Illusions of a Hunter's Mind (Akrabbim)

[Y'roth Helghast]

This was her hunt. Not Valten's. Not the Grand Inquisitor's. Not Helghast's. Not even that... thing's... It was her's. She didn't know how, she really didn't care how, but he had gotten through it all. And she had just barely stumbled across him, one of her children had actually. It had been of sheer chance while her child was searching for an escaped convict. A jedi? He was extremely elusive. Extremely.

Lady Dahmonwight sat back in her cushioned chair. She ran her black nails down the side of her cheek. She couldn't feel anything, nothing, but the barest of emotions that were still throbbing in the shell of her former self. She was prettier than she had ever been, beautiful and deceptively so. Her age was hard to discern, some would swear her as just past twenty and others could see her ten years older than that. In reality, she was just short of a century old. She had barely survived the transition of the era but the result had left her in a state of twisted perfection. She didn't wonder what life would be like had she stayed otherwise, the disease that had wracked her organic body would've slowly detoriated her mind as it had her body.

The newfound Empire offered a proposition to her while she lay on her death bed, the last moments of a former senator and supporter of Chancellor Palpatine. The Empire had instituted a new foundation called the Imperial Inquisitoriate and they needed volunteers. She would do anything for the Empire, as long as they would give her another chance. Another chance at life. To live, for anything. And so, Lady Dahmonwight had become the first Seeker under the fledgling Inquisitoriate. They had replaced the infected tissue with bionic implacements. At the beginning of her occupation, she had been classified human; by now, she was nearly an android.

A machine of her own design, her neurally enhanced brain was capable of much more now. She was responsible for most of the designs of the Seekers at this point, each one unique but collectively connected. They were her children. She had not intended for such a title but the first Seekers she had designed had somehow ran their human brains into the programming that she was a maternal figure, bestowing her the title of Mother. She had attempted to rewrite such programming but it was connected with the human brain too much to remove. But for a few annoying idiosynchrosies, her children were the Inquisitoriate's model of the perfect hunter.

She had made more personal adjustments to only three Seekers though. Her favorites, Zackariah, Mondred, and Kabel. Zackariah currently stood beside her, possibly the largest Seeker ever made. Standing at nearly 7 feet tall, Zackariah was her Titan model of the Seekers. The only one and only she knew he existed. After so long of doing the same thing, and with things slowing down, she had wanted something unique. Zackariah and Mondred had been the results of this period. Mondred was her artist, a brain that she had refused to taint with mechanical logic, she had explored his creativity and gave him what was necessary to express his deeper innovation. She didn't see him very much anymore but she knew that anytime she wanted to, he'd appear, for her. He was such a loving child.

On the other hand, Kabel had been a much more recent favorite. He had been designed in response to Valten's Project Nightmare. He was almost uncontrollable, the only Seeker capable of restraining him for a period of time was Zackariah. And even then, they needed Mondred to find Kabel. Lady Dahmonwight had been distressed to find Kabel so unruly, especially after she had blessed him with so many advancements. She at first thought him possibly defected but she had sent him on a mission only once so far and the mission had been such a success, she could not deny his usefulness. Not only that, but Kabel had seperated himself from the collective. Truly, this presented a problem, as she could only think of one entity capable of breaking through the layers and layers of programming and code she had built to confine the minds of the Seekers. But she dared not even think its name, she was too mechanical and it was a god in such terms, invoking it could be just enough.

Mother... We've locked the Jedi down to a four square sector.

Mondred was such a loving boy. And he always knew what she wanted to here.

[I]Mondred... Your brothers are at your disposal. Zackariah and I will be there shortly."

She didn't need him to confirm. She stood slowly and stretched. The wires connected to her body slowly unscrewed themselves from their ports and withdrew to the ceiling. Her red eye blinked to life and her vision became one sided, the other eye now a console the disected everything before her. Zackariah moved forward, so quiet for such a viscious giant. Just by thinking of him, she could see from his perspective, understand his thinking. She had made him rather simple, hadn't she.

