The Way of the Worlds (closed, Zas)

[Darth Fett]

A processed, mechanical voice interrupted the identical men's muted conversation. From Zasabi's position and recuperating state, only fragments of the message were clear, the voice drifting in and out of focus. It said something about a docking bay on the planet below and that someone had just arrived there. That was likely all that Zasabi needed to know at that point as he was hardly in a position to ask questions.

The men nodded to eachother and approached their guest.

"Feeling any better?" one asked with a sincere tonality. The one immediately at his side rolled his eyes and punched the concerned one in the arm.

The third matter of factly cut through the nonsense, "You heard the boss, you two help him up and bring him out once we land. I'll fall back and make sure we don't have any surprises."

The first two ducked under Zasabi's arms and helped him lift himself. The Ysalamir remained intact on their suits, meant to even out any chances Zasabi could call on the Force to make his attacks against the men.

As the ship lurched, having made contact with the ground, the men aided the Shadow down the landing ramp.

The air was vibrant, not at all what one would have expected for the choice of a Sith Lord to meet with an accomplice after the slaughter of thousands of individuals.

The surrounding landscape was full of vegetation and rustic pathways and stone structure. While there were no visible sentient beings aside from those who had manned the ship, life was plentiful. Indigenous creatures lined the landscape, calling out to one another and presumably playing their roles in the ecosystem, whatever they may have been.

As beautiful as the planet seemed, it had nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other worlds just like it. One should have expected no less from Axl Fett. Paranoid or justified, he chose his surroundings with great care, even if it did not always seem that way. He often relied on the perception that he was unpredictable and quite insane. While neither were necessarily false at any given time, he excelled at planning his moves carefully and playing them off as mere coincidence. It gave him leverage and a sort of mystique.

The men aided Zasabi into the dome structure directly ahead of them. As they crossed the threshold, the brightness of the world outside was muted. The change in lighting was not extreme, but was noticeable. They proceeded through the center of the building, passing by massive rows of benches, filled to the brim with very still, very quiet people. Their faces were all concealed and they ranged in sizes, from infants in mother's hands to large humanoids, about the size of a Wookiee.

They remained motionless, lifeless.

At the helm of the building stood Axl, standing atop a slightly elevated altar. They were clearly in a house of worship, though the decorations were non descript, no real indication to what religion was practiced there.

The men released Zasabi, pressing him forward onto his knees. Axl trusted as soon as Zasabi regained control of his motor functions enough to leave that position, he would. He could not blame the man, as it all seemed a bit over the top. To negate the obvious imagery of having the Shadow on his knees as if to worship him, Axl steeped off center, moving to a position diagonal to the man.

"I apologize for the excessive force used in subduing you. It's just that one can never be too careful, especially when the authorities are closing in on someone whom you wish to protect."

[Zasabi Ray]

The feeling that his inner ear had given him of being in three places at once was starting to subside, giving the part of his brain that spat in the face of danger enough power to begin working independently.

"I'm...touched," he began, a cocky smile beginning to form. He couldn't fight back against his captors, but he could show that he wasn't willing to play ball.

Humor. A familiar coping mechanism.

He blinked. Something about this felt wrong. The whole situation gave him a peculiar sense of Déjà vu. He had never met this trio before, so...why this nagging sensation?

They dragged him to Fett, but in his current state of distraction Zasabi could barely recognize what the Sith Lord was saying. He began running through his memories, his stomach immediately dropping out as he remembered what had led him here.

Zasabi had killed before, not even always in self defense. He had decided his life had been worth more than the one on the other end of his blaster on a multitude of occasions, even before he had reached adulthood. What had happened earlier, however, was on another level. He had felt the death his actions had caused through the force as explosions rippled across the city. Even if he hadn't wanted to confront it at the time, he had known almost immediately that the train had not been merely carrying weapons. They had been full of people.

He had always endeavored to act as a scalpel rather than an axe. He remembered all too well the pains of his orphaned childhood, subsisting on the kindness of others, and wasn't keen to inflict that on others. This sense had only grown with his development in the Force, as he could feel the lives he snuffed out.

