Betrayal Isn't Allowed

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Lord Daemos"] | [member="Rave Merrill"] |

En route to Daemos's estate

Betrayal could come in many forms and each could be as subtle and destructive as the next. Some were huge in terms of emotional and personal value, whilst others were of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. The Sith Lord that was making her way to a man who she had fought once during a Mandalorian invasion of a now crippled and destroyed Sith world, whilst having bartered with for lost knowledge, was a man called Daemos, self proclaimed Lord, known to some as Northstar or Damien. That didn't matter to Darth Ayra. What did matter was his connection to a set of events that had led her to a self imposed exile on Sojourn. But that exile was over now and someone had to pay for it.

She couldn't think of anyone better than Daemos. It wasn't difficult to figure out how Rave Merrill had learned so much about her in the intervening months since their duel, which had nearly claimed both Sith Lord and Nightsisters lives. A rare few had been privy to the information that Merrill had procured. The Force-sensitives that Ayra had taken as students had been measured and not found wanting in the betrayal that had taken place. Pandeima was certainly not the culprit responsible, in both her mouth and the little vixen that she kept as a wife, whose leash had been properly secured; and the various business associates and friends she had made as Alicia Drey did not know much. She had considered [member="Christian Slade"], but the Kingpin of Coruscant Undercity had no reason to betray her; and [member="Darth Voracitos"] had simply disappeared. There was the One Sith, but she was one of them or so they thought; and the facade that she had presented to both them, their Sith Lords and the Dark Lord of the Sith that had recruited her was solid and infallible.

That only left Daemos. Questions needed answering. Blood thirst needed to be quenched. A hooded figure came to a stop outside the estate building with Lightsaber in hand. Yellow, predatory eyes were set upon the architecture and walls, if there were any.

Darth Ayra had returned and she came with a fire.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Vhette"]

There wasn't much left of the estate building. Rave had double-crossed Daemos in spectacular fashion; the estate had taken twenty turbolasers' worth of flak at six kilometres per second. Apart from the outbuildings and reconstruction efforts, all that really remained was Daemos' desk, a huge metal affair that Rave had alchemized. She'd used that desk and a Force shield to keep herself alive as she stood at ground zero.

Drey's arrival had triggered a quiet alert, courtesy of a small satellite in orbit. Despite Tera Lush's remote position, the Lethewalker exited hyperspace not long after Drey reached the gutted estate on foot.

In due course, a shuttle, Niathal-class, touched down nearby. The woman who emerged wore a slim suit of golden leather over red shell-spider silk, alchemized within an inch of its life. A sword rode her hip, opposite a curved dagger.

She whistled a tune to herself as she cast her mind about the location.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Darth Ayra was not going by her alias of Alicia Drey, which she was affiliated too by the woman that approached, nor the bounty hunter and mercenary Vhette. She wore dark clothes, but not a robe this time. Unlike their duel on the Lethewalker, which she dared thought was the closest Rave Merril and she had come to death doors, Ayra had come to fight. She wore blaster resistant weaves underneath her midnight black garments, but nothing a Lightsaber or sturdy knife couldn't break through. Her ultimate defense was a Lightsaber, her martial art skills and the dark side of the Force.

Two disruptor pistols and combat knives hung on her hips, alongside a Lightsaber and Saberstaff. Her Lightsaber was already in hand as she sensed the Nightsisters arrival. She spoke as Rave made her way to the compound gates. "It looks like you saved me the effort, Merrill. Is Daemos dead?"

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Vhette"]

"I should really care, I should really find out, but I can't bring myself to do either. Too much else to do." Entropy rasped clear of its sheath; she rested the back of the blade on her leather-clad shoulder. "Spending too long trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to hurt you. In what arena, in what order, to what degree. And to be honest, Ayra, I haven't decided yet. I haven't even decided what to do with you once I kill you. They say Ashin Varanin once threatened to bind the Dark Lord's soul to a toilet if he didn't back off from Carida. Pity he lost that battle; I'd have liked to see that happen. For you, I'm thinking either a Force-blind, crippled body or binding your soul to an indestructible item of Mandalorian underclothing. But it's early days yet."

