Private Apprentice to Earth

[Syd Celsius]

Wearing: Inferno Gown

Armed with: Wind and Fire Wheels

Shooting Star

Objective: Locate Hideout of bandits, prevent Bryn weapons smuggling, teach Starlin Rand unnatural desert magic

Current persona: Sorceress of Yurb (See Bio).

The Sorceress of Yurb, tied with the home of the Lervon in ways even it did not fully comprehend had arranged for the SJC to apprehend the bandits she had captured to learn the location of their hideout, than went ahead, her geokinetic powers allowing her to travel on a fast moving mound of sand towards the hidden bunker they had built close to a large mountain. The bunker was in its shadow, the sands turning a distinct reddish tone as she moved, her locator beacon turned on so that Starlin Rand would be able to locate her.

The Sorceress of Yurb was not truly Syd Celsius. It neither moved nor fought nor thought as she did. She emerged from the consequence of absorbing the remnant magic of a SithSpawn's lake grave, and had taken on that creature's face as a result. The fair skinned blond woman of middle age in a bronze gown ceased her travel-by-sand to halt behind an out growth of crystal. This area seemed to have unusually high numbers of crystal. Quartz. Spikes of them longer than her body was tall. She saw patrols of four, all armed with deadly Bryn'adul weaponry.

The Sorceress scooped up some sand.

"Ashla, wave your hand above the grains..." she whispered.

Dust storms charged with green lightning swirled around the nearest patrols, attempting to slow the passage of time in their vicinity. On some it succeeded, on others, their wills were too strong and they panicked as they spotted their fellows moving at a snails pace. The Sorceress triggered the area behind panicking, retreating bandits to turn into a shallow pit of liquid, churning sand that ensnared them as they fell in, entombing them but allowing them to breathe. For the slowed ones, The Sorceress covered them up to their necks in capsules of sand that turned to stone, but left just enough interior cavity room to breathe properly.

She used a sand tentacle to fetch her what looked like some sort of Grenade Launcher of Bryn origin. She didn't understand their tech fully, and now was not the time to learn. She discarded it. Some started shouting for help. She didn't care. She was not here to be subtle any more than Syd would have been.

She began to think about the future of the Lervon after the crisis with these aliens. Syd defended them, yes, but as The Sorceress she could do so much more good for The Lervon. It was a question to ponder, but first, her knowledge and teachings would need to be passed on to Starlin. She figured Syd wouldn't mind. They were both on the same side, and technically she was Syd herself. Except not.

The Sorceress began to inspect what looked like very old Stasis Containers. She suspected an old military cache given the age of the metal as well as the Galactic Empire symbols. A hatch opened and out stormed more bandits these ones armed with more conventional weapons. The Sorceress was not surprised. Likely very few amongst them understood the exotic alien weaponry. The raiders perimeter guard was likely for show.

A single orange blade with pulses running up it shot out of her split saber.

"Boys, I'm way above your weight class. Be good little darlings and put those guns down before you embarrass yourself."

She heard the whine of their weapons powering up.

"Annnnnnd the hallway fight scene commences." The Sorceress joked.

The sand moved under her feet, shifting her forward at high speed as her orange blade lunged forward, slashing into a limb, setting him ablaze before a dust storm she willed into existence blinded the others, tentacles of sand entangling them, hitting some in the gut, but never the head, as she would have risked killing them if she had. Her blade cut through weapons and nicked limbs, the sand dousing the flames as soon as they set.

The Sorceress snarled in pain as a stray blastershot found its mark, hitting her side, causing the flesh around the wound to painfully turn to glass that shattered, glowing green sand leaking from the wound, desert sand pouring itself onto the wound to close it but she was still disoriented from the sudden shock of pain and that allowed another shot to hit her in the knee, which was repayed with fists of sand to the gut. Soon all were disabled and entangled before they could get anymore lucky hits. The Sorceress still took a moment though. That had been painful. The sand became part of her flesh, the dress repairing itself through seperate means. The alarm had been triggered, certainly, but she was here to bring these people to justice. She wanted them to know she was here.

The Sorceress of Yurb then went back to opening the containers.

The archeologist in her could not help but admire the pristine finds...

She inspected the first find...a black and silver, polished looking armor of medium grade, along with a heavier looking set of engraved, deep black armor with custom arm mounts...

(Zelda Acquisition Theme Plays)

(New items for Starlin discovered!)

Item: ENVIRONMENTAL BASTION ARMOR

Spoiler

Ancient Reproduction of what was once the last word in environmental protection combat gear, especially in regards to temperature and sonic along with radiation extremes. Size adjustable.

Item: FENELAR ARMOR

Spoiler

Ancient, pristine condition Jedi Civil War era Fenelar Phrik Armor, made by a long extinct civilization destroyed by the Mandalorian Crusaders. Prized for its durability and customization features. Engraved to intimidate. Adjustable size.

The Sorceress knew these best belonged in Starlin's hands. No self respecting prospective knight had only one suit of armor, and the unique dangers Starlin faced being Syd's apprentice made the Sorceress unwilling to take chances with Starlin's life.

She decided to wait for him...the bandits were not going anywhere. The whole planet was getting visited by the SJC for clean up. Then she could begin their lessons...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Another desert planet?

Starlin had sighed upon receiving the message from Syd. He was fresh off a secret mission to Jubalm (and by secret, we mean the grown-up Masters didn’t know their teenage Padawans had snuck away with a rescue team. Or at least, the Padawans hoped their Masters didn’t know...), and still hadn’t shaken off the gritty feeling of sand in every crack and orifice. Coarse, rough, and irritating, it got everywhere. Starlin was hardly looking forward to experiencing it again.

Distracted by his studies—he had enrolled in flight school after Syd gave him access to four starfighters—and increasingly cryptic communications from Nimdok, he had heard only rumors of what was going on at Yurb. He knew the SJC was there, dealing with bandits on the planet’s surface. Or was it the Bryn? He wasn’t sure. It was hard to keep things straight with so many different things happening in the big wide galaxy far, far away.

Of the four (Four?... Four!) starfighters, Starlin chose to pilot the Steward of Zeffo, primarily because it was the fastest of the bunch. He jumped out of hyperspace in seemingly no time at all, beholding the desert planet floating peacefully against the starry void.

Syd’s beacon flashed on his display. Taking a deep breath, he let it out in a long exhale. “Alright, Syd. Hope it’s not too bad down there…”

The ship landed a short while later near the beacon’s coordinates. Starlin got out, clad in his Jedi robes and armed with his lightsaber and shoto. The desert sand shifted beneath his feet with every step as he approached the bunker. He hesitated only momentarily before reaching for the mechanism to open the door and stepping inside.

