Zed Bakiska
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By the three Kennedys
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Affiliation: Jensaarai
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Post by Zed Bakiska on Jun 5, 2013 6:57:34 GMT -8
As the group does its own thing Bat works on getting the paint out of his clothes. Stripping down to his skivvies he sent it through an automated system that would clean it faster than you could figure out how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Walking through all the rows of weapons he smoked one of his copious deathsticks his eyes flittering from weapon to weapon reading about the older one. Stopping in front of one in particular he marveled at what it said. Yo tin can how did you come across this bad boy?
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Krzesimir Viggo
The First Order
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Post by Krzesimir Viggo on Jun 6, 2013 14:08:53 GMT -8
While wandering the complex, Pawn found and picked up a MB-450 and a FWG-5, and holsters for both, which he attached to his upper thighs, seeing nothing else of particular interest to him personally, he made his way back to the speeder, or what was left of it anyway, and stopped to watch with mild fascination, Dragus' work, though he watched from a distance, so as to stay out of the mans way and to give himself time to react should something go wrong.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2014 19:46:12 GMT -8
Though the flight was exceedingly quick, it was enough time for the medics to stabilize their patient. It was remarkable, really, how well his body seemed to respond the their treatment. They had seen cases like this before, and they could be touch and go for hours. It was always tricky with internal bleeding. You never really knew for sure if you closed up everything, and not even bacta could completely eliminate the risk of infection when the bowels had been ruptured. And yet, the very act of removing the jagged chunk of metal had managed to jump start the healing process. It was still intolerably slow, considering what Dresden's demonstrated baseline had been over the last few months, but they had no way of knowing that. All they knew was his arteries had closed up on their own, and the internal organs looked to be patching themselves up. At this rate, he'd be conscious again in a few minutes, and that just wouldn't do.
Koko had given explicit orders that the man wasn't to be allowed to awaken until she returned. Ethically speaking, that wasn't an order they should have been willing to take, but for many Dresselians, the word of Koko and her father carried the weight of the word of God. He had saved their planet from a cruel dictator, and she had helped him reform the government said dictator had left behind. This poor chump might be a medical miracle, but if the boss lady said he stayed knocked out, then he stayed knocked out. Sedation alone wouldn't do the trick; at the rate he was healing, he'd metabolize their entire stock by the time they landed. Time for plan B: chemically induced coma.
No matter what happened, this Dresden fellow would be down for the count.
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The Major
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Also known as Sailor Titan
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Post by The Major on Jan 22, 2014 6:58:53 GMT -8
Saya: massive, proud, scarred from countless invasions, once blitzed unto the top of a headquarters to ensure complete ruination in one fell crush. This was the flagship of the group, paid for and maintained with gold fillings of many a being, fueled with resources violently taken, stolen. Inside one would find a veritable museum filled with ridiculously expensive antiquities ranging from priceless works of art -paintings, sculpture, and even legendary music instruments- to artifacts both mundane yet dear enough to fetch price on market and wildly dangerous because of their occultist roots.
They said the air this ship touched never could free of a certain stank and chagrin, as if generations of malicious specters and other spirits marched endlessly behind its wake: each a disturbed sprite awakened from such and such ritual. In fact, there was a saying aboard Callsign Saya regarding this terrible phenomena; it runs thusly, should the ship remain in one place too long, such would certainly invoke the wrath of the frightful army of Weltgeist and Volksgeister which ceaselessly trailed behind attempting to catch up and take the ship in order to reclaim their treasures and dole out judicious vengeance unto the thieves.
This Major may not be a superstitious woman, but some would say it explained why she was never aboard when the Saya was docked or holding position -like it was currently doing. Reality was no less strange: the Fallanassi hated ships and being upon ships. For reasons even she could not explain, the idea of sailing, whether in classical interpretations on the high sea, to the modern take of blasting through sexy space simply appalled her to the marrow. It made her stomach uneasy, filled her with restlessness, and was generally unpleasant. This was her 215th iteration through the multiverse, and Riplian had still not figured out that each of her deaths had taken place upon a ship. She couldn't know: each death and respawn resets her essence. This time, Diva figured, it might pan out differently with another god in play in her favor.
And you thought Yangu had it bad?
She is jittery, oblivious of the cycle of both death and the undying, always walking with a cloudy look in her eye, jaded because she does not know this feeling of repetition is more than a just a hunch. She is jittery to try something new, stupid girl; not knowing that this operation upon Koko will send her deeper into the spiral, further along the path to another demise -despite many lives of loneliness, alcoholism, genocide, and woe, she still manages to smile- though the warmth has long since been forgotten.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2014 9:14:05 GMT -8
To sleep, perchance to dream.
But Shards don't dream. They don't sleep. They are constantly alert, constantly aware, even if their host body is not.
Koko was no giant in the Force, like her father. In fact, most assumed she had no talent in that area at all. This was fine by her; having a secret weapon almost always paid off in the end. But now, she was a prisoner in a dying body, and one from which she would not escape. Upon coming of age, she had insisted upon taking over care and maintenance of her biologically engineered chassis, and had made quite a few modifications. The musculature had been subtly strengthened. It didn't add any bulk to her lean and lithe frame, but it gave her strength and resilience far greater than a human her size should have been able to access. The nervous system had been upgraded as well. Her reaction times and reflexes were great enough that a normal human brain could never hope to handle the strain. Hers was a world constantly in slow motion.