He couldn't reconcile his actions with who he believed himself to be. Even if he had been tricked, it didn't change the magnitude of what he had done. Still, he was alive, and Fett appeared to be waiting for some sort of response.

"What...What's going on?" he managed to utter breathlessly. Between the increasing sense of unreality and the black hole that had cropped up in his stomach, he had begun to come undone at the edges.

[Darth Fett]

"No, please, don't get up," the Sith Lord disingenuously muttered. He flicked his wrist downward and the Shadow dropped to the ground in a parallel motion.

Wait. No. That was more than mere incongruity. The floor buckled ever so slightly from under the wayward sith lord's boot.

Zasabi hadn't defiantly staggered upright, as Fett had anticipated. The world lurched around him ever so subtly, artifacts lingering of a divergent reality. Just as jarringly, all traces of disharmony dissipated in miragelike translucent wisps.

Breathless for what internally registered as a microcosmic eon, Fett exhaled and reconstituted himself and his command of his surroundings. The buckled metal beneath his heel rose to meet him.

He leered back to his captive. Zasabi's eyes were shut, one lid swollen and the other winced in what he could only assume was a whirlwind of physical and existential pain.

Something was off, shifting like so much sand. Sand was coarse, rough, irritating. That was, of course, until sufficient heat was applied.

Fett snaked around the nearby lectern and ascended the altar, his fingers gesticulating a clear message to the men at his command.

For now, he would stay his hand, and proceed as planned.

The bounty hunters, who had since moved back to guard the exit, looked on in uncertainty. Matters dealing with the Force were not their forte, one of the reasons they all insisted on carrying the creatures to dampen any Force attacks that could be brought upon them. They were now a safe enough distance not to hinder the work of their employer, but remained conscious of the space in which they resided. Should Zasabi fight back, they were prepared to step in and strip him of his powers.

"Let me tell you something about my protection, Master Ray," he hissed sternly as if beginning a true sermon. "I am what stands between you and a lynch mob back on what's left of Druckenwell. You make unfriendly accusations of me, accusations which are blatantly unfounded. You are a wanted fugitive and as crude as I feel your actions were, I've decided to take a stock in you. No matter what happens now, I'm harboring a fugitive. A mass murderer."

The silent, motionless audience glared on at the two men, held as a captive congregation.

"I know how it feels to have been where you are presently. I know the sweet anguish and staggering rage that discovering your true potential can cause. I am willing to step out on the line for you, to offer you a chance to reach that potential, and before it's too late save your life and mind."

Fett's peripheral glare cascaded over the room, anticipating that the other gauntlet to drop.

[Zasabi Ray]

My...true potential?

He had to ground himself. Squirming against the Dark Lord's powerful telekinetic grip, he caught sight of the windows above them. Somehow, the light streaming through was hitting at just the right angle to turn them opaque, even reflective. He could see the hazy outline of the parishioners, all manner of sentients sitting in eerie still silence. Behind them, the mercenaries stood in less uniform columns. He could only tell the difference between them from their fidgeting. Clearly they were as uncomfortable with Fett's monologue as he was.

"What..." What in the blazes are you talking about?

The words didn't seem right. They had a heat he couldn't muster. He wasn't furious, even though he should be. He was confused and beyond distressed, even more now that Fett had spoken.

"What...accusations?" he said instead. "I haven't accused you of anything yet."

[Darth Fett]

Zasabi was far too coherent. His resistance to Fett's gaslighting wasn't unforeseen, but it was remarkably potent.

"Yet," the word fell from his lips like an anvil, straight down without lingering or embellishment. With every bit the weight and severity, "that word is doing its fair share of heavy lifting, wouldn't you admit?"

There was a sterile quality to the chapel. The sound did not resonate as one might expect in a space built for oration and punctuated by such cold, harsh stonecraft and metal decor. It was sterile, slightly stilted. The air felt thin and stagnant when moving though it or giving it any thought, yet injuries aside there was no impairment to one's breathing. There was a faint but consistent scent of fire, burning fuel. Perhaps it was from spent candles or wafts of lingering incense, but it was an olfactory cue that may have felt... unmotivated.

