What you wish for

[Dendra Tess]

Empress Teta
City of Cinnagar - Core District - Tess Grand Library and Museum


It was close to closing time at the Tess Museum, the Grand Library staying open some hours afterward for those historians who preferred to burn the midnight oil. Small holograms, depicting a much younger version of her grandfather, had appeared in every exhibit hall; encouraging visitors to conclude their stay but return as early as daybreak on the morrow. It was a routine Dendra had memorized, having worked as a conservator at the institution since the death of her parents when she was only just a teenager. Her grandfather, Ademus Tess, had taken her in and initiated her obsession with the lore and mythology behind every studied culture. She was a more than adequate curator now; some fifteen years of dedicated study had taught her a great deal of languages, accurate recitations of historical events, and a personal collection of artifacts that she had purchased from private dealers set up throughout the galaxy.


For the most part, Dendra took pleasure in serving as a museum guide and that was her current occupation; seeing engaged minds slowly trickle out of the immense establishment from the service desk in the dome shaped foyer. One of the other curators stopped by, giving her a quick once over before promptly thrusting his gaze in the opposite direction. She was used to these dismissive glances by now, her appearance certainly unorthodox compared to the other individuals who worked here. It was often whispered that she only got away with her outrageous style because her grandfather was the proprietor. In truth, the man was simply smart enough to look beyond physical differences and assess the potential of the mind. It was typical of some older scholars to judge her but Dendra was not the kind of person who cared for such things.


In truth, she was a bit austere and she was sure that rankled them more than an outright reaction. She merely ignored them, going through the motions of closing the museum until it came time to lock the large double doors the patrons entered and exited from. The same individual who had happened by the front desk was already onto the task, it seemed. She could tell from where she stood, at the boundary that separated the library from the exhibits, that a large, dark shape shadowed their doorstep. "Strange for someone to come by so late. Tell him we're closed. I'll be in the archives, checking in with grandfather." She told the other curator, who turned to do just as she suggested.


Dendra, however, moved into the rotunda of the Grand Library and headed straight for the private study where she knew Ademus Tess would be studying the tomes that had arrived from a collection rumored to come from Krayiss Two. She was curious, herself, to see about their validation. Sweeping aside the elaborate folds of her dress (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e7/4d/7b/e74d7bd81683053cb27b1e70968705b5.jpg), she entered after delivering a loud knock and passed the older gentleman, who sat behind his weathered oak desk, a small but rare smile. "How goes the authenticating, Grandfather?"

[Hawkins Grime]

The door opened and the man barely stuttered before a large metal hand, clamped down on his head and closed. The headless body dropped to the ground. Chroma MK II, a massive industrial droid with a heart of an assassin droid, stepped forward and removed the door from its hinges. Morrolan e'Drain, pilot of the Black Wyvern stood down the steps a bit, shaking his head at the mess. He glanced back at the shuttle from which a slim Mandolorian was stepping out. The Mandolorian, in his black and green armor, dashed up the stairs to e'Drain as if he were possibly too excited already.

"Chill, kid. They'll set this alarm off if we aren't fast enough."

The visored helmet of Orar looked from e'Drain to the corpse and then back to e'Drain,

"You mean they didn't notice that Chroma just popped that man's head like a ripe papurgaat?!"

e'Drain shrugged before turning to the last person stepping out of the speeder. Morrolan was still having issues fighting it, the boss called it simply the dread, and e'Drain was not one to argue. The helmet alone had once been a very traditional Mandalorian helmet. It now had horns on top and a face just beneath those horns, and it seemed so alien that the eyes now set in the traditional visor of the helmet seemed to burn to e'Drain's very core. The vents at the collarbones were now partially covered with faces. The late day sun caught the glint of a series of jewels and gems that had been set into the armor throughout. The cape, the overlapping armor plates, and the mantle created a vision of... dread. And he was only walking up steps now. e'Drain had seen him in action and it was hard at this point sometimes not to just sit there and watch it all occur. Like watching a train wreck.

"e'Drain... What are you waiting for?"

The voice was like metal against glass. Orar seemed to shudder slightly as the question was turned towards him with a glance before he shrugged, an audible sigh, and then he darted towards the now pried open door. e'Drain was not sure he could get away with Orar's noncommittal shrug so he instead just followed him, knife and laspistol ready.

"Find her."

==========

The museum doors opened and CENSORED stepped inside slowly, carbine held tight to his chest. The door pass had been easy enough to hack and once Felton had cut the power, it was cake. Four security guards all bewildered and nowhere to run. They ended up being less fun than he had thought. His boots made slick slurping noises as he trailed blood into the main hall. There before him was a manikin, a torso with a right hand and a head. On the right hand were jewels the color of her eyes. On the head was a tiara and necklace set that seemed to catch even the barest glint of moonlight from outside the far window and turn it into a delicate dance of reflections. She deserved no less.

==========

e'Drain stuck his arm onto the bookshelf and pulled an entire row off the shelf in order to see through the shelf to the other side where a man was running down the next aisle over. His blaster kicked and the beam of blue energy sunk into the middle of the man's back. e'Drain dashed around the side, with only a glance to confirm the man was dead. The air was becoming thick and the smell of burning... everything assaulted Morrolan's nostrils. He turned the corner to see that train wreck that he just could not look away from.

Paper, paintings, wood, whatever could burn, was burning. Hawkins Grime took deliberate steps through the middle of the library, headed towards the back and in his wake, destruction followed. e'Drain knew better than to get to close at this point. The boss was stirred up good, over what, who knew, but it had him burning white star hot. The pilot could see through the heat haze to the other side where Orar was coming from the emergency exit he was supposed to have secured.

"All clear, A'den."

The demonic armored figure gave no notice as Grime continued forwards toward the hallway in the back, labeled study on the blue prints that Averre had hacked. Everyone else was dead. The boss had said to save that one for last. Save it for Hawkins Grime alone.

