The threat of fire was dispatched quickly.
It had been far too long since the brothers stood together on the battlefield. In truth, Darth Metus could not remember the last time he had witnessed the brutality of [member="Darth Rixas"]. Yet, as the horde began its advance, the elder sibling was in awe - if only for a split second. With the savagery of a wild Bes'uliik did the younger pulverize the flamebearer. And with a thunderous boom did the carcass explode into flame upon impact with the station's floor. The light drew the Infected's attention, for just a moment.
And in that moment, the Sith continued to fire.
Beside him, the Hapan beauty [member="Erin Tenel"] demonstrated just how much she had grown. By blade, shield, and lightning, she put down the disfigured beasts as they came. But. Her presence was not eternal. Whether it was to get a better position or to see further ahead, the Hapan bounded away from the side of her Mentor. And there would be no protest from the Sith in this regard - for he
trusted her not to get herself killed.
"Move."
The sole, thunderous word boomed against the corrupted forms before him. They were an obstacle: a delay in seeing to the recovery of his Apprentice. This would not stand any longer, for every second wasted meant more time that [member="Srina Talon"] had to endure the plague. At once, the Sith set his focus upon the
Mother-tongue. Lyrics hummed dangerously through his mind, silently benting the Force to his whim.
He remembered what his mother, Petra, had taught him so long ago. That the rumble of power within the clouds was not something to be feared. That the flashes of light were something to embrace. The Storm was something to be channeled, but never controlled. Beckoned. Summoned. Directed. But never tamed. In this moment, these lessons came alive as energy began to thunder within.
The Storm built, billowing and strengthening, until sparks of white began to dance upon the surface of his skin.
And in their wake, agony. Burnt flesh. Such was the price of wielding a Storm.
He broke into a sprint and
leapt.
His fists collided with the broken, grimy tiles of the subway.
Thunder boomed as the white bolts
exploded out from his body. As quickly as a natural lightning strike, the impact sought out the Infected and burned them away. Every drop of moisture within their bodies evaporated in the blink of an eye. What remained were husks. Burnt. Charred. Motionless. In the wake of the impact, Darth Metus shakily returned to his feet.
Much like his sibling, the energy itself to pull off such a tactic was not what made things difficult. It was the agony one had to endure after the fact. Though safe from infection underneath his armor, his flesh...
ached. His arms and legs now felt as if a razor had been taken to them. A burning sensation persisted long after he had sucked in a steadying breath. But he did not have the luxury of medical attention just yet. They had to keep moving. They had to find the Downed Team -
He had to find Srina.
"Let's go." he said, pushing himself forward.
He did not know how many he had slain or how long the break would last. The Team would be foolish not to seize the opportunity to move unobstructed. Now, as two troopers took point and led the way forward, the Vicelord tapped into the comm channels -
hoping for some good news. What he found, instead, was something...alarming. Something that was being transmitted by a unit...designation: S.Y.N. The report and intelligence that the droid was amassing was continuously being uploaded to the Confederacy's field network.
And every shred of data led to a budding hypothesis. The Plague was transmitted by nearly every means known to man. Transformation was swift and brutal. There was next to no chance of survival once infected. The Cure...the Cure was a hypothesis. Maybe the research teams found something that would make this nightmare end, but the intel was bleak. There was another way. A much more brutal way. A way that was intended for Imperial regimes, not infected populations.
"[member="Darth Rixas"] ," he began, addressing his sibling as they moved together in the corridor.
"Get a message to Headquarters from me. Have every engine spun up and ready for evac in the next thirty minutes."
He then reached out to the leadership - to the Young and the Old who had come together to end this nightmare. The Sith wasted no time in explaining what the Droid had found...and expressing his own thoughts that it was a long shot that a cure resided in the hands of the downed research team. What he then suggested was the
Nuclear Option. Defoliation as a means of burning away the Plague to an atomic level. Defoliation as a method of leaving the capital city intact while addressing the Dark Zone as a whole. It was a brutal suggestion. Thousands would die.
But they were already dead.
By the time their conversation concluded, the Vicelord's group began to ascend the stairs at the end of the subway station. Unbeknowest to them, they were only a stone's throw away from [member="Srina Talon"] and her group that had been fighting for survival. Though they would not hear the fate of the capital city, they would hear the announcement that would come blaring over the Confederate channel. Exclusively.
"Attention all personnel, Protocol: Midnight Exigent has been initiated. In T-Minus Thirty Minutes, Defoliation will commence. Please make your way south for immediate extraction. Message will repeat."
Going south would bring both teams together at the mouth of the subway.
Thirty minutes on the clock.
Thirty minutes until
Oblivion.
[member="Scherezade deWinter"], [member="Nine Lives"], [member="Riggs"], [member="Erin Tenel"], [member="Darth Rixas"], [member="Darkhold"], [member="Tobias Dib"], [member="Hadashah Vi'dreya"], [member="Anastasia Vi'dreya"], [member=S.Y.N.], [member="Noatyr Moldmerr"], [member="Rhaegar Nemesis Dib"], [member="Kurenai Yumi"], [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"]
...totally.
