Getting the Point Across.

[Denzein]

Then

"All Imperial personnel evacuate! I repeat: All Imperial personnel evacuate!
This is not a drill!
All Imperial personnel evacuate! I repeat: All Imperial personnel evacuate!"​

Captain Reznik set the tannoy array to repeat his message, sent off his preliminary report and left the communications office still strapping his pistol to his belt. Alarms were going off everywhere, chaos reigned supreme - screams echoed throughout the entire base. His men surged around him, heading out to whatever point they had trained to defend in all the drills he'd made them do, he only wished he shared their confidence. A woman ran past him, sobbing with fear and oblivious to everything around her. Reznik watched her go for a moment before heading the way she had come from. He didn't even know what they were facing, though his suspicions had been noted in the first and quite possibly last report he would get to make about this breach already. His duty above all else was to contain the threat and make a full report so that top brass could ascertain whether this was a movement by the emergent Rebellion, but that meant he needed to actually see their enemy.

Sometimes, he thought to himself as he pushed past a gaggle of wailing children, he really hated his job.

Epsilon Station was an Imperial Checkpoint at Mygeeto's principle starport. It was their job to weed out dissenters from the masses of honest subjects that wanted to enter and leave the world, important as it was being a banking and transport hub for the core worlds of the Empire. It was considered a cushy post by many, Reznik was by all accounts very lucky to hold his position. Until now, that is.

Once every now and again someone made an attempt at jumping the queue. Whether they were caught and resisted arrest or never even bothered to try slipping through unnoticed they all required putting down with extreme prejudice. To that end Epsilon Station was garrisoned by a platoon strength force of Imperial soldiery - not elite men by any measure, but enough to see off terrorists, smugglers and even small bands of militia. He had drilled them well for defending this base against an army until reinforcements arrive, they knew this place like the back of their hand.

And yet his men had reportedly attempted to apprehend a single man and Reznik's whole little world had been thrown into chaos. Delta Section, where the arrest had been attempted, was in full lockdown and nobody had heard from anyone within for ten minutes - and to make matters worse the primary generator had just been inexplicably taken offline. The backup was trying its best but lighting was intermittent, flickering and casting grotesque shadows through the bare metal corridors of the station at the slightest provocation. Reznik was confused: Such a swift attack could not have been accomplished by a single man - but there had been no signs at all of an imminent attack. Who could possibly have put all his security to shame so easily?

He decided he didn't really want to know. His gut was telling him to head for the primary generator, as that had been hit second. As he neared he started to see the bodies - strewn this way and that in a pattern that clearly was not thanks to gunfire. Limbs were severed, heads were crushed - some were missing entire chunks. It was a grisly scene - one that he had taken this job to get away from: It appeared the war had finally caught up with him.

Entering the primary generator he saw that it wasn't just offline. It was blasted to pieces, sizzling bits of circuitry all over the floor along with the technicians in charge of maintaining it. Was this a bombing? There didn't appear to be any explosion damage, it was as if the thing had simply been willed into disintegrating. The bodies too, were not killed by any bomb blast Reznik could detect. He tried not to think about what had the power to do such a thing. All the Jedi were dead by now, surely?

His commlink crackled into life. A nameless soldier's voice yelled at him down the line, incoherent and panicked. There were screams drowning out his words, though Reznik heard all he had to. Lightsaber. Force user. He swallowed, sending the information off as quickly as possible before setting off to find the trooper that had contacted him. He didn't know what he could do against a Jedi but it was his duty at least to try. He mustered what courage he could and went to find his enemy.

It was quieter now. The screams were farther away and fewer in number, whoever their assailant was he seemed to be making quick work. The bodies on the floor carpeted certain areas making his going as unsteady as it was sickening - No Jedi would do this, surely? They at least had their moral code, even if they were all cowards. This was slaughter, the work of a monster. He nearly gagged as he passed a room that at first look contained no bodies, but as he walked past the automatic door slid open and let a small wave of blood and gore wash out across the corridor, it lapped at his boots. Thankfully this commlink went off again, distracting him from the horror within.

"Sir. We've got him."

"All Imperial personnel evacuate! I repeat: All Imperial personnel evacuate!
This is not a drill!
All Imperial personnel evacuate! I repeat: All Imperial personnel evacuate!"​

The hangar he stood in was cavernous. He assumed it was where Imperial ships that did not require screening were housed, though it was empty at present. This was good - as in its current state it presented him with a golden opportunity to finish what these Imperials had decided to start. He doubted they knew who he truly was, their screens had probably flagged him as a simple dissident... How wrong they were. SO far he'd killed about half of the garrison - as well as any civilian eyewitnesses that he happened to come across, though he knew killing literally everyone was all but impossible; some would already be offworld by now. Stories would get out about Epsilon Station, word would travel, but that could no longer be avoided. These Imperials had seen to that.

He'd been standing in the hangar for a good five minutes now, and assumed he was looking at every single surviving trooper in the facility. He'd waited patiently for one to find him, raise their gun and call it in, and quickly enough he had been surrounded by fools with blasters. He'd grown tired of hunting people through the bland metal corridors Imperials seemed to think were the height of architecture. This was as good a place as any to tie up all the loose ends.

Finally a figure in officer's dress entered. His boots were covered in blood as if he'd gone for a walk down the corridors for fun. He assumed this was the one in charge, and sure enough the officer took control of the situation immediately. They strode up to the front of the troopers aiming guns, looked directly at him with a well practiced Imperial sneer, and said one word.

"Fire."

Thirty three Imperial troopers stood in a hangar, all aiming at an unarmed and unarmored opponent. Their commander told them to shoot.

The silence was palpable. The troopers were still as statues, and at first the officer was confused before he noticed the pained expressions on all their faces. He seemed to figure out what was going on pretty quickly and pointed his pistol directly at the unarmed man infront of him.

"Not my men you son of a-"

"All Imperial personnel evacuate! I repeat: All Imperial personnel evacuate!
This is not a drill!
All Imperial personnel evacuate! I repeat: All Imperial personnel evacuate!"​

Captain Reznik stopped dead. He was no longer looking at a robed, bearded man - but instead his wife was standing infront of him. She was looking at him with her big brown eyes, silent. She didn't need to say anything, he already knew what she wanted. What she needed. There was an odd expression on her face: He couldn't tell if it was sadness or anger. What was he doing? He'd pulled a gun on his wife? An assailant? His wife was attacking him? No, he was attacking his wife. He was sure of it, but why? What had prompted him to do something so insane?

The way she was looking at him was most disconcerting. He tried to avert his gaze but he found himself stuck, mesmerized as her stare bored its way into his very soul. He felt cold metal against his temple and realised absent mindedly that he was pointing his gun at his own head, not his wife's. That was better - he wouldn't be able to cope if any harm might come to her. She was the light of his life, he'd do whatever she wanted. He knew exactly what that was.

He smiled. She smiled.

Thirty three Imperial troopers pulled their triggers and fell down.

Now​

He hadn't even broken a sweat, and it really could not have been helped. The people in this station were ultimately in his way, and that was an unforgivable crime. The moment the trooper had stopped him and demanded to see his identification he'd known there was only one course of action to take. A mind trick was too temporary, too unreliable. This way would alert other Imperial checkpoints for a while, but would ultimately be passed off as rebel activity. They would send someone to investigate and they would never return - what other conclusion could there possibly be other than the Rebellion? Misguided as they were, they did represent a useful excuse now and again.

Not even the civilians weighed upon his conscience. He had never been much for the sanctity of the innocent, even less so in these dark days. He'd made a charnel house of this checkpoint, a gory ruin that would take weeks to clear out and would never be forgotten by the people of Mygeeto. He could have slipped by unnoticed. He could have spared these people his wrath.

But why should he?

Once upon a time Epsilon Station wouldn't even have known he'd have passed through. He could have walked right past the guards and have them not bat an eyelid if he so wished, but no. He'd stood in line. Dared them to force his hand. His younger self had more of a heart and fewer urges to destroy his enemies without pause. Once they had challenged him these Imperials had become enemies. Once they were foe? They were doomed.