 

[Matreya]

Standing mid his recently altered wardrobe, Damien pondered his choices. His new form seemed unable to look good in his previous forms clothing.

"Damien? Did you not hear me? They are literally outside!" Fen's voice came from behind him once more, breaking the silence.

"Yes, yes Fenrir. I heard you." Finally his choice was made. An exotic styled tuxedo made of multiple fibers found galaxy wide, jet black in design with a sheer white dress shirt under the coat.

After finishing his dress, Damien stepped to his front door and threw it open.

Looking between both Rave and Ayra, he called, "How may I assist you? If you seek Damien Daemon, he is dead, all of his worldly belongings were left to me, down to endentured servants.

"Taking that, and my having no knowledge of either of you, into consideration, I am going to guess it has to do with some kind of cookie sales?" He arched his brow inquisitively while sliding both hands inside his pants pockets.

Without his original form, voice, or any other form of recognition, they would have difficulty recognizing him. His thoughts wouldn't betray him as they shuffled and flipped, ever changing so as to never give a true impression of his identity. But he hadn't sided with both thinking them dim-witted, thus he also focused on his signature through the Force. Art of the Small was useful in this end, not making it vanish, no instead dulling then jumbling it up. If they concentrated enough, it was likely they would know him however.

But given a completely different person before them, with a different demeanor as well, what would make them figure this man the very same?

[member="Rave Merrill"] [member="Vhette"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Lord Daemos"] | [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Ayra did not know if the new arrival that emerged from the estate was Lord Daemos or not. How could she? But what the man could confirm is what happened to Daemos and he knew that as well. Disguise or not, the Sith Lord decided then and there that the man stood before her would answer her questions, whether he wanted too or not.

But there was the Nightsister that had instigated this duel based on what she knew and what she had discovered. No, she did not know about the Rule of Two or the revival of the Order of Sith Lords. At least, according to her. The gravity of Daemos's betrayal had not yet been ascertained. But Ayra did know that Rave Merril was aware that she was a Sith Lord that posed as Alicia Drey, the CEO of Chandrila DataTech; and that was a leak in itself that had to be fixed.

What other betrayals she learned of on Tatooine that day would be ascertained over time.

"Return to your estate," Ayra said to the man. "I will be with you shortly." Her gaze then turned back to Rave. The briefest of seconds passed, where the two women locked eyes and cemented themselves in the situation. Battle was going to happen. The beast within the Sith Lord rose it's head and roared itself through her; and the snap hiss her Lightsaber initiated the fight.

She was upon Rave in a Force Speed and her Lightsaber carving down towards the Nightsister faster than you could say betrayal.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Lord Daemos"] [member="Vhette"]

Short, economical movements, the kind that Masamune Tametomo had taught her. Ferocity, yes, but ferocity tempered by efficiency. Focus without tension, relaxation without lassitude.

Entropy came up off Rave's shoulder and settled into a two-handed grip just in time to catch Ayra's downward strike. The lightsabre skittered against the blood-forged alchemical songsteel without so much as dulling the edge, and ricocheted off to the right, a handspan above a hilt made from a dragon god's scales. Rave quickstepped in and to the left, twisting her wrists into a point-blank hacking cut. Her blade crashed down at the outside of Ayra's right wrist, and lightning sprayed from the bladetip, an arcthrower-crack like a flashbang beside Ayra's face. That arc of lightning wasn't intended to paralyze or burn, though it could do that if Ayra was sloppy; instead, she'd meant it to create a momentary opening.

An opening that went backward in time. Like any Master, like any blademaster, Ayra certainly had some degree of one- or two-second precognition at her disposal, and nothing dazzled precog like a point-blank Force emanation, an urgent impression of oncoming light and sound and heat. Rave wasn't trying to set her up for a followup strike so much as get her off mental balance for the wrist strike that had come an instant before the lightning.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] | [member="Lord Bubkis"] |

[OOC: Probably the latest reply you've ever had. I hope we can continue now that I am back.]

