Duel Dance with the Devil

[Isley Verd]

Assets: Armor | Lightsaber​

ALTIER
The Threaf Homestead

The fields had always been a comfort to Vor Threaf. Rows of golden stalks stretching toward the horizon, a testament to years of sweat and steady hands. The soil was dry but kind, the kind of earth that rewarded patience and punished greed. The wind that morning carried the faint scent of rain, though the skies were clear. To the people of this quiet world, it was another day in the steady rhythm of life.

To Vor Threaf, it was the end of peace.

The Threaf Homestead sat at the edge of a sleepy plain, its fences bowed by time, its roof stitched with repairs made from the wreckage of an old freighter. No one remembered much about the ship anymore. Vor had sold it off long ago, piece by piece, until there was nothing left to tell its story. When neighbors asked, he had spoken kindly, spinning a tale of a man seeking simplicity after years in the Core. His wife, Yara, would smile beside him, her hands still scarred from work she never spoke of. They built a life together. Raised their sons. Buried the past beneath harvest after harvest.

But the past has roots deeper than the soil.

By midday, the homestead felt alive with easy laughter. A young traveler named Acier had passed through their land, his tone polite, his manners careful. Vor welcomed him without suspicion. They ate together on the porch, a humble meal of fresh grain bread and roasted roots. Acier shared tales of distant worlds, and the old couple listened with genuine warmth, their sons vanishing into the fields to gather more from the vines. It was an ordinary kindness. A moment of peace carved from the ordinary fabric of life.

Then the air changed.

It began as a pressure, subtle and cold, a feeling that sank into the skin before the mind could name it. The wind stilled. The birds went silent. Even the insects fled the open air. From the edge of the field, the crops bent under an unseen force, their color draining to ash. The ground cracked, the roots shriveled, and the stench of rot rose in their place...He had arrived.

A tall figure, cloaked in black. His armor gleamed like oil beneath the folds of his robe, the faint lines of crimson runes pulsing along its edges. He did not walk as men walked. Each step seemed to drink from the land, to pull its life into him. His hood was drawn low, but the darkness beneath it moved like a living thing. When he exhaled, the very air trembled.

The first sound to break the silence was a laugh. Low, cruel, and humorless.

Moments later came the sounds of breaking bones. Two sharp cries, then quiet.

Inside, Yara clutched Acier’s arm with trembling fingers. “Go!” she whispered. “Go now.” Vor reached for the old blaster above the mantle, his hands steady despite the fear in his chest. He had known this day would come. He just prayed he’d have more years before it did.

Outside, the Demon waited.

Darth Metus stood in the shadow of the dying field, arms folded across his chest. The Dark Side clung to him like a storm. It rippled in the air around him, unseen but undeniable. When he spoke, his voice carried the gravity of judgment, calm and merciless.

"Such a lovely hovel you've built for yourselves." His tone was steady, deep enough to make the very boards of the homestead groan. “Almost as if...you thought I was lying. Almost as if you thought I'd let you die of old age. Ha!”

He took a slow step forward, his words cutting through the stillness.

“Sadly...I am a man of my word.” he said, his voice growing darker, heavier. “And your debt is long past due.”

The fields around him smoldered in silence. The soil cracked beneath his boots. And from the edge of the homestead, as if the world itself were holding its breath, the Demon’s gaze fell upon the door.​

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Altier - Threaf Homestead

Equipment:
Field Gear | Lightsaber | Tic | Cybernetic Arm

Altier had been a stop-over. Nothing more. A quiet speck of farmland where the air didn't hum with war and the people still believed in luck. Ace had meant to pass through by sundown, just long enough to fix the Flickerfox's hyperdrive and move on. But the Threafs had waved him in before he could refuse, kindness catching him off-guard.

They'd fed him, asked for stories of the stars. He'd given them fragments, harmless ones. Tales about weather patterns on Naboo, the color of Roon's seas, the strange way hyperspace looked from a ship without a window. Nothing about the Hidden Path. Nothing about the war. For a few hours, it almost felt like peace. He remembered thinking, this is what the galaxy's supposed to feel like.

Then the air changed. It wasn't sound at first. It was pressure. A drop in the rhythm of the world, as if the planet itself had drawn breath and was holding it.

Ace stiffened. His prosthetic fingers clenched around the cup in his hand until the metal creaked. The Force didn't whisper, it recoiled.