=======

Seeker 3-Panzer-2 slowly moved out of the shadows of the broken building and spotted the man who had taken to the secluded alley. Very few lights were on in this district. The Seekers had been unable to locate the man thus far but they had finally caught up with him. Somewhat... Seeker 3-P-2 turned the corner to check the alley again only to find the Jedi wasn't there. Other brothers had been sharing such reports throughtout the entire sector. But they were closing in. Brother Mondred was nowhere near the sector but they could feel his influence, slowly pushing them this way and that way as if it were a chess board. How much longer could the Jedi play?

=======

Mondred sat on a bed covered in brown tinted sheets. Not their original color but it wasn't as if Mondred cared of such things. No. The elusive Jedi was his concern. Mondred was the only Seeker besides Kabel and Mother that actually looked somewhat human. No one could tell from afar that his hair just didn't look wiry, but actually was made of wires, all small antennae to his extensive relay system. The symphony was ready, the game was in play, the canvas was preppred. It was merely the next move that Mondred was stuck upon. Was it his move or the Jedi's?

He was on another part of Coruscant completely, another level of the dark depths. He couldn't remember much of who he had been before but he felt at home here. And it felt familiar, his territory, his playing field. The Jedi though... it was doing something to his brothers. Not their sensors, but their minds. And it wasn't active, it just seemed to make them not as efficient. This made Mondred work twice as hard as he attempted to coordinate their movements.

"Just give up already."

[Akrabbim]

After far too many close calls, Akrabbim begins to tire of the chase. He had hoped to simply evade them with some basic illusions, but that had proven ineffective. From the few glances he has been able to steal from his pursuers, they appear to be cyborgs in some form or another. There seems to be enough organic material in most of their brains to perform illusions on them, but their cybernetics keep picking his trail back up. He needs to end this.

He slips his way to a low rooftop to gain the highground. He needs to rest a moment to plan. He wants to kick himslef for being discovered. He had been as careful as possible, but apparently he had left some trail behind. It may have been something as simple as an unexpected heat signature... well, no need to think about that now. There will be time for self-recriminations later. Now, he needs to get out of here. He peers over the edge of the roof, claoking himself in an illusion composed of light. At least this way, even a mechanical eye wouldn't see him.

He sees a being come around the corner, apparently scanning for him. The creature makes a bee-line toward his location. Well, it's now or never. He reaches out with the Force, sending an illusion of himself peering over the rooftop several feet away. He wants to make sure that this cyborg can at least be affected by illusions. The being does look at his illusion, but instead of pursuing immediately, it pauses and simply stands in one place for several moments. Akrabbim does not immediately recognize what is happening, until he hears the sounds of more hunters approaching. Quickly.

*Blast,* he mutters to himself, *they're connected. So much for stealth...* Akrabbim blasts the cyborgs mind with Force Confusion, filling him with images of light and color, hoping to keep him off-balance for the few seconds he needs. He leaps from the rooftop, landing HARD on the cyborg. Before he's even fully landed, though, the creature is already beginning to rise and mount a counter offensive. Akrabbim barely brings a sword hilt up in time to block a heavy right, and is still nearly knocked off the hunter's back. He rights himself quickly and locks a hand onto its skull, attempting to flood the creature's organic brain with noise. It is effective, though the thing's limbs twitch from the mental barrage. It would seem that this one, at least, controls the inorganic parts of its body with the organic brain. That gives Akrabbim an idea.

He focuses all his mental energies at overwhelming the psyche of the hunter. This is never easy, but at least soldiers are generally trained to follow orders unquestioningly. Thus, they do not often think for themselves, and are much easier to overwhelm.

He can hear the other hunters nearby, but they appear to be confused as to where this one is. Perhaps Akrabbim's assault has made it unable to communicate with its "brethren." Once he finally has control, he gleans any relavewnt data that he can from the creature. It is obsessed with the name "Mother," and desires to contact her. He orders the creature's brain to give a false report, stating that the Jedi has overpowered this unit and escaped on foot. For good measure, he adds in a comment stating that the Jedi has the ability to create false heat signatures, and heat detection should not be trusted. Hopefully that will but him some time.

He strikes the cyborg hard in the back of the head before racing away from the scene with whatever Force Speed he can muster. He was never good at this technique, but pursuit by cybogs is an excellent motivator. The information he fed the being would make it appear that Akrabbim had broken free of the base and was fleeing to the lower levels of Coruscant. Instead, he retuned to the base itself, heading to the lower levels. There are several heating elements in some of the rooms down there. If they do decide to search for heat, they would not find him. He finds a suitable hiding place and prepares his next move.

