Be Careful What You Wish For (from Bargain Hunters)

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

(Continued from here (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?p=350246#post350246))

The blonde was hard-pressed to stifle her giggle as Akasha grabbed her hand and the two shortly disappeared down the narrow path. Paying no mind to the junkworm, she stepped over it and followed her friend, lilac eyes adjusting to the shade slowly. The noise of the vendors and the commotion of those shopping amidst the junk faded away the further they ventured, which was a welcome occurence.

Around a sharp bend in the path, the pair came into a small clearing, surrounded on all sides by towering piles of ever-present junk. Though here, it was relatively cool and quiet, and several of the metal containers had been repurposed into shallow planters to hold the lichens that were indigenous.

At the back, under a fabric overhang, was the entrance to yet another vendor, who had made their home inside what was once a small, now-grounded freighter. As she tentatively approached, Kala distantly noted that she could no longer hear or feel Rin in her mind - something that made her pause, but only briefly. The silence in her own head made her sigh softly as she stepped inside.

[Akasha Khan]

"What, a dead end?"

Akasha frowned at the walls of garbage all around them that seemed have brought their escape to an abrupt stop, but then she saw Kala stepping into a dark hatchway in the side of a tilted ship she had taken for just another ruined hulk. But there was a sign over the entrance, hand-painted on a rusted and pitted old plate of durasteel, but she couldn't even read what it said.

She chased after Kala and squinted her eyes in the sudden darkness all around them, shifting to find her footing on the slightly slanted deck. "I think it's abandoned," the Orryxian said. "And..." She sniffed and made a face. "Something smells rotten."

Akasha stepped around her roommate, turned, and found herself face-to-face with a demon. She jumped, and her tail puffed out like a bottle-brush, but as her eyes settled in she realized it was just some kind of tribal mask with a brightly painted scowl and a frill of curved and branching horns.

And then she turned again to take in the rest of the shop, and she saw a long, narrow cargo bay lined with shelves and display tables which bore curios and relics of such a dizzying variety that they defied description - books, jewelry, daggers with strange-shaped blades, innocuous-looking bits of rock, metal, and glass, scraps of cloth, a colorful tapestry draping from the ceiling, animal bones mounted on pegs, a barrel full of teeth and claws, and, in a small, mirrored cabinet, rows and rows of little vials of colored liquid.

Akasha's eyes could have lit up the darkness as she took in the strange stock. "Maiur's mane," she said, "do you see this, Kala? Oh, this is much better than poking through old machine parts!"

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

"I see it! I see it! Akasha...look! Real books!"

Kala indulged in a squeak of joy as she bounced over to the tall, carved bookshelf, the display unit almost as impressive as the leather-bound tomes it held. Slender fingers lifted to caress several of them, wondering if she had enough credits tucked away to purchase one. A sharp intake of breath marked the moment she paused, fingers hovering over a slender cream-colored volume with pale blue lettering.

It seemed to glow as she touched it, taking it gently from the shelf and holding it in both hands as if it would break. With great care, Kala traced the Aurebesh and decided to buy the book when she puzzled out that the title mentioned crystals and Healing.

Lilac eyes lifted from her new-found prize and noticed Akasha nearby, before her attention was caught by an array of tiny crystal ships and beads, displayed with wire and colorful threads to string them on.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha moved around the cargo hold, her wide eyes now perfectly accustomed to the low light. All around her were strange and colorful artifacts, some of which seemed to have a life and energy of their own. There was a jade statue of a scowling demon with six jet eyes that seemed to follow them around the room, and a tarnished brass mirror in which Akasha's reflection seemed to be moving just out of sync with her. The fur on the back of the Orryxian's neck was standing on end the way it did when she was being watched with ill intent, but the feeling was coming from all around her. It was foreboding and exhilarating.

"Do you sense it, Kala?" she asked, almost giddy with the heady rush of power all around her. "This place... it's alive with the Force! All these things... the power here... it's incredible!"

She felt herself drawn toward a mask sitting on a stand, carved out of ivory with a strange, spreading grin. Mutely, she took the mask in her paws, feeling the weight of it and running her finger pads over the crooked teeth.

[Idesca Corvera]

"So it is. Your senses do not deceive you, child."

The voice floated from the forward quarter of the ship, toward the crew quarters, beautiful and crystal-clear, like nothing one would expect to hear on an outer rim garbage world. And then Idesca Corvera appeared like a ghost from the shadows, a small figure wrapped in veils and robes of midnight. Her hands were folded in the immense sleeves of her robes, and all either Padawan could see of her was the nose, mouth, and chin of a pale, delicate face, achingly beautiful. She drifted toward them, and from the soft sound of padding against the floor grates, her feet underneath her trailing robes were bare.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha jumped and fumbled with the mask, and it dropped to the floor, shattering into dozens of spinning pieces. The Orryxian turned toward the store owner, mortified.