He'd never felt anything like it in person, but he didn't need to. The stories he'd heard, the footage he'd studied, the familiar echo in the Force. that stirred around both him and Aether? It was the same here. All of it fit together like a key turning in a lock he'd spent his life trying not to open.

Vor started to stand. Yara's hand shot out, trembling. Her voice was barely sound. "Go."

He knew what this was. Who this was. The galaxy had finally caught up with him, and it wore his bloodline's shadow. Every instinct screamed to flee, but the idea of running, of leaving these people to face what he knew his father was capable of, was unthinkable. He'd done enough running. Enough losing.

He reached for the hilt on his belt, fingers brushing the emitter. The weight of it steadied him but he wasn't ready. His mind was a storm. His new arm still misjudged his grip. But training had carved something solid in him: resolve. And behind that resolve burned the anger he never voiced, the image of Metus abandoning his mother.

A metallic chirp broke the silence beside him. Tic had perched on the porch rail, photoreceptor flickering nervously as the little droid tilted his head toward the horizon.

Ace crouched slightly, voice low but firm. "Back to the ship, Tic."

The droid let out a string of anxious beeps, shaking his head.

"I mean it." Ace said, tone sharper. "You stay out of this. That's an order."

Tic hesitated, servos whirring in protest. Then he gave a low, mournful trill and hopped down, scuttling toward the tree line. Ace watched the flicker of his photoreceptor vanish into the tall grass, jaw tightening.

Then he turned back to the porch. The air smelled of decay. The fields that had been gold hours ago were gray now, bowing under some unseen gravity. And at their far edge, a figure stood cloaked in black, armor pulsing with red runes that breathed like open wounds. Metus spoke to Vor as if he knew him, and for a moment, Ace wondered what kind of man he was defending blindly.

He'd dreamed of this moment and dreaded it in equal measure. Wondered if he'd recognize the man who had shaped his mother's pain, who'd left him to inherit it. He didn't need to see his face to know. The Force was screaming the truth into every nerve.

With a hiss and a flare of blue, his lightsaber ignited. The blade's light cast his freckled, scarred face.

The son stood before the father; afraid, furious, and absolutely unwilling to run. And between them, the Force trembled.

Metus's presence pressed outward like a black tide, vast and absolute, the will of a man who had mastered the storm and bent it to obedience. Every breath he drew seemed to drag the air itself into his dominion, the Dark Side answering him as if it owed him fealty.

Ace's presence was smaller, rawer, but alive in a way his father's was not. Where Metus's power devoured, his burned. Untamed light bleeding through cracks in inexperience, potential not yet shaped into control. The Force coiled around him like a thing waiting to wake, a promise still in its chrysalis.

In that breathless silence between them, master and heir of ruin, the galaxy seemed to hold its breath.

Isley Verd​

 

[Isley Verd]

Assets: Armor | Lightsaber

ALTIER
The Victims' Homestead

The Dark Side shivered with anticipation as Darth Metus regarded the scene before him. He had come to this lonely patch of Altier with a singular purpose, a promise carved into the marrow of decades. There were debts that demanded payment, and he had every intention of laying old ghosts to rest beneath fresh soil. Blood, resistance, and the thin cries of those who had fled his wrath too long ago were foretold, expected, even welcomed. That story had already been written in his mind, its ending certain.

Yet the galaxy, in all its cruelty and all its drama, had chosen to place a new chapter before him.

Between the Sith and his quarry stood a young man whose resolve was etched into every line of his posture. The glow of a newly ignited lightsaber shimmered across the fading crops, and through the Force, Metus felt the contrast strike like a chord plucked between worlds. He was an abyss, vast and consuming, a storm with ancient roots and terrible reach. And the boy? He was a star caught in the gravity of an event horizon, luminous but fragile, defined by potential rather than mastery.

Still, the Force whispered. It did not cajole or suggest; it declared.

Metus studied the face framed in white dreadlocks. He saw freckles painted by a lifetime lived far from privilege. He saw features shaped by a woman he had once known with an intimacy that fate had soured. The likeness was unmistakable. And the name his other son had spoken once in confidence now rose like a tide in his mind.

Recognition softened the Sith Lord’s expression, peeling back the feral edge just enough to allow genuine intrigue.

