"Somehow....Palpatine Returned." (Player Plot)

[survivalthroughhate]

Who: survivalthroughhate and anyone who wants to join in!
What: Palpatine ends up in Trench and no one wants that, so it's time to give him the beatdown!
When: Throughout the month
Where: All over Trench.

Content Warnings: Physical child abuse mentions, mental manipulation mentions, gaslighting, exorcism, food deprivation mentions, weed mentions, will add as necessary.



Maul's followers had come to him with the worst news possible. They'd been tracking the signs and had come to one conclusion: Palpatine was back to full strength and here in Trench. The Sith Lord was now possessing people, monsters, animals, whatever that could hold his form for any length of time before it was destroyed or rotted away from the pure evil of his spirit being contained within the body.

Maul knew he had to do something. He'd been responsible for unleashing this menace and so it was his responsibility to stop it. But he was scared too. The fear of his (former, he had to remember that part) master was deeply entrenched into his mind, the simple fear of a child scared of their abusive father and wanting to avoid punishment by doing anything possible mixed in with the more complicated fear of an adult who had been broken down through brainwashing and physical abuse until he'd been turned into a weapon rather than a person. Even now, letting go of his anger and pain hadn't diminished the fear he had of Sidious.

He'd hide for a period of time after warning the other Sleepers, too afraid to go out and face his master for good. It was all well and good to let them try to deal with this. None of them had any personal connection to Sidious, so they could try whatever methods they saw fit in order to exorcise those he'd possessed.

But as the month wore on and his master's spirit still stubbornly clung to the realm of Trench, Maul began to realize he had to face his master even if it was the scariest thing he'd ever have to do in his life. If he didn't confront him, Sidious was never going to leave. Bolstered by the encouragement of his friends and family, plus with the motivation of knowing only he could end this, Maul would go out to face his master. It'd be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do in his life, but to protect the people he loved so deeply and the place he called home, he would find a way to banish Palpatine forever from his life.

[OOC: This is the log post for the Palpatine in Trench player plot! Feel free to start your own open top-levels, set up closed threads, or just head straight over to the network post if you want to interact with Maul or threadjack people there. As a reminder, Maul doesn't necessarily need to be involved in exorcising an NPC or character if you just want to do to something among two of you.]

Comments

[imaglyphwitch]

Ah yes. The one this host was enamored with. Without thinking about it, Sidious pulled the hood of her cat hoodie up, being sure to obscure her face a bit.

Was she a suitable host? Interesting, for certain, but she had other business to attend to.

"The latter. Yes, yes, that would be fine. I am going to the backyard a moment, my dear. If you'll excuse me."

She has magic. There must be potential there. Sidious would certainly explore that now. Hopefully those answers would be enough for this girl. She wanted to test the potential of this one.

[thisislife]

Which Lexi didn't really think much about. After all, Luz had said something about an otter costume, so why not a cat hoodie?

Lexi is blissfully unaware of this at least for the moment. But not too unaware to ask, "My dear? That's a new one. What's that in Spanish, I think I like the Spanish endearments better. And," her brows furrowed slightly, "Okay. You sure you're feeling okay?"

Because Lexi was becoming #confused. It wasn't like Luz to want to break up a conversation so quickly.

No, no, she's always worn the cat hoodie. She just never wore the "hoodie" part!

[imaglyphwitch]

Unobservant. Good. Or so Sidious hoped.

"Oh, you know me. I like to come up with new terms of endearment!"

What was Spanish? Some area in whatever backwater planet this child was from? Better not to answer that question.

"Fine," Luz said, offering a smile. "Just trying to practice some of my moves. I'm going to need the space, and I don't want you to get hurt."

ooops!

[thisislife]

Not unobservant. Not enough to fail to notice the lack of Spanish since it was their joke to keep giving each other more and more ornate pet-names in Spanish and French.

She needed to figure out a test. A pet name she'd used more than once, preferably. Add in some drama learned from watching Cassie. Damnit. Give her a second.

"I can't believe you don't trust me enough to stay out of the way, mon coeur! I can take care of myself and I have a nice spinach lasagna for us to share! How could you be so heartless as to deprive me of your presence all day long? Get that hood out of your face and listen to me!" Damnit. Cassie could cry pretty much on command, so why couldn't Lexi? Frustrating!

Re: ooops!

[imaglyphwitch]

Not only that, but Luz specifically wouldn't say "my dear" to Lexi anyway, not when she tended to opt for mi amor. It was far more meaningful.

Which Sidious did not know, and hardly gave a second thought about.

Oh, but she was becoming so exasperating now. She seemed to insist on injecting herself onto this HOST, when he needed her for his own experimentation.

"It will just be for twenty minutes, promise. Then you may have me all to yourself. Just give me a little bit of time, and I'll be with you soon enough."

It was Luz's voice, sure, but clearly there was a kind of refinement in the speech. Sidious still made sure to keep Luz's warmth, just to avoid suspicion.

The hood would stay on though. Sidious did not believe in tempting fate.

(CW: weed implied)

[thisislife]

Precisely! So Lexi's something is not quite right hackles were already up.

