The King of Kings

[Emic Lai]

The chittering of the jungles of Dxun were drowned out by the sounds of blaster fire hitting targets at the far end of the camp. Senior Operator Slag Moore and Liaison Officer Luce
Dunwich sat on either side of the Chief of the Aurek-112. An ysalamir lounged around the epaulettes of the Zabrak’s uniform, which was left unbuttoned, sleeves upturned, due to the muggy Dxun summer.

Over the past few months, the Task Force had grown to a size of forty battle-ready commandos, with several deployments under their belt. Their most recent deployment was on an outlying Sith agricultural world where the workers revolted. It was an easy victory; the post-action executions took nearly as long as the entire operation. Now, from their home on Dxun, they awaited their next assignment from Lord Pharsalus.

[Slade Xandir]

A certain Miraluka hybrid, a woman who was petite, ashen in skin tone, and flawlessly apathetic, glided across the polished floor of the Dark Lord's main chamber. Her indigo cloak misted with the dull glow of violet within the fabric, the same shade of her straight and sharply edged bob which too seemed to not shift in the slightest as she moved towards the lounging devil. Her footied shoes made her movement noiseless, but as the head of the Sith's Cerberus intel gathering division, silence was her specialty through and through. However, the Shistavanen that accompanied her, a massive beast of humanoid lupine, deep brown and willow skating his 6'4" bulky body. Heavy footpaws clicked across the reflective floor with the announcement of ebony claws tipping them. Auds rotated on his angular skull, hazel orbs directed to his seated sire, and his maws readied to deliver his mild update on the infantry under Blood's House, as was his role being Cerberus' Master of War. The pair met at the back of the Dark Lord's left, and with Khairo bringing his dominant arm up and across his chest to issue his allegiance, Raven stood solemn as a stone. "My Lord, news on your latest quells," the mountainous lupine rolled out, muzzle tipped low and auds flat. "Indulge me, Khairo," the Dark Lord humored his dutiful Master of Warfare, an obsidian hand flicked a frighteningly black grasp of clawed fingers the casual gesture of 'continue'. "Your Lord Pharsalus has ended the quarrels on your latest takeover planet for good, he claims," the beastly bastard growled the 'claims' portion, naturally skeptical that something else wouldn't become of the hidden pockets of rebels. "His Task Force Aurek-112 awaits more guidance on Dxun currently. Would you have me instruct them to destroy that partial-" Raven interrupted with her monotone denial. "Unnecessary. They've been investigated and handled." As always, she never went into detail, unless Blood chose to inquire on it. He trusted her to do the job he allowed her to do. Khairo merely nodded, and lowered his arm from his chest, awaiting Blood's response on this matter. A moment of ponder before the Dragon King made up his mind.

"Have Lord Pharsalus and his lead command in rank attend my chamber hall on the Sanguine. I want them there before tomorrow."

Nothing more was said and with that smooth wave of dismissal, Raven disappeared in a blur of black ichor magic. Khairo did a light bow with the return of his forearm lift, then departed unceremoniously, the click click click of his hind claws the last thing heard in the cold and lonely room.

[Emic Lai]

The Zabrak buttoned up her uniform as she entered the troop quarters on the Core Predator. “Troops, we arrive at the Sanguine in two hours. I want everyone flawless for inspection. I don’t know what they want with us, but I don’t want the Sith breathing down my neck any more than they already are. Practice standing in rank if you think you forgot how to.”

She turned around to leave, back to the cockpit, but she stopped once again. “I’d recommend saying your prayers now, you might not have time before we all get executed.” She knew how the Sith operated, and if they saw any flaw with her handling of the op against the rebels, she’d be put to the sword faster than one could say “Sith bureaucracy sucks”.

She sat up front with her liaison, the Rattataki Luce Dunwich, an attache who reported to Lord Pharsalus on the status of the unit. “Summoned to the flagship of the Sith fleet. A tremendous honor.”

“Or a death sentence,” Emic said as she propped her feet up on the pilot droid in front of her, blowing a bubble with the chewstim she had been gnawing at for the last hour.

“Let’s stay optimistic, shall we?” Luce, in her unassailable cheer, said. “I like to think we’re going for a promotion.”