The biggest change, one she had never discussed with Eralam, was a drastic one.
For most Shards, when their body was destroyed, they could be transplanted to a new one with little difficulty. This allowed for very long lifespans, since the crystal itself could last for thousands of years if properly cared for. But, as a girl, Eralam had taken her to a special place, a vault hidden deep inside Breehara, where the oldest of the Shards resided. Time was not kind to most. After thousands of years, a mind tended to be a very strange thing. Many of the oldest had retreated into their minds, completely shut off from outside stimuli. To Koko, it was a fate worse than death. She loved the world of the living. It might be an ugly, twisted place, filled with death and violence and every other foul thing, but it was also beautiful. She would rather die than turn her back on it.
The young Shard woman had no illusions about being one of the rare few that could hold on to their sanity. Eralam was the oldest on record, but even though she loved him very much, she'd be hard pressed to call him entirely sane. His mind was as vast and alien as those in the vault, and his attention was held on the world mainly through sheer force of will. So instead of allowing herself to slide into self-absorbed madness, she had built a failsafe into her body. It might last for hundreds of years, if properly taken care of, but when it died, she died. Some might call it cowardly, but she figured the ones that did were welcome to fuck right off. It was her body, and she could do with it as she pleased.
Except, when it came down to it, she couldn't. She had been unable to save it from the flood of stun bolts that had overwhelmed even her highly tuned reflexes when she was burned. She had been unable to turn away the heated blade that had systematically lopped off parts of her body, or the ordinary one that had violated her so intimately. And now her body was shut down, trying desperately to hold off its final demise for another few hours, and she was trapped in her mind anyway, forced to relive those last few moments over and over. Forced to feel again, in exquisite detail, the icy burn as the side of her face was stripped away, bit by bit. Forced to listen as her tormentors laughed as she screamed and fought to keep them from disfiguring her further. Forced to face the pain, both physical and mental, as they cut away her breast, promising she'd never be recognizable as a woman once they were through with her. And then the final pain, the one that sent her over the edge and unleashed her latent Force potential in ways so hideous that she could hardly believe they were possible. She had been unable to stop the box cutter in the end, but there was some small consolation in knowing her captors had met with worse shortly after.
And then the loop would start over again, play through once more, and then start over again, a recursive hell that would surely drive her into madness. If Koko didn't do something soon, it wouldn't matter if the Major fixed her body. There would be no mind left to inhabit it. She flung her mind outwards, a baby duck trying to swim in the ocean of consciousness that inhabited the Saya. Those rumors of hauntings were not entirely unfounded; many a shade or spirit could be found lurking in the shadows here. They leered at Koko, her ethereal form a new toy, something to play with. These shades had died ugly, and in death, desired nothing more than to share their misery with anything and anyone that could feel it.
There was one thing that they would not go near, however. Physically, it resembled the Major, Chisame, one of Koko's few friends in any world. But this new awareness of hers saw something completely different. Where Chisame stood in the real world, dozens upon dozens of shades stood, moving as she moved. Most appeared to be more or less variations of the same theme, but it was the oddballs that caught her eye. They all shared the same basic features, the hair, the glasses, the pale skin and bony frame, and they all clutched a musket of some sort. Most were built along the same lines, though few could match the quality of her current model, but the aberrations were a sight to behold. It was the same story with the outfits. Most were variations of either military uniforms or civilian suits, but Koko swore she saw something suspiciously like a Jedi's tunic in there somewhere, and one wore a long black ballgown that looked absolutely stunning. She wasn't sure how she knew, but the Shard woman was pretty sure that these were all ghosts of Majors past, clinging to the body of the present, begging to be set free. As long as there was a Major in the world, they were trapped, bound by the black, silky ropes that flowed like blood and stained everything they touched like ink.
It was like watching a stack of paper dolls.
There was one, however, that stood out from all the rest. She wore stark white armor, similar to those of pre-Imperial shock troops, the clone troopers. There was something subtly off, however. The plates came from different sets, Koko realized. They were scavenged. The musket that rested on her right shoulder was truly a monster. At well over six feet long, the tip actually phased through the corridor's ceiling. The barrel was also abnormally thick, apparently designed to handle massive powder loads. This wasn't a repurposed hunting weapon, this was a weapon purpose-built to kill clone troopers. It had to weigh 30 pounds if it was an ounce, a theory supported by the beefed up legs of the bipod that sat under the barrel, about a foot and a half away from the muzzle. This version also had a presence that felt so alien compared to the Major that Koko knew that she couldn't help but stare and try to take it in. The hatred, both of self and everything else, were almost entirely absent. There were shades of it, if you'll pardon the pun, but this woman wasn't as miserably unhappy as the present one. She felt, maybe not cheerful, but certainly hopeful. Her life had meaning. The Shard woman realized that she was one of the older versions. And she also realized that this one was looking back. She smiled crookedly, and jerked her head as if to say "Come and see." And so Koko went and saw.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2014 12:10:32 GMT -8
They were on a ship, another ship. Koko thought it looked vaguely Separatist in origin, but she couldn't be sure. What she was sure of was the smell of blood and smoke that choked the cramped corridor. The Major was sitting against one of the walls, next to a Mon Cal in Jedi robes. Only it wasn't the Major, not now. Her name, from what the incorporeal Shard could tell, was Claire. The Mon Cal was Chal. They were both breathing heavily from exertion. Dead clones and droids littered the floor like leaves in a forest.
