Duel Blind Revenge is Tasteless | Acier Moonbound

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

There was a sudden hollow in the Threads, where pressure had been a moment earlier. Ace felt it before he understood it, a sharp dip in intent that didn't match her posture or the set of her shoulders. Deception.

There was no time to disengage. No space to correct the entry. So he twisted into it instead of pulling away, committing through the wrongness rather than away from it.

A harsh grunt escaped him as amethyst fire detonated behind his shoulder, filaments reigniting inside his guard. One raked across his weapon-side ribs beneath the shoulder blade, heat and pain exploding along bone and muscle as it carved instead of impaled. The sensation was blinding but he stayed upright. Another filament snapped past close enough to scorch fabric and skin. The third never found clean purchase.

Ace didn't retreat. He used the same rotation that spared him to drive forward, letting the hit carry him deeper into her space instead of giving it distance to finish the job. He dropped the hilt into his right hand on instinct, while his left surged up in the same breath, the beskar prosthetic snapping toward her throat in a brutal, reflexive clamp meant to steal posture and breath.

Whether it found purchase or was torn away, the exchange cost them both something. Ace simultaneously raised his right hand, lightsaber in his grip and prepared to finish it. If she stayed where she was, if she hesitated for even a fraction too long, it would be over.

Then... through his rage, through her tenacity, through the chaos of battle, he sensed it. Like a small note in a sea of noise. A familiar Thread closing in.

Golden Boy?

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

The scent of scorched synth-silk and ionized air was thick enough to taste, a metallic flavor that Remowa inhaled with a sharp hiss. She had successfully turned Acier Moonbound into a broken bird struggling within her cage, his robes smoldering and his stance equally broken. Yet, as she readied to twist the hilt and reduce his torso to minced flesh, a disturbance in the force caught her attention.

Something was approaching swiftly, taking the shape of Lysander von Ascania . She was unfamiliar with this new adversary, but it was a reasonable assumption that they hailed from the Sith Covenant, given the still-active beacon nearby. Another servant of the new order arriving to rescue his playmate.

She had a microsecond to respond, as Acier's beskar prosthetic was rising toward her throat, designed to strangle her. His right hand was already bringing the blade around for the killing stroke. He thought he had her pinned, and thought the calvary had arrived to witness his triumph.

"Who gave you permission to touch me, wart-encrusted boy." Remowa spat, her eyes glowing with a violet intensity. Her free hand having not been targeted, curled into a jagged claw, snapped upward as the force gathered within her palm to unleash the raw unrefined power of Force Lightning.

The searing heat of lightning erupted from her fingertips in a explosive wave of violence as the bolts likely slammed into Acier's chest point-blank range. The electrical discharge acted as a kinetic hammer, the massive voltage reacting with the metal of his prosthetic and the moisture in his lungs to blast him backward.

He was hurled away like a leaf in a hurricane, his grip on her throat never even closing as the lightning conducted through his armor and sent him skittering across the sand away from the advancing Lysander.

Remowa didn't stop to watch him land but pivoted once more, the whip filaments still hissing as they retracted toward her hilt, and faced the golden newcomer. She dropped into a low, bestial crouch, her obsidian armor smoking from the heat of her own discharge. The blackened veins on her neck throbbed with a rhythmic, sickening light.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

Darkness pumped through his body; not the absence of light, but a viscous energy that crawled through his veins, a potent stimulant that heightened senses and throbbed in sync with the pounding of his boots; for the Threads, they were alive and roaring, pulsing with every draw that drew him near death.

Rage burned, yes; but beneath the heat was something finer.. surprise, unease, and even the pull of kinship. Recognition always hit differently in the midst of violence; he had learned that truth early. It was wrong, seeing Ace here like this. Not only as Arris' apprentice, but someone who connected back to Fatine von Ascania .

A flash of violet, a flash of energy, and the former Jedi was launched backwards.

The dark surged hotter, a living stimulant, supplementing a being of trained muscle and augmented power. That was when Lysander's hand began to curve delicately, gathering intent, shaping it, pulling it from his veins and inner lattice, molding it into something ephemeral.

A spear of hate.

The Sith's jaw clenching with the effort of turning shadows into one lethal point. And he was there, ready to execute the first strike. Muscles along his torso cinched inward; as his weight shifted onto his lead foot, the left arm extended. A tangible thing it was, ready to bite through bone if allowed.