“Hello?” he called out cautiously. The Force told him somebody was here, but it didn’t quite feel like his master. Still, it was her voice in the message, and her beacon…

Syd Celsius

 

[Syd Celsius]

The inside of the bunker was disturbingly free of death and violence. Little piles of glowing green sand marked where The Sorceress had been wounded, trailing into a security chamber full of knocked out people, then into another main chamber. It was obvious the bunker had been built into the rock of the landscape, for as it descended deeper into the earth, the alarm klaxons long since fallen silent. Unconscious men and women had seemingly been encased in solid stone, fused to the walls Poe Dameron style. (Though I confess uncertainty if he obtained this ability before or after Lara Croft escaped the Glass Box he'd trapped her in with Hux's assistance.)

The Sorceress of Yurb was to be found kneeling in the center of a rock chamber that was clearly the armory. She smiled as she sensed his approach.

"The Host's student approaches..." said an illusion of the Sorceress of Zeffo that only the Yurb persona could see and hear. (Or sense) The Illusion, a middle aged somewhat curvy woman of light tan complexion and dark red, curly short hair clad in a black, tight fitting gown was in one corner of the chamber, near a pile of unconscious bandits with her arms folded, blinking pale orange eyes at the Blond Woman.

"Remember, rely on the hosts memories at all times. Even if he senses something off, it should not raise his suspicion too much that something is no longer normal."

The Sorceress of Yurb could only give mental acknowledgement. The Sorceress of Zeffo was the strongest of the personas yet created through unintentional side effects. It was she who had influenced Syd to absorb the lake grave magic in such a manner subconsciously.

"Starlin..." the thing in Syd's flesh said in her voice pleasantly, relying on her memories, her hopes and fears about failing Starlin to help the lesson go smoothly. By the time Starlin figured out it wasn't just one Light Side Sorceress that had been imparting their secrets, but an entire elite coven of them hiding in the body of a single Force Spawn Human, he would be such a Force to reckon with no servant of the Dark could conquer him without tremendous sacrifice on their part. They might even have to die in the attempt. All the better should Darth Phyre ever reappear. The currently two-person Coven of The Mental were terrified of this.

"As I told you. I'm not exactly myself..." The Sorceress said, not actually lying about that. All of it was the truth. That was the horrid part. "I was forced to stop a magical lake that was causing earth quakes by absorbing all its magic. But there were side effects, as you can see. I gained Geokinesis abilites and related magic, but it apparently works only when I am in this appearance. This bunker is filled with bandits who've been conducting raids on medical caravans the past few days using stolen Bryn'adul Weaponry. We barely held Yurb. The inhabitants, beings of living sand known as The Lervon, suffered most heavily. These bandits are not making it any better with what they've done. Evil bastards blew away the caravaneers. But we are taking them alive, to be prosecuted properly. To do this, we shall employ the very earth we are surrounded in."

The Sorceress of Yurb gestured to a pile of unconscious people.

"Get a good look at them. Stolen military armor. A lot of these bandit types are mercenaries that have degenerated to plain piracy. They hang on sparse worlds without a lot of people or they set up shop after a crisis to take advantage of the severe problems the aftermath of a military invasion requires. Smart types keep their operation small. But from what I can tell they've been using this old bunker network to hide. They got over confidant and too large. Bound to make mistakes sooner or later."

"Make mention of hallway fight scenes. Syd makes weird ass jokes like that." The illusion of The Zeffo Sorceress advised.

"The following hallway fight scene we are about to engage in requires more than lightsabers. Geokinesis is a mean of manipulating rock, ore, sand. With enough skill even the densest rock becomes clay. Or stone. Stone is an excellent channel for the Force, for it is natural...why do you think Force energy gathers so easily in crystals?" The Sorceress asked rhetorically. But lets teach you something cool and useful...

The Sorceress of Yurb gathered sand.

"The Spell of Sand Teleportation. It channels magic to create a mini portal of sand whose exit is anywhere you point as far as your eye can see. We've stumbled into an ancient military bunker built by Force knows who, so forgive me if you don't have a chance to go messing with this spell by playing with tossing small objects through it."

The Sorceress then rolled her eyes in genuine exasperation at her own short sighted stupidity at planting the idea in his head. The Illusion face palmed at the Yurb Persona's mistake as well.

"Oh...Force forgive me, of course you are going to mess with the spell like that now that I've said it..."

"Smooth, Yurby. Really smooth. Regular fething Hyperdrive Scientist..." the Zeffo Sorceress Illusion snorted in embarrassment for her colleague, having not ceased her face palm.

The Yurb persona ignored the barb.

"Look, just promise me you won't toss a grenade through this when you test this spell out..." she muttered before whispering the Words of Power.

"Ashla, make a tearing from the grains of the Earth..." she said blowing the pile of sand out ahead of her while pointing at an empty corner of the chamber. It swirled into a vertical positioned ring of dust charged with green lightning a twin ring of green lightning emerged in the corner she had pointed. She stepped through the portal and appeared out of the other one.

"You try now. Your words seemed to work magic in rhymes. It takes great focus though, so concentrate."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Even with the warning he had received in Syd’s message, Starlin was unprepared for what he saw in the armory. Syd—it was definitely Syd, though she felt wrong—had completely changed her appearance. Again. Only this time, according to her, it hadn’t been of her own doing. This persona, a curly-haired blonde in an elegant blue and green gown, seemed out of place among the sand-prisons lining the room, eerily soft and genteel, more like a Naboo noblewoman than a powerful sorceress of the earth. But powerful she clearly was, for she had worked her way through this place beforehand, knocking the bandits out and imprisoning others.

“...okay,” was all Starlin could really say in response to her explanation. It was a lot to take in. But Starlin had dealt with crazy things before involving Syd. He could accept this new situation even if he didn’t fully understand it, and while he wasn’t sure if he could get used to her new appearance, he wouldn’t let it get in the way of his studies.

The moment of humor, however unintentional on Syd’s part, did much to relieve the tension. Starlin grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Don’t worry, I promise I won’t blow up the bunker. But outside in the field, eh, who knows?” Rubbing his hands together, he geared up for his first attempt at the spell.

“'Ashla, make a tearing from the grains of the Earth, so that I may know what… these grains of sand are worth.'”

Nothing happened. Starlin grimaced. “Must be because I hesitated for a second. Had to come up with a decent rhyme. Ahem… 'Ashla, make a tearing from the grains of the Earth, so that I may know what these grains of sand are worth.'”

There was some slight shuffling among the dust at his feet. Encouraging, but hardly as fantastic as what Syd had demonstrated. Starlin rolled the sleeves of his robes up to his elbows, stuck out his tongue, and concentrated hard. “'Ashla, make a tearing from the grains of the Earth, so that I may know what these grains of sand are worth!'”

A small portal formed like a shard of mirrored glass from the sand, winking in the dim lighting of the bunker, then dissipated in a flash. Starlin hissed a soft “unf, feth yeah!” under his breath, then turned to Syd, beaming. “Third time's the charm.”

