Of Mice and Madmen.

[Michael Cline]

**An insane asylum in the dredges of Courascant.**

--Follow a twisting turning hallway to the last cell in the building, and you shall meet our subject--

::In this final cell a man sat, his arms tied in a straightjacket, and his mental state blanked by drugs. He sat there in a vegetable like state, yet inside of him two minds argued constantly... this is Michael Cline, or as some know him Damon Void, a troubled young man who's mind is at constant war with itself. He's past is written, but as of this moment... his future unknown::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

A shadow crept around the roof, moving to the north side of the asylum. The figure wore no cloak, only a solid black jumpsuit, and crouched down at the edge of the roof, dwarfed by the towering buildings which surrounded it.

There was a moment or two on inactivity, and if one looked closely, you might have been able to see that the person on the roof had their hand flat against the building. They looked to be at rest, yet the mind was busy... ...probing underneath, inside the asylum.

The figure on the roof paused, and looked up, moonlight momentarily hitting her features. Pale skin was offset by black paint on her eyes, two thin jaggedy lines stretching from forehead to cheekbones. For a scant second light was reflected from two cyclindral object on her waist, hanging there.

One was her own lightsaber.

The other was Cline's.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline's head fell back as a small stream of drool dribbled from his chin. Inside his mind however, Cline and Void had stopped fighting, they had both sensed it, a familiar presence nearby.::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville pulled her lightsaber from her belt, the clip coming loose with a tug, and activated it, jamming it into the roof.

She grunted slightly as the thickness of the roof challenged the blade, standing to her feet as the material around the blade grew red-hot. Slowly, meticulously, she cut a hole in the roof, just inside the room underneath.

Deactivating the saber, she dropped into the asylum, avoiding the still hot edges of the roof. Landing in a three point crouch, De'Ville looked over at the far corner, watching the man who was sitting there. Legs straight out, arms bound by a straitjacket...Cline was a shadow of the Jedi she had encountered on Coruscant over a year ago.

[DarthDarkCloak]

The night sky was littered with lights from the millions of speeders that sped in all directions through the medical district. Cloaks speeder blended in well with the others. He knew what he was on Coruscant for, and he was ready to go to work. His senses were on full alert, and as he passed the mental-health facilities he felt something. He wasted no time and swung his speeder from traffic down into the shadows below.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline's head bobbed back and forth as he managed to bring it forward to look at his visitor. Inside his mind both Void and Cline were in shock at who now stood in front of them, De'Ville.::

"dddeeee..."

::Cline tried to speak, but drugs caused him to meerly sler the first few letters of the name and then mumble inaudibaully the rest::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville walked over to the man...or the shell which had been a man at one point. She fastened her saber hilt to her waist, and knelt down beside him, studying him for a moment.

Cline looked at her, his eyes unseeing. She stared into them, and thought she saw a glimmer of...something. Perhaps it was recognition.

A shame the Jedi left you here to rot, Cline. De'Ville took ahold of him with the Force, and pulled him off the floor. His head lolled to the side, his greasy, unkempt hair getting in his eyes. She frowned, and carefully levitated his nearly comatose body through the hole in the roof, and set him down in the cool night air.

She took a moment to look around the room, it was as blank as an unwritten page, and then De'Ville vaulted up and out. Cline was slumped where she had placed him, his eyes now tracking her every movement.

De'Ville ignored him for the moment, hefting the chunk of roof she had cut out back into its hole. It wouldn't fool anyone for long, but was better than leaving a gaping hole in the ceiling.

She knelt beside Cline again, and spoke quietly to him. "You should start coming around in about twenty minutes, because in about five minutes you're scheduled for another dosage of whatever drug cocktail it is they have you strung out on. And when you start feeling more like yourself, then we have things to discuss." De'Ville got to her feet, ready to head for the speeder she had hidden by a nearby roof.

[DarthDarkCloak]

Cloak was some distance away on another roof. Through his night-vision binoculars, he could see Lilaena De'Ville and Cline. He peared at a small datapad that he held in his hand and saw that the hospital's silent alarm had been activated. He then revealed another datapad on his wrist which he used to call his probe droid. Seconds later the floating orb moved silently to his side. Without his gaze escaping De'Ville and Cline, Cloak spoke out to it.

"Find it."

The droid let off a small beep to aknowledge before speeding away into the traffic above. Cloak then turned away dissapearing within the shadows behind him.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline's head bobbed back and forth a little.

He wished he could have answered De'Ville. Or screamed out no, or thank you, he wished he could have said ANYTHING right then.::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville worked quickly, knowing that underneath her the hospital was probably being turned upside down. She hadn't bothered to stifle the silent alarm, even though she had known about it.

Lilaena manhandled Cline into the passenger seat of the closed cockpit speeder, and climbed in the drivers side, closing the cockpit securely. Cline slumped to the right, his face against the transparisteel of the window, a trickle of drool dribbling down his chin. She pulled on the yoke, and sent the speeder into the nighttime traffic, quickly leaving the assylum behind.

