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Work with what we have? As if Grime was just the leftovers, a used piece of merchandise. All of his life prior to this meant nothing in the face of such a power. How humilitating. How infuriating.
"And I have what that you want in turn for such training?"
Nothing, absolutely nothing was free. Everything had its cost, from two credits for public transportation, to torture for treason.
She chuckled, a low, sexy laugh. "I help you to get your revenge. And you help me to get mine."
He liked that laugh. He liked the idea. Finally, the stone had been cast that felt like the current of his fortune was changing once more.
"I'm Hawkins Grime. Where do we begin?"
Grime had everything he needed on him. And as far as the witch went, he wasn't sure if he wanted to run her through or kiss her for all she had caused him in the last few moments.
"Lilaena De'Ville." The name might mean something to him, if he had any background in the bounty hunting business. "I would shake your hand, but I think we already did." The cut across two of her fingers was still oozing a bit of blood.
She tossed a few credits on the table to pay for her caf, and the broken glass. "We begin as soon as you find a place to stay, Hawkins." Lilaena was already getting to her feet.
"Yeah, so there's this witch ou'there called Lil' Devil or somethin' like tha'."
"You don't say?"
"Hey! Are yah even listening tah meh?! The Empire pays a bloody fortune for this babe. Look a'this picture!"
"Tasty."
"What?! How can yah even tell through the blurr'image?"
"Practice."
"She's a loose canon! Extremely dangerous-"
"Aren't we all? Lemme' see that. Guula's fat lip, thats quite a bit of a take for bringing her in alive, wouldn't you say, Mundo?"
"Yeah, but dead sounds tha' much safah then don' yah think, Master Censored?"
"Hey, if it brings in the income, why not? Go for it, take some of the boys. What's one lady against a gaggle of you?"
"Yah got somethin' there, Boss."
And that was the last time Mundo and a group of six were ever seen in those parts. Maybe they were still looking for her. Maybe not.
=======
It wasn't hard to hide his reaction behind his metal face. He waited until she was on her feet before he stood, grabbing his hat. He felt the urge to stretch, but like before, he was well aware it would do him no good, possibly make it worse.
"I contact you how once I've done that?"
She shook her head, "I'll find you." His posture seemed to convey his doubt, and Lilaena added, "It might be a big city, but it isn't that big."
The man pulled his hat on, its wide brim neatly concealing most of his face. She idly wondered if the mask had been made to mirror his original face. A shred of pity threatened to burrow upwards out of her belly, but she refused to allow it to expand. He would sense it, and resent her for it.
She did not need his resentment: she would have his respect and loyalty. And she did not have either, yet.
"The south quarter of the City is affordable, and the Royal Guard doesn't pay much attention to it." They were walking out into the spaceport proper. It was where she had settled - the poor district of Iziz. It was dirty, and riddled with crime. But as she'd said, the Guardsmen usually gave it a wide berth. Every city had a neighborhood like it, no matter how utopian. Better still, Salem Ave was never seen there, and that was the way she liked it.
Force adepts were by nature power hungry individuals, from her experience at least. However, her dead Master, A'na Eldhil, had instructed her in the art of being poor. Lilaena owned no space ship, and drew no attention to herself. It was how she had stayed alive so long.
"Until next time then."
Dren, if she was going to cover the costs, so be it. And as long as he didn't have to go out of his way to find her after he bothered with the trouble of acquiring some real estate around here. In fact, his task sounded quite easy. He'd been there before, on the streets, nothing to his name. But he hadn't been nearly as angry and frustrated as Grime was now. In his rage, he felt like someone entirely different, if not less than anything human anyone had ever managed to view him as. He would go about his method of survival much different than before.
Of course he was skeptical of her but this place was dying for extra firepower. The merc business was in demand and he could play that card if this ended up being nothing more than a fancy. As he walked out of the bar, his fist clenched and the muscles in his face twitched irritably, unseen by any onlooker. If she was setting him up, he'd... even if she was an adept, he'd kill her. And out of spite for the whole universe, not even turn in her mutilated corpse for the bounty.
=======
Several hours later
The door burst open, slamming against the wall and rebounding but stopped by the hand of the figure crossing the threshold. Shuffling could be heard upstairs but Grime paid little heed to it. He knew who it was and they weren't important.