It was obvious that the two had been fighting moments before. Chal's left arm stopped at the elbow, and Claire was sitting in a pool of blood, leaking from a wound not readily visible under the armor and the black bodysuit. Despite that, they had the easy air of old friends about them, and were even managing a chuckle from time to time.
"You know, Claire," Chal said, wincing at the intake of breath. He too was injured in ways that Koko couldn't see. "If our masters could see us now, they'd probably have a fit."
Claire snorted. "If our masters could see us now, we wouldn't be in this mess."
"You've got me there," he said, his large, sad eyes looking around at the destruction. "I hate that it had to turn out this way."
"Me too, Chal, but there was never going to be another ending. You were going to fight for what you believed for, and I was going to do the same."
Claire's clear, unaccented Basic sounded unnatural to Koko. It was almost jarring enough to break her out of the memory, but curiosity made her cling on.
"That's true enough, I guess. But, come on. The Seps? Why turn your back on the Order for their sake?"
Claire sighed, or tried to. It turned into a bloody cough about halfway through.
"I was never fighting for them, Chal," she said. "I was fighting against the Republic. It's rotten, through and through."
"It's not perfect, I know, but all governments have their problems."
"Most governments aren't lead by a Sith."
"So what do you call Dooku?" Chal snapped back.
"A fool and a figurehead, nothing more. His master will dispose of him soon enough."
"His master?"
"Palps, aka Darth Sidious."
"Oh come on. Chancellor Palpatine is a lot of things, maybe, but he's not Sith."
"Bullshit," said Claire, though perhaps not as vehemently as she might have liked. "Open your eyes, Chal. They're big enough, you should be able to see this."
The aforementioned eyes rolled, as only a teenager's can. "What's there to see? He's a politician. Most politicians are some kind of scumbag or another, but that's pushing it."
"Chal, you're going to have to trust me on that. I've...I've seen it with mine own two eyes. He's been setting this war up for decades.
The Mon Cal Jedi was silent for a moment.
"...She told you that, didn't she."
It wasn't a question.
"She who?" Claire tried to keep the surprise off her face, but couldn't quite pull it off. On top of that, it sent another spasm tearing through her dying body.
"Don't try to hide it. Please. Master Lunis and I saw you with her, the night before you left."
She closed her eyes and swallowed, hard.
"I was afraid of that."
"You should have been. It's why I was sent out here in the first place. You accuse the Chancellor of being evil, and then go around with that, that thing? How could you?"
"For starters, Chal, she's not evil. No more than a volcano or an asteroid. She's a force of nature."
Chal turned to look at Claire, or tried too. It was his turn to seize up in pain. "No, Claire. She's evil. I've seen the file in the archive. That thing has killed more people off than anyone or anything else on the record, except for maybe that crazy Iron Knight that keeps popping up. Entire planets have died, and they died ugly."
Claire shrugged. "Palpatine will top her, for a little while at least. She's death incarnate, but she's honest. She showed me what he was up to, and gave me a way to fight."
Chal smiled weakly. "So that's what this bullet in my back is. I was wondering how it got past my wall."
"Go figure, it would get stuck in your sorry ass. Of all the people I could have shot, it had to be the one person I couldn't kill outright. Master Lunis was smart, sending you."
"He's a bastard, Claire. He sent me to kill my best friend."
"Can't argue with the results."
"No, you can't. Mind, I'm not walking away from this either."
Claire nodded. They said nothing, for a while. The pool under Claire was growing steadily larger, and her skin became increasingly pale, her breathing increasingly ragged. Chal had his own little pool going by this point. The blood intermingled, forming strange patterns on the floor.
"Chal?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm getting kinda tired. Mind if I borrow you for a bit?"
"Sure, go for it."
The tall, lanky woman leaned over and rested her head in her friend's lap. She was cold by this point, but she didn't mind. There had always been a chill, deep down inside, and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get that part of her to warm up.
"The Ice Queen, Diva, she told me something else."
The Mon Cal tilted his head to the side to look her directly in the eye.
"And what might that be?"
"I was an orphan, you know. The Order found me on the steps of the temple when I was just a baby. I never even knew my parents. Hell, the Order gave me the name Claire. But it's not my real name." Her eyes closed gently as she spoke, and her voice was barely a whisper. "Diva told me, see. She said it was, is, and would be Riplian."
"How would she know? You're Claire to me, and you always will be."
It was a pleasant sentiment, but it fell on deaf ears. Or rather, dead ones. The woman known as Claire was dead, but her nightmare was just beginning. Or rather, it was starting over again.
It was starting to make sense now to Koko. So much bitterness, so much hatred, for a person to acquire it all in one lifetime...well, she knew the Major's life had been hell. She genuinely could have ended up the way she did, just by living her life. But somehow, Koko couldn't help but feel that these past lives had played a part. It made her wonder just how this had come about. Diva...that name rang a bell, but in her current state, she couldn't remember where she had heard it. Curious.
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The Major
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Also known as Sailor Titan
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Post by The Major on Feb 2, 2014 8:42:48 GMT -8
Hello, Science: religion of those who hate fate. Tell us: what of your laws when the creative forces that framed them decide to twist them end over end.
