#i got mauled by cave spiders and a zombie all at once

[apricot-the-apricat]

the sopping wet beast mines for iron

the children yearn for the mines.... (Riv is canonically 16)

[doorsclosingslowly]

Your death is a number but I cannot count that high (10/16)

In which Obi-Wan’s day gets worse. And worse.

Zombie Savage AU | 3k | warnings for body horror, mention of sexual assault

Obi-Wan’s troopers are staying mostly out of sight, aside from the few of them doing key maintenance or still manning the helm to enable quick escape if necessary. He knows they disapprove of the fact that he’s leading Savage Opress, renegade Sith apprentice and apparent undead creature and slayer of uncounted of their brothers and two Jedi, onto their small reconnaissance spaceship. He can’t see them, but he can still feel the worrying glares.

He also knows it’s necessary.

Identifying Darth Sidious is of utmost priority.

For the war effort. For the Republic. For the Jedi Order. For Obi-Wan himself, who’s lost so much to the machinations of this Sith, from Qui-Gon a decade ago to friends and soldiers daily right now.

He doesn’t quite know what breaching into the zabrak’s head will entail, but Obi-Wan will be likely out of commission for some time, which should be much safer on the ship. Plus, they are going to leave Entralla anyway. Once they know who Sidious is, they’ll make for his location posthaste—with an optional detour to Coruscant, should he decide he needs reinforcement. If everyone’s already on board, it will speed up the process. And the zabrak isn’t currently hostile.

He’s following Obi-Wan onto the ship without another word, head slightly bowed and apparently incurious.

He follows him into a small unused cabin.

He stands there, unmoving except for the metal insectoids in his cheek.

“How do you want to do this?” Obi-Wan has always been a courteous host. Even facing the undead creature that watched Satine die, it’s hard to shake the instinct.

Opress glances around the room. Only the wriggling of his cables betrays his nerves—if that is what it means.

“You suggested this. I know the Jedi ways of entering a mind—” in theory, and it was never Obi-Wan’s focus of study, though as unexpectedly easy as interaction with the grunting and brutal Sith is turning out to be, he mustn’t expose any lack of surety without reason— “but I assume you know your own techniques for mindmelding. Your familiarity might make this easier.”

“The cot.” Opress pulls at it until it’s dead center in the small room, then strips off the bedding and tosses it into a corner. “This ship is not earthen, but at least it is currently touching the soil, even if it’s not the soil of… It should be darker here. Can you locate braziers?”

“No.” Open fire? Inside a spaceship cabin? It would take a skilled engineer an hour to even shut off the smoke alarms because they are so elementary for safety.

“Then the electric light will serve in its place,” Opress rumbles. It’s hard to work out whether he’s disappointed. “I will strip—” he touches his shoulder pad, the one that was a clone’s helmet an hour ago, and shies away as if burned— “I will lie down now. You will stand behind my head.”

Obi-Wan follows his direction. The earth, the fire, the dark, and their arrangement—it seems deeply ritualistic, and although the Sith tend towards the dramatic he’s never thought them this primitive. In a less dire situation, this would be interesting.

“You will raise your hands. I will close my eyes.”

From the vantage point right above the supine zabrak, Opress looks even more wretched than he appeared on the battlefield. Occasionally, Obi-Wan can see straight through one of the holes in his chest before thick wriggling cables block his view. The other’s filled with an emitter guard—with Opress’ saber’s emitter guard. His torso is well-covered with junkyard debris, and where skin peeks through armor or trash it only seems slightly discolored. The arms are a different matter: the left forearm is prosthetic, of course, dull and lifeless compared to the rest of him, and the upper arms are sore-ridden and blistering and shiny with blaster burns. There is a deep gash all the way lengthwise down his right forearm, stuffed with crap, and the skin at the edges is swollen and purpling black. Flecks of trash move across the gash restlessly like misshapen ants. Despite Savage Opress’ size, somehow, he looks small.

“And then?”

Ridiculously, Opress looks offended. He rumbles, “You do magic.”

“Magic?”

