The rain never seemed to cease in this miserable place. Even inside the ship Quin could hear the ever so faint sound of it striking the roof and walls of the facility. Even more so now that everything and everyone on board had gone silent. Normally she would have been urging them to take flight, get off the planet, find somewhere safer to hide. But she, like everybody else, needed a moment. And the feeling of pressing danger, like somebody biting at their heels, scouring the land for them, it just wasn't there yet. She knew they would need to leave, and soon, but not right this second. The damage had been severe. It would be some time before their victims could gather the recourses to hunt them. That and somehow she just had a sense about these things. A sense developed over a decade of walking the edge between life and death.

Quin walked down the loading ramp into the chilled air and steel echoes. The fresh wafting scent from outside cleared her lungs and her head already. Though she snuggled down into her light jacket to keep warm. Then she took her time walking the length of the cavernous room to a short hallway that wound its way to a door that lead to an inconspicuous back door. When she got there she slowed even more and examined the door closely. It was ajar. A cold sliver of light cast an eerie glow on the corridor.

She investigated with caution. It had not been forced open, but the locking mechanism looked like it had been damaged. The hinges were warped in the wrong direction and the mechanism had been torqued outward. Like something heavy had collided with it from the inside... Or slammed it shut. Quin lightly pulled it open with a long, hollow creak. The water and mud came up to the top of the step and lead out to an overgrown trail that disappeared into the thick, swampy forest. She looked for other paths or for some kind of assailant or movement, but found none. The foliage and swamp had pressed itself right to the walls in all other directions.

She stepped out to feel the water on her skin. She had not been able to enjoy it earlier this morning in her focused fervor. In only moments the rain drops were dripping down the back of her neck into her shirt and off the tip of her nose while her hair began to stick to her face in wavy strands. Quin stretched and breathed deeply. She was still shaking off the shock. She just couldn't rid herself of the anxiety.

Quin rolled out her neck and her eyes stuck to something interesting in the mud. Tracks. She knelt to get a closer look. They followed the trail into the forest, spread out in a sprint, barefoot, somewhat humanoid. With a sigh she put her hands on her knees and stood up. Then she took the trail at a walk, following the tracks with her hands in her pockets.

It was nearly half an hour before Quin stopped and settled down comfortably in the tangled roots of a large, sprawling tree. She was soaked through and through. Luckily the rain struggled to get through the thick canopy here. At first she only stared at her hands in her lap.

"When you serve under the Republic there's no room for anything else. You don't think for yourself, you take orders. For all their preaching about peace, righteousness and benevolence in the galaxy our beloved Republic is anything but forgiving. For us, anything short of flawless, surgical execution was akin to failure. There was no adventure, there was no companionship, no pleasure, no color. There was only work. Our sworn duty to the Republic. It was so easy. You could just turn off your heart and soul and let your brain run through what they had taught you over and over and over again. You didn't have to be human. You could steal, murder, kidnap, torture... And it only kept you up at night for a little while. It wasn't your problem. It was the person's giving the orders." she said, "This... Being out here with nobody who can tell you what to do or where to go or who to be with... This is hard. You have to call all the shots on your own. You have to be responsible for your survival and desires. When you fail, you don't fail some faceless government. You fail yourself and people you care about. You lose things you love. You never stop losing sleep over it."

Somewhere a creature croaked loudly, calling out through the storm. Quin took a moment to catch her breath and collect her thoughts. She supposed she was waiting for something, though she knew she shouldn't be.

"The point is, part of me thinks it would rather run a cheese grater over my face than be in the same room with someone so out of control," she grumbled, "... But the other part envies you. I guess that part of me wanted to be you. At first I was so disgusted with myself the very thought made me sick. I wanted to beat you down and put you in your place like a good little soldier, but now I understand. You constantly relinquish control and perfectionism for adaptability and somehow come out on top. You fit in, you make friends wherever you go, you treat mistakes like lessons... Or at least... you used to. Those things you said back there... That sounded like something that I should have been saying. Not you. I'm sorry I picked you to take out my frustration on. And I'm sorry I decided to leave Zen behind... I was... Afraid. For all the times this miserable crew has almost been a smear on the cosmic windshield I thought this would be the one that actually did us in."

There was a rustling from high above her head and the sound of claws digging into the bark.

"I couldn't let that happen. It's not just Nyrette. She may have started it, but it's not just her. It's everybody. Not one of you has turned their back on me yet or left me to die or let me spend the night black out drunk in some alley... Even though I probably would have let you all rot. I've never had real family before. I never thought I wanted one, but now I don't know what I'd do if I lost it."

Several dislodged twigs and pieces of wood tumbled down the trunk into the system of roots before Iisska dropped down beside her. He nestled into a good spot, boots laced together and draped over his shoulder, muddy toes gripping the roots, just as soaked as Quin.

"Family really sucks that way, huh?" he snorted.

She smiled just a little and nodded.

"Now would be a good time to throw me in the swamp and run back to the ship," she added a few moments later.

"No... No I'm not gonna do that. I didn't really mean... The anger... er, whatever that was. Fuck, I dunno. You said it. That wasn't really me talking back then," he said.

"I get it," she replied.

"I'm sorry. I..." he shrugged and put his face in his hands, "I shouldn't have said that stuff. None of it was true. I don't know why I said that. I don't know why... It all just let loose like... like... something that lets loose and then I couldn't shut up, I just wanted someone or something to suffer like that would make it fixed or some bullshit, but I know you can't fix things like that, I know it doesn't help and I think the word I was looking for was volcano, but it all turned out alright even though I fucked it up and--"

"Breathe! Breathe,"Quin stopped him, "It's fine. I know you didn't mean it. That kind of thing happens in high stress situations. Just calm down, alright? I forgive you."

"How do you do that?" his voice was muffled as he buried his head further into his arms, "Give whole pretty speeches with lessons and feelings and shit? I mean, damn. How are you always so... so... put together? Comin' out here looking all... like that after all that and you're just... just like that."

"Iisska..."

"I saw my reflection a few days ago and I jumped out of my skin because I thought someone stowed away on the ship... I didn't recognize myself... Now I don't even recognize my words or thoughts. I don't feel like me. You want to learn to give up control? Not having enough to even keep yourself together is just as bad as having your fucking shits scheduled by the Republic."

"It's not easy. Believe me. I know how it feels. The amount of terrible things you've managed to survive makes you one in a billion. Coming from someone who has seen her fair share of people lose it in the face of adversity, I'd say you've done remarkably well. As for the lengthy monologues and keeping myself in one gorgeous piece, well that's just talent."

Iisska groaned at her.

"I'm sorry," she chuckled, "Iisska, you're still you. Maybe the you that fell into the wrong end of a wood chipper, but still you. I'm not going to blame you for cracking a little under pressure. Nobody is. Now, if you want to start putting yourself back together then I recommend comming back to the ship with me, getting off the planet before the HKs find us and taking a little vacation. Maybe we find you a girl and some drink and you blow off some steam. And maybe you come talk to me if you start feeling like this again. Okay?"

"Okay."

Iisska sniffed hard and stood up before giving Quin a hand.

"Just not the girl part," he added.

"What? Why not? I know a good one. She's--"

"Just, don't. I'm not so comfortable around... I just don't usually ever... I mean I used to. You know. All the time. With women. And I was good at it too... That stuff..."

"Oh? You-- Oh. OH! Holy shit! No way!"

"Hey! Don't even start! What!?"

"You're absolutely a--"

"NO!"

"It's all over your face! This is priceless!"

"No! Quin, please. Just shut up about it, please. We never talked about it. Got it?"

"Fine, fine. My lips are sealed."

-As narrated by Zen-

On the planet of Nal Hutta, a place with no buttah, our heroes sat in the rain, that which was their bane, after blowing up a factory, like the...dick-tory they were...I give up on the rhymes, stop making me do this Marquis.

The assholes were now in the den in front of a fire. Iisska, Quin, Marquis, Cheshik, Nyrette, Trinity, and the mighty dictopus that is Zen, sharing stories and getting blind stinking drunk. Tarisian black ale is involved. This'll be good.

"I don't... no. The last time I drank this stuff I wound up naked and hanging over a bottomless void upsidedown," Iisska eyed the ale with some trepadation.

"Don't be a wimp." Nyrette said, grabbing a tankard and turned up the nozzle on the glass keg of Tarisian ale. "Zen, where the void do you keep buying this stuff? It's ludicrously expensive."

"Who says I buy it? I'm a man of taste, Nyrette, and my pallate demands that the ale be stolen. That is the best way to enjoy it." He smirked and leaned back on the couch in front of the fire."

"We are rich now with friends here and happy tidings and yet you steal ale still?" Cheshik mused. "Is that not Irony or am I getting irony wrong again?" He said, looking at Quin as Nyrette passed out the tankards to everybody.

Quin shook her head, "No, Cheshik that's not--"

"Isn't irony, like, something that's made of metal? Metaly?" Iisska interrupted her.

"Oh! That must be it, correct?" Cheshik agreed. "I enjoy word, Metaly. It is strong and-"

"NO! It has nothing to do with iron or metal. Cheshik almost had it right the first time," Quin sighed.

Coming by, Nyrette patted Quin and sat next to her, placing both their tankards on the coffee table in front of them and the fire. "Oh, Pik'ire. Be nice to them. It's not their fault that the language that literally everybody in the galaxy knows is beyond them." Nyrette said.

"OH. BURN. Awwwwhohh." Zen yelled.

"Beyond our patience? Yeah. Why the fuck do you people use the same word to mean a million different things?" Iisska snorted, "It's stupid."

"You just used one right there." Nyrette said. "Stupid can me something actually bad or somebody that is mentally handicapped."

"Yeah! See!? You proved me right," he grinned.

"ANYWAY." Cheshik said, dropping the subject as it was going in circles. He looked at Iisska and smirked. "So. When were you going to tell us, Iisska?"

Iisska leaned back and finally gave into taking a sip from the tankard he found himself with... and gave himself a second to think, "Uuuhhhh, tell you what?"

"Come with, you know what I speak of." He said.

"I'm not coming with! What are you talking about!?"

Nyrette looked at him for a moment and then to Quin. "Do you have a small piece of paper?"

Quin raised a brow and shifted uncomfortably though she was smiling. After a few seconds of fishing in her pockets she handed Nyrette a small folded piece of cardstock with some old numbers scrawled on one side.

Procuring a pen, Nyrette took the card and wrote down a letter in large form and handed it to Iisska. There was a large black V on the card. "Here, you dropped this." She said.

Iisska frowned. He looked at the V. He turned it over and looked at the smudged senseless numbers. He flipped it back over again. He glared at Nyrette. He looked at the V again. The confusion rapidly filling the room was palpable. It had a slight hazelnut flavor. "Is this a joke?"

"Think about it for a moment." She said.

"I am thinking about it," he said, "You have some wack sense of humor or something, lady. There's nothing here, it's just some stupid mark on a paper. Is this some human custom that--"

There was a silence that struck the lounge like a train hitting a small adorable animal. Iisska stared straight ahead for a few seconds. Then his hand started shaking and he crunched the piece of paper in his hand.

"Oh... This is... It's a V... It's a... 'V-card,'" he stuttered quietly, "I get it. Hah... because..."

"VIIIIIIIIIRRRRGIIIIIN BLOOOOOOOOD!" Zen screamed at the top of his lungs and the burst out laughing.

Iisska's stripes turned a hillarious shade of neon blue.

"QUIN!" He slammed his hands down on the table.

Quin covered her face and started to try not to giggle, "I'm sorry!"

Cheshik cocked his head as he looked at the card too and had to ask. "This goes over head. What is Virgin?"

"One whom has not had sex, Cheshik." Nyrette chuckled, much to Iisska's dismay.

"Why do you have to say that word like that?" Iisska moaned at her. He had slid off the lounge seat and was slowly curling into a tighter and tighter ball on the floor under the table.

"Don't feel bad Iisska." Nyrette said. "We've all got embarrassing secrets that deserve to be laughed at for five, maybe six, minutes tops." She smiled.

"Like?" Zen said.

"Um...you first." She said, sheepishly.

"I'm pretty sure I fathered a daughter somewhere in the galaxy because I got yelled at for alimony that I refused to pay ten years ago. Your turn." Zen responded.

Quin folded her arms, "Let me guess. You still haven't paid it. Oh, I'm so suprised at you, Zen. Well at least the kid doesn't have to deal with you."

"Well..." Nyrette said. "I have a crush on Quin." She said outright.

Quin choked on her own spit after sucking in a gasp and went into a coughing fit.

The table was bumped from underneath as Iisska lurched back up into his seat, "Come on, I knew that one already."

Quin was able to get her breath back only long enough to scream at him, "YOU WHAT!? YOU KNEW!?"

A fanged and very jagged smile that would make a demon think twice split across Iisskas face, "Vengence."

Marquis, whom has been quiet the entire time with the hologram Trinity next to him finally spoke. "Everybody knew, Pik'ire. Everybody." he chuckled and sipped his hot oil. "As for me, I was a sex bot for two months before I joined the crew."

"You... Really? Everybody? I... Wow. I suppose you could be considered the 'knight in shining armor' type now that I think about it," Quin said, "This is becoming a lot to take in."

"That is what the she said!" Cheshik yelled. "...right?"

Iisska guffawed and giggled, "Right."

"Well. It is the turn of me, correct? Well." He shrugged. "I am into the male gender." he said plainly. "Or...as Iisska once called Zen's methods: "Gay""

"Oh, please. You need to have something more embarassing than that," Quin said, "That hardly qualifies."

"Then Nyrette having smash on you is not qualified either, right?"

"Er... G... No. No that' still counts... Though I guess she shouldn't actually be embarassed... because... you know," Quin was blushing violently.

"Oh I want to do that too." Nyrette winked at Quin and laughed.

Quin swallowed hard, looked away and downed half her tankard in one go. On the other side of the table Iisska's unwavering look of child-like curriosity had transformed into the twisted sneer of someone betrayed in the worst way.

"No," he hissed.

"What?" He questioned Iisska.

"You-- You-- YOU'VE SEEN ME NAKED! I WASN'T EVEN-- HAD I KNOWN-- I don't!! GAH!"

"Oh Iisska. You are not my interest. But you are, as they say, "hung" and you should be proud, but slim the gut a bit. Baby fat is not cute."

"HEY! First off... don't talk about it like that. Second off, why does everybody keep calling me fat?"

"Because virgins are fat." He said.

"I thought we were friends," Iisska grumbled... then looked at the small roll under his shirt.

"Don't get worked up. You aren't fat. You're... Um... You're... Aaaahhhh," Quin waved her hand around and looked for a word, "Husky?"

Feeling bad, Cheshik wrapped an arm around Iisska and pulled him into a hug. "Do not worry, brother. It will go away with time."

Well. Last now was Trinity, whom had happily stayed quiet and watched the chaos unfold. When the group turned to her she looked sheepish as her eyes darted between Zen and Iisska.

"I...uh...well." She froze for a moment before just sighing as Marquis patted her device. "I don't like One Punch Man."

"OH BULLSHIT!" Zen and Iisska stood and yelled. "THAT'S A LIE AND YOU KNOW IT!"

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Iisska nearly threw the table over bolting to his feet, "THAT IS FINE ART, MA'AM."

"Um. What is one punch man?" Nyrette said.

"No, don't!" Quin tried to stop her... but it was too late.

Zen and Iisska's neck borderline broke in two as they snapped their heads around and looked at her. "IISSKA. GRAB THE TELEVISION AND I SHALL GRAB THE REMOTE."

Iisska raised one hand and slammed back his entire tankard with the other. Two loud bangs sounded from down the hall before an old, beat up holo-screen was forced through the doors of the lounge and into Iisska's arms.

"Where we're going, we don't need remotes," Iisska growled.

"DON'T QUESTION IT. JUST TURN IT ON."

Iisska slammed that shit down on the bar where everybody was forced to see it and turned to the first episode.

Kneeling, defeated, before the black obelisk in the Korriban desert, Zen cast his eyes upward as the sun started to set behind the stone. is eyes were blackened and cold, a testament to the darkness that penetrated his very being and took hold of his soul. He looked straight ahead and reached out his hand to lay it on the Obelisk. It was colder than any substance he has ever encountered in his 187 years of life. His hand froze to the spot as blackened ice formed over it and spread up to his forearm, freezing his cloak to his skin. He sat motionless for nary a half second before a bloody red hand clamped down on his wrist. He looked up to see her. The mistress with the golden mask on his right, and on his left a second grabbed his other hand and placed it against the obelisk, mirroring his right hand and freezing it. He watched the woman turn and show that she too had a golden mask, but he recognized her. Long, pitch black hair, slender body. It was Nyrette, somewhere inside, he knew it. All at once, starting from the middle, cracks along their masks formed and carved an unnatural swath across the metal and to the outer edges. Time seemed to come to a standstill. Wind stopped whipping across his face and the sun ceased it's drooping.

Their faces opened. A deathly screech became everything he knew or could ever know all within an instant. Behind the masks was...nothing. Darkness. Void-No. Not even the void has the level of darkness that made it's home behind the golden masks. He felt ribbons of cloth tightly wrap around his ankles and legs, pinning him in place as the darkness drew closer to engulf him. He was to be one with the darkness now, with no chance of survival. He laughed.

There never was any chance of survival.

______

Awaking with a start, Zen swung his legs out over the bed and planted them on the floor. His eyes were sunken and his bed was almost soaked with sweat from the nightmare. But he knew that it wasn't a nightmare at all. It was a premonition. Darkness was coming, an unending shadow that would engulf the galaxy. Not to conquer or subjugate it, but to snuff it out.

And there was nothing he could do. One of the most powerful things in the galaxy, able to crush cruise ships in his hands and fend off cannon fire with nothing but his mind...and there was nothing he could do to stop the oncoming slaughter of trillions. This was not even a question of how to balance the force. This 'thing' coming to the galaxy was neither light nor dark. It was a creature beyond any labels or conventional trappings. It was beyond evil and malicious.

Darth Scurus.

None, Not even the force itself would be safe.
______

In the morning, the crew took off from Nal Hutta, having grown tired of the smell of muck and burning factory. They had difficulty deciding where to go next as now everything was back to normal. They had the whole crew here and healthy. There was love blossoming in certain parts of the ship, Marquis didn't turn into a maniacal robot from the power core in his chest, Zen was actually training Iisska again and they were already catching up on what was missed, plus, Zen was a...lot calmer and less of an ass already. For once, Quin might just smile.

Sitting in the lounge in the same area they were last night, the crew discussed their next destination. Marquis wanted to return to find a tropical world and actually have a proper vacation with Trinity and she agreed. Nyrette wanted to find an outer rim world and get away from the wars and Quin agreed on that. Cheshik was in between on the two and was just happy if everybody was happy, cause he was a bubbly kind of person that didn't care about where they went as long as family was together. Iisska tried to speak, but Zen said that he wouldn't get to get a vacation because they had a lot of force studies to catch up on.