Lecchamemnon was walking the black road these days. It did not leave room for compassion, or mercy.

He had not yet left Epsilon Station, despite it having almost been a day after the fact. He waited, a spider on its web, for the investigation team to arrive. Any Imperial goons that get sent must be dealt with for this to get passed off as a Rebellion assault, he knew that: They would recognise the marks of a force user and the Hangar standoff hadn't exactly disguised the fact that a powerful force user had torn this place apart, completely ruining the once polished outpost. Blast doors had been atomised, the main generator he'd blasted to bits, he'd even crushed an entire room with the people still inside - leaving nothing but straight smooth walls and a gory soup on the floor. Looking back on what he'd done, he thought he'd exercised remarkable restraint.

He waited for them now in the shattered crater that had once been a ray shield generator. There he stood, meditating upon the galaxy and all he still yet intended to accomplish. Gone was his desire to fade away, gone was his need for anonymity and solitude. He had accepted his fate.

Epsilon Station was dead. Its corridors were gutted, its facilities annihilated and its people slaughtered for sport. The power was fading, the backup generator long having since failed - lights flickered, some died. Somewhere a tannoy array spluttered out the remains of its garbled missive.

"All Imperial ---uate! I repeat: --mperial pe----nel evacuate!
This i---- a drill!
All I------ ersonnel evacu------- eat: All Imperial personnel-"​

 

[Bee]

Despite being a well-traveled young woman, Mygeeto was a planet that Eris had never found a reason to visit in her clandestine, often times ill-fated 'adventures'. It was a cold and once desolate rock, one that seemed permanently locked in a winter that offered its natives no quarter, though in recent years it had become yet another outpost for the ever-expanding Imperium. The Lurmen had been an easy conquest: they were a peaceful people, and on the whole the offered little in the way of resistance to Imperial subjugation. In time, the Empire established a bustling starport known as Epsilon Station, and citizens far and wide flocked to the icy world to capitalize on the slowly but steadily growing economy. Entire families immigrated to start anew, with businesses of all kinds - primarily those catering to military personnel - popping up seemingly overnight.

There were people who liked to condemn the Empire for the way they seemed hell bent on taking over the Galaxy, but the capture of a barren, frozen planet like Mygeeto was enough to put hundreds if not thousands of men and women to work, saving the lot of them from the indignity of idle unemployment. Bringing good, honest work to the masses wasn't the most noble cause, but it was a fine one just the same. Starports, hospitals, schools; the Empire sought to bring order through infrastructure, and though their methods could be heavy-handed on occasion, Eris had a difficult time faulting them for their logic.

Then again, she was a Sith. Rooting for anyone other than the home team was a somewhat risky, if not flat out foolish decision.

As the Spymaster's apprentice, Eris had grown accustomed to jobs that were inherently dangerous. They required subtlety and tact, something many of her peers seemed to be lacking, along with a steady hand and a deep, practical knowledge of the Force. Though she had been a Jedi once, a capable combatant who seemed destined to become something akin to a Weapons Master or a Guardian, she had faltered from the path set before her. She was no longer a blunt instrument but the thin, keen edge of a blade, subtle and efficacious in her service of the Dark Side. When the jobs came in, she never doubted their importance. She treated every mission with the same level of careful reverence regardless of what they entailed, and though the data she'd received from Epsilon Station was peculiar, it wasn't the vague details of the massacre itself that troubled her.

Rather, it was the option to decline the assignment entirely that caught her by surprise - she'd never been given the chance to turn an official order down before, and quite frankly, she had little interest in exercising the newfound right to do so. Whether the operation itself was exceedingly dangerous, or it was simply a courtesy that her new rank allowed her, Eris didn't know. Either way, she accepted the challenge set before her quite gladly, and charted a course to the Albarrio sector without a moment to spare.

The information they'd forwarded her had been skeletal at best. Rumors of a man with a long name that, despite its familiarity, she couldn't quite place; a list of casualties that threatened to crash her datapad on sheer length alone; and fragmented recordings of what had taken place inside the heart of the facility before the surveillance systems went black. The sensors indicated that none of the station's personnel were left alive, but that the port itself was not completely empty. The assailant was presumably still lingering amidst the wreckage that he - or she - had created, and it was her job to bring the bloodthirsty stranger to task.

Ignoring the obvious question of how a single entity could bring an entire spaceport to its collective knees - it had an equally obvious answers, of course: the Force - the Executioner brought her courier down in the station's commodious hangar, unperturbed by the lack of overly-formal voices barking through her ship's comms about landing codes and proper clearances. The protocols had their place of course, but there was something to be said for making a quick, easy entrance without worrying about upsetting the wrong over-worked and critically under-paid console jockey.

Leaving the care of her ship to the droids, Eris made her way down the courier's loading ramp with confident, dutiful steps, taking in a deep breath of the stale, metallic air. Though the hangar itself was impressively large, there was no way anyone with eyes could miss the ring of fallen troopers, all holding their blasters to their foreheads, or the closest approximation thereof, as they lay in a crumpled heap as though they'd all become participants in a swift and sudden suicide pact. Unmoved by the display, Eris crouched down beside the most senior among the deceased, sliding the leather gloves from her hand as she reached out to close the officer's eyes.

It came back like wildfire tearing through the forests of her mind: a strange man, the overconfidence of his security forces, the image of a woman - a woman? - the warmth and certainty of knowing what needed to be done. Eris held still as the memories washed over her, body tensing as the residual images of a self-inflicted gunshot wound sent Captain Reznik to the great beyond. The vision was flawed somehow; the memoir was corrupt and poorly written. Giving her head a slight, almost imperceptible shake, Eris rose and withdrew the small datapad from her pocket, bringing up a holographic display of the spaceport's interior. There was nothing more to learn. She put her gloves back on.

First things first - that fucking alarm is driving me mental. The darkness didn't bother her, nor did the ever present blood and gore. It was the warped, crackling sound of the Captain's voice as it echoed through the station that tried on her nerves, and she moved toward the communications office at a brisk pace with relief in mind. The mostly-dried blood coated the bottoms of her sensible boots as she navigated the facility, but Eris didn't mind. She'd seen a lot of death in her day, and dealt in more than her fair share of it. Where someone more sensitive might find the bodies disturbing, she seemed to have little issue in ignoring their presence. It wasn't as though she could bring them back, after all.

Eventually, she reached the proper console to shut down the tannoy array. The station fell silent, and Eris knew that the man responsible for the carnage would have no choice but to acknowledge her presence. Then again, she'd flown her ship into the hangar without making any attempt at disguising her descent - if he didn't realize that someone had arrived to deal with him, then perhaps he was dead now, too.

But he wasn't. She could feel him, surely in the same way that he could feel her. With little left to do but confront him, Eris moved toward the pull of his presence, making no effort to disguise that which set her apart from the ordinary rank and file.

 

[Denzein]

The faint echoes of a ship's landing gear hitting the deck stirred Lecchamemnon from his meditation. Cracking open a single eye he pondered a moment, taking in the carnage he had already inflicted - and thinking about the horrors he may yet still have to commit. The investigation team must have arrived, it was time to hunt again.

Except this wasn't a simple Imperial squad, was it? He sensed something else at work here. Something powerful and dark. Was this some cruel coincidence? Another strange twist of fate? It was a soothing fantasy.

He knew he should have gone straight for the station's communications array. That would have been the harder thing to do, running the gauntlet of the barracks complex and several blast doors, but it was apparently necessary. Word must have gotten out somehow, word that this was not a simple rebel cell - that was the only reason a Sith, and a powerful one at that, would be summoned here instead of more grunts. His situation had just grown complicated.

Without stopping to think about what this new development meant for his pilgrimage he began to move with purpose once more. Striding from the crater which he'd felt a good place to lie in wait for unwitting loons he resolved to find more neutral ground in which to meet the Sith once more. This was their galaxy now, he knew that, but it still felt off to be confronted by them at every turn no matter where he went. Suspicions must surely be aroused by now that Lecchamemnon had survived the Battle of Coruscant - this was the second encounter in as many weeks. He wondered how long it was before they unearthed his file properly and began the hunt in earnest.