“If it involves more Sith oversight, I could do without it,” Emic responded, deep in thought. She had confidence in her own abilities to escape an execution, but that brought with it so many inconveniences. Fleeing Sith space, looking for a new job, probably dealing with a few ex-boyfriends along the way, et cetera.

Before too long, they were in the hangar of the Sanguine, and Dunwich was given temporary command of the unit. Emic treated Luce like somewhat of an informal lieutenant. The Chief of the Kings In Yellow did not actually have a second-in-command, yet, and the Rattataki was helpful enough in leading the troops, as she had a good degree of tactical knowledge from her training at the Officer’s Academy.

Emic disembarked from the ship after ensuring that all her troopers were standing at attention in case an inspection came by. She set off toward the chamber hall where their meeting was to take place. Lord Pharsalus joined her on the way. The Sith Lord struggled to keep up with her pace, but Emic has long learned she has little to fear from Pharsalus. Ever since his defeat by his old apprentice, he had been a shadow of a Sith Lord. Emic was his attempt to stay relevant. Maybe Luce was right. Maybe Emic would get out from under Pharsalus’s command. Wouldn’t that be a dream.

Emic said nothing to Pharsalus, who made several attempts at small talk. Emic was here to meet with whoever it was that summoned them.

As she was let into the chamber by the guards, she felt that familiar taste on her tongue. It tasted like blood.

[Slade Xandir]

Upon entering the Sanguine's chamber, Valkyr would shut the doors behind the pair and remain as a guard to that exit. There was no leaving. Sounds seemed disparingly hushed in this trimmed and lavishly decorated chamber hall, almost as though something massive within their midst swallowed every sound ever made. The air felt heavy, cold, and near decomposed within your lungs, and near choked out any weak attendee. Despite the liveliness and stillness of the room, it felt so much more sinister and alive.

There at the panoramic round helm of the chamber, a figure rose from the seat they were upon. Candles lit as he stood, and within the new light, a lean and tall humanoid male with long curtains of midback length hair, dressed impressively suave with a burgundy velvet and silk laid blazer over a bare, and frankly orbalisk infested chest. Wearing a matching pair of trousers, he was barefoot, his feet black and hooked with wicked toeclaws on a pair of feet that looked clearly too long to be human. What seemed to be a cape or a cloak was actually a pair of wings jutting from his back, hinged and neatly folded to keep the mistaken apparel appearance as the tips dragged the floor. Ebony drenched hands snugly grabbed his collar and ensured it was in proper place.

"Take a seat," he instructed, no hostility in his directive. He hadn't even greeted them, but there would be time for that later. The ashen tanned halfheartedly pointed a black claw to the seats the Sith Council took whenever they had meetings. Golden eyes left trails of inquisition across his newest subjects. "How fares your work." He already knew, but he pointedly looked at the Sith Lord for his answer, completely disregarding Emic's gaze for now.

[Emic Lai]

Emic set her eyes on the hybrid. He looked like a failed experiment, she thought, hands replaced by claws, feet with talons. She was accustomed to the strange appearance of many aliens, but this man may have truly disgusted her.

Pharsalus bowed and took a seat. Emic followed. “Thank you, my Lord,” Pharsalus said. “My work fares well.” He continued to explain his latest endeavors, as Emic sat stoically in the chair.

She wondered just how the man in the big chair came to look the way he did. Maybe he was half-Trandoshan. Maybe he really was a science project gone horribly wrong. The Sith were a bizarre and foul religion, but she had long respected their pride.

[Slade Xandir]

“Decadent,” he said almost sweetly. A nod brought a sharp gaze to Emic whom he didn’t waste a second more to analyze with his eyes than with his Force influence. “And what say you on his well-fared work, miss?” The room almost felt thick, as though the tapestries had static, as though lint coated every dress of oxygen. Yet it remained cold.

Raven stood motionless, already knowing how this situation would pan out. Luckily for her, it wasn’t her sitting at this table, currently, in either one of their shoes. She had done her research, and presented her findings to Blood. With no reason to lie, and with the evidence as it was, she had done her diligence.

[Emic Lai]

Emic let the chill in the air roll off of her. Sith were powerful, yes, but she had yet to meet one who death could not catch up with. That dark embrace came for all, and the only thing that mattered was how glorious the end was.

"And what say you on his well-fared work, miss?"