Ayra spun her Lightsaber, feet moving backwards in the split second precognition that came with her status as a Blademaster. Confusion, thus, came over the Sith Lord and was subsequently then quickly overridden by pain as the strike caught her by the wrist, forcing her to buckle under it's weight and down into the ground.

As she rolled down into the ground, she took the momentum of her downward spiral to carry her in a barrel roll back up onto her feet. Her eye sight was dulled and thus she was on the defensive. Spinning her Lightsaber in her palm, the Sith Lord felt a pain in her right wrist from where the Entropy had encountered it. Fortunately, Darth Ayra worse wrist gauntlets which had protected her hand from being completely severed. Duels were not sprints, however, and thus overtime, the injury would have an effect on her form. Time would tell what effect it would have on her.

Centering herself in the Force, the Sith Lord rose a barrier around her as she performed a Soresu movement. She had done this many times during her time under the tutelage of Darth Ferus and was thus able to maintain the motions, despite her blurred eye sight. As she did this, the flash that had taken her would begin to ware away.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Darth Ayra"] had rolled back, come to her feet, surrounded herself in a barrier and made a Soresu-y motion (a chop soresuey, perhaps). Rave spent that time declining to advance. She spent that time doing what she did best, perhaps better than anyone alive.

Aperion-based alchemy.

Time and gravity began to twist around Ayra, in an attempt to slow her, bear her down under increased and variable weight, make her unable to trust her own feet as gravity shifted gently in this direction or that. Always one to conserve strength, she had no desire to try gravitic variations of more than a few degrees -- throwing Ayra into buildings or into the sky was what telekinesis was for, and that constituted a waste of power. Rave's specialization was such that this sort of thing took less power and focus than standard telekinesis.

The overall impression which Rave sought to achieve, as she used the subtly altered midichlorians of her own cells to touch aperion directly, was one of powerful weight and highly unstable footing; the end goal had to do with enhanced fatigue and maybe a rolled ankle or something...

...but mostly uncertainty. Ayra was educated in the Force; Rave's research and their last fight had confirmed that. She would likely understand enough of what was happening to know that, on balance, after fifty years of warping the fabric of reality, Rave's skillset had not suffered for its specialization. Fifty years before the forge, bending fundamental forces into new shapes on a molecular level, understanding the laws of mass and attraction and repulsion. Fifty years twisting the laws of physics until her creations rivaled anything the grand old Lords had made. This attempt to weigh the bigger woman down, tire her, make her uncertain on her feet was a practical one, to be sure, but at its heart it was nothing less than Dun Moch without words.

Past the blade of her sword, Darth Talion smiled. It didn't reach her eyes.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] | [member="Lord Bubkis"] |

Her Lightsaber was a flash for the several seconds it took for the flash to subside and allow her to come to her senses. Darth Ayra ceased her Lightsaber barrier. It had been raised as a precaution against her opponent, as she had been taught. It was a mistake to think, however, that the Sith Lord had come to the fight thinking that she was entering a Lightsaber duel. Although she held some modest superiority with a Lightsaber, (she is a master of the seven Lightsaber techniques) Darth Ayra had learned a thing or two about her enemy. If not for the explosion of a nuclear warhead, the outcome of their last duel would have been different; and she wouldn't be here now, cleaning up after Circe Savan's mess. To allow someone like Rave Merrill to roam the galaxy simply would not and could not do.

She compromised everything.

As she rose to her full height, Lightsaber humming to her left, Ayra felt the gravitational anomaly. If the Sith Lord held some form of superiority physically, then it was established that the Nightsister had it in the Force. Her knowledge of the dark side was modest, in comparison to her enemy. Yet, Ayra knew that Rave was behind the anomaly that was shifting her off form. She swayed on her feet, eyes closing to concentrate. Ayra did not know how Rave was doing what she was doing, but she had an idea on how to throw her off her concentration. During her duel with Mikhail Shorn, she had gathered that those using techniques from afar often suffered when their concentration was disrupted by something or another. Thus, an idea came to mind.

