Annihilation Clash of Destiny

[Thurion Heavenshield]

DEATH STAR III
MASTER OF BATTLE​

The battle was joined.

The Jedi strike team clashed with Sith cultists just as Thurion faced off with the Sovereign Protector, lightsabers swinging with supreme dexterity and skill as befitted their hard-earned rank. The Lion engaged his adversary, dodging the opening blow with a backwards lean, sliding underneath the chopping motion with unnatural fluidity. This was not the armoured assault of a shielded knight, but a far more agile fighter than what was encountered on Coruscant.

Closing the distance in an instant, Thurion followed up on the fluid motion by grappling Vesh, getting close and personal to deny the reach of her halberd. He threw Vanguard at one of the cultist, stabbing them in the back while they were busy overwhelming one of his fellow Jedi, and used his superior strength and momentum to knock aside the halberd and engage in hand-to-hand combat. Whereas the Sith fought with the rage of storm at sea, Thurion was calm as a still pond. His every move was precise, deliberate, calculated to conserve energy.

"You fight with your heart, not your head, boy," he heard Battlemaster Ravos chide as a young Thurion got off the ground in frustration. "Because I'm ANGRY," the teen shouted in a fit of rage, before throwing another ill-fated series of punches at his teacher. The martial master easily bobbed and weaved, ducked and dodged until the moment presented itself and he decked the youth yet again, putting him on his back with his fingers around his throat.

"Hear me well, boy," he spoke an inch from his face whilst holding him down. The Zeltron's long, blue braids framed both of their faces, shutting out the rest of the world. "You're not the only person in mourning. She was my friend. If you're looking to one day even the score then you better start paying attention. Think clearly. Focus!" Thurion, who had struggled against Jaxton's choke hold but to no avail, finally relented and found that the hold on his throat lessened the more he relaxed.

Jaxton helped him to his feet, then stepped back and assumed the ready stance of Teräs Käsi. "Again!" The teenaged Thurion put up his fists, breathed deeply, and centered himself. As difficult as it was, he pushed all emotion to the side, regarding his opponent as naught but an obstacle. Something to get past as he looked past and beyond, and what followed was poetry in motion. By the time the world around him had caught up, Jaxton Ravos was on his back, staring up at him with a bloody nose.

"There he is," said the Battlemaster, his stunned expression turning into a smirk. "There is the Lion."

He stood over his opponent, the Sovereign Protector scrambling to her feet after a similar bout. He calmly summoned the beskar halberd into his possession and thrust it through her chest, pinning her to the floor.

"There is no god," he stated coldly in her final moments. "There is only the Force."

Blaster fire joined the fray by the time the Lion retrieved Vanguard, as the strike team was reinforced by a unit of Non-Force Users; soldiers of the Hidden Path, spear-headed by the elite Ironsides. They made short work of the remaining cultists, allowing a brief respite.

"You made it," Thurion turned to Creed, former Antarian Ranger and leader of the Ironsides. "Apologies, sir," he saluted. "Got in a bit of an argument with the fine people of this station. We sorted things out as gentlemen, though."

Creed glanced over at the skewered Sith cultist. "Not unlike yourselves."

"This was but a taste of what is to come. They have the numbers and, more crucially, time is on their side. We must move swift."

"Right—look alive, lads! We're moving out!"

Together, the combined strike teams headed farther into the dark labyrinthe, looking to either draw more enemy attention or hook up with other such strike teams.

Tags: Dark Forces ​

 

[Kael Varnok]

(wrong acc, mb)

 

[Korda Veydran]

Korda broke from the column again, boots striking the grated service crawl that paralleled the main hall. The others surged toward the fight, but his path was narrower, darker, more intimate—a place where only he and the hum of the ship's innards spoke. His hands moved quick, almost eager, as he cracked open a panel and slid the first charge into its nest of wires.

A sound escaped him then, not the growl of a zealot, but a chuckle. Low at first, then building, muffled behind the vocoder until it carried like static through the private channel. "Ahh…" he hissed, shoulders shaking as though he couldn't contain it. "Perfect fit. Like it was made to die right here."

The next charge was pulled from his bandolier, his gauntlets working it into place with a childlike care. He bent close, visor inches from the glowing circuit board, and for the first time in years his scarred mouth tugged into a smile—a sharp, mad curve that would have unnerved any who saw it.

One of the Death Watch who had lagged behind glanced through the crawl and caught sight of him, crouched like a beast in the dark, shoulders quaking with laughter. "Veydran," the warrior muttered over comms, suspicion and confusion bleeding together. "Why in Kad's name are you so damned happy? We're about to bleed, not feast."