De'Ville drove for some time, keeping an eye on Cline as he began to come out of it. This should be interesting.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline was starting to come out of his state and could begin to form a few base words as he glanced at De'Ville::

"De....Ville"

::His head bobbed slightly as he tried to say something else::

"Where.... are we.... going?"

[DarthDarkCloak]

As cloak watched the speeder from a distance, his probe droid reapeared behind him. It floated silently behind his head while he checked the datapad on his wrist. He saw something very pleasing on the datapad and smiled slightly.

"Excellent"

His plan had begun, and he had begun to smell victory. He turned triumphantly and jumped into his speeder. The droid followed him without haste and the two sped off in the opposite direction of De'Ville and Cline.


OOC: I'm done in this thread, bout to leave for cancun. I'll return with a thread to explain what happened or something...........

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She shot Cline a sideways look and eased the speeder into another lane of traffic that coursed through the middle of a building. Inside the tunnel, the artificial lights showed how sickly pale the Jedi had become.

The Jedi..or the Sith. It all depended on which one you were acquainted with. De'Ville had never really met Void, the other side of Cline's split personality. To all accounts he was disagreeable, irritating, and volatile. A true Sith, if there were any at all.

Void she could do without. But Cline...if he could be turned (and she still believed he could be) would make an invaluable ally as a Dark Jedi.

Emerging from the tunnel, back into the dark night air, De'Ville finally answered Cline's question. "We're going to my old home."

[Michael Cline]

::He lowered his head, moaning slightly as if fighting something, when he raised his head back, his eyes seemed darker emptier, and his demeaner seemed... worse::

"I appreciate the offer, but I don't like to visit garbage dumps. Why don't you just drop me off at TSE instead babe?" *Snicker*

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville shot him a sideways look and then returned her attention to flying, turning down a side street and landing carefully on a rooftop street.

The building across from them was deserted, a derelict shell which had seen better days. The several storied building was nestled against a taller 'craper, but there were no signs of life. Lilaena popped the cockpit open and climbed out. Walking around to the other side, she offered a hand to Cline.

"If you cannot stand on your own yet, grab my hand. I am not exactly overflowing with free time right now."

[Michael Cline]

::He snickered and pushed her hand aside::

"I don't need help from a pathetic excuse for a Sith, oh... that's right, Dark Jedi. You weren't good enough to be a Sith."

::He steadied himself somewhat and started to stand, before falling back in his seat, and holding his head, he looked back up at her, an innocense once again showing::

"Please... help me."

[Garrett Blade]

Several blocks over, and several districts higher, Garrett wandered the deserted hallways of a large administrative building. Not currently in use, and somewhat rundown, it was once the headquarters of a galactic monopoly specialising in consumer products of varying natures. The credit figure attatched to the considerably large property was criminally low and just waiting to be snatched up by some greedy businessman. Garrett Blade was not really known as a businessman, yet according to him, he had some use for the building. The Force only knows what he plans to do with such an asset.

As Garrett idly scampered along the corridors playing hide-and-shriek, he suddenly stopped as he arrived at a large hole in the side of the building, possibly once harbouring a large painful object that one might look through from time to time. He leaned against the metal framing around the gap - his trenchcoat and elastic stockings flapping in the breeze - and looked towards the sunset. Had he been a few districts down he would not be able to see such a sight, since he chooses not to look at such things unless in at leat District 4 or higher. It had nothing to do with the fact that one simply could not see the skyline from so low down.

As he pulled faces at the smiling round object, which was sinking below a large man's buttock as he applied anti-fungal cream to it, surrounded by a large frame and many lights to alert passers-by of his endeavour, he sensed a presense that was familiar to him. He wasn't sure who they were, or what they were up to. All he could decipher was that their last contact was in a bar on Arcan IV. That narrowed the possibilities down to about eight thousand people, which narrowed down further to five hundred or so people since Garrett realised he didn't know eight thousand people. And that five hundred or so people was cut down sharply to perhaps fifty people since Garrett couldn't even remember more than that.

Very tempted to forget what he was doing here - which he almost did - Garrett turned from the panoramic view of the advertisment board, which was now displaying an equally disgusting picture of a family on a beach, and resumed his game of hide-and-shriek as he explored the derelict building and check it met his criteria.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville grabbed Cline's arm and dragged him out of the speeder, and let go, leaving him to sway on the duracrete. She eyed him a moment, and then concentrated with the Force, shoving the speeder off the platform. Its repulsors were not activated, and it slowly slid off the edge of the building.

They both watched it tumble far below them, and Cline's knees buckled, nearly sending him over the edge as well. De'Ville took his arm and steadied him. "Can't have you falling, Cline." Now, should he regain his strength, he had no hope of overpowering her and taking the speeder.

Not that he could have overpowered her at all. But even in the case of a freak accident, he had no where to run. De'Ville grinned to herself. Besides, it looks dramatic and keeps him guessing. She turned towards the building behind them.