. . . Facts, rationale, and sense weep for their irrelevancy as they are lost within the confusion.
!SLAP!
So goes the sterile glove upon the doktor's hand. She wouldn't be conducting the surgery herself -that was outside her expertise. But as the monitoring equipment kicked up and zoomed on the various points of trauma upon Koko's body, a certain air provocative anticipation among the lead testers filled the very light in the room with a sort of germ- a foulness. They were thirsty for this; thirsty were they to be here to repair and prod and take measurements of the specimen before them -laying naked, wounded, carved into a parody of womanhood. They liked it. It was undeniable.
They lived for this putrid mission of discovery.
In this midst of this barely contained heavy breathing stood the spindle, sniper, macabre freckle-face, weaving plots of doom as an customary brain workout.
Should Koko be allowed to die? Should the Major purposefully enable such demise?
As the doctors started their incisions, she carefully weighted the advantages and pains, sweeping in vast arguments that countermanded and restarted the internal debate. Make no mistake, however, loyalty was not a factor in the least. Was her best friend already dead? Would she regret this choice?
Verily, once the genetic ink safely tucked into a case housed upon the operating table entered Koko's stream, the effects could prove remarkable -or a complete disaster. Outside the operating theater, two squads of kommandos were armed for close quarters battle. They felt the weight of the situation, and how quickly it could all go wrong.
After all, something like this once happened on Allgemeine, and now that planet was no more. Considering they were also there, they couldn't help but shake the feeling of some impending doom. . .. . .
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2014 19:41:53 GMT -8
Through life after life, Koko whips through like a leaf on the wind. She is vaguely aware of her body in the physical world; the operation has begun. She can feel the black ink as it courses though her veins. It is not unnatural. It is as much a part of the universe as death, disease. It is distilled chaos, and, she realizes, it is the same substance that binds all past iterations of Riplian to the current version, the 216th life of a woman who has suffered far more than any being should ever have.
Whatever the cause of her cycle of death and rebirth, there are a few constants. She is always a force of change, given the opportunity and means to help reshape the galaxy as she sees fit. The progenitor of the black ink sees to that. She is always gifted with the magic bullets, little .50 caliber black balls that never miss, that can tear through the toughest armor like rice paper. The weapon changes, but the bullets are the same. With the power to change the world comes eternal loneliness, as well. Riplian has never known love. The Diva also sees to that, when necessary. It is in the lives where she comes closest to breaking this rule that Koko catches her first glimpses of the Ice Queen. Potential lovers are tempted, tortured, or outright slain before they are ever given the chance to free Riplian from her eternal isolation. How galling it must be, Koko thinks, that she finally caught the attention of a being with the power to deprive Diva of what seemed to be a favorite part of this game. She knows now that, whatever else may happen, she cannot tell Eralam how his feelings have been manipulated. If there is even the slightest chance that this hellish cycle can be broken, it must be seized.
There is one other constant, one other thing that the Ice Queen can be seen going to great lengths to enforce: Riplian has always met her end on a ship. Whether in the heat of combat, as a result of injury, illness, or mishap, every life ends aboard a ship. There are millions of ways to die in space, and Koko has witnessed 215 different ones. Except, she hasn't. There is one life that is out of bounds. Try as she might, Koko cannot break past the barrier into the first. It seems the events that led to the unfortunate chain of death and rebirth are to remain a mystery to the Shard.
Back in the present, her body begins to seize up as the ink spreads. It may be natural, but it is malignant and foul, and Koko's body tries its best to reject it. Its best may not be good enough. There is too much damage. Whenever the ink comes into contact with damaged tissue, it pounces and spreads. The process cannot be called healing. Healing is too kind a word. This is an alien presence, piecing back together what was never meant to be restored by sheer force of will, and its will is not benevolent.
Koko fears for her sanity. As the icy blackness begins to encroach the corners of her mind, she tries to flee into Riplian's past, seeking a means of escape from the inescapable. Not matter how hard she tries, she cannot run far or fast enough. And suddenly, there is the wall. The barrier of the first life cuts off any hope of escape. The only way out is through.
Desperately, Koko flings herself against the wall. Contact is agonizing, but she does not stop. She cannot stop. The world is slowly turning black. The agonized screams of Riplian's second iteration being cooked alive by the intense radiation of a faulty reactor fade away. There is only pitch black now, and Koko throws herself once more against the barrier, knowing this is her last chance.
And somehow, miraculously, she is through. But something is wrong. This is not the final moments of a dying woman that she sees. Or if they are, she is to witness her own demise. The featureless white room is an assault on her senses, if only in contrast to the utter blackness that had surrounded her an instant before. She is standing in the exact center. Without knowing how she knows, she knows the walls are exactly one kilometer away. And somehow, despite standing some ten feet away, the being in front of her is also in the exact geometric center.
Koko has heard of this place. Eralam used to speak of it. It is a realm where beings of unimaginable power can meet and interact without distorting reality overmuch. Normal, mundane beings such as herself are not allowed without an invitation, and it dawns on her that the being in front of her is the source of her own invitation.
The being appears as a human female, perhaps seventeen years old. Her shapely figure is emphasized by the black dress she wears, and it also contrasts sharply with her paper-white skin. She is at once beautiful and a parody of beauty. Koko gets the distinct feeling that those not sharp enough to pick up on the joke meet unpleasant deaths.