Sith were a cruel people. They didn't play fair, as Rave discovered in their last encounter. Her eyes opened as the Force stretched from the Sith Lord and outward to sense out where her opponent was. Yellow eyes averted to where Rave was standing. Her hand found her disruptor pistol, fastened to her utility belt and was subsequently lifted in the direction of the Nightsister. Her fingers focused fire in a wave, several shots piercing out around the area in a wide arc, with a mere three second delay in between each shot. The idea was that Ayra had covered each direction Rave could move, except up, down or behind something that could block the shot. The latter seemed folly, however. Disruptor bolts were known to tear through the inanimate and then some, disintegrating everything in it's path.

Ayra was put off with her shots, however. She was off balance due to the aperion based alchemy that Rave employed. Her aim was slightly off, despite her senses and pin point accuracy with a pistol of any kind; and it was a testimony to the gravitational affects, which had thrown Ayra off her trigger happy response. In normal circumstances, the Sith Lord would have accurately fired on Rave; her balance would of been that an expert marks man readying for a shot; and her finger would of triggered a lot faster than three seconds.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Darth Ayra"]

Rave permitted herself a very small, calm smile past her sword as a pair of high-powered disruptor bolts slammed into her chest.

They did exactly nothing.

The armor she had worn, the slimline golden leather, was possibly the most advanced alchemical armor she'd ever created. It had cost her in blood; she'd labored over it for a long time. It had its limitations, its weaknesses. Against conventional weaponry, against lightsabres too, it offered only moderate resistance, commensurate with its nature: though mastercraft, it remained leather. Mostly.

Against a handful of weapons and techniques that various people used as be-all end-all against powerful Forcers, it was untouchable. Things like sonic overpressure, or Shatterpoint, or de-alchemization, or the pistols that Ayra had favored in their last fight. Ayra could justifiably be flattered: she was one of four people who had inspired this suit of armor, and the long labor that had gone into its creation. The armor had pleased Rave enough that it had become her standard attire, trusting her other skills as proof against conventional attacks. Blasters, slugthrowers she could handle on her own steam. For the high-wattage alternatives, the things that could send tremors and distortions through matter at a fundamental level, rip it apart at the seams, she'd chosen to create a counter that defied disincorporation.

Rave believed in biding her time. This, right here, was part of why she'd taken so long to make a countermove in the great game she'd been playing with Ayra and Circe. Power could be understood in both objective and subjective terms, the latter hinging on one's ability to project that power in a given situation. The mightiest fleet was useless if it couldn't get to the target in time; by the same token, an alchemist's projected power hinged on preparation time. Time like she'd spent making this armor. Time like the double handful of seconds that Ayra spent firing her disruptor spread with three seconds between each shot. Time that let Rave get a very good handle on whatever paltry nervousness was involved in getting shot with a weapon to which she knew herself to be functionally immune.

The smile grew decidedly cruel as Ayra fired, and with disruptor blasts flickering around her, Rave put her full strength into attempting to increase Ayra's weight by hundreds of pounds, at something like an oscillating twenty-five-degree angle to the ground.
[member="Darth Ayra"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Darth Ayra collapsed to her knees, although she had not wanted too. The gravity around her was forcing her to them and her teeth gritted against the invisible force that was making her submit to the Nightsister. Surprise gripped the Sith Lord and it was audible in the Force. For Rave Merrill to possess a material that could withstand a disruptor bolt was unheard of to the Sith Lord. Only someone who was powerful in the dark side could create such a thing.

Surprise was quickly replaced by rage. The type of rage only the Sith could muster, with the monster within raise it's snout to the thirst of a serial murderer, trapped within the cool visage and demeanor of a sociopath who cared for nothing or nobody else except herself. Such was the mind of Darth Ayra and any Sith who had the intentions to rule the galaxy. But if she was to rule then she could not allow Rave Merrill to continue. She had to dig deep into the Nightsister, not only with her Lightsaber, but to discover the truth to the hidden groups that served as barricades against her reign.

