Private Ancient Aliens

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



It wasn't just the bruised color of the sky—those deep, rotten violets streaked with rust-orange veins, like a bruise left too long to heal—but the weight of it. Like the stars themselves had watched too much, had suffered too long, and had finally turned their faces away. The clouds spiraled not with weather, but with memory. The world remembered everything.

So did Virelia.

Their shuttle broke atmosphere in silence, the inertial dampeners doing their work, but her presence filled the vessel's cockpit like incense—dense, fragrant, impossible to ignore. She stood at the edge of the viewport with her hands clasped neatly behind her back, a perfect statue of obsidian and breath. Tyrant's Embrace shimmered subtly in the low light, each joint and plated seam exhaling a faint violet steam from its respirator runes. She hadn't moved since they'd exited hyperspace.

She hadn't needed to.

Rakata Prime welcomed her. It had always welcomed her. She had bled here. Taken here. Learned here. She had been shaped by this world long before she ever stepped upon it—and now, at long last, she had returned. Not for herself.

For her.

Behind her helm's blank gaze, six glowing eyes pulsed like the eyes of an insect queen, watching everything—Kaila. Virelia said nothing. Not yet. She simply let her presence wrap around the girl again, like gravity reclaiming what had briefly escaped orbit.

The shuttle touched down with a hiss of heat and repulsors, volcanic stone crunching beneath the landing struts. Outside the windows stretched a ravaged coastline, jagged coral cliffs and violet-bladed grasses lining a sea that churned like some sentient storm. And nestled in the distance, half-swallowed by the jungle and far older than any Republic archive would ever admit—the temple.

It wasn't marked on any map. It shouldn't exist.

But Virelia had always known it would be here.

She had felt it.

A structure wrought in obsidian and razor-like geometries, impossible shapes carved by hands that were not human. It did not rise—it pierced upward. Like a blade left half-buried in the heart of the world.

And at its core… somewhere in its sunken chambers, one of the last surviving Force-activated saber forges, still powered by the ancient ignition crystals of the Hounds. Still hungry for darkness. Still locked to all but the most corrupted touch.

Virelia inhaled.

"This temple was never catalogued," she began, voice smooth as venom dripped from silk. "Except by one man."

She turned, finally, her cape catching the air like trailing smoke as she descended from the ship's ramp.

The heat here was primordial—it clung to the bones, wet and heavy and smelling of blood-soaked stone and ozone. The wind carried no birdsong. Only the low thrum of the dark side vibrating through the crust of the world like breath through a sleeping giant.

"The Hounds used this forge to bind their sabers to instinct—rage, hunger, loyalty."

She glanced back, and the lenses of her mask glinted like watching gods.

"And pain, of course."

Each footfall she made was silent, armor flowing like liquid shadow. She didn't walk as if threatened—she walked like she owned the ground. As if the stone itself were her altar. In truth, it was.

The Force twisted tighter around her with each step, vines curling toward her presence, insects fleeing before her shadow. Even the temple—dormant for centuries—began to stir. Runes lit in slow succession across its forward pylon, reacting not just to her passage, but to the saturation of her will. She didn't push. She invited.

And everything obeyed.

The entrance hissed open—not with mechanics, but with submission. Stone and shadow peeled back like flesh before a scalpel.

"You want this?"

She paused at the threshold, just inside the looming entryway. Wind coiled behind her, tossing her cape upward in a theatrical flare.

"Then you'll help me wake the forge."

The lights flickered deep within.

"And pay it's due price."

Whispers stirred. Echoes. Things that had not spoken in thousands of years, now roused by hunger and curiosity. The Infinite Empire may have fallen—but their creations were never meant to die. They were meant to be claimed.

Virelia stepped into the dark.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor + Robes
Tag: Darth Virelia

Anathemous remained silent throughout planetfall.

Arms crossed over her armored chest, crimson visor drinking in the details of Rakata Prime through a viewport.

Standing beside Virelia.

Not behind, where she could keep a cautious eye on her, but close enough she had to steal the occasional glance from the corner of her eye. The only outward sign being the almost undetectable shift of her hood, or slight warping reflections along the mask's dark surface.

She was learning to trust, slowly.

It wasn't until they departed that she fell in line behind the enigmatic master of this world, curiously eyeing the animated plant life and creatures that parted for Virelia. She'd grown so much since Terminus, more powerful than Anathemous ever realized, and still the full scope of her abilities were a mystery.

A gloved hand remained wrapped around her sheathe and eyes alert, but posture relaxed.

It dawned on her that this was enemy territory in name only. Arrogance blinded the Jedi much as Virelia's shadow.

"You want this?"

"Then you'll help me wake the forge."

"And pay it's due price."

Want this? she couldn't help wondering if Virelia alluded to more than a saber.

The sorceress vanished in the shadows, leaving the young Darth to ponder her cryptic warnings a moment longer. She gave the jungle one last cautious glance, and stepped in behind her.

Anathemous had never been one to shy away from dangerous ruins.

Still, nothing could have prepared her for the sights when her nightvision awoke.

"Magnificent." she said, examining the alien architecture.

Gloved fingers traced intricate lattices of technology and stone married. Ancient, but undeniably advanced.