[Dendra Tess]

To her surprise, he did not host a heap of ancient tomes before him but instead sat with his bony fingers pleated atop the age smoothed surface of his unusually empty desk. His customarily kind, wrinkled face was drawn taut with something akin to concern but he returned her smile with a patient one of his own, beckoning her to him with a nod. Dendra said nothing more but instead moved toward his desk, her glacier hued gaze briefly darting toward an opened, wooden crate at the western quarter of the room beneath the oval shaped window overlooking the city beyond. The tomes sat within, untouched. Her pierced, left brow arched a measure but sunk back into standard as she dropped into the leather chair situated before her grandfather's station. Her assessment turned upon the grizzled scholar once more....

Just as there were whispers about her, Ademus had garnered a number of rumors himself since the untimely, questionable demise of her parents; they said the death of his daughter had shattered his will, they said his obsession with Sith artifacts had begun to warp his mind, they worried about his prolonged bouts of solitude in his private wing of the library when he was formerly such a social man. Dendra worried as well, in her own internalized and unrecognizable kind of way; but, she had never questioned him. Now, as her keen eyes smoothed over his tremulous features, she knew she had been wrong to keep her silence on the matter. She nibbled a bit nervously on the silver-ringed labret protruding from the center of her bottom lip but then opened her mouth to speak, promptly silenced as her grandfather lifted his hand haltingly.

"My dear girl, I must apologize to you. I was not strong enough, wise enough, to shield you from the grim destiny that has been contrived for you." He spoke in his quavering, elderly voice but it held such gravity that she remained silent. He rose on unsteady legs, his hand drifting down to his locked desk drawer and pulling it open. Her head tilted ever so slightly and she sat up a bit straighter, to see what he was on about. A square case was withdrawn from the desk and set upon its surface, a dragon-like creature emblazoned in resplendent gold on its shiny surface. "It was the same for your mother but I pray the outcome will be different for you. I have done all I can. I have armed you with knowledge, I can only hope it will be sufficient until such a time your power can be truly awakened."

This time, she could no longer hold her silence. "Grandfather, what are you talking about? Fate? Mother? Power? You're making little sense." There was always a tinge of exasperation in her tone but it dulled in the presence of her familial elder; now, there was no disguising it. She flicked an adroit but impatient gesture toward the box on his desk. "What is this?"

"Your birthright. There is little time, here." The lid was flipped open and as if to punctuate it landing against the desk, an alarm began to sound behind her signifying an emergency in the museum. She rose immediately but her grandfather's gnarled hand lashed out and clamped around her wrist as she turned to address the matter. "It's already too late. Quickly. You must take this." He released her and then held up an impressive length of chain; on the end of it, a crudely shaped but glimmering cluster of blood red crystal dangled, wreathed in gold wiring and stamped with the same dragon seal from the box it came from. Immediately, she was drawn to it and quite unwittingly she had extended a hand toward the pendant. It seemed to glow even brighter at the approach of her fingers but the reaction was missed, her head whipping toward the door as a loud crash and blaster fire stole her attention away. The smell of smoke, fire, pursued the unsettling sounds. The warmth of the stone upon being guided into her outstretched palm wrenched her attention back to her grandfather.

"We must leave this place. My dear, fetch my cane from the alcove, will you?" Now that the necklace was in her possession, all of the worry had seemingly melted from his face. She looked at him strangely, her mouth ajar. Then, closing her hand around the amulet, she huffed quietly and moved past his desk to the back room where he'd supposedly left his cane. It sounded as though the building was about to come down around them and he was worried about such things, surely she was dreaming! Rather halfheartedly, Dendra slung the jewelry about her neck and tucked it into the front of her dress. Yes, she would wake soon and all of this strangeness would be behind her...

[Hawkins Grime]

The door to the study groaned under some sort of pressure behind it. A black spot appeared and began to spread until the heat formed a burning hand print. The heat spread so fast that when the pressure behind the door was released, the door peeled away like paper to the edges of the door frame rather than splintering outward. Through the ruined doorway strode a baroque nightmare of Mandolorian armor. The eyes blazed green set in a helmet that seemed to have another face molded into the forehead of it. It was unsettling enough, but the rush of heat that filled the room seemed to agitate the very walls, as if the small study was too little space for what had just entered the room.

==========

The beautiful woman sitting on the long couch gasped, startled as the double doors slammed open. CENSORED approaches with arms held wide, his red jacket over one arm. She was not impressed.

"Miss me?"

==========

The armored figure entered but stood just beyond the door frame. Flames began to lick the air around the bookshelves to either side of Hawkins Grime. His gauntlets were covered in blood up to his elbows and the chest plates, that heaved with heavy breathing had leather-like skin stretched across it.

"The Tess bloodline... I presume?"

Before the old man could say anything he lurched, as if he was picked up off his feet and held momentarily in the air, he was thrown forward, into Grime's outstretched hand.

"They didn't say you would be so... old... weak."

A snort of air made the cloak laced into the armor flare behind him. His helmeted head cocked to the side. The old man could hear the tortured rasps of Grime's breathing beneath the helmet. The gauntlet's fingers sizzled at the skin of the elder Tess' neck.

"Speak up quick... Tell me... before you... expire..."

[Dendra Tess]

Rows of holocrons, volumes of hand-written history, and the occasional glass encased artifact lined the shelves of the elongated room she'd stepped into. At the very back, her frosty gaze espied the ornate cane-blade her grandfather used to get around. Approaching it, she lifted it and tucked it beneath one arm. Then, she noticed the slim notebook that Ademus used to scribble important notes and reminders in; well, the latest edition of such. She snatched it up as well and then spun on her heel back toward the study, at once hearing the resounding crash of something metal as it struck the floor beyond. A faint orange glow spilled into the dimly lit back room, followed by a wave of heat that easily permeated the thick fabric of her dress. She rushed forward immediately..

"Grandfather, what's-..."

And that was when she saw it. An amalgamation of nightmares and alloy, a twisted archfiend straight out of the pit. It held the feeble form of her grandfather aloft, as though the full weight of a human being was mere dust in it's armor clad grasp. Her mouth opened to render some sort of wild objection but she found she was absolutely struck to silence by the horrific sight that unraveled before her; the very paint peeling from the walls, flames were eating their way closer to her from behind it, and she swore she could feel the life draining from her grandfather's suspended body.

