Faction Blood for Blood | SO

[Srina Talon]

Alvaria: Darth Carnifex | Quinn Varanin | Jorryn Fordyce | Darth Avida | Darth Prazutis | @]Lysander von Ascania @]Darth Caedes | Seela Leini | Kasir Dorran | Ivalyn Yvarro | Ansisa | Eira Dyn | Veradun Sharr
Location: Space - Nerby Systems

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Fear and nightmares flooded unchecked into the starving phobis, which meant, that she also witnessed the terror that was engulfing the city. She could feel it all in the back of her mind in the form of an eternal burden…But her resolve could not be broken. Her will was made of iron and no matter the pandemonium Echnos City fell toward—She would remain. She followed the fears of her Sith with a more vested interest than the rest. It behooved her to know, to understand, what plagued them in this most challenging hour. In Kasir Dorran she found the lost child.

The little boy who lived on the streets of Dromund Kaas. Abandoned.

The memory would feel changed, just slightly, in her profane intervention. His rage was fuel for the fire, a breath of life, but he would notice a flickering difference in what he recalled. A whispering female figure with long white hair who stood with the boy rather than looking down on him. There were no words. Merely, an invisible hand to the shoulder. Her power—Their power. It would make him stronger, more resilient, if only he managed to channel his fury and accept the truth beyond the pale.

He never had to be powerless again…He never had to be that boy again.

That was what she offered her people.

The images that haunted his mind, bringing back memories of his past, continued flowing like waves; yet amidst the confusion, another vision began to form, one that brought no physical strain, but rather a feeling of unexpected comfort. As he gazed upon his younger self, there was a figure beside him, almost maternal in nature, with a hand resting on his shoulder. All the pain began to ease, bringing forth a sense of clarity. Kasir’s inner turmoil was relieved, even if only for a moment. It made him feel more determined, causing the flames within to grow, driven by the force of some kind of new understanding. Everything clicked in that moment.

The Second Mirror of Echnos.

Pain.

It was an agony that did not belong to her, yet it momentarily braided itself through nerve and marrow as if her own body had been opened with the Qâztharûn. A phantom heat scorched her ribs before it turned into a freezing absence that left the edges of her consciousness raw and lined with ice. Kasir Dorran . The memory of a hard-fought battle returned to her in earnest. The moment in which she had brought the horror of the Phobis Engine into existence, and conversely, the Second Mirror that had metaphysically taken her hand to bring it online.

That type of power had a price…And the pale Empress had made the Sangnir, as well as many others, a hinge to a door that only she could open. Now, as he screamed—That door was screaming.

Srina did not rise.

The stone of the throne of Alvaria was winter-cold against her spine. Spreading like wildfire, all around her, black crystal continued its less-than-patient ascent. It moved up pillars, jutting out in transparent perfection, across shattered fresco, and through the roof in a framework of night. Every drop of blood that had been spilled answered her call, and the surface of this world began to groan under her iron will before subsiding.

It was as if tectonic plates were shifting, changing, to make way for something new.

"I hear you," carried His voice upon the wind, caressing her ear with each succulent syllable. "Always."

The response she received from Darth Carnifex was not something she heard, but felt it arrive through the phylactery around her neck. It beat against her skin and seemed to echo with the grave inevitability of the Butcher King—But the white-haired Echani was not so easily satisfied. He heard her always…

”But you are not here.”

The statement was issued with a particular quality, something that mimicked both disquiet and the tones of a woman who did not expect to be denied for any reason. Not because she was an Empress or because he was a King…

But because She called. She asked. She—Waited.

They were more than what they had become.

Srina did not look up when another presence approached the throne room, though the picture that she made, surrounded by such sorcery, would do well to warn anyone of her current temperament. She might have appeared expressionless, without emotion, but few would know what churned in the deepest recesses of her being. She could feel the signature of someone halting at the threshold and molten orbs slowly turned toward Jorryn Fordyce with all the intensity of a falling star.

They had a physical likeness, but it was the hunger of a scholar in her that she noted first, something that would likely go hand in hand with cruelty. There was no other option because if her fascination with arcane practices such as this were her flavor…It could not exist without agony. The display of deference was correct if she had ever given a damn about etiquette; thus, she let it be. There were no sepulchral present to bark in her ear that all belonged on their knees.