It was why she was here. Rave Merrill was the source to the Order of Selab, the Tion Hegemony and the Lords of the Fringe. Darth Ayra did not know their names, who was in it and their purpose, save for the Fringe Confederate who now served as a galactic government. But she knew that when she discovered the Hazard Beauty and retrieved the Sith Abatarr for the short period of time she owned it, that she had discovered a group of people that had enough wealth, contacts and power to stop her galactic intentions. She would destroy them all and take from them what suited her.

Consequentially, a ripple in the Force emanated from the Sith Lord. The Force Wave was a powerful thing, atomizing those who were in a meter radius of it and blowing back those who were further along. Rave would not be atomized, for she was too far away. But for a second time, Darth Ayra attempted to disrupt her focus with an attack. She had resorted to her disruptor pistol because she had not wanted to exchange her energy to do so. Up until now, nothing had stood in the way of a disruptor in her hand and it had not taken much to fire it. But now she was left with no choice.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Darth Ayra"]

Few attacks were as visually distinctive -- before, during and after -- as a Force Repulse; Rave saw it coming even before Ayra launched it. Plenty of time to do exactly what Ayra wanted her to do and break her focus. She had no desire to be burned or thrown by the telekinetic shockwave. Digging deep, she applied the Force in a far more compact way than Ayra's wasteful area-of-effect -- a tendency Rave had noted well in their last fight. Ayra enjoyed throwing around wide, taxing powers that were difficult to dodge. The shockwave met Rave's still-upraised sword-

And split.

The sword could do this on its own, but to make absolutely sure of it, Rave withdrew her gravitic manipulation from Ayra's surroundings. Instead, she bolstered Entropy's unique properties, the strange and evil powers she'd wrestled into the form of a two-handed blade. She expanded its Forcecutting properties to split the shockwave cleanly and wide. Powerful wind rushed past her to either side, battering her arms and legs with bruising force, but she held her footing.

An instant later, in the potentially panting, balance-seeking, mind-flayed aftermath that usually attended a good Force Repulse -- she'd done it once or twice, and seen Ayra do it; she knew how the technique took it out of you if you did it with any serious strength behind it -- in that moment of stillness and recoil, she struck back. The countermove needed no physical attack to center it; she could move quickly, but her mind was quicker, and she had no need to build up overwhelming power. She just needed an opening like this, and a moment of opportunity. A moment when Ayra was coming off the downside of a high-wattage AOE blast, and realizing that she was free of Rave's gravitic manipulation. A moment when Ayra, at a guess, would be intent on getting up, moving fast, and hitting hard.

Fundamentally, her attack was the simplest alchemical application around. The challenge here was the fundamental fact that, in order to use the Force to directly affect the body or personal weapon of another Force-user, in any way more complex than a push or a choke, one had to get through an aura proportional to the target's strength. Strength, and attention -- attention that Ayra, if she was serious about coming off the Force Repulse strong, getting mobile to avoid a potential second gravitic pindown, and maybe closing the distance to eviscerate Rave with her lightsabre, might not have to spare.

Rave had transitioned smoothly from denial of motion to denial of momentum; now she took the offensive, as surgically precise as an uplift scalpel. Her target was visible, her method quick, her intention simple, her concept original. In the moment immediately after Ayra attacked and regained her freedom, the Nightsister's mind lashed out.

With the express goal of turning Ayra's vitreous humors permanently opaque.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

The ground around the Sith Lord was flung up by the repulse, lifting up the sand around Darth Ayra in a ripple effect. A small crater in the sand stood beneath the Sith, toppling a wall near the estate where she had sought out Daemos and instead came up with her primary target. The gravitational effect on the Sith Lord had been lifted, with thanks to the repulse. As she intended, Rave Merrill's concentration had been broken so as to defend an attack that couldn't be defended. With her arms and body pinned down, Ayra was left with no choice but to choose to wave the Force around her, for she couldn't lift her arms to utilize a Push or Choke and her concentration was on not crumbling down under the invisible force.