"I... I'm sorry! I didn't..."

She realized with finality that she likely didn't have the money to pay for it.

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera smiled thinly as she walked lightly toward the two girls.

"That one doesn't like to be held," she said. "I'll mend it, as I've mended it a hundred times. Take care not to prick yourself on the pieces, or you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life."

She stooped and, with delicate care, began gathering the pieces of ivory. As she put them together in her hand, they fused as if they had never been broken. The mask quickly began to take shape again.

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

Her eyes wide, she gingerly clutched her prize to her chest, and met Akasha's gaze. They stared at one another for several moments before the tiny melodic clinks of ivory shards drew their attention down to the woman kneeling between them.

Something...wasn't quite right about the way the pieces were fusing together seamlessly. Kala couldn't put a finger on exactly what was bothering her though, and a moment later, the concern melted away. One of the shards darted up into the air and hovered in front of her, spinning this way and that, as if it were suspended by a string caught in a breeze. It glittered in the light, casting drops of pale blue light about as if it were a faceted crystal.

Blinking, the young woman looked to Akasha and the cloaked proprietress, but they showed no sign of noticing. She reached out with her left hand and the shard dropped into her open palm, warm as the pale blue light faded away. Closing her fingers around it, she could have sworn she felt it sigh with relief as she held it close beside the book.

The woman rose with the mask in her hands once more, propping it up on the shelf where Akasha had taken it from. Kala stepped forward and spoke softly, noting distantly that the woman was a few inches shorter than she was.

"Excuse me...how much for this volume about crystals and Healing? And...do you have anything else like it?"

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera looked up at Kala. Though her face was still hidden within the deep shadows of her hood, her eyes glinted from the darkness, pale and green, like the eyes of a nocturnal animal at the edges of the light. She smiled, baring white teeth and red tongue.

"I have many books like it," she said. "I have books that can teach you to make potions from plants and minerals, to see into the minds of animals and men, to turn the forces of nature against your enemies, and to capture the heart of the one you desire. But this power will only present itself to the worthy."

She stepped to a table in the center of the cargo hold where a small figurine of a krayt dragon was coiled around a pot of incense. She passed her hand over it, and it began to burn slowly, giving off a sweet-smelling smoke.

"It has been a long time since I have entertained any who were gifted in the Force as you two are," she said. "The book is yours if you want it. But you must stay a while, and tell me who you are, and where you have come from."

[Akasha Khan]

Even before the incense, Akasha found herself beguiled by the woman's words, and she lit up at the promises of arcane power. The question of whether she was among the worthy did not even enter her mind.

The Orryxian could feel Kala tense at the mention of the Force, and the half-Nautolan looked for a moment like she was going to blurt out a denial, but Akasha quickly reached over and squeezed her hand. "I'm Akasha, and this is Kala," she said. "And we're pilgrims traveling with a monastery ship. We only stopped here for spare parts."

She stepped away from Kala and toward the woman, and there was no hiding the hunger in her eyes. "But we're also seekers of knowledge. There are not many who dare speak of the Force anymore. Who are you?"

[Idesca Corvera]

"I am Idesca Corvera," said Idesca Corvera. "I am a handmaiden of the Force, and I know its true nature. I sensed you when you landed, and I knew you would come here, as was your destiny."

She inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of the incense, and something else.

"I can feel your desire. Your spirits are quivering flames. With the proper teaching, they can burn like the stars in the sky. Tell me, children, what is it you desire?"

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

"Knowledge...of healing. All of its aspects...like herbs and natural remedies...not just through the Force." she stammered, her voice tentative and tight, as if the words were drawn unwilling past her lips.

Rin? Where are you? Something's not right....

Kala shifted slightly from foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable and ill-at-ease with Idesca. She blinked, avoiding the woman's gaze as somehow it made all of the sudden unpleasantness feel even worse.

[Akasha Khan]

"Power's good, too," Akasha quickly chipped in, her tail lashing at her ankles. The Orryxian stepped in front of Kala, who was clearly feeling uncomfortable. All the more reason to take charge of the situation, as any good Padawan should!

"What sort of teaching are you offering?"

[Idesca Corvera]

"Knowledge and power," Idesca Corvera said. "You could not have come to a better place."

The woman glided toward the open chest full of vials and flasks and pulled a few from the shelves. "Savorium herbs (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Savorium_herb). Bota extract (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bota). Bundar root (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bundar_root). Rare herbs with powerful virtues. To heal is to control the body and spirit of another, Kala, and to bend them to your will. There is no healing without destruction, nor joy without pain. There is much you may do with samples such as these, more if you study that book and learn the ways of plants and fleshcraft."

She held the vials out to Kala. The leaves and root fibers inside looked as mundane as anything possibly could, belying the enormous potential locked inside.