“Rise, child.”, the order came swiftly, not a question, and gold-hewn orbs flickered with some sort of hawkish familiarity that would seem out of place. Jorryn did not know her. Srina, knew Jorryn—Because she existed in the orbit of her daughter. “I have heard interesting things with your name attached.”

There was no indication of whether these things were “good” or “bad” in any context, but Srina did note the odd wording of the greeting. What was it that this Sithling hoped she might be? Echani? Cold? Monstrous? If these were on the list, then perhaps what the young one stated held some modicum of truth. Her eyes flickered…Ever the teacher, even, amid what equivocated to a mass funeral. She lifted her hand, and the dark lattice-work of crystal pulsed once in reply. It was as if they spoke. “Attend...Watch and learn if you have interest in the alchemical—But I will warn you only once….”

“Do not get in my way.”

It wasn’t a threat, nothing so plebian, but a requirement for survival.

Her focus turned away from the first warrior to arrive, and her head angled as if listening to rain through a ruined roof. She could feel Quinn’s urgency cutting through the estate like a silver thread while the shining formations fed her the vow from Trayze Tesar with startling clarity. Darth Malum of House Marr had always mistakenly assumed that his allies were a sum of none…It seemed—He was wrong. She could feel two smaller heartbeats tucked close beneath the guard of the Princess, and Srina knew it would not be long. Quinn Varanin was never one to disappoint her, even if there was something in the air that left her troubled. Perhaps the interaction with the mother. ( Ansisa )

The damage that had been done to Kasir Dorran clawed at her through the Force. She could not leave the throne. If she stepped away now and completely cut her concentration, the new material that she had forced into existence might start swallowing everything. The different factions could reach again for each other’s throats, and Alvaria would drown twice in the same day. So…She reached out the only way that mattered.

The only way she could.

The rapidly blackening crystal responded swiftly. It knew him, having already tasted of his essence, sweeping the ichor down into smooth stone and earth so that it could join the rest of the fallen of Alvaria and propagate.

"Shaari nak drazh…", Srina whispered, and the throne’s crown of midnight glass shivered, power rolling through it as if it were made to hold the Darkside itself. She did not speak to her warriors this time, not her people, but to the fallen Sangnir. Across the estate, a thin black seam opened in the air, and Srina’s teeth snapped together hard when Veradun Sharr removed the banner pole from her Second Mirror.

He was shattered.

The planar tear that she had made let her see how a young man with equally dark hair seemed intent on saving his “brother”…But Srina could feel the extent of the harm Darth Prazutis had incurred. It wasn’t just physical. The artificial crystal that had fed on him, on what blood he had lost, crept toward the feet of Kasir like a moth darting toward flame. It didn’t impale as the banner had, but sluiced forward to cover his wounds, and fill the holes that had been left behind. Filaments as fine as spiderweb danced across his torn flank and over the “absence” caused by the runeblade, swiftly, so that his savior would not pull him away. Her eyes fell shut while she began her weaving, and several black cradles grew around his injuries that were so great…The task felt insurmountable. <<I promised…You would never have to be powerless again.>>

<<Never have to be that little boy, alone, again.>>

Even if he hadn’t thought about that day since, Srina did not lie. She always kept her word…Even if it didn’t look the same except to her eyes. Where the Qâztharûn had ripped the Force away, her lattice lay down a counter-script, runes of containment and separation folding over it, binding, while keeping Kasir Dorran stable as Veradun Sharr did all he could. The crystal drank in only the particular brand of malice that such a terrifying blade had left behind and redirected what would seek to lay him low.

It replenished what it took. It gave of the souls it held—Taking his place.

<<…You are not permitted to die where someone else can claim the meaning of it out from under you. You fight, because you must. Take my hand as you did once before... >>

Her tone was the same as Echnos. Precise, cold, and protective to the point of obscene violence.

<<Fight—Drink as your savior bids...and...wake up.>>

Srina would not lose another, not when Malum of House Marr had seemingly been ripped away without rhyme or reason. She did not like it when things were taken from her, especially when there was no explanation to her questions other than silence. She tightened the crystal weave over the worst of Kasir’s wounds, and a single sliver of black glass broke away, thin as a needle, and threaded itself beneath his skin as an anchor.