She realizes she is looking at Diva, and those icy blue eyes bore into hers, a lazy smile on the corners of the too-wide mouth. The mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. Diva' slips are moving, but the sound does not reach Koko's ears. It takes the Ice Queen a moment to realize this; the realization infuriates her. She stomps her feet angrily, the sound of Doc Martens colliding with the floor echoes.
Diva's mouth twists into a snarl, and she thrusts her hand at Koko. Instinctively, the Shard woman knows the blast should have flung her across the room like a rag doll, but it does not. The avatar of chaos howls soundlessly. Her body contorts unnaturally and she releases another telekinetic blast, this one visible as a spear of shadow that pierces Koko through the forehead.
Koko is no longer in the white room. She is on the operating table, trapped once more in the confines of her own body. Now she is awake, and she is screaming.
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The Major
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Also known as Sailor Titan
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Post by The Major on Feb 5, 2014 13:15:25 GMT -8
Voices, orders, barking, metallic clicking, the shuffle of boots squealing and a shotgun being quick aimed for execution. These were a phantasmagoria of slate gray and polished steel, slapping white gloves, glowering white teeth, smiles, smiles, smiles. But this was not the end, but a new type of horror, a new perversion in the latest string of occult science. This was life, unlife, anew.
"Bloody Elisa, she's. . ."
"This. . ."
"Mein fellow doktors, relax. vWe hafe finally shtumbledt upon ein unimaginable breakthrough."
"I say. Major, congratulations! Imagine the possibilities: an entirely new field of gen- "
"Focus. Der patient has not even shtabilized as of yet. Ensure she does. Now."
"Of course, administering a light sedative now.
"Triple dis dosage. vWith her new immune system, it vwill hardly hafe ein effect." Then, leaning over the still writhing Koko, the Fallanassi offers some form of encouragement. Needlesstosay, it was reckless to stand so close to something that could easily tear her face off with a quick thrust. Perhaps she did not care for her safety, or she was completely cocksure about her decision.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2014 15:12:54 GMT -8
For just a small fraction of a second, Koko saw Major as she had in the astral plane, but the multitude of faces quickly coalesced into an image more fitting with reality. This was the Major she knew, somewhere between old friend, savior, an potential enemy.
The drugs began to sooth her tortured body, and, although she could not hear them, the comforting words soothed her tortured mind. Koko was still in agony, but it was distant, almost like she was watching it happen to someone else, someone who just so happened to share the same nervous system. And despite the sense of detachment, the Shard woman felt as though the room was far more clear than it had any right to be. Her senses, she realized, had been drastically heightened. Whether the effect was temporary or permanent remained to be seen, but the lights that had merely been bright before were now blinding, and her own screams were deafening. She quickly shut up, before the sound of her own voice had a chance to mess up her frazzled head any more.
Once more, Koko looked into the face of her friend. She tried to speak, but her throat felt like it was coated in sandpaper. All that came out was a harsh whisper.
"Riplian...your name is Riplian...has been for centuries...thought you should know..."
And with that, she passed out.
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Lord Sinistra
Retired High Councilor
VE Human Capital Management & Talent Acquisition
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Post by Lord Sinistra on Feb 5, 2014 18:47:00 GMT -8
Though the flight was exceedingly quick, it was enough time for the medics to stabilize their patient. It was remarkable, really, how well his body seemed to respond the their treatment. They had seen cases like this before, and they could be touch and go for hours. It was always tricky with internal bleeding. You never really knew for sure if you closed up everything, and not even bacta could completely eliminate the risk of infection when the bowels had been ruptured. And yet, the very act of removing the jagged chunk of metal had managed to jump start the healing process. It was still intolerably slow, considering what Dresden's demonstrated baseline had been over the last few months, but they had no way of knowing that. All they knew was his arteries had closed up on their own, and the internal organs looked to be patching themselves up. At this rate, he'd be conscious again in a few minutes, and that just wouldn't do.
Koko had given explicit orders that the man wasn't to be allowed to awaken until she returned. Ethically speaking, that wasn't an order they should have been willing to take, but for many Dresselians, the word of Koko and her father carried the weight of the word of God. He had saved their planet from a cruel dictator, and she had helped him reform the government said dictator had left behind. This poor chump might be a medical miracle, but if the boss lady said he stayed knocked out, then he stayed knocked out. Sedation alone wouldn't do the trick; at the rate he was healing, he'd metabolize their entire stock by the time they landed. Time for plan B: chemically induced coma.
No matter what happened, this Dresden fellow would be down for the count. The facility was dark, it was night outside these walls and the patient was kept in the black stillness to help any disorientation should the chemicals keeping him out wear off. She was silent as she moved, her hair bound up, and fake credentials to match her fake face. This holoprojector was a marvelous device and once the real Dr. Zaiver had been dispatched, all the evil little woman had to do was steal her clothes. She moved with the doctor's self absorbed stride, moving through the halls with authority and purpose, her rounds meaningless until she came to a certain room. He looked worse for wear, and if he hadn't healed, it was because someone wanted it that way.
