Private A Quiet Pull

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra had just managed to breathe again—just managed to pull her tunic over her head, just managed to convince herself she could salvage the tatters of her pride—when she heard him move.

It was subtle at first. A shift of weight. A stretch. The soft pull of muscle and sinew warming after stillness. Then the rustle of fabric as he reached for his sash…and pulled it free.

Lyra turned just enough to check if he needed help —

— and immediately regretted every single life choice that led her to this moment.

Syn stood tall in the glow of the heating crystal, water sliding down sculpted lines of dense muscle, his skin catching the dim red light in a way that made him look unreal—carved, not born. The blindfold gone, revealing the dark, smooth flesh where eyes should have been, only enhancing the otherworldly beauty of him rather than diminishing it.

He wasn't just shirtless now.

He wasn't wearing anything.

Lyra's brain shut down.

Every muscle in her body went rigid. Her breath hitched in her throat. Her fingers dug into her own damp clothes with white-knuckled intensity as she snapped her gaze away so fast she nearly strained something.

The Maker had abandoned her. Completely. Absolutely. Irrevocably.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed, silently and desperately, for divine intervention. For strength. For sanity. For the ability to remain upright while the most devastatingly built Jedi she had ever met walked toward her without a stitch of clothing and started speaking to her like a sage in a temple.

He apologized.

Apologized.

In a patient, remorseful, deeply sincere tone as if he hadn't just stripped naked a meter away from her.

Lyra could feel the heat crawling from her collarbones to her ears, hotter than the crystal could produce.

"Syn—" she said, voice cracking like breaking stone. "Please tell me you are—"

She dared a half-second glance. Oh Maker. He was still entirely bare. She whirled back around so fast she nearly tripped over her own boots.

"Syn! Your—your—clothes!" she hissed in a frantic whisper. "Can you—maybe—put them on before giving me…philosophical life lessons?!"

He kept talking anyway—apologizing for putting her in danger, praising her skills, kneeling before her to meet her at eye level. She felt the warmth of his presence just behind her, the vibration of his voice traveling through her spine, and she thought she might genuinely faint.

And then—"Within the force…beings of exceptional beauty…"
"…I have never met anyone who wasn't exceptional."

Her breath left her in a soft, stunned gasp. She turned slowly—very slowly—keeping her gaze above his shoulders, because any lower and she would test the limits of The Maker's forgiveness.

Her voice came out small, disbelieving, unsteady.

"…Are you calling me exceptional?"

The words trembled with confusion, hope, and the helpless fluster she could no longer hide. Her cheeks were blazing crimson. Her pulse hammered at her throat. She felt like someone had slipped a live power conduit under her skin.

He stood then, finally dressing—finally sparing her from further divine suffering—and she let out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

When he approached the stone ledge and asked whether she wanted to climb or be carried, Lyra stared up at the towering shaft above them… then at him…then at the slope slick with centuries of condensation and moss.

And her stomach dropped. He was going to carry her again. Hold her again. Against that chest—that impossible body—with that calm, steady voice telling her not to worry.

The Maker was not just testing her. The Maker was practically pointing and laughing. She swallowed hard and forced her voice into something resembling composure.

"…Climbing looks…extremely unsafe," she admitted, eyes fixed stubbornly on his face. "And you already know I hate drowning."

Her hand lifted tentatively toward his.

"But before we do this," she added, cheeks still red, "I just want you to answer the question."

A breath. Soft, uncertain, earnest: "…Am I exceptional…to you?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"Quite." He said it looking at her as he stood there for a moment pulling her up and a little closer. He looked down at her while taking only a moment though and offered a tight lipped smirk. ""And hopefully you will not hold it against me saying it. I have learned over the centuries that drawing some things out and what is left unsaid is where tragedies are able to be born." He waited but moved to get her into the position needed. Herr arms again around his neck and shoulders to the elbow so that she was able to be held close. Her legs to be secured and he moved her to be a little closer pressed as his hands and fingers flexed.

The power was there in his stride as he moved with his claws digging into the stone. Hand over hand but his feet were also adhering to the stone almost as he moved up quickly. Ascending to an overhang of stone that went up to a platform while she stood there looking up higher and higher when he lept to the wall with a rattle and reverberation in his chest akin to a snarl. He was digging the claws in he continued to ascend while he was able to moved not just up but from side to side along the walls of the chamber and was ascending on the path of least resistance that wouldn't involve slamming his chest against the stone and endangering her.

The metal sections of the facility were next and he slashed at them digging claws in for a moment longer before hanging there and dropping to a beam as he walked with balance. Climbing it with his hands until he was on a platform and looked down and around. His sight remaining fixed and the barrier he had made intact for a moment when he crouched down enough Lyra could be allowed off of her position with a small smile. "There is another panel... though it smells less corroded then the other one." He said it while he waas moving to the side of the platform and crouched down to look below them with a small tilt of his head as the air was shifting.

 

[Lyra Ventor]

For a moment, when Syn answered "Quite," the world around her seemed to fall away.

The cavern, the ancient stones, the shadows—all of it blurred into a dull hum as her breath caught and held still in her chest. He wasn't teasing. He wasn't being polite. He said it with the same quiet certainty he used when describing the nature of the Force, or the horrors of this place, or the memories still carved into the walls below them.

Quite. As if it were simply true. As if there was no room for argument.

Lyra couldn't stop the rush of heat blooming in her cheeks. The Maker, in His great cosmic artistry, had apparently decided she needed this exact moment to test every inch of her self-control. She felt her heartbeat skip and then race as he drew her closer, lifting her with no more effort than a child lifting a scarf.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders as instructed—though "as instructed" didn't quite capture the full earthquake of sensation that hit her the moment her body pressed against his. His warmth enveloped her, solid and steady; the cool cavern air vanished beneath the heat of his skin and the storm of power radiating from him. She squeezed her eyes shut for half a second, forcing her breath to even out.

The Maker was absolutely punishing her, and she didn't even know why. And then he moved.

The world lurched downward as he leapt, claws digging into stone with a guttural vibration that thrummed through his chest—and into her. The whole cavern echoed with the scrape and crack of claws on ancient rock, with the ripple of air shifting around them as he scaled the wall in powerful, sinuous movements. Every pull of his arms lifted them effortlessly higher. Each shift of his weight pressed her closer to him.

