Private A Fly in the Web

[Adonis Angelis IV]

Spoiler: You drift off to sleep...

The air chokes you-​

not with smoke, but with decay.​

There is no light here.​

Your hands are heavy.
In your palm rests your own heart, pulsing fast enough to shake your bones.
You still feel it in your chest,
each thud rattling through your ribs until fear drowns the marrow.

You try to walk.​

But your legs betray you.
Step after step, the ground beneath you blackens, collapsing into soot.

This place is nowhere you know...
and yet it feels like the grave already carved for you.

The cliff face looms ahead, half-seen, blurred,
as though even stone resists your gaze.

Your other hand burns with light.
It shreds the shadows that gnaw at your skin,
glowing fiercer the more you fight to keep it alive.

The darkness presses back.
It wants you swallowed.

At the edge of despair, the light devours everything.​

Your flesh bubbles and sears,
stripped away and rebuilt in endless repetition.
Agony and rebirth-
the same breath.

When your eyes snap open,
your skin is raw,
your hands slick with sweat.​

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

Within hours of his vision, Adonis was in the sky. There were quite a few things he had learned from his time with the Mandalorians: pressing your advantage was one of them. It worked like any other dream, if you got up and wrote it down, you remembered it; if you didn't, you forgot. Instead of writing, however, Adonis was traveling. There seemed to be an internal compass, its points guided by the Manda, pulling him through the stars toward this dark world. Something, or someone, there was tied directly to his destiny.

The Mandalorian Knight spent his journey meditating, training, and watching old holofilms from his childhood. The visions weighed on him. Each time he awoke, it felt like he had stood beneath a burning sun for hours, his skin fever-hot to the touch. He had sweated through more blankets and pillows than he could count, until finally he abandoned them altogether, sleeping on the cold steel floor just to cool his body.

Midway through the voyage, clarity struck. The doom pressing against his chest, the pull at his soul, he was headed to Malachor V. A place spoken of only in whispers. He knew the stories: how the Jedi Exile had shattered his people there, how the wound in the Force bled still. Every Mandalorian carried that history. And now he alone would walk its surface.

In the final hours of travel, deep in meditation, Adonis wandered the Manda, searching for the link that called him. Something on Malachor was his to face, though the Dark Side cloaked it in shadow. He felt it whispering in his ear, promising him power, promising him fear, if only he submitted his soul. His willpower held fast, but even then, he couldn't deny the draw of such temptation.

When his ship finally touched down, his body felt heavier than the vessel itself. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back. Even without the Force, this world reeked of evil. But he knew that if he fled now, he would betray his destiny. He swallowed his fear, gathered his gear, and sealed his helmet. Whatever waited outside, he would face it as a Mandalorian.

His boots crunched across Malachor's broken surface. Shadows twisted at the edge of sight. The air pressed against his back like a breath not his own. Sweat gathered on his brow, but he would never let it show. That was not what he was built for. He was built to be a beacon in shadow, to burn away the dark, and regrow light from its ash.

Adonis walked on, steady and unflinching, into the graveyard planet's cracked heart.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TAG: Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Barren Potential."

Tags - Adonis Angelis IV

The wind off the caldera came thin and razored, carrying the taste of old glass. Worklights burned in a slow constellation behind her—scaffolds, pylons, half-raised monoliths—steel ribs lifted over a wound that never closed. The construction crews had stilled at her approach; droids stood at mechanical attention, sensor arrays dark. This was not their moment. It was hers.

She descended the basalt shelf without hurry. Tyrant's Embrace whispered at each step, plates breathing in violet undertone, a living cathedral of lacquered black. Six soft lenses glowed in her mask like patient stars. The world pressed close, as if the planet wished to listen.

He was heat before he was man. Fever clung to him like an aura, a mirage around steel. Mandalorian. The ash knew that stride. Malachor remembered every boot that had ever tried to master it.

She stopped a spear's length away and let silence do the shaping. Let the dead air and the living wound speak for her. When she finally broke the hush, it was with a voice cut fine, low, and deliberate—respect laid over iron.

"Who comes before me?"

No challenge in it, no blare of threat—simply the hinge upon which all else would turn. Names were geometry; the right shape opened doors, the wrong one triggered traps. She let the words hang and sink, like a weight lowered hand over hand into a deep well.

