Eralam's Explosives Emporium

"At least he's good for something," Koko said airily. "Looks like he's been doing a pretty piss poor job as a chauffeur."

Despite the sharp new suit and the fact that they hadn't seen each other for years, the Shard woman could tell that her long lost friend had been through hell recently. Judging by the faint whiff of Eralam's combat cocktail (effective though it may be, that stuff is damn near impossible to wash off undamaged skin) and the stiffness of her stride, she guessed that Chisame had probably been hurt quite badly. It also felt like there was something else, lurking just out of sight, some intangible friction between her and Eralam.

Was he the one that hurt her? Probably not. Koko knew her boss didn't like to do things halfway. Maybe they fought together? That made more sense, but sharing the trials of combat tended to ease friction. What else could cause the sort of tension that was quite clearly making the boss so uncomfortable?

Her eyes widened minutely in surprise.

Oh.

That.

Koko pushed her own complex torrent of emotions to the side, filing them away under "Shit to Yell at Eralam About." That box was getting quite full.

She took the Major by the arm and began heading for the elevator.

"Not to worry, we'll take good care of you."

The three of them reached the elevator at the same time, but Koko stopped Eralam from boarding with a glare that could have melted through armor plating.

"Not you, asshat. Two at a time, that's the limit. You can wait for the next one."

Koko visibly deflated. Her buoyant energy of moments earlier seemed to just leak away, and something very near despair took its place.

"He's...He's not being forced," she said, swallowing hard. "At least, not in the way you think."

The Shard woman took a deep breath, clearly drawing up as much courage as she possibly could for what came next.

"What I'm about to tell you, if he ever found out...Chisame, he's like a father to me. He's the only family I've ever had, and if he ever found out, he would probably kill me. Or worse, he'd disown me. So please, just keep this between you and me."

With her head on the taller woman's shoulder and her words full of anguish, Koko charged on.

"There is an organization. They have no name, as far as I can tell. There is no Supreme Leader or any of that nonsense. They definitely read the Evil Overlord's handbook. And there goal is, is Eralam. They've seen his deeds. They've tracked his bloody path through history, and they said no. They didn't want that kind of help. And so they decided to stop him.

"This is hardly the first group to try to work against Eralam. But this is the first, as far as I can tell, to realize that he can't be beaten with brute force. They're playing the long game, and so far, it's working. They keep tabs on about a score of individuals that might potentially be used against him. It's no coincidence that he ended up on Dac just as Diva was about to reemerge. They thought she could kill him. Imagine their surprise when he turned her, and their elation when the ship blew up anyway. They knew that he had contingency plans in place. Spare crystals, spare bodies, the works. That's where I come in.

"About four years ago, they contacted me. They...recruited me. Or so they think. I follow their orders as well as I can. Made them think I was a jilted lover, happy to stick the knife in and twist. In reality, I'm trying to see how far this thing goes. They're too decentralized to be destroyed, though I'm sure he'd try if he found out what...

"His backups. That was my job. I wasn't gathering intel, I wasn't a HUMINT resource. My job was to surreptitiously ensure that when the time came, he ended up as a human. And then, when he was first taking to the new body, when his Shard soul was still trying to fit into the new body, I was to introduce a certain nurse to him. She looked an awful lot like you, you know. Same height, build. Nowhere near as smart, but she was with him almost constantly as his subconscious was developing. She was kind to him. And when he first lost control of his powers, she was ripped limb from limb and scattered across a few square kilometers. We had to send her family an urn filled with someone else's ashes; there wasn't enough left of her to properly cremate.

"Do you see what I'm getting at here? They were watching Diva as closely as him, you know. I think they plan on going after her after they've finished with Eralam. Anyway, where there is Diva, you're generally not far behind. They were sure that she would contact him again, and that you'd be drawn into the mix somehow. And when that time came, something deep in his subconscious would hopefully...react to you. They knew a true psychic compulsion would be recognized and rejected, but how was he to fight against his own mind's desires? And, you being you, they were hoping you'd take him for all he was worth.

"They didn't know about your visit ten years ago. I was able to hide a few things from them, a few precious, important bits of information that could change everything."

Narrative causality being what it is, the elevator emerged into the open cavern just as she said that.

"This, for instance, they know nothing about. Anyway, they're hoping you'd just be you and things would more or less resolve themselves from there. But something went wrong, didn't it."

Koko looked up at the taller woman, eyes read, nose running, tears spilling down her cheeks. If you didn't know better...

"He's always been like that, you know. He's a dry, cynical bastard that would set the world ablaze if he thought it would help, but he's always had a soft spot for a damsel in distress." She smiled wryly. "I'm living proof. So all that stuff he did, he wasn't forced. He was just being Eralam, acting out a centuries old chivalrous streak that he never could quite get rid of."