Syd Celsius

 

[Syd Celsius]

The Sorceress of Yurb chuckled a bit. She felt bad, not being honest with him fully. But she was being as honest as she could.

"Its a good start..." she assured softly. "You'll actually need sand, though, to use this spell. Once you are skilled enough, it would not hurt to carry some small amounts with you for emergencies."

The Sorceress then summoned more sand, which flowed like liquid to her palm until it formed and hardened into a stone dagger.

"Geokinesis is an extremely dangerous ability, for it gives great control over rock and ore and sand. The most skilled can trigger large earthquakes. Elemental powers are NOT emphasized in the Jedi Order. Or the Sith for that matter. Rare is the example of either who knows such things. A lot of people have theories as to why The Order focused on telekinesis...from the practical, such as Telekinesis being easier to teach, to the more cerebral, such as, perhaps, the fear of creating...well...someone like me..." she articulated.

"To learn an element such as the earth requires intense focus, but is highly specialized as a drawback. Its is nearly useless on city-planets and an unshakeable spiritual connection must be maintained to the earth through constant practice and especially during battle. It also requires a fair bit of imagination and an understanding of physics, even though the Physics Engine was taken out back and shot a few minutes ago, and you're basically shooting the Physics Engine's corpse in the chest yourself every time you use the Force."

The hidden illusion of the Zeffo Sorceress nodded in approval at the Yurb Persona's calculated use of Syd like humor.

She gestured to a nearby pile of sand.

"Quick, shoot the Physics Engine! Its soul is still dancing!" The Sorceress joked. (Timely Indirect Ghost Rider reference: 90 XP)

Meanwhile...

The other bandits, while The Sorceress of Yurb took her sweet time giving Starlin a few quick pointers before helping her go and route them steadily set up defensive positions. Machine guns firing 007-ty (Seventy) caliber ammo were arranged at key checkpoints. Mines were buried, spike traps dug. Grenade launchers were loaded and burning cigars were chomped

The ironic part? Though Starlin was technically being trained by a completely different Witch whose primary element was the earth, he was STILL getting a trial by fire.

The worst part was knowing from first hand experience that the only reason they were not dead was because whatever that thing was, it had been saving them for the authorities...but still intended to hunt them all down. It had been a slow, deliberate strike on her part. Now she'd be teaching whoever she had brought along to do the same...

Every bandit remaining clutched their pistols a tad tighter. All except one. A man hiding a Lightsaber under his coat...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Syd Celsius

“Right,” Starlin agreed. Crouching, he scooped up a handful of sand from the floor, repeated his rhyming version of the words of power and tossed it. The portal which formed this time was stronger for the direction and lasted longer before fizzling out.

Stooping to collect more sand for the road, Starlin was distracted by presences moving around elsewhere. He glanced in the direction his Jedi sense told him they were, then turned to Syd. “Is that the bandits now?”

He wasn’t exactly frightened, given that Syd was there with him, but he didn’t particularly like the idea of being caught with his nose in a textbook, so to speak. And he’d rather not have this lesson interrupted—especially if learning geokinesis meant he wouldn’t get sand stuck in any cracks and crevices ever again.

 

[Syd Celsius]

"Oh, the bandits aren't going this way. The entire dirt path leading to this chamber has been turned to quicksand. They are cut off. Nowhere to flee either, as the SJC has been informed of them and are tightening up orbital security. We're quite safe. At least until we actually have to flush them out. Until then, keep practicing. Feel the Earth Starlin. All walking creatures are bound to the earth in some form. I mean, if you wanna get technical, I suppose you are not really connected to the earth on a city planet, so its not much use there, but in a desert environment? You're the sympathetic supervillain fighting the arachnid themed superhero."

"Ugh, what the hell was the director thinking casting that guy from that sitcom to be in the living suit?" The illusion of the Zeffo Sorceress muttered. "Just derailed the film."

To illustrate, The Sorceress scooped up a chunk of hard stone and molded it like clay into a highly detailed Tie Fighter which she then flew around the room, then let it crash where it shattered like the rock it was made of, though she made sure not to let it crash close to Starlin Rand so he wouldn't get accidentally pelted by flying pieces of debris.

She pointed to the shattered pieces.

"Making the material do what I did is a lot like how many Jedi telekinetically fuse the circuitry together in their lightsabers for increased power efficiency. That's all Geokinesis really is, Starlin. A special form of telekinesis, except all the effort is directed toward manipulating a certain element rather than objects in general. Once you understand this, the earth itself becomes sculpting material for nearly anything within reason. Thick barriers, deep moats, high walls..."

The Yurb Persona snapped her fingers, and large section of the chamber walls fell off in pieces, frescoes of Ancient Coruscant having been made simply due to how the material above had crumbled by her will.

"Inscriptions..." she trailed. "It musn't be abused though. You could trigger Earthquakes in the wrong place, or entomb or suffocate. As you no doubt saw upon first arriving...such a gift could very easily have been turned to lethal ends had it been my intent. But that is the way it is with any kinesis related power, the difference is simply in the delivery of lethality."

Meanwhile...

A squad of particularly fierce bandits armed to the teeth advanced down the passage leading to the chamber, bringing with them a small makeshift bridge with jury rigged repulsor lifts that extended out of the quicksand. They knew that thing was waiting.

As they advanced, each sweating bullets, the stone walls came alive, a construct of stone that was shaped to resemble The Sorceress melted out of the walls, one of its arms turned into a stone sword as it blocked the way forward. The Bandits froze, too scared to even fire.

The construct wagged a finger at them chidingly, smiling, and the Bandits backed away, chillingly aware of how little control over the situation they had...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Syd Celsius

The corners of Starlin's mouth curled upward and he shrugged his shoulders. "Okay. As long as we don't have to worry about them swarming us all of a sudden..."

He threw the handful of sand he had gathered into the air and practiced holding each grain aloft with the Force. It was difficult, mostly because his perception was such that he had to envision each individual grain simultaneously rather than just a cloud of dust. "Y'know, quicksand killed a couple of people that were making a holomovie a while ago. They were out filming somewhere on a tropical world, and an actress got stuck in quicksand. One of the cameramen went to try and help her, and he got stuck too. The rest of the crew could only stand and watch in horror as the two of them sank and suffocated." Bit of a grim story, but he figured he might as well tell it while he practiced.

It certainly seemed like an awful way to die, one that he wouldn't wish on even his worst enemies. Being entombed alive or crushed by an earthquake weren't much better. Actually, entombing was probably the nastiest of them all - it would take the longest for death to come, either hours after from slow suffocation or days later due to dehydration and starvation. What a way to go...