Korda turned his crimson visor toward him, the grin beneath it wide enough to bare teeth. "Because, vod," he said, voice shaking with mirth, "every charge is a promise. Every fuse I set is a hymn. When they blow, it won't just be steel and fire. It'll be our god laughing with us. And when the walls crumble…"—he pressed a charge home, sealing it with a reverent tap of his knuckles—"…that's when I feel closest to Him."

The Death Watch warrior muttered something under his breath, unsettled but unwilling to argue. Korda just laughed harder, his voice crackling over the comms like burning timber.

"Party favors everywhere," he reported, tone gleeful, childlike. "Lighting bus, relays, comms—all wrapped up neat. When the song begins, the ship will dance with us."

He slid the last panel shut and rose, shoulders squared, still chuckling as he fell back toward the column. His grin never left. Not when he caught the scent of solder on his gloves, not when he imagined the concussive wave washing over him. It was madness, it was joy, it was worship.


To Korda Veydran, nothing was holier than the promise of fire waiting to be born.

Domina Prime Aether Verd

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Allies | Mykel Dawson
Opposition | Luvaen Malstadt
​

Cora had spent the docking journey in meditation. Even in the chaotic energy of the Force, she managed to find a ragged sort of harmony, meeting the esoteric power where it was.

The moment she stepped foot onto imperial steel was the moment everything roared to life – the overlapping staccato of blaster fire, the distant rumble of explosions, the unsettling whine of technobeasts, part flesh, part metal, and entirely unholy.

For only a moment, something familiar filled her senses. Familiar in a way that made her ache in longing, then find her strength for the realization that their bond, though frayed, remained intact. Cora's eyes fell closed as she deflected a pair of bolts with a graceful arc of her saber, sending them back towards the helmeted line of troopers.

When she reached out to Lysander von Ascania , her presence flowed like a river down their connection. He would not face her admonishment, her judgment, or even her worry. Instead, she imparted unconditional love to her wayward brother. Not her rationalization for his chosen path, but the sort of familial affection that the galaxy had tried – and failed – to rip from her.

Cora's eyes snapped open as she narrowly sidestepped an overhead strike from one of the technobeasts. She blinked as the creature lifted its fist from the newly dented floor.

"Good Ashla," she mumbled. A twirl of saberwork had blue plasma slicing through the beast's shoulder, then its leg, then another to behead it. It was almost a grisly thing, to watch flesh-twined metal slough to the ground. "They are slow," she called to the trio of Jedi sentinels who'd accompanied her. "But strong."

Cora knelt to the felled junk golem, watching the corrupted creature sputter and struggle to stand. "You poor thing," she murmured, hand hovering over tainted flesh that still radiated a fleeting warmth. A gentle light suffused her palm, which she pressed to the beast's shuddering form.

"Rest, now."

The technobeast trembled in place before components began falling away. A durasteel panel clattered to the floor, followed by a glob of singed flesh and sparking wires.

~ What are you doing here, My Lady? You have not yet healed fully! Why must you be so stubborn, forever seeking danger? And now I cannot even go to you, cannot even try to protect you or take you away from this cursed space station! ~

Cora stilled as Voldran's voice echoed in her mind. He was one of few darksiders who could accomplish such a feat, given the demonic link that still lingered within her. She was fortunate that, while he was in control of his own psyche, he wished her no harm. He only suffered.

~ Healed or not, I serve a cause greater than myself. If you want to help me, then put an end this madness. I know this is not what you want. ~

Even at a distance, the ritual chamber thrummed with dark power. With her momentary tie to Voldran, Cora could see the harrowing path with a little more clarity.

"That hall-" she instructed to her allies. A telekinetic shove sent another electrified golem stumbling back over a console. It wouldn't be able to follow them without tearing off pieces of itself to fit through the narrow threshold. "Go!"

With the opening she gave them, the three Jedi took off down the hall…

...which would lead them right into the clutches of a skilled hunter.

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

The air shifted, causing Brandyn to halt his forward progress. His hand rose to stop his young partner in her tracks.

It was faint at first. Just a subtle tremor through the grated flooring, the distant percussion of footsteps that didn't belong to either of them. The pattern wasn't random. It seemed too...intentional.

Brandyn's hand went to the satchel at his hip.

He didn't speak, only glanced back to Casaana as the low hum of a lightsaber's ignition rolled down the corridor ahead. A single line of crimson split the haze, cutting through the dark like a wound opening in metal. Sparks showered as the beam carved through the grating beside them. Then the figure stepped through.