With a snap of the hips, he hurled it; the spear streaked across the short distance, aimed for the Chiss, hungry as a predator. As it flew, his left hand closed around the hilt of Nightstar. Torque from his shoulder was primed, ready to follow through right behind it.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Remowa's free hand was already moving as his prosthetic rose, intent snapping sharp and lethal in the Force. Lightning detonated point-blank against his chest.

Ace's body seized, muscles locking hard enough to tear a breath from his lungs as the blast punched through him. The world inverted, his back arched violently, then the force of it hurled him away, convulsing, smoke ripping off scorched fabric as he was thrown clear of her space.

He hit the sand hard and rolled from the momentum and impact, shoulder screaming as he twisted sideways before finally slowing to a stop on his front. Electricity crawled through him in ugly aftershocks, fingers spasming against the grit as residual current burned its way out.

Everything arrived at once. His shoulder throbbed hot, his ribs burned where the filament had raked him, the ringing in his ears surged into a brutal, nauseating roar. His chest refused to expand properly, lungs stuttering as he dragged air back in through clenched teeth.

Ace tried to push himself up. His arms shook and his body lagged behind the command. His strength was there but delayed, like the signal had to fight its way through static to reach muscle. He got one knee under him and stalled, head hanging as smoke curled faintly from his back.

Then he felt it. Lysander again, his presence tearing through the Force like a blade through water. His Thread was dense, furious, structured. Rage, yes, but bound into something deliberate. Purposeful. Familiar in a way that made his chest tighten.

Ace lifted his head just enough to see him. The Dark Side surging around him like a living storm. It reminded Ace of Chandrila, of standing near something powerful enough to bend the air, but this was heavier. Sharper. Focused into a single point instead of bleeding outward.

Ace watched, breath still ragged, as Lysander shaped that darkness with terrifying precision. He'd made... a construct. A spear of hate, pulled from raw intent and hurled forward with lethal clarity as Nightstar came up in his hand, ready to follow.

The Apprentice stayed where he was, body still catching up, eyes locked on the exchange unfolding in front of him. He'd started training just a year ago. He'd fought Sith, Elites, killers who thought themselves untouchable. He'd bled for every lesson.

And still... There were parts of the Force he was only just beginning to understand.

Case in point.

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

The spear of condensed malice known as Darkshear sliced through the air like a jagged shard of the Void, targeting her with deadly precision. She sensed the overwhelming force of the Dark Side flowing through it, intent on eliminating her without a hint of reprieve. Remowa had learned of this technique from the previous Galactic Emperor, yet she had never witnessed it in action during an actual battle.

She did not intent to be a tactic target, as from her low bestial crouch. She moved her weight laterally using the uneven terrain to execute a barrel roll through the sands of the arena. The spear of darkness whistled mere centimeters above her obsidian shoulder plates, passing through the space she had occupied a heartbeat prior and dissipating into the sand with a frustrated hiss.

She came out of the roll with a spray of sand, her boots finding purchase on the lip of a seismic crater.

Before Lysander von Ascania could bridge the gap with The Nightstar of Desevro, her hand snapped out. The amethyst filaments of her lightwhip roared to life, uncoiling like a nest of disturbed vipers then lashing out as three plasma strands went screaming towards Lysander's lead leg and the hand gripping his blade before being deactivated with Tràkata.

She never did anything without purpose as this movement was merely a distraction, as the three Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords slapped against the ground, kicking up a blinding curtain of sand and dormant seismic charges directly into the path of his charge.

She kept her eyes locked on Lysander, but she could feel Acier Moonbound behind her, struggling to regain his footing. She was a Dark Side Elite between two storms now, standing at the center of a confrontation she had invited.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Remowa Acier Moonbound​

Lysander's gaze was transfixed on the streak of malice slicing through the air, like glass scraping against bone. Before his eyes could fully comprehend the Chiss' movements, a vibration thrummed through his chest.. an instinct coursing through his being via the Threads. Without a moment of hesitation, his body responded.. he pivoted smoothly on the ball of his lead foot, his knee flexing to soften any impact. His shoulder dipped, while his right arm coiled tightly, guiding Nightstar in a line as Amethyst snapped at his leg and blade alike.. a serpent's strike.

