Phantom Chasing Phantoms...

[Tearen Wover]

The following evening, the Nealaphhs journeyed into Bilgewater's red light district. Based on the information that had been gained from the book keeper's mind, Leto Natrian kept a secret warehouse of his merchandise within one of the brothels in these lascivious streets. Males and females of various species and states of undress lingered within the warm lights of the run down cottages that echoed with cries of fufillment and deceit. Both of the Nealaphhs were glad that The Body was not having any sort of horomonal reactions to the sexual ploys of the resident workers. Granted, The Body had been sculpted without any sort of genitalia, but the centers in The Body's very human brain that controlled mating impulses were still very much intact. Lust could be a powerful source of interference for logical thinking, and though the Prime Nealaphh was not subject to its effects, the Secondary Nealaphh very much was.

Still, it was currently not a factor, so there was no sense in lingering on it. The establishment that the god-minds were looking for was called the Scantly Clad. It not only served as a convenient place for Leto's smuggled bodies to pay off their debts, but also as Leto's preferred den of indulgence. Outside stood a large, heavily built feline humanoid with horns that wore a stern expression on his scarred face. In addition, a red skinned woman with tiny bat wings and a negligee that left very little to the imagination hung off of bouncer's elbow, almost daring customers to try and get past the staunch guardian to find a den of even more stimulating attractions. As The Body approached the entrance to the house of pleasures, the feline humanoid held up a hand and spoke in a booming bass growl.

"Members only."

Simple enough. The Body nodded and sauntered off, appearing to peruse more accessible establishments. Honestly it would be quite trivial for the Prime Nealaphh to make its way inside, but on the off chance that it was spotted, it would be rather conspicuous, to say the least. Rounding the corner of the street, the Nealaphhs peered down the back yards of the many brothels. Each was fenced in and, based on the noise and stray thoughts, had some sort of attempt at a party taking place. The Body couldn't help but adopt a wry grin as the flavor of these celebratory musings revealed itself in a sour note, as if all this jubilation and hedonism was forced. A fleeting facade to banish the shadows of doubt and mortality that linger at the edges of the human mind. The Scantly Clad seemed notable, in that its back yard was, for the most part, completely enclosed. There was some sparse wire meshing on top of the fences, as if to prevent unwanted guests from dropping in.

Or maybe...

Was it to prevent people from getting out?. Curious, the Nealaphhs guided The Body closer to the high wooden fence that concealed all of the activity within the bordello. The Body delicately picked its way through the underbrush and sidled up to the barricade, reaching out with its mind for anyone who it could use. Many of the workers had some form of desperation, and beneath their ambient despair, Nealaphh could feel a...secret. Something deep and terrible. A secret to be feared. There was a young man, originally from Coruscant, who had wanted to escape the oppression of the Empire and the dangerous streets of Tier 6. Trevor Vlano was his name. He had little hope he would ever leave the Scantly Clad, as the amount of debt he had to repay Leto Natrian always seemed to increase slightly every time he asked. Such was the price of dealing with scum. Nealaphh could not learn much more of the boy's ways without alerting his mind to the shadow's peering attention. No need for any pretense of subtlety; this would either work or it wouldn't.

...

Trevor.

Trevor froze in place where he sat at the feet of some pirate noblewoman, his previously massaging hands going stone cold with fear. The entitled baroness looked down at him with a questioning eye, a subtext of menace glinting in her yellowed gaze. Slowly, Trevor began to knead her oil slicked flesh again, when that strange voice pinged his mind yet again.

Trevor. Do not be afraid.

Something weird was definitely up, but the young man shook his head in defiance of his apparent insanity and continued to work on the woman's legs, for fear of the repercussions if he ended his service to her. He kept on doing as he had been told, despite this new, constant nagging.

Trevor. I need your help. And I can help you.

"I don't even know what the fuck any more..." Trevor murmured, barely audible, as he moved to the baroness's right leg. He was doubly disturbed whenever this voice in his head appeared to respond to his words. This was how it started huh? Going crazy? About time. He had been working at this place for over seven months, and after all the shit he had had to do, all of the vile, heinous requests he had been forced to fulfill, it might be nice to go a little nuts. Take the edge off of things.