Lyra's heart pounded like it was trying to escape her ribs.

She clung tighter—not out of fear, exactly, but because her body had made the executive decision to hold on for dear life. The motion was too fluid, too fast, too raw. She felt the muscles beneath her hands flex and release, felt the rumbling breath sync with his movements. She tried not to think about any of it. She failed immediately.

They rose past overhangs, across jagged stone ledges, navigating the shaft with a speed she never could've imagined. Every time he pushed off the stone to leap to the next foothold, she felt the power coil through him and release in a surge that made her stomach flip—not unpleasantly.

When they reached the metal sections of the facility, she felt the shift in texture beneath him as his claws scraped metal instead of stone. The sharp sound rang out, and then he was pulling them onto a beam, balancing as if gravity were something he merely tolerated. She didn't dare look down — not because she was scared of the drop, but because she was too aware of how close she was to him. Too aware of the way her breath brushed the skin at his neck. Too aware of the steady rise and fall of his chest pressing against her own.

And then, suddenly, they were there—a platform. Stable ground.

He crouched to let her slide free, and she touched down on trembling legs that tried very hard not to show how unsteady they felt. She exhaled shakily, brushing hair from her damp forehead, praying to The Maker that none of her trembling showed.

When Syn smiled—not the thin, polite line she'd seen before, but a small, warm smile meant only for her—her knees nearly betrayed her all over again.

She kept her gaze fixed on the panel he indicated the moment he mentioned it, anything to avoid the molten heat still flooding her cheeks.

"A…a-another panel," she said, managing not to stammer only through an act of divine intervention. "Good. That's good. Panels are—" A breath. "Panels are my thing."

She stepped forward toward it, grateful for something to touch that wasn't him, something she could focus on without her thoughts turning traitorous.

But before she began examining the wiring, she swallowed once, quietly, and spoke not quite loud enough for echoes.

"And Syn…?"

She didn't look at him—her courage only stretched so far today—but her voice carried a soft, earnest tremor. "When you call me exceptional…You don't have to worry about me holding that against you." A beat."It might be the kindest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

She slipped down and off going to the panel with a nod of his head. She knew what she was doing there and he bowed his head to what she said. His focus on everything around them when he was allowing the other side of the door to be felt as well as below in the waters. The walls and the skittering was there in the distance barely able to be heard. She wasn't wrong that the things would come back but they didn't know what to do and didn't know how to follow... but they weren't wanting to go back. He remained up there as she moved back towards the door once it opened and he made sure it opened fully but was also closed enough in case.

Going back into the facility was different as the hallways here were bright and illuminated. The halls leading into rooms that were filled with crates and massive collections. Cases of jewels, credit chits, ingots of precious metals. Larger gemstones and artwork from around the galaxy. Whatever they had managed to take from the people and use to fuel a war machine but also the rich warlords who used it. Syn was walking while he went over to some of the rooms and looked in. "Most have the same thing, crates of different metals, plastics and some paper. The gemstones still have the laser cuts on them and the scent of processing before they were sealed."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra slipped through the newly opened doorway, expecting more darkness, more stale air, more silence that pressed at the skull. Instead, she stepped into a corridor bathed in artificial light—real light—humming in steady, soft strips along the ceiling. The transition was so abrupt she actually halted, blinking rapidly as her vision recalibrated from gloom to illumination. It felt like resurfacing from a dream, or maybe a nightmare, and her pulse kicked up at the sheer normalcy of something so out of place in all this ruin.

But then she looked inside the first open chamber. And all sense of normalcy evaporated.

Her boots slowed, then stopped entirely as she took in row after row of stacked crates, open containers, glass cases, shelves—all overflowing with wealth so immense it belonged in stories, not in some forgotten hell under a poisoned facility. Metals gleamed in neat ingot bars. Gemstones glittered like captured suns. Bundles of credit chits sat untouched beneath layers of dust. Sculptures and artifacts lay crated, as if someone intended to ship them across the galaxy before time stopped.

Lyra's breath slipped out in a stunned whisper.

"…Maker above."

She stepped forward as if drawn, not trusting her eyes but unable to look anywhere else. Every inch of the room screamed value — not in the greedy, merchant sense, but in the way a pilot views distant stars: something that exists far beyond reach, something vast and untouchable. This was more wealth than she'd ever seen in her life. More than her father had dreamed of. More than any trader she'd flown under had whispered about during long hyperspace nights.

And yet something strange stirred beneath the awe.

A subtle sensation—a faint pressure not unlike the one that had drawn her out of the city and into the ruins above. But this was different. Softer. Like a fingertip brushing the edge of her mind. As though something in the room noticed her. As though something in all this glittering, impossible treasure wanted her attention.

The awareness made her stomach twist. It wasn't a voice. Not words. Just…a pull.

Her eyes slide to a shelf near the corner where a small object rested in a thin-lined case. It wasn't the most beautiful piece in the room—certainly not the most valuable. Just a tiny crystal square, clear but with faint swirling light drifting inside like trapped mist. Something about it shimmered wrong, or right, or simply in a way she couldn't explain. She moved toward it before she realized she'd taken a step.

Her fingers hovered just above the surface. She told herself it was curiosity. Wonder. Awe.

But deep down, where she didn't want to admit things lived, she knew the pressure was there again — that same nudge she'd been denying since the moment the Force first brushed against her on the street above. It was here too. Whispering. Beckoning. Singling her out in a vault full of the forgotten dead's riches.

When she finally touched the crystal, a faint hum ghosted up her fingertips—subtle enough to mistake for imagination. Her brows knit sharply. "Why does this one feel…" she whispered—then stopped herself, jaw tightening. "…No. I'm imagining things." And yet she didn't put it down.

The Maker would want her to be wary. To question the unseen. To trust her instincts, not the unexplainable currents whispering through her skull. But the part of her that wanted proof—that wanted something solid and tangible to remember this fever dream of a day—couldn't let go.

She swallowed and glanced back at Syn—bad idea.

He stood at the edge of the hall, impossibly composed, all carved strength and quiet presence, his focus outward, making her painfully aware of how undisciplined she was by comparison. She instantly felt like some scavenger caught stealing scraps from a saint's altar. Her shoulders twitched.