"I have plundered many tombs and ruins, but never Rakatan."

And yet, she instinctively knew this would not be easy.

"Am I here to handle surviving security measures, Virelia?"

She glanced at the sorceress.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The air inside the temple breathed.

It did not simply circulate—it exhaled. Like a lung the size of a world had drawn in the scent of two intruders and now pulsed with slow, damp curiosity. The walls, obsidian-black and slick with condensation, shimmered with embedded circuitry that ran like veins across every surface. Bioluminescent sigils stirred faintly as they passed, coaxed from slumber by Virelia's signature. Not just her power—her presence. Her claim.

She walked ahead of Kaila, not fast, not slow. A pace designed not for haste but for rhythm. The steady cadence of boots across ancient stone—wet with humidity, etched with glyphs that whispered not words but orders. Her cape dragged behind her like the trailing hem of a coronation robe, and with every step deeper into the dark, the temple seemed to tighten.

The jungle sounds had long since disappeared.

Now there was only breath.

Stone.

And her.

They emerged into a wide chamber lit only by violet fissures running like scars through the floor, illuminating nothing save the darkness between them. Pillars rose like the bones of titans, their shapes too angular, too smooth—too alien—to have been made by any human hand. Above, the ceiling gave way to a dome of faint starlight filtered through the jungle canopy, casting silver rays that refracted off floating fragments of machinery suspended in gravity wells. A broken forge. Dormant.

Waiting.

Virelia halted.

Her silhouette stood at the center of the chamber, back to Kaila.

Perfectly still.

"I don't need you for security," she said at last. The words flowed with that same smooth finality as a scalpel laid upon flesh. "There is nothing in here that would dare harm me."

She turned her head slightly—just enough for one set of her six insectile eyes to catch Kaila in its mirrored lens.

"You're not here to protect me, Kaila."

A pause. A heartbeat.

"You're here to prove you deserve what I would give you."

She faced forward again, taking one elegant step into the circle of violet light at the forge's heart. The pulse in the stone intensified. Runes flared to life in sequence—reacting not just to her presence, but to her intent.

She raised one clawed hand.

The central structure stirred.

Three concentric rings emerged from the floor like jaws yawning open, each lined with teeth-like glyphs and slotted grooves for blades, crystals, and bone. The center was empty. Incomplete. It could only be completed by submission.

"The Infinite Empire," she said, voice thick with reverence and venom, "was not ruled by Sith. Nor Jedi. Nor any philosophy of freedom or rebellion."

She turned toward Kaila now, slowly—her voice low and intoxicating as it rolled over the stone.

"They were slavers."

The word echoed. Carried weight. Her mask reflected Kaila's mask from every angle.

"They built this place to bind obedience into their weapons. The Force Hounds who forged their sabers here were not apprentices. Not Lords."

She stepped toward her.

"They were property."

She stopped within arm's reach. Gloved hands folded in front of her, head tilted slightly. She was studying Kaila—measuring her with six cruel, intelligent eyes.

"And still they burned stars with those blades."

Another step forward.

Her voice dropped lower.

"So tell me, Kaila… if you want the saber they wielded, are you prepared to endure what they endured?"

She reached up—slowly—and placed one hand against Kaila's chest. No aggression. No impact.

Just weight.

Just presence.

"You want to wake the forge?"

Her hand slid higher, curling just beneath the line of Kaila's jaw. Her thumb dragged upward—slowly—until it rested just beneath the younger Sith's lip, catching it like a tether.

"You'll need to submit, as they did."

The pressure on her thumb increased—not enough to hurt. Just enough to say I could.

The Force around them grew oppressive, like a heat building under skin.

"You may endure humiliation."

She leaned in.

"You may beg."

Closer still.

"You may even be marked."

The gap between them was nearly gone. Her breath was cool against Kaila's cheek. She spoke directly into her ear now—soft, quiet, terrifying.

"And you'll learn that power is not found in the breaking of chains…"

A pause. A whisper.

"But in knowing exactly who belongs in them."

She lingered there, letting the words sink in like poison into open flesh. There was no malice. Only certainty. Dominance made beautiful. A will that did not waver.

Then she stepped back.

The forge pulsed again.

The air grew heavier. Runes twisted around them, forming an invisible ring—an arena not of combat, but of submission. Of worth. The first trial had already begun. Not in combat. Not in flame.

But in choice.

The choice of whether Kaila was ready to go through the same trials and hardships as those who had come before her.

The choice of how much she would be willing to lose.

The choice of how much she would lose.

Virelia extended one hand, palm up.

Her final line cut through the stillness like silk drawn across a throat.

"Strip away what you think you are… or this place will strip it for you."

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor + Robes
Tag: Darth Virelia

Kaila pulled away her mask and hood, to see the starlight with her own eyes.

She looked awe struck by that chamber—it was beautiful, but cruel. she could see why someone like Virelia obsessed over such places, learned so much. And now she was sharing it with her. Kaila didn't know if she should be honored or concerned.


Glowing eyes snapped towards awakening rings.

"They were slavers."

"Hrmh." she grunted.

"I think you know how I feel about slavers."

Virelia spoke more of the forge, all the while getting closer and closer, alluding to something dreadful. A clawed hand upon her chest received a nervous glance, understanding and instinct fighting for control, mind racing with possibilities, few of them pleasant.

