You Guessed Wrong (Hydrocus)

[Azrielle Shadana]

Continued from:

She'd left the abandoned lab garbed only in an incorrectly buttoned lab coat, and armed with a pocket full of sharp tipped syringes. The only serviceable weapon she could find in the flickering lights. The first of the creatures she had encountered had nearly killed her. She had mistaken the bent form in the hall for another escaped patient of whatever mad scientists perversion of a lab this place had once been. The thing had rushed her, chattering teeth snapping in her face as she struggled to hold it back with both hands, and arms weak from lack of use. She still had no idea how long she'd been submerged in that infernal tank. Days? Weeks? Months? From the look of the place, maybe years. Who knew? In a desperate gamble, she had let go with one hand to retrieve the fistful of sharp objects she'd collected and ram them into the eye socket of the monstrosity attacking her, but not before it's jagged teeth had had a go at her shoulder through the scant protection of the white lab coat, now sticky with her blood.

From that point on, she had employed a bit more stealth in her escape. Once she had spotted two other seemingly normal people on a black and white static feed form another part of the facility. An attractive pair, the woman seemed to be in charge, with the man following just behind her. For a moment Razielle rubbed at her eyes because the woman looked a hell of a lot like...her. She'd been about to activate the comm device and ask them who the frak they were, but decided to keep her presence as quiet as she could, for as long as she could.

Eventually she made her way out of the sublevels of the laboratory. She'd found a section that had collapsed in from above revealing a haze of natural light. The fading light of Codru, or she was not a Sith Apprentice. Razielle Shadana had crawled, pulled and hefted herself bit by painstaking bit out of the hole, clawing her way to the surface and for her efforts was rewarded with the sight of a speeder bike. She did not see any other occupants for the bike hanging around - and at this point gave no fraks at all who it belonged to. She was having no more of this place. Swinging one bare leg over the seat, she prayed for a small miracle and started the engine. From there she went straight for the highest point, looking for some familiar marker to give her a rough estimate of her whereabouts and the fastest route back to the Sith Temple.

Night was falling by the time she made it there and what little strength she had since awaking in the bacta tank had long since fled. she was freezing in just the lab coat. Bleeding from her shoulder wound, and from where the IV's had been torn from her arms. She was filthy from sticky bacta, and clawing her way out of the ground like a monster from a tomb, and frankly...she was starving. The bike basically crashed into the steps of the Sith Temple, with her on it. Rolling off, she had meant to rise and walk up those steps with some sense of dignity, but she just could not muster any at the moment.

"Frak it..", she muttered and lay on her back with one arm flung over her eyes in a gesture of defeat.

[Hydrocus Venetia]

"Razielle...are you dead?"

Given the scene layed out before him perhaps there should have been more panic in Hydrocus' voice and demeanor. At the least the Master Sith could have foregone the casually laced humor in his inquiry of his friends physical state. Not that Hydrocus wasn't concerned, his friend was strewn across the temple steps half naked andbattered, but she had made it back from whatever had happened. He was relieved in the fact she was just as good at being the omnipotent Master she was, as playing the damsel in distress. Sometimes he felt she got herself into trouble on purpose like some attention deprived child.

Standing over her, a fur lined black coat hanging from his frame, Hydrocus inspected her injuries further and when she didn't immediately respond he nudged her with his foot.

"Razielle?"

This time that concern surfaced in his voice as there was no response again. Noting the weakness in her force aura he knelt while draping his coat over her. Carefully sliding his arms beneath her he hoisted her lithe frame with ease and began the accent up the temple stairs. If the movement didn't give her cause to stir, then the closeness of their faces and the stink of liquor on his breath surely would.

"I go to Rama's for a few hours and this place falls apart," he remarked to himself shaking his head. "I'm going to start locking you in your room..."

[Azrielle Shadana]

Her head was killing her. She was pretty sure she had a concussion or something from that crash. In the back of her shaken up brains, she was aware that someone had found her in her vulnerable state. Rather than finish her off, this person was talking to her, so it was obviously someone she knew. That set her mind at ease marginally. The thing was....for the life of her she could not place the voice. It was decidedly male though.

