Dominion Bearing Down on Botor | GA Dominion of Botor

[Bernard of Arca]

page claim gang, gang
Coruscant, Senatorial District
Actors: Maou Lanik Dawnstar
Act One: Victory

An air of intensity surrounded Bernard as he shifted from one leg to the other facing the turbolift door. The senator behind him had considered requesting a floor stop but reconsidered the moment Bernard had shifted his gaze backwards, the pressure of determination in his eyes proving too much for the senator to contest. The ride continued in near silence, only broken by the quiet droplets of rain still pearling off the arkanian's jacket. The intensity Bernard radiated bore down on the senator and his aide. They regarded the arkanian as though it was blood, not rain, streaming from his clenched fists. When the lift reached its destination and he rushed out the doors, they finally dared to draw another breath.

The deep reds and purples of the senate's decor were tainted with an unsettling presence in the moonlight. The arkanian's extended spectrum of sight did little to ease the unworldly darkness that absorbed the space around him. The saboteur's emotion shone within the Force, however, guiding Bernard's path through the senate's labyrinthine corridors; though it was a beacon that had long been corrupted. The once noble spirit of the saboteur was sullied by malignant sin which coated it in oily shadows. There was no doubt in Bernard's mind about the evil that had befallen Lanik when he sensed his presence in the Force. It painted the path towards the struggle with a distinctive malaise that sent piercing electricity through the padawan's old wounds.

Dazzling light flickered from within the room where Bernard felt the conflict's presence. Brilliant violet trembled over an undercoat of blue that shone against the wall opposite the doorway. As Bernard dashed towards it the smell of ozone became thick in the air, the sound of crackling electricity dominated the soundscape. The pained screams of Lanik's victim briefly pierced the overbearing noise and added new urgency to Bernard's movements. Every moment counted. If he hesitated even to consider a plan of attack, another innocent life might fall to the false knight's blade.

Bernard slid to a halt before the doorway, taking what momentum he retained to push off into the room. The bright shine of lightning impaired his sight, but the scene was clear to read. Lanik stood above the senator, actively incapacitating him with Sith's lightning while his blade bore down for the execution. Even his tactics were repugnant. The Jedi's eyes locked squarely with the traitor's obscured face. Saving the senator took priority as his first goal. Lanik's blade was already coming for the senator, there wasn't enough time to make the dash to save him, but there was another way. The lightsabre detached from Bernard's utility belt on its own; guided by the Force it spun forward, its ice-blue blade extending with a hiss as it surged to intervene in the other lightsabre's path. Bernard gave the blade one last push as it outpaced him, then shifted his attention to the traitor knight.

Emotion swelled within Bernard's soul with every one of his footfalls. Too many months had passed since their second encounter on the Embrace had left him injured and scarred, even more since Lanik had escaped their first fateful encounter on Kuat. Bernard's every waking breath was spent either in pursuit of the light's enemies or preparing and training for precisely that purpose. Every action he took was in the name of the Jedi. In the name of the innocents whom the dark side threatened. Harsh experience had taught him the pain of loss. A debilitating and destructive force that would consume a person if they let it fester, but Bernard had taken the pain and transformed it into determination, into purpose. Lanik had become the focus of that singular purpose. As a fallen Jedi, he'd become the burning catalyst that pushed Bernard to move forwards, never stopping in pursuit of threats to the light he held dear. All the pain he felt was recast into an unshakable determination that demanded justice for all those whom the dark side wronged.

The crescendo of emotion came to its zenith when he saw the time to strike against Lanik. White light of two lightsabres' clash served as his sign. The blades met and repelled each other. Bernard's own lightsabre first appeared to harmlessly deflect into the floor but was quickly redirected into the arkanian's hand seamlessly with a quick application of the Force. He caught the blade in a reverse grip. The durasteel felt cool in his hand; its presence consoling against the radiating heat of Sith's lightning crashing into his front. He placed his other hand on the sabre's pommel as he rushed forwards, bringing the sabre back, next to his waist, to deliver a blow to end the fallen knight's life. Wordlessly he slid to a halt before Lanik, lunging towards him to thrust the blade into his foe. It sought the traitor's heart. Bernard's gaze shifted to meet the traitor's eyes, fires of determination ablaze behind an emotionless facade.

 

[Lanik Dawnstar]

Coruscant
Senatorial Building
Tags: Maou | Shimrra Rin Bernard of Arca
Mood: Here

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In those final moments before dealing the final blow, time regressed to a crawl. The plasmatic blades hum even slowing. Arcing through the air the cobalt blade made its way to end the Corellian Senator’s life. To snuff out an existence of darkness, to bring at least a semblance of peace to the Galactic Alliance. There was no hate in Lanik’s heart, in fact as he looked upon the Senator he felt pity. How could one have lost themselves in such a way? What drove them to give themselves over to the dark? What did they gain for resigning themselves to the grasp of the darkside? It corrupted, it tormented, it was unforgiving.