Humiliation.

Begging.

Belonging.

Words which reminded her too much of her master; the Lord of Domination.

Yet she did not fight Virelia. Not as she took her by the jaw, not as she whispered in her ear, foreshadowing exactly what she wanted of Kaila. She just stared ahead, jaw tight, even as goosebumps formed under cool breath.

The Lord of Blades would endure, somehow, as she had always done.

Virelia extended one hand, palm up.

"Strip away what you think you are… or this place will strip it for you."

She glanced at her hand, then Virelia herself.

"...fine..." she rolled her eyes, and took her hand in an uncharacteristically delicate grip.

"I wish you were less cryptic."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The moment Kaila's fingers slipped into her own—delicate, hesitant, but willing—Virelia's helm tilted slightly, as though considering a different angle from which to study her. She didn't tighten the grip. She didn't squeeze. But her clawed gauntlet closed around Kaila's hand in a slow, complete motion—claiming it.

Beneath the obsidian, six violet eyes blinked once.

She had almost gone too far. Not in demand, but in approach. Virelia was no brute. No carnivore lunging blindly at scent. She was a spider, and spiders didn't crush their prey.

They wrapped it.

She turned again without a word and led Kaila forward—not by force, not dragging, but simply… walking. And trusting the girl would follow.

Because by now, she knew she would.

The second chamber opened ahead like the mouth of some ancient beast—low, domed, wide enough to swallow a freighter whole. But it was not darkness that awaited inside. It was light. Pale green circuitry snaked through the floors and walls like vines, pulsating in long, drawn-out heartbeats. Every beat echoed with faint vibrations that rippled through the soles of their boots.

No dust. No decay. The room was preserved in time.

And empty.

Almost.

Virelia's boots made no sound as she stepped past the threshold, but the moment she entered, the walls reacted. Columns of floating hexagonal glyphs lit along either side, casting shifting reflections across her armor. Symbols of ownership. Rank. Genetic chains.

Rakata script. Forgotten.

Except by her.

"This," Virelia began, her voice less venom now—more measured—"was a proving chamber. The Force Hounds would pass through it before earning access to the forge itself."

She released Kaila's hand at last and stepped into the center of the room.

"It wasn't enough to be strong," she said, circling a sunken pedestal surrounded by dormant pylons. "They had to be useful. Obedient. Capable of carrying out their master's will without hesitation."

A soft pause.

Virelia glanced over her shoulder, her voice losing some of that corruptive heat. Not all of it. Just enough.

"Pro-slavery or not, doesn't change who the Rakatans were."

She stepped atop the pedestal, letting the faint light reflect up her sculpted armor and mask like holy fire.

"Or what this temple was made to be."

She turned fully to face her again, hands at her sides.

"Or what you must offer to it."

It was still seductive. Still dominant. But now wrapped in the cloth of intelligence and respect—of invitation, not conquest.

She let the silence hang a moment. The room was quiet now, save the rhythmic pulsing of distant machines.

"You called me cryptic," Virelia said at last, descending from the pedestal, "and you're not wrong."

Her claws swept gently down her side as she passed Kaila—trailing a half-circle before coming to a rest behind her again.

"But this place—this weapon—is not simple."

She leaned close.

"And you are not simple."

There it was again. That whispered nearness. A cold breath like silk dragged down the spine, laced with gravity.

"You are beautifully complex."

A beat.

"Your afraid of losing that beauty, of being reduced to the savagery of the Force Hounds who were once present here."

She circled around in front again, slowly, gazing down at Kaila without a hint of mockery.

"I won't do that."

The words landed like a promise—weighted, deliberate.

"If you earn this blade however, I cannot hide the fact that I will want to bind you even more. Seasoned Sith have met many a grizzly end here, so if you can pass it..."

Then, suddenly, a change.

A subtle shift in the room's temperature. The light dimmed. The glyphs ceased flickering—and from somewhere above, a low mechanical hum began to reverberate through the walls.

Virelia straightened, her head turning slowly toward the sound.

"It's waking," she murmured.

The trial was coming.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor + Robes
Tag: Darth Virelia

Kaila followed, of course.

One hand in Virelia's, the other cradling the helm under her arm.

It was... different, claiming as ever, yes, but in a way that reminded her of simpler times. Kaila almost wanted to laugh when she realized what was happening. There were no winding labyrinths, no lightless corridors where she might be lost. Virelia was holding her hand, seemingly for the sake of it.

It was ridiculous to think two Dark Lords were simply holding hands.

It was cute, actually.

She shoved her hand into a pocket the moment Virelia released her, fumbling for those a box of cigarras, it had to be here somewhere. She paused though, lips pursed in thought, as the sorceress went over the history of this place. Kaila had always been fascinated by ancient history, and Virelia seemed to know a lot about this place.

Golden eyes followed her until she passed her by, posture straightening—then arching—as the quiet scraping of claws against plate turned into a subtle pressure against her side, dragging against Synthatex and Zeyd cloth.

"Your afraid of losing that beauty, of being reduced to the savagery of the Force Hounds who were once present here."

"I won't do that."

Kaila blinked, slowly exhaling.