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

Thankfully, the three small vials fit into her empty hand, their delicate glass wrought in a deceptively simple shape. The stoppers at the top were fashioned from another drop of glass and an ornately twisted piece of durasteel thread.

"Thank you..." she breathed, her unease still present but now warring with wonder and the deep desire to open the book right at that moment. Idesca's delicate hand plucked a larger tome from a nearby shelf, bound in what looked to be well worn nerf leather. She placed it on an empty stand and opened it, gesturing to the first page as she watched the girl intently.

Lilac eyes wide, Kala padded over and gasped softly, realizing that it was an herbal guide to the most common medicinal herbs and plants. Save for the shard still clasped safely in her palm, her other prizes were placed carefully on the shelf the tome had come from as she carefully turned the pages.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha was momentarily torn between looking over Kala's shoulder to see what had captured her interest and leaving her alone so she could see what Idesca had in store for her. But then, Kala could always show it to her when they returned to the Whaladon. Besides, it was plants. If she was meant to care about them, she'd have been born a rabbit.

Akasha bowed her head respectfully, hoping her eagerness wasn't painfully obvious. "Maiur bless you for your generosity, Lady Corvera," she said. "We are already in your debt."

Clumsily said, she knew, and she winced - she might as well have asked, And what about the power?

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera flashed her brilliant white smile. She knew all too well what was on the young Orryxian's mind.

"It is enough to know that my knowledge will find a home in the minds of the young," she said.

She took the incense burner in her hands and, gently, blew the pale smoke in Kala's direction.

"Kala, dear," she said, "I must take Akasha into the back to give her a gift as well. We'll just be a moment. Please, enjoy the incense. It will help you to concentrate."

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha's tail snapped back and forth behind her, betraying her excitement, and yet - and yet she didn't know how to account for this strange behavior with the incense. Surely it wasn't harmful - they'd all been breathing it in already, hadn't they? So why was she suddenly uneasy?

You're sensing the Dark Side here, she told herself. The Dark Side is power. And that's what you want, isn't it?

Of course it was. But she faltered, turning back toward Kala, who was engrossed, almost entranced by the herbal book. Together, Akasha was certain they could hold their own if this woman turned hostile. Separate, she couldn't be sure. There was no way of knowing what Idesca Corvera was hiding under that cloak. She lingered, by reflex putting her paw on her empty lightsaber handle.

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera opened the aft hatchway to what had once been the engine room. It was dark inside, lit only by a few dull, guttering lanterns. The space inside was even more cluttered than the cargo bay - tables stacked with haphazardly with artifacts and scribbled scraps of parchment. In one corner stood a crimson suit of armor with a helmet patterned after the horned crown of the terentatek.

"Please, come in, Akasha," the woman said. "Your friend will be fine. What I have to show you is for your eyes only. For only you are truly worthy to receive it."

[Akasha Khan]

Only you are truly worthy. Well then, who was Akasha to stand in the way of destiny?

Steeling herself, Akasha stepped into the engine room with her head high and her tail arched. She would not let the woman see her fear. Maiur's mane, she shouldn't be afraid at all. She was going to learn some dread secret of power that she could never have learned from the Jedi, and that even Lilaena De'Ville would never have taught her. It might even be something Master De'Ville didn't know - something that would surprise and confound her when Akasha showed it to her when they were reunited on Onderon. Or maybe Akasha would not reveal it even then - maybe she would keep it for herself and use it to gain the upper hand, to win the favor of Lord Callidus, to spurn all who had ever tried to lord it over her in the past, until even Lord Callidus groveled at her feet...

Holy Maiur! Where had that train of thought come from? The Dark Side was strong in this place, as it had been strong in the catacombs of Onderon when Callidus had called the Circle together, but here it was even more concentrated, and cloying, like the incense in the cargo bay.

Akasha breathed it in and drew strength from it. "Well? What do you have for me?" she asked, dropping all pretenses now.

[Idesca Corvera]

The door behind Akasha swung shut on its oil-starved hinges. Idesca Corvera lowered her hand.

"You are not like your friend," the woman said. "You... a creature of darkness seeking to hide in the light. Why?"

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha's tail stopped lashing. Only the tip moved now, like a viper hypnotizing its prey.

"Well, that's putting it a bit strong, isn't it?" she said disdainfully. "You don't exactly have the look of a choir girl yourself."

She laughed but said nothing more. Akasha decided she might as well answer.

"It's a home, and it's a place where I can learn the ways of the Force. It's safety in numbers, that's all."

[Idesca Corvera]

"There is no safety in numbers for the likes of you and me," Idesca Corvera replied. "The Dark Side countenances no compassion, no weakness. It desires only complete domination. Tell me, child, do you know of the one called Darth Bane?"