A deep sigh heaves Opress’ metal-studded chest. His brows bunch. He bites his lip. Then, he rumbles, almost monotonously, “I gave myself up for my brother. Brothers. I am here now, and I will not resist. Picture it. I gave myself up. I will not resist. I paid the price for his life. I offer myself for my brother. I am here, Mother, Your Weapon, and whatever Your magic—"

Obi-Wan almost chokes on his vomit. The acid settles, uncomfortably, in his esophagus. Hunts have been lean recently, and there’s not much more to bring up. What hunts—The acid resists being swallowed because he’s lying down. He’s flat on his back and it’s dark outside his closed eyelids and he is terrified. He can feel the musty air on his bare chest, and he wishes he had something to cover himself. Anything. Only this isn’t what he’s been brought here for, he knows, he will soon be bred and—he’s lucky he still has his skirt. It won’t be long now. Maybe She will accept his lack of experience, and despite the tales She will be gentle. Only some Sisters enjoy causing pain.

It won’t be long, he thinks, trying to swallow back bitter spittle, trying to even out his breaths, it won’t be long, and the green that flashes behind his eyelids and seeps deep into his bones is no more vivid than the stone under his back. It won’t be long. It won’t last. It won’t be long.

He sinks.

He—there was a purpose here. He had a purpose. He is… He is Jedi. He’s Obi-Wan.

He’s Obi-Wan, and he just entered this mind.

This isn’t real, or rather—

It isn’t now.

He needs to find out a way to navigate these memories. Find Sidious. Find the Sith’s face. The fate of the Republic depends upon it. He can’t dwell on these… revelations about Opress, disturbing though they are, for all their sake.

Sidious, Obi-Wan tries thinking. Darth Sidious.

He’s still on the slab.

Savage might not care enough about the other Sith, he decides. This seems like a traumatic memory. Maybe it’s easier to access these, and what did Savage say…? The monster slaughtered him. Killed his brother. Maul’s death.

Maul’s death, he thinks. Maul is dead. Maul gets dismembered. Maul—

The crib is the only thing upright in this room. All other scarce furnishings have been torn asunder, searched and searched and searched and turned over as if something could possibly hide under a thin strip of linen.

The crib is an altar, and he kneels before it. He’s been kneeling for days.

The crib is empty.

He failed.

The baby is gone.

No, that’s not what Obi-Wan needs. Maul is dead. Maul is—

Maul is everywhere here, suffusing the air, a green tether—

Maul is dead. Maul is dead.

“What have they done to you, brother?” Obi-Wan can feel his mouth form the syllables, mournful and hard. “How could anybody do this? Hurt you, brother?”

They left the cave the day before yesterday, and finally, finally the brother in the cargo hold gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep. Finally, finally he can inspect him, from the safety of the door’s window, in bright shiplight.

Maul is on the floor curled into a quarter circle, though it’s obvious he would have taken a fetal position if his body allowed it. His metal arachnid abdomen sticks straight down, awkwardly.

His horns are far overgrown and rough, making him look friendless and undignified, but that’s the least pressing issue.

He’s emaciated.

He only got a few tossed pouches of reconstituted spiced meat because eating too much after starving makes you sick, and he wolfed them down. He emptied the hydrosacks much more carefully, sticking his tongue into the opening after so as not to waste a single drop. Water must have been scarcer than food on Lotho Minor.

Food and drink, that’s all he could give Maul. It’s not all his brother needs: companionship, perhaps, solace and sanity, and above all healing and care. Whoever fitted his grotesque prosthetic held no love at all for Maul, for they did nothing to protect his flesh. Maul’s stomach skin is inflamed all over, in places even gangrenous or with open sores smearing pus and blood all over the floor. It’s a miracle he still lives. But he does.

Someone cut him in half and he lived and someone screwed a spider’s ass into him and he lived and someone cut him and he lived and someone screwed it in and he lived and some monster cut Savage’s little brother in half and—

Maul’s dead, Obi-Wan thinks. Maul’s dead. Maul’s dead.

He’s tiny and feverish, and Savage got him just a fortnight ago and it’s already going wrong, he’ll fail his baby brother and—

I didn’t know, Obi-Wan thinks. I didn’t. But I still need to find—

The crib is empty.