Smoke. A red edge vanishing as quickly as it appeared. The weapon's hum died, but the presence it heralded did not. The hunter had found them.

Brandyn's strafed, moving around the room as he held his emerald hued blade out to provide some distance, and he shifted automatically, sliding around toward the Padawan. The hunter seemed less malicious than he was mission orientated, and at the moment they were his mission.

A brief silence passed between them. Then, the hunter spoke, sounding almost amused. He spoke of odds as if either of them by themselves stood no chance. Brandyn cringed within, because for his part at least...it was probably true. "Yeah...well...you will find I am full of surprises."

Brandyn's answer was movement.

He slipped one hand into his satchel, feeling the cool cylinder of a sticky charge. A quick twist armed it, the timer spinning to precious seconds. With his other hand, he motioned Casaana back. The motion accepting no argument.

"Cover your eyes," he whispered though the hunter would easily hear, "and get behind cover."

The throw was low, skipping across the deck until it lodged beneath a cluster of pipes. He followed it with a large swing of his saber, giving the hunter a second vector to worry about, trying to drive him back towards what would soon be an explosion. "Move!" He shouted.

He caught Casaana's shoulder, guiding her toward the access door she'd spotted earlier. The explosion erupted, tearing pipes and bulkheads outwards. Brandyn's blade had cut through the locking mechanism of the door just a breath before, and the shockwave pushed both he and the Padawan through.

Through the din that lingered, Brandyn began to pull himself back to his feet. His left shoulder burned, but adrenaline masked any potential pain. "Up...Casaana...I will hold him off...find a way through...we have to get to those damn shields..."

And somewhere, beneath the roar of the smoke and static, another sound whispered through the chamber. It was a hollow, metallic scrape, like something far larger than any man dragging itself awake.

Whatever hunted them wasn't alone.

| MISSION: Deactivate Shields |
| TAG: Casaana Drystan Creed fyi, Dark Forces |
| EQUIPMENT: Green-bladed saber, satchel of sticky bombs, data-spike |

​

 

[Yorunarr Ahan-Yan'Sharlim]

TAGS
Lilianna L'lerim Cesare Demici

WRATH OF GOD
2

​

DOCKING BAY 021, ABOARD THE DEATH STAR III,
APPROACHING ATRISIA, CORE WORLD TERRITORIES (903 ABY)

'Looks like the,"Quiet", part is no longer an option.'
'Let us begin.'​

Putting up a Force-Shield, and wide enough to catch all the shots of the troopers barring their path, Tancred had sensed he would need it before long, though he did not know it would be as soon as that. Fortunately for Yorunarr, however, his young, masked friend was granting protection and time enough to pull his own mask down, though the Priest-King of Novania had a different purpose for the Godmask of Melarran. Raindancer had been drawn from her gilded scabbard already, thus the only thing left to handle was the assurance of their safety before proceeding outright, and when all the burning trails and projectiles were thrown back into the mass of Guard Troopers, the old Novanian would do exactly that.

Tancred would draw his own blade moment's later, another work of Songsteel wonder from the Regency Forge, and due adherence to demand for her to be named, the greatsword would be called,"Priestess", in keeping with the theme of his duelling-tutor. The same tutor who just so happened to be there with the young Saint that day, and with that, the same exact tutor who brought his young student along for the adventure, and with so much left to learn from the Godseer, Tancred could not deny that the influence was beginning to run deep in his mind. Fortunately, however, this influence was from a place, a design of complete sincerity, and in understanding of the lessons the old Novanian was trying to teach in particular, the young Hybrid found himself feeling glad for that influence.

There were worse examples among men to follow, all of which appearing as clear, heartfelt virtue in the eyes of a devout Ashlan. Profound, in every perceivable sense of the word, and in the mind of the the Aavenian Saint - no expression of pride had ever felt so right before.

'You learned that from Barran! NICE!!!! But here's to hoping we don't need it that much. Its a drainer, as you know.'
'I take your meaning well, but for what it's worth - I'm happy to test myself this way. Its all training, is it not?'
'Not here, it isn't.... This here is the Galaxy's testing gound, this here is our sink-or-swim.'

​

Folding up his blue-tinted sunglasses so the temples and mastoid bends clipped into the back of the bridge, making it easier to place them in his shirt pocket, and all so that the mask could be pulled down without obstruction, Yorunarr's glowing white eyes would be seen in clear, eerie contrast. Just as the Ancients intended, and with muttered incantations, eyes, mask and sword alike would be coated in a deep-blue sheen; further-intensifying the old Novanian's strange appearance in the eyes of the any who dared to face them, almost overshadowing the damage such power could inflict in combat, though the unwitting would surely know before long.