Fett snapped his fingers. One of the bounty hunters from the back tossed a mound of charred, still smoldering apparel forward. They thudded, slid, then slumped down and rested next to Zasabi. The bloodstained jackets were a good enough explanation for the lingering scent, or at least enough of an emotional trigger to shift focus back to the abstract.

"You didn't have to utter s much as a grunt. I saw it in on your face; I felt your daggers in my soul. You have no secrets from me," he hissed with what might well have been a forked tongue, "...not anymore."

Stilted, stale, canned silence.

"When you came to me with your plan to pull a train heist, I should have known you had something grander in mind. I hadn't given your resolve enough mind. That was a mistake. I won't be repeating it."

The light collecting in the windows faded, as if obstructed from just outside.

[Zasabi Ray]

Horror filled him as the stench of charnel remains filled him. His eyes drifted across the corpse with stunned shock, stopping only to focus in on individual details. The still wet blood, the smoldering char that intermingled flesh and synthetic fibers. The pale pink of entrails peeking through the crimson gore around a gaping wound in it's midsection.

Calling on what will he had left, he forced himself to lift up off the ground enough to pull his face away from the gruesome sight. It didn't ward off the smell of death, but it at least allowed him to redirect his attention to Fett. If he could bring himself to view the situation objectively, he could hopefully find some small detail that would allow him to escape. Even now, however, he could taste the iron tang of blood in his mouth, a sense memory of his fall, reminding him of the innocent blood he had spilled. Even now he could hear the distant explosion as if it hadn't been hours ago but instead mere moments ago, the dull tones of copper drifting into his ears unbidden...

Wait, hours ago?

He tried to clear his head enough to think, eyelids straining as if he were trying to keep the sights around him at bay. He had been semi-conscious at points during the trip to this place, the vague memory of a hyperdrive and, more importantly, the vastly different atmosphere and surroundings making it clear they were no longer on Druckenwell. If so, then why was the corpse so fresh?

Zasabi had been on more battlefields than he could count, both small skirmishes and large scale conflicts. Even with the blaster weapons and thermal explosives that were in use throughout the galaxy, there was plenty of blood spilled in a very literal sense. Once you had seen enough of it seeping from the bodies of friend and foe alike, you began to notice small details that would escape a civilian.

That corpse seemed freshly slain, as if it had been taken off of the site of the explosion less than an hour ago. The blood hadn't even begun to flake and dry. Portions of the garments worn by the corpse were still alight, longer than even charcoal would remain smoldering.

What was going on here? There was person who could give him the answers.

Gritting his teeth, the Shadow pushed against Fett's telekinetic pressure with every inch of will in his body. Bit by bit his head rose, eyes lifting steadily until they locked onto the Sith's cold, dispassionate eyes. As he did so, the light streaming in from the cathedral windows began to fade as though a cloud had drifted across. No, not a cloud... something much more substantial.

"Fett....what is going on here?" he hissed through gritted teeth.

[Darth Fett]

The fading, dramatic speckled streams of light crossing the room trembled in a surreal wave of vibrations. The tremors were small at first, like the faint shuffling of feet whispered a thousand times in staggered intervals. Then came the abrupt and much more defined sound of thousands of individuals standing in unison. The ground beneath Zasabi rattled even as he rose, and the world around them seemed to ripple.

“What does the name Lorio Yeop mean to you? When did you last hear from him?”
Axl snapped his fingers three times to refocus his guest’s attention away from the windows.
Zasabi’s regained footing was encouraging. That determined grit was going to prove necessary in the coming hours.
“Who was your point of contact? Was it a Red Dragon?”
The Dark Lord’s contorted hand darted forward and a forked blue streak flung through the air between the men, striking the ground inches from Zasabi’s foot. The electricity scrambled and dissipated just as quickly.
“Where. Is. Lorio? Surely not still on Vendaxa?”

[Zasabi Ray]

The lightning focused his mind as quickly as blaster firing next to his head. He had never been struck by Force Lightning before, and he didn't intend to start now.

"Lorio Yeop? Who even is that? And where the blazes is Vendaxa?"

