." Now, that one, whether he believed it or not, was unintentional. A Freudian slip as she thought about what lay inside her pad - rather, its den. "I have a pet. You'll get 'long great, 'm sure. Real similar. Blue-eyed, clingy, must got a fethin' death wish." Kinda cute, she didn't add.

Finally, a lackluster tone announced the scan's success. The door then slid open. Damsy gestured insistence that he enter first. The interior was surprisingly quaint, especially against a backdrop which calling a slum would put it nicely. While none of her furniture pieces were particularly nice, neither were they quite dilapidated, nor neglected. A good measure of controlled chaos slightly echoed a military veteran's cleanliness habits:

Fluffed pillows and a hexagonally-folded blanket on a sofa nearly bursting at the seams. Hardwood swept but stained by water damage and something crimson. No dishes in the kitchen sink. Bed probably freshly made with raggedy dressings.

As if on cue, one of said pillows toppled over and an iridescent blue blur spilled out onto the floor. It came around the entryway corner on four stubby legs and brayed a squeaky bray. "There's Kezi. Go on - make friends, make yourself at home. Be right back." Damsy wove around her pet and disappeared the way she had come, leaving the miniature dragon to stare with canted head down the short corridor at Dagon.

Like a breath of fresh, overworld air, another Force presence not particularly light nor dark radiated from her.

Dagon Kaze