He didn't have much time.

Killing this one would not aid his cause, that much was clear. Killing Imperials was one thing, but leaving Sith corpses for others to find was unwise to say the least. He had hoped for this little misunderstanding to be overlooked once he reached his journey's end, one way or another it was becoming clear this would not be the case and he was unwilling to belabor the point by killing the poor thing that could quite feasibly have been sent to negotiate with him. He doubted that, if he was honest. It seemed as if he was going to have top escape somehow, a pity. He had hoped to make a withdrawal before he left - and Mygeeto liquor had always appealed.

Giving the Sith a chance to say their piece was his best course of action. If they responded poorly to the misfortune of the people here and decided blood was ample payment for blood Lecchamemnon was confident he could fend them off. The trick would be slipping away without getting tracked while also leaving the Sith alive to tell the tale. His ship was in one of the civilian hangars in Delta Section; it was his logical point of exit. Heading right there, however, was likely to put the hunter onto his plan. He didn't know what they were tracking him with and so there was little point in masking his presence, besides a Sith of their power couldn't have failed by now to have confirmed his presence. Blood was in the water.

Stopping in a gutted cantina he vaguely remembered rampaging through mere hours earlier he went to the bar and pulled a bottle to his hand with a gesture. It was shit, the usual sterile anti-freeze one usually found in an Imperial facility, but it would have to do. He collected up a couple of glasses that hadn't been obliterated and set them down at a metallic table. It was sticky, stained with the blood of a man who was still spread-eagled over the far end, but Lecchamemnon ignored him. He poured himself a drink before setting the bottle down in the middle of the table between the two glasses. He sniffed at the brown liquor momentarily before letting the briefest taste past his lips. As he suspected. Shit.

He put down the glass and proceeded to wait. He was genuinely curious to see if this could be settled peacefully - perhaps it would be just as informative for him as it was for them, only time would tell.

He heard footsteps down the corridor. It was time.

 

[Bee]

There were a dozen roundabout ways of entering the starport stealthily, but Eris didn't particularly care for any of them. It was difficult to properly sneak up on someone who was presumably awaiting your arrival, but more than that she found that keeping to the shadows (so to speak, anyway - the whole place was almost entirely in the dark to start with) was inherently threatening, and coming across as an aggressor was a mistake that she hoped to avoid. Suddenly appearing behind someone who had decimated an entire Imperial checkpoint, thus running the risk of scaring them into action - no doubt lethal actions - was a terrible plan, and she knew it. Instead, she made her approach as clear as day: her ship was quiet, but not silent; her presence was the same ebbing darkness as her peers, but she made no effort to pull it away or puff it up as she moved.

He'd stayed behind for a reason, after all; be it madness or guilt or something else entirely, and Eris was curious to find out exactly what that reason was, and who he happened to be. It wasn't every day that a mass murderer showed up in Imperial space.

Where others would've found the silence of the facility unnerving, Eris enjoyed the stillness. She heard her breath, the soft scrunch of metal and organic matter beneath her boots as she moved, and felt her way past the blast doors and down the long, sharply angled corridors in pursuit of the mark who, from what scant information her superiors had offered her, was a terribly dangerous - and supposedly very dead - man who, under no circumstances, was to be trifled with. Perhaps it was foolish to take the assignment. Perhaps it was even more unwise to do it alone. But she was confident in the knowledge that whatever dark and terrible thing that awaited her was nothing she couldn't handle, and though her movements were measured and near-silent - really, it was all the blood that made it difficult to slink around properly - there was little apprehension behind the inquisitiveness that drove her onward.

Reaching out, she pressed her gloved fingertips into a pair of long, deep grooves dug into the passageway's walls. In the dark, it was difficult to tell whether they had been carved out via blaster fire or through the glancing attention of a lightsaber. Nudging the form of a small girl out of her path with a few quick kicks to what felt like the small of her back, Eris indulged her curiosity and knelt down once more, snaking her thumb out of its covering for just a moment. Pressing it against the child's neck, the visions hit her with the force of a recce car to the torso, and she laughed. It was a silent snicker and a slight shake of her head, appreciating the girl's last moments that were quite thankfully far more straightforward than the Captain's had been.

Straightening, Eris shook her head. That's messed up. I shouldn't laugh. And yet, the sly smile remained on her lips just the same.

She could feel him growing nearer, though it was clear he wasn't moving. It was like walking toward the horizon at sunset, watching the sun as it grew larger and larger, until it was right there in front of her, seemingly close enough to reach out and touch, if not for the light years of distance between whatever rock she was standing on and the bright, burning star suspended in the sky.

Except he wasn't in space: he was in a grimy cantina, and she was in the hall. But he felt like a star, and so Eris let herself fall into orbit around him. Planets didn't have a choice, but she liked to believe that she did.

Leaning a hip into the doorway of the barroom, she cast her eyes up at the faded, flickering emergency lights, before turning her attention to the drinker who seemed intent on poisoning himself with whatever cheap, watered down garbage they served to the ordinary men and women who didn't bear some kind of officer's uniform or insignia.

"There should be a cooler behind the bar. That's usually where places like this keep the good stuff." The lopsided smile on her lips had faded, though there was still a hint of quiet amusement in her tone, as though the act of turning a military checkpoint into an abattoir bordered on droll. "Assuming they've got anything halfway decent lying around, that is."

Rather than linger in the doorway, Eris moved into the cantina proper. She approached him casually, stopping a couple meters to the right, one arm draped across her chest while the palm of her opposite hand rested thoughtfully on her cheek. Even in the dark, it was clear that she was young. Tall and fair-haired, she wore a simple pair of black pants, a black shirt, and a leather jacket, all the same shade as the boots on her feet and the gloves that covered up to her wrists. It wasn't exactly standard Sith attire, but she wasn't the type to go brandishing her cloak laser sword at people in a feeble attempt to scare them into submission. Rather, the hilt of her weapon remained attached to her belt, along with a heavy pistol and an inert glowrod, present but unnecessary for the time being.

"Mind if I take a look?" For the 'good stuff', as it were. She didn't expect to find anything, but that was hardly the point.

 

[Denzein]

She entered and he looked up.

Apparently he had found the wrong liquor, how amusing. There was a surreal quality to the act they were both performing, such civility and restraint in a setting so filled with horror. He wasn't surprised - many Sith made wit and guile their weaponry moreso than frothing madness and lightning, and in Lecchamemnon's opinion they were ever the more dangerous of their kind. A Berserker need only be out fought and they are crushed, there are no layers or subtleties to the confrontation. Not so with a thinker: Each of those was a puzzle, unique and deadly in their own way. What had just walked into the bar was a riddle, one Lecchamemnon planned to dissect, not toy with.

She was young and yet still held all that strength. She would go far if she survived the cut throat world that was Sith high society, he had no doubt. Of course she also had to survive this encounter, but that was largely going to be down to her words and actions, not his. If she ended up joining her comrades in death today it would be her own fault, one way or another. Lecchamemnon hoped to that end she'd managed to shed the youthful naivety common among those who wielded such power at her age: He knew it had taken himself several decades to temper his own mind. It would remain to be seen.

"By all means, I have no desire to drink whatever this is anyway. Why did they send you and not just a regular team? Was I careless?"

A slightly leading question to start with to probe this latest emissary. As she passed behind him he was aware of where she was at all times, he didn't turn to face her because he didn't need his eyes and could move faster positioned the way he was; it was all quite deliberate. If it did turn out she was here for a fight then getting behind him was a promising advantage, or at least it appeared to be. He waited, relaxed and calm for her to re-emerge with a bottle, or to make whatever move she was here to make.

