Annihilation Clash of Destiny

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Death Star III

Equipment:
Field Gear | Lightsaber

Their blades clashed again, the hiss filling the air, heat and light spilling between them. The Sith leaned in close, gaze sharp and unflinching, while Ace held his ground. Sparring with Aris Noble had improved the rebel's isometric strength.

Then Ravoch's armored hand shot forward. Ace saw the motion a fraction too late. He jerked back, but the plated gauntlet still caught him across the throat, the impact felt like he'd been hit by a piston. Breath ripped from his lungs, as he instinctively took one hand off of his hilt, threw his left hand back and wound up for a left cross.

But before he could throw it, he felt his boots leaving the ground as the Force surged behind Ravoch's grip. The corridor snapped into motion, Ace quickly realized he'd been flung.

The door behind him hissed open and he crashed through, hitting the catwalk hard enough to rattle the whole corridor. The clang echoed down into the maintenance shaft below. He rolled once, coughed, hand braced to catch himself against the railing before he could fall through the torn grating.

He dragged in a breath, throat burning where the gauntlet had slammed him. Ace summoned his lightsaber into his palm, humming to life again with a sharp snap-hiss, blue glow cutting through the haze.

The tunnel was tighter, hotter. Pressurized pipes lined the walls, some already hissing under strain. Ravoch stood at the mouth of the corridor, light catching on the gold chain across his chest. He was all poise and power.

Of course the Sith took the moment to talk. Goading him into anger, goading him into tapping into the Dark side... again. For a moment, Ace pondered it. Channelling what he had on Dathomir.

Then he felt the shift. The Force tightened, like the pressure dropping before a storm. The air trembled an instant before the pipes beneath him ruptured with a metallic shriek. Boiling air burst through the deck, jets of heat clawing upward.

Ace moved on instinct. The Force surged through his legs as he vaulted high, clearing the initial burst. Heat clawed at his boots as he flipped, landing in a crouch further down the catwalk where the metal still held. His lungs burned with the heat that chased him, but his eyes stayed locked on the Sith Lord framed in the doorway ahead.

"Ever get tired of hearing your own voice?"

He didn't hesitate. His off-hand snapped out, wrenching a section of railing free with a telekinetic tug. The bolts screamed loose as he swung the length of metal down and across, turning one of the venting jets toward Ravoch. A plume of scalding steam roared through the gap, hissing white across the corridor in a blinding rush.

Ace didn't wait to see if it hit. He moved. His boots hit the wall, then the catwalk above in one smooth Force-aided motion. He landed low, breath steady. The heat warped the air below, hiding him for a heartbeat from view. He could sense Ravoch's power cutting through the haze: steady, deliberate. The Sith Lord didn't waver. But neither would Ace.

He adjusted his grip on the lightsaber, switching stance low guard, left-hand near his chest, the other guiding the blade's angle. Shii-Cho form, Djem So follow-through. It was crude in transition, but lethal if timed right. His dark gaze locked through the haze, hunting for the flicker of crimson that would give Ravoch away.

Kyrothian Ravoch

 

[Matsu Ike]

OBJECTIVES: Clash of Destiny
ALLIES: Jedi
ENEMIES: Death Star

The surface of the station was something else... her interest in seeing it after she had moved through the viewport had accomplished two important things... the soldiers weren't going to be able to follow her and it gave her a direct path to what she could see as an easier means to move into the interior. The feeling in the force shifted as she stood there at the dish looking at it but also into the stations itself. Through the molecules as something appeared... it was dangerous and not someone anymore. She knew it from Tython when they fought the Drengir but here it was showing some of the power while the jedi grandmaster brought a hand up to her chin. Ashin had done something similar to her to appear which was... impressive more so then she thought others might be able to do. She shrugged to herself as she moved along the length of the curved surface. Her body moving quickly through the space when she came to the central area and moved through it into the primary tunnels going down. Her body hovering and moving faster as there was no resistance to her body when it vibrated and slipped through the molecules not disturbing her robes or the air for others. Displacement until she came to a window looking out it and there were firing crews. Her eyes watched as they were moving around and she altered the structure of the molecules and particles around herself. entangling the ones in front of her to show like the ones behind her as a makeshift molecule cloaking field to allow herself to be there watching. Her lungs remaining as the molecules within them pulled from places exotic and a thousand worlds filled her with air to keep her going.

