Endless Knight
Location: The Fortressa [Lower Hangar Bay]
Tags: [member="Veiere Arenais"] | [member="Darth Prazutis"]
Fear.
Naedira had long since gotten used to an absence of it. Fear was not real. It was the product of thoughts that weak minds succumbed to. A mix of chemical reactions. Danger, was very visceral, but responding with abject terror had become little more than a bland decision. It was akin to deciding what to have for breakfast. When her world had been turned upside down on Naboo, when her husband had been killed in an attack, she had felt so many things that were indescribable.
Loss. Pain. The agony of having her other half ripped away in the blink of an eye.
She hadn’t stopped being afraid by pretending that everything that frightened her wasn’t there. Naedira had simply chosen to accept it for what it was and become stronger. She had nothing to fear, no reason to quake, if she could reach into herself and find that which she needed to survive. She was complete in all that she was. In all that she was not. The Darkside had swept into her being with a vengeance. It broke her down. Held her head beneath the waves of something unfathomable and yet—Left her whole.
More complete than she had ever been.
Now. She felt fractured. A kaleidoscope of shadow and light. Of dream, desire, and cold trepidation. Staring at a living embodiment of something so dark, so primordial, she remembered what it felt like. She remembered what it felt like to be small. Helpless, broken. When she inhaled through her nose the air was thick. A cloud of moving power that felt like lines of ants moving around her skin, so dense, that she felt like she could chew through it. Her heart hammered in her chest, feeling slick, and heavy. It beat against the power the Mountain exuded like a fish in a net.
Then—The Mountain moved. Not physically, not yet, but within the confines of her mind. He breezed through her carefully honed defenses as if they’d been constructed of matchbooks dry timber. He was a flame, ever-burning, that left little but ash in its wake. She shook while he slipped inside her head and her pupils grew to the size of saucers while she desperately tried to keep him out. It was futile. He was there, controlling, and weeding through her every sacred memory before she even knew it. The flickering crows wings that had obscured her vision in the first place fully filled her sight and replaced it with what he wanted her to see.
Death.
As the Sith Lord wormed deeper into her being she was burdened with visions of destruction. The informational overload was dizzying. She couldn’t follow it all. It was akin to flashes in a storm, with the threat of sheer damnation illuminating his truth, like scenes in an old holo-film. The overwhelming nature of his being became apparent. Death. Lord of Lies. Shadowhand. Naedira tried to concentrate. She tried to roll the Darkside through her mind, to wash him away, but it knew what he felt like. It was too similar. His invisible strength beat along her skull and burned down through her bones. The Knight could feel his power like a thrumming note that rang so deep and low that it was physically painful.
It was all consuming.
“Naedira”
A voice came. Achingly familiar. Blackness was replaced with a classroom and for the briefest moment she could forget. It was part of a second. Part of that second. He was there. Her husband was alive. Except that he wasn’t. Flame leapt from nowhere and chased screams from his chest that she had never heard. So much agony, so much suffering, that she could feel her own skin crack and peel. She stopped breathing entirely when the structure came in and pinned Alec. Her sweet, uncompromising, and gentle husband. The words that flowed could not have come from him.
It stung her regardless. Every searing accusation came with a blow that was like a sword of hate piercing her soul. It tore apart pieces of her that she had long since buried. It targeted her compassion—Her weakness.
The hollow voice that tore away the visage of her deceased husband was like a bucket of ice water being dumped on her head. She gasped and coughed so hard that it sounded raw. Her sight restored. Before her—The Mountain stood. Taunting, the small, insignificant mouse. Anger flowed. It started as a spark. Slow, like embers, that had just barely been born. Who gave her the right to exist? Who gave her the right to breathe? “You…Y-You are so arrogant, Immortal. I do not need your permission to live. You came here. You came to this ship. You subjected yourself to my world and decided to exist in my space. Anyone who needs to declare that others should stand in awe before them are weak, small, crippled fools.”
Naedira’s voice escaped her in breathless gasps, though, filled with conviction. She was finding her footing. Finding her strength. A laugh spilled from pale lips. It was self-deprecating. Naedira was many things, but, she wasn’t in the habit of lying to herself. A transmission came in through her earpiece from [member="Adron Malvern"]. He had not given her permission, orders, to die. The young woman reached up and removed the plastic piece from her ear. It wasn’t that she wanted to disobey.
It simply was what it was. Against this Sith? Against this Lord of Lies?
She would die.
Topaz coloring filled the irises of expressive eyes, burning, while Darkside corruption mottled the skin around it. The cold, empty part of her, that was nothing but static and silence, the place where she killed, opened up inside her head. The Mountain filled that space. Her focus solidified and she took an offensive stance while her voice finally rose above the bleak void between them.