As to what she was facing Lecchamemnon looked his usual self. His cloth was of fine Necropolitan make, if a little bloodstained, with an understated fur mantle about his shoulders. His hood was down, there was no need to hide his identity here. A lightsaber of the finest quality hung casually from his belt, shaped from ivory and carved with countless tiny hieroglyphs from a culture the galaxy wished it could forget. Lecchamemnon himself was well groomed, his beard kept as he had grown accustomed to during his time on Necropolis. His greying hair was of medium length, his face marred not by the scars one might expect from a man with such a bloody past, but with the slight hint of wrinkles-to-be. The shadows underneath his eyes were the only indication that he was technically a fugitive from the largest authority in the galaxy, or a sign of unstable sleep at least. He didn't look like a monster. Disgraced Jedi perhaps, but not a monster.

Then again neither did she.

Where they both showed their true colours was through the force. She was Sith, a fact made clear by the merest glimpse of her through his mind. He'd seen her kind of aura before countless times: Dark, mysterious, intelligent. He was similar, but different nonetheless - Lecchamemnon knew his own soul, and it was not evil in the same way a Sith's was. A Sith was a dominator, someone hellbent on control whether they knew and accepted it or not: He didn't want or need control of anything anymore. All Lecchamemnon wanted was to follow his fate, wherever he believed that might lead. His soul was just as black as hers and burned strong as an inferno, chilled like the deadliest blizzard, consumed as the most voracious black hole... But it was devoid of want, absent of passion. Everything that made a Sith strong he lacked. Everything aside from hate.

Perhaps that was why he resented them so. Perhaps that was why he had learned their ways and mastered their techniques. Perhaps that was why he had sought out the Jedi all those years ago.

Perhaps it had all simply been fate. Perhaps it had all simply been hate.

 

[Bee]

Truthfully, Eris didn't have much of a taste for liquor anymore. Part of it was due to the fact that she'd been a sorry excuse for a bartender for far longer than she would've liked, and being around the stuff day in and day out was enough to put her off the majority of it for quite a while. Though she'd left that life behind, transitioning into the role of a spy, one who had amassed considerable prestige in the very organization she'd been sent to undermine no less, had effectively robbed her of any desire to loosen her tongue or her mind with even the handful of whiskeys she'd found to be relatively palatable. It turned her into an accidental teetotaler in a galaxy full of rampant alcoholics, which was a very strange thing to be. Then again, it was far better to be living and sober than it was to be drunk and dead. Or so she figured, anyway. It wasn't like she had a lot of experience with dying.

When it came to death, though? Eris was quite accomplished in that area. She was a professional, after all. There were many people who made killing an art, who traded in blood and in pain, but she'd found ways to make the suffering of others uniquely profitable, and she did it with such efficiency that her services were highly sought after. Given her talents, the fact that her assignment had not included bringing him down was odd; they simply wanted visual confirmation, both of Lecchamemnon and the station's condition, and nothing more. It seemed like such a waste, though - who was he, and what was he capable of? Why did the higher ups seem so damned scared?

Facing the bar, she placed a hand on the sticky surface and vaulted herself over the counter, giving the spread eagle corpse of the establishment's owner a wide berth. The bodies didn't bother her, but that wasn't to suggest she had any interest in getting cozy with them unless it was absolutely necessary. His question caught her off guard in its simplicity, and Eris wondered if it was perhaps a rhetorical one. Giving a slight cant of her head, she suppressed a laugh. "Ah, no." Careless? She almost scoffed at the thought. Almost.

Honestly, the destruction was kind of impressive. It was a senseless loss of life, sure. But there was so much blood! It was hard to fathom just how many people had to bleed for the hallways to run red with the stuff. "Well, maybe a bit - you could've taken out the comm station, for starters." Raising a shoulder, Eris shrugged as she made the offhand remark. "But unless you brought the towers down, I don't think you could've stopped anyone from hearing about all this." The wording was deliberate. Non-confrontational. There was no doubt in her mind that he'd caused the mayhem, but she wasn't some moral crusader - she didn't need him to feel bad, or guilty, or even apologetic about what he'd done.

Crouching, she pulled open the small fridge beneath the counter and frowned. If Sullustan gin was the best they could find, perhaps he'd done the station a favor by putting everyone on it out of their misery. Grabbing the bottle, she placed it on the bar regardless of her feelings on the stuff, opting to lean against the mostly empty shelves that made up the back of the bar area for the time being.

"I'm here because they're not stupid enough to send another squad of lambs off to the slaughter." At least the Empire learned from their mistakes. There were other groups in the galaxy who couldn't claim as such. "No offense. I'm pretty sure that's the reason, anyway. Or, conversely, I was the only one dumb enough to actually accept the order to come out here." Letting a slight grin through, she studied his features as closely as she could, resisting the urge to fall back on the Force to enhance her sight. She'd had cybernetics once, and as odd and bothersome as they had been, they were useful in the dark. Part of her missed the convenience.

Honestly, for a potentially insane mass murderer, he wasn't bad looking. That in itself was odd. "Are you disappointed?"

 

[Denzein]

Was he disappointed?

It was a peculiar thing to ask, but then this was a peculiar situation. A Sith and a... Jedi? Walked into a bar? No, that wasn't right. Whatever he was now wasn't a Jedi by any stretch of the imagination. Did that disappoint him?

He honestly didn't know, he'd never bothered to think about it before. It was something to answer, when he had time. This was not the appropriate situation for soul searching, and besides it hadn't been what she meant. He decided to take her question at face value: Was he disappointed that his plan, here and now, had been dashed by her specific arrival? No, of course not. It was unexpected, but so long as he didn't end up killing her he was confident the situation would remain under control. It wasn't as if his plan was to travel directly to Bastion and murder everything he could, after all.

"Should I be?"

It was a lazy response and he knew it, answering questions with questions was only going to get him so far. He didn't acknowledge his part in the killings, as far as he was concerned he didn't have to, it was obvious. He also doubted that she would require hard evidence to support her claims of how Epsilon Station died - they wouldn't give such a task to someone they weren't going to trust the word of. Besides, it sounded as if she'd actually had the option to decline the mission from the way she phrased herself. That was genuinely funny; Sith hierarchy giving a subordinate choice sounded about as alien to him as it could get. Somebody somewhere must really be scared of his name. He briefly wondered who.

Her assessment of his assault chimed perfectly with his own, intriguing. The moment he'd made the decision to kill these people he'd known deep down that there was no going back, that the Sith would know, and upon investigation conclude it was a force user, not rebellion. The marks were obvious - lightsaber wounds and structural damage, obvious force talent, the impossibly fast movement through the facility, the list went on. Sooner or later they'd know it was his work, whether they wanted to or not. All this he realised, was his greeting. A way of saying hello to a people that had been his mortal enemy for most of his life.

Some greeting.

He picked up his glass again and upturned it, spilling its contents onto the floor. Eyeing the bottle of gin and realising there was no way he was going to let that past his lips either, he simply put the glass back down and left it. That was all she could find? Perhaps the galaxy was trying to tell him that drinking wasn't his thing. He'd always suspected.

As she studied him, so did he look at her. There was something off: She looked human, sure, but he sensed that there was more to her lineage. Kiffar? Not hairy enough. Sephi? He'd be able to tell, being one himself. It was useless trying to guess, and besides it honestly wasn't important. He was disinterested in her appearance, what mattered to him was her mind: He wanted to know what the Sith thought they knew, and the woman standing in front of him was his best way in. After this encounter they would know for sure of his survival, but that would be all they knew - he would see to that.

A plan formed in his labyrinthine mind. Considering the end point of his self imposed pilgrimage, and the nature of the thing he intended to go and meet, perhaps it would be best to throw them off the scent. He could turn the appearance of this Sith from an unfortunate exposure into a valuable advantage - and all he had to do was sit here, talk and make sure the woman didn't end up dead. Simplicity itself.

"Are they really so scared of me? It's been a decade since Coruscant, for all they know I've waned into insignificance," The memory of his most recent encounter with a Sith sprang unbidden, and he smiled. "I'm really not all that threatening anymore. Sit, please, I think there's much we can learn from eachother."

The lie was so obvious it almost hurt, it chafed at his pride to play the fool. But needs must, as they say.

 

[Bee]

Regarding him with a knowing grin - acknowledging his lazy response without explicitly calling him out on the dawdling reply - Eris shook her head. "That depends. If you were looking to add more bodies to your tableau, then yes. I think disappointment would be a perfectly valid reaction."

You would've killed me before I opened the cooler - the opportunity was there, and you didn't take it.

The way she spoke - leaving so much left unsaid - implied the obvious: Eris believed in the idea that he was looking for more than just bloodshed, but beyond that, she couldn't speak to his motives. He was an enigma in nearly every sense of the word, with the file she'd been granted access to providing very little in the way of information regarding his past or what he was capable of. But whoever had compiled the information - and then redacted the vast majority of it, for reasons beyond even her pay grade - had seen fit to mark his risk assessment as extreme, which was interesting enough in itself. But prior, unobscured edits had used the word catastrophic in its place, and as she watched him with a kind of guarded curiosity, dark eyes twinkling in the flickering emergency lights, she wondered which was worse.

"One corpse is far less compelling than twelve, after all. But if you were looking for.. understanding," the word felt heavy on her tongue, almost incorrect. But it wasn't. She'd killed a lot of people for far less than whatever he was seeking; perhaps they'd sent a monster to catch a monster after all, as though the Dark Council knew full well what kind of awful weapon they'd created. It seemed difficult to believe that they didn't. She'd been molded and shaped by the very Council members who were, she imagined, eagerly awaiting the details of her arrival on Epsilon Station and what, exactly, she found there. Maybe it was another test. Eris wasn't so sure how she felt about that.

".. Or at the very least some company, then no. I wouldn't be disappointed, if I were you." But I definitely would've disabled the comm station.

Though she wasn't one to speak at length about anything, keeping up conversation was a remarkably easy thing to do. She was an honest woman, for the most part. It made it that much easier to ensure that her lies were easily believed, though telepathic suggestion and a healthy dose of pheromones helped, too. But she had no reason to employ such techniques with him, and for the time being she watched him from across the cantina as though they were old friends, her posture relaxed as she turned the bottle of gin over in her hands. Disgusting stuff, really. Hopefully the rest of the Empire's outposts weren't as poorly stocked as the ones on Mygeeto.

At his suggestion, she placed the bottle down on the counter and let out a quiet laugh. It was hard to believe his self-assessment, that he'd 'waned into insignificance' and yet somehow managed to decimate an entire Imperial checkpoint like a child playing with - and then violently dismantling - his construction toys. "I'm not sure that kind of modesty suits you."

Whether or not he was a threat, well, she really couldn't say. Still, she indulged his request without much in the way of hesitation, once more jumping over the bar with all the ease of someone who truly believed that concepts like gravity were, at best, mere suggestions. There was a kind of malevolent grace in the way she moved, all purpose and efficiency, more closely compared to that of a self-possessed predator than a temptress, and when she sat down across the metal table from him she rested her forearms on the bloodied surface without any concern for whether or not it would stain her coat. It probably would - and blood was really such a nasty thing to deal with, when it came to doing the laundry - but she didn't really care.

"After all, what in the galaxy could I possibly teach you, Lecchamemnon?" Stars' end, I hope I'm saying that right.

 

[Denzein]

"Well, Imperial Fleet dispositions near Korriban, dry dock locations and starmaps indicating their projected routes and stops for the next month or so, for a start."

He kept his expression deadpan for a few long seconds, just to watch her face as she processed what he was demanding. Then, slowly, half a smile crept onto his face. He didn't know what she was expecting from him but he bet it wasn't humour. There was no reason to, in the past he'd been famously dour - and in truth that was how he felt most of the time still - but that didn't mean he was completely one dimensional. A few short decades ago Lecchamemnon would have scowled at the idea of cracking a joke in an interrogation, scoffed and called it childish. Nowadays he was different, tempered by his many failings. Whatever worked, as they say, worked.

It was a precarious dance, but he felt sure she wouldn't stop the act just yet and so he had no intention of dropping his. Everything about their encounter up to this point, so far as Lecchamemnon was concerned, had been idle lies and misdirection. One of them would have to move first, however, so he'd have to give her something. The joke about Korriban was still only a joke, but it had that one kernel of truth to it that lent it a compelling, even believable interpretation. He could well mean to travel to Korriban, and right now he hoped she was imagining the carnage of Epsilon station meted out among her Sith comrades. She'd already admitted that Sith high command feared him, how far did that extend? Would she willingly accept that Lecchamemnon could single handedly destroy the temple of Korriban? Of course not, such an idea was ludicrous. All he required, however, was for her to think about the possibility, and just how far he might get before weight of numbers dragged him down.

He considered it himself for a short moment. His smile widened.

Her compliments were as poisonous as her laugh, all of it designed to ease him into what she clearly hoped would turn into some kind of interrogation. Lecchamemnon himself was playing the very same game in return, surely she saw that - it wasn't his usual style, of course. Ordinarily he'd have broken her by now, physically if not mentally. What he hoped the pair of them sparring like this would achieve was the removal of both of their barriers, and in the doing obtain an even trade of information. She already knew he lived, in his eyes anything else he said paled in comparison to that knowledge - but hopefully not to her. He was counting on her curiosity, on her desire to know what the Sith hadn't told her because they too, in truth, did not know. He was going to offer her a small piece of his soul, and gamble that the weight of such a prize blinded her to cost.

That, and the fact that he intended to lie. The smile faded from his lips, but it had never made it to his eyes in the first place.

"You're right, I'm not a very modest man - so when I say you can teach me something I probably mean it, wouldn't you agree?" It was a gentle rebuke, one shaped to compliment the joke he'd already told. It suggested sincerity and a faintly wounded pride, that he was dropping his guard for but a moment - something the Sith could no doubt use. "You can teach me about the life of a Sith. I've studied your kind for the better part of a century, but never from within. Funnily enough in all my travels I've never had a civilised discussion with one of you before now, so tell me. What's it like?"

It was a tempting fruit that he dangled in front of her. A chink in the armour? It certainly looked that way.

 

[Bee]

The difference between them, not counting age or ability or even the obvious markers like gender and species, was that when Eris smiled, her eyes narrowed. Her cheeks perked upward, and a hint of white - her upper teeth - was visible through the slightly parted bow of her lips. What they had in common, however, was that their happiness was not genuine. She was a much better faker in that regard, far more experienced in twisting the perception of others through actions and words, though whether or not that was something to be proud of was certainly up for debate. Regardless, his attempt to throw her with a joke worked, to an extent. It took a handful of seconds for that well-practiced but wholly disingenuous grin take hold of her face, and when it did she shook her head, as though she couldn't believe he'd even bothered to ask something so ridiculous - or, perhaps, that she briefly flirted with the idea of giving him what he wanted to know.

"You might be better off just asking for a ride to the capitol, if that's what you're after." The small laugh, slightly distant as she pictured the potential carnage, was completely sincere.

It was a hell of a thing to think, after all. The idea that some mysterious and potentially all-powerful monster might descend upon Korriban in the same way that he had taken to the spaceport, turning the classrooms into slaughterhouses, turning the desert rock into an even bigger tomb, was absurd. The Sith would put up more of a resistance than the Imperial's armed forces ever could, but there'd be dozens, perhaps hundreds of casualties before anyone stopped him. Acolytes who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time would fall like dust, Crusaders who fought, eager to prove themselves as real contenders, would follow suit. And though the Master Sith might manage to slow him down eventually, she didn't exactly have the greatest idea of just how strong in the Force he was to make a proper assessment of his chances from there. But he felt powerful, much in the same way the Sith Lords did, and Eris could only imagine that his designation as a potentially catastrophic threat to the Imperium was worth paying heed to. Adjusting her posture somewhat, she crossed one leg over the other, keeping her green eyes focused on the man in front of her.

Allegiance was a funny thing. Eris respected the Council, and even found some of her peers to be tolerable. But save for her students, she almost considered the Sith, as a whole, to be expendable. Almost. It wasn't the kind of thought she was foolish enough to speak aloud, but for her, the Empire was a means to an end. They were the winning side in a conflict that would eventually consume the galaxy, and being the shrewd contender that she was, she didn't want to get mixed up with the losing team. Perhaps that made her a monster, too. But she wasn't naive enough to deny the accusation - she simply hovered on the edge of that moral event horizon, toeing the boundary around the point of no return.