He lifted his voice, rich and resonant, letting it roll across the homestead like an imperial decree. “You must be Acier.”

Then his arms opened wide, a gesture that felt far too welcoming for a man surrounded by the dying breath of the land. “What a surprise! And not an unwelcome one. Imagine this fortune, that I am granted the pleasure of butchering traitors and meeting my lost son, all in the same day.”

He lowered his arms and stepped forward. The ground recoiled, shadows gathering beneath his boots as if drawn toward a throne only he could see. The Dark Side howled in response, recognizing its master and rising to meet his call. Without a spoken word, the incantation rippled outward.

A yelp split the air. Then a scream. Vor’s old rifle barked once, a desperate blast that achieved nothing.

From the doorway behind Acier, two Smoke Demons materialized as if poured from the darkness itself. Twisting bodies of tar-like vapor and molten ember dragged the struggling farmers onto the porch. They were battered but breathing. Metus had not permitted death to claim them. Not yet.

He extended a hand toward his son, fingers relaxed, tone almost conversational. “Your brother told me of what you did to the ones who murdered your mother. And for that, I applaud you.” His head tilted, interest simmering beneath the surface. “So tell me, child, what should be the fate of those responsible for your siblings' deaths? Shall I let my Demons tear them apart? Or would you prefer to deliver the sentence yourself?”

A pause lingered, deliberate and heavy with invitation.

“Or perhaps...” he said, voice sinking into a low, velvet growl, “...you would like to rebel.”

The word hung between them with purpose, each syllable a revelation, each sound a threat and a temptation entwined.

Darth Metus waited, the abyss behind him yawning wider, the star before him burning brighter, the Force trembling between father and son.​

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Altier - Threaf Homestead

Equipment:
Field Gear | Lightsaber | Tic | Cybernetic Arm

Ace didn't answer Metus's greeting. The blue glow of his lightsaber washed against the darkness pouring off the Sith like a living tide. Every second in that presence felt like standing too close to a cliffside drop. The Force leaned toward Metus as if gravity itself favored him.

Ace stayed upright anyway. Not with ease. With resistance and something that refused to die. His gaze snapped not to Metus's smile, but to the porch where the Threafs were dragged and held in the coils of smoke-born monsters.

Vor's chest heaved. Yara trembled beneath a demon's grip. They were terrified but fighting to breathe, fighting to stay alive.

"Stop. This is obviously beneath you." Ace said. Not loud. Not afraid. Just absolute.

Then his jaw tensed. Something in him recoiled at his father praising what had happened on Dathomir. Images flashed unbidden - Orryn's last breath rattling in his chest. The fury that came after. The bodies he left in his wake. How long it took for the shaking to stop. How it never fully did.

His father called it vengeance. Ace called it the worst night of his life. This was the man who abandoned Orryn. Who wasn't there when she needed him. Who let her die alone. Ace's jaw locked, breath tightening as he forced his blade steady again.

"Don't." He said quietly, heat flaring under his skin. "You don't get to talk about her."

“So tell me, child, what should be the fate of those responsible for your siblings' deaths?

The world stopped and Ace's breath hitched. For a microsecond, his blade dipped.

Wait.
Siblings?
The Threafs...?

The thought slammed into him like cold water. His heart lurched. His fingers clenched reflexively around the hilt. He saw the Threafs' faces: their kindness, their gentle questions, the way Yara had nudged an extra slice of bread onto his plate, Vor's quiet jokes, the warmth of a family moment he'd only dreamed of as a child.

That couldn't line up with murder. Could it? Guilt flashed, then confusion, and finally shock. All in the space of a single heartbeat.

But then... there was clarity. It was hard, clean, and unshakable. Whatever they had done, whoever they had been? Today, they had shown him nothing but humanity. The galaxy was full of people drowning in their pasts. He wasn't here to judge them for mistakes he didn't even understand.

His blade rose again, firm. Shoulders squared. Voice returning, iron-edged now.

"Doesn't matter what they did." He said quietly. "Whatever their past is... it's not a death sentence."

The Force trembled, a living thing caught between two gravitational pulls. Ace's presence surged upward, raw and bright. A Force signature that didn't kneel, didn't quiet, didn't know how to back down. It flickered, unstable, but burning hotter with every breath he took in defiance.