Naturally his wrists would flex, to absorb any kinetic feedback, feeling the heat lick past his armor.. yet none of it bit into him. Still, his left arm rose, elbow tucked, as he’d been prepared to redirect her attack. But instead another round of seismic charges erupted in succession.

Just how many had been planted in this trap?

His hamstrings cinched to counter the wave of vibration shooting up the legs and into his left side. It took every vertebra to maintain his balance. Even with his best efforts, the boots skidded across the floor. Shrapnel pinged against his armor, throwing off his center of gravity mid-stride. Lysander’s body contorted to the side, pulled by the heavier weight of Nightstar.

Despite the Darkshear's failed strike, for which he may have selfishly craved success, it at least would serve to buy Acier moments to recover. Probing and searching for weaknesses, he was already searching for the next move. Though the other two may have been in the later stages of this duel, or so he believed, Lysander was just getting warmed up.

His right hand moved in a sweeping motion, fingers splayed and drawing the Dark inward, twisting it into a tight and lethal weave. The tendrils, extensions of his will, coiled around the debris and lifted and spun it with control. In a sudden burst, the shards snapped forward in a jagged wave. As sand sprayed into the air, the hissing barrage took aim for her.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace saw the Darkshear cut the air like a fracture in reality itself. He felt the density behind it, the compression and the intent, then watched as Remowa rolled through the uneven terrain at the last possible instant. The spear died in the sand.

Her whip came alive again in the same breath, amethyst snapping toward Lysander in a sharp, predatory test. Even from his lowered position, Ace tracked the geometry of it, the distraction, the leather cords slapping down to churn sand and dormant charges into motion.

Just how many had she buried? He'd set off a large swath of them earlier, the arena had convulsed under it. It should've thinned the network. But the way the ground continued to answer her… Either she had layered redundancy. Or he hadn't detonated as much as he thought.

Lysander pivoted through the first snap of plasma, Nightstar steady even as the next wave of charges erupted and the terrain bucked again. Then the Force around him tightened, Dark side flaring. Inward. Debris lifted. Spun. Twisted into a lethal weave under deliberate control before snapping forward in a jagged wave, shards and sand hissing toward Remowa in a storm of sharpened intent.

Ace felt the shift in tempo. Two fronts now. Remowa between storms. Good. The arena was already destabilized; cratered, fractured, hollowed in places where the sand only pretended to be solid.

He reached for what was visible. A tight telekinetic shove tore through one of the crater lips near her rear flank, collapsing the already weakened edge inward. Sand sloughed down in a sudden cascade, the footing beneath it giving way into the void carved earlier by his own detonations.

His aim wasn't destruction, it was to sink. Enough to complicate balance and demand correction. Ace rose as it fell, pushing off the churned sand and stepping forward through smoke and grit. Shoulder burning. Ears still screaming. Muscles lagging half a beat behind command.

He didn't try to outrun Lysander's assault, instead he moved to intersect it. Let her divide her attention, he wasn't going to waste this second opening.

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

Remowa found herself at the crossroads of two deadly assaults, her crimson eyes darting between the sharp surge of debris created by Lysander and the abrupt movement of the sand beneath her feet caused by Acier behind her. For any other adversary, this would signal the end, trapped between two onslaughts with scant options other than to absorb the blows and pray for survival.

However, Remowa was not like the rest; she knew precisely when to strategically retreat to maintain her advantage. She collected the force into her outstretched hand and directed it downward, propelling herself into the sky with a precisely executed force push, utilizing the sinking ground created by Acier Moonbound as a springboard to propel herself up in the air.

With no target in sight for Lysander von Ascania wave to hit, it carried on with unrelenting momentum. The storm of sharpened duracrete shards and abrasive grit, intended to shred Remowa's obsidian armor, whistled through the empty space she had occupied a microsecond prior. Deprived of its mark, the jagged wave likely surged directly toward Acier, who was already struggling against the collapsing crater lip.

From her vantage point in the air, Remowa's silhouette was a dark, jagged shadow against the sun-bleached sky of Rattatak. As the lightwhip lashed out from above this time, while her opponent was still engaged in the follow-up of his debris-storm.