Dendra had never been a boisterous individual; her emotions always carefully kept in check less they be used against her, her words specifically chosen according to the situation, the uncommon appearance she boasted serving as the only out-crying facet of her personality. But, when she saw Ademus Tess withering beneath this monster's grip and felt the almost certainty of death clambering across the study walls toward her... something changed. It was always likened to something breaking, the mental shift that occurred within someone when left with no other option but fight or flight. To the azure haired woman looking on, it was more like a stubborn puzzle piece finally being jammed into place. Emotions erupted from her, turning the ambiance of her very person into a violent miasma that reached out and battered at both this demon and her frail grandfather. This awakening within her sought hungrily, decidedly latching onto the last strains of her grandfather's life force. There was a perceivable effect to her unwitting attack, whorls of energy stained in deathly pallor bridging her outstretched fingertips to the old man. In a matter of moments, Ademus was reduced to a emaciated carcass; all of the fluids seemingly siphoned from him until only bone and leathery gray flesh hung from those armored claws.

She hadn't realized it, but she had been screaming; roaring was really a more adequate description. But, once Ademus was no more and the connection she had somehow forged was severed, she lapsed into silence. Exhaustion. The room and all its horrors began to shadow and her legs began to crumble beneath her.

[Hawkins Grime]

At first Grime thought it was an attack against him and the pressure in the room focused, like a wall between him and the woman who had stepped in from the back. Then, as he watched the life force of the old man vanish between his fingers, he only had a moment of hesitating question before his rage, like a torrential flood, overwhelmed him once more. The husk in his hand began to light on fire, now dry like a mummy, like so many of the books and pages of research and annals that were burning around him. Grime closed his armored fist and only dust remained of the elder's throat as the husk fell to the ground in a shamble of bones. The woman collapsed to her knees, seemingly spent from her display. Grime would not under estimate her either. He took no step further but gave the slightest nod to acknowledge her existent before he spoke. Every word pulsed through the unbearable heat at each punctuation.

"The last Tess... Storied blood hidden... keeping storied trinkets hidden..."

As if an invisible sphere suddenly appeared around Grime, the floor cracked and the book shelves beside him were demolished. The pressure coalesced into a wave of heat that slammed forward, catching the woman brutally by her chest and slamming her against the wall with enough force to knock her out. He would take no chances. Grime did not understand what she had done to her own elder but he would ensure that did not happen to him. He glanced at the husk just before him.

==========

The mirrors sloppily applied to the ceiling let him watch the entire thing. CENSORED was a husk of wet tissue and exposed muscle, not a scrap of skin on his body. Tubes and plugs kept pushing the appropriate fluids into him and the machines on either side kept pushing air and moisture against his flayed living-corpse. Those blue eyes bore back into themselves with a depth of hatred that no torture would ever remove, only embed further and further until there was nothing else. CENSORED gurgled, his chest heaving with wet breaths. The attendant came by, increasing the sedatives lacing his fluids. Nothing else.

==========

e'Drain slumped the woman into the speeder they had flown in through the large windows near the ceiling of the building. Orar was dumping bags filled with loot from the back room into the speeder, giving the blue haired woman only a glance. More than a glance, e'Drain had thought, honestly. That kid needed to get a girlfriend or something. Wasn't Averre just a bit older than him? It was hard to tell; she was so small. The boss sat up at the front of the speeder already, almost casually reading one of the texts taken from the back. A strange device sat on the console before him. Morrolan had no clue what a holocron was but if his boss wanted them, it likely meant it could kill e'Drain, so no holocrons on his curiosity list.

"Get everything you needed, boss?"

Grime barely moved, only to turn the page of the crumbling text in his hand.

"Is she secured?"

"Wha-? Yeah, boss. She's secured. Sense dampener and sedatives, like you said."

"If she unexpectedly awakens and starts to do anything strange at all, kill her."

"Strange?"

"You'll know. Or... you're already dead."

"Huh. Comforting."

==========

Orar tapped the button on the dampener then jumped back lightly. The sedative had worn off long ago but she would not have understood that until just now as all of her senses returned to her in a mild degree. She still could not see but everything else would gradually return. Especially the pain and soreness. Orar was too familiar with that.

"Hey. Lady. You there? Awake yet?"

She was strapped to a chair in the escape pod upon the Black Wyvern and Orar stood just outside of it, his hand resting over the control panel.

[Dendra Tess]

The last Tess.... hidden... hidden...

Her eyelids finally wilted, the abyssal creature's last word drifting to her ears in little more than a nightmarish whisper. The one thing she remembered feeling was a wall of heat slamming into her. Then, only darkness...



Death was precisely what she imagined it would be; no reward, no punishment, at first only the endless barren of unfeeling nothing. Thought was possible but disjointed, flitting through her ethereal mindscape like so many weightless bits of sand. Occasionally, a feather soft voice would intrude upon the silence or a particular image would flicker into existence. The desiccated body of her grandfather, the pieces of her parents strewn around their studio apartment, a man in black holding a blood red necklace above her supine body.

The amulet. She felt the weight of it between her breasts and suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, she reawakened to the world of the living. And what a miserable rebirth it was. Achingly slow, she managed to open her eyes but nothing appeared before them, the blackness stretched on. But, the dull but very real pain of too tight bindings assured her that she was very much alive. A panicked sound manifested in her throat and then, she remembered to breathe; dragging in fresh oxygen, as though starved for it, to fuel this new sense of dread that permeated her every cell.

A voice, muffled as though by thick swaths of cotton, reached her through the haze; it was not the demonic cacophony of the creature in the library but something softer, far more human and innocent. She shook in her bindings, cold and parched and intensely afraid. There were a million questions and images flooding her mind now but she only managed to give voice to one thing...

"Why...?"

[Hawkins Grime]

"Why?"

"Why what, lady?"

Orar glared at her, sneering at her apparent weakness. He kept his hand over the panel as he lifted his other hand, employing his beroya isirir. A'den knew nothing of it, as far as Orar could tell. The twisted man gave no notice when Orar tested it near him. As far as Orar had experimented, it allowed him to glean basic things, surface thoughts. Of course, it did not work on A'den but nearly everyone else he'd met.

kar'ta be werda

"What are you doing?"

