Power of the Dark Side
Obi-Wan Kenobi shifted in the chair, tugging his wrists again at the metal bindings that cuffed him to the icy metal seat. No use. He couldn't strain too much against the bonds either, his chest throbbed with pain where he had been dealt a savage kick from one opponent that had sent him flying into a wall. The last thing he could remember was laughter, deep and cackling and downright terrifying, or maybe he had been hallucinating by that point. Looking around him, Obi-Wan began to reach out with the Force into the shadows, trying to locate anything-
"Enough!" A fist struck the Jedi across the face, hard, and Obi-Wan looked up from it, his cheek burning, to find a pair of amber eyes burning into his own. It was a dark-skinned Zabrak, his lips curled into a snarl and his fists with bloodied knuckles clenched. His long hair hung around his face, curtaining his visage and casting further shadows across it that was only pierced by the smouldering of his eyes as they practically blazed with fury. He spoke- or rather, snarled- again, "Answer me, Jedi! What were you doing in the west Outer Rim?"
"It was a-a reconnaissance mission." Obi-Wan groaned. "I was ordered by the Grand Master-"
"Lies." The voice came from the shadows behind the Zabrak, who did not turn. Obi-Wan stared into the gloom, and from it emerged a second figure, hooded and walking with slow yet steady steps. "Lies." His voice was softer. Yet when the hood was lowered and Obi-Wan found himself staring at an Iktochi with horns sharpened to deadly precision, claws on his hands that were poised to tear skin, and eyes that held the fiercest flames, the Jedi felt the pit of his stomach drop. The voice was not so soft anymore. It hissed like a viper in a poisonous well. "Liar!"
"Liar!" With a roar the Zabrak echoed his companion and stepped forward, his fist raised to strike; Obi-Wan braced himself for the impact- that didn't come. Opening his eyes, Obi-Wan saw the Iktochi had merely raised a clawed finger to restrain the Zabrak, and now he stepped forward. The Jedi couldn't help pressing himself further back in his chair as the Iktochi crouched in front of him, so close Obi-Wan could smell what he hoped was not rotting meat, and stared dead into his eyes.
Oh no, Obi-Wan thought, his eyes flicking to the knifelike horns, natural telepathy. Desperately, he tried to re-enforce his mental barriers, tried to call on the Force. But even as those amber eyes burned it felt like ice was pricking Obi-Wan's pupils then further, freezing over his defences and encroaching deeper and deeper into his thoughts, handling and discarding them like shards of glass flung back into the Jedi's mind that stabbed and bled and-
"So." The Iktochi straightened up and Obi-Wan slumped forward, gasping for breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "You came here to find…" the fiery eyes narrowed. "Us."
A growl sounded from the Zabrak's throat and his fists clenched once again, muscles rippling under the dark tunic he wore.
"Well he's found us." He growled. "And he will not live to tell the rest of them!"
"Patience, my friend." The Iktochi's voice reminded Obi-Wan of snakes once again. The amber eyes of the horned being now flicked upwards, to somewhere above the Jedi's chair. "I said patience."
A blade of plasma materialised into the air barely centimeters from Obi-Wan's face. Choking, he tried to press away, but he couldn't and the lightsaber was so close there was a hiss as the hairs of his beard began to smoulder and singe with the proximity. One shift and he would be dead.
"Must I? Really?" This new voice broke off- into laughter. It had been no hallucination then, cruel and low the peals of laughter right in the Jedi's ear began to bounce off the walls until the room rang with it. Obi-Wan could not turn his head, but he couldn't help but jolt when something long and thin slid over his shoulder and pressed almost too gently at his forehead. Another thing slithered and rested on his cheek. "Oh I see!" The newcomer crowed gleefully, "Master Jedi is scared!"
The lightsaber moved, now no longer threatening to slit his throat it was instead pointed right at his face, and the third figure now moved into Obi-Wan's peripheral vision. He suppressed a shudder as the tentacles dropped from around his face. For that's what they were; the Nautolan wore his head-tentacles unbound and they practically writhed freely around his head, twitching and gliding as they sensed every change in the Jedi's body. His teeth were pointed and sharp, visible because his mouth was stretched in a gleeful, ecstatic smile, made no less horrifying by his eyes. The Nautolan's eyes were not amber. They were black, so very dark and hollow that Obi-Wan felt he was looking right through his head to the shadows behind him.
"You're scared of us." The Iktochi nodded in satisfaction.
"And so he should be." The Zabrak's expression had changed and his voice was softer. Where the snarl had been there now only rested a leer, vicious and promising of nothing pleasant to come. The Nautolan was smiling wider too, baring his razor-sharp teeth, giggling slightly, and his lightsaber moved, swinging casually far too close to Obi-Wan's skin for comfort. The Iktochi only tilted his head, and he flexed his clawed hands, flaming eyes boring into the Jedi's skull.
"And so he should be…"
Obi-Wan could not supress the shudder that ran down his spine as the trio stepped closer.
He had a very bad feeling about this.