The Unseen Slave

[Worm 20]

[member=Vrag]

---

It sat there. In the control room. With its tormentors dead at its feet.

---

This had been the first time it had entered the darkened room with all the monitors - it was never let into this part of the place before. Some of the monitors were now splashed with blood. Not its. None of it was its blood, it just... killed them. It had slaughtered them, and beat them, strangled and slashed. It didn't know how to use a blaster, just that they were dangerous to it, and could cause pain. Then again, none of the guards had even so much as pointed one at it.

It had started in a solitary cell. The guard had come to take it away, to sell it. But the guard had not noticed it, tucked in a corner. The cell had been empty, the door left unlocked in the panic that ensued. So it had walked out. Careful at first, seeing a chance, but not believing. Then, as guards walked right past it, it wished they wouldn't notice it. And they didn't. They just... carried on. Talking excitedly about the "worm" that had somehow broken out of a locked cell. A worm?

It went to the only place it knew, back towards its cell. And then it saw the other prisoners. How it hated them. A burning anger at their weakness, at everything that they represented. So it walked up to them, and hit one. Surprisingly, the slave was just... surprised at the pain. He didn't look at it, or do anything more than rub the place he had been hit. So it hit him again. And again. And again...


At one point, the guards came down to check on the apparent riot happening in the slave pens. But there was no riot, just frightened slaves, and dead slaves. Their faces horribly mangled, caved in. Their necks broken, their throats blue from bruising. Something had been killing them. Something they were equipped to deal with.


It looked on as the guards examined the bodies. It was standing right next to them, yet they had not reacted to it in any way, only showing dismay and worry at the sight of the dead slaves. So, it dared. It dared to take one of the stun batons. It dared to flip the switch. It dared to hit one of the guards. Again. And again. Until he was reduced to a corpse dancing with electricity. It did so with the others, then it left through the door, using one of the cards the guards had.

It could go anywhere. So it went everywhere. The whole place. It cleared room after room, revelling in the pain its tormentors felt, and feeling the satisfying end of their lives draw near. The other slaves were all dead. The guards were all dead.

What would it do now? Where would it go? Could it live here? This was its home, even though there were no more evil guards...

It sat down amidst the corpses, thinking.

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy3W7jpYs1E​

When the call had come — and at a rather ungodly time too! — Vrag had been confused, to say the least. Ever since she'd assumed her duties as Hand, years ago now, the woman had become bogged down with work that the title brought with. Not only in the warmongering sense — that was the part she enjoyed the most, really — but the associated bureaucracy that would inevitably follow. Now, imagining a Sith Lord poring over paperwork was certainly an amusing sight, but only until said Sith Lord noticed the amusement; then it was bound to turn into carnage. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was wasting time on useless things, and filing reports was the definition of that.

That was why Vrag was on her feet and out the door the second after she cut the line, willing to take the smallest of cues as an excuse to get out of her office in the underbelly of Coruscant. Practically dying to stretch her legs and cave someone's skull in, she didn't have to be told twice when Nergal had asked for her assistance. She knew the… odd man from her days before the Sith, when she needed to get patched up quickly during long shootouts in the streets of some backwater planets crawling with criminal scum.

It seemed so long ago now, and yet… was it even a decade? She dismissed the thought with a shake of her head donned her helmet as she rushed out into the street, waiving an escort with a small gesture before disappearing into the mass of people inhabiting the lower levels of the planet-city. She'd been down to the CTVC a number of times to check on the… merchandise, but her visit was of a different nature today. Nergal could — and did — dole out a lot of damage in his own right, but the situation called for another level of destructive power, it seemed.

When she swept through the doors after entering the code, she found the place abandoned, lights out and not a soul in sight. Her cool blue eyes narrowed behind the skull mask, and then the woman turned on the thermal filter, hoping to confirm the suspicion growing in her gut.

"Kark," she muttered under her breath, reaching for the Chom-Huun holding onto the small of her back, caressing its spine as she descended the stairs. Her strides were surprisingly quiet despite the chitin clinging to her boots, and then she was in the lower corridor, its walls lined with cell after cell.

Pointedly ignoring the bout of displeasure in the back of her head, the firrerreo stalked over the room containing the heat signature. As she rounded the corner, Vrag was met with a gaping door and a path paved with bodies leading up to a single kneeling figure whose silhouette was alight with white like napalm burning in the middle of the night.