"Ever been to an orphanage, Cline?" She started walking, hand still clamped around his arm. He had no choice but to follow.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline followed step, being somewhat hap-hazzardly drug around by De'Ville::

"No, no I haven't."

::He said wondering why in the name of the Force she would be taking him to an orphanage::

[DarthDarkCloak]

Cloak sat inside a building which was under rennovation. Unlike most other places, construction on Coruscant was all automated. The droids worked around the clock until all tasks were complete. Amongst the rattleing and banging of the busy droids, cloak had fashioned a makeshift workstation from a box and a crate. Not the coziest, but it would do. He punched away at a data pad and watched. He had on screen several views from government surveillance cameras and private security systems. His satellite feed, untraceable. He could see someone coming from a parsec away and would be off the planet before they reached his location. But for now, he watched and waited. A true hunter knew when to strike and how to strike. Secrecy meant everything.

"Now where are we staying? Better yet, where is our ship? C'mon, tell me something."

Cloak mumbled to himself as he switched through numerous views, and observed from different vantage points. His right hand carresed the saber that sat on the box in front of him next to the datapad. He looked deeper into the screen and almost fell into the scene unfolding in front of him as he watched and read lips. Without moving he spoke out to the probe droid that hovered about him.

"Go again, you know what to do. But keep your distance, avoid detection."

Two small beeps sounded and the driod sped away through the confusion around them. It zipped in and out of the numerous obstacles and exited through a hole in the wall where the speeder had been parked.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville paused outside the doors and laid her hand on the old keypad. The numbers were caked with years of dirt and unuse, but after a few seconds of concentration, the doors slid slowly open. De'Ville wiped her hand on her leg and walked inside, Cline following after.

Once inside the doors creaked shut behind them, and she paused to look around. "I lived here once." The entrance was was covered thickly with dust, undisturbed for many years. However, one could make out old footprints that were imbedded in the dust, leading from the door towards the dormitories.

She turned towards Cline. "Your own childhood was less than pleasant, if I remember correctly."

[Michael Cline]

::Cline got deathly quiet as she said this::

"If you call discovering your force powers by blowing up your house and killing your entire family unpleasant. Then yes, it was extremely unpleasant."

::He said barely above a whisper as he turned his eyes towards the ground::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She eyed him for a moment, and then walked towards a door in the wall. Her feet, whether by design or not, stepped inside the footprints that were already there. As she walked, she flipped a lightsaber hilt over in her hand.

It wasn't hers, at least not originally. At the door, she turned back to look at Cline. "Feel like taking a journey of -" De'Ville turned her head to the right, and stared at the wall. Something...someone...I feel you.

Cline looked at her, but she concentrated off in the distance. Garrett. Even at such a distance it was possible for her to identify the life sense she had felt. They shared a bond that was impossible to describe, let alone explain. Why are you here Garrett? She mused her thoughts to herself, and then turned back to Cline.

"Come with me." She turned and walked down the hall that had been hidden behind the door.

[DarthDarkCloak]

The droid swooped in and out of the speeders that sped about. It ducked and dodged oncoming traffic as it moved closer to it's destination. In the distance was a small building overshadowed by the larger younger buildings that surrounded it. The other buildings seemed to look down on and bully the small cozy one as if it didn't belong. It was almost as if it didn't measure up. It was the probes target. Inside it would find it's subjects.

Not far away Cloak sat at his makeshift desk, and watched his screen. He cracked his knuckles as he watched the probes cameras zero in on the building before it. He leaned in slightly to observe more closely.

"That wasn't fair going inside my friends. Your just making my job harder."

Whilst he whispered to himself, Cloak felt something. He looked up from his viewscreen.

"What are you doing here my friend?"

Cloak punched back into the Coruscant skynet monitoring system and with a few commands got an onscreen view from another building not far away. He was right, Garrett Blade was on Coruscant as well, but what was he doing? Cloak activated another probe and it sprung from a hidden compartment in his speeder.

"Go to him, and keep him in sight."

And with that another probe took off into the night.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline stood there motionless, staring into the dark path in front of him, he was just inside the doorway and he swallowed hard::

"I... I don't know if we should, I don't know if I should. I'm... I'm not well."

::Cline stumbled abit catching himself and holding his head, he was still trying to fight Void off, and it was no easy task::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"Whats the matter, Cline? Chicken?" She laughed. "Come now, do you not want your saber back?"

[Garrett Blade]

Bang. Crash. Crash. Crash. Bang. Thud.

It just wasn't slowing down. He only tapped his foot once. How was he to know that the entire duracrete slab was ready to fall through. Luckily, it was a 4 by 4 section of the floor that gave way in one piece rather than crumbling. The unorthadox elevator crashed on the ground floor of the buliding less than a minute after it had begun its decent. Garrett found himself covered in dust, standing less than three foot away from the crumbling main entrance to the building.

"Well then. That was fun! And it's quicker than taking the stairs!"

Garrett walked over to the edge of the pavement where the traffic airlane was - though it was severely devoid of traffic at the moment. After a minute or two, a passenger car pulled up at the pedestrian stop. Garrett climbed onto the stairs and hoisted himself inside. He smiled insanely at the driver. As the bus pulled away from the pavement, Garrett forced the door open quickly.