Ace didn't wait for Metus to breathe, blink, or twist the knife again. He moved, but not toward Metus, in a burst of blue light and grit, he pivoted hard toward the porch. His lightsaber snapped into a descending arc, slamming into the coils of the nearest Smoke Demon. The blade hissed as it carved through the tar-like vapor, scattering it into shrieking wisps of ember and shadow.

The second Demon jerked back, tightening its grip on Yara, but Ace was already there. He drove his shoulder into the creature, smashing it against the railing as his blade punched upward, severing the tendril wrapped around her arm. The monster dissolved into a plume of smoke, clawing the air as it fell apart.

"Run!" Ace barked, shoving Vor and Yara toward the open doorway.

Only then did he turn back toward Metus. He'd save who he could, and if his sire wouldn't relent - he'd fight him too.

Isley Verd​

 

[Isley Verd]

Assets: Armor | Lightsaber

ALTIER
The Victims' Homestead

The Sith did not flinch when the boy refused to answer his greeting. Silence had always been a predictable refuge for the overwhelmed, and the air between them carried more than enough strain to justify it. Only when the Smoke Demons hauled the trembling Threafs onto the porch did Acier finally speak. The words he chose were steady and sharp, cutting through the ruin-stained quiet, and they drew the faintest arch of Darth Metus’ brow.

He responded with a voice that rumbled through the dying fields. “Vengeance is far from beneath me. Turning a blind eye to what they have done, that is beneath me. Repaying blood with blood, that is what I am.”

The boy bristled, the mention of his mother stoking a fire that had been simmering beneath the surface since the moment their eyes met. Darth Metus felt it as the Force itself might sense a storm cresting the horizon. There was no mockery in the Sith’s silence then. Only recognition. Pain understood pain well, even when it festered in another.

But the true shift came when he spoke of Acier’s siblings. The dip of the blade was small, barely more than a breath, yet the Sith Lord saw it clearly. For a heartbeat, the galaxy aligned with him. Kin had been taken. Blood was the price. This was truth, simple and ancient.

Then the Hero raised his weapon again.

Conviction surged through Acier's limbs, and the clarity in his stance forced Darth Metus' smile to waver, just a touch.

“How noble.” he spat, the disdain curling around each syllable. “You stand upon hypocrisy. How very Jedi of you.”

And then the rebellion began.

Acier broke toward the porch, blue light cutting through shadow. Smoke Demons shrieked as they unraveled beneath his strikes. One dissolved outright, its form scattering like ash in a storm. The other died with a wounded hiss as the young warrior tore Yara free from its grasp.

Darth Metus did not move. Even as the homestead erupted into chaotic motion, even as the boy shouted for the Threafs to run, the Sith remained where he stood, still as a monument carved from the bones of forgotten gods.

A low chuckle rose from his chest, carried by something dangerous and strangely warm. His hands came together in a slow, measured clap.

“That’s my boy.”

The applause faded as he took a single step forward, the land recoiling beneath him. Shadows split like frightened animals around his boots as the Dark Side stirred in recognition of what was to come.

“Tell me if I understand you.” he said, voice coiling through the homestead like smoke searching for lungs. “If your mother’s killers had fled across the stars to a farm much like this one, and if they hid long enough, that would absolve them. Yes? All it takes to earn your forgiveness is to run far enough and long enough that your anger cannot find them. Is that it?”

A laugh followed, deep and resonant, shaking the brittle stalks of the dead crops around them.

An obsidian hilt tore free from his belt and snapped into his waiting palm. With a flick of the thumb, the weapon bloomed into a blade of burning crimson. Its light reached his features, and for the first time since he arrived, his smile disappeared entirely.

“Your perspective is immature at best and stupid at worst. But you want to play the Hero.” His blade angled toward Acier with deliberate precision. “Very well. If you want mercy for these wretches, then you earn it. You are a Verd. We are not given, we take. We are not gifted, we earn.”

The land seemed to inhale.

Then he moved.

The Dark Side poured through him like a tidal surge. His advance was powered not by fury alone but by mastery, by a century of bending the storm to his will. He closed the distance with terrifying swiftness and brought his crimson blade crashing downward, not toward flesh but toward the blue beam poised to meet it.​

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Altier - Threaf Homestead

Equipment:
Field Gear | Lightsaber | Tic | Cybernetic Arm

My boy.