Trevor. My name is Nealaphh. I can free you from this place, but it will be dangerous, and I need you to show me something first.

"And how do I do that, tiny man in my brain?" Trevor said with a chuckle, moving on to the woman's disgusting, yellow toed feet. The baroness had started to take notice.

"Wot was that, luv?"

"Nothing, madame. Just talking to myself." he said in the velvety falsetto he had learned could earn him a tip or two. The baroness just responded with a pig-like grunt and a shrug. What did she care? She was getting what she wanted from the little sex rat.

Trevor, I am capable of entering other people's bodies. I need to merge with you in order to achieve our goal.

"Wouldn't be the first time it's happened."

Your sardonicism is a pointless defense mechanism. You know what I mean.

Shit, was this voice in his head seriously getting surly with him? What the fuck? In all honesty though, despite Trevor's jaded nature, he kinda guessed that he knew what this pretend voice was getting at. Like a possession or something.

Precisely.

Oh wait, shit. This thing was really in his head, wasn't it? This was seriously starting to get distracting.

Is there somewhere we can talk undisturbed?

Well, the commode would probably work, pending there wasn't anybody getting their rocks off inside.

Excellent. I look forward to it.

"Whatever." Trevor sighed as he undid his pants and began the second half of his service to this heinous woman.

...

Half an hour later, Trevor sat down on the bench of the squalid little out house that was on the edge of the Scantly Clad's so called 'pleasure garden'. He was really hoping the voice in his head wouldn't come back, but sure enough, the second he began to relax, it came tinkling into his head.

"Do you mind dude? I'm kinda...busy?"

Your biological functions do not concern me. To the point; I am investigating Leto's human smuggling business. The deal stands.

"So you promise me freedom and...what do I have to do precisely?"

I will guide you, but we must merge first. You must be ready to accept another soul inside of you.

"Yeah well...not like I usually have a choice. Whooo insanity-"

Trevor gagged heavily as a thick black smoke flooded in through the thin cracks of the outhouse's walls and surged down his throat, filling his lungs like a numbing, cool vapor. This was...this wasn't insanity. He had really, seriously, just let a ghost possess him. Panicking, Trevor hiked up his pants and was about to burst out of the wooden rest facilities when an overwhelming urge to not do precisely that overwhelmed him.

"Is this what it's gonna be like? You say jump and I say how high?" Trevor said with a nervous laugh. He could try and put on a brave face, but honestly, he was panting slightly, grabbing the splintering wood of the toilet bench.

Calm yourself Trevor. I do not wish for harm to come to you. We need to work together.

"Okay...hokay...ooohhkay." he said, trying to stabilize his breath. Oh fuck, this was seriously happening. Gotta toughen up. He had been through some bad shit before on Tier 6. He could tough this one out. That was the only thing he had ever learned from his brother before he had been shot dead by an impromptu Imperial firing squad. Be brave. No matter what, be brave.

Yes. We need to be brave. Now. Leto Natrian keeps you and other smuggled Secondaries here, yes?

Yeah, Trevor didn't know exactly where, but people usually popped in and out of the basement, and he vaguely remembered being kept in a cramped, stinking crate for a whole day before being let out into a whorehouse and told he had to fuck to pay off the shipping costs. Fantastic.

We need to go there.

Oooohh no. No way. When Secondaries pissed Leto off they disappeared into the basement and never came back out. Something terrible went on down there, and sometimes you could just barely hear screams of terror and pain through the floorboards. Not that the customers of The Scantly Clad ever noticed...or cared. Ah fuck. Gotta be brave...but, you know, also, death?

I will keep you safe.

How could that possibly be the case? It wasn't as if he was a-

Prime? I am a Prime.

Wait, seriously? He was sharing a body with a Prime? Did that make him a Prime?

Not quite. Something in between.

