Justine Baird | L O V E C R A F T (nyarlathotep) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-04-12 12:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: coruscant, cassandra hack, glasya ren |
if you wanna find hell with me, i can show you what it's like
Who: Cassie Hack & Glasya Ren.
What: Glasya continues to stalk the Vagabond crewmembers and claims another victim.
Where: Coruscant.
When: A day or two following this thread.
Rating: R for violence and mental torture?
The crew was packing up to leave; Caine was onboard, double checking the Vagabond's weapons system for any last tell-tale signs of error, while Liri was going over the engine with a fine-toothed comb. Cassie didn't begrudge the fact that she was left making sure the supplies were together; she had a decent handle on weapons not attached to the ship, after all. But in reality she was double checking inventory lists, her silhouette and paperwork doused in the continuous orange glow of the setting sun on Coruscant. It did make her feel useful, sometimes in a far more fulfilling way than putting a fist through a face ever had.
She raised her eyes to the skyline with mixed emotions; this was where she'd been fired on, almost killed, by an entity without a face not too long after first arriving through the rift. It was where Liri had been attacked, for the second time in as many months. She should have felt nothing but disdain for this place.
But between steam rising from the ground like a fog, towering buildings scraping the atmosphere, and the crush of bodies moving throughout whatever space was left for actual living creatures, Cassie couldn't shake another set of memories: of chasing a masked killer through dirty city streets, her Doc Martens scrambling for purchase on gravel. She'd been surprised to learn that the man she'd been hunting wasn't the real slasher she'd been after; no, she'd found him later, and she'd had help putting him down for good by a man in a mask. Vlad was no Batman, but he'd been the closest thing she'd ever had to a brother.
As much as Cassie tried to push thoughts of Vlad from her mind, her memory seemed to have other thoughts on the matter. She shivered as she glanced through the crowd, imagining that she might spot him. She shook her head, knowing the thought for the hope it was. Vlad was gone, in this world and in the one she'd left behind. Looking back down, she scribbled another few notes on the pad leaning against her arm. Sighing, she glanced up and wiped her forehead with her wrist.
She spotted a large black shadow through her peripheral vision; tall, huge shoulders. An impossible build, like some Frankenstein's creature. A black cloak was wrapped around his frame, and on his face...a gas mask.
Vlad?
Cassie stared, dumbstruck. It wasn't possible, it couldn't be possible. But she knew she'd kick herself if she let this chance slide by. They'd visited other dimensions, back home; couldn't there be another Vlad? One who had somehow slipped through to this universe? Cassie set the pad and pen down without looking; the pen rolled, falling without a sound to the floor to be crushed underfoot. She moved away from the Vagabond with silent steps, utterly forgetting to alert either of her remaining crewmembers to where she was going.
At first, Cassie move tentatively, ascertaining the situation. Weighing the reality of it, or trying to, even as her mind pushed her toward the wish she'd thought of only moments before. She pushed against one man, shoved through another pair blocking her path. What if it was him? She couldn't just leave him here. Did he know she was around? There was only one way to find out. She kept going, her small frame moving easily through the crowds and dipping into a current of people moving in the same direction.
Another cloud of steam covered her path, causing her to all but disappear from view as she followed the huge shadow into the crowd and down an alley. Her quarry did not turn. His steps did not waver. He walked like a man possessed by some greater purpose. It was clear he was on a job; now and again he checked the names of cross streets, turning down one, then another, occasionally looking back as though to ensure he was not followed.
Streetlights became fewer and farther between. Pungent steam from a food stall wafted across the walkway. A pack of younglings ran by, their hands dipping into pockets, their feet tangling with those of inattentive passersby. Someone fell; the younglings descended, pulling anything of value from the fallen pedestrian as those around them boredly looked away.
The hulking man moved to a lift. He took another glance around, his eyes hidden behind the dark goggles of the mask. Then he went inside, and the lift hummed loudly as it started down to a lower floor.
Cassie tried to make the doors before they closed, but was a moment too late. She waited impatiently for the lift to return, jamming the recall button, never for a moment thinking about her rash actions. She felt so sure, even when there was absolutely no reason to. Finally, the lift returned empty-handed and Cassie boarded it; as it descended, her stomach dropped out and she came to the realization that she was putting herself in a terrible situation. It certainly wasn't the first time; she'd stalked serial killers, possessed dolls, and even hunted down a man in Mexico for a bounty, all on her own. This wasn't her first rodeo.