"…You're telling me they just left all this?" she murmured, almost to herself. "Centuries of treasure?" She turned the crystal piece between her fingers, the faint light inside swirling lazily with each tilt. "I know it's nothing compared to the rest," she added, softer now. "I just…" She hesitated—frustration, embarrassment, awe, and that strange Force-pressure tangling together in her chest.

"…want something to remember this by. To remind myself it was real. That I didn't hallucinate a death tunnel and a half-naked Jedi climbing walls like some force-blessed myth-beast."

Her fingers tightened around the crystal, almost protectively. "It's pretty," she finished lamely. She didn't ask if she was wrong. She didn't ask if she should put it back. Not yet.

Instead, very quietly, with a touch of defensiveness she couldn't quite mask, she said: "And before you judge me—this wasn't greed. Something about it just… stood out. Felt—different." A beat. Then, barely voiced at all: "…Do you feel it too?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He was looking at it all and spoke. "I will not judge you, the other option is to leave it here. There is much, enough rooms like this within the mountain and over the temple. SOmething isn't going to be missed and returning what is here to its people would likely be next to impossible. Not just for records but because of time having seen them or their descendants pass." He said it while he stood there but came back to look down at some of the crystals and crates. "There are many presence and whispers in the force here, something drawing you down here was meant to be found by you." He looked around though. "And at the time this was a war chest. Wars need funding to enable them and when you are running a war you need to be able to do it in a way others won't be able to find. A lot of the warlords had vaults like this whatever they could take from the worldss they conquered. Some have been recovered but some are still out in the galaxy waiting to be found."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

The corridor was almost harsh in its brightness—flat, white light spilling down long, sterile walls, bouncing off metal crates and data terminals abandoned generations ago. After the shadowed tunnels and suffocating dark below, the sudden illumination made everything feel too sharp, too exposed. Lyra blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust as the hum of forgotten machinery filled the silence around them. The air was clean here, clearer than anything below, with only the faintest trace of dust and old metal. Her clothes were fully dry, her hair no longer plastered to her skin, and the chill of the tunnels had faded entirely. She should have felt normal again.

She didn't.

Her hand drifted unconsciously to the small crystal she'd tucked into the inner pocket of her jacket. Even through the fabric, she could sense its presence—not heat, not energy, just…awareness. A feeling like it was resting against the center of her chest on purpose, settling into some place inside her she hadn't known was empty. The rational part of her brain kept scrambling for explanations. Maybe it was static charge. Maybe residual temperature from her hand. Maybe—stars forbid—some temple artifact quirk. But beneath all those excuses was the steady, unnerving thought she didn't want to acknowledge:

It had chosen her.

She tore her attention away from that thought as quickly as she could. Unfortunately, the next thing her eyes landed on was Syn—standing a few paces ahead, half-turned toward her. The bright facility lighting was merciless; it poured across his bare chest and shoulders, tracing the power in every line of muscle, catching the faint sheen of effort from their climb. His blindfold wrapped neatly around his head, the only thing soft on a figure otherwise carved with impossible precision. Even the way he stood—perfectly balanced, utterly composed—made something in her tighten. She hated how aware she was of him. Hated how the brightness only made it worse.

The Maker wasn't just testing her. The Maker was laughing.

Lyra tore her gaze away, focusing instead on a set of numbered crates as if they held the secrets of the galaxy. "Alright," she said, steadying her voice as best she could. "You're right about one thing: there's no use pretending this stuff can be returned. Not after…however long this place has been buried." She gestured vaguely at the wealth stacked around them—credits sealed in vacuum cases, gemstones sorted into glittering rows, artifacts stored in protective foam. It was too much to process, too much to justify. "But this…" She reached into her jacket and shot a quick, reluctant glance toward Syn, making sure he couldn't see her hesitation—though with him, that hardly mattered.

Her fingers brushed the crystal again. "…this felt different."

She let the words come slowly, carefully, like she was disarming a trap. "When I walked into that vault, it wasn't just something I noticed. It was something that seemed to…" She frowned, searching for the right word and hating every one of them. "Pay attention. Like it was waiting for me to pick it up." She exhaled sharply, frustrated with herself. "I know how that sounds. Believe me, I do. But when I touched it, that pressure I'd been feeling—the thing that dragged me through the city and down into the tunnels—it just…stopped. Like the whole world finally unclenched."

She braced herself, shoulders squaring as if expecting scolding or amusement. "And before you say anything, I know this lines up with every story about Force-sensitive intuition. Trust me, I don't want it to. I'd much prefer it to be a freak coincidence. Or nerves. Or —" Her voice hitched before she could stop it. "Or you."

Heat surged straight up her neck, blooming across her face so fast it almost hurt. She turned her head away immediately, pretending to examine a data console that probably hadn't worked since before her grandparents were born. The bright lighting made everything worse — every shift in expression, every flush of embarrassment, every flicker of eye movement was illuminated for all to see. She wished desperately for the dark again.

She steadied her breath and forced herself to keep talking. "Look… whatever this crystal is, whatever it wants—I don't know what to make of it. I just know it feels wrong to leave it behind. And if you're not going to judge me for taking it…" She tapped her jacket lightly. "Then I'm keeping it. But I'm not promising it means anything. I'll deal with it later, when I'm not—"

Her gaze ticked involuntarily toward him. The lights caught on his bare chest again, on the clean lines of muscle, on the faint sheen of water still drying along his collarbone.

"…distracted."

She forced her eyes away immediately.

She stepped closer to him—careful, measured, pretending that the nearness wasn't doing things to her pulse she absolutely refused to acknowledge. Even without looking directly at him, she felt his presence like a warm anchor in the brightness. Steadying. Overwhelming. Impossible.

"Alright," she said, quieter now but more certain. "You've got your path. I've got my…souvenir." Her fingers brushed the crystal again. "Let's get out of here before this place remembers we're trespassing."

A breath passed. Another. Her voice softened.

"And…about what you said earlier." She swallowed hard. Her gaze stayed locked on the corridor ahead. "…exceptional." The word alone made her heart skip a beat. "I heard you."

And even with the bright lights, even with all her effort to remain composed, that admission carried a warmth she couldn't hide—the kind no crystal could rival.