It would remain nearest to where his heart would lie.

No.

She would not lose another to hubris and folly.

The alabaster Echani raised a hand to her temple to stem the tide of an aching head due to the risk of splitting her focus. Slowly, her digits lowered, and she turned her consideration back toward Quinn Varanin and the cargo she shuttled forward with Trayze Tesar in tow. The crystals would move and guide them, bringing them wordlessly down unfurling pathways, and straight to the throne room…Hopefully without incident. “There are many moving parts to this nation Jorryn Fordyce …”

“You will need to forgive my distraction.”

Srina had already called for her warriors once, politely, and without criticism or shame. She was not in the habit of repeating herself, and she would not be ignored. The Empress would not be the entertainer that distracted those before her, that lied to them, about how dire things had become. Her presence on Alavria was not a whim, nor some misguided attempt to change what the Sith were.

They needed the war.

They needed to fight.

She was simply what arrived at the end of that battle, wise and weary, to guarantee the slaughter stopped when needed. Srina would ensure that it remained contained so that the entire system didn’t fall into a state of cascading failures due to a delicate ecosystem being blown to hell. Alvaria would be remembered as the planet that once had a boy-king, fated, fabled, and troubled. The future would know this event as the Silence of Alvaria. The moment their King was gone. The moment the reaping began…

The moment it ended.

This world was wounded...The point had been made. No more.

 

[Jorryn Fordyce]

// Lady Jorryn Fordyce //
// Objective I // Alvaria // Hold the Line //
// Focus // // Quinn Varanin // Ansisa // Darth Carnifex // Darth Avida // Lysander von Ascania // Darth Prazutis // Trayze Tesar // Veradun Sharr // Kasir Dorran //

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Amber eyes watched carefully as the crystals continued to rise in an orchestral tempo with the passion of their creator, a gaze of wonder and curiosity following the opalescent appendages reach towards the sky as the Empress of the Sith. Ashen flakes of dust fell from the ceiling as the crystals took root amongst the stone and wood of Malum's manor, dancing downward before joining with the ever expanding growths.

The sorrowful cry of the earth beneath them gave way to its new form, an alchemical rebirth reshaping all those that had fallen in the battle. A grand burial of sorts, Jorryn supposed.

The former Lord Inquisitor's time amongst the Sith Order was still ephemeral, weaving in and out of the boundaries of her new home as quickly and quietly as her whims deemed her to be. Stories of the empress had caressed her ear numerous times, as well as those from Quinn herself, but the spectacle unfolding before her was treat to her alone.

She remained the only company of her Echani sister, for better or worse, and the fact wasn't unnoticed by Srina as the glare fell on the silver-haired Sith alone.

Hands delicately folded in front of Jorryn as she raised herself upon the Empress' command, the passion of the woman's presence and stare contrasting to the unfeeling face she presented. The calm demeanour the words fell upon her ears with did not call it a command as such, but with a flash of her golden eyes it seemed foolish to await more direct orders.

It was clear that the Empress expected more than the Echani's singular company, and Jorryn herself hoped that her charge would arrive soon. The extended delay only made the silver-haired Sith worry that her departure from the Princess' side was ill-timed, that perhaps it would have been best to stay by Quinn's side to ensure her safety.

There was little concern for Quinn's safety however. The girl held enough strength in her to tame the Sith, even those that sought to claim Malum's treasure. But the people she sought to save on the other hand...

A small breath escaped her chest, hoping that her charge's mission was as unharmed as she herself was.

An eyebrow lifted as the Empress of the Sith called on her to attend, but not interfere, and admit knowledge of the reborn Echani's existence. Words from Quinn perhaps? Regardless, the opportunity to observe the grand magics of Srina would be seldom few, and Jorryn had never been the type to shy away from such power.

"It would be my pleasure to attend, Empress."

As Jorryn stepped near the throne of Alvaria, her own presence in the force felt small. Smaller than she had ever thought possible since her rebirth, yet no feelings of envy or insignificance invaded her mind. It was filled with sheer wonder instead. A hand lifted near the throne, only tapping into the force enough to sense the presence and fortitude of the Empress' newest creation. She wished badly to assist Srina in the weaving of alchemy, to engrave the creation in her own alchemical signature so she might even grasp a strand of the fabric her fellow Echani was weaving.