The grating of the voice sliced through every ounce of Orar's concentraion. He turned, startled but immediately trying to move into a defensive posture, but not before the clawed fingers of the gauntlet snagged his hair and lifted him from the ground, slamming him against the wall. The perfect face that looked up at him showed no emotion. Orar had seen that face sculpted into statues of art in places thatA'den had later burned to the ground, laughing maniacally. The eyes, piercingly blue, reflected that madness now, rimmed in hatred and blood.

"A'den..."

The hand slammed him against the wall again.

"I was trying to... read her thoughts."

Mistake. Grime hurled the boy back into the hallway as if he were tossing a bag. His exoskeleton hissed exhaust, free of most of the sharp edges and accouterments from before. In it's undecorated form, it was modeled after the sleek musculature of fine Mandolorian armor. Hawkins' blue eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, set in his aquiline features.

"Lie to me again, worm."

Orar knew not to push him. He held his side as he stood, slumped against the far wall of the hallway where he had landed. Off to Averre to get patched up then he supposed with a slight shrug. None of this was out of the ordinary. But that woman...

==========

The woman lay blindfolded in the bed. She smiled as she heard foot steps coming from behind somewhere. She struggled gently at first, trying not to move too much as to draw too much attention to herself.

"Awake then?"

She sobbed suddenly, only smiling because of the other cloth that was tied against her mouth, pulling her lips back painfully in a grimace. A red gloved hand reached down to trace along her jaw.

"You didn't think that I'd forget, did you?"

CENSORED spit on her face and sneered. The sound of unsheathed metal signalled the point at which the traitor tied to the bed began to struggle with all her might as the bed rocked violently.

"No, no. You should've saved your strength back then. When we were partners and it mattered. And you quite nearly stabbed me in the back..."

His gloved hand gripped her jaw and yanked it wide as the ruby blade slid against her throat.

==========

The dampener was lifted from her eyes. Hawkins Grime stood over the woman, waiting for her sight to adjust in the dim lighting of the escape pod she was strapped to.

"Name."

[Dendra Tess]

The reply that came, to the one word she'd managed, infuriated her. Her fists clenched painfully tight, her knuckles cracking resoundingly, where they were bound to the arms of what she assumed to be a chair. Why what? There were any number of suitable answers to her question, besides that one. She, of course, was in no position to snarl at whatever cretin lurked just beyond the realm of her shattered senses. Her fragility in that moment did not prevent her from recognizing something unfamiliar; a divergence of icy tendrils invading her mind, which previously held no feeling to it that she could remember. As quickly as she had discovered the sensation though, it fled. The relentless ache of her entire physique returned to the forefront.

The azure haired woman sat up a bit straighter, unsure of what exactly transpired beyond where she was bound. Whatever physical, verbal, exchange was made, it was brief. Moments later, whatever thing had been placed over her eyes was removed and she blinked rapidly in the dim light of...

Some kind of pod? She looked around furtively, her glacial stare following the low-luster track lighting that ringed her surroundings. There was great hesitation following her initial inspection, one incited by her overwhelming objection to steer her gaze toward the thing that loomed over her. Then, her name was demanded and her eyes abruptly snapped up to it. It was different now, no longer clad in the guise of the archfiend but no less intimidating. Her fear was a fleeting thing now; what more did she have to lose besides her own life? The worse part of which she had briefly tasted in her previous state of unconsciousness. Her stubborn thoughts were many in that instant but instead of disobedience, he was answered with a hate-filled...

"Dendra Tess."

[Hawkins Grime]

His pale blue eyes set in his too perfect face were rimmed with blood and vessels busted from the constant strain that Grime's revenge-fueled activities pushed him to. Those eyes bore into her with the weight of knowing advantage, betraying nothing more than that primal sense and oddly paired with the curt smile on his face too still to be real. The gauntlet reached forward and in the brief light, the woman could see that the fingers were articulated so well it was hard to tell if the burnished silver skin was not organic. Then those fingers gently slipped against the back of her neck before they roughly laced through her blue hair and yanked.

"Prove it..."

At this proximity, she could see that as he spoke, his features were nearly too perfect over whatever was underneath. His teeth were perfect but his gums were black and artificial. A black-blood like saliva seethed from the gums and occasionally spotted his statuesque lips with every few breaths. From his other hand, he grabbed the scrolls of paper, some slightly singed at the edges or here or there, that were tucked into his belt. He dropped them in her lap; one of the sheets unwrapped too quickly and slid away across the ground. Grime reached behind her and released the binding, bending close enough that his face was just to the side of hers, as he turned to speak quietly into her ear.

"Read these. Out loud... Try anything and I'll space both of us... I'm not sure you're protected from the void quite like I am."

They were scrolls that he'd collected, not from her museum but from the grave of a dead dark sider who'd thought to bury them in their tomb alongside their corpse, and a few other nasty things. It removed the chance that it was something she might already be familiar with, hopefully. But supposedly the name of that dead dark sider had ended with Tess...

[Dendra Tess]

Once she had forcibly dragged her gaze upward, she could not look away. It was almost as though someone had tried to half-way invoke a vengeful spirit that haunted a statue, the face an eerie blend of masonry and life; the visage of a crazed murderer who possessed untold power. Tension arced through her frame like a live current as his hand lifted, prompting a wave of pain to wash over her entirety once more. Celestial azure eyes dipped away from that face to watch those approaching fingers, not altogether inhuman in their design, and her breath quickened almost imperceptibly as they delved behind her neck. Her mouth dropped open and an unbidden gasp flew from her, her eyes clenched shut tightly to form an expression that could have been described as ecstasy if the betraying clench of her fists did not define her reaction otherwise.

Prove it...

Her eyes cracked open defiantly at these words, the aim of her gaze falling right on his mouth; taking in the black, viscid fluid that gathered against his perfect teeth, speckled his lips. How exactly did he intend for her to prove it? Everything she owned, minus the dress she wore and the necklace beneath it, had been burned at the library. Her rooms had been in the upper wings of the building, her last remaining relative...