[Akasha Khan]

After so much time in the company of the Jedi, it was a shock to hear the Dark Side bandied so openly. But Akasha would not give her the satisfaction of appearing surprised. So what if Idesca had divined her true purpose or had merely made a lucky guess? She had no power to ruin Akasha's cover among the Jedi.

"He is the one who created the Rule of Two," she replied. "He believed that the true way of the Sith demanded one master and one apprentice: one to embody the power, and one to crave it. But that just seems silly to me. What kind of leader can't keep their minions from cutting one other's throats just for the fun of it?"

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera reached for the clasp of her cloak.

"To exercise pure power, you must crave power purely," she said. "You must give yourself to it as a moth gives itself to the flame. You must embody hatred, fear, and agony in order to wield them upon your enemies. Therein lies the greatest teaching of Darth Bane."

Something moved beneath her cloak, a living thing crawling over her flesh. There was a scratching, chirping, gnawing noise from within, and the stench of rot that had assaulted Akasha when she entered suddenly redoubled itself.

"This, Akasha, is my gift to you: the armor of Darth Bane the invincible."

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha, nose wrinkled against the horrible stench, looked at Idesca in unguarded shock. Her eyes darted to the suit of armor in the corner - that couldn't be Bane's! He had died over a thousand years ago - it would be rotted beyond all use!

But then she saw the movement beneath Idesca's cloak, a rippling in the cloth that passed up over her chest and onto her shoulder, and down the sleeve of her outstretched arm. Akasha pulled back, feeling her nerve slip away.

"What... what is that?"

[Idesca Corvera]

"It is hatred. It is fear. It is agony."

It pushed beneath the cuff of her sleeve and into her pale hand, what looked for a moment like a round, waxy tumor crawling over her skin, but it was a creature beneath a domed, jointed shell with armored legs and waving feelers. It scented the air and found Akasha, and for a moment it reared up and displayed its underside, a gaping maw surrounded by rings of razor-sharp jaws and flesh hooks.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha threw herself backwards against the wall, upsetting a rack full of scrolls. Whatever that thing was, she wanted no part of it.

"I've changed my mind," she said. "You can keep it."

She reached for her staff on her belt, anything to keep Idesca and that loathsome creature away, but her paw refused to move. It was held fast to the wall behind her by some invisible force. And then her whole body rose from the floor, pressed hard against the wall. She could not move.

The Orryxian watched the creature helplessly, eyes wild with terror. "No! Stop! I told you I don't want it!"

[Idesca Corvera]

"You no longer have a choice," said Idesca Corvera. "As you told me, you owe me a great debt."

She knelt to the floor and laid her hand down on the durasteel grating. The creature glided out of her palm and toward Akasha on a sinuous path with a chitinous rasp of legs.

"The orbalisk," Idesca Corvera said. "Incredible creatures. Highly concentrated in the Dark Side, a concentration that would kill any other species. But they thrive in it. They feed on it. It will feed on the Dark Side in you, Akasha."

The orbalisk nosed around the floor, losing her trail blindly for a moment, then picking it up again, and it began to climb the wall beside her.

"When it feeds, it multiplies. Its brood will consume you entirely over the course of years, if you let them. Or you can feed on them as they feed on you. Their shells are nearly impenetrable. They will protect you from blades, from blasters, even from lightsabers. But only if you surrender yourself entirely to their embrace. To the embrace of the Dark Side."

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha's claws scored the patina in the durasteel wall behind her as the orbalisk slowly ascended, and then it turned and found the fur of her leg, and she felt its weight on her, its claws hooking into her flesh as it climbed over her, the rhythmic sucking of its mouth as it sought an ideal place to bite.

Tears stung at Akasha's eyes, and she knew fear as she had never known it before. "Please... Please, I beg you, don't do this. Please, I've done nothing to you!"

The orbalisk had crawled over her belt and was underneath her vest, over her heaving lungs and pounding heart.

Akasha pulled her head off the wall and pounded it back with a crash. "Get this off me now, you bitch! I'll kill you, I swear I will make sure it takes days for you to die!"

[Idesca Corvera]

"There's the hatred," Idesca Corvera said, watching with fascination. "And the fear."

The orbalisk turned and ceased its search, settling on a spot just below her collarbone and above her heart. It began chittering, almost musically.

"And now comes the agony."

It struck home, plunging its jaws deep into Akasha's flesh between her ribs, and then it dug its legs in to entrench itself fast, pumping her full of poisons and anti-coagulates. Akasha threw back her head and screamed.

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

I wonder if there's a way to cultivate herbs on the Whaladon...or even the Knightfall, so it'll be closer to the medbay...

The scream that rent the air made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and drew Rin out of his hiding place deep in the recesses of her mind. Kala blinked at the door, fingers still caressing the edge of the herbal as she pondered which herb would best be suited for a throat that had sustained that kind of scream.

Because it really didn't sound like Akasha was stopping anytime soon.