But she knew that it would only detract from the art unfolding in front of her.

Instead she observed, silently. Her amber eyes closed to sense the magics at work, the sensations of the Sith Empress that called to her children, dulled to Jorryn in their vastness, crept carefully along her skin as she listened. If even someone such as Srina felt difficulty splitting her focus amongst all her creation, then the noise was cacophonous to the other Echani.

Still, she would listen.

Until her empress spoke to her once again.

"Today has been a reminder of our people, but there is nothing to forgive." The words were soft, almost apologising from escaping the former Lord Inquisitor's lips. "You allow me enough to simply watch."

With the words, the Echani would remain silent by Srina's side. This had been the first time the workings of the Sith had been rebranded into her psyche. The ever hungry ouraboruos, never satiated by its own flesh. Licking at it's own scales like a snake misunderstanding it's own tail as carrion filth. It was a realm she thrived in, admittedly, though never as much more than an observer. Paper and words had been her forte in a past life, but as the hymn of the Empress' melody crept along her ears, this new life beckoned for her to claim more.

To be more.

Eyes shut as the Echani fell silent, a hand still daintily lifted to her side, a non-physical caress of the throne in front of her. If her presence was felt at all by the Empress, it would be as a dull tune hoping to mimic the works it was listening to. Like a child humming a melody their mother sung to them as they fell to sleep, croaking from a throat too young and inexperienced to ever create such music.

 

[Lina Ovmar]

Objective 2: You want to play with dead things? Okay, lets play.
Engaging: Helix
Allies: Darth Strosius Revna Marr Varin Mortifer Arris Windrun Mercy
Enemies: Darth Nefaron Lirka Ka

Again Lina’s blade sliced through, only this time she struck nothing, Helix splitting his form to avoid her strike. His response had been immediate, her illusion ineffective. A simple droid might have been fooled by such a visual but Helix was far from simple. He adapted, and so would she.

The lightsaber cracked as he batted it aside with a regrown limb. The more he shifted, the greater her curiosity grew, what were the limits of his ever shifting form? She didn’t pause drawing back on light feet as the hammer tore through the air where she had been a heartbeat before, so close she felt the shockwave roll over her chest.

She darted forward into the edge of his next swing, a saber catching the would be haft of the hammer, using his own momentum to divert it away as her other struck lower, aiming to score a line across his flank.

Lina felt a shift in the battle behind her, the ripple of sorcery that wasn’t hers and the stench of death that was too potent to be Darth Nefaron alone. Something Lina simply could not ignore.

Something peeled away from Lina’s back as the shadows that tracked her movements thinned. A ghostly form of herself drifted away, mouth moving without sound as she began to weave her own spell. Sweat beading on her forehead as she strained to split her focus, to keep her standing in the battle with Helix and hold both forms.

Revna Marr and Darth Strosius would recognise the sensation, the familiar chaos of energy that would begin to rise as the blood of the dead began to shift, coming together in an angry red line beneath their foes feet, the whispers that began to rise only adding to the battle din as the portal to the Netherworld began to open.

 

[Ansisa]

Objective 1: Survive
Engaging Darth Prazutis Darth Carnifex
Others: Srina Talon Quinn Varanin Jorryn Fordyce Trayze Tesar Lysander von Ascania

Ansisa wasn't so prideful that Carnifex not only didn’t know who she was, but didn’t care. There were few who did, all of this was by design, yet his words about Malum not deeming her precious enough? That he didn't deem his children precious enough, struck a chord in her chest. But she refused to waver, the only outward sign was a slight narrowing of her gaze, which shifted to Prazutis.

All of this was beyond her, she knew it, yet that didn’t stop her as she stepped smoothly into his path. There was no fear there, only acceptance. Whatever pain she had to endure, she would, they would not get near the throne room without a fight. He assessed her, like a predator asses prey, Ansisa held his gaze. Whatever fear he saw was not for herself.

“I do not break.” The reply was soft, not spoken in arrogance or defiance. Simply a statement of fact.