As the man's head cracked open on the ground four hundred metres below, Garrett cranked up the stereo system as he sat down in the drivers seat. The bus was relatively empty save for a group of party-going young teenagers on the back row and an old couple near the middle of the vehicle.

"This is your captain speaking. Please make sure all bags are secured in the overhead compartments as we will be experiencing..."

Madness.

[Michael Cline]

::Cline looked at her::

"No... I'm not chicken, Jedi... Jedi fear nothing. I just think I should be back somewhere, where I can be helped because of my condit..... AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

::Cline fell to his knees in complete pain as he clenched the sides of his head tightly, his eyes fell towards the floor as he screemed, and then it ended, and he picked himself back up, or perhaps... someone else picked him up from inside.

Void gave De'Ville a coy grin::

"I was right, this place IS a dump."

::He yawned a bit and chuckled::

"But it beats that looney bin, lead on you Sith wannabe, lead on."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She chuckled, "Sith wannabe, thats a new one." He had no way of knowing that she was no longer affiliated with the Sith Order, and so had to be just throwing random insults around.

De'Ville walked down the dusty hallway, "Cline..or is it Void? I never said it was not a dump." She went into the fifth door on the right, which opened into a large dormitory type room. The small metal bed frames held only dingy matresses, some with blankets thrown haphazardly across them.

She walked to the middle of the room, and twirled in a circle, arms wide. "When life gave me lemons, I squeezed the frell out of them and made myself some lemonade." De'Ville looked back at Void, who was squinting at the stained walls. "Too bad you just took the weak way out. Joining the Jedi.,. never learning to stand up for yourself."

[Michael Cline]

::Void turned and glared at her::

"I'm many things De'Ville, a JEDI is not one of them. That pathetic loser Cline is/was a Jedi. I am Damon Void! I AM A SITH! I AM THE DARKSIDE!"

::He chuckled a bit trying to regain composure::

"You however... you're worse than the Jedi, you claim to be Sith, yet you rescued a Jedi. Though I do appreciate the assist, babe."

[Garrett Blade]

A loud crash could be heard outside. Smoke hissed up from the engines of the large brown repulsorlift transport. It's front bonnet was completely mangled up against the entrance to the old, rundown orphanage. Most of the windows were smashed except for the rear passenger view and one or two along the right hand side. The few passengers inside were either dead or dying thanks to the drivers suicidal navigational and transport operational skills. The doors screetched open slowly. A moan came from the back of the bus, to which the answer was...

"Don't make me come back there and suffocate you!"

The moan stopped almost instantly. Garrett descended the three steps and walked forward to a small hole in the wall next to the buildings main entrance. Since he couldn't get through the doors thanks to the bus blocking the way, he'd need to use the.....wall. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to get through. Inside it was damp, dark and cold. DeVille was somewhere inside, on one of the higher levels. It had been some time since their last encounter. He wondered how she was. And why she was here. He fcalled out, louder than he realised...

"DeVille!?!?!?!?!?"

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She stopped in mid twirl, as Void replied to her, and silenced him with a bit of pressure on his vocal cords. He worked his mouth wordlessly, but then also listened as something crashed outside the building.

Asylum guards? No. It was Blade. She knew it was him before he even called out her name. It was worthless to hide, and she had no reason to.

Blade was insane, but he had always been gentle with her. At first, before his mental unstability had surfaced fully, she had been taken with the Sith as well. But her initial attraction had faded, but she still felt a strong connection with the man.

Or whatever it was he was. She fixed Cline in place with her eyes, and called out, "Blade! I am up here."

[Garrett Blade]

"I'm coming, my sweet!"

Looking up, Garrett could see a large crack. It was huge. Large enough to fly through. But Garrett was no angel. He wasn't a rabbit either but he still jumoed up with great ease. He couldn't tell how many floors he shot through, but he arrived several feet behind DeVille, landing quietly on the floor. She was with another man. It wasn't Tondry either. Whoever it was, their mind wasn't their own - that fact reached out, grabbed Garrett by the lapels (what lapels?) and screamed in his face "I'm Mad You Fool!" before letting him fall back to the floor. He had an inkling that the man was a recent resident of the local asylum, but miracles did occur occasionally. DeVille seemed to be looking in the direction of a stairwell some metres away. On a whim, Garrett called up an old inhabitant of the orphanage whose remains still.....remained.....downstairs. The footsteps were quick and heavy on the old, creacky stairs. Garrett couldn't tell whether or not DeVille actually thought it was him, even though his arrival on that floor was relatively silent. The other man seemed to look in the direction of the footsteps too. They got louder and quicker as they drew nearer.

Aaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!"

The corpse ran into the room, arms flailing around it's head. The vocal chords were barely strong enough to let out the scream that could chill an undertaker. The animated body ran straight into a nearby wall before falling backwards, landing on the floor and stopping dead. This was all followed by a cheeky, innocent chuckle from behind DeVille and her newfound madman.

