Invasion Darkness Falls // NIO Invasion of TSE held Bastion

[Gatlin]

The Old Masters had many things to say.

The holocrons gathered around him, each of them placed perfectly along the backdrop of stars just outside of the bridge, groaned and whispered the secrets of ages past. A thousand truths and just as many lies, cobbled together and bounding off of one another. Each of them speaking for their own interpretation of the Sith code. The various ways one should fall their enemies, the true purpose of the Dark Side, and how to feed off of baser emotions to fuel yourself. There was something that never seemed too exactly right to Gatlin. Their masters always sounded wrong, as if they had blinded themselves in their own quests for glory. Rarely, oh so rarely did he find any true knowledge in these long forgotten devices. They screeched and begged for Gatlin’s attention, for their willingness to learn. They pounded off of bone, off of skull, and scratched at the edges of Gatlin’s concept of sanity. Each voice echoed into the endless black before wandering through the valley of shadows. It was as of the sands of Moraband had done more damage to their own studies than assist it, again and again he felt disillusioned with the proclaimed teachings of the Old Guard. Of the Dark Lords that had come before him, they melded together and bled, despite how different each of them proclaimed themselves to be from the others. The Reclamation, strife, the Civil Wars and desecration, they had fallen so far, Gatlin’s kin and kith, since the original schisim. He wondered if the ancient Jen'jidai had any clue that their fledgling Order, despite the hold it contained over the Galaxy, still failed to honestly grasp the understanding of the Dark Side. Gatlin blamed the teachings of the Sith Empire, they blamed the peace, they blame the quiet, they blamed the ignorance in victory.

Perhaps with the New Imperial Order, things could change.

That thought was dashed moments after it came to him.

Searing hot flashes, burning like rods of molten iron, began to peak across Gatlin’s body. Underneath the plating. Burning to life and vanishing a moment later, scattering across flesh in random patterns, nerves feeling as if they were drawn through their flesh and flayed upon the wrack. Limbs suddenly would cease working, sending Gatlin onto one knee, and then when their hand went to support them, that would suddenly collapse as well. A scream, they weren’t sure if it belonged to them, the holocrons, or the dredges clawing at the door of the bridge upon hearing the shouts of their master. Fingers buried into the durasteel floor, twisted and turning the metal, sending cracks through it’s construction. Fist slammed into the steel, sending burns of electrical pulses, in fading shades of purple, red, green, and blue. Frying the electrical systems through the hull. The chanting from the holocrons grew louder, louder yet, as if the pain he was endearing was the single most entertaining thing they had ever been accustomed to.

Gatlin lifted from the floor, their back snapping backwards harshly, wrenching against the armor plating. Ringing through the empty room. Nearly threatening to rend Gatlin’s back in two.

They were betrayed.

They screamed again, and the entire bridge shook as their lungs threatened to give out. The windows cracked, shattered, threatening to steal away not only Gatlin but the holocrons. Bulkheads slammed shut and secluded Gatlin in darkness. Lightning crawled from their mouth, down their chest, shoulders, and exploded again from their fingers.

He collapsed.

The door slid open, and among the murmurs and whispers of those long driven mad from his presence, came the calm and collected footfalls of his most faithful.

“My Sith'ari…” The servant asked.

Heavy breathing was the response.

“My Lord Gatlin…”

“We have been betrayed. The Sith Empire will still stand. We have no home with the New Imperials…”

“What would you have your Qorit’taral do?”

“... call the grotthukut of the Qo’krataa. Terror will free us.”

“Terror shall free us.”

And with that, the Qorit’taral left his master, alone with their voices.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Location: Royal Academy of Bastion, Ravelin, Bastion
Objective: Defend the Royal Academy, ensure Acolytes escape and information does not fall into the hands of the New Imperial Order
Allies: The Sith Empire |
Enemies: The New Imperial Order | Lunafreya Solidor
Equipment: “Twin Dancers,” (Dual Lightsabers), “Apostasy’s End” (Lightstaff), Sarassian Iron Platemail, Telis’s Legion, a handful of brave Sith Acolytes, and a whole Academy’s worth of information
Post Number: IV
Theme

War reared its ugly head as the dust settled, both front and back the scars showing from the desperate fight as night settled, no stillness covering the land and the scars of the brutal fighting even more evident when the world dipped deeper into darkness, twilight from the dust and dusk dancing across Ravelin. Behind the school, standing above a broken hangover of the ground, the Commander looked out across the field, hundreds of droids all marching into the open chasm of the school, some climbing over the breach, others tearing through it with explosives and heavy gunfire that cleared the way forward. It was with a mechanical, inhuman efficiency that they worked, the same kind of discipline that Aagenti had beaten into his legions, turning commandos into cold-blooded killers who didn’t cease for any reason but the command to hold. The Commander, though, as she watched the lines slowly reaching the crest of the hill, felt for the first time in a long time a helplessness to intervene. Her own assistance from where she was would have easily betrayed her position, rendering her own to a hail fire of a hundred bullets that would strike her down from where she stood.

Yet, within her she found a growing strength, the fires of war alight in her soul as the first of the droids made it to the top of the hill, an immediate barrage of aimed shots from snipers deep within the back blowing through metal husks and cutting through hardened armor, turning the first to approach from warriors into scraps of burning junk as they were pilfered by pale fire, metal twisting and the air wreaking with the smell of the bolts. Even with their pinpoint precision, no matter how long they held, they kept coming, multiplying like cells over the hill as the bodies of the droids fell away to the sides. When the snipers could no longer cover the line, there came a sound like horrid screeching, as the Cadavarii closest to the front settled behind their metal plates, and began to fire upon the horde, trading shots with the droids but fighting with somehow just as much cold calculation as the droids they faced, swapping from droid to droid, coordinated, as they held back the offensive line of their enemy.

The Commander, above, still saw the horde approaching, the first hits taken by the Commandos, as they continued to push. Only she could see what laid beyond, and with a shout, betraying her position, beyond her relay, the Commander cried out to the line below. ”Mid-Line, focus grenade-fire behind their front!!” Her voice was a desperate call to the men below, and those that had waited patiently in the back began a quick scramble, attaching new modifications to their guns, before aiming above the heads of their brothers, taking advantage of the open roof that now let them fire without needless ricochet. The Commander had given up her position, as she settled behind what rubble she could and shifted her own weapon, and in the sky above the droid army,

Hell rained down.

The blaster fire from the front lessened, but dozens and dozens of grenades began to poor blindly down upon the mass waiting beyond the breaking hill, hitting the ground and sending up plumes of shrapnel and superheated slag, smoke and twisted stone and metal fragments flying through the air like clouds of daggers as the blasts came down, flashes of fire and fury between the waiting wall of droids. As the commander worked tirelessly on her jury-rig, she could hear the sounds of the sudden cacophony of the explosions, the sound of the first Commando going down as the elite bastion began to take blows that mattered now, and yet they held the line without questioning, watching as behind the hill clouds spiraled up from the ground and flashes of fury trailed with them.

The Commander, praying for time, tore her gun down to the bare guts, re-arranging, attaching new pieces, the factory model spliced and torn apart as a dangerous brilliance came over her, explosive canisters mixed with normal blaster rods, and any inhibitors on the gun’s mainframe torn out. There was a cold calculation, everything she was doing a necessary risk, as the line, despite its casualties, held, and the mass of metal men behind the fronts of both lines proceeded to be hailed by an arcing line of grenades from the gloom. In the penumbral line that the Cadavarii held, the glow of their guns reflected off their visors, giving them a ghastly appearance, like flickering phantoms, as their guns relentlessly tore through those that marched and fired on their position, heavy guns awaiting meeting their positions as the robotic threat marched ever onward.

In the front, a cloud of smoke and charged ozone danced as the first of the soldiers were crystallized, turned to statues and shattered into a charged, electric field. The fire on both sides stopped with the sudden fog, Aagenti seething as he felt the energy drain from his unleashed, electric winter, feeling warmth flood back into his human hand and his eyes, the blackening of his skin remaining but the feeling returning, his eyes shining bright like stars in a dead sky. His breath was still a mixture of frozen breath, and lighting danced through the crystals of his frozen palm, but all around him he felt a new sense, a thing he couldn’t explain, a discord that fell into an entropy that fueled him. A nameless void of a mass that filled his mind with clarity and his body with a surge, the crystals on his metal hand turning into a gauntlet of ice and flowing electricity. Chaos and discord and pain, disturbance, sung in his veins and in his mind something flashed, the sky above him, and in his mind’s eye he could see the web of metal spanning outwards from his touch.

The fire stopped, but beyond he war awaited, and with his human hand Aagenti gripped one of the twin dancers, feeling the weapon’s metal hilt begin to frost in his hand, cold dancing on its surface. Flicking the saber into life, the blade leapt from the empty chasm and struck into the floor, leaving a blackened, scorch hole as he held the blade at his side, the cloud clearing and the first signs of the blaster raining from his men through the doors, to the new shield wall that marched ever onwards, a hail fire of gunfire pilfering the wall and aiming towards the man with the black hood. Raising his crystallized palm, the sudden wave of bolts heading towards him froze, impacting into an unforeseen barrier, spreading out against the invisible aegis and turning into a half-bubble of burning plasma, lighting dancing from his palm into the mass.

Turning his electric gaze to the first of the shield wall that remained, Aagenti sent the annihilating shockwave towards them, the air screeching with the sound of energy sent scorching back to its sender, accompanied by the first of the Cadavarii standing their ground against the shield-wall, returning fire in a barrage that accompanied Aagenti’s shockwave. The Sith, however, didn’t spend any time staring through the opening, surging as more and more sudden discord filled his veins, the Force disturbing and filling him with a disturbed vigor, as he rushed forward to meet the shield wall, breaking into the fray with a blade in hand, moving and striking like lightning down onto the world. His blade nimbly moved, meeting the blaster-fire and deflecting them harmlessly into the stairs behind him, and between deflections, he ran his blade into helmets and necks, anything not covered by the shields, splitting limbs with ease and leaving scorching fragments of soldiers in his wake.

As he danced, the Cadavarii fired through the opening of the blackened chasm, and behind Aagenti’s lead the five acolytes followed, rushing in to meet the shield wall in the example of the beast before them. Thought far weaker than the Sith Lord, they followed their course, strengthened by the discord in the Force, feasting from it as he did, one of the foremost acolytes screeching with a horrible song in their hearts as they met the shield wall, fading fast and fighting as though they were fresh and ready to fight a hundred years more. As Aagenti fell into his trance, once more he felt the premonition of the metal web, and as he fought, he allowed his eyes to close under the mask, one hand guided by the Force, the other reaching, dividing a vestige of himself into the swarm that approached the east side of the school. Raising his clenched, metal hand above him, the fingers of the icy gauntlet curled opened, as Palescales and Abin saw the drones start to stutter, lights flashing red then a cold blue, a web forming between them and limbs extending into long, wiry, tendrils, like sinew, others like bone.

Around them a nightmare awakened, falling away from the roof and onto the ground below, a seething web of metal tendrils and blinking lights, like eyes, awakening from the horrid art of the Sith, conjoining into one mind, three hundred bodies all convulsing into a horrid construct, shifting, writhing, mechanisms beneath the metal flexing and bulging against the surface as new tendrils sprouted, grasping to pull Abin and Palscales to the ground with a sudden voracity like a living thing, malice and eldritch fury made incarnate into a mass of rupturing tendrils and metal fangs, forming from what was originally simply recon drones. In the glow of its “eyes” it’s target was not the two scaling the roof, but the living web saw the two of them as a nearby nuisance. The clamor of the machine’s awakening, however, with the sounding of ripping and tearing metal and plates sliding against each other, was something that wasn’t lost above the pitching battle.

Aagenti, as the beast awakened, let his hand thrust forward into a legionnaire in front of him, covering the man’s armor in frigid glass, before driving him to pieces with a blow of his saber. Slowly more and more soldiers from the Cadavarii had crept outside, turning the breaking of the wall into a full-blown brawl, as Aagenti sought out the leader of the assault, seeing Lunafreya in her dark glory, before rushing through the heart of the army to reach her, hoping to catch her with a thrust of his saber as he brought his attention from the war to a more direct thought - a duel, solely with Lunafreya, in the heart of the growing chaos with the monstrosity awakening on the eastern all of the academy. His focus faded as he danced towards Lunafreya, forcing a though into the Dark Jedi’s mind, an unwelcome intruder amidst the thoughts of more prevalent matters: ”You come for this place, and you will only find desolation as your harvest. Let this hand be harbinger to such a fate.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

BASTION // IMPERIAL CAPITAL COMPLEX // OUTER PALACE
ENEMIES//TSE: Allyson Locke
ALLIES//GA: TWO RYYK MEMBERS [DISTANCED: 10 RYYK + 12 RAIDER SQUADRON Maynard Treicolt // Ryv // Kir Dantos ]
L I A R​

What?

No.

No!

The strike hadn’t meant to land. Allyson was supposed to parry and deflect. To counter the obvious attack. It came from overhead with a whirling announcement for goodness sake. It was just a warm up! Loske’s mind protested again and again, denying the actuality of the outcome. Any faltering that had happened in the double agent’s mind hadn’t been part of the choreography, and Loske felt the cavern around them snatch the scream of abject horror from her lungs when the blade felt the denseness of mass against it.

Something like rage shifted in her gut. Her anger was layered, disappointed in her friend for bending to distraction and victimizing so readily.

The resistance was enough for her to loosen her grip, and drop the lightsaber. The hilt, unlit, dropped to the ground and rolled away unceremoniously while it’s owner slid to her knees to clutch her friend full of explanations and justifications.

The reality in front of her was as unbelievable as if the Corellian produced a rancor from her pocket.

Thunderous, the sound of her heartbeat in her ears almost drowned out and dominated the words from the cleaved storyteller. Loske’s breath was composed of rapid, short, fluttering, shrill inhale-exhales. Usually a master of meliorism, Loske felt her heart shatter inside the hollow cage of bone behind her breast.

What had she done?

What would she do?

A year of grief, anger, loss and betrayal welled at the back of her throat. There was terrible purpose indeed in the Corllian’s cards, and she lay them all out on the table. Finally. For her friend to interpret.

The decision was heavy and obvious. It had personified and crouched with the pair, standing, and paced around them like a shark to prey. Silent in it’s stalking, the decision goaded her. It reminded Loske of everything Allyson had done. All of the lies she’d told. All the hurt she’d caused.

Was this elaborate tale another fable manufactured from the Corellian’s broken mind? The psyche of the double agent and all of her worlds, identities, personalities, responsibilities, were out of Loske’s comprehension. It wasn’t anything she could begin to understand, and all of that trust she’d poured into Allyson felt dry. Empty. Where there’d been a well of forgiveness, all she found was a drought.

Falsehoods came easily to the woman born of trickery and shadows. With redemption as an objective, she knew what to say. She knew how to get Loske to tick and react, to plea innocence and dedicate herself to purpose. A purpose higher than a directive Loske could trace and find any truth in. It was an impossible fallacy that begged believability without fact. It was like trying to pour water on a fire, and Loske somehow had to cut through the smoke to see the truth.

The decision leered over Loske’s shoulder, sneering with agitated pleasure. Coercing her forward.

Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. Perhaps Loske had inadvertently foiled the greatest plan orchestrated to take down the emperor. Conversely, it could be a story concocted behind enemy lines to convince both Allyson and whoever she spoke to from her former allegiances to pardon whatever wrongs she’d managed undercover.

"Felt like I was starting to lose myself ."

"I'm so confused."

Azure gaze traced over the wound of the woman in her arms, calculating the damage. It was nominally cauterized, a benefit of the plasma, but each exhale provoked a further burgeoning of blood. It coated and seeped through Loske’s fingers. Warm and thick, it stained her skin.

"It looks as though my path will end here. My friend, claim your victory - finish this."
"Your path lies across my grave. It's time for you to find the courage to walk it. If I'm to die - let it be by your hand."

Courage. Murder was Allyson’s idea of Loske’s courage.

That was not the case. That would never be the case.

"People like Allyson need help, and that's what Jedi do. We help others,"

Which was more helpful? Prolonging Allyson’s painful existence, or ending it here?

"Deniable assets work like that, we're good until we're broken and then we're discarded."