A beat passed, before she moved, but it wasn’t just her. In a blink there were a half a dozen Ansisa’s, three converging on Darth Prazutis , lightsabers a blur as they sought to drive him back, while the other half rushed Darth Carnifex . Ansisa herself blinked out of existence, concealing herself from sight and in the force. Skirting the edge of the fight as she drew a pair of shikkar blades, her lightsaber unlit resting at her hip.

She was an assassin, her skill lay in slipping blades between ribs when no one was looking. She would play to her strengths, until she had no other choice.

 

[Lirka Ka]

It was almost the same as looking into a bleak, wonosan-tinted, mirror. All the fury and all the rage, trapped within the form of Varin Mortifer - she almost pitied him. Almost. She couldn't let herself grow too soft for the wasted potentials of evil that she encountered so many times - lest she'd likely fall (deeper) to insanity. Though the irony of it all was not lost to her.

She watched him tumble in the wake of her mighty throw, for just as flame licked away the wounds she had tore onto his body. The black foulness of Lirka Ka congealed and coagulated as the dripping globs of wrongness slowed and reached out to each other - as if they had some malign intelligence of their own. That was the way of brawlers forged for murder though, wasn't it? Nature was but another obstacle to overcome on the ever winding Dark Path, pain became the closest of friends, injury patched itself in unnatural power.

Were she not focusing, she might have even laughed at the whole destructive situation around them. Instead, only a distorted huff of air that was either exertion or amusement came from the metallic goliath - then she spoke, a nostalgic remembrance of another body, another murder.

"The stimulant's sweet siren song..."

She almost missed those days. Till her heart gave out at least. She took that moment, ever so brief, to brace herself, examining the now exposed flesh of Varin Mortifer - how foolish these Sithlings were. If it was a scar he wanted, it was a scar he'd get. She was ready now, as the mace came swinging at her again. A nimble lean to let the thing swing past her still simmering form.

What she was less ready for was the barrage of lightning that slammed into her body from Varin's mouth. Lirka was a conductive sort of beast. She could feel the energies running through her entire body, the undersuit already boiling from the barrage Arris Windrun had unleashed upon them all but boiled in its wake. It was agony, as it ever was. But Lirka Ka was a monster compelled by forces unnatural. It would take more than that to keep her down.

The lightning arced, surging through all she held. Including her weapons. Soon came the crackling roar as her mighty machete's filaments sprang back to powered existence. Good. It was playtime again. Her stance shifted suddenly as the Once-Sephi broke into a mad dash, seemingly running straight for the Wonosan -

- till she moved to run right past him. Little more than a cursory careening blow to slash across the man in her mechanized sprint. No her eyes were locked on a far more deadly nuisance - the newcomer had remained far too untouched in their little bout. And Lirka was loathe to leave a foe without something to remember her by, even as the round tore straight through her metal plates: a window to what lay behind her now opened within the Once-Sephi's rancid form - a window that would be plenty quaint to see whatever destruction her stimulant laden foe would bring down upon her for this mad dash. The smell of burning and bubbling chemicals filled the air from the hole left in her being as blackness came alight. A fiery demon of wrath unbound that still kept coming, for Lirka was not compelled by mere muscle and nerve. The whip crackled to life too as she sprinted, leaving bubbling globs of melted armor plating in her wake - it lashed out, striking high for the cyborg's face before she brought in a low sweep of her mighty blade down towards the girl's knees.

Blood for blood, after all.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He thought it rather foolish for the woman to stand in the Mortarch's path, but that was about all He thought of it. It was neither commendable nor admirable to willingly throw one's self into the jaws of the beast, nor did those who did deserve pity or sympathy. The Eternal Father did not believe in self-sacrifice, nor did He believe in ideas of chivalry or honor. All that governed this universe was the immutable calculus of power, and those who could calculate it's byzantine arithmetic could control all that exist therein.

The Eternal Father didn't respond to the woman's soft-spoken statement, it barely even registered as speech in His mind. These animals could so rarely articulate themselves in His eyes, their constant baying and moaning rendered as little more than an irritation. In this, He could understand why she was not taken to wherever the Lord Marr had fled to. He sensed something deeper beneath the woman as well, He first sensed it by the narrowing of her gaze when He spoke of her abandonment.