 

[Syd Celsius]

"That is why you practice it now, so you won't risk doing it to someone by accident, Starlin." The Sorceress of Yurb explained softly as he shared the grim tale. "Power over the earth you walk is as deadly as control over fire. Maybe more. Most creatures need to walk. Most have to build their stronghold somewhere with a foundation set into the ground. These men you see imprisoned on the walls were not just imprisoned without thought...the encasement around them had to be expanded so their chest could take in air comfortable. It had to be shaped in such a way to avoid breaking their skeleton as it molded around them. Much attention to detail is required to master Geokinesis, for much attention to detail is required to properly shape the earth in any capacity. Its also partly affected by the type and quality of the material. The dense type of stone are often best, but sand still has its place.

The Sorceress drew a sphere of sand into her hand. She compressed it, condensing it with all her might. Steam escaped from sudden fissures along the sphere as it was condensed as much as possible. Her flesh rippled as she focused intensely, until the sphere dropped to the ground, shattering. She stumbled backward heaving in air. But she had been successful.

She had compacted the sand so severely a small, yellow synth crystal, charged by her energy, fell out of a cavity in the shattered sphere.

"There..." The Sorceress breathed, flesh starting to shudder again. "That is what I mean by attention to detail. If I had gotten any of that wrong...it would be useless.

Her flesh shuddered and rippled, melting and resetting as The Sorceress of Yurb lost control of the body, allowing a drained Syd in her Atrisian form to resume control. She was breathing heavily as she leaned against the wall, memories not fully reliable due to the way the new personas inside were altering her recall, making her think she had been in full control the whole time. This was quite an insidious problem she had developed, and it came with massive heaps of foreshadowing.

"Channeling that ability...the ability to use Geokinetic Powers...it seems it has a finite limit..." Syd remarked, only half recalling the lesson the Sorceress had taught, still pretty out of it.

"I feel very weak right now...it will be a few hours before I can alter my very physiology like that again." she admitted, looking at him with the same face from when they had met on Zeffo. "But we still need to clear out this bunker. So I want you to take the lead now...show me what you can do so far and then we advance on the bandits..." she advised Starlin Rand

Meanwhile, The Personas within had gone temporarily dormant...over-exerting themselves lost them control of the body as they devoted their energy to power rather than keeping Syd imprisoned. It was a new and unpleasant weakness...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Syd Celsius

Starlin stooped to pick up the yellow crystal Syd had made. Holding it in his hands, he examined it, identifying the energy emanating from within as his master’s own—only for the sound of her heavy breathing to jerk his attention away from the crystal.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

"Channeling that ability… the ability to use Geokinetic Powers… it seems it has a finite limit… I feel very weak right now… it will be a few hours before I can alter my very physiology like that again. But we still need to clear out this bunker. So I want you to take the lead now… show me what you can do so far and then we advance on the bandits..."

Starlin’s brow was still furrowed with concern. Syd had pushed herself too far in the past—her being knocked unconscious by the magic-disrupting constructs and eviscerated by those naked witches on Zeffo came to mind—but she always bounced back from exhaustion and weakness fairly quickly. Certainly faster than he had.

Handing her the newly-formed crystal, he turned away, drawing sand up into his open hand from the surroundings. It looked much like he had let the grains trickle out from between his fingers, only played in reverse. With his other hand he took hold of his lightsaber, igniting the blade, then threw the dust into the air and sliced at it. The heat from the blade turned the sand into chunks of molten glass, which he was better able to grasp than individual grains. The glass he broke up into jagged shards and flung at the wall, where they were embedded in cracks in the stone. It occurred to him only afterwards that this was technically cheating—aside from gathering the sand into his hand, what he’d just done wasn’t geokinesis.

A little red in the face, he put away his lightsaber and gathered more sand, trying to pull off the same trick which had tired Syd out. He managed to compress it enough that steam rose out, just as Syd’s had—but when he let the sphere fall, there was no crystal contained inside.

“Darn,” he said dryly, already pulling even more sand toward him. He tried the portal-making trick again, and succeeded in shoving a chunk of the broken sphere through, teleporting it elsewhere. He shrugged. “I think that’s the most I’m gonna get out of it at this point.”

 

[Syd Celsius]

"I'm fine." Syd assured him, not aware how wrong she was.

"There will be time to learn..." Syd assured him calmly. "I promise you, Starlin. You will get the hang of it. Eventually. Hell, even I'm still figuring things with that ability out. Tell you what: Do what you think you can get away with using this ability while helping me clear this place of goons. This place would make an excellent place to store loot for those 'rainy day emergencies'. Speaking of which..."

Syd led him to the two armor sets she had recovered...The Fenelar Armor and Environmental Bastion Armor rested comfortably on pedestals of rock.

"Ancient models of armor. This dark one here is made of Phrik. Crafted by an extinct species. The other is for environmental extremes. It will be tight spaces in these bunker passages. Of course, if you'd rather get bonus XP for using only basic loot..." she trailed "be my guest..."

Meanwhile...

"We've been clearing out collapsed passages but there is no way we get to use them before that monster is all over us..." one of the bandits reported to their cigar chomping leader, an elderly twilek man with red skin in an Echani combat suit that was all red.

"What do we do C'rjikk?" another bandit asked their boss.

C'rjikk sighed.

"Time to hold a vote, everyone. We surrender? Go down fighting? One half buys time for the other?"

"The solution is simple..." croaked a hooded figure in black and gray tattered coat.

C'rjikk looked at him. He was one of the newer recruits. Except, he couldn't exactly remembered when they had hired him.

"What's the solution?"

"We, uh, kill the Jedi."

(Cutaway of Joker being thrown from the skyscraper by that dude who shot the final Wolverine clone in The Prestige.)

"And how are we supposed to do that?!" one bandit complained angrily. "She has steamrolled everything we have thrown at her!"

"Wrong. You haven't thrown everything at her..." the hooded man spoke, pulling his coat off, revealing a face completely covered by gray bandages, even his mouth and eyes, only a small opening to breath through the nose, wearing a zebra-stripe pattern set of black and white robes.

"W-who the hell are you?! How did you get in here?!" The Boss asked, leveling his blaster at the bandage faced man, along with every other bandit in the large armory made of thick metal built into the stone.

"Who I am is not important..." the rasping man answered. But I offer invaluable insight on the beast pursuing you."

"I'm listening. But if I don't like what I hear or I think you are taking me for a ride, you get a blaster bolt." C'rjikk warned him, clearly unnerved by a man who had slipped in without any of them realizing it.

"You face a magically empowered creature. Your bullets might kill it, if by some miracle you got a brain or heart shot. But you would lose many in the process. However, they are ways to frustrate it. Slow it down. The right wards and incantations, embued with the Force, can work wonders...Placed strategically, we could delay her long enough and hem her into a kill box, then hit her with as many cryo weapons as possible."

"What's your stake?"

The bandaged man grimaced, before conjuring a sphere of flame.

"I was that Beast's first student..."

Starlin Rand

 

[Starlin Rand]

Syd Celsius

Blue eyes flicked between the two suits before Starlin picked the Fenelar Armor. “Hot as it might get out there, I’d rather have protection from their weapons,” he said.

