Shadow Knight
The Harvester stands for the innocent and the dead.
From the Harvester's Journal
"Sub Zero! Watch out!" Soralis shouted as she pushed the black-clad shadow warrior out of the collapsing tunnel.
It was a trap. She berated herself as she lost consciousness.
***
Darkness….
Pain…
Her eyes were open but she saw nothing. She could actually feel each crushed organ re-knit itself, each strand of muscle wrap itself around adamintium-incased bone. She could feel her veins start to pump blood through abused flesh. She gasped for air, the first breath in days. Her body was incased in a gel-like substance that seeped into every pore.
Soralis went still as she searched her mind. Where was she, what had happened? She remembered. They were about to enter the tunnels that led to the cult's hiding place, hoping they could stop Shinnok before he broke free of the time-space "bubble" that caged him.
She and Sub-Zero had elected to be the rear-guard, making sure nothing could get the rest of the group from behind. But something had happened. She had felt the tunnel's roof shift just before it came crashing down and she remembered shoving Sub-Zero free before it had collapsed on her. She heard dry, cool laughter float around her.
She shuddered. Only her healing factor had saved her from being killed. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Where am I?" Her voice sounded strange, almost like it was stuffed with cotton. She touched her face experimentally. A breathing mask? What was going on?
"For now, your host. As for your other question…" the voice paused. "You are no longer on your home planet."
Soralis went cold. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked softly.
The voice laughed again. "I think you will find that out soon enough."
"Let me go!" Soralis snarled, lashing out. This time, three adamantine claws slid out with a wet, metallic hiss to hit whatever it was in front of her. She could feel it crack.
"Pity. I hoped you might be more cooperative," the voice said.
Soralis felt a sharp sting on the side of her neck. She felt weak. Darkness swamped her.
***
Qui Gon moaned. He opened his eyes, but he only saw darkness. He couldn't move and he could only hear his own breathing. He hurt. Everything hurt. Qui Gon felt a wave of panic wash over him. He couldn't remember where he was, what he had been doing.
He breathed deeply, trying to regain a semblance of calm. The panic faded. He didn't need his memory to survive. With that calm, came images, flashes of insight.
He remembered walking into a docking bay and being hit by some sort of light and intense pain. Had he been searching for something? Qui Gon wondered. He shivered. Was it getting colder? What was happening to him? Is this what Zanar Dun went through?
Zanar Dun? He thought. The mission! He strained against whatever was holding him. His muscles shrieked in protest and he fell back. It was useless. He couldn't get any leverage. Cool dry laughter floated around him as the temperature plummeted. A soft white light illuminated him, surrounding the examination table he was apparently strapped to. He winced, letting his eyes adjust to the light.
"Well, well, well. So Organna managed to convince the Council to send another Jedi to investigate me. It's a pity you fools don't know how to leave well enough alone."
"Morgan Leigh," he whispered.
"So you remember. The stun ray often has unfortunate side effects. Memory loss is the most common of those effects." Morgan laughed again. "We still haven't worked out the bugs on that little device yet."
"So it is true," he blurted out. "You did kill Zanar Dun!"
It was freezing now. He could feel the shackles that bound him to the table burn with cold. "He meddled with things that did not concern him as did Jedi Knight Sitari. As you do now." Morgan replied. "They paid that penalty with their lives. A fitting end, I suppose."
The temperature flickered back to just above freezing. He breathed deeply, enjoying the relative warmth. "I really can't let you live. You know far too much about me already. But I would be a fool to let an opportunity to study a Jedi slip by"
Dread seeped into his soul. He had seen the results of Morgan Leigh's experiments. "The council will not stand for this. They already suspect you of Zanar Dun and Sitari's murders. Killing me will confirm those suspicions." He warned her.
The temperature in the room rose to normal. He turned his head and saw a woman, Morgan Leigh standing beside him. Hovering over one shoulder was a sphere-shaped droid bristling with needles, probes, optic sensors and audio receptors of every description. "What's that?" he whispered.