Diary of Allyson Locke

Muunilist - Hey Bait, it's been a while since we’ve recorded things huh? Well, I thought it would be a good idea to start again. Guess a quick rundown about things so far. Um, well as you know we’ve arrived in Core space and have suddenly found us some friends. Loske, Maynard, and Ryv for the...

• Allyson Locke
• Jul 17, 2020
• Category: Blogs

W A S T E​

She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t do wrong by Ryv and Maynard and their trust in her to bring Allyson back. She couldn't do it to herself; living with more regret than Harnadian would destroy her.

“Stop it...you..you don’t get to go out like this. Why can’t you just be,” sniff “F-f--” the words failed, stuck on her quivering lips until they spilled out down her chin and into the air between them. They sounded wet and fragile, caught in the junction between anger and grief. “--ucking honest for once.” Sorrow stained her cheeks, trailblazing through the dust collected on her complexion from the explosion. The harshness of the reality she clutched in her arms amplifying the anguish.

“Allyson, I…please..” the words varied in volume, mostly hoarse. Loske had no idea how audible they were, she could only feel the vibrations in her throat. “Hold on.”

Complete enervation of self wasn’t an option on this battlefield. She’d need help to restore and stabilize the fallen ally. Her arm extended, calling the molted shell of her strike armour to her. The fabric limply cut through the distance and into her blood-stained hands. She twisted it, pointedly tearing out the pieces that administered bacta and feverishly pressed it against the exposed tear through Allyson’s torso. For anything trickier to alleviate, she draped the silhouette of the suit across like a sash. Little puffs of white bacta clouds pumped to the separated flesh.

"I want to come home...I want to come home Loske"

Screwing her eyes shut, she drew in a sharp breath and tightened her clutch around the woman and drew her close, wordlessly promising to uphold her end of the bargain.

Trying to capture her at this time, is not within our reach. When the time comes, we can discuss retrieving her, assuming she even wants to be retrieved. Until then, she is a rogue agent, and will be considered as such. Trying to deduce what her 'problem' is, does not distract from what she has done.

The outcome of the double agent’s life wasn’t Loske’s choice to make.

To an open Alliance channel, she spoke, stealing a pitiful glance at Allyson’s pale face: <I’ve secured agent Locke for arrest and need a medic. Fast. Force restraint required. Patching through coordinates.>

“I’m going to hold you until someone comes.” Her voice was brittle.

A green indicator flashed on the commlink, and someone on the other end confirmed receipt. Amidst the chaos and clammer someone would be there in a countdown of minutes.

Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek against the top of Allyson’s head.

At least through the residual effect of their mutual connection in the empyrean Allyson would feel the depth of the kiffar’s remorse. Beyond that, she’d feel the soothing hum of Loske’s concentration on a subatomic level. Once she was more upright again, she closed her eyes and drew in a concentrated breath. Concentrating on her relationship with The Force, she felt it pool around her. The first step to connecting with everything else in their space was to acknowledge her own relativity. Drawing herself down to a level that nanoparticles would be envious of, the infinite version of herself roamed around between the most devastating impact that stretched from shoulder to hip. An endless canyon for the microscopic rendition of the would-be clone to explore. The laborious breaths Allyson drew felt typhonic here. Gradually, sinews were encouraged to bridge and weave together to clot the outpour of blood. Working with the bacta, the blood’s cells were encouraged to thicken and scab. It wouldn't be a complete heal, but enough to sustain.

The intense focus of Loske’s sheer will to preserve and sustain stretched on for what felt like a few minutes and an infinite hour until the sound of heavy footfalls approached.

A modulated voice invoked the withdrawal from the engrossing task, and the Jedi looked up to meet the expressionless visage of an Alliance trooper who gestured to hand the asset over. At the same time, their companion dropped to a helpful height to administer further help to the slashed double agent.

<We have an evac transport coordinated. The ground and atmosphere are hot. The Imperials are turning on all the Sith, including their own.>

"I'll help get you there."

Justice was sitting somewhere and watching everything go wrong.

 

[Caulder Dune]

​

// Location: Thaumaturgic Tower, The Conduit – Control Room
// Objective: Make Life Take the Lemons Back
// Equipment: Adekon Nanogene - Type 1, Imperial Mk. I "Dooku-Pattern" Jedi Armor (but, you know, more stylish)
// Associated Acts:

• FN-999 (Hostile), AMCO (Neutral), Aren D'Shade (Neutral), Ingrid L'lerim (Neutral), Shade of Decay (Neutral)
• Emperor's Gaze (Irrelevant Nuisance)

// Nanogene Troopers: 20/20

As abruptly as the disgustingly beautiful Sith arrived, so too did a hologram of the Emperor - with a message for Adekos in particular. Because of course. Because why not stop everything for this. Adekos watched the hologram speak with rising annoyance and indignation. ​

​

"Yeah, good," He replied, deadpan, talking over the hologram Emperor. "Okay."​

​

It still prattled on. First Tavlar's writ of execution, now the Emperor was leaving him intrusive and narratively irrelevant messages. Why were all these heads-of-state so intent on personally ruining this battle for him? Would the Supreme Chancellor come through those doors next and punch him in the throat? Outrageous. A white hot anger was building, any moment now he was going to bark some kind of insult...​

​

He inhaled deeply, a steadying breath, and closed his eyes in a rather dignified manner. Restraint: the essence of high civilization, the core of decency. Steady, Tyrin. Easy. Think happy thoughts. Pleasurable thoughts.​

​

Nothing came to mind. ​

​

No thoughts of that stripe remained with him. His few good memories had spoiled with time, like food rotting in a trashcan. It was all gone now: a past so foreign to him that he could hardly believe it had even transpired. But it had. And it had lead him here... To a data vault. ​

​

Where a mouse with a holo-recording was issuing him a 'pardon' he did not need nor desire.​

​

Great. Now his mood really was ruined.​

​

His eyes snapped open again. A moment had passed. Perhaps two. The hologram had now, mercifully, shut up and gone.​

​

"Amazing. Someone remind me what we were talking about? My thoughts have wandered."​

 

[AMCO]

​

Location: The Conduit, beneath the Thaumaturgical Tower, Fortress Carnifex
Objective: Preserve the Sith Empire's secrets... and more importantly, stay alive.
Equipment: SIB-14 & G1 OmniLink | Shield Talisman, Empyrean Gland, & [2] Jin'Pins | 4.5/6 Karza'Arana Darksworn
Writing With: Aren D'Shade | Ingrid L'lerim | Shade of Decay | Caulder Dune | Emperor's Gaze || FN-999

​

How quickly the situation changed, how quickly suspicion blossomed into betrayal, forced comradery into carnage; had he known that Avernus yet lived, he might very well have relayed a sarcastic "I told you so." (even though he had technically assumed that the degenerate traditionalists would be the ones to betray the New Imperials first), but alas such was not the case.

In constant communication with his Sithspawn as he was, Adekos would find a mildly annoyed acceptance in Adrian's features. "Fair enough."

Regardless of what he thought of the Apostates and their backwards ways, such a betrayal remained truly despicable in his eyes - as far as he was concerned, the New Imperials were now forever marked by the stain of treachery, their given word worth less than the dirt on which they thread.

Regaining his near-perpetual smile with the entrance of a familiar - in mind and presence, if not in body - Sith, Adrian was quick to return the greeting.

"Quite, though you wound me if you are implying that I have or had any intent or harming these poor sods." Perhaps the smile he flashed them was meant to be reassuring, but it likely came out more shark-like. Inclining his head towards Adekos, the smile turned truly frigid. "It seems our interests are aligned, for now. All of them - I am sure we can come up with some way of disposing of unwanted bodies along the way..."

"... a sorcerous bomb of sorts, perhaps?" Eyes thoughtful, he was once again interrupted by a Nezumi of all creatures showing up...

... and what a message it delivered. Clearly, the Emperor would know of his dubious actions soon enough, but no matter - he had always assumed that his superiors were well-aware of his willingness to prioritise knowledge over Sith-Imperial efforts, it was something they had likely accounted for.

Halfway assuming that someone else would jump out from the woodworks, he waited a few long moments before sighing in annoyance. "I suppose it would be terribly rude of me to make the two of you do all the work." Attention briefly turning to his apprentice, his tone was unusually firm, betraying no opportunity for debate. "Stay back, I don't want you caught in the crossfire."

That said, he turned back towards the door to the control room, stretching lazily as his body visibly shifted and contorted, clothing melding into his skin as he shed his human mask in favour of a more pragmatic form, energy crackling along long claws, coiling forth from within.

A conventional warrior he was not - thus the absence of a lightsaber - but that made him no less lethal when push came to shove.

| REMAINING DARKSWORN: 3 out of 4, 1 dying. |
​

Distracted as he was by the events in the control room deep below, Adrian nonetheless responded to his lover's messages, in his own way. She would receive no direct telepathic reply, his attention was spread too wide for that, but as far as he was concerned what he did do was more meaningful.

Though two of his bodyguards remained with him in the control room and would no doubt be at the forefront of the skirmish to come, four had been dispatched to her aid, one amongst them falling to a surprisingly powerful weapon, which proceeded to maim another.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Lacking an arm and part of its torso though it was, the creature that had taken a blow meant for Ingrid nonetheless surged forward however unsteadily, remaining arm lifting as it fired off a wrist-rocket towards one of the faceless troopers before throwing itself into the fray alongside the woman it was charged with protecting, single remaining hand striking with the force of a hydraulic press even as its remaining organs began to fail.

To the sides, two more would emerge, launching themselves into close-quarters combat in an attempt to compensate for the heavy weaponry carried by their prey, blazing blades whirling about in an intricate dance of death even as the wings on their backs lashed out with almost as much force.

These were Adrian's own honour guard, drawn from the most lethal specimens he had ever produced, gifted with some control over the Force, and clad in alchemical steel; through weight of numbers they might fall, but not before clogging Bastion's metaphorical rivers with the skulls of his foes...

... anything less would be a failure, one that would no doubt result in the culling of their bloodlines from the gene pool.

 

[Anden Fancelo]

Allies: TSE (?)
Enemies: NIO, Darth Bellum
Assets: What is left of the Gravewalkers.​

---

[Tip of the Spear - Halo Reach]

---

​

An exchange consisting of red and green bolts ensued. The rumble between two signature units of former sith generals began. Each of the two displaying their strengths. One was of superior technology on a whole other level. But the other was of superior skill and fortitude. Perhaps it would've been a fight that'd led to a stalemate. But the dragoons had the numbers and the elevation.

Many Gravewalkers stuck close to their points of cover and attempting to not succumb to their sheer pressure of the bright red rain of Vexen's men. But it was inevitable, for Gravewalkers of Nexu 1-3 had been showered in that rain of blasters, falling like the others on Ession and Concord Dawn. It brought bitterness to the Captain, defeat was in the air.

Anden, firing a burst from his pulse rifle turned over to the communication operative. Yelling out. "Vaak! What's the sitrep on 1-3!?"

"They're all dead sir! I'm getting no response on their sigs'!"

"Kark! Have 1-4 keep the pressure on the Dragoons, and request reinforcements on our position!" Anden yelled, the heat of his pulse rifle venting outward as he clambered back into cover. Narrowly dodging two shots of red.

The comm operative nodded and hunkered down. Letting out a transmission or two over on the long-range. The transmitter even receiving the audio of a Gravewalker overcharging a heavy repeater at the descending dragoons with a yell. A cry. To kill.

In the claps of blaster fire and the impact of the bolts embedding themselves onto concrete. The comms operative yelled out. "Sir! They've denied us reinforcements! We're on our own!"

A curse mumbled from the Captain as he rose from cover again, unloading the pulse rifle onto the evasive dragoons. "Keep firing!"

With some distant Gravewalkers tumbling over and letting out their final breath. The Dragoons brought their attention back to the droid, for the droid focused on them. But what of Vexen? The Captain peeked over the riddled barrier he placed himself behind and witnessed the act of power that Vexen laid upon the Fortress wall.

---

Awe.

The expression that hid behind the helmet. It brought a moment of fear to the Gravewalkers, one that would linger as the fight came to somewhat of a stop. For the Dragoons were being directed elsewhere.

Allies lost, respite gained, but for how long?

A Gravewalker from the distance spoke up, his scope directed to Vexen. "Sir we got something! Bearing One-Eight-Two!" Anden quickly coiled over to glance to the direction, looking over towards the direction of the new slaughter on the field. The Stormtroopers made the mistake of betraying Vexen. And they were paying dearly for it.

"What do we do Anden?" A fellow walker asked.

With the very finite numbers of Gravewalkers at his side and cast aside once more by the Empire, retreating was the best viable option but to what end? The Captain thought for a moment, weighing the options. Fighting the Warmaster maybe suicide but with all the setbacks on his end, it seemed like this was the right opportunity for it. Tasking was set onto Darth Bellum

Anden quickly rose up from his point of cover and rushed over to the edge of the building. Coordinating immediately. "Sheyl, Jeno. Overwatch, I want a rocket on that bantha fodder the moment we gun him." He then turned over towards another Gravewalker. "Ward, hold position and I want you going for a kill shot on this bastard. Everyone else, with me."

The Gravewalkers took position in seconds. They were ready to proceed, whatever it may be. The Captain glanced over towards the last of the Gravewalkers, of Onyx, of Nexu 1-4. A moment to look at each and every one of their faceless helmets. He spoke.

"Ever since Ession, we all knew our day would come. One or way or another. Perhaps this will be our last, but not until that sith is on the ground. We've proven ourselves time and time again. It's time we do it one last time. Not as soldiers of the Empire, but as what we started as. Remember your roots, our leader, our people."

The Captain took up his Pulse Rifle, readying it. He turned about and let out a cry for one last fight. Hopping off the building and to the ground, rushing forward.

"For the Sovereignty!"



The fractured soldiers of a faction long-forgotten yelled as they charged forth with their captain to fire upon their target. Some scattering to the sides to take cover and elevation. The ones holding position fire their munitions in the form of two projectiles. Explosive and precise.

 

[Shade of Decay]

​

Location: The Conduit, beneath Fortress Carnifex
Objectives: Interrupt a meeting
Equipment: Lightsaber, Puppeted Body
Nearby: AMCO Aren D'Shade Ingrid L'lerim Caulder Dune (frenemies?) | FN-999 (enemy)

​

Though the Nezumi was an unexpected sight, he wasn't particularly surprised or worried by its presence. All told, it was fairly inconsequential to him; no one present other than Adrian would recognize him, after all, and he was keeping his presence subdued just enough that he wouldn't shine out like a beacon across the planet.

Of course, given what had just happened, he might be droned out by the echo of betrayal that was still reverberating around them.

"You know, I doubt this acolyte's body could withstand it if I were to get particularly active," he mused, half to himself, gazing down at the hand of the body he was controlling. "Although, I did say I was tired of using this puppet, didn't I?" Loosely holding the hilt of a lightsaber in one hand, he stepped forward to join the transformed Darth Prospero. Rather than call forth strings of energy to dance along his arms, however, his strategy was something altogether less flashy. Something that spoke more directly to him as a person.

Tsisaar dove deep within his soul, drawing forth from the depths the corruption and pain that had come to suffuse his entire existence. The Dark Side began to swirl around his puppeted body like a storm, thick enough that it threatened to spill over, uncontrolled, into their physical reality; even dimming the lights and discolouring the air around them as it drew forth any amount of warmth, light, and life it could manage, insatiable to fill its void.

And to the Force Sensitives near him, the unmistakable, sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh would claw its way through the ether, assaulting their senses as Tsisaar drew forth his truth as a weapon against his enemies. The body he controlled, formerly youthful and beautiful, seemed to age decades in moments; the skin grew ashen, sinking in against the bones like the skin of a drum shrinking against its frame. Fingers curled and twisted like claws, hair began to fall in tufts, and the eyes, formerly a vibrant blue, sank through the fiery red and yellow of the Sith and settled, darkened, cloudy, and blind, rolling uselessly within the shrivelled body that they called home.

For millennia, Sith and other Dark Side adepts had known of powers to stumble and halt their opponents, to inflict sickness upon them that was as much physical as it was spiritual; Tsisaar, in his delvings and meditations, had expanded upon the technique. From affliction to plague, and now, from plague into decay. An extension of his soul into the reality around him, it was quickly rebounding, forcing the body channelling his energies to undergo the effects of a lifetime of submersion within the Dark Side.