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He turned his head to look at her as she spoke and gave an neutral expression but it was more he was listening to it all. Then he gave a bow of his head. "I do and if it alright. If it was meant for you to take it then it was but it doesn't have to go beyond that... though if you have more urges leading you to places there might be something to it but for most jedi I have known in the centuries the crystal is the only thing that will call to a person. Anything else might be a sign of something much worse." He said it but was walking as the room was filled and it gave them a chance to go deeper in. He wasn't taking anything and barely touching it while he walked opening some of the doors that were open. "But my search led me here but also to you."

He moved through while listening to the facility itself.. with the time they had taken to swim, dry off and climb the lights and vents had come to life with them there. The rest of the rooms past the vaults filled with treasure it came into barracks and offices. Chambers for people who were never here as the closets and drawers were empty. THe barracks lined with pristine armor and weapons on racks.. the power cells might be dead after centuries but it all looked shiny. THe jedi master was going through as he stopped and motioned towards the hallways. Cleaning droids were beginning and warming up. The power alcoves on.

He looked over them while checking some of the other rooms. "Aside from just smashing through it, there needs to be a better way to shut this place down. The corruption here is something that..." He said it as he trailed off and was letting his senses going. He tracked and moved deeper as he stopped in one of the chambers. "Blood." THe old scent was there as he pried the door open and the tables were covered, the floors... and worse. Splatter was there in places as the remnants of glass was on the floor from a chamber. The jedi master going around the room and he was sensing it but also scenting the air to find and track what he could.

"Strange." He said it but was looking at it and spoke going from the chamber. "The glass is burst outwards, whoever was inside escaped. There is water, stale and old there. No heat to evaporate it nor creatures to drink it. They were experimented on, the blood being used to harm them." He moved around and dind't touch it but ran a hand along it... "No... they hurt others in front while making them waatch in the tanks." he said it and looked aat parts of it as he touched the controls and put his hand inside of the tank. "High pressure, crushing weight to keep one downwhile they waatch. Simplistic but effective and a strong way to break someone."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra followed Syn deeper into the facility, her boots striking quiet, hollow echoes across metal floors that looked far too clean for something buried beneath stone for centuries. The overhead lights hummed with an artificial brightness that made every detail sharp and unforgiving: rows of untouched bunks, armor racks polished to a sterile sheen, weapons displayed as if soldiers might return any moment. The air held the crisp bite of processed ventilation—but beneath it was something else. Something colder. Something she didn't have a name for.

Her gaze drifted along a wall of weapons as Syn opened the next door. Not modern rifles, not blasters, but blades—forged, balanced, quietly lethal. Some curved, some jagged, some ornate, and some plain. One in particular, simple and unadorned, tugged at her attention before she consciously reached for it. Her hand closed around the hilt, and the weight of it settled into her palm with surprising certainty.

Not heavy. Not awkward. Just…right.

The steel made her arm feel steadier, more anchored. As she tilted it, light slid along the polished surface, distorting her reflection in a ripple of metal. Something in the blade hummed faintly through her grip, as if recognizing the fact that it was being held again after so long.

"…closest I've ever come to touching something like a lightsaber," she muttered, then immediately pushed the idea away. She didn't want this place—or this day—pulling her anywhere near that kind of life.

Then Syn's voice cut through the sterile calm.

"Blood."

Lyra's stomach knotted. Her fingers tightened around the sword on instinct as she stepped into the room behind him. The brightness did nothing to soften what they found.

Dark, dried streaks painted the floor and tables. Splintered glass glittered beneath the white light—not shattered inward, but punched outward, like someone or something had forced a way out. The air smelled sharply of ancient iron, heavy and lingering as if the stone itself refused to forget.

Lyra's breath hitched, chest tightening. The blade lifted reflexively—not raised to attack, but held with purpose, a single point of control in a chamber that had once been dedicated to breaking people down.

"Is there…" she managed, her voice thinner than she liked, "…some bloodthirsty monster waiting for us in here?"


It felt childish the moment it left her mouth—except it wasn't. Not in a place like this. Not when everything screamed wrong in a way her instincts couldn't ignore.

But Syn stood there, bare-chested under the blinding lights, calm and unshaken as if centuries of horrors had carved him into something unmoved by rooms like this. His presence wasn't loud, wasn't forceful—but it wrapped around her senses with the quiet weight of a heartbeat that refused to falter.

And she hated how much that steadied her. Hated how much she needed it. Hated how aware she was of him—of his warmth, his stillness, the sheer solidity of him—with the world falling apart around them.

She stepped closer. Not touching, but near enough that the heat radiating from his body chased away some of the cold clinging to her bones. Her sword hand hovered slightly toward him, not in dependence, but in the silent acknowledgment that if something moved in this room, she wanted him between her and it.

"Just…" She swallowed, voice dropping soft and bare. "Tell me if something is here. I can't—" Her throat tightened. "I can't handle another surprise like the pit or those things you fought."

Her grip tightened on the blade, knuckles pale against the hilt. Fear fluttered in her chest—but trust held it in place. And then, before she could stop herself, words slipped out under her breath, unguarded and too honest.

"…what do I even give someone like you, if you get me out of this alive?" Another breath. "A man who's lived centuries… who's seen horrors like this… who probably already has everything he needs."

Heat shot across her face the moment she realized what she'd said.
The blessing of the blindfold was the only mercy she had.

She shook her head, embarrassed, clearing her throat and lifting her chin as she angled the blade toward a shadowed corner to hide the flush creeping up her neck.

"But I'm trusting you," she said, steadier now, grounding herself with the weight of steel and the nearness of him. "So if you say we keep moving—"
A breath.
Her heartbeat steadied, slow and deliberate.
"—then we keep moving."

The sword felt heavier in her hand.
But so did her faith in him.

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"Nothing that bad, what was here is long dead... what came from it and the others." He said it and pointed to smaller alcoves in the walls with more of the cells. "Is what is in the caves or some version of them. Adapted somewhat, likely in the mutate period after the alterations when they are still soft and pliable." He said it while moving around and stayed close.. she seemed to want that or at least proximity seemed smarter in case. He was moving around the room as sections of the glass and consoles as he looked arr round more with the force. "What was in there wasn't what they put in, based on the lingering scents and impressions in the force.