KALA! Snap out of it! Akasha needs you!

All of Rin's shouting and flailing was to no avail, as Kala seemed to be moving as if through a fog. She left the book on the pedestal and walked to the door, past the krayt dragon incense burner, which somehow fell to the floor and shattered.

Mouth open as if she were about to speak, the young woman placed her hands flat on the door and pushed at it. Nothing.

And still the screaming echoed, viciously intense, with an undercurrent of such physical agony that it snapped Kala out of her daze. Awareness rushed in to her mind from every angle, bombarding her senses as she pushed again and again at the door. It wouldn't budge.

She knew straight off that she wasn't going to be able to use the Force to open the door...her mind was still too hazy to concentrate on the proper path. But she did have the next best thing. She slipped her right hand behind her and unclipped her father's lightsaber hilt, scarred and dented it was a familiar and comforting weight in her hands. A flick of her thumb across the activation plate and the deep, sea-green blade thrummed to life.

Normally, in practice, she'd pause for a moment to remember her father, but this time she knew he'd forgive her for not doing so. Kala plunged the blade into each of the door's visible hinges and again into the lock, disabling it in a shower of sparks and bits of molten metal. The drops of metal that fell on her skin burned hotter than anything she'd ever felt, but she pushed the pain aside and focused.

This time, when she pushed, the door fell inward to the floor. The padawan took one look at Akasha's screaming, writhing form and another at Idesca, before her mind all but shrieked in fear. Shrill and panicked, her mind call blasted out towards Anbira as she ran into the room and to Akasha's side.

[Akasha Khan]

There was nothing but pain. Akasha felt as though her insides were boiling, as though the orbalisk had injected her with a tongue of fire and was now consuming her from the inside out.

Now that there was no need to pin the Orryxian against the wall, Idesca released her, and she fell to the floor on her paws and knees, sucking in deep, ragged breaths. The searing had begun to fade, but in its place was a dull, throbbing, freezing pain she felt to her very bones, pulsing with every tortured beat of her heart. She was distantly aware of the room around her now, and of Kala kneeling beside her with her lightsaber aflame.

"Kala," she gasped, and she clutched a trembling paw to her chest, hoping to curl her claws underneath the vile creature and tear it away, but even its shell had sunk into her flesh, and blood oozed all around it as it drilled its jaws even deeper.

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera did not shy from the green blade. Instead, she delicately licked her lips as if sitting down to a meal.

"You've come to join us, Kala?" she said. "Here is a test for you, my little healer. Do you recognize the gift I have given to your friend?"

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

Swallowing her panic, she extinguished her blade and put it away in favor of the other hilt at her back. The deceptively delicate silver casing was etched with a vine and floral motif, one she had designed herself. Though set with a single pink focusing crystal, it contained a secondary powercell, ready to be wired for when it was adjusted to full use.

She laid a hand on Akasha's shoulder and sidled as close as she could to her Orryxian friend, her heart slowing its panicked beat in her chest. Kala wasn't entirely sure where she'd found that reserve of calm, but she welcomed it, and used what little light energy she could muster to bolster Akasha.

She wished for the millionth time that her healing gift would manifest itself...she felt particularly useless as she tried to aid her friend. Her head rose up, lilac eyes meeting Idesca's gaze after concentrating a moment on the creature that was sinking into Akasha's chest.

"Its an orbalisk. I've heard of them, though I've never seen one before. Is that why you hide yourself under those robes?" Kala asked, her voice strained as she looked back down at the hilt in her hands. Fingertips pulled the casing off of the lower half, exposing the mass of wiring and the two power cells. Pulling out the wires in a specific order, she kept glancing up at Idesca to keep an eye on her and wondered when Anbira would burst through the door.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Elsewhere...


"As I've already said, this insulation is no good."

Anbira shook his head at the grizzled human junk peddler, gesturing to the hoverskid full of coiled radiation shielding material.

"That's the best reactor insulant you'll find on the planet, offworlder. Take it or leave it."

The insulation was adequate, but not for the price that was being asked. Having some idea of how to turn his own hydrospanner, the Felucian hermit stroked his beard, stooping down to pull a sheet out for them both to look at.

"There's carbon scoring all across the contact layers, which will reduce effectiveness. You're charging nearly what I can buy new insulation for."

As he spoke, Anbira's voice trailed off. He looked away, his mind clearly somewhere else. Sensing Anbira's change in interest, the junk peddler quickly interjected.

"How about a bulk discount then. At the dimensions you're asking, I'll take ten percent off."

Anbira was already rising to his feet, looking in a completely different direction. He'd sensed something stir in the force. Something unnatural and with a disturbing feel to it.

"Fifteen percent, then!"

The Jedi Knight was slowly walking away, the barter nearly forgotten. Realizing at last he was being given a twenty percent discount by a panicking shopkeeper, he half gestured to the merchant.