She was distracted from listing out, mentally, all of her shortcomings when a sheaf of somewhat singed papers landed within her lap. One slid off and she found herself straining against her bindings to try to prevent it from hitting the floor. Until he released her, however, she was helpless. There was a resounding snap and then a whir as the bindings retracted, her hands immediately going to the scrolls he slapped haphazardly in her lap. She shivered, his menacing words and proximity dousing her with icy fear. But, she was not one to quiver and beg. Rather professionally, Dendra patted the papers into some structure and turned her attention down to them.

"It has been two years and forty-seven days since I set off to find the Codex. After finding no leads beyond vague mentionings of something called the Lifewell, I have finally located something in the Outer Rim." She paused, furtively taking in a list of ciphered coordinates. She knew exactly what they were because her grandfather had required her to study them when she'd first arrived on Empress Teta. It had been like a puzzle to her, a child's game, and now she could see that the code had been far more than that. Rather than deciphering the code out loud, Dendra moved on to the block of text connected to where she'd previously been reading, her pause having been no more than a second or two. "At last, I'll be able to amplify my power and destroy him. His concepts would weaken the Sith beyond recovery. If I am the only one who sees it, so be it." There was a seal in the bottom, right hand corner of the document. Her thumb smoothed over the ink very gently. "Altairus Tess." There was no name but she knew who these entries belonged to regardless. She moved the scroll to the back of her stack and turned her gaze down to the next entry.

[Hawkins Grime]

The hacking laughter began with the last word Tess and the twisted snarl of a grin that slid across Grime's face grew wide enough that his prosthetic face almost had an issue registering the expression. The wretched core of his existence refused to let it go unnoticed as the hacking laughter violently turned into only hacking. It went on for a severe moment in which he was almost bent over. The temperature in the small compartment began to rise suddenly. The hacking subsided as coughing and only ended when out of sheer willpower, Grime slammed the side of a metal fist against the wall, just beside the woman's head, leaving a small dent in the metal panel. His eyes wept blackish fluid down the ivory white cheek bones and a small stream of the same fluid leaked from the corner of his mouth. Grime's eyes caught the woman's and his lips worked as if words were racing in his mind too fast for the physical to process. His other metal hand slipped out like a serpent and slapped the papers away from her so she could not read any further.

"The Codex. The Life Well. Altairus Tess. I seek all of it..."

The heat refused to abate as Hawkins regained his composure slowly but surely, unaware of the black rivulets from his face running down the burnished metal plates of his chest.

"I will take them like I took you. You will help me find them..."

==========

"Then kill me then..."

CENSORED laughed. He plunged the black-bladed stiletto into the man's ear and cut a nice chunk out of it.

"But I don't have what I need from you yet!"

==========

"Can't kill him yet... ol'Digger wants him like this for a good while, he does."

The mass of exposed fibers and organs heaved like a wet sack and blood splattered to one side. A muscled claw strained upwards abruptly in a vain attempt to do anything.

"What you think he'd say if he could speak, ol'prince there?"

==========

"And with it..." Hack, cough, blood. "I'll end this. All of it. You can... be part of this willingly. You saved your grandfather from my death but you granted... him your own destruction. I will harness you. Deny me or hinder me..."

His hand reached to her chin and his metal fingers pressed against her skin lightly at first before he lifted her face to his. He stepped forward, his eyes level to hers as he looked in. Every biting word seemed to become more harsh with his barely held fury.

"... And I will obliterate you."

[Dendra Tess]

The laughter, if one could actually call the grating sound he issued that, was chilling to say the least. She sat in rigid patience as the tormented creature hacked violently, a rivulet of sweat trickling down her brow as the temperature abruptly fluctuated. Dendra jumped at the turbulent display that rendered a fist-sized indentation in the pod's wall right next to her head, a shallow breath she hadn't realized she was holding was exhaled shortly thereafter. She could not fathom what was responsible for his mirth, not from the few words she had recited from the text still clutched tightly in her hands; but, as she stared into that grim countenance with rebellion in her eyes, she knew there was no accounting for the madness dictating his thoughts and actions. She gasped softly as the papers were smacked from her grasp, both startled by the swiftness of the action and appalled by his disrespect for the documents and their worth, the history of her family.

Her eyes narrowed, she opened her mouth to snarl at him but promptly snapped it closed when he spoke first. More heat suffused the enclosed space and she was panting now, softly but rapidly. She flinched as his words were interlaced with another wet cough, her spine crawling deeper into the seat she was in as his hand stretched out toward her face. He was even closer now and his nearness filled her with a strange mixture of trepidation and excitement; the latter was utterly inexplicable, of course. Then, his threatening words grew in gravity until she felt crushed beneath them.

But, she was not pinioned by fear for long. Her eyes closed and she drew upon the conflagrant air deeply, her fingers unfurling from their death grip on the chair arms where she hadn't noticed moving them. When she opened her eyes again, exhaling steadily, and locked them upon his streaked features, there was a great multitude of promises lingering within their crystalline depths; I will not be harnessed. I will not fear you. I will take the Codex, whatever it may be, for myself. And last but not least, You will be the one obliterated when my vengeance is unleashed, monster.

"I will do as you want." She said with rotting sweetness, her lashes sweeping down in a show of compliance.

[Hawkins Grime]

CENSORED sneered, one arm hanging limp, as his nearly complete palace shook, scaffolding collapsing. Speeders flew by outside as a massive stained glass-steel window fractured under a stray bolt. He looked down to the crumpled body that he knelt over, lifting her chin up with his still functional arm. Her eyes fluttered open briefly.

"I told you I was a burning star, fair lady."

She couldn't speak, he knew. The piece of shrapnel sticking from the side of her throat was more than apparent. He sneered again looking at her, watching her eyes glaze over with his bloodied face the last thing she would ever see.

"You were one of my favorites, I'll admit."

A trandoshan turned the corner, running face first into the laser bolt that lanced from the blaster pistol that seemed to appear in the man's hand.

"Oh well, next life, maybe? Now where's that meddling wizard...?"

==========

His metal hand gripped her chin roughly, holding her face up to his so her downcast eyes caught nothing but his face, and the air became turbulent, like the fires of a furnace were encased beneath his armored frame. The sneer on his face was exaggerated even more so by the prosthetic and even though it pained him to use his muscles even that much, his rage rode him through it.

"No...No... Not for a Tess. Not such dren weakness. You will do as I want..."

