Private The Hunter

[Ryv]

Coming to Upekzar, Ryv expected this part of the journey to be more difficult than picking through the remnants of Felucia's blackened forests or Ziost's battered plains. Funeral pyres still burned on both planets, stacked high with the dead of both sides. The Sith Empire's scorched earth policy didn't leave much for the Alliance to make use of. Most of the soldiers pulled out, the galactic government itself opting to leave a skeleton crew in their place. The Stygian Caldera was a dangerous place. One the Sith considered sacred in the most esoteric of ways. No one wanted to occupy a world surrounded by enemies on all sides. Ryv couldn't blame them. Fortunately, his trip through had been a quick one. Favors called in through his many GADF connections gave him all he needed to find the site of each battle.

The Echoes were horrible to watch. Maynard and Loske, side-by-side, against the Jedi's most hated enemy. The war had changed them both. They were withdrawn and tired, ready for it all to end so they could finally settle down. This push into the Gates of Hell only amplified that desire. And no matter how hard Ryv pushed them, neither of them could step away. Loyalty to their friends kept them locked in place. It was far from fair. He hated himself for it most of all. If anyone deserved a chance for a brighter, healthier life, it had to be them. Ryv knew it in his heart. As did many others within their Order.

Apparently, the easiest leg of this trip proved to be the Sith controlled world. His first few steps out of the cave he'd hidden his X-Wing revealed several uprooted trees. Ancient, gnarled oaks were broken down the middle as if two massive hands had taken hold and yanked hard until it split in twain. Dozens of dead creatures littered the ruinous path. The thick, untraveled underbrush had been trampled in the passing of whatever monster crashed through the rainforest. What the kiffar saw didn't surprise him. He'd heard rumors of the Jedi traitor who'd turned Sith. Her experimentation had crafted horrors unlike anything seen before, making Taeli Raaf one of the premier names in Sith sciences.

He could only assume another of the Sith Lord's abominations had escaped its entrapment and ran rabid through the surrounding wilds. With a sigh, the Jedi Knight fell in step, following the path with his saber in hand. Every step the creature took propelled it dozens of feet forward, easily dwarfing the kiffar's gait. This wasn't new to him either. Beyond just the war with the Zambrano Dynasty, a lineage filled with gigantic warlords, Ryv had always been the little guy. He didn't take to his father's larger build. The drugs didn't help either with anything other than stunting his growth and weakening his body. Being the underdog just came naturally to him. Facing a bigger foe no longer scared him.

Lucky for him, given the monolithic beast standing center of a clearing just ahead of him.

Ryv dropped low and called out to the force, beckoning the great sea to wrap around his body and quicken his passage. From bush to bush he traveled, obscured by the canopy's shadow just overhead. Brute force wouldn't be a valid strategy against a larger foe. He learned that on Korriban. Something less direct, that carried the same effectiveness as his preferred Djem-So, would have to do. A strike to the ankle or knee to drop it, followed by another blow to the shoulder to cripple another avenue of attack. Speed was his ally. Surprise the promise.

He sprinted from the underbrush, breaking through a bush so swiftly not even the leaves rustled in his passage. Resolve ignited in his hand, the viridescent blade casting an emerald glow over the kiffar's body. He closed the distance in an instant and cleaved through the hulking rancor's tendon with one mighty swing. Turning on his heel, Ryv slid to a stop and prepared to leap up to finish the job, only to find it hadn't moved at all. His gaze flickered from it to an inky blackness in human form. One he recognized intimately.

"Loske?"

Loske Treicolt | Maynard Treicolt | Rhook Mandragoran | Auteme | Bernard of Arca ​

 

[Loske Treicolt]

WE RISE
OUTER RIM | UPEKZAR
PARASITE

​

There is strength within you. Accept it. Give yourself permission to take it, to use it, and become something the galaxy has never seen before.

Accepting the generosity of the Lady of Secrets had not come without a price. The broken Jedi’s toll was collected through subservience. An existence committed to testing, stressing, pushing, learning –– a familiar cycle of experimentation for the would-be clone.

Unity between the Jedi and symbiote was tenuous and unlikely at first. The achievement had taken days of microdosing horror and fear against the Jedi’s mind. Loske had resisted and denied until her drive was bankrupt and misconstrued. The demarcation of one thing after another failed day by day. Memories she’d relied on had been mutated into reflections she could no longer trust. The only promise she could –– they could –– find solace in was themselves and their ambition. The promise to grow together, to strengthen, become something unseen.