“I’d rather die standing on my own two feet than on my knees, afraid, of something like you!”
The hangar shook when the Sith rushed forwards to deal with the Magnaguard first. Naedira’s focus switched, briefly, and twin bladed-fans snapped away from the base of her spine. They unfolded through telekinetic efforts and held off a flanking assault, using the flat sides to deflect from a pair of Crownguard, that were wielding rather iconic lightsaber-pikes. Her hands went out and both items returned to her grasp. Her right arm rose to rebound a fierce snap from a weapon, however, her left side remained vulnerable. The Crownguard were well-trained, fairly mobile, and reactive to her every move. The helmeted enemy to her left struck out with a lightsaber-pike and her head pulled back while her spine arched back to avoid being speared. It was a close call. She could feel the heat of the weapon being a little too close to her face and spun out of the way to avoid being burned on the withdraw. Reflexively, she threw one of the fans at the nearest soldier, and heard a solid thunk as it impacted with his helmet. The Crownguard stumbled back from being slammed in the head but his armor was intact.
The fans could deflect—But, these soldiers would just shake off strikes like a bad hangover.
Chit.
The razor-sharp items remained in the air, distracting, crisscrossing, while she turned to her Obsidian Saber. When in doubt a lightsaber was often the great equalizer. Her gaze slipped toward the Mountain and her heart skipped a beat when she realized he was literally tearing apart the few droids that she had brought with her. Haste drove her, as time was of the essence, and her fingertips tingled for a moment before she turned around and used Force to yank one of the soldiers toward her.
The abrupt movement toward her startled the faceless Crownguard and his feet dragged along the metal floor. Her lightsaber activated at an upward angle, the purple blade splicing through his ribs, and out his upper back. She drew away and let the body fall to the floor. The hole smoked, but, she didn’t have time to deal with the other as the Lord of Lies was suddenly upon her. The minutes that had passed went by in a blur. Fear came again, making her queasy, and she choked it down.
Instead—She focused on her anger. On the foul, blasphemous way, he had used the image of Alec Antilles.
She moved as if carried by the wind. It was graceful, trained, and it served her well to avoid being cleaved in half. He was slower than she. It was a blessing. If he was as fast as he was monstrously huge the battle would have been over already. She twisted back into him, his larger critical zone making it easier, simpler, to draw her amethyst blade across his midsection. The first pass missed. The second connected, and she could feel the almost imperceptible drag, of her weapon pulling through him.
…It was too easy. She jumped back, giving some distance, while she fell back into a defensive stance. Her wrist turned to adjust how she held the saber. Anyone else would have buckled from such a blow. The smoke rising from the injury…It didn’t even phase him. Naedira swallowed. Hard.
The Mountain…He just watched.
He. Just. Watched.
“You…You are so aged. The only enjoyment you must have in your immortality is watching others die.”
Naedira wasn’t sure who she was saying it for. The Lord of Lies? Or herself.
She gave herself the span of a breath. Naedira approached the Mountain using an even guard with the point of her saber held out before her in warning. While she should have used her speed to outmaneuver him, she was attempting to conserve energy. He was large—But the power he exuded made him entirely unpredictable. She should have wanted to end the battle quickly, because the longer they clashed, the weaker she would become. If he could simply stand there and absorb at attack from a lightsaber as if she had kissed him rather than attempted to gore him?
This was going to be...Difficult. A nightmare. Impossible.
Naedira wanted to complain in her head about his longer blade, which gave him more reach, but it didn’t stop her from creeping right into his measure. Too unnerved to completely play it safe, the young woman suddenly leapt offline, and made swipe at his upper arm. Her style of combat took points from Niman and Juyo. She had held several different teachers, including her father, and had adopted the pieces from each that suited her best. It was unique—And unto itself. Clean, dynamic. She followed up with that first attack by swiftly slashing again, targeting a different area, while trying to avoid a blade lock. He was strong. Too, strong.
A hail of light erupted when their sabers came together regardless. It halted the hail of purple-streaked cuts she’d been making and exactly what she hadn’t wanted, happened, with perfect synchrony. The sabers ran against one another and Naedira felt herself being pushed back. She could feel her elbows threatening to buckle, regardless, the Force that she pulled on to strengthen her. Naedira’s expression had become cold. She seemed mechanically inexorable. Impossibly determined for her small stature and the clear disadvantages. The fear that had bound her was buried by adrenaline…
Adrenaline—And something far more profound. Hate.