As he began suiting up, he watched Syd out of the corner of his eye. Like always, she turned her back as he changed out of his robes and into the armor, giving him privacy.

Though she had said she was fine, Starlin didn’t believe it. His gut told him that something wasn’t quite right with all this. It had started on Kashyyyk—he had seen her new form and been willing to accept it, but then she changed again. And again. How many more changes would she have to go through before… whatever goal was accomplished?

He felt stupid for feeling this way. After all, he knew Nimdok, who was a regular shapeshifter. But he rarely tried to change his whole identity this way, the very core of his being. That was just it—whenever Syd changed form, it didn’t feel like her. It felt like somebody else, and not just because she had a different face, body, and voice.

Once he was fully equipped, Starlin stowed his clothes away and flipped his lightsaber hilts like they were batons. “All right, Syd. Lead the way.”

 

[Syd Celsius]

"I want wards placed here, here, and here!" Bandage Face spoke as he observed the most force sensitive of the men drawing the spells as he had instructed in their own blood on key access points in the tunnels. "This Monster fights with magic and The Force! You wanna survive, you have to cut her from the source of her power as best you can!"

"So..." C'rjikk asked walking up next to him as he observed both magical and actual, physical traps being placed according to his directions.

"What's your beef with it? Is it why your face is bandaged?"

"You wouldn't understand..." Bandage Face replied, gripping his Lightsaber tightly.

"I'm stuck down here with you, taking your orders. Might as well 'try'."

"I didn't come here to play twenty questions..." Bandage Face grunted, trying to sense her approaching presence.

"Well, you were this monster's student, right? Why don't you fight her yourself?"

"I'm good at what I do...but even I can't take her in a straight fight..." Bandage Face admitted, turning to him. "But I know enough to trap and kill her...as long as you do 'exactly' what I tell you to."

"Relax. Not like we got a choice. How'd you know she would be here?"

"I have...flashes...in my nightmares...imperfect...but I still knew she would be here..."

The man's spine locked up.

"She's on the move. We are out of time. Get your men ready."

Meanwhile...

Syd of course respectfully kept her back turned while Starlin Rand changed into his armor. Syd then took the lead, one blade active, and immediately begin to find it difficult to concentrate.

"Something...is wrong..." she realized, struggling to concentrate as she moved forward. It grew colder and her flesh shuddered a little everywhere as it did.

She didn't sense them until they fired, and she was barely able to start deflecting their cryoban rifle shots, their stealth fields failing activating their energy shields as they moved a steady retreat backward, firing not so quickly that they expended their ammo, but not too slow that she could safely advance. She winced as a cryo bolt got through her defense and she winced as it hit her right in the shoulder, numbing and rendering it stiff. A metallic cry of pain erupted from the Witch's throat as she dropped one of her blades, barely deflecting the other shots with her remaining blade and slowing them down with The Force.

"Starlin, now!" she yelled, not sensing that this was the start of a rough day...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Syd Celsius

"Something… is wrong..."

Starlin’s eyebrows shot up. Coming from anybody else, such words would be cause for concern—coming from Syd, it heralded a disaster of spectacular proportions. In other words, if she said something was wrong, they were in deep, deep chit.

“What—” he started to ask, only to be cut off by the first blast of cryo bolts. Starlin raised his hands, the Force forming a barrier in front of him to block the fire. By now he was beginning to notice the strange cold filling the room, as though something—or someone—was drawing all the heat out of the atmosphere around them.

A metallic cry. His eyes flicked to Syd, who had been a blur of movement in the corner of his vision only a moment ago, but now appeared to be injured. She had dropped one of her blades and was struggling to keep up her defense with the remaining one. Something was very wrong indeed.

“Starlin, now!”

He wasn’t sure what exactly she wanted him to do, but he knew he had to do something. Reaching out, he called the sands to him, shaving grains off of rocks and shifting the dust into hard compact stones. These he threw at their attackers, the telekinetic blows striking them with the force of a superhuman fist. Starlin heard grunts, yelps, and hisses of pain.

That wasn’t all. Gathering still more sand, he activated his shoto, funneling the grains through the molten heat. Glass emerged on the other side, shards with jagged edges. These he fired at the men like bullets.

There was a break in the firing, but he couldn’t be sure if it was because they were down or just taking cover. Either way, Starlin called out, “Syd! Are you okay? What happened?”

 

[Syd Celsius]

"Someone among them...knows magic...powerful magic. Its...its dampening my ability to call on flames at all...or even use The Force..."

Syd struggled up, flesh wriggling on her face a few seconds as she struggled to focus through the thick, cold cloud that had descended on her mind...

She checked the ones Starlin Rand had hit with jagged glass...all dead.

"A most intriguing application of Geokinesis, Starlin...I'll have to remember that one..." she breathed, struggling to focus through the fog in her mind.

"We'll have to be much more careful...whoever is managing to scramble my Force Connection is a pro...they knew 'exactly' what to do..."

Syd forced herself to keep her head in the game, drawing her crossbow pistol. She loaded a heavy, gold tipped bolt that had an incredibly faint yet highly unsettling ticking sound as it waited to be fired, her saber in the other hand, joined together but with only one blade active.

Yet again the same tactic. Two men came out of cloak to fire on her with cryo bolts, which she began weakly swatting away, before firing a bolt at the closest shooter, and with all her might slowing the incoming shots of the remaining shooter, the exertion to use her powers much higher than normal, and swatting the bolts back at her attacker. The shots freezing more of him until he was a solid block that fell over and shattered. (Hasta la vista: 90 XP)

Syd moved forward again cautiously, stepping over shattered or blasted apart remains. Even this gown, designed to counter magic, was barely doing anything.

"Okay..." she trailed, loading another bolt into the pistol, firing it down range at a wall. The blast and debris hit four stealthed targets that were ahead, killing them.

"Something is weakening me...badly..." Syd trailed, looking pale. She looked at Starlin.

"I'll be no good to you if this keeps up...so I'll send you ahead. The magic is designed to affect me...they don't seem to care about you...we can use that...Starlin, I have a spell you will find useful...It's the Spell of Stealth Fire. Its like a magic based invisibility field. Harmless transparent fires will cover you, rendering you invisible...but it is no substitute for true Force Concealment.

Syd struggled to make the magic flow, nearly blacking out from the exertion as she used the words of power.

"Ashla, hide me from the Outer Eye..." she coughed out, flesh wriggling as transparent flames covered her...and rendered her invisible. However, due to her weakened state, it lasted only thirty seconds. She soon reappeared, leaning against the passageway wall.

"You try it...but be careful when you use it..."

Meanwhile...

Bandage Face felt his old master weakening. Felt her growing more worried. He did not revel in her discomfort. He only wanted her dead.