The inner glass of the room's blast door, just behind Hawkins cracked loudly.

"Not because you choose to but because you will resist me, as a Tess should, and then I'll break you. Over and over again. As your blood deserves. You don't even..."

His ragged breathing almost breaking into laughter again as his hand slid around her throat, gently seemingly.

"You don't even understand. But say it again... Go ahead. Tell me you'll do as I want..."

[Dendra Tess]

Those not-quite-human fingers bit into the soft, pale flesh of her face cruelly and refused her the option of looking away from him. Even as the fires of this man's presence promised to sear her very soul, she did not quiver in fear. The only semblance of her distress was demonstrated by her mouth, the small silver ring pierced through the center of her bottom lip was caught by her teeth and worried at before it was promptly released. The cloying heat was suffocating and she wasn't surprised to hear glass fracture somewhere beyond those eyes she was forced to stare into, his commanding words providing little distraction from the rising discomfort of his scorching aura. That was, until he said as a Tess should. The frost that proliferated across her gaze was an immediate counter to his fiery wrath, her own lips parting to reveal perfectly straight teeth that formed in a sneer not unlike his own.

His grasp slipped about her throat, in gentleness but patiently promising the torment he described in so many words. If feigned sweetness would not appease this monster than she would reserve it for someone else. Anger gurgled up from that same mysterious recess at the crux of her entirety. She felt the physical thrum of the necklace against her breast before the necrotic energies began to ooze from it. She dared to touch him then; her grasp like that of Death, cold and unyielding, as it fastened against the carapace of her captor's forearm. A tremor echoed through her being, transferred to him, and her eyes came to be white-washed with unholy light. A billow of steam hissed through her lips, her teeth grinding as she fought against whatever entity he'd managed to rile.

"Find the map... Khar Delba..." She said but it was not just her voice, her's was only one of many. Then, seemingly as though the information had taken all of her reserves to relay, the light receded and the cold abated. The necklace fell silent and awareness returned to the azure haired Tess. She stared at him, jerking her hand away from his arm as though she hadn't realized she'd put it there.

[Hawkins Grime]

The pressure in the room and the heat had abated as if whatever she or whatever it was that had possessed her had momentarily halted his exuding rage. Hawkins glanced down at his arm, it was numb, even the pain of his very being subsided for the time. The relief was a remarkable absence that Grime was almost positive he would regret. He willed his hand to move and the exoskeleton still responded with ease. The flesh might even be dead beneath the frame after whatever this bitch had done but with this body...

==========

The rusty wheel turned. Through exposed teeth in a mouth with no lips, the muscles strained open, his tongue missing so no fear of choking on what was left. His eyelids had been long gone. The eyes rolled, unable to stop seeing. The rusty wheel turned. His back spasmed, trying to lift his torso upwards. The rusty wheel turned.

"You think we've pulled enough of his intestine out yet?"

"Nah."

==========

The hand that was so numb that it felt good made a fist. The idea of crushing her skull with his metal hand like a hammer flashed through his mind in a blood red flash. Grime's hand snatched forward, grabbing her blue hair roughly. He quickly stood up fully from where he had been leaning over her and brought the woman up by her hair.

"Oh, we'll find the map..."

Her feet were barely touching the ground as his other hand was placed against her chest, just below her throat but above where her necklace rested.

"Let whatever's inside you know what's inside me..."

The pressure in the room resumed with a force that shook her in his grasp and his hand against her chest felt as if he had just punched her there. And then as soon as the impact had settled, behind it came a sensation. At first, as Grime was all too aware, it seeped in at the extremities, an odd numbness that was really just the body failing to recognize the level of pain that was being introduced. His eyes locked with hers and there was something dancing in the ice blue of his eyes as he concentrated. Hawkins opened up to his own pain, it even returned to his arm with only a small tease. Fire licked the walls, leaving sear marks as Grime focused enough to gift Dendra with maybe a tenth, maybe more, maybe less, of what pain Grime had endured and existed in. Not the exoskeleton, but the wretched bag of flesh and blood contained within. The last time Grime had used this against Orar in experimentation, the boy had been out for four days, likely longer if not for Averre's attentions. As far as Hawkins could tell, it did no physical damage beyond what the brain would do of its own accord after suffering such an experience.

"I am Hawkins Grime."

[Dendra Tess]

Dendra managed to let out a quiet, breathless, "No!" before his hand closed around her hair painfully close to her scalp. The Tess was ripped out of her seat and immediately brought to her tiptoes, tendrils of pain arcing across her head from the pressure. What had she done? What map? She thought desperately, both hands wrapping around his forearm, despite her better judgement about touching him again, and trying to pry his grip free. She went deathly still when his hand pressed against her chest, wedged into the 'v' of her necklace chain that lie below the fabric of her dress. The next words he spoke tore her rebellious spirit to fine dust, her eyes widening from their pain clutched tightness and snapping to his pleadingly. In all she had gathered from their interaction, she knew there would be no mercy from this abyssal demon.

The air was forcibly ejected from her lungs through gritted teeth and then, she felt as though the flesh was slowly being peeled from her fingers and toes; progressing upward across her body until it conquered her entirely. Rather than writhe under this symbiotic form of torture, Dendra had grown stock-still and stared in horror at the unfeeling inferno of his blue eyes; eyes that seemed to understand rather than light up with sadistic pleasure. In a brief moment of clarity, lasting only a fraction of a second, she told herself to open her mouth or she was going to shatter her teeth. When she did, though, an inhuman scream clawed its way from her throat and echoed off of the scorched escape pod walls. Moments later, she succumbed to the agony, to the silent but repetitious chant in her splintering mind that begged once more to experience the sweet nothing that had embraced her at the library.

[Hawkins Grime]

"That was close, neh?"

"Yah, close for sure."

"Did he die you think? Right there?"

"Maybe. The doc said his heart wasn't moving for maybe ten minutes or somethin'."

"But he was still moving, neh?"

"Some people just don't die."

==========

Averre smoothed the woman's hair out a bit, changing out the cool, damp cloth on her head. The small sphere hovered over to the side, projecting Dendra's vitals against the wall. Everything was stable for the most part but it was just like last time with Orar. Rowan tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear again before sitting back in frustration. The ailment made little sense to the small mechanic. The best she could figure was that Grime, with whatever he did, was like a magnet to electronics. He scrambled the software. Such a monster...