The applause that followed made it worse, a slow, deliberate clap echoing across dying fields like Metus was watching a performance instead of a rescue. Ace's breath hitched, throat tight with something between disgust and shame. It felt mocking. Claiming. Possessive in a way that made his skin crawl.

When Metus stepped forward and the shadows bent around him, Ace's jaw clenched so hard it hurt. Then came the knife.

“If your mother’s killers had fled across the stars to a farm much like this one, and if they hid long enough, that would absolve them."

The world narrowed. Ace's breath shallowed. The accusation slithered right into the guilt he'd never managed to bury. His lips parted, but nothing came out. He hated how cleanly the words found the wound he kept hidden. The one that whispered you weren't strong enough, you weren't fast enough, you didn't save her.

Metus laughed and Ace flinched, that he couldn't hide. Not from the sound, but from the sheer callousness of it. The crops shook; so did Ace's grip.

Then the crimson blade ignited, drowning the surrounding area in blood-colored light. The moment Metus's smile dropped, a chill ran down Ace's spine.

You are a Verd. We are not given, we take. We are not gifted, we earn.


He smirked at that one. Faint, but there. "Looks like we found something to actually agree on." He muttered, to himself mostly.

Then, his father moved. Fast. Too fast. Faster than anything he'd ever seen. The tidal surge of the Dark Side hit Ace like a wall before the blade even fell, but he didn't freeze.

He reacted. A guttural breath ripped through his lungs as he threw himself upward into the stance he'd drilled a thousand times alone in the dark. His lightsaber snapped to meet the descending crimson arc - blue clashing against red with a scream of light.

The force of Metus' strike alone made Ace slide back half a step. Still, he refused to break. The lock between their blades seethed with sparks, Ace felt the weight of it in his shoulders, in his spine, in the trembling servos of the prosthetic that still didn't feel like his.

If he stayed in the bind, his father would break him. So Ace didn't stay. He wrenched his blade sideways in a sudden torque, slipping out from beneath the crimson blade. The maneuver wasn't elegant, the prosthetic overcorrected, nearly pulling him off balance but momentum carried him through.

He didn't wait to give his father the breath he expected. Ace pivoted hard on his heel, dropping into the first form he ever truly claimed as his own Djem So, the form that turned defense into retaliation, weight into dominance, fury into leverage. The form he'd begun refining in recent weeks.

Ace surged forward with a heavy overhand strike, bringing his lightsaber down in a punishing arc meant to drive Metus back. He didn't wait to see the result before he chained the next: a tight, diagonal cut meant to carve across the guard that blocked the first.

Isley Verd​

 

[Isley Verd]

Assets: Armor | Lightsaber

ALTIER
The Victims' Homestead

The Force around Darth Metus rippled like the surface of a deep, black sea, stirred not by wind but by the storm living inside the boy before him. As crimson and blue collided, he felt Acier with piercing clarity. Not simply as an opponent. Not merely as a son. As a wound. A young man wrapped in a fragile glow of light, but beneath that shine was a shadow hungry to consume anything that might dull the ache. Anger, guilt, grief, all coiled together in a single churning mass that stained the air around him.

Darth Metus recognized it instantly.

It was the same poison that had driven him to Altier, the same venom that had hollowed out years of his life. Once, he had called the Threafs his allies, shared laughter with them, built a fragile future alongside them. They had toiled together, mended wounds together, fought against threats together. None of it had mattered in the end. They had slit his trust open and left his children to die in that wound.

For decades he carried the guilt. The guilt of ignorance. The guilt of absence. The guilt of leaving vengeance undone long enough for it to fester.

He saw echoes of that guilt now, trembling beneath Acier’s steady facade, and for a breath he felt a kinship so sharp it bordered on cruel. But then the boy committed to his stand and the moment for reflection evaporated.

Acier wrenched free from the blade lock and Darth Metus caught the slight imbalance, the overcorrection, the brief hitch in motion. A prosthetic. How had he not noticed this?

The boy surged forward, Djem So erupting from his form with an earnest fury that would have earned applause from lesser warriors. A heavy overhand arc crashed downward. A diagonal strike snarled in its wake.

Very well.

The Sith straightened in a smooth, regal motion. His blade shifted with graceful precision, the energy contained in his wrist rather than his shoulder. The offhand moved behind his back, poised and proud, Makashi blossoming around him like the flourish of a noble’s cloak.