Strong arms lifted her and carried her away.

For a minute that she thought it might be Keirick. On occasion he could be reliable to put her to bed, sort of.. In a way..

Trying to open her eyes just made her head hurt more, so she gave up the effort and snuggled into the convenient shelter of whoever had her. Someone who knew Rama's. Oh lord.. This headache was a hundred thousand times worse than the one she had from her last bender there. From the smell of her rescuer, he'd been on a bender of his own.

Her parched lips parted long enough to rasp out a retort. "I'm twenty years old... Came of age five years ago. Don't talk to me like I'm a child."

[Hydrocus Venetia]

A brow arched. Surely he hadn't drunk that much, but Hydrocus was sure she had said she was only twenty. A head injury perhaps...definitely a head injury. Amused he smiled while a soft chuckle escaped his lips.

"Twenty with twenty years experience or so," Hydrocus poked turning to drive a shoulder into the recruitment halls doors. The two where greeted with dank cold air and the flickering shadow of torch light, the usual greeting of hopeful newcomers.

"Now what to do with you?" He asked to no one particular. Peering off into the darkness he looked left then right. "Medbay, or would have some strange concoctions in your quarters..."

[Azrielle Shadana]

His comments just pain made no sense to her, but then.. she still wasn't sure who he was. Every step he took she was growing increasingly convinced it was not Keir. He would have given her a hard time about the crash, and he definitely would have taken advantage of her weakened state by now. Whoever this was just seemed inclined to get her to medical attention. Maybe she was hurt worse than she knew?

Concoctions? Not likely.. "I probably have a bottle of whiskey? Does that qualify?", she muttered into his shoulder. "Take me to the Medbay, I could do with a nice liberal dose of something."

Pain or no pain, it was time to face her would-be hero. Squinting against the pain in her skull, she cracked her eyes open and looked on him - and her body went rigid. She'd never seen the guy before, but he sure seemed to know a hell of a lot about her.

For the first time, she struggled a bit in his arms. "Who the hell are you?"

[Hydrocus Venetia]

Who the hell was he? Well at the moment he was a slightly buzzed and terribly inconvenienced friend of Razielle Van-Derveld, but Hydrocus did not say as much. She was hurt and confused so he tossed aside the back & forth game they played so well. Hydrocus stopped to tighten his hold and keep the both of them from falling over as she struggled.

"Enough of that!" He barked looking down at Razielle with stern blue eyes.

"I'm a friend, you needn't worry. You're safe now. It'll all come back to you soon enough." He said trying to calm his luggage down before continuing. Then a thought occured.

"Would you like for me to contact one of your fellow Council members...your daughter in-law maybe? A face you might recognize?"

[Azrielle Shadana]

He yelled at her and Razielle stopped her squirming, long enough to consider the merit in snapping his neck and just being done with it. The pro's were that she would be done with this surreal conversation and could go take a nice hot bath. The cons were that....well, he might drop her and she was already banged up enough. So the Fates smiled on the whacko and he kept breathing..

"Me? Council member?", she snorted.

"Riiiight, pretty sure you have me confused with someone else. Lady Vader or Dara Shadowtide maybe? Last I checked they were the Council, along with Darth Havok and Rama Sha. And for the record, bub, I have no daughters, in-law or otherwise. I am twenty standard years! Do I look old enough to have a frakking marriageable son? Jeeeeez."

Arguing with the guy was making her head hurt more, so she just gave it up and humored the lunatic. "Someone I recognize. Yeah, ok. Get me Dalethria Mal Pannis."

[Lucianus Adair]

As satiating as it had been to dispatch not one being, but a small crowd, the fact that they had went so far to fine nothing and be left to make their way back on foot pulled the sour mood he had earlier been given right to the forefront. The acidic burns on his one hand still caused discomfort, for mere hours had only passed since his flesh had been marred for the first time not by blade or flame - at his left fingertips, so far away from the collective of scars on his back and chest.