"I'm...hehehe.....I'm sorry I...hehehe....couldn't resis-s-s-s-steh hehehehehe!!!"

He was wearing a rather dark, navy blue, ankle-long trenchcoat with the collar up, an dirty red shirt covered in cloned square images of eyes in an unorganised fashion, and a pair of dark green, dirty trousers. His hair was messy and quite long, spiked upwards to an extent, whilst his boots were normal and black, and exquisitely polished and shiny despite the dust and muck in the room. As always, his lightsaber was attached to his side. But where was his wooden staff? He was rarely seen without it. Though he was rarely seen at all!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville jerked away from the animated corpse with disgust, and faced Blade, who was giggling uncontrollably. "Up to your old tricks, eh Garrett?" She called him by his given name...though who had given it to him, she didn't know.

"This is Cline...or Void. He has a divergent personality." She motioned to the other man in the room, and then kept her attention on Blade. At this point, she wasn't sure which one was more dangerous to turn her back on. Blade wouldn't hurt her...at least, not on purpose. But accidents happen, and quite often, with Blade.

[Garrett Blade]

He flashed an affectionate, friendly smile her way. It was good to see her again. Even the eyes of madness needed a pretty face to gaze upon every once in a while, to remind them that not all was decrepid and spoilt in this rotting reality.

"Well you know how it is. We omnipotent superior beings have to find some way of amusing ourselves for eternity, heh!"

Garrett diverted his gaze to the floorboards beneath his feet. His eyes started darting around the place - anywhere other than straight at DeVille. He'd never admit it to her, but he was somewhat embarassed. The last time she'd seen him, he was somewhat respectable - not a trenchcoat and shirt! And his hair was a mess. Not to worry. He was pretty sure she wasn't bothered about that. Though it seemed that both of them had a new stylist - and DeVille's was a killer!

"So-uh...how ya been? How's Tondry?"

He was still not lookind directly at her. Instead he eyed the two others with her. One of them just clawing beneath the surface.

ooc: Gav told me about the bald thing. Is it the case in this rp? If not lemme know and I'll edit it.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

ooc: It is, because I'm now here./ooc

T-t-trup.

Inhalation. Hold. Exhalation.

T-t-t-trup.

Inhalation. So... bored. Exhalation.

T-t-t-trup.

Shaed's fingers, unclenched from fists for a rare moment, tapped rhythmically on the control panel of his Master's ship.

T-t-t-trap.

Inhalation. It was all well and fine for De'Ville to tell him to wait with the ship - she almost always did when she was on some particular mission that didn't inherently involve her apprentice - but on a planet like Coruscant, there was always something that he could do. Stang, so many minds. So many...

T-t-trup.

Oh, right. Exhalation. The planet seethed like a cauldron of thought, right there on the edge of the Force. Shaed could feel it. So many busy little minds...

T-t-t-trap.

Time to face the facts. He was incredibly bored. As his training had progressed with De'Ville, his new-found humility had... well, regressed. Somewhat. Maybe. Anyway, he had quite an urge to call her up on her personal comlink. He wouldn't, of course... it was all too possible that such an action would compromise both her and his own - albeit boring - positions.

T-t-t-trup.

But he could follow her. If she didn't need him, fine... he could stay out of sight. And mind.

T-t-t-t...

Too much to do. But none of it was here, waiting on De'Ville's ship. In a sustained blur of motion, Kar'tzhen's inert body suddenly whirled the pilot's chair around, leapt out, and flat-out ran all the way to the hatch and through, over the landing ramp.

It hissed closed behind his blurring figure and locked itself securely - but Shaed was already gone.

In more ways than one.

[Michael Cline]

::Void snickered at the term "divergent"::

"Why beat around the Bush De'Ville. I'm a Sith with a Jedi stuck in my head, one I'd rather be rid of to be quite BRUTALLY honest."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville flicked her hand out, and slammed Cline with the Force, pressing his unwilling body to one of the small, dusty matresses. "He also has no manners at all. It is a shame, in one so great in the Dark side."

Ignoring Void/Cline, she turned once more to Blade. "Void is too volatile, but obviously this Jedi, Cline, has much that is dark within him, to have been able to create such a personality. I plan on purging him. You probably don't want to be around for this." She raised her eyebrow a little, and grinned. "It will be messy."

[Michael Cline]

::Void's eyes widened in shock at her words 'purge'::

WHAT?!

::He struggled against the cot trying to force himself free::

NO! I will not allow this! I am the one who should be in control! ME! Not Cline! Cline will simply go back to the Jedi, he's too sickeningly good natured! You can't do this to me De'Ville! I'm a fellow Sith!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She settled next to him, brushing her fingertips against his face while he struggled against her hold on him. "A fellow what?" Lilaena smiled thinly. "The universe is better off without your kind. You are useless to me."

[Michael Cline]

::He grew dead silent as she said it::

"You...you're not a Sith anymore..."

::He frowned::

"Dark Jedi scum... let me go this instant!"