He winced, one of a hundred terrible memories in his head over serving Darth Phyre playing out.

The hyperventilating started. He walked away from the sensor readings to catch his breath as he headed into one of the empty bunker quarters where he was masterminding his old Master's capture. His hands trembled.

Darth Phyre watched with her apprentice as the city burned in red flames. The agony of its civilians fed his master in strange ways. It revolted him. But he knew he lacked the power to kill her.

There was the Moonglare Greatsaber. But that required turning to the light. He lacked the power to corrupt it.

Years had he been her apprentice. He had grown in strength and power as she had promised. He enjoyed a position of power in one of the most powerful Dark Cults in The Galaxy.

But the things he had to do...

He had helped her trap this city on Denon in a bubble of pure Dark Side Energy. It had been a ritual months in the making, creating magical runes stretching dozens of miles to make a gigantic magical pentagram. Their souls were to be sacrificed directly to the Brain Demon. It was the tail end of the Plague, but he didn't know that. No one could help them. There were no resources to spare and what few Jedi there were were in hiding or too weak to stand up to most of the horribly rampant threats, least of all The Cult of The Brain Demon.

They had the proceeded to watch as the City's inhabitants starved. Disorder followed. Then, when their despair was highest, Phyre had triggered the magical blaze. Everyone within was simply in the final death throes of weeks long horror and agony, culminating in a final scream so sharp from pain that it sang to the hells beyond all the veils of reality.

"A great sacrifice to the Darkness, is it not?" Phyre asked, her rotting yellow eyes infused with delight as she watched screaming people desperately try to escape the barrier even as they burned in the very limits of the city. The whole place was crackling with the Dark Side.

"Indeed." The Apprentice answered, carefully hiding his thoughts, his eyes having been slowly, painfully dug out in a ritualistic manner by Phyre to help him better perceive the will of The Bogan. He saw her as a rotting, seething Miasma in The Dark Side as much as he perceived her as a beautiful, athletic looking woman with bronze skin, exotic features and blood red hair in a metallic white and gold catsuit.

"You sound troubled, apprentice..." Phyre noted.

"Merely glad our work is complete and I don't have to keep painting runes on the street and on buildings while cloaked."

"Oh, don't take that attitude, Apprentice. Think of how much character you built with your attention to detail! One of the most beautifully executed acts of Dark Sorcery I've ever seen!" Phyre praised him with seeming sincerity, walking up and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Revel in your success, my boy! You are well on your way to surpassing me one day! This..." Phyre trailed, sweeping her hand over the burning city that they watched from a hill. The grass around Phyre's feet had already turned to ash. The shrieks of the dying grew only louder.

"All of this is your success! You performed the ritual properly across the entire city! This is your greatest achievement for the Darkness yet...why do you not celebrate?"

He scrambled for the most Sithly answer he could give. Even though it was not the truth, though he hid it well enough, even with the screams making him wince internally.

"It is merely one step of many to power."

"Not true." Phyre asserted. "This...this is an act of true devotion. True faith. Its one thing to slaughter a village. Any Sith can do that. But to crush an entire city full of people under your heel to ash? To feast on their suffering for enlightenment? Self-Empowerment? Using nothing more than patience and Blood Magic to show what the Dark Side is truly capable of? That is not a step. It is a massive leap in ambition and ego."

The pair stared at each other on the hill.

Phyre chuckled and softly hit him in the shoulder.

"If nothing else...just think of all the XP you earned!" Phyre joked, smiling at her apprentice.

Bandage Face pulled up his bandages to wretch into a sink. He collapsed next to the sink, hands trembling. He tried to pick up his Lightsaber and it fell out of his hands. They were shaken that badly and he couldn't stop it.

"I must admit, you are the last person I expected to turn up, came a dark, feminine rasp containing a hint of haughty arrogance to it.

Bandage Face turned, spotted a nigh impossibly beautiful fair skinned woman with raven hair and dead purple eyes in a mostly flesh colored catsuit with long white gloves and boots, reclining on a pirate bunk, lazily and idly examining a photo of Maple Harte and Laertia Io , before her eyes casually slid to him and put down a photo.

"What's with the Cyberpunk Fetish?" Bandage Face snorted, though his hands still trembled. He sensed nothing from her. She was keeping her presence hidden.

This only caused her to narrow her eyes.

"Sore spot?" Bandage Face asked maliciously.

"The Apprentice of Darth Phyre. Oh, how the mighty have fallen." The Amalgam noted in a disappointed tone, getting out of the bed. Bandage Face's hands were still trembling.

"You never fully could accept the glories of the Bogan, could you?" The Amalgam questioned. "Tell me...why bother going after her after all this time?"

"Are you a member of The Cult?"

"I am The Cult."

"I'm tired. Haven't lived well. Drink a lot. Mostly drink..." he grumbled, forcing some dignity on himself by standing up. He finally forced his hands to stop shaking.

"But mostly...I have to be able to say I tried."

"You are either going to win or lose. There is no try."

The Amalgam studied his plans on the table.

"Dampening Wards on the tunnel walls. Intent to cut off the flow of air in key sections to weaken her flames. Cryonic Ritual Magic. Enemies equipped with cryonic weapons. Attack from Stealth. Death of a Thousand Cuts. Good strategy. It would be, at least, if you were facing Darth Phyre...and you weren't a past his prime failed Sith and Alcoholic."

"I may be on my way out..." Bandage Face said as he winced. He could feel his liver undergoing cirrhosis. He summoned his Lightsaber to his hand.

"But I still got enough juice left in me to make you regret picking a fight."

"Oh, I'm not here to fight...I merely wish to watch how long it takes for her to kill you, in spite of all your measures."

The Amalgam then stepped closer.

"Of course, you could always rejoin us..." she trailed. "A person of your knowledge and skill would be most welcome amongst us. Even with your prior sins against The Unholy Spirit."

"I was a member once..." he growled, red saber activating. "Once is enough."

The Amalgam seemed to be almost sad as she let out a long sigh.

"What a waste..." she said, turning away and not looking back, activating her suit stealth field and slipping out of the area.

Bandage Face pulled out his link, contacting C'rjikk.

"Get the stunners ready. She'll likely send her student to scout with a stealth spell."

"Say that last bit ten times fast..." the Twi'Lek joked on the other end. "You know that from first hand experience I take it?"

"Feth you." Bandage Face replied irritably as he got ready to intercept Starlin. "And yeah..."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Syd Celsius

Starlin listened to Syd’s lesson attentively, his gut in knots at the thought of venturing forward alone. But it had to be done. If he stayed here with Syd, she would no doubt continue to weaken, and they would be overrun. If she went on ahead, she’d slow him down.

“Okay,” he muttered, taking a deep breath. “So that this problem I might rectify, Ashla, hide me from the Outer Eye…”

The rhyme was perhaps his weakest yet, but the magic still worked. Invisible flames licked at his skin, completely obscuring his body in the blaze. It didn’t burn him. Rather, the fire felt almost cold to the touch, though not enough to disorient him, only to constantly remind him of the spell’s activity.