Her head tilted a fraction, a hunter's acknowledgment of another creature with teeth. "You stand on a scar your ancestors helped carve. This place remembers what it was promised. So do I." The wind curled her cape; ash skittered and settled in obedient arcs around her boots. "I came alone to meet you. I will grant you the same courtesy of truth."

She stepped aside half a pace, revealing the black skeleton of her rising sanctum. Pylons framed the caldera's mouth like an altar under construction. "If you seek penance, Malachor offers none. If you seek absolution, it will charge interest. If you seek purpose, it will require skin."

She studied the sweat he refused to acknowledge, the discipline that kept it from becoming tremor. "You have walked far, for what purpose? The world has put its hand on your back and pushed. It recognises your efforts." She let the notion warm between them like banked coals.

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

A shiver wound its way down the warrior's spine as the air shifted. He had been right, he was being watched. He had been right, his life was in danger. Strength alone could carry a man through many trials, but not this. A trap could crush even the strongest, and in this moment he felt the web quiver to his touch, the hidden predator alerted to her prey.

Her voice struck him like a scream in a cavern, every syllable echoing in his skull until it tangled around his thoughts. It was impossible to deny her influence. The words were stakes, hammered one by one into the soft meat of his mind. He fought to push them out, to hold onto himself. His destiny demanded survival- his survival demanded he master this moment.

Brown eyes flicked beneath his visor as he forced breath past the choke in his throat. Finally, a word broke through the haze: "Adonis." The sound of his own name steadied him. "Adonis Angelis the Fourth. Mandalorian Knight." Legacy gave him the strength to go on, each word driving back the Force-tendrils gnawing at his guard. Still, focus cost him dearly. He could feel himself slipping, dragged to the edge of oblivion.

Her words pressed deeper, speaking of Malachor and its price. He knew the stories well enough, but when she spoke them, he felt them. His mind flared with visions: the battlefield burning, the shudder of the Mass-Shadow Generator tearing heaven and earth alike, the heat of light devouring dark. It was the same heat that had haunted his dreams, the same fire now burning in his veins.

"Something…" His voice wavered, the word catching in his throat. "Something led me here."

His body lurched, heavy and fevered. The world swam as his legs buckled beneath him. A rush of heat blasted through his frame like a geyser, and his vision shattered into black spots. He stumbled forward, shoulder grazing her as he tried to steady himself. Then his eyes rolled back into darkness, and the warrior fell into silence.

Spoiler: You feel a spider bite.

You cannot move.

Straps? Rope?
No,thread.
Silk biting into skin, pinning you in place.

You try to scream. Nothing comes.
Only the taste of ash in your mouth, bitter, choking.

The clicking starts.​

Eight points of sound.
Closer.
Closer.

Then- weight.
It crushes the air from your lungs. Your ribs strain. Your heart hammers- once, twice- then stutters.

The fangs sink in.
Cold fire floods your veins.
Your body locks.
Your body betrays you.

You hang.​

Suspended. Wrapped. Buried alive in silk.
Time breaks. Centuries, seconds, hours
You rot and reform at once.
Skin bubbles, bone grinds,blood congeals.

Reformation.
The cocoon tightens.

Then, movement.

Your arms split.
Your legs bend wrong.
Teeth shear through your jaw, lengthening, multiplying.
The threads snap as you rip free, shrieking-
-but the voice is not yours.

It is a hiss.
A scream.
A sound meant to hunt.

You see yourself.​

A reflection in torn silk.
Not man.
Not woman.
Not Mandalorian, nor Sith.

A monster.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TAG: Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Barren Potential."

Tags - Adonis Angelis IV

She did not let him hit the ground.

A subtle lift of her fingers and gravity forgot him; the fall became a slow surrender. Virelia drew him into the lee of a basalt fin and lowered him onto one knee first, then the other, then to a seated rest with his back against warm stone. Tyrant's Embrace sighed as she knelt, lacquered plates folding with quiet grace. When she spoke again, the planet seemed to hush to hear it.

"Adonis Angelis the Fourth," she repeated, as if setting a seal. "Mandalorian Knight. Your name stands upright."