Crimson swept upward to intercept the overhand blow, then pivoted elegantly to swat aside the follow-up strike, the motions efficient and clean. Sparks spiraled away from the clash, dancing in the dying wind.

Only then did Darth Metus speak, and his tone held a note softer than the harsh disdain from moments before. “Who did that to your arm?”

His offhand rose from behind him, palm opening as a tide of telekinetic force surged outward. The blast was not meant to injure. It carried no intent to break bone or snap resolve. It was simply a push, strong enough to send the boy back several paces if taken directly, a reminder of the gulf between them and a test of how Acier would answer it.

Darth Metus did not follow.

He remained where he stood, saber lowered but still alive with its crimson hum. His sulfuric gaze tracked every shift of the boy’s stance and every breath drawn into his lungs. He did not hunt. Not yet. He waited, studying. Measuring.

A father appraising the shape of the warrior his son was becoming.​

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Altier - Threaf Homestead

Equipment:
Field Gear | Lightsaber | Tic | Cybernetic Arm

Metus had intercepted and defended against Ace's attacks masterfully, and with little effort. There was a brief pause in the engagement, one Metus took to ask him what had happened to his arm.

His dark eyes stayed on his father, unmoving, unflinching.

"Verd blood." Ace answered coldly. Honestly.

That dominating instinct he never learned to leash. That hunger to win, to take the hit and keep moving until he dropped. That's what had gotten him here, his own damn fire snapping back at him.

He tightened his grip on the hilt. As he did so, the Force slammed into him before he even registered a precognitive warning in the Force. Ace was promptly launched backward, boots tore grooves through the soil, then he left the ground entirely. He hit the earth hard, skidding across dead stalks and cracked dirt until friction finally caught him and ripped him to a stop.

For a moment, Ace just lay there, stunned, the sky spinning above him.

That was… Yeah. That was the difference between them. Ace was powerful in the Force. He knew he had the potential to be even stronger, thanks to his father's blood and his mother's. But now? Metus had made it abundantly clear that he dwarfed Ace in strength and experience.

He was a boy standing against a god.

But Ace pushed himself upright anyway, breath ragged, dust streaking his face, blue blade glowing in his hand. Across, Metus was waiting for him. Watching.

Ace threw his offhand forward - the Force, raw and unshaped, rushed outward in a sudden violent blast, a shockwave of pure willpower that tore dead stalks from the soil and sent a spray of dust ripping across the field toward the Sith.

He didn't wait to see if it landed and gathered his next breath, coiled his muscles, and leapt. The Force surged beneath him like a spring, hurling him forward across the distance Metus had created. He shot through the fading dust cloud, blue blade cutting a thin arc of light behind him as he closed the gap in a single heartbeat.

He came down hard, lightsaber crashing in another heavy, but controlled, overhand. All weight, all conviction, no hesitation.

Then a second strike. Then a third. A barrage that tried to drown calculation with pressure, give Metus no clean moment to counter or analyze. He was aware of how futile this likely was, Metus eclipsed him in skill and experience. But he wasn't going to roll over.

Every swing carried purpose. Every step stepped into the storm without blinking.

Isley Verd​

 

[Isley Verd]

Assets: Armor | Lightsaber

ALTIER
The Victims' Homestead

The boy’s answer cut through the tension with a clarity that did not surprise the Sith in the slightest. Verd blood. Of course it was. Defiance was practically a birthright among his lineage, the instinct to rise even when crushed, the refusal to yield even when reason begged for restraint. Rebellion was the path Acier had chosen the moment he stood between Darth Metus and his quarry, and this truth was etched into every syllable the boy uttered.

Then the Force took him.

The telekinetic blast had not been meant to strike so violently, yet Acier flew backward with the ease of a drifting leaf in a storm. He tumbled across dead soil until the earth finally seized him and brought him to a halt. Darth Metus remained where he stood, blade humming, posture steady, gaze fixed upon the young man who lay stunned in the dirt.

And then Acier rose.

Dust coated his face, his breath hitched, his body trembled beneath the reality of their chasm in power, yet he rose. That simple act pulled at something ancient within the Sith. For a moment that stretched long and quiet, Darth Metus saw not a boy, not an opponent, not even a son. He saw himself, broken and furious, rising after a Sith Lord had shattered him. Rising when no victory existed except the refusal to surrender. Rising when foolishness and pride had dragged him into ruin.