Turning away from Syd, he headed out. It was dark, but when he stretched out with the Force, he could sense the presences of other men wearing stealth field generators. He avoided them for the time being, slipping past groups clustered together and loners staring out from the shadows. Some of them headed back the way he’d come, going after Syd, but he resisted the urge to attack them. It would only alert the others that he was there.

He kept walking, finding himself in a strangely deserted corridor near the entrance to the facility. Circling back around, he returned to the invisible men, crept up behind one, and ignited his saber so that the blue blade impaled him through the back. The rest in the immediate group around him Starlin cut down with quick slashes, before he moved on to the next hidden gang, letting the Force guide him.

From the perspective of the mercs, they were suddenly being attacked from the flank by an unseen assailant. C’rijik may have warned them to be on the lookout for a scout, but most of them were simply no match for a Force User, period. Some continued to focus on reaching Syd, while others turned around and shot at Starlin. The boy dodged the cryo rounds, but felt his invisibility sputter. The flames lasted only a few more seconds before they went out.

Starlin knew he had to keep moving. His blades cut swathes through the ranks, the saber a whirl of blue through the air and the shoto generating more glass to be flung at anyone who dared fire a shot at him.

One of the mercs managed to get through, wielding an electrostaff that defied his lightsaber blade. The boy wasn’t as agile and acrobatic as his master (not yet, anyway) but his sword arm was true, and he managed to block the blow that was meant to incapacitate him. The merc kept pushing him, however. Starlin kept evading, leaped backwards out of the way of electrical jabs from his opponent, then shoving the merc back with a telekinetic blast. The merc was thrown further down the narrow passage, but got up again and charged forward once more.

Starlin meanwhile was frantically grabbing at the sand beneath his stumbling feet, filtering it through the shoto’s heat, intent on embedding the shards of glass into his foe. For the first time in combat, he had overexerted himself, using too much of the Force in too short a time. Not only did he feel exhausted, his command of the Force was sluggish and sloppy. The mercenary howled in pain as the glass shards bit through his armor and into his flesh, only for Starlin to feel the approach of another mercenary from behind, this one wielding a blaster set to stun.

He raised his saber to deflect it, but he was split second too late. The crackle of electricity struck him square in the chest. Starlin’s body instantly went limp and he fell heavily in the dust, as unconscious as Leia on her "diplomatic mission to Alderaan". Just with more sand in his mouth.

 

[Syd Celsius]

Syd felt a cold shock spread through her already weakened frame as she felt Starlin Rand get knocked out.

They had anticipated her using a stealthed scout. Likely on the advice of whoever had expertly weakened her.

In her blurry minded state she felt at least four coming to her location with Blaster Rifles. She took cover behind a pillar of rock that connected ground to ceiling. She loaded her crossbow pistol.

She had to get Starlin back. He was now in danger because of her tactical error. She was so rusty at actually having to look out for someone else despite getting back some of her instinct for it back at Zeffo that she still made mistakes with him. She felt 'incredibly' guilty for that.

She struggled not to panic. What if they were torturing him? Would she start to feel it?

Syd was not sure which possibility terrified her more: the idea that soon she would feel his horrific agony, which her dead Sith self would have reveled at, and she would have to explain to his mother why her boy had died and how it was ENTIRELY her fault, or the possibility she wouldn't feel his agony at all because she wasn't human enough to understand it anymore beyond feeling faint distress from him, and possibly never had been.

She had to save him.

She forced herself to focus through the cold haze in her brain though she felt completely nauseated as she shot the first man who entered in the head, dashing forward, doing all she could not to vomit as cryo-powered bolts missed her by centimeters, yet this was still close enough to give her alchemized flesh a sheen of ice crystals, causing great pain and slowing her a split second allowing one of the remaining attackers to open her side with a knife, drawing glowing green blood even as a knife hand chop was sent right to their throat breaking it.

Another man dead. Almost everywhere she went she left corpses.

Was she really the best person to guide Starlin, she wondered as a well placed kick from her collapsed another man's sternum.

She had sincerely been trying to prevent him from making her mistakes. If everywhere she went someone got killed horribly only nine out of ten times, then what would or should her margin of success be for Starlin? Only 007 out of ten times? No one could consider that a success. He'd be a damn wreck emotionally before he hit thirty. Ideally it was a two out of ten incidents type of situation for Jedi. Good fething luck with all that and The Bryn'adul. In today's environment, even if she was sincere (Which she was) and even if she did everything she could to prevent Starlin from making the kind of horrific choices she had, he might still end up a killing machine out of sheer necessity. Even the most peaceful Jedi often had a relatively small bodycount in the dozens by the twilight of their career. Even your average book keeper in the order likely maimed someone and put them in the hospital at some point in their life. There was no getting around it...

Syd's misgivings were interrupted by a barely deflected cryo shot that went wide then an immediate follow up shot that grazed her shoulder, instantly costing her the use of her left arm. She felt cold everywhere as she barely managed to slow her remaining attacker with the Force, slicing through his weapon and knocking him cold with a punch.

She caught sight of her own inhuman blood for a moment and stared at it on her hands...

She dreaded the idea that Starlin might become like this, that his blood would become little more than a constantly charged battery with which to work the unnatural.

She loaded another bolt into her pistol and ventured down the passage. She refused to leave without Starlin. She would never forgive herself if he died because of her errors...

Meanwhile...

Bandage Face stared at the unconcious Starlin, who was in a Force Cage covered in runes that dampened his Force Connection.

He felt deep conflict as he stared. Didn't seem right to involve the boy...he was clearly ignorant of her past. No one who knew Syd's past could willingly call her friend. Or willingly march ahead on her orders. At least, that was what he figured.

He could feel the body soon fighting off the stun effects, and as soon as Starlin opened his eyes, Bandage Face spoke.

"Brave of you, boy. But foolish..." he rasped... "Look...I'll make it easy...cooperate and I don't hurt you. I actually would rather not have to cause you pain. I don't care about you. I'm not after you. I'm not even really with the mercs here. I'm just here...."

Bandage Face stopped, erupting into hacking and coughing fits, dropping to his knees as he felt pain where his liver was. He quickly stood up.

"I'm...I'm just..." he tried to get out before coughing again in a violent hacking manner. It was a good fifteen seconds before he got control.

"I'm just here to kill your Master. That's all I want to do. You can get a new one. There's dozens. Hundreds. Just help us force a surrender and I'll let you live. Refuse...well...I'm not a nice person. I lived a bad life. I don't blame anyone but myself for that. I'd rather not use my bad life in deciding your fate. But I will if you don't help me, Padawan..." he warned Starlin with a low key growl...