"It's a new interrogation droid my company has been developing. I haven't been able to find a subject to test it on though." She said, a sick smile twisting her lovely face.
Qui Gon instinctively lashed out with the force, intending to smash the thing into a wall. He screamed as his muscles spasmed painfully. Morgan's smile widened. "Poor fool, did you not think I would have taken precautions with a subject like you?"
He looked at her again, breathing harshly. "What have you done?"
"An associate of mine made it impossible for you to use the force to defend yourself or escape from my facility. If you try, your own body will betray you as it has done just now. Any further attempts will result in more pain." She replied.
"Now my friend. I think we should discuss your future with me," she said as the torture droid floated forward. A hypodermic needle swung out of its surface, visibly filling with fluid. Qui Gon swallowed dryly as the needle pierced his flesh.
***
Soralis sat cross-legged on her cot and scowled at the door. She had woken up in a small, windowless room and was none too happy about it. The first thing she had tried to do was escape through the Shadow Realm. Pain brought her to her knees. She next tried to blast the door to hell and again, pain.
Then she carefully examined her own mind. She found a hideous spell encasing her in an invisible grip. This spell was designed to keep her from escaping and using her abilities to attack or defend herself. Furthermore, any attempts to break the spell brought even more pain. She decided to leave it alone for the moment. She found that all of her passive abilities remained untouched.
When she tried to command her symbiont, it didn't respond. Somehow, someway, her captors had managed to disrupt the symbiont's ability to communicate with her neural network.
The room itself was remarkably clean and possessed basic amenities in a small cubical at the far end of the room. Less than ten steps away was another cot, evidently for another prisoner. She pushed her fear aside, knowing quite well they planned on keeping her for awhile.
She sighed, deliberately falling into a trance-like state. Soralis carefully extended her senses, taking in her environment. The cell itself was part of a much larger complex, housing twenty or so individuals. Only a few were human. The rest. She shuddered. The rest were demons. She could expect no mercy from such individuals.
She extended her senses outside the complex. What she found shocked her. The surrounding environment was barely suitable for the even the most basic of lifeforms. The atmosphere was weak, subject to the extremes of heat and cold. Even if she escaped, survival was problematical at best.
Something brushed the edge of her mind. Another presence. Unlike the other individuals in the complex, this presence did not feel evil. And the power of that presence physically shook her as it made a frantic mental grab. The mind that touched her was incoherent with confusion and pain.
Soralis hesitated reaching out to the individual. She did not want to be caught in its agony. Male? She wondered. Yes. It was definitely male and purely human from the mental 'feel'. Abruptly human's pain stopped as she felt it loose consciousness. She hastily dropped out of the trance and opened her eyes.
She could hear the force field flicker away and could feel three individuals behind the door. One of them was the powerful individual she had felt earlier. He was barely conscious.
The cell door opened, revealing the three. Two burly humans supported a third between them. They flung the injured man towards her and she moved to intercept him before he fell.
She staggered as she caught him. "Here's some company. Keep him alive or you'll be dealing with a rotting corpse." One of them laughed.
When they had untangled themselves, the two humans had disappeared; the cell door had slid shut and the force field had snapped back on. She half- carried, half dragged the man to the other cot and helped him lay down.
He was pale, his skin was clammy and his eyes dilated with shock. Soralis easily identified the classic symptoms of severe trauma. She frowned. Why had they tortured this man? She wondered as she gently brushed his hair away from his face.
"Don't," the man whispered brokenly, his voice hoarse from screaming. "Please don't."
"Shhh. It's alright. It's alright." Soralis murmured soothingly.
"It's over for now," she said as she summoned energy from deep within herself, hoping the spell that kept her captive would let her heal the man.
She breathed in relief when nothing happened and the energy readily flowed from her into the injured stranger. His heart-rate normalized, his breathing slowed and the cloudiness in his eyes faded. She slowly brought her hand away, letting the connection fade. She couldn't spare him any more energy.