This is new, she thought. The compliments, reassurance where usually there were promises of servitude, of ownership.

She'd never admit it aloud but that was all she really wanted; to be desired, as she was, unchanged.

"I..."

A sound drew her gaze upward, and she grabbed her sheath.

"It's waking," she murmured.

The young Darth quickly slid into her helm, locking into her neckseal with a pressurized hiss.

Already she was in a battle stance, broad shoulder facing the path forward, a hand hovering over her saber.

"Very well then." she said, voice bitingly steeled and distorted behind the mask.

"Let the work begin."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The moment Kaila slid her helm into place, sealing herself in that armored silence, Virelia smiled beneath her own.

Not visibly. Not in any way that could be seen. But inwardly, deeply, the expression curled across her thoughts like a velvet-wrapped blade.

It was working.

Oh, she would never abandon her ambition—never cease wanting to own this girl utterly, to sculpt her defiance into something pliant and beautiful and hers. But for the first time since this game had begun, Virelia saw something in Kaila's eyes that pleased her more than resistance.

Trust.

Not blind. Not naive. But real enough to hold her hand, to stand beside her, to walk willingly into the jaws of a dead empire's judgment.

And that was far more precious than breaking her outright.

Let her choose to kneel.

Let her learn the cost—and beg for the collar herself.

That, Virelia thought, was true control.

The chamber shuddered with growing intensity, floor-embedded runes flickering to life in concentric rings as something vast stirred beneath the ancient metal. She could feel the old power coiling, not just in the Force but in the deep, buried infrastructure of this world. Runes were aligning. Heat ducts were venting. Memory was waking.

And then it rose.

The Guardian.

It unfolded from the floor with a hiss of pressurized steam and the shriek of metal straining against time. Three razor limbs struck the ground like spearpoints, lifting a sleek, insectoid body forged from burnished black phrik and darksteel. Its head—if one could call the swiveling turret such—pivoted in sections, multiple lenses focusing in on the pair with a precision born not of curiosity, but calculation.

The air around it burned with cold malice. Not rage, not hunger—directed purpose. The kind of purpose that needed no emotion. That existed to enforce.

It scanned them both.

And then, the weapon bloomed.

A low charge shrieked through the room as the arcane energy weapon above its head ignited, plasma bound by unnatural force crackling into a seething halo. It took a step forward—each limb sinking half an inch into the stone as it advanced.

Virelia didn't flinch.

She stepped forward instead.

Her presence expanded, not with violence, but with dominion. Every inch of her form radiated a corruptive magnetism—an invitation and a promise both. Her cape hissed across the ground behind her like the tail of a serpent, and even the runes beneath her feet seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat.

She raised one hand, talons lazily curved toward the beast.

Not to stop it.

To greet it.

"Kaila," she said softly—just enough for her voice to cut through the charge in the air. "This is your trial. Your forge. Your inheritance."

The Guardian halted.

Only for a second.

Its legs re-braced.

Virelia circled to the side, keeping her distance—but not in retreat. She was positioning, yes, but more than that—observing. She didn't draw her saber. Didn't ignite her hands with lightning. She simply watched.

And whispered.

"You'll need to show it who you are," she breathed, voice like dark perfume. "And not just with violence."

She ran one claw along the edge of a pillar, eyes flicking from glyph to glyph.

"This machine was not made to be defeated. It was made to test the worth of slaves. To burn the weakness from them."

She looked to Kaila again, her voice growing darker, silkier.

"You're afraid it will reduce you."

Another step. The Guardian repositioned, seeking line of sight.

Virelia stayed just outside its field.

"You won't let it."

She let her hand curl along her own chestplate, above the faint pulse of the node embedded in her armor.

"I brought you here not to break… but to prove."

Another low thrum echoed from the Guardian's core.

Virelia's next words dropped to a whisper, barely audible beneath the hum of building plasma.

"Let it teach you who you must become."

And then she stopped, watching Kaila with intense, unblinking focus, as if drinking in the image of her poised there—ready for battle.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor + Robes
Tag: Darth Virelia

So it was no mindless soldier then, but a test? A Valkyrie stood at the gates to choose the worthy.

The mythic beast at the end of a Knight's tale.

Or the beginning of a legend.

She listened to Virelia from a distance, slowly circling the automaton with heavy but deliberate steps, each calculated to support balance and violence of action yet to come. Never once did it leave her sight.

It was clear to Kaila that the beast answered to her in some way, perhaps recognizing that Virelia played a role similar to the Rakata in this day and age. What that made her, she didn't have time to think about. Every thought was put into understanding her foe, into stratagem.

"Let it teach you who you must become."

Kaila didn't a teacher to know what she had always been.

She was a weapon, and if they insisted upon testing the sword then she would answer.

But that weapon had a name; Anathemous.

The Lord of Blades popped the lock of her sheath open with a thumb and summoned the lightsaber into her waiting hand in an unnervingly quick display of telekinetic mastery, brining it to her side with a taunting twirl. Curiously she did not press the attack like most Sith, instead bringing her hand up, palm forward, erecting a translucent barrier around herself.

The barrier was becoming noticeably thin in front, clearer.

Whatever the Sith was planning, she needed the automaton to strike first.

To test it, just as it would test her.