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin woke up slowly. Opening his eyes, he blinked away the sand, took a deep breath, and coughed up dust. He was a little bruised and sore, but had no broken bones or serious injuries that he could tell.

On the other hand, he was trapped inside a force cage. The dampening of his connection clearly indicated he was being blocked from using the Force. As he sat up, he saw that he wasn’t alone.

The guy in question, a gentleman covered from head to toe in dirty, sweaty bandages, started talking. Starlin listened, including through the excruciating coughing fit, glad that the force cage provided a barrier between him and this dude’s airborne germs. Yuck.

At the end of Bandage Face’s speech, Starlin waited a few seconds to see if there was more, then said, “Yeah, sure, whatever. Uh, care to explain why you want to kill my master? You a Sith or something?” If he was Sith, showing mercy was a bit odd and out of character. “Also, who the hell are you? Why are you wearing bandages? Actually, don’t answer that. You look like you auditioned for a lead role in The Mummy but got rejected due to health concerns. That’s a really nasty cough, man, you should probably see a doctor.”

He was stalling for time, hoping Syd could get her act together and help bail him out. On the other hand, he couldn’t really do much as long as he was trapped in this cage. The guy said he wanted to use him to force Syd to surrender, well, did he have much of a choice? What was he going to do? Cry “No, Syd! I’d rather die than see you surrender!” from behind the energy field? She wasn’t going to go for that. At least, he didn’t think she would… She was Syd Celsius, for crying out loud. How could a random group of mercs and a sick guy covered in toilet paper bring down Syd Celsius?

Syd Celsius

 

[Syd Celsius]

Syd was in a bad way as she struggled down that tunnel. The magic they had lined certain parts with made her flesh warp and bubble hideously as she moved down the passages.

She had one play. She had been saving up her strength. Whoever had captured Starlin Rand had prepped pretty heavily against her standard fare but she could sense the magic was geared specifically to suppress a pyrokinetic sorceress...she was simply no longer purely that by this point.

It was a flaw. One that could be exploited. They clearly had not been prepared for a geokinetic sorceress...she had only encountered true Resistance once she was back to being her normal self. If they were preparing Geokinesis countermeasures, she hadn't seen any sign.

She had saved up just enough energy to to channel such power. Who knows what they might do then, but at least she wouldn't be quite so weakened.

She focused, channeling the Geokinetic ability she had partitioned off from the rest of her consciousness to maintain cellular stability. Her flesh violently bubbled and melted back into that of the woman Starlin had encountered at the start of this...

Instantly she felt the dampening of her spirit lessen in strength. She was still weakened, but nowhere near as weak as before.

She sensed them through the vibrations they made walking on sand. She drew Syd's lightsaber. Starlin Rand was in immense danger, and The Sorceress of Yurb liked him as a student by this point. There was an earnestness to him. He learned fast, and wanted to do better.

He was also intensely loyal to Syd. The Sorceress felt bad about whatever he would go through once he realized it hadn't just been Syd training him. By some cosmic irony, though neither of them were aware, Starlin's journey as a Padawan now had a disturbing similarity to Laertia's.

The Sorceress concentrated, and as soon as she spotted the mercenaries, each armed with Concussion Rifles or Sonics pistols, she fragmented part of the passage and flung pieces of it at them at non-lethal speeds, stunning and bruising them but not breaking any bones. She wasn't here to slaughter them. Wasn't here to slaughter anyone.

She ran her hands across the rock and the rock shifted like liquid further down, grabbing the limbs or weapons of other mercs as tentacles of rock that flowed almost like liquid snatched at them.

The Sorceress moved quickly now, fiery orange blade dashing through weapons, blasting sand at their eyes as they advanced on her. She moved fast, creating a sandstorm in the passages, slashing and disabling, but not killing.

Meanwhile...

Starlin asked Bandage Face why he wanted Syd dead.

The screams in his head, Darth Phyre's laughter, it made his knees nearly buckle. He barely maintained his composure.

"It doesn't matter why..." Bandage Face answered, too choked by the memories to say anything else. He sensed Syd's aura change greatly. She had resorted to channeling that geokinetic power he had been blindsided by.

"You think you have some grasp of hardship, don't you? Give someone a lightsaber, smack them around a few times, and suddenly they think they are ready.

The man pulled out a dart gun from his tattered jacket.

"This fires a syringe of Devaronian Blood Poison. They used to make swords with the edges deliberately combined with it. It causes horrifying pain. Not the absolute worst, but you'll be hard pressed to find worse after getting a dose of this. For me, other pains just never quite matched it afterward..."

(Cutaway of Starlin managing to stay conscious after being shot in the legs by the Bryn'adul)

Bandage face fired the dart, which pierced the shield that imprisoned Starlin, right at his right leg.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin knew by the change in the bandaged dude’s tone and mannerisms that he had asked the wrong question. Panic coursed through the boy as the guy pulled out a dart gun and said it contained Devaronian Blood Poison. He’d heard of it—DBP had one hell of a reputation even on the streets—and he had zero interest in experiencing it.

“Wait—there’s no need for you to—”

The gun fired with a muffled click. Starlin’s breath caught in his throat, blue eyes wide as he saw the dart fly through the air, passing through the barrier of the cage, and into his right thigh.

It started as a particularly nasty itchiness, which rapidly went nuclear. “Feth!” Starlin screamed, clutching at the wound. “What the feth?! AHH!”

Get it out, get it out! was all he could think. But his fingertips burned upon contact with the dart when he tried to remove it.

The pain somehow got worse the longer it remained embedded in his thigh, poisoning his blood. Starlin’s leg gave out, forcing him onto the ground. The side of his head bumped against the force cage, singing his hair and delivering a mild electrical burn before he wriggled away. By that point Starlin was in so much agony he couldn’t even make a sound. He lay curled up on his side at the bottom of the cage, wondering if this was the end of the line for him. Maybe Syd wouldn’t get there in time. Maybe… maybe that was for the best. She would live longer than him, and she would always be stronger, more powerful. More useful to the Jedi and the forces of good in their fight against evil… huh…

Wha... What was he thinking? He couldn’t die here, perishing by a dart gun in the hands of a mummy with asthma! That would be the most anticlimactic way to go—No. No. There was no way he was going to die like this. He wouldn’t allow it.

“Oooh, you… you!...” Starlin growled, looking up at the bandaged dude through watering eyes. “You ryving… whoever embalmed you must've done a lousy job, Imhotep, or are you just suicidal? You’re wasting your time here torturing me, knowing that Syd Celsius is on her way! You should be worrying about her, not me! All you’re doing is giving her more reasons to wipe you off the face of the earth!”

His insults were pretty childish—nobody would ever accuse Starlin of being too good at Dun Möch—and it was hard to come up with clever banter when you were under the influence of Devaronian Blood Poison, but at least he spoke with absolute confidence. Syd would come. It was only a matter of time.

Syd Celsius​