She grabbed the chart and checked his vitals and meds. A whistle sounded through her teeth as she read the list of things circulating in that body to keep him unaware of the passing of the world around him. This would not do. She was well aware that someone had best laid plans, good reasons for why Dresden lay here, oblivious to the passing of time, but time could not be paused for him in this manner. Death was not going to give him a pass for these precious hours and she had seen it with her own eyes. She moved to the IV bags and checked them, drawing a syringe from the pocket of her labcoat. She pushed the needle into a port on the line and depressed the plunger, letting the drug do its job. She sat down on the edge of the bed in the darkness and waited.
She had not had much time to stop and think lately, certainly no time to rest and reflect on the events that had recently transpired. Too much going on, too much to be done. However, it wasn't too much to remember the last thing she had seen from him, the last time they had hung out. She intruded on something, twice now to verify her vision. She had seen what she saw here now. A man, hidden away to protect him from the truth, or perhaps himself. Either way, it was not by his choice that he had been cut off from himself. She had jumped a ship, nothing huge, just something to get here. She found an abandoned shop and no signs of Dresden or Koko. "So it was to be," she thought mirthlessly to herself. All there was to do now was to find her way to where he had gone.
That was not an easy chase, the threads of time did not want to cooperate with her, skipping and jumping through pieces where his path crossed with one who she could only assume was the Major. There was something about the slender woman that clouded her vision and hid her from sight in that plane, but it was no matter. She knew what she had come for. Once she pinpointed the location, it did not take long to infiltrate it. A couple mind tricks, a couple faked security checkpoints and she hit paydirt.
His breathing was becoming shallower as he was brought out of from under the velvet fog of heavy chemicals and she knew he was liable to be confused about his surroundings. The holoprojector was still on, giving her the appearance of Dr. Zhivago, his primary physician, not that he would know that. She leaned over to his ear, her voice barely above a harsh whisper."Wakey, wakey, Eralam. You owe me a drink."
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2014 19:21:56 GMT -8
Science has always considered the coma to be something of a mystery. They know why it happens (most of the time,) they can rouse those that lapse into a comatose state (some of the time,) and it is pathetically easy to chemically induce a coma. The part that science has never quite figured out is what goes on in the brain during one. Many will report being somewhat aware of their surroundings. Dresden was acutely aware of his. He knew where he was, what shape his body was in, and what was going on around him. He didn't remember how he ended up like this, but it didn't matter.
What mattered was the little chip in his head. The chemicals that would awaken him from his state would activate the chip, which would in turn detonate a small, almost microscopic chunk of baradium. It was lodged unobtrusively in the part of the brain responsible for a human's ability to control the Force.
In short, the chip was a failsafe, installed with Dresden's consent. It was not unheard of that someone would attempt to capture him, and coma gas was a must. Try and rouse him from the coma without destroying the chip, an it would obliterate his ability to control his power. For most beings, this would render them lobotomized vegetables. For Dresden, it would unleash a continuous cataclysmic blast of Force energy until his regeneration kicked in and allowed him to once more restrain his power. The thinking at the time was that the blast would kill just about anything within a few hundred meters, which should be sufficient to allow for escape.
The doctors didn't know the details, only that bringing him out without Koko preset would carry career-ending consequences. It wasn't technically a lie, since a messy death would have a negative impact on employment.
It would also dramatically shorten his friendship with Sin. Funny how that works.
The chip would take perhaps fifteen seconds to fully activate once it detected the catalyst. That should be long enough to get the point across. Dresden just hoped Sin trusted him enough to listen.
"Failsafe," he rasped as soon as his mouth and throat were under control. "Chip, boom. Shoot me, face. Quick!"
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Lord Sinistra
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Post by Lord Sinistra on Feb 6, 2014 9:42:29 GMT -8
Shards were peculiar creatures, as she had learned in her research after befriending the fallen Whill. Come to think of it, she had been asked to perform many peculiar things in the course of relationships with the beings she met as she trudged her way through the universe at large. Shooting someone in the face to disarm a failsafe was certainly interesting but by no means the strangest thing she had been asked to do. If he was insistent, then who was she to argue?
Hopping down from the edge of the bed, she pulled the firearm he had given her from the waist of her slacks as she turned and fired off a tight cluster of three shots at his face, the hem of the labcoat whirling out. She hoped the shots hit whatever chip he was talking about but she had bigger problems as she heard shouting voices out in the hallway. She slid across the tiled floor, ducking behind a wall, the gun still in her grasp as she eyed Eralam and the door. Hopefully, he would be healed up before trouble came busting into the room, otherwise, things could get pretty dicey.
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The Major
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Breehara
Feb 6, 2014 12:00:04 GMT -8
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Post by The Major on Feb 6, 2014 12:00:04 GMT -8
There was bad timing, and there was the kind of timing that can be chalked up as a terrible joke on behalf of the Force. After all, who would have guessed that Eralam would need to be shot at such a critical moment as this: the moment exactly one Fallanassi, her human-Shard companion, and two security guards (working for the facility, thus not under direct command of the Sniper Spindle, thus not extremely trained space Fascists) which were more like rushing to keep up with the offsetting freckel face taking a long strided march to a possible emergency waving around questionable credentials and spouting off precision speeches in a guttural accent that gave her Basic the impression that it was trying to entice any within earshot with the prospect of molestation by cricket bat. Things were already confusing enough since this strange "woman" was escorted by what seemed to be an imposter of Kokoanamos Hekmatyar, but now there were gunshots?