He was filthy, marked here and there with the blood and offal of the abominations he had dispatched, and the smell of it - though blood - was not quite right. He was going to need to bathe for the second time, that day. Still, it did little to dissuade his consciousness from the particular scent in that one room. And there was the speeder bike.

"As expected," he said with little amusement.

As they approached the temple steps and began to ascend them, he heard yelling from a voice he did not recognize... and then:

"Get me Dalethria Mal Pannis."

He flicked a glance to where she, his Mistress, should be. Yes, she was still there, climbing the steps alongside him.

"Mal Pannis?"

Slight confusion took to his features. That was a name he did not recognize. The only Dalethria he was at all aware of was the woman married to the one that had given him the acid scarring, this morning...

...and he could have sworn that voice sounded a lot like the woman beside him.

[Razielle Van-Derveld]

Razielle had stopped in her tracks. It was a combination, both the name itself which was guaranteed to give her a blast of the past, but the voice itself. She knew that flippant tone..

"No...", she denied with a shake of her head. "No way."

Yet she still took the Temple steps three at a time as her long-legged form zeroed in on whatever, whoever, she was hearing, ready to make sense of it and have a good chuckle later at her own expense. The first voice was easily identified as Hydrocus. She would just have him explain it all...

Gaining the recruitment hall, and all it's chilling splendor, Razielle stopped in her tracks a second time as she locked eyes on her friend the Sith Master. He was striding away, carrying someone - whoever was seeking Dalethria Mal Pannis....

"Hydrocus...", she called, anticipating that he would turn around.

[Hydrocus Venetia]

A little tipsy perhaps, but Hydrocus was hardly confused. He knew Razielle's face quite well in fact. He had seen it in all its primal glory on Dathomir. He had seen it in all its regal beauty atop the Council dais. He had seen it possessed and had seen it in its ethereal form. Now, Hydrocus could add muddy, beaten, and obviously suffering from short term memory loss. The names she spoke only confirmed further what he had already confirmed.

They where old names. Old names tied to faces Hydrocus had not seen since he himself had been a disciple. One, Lady Vader, was a face he had never seen. He could hardly confuse Razielle for any of them. The last one though, it did give him reason to pause if only to chuckle.

"Mal Pannis," he repeated with a snort. It was somewhat of joke at Rama's how Dalethria's name seemed to change like clock work. Mal Pannis, Kasijian, Tankreyd, tomorrow it might be Venetia. Well, maybe not Venetia.

Ignoring the girl in his arms for the most part, Hydrocus continued on his way to the medbay when her voice called him by name. He looked down naturally, thinking his friend, there in his arms had been the one to speak it. The voice had not been alone though and didn't originate at his front but his back. Now he was confused.

Turning, his blue eyes locked with the violet of Razielle's.

"What the frell..."

Whether it was the alcohol or shock, no one could say, but motor movement alluded him and his arms dropped along with his jaw...and the girl.

[Azrielle Shadana]

She wondered what had possessed her to ask for Dalethria, surely there were others around the Sith Temple that could straighten all this out for her. Or for him. One of the two of them was hopelessly confused, and Razielle was pretty sure it wasn't her, despite the head wound. She heard another voice behind them call out a name. Hydrocus... that must be him. He looked down at her, but she was ignoring him. Her eyes were once more closed against the pain in her head, and generally all over her body.

Which was why it came as a very rude shock to her a second later when suddenly the strong arms that had been holding her seemed to vanish from beneath her and she crashed to the temple floor like some kind of contaminated goods..She landed on her backside, but the rest of her followed and she took another good solid knock to her shoulder when she hit the cold stone floor, splitting open the bite wound in her shoulder once more.

"Fraaaaaaaak! Good job, buddy. Remind me never to ask you to hold me close again." Sarcasm and pain laced her words as her hand pressed hard to the shoulder wound, which was now spurting blood. Lovely...

Scowling at the distraction, she turned her irate face to the two newcomers and froze.....

"The hell? You supposed to be my mom or something?", she laughed against the pain, and tried to stand.