Blood.

"You did this?"


[member="Worm 20"]

 

[Worm 20]

They all deserved it. For being weak, for being like it. For doing nothing. For hurting it.

The violence had pleased it, as much as it could feel pleasure any more, at least. It had felt good to rip into the bodies of its tormentors, wring the throats of its siblings in captivity. It had felt so good, that now there was only emptiness remaining inside. No goal, no future. It did not know why it had been ignored, but it had been surprisingly exhilarating.

It felt another presence in the room. How, it did not know, it just knew that someone was there. When it looked up, it saw a sight that would terrify most others. A humanoid covered in chitinous armour looks unusual enough anywhere. This one had another marking feature though. Its head was covered inside a skull. A skull that very obviously spelled doom for anyone it locked in its gaze.

And yet, it was not afraid. It knew that the skull would never see him, would never find him with the dark holes it had in place of eyes. So it started standing up, and took the baton lying next to it up again, intending to smash yet another life to pieces. The other knew of this place, so she deserved to die.

"You did this?"

The words locked up its movement as surely as a stasis field would. Half-standing, with one weak hand supporting most of its weight, it stared at the form, which now stared at it directly. Now, it was afraid. Now, there was no hiding. It collapsed back to the floor, disarmed by the simple question. It had been posed to it before, but never with such a weight behind it.

"You see it." The words were more a statement than a question, and a non-answer at best. They would have gotten it a beating before, and there was suddenly nothing it could do about the situation. Except answer, quickly and truthfully. The self-preservation instinct kicked in. It had had its slaughter, now it had to pay. "Yes."

[member=Vrag]

 

[Vrag]

Her grip on the lightsaber hilt relaxed immediately as the thin creature slumped back down, the thumb moving away from the ignition button as its makeshift weapon clattered on the floor. With the situation slowly peeling out of the darkness, Vrag felt her understanding grow even as the rangy man fell on his knees amid the carnage.

No. Its knees, she corrected, eyes narrowing behind the skull mask as she gazed down upon its skeletal form. It was hard to believe that he was even alive, but the white shape in her field did not lie.

Her blue eyes swept across the room, then, taking in more detail now that the potential threat had been defused for the time being. The massacre was a primal one, with no elegance to it. Teeth, nails, fists; it had attacked with everything and anything it had at its disposal. A corpse or two were even stuck between the metal bars of its cage, their necks twisted at an awkward, unpleasant angle.

"Nice work," she uttered, finally, her words resounding in the small cell, alien and inhuman as they filtered through the rebreather in her helmet. The Hand of the Dark Lord took another step closer, slow and measured, as if she were approaching an animal that might took to flight at any moment. The Vonduun covering her person reeled a little at the smell of blood that hung thick and suffocating in the air, the distinct flavor of iron and copper exciting the Skerr Ygdris like nothing else. She lowered herself down into a crouch, bringing them almost level as she held its gaze. Almost.

"A natural born killer," she spoke at length, two creatures of the same ilk staring at each other in a room full of cooling cadavers. How fitting.


[member="Worm 20"]

 

[Worm 20]

Fear. Fear was what it felt, and what reigned supreme in its mind as it gazed into the hollow sockets studying it. The holes spelled out doom for anything that crossed their path, including it. It felt analysed, and that was not a good feeling - it was a reminder of the trials it had lived through, and yet... It felt no strength to resist. Something deep inside, something quite new, was telling it of the power the other wielded, the power to end its life in one fell swoop. To cut off what remained, and bring about emptiness. So it had only one choice remaining. Only one alternative path to follow, if it wanted to survive.

Submission.

It bared its throat, lifting its chin up slightly, and closed its eyes. Awaiting judgement, and with it, punishment. Inevitable, in its experience. It had always been there before, the pain of the electric shock, or the lashing of a whip. If not that, the dull ache of hunger growing inside, consuming the sound mind instead of nourishment.

"Nice work."

Praise? A surprise. Large enough to make it open its eyes, and stare in bewilderment. It had expected pain, or release, not this. The last time it had been praised had been... ages ago. It was not sure about the time, but there had been a point where it was no longer seen as an investment, only as something to get rid of. Something that had become ripe. Ready to sell.