Perhaps she bore a litter. It would explain her suicidal devotion to her absentee Lord, and the reason as to why she blocked the Death Lord's path. These creatures and their misplaced sentimentality would always remain a constant source of manipulation. But all of that could come later, for now a lesson was to be imparted.

"Forgive me," echoed His voice through the phylactery, heard only by the Empress herself.

"I shall be delayed for only a moment."

Only a brief tremor, the slightest twitch in the Dark Lord's fingers, heralded the sudden materialization of an equal amount of scintillating spears of ethereal energy; one for each of the phantom assassins that converged. Even as illusions, the Dark Lord tracked the movement of each simulacrum, charting the facsimile of their momentum and the triangulation of their trajectory in the same span it took to exhale. Awaiting them was the aforementioned spears of midnight black, angled to directly pierce each illusion right where their heart would have been.

Unlike the Mortarch, the Dark Lord could not parcel out where the real assassin had gone. So He waited, quiet and placid, like an explosive upon the precipice of detonation.

Ansisa | Darth Prazutis | Srina Talon
Quinn Varanin | Trayze Tesar | Lysander von Ascania
Jorryn Fordyce
​

 

[Darth Prazutis]

​

The illusions closed in, flickers of blue and crimson, shivering mirages laced with desperation. They split, encircled, blurred, but to Xûl-Karzaan, they were children's games. The great helm saw beyond light, saw the threads of being itself. In His sight, the false bodies were hollow silhouettes, faint as smoke around a single living flame.

"You dare divide yourself before me?" His voice filled the corridor like an eclipse, a sound without echo, where every syllable fell heavy enough to bend the air around it. The Dark Lord's head tilted downward his voice dropped to a deadly whisper as the ghosts strikes came in. "Remember. You chose this."

Then Godflame was born. Not merely as lightning. But as true revelation to what was, and what had just occurred. The storm erupted from His palm in a single silent instant, crimson arcs that didn't so much strike as consecrate. The corridor became a pyre for falsehoods. Where the Eternal Father's spears had already passed, moving to impale illusion, the Shadow Hand unmade the stage itself, erasing even the shadows. The bolts tore through the remnants of deceit, sweeping through the hall like an infernal tide that scoured everything it touched. Stone melted. Air turned to liquid fire. The marble columns lining the hall flayed outward like petals of a dying star. And still, He advanced.

Each step carried the weight of collapse. The Godflame swirled around Him, not wild but disciplined, an orbiting halo of divine slaughter. The ground beneath His boots fractured, stone liquefying into molten glass. The walls wailed. Through the Dyad, He felt the Eternal Father's intentions, the surgeon's hand of inevitability, and He followed in perfect rhythm, the destroyer's hand of apocalypse. Their unified power at such proximity grew, multiplying on itself as two became one. Two movements, one intent. When the true presence flickered into the edges of His awareness, His will turned toward it, no cloak would give the Chiss refuge from his sight. The Force around them began to compress, the air bending inward toward a single point. It was not motion but command.

He did not raise His hand again, He simply willed it to be so and the force obeyed. Pressure surged from all sides, a gravity well of telekinetic domination. Space seemed to tighten, the Force rippling outward in silent distortion. Objects in the hall trembled as though awaiting their turn to be judged, banners twitching, shattered marble shifting, the dust itself levitating in slow orbit before disintegrating into heat.

"You dare skulk to the darkness, shrouding yourself in its embrace before me and think you safe?" The giant said through thunder. "The gall."

The hallway began to fail as the estate shook. Paintings, fixtures, and broken architecture shuddered loose from the walls, suspended in the telekinetic tide. His power reached for all of it, to unmake, to fold, to turn the corridor into scripture rewritten by destruction. A wave of unseen force surged outward from His advance, the raw gravitic pull threatening to tear the space apart at the seams. Through it all, the Godflame coiled and crackled around Him, its crimson arcs snaking through the air, seeking any defiance left to burn away. A dozen lances of lightning unfurled from His outstretched hand, snapping through the charged haze like predatory tendrils, a storm aimed to consume illusion, movement, and resistance alike.

The air screamed. The marble fractured.