He was searching more in the force then anything but spoke. "There is stuff here though, several droids in the hallways on a patrol route. THey have been moving to check rooms on different levels.... and there are things in the waters of the temple passages now. Trying to scrape back up the walls but they aren't able to get a grip." He said it while moving. "A few had managed to follow us through the waters in the cave below as we were slipping in here." He said it though with a look towards her as he stood still. "And there is not much else... something in the antechambers of the main hall. Based on the sounds in the air and the smells it it is in cryostasis."

He was looking at more as he could sense the sword while raising it up a moment. Two fingers to just check her hand. "Good form for now, if there is a dangerous situation pivot and use your upper body. Conserve your energy with each strike rather then go all out. It will let you run if there is a lot of them or more danger then you are able to handle." He said it but looked at her and patted her shoulder to be reassuring. "And I'll be here, fighting is something I am good at and something that releases some of the tension... and I have a duty to get you back to your ship so that you can enjoy the rest of your life."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra held the sword a little tighter as Syn spoke, the weight of it suddenly more real now that he was talking about mutated things still scraping at the walls far below them. Her pulse quickened at the thought—not a panicked rhythm, but the sharp jolt of a mind calculating just how fast she needed to run if anything burst through a doorway.

She forced herself to breathe, slow and steady, and followed the line of his gesture toward the alcoves he pointed out. More cells. More tanks. She tried not to imagine what had once been inside them or what it might have turned into. The Maker preserve me, she thought, though privately she suspected The Maker was deliberately testing just how much she could take in a single day. First the pit, then the water, then clinging to the hottest man she had ever seen while he climbed up walls like some divine animal, now this.

But the moment Syn stepped closer—steady, shirtless, impossibly calm—the terror thinned into something manageable. Not gone. Never gone. But contained. His presence didn't erase fear; it held it at bay, as if the air around him refused to let panic grow roots near him.

When he mentioned droids patrolling and creatures trying to claw their way out of the water, she swallowed hard. The blade lifted slightly in her hand before she even realized she'd tightened her grip.

Great. So not just bloodstained rooms. Also, half-mutated cave monsters and mysterious cryo-somethings were waiting in the main hall. Wonderful. The Maker truly did have a cruel sense of humor.

She kept her voice steady. "So…nothing living is in here trying to eat us. Just everything outside this room." It was meant to be dry. It came out a little too honest.

She stiffened slightly when he reached out, but didn't pull away. His fingers found her hand on the sword, correcting the angle with a casual ease that sent a slight, traitorous shiver straight up her arm—not fear, not anything dangerous. Just the shock of being suddenly aware of how close he was, how warm he was, how easily he handled her in a place most people would break.

Maker help her, she was crushing on a centuries-old Jedi Master inside a death temple, and this was absolutely not the time for it.

Still, she listened. She paid attention. She absorbed every word. Pivot—upper body. Conserve energy. Run if necessary.

He patted her shoulder—a simple gesture, nothing intimate—but the reassurance in it made her chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear. She bit lightly on the inside of her cheek to ground herself.

"…Right," she said softly. "I'll remember."

Her gaze drifted up to him—not directly into his face, not meeting the blindfold, but to the line of his jaw, the direction of his voice, the steadiness of him.

The words escaped before she could throttle them.

"You really think I'll… enjoy the rest of my life after this?"

A beat. Then, quieter, because honesty was becoming disturbingly easy around him: "You're doing a damn good job at making that possible." She shifted her grip on the blade and drew in a breath, leveling her voice even if her nerves buzzed under the surface. "Just…stay close. And tell me what you need me to do."

Because despite everything— despite the fear, despite the strangeness, despite how stupidly, painfully attractive he was—She trusted him. And that was somehow the terrifying part.

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He chuckled a little at what she said while he stood there looking at her. "Well I would hope you live a long life." He said it looking down at her and brought a hand up to hold it out for her for reassurance. "The truly old are a scattering, considered against the endless pulse of this galaxy. I could speak of mere centuries, even a thousand years as a vast span. There are less than ten thousand sentient individuals alive today who bear a personal memory of the Infinite Empire's collapse and fewer than a thousand who remember the Jedi Temple before the Galactic Empire." He had a look at her while he spoke making sure the shield he was using for influences and warmth was there.

"Consider this: there are roughly seventy beings walking the galaxy, indistinguishable to even the most rigorous medical scan, who were alive before the home worlds of anyone you know had begun to congeal from gas and dust. They are there walking the streets of any galactic city, next time stare carefully at the people who pass you and know this. They are there too. Now, how well do you know your friends, your neighbors, your lovers? Yet, even their vast span is an illusion when measured against the Force. They, too, are bound by the simple fact of existence. They lived what anybody gets, Lyra. They got a lifetime. No more. No less."

He said it and meant it to be reassuring, even the oldest being only lives a single lifetime. The length of it mattered little then what they might do with it. He breathed outwards with the force to reassure as he spoke. "Plus, we came all this way already. Not being sure we would get out isn't a good attitude to have in most cases let alone here though being stuck under a mountain with you is not the worse fate one could have for a few centuries." He smiled with that and waited for her but was moving towards the wall with his blade in his hand again as it activated and he was making a hole so they could go through. "We can cut through the walls and seal the doors. It will maake it easier to get to the power reactor and shut everything down."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

For a moment, Lyra forgot about the bloodstains on the floor. Forgot the sword in her hand. Forgot the cold hum of ancient machinery and the metallic tang of old horrors lingering in the air.

Because Syn spoke—calmly, matter-of-factly—about the galaxy as though he had personally walked through every age of it, and she stood utterly still, absorbing every word.

He wasn't bragging. He wasn't trying to impress her. He was simply telling her the truth.

A truth she had never truly considered. Beings older than worlds. Beings older than the Republic. Older than the collapse of civilizations, she only knew from datapads. And Syn stood among them.

Her chest tightened — not in fear this time, but in awe. In a dawning understanding of just how impossibly vast his experience was compared to her brief, flickering life. Compared to anyone's. She felt small, but not diminished. More like she was seeing the scale of the galaxy for the first time. The pulse of The Maker's creation stretched so far beyond her that it made her breath catch.

But then he said the words that struck harder than any history lesson:

"They lived what anybody gets, Lyra. They got a lifetime. No more. No less."

Her fingers loosened slightly on the sword hilt. He wasn't placing himself above her. He wasn't looking down on her. He was reminding her—gently, deliberately—that all sentient life had the same finite right to exist, no matter how many years it spanned.