The three amethyst filaments twisted through the air, their glow intensified by her height, targeting the golden Knight's vulnerable shoulder and neck as he realized his assault was now threatening his own ally. The three Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords trailed behind, seeking to ensnare the sword arm.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

From the moment the Chiss vanished upward, Lysander knew the storm was no longer hers to suffer. Pupils constricted, the tightening of gold around black, as he saw it roar towards the crater where Acier was struggling to barely rise. Threads vibrated with the wrongness of it.. his wrongness. A thin line appeared at the corner of his mouth. He miscalculated.

Guilt was brief, a puncture right beneath the sternum. But.. it then inverted, becoming something all too familiar, and sharper. Anger.. not the type that burned though. Muscle ticked one beneath the skin, and the Dark answered like a fist ready to swing. With his spine coiling, his right hand thrust outward with a violent telekinetic wrench. And so the air bucked with it, but not all of the storm. Shards screamed, dragged sideways. Enough to keep Acier alive.. a modest attempt to correct a mistake, if nothing else.

The world above was already splitting his attention. The amethyst descended like a Nexu’s canines. Lysander’s shoulders angled, weight dropping. Nightstar rotated with a whisper, the cortosis veined flat rising to catch the cruel plasma. Every tremor shuddered up through his wrists. From there he dragged the strands off line. The problem was that they were more than just light. The leather cords snapped around his arm in the same instant. A sign of a predator’s intelligence, perhaps. But as he knew it.. death was impartial, claiming every hunter eventually.

Fingers tightened around the sword. Not one to panic, a slow exhale left him, preparing to adjust his stance. The Darkness writhed beneath his foot. With another surge of telekinetic force, a pulse rippled through the sand and slid him sideways. A movement that was true to the duelist in his heart, one that veered him away from the lash and toward the place he believed she would fall.

He had always been a creature of angles. Whichever that killed quickest.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

The Elite had managed to evade Lysander's attack, as well as Ace's own disruption to her footing. She was airborne now. Then there was the next problem. The storm. Coming his way. Ace prepared to roll out of the way, but Lysander's correction tore the worst of the debris sideways. Some fragments still screamed past the crater lip, shards skipping and spinning through the air around him.

Ace didn't defend himself, he simply extended his arm and a tight telekinetic vector snapped through the nearest screaming shards, bending their trajectory upward into a rising arc toward the space she would occupy as gravity pulled her down.

A scatter of debris. Enough to complicate her fall. Enough to force correction.

Meanwhile, through a telekinetic pulse, Lysander had positioned himself to where Remowa should land. In that same instance, Ace would move toward her flank as Remowa hung between rising debris and a duelist claiming her front.

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

Remowa watched from her brief, high-altitude sanctuary as the two men scrambled to reconcile their own incompetence. Lysander's frantic redirection of his own debris and Acier's petty, rising stones were pathetic attempts to dictate her descent. They expected her to fall like a stone under the planet's gravity, yet they overlooked one important aspect. Her whip was not just a weapon but a useful tether now that it had something to attach to.

As Lysander von Ascania slid sideways with his telekinetic pulse, thinking he was claiming the angle of her landing. Her lips curled into a jagged grin as the Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords had already bitten into the armor of his sword arm, and as he moved, she embraced the tension to her advantage.

She snapped her wrist back, not to pull him, but to lock the slack. In an instant, the whip became a high-tension cable. Instead of falling into the rising debris Acier Moonbound had sent her way, Remowa kicked off the air with a Force-assisted burst, transforming her vertical drop into a lethal, swinging pendulum.

She became a blur of obsidian, ziplining through the ionized air. Using Lysander's own sideways momentum as an anchor, she swung in a wide, predatory arc that bypassed Acier's rising shards entirely. Her armored heels tucked close, then snapped out as she accelerated toward the golden Knight's blind side.

She didn't land but skimmed the sand, her heels digging a shallow, high-speed furrow in the surface as she used the whip's retraction to slingshot herself past Lysander. As she flew by, she didn't just pass him; she used the tension of the cords around his arm to yank his guard wide, exposing his ribs to a passing blast of Force Lightning from her palm.

The maneuver was seamless. She utilized Lysander's displacement to clear the danger zone, effectively repositioning herself on the opposite side of the crater. She landed in a low, three-point stance, the lightwhip snapping back to her hilt with a hiss of satisfaction. Now perfectly positioned to the rear flank of where Lysander had just moved, leaving both men momentarily out of alignment.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

He’d been shaping the angle in his mind before his body even committed to it.. that lane of control he’d carved between her descent and Ace’s pressure. Weight rolling through the hips, guard high with his offhand, it was in a way brawlers did when squaring up before an exchange. It felt like the right move.. until it did, just as tension in the cord shifted. It wasn’t enough to drag him off his feet, but his guard opened like someone hooked a glove. An elbow flared, ribs exposed.