But for the troopers coming upon them, made subject to his will rather than shielded by it, the effect would be all the greater.

"Let these whelps realize that our kind is the truth and the end, and their petty actions merely delay the inevitable."

 

[Nida Perl]

Gotterdammerung | Imperial Capital Complex | Datacenter
Allies | Cara Dorniarn
Enemies | Seydou of Thyrsus | Tulan Kor ? | Meshla Detta

Nida was wholly unprepared to witness electrocution at work; Tulan’s body was jerked into a violent spasm as an unholy scream ripped from his mouth. The cry of a man in true, intense knife’s edge agony. She’d heard it before while treating fallen soldiers still under the heat of battle, but this was the first time that she’d been the cause of such a violent assault.

To her immense surprise, Tulan advanced towards her. Slowly, painfully, but he’d gotten close enough to wrap his fingers firmly around her wrist. Nida’s arm clammed up, an uneasy chill whispering through her veins. That was enough to restrict the flow of energy, and through the dissipating crackles, Tulan would find the tear-streaked face of a terrified child.

With his other hand held high, Nida eyed the edge of the blade that screamed for her blood. So this was what everything had culminated to. Even her fear, powerful as it was, couldn’t save Nida from what awaited her on the other side.

Was there an other side?

Nida felt as if she were dead already.

I’m sorry-

The sound of the blade clattering to floor seemed to echo throughout the room. She didn’t move, couldn’t move until he produced a medkit, shifting to allow him more room when he’d reached to reposition her bleeding leg. She winced at the familiar sting of the bacta spray. Nida stared back at him, absolutely thunderstruck at the change in pace. He’d come at her with murderous intent over and over again, having shown no signs of waning, and now? Crouched before her was a man who was capable of looking more empathetic than she’d imagined.

Finding the courage to look at him, her heart sank at seeing the raw scars scoring across his face. Conflict bubbled in her yet again.

She stiffened as he reached towards her waist, quickly retrieving the beskar dagger from her belt before rising, albeit shakily.

"If there's any doubt to what you're doin'- you know that it ain't right."

Whatever storm had raged in Tulan Kor had passed, giving way to a more level man. The rage, the hate—none of it dug quite as deep as the disappointment in his final parting words to her.

As Tulan wandered away, Nida sank back into her nest of destroyed machinery and curled into a tight ball. Deep down, she hoped that the Imperials were satisfied enough with the blow they’d struck to leave. In her experience, that wasn’t how these scenarios typically played out. Galactic powers didn’t tend to be as forgiving as Tulan in the end—at least, not the ones she’d gone up against.

Casualties had been steady on both sides since the onslaught began, but the sudden surge in death hit her like a wave of invigoration. Unbeknownst to the Zeltron, operation Dark Kyber had commenced. The souls of the living were departing in rapid numbers, giving fuel to those who fed from the dark side of the Force. Concentrating on her breathing, Nida reached down to press her small hand against the wound at her leg. Blood caked her skin, and the bacta Tulan applied had done its job in sanitizing and closing her wound.

Inhaling slowly, Nida allowed herself to drink in the fear, the pain, the loss of so many lives. Strong emotions always had greater effects on empaths, for better or for worse. As a Jedi, she’d learned to shoulder them; as…whatever she was now, she’d use them as fuel to keep herself alive. Mend, flesh. Restore structure. Healing with the dark side was different, but she couldn’t explain in what way. As Nida would find out, the type of accelerated healing offered by the dark side was temporary.

Grabbing the knife Tulan had left her, Nida ran her thumb along the blade’s edge. This was the knife that had been poised to kill her, twice. The knife that was destined to bury itself into her heart. She slipped it into her pocket before rising. As the number of deaths swelled, so did her strength, and her fear that something had gone horribly awry.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Dueling: Oceiros Sunstrider

Spoiler: Post archive for our story

Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Duel Incoming: Oceiros Sunstrider
​

The din of battle rang around her-- shots, explosions, screams. Screams of fear. They were the one thing the training room hadn't prepared her for. The Bastion Academy stood between the city and the Fortress, close to the center. All the best, Aradia resigned, she wouldn't have to go far to make her mark. It was all the other people standing in the way that shocked her senseless.

The civilians.

The families.

Aradia stood in the Academy's court yard, her lips parted as he ground quaked against an unseen attack. In a window beyond a gate, another child stood gaping, their vision set on the street leading toward them. Aradia's attention peeled off the child as a man tore them back, the curtains flapping in their wake. Men in white suits approached down the streets, blasters in hand as they pushed to break in deeper.

All the while they shot. They exploded. They ran over flower pots. She stood frozen as she peered out the gate, watching the swath of trained warriors push deeper into the city that made up her home. She gasped as the outside table of her favorite coffee shop became crushed under the wheels of an approaching tank. The city was falling to the invaders as they destroyed to conquer. And why? They marched on, so close she could see the dirt smeared across a helm.

Anger churned in her gut. She might not understand war, but she did know loss. She would not lose this place too.

A cry pulled from her throat as she left the safety of the courtyard, the teen jumping over a hedge and flying liking a monkey into the nearest solider as they marched on by. It was the shock alone that took him down, the girl small and frail despite how heartily she could now eat at each and every meal. There was nothing to note about her, the girl clad in simple black as she wrestled against the soldier's back. The march halted, all guns swirling onto her and the comrade that served as a shield.

You know she hadn't thought this through.

Her features contorted up at the white helmets that stared her down, her palm raising. "Get out of my home!" Fire exploded out at them all.

​

Objective: Secure the Academy
Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Allies: NIO | GA
Enemies: Darth Daiara

War, the thing Oceiros had once feared most. He’d feared war more than he feared the Sith, for it was in war where he’d lost his family. Where he’d lost his famed cousin. Yet no matter where Oceiros hid war always found him in one way or another. War had come to Brentaal, bringing with it death and destruction the likes of which the Jedi had never seen. It was also on Brentaal that Oceiros learned that he could no longer run, that he couldn’t hide, that there was something beyond simply himself. Arcanus wouldn’t have hid, no true Sunstrider would continue to bury their face in the sand while injustice and tyranny reigned around them. No longer was the Epicanthix running from war, now he marched in it.

Alongside the Jedi there were numerous Galactic Alliance soldiers and stormtroopers that moved through the streets. Standing atop a tank, Oceiros kept an eye out across the streets. Smoke and flames billowed to the sky, above the skies taking on the appearance of death. Oceiros could feel it as he looked across the cityscape, the force in turmoil, an odd sensation filling his being. This wasn’t a fight between light and dark, the Jedi weren’t the true reason behind this fight against the Sith. It went beyond that, it was a fight about reclaiming what was once lost. Those who’d once served the Sith returned to claim the home they’d fought for, bled for, and had sought to protect, many willing to do whatever necessary to reclaim it. This world wasn’t the Sith, it showed how little the Sith overlords cared for the planet by not evacuating it, by leaving civilians behind in the midst of a battle they knew was soon to come.

Oceiros’ heart was heavy as they approached the Bastion Academy, he could feel the presence of those within, all those that had been tainted by the dark. Those who’d had their thoughts clouded and manipulated by the Sith believing that it was the true way to live. “Watch your fire, when possible use stun rounds, glop grenades and sonic weapons. We will not be killing children today. Those who resist-” Oceiros stopped, the words he knew he had to say caught in his throat. Never did he think he’d have to do such a thing.


“Those who resist, do what you must.” With the order given, the troops descended upon the Academy, pushing into the courtyard. Legionnaires and Sith alike rushed out to meet the hail of blaster and sonic rounds. Hopping from his position above the tank, Oceiros came down in a cleave that freed a legionnaire of their arm before spinning and thrusting through the shoulder of another.

Making his way through the crowd the epicanthix, did what he could to defend his soldiers as well as incapacitate their enemies. Each slash a regret, and then it came from nowhere. A banshee of the night came flying out landing upon one of the troopers.

“Get her off me, get this queen the fuck off me!” The soldier screeched trying to fight the Sith acolyte off his allies, turning and raising their weapons towards them both.

“Noooo!” Oceiros shouted over the melee charging towards them but it was too late as a bloom of flame came to life. The inferno stretched out swallowing the entire squad including the one being used as a shield, white plastoid armor charred and turned black, the screams of the troopers filled the Jedi’s ears as he could do nothing but watch them fall to the ground and cease moving.

Staring through the carnage and fire to the lone figure who did this Oceiros’ cobalt eyes reflected the flames, and within those eyes was nothing but pity. Raising a hand and shoving it out, a concussive wave escaped the epicanthix’s palm, the flames shunted aside in its wake as it sought to fling the witch back.

Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Duel Incoming: Oceiros Sunstrider

Who wouldn't resist? This was their home.

The storm troopers fell dead in the courtyard they had invaded, their once pristine bodies charred and contorted as death boiled them alive. Aradia laid splayed in the center of it all, a look of shock rippling through her soot-stained features. She hurriedly shoved off the storm trooper she had tackled, blisters bubbling across the skin that remained in contact with his still simmering form.

She was not invulnerable to flames, nor the reality of deaths around her.

She had never killed someone before. A subtle quake rippled from her core, a horrified noise catching in her chest. She hadn't meant to do that. They were just-- and she- A sudden shock wave sent her flying backwards, her cry hitting the air as she tumbled like a rag-doll to a stop. Pain knocked her breathless, the burns singing the most poignant song across her nerve endings. She looked up between strands of red to find the lone remaining threat-- a man, his hand extended as he used the force against her. Her blurry vision cleared to a spike of fear.

Oh yes. She had been warned about this. Force users always had it out for each other, that was why this war was here. People with power always came to take what they wanted. She had heard the stories. She knew the truth.

He was here to kill her.

Her fear turned cold, self-preservation kicking in.

A shove of the force sent Aradia flying off the ground, onto her feet. Her clothing hung off her in charred strips, revealing a thin frame marred with scars and puckering burns. The pain of it all fell to the back of her thoughts, her training kicking in.

Her fingers slid to her belt line, where a saber laid in wait.

"Get. Off. My. Lawn!" She yelled, finding courage and strength inside each consecutive word. A snap hiss punctuated her final syllable, the dark red length of her saber sparking to life. It held raised before her in a wordless threat. He was not passing into the Academy without first going through her.

Objective: Secure the Academy
Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Allies: NIO | GA
Enemies: Darth Daiara



Standing amidst the chaos, and destruction, Oceiros looked through the fire and black smoke that rose from the freshly roasted corpses. The Jedi looked down at them, out of his peripherals he still saw the banshee that had so ruthlessly snatched the brave men from the land of the living. Men that wanted nothing more than to fight for their home, to once more regain what was theirs. The Sith forcefully conscripted soldiers, used them as cannon fodder, the men and women who served in the NIO knew of this, had experienced this. That was why they fought, why they’d gladly give their lives in perhaps what could be considered the turnabout of the decade.

Kneeling near one of the corpses, Oceiros simply looked at them, their breathing having ceased moments before, their presences in the force having faded away. “Rest in peace brother, I failed to protect you, but I will not let your sacrifice be for not.”

"Get. Off. My. Lawn!"

As the words pierced the air, Oceiros blinked rapidly, tears having begun to well up in the epicanthix’s eyes. “This was never your land, this was never your or any other Siths planet. You've deluded yourself!” Rising from where he kneeled the Jedi turned fully towards the acolyte. Looking upon her Oceiros could see so many things, fear, rage, angst. Someone so young, so twisted and corrupted in their thinking.

“You stole this world from them, they fought for this world, they defended this world and many others. They had families! Mothers, wives, children! And all you can think about is what you wrongly believe to be yours.”

The crackling red blade of the Sith’s caught Oceiros’ attention, he’d come to Bastion knowing a fight was inevitable, that he would eventually be forced to draw his own weapon. Reaching down to his waist Oceiros unclipped the silver hilt from his belt, raising it up and over his head. With a snap-hiss the sapphire blade came to life, to come down tip pointed towards the ground between the two.

“I do not wish for this to devolve into violence but if you leave me know choice I will do what I must.”

Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Dueling: Oceiros Sunstrider


Aradia's brows furrowed as he leveled accusations her way.

You stole this world from them. ...They had families! --wrongly believe this world to be yours!

The young teen swayed in place, not a single word making sense. "You're crazy," she breathed, and looked at him as such. The big, bulking jedi lit up their saber. She took a sudden step back. The determination crumbled to a sudden jolt a fear, the girl facing the reality of what she had engaged. There was nothing more unsettling than realizing your fight with death would be against a crazed Zealot coming to storm your school... For the first time since Kaalia Pavanos had bought her freedom, Aradia considered running. It was a primal thought, but it consumed her.

Remember that fear. It will save your life. Her Master's final words were a balm. Aradia struggled to pump air through her through her lungs, the stand off stretching between the two. What felt like hours was actually mere seconds. The jedi's ultimatum was left in the air, the girl wavering against the heat of the smoldering courtyard. It wasn't that she didn't want to face the big, bad, crazy invader, it was just...

A bite of pain pulled at her-- the token coin that had been in her waistband had seared into her flesh, burned in there like a brand. It brought with it the reminder of the owners words, Allyson Locke oddly needed advice reaching her again.

You are strong. Have faith in yourself. Somehow it meant more coming from a stranger. Aradia faced down Oceiros and his bulking form, her fear reminding her what she was here for: Survival. ...And a test of merit. But still! Survival. She took a deep breath, breaking the silence.

"I will not stand down. You will not come into this Academy. Did you not hear me?" The red of her saber reflected against her features, raised higher as she found her resolve. You strike down your foes. You do not hesitate. Came the words of Kaalia Pavanos .

Yes, Master.

She burst forward in a flurry of speed, hair and clothing alike streaming into the wind. She collapsed in on him,empowered by the force as she aimed for a clean decapitation. Don't think. Just do.

"I said get off my lawn!"

Objective: Secure the Academy
Location: Bastion Academy Court Yard
Allies: NIO | GA
Enemies: Darth Daiara


When faced with the wrong-doings of her kind, when given the chance to stand aside, she stood stalwart. Oceiros had heard much about the Sith it only tormented the Jedi so to see how deep the seeds of malevolence had embedded themselves into the young woman. She could’ve been so much, she could’ve perhaps been a politician, perhaps a fighter pilot, or even a Jedi, yet it seemed Fate and the Force had conspired together to place her firmly within the clasps of the Sith.

Escaping the Epicanthix's mouth was a heavy sigh as he resigned himself to a fight he did not wish for. “So be it, I only hope you can forgive me for what comes next.” Oceiros offered. Raising his blade to defend himself he stared onwards at the acolyte the world, no the force itself seemed to recoil away from his touch. The air grew cold around him, his heart seized and time seemed to slow.

From all across Bastion, Oceiros could feel it, the rage, the sorrow, the agony all coming out at once, formed and harnessed in an instant. It all concentrated and focused on one single thing. Death! Whatever was taking place the Jedi did not like the feeling of it. So caught in the currents of the force the neophyte barely had time to register his opponents attack.

Gasping inwards as time returned to normal, his body once more under his control, Oceiros kicked off the ground with his leading foot much like a fencer skipping a step back. The crimson blade of the acolyte skirted mere centimeters from the warrior’s neck, what would’ve been a near instant fatality. If Oceiros had been even a millisecond slower his legacy would’ve come to a definite end.

Azure blade rising its lethal song penetrating the air, the tip pointed towards the exposed woman and thrust towards her right shoulder. When taught to fight one is told to do what one must to survive and bring the encounter to an end. For Oceiros it wasn’t that simple, it would never be that simple. There were Jedi out there who would go to death as the first solution, that would have no issue bearing down upon the acolyte and leaving nothing but a corpse in their wake. Those weren’t the actions a Jedi should take, they wouldn’t be the actions Oceiros would take. He couldn’t bring himself to strike down one so young, so misguided, and with so much room left to find her path back to the light.

She had been so sure, so confident in her training that she didn't expect him to dodge. As she swept in to strike him down, he had stood frozen, distracted... Yet it had changed so abruptly, her blade a millisecond away from passing through his throat... Within just that millisecond left, she had expected success.

It was an assumption that cost.

His sudden twist of his saber struck its mark, her own momentum spearing her to its hilt. Her flesh sizzled against the heat, her blood boiling where it struck.