Under normal circumstances, gunshots were a sign of something terrible happening. The guards, nervously drawing their standard police-issue blaster pistols, certainly thought there was a problem. For the Major, logic would provide all the explanation necessary. "Slugthrowers" as idiotic parlance suggested, were extremely rare outside of the Rim and Wild Space. Very few people specialized in use of projectile weapons. Eralam was the only gunsmith to focus on the antiquated style. Koko also employed bullets over bolts. The Major and her remnant army did as well, as was the style on their homeworld. Those shots weren't the heavy, chest punching reports of Subject 67's .50 Action Express round. She, it, was not here disturbing the Iron Knight with her destructive antics. Obviously, it had to be Eralam himself, possibly shooting annoying insects, or testing a new upgrade to his crude revolvers. Who else could have the considerable skill or need to fire a ballistic weapon in a tight three shot flourish?
The failure in this thought process was simple, sad, but lethal: if she knew anything about the Shard, she would know he would never fire a weapon without meaning it. Still, that didn't mean her oozing confidence was bashful in the slightest. Perhaps it was the week, and how violent it had been. Perhaps now, following Koko's resoundingly successful surgery and recover, she felt elated. It was even better that Eralam was up and moving.
The door to his room slides open amid some shouts and orders from the security detail outside. Ignoring all of this, the woman begins to shove a stack of papers -yes, paper- towards his general direction. Oh yes, she intended to annoy and peck at him in everyway possible, and that meant immediately having him look over some interesting reports she had received, plus some proposals, plans, etc, etc, minutiae, minutiae. Giddiness radiated off of her because finally they could afford a moment to think about their position. Maybe later they could-
Blood. Brain. Gun. Steaming. Woman. Shooter.
Was there really a thought? No, there was only a reaction, and a series of reactions. The papers that were held just a split second ago fill the air between doorway and assassin, thrown purposely to obscure and detain the eyes in bright, flipping patterns. The guards are moving, stepping into the room, sighting for the woman, in the midst of yelling for her immediate dropping with hands up. Meanwhile, the Major has instinctively stepped back into a firing posture, using the guard to her right and the doorway as cover, she is drawing her own Model 39 from its jacket holster, already thumbing the safety off in one smooth motion while bringing the pistol to bear upon the assassin's soon to be shot left knee.
There was no thought -never could be. The guards would miss, but the Freeshooter would not.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2014 13:43:54 GMT -8
If this were an action movie, Dresden would have vaulted off the hospital bed, swept Major off her feet, and managed to look both badass and cool at the same time.
Things didn't quite work out that way.
While the bullets managed to destroy the failsafe device as promised, getting shot in the face doesn't help one with their fine motor or reasoning skills. So when Major burst through the door, Dresden, wounds healed instantly, decided that the action hero part of this whole scenario was really lacking, nominated and seconded himself for the role, and attempted to proceed with the vaulting and the sweeping off of the feet bit. There were just a few things wrong with this plan.
First and foremost, his nervous system was still pretty well scrambled. In his current state, the former Shard had all the coordination of a newborn giraffe. What should have been a heroic leap was now a rather undignified midair sprawl. There was also the matter of the IV lines. The fluids fed into a saline lock, which was securely taped down to prevent accidental removal. The lines weren't leaving the vein, so they broke loose from the stand instead. In addition to six plus feet of gangly, flailing human, there were now also several feet of clear plastic tubing whipping through the air, trailing various medicinal products.
All of this was flying towards Major at once; collision was imminent. It could be argued that she wasn't getting the worst of the deal, however. For reasons as old as time itself, hospital gowns almost always open in the back. Major was about to get a ballistically enhanced greeting from Dresden. Sin was given a rather undignified view of his pasty white arse.
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Lord Sinistra
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Post by Lord Sinistra on Feb 6, 2014 17:54:42 GMT -8
A flash of papers, a bunch of yelling, weapons drawn, a gunshot and a flailing Whill. So much action in a blink of an eye, no more than a few seconds for the scene to unfold. Ducked behind the corner of the wall, she meant to hide from those entering through the door but as Eralam jumped from the bed, a mess of tubing, catheters and blood stained gown, her attention was drawn away from the crouching markswoman outside the door with a gun trained on her knee. In a perfect world, she would have gotten a protection bubble up before the round found her leg, but she was transfixed by the sight of a very disoriented man streaking past her towards the door. Her knee exploded in a mist of red, the Sith Lord hitting the floor seething, the gun forgotten as she gritted through the pain. The splattering of her blood on the stark white tile smeared as she scooted backwards into the corner. She inhaled sharply through her teeth, rocking back and forth in agony and ecstasy as pain tickled her senses. A wayward elbow hit the projector and her appearance morphed into the rusty skinned togruta from her previous trip to Dressel. She shouted at him, unable to engineer an escape now on a ruined leg.
"Shit's sake, Eralam. Your whiskey collection is mine."
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The Major
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Breehara
Feb 7, 2014 12:55:40 GMT -8
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Post by The Major on Feb 7, 2014 12:55:40 GMT -8
Naturally, any form of communication that was based around auditory reception was quite effectively blocked out by the whine of blasters ker-pewing over grunts and expletives. The guards were only human, and then they heard a gunshot. They were also panicked, which is exactly why they lit up Dresden's failing figure. Bolt after bolt pounds into his form, while even more miss and sizzle into the tables and equipment -yet mercifully fail to connect with the sputtering image of the red skinned alien.
