Junction An Eye for an Eye | GA + MAW Junction of Selvaris and Copero

[Liedran Kathause]

​

Orn'om , Constantine Oliva , Tren Chaar , CETCOM , Olly Piblarian ​

---

[Copero]
[3rd Expeditionary Carrier Line]

"Ma'am! Rhapsody's reporting an energy surge from the Brotherhood line-- Shield Disruptors; they've lost deflectors," D'Nea called out over a sudden flood of rings and screeches. Her teeth were gritted, her face fearful yet dignified. "Port Tyrant's intensifying bombardment. Captain Sansern's already reporting casualties."

They couldn't afford to lose Rhapsody. "Divert the attack wings for a sweeping run. Overture and Sonata-- Concentrated mass driver salvo on the engaging Tyrant. And order Rhapsody to target that blasted destroyer's disruption projectors!" Liedran was hardly wearing a calm expession when she managed to relax a brief spike in her breathing. "Put Dauntless in the way to soak up some damage."

"What's the status on their Golans?" the commodore queried as a comms officer parroted her prior orders through a microphone.

"Wearing down their shields-- 53% now."

"Good." The response was filled with relief, but found itself plunged under the long shadow of nervousness. It should have been a quick engagement; despite the smaller stature of the Alliance's individual vessels, their numbers should have let them mop the floor with the Brotherhood in minutes. And the Mawite forces themselves were fighting fiercely, though they must have known it was a losing battle. Kark... They were waiting-- they had to be waiting-- for reinforcements. Had nobody put up comms jammers?

She sure as hell hadn't ordered them up, not in time, at least. Dammit!

No use putting the jammers up now. A distress line was likely already on its way to a Mawite port. It wouldn't be very long before they mustered up reinforcements.

That returned her attention to the small, two-destroyer task force in front of the fleet. If the Alliance could mop them up quickly, maybe whatever back-up the Brotherhood could spare would think twice. She'd surely have an easier time focusing on one hostile at a time...

A small voice beckoned Liedran's weary gaze-- one of the younger ensigns. Comms Chief Laine. "Ma'am. Chiss forces calling in-- their Admiral wants us to focus more fire on the lead Tyrant. What should I tell them?" The junior officer looked expectantly at her, one finger pressing a headset to his ear.

"We already have half of the line focused on that destroyer, correct?" She turned her gaze slightly over to D'Nea, receiving a nod in turn. "Tell them we can't spare anything else at the moment." Cadence still had her guns focused on the Golan platform, and the remaining support ships were busy screening against the Mawite air wing.

There was a faint "Roger that, ma'am" she heard coming from Laine's console, but most of Liedran's attention had turned back to the tac-readings. Dauntless had leapt between Rhapsody to soak up a turbolaser barrage, but not before a concentrated strike burnt off the majority of the latter's forward armor. Even as she watched the warping display, Rhapsody was still struggling to intercept a barrage of hostile guided missiles.

At point of the 3rd Expeditionary, Overture and Sonata had de-intensified the streams of anti-fighter projectiles cutting outward from their flanks as their accompanying fighter wings broke off from the frigates' immediate vicinity. As the wings leapt through a small safe-zone in the frigates' screens, darting around to avoid the Brotherhood's squadrons on their way to the lead destroyer, the larger support ships briefly cut power to their maneuvering jets. Displayed on the Cadence's forward viewscreens were the sights of fire briefly belching from the bows of the Sonata and Overture; the slugs from their mass drivers began to converge on a Tyrant. Almost as soon as they'd fired, the frigates fired up their thrusters and began spinning, painting their immediate vicinities again in a blinding stream of unceasing plasma fire meant to cover the mad-dash of the allied bombing force.

The latter, the 11 squadrons drawn from elements of the 3rd Expeditionary, converged on the Intimidator, Y-Wings and B-Wings ready to unload their proton torpedoes onto the Tyrant's fading shields. A-wings and X-Wings swarmed around the bombers, darting port, starboard, ready to pull forward and cover the force's post-bombing retreat.

As she watched the perilous maneuvers on the viewscreens, Liedran felt a bad headache coming on.

---

Ships and Statuses:

ANV Cadence	Shields: 97.6%	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Rhapsody	Shields: NONE	Hull Integrity: 60%
ANV Chorale	Shields: FULL	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Overture	Shields: FULL	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Sonata	Shields: FULL	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Ranger	Shields: FULL	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Dauntless	Shields: 75%	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Prelude	Shields: FULL	Hull Integrity: FULL
ANV Muse	Shields: FULL	Hull Integrity: FULL

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Copero: The Ebruchized (Objective B)​

Location: Copero, Subterranean Laboratories
Tags: Silas Westgard | Lief | Starlin Rand

Spoiler: TL;DR

• The Skitterwings and Ebruchized fight each other as well as pursuing Starlin and Eliphas
• The Palatini herd Silas toward a wall of cloning tanks, then close in from all sides

In the corridors just beyond the cloning chamber, Starlin sped off, cutting his way through rubbery blue flesh in a flash as he made his frantic escape from the Skitterwings... and apparently leaving his apprentice to deal with the winged arachnids alone, unless the younger man managed to keep up. The mad Ebruchized did not, in fact, attack each other, though even the Taskmaster himself did not know why given that they attacked everything else. Perhaps their latent Force-sensitivity, though half-baked, allowed them to sense a twisted kinship with the other mutants of their own misbegotten kind.

They had no kinship with the Skitterwings, though, and the primitive bug-bats had no compunctions about attacking them either. As the swarm spilled out of the trap door, they fell upon the mutants they found there just as readily as they'd come after the Jedi, latching on with huge mandibles and ripping with rings of jagged teeth. More than a few of the Ebruchized went down under the frenzied attack, covered from misshapen head to sluglike toe in feasting Skitterwings... but other mutants fought back, smashing the horrid things with whatever twisted appendages they happened to have.

It would've been a hell of a mess to clean up...

... if Tu'teggacha hadn't already been leaving.

While master and apprentice wandered the mazelike halls, a very different confrontation was unfolding just a few rooms away. The young Jedi who'd bumbled into the Taskmaster's true laboratory, though surrounded by highly-trained warriors, showed no signs of fear... just the customary arrogant, self-righteous bluster of his order, who had been told all their lives that they were the only true warriors of good and rightness, and would always prevail in the end. Tu'teggacha rolled his bulbous eyes as he slither-scrambled into his escape hatch. He'd heard it all before, and no doubt would again.