"Hmmm a thousand or more control rooms, not much of a dent but." She said it and floated up and through while looking at the ones walking around inside. The soldiers where there as she focused on them and was touching their minds with the force... slowly slipping, weaving and brushing against the resistances of their minds. Her breathing hitched when she found it and the feeling of darkness was there as it came in ordering them around. Firing crews were prepared and she stayed there on the ceiling looking at the one who was standing there. The woman's form was all angles, ashy white skin with flecks of gray and black veins. Golden rims in her eyes and hair in thick braided tails that were showing red coloring. She was sharply dressed as well with those robes... like she rolled out of her bunk and had them freshly pressed with an iron so they would look sharp. She practically wanted to get some band aids for all the edges of the outfit she was using. She remained there as finally the sith stood and looked at the door. "There was one attacking the control rooms, we will hold it." She was all snarl in her voice and it brought a small giggle from the jedi master like the sound of silver bells jingling that got the attention of the sith who finally looked up at the silver jedis grandmaster. "Intrud..." her voice trailed off as the air around thickened.. the molecules becoming heavier in her mouth as it filled up with the jedi coming down. SOme guards turned to look at her and rifles were raised.

Matsu's grin widened as she floated closer, her head tilted, observing the fuming Sith Lady with an air of clinical fascination."No, no, no, I mean look at you," Matsu said, her voice full of theatrical awe and wonder arms spreading wide, "all sharp angles and brooding. You are the pinnacle of Sith Lord edge. Your masters must see you are the most reliable person in their entire empire. Like a hydrospanner or a hammer... that is it. You are like their ultimate tool." The compliment was delivered with such sincere yet insulting sweetness that the Sith Lady's rage boiled over. MAtsu floated there in front of her as the snap-hiss of a lightsaber came. THe lady slashed with it coming at herr and Matsu moved while the soldiers were taking aim with their rifles. "Jedi... you will die." Matsu's eyes just watched the sith and she spoke with a nod of her head. "Maybe, eventually but it is sith season right now so men you may fire when ready." She said it and looked at the soldiers as she had been working on them and their minds were zealots she had felt the one in the fresher gave her a peek into it and these ones aas well as the others confirmed it before the sith slashed. "No it is clearly jedi season and we are going to destroy your home and everything. Fire on the jedi." Barrels shifted while Matsu stayed there and used her finger to block and deflect the saber. "No no, I saw the date in the galactic calender. It was clearly sith season." SHe could feel the barrels move with her own mental influence on them as they were following the verbal sparring more for targets and their own minds were handling the targeting. THe sith snarled with rage as she was almost frothing from her mouth. Matsu moved back a little more watching her. "It is jedi season, you over-talking thing. It will always be jedi season."

Her voice was laced with so much rage the jedi master suddenly couldn't disagree with her and she was watching her as she floated there and nodded. "Fine jedi season." She said it and the sith looked at her when she screamed in raage. "Sith season fire fools." The jedi masters eyebrows raised as the moments seemed to slow down more and more and the realization came to her face. The sound of blasters firing off into the baack fo the sith while Matsu slipped out the window aand parts of its fell away pulling with vacuum decompression. Allowing her to keep going before she shrugged looking at the form as it went out with several troopers. "Hmm" She said it while she was moving with the force and stayed on task... that was amusing and interesting enough... she would have to see about what could be done next to at least contribute when she was going down the main firing chambers with herself propelled through the force. The trams would have helped but there was always a danger with those... much safe to fly and dodge around with the force while she followed the feeling of darkside energies pouring all around herself. She ran fingers over the surface and allowed it to shift, alter and sever the connections between the molecules where she could but leaving trails of fingers she couldn't compromise the entire things slowly.