[Lucianus Adair]

The voice was the same but for years, the face not entirely, but key, exacting features drew parallels to the face he knew so well, had studied in moments, that had imprinted on his psyche. The form he gained the very, intricate scent of stood beside him, and the scent from that abominous place...

...and then the blonde-haired one called 'Hydrocus' dropped her, and before his glacial eyes, what he hazarded a guess as to be the young analogue of his Mistress crumpled to the floor. Such an act, however, did not seem to affect the attitude of this... this...

"...copy," he murmured in realization, and further realizations upon realizations compounded until he snapped his gaze to Razielle Van-Derveld, looking far from perplexed and most definitely annoyed, perhaps a tad disturbed, and spoke, sotto voce, "I could see you... er, her receiving a swat for such impertinence."

Bold words on his part, with a heated gleam bringing a melt to his gaze. He edged sideways towards his Mistress, leaning in.

"I can smell you on her from here."

[Razielle Van-Derveld]

Razielle gaped at the creature on the floor, struggling to process what she was seeing.

Lucianus was correct of course, and Razielle knew what she was seeing. A clone of herself. The decrepit old wretch had stolen her?! Made another? What was he going to do with a copy of her? It did not bear thinking about. The Alchemist was gone, yet his creation remained. She looked exactly as Razielle had in that time, no scars yet marring her face and form. There was even still a hint of softness to her that was lacking in the true Razielle, who had lost all her softness to time and training. Her gaping mouth snapped shut at her apprentices words about impertinence. He was not wrong about that either, at that age she'd had quite a mouth on her until Master LeStat had made a decent Sith Apprentice out of her.

"I was Force choked by a Council Member in the Council Chambers more than once for using that kind of a tone on my superiors.", she admitted, still a little baffled and not at all sure what to do about it.

She met her apprentice's blue eyes, which were curiously heated, as he confided that he could smell her on the clone. Something within Razielle wondered at how he would know her scent so intimately, but it was a question for another time.

"She's hurt.", the Sith Master observed, coming forward slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the clone.

[Hydrocus Venetia]

"She?! She is you..." Hydrocus trailed stating the obvious. His inebriation had vanished in the shock of the moment, but neurons still failed to fire. Clones where quite common place, especially in the empire, but what need of a clone would Razielle have?

His eyes darted to and fro, from real and fake trying to make sense of it in his own mind. The girls injuries where secondary now. What mattered was what and where she had come from. It was then something clicked in the Sith Master's mind causing lips to curl into a snarl.

"Imperials..." He hissed. Hydrocus had worked hand in hand with the Galactic empire before in a cloning project. Razielle herself had negotiated this new treaty with said Empire. Had they...could they? No clone could be formed so fast. It made little sense, but fed Hydrocus' suspicion and impulse none the less.

Reaching down with a single hand, he snatched the girl by hair of the head so that their eyes met, "Where have you come from!"

[Azrielle Shadana]

"Quit talking about me like I am not here!", she snapped.

Her pulse thundered in her head from the amount of stress she was suddenly under. She would rather go back and deal with the creatures in that tower indefinitely than be in this situation with three people talking to each other about her - the copy. The copy? Her violet eyes slid to the older version of herself, taking in the sight of the scarred side of her face. How had that happened? Looked like.. claws. The elder's hair was straightened, falling in long black tendrils to her waist, while her own was a mess of unruly curls, springing up around her head in rebellion.

Just as she was considering their differences, those same curls were snatched up in a fist and her already throbbing head yanked backward. Considering had probably already suffered a concussion, it did not surprise her that the world swam out of focus before her eyes, going dark for a minute as demands were screamed in her face by the very same person who had just just told her that she was safe.

That he was a friend.

Liar.

Focus returned to her, apparently lab-created, violet eyes and with it aim. Without thought to consequences, her right hand balled into a fist and shot out to connect with the side of the mouth of the man holding her.

"Get the hell off me you ape!", she screamed at him.

The effort proved to be more than she could take, and when her eyes went dark that time, they stayed that way. She remained upright only because of the hand in her hair holding her up, as her blood began to make an impressive sized puddle on the recruitment hall floor.