Well, that was good enough for Trevor. Fuck it. Let's do this. The quickest way into the basement would be to cross Leto on a personal level. The pirate lord himself would be on the third floor, either fucking or eating. Maybe both. Taking a deep breath, Trevor exited the privy and entered The Scantly Clad itself, the red and gold lights barely illuminating the many writhing bodies. There was actually a burlesque going on at the moment: Little Miss Cindy was dancing and flashing her various assets around much to the delight of the enraptured audience. Her real name was Carrie, but she was a dead ringer for Cindy, the famous monster hunter who had fought in Dante's Abyss. Trevor couldn't let himself get distracted by her admittedly fierce talent for strip-tease, he had a job to do. As usual there was a Charr guard at the steps up into the brothel's overnight rooms, but Trevor was a pretty high-profile piece of talent in The Scantly Clad, so he was usually allowed just about anywhere.

One of those places was certainly not Leto Natrian's bedroom and office. As Trevor reached the third floor, there was no one in sight, and only a few rooms seemed occupied. The reluctant male escort slunk silently up to Leto's door and pressed an ear to it. There was no one inside, or at the very least, Leto was not. The pirate lord was anything if not conspicuous at all times. The door was locked though. What was he supposed to do now?

Allow me.

There came a sharp click, and the door creaked open slightly. Okay, so that was awesome. Now what was he supposed to do though?

Look for shipping logs, papers, a journal. Anything with information. We may not need to go into the basement at all.

Well that was a fantastic idea that Trevor could get behind whole heartedly. It was dark as fuck in Leto's room, but Trevor searched with the light from the hallway anyway, opening and closing drawers, rifling through cabinets, and generally making a mess of the place. Trevor was in the midst of looking through a dilapidated bookshelf when the ghost spoke up again.

Wait. There's someone here.

What? No way, he would have heard someone walking down those creaky ass floor boards.

Trevor. There's someone in this very room.

Trevor wrinkled his brow into a consternated visage of confusion and looked around, peering into the darkness. Nah. There wasn't anyone hiding in the shadows, unless it was some weird creepazoid hiding up in the rafters, haha...oh god. Trevor slowly looked up and froze, his entire skin going clammy as he spotted two swirling circles of red light looking down at him. He tried to sprint away, but before the hapless boy could even get one foot in front of the other, a great, cloaked shadow fell between him and the doorway. The next instant, everything went dark.

...

After some long time, Trevor slowly came to. His vision was blurry, and an angry knot throbbed on the back of his head. Ohhhh shit. Shit. He was in the basement. What the fuck, why was there blood on everything? Literally everything? Trevor slowly pushed himself into a seated position and tried to get a better gauge on his surroundings. He was in a wooden cage of some sort, alone, in a dark room illuminated only by a single candle. All around him he could hear whispers and murmurs. God it was so hard to see. Stack into the darkness were...crates. Long wooden crates like the ones that Leto used to smuggle people around the Omniverse. Were there people inside these things? In all of them? It sure smelled like it. Come to think of it, where was his ghost friend? The Prime?

I'm still here.

Well what the fuck, then? Couldn't it have done something? Fought off the dude in the robe or whatever?

He was also a Prime.

Trevor's mind froze. Leto had a Prime working for him? How did that even work? How could this pirate scumbag be so powerful that he actually had a Prime taking orders from him? Ohh man. Oh man, he was in deep.

Be calm. Be brave.

Oh fuck you. Shit. Oh shit. There was someone coming. Based on the heavy breathing and the footsteps, it sounded like it was Leto himself, with one of his toadies. The corpulent pirate lord was dressed in a hideous yellow overcoat, with a grease spattered cravat bursting out from a white shirt that strained to contain his mountainous gut. Red hair merged with a barely kempy, scraggly goatee, made pretty damn terrifying by the swinging light of the lantern that the token pirate thug was carrying. Leto lumbered up to the cage that Trevor was in and leaned heavily on the wooden bars, the frame of the structure creaking in protest. The pirate lord smiled at Trevor for a moment in the darkness, chuckling in a half-amused tone.

"Trevor. Poor, poor Trevor. When I heard that Lady had hired some stool pigeon to try and learn about my operation, I was expecting an agent from the outside. But here Uchiha finds you of all people sneaking into my room."