But her face was the very picture of an aggrieved girlfriend, Lexi thinking of the various faces she'd seen Cassie make over the years and hey, it wasn't so hard. Open the eyes extra-wide, pouty frown, and she was still trying to work up some of those tears.

Lexi didn't want to sound whiny, too whiny and she'd get hung up on. But she wanted to at least try to get a better view on what the situation might be first before charging in, Darkblood powers blazing.

"It'll take me twenty minutes to get there! I'm leaving now, then I'll arrive exactly on time. I mean, that makes way more sense than me sitting here, twiddling my thumbs and waiting twenty minutes, then leaving! What's the matter, baby, you've never minded having me around during practice before!"

This. Was. Not. Luz.

She had a pretty damn good idea of what was likely going on, but fine, she'd play the aggrieved girlfriend a little while longer.

"And what's wrong with your eyes? Don't tell me you got Peter to give you some of his stash!" Which would never happen in a million, billion years.

I will never have a prob with a mention of *squints eyes* devil's lettuce.

[imaglyphwitch]

Sidious was not a foolish man: he could tell the ruse was getting harder to maintain, since this host and her aggravating paramour were close. She was catching on, and he did not like this.

And in fact, that was starting to reflect in Luz's demeanor. Where she would have been confused and a little clueless, Sidious's eyes watched with a quiet craftiness, evaluating what his next move would be.

"It is very dangerous, what I'm going to try to do now. The last thing you'd want is to get hurt, is it? I couldn't bear to do that to you!"

Lest you give me reason, you doe eyed fool.

"What do you mean? Stash of what?"

In this case, both Luz AND Palpatine had no idea Peter had the good herb. No real put on there. What Luz WOULD have said was that she actually hadn't seen Peter himself in a fair bit: she'd mostly talked to Paimon these days.

Spinach is delicious and I'll accept no other judgement. Unless it's about creamed spinach, YUCK.

[thisislife]

Correction: she had already caught on and was waiting for final confirmation before raising every kind of hell she knew how to unleash.

This is not Luz, this is not Luz, kept repeating in her ears. That Palpatine douchebag had taken her over and Lexi couldn't allow that to continue. She could only hope that the worst she could do with her powers wouldn't last in Luz's mind.

"I'll keep a safe distance, trust me! I know better than to get too close about things like that," she wheedled, finally feeling her lower lip and chin start to tremble, a harbinger of unshed tears. Which really weren't that fake, she was worried sick about Luz.

Keep talking, asshole. Give me enough rope to hang you and free my girlfriend.

And Lexi's voice grew clipped. "You're not my girlfriend. You're Palpatine. Don't even try to deny it. I'll see you soon." Then she hung up the phone.

But not before making a call to Maul. "Hey. Bad news, he's got Luz. Which could mean he's got access to a bunch of extra power. Meet me at her house in half an hour?"

Do I like cream spinach? I think I might? But I generally agree about Spinach!

[imaglyphwitch]

Ah, so she knew. It was about time she said as such, and stopped tiptoeing around the subject. Luz let out a chuckle.

"Good. You're not as big a fool as I thought. Please do hurry. I may have killed her before then. Oh, and I prefer Darth Sidious, dear, if we are being truthful."

Luz hung up the phone calmly, barely able to control her laughter as she headed out to the backyard. This should prove most interesting.

Especially with this hosts magic.

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul's hearts sank at hearing that Sidious had taken over Luz. This was one of the things he had been fearing. Well, he couldn't cower in fear. He had to rescue his friend. "I'll be there," he said softly before hanging up.

Maul arrived with his two lightsabers and wearing his sea medallion to help enhanced his powers. He looked around for both Lexi and Luz. This wasn't going to be easy.

[imaglyphwitch]

All Maul would have to do is go to the backyard where Luz lived. Once there, he would spot Luz, a shawl over her, and something that was probably a problem.

She had Luz's staff at hand, and extended toward anyone walking in on him.

"Well. It is you. Was the girl too scared to face me alone? A wise choice. And here YOU stand."

Sidious let out a barking laugh.

"How are you, Darth Maul?"

[survivalthroughhate]

When Maul saw Sidious had Luz's staff, he knew this was going to be a hard bout. The one advantage was that Sidious had never learned much about magic beyond what Talzin had taught him the first time he came to Dathomir. As for Maul, he had learned far more about how magic worked during his time in Deerington and Trench. That might have been enough to give Maul the edge he would need.

He pulled his saberstaff out and flipped it forward so that both blades were held in front of him. "About to blast you so far out of that body that you'll end up somewhere back in the ocean if you don't leave her right now."

[imaglyphwitch]

"Such bold words."

There was no trace of warmth in Luz's tone now, and the expression on her face matched: despite being shorter than Maul, Luz's stare was hard and cold, and now her stance looked anything but relaxed.

"Has living in this soft place emboldened you to believe you can stop me? This simpleton uses her powers like a fledgling Jedi, but there are possibilities, Darth Maul. Would you like me to show you?"

Luz tapped the staff to the ground, and there was a rustling all around the Sith as the area was now alight in fire.