Arguing as they normally did, Zen stood up and planted a foot on the coffee table and threw down a datapad that he had been looking at. "See he number there? We have four hundred seventy three million credits. Everything Radon owned. WE. ARE. GOING. CHRISTMAS. SHOPPING. YOU ALL FORGOT CHRISTMAS WAS NEXT WEEK, DIDN'T YOU?!" Everybody got sheepish and quiet for several moments as Zen chastised them. He ignored Quin's rambly crap about how they had been locked up, tortured, shot at, nearly killed, poisoned once, slapped, and in Iisska's case: made fun of for being a virgin.

"We're going to Coruscant and we are going shopping. Any objections? No? Then set a course! Christmas!"

"But I don't like Christmas." Said Iisska, crossing his arms. Before he knew it, there was four blasters and two lightsabers at his throat.

He changed his tune.

____

Taking the ship to Coruscant, they slipped by Republic security and went down into the city. The crew had a relatively decent time, not getting mugged for once and Iisska actually getting hit on by a very masculine looking woman. It almost went somewheres if Nyrette hadn't told him about the woman's 'special qualities' that she was hiding. Long story short, trip ruined.

The crew had purchased one another gifts over the following week and got a tree that Zen would no doubt refuse to be let taken down until next christmas and decorated the lounge in a smattering of lights and decorations. Christmas lights were hung above the bar and about the room, each chair had snowflakes on them, Kobel got a christmas sweater that he almost immediately destroyed for being too ugly and even tasting disgusting, snickers was forced to wear a santa hat, and various presents went under the tree. By the time the crew was done, there was more presents than there was tree. Every night the lights would be dimmed and the room cast into a green and red light that pulsed between the two slowly. Fake piles of snow were placed into the corners and Zen went into excruciating detail making sure that every part of the room was ready for christmas.

When it finally came time for christmas day, (Zen was pissy because nobody let him open a single present a day early)hot chocolate was passed around and everybody sat around the christmas tree. A tall white tree flaked with fake snow and with a big lightsaber-star-thing on top. Everybody was confused at how it worked but was told "CHRISTMASMAGICSHUTUP!" and they just lived with it. Plus, it cleared out bugs that had infested the ship as it was a convenient bug-melter.

For space-christmas, everybody received gifts from one another.

Iisska was given a new blaster, another super heavy pistol in fact, from Zen. He had it commissioned a little while back and it was custom made for him. The grip was enlarged to better fit his hand and the leather formed over the handle was formed to perfectly fit his palm. Barrel, receiver, and body were streamlined and almost looked like a completely normal blaster with several etchings and designs of their travels all over it. In truth, it was a custom made DT-57, just for Iisska. Plus, Zen had replaced the focus crystal inside with a rare white one from the Jedi Temple. He didn't explain how he got it, but Iisska didn't mind as it gave the blaster quite a bit more punch but less kick...and it was stylish as void.

From Nyrette, Iisska got a set of wraps for his Lekku that all matched so that when he was in public, he could wear a nice set of dark blue covers that went with his markings to hide the prosthetic.

From Cheshik, whom didn't understand these customs at all, he got a warm, hand crafted red sweater. "I was told that ugly sweater was gift that would be appropriate. I thought sweater was ugly and got for you. I am not fan of color red." Iisska didn't mention the 500 credit price tag on it.

Marquis' present, which Trinity said came from her too, was a heavy pair of boots. "I had noticed that Zen was teaching you martial arts through the force. I thought you might enjoy a pair of boots that influenced and aided that style of fighting." They were well detailed and outright beautiful boots, but what was special was that they had steel lining in the toe and heel. As a bonus, a serrated kris popped out the sole of each boot on command that could even be triggered by Iisska's command of the force.

While each person could have gotten him a present that might have meant nothing to the gray sith master, the group decided to get Zen a single present. They pooled their money to get him a speeder and set of armor that was so badass that, for the first time since knowing him, they saw Zenithar weep real tears of joy.

They had landed on a planet in the middle of it's winter cycle and were happy to watch as Zen immediately took the speeder out for a joy ride. Little did they know that he wouldn't take the armor off except to shower for the next six months.

Nyrette on the other hand was being a butt. She couldn't think of anything she wanted and nobody knew what she really liked, so the crew just grabbed nice things and gave them to her. From Zen, she got a very large bottle of pills. When she asked, he explained that they were pills Jedi masters used to silence their dreams and block outside mental disturbances so that they could get a peaceful sleep. He thought she was going to cry as he described them to her. From Cheshik, again, a sweater but this time it was a dark purple. Ooooh. She knew that Cheshik had no idea was a christmas was and just laughed and put it on. From Marquis and Trinity, going on the trend of "Super beautiful yet stupidly dangerous" clothing, she received a set of fighting gloves that had small ejection ports in the plate of the back of the hands that could eject a deadly neurotoxin. Cheshik started to get afraid of what Marquis was going to get him.

Speaking of Marquis, Cheshik got him...surprise surprise, a green sweater while Nyrette gave him a new pea coat to replace the one he lost during the heist. It was just like his old one, though with extra pockets on the inside. From Zen, however, Marquis received...his cane. Marquis was almost insulted until Zen explained that he got it upgraded to super heavy and had the handle reworked to be able to fire small concussion and stun bolts like a pistol.

As for Trinity, the group divided into twos to get her presents. Cheshik could not figure how how to fit a sweater on the A.I. core so enlisted Nyrette's help to get her a set of programs that would let her change everything about her avatar...and a sweater was one of the defaults as well, so, naturally, Trinity had a sweater now too.

Zen didn't need help and instead got the A.I. core upgraded. Though the programmers tried to wipe the memory to do a clean install of upgraded software, threat of a long, agonizing, death made them take the extra seven hours without pay to upgrade the A.I. core without compromising Trinity herself.

As for Marquis, her lover, He refused to get her some generic trinket or upgrade to the ship that was going to be done regardless of Christmas time or not. He instead took her out into the more posh districts of Coruscant and had a long, beautiful evening with one another before leaving the planet.

Finally, it came to Cheshik and he was feeling down. Everybody received great gifts and he was with his closest friends, but even then he felt alone without his son. In an attempt to make him feel better, Nyrette hugged him and told him that he was with family that cared about him and that his son was thinking of him wherever he went. He seemed to cheer up from her comment and from the presents given to him.

From Zen, Cheshik got something very much unexpected. An exquisitely crafted Zweihander. He had looked at Zen with disbelief that these still existed and Zen said that there were plenty of worlds out there that still created melee weapons like that and that universal elements made them even stronger than they could ever be. It was extremely light, light enough for Cheshik to treat it like it was a simple longsword.

From Nyrette, Cheshik received a book called: Intergalactic basic, it's idioms, it's words, and its' phrases. For dummies.

From Marquis and Trinity, Cheshik was given, strangely, a small music box that didn't explode. When it opened, a picture of the crew was underneath the lid and a tune he didn't quite recognize played. The tune stuck with him though.

To come to a close, Quin was last. From the man that ruined her life, Zen. She received something...unexpected. He handed her a box of chocolates. While not much, it, and the note inside describing his reasons behind such a 'sweet' gift, was his way of apologizing for the past year. Though whether or not she would either skewer him or hug him would be her choice alone.

From Marquis, again surprisingly, a new dress. The dark purple that made up the fashionable dress was almost shimmering in the light as it mingled with the golden colored patterns that were strewn across the dress, somewhat resembling wind. "Nyrette had informed me that you had only a single dress to call your own. I sought to remedy that."

From Trinity, a warm and fuzzy fleece blanket that had a design depicting a moon of unknown origin on it. A beautiful piece that would no doubt keep her warm on cold nights on the ship. A little bit to her embarrassment however...it was twice the width of her bed in the cabin, which naturally meant that Trin was accounting for Nyrette in her gift.

From Cheshik. The best thing ever. ANOTHER SWEATER. BUT THIS TIME PURPLE AND A SIZE TOO BIG. Cheshik was far too happy about giving it to her because of the blanket. "Oh! Now you wear while under warmth of blanket! You shall be like baby in womb of warmth!"

From Nyrette however...she gave nothing. There was no present from her. Least not in front of the others....

Once all gifts had been exchanged and the merriment started to come to a close, the group set up beds in the cafe and slept near each other for the night. The animals had come in to join them and lay with their masters. Nyrette had snuggled close to quin and had taken a couple of those pills Zen gave her. For the first time in half a year, she slept peacefully. Zen snuck out to sleep with his speeder.

Early the following morning however, Nyrette found Quin alone and presented her present in private.

Pulling her into her room, Nyrette held out a small black handle held it in both hands towards Quin. "I apologize for not giving this to you last night. It is a...deep and very personal gift to you." She clicked a button underneath the handle and a metal shard popped out of it and, within a few nano seconds, a highly deadly vibro-knife. She presented it to quin and handed it to her gently. "I've had this knife with me since I joined the Empire. We were taught...that should the empire ever fall, the only thing that we will be able to trust for the rest of our lives will be our knives. It's saved me from...a lot of situations where I should have died. It's something that I've held close my entire life and...well. I have something else to hold close now." She said with a wink.

She took it from her from a moment and showed her a few tricks with it, such as twisting the handle after holding down the button used to sheathe it can break it in half and make it a Balisong knife. She showed her how sharp it was as well, taking the piece of HK armor that was reclaimed on Nal Hutta and treating it like it was paper. When she was done, she handed the knife over to Quin without a moment's hesitation. "Take good care of it." She said and hugged her.

After the morning coffee was passed around, morale was high and everybody was happy with one another for once. Zen walked about the ship with a cup of hot coco in hand just after turning the thermostat down enough so that everybody had to wear their warm clothing, when, in the cockpit, there was a popup!

Quin and Iisska were in the cockpit as they entered the Arkanis sector and a bright blue advert popped up with a video showing some arena on Geonosis.

"Intrepid explorers and brigands!" the hologram screamed as Quin and Iisska covered their ears from the blaring. They scrambled to turn the volume down. "Are you blood thirsty?! Dangerous?! Some kind of crazy force wielder?! COME! To Geonosia! We have taken the most idiotic, cruel, ravenous, and horrible creatures and beings we could find and threw them here in an attempt to entertain the masses with blood!" Finally Iisska found the volume and turned it way down, though it was too late, Zen was at the door watching with a slacked jaw. The video played, showing heaps of monsters and prisoners with weapons ready to be pitted against.

Quin shook her head and said that this was a trap. She looked back to see Zen in his armor. She looked at the video again and mentioned that there was even a timestamp that was twenty years old. She looked back to see Zen strapping weapons on and igniting a lightsaber. She looked at the vid again and sarcastically asked if he was serious. When she looked back Zen had his speeder in the doorway and was laughing. She jumped up and screamed "What the fu-HOW DID THAT GET IN THERE".

Before they could really fight Zen's decision, they were off to Geonosia instead of off to, ya know. Someplace with a beach.

Iisska had been space hitch-hiking with humans long enough to understand the basic gist of Christmas and all the bullshit that came with it, but it didn't change the fact that he tended to fail hard and often in the buying things for other people department. Therefore he stuck with Quin for most of their shopping spree to get a few nudges in the right direction.

For Marquis and Trinity Iisska presented two mysterious looking drives. Small little things, easily installed anywhere a spare port could be found or hooked up, but easily accessed by multiple droid and T.I. platforms and programed with just over 500 of the galaxy's most common languages. From Quin came a broad selection of audio discs that could be uploaded into the ship or a memory core and played back almost anywhere. All of them music, the majority classical.

For Nyrette Iisska got a set of "kick-ass shades." Single lensed, very fashionable and 100% reflective. As a plus they were constructed from tempered glass and she would be hard pressed to get them to shatter.

Cheshik received a rather heavy, bulky, cold and somewhat... squishy package that had to be kept on ice and was wrapped in brown paper from Iisska. Inside was roughly five pounds of steak. Not synthesized, never frozen, fresh, real steak. From Quin something to help poor space faring exotherms stay warm in the frigid vacuum when the ship's radiant heat couldn't cut it. A snazzy looking thermal jacket. Soft, comfortable and the thing held onto any shred of heat available like it was a life or death situation.

Iisska would receive a similar coat from Quin as well. However she was quite taken aback when she received a small box from him. Something that obviously didn't take bullets or explode in anyway. It was a golden and black ornate hair clip that would match the one dress she owned. It was similar to the ones high class women wore on many of the city planets. And he bought it all by himself.

The other thing he bought all by himself (against all of Quin's protests and warnings and threats) was for the entire crew. Nerf guns. Nerf guns for everyone. He walked past them at a toy shop and nearly broke his own neck doing the universe's most excited double take to date.

After all the festivities were said and done and the rest of the crew was winding down, Quin pulled Nyrette aside. She sat down next to her on the sofa and swiftly hooked a necklace on a long chain around her neck. It happened so suddenly and Quin looked away after. Nyrette would be able to feel that it was warm to the touch. She had been wearing it under her clothes before. On the chain was a pendant.

"It's a sun shield. They supposedly protect the wearer from shadows and unwanted eyes and harm or some such nonsense," Quin said, "I'm not sure about that, but I would wear it on missions with the Republic and a lot more running around with these idiots... Somehow it always made me feel a little better. Just the tiniest bit safer. I think you might need it more than I do though. Merry Christmas."

---

"Damnit!" Quin threw herself back down into her chair, "Trinity you're not seriously changing our course to-- Yes. Yes you are. Trin..."

"If you would like to chase him down and attempt to argue your point further, Pike, you are more than welcome to. But I think we all know how that will turn out," Trinity responded.

Quin let out a deep sigh, "What an idiot. This is so obviously a set up for... something... I need to see if I can track that signature."

As she turned to the communications grid and started typing furiously Iisska seemed to stare off into space behind her. His brow furrowed.

"Hey, do you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what? My ears still feel like they're bleeding from that damned advert. Maybe it's still ringing around in your head," she said.

"No... It sounds like a guitar... and singing," he said.

"Wait," she stopped working, "I hear it. That's... Oh don't tell me."

"Yeah. Is that..."

"Yeah. It's an eighties montage."

"Wait, a what now?"

"I'm going to nail Zen to the floor and shove that speeder right up his--"

If they were going to make it out of the gladiatorial clusterfuck that Zen was so eager to wrap them up in they would have to prepare. They weren't ready for another fight, but they would be. Iisska found himself thrown head long into even more intense martial training. Not just punching things. At one point Zen bound his hands behind his back and made him focus on footwork and kicking alone. He had never seen much use for his legs other than running and jumping up until now. The soreness in his muscles and also his ass from falling down at every turn was too real. But every damn hour there was Zen with more stupid training. Running, squats, drinking coffee, lunges, weight lifting, welding the strut they broke learning to put the force behind a roundhouse kick, combo drills, dodging random objects being hurled across the room, taking a shower, meditating through some of the most skull splitting noises imaginable.

Things got a bit out of hand when it was decided that the best way to learn to sidestep and throw off an opponent fluidly and effectively was to let Cheshik test out his new Zwiehander on him. Zen had caught him diligently practicing away with it on a dummy and it had put ideas in his head. "Hey, you wont make the same mistake twice this way!" he encouraged, "Or live to see tomorrow for that matter. Mnf. Damn that sword looks sexy on you Lizardman."

Quin busied herself with Marquis in taking over the work space in the cargo hold, taking apart weapons and making sure the power output was at its maximum and that every part was in perfect condition. She practiced loading and unloading so that it was as in as few fluid motions as possible. Marquis even shared a few sharpshooting tips and tricks with her picked up from his assassination days. With the recent series of shitstorms and the couple of days worth of hyperspace jump montage training refresher course she felt almost more skilled than she was when she was at the top of her game with the Republic.

There was even time to get some sparing in with Nyrette after breakfast. A breakfast which they tried to have a decent conversation over but it mostly consisted of "WHAT?" as the ever present music was a bit too loud to ignore. Then Zen streaked through the kitchen screaming "BANG BANG, BITCHES!" and they gave up entirely... except for the exchange a smile and a wink.

Through blood, sweat, tears, hacking, some light reading and cup of tea the crew was becoming pumped to put on a show of blood for the masses. If it wasn't all a trap like Quin had been insisting non stop. Unfortunately the message did trace back to Geonosia and not some dead end in space which didn't help her case against Zen even if everybody else believed her.

Next the Harpoon was pulling into Geonosian space and landing in the space port of a large but uncivilized city. The sun was rising over the huge colosseum in the center of the city as Zen and Iisska stood above the empty stands looking down into the arena. The red stone walls and red cliffs in the distance beyond positively glowed. It would be a few hours before any fighting began. Zen inhaled deeply as the music finally began to fade.

"I am the warrior," he said, "victory is mine."

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?" Iisska screamed at him.

---

In the under-works of the arena, the crew had been signed in and were doing last minute warm-ups, gear-ups and check-ups. Quin came up to Iisska after cinching up her combat armor and securing her blaster, grenades, and a seriously sharp and serrated knife to her belt. She had decided to leave the launcher behind as it would only slow her down. Iisska was binding his wrists and fitting his gauntlets. He was going sleeveless but wore the new lekku wraps and boots and had both blasters crossed on the back of his hips.

"No light saber?" she asked.

"No. Still can't cut the crystals right," he said, "Don't think I'll ever have the kind of pref... pre... focus."

"Precision?"

"Yeah. That."

"Maybe someday. Practice makes miracles. You ready?"

"Meh. I think I have the flu," he sighed.

"The flu? Can you even get that?"

"I don't know. I feel nauseous. Have been since we landed. Thought I was gonna lose last night's dinner in the port."

"So sit out," she shrugged.

"Nah, can't now. Signed the papers. And I don't want anybody to think I'm trying to pussy out. Everybody else is gonna fight so... And it's not like... I don't have a fever or anything... I can still fight."

"Nervous?" Quin asked.

"No... I can't think of words. Worse than nervous."

"I know. This is stupid and there is no word with quite the right magnitude to describe just how reckless. Just keep your eyes peeled for anything strange and I think we'll be okay. Zen's gonna be with us and as insane as he is I don't think he'd ever let us get killed... maybe... probably... I'm not helping am I?"

"You're not."

Quin sighed, "I'm sorry. I'll leave you be," she began to walk and spoke over her shoulder, "You should probably say something to Zen about that nausea."

She continued to make rounds through the under-works, mostly to check out the other fighters. Most of them looked like mercenaries here for the prize money. She doubted they would wind up facing any of them as enemies, but one could never be too sure in a game where the rules are always changing. There was a long row of caged animals, but none of them looked all that impressive. The dangerous stuff must be somewhere else if it even existed. For a moment she wondered if there even was anything more dangerous. No. There had to be. She could hear the crowds upstairs. Such a big audience wouldn't show up to small stuff. Her explorations were called short by one of the ugly bug creatures calling her group up to the gate. She went willingly but wore a scowl on her face. She liked nothing about this. The entire crew stood at the gate waiting. Beyond it's bars was the brightly sunlit sands of the arena. The air rippled close to the ground and she could feel the dry heat even standing in the shaded entrance.

She stood next to Nyrette. She couldn't be sure but the woman seemed more pale than usual. Quin kept her cool though she continued to feel pangs of worry.