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Time passed.

Lights flew all around him, the minds of the pilots behind them all seeming to get distressed and then angry at the maniac who was flying the bright orange hovercab in less-than-orthadox ways, not following the airlanes being one of them.

The pilot had complained about it as well, even with his mind as scrambled as nerf mush. Occupied with flying, Shaed had instructed the man to undo his safety restraints. The Bith had faithfully obeyed and fallen straight out, the topless speeder with taxi markings being upside down at the time.

He was not hidden at the moment, being as that if he had been concentrating on hiding he would have crashed into traffic or a building nearly instantly. Besides, he was trying to track down De'Ville. He could feel her, but knew better than to feel around for anyone around her yet - it may have tipped off a Force user, if one of the beings around her were one. He only knew she was not alone by delving slightly into her mind.

There, a relatively short and old-looking building on a plateau next to a 'scraper. A large mass of twisted metal lay at the entrance to the place, which upon closer observation was revealed to have been a repulsorlift transport at one time, and probably brown. It was not really either, now.

Shaed apruptly checked his speed - the building that contained his Master was still a kilometer away, but with the Force one could see clearly from all sorts of lovely distances - and banged down onto a large, empty rooftop. He hadn't seen De'Ville's speeder, the one she'd borrowed from a lot back near the ship. Kar't'zhen decided to jump out of the still-moving taxi and let its inertia carry it down into oblivion, anyway. There was always a fresh ride to be found on Coruscant.

Slap, slap, slap. The ground - the roof - somebody's ceiling - flew by under his jointed and reinforced boots, the toe nicely separated between the second and third digits of his feet. They'd been such a steal, back when he'd gotten them. Hm. Two years ago, now?

Back to the present. There was still a gap between his building and the plateau De'Ville's derelict building was on, so he concentrated and shot across the empty space like a Force-powered cretehopper. Then he instantly pulled in all of his senses and being and vanished from all the senses he knew of.

It was hard to see. Hard to think. Here was the door of De'Ville's building... locked. Probably couldn't break through without anyone noticing. Options... the skyscraper?

Shaed walked quietly to the much taller, much newer, but also quite abandoned building. The front doors were, at one time, automated. Place looked like it offered office suites of some sort. The doors were thin, and pretty, and not closed all the way on account of there being the skull of a pest being lodged between them. Shaed pried them open a bit more with his gloved fingertips, then stuck a shoulder in and pushed. Slow going, but in the end he had fallen over, inside, before he realized it. Shambling to his feet, he picked his way to a staircase entryway within the building's former main lobby. He headed up for a few floors, deemed that he was now about at the same level De'Ville was on in the older building, and went east, where he had seen from outside that the two buildings apparently shared a wall.

It was too much to hope for that there was already a hole in said wall, but he scoured that entire side of the floor anyway. Which took a while, when you couldn't really see. After knocking his head into an old-fashioned door that was standing open, he decided to just cut his way through on the side furthest from where he had last sensed De'Ville.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville gripped Cline's head between her hands, fingers pressing into the soft flesh of his face. "I cannot wait any longer, the opportunity is passing. Blade, get back!" Her words were terse and clipped off at the end, as if she were restraining herself.

One by one, the guards in her mind fell. They were there for her own protection - the bursts of psychic energy she experienced in the Force were too intense to handle safely. De'Ville had no experience with controlling this ability, as it came and went randomly, leaving her most often with little to no power at all.

Suddenly she felt Shaed, off to her left, somewhere close. It was him...he was there in her mind, just resting there, monitoring her. How often does he do this? Lilaena had never noticed his mental touch before. Stay back, Shaed. If he were in her mind while she did this, who knows what would happen to him,

Almost against her will, the last mind block collapsed, and De'Ville focused unseeing eyes on Cline's features, his eyes blinking rapidly from a fear of the unknown.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Lightsaber blade halfway through the process of carving away the wall, Shaed suddenly froze as he checked on De'Ville's mind once more and all hell began to break loose inside of it.

How interesting. So this was a taste of what it would have been like if he'd actually gone into her mind, past the blocks, past the outer coil of essence... the taste was getting richer, though, and the more microseconds he wasted watching - whatever it was - happen, the less time he had before something distasteful would happen to his own mind. He'd never had that problem before, and it gave him pause.

Maybe a second of pause.

Shaed snapped his blade off and erected every shield he had, his mind essentially behind a duracrete casing and crouched in a ball.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

As her last defenses fell away, De'Ville had a last thought of concern for Blade - but he was a big boy and could take care of himself. Cline squirmed, but could not escape what was about to happen to him. To Void.

A few tendrils thought snaked into his mind, as De'Ville roughly sought out the synapses that the Void personalilty was stored in. The man between her hands moaned in pain, but she blocked out the sound, concentrating on her task. She could feel it building even now, starting as a headache between her eyes, and then traveling back to the back of her skull.

Her mouth opened soundlessly, and her hands started to shake, as the purging began in earnest. Somewhere, off to the side, she touched Shaed's mind, but could not get inside. Frustrated, De'Ville grabbed Cline's head even tighter, as he began screaming.