"Twenty, very well. Keep the stock for me, I'll return soon."

The human junk peddler gawked at the bearded man's erratic behavior, scratching the back of his neck as he fussed at a pair of pit droids, telling them to move the pallets like the Jedi commanded.

Anbira's slow walk away quickened, guided unerringly toward a a sharp disturbance in the force. The girls! They were in danger!

[Idesca Corvera]

"We all have secrets to hide," Idesca replied, and she tilted her head. "Akasha could have told you that. Or could she?"

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha's eyes were red with tears of agony and rage. She leaned back on her haunches, still covering the gnawing orbalisk over her heart, and with her free paw she focused her rage into a spike of fiery Destruction, which she sent hissing toward Idesca.

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca Corvera swatted the fiery dart aside, and it went spiraling into a stack of bones, which burst into burning splinters. The woman's mouth twisted into a cruel smile.

"And now the darkling shows her true colors. Let the Dark Side flow, Akasha. Only your hatred can save you now!"

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

"Really? That's the best line you can come up with? Damn, that's unoriginal."

The slender blonde sighed and shook her head, a smile that spoke of disappointment flitting across her features. With haste, she twisted the wires together in a new configuration and attached half of them to the second powercell in the base of the hilt.

If Kala had not felt Akasha's terror and been nearly knocked off of her feet by the wave of agony...if she could not still feel the pain that rippled from her friend...she'd have been far more concerned by the malevolence that made her skin prickle and Rin shudder with fear at the back of her mind.

Her hands were shaking by the time she plucked the crystal out of the hilt and tucked it away in her satchel. It took her two tries...no, three tries to close the casing once more and pull the emitter off the end. Biting her lip, she looked to Akasha and laid a hand on her shoulder, a headache beginning to form behind her eyes. She closed them, briefly, until a tremor in the Force and Rin's subsequent mental shriek sent her flat to the floor.

Lodged in the wall at the level her head had been was a long shard of bone glittering with dark energy. "I don't suppose asking you to muzzle yoursel would work, would it?" Kala sighed, rising to give Idesca no less than a Look...an I'm-a-teenager-and-you're-annoying-me look. Though everything told her not to, she reached up and yanked the bone shard out of the wall to toss it aside. Only, once she'd touched it, she couldn't let go, her mind suddenly under assault from a rapid-fire series of visions. Encapsulated in a haze of red, it all spoke of pain, agony and torture over an extended period of time.

Her breath rushed out of her as she slid to the floor in a heap, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was trapped in a never-ending loop of pain, experiencing it as if it were her own. Only even though a distant corner of her mind knew it wasn't hers, Kala whimpered and struggled to let go. Suddenly, bright silver energy appeared around the shard and obliterated the darkness around it...snapping her back into alertness as it danced across her skin and forced her to drop the bone.

It pulsed in time to the frantic beat of her heart, and echoed the pounding pain that grew exponentially worse in the depths of her head behind her eyes. Somehow, she managed to push past it, though it took her what felt like an eternity to do so. Shaking, stumbling, and completely off-kilter, Kala got to her feet and placed herself squarely between Idesca and where Akasha was crumpled in on herself.

Her thumb flipped over the activation plate and the hilt in her hand hummed loudly and grew warm in her palm. She knew it wouldn't be enough to force the orbalisk off of Akasha, but if that vile woman came any closer...well, the resulting electric shock would hurt like hell.

[Idesca Corvera]

Kala's torment by the cursed bones was like choice wine beside the feast of Akasha's misery. Idesca Corvera savored them both.

"Why do you fight a battle you know you cannot win?" she crooned. "Do you really think you can frighten me with a..." She wrinkled her nose at the sparking hilt in Kala's hand. "...a glorified spark plug?"

With a sweep of her hand, Kala rose from the floor like a marionette, and the saber hilt fell from the Padawans' limp grip.

[Akasha Khan]

With Idesca's attention on Kala, Akasha rose unsteadily to her feet. She focused on the pain, allowed it to give her drive, a purpose. She would use it to strike down her tormentor and save her friend - for the moment, nothing else mattered.

With a feral howl, the Orryxian charged toward Idesca and seized her Echani staff from her belt, and it leapt to its full extension, raised and ready to cave in the side of the woman's skull.

But she might as well have run into a brick wall.

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca stopped the charging Orryxian with a savage wave of the Dark Side, sending her flying back into the wall again. Akasha slumped to the floor, wheezing, and Idesca turned the full force of her attention on Kala, pinning her motionless in mid-air.

"Are you so eager to share in your friend's fate, Kala?" Idesca asked. "It can be arranged."

A second pair of feelers emerged from Idesca's sleeve and into her hand, and the loathsome creature chittered hungrily. The woman turned her pale, reflective eyes upward to stare into Kala's.

