His blood boiled at their sight.
He despised them so thoroughly that language struggled to contain the wrath kindled in his gut.
Filthy bureaucrats, fat from power, perched on scarlet-cushioned thrones stacked atop the bent backs of honest labor.
The gigantic, opulent frame, clad in aureate full-body armor, entered the chamber in the midst of debate.
He found no seat; he had no interest, nor the clearance, to sit among these petty officials.
But he found refuge in those eyes, golden orbs devoid of soul, empty sockets were it not for their gilded gleam. Eyes wielded like blades. A gaze capable of slicing through whatever it settled upon.
The humming of internal servos whirred as he came to stand beside
Vireth
of Kuat, his towering silhouette in stark contrast to the petite form he guarded.
The golden crown of his helm dipped low in a deep bow, a wordless exchange between allies.
From Coruscant, across Ord Lithone, to the belly of the Death Star, the two zealots had fought and bled for the Church. Yet here, they found themselves on its fringes.
The faces of the Imperial bureaucrats and officials blurred together into a mush of featureless visages. Their spun lies found no purchase with him.
There had been no Death Star?
The memory resurfaced, the tragedy that had befallen them upon that world-ship.
He still remembered the echoing chant, Vireth's and Vianze's screams, drowning out the choir of voices that had prayed as one. A vision of a galaxy eclipsed.
There had been no Death Star?
But he held his mouth.
He held even his thoughts.
It was not his place to form an opinion on the trivial doctrines of mortals.
Whatever would be decided here today, the Church would remain sovereign.
He would preach to his congregations among the stars.
None of this, none of them, besides the Grand Vizier Wulf herself, could alter that.
Moments after he found his place, the equally massive form of
Imperius Indomitus
rose to speak.
A deep, vox-scrambled chuckle rumbled from within Da'Razel's featureless helm.
He had grown familiar with the heretic during their recent joint expedition. Imperius was a pragmatist, a strange brew of Imperial doctrine mixed with something older, zealous, almost tribal. A hidden culture forged over decades of war and leadership among nomadic conquerors.
Da'Razel felt the urge to reprimand him…
But then, from the shadows where the dim lights failed to reach, Prophet
Darth Vinaze
emerged.
The sight eased the weight of their recent defeat on his shoulders.
His master was ever-present, ever-listening. A figure who existed in every corner of every Core World.
And what comforted the Saint most was how Vianze struck.
He made no attempt to respect the petty decorum of these pencil-pushing parasites who leeched off empires built by Sith blood and sacrifice.
His words, like poison-tipped blades, burrowed into the man's side, pinning Imperius down upon the stratagem table.
Da'Razel tilted his golden gaze toward his Prophet. He would seek him later, if the opportunity arose. There was much to tell.
Meanwhile, disputes erupted.
Blame shifted like a tide.
Like a pack of rabid dogs, orders were barked back and forth.
Da'Razel chuckled again, plates of his gauntlet shifting as his hand drifted toward Korrûg Kuûr, the cursed revolver strapped at his hip.
He rarely carried the relic.
He had fired it only once.
But he could feel its pestering cries, its sobbing hunger, begging to unleash its catastrophic payload upon any of the infidels polluting the chamber.
This was the difference between them.
There were those who struck down the Empire's foes with their bare hands, true believers dragging themselves to the edge of their own life as they pushed the heathens over the brink and into their demise.
And there were those who merely spoke of power.
A sorrow overcame him. His visor lowered to the floor as he murmured a silent prayer for the courageous souls lost upon the Death Star.
His thoughts lingered on
Deonis Laythar
Watch over him, my Lord, for he was a dutiful servant.
He raised his gaze.
Plump, arrogant mortals lecturing incarnations of divinity, proclaimed as such by none other than the will of the God-Emperor himself.
But amid the squabbling, a chilling, almost whispered remark from someone he had not yet encountered became the victim of his attention.
A short-statured wraith of a being, draped in uneven slabs of black cloth.
Shabby. Defiant. Out of place.
Her ignorant words hurled at his Prophet tore the Saint of Flames from his brief mirth and rekindled his wrath.
The temperature around him rose, his armor straining to contain the inferno blooming at his core.
"Excuse me, Sister…" he uttered, bowing beneath her gilded gaze.
Massive war-greaves clanged against durasteel as he moved around the table with deliberate menace.
He ignored the ongoing bickering.
He ignored the arguments.
He was stirred by the calm voice of the Togruta senator, who attempted to quell the conflict by redirecting attention to Ferris itself.
For a fleeting moment, Da'Razel considered a sermon to a congregation among the working populace of that resolute world…
But the thought alone could not quench the blaze ignited by this hag's insult toward his master.
He stopped at the woman's seat.
The resplendent giant bowed again, not as deeply as before, and spoke, loud enough to be heard, but not enough to disrupt the proceedings.
The Togruta was right, this was a matter between Sith.
His voice boomed with warped vox, stern, resonant, thick with hatred.
"Repent, witch. You may speak your truth, but hold your foul tongue before our Prophet. I do not know who you are… but I am certain you do not know to whom you speak."
The Sith-killer relic at his waist screamed, begged, battered against its holster.
One slug.
One life.
One eternal silence.
His next words were more resolute, bore more wrath, were more threatening.
"You must be a fresh-hatched chick among the flock. So I forgive your ignorant outburst. But do not stoke the flame that warms you, for it will burn you just the same."
He rose back to his full height and stood beside the woman, not as a sentinel, but as her looming, menacing oversight.
Shannic Wulf
,
Okono Dukkha
,
Domaric Mordane
,
Aggadeen Myi
,
Darth Keres
,
Ellayina L'lerim
,
St. Thomas Barran
,