Or perhaps it was she who was screaming. Time blurred. De'Ville fell backwards, as if pushed away from an electrical current she had just touched. Cline fell back to the dusty cot, whimpering. There were two red handprints on the sides of his face, from the pressure of her touch.

Lilaena screamed, trying to get her blocks back up, but failing. She could feel the power going out of her, and vaguely wondering about the damage to Cline's hearing. Then she passed out.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Amid the dust that De'Ville's hurricane of slightly unfocused Force energies had raised, a red gleam suddenly penetrated the haze - and the wall, completing a cut neatly.

But fast.

A flash, a blur, and the lightsaber blade vanished again as a black-clad figure burst through the wall, to stand at guard by the Master's side. Shaed knew her mind almost like the front of his hand, and could feel how weak the torrent of power had left her.

He did not know the other two beings in this room.

One, obviously the object of the Master's attentions, lay groveling and disheveled on a cot to his right as blood started to trickle from the miserable thing's ears. His mind was in turmoil, to put a simple name to it. But the being had power.

The other stood off to his left a ways, and had a mind that also could be described to be in turmoil - but this one was organized and precise in its madness. The being had even greater power than the first.

Shaed sought nonstop for signs that De'Ville was coming back to consciousness, and fed all the relaxed healing Force energy he could muster at the moment into her starving mind.

[Garrett Blade]

Nothing. He couldn't sense a damn thing. She was alive. But Garrett could sense nothing inside her. Whenever he'd thought about DeVille, he'd instantly sensed her and knew exactly how she was and whatnot. This was most unusual. As he took a step closer, he did sense something, but not much. As if she were much smaller, and lost in her own mind.

Welcome to my world.

Ignoring the newcomer who seemed to show some concern for her, he levitated her limp body up off the floor and into his arms.

"I hope you're not going to die on me."

[DarthDarkCloak]

"Good, now if you go ahead and kill her, she can't lead me back to her home."


Cloak still sat watching from a great distance within the office buildings. The droids still worked tirelessly about him. He now had two probes out along with his tap into the surveillance cameras. One probe Circling the building which housed LD and the others. The second headed for a special location. But Cloaks attentions were on the cameras at the moment.


"Now, this other guy seems to be a friend of hers. Maybe he knows where home is. I'll keep my eye on you my friend. Don't slip up!"

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville shrank into her mind, appalled at the damage she'd done to herself. She'd known the risks, and knew she'd be weakened, but something had gone wrong. Perhaps Void had struggled and lashed out at her during a crucial moment...

She fell deep into the abyss of herself, clawing at the edges of consciousness, like Alice into the Rabbit Hole. When she reached the bottom, what would happen?

[Michael Cline]

::Cline twitched slightly, his face awash with pain, as the blood trickled down his ears... there was something else there, a voice yelling at him, screaming in anger... VOID.::

"What do you want now Void? To make my life even worse than you've already made it?"

"No... please..."

::It was odd, Void didn't seem to have the strength he had always had before, it seemed almost as if he was dieing.::

"Please Cline... don't let me die. We... we can work something out, time share the body! Something! Please... save me!"

::Cline thought over the offer, and without thinking of the consequences that such an action would entail he made his decision::

"No."

::With that, Cline's shattered psychy pushed what was left of Void into the darkness which was absorbing him, and then all was silent. For the first time in as long as he could recall... he was alone, TRULY alone. The silence surrounded him, laughing at him for his heartless act. For though Void had been meerly a tangent of Cline himself... he had been a living being, alive in all aspects that mattered. And Cline had just assisted in putting him to death... A Jedi Knight had killed a weakened being with no way to defend himself...::

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Shaed quietly observed the goings-on. The crazy one had his Master, was taking her away - but apparently no more wished her harm than himself. The insane one had just completed asserting the power of his own mind over itself... he would live, then, it seemed.

And there was a very high-pitched whining noise he could hear. Very soft. Maybe a ringing from some loud noise he'd forgotten? An after-effect of De'Ville's... well... whatever it was she'd done?

Shaed put it to the side of his mind and followed the unquenchable Garrett Blade.

[Michael Cline]

::Micheal's eyes slowly opened and he tried to stand up... he was too weak to stand... his legs failed under him and he found himself lieing on the floor::

::He breathed heavily, and pulled himself along crawling on the floor to the next room, away from where De'Ville and her 'associates' had gone.::

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville scratched and scrabbled at consciousness....and then floundered once more. She could sense her apprentice near her body, and Blade was carrying her.

To where? She could not even comprehend the question she asked herself, and fell screaming once more into the abyss.

There was a subtle difference...this time she was screaming with her mouth, startling the two men with her unconscious body.

[Garrett Blade]

Who was this other guy? Maybe he was with Cline? But then again no - he'd followed Garrett when he picked up DeVille. Whoever he was - he smelled oddly.

"Who are you?"