Heat ghosted off him in visible waves. She did not reach for his helmet. Respect was the first kindness. Instead, she palmed a slab of obsidian the size of a book, pressed her gauntlet to it, and bled cold into the glass until a skin of hoarfrost spidered across its face. She slid it beneath the crook of his arm where the plates of his gorget allowed air to move. The fever paused, then began to drain by degrees.

"Breathe with me," she said, voice low and even. "Four in. Hold for four. Four out." She counted the beats softly—not command, not spell, a steady rope thrown down a dark well. "You are not prey here. Not while I am near."

The caldera's draft worried her cape; a faint violet washed through the lenses of her mask. She let the Dark bend, not to break him, but to part the pressure around him like a tide around a rock. The world's wound pressed hard on men who came bearing honest purpose. She could honor that with gentleness.

"I asked only who comes before me. You've answered well. Hear me, then—plainly." A beat. "I am Darth Virelia. I am raising order here where catastrophe still speaks. I came alone to meet you, and I will keep that faith."

Her gloved hand hovered a breath above the plates at his sternum—a promise, not a claim. "This fever is the planet's language. It will pass. Sit in it. Mastery begins with listening."

She settled back on her heels, patient as a sentry. "Your people teach that legacy is a weight you choose to lift. You have lifted yours into a hard sky." The timbre of her voice warmed—steel sheathed in velvet. "Be proud."

When the tightness in his breath eased, she angled her head toward the unfinished ribs of her sanctum, then to the black throat of the crater.

"Two paths, Adonis. Up to clean air, under my protection. Or down, to get to the bottom of your condition." A soft, almost fond hush colored her last words. "Either way, you do not walk alone."

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

Even in his stupor, Adonis felt Virelia's power holding him steady, guiding him to the ground without breaking him He went to both knees, then further back, finally landing safely on the ichorous rock. The cold rock rippled through his body harder than the fever did, jolting him from his feverdream. In his skull were the echoes of Virelia's voice saying his name. It dragged him back from the brink. His life would not end here, no matter how much the planet pleaded.

He drew breather at her count. Four in, hold, four out. The rythym steadied him, while the dark air filled his lungs until the spots in his vision shrank smaller and smaller. The Knight was confused by the Sith's kindness. It felt too deliberate to be mercy, too pointed to be simple cruelty. Perhaps she was playing with her food, but something in her presence made him think he might live long enough to leave this planet.

A strained breath hissed through Adonis's teeth as he steadied himself, his crushgaunts pushing against the planet's ashen surface. He looked toward her, his eyes strained by the previous attack, but he could still make out her mask, and the six facets that made up her eyes. "You have steadied me, Darth Virelia," He moved forward a bit, his feet still a bit soft, but he moved forward nonetheless, "But Mandalorians do not choke on darkness, we chew it and keep going." His voice was hot now,

The fever still smoldered under his skin, but he bent it into his own rhythm. If this was Malachor's language, then he had given it his answer. He would not sit in silence. He would speak back in defiance. "You spoke of legacy as a weight. It is. But it isn't lifted by turning back to clean air. It's carried into the depths, where it breaks or it proves itself. That's where my sky lies."

The pounding in his skull dulled, and the feeling of heat in his hand began to subside, like the darkness had finally been burned away. Just like in his vision. "Tell me, Darth Virelia, what are you building on this grave, what claim does Malachor think it has on me?" He paused for a moment, "And how did you know to meet me here?" He wondered if she had felt something in the Force that brought her here, or if she had been tracking him since he had landed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TAG: Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Barren Potential."

Tags - Adonis Angelis IV

Virelia eased to her feet with the same unhurried care she'd given him, the violet breath in her armor dimming to a calm pulse. When she answered, it was simple, even kind—like a hand on a railing.

"I'm building a place that doesn't lie to the people inside it," she said. "Archive, foundry, med-bay, listening post. Quiet halls where the past can speak without running the room. Training floors where fear is measured, not worshiped. A roof over hard truths. That's all."

She glanced toward the ribs of steel rising over the rim. "Malachor is honest. Cruel sometimes, but honest. I'd rather shape honesty than paint over it."

His stance settled. She let that register before going on.

"What claim does the planet have on you?" A small tilt of her helm. "None you don't sign. It will press you. It will try to make your name mean what it meant yesterday. That's not a law. It's a push. You can lean back."