The shock of it all was so profound, she did not feel as she clattered into him. Her small frame, barely covered by the rags of her burnt clothing, slid down to her knees.

No, came the terrified thought, her body coiling for his killing blow. But he wasn't given the chance.

Energy exploded from her, twisted and driven by her fear as she tried to throw him back. A shield would catch any immediate blow, the light quickly corrupting to black mist. She couldn't die here, she was expected- She didn't-- Instinct drove her, her features wild and panicked as she reached out to the force for strength.

Yet all around them, a sudden betrayal had occurred, NIO men turning on each other and murdering their fellow force users without hesitation. The disturbance in the force could likely be felt all, the balanced tipped to something dark. Aradia was not experienced enough to understand what it meant, she only knew she was moments from being outmatched and killed. And that couldn't happen.

Kaalia Pavanos face came to mind as the acolyete breathed in the power surging around her. The woman was the only kind face in all of the galaxy. Aradia would see her again. She welcomed the darkness, its power frightening yet necessary as the young one leaned into it for the first time.

Her limbs strengthened, slick and shining in sweat, as she found her way to her feet. Her fear over the power diminished as vitality returned to her. There. This wasn't so bad. The crazed pain of the injury fled her, leaving space to think beyond the primal concept of survival. She had a hole in her. She needed to heal. It was a task that had been inaccessible to her before, on Gree. But she hadn't been this strong then-- the city's air ran red with the darkness of the murders-- They continued, the corruption growing stronger. She had never felt anything like it before, the power burning through her veins was so poignant she could-

Her shrill scream hit the air, instinct driving her. The souls of the freshly dead troopers ripped from their bodies, ghostly aspects that were dragged to their beckoner against their will. They stood no chance. With the balance of the force tipped, she was too strong. Aradia's head tilted back, the darkness growing around her as the Valkyrie summoned her first souls into her...

And consumed them.

Their minds flickered against her own, countless voices, thoughts, pleasure, pain, grief-- tearing through her faster than she could comprehend. Her feet left the ground, the girl's mind lost to the terrible power she had tapped into. The skin around her shoulder knit shut. A life for a life. There was only one way a sith could heal, and she had discovered it. The burns left her body, the marred skin drifting from a puckered red to a soft cream. There was no fear. There was nothing but the darkness she had welcomed into her. Anything to survive.

Her feet found the ground as the last of the energy burned through her. The dark lashing of energy slowly calmed, then left her, the courtyard slowly falling to calm. Aradia stood still, unresponsive for the barest moment as the young mind struggled to adjust.

Her eyes snapped open, blood red. Her saber jumped back to her. She met Oceiros Sunstrider gaze with a smile. Gone was the fear. Gone was the girl.

"Apology. Not. Accepted." A vicious yank of the force pulled on him, attempting to impale him onto her saber in turn.

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

I M P E R A T O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
501st STORMTROOPER LEGION
Armor | Rifle | Pistol | Melee | Grenades
C A R O L U S _ R E X

​

" You finally show your true colors Tavlar. So be it... Let loose your inner beasts and show me your hatred and resolve. "

" I will be waiting... "

<"Good."> Was all the Sovereign Imperator would utter in reply to his once superior, once confidant and now, a man he'd never wanted to kill more in his entire existence.

This was vengeance at its purest.

It was better to fly his colors now, brazen in the broken skies before he'd ever let the Sith do the same in turn to him. Deceit, betrayal and the hunger for power were all deeply embedded within their nature. Even if the Anzati was of a more pragmatic mind, fixated purely on the destruction of his enemies and the exertion of control of the strong over the Galaxy, Sith Code be damned, there was little in predicting where that line of thinking might lead the Anzati. Through New Imperial victories? He might be content to remain loyal. In defeat, however? He might turn on them the moment they might need him most.

This was not only to snuff out the darkness, but to silence the screams of the ghosts within his head. At this point, he didn't know, didn't care if it'd result in anything. He wanted to kill.

As much as he respected the Warmaster, he reviled him all the same. This was the man who had forced Irveric down a path of dehumanizing himself when he'd forced him to pull the trigger on Kintan and end the lives of thousands of innocents in an instant. This, compounded with Mandalore, rotted his mind to its foundations irreparably.

Kor Vexen would find out what strength meant.

<“Anyone still alive...stand down. That’s an order.”>

“Irveric,”

“where to?”

Where Djorn might've faltered, faltered in showing his resolve and tenacity for his nation, he had done what Tavlar only wished he had in the trenches of New Kalandra. Rally his men around him and make war unto the truest enemy of them all. But he was too forthright in his commitment, too burdened by the weight of obligation to them. To his men.

Were it not him leading the charge, his brothers and sisters it'd be a man who'd regard them as little more than cattle being herded for the slaughter, numbers to throw at numbers. Worthless pawns to pay the toll of greater ambitions.

And that was why the New Imperial Order had managed to levy their banner to the flames.

<"The throne."> A layered truth.

<"But we've unfinished business to be rid of first."> Tavlar says once more. He'd voiced similar before but never had it had the implications he'd yearned for it until now. This was no longer a grudge to be settled with the Empire...but the very Creed itself.

Djorn and whichever from his unit turncoat-ed with him were immediately regarded as his brothers then and there. There wasn't any shred of predjudice that bathed his tone when he regarded him. Only duty.

<"Enigma- on me.">

<"Understood, sir. Gladius and other units are continuing to press the advance, we're keeping our gains but if we don't follow through with Kyber Dark quickly, all the ground will be lost."> The 501st trooper sounded out in response with a characteristic inflection of stern realism in his sentiment before Irveric led them through the chaos. As the Sith Imperials tangled with the 501st and the 13th Stormtrooper Legions, so too did they unfurl their panoplies of war among each other it. It was as pure as it was chaotic, the brutality and madness of it all.

It was then the weight of the command set in.

Credit where it was due, Vexen was here lateral to Irveric in the trenches, in the fires. There was no disregarding that boldness to lead first through the breach as Vexen did. After all, it was the two of them that were the sole members of Sith high command in the fires at New Kalandra.

​

<"Sir!"> The 501st trooper sounded out as he ran his way behind the Cataphract Main Battle Tank to reconvene with his NCO.

<"Pyre-Actual is down."> A Sith Knight among the 501st, though it was intentionally kept a rarity with the force user supplement among the infantry being largely Imperial Knights, matching up four-to-one with ever Sith deployed for this very moment.

<"Copy, then we keep moving up. The Imperator wanted Carnifex by sun down, we need to make it happen."> The 501st Commander sounded out in reply.

Thrusting himself through the chaos, Irveric had finally arrived to the Warmaster in waiting.

Amidst the chaos, he approached, pulling his left wrist up he angled the vambrace in the direction of the Anzati Warmaster. The 'escalation' pattern rocket mounted to the ordinance launcher instantly synced with the heads up display to paint Vexen in crimson. Hostile designation. He willed the vambrase to fire, the missile levied toward Vexen's center mass before he heard the cry of vengeance from another.

The shards of the Sovereignty, the remnant of a government, a dream claimed by the Great Galactic War. It, like many others have returned revenant on the field of battle in Ravelin, just as the yearning for the return of the Empire, the revenge of the Mandalorians and the return of Fel all brandished the fall of darkness in their aim.

Charging forward in the wake of the explosion, he reached a hand down to draw the sword from his hip, the metal lashing out to its full glory as he willed the blade into the open before he lurched forward with a lunge of the tip under Kor Vexen's left arm, attempting his best to angle the lethality of the blade into one of the weak points in Vexen's armor with a silent fury, nothing but the cold, scorched gaze of his helmet to accompany the charge into the fray.

THE WARMASTER
Darth Bellum
THE REDEEMED
Djorn Bline | Anden Fancelo

V I D A G E
CAPTAIN ANTON CASSEL
501st STORMTROOPER LEGION
Armor | Repeater | Pistol
FOCUS: Lord Halketh | Ravraa Vyshraal | Agrippa | FN-999
P A S C H E N D A L E

The drums of war continued their pounding in the form of particle blasts in a wretched exchange of Sith and Imperial. Vidage was a platoon of heavy hitters. Each squad equipped to deal with armor and lay down the fields of fire for further advance. Gladius rang their line with that exact command.

Bring the heat.

<"Vidage Actual, suppressive fire on the Sentinels with the 19th, keep them busy. We'll find another way through and flank them somehow.">

<"Copy, Gladius. We need an ammo count but we're enroute."> Anton sounded out in reply as they continued the advance. Their next respite from the killing fields came in a broken building. It was a moment where the crack of blaster fire felt distant, they could count and salvage their power cells before they'd be bearing down on the Sith-Imperials again.

Lord Desimir, the Sith Knight took the moment to seethe, to consolidate and boil in his rage away from the rest of Anton's squad.

<"I have four rockets..."> The 'heavy' sounded out. Aside from his SE-61, he had the variable warhead launcher on his back. The Sith armored units made that initial ten round allotment dump quicker than he expected.

<"Keep two HEAT, prime two more for airburst."> Vidage suggested before the trooper began to swap out the warheads, initially all set for high explosive anti-tank.

Then the order came through.

Kyber Dark. Anton knew everything about it, but in those late night talks with other commanders, he'd never expected Tavlar to pull the trigger. Certainly not here.

<"Sir?"> One of the Troopers sounded out, looking to the Captain whose gaze was already flicked in the direction of the hall way which led down to Desimir's position. He took up up the repeater from its propped position against the window and cradled it in his hands once more.

Slowly cutting the corner into the next room, his gaze was instantly met with the Sith's infernal eyes.

"You all promised me!" Was all he said before that crimson saber ignited again and he sprung toward Anton.

He squeezed the trigger again and screwed his eyes shut, all but expecting the lurch by the Sith to be his end.

It was three...four...five seconds of the constant volley before he opened his eyes again. The Sith laid dead on the floor.

<"On the move."> There wasn't any time to deliberate those words or what he'd done.

It was time to move.

Vidage surged back into the battle, later than expected but Kyber Dark put nearly all of the 501st behind schedule at its onset. Regardless, the Palace was the objective once again.

// ALLIES | NIO //: Agrippa | Ravraa Vyshraal | Djorn Bline | FN-999 | Asharo Madar | Sion Alar | Lord Halketh | Marshal Zovesa
// ENEMIES | TSE/THE SITH //: The Sith Empire | Kyber Dark | Darth Bellum

 

[Lucien Dooku]

S T A R G A Z I N G

Spoiler: tags

Trajan Fett Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt Valdus Bral Avernus Jain

​

---

---

"The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice."

Luc reflected upon the words that his advisor had spoken to him in passing not long after the Imperial Assembly had gathered to discuss the abolition of slavery within the Order. For even those who fought for what was right, the phrase spoke more true than any amount of altruism or propaganda could never hope to achieve. The Order's success at clawing into the side of the Zambrano Empire came at the cost of needing an established bureacracy, and with it a growing need to address the problems that came with the formation of a new state in the Unknown Regions. Poverty, Corruption, Lingering Slavery, and even the decentralized system of Warlords and Moffs that Lucien himself fell into. For the greater good of the Order's dominance against their enemy, the multitude of internal issues that threatened it from within were seemingly too easy for the Order to sweep beneath the rug-- until the preeminent issue was dealt with, at least.

The galactic powerhouse which wanted nothing more than erase the Order after its founding was the true threat in the eyes of many, no matter the class or station they belonged to. For it was in the success of the Order that these peoples prosperity would stem from. The destruction or neutering of the Empire of the Sith stood paramount above even those minute issues that could lead to the Order's downfall if not stamped out early before the fire could spread. Issues that Luc agreed needed to be fixed; the kind that earned him a reputation for being altruistic when nuanced pragmatism was needed to win out the day.

As much as he liked to consider himself a defender of the people, not even Luc was foolish enough to believe that all the problems within the Order could be solved overnight. So many different people had come together in such a small amount of time that the upper echelons of the Order had no time to focus on much besides the destruction of their enemy, even if it meant forgetting about the threats that dwelled within. It was truly the greatest of threats that the Order had faced internally, and one which he found himself at odds with ideologically as the months turned into years. He was there at the Hand of Thrawn when the largest gathering of Imperial defectors and exiled remnants had come together to christen in the New Imperial Order as a force to be reckoned with.

He'd felt their presence, seen their visage, and eventually fought besides a few of them over the course of his growing military career. Though not speaking of among the lower ranks of the military, Luc had come to know full well of their presence within the Order's ranks, and just how paradoxical it was for them to be given asylum and opportunity to make themselves useful. Despite having no personal grudge with these men and women, their presence was tolerated for the sake of the greater good, and the future for those who hid within the shadows of the Order seemed tied to the fate of those who walked openly in the light.

It was almost a shame they would come to learn that disappointment is a slow poison, indeed.

<"Commence Operation Kyber Dark.">

​

UNTIL THE WORLD GOES COLD
KAL'ORITSOR | JEDI ARMOR

Spoiler: Strike Group Dooku

STRIKE GROUP DOOKU
Nebula II-class Star Destroyer - NIV Myrmidon
Majestic II-class Heavy Cruiser - Two Vessels
Defender II-class Assault Carrier - Two Vessel
Inceptus-class Assault Ship - Two Vessels
Prosecutor-class Planetary Assault Ship - One Vessel
REC-LC01 "Negotiator"-class Light Cruiser - Twelve Vessels
V-wing Heavy Interceptor - Twenty Squadrons of Twelve
TIE/HB Bruiser - Eight Squadrons of Twelve
REC-LU01 HAAT - Eight Squadron of Twelve
Eta-2 'Midnight' Jedi Starfighter
-
173RD. STORMTROOPER LEGION - MYRMIDONS
-
VARIOUS ATTACHED GROUND/NAVAL ELEMENTS

Spoiler: Kyber Dark Reinforcements

PRINCE LORCAN DOOKU​

Defiance-class Star Destroyer - One Vessel
Pellaeon IV-class Star Destroyer - Two Vessels
Valiant-class Star Destroyer - Six Vessels
Tirailleur-class Frigate - Eighteen Vessels
VARIOUS ATTACHED STARFIGHTER ELEMENTS

​

​

​

The order to delete the Sith from the Order's presence was met with no more than a grin from the Warlord of Nirauan, who casually watched the ongoing space battle between the various battlegroups sent to bring death upon the opposing side. Having positioned Midnight far enough from the combat to idle and pass the time, Luc had been patiently waiting for the Imperator's command to commence the operation which had kept his Myrmidons from joining the fight upon Ravelin from the beginning. It was hinted at previously towards his second-in-command, moments before Luc sauntered off towards the hangar and took off into the stars by his lonesome as always. The time for rest and relaxation had come to pass as the orders to commence the operation were given, and with it the influx of new orders being transmitted down the pipeline to every individual under his command.

IFF transponders were updated in real-time, ending the wait and giving those who were already moving with a purpose towards the shuttles and transports time to get locked into their seats. Dozens of transports exited the hangar across the fleet, only to be followed up by the full might of the fresh starfighter elements that were tasked to escort them down to the surface. Death covered the surface with visible signs of past and ongoing struggles, but the brunt of the fighting had been let to the regulars for long enough that the Myrmidons would touch the surface with minimal casualties suffered on the way down.

Wave after wave of transports touched upon the streets of Ravelin, only to retreat back up to the coldness of the void in order to gather up more men to bring into the fray. The 173rd was not tasked with supporting the ongoing battles at all. That task, while noble, was currently beneath the more important task that caused the Myrmidons to spread their inferior numbers across dozens of locations across the world of Ravelin. The rank-and-file Sith-Imperial Legionnaires were not the targets of these elite Stormtroopers, who found themselves being led by a cadre of their finest brethren, and a host of advisers who were leading from the front along with their men. They marched through the streets, appearing at the rear of ally formations whilst simultaneously descending upon the ranks of the Sith with the jet-packs that were almost certainly assigned to them for missions out in the field.

Sith fell where they stood, through blaster and blades alike, the Myrmidons delivered death onto all those who were deemed hostile in accordance with the orders of the Imperator. Former cloaked figures who previously found themselves behind the carnage were now being the target of the 173rd's wrath themselves. The force nor their weapons would prove enough to overcome the brutality which the Myrmidons brought in abundance. Men who became brothers-in-arms would fall in the ensuing struggles, but their corpses were never left to rot alongside the dead Sith whose blood was allowed to pool on the streets of Ravelin.