The Palatini, for their part, were utterly silent. They had no use for banter; violence was their language, and they spoke it well. Silas parried the first blow, proving that he was at least quick, and might survive more than a few heartbeats in this deadly contest. Still, he wouldn't have lasted a moment longer without some other action, for the two guards behind him would surely have cut him down in a storm of crimson blades. His improvised attack - yanking open the vents and bathing the room in steam - did succeed in saving his life, at least for the moment. In the confusion, he escaped the triangle.

If the Palatini were frustrated, they gave no sign. They merely fanned out once more, one coming directly at Silas, the other two moving to outflank him from each side. Their goal was simple: give him nowhere to retreat to, then cut him down. Their dark shapes were oddly distorted as they moved behind the long, thick transparisteel of the cloning tanks, as if they were walking through a hall of funhouse mirrors. Their robes hid their feet, making them seem to glide.

Each piece of thrown lab equipment met with an elegant half-dodge, half-deflection; each time the targeted Palatine would cut cleanly through the incoming metal with his crimson blade, then twist aside, moving just enough to allow the debris to fly past. He never slowed in his elegant, deliberate movements, making steady progress toward Silas. They were herding him toward the back wall, where a colossal row of cloning tanks - filled with viscous green goo and the misshapen forms of two dozen half-formed Ebruchized - would cut off any further escape. Then they'd come at him from all sides.

With a sudden surge, the dark-robed figures closed in, sabers raised...

 

[Michael Sardun]

Apprentice: Ishida Ashina
Foes: Laoth

​

Someone else might have been troubled by threats to their charge.

Or at least to themselves, if they were of the self-involved persuasion.

Not Sardun.

He remained impassive even as Laoth drew back and created distance. Instantly the Jedi repositioned himself, stepping several steps to the side with a silk movement, to cut off the sight of his Padawan dropping on her face near the corpses. Center yourself, Ishida, I trained you better than this. Find the eye of the storm inside of you... and do better.

This split attention ensured Sardun was caught off guard by the sheer speed Laoth displayed. The blade was already halfway to its target, before the Jedi Master began to move.

Too late.

As Michael stepped to the side, the blade ripped free from the earth and caught him in the arm. It met durable metal and still dashed right into it, before Michael arrested its movement and himself. The curved edge of the blade bit hard into his flesh beneath the armor. It certainly must hurt and yet... the Jedi was serene in the Force.

"Death... is the Force..." The words came from an infinite amount of space. A distance you felt in your chest. It stilled movement, it froze passion, it was existence beyond desire or emotion. It... simply was. "...and the Force is me."

Once more Sardun swung his hammer. This time swinging low.

Yet it was a feint. The moment Laoth reacted to it, Sardun would rush in fast, aiming to slam his gauntleted fist into the Devaronian's face. Once, twice. However many times it was possible with the power of the Force behind it.

"You may kill me. You may kill her. But... we will return, beast, over and over again. You need to kill us an infinite amount of times.... but we will only have to kill you once."

From anyone else it might have been a haughty boast.

Sardun? Spoke with utter detached conviction.

There was a whole prison, of which Michael was a warden, designed entirely to imprison monstrosities like these.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

LIGHT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
SELVARIS | JUNGLES | APPROACHING OUTPOST
LIGHT THINKS IT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
BUT IT IS WRONG
NO MATTER HOW FAST LIGHT TRAVELS,
IT FINDS DARKNESS HAS ALWAYS GOT THERE FIRST.
AND IS WAITING FOR IT.

​

Center yourself, Ishida, I trained you better than this. Find the eye of the storm inside of you... and do better.

Her Master’s voice was crisp and sharp, with a loudness that pierced through her psyche across several impossible meters. Ishida flinched. The back of her mouth tightened, and with a ragged exhale, she frowned deeply and raked her fingers through the dirt in response. It was a visceral indignity, to not be enough. To not meet expectations.

How humiliating it was to be made of imperfect flesh and imperfect bone, all acting on behalf of imperfect thoughts. How wretched it was to fall short of expectation. The ache of her imperfections swelled through her breast and pounded behind her eyes and forehead. Do better.

There was a ferociousness inside her that she’d cultivated for so long, that was now a contrarian thing. It throbbed painfully, vying for its materialization. Like a second heart that beat alongside the one she’d promised to Bernard. It was a violent complexity she was responsible for, a storm within that convoluted her consciousness and actions. But Sardun was right, as cutting as his words were, they sliced her down to the shape she needed to fit.

Do better.

The emotions, the regrets, the decisions made and to-be-made, had no purpose here. They were distractions from the divine duty of the light. Her purpose on this planet was to prevent the spread of evil and darkness. All that had been, and all that was, were turbulence. Her centre was here and now.

Sardun had passed the judgement, and Laoth had risen to the challenge to prove him right. Ishida had to help, to imprison this beast with his wickedness.

She reached for her sabre on the other side of the soldier’s corpse, leaning over him. When her fingertips touched the binding of her long-hilted sabre, she felt a coolness that didn’t belong to the metal of her hilt. She frowned deeply and looked toward it.

In the grass where her hilt had rested, was a shadow that curled the grass down to the earth. What had been green and light was now as opaque as onyx. Blackness crept out from the shadow of the soldier, through the soil, through the gnarled roots that splintered from earlier conflict.

Still edging toward her centre, the eye of her internal storm, Ishida’s gaze roamed their surroundings. What had been rich, loamy bark and moss were now touched with shadows. Twisted and gnarled from their natural states, that which was still alive enough to respond to The Force’s mutation, folded in on itself and steadily darkened into something dying and wretched. Leaf after leaf, blade after blade of grass, all exhaled out their saturation and became devoid of diversity — one after the other, all turned to darkness. If there had been any condensation sparkling on the leaves, it had long since turned inky.

Further observation of her surroundings attempts to centre herself, were truncated by the sudden sharp sting in her chest. Permeating out from the wretched scar she'd incurred on Jedha.

Her breath whooshed out in a gasp, and she clutched it, pulling back to her heels from stretching over the corpse and pressed her palm to the wound to calm it. Darkness roiled around her, finding its opportunity to surge in her former piercing and thrumming out the agonizing burn of infection.