A boxer’s nightmare..

The heat that slammed into him next was horribly familiar, even with the armor that took some resistance. Muscles seized, and breath punched out of Lysander with a grunt. A world of white flashed at the edges. From the Galactic Kaggath, Genarius, and other experiences, he’d taken more lightning than he should’ve ever walked away from. .

Boots dug in, pressing through the shock, knowing you had to keep moving or you’d die in the sand. Tremors ran down his arms as the tension lingered.

He didn’t need to turn to know she was behind him.

Beads of sweat traced paths down his face, the pain fueling him, a lesson carved deep into his being. Defenses renewed, and with a pull at the corner of his lip, Lysander acknowledged her mistake of leaving him still standing.

The tip of Nightstar pointed directly to her heart.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace saw how the whip locked instead of pulling back. The geometry snapped into something else entirely, and in the next breath Remowa wasn't falling, she was swinging. A dark pendulum cutting through ionized air, bypassing the rising debris and converting Lysander's displacement into her own acceleration.

Smart. The lightning that followed cracked across the arena like splitting bone. Ace felt it more than heard it. Lysander held, barely, boots grinding into sand as the shock rolled through him. She landed fluidly on the far side of the crater, whip retracting in a hiss, posture low and satisfied. She had created separation.

Ace didn't chase the arc. He read it. Every swing demanded a recovery. Every slingshot required a moment where momentum bled into footing. He moved during that bleed, a measured advance through the smoke. He cut diagonally to erase the angle she'd just carved out. Pain still trailed him, but his steps were precise now. No wasted motion. No heat in it. Just intent.

He caught what Lysander said. About enjoying killing her. He smirked. Lysander didn't know it, but she was his.

By the time her stance settled from the landing, Ace was already inside the new geometry she'd created, closing from her blind flank while Lysander re-centered in front of her.

Two fronts again, but tighter. His lightsaber came up from low guard without flourish, the blue arc carving a clean, direct line toward the seam between her rear shoulder plate and collar.

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

Remowa rose slowly from her three-point landing, her obsidian armor shedding sparks from the rough momentum. She looked at Lysander von Ascania whose blade was now leveled at her heart with all the righteous fury of a man who still believed in his own survival. His threat; that he would enjoy killing her was allowed to hang in the air, to showcase how heavy and desperate it was.

She released a gentle, musical laugh, sending a teasing kiss towards the golden knight, her fingers hovering near her lips in a playful display of disdain. If the man truly believed he could eliminate a member of the Dark Side Elite in the midst of an arena, he would undoubtedly be let down.

"You're going to kill me, If only saying it would make it so" she purred.

The air behind her shifted. She didn't need to see the blue glow to know that Acier Moonbound was closing the distance, his movements precise and purged of his earlier frantic energy. He was coming for the seam in her armor, a surgical strike from a student who had finally stopped trying to overpower her and started trying to win the confrontation through the actual use of his brain.

Mimicking the telekinetic slide that Lysander had used just moments earlier, she infused her boots with the Dark Side and pressed against the trembling sand. This maneuver enabled her to pivot, her form turning into a blur as she adjusted her stance in a quick semicircular motion to reposition herself.

Now outside of the pincer, she positioned herself so that she now faced both men from a new angle. Her hand snapped forward, as the three plasma filaments separated from her lightwhip. The uppermost strand lanced toward Lysander's throat, a searing line of violet meant to force the Knight into a desperate vertical parry with Nightstar.

Simultaneously, the middle filament whipped toward the center of the gap between the two men, only to snap back in a sharp, hooked trajectory aimed at the seam of Acier's leading shoulder the very spot he had tried to exploit on her moments before. But the actual trap lay in the third strand and the Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords.

