Iphis skimmed through the text on the datapad with something almost approaching interest before signing it with her thumbprint. She handed it back to the Inquistorius representative. “Simple enough. I really can’t imagine why you think I need a team for this one,” she drawled.
Nevertheless, she accepted the two parcels that came along with the assignment. The first was a satchel nearly overflowing with high explosive charges, a copy of the Iron Legion’s current TactiX manual with the demolition section flagged, and a Legion’s Eye linked to the TactiX datapad. The second was Ce’celia Lathos, sporting a high-end shock collar around her neck and positively reeking of anxiety.
“That’s really not necessary,” the Twi'lek whined as Iphis took the shock controller from the Inquisitorius representative.
“You’re right. It’s not,” Iphis said indifferently.
Over the course of seconds, Ce'celia’s anxiety morphed into blind panic as her lips grew a deeper shade of blue. She dropped to her knees, whimpering and instinctively clutching at her chest, her breath turning to frantic gasps. Then, just like that, everything returned to normal, and Ce'celia was left panting on her hands and knees.
“Your heart,” Iphis said without any change in affect, “beats at my pleasure now. Just one of many bodily functions I can turn off at a whim, most of which will kill you much less comfortably than cardiac arrest. The fact that I can press this button and pop your head like an overripe meiloorun is just for show.” At this, she finally turned to look at the captive Quantum Shadow and treated her to a cloying smile. “So be a good girl and don’t waste my time with any treacherous gangbanger nerfshit. Are we clear?”
Ce'celia nodded. She was visibly shaken, but given all that the poor girl had been through over the past day, she did an admirable job keeping it together.
“Lovely. Welcome to the Brotherhood, by the way. If this feels like a step down, just imagine what we’re going to do to Whatshisname.”
“You are significantly uglier when you look aroused, do you know that?”
The commentary curled, curdled, from thin cyanotic lips. A lithe figure, truly lithe, serpentine, compared to the Lyctor’s emaciated mannequin beauty, perched upon the lid of a dumpster still aflame on its open halve, the aroma of cooking refuse and fresh flesh wafting free. An undercurrent of burning hair accompanied that medley on the recycled air of Level 1077, one long Wookiee leg still jutting upright through the gap in flames. The feather-crested speaker idly reached over and nudged the offending limb down with one finger. A dagger, black of glass, twirled in the Shani’s other hand to point at Iphis.
“Do us all a favor and keep your kinks to yourself. Or put a bag over your head. Whichever you prefer.” To and fro, the blade waved. “Use that collar on her and I’ll ensure rigor mortis captures that hideous osk-face of yours evermore. You leave her be.”
Iphis turned to give the creature an indifferent look, her expression only turning sour after a few heartbeats’ observation. «You got the organs wrong,» she said in perfectly accented Shani.
She looked back to the satchel and absently fished out the eye piece and TactiX datapad. “Besh for effort, though,” she continued in Basic. “Most people wouldn’t notice. But I happen to know my way around the inside of a Shani.”
Bub looked back and forth between the two…females? He was pretty sure they were females by the protrusions on one of them and the catty, aggressive nature of the other. He shrugged to himself.
“Bub…Bub…yub,” he muttered, shaking his head and yawning, plopping down in the corner while the two Tall Ones verbally sniped at one another, taking a moment to scratch himself. The travel down through the metal and duracrete jungle had been tiring and long. So many strange smells, and poor hunting…what little he’d caught hadn’t tasted good raw, the large rodents that apparently could chew through the walls here. With no time to cook, he was now down here, in this pit.
Reaching down, he checked the claws on his feet, scraping off some of what he’d tracked down along with him, lifting a finger to his nose to sniff it.
“Yub…NUCK!” he coughed a few times, blinking away tears.
Slitted, golden avian eyes narrowed at Iphis, and the facsimile of a Shani showed their teeth – and the majority of their upper esophagus – in a smile that unhinged the jaw entire.
“Spare your sibilant tongue if you actually want to critique; you’re neither clever nor helpful if I can’t understand you. What gave me away? And don’t say the heart, relocating that is intentional.”
They hopped down and sidewinded over, eyeing the Ewok that sniffed and scratched. Thin, scaled brows rose at his exclamation, and her fingers quickly dipped into one of many pockets for a snack. Jerky, from a fuel station, the packaging crumpled. She waved it at him.
“Say, there, keep talking, won’t you? I want to hear more of that Ewokese. I haven’t had a chance to study the phonemes closely yet.” She paused, then waved the jerky again. “If you die today, can I have your bones?”
Beady black eyes tracked the meat treat, nose sniffing the air, saliva slowly trickling out of the side of his mouth. He could smell…spices, seasoning, and preserved freshness—a smokey scent in the air.
“…nub….yub…Bub?”