---

NJO | GA | Michael Sardun | Valery Noble | Cale Gunderson | Aleksandr Stirsea
BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW | Laoth | Kralmus Orr | Dodhorn Harert

 

[Aleksandr Stirsea]

Location: Selvaris, Deep Jungle
Dance Partners (Not so friendly): Kralmus Orr Dodhorn Harert Kyrel Ren
Dance Instructor (Friendly): Cale Gunderson

"Oh dear," the cannibal mocked, his visor level with Aleksandr's face. "That didn't go quite to plan, did it?"

When the gauntleted fist of the deranged Mandalorian made contact with his nose, Aleksandr heard the crunch before he even felt the pain. A snapping sound, like wood split by an axe, then he was sent spinning from his foe from the sheer force of the strike. Something hot ran down his face. He knew it was blood, but he doubly knew that had no time to wipe it. Any distraction in this fight meant death, he could see that now.

There was no time for respite, not a second to gather his inner calm. A blast of force energy from the undead Ren shot him upwards, right into the clutches of Dordhorn’s vampiric grasp. He struggled against the clamping confines of her constriction, but his salvation came not from himself. Cale’s force-induced push was enough to free Aleksandr, and he spun around to face his assailant, cerulean lightsaber held firmly in hand.

"I told you to run!" she told Aleksandr.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He coughed back at her, taking the stance of Makashi. He drew on everything his master had taught him, recreating the graceful slashes and feints he had trained with. If he was capable of holding back the Hellwolf his attention would turn back to Kralmus. Cocking back his lightsaber, he moved to deliver a plunging strike on the Mandalorian.

 

[Laoth]

Equipment: Sword of the Tenth | The Panoply
Tags: Michael Sardun | Ishida Ashina
Location: Selvaris| The Ebruchized

A Feint Revealed
The Devil Grows Tired
Dead Awaken​

---

Laoth's roar of passion and fury was cut short. Once again, he did not feel the impact, though this time it was not because of the suddenness of being hit. Instead, it was because he realized far too late that he had drawn himself into a feint. His swing had connected against the Jedi, carving through durable metal and biting into the flesh underneath as if it were a beast's fang. Blood seeped from the wound as it had from the man's neck, yet once more there was no reaction from him and only the impassive domineering of the Light. Screaming metal swung low once more for the Devaronian's knees. He reacted instinctually, leaping up in a dexterous display of agility in spite of his girth, only to find a gauntlet into his face as he descended.

Black ooze spurt in gushers from his nose and lips as the fist crunched into his head over and over again, driving him back with each forward step accentuated by the words of the Jedi. Further and further down the clearing of the jungle was he driven, the Light burning his senses. But, unlike the Jedi who reacted with stoic silence to any injury done upon him, Laoth was quite vocal. With each movement, he gave off guttural heaves and chuckles with each surge of pain roaring through his sinew and bones, the very essence of it filling his body with newfound power only a follower of the Darkside could draw upon. Thus, it was not long before the Devaronian tired of the display of strength and surged up with a free hand to grasp the man's thrown fist in the air.

"Good effort, Jedi. My turn," he chortled through cracked teeth and weeping swells of bruised flesh.

His grip on the man's forearm would tighten, and his palm held against the grip of his sword - marked with the evil of the spear he had thrown some months ago - began to twitch and writhe as if maggots had burrowed under the epidermal layer. He knew little of what it was that caused it to react so, but it was enough for him to smile as wide as the blade in his hand. The tether to his foe, Ishida, was waking and sparking agony throughout her chest. Crystal eyes darkened into midnight blue vistas as his subconscious began to rend open the very fabric of nature around them, and in a flash of action, he threw up the man's arm and unleashed a winding backfist towards the man's helmet.

Elsewhere, the darkness that had seeped into the earth began to churn like soup, the very earth underneath the young Jedi roiling and bending in small undulating motions as the shadows around her began to worm into the corpses of the Alliance. From under the dirt, rotting coils of tree roots and deep vines erupted in a horrific display of semi-sentience forged by only the evilest of incarnated powers. Actually screeching in whatever agonizing horror gave them such movement, the roots and vines descended upon the corpses, snaking in through the existing wounds or opening up new ones with their barbed tips. Around and around the bones and muscles and organs of these once honorable men and women, the rotting things exploded into masses of sticky miasmic plague.

Shockwaves of forced activity electrified the ligaments of the dead and brought several into shaking, spiraling motions on the still undulating earth, with more opening their jaws to unleash horrific screams as their very souls were afflicted by the power of these most horrific fate. Pustules of ink-black infection boiled to the surface of their flesh, their heads and necks cracking with their throes and their wounds sizzling together with the greenish disease that curdled their blood into red milk. Screams became wheezes, wheezes became guttural chokes, and guttural gasps began choked silences of distending meat.

Then, one by one, the reanimated soldiers began to rise around the young Padawan, their legs and arms bent in impossible angles. Their eyes - swollen and weeping - opened to reveal glaring distant starlight in empty space, and their open jaws drooled unknowable waterfalls of milky blood and infection. Then, they moved upon her, the head of this new horde the very same soldier to who she had apologized for his untimely death, the only one capable of noise where the others were silent.

"Jjjjjeeeeediiiiiiiiii...." it rasped, lunging forward in painful steps, its ankles crackling under the unnatural state of its body. What was once a crushed, broken chest had now become a swollen mound of pustulated flesh, the vines of the jungle visible under its sewed-up skin like worms. "jjjjjjEEEEEdiiiiiiiiiiiiii......"

 

[Starlin Rand]

Objective B: The Ebruchized
Lief Silas Westgard Tu'teggacha
​

When Eli didn’t answer, Starlin instantly abandoned all forward progress to turn back for him. He found his apprentice lying unconscious on the floor, with Skitterwings about to swarm him. A sweep of Starlin’s blades made the flying arachnids think twice, and a gesture from the Knight sent them splattering against the walls, smeared by telekinetic force.

Starlin stooped down, trying to rouse Eli, but it was no use. The boy was out cold. He reached down and slung his apprentice over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then activated his comlink.

“This is Jedi Knight Starlin Rand,” he said. “My Padawan is down. I’m getting him out of here.”

Whether he got in trouble for aborting the mission or not, Starlin didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t going to let Eli be put in danger. With one final glance at the various trick doors, he turned away and headed back in the direction he had come, fighting his way through the hordes to reach the exit.

//exit thread

 

[Ishida Ashina]

LIGHT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
SELVARIS | JUNGLES | APPROACHING OUTPOST
LIGHT THINKS IT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
BUT IT IS WRONG
NO MATTER HOW FAST LIGHT TRAVELS,
IT FINDS DARKNESS HAS ALWAYS GOT THERE FIRST.
AND IS WAITING FOR IT.

