Duel Blind Revenge is Tasteless | Acier Moonbound

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

Remowa sat in the center of the derelict gladiatorial arena, her back to a rusted pillar that had once held the banners of warlords. The silence of the wastes was punctuated only by the rhythmic skritch-skritch of her ceramic file against her nails. She was meticulously groomed, despite the blackened veins still tracing her neck from the Force Storm, a reminder of the price she had paid to survive the capital's fall.

Beside her, a battered Imperial transmission hub hummed with a low, inviting frequency. It was broadcasting a high-level enciphered pulse on a loop, the kind of signal that only elite scavengers or Covenant intelligence could crack. It promised coordinates to a "Deep Reserve Vault" a phantom slice of the Imperial Treasury meant to act as the ultimate lure.

"Hungry little birds," she whispered, her red eyes scanning the jagged rim of the arena above. "Always looking for a golden cage."

For the past three days, she had been preparing the sand. Hidden beneath the delicate gray powder was a network of repurposed seismic charges and the sharp fragments of her own shattered past in service to a dying Imperial cause. She wasn't seeking revenge for the Empire's collapse; rather, it was the excitement of the chase that captivated her.

Who among the Sith Covenant would dare to enter this pit, intending to eliminate her for the meaningless offense of remaining loyal to the one True Emperor of the Galaxy.

Her improved lightwhip lay coiled in her lap, its amethyst glow dimmed to a faint, pulsing violet. On Coruscant, she had been a conduit for a dying god. Here, among the ruins of a planet that knew only war, she was simply a predator waiting for the air to change. The wind shifted, carrying the faint, high-pitched whine of an approaching sublight drive.

Remowa's hand stilled on the file. She didn't look up. Instead, she tucked the file into her belt and allowed a sharp, humorless smile to touch her lips.

The bait had been taken.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

He didn't care about a "Deep Reserve Vault", or whatever the enciphered pulse had promised. He wanted Remowa. Ace had been tracking her for weeks. The Republic warrant provided the framework; the rest came from intercepted Imperial traffic, old ISB files, and a trail of rumors he followed until they converged on Rattatak.

The derelict gladiatorial pit loomed around him - stone eaten by time and violence. The Force pressed outward from him as he crossed into the bowl, no longer restrained, no longer quiet. It pulsed and throbbed like an exposed vein beneath the skin of reality: dense, oppressive, and unmistakably dark. The air felt wrong around him, heavy and metallic, as if the arena itself were reacting. Dust stirred without wind. The silence bent.

Ace didn't scan the ground as he advanced. Under any other circumstances, he would have noticed the uneven sand, the careful layering, the sense of something buried and waiting, but this wasn't any other circumstance. His focus had narrowed by rage and intent burning hot enough to drown out caution. His gaze remained fixed, predatory and unblinking, on the figure seated at the arena's heart.

He stopped several meters from her and simply stared. There was no fury in his expression, just cold focus. This wasn't about the Empire, the Covenant, ideology, or the long dead Emperor she still clung to. This was about Corellia. About damage done that couldn't be undone. About her.

He wanted the Elite dead. A line had been crossed, and it didn't get to be erased by the collapse of regimes.

Ace's hand moved at last, and with a sharp snap-hiss, a blue lightsaber ignited in his grasp. Its glow cut a clean line through the dust and shadow of the arena. The sound echoed once, then settled.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

The ceramic file slid into her belt with a soft, final click. Remowa remained still, even as Acier Moonbound drew near with lethal intent. She merely observed the blue light of his blade illuminating the gray sand, the hue a taunting reminder of Csilla's serene skies before they were reduced to ashes by the Maw.

"Ah..." She said, her voice adopting a dry rasp that carried easily in the dead air of the pit. She tilted her head a lock of obsidian hair falling over one glowing red eye. "You look tired. Chasing ghosts through the Outer Rim is a taxing hobby, even for a boy with so much... righteous intent."

She understood precisely why he had come, even though they had never met. It wasn't the riches of a fallen empire or the Republic's decree that brought him here. It was something more profound, something intimate, reminiscent of that delicate, seemingly insignificant noblewoman from Corellia, Sibylla Abrantes .

Remowa could still recall the feeling of the sharpened metal gliding over the woman's skin, the way her scream had been stifled in her throat. If given another opportunity, she would take her time. She would ensure that the creator of that particular story labored for every single drop of blood trickling down her face in that raging inferno.