The Zabrak relaxed, not meeting the gaze of the Sith Lord, and instead kept her eyes straight across the table at Lord Pharsalus. She had her suspicions that she was being tested, and she did not like it. The Sith had an inflated sense of their own importance, but in truth they were replaceable, their entire belief based on each Sith Lord being replaced by the one who comes after. She had no intention of being executed for offending some Sith Lord; nor was she all that enthusiastic about being probed for loyalty. Ultimately, she decided to raise the stakes.

"My lord," she started, those words tasting foul on her tongue. "I'm well-acquainted with Sith mind games. The way I see it, there are a few possibilities."

She took a deep breath. No room for fear now. "You could be testing to see if I'm prone to insubordination to the Sith. If I speak poorly of Pharsalus, you might think I'm not suitably compliant."

She continued, meeting Pharsalus's gaze, her face plain and unwavering. "You could be testing to see if I'm too subordinate to Pharsalus. If I give you that impression, you might think I'd be compromised as a soldier should Pharsalus meet his inevitable demise."

"Or," the Zabrak concluded, finally turning her eyes to the Sith Lord at the head of the table. "You might just be making small talk. But how likely is that, really?"

[Slade Xandir]

His gaze remained unwaivered on the dame, golden irises steeled hotly on her own orbs, her fearless and gut-wrenchingly wry meet. As mountain to sea, they crashed against each other, determined to see who would be felled, first. A dark digit scored the table noisily with a 'screeeeeest' once she finished. His influence roved over her, washing the impartial alien with curiosity, with a carnal need to taste exactly what flavor she was within the Force, but he pulled away. The classy draconian would savor that once he got her alone, if he ever did. To see she wasn't a Force Sensitive was quite the disappointment to the parasite; he would have immediately disposed of this sorry excuse of a Lord and harbored her within his grip, carving alien into something only night terrors could stand against, themselves.
His tight-lipped smile broke apart into a grin, ivory teeth looking to be barely passing for humanesque, some looking more daggerish than others.

"It's interesting you see yourself in such a predicament, Emic," he used her name carelessly, or what seemed to be careless to those who wouldn't know him as well as they'd dream to. In truth, he grew interested in her, and what seemed nonchalant was truly relish. "And it's even more surprising that you believe this to be the hand laid before you." Deciding to reward her gall to speak so valiantly against a cannibalistic carnivore who just so happened to head their faction, he allowed her a jewel of honesty. "I am a man of my word, to my people. You wear and work under my banner, whether your little taskforce heralds it's own name or not." His chiseled grey chin lifted only a fraction as his own façade of indifference flittered into nothingness - his lids narrowed, tapering the space between his own gaze and her own to nearly intimate degrees. "When I admit this, I solidify it. I asked how you considered your taskmaster's work, as my genuine concern to your ability to function to your optimal degree. Your allegiance to the Sith and to my House are not under question."

He held his palm up to face the ceiling, a casual mention to the void which seemed to be shadowless and something slithered in different directions across the 15 foot ceiling. Durasteel creaked where no candlelight could reveal what lay above the table.

"I have eyes, ears, and teeth everywhere within this Reach, Emic. And this is your opportunity to use them to your advantage, to better yourself." Finally, he removed his orbs from the Zabrak's own, cutting them hungrily to Lord Pharsalus, who surely should have no doubt the scheme which they sat upon, now. The prey here was not the Zabrak-
But her handler.

"Reveal your honesty as I have revealed mine, Emic, and release yourself from rusted shackles. Take upon yourself your fate, or be doomed to toil under a stagnant pawn," he curled a pointed tongue against the front of pointed incisors. The natural pale gold of his irises began to acidify, darkening into a sickening yellow, the rims bleeding a startling bright garnet to cradle the diseased coins. His pupils hadn't dilated, but they fell upon the core, narrowing into reptilian slits as he regarded the sithian Lord with a wetter maw. "Unless-" he rumbled out in his baritones, "you believe he may better into something worth your excellence..."

Another creak awakened above the table, this time above the Lord, himself.

[Emic Lai]

She could not help but feel relieved when she did not find a lightsaber in her chest. A daring maneuver, indeed, and one that no doubt stirred some sense of dutiful passion within the loyal attending dogs of the Dark Lord. The beast-man spoke like a Sith, a stupid mix of high-society speak and slavery jargon. It was always so tedious with these Lords, and Emic let her frustrations spark in her chest.