 

[Aether Verd]

Assets: Beskar'gam | Basilisk
Darksaber | Resolute Dawn​

ABOARD THE IRON EIDOLON, ATRISIA
Across the Stars --> Clash of Destiny

The rift held.

Even as the Eidolon tore free of the Blackwall’s fold, Aether felt the hum of power ripple through every plate and girder of the warship. The air trembled beneath the combined will of Sith and Mandalorian hands, a passage carved through reality by sorcery, science, and stubbornness in equal measure. What began as war games in the shadow of Korriban had become something far greater. A coalition bound by blood, contract, and necessity stood under one roof.

The viewports bloomed with light. Atrisia sprawled ahead, wreathed in chaos. Wrecks drifted like charred leaves on black water while a vast sphere of steel dominated the void. Familiar in design. Arrogant in intent.

A Death Star.

He turned toward the Empress. Srina Talon stood poised, the pale light of the rift tracing ghostly lines across her armor. Her orders came measured and precise, the same calm that had guided them from the storm. Three lanes. Staggered approach. Eidolon first. No heroics. Purpose only.

Aether inclined his head. “Dral’buir’s lanes are set,” he answered, his voice like gravel beneath steel. “We will strike where the blade is sure to cut. Three waves, staggered descent. Death Watch breaches first and carves a corridor for your legions to follow.”

He faced his chosen. Death Watch stood as a wall of beskar and fire. Renn’s remembrance still rang in the marrow, the sort of vow that reaches a man deeper than bone. Domina's runes burned low and blue, Starfang sunk in the deck like a monument. Korda knelt beside her, reborn in purpose, his shame tempered into something cleaner than penitence. This was what Mandalore had needed. Not only strength of arm, but conviction.

“Your rites are heard, Executioner,” Aether said, visor to Domina. “Ha’rangir walks with us this day.” His helm turned slightly toward Korda. “And you, brother. You have carried the fire long enough. Burn proud. The Manda does not waste its heat on the unworthy.”

He lifted his gaze to the Sith command. “King of Korriban,” he said to Caedes with a nod of equal standing. “You will have your breach. My Watch will punch the hole and draw their eyes. Once we are inside, we hold the decks until your strike cuts the heart.” To Srina he gave a smaller truth. “Contract honored. Word kept.”

Movement answered him. Klaxons cut the air. Techs ran lines and released clamps. The first Warclaws rumbled awake in their cradles. Siv’s shadow unit peeled off toward the auxiliary bays to ride the Eidolon’s wake. Domina’s priests took up a low chant that matched the rise and fall of the engines.

Then she moved.

Lina stepped into the stormlight and pulled a glove free with her teeth. Her staff hummed. A cut of red welled in her palm and drifted into the air as a constellation of droplets. She spoke a tongue that bent the sense around its edges. Each bead of blood found a shadow and sank into it. Shapes swelled up from the dark like giants coming awake beneath a frozen lake. Three meters tall, lamp eyes and snarling jaws, they turned as one to their maker and bowed.

Aether’s visor narrowed. The sound that followed was not approval but a low growl that rolled through the vocoder like thunder behind stone.

“That will be far enough.”

His tone carried no anger, only command, the kind that tolerated no misunderstanding. The Death Watch had stiffened, hands brushing weapons, but it was Aether’s voice that stilled them. He stepped forward, the light of Lina’s creations washing over his armor.

“You may keep your specters among your own,” he said, each word deliberate. “My warriors need no shadow to fight beside them. Their armor is their covenant, their fire their faith. The Manda requires no leash, nor will my people bear one.”