And then—

"…being stuck under a mountain with you is not the worst fate one could have for a few centuries."

Lyra froze.

It was said lightly, almost playfully, a brush of humor wrapped in calm certainty. But underneath it—Maker help her—There was something else. Something warm. Something that didn't sound like a polite courtesy or the detached observation of a disciplined Jedi Master.

Something that made her stomach dip and her pulse leap in a way she couldn't name because naming it would make it too real.

She swallowed hard. He'd given her an honest compliment. Not a pitying one. Not a condescending one. Not some mystical Jedi observation. A real one.

Her mind spun, trying to decide which was more impossible—that she was starting to fall hopelessly, stupidly, inconveniently hard for a man who had lived multiple lifetimes…

…or that, in some quiet, understated way, she wasn't equipped to interpret, he might actually like her too.

Not romantically—not openly—but something softer. Something she wasn't used to receiving. Something she had no idea what to do with.

Behind them, the hum of his lightsaber cutting into the wall filled the room, white light washing across metal and stone. She stepped closer to his side, the sword still in her grasp but forgotten for a heartbeat as she tried to steady herself.

"…you make it sound like getting trapped with me wouldn't be the worst thing," she said quietly, trying for humor but hearing the waver in her own voice.

Her throat tightened with an emotion that was too dangerous in a place like this, but she forced herself to meet the space beside his blindfolded gaze anyway.

"And you didn't have to say any of that," she added, softer. "But you did."

She drew a slow breath, grounding herself in the warmth radiating from him and the steady hum of the blade slicing the wall.

"I…appreciate it," she murmured. "More than I know how to say."

Then, almost reluctantly, she shifted her grip on the sword again and straightened her shoulders, nodding toward the hole he was carving.

"And I'm ready when you are, Syn."

Even if her heart hadn't yet caught up.

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He was finishing the hole in the wall and spoke pushing it to the side as he looked over at her and down a little. "I don't really see that as a bad thing. Even a single day depending on how you vie it can be more then enough." He said it while he walked through into the next room and waited for her to come. Moving the slab back while he used his saber to start welding the piece into place again. To provide a layer of protection for them as he was moving through it all. The room having a private dining area that was sterile and had never been used. He motioned for her to be able to go towards the door and secure it while he started cutting into another wall to let them get through.

He sliced into another room as it was going into another office like room. Desk, screens that flickered to life once someone was inside but it wasn't showing much information. Everything was offline or disconnected. The jedi masters hand motioning to the other door but he was feeling where he could. He spoke to the last things he said. "There was someone, Iella. She told me that people like hearing things and I shouldn't just think it." He thought about her and internally gave a nod of his head with a movement towards the saber as he slashed into the wall and held it pushing it in deeper until it reached fully and then he was slicing slowly to cut into the larger walls.

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra stepped through the newly cut opening after him, boots crunching lightly over the fine dust of displaced stone. The fact that Syn said things like that, so—like a single day could be enough, like time didn't have to span centuries to matter—hit her far deeper than it had any right to. She swallowed around the sudden tightness in her throat, trailing him into the pristine dining room that looked utterly untouched by life or time.

He thought being stuck with her wouldn't be bad. He thought a single day with someone could matter. Maker above—did he have any idea what that kind of statement did to someone like her?

Probably not. Or worse, probably yes.

She tried to focus on something else—anything else—stepping past him toward the door he motioned to, letting her fingers skim over the smooth metal controls. Her heart was still pounding too loudly in her chest for someone who considered herself a level-headed pilot.

She secured the door with a practiced efficiency, but her pulse hadn't settled by the time she turned back toward him. He was already working, white blade buried in metal as he carved through the office wall with serene precision. The bright light haloed him, throwing sharp lines across his bare shoulders, illuminating every disciplined movement. She had to ground herself with a breath—and another—because her brain kept spinning in ways that were not helpful, not appropriate, and definitely not meant for anyone with discipline like his.

He spoke again—quieter, contemplative—and Lyra lingered on the meaning more than the words.

"Iella… told me people like hearing things, and I shouldn't just think it."

Lyra paused mid-step, hand resting against the cold metal of the wall. Something about that admission settled warm and heavy in her chest.

He wasn't saying the things he said out of habit. He wasn't flattering her. He wasn't offering empty reassurances from some Jedi code. He was trying. Trying to speak the things he would usually keep inside, trying to reach her in ways he didn't have to. And that was somehow more disarming than any monster in this place.

She exhaled slowly and stepped closer—not close enough to distract herself with the way his muscles moved under the blindfold and all that impossibly calm strength, but close enough that her voice wouldn't echo.

"…she was right," Lyra said softly. "People do like hearing things. Especially when they're true."

Her fingers tightened around the sword hilt at her side—grounding, steadying. "And…when you say things like that, Syn? I hear them." A beat. A breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "And they matter." The last words were softer, but honest.

She took another small step forward toward the newly-carved opening he was working on, the heat of his blade brushing warm across her cheek as she leaned carefully to look into the next room.

"Just tell me where you need me next," she murmured. "Door, panel, console—whatever. I'm with you."

Even if she absolutely shouldn't be feeling this much. Even if he didn't fully realize the effect he had on her. Even if the Maker was clearly testing her resolve in all the wrong ways, she steadied herself—and waited for his direction.

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He gave a nod of his head to that as she spoke about if what was said was true and he had a small flash of memory. The young padawan he had met on Tattooine with pale skin and blonde hair even then he had seen a spark. A child, scarcely formed, arriving before him on the streets of the desert planet. He was moving and the memory was there for a moment as a heartbeat stretched in the force. Her future, so much greater than her younger self, was the only reason he did not ignore her then. THat had a small look though when he thought back on it and Iella was well she had been something certainly. His memories of her though were the best.

Her mind was raw and hungry for knowledge a fertile ground for the force. Which allowed the teaching to help her out. THen she went on to refound the silver jedi and give a place for many others. Had given him something he hadn't had before. A home and family as he recalled standing with her at Valen as the battle raged. her voice when he would speak to her asking about his past. The force flashing and opening the memories if Lyra wanted to see them. He was moving and directing her as going through the doors allowed them to see much more. THey were moving in and through all of it. The wall opening to another hallwaay that they would be able to move along.