[Y'roth Helghast]

Dahmonwight taps her lower lip idly. The Jedi had overpowered 3-P-2 and escaped. How unnerving. She thought she had made them capable enough to handle one Jedi? It had been quite some time though, they would be rusty she presumed. She checked on Mondred to see if he was as worried as she was, only to discover he was taking it in stride, as if he had expected the Jedi to strike out. The boy was loving, but a bit off. Failure was not an acceptable measure for beings that were striving for perfection.

Zackariah fidgeted, obviously aware of Dahmonwight's discomfort and echoing as much. The hulk did make a rather awkward image taking up the entire back seat of the limo. She glanced at him sharply and he put a large smile across his lips.

She reassessed the situation though in the blink of an eye. 3-P-2 had been removed from the collective for a moment. Once the link had been restablished, a flood of information had followed. First, the backed up messages of attempting to reach Mother had come, then the report of the escaped Jedi, the failure of using heat scanners, and the escape vector of the Jedi.

3-P-2 had been struck in the back of the head but his helmet had absorbed most of the shock. His status was normal, the Seeker's were human to a degree, but she had made endurance vital in all Seeker's. Giving up under any circumstances was not acceptable.

=======

Mondred sat up slowly, rubbing his hands together.

"About time, Master Jedi."

Yes, it was a Master. Mondred was more than sure of that. Mother wouldn't accept the notion but then again, she still retained some traits of a female's stubborn refusal to accept the basic facts sometimes. He smirked at the influence of his past life, what a chauvanist he must have been.

The Jedi had managed to sneak up on one of his brethren and escape without harm. Outstanding. But the Jedi was playing more than just simple mind tricks. His brother had reported the Jedi capable of falsifying heat signatures and to have headed to the lower levels. Not to mention the momentary loss of contact. That had been what startled Mondred the most and the messages that followed. The code had been disrupted, the collective had recoiled, only for nanoseconds but Mondred had read it for what had seemed like hours. The truth lied.

Mother's response came back instantaneous. How dare he say that the systems that SHE had designed might fail or be disrupted. No, everything that 3-P-2 reported had to be true. Mondred quickly apologized and then suggested a mediation of their disagreements. They split the group between the two of them, allowing them more focused control. Mondred theorized that this would strengthen the collective and prevent any more... disruptions. He was confident that the Jedi had more than an inkling as to how the disruption occured. And that the Jedi had done something else. But he was left completely in the dark. Scanning over 3-P-2, it had already cleansed its databanks of its previous errors...

=======

The Seekers moved like a pack of vronskyrs. They all moved within the area as one and just as quickly split into two tactical groups. In one group, their vision changed from heat scanning to motion tracking. In the other group, their vision varied, some still using heat vision, while others utilized different spectrums of their visors.

Dahmonwight's group split to the turbolifts, which were rushed to the Inquisitoriate's needs via override. Several civilians would be late to work today but the sacrifice was for the Empire and thus worth it obviously.

Mondred's group headed back into the base. The building's schematics was already being wired into their system, they took the routes suggested by Mondred, sweeping it like a wave of shadows. Two simply scaled down the ventilation shafts, nothing to notify anyone that they were there but for the small noise of the vacuum made by the spikes they used to climb. Two more moved liked spiders, crawling along the rooms as fast as if they were running. The remaining four moved through room to room with rushed aggression. They went down the stairs, scanning the rooms, Mondred supervising the entire process from afar. Seekers were dropping small orbs from which talons struck out; the orbs firmly attached themselves to whatever surface they were placed upon.

One Seeker, 8-Tyrant-5, was crawling along the ceiling when it suddenly stopped. It's head twisted as it stared at the ground below it. One clawed hand freed itself from the ceiling as it dropped several of the spheres into the room. They rolled along the floor for a bit before firmly planting themselves as the others had.