So lost in concentration and thought, Lanik didn’t hear the footsteps, nor the activation of another blade. It was impossible to ever smell the ozone of one activating due to the lightning that coursed through the air. He didn’t see it till it happened. A blade the color of snow intercepting his own.

The blades clashed together, the magnetic fields flaring as the force from the throw sent Lanik’s arm reeling back, the hilt of his weapon flying away and out the window down to the streets below. Lanik’s only chance to end the threat that was Kaito gone, halted, but by who?

Forced to hold the electricity at bay Lanik’s eyes strained, blood slowly began to seep from his nose, as from seemingly out of thin air Bernard was there. Why? Why did he do this? Why possess this obsession? Lanik could potentially save himself in these moments, could summon the amphistaff, or even lash out against the other Jedi. Yet he couldn’t do such a thing. Despite that glare in Bernard’s eyes. That look that bordered on insanity, Lanik would not raise his hand against him.

Memories of Kuat flashed through Lanik’s mind as the blade of snow penetrated the air. How they’d fought then and he’d done his best to spare the other. Looking into the eyes of Bernard, Lanik gave up, his muscles loosening and head leaning back.

The white blade thrust through the center of Lanik’s chest as though he were made of flimsi. A sickly sweet scent filled the air. A gasp escaping the elder Jedi’s throat as he felt his time on the physical plane coming to an end.

In those final moments, blood pouring from Lanik’s eyes, escaping from his mouth and even his ears as his organs were destroyed he offered a forgiving smile to Bernard. The warrior’s left arm went limp and the lightning once held at bay engulfed Lanik.

The body of the one-time Jedi was lifted from the ground by the force of the electricity, what bit of life that remained stripped of it by the cascading bolts.

 

[Ryv]

// Battle of Botor //
// Near Capital City, Bram //
// Take the City and put the Coalition to the Blade //
// Lanik Dawnstar // Allyson Locke // Bernard of Arca //

​

Ryv caught up to Allyson, falling in step beside her, his saber an impenetrable wall for the screeching blaster bolts as they zipped towards them. Between the two Jedi, the defenders couldn't hope to overwhelm the attackers, so they fell back further down the street. The Coalition's forces managed to put together an organized retreat, ensuring they weren't immediately overwhelmed by the slow-moving Alliance squadron. Maynard's voice sounded over the commlink, providing Ryv enough direction to pause their march. The Blade of Ruusan flashed forward once, batting one bolt back at the assailant, expertly taking the blaster rifle from his hands. As the last of them rounded a corner out of sight, the Jedi Knight looked back to the soldiers at his six and motioned for everyone to pause their push.

"Alright, Outrider and his squad are pushing whatever is dropping hell and a half on us, so lets clear the street and break into two groups. Allyson," Ryv looked to the Corellian. "Take Dirk and Fiasco and move push through the backstreets. It seems like they're clearing out of this sector. Clean up the leftovers, so our reinforcements aren't ambushed," his attention shifted from the Jedi Shadow to the two remaining troopers. "We're going to push into the building lining the eastern side of the main road and breach and clear our way up to their next checkpoint. Our main objective is securing this region, am I clear?"

"Sir, yes Sir!" the four soldiers barked out in unison, with both Dirk and Fiasco taking up a position at the mouth of a nearby alleyway. They awaited Allyson's orders silently.

"Keep your head on straight, Allyson. Comm for aid if you need help. Otherwise, we'll meet back up at the command post at oh five hundred," Ryv offered a smile and a wink before turning on his heel to press across the street. He dropped a shoulder and bashed down the door in one swift step, the Blade of Ruusan exploding to life once more. The cyan glow pierced the darkness of the room, immediately replaced by the sight of crackling electricity dancing all around the Jedi. He shook his head, faltering in his step as the hallucination subsided. His neck craned from left to right, searching for the source of whatever brought about the illusions. With nothing in direct line of sight, the Kiffar pushed deeper into the building, his weapon's light joined by the four small lights shining off the trooper's helmets. He pressed deeper into the structure, working through a doorway into an adjacent room. The building's backdoor appeared trapped midway through sealed and open, awkwardly scraping against the floor as it tried, and failed, to close.

Not slowing, Ryv squeezed through the threshold into the alleyway. Shouts of surprise echoed out from further in as two Coalition fighters turned to face him.

"Open fire!" one called out, resulting in a sudden flurry of blaster fire by both.

