Avengers Rise

[Asharad Graush]

His crimson lightsabre blocked a slash from one of the Sith acolytes that would've otherwise relieved him of a leg. Oh, that would've been unfortunate.

"It's break a leg," he said, figuring the emphasis was enough for the joke to be understood by the Acolyte. Unfortunately, confusion spread across his face instead, and that was all he needed. Shame, he would've preferred him to laugh at the joke. In the saber lock, A'sharad pressed against the smaller Sith, his crimson blade sliding across the opposing crimson beam before cutting into the lightsabre hilt. Not only did the lightsabre beam dissipate, he was rewarded with a cry of pain as he took off half of the Sith's hand.

With his right hand, one of the coins came barrelling through the air, manipulated by the Force no less, and it found the gap in the armour between the neck and shoulder. The collarbone had the smallest of openings, but that was all he needed. After all, he had designed the armour.

It ripped through the throat of the Sith acolyte, from one side to the other, and he collapsed to the floor, bleeding out from his throat.

Part of the roof had collapsed also, and in its place was a Sith trooper stuffed into the roof.

"How do you keep doing that!?" He cried out, exasperated to Right and Left. He deactivated his lightsabre and hooked it back onto his belt. The trio climbed over the bodies they had left. Some were still alive, but they on the path to death, therefore they were of no consequence.

Walking up to the vault room door, he knocked.

 

[Asharad Graush]

A moment later there was the sound of mechanisms turning, and then the door cycled open.

Within there were more rooms, it was an underground complex, hidden away from the rest of the company. Only the Board of Directors knew about the underground rooms.

There was a group of them within, the Board of Directors that is.

Seven of them.

They were missing a few.

"Speak," he said. Left and Right took up positions around him.

"Lord Mierel is dead, died on the first floor on her way out of the building, Lord Vyrassu." A'sharad turned his head to look at who spoke. There was an expectant look in his eyes, it was saying to continue. And the Sith Pureblood did. "Lord Kyros died too," they explained. "And.. Lord Ubaron is dead too."

 

[Asharad Graush]

"Lord Ubaron is... Dead?"

A'sharad looked back to Left and Right.

That didn't make any sense.

"Yes, M-" The speaker was cut off, the Force wrapping around his slender throat as A'sharad squeezed. And then he stopped squeezing, instead, he just elected to snap the speaker's throat and drop their corpse on the ground.

"Lord Ubaron was behind this. His man confirmed as much," he declared to the remaining Board Members. "Where is he?"

"S-shot dead in the meeting room, right after we finished speaking with you, My Lord."

The Sith Knight's head turned to look at who had spoken. Lord Ubaron was dead? That didn't make any sense. Why would the Sith Trooper lie to him? He couldn't lie to A'sharad. He would've sensed it, and even if he didn't, Left and Right would've alerted him to the fact that he was lying. They were good at that sort of thing.

"Killed with what?"

"The glass shattered and a blaster bolt shot through his chest. That was when the attack occurred, My Lord."

"A blaster? A blaster bolt?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Yes, My Lord."

"Alright," he said silently. "Alright," he echoed a moment later. "The facility is being brought back under my control. Once you have all put everything back in place, you'll return to the conference room. Contact me as soon as you've done that," he growled out. His words were twisted, filled with rage as he marched away from the vault's door.

 

[Asharad Graush]

The trio of Sith walked towards the turbolift shaft.

"Right," he said, turning to his right side. "Go to the conference room. Find Ubaron's body. Report back to me when you do. Left," his head rotated to the other side. "You'll come with me. We're going to Ubaron's estate," he declared and he looked up at the lift.

"Ascension guns," he ordered.

Walking into the destroyed shaft, he pointed the gun upwards, and the other two followed his example and they all fired upwards. Once they had all found a target, they activated them simultaneously and they were on their way up the shaft towards a higher floor.