"The question is which you will succumb to first - the poison, or the Dark Side?"

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

At first, though suspended in mid-air, the young woman could still move. One hand stole carefully behind her back, fingertips brushing her father's hilt. Another second more and she'd have had it, only the full force of Idesca's will slammed into and held her completely frozen.

Never had she been more grateful for her father's strict physical training regimen. She didn't fight the hold, knowing it would only constrict more tightly - Kala relaxed into it instead, and arched a delicate brow as it was the only part of her that could move aside from her mouth.

"Neither. I only have to last long enough for the cavalry to arrive. And I believe I hear it now." Kala whispered, lips curling into a slight smile as Idesca glanced through the ruined doorway. The pain of her headache doubled as she forced herself to concentrate and reach towards her fallen hilt, eyes remaining on the orbalisk as it dropped to the floor and skittered towards her. In a panicked instant, the proper pathway snapped into place and the fallen hilt sailed into the air. It moved to hover over the orbalisk which chittered angrily up at it, only to have the hilt slam itself down over and over again onto the vile thing.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

As if hit by an invisible repulsor hauler, the handmaiden of the dark side was bowled over by a sudden inexorable force, hurtling her into the nearest shelf along the wall. The individual shelves impacted by Idesca cracked at the force of her impact, and the entire shelf shuddered, sending a cascading torrent of trinkets, curios, books, and other floatsam raining down on top of her.

Through the maelstrom of falling and breaking objects, Anbira stepped into the back hold of the junk freighter, eyes panning briefly to the pair of beleaguered padawans who were obviously in peril at the hands of this woman, who was practically redolent with insidious energies of the dark side.

"There wasn't a bell up front. I felt it best to knock, instead."

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca folded into the blow and was nearly buried under her wares. With the witch's concentration broken, Kala dropped to the floor, and the orbalisk that had been pursuing her skittered back into the pile of debris covering its mistress.

But then Idesca rose as if she were a puppet lifted by its strings, and she settled on her feet again, curling her lip balefully.

"A monastery ship," she said, sparing no scorn. "You should have said it was a museum, bearing relics of a dead generation."

The woman tilted her head toward Kala. "Take the mongrel with you, Jedi, she's useless to me. But the other one... she has been marked by the Dark Side. She belongs to me by right."

Akasha's eyes burned with pain and fear from where she lay.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"I'll let Akasha decide for herself where her destiny lies."

He could feel the conflict and strife radiating from Akasha. Certainly, something the woman had done had gotten to the Orryxian Jedi. He was going to determine what that was.

"As for you, I'd strongly advise you to close up shop."

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

Now that's an entrance...Rin said with a touch awe, faint at the back of her head.

Kala would have agreed and gone wide-eyed at the display were she not busy crumpling to the floor in a heap. As it was, all she managed to emit was a pained whimper as she struggled to get to her hands and knees. Well, the good news was that nothing felt broken...not even to the pain that danced around her mind and stabbed at her Force sense as if it were trying to skewer it for a barbecue.

She edged her way over to where Akasha lay curled up and gently nudged her over onto her back, propped up against a fallen pile of books. "The cavalry has arrived, Akasha...you'lll be fine." Kala said softly, wincing at the sight of the orbalisk, blood welling around it.

"Master, the witch put an orbalisk over Akasha's heart. I can't...I can't generate enough of an electric charge to get it off..." she said, her voice edged with panic as the altered hilt only made the orbalisk stop in its tracks, still lodged firmly in her chest.

[Akasha Khan]

The sparking lightsaber hilt only redoubled the orbalisk's wrath, making Akasha spasm painfully with the combined force of electricity and venom. She clamped a paw around Kala's wrist, unconsciously needling her with her claws.

"Please," she gasped, "don't do that. It hurts..."

Exhausted, the Orryxian turned her eyes toward Anbira, praying by Maiur's mercy that he knew how to remove the accursed thing.

[Idesca Corvera]

"You should know as well as I do that an orbalisk, once entrenched, cannot be removed without killing the host," Idesca said. "Kill it, and it will release all the toxins in its body into yours. Attempt to remove it by force, and it will do the same. It is a part of her. As she is now a part of the Dark Side."

The witch's mouth twisted into a frown of mocking pity. "Oh, I'm afraid you've come too late, Jedi. Her fate was decided when she entered my den. As is yours."

A fey look crossed Idesca's face as she stared at Anbira, as if studying him. "As is yours. You, too, have been marked as prey for the Dark Side."

She lifted a hand toward him. "Perhaps this is the day of your destiny as well, Jedi."

She closed her hand, flexing her pointed, claw-like nails, and the Force closed around Anbira's throat to squeeze the life from him.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira staggered, a hand drawing to his throat to pull away the ethereal vice at his neck. Remembering his training, he drew upon the force to send him airborne, severing the grip upon him. Upon descent, he drew his lightsaber from a hidden fold in his tunic, the blue blade singing to life as he landed in front of the darkside adept and gave a full swing at her midsection.

