Duel Ashes Beneath The Snow | A Operation Cinder Story

[Tyro Lok]

Tyro Lok
The Dark Side Elite
Lord Creuat , Lord Letifer

​

Carlac, Carlac System
Prefsbelt Sector, Outer Rim Territories



Glacial wind shrieked across black mountain spires and half-buried war relics, a land once shaped by the hand of the Emperor's most dreadful apprentice, Darth Caelitus ( Halketh ), now reclaimed by nature and it's savage storms. Above, a battered shuttle broke through the upper atmosphere, its hull groaning as it was assailed by the fury of a supercell blizzard. Inside, two dark warriors braced in silence as the vessel was jostled violently by turbulence and hail. Tyro Lok and Lord Creuat , members of the Dark Side Elite, the Emperor's Dark Jedi, quietly gripped hold and waited for touch down as the frozen world of Carlac howled its displeasure.

Below them sprawled the grave of the New Sith Order's former ambition, the scorched skeleton of Citadel Caelitus. The once-mighty fortress, where both the Brotherhood of the Maw and the Dark Empire had dwelled in shadow, stood like a silent, shattered monolith. Its vast gatehouse lay in ruin, one of its spires collapsed inwards like a cracked fang. But the aura of power had not waned. It clung to the stones like blood to cloth, Carlac had not forgotten its legacy.

And the Dark Side had not abandoned it. It was here that the traitor waited.

Lord Letifer , of the New Sith Order, a veteran of the Maw's madness and the Empire's rise, now turned apostate. Letifer had survived everything: Jedi, Mawite purges, the Emperor's wrath, and even the fall of Coruscant. But survival was no longer enough. His failures and refusal to bend to the new order rising from the ashes marked him for death. He was too powerful to be left unbound, too independent to serve, and too stained by failure to be forgiven.

And so Operation: Cinder had reached Carlac. The long reach of the Emperor had come at last.

From within the blizzard, the citadel loomed ever closer, the obsidian spire piercing the pale haze. Systems flickered to life as they came to, their approach fast and hard. Lok's gloved hand hovered near the hilt of his saber, his eyes drifting to his compatriot Lord Creuat . The ship buckled one last time, then steadied coming to a rapid halt as the vessel came closer to landfall. The drop ramp hissed open, the storm howling a challenge as they departed. Boots dropped into the soft snow, digging deep into the drifts below as the wing cried. Tyro's mechanical voice beckoned through his helm.

"I sense him."

 

[Lord Creuat]

B L A C K G U A R D
Tyro Lok
CARLAC​

He could sense his presence long before Tyro spoke. How could he forget this old nemesis of his? Their history extended from the Hyperspace War up to this point. Even during the times of the Dark Empire there was never a moment of mutual camaraderie between the two when Creuat served the Emperor. The detestation between the two burned alive, and it was that that would give warmth the Nautolan against the Carlac’s unforgiving cold.

It was time to bring this to an end.

As it was always meant to be.

Surely, the apostate could feel the fury stirring within Creuat. There was no attempt to mask their presence; let the traitor know death had come for him. Let his own survival betray him with fear.

The cold engulfed the two servants, the hail pounding on their bodies but it did not sever their resolute. No matter how hard the wind blew the mountain still remained strong.

“We will no longer need this,” and his hand outstretched, the power of the dark side surging at his command as he meant to destroy their shuttle. Steel groaned, the structure compromised as it was bent out of shape and finally lifted off from the landing pad and tossed into the white abyss. They would not leave empty handed; their mission was paramount and failure would not be tolerated.

They would succeed or die here.

Without a word he treaded through the soft snow, entering through one of the fortresses wings and use the stench of Letifer as guiding point.

 

[Tyro Lok]

Tyro Lok
The Dark Side Elite
Lord Creuat , Lord Letifer

​

Carlac, Carlac System
Prefsbelt Sector, Outer Rim Territories
Lord Creuat


The blizzard battered his robes, his form cutting a solitary figure of defiance against the white void. The cold howling through the broken arches of the Black Citadel. Creuat seemingly had felt Letifer long before they had arrived, that old flame of rivalry between them, a seething anger that never relinquished. It had never died, not once. Not in the campaigns of the Maw. Not beneath the banner of the Dark Empire. Not when they stood side by side in the Emperor's throne room, each imagining how the other might die. Tyro did not have to imagine what such a rivalry was like, he witnessed it between both warriors, seen it behind the veil of the Force.