The weapons of the fallen Sith, be they acolyte or greater, were collected and paraded to the kindred spirits tasked with killing them dead. No quarter was given, nor a minute amount of respect that the Myrmidons would commonly give their enemies after they slew them. They only left corpses in the aftermath of their meeting with the Sith. Be they New Imperial or Zambrano, none who clinged to the dark with the fervor of a cultist would escape Ravelin alive if they had anything to say about it.

Whether it was the Great Library of Ravelin, or the Royal Academy situated at the heart of the city itself, the Sith would find themselves the ones being hunted amidst the chaos of the war engulfing the planet already. For those who thought themselves free of the chaos, the sound of throttling jet-packs and the hum of vibroweapons would be the last thing they'd remember before the final breath was ripped from their now lifeless bodies with a vengeance. <"Two more Sith. KIA- New Imperial."> The occasional call-out reverberated across the Legion's shared comms. The vast majority of the Sith slain were Zambrano loyalists, of course, but the number of tallies stemming from former New Imperial friendlies had reached over a dozen by the time the Myrmidons were given the autonomy to hunt down all Sith, no matter their previous designation.

Luc on the other hand had not joined his Legion in the wholesale slaughtering which followed their arrival onto the world. Setting Midnight on autopilot, he set a course for the surface while he conversed over his comms with his second-in-command on board the NIV Myrmidon. The veteran Admiral had taken the news of Operation Kyber Dark splendidly-- or at least he didn't share any outward signs of objection to the rampant hunting down and killing of Sith that the Myrmidons were taking part of at the moment. Instead the man had focused his efforts on talking down his commander from giving Strike Group Dooku the worst task of them all.

"What you're ordering is not even foolish, Lord Dooku, it's suicide!"

"Didn't I tell you to have a little faith in me, Rex?"

"Faith in one's ability to command are dictated by the logic behind those commands, Sir. What you're asking is worse than asking for us to mutiny-- you're asking us to commit ourselves to certain death."

"One-hundred and twenty seconds-- That's how long you have to follow through with my order. If you don't trust in me, I'unno, trust in the force, I guess~ Either way, you've got your orders, and I've got my own mission." Luc clicked off the channel, leaving the Admiral to his own devices as he pondered on what to decide for the men in his charge. Death would surely follow them if they followed through with their orders, but death was almost preferable when compared to the political suicide that would come about if the Strike Group beneath his command had truly remained idle for the entirety of the battle at hand. There was little time to break down his options- time was running out, and the two minute mark was close to approaching more sooner than he expected.

A decision needed to be made, and it was upon the raising of his voice to the men and women on the bridge. "Fleet Admiral Mandela to all vessels of Strike Group Dooku. Our orders are simple as usual when they come from Lord Dooku himself, but this time I can not guarantee that even the majority of us will make it out of this battle alive. Regardless, we're at the cusp of our victory against the Sith. If we must die today for the sake of the Order's cause, then so be it, that was the risk we all knew when we became soldiers." A pause followed as the engines of the Myrmidon came to life, the sudden sight of the previously idle flagship causing a chain reaction throughout the Strike Group as a whole. "All vessels are to follow the Myrmidon's lead. We're to approach the Shadowbringer in support of the Imperator's flagship, and do what we must, no matter the outcome. Always forwards, men, even into death's embrace." Reading the room of his bridge was an easy task, given the stale air and the wide-eyed expressions that was so uncommon to his men.

The silence carried with it a pause that chilled the air until Admiral Mandela placed himself on the bridge's command chair and brought a warmth to the spirit of the room by his presence alone. Strike Group Dooku approached the Shadowbringer opposite to the side which was being broadsided by the Dissident Aggressor, cutting through friendly ships with no regard to decorum that came with naval warfare. Their only task was to reach the Shadwobringer, get into position quickly and give the SSD everything that they had. It was indeed a fool's errand, but an acceptance of their fate had sparked a renewed sense of vigor within the veteran Imperial officer who commanded in place of the Warlord of Nirauan. As the fleet moved into firing range, Admiral Mandela hesitated for a moment, pausing on the all-fire command as his eyes glazed over the massive sight that was presented before them. The Shadowbringer, in all its might and glory, had enough firepower to reduce them to slag had they suspected immediately that their intentions were more than simply manuevering across the battlefield.

Yet here he was, seated upon the bridge of an upstart's flagship, preparing to commit what was essentially suicide at the behest of the aforementioned upstart from before. He took in a deep breath, reflecting on the Exiled Prince's words for just long enough to steel his resolve for what was to be his final command. "All ships, prepare to fire at wi--" Until the command was brought to a halt mere seconds later. A battlegroup exited from hyperspace to the rear of the 7th fleet, jumping right where Strike Group Dooku had previously been seated at since the start of the battle. Unlike Lucien's ships, this battlegroup showed no intention of waiting things out, as it pressed forwards through the same path that Mandela's ships had cut through the 7th. fleet.

The comms officer on board the Myrmidon swiveled towards the Admiral shortly after their arrival. "Sir, we're being hailed." The man spoke up, receiving a nod from his superior before connecting him with the Admiral of the approaching fleet.

Appearing on screen, a man in his late-thirties with blonde hair and a confident smirk greeted Admiral Mandela first. "Strike Group Dooku, was it? I'm guessing Prince Dooku is out and about on Ravelin while you're stuck doing the dirty work."

Rex shifted, preparing to respond when the blonde-haired Admiral interjected before a word could exit the man's lips. "Anyway-- I'm here at the request of Lucien, and by that you are not being relegated to a suicide mission, Admiral. My battlegroup is moving into position on the opposing broadside of the Imperator's flagship. Manuever Strike Group Dooku as you see fit to increase our effectiveness in putting a dent into that damned thing's hull. Lorcan out."

The one-sided conversation came to an end as the battlegroup did as this Lorcan said, cutting through the 7th. fleet's formation until it occupied the opposite space of the Shadowbringer, allowing the ships of Strike Group Dooku to fill in the gaps where they were needed. The following release of turbolaser fire, missile batteries and point-defense weapons would not rival the amount of firepower being delivered by the Imperator, but it would serve to pen up another front for Darth Bellum flagship to have to focus its fire upon, dividing its attention between them, the Imperator, and also the boarding Mandalorians as well. The betrayal of the Sith would not be limited to Ravelin, and the former Lord General of the Sith would find himself a premium target for the combined forces of those who sought nothing less than to take his head, along with the rest of the Sith present.

-​

While chaos reigned across Ravelin, Lucien descended onto the surface of the planet with a single mission in mind. There was only one Sith who he was after, but not before he reached the only person on that world who he considered family beyond all others he'd met in recent years. He could sense her presence within the distance, similar to how he felt during the battle of Dubrillion. Her struggle resonated within his soul, it seemed, or perhaps it was just lingering emotions that still carried weight after the...discovery of life that dwelled within her. The purge was in full swing, and Lucien had full trust in the Myrmidons to succeed in their task without fail. His own task proved much more difficult, as an inability to reach her would leave the exiled Prince relying strictly on the force to reach out and find where she was.

It was imperative that he reached her before any harm was done, or even worse, she sought out vengeance on her own against the one person who tied her to the elements of the Sith soon to be purged within the Order. With his death, she'd be set free from her connection to the Sith, and capable of living a relatively normal life for the ones who she'd soon bring into the world. Ideally that'd be the case, but he'd settle with just knowing that his death would bring her happiness, and one less megalomaniac for him to worry about pulling the Order's strings in the shadows. All he had to do was find her, and Luc would find him. That much, through the force, he was sure of.

​

​

​

 

[Errant]

Into the void...

Vella Forte

"A handful of men, inured to war, proceed to certain victory, while on the contrary, numerous armies of raw and undisciplined troops are but multitudes of men dragged to the slaughter."​

- Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatu​

The snap-hiss of a third Sith's lightsaber caught Errant entirely by surprise. He turned on his heel, his body a blur, but he was still too slow. Still holding tight to his silver blade's hilt, his right hand rose in a futile attempt at a parry. Time slowed, everything around the Knight grew distant, the color drained from the gardens around him. He wouldn't make it in time. Bastion would lay claim to his body and soul. Pale eyes closed in acceptance for what was to come, a grimace settling on his features, his thin lips drawn tight into a straight line. In defiance, he lifted his chin, eyes snapping back open just in time for Vella's form to appear between him and his assailant.

Errant's scowl flipped, a smile yanking the corner's of his lips up in a childlike grin. She stood so close to him, her back turned, fiery-red eyes locked on the interloper who'd nearly killed him only seconds before. He wanted to stand beside her as she struck down the foolish Sith who'd underestimated the Daughter of Vahla. Heavy footfalls thudding behind him stole his attention instead.

Fires spread out from the epicenter of the battle, Vella's flames unintentionally forming a makeshift ring of the underbrush. A hulking Wookie, the last Sith of their attackers, pushed through the stinging wall of smoke and fire with a challenging roar. Errant's gaze snapped to the titanic creature as it fell over him with the force of an avalanche. While still at his back, Vella couldn't be expected to defend herself from both sides, which meant Errant couldn't step away. He squared his shoulders. Both hands tightened around the hilt of his lightsaber as he swung up with all his might, a mighty battle cry of his own bellowing out from his chest. The Force swirled about him, strengthening his body. Their blades clashed, the Wookie bearing down on the smaller Echani with brutal ferocity.

And yet, Errant remained.

Striking out quickly, the shining blade turned aside another of the Wookie's powerful strikes. The crimson saber went wide, narrowly pulled back in time to avoid a sharp thrust at the creature's hairy chest. Errant did not slow his assault. He pulled back on the weapon in one movement, his back foot shooting forward as his body's weight followed his weapon's arcing swing. The Wookie fell back in time to avoid another lethal blow, but it didn't move fast enough. White-hot energy seared through robe, muscle, and fur indiscriminately. A portion of the Wookie-Sith's breastplate fell away, revealing molten wounds and scorched flesh. Pain tinged the corrupted being as it howled into the Knight's face. His scream carried with it the might of the Force. Errant grinned, his momentum carrying him through his final attack.

This one saw the Wookie's head rolling a dozen feet away. It stopped with an audible thud against the blackened roots of the ruined tree.

Errant was lifted by the Wookie's dying screech. He hit the ground with a loud groan, his body turning over wildly as it carved a deep groove through the earth and soil. If not for the adrenaline coursing through the Echani's veins, he'd of keeled over from the ache and pain of his battered body. A hand fumbled to push him up, sliding right through the dirt as he failed to find purchase. Rather than struggle through standing, he laid back into the flora beneath him, allowing himself a moment to recuperate. Before he knew it, fingers even more slender than his own hung down over his wintry visage. He could smell burning flesh nearby. He could see smoke trailing from her fingertips. Everything about her threatened to consume the Imperial Knight in unbridled passion. He yearned to take her hand and pull her down into his waiting arms. To press his lips against hers. He couldn't see her face, but he could picture it perfectly, held between two snow-white hands, inches from his.

Common sense got the better of him. He took Vella's hand and used her as an anchor-point. A second later, he was back on his feet, his hand holding tight to hers as he met her crimson gaze.

"You've bested me this day, Vella," Errant conceded, still wearing an out of place smile. "Smart of you to take out the fodder. Easy points," his hand remained interlocked with hers. "I am hard-pressed to consider two poorly trained legionnaires the equivalent of a Sith, but I will not complain," it was then the Albino noticed he hadn't let go of her hand. His attention fell to the physical connection between them. Against his better judgment, he felt his hold tighten as he opened his mouth to speak. In place of his words, a harrowing order sounded from the commlink hanging at his side.

<"The Sith...they are our enemy. In whatever form they come. None of them leave Bastion alive. We'll hunt these parasites down to the last."

"Commence Operation Kyber Dark.">

"No," Errant whispered the word.

Vella pushed away from him in an instant. His hand hung in the empty space between them, his squared shoulders sagging forward. He felt what fight he had left in him vanish, replaced by an overwhelming sense of dread. Death on a scale he'd never felt before flooded the battlefield in a crashing wave. Whereas rage thundered behind Vella's chest, Errant felt only weakness. His men seethed, weapons trained on the Sith who'd stood beside them as an ally from Mygeeto, up the Braxant Run, all the way to the Sith-Imperial capital world. Their empty visors masked their true intentions from one another, but not from Errant. Their hatred was palpable. It permeated the area, sapping the warmth he felt earlier, even as the fiery ring still burned around them. He felt so tired. Betrayed by the man who swore to destroy the evil the Sith represented.... using the evil they hopelessly clung to.

"No," Errant repeated. "No, no, no," again, and again the Knight uttered the single word. It droned on from his weary body, growing louder with each iteration. Finally, he practically roared his defiance. "No! Lay down your weapons immediately!" the Albino surged forward, the very wind bending to his proclamation as the acrid smoke parted around him, revealing the gleaming Knight to his men. "She has stood by us longer than some of you!"

The silver saber was alight once again, barring the way between the Stormtroopers and their target.

"You can't deny an order from the Sovereign-Imperator!" one called out.

Another chimed in. "Step aside, Varanin!"

The line of white armored soldiers moved closer, their weapons pointed at Vella. One stepped forward from one end of the line, their blaster rifle now aimed at the Imperial Knight. "Errant," the Knight recognized the speaker. "If you do not stand down, you will be seen as a traitor. Gunned down without mercy," the soldier pleaded with his commander. "Just step aside, we can handle this."

Errant looked to his men, then to Vella. She resembled a caged animal, snarling at her captors, yet backed into a corner as if expecting another whipping. His chest burned. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out his surroundings momentarily. If he thought hard enough, surely there would be an answer. Vella could walk away, alive. His men needn't follow the order. Errant needn't betray his Empire. If only he was wiser! Smarter! Warm tears rolled down his cheeks, cutting a path through the build-up of grime and sweat from the day's exertions. His mouth went dry, throat like sandpaper as he gulped down a painful breath.

Without a second thought, Errant cut each and every Stormtrooper down before him. His saber danced from throat to limb, to chest, to head. His cloak danced in his wake, following each of the Knight's purposeful steps. The earlier hatred vanished, replaced by fear absolute, and hopelessness they never fathomed. Errant roared with each thud of a limp body, stepping over their battered and broken forms as if they were the very enemy he'd faced throughout the entire war. When the last of them fell, the same soldier who pleaded with the Bloody-Handed Bastard's son, he stopped. His chest burned with each heaving intake of air to his lungs. He turned back to Vella, grim visage hardened by the act of brutal treachery, melted away. Replaced with the inkling of hope in his pale eyes.

 

[Miko Evans]

<"The Sith...they are our enemy. In whatever form they come. None of them leave Bastion alive. We'll hunt these parasites down to the last."> With that command, any and all of those who were overtly Sith on the field of battle at Bastion would be marked red on every heads up display friendly aligned with the New Imperial Order. Whether they marched under the crimson saber a loyalist or had long declared themselves rogue or apostate within the Dark Creed.

They were next.

<"Commence Operation Kyber Dark.">

New Imperial Order - "True" Second Wave
Imperial Knight Battlegroup - Operation Kyber Dark
Aboard New Imperial Battlecruiser NIV White Kyber

The bridge of the White Kyber was buzzing with activity as it and several other vessels in its battlegroup dropped out of hyperspace behind the Sith and Galactic Alliance armadas. Commodore Thales looked on through the viewport, hands clasped behind his back to watch the battle unfold for a few seconds before exhaling in satisfaction. Today was the day they brought the threat of the Sith to heel. All of them. Never again would the people of the Galaxy fear being snatched in the middle of the night for speaking ill of their cult, never again would men and women die for nothing more than a few centuries old trinket. Genocide for the sake of genocide was gone, and the manipulations of their dark magics would be gone from the New Imperial Order and the Tingle arm...Forever. At least, within the borders of the New Imperial Order. Never again would they be welcomed to gain footholds and corrupt as they did.

"Launch all fighters. Target Darth Stryd's destroyer. Full turbolaser barrage..." It was cowardly to stab an enemy in the back. Even more so when they believe you to be an ally...But the Sith had access to many abilities Commander Thales considered to be unnatural and so no chance could be taken in dealing with these parasites. "Make sure our Knights have an escort to the surface."