"You're upset about that noble," she reflected, finally rising gracefully to her feet in one smooth motion. She refrained from igniting her whip just yet, simply standing there, a Dark Side Elite poised against a weathered pillar. "What a pity. I believed it added to her character. Most of those spoiled dolls all look alike; I made her stand out, and I don't need to remind you...I would do it over...and over again.."

She took a slow, predatory step forward, her eyes scanning the way he gripped his hilt. He was focused, yes, but he was drowning in the heat of his own rage. It made him loud in the Force blatant and clumsy. He hadn't even looked at the sand beneath his boots where the prepared seismic charges hummed softly.

Her cape blowing softly in the wind....as the improved lightwhip roared to life.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace didn't rise to the taunts. He'd heard them before, in different voices, on different worlds. Dark siders always talked. They circled, needled, postured, mistaking noise for dominance. He let her words wash over him, every instinct in him was coiled tight, waiting.

Then she said it. The "noble". Something in him faltered, just for an instant. His expression tightened as the realization landed: she had reached into him, brushed against something raw and personal, something he hadn't offered. Sibylla. The name wasn't spoken, but it didn't need to be. Ace didn't recoil from it. If anything, a grim satisfaction settled in his chest. Good. It meant she understood exactly why she was about to die.

Then she smiled and said she would do it again. Over and over. The moment snapped. The Dark Side surged, no longer contained, no longer patient. It burned through him with sudden, vicious clarity, rage and hate flaring hot enough to sharpen everything instead of blinding it. His grip tightened around the hilt.

"I'm going to rip you apart." Ace said, voice low and steady. A statement, not a threat.

He watched her step forward as the amethyst lightwhip roared to life, its crackling glow cutting violent arcs through the air. It was new, unfamiliar, he'd never faced a weapon like that before, never measured distance or timing against something so fluid. But he took it in without hesitation, already adjusting, already committing.

Whatever she wielded, it didn't matter. He came to finish it. He drove forward in a brutal burst, closing the distance. Blue light cut hard through the dust as he went straight for her centerline, blade angled to take shoulder and collar in the same motion. An execution attempt: fast, direct, and meant to end the fight before it could become anything else.

The air seemed to rupture around him as he crossed the arena floor, intent pouring into the strike. If she wanted space, control, a stage to perform on, she would have to steal it back from him.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

The blue blade of his lightsaber carved a path of righteous fury through the dust of the arena but Remowa didn't retreat. She didn't even adjust her stance as Acier Moonbound charged in with a fierce centerline attack, aiming to conclude the confrontation before it had a chance to start. Instead, she let out a soft, breathy laugh, a sound completely free of fear, even in response to his rather straightforward remark.

"Such a direct boy, I like it" she hissed.

As his blade arced toward her shoulder, her heavy, obsidian-trimmed cape billowed outwards. To Ace, it looked like a desperate attempt to obscure her silhouette, but behind the thick, light-dampening fabric, her hand was a blur of motion. She didn't merely crack the whip but wielded it with such skill that it seemed almost invisible.

With a flick of her wrist, the improved lightwhip hummed with a multifaceted roar. The weapon was a funnel of death, as from behind the shroud of her cape, she released the full length of the weapon. Three separate filaments of searing amethyst plasma snaked out like hungry vipers woven between three heavy flexible extensions of leather studded with sharpened Mandalorian iron.

While Ace's blue blade sought her collarbone, the leather and beskar cords acted as a physical anchor. One of the iron-studded thongs lashed out, not to cut, but to entangle. It slammed into the emitter of Ace's lightsaber with a dull, metallic clack, the Mandalorian iron resisting the plasma's heat just long enough to jerk his strike off-course.

Simultaneously, the three amethyst plasma filaments coiled around the periphery of his vision. They didn't strike at his blade they went for his throat, his thighs, and his reaching arm.

"You move like an amateur, surely that blade isn't for show," Remowa whispered, her red eyes gleaming from the shadow of her hood as she leaned into his guard, her face inches from his. The scent of ozone and dried blood rose from her skin.

Underneath them, the sand shifted. Her movement had been precise her back heel pressed firmly into the hidden trigger of the first seismic charge. The ground didn't explode; it shuddered. A low-frequency hum rippled through the arena floor, designed to shatter the inner ear and disrupt a poor boy's balance.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

The cape flared and Ace read it as desperation, then realized a moment too late that it wasn't a retreat at all, but the opening move of her counter. The wrench at his lightsaber's emitter yanked the strike wide just enough to spoil the kill, the Mandalorian iron biting and dragging where plasma should have burned clean through. The whip's filaments flashed into his periphery like living things, amethyst fangs snapping for throat, thighs and arm.