​

One by one, the fallen that had been desecrated by violent ends began to quiver and shake, gurgling and sputtering back to life through an unholy will. Inhuman sounds croaked from their broken bodies, growing loud enough to fill the forest’s quarter with caterwauls. Quickly accelerating, sorting through the potential of their refounded larynx and voiceboxes, their sounds grew in raspy shrillness. The ululations of former corpses consumed Ishida’s auditory senses and completely overwhelmed any awareness she had toward Sardun and Laoth. Horrified and dumbfounded, she felt a cold tremor travel through her body and demand her to spectate the monstrous resurrection.

Fissures that had ended their lives stretched and swelled, inflated with The Darkside. At her feet, the captain that had died beneath the foot of the devil slowly began to twitch. His back arched, his body convulsed, his spine straightened, his hands dug into the earth. He was one of the last of the akimbo army to rise.

In a stupor of disbelief, Ishida could only step back and give him room to rise.

Wide-eyed, Ishida met the unseeing stare of the reanimated soldier whose hand she’d clutched earlier. Her breath fell short in her chest, and guilt widened so broadly she felt it threaten to consume her. The grip she’d held so tightly on her hilt loosened from the pure shock of it all, and she felt the sureness of her posture slouch.

"Jjjjjeeeeediiiiiiiiii...."

It lunged, and she twisted out of the way. Her hands felt heavy. Covered in red, red, red blood that anchored her to immobility. All their blood was on her hands. Each death that sought retribution now was her fault.

If only, if only she’d not trialled mercy on Jedha, these brave soldiers of The Alliance would have been spared this horrific, brutal fate.

Her duty had been to protect these soldiers. The entire purpose of her dispatch to Selvaris had been to save. The depths of responsibility grew, and Ishida wallowed in it — avoiding causing any further harm to the zombified Alliance personnel.

With crude, barbaric gestures, they lunged at her. An arm swiped, a jaw gnashed, two arms sought to wrap around her and pin her down, one colossal body dove to knock her from her upright position entirely. Each attack was met with an elegant method of evasion. One step after the other, Ishida prolonged her existence, and she remained untouched. Weaving backward and away from the swarm that threatened to consume her.

Their howls and groans pulled at her consciousness, and with every step they took, she could see their pain. The torment of living again. The ache of her duty grew at the back of her mouth, clumping, and pushing out a hoarse whisper of another apology. I’m sorry. Her duty had been to protect these soldiers. Her sabre sucked back into its hilt. She could not attack them.

Ishida twisted out of the way from two more attacks and drew in a sharp breath. The squadron was quickly closing in on her, and her means of escape were narrowing.

There were two options — the same options that always were — she could step forward into the decision, into growth, or remain back pedalling into safety. But safety from evasion wouldn’t last forever. Even if she tested its limits, left the army untouched and never lay a finger on any of them, she’d be pushed further and further from Master Sardun as he fought against the results of her failure. If anything happened to him — the thought died before it could complete. She couldn’t even think that course into existence without the dampening sob blotting at the base of her throat.

Within, Ishida felt confusion, anger, fear, failure, unmet responsibility and the repercussions of hesitation all clash together in a stormy mix. Her centre evaded discovery and the darkside’s influence strengthened all around her. The throbbing sore on her chest maintained its pressure, drinking in from the connection of the darkside Laoth had webbed all around Ishida and intentionally purposed at her.

All the dead staggered and stomped toward her, growing comfortable in their unnatural composition. Ishida’s stillness won her a claw through her bicep, surprisingly strength ripping through the fabric and tearing at flesh. Another came at her stomach, her cheek, her hip, and then her shoulders to drag her down.

"Do you know what I learned, sneaky mouse? I learned to accept the pain of my life. Have you?"

It was painful to know that her mistakes had cost their lives. Doubly so to see them resurrected like this. It seemed just to let them exact retribution against her. If they killed her, wouldn't that be justice?

They were innocent, weren't they? How could she dare to lift her blade against those she'd promised to defend and protect?

The dead. All these dead soldiers that had once been alive. They had dedicated their lives to freedom, to the cause of perseverance. They had families, didn’t they? Loved ones waiting for them to survive? Legacies unmet?

Using her arm to shield her face, she dropped to her knees under the crushing weight of the zombie’s pile-on attack. The smarmy earth soaked into the fabric covering her knees. She felt teeth bite into her, and she gasped out a wet, pained noise. Every wince, every flinch, every sharp inhale to prevent from shrieking out in pain, Ishida was confounded on how far mercy could go. Would it be her end?

"Death has no purpose besides the one we come up with to feel better of the passing of friends, family and allies, Padawan."

Ashina’s tenets supported Sardun’s instruction: Death was destiny — the only certainty any sentient could look forward to and their wretched mutation now, brought to life by the darkside, evaded that peace.

Death had already come for those that now tore and gnashed at her.

OUR DUTY WEIGHS HEAVIER THAN YOUR FAILURE

Ishida realized only then that her duty to protect them had not ended. It had only shifted to meet the new demand. The darkside was what she had been supposed to defend against while they were alive, and that order, that purpose, persisted now. The darkside prevailed, undoing death’s rest and resurrecting these men and women to something unholy. It made a folly of their sacrifice, twisting their earnestness into machinations of the very evil they’d raised their weapons to and died from.

Living with her pain, as the monster had goaded earlier, did not mean she had to be consumed by it.

It simply was. And she still had the power to navigate through it. To define it on her terms and give it as much, or as little power over her course forward.

do better.

Letting them try to consume her was no protection at all. If they’d been sentient, or aware of what had happened, how horrified would they be? Would the devastation wrought them to incapacitation? Could she undo this? Could she restore them to their vitality from once before?

No, she was not strong enough. That manipulation of The Force was a product of unnatural evil. They had been innocent once, and she'd failed them when they'd been pure — now was her chance to redeem their honour. By destroying the evil that had remanufactured them into mindless, wicked puppets.

Temporarily resolved, the padawan drew in a sharp breath, let it settle in the chaos, closed her eyes, and focused on the stillness that it brought through her throat, her belly, her mind. Her centre was in the present. Her present was not to be clouded with the upsets of responsibility unmet, failure, or the shortcomings of the past. The present was in duty.