New Imperial Order - Second Wave
Imperial Knight Battlegroup - Operation Kyber Dark
NIV White Kyber - Turbolaser Battery Control

Battery Commander Talzin had spent a dozen years serving the Sith. Both in secret before their return and during every regime since the end of the Gulag Plague but finally he was getting his revenge. He'd never wished to serve the Sith but it wasn't until Irveric Tavlar took his stand that he felt the courage to defect. So when his orders came down he was more than willing to pass them on to his team.

"Rotate battery twenty-one degrees, modulate the power couplings for maximum output. Man upstairs wants this to hurt!" And so do I, he thought grimly.

"Battery 6 ready," came the declaration from his crew. Talzin took a look down at his datapad and read the words he'd been waiting to see all day. "Fire When Ready" He smirked.

"FIRE!"

---​

From across the hull of the White Kyber, and dozens of vessels just like it, turbolaser fire lanced out at what had once been friendly vessels. Ships run by Sith crews or vessels known to carry high ranking Sith Imperial Apostates and their little minor cults. They had been tolerated as a cost of defection from the Sith Empire, baggage that could not be left behind, but now the baggage could be returned to the Sith...In heaping piles of slag and ash. The turbolasers from the White Kyber flew true, crashing into the undefended flanks of the New Imperial destroyer Purpose of Sacrifice. There would no doubt be normal New Imperial casualties in the friendly fire but as the missile batteries of the Purpose of Sacrifice lit up, causing secondary and tertiary explosions up its spine causing it to break in half, Commodore Thales knew their deaths would not be in vain.

New Imperial Order - Second Wave
Imperial Knight Group 7
Ravelin City Streets - Several Minutes after the start of Operation Dark Kyber

The hum of the Sith's red lightsabers was more like a roar as it cut down Stormtrooper after Stormtrooper. She was small and weak looking, but he could sense the Darkness like a great ocean within her. She was one of those types that thought combat was beneath her and had been using battle mediation in the backlines to aid the troops in their capture of the city. It was a shame she couldn't be turned, Miko thought, but he could see it in her eyes. The amber color of one taken by the Dark. She let out a scream, empowered by the Force prompting Miko to pop out of his own cover and throw his arms out in an attempt to shield him and his remaining Stormtroopers from the blast. Some troopers didn't make it into his bubble of Force Protection fast enough and were nearly disintegrated, turned into a pink and white mist as the Force Bellow rippled through the air, tearing permacrete and durasteel from the walkways and busted speeders around them.

"How the hell dow we fight this thing?!" One of the Stormtroopers shouted. Miko shrugged and unclipped his own blade, igniting the white fire within. It came to life with a snap-hiss. As he jumped over the crumbling wall that had been shielding him before - she had been using the Force to manipulate blaster rifles that had been dropped by troopers she'd killed as well as her lightsabers to keep his force pinned down - and he called on the Force just like he'd been taught back as a Squire. It filled him with energy and purpose and he used it to fortify his legs as he sped towards her, tucking his arms in and making his body a smaller target but keeping the point of his blade forward. His black cape rippled behind him as he closed the distance, leaping and rolling to dodge incoming blaster fire, relying on his tough armor when he couldn't dodge.

He could see the surprise in her eyes. The Imperial Knights weren't new to the New Imperial Order, but their numbers had been kept artificially lowered from what he gathered during the Kyber Dark briefings, to ensure exactly this effect.

"St-stay away from me!" she shrieked, calling down her lightsabers once again. They arced through the air at symmetrical angles, but with a quick flash of white, the hilts were halved and fell harmlessly to the floor. In a last-ditch effort, she threw bolts of Force Lighting at him, strong enough to disintegrate him on impact if he wasn't careful. But she was slipping from exhaustion. He could see the scorch marks in her abdomen and shoulder clearly now, as well as her rank tag. She'd been given the rank of General, probably because of her abilities. Too bad, he thought to himself again as he batted the bolts away effortlessly.

When he was on her he felt sympathy as he plunged his blade deep into her, angling the blade up from her abdomen, the blade finding its exit through her right shoulderblade.

"May you find peace in the Chaos," he murmured as the life slowly faded from her eyes. When he felt her pass in the Force Miko extinguished his blade, letting her fall lifelessly to the rubble and let out a heavy sigh.

"Alright boys," he said as he looked at the datapad on his wrist. There were still two more targets in this sector, "Time to move up! We'll meet with the others soon!"

 

[Aerarii Tithe]

Market: Great Sith-Imperial Library, Ravelin City, Bastion
Investment: Objective I - Gotterdammerung
Portfolio: Skystas Rieve iv Tave Daboti Dvasi | Vokti Mekn iv Siarbras Naudot | Vaizdas iv Auksas | Sith-Imperial Military Uniform
Assets: TSE
Liabilities: Auteme | NIO
Stocks: VI

---

Tithe had seen the folly of the Sith after the loses at Mygeeto and Muunlinist.

In the wake of the crushing defeat, the Sith Lords and Ladies took a most unexpected course of action - they called a meeting. While the Emperor vanished on sabbatical, representatives from all over the Empire gathered to make their voices heard as equals - a first if Tithe understood correctly. No one enjoyed a good meeting more than he did - he’d attended plenty in the wake of the battle - but such was the domain of a bureaucrat. That the Sith, for all their power and might, had elected to solve their issues by talking had been an eye-opening experience. Tithe was certainly not the only one to leave the meeting with doubts for the future.

It seemed now that those doubts had been well-founded.

---

Aerarii and Autume - the most unlikely of allies - hurried into the Great Library. That his code cylinder granted them immediate access surprised no one more than Tithe - either the security services were yet to discover his betrayal, or they had bigger issues to deal with. After taking a moment to consult a terminal, he found the nearest and least secured collection of Force artefacts and began heading in that direction.

The New Imperial propaganda continued to broadcast over the battlefield amid the sounds of death and destruction, filling the halls of the expansive repository of knowledge.

“The skies are dangerous, Legionnaire, your pilots will rhypalm you tonight. They cannot see you from their starfighters, Legionnaire, they come to bomb you.”​

Passing an open window, Tithe heard the tone of the battle change. Weapons fell silent for a moment before opening fire again with increased intensity. Something had changed. He stopped and looked out at the plaza, unable to believe what he was seeing.

New Imperial Stormtroopers were turning their weapons on their Force attuned allies. The soldiers ruthlessly slaughtered their lightsaber-wielding colleagues before turning their blasters back on the Sith with renewed vigour. It was utterly unexpected and was repeated as far as the eye could see. It was not the actions of a rogue unit or a disgruntled commander, but rather a unified and calculated campaign. It took Tithe a moment to realise he was witnessing…

“A purge. Auteme, I think you need to see…”

Auteme’s scream snapped him back around and away for the unfolding massacre. The young Jedi ambassador was curled up on the ground, clutching herself as in pain. The Moff hurried to her side but could find no evidence of a stray blaster bolt hitting her.

It took him a moment to realise that the pain she was suffering was coming from within.

“Legionnaire, your TIE fighters fall from the sky, like broken birds.”​

The New Imperial propaganda masked the approach of the three Great Library security guards. “Sir, we need to ask you to leave immediately, you shouldn’t be in here.”

Tithe looked up at the guards then back down at Auteme. The easy thing to do would be to hand her over or leave her behind - the guards would take great interest in presenting a Jedi to their superiors, giving Tithe time to slip away. But his escape would be short live - without a pardon from the Galactic Alliance, his chances of rebuilding his fortunes were greatly diminished.

“Ah, we’re, um, on business from the Grand Vizier,” Tithe lied. “An, ah, audit of Force artefacts. Yes. We need to validate the last inventory counts so we can allocate haulage priorities. The Emperor would be most displeased if something of such value was left behind, or worse, fell into enemy hands.”

The guards shared confused glances. “We haven’t heard about an audit. And who’s she.”

“Disrupted communications? Oh, how surprising,” Tithe replied sarcastically. “Look around you; there’s a war outside.” He pointed to the open window as Sith-Imperial and New Imperial dropships and fighters clashed in the skies nearby. “And she’s, well, she’s a cultural adjutant, an expect in pre-Plague holocrons. She’s, ah, feeling unwell. Combat stress, I suspect.”

Between Tithe’s rank plaque, the chaos unfolding outside, and his sheer confidence, the guards were convinced. Apologising for the interrupting they return to their patrol, leaving the Moff to try and rouse the young Jedi.

“We, ah, need to keep moving my dear,” he urged as he gently shook her in an attempt to rouse her. The sooner they could secure the Sith artefacts, the sooner they could be on their way.

The disappearing footsteps of the guards fell silent. The bureaucrat looked up to see that the three were conversing with someone over commlink. Slowly they turned to look back at Tithe and Auteme, their body language changing to one of alertness as they went for their weapons and hurried back down the hallway toward Aerarii and Auteme. “Hey, hold it right there!”

 

[Daedalos Solidor]

O B J E C T I V E | Ravelin.
L O C A T I O N | Center for Progress.
G E A R | Lightsaber, armor, pistol, necklace.
T H E M E | Here.

​

Like a gunslinger he unleashed the full wrath of his pistols. His feet moved him forward, his goal was to reach the end of that hallway as he tried to eliminate the security soldiers stationed inside the Center for Progress. Or at least that was his intention, but the gods had a funny way of telling him not to get cocky like hearing two small clicks on both pistols that meant just one thing.

“I’m screwed.”, he said it out loud knowing that both pistols were now drier than a lake in Tatooine. Quickly he ran inside one of the open doors, pushing over a statue of a Sith trooper covered in ice, all done by him and his twins. The trooper fell to the ground and shattered in pieces while Daedalos kept his grayish orbs focused on the broken parts splashed on the floor, blaster bolts flew across the hallway like it was a barabel christmas out there. His plan was to keep quiet until the others decided to save him, although he was now seeking for a way out, noticing the air shaft that stood high in a wall. ‘I could crawl my way out of this building, I guess.’, a harsh small bump from Leliana’s fist slammed against his head. The faerie had an angrier expression in her delicate face, and almost immediately began to shout.

“Don’t you dare try leaving this building, Fredo. Now grab your lightsaber and go cut something… NOW!”, the little alien grabbed a small portion of his hair and dragged it down, Daedalos growled in pain grabbing the lightsaber in his waist to do as requested. “I will cover for you.”, she said and Fredo knew what that meant.
“Fine.”, he lightened his weapon, allowing the icy blue blade to shine on the room as he began to breathe heavily and try to find his center. The small fairy courageously flew back to the hallway, screaming her lungs out as she moved both hands in front of her body force deflecting every single blaster shot towards the walls, only to unleash a orange lash of electric energy from her powerful electric judgement against the troops breaking their formation.

Daedalos took the opportunity and ran towards them holding his lightsaber with both hands. He spinned the blade in the air taking down the first trooper, hurling his arms and cutting the second one in the chest, turning his whole body abruptly as he tossed his lightsaber with the force sinking the blue blade on the last soldier in a row out of five. His face shrugged in a frown as he slammed his fist on the nearest soldier’s neck, raising his rifle with the other hand sliding through the weapon and pressing his hand on the trigger, dodging aside as his gun charged itself on the soldier in front of him. Fredo slid his feet and took him down on the floor raising his hand in the hand and calling his lightsaber back with the Force.

He sighted as the blade returned, swinging it gently to the left and cutting the soldier’s head as he tried to stand up. Again grabbing on the handle with both hands, he roared as he pressed forward.

Not long afterwards​

“Aaaah… I hate fighting in tight spaces.”, he whined towards Leliana as she flew at his side. Both of them were walking towards the entrance of the building, the soldiers were either dead or captured, they made a lot of prisoners this time. The droids we're already overwhelming the center alongside Dr. Aeducan as they plundered anything they could get their hands and called it as a valuable asset.

“You shouldn’t whine so much and train harder with your lightsaber. What would have happened if you catched a Sith Lord more experienced?”, he nodded to her, she was right and the last fight wasn’t much of a fight if he hadn’t played dirty. Before he got a chance to give her a proper answer, his grayish eyes noticed a lot of flashy lights just outside the Center’s entrance, he picked up his pace as he made a run towards those doors. Pushing harshly a group of seven or eight troopers aside as he raised his lightsaber to meet the enemy, those Sith were relentless and they apparently still had some fight in them. His hand fell back to the side of his body with his lightsaber unlighten, his eyes were wide open and his face taken with habdabs without believing what he was seeing.

The troopers that came with them, those five hundred soldiers dressed in the imperial uniform were opening fire without caring against the gamorreans. They had every intention in them to kill every single one of them, but the gamorreans were proud and they fought back, for every gamorrean that died another trooper died or was injured by their weapons, but what surprised Daedalos even more was Blotho fighting in the front swinging his lightsaber and cutting down every trooper in his way, roaring to the skies. And when the trooper at his side raised his rifle to shoot at the gamorreans' backs, Daedalos touched his rifle and tried to lower it, only to be pushed by the soldier without any fear for the authority given to him by his sister.

“Stand down, outsider!”, the trooper roared and aimed his gun towards him. Until a screeching sound came not far from both of them as the general raised his claws and immediately ordered the troopers to mind their businesses and to stop this foolishness at once. “I’m sorry, Rodisar, but Operation Kyber Dark has began.”, the soldier so boldly answered to Mesosog and Daedalos could noticed how unhappy he was with his answer.
“Kyber Dark, yes… Very well, trooper. Carry on.”, the general moved away from the situation and started clicking his repulsorlift chair as if he was trying to establish communication with someone. Daedalos pressed his lightsaber tightly between his fingers, seeing the gamorrean being slaughtered filled him with anger inside him to the point that even he paid no attention to what Leliana had whispered in his ear. She soon flew off to the general's position and he stood there surrounded by soldiers, and just growled between his lips.

"What is Operation Kyber Dark?", And one of the soldiers turned to answer in a casual tone.
"Orders from the Sovereign One himself to eliminate all the Sith.", He barely replied to him and soon he turned to the soldier beside him. "Speaking of which, we still have to deal with the prisoners."
"Deal with the prisoners?!", he almost snarled between his lips.
"Yes. All the Sith are bound to die. Our Sith, their Sith.", The soldier replied again in the same tone of voice.
"But they surrendered, some are even hurt.", Daedalos' eyes kept on gamorrean, grunting and fighting for life, Blotho was shot three times in his body and even so he kept fighting, not only for his life but for what he believed.
"It doesn't matter. All the Sith will die tonight.", The soldier replied to him, lowering his eyes and noticing perhaps for the first time the lightsaber stuck firmly in his fingers. Slowly he raised his head and offered a wave to the others, Daedalos knew what it meant but allowed them to point the rifles at him. Confusing him with a Sith wasn't that hard, not after the way he unleashed lightning towards that thing on level 54. His pointy ears moved up and down as he heard a familiar voice speaking with Mesosog in his native language, which allowed him to hear the rodisar replying in a respectful tone.

“I understand... Yes, yes... I agree, yes... No... Well, we captured a...”, Daedalos smiled and stopped paying any attention. If his sister was the one talking to him, he could not even bare to look at her to understand how she would agree with this. Disgust was the only thing he felt.
“I’m sorry outsider, but that is the way things are.”, the soldier behind him said in a calm tone of voice and cutting through the silent tension that hung in the air, Mesosog's voice came like a knife to the elzeri's ears.
"Halt!", The Rodisar ordered and the soldiers turned to face the general, their expressions were a mystery to Daedalos. Floating close to them, Mesosog ran his tongue over his lips, letting a glimpse of sharp teeth appear for a moment. "Commander Krueger, shouldn't you contact the central base and report that the Sith in that region have been liquidated?", Fredo lost all hope for that, Mesosog was his hope to get out of this with clean hands and he no longer saw Leliana in place some. The battle with the gamorrean, as he noted, was almost over, Blotho had brought down at least thirty soldiers and of the gamorrean only ten were still standing, lined up in a small group. Some were even shaking, while others cried.
"You are right.", The soldier said taking his communicator and lifting it close to his mouth. "HQ, this is Commander Krueger. The Sith are being exterminated in this sector, resistance has been resolved and we have prisoners in custody ready to be killed.", The commander lowered his arm and turned to salute the general, perhaps in thanks or just honor to the code of imperialists' morale.