Ace twisted instead of resisting, letting the pull turn his hips with it as his knees folded and his center dropped in the same motion. His lead leg drew inward, pulled out of the line of attack moments before the filament hissed through empty space. Another lash burned past his throat close enough to sear skin.

The third caught him. Amethyst plasma raked across his shoulder in a flash of hot agony, burning through fabric and into muscle. Pain lanced down his arm and an involuntary grunt escaped his lips, but the pain... it was fuel.

Her words reached him from inches away. Amateur. The insult barely registered and Ace didn't answer her. He prepared for his counter attack, but then... the ground betrayed him. The sand shifted and the arena hummed: a deep, invasive vibration that climbed into his bones. The hum detonated inside his skull. Sound collapsed into a shrill, piercing ring as the world pitched violently out of alignment. His inner ear screamed in protest, every instinct demanding he slow down, correct, stop.

He ignored it, anger surging not to mend the damage, but to drown it. It flooded the gaps where his senses had failed. Pain became background noise, the ringing in his ears swallowed beneath the singular drive burning through him. He stayed upright by force of will alone.

Ace surged forward through the disorientation. He cut low, blade snapping toward her knee in a tight, vicious arc meant to break her stance rather than end her. Pain flared through his shoulder as he moved, but he fed it into the strike, letting his emotions drive him forward when his balance threatened to lag behind.

If she shifted to react, Ace followed immediately - slamming a compact burst of telekinetic pressure into her center mass. Not enough to throw her clear, just enough to jam her timing, to keep her from planting her feet cleanly again.

He stayed on her, crowding her space, blade rising in the same motion the low cut ended, forcing her to give ground or meet him inside the reach of her own weapon.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

The vibration of the seismic charge continued to resonate in Remowa's body as the boy's blade lunged toward her knee. She sensed the transformation in him, shifting from a form of controlled fury to a wild desperation. He was no longer battling with his senses but was instead grappling with the intense suffering building inside him.

It was pathetic.

As his blade hissed towards her leg, she twisted her torso with a unnatural snap of her hips, the plate of her obsidian armor grinding together. The amethyst filaments of her whip, still dancing from the previous exchange, hissed through the air as she retracted the handle toward her chest.

Then, the telekinetic burst hit her.

It wasn't a world-shattering push but rather a localized nudge that intercepted her during her pivot. Her boots slipped over the trembling sand, her balance precarious. She hissed, teeth exposed, as the pressure appeared to halt her momentum, rendering her exposed and susceptible to another attack.

Ace moved in, crowding her, his blue blade rising like a guillotine. He wanted to choke her out of her own reach, to turn her weapon into a liability.

"Is that all?" she rasped, her eyes wide and bloodshot from the sonic pressure.

She didn't try to reclaim her footing. Instead, she leaned into his momentum, surrendering to the fall. As she ducked under his ascending blade, her hand concealed by the dark folds of her shifting cape snapped the whip's handle in a fierce, circular motion that deflected the blue blade away, using one hit after another of the three amethyst plasma filaments as they flew past.

Given that the weapon couldn't retract, she leveraged its length against him. She tightened her grip and lashed out with the slack of the leather and beskar-studded cords in a savage, weighted strike. The Mandalorian iron studs, still shimmering with the reflected blue light, whistled through the air in a swift backhand aimed squarely at Ace's jaw.

She was no longer aiming to cut him. Her intent was to break bone, to leave a mark on him that mirrored the scars she had inflicted on the noblewoman.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Remowa flowed under his rising blade instead of fighting it, momentum folding inward as the whip snapped into motion again. Amethyst filaments hammered his lightsaber in a circular deflection, each impact sharp and deliberate, forcing it wide and denying him the guillotine stroke he wanted.

Then the slack came. The weighted cords cut through the air in a savage backhand, Mandalorian iron flashing toward his jaw with bone-breaking intent. Ace didn't retreat. He slipped into it instead, head turning just enough to let the strike skim past where his face had been a heartbeat earlier while his left arm came up on instinct. The beskar prosthetic took the hit.