Qui Gon moaned, blinking his eyes rapidly. He still was weak; confused from the torture. He had been injected with drugs that brought on terrible hallucinations and turned the world upside down, despite every meditation technique he knew. Other drugs, drugs designed to lower pain thresholds had been administered and then he had been subjected to electro-jabbers, fire knives and things he couldn't name. He began shivering uncontrollably.
Soralis sighed as she tugged the blanket over him. He turned, seeing her for the first time. "Who?" he asked groggily.
"My name is Soralis de Mordant. I believe I was abducted by our charming hosts from my own world and brought here." She smiled dryly. "Who are you?"
He was handsome, in his late forties, early fifties maybe. He was tall, taller than her and well built. His eyes were dark, calm. She thought that he was a fighter, maybe something of a priest. His aura was bright and strong, evidently a human bound to the forces of good.
Qui Gon managed a shaky smile. "My name is Qui Gon Jinn. You are not a Jedi Knight," he said, looking at her more closely as the confusion and shock became more manageable.
She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, though he instinctively knew she had to be much older than that. She had the slender, graceful build of a martial artist or dancer and was easily six feet tall. Her face was expressive with finely chiseled features and pale gold eyes. Her silvery- white hair was short, about shoulder length. She was dressed in a simple tunic and pair of trousers, a more feminine version of his own. Like him, her feet were bare.
Soralis smiled briefly. She had no idea what a Jedi was, but she felt she would like them if he was an example. "No, no I'm not. I take it you are." She added.
He laughed, the laughter turning a bit hysterical. It felt good to laugh, to find a release from the terrible trauma he had suffered. "Yes I am." He said, calming down.
"What are you?" he asked, touching her face curiously.
She smiled as she took his hand in her own. "I'll explain later. Get some rest." She told him softly.
"Please don't leave," he whispered.
"Doesn't look like I'll be going anywhere for the moment." She quipped.
He smiled in response to her joke and closed his eyes. She gripped his hand, helping him fall into a healing sleep.
The Harvester stands for the innocent and the dead.
From the Harvester's Journal
"Sub Zero! Watch out!" Soralis shouted as she pushed the black-clad shadow warrior out of the collapsing tunnel.
It was a trap. She berated herself as she lost consciousness.
***
Darkness….
Pain…
Her eyes were open but she saw nothing. She could actually feel each crushed organ re-knit itself, each strand of muscle wrap itself around adamintium-incased bone. She could feel her veins start to pump blood through abused flesh. She gasped for air, the first breath in days. Her body was incased in a gel-like substance that seeped into every pore.
Soralis went still as she searched her mind. Where was she, what had happened? She remembered. They were about to enter the tunnels that led to the cult's hiding place, hoping they could stop Shinnok before he broke free of the time-space "bubble" that caged him.
She and Sub-Zero had elected to be the rear-guard, making sure nothing could get the rest of the group from behind. But something had happened. She had felt the tunnel's roof shift just before it came crashing down and she remembered shoving Sub-Zero free before it had collapsed on her. She heard dry, cool laughter float around her.
She shuddered. Only her healing factor had saved her from being killed. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Where am I?" Her voice sounded strange, almost like it was stuffed with cotton. She touched her face experimentally. A breathing mask? What was going on?
"For now, your host. As for your other question…" the voice paused. "You are no longer on your home planet."
Soralis went cold. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked softly.
The voice laughed again. "I think you will find that out soon enough."
"Let me go!" Soralis snarled, lashing out. This time, three adamantine claws slid out with a wet, metallic hiss to hit whatever it was in front of her. She could feel it crack.
"Pity. I hoped you might be more cooperative," the voice said.
Soralis felt a sharp sting on the side of her neck. She felt weak. Darkness swamped her.
***
Qui Gon moaned. He opened his eyes, but he only saw darkness. He couldn't move and he could only hear his own breathing. He hurt. Everything hurt. Qui Gon felt a wave of panic wash over him. He couldn't remember where he was, what he had been doing.