Within moments, the spheres opened from the middle and up. Red light flashed several times before the sphere's closed and then rolled in random directions. A rat crawled out from beneath a pipe as one of the sphere's flashed. The Seeker above stopped, immediately notified of the new presence. The orb rolled towards the rat at an alarming speed, the talons now attaching themselves to the screeching rat. The sphere began to glow orange before it ignited, the rat was left in scraps of meat. Several screeches could be heard as several rats died.

[Akrabbim]

How could he have been so foolish? The Empire was to be fooled with some Illusion and a clever bit of maneuvering? It is all Akrabbim can do not to literally yell out his frustrations, but his rational mind wins out and calls for caution. The time for self-assault is over. Time to attack those who attack him.

He slips his way silently into some of the ventilation ducts, simply to stay on the move. Sitting in one place, even a good hiding place, is suicide. As he moves, he hears the screechs from small animals in a nearby room. He slows, senses alert, and moves to a nearby ventilation grill. He sees several of the cyborgs in the room, hearing the faint whirring of mechanics above what breathing they still seem to do. The source of the screeching soon becomes clear. He watches as one of the hunters releases several small spheres which seem to seek out any forms of life available to them. Now, to try an experiment...

Akrabbim concentrates, sending an image of a rat, created out of light, into the midst of the spheres. They roll through the image without slowing. Light, then, must not be what they sense. As it is still very warm in this part of the base, it is unlikely that the mechanisms are detecting heat signatures. Motion, perhaps? Akrabbim retrieves a shuriken from his belt and slips it though the grill, controlling it with the Force. He quickly skips it across the ground, sending several of the small balls rolling toward it. He yanks the shiriken out of sight quickly, bringing it through a different grill before returning it to himself. He can tell that several of the cyborgs have noticed his little experiment and are converging toward the area. Time to leave. Let them continue killing vermin a bit longer.

He moves his way through the vents quickly. Over the last several days in th ebase, he has become rather familiar with the layout of the base. He heads toward the armory, which is fortunately a good deal away from his present location.

Upon arrival, he notes the one camera guarding the room, and quickly covers it with Illusion. The camera should now see an image of the room itself. He drops into the room, quickly slicing into the munitions cabinet with a katana. Sabacc! Just what he was searching for. He grabs several of the grenades, three of each type, and retreats to the vents. With a shuriken, he slices the cable on the camera and makes his getaway. Now, to rest from his efforts for a bit and plan. He reaches a different part of the base, where the foodstuffs are stored. Hopefully, no one would think to check one of the most tactically useless positions in the base. He rests, and begins focusing on the grenades... three in particular. In order to use his telekinesis on any object, he must study its sturcture with the Force for quite some time. An object as big as a grenade would take hours just to be able to make it hover. Should he focus on something smaller, however...

He sits and begins to concentrate. He won't have much time before he is discovered, so he must hurry...

[Y'roth Helghast]

Mondred cackled with boyish glee. The Jedi was just sitting there staring at grenades. Mondred had coordinated two Seekers into the ventilation shafts upon entering the building. They had split up, Mondred had thought the confined spacing too dangerous for the Jedi to consider but once the Seeker had been coming down and the Jedi just below him, Mondred had found his assumption obviously the contrary. The Seeker shadowed the Jedi all the way to his current position where he was sitting in a food storage cell. Mondred was considering all the possibilities. But odd questions reoccured, as to why the Jedi was studying grenades, why wasn't he going for an exit? He must've been able to sense the Seekers closing on his position?

They were slowly closing off the exits. The building was more or less a maze, a result of pathetic architecture of an older age on Coruscant. The Seeker in the ventilation shaft waited as another Seeker signaled that it was going to attempt to enter the room unnoticed. Mondred had not issued such an order but he saw no harm in it, more Seekers were on their way. If this brother was volunteering to be the first sacrifice in the downfall of this Jedi, then so be it.

The Seeker went down on all fours, limbs contorting to the extent that the Seeker moved like some insect. Mondred was not to give its position away just yet though, preventing the Seeker from tossing the motion seeking mines. No, the Seeker instead prepared a flash grenade, readied for release in second's notice.

=======

Lady Dahmonwight bit her lip in frustration. A red glowing eye brightened with a focused intensity. Mondred was not supposed to upstage her like this and be reveling in it so. He'd almost considered hiding it from her, she'd gotten that much. She would be sure to reprimand the boy later. Zakariah moved with discomfort in his seat but she placed a frail black hand on his massive knee.

