Darth Vupua vs. Darth Abyss

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

A blood curdling scream emitted from Darth Vupua as she felt the effects of the mindeater drawing her deeper into the abyss. Memories that she often meditated on, so as to fuel her power in the dark side, was brought to bear before the Sith Lord. Other memories that she had once found joyful were also mixed and intertwined with her darker memories, each used to torture and torment her mind. She collapsed to her knees as she felt her mind beginning to cave in under the effects of the dark side, her body becoming weak.

Drawing on the power of the dark side, Darth Vupua drank in the dark side energies around her, drawing on her own emotions and the memories that were being used to torment her. Reaching out with a savage cry, Darth Vupua clenched her bloodied hand forward and tightened the Force Grip that she had erected around Darth Abyss. Tightening the invisible coil of that was her hand around Darth Abyss' body, Vupua aimed to break ribs, rupture internal organs and break the Sith Lords concentration before he overwhelmed her.

As the two concentrated, a test of will and power pitted against one another, Darth Vupua summoned her might through the telekinetic grip she had over Darth Abyss and lifted her extended arm upwards as her fist tightened the coil of the Force Grip. She aimed to lift Darth Abyss back into the air and then slam him head first into the same bloodied jagged rock she had used before, in one last savage attempt to kill her opponent or knock him out cold with the blow.

 

[Darth Abyss]

Abyss heard his rips break before the pain even reached his brain. Now that was one of the situations were even optimism wouldn't help him anymore. There was no angle to be gained from this, no new game to play for him. The fight that was taking place was raw and pure, even beyond a fight without weapons. Powers that aimed at the mind were his greatest talent, and from what he had seen form her he figured that hers was the art of telekinesis. Now tactics or skill meant nothing anymore, only the intensity with which the fire of passion within them burned could decide who would be victorious.

All of a sudden his head was banged against the same stone it had been before, and this time he could truly feel his mind fade into darkness. With a last cry for survival his mind rose for a second time, releasing a last attack at her mind. Chaos was no word, it was pure entropy that came with it, a state in which she wouldn't even know who she self was until it would place itself together again. At least if he would manage to break through again.

Memories flashed through his own head, chaotic and out of any order. Things that he has seen from his visions from the past, glimpses of minds he had stolen, mixed with the struggle that had been his live.

Five seconds later the burning yellow gaze of his eyes returned to the world of the living. His mind clouded by pain and confusion he searched desperately for something to hold on to, a emotion to keep that darkness that meant to consume him whole out of hid mind. Buried under the feeling of his broken rips, between the blood running down his head he found it, weak but yet still clearly there. The hunger was never truly gone.

He didn't even had the strength to get to his feet anymore, but this had gone to far to give up now. Fanatically he searched for his blade, which rested in the sand close to him. His right reached for it, as his left and his feet slowly began to drag his body through the desert and towards her.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Darth Vupua's bloodshot eyes watched as her opponent begun to crawl towards her, knife in hand and his intent clear. She nodded in appreciation of the Sith Lord's strengths. He possessed guile, cunning and deception. He understood the dark side well. The power that he was using to assault her had forced her to her knees. She had promised on the day that she had murdered her Sith Master and took her place that she would kneel for no man. But Darth Abyss, through his challenge on Korriban, had made her succumb to his powers, if only for a moment.

She had displayed her own cleverness through the use of Force Suppression, a neat trick she had learned during her seminal life as a Jedi Knight. But he had broken past her facade and had learned that he could still call upon the Force to assault his opponent. Darth Vupua's calculative mind sought through her options whilst her thoughts were distracted by the cracks that were appearing in her vision. She felt like her mind had been set on fire, a blazing inferno that threatened to cook her brains from the inside out. Her only source of relief at the moment was to scream into the Force itself, less she finally collapse and undoubtedly die to her opponents hand.

Vupua thought to use Force Stun, a technique that doused an opponents ability to use the Force for a small amount of time. Unlike Force Suppression, a Force Stun did sever someones connection to the Force for a small amount of time. But as she gathered her energy to use the technique, Vupua realized that she did not have the time to use the technique. Falling back onto the precaution she had taken at the beginning of the duel, Darth Vupua reached out with her powers to strengthen the Force Shield that surrounded her, raising her defences against her opponents unknown dark powers.

Realizing that this was only a stopgap and that her defeat was imminent, Darth Vupua rose to her feet and moved down the sandy dune she had been kneeling on down towards Darth Abyss with her Lightsaber drawn and activated. Through sheer guile, Abyss had prevented unconsciousness from taking him. He was a true Sith Lord, drawing on his emotions and the dark side to keep himself alive. He was a survivor. But knowing that defeat was imminent if she did not deal with Darth Abyss now, Vupua moved down to enact her vengeance through physical means.

When she was close enough to her opponent, Vupua reached out with a leg to pin the hand that held the Cortosis knife down and swung her Lightsaber towards his exposed back with a savage blow.

 

[Darth Abyss]

Abyss knew a stalemate when he saw one, even when the madness of battle took hold of him. Non of them would be ready to bow to the other, whatever would happen next. There was a higher chance that they would both end as corpses buried under the desert, between all those that had laid the path they were walking on. But there was one thing all true sith valued more than anything, even victory. Survival. Now he only had to make her also understand that it was either comprise or death. As a man without honor this was an easy step for Abyss to make, but he knew the sith to well to not calculate her ego into this equation. Only pain would make her understand.

In a last minute effort Abyss rolled to his right, pulling his hand away a second before her foot was able to glue it to the ground. While this allowed him to keep his knife ready, it still kept him in range of her falling blade which left a deep cut in his left shoulder. At the same time his right pushed forward, falling down on her left foot. His intention was to ram it through it completely, a wound that would be both disabling and painful.