He breathed deeply, trying to regain a semblance of calm. The panic faded. He didn't need his memory to survive. With that calm, came images, flashes of insight.
He remembered walking into a docking bay and being hit by some sort of light and intense pain. Had he been searching for something? Qui Gon wondered. He shivered. Was it getting colder? What was happening to him? Is this what Zanar Dun went through?
Zanar Dun? He thought. The mission! He strained against whatever was holding him. His muscles shrieked in protest and he fell back. It was useless. He couldn't get any leverage. Cool dry laughter floated around him as the temperature plummeted. A soft white light illuminated him, surrounding the examination table he was apparently strapped to. He winced, letting his eyes adjust to the light.
"Well, well, well. So Organna managed to convince the Council to send another Jedi to investigate me. It's a pity you fools don't know how to leave well enough alone."
"Morgan Leigh," he whispered.
"So you remember. The stun ray often has unfortunate side effects. Memory loss is the most common of those effects." Morgan laughed again. "We still haven't worked out the bugs on that little device yet."
"So it is true," he blurted out. "You did kill Zanar Dun!"
It was freezing now. He could feel the shackles that bound him to the table burn with cold. "He meddled with things that did not concern him as did Jedi Knight Sitari. As you do now." Morgan replied. "They paid that penalty with their lives. A fitting end, I suppose."
The temperature flickered back to just above freezing. He breathed deeply, enjoying the relative warmth. "I really can't let you live. You know far too much about me already. But I would be a fool to let an opportunity to study a Jedi slip by"
Dread seeped into his soul. He had seen the results of Morgan Leigh's experiments. "The council will not stand for this. They already suspect you of Zanar Dun and Sitari's murders. Killing me will confirm those suspicions." He warned her.
The temperature in the room rose to normal. He turned his head and saw a woman, Morgan Leigh standing beside him. Hovering over one shoulder was a sphere-shaped droid bristling with needles, probes, optic sensors and audio receptors of every description. "What's that?" he whispered.
"It's a new interrogation droid my company has been developing. I haven't been able to find a subject to test it on though." She said, a sick smile twisting her lovely face.
Qui Gon instinctively lashed out with the force, intending to smash the thing into a wall. He screamed as his muscles spasmed painfully. Morgan's smile widened. "Poor fool, did you not think I would have taken precautions with a subject like you?"
He looked at her again, breathing harshly. "What have you done?"
"An associate of mine made it impossible for you to use the force to defend yourself or escape from my facility. If you try, your own body will betray you as it has done just now. Any further attempts will result in more pain." She replied.
"Now my friend. I think we should discuss your future with me," she said as the torture droid floated forward. A hypodermic needle swung out of its surface, visibly filling with fluid. Qui Gon swallowed dryly as the needle pierced his flesh.
***
Soralis sat cross-legged on her cot and scowled at the door. She had woken up in a small, windowless room and was none too happy about it. The first thing she had tried to do was escape through the Shadow Realm. Pain brought her to her knees. She next tried to blast the door to hell and again, pain.
Then she carefully examined her own mind. She found a hideous spell encasing her in an invisible grip. This spell was designed to keep her from escaping and using her abilities to attack or defend herself. Furthermore, any attempts to break the spell brought even more pain. She decided to leave it alone for the moment. She found that all of her passive abilities remained untouched.
When she tried to command her symbiont, it didn't respond. Somehow, someway, her captors had managed to disrupt the symbiont's ability to communicate with her neural network.
The room itself was remarkably clean and possessed basic amenities in a small cubical at the far end of the room. Less than ten steps away was another cot, evidently for another prisoner. She pushed her fear aside, knowing quite well they planned on keeping her for awhile.
She sighed, deliberately falling into a trance-like state. Soralis carefully extended her senses, taking in her environment. The cell itself was part of a much larger complex, housing twenty or so individuals. Only a few were human. The rest. She shuddered. The rest were demons. She could expect no mercy from such individuals.