It swings, slightly, in the storms.

The body he wears is sobbing.

Maul’s dead.

Maul is worrying his lip thinking of his brother right this moment in the bright green air—this doesn’t feel like—he’s kneeling in his room, but even knowing he might be able to feel the force connection will not allow him to settle into meditation. Savage is in the grasp of Sidious. Savage has been in his grasp for weeks while Maul idled—this isn’t the Maul of these memories—and any liberation might come too late. If they succeed, which they won’t. But still, his brother—this is real. It’s not a memory. Maul’s alive—his brother survived and Maul tried so hard to keep him and—what did Maul do?!—

Focus. Sidious. Sidious’ face. Maul’s... injury?

He never thought there was anyone more powerful than his brother in the galaxy, and he was wrong. Simple hero worship, he was dimly aware, and gratitude and adoration, and he hadn’t followed Maul for his strength anyway, but still, sometimes, he’d glanced sideways and thought, You could wipe the floor with Master Dooku. If he wanted to electrocute me now, you’d kill him, because I’m with you now. I’m your apprentice. He hadn’t thought, you could take on the Mother. But he also hadn’t not thought it.

The twin disasters against Kenobi hadn’t changed his mind. Kenobi might have had the upper hand those times, but he still was a gnat. Hey what…

He’d thought that there was no-one more powerful than Maul, and he’d been happy. Maul would live. Maul’s alive. Obi-Wan just felt his presence but—

He’d thought that there was none more powerful than his brother.

And then, the monster came.

The monster who stole the toddler Savage should have raised and tortured him instead, who is just as supercilious and cruel and ugly as Savage suspected. He wears a heinous purple hood robe—he’s hiding his face but Obi-Wan needs to see it—and he just kills Miks and Jema. Maul, immediately and obviously terrified, tries to placate him with lies of servitude. Getting smashed against the wall hurts less than hearing Maul call the creep Master.

Distantly, Obi-Wan catalogues the fighting stances used by the body he’s inside and the two others, though focusing mostly on trying to get a clear view of Sidious’ face. That chin seems oddly familiar. Too familiar. Who is… The body—Savage—has other priorities, glancing back and again at Maul. Maul, who has to live. Maul’s unconscious now, and Savage won’t win, but maybe in his struggle and death he will buy enough time for his baby brother to get away—a blurred view of the face but it’s clear enough and—Maul has to get away—Palpatine—the monster whirls around—the Chancellor?!—and pain, pain—the Chancellor—pain—the Chancellor, Obi-Wan left Anakin so often alone with him and the Chancellor is the Sith Lord—pain—the—

Floor, far away, for a minute. Not long left. Only time for—a hand, grasping his, and Maul. Oh, Maul. Oh, brother.

“I am an unworthy apprentice,” ground out with the last of bis breaths. An apology. A goodbye, because he’s leaving Maul here with his old nightmare and if Savage were better, if he were just a little bit better, he could have protected… “I never—”

Maul doesn’t accept. His hand is hot against Savage’s mouth. Savage bites down on reflex and the green light rises—Obi-Wan’s seen too much of this light, what does it mean—the green light rises and Maul forces it deep into his brother, with his own body and his mind unheeding the brutality or material reality, while the vortex of magic swirls and swirls around them. Debris sticks like static to his skin—Obi-Wan can feel it and he can feel Maul giving in to anything that may grant power, and oh, Savage outside these memories is crafted and reinforced with trash and does that mean—the light pulls shrapnel and detritus left on the battlefield inside and forms—and Darth Maul forms an undead behemoth out of the almost-corpse of his brother.

Darth Maul did this.

A technobeast.

That’s what they are called, amalgamations of organic and machine matter.

Obi-Wan read of mechu-deru, and mechu-deru vitae, after the reappearance of dismembered Darth Maul when a sai tok should have ended him. A prosthetic lower body is within the remits of the eccentric darkside art of mechu-deru, but Savage the undead machinistic creature extends far beyond that and into sheer barbarism. Mechu-deru allows its practitioner to understand and influence inanimate and robotic constructs. On the lowest end…

The technobeast.