Darth Carnifex | Srina Talon | Quinn Varanin | Ansisa | Jorryn Fordyce | Trayze Tesar | Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Helix]

Objective II
Equipment: Himself
Tags: Lina Ovmar / Lirka Ka / Darth Nefaron ​

Helix acknowledged the silent alarm when it rang out through his communication channels. It seemed Nefaron had come to agree that the numbers were not on their side.

Helix glanced upwards, giving off a silent signal of his own. Then the cavernous room's roof came away all at once.

The Aconite he'd called had arrived. Triple-barreled turrets swiveled, sending a fusillade of plasma fire indiscriminately downwards.

The night-black bolts carved massive, glowing craters in the chamber's floor where they landed, striking friend and foe alike without distinction.

Helix made a mental note to have the craft's brain recalibrated. Such weapons were not rated for this sort of close-in bombardment, but he supposed it was better than the torpedoes being deployed.

He didn't bother sticking around as the vessel's metallic tendrils unfolded from its underside, snaking towards them.

His disorientingly choral voice echoed in the comms of Lirka and Nefaron. "Escape is here, as requested. Make it swift, because they will not allow us another chance. Pick a line, any line."

As if to suit the action to the word, Helix allowed the lightsaber to part the haft of the hammer. The weapon's spiked head whirled into the air for a few moments as the weapon came apart.

Helix reached up, seized the truncated bludgeon from the air in his other arm, and reshaped it into a short, dagger-like blade. In truth, he'd pulled its form from memory. The weapon Nefaron had handed him, many nights ago on Anoat. Ovmar's other saber came round, carving another glowing rent into his flesh. The colony emitted a high-pitched whine of irritation, swinging the flensing blade downward towards the limb that held the offending weapon in a short, stabbing riposte. He didn't watch to see if it stuck.

Helix attempted to disengage, flipping backward into a surprisingly-flexible back-handspring for something so tall and gangly. His body dispersed once more into that fine, airborne particulate form. Reshaping underneath the hovering craft, he waved toward his compatriots.

"The novelty of this encounter has worn off. If you wish to leave, do it now."

 

[Trayze Tesar]

OBJECTIVE I - ALVIRA

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CURRENT MISSION - Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?
Immediate Goals -
1: Rescue the Innocents
2: Plot Vengeance upon the wicked

BLUFOR - Quinn Varanin || Darth Strosius || Revna Marr || Jorryn Fordyce || Srina Talon

OPFOR - Darth Carnifex || Darth Prazutis et. al

TARGETING ACTION(S) - Quinn Varanin || Young Masters Cecilia & Aureus (played by the lovely Ansisa ) & those en route to Srina Talon 's vessel.

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"We need to meet with my mother, please, Trayze, let nothing stop us…"

"Nothing shall, Highness." Trayze answered, a smile hiding a cold fire that could only come from a "do-or-die" notion - similar to Lady Ansisa 's fervor, but curtailed only through several chains of duty. The fire softened with him, as he addressed the two Chiss, stating calmly but firmly that they were to do training - to be "big and strong". Aureus, the young lad who's declaration to protect his sister caused the Kiffar's heart to swell and his eyes to moisten, would be given a small choice: would he share the honor of defending his sister with "Uncle" or "Marm".

Perhaps it was deliberately humorous, juxtaposing the chaos around with the almost teasing but rustically polite appellation to the Princess and Daughter of the Dread Lady - perhaps in such a strangely humorous setting where the young ones had control over their choices, that they had something to share rather than be taken or bartered in the game politick. That such a moment would ground them, and be something to go towards - a moment to laugh in spite of this terrible tragedy when all of this over.

Once the decision was made, one or both or neither of the children would find themselves in one pair of arms or another, Trayze demonstrating that sadly this isn't the first time he's had to carry a crying child away from a terrible, bloody mess. Whether Quinn would allow Trayze to take point, or shadow her as she lead them to her mother's protection.

He tries not to think about their mother, who faces against the Butcher King - a hundred cynical possibilities for the Tick of the Force to render the children orphans, the legacy of Malum scattered, and he be the sole, iron-gripped ruler of the Empire once again... but there was no time for that. None at all.

One foot in front of the other.