"Come!" shouted Anathemous.

"Show me what remains of Rakatan fury!"

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The Guardian reacted the moment the challenge was issued.

Its spindly limbs dug into the stone with a hiss of magnetic anchoring, stabilizing its angular frame as the plasma cannon above its head retracted—and something worse unfolded. With a grinding hiss, a secondary port unlocked near its chest, opening like a mechanical iris to reveal a spiraling intake coil already glowing with frostbite blue. A low, ultrasonic whine filled the chamber as internal compressors began cycling. The air warped around the weapon—not from heat, but from cold so absolute it made breath sting and joints ache just to be near it.

Then it launched.

A gout of carbonite-slicked cryo-compound burst forward in a shimmering cone, not as fire but as anti-flame—a sweeping tide of instant-freeze slurry that turned mist into ice and dust into brittle shards. It wasn't aiming to kill; it was aiming to lock, to entomb. Anything caught in the arc would be flash-frozen solid. Even the ancient stone hissed and splintered beneath the sudden onslaught, glassy frost spreading in jagged fans from where the beam kissed the floor.

And as it moved, the droid slid. Skittering around her flank with unnatural grace, limbs stabbing into the walls and ceiling for leverage. It wanted angles. Disruption. Precision. The test had begun.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor + Robes
Tag: Darth Virelia

The young Darth's plans went awry immediately.

But Anathemous had made a career out of thinking on the fly.

Though her heart pounded against laminanium, she quickly readjusted her footing in a quick spin, dropping the shield only to push with the force, trying to throw the carbonite mist back at the automaton's legs as she recovered from the spin. If she could freeze at least one limb, perhaps she could weaken it or even slow the beast, give herself some breathing room.

A sudden weight pulled on her robes however, revealed by a quick glance to have caught the mist and frozen at the edge.

"Agh."

She hurled her lightsaber towards the bot's many eyes to conceal her movements, casting her robes off with a simple pull of her shoulders before launching herself into a sprint.

Her second blade—a nimble shoto—now bathed the chamber in deep crimson.

She would bring this fight to her natural habitat;

Close quarters.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The telekinetic burst caught its front-left leg mid-lunge, just as it prepared to anchor again. A shimmer of supercooled vapor coalesced along the limb—and then the snap of brittle frost as one joint seized, locking in place with a high-pitched whine. The blow didn't topple it, but the precision of its movements faltered. The droid compensated immediately, lowering its chassis and redistributing weight to the rear supports with a hiss of pistons and gyroscopic correction.

Then the lightsaber struck.

One of its optic clusters shattered in a spray of sparking glass and internal coolant, the blade bouncing off into the dark. The turret whirled violently in a corrective spin, optic focus now jittering—damaged, but far from blind. The loss only made it angrier.

It braced.

All four legs dug in as the droid lunged like a speartip, vaulting forward in a sudden pounce, two limbs angled wide in an attempt to corral the Sith's forward charge. One back leg dragged slightly from frostbite but held, just long enough to slam the droid's full weight toward center mass. Every second of combat only made it learn faster.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Anathemous dropped on her side into a sliding halt.

One hand to cool stone, the other, still cradled around her saber, flipped the blade into a reverse grip. She extended only her index and little finger skyward, summoning forth that familiar barrier a fraction of second before the droid closed around her.

Like a mighty pincer, those bladed limbs struck her barrier with a sickening crack. The young Darth tried to stand, but a second impact knocked her to a knee.

"Ngh-Ah!"

Still the barrier held. Her hands shook, arms bent under the immense weight, level with her broad shoulders.

But still it held.

There was just enough time to readjust her strategy, eying that frozen limb. Hardly the breakthrough she had hoped for, Anathemous was used to ending fights quickly, but now she understood the game.

"Progress is progress." she hissed through grit teeth, remembering an old passage.

"Death by a thousand cuts- Gh!"

Metal creaked all around her as the shield shrank under the force of this metallic monster, but she'd already settled on a plan. Knees bent, Exo-muscle coiled in preparation, she leapt, and the barrier shattered into a thousand translucent pieces. The force carried her fast and high, trying to get on top of it.

If the optics could be damaged, perhaps the could be pierced?

More importantly however, all eyes were on her.

It was never obvious what she was doing, because Anathemous had never needed her hands to do battle, such was her mastery over the telekinetic. The automaton may have deflected her shoto, but that crimson blade had come spinning from behind.

She endeavored to sever that weakened limb.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The Guardian twisted, actuators screaming.

It registered her vertical movement and the trajectory of the incoming saber in a fraction of a second, but the timing was tight—too tight. The rear-left leg, already compromised by frost and stress, jerked backward with a sharp grind of shearing servos, trying to realign. It wasn't fast enough. The shoto struck the limb mid-joint with a spray of sparking metal and hydraulic mist. A gash tore through darksteel plating, exposing warped phrik struts beneath. Damage—measurable, significant.

But not disabling.

The droid's other limbs compensated instantly, one driving into the stone with a pneumatic crack, bracing its torso as The Guardian reared back—to launch upward. Its three remaining legs curled tight, then unfolded violently, turning its angular bulk into a vertical spinning surge like an untethered ceiling fan. The turret's plasma emitter sparked to life, tracking her ascent.