"A natural born killer,"

Was it really? Born, certainly, it had to be, even if there was no memory left of the event. Or of the life preceding this hole. If there had been any, it had been wiped clear by the suffering experienced since. But a killer? It certainly seemed to fit that definition now.

"Is... it?"

It looked up, still filled to the brim with fear. Yet there was another emotion. Not hope, that had long disappeared. Curiosity. Inquisitiveness towards its future. Towards the other.

"It hates them."

Probing words, aimed to elicit more information from the other, to ensure its standing in this place, now that all other authority had been removed.

[member=Vrag]

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5i3WtvjOHs​

Vrag cocked her head to the side as she kept close watch of its features, blue eyes scouring ever minute detail of its face for change. For someone so thoroughly heedless of other people's feelings, she was sure good at discerning them. Mark of the psychopath? Quite possible, though she'd never been one for such labels. The weak liked to demonize the strong, for it was their last line of the defense; words, ugly and hurting like a thousand needles, sinking deep into vulnerable flesh.

Not anymore, she reminded herself, refocusing her gaze on the creature in front of her.

"Yeah, it is," she spoke again, her tone far too lighthearted for the topic at hand. Blood and carnage had long stopped upsetting the woman, a sight so common that she could easily fall asleep in that same room, if need be, and not be afraid of nightmares. In fact, the firrerreo couldn't recall having dreamt at all ever since accepting her current title. Such a lofty name, but nothing about it held grace, or honor, or praise. She would never be able to wash the blood off her hands, not if she scrubbed her skin for a thousand years.

And that was fine. The red went quite well with the purple undertones of her complexion.

"Hate, huh?" she repeated slowly, the Skerr Kyrric cooing softly as she rose to her full height again, blocking what little light filtered into the cell, her shadow casting the kneeling creature in complete darkness.

A hint at its fate, perhaps?

Only time would tell.

She extended her arm, then, offering the gauntleted hand palm-up, a rare gesture when it came to the Hand of the Dark Lord. If it would dare take it, with its twitching claws and the low glint of armorweave… well, that was another question completely, but one only only it could answer.

"Come on, let's get… it out of here," she added, tilting her head towards the exit above.


[member="Worm 20"]

 

[Worm 20]

"Come on, let's get… it out of here,"

It observed the proffered hand cautiously, studying the texture of the armour and the small movements that seemed to propagate throughout it. Still resting on its back and hands, it felt unsure whether it was actually allowed to take the hand, or whether this was some kind of test. It had been conditioned with punishment... too much punishment, and for things that were not always deserving of it. It had had hands extended towards it before, only to be beaten the moment it dared to grasp them. But this situation was different, somehow. It had to be.

Although was that not what it had thought every other time? Then again, the circumstances had never been quite as dramatic as these. It would not know either way unless it tried. Was it not already in danger of death? It would grasp at any straw it could reach.

And so, it reached out, fearful of the worst.

As it pulled itself up into a standing position, the difference between the two became even more pronounced. The armoured woman was much taller than the almost naked man, and she was still as intimidating from its current viewpoint as she had been from the floor. Though it felt one more thing as it righted itself: awe. The projection of power was clear, the demand for respect equally so.

"What are you?" Curiosity won out over caution, and the question hung in the air as it slowly let go of her hand. It would not need support to stand. It had not been weakened that much, and even if it had, it would be unwise to show it, lest it be judged too weak to live.

The question stirred something inside for it. It may as well have been posed to it, and it was not sure how it would answer. What was it now? It had been a slave, but that seemed to be in the past. What was it now?

[member=Vrag]

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZahXI5sDq8​

Its hand was small, and wiry, and not all that powerful as he placed it in hers, but there was a strength in it nonetheless. Perhaps not in the appendage itself — for a body is, still, just a body — but it took immeasurable courage and determination to pull oneself off the floor. To climb out of a seemingly bottomless hole.

She would have squeezed his fingers then, not out of malice, but out of pride, if not for fear of crushing his weakened bone like a rotten piece of wood. The claws peeled back instead, closing into the inhospitable fist that was so typically found resting at her side. Vrag held its gaze even as it looked up at her, staring askance with its wide blue eyes.