The house he had managed to find wasn't much of anything. It was a hole in the wall, well, a building that had been built in an alley way between two other buildings. It was four stories tall and too skinny but it was out of the way and it had taken Hawkins three times to pass it before he even noticed it. And then forever after that to find someone who could give him information on it. The place seemed rundown and it was now that he got a look inside. They had said the inhabitant rarely came out, only at night in the darkest of dark times. The few people who knew anything about it's owner said half the time, they almost thought him gone or dead until they caught a glimpse of him skulking about here or there. It was perfect.
Hawkins checked the area, no real security system was apparent and all the locks he had broken on the door seemed to be what the resident owner had thought secure. The shuffling had stopped but Grime took his time walking up the stairs. Trying to be quiet was pointless, the exoskeleton was heavy and it clunked against the steel stairs. This whole affair had seemed easy, like so many small things in his now painstakingly slow existence and proved to infuriate him at every corner he turned, faced with actions that seemed to be reached amidst an ocean of cryogoop.
"Who!? Who's there?!"
The voice sounded like it had never had a drink of hydro in its life. Grime stepped onto the fourth floor finally, the voice screeched from down the hallway to the only door available, barely cracked open and leading to a room that had no light that Grime's eyes could detect.
"Don't... don't come near me!? Leave... Just leave me... alone...! I have nothing of value."
Grime's hand went to his sword, his metallic grip slipped onto the hilt and he waited until the magnetic lock kicked in and the sword was secured to his hand. He pushed the door opened, silohuetted by the dim light behind him in the hallway. He had to squint to make out the room beyond him.
"No, what can you possibly want?! What?! I'm just... just..."
If Grime could make a face of disgust, he would have as he discovered the source of the raspy voice. A body wrapped in shrouds but unable to cover everything due to pussing wounds. Burns covered what was visible and in the dim light the pink flesh appeared gray. It made him nauseous, actually. Was this thing anything in comparison to what he was beneath his metal skin? His body crawled, everything seemed to itch, and his eyes felt like they needed to be burned from his skull. This thing only reminded Grime of all his flaws since his fall from grace. Every inch of his own frailty arose in the sight of this thing.
"Dead."
=======
Again, several hours later
He awoke from a rotten daze, sleep was a rarity. And lying down only left him dizzier when he awoke. He was in the room, some kind of broken office, on the third floor. And blood was still dripping through a few holes in the floor, most of it had coagulated around the ceiling. He didn't want to go near that floor right now, ever. He didn't even know how long he had been out, if it had been long enough even. Where was the witch? How long was he supposed to wait? He wanted to be irritated with her but he felt spent for some reason, as if he had burned all of his built up hatred and rage on that thing's death.
She quietly opened the door on the ground floor, looking around. She'd sensed Hawkins' presence within, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly where. The building was a good size, with four stories, and although it was completely trashed with a little work it would be a good place to stay.
But, working around the house didn't seem to be Hawkins Grime's cup of tea. Then again, she'd only just met the man. The place smelled like death. Lilaena made her way to the third floor, and found the man on the ground. Blood was dripping down from the ceiling near him. She regarded him silently for a moment.
He sat up, his body appearing rigid and giving the image of some undead abomination rising from the grave as he stood, scattering the books he had used for a head rest. He sighed impatiently as he moved strands of his hair out of his face.
"Let's get started then."
He didn't want to know how she had found him. That she might've been watching him the entire only began to reawaken his irritation. And that she might have no life to do as much made it worse to contemplate. He'd completed his task, his posture demanded results.
She regarded him in silence for another too-long moment, much to his obvious irritation. "Your anger is great, Hawkins, and this is a good thing."
Lilaena pointed to a sturdy looking bookcase that was against the far wall. She was curious to see what influence he could exert over the Force in such a raw, untrained state. "Focus your anger on the bookcase." Her lips turned upwards in a wry smile, "Pretend it is your most hated enemy. And picture it destroyed in your mind until it is destroyed."
"... Pretend?!"
And she was smiling. Like this was some kind of game. Was she trying to make fun of him? If he could just concentrate on something and destroy it, Grime would have been. This whole universe would have collapsed by now. He grit his teeth against each other as his vision shook with unbridled anger. Waking up to the face of sheer stupidity and nonsense was not what he in mind when he had thought of training. Something... transcendental? Leave it to life to make it something so... stupid. He could hear his raspy breathing inside his head; his vision shook behind his doll face. Aggravation towards life in general manifested itself as an incredibly itchy sensation against the flesh beneath his exoskeleton, as if maggots riddled his body.
"Don't play games with me!"