Metal rang against metal as the studs slammed into his forearm with a jarring impact that rattled up through his shoulder. His jaw stayed intact. His eyes stayed locked on her. Pain tore through his shoulder again, and the ringing in his ears swelled, the world tilting just enough to remind him he couldn't take anymore punishment like this.

Ace absorbed the shock and stayed close, blade tight to his body, stance narrowed now, disciplined and predatory. He'd seen the trick. Felt the weight of it. Logged the timing.

Ace shifted again, just enough to sell it. His lightsaber dipped, angle tightening as if he were about to go back to the whip; same posture, same spacing, the same problem she'd already solved once. For a moment, his intent was readable.

Then he didn't follow through. Ace slid inside the line instead of down it, letting the whip pass as his left arm snapped up. The beskar forearm crashed into her wrist in a sharp, brutal check, metal on bone, jamming the handle before she could redirect. It wasn't a hold. Just rhythm stolen. And that was all he needed.

He pivoted off the contact and drove a short, rising cut toward her ribs, a strike thrown from inside her reach where the whip had no room to breathe.

"I'm just getting started, schutta."

Remowa ​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

Remowa recognized that combat involved a balance of give and take, and one should never be overly confident during the chaos of battle. This lesson was reinforced by the force of his prosthetic striking her wrist, a jarring disruption of her rhythm that ignited a genuine spark of irritation in her mind. Her eyes narrowed, the crimson glow within them sharpening into piercing needles of hatred.

He was adapting and evolving his fighting style as the duel progressed. An eager student, yet still no match for a member of the Dark Side Elite.

"Bold," she hissed, her voice a jagged whisper.

As his blade ascended toward her ribs, a brief, deadly arc intended to eviscerate her in the clinch, Remowa made no attempt to retract her hand. She did not resist the check. Rather, she allowed the whip's handle to slide from her numb fingers. In a reaction driven purely by instinct, she caught the descending hilt with her left hand in mid-air, the switch a flurry of movement hidden beneath the dark shadow of her cape.

She refrained from using the whip as a defensive weapon. Instead, she leaned into the upward strike, twisting her torso so that the blue plasma seared the outer plating of her obsidian ribs instead of her skin. The scent of burning polymer permeated the air between them.

As Ace's momentum pushed him partially past her, Remowa grounded herself on her lead foot. With a swift, predatory motion, she struck out with her rear leg. Her armored heel, empowered by a surge of the Dark Side, crashed directly into the center of his back, precisely where the seismic vibrations were at their most intense.

"Go on then," she spat, watching him possibly stumble forward from the impact. "Keep showing me how much you failed basic training"

She didn't allow him a moment to catch his breath.

As he was thrust away, she cracked the lightwhip once more, the amethyst strands and iron-studded leather unfurling like a deadly flower in bloom. This time, her target wasn't his weapon. She directed the lash downward, the Mandalorian iron studs brushing the sand to send a blinding cloud toward his face, while the plasma vipers arched high, aiming to trap his neck from the rear.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Remowa's kick hit like a sledgehammer. Pain detonated across his back as the seismic tremor surged again, tearing his balance loose all at once. Ace pitched forward, vision blurring as the ringing in his ears spiked hard enough to drown everything out. Sand exploded up around his boots as the ground rushed to meet him.

With his back turned, his footing gone, and vision obscured, he was completely exposed. And he knew better than to stay standing. So instead of fighting the fall, he dropped with it.

He hit the sand and rolled, disappearing beneath the snapping arc of the whip an instant before the plasma filaments closed where his neck had been. Heat washed over his back, close enough to scorch.

Still low, still moving, he thrust his free hand into the sand and ripped outward, pouring the Force through the motion in a short, violent burst. The ground in front of him exploded into grit, dust, and shattered stone tearing up in a blinding wave that surged straight into her space.

Ace drove in behind the burst of grit without slowing. He didn't hunt her center this time, or even look for her throat. His focus locked on her weapon hand. He knew what she was wearing. He'd clocked the Mandalorian iron worked into her gear within the first moments of their engagement. A clean sever wasn't guaranteed.

Still, his blade snapped up in a compact, rising arc aimed straight for her wrist, a cut thrown from inside her reach where the whip's length worked against her. Even if the iron held, the impact alone would be enough to rattle bone, numb fingers, and break rhythm. Enough to make her choose between pain and control.