The air between them hung taut for a heartbeat. Then, with the faintest incline of his helm, he added, “We honor your craft, Seer, but Mandalorians go to war in the light of their own flame.”

The creatures sank back into the dark, their lamp eyes fading from sight. The tension bled away in silence, leaving only the engines’ hum and the low murmur of Domina’s priests. Aether turned without another word. He had made his boundary clear, and the matter was done.

Renn moved to the center of the bay and began mustering by squads. Domina’s blue fire guttered and steadied as she took her place at the head of the column. Korda passed helm in hand, face bared to the stormlight, set like a blade before the quench. Aselia fell into step at Aether’s flank, cape caught by the vent wind, the quiet promise of family in her gait.

“All Mandalorian elements,” Aether barked over ship-wide. “Mark and execute. Siv, shadow our host and cut the throats of anything that sights her. Death Watch, with me. The Warclaws are our chariots today. We take that station.”

He started for the bay doors, palm finding the frame to ground himself in the roar. For a breath he listened. To hull. To heart. To the raw, unbending will of his people.

Then he felt it.

A flicker in the Force, faint but certain, like a heartbeat against the tide. Familiar. He had felt it once before in another life, when blood and battle had been the same thing. Acier. His brother was here. Somewhere in the fire. Somewhere in the storm.

“I’m coming, Ace.” he muttered beneath his breath, the words lost to the void.

He raised the Darksaber and pointed it into the dark beyond the hangar. “Board and breach,” he thundered. “Take their decks. Break their lines. Make a road for the host. Mandalorians always keep their word.”

The Warclaws kicked free one by one, red throats of flame opening into the black. Each held warriors and engines that had come for games and now found war. And as the Eidolon’s lungs drew a deeper breath, Mandalore fell upon the Death Star.​

Srina Talon , Korda Veydran , Domina Prime , Renn Vizsla , Aselia Verd , Darth Caedes , Revna Marr , Gerwald Lechner , Lina Ovmar (I love you), Velda Nar-Donna , Siv Kryze , Acier Moonbound + If I missed you, no I didn't.

 

[Srina Talon]

[Arriving From Chapter 2 - Across the Stars (XoX)]

Allies: SO + ME
Tag: Darth Caedes | Revna Marr | Elmindra Xitaar | Madrona A’Mia | Taeli Raaf | Gerwald Lechner | Lina Ovmar | Aether Verd | Renn Vizsla | Domina Prime | Aselia Verd | Naamino Zuukamano | Haro Aven | Korda Veydran | Siv Kryze
Location: Kitel Phard System (Near Atrisia) - [Death Star]

____________________________________________________

They moved like a machine that had already rehearsed this hour.

It felt choreographed—Rehearsed. As if all of this had been done before, a portal created through the will of a half dozen Sith Lords, and then, sluiced from one end of the galaxy to the other without losing their minds. Only to enter a warzone fit for the end of days.

From silence to chaos in the blink of an eye.

Orders slid through the Iron Eidolon and the surrounding warships without friction, surprising, when the turbulent history between them all fell into consideration. It seemed that the past mattered less when the present threatened them all. Mandalorian warriors snapped to the stations they'd been trained for while her Praetorian Guard moved to support them. Srina felt each piece fall into motion, and though she remained still, a quiet current of approval settled, allowing them to work rather than giving orders that might disrupt the flow.

She stared out at Atrisia for a moment that was almost too long. Beneath the glassy surface was a bustling civilization that she had once tried to help through the efforts of the Confederacy. It had turned into a plague-ridden cesspit that had seemingly recovered with a few decades of rest, but things were different now. Maliphant, Darth Empyrean , was not with her. Her former Master Isley Verd was enjoying a well-earned rest… She was alone. And yet, not.