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Black-rimmed white irises glanced breifly at the one with De'Ville, cloaked beneath the ever-present black goggles. Shaed really didn't feel the need to talk, yet he supposed he had better for this one. And no communicating through the Force, either - no telling what such a person might do to react to the self-assurance that spoke. Or to just hearing a voice in his head...

"I am Lilaena De'Ville's shadow. Where she goes, I go. When she fights, I fight."

He could still hear the noise, but he thought he could identify it now... a droid of some sort, evidently floating about with the quietest repulsors money could buy. Such replusors were not invisible to Shaed's ears, though. He gotten them from his mother, after all.

[Garrett Blade]

Garrett raised an eyebrow. Funny - he didn't look like a mass of black darkness. And he certainly didn't resemble DeVille in the slightest.

"That's very fascinating."

Garrett carried on towards the stairwell - no jumping through the hole he arrived in this time.

"You're not coming with her this time though."

His eyes were emanating a black vapour. Even he didn't know why.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Black.

It was all black.

She fell further...but something caught her attention.

Shaed. He was near. Somehow that comforted her.

Blade was holding her body. That also comforted her. People she knew. Around her.

She might go back...she liked her body.

She just didn't know the way.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Not coming with De'Ville? Shaed shrugged, but made no comment. Just continued walking behind the insane man and his burden.

Shaed would stay with his Master as long as he could... how long that might be, even this dark one probably did not know. Maybe longer than he guessed. Either way, he had a dry sense of humour. That was appreciable.

[Garrett Blade]

As Garrett descended the stairs, things started to rot. The old wood began to lose moisture rapidly. Rotten rafters fell from above. Metal rusted and crumbled instantly. The stairs themselves began to bleed. The blood formed a hard scab-like surface. It grew up the rotting dead walls. This wasn't the same orphanage they'd walked into. This was something much more sinister and horrid.

"It's okay Lilaena. I'm taking you somewhere safe. My ship is just down these stairs."

He walked slowly down the fleshy hole, calling back to DeVille's apprentice...

"You coming in or what?"

He'd completely forgotten about what he'd said just seconds before. As was the case with his mental condition.

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

The man seemed completely unaware Shaed was still right behind him... and he was eyeing the walls in a strange manner.

Definitely not sane.

Shaed shrunk a little further within the confines and protection of his own mind as he let the distance increase between him and the carrier of De'Ville. Then he called out, "Of course," in an unassuming tone of voice. They were almost out of the orphanage. Coming... "in"? Ah, well. Of course he would, whatever the human meant.

[Garrett Blade]

Garrett took a few more steps forwards, and the wall literally opened up before him. It was dark and red inside. Squishing and slushing noises could be heard inside. As well as the screams. Unbearable, banshee-like, soul-scarring screams. It was enough to kill a mortal from terror alone. Lucky Garrett was no mortal. DeVille stirred in her slumber.

"Shh...it's okay. I'm here. Don't be scared. A friend of mine is a friend of theirs..."

[Kar'h'tzen Shaed]

Shaed couldn't shake this... feeling... he was having about the man staring at the walls.

So Kar'h'tzen actually looked at them, withdrawing from the shell of his mind briefly.

The man was not inviting him down a flight of stairs, flanked by old wood and steel walls. The building had changed. REALLY changed, Shaed knew enough about illusions to know that instantly.

In front of them lay a gaping maw to the red hells, surrounded by shrieking, bloated walls of flesh.

In momentary shock, Shaed stared as the man continued carrying De'Ville downwards... inside. Crooning to her.

He reflected, briefly, on when the last time was that he'd been startled this badly. Certainly not for years. Maybe seven, eight years. It calmed him slightly. And he followed the man.

The being had incredible power, whether he knew it or not. He probably did. It made Shaed a bit uncomfortable. The shrieking noise his mind was making as it tried to wrest itself away from his consciousness and hide was more uncomfortable, though.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

De'Ville gasped, and opened her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was the sound....the sounds! Her body flailed, but there was no strength in her limbs. She looked up in terror, helpless to protect herself from anything or anyone, and caught Blade's eye.

"...it's okay. I'm here. Don't be scared....." He continued to murmer to her, and she opened her mouth as if to shriek herself...but nothing came out.

She fell back into unconsciousness.

[Garrett Blade]

Just then, another gaping hole appeared in the darkness before them. It gave way to light. An intensely bright light. As they stepped into it, it became smoke-filled and hazy. Garrett knows what the hell they were stepping in! Could be piles of bantha crap! As they walked further, the smoke cleared gradually. A small mound was visible in the distance...

[DarthDarkCloak]

Cloak had more than enough information and was soon to gain all of the info he needed. His presence was no longer required on Coruscant.

With a quick movement cloaks entire workstation was reduced to a small box tucked beneath his arm. He inputed a short sequence in the data pad hidden on his wrist and his speeder sped across busy building to him. He threw the box in, leepfrogged in behind it, and just as he came, he dissapeared into the night.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Still unconscious, De'Ville lay limply in Blade's arms, as Shaed crept cautiously along after them.

ooc: talk about a delay! /ic: