Clash of Titans

[Hailyn]

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce3xOgg9mtk[/media]

"Where is she?"
"Why hasn't she called?"
"I can't find her..?"
"Corvus."
"..Why?"
"Gone."

"Abandoned, betrayed - again."​

It had been nearly two weeks since the day Corvus disappeared, two weeks since Braith last spoke to anyone but herself. It wasn't that Corvus didn't normally leave without saying much, usually it was to visit Lothal or it was a trip to Chazwa, but whenever the case arose that she had to leave without saying anything, Braith had always found her through the force - a bond that the witch had though inseparable, unbreakable, and a necklace that helped to amplify that connection. The only way Corvus could ever leave her behind was willingly, to her knowledge at any rate - she had no method of piercing the white current, which the Jedi Master knew well enough to employ at more than the most basic of levels.
"You promised, Corvus."
"Forever..."
"I tell you I'm dying.."
"And this"
"This is how you treat me?"
Just two weeks ago, before everything went absolutely wrong, Braith had broken the news to the Jedi, she'd told her that she was slowly, but surely, dying of a cancer spawned by eons of inbreeding within her species. Corvus had given her hope, or at least comfort, promised her everything - promised to help her find a cure, or to spend each day like it was their last. But now Corvus was gone, Braith was still dying, and there was nothing to keep her rational any longer. No one to hold her and tell her that the pain would stop, nobody to spend long nights talking to - without Corvus Raaf.. Her heart felt hot, her breathing cold, and everything ached. Braith had searched the force like a spider in a web to no avail, not so much as an answer to her cries. No hand wiped away those tears, tears which originated as sadness and grief and moved to rage and confusion.

First she had searched their home, high and low, for any sign of the woman that she loved, but instead found torment. Trinkets, gifts, that had been given to her for the birthday that had only just passed - a sting that pierced deep into her heart - and memories that came with them. How could someone just throw all of that away - why would they? What had she done? Braith had made it a concerted effort to be as loving and kind as she could with the woman that had woken her from the slumber on Pax Insul - to change from the infamous woman that had once masqueraded as a goddess to the warmer, kinder, woman she had been up until very recently. But it was clear Corvus must not have cared, or perhaps the entire purpose was to lull her into a facade of happiness and joy - only to take everything, including their life together, away.

The betrayal hurt more than the traitorous conspiracy which had locked her in the oubliette on Pax Insul ten millennia ago, more than every ray of force light which had, at one time, singed her very soul. This was something more personal, more intimate, than simple jealousy and greed. Unlike the Corellian Jedi, Braith knew of a cure to the disease that plagued her, but she had kept it quiet from her lover to keep her ignorant of what had needed to be done - to die and let Corvus keep her dignity, so that she wouldn't love someone that needed to take the life of another to survive. The method involved was draining the essence of powerful bodies of the force and using that power to burn away the cancer within, very shaman-like and incredibly barbaric - without a doubt as dark as it got. If Corvus had known, however, Braith knew that she would have turned from the light and fallen if it meant keeping her alive, and so she had subtly manipulated it all in order to stop it from happening.

Braith knew that she was willing to die for Corvus's happiness, but was Corvus even willing to watch her slip away? Hardly a day had passed and Corvus was gone, how was that for forever?
"Mo Chuisle?"
"Lies, all of it."
She'd called the witch her pulse, the reason she could still live and breathe, made her feel so important, so wanted - needed - and loved. What kind of a person would twist that on someone that genuinely loved them? Was this retribution for Silara, for that meat puppet that had died when her purpose was lost? Or was this just her way of telling her she had done something wrong - evidently something so wrong that she could clearly not be forgiven and deserved a lonely death. It didn't matter the reason, of course, because this was the last time Braith would ever trust anyone, and it was the last time she would ever try to be a better person, like she'd tried so hard to do for Corvus. Gone was the reformed witch that had lived with the Grandmaster of the Order, back was the terrible woman that had ended a civilization and wiped out a planet's population as a last act during her confinement. Her purpose, now, was to act on the knowledge of removing her disease by finding Corvus and using her. A slow, painful, agonizing death.

Braith's quest began the moment she left their home on Tatooine for Chazwa, to search for clues on the Republic world and capital. She wore Jedi robes, as gifted by Corvus for her birthday, with her hood over her face to keep her reddened eyes from being noticed.

It would only take a short while, riding on Corvus's private ship, to reach the capital, and her decision on what to do on her arrival was as much a mystery to her as it was to anyone else. She only knew that heads would roll.

"I'm coming for you, my little raven."​

[member="Darth Odium"]

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Braith Achlys"]

Dry calloused hands whispered across the surface of the metal framed holoimage as he thought of much different days. His olive hand wrapped with yellowing bandages from the rot that slowly tried to claim his mortal flesh. Black flowing tattoos wound from his wrist to disappear under starched white sleeve of his robes as he stood on bus ship. He looked every bit the walking corpse that he was bulbous obsidian eyes stared out from his paling olive skin as he though of [member="Quinn Vos"] and his once friend [member="Ryan Korr"]. They had been padawans together, Ryan and he, but it was a sad state to believe he could exist in the light when he had been born in darkness.

"I will free you."

Quinn's word still lingered in his mind after all this time but it seemed another lie in a galaxy filled with vile deciept. His teeth bared as bile rose in his throat and he tossed the holo against the wall and grabbed his saberstaff from a low table filled with holocrons and datacards. They would have pain, the galaxy would burn, and he would stand in the emptiness alone, finally free.

He stormed out of his ship and into the busy city then stretched out in the force. He looked for pain, for anger, for emotions to cultivate and savor before he destroyed this world and he was not disappointed. Hundreds of thousands were bathed in pain, anger, confusion and sorrow. He began looking for the strongest feelings but he knew it what he would find.

 

[Jsc]

It's a spectator sport.

So as Corvus' private ship flew over Chazwa Tom's Pachinko Parlor, Jay gave the lingering shadow no mind. He was just here to eat popcorn, stand dynamically, spout epic phrases, and play Japanese Pin-ball until his fingers bled orange again. Ahhh yeah. Perfection. Recreational arcade wasn't just for the kiddos ya know. Oh no. If you happen to be a voracious Holonet Gamer and host a weekly Live Stream on the Boobtube, (like Masaki did IC,) then you could make some real cold hard cash just playing games all day. Who knew bros? It's all in the advertising. Bro-fist. Powerthirst. Sasori Energy Drinks give you wings. Yeah. It's all good. Besides, every good game deserves it's audience.

Especially the showdowns.

"Ding ding ding! That's right people! Gather around viewers. It's that pew pew pew time again. Oh yes indeedy Chazwa! The match is set and the players are ready to rumble! This show is about to get, HOT HOT HOT. Owww!"

To be mindful. Jay himself used to be a student of the old Corvus Raaf too. She showed him long ago what it meant to be a real Jedi. Mindful of the present. Charitable in the heart. To give love to all those you serve and to always respect your family as yourself. So as [member="Braith Achlys"] sailed off to find the answers she so desperately needed. Jay gave her a nod and a warm hug in spirit. She wasn't the only soul who was dazed and confused by Raaf's sudden disappearance. But..? I guess we all just have different ways of coping with it. To each his own.

As the moment past and Masaki went back to playing to the crowd. The sound effects remained the same. Click, like, subscribe to the channel, and leave a comment in the margins. Just, business as usual. It was almost that time, sports fans. Time for another weeks Let's Play, Chazwa Edition with Jumping-Jedi Jay Masaki. And yes. Yes. There was popcorn enough for everybody. ...Game on man.

Game on.

/exit

 

[Fen]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVvj5ZQmj_I

A man in the rough spun wool of Jedi robes exited a building near the heart of the city. He wore warm earth toned hues of lighter browns and cream, but for all that his features bore a somber cast. Hard lines edged a pale, worn face. Weathered by time and the fickle rains of fortune. The mason who fashioned this living statue eschewed color save for the hair, long and red as blood. Under the right eye sat an old scar, a raised silvery line like the track of a single tear. Muscles writhed in a strong jaw, now clenched. Brows slowly furrowed. And below them eyes the pallor of grey skies glanced up.

Calloused fingers curled and uncurled. Old wounds itched.

An old presence slithered through his senses, eliciting feelings no Jedi should have. "Vahla blood, or because of her?"

The answer scarcely mattered.

"He's here."

Robes billowing behind even, straight-backed strides, Korr moved down down the street, following the presence of a man he once called friend.

[member="Darth Odium"] | [member="Braith Achlys"]

 

[Eralam]

Eralam didn't spend much time in Republic space.

It's not that he had a particular problem with the way they did things. They were no better or worse than any one of the hundred other governments to spring up since the fall of the original to take of the mantle of Republic. No, it was the fact that they were busy losing to everyone they possibly could at the moment that kept the ancient Iron Knight away.

But even he couldn't stay away forever. There were rumors swirling through the underground, rumors of upheaval and danger and all sorts of other wild nonsense that normally the Network wouldn't have paid much attention to. If they made a credit for every rumor they picked up that foretold the fall of some government or another, they'd be able to afford to come out of the shadows.

This one was different, however. It was backed up by the Force.

Eralam was not one for visions. No one would ever accuse him of being a prophet. Sure, he'd get the odd flash of insight every now and again, but he almost always ignored it. The future was always in motion, and visions had a way of becoming self fulfilling if you put too much stock into them. He preferred more concrete ways of predicting the future. One could learn a lot more about the future by reading the stock market than by reading metaphorical tea leaves. Visions could be misinterpreted. Money rarely lied.

What he sensed swirling around Chazwa was not a vision, or a prophecy, or anything like that. It was an oncoming storm. Oftentimes, before acts of great upheaval, one could feel a certain tension in the Force. It took some doing, and you had to know what to look for, but it was plain as day for someone who could read the signs. You didn't get this sort of tension unless there was soon to be a battle of Force users, and a pretty major one to boot. The Shard had come to think of it as something like the ocean receding from the shore before a tsunami. Something big, bad, and ugly was soon to rain down on this world, something terrible.

He intended to watch.

And so the Iron Knight made his way through the city, listening both with his electronic ears and the Force, trying to hone in on the epicenter of the impending doom. There was Darkness in the air, the artificial stench of those who believed that the Force gave a damn about little things like good or evil or peace or hate, and used that belief as an excuse to feed their baser desires.

He was getting close.

 

[Hailyn]

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeCejY1U7ks[/media]

The ship arrived on Chazwa in a relatively timely manner, Corvus's permit for the ship flashed to the authorities that came to check the vessel in being all that was needed to let her through security, though the use of the force to dissuade thoughts of doubt and dissolve suspicion made certain of that. The woman walked through crowded halls with little attention paid to her, her head kept down with her eyes glued to the ground in front of her, and her cloak wrapped close around her front. The fact that she wore the Jedi garb seemed to be unsurprising to those she walked by, few - if any - stopping to pay the passing figure mind while she trudged through the spaceport and out into the capital of the very Republic she found herself coming to hate.

The train of thought there was complex, convoluted, and completely filled to the brim with conjecture and assumptions. The Jedi split from the Republic, a move that was not happily received by the government that was being crumpled like tinfoil by the men and women that called themselves Sith. Now they had a war with the Mandalorians at their doorstep and her girlfriend, Corvus Raaf, was missing. Jedi no longer being led by a woman so staunchly against war, by a woman that had advocated and prompted the cessation from the cesspool that was the Republic. Disgusting figures lurked in Chazwa, arguably more disgusting than the Sith lords that dirtied their hands with the blood of the innocent. Where the average bystander saw the casual, if hurried, pace of humans and other minority species strolling through the loud streets of the capital, Braith saw the smiling, shrewd, figures with exaggerated appearances. Caricatures of what they rightfully were, twisted in her karked up head.

"Maybe she didn't leave.."​

"Maybe they took her."​

"Absurd."
"She is a liar."
"Gone."
"Abandoned."
She shook her head as she stepped into the moonlight, as if emptying her head of these conflicting thoughts. Emotions burdened her, like the weight of the world on her chest. There was the urge to simply wreak havoc on the world, to rip walls from their buildings, spines from their bodies, and fashion a monument to the Republic and all of its wrongs - or their perceived wrongs, at any rate. It was no coincidence that she could feel the ripples of the force during the fight for Roche as many lives - force sensitive lives - were lost. In the past she had never paid any mind to it, but several were those who bore connection to the woman she had thought loved her - though that thought was now under heavy doubt with the disappearance of her beloved Jedi.
"I will not rest."
"No."
"Blood."
"Not until her blood is on my hands."
Amidst her thoughts she found herself walking head-long into a random passerby, a lowly human tourist - some man with a camera taking a picture of two small children and their presume mother in front of some building that was of little importance to the witch. Frustration at the intrusion in her internal monologue and deep-thinking brought her rage boiling up and over her metaphorical walls. 'Move.' The word was abrupt, it was commanding, and the sudden sweeping motion of her right hand saw to exactly that. They, and the shrubbery around them, were ripped from the ground and strewn across the wall of the building, painting it varying hues of red and pink and green. The witch shook her head irritably, drawing now the attention of the people who had all stopped when the screams filled the air, to counter the probing force of one [member="Darth Odium"].