And again, he took her by surprise. The interrogation, for lack of a better word, could wait. If he wanted to know about the Sith, then perhaps he'd indulge her in a fair trade? It was hard to know for certain, and Eris could only hope he would indulge her interest if she humored his.

Giving the question some thought, eyes falling away from his face and instead fixing on some far off point in the darkness, she took her time weighing her options, considering just how much she could possibly reveal. If he'd studied the Imperium for so long, it was fair to assume he understood their ranks and structure quite well - he wasn't looking for the facts that anyone could find in a holocron, but rather what the experience, as a whole, was like. It was a question she was uniquely qualified to answer, though she doubted he knew the reasons why.

"It's exactly like being a Jedi." Knowing full well that it was a bold thing to say, Eris let the words hang in the air for a bit, her grin bordering on sincere.

"But you don't have to worry about anyone crashing a starship into your temple."

 

[Denzein]

He wasn't sure if she was fishing for a reaction, trying to figure out his plans or actually being sincere. Her answer resonated with him and he was hard pressed not to show it, blinking but retaining the passive expression he'd been wearing. It wasn't the idle gloating about the Will of the Force that got to him, or the fact that she was wearing her best accommodating smile while she spoke - it was that she'd confirmed what he always suspected. He wasn't sure if the revelation vindicated him or made all he'd done worse.

There was no difference, they were as good - and as bad - as eachother.

For decades the Loremaster's chambers on Tython had become a forbidden place to other Jedi, somewhere nobody wanted to be told to go. There had always been stories of him practicing things he shouldn't have, and most of them were true. He'd hidden a deadly corruption within the very heart of the Jedi Order, or so Lecchamemnon used to believe. It had been the shame he felt over this that had caused him to leave in the first place, exiling himself just a few short years after he'd accepted the title of Grandmaster. If he'd felt the way he does now back then? Perhaps it wouldn't be a Sith he was talking to right now.

It had been during his long stay on Necropolis that he'd finally found the time to consider the nature of his great enemy, and with them also the true face of the Jedi. His findings had been disturbing to say the least. He'd done his best to put them from his mind, the idea of a Sith Empire being functionally no different to the Alliance and the Jedi felt deeply wrong to him - but he couldn't ignore the fact that he was a biased man: The Jedi had essentially raised him since he left his homeworld, it was only natural to assume their age old enemies as his own.

Her response confirmed what was in some ways Lecchamemnon's only fear: That the only thing separating the woman in front of him from any of the true Jedi he'd known long ago was a cultural divide, a difference in perspective. What she was telling him, though she didn't know it, was that when Lecchamemnon left the Jedi for the last time he'd betrayed them instead of saving them. Strength was strength, the Galaxy really was that simple, and he'd robbed them of a great deal when he stole away in the night.

Then again if he had stayed, the war might still be ongoing and billions more innocents might have died. Any victory ended a war, after all.

He put his demons aside. They were neither constructive or helpful, and letting her get any further into his head was a bad idea. He'd tried to set her up and instead managed to compromise himself, however briefly. He should have known - this was what she did for a living, where as he was only playing. He'd already forbidden himself from settling this on his terms, after all. He hadn't failed completely however: At the very least he'd given her the one and only clue as to where he might be going next - a shoddy joke was all she'd have to report back on.

"Power is power. The Jedi know this, even if they don't like to admit it - it's why throughout history they've always usurped the monsters like... you." He'd chosen his words carefully. In truth the pair of them were both things proper Jedi would abhor, but it had been an air of familiarity that caused him to slip. They might both have blood on their hands, but Lecchamemnon made it clear where they stood. His interpretation of the history books was deliberately biased: He knew that there was in fact a cyclic nature to the relationship between the Jedi and the Sith, that one could never truly destroy the other. It galled him to have to stoop like this, to give her all the openings she could want.

Besides, he wasn't actually a Sith. Historically the Jedi were a lot more tolerant of what he had become than her kind. He was right, after a fashion.

"But what do you have to worry about, then? A Jedi has no fear that his comrades are about to assassinate him, I imagine the same is not true for a Sith?" He knew it wasn't, and she probably knew he did. That wasn't the point, he wanted to know what threatened her specifically.

 

[Bee]

There was a good-natured skepticism in her expression, in the way her features softened somewhat, brows raising as she tilted her head in his direction. Somehow, Eris managed to keep the incredulity out of her tone. "Like me?"

She didn't have to say it: her look implied it well enough, that the proper term was not a singular one - it was plural. He wasn't entirely wrong, though. Regardless of his actions on Epsilon Station, Eris was a monster by most people's standards, though it was a more colorful designation than she would've liked. It was the kind of title that purposefully evoked an emotional response, one that played on people's fears and misconceptions of Force users in general. Words were powerful; more than a lightsaber, more than political clout, more than credits. Words were weapons. She liked to believe she was adept at using them, but his defenses were just as good. There was little sign that her claim had affected him at all, and his impassive response made her wonder whether or not he was aware of the misfortunes that had befallen the Jedi Order.

Eris wasn't the type of person to gloat, monster or otherwise. But knowing that she'd been the catalyst behind a wildly successful attack on the Order's flagship and their most populous temple was exhilarating. In a way, it felt like winning every argument with the perfect pithy comeback years after the fact - the victory being made no less sweet after the passing of so much time.

It didn't take a mind-reader to know exactly what he meant with such a seemingly innocuous question. He wasn't wondering about what a random Acolyte or Crusader had to fear - he wanted to know what she was afraid of, either personally or as someone who was a cut above the majority of the Sith. It was a bold thing to ask, and there was a part of her that wanted to indulge his curiosity, only because there was no way - in her mind, anyway - that he was expecting a genuine answer. It was like the villain of a holo-film explaining their master plan while the hero and his (or her) friends still had a chance to thwart those evil machinations. It was stupid, irresponsible, and completely unrealistic.

Then again, there were plenty dumb people all over the galaxy - maybe it wasn't that improbable after all. There were plenty of things she could tell him, though: she couldn't swim, she was allergic to kolto, and up until quite recently she'd been at the mercy of a disease that threatened to kill her slowly, without mercy. But none of those answers were the right one, and not unlike his attempt at deflecting her earlier question about disappointment, giving him some half-assed reply was nothing if not lazy.

And while she was certainly any number of things, lazy was not one of them. "It isn't quite the bloody existence its made out to be," she offered casually, then taking the time to consider her words. "People do die - its unavoidable, sometimes - but I think its rare to hear of anyone executing a learner because they forgot to bow their head to someone." Screaming about slitting the Empress' throat, however, was a perfectly valid reason to end an Acolyte's life.

"And there are people who think the quickest way to the top is by killing their competition. But they're very short-sighted - they seek power, and they'll get a measure of it for their prowess, but they're limited in how far they can go." Speaking with a careful but absolute honesty, her eyes found his as though to further emphasize whatever she was going to say next.

"Murder for murder's sake weakens us as a whole. The Council knows it, and they won't stand for it." Men like Lord Weiss and Darth Tarak were, almost to a fault, completely reasonable. They saw the bigger picture, and it didn't take a genius to realize that executing their own was a fantastic way to weaken the Imperium - much in the same way that inaction had helped bring the Jedi to their ruin. Pausing in her explanation, Eris let out a sigh. Her lips curled into a self-conscious smile, and she lowered her head. "I'm sorry. I got carried away."

Tapping her fingertips on the table, she bit her lower lip some, teeth worrying the bit of flesh while her mind wandered back to the last thing he'd said. "You asked me what I'm afraid of - I don't really know. But there are fates worse than death." It was a flippant response, but no less untrue for the fact: a lifetime of torture or blind servitude were far less appealing than a lightsaber to the heart, after all. "And I'd rather not think about any of them. Does that answer your question?"