“You ask me how my unit and I perform with the missions we’ve been assigned by Pharsalus. I say, we’re overqualified,” she said, nearly hissing, staring down the Dark Lord. Her venom only grew with every word. “Quite frankly, it’s a crying shame that the most efficient group of killers in the Sith military is forced to do the bidding of a third-rate Sith who’s long past his prime.”

Heat grew in her eyes, and a growl started to make its way into her voice. “My trigger finger is getting more and more twitchy by the day. The Aurek-112 belong on the frontlines of a galactic war, not on agri-worlds in Sith space shooting slaves armed with hydrospanners. I am the deadliest weapon this galaxy has seen in hundreds of years. I need blood.”

Pharsalus started to appear nervous, his eyes darting all over.

Emic felt the power that came with building rage. She had grown familiar with this Sith concept, and took a great liking to it, allowing her to truly realize how she hated working for Pharsalus. How he had stifled her career. How he kept her from the glory of true war. “You say you have teeth everywhere, to use them to my advantage. I say, I’ll use them to tear the flesh of thousands. You say, free myself from shackles. I say, I do my best work when I’m off the leash.”

The scheme was well known to the Trandoshan Pharsalus now. He looked desperately for an escape, but alas he could not find one. If he was a mammal, he’d be sweating. His scales rattled in their roots.

Her throat vibrated into a shout. “If you want to set this death machine free from the grip of this maggot--!” the Zabrak exclaimed, snapping her hateful gaze to the cowardly Sith Lord across from her. Even as a Sith Lord, he froze in fear of her stare. “I say…” Emic started, then pausing to take a deep breath, and speaking softly once again.

“Make my day.”

[Slade Xandir]

Almost as though she had pulled a thread from his own core, he felt a shiver. It was nigh the wench spoke from the starved desires pupils began with, and again he cursed all gods for not blessing Emic with the despicable gift his Nightmare Maiden gifted him with. An idea shuffled to the cornerstone of his attention, to which he devilishly pushed aside. Pressing matters commanded his eyes, and some even moreso called to his stomach. The same obsidian forefinger that scraped the priceless table joined the rest of his digits as his once relaxed hand now caved into a proper claw. It bent at joints that appeared to make it hold something tangible as it held nothing but air, but as her fervor reached his heart-

"I am the deadliest weapon this galaxy has seen in hundreds of years. I need blood."

The grip tightened, his delighted grin only broadened in his ecstacy. She called out to the god within him, the merciful god, her Wicked Messiah who would deliver her to salvation. Oh, the burn of her passion, the pull of her need!

His held hand ripped away what invisible door lay above them, and forth shot a serpentine tongue through the ebony ceiling, silver and already dripping with wet. The data from the flicked tongue transferred to the mind of the Corrupted Reel, the pet of his prior heir Raphael, a son who was Son no longer. The snake was raised by Blood, and by all means of the hatred the Dark Lord held for it's original owner, the Sithian used the same Sorcery from forbidden texts to alter the monstrosity. Four silver slits peered from either side what would be the crown of this scaled beast rope, and all four narrowed as they primed on their fidgeting prey below. The hole it was kept within, the empty and heartless realm of Shadow, the gargantuan serpent coiled in Blood's portal, retracted slightly, and without another moment to ponder, engulfed the Transdoshan in a blur of silver and lavender hued scales. It gripped the struggling Lord from head to abdomen in it's mouth, protective cream lids pulling free from their 4 orbs now that the attack passed successfully-
And naturally the constrictor began to retreat to feast on what remained kicking and pleading muffledly between two separate pairs of fangs. And with the last of it back within the void, Blood sealed the Void, and the Corrupt Reel's Shadow Walk ended in silence.

Turning back to smirk at Emic, nothing more was said as he returned the candle's vibrancy to what they were meant to be, releasing the pressure he had within the room and giving the Zabrak the space she wanted. The flames climbed naturally, and showed a plainly painted garnet durasteel ceiling, no longer capable of hiding a single shade.

Pleasantly, he asked, returning his tar colored hand to the top of the table, "Hungry?"