"I have a theory," she said quietly, "Have you ever seen insects fly into a flame? Maybe every living being in the galaxy has that same suicidal drive toward some object or vice or practice. The same drive we look down upon insects for and we just don't know it. Because every time I turn around I found myself inexplicably sucked into a battle no matter how hard I try to run the other way. Do you think anybody ever rewrites that part of themselves? Do we ever get to move on to another, better life?"

The gate slowly started to grind and screech open.

"Ah, never mind," she said in frustrated tone, "I guess I wanted to, ah, well what I had intended to do before I started running my mouth on something that had nothing to do with my original intention when I walked up next to you..."

Quin stopped talking, frowned deeply and rolled her eyes. Her shoulders sank in defeat for a second and then she quickly turned and kissed Nyrette roughly on the lips. When she pulled away she was beet red.

"I've got your back out there."

Standing in an ancient throne room, the Gray Sith Master was motionless, twin sabers in hand and wrapped in black armor. The darkness that made it's home in the room was so intense and powerful that the very lights that danced from his sabers were hushed until they were mere candles in the expanse. There was a throne in the middle of the room with two large braziers bearing dark blue flames in front of it on each side. In the throne with her legs crossed, the golden masked woman, Darth Scurus, sat as she used the force to hold a lithe woman-that Zen recognized as Nyrette-in a force choke. Though she too bore a golden mask upon her face. She struggled for breath as Darth Scurus had her life in the palm of her hand.

Zen stepped forward and two more figures stepped from the darkness. Both with golden masks who's brilliance pierced the darkness. The Gray Sith twirled his sabers in anticipation of battle with the two, but as they drew close, Zen recognized them. One was a woman, a heavy repeating blaster in hand and a grenade launcher on her belt. Quin. The other was robed like him with a bright white saber. Iisska. Zen hesitated as he saw his pupil and friend before him approaching to do their master's bidding.

A sickening snap made Zen's stomach turn upside down as Scurus crushed Nyrette's throat and stood, descending down the steps to join her thrall. Black lightning around her feet made the floor crack and bubble as she built her energy, approaching with a dark intent. Zen shuffled his feet a little and prepared to die.

They, too, will fall to her will.

____________

Shrugging off the shadows that played at the edges of his mind, Zen refocused on the problem before him. He could feel it and he had no doubt that Iisska did too. A very powerful being was here. One that was building his power like Zen was and could very well match him. His knuckles were white as he gripped onto his sabers. He turned towards the rest of the group, Cheshik, Quin, Nyrette, Iisska, and Marquis, and approached them for a moment.

"Pik'ire. Take the others back to the ship and prep it for immediate departure."

The fuck?! would be her response as she held her blaster close. She refused to leave after just getting here. They had come here to fight and win money, not run away. But Zen stopped her and she would feel an incredible force push against her skin that left her mind reeling. "Do not contest with my judgement today, Pik'ire. There is a threat that can crush you without a thought. He...is a hunter." He said, crossing his arms. "I can feel him, building his power to challenge my own. He is here for somebody...an alien to our galaxy. I am not sure whom, but his power is...very familiar. A remnant of an old faction of warriors that left their mark on Korriban."

When Zen said Korriban, Nyrette went pale. She remembered that place, an ancient home for the sith and the empire of the past. She had to learn of it in the Imperial Agency. It was one of the places of power and a capital for the ancient empire, and it was one of Darth Scurus' target planets from which to rule. She gripped onto Quin's shoulder and spoke. "It's insane and peculiar, but I think we should listen. Look around." Having been prompted, the party took a glance around the room to see that every contestant was uneasy and nervous. The raw force power that permeated the area from Zen and the Hunter's meditations was leaving an impact on the minds of the people. "She is correct." Marquis said. "Even I can feel it. There is something else at play here that is making me uneasy. Come on. I am not going to risk taking on some ancient warrior for a few more credits when we have enough to live comfortably for another fifty cycles." He grabbed his rifle and motioned for the others to head out. It took Quin a few more moments to accept it, but she nodded and followed Nyrette and the others out. Iisska was just grabbing his things to go with them when Zen stopped him.

"No, Iisska. Not you. You're staying here to fight with me."

Iisska's response was swift and appropriate. He tried to turn and walk out, but Zen's grip told him that he was genuinely worried. "This hunter will not stop until he has what he has come for. My intuition, and yours no doubt, say that it has to deal with us, so naturally we have to deal with him instead. Here." He handed his white light saber to him, keeping Naga Sadow's for himself. "Whether you like it or not, it will serve you until you finish yours." He sighed. "Doesn't mean you can't punch things though...and it doesn't mean that I still won't punch something bigger than you either." He smiled as they turned. It was then that they noticed that several others in the crowd around them had left as well, taking the cue from Marquis that leaving would probably save their lives.

They were right about that. Leaving will save them a long, agonizing death.

Iisska looked between the light saber and Zen with much apprehension before fastening it into his belt. He looked ahead into the arena. A fighter or two was already filing past them.

"You do a lot of stupid shit, Zen, but picking me to back you up over one of the others is pushing it," he said, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that in a real fight, I would rather fight beside my student, somebody I trust, over somebody like Quin or Cheshik, whom would be crushed in an instant at the start of battle."

"Mm," Iisska nodded, "You're right. I'm sure I can last at least two, maybe three instants."

"Better than half a one."

---

The pair stepped out into the sun and the cavernous amphitheater-like arena. Rows of seating rose up at least a hundred feet on one side and several stories of box seats, storage, animal cages and prison cells on the other. The bottom of the pit was oblong and rounded and must have been at least 300 feet across at the widest point. Strange horns bellowed and reverberated through the stone. A swarm of insectoid natives and other aliens a thousand strong cheered, shouted and raised a cacophony that could have been heard from a mile away.

"These people must love their idiot parades," Iisska mumbled under his breath.

They were gathering toward the center of the arena as an announcer bellowed in an incomprehensible language over a primitive loudspeaker. It sounded intense. The crowd cheered. He had no damn clue what was going on or what they were supposed to be doing or fighting. Behind them the gate to the underworks slammed shut. On the opposite side three more opened. Iisska shook his hands out, clenched his fists, made sure he was breathing correctly and relaxed as best as he could. His eyes locked on the dark lairs.

A filthy looking heavily armored mercenary several feet away already had his guns out. He snorted, "So green grass is sproutin' up 'round yer feet, boy. When you get dismembered I'll be takin' them fancy blasters."

The man went almost completely ignored, much like a bothersome gnat, as the second he finished a squad of Geonosian cavalry charged from the open gates and spread out on the sand. They wore featureless helmets that obscured their faces entirely and blackened armor that wrapped their bodies in strange contours. Their steeds were huge bipedal beasts that were nothing more than jagged drooling maws and powerful legs. At their sides each rider wielded a heavy spear eight or more feet in length in one hand and some a sword in one of the other hands. The spears were held parallel to the ground as they came at the group, ready to eviscerate them. A bolt from a heavy rifle belonging to one of the mercs caught a rider square in the face and dismounted him, but it was only a split second before the first of them was caught on the end of one of those viscous lances. The crowd erupted in a riotous cheer for first blood. Projectiles and flashes of light sprayed over the sands. A few went astray and found themselves in the crowd of onlookers. The start of the battle happened so quickly they were not given time to plan strategy or decide how to best face their new enemies. Iisska however found himself with a few precious moments of alacrity as he tore through the air, over the head of a rider who had been trying to impale him, in a well-timed, wide-arching flip.

His thoughts: "Not a fist fight."

He planted both feet on the ground with a hard, WHUMPH. The new DT-57 was already in his right hand and hardly a moment after Zen's lightsaber was in his left. He let loose three shots. All of them struck the mount and spine of the rider who was still trying to turn his beast around. Where they impacted carved out gaping, charred wounds and tore wide swaths of armor and flesh away. The animal went down screeching and crushed it's master who made no sound. The show had drawn the attention of two other nearby riders. They changed course, but Iisska was already on the move across the blood soaked arena.

The Geonosian soldiers were decimating the mercenaries faster than they could retaliate. If it were not for Zen, who had carved a wide swath out of the action with a few expert cuts, they may have been wiped out already. The crowd was loving it and a new surge of excited clamor followed each spray of blood and wave of sand kicked up underfoot.

Iiisska strung out the two soldiers after him. The fastest could almost keep up, but he wasn't trying to get away. Without a moment's notice he stopped dead, crouched low with sword arm and gun pulled close around him, like a spring ready to go off. The creature staggered clumsily trying to come to a stop and take a bite, but Iisska snapped out and severed it's hind leg while it stumbled over him and crashed to the ground. He twisted as soon as it landed and slammed the saber through its neck to end its suffering then put a bolt through the chest of the rider. Not forgetting about the second foe, he bolted off again with a set of man-size jaws snapping at his heels. For once the look in his eyes as the thing chased him down wasn't fear, or anger, or panic. It was focus. He wasn't thinking about who's fault this was or where he'd rather be because he wasn't thinking at all.

The wild fray that had engulfed the arena for the first thirty seconds of the fight had thinned into something far more interesting. Only four mercs remained. Zen, Iisska, the man who called him green and a dishonored Mandalorian judging from the armor. It was them against six cavalry. Iisska set the same trap again. But this time it didn't work. This rider gave him more space than his fallen comrade and was able to line up his spear with the explosive little upstart. Had Iisska not thrown himself prone immediately he would be dealing with a foot long blade stuck between his ribs. He felt it bite into his rear lekku leaving nothing more than a scrape. But now he was flat on the ground with those teeth coming down on top of him. He rolled to his back, dropped his weapons and caught the jaws of the beast in his hands just before they were able to snap shut. It felt like he was being squeezed between two sides of the universe. The steed's jaws and his arms quaked violently with the effort it was taking for it to continue to bite down and the effort it took for him to keep those teeth apart. He writhed, grit his teeth, and hissed. How many pounds of pressure was he holding? How long could he keep this up? What did death by being bitten in half feel like? He shoved the questions away, struggling to breathe and focus again. He struggled to draw on the force as the muscles and tendons in his arms started to tear and give out. There was a popping and crackling noise in his shoulder as the animal wriggled its massive head around trying to get better leverage and ground him deep into the sand. Then he saw the glint of the spear in the sun. The rider raised it high and aimed it for his skull as he lay helplessly pinned. But the next sound, instead of being steel through bone and brain, was the deep and sudden whir of a light saber.

The soldier's top half hit the ground next to him. Suddenly the beast's jaws went lax and Iisska found himself holding up its dismembered head. He threw it away immediately and found Zen standing over him. The man wore a look on his face that scared Iisska worse than death. It was grim, furious, and utterly vacant at the same time.

"Get your weapons. Now," Zen told him.

Iisska did as he was told. Scrambling up and pulling his thrown weapons to his hands with the force. Now he could see that the arena was still. Bodies, body parts, gore, fluids, weapons and armor littered the place. Most of them scorched with saber cuts. The other two mercs were down. It was just them now.

So why did he still feel it?

"It's still here," he told Zen, who seemed to ignore him.

Iisska wandered the site of the massacre as if searching for something. He rolled the body of one of the soldiers over absentmindedly with his foot. The face plate on the helmet had been knocked slightly ajar. The face underneath, though alien, looked and felt wrong somehow. As if it wasn't the right shape. He felt repulsed and yet drawn to it. With a sort of sick, nagging curiosity tugging at him Iisska knelt and tugged at the face plate. Only to find that it was bolted down. He gripped it in both hands and wrenched it away. It took a few good tries, but the faceplate suddenly snapped out of place, taking bolts and clinging tendrils of flesh with it.

Iisska threw the piece of metal to the ground and lept back screaming. He fell back where he rushed away in a flurry of panicked movement until he was a good ten feet away from the damned corpse.

"Zen! ZEN!" he screamed and continued to back away slowly. The color was draining from him.

Where a Geonosian face should have been was nothing but a gaping hole and the remnants of a lower jaw. As if the entire front of the skull had been hastily hacked out with a dull saw blade. And inside was nothing. There was no bone, no flesh, no light, no shadow. Simply nothing. A limitless blackness that could swallow up everything in its path. Iisska did not stop until his back touched the far wall of the arena where he stood frozen with fear. The crowd had quieted to a loud burble of murmuring. The announcer who had been so excited to go shouting about their victory now sounded confused and hesitant.

It was a few more moments before he noticed that there was another merc who had survived the fight standing by one of the open gates. Except this human man didn't look like a merc. He was barefoot, dressed in dark grey robes and had minimal plates of armor on his chest, arms and shins. His face was tattooed and he carried a black sword that shimmered in the sun. When he walked it was flawlessly smooth like a dancer. He made no sound and left no footprints. The space around him seemed to be in a constant vacuum. The crowd was growing quiet and nervously shouts were thrown about. This man had not been with them at the beginning. Iisska's chest felt like it was crushing in on itself and he quickly realized it was because he wasn't breathing. He gasped, but nothing. He couldn't breath. A hand went to his throat and he went to his knees, trying again to get a breath in, but failed again. It was as if someone had filled his lungs in with cement and he was suffocating.

The man stopped, raised a lazy hand toward Zenithar and gave him a disinterested "come here" motion.

Sealing all emotion behind a gate of blank expression, Zenithar put up a defensive wall of force power and negated the power that was choking Iisska. He put out his hand and called for his saber and, as it leaped out of Iisska's hand, started to circle the stranger in front of him. They were no more than forty yards apart, but the two walked parallel to one another, sizing each other up.

Something called to Zen as he looked at this beast of incredible power. The way he moved, the markings on his face, and the sword at his side. He felt an old memory bubble to surface, one of a lesson he learned long ago from his first master. A language.

j'us aras tave kojafonas nu vykti zhol?
(You are the hunter I take it?)

"kojafonas? nie."
(Hunter? No.)

"Kia nun kash zo dziuti iv amzi nu zenoti j'us tapti' nuo tave agent ant tu'iea kojasi."
(Lying to me is a waste of time. I know you come for the agent on your hunt)

"Ah j'us aras daus {then} kad sis kash nie kojasi sis kash jri errand"
(Ah. You are correct then. But this is no hunt. This is an errand.)

"nu doubt j'us valia buti gabus kia xauti ji nenx while nu live."
(I doubt you will be able to find her. Not while I live)

He stopped circling Zen, but still shifted his weight in a sort of lazy fight stance. He sighed with some dissapointment and boredom.

"Bored nu vykti zhol ja'um tikra tave squadron iv jidai anas meo dispatched stai dziutija vel than gana iv tu'iea amzi."
(Bored, I take it? I'm sure the squadron of Jedi that was dispatched here wasted more than enough of your time)

The second Zen had finished talking there was a blinding flash of energy. The sand that covered the bottom of the coloseum was blown upward as if struck by a meteor and surged up into the stands like a tidal wave. The planet shook and by the time nothing more but choking dust filled the air the stone of the foundation was mostly exposed and the newcomer had vanished undercover. The voices of the thousand spectators screaming was the only sound.

Standing on the foundation, Zen brushed off the dust from his cloak and wiped off his visor. "Iisska. Run."

He knew where the hunter was, he could feel his power like it was a beacon of light in the darkness. He bent over for a moment, removing his shoes and socks in a calm manner and breathing slowly. Once he was done, they were tossed at Iisska before the Togruta would run for his life. Slamming his foot down onto the foundation, the rocks and stone cracked and shot up into the air in chunks as the colleseum came apart. Taking a strong defensive stance, Zen used both his arms to direct the flow of the debris and send it in the direction of the hunter.

The desturbance in the wind from such debris being hurled at him was intense, more than enough for the sith to swiftly weave between the massive stones without the use of his eyes.

Seeing that the Hunter was in the tanglement of debris, Zen slammed his hands down to the ground and with it the debris came crashing down in a torrential rain.

His lungs filled with air as he felt the direction of the force around him change voilently. Instead of rejecting it or trying to avoid it, he turned it. His feet were planted one second and with the next exhalation he twisted tightly, hands outstretched and sent the incredible weight outward in a hurricane of dust, wind and stone with himself dead center in the eye. Visibility cleared almost immediately under the onslaught of sudden hundred mile an hour winds. The debris was sent crashing into the stands and walls and city surrounding the coloseum with bystanders caught in the way. The sith stilled instantly in proper stance and locked his eyes with Zen's.

Zen did not lose a step. Just as soon as the Hunter had landed, Zen was switching positions and slamming his heels down onto the sand and rock laden under-parts of the foundation, sending rippling waves of pure force energy through the ground to create shockwaves that sent spikes and waves of rock towards the Hunter several times before he instinctively started to move and avoid the inevitable counter.

The sith shot into the air to avoid the liquified ground and stuck a delicate, one footted landing atop of one of the many jagged rock spires that now formed the base of the ruined arena. Arms outstretched to keep his balance, he began seeking his target again. Finding him on the move already, he too began to sprint across the rough terrain toward the edge of the arena and up to the edge of one of the crumbling walls to make his escape.

Seeing the Hunter vying to escape, Zen outstretched his arms and sent a cascading wave of force into the walls that made it yank back. He ripped his own force energy out of the wall to catch the Hunter like a fish in a net and back into the arena. "ar j'us aras afraid kia mrias kojafonas j'us gal tezn kelias hom} kia momma scurus dabar" (If you are afraid to die, hunter, you can just run home to Momma Scurus now!) He impacted the ground again with his feet before drawing his sabers and igniting them. Something rumbled deep below the surface.

He hit the ground in a tight ball and rolled over his shoulder. With a strong kick off the ground, the air erupted around him as he broke through it at an unimaginable speed right at Zen. The long, black sword at his side was drawn just before impact where it cracked and spit against the energy of the light sabers.

Zen stood, unmoving against the force that the Hunter unleashed un him and finally got to look into his eyes up close. He smiled, seeing that he was fighting somebody that was more than a puppet, unlike the things in his dreams. He pushed against the Hunter and quickly impacted his foot against the sand again, though no rumbles came this time. He channeled the force into his arms now to push against the Hunter and force him back.

He let it happen, knowing better than to try and stand in the way of such things. His blade and sword arm shot backward with Zen's push and straightened immediately, letting the force flow off them easily, while his body twisted and nearly bent backward before delivering a powerful off hand uppercut to Zen's chest.

Zen let the attack hit him, sending him into the air like a rag doll, but he recovered quickly and used the force to propell himself downward right onto the hunter. He knew that the Hunter would dodge the attack, but the crater he made in the ground sent massive shockwaves and spikes erupting across the stadium, sending debris and rock jutting high into the air. He didn't stop there, using the force he had been spewing into the ground to tear it apart and create massive craters that lead into darkess as the ground tremored angrilly.