Allies could be found all around the Eidolon and throughout the battlefield. Strength, could be found right beside her. Atrisia was of no concern, an acceptable loss, if need be. She did not hope for it to burn any more than Mother Nature intended to cause a natural disaster. It simply was. Her focus lay on what would come next, for when the Galactic Empire would show its hand. Any Sith, perhaps, any Jedi…Would recognize the current intent. Death, to fuel. Death, for power. Death, for victory.

The difference was, Srina could also use the negative energy that was coalescing in this sector. As the Galactic Empire gorged itself on the dying, on fear, so would the Sith Order. They had begun this cycle, but they didn't solely control where that energy went or who might be able to pull on those threads and utilize a most precious resource for their own designs.

Srina was unmoving, observing the field of battle. Considering the strategy.

She might have given their enemies too much credit, but the pale woman was certain that Quinn Varanin wouldn't have sent for her without reason. No matter what they saw, heard, she held faith that the information from her child was accurate. That the Empire truly was coming for them all.

The space around Atrisia began to glow a deep green as one by one six beams were unsheathed from the fish. All of them protruded from the dish of the Death Star. The air immediately around the lasers began to shimmer as radiation cascaded off of the beams. They were held there, with an almost bulbous tip made when they were United. After a second of energising, they were let go. And a spear was launched into the Mon Mothma with power of a thousand burning suns.

Before her eyes, the space around Atrisia ripened to a noxious, poisonous green. There was nothing to be done but watch while the edges of several unnatural lances fattened into a single, distended point. Even at a distance…The breath of power it emitted shivered against the Eidolon's viewports, and a heartbeat later, the beams let go, one spear, pure and hell-bright, slamming into a Galactic Alliance vessel. There was no sound. Just the visual.

She didn't know the name of the ship that had been attacked; there was no reason she should.

But the swarming death…She felt that. They all—Should have felt that.

"It is fuel for the forge…", she murmured, though, Aether might be the only one to catch the true meaning that settled behind it. One of the very first lessons she had been given as an apprentice was how to make a weapon out of the enemy. How to create power—From their suffering.

This was nothing if not that.

Her gaze remained fixed on the sphere that occluded the stars. The familiar silhouette—Familiar sin. It was the ugliest boast of their predecessors, twice, that in arrogance had failed. Twice…

And yet? While it was briefly discussed?

She did not dismiss it.

"They may have corrected earlier flaws in construction, but the shape alone will yield the desired response from many.", she began, watching, while Darth Caedes began to put together a way to their destination without compromising the Eidolon. It was especially important if Lina Ovmar and Madrona A’Mia were staying behind. "It is a symbol that will bring fear, which many of you have witnessed my use of it on Echnos. If fear is not enough…Death will do."

Her focus was momentarily torn from the battlefield by Aether Verd taking issue with the sorcery Lina Ovmar brought to bear. Srina raised her hand to quell it, regardless, what the Mand'alor spoke. He was bound by their contract, but her people would not so willingly accept being "handled" without question toward what the end goal was. He spoke to the dark-eyed woman in a way that Srina did not. Empress or otherwise—She did not need to. "Surely the Mandalorian Empire does not fear shadows. You've been with me all this time…And I am nothing, if not that."

It was a tongue-in-cheek response that was delivered with the emotional capacity of a teaspoon, but for those who knew her best—It was normal.

"If it is souls that you require Lady Ovmar…I am certain my Praetorian will volunteer. Beyond that…This battle will bring you your fill. The dead are a resource, like any other. I wish you and the Hordemother good hunting."

Her eyes turned toward those assembled, seemingly oblivious to an impatient air. Regardless of how some of the Sith and Mandalorians felt about each other, she was willing to bet that none would risk her wrath on the precipice of war. The soft chanting of the unruly warriors rang in her ears, started by Domina Prime , while Darth Caedes effortlessly corralled his people. Part of her didn't want to leave Lady Ovmar and the Hordemother alone on the Eidolon, but the argument was sound.