Cautiously, the Ewok got to his feet, his small frame swaying slightly as his head turned to track the jerky. Claws extended slightly from his paws, and he licked his lips.
With a lunge he snatched the meat out of the air and bit into it with gusto, before glancing up at the…person. He wasn’t sure what they were, the shifting face meant she was some form of a witch, and witches were to be both feared and respected.
Bub will have no use of his bones after his fall, but he will fight to hold on to them as long as he is able, Witch. Do with them as you wish filtered through to Meat Witch’s mind.
“This is my punishment for that thing with Vicious, isn’t it?” Iphis said in the Inquisitorius’ general direction. “Whatever, let’s get on with it.”
She lifted the satchel of denton charges and shoved it into Ce'celia’s arms. “Lead the way, give a shout when we need to break something.”
The changeling was quick to snatch their hand back, keeping fingertips from meeting eager claws, a pleased curl pulling the gaping halves of their jaw back together when they smiled at the acceptance. He’d taken the food– that was a debt owed.
The grin vanished when a voice intruded upon their mind.
A misplaced muscle spasmed along their neck and temple, shuddering all down one brachial limb to grip the knife they held white-knuckled. Their gaze roved over the Ewok, lingering on seams where cartilage and tendon would connect under fur, dissecting.
Then their grip loosened, and they smiled once more.
“Witch, hmm? I will claim that title, though you may call this form Imopea.” She leaned down and crooned to him. “My bones, then. Take good care of them in the meantime, little dandelion.”
The creature pivoted then, stalking back over to Ce'celia and Iphis. The Twi'lek seemed no more comforted by any of the chicanery going on around her, and her throat convulsed under the metal locked around it. She glared at Iphis, steel under velvet, and only barely glanced at Imopea, for all the changeling had threatened the Lyctor on her behalf. Bub…Ce'celia merely shook her head, lekku swaying, and sighed again.
“This way,” she snapped.
Bub yawned, the jerky finished. Seeing the people he was meant to watch over starting to move he put himself in the path of the One Who Fed, putting his arms up.
“Bub! Yub Bub!”
This declaration got him a confused look and he sighed, closing his eyes and focusing once more
Meat Witch! This mighty warrior has traveled far in the Tall People’s land and is in need of conveyance!
“‘Meat Witch?’” echoed the pantomimist.
“That’s adorable,” Iphis cooed, dead flat.
The demand seemed deduced quickly. “You want me to carry you?”
If anyone was expecting violence in response to the request, they were shortly disappointed, much like all of Iphis’ lovers. Imopea, as they were so-called, cackled and bent to lift the Ewok in a fashion much like one would a toddling child. They held him, rocking a moment, before pushing him up towards their neck for his arms to wrap around.
“Hold on a moment, I can do without a stomach for an hour or two.”
So spoken, sinew and soft flesh shifted underskin, subtle rippling that roiled visibly beneath her light armor and wobbled Bub slightly in place. Following that low harmony was a chorus of two violent, loud cracks, muted by muscle. The not-Shani rolled their neck, elicting a series of pops, then sighed out.
“Alright, back you go. I’m not having my hands full.”
Now jutting from her back, though covered by the armor, were two lumps. When the Ewok scaled over her shoulders and settled in, he found his paws fitting firmly into boney stirrups, footholds for him protruding from each shoulder blade.
Ce'celia visibly gagged.
“Oh, do better, pet,” Iphis *tsk*ed to the Twi'lek, patting her cheek.
Bub yawned and settled in place, resting his head on the shape shifter’s shoulder and settled in, eyes half closed, mumbling about a glorious hunt in his native tongue.
As the Ewok seemed to fully clock out and tuck in for a nap, the three women – or at least, one woman, a patchwork feminine doll, and a Meat Witch of indeterminate parts – were left to the rigors of traversing Coruscant’s underbelly in the midst of a superpowered-weapon crime spree.
“Well,” Iphis remarked of the scene, as they strode past the damned and their bloated or emaciated would-be corpses piled about the durasteel floors, wailing their suffering and getting ichor all over the place, including on her shoes, “shall we hold hands in girlish solidarity?”
For some ungrateful reason, Ce'celia sneered at that suggestion. Imopea, however, merely blinked as her feathered crest twitched.
“I just grew a back saddle for the little bear to keep my hands free and you want to hold one?”
“What, you need both to be useful? How amateurish must be your finger work.”
“Would you please stop flirting and focus?” Ce'celia ground out, even though she flinched minutely when Iphis looked her way. Having managed to finagle the pack of explosives onto her back, the unarmed Twi'lek fisted her belt loops, clearly itching for a blaster to touch in the comfortable companion of a lifetime of living under duress. The servos of her skeletal cybernetic arm whined.
“Are you volunteering? Don’t be boring, now, if you are.”