The difference here, though, was that those events happened back on Earth. Here -- she barely knew Coruscant, and now she was traveling down into its bowels. Her hands curled into fists, resilient. Whatever, whoever was down here, she could deal with it.
The rusty gates of the lift slid apart, allowing her passage into the tunnels on whatever floor she'd descended to. The man she'd been following was nowhere to be found. Great, just great. Get yourself lost, Cassie, right after Liri fucks off and gets her ass handed to her. I should just turn around. She hesitated by the lift, but then glanced to the right. She could see the man standing at the end of one hall, waiting. For her?
"Vlad?" As soon as the name was out of her mouth, she took a step toward him, trying to catch his attention.
The man turned. He looked directly at her. The hard square of his shoulders briefly softened. "Cassie?" His voice was thickened by the mask, and further obscured by the ambient sounds of the low floor on which they found themselves. Still, the warmth in his tone was easily read, and the single step he took to close the distance between them was encouraging. Pink neon lights buzzed and popped overhead -- on, off, on, off -- illuminating their path and darkening it in turn. "Cassie Hack, is that really you?"
Cassie's heart skipped a beat; she kept propelling herself forward, unable to stop, despite the fact that the man's cadence and word choice were off. Despite the fact that she knew something was so very, very wrong. The idea that he could be here -- Vlad! Here! Alive!, her mind kept screaming -- overpowered everything else.
"Jesus fuck, Vlad! I thought you were dead!" Her eyes welled with tears that she'd thought shed long ago, but the hurt bubbled up all the same. She could remember the day she'd lost him: the concert, Vlad all but sacrificing himself, and how she'd followed Samhain into the trees, where she'd hit him until her knuckles were more raw meat than part of her hands. She kept moving toward Vlad like a stone thrown through the air, no longer able to change her trajectory or stop it, had she willed it.
The man she had followed was staring at her. The gas mask twitched upward; his hidden gaze moved somewhere beyond her, his body drawn tight as though waiting for something. The blow came quickly. It struck hard against the nape of her neck, splitting the air with a thick, meaty crack. The neon lights buzzed once more, then went out. In the fresh darkness the only sound was the click of her assumed friend's boots retreating.
Cassie went down, her knees hitting the cold, metal grating of Coruscant's makeshift ground, the rest of her body soon following. Her vision swam, and yet everything seemed crystal clear. Reacting instinctively, Cassie rolled to the side away from her attacker. She hit the wall, woozily trying to climb to her feet; one hand groped, fingers wrapping around a pipe that seemed to suddenly appear. She brought the makeshift weapon out in front of her, looking for her attacker.
"When shit's too good to be true, shit's too good to be true," she muttered under her breath.
Her words were swallowed up by the hiss of steam venting and the maddeningly directionless click of bootheels. There was a stirring in the distant alley: something overturned or knocked aside. The lift hummed and started downward, leaving Cassie and her new companion thoroughly alone.
"Are all of Delilah's friends so... resilient?" The voice seemed to fill the air; it was ember-flecked smoke coiling around her, snaking its way into her thoughts.
The pipe swung around toward the voice; Cassie tried to focus on where the footsteps were coming from, but it was a fruitless endeavor. Her head and neck throbbed, but her attention was fully on flight or fight, and this whole scenario was starting to look a lot more like fight.
"Guess you're gonna have to find out, huh?" She squinted through another cloud of steam as it suddenly hit her in the face, taking a step back. The environment wasn't going to offer any assistance; she was already hot and sweaty. She kept her arms up, the pipe an extension of her fist. "If you wanna come out and play, just fucking do it already. I fucking it hate it when you assholes drag this out."
The subtle press of her attacker's words withdrew. But his presence remained, a malicious aura that hung tangible in the air, seeming to grow nearer and larger with each passing second. Footfalls sounded from behind her. Then they disappeared beneath the telltale thrum of the lightsaber extending. White light flooded the alleyway; their shadows danced and juddered as the blade whipped right, slicing low across the backs of Cassie's legs.