"Shit," Ryv lifted his hands and called the force to his aid. A shimmering barrier coalesced before them, appearing to thrum with the cosmic power in waves as each bolt dissipated on impact. Once again, the Jedi Knight's eyes glazed over, his consciousness in an unfamiliar place as crackling lightning replaced the crimson blaster bolts. He tried to look around, only to find himself trapped in whatever transpired before him. A cobalt saber that didn't quite belong to him clashed with a snow-white weapon, only to fly out of his grip and out of a shattered window. Before Ryv could see anything else, the alleyway once more welcomed him, the two soldiers limp on the ground.

"Are you alright, commander?" Sturge questioned.

"I, uh, yeah, I'm fine," Ryv dropped the barrier, his gaze scanning the alleyway for the Blade of Ruusan. It took him a moment to realize the heavy saber hadn't left his hand, his knuckles white from clutching tight on the relic. "Let's move forward," the Jedi motioned to another door at the end of the alleyway. Marv blasted the controls as Sturge pushed in, the career-soldiers clearing corners as efficiently as one might put on a shirt. Ryv followed behind them, his hold on the heavy saber not slackening as a sense of dread somehow pierced the weapon's force-infused powers. As both soldiers disappeared around a corner, the sounds of a fight echoing from their location, the Jedi slowed, a hand sliding along the surface of the hallway wall.

"What the hell?" Ryv willed himself forward, picking up the pace. His step faltered almost immediately, cold falling over his being as terror latched onto his heart. Everything seemed to freeze as the Kiffar's legs gave out beneath him, his heart skipping a beat the moment Bernard's saber impaled Lanik, piercing the Jedi Knight's chest with no resistance. Ryv's knee hit the ground, hard, as he struggled to breath. Panic ripped the words from his throat, a cold sweat encasing him as his body shook violently. He swallowed, struggling to find his voice. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he finally managed to find it, a single word escaping his trembling lips.

"Lanik?"

 

[Maou]

MUSIC

On death's door, the near burning corpse of a man that he was could only watch in terror as Lanik's blade arced down on him. He closed his eyes, ready to let it all end. His revenge, his ambition, all of it, done and gone. He took a deep breath, stopped the flow of lightning, and then...He felt the rage and the sound of a lightsaber activating across the room. He looked over and saw a lightsaber flying towards him. So Lanik wouldn't be the one that would end him. Another Jedi. Had he really made so many mistakes, left so many trails to follow?

The blade, however, stopped the Jedi Knight's and sudden realization flooded his face. This Jedi...was here to SAVE him. He smirked, bringing the Force to bear once again and as the Knight gave in and was stabbed by the other Jedi coming to his defense, he released a Force push, sending the dying Jedi to his doom.

I didn't even have to convince him. That was easier than I thought. He may pose a fine tool yet...

Kaito held his remaining hand out for a moment and let it fall as he collapsed in a heap, wheezing. He recognized this one, Bernard. He'd had a spat with Lanik on Kuat according to the now DEAD Jedi Knight. Fitting that the man finally got what he wanted. As his vision began to cloud and darken he reached out towards the white-haired Jedi, his fingers barely able to be lifted from the transparisteel spattered floor.

"Help me Bernard...I'm...I'm too weak..."

Lanik Dawnstar Bernard of Arca

 

[Jarael Belaerys]

L O C A T I O N | Market Square

O B J E C T I V E | Battle of Botor

T A G S | Gala Geert
​

Her mind was getting blurry, herself was not herself. Jarael watched in horror as her body danced in the street against the green warrior, swinging her gun all around the field unleashing a hellish show of pellets through the air. Her feet moved forward and then to the left, to jump to the right and then run backwards, her whole body moved and she couldn't even control him, but Jarael noticed that she could now remember things she couldn't even remember. imagine on 'normal' days. Only everything was like images painted on loose portraits, nothing was really constant.​

She saw the oily black stone door open, followed by a dimly lit corridor and then nothing else. She just remembered a woman with a hideous mask covering her lips over her, eyes dark and yellow at the same time, murmuring coldly with a scalpel in her fingers.​

"Now how about we fix that attitude of yours?"​

And then she remembered little and nothing, dead people with sharp teeth snarling and drooling black ooze from the corners of their mouths. And then nothing, there was nothing but small lapses of forgetfulness, filled with shadows and darkness, did she understand the words of the green woman and did her head want to believe them, or did she want to forget? She felt like she woke up and slept a thousand times in a minute, it was at a time like this that her mind woke up to just feel her body deviating from a blade and her arms rising to go down the torrent with the SR-47 again while her legs made her move away from the enemy.​

It was then that she heard the click. That famous noise that a gun made at the most necessary time to run out of ammunition and when the hands went alone to get the power cell to reload the gun, closing her fingers around the canister just in time for her eye to notice the grappling hook rolling itself around her ankle, just in time for her mind to think.​

'Oh damn it…', her leg got pulled in a single thrust by the flying alien woman, Jarael screamed senseless as she dropped the SR-47 in the floor.​