At the same time, his right shoulder and body mass drove forward, chest to chest pressure cutting down her space while his free hand came up to crowd her elbow and forearm, denying her the room to recoil cleanly or redirect the whip's flow. Pain tore through his shoulder as he committed.

Ace followed by snapping his head forward in a short, brutal motion, forehead driving toward her face in a tight headbutt meant to stun, anything to steal another fraction of a second while her attention was split.

The impact sent a spike of pain through his skull, the ringing in his ears flaring violently again, but he stayed in her space, teeth clenched, lightsaber still cutting its line toward her wrist.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

It must have been quite challenging for Acier Moonbound to feel like such a letdown to the force. The headbutt was a frantic and clumsy tactic, reminiscent of Mandalorians or a trapped animal, rather than someone who had honed their skills in the different lightsaber techniques and likely had experience facing off against them on the battlefield.

Remowa stood her ground, unfazed, even as the sand obscured her vision, merely opening up her unoccupied palm into the breeze of the arena. The Dark Side Elite was not limited to the nuances of lightsaber dueling, nor was she bound to just physically overpowering him in a traditional manner. With a fierce, guttural breath, the force gathered in her outstretched palm then exploded outwards into a simple but effective Force Push.

The potential impact was condensed into a singular point of kinetic violence. It struck Acier as he lunged, his balance already disrupted by his own momentum and the excruciating strain of his injured shoulder. The shockwave propelled him backward, the impact jerking his head back and causing him to fly through the air like a lifeless doll.

Remowa didn't even follow him. She stayed where she was, the amethyst filaments of her lightwhip hissing as they coiled back around her boots like nesting vipers though they were prepared to defend if neccessary. She casually reached up and adjusted the obsidian cowl of her armor, her movements deliberately slow and insulting.

"Yawn.." she said bringing her hand up to her mouth in a mocking gesture.

"A clumsy headbutt and a stumble in the sand? I've seen better footwork from spice-addled ghouls in the Coruscant Undercity." She flicked her wrist, the Mandalorian iron studs of her whip clicking against one another with a rhythmic, metallic sound that echoed the seismic hum still rattling the arena's foundations.

She gazed down at him with the same detached indifference she would display towards a damaged piece of furniture, as her cape was now unclasped. It tumbled to the side of the arena while her expression shifted from light amusement to a more somber demeanor. The game had been enjoyable for a fleeting moment, but now it was turning dull, and she despised dullness.

It was time to get serious...

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace took the push and rode it instead of fighting it. His feet left the ground as the shockwave hurled him back, but he twisted mid-flight, tucking instinctively. He hit the sand in a low crouch rather than a sprawl, one knee skidding. Pain lanced through his shoulder on impact and the ringing in his ears flared again, sharp and ugly, but he stayed upright.

He didn't answer the taunts. He watched her instead. Remowa hadn't advanced. That told him more than the insults ever could. Despite the disdain, despite the posture, he'd forced her to reset on her terms instead of his, and that meant he'd been creating problems. Not enough. He logged it anyway, the same way he logged the other realization settling in: he couldn't collapse space and dominate tempo at the same time against someone on her level. Pick one. Adjust.

Ace's gaze dropped briefly to the sand between them. Not the surface, but the way it sat. How it was too even and deliberate in places. Memory snapped into place: the earlier shudder, the low frequency hum. Prepared ground. Charges buried under the powder.

Anger flared, but it didn't blind him this time. He let it burn hot and steady, fuel instead of a crutch. He dropped his palm to the sand, and the moment his skin met it, memory bled back into him.

Intent. Hours of deliberate placement. Pressure tamped down by careful hands. The residue of excitement, patience, anticipation. Three days of preparation, every step measured, every charge buried with purpose. The Force carried it all, and Ace felt it in a flash: a network beneath the surface.

Ace reached out again through the Force, priming them together, telekinesis coiling tight beneath the sand. He knew exactly what he was about to do to himself. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache as he locked his neck and shoulders - damage control, nothing more.

Then he kicked straight up. A sharp, vertical Force assisted leap tore him free of the ground at the same instant he released the charges. The arena convulsed beneath him, shock tearing laterally through the sand instead of up his spine, the air slamming into him mid-air with a concussive roar that drove the ringing in his ears into something blinding.

While the ground folded and screamed below, Ace twisted in the air and hurled a compact Force blast toward Remowa's position, aimed to accumulate even more force and damage. He didn't wait to see the result as he couldn't hear anything but the shriek in his skull.