She angled two fingers toward the ground between them. "This place remembers Mandalorians. It remembers Jedi. It remembers a machine that pulled the spine out of the sky. When you walked in, it recognized the pattern and reached for you. That heat? That was a handshake. Aggressive, yes. Still a handshake. You answered it. Good."

She let the breeze speak for a few heartbeats, ash ticking softly along the stone.

"How did I know to meet you?" she said, and there was a faint smile in her voice. "Because I keep house here. The perimeter net saw your burn in the upper air. The seismics felt your landing. And the wound lit like a flare." A quiet, self-effacing shrug rippled through the plates. "I prefer to choose my first words, not let the crater speak for me."

Her chin tipped toward him—approval without ceremony. "You did well. You rode the fever instead of wrestling it. That's discipline. Keep the count if you need it. It's there to be used."

She turned a fraction, as if to make room beside her rather than ahead or behind. "You said the depths are where your sky lies. Good. We can go down. I'll walk with you. I won't take your test for you, and I won't let the ground steal the meaning out of it."

A beat, then softer: "I respect legacy. I don't bow to ghosts. Neither should you."

She drew a small marker from her belt, pressed it against the basalt; a clean white glyph bloomed and cooled—a breadcrumb in a place that loved to swallow paths. "If we get separated, follow these. If you don't see them, stop and breathe. Four in. Hold. Four out. You'll feel me again."

Her helm turned to the dark throat of the caldera. The lenses stayed mild. "One more truth before we move. I didn't meet you to break you. I met you because you came here carrying purpose, and that deserves a steady witness."

She stepped toward the descent and waited—not commanding, simply present. "Ready when you are, Adonis."

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
​

Adonis stared into the basalt as the glyph cooled, vision blurred as his mind fought to regain control. The last minutes of his life had felt like a concussive grenade, leaving him reeling, but steadier now. His breath found rhythm again, though the rancid air clung in his lungs like a coal that refused to die. He let her words settle, absorbing what he could while still carrying the weight of Malachor's greeting.

"Honesty is rare in places like this." His visor tilted toward the rising ribs of her sanctum. "I appreciate yours." He knew Virelia was still a Sith, and betrayal could come at any moment, yet if she'd wanted him dead, she could have taken him when he fell. She was not the predator from his nightmare. Perhaps that predator was Malachor itself. Perhaps it was something waiting further in. His visions had led him here, as they had before on Onderon. Whether they meant anything, destiny would decide.

"I will go down," he said, voice calmer now. "I'll follow this thread to the seam, so that when I get there I can see the whole tapestry." The initial panic was gone, replaced with an uncomfortable stiffness in his breathe, manageable, but constant, like the planet watching him.

He looked back to Virelia, fire in his voice again. "If that fever was Malachor's handshake, then I've taken it. But handshakes don't bind me, legacy does."

"You showed me kindness, so I'll follow you." His tone hardened to steel. "But know this- if you cross me, I'll answer with the wrath of Mandalore. This world remembers what that means."

His visor turned to the caldera's dark throat. "Lead the way."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TAG: Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Barren Potential."

Tags - Adonis Angelis IV

Virelia's helm inclined, just enough to acknowledge the steel in his words. The violet light behind her lenses dimmed to a softer glow, steady rather than sharp. When she spoke, it carried the same measure as before—calm, deliberate, like stone laid in sequence.

"Good," she said simply. "Threats don't impress me. Honesty does. You've given me both."

Her gauntlet traced the cooling glyph in the basalt, testing its edge before letting her hand fall back to her side. "You're right—honesty is rare here. Malachor has no reason to flatter. Neither do I. Betrayal would be waste. You've already proven you can stand when the ground itself tells you to kneel. That's more valuable than a corpse."

She shifted, cape brushing the stone, and turned toward the caldera's throat. "Legacy binds you. I understand. My own weighs heavy, though not the same shape as yours. You carry a name in sequence, a number after it. I carry one I chose, and all the ghosts that came with it. Both are chains. Both can be weapons."

Her stride was slow, careful on the broken stone, as though she expected him to keep pace beside her rather than trail behind. "The wrath of Mandalore is not forgotten. This scar is proof. If you bring it against me, I'll answer it—but not before. Not unless you force my hand. I've no interest in turning warriors into ruins."