The heat on her body felt familiar, but did not burn as much as Kalist's star had done. Since her youth, Darth Ayra had been put through the type of physical duress that would of made men twice her size and age crumble. All of it was brought on by the desert nomad, a Sith Lord who had called himself Darth Mendacium. He had taught Ayra and another called [member="Darth Avara"] during the times of the Four Hundred Darkness. Hidden in the Deep Core on the abandoned and lifeless desert world, Mendacium sought to train two who would rise out of the darkness and usher a new era.

Thus, physical duress was something that Ayra found not too uncommon in her relative short life; and the Sith Lord rose back up to her feet in a flash. Her Lightsaber snapped back to life with a hiss, her robes hanging from her body and long strands of blonde hair around her. She had extraordinary stamina and physical fitness. Many people in the galaxy would have been worn out by the denial of motion that the Nightsister had put Ayra through. But not Darth Ayra. She stood firm, a tank that could take a sustained amount of damage and still find a way to continue.

Retreat was a word in her vocabulary, but only when loss seemed inevitable. Her opponent had been in control of the duel thus far, but this only told the Sith Lord that she did not want a close quartered fight. The distance Rave kept. The utilization of alchemy to keep her down. The material that had negated the effects of a disruptor pistol. It told Darth Ayra that if she could close enough to Rave Merrill, then she would be the one in advantage. Until that time, she would have to continue standing firm and strong against her adversary. As Rave Merrill sought to dissect her opponent over time, first through the denial of motion and now the denial of momentum, Darth Ayra continued to learn, waiting for the right moment to attack.

A hand lifted from her side, whilst her other kept her Lightsaber to the left side. She had not yet taken a stance. Pain gripped the Sith Lord around her eyes. She felt an invisible force upon them and knew that Rave was attempting something. The vitreous humors, the gel that connects the lens and retina in the eyeball, was under attack. To Darth Ayra, it felt like an attack on her eyes. Thus she closed them, to shield out the Tatooine sun and dust that was still in the air from her repulse, hiding them behind her free hand. It appeared like she was face palming, as her chin lowered in thought.

Still, she had not mounted an offense. It was all Rave Merill thus far. Darth Ayra stood still, hand over her lowered eye lids, concentration on the pull on the Force that was attempting to make the clear gel between her lens and retina opaque, presumably to blind her. Around the Sith Lord, the air distorted and sand dispersed as the Sith Lord raised the Force. Risen around her, the invisible energy denied further effects on the Sith Lord's eyes. But there had been an effect.

Already, Darth Ayra felt her vision had been affected.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

Rave sensed partial success, and suspected that from a position of partial or temporary blindness, Ayra would turn to instinct or Force Sight -- something along those lines. With a quick mental flick, she switched from the Force to Vongsense, and vanished from the Force entirely. Just for a couple of seconds, just long enough to, perhaps, confuse or baffle Ayra's senses.

And in that brief interlude, she bent back her prosthetic right hand and fired her wrist's paralysis beam with a low hum. The beam slashed past the handgrip of the sword, above her left hand's knuckles. If the front of her sword's guard had been a ranged weapon, its line of fire would have been comparable to this. The Ssi-Ruuvi paddle beamer, miniaturized to fit inside her wrist, fired a gently sparking beam of gray as thin as wire. It ignored shields, and lightsabres could bend it by only a few degrees -- unless the sabre was specially tuned to deflect it, in which case the sabre could no longer deflect blasterfire. Quieter and faster than a blaster weapon, it was markedly less lethal; in fact, none. Whatever limb it intersected would go numb. If its path crossed the spine or head, partial or full paralysis, unconsciousness, or coma would result. She'd given blood and her young adulthood to the conquest of the regime that had invented this weapon; this technology was the prize of one of her life's greater achievements.