Despite his best attempts at speed and carefully focused reading and footwork he couldn't escape this torrent. The first shockwave swept to wide to be avoided or redirected and he found himself slammed backward into a fresh, towering pillar before being swallowed up by one of the fissures that had opened beneath their feet. He hit the ground hard, but somehow stuck both feet firmly and gave him a moment to retime his disturbed breaths. Bastard

"There it is. Wakie wakie." Zen said to himself as the hunter jumped out of the fissure. The tremors below were becoming more and more intense as whatever Zen was trying to wake was definitely awake now and it was only a matter of time before it would come for them. Now Zen outstretched his hand and ignited his sabers once more, beckoning the Hunter to him. He flourished with his sabers and took up a defensive stance.

His eyes narrowed. His sword was at the ready, held to the side across his body like a shield. He rushed toward Zen. The tremmoring did not go unoticed, but he had to focus on one thing at a time. A rush of air was left behind him as he ripped a wide circle to Zen's flank and came slashing low toward his legs.

Anticipated the rapid movements, Zen jumped up and over the Hunter and sent a wall of force power down on top of him and pushed himself back. He landed on the ground and came at him swinging, using both sabers to strike in a flurry of light and death.

The sudden pressure slammed him into the ground on his stomach, but he would not lay still. In one fluid moment he pushed himself up, swung his legs around and slid his body over his feet until he was in an extremely low, wide and immovable stance. He raised his blade to catch the first pummel of light sabers merely an inch from his face. With a desperate ferocity he blocked or dodged every attack and swiveled around his opponent moving more like a snake than a human. When he saw an opening he took it immedately and delivered a straight thrust at Zen's skull.

Zen reacted purely on instinct, bending backwards and avoiding the thrust by nearly bending his body in half to dodge the attack and rolled backwards and out of attack range. He jumped up and back into a fighting position, but threw his lightsabers instead. They circled around the hunter and came close to him, but missed by a wide angle. Using the force, Zen gripped onto the sabers and took control of them. They both seemed to take on a mind of their own and come after the hunter, all while Zen started to devote his body to dodging the Hunter and slamming his feet on the ground to further distrupt the Hunter and anger that which was below.

Sweat was begining to bead on his skin. The only saving grace he had was an impressive display of acrobatics that kept him from being eviscerated by the twin sabers hurtling through the air at him keeping him from having a single moment to re-establish control of the battle. Each time his feet touched the ground, if only for a split second at a time, he could feel the earthquake swelling in magnitude. And he could feel something big. Very big. He swept his foot out and crouched, spinning under a saber that was coming for his neck and lept into the air back up onto the edge of the arena. His guts urging him not to go back down there no matter how much he wanted this man's blood.

"Running now will only save you a small bit of your life, Hunter!" Zen yelled as he used the force to call his sabers back to his hands as he twisted and jumped high into the air. He came rocketing down to crash into the ground with a massive amount of force, creating a second crater. Behind him, the arena cracked and started to fall away into the chasm that had formed from the incredible uses of the force. From beneath the ground, the thing that Zen had been antagonizing awoke and had found the surface. Gargantuan claws gripped onto the sides of the arena and pulled up a truely giant of a beast. Having to be at least be 200 meters tall, a horrifying Zillo beast rose from the darkness!

And Zen was nowhere to be found....

A sneer spread across the sith's face. He was forced to make way for the gargantuan beast that rose from the depths of the planet. Damn him! He sheathed his sword and made his way quickly to the highest part of what was left of the coloseum and quickly observed the surrounding city. The area closest to ground zero was in absolute chaos. Huge chunks of stone had destroyed nearby buildings and dust blanketed everthing. Corpses dotted the streets and rubble and living citizens evacuated the area, screaming and running for their lives. The Zillo began to plow its way through the stone walls and slither out into the city proper. For a moment he considered destroying it, but then remembered his mission. They had a ship here somewhere. He just had to find the port.

He calmly pulled a communicator from his collar and allowed himself to watch the sheer chaos unfold for a moment or two.

"Prepare the ship for take off... and secure the port," he said.

And then he dashed down the walls and onto the city rooftops, giving the beast a wide berth and looking for his target once more.
___

Meanwhile, back at the ship.

.Nyrette stumbled into her room's bathroom and nearly tripped over her own feet as she grabbed onto the counter and pulled herself up in front of the mirror. She gripped the front of her mask and yanked it off, throwing it down to the floor and looking at the pockets of flesh that overed her skull's eye sockets. Even without eyes, she could see herself through the force and she did not enjoy what she saw. Pale...weak...pathetic. Darth Scurus was coming for her and she would never allow herself to be taken by her pets. Her breaths came out ragged, barely able to keep a steady deep breath. She reached to the mirror's side and found a handle that opened it. On the top shelf of the medical cabinet was a small black jar without a label. She reached up and pulled it down, opening it up and spilling the contents into her hand. It was little more than a black dart with a clear lid over the needle. It was a poison dart, but it was not something that was to ever be used on an enemy. It was a suicide dart used by covert agents too deep behind enemy lines to ever have a chance of recovery.

Just as she went to uncap it, she looked up and saw Pike're.

Quin didn't even wait to ask if she was okay or what was in Nyrette's hand. She lunged at her, tackling her in place and snaring her wrist in a vice grip. She wrenched at the dart with her other hand.

"Stop! What do you think you're doing!?" Quin yelled at her.

Nyrette tried to struggle against her friend to grab the dart, but stopped as she saw that it was futile. She couldn't even begin to muster the words to tell her of the fear that gripped her heart...but she tried. Through her chattering teeth and terror induced near insanity, she managed to get the words "D-Darth Scurus has Come for me. I..."

Quin did not release her arm even after she pried the dart loose and tossed it away. She kept Nyrette pinned.

"D-- Who? What are you talking about? Tell me what's wrong," she urged.

Nyrette could barely speak. She shook her head and struggled as memories that she had long since hidden from herself started to resurface. Horrifying tortures and executions at Darth Scurus' hand. The men and women that that horrifying demon had converted into her mindless slaves. Nyrette's struggles gave way as now she just pushed against Quin's arms and gripped onto her wrists. She kicked out Quin's legs, making her lose her balance the slightest bit to be able to get free. She didn't get up and run, nor did she try to grab the dart.

She pulled Quin into a deep embrace, burying her head into her shirt, sobbing.

Taken aback by the outburst, Quin froze for a moment, stuck in the tight hug. Soon she relaxed and wrapped her arms around Nyrette and rubbed her back gently. A tired frown formed on her face and she sighed, burying her face into Nyrette's hair for a moment.

"You're going to be fine," she was unsure if her words had any truth to them.

From somewhere she could feel the ground shaking. As if an earthquake had begun or if something massive was impacting the ground over and over again. Her stomach rose into her throat and her nerves lit up with unease.

"Come on," she whispered, "We need to get this rust bucket out of here."

____

Sprinting like a mad man, Zen was using whatever shreds of force power he had left to run like a man on fire to the city. On the way, he found Iisska doing the same and he yanked him up like a toy doll! It was nary a few minutes before they were back at the ship and Iisska's lekku were stuck in weird positions because of the wind.

"Take off now! Anywheres! Put in a coordinate, start the ship, get out of here! Go Go GOOOO!!!!" Zen screamed as he sealed the loading bay doors and ran to go find a turret. Just as he did though, he remembered he was carrying Iisska. He dropped him like a sack of bricks as the ship did it's final preps and primed the engines. It'd be less than a minute before take off.

"What's going o-" Trinity tried to yell over the speaker system, but Zen just yelled. "GO NOW OR WE'RE ALL DEAD. BAD GUY WITH A BAD GUY STICK THAT I CAN'T KILL. BIG MEGA MONDO THREAT. RUN AWAY."

"Where the void are we going?!" She responded.

"ShitshitshitshitshitLAPISSYSTEMGO." Zen panicked and pulled himself into the turret.

"Why the lap-" Zen cut her off. "JUST FUCKING GO DAMN IT OR WE'LL BE DEAD. NOT JOKING."

"Trinity!" Iisska choked out between gasps, "Just go. We'll fill you in after."

Trinity gave them both a curt nod and vanished from the holoprojector. All engines and thrusters went online and the Harpoon roared to life. As they hovered out of the port and cleared the high walls of their hangar the titanic creature tearing the city apart came into clear view. Dust and smoke was rushing to the air in great clouds and pillars already. Everyone on deck was uncomfortably silent.

Trinity spoke in a very sharp tone, "There had better be a lot of 'filling in,' boys."

Leaving the city to it's destruction, the Harpoon's orbital thrusters engaged and the ship sped into the sky. The crew believed that they had been able to slip away with several Geonosians ships that had also managed to escape from the gargantuan beast. Once they had broken free of the atmosphere the continued to speed away from the planet but Iisska was still feeling an overwhelming ammount of discomfort.

"Isn't this the part where we jump to hyperspace?" he asked.

"We aren't the only ones making the jump," Trinity said calmly, "As soon as I have an opening in the route we'll--"

A deafening explosion interrupted her and the ship was hurled sideways. Alarms went off, the flight deck lit up in red and the control panel was covered in blinking lights.

"What was that!?" Iisska yelled at her.

"We've been hit! Shields are down! Ship closing in behind us! It's... Well..." Trinity yelled back.

She threw up a visual on the headsup display. The ship was long, thin and jagged. It looked like it's hull had been wrought from swords instead of plates. Large curved wings reached out infront of it like a vulture coming down on a carcass. Iisska's mind rushed for an identification. He didn't have it. Never had he seen or heard of a ship like that. It was the size of an interceptor, but... The tightness came back to his chest. That feeling that had been branded into him so clearly.

"That's him..." he said.

"Who!?" Trinity yelled.

The ship lurched as she began emergency evasion mannuvers and began to fire up the turrets. The interceptor behind them fired another round of laser torpedos. The ship shook as they were caught with the last one in the volley. The enemy ship tore overhead and turned wide in front of them. Trinity unloaded a deluge of laser fire back at it.

"No! Don't fight him! We're taking too much damage!," Iisska pleaded with her, "I'm making the jump now."

"Stop! You're going to get us killed! If we jump into another ship--" she argued.

IIsska had already entered the override sequence and siezed power of the engines from her. He began the jump sequence.

"Trinity, we're going to die anyway if we stay here any longer! You get agonizing death, instant death, or slim chance of survival! Want to keep arguing with me!?"

There was nothing but silence from the T.I.

The universe around them stretched and warped and the disorting stars and lasers filled the flight deck with an eeirie light as the were stretched. Then they jumped.

Zen was in the back of the ship, near the engines. There was a massive hole in the back that opened up to the stars. There was a simple energy field that kept the ship safe from losing oxygen and kept it safe from the effects of hyperspace. Zen watched out the back as the hunter was left behind when they made the jump to hyperspace and he started to get a strange feeling on the back of his neck. His hair stood on end...he could feel something coming. He ran to the wall and hit the button for the intercom. "Everybody hold on!" He yelled.

Just as he did, the ship lurched in hyperspace as something hit them and hit them hard. Zen was thrown across the room and ended up pasted to the wall as the ship was ripped out of hyperspace. Trinity sounded over the comms. "The hyperspace lane! It collapsed! Off the port side of the ship! There's a black hole!"

Standing back up, Marquis looked out the cockpit window and watched with horror as the ship lurched and turned toward the black hole that had them in the grasp of it's gravity vortex. There was nothing they could do. He helped Iisska to his feet before sitting down at the cockpit and sitting for a few moments, sighing slowly before he flipped on the intercom. "She is correct," he said solemnly. "There is a black hole that collapsed the hyperspace lane. We're trapped, the hyper drive is overloaded, thrusters are all but gone, and life support is starting to fail...." He trailed off for a moment and let that sink in. "I...do not think we're going to make it out of this one. From the rate we're drifting into the vortex I would say we have...half an hour before we are...well. You know." He turned off the intercom and bent over, placing his head on the console.

Cheshik had run to the ladies' rooms to check on them and found Quin and Nyrette in Nyrette's bathroom, holding each other even more tightly now that they knew that it would only be a few minutes more before they were gone. He almost went in to see them but his better judgement said that he shouldn't and he retreated to find Iisska in the lounge with Zen, sharing a few drinks in silence. He sat down with them and got a few heavy ones.

"Guess this is it, huh?" Nyrette said, leaning up against the cabinet on the floor of the bathroom with Quin close nearby. She had calmed down finally, but was more depressed than terrified now.

Quin slid down to the floor as well, sitting right beside her. She stared at the floor, pulled her knees to her chest and laced her fingers together.

"I suppose it is," she said quietly.

Nyrette interlaced her hands with Quin's and placed her head on her shoulder. "Thank you."

"For what? Dragging you all over the galaxy and letting us get killed?"

"Being he best thing to ever happen to me."

Quin's mouth twisted up into a frown, "You're welcome... "

"No, really. Thank you. I...couldn't really trust anybody until I met you. Saved me from dying a horrible death...well, one far worse than this one anyway."

"Out of the frying pan?" Quin managed a chuckle.

"I'll take fire over immortality-based torture any day." She said with a smile.

There was a long pause between the two as they sat in silence, holding one another with their eyes closed.

"Getting torn apart in a black hole is one way to escape that, true... And... I'm glad I met you too. I'd have saved you a hundred times more if you'd be there to keep me sane," Quin sighed, "It's strange. I was always told to die heroically. To never go down without a fight. Yet here I am feeling nervous, and scared and confused and sitting around with my thumb up my ass. I always thought I'd be shot, or cut down, or run over by a tank or something more gritty... I guess I don't know how to deal with this."

"To be honest, I'm sure stranger things have happened to you." She nudged her.

Quin snorted, "Point in case. With all we've seen and done. This is how it ends. Doesn't it seem lackluster to you? I mean, I can't imagine some of the close scrapes you must have had... And yet you seem okay with it all."

"Honestly. There aren't many better ways to die. Yeah, we're going out in a black hole in some corner of the universe with a bad name somebody probably made up on the spot, but..." She paused. "I'm dying next to somebody I care deeply for. I'd rather die like that than die in something exciting any day."

Quin gave Nyrette's hand a squeeze. For a moment she looked at her face and then down at their hands clasped together and then she had to look away.

"You've convinced me. I have to agree," her voice cracked.

"Did...did your voice just crack? I have to admit, for you, that's the most adorable thing I've ever heard."

"No. My throat's just dry. Stress and all that," she sniffled.

"Oh come here you." She pulled Quin's face and kissed her as their physical forms started to distort from the gravity.

Within the last few moments of their lives together, the world began to stretch and distort. Their faces soon became unrecognizable and the crew accepted their fates as they blinked out of existence.

...

...

Galaxies away, far outside the solar system, a black energy ripped through the Cosmos, making the very universe itself ripple and tear at the seams as a minuscule black hole opened above a huge planet. At first, it sat silently, but then, against any and all probability in all of existence: A miracle happened.

The Harpoon shot out of the black hole which turns out it was a worm hole and fell towards the planet with incredible velocity. Inside the ship, the crew all looked around with amazement and Zen was the first to yell. "WHOO. NOT DEAD!" he put up his hands screaming bloody victory. "BITE ME, GRIM REAPER. YOU AIN'T GETTING MY BONY BUTT QUITE YET. WHOO."

"Zen." Cheshik said.

"WHOOOOO!" Zen ignored him.

"ZEN." Iisska yelled.

"WHOOOOOOOO! DANGER ZONE BEST ZONE!"

"ZEN" Cheshik, Iisska, and Marquis over the intercom screamed and finally snapped him out of it. "We are entering the stratosphere of the planet! Brace yourselves!" Marquis yelled out.

Back in the bathroom, disconnecting from her lover's embrace, Nyrette and Quin both looked around then back at one another. They both started to tear up and cheer at the same time as they were granted the gift of life before they realized what was happening and ran out to try and join the others in a screaming choir.

Coming down over the planet, the ship plummeted towards a huge forest. The ship erupted into a horrific fireball as the crew screamed with terror all the way down to the planet. In a last ditch effort, Trinity transferred all of the power in the ship to the kinetic shields and even shut herself down in the process. The shields flared and the front thrusters kicked on several hundred feet before impact.

The ship slowed down barely enough to make the impact any better, but the shields definitely helped as the ship slammed into the ground, crushing trees and carving a deep rut in the forest. They skidded for what must have been hundreds of feet, the crew having been pinned to the ceiling of the ship from the hit. The ship finally came to a stop just before a small lake and came to a rest with a sickening groan.

The crew peeled themselves off of the ceiling and plopped down to the floor. Some had to crawl down the walls while others just got up from the floor. Everybody groaned and complained of the pain, but then they all realized that they were all alive and well! As a group, they ran to the landing bay and found the animals hanging out on the walls, looking invincible as ever. Zen's speeder was totaled though. It had several scratches.

Heading towards the docking bay, they opened it up and it extended out as far as it could, overextending to have a corner touch he ground so they could slide down easily to the soft grass below. First thing Nyrette did was kiss the ground like she was seeing it for the first time in a thousand years.

"Oh man!" Zen exclaimed as he climbed down the loading ramp to the ground below. Looking around, he saw that they had in fact crashed on the edge of a lake of some sort in the middle of a huge forest. They had no clue where they were in the galaxy or if they were even still IN the galaxy. Zen took a deep breath and planted the first foot onto the dirt of this new planet aaaaand he went forward and was face down in the dirt. He hit it hard.

Running to his side, Nyrette tried to help as Iisska jumped down to join her. While Nyrette got to him, Iisska too started to act strangely. Though it was less comatose and more puking his guts out. "The force it's...not even here." Nyrette said, looking around. Through her force enhanced vision, she could barely see more than a few dozen feet in front of her. Most of the trees were just shapes against darkness, unlike how she could see just fine on the ship. "There is so little here that I can barely see. Oh. And you can't even hear me because you're throwing up...um...QUIN!"

It wasn't but a few minutes before help came and the group got the boys back onto the ship. Iisska's pukiness stopped, but Zen was out cold.

"Where in all the galaxy and the void itself are we?" Nyrette questioned the universe and everything in it.

____

Eos. A massively gigantic world located far far outside the known galactic universe. In a completely different galactic system away from the empire, republic, and the war. Via a wormhole in space that collapsed a hyperspace route, the crew has been taken to a place where the force barely exists, where blasters that were previously given power by the force are now flimsy pieces of metal, and where lightsabers aren't able to even ignite. All of their equipment would be useless here as in their home galaxy, the force twisted reality in such a way that it enabled the factions and races of the republic to create impossible weapons and contraptions that simply "work".

From the deep mines where dwarves work tirelessly to mine exceedingly rare gems and stones to sell to their allies as cores for their powerful Haemonculi, to the five hundred kilometer wide mega-forests that the avian Ruton and Elvish peoples enjoy their seclusion in. The land is vastly unexplored, with possibly thousands of ancient tombs, dungeons, castles, and ruins left to rot for hundreds of years. Untold dangers permeate the land as well, dark sorcerers create armies of the undead to further their own goals while witch hunters perform their name sake with witches and warlocks in their vile covens across the land.