Right reached the end of his cable first, and then he shot upwards again. He must've been keeping count of the number of floors in his head, but when A'sharad and Left had reached the first floor, they had broken down the doors with the Force and exited. As they did, there was an eruption of blaster fire from all directions, both from A'sharad's Loyal Troopers, and from the would be Ubaron's Troopers.

The now two Sith Warriors ignored them.

 

[Asharad Graush]

"Pilot," he said. "Get to the first floor."

Relatively unscathed, Left and A'sharad had exited from the front of the building. As they did, it was clear that a lengthy battle had taken place. There were dozens of corpses littering the floor. Only a few bore A'sharad's House's symbol on their shoulders, and most of them bore some bastardization of Ubaron's House symbol.

He grinded his teeth.

His Board of Members were fools.

By the end of the week, they would all be dead he imagined.

"Will do, Lord Vyrassu. Nearly there," his pilot's young voice said, and just before he finished speaking, A'sharad could hear the sound of the shuttle's engines descending from the sky in front of them. When he touched down, the ramp opened, and another two squads of Sith Troopers emptied out and marched into the building, clearly prepared for the enemy that was still within. Once they were all out, Left led the way this time onto the shuttle, and A'sharad followed him.

 

[Asharad Graush]

Once they were on the ship, the Sith High Colonel headed to the front of the shuttle, and straight to the cockpit. He plotted in the location they were heading to after removing his pilot's hands from the console. "Go here. See those shuttles in the sky?" He said, looking through the viewport and pointing at the squadron of shuttles that were just about to start descending. "Send them the coordinates. They're coming with us," he said, and he rose up and exited the cockpit compartment and closed the door behind him.

Left was there watching with an amused look on his ugly crimson face, face tendrils twitching in amusement.

Vyrassu was tempted to cut them off.

"We're destroying everything Ubaron owns."

And then his commlink was being contacted.

"Uh, Lord Vyrassu. We've discovered something," the voice said, he recognized it as one of his Board Members, however choppy it was. Must've still been underground he figured. "Lord Ubaron had sent the schematics of the ship to his estate. He is probably there now," A'sharad closed his eyes. Oh, how he was tempted to turn back around to his company's building. "He wiped the files on our computers. He is the only one who could have them. He is preparing to leave the planet."

A'sharad closed the channel frequency without a word. He didn't trust himself to contain his rising anger. Instead, he patched himself to Right.

"My Lord," came the guttural acknowledgement from Right.

"Kill the Board Members once the building is finished being cleared out. Painfully," A'sharad said coldly, and then he closed that frequency too.

And finally, their shuttle was heading towards Lord Ubaron's home.

 

[Asharad Graush]

A'sharad once again closed his eyes and began focusing on erasing the distractions that would otherwise attempt to cloud his judgement. He had done it earlier, but this was something else entirely. A Lord had thought to ruin him, steal his schematics, and to do what? He'd find out when he got there he decided, he wouldn't rack his brain trying to guess. And then, that too was pushed out of his mind. His clenched fists then unclenched.

Six other shuttles were following them towards the edge of the city, and then eventually, when they were at the end of the city limits, they continued.

Lord Ubaron's estate wasn't nearly as expansive as House Graush's, but it was much further away from the on goings of the city. Acarus, A'sharad's father had once lived in the more rural areas of the planet, but when he had gathered his riches, he had moved into the city and built a large house. Acquired power, servants, and fame, the last being mainly on his homeworld planet of Tantorus, here.

All those that served the Sith Lord were weaker than him, yearning for more power in their own areas of expertise, and deciding their best bet was to serve them.

It was the Sith Way, A'sharad could respect that. But none of them had foreseen that it was Ubaron who had betrayed him, not until it was too late. They would all suffer the consequences, as was the Way of the Sith. If poison was spreading throughout your body, you didn't leave it there, you cut off the limb. You purged it. And he was going to do the same.

 

[Asharad Graush]

"My Lord." Right's voice came over the commlink again.

"Speak."

"Lord Ubaron's body is here, or at least, it was," Right said. "A sniper bolt shattered the window behind him, My Lord. But what it was shooting at wasn't Ubaron. A proxy droid." Lord Vyrassu's eyes slowly rotated over to Left. He too could also hear what was being said, and he raised a thick eyebrow stalk in question.