The shuttle's death cry shrieked behind them as it twisted midair, subsequently being consumed by the storm. Tyro looked back briefly, confused on the destruction of their way home, all before the clarity of it all became apparently with Creuat's words, few as they were. The Nautolan had always preferred action. Lok preferred precision. And there was meaning in this, this desolate march into the forgotten heart of Carlac.

Finality.

Hatred.

He followed Creuat's lead, footfalls silent, his armored boots pressing into the snow beneath them.

"You destroy our leave so easily." Tyro's voice echoed through the mask, modulated and low. "Do you worry of his escape?"

He stopped before a shattered statue, a broken figure of Caelitus himself. The Dark Lord of the Sith, apprentice, and right hand of Darth Solipsis had chosen this place to rule, this place to rot. Tyro's gloved hand reached out, brushing across the dust-choked sigils carved into the basalt. The Force here was thick. Not like the raw malice of Korriban or the chaos of Exegol. No, this was stillness, calcified power soaked into stone and silence. It clung to the ruins like a whisper. A place where even the dead did not fully die.

Click.

Tyro looked down, his foot triggering a pressure plate hidden over years of dust and debris. Within seconds walls came crashing down from the ceiling, the floor opened swallowing the Dark Side warrior. His saber ignited his vision focused, he leapt from one stone to another reaching for safety as a hidden visage appeared in the distance.

Lord Letifer

"Don't let him get away!!"

 

[Lord Letifer]

CITADEL CAELITUS
Lord Creuat | Tyro Lok


​

The trap had been set. Inside the dreaded halls of Citadel Caelitus, amid the broken walls of dark obsidian and long dead sconces, Lord Letifer stood in silence. Shadows clung to him like an old armor, the deep red glow of his visor shone through the darkness, casting fractured light from it's surface. Once, these halls had echoed with the footfalls of the Empire's inner circle, the whispers of courtiers and warlords alike marching to the beat of the Sith'ari's command. Now, they groaned with ice and memory.

A return to their nature order.

Letifer's breath steamed in the frigid air, his lungs aching with the familiarity of the cold. Age had crept into his bones, a slow rot beneath the skin, but it had not dulled his mind, nor the fire that burned behind his pale yellow eyes. He sensed them, sensed their darkness as they approached. He knew they would come for him in time, oh yes he knew. Letifer had never been a favorite within the New Sith Order, he had been absconded, cast aside and left to climb the ladder from the gutter.

And so he had.

From the days of the Second Great Hyperspace War to the ends of the Empire, he had climbed, killed, and taken what was rightfully his. He had claimed the mantle of Lordship among the Sith, and had mastered the potency of the Dark Side. Yet even then he knew it was not enough, no matter how far he went, no matter how loyal he proved himself he would never be safe. It simply was not the way of the New Sith Order. He had yet to break his chains, he had yet to truly free himself to wield his power as he wished.

And for that reason, he did not return when the call of the Sith'ari came again. And for that reason, he knew he would be hunted. He watched from a ledge as the two entered the Citadel, he watched as they moved to engage.

One falling. One chasing.

But it was not Lok that held Letifer's focus. No, he felt him. That old familiar rage, trudging through the storm like a revenant. Creuat. His executioner. His rival. His mirror. The presence of the Nautolan in the Force was unmistakable. Still alive, still burning, still clutching that righteous fury like a drowning man grasping a blade. Letifer turned toward the far door. With a simple flick of his fingers, the locking mechanisms disengaged, hissing open to reveal the long descent below the war room. The winding path led through the oldest parts of the Citadel, through meditation chambers that had once belonged to Caelitus himself, and the crypts of forgotten Sith who'd pledged loyalty and died anonymously.

"Come then." Letifer whispered, his voice echoing through the modulator in his mask, reverberating through the empty halls, "Let's see if you can kill me while there is still meaning in it."

The Force stirred around him as he moved. He stopped before a scorched mural depicting the fall of the Jedi Temple during the Great Battle of Coruscant, when the Brotherhood of the Maw and New Sith Order destroyed the holy place of the New Jedi Order. Time and fire had erased most of it, but the image of a cloaked figure raising a saber against a Jedi Council member still remained, charred but proud. He put his hand on the mural, basking in the moment of ancient history. His history.

Letifer closed his eyes. He drew strength not from hatred, but from conviction. The New Sith Code still burned in his heart, even if the vision of the Empire did not.

"You come for my blood, Rhis." he spoke aloud now, projecting his voice through the Citadel. "Because you are still afraid."