But not all is doom and gloom as within the sprawling cities like Xoria, the capital of the land where the monarchy council rules with a harsh but fair fist, and Rennolk, the city of mages where sorcerers and mages of all caliber work to advance science and create even more powerful concoctions and creations that could save or doom the world in less than a night if let loose. The land is not without it's beauty as it has been left untainted by industrialization and harvesting of the land. It is truly a land of opportunity for the crew of the Harpoon as even though there is a pan-galactic community off planet, Eos has been designated as a planet in early development and thus off worlder intervention has slim to no chance of happening. With the ship in shambles and no way to actually have it in working order for a very very long time, the crew would have to get comfortable. They will get to be here for a while.

It took some few hours for the crew to come to accept what had just happened. Their situation brought new meaning to the word "bittersweet." When things had settled down, when the shock had begun to wane, and after any injuries had been tended to they began clean the debris and put the pieces of whatever they had left back together. Quin surveyed the lake and forest around them from the gaping hole that used to be the far end of the engine room and the back of the ship.

"On the bright side, we finally made it to a planet with a beach," Quin said.

Iisska detached the charred remains of an auxiliary thruster from it's all but destroyed mounts and struggled with it's weight until it hit the floor with a loud CLUNK. He set his foot on it and took a few seconds to catch his breath from a usually very easy endeavor and then turned to glare at Quin. He looked at her with a deeply unimpressed frown for a good five seconds before giving the useless thruster a good hard shove with his boot off the edge of their new patio. He walked away muttering as it shattered all over the ground below.

Deciding it best to let him sulk without her, Quin left to let him salvage the engine room by himself. The rest of the ship was dim, almost too dark to see in some areas in fact. The crew had set up a couple of charged emergency lights, but there was no telling how long those would hold up on what little power they had stored. Even working in the dark it was determined that some of the ship was in rather remarkable condition under the current circumstances. Extensive work would have to be done to the electrical grid and control panels all over the ship, but most of the necessary living space equipment, projectors, communicators, navigation equipment, and other miscellaneous systems were fine. Or so it seemed that way. They weren't exactly functional with every ounce of energy having been drained from the ship on descent. Even Trinity was still quiet.

This dire predicament, however, had a chance at being remedied. Marquis revealed to them that the ship was equipped with an array of solar panels for just such and emergency. They were stored under locking hull panels along the exterior of the ship. They could be opened and extended via mechanical cranks in the upper service passages of the ship. Quin volunteered to be the one to maneuver through these tight, one man passages to get to the cranks. After nearly an hour of work in a claustrophobic's nightmare it was revealed that six of the eight cranks were broken. They would have to be opened manually from the outside. With spit, sweat, a crowbar and many, many swear words.

When Quin ventured back to the engine room to get more muscle for the job, she found the place nearly gutted, a practical junk yard scattered on the ground outside of the loading ramp and Iisska fast asleep against the corner wall. Waking him up again was no easy task and he didn't fully snap out of his dazed and confused state until after falling down the ladder to the main deck.

By the time all of the panels concealing the stored solar arrays were brute forced open, mostly thanks to Cheshik, the sun had set.

"Whatever," Iisska sighed and plopped down on the roof of the ship, "Not like any power would have been back today. It's gonna be a week or two before we can even get enough stored for the synthesizer to shit out one cup of coffee."

"On that topic..." Quin said quietly, "We only have about five or six days worth of dry rations."

"You mean we have five or six days worth of cardboard flakes," Iisska snorted.

"Eight or nine if you'd rather starve," she proposed.

He lay back and rolled onto his side.

"That's what I thought. Anyway, we'll need to find an alternate food source, and quickly, just in case. Hopefully there's some kind of edible wildlife or plant matter around here. Better yet a city or a space port where we can get help. Or a native species that would trade with us rather than execute us on sight... Cheshik. You were a hunter right? Maybe you can help us out with that? I suggest we organize a survey team in the morning and start to get a better grasp on our surroundings."

Quin looked up into the night sky, that was now lit up with millions upon millions of stars, as she finished that thought. For a moment she was intimidated by how impossible that expanse seemed now that they were without a functional ship. It defied her reason. Then she felt calm. Though her thoughts were turning toward the imposing, it was all so beautiful. Stunning even. It reminded her of something very important.

"I know things don't look good, but we are alive. As long as we're all breathing then that's something. If we survived... that... Then I think we can survive this."

"Oh there's no doubt we can survive this." Nyrette said, sitting down next to Quin by the fire, placing her hand over hers. "We just survived what is probably the worst crash in all of our histories combined. Look at the ship, we should be dead. In fact, I'm pretty sure we are dead right now and we don't know it yet. That crash was BAD. It was worse than when the Imperius crashed into the senate building on Coruscant two cycles ago and hundreds died in that crash. The planet could be rigged to explode and we would end up alright at this point. We'll be fine." Hearing a whistle, she stood up and walked away for a few moments before returning with a steel canister and two mugs. She placed down a fresh, scalding, cup of coffee in front of Pike're and smiled. "Was going to surprise you on your birthday but you know how it goes. Constant danger and very little sleep. I'm certainly not getting any tonight. Cheshik?" She said and saw the Trandoshan holding a knife over two meters of log and carving it. "I am too excited for hunting. It has been decade since last hunt. Spear will not be ready by morning but it not matter. Iisska and I shall...." Realizing that Cheshik was going to talk about hunting for the next six hours, Nyrette looked back at Pike and shook her head before taking the cup she had to herself and downing it in one go and standing up. "I'm going to go scout the area a bit. I see better at night anyway, so I'll be around in the morning." She bent down and kissed Quin on the cheek before walking off and into the darkness, leaving Quin to Cheshik's ramblings.

Over the night, Cheshik could not hold himself back any longer and took off to hunt with his sword in hand. Though he wanted Iisska to hunt with him, the Togruta refused multiple times before Cheshik just grabbed him by his collar and dragged him off into the woods to make him do horrible things to possibly adorable or incredibly dangerous animals, denying him any sleep he was possibly going to get. Marquis came out in the night as Quin was left alone by the fire and sat with her. He tried to strike up a conversation, but an incredible weariness came over the woman and she just sort of fell over and lay in the grass. He chuckled silently and shook his head a bit before grabbing an emergency blanket and covering her up so she wouldn't freeze in the night air. The droid was silent, melencholy, as he stoked the fire and kept it alive with a little more wood. His best friend and lover sacrificed the entirety of the ship's power, including her own and the emergency power, to overcharge the shields and keep them alive. Circuits were fried all over the ship and the A.I. core was heavily damaged as well. He refused to think about it or worry himself more than he already was, but deep inside the robot's core, nagging away at his subconscious, was the feeling that Trinity may have sacrificed more than just the ship's power. Time would tell as the solar panels would gather the energy needed to repower the A.I. core and the ship itself, but Marquis couldn't predict when that would happen. Or if that would happen, for that matter.

____

In the morning, Cheshik and Iisska were the first to return. Cheshik had two large bags over shoulder full of fresh meat. Iisska was behind him, barely able to stand from how tired he was, carrying Cheshik's sword. The Togruta dropped the sword by the burned out fire and collapsed near the ramp to the ship and was very quickly starting to fall asleep...that is before Marquis spoke. "I got the beds ready over the night. Your room is all-" He didn't get to finish before Iisska started to groan and heave as he refused to stand up and instead used his hands to drag himself up the ramp and into the ship. His groans echoed out of the ship before a soft snoring replaced it.

"Wow." Cheshik said, lowering the bags to the ground. "That is most I see out of him all night." He shrugged and picked up the meat. "Is cold place for meat ready in ship?"

"Uh..." Marquis started. "Not fully. The freezer is only partially powered. But it is enough to keep the catch cold and preserved until we need it," He said as Cheshik took the bags to the ship door and whistled. Snickers poked her head out of the door and saw her master below with food. She crawled out onto the grass for the first time and took it slow at first, but, seeing as the planet's changed atmosphere wasn't affecting her, quickly grabbed one of the bags of food and went onto the other side of the ship to hungrily tear it open and bury her face in fresh meat, leaving Cheshik to place the other bag into the freezer, leaving some for Kobel as well. He would have to go hunting again soon, but he didn't mind.

Last, but not least, back to the camp side was Nyrette without her shirt on, holding something small in her shirt underbreast. Whatever she had was wrapped up in her shirt and she whispered to it as she entered camp. She looked up to Marquis, who's eye had gone a bright green with inquiry. "What do you have there, Nyrette?" He asked as Cheshik came down from the ship to join them and clean his blade.

"I'm not sure what species he is, but he looks like a dog." She let the Little thing's Head loose to show the others. It's tongue lolled out and it panted with happiness. "I found him a few hours ago, his parents were killed by hunters, which, incidentally, means we're not alone out here. I toted him all the way back and he seems happy enough. He was really scared of me until I got him into my arms, then he warmed right up to me." She smiled and placed him down. The little puppy walked around, sniffing the various things and debris of the ship that was around the camp before finding Quin still bundled up next to the fire, sniffing her a bit, and snuggling with her. He was exhausted after a long night. Cheshik looked at the little creature with a massive sense of guilt washing over him and dinner plate level pupils as he realized that the meat he had given to snickers most likely belong to two larger creatures that looked like the puppy.

"I see the coffee didn't do her much during the night." She said, finally seeing Quin.

"Not at all, it seems. She passed out shortly after you left. She tossed and turned a bit, but settled into that position around midnight...least what I assume is midnight via judging the rise of the moon. It is strange to see a moon in the sky that is not surrounded by buildings, stations, ships and transports of every size and shape possible." Marquis said, still melancholy.

Nyrette shrugged and sat down, feeling the weariness of the night starting to drag her down.

"I see you still can't get much sleep." He said.

"Yeah, but not nearly as bad. I found a tree to nap for a couple hours in during the night and...yah-curiously, Iheugh...I didn't have any bad dreams." She said, yawning at the same time.

"You had nightmares every night until Zen gave you those pills, right?" He remembered, crossing his arms.

"Right. Every night without stop. Last night I actually had a good dream. I'm not sure how to handle it to tell the truth." She admitted.

Marquis looked between her and Quin for a moment before making an apt suggestion. "I would take it as a sign and catch some sleep with Pike there. She has been a bit tossy-turny all night."

She nodded slowly and stood up, finally coming to a rest next to Quin and the puppy, leaving Marquis along with Cheshik. Marquis could tell Cheshik was about to burst from excitement and wanted to say something, so he obliged. "Alright...tell me all about your hunt."

"YES! Iisska and I went out into woods correct? We saw many creature that I have never seen before and it...."

And that's when Marquis turned off his hearing receptors and let Cheshik talk until his vocal chords gave out.

____

Right around midday, about 2Pm by Marquis' time, the crew finally started to awake from their slumbers and Cheshik finally shut up. Iisska refused to climb out of the ship and thus Kobel had him on his back to hop down from the ship. Nyrette tried to get up, but Quin's arm was cemented around her midsection and the puppy was laying on top of them, so she was stuck. The camp had been pretty nicely cleaned up, most of the smaller bits of debris was gathered in a pile in the back of the ship. Marquis and Cheshik enlisted the help of Kobel and Snickers to use their size and strength to tip the ship back into position so everybody can get up the ramp without crawling now. The landing gear was shot, but the ship was able to be held up at the very least.

After Nyrette instructed Marquis on how to properly brew coffee from coffee beans and mugs were passed around, a...very strange thing happened.

A mysterious woman showed up to camp.

The most striking thing about this woman was the bright blue mask she had on her face with a large pearl on her forehead. She had loose, yet angled, light pink hair and light yellow skin as well as a long, beautiful, yet angular like her hair, dress that was a mixture of light and dark pinks, but had two stripes down the front from collar to foot that was bright blue like her mask. Her hands were together, concealing the bright blue gloves underneath.

As Quin started to stir, Nyrette looked up to the woman and Marquis stood with cane in hand, approaching with a defensive posture in mind. "Who are you and why are you here?" He said.

Her voice was a mixture of robotic and human, yet it was pure and beautiful, high pitched yet not annoyingly so. "My master from across the lake. He requires your presence, outlanders. He means no harm towards you nor your party." She stopped, as if awaiting a command. "I must accompany you to my master's home. When you are ready, please say so."

Iisska mustered the strength to get up and walk up behind Marquis, whom was addressing their intruder.

"Means us no harm? Pft," he mumbled at the droid, "What ever this thing is, and whatever its 'master' is, they've been watching us. I don't like it. We should get outta here."

He glared over his shoulder, across the lake, to the opposite shore which seemed barren.

"And go where, Iisska?" Nyrette asked, standing close to Quin with her arms crossed. "In case you've been plastered and brain dead for the last twenty hours, the ship is here. We have nowhere to go."

"I don't know, just away from here. We don't need the ship, we can just walk. You know. With feet. I don't like weirdos watching me," he snorted.

At the mention of abandoning the ship, the death stare that Iisska received from Marquis was real.

"Yeah. Bad idea." Nyrette said. "I don't see the harm in at least seeing what they want. I mean, this for all we know could be his land. We don't know the rules of this planet, we could be jailed for the rest of our lives for sneezing in the wrong area for all we know. It'd be better to play the nice people instead of running away from a planet we're stuck on."

"You don't see the harm!? Are you for real? What if he's gonna eat us or something?"

She stared at him for a moment then pointed at Cheshik then Marquis. "Leather death and metal death. Probably won't work."

Iisska let out a groan and rolled his eyes before looking between Cheshik and Marquis. He could see from the way Quin was standing beside Nyrette with her arms folded that she wouldn't be swayed either.

"Cheshik. You're not okay with this. Right?" he asked.

"My brain agrees with you, but my squishy gut bits tell me that it will be alright if we listen to her, so I go with gut." He snorted and stood up, grabbing his sword. "Gut has lied only once, and it was on the subject of fish and raw quality. It has learned since hospital. Will not be wrong now."

Iisska slapped his hand over his face so hard it could be heard halfway across the lake. Incoherent mumbling came out of his mouth in a steamed hiss before he took a deep breath and stood up straight.

"Fine! We'll go talk to what-his-ass and I'll laugh while you all get chopped into snacks."

"While you...what? Become the first course?" Nyrette said and gestured at his stomach and smiled, turning towards the woman.

As the group stood up and stretched a bit, Cheshik slid over next to Quin and whispered into her ear. "That was burn like teenager use, correct? Should I write down for grammar lesson?"

"Yes. That sort of thing is quite important in the day to day, I would say," Quin winked at him.

Sitting down next to the fire pit, Marquis resumed his melancholy stance from the night before. "And nobody offers to stay at the ship. No. No. It is quite alright. I will stay." He huffed, unhappy.

Iisska's hand shot up immediately, "I'll stay!"

And just like that, Iisska would once again be finding himself dragged on the ground by the Cheshik in the direction of exactly where he wouldn't ever want to go ever. Again. As usual.

Quin sipped her coffee for a few long moments, watching Iisska scream his lungs out at Cheshik. A gentle little gnawing on her boot tore her away though as the energetic little pup had woken up as well and was trying to get her to play with him. A smile spread across her lips as she bent down to pry him away and give him a rub behind the ears before he started wrestling with her hand.

"You won't be alone, Marquis," she said, "this one is a little young to be coming with us."

Quin looked up at him with big eyes that almost mirrored the ones that the pup was now giving him as well.

He looked up to her and his eye seemed to lighten a little. "If I have to feed it I will probably not be-" He stopped as the little pup ran up to him and tried to jump up to his lap but failed. The Gentlebot leaned over and picked it up so it could bite and play in his lap. "I hate you." He said bluntly.

"That's adorable, Sterling," Quin purred, "I suppose we should get going. No use in moping around here."

Once they had all gathered the strange woman turned without saying a word and lead them into the forest. They followed her through an area they had explored somewhat the night before but very soon they lost sight of the ship and wandered far away from the explored area. Here the trees grew taller and closer together. Massive evergreens that stabbed higher and higher into the sky as they grew up the side of the foothills past the lake that gave way to a wide, jagged mountain range. That, however was a place far beyond today's destination. Mesmerized by the small glimpse she caught of them before the dark of the thick forest obscured the mountain entirely, Quin wondered just what could be out there.

She also had to wonder how this woman was finding her way through this forest, over the fallen logs, hills, ravines, the stream, the brush, etc... with no navigational devices, not even a trail. She didn't even seem to be looking at her feet or surroundings. Though now Quin had to ask herself if she could even see past that mask. Or if she even needed to see. Who was this person they were going to see?

It was several hours of hiking before she felt that they had probably rounded the lake. The further they went the more nervous she became.

The logs and obstacles that they encountered that ended up slowing down the group was barely even an annoyance for the woman that lead them. She kept a constant just-below-jogging pace through the woods, undisturbed by the mud and filth caused by the rain from two nights previous. She was very precise in every step and almost had a wind-like presence about her. When she got too far ahead of the group, whom trampled over everything and slowed down often, she patiently waited without so much as a peep. A normal person would have complained about the group's speed, but she seemed content to wait for the group, like she wasn't even in a hurry.

As they came to the end of their romp through the woods, they came upon a large two story oak log cabin. Very well maintained to the point that it was almost pristine. A covered porch made up the front, a fur and leather porch shade wrapped around it to protect it from the rain that was starting to come down in light spurts. The woman came up a set of stairs to the outside door and opened it, allowing the others to walk inside ahead of her and wait on the porch for a moment while the woman locked the door. The porch was very posh with many chairs and tables with candles on them plopped in two main areas. The porch itself was almost a full room, just without any windows to cover it.

The woman moved ahead of them again to open up the carved oak door and lead them inside. The cabin was very high class on the inside, with obviously expensive rugs and tapestries. The walls had paintings of various vistas on them that looked like they were hand painted. There was a roaring fireplace that had two red chairs in front and finally a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor on the far side of the room. Again, the woman locked the door behind them and she moved over to the staircase but stopped when the group tried to follow.

"Please stay your feet for the time being." She said, putting up one of her bright blue gloved hands. "I must inform my master of your presence before you will be allowed to see him." She did not wait for a retort from them and went up the stairs.

While they waited, the group split up, looking about the room and exploring. There was a kitchen, wash room, and a locked door that seemed to go into a basement, judging from the window that was next to the door. Nyrette ran her hand over the furniture in front of the fireplace and couldn't help but gaze in awe at the paintings and decorum. "This is astounding. These paintings all all original. Pike, come here." She beckoned her and came up to a painting. She pointed at several spots and spoke about it. "See here and here? Mistakes made by the artist...and here? The paint dried in a direction that's not aligning with the rest of the piece. The artist must have been in a windy area while painting this. I can't remember the last time I saw an original piece that wasn't a digital copy...." The painting in question was one of a cliffside vista overlooking the ocean during sunset. The colors popped with a type of intensity that almost hurt the eyes. All the paintings were non-digital and completely unique.

Much of the furniture in the room was of the same quality. A mistake here or there saying that everything was hand made, not in a factory like almost everything back home. Cheshik was across the room, looking at the staircase and the carvings. "There are mistake on wood as well. Whoever master is, he is not from our home or our galaxy. Style is too...how you say...?"

"Alien. Strange." Nyrette finished the sentence for them as the woman from before came to the top of the stairs.

"My master is ready to see you. Please come up the stairs and follow me."