Down beneath the alcoholics was a sudden spinning of machinery as the woman with a mutated form of sociopathic megalomania had her mind open with Koko's severe piece of intel. Race, blur thoughts into theories and tactics —actions, movements, allocations, shifts, ruses, feigned failures, feigned victories, feigned trauma, feigned feints, and one myriad of hectic mind war later she established a line of steps that she must take.

Fuck with her, will they? Play her off as a constant to control their variables, will they? Play her? That anyone had the gall to assume her actions and take them as a grant infuriated her sensibilities in a foul manner that tapped into a deep, wretched pit in the nadir of her persona. Nothing else was as disturbing, nothing was so pretentious, not since her Father's Reich.

Rage. Rage. She felt it burning her rationality.
Too big to destroy, she had said?
Too decentralized to find, she had said?
Suck my musket, she shrilled in her mind.

Had their motivations been more sensical and in line with her own then maybe she could give them credit for undertaking such a lofty task. Maybe she would have joined them. But their intentions were their ruin. Where they sought to destroy, she sought to control. This seemingly diminutive fork in logic was enough for the Fallanassi to consign them as abnormalities, sub par, faulty in faculty. The enemy was a reprobate, retarded, and genetically inferior to the superior momentum of ever marching science.

Death. To Hades, to the marrow of oblivion.
So if they want war, she sincerely hoped they would give a grand one. She wanted to be dragged through the mud, shot to the bony tips, destroyed and shattered; she wanted to steal the final shot, be the one to place the accursed national standard upon the mountains of these invalids and their children and their lovers.

And this wasn't even the coup de grace.

In time, all in time. And so the fury and passion of a half second, though as wholeheartedly stank as the abyss that was the netherworld and as palpably obtuse too, faded from view like a passing fog meeting high noon. Eventually, there was nothing there, not even the trembling of her body as anger gave way to staccato adrenaline.



The Fallanassi pulls away from Koko a bit more roughly than friends should and begins to stare, focusing on the ice deep within the Shard's manufactured irises. There was something perverse in it, hungry, wanton, but it certainly wasn't hateful. Koko understood the meaning of lying and its central importance to the spinning of the stars. Truth was only another abstract, and only in play when useful. In the end, the Shard, though more guided by guilt and morality, was a kindred spirit. The morbid scientist was thankful for her existence. Unfortunately, however, the lovely Koko was now expendable, and a risk. At some point, her demise would have to be engineered, because in the end, she was a traitor to both Eralam and his enemies.

Those without loyalty had no place in the Freeshooter's vision of a galaxy applied to a higher standard.

Again, all in good time.

She turns from her friend, determined that she could never look upon the Shard again in the same light. Now the markswoman marches sternly into the meeting area, blatantly ignoring the minions within while dipping herself in her masterful take of Force Immersion —yet allowing herself to be perceived in the visible spectrum.

Ah, good, seats. She takes one at the head of a large table, crosses a lanky leg over the other, and rests the cherrywood musket upon her left shoulder while letting the stock rest upon the cold floor. At this point, her eyes are hidden from view thanks to the glowing blue lenses which provided their iconic obfuscation to this treacherous, pathetic world.

The flask disappeared back within the folds of her robes and she followed him to the counter where he had no trouble remembering what potent potable she preferred. She watched him carefully, trying to understand what she was seeing before her. Exhaustion was plain, more than just physical at that. There was something about the set of his shoulders, the frame of his face that was stretched thin. Before she would delve into his psyche, the drink on the counter had won her attention. She curled her fingers around the glass, eyeing the contents with the gaze of a connoisseur. It had great legs, the color was beautiful and deep, the scent of it echoing the wood from the barrels where it aged. The second it hit her tongue, she could taste the time and attention paid to the crafting of it. She didn't blame Eralam for stashing it away. Sin would have put guards on the doors of the room this was in.

She brought the glass down from her lips, her eyes back on the very human looking fallen Whill. The knowledge of the stash of whiskey, the ease at which he moved around the shop meant he was comfortable, this place was his. At least for the moment, she was sure nothing untoward would happen to her but she still kept a tight grip on her awareness of the surroundings. There was no need to posture here, no need to put on the airs of her office. He was an immortal God of Tython, and had the power to call her to him whenever his errant thoughts willed it. Sinistra was no fool to her spot in that particular food chain. Eralam had always been blunt, so she returned the favor when she spoke.

"So, you look like shit. You want to tell me what happened and why you're fleshy?"

"I didn't think it was possible for you to die. So you're in a fleshy body but you still have the power to rip me across the universe to your side with a thought. Can I be you when I grow up?" She chuckled as she looked around the store, taking in his hobby and what it said about him as a person? Is that the right word for being that just found itself bound in a expiring vessel. She turned her back to him leaning on the counter and starting to inventory the thing she could see. Everything in there was an instrument of chaos and destruction. Something that she broached with him in conversation once over a game of cards in his chambers on Tython. Something about the opposite sides of the Force and the limitations of the mortals lives they were given. The basic humanity Eralam couldn't quite grip. The irony of his present state wasn't lost on her.