The descent began shallow, steps cut into the basalt where her crews had started shaping the approach. She paused at the lip, turning her mask half toward him. The gesture was neither commanding nor deferential—simply making space.

"You'll find no chains here but the ones you bring with you. Keep them if they strengthen you. Break them if they don't. Either way, the depths will test them."

She let the silence breathe for several moments before continuing, voice lower, almost companionable. "I didn't come to Malachor for power. I came because it doesn't lie. Most worlds wear masks. This one does not. I value that. I think you might too."

Another few steps, careful, deliberate. Her tone softened further, quiet enough that it barely carried over the scrape of boots on stone. "You've spoken of thread and tapestry. Remember this—threads don't weave themselves. Someone always pulls the shuttle. If you mean to see the whole cloth, be ready to touch the loom."

They reached a point where the light of her rising sanctum began to fade, and the dark of the caldera pressed closer. She raised her hand, another glyph blooming pale on the wall beside them. "Markers," she said, almost gently. "I promised you wouldn't walk blind."

Then she looked back to him, lenses catching the faint light. "You gave me your truth. I'll give you mine. I didn't meet you to break you, Adonis. I met you because you came carrying purpose. That deserves a steady witness."

She angled her chin toward the shadowed descent. "Come. The depths are waiting."

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

"You've spoken of thread and tapestry. Remember this—threads don't weave themselves. Someone always pulls the shuttle. If you mean to see the whole cloth, be ready to touch the loom."

The loom was not a foreign concept to Adonis, literally or metaphorically. He had grown up on Vaal, where people lived simple lives and often wove their own garments. More recently, it translated into his life among the Mandalorians. He had been tested by the forge, shaping weapons for himself, forging armor for those he cared for. He had already forged a shield for his dear friend Athena Faar , proof that the forge shaped more than steel. The loom or the forge, both spoke to the bigger picture.

"You call it a loom, I call it a forge. Threads can be cut, and metal can be tested. I'll take my name into the fire and see if it survives the strike." His voice wasn't incindiary, but instead echoed a genuine desire. Nothing had bested him in years, and where once he felt apprehension about this mission, now he felt the need to see it through. Malachor would not get the better of him. He would see to that.

He studied her movement when she summoned the glyphs, curious if it was possible for anyone attuned to the Force to call them, or if only she alone could summon them. The pale light did little to push back the graveyard-dark of the planet. His thoughts went back to his vision, of his hand casting away the shadow.

"You gave me your truth. I'll give you mine. I didn't meet you to break you, Adonis. I met you because you came carrying purpose. That deserves a steady witness."

Adonis stopped in his tracks, turning toward the Sith. Even through his helmet, the sincerity in his voice carried through. "Sith or not, you've spoken straight. That counts. But know this- my people don't keep witnesses, only vod or aruetii. Right now, you're vod. Cross me, and you're aruetii. And Malachor remembers what Mandalorians do to aruetii." He wanted to believe that she was genuine, but his training taught him that that was never a guarantee.

Turning back once again toward the caldera, Adonis took the first steps into the darkness. He wanted to show Virelia, he wanted to show Malachor V, and he wanted to show himself hat he wasn't afraid of whatever laid ahead of them. This was his destiny, and he was going to seize it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

TAG: Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Barren Potential."

Tags - Adonis Angelis IV

Virelia walked a pace behind him now, letting his boots set the rhythm against the basalt. Her armor whispered with each measured step, violet light breathing faintly from the seams. When she answered, her tone carried the same calm weight as before, though quieter, like one speaking across a campfire rather than a battlefield.

"Forge, loom—it's the same truth. Shape and test. Cut and bind. What survives is what matters." A brief pause. "You understand that. It puts us closer than you think."

The path sloped deeper, ribs of stone narrowing into a jagged throat. Her next words came slow, deliberate, carrying none of the sermon's edge, only the plainness of respect.

"Vod or aruetii." She let the words rest in the air, tasting them. "I'll accept that measure. You're right—it isn't a guarantee. But you've put it plain, and so will I."