The group obliged, coming up the spiral stairs and following the woman down the hall that was the same quality as the rest of the cabin. There were but a few doors here, two side bedrooms and a master bedroom where the master was. The woman opened the door and stepped it with the others. The master bedroom was simple yet still high quality. Aside from the open closet door with several strange looking clothing and suits, there was an oak desk with a set of pens and paper scattered all over it, various notes on every paper. From Nyrette's position, they looked scientific and archaic. She was honestly a bit more astounded by how they were paper instead of datapads or computers.

The other two pieces of furniture here was the bed and nightstand. The nightstand was nice and had a candle, but Canopy Bed had velvety red shades drawn over them and pearly white satin sheets and a burgundy red comforter on top and matching pillows. Right in the middle of it all was an old man with several lesions on his face as well as a swollen neck. He had dark red hair that hung from his head freely. With great strain, he pulled himself back and up against the headboard of the bed. The woman took notice and ran to his side to help him, but he put up a hand. "No, Cynthia, my dear. I am fine. I can do this myself." She hesitated before pulling back and standing at his side. "Good morning, outlanders." He said. His voice was deep, but ragged. He sounded like he had the flu and was under a great deal of pain.

"It is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance. I am Delebor, Master alchemist and lord of this estate." He said, smiling as best as he could. Nyrette and Iisska moved up a bit closer while the others stayed back.

"Alchemist?" Nyrette said. "Um...pardon my language but what is an alchemist?"

"Alchemists, like my master, are men that are very skilled in creating salves, potions, medicines, nature-related spells and have a hand in the creation of Haemonculi." Cynthia said quickly.

"Cynthia had informed me yesterday that you had crashed in a metal beast on yesterday's eve and I am relieved to see that she is correct. Outlanders are a rare sight here on Eos." he took a moment to breathe and gather his strength. Nyrette chimed in while he recovered.

"Eos? Outlander? 'metal beast'? Where are we?"

"You are in the land of Eos." Cynthia spoke again. "Outlander is a term for those that have come from the stars."

"I apologize if I am being an ungracious host, ma'ams and sirs. I am afraid that I do not have much time and your arrival in my home has been rather...coincidental." he cut to the chase. "I am sure that you have noticed my skin and neck."

Cheshik came closer and looked at him, keeping a respectable distance away, inspecting him and trying to think of what disease he has, but nothing was coming to mind.

"Do not try and discern my affliction, sir. It is a disease that even I am unsure of, which is why I am in this predicament. It is a disease that was bred from the rats of the land, coming from a dark place. It spread quickly and two weeks prior to now, there as a small outbreak within my home. A cadre of them made it around the house and even as Cynthia dispatched them, one had reached me in the night and had bitten me. Since that day, I have been on the brink of death. If not for Cynthia's caregiving, I would have succumbed some time ago. I realize this is brash and disrespectful, but I must ask a favor of you four. He stopped again to recuperate. Cynthia spoke in his place.

"There is a tomb, four miles north of here that, because of the care I must give to my master, I have been unable to enter. My master, on his death bed, would like to ask you to enter the tomb and retrieve a cure from within." She said.

"Aaand you're paying us for this...right?" Iisska said, crossing his arms. He ignored the glare shot at him from Nyrette.

"Yes, outlander." Delebore said. Years ago, my estate had many servants and guards to help take care of the property, before I had constructed Cynthia. There is an Armory in the basement that has many weapons and armors that they used in their day to day protection of my home. From what I have gleamed from texts and heard from old friends in my youth, Outlanders require many metals for their metal beasts. Agree to scour the tomb for me and you may take as much as you please."

Nyrette crossed her arms and pursed her lips. This was a decent deal for them to do, but since they were so new to this land, she was a bit cautious. She knew Iisska was still weak from the lack of the force from here and they were completely unfamiliar with everything. Plus, they had no weapons other than Cheshik's sword and her boot knife. "Our own weapons are unable to work here." She said. "I ask that we have access to this armory before we leave so we can actually scour this tomb of yours."

"I do not see why that could not be a problem. Cynthia, if you would please?" He said softly as he slid back down into the covers and Cynthia lead the group back down the stairs and to the armory.

"I will be able to lead you to the tomb, but I must hurry back here and care for my master. I will bring markers for you to follow on your return." She lead them to the locked door and placed her hand near it. The group watched as her hand spun and morphed like it was made of liquid into the shape of an ornate key and stuck it into the lock, opening it and letting the group inside. "Please be quick. My master will not last for much longer. His heart will fail if you do not hurry." She bowed and waited beside the door for the group to conclude their armament gathering.

"Good. We're not just stuck. We're stuck on a planet full of primitives. There goes any chance of getting parts or real tools. Time to start learning the local customs and settling in. Just one thing. Is asking for just one damn thing to go right too much? Uhg. Whatever. At least the planet is inhabited this time. I guess. By humans. There's no place you people don't get to is there? Breeding like fucking rabbits up in this shit. Not as bad as T'wileks though. I swear to every single fucking ancestor and spirit I have if I find one damned T'wilek on this stupid planet I'm gonna..."

Quin listened to the Togruta's racist ramblings to nobody in particular before rolling her eyes and walking away to make her way through the armory in search of something she could use. She went for the obvious choice first, a sword. However, after removing it from its sheath and taking a few moments to swing it from side to side a bit she found it to be far to heavy and unwieldy in her untrained hands. At least the vibro-dagger Nyrette had given her was still as sharp and lethal as ever. She left the large assortment of blades behind knowing they were more likely to get her killed than defend her.

The armory also contained a large assortment of armored suits, most of them being archaic, clunky and largely immobile. There were shields, some small, some large, some towering beyond ridiculous sizes. Though she played around a bit with a buckler, again she decided that these items just weren't for her.

She wasn't the only one struggling with the strange selection. Iisska seemed completely disinterested in everything on display. Even the bastard sword Cheshik was trying to talk him into.

"Not that I don't like it or that it's not a real warrior's weapon. I mean it is. It just looks... like a lot. I mean big. Also dangerous. Very, very dangerous. I'm just gonna get my gauntlets and punch things like usual. Good old punching things," he defended himself.

"Agreed," Quin interrupted, "It takes a lot of training and martial skill to use weapons like this. Unfortunately such methods of combat and therefore the corresponding training has fallen out of favor in Republic systems. And with the ship's supply of Kolto dwindling so low I don't want to see any avoidable injuries from bad choices."

Iisska's mouth was slightly open and he gave her a confused look. Cheshik's expression was similar.

Quin sighed, "Don't try and use any weapon you don't have experience with."

"Oh. Yeah. Exactly," Iisska said.

"You may want a little extra protection though. Maybe a chest plate or something... Unfortunately this situation doesn't leave some of us with a lot of options."

"Heh, is the gunner girl shit outta luck?"

"Mm," Quin was about to leave them again when Cheshik directed her attention to something in the far corner.

All she knew was that from here it looked like a rifle stock. Could it be? Quin bolted over to where it hung along side a small handful of similar weapons. When she got closer it definitely looked more like a bolt-caster, but fundamentally different. After taking it off the wall she recognized that it needed to be manually loaded with some kind of projectile but for the life of her she couldn't figure out how. It was solid, made of pressed wood and framed in metal and bone with all the pieces riveted together and rather intricately decorated through the limbs. She pressed it against her shoulder and looked down the sights. It had sights. Sweet mercy it had sights. Ignoring the other's looks and questions she took long fast strides toward the door of the armory and faced Cynthia.

"What is this, where is the ammunition and how do I use it?" She demanded.

Cynthia took the weapon she had and held it like a rifle, adjusting the sights as it had been some time since their last use. "This is a Crossbow, very commonly used by archers and squires across the land. First pioneered by dwarven settlers that found it impossible to utilize standard bows and arrows." She lead Quin back down the stairs and quickly strode over to a small bin. She set the crossbow aside and opening the bin and fishing out a bolt quiver and handing it to Quin. She claimed one of the bolts and grabbed the crossbow. "Please watch carefully." She said flatly before she aimed the crossbow straight at Iisska's head and placed the bolt on the receiver, sliding it towards herself and catching the crossbow string and hooking on a lock.

With a wicked snap, she fired it and the bolt embedded fletch-deep in the wooden underground wall, having gone right between Iisska's montrals. Having been about a second too late, he dropped to the ground after it had already hit the wall. She handed the crossbow back to Quin and bowed slightly. "It shall serve you well, ma'am." She said robotically before going to retrieve the bolt in the wall and help Iisska to his feet. She waited patiently by the stairs back up for the group to finish.

"So...Pike'ire. They never taught you the basics of swordfighting in the republic?" Nyrette said, grabbing a Rapier that was sitting against the wall. She had grabbed a sword belt as well and attached it to her hip. The sword fit snugly to her frame. "In the academy where I was taught how to fight, sword fighting was a requirement to move onto basic training. It's been that way for almost as long as the faction had existed."

Quin shrugged and asked how sword fighting could be useful in this day and age.

"Way they saw it, at one point we would be fighting a Jedi or a Sith. A knife will not do against them and neither will a blaster. Grenades will simply be redirected and the only way to fight them one on one is with a sword." She drew the rapier with her dominant hand and tested it by swiping it through the air. It was uncommonly sharp and deadly. "It's been a while since I last used my preferred sword, but it shouldn't be a problem...ya know what this means, right, Pike?"

While loading up on a few extra bolts and throwing knives, Quin mumbled a "Yeah?"

"When we get back to the ship, I'll get to train you on how to use a sword." Quin stood up and dropped the items she was holding, both her and Nyrette were smiling wildly and giggling at the prospect of one teaching the other to fight. Meanwhile, Iisska has taken up part of a wall next to Cynthia, leaning against it and dozing off a bit.

Little did they notice however that Cheshik had disappeared for a few moments. There was a changing room on the far side of the armory and the doors to it burst open with Cheshik swaggering out like a badass with his sword leaning on his shoulder, in a heavy plated breastplate with his left arm fully armored, leaving his right arm naked and fully able to swing his sword with full mobility. He had two sheaths on his back, one he had found for his light and fast Zweihander, and a second holding a formidable oversized Battleaxe. "Am I only one that will use armor? We are going to dangerous tomb, yes? Is not threat? There is plenty armor to go around. Should get leather at least." Though she would have preferred going without armor, Cheshik was right. Had to try and stay safe here since they were low on Kolto. She grabbed some tight fitting leather armor and put it on over her clothing. It was snug, but light and didn't weigh her down too much.

Once they were done, they followed Cynthia up the stairs and followed her out the door, leaving for the tomb at a brisk pace.

With a muffled THUNK a bolt sank itself deep into the bark of a tree some twenty feet off of the overgrown trail they now walked. Quin ran through the underbrush with grace and energy. The few pieces of leather armor and single iron pauldron were light and surprisingly easy to move in. She removed her bolt from the trunk, inspected it for damage and then reloaded it into her new crossbow with far more confidence than the first time she had tried to do so. But there was still some level of difficulty. The draw was so heavy she had to put the front of the weapon on the ground, stabilize it between her legs and pull back with both hands. The thing always put up such a struggle before the trigger clicked into place. It was obvious she would need much, much more practice before she was proficient with it, but at least now she was able to hit her targets. How their elegant escort had managed to draw it one handed she would never know. After getting set once more, Quin hurried to catch up to the rest of the group and find some other target to fire off a practice shot at.

"Watching you is making me tired," Iisska shook his head at her, "You're gonna burn yourself out before we get to the tomb. That or shoot someone."

"I feel good," Quin said, "I can't quite put my finger on it but something about this place is... Is rather nice. Perhaps it's the air. Everything seems so clear. To be honest I think you should be far more worried about yourself. You didn't take anything from the armory and this won't be the same as our other fights. You're not--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, ptthhbt. I don't wanna hear it," Iisska interrupted, "I didn't know how to use any of that stuff and I've already got weapons that work," he hefted his spiked and cortosis clad fists, "And I tried on the armor. Too tight around the neck and shoulders. Can't breathe in the stuff."

"I see. In that case you may want to stay back with me," She suggested.

The only reply she got was a sigh and an eyeroll before he strode off ahead of her. Quin turned toward Nyrette with a look of concern.

"We'll be alright... I think. You're going to be alright?" She asked.

Nyrette let out a soft chuckle and shook her head before playfully giving her rapier a good swish.

"We'll be alright," She said with the utmost confidence, "You know you're cute when you're worried."

---

Higher and higher they climbed into the foothills until the thick forest underbrush gave way to jagged rocks. Though the evergreens still ripped through them defiantly. They stood strong and gnarled in the cracks and broke the stone and pushed it up and out of the way as they grew or curved around it. Some grew right out of the vertical cliffs around the small river that flowed into the lake below. The sun was already on it's way down by the time they reached this point and in the bottom of the narrow canyon direct light could not break through the shield of trees and rock. They found themselves entrenched in cool afternoon shade and mist that rose through the air as the water was tossed loudly against it's stony bed.

Iisska shook his head, trying to clear it of the monotonous burbling of the river. It echoed off the canyon walls and caused a rush that had drowned out the singing of the birds. He listened harder to the clear voices of his companions chit chatting among themselves. He looked up into the trees above and to the skies and clouds. In front of them. Behind them. Nothing. The river wasn't drowning out the birds. There simply were none here. His spine tingled.

"We have nearly arrived," Cynthia informed them.

The water carved deeply as it washed around a deep curve. When the group came around it a towering, ribbon thin waterfall cascaded down a sudden jump in the canyon floor. It must have been over two hundred feet tall. The cliff was wet and overgrown with fines and moss all the way to the top and a thick spray clouded the base where the water was dashed to the ground. At first it went unnoticed but as they drew closer it became so obvious. The water washed over the top of a carved cut-out in the stone. A huge set of double doors. Above them two highly stylized and embellished figures were carved. They leaned into one another with the door between them and were wreathed in rays of light, rich robes, heavy jewelry, intricate headdresses, and carried multiple swords and curved blades in several pairs of arms. On belts around their necks, waists and arms and piled high to create the very ground they stood upon were depictions of countless human skulls. One had the face of a male, serene, with eyes closed and a slight smile on his face. The other was a female with her breasts laid bare and her fierce face baring her fanged teeth, long writhing tongue and wide eyes.

"That is... Wow... Um... That's a lot bigger... and uglier than I imagined. This is a tomb?" Iisska croaked.

Cynthia stepped forward and stood in the spray directly before the doors. She began to speak. However it was muffled and in a strange, guttural language. No one could figure out what she was doing or saying. There was a deep shudder in the ground that became a grinding roar. The rock around the door burst. Stale and foul smelling air hissed through the split between the two doors and rushed out through the canyon violently. Slowly they groaned open and revealed a gaping throat that descended immediately downward. At the mouth were several columns with ever burning flames that illuminated the first few steps of their journey into the tomb. Beyond that however, was all consuming darkness.

Quin came up beside Cynthia and examined the entrance with trepidation.

"Oh..." she whispered.

"It is fortunate that my Master had knowledge of the tombs words of passage. Our task can continue," Cynthia said.

"Right," Quin whimpered.

Iisska looked like he was going to throw up some more and no amount of too cheery and too rough slaps on the back from Cheshik was going to make it better.

Having opened the door and stepped inside, the group took a look around and saw the intricate carvings on the inside walls. They took a moment to prepare themselves mentally before Cynthia spoke. The only lights being cast came from outside, the water from the waterfall splashing in as they dried themselves off as best as they could. Iisska and Cheshik found torches on the wall that were long burned out, but were able to reignite them easily. As they did, bugs skittered away in fear and they were more easily able to see the path ahead.

"I apologize." Cynthia said. "I must be returning to my master. I will leave marks on the way back to guide you back to the mansion."

"Whoa! No!" Iisska stepped infront of her, "And just leave us here to get killed I bet?"

"My master is gravely ill and does not have long to live without medication." She said coldly. "I must not dawdle in returning to his side." She stepped around him effortlessly and disappeared behind the waterfall. Nyrette placed a hand on Iisska's shoulder and tried to reassure him. "Don't worry. We'll be fine, she at least got us here. It can't be that bad, I mean, you put up with Zen for a year."

"It's not the same thing!" he fumed.

"Oh really? Just two weeks ago he put you through an invisible obstacle course and threw you into walls for hitting an 'invisible spike'. You spent four hours in the kolto tank."

"Exactly! It's not the same thing! We don't know this person. We don't know what's down there. We don't know if we're stupid, trapped sacrifices to I don't fucking know what horrible... ness... You guys..."

Before Nyrette could try and stop him, Cheshik came close and placed a hand on Iisska's head. "Stop whining. We have seen worse bad things in super market." He turned and walked away into the darkness, scouting ahead.

"Don't you talk to me about the supermarket," Iisska grumbled, "So you all trust these people? Really?"

Nyrette placed a hand on her hip and shook her head. "No. But as a group that have been doing borderline mercenary work for the past year, aren't we used to this by now?"

"Mm," Quin nodded, "And as it stands, we either do this and get a foothold in this world or go back to wasting away alone in the wilderness."

From deeper down the hall, the group hear Cheshik yell. "If only we had incredible Togruta that heard slightest sounds in darkness here and could easily point out bad things!"

"Shut your face!" Iisska snarled before visibly calming down, "I guess... Yeah... You're right. And I guess that's a reason I'm not all the way usel--" he cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders before punching his fists together, "... Let's go."

Having finally come to a consensus, Iisska, Quin, and Nyrette ran to catch up with Cheshik, whom was much farther in. He was at the entrance to a larger room. There were more carvings on the walls and ceiling even. On the far side there was a large statue of what seemed to be a jester with a cane. Seeing nothing moving so far, the group moved on. "See, Iisska. Not that bad. Is better than supermarket." Cheshik quipped.

"Cheshik!" Iisska hissed.

"Do not take attitude with me Iis-" He froze then, hearing a something scraping against the ground in the distance. "Stop. We are not alone." He reached to his back and drew his Zweihander.

"Stay close and keep moving forward." Nyrette said.

Quin stuck to her like glue but was careful to give her enough space. Enough for her sword and enough to put a bolt into anything that moved. Even though she herself couldn't hear or see anything. Only her pulse, the soft crackle of the flames and the the breeze that was coming from the deep. It sounded reminiscent of a slow shallow breath. Air rustled through the hair by her ear like being stabbed with burning ice.

She nearly jumped out of her shoes. She didn't scream. Her voice was stuck with a sharp gasp. She wheeled around and was met with a set of glistening, bloody rubies hovering just before her face. And the cold, the deathly, gripping cold washed over her. It was well over six feet tall, rotting and skeletal. The flesh had frozen black and it's jaw hung open revealing a hollow mouth lined with broken teeth. Instinct kicked in and she pulled the trigger on her crossbow. It released and the bolt sank into the creature's chest.

It staggered back a few feet, hunched, wobbled and then stood once more. It looked right at her.

And then it screamed.

Cheshik wheeled around and took the creature by the head, wrapping his huge muscular claw around it and slamming it into the ground, crushing it into dust. But it was too late. All around them, bloody red eyes pierced the veil of darkness and more screams rang throughout the room. They were surrounded by at least twenty of them. Nyrette drew her blade and took stock with Quin to give her time to reload while Cheshik pounded his chest and roared, drawing the attention of the creatures as they broke into a sprint and charged at the group.