While the first two filaments occupied their blades, Remowa used a sharp flick of her thumb to pulse the weapon's power cell. The weighted leather cords, heavy with beskar studs, lashed out in a low, scissoring arc. They skimmed the sand, looking to take out their ankles in a single fluid motion.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

Her laugh was still hanging in the air as his pupils contracted under a molten glare. No glance was spared to Acier. The former Jedi's shift was clear through the Thread, the way a fighter feels another body entering the pocket, except it wasn't his. And that meant it was time to go. He heard the hiss of plasma cutting through the space between them. A hand-to-hand specialist never waited for the punch; they moved on the tell. So he did. There was no retreat; Lysander stepped in. His right boot cut diagonally across the sand in a tight angle that would only serve to close to distance; he wasn't looking to give any. The left dragged behind it, maintaining a narrow stance. His chin tucked purely on instinct, forming that defensive shell both drilled and beaten into him over years of training, before ever touching a two-handed weapon or lightsaber.

The warmth from the filaments nearly traced a fiery path along his jawline, that would've opened him from ear to collarbone if he stayed where she wanted him. They barely missed him centimeters, overshooting.

But stepping inside also demanded a price. In his grip, Nightstar felt weighty.

His weapon wanted two hands and a full frame backing it, but he didn’t have that luxury in this scenario. The cords came next. He couldn’t drop the blade to block them, nor could he jump. His off-hand snapped, palm open, being one of the only options available..

The shove was tight, like a short hook rather than a wild haymaker. Sand kicked up with the motion, grit scattering as the cords were pushed aside. Just enough to miss him.

The Dark continued humming up his arm. Finally, he moved to cut the angle she was trying to create, one that would let her face both of them. His boot planted firmly again, hips turning, pivoting off the lead leg. Weight shifted forward through the ball of his lead foot, shoulder driving the motion, not his arm, channeling the same mechanics used to throw a cross.. only this time the extension ended in a wickedly sharp phrik point instead of his knuckles. The merciless thrust shot forward, aiming for a spot beneath the ribs.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Remowa moved first, Ace saw the shift in her boots before the sand even reacted. The Dark folded beneath her soles and she slid, a tight semicircle carved through unstable ground, repositioning herself cleanly outside the pincer. She wanted both of them in front of her again.

His eyes never left her hands. The whip separated, three filaments, he didn't track the one lancing for Lysander's throat. There wasn't time. The middle strand flickered through the gap between them... but the third, the hooked return, that was his. It snapped back toward the seam of his leading shoulder.

Ace turned into it, the blue blade lifted just enough to spoil a clean bite, but he let the amethyst strand kiss the beskar of his prosthetic forearm and slide along it. Heat flared, metal screaming as the filament wrapped in a brief, dangerous coil.

At the same instant, the scissoring cords skimmed low for both ankles. Ace compressed and sprang, both boots leaving the sand in a tight vertical lift, knees tucking just enough for the weighted leather to hiss beneath him.

Mid-rise, he snapped his prosthetic arm down and across in a brutal counter line, driving a compact telekinetic jerk through the tensioned filament rather than trying to drag her outright.

It wasn't meant to pull, but to spike. A violent torque meant to jolt her wrist alignment and fracture the geometry of the whip for a heartbeat. He came down already moving, blade angling forward as his weight reset into the sand.

His right hand snapped forward, toward the sand between himself and Remowa, compressed telekinetic concussion angled forward and right, away from Lysander's line. A violent plume of grit and pulverized duracrete erupted upward in a tight, rising cone aimed squarely at her eyeline, the blast shaped so it cut across her silhouette without spilling into the Golden Boy's advance.

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

Remowa had been confident that her trap would put an end to the engagement, but her eyes narrowed at the scene unfolding before her. Both of her opponents were collaborating seamlessly to overwhelm her on both the offensive and defensive fronts, a rare occurrence that would have entertained her if the atmosphere weren't currently filled with the ominous threat of her own demise.

Lysander von Ascania blade was coming fast in a thrust for her armored ribs, a heavy strike that would likely puncture the plate layer. On the other front Acier's telekinetic spike rattled the hilt of her lightwhip followed immediately afterwards by a rising cone of pulverized sand designed to blind her.

Unable to confront Nightstar with her own weapon, she embraced the chaos that Acier Moonbound had provided her. As the sand cone burst forth before her, she shut her eyes, allowing the Force to direct her perception of the arena. There was no point in backing away from the thrust of the blade; instead, she would harness the momentum to enhance a spin.

The point of the blade went past her ribs, yet the friction generated heat singed the top layer of her breastplate. However, due to her momentum from the spike, she would move faster than expected. She adjusted her position so that the Golden Knight became a physical shield, protecting her from the onslaught of debris.