She brushed a gauntlet along the wall as they walked, another glyph sparking faint light. "I don't cross those who walk with purpose. Even when that purpose is not mine. A witness is not a chain. It's a mirror. Sometimes it shows a man more than he meant to see. Sometimes that's enough to steady him. Sometimes it's enough to break him."

The air thickened as they descended, the breath of the wound pressing harder, almost liquid with memory. She slowed just enough to match his steps, letting him choose the pace.

"You want the strike," she said softly, "to test if your name rings true on the anvil. Malachor will give it to you. But remember—fire doesn't choose. It devours what's weak and what's strong alike. The forge cares only for what endures."

They came to a shelf that opened onto the caldera's inner expanse: jagged spires rising from a sea of ash, the horizon bent and broken by the wound's endless gravity. Virelia stopped beside him, cape stirring faintly in the acrid draft.

"This is where most turn back," she said, voice even, not mocking. "The air thickens, the weight grows. And what lies below asks questions no armor can deflect." She turned her helm toward him, six lenses dim and steady. "If you keep walking, you'll hear them. Some men mistake that voice for their own."

She let the silence stretch, respectful, before adding: "I'll not tell you to turn back. You've already made that choice. But if you walk forward, remember what you told me—legacy carries you. Don't let this scar name you instead."

Her hand gestured toward the cut path spiraling down into the abyss. "I'll walk with you. Not to guide, not to lead. To witness. If you fall, I'll mark the truth of it. If you endure, I'll mark that too."

The wind rose, carrying the scent of burnt iron. Her voice fell quiet again, steady and plain.

"You asked what I'm building here. It's this—space for men like you to face themselves and not be lied to. If that makes me vod for this walk, I'll wear it."

She angled her helm toward the descent. "Go on, Adonis. The forge waits."

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
​

Adonis pressed onward, the caldera widening before him into a broken mouth that breathed heat and silence in equal measure. The path cut in jagged arcs, each ledge unstable, as if the planet itself objected to being walked upon. The walls were ribs of basalt rising in uneven patterns, some sharpened like blades, others bent under the weight of their own collapse. Where Virelia's glyphs flickered, the stone seemed momentarily subdued, but farther out the dark stretched, endless and patient.

The air thickened as he moved, not like weather but like presence. It clung to him, a suffocating humidity threaded with metallic tang. Every breath felt barbed, as though the world wanted him to taste blood with its memory. Behind him, he could hear the whisper of Virelia's armor, steady, deliberate. She did not speak, and that unsettled him almost more than words would have. He could not decide if her silence meant respect or if she was measuring the moment to see if he faltered.

His visions pressed at the edge of thought. Onderon had come first, flashes of violence in the green canopy, the weight of legacy pulling him toward Athena as they fought through smoke and ruin. That vision had proven itself when the forest burned. The second had been fever, a compass burning in his chest until it led him here. Malachor's presence was the same, fever made flesh, but heavier, more insistent. He wondered if this, too, would prove itself true or if the planet was luring him into ruin.

The slope narrowed to a shelf that overlooked the caldera's heart. Adonis slowed, boots grinding into ash that shifted like sand. Below stretched a sea of gray dust where spires of obsidian erupted in chaotic clusters. Some leaned at impossible angles, pulled by gravity that seemed to move differently here, as though the wound was still deciding what direction counted as down. He steadied himself on the rock and glanced back once toward Virelia. The glow of her lenses remained constant, but he could not tell if she watched him or the abyss.

Heat rolled up from the basin, carrying a smell like scorched iron. His HUD stuttered, static flickering across its display before stabilizing again. He clenched his teeth. That was not a malfunction. Malachor wanted him to see what it wanted, and the thought made his skin prickle beneath the armor.

Then came the sound, not the faint scrape of her boots, not the whistle of the draft between stone. Something heavier, closer. It echoed as though another set of feet had joined them, each step weighted with armor. Adonis froze, his hand instinctively falling to the hilt at his side. He turned, visor sweeping the ash plain.

At first there was nothing. Then the air thickened further, shapes congealing in the haze like shadows learning how to walk. Figures emerged, armored, their outlines fractured as though memory had been carved into form. Their visors glowed faintly with pale fire, and the sight of them pulled a chill down his spine. Mandalorians. Not living, not dead, but echoes caught in the wound.