And duty still demanded.

do better.

“Your sacrifices should not be in vain.” Ishida snapped her eyes open again. Sardun had been right — Light’s duty was to destroy darkness. But Bernard hadn’t been wrong either; the light could heal that which had been corrupted.

Healing, in this case, just meant permanent cauterization.

A hand that stretched for her throat was seared off at the wrist as she activated her sabre. Its brilliant white light illuminated the shadows that enclosed her. Her glare met unseeing eyes, but the sound that came from the wounded zombie sounded as though the agony was true. She adjusted, elbowing forward and up against the pressure against her. As if there were some sentience, Ishida saw the face of the captain again. He oozed out nothing that was human, and Ishida only felt a vague pang at the bottom of her lungs when she stabbed forward and through their throat, and jagged her blade to the side to decapitate the body.

His name would be respected, not cursed.

She pushed up to stand and rose so that each stroke efficiently cut through the possessed pack of former allies. Growls, groans and moans grew louder as Ishida fought back. They revolted, agitated by her audacity — and she met them with soothing strokes, clean, efficient sweeps that brought stillness to their corpses once more.

Soil would consume them, not darkness.

---

NJO | GA | Michael Sardun | Valery Noble | Cale Gunderson | Aleksandr Stirsea
BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW | Laoth | Kralmus Orr | Dodhorn Harert

 

[Valery Noble]

Location: Selvaris
Valery: Appearance
Outfit: Factory Link
Weapon: Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Darth Ptolemis | Laoth

From the start, Valery knew her defiance would only fuel his anger towards her more. It was part of her plan but it always made the fight initially more difficult, as that very anger empowered the Sith. But sooner or later, his fire would lack the fuel to keep spreading, while her internal flames couldn't so easily be suppressed. He likely realized this as well after the attack he just released, and it sparked a rather fast and sudden dash to get into a duel with her.

But that's also where this violet warrior shined.

With a quick step back, Valery used distance control to avoid the initial strike but the speed he had behind the follow-up attack was still incredible, and while she was able to raise the rear blade of her saberstaff to block the strike, the energy he forced into the clash caused her stance to be far less balanced.

Which is when the pain really hit her hard for the first time in this battle.

The kick he aimed to get through her defenses connected with her knee, and she could feel part of the bone snapping inside. It forced a yelp of pain but even now, she wasn't going to back down. The Forcesuppressed the pain almost instantly, and with great augmented speed, she launched a series of quick strikes to his torso and limbs — simple shiims meant to deal minimal damage if they were to connect, but she hoped to pressure him into a defensive position again.

But during her onslaught that she hoped to use to overwhelm the Sith, Valery took note of figures appearing from the Jungle. They had a strange presence in the Force, and they were coming from all sides. Jumping back, she distanced herself and got a closer look at the zombies that were now swarming the whole area.

"What the..." she muttered before looking at Ptolemis. No, he didn't have the time to summon these — someone else must have created these dark creatures and unleashed them against the Alliance data centers.

"Well I'm sorry, Orlov, but I think that's my queue to get out of here," The scientists and soldiers were all dead, and the zombies had swarmed the building some survivors were in already. She had failed in her attempt to rescue more people, and while she would have wanted to at least take this Sith down... she knew it was time to leave.

So with the same speed as before, and her weapon acting as a rather large cutting device, she dashed straight through the first line of zombies behind her, hoping to use them as shields in case Ptolemis was going to come after her. But she had a feeling that he'd have his hands full with these creatures as well. They didn't seem smart enough to distinguish between Jedi and Sith.

 

[Michael Sardun]

Apprentice: Ishida Ashina
Foes: Laoth

It took effort, discipline and focus not to disappear into the pleasure of destroying the beast's face.

In his youth... Michael would have disappeared into that gaping maw. Immersing himself with the joy of destroying a foe. This boy had been a fool, so focused on useless things he almost lost himself. Instead all Sardun felt was frost inside of him. Pouring through his veins. It kept him steady, detached and ready to do whatever it took.

His next thrust was interrupted by Laoth and that took him by surprise.

He tried to counter-attack by slamming his hammer into the animal's side again. This left his head exposed. All Sardun could do was lean back and to the side, but it was for naught. Laoth's fist hit true, crashing into his head, and actually snapping his helmet off of his head. It was send flying backwards into the ground.

Blood trickled down from his brow and now Laoth got a good look on Sardun's face. The cold blue eyes, the blood flowing richly down his brow where a deep gash was left from the punch. His throat bloodied from the earlier assault.

The damage was there. The pain? Seemed missing. Absolute serenity in his expression. "You use the corpses of your betters... because you fight alone and that is how you will die as well." Michael declared as he wrenched his hand free. This was spoken as if the Jedi Master was talking about tea time and not the execution of another sentient.

As he spoke the he used the sheer proximity between the two of them.

His hammer was dropped to the ground, impossibly heavy, where it was aimed to pin Laoth's foot to the ground. At the same time his hands lashed out quickly to Laoth's face. The gauntlets were already lighting up. The ring circled around his finger flaring up in response to the Force channeled through Sardun and itself.

"Be cleansed."

It was not Force Light.

It was pure convected heat and baked air ripping into Laoth's face as he tried to gauge his eyes out.

 

[Laoth]

Equipment: Sword of the Tenth | The Panoply
Tags: Michael Sardun | Ishida Ashina
Location: Selvaris| The Ebruchized

The Dead Dead Again
An Angel Loses His Veil
Pressing Into The Wounds​

---

Fear. The jungle was rank with it. Putrid rot coiling around its wooden veins, sucking the life out of everything.

Anger. The continent was ripe with it. Turning all that was green and blue into a viscous bloody red, the stains of war coating everything.

Death. The planet was swelled with it. Pregnant with the souls of the damned and saved, Selvaris screams for release from its torment.

And Laoth indulged in it all, even as the hammer of his foe struck his side once more and cracked a series of bones no mortal Devaronian ever had, surely skewering the redundant organs that lay underneath. But, as he had since the onset of this duel, Laoth only roared and then laughed in sequence. Wet gurgling noises erupted from his throat as his fist made contact with Sardun's helmet, knocking it clean off his head and bringing to bear the face that had been hidden this whole time. Beyond from the churning serenity of his ice-blue eyes, and aside from the wounds marring his flesh, this Knight was surprisingly well-maintained in appearance. Far more so than any other Jedi he had encountered thus far in his centuries (or decades for his time spent actually alive), so much so that it momentarily impressed the giant of corrupted meat.