A soft metallic snap-hiss broke the silence as Letifer's saber flared into a bright crimson, angled low by his side as he descended further into the chamber, where wide space opened beneath a great oculus ceiling, shattered open to the blizzard above. Snow fell in slow, dusting the bodies of dead stormtroopers who had been left to guard this sanctum of the Empire in the Emperor's absence, still slumped against the pillars. This would be the place.

Letifer moved to the center, the crimson blade humming quietly. He turned his back to the entrance.

"Because you were always afraid."

 

[Lord Creuat]

B L A C K G U A R D
Lord Letifer
CARLAC​

A quick moment’s notice he was allowed to avoid the black hole in the floor caused by the disturbed trap. It didn’t claim his fellow Elite, but it would mean he’d operate alone for now.

Good.

The Emperor promised the Nautolan he would face the rogue Sith alone according to a vision he saw. Everything was proceeding as he had foreseen.

The apostate revealed himself from the shadows, but he did not attack. Not just yet, for he knew the ultimate price for defying the Emperor. But why was he calm? Does his own demise not frighten him? Instead of running away he stayed. Perhaps he was tired of running, and like a man alone at sea he’d brace himself against the storm’s fury.

But why so much hatred for this man? It was not a complicated question. The Sith Lord was another symbol of Creuat’s past, and he was determined to make sure he would no longer have any part in his future. Another step to fulfilling his purpose to the Emperor and becoming more powerful in the Dark Side.

Rhis Fisto would have killed Letifer to honor his duty to the Galaxy and find no pleasure in doing so.

Creuat, in this matter, sought for his blood to satisfy his emotions and hunger for power.

“You assume wrong, Letifer,” he countered the Sith’s judgment, pacing his steps. His rival’s lightsaber was ready, but the Dark Jedi did not reach for his.

“Your death will serve to advance my power; Rhis Fisto was weak to destroy you…but I have the power to take your life just as I did with Fisto. Soon, you will perish in the void just like him.”

The Force swelled and coursed through his body, and was released; a blast was aimed at the snow between the two Force Masters to create a heavy mist making it difficult to see through. In a flash he leaped towards the Sith, lightsaber activated, in an attempt to decapitate him.

How he yearned for this moment to come.

 

[Lord Letifer]

CITADEL CAELITUS
Lord Creuat | Tyro Lok


​

A plume of glacial mist kicked up before the two, scattering into the narrow breeze that crept down into the depths of the fortress, blanketing the shattered floor in a veil of shifting white. Letifer stood at the heart of it, unmoving, the glow of his crimson blade humming low at his side. His rival before him, a foe withstanding the test of time. Long had this moment been in the making, long had he envisioned squeezing the life from this most hated foe, but now he was no longer the hunter.. he was the hunted.

Creuat's shadow burst through the fog, saber raised high for the killing blow, a strike meant to end their feud once and for all. Letifer turned slowly, the blade of his saber rising in calm synchronicity. Their blades clashed, lighting the mist in molten light as a burst snow flung forth. White particles drifting around the duo like an old Atrisian story. The Sith Lord held firm.

"You speak of the void as if you do not already live within it, Creuat," the old Sith rasped, voice crackling like embers in a dying hearth even after modulating inside his signature helm. "You call yourself more powerful than Rhis Fisto, but you wield rage as a child wields fire.. recklessly."

His saber met another blow, then another. Precision, grace. Every movement economized. The years had slowed his body, but not his mind. Nor his connection to the Dark Side of the Force. The Sith Lord struck down, weaving a downward cleave toward the Dark Jedi, immediately disengaging and drag his blade across duracrete for a strike meant to hobble, not kill. He struck again, seeking purchase without relent.

"I am a puppet no longer, my chains are broken."

 

[Lord Creuat]

B L A C K G U A R D
Lord Letifer
CARLAC​

The Sith reacted swiftly to his tactic, their blades in a dance with each attack countered. The difference between the two warriors was the intensity of Creuat’s offensive against his nemesis. Though powerful he remained Letifer had changed his style to a more conservative approach. This was not the same man as before during the Hyperspace War and the Dark Empire. Time took its toll and even the dark side could not restore what he once was.

The Elite tried to ignore the Sith’s taunts, though it did fuel his fury. Wanting to prove that he was more than Fisto; more than Letifer. To seize power and gain more favor from the Emperor.

Letifer’s trick managed to graze flesh, a small cut of it. Creuat seethed at the pain still standing tall and not wavering.

He still advanced and struck with his saber, but his free hand used the Force to exert a small push at Letifer’s feet. A method to catch him off balance and hope to slice off his helmet.

“Enough hiding…Iwant to see the life drained out of your eyes when I plunge my blade into your heart.”