The question that left its lips then was surprising, though not for the question itself, but the tone in which it was uttered, without that shaky timbre she had come to expect in these few moments they had known each other. A curious phenomenon, perhaps, but it was in the wake of killing, she found, that men and beasts were most alike, and thus most open, unable — or unwilling — to conceal their true nature, for it lay bloody and torn around them, clear for all the world to see.

She didn't answer immediately, pondering instead in that brief fraction of time between the systole and diastole of a heart.

"War."

Such a simple word, on the surface, but the deeper one went, the more nuances and facets presented themselves, until judgement became completely impossible. Was it black, was it white? War was red in grayscale, war was good, and war was ugly, and painful, and cleansing, and so, so many other things that she could never fit into words… but it knew, didn't it? The memory, the taste of war was fresh on its mind, on its hands, and be it large or small, the scale did not matter in the end.

Everyone fights their own demons, and those who are fittest… survive.


[member="Worm 20"]

 

[Worm 20]

"War."

War? What did it mean? It had heard of the concept, of the destruction and death, but also of the glory and gains that war brought. One to the victor, one to the defeated. And yet it had never heard the word applied to a person before. If it had to be, it certainly seemed fitting for this one. Maybe the masked woman wanted to make a promise? A promise of ill fortune if he lost, a promise of great gains if he won. Abstract thinking had not been encouraged in the facility, yet it had always thought that way. Connected concepts, and people, and words. Seen the meaning behind the allegories taught from a young age.

These thought raced through its head, freshly sharpened as it had been by the fear and surprise it felt at the new arrival. As sharpened as it was, it took a while for it to cut through the flurry of notions inside, to come to the conclusion that it had to act, not just stare in bewilderment. Further explanation was unneeded, the answer had meaning behind it, and the meaning would be found soon enough. Or else it would die without an answer. It was not yet sure which would happen, and it accepted either outcome. There had been so few answers anyway - to the big questions, like: "Why?". It had to act, now.

"What happens now?"

So much more was inside, subduing the fear. What does it do? Where does it go? Why is the other here? What had it done? The questions wormed inside like the parasites it had had to endure many times, and yet they would have to wait. Too much was too much, and getting out of here, like the other had suggested, seemed appealing enough for it to shelve the topics for now.

It cast a last glance at the monitors that had apparently viewed its every moment, deciding whether to smash them, or leave them be. It could feel the desire for violence, for mindless, wanton destruction welling up, but decided to suppress it. For now. It would not be wise to show too much of its wishes before it was sure of the other.

It had as much reason to trust as to mistrust her.


[member=Vrag]

 

[Vrag]

Her cold blue eyes followed its every movement, every minute twich, every small change in facial expression. Like Vrag, the creature before her seemed to have unlearned emotion, the concept becoming something foreign over years of conditioning, nothing more but a muted melody that could be heard in the distance. It was an art in and of itself, recognizing the traces of sentiment in the gestures of another, and one she practiced and honed day in and day out, lest she forget the patterns.

It would be so easy to simply stop trying, to shed that cracked veneer of humanity she wore so that she may pass for one of them, at a glance. So, so easy.

"Whatever you want," she replied to its question, full of naïveté and that primal curiosity that had been subdued for Force knows how long. Her answer was a lie, of course, but it didn't need to know that. Weaving an illusion of freedom around someone who had never known liberty would be child's play compared to what she had exerted upon Hal Terrano, and the prospect of doing so had her oddly… excited.

It was an eerie feeling, too, and not one she experienced often. It was interesting, interesting enough to stir something inside the usually obdurate woman. Like a cold-blooded creature, the firrerreo sought the warmth of others, that which made them tick, made them squirm, made them them; and once she understood it, the woman crushed it and reshaped it however she saw fit.

Behind the impassive visage of the skull, her lips stretched into a grin, and her clawed hand returned to her side, the clenching Vonduun momentarily appeased by the blood it had tasted upon its fingers. With a strangely fluid moment for her towering form, the woman moved to the side, cocking her head towards the open doors to the cell.

"No use lingering here, at any rate."