Imopea slid between them, though hardly disrupting the Lyctor’s line of sight to her blue plaything, given their disparate heights. Their dagger was back, warping into a palm that found home hovering over Iphis’ illiac crest, tip angled inguinally.
“I warned you.”
“You said not to use the collar.”
“And to leave her be.”
“I haven’t done anything to her, now have I?” Her head tilted. “Don’t tell me you’re knightly. That would be so dull.”
“A promise is a promise.”
That said, they grabbed on to Iphis’ flesh and bone hand, sliding their fingers along her palm, slipping between the tight, vee-folds of warm, damp skin, locking them together.
By sinking their talons into the back of said hand. Viscous, discolored blood welled and wept wet, making the slide slick between them.
Iphis giggled.
The puncture points of duller Hapan nails scouring bloody grooves in riposte was no surprise. The changeling wasn’t laughing, but neither did they twitch even a single quill.
“Fab. On we go, gal-pal,” Iphis purred, her long, skeletal legs carrying her stride farther, such that Imopea’s walk was brisk to keep pace. Ce'celia marched after, her stealthy steps labored by several kilograms of high yield explosive devices.
“Thanks,” she muttered towards the faux-Shani, reaching again for a pistol that wasn’t there when a loud crash sounded nearby amidst all the other general tortured screaming and typical shouts of capitalist hawkers and roaring speeders above.
“Oh, for bloody blast’s sake,” huffed Imopea, and offered their only free hand, relatively clean. Ce'celia visibly warred with her own remaining sanity before she took it.
Girlish solidarity it was.
The Ewok snored the whole journey.
|=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=|
These people are insane.
If they were even people.
And yet, Ce'celia was still holding hands with the second worst of them. Which wasn’t saying much, except that the sexually harassing one could apparently stop her heart with a look.
With a look.
Dahar had come with her other two dozen to the surface just because he was more scared of fighting fairytales of rakghouls and mutated taung than of more grenades. The Jedi and Sith were supposed to be fairytales too. But here they were. With their lightsabers and these grotesque powers. Maybe Imopea was a rakghoul herself. Maybe everything was true and real. Maybe she was living in a waking nightmare.
“Hey, petal,” the not-Shani called to her, nudging her slightly. She turned her head around towards the Twi'lek, further than should’ve been possible, and staged a whisper for her earcones alone while Iphis rolled her eyes. “Hey, relax, I won’t let her hurt you, savvy?”
Though she really had no reason to believe it, beyond the standoff earlier, Ce'celia felt her shoulders unlace. Some of the pain radiating through her head and lekku from how tightly her jaw and neck muscles were clenched eased.
“Why bother?” Ce'celia muttered back. Living nightmares or no, if she could get out of this collar, she would bloody these three as surely as she had Bhoc to get out of here. To get back to the others and finish her plan and make sure everything would be okay. “You don’t know me.”
“I know what it’s like to live collared,” Imopea replied, serpentine and smooth, as if reading her thoughts. Wait, was that something Jedi could do? “Cross my heart and should I lie let me suffer as I die.”
“I don’t think that’s how that goes.”
“I fancy it,” Iphis chimed, and Imopea rolled their eyes.
- “I’m being sincere,” the shapeshifter continued, scales brows furrowed, face loose, imploring and kindly. She squeezed their hands together, but gently. “Trust me, Ce'celia. Look, fain and fair, if I am being utterly honest, I likely wouldn’t be so protective if it wasn’t for the collar bit; but as it is, I’m sympathetic enough. Does that satisfy you?”
“Hmm…”
“No one asked you, gal pal.”
The Lyctor merely crinkled her nose in amusement, making it look all the more unfit for her face.
“I…” The former gangster swallowed, feeling how her throat pressed and bobbed against the unforgiving metal, choking her slightly. Her mother had come from a life in one of these; she’d told the story often enough while beating Ce'celia for being ungrateful, for not being faster or better at picking a pocket or for getting hurt and slowing them down…
“Oh, don’t think of such troublesome things. Think of your friends instead. Your Shadows, no? Bit more of a family to you, perhaps? Why not think of them for me? Go on, tell me about them.”
Another gentle squeeze of her hand, and the Twi'lek found her jaw unlocking.
“They…they were. They weren’t the great, yeah, but it was something. I’ve been in so many. Nothing lasts here. But the Shadows, we aren’t doing bad. We were friends. I loved getting everybody to smile. Then Juz turned up dead, and karking Bhoc,” she spat his name, “he ruined us.”
A violent shudder rolled through her body. For all she’d seen and done in her lifetime, she’d never seen anything like Hessan’s missing leg, smoking at the edge and reminding her how long it had been since she’d last had a meal. Risko blown open and blood gurgling about her metal jaw. Jerrah blasted in half. Keeko fried by electricity jumping from someone’s fingers. And P'tah…
…the young woman and the old man in the bank…
…one of the tellers…
…P'tah, crying.