Leto chuckled again.

"I gotta admit, I'm honestly confused. So congratulate yourself on that little nugget, fuck pig." Leto said, sharply gesturing towards the bandana capped pirate. The oafish brute hung the lantern on a hook that sprang out of a support post and fiddled with heavy keys, opening the cumbersome door of the cage. Trevor was grabbed by what felt like the hands of a gorilla and hoisted on to his feet. The three Secondaries shuffled down a long corridor lined with cargo containers, and as they passed each one, Trevor could hear whispers offering condolences and blessings to the doomed young man. One woman, she sounded old, even gave Trevor the Blessing of Omni. A moment later there came a sharp howl from that same crate, and a flood of hushed whispers. Leto looked back over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, but just made a sharp noise with his lips and resumed his slow ambling.

After some time, the three descended a wooden flight of stairs, into what appeared to be a hollowed out, man-made cave beneath The Scantly Clad. It was damp, and water droplets plinked down from the ceiling on to the gravel strewn floor. Unlike the storage rooms for the human cargo, this place was brightly lit by some large torches. When they finally arrived down on what Trevor assumed was the killing floor, he was tied to a post by both his hands and legs. Was the ghost going to do anything? Had that all seriously been complete insanity? If so, it had definitely not turned out the way Trevor had planned. Then, like a bat or crow, the cloaked figure landed in front of Trevor once more. In the bright light, he didn't appear to be some scaly monster. He was actually kind of a good looking dude, with long black hair, a metal hairband and...uh...red swirly eyes? Leto took the liberty of easing his bulk onto an overturned fish-gutting trough and let the pretty-boy speak.

"Normally we don't bother giving you fools a chance to talk before killing you, but you've got my attention. I'm curious how Lady got to you."

Wait so...so was this guy running Leto's entire operation? Was Leto Natrian just a front man for this sicko's schemes? Trevor's mind was racing, but he felt a gentle tugging from the ghost, as if to remind Trevor that he was in good hands. Hypothetically. At least he knew that he was still imbued with the power of a Prime, probably. Shit.

Say nothing.

Well, that had honestly been Trevor's plan. The alternative was begging for his dear life, but his mind was drifting back to the time when his brother had been against the wall, with four stormtroopers looking down the long end of their rifles at him. He hadn't flinched, nor given ground. He stared his death right in the eye, and that was exactly what Trevor was going to do. As it turned out, this was a very bad idea in this scenario, as the second Trevor made eye contact with the cloaked dude, the world...well, it went funny.

Trevor suddenly found himself crucified, hung on a black cross in the middle of a gigantic ocean, with dull grey clouds in every direction. He screamed, what with the nails in his hands, but it wasn't like this robed guy cared. He slowly walked towards Trevor, red eyes blazing, his features completely placid.

"Welcome to my genjutsu. In this world of your mind, we'll have plenty of time to talk about where you got your orders." the robed man said, never blinking.

"My name is Uchiha Itachi. I already know who you are. It's pointless to try and resist this, so just accept it and let me know everything."

Trevor suddenly perked up.

"Wait, Uchiha? Like Sasuke Uchiha? That guy-" Trevor was cut off by his own screams as a flock of crows descended on him and tore at his flesh mercilessly. Once the pain had grown beyond the pale, the flock dispersed, leaving Trevor shaking, dripping with sweat and tears. The robed ninja spoke up again, his voice painfully soft.

"I can maintain this indefinitely. I can rip your flesh a thousand times for hours before even a moment passes in the physical world."

Trevor took in deep breaths, as something in him shifted. Perhaps it was resignation to his fate, or just his familial stubbornness, but his voice suddenly took on a harsh, rasping edge.

"Oh yeah? And then what? Pretty sure there's nothing worse you could do."

Itachi laughed softly.