Its upper claw lashed out mid-spin—in effort to hook.

The intent was clear: trap the Sith between sky and steel, force her into a clash she couldn't easily dodge. The Guardian had shifted tactics. It was adapting. Countering. Its programming had learned one truth: this one wouldn't die easy.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Armored boots thudded against the obsidian hull.

That sudden shift caused her to fall on her hand and knee, but it did not stop the determined girl from thrusting her saber down at the nearest exposed optic, trying to drive it deep into it's circuits—or fanged god willing—a droid brain.

But... she was still going up. Why was she going up?

Anathemous realized what was happening almost soon as she'd struck at the beast, and with a grunt, pushed back with the might of augmented muscle and levitational sorcery, gliding back with the almost primal grace of a hawk-bat. The automaton had laid a clever trap however, one of it's spinning limbs catching her own.

Coils of Exo-muscle unraveled on impact, spraying hydraulic fluid and then blood in a crimson arc as Anathemous was spun from one side to the other, flinging her across the room.

* THWACK *

She hit the wall back first, and saw a brief flash of white.

Her body slid to the floor with a loud, dense clatter, metal bones worsening her bruising by the shear weight and height of her fall, though they did not break. Not anymore, she'd seen to that long ago. A beat passed, and as she sat upright, she half gasped, half growled.

Kaila needed to be faster, stronger. Anathemous needed to be more.

"Ragh!" she slammed her gauntlet against the floor.

Suddenly her armor screamed into the force for only she and Virelia to hear. The agonized voices of fallen Sith and Jedi alike, sacrificed to alchemically perfect Darksteel plates, injected rage and suffering into the very air around them, from which the Lord of Blades began to feed immediately.

All the while she stared the guardian down, summoning a power long dormant.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons


Green light pulsed from the runes of Virelia's armor now—Tyrant's Embrace retextured in the serpentine glow of the Infinite Empire, its usual violet replaced by a venomous viridian. Where once the armor hissed and steamed with dark-side heat, it now thrummed, resonating in eerie synchrony with the Rakatan droid's optical pulses. Her hand, still held open like a conductor's, twitched subtly.

The Guardian halted mid-spin, its bladed limbs skittering against the obsidian stone as it recalibrated. Cracks in its damaged rear leg sparked with overloaded current, but the machine showed no hesitation.

From within its torso, hidden behind scorched vent-like slits, came the low, rising, ancient whine of a charging sonic emitter—a frequency so precise, so punishing, it had once been used to pacify Rakatan sub-slaves before execution. The air thickened with tremor. The walls shivered. Obsidian dust poured from the ceiling in loose streams as the room began to vibrate with unnatural resonance.

Then, like thunder shattering glass, The Guardian unleashed it.

A low purr left her masked vox. "It listens to me, you know. Not because I conquered it. But because I understand it."

Her voice was molten silk, drifting through the chaos like incense. "The Rakata ruled by reducing gods to tools. They carved obedience into the bones of their machines—pain into precision—until even their guardians whispered for chains."

A cone of compressed, vibrating sound erupted forward in a tightly focused arc, aimed directly at the rising Darth. Not meant to injure—meant to break focus. Disrupt technique. Shatter the gathering storm. Even the dark side itself seemed to ripple, distorted by the raw intensity of the frequency.

"I don't want to break you, Kaila," Virelia continued, stepping closer to the edge of the chamber, her shadow stretching like a spider's leg across the floor. "But you carry power like a blade still stuck in its stone—dormant. Dull. Waiting."

The light from her armor brightened.

"I can teach you to wield what they feared. But only if you're mine."

And beneath that veil of havoc, it moved again.

With unnatural precision, The Guardian pivoted low on three legs and fired its Carbonite Projector again—not in a wide spray this time, but a focused lance. The frigid blast sliced through the rising mist, aimed directly where it had last seen her moving. Even if it missed, the combination of sonic and frost would leave precious little clarity in its wake. It wasn't trying to kill her.

It was trying to break her.

Then, low—like a secret offered from between teeth:

"Now rise, my Lord of Blades. Show me what you become when you suffer beautifully."

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Kaila's bones rattled beneath her skin.

But they did not break, not hers, never again. Perhaps this pathetic whining in her ear, dulled by her helm-liner, could subdue a slave but she was no such thing.

She pressed her back to the wall, then pushed off her feet until she was standing.

Her leg bled from a gash, but the Darksteel remained intact and absorbed most of the blow. Like her foe she was hurt but far from crippled yet. The young Darth would push through that pain as she'd always done, already seething rage and training had dulled the sensation.

"Gh-!" the sonic burst gave her pause, made her teeth grind.

But nothing grated on her ears like Virelia's serpentine rhetoric.

"But you carry power like a blade still stuck in its stone—dormant. Dull. Waiting."

"I can teach you to wield what they feared. But only if you're mine."

"I do not need You to teach Me!" she roared.

The Lord of Blades had been fighting wars since Virelia was a padawan. She was trained relentlessly by the former Emperor before the Galactic Alliance even existed.

She knew what she was; a living weapon, and she was so close. so close to unleashing her truest form.

Virelia's words did not inspire, only galvanize her rage.

"Nor this machine to teach me Who. I. Am."