"Hey, weirdo. What are you doing?"

Orar spoke up from the back of the room where he leaned against the wall, sitting on the desk. His arm was in a sling wrapped tight to his body. He had been wearing it ever since Grime had thrown him against the wall four days ago. That was how long she had been out. Rowan had no idea how long it took an average person to come out of it or to what extent Grime had scrambled the poor woman. The scream might have been an indicator that Grime had not held back, maybe? How much worse could it be?

Rowan blinked away vivid images of blood everywhere and the smell of burning flesh.

"Little lady, are you ok? You aren't...?"

Averre shook her head, dismissing Chroma MK II's question. It knew her face, it had been reading her expressions for years now on board the Black Wyvern. She checked the IV and the fluids before standing.

"Hey, di'kut. Wake up. What's the word? She going to wake up already?"

Averre gave him a solemn glare before quietly walking out of the room without an answer. The floating orb gave Orar something of a huff before it followed her out. Orar leaned back, knocking his head against the wall behind him gently out of boredom. 'Watch her,' A'den had said. The monster had spoke with e'Drain some about what had gone on before turning into his quarters. A'den had come out only a few times to step into the armory and then back. Khar Delba... e'Drain had checked the Navcomputer for it. Orar had gone behind him and reviewed the search history easily enough. Ice world. Orar had yet to visit one of those so his excitement to test himself in a new environment was barely contained. It was supposedly uninhabited with scattered ruins. Maybe that meant monsters. Real monsters, not like A'den.

Orar sensed something then. Not A'den, he was always there. This was something else. Orar glanced over the woman, then around the room. This had been Ithiel Malchiel's room before he'd been butchered at the hands of their berserk leader during a mission a couple of years ago. They had removed things of value and those had been pawned off. For the most part, the rest of the room went untouched after that. It was modest in aesthetics but Malchiel had not really been an extravagant person. Just another dead, weak person now.

[Dendra Tess]

She thought it would be peaceful, she had hoped for a taste of that sweet oblivion she had experienced before. Dendra Tess had not been so lucky this time. Now, rather than being held aloft by her hair, she was constrained within the realm of her own mind with no end to this torment in sight. In fact, the only distraction that cared to pass before her mind's eye was a series of violent images; memories that were clearly not her own and were comprised of still-frame pictures accompanied by an endless loop of revolving voices. Time was an illusory concept in this stasis and so, she could not fathom how long she drifted. At times, her flesh seemed to crawl with pain and other times, it was as though the very musculature beneath quivered against the unyielding stonework of it; to say she was uncomfortable was the biggest understatement one could make, for even in the throes of unconsciousness what he had done continued to flay her.

I am Hawkins Grime.

His actions had assured that she would not forget the name, even if it had only come to her when the agony had peaked. She had felt lost when the library had burned, far removed from the goals she'd construed when her grandfather had been killed. Now, she seethed in this prison where he had cast her, conjuring a new purpose that was reinforced by her hatred, pain, and her undeniable thirst for vengeance. Find the Codex and resume the ancient Tess will.

At last, I'll be able to amplify my power and destroy him. And anyone else who got in her way.

While the intensity of the pain had certainly abated to some degree, it presented itself in new and interesting ways when Dendra was freed from her unconscious state and ushered back into the now. No longer hindered by dampeners, her senses lurched into full awareness and she was not quite ready for it. A low groan escaped her and she attempted to roll over on whatever she'd been laid on, jerking her legs up into her chest as a mixture of numbness, nausea, and misery washed over her mercilessly. She became aware of a throbbing in her arm and she cracked her eyes open to look down at what caused it, squinting at the taped off IV. Dendra reached down with a hiss, forcibly prying the needle and adhesive from her arm. Throwing it to the floor, she raked her icy stare across this new room's entirety and firmly fastened them upon the only other individual present. Her gaze held there for a decisive moment and then she looked around more keenly, subtly seeking out something to defend herself with.

[Hawkins Grime]

"Don't try it, Kebiin. Alive is all A'den said. Alive can mean a lot... of things."

Orar was trying his best to talk tough. Sure, he'd killed plenty of people, but this woman had awoken with the mind fever. The beroya isirir had picked up A'den's scent when she woke but now it was gone. Had he infected her? Orar knew the feeling all too well. The demagolka had been behind his eyes for many nights after that and sometimes the pain and that infinite rage from where Orar felt was like the womb which war was birthed held him in his dreams, nightmares. He thought he could sense it behind her eyes now too. As if she too shared those ice blue eyes of misery, rimmed in black blood.

He was about to say something, anything, as if he thought he might be able to comfort her but the young man caught himself. War had no pity. He reached up and hit the button to the comm system just behind him casually, making a gentle bell that resounded across the halls of the Wyvern.

"Yeah? Oh, hey there, lady. Woah, hey, chill, alrigh'?"

e'Drain caught her glare and sidestepped as if dodging it with his hands up to show he was unarmed. Morrolan was best described in a few words, roguish, sloppy, and agile, physically and mentally. His lank brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail, wearing a flight jacket over a simple jump suit, with a crossed belts with an empty knife sheath and empty pistol holster. His hands were scarred and burned but he wore fingerless gloves to cover some of the worst of it. His smile, despite everything else on the ship was likely the most disarming thing about him. Maybe not enough to forget Hawkins Grime but he was normal enough to start it off.

"Sit tight, nothing quick, and the little lady'll be in here with something to eat if you'll not think of doing anything too rash just yet. You'll get your change, so all's fair."

"e'Drai-"

"Stuff it, kid. Not the time. Like you were the most agreeable when you woke from that, yeah?"

[Dendra Tess]

Her gaze slid out of focus as the pain seemed to centralize in her skull, causing it to throb with the harried rate of her pulse. The young man was not wrong in his threats, alive could mean a great many things; for surely, she had slipped into some lesser form of living. How had it all come to this? Her entire body convulsed at the thought and then her eyes snapped into focus again as another individual entered the room. She glared at him and he seemed to sidestep the motion as though it was a carefully aimed blaster bolt, holding up partially gloved hands that she noticed were scarred at the fingertips. Her glacial stare traveled up from there, taking in the careless composition of the man that had entered. One word came to mind before a low growl of discomfort rolled up against her tightly sealed lips.