Still light-footed in her stance, she swept the three-second beam in a quick spiral emanating out from Ayra's center of mass. In the process, she regained the Force; her quick detour to Vongsense had served its purpose, presumably blunting Ayra's Force senses and relevant precognitive danger sense. Apart from a re-angling of her right wrist, she hadn't moved at all.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

The distortion that had risen around Darth Ayra, distorting her surroundings and making her appeared blurred in definition, was in fact the ripples of a Force Bubble that the Sith Lord had risen around her person. It was what had stopped the previous technique that Rave had been using to affect her eyes, and now protected her from the paralysis beam that the Nightsister had attempted to use on her, in the brief interlude between the assault on Ayra's vitreous humors.

Darth Ayra wasn't thick. She knew that with every attack, Rave was attempt to build and build on her, to create an advantage so vast that, when it came to a real fight and she moved in for a kill, her enemy would be too disadvantaged to mount a serious defense and subsequently lose the duel. That was how she thought, anyway. Remaining perfectly stationary now, the Sith Lord had built the bubble of protection around her and maintained her concentration on it until she felt ready to attack.

Her hand lowered from her eyes, as the ripple of blue energy and distortions around her were met by the paralysis beam Rave had fired from her wrist. The Lightsaber hummed beside her. She span the hilt in her hand to regain a firm grip and feeling of her weapon. For too long she had held it and hadn't yet used it in the proper course. That would all change soon.

Ayra's vision was blurred. If Rave had been completely successful, then it was a guess that she would become permanently blind until a cure was found. For now, however, her vision had only been affected to the point that she could make out shapes and movements, but without a clear distinction or definition. Her perspective was then on the blurred, crimson outline of her Lightsaber, until she lifted her gaze in the direction of Rave Merrill, who appeared to be some kind of distorted outline. She blinked once to try and clear the blur, but to no effect. She knew where Rave was, and would be able to follow her movements, but subtle moves such as the one with the paralysis beam could easily be overlooked by the Sith Lord. If not for her meticulous, careful ways and battle experience, then she might have lost the duel then and there. They were the only reasons why she had maintained the Force Bubble in the first place.

Did you know that the prelude to a Force Maelstrom was a Force Bubble? The beginning of a technique meant that they absorbed everything that was fired on the person, and then what was fired on the person was then blown outwards in an avalanche of Force Lightning, effectively creating an explosion. Ayra was no where near the levels necessary to cast such a technique, nor did she have the required concentration or energy to do so, as she had done to Ashe Seren during the New Order's invasion of Dromund Kaas. However, she had something in her to put Rave on the defensive.

Simply put, Darth Ayra lifted her free hand in the direction of Rave Merrill and shot Force Lightning from her finger tips towards the Nightsister. As she did so, she begun to walk towards Rave with every purpose to cut her limb from limb with her Lightsaber after the barrage of lightning subsided and she was close enough to do so. An underlying, seething anger that was all unadulterated was also rising in the Sith Lord.

She was very close to a Force Rage.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

As Rave readjusted her grip to bring her wrist back into alignment, Ayra's lightning slammed into the upraised sword.

And did exactly nothing.

"You never fething learn," she snapped, as harsh electricity whirled and crackled around the Sith sword. Even a basic Sith blade could collect lightning for later release, and Entropy was far more than that. The alchemized songsteel, the dragonscale and Lignan crystal, formed a sink for the electric discharge. The blade took on an unearthly glow that accentuated the red streaks in the metal -- her own blood, worked into the songsteel with a combination of alchemy and Force-imbuement. She'd used Entropy to split the earlier shockwave, but only as a focus for her own power; collecting Ayra's barrage of lightning, by contrast, required little thought or attention. This was what Sith swords, and this sword especially, were for.

The trapped lightning became a shield of crackling green, a Nightsister spell accomplished with a bladetip-drawn rune that hovered in the air and seared the eye. The shield took her effort, but the energy trapped by the sword sufficed to power it. From behind the translucent green shell, Rave surveyed her opponent.

"The funny thing is," she said, marking each moment -- she enjoyed using her opponents' monologues as openings -- "I'm fairly sure I could take you blade-to-blade without any of this."