'Stay out of my head.'​

The demand was broadcasted through a telepathic wave, one which found itself pushed across a wide area - though scarcely the size of the entire city, but surely far enough to reach the mute Nautolan. The presence, itself, was not foreign. She had once occupied a Sith Lord's mind as its guide and that same Sith had once found herself under the Nautolan's brief, but noteworthy, tutelage. Braith, however, wasn't one for trivial nostalgia - she would strike out like a bratty child if he continued probing the city so openly. And a Sith Lord on the Republic capital of Chazwa? That realization alone turned her attention towards the wound in the force - perhaps there was something of a conspiracy going on in the Republic.

[member="Eralam"] [member="Ryan Korr"]

 

[Eralam]

Eralam winced.

There was no outward change of expression to give it away. After all, his body was that of a droid, and not one particularly given to facial expressions. Inwardly, however, he recoiled away from the surge of madness that poured through the Force like radiation from a reactor breach.

This was not natural. This was not normal. The Shard normally couldn't detect individual emotions unless they were really strong and really close by. He was no weakling when it came to the Force. Many a fool who had underestimated him due to his extreme specialization could attest to that. He was, however, not a human. Nor was he even organic. His mind was so far removed from the organic mind that the only reason he could even pick up the little he could was with centuries of practice and a few very, very patient teachers over the years. It was like trying to learn a new language with no frame of reference. He could barely do it at all, and most organics didn't even recognize that he had a mind.

This though, this was something else. The old Iron Knight didn't have to be a mentalist to pick up the agony and hatred that was crashing against him like hurricane waves against a cliff. This was a being not necessarily of unusual power, but the depth of her anguish was something he had never felt before. The Shard surmised the presence was a female because he could almost physically hear the voice of the madness, and it sounded like a female. Most beings, he had been told, never really change their mental voice.

Until puberty, humans and humanoid species had rather high pitched voices that, to his ear, were slightly less grating than sandpaper across canvas. That voice was with them during their formative years, and generally imprints itself as the voice in their head as they ready and think. Over time it might adjust somewhat, and of course the longer a being lived the more that tended to happen, but often, a mental break would revert the brain back to a more childlike state as it tried to recover.

Which would explain why he was hearing what sounded like a little girl going absolutely nucking futs.

The fact that he could detect the emotions was remarkable. The fact that he could physically hear her thoughts was nothing short of terrifying. If he were to guess, he'd guess her particular brand of madness had warped her mind to the point that they shared a common frame of reference, if only for a moment.

There was no telling what that sort of madness would breed.

Eralam considered the situation for a moment, and elected to try to pinpoint the location of this mysterious being, though from a safe distance. People like this tended to go places for a reason, and rarely for any good. He wasn't about to get caught up in the crossfire if he could help it, but nor was he willing to forego the chance to see what would happen next.

[member="Braith Achlys"]

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Braith Achlys"] @Eralam @Ryan Korr

Power....it was a tempting thing. He longed for it and yet knew all to well the cost. His dark thoughts roiled like waves in a tempest as he roamed from the docking bay into the streets. The presences of power attracted him like a moth to a flame, and his undying hunger would not let him resist. His mind focused as the words of the nearest being shut him out with a command to stay out of her mind, and it was a her, of that he was certain. Before she shut him out he could feel her, emotions all too familiar surged in her; pain, regret, longing and an odd familiarity that he could almost place. She was perfect. She just needed a nudge in the right direction and she would be another agent of destruction for the Goddess' pleasure and his own.

His thoughts once more projected out but no longer sweeping and cursory, no, now he was focused. He stabbed again at her mind with the single emotional thought.

She's gone...

Did he know who the woman desired? No, but he had a face and her emotions and for him it was enough. He focused on nearby tourist taking holos and waiting for a speeder bus and abruptly began to consume their life essence. In a breif moment of shock their screams choked out in their throats before a sickening grin spread over his down turned face. They were mere morsels, but their deaths would be felt and that was all he cared for. She would come to him and this world would know pain.