Brute force solved a lot of ills. But, there was something more to this Death Star. She could feel it echoing through space, wailing, roiling in the Force. The profound darkness swelled to almost eclipse the monstrosity that had been resurrected from the annals of history. Darth Caedes spoke to her with honorifics, which earned him a slight frown, but it hardly mattered for what they were about to do.

The word "reckless" lifted from his mind to her own, and her head shook softly. Even in this situation, there was some level of…Charm, to his actions. She couldn't read the "signing" motions that he made, but her ability to read body language spilled some of the secret. Especially, when Revna Marr stepped to his side as easily as day turned into twilight. She found herself falling in step just behind the two youths that had been summoned, Haro Aven and Naamino Zuukamano , but not without considering the rest of their complement. Gerwald Lechner hadn't made a move yet, and Velda Nar-Donna had been silent thus far. Aether Verd and his men had already been welcomed—But an explicit invitation couldn't hurt.

"Join us."

It was all she offered before, perhaps, unexpectedly joining the others on the Warclaws. Srina would never ask her people to do something she herself would not.

So—She would let herself be shot into the dark.

__________________________________​

The warclaw did everything it was supposed to do.

The lurch from acceleration punched breath from her chest, and the deck beneath her boots seemed to vibrate from the impact. Outside, the field of war turned into a smear of tracer-light and burning hull, but inside, the craft seemed mostly stable. The Death Star was an obscene durasteel sun, where the warclaws were just drops of clinging rain.

It was one of the few weaknesses immediately available. As large as it was? It made smaller crews much more viable for boarding than bringing entire ships alongside it.

Srina let the Force anchor her, making her steady, despite being jostled about like a credit chit in a tin can. The hit had been like a hammer finding a seam, and inertia played its part…Locking them in place. Alarms were going off distantly, and her jaw set tight while she straightened, a full head shorter than most, but somehow…Holding her own. The phylactery at her throat warmed, and she reflexively touched it, realizing that Darth Carnifex was closer than she initially thought. We are here.

When the seal was complete and the door popped open, she would be one of the first through it, expecting that the Death Star would have extreme internal defenses. Traps and weaponry to the Gods. There was shifting floor space just ahead of them that opened to a dead drop, stuttering from damage, daring someone to walk across it. From there, the pathway split into several branches, which would likely cause them to split up so they could divide and conquer. She moved closer to the edge to see how far down it went…

Srina couldn't see the bottom.

"Watch your step. It's a long, long way down."

Spoiler: Equpiment

Armour Saber Ring Ring Terentatek Body Gloves HG-54 "The Vora" Class Hand Cannon Holding Aces

 

[Domina Prime]

​

I HEAR THIS VOICE KEEP ASKING ME
IS THIS MY BLOOD OR IS IT BLASHEMY?

Aether Verd | Renn Vizsla | Aselia Verd | Haro Aven | Korda Veydran | Siv Kryze
Darth Caedes | Revna Marr | Elmindra Xitaar | Madrona A’Mia | Taeli Raaf | Gerwald Lechner | Lina Ovmar | Naamino Zuukamano

Lysander von Ascania ​

L O C A T I O N: Death Star III
G E A R: Starfang | Warpriest Beskar'gam

Domina felt the ship answer Aether Verd 's command the way an old drum answers a hand. Deep, inevitable, and true. The hangar breathed around her with the low, holy hum of engines brought to prayer. Her runes flickered, small suns beneath her skin, and Starfang throbbed against the deck as if it, too, remembered the shape of war. Aether's words were iron in the air: "Board and breach. Take their decks." They landed on her chest like a benediction.

She let the chant of the priests curl through the bones of the hull, let it steady the wildness under her ribs. The Warclaws shuddered alive, their throats opening for them to step into the belly of the beast. Domina's tail tightened once, twice, it was the only tempo she trusted. And the old savage in her purred at the promise of violence. But there was more now than hunger. There was purpose braided through it: scripture, oath, and the pressing weight of Ha'rangir's will.