With a flick of her wrist, she deactivated the plasma filaments. Using the weighted Mandalorian iron-studded leather cords. as a flail, she whipped the cords around, not at the men, but at the rising pillar of dust. She caught the debris in a telekinetic swirl, amplifying the sand-storm and throwing it back into Lysander's face with a small application of the force at point-blank range to mask her next move.

She used the momentary blindness of the Golden Boy to vault off the crumbling edge of the seismic crater, her boots barely touching the surface before she was airborne again. She landed five meters away, her silhouette flickering as she reclaimed the distance.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

Impressive may have not been enough to convey the thoughts on how he felt about her reading both of them at once and using their own momentum against them. Nothing personal about the calculated prowess, even if such moments dared to land like insults. A quieter, aristocratic anger coiled within, but not so much as to cloud his focus.

And once again, she circled around behind him, like a dancer in the heat of battle; but what he hadn't anticipated was the way she used him as a shield or a barrier. For one accustomed to dominating the fight, this was nothing short of a violation, an affront to his ego.. and his strength.

Before even having a chance to register it in sight, there was a sting of sand pelting against his face; the grit scraped his lashes, and in ways only a Sith or Jedi might understand.. he could feel pressure from the Force behind it. The temporary blindness didn't faze him. The act that she'd done it twice.. maybe.
The Chiss was faster than he'd read, and well, clearly had a little more fight IQ. But there was no plan B. Each escape just increased the desire to prove her wrong.. burning hotter. That'd only make the eventual victory all the more satisfying.

Sand stung in his eyes as he began moving back in immediately. He lunged once more, fueling another single line. The blade rose higher this time, angling toward a different seam in her armor. The pain from the lightning still crawled along his nerves, but he pushed through the pain. His strike wasn't aiming to end her life, but it was looking to force her into the waiting blade of Acier, to complete a trap built between them without uttering a single syllable. Best to keep applying pressure, or so he believed.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Rattatak

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace saw the spin before it completed. He felt the way she folded into Lysander's thrust, how she let the blade pass and used the Knight's frame as a barrier. The sand he'd launched bloomed uselessly against closed eyes.

She embraced it. The plume twisted mid-air, seized by her will, and snapped back into Lysander's face with Force pressure layered beneath it. Irritation flared sharp in Ace's chest. Not because the tactic failed, because she'd learned from it in a heartbeat. Her efficiency, her adaptiveness, was becoming annoying.

By the time the grit struck Lysander, she was already vaulting clear, boots barely kissing the crater edge before she landed five meters out and reclaimed distance.

Lysander moved again without hesitation. Ace felt his intent before he fully saw it: the renewed lunge, the rising blade angled not for a kill but to herd. To force her toward pressure rather than away from it.

Ace didn't chase her retreat. He adjusted to the lane Lysander was creating instead. The Knight pressed from the front; that much was clear in the angle of his advance. So Ace moved to narrow the space between them. Not toward where she stood, but toward the corridor forming between two converging lines.

As the space compressed, Ace stepped through the narrowing seam, driving off his rear foot to carry his weight into the pocket Lysander's pressure had created.

He didn't hesitate, he lifted his lightsaber from the low guard in a tight ascending diagonal, cutting toward the exposed channel between her shoulder and collar as his body followed through the line.

Remowa | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Remowa]

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

Remowa watched as her two opponents closed in on her new position. They were gradually figuring out how to counter her, with Lysander serving as the hammer and Acier as the scalpel, deftly maneuvering into the openings to attack the vulnerable tissue hidden beneath her protective armor. The atmosphere around them was heavy with desperation and the chilling rhythm of heartbeats approaching their limits.

She snapped her wrist, the handle of the lightwhip clicking into its holster on her thigh in a single fluid motion. Her hands were now empty, palms facing up as she maneuvered her previously dropped cape in front of her to conceal her next action. In just a split second, they both closed the gap, and she seized that moment to act.

As the two blades approached from Lysander von Ascania and Acier Moonbound , a powerful Force Maelstrom began to form around her.

First, a protective force bubble enveloped her body, shielding her from her own immense power. Next, the surrounding sand began to swirl around the bubble, manipulated by her telekinesis. Ultimately, the force erupted from her, sending them flying with a shock wave of energy, followed by a surge of Force lightning.