"Don't worry dearest dear, everything's alright. Your brother Mondred is just handling things a bit better than Mummy expected."

Zakariah smiled. He was not childish, just simple.

"But we're turning around now, dear Zaky poo. We're going to make sure the job is done. Mondreder is quite the thinker but he often hesitates too much for my liking."

The black speeder had turned around. As were the Seekers that had accompanied her. They were moving in a black wave of shadows, none of the bums in the area even noticed.

[Akrabbim]

The Seekers were on their way. He could hear the sounds of metal on metal as they skittered closer to his position. They were able to get closer to his position than he had hoped, his concentratoin buried in his task. Fortunately, he was done. He feigns ignorance of their location, letting them get closer and closer. Once they are all within about 10 meters, he moves. He tosses the EMP grenade in his hand straight up to roughly the center point in the room before triggering it with the Force. An EMP wave blasts outwards, engulfing the room.

He stands, drawing his swords. The Seekers are disoriented, but not out of the fight, as he had hoped. Obviously, he'd have to compromise their armor for the grenades to work more effictively. He files that bit of information away for later. He can strategize later. Now, it's time to fight.

He launches his body upward, Force leaping to the ceiling where a cyborg is holding himself. Before the creature can right himself, a razor-sharp blade removes its head from its body. He's moving on to the next target as he lands, cutting down the next two still-disoriented cyborgs.

The last one in the room almost proves his undoing. He had planned to simply wipe them all out before they were able to recover. The last cyborg, however, is able to recover by the time Akrabbim reaches him.

Akrabbim rushes in poorly guarded, and aims for a quick kill. The inhumanely fast creature strikes, slashes into Akrabbm's right arm, causing him to drop that sword. Akrabbim furiously defends with his remaining sword, but the cyborg's strength nearly overwhelms him.

The cyborg lands a kick into Akrabbim's midsection. He is able to roll with th eblow, but it still sends him skittering across the floor. As the Seeker moves in for the kill, Akrabbim calls his wayward katana up, launching it at the Seeker's unprotected back. The weapon lances through its chest, blade up. The thing is staggered, but recovers and continues forward. Akrabbim then yanks the blade upward, slicing the creature from the chest to the top of its head. Finally, the being topples and dies. Akrabbim retrieves his weapon and reaches for a bacta patch before gathering his other grenades and moving on.

Note to self... those things are fast, and hard to kill. Lovely...

[Y'roth Helghast]

"Holy dren..."

Mondred hits the back of his head against the wall softly as he loses connection with the fourth seeker. Three had gone down in a moment's passing, the fourth had actually begun to fight, promising a probability of success until the functions of the adept's mystical force abilities entered the equation. He almost wished he had something for aesthetic and relaxing value like a cigar or something but it would've been for only nostalgic comfort. He had hesitated again, he could've caught the adept off guard even if he hadn't waited. Mondred could only pray, for his sake, that it hadn't been his only oppurtunity.

He coordinated the seekers once more, closing in on the location like before but this time with much more caution in mind. The fact that the adept had ion grenades and could utilize the small distraction they afforded him made the probability of success only so high until the adept ran out of ammunition. They would space themselves out, make him waste his inventory while they attempted to wear him down.

Mother was on her way, and bringing reinforcements with her. Not to mention Zakariah... Mondred found his formidable brother boring, but the massive giant served his purpose no doubt in a combat situation.

Two seekers were slowly moving down the hallway, the next team meters behind them. One seeker had blades drawn, the other had a built in blaster rifle for one arm and waited warily behind the other. The adept could not have gone much further from his last position, the only avenue of escape was into the more cramped confines of the lower levels of the building. Quite the trap this would be once the reinforcements arrived.

In another part of the building, a seeker's lips echoed Mondred's smile as the seeker fired a blaster bolt into the power converter for the building. Lights shut off, half the automatic doors were now useless, and the emergency power system kicked in, a dull, red light that barely served any useful purpose to normal perception.