Cassie surged forward, away from the blade; one didn't have to have knowledge and experience with jedi to know a lightsaber when one heard it. Dancing away from the wall, she brought her pipe up to bear despite knowing it would be useless against her opponent's weapon.
"God, what the fuck! I don't know what the fuck you want, but you're not getting it from me." She started to pace backward, giving ground. She'd felt a laser blast burn before; there was no point in running head on toward someone who would just slice her in half. Glancing around, she looked at her options. Hanging wires, grating that constructed a shoddy ceiling, and more metal met her gaze; there wasn't much to work with. She'd been in worse scenarios, and had made it work. She brought her eyes back to her attacker.
"Not much of a talker, huh? You guys never are. You think you could at least offer a girl a good conversation before trying to cut her into a million little pieces." She darted to the side, away from the wall and toward a large mass of exposed wires hanging from the ceiling.
He moved slowly, steadily, following her in a lazy circle. Though he appeared to be favoring his left leg somewhat, he still moved with an inexorable, predatory grace. His wrist turned; the lightsaber spun in a quick, tight circle. "Don't worry," he said. "We'll have plenty of time to talk before that happens. I plan to be far more thorough with you than I was with your captain."
His face was hidden by the mirrored blackness of his mask. Its corvine head and sharply spiked, curving horns tilted upward as belatedly he tracked her gaze. Then he stopped where he stood, his focus returning firmly to her sweat-damp face. "Choose your next move carefully, Cassie."
"Never been good with being careful," she replied, darting behind the wires until they were between herself and her attacker. It provided poor cover, but that hadn't been her intention; instead she waited until his slow pace brought him just underneath the paneling she'd spied earlier, and swung the pipe at the wires. As expected, they caught and she pulled, releasing the grating from its shoddy mooring. The grating on the ceiling swung down with the menacing and painful sounding grind of metal against metal directly into the man's path.
The lightsaber swept out, slicing through metal and wire. Blue sparks flew up in front of the saber's white edge. Half of the grating clattered to the floor, one edge smoothly shorn, melted metal glowing red. Her pursuer raised one black boot and kicked the fallen grate aside. It skidded toward her, scraping noisily as it went. The man bent down, black cloak swishing as he moved beneath the fallen, still twitching wires. He straightened up once he was clear of them. He leveled the lightsaber at her, at once a warning and a challenge.
"You'll have to work harder than that," he said. He moved toward her, faster now, pushing off from his uninjured leg.
"Believe me, I'm trying," she quipped back, throwing the pipe at his face and turning tail to run in the opposite direction. She needed another weapon, and fast; she moved further down the hallway, away from the lift that had brought her to this level. Her eyes scanned her surroundings; more metal and wire appeared, a few more pipes. Finally her gaze landed on a welding torch. She grabbed it, her finger pulling at the trigger to produce a foot-long gout of flame; despite her situation, Cassie couldn't help but grin.
The torch was attached to the wall by a thick cord that probably fed it both electricity and fuel; grabbing it, she tossed the cord over one shoulder and pulled, bringing her weapon up and into position. She heard steps coming in her direction; turning, she pointed the gun in his direction, pulling the trigger. Even if it didn't harm him, at least it would keep him away from her until she could formulate a plan.
He rounded the corner at nearly a run, but stopped short as the flame licked at his mask. His arm shot out, his reach elongated as the Force extended with his will. It thrust past her, a tight line of roiling energy, and circled the fuel line connecting weapon to wall. His fist clenched; twisted. The cord strained, then broke apart, fuel spilling to the ground at Cassie’s feet. The flame sputtered, flaring hot for a moment before slowly dying out.
Already the cloaked man was advancing upon her, the Force extended before him as both shield and battering ram. He pushed, hard, and sent the wall of energy hurtling toward her.
"Are you fucking shitting me?!" Cassie's eyes were still trained on her now defunct torch when Glasya's attack hit her. She was thrown into a far wall along with the remainder of the torch gun's cord and the weapon itself; her head struck the flat object she'd been hurled into with a dull thud, knocking her out instantly. The last sight she saw before everything went black was the silhouette of a man created by artificial lighting, a flaming blade in his hand.