 

[Denzein]

He listened to her every word with avid intent. He knew that asking something so thinly veiled would result in a tirade of misdirection and half truths, but he hoped he'd be able to filter out something of note. Almost staring at her as she spoke, his mind worked frantically behind the placid armour he wore. The vast majority of it was true, he knew because it was mostly conclusions he'd come to himself, but it was all irrelevant. She was telling him everything while giving him nothing.

Then, finally, she slipped. It was such a little thing, or so it must seem to her. To Lecchamemnon it meant everything, the vindication of his choice to walk once more under the stars. It was all he could do not to break into a grin.

The Sith Council discouraged killing: Lecchamemnon found this point in particular fascinating. The core of what he'd wanted to know was whether or not the council were a group to be feared by a Sith of whatever this woman's level was (which he presumed to be around master, judging from her aura and the fact that she must be at least somewhat expendable considering she was sent to find him), and her unintentional answer was promising. If they didn't want to kill their own, they wanted to preserve the potential and the legacy of the Sith more than they wanted to weed out the unworthy.

That flaw could be used.

Everything else she said was irrelevant, he'd got what he wanted from this little encounter. Without missing a beat though he nodded, smiling in that way that never quite reached his eyes. He spoke in the same thoughtful tone as before, trying hard not to let on that as far as he was concerned this conversation couldn't end soon enough. All he had to do was feed her lies until they went their separate ways.

"Yes, I believe it does. You've been very co-operative, thankyou." Of course he still had to figure out how to leave without killing the poor woman, as far as he could see there were two options: The first was riskier, and involved seeing their exchange through to the end. The second was to simply beat her into submission, but leave her with enough life in her veins to crawl away and hopefully report the misinformation he was trying to plant in her mind.

A strange moan echoed down the corridor outside, as if a breeze had passed through though there was no wind this far into the station. Lecchamemnon shifted in his stance somewhat, casually sitting up. The faintest glimmer of force energy passed through his form. He was still smiling amicably.

"Isn't this the point at which you tell me you're the one asking the questions here?"

 

[Bee]

Something about the polite way he'd thanked her for being so co-operative was terribly amusing. Unable to help herself, Eris let her lips curl into a wide grin, teeth bared and nose wrinkled up, in a facetious attempt at a compliant smile. She blinked twice, eyelashes fluttering for just a moment, all the while that smirk illustrating the absurdity of their situation. He'd killed every living creature on the space station with ruthless efficiency, and here they were talking about philosophy like ladies might discuss the latest trashy holo-novel over tea. Holding the expression for a few seconds that still somehow felt far too long, she let out a soft laugh. Unlike her previous smiles, it was more or less genuine, accompanied by a shake of her head that seemed almost apologetic. "I try."

There was an old saying, something about flies and honey and vinegar, that Eris struggled to remember. But it was no great surprise that people were more likely to respond positively to sweetness - or at the very least, calm civility - than they were to vitriol, and while she had since moved on from her days as a literal honey pot, the lessons she'd learned during that time still applied. Seemingly unaware of whatever information she had inadvertently given him, the Sith was content to fold her hands in her lap and watch him, bright eyes searching for yet another hole in the armor he so carefully wore. She wasn't foolish enough to attempt a psychic assault, nor did she have any reason to invade the privacy of his mind, but the temptation was certainly there. Patience was key. He'd tell her everything she wanted to know, in time; if she played her cards right - if he didn't just up and leave - she'd have him figured out before nightfall.

The low, haunting groan that swept through the facility brought a small frown to her face, brow furrowing as her lips pressed together in a thin, thoughtful line. The hangar's magcon shields had been intact, and the facility had somehow managed to complete its lockdown procedures before Lecchamemnon had his way with the place. Reinforcements were still hours, if not days, away.

So where the hell did it come from?

There was suspicion in the way she looked at him, though curiosity eventually peeked through, as though she'd managed to somehow decipher his plan. Eris could feel that he was powerful - was he trying to trap her in the cantina with him? Had he pulled down a wall through sheer force of will, bending the durasteel bit by bit while she spoke, cutting off any chance of escape? For the time being, she remained put. Bouncing the leg crossed over her knee to some unheard beat, his question pulled her from her thoughts and she offered yet another perfectly insincere smile.

"What? No." We're not in a movie, she thought absently, though the mental image was amusing. Was she the femme fatale trying to outwit a disgraced but good-hearted detective? Or was he the lurking serial killer, waiting for her to trip and fall as she ran up the stairs to escape him?

"I mean.." Eris let out a sigh, looking him over. "You've already given everything away."

 

[Denzein]

The smile never even wavered, for her words were music to his ears. She had the information that he was alive and had indeed been responsible for the atrocity at Epsilon Station. The name Lecchamemnon would once again be heard in the halls of the Sith, thrown about as a current affair rather than a scholar's conundrum. Whether he liked it or not remaining anonymous was no longer an option: He could embrace his fate, or accept that eventually a Sith assassin's knife would find his heart. Lecchamemnon was not the sort to lie down and die; even his sojourn on Necropolis had been a way of postponing that inevitability. His mystery was solved, the manner of his death laid bare by this woman for all to see.

He had never died.

He was pleased because he'd left the Sith Order with more questions than answers in the light of his return. He was interested in their institutions, their temples in particular, and the Dark Lords that ruled them. Why, was he an enemy? An accomplice? Simply curious? Had everything he'd said been a total misdirection and he instead intended to slip away once more? This was the mess he'd constructed, the puzzle for Sith analysts to figure out as he used the breathing room he hoped he'd just bought. He didn't expect to fully hoodwink them of course, they (present company no doubt included) were some of the finest minds in the Galaxy and well equipped to unravel the kind of enigma he's only had scant minutes to piece together. His questions and conversation might not have flowed naturally, but his mind had always been set on one purpose since he'd resolved to sit down and talk.

He'd found out the Lords of the Sith were most likely open to dialogue, and he'd given up little else other than the fact that he was alive. His... Interrogator? Had even provided him a suitable means of departure. The conversation had reached a natural end: Whether she intended it or not (and in truth Lecchamemnon did not know, he was already playing with fire and was unwilling to make further assumptions) her idle riposte made it sound as if she had nothing else to say. She hadn't even reacted to the noise from the corridor, which he thought odd. Did she not think she was in danger here? That wasn't it, she was no fool. It must simply be a lack of fear.

He nodded. His smiling mouth didn't fade, betraying nothing of his thoughts. He almost wished she'd tried a more conventional Sith interrogation technique, such as a mental probe - she would not have been the first to try and forcibly enter his mind, and was far from the most dangerous. It was a trap many had fallen for, the allure of all the Holocrons of Lecchamemnon... None so far had emerged from the other side of such an attempt.

Then again this encounter had been an experience all of its own: It was the first civilised conversation he'd ever had with a Sith, even if it was mired in half truths and posturing. It in itself was proof that some of them were willing to treat with non-Sith, if not as equals then at least as valued assets. He didn't care why they did it, just so long as it was possible. In spite of himself he found himself respecting the woman sitting opposite: She had come here alone and accomplished her mission, calmly facing down and engaging one of the greatest horrors of her time in conversation. She had not faltered, given him no reason to kill her and resisted the Sith compulsion to resort to violence when faced with an enemy. It was impressive work, no doubt her masters would be pleased.

But enough idle thought: It was time to leave. She'd said it herself, there was nothing more he could give her. There was nothing more she could find.

"I see," He hesitated, placing one hand on the metal table. Was she expecting him to simply go? Was she prepared to let him? The moment of truth was upon them, there was tension in the air. "Well then I capitulate to your superior technique; clearly you are far more practiced than I." Again with the modesty. She already thought it didn't suit him, that it didn't fit his reputation as a nightmare for the whole Galaxy to share. His intent in using it was obvious: While his words told her he was defeated the implication was clearly that he'd gotten what he came for, and whether or not she felt she had enough this conversation was not going to go any further. It was almost a sneer, it probably would have been had she been a more common opponent. This one though, Lecchamemnon did not intend to insult. He hoped she correctly read his intent:

I enjoyed our conversation, but I'm not giving you anything else - I already have what I want.