Zasabi's eyes sharpened, settling on the Dark Lord's deep-set eyes and pallid features. Why was he accelerating now? He had been taking his time earlier, setting the stage for his grandiose play to impress his strength upon the Shadow agent, but now he was acting as though they were running out of time.

"What is about to happen?" the Theelin asked haltingly. "And why-"

It was then he noticed the vibrations in the air. Risking a look back, he took in the audience behind him and, behind them, Fett's uncertain guards. This wasn't part of the stage show, then.

"Fett, I don't know what your scheme is here, but I'm done with it. So cut out the theatrics!"

[Darth Fett]

No more theatrics?

Indeed, in that very instant the blotted out stained glass panes shattered with the force of an entire battalion's boots marching just off tempo from one another. The trill rhythm assaulted the very soul just as the shards it produced rent the flesh.

No sooner than the shards had settled upon them, embedding into all the fleshy bits they could find, the armor clad soldiers belayed into the chapel.

“Eyes on Target One, we’re a go!” a disembodied voice barked.

Blaster fire disrupted the darkness, refracting and dancing through the mist of fine glass particles blanketing everything, impossible not to inhale as it was. The authorities and Fett’s guards were the parties exchanging fire, the law enforcement unleashing a torrent of red haze and Fett’s men returning pulsating blue streams.

A large cop grabbed at Zasabi, plucking him up and clasping standard restraints on his wrists. As his bloated lips pursed as if pensively exhaling in belief the difficult part was over, the only thing to actually leave his mouth was a crimson flash with a white core, overextending as to almost strike Zasabi himself.

Fett stood behind the man whose eyes glazed as they adopted to red haze below them and all life leaked from him.

Another officer clutched at Zasabi from behind. Axl waved his free hand and the assailant’s head exploded, clean off. Eviscera drenched the pair and both corpses. A geyser erupted from what remained of the neck, mostly sputtering onto the bound Zasabi as the body slouched toward him as if bowing.

Fett swirled his blade out through his first victim’s cheek, and before the body had hit the ground, the energy beam had circled back and cleanly severed the restraints on the Shadow apprentice.

A friendly flash of curled lip to his co-conspirator, and the Dark Lord was swarmed with six fully armored officers. They carried vices and collars on pikes spewing electric charges. Simultaneously one tool clamped each of his limbs, one around his torso, and the last around his neck. His body violently convulsed as he dropped his still lit saber. The weapon clashed against the stone tile and spun around, hilt presenting itself to Zasabi.

[Zasabi Ray]

Crimson light burned in Zasabi's eyes, bathing the room in blood. Fett stood before him, held captive by agents of a government after him for a crime he had been tricked into committing.

No matter the depth of the illusion, however, there was something the Dark Lord of the Sith was right about. Zasabi was a killer, and right now he was willing to kill anyone who got between him and his answers.

His hand gripped the unfamiliar metal handle of Fett's blade, rising from one knee into his first strike before the jailers could react. These were not artful strikes, delicate pirouettes of light and martial form. These were short, quick, and blunt blows that turned lifeforms into smoking pieces.

He didn't need to tap into the essential truth of reality for him to commit murder against people he barely knew and had no real grudge against. There was no big mystery, no higher task. There was a reason he hadn't simply retired to live a life of leisure and riches. He enjoyed the killing too much. Something had broken in him a long time ago that made him someone willing to take life without flinching, and the only difference between what he had been accused of and what he knew he had committed was scale.

In this moment, relief flooded through him. For a moment, he understood what Fett meant by approaching his true potential. Zasabi could do what few others could stomach- he could be a means to an end.

Feeling like a tree that had suddenly broken through the clouds and reached the sun's light, he looked to the briefly incapacitated sith, almost ignoring the blasterfire behind him. Everything here was a distraction save for one man.

Grabbing Fett's still convulsing body, he pulled the Force to himself and leapt up and forward. The single remaining pane of stained glass, a depiction of a messiah being carried into the afterlife, buckled before the pair before shattering outward into the blinding light beyond.

Zasabi didn't know what lay ahead of him, or even what answers he would find, but he would find them on a stage of his choosing.