He came down hard a heartbeat later, knees bending deep to absorb the impact, vision swimming, balance lagging by a fraction. It hurt. Of course it did, but it was worth it. Mutually assured destruction. He hoped.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

The roar of the detonating charges was a beautiful symphony, but to Remowa, it was also a breach of etiquette. Acier Moonbound had reached into her work, touched her preparation, and used it to fuel his own desperate escape. As the arena's ground shook violently, plumes of gray sand and sharp rocks shot up into the sky, enveloping the boy in a storm of chaotic debris.

Although she couldn't see him, the reverse was equally true as his own view was obscured.

She noticed the compact Force blast approaching and chose not to brace for the impact, recognizing that there was no need to incur unnecessary harm just to uplift her opponent's morale. Opting for the path of least resistance was the straightforward choice, simply performing a cartwheel a few meters away from the damaged pillar so that it got obliterated instead.

Her boot had struck an activated charge, leveraging it to channel the dark side into her legs, the veins in her neck pulsating with darkness as she harnessed the momentum to propel herself upward. With a mighty leap enhanced by the Force, she soared over the expanse of the cratered sand in one fluid arc.

She descended with the might of a monolith, her armored boot bolstered by the complete kinetic energy of her leap and the planet's gravity drawing her down, crashing directly onto the crown of his head while he knelt in the sand then using that as a springboard to land a few meters away though facing his direction with a simple twist of her body.

"I haven't seen so much force power wasted since the fall of Coruscant." she remarked, glancing at the boy who remained standing or had perhaps collapsed from the intensity of the battle. The force should not be treated as a mere tool for grandiose displays of strength, as that would merely exhaust the user, making them susceptible to further assaults from an opponent.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace was still on one knee when he felt that all too familiar pit in his stomach. Always when there was imminent danger. He couldn't see her through the storm of grit, couldn't hear anything but the shriek in his skull - but the Force dipped overhead all the same, a sudden absence followed by crushing intent. Weight gathering. Commitment.

He didn't have the space to roll this time. Instead, he snapped both forearms up over his head on instinct, shoulders hunching as he braced, teeth clenching hard enough to hurt. The beskar prosthetic locked into place at the crown of the guard, angled just enough to meet the impact head on.

Her boot came down like a piledriver. Metal screamed as it struck beskar, the force of the blow driving Ace down into the sand. The shock tore through his arms and shoulders, rattling his spine and sending a fresh surge of white noise screaming through his ears. Sand burst outward around him as his guard buckled but held.

If she'd landed on his head, that would've surely put him out. Or worse. Ace slid back a half meter on his knees, arms still raised, breath ripped from his lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. Pain flared everywhere at once, shoulders, neck, skull, but his head was still intact. His lightsaber stayed in his left hand.

He lowered his guard slowly, eyes already finding her as she sprang away and turned to face him again.

"You tired of hearing your own voice yet?" Ace certainly was.

Unfortunately for the Chiss, Ace's endurance was borderline inhuman. Both physically and within the Force. This was going to be a long day for her.

He rose from the kneel and shifted laterally, two measured steps off the ruined centerline, forcing the geometry to change. The crater stayed between them now, broken sand and fractured footing denying clean approaches. His lightsaber remained low, angled across his body, but his focus flicked past her for a fraction of a second, locking onto the fractured pillar.

Ace drove a compact telekinetic shove into the damaged structure, a precise, brutal push aimed at its weakened base. The pillar gave way, collapsing inward in a thunder of cracking duracrete and cascading debris, a choking cloud of dust billowing toward her position.

He moved while the pillar came down, while she'd have to react to tons of collapsing stone one way or another. Ace closed the distance hard. His lightsaber rose as he ran, tight and economical, eyes locked on her weapon side as he went in to strike before, hopefully, she could fully reset.

He wasn't going to stop coming for her.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

Despite Acier Moonbound 's internal boasting about his immense power, he certainly didn't put it to any practical use.

Remowa observed the pillar creak and bend, her expression one of genuine confusion. Tilting her head, a strand of dark hair slipped over her glowing red eyes as she watched the enormous structure give way beneath his telekinetic push. It seemed the boy had chosen to focus on an arbitrary pillar for reasons unknown, possibly due to some sort of head injury from her fall into his arms, and could not orient himself properly.