'You're the man for directions now, Tancred. Keep us on the right track.'
'Noted. Our path is straight ahead from here, through them.'

​

With a shrill, ululating scream, the Novanian jumped into the fray, followed in swift, nimble silence by the Hybrid Human, and with them, mayhem ensued as madness seemingly walked alongside them, shoulder to shoulder, step for step. Whether by madness, or by way of divine assistance, its seemed that both faiths were walking in lockstep with each other for the first time, though Tancred had not yet learned of previous cases of Ashlan-instigated synergy between faiths. In time, the young Saint would learn of these small-blessings, but for as long as his masters remained prone to barbarity, more repentance would be needed before he could believe such events ever transpired before that night.

Knowing just one example was enough for Tancred to proceed with amazement, enough to consider it an event of divine significance.

'Yorunarr! Veer toward the door on the left - the green-marked entryway!'
'Good start so far! Lead the way!'

In the midst of the fighting, some of the remaining Guard Troopers had wisely sealed the entrance to the nearest checkpoint, opting instead to let their securi-door's sentry guns do the hard work; as far as last-ditch strategies went for Non-Force users, many would have agreed it to be a meritous last stand to endeavour before the door came down, though the effort would be made redundant all the same. The unlikely duo could have ended the last Guard Trooper's struggle quite easily, but none of their surviving opposition considered the possibility that their nemeses were in a rush, leaving the docking-bay security detail as bemused as they were traumatised after the storming attack.

Not that the why or how would make a difference, especially in the wake of such devastation, as there were about as many dead as there were wounded left behind, strewn all across the expansive width of the docking-bay floor that served as their arena. Whoever was coordinating that sector, wherever he was, survivors and victors alike were sure that more troopers would follow, sent in by an officer who would have an axe to grind with the intruders before long. Regardless of the time it would take for a response to be mounted against them, the unlikely duo had enough breathing-room to proceed uninterrupted, though neither Tancred nor Yorunarr were aware that the real challenges were awaiting.

Poised to ambush, somewhere deeper within the maze of connecting hallways.

 

[Maera Dren]

Location: Hangar, Death Star III
Tags: Renn Vizsla

The Black Gate

The hangar was chaos, filled with blaster bolts, smoke, and the ringing sound of combat. Maera moved through the fight like a phantom, reading the flow of battle with predatory precision. Death Watch advanced hard and fast, cutting down the last stormtroopers in their path. Her squad's disciplined fire met them head-on, trading heavy bursts with Beskar-forged armor.

"Krayt-three, flank them. Aurek, concentrate fire, sector four," she ordered. The Death Troopers shifted instantly, their fire pattern tightening into surgical arcs that pressed the Mandalorians against cover. Explosive charges detonated from above as Besh squad triggered their traps. Shrapnel flared, scattering armored bodies.

Then the first of them broke through the smoke. Maera stepped forward. A Mandalorian surged out of the haze, blaster raised. Her hand snapped up, deflecting the barrel as she pivoted inside his guard. The heel of her gauntlet struck his neck joint, a jarring crack of metal on armor. He staggered. She drove her knee into his chestplate, seized his helmet, and wrenched. The sickening crunch of servos and bone echoed before she shoved him aside.

Another low-running Mandalorian charged with a vibroblade. She caught his wrist, twisted, and crushed the gauntlet with augmented strength, then slammed her elbow into his visor. He dropped, the blade clattering to the floor. Maera picked up the weapon, spun, and hurled it into the throat joint of a third assailant. That Mandalorian went down, convulsing silently.

All around her, her troopers fought with calculated unity. Black armor moved through red smoke, cutting down enemies with cold efficiency. Blasterfire flared from the rafters as Besh held firm, pinning down jetpack signatures wherever they appeared. But the tide refused to break. The Mandalorians were too coordinated; disciplined and focused, their formation quickly adjusting mid-assault.

Then she saw him. Through the thinning smoke, a larger figure pressed forward, leading the assault. His movements were deliberate and precise. His presence cut through the chaos; he was command incarnate. The other warriors moved with him, adjusting their steps like parts of a single, living weapon. This was their Warmaster, their leader.

Maera's head tilted slightly, her visor locking onto his outline. Her pulse steadied, her vision narrowing until only he remained. "Suppress the flanks," she ordered flatly. "He's mine." She broke from formation, moving with lethal intent, closing in on the commander who dared to breach her line.