The sight tightened his grip upon the hilt. A new shape formed in his mind, a new decision settling like a stone dropped into still water.

But Acier allowed no time for contemplation.

The Force erupted from him in a raw, turbulent shockwave that tore stalks from the soil and hurled dust skyward. The Sith dismissed it with a simple sweep of his hand, a dark tide batting the storm aside. And through the thinning haze, he saw the downward flash of blue. The Hero leapt with the fury of someone who refused to be outmatched, blade cutting a brilliant arc that burned against the gloom.

Darth Metus met him in kind.

Makashi guided his every motion. No heavy commitment, no desperate exertion. His stance remained regal and balanced, finesse woven through every shift of his wrist. He parried the overhand strike, turning it aside as if brushing away a leaf. He angled past the second. He stepped lightly around the third. Patient, poised, unhurried in the face of the storm trying to drown him.

And when the final blow clashed against his saber, the Sith moved.

His offhand rose, fingers curling as the Force surged upward from the ground itself. Power flooded the space between them, attempting to engulf the young warrior, attempting to seize his limbs and suspend him in the air where he could neither move nor resist.

If Acier succumbed, Darth Metus’ blade remained angled toward him, poised to pierce flesh and end the tale with a single, decisive thrust. Yet he did not strike. Instead, he spoke.

“Good.” The word vibrated through the ruined field, steady and deliberate.

He continued, voice deepening with something far older than cruelty. “Always stand. Even when the odds tower above you, even when the path collapses at your feet, press on. That is the only trait worth anything in this galaxy.”

His blade lowered a fraction, though its glow still marked him as death incarnate beneath a sky turning bleak.

“But hear this. You are in no position to bridge what lies between us. Not now. Not today.” His eyes burned like molten gold as they locked with the boy’s. “So how, then, can you hope to take the salvation of these Threafs?”

He let the question hang, savoring each ripple it sent through the Force.

“Simple. I will take something of greater value. For such is Our way.”

His voice dropped to a quiet, commanding resonance, each word a stone upon the air.

“Submit to me and they will live. Resist, and you all die. What say you?”​

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Altier - Threaf Homestead

Equipment:
Field Gear | Lightsaber | Tic | Cybernetic Arm

The air crushed inward before Ace could even reset his footing. A tidal swell of the Force coiled around him. It felt cold, invisible, merciless.
Ace's limbs jerked, dragged upward as if the ground itself had turned against him.

He strained against it instinctively, muscles trembling, teeth bared, every muscle screaming. The prosthetic spasmed under the pressure, servos whining as if they were alive enough to fear.

For one terrible moment, he felt weightless. Suspended. Helpless. It was exactly where Metus wanted him. His father's red blade, aimed at his centerline, glowed like the end of every future he'd ever imagined for himself.

Then Metus spoke. Submit, or everyone dies. Including him. Something primal in him recoiled: revulsion, betrayal, disbelief all colliding at once.

But the truth clicked into place. Metus wasn't here for his children. No father who meant it would raise a blade against another of his own. Maybe he believed the story he told himself, but this wasn't justice or grief. It was rage and pride masquerading as righteousness.

And yet, as Ace pondered on the 'choices' laid out for him, something else stirred too. Something he hated. Something honest.

If he said yes… the Threafs survive.
If he said yes… he didn't need to witness two more people die because of him.
If he said yes…

The Force around him flickered. His pulse hammered in his ears and his eyes squeezed shut. He felt the edges of the Dark Side licking at him: fear, desperation, the crushing weight of having no good options. He felt the burn in his chest, the memory of Orryn's death, of the mass graves he'd personally created, of the nights he woke choking on guilt.

But Ace felt something else too. A quiet thread. Thin, but there. It was his mother's steadiness, his own stubborn fire. The refusal to become someone else's weapon.

His eyes snapped open, bright with something between fury and clarity. Slowly, his fingers curled tighter around his lightsaber hilt and the blade hummed to life. A defiant line of blue cutting through the pressure trying to crush him.

"Then kill me first." His voice was ice. "But don't pretend this is justice for yours with that blade pointed at me. Father of the year."

The Force around him surged, not polished, not controlled, just raw instinct fighting to tear him free of the invisible grip. He didn't know if it would be enough. But he knew one thing: He would never kneel.

Isley Verd​