He made to stand, ready to react if she tried a move of any description. There was another ripple of energy from the corridor - more noticeable now. "As I see it there is little point in me staying until a clean up crew arrives, I doubt you're here to encourage me to kill more Imperial citizens. I enjoyed our talk."

His final sentence was perhaps the first truly honest thing she'd heard him say. It stood out, his voice more thoughtful and less measured than it had been while they were exchanging blows. He hadn't meant it to, it was a genuine slip: One born of the fact that Lecchamemnon was about to leave, as far as he was concerned.

Where he went next? Only Lecchamemnon knew. The Sith would scramble their great thinkers, assassins and whatever else they thought might help - but it would all be in vain. They would not have time to track him down again. Despite now having had two confirmed encounters with him the Sith had learned nothing new: They had only what they'd always suspected.

That Lecchamemnon, Former Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and Living Saint of the Church of Nothing, had returned. And he was not idle.

 

[Bee]

Eris had been afraid at one point in her life. But she'd shot that fear in the face long ago - long before someone like Lecchamemnon came along - and though it was perhaps foolish, she resolved to live a life without fear of consequences, without timidity, without eternally wondering what if. It wasn't that she didn't plan ahead, or didn't take into account the consequences of her actions. She simply accepted the fact that one day she was going to die, just like everyone else in the galaxy, and between then and the present - whether that present included chasing down criminals for the Cartel (how ironic!) or confronting mass murderers for the Empire - there was nothing to be afraid of. The far-off howling in the darkness was nothing: either the wind had somehow gotten in through an improbably open door, or he was trying to play a trick on her. Neither of those things, even taking into account a very natural, very reasonable fear of the unknown, cowed her.

Being an almost insufferable pragmatist came in handy, sometimes.

Her eyes followed his movements, noting first the way he placed his hands against the table, as though testing the waters before ultimately deciding to stand. Save for the slight motion of her head, Eris herself remained still, watching with the same keen interest she'd observed him with during their ongoing conversation. He was just so.. odd. Part of her wondered if he was truly human, or if perhaps he was simply wearing the skin of one - not a shapeshifter, but a thing that inhabited the bodies of others the same way she wore her coat - but she knew it was idle speculation, and completely outside the realm of possibility.

"There you go being modest again." Eris waved her hand dismissively, as though brushing the comment aside. Pulling a playful smile, she shook her head and followed his lead, uncrossing her legs to stand. Dragging her bloodied gloves over her thighs, cleaning them as best she could, she stepped away from the chair and gave it a nudge with her hip, as though the cleanup crew would give a damn as to whether or not she'd tucked in her chair upon leaving the cantina. It was an unconscious action, one that had been drilled into her over many, many months of training - being polite wasn't exactly something that came naturally to her - to the point where it was second nature.

Royston had told her that patience and civility would save her life. Begrudgingly, she had to admit that he was very much in the right.

Palms turned upward, Eris focused her attention on the fabric of her gloves, scrutinizing the material for trace spots of sticky, black blood. Another swipe on her pants satisfied her need for cleanliness, though it was his sudden, impossible to ignore honesty that brought her head back up in a quick motion, as though he'd pulled her out of her thoughts with his confession. Brow furrowing, her lopsided lips pressed into a thin line, considering what he'd said with a very real suspicion on her face. Unless he was particularly dense - which she was certain that he was not - he'd know that, for at least a moment, she didn't trust what he'd said.

But maybe that was the wrong course of action. Maybe he'd been locked up, maybe he'd been in hiding, sealed in carbonite - something, anything at all that would've cut him off from the galaxy as a whole. Or maybe he was quiet and strange, like her. She didn't owe him any more of her time, nor did he owe her any more of his, but it was difficult to ignore the sincerity in his tone. Either he was a very, very cunning liar - something she didn't doubt, obviously - or he'd screwed up, and let something slip. The latter seemed more likely, but it was difficult beyond words to trust his flicker of vulnerability and take it for what it was: another opening.

Giving her words some thought, not making a move to close the distance between them just yet, Eris let out a long sigh and moved a hand to her side. Pulling the small, palm-sized datapad from her pocket, she eyed the date and time from the lock screen and pursed her lips.

"You've got a day, at the very least. No one's going to show up until I report back." The recording glyph on the screen, only a few pixels large, eased her mind somewhat. At the very least, she'd have a record of their conversation. Careful not to show him anything but the back of the device - which was, not surprisingly, entirely unmarked - the white light illuminated her features for a few seconds before she returned it to her pocket. It was sticky. With a frustrated groan, more inconvenienced than truly annoyed, she pulled the gloves off her hands at long last, cramming them into her jacket's interior compartment and exposing an ordinary pair of pale, human hands.

Perking up some, Eris tried on a smile that was a little less fake. It wasn't particularly wide, but it was honest, not unlike his admission had been. The difference being, obviously, that hers was intentional. Even if her insincerity was well-practiced, it was easy to tell - with a real smile for reference - the difference between the sly looks she'd been giving him and the one she fixed on him now. "Let me walk you to your ship, then." Pausing, well aware of the implication, she rolled her eyes. "I won't try and kiss you goodnight."

 

[Denzein]

The device she brandished before him was being used to record their exchange, he had no doubt. It would have been a simple matter to reach into its innards and wipe its memory with his mind - while he wasn't so practiced that he could manipulate advanced systems the erasure of a storage drive was relatively basic - but he did not. To do so would be counterproductive: There was nothing of note in what he'd said, aside from the fact that he existed to speak at all. He wanted Sith analysts to scratch their heads over the recording, to theorize exactly where he intended to strike next if indeed he intended to attack. Allowing them to keep the evidence aided him more than destroying it: If the Sith believed they held the advantage, they could be used.

He did not protest as she started following him out of the cantina and through the gutted remnants of Epsilon Station. What more could she learn, that his ship had survived Coruscant too? As a nugget of information about him it was trivial at best, from the outside his ship looked as if it were held together with a mixture of spit and the living force. BARLOZ class freighters predated the entirety of the old YT series, by rights it shouldn't still be able to fly - but a younger, more enthusiastic and entirely less preoccupied Lecchamemnon had used to dote on one such relic, restoring it and modifying it relentlessly: The result was a steed that had seen him through his entire life, from leaving Necropolis for that first time to the present. It was a part of him, one of the few possessions in the galaxy he truly valued.

She didn't attack the chink in his armour: Perhaps she had opted for a touch of sincerity, too. It was a lonely thing, to be universally reviled as a traitor, nihilist and enemy of the people - Actually having a conversation, even if it was with your sworn foe and filled with veiled threats, was a luxury Lecchamemnon had long been without. Some would probably think him a strange old man, a relic from a forgotten time when the Galaxy Wasn't ruled by a Sith. They might even be right.

Stepping over a dismembered corpse in Imperial uniform, he headed in the direction of his ship. Once he'd called it the Spectre, these days he thought the name was infantile and refused to acknowledge that it had one. He briefly wondered what the woman would make of it. He didn't know what she thought of this entire situation, he'd never gotten so much as a name out of her. Admittedly he didn't try - going for some hard intelligence on his end would no doubt have escalated the situation and that was something he'd managed to successfully avoid; a feat he was secretly quite pleased with. It wasn't often he encountered a Sith with the ability to speak in language beyond an endless tirade of threats.

They were leaving, going their separate ways. What harm could it do to find out who this woman was? It was entirely possible that she would be 'assigned' to him from now on after all, especially after the next stunt he intended to pull. It couldn't hurt to build at least a basic dialogue.

"I will be long gone within a day, travelling who knows where," His lips twisted into a tiny grin - he wasn't seriously still trying to dupe her: It was a joke and they both probably knew it, a clear presentation of just how false he believed they'd been to eachother. "But I'll tell you where I'm headed next if you give me your real name. I'll probably find out soon anyway..." His grin widened, the game continuing with every word he said. He left one part unsaid, thinking it to himself instead. Was she reading his thoughts? It was a simple enough test to see if she was more subtle than he'd estimated.

...As will you.

If she was in his head he was left without a choice: Epsilon Station would become her tomb.