Metal and flesh intermixed to create a weaponized cyborg. A willing slave.

Darth Maul was willing to lobotomize his own brother.

He made a weapon of his brother.

That Maul could sink so…

And still, pervasively, poor Opress loves him.

Obi-Wan’s seen enough.

He’s seen the face of Darth Sidious—seen Palpatine—and he now knows the true depths of Maul’s depravity. He only has to wake up and inform the Jedi Council now. He must wake up.

He must wake—

A finger touches his forehead. It feels strange, as if his body had never before been touched. He opens his eyes in the dark musty Temple, and soon his eyes land on the Sister who won him. Who will breed him. He wraps his hand around Her neck, and distantly he is surprised both that he is angry—that he dares resist—and that his hand dwarfs her neck, but still he chokes Her and She begs, “Let me go,” but he won’t because he hates Her and then the Mother says, “Calmly, Sister,” and She repeats, “Let me go,” and he stops.

He stops.

Stops.

He stands up.

“Now, for the final test,” She who is Power says.

And They carry in a brother he thinks he should know and She who is Power orders him to kill the brother and, wrapping his hand around another neck and feeling like he should remember every single meal and every hunt and every night and every tear and every word and every laugh they ever shared, he does.

He kills the brother.

It’s Feral.

He killed Feral—

Obi-Wan sicks up his lunch. And his breakfast, for good measure.

“Did you find Sidious?” Opress rumbles from his cot.

He appears completely impassive, as if Obi-Wan hadn’t just seen him mourn the baby he lost and choke another of his brothers to death and skewered through the hearts by Darth Sidious—by Chancellor Palpatine, and they are doomed, doomed, how could this just slip by, how could Obi-Wan entrust his padawan to a monster for hours upon hours, how could the Republic just fall to his sway and if he commands Dooku then what does this mean for the war that has been destroying all of them for years—seen Opress killed by Sidious and then turned into a machine slave by Darth Maul, who’s meant to be Opress’ brother and Obi-Wan always assumed that he felt at least a modicum of comradeship for his kind, but if he’s ready to plumb these moral depths… Maul, who apparently, is also still alive.

It’s a bit much.

Obi-Wan feels faint. He pulls a chair out with the force and sits.

Opress, meanwhile, sits up on his cot. The cables on his chest wave and wrap tightly around him—a sickening testament to Darth Maul’s malice. They jitter. “You—recognized him?” Opress asks.

“I did,” Obi-Wan replies tonelessly. “It’s Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.”

“Good. Where does this Chancellor live?”

“Where does—” Obi-Wan doesn’t have the energy for this. “He lives on Coruscant.”

“Then let us go and kill him.”

“We can’t just kill the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic—” Something dawns upon Obi-Wan. He laughs hysterically. “You have no idea who that is, do you?”

“I don’t.” Savage Opress doesn’t appear any less buoyed by his gross ignorance. Maybe that is a result of the brain damage caused by Darth Maul’s ritual. “It doesn’t matter. I am the last weapon of the Mother. She resurrected me, and I shall avenge Her, and then I’ll die.”

Obi-Wan should probably tell him that Darth Maul used mechu-deru to enslave him and that’s why he’s an undead machine-contaminated monster now. He will. He will, soon, but his first duty is to the galaxy and the Jedi and the Republic, and Sidious is the most dire threat by far. He can’t afford the time to explain what he just found out to this hapless creature, and technobeasts according to the book were renowned for their power. Perhaps Opress will be instrumental in taking down the Sith Lord.

It’s not even deception. A lot of deception, anyway. Opress wants to kill Darth Sidious. That’s why he accosted Obi-Wan. The man killed him, after all. There’ll be time for truth later and—

The comm system whirrs alive. “General, we’re being boarded!”

It turns off, like there’s not even time for another missive.

Kriff.

Who could it be but Sidious?

Obi-Wan hasn’t even commed the Jedi Order.

And if he already found out then…

Obi-Wan sprints towards the door. Opress pushes himself off the cot. The air grows thicker, and thicker, and both keel over.