“Shhh, shh, shh, petal. Not them. Not the bad. What about the others? What about your sky?”
- “So big.” They were walking, still, but she felt so far away. “Thought I’d fall into it.”
“Hmmm, been there. I remember the first time I ever saw the sun. This big sky, you saw it with your friends?”
“Qwrti. Horatio, even.” The medic Omwati was a given, but the Weequay had been one of Bhoc’s cronies for ages. He was right though, that he couldn’t look out for his daughter dead. If any of them got out of this alive. Out of these sick freaks’ clutches. “I…nnn…I…th’…others. why? Why you want to know?”
Why was she talking about them?
Her head hurt.
“Well, I’m hoping if I make pleasant conversation, you’ll stop squeezing my hand to death and looking ready to bolt every second. We have a job to do, and all.”
“Oh.” Belatedly, Ce'celia loosened her metal grip. “Sorry.”
“You will surely be,” Iphis remarked once more, and the ex-Shadow cringed at the flat boredom in the statement.
“No, she won’t.” Imopea swiveled back towards the taller gal to glare. “Focus, now, shall we? Ce'celia? Are we still going somewhere?”
“Yes, yeah.” She glanced quickly around. “We’re on the right track.”
“Splendid.”
The Shani creature smiled. Ce'celia summoned a smile back, trying to drag back any scrap of optimism that this would work out.
The walkways and lifts were remarkably uncrowded by Coruscant standards, if not to begin with, then certainly after the other pedestrians caught sight of the two women holding hands with whatever was happening with Imopea and the sleeping Ewok. But the block that housed their destination never saw many organic visitors.
The Data District was a seemingly endless series of boxy, windowless towers. Windowless, but not featureless, as every few levels the blank duracrete walls erupted into massive circular vents that gushed hot air, the exhaust from the cooling systems required for so much computing equipment. The top levels were aggressively clean and corporate; although the executives that hosted their data and operations here never bothered to come this far out, their soulless corporate aesthetic came with the territory.
The Bank of Coruscant hosted their security footage in a secured data center on level 1077. The quartet found their target without issue. It was labeled with a small plaque reading Excelsior Information Systems beneath an insipid EIS logo.There was a card reader on a metallic post just outside the door. Iphis and Imopea turned to look at Ce’celia, the trio still linked hand in hand. The Twi’lek shrunk back slightly.
“I only know where it is. Can’t you use your plasma swords?”
“I don’t have a plasma sword,” Imopea responded. “Swords are too long, obvious compensation for something.”
Iphis sighed and closed her eyes, her voice assuming the pleasantly bored tones of a receptionist droid. “One moment, please hold.”
|=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=|
Paw Blarrt, security guard, had seen a lot in his years on the force. A lot of Holonet news, which played incessantly on the display across from his posting by the front door. A lot of burned out engineers, whose badges he checked, and a lot of unflattering pictures of them on said badges. A lot of cocky young hotshots, loose canons the lot of them, like the two young Tooks huddled together in the security office looking at illicit videos on the Holonet. And a lot of McQuarry’s Double Bacon Noona Burgers, like the one laying mostly eaten on his desk, unfurled in all its naked glory on the rapper, like an artist’s Ghorman model.
‘Paw, you gotta stop eating those every day,’ people told him. ‘Paw, they’re making you fat.’ ‘Paw, they’re gonna kill you one of these days.’ Maybe they were right, the Togorian mused. Maybe he would meet his end, not at the hands of a savage intruder forcing their way past his post, but from the combination of the burgers’ grease and his own girth.
As it turns out, it was both. Paw clutched his chest, eyes widening, the fur on his face rippling in panic and distress. He tried to call for help, but his voice was a weak and faint croak. Within a matter of seconds, he lurched forward onto his burger as his heart finally gave out, dead.
Thus ended Paw’s patrol.
No sooner than his body hit the floor, black, smoky particles started to rise from his gaping mouth, coalescing into a skeletal form above him. The wraith spared a glance back at the windowed wall behind it and the two other security guards within, but they were too fixated on whatever bootleg Nar Shaddaa action movie or vile pornography they were watching to have noticed their colleague’s death. The wraith slithered over the desk to the door, slapped the Republic Occupational Safety and Health Act-mandated open button next to it, and unceremoniously dissolved into nothingness.
“…just a cortisol spike,” Iphis’ voice wafted through the door, followed by the chain of unhinged Force-users and the increasingly resigned ex-bandit. “Really, I did him a favor.”