Scoundrel. What a motley bunch the inhabitants of this ship were turning out to be.

Suddenly, at his next words, the pain was diverted from her head to her stomach; amassing in a hollow that had formed there from days of not eating. Such a revelation contributed to the quaking of her musculature, the cold sweat that had broken over her pale skin, and the overall feel of malaise that seemed to consume her. Food quickly became her primary concern, overriding the rage temporarily. A hand shot out to the nightstand and she planted it there firmly, dragging herself into a slouched sitting position against the wall, which served as the bed's headboard. Her gaze raked down e'Drain once more, grasping the fullness of his surname from the disjointed memories of a fever dream. As disheveled as this man looked, she could imagine that she looked a fright worse. She thrust her hands back through her azure hair and kept her palms compressed against her temples, turning her stare down to the comforter as she silently came to arbitrary terms with the tumult within her.

[Hawkins Grime]

Orar found it interesting to see how he must have looked back then. Broken. Every time her mind flitted to the pain and torrential rage of an existence which A'den had planted in her like a seed, the scent of the demagolka reappeared, like an unnoticed predator, just waiting nearby for the vulnerable moment to strike. Orar had weathered through it, not without the medical attention of Averre, but there he was still. Would this woman succumb to it and fail? What happened when she did? Did she just give up and die like vermin in a maze or did failure mean becoming something worse, another demagolka?

e'Drain stepped away from the doorway and back into the hallway to allow the small frame of Rowan Averre to enter. She held a tray in her hands with a bowl of mush. It was warm and would help settle the initial physical ailments of waking up in such a way, loaded with nutrients for a body that had gone without for too long already. Rowan wore a loose shirt with sleeves too long cuffed back to her wrists. Her brown hair was cut short for a girl but her frame from a distance might have been mistaken for that of a boy only a couple years younger than Orar maybe. Her eyes were dead and stoic but they said much with a glance at Orar and then back to the woman. She set the tray on the nightstand, then sat in the chair beside her. She glanced to her left, then right, as if searching for something that should have been there, raising an eyebrow in question before turning her stoic gaze back upon the blue haired woman.

"Please, eat, Ms. Tess."

e'Drain, leaning against the door frame, held up a hand in an apologetic gesture.

"Sorry, no utensils. It goes down well enough though as is. And it's laced with pain killers and anti-nausea medicine with a bit of caffeine to keep you from slipping back under. It took the kid about two weeks to keep him from slipping back under at random times, so brace for those."

Morrolan jerked a thumb at Orar who was trying to look as tough as he could, unwilling to acknowledge the period of time that laid him low. Helpless, but trapped with the pain and torment there.

"From all accounts, it's a crippling nightmare of an event, but you got little lady here, so you'll be fine... I'm Morrolan e'Drain by the by. I'll swing by later. I recommend you don't leave your room for the time being though. Take it as you will, but I'd hate to find you down the hall, all banged up."

Orar sneered. e'Drain was weak, being so nice to her. A'den​ should have thrown her in the stasis cell, like he had wanted to. Just keep her on ice until they needed her. e'Drain had proposed this course of action. Like keeping prisoners of war, it was pointless in the strictest sense, requiring more effort than they had to spare. Now she was nothing more than a weak book reader, and in some time, how much closer would that weakness be to their hearts when she finally decided to strike out?

[Dendra Tess]

The shuffling of feet lured her gaze upward, just in time to catch the entrance of a short-haired young.. woman. Her eyebrows knit together, her icy eyes gleaming with distrust until they swiveled down to the bowl clutched in her hands. Dendra tried to sit up a bit straighter but only managed to make herself more uncomfortable, her body dipping off into more a slouch in a matter of seconds. Her form slowly angled to face the girl as she set the bowl down on the nightstand and then took a seat nearby, encouraging her to eat. She extended a hand but stopped mid-motion as e'Drain lifted his own hand and offered an apology on behalf of the lack of cutlery. At this point, with the hole that was her stomach, slowly gnawing on her other innards it felt, she could care less what was in it and what she had to eat it with. Out of fear of saying something nasty to the group of people looming, she kept her words to herself. She couldn't trust herself... not yet.

So, she leaned over and snatched up the bowl with surprising speed, bringing it to her lips and drinking deeply of the mushy contents. Her eyes clenched shut and she was not sure she even managed to breathe. Once half the contents were gone and she was desperate for breath, she lowered the bowl to her lap and took a few moments. Her tongue darted out, lapping at the line of whatever the hell this was that coated her upper lip. Meanwhile, her gaze drifted to whatever the man called e'Drain happened to mention. The kid, little lady, and finally himself; she at least had something to call them in the jumbled space of her mind.

"If you are worried about..." She took a shaky breath, talking taking more out of her than she anticipated. "..me running into that thing..." Another breath, the bowl shook in her hands until her fingers bit into it resolutely. "You can trust... I will try to avoid that... at all costs." She finally managed to get it all out. She raised the porringer again, halting it right before she could sip down more of the warmed contents. Her gaze sliced to the one they called little lady. "Thank you for the food."

[Hawkins Grime]

e'Drain gave a nod, satisfied enough with her answer that he left with a lopsided smile. Winking at the young Mandolorian just as he passed out of the doorway. Orar sneered again as he caught the gesture. e'Drain was insufferable. The young man stood, quickly enough that Averre startled. He tried to casually storm out as much as he could, headed to his corner of the ship. The small girl turned back to Dendra and nodded in a delayed response to the admitted thanks.

"I'm... Rowan. Rowan Averre."

The orb peeled around the corner as if in panic but upon arriving in the room, seemed to give an expression of relief as it found Averre. It came and hovered nearby, Rowan giving it an approving smile before turning back to Dendra.

"And this is Chroma. Chroma MKII."

Rowan fiddled with the edge of her long shirt, looking down for a moment, her eyes moving as if she was reading a book that was not there. She finally glanced back up at the woman,

"Can I get you anything else?"