"You look like you should have been an actor," he chortled, locking eyes with the man's cold stare shaded by the blood of his brow. "I fear you made the wrong choice of occupation, Jedi."

Then, the man broke free from the Devaronian's presence, and in an instant accentuated by more words from the Jedi, pain erupted from his foot and Laoth found himself pinned in place. Stealing a glance down, the Devaronian snarled as he saw the man's gargantuan hammer flat across his boot, sinking him into the moist sticky earth to his ankle. Audible fires of rage billowed from his mouth like the throes of a krayt dragon.

Such trickery!

Such a deceitful tactic!

Such ignominiousness for him to have not been prepared for such an obvious move!

Laoth lunged forward, dropping his sword from his grasp and outstretching his arms for the Knight's unprotected face. Violent words of an unknowable nature spit from his lips as his humor to the fight vanished in puffs of indignancy. Unfortunately, this Jedi had the same idea as the giant, and as Laoth's hands made to grip around Sardun's throat, burning metal seared into his flesh. Smoke rose from the points of contact and Laoth roared out agony, squeezing his own gargantuan thumbs against the open wound of Sardun's neck, black ooze spilling from his eyes the Jedi sought so desperately to crush.

Elsewhere, the dead that had fought bravely on against the young Padawan who had dared to not accept her fate had been dwindled to few numbers, no more than six total. At least in this area. Unbeknownst to the man who had unconsciously created these horrific diseased things, the power had spread far and wide throughout the entirety of the Jungle, bringing back to life dozens if not hundreds of corpses sputtering and twitching with corrupted reanimation. Humans and Xenos together, small and large, broken and stitched together, but all putrid with the greenish disease and ink-black infection.

For the few remaining in the presence of the young Ishida, however, they were of the hardier builds than the rest, more brutish than their lithe impossibly angled kindred. Lumbering in manners akin to their creator on Jedha, the dead lunged after her through the shrubbery, only to meet the sharpened edges of her lightsaber carving through fatty pustules and swollen muscles. Blood and bone and guts strew across the landscape in swaths of charred gore. It would not be long before she could rejoin the fight alongside her master against the demon who had created these monstrosities.

 

[Darth Ptolemis]

JUNGLES OF SELVARIS
OBJECTIVE II

ENGAGING: Valery Noble

TAGS: Kralmus Orr Dodhorn Harert Ishida Ashina Laoth Kyrel Ren Aleksandr Stirsea Cale Gunderson

Equipment in bio.

HATRED
​

A snap of skeletal tissue, and a sharp hiss of inhalation. But where others would buckle, she stood her ground, eyes piercing through the dark one's mask and without a second wasted, she retaliated. Her determination caused ripples through the environment, like two mallets banging on a drum –– short but sharp cuts accompanied each percussive wave within the Force. Masterfully rehearsed stabs with both the frontal and rear blades of her double-bladed weapon. Instantly, the tide of combat shifted and The Blasphemer Lord's feet were forced to sweep back repeatedly, dragging dirt on the heels. Where one jab from the Violet Warrior's saberstaff was parried, the opposite blade of her weapon sliced at his ankles. Where a sweeping strike was jumped over, four other blocks had to follow up the bewildering swordsmanship of this Master. Block, shift, slide. The unexpected offensive brought the Sith closer and closer to his ship behind him, cornering him. The quick strikes burnt through grass and steamed the humid air with each tremendous swing. Had it not been for what came next, Ptolemis would have had to sacrifice much more of himself to regain the upper hand.

The Jedi abruptly backflipped away from the Masked Sith, landing seemingly effortlessly on her injured legs. The titillating scent of blood and sweat ebbed and flowed between them in this brief intermezzo. They both could be seen scanning their immediate surroundings that have been overcome by reanimated corpses. Ptolemis did feel a growing darkness in the back of his mind, but he simply attributed it to the fact that others of his Order have also stalked the planet.
​

"Well I'm sorry, Orlov, but I think that's my queue to get out of here,"

On the one hand, he felt somewhat satisfied with the thought that the pain of her fractured knee will keep her company for quite some time, since he himself will forever bear the memento of their high-stakes battle, in the form of his lost fingers. On the other hand, she still had the files on him. This could come back to severely haunt Ptolemis in the long run. He too knew when a fight was over, and before he would ascend the ramp of The Nycteris and leave the planet for good, he disengaged his saber, clipped it on his waistbelt, raised his butchered hand in the air as a twisted farewell, and shouted over the blighted walkers, toward the Violet Warrior. – SEE YOU IN THE MIRROR, JEDI!​

​

 

[Michael Sardun]

Apprentice: Ishida Ashina
Foes: Laoth

Sardun was unfazed as a rule.

Nothing surprised him.

Shock did not exist.

Until Laoth told him he could be an actor. That.... yeah, that made him actually blink and pause for a brief moment. "I..." Thank you? Is that what you are supposed to say? For a single moment the ring faded and eye color shifted from bright iced blue to more steely hues. Just a moment, before the ring took hold once again.

"Acting is a lie and I do not abide by them."

Peace is a lie

It was the last thing that Michael could say before large hands grabbed him by the throat and began to squeeze. He only managed to catch a single breath of air. Then his air pipe was forced shut. Tears forcing itself into Sardun's eyes. They bulged. Michael did not stop projecting the fiery heat into Laoth's face, even as meat and bone crunched behind Laoth's grip.

He choked, trying to catch his breath, but the beast's grip was forceful and all-consuming.

A lesser warrior would begin to panic now. The pain excruciating. The lungs laboring for air. The body screaming for help. Michael remained calm and raised one hand.

Blue steel eyes met dark goo-filled eyes.

Two digits flicked up.

Laoth's sword? The one he dropped, so he could start choking Michael with both his hands? It suddenly swung up, taken by the Force, moving quickly to slice through his heels and feet.

 

[Laoth]

Equipment: Sword of the Tenth | The Panoply
Tags: Michael Sardun | Ishida Ashina
Location: Selvaris| The Ebruchized

Neither Giving Up
Blood Soaked Desperation
A Hammer's Will​

---

In a tango of violence merged with the staticism of rocks in a stasis field, Laoth and the Jedi dueled each other's willpower. Testing the limits each could dive before they had to break away and prevent their own demise. As it was, in moments that seemed as long as eternity thrice times over, neither seemed willing to give up their effort for dominance in this fight. Even as blood the color and texture of tar splooged from the ever-increasingly crushed eye sockets of the Devaronian, and the windpipe and bones of Sardun's neck creaked and cracked like old wood under his foe's massive hands, neither of them cared enough for their lives to surrender.