“Oh,” she said, taking in the lobby. “Ew.” Her disgust was directed not at the dead Togorian, now the final topping on his final burger, nor at the pair of remarkably useless guards on the other side of the security glass. She had seen the door between the entrance lobby and the interior of the data center; more precisely, she had seen the fingerprint reader next to it.
With a dramatic sigh, she drew her sword with her cybernetic hand, the organic one still ensnared by Imopea’s. She managed to get the blade clear of its shadowsheath without cutting the pseudo-Shani, though not because of any special care on her part. With one swing she cut Paw’s paw free from his forearm. Gesturing with her blade, she grabbed it with the Force, lifting it up and slamming it gracelessly against the fingerprint reader.
There was no green light, no beep, no sound of the door unlocking, merely the drip drip of blood leaking from the severed limb onto the floor.
“Capacitive reader. Vexing,” Iphis said.
“Let me,” Imopea answered. She released Iphis’ hand, utterly indifferent to how quickly the wounds from her claws sealed themselves shut. She stepped forward, Twi’lek and Ewok in tow, and picked up Paw’s paw. After a moment’s observation, she dropped it, and her own hand rippled and bubbled before taking on a perfect facsimile of the late guard’s. She pressed it against the scanner and the door opened.
“I will begrudgingly admit that was impressive,” Iphis said.
“I will never achieve a higher peak than your impression.”
“Not with your handiwork, no, but possibly with generous assistance.”
Imopea expelled a noise like a wetly wretching tooka and geeticulated at the unhanded Togorian corpse.
“There’s a stiff right over there if you’re so desperate.”
“Oh, not the lowest form of humor.”
“Humerus all,” drawled the changeling, and nodded ahead, “and get the next bloody door.”
The door they’d unlocked only lead to an elevator bay, of all things, which was sectioned off by rows of turnstiles. On the far right was another guard booth, and through the glass could be seen a pair talking. They had not yet looked up.
“They’re debating lunch,” Ce'celia offered, her gaze fixed on the employees’ moving lips. “Hurry up!”
She dashed forward and ducked low, out of the line of sight through the glass. Being without a plan in advance was terrible, but they could make it work, these crazies were competent…
And just walking out and vaulting over the turnstiles.
A swift stride brought Iphis to the little guard enclosure, into which she waved. The badge dangling from over one man’s neck flew sharply into the air and twisted about him throat several times, choking him. His partner watched in horror before he whirled around at seemingly nothing and drew his blaster, firing at the door control panel. It sparked, and in floated Iphis’ rapier, cutting him down swiftly.
Imopea entered, took the blaster from the dead man’s hand, and shot the dying one. Then she found the mechanism she was looking for to free the lifts that pinged and lit green, every set opening.
The Twi'lek rose from her crouch and followed the others in.
“Which floor?”
“How should I know? That guard was imagining nusausge rolls, not the floorplan.” Imopea glowered, taking a drink from a hip flask while they paused.
Iphis pouted at her. “Don’t atrophy your gray matter. I want to play with it.”
They drank again.
“Servers are usually kept lower down,” Ce'celia sighed. “It’s cooler. Let’s just start at the bottom and work our way up methodically.”
“Tiresome,” drawled the Lyctor. “We’ll go to the bottom and blow the whole thing. That will take care of it.”
The Twi'lek’s eyes bulged. “You want to bring the whole building down?!”
“Whatever destroys that data,” Imopea agreed, jabbing a button.
If they were meant to move rather quickly then, it wasn’t meant to be. Every few floors the lift would stop as some other employee got on. While Iphis was quick to raise her sword even as Ce'celia hissed a protest, Imopea merely waved them both back. The trio and Bub pressed into the rear on the cabin, while an intense expression smoothed Imopea’s face, and each new entrant merely stepped inside. They seemed not to notice the invaders at all, even if they did bother the basic courtesy of checking around them before stepping in. Most were glued to their datapads. One employee, a Weequay in a coat, casually turned before he left and dropped his pad into Ce'celia’s hands.
It went on like that for sixteen stops. Imopea was sweating and lightly panting by the bottom, a grimace twisting her mouth in an abnormal shape. When their stop came and the doors opened to an empty, frigidly cold hall belching icy dry air into their bubble, the changeling sagged.
“I admit, I’m turned on.”
“What the kark?” the Twi'lek snapped, and leaned nearer to Imopea. “What was that? Are you okay?”
- “Illusions of nothing. And dandy.” They drank from their flask again, then snatched the datapad and went striding out. Helpfully, the walls immediately outside the lift were labeled with signs and directions. They were indeed on a level that had some server banks, at least.
The peace was brief. As they traversed the artificially chilled halls, there were several more pithy witnesses. Iphis dispatched them like an apathetic child plucking the wings from butterflies. Each new bloody mess risked slipping and sliding as they moved, and Imopea increasingly joined Ce'celia in sending the Lyctor baleful glares.