"Heard," she murmured, and the word was a rasp of prayer and steel. "And soon to be felt, as is the way." It left her like a vow, not to be undone. The longer Starfang lay in her hands, the louder its little hymn became. An undernote of cosmic witchfire that wanted only to be let loose. She quieted it with a measured breath, the discipline of a convert rather than the impulse of a foundling. Control was a new worship, and she worshipped it now.

Srina's rift bled into the void and the Eidolon slid free of the Blackwall like some black god tearing its shroud. Atrisia rolled beneath them in a tableau of ruin: charred hulks drifting like drowned leviathans, the great sphere. An obscene echo of ancient arrogance, looming like a spiked sun. Domina let her gaze drink it in without reverence. Symbols frightened lesser men; she saw only targets.

Aether's boundary with Lina Ovmar made the line clear. Specters for Seers, no leash for Mandalorians. Domina's mouth twitched beneath the mask, she agreed silently. Their armor, their fire that was their covenant.

But it was rude to reject gifts of war. And so she looked to Lina, and gestured with a claw. "House Prime will bear the burden of such gifts...bestow them upon those who wear my mark~" She cooed warmly with a dainty wave of her azure claws.

When the ramps dropped and the Warclaws welcomed them with Srina Talon piling inside, she was the first to move. Starfang rose like a comet clenched in iron hands; two of her arms took the blade's weight, She shouldered the greatsword up, feeling its full length an extension of her spine, and planted its tip in the deck as if driving a stake into fate itself. The impact sang, metal, rune, and prayer. And the azure flame licked outward in a little halo of warning.

"First ones in, last one out," she barked to the men pressing at her heels. Her voice did not need to be loud to be heard; it carried as an eldritch bell through helmets. "The gods favor only the boldest of us, O kin of mine!" She struck her chestplate with a fist in salute, the gesture half-martial, half-liturgical. Around her, a hundred hands found their grips.

The Warclaw doors snapped shut and the abyss took them.

Through the void they drifted...the seconds felt like hours as they hurdled towards the Death Star. And when they had collided with it's mass the warclaw dug deep into it's steel and metal. Burrowing itself like an infectious thorn into the guts of the beast as the pod ripped open and Srina peered out into the dark corridors and damaged haul of the massive vessel. Dima was just behind her, peering out as well in a near mimic of the Empress before working up her nerves and stepping out the Warclaw. Domina leapt, a monstrous figure of dark cloth and burning crystal. Her feet hit the Death Star's floor with a soft crunch of abrasive dust, and the corridors swallowed the noise behind them. Her priests' chant thinned to a heartbeat as the boots of Mandalore became the measure.

A Warpriest behind her called for the plan. She didn't deign more than one look. "Keep up, stoke the flame" she purred as she vaulted from the gangway, then an instant later she was gone. Starfang carving a luminous trail through the gloom. The blade's edge shivered with stolen suns; it cut steel as if the universe itself had taught it to be merciless.

They moved like a litany unrolled: rooms, vents, patrol nodes, all yielding to the noise and the faith. Domina's eyes, those many panes of cold light, swept continuously. Security measures tried to whisper at her: alkali traps, sensor nets, ember-fields that pulsed. Her claws traced runic sigils at the edges of them, probing, and Starfang answered in kind, an icicle of holy fire that cauterized and silenced. Her faith became technology and her technology the sermon.

She sought not merely to cleave circuits or topple sentries. She hunted for a shape. Every Mandalorian knows the taste of a worthy victim, one who stands long enough to tell a story when the blade finally bites. The Death Star's bowels stank of billions of small, careless lives and of architects too arrogant to see the knife's reflection in their own steel. That arrogance was luxury; she would strip it away.