'I remember the fall of the Republic Iella, the way the sky burned over a thousand worlds and a thousand more burned. I remember the faces of Jedi Masters... Sons and Daughters of the force destroyed. I saw a third of the Jedi Order's legion corrupted, broken, others hunted and the beginning of the Empire. I stood with my brothers and watched jedi Fall. But now my brothers are not brothers' He had told her that when they fought remnants, wraiths and revenants of older things... she had embraced his cause to correct what had been made from his creators mind as well... had endured it. He had been there with the silver jedi seeing them fight against growing schism and dark orders.

'Iella these Dark jedi have made this war because they hate you, you and all jedi who serve the Light. The Force has put you in its grace and pushed them aside. They're desperate. They've never been able to conquer the other Jedi, and so this war has remained in stalemate for tens of thousands of years.' The memory remained there while he thought of it and guided the pair down the hallway as the sounds were coming. THe sleek metal giving waay to a reactor room. With broken platforms and walkways that had seen battle in 'Brother Join us! Help us make it like it was before the orders return before the New Republic. You remember? We cast out the jedi's army, you and I. We threw their thrones from the walls of the Temple.'

He recalled it when he had met the last he had thought... the last of his brothers and sisters. The sound of shuffling brought his attention back though as he looked at it. She turned toward the, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing. She was slender, yet formed like a vision: at once lithe and voluptuous. Her only garment was a broad mishmashed girdle of scraps. Her white ivory limbs and the ivory chest heaving even in the panting fury of battle as she tore into things. Her rich black hair, black as a starless night, fell in rippling burnished clusters down her supple back. Her dark eyes burned on the pair. Herr body looked sculpted from marble untouched by sunlight.

She was untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she-panther. She jumped to a higher platform and came close to them from above heedless of the twin silver blades in his hands, dripping with blood of creatures, droids and what looked like people. Her supple thigh brushed against the metal, so close she came to the pair. Her red lips parted as she stared down into with menacing eyes. The sounds were coming from her throat and they were more a series of clicks and chitters. Her violence here as the sound of something crawling was there and one of the humans was moving to try and get away.

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra didn't realize she'd stopped breathing until the world around her slipped sideways.

One moment, she was following Syn into the next corridor, the buzz of old lights vibrating faintly through metal walls, and her fingers curled firmly around the sword she'd taken. Next, the facility dissolved out from under her like sand pulled back by a violent tide. A rush of heat slapped across her senses—sun, scorched stone, desert wind. She smelled smoke, tasted dust, and in front of her blazed a sky ripped open by fire. The echoes of ancient pain pressed into her skull as though she'd lived it herself. She saw a young girl she'd never met, saw Syn at a time he had never spoken of, saw a temple falling, saw legions of Jedi breaking like glass under an empire's first breath. She saw battles fought and lost long before she was born, and she felt—Force help her—Syn's memories as if they were bleeding through her own.

The vision's intensity snapped back sharply, leaving her swaying on her feet. She caught herself against the wall with her free hand, palm braced against cold metal as the facility reformed around her in a dizzying rush of fluorescent light and recycled air. Her heartbeat slammed against her ribs, harsh and uneven, her breath coming too fast as she tried to steady herself. The sword in her grip felt too real, too solid against the afterimage of centuries pressing behind her eyes, grounding her just enough to keep her from sinking into panic.

Her gaze dragged toward Syn as if pulled by gravity, chest tight. He was exactly where he'd been a moment earlier—calm, steady, blindfold in place, utterly unaware of the storm that had just ripped through her mind. His presence in the Force radiated like a slow, powerful pulse, ancient and unmoving, a tether she clung to because she had nothing else.

"Was—" Her voice cracked, thin as a frayed wire. She swallowed hard, trying again. "Was that you? Did you…Did you put that in my head?"

She hated how desperately she needed the answer to be yes. Hated that she sounded frightened. Hated the trembling heat in her chest, the confusion twisting her stomach into knots. Because the truth—deep, unwelcome, undeniable—was crouched just behind her thoughts, ready to pounce.

Syn didn't do that. She did.

"No." Lyra shook her head, denial ripping through her faster than reason. "No, that couldn't have been me. I don't— I'm not—" The word wouldn't come. Force-sensitive. Chosen. Touched by something she'd spent her life avoiding.

Her breath shuddered out of her, her hand tightening so reflexively around the sword that the leather wrapping bit into her palm. If she focused on the weapon, on its weight and the ache in her fingers, she could almost convince herself she was imagining things that the memory wasn't real. That she wasn't losing her mind. That she wasn't stepping onto a path that terrified her more than any monster in these depths.

"It had to be you," she forced out, quieter now but sharp with fear. "I can't just… see something like that, not out of nowhere. I don't do that. I don't want to do that."

But the Force was still humming under her skin, alive and present, like a second pulse threading through her veins. She felt Syn's memories echoing faintly through it, as if they were still within reach. And it terrified her more deeply than she wanted to admit.

Before she could push the fear down, a sound knifed through the chamber—a sharp, rippling chitter that made every nerve in her body lock. Lyra's head jerked upward.

Something moved along the high platform above them, almost graceful in its speed. The figure that emerged was both breathtaking and horrifying: a woman carved from marble and moonlight, her skin pale and smooth, her body lithe and dangerously perfect. Sheets of black hair tumbled around her shoulders like shadows, her eyes burning with wild, predatory focus. Blood—fresh and old—streaked across her arms and blades, dripping onto the metal walkway in slow, deliberate taps.

The creature—no, the woman, whatever she had once been—leaned forward, hips rolling with an animalistic fluidity as she descended onto a lower beam. Her movements were too smooth, too confident, too hungry. Every shift of muscle spoke of lethal precision, and the sound coming from her throat—a chorus of clicking, layered and unnatural—vibrated the air in a way that made the hair on Lyra's neck rise.

Fear slammed into her like a physical force. But she did not run.

Instead, she stepped just slightly closer to Syn—not hiding, not clinging for protection, but aligning herself beside the one being in this place whose presence steadied her. She felt his warmth at her back, felt the barrier of the Force still humming faintly around them, and the terror sharpened into something focused, survivable.

"…Syn," she said softly, her voice tight but steadying, eyes glued to the creature's savage, beautiful silhouette. "Please tell me that thing is the cryostasis monster you mentioned." She swallowed, throat dry. "And not something worse."