Iphis met the shapeshifter’s stare and ran her tongue along her sword, slowly.
Finding their appointed door, of course, locked, the changeling threw the datapad she’d stolen at it in a fit of pique, a monstrous shout erupting from her maw.
“How many BLOODY DOORS are there?”
“If you all had let me keep any of my tools,” Ce'celia spoke, “this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“NO ONE NEEDS THIS MANY DOORS.”
“Oooh, temper, temper. Save me some.”
The faux-Shani closed her eyes and inhaled through bared fangs.
- “If I tell you the body under this guise isn’t yet sixteen, will it at all deter your putrid propositioning, or will that only make you ooze more?”
“As if my tutors weren’t teaching me how to pop a man as well as a boil long before pubescence. I’m certain you’re similar. Yes, yes, tragically trite, our spent youth too soon bloomed, et cetera. Oh, ‘I remember when I first saw the sun,’ oh, ‘I thought I’d fall into the sky.’ I thought I would get to see some kidneys by now, woe befouls me.”
“If you can shut up for five minutes,” Imopea began, nictating eyes a flat disc of light reflected off the retinal scanner screen that locked them out, “I’ll show you my kidneys when we’re done. Through the skin. In my calves. How’s that sound?”
“I didn’t think this was the time for dirty talk, but I’m flexible.” She mimed a lock and key at her own mouth.
Ce'celia, meanwhile, gaped. “What– what? No! No, to all of that, nobody show anybody their karking kidneys! I don’t want to hear about kidneys! Especially not some– some kid’s.”
“Call me that again and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
“KARK YOU! I don’t want to see your laser swords. I don’t want your sick twisted help!” She waved back at the trail of bodies. “We’re just trying to survive. Get this collar off me, let us go, you’ve got what you want, you stay away from us, you magic farking freaks!”
When Iphis was silent to that traitorous tirade, Imopea shot her a glare. She batted her eyelashes, out of sync while one bright iris drifted the wrong direction, in the picture of angelic compromise.
[ figure while we’re busy trying to Hack Something for Some Reason ]
-
“If I tell you the body under this guise isn’t yet sixteen, will it at all deter your putrid propositioning, or will that only make you ooze more?”
“As if my tutors weren’t teaching me how to pop a man as well as a boil long before pubescence. I’m certain you’re similar. Yes, yes, tragically trite, our spent youth too soon bloomed, et cetera. Oh, ‘I remember when I first saw the sun,’ oh, ‘I thought I’d fall into the sky.’ I thought I would get to see some kidneys by now, woe befouls me.”
“If you can shut up for five minutes,” Imopea began, nictating eyes a flat disc of light reflected off the server screen, “I’ll show you my kidneys when we’re done. Through the skin. In my calves. How’s that sound?”
“I didn’t think this was the time for dirty talk, but I’m flexible.” She mimed a lock and key at her own mouth.
Ce'celia, meanwhile, gaped. “What– what? No! No, to all of that, nobody show anybody their karking kidneys! I don’t want to hear about kidneys! Especially not some– some kid’s.”
“Call me that again and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
“KARK YOU! I don’t want to see your laser swords. I don’t want your sick twisted help! We’re just trying to survive. Get this collar off me, let us go, you’ve got what you want, you stay away from us, you magic farking freaks!”
When Iphis was silent to that traitorous tirade, Imopea shot her a glare. She batted her eyelashes, out of sync while one bright iris drifted the wrong direction, in the picture of angelic compromise.
Bub yawns and lifts his head at the shouting match, cheek hair matted down with drool and looking unsteady. He fished the short hilt off his belt and out of the surprisingly warm and comfy flesh pocket he’d been napping in, seeing the Tall Ones gesturing at the door and one another. Assuming the door was the problem…he lifted his hand and waved forward, the brilliant green beam of the shoto saber flaring to life and driving through the door controls, sending sparks throughout the small area and causing the lights to flicker, before the door began to grind itself open. Another gesture brought the hilt slapping back to his paw, and saw the Ewok settled his cheek back against the shapeshifter’s shoulder, yawning.
“Yub…nub….” he mumbled, yawning again*
- Ce'celia shook her head. “You stripped me, remember?”
Iphis, focusing on peeling the spirit of the nearest corpse back whining and kicking from the otherworld, barely shook her head. The Ewok activated his lightsaber again and waved it, making even Imopea flinch when its distinct sound went by her ear.
“You happy leaving that thing here to melt, future skeleton mine?” they asked. Bub grumbled.
“Nub…yub.”