Freighter crashings on a Galactic City highway lane were more graceful than this mess. It did not exactly matter who smacked who and whose hand or face got a mouthful of ass. The three men, Eralam included, looked like an amazing metaphor for the human struggle as they writhed and muttered. The Major, of course, did not have any of this nonsense. Oh sure, the guard she had used for cover had crashed into her, but that was nothing a quick stiff arm and leap backwards couldn't fix.
Now, about two paces back from the Shard induced mess, the Fallanassi trains her pistol's sight on the reduced vantage point into the room. Fick, she thought. Her hands were too shakey thanks to the recent shove. She would have to adopt a defensive stance until recovered. Koko, equally confused as the guards, also draws her own handgun.
Finally, to top it off, the Major draws upon her personal brand of Force Immersion in case the assassin had another trick. Odd, she could have sworn she heard the bitch in the room yell, "Lamb," amongst other things. Lamb? What was that? Bothan for "I surrender?" Or maybe "Die."
Best play it safe while commiting to the power of the White Current....
"Raus mit dir, Viper!" Wait, that wasn't Basic.
Fuck it.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2014 13:45:04 GMT -8
The human body is, on average, about 70% water. Water, when superheated, bursts into gaseous form, which tends to expand rapidly. As any combat engineer can tell you, the textbook definition of an explosion is a rapid expansion of gas. In other words, Dresden exploded.
Bolt after bolt poured into the flying body in rapid succession. The holos always depicted blaster wounds as neat burns, but any soldier can tell you that this isn't always the case. The effect of one bolt is nearly negligible in terms of gas expansion when it hits the torso, but Dresden was sprayed down by dozens in rapid succession. The hopped up blaster carbines favored by security forces on Dressel had truly horrifying rates of fire, and in an enclosed area, there isn't much in the galaxy that can beat them. Ordinarily, Dresden would have recovered from even this level of fire quickly, if he didn't just Absorb the whole mess. Today, however, he wasn't even remotely ready for it. Confused, disoriented, completely unprepared, the former Shard is obliterated.
The room is showered by bits of blood, bone, and viscera. In a few minutes, they might reform into the a living being, but for now, the fallen Whill is powerless to influence the state of events.
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Lord Sinistra
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Post by Lord Sinistra on Feb 7, 2014 14:53:41 GMT -8
Eralam exploded. She had seen people blow apart on the battlefield but this was the first time she saw someone explode as though there was a thermal detonator in their innards. The room was showered in red; pieces of flesh and bone spread across every imaginable surface. There was not enough whiskey on the planet to make up for the catastrophic failure of her road trip to wake her friend from a coma so they could blow this popsicle stand and get drunk. She needed a drink after Kuat, after this she would need a 12 step program. Her leg was quickly knitting back together as the wayward blaster bolts were absorbed and channeled in Force healing. It wasn't pretty, but the shot had missed her knee joint, forcing it's way through her thigh just above the patella. Thank kriffing darkness. The wound stopped seeping blood and she closed her eyes to concentrate as a vibrant blue bubble cast itself around her. Any further shots her way would be absorbed or deflected, and she sat with her hands clasped around the wound and waited as it healed. Eralam would not, could not die in manner such as this, at least she didn't think he could. Breathing calm, she reassessed the situation and decided on a new tact, one that would result in the greatest chance of her walking out of here (hehe, damn her knee hurt) un-accosted by the authorities who had guns at the ready. She didn't want to reveal her identity here, but it might come down to it. For the moment, she would play it cool. She heard the slender woman shout at her in a language she couldn't understand and she answered by cracking an eye and locating the handmade pistol Eralam had given her on the floor a short distance away. She gave it a slight nudge with the force and it slid around the corner into view of the Major and her companion. The appearance of the weapon was followed by a calm voice.
"Well that was terribly uncalled for. Put your guns away, Major, they will do you no good and I think we have some things to discuss."
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The Major
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Breehara
Feb 8, 2014 15:20:41 GMT -8
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Post by The Major on Feb 8, 2014 15:20:41 GMT -8
!SPIT!
A raw chunk of Eralam's flesh makes a tiny but auditory smack against the floor. Spongy. The piece spat out of the Major's mouth was spongy -consistent with the part of the body often referred to as....
Oh God.
That's it. Someone was bound to suffer here today. Eralam's safety was of no concern. In fact, his failure to regenerate from exploding was entirely below expectation. What kind of demigod was he? What if this assassin had some kind of bomb? Why, she would be exploded without any hope of fancy, inhuman nonsense.
Worse yet, another suit had been ruined. To say her appearance was completely drenched in blood, as if she had decided to take a swim in the stuff, was not beyond reason. This all naturally had the markswoman pissed the Hell off -which is why her voice came off as raspy, loud, and nearly bestial in its hostile nature.
"Gibt me vone goodt reason I shouldt not slot zyou from behindt dat flimsy desk zyou're hidingk behind. Nein, shtandt up, unt at least die vwith zyour knees firm, fViper."
This was said while she advanced into the room, past the guards covered in their master's goo. Meanwhile, Koko attempted to drag them from the door way and the intestinal reek.
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