What had been fear turned to pure adrenaline and Iisska dove headlong into the mob of creatures coming at them.

"No don't!" Quin yelled.

The first punch he threw connected with the face of a creature and sheared off solid flesh and bone alike in a burst of debris. It twisted from the force, but did not fall. More were behind it. Iisska backed up immediately. His arm from knuckles to shoulder felt like a bolt of electricity had been sent through the nerves.

Unlike Iisska, Cheshik was in his element. Two sword slashes sent heads rolling across the floor as one leaped onto him. He stopped it mid jump via grabbing it's neck with his iron grip and throwing it across the room. He swung around and connected his blade with one, then two, then a third. He didn't stop to watch them fall.

Meanwhile, Nyrette and Quin were set upon by three of them and, unlike Cheshik, Nyrette was not able to take heads off in one swing. More along the lines of two swings as she swung and sliced at one that was getting too close. It twisted around her blade and fell to the ground for a moment before snarling and getting back up to charge at her again. She swung around and decapitated it before moving on to the other two. She froze for a moment as a bolt flew threw her hair and struck home between one of the creature's eyes, making it crumple to the floor in a heap. Nyrette didn't have to give Quin a romantic thumbs up before the last of the trio jumped on her in her moment of weakness and got her to the ground, trying to pin her and bite at her.

No time to reload. Quin threw the crossbow over her back and pulled her vibro-dagger from her belt while she came down upon the monsters swarming Nyrette. She sank it to the hilt into the nearest one's skull with a crunch before kicking the now limp corpse aside. Like a wild animal she visciously cut, sliced and stabbed her way through the next two. The last one was still struggling with a roughly hacked neck barely hanging on to the spine when Quin grabbed Nyrette by the arm and yanked her upright and away from danger.

Despite his best efforts Iisska had been taken to the ground. He ripped away from the vice like jaws of the thing ontop of him, shoved it down and rolled over it. A bit of his bloody jacket was still lodged in it's mouth, but he didn't even feel the pain. Just rage and fear. He clamped onto it's neck and sent punch after punch after punch into it's face until the bone and features cracked and shattered away. With each successive strike it became harder and harder to clench his fingers. He was hit hard from behind by a shrieking monster. That insane high pitched waling felt like an axe to the brain. With a scream he pushed off the ground hard and landed on his back crushing the creature below him, but it just seemed to grip harder with it's disgusting hands squeezing tighter and tighter around his neck.

Rushing to his brother's side, cheshik knelt down and slipped his claws underneath the creature's and pulled them off of iisska's throat. He pulled iisska off and, as the creature scrambled, planted his armored boot on its face, crushing it into an icy dust. Not reveling in victory, he went to iisska to help him to his feet. "Girls, okay?"

Nyrette held onto Quin for dear life for a few moments after, gripping her sword in her off hand. It took her a few seconds to realize that Cheshik had asked her a question. "Uh...yeah." She said, finally letting go of Quin's hand and massaging her shoulders. She noticed that her stomach armor was torn pretty badly, but nothing more than a light scratch underneath. She looked to her partner in crime and saw that she was alright too, aside from some scratches. "You alright, Iisska?"

"Fine," he replied.

"Do you need hug?" Cheshik said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"No. I don't need no fucking hug," Iisska spat, "Let's just get the thing and go."

"Quin? You want hug instead?" He joked.

Quin gave Nyrette a quick squeeze around the hips before opening her arms and winking, "If you're offering."

Nyrette barely got a hug back before Cheshik bounded over and gave a big ol' victory hug. She shook her head and took Cheshik's torch to go about the room to light the others that dotted the room, giving them enough light to be able to see the death before it hits them. She approached the statue of the jester and found two more torches that cast an eerie light onto the statue. "Think this is some kind of god or something? Seems weird to put a jester in a tomb. Owner maybe?" She asked nobody in partitucular.

Quin sidled over when she heard Nyrette talking and sized up the statue as well.

"Maybe it's not a jester," she suggested, "If it's anything like the carvings around the door outside I would say it's a god or spirit. Perhaps a guardian."

She proceeded to walk around the statue, examining it closely and running her fingertips along the base.

"If it's not gonna help us find this cure bullshit or whatever then just leave it alone," Iisska yelled from across the room.

Nyrette ignored the screaming person across the room and examined the statue a bit more closely, taking into account the room. "Well, considering what we just fought it couldn't be a guardian. If it was, it'd probably come to life or something. Wouldn't make sense either since the hallways are smaller than it." She said. "Lets move on though. Iisska is right, it's not helping." She said and made her way over to the next tunnel. She peered into the darkness for several moments, waiting for the others.

"Quin, I think I see something shining at the end of the hall." She beckoned.

Quin was there first with a torch, lifting it high to see deeper down the hall. Cheshik and Iisska weren't far behind.

"I don't see anything but..." she began to walk along the edge of the wall here, "It's worth checking on, right?"

It took several more moments for her to make it down the hallway enough for the light of her torch to glint off something in the distance. She could barely make out it's location, resting inside one of the catacombs carved into the stone.

Following Quin's footsteps, Nyrette crept alongside the other wall, leaving the boys to stay behind just in case there were traps. As she made her way down, she saw several strange patterns dotting the floor, making her think that she was more right than she would like to admit. She made it down far enough to parallel Quin and move with her down the hallway. It seemed that the architect did not exactly account for people of intelligence coming through and just using the wall. Within just a dozen minutes or so, they had reached the far wall and saw the bright white vial on the carved out shelf. Before moving towards it, Nyrette rose her hand. "I got it, keep a look out."

Stepping off of the wall, she kept low and slow, using the torch to light the ground and let her know where to step. The insignias were all over the place now and she was fining it difficult to navigate them. After a few more minutes of navigation she reached the wall and simply grabbed the vial...nothing happened. She carefully looked around after she grabbed it and didn't see much other than another corridor. Though it was hard to see, she could make out large shadows moving far down the hall. She shook her head and made her way back across the trapped floor. "Seems like there is something deeper but..." She held the vial aloft. It was white and had strange writing on the front. It was barely as large as her hand and it was icy cold to the touch, but not quite frozen judging from the liquid on the inside.

"You think that's it?" Quin getly took the vial from Nyrette, "I suppose your guess is as good as mine and it does fit the description. Let's take it back. If we wind up back here we will at least be prepared and we can explore whatever else is down there."

"Agreed" She said and the two made their way back. It took a little less time for them to make it back this time and when they did they found Cheshik giving Iisska a hug. He set him down as the girls returned and spoke gladly. "Have potion?" He said, happy when he saw Quin nodding her head.

"At least we are somewhat sure we have it," she shrugged, "We'll know for sure when we get back to the cabin."

"Fantastic," Iisska snorted. He was already walking back toward the long entrance tunnel.

Finding the way back was taking far longer than finding the way there. Without their guide and without the sun, the group took things slower. Though they still stumbled around like blind clumsy children for the better part of their trek. Except for Nyrette of course who lead the group with ease. Tiny slivers of moonlight poked through the trees onto the ground illuminating the seemingly vanished trail. There was no point in keeping their voices down in case of predators. Their feet were making enough noise as it was.

"That actually went far better than I expected," Quin broke a momentary silence, "If that guy makes good on his end of the bargain we'll be set for some time. At least I hope that will be the case."

"Yes. Was much better than supermarket." Cheshik exclaimed, stepping over a fallen log and perching for a moment while Iisska caught up.

Iisska made a long quiet growl while struggling over the log Cheshik was on.

"Sh-... sh-shut up," he panted, "It wasn't... funny."

"It was pretty funny." He chuckled.

"Mm. No, I have to agree with Iisska on this one. Those are dark times which I would rather forget," Quin shuddered.

"So many pregnant women and tentacles..." Nyrette shuddered.

"Damnit!" Iisska spat, "Stop! I want to sleep tonight."

"We all know you're going to sleep for a week once you get back to the ship." Nyrette chuckled. "We're not that far now. You can make it."

"It's hard doing this sort of thing with no aid from the Force isn't it? You see? This is why you need to exercise," Quin chimed in.

"To be fair, Zen, whom is incredibly fit last I checked, is in a coma because the force isn't here. Iisska's doing really well considering." Nyrette said.

Quin gave her a sideways glance, "Maybe. He could still do with a steady regiment though. I'm thinking of changing mine up as well."

"Quin! Sh-shit" Iisska cursed after one of his gauntlets slipped out of his hand and struck the ground heavily. He picked it back up in the other hand, "For your sake, just shut up."

Cheshik stopped for a moment and took one of Iisska's gauntlets. "I hope muck is sticky and not...gauntlet." He said disturbingly. "Do not get down, Iisska. At least you are not Marquis now, angry and stuck home."

Meanwhile

The puppy was bounding about the camp, making a mess of everything as it explored and sniffed at everything possible, yapping like mad. "I hate Nyrette." Marquis said, his head between his hands as he sat on a stump. The puppy then decided to piss on said stump. "I really hate Quin. I hate everybody."

Back at the group

"Heh," Iisska snorted, "I'd rather be angry and back at the ship than angry and tired out here... Not against you. Didn't mean... just not out here. Like this. You know what I mean... Still feel bad about him, I guess, though... Should probably do something for him."

"We'll get him another puppy. I'm sure he'd LOVE that." Nyrette laughed.

And suddenly, in the back of all their heads, they felt a strange presence full of hate and metal angst.

"OR," Quin interjected, "We could pick up a few antiques for him from the armory. As a reward. Maybe if we ask nicely."

"What would he like? A cane? Longbow? Longsword? He might like longsword." Cheshik said.

"Marquis might like longsword, or you might like longsword?" Iisska asked.

Cheshik stopped for a moment and looked at Iisska. He pointed at his Zweihander and laughed. "Longsword is for baby."

"Never mind," Iisska said.

"Hey, good news," Quin chirped back at them, "I think I see torchlight."

It was faint. Ever so faint. But up ahead a bit lower into the valley was the unmistakable warm glint of fires and lanterns.

"That's got to be it," she added.

"Well. Bazaars that Cynthia left agree with that, Quin." Cheshik said.

"The what?" she asked.

"He means markers." Nyrette sighed. "And don't ask how I know that. I don't know either."

"Oh... Cheshik. You mean markers," Quin told him.

"Yes, hun. I just said that." Nyrette pursed her lips.

"I know you just said that. I was simply passing on the information. This crew has obvious communication obstacles and you can never be too clear."

"Language barrier only minor problem. I hear Nyrette fine, and Iisska hear everything ever." Cheshik agreed with Nyrette. "Sometimes, choose not to listen to you though."

"It's a gift," Iisska shrugged and knocked on a montral, "Also. If you two could keep it down at night... You know. That would be great."

"Iisska. I am over three hundred pounds of muscle and scales. 'Keeping it down' is like you like complaining. Will not happen." He said in a snarky manner.

Iisska smirked at his friend and nudged him with a weak elbow, "I wasn't talking to you."

He took a moment to look at Quin and Nyrette and chuckled. "If I read the book that Nyrette gave me for christmas correctly, this is time for "Bow chika bow wow" right?" Cheshik laughed.

Quin could have easily burst into a beacon of bright red to guide all lost travelers on their way through the night within a fifty mile radius. Her nostrils flared, her eyes shot open and she turned on Iisska so fast she nearly creatied a sonic boom.

"You shut your god damn, shit spewing mouth, you knob gobbling, clown faced--" She began.

"Oh Quin. You are a bit of a squeaker." Nyrette said.

"WHAT!? No! I-- How do you-- We haven't even done anything yet!" Quin sputtered.

"Yet." She chuckled.

"Why the fuck not!?" Iisska yelled at Quin, "I don't get-- WHY!? What's wrong with you?"

"Love! Augh! Her one weakness!" Cheshik yelled.

"We all almost died, and you didn't take advantage of that?" Iisska was legitimately dumbfounded.

"It doesn't work like that, asshole," Quin hissed.

"Yes, this is not some bad movie or book. This is life, love is slow and tedious and actually fun, not stupid." She said.

"Pfft. Love is stupid. Some garbage emotion that people use to take advantage of you and then spit at your face and step on your passions," Iisska argued.

Crickets could be heard chirping loud and clear. The river too. And someone sniffling.

"Wow," Quin whispered.

"You need to lay." Cheshik quipped.

"Aaauugh! No I don't! I just... It's stupid alright! I don't want to talk about this. Wanna go to bed," Iisska stomped his way over a small ravine ahead of the girls.

"You are here. Good." Cynthia said coldly when the group knocked on the door. She opened it and allowed them in, shutting and locking it behind them. "My master has begun experiencing throes of near death. We must hurry, follow me." She lead them without a second thought, heading up the stairs with the group running behind her. They made their way down the hall and to the master's bedroom, bursting inside without a thought.

Delebor sat in bed as he was this morning when they saw him, but he was in a far worse condition. The markings on his neck had spread all throughout his face and pustules had formed on his cheeks and forehead. It was obvious that he was in tremendous pain, but he showed barely any stress as he sat up against his pillows and beckoned the group closer. "You return in the nick of time with the potion. I am grateful, give it here, please." Nyrette reached into Quin's backpack and fished out the large white vial and approached Delebor, handing it to him gently. He held the ice cold bottle in his hands for a moment and reached to the top, uncorking it and smelling it. His smile said that the group had found what they were looking for and they were able to sigh in relief when he took a swig, downing the entire bottle in one go, and smiling for a second time.

"This. Was a vial of river water. Utterly worthless but...ah." He paused and peeled back the covers. "A good last drink."

"Oh void, I'm so sorry." Nyrette pleaded, ashamed that they had all been fooled. "The vial looked as good as-" Delebor shook his head, smiling still.

"It was none of your faults." He swung his legs out and Cynthia ran to his side to assist him, but he put up his wrinkled hand and she froze. He got up all on his own, incredibly sick, in excruciating pain, and on the verge of death, but he did it on his own and proudly. Standing up now, he was hunched a bit but he was a little taller than Iisska. "Instead of bringing me a cure for my life, you have instead brought upon me a cure for the life of another." He approached the group slowly and gripped onto a bed post. "With my very near passing, a unique opportunity has been presented and I wish to take the most of it." He said, coughing hard afterward and taking a deep, ragged, breath. "I wish to ask one more favor of you, outlanders."

"What is favor?" Cheshik said, crossing his arms. "Is it chocolate?"

"Favor, not Flavor, Cheshik." Nyrette grumbled and listened to Delebor chuckle and Cheshik's misunderstandings.

"It is nothing drastic. I simply ask of you...nay, I plead of you. When you leave this place and continue your journey, wherever it may be: Take Cynthia with you." The request was met with shock from the group, but Quin was the first to ask why. "I was never able to have a child. My will was not strong enough. My dear Cynthia is as close to a daughter that I can get, however." He took a moment to breathe and found that he could no longer stand. He sat on the bed as his breathing became more ragged and tired. He reached out for Cynthia's hand and she grasped his gently. "Take off her mask and let her become more than a simple alchemists' apprentice. I..." he coughed again. "I never removed it myself out of fear she would become what I am. An introverted, lonely, old man. Please. Let her experience the world."

It was a solid few minutes of silence for the group before Cheshik was the one to step forward and deliver the answer. "We are always happy to welcome new family." He said happily. "What do you mean by "Take off mask and become more than alchemists' apprentice"?"

"When a Haemonculus removes their inhibitor mask, they begin learning from their surroundings and the people that control them. Depending on how reliant the people around them are, it can take a few days or a few months for any Haemonculi to become almost unrecognizable from any person and become entirely individualized." Cynthia said as coldly and robotically as ever.

"To be...a master of her own fate...thank you, outlanders." His voice began to get weaker and he slumped over a bit. "Take good care of her. She is...every...thing...." He slumped fully against the bed post and closed his eyes. A few seconds after, he went limp and Cynthia kept him from falling via laying him backwards onto the bed. She stood and clasped her hands together, awaiting a command.

"Cynthia lets...go down stairs for a moment to...talk about this away from the stench of death." Nyrette said, feeling the bile start to rise as the body released it's fluids. Cynthia bowed her head slightly and waited for the group to go through the door. They made their way down stairs and to the living room. Iisska quickly found a large wall-parked couch to lay on and rest for a moment. The rest of the group gathered around the fire, Quin and Nyrette sitting while Cheshik stood next to Cynthia, whom stood the same as she was upstairs, awaiting orders dutifully.

"Well. Mask must come off, correct?" Cheshik said. "If none will do it, I will." He said happily.

"Hold on." Nyrette said. "We should learn mo-and you're not listening are yo-No...no you are not." Nyrette didn't even get to finish her sentence before Cheshik approached Cynthia and placed his hands on her head.

"If you feel pain, speak. Hate when I hurt family on accident." He reassured her, though she just nodded, unaffected by what he said. His nails found the edges of the mask and he prepared to pull hard, but it started to come off rather easily. He pulled a bit more and more until it disconnected from her face entirely. Cheshik lowered the mask slowly and the group finally saw what was underneath. Even Iisska got up and leaned against the chair behind Quin to see. The main feature was her bright and shiny blue pupils above her pointy nose and rounded face. A radical change from her very angular clothing and hair. She looked from person to person in the group for several seconds before her eyes widened and she put her hands on her face and screamed. "OH THE PAIN! IT BURNS AHH!" She screamed and turned away quickly before turning back with her hands at her side again. "Nevermind, it is fine. Where were we?"

"Oh she'll be just fine in our little family." Nyrette chuckled. "Do you know our names?"

"I do not. No." She said inquisitively, again a big departure from her robot voice.

"I am Nyrette Silvanus, The lizard there is Cheshik Essan. The beautiful woman there is Pike're Quin, Quin for short, and the Togruta behind her is Iisska Reylos." Nyrette said.

"Oh! You're hurt!" Cynthia said and stepped around the chair to Iisska. He tried to back away but she held him fast, pulling up the sleeve and looking at his shoulder. It was missing a decent sized chunk of flesh from his arm and he was bleeding pretty bad. "I have something for this, I will be right back. Do not worry." She hurried away, walking as precise as she did before though in a much more emotional manner. Nyrette turned around and saw the shoulder.

"Oh wow. Why didn't you say anything? We would have held your stuff and wouldn't have pushed you as hard to get home." She turned back around and leaned on the arm of the chair, sighing. "I'm just a mess today. Got somebody killed and didn't even notice my brother's hurt shoulder. What is wrong with me?" She grumbled, though Quin placed a hand on hers and smiled, cheering her up quite a bit. Within a minute, Cynthia was back with a small red potion in hand.

"Here, drink this, please. It is not fast, but your wounds will heal in a few hours and the hunk of flesh missing will regenerate as well." She held it out to him. "It will taste a little bitter, but I added a couple dashes of Cinnamon for flavor."

"Hey, don't. I didn't want anybody to... It's not that bad. Don't feel bad. You did good," Iisska said.