"I see," Vyrassu said. "Get out its memory core. Hook it up to a computer, find out everything that the droid knows."

"Yes, Lord Vyrassu!" And then Right, this time, closed the channel frequency and A'sharad started to pace back and forth. He anticipated there would be a fight. Ubaron's security would be ready for them. But A'sharad was determined. Not like one of those bad holofilms, but he was willing to die if it meant bring hell to Lord Ubaron's homestead. He rolled his shoulders back.

"Everyone dies when we're there."

Left nodded.

 

[Asharad Graush]

"I will slay his family in your name, My Lord," Left proclaimed.

There was a nod of acknowledgement.

They were far from the city now, yet they were close enough to Lord Ubaron's home. The Sith Knight stopped pacing, he drew his lightsabre hilt off of his belt. In a moment, blaster fire erupted from the soldiers down below them. There were light ricochets off of the light hull of the transport shuttle. A'sharad knew how weak it was, they were going to have to get out of there quick. "Bring us lower," he said to the pilot.

They were a few dozen meters above the roof of the building, and there were even more soldiers shooting at them from the roof.

And then he did. He brought them lower, and A'sharad opened the ramp, rooting himself to the edge of it as he ignited the golden lightsabre, parrying the bolts that ventured close enough to him. Left did the same. When they were nearly thirty metres above the roof, they both jumped down.

Together, the Force was weaved around the both of them as they descended like missiles.

When they hit the roof under fire from Ubaron's Troopers, the Force repulsed from the duo, throwing those closer to the edge of the building right off. Sending others crashing into the rails, and pots, but it had most definitely opened up a large space of ten metres in every direction. When A'sharad's head started to raise, his golden orbs were tinged with crimson, his anger was unleashed as he took one long vault across the roof and slashed downwards, easily cleaving the man in two before he kicked one half off of the building and force pushed the remaining part into another body in a corner.

 

[Asharad Graush]

Lightsabres flashed from right to left.

Up and down.

Hands flew out to block punches and blaster rifles meant to be used as clubs. Or they were cleaved in two, it was all a blur at this point for the Force enhanced Vyrassu as his lightsabre cut down traitorous soldier after traitorous soldier. He had spotted that some hadn't even bothered removing his House's symbol from their shoulder pads. Some even had scratched it out, or x'd it out with some form of ink, and he killed them the slowest.

In fact, he minced them, cutting them limb by limb, and then going for the kill.

Heads littered the roof, and limbs. Many more arms and legs than there were heads, but it was a bloody affair.

 

[Asharad Graush]

And yet it wasn't just Left and A'sharad who wee having all of the fun.

There were blasters going off in other parts of the estate.

Every single floor on this part of the building underneath A'sharad and Left was filled with Sith troopers loyal to Ubaron. They fired down on the landing shuttles. One exploded. Cheap. Easily replaced. He could see that more were coming to reinforce the attack here. His pilot had passed the word on. Prerogative. That's what he rewarded. He'd remember that, probably even try and remember his name too. Or at least get one ofh is directions to learn it for him.

He glanced down to the roof, and then he plunged his lightsabre through the duracrete.

Back to back he went with Left, and then he formed a perfect circle in the ceiling, and they dropped down to the next level.

And so the killing began again.

 

[Asharad Graush]

Vyrassu's lightsabre burned through the shoulder of another man, many floors down from the roof. Left was fighting alongside him, the Massassi steadily overpowering two acolytes he fought, until one was split in half, and the other was force pushed through the wall and emerged on the other side a cripple. At that point, A'sharad's lightsabre was turned downwards in the man whose shoulder he was impaling, and it burned through his heart before he removed his blade from him.

Continuing on towards the staircase, they had cleared many of the floors of soldiers that had been firing upon the Graush's landing shuttles.

One of them had crashed, but others had taken its place and they continued bringing more soldiers.