A shaft of light tore through a blast-door as a squad of enemies tried to seal them in. Domina swung, and Starfang traced a crescent that left a smoking scar on the hatch. Men who had been sure of their prizes took two steps back and then three. A lower arm reached to wrench a comm-slab from a dead tech; with her other two hands she tore a corpse's plating and fed it into the furnaces of her priests. Nothing wasted. Her faith encompassed both prayer and utility.

At one choke-point a door shuddered under a volley. Her priests' chant swelled to cover it, a chorus that pushed metal and men to the point of yielding. She planted her feet; the greatsword became an altar-pillar. Around its planted edge, embers crawled in obedience, and the attackers' morale cracked like thin glass.

When the first line fell and the decks opened to their host, she lifted Starfang high and let its flaring light wash over the arriving Mandalorians. Her voice rode the surge of boots and prayers.

"Blessed be our Age-Old Bond!" she called, the cry a war-hymn and a prayer both.

They answered with the clack of armor, the stamping of boots, the low roar of a people set aflame.

And as she strode toward the next breach, Starfang carving a swath of starlight in its wake, Domina felt the simplest, truest thing in the universe settle over her like a cloak: the certainty that she would find a worthy victim soon enough. And that when she did, she would make of them an offering.

 

[Darth Avida]

SAOKO​

'Perfection in pursuit of a flaw.'

It was something she'd said to Lira some days ago, when the jealous epicanthix had asked her why she tried so hard to ingratiate herself with so many people. It wasn't just arrogance that propelled her forwards, some in-born feeling of superiority unfounded in reality that kept her head so high in the clouds, rather every decision in life she'd made from the moment she'd stumbled out of the bacta tank on Metalorn was based in the notion that if there was a shortcoming she suffered from it was one she'd find herself through trial and error. There were still tiny spots of color that dotted the periphery of her vision from the sparks that had flown as a result of the shockwave where their sabers had met, and her ears were still ringing, but what had her attention was the Saurton man in front of her; Krasskorr the Maw .

He persisted, moving with the force of the shockwave to keep himself from being staggered too heavily and then rocking back towards her with that conserved momentum to power his thrust, and it was this precise moment that she lived for. He wasn't the Dark Lord of the Sith that he undoubtedly had sworn fealty to and there were doubtlessly others that had either skill or power greater than him, but what he had that the others lacked was the woman standing right in front of him with her saber still held aloft - she wouldn't bat his blade away again, she'd already discarded the tactic out of hand as something that would've made her predictable. As much as she was determined to meet her match she was dead-set on giving him just as much of a challenge as she was hoping for from him. Her lightsaber lowered, as if she were opening herself up to be ran through, but at the last moment she lifted her saber into his blade and angled it off to the side to give her better leverage against his.

Like a spear the easiest point to defend against was, perhaps ironically, the tip of the blade; there was only so much force one could apply to what was effectively a very dangerous stick, and the longer it was the harder it was to control the opposite end when force was applied against it from any side that wasn't pressed up against the narrow point at its tip.

She pushed up.

Unlike an actual spear, a lightsaber's hilt doesn't provide its wielder a forgivably large purchase for grip meaning that the strength of a lengthier blade - its added reach - that was seemingly, on its face, simply superior to the average, and perhaps even smaller, lightsabers was just as much a liability in that the restricted length of the hilt also restricted the distance its wielder could apply force with one hand opposite the other. That is, to say, it was like placing the fulcrum of a see-saw closer to one side than the other - with the wielder on the shorter end - and, as any small child that might've had the unfortunate experience of such an experience might attest to, it took far less force, or weight, applied to the longer end to counterbalance anything on the shorter end. So, while she certainly couldn't hope to best him in a fair contest of strength, it seemed like the reptilian man had unwittingly handicapped himself enough to even the odds just for her to hold him at bay a bit longer.

"Bigger isn't always better."

It wasn't the first time she'd said it, and Amara was rather certain it wouldn't be the last, but at least in this case it wasn't something totally out of the man's control. Luckily for him, too, a saber's length could be changed at will.