Which made the entire experience all the more pleasurable for the great beast of war, who found himself laughing in the exchange far more than he did screaming out the agony filling his body. Muscles he didn't even know existed started to swell against the tissue and flesh of his face, his cheeks puffing out slightly as if he were stung by an insect. His cheekbones began to crack from the heat of the Jedi's grip, the flesh of it burning away into what would surely become a scar regardless of the healing administered. Indeed, he should have backed away, pushed his foe from his attack, and recalled his sword to strike the man down as he sought to tend to his neck wound.

But he didn't. And thus, he was unprepared for what happened next. In a second, Laoth felt the tendons of his ankles and feet slice open with cold wet steel, and it had only dawned on him then that his foe had retracted one of his hands from the assault on the Devaronian's eyes and extended two digits. A call of the Force, light yet clearly effective. And there was only one weapon nearby that could have caused the damage that now led to Laoth falling to a kneeling position, at last, his hands unclasping from the Jedi's throat. Sticky red blood trailed down with the motion, staining the otherwise immaculate gold-silver armor of the Knight with strings of red. Liquid scars on a metal body.

Laoth roared then. His laughter had died out in a cry of anguish that shook the very roots of the trees he had left untainted or uncared for. Crystal blue eyes steeped with black ooze glared up at the Jedi, and a hate-drenched snarl erupted from the Devaronian's throat as he suddenly unleashed his own heave of the Force. Unexpectedly, perhaps, the Sith did not lunge for the legs of his foe nor strikeout to remove the black from his sliced tendons. Instead, they reached for the hammer pinning down his foot and gripped the hilt. The surge of Light that burned into his palms was as bad if not worse than the heat that had so marred his face, and blue flickers of flame scorched up from the points of contact through his fingers. Yet, he ignored it and lifted up with all might that he could muster, drawing on the agony singing the chorus of pain.

And then, there was an explosion of white and blue and Laoth was blown back several meters into the trees.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

DARKNESS GOT THERE FIRST
SELVARIS | JUNGLES | APPROACHING OUTPOST
LIGHT THINKS IT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
BUT IT IS WRONG
NO MATTER HOW FAST LIGHT TRAVELS,
IT FINDS DARKNESS HAS ALWAYS GOT THERE FIRST.
AND IS WAITING FOR IT.

Their deaths, for the second time, were as clean as she could make them. There was no glory, no observation of handiwork, no more apologies — just focused duty. Tireless responsibility.

Her first few gestures had been heavy, lamenting strikes. The burden of her blade biting through flesh that had belonged to allies, and had been infected by the enemy. Her guilt didn’t fully slide away from her until she’d felled at least five. By the time it was just her and the larger, brutishly bodied soldiers — who would have been formidably against any foe by Laoth — she’d relaxed and let the Force flow through her. Usually, in battle-like situations, the Force seemed to fall silent —not to desert her, but to become no more than an instinct or alarm when needed. This time, however, with the added proximity of her Master’s light, Ishida found herself connecting to everything around her, as though she were in a meditative trance. She’d not wait for suggestive forms to guide her but relied purely on The Force.

It gave as much as it took.

It gave her awareness to all around her — everything a mutilated animation of evil. Corruption wound its way through every strip of nature, every blade of grass, overhanging branch, fallen comrade. It was intense and felt endless.

Just when she thought she was done cutting through those she’d been sent to protect, and was about to catch her breath, more emerged from the junglescape. She was stunned to silence and felt the first itch of dismay crawl across her skin.

It took her attention partly, the burning sensation in her breast growing hotter with each zombie raised. Beneath her clothes, her skin was blistering. Like a fist, the mottled black flesh on her chest was tightening and pulsing through the muscle, all the pain converging to that single point.

The Force seemed obsessed with that point, and another, far away, that she couldn’t see clearly through the steady flow of networks and currents, lines and lattices that threaded through her sight as nodes she was forced to cut down in the name of duty.

The pain that had been distant, flashed out and clapped the air from her lungs. Breathlessness found her at the same time a soldier as tall as he was wide found her, and lashed out to knock her back and from her feet.

Ishida went flying through all those lines, currents, and intersections The Force was showing her. Her back cracked against the base of a tree, her head snapping back and she crumpled to her side. Pain throbbed from all the impact points on her front, back, head, and she scraped her hands through the roots of the tree to once more recover her sabre. But nothing hurt more than the scar tissue above her right lung.

The shadows of the resurrected pressed on, and, in her breathless state, she witnessed them as all travellers between two points.

Two points.

She was one of them, the point that drew them toward her like a black hole; irresistible and all-consuming was their need to destroy her. The other point was further away, but it was directing the current. Manipulating the desire to see her so undone.

She clutched her chest and slipped her hand beneath her breastplate and to the concealed white-hot affliction. It pulsed in response, thrumming brilliance through the realized connection.

The connection was between two imperfect souls, each a pontifex in their own right. The other could only be Laoth.

As if The Force was pleased at her realization of the interdependence, the tether he’d created when he’d pierced her through with a creation of his sheer will and power of the darkside, it flashed a grin at her. All those correlations she’d observed up until now flashed once, brilliantly, and faded out around the liason that was Laoth. Only the dim glow of their connection remained visible.

She had to destroy it.

With an angry gasp, Ishida’s hand on her healed wound turned into a claw meant to pierce back through the wound. It was impossible just with a human touch, of course, but with shatterpoint, she opened up the fractures of her build and exposed them to stretch and tear until they were obliterated. Her composition unfolded, and she felt herself being unmade. It’s all she could feel. All she could see. It was so consuming she couldn’t hear herself screaming.

Then suddenly a dark cloud filled her heart, hovered there, and nestled a clammy chill into the corners of her soul. Ishida absorbed the vitriol undefensively, and curled in on herself — keeping her hand clutched to her chest. It was agonizing. She’d never felt so much evil so intensely as if it were shattering each of her cells one by one.

Darkness absconded her luminescence and grew like an insatiable wildfire that burned and seared beyond the hole in her chest, it went to her core, stretched to the peripherals of her mind and threatened to consume her into irredeemable darkness. It gathered at the base of her throat and pounded heavily behind her eyes. It choked off her scream, stole her air away so her vocal cords only buzzed soundlessly with wet sobs.