The sword felt heavier in her hand, but her stance shifted instinctively into readiness, her weight balanced exactly the way a fighter would stand next to someone they trusted. Behind her fear, behind her confusion, behind the pounding of her heart, a truth settled cold and certain in her bones:

Whatever came next, she wasn't letting him face it alone.

Not after everything they'd survived. Not after everything she'd just seen in his memories. Not when she could feel—deep, unsteady, overwhelming—that her connection to him ran deeper than she understood. And not when she knew, with a mix of dread and awe, that she had felt the Force. Whether she wanted to or not.

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

The sound was the first thing and then there was the look in the force.. chaotic, wrong, jagged as something was above them and the jedi master looked up as Lyra stepped closer to him. "Worse." He said it but remained there close as the sabers were both activated.... normal things didn't need a blade let alone two... this was worse. He was watching it as the woman and she knew he could barely call her that moved on all four of her limbs. The movement almost impossible to look at where the joints were and came around to hang on the platform. She turned her head with a wider grin but he couldn't see that.. he could just see her in the force as he remained.

"So you lived." He said it and backed a little guiding Lyra with himself as the thing dropped down and stood there its limbs making her just as tall and more pale. "The chittering stopping and a voice came out. More like nails on a board that wasn't used often. "Trapped... alone... such a poor child... a poor... girl. Confined.... for centuries brother...." She was looking and her mouth opened with a snarl. "Time... doesn't move faster forr me." Her eyes never left the two and her presence was a supernova in the force as the jedi master remained there and mentally reinforced the mental barriers for the two of them. "And with father dead it became a snails pace."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Brother. Her mind snagged on the word like a hook catching flesh.

Lyra froze beside Syn, her blade instinctively shifting to a defensive angle though she wasn't entirely sure how she'd even use it against… that. The creature—woman—whatever she was, crawled along the ceiling with a grotesque elegance that made Lyra's stomach drop. Her limbs bent in ways no human body should, joints twisting with a terrible fluidity that whispered of old pain and older corruption. Yet her silhouette still hinted at a humanoid form—curves, shape, the remnants of what she had been before whatever nightmare had reshaped her.

But the voice—gods, the voice. Metal scraping glass, layered with a distorted echo that seemed to vibrate inside Lyra's bones.

And she called Syn brother.

The chill that slid down Lyra's spine had nothing to do with the cold air in the facility.

Her grip tightened on the sword, not out of readiness but because she needed something to anchor herself as her mind raced, a dozen impossible questions slamming into her at once. Brother. Sister. Father. Syn had spoken of a creator of atrocities committed by the one who made him. But hearing the word from this creature's mouth made the implication real in a way that turned Lyra's blood to ice.

Slowly—hesitantly—she tore her gaze from the monster and looked up at Syn, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Syn…"A breath. Her heart hammered, wild and uneven. "…brother?" Her eyes flicked back to the creature, her thoughts spiraling in ways she could barely process. "Is she—are you—are the two of you actually—"

She couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't say siblings. Couldn't say family. Couldn't know what the Force was screaming through her senses, through the flickering remnants of the memories she'd glimpsed earlier.

Her pulse thundered so loudly she half expected the creature to hear it.

"She said father…" Lyra whispered, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to keep it steady. "The same father who created you? Who built these temples? Who did all of… this?"

Her blade vibrated faintly as her hand shook—not from weakness but from the horrifying clarity settling over her.

This wasn't just another monster in the depths. This wasn't some mutant creature spawned by ancient corruption. This thing had a history. A past. A connection. To Syn.

And worse—so did she because her mind had brushed Syn's memories earlier. Because the Force had shown her pieces not meant for her eyes. Because something inside her reached out in response to the woman's presence, recognizing the same chaotic brightness, the same wrongness, the same fractured echo.

Lyra's breath hitched as a deeper realization pierced through her panic.

She wasn't just hearing them. She was feeling them. She wasn't imagining this. She wasn't misinterpreting this. The Force was telling her something she didn't want to understand.

Her voice shook as she whispered, eyes locked on the creature: "…what is she?" She swallowed. "And what does that make you?" And even quieter—fearful, but impossibly soft: "And what does that make… me for being able to feel all of this?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

Lyra's question drew some of his attention but he never took his eyes and senses off of the one in front of them. "Yes." He said it and something seemed to have shifted in her thoughts and in the force as he wasn't giving it a bad thing... he was paying attention. "Not in the way you know though, we are all part of what was made." The thing was looking and its limbs were getting slightly longer in many cases... an impressively scary feat while it looked taller but also covered in the long hair as she didn't come close. As strong as she was as vicious she seemed more afraid. Syn spoke with a look at her as he would have to deal with this and it wasn't going to be easy but he spoke keeping his presence on the sithspawn as he turned to Lyra.

"You saw things, memories, thoughts, places long gone. A bridge in the force connecting us." He looked down at her and stilled in the moment. "I told you the truth but to explain it all would take a lifetime and all of my sins would still be a drop in a sea of deeds." He turned his head to look back but brought a hand up as he moved it to more tilt her head so he could bring his forehead to hers. "I said I would make sure you get back and I will but you are going to have to do something dangerous and likely gross by your standards. The reactor needs to be shutdown and damaged beyond being able to be repaired so the doors can be sealed when we leave."

He was looking at her more in the force and moved his hand to go down her arm to the sword as he moved for one kiss. Long enough if she allowed it to be a moment but short enough to focus before pulling back. "When I say so Lyra, run along the platforms to get behind and do not look back towards us.. it is not going to be something you want to see." He said it but opened up to the force fully and the levels he was suppressing. The limits he gave himself were opened as he let his signature in the force grow intense and then almost like a pressure that was building up. THe force infusing, flowing through his body and enhancing him to be able to fight.

"Go now." He said it and turned with the twin blade activating with a snap-hiss that resounded a she channeled the energies through the blades. His shoulders rolling as the muscles were infused with the force and bulked... just a little but enough that the tightness of them became more pronounced. The veins that were visible looking like beskar cords along the skin. His jaw set and at the ready. The twirl of the blade to point both of them forward as his foot went backwards before kicking off and his speed sent him slamming into the beast... the kick off from his boot leaaving a dent in the grating as the shoulder tackle sent them flying towards the far end away from the consoles and gore.