The blade retreated. Imopea sighed and held up one of her hands. They stared at it, muttering to themselves about chemical formulae, and slowly, their teeth receded, retracting up into their gum line and skull. Meanwhile, one finger grew, longer and thinner. And thinner. And thinner. The skin peeled slowly back, or perhaps it was that the bone was peeling away. Jutting from the fingertip was a long, pale stick with a bulging head that looked like a fingernail. With a swift, splintering snap, she seized it and broke it off her hand, unflinching as a small bit of blood oozed from the avulsed end of their fingertip, marrow peeking out. She broke it in half again, severing two distinct pieces.
Skin crawled back over in the finger-esque appendage that wasn’t being bothered with as Iphis’ new wraith floated into the room and Imopea handed it the homegrown match stick and pinkie-thin strike pad.
“Potassium chlorate, sulfur, red phosphorous. Have it light the load when we’re on the first floor.”
“It will happen.” The Lyctor sheathed her gorey blade with dreamy slowness. “I’ll need to maintain it, so do try to manage yourselves, hm?”
“Bub bub yub,” their Ewok declared, settling back into his cradle.
“He says he’ll protect us as needed. Let’s go.”
The team hurried to retreat, klaxons clamoring in their wake, an accompaniment to the drum of their steps. The lifts had locked down, so they were forced towards the stairs, which began a great tirade from the changeling in more than one language. Ce'celia was finally given the chance to cut something with plasma, looking ill as Bub passed her his lightsaber, in order to get into the barricaded stairwell. From there it was a painstaking ascent of twenty levels.
A few floors up, guards came in with blasters and fired down from above. Translucent coronas flickered to life around each of them, merrily deflecting shots every which way. The stink of scorch filled the stairwell. Imopea, skin flaking and body shuddering, screeched at the opposition. She threw out an arm, and in a twist of putridying light and ichorous mist, the limb transformed into a massive beast’s tentacular appendage. They whipped it forward, slamming the guards into the rails or tangling around them and yanking them over the ledge to drop to the duracrete below and crack their skulls open. Others were bandied about, back and forth in the tight space, until their bodies were limp and broken.
There was no colorful commentary now, not as they advanced and saved the oxygen for bloody stairs. More transformations and violence clogged their escape with bodies, rancor arms and lylek claws. Ce'celia did her part in punching out several armored interlopers or kicking them down the stairs. Iphis just watched, busily maintaining her connection to the wraith and not about to reveal that she could have helped more. Only Bub’s protection kept them alive long enough to emerge up top unscathed by anything more than abominable cardio.
- “Light it up.”
Iphis’ golden eyes rolled backwards, and below them, something bOOomed. It shook up through the building, through their soles and bones, rattling the teeth of those who still had them. Debris rained down, lights flickered out and the alarms cut off, plunging the place into flickering darkness, like the final spasms of the dying. Spilling back outside into the loathsome mediocrity of Floor 1107, the quartet retreated a suitable distance to watch the structure come down in muted flames and smoke that swiftly clogged the recirculated air and carbon scrubbers.
Iphis already had her headset commlink activated to relay mission success back to the Royal Guard and Inquisitors in a bored tone. Bub let his barriers dissipate at last, and made more noises in Ewokese before he flopped back into his hump hammock. Ce'celia had taken a few generous paces away and leaned against a wall plastered in rude graffiti that would be scrubbed off by droids and replaced by the next day cycle. She stared out distantly, cyberarm lifting to tug at the shock collar on her neck.
“It’s over, right? Job done? Then get this off of me.” The former Shadow looked to Imopea, who’d dropped down onto the ground, imploringly. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said below, okay, ki– Imopea. Just. Get this off. And you Brotherhood people, you get us away from here, yeah?”
“I believe that was their bargain,” the changeling murmured. They dragged themselves upright and snapped their malformed fingers at Iphis, who ended her call.
“I’m waiting for my kidney show, Inpee.”
“"Imopea.”*
“Whatever.”
“Just take the damn collar off her,” growled the shifter, garnering a sniff.
“Boo, you whore. I’m going to get jealous, and then it’ll be your fault when I disembowel her.”
“You won’t touch her.”
“‘You won’t touch her, nuh no nuh,’” mocked Iphis in a nasal tone, flicking her fingers. The telekinetic motion released locking mechanisms, and the shock device dropped off Ce'celia’s neck. She gasped, face lighting up in relief, and touched at her raw throat. Wetness stung her eyes, and she blinked them hard, refusing to cry but unable to hold back the sheer emotion of the release and the last few days’ events.
“Thank you,” she told Imopea. Trust me, they’d said. The Twi'lek turned to the faux-Shani. “Thank–”
Cold burrowed into her stomach, followed shortly by sharp pain. Ce'celia gasped again, unable to get a breath past the pain, past the sudden intrusion, and looked down to see a knife in her stomach and the pale hand twisting it up at an angle. A scream lodged in her chest, and her gaze swam back up to see the changeling’s face sloughing scales and shifting plates, flesh bulging and inflating as it darkened and bloomed with a pale blue.