She almost lost herself to it, to the connection. Her fingers flexed, desperately, against the tunnel burrowed into her chest. It felt like a void, wide, swallowing, expansive. Far from the initial pinpoint she’d seen when she first had the idea to purge their connection through destruction.

The biting, deep cold of the Arkanian token around her neck, trapped against her palm and chest, countered the ethereal sensation of nothingness. The frozen piece of metal kept her feeling physical enough to realize the environment and not get entirely lost in the interconnection of her and Laoth’s mutual shatterpoints.

Between gasps, Ishida recognized there was a smell, rich, arid and loamy. The smell of growth and decay. She was aware of her body, the skin, the sinew, the curl of her gut, the tears in her eyes, the grip on the dragon-carved ring.

Her free fist fell to the ground, clenching at the grass. Coarse, fine grains of the planet’s crust scratched against her flesh as her hand flexed as though she were braiding a thick, invisible rope made of only two strands. It was brief exultation, a microsecond of dark clarity –– gone, now, in the wash of indecision.

But it was enough. Enough to ground her back to the present, where there was light if she searched for it. Enough to gather and collect it from within, to find it in the eye of her storm, reshape it into something sharp and something that could grow large enough to push back against the darkness. It would reciprocate.

Her teeth grit, and she ground herself into the earth for resiliency — willing the spear-like culmination of light to race back through the connection. It cored through the nodes on their shared network, snapping and blossoming small plumes of brilliance through all those zombies he'd resurrected, leaving a trail all the way back to the nexus that was her target.

The Force took everything she had to give and gave it all back to Laoth.

It was fast, focused, and had all of her intensity behind it to burst into a supernova of radiant influence when it penetrated that opposing weakness on their shared fault line.

---

NJO | GA | Michael Sardun | Valery Noble | Cale Gunderson | Aleksandr Stirsea
BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW | Laoth | Kralmus Orr | Dodhorn Harert | Darth Ptolemis

 

[Michael Sardun]

Apprentice: Ishida Ashina
Foes: Laoth

He dropped down to the ground where he gasped.

Fresh lively air rushed into his lungs. It gave him a second wind. Sardun had been closer to unconsciousness than he dared to admit. As his arms rose up to ward off any further attack? It didn't come. A blink and Michael realized what Laoth was planning. Eyes widened as he saw the foul beast grab hold of his hammer and begin to raise it.

How?

The symbol of purity cannot be-

Those words would be burned into his retina as a bright flaring light consumed them all. The explosion followed only a moment later. It took up Michael's body and send it flying backwards through the air.

Several meters and more out of the immediate fight and there he crashed near Ish.

Ooph. His head knocked back into a tree. Blood, pain and stars. Michael grimaced, but the ring flared up and pushed him onward. Back onto his knees and then some. This was no time to rest. As he got back to his feet, he felt himself stumble. Only a quick support from that same tree kept him on his feet.

"Ishida?" Michael looked around him and then noticed her. Then the zombies, dead and destroyed around her. "Well done. They are gone, all we can do is put them to rest."

Confirming and supporting her decision as Michael noticed his hammer nearby.

He picked it up.

They still had a beast to fell.

 

[Laoth]

Equipment: Sword of the Tenth | The Panoply
Tags: Michael Sardun | Ishida Ashina
Location: Selvaris| The Ebruchized

What Do We
When Faced With
Pain, Naith'a​

---

An explosion had rocked him, white light burning its mark into his already smoldering flesh with such ease it was as if his body had been forged with butter and bread. He screamed for a single second before his throat caught itself and sealed shut with swollen, scorched muscle as he was thrust back through the air. Jungle whipped past him in thirty-kilometers-per-second, trees smashing across his back like training sabers, the sheer kinetic force utterly destroying the integrity of his armor down to the bottom layers. The air had been knocked from his chest when he finally crashed into the ground and he heaved out a gasping wheeze while his vision faded in and out of color and darkness. Yet, despite this, he began to rise immediately, pushing as best he could through the pain - the agony - of his injuries pock-marking his form like bad acne. Adrenaline surged through the Devaronian's limbs and coiled in vine-like motions across his tendons and ligaments, power rushing into his heart and mind faster than he had been thrown from the battle.

And then it all stopped. Feeling ceased. Sound died out into a hum. Taste becomes silver. Smell was rancid meat in a butcher's shop. The world around him became a broiling black soup of swollen brain hemispheres and aneurysms. In an instant, blood exploded from his face - every orifice squirting tar-black ooze in fountains as Laoth managed a single confused grunt before falling to his knees with twitching motions. What consciousness remained in this sudden onslaught of the worst kind of agony he ever imagined struggled to understand what had happened. He could not see. He could not feel, taste, smell, or hear. Nothing existed for the moments in which he was so assailed.

Nothing but his thoughts and a voice distant in his brain. A voice he had...not heard for the entirety of this bout. No...not heard since Jedha itself. "What do we do when faced with pain, Naith'a?" a voice called through the darkness in the tongue of the Devaronians. Far away, shaking the nothingness with awe-inspiring command, soaked in stern stoicism. "Naith'a, answer me. What do we do when faced with pain. I ask again: what do we do when faced with pain, Laoth?"

Then, just as quickly as it happened, his senses surged back with nuclear explosions, and a scream louder than TIE Fighter's engines rushed forth from his opening throat. Clawed hands grasped for his forehead, shaking as they patted around the meaty, blood-gushing stump of what had once been a horn. Pulling away revealed only blood and chunks of bone from the exposed and cracked skull. Laoth roared and tried to rise up to his feet only to stumble and fall to his backside, mud and blood splashing up around him with thunderous force.

He attempted it again for a similar result, his vision becoming hazy again and his balance impossible to maintain. Yet, he roared and roared, shaking the very vicinity of the battlefield as his dizzied gaze roamed on the approaching armored form of the Jedi Knight. Once more, and again, and again he tried to rise only to fall and fall and fall until he was soaked in the earth's ichor and the blood of nameless statistics. The Knight would certainly be upon his position now, hammer bore to crack down across his black-blooded foe without resistance.

"I...accept...it..." he muttered almost incoherently, digging his hands into the mossy dirt and practically slithering to stand like a serpent. "I accept...the pain...you...old fuck...I...accept it...Devaronian...I am...of D...Devaron..."