"Thank you, Commander", Mesosog stated with an indecipherable smile at the corner of his lips. His eyes rolled to measure the number of troops at the entrance and those surrounding the gamorrean as he pressed a few buttons on his floating chair and without any fear or hesitation he lifted the pistol disruptor in his possession and fired a single shot right in the middle of the head. of the commander, turning his existence into a pile of dust. The rest of the soldiers stood for a moment, until the general raised his weapon again and shot the one closest to Daedalos, missing the prince by a few centimeters, a fact that he delivered when he let out a small growl.
Before they could even react by turning against the general, from inside the occupied building came shots of red blasters on an intense scale. Leliana came flying between Daedalos' legs to her ear, pulling her so that he would run to where Mesosog was. By the time he got close to it, the soldiers were already dead in front of the doors and the forces of droids that remained in the rear of the soldiers who attacked the gamorrean turned on that small group, shooting them by surprise and quickly resolving the issue with their weapons. The remaining gamorrean were also killed in the shooting and Leliana checked Blotho’s pulse noticing he was already dead when the fighting ended, one of the gamorrean that died alongside him squealed loudly so he would take a safe trip to his idealistic thought regarding paradise.

The general floated his chair close to the first soldier who had answered him initially, spitting everything inside his mouth against the visor of his helmet.
"It's general for you, trash.", When he turned his chair back to Daedalos, the prince raised both arms to the sky, placing his palms on his head and letting amazement take over his expression. "What is it?" Mesosog asked calmly. Taking a moment to understand what it was about. "Ah... That? Let's say we agreed to disagree, my prince. I confided in your sister about this issue, and you know what she said to me? 'Protect Daedalos at all costs', perhaps for these imbecile boys coming from Orinda or any other dirty hole you can easily be mistaken for a Sith. I know better than that, I've seen Siths up close, I studied with one, Vayus Isen, a very intelligent Bith, he became a Sith for his longing passion for alchemy and the desire to merge the magic of these people with science."

Instead of Daedalos responding, Leliana did this after probably noticing that he was still amazed.
"What happened to him?"
"I don't know. We followed different paths after we graduated, but he was a good creature, he had a wife and a son, he had no desire of burning the foundations of republics or even exterminating millions. No, he just wanted to learn.", Mesosog pondered in silence for a moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity. "The Sith served the New Imperial Order very well when they abandoned the Sith Emperor, filled their ranks, brought knowledge, fortune, military might and more. Now that Bastion is practically ours I fear to admit that the imperials now turn against their allies and order them to be slaughtered like a plague."
Cutting his silence, Daedalos murmured just a single word.
"Why?", And Mesosog replied without looking at him.
"Why? Well, I don't know. For the reveries of an envious and paranoid man who sits with absolute powers and calls himself Imperator? For the belief that this will leave the galaxy a better place? They call it justice, a precaution, but what is this but a betrayal? a galactic scale, because until when do they turn against the Jedi? or even any other type of force user? or even against some poor Vayus who just wants to learn? People kill and betray themselves for nothing nowadays. These are times where madmen guide the blind."

"No...", the prince stated, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself. "I asked why you are helping us. Betraying the New Order, going against your uniform."
To this, Mesosog reflected for a moment before answering.
"Before being involved in the military, I was a scientist. I see a foundation in my actions, I follow the laws imposed by universal science to try to find the best possible solution. I see no foundation in kicking a dog that is injured, as well as I know that my actions here will never reach the ears of the High Command, because the soldiers are all dead, the logs of my previous conversation are erased, the memories of the droids that killed them will be deleted. The remaining gamorrean are stationed far from here and will never know the truth, which is a good thing, otherwise rebellions of alien species would rise all across the empire, Blotho died a hero and will be buried as one. In my report these imperial soldiers died fighting the abominations they were ordered to slaughter and that is the end of it. Who knows the truth of this are the three of us and nobody else. And besides... "Mesosog turned his face away so that his expression wouldn't be noticed. "I'm much more afraid of your sister than these shitty imperials."

Daedalos Solidor, prince by birthright, left decorum for a moment and found himself bursting out laughing. One that Mesosog noticed, turning to face him with an irritated expression.
"Don't you dare laugh, if you had any idea what your sister said she would do to me if you were hurt then you wouldn't be laughing."
"Oh, general. Trust me, I do.", Mesosog and he exchanged a nod, as they both knew about the monster they were talking about.
"These humans... They plunder the planets they occupy, overthrow governments, kill whoever they want and do everything in the name of their order, their progress and their misplaced sense of authoritarianism and justice. This Galactic Empire that is being born in Bastion will not be better than the last, just as this false war will not last.", it was curious for Daedalos to realize that he and the lizard now understood each other better than probably any other creature on that planet. "I will order the droids to take the prisoners back to the base, the way back must be clear and we have a lot of cargo from the Center for Progress to transport today as well."
The male elzeri approached Mesosog and held out his hand, offering him a sincere squeeze, accompanied by an honest voice and his gleaming gray eyes focused on his.

"Thank you, Mesosog. For everything you did and said.", The creature stretched out its clawed hand and returned the prince's firm grip. It was the first time that he had called him by his name instead of his rank.
"You're welcome, Daedalos", he said with the same sincerity. The hands quickly came free and the prince and he started to make their way back.
"You know... for a general you are pretty okay.", Mesosog hissed beside him.
"I'll take that as a compliment.", He pressed the command buttons on his panel. "Now tell me, why does the fairy call you Fredo?"
"Oh... that is a long story.", Daedalos said smiling as they started to walk back to base. Leaving the carnage, the bloodbath and sorrows behind, dawn was coming.

 

[Vaulkhar]

Honor in death...

Joycelyn Zambrano

“At times because of one man’s evil, ten thousand people suffer. So you kill that one man to let the tens of thousands live. Here, truly, the blade that deals death becomes the sword that saves lives.”​

- Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure​

Vaulkhar watched each step with inquisitive silence. He didn't expect Joycelyn to even consider the offer, let alone abandon the advantage she held behind her force's defensive line. Every fiber of his being screamed out at him. His instincts warned him to be ready. Treachery was an everyday part of life within the Sith Empire. Still, he held out hope, his sword arm lowering as his sister drew ever closer. Any opportunity to flee disappeared the moment she stopped before him. Her spear, typically held aloft, practically hung at the tip of her fingers. For the first time in a long time, the Bastard's family stood within arms reach. He yearned to reach out and hug her as much as he wanted to lift his weapon. How strange.

"Joycelyn," he paused, considering her question.

What could she do? What would the Empress to be, have to accomplish to maintain her freedom? Who would spare her life in the court of law? Too many questions flooded his mind, with so few answers to be found. His hand reached out slowly, bare fingers seeking his larger sister's shoulder.

"More than anything, I want our family to be together. Through all the terrible things we've done in the name of a bloody empire, you are still my sister. I respect you and all that you accomplish. I love you," Vaulkhar met her gaze. "Just as I love our father. He is a monster, a beast released unto the galaxy only to flood the stars with blood," as he spoke, his right hand returned the lightsaber hilt to his side. "But he is still the man who raised us. It is our responsibility to capture him. We need to bring him before those who should pass judgment. Together we are strong enough to defeat him. This could be the beginning of a new life for you and whoever you'd hope to bring along. I can promise you that as both the Executor of this New Imperial Order and your brother. I won't let them hurt you."

The hand on her shoulder squeezed tight. "It won't be easy. Nothing ever is, but this is worth it. This is a cause worth fighting for, something our family has lacked for generations."

​

<She's probably going to betray you, Vaulkhar.> The familiar voice echoed within the Wound's thoughts.

Months had passed since Vaulkhar last felt the presence of Vyn within his conscious mind. Vyn, the better half within Vaulkhar's ruined soul, could only be described as the other side of the same coin. Whereas Vaulkhar had given himself to the Dark Side, warping his body and spirit on a single-minded quest for power, Vyn undid all of it. He sacrificed himself on Kintan, giving his life in service of the Silver Jedi Order. He shone in the Force, infused in Ashla's radiant light. It was his words that pierced Vaulkhar's crumbling defenses whenever the Wound faced the unthinkable.

That is likely, yes, Vaulkhar shot back.

<Seems stupid to metaphorically, and LITERALLY, throw yourself on her spear here, buddy. She's done nothing for you. She's a creature of unfathomable evil, just like pops.> A pause settled on Vaulkhar's mind, Vyn pausing for effect. <If you don't want to kill her, that's fine. I respect that, trying to be a good role model for Errant. Doesn't mean you should die in her place.>

If she strikes me down, I will provide her with the one thing our father never could, in my dying moments. I will say my farewells. It'll be over, Vyn. A promised end.

<"The Sith...they are our enemy. In whatever form they come. None of them leave Bastion alive. We'll hunt these parasites down to the last."

"Commence Operation Kyber Dark.">

The order sounded behind Vaulkhar, within the helmets of the Stormtroopers holding their position at his orders. None would dare question the Lord Executor given the reputation he'd made for himself within the New Empire. In the face of those who wanted him dead, he offered them his neck. He welcomed all who challenged his place at Tavlar's side to step forward. Vaulkhar took a knee, presenting himself for execution via decapitation. No one dared to lift the blade and strike him down. Since then, the Executor had crossed blades with his father on Mygeeto. Vaulkhar had come to blows with other members of the Dark Council. Without fail, the Dark Lord's Bastard rose to the occasion. The New Empire's fight was his fight.

If not for the Sovereign-Imperator, Captain Rohl wouldn't have moved an inch. Tavlar's words sowed momentary confusion among their ranks. Upon first taking up the golden grin, Vaulkhar had practically vanished from the cosmos. Very few knew the truth of who he was and who he once served. Many saw the Executor as the Imperator's shadow, a deadly instrument hand-selected to face all threats to Irveric Tavlar. Those privy to the truth, such as Rohl and his unit, knew Vaulkhar as a former Sith Warlord, son of the Dark Lord, once the Emperor's Wrath. If not for the Imperator designating them his unit, they likely would've damned him from the beginning.

But some things change.

Together they braved the blizzards of Mygeeto. Following the icy planet, they transferred to Borosk, where they hunted the Dark Lord's Blackguard like rabid animals, slaying them to their last. Planet after planet, battle after battle, Rohl and his men served the Executor's whims. The very same whims that saw his skeletal visage brave even the harshest conditions shoulder to shoulder with the men beneath him. Vaulkhar Zambrano proved himself more than just a name. He was an ally to the New Imperial Order.

"Stay your hand, men," Rohl muttered, his orders passed on via whispered breaths. "The Executor's name wasn't listed. He is no traitor to the Empire. We shall follow his orders and await his next command."

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Dance with the Devil //:
//: Save Me //:
//: Close Allies //: [@Vesta //:
//: Enemies //: Grrwunhoooll Agaburry //: Kir Dantos //:
//: Equipment //: Lightsaber //: Lightsaber * //: Gildenweave Dress //: Locket //:

​

The man growled, and the fear she held had washed away the moment she decided to face it. Everything felt right in her struggle. She wanted to be the successor that Ashin Varanin would have liked. Quinn tried to prove herself, being the youngest of the children, she had so many powerful siblings. Ibaris was an adventurer, her heart golden and pure, and Errant stood on the same battlefield, with an iron will and blade to match. Quinn didn't know where she stood among the others. Ibaris was much older than they were, but she had been Papa's favorite before Quinn. Errant had been Mama's favorite, but his father wasn't around, and she suspected it was part of her mother's doting. Still, she felt shadowed by the pair, and all she wanted was to prove herself worth her name. ​

The Gen' dai called to her. He seemed to find familiarity with who she was. His comment didn't make any sense. Why would she remember him? Quinn had never seen the battlefield; her Master kept her away from it as much as possible, but when their home was threatened - everyone fought. Looking down at her saber, she wondered if he was drawn to it. She wasn't Ashin Varanin, no matter how much she tried to be. Before Quinn could answer his call, the weapon was drawn and fired. Danger alerted in her mind as she stumbled backward and suddenly felt panicked. A bubble of the Force surrounded her as instinct kicked in. ​

Nothing splattered against the barrier, and Quinn felt the attention of her Master. A mix of emotions brewed, Vesta had taken a moment from her own battle to protect her, and while the girl was thankful - she became upset with herself. What if protecting her caused Vesta to falter in his own fight? If something had happened to Vesta because the Echani couldn't hold her own in battle, Quinn wouldn't be able to live with herself. ​

Gathering her mind, she became aware of the movements of the Imperial troops. They were behaving differently, and she sensed something conflicted within their minds. She stepped back and focused on the Force when it suddenly hit her, the others' deaths, Sith betrayed, and the dark side fed. While as a Sith herself, she should have found comfort, she couldn't. Through the thick of it, she felt Errant, the highs and lows of his emotions. She felt emotions that she only felt when she was around the Zambrano girl and then suddenly anguish. ​

Something was happening to her brother, and her heart wanted to move to him, her feet remained planted, knowing that their confrontation couldn't happen on the battlefield. On this plane, they were enemies. Her heart wavered opened to the pain that surged from the dying. The girl had done her best to keep it from her mind, but her brother cracked her barrier, unaware. All she heard were desires for revenge, cries of pain, and anguish. Her arms wrapped around her lithe body as she tried to push them from her mind. Not here, she couldn't have her mind fall apart here, she couldn't become victim to the empathy she was cursed with by her mother. Images of stormtroopers overwhelming and slaughtering their brother in arms the Sith flashed in her mind, and the girl collapsed to her knees. Her stomach churned with the images she couldn't bear to watch anymore. Acid burned in her throat as she expelled her contents onto the ground before her. Tears streaming down her face uncontrolled, it was overwhelming, and she didn't know how to control and use the emotions attacking her. Anger rose in her heart; if only the Sith that left the Empire weren't blinded by a fanatic - they would still be alive and helping destroy the traitors. ​

Traitors only knew how to betray and, in the end, would continue to do so. ​

Quinn struggled to her feet. The troopers that were closing in on them were going to attack her opponent. This demon that knew her mother. Quickly the fear and anger she felt manifested into a splinter storm of spears of the darkshear. The invisible dart hovered near her and focused on another group of stormtroopers coming to reinforce the flanking ones near Kezeroth. ​

At this time, he was no longer the enemy, but she kept an eye on him. She couldn't trust his mind mostly if he was hellbent on destroying her in place of her dead mother. While the darts ripped through the reinforcements, Quinn felt them perish as tears continued to stream down her face. Near her, an explosion with flames taller than any build she had ever seen. Panic once more washed over her, and she screamed, falling back. The desire to run, hide, and cry out for her dead mother burned in her mind. Quinn felt her heart beating rapidly against her breast. She wanted to run to Vesta, she wanted Vesta to save her, but she wanted to be strong as well - not be the little girl that cowered under her bed. ​

 

[Grigory Tallis]

Objective: Kyber Dark
Location: Imperial Capital Complex, Lobby
Enemies: Salvor Thul

​

Kyber Dark. Kyber Dark? What was that? So many military codes, so little time. And then the Supreme Imperator's words confirmed the order. It had seemed familiar to Grigory, a man of code. Insidiously so. And now, here they were. There were echoes of confusion around the platoon. Could they do what needed to be done? Confused looks were plastered across their faces. Did that mean? “What’s going on? Major, tell your men to stand down! Now!"

And then Captain Mel Glorin took the initiative. A Sith trooper crumpled to the ground as he took a blaster to the gut at point blank range. And then there was stillness. And that was when it hit Grigory. Extermination. Exterminate them all. Grigory's confused gaze turned into that of malice. A sadistic smirk came across his features. He mightn't have been at the front lines today, but this would be his contribution to the war effort. A deft hand slid down to his holster, and cleaved the pistol. Salvor was met with three successive bolts to the gut. It was war. There was no reply, no retort.

Flames now began to spread through the dilapidated lobby as troopers revved their rhypalm throwers dispensing thick chrome liquid all across the red clad soldiers before showering them in flame, engulfing their corporeal form in an almost rainbow ray of flame. Grigory knelt down over Salvor as the battle raged and clasped the data packet from his utility belt, pocketing it before standing tall. "Mission accomplished trooper." Grigory wryly mused as he looked down at Salvor and shifted his boot to click underneath the chin of his helm. He paused and examined his wounded body, "Seems our association is at an end Death Knell."

He then jimmied his boot further in, and forced the helmet off. He examined the troopers features. Eyeing his hair, his eyes. Grigory owed the Sith that much. A glob of saliva was now smeared across his right eye socket. Grigory smirked at the scene and then looked up, "Chase them into the square!" Grigory commanded waving his troopers from the reignited the lobby. His eyes locked with Salvor's one last time. "Make sure the sister suffers!"