One stepped forward, the distortion around its frame bending light and shadow alike. The voice that followed scraped like gravel under steel. "Your kind died here, you walk on their graves. Tell us, vod, what makes you worthy to carry our name?"

The words struck him harder than the fever had. He thought of Onderon, where he had claimed his bond to his people in the heart of fire. He thought of the ship that had pulled him here, his body burning with a sickness that was not his own until the name Malachor formed on his lips. Both visions had pressed him toward this scar, and now the scar pressed back.

Adonis clenched his gauntleted fist, feeling the weight of the eight-point star across his chest. His voice cut steady through the heavy air. "You ask what makes me worthy to carry our name. I'll tell you. I was not born to a clan. I was not raised in a hall where banners hung. My blood is not enough to claim me Mandalorian. But blood never made us. Creed does. Choice does. Every step I take is the proof of it."

His boots ground deeper into the ash, stance firm against the pull of the wound. "Mandalore is not just the graves you lie in or the wars you lost here. It's the fire that endures when the galaxy tries to smother it. It's the forge that breaks and remakes us. I've stood in that forge. I've bled for it. I've made armor and weapon not just for myself but for my vod. I've taken my name into fire before, and I'll do it again until nothing is left but beskar and will."

He drew his lightsaber with a slow, deliberate motion, the blue blade igniting with a hiss that crackled in the caldera's silence. "You see me now, here on the scar where you fell. I don't walk in shame, and I don't walk in apology. I walk as Mando'ad. I carry every ghost with me, not as chains, but as proof that we endure. I am Adonis Angelis the Fourth, Mandalorian Knight. You will not name me, I've already named myself."

His blade lifted toward the echoes, the glow burning against the endless dark. "If you want to test me, then strike. If you want to know if I belong, then hear me. I am Mandalorian, not by blood, not by accident of birth, but by choice. That choice is iron. That choice is legacy. That choice is mine."

The ash swirled around his boots, the wound's breath pressing closer as if the planet itself leaned in to listen.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

TAG: Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Barren Potential."

Tags - Adonis Angelis IV

The echoes wavered in the ash, as if weighing his words against the gravity that had broken them. Their pale visors flared once, then dimmed, silent in the face of Adonis's defiance. The caldera itself seemed to draw breath, the wound pausing, listening.

Virelia stepped forward at last. Her armor whispered, her violet eyes burning steady in the hollow dark. She did not draw a blade. She did not summon lightning. She simply stood between the living Mandalorian and the spectral ones, as if to bridge the gulf between oath and grave.

Her voice was low, even, and for the first time it carried something raw beneath the calm. "He names himself." A pause, deliberate. "And that matters."

The echoes stirred. Some turned their helms toward her. Others remained fixed on Adonis, their outlines trembling as though memory itself resisted being told what to acknowledge.

Virelia let the silence linger, then continued—slow, respectful, each word weighed like stone. "Every soldier buried in ash wants to know one thing: that their death meant something. Not glory. Not song. Meaning. That what they gave bought time for another hand to lift the weapon, another voice to carry the vow. If you demand worthiness, then you must face the truth: he has lifted what you dropped."

Her gauntlet rose, palm open to the fractured horizon. "You are not dishonored by that. You are fulfilled. Legacy isn't a monument. It is a relay. A torch passed forward, even if the one carrying it does not share your blood. You died so another could choose. And he has chosen."

The echoes rippled, some faltering as if a wind caught them. Their voices murmured, half-audible, like the hiss of coals cooling in water.

Virelia's mask tilted toward them. The softness of her tone cut sharper than a blade. "You were warriors. That is your truth. But warriors fall. Graves swallow names. The only thing that lives past death is the courage someone else decides to borrow."

Then she turned slightly, not away from the dead, but toward Adonis. Her voice softened again, almost intimate. "You stood in the forge. You spoke straight. That's all any of us can do. The rest is up to the ash to accept—or not."

For a long moment, nothing moved. The figures wavered in and out of being, fire dimming in their visors. Then, slowly, one raised a spectral hand to the hilt at its side—not in threat, but in salute. One by one, the others followed, pale light glimmering in unison before guttering into silence. The ash settled. The caldera exhaled.

Virelia lowered her head, a gesture of respect. "They heard you," she said simply. "And so did Malachor."