The room filled with the scent of burnt electronics. The databooks and files popped and hissed as their temperature rose slightly. A haze from the air being heated around Grime appeared slowly. One metal hand raised towards Lilaena, the endless abyss of anger and rage screamed her name blindly, she would feel his pain, she would know the intolerance his body demanded of everything else, she would know!
Or pretend that I am your most hated enemy. In the end, it didn't matter if he turned the potential inside him against the bookcase or against her. Lilaena raised her hand to mirror his, using the Force to create a wave of telekinetic energy around her that expanded outward like the ripples from a stone in a pond.
The heat he'd created was not affected by the wave, but his body was flung backwards against the wall, and the heat began to disapate. "You seem to have a natural talent for dealing with energy, Hawkins."
He slowly picked himself up, his eyes wide open with indignant fury. Through clenched teeth, his artificial lips peeled back he spoke.
"And what does that mean? Did... whatever just happen backfire on me?! Or did you do that?"
Despair clenched the heart of the void, ice that was so cold it burned like hell fire through the waves of hatred and anger. Was she still just toying with him? Being blown like that, was it a sign of complete failure and she was just throwing it in his face? Why couldn't she just say what she meant?! His body crawled again beneath the exoskeleton with paranoia and frustration as he stood once again.
"I did it." She met his fury with cold eyes, and slowly turned her attention back to the bookcase. "And I'll do it again, unless you destroy that bookcase. Attempt to attack me again, and I shall do worse than knock you on your backside."
Grime's bloodshot eyes slowly went from her small frame to the bookshelf to his side. He supposed she had finally decided to quit playing games and actually put things in a language he understood. His anger didn't subside with any comfort from the thought, the threat was imminent and he wasn't about to test a force adept to their word when his frail disposition was the bargain chip.
This was so dumb. Destroy a bookcase. The galaxy shivered at such a thing as the Force and Grime was wasting it on a bookcase. The front of his head hurt, like it was going to explode, like he had plastic explosives stuffed inside his sinuses and forehead. If one could feel an oncoming anurism, this was as close as he could imagine it feeling. His fists clenched and his skin crawled with hallucinated maggots and worms, breaking through the scarred flesh and fusing with the metal of his exoskeleton. Nothing, absolutely nothing would ever bring comfort, he was cursed and condemned and even a simple bookcase stood in a better state than he did, lifeless and insignificant.
The air seemed thick with friction, the room became stuffy and heated again. The feeling in Grime's stomach churned and the despair moved the gears within himself like a cold urge to destroy anything that might be in a better position than him.
Moments passed as his turmoil overwhelmed his concentration and he struggled to suppress memories of pain and devouring grief. How pathetic had he become? What had he been reduced to? And by what?
Vengeance. Pure, unadulterated, unbridled hatred and vengeance.
Metal encased hand outstretched, Grime felt like his brain was being flushed down a tube centimeter in radius lubed in sandpaper.
Small hairs of released static electricity connected along the plates of his exoskeleton as the heat became exhausting within his immediate vicinity. His eyes winced and struggled to stay open as he battled with this uncontrollable wave of destruction within his own mental prison, trying to direct it towards what felt like the biggest let down in targets of his life, the bookcase.
The telekinetic force that followed ripped through the air to his eyes. The bookcase in turn only budged but a few spaces. Hawkins' anger exploded into movement as he stepped towards the piece of furniture, pulling back his fist to get the proper momentum. She had not specified the manner in which he should destroy said bookcase.
His fist came down, the metal colliding with the black material that it was made of. Grime's fist held such momentum, augmented by his anger, that it burned its way into the structure and nearly split it in half. While some might think the exoskeleton would prevent Hawkins from feeling such an action, his weakened body beneath felt the impact tenfold and screamed in reactionary pain as consequence.
He pounded the bookcase into submission, and when he was done she could feel the anger and pain rolling off him. As she had been taught by her master, A'na Eldhil, she would teach this one - to use those emotions for good purpose.
Can I do it? Doubt squirmed around in the back of her mind, but Lilaena put those thoughts out of her head. "As your anger built, I could feel you touching the Force. In time you will learn to do so willingly, rather than subconsciously."
He cradled his arm in his opposite hand's grasp; the artificial face didn't do much for displaying the contorted muscles of pain and the gritted teeth. Brief flashes of his flesh ridden hand closing about her throat and despite its weakness, attempted to crush her trachea. He could almost feel it. How much time did a creature of his disposition really have? Was anything of this caliber, requiring so much really the most efficient way of achieving his goals? Looking up from his twitching fingers, his eyes met her emerald irises.
"That doesn't help me now though... what else can I accomplish now? In time 's later's business."