His attempts to make Nyrette feel better were starting to get weak.

"It's gonna heal... And that old guy probably would have died anyway. I mean... look... at him... was..." Iisska cleared his throat, "Anyway! What's done is done. He's dead, you're fine, good job, moving on now, what else is in this potion thing?"

Nyrette was pretty much inconsolable. She distanced herself a bit from the others as they talked, feeling ashamed for the first time in a long time. She didn't even really hear Iisska talk to her about what happened, instead choosing to just tune everybody out and draw herself into her own little world for a while.

"Several medicinal herbs and solutions that my ma-Delebor had created. All safe." Cynthia said, cracking a small smile.

Quin wrapped an arm around Nyrette's shoulders and sat back on the couch with her in silence knowing that nothing she said would help right now.

"Hm," Iisska frowned as the pangs of guilt started to eat away at his insides, "Guess it can't hurt too much."

In one swift motion he slammed the vial of red liquid back like a shot and emptied the contents. When he was done his face scrunched up and stayed that way for a few long seconds.

"That is not cinnamon flavored," he wheezed.

"Perhaps should have added the whole bottle of cinnamon...." Cynthia admitted, slouching a bit as she did. Meanwhile, Nyrette leaned into Quin's arms and tried to relax, taking in her aroma. Quin snuggled her in closer with a sigh and furrowed her brow.

"Don't worry about it," she said to Cynthia, "Iisska's a man-child and an idiot most of the time. Thank you for your help. However I have a concern. What do you plan on doing with this place... And Delebor's body?"

"Well. I will of course remove the body as soon as I am able. Other than that...I suppose it should pass to me and, consequently, us all as well." She said.

"Wait." Cheshik said quickly. "We have huge mansion to selves for duration of stay?"

"I suppose so. Yes." She answered.

"I call first room." Cheshik ran up the stairs.

"Eh, thanks for the offer, but we have a ship... with all our stuff already on it as well as three of our companions and some big animals. You guys can pack up an' leave, but I'm gonna stay there, thanks," Iisska said.

Cheshik came back downstairs, having heard what Iisska said and spoke. "He has point. Cannot leave snickers alone. She not tolerate Kobel for long periods of time. I take couch and beds though. Very very comfortable."

"That...is most unwise. That is a two hour hike to your 'ship'" Cynthia said, not attributing the Harpoon to being a wooden vessel on water.

"Has not stopped me before." Cheshik said confidently. "Once carried Kobel five miles on sprained ankle."

"When?" Iisska growled.

"Cheshik, no, we're not taking her things," Quin scolded.

"It will go to waste if it is not used. I see no reason as to why he cannot be allowed." Cynthia said, not knowing that Cheshik was already planning on building a small wagon to take various things in the estate.

"Don't try him," Iisska said. He had stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes despite himself.

Knowing he won't convince Iisska in the way of speech, Cheshik picked him up and took him upstairs, despite his fighting and to the guest room, plopping him in the huge bed. "Want in room yes? Don't complain." He walked out.

"CHESHIK! NO!" Iisska yelled at him and squirmed around on the oh so squishy and soft and warm bed trying his best to get back up out of it, "You're fuckin' rude and... You can't just..." he yawned suddenly and curled up on his side, "This is pretty nice..."

Heading back down stairs, he found Cynthia standing next to the girls, watching them silently while they held each other, comforting one another. "Well. It is decided. Taking furniture for harpoon. If we are stuck here, then comfort shall we be living in." Cheshik announced.

Nyrette had fallen asleep against Quin's chest, hugging her tightly. "I...have never seen this before. What are you doing, if I may ask?" Cynthia asked quin."

"Ah... Hugging," Quin whispered, confused, "or 'cuddling,' I suppose. It's a kind of affection. Or comfort. It's been a difficult day."

"I know of cuddling and showing affection I..." She trailed off for a moment. "I am asking of the look in your eye, your face. The emotion that you are conveying. It is unknown to me."

"What look?" Quin raised a brow, "I'm feeling a lot of emotions and I was unaware that I was conveying anything."

"Do not worry about it..." Cynthia said, somewhat regretting asking.

---

The crew opted to spend the night at the mansion as both Iisska and Nyrette had fallen asleep and would not be budged. Nobody felt like making the hike back to the Harpoon as tired as the were and in the dark as well. Marquis would just have to worry about them. In the morning they helped dig a satisfactory burial site for Cynthia's Master among the trees not far from his home. They wrapped the body tightly in sheets and allowed Cynthia to bury him with any items that she saw fit. Then left her alone at the grave while Cheshik started directing the first of the moving efforts. To everybody's shock, amazement and disgust he presented them with a makeshift wagon for the job. Even with that on their side they wouldn't be able to move much on this trip. Perhaps only one bed frame and the accompanying mattress. Iisska and Quin had something a bit more valuable in mind however.

They went through the armory and the vault in the cellar of the base and collected any weapons, materials, tools and trinkets that might be of some use to them in the future. Again, there was far too much to take for now so only the most valuable of items were taken. Even though this had been a reward for their services, something about still felt like they were ransacking a dead man's house.

"If this guy comes and haunts me he'd better be haunting all the rest of you also," Iisska said to Quin.

"If we are haunted at all then I have some very fundamental cosmological knowledge to re-evaluate," she replied.

"This was a good talk," he sighed.

When they were all packed up and ready to go, and when Cynthia had said her goodbyes to her Master and to her old home for the time being, they began their trek back to the Harpoon. The trip was lengthened from two hours to about four with all the pilfered goods they carried, but they made it before sundown. They were met with a very still and very silent, Marquis when they arrived.

"Hey," Iisska waved at him, "So..."

"Is that a person behind you...?"

"Not... technical... ly...?" he replied.

"I thought I said no more mouths to feed."

"No you didn't."

"YES I DID, IISSKA. I SAID NO MORE MOUTHS TO FEED BECAUSE WE HAVE NO FOOD YOU IDGIT." Marquis threw a rock at him.

"Mm," Quin leaned into Cynthia while Iisska's ritual sacrifice to the food gods by stoning continued, "Tell me, do you have the same bodily functions as an organic life-form? Specifically, do you need to eat?"

"Oh." Cynthia said. "I can eat, yes. I will admit that I enjoy fo-" Nyrette placed her hand over her mouth.

"Wrong answer...you don't need to eat. Right?" Cynthia just nodded her head. "See Marquis. She doesn't eat. No stoning the Iisska." Nyrette said.

Iisska was curled up in a tight, protective ball when the furious rock throwing stopped and peered up at Marquis from a tiny opening in his arms. Then he quickly got up, brushed himself off and stood well away from the droid.

"S-see? It's good. No more mouths to feed. Aside that we got some supplies from her and she knows this place. She's useful," he argued.

"Oh! She's useful!?" He skipped over. "Good! Then SHE CAN CLEAN UP THE CRAP YOUR AKKDOG LEFT BEHIND ALL OVER THE BACK OF THE SHIP." Marquis yelled in Iisska's face.

"STOP YELLING AT ME! I'M SORRY!," he yelled right back, "NOT EXACTLY LIKE WE WERE ON A FUCKING CAKE WALK THROUGH THE MAGIC FOREST!"

While the two argued, Nyrette whispered something into Cynthia's ear. She looked at Nyrette, smiling and nodding before moving over close to Marquis and Iisska.

"NO. OF COURSE NOT. YOU WERE PROBABLY SLEEPING LIKE ALWAYS!" Marquis yelled right back.

"Mom and dad! Please stop fighting! You're tearing me apart!" Cynthia yelled, which made Nyrette immediately keel over from laughing.

"FUCK YOU! I'LL PUT YOU TO SL---" Iisska nearly gave himself whiplash jumping away from the haemunculus, "What!?"

Meanwhile, while Nyrette and Quin were doubled over laughing too hard for their own good, Marquis just rubbed his forehead in near rage. "I This is why I am an introvert." He shook his head and walked off.

"What!? Gonna yell and scream at me and then not introduce yourself!? Get back here!" Iisska stomped after him.

It was then that Marquis stopped and turned, demonstrating that even though he was a droid with a static face that even he can give the most soul sucking devilish stare possible, stopping Iisska in his tracks and forcing the Togruta to transform from a strong, proud warrior to adopt the posture of a scared mouse.

Iisska sulked back to Cynthia with his arms folded into a hunched chest.

"Ah... th-that was Marquis. You... You two can meet later," he mumbled.

Cynthia placed a hand on his head, between his montrals. "Nyrette has hand-signed that you need a hug. Shall I give one?" Que Nyrette and Quin screaming with laughter again.

He shot a glare over to the girls, baring his teeth and growling.

Without warning, Cynthia hugged the Togruta, keeping him from killing the girls with his evil eye for a few seconds longer. The hug was robotic and unsatisfying.

"UM," Iisska started turning colors, "No. Hey, great. Um, thanks. I feel better now. Much better. Let go. Hey, let go. Please. Please let go."

Meanwhile, Nyrette was on her back yelling "Oh god, Rainbow Iisska has landed, release the leprechauns!"

Cynthia let go and stood in front of him, smiling. "Always happy to help!"

He shuddered when she let go and rubbed his arm. For a second he was frozen, but backed up and kept his eyes on the ground.

"You didn't," he said quietly, "I have things to do."

With that he picked up what he was carrying and rushed to the ship and out of sight.

When Iisska got to his room in the ship, however. He didn't find the solace he was looking for, but instead Cheshik setting a bed from the estate. "Oh. Hello Iisska. I set bed for you. Sleep well. I go prepare trip back. New couch in lounge!" He walked out, probably to Iisska's relief.

"Great, Cheshik. Thanks," Iisska said.

It wasn't until after Cheshik left that he dropped everything he was carrying on the floor and feel face first into the bed and groaned loudly.

A week had passed since Cynthia had come to stay with the crew at what had developed into a rather nice camp. Cheshik had insisted on hauling over as many items as he possible could from the mansion to make the Harpoon a more comfortable place. Comfortable as in extravagant in the most out of place sort of way. Beds, couches, paintings, chairs, tables, armoirs, cookery, anything that struck his fancy. Despite the protests from most of the crew he must have made nearly a dozen trips. However he had been forbidden from doing so until more food was hunted as they had already burned through the first kill.

As Iisska slowly pulled himself out of his sudden need for more than fourteen hours of sleep everyday to a more reasonable amount and began to calm down and regain energy, he was more help to Cheshik in that regard. However whenever he wasn't helping to hunt or gather other kinds of food, water and supplies, or working away on vital ship systems, he seemed to disappear for hours into the forest or into hidden areas of the ship. Quin caught him leaving Zen's room after one such disappearance, but all she got out of him was, "Still not awake."

Cynthia had been busying herself tailing random members of the crew and proved nearly impossible to be rid of once she had made her pick for the day. She had also picked up a rather unsettling habit of mimicking, actions, speech patterns, gestures, manerisms and other such behaviors of everyone in the group. It was like looking at a very unappealing photograph of oneself.

At the moment she had latched herself onto Quin, and for the time being she didn't care as she needed her advice. Cynthia had told them of a settlement that was reletively close by. They should be able to reach it in just over a day or two at a good pace. Quin had busied herself picking out things that could possibly be worth something to sell or trade. They needed supplies and badly. As much as Cheshik loved the hunt, she and Nyrette wouldn't last long on the all meat and meager forest roots and berries diet. They would also need medical supplies and information. Mainly they needed to know if there was another way off this planet. Cynthia had been of little help when she had asked that question of her.

"What about the paintings, would we be able to sell those? I know Cheshik will have words to say about getting rid of them, but they really aren't necessary and I'm not fond of them," Quin asked Cynthia.

"They would sell for quite a bit, Pike. More than enough for a good amount of food." She said confidently.

"Excellent!" Quin said, "They should be easy to carry... And 'Pike?' Who have you been following around this time?"

"Your life mate, Nyrette, calls you Pike'ire. I took the initiative and shortened it to pike. Is that alright?" She said, a little worried.

"Life mate? What n-- Never mind. That's fine with me," Quin blushed.

__

Over the past week, Marquis' temper and attitude had only gotten worse. He was secluding himself a lot more and spending much of his time in the still-heavily-radiated A.I. core. He distanced himself from the others and when the Haemonculus tried to shadow him for a day, he nearly threw her out of the ship and locked it. It wasn't that he wasn't incompatible or intolerant of the others. He loved them as family. His mechanical heart ached for the woman that had sacrificed every bit of power in the ship to save them and he was under so much worry about if she'll wake back up that he couldn't stand to be around anything. He was devastatingly alone and hurting.

Cheshik however had been thriving. Making multiple trips with Cynthia back and forth to the mansion to replace the rapidly aging or damaged furniture in the ship. Though he had been banned from it for two days until more food could be found, so he had disappeared for a day and a half straight, coming back with several bags of meat on his little makeshift wagon and threw it into the freezer. There was enough meat to last them a week. Plus, the puppy was happy with a hunk of lamb meat.

Zen has been in a coma for a week. Not much has happened. He soiled himself once and giggled for some reason while Iisska was walking out of the room. Strange slap marks appeared on his skin one day and Quin's hand was red as well. What a coincidence.

Dromund Kaas hid away in the edge of the galaxy where it shrouded itself in eternal darkness and a thick fog. The bright lights surrounding the ancient stone landing pad were barely visible when the twisted interceptor descended out of the clouds. Dock hands rushed out to assist in the landing process. No sooner than the ship touched down did the boarding ramp swing out from under the hull. A slender figure draped and hooded in billowing robes and a veil over his face strode out and left the dock hands in his wake to take care of things. Nobody so much as looked at him. They wouldn't dare.

Before him the ancient stone towers of the temple complex stretched into the sky. Their crowns sank deeply into the fog and out of sight. There they stood for thousands upon thousands of years. Watchers of a sacred place. A fitting home for his master. He took the wide stairs two at a time and whisked under the tall arches that lead into the main entrance. A massive cavern flanked with statuary and more arched doorways to different parts of the complex. It stretched on for a few hundred yards until it ended with an incredible pain of stained glass depicting the sacred figures and triumphs of the dark worshipers who first built this place. The glass had been partially shattered long ago and the weathered holes had been draped with dark, flowing curtains. But the display when the lightning of Dromund Kaas flashed through that glass was still awe inspiring, humbling and fearsome.

He ignored the splendor of this place and the multitude of faceless guards that patrolled here. When he came to the arch before the hallway that lead to his master's quarters he stopped a moment. Then he turned and headed for the courtyard and the sprawling military base that had taken over the ruined city beyond that. The Master was not in her quarters. He could sense her elsewhere. He could always sense her. She was under his skin too deeply to ignore or cut out.

The city was a place of mud, rust, quickly erected junk structures and prefab buildings, constant movement, and relative silence. Communication between those living here was quick and professional and if it ever was not so, then it was private. As for the others, words were not exchanged. Because they were the others and the dead have no use for talk.

He made an effort to pass through this place quickly, even breaking into a jog a time or two until he reached the barren outskirts and the place where the blackened pine forest dominated. In this place there could be no light. Save for the small twinkling that came from sparse bio-luminescent flora along the ground, the forest would swallow it all. This would not be a hindrance for he had no need of the light. The dark was his second skin and his master's very existence a beacon. When he finally felt he was close, he slowed his pace in order for it to be silent and not disturbing.

The trees made way and opened onto a clearing shrouded in tall grasses and reeds, but he could see her there, standing on the surface of a black pond. He neared the edge of the water and knelt before her.

She was unmoving save for the subtle fluttering of the sheer fabric that clothed her. She did not face him, instead gazing out from under her golden mask and veil as the sporadic bolts of lightning danced across the water's surface. There was a silence between them that seemed as deep, eternal and thick as an ocean of blood. Then the rain started to fall.

"Where is the agent?" she finally asked him.

"She slipped away. To where I do not know," he responded quickly.

"You were bested by such a small thing?" she asked.

There was no response.

"Instead of tracking her down once more and completing your task, you instead opt to return to me in failure?" she asked again.

He kept his head down.

"I do not understand, Apprentice" she sighed, "But I will let you decide how to proceed. Leave now and do not return until you have succeeded or accept your punishment and disgrace and allow the task to pass to another."

"I will not abandon this, My Lord," he said quietly, "I seek guidance. I have been tracking them for more than a week and have found no sign, no feelings, no trail. I damaged their ship before they made a jump to hyperspace. But there was no sign of them at the end of the route. I would have sensed them. The route must have collapsed, they could not have survived, but... But I know he is still out there."

"He?" the Sith turned on him.

"Yes. The force user who accompanies the agent. He is incred--"

"He is not your target."

"But he must be stopped, along with agent. I fought him, he is more powerful than--"

"He is not your target."

"Forgive me, Master. But, you with all your power, perhaps you may be able to sense what I cannot and locate them-- her."

"Are you suggesting I do this task myself?"

The Apprentice was silent.

"I am displeased. You will be punished severely and this task will be passed to Tu'chak'a."

"The reptile? You have retrieved him then," the apprentice spat through his teeth.

"He will track down what you could not," she said, "And you--"

"NO!," he yelled, "He will not take this away from me! Not that putrid lizard! I will be the one to have the honor of destroying that man! I have never had an opponent I could not defeat!"

"SILENCE."

The trees were alive with the faces of ghosts. Those who had died in the deepest depths in the throws of agonizing pain as their very essence was carved from their bodies, piece by sliver-thin piece. They shrieked and towered over him while the rain turned into their blood and tears and long razor fingers cut through the edges of his mind. All the while a red hurricane surrounded Darth Scurus as her wrath threatened to cut the very land and air to shreds. The wind screamed at such high speed and the apprentice had his hood and veil blasted back and the cloak around him began to rip from the force.

"YOU ARE MY APPRENTICE AND MY SERVANT AND YOU WILL OBEY ME. HONOR HAS NO HAND IN WHAT I DO HERE. YOU SEEK TO UNDERMINE OUR GOALS FOR YOUR OWN SELFISH FULFILLMENT. YOU ARE A FOOL. YOU ARE LOYAL TO ME AND LOYAL TO THE EMPIRE OR YOU WILL BE SUBJECTED TO A HELL SCAPE FROM WHICH DEATH WILL NOT SAVE YOU."

Cuts and splits started to form on the edges of his skin where the wind tore. He tried to shield himself, but he could not shield against the ghosts of Darth Scurus. Despite himself a scream of fear and pain escaped him.

"ARE YOU A LOYAL SERVANT!?"

"YES!" he shouted.

"WILL YOU SERVE THE EMPIRE!?"

"YES!" he screamed and begged, "I WILL OBEY YOU!"

It all stopped in a blink. The Master, the pond, the clearing, the trees, the fog, the grass and everything was as if nothing had happened. But the apprentice curled on his knees, bleeding, torn and struggling to breathe in a frayed heap. His Master approached him slowly. Her bare toes sank into the mud and grass at the shore.

"Take out your knife," she ordered.

He did so without hesitation and presented the small vibro-blade to her. She did not take it.

"Open your mouth."

He obeyed.

"That will be the last time you speak against me. Slice it out."