[member="Worm 20"]

 

[Worm 20]

She had indicated the door to it. Was she telling it to leave, or was this a ruse of some kind? Would she punish it for disrespect if it walked past her? Would she strike at the moment it left its back open to her? As the unconscious, animal brain continued to analyse the situation, the conscious took over. There was no use in worrying about it, none of it could be known without trying. And asking for a reason to trust would reveal a weakness that should not be known to others. It would simply have to be enough. Trust or no, there seemed no other option, and it had a feeling that it would be removed if it refused to go ahead.

So it took a few careful steps, bracing inside for the lash of pain as it stepped past the armoured creature. So many guards had done this before that it had become desensitized to betrayal. Prepared to leap into action at any moment, it moved down the corridor to the one door it had not opened yet. It had not opened it, and yet it stood ajar, bringing in a smell of both dust and moisture. It looked up to see the sun...

There was no sun. The darkness outside was not much different from the darkness inside, only the roof was further away. And there were sounds, sounds of pain, of survival, and of normal life - near and far. It was lost. In need of guidance. It looked back at the door it had just stepped out of, to see if the other had followed. Its heartbeat sped up as it saw something walk past far to the right, and it became acutely aware of something it had not thought of before. It had nothing to cover its form. No clothing to hide inside, to protect it. And thus, it slipped into the state of wishing to be unnoticed. It unconsciously reached out to whatever sentient being it could find nearby, and made it not see the naked person who would walk among them.

[member=Vrag]

 

[Vrag]

Ever ask yourself what it is that makes people across the whole Galaxy so… similar? Boringly so?

You probably haven't. It's a question that makes those same people uncomfortable. It demands a level of self-reflection that few possess, and those few are usually too busy taking care of themselves to ever bother sharing the secret with others. Not that the secret is really a secret, mind you; it's merely a thing that requires a certain type of character, a certain type of… constitution, to be achieved. Some personalities are simply too frail to handle the reality of the universe, or perhaps to fond of the gentle lull of delusions to ever dare tread those roads.

Either way… most never do.

The answer, though, is really karking simple; denial.

You could listen to those Sith Illusionists go on all they wanted, but truth is, nothing beats the capability of man to weave bullcrap just to preseve the little idyll they built for themselves. She'd seen it a thousand times, even when truth was not just staring, but screaming, and burning, and roaring in their faces; karking denial, man.

And she could see it now, again, in the blank expressions of people that slunk past the wiry, naked figure tasting the polluted air of Coruscanti Undercity as if it were the sweetest smell ever to exist. It was like they were all just walking past it, through it, as if it were a karking ghost.

That… that she'd only seen once, a really karking long time ago.

"How do you do that?"


[member="Worm 20"]

 

[Worm 20]

"What do you mean? It thought you knew?"

Turning to face the woman standing in the doorway, it had a puzzled look on its face. She had seen it, when no one else had, had brushed aside the confusion it had seen on all the others like it was nothing. And now this. The question caught it by surprise, and ripped it out of its contemplation. Some kind of rat-like vermin skittered through its feet, but it went unheeded - its focus was on the helmet, and the deep holes still shrouding the woman's eyes in shadow. It fixed a questioning gaze of its blue eyes on them, seeking understanding for a moment, before it remembered their situation. Looking back down at the ground, covered in cement and dirt, it wondered about the woman.

"It just... They... They don't see it. They don't resist..."

It knew, that somehow, some way, it was affecting them - but how? There had been no answer in its meagre slave education. Nothing to guide it on the right path, or to the right questions. So it bided its time, and sought to know more.

It could have tried to run at this point. Maybe it could have escaped? But there was nothing familiar around. The most familiar thing, the only thing it knew, was the woman, and the vermin that swarmed around them. To its puzzlement, all of the animals seemed to avoid the armoured figure wholly, walking in around her, staying a respectful distance away... Maybe it had something to do with the strength it had felt emanating from her? In contrast, the animals seemed to treat it like one of its own, or like the surrounding. They just walked across its feet, when it was the quickest way to get wherever their little minds wanted to take them. And it was used to this. It had always lived with them, in one way or another.

But escaping was out of the question. It did not know where to go, and even though she had demonstrated ignorance... Maybe she had not? Maybe the question was meant to test, to probe what it knew? Then the best option would be to keep it to itself. It would learn from her, as much as it could, without giving up its secrets.

If it had any. It didn't really know.

"It doesn't know... where is it? Where do you go?"

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b30z0-a1FtQ

[member=Vrag]