The unasked question, of course, boiled down to why. Why would Rave accumulate advantages, why would she keep to her range game, if she was being truthful about how she saw their relative skill at close combat? Of the reasons, laudatory and contemptible alike, that suggested themselves to the active mind, one might be that Rave simply wanted Ayra to ask that question of herself, consciously or unconsciously. She'd already given Ayra uncertainty of balance and uncertainty of sight, but true victory dwelt in the soul. Oh, she knew Ayra would stay defiant to the end, but at some level the bigger woman had to know this fight was already over.

Rave wasn't, by and large, a winner. She'd lost her leg, and her right hand twice. Cybernetics and Vong biots had their place in a body riddled with scars. That she'd gotten results against Ayra and her Master boiled down to preparation, but as often as not, she simply found herself outmatched. And therein lay the answer. Rave Merrill tried to be careful. She managed her risks, conserved her resources, never use overwhelming force when finesse would do. Ayra, doubtless, knew that about her by now. What she would take from that lesson was anyone's guess, hence Rave's erection of the shield: just as she had Ayra's number, she was certain Ayra had hers.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

With each passing moment, Ayra was getting to know Rave Merrill. She did not believe that the Nightsister could match her in a Lightsaber duel, or in this case, a fight in which she would have to use Entropy as an actual sword, rather than the boost she had been using it for to defend her from the Force Lightning the Sith Lord had just fired at her.

Darth Ayra did learn. She knew that she had survived the attempts to make her vulnerable, for that was what she was: a survivor. She was a tank and possessed an extraordinary strength and stamina that meant that she would outlast her opponent, and at the same time, push them to the brink themselves. The monster inside Alicia Drey was rising it's snout now, listening to the claps of it's predecessors who anointed the coming of a new order, one that she would swear in one day. This simply meant that...

"I can't lose, Merrill," Ayra said, as she kept the hand that had fired the Force Lightning outstretched, but no longer firing the electrical currents. "I know that's difficult for you to understand. It isn't arrogance, it isn't me pretending that everything is going to be okay and that I will defeat you because I am a Sith Lord and because of this I have a divine right to defeat you."

"I can't lose."

With her outstretched hand, Darth Ayra concentrated on the shield that Rave Merrill had cast. She studied it, wanted to learn what it was and thus how to get past it. She considered launching an assault with her Lightsaber, but Rave Merrill had already told the Sith Lord that she would defend and subsequently it would a futile effort and expenditure of energy that she didn't want to spend.

Simply put, the Sith Lord had begun a boon in the dark side of the Force, empowering herself as the duel took longer to go on. Energy would be restored in places, which would then lead to a draw back later on, where it took a toll on her body. That was the thing with women like Darth Ayra. They were Sith and the longer a duel went on, the stronger they got, before eventualities such as physics, exhaustion and other factors came into play. But that would come at a later time, when her unadulterated rage that bubbled underneath her physical vessel took form and begun an assault Rave Merrill had yet to witness, encounter or know about the Sith Lord that was pacing around her.

 

[Velok the Younger]

"Consult your history," Rave sneered. "Learn what you are. Sith always lose in the end, no matter how strong they are, no matter how much they innovate and kill. Every great Dark Lord failed and fell. That's the nature of the beast. Fill ye up the measure of your fathers' path dependency, you imitation of an imitation."

Deliberately, she sheathed Entropy, dropped the shield, and turned to walk away.

"I'm done here."

[member="Alicia Drey"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Ayra watched on as Rave turned to leave... and did nothing. That would be a shocking thing in itself. Hadn't she just left herself open to the Sith? Why wouldn't she press her advantage? Her answer was simple: she had lost the duel. Taking down Rave Merrill would have to be done carefully, slowly over time. She could attack the woman now, but that wouldn't do anything. The dark side was not with her.

"I can't lose," she said again, as a matter of fact. As she watched Rave leave, her mind turned to another woman. Circe Savan, the person who had pulled her into this situation in the first place. Her Sith Master. Apprenticeships ended and her encounters with Rave Merrill had been the telling of the end.

"Savan is next Merrill. We will meet again."