[Idesca Corvera]

As Anbira's blade fell, ready to cleave Idesca Corvera in half, the impossible happened. Instead of shrinking away from the lightsaber strike, she thrust out her arm to meet it. The blade burned through the loose black cloth of her sleeve - and stopped.

Idesca smiled venomously, as if Anbira had struck her with something no more dangerous than a switch of bayosa wood, and she brought her other arm to bear to force the blade up over her head, and then with a thrust of her now-free hand, she blasted Anbira into the suit of armor against the wall.

"Your heroics are wasted here, Jedi," she said. "Your power is insignificant before the might of the Dark Side."

She reached across her body and tore away the ruined tatters of her robes, revealing what lay beneath. Her head was bald, her skin pallid and waxy, and her sunken eyes were sulfur-yellow ringed with red, and they burned with unmitigated scorn. But below the neck, she was a living horror - from her shoulders to below the folds of her skirts, and down her arms to her wrists, she was covered in orbalisks. They overlapped like dragon scales, leaving no skin unspoiled, writhing and rippling. Their shells glistened with a sheen of Idesca's infected blood, and the evil stench of her necrotic flesh, no longer concealed by her robes, flooded the air.

"I've had plenty of time to perfect my armor. Do you see, Akasha, what a mighty gift I offer you?"

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha pressed herself against Kala, absolutely repulsed.

"I don't want it," she said raggedly. "If it means becoming a monster like you, I don't want it!"

She wanted to lash out, to crush the hateful woman's throat with the Force, but every time she touched the Dark Side, she could feel the orbalisk's hold on her strengthening. Yet as long as she resisted the Dark Side, she could feel it feeding not on the Force's strength but on hers. Already she was beginning to fade.

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

"And people think I talk too much. Its alright, Akasha...I have you...she can't touch you."

Kala murmured softly, well pleased at the calm that seemed to have pervaded her voice even if it raced freely through the rest of her. Carefully, she shifted to place herself between Akasha and Idesca, leaving the sorceress to Anbira.

Reaching out with her mind, in spite of the sharp pain that pulsed strongly, the young woman 'touched' the pile of bone shards at Idesca's feet. The glowed a sullen, angry crimson as she glanced over her, the color pulsing and fading from several of the pieces. Soon they glowed a pure, sparkling white and lifted up from the pile, endeavoring to skewer the sorceress' feet and impede her movement.

"Great...I finally manage to get a power to work and it hurts..." she muttered under her breath, tears standing in her eyes.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira was slow to rise, the breath knocked out of him from the sudden throttling he'd taken at the hands of the Dark Side adept. He tilted forward to rest on his knees, slowly righting himself to his feet.

Whatever the woman was infested with, the creatures seemed to repulse his lightsaber. He had to find some way to get past her advantage.

"You are powerful, that's true, but you can only go so far on strength."

He reached out with a hand, drawing on several orbalisks on Idesca's body, intent on pulling them free from her. Maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn't, but judging from the state Akasha was in, it surely couldn't feel pleasant to force them off.

[Idesca Corvera]

Idesca brought down her left hand toward the bone shards Kala had hurled at her like spears; the fragments burst harmlessly into dust. But it was enough of a distraction that Anbira's gambit took her off-guard.

Several orbalisks felt the alien tug of the Light Side and squealed shrilly, reflexively releasing venom into their host. It was enough to make Idesca gasp at the fresh lances of pain, but then she smiled, trance-like.

"Yes, Jedi... more pain, more power. Allow me to teach you."

She spread her hands out toward the knight, and curling, red tendrils of energy flowed out from her fingertips toward Anbira - Force drain, an adaptation of the orbalisks' own perverse appetites; she, like them, would feed on his connection to the Force, absorbing his strength into her own until he was a lifeless husk.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Feeling his energy leave him, Anbira stooped down, steeling himself against the temptation to simply fall out of the fight. He shut her out of him, a daunting task, and focused on the small, the innocuous.

A small glass vial, filled with an unknown blue liquid, launched from an adjacent shelf and smashed into the Dark Adept's face, shattering. With any luck, it would break her focus, and possibly even blind her momentarily.

[Akasha Khan]

Even with the creature gnawing at her, Akasha felt her body settling into an equilibrium with it - even more invasively than that, she could feel her energy merging with it, and with every throb of pain, the Dark Side seemed to pulse stronger in her chest. Maybe... maybe if she hurt enough, she could draw on that power, do something to disrupt the witch's focus so Anbira could dispatch her--

And then she understood.

"Kala... the pain."

The half-Nautolan looked down at her miserably, probably thinking she was just whimpering in agony. Akasha pushed her away.

"Not me, her! She draws strength from pain!"