When the mist came for her, the whole world slowed. It was instinct, the faintest movement was all it took to drag her senses back into battle where they belonged. The thinnest layer of frost built up on the edge of her pauldron, sending her into a sprint. Lightsaber deactivated to obscure her movement, she was a blur n the dark.

With weight and speed, she arrived behind the automaton with such kinetic force that the air snapped.

A beat passed.

She could feel all that kinetic energy flowing into her core, spreading to her fingertips.

Her body twisted to face the broken, sparking limb of her adversary with both hands outstretched.

The entire room lit up as lightning defiantly crackled forth in fat tendrils, vibrant blue into sickly, hate filled violet as her rage built. And from this to brilliant magenta, so close to becoming the legendary red lightning, the most powerful of all.

One last attempt to burst the electronics and disable that limb once and for all.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The moment the lightning struck, The Guardian shuddered.

Its forward limb, already fractured and iced from earlier strikes, sparked violently—joints locking as the current surged through its archaic conduits. The magenta arcs danced up its chassis like veins of molten ore, seizing its stance in a rigid jolt. One optic burst, an explosion of glass and violet gas. Metal hissed. Plates buckled. The weakened limb finally gave, collapsing beneath its weight in a warped spiral of shrieking alloy.

Virelia stood wreathed in the green glow of the temple's ancient circuitry, Tyrant's Embrace purring with low-frequency pulses—subtly shifting with each twitch of her fingers. From the center of the chamber she moved like a priestess conducting a rite, one hand raised in subtle gestures, each of them pulling invisible strings within The Guardian's semi-sentient matrix. Six emerald eyes glimmered beneath her mask, lenses reconfigured in crystalline insectile patterns, watching Kaila from every angle.

But the droid did not fall.

It adapted.

With an ungodly screech of rotating servos, it pivoted—rearing up on two of its remaining spiked limbs while the third stabbed into the floor like a brace. It vaulted, springing backward in a whipcrack arc that cleared several meters, displacing ancient dust in a concussive ring as it landed. Fractured, but still functional. And now angry.

"Do you feel it now?" she murmured, her voice honeyed sin, leaking into the air like perfume. "It doesn't matter how many battles you've fought, or whose dog tags you've inherited. That machine knows. I know. You're not finished yet."

She stepped slowly along the outer ring of the chamber, never raising her voice, her boots clicking in rhythm with the droid's movements—like puppeteer and marionette locked in a violent waltz.

"You ache to be seen, Kaila. To be mastered... not by some brute tyrant with a throne and an ego, but by something equal to your violence. Something that can chain it. Shape it. Unleash it."

She extended one gauntlet in a slow, open-palmed gesture, emerald alchemical filaments dancing down her vambrace into the temple floor.

The plasma turret spun and locked, its eye-stalk rotating with twitching precision toward the source of the storm. A low hum built in the cannon's throat, the arcane weapon beginning to glow as The Guardian realigned its stance. One limb, half-shattered and blackened, dragged behind it—but the other two stabbed downward, anchoring the machine like a war idol preparing to strike.

Then—

It charged.

Not recklessly, but in a coordinated zigzag, calculating the shortest path to minimize exposure and strike at the Sith's flank while her power was still discharging. Its claws scraped stone like nails across bone.

This fight was not over.

"You want to be sharp enough that no one ever leaves you again, that they regret ever leaving you behind in the first place." she purred.

"And I will make you so."

The Guardian howled its war cry—ancient and mechanical.

But Virelia?

She smiled.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Something cruel and triumphant lit in her core.

The smell of smoldering wire, grinding steel and ozone. She inhaled the scent, savored the burn in her lungs.

Yet still it would not die.

The damn thing leapt and Kaila marched stubbornly after it. Every step thudded, every breath deep and powerful. Virelia continued to talk from the sidelines and she was not having it.

She wasn't here for chains. Not Virelia's, Not Carnifex's. Never again.

The force began to shift around them, the air growing heavy, oppressive. This wasn't like the chaotic maelstrom from before, Kaila wasn't drawing power from ghosts.

Anathemous was drawing from herself.

"Stop pretending to know me!" the sith demanded.

The machine charged but she'd spent her entire life training to fight giants. Anathemous stretched one hand out, and the machine stopped. The immovable Darth ripped the mask from her face and threw it aside, glaring defiantly from eyes that shone like distant stars at optics which no longer had hope of escaping them. Veins in her face turned black, and then the chamber was filled with an awful creaking.

"Stop pretending that I need fixing!"

Ala Quin had tried. Rinea was still trying. None had ever seen her. Only what they wanted her to become.

Never again.

With an unseen hand the automaton's cannon was ripped from it's chasis before it could ever fire, and thrown overhead, crashing behind the slowly approaching Sith Lord.

She lifted the beast off the ground, blade-like limbs beginning to fold at sickening angles, then crush beneath the weight of her indomitable will. Optics began to crack, the chasis continued to groan and servos flatten against themselves. By the time she neared the droid it was already too late.

"You wanted to test a slave?!" Anathemous roared from the bottom of her chest.

Never again.

"Behold a master."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Trip."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The temple fell still. The sharp, almost intimate hiss of collapsing servos and the residual crackle of ozone hanging in the heated air like ghostly perfume.