[Akrabbim]

These things are too well organized. They must have some method of communication. An antenna, perhaps? He moves to one of the fallen Hunters as he leaves the room, examining it briefly. After a quick search, he finds what appears to be a small transmitter atop its head, under its helmet. He checks the other three, and finds the transmitter in the same place on the other three. Useful knowledge, to be sure.

He heads back toward the munitions room where he just came from. Hopefully, it should buy him some time. He sees a patrol of some Hunters, and an idea forms in his head. Once the Hunters are out of sight, he drops down from the ventilation ducts and covers himself with an illusion of one of the cyborgs. Shortly thereafter, another of the Hunters sees him. The creature pauses, presumably attempting to contact him via their communications interface. When Akrabbim does not respond, they rush after him. Akrabbim maintains the illusion, but rushes around a corner and out of sight. He slips away into another vent, and waits. As they rush by, he launches one of his shuriken out, slicing off the communications probe of the last cyborg in line. Now, let's see how they deal with a cyborg who can't talk to them...

Just then, the lights go out entirely. Akrabbim removes his protective goggles and is able to see rather well. Unfortunately, should any bright lights appear, he'll be blinded for a moment. Oh well. He'll just have to stay on his toes.

[Y'roth Helghast]

Mondred blinks.

"What the...?!"

His pale hand clenched slowly into a fist as he gritted his teeth together. The problem was quickly solved through simple deduction, regardless of the confusion coming from his lesser brethren. The Jedi had discovered their linking modules. He had removed the long distance transmitter that served as the seeker's main form of communication, thus rendering that seeker without such information from Mondred or Mother. But, any one seeker is profficient with a variety of languages and codes, including the three forms of hand signals between the Empire, Rebel Alliance, and even the Old Republic's SF. Not nearly as efficient, but it served its purpose.

The leader of the squad turned and quickly made a gesture with his hand, the 'lonely' seeker responding in turn to report on the damage. It also reported the direction in which the launched object had come. The other seeker's examined the vent for a moment as their higher power determined what next. From Mondred's perspective, it was quite simple.

The leader withdrew several of the small orbs that the seeker's had used earlier and tossed them near the entrance. If the Jedi was anywhere near, they would be his doom. They rolled to the vent, stopped, small legs protruding from their sides, and they climbed in. The spider mines unleashed their sensory lights, bright red light filling the vent slowly as they scanned the area.

-------

The black limosine stopped infront of the building. Lady Dahmonwight's entourage waited quietly just outside as one door opened and the massive form of Zakariah stepped out. He held the door as Lady Dahmonwight followed. Mondred had 'found' the Jedi and that meant about nil to her. She wanted him dead, that was all. It was not too much to ask in her opinion and the fact that she was coming to personally deal with it herself annoyed her even more.

"Go. Help your brothers."

She waved the seeker's off and they flew at the building with vicious intent. Zakariah watched them go and then turned back to Mother with a frown on his face.

"No, not yet, darling. Not yet."

[Akrabbim]

*Well... so much for that idea...* He calls the shuriken back to himself, aware that they can still communicate rather well without their little antennae. This may just turn into an all-out brawl, before all is said and done.

His shuriken floats in front of him as he calls it back. He is about to reach out and take the shuriken back when he hears a familiar sound. It's those little explosive balls again. Wonderful.

He calms himself with the Force, becoming totally still. By this point, the little orbs are in sight, and searching. He sends his shuriken zipping away, just above the explosives. They immediately turn to follow the movement. Once they are out of sight, Akrabbim slips to a nearby vent and spies the Hunters down below. He causes his shuriken to to hover, flitting madly around on the floor... right in the middle of the Hunters.

In moments, the orbs are on the shuriken, exploding one after the other, leaving very little behind. His shuriken is gone, but that was a small price to pay for a way out of that situation. He hops out of the ventilation duct and heads on his way. He'll have to change his tactis... the old ones have been played out.

[Y'roth Helghast]

(OOC: Yes, this is a bit of thread necromancy but I was also gone for an eight month period of time...)

Mondred flipped the bed in his room and it crashed into the wall. Pivoting on his foot, he turned and his foot and his fist went into the concrete wall. He was out of seekers. All of his seekers were eliminated. Mother will be most displeased... The pale young cyborg collapsed against the turned over bed, pulling one knee to his chest as he wiped the black tears that were welling at his eyes.