She remained motionless, not attempting to block him as he rushed through the swirling dust cloud towards an opponent that was not there. Content to stay completely still, her lightwhip dangled loosely at her side, amethyst strands weaving casual designs in the darkening and ever-bloodier sand.

The massive duracrete column finally slammed into the arena floor a full three meters away, its thunderous impact churning up a fresh wall of sand that Ace used as cover oblivious to the fact that she hadn't even been near a pillar since jumping away from the earlier Force Blast.

"Is the ringing in your ears truly that deafening?" she mused, her voice cutting through the settle of the dust like a jagged blade.

"You're fighting the architecture. It's a very brave effort, I suppose, but the stone was never going to strike you back." She commented, choosing not to retaliate in order to save her strength for a true adversary. If he felt the need to attack the surroundings to compensate for his lackluster performance, she saw no reason to pass judgment.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace slowed as the dust settled, boots grinding into the churned sand. He didn't strike at the empty space where he'd anticipated motion. She hadn't taken the bait.

The pillar lay shattered now, its collapse chewing up a wide swath of the arena floor and erasing one of the few remaining clean lanes. The center was gone. Footing compromised. Approaches narrowed. Even miscalculations could still reshape the board.

Ace stepped out of the dust instead of through it, changing angle rather than distance. His lightsaber stayed low, posture controlled, eyes tracking her through the haze without hurry.

So, a read missed. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. But it was still data. Her stillness. Her choice not to contest the collapse. It was all logged.

Her taunts continued, distant and muffled through the ringing in his ears. He barely registered them. Sith talked. So did Elites. The only thing that mattered was the image burned into his mind... Sibylla's scars, the cost carved into flesh. Anger stayed hot, but contained. Fuel, not fog.

Pressure wasn't working. Not against her. Not like this. Ace rolled his shoulder once, pain flaring sharp, and widened his stance instead of closing. He shifted his grip, rotating the hilt into a reversed Shien guard, blade angled back along his forearm.

He stopped advancing. If this fight was going to continue, she'd have to come to him

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

Silence filled the space between them save for the low-frequency thrum of several dormant seismic charges beneath the sand. Remowa's eyes tracked the subtle shift in Acier Moonbound posture. He had stopped his rather frantic amateurish lunging, settling into a defensive Shien reversal that spoke of a desperate need for stability on the uneven terrain.

She moved her feet forward in a quiet shuffle, for a brief moment as with a twitch of her wrist, the amethyst filaments of the lightwhip uncoiled. If the boy chose to remain still and overlook the clear disadvantage of her weapon in close-quarters combat, she didn't seem to mind as reach was her strongest ally in this confrontation, an extension of her that would transform the three-meter gap between them into a kill zone.

One filament snapped high, a searing violet streak aimed at his eyes to force a reaction. Simultaneously, the two lower plasma strands spiraled outward in opposing arcs, seeking to wrap around his shins. She remained centered, her center of gravity low and immovable, her body a calm axis for the geometry of the weapon.

The Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords followed the plasma, providing weight and a sickening, metallic whistle. As Ace stood his ground, Remowa's hand moved in a complex, circular pattern. She manipulated the whip with the clinical precision, weaving a web of energy and beskar around him.

Every flick of her fingers sent a fresh wave of amethyst fire snapping at his guard, testing the strength of his prosthetic and the resolve of his reversed blade. She didn't need to chase him; she simply let the whip eat the distance, its amethyst glow reflecting off the cold, obsidian plating of her armor.

The sand between them was carved into jagged furrows by the passing plasma, and the air grew thick with the smell of scorched minerals. She watched his every micro-adjustment, her focus now on bleeding him from a distance, piece by agonizing piece, until there was nothing left for him to defend.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace wasn't going to stand there and block or counter every single attack. He'd tried that and taken unnecessary punishment that hadn't benefited him in the slightest.

The first filament snapped high where his eyes had been, amethyst fire tearing through empty air as Ace cut diagonally off her centerline instead of backpedaling. It was a short, sharp adjustment, one boot grinding sideways, weight settling at a new angle just as the lower filaments scissored past, carving furrows where his shins would've been a heartbeat earlier.

The web didn't collapse, but it should lose its symmetry. Her geometry was built to eat distance straight on. By shifting laterally instead of yielding ground, Ace would hopefully force the pattern to stretch and re-thread, the whip's arcs dragging a fraction longer through space as she recalculated. He stayed low in the reversed guard, blade tracking the motion without chasing it, eyes fixed not on the filaments... but on her hands.