She extended her senses outside the complex. What she found shocked her. The surrounding environment was barely suitable for the even the most basic of lifeforms. The atmosphere was weak, subject to the extremes of heat and cold. Even if she escaped, survival was problematical at best.
Something brushed the edge of her mind. Another presence. Unlike the other individuals in the complex, this presence did not feel evil. And the power of that presence physically shook her as it made a frantic mental grab. The mind that touched her was incoherent with confusion and pain.
Soralis hesitated reaching out to the individual. She did not want to be caught in its agony. Male? She wondered. Yes. It was definitely male and purely human from the mental 'feel'. Abruptly human's pain stopped as she felt it loose consciousness. She hastily dropped out of the trance and opened her eyes.
She could hear the force field flicker away and could feel three individuals behind the door. One of them was the powerful individual she had felt earlier. He was barely conscious.
The cell door opened, revealing the three. Two burly humans supported a third between them. They flung the injured man towards her and she moved to intercept him before he fell.
She staggered as she caught him. "Here's some company. Keep him alive or you'll be dealing with a rotting corpse." One of them laughed.
When they had untangled themselves, the two humans had disappeared; the cell door had slid shut and the force field had snapped back on. She half- carried, half dragged the man to the other cot and helped him lay down.
He was pale, his skin was clammy and his eyes dilated with shock. Soralis easily identified the classic symptoms of severe trauma. She frowned. Why had they tortured this man? She wondered as she gently brushed his hair away from his face.
"Don't," the man whispered brokenly, his voice hoarse from screaming. "Please don't."
"Shhh. It's alright. It's alright." Soralis murmured soothingly.
"It's over for now," she said as she summoned energy from deep within herself, hoping the spell that kept her captive would let her heal the man.
She breathed in relief when nothing happened and the energy readily flowed from her into the injured stranger. His heart-rate normalized, his breathing slowed and the cloudiness in his eyes faded. She slowly brought her hand away, letting the connection fade. She couldn't spare him any more energy.
Qui Gon moaned, blinking his eyes rapidly. He still was weak; confused from the torture. He had been injected with drugs that brought on terrible hallucinations and turned the world upside down, despite every meditation technique he knew. Other drugs, drugs designed to lower pain thresholds had been administered and then he had been subjected to electro-jabbers, fire knives and things he couldn't name. He began shivering uncontrollably.
Soralis sighed as she tugged the blanket over him. He turned, seeing her for the first time. "Who?" he asked groggily.
"My name is Soralis de Mordant. I believe I was abducted by our charming hosts from my own world and brought here." She smiled dryly. "Who are you?"
He was handsome, in his late forties, early fifties maybe. He was tall, taller than her and well built. His eyes were dark, calm. She thought that he was a fighter, maybe something of a priest. His aura was bright and strong, evidently a human bound to the forces of good.
Qui Gon managed a shaky smile. "My name is Qui Gon Jinn. You are not a Jedi Knight," he said, looking at her more closely as the confusion and shock became more manageable.
She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, though he instinctively knew she had to be much older than that. She had the slender, graceful build of a martial artist or dancer and was easily six feet tall. Her face was expressive with finely chiseled features and pale gold eyes. Her silvery- white hair was short, about shoulder length. She was dressed in a simple tunic and pair of trousers, a more feminine version of his own. Like him, her feet were bare.
Soralis smiled briefly. She had no idea what a Jedi was, but she felt she would like them if he was an example. "No, no I'm not. I take it you are." She added.
He laughed, the laughter turning a bit hysterical. It felt good to laugh, to find a release from the terrible trauma he had suffered. "Yes I am." He said, calming down.
"What are you?" he asked, touching her face curiously.
She smiled as she took his hand in her own. "I'll explain later. Get some rest." She told him softly.
"Please don't leave," he whispered.
"Doesn't look like I'll be going anywhere for the moment." She quipped.
He smiled in response to her joke and closed his eyes. She gripped his hand, helping him fall into a healing sleep.