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

​

// Legion Commander // 307th Red Riders //
// Armor / Hand Of God / Rifle / Pistol / Saber(s) / Grenade //
// Fortress Carnifex // Flanking // Surrounding City Sector
// Allies : NIO / Irveric Tavlar Lucien Dooku Avernus Nima Appw'rii
// Enemy : TSE / Jain

W a s h i t a l l a w a y
​

---

---

The long wail the woman had emitted was foreboding, the sound bordered animalistic to her as it echoed down the once city block-a sound she wouldn’t have associated with a mere woman. Lyra’s head craned up as her knees hit the ground, arms sprawled out as she caught herself on the shredded pavement. The radar blinked steadily and Lyra searched the ruined intersection for Lieutenant Arroyo. The burst in the force..part of her knew this would happen. Lyra wheezed painfully as she clutched the plate of her cuirass, her mid ached with pain from the last hit. Her horror mounted as her servo dragged along the sharp crack that splintered across the armor-how strong was this woman?

<”Find the leftenant now!”> Lyra ordered, flecks of blood on her lips as she pushed herself to her feet. Fear had crept it’s way in and now Lyra feared she had misculated. The shift in the air drew her attention immediately as she stumbled forward as troopers rushed past toward ruble let in their wake. The speed of the woman caused a change of pressure, alarms blared across the HUD as the A.I highlighted the ungodly creature. The leathery wings, she had only caught glimpse before it was lost in the smoke and clouds. Lyra turned slowly as she followed the smothering sensation nigh blindly through the Force; entrapped by it.

“What the fuck..” she whispered, if the Colossus from the streets of Harnaidan poised half the threat..

Lyra’s hand brushed over her belt to reach for her saber, she wouldn’t hesitate this time but through the haze-the tank smashed in before her and the repulsors sparked out. A sharp eradication of life snapped in her mind and Lyra revolted, her head reared back. It was instinct alone that drove her to the ground, hitting the cement hard; limbs scraping at the cement. A chunk of steel whizzed past her and her heart stuttered, shrapnel and chunks of the armor tore past. The percussion alone punched through the smoke and the shroud over the street was lifted, an orange light cast across the roadway from the horizon that burned.

The jagged debris tore up the roadway, the metallic bend and snap deafened all audio. Lyra screwed her eyes shut, huddled in the street for mere seconds that dragged on. Wait it out, that all a soldier could do in the wake of a bombardment. A high pitch ringing noise filled her ears and Lyra raised her arm to peer out toward the burning impact site, confusion flooded her senses. The woman stood there in the remains of the pulverized armor, bodies from the troopers caught in the fray and..her eyes landed on the bloody arm of..a dismembered..the gore. A strangle cry crawled out her throat, Lyra screeched at the sight of the roadway and the remains of the trooper squad. They never stood a chance, every time. Her fist made impact with the stone, a physical manifest-a knee jerk as anger engulfed her. The tilt of metal caught her eye as they summoned their weapon. If not the sixth sense that screamed caution-Lyra would have thought it was a shot from artillery that had hit the roadway.

Up until this point of her unfortunate existence, Lyra had believed in the loose term of the maker. The Force hadn’t been something they spoke about or associated in the household, ever pragmatic. She had heard a phrase once though, the Force had a Will, and maybe that was what this all was. Lyra rocked herself up onto her feet, her balance skewed by the ringing in her ears- each step jolted through her legs as she sprinted blindly toward the woman. A voice chided her in the back of her mind, urge dher to break the queen-

“Who are you really?” Lyra hissed as she stared down the monstrous woman as she closed in. Her servo thrusted out as the Force-unseen by the eye crept out and she pried her way in.

“You’re trapped,” Lyra gaped and she flinched visibly.

Drifting was as close as she could describe it, the prying down a tunnel-unearthing soil between her hands. The anguish drowned her and her shoulders shook, her Master had never explained how-but she understood the raging wildfire. The woman oozed with an aurora of disorienting anger, layered and smothered by it-what had her Master described it..loud. It was loud.

“Why should you be afraid?” the words flew from her mouth, the city side a blur. The dark energy harbored was easy to pluck at now and Lyra’s form tensed as her boot hit the ground, wrapping it around herself as she vaulted up, propelling herself with the Force in one exhale. Her Master had asked her that once upon a time-Lyra had questioned it herself and she couldn’t stop herself “-I understand.”

Lyra’s form twisted through the air as she threw herself over the ground zero, a dark blur in the air. Her servo clenched out and digits suddenly fanned out as she slowed herself and Lyra hit the road.

“I think-I think I understand,” Lyra chuckled as she rationalized the abstract depravity. The foot fall of the troopers surrounding them lost on her, the radar populating. She would lose herself in the depth of-Lyra shook her helmet viciously as she cleared her head, swallowing thickly-the blood that coated her face cracked and irritated-as she spoke up “-caged, I was too. I am, the Punished? And you-of course no one would willingly submit..wouldn’t you like to be free-to be in control?”

The bastardization of an angel-this woman was her enemy and at the same time, Lyra pitied her. She didn't have the luxury of time to dabble with humanity, they were alike in one way or another. It was a shame her men had died, that their bodies littered the road now. Her gauntlets curled at her sides, metal creaking. Numb to the will of her body, Lyra planted herself between the ruins of the tank and the rest of Bronco Company. The Commander rolled out on the ball of her heels and rose to her height as she dropped her saber off her belt.

The saber thrummed with heat as she ignited, a red swarth cut between her the behemoth as she held the blade up. They were all monsters in the end, and she knew better than to humanize the enemy. The comm links buzzed and Lyra barely registered the hum over the audio, the Imperator-the transmission interrupted the stand off. A terrible feeling settled in her gut and Lyra shook as her rage dwindled, the footfall of soldiers surrounded her and pot shots sounded off as the troopers opened fire on the behemoth.

---

<"Commence Operation Kyber Dark.">

​

Her breathing grew erratic, a cold sweat broke out across her neck. It was a long time coming but Lyra felt dark screens-the eyes behind them that roved over her; over the lightsaber in hand. She had never hid it from them. What a horrible place to be, trapped between zealots and an abomination.

Avernus was certain their sights were only moments away from setting onto her. "Sybila!" he shouted with all the air he could muster in his lungs. "We have to get out of here, we're being played!"

​

Lyra turned, the presence she knew-it was a beacon on the road drew her eye and Lyra peered over her shoulder at her Master. The street was illuminated by a scattering of blaster bolts and Lyra flinched as heat grazed her side-pelted by one shot-then a second bolt came. A strangled cry escaping her as she felt the searing heat of the plasma melt through the armor weave and scorched the tenebrae.

“Stand down!” she screamed, gauntlet scrambling over the vambrace as she adjusted the link. <”Stand down! Squad leaders control your sol-”>

There was a flurry of orders across the comm links, orders from squad leaders as some joined the hail of blaster fire-others reached out to stop their brothers. She understood fundamentally why now, why it had to happen. It wasn’t personal, none of them except for three madmen. If the Order hadn’t bitten off more than they could already chew, and Lyra’s eyes fell to the bodies of the troopers; choking on every sense that screamed at her run. She despised his ambition, this was his legacy. She wanted to trust them, Irveric Tavlar but she had learned very well the hard way not to. Lyra hardly recognised Irveric’s voice behind the order anyway, why did she love him?

<”Squad six stand down-private stand the fuck down!”>

Every hour she had invested in these soldiers meant nothing and her retribution was at risk.

<”She’s one of them!”>

Her thumb brushed the switch of the lightsaber, the crimson blade snuffed out as she jammed it back on to her belt. Her senses lead her to turn-and Lyra slammed her elbow out, stepping in to it as she smashed in the helmet of the trooper that rushed her. She wasn’t one of them. Sheer panic overwhelmed her, vision swarmed as the city street descended into chaos. It was naivety to trust them-every hour invested base side. They weren’t her men, Lyra’s eyes narrowed-feeling the static roar through her mind. Her hand flexed, to reach out through the Force-

<”Genesis-two! Genesis do you read!”> Lyra shouted in one breath, heaving for air.

Lyra twisted as white gauntlets seized her arms, she felt a sharp twinge in her shoulder as the trooper wrenched her shoulder. Lyra twisted her body, a sharp inhale as her arm fell limp and she threw her hip into the soldier as she fought the man for her bloody limb. The HUD blared the order across the screen as high profile targets flickered across it. Imagines of the upper echelon skewed by the ugly crack in the screen, she did not see her visage-Irveric had been the one to extend the olive branch. Was it hypocrisy? Nothing she would do would ever be enough and shout reverberated from behind clenched teeth and Lyra seethed.

They were acting outside orders, but there was still a target painted on her back. The Commander hadn’t lied when she told the woman that she was trapped, Irveric would never understand the anger coursing through her veins. He had given her another saber, and her servo carefully brushed over the hilt. Good soldiers followed orders, but this would be her last. Pivetting, she kicked the soldier away with one heavy boot. Her body shook from the adrenaline, dwindling the cold and sobering reality. Her eyes stung as she howled, her servo tightening once again, pins and needles ran up her left limb-the HUD flickered again. Fracture collarbone-

<”Admin override-inject bacta shot-override!”> Lyra shouted-mind reeled as a kick snapped against the back of her leg, buckling her leg. She didn’t feel the needle hit her vein.

<”I read you Colvy, the order. Is everyth-”>

Lyra thrusted up her servo as arms circled around her neck-there were two-no five troopers that circled her. The A.I highlighted the vibro knife in one of their hands. Her boots kicked at the road and debris as she was hauled back in a headlock-if not for the armor she’d choke. Lyra swung her leg out, the rank was a mess-

<”Disengage! Disengage you idiots!”>

<”Nima they’re fucking turning on me! If-”> Lyra said, raising her arms as she turned. Another gauntlet cracked across her face plate and Lyra hit the pavement; her armor scraped across the road. The taste of the tibanna on the air as light filtered it’s way through the shattered screen. Every hour she had invested in each Company of soldiers-

<”Stand down! Fuck-gun them down!>

A shadow descended over her and her vision darkened as a boot cracked across the side of her helmet, Lyra rolled over once-pain radiated through her skull. Shots echoed down the city block and her vision waned, the repulsors from the tank line blurred and all she saw was cerulean. These troopers were due their retribution though, she just despised how they lifted their barrels toward her. Loyalty was nothing but a fallacy.

<”Nima-my boys! Avernus is here, I am going after him-if something happens you protect them,”> Lyra screeched, copper on her tongue. Her gauntlet reached up to rip at the helmet; shards of the screen cutting into her face. A contingency, if in case she didn’t.. She could make out the effort of the majority, trying to organize and divide the dissenters. The Commander groaned, pain stretched across her body and she wasn’t keen to move-her visage tender and already swelled.

<”Archer-actual tighten up the rank-we have situation-”>

<”Two cloaks confirmed in the sector, redirect teams to rear-”>

They hadn’t waged this war for anything less, but no one would understand in one breath. Lyra had chosen efficiency but she was lost somewhere in the intricacies-she’d never be a Sith. With one hand she slowly wrenched off the helmet, head slumped-the road digging into her temple. The echo of the siege magnified as she shoved the helmet away, one of these fuckers-hands caught under her arms and Lyra cracked open her eyes-blinded by the day as she was dragged across the road, armor catching on chunks of debris until she was pulled off the roadside. The shadow of a trooper loomed over her and Lyra spat a wad of blood, shielding herself with her servo. She didn’t want to contemplate that a handful of troopers had just been executed on the street.

“You son of a whore-”

“Ma’am! Ma’am please calm down!” the trooper answered, hands sprawled up and palms out as Lyra stared.

“Commander! They’re dead-you’re good!”

“Arroyo-” Lyra bellowed, narrowing her eyes as she searched blurrily-she knew that voice. The dark visor of the leftenant overwhelmed her-he was moving and it was more then she had expected, “-help me up! Redirect the next tank now!”

“What-why the tank-” the zabrak questioned, an edge to his words. Finally able get a good look at the soldier-his his arm hung limply at his side, crushed. His helmet tilted to check over his shoulder, gun fire sounded on top of them.“-squad cover us! We’re moving up the sector now!”

“Fucking aim for the whore-son. I want him fucking dead now!” Lyra shouted, he was slippery and she’d be damned if he made it out now. There was a muffle voice as he relayed the orders as the Medic stooped down and helped haul her up. Planting a heavy servo on the Medic's shoulder, she pointed to the Lieutenant, snapping her fingers. She kept her promises, if not for all the chaos her Master had sown, the madness he dredged from her-for her children. He’d never lay a hand on them, though she owed him a thanks. He had gifted her the Force. Arroyo hefted up a pistol in hand, shadowing her right and Lyra scoffed. The nervous shift of the soldiers around her, the unease hung in the air as she stepped past the bodies.

The command squad fanned around them, the scrap had been broken up in a matter of minutes and Lyra glanced down the grey street with a fever-searching for her Master. Her eyes landing back on the Sith Lord himself, fingers brushing the last override on her vambrace, injecting her final stimulate. Her lip curled back in a sneer and Lyra took a handful of steps forward, out of the black smoke that hung low on the roadway and gauged the distance between them. The hatch screeched open on the rear tank and Lyra hailed down the commander-A steady click as the main cannon adjusted down the sights on the roadway. The repuslors dimmed as energy was siphoned into the powerwell, the squads on the road reorganized, barrels drawn on the Sith Lord himself.

“Master, good to see you!” Lyra shouted down the street before the tank fired. She sounded nigh out of breath-her shoulders rose erratically, the edge of her voice bordered mad as she tossed up her good hand- “say hello to all my closest friends and their tanks! Also! Do me a favor-”

​

 

[Tyrell Paxxus]

// GRAND VIZIER FLAGSHIP: THE SENTINEL //
// COMMAND-DISTANCE FROM THE BATTLE OVER BASTION //
// Madelyn Lowe //
// 5 Minutes Alone //

​

Tyrell could feel it. He hadn't heard the order himself, but that familiar untamed clairvoyance in the back of his mind told him all he needed to know: Operation Kyber Dark had commenced. It was an inordinately cruel directive, but it paled in comparison to the generations of Sith cruelty the galaxy had been subjected to. It needed to be done, it was far beyond a strong-armed statement or a rash act of vengeance, it was necessary. It was a strange feeling, know that if all those years ago he hadn't of rejected the dark code of the sith, that he would likely be on the other side of this purge.

"I'm sure you'll find these accommodations adequately more comfortable than your previous," came his delayed retort, sporting a grin of his own. Although his expression was flat and unconvincing through the weight of his tired visage. Cane was discarded to a lean against the side of the table, and with the same motion, a wave of his hand dismissed the marine escort that brought them to the near-vacant chamber. White-clad troopers disappeared behind the hiss of turbolift doors, sent of by the distant droning of the lowering mechanism.

A leisurely stride brought him to the farthest corner of the chamber where a small tray was suspended from a brace in the wall. Atop the metallic surface lay a tall glass cylinder, from where golden brown liquid would be poured into two much smaller receptacles. Approaching the table, he sat one of them towards the center of the table and gave it a gentle slide before the Sith-Imperial Moff. Keeping his own in his left hand, he reached beneath the edge to produce a small remote device.

"Mind your eyes, Moff Lowe. You've been in the dark for some time," he cautioned before hitting a large button which caused the device to beep. A mechanical grinding echoed through the chamber as the wall opposite of Madelyn slid apart as shudders came away from floor-to-ceiling glasteel viewports. The bright light of Bastion's sun gleaming from just beyond the curvature flooded into the otherwise dim chamber. Accentuating this were the sudden flashes of explosion and turbolaser fire of the spaceborne carnage that raged just above the planet.

"For a long time, I had my doubts that we would ever make it this far," Tyrell began after a quick sip of the alcohol. "But now, here were are: Bastion. I must admit, it is rather difficult not to be smug about this, but please don't misread my showing you this as some self-congrulatory power-move." A few steps out from the table preceded another click and beep on the device. This time, holoprojections of Kyber Dark's carnage began to flood in rectangular displays over the glasteel viewport, leaving only a thin horizontal slit across the window for viewing of Bastion.

"I assure you- it's much more than that."