That was the opening. Ace committed forward on the re-thread, closing the remaining distance in a single, driving step as the whip's weight pulled wide, slipping inside the brief dead space near her weapon side before the pattern could reset.

His lightsaber struck toward her weapon-side shoulder, the hinge that powered the whip's rotation. The strike wasn't meant to sever, only to bite and disrupt, to force her to compensate through pain and broken timing.

Whether it landed clean or glanced didn't matter. For the first time, she'd have to work to keep the whip alive.

Remowa​

 

[Remowa]

Abandoned Arena - Rattatak
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #3: To Duel Again w/ Acier Moonbound

The violet glow of the whip's filaments painted long, jagged shadows against Remowa's face as she watched Acier Moonbound commit. Finally, he discovered the gap he had been searching for, launching himself forward with a surge of speed and a clear path into her inner circle. To him, she may have appeared vulnerable, her weapon hand raised and extended, the dynamics of her whip briefly turning against her.

She let him believe it, even allowing her eyes to widen slightly, a flicker of feigned panic that was as staged as the arena she had brought them to. As his blue blade hissed through the air, aimed squarely for the hinge of her shoulder. There was a sense that she had overcommitted on the offensive with her Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords or had she, as the thumb-toggle on her hilt was pressed.

The amethyst filaments vanished. In a heartbeat, the humming roar of the whip died into a sudden, suffocating silence as she turned slightly, feeling the lighter load on her body. It was the forbidden rhythm of Tràkata, based on quickly shutting off then re-igniting the blade.

Since the boy had likely put all his weight and speed into the strike intended to hit either her armor or her shoulder, the unexpected absence of a target pulled his momentum directly into her personal space. In the microsecond his blade passed her shoulder, Remowa's thumb snapped the toggle back.

The whip exploded to life from within his own guard. Since the handle was already positioned behind his leading arm due to his overextension, the three amethyst filaments didn't have to travel across the arena they blossomed directly to potentially impale his back and ribs like a crown of thorns.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa
Armor (no helm) | Sword ​

The arena pulsated with the stench of its own decay. Every footstep carried a vibration that prickled the nerve endings in Lysander’s spine. Molten orbs glinted with any intensity matched only by the grinding of his teeth, a clench that drew the corners of his lips into a line. His jaw flexed in rhythm, matching the tension rippling through the air before him in hateful waves.

Yeah, Golden Boy was fething pissed off.

So much had changed since Coruscant fell under the Covenant’s grasp. Knighted on the battlefield by Mercy herself after the Empire’s defeat, this was a title that should have been ceremonial for most.. but instead drawn him into responsibilities he hadn’t quite anticipated. Now, he was the point emissary. Influence, he recently realized, was one thing; power was another entirely..

Watching, listening, intercepting reports. It wasn’t his usual method. Far from it really..

From experience, Acier had always been more reserved than some of the others among their ranks. Lately, even more so..

That alone initially compelled Lysander to track him, under the pretense of reconnaissance. But in truth, this was an instinct also born of familiarity. Acier became his main training partner in recent months, the constant measure by which he gauged his own prowess each day since butchering the Tapani Sector. He knew the signature, the movement, the rhythm. So.. when reports pointed toward Rattatak, a knot twisted in his gut.

The puzzle didn’t quite add up. Why here? Why now?

Irritation pressed at the edges of his focus after coming to realize he was now in danger.

Someone was going to die today, and it wasn’t going to be one of the Covenant’s own.

Fingers were begging to draw Nightstar.

And so they did.

Originally this was a weapon forged to slay Jedi.. but in truth, it craved killing anything it could taste.

With grace he strode across the arena in long and purposeful strides. Speed had always been his greatest ally. Fueled by dark currents, the power surged through him, propelling straight toward his target. Not only that, movement was supplemented by the exo-muscle strength enhancing subsystem engrained in his armor. Behind him, explosions tore through the air in succession. Clearly, an unmistakable trap laid. Any hint of hesitation or slowing would mean doom. Shards of debris scraped past his vision. Dust stung his eyes, sparks hissed across his cheek.

Still, he ran on.

The cortosis veined longsword was clutched in his dominant hand, and there was no doubt the Chiss would feel the Sith Knight’s intent long before coming within striking distance.

Lysander's sole purpose now was to spill blood.