She turned back to him, another sip down with an uncertain look on her face.

"You know, these meatsacks we occupy need things like sleep and food?"

Race looked up every time someone came through the doors, and so far the heebie jeebie vibe wasn't going away. The pretty girl from upstairs had returned but there was a sinister looking fella sitting at the table that would have made Race cross the street to avoid passing him. Then there was the tightly wound woman with a musket. Slugthrowers were one thing, a musket took so long to reload, he wondered how effective that would be in a fight. Then again, it was huge and metal and if Race opened his mouth to question her, she looked like she could brain him with it. No siree. He would pass on that. She mentioned she was a fallanassi or whatever and Race thought "Funny, she looks human enough".

Race licked the last sugary bits off his dirty fingers, casually looking around to see if anyone would chime in first. The silence stretched out in the room and he took the hint and sat forward in his chair, engaging the table to turn towards the dirty guy smacking loudly and sucking the sticky goodness from under his grime caked nails. "The name's Race Ravel. I blow things up."

He didn't mention his secret, no need for that now. It could save his neck down the road, maybe from someone in this room.

"That's an awfully precise chrono you have there. May I ask why you seem to know you will expire in exactly 348 days?"

The threads of fate and chance wove a fine tapestry for every living creature in the galaxy but the color is always changing, the pattern unset until all the variables align. Sinistra had walked those threads for years, seeing the changes, reading the patterns in the weave, moving the pieces where she may. Nothing could ever come out perfectly but she lived in two planes; the now and the what could be. Death was always a happy substitution, waiting in the wings for the opportunity to grace the field and claim its prize, but there was always another play. Always another chance to move them where they needed to go. Death can be outmaneuvered, but it requires the want to do so. That was the wearing thin that shone so acutely in his human features. There was 348 days left, but he would gladly give them up tomorrow to circumvent the time that must pass in between.

She savored another sip of the whiskey, letting it roll over her tongue. It had a wonderful mouth feel, like a soft velvet with forceful punch in the back of the throat. Oh she would need the name of this stuff but first she set the glass down and reached out for his free hand. It was dirty, but otherwise pristine, soft as though the callouses he should have from his firearm hobby simply never formed. But that wasn't what she was after, no indeed. She closed her eyes and called out to them, those minute strings that weave that fate together. It was like standing on the tracks of a monorail and looking behind you at the frozen landscape you just crossed. The figures bled into each other and she smiled before she released his hand, reaching for the glass again. The tapestry in front of him was fixed, there were no players on the field, no substitutions on the side, just glimmers of ghosts passing in and out quickly before the inevitable end.

She picked up the glass and drained it, her eyes catching his, whispering secrets and speaking nothing. There was strife in his immediate past, the reason for his exhaustion lay on the dirt of a planet not long forgotten. The future, well that no different. If he must be forced to dwell a perfect and enumbered 348 days, then he would meet them on his terms. He meant to misbehave.

"Or do you desire philosophy and cards? I do not see Iniquitous or Dace Concordia, so I am not to be entertainment." She boldly reached for the bottle and poured herself another three fingers and set the whiskey back by him. "Or is there something you need?"

"There is no instruction manual for sociopaths, but it's cute that you think there should be one." She ignored the comments on Dace, there was nothing there that needed to be said. She was half tempted to attend the meeting, see what rabble rousing Eralam was referring to but the inclusion of Dace, her curiosity soured. She rolled her eyes and sipped the amber fluid again, weighing the options in her mind.

"Well come on, let's get you down to the meeting. I assume that's why you were waiting for an elevator. I'll sit in on it, but I don't suppose you can rustle me up a disguise or make me look like someone else? I might be interested in what you're up to, but I'd rather Dace not know. Jedi Master Vile Betrayer and I aren't really on speaking terms at the moment."

She could hide her Force signature, and be silent in a crowd of others, it was just a matter of being able to not look like herself for the participants. She moved to the elevator door and hit the button, a pensive look on her face. "Ooh, can you make me tall?"

"Do I want to know what kind of meeting you're having where a Twi'lek stripper won't bat an eyelash?" She downed the rest of the whiskey and smiled as it warmed her core. She scooped up the packages and disappeared into his office, shutting the door firmly behind her. She pawed through the materials and settled on a black body suit, leather blaster belt, a grey and black tactical vest and the holoshroud. She pulled on her own nondescript black boots and opened the office door. The holoshroud made her look like a very tall Togruta.

She looked at a couple blasters on the wall behind the counter, and nodded. They would do nicely. She got them down and slid the in the holsters on her hips. The body suit was open down to a very deep V, presenting a near perfect view of her rusty red skinned cleavage. There was no trace of her Force presence as she stood in front of the elevator, looking almost as tall as Eralam at that point.

"I guess this will have to do." She sounded radically different, the accent and inflection mimicking the speech patterns of residents of Shili.