"Why won't he die...?"

=======

The seekers were rampaging through the building, Mondred's ideas of stealth no longer imprinted in their strategy. These were zealots, willing to do anything to accomplish their Mother's task. They crawled on the walls, they were in the ducts, and their were more than before.

Lady Dahmonwight stood outside, impatiently tapping the toe of her boot, examining her obsidian nails.

Zakariah looked distressed, the silent giant glancing between Mother and the building constantly.

[Akrabbim]

Akrabbim races along the hallways, doing his best to avoid the swarm of cyborgs. He takes one out from behind, but has done little to truly dent their numbers. He needs to change the battlefield.

He rests with his back against a wall in a dark corner. His mind flits back to the encounter with the spheres. It's only a matter of time before they simply launch a few thousand of them throughout the base to kill him. He leans his head against the wall, his gaze drifting up to the ceiling. And then he sees...

The sprinkler system. The falling water would have to play havoc on any motion detectors in the area. He draws his knife and leaps, slashing the head off the sprinkler.

As expected, as soon as the system detected this sprinkler head opening, it opened the rest. A heavy indoor rain starts up, drenching the area. He starts to look for a hiding place, but changes his mind. These creatures must have a central control of some sort. Perhaps if he can strike the head, the whole serpent will perish.

[Y'roth Helghast]

They were converging, the cyborgs screeching something from the depths of their rage as the water rained down upon them. One seeker in the ventilation duct spotted their pray, roaring with satisfaction of the hunt, its hand split through the slits of the vent and the barrel of a blaster broke through the leather in its arm, a built in weapon revealing itself to strike the kill.

=======

Dahmonwight had her arms crossed under her breasts as she twisted her lips in thought. Too easy maybe? They'd find out. Her order was unleashed in their minds the second that one seeker spotted the Jedi.

KILL THE JEDI

[Akrabbim]

[i]The hand stretches through the vent, blaster flicking out of the creature's outstretched arm. The movement is fast, to say the least.

But the Force is faster.

Akrabbim's blades flick upright, intercepting the bolt cleanly and returning it to the host. The cyborg screeches from the shot, and Akrabbim is quick to follow up. He has seen how resilient these things are, and has no wish to let the thing regain its composure. He stabs into the vent, slamming a katana into each shoulder of the thing. A rough twist of each blade ensures that its arms are now quite useless.

He yanks his swords free and prepares for the killshot, but an idea stops him. He slams the hilt of his blade down on its head to stun it. Then, quickly looking around to make sure no other cyborgs have found him yet, he puts aside one blade. With his now free hand, he grasps the creature's head and opens himself to the Force. He is easily able to overwhelm the pitiful thing's willpower. They are apparently bred to respond to an overmind. As individuals, they don't exhibit much free thought. Once he has control of the being's mental capacities, he gives a simple command.

Scream.

He does not order the Seeker to scream verbally. Instead, he forces the thing to broadcast, as powerfully as it can, the loudest, most discordant signal it can. He pushes the creature to its limits, broadcasting as much noise and distortion as it can. At the very least, the sound cannot possibly be pleasant.

He ends the assault after a few minutes. Though the cyborg's willpower is relatively low, it is still taxing to so totally overwhelm another being. Before he releases control, though, he asks one simple question.

Where's mommy?

He is able to glean a rough idea of the central controller of these things, and so determines that he is done with the cyborg. He finishes it off quickly, just in case, and begins racing for whoever or whatever runs these things.

[Y'roth Helghast]

All of the Seekers crumpled like rag dolls for a moment as the scream raced through their collective minds. Zakariah roared in response, dingy windows shattered and the inside of the buildings shook; Dahmonwight jumped as if startled, wincing slightly, shielded mostly from the feedback by her own superior system, she quirked an eyebrow, staring at the entrance as she reissued the zealous hunt for the annoying Jedi. The Seekers slowly picked themselves up, hissing and screaming as anger and urgency streamed through their minds.

Three stumbled around the corner to be paces away from the Jedi and they drew their weapons sluggishly as their systems warmed back up. The Jedi had no more than two minutes before they were operating at normal levels once more.