“I can’t control my body, i can’t control my body!” she roared angrily, her hands touching all over her own body as her right hand grabbed her SR-17 heavy pistol, successfully closing it in her fingers, but like a clumsy Hutt she began firing up, trying to hit her mark. As she slowly began to regain control of her other hand, her head started to burn as she felt something beneath the eye-patch. ​

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[Constantine Oliva]

Objective: Destroy

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The majority of the pirate forces were destroyed or scattering, and the Hawk hadn't even lost its shields. The station remained active, and it seemed to be heavily armed, however. The Hawk and the station exchanged fire, but Constantine quickly had the Hawk pull out of range. The station definitely had the firepower to hold off a Warrior-II. While it was likely that the Hawk alone could destroy it, Constantine didn't want to risk losing the ship or any crew. It was better to wait for reinforcements.

It wasn't a long wait. Fairly soon, two other Warrior-IIs, the Snake and the Shark, appeared on scanners, and Constantine ordered a comms channel opened to them both.

"This is Captain Oliva of the Hawk. We've destroyed the Pirate fleet, but the station is a bit to well armed for us to take on alone. However, the three of our ships can easily destroy it. Shall we?"

Both captains agreed, and the three ships moved to fire. It didn't take long for the three ships to overwhelm the station's shield and tear it apart.

 

[Gala Geert]

Objective 3 - Battle of Botor // Botor system // Bram
Armour // Swords
Jarael Belaerys ​

Ensnared in Gala's tether, the boisterous objections from the woman below were getting cumbersome. Then she started firing random shots upward. Wrangling the woman and avoiding the streaks of energy proved to be too much, and one hit their mark on the cusp of her jetpack. A plume of smoke erupted, and the commando started to spiral. <Mother of –––>

The pack sputtered and protested, downward twirling the woman down to the ground. The collision to the dirt was unceremonious, and she skidded into the mud with a loud OOF.

On her back, she struggled to collect enough wind to fill her lungs with a series of gasps as she moved to tabletop position, crawling to the end of her line. The woman thrashing like a fish out of water. Instantly, Gala was on her –– breath or no breath. One arm's elbow (the one where the grappling hook had come from) dug into the shoulder of the woman, the other free hand produced her shoto that slipped against the neck of the woman.

Through the modulation of her helmet, and clenched teeth, she hissed out a sentence close to the pale woman's ear:

<Look, lady, you seem like you've got some demons happening. Let's do this nicely, or we end it here. The Jedi I'm with have a soft spot for Forcies like you. Maybe they can help –– after your trial for gunning down GA soldiers, of course.>

The blade tensed against the woman's exposed pillar of flesh..encouragingly.

 

[Jarael Belaerys]

L O C A T I O N | Botor, Market Square.

O B J E C T I V E | Battle of Botor

T A G S | Gala Geert

​

Falling down was never something anyone was very fond. All her lips could were drop a terrible howl filled with pain. Even if she was not in control of her own body, Jarael could feel her pain, her tiredness expressed as a faint soundless tune that would serve as experience for her if she were to ever survive this, and she did had doubts about that. What if this was all a bad dream? Something that wasn’t real, a trick played by the mind. ​

‘No. It is not a dream.’ the voice of her mind warned her and Jarael he despaired for a moment, a long moment that seemed to last an eternity.​

And as if the whole world was spinning, her blue sapphire eye watched in confusion as her entire body rolled across the terrain with the green-skinned woman, as if they were two animals in search of survival. There was mud on her face, she knew that for sure, as she felt the grains of filth covering a part of her cheek, something she was not sure of feeling before, almost as if her body was recovering what had been lost.​

Control.​

But not everything was so easy, what still controlled her lost her weaponry almost all over the floor and even when she felt the blade pressed against her throat, the thing still insisted on giving her body some governance because her right hand kept the tip of his pistol gently pressed against the woman's ribs and without her having any control, his was alone against the trigger, everything in his body screaming for him to do the opposite and it was with hardness, against all the will of his body that he pressed the trigger. A moment that almost made her scream, but filled the air with the sound of the pistol's empty click, sending a wave of pure relief through her body almost as if she had reached climax.​

"Thank the Force ...", her lips muttered only once, her eye rolled to face the woman in front of her, she snorted like a racing animal. "Thank you ...", she murmured between sighs to the woman, Jarael felt her body returning to her control and immediately, perhaps to prove it, she brought her head forward and stuck her thin, pale lips to hers. Something so fast that it would last for just a second, before her eye widens and she struggles to free herself for a little more space, tipping her head to the side and watching in disgust when she vomits, not just liquid but also something that it looked more like a very fat leech, brown and green was the thing and as soon as she left Jarael she started to crawl away from the two of them.​

"I accept ... your offer.", Arkanian spoke with the blue eye focused on the crawling creature beside them.​

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