"Perhaps not. But you will fulfill one final use, once I convert your Secondary body back into Omnilium. I look forward to deconstructing you, actually. I have reason to believe that your attempt at increased importance within the Omniverse will have ripened your value." Itachi said, taking a few steps closer to where Trevor hung. Trevor shivered with a deep cold as the wounds all over his body continued to rage in painful anger. When the ghost had asked him to be brave...he hadn't anticipated this. Nothing like this. This was too much. And...what? Primes could do that? Suck the Omnilium out of a Secondary's body until they were nothing but memories? No wonder Leto was pulling so much damn money out of the people in this operation. He was literally pulling money out of them.

Excellent. We're done here.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Trevor muttered, his head drooping against his chest. Itachi squinted warily at the Secondary.

"What was that?" the akatuski ninja asked, his unblinking gaze never faltering. Trevor shook his head slowly and let out a hoarse, shuddering laugh.

"Fuck. Fuck. Nothing. Just talking to voices in my head."

A single, red eyed crow landed on Itachi's shoulder, peering at Trevor with a soulless eye.

"Voices?" the Uchiha brother asked. Trevor was about to answer, when things...changed again. Large, worming tendrils, like veins or capillaries, seemed to burst out of the very walls of existence, growing and permeating the mental landscape like some kind of pulsating, writhing blight. Green light poured down from the sky, as the sullen grey clouds broke, parting to make way for a black, featureless, three-eyed face to gaze down at the scene. Itachi took a step back, and then looked at Trevor in confusion. Trevor just drew his lips into a thin, slanting look of haplessness and shrugged his bleeding shoulders. Itachi's red eyes suddenly flared as his sharingan activated. As he scanned Trevor's body his eyes grew even wider. Trevor blinked and the nightmare seemed to end. Found himself staring at the gravel floor again, with his hands and legs somehow free. Leto, the thug and Itachi were all on their feet with their swords drawn, seemingly stunned by something behind Trevor.

Or no...they were stunned at Trevor. The Secondary suddenly realized that a green light was pouring from his eyes, and somehow, a third eye had pried itself open on his face, just below his right. Also? His mouth was gone. So there was that. His body seemed to follow intuitive instincts as the three adversaries closed in. As the two pirates dashed in from the left, a wall of shimmering space seemed to bend outwards, blocking their clumsy advance. Itachi was much more deft, but as he dashed towards Trevor with a blinding sprint, a sharp white light burst out of his eyes. Itachi screamed in agony and clasped a hand over his own red eyes, stumbling off to the side.

"Uh..."

Run.

There was no need to tell Trevor twice. He was still reeling from the concussion and mental ravaging he had suffered, but he was still able to book it up the steps and into the darkness of the cargo storage areas. He didn't look back. He couldn't look back. There was no telling what that Itachi guy was capable of, or, more importantly, what Trevor was capable of. He ran until his lungs burned, and the stair way up into the Scantly Clad came into view. He had no idea how he had managed to traverse the pitch blackness of the cargo rooms, but he had. He guessed that he had the ghost to thank for that. With a smile, Trevor clambered up the steps, threw open the trap door and was met with the scowling face of Itachi Uchiha. Trevor's face went completely white. This time, Itachi left nothing to chance, and with just a quick swipe of his hand, sent three kunai plunging into Trevor's gut. The boy was sent crashing down the steps, back into the darkness, with the cruel metal blades falling out of their wounds and clattering on the wooden floor.

"N...no. That..." he gasped, trying to stand back up. Itachi slowly descended the staircase, eyes blazing furiously.

"Show yourself." he snapped. Trevor wasn't exactly sure what Itachi meant, but kinda figured it out when he proceeded to vomit black smoke out onto the ground. The dark vapors twisted and spun for just a moment before careening up the steps, past Itachi.

"No you don't." Itachi growled, and sprinted after the cloud with otherworldly speed.

Thus, Trevor Vlano was left, bleeding out, on the basement floor of The Scantly Clad. He could hear heavy footfalls approaching, but he was fading. A spotty darkness was encroaching on the edges of his vision, adding even more umbral obscurity to the inky depths of the cargo room. Trevor distantly thought back to his brother, standing tall against the stormtroopers, facing his death in its face. Should he do the same? He had tried once already. But he was so tired, and Leto was an ugly bastard anyway. Maybe it was better just to let go.

So he did.