Each fatalistic day was dedicated to advancing closer and closer to actualizing that vision, a seed of potential planted by the great experimenter; Taeli Raaf. Loske’s degenerated mind was barely a surface introduction to the entirety The Lady of Secrets command influence. The isolated experiment’s training regime was only exposed to a fraction of Raaf’s empire.

Beyond empathetic conditioning –– tied closely to Taeli’s own experiences –– Raaf ensured masters from the widespread Order of Shadows had their hand in training and preparing the symbiote to embody darkness and physical prowess. Enigmas that drew out her Jedi conditioning and forced it to work in tandem with a more...primal response. Even with rigorous priming, the scales between the pair remained unbalanced, favouring the pull of the monster. Each time, just when they thought Loske’d be lost entirely, Raaf reached in and ensured there was more quality in the bioengineered partnership. A prisoner in her own mind, suspended in shrouded consciousness that only bolstered when the other component of self existed.

Instances that forced primal, adrenalized reactions were best to force the co-consciousnesses to work together. Their synchronization made the hunt swift –– but not without error. At the climax, the several-meter-tall creature had crushed the venomous experiment’s legs. In riposte, the unthinking darkside embodiment evidenced a concussive force that crushed the colossal carnivore’s skull in, and in a painful flicker, teleported from its grip to the ground. The rancor’s contention in brutality had been exhilarating, but exposed room for improvement to the nascent merger.

Loske wheezed into the grass, the burning of their mangled limb overrode her senses. With unhesitating competence, the second skin began to work. Metal and ash filled her taste buds, her own blood – their own blood – trickled from her nose, somewhere in her mouth, and down her chin, and she swallowed it. The fracture was re-knitting itself. Faster than it had the first, second, third time she’d sustained breakage. This repair was perhaps the quickest to date. Black flesh interweaving against bruised peach, bone melting together as though it were liquid and reinforced back to full strength. Enough to stand when a sound that didn’t belong to the rainforest ran through them.

"Loske?"

Suddenly, she felt exposed and uncertain. Their shared mind slid back somewhere, and for an instant, encouraging a strangely warm association. So welcoming was the moment, brief though it was, that she didn’t even notice when the large, spectral claw nudged her almost-recognition in another direction.

Where the Sword thought he’d seen his dear friend, there was only a community of molecules shifting in a vast dance. As they stepped forward, feeling the shift in their rebuilt bones, a defiant roll coursed through the outer layer of onyx. The coating was ever-moving, alive in its existence over the womanly silhouette.

Her irises faded into a milky haze of black and white, and clouded but intelligent eyes looked out to the shape that spoke the attention-drawing syllable. Ryv’s face was an unrecognizable collection of lines. Instead, he was represented in their shared view as a glowing web on an emotional spectrum. Shocked, surprised, delighted, relieved, determined, expectant… while this particular medley of feelings wasn’t synonymous with how she’d felt him before, there was a signature to his existence. One that traced distances back in the recesses of her mindscape; enough for the mutual psyches to draw familiarity and make the association necessary to acknowledge that this was a threat. This was denial. This was something that would intrude on their ambition.

He must be denied. The creature tightened in preparation, flexing their talons expectantly. Warily, it looked in the direction of the humming sabre, then back at the rancor. The puniness of the human in juxtaposition to the massiveness of the rancor was humorous.

The monster found the comparison delightful and chuckled darkly.

With a voice made from smoke and muscle, they refuted the attempt to identify: No.

But in the back of their mind, the prisoner clawed to tip the scales more in her favour, desperately whimpering y––yes!


Somewhere in between the denial and plead, their wires crossed. Recognition had been achieved, but the following reaction was misconstrued in the struggle for dominance. The predatorial assessment of Ryv’s approach meant they had to act first. Loske was always the one to reach out, hug, kiss, touch, first. This behavioural acknowledgement was accepted.

The means of outreach, however, was far more hostile. A whipwind of sinew stretched out from over her shoulder, accelerating quicker than she could run toward the wrist of the Knight. If Loske had less control, it might have gone for the face, the eyes, the throat, but they both shared the recognition of the lightsaber being harmful.