"Lord Ubaron is hiding in his laboratory. We'll put an end to him there."

Both Left and A'sharad leapt down the stairs before him and he followed soon after, but when they got down there, they found that Graush Troopers were already on the floor.

"My Lord, the last of Ubaron's Troopers are in the basement. One of our trooper's said he spotted Ubaron's shuttle leaving in a hurry as we landed, some time after you and your own breached the interior."

"Where is that trooper now?"

"Dead, My Lord."

"We'll search the estate nonetheless. Prepare to torch the house."

 

[Asharad Graush]

"Yes, My Lord," the Trooper Captain said as he turned about to issue orders to his severely diminished squad. They may have been few, but A'sharad came to the realization that his presence gave them a morale boost. Or perhaps they merely didn't want to be executed for failure. There were only a handful of times he'd execute someone that served him, and that had only occurred once, but they didn't need to know that.

The Zuguruks who worked on the Ison Citadel knew of his ruthlessness.

He nodded to Left and they continued on down the staircase. They were moving to the basement. All the floors that they had passed on the way were filled with bodies of varying affiliations, but those that lived bore Graush symbols upon their armour and uniforms, and so they needn't die. But as they drew closer to the underground complex, there were more and more Graush Troopers around. Good. Those that were currently entering from the first floor were heading to the basement as per their orders from the Captain earlier.

As the Sith Knight and Warrior arrived in the basement, they were backed by at least three dozen Sith Troopers.

 

[Asharad Graush]

There was a single doorway blocking A'sharad's path.

He sighed.

He took a step back as the air exhaled from his lips and Left stepped in front of him to the door, retrieving his lightsabres and cut into the bulkhead door and began melting through it. The metal dripped from the door, starting from the area that was surrounding the lightsabre emitters, and it just dripped down along the door as they got open the centre of the door. Within a few minutes they had cut it open, and after a group effort of force pushing it out, it soared through the short expanse of space and struck a hole in the wall on the other side.

Left stepped to one side of the doorway to allow him entrance first.

A'sharad offered him nod as he stepped inside, the bulkhead twisted into a doorway and evidently a repeating blaster cannon emplacement, and he strode past it confidently. There weren't any guards, much of them must've been fighting upstairs and had left when they realized they couldn't hold the estate. It appeared that Lord Ubaron had certainly left his home unattended, though chances were he had taken his family with him.

A'sharad's golden orbs burned brightly as they strode into the laboratory.

 

[Asharad Graush]

A'sharad and Left imultaneously spotted the table full of DataPads and the group of scientists that were already on their knees before A'sharad.

"What is this?" He questioned, waving a hand over their heads as he approached them, lightly unclipping his lightsabre from his belt as the Sith Troopers flooded in behind the trio and began securing the room. Searching for other entrances, investigating the equipment that was already in the room, and when they got around to Vyrassu's part of the room, they searched the scientist's bodies.

"We've finalized the plans t-that you commissioned, My Lord."

"Have you?" He said curiously.

"Uuuhhhhhhh, yes, My Lord," the Sith scientist said.

A'sharad looked about the work space. It appeared that they were the last of the team that was working here. There weren't nearly enough to operate place as expansive as this. "The designs you had wanted for your ship had been completed for some time. As... the traitor Ubaron wanted, he told the rest of the Board of Directors that it was taking longer than expected due to the complexity of the schematics and... your wants."

Vyrassu exhaled again.

"Rise," he said. "You've cleared up much for me," he said with a nod of his head. "Send the finished product to my person computer," he said. "For your service, I'll grant you your lives. You'll serve me now," he says with an affirming nod of his head.

By the time they were all standing, A'sharad waved Left to follow him. He spotted the Captain from earlier amongst the gathered Troopers and he stopped to say, "Gather all of their equipment."

"We've done so already, My Lord," he said in a low voice.

Vyrassu's head turned to the side to look upon the Captain and his lips slowly broke out into a smile. "Kill them, Captain."

And the two Sith, Vyrassu and Left left.