Ce'celia’s own face, an approximate of it, stared back at her as she dropped to her knees, gaping. Imopea cradled her cheek, hand cold.
“Not so fun when someone else steals your face, now is it?” crooned the changeling, tone a warp between their two voices.
“B-but…” croaked the Twi'lek, desperately looking to their other teammates, but the Ewok was out, and of course Iphis merely blinked at them. “…deal…you…”
“You made a bargain with the Brotherhood. I am not of their ilk. But someone of mine is, and they were quite upset to see their face stolen. I made a promise to them, you see. And a promise is a promise.”
She twisted the knife, a vicious movement, aiming deep, and suddenly, the stabbing didn’t hurt anymore. Nothing did. Ce'celia couldn’t feel her legs, either.
- “I won’t make this hurt. But I’m still going to kill every last one of you and all their daughters and sons. Thank you for telling me about your friends. It was very helpful.”
Suddenly Ce'celia was on her back. Staring up at the same unrelenting metal and gray as she had her whole life.
“Blessed dreams, petal. I’ll grant you a good one.”
The sky was so, so big, and so so blue.
|=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=| :>[]<: |=(*)=|
The changeling waited to feel a lack of pulse, then slid her blade free. She considered the corpse for a moment, then reached for one lekku and carved off the still-warm tip.
“Oi, little bear thing. Here. Hey, wakey wakey, litlun, snack for you. Don’t you want a snackie?” Craning to reach over her elongated shoulders, she nudged the headtail piece at the Ewok’s mouth. His nose twitched as he opened his eyes again, blinking sleepily, and then made a happy grumble and opened for the treat. She stuck it closer and he latched on like a babe to a teat, filling her ear with the sound of contented suckling and chewing as he settled back down.
Ugh.
She got rid of the ear canal on that side and wiped off her dagger as she stood up.
“So…” drawled that insipid harpy from behind, and the shifter sighed as she looked to Iphis. “That was hot, but I’m still waiting for my kidneys.”
“Buy me a drink first,” they groused, too tired and sober to be bothered putting Imopea’s face back on. The clownish horror of half-melted Twi'lek would do. They pulled their hood up and walked past the corpse and away from the flames. “I feel like shite. I’m not showing you any more organs until I’ve had at least ten shots of something made for Wookiees.”
Iphis seemed to consider.
“Alright. But can you make your skin clear? I want to watch you swallow.”
- “You’re the most revolting bitch I’ve ever met, and that is a hard bar to pass.”
“Aww…”
“And where the blast are we taking this Ewok? I’m not a taxi.”
“Oh, drop him anywhere. That’s called Tyris’ problem.”
“I’m not just dropping him in a gutter. And who the hell is Tyris?”
“Irrelevant. And fine, he can be our ugly dog.” She offered her flesh hand again. “Girlish solidarity?”
The Imopea-Ce'celia’s distended nose wrinkled, but she still took it.
“Disgusting.”
“You know just what to say to a gal.”
Ce'celia bit back a scream when the very laser sword she had been dreading flashed by her face, nearly searing off skin. She stumbled back and her boot heel slipped in some of Iphis’ sanguine puddles. Between the weight on her back and that, the Twi'lek toppled over, only for Imopea to reach out and seize her arm, reeling her back upright.
“Fff–thanks.”
“‘I don’t want your sick twisted help, you magic freaks,’” the shifter sneered back, only it was Ce'celia’s own voice being shot back at her. They threw their hands apart more than dropping hers. Iphis watched with a small smile, clicking her nails together, quiet though she still was by bargain.
«Trouble in paradise?» came the mocking jibe in Ce'celia’s mind while Imopea pushed through the partially open door and looked about.
“Get in here! Let’s set these and go.”
Iphis made a grand shrug to show her lack of knowledge in something as pedestrian as explosives. She pointed at the manual in the bag, which Ce'celia unslung and gingerly set down.
“Well?”
“What, me? I’ve thrown a grenade where you push a button, that’s it.”
“Are you karking– we don’t have bloody time to read a manual.”
A sudden blare of klaxon sound accompanied the flashing of red lights. It seemed the guards upstairs had finally finished their session. Or perhaps it had been all the bodies. Regardless, the alarms were going now. Bub jerked awake, snarling and whimpering, his little ears bent low to his head as he covered them and stared around.
“Yub yub yub!”
«We really haven’t the time to read,» the Lyctor spoke into all their minds. «Start a fire and let us be gone.»
“With what kindling?”
Iphis looked significantly at Imopea, who snarled back.
“Frak you,” the changeling seethed, though they were pulling out their flask again nonetheless and emptied it over the bag of explosives and directions. “Make another one of those ghosts of yours, won’t you? Anyone have a light?”