Darth Virelia stood at the edge of the combat ring, the eerie green flush of her armor beginning to fade, its luminous circuitry dimming until it returned to its natural hue—a violet so deep and rich it seemed to shimmer with inner thought. Her eyes—six of them—drifted between Kaila and the crushed ruin of the guardian droid, as though weighing which was the more awe-inspiring sight.

It wasn't a contest.

And then she moved.

Each step echoed like the pulse of a beating heart, slow, deliberate, magnetic. The soft hum of her repulsor-assisted gait was almost musical, like a melody woven into the air itself. She walked until she was within reach—close enough that the ambient heat of the battle still clung to Kaila's skin, still dampened the edges of her breath.

Virelia's clawed gauntlet touched her.

It cradled.

Fingertips traced the side of Kaila's jaw, lifting her gaze with reverent tenderness. The touch held no force behind it, only gravity.

"My beautiful little blade," Virelia murmured, voice a whisper of silk laced with heat. "You think I wished to fix you?"

Her fingers curled beneath Kaila's chin, thumb brushing a line where sweat and blood mixed beneath the skin. Her voice didn't raise in volume. It didn't need to. Her words were so soft, so breathy, they demanded listening.

"I don't want to fix you. I want everyone in this pathetic galaxy to see how beautiful you are and know that they spat on such a prodigy."

"I want their regret, their jealousy, their humiliation from denying who you are. I want you to stand over them, deciding how best to punish what they dared to do to such magnificence."

The other hand rose—slowly, luxuriously—to cup the back of Kaila's head. She stepped in closer, their bodies almost touching now. Her armor shimmered again in that royal amethyst hue, the runes alight with her native power. Gone was the verdant glow of domination. This was Virelia as she truly was—violet, decadent, terrible.

"You carry a storm inside you. You always have. But storms don't choose their direction, Kaila. They lash out. They break. They vanish."

She leaned in, pressing her forehead gently against the younger Sith's. A gesture that might've been spiritual, if it weren't so seductively possessive.

"I didn't provoke you because I wanted to make you angry. I provoked you because I knew where that anger would take you. You needed it."

Her lips brushed near Kaila's ear, low and close and treacherously kind.

"You needed someone who wouldn't be afraid of you. Who wouldn't break under that power. Who would shape it. Cradle it. Let it bloom. Who saw the beautiful girl beneath the armor and accepted it wholly for who it was, flaws and all."

She pulled back just enough to look her in the eye again. Her six irises flickered with complex hunger, not for destruction, but for domination by adoration. Her voice, again, dipped.

"That is what I am."

She traced the edge of Kaila's jaw again, a single claw running down her neckplate, slow and tender, just above where flesh met armor.

"I am not here to stop you." she said. "I am here to offer you something greater. Purpose. Obedience. Power made perfect."

Her hand slid down, resting gently on Kaila's midsection, over the aching core from where lightning had just bloomed. She pressed lightly, not to wound—but to remind. "You fought beautifully. Brutally. How could anyone ever throw such power away?"

She stepped around behind Kaila, one hand trailing around her hip as she moved. Her voice was now velvet-laced poison. Sweet, seductive. Unbearably intimate.

"You are not an object, Kaila. You are potential waiting to be bound to something worthy."

Virelia's hand pressed lightly between Kaila's shoulders now, just enough pressure to straighten her posture, to own the moment without forcing it. To offer dominance instead of demanding it.

"Do you know why those you knew previously made you hate chains?"

A pause.

The breath between confession and control.

"Because they wanted to ensure that if you ever left, you would never reach your full potential. They wanted to keep you exactly where you were so they could always convince themselves they were right. Freedom, true freedom, is the greatest lie ever told to us." she said gently, leaning in until her voice melted into Kaila's skin. "But I will teach you to wear the collar with pride. With joy. And you'll wonder why you ever resisted."

Her hand fell away again, but the heat of it remained, like a brand left behind on the soul.

"I make people love chains, I make people beg for them again and again and again, wondering why they were so resistant in the first place, but they have to be willing to place some trust into me." she whispered. "How much have they done to you? How much have they broken your trust? Spurned you? Taken what you have given them and thrown it away like it meant nothing?"

She walked forward again, trailing her fingers over the scorched hull of the droid, almost like she was blessing it for its service. She did not look back.

"Kaila, I would see you an Empress over countless systems, I would see your former masters begging for your notice, I would see your beauty shine and the galaxy apologise for how they dared to think they could make you suffer."

A beat.

"That's what it means to be mine."

She turned just her head, enough for Kaila to see the predatory smile on her lips, even if the mask still layered the way, her expression too affectionate to be cruel, too intelligent to be kind.

"Freedom Kaila, is the chain that has been constructed for you. It is the chain of trauma and guilt, of how fools and lesser beings think they can exploit what you give them, of how they will choose orders, others and their own self worth over you."

Then, quieter still, a whisper just above silence:

"It is time to finally break it."

She extended one hand once more—not commanding this time, but offering. A cradle. A promise. A question wrapped in velvet and venom.

"Kaila," she said, as if the word itself were a drug. "I believe in you."

It would be surrender.

And in that surrender, power beyond power.