The pain of his shoulder was stunning, almost making him pass out again in combination with the other wounds all over his body. Yet he forced himself to stay awake, at least long enough to make her see the truth. Superiority was a trap, a illusion many sith had fallen into through pride and arrogance, ansr he was not ready to pay the ultimate price for it. Pressing words out through his locked teeth, he tried to make his intentions clear.

"Either we both lose, or we survive. The choice is yours."

And it actually was. He had no smart way left to get out of this. If it came to the worst he would use each of his last breaths to beat the live out of her. At least there was hope that she would see reason, after all she was a lord of the sith as well.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Stepping with Abyss as he rolled away from her, Vupua avoided the counterattack to her foot by moving it out of the way just in time to avoid the blow. The hum of her Lightsaber hissed violently in the cold desert above her opponent as she looked down at him with the same fiery gaze she had given him when the duel had begun. She registered what Darth Abyss said and could only help but smile once again at her clever use of cunning.

"You have proven yourself to be a strong and powerful adversary, Lord Abyss," Vupua replied, as she held her Lightsaber down low in anticipation of another knife being thrown at her; the use of a blaster pistol; or some Force technique that she would ultimately try to block with her weapon. "You have pushed me in ways that I have not been pushed in beforehand, and I will leave Korriban stronger for it. However, you underestimate me if you believe that I am finished."

Tapping into her knowledge on the dark side, Darth Vupua reached out with her powers and used a technique that she had learned from the gatekeeper of Darth Revan's Sith Holocron. Force Drain, a powerful technique had been stored by the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith from the teachings of Zelashiel the Blasphemer, was now cast by Darth Vupua onto her opponent. She would suck the last visages of the dark side energies that surrounded the pair to empower herself, whilst at the same time, weakening her opponent enough to the point that he would realize that this contest would not end a stalemate.

 

[Darth Abyss]

"Well then our fate is settled."

She said that she had learned from this fight, yet it seemed like she had learned nothing at all. He had been able to keep up the battle without drawing from the force, and he would do so again if he had to. Victory was not a question of strength, but of will, a question of how far one was ready to fall to bring down an enemy. And Abyss had fallen deep already, not just in this fight but for his whole career as a sith.

There was a reason why Abyss earned himself the title of Black assassin, also called the aspect of famine. His branch of death was the one that sneaked up on his enemies, not only in the actual, but the metaphorical sense. Poison was a well liked tool of his, but there was something even more treacherous, more deranged.

With his last strength the sith lord pushed forward, using all he got to lift his body of the ground as much as he could. His left hand pressed forward, reaching for her belt to anchor himself onto her. At the same time his right feel down again, the blade again aimed at her left foot. At another time he would've left it at that, but now there was something even more cruel he had to do. With the movement of his body his opened mouth reached for the upper half of her left leg, trying to push his teeth as deep into her flesh as he could. Human bits were nasty wounds, filled with dangerous, infecting cells and viruses. A sith could easily burn away poison, but an infection was another story. It was a slow, painful death to suffer, and he hoped that in her current state it would be enough to make her either see reason, or at least retreat to clean or burn out her wound to give him time to come up with something else.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Whereas moments before when she had been weakened and fatigued by their duel, Darth Vupua felt rejuvenated as she drained away the dark side energies that surrounded herself and Darth Abyss. The power of the dark side now coursed through her muscles, providing strength. Through strength, I gain power, Vupua thought as her technique continued to drain not only the energies that surrounded them both, but Darth Abyss as well. As she felt the life force of her opponent being sapped into her, as [member="Darth Veles"] had once done to her, Darth Vupua imagined who Zelashiel the Blasphemer was and if they had felt the same way as she had done now.

Remaining true to her observations, Darth Abyss lunge forward with his guile to attack his opponent. She nodded again in appreciation of the mans strength. She felt the Cortosis blade meet her foot, sinking the blade deep past the soles of her boots and through the flesh, muscle and bone. Distracted by Abyss' lunge towards her other leg, Vupua had not reacted in time to dodge the second attempt to stab her, for her focus was to smash her knee into Abyss' jaw before the Sith Lord could sink his teeth into her thigh.

 

[Darth Abyss]

Bone and teeth shattered at the same time. A partly broken jaw was one of the few injuries that sith lord had not yet experienced, and in all honestly he could've continued his live happily without it. But survival and happiness rarely walked hand in hand, specially if someone chose the path of the sith. There was a reason why he as an acolyte once thought a sith lord and his apprentice after his right leg had been cut of. Obsession, no madness fueled him in time like this, and it was as much a blessing as it was curse. He would never give up, not because he didn't wanted to, but he because he simply couldn't.

Pushed back a step from her from the impact Abyss did the best he could to keep the pressure on the knife on her foot, meaning to use the momentum that her attack gave him to split her foot in two. Breathing heavily, blood all over his face, the sith lord rose to his knees once more. Looking at her with burning gaze of a man that was far beyond the edge. Another would probably have either surrounded or died by now, but here he was, his body in shambles, but his will still unbroken.

Staggering the man rose to his feet, the knife in his right held in a reversed grip, his jaw hanging down in an unnatural angle, and the mask on his face painted in the red of his own blood. In a fit of madness he released a cry, as he stumbled forward, the knife falling down towards her left shoulder.

"May the darkness swallow you whole."

Other than his cry, his words were cold, filled with the stoic, unending determination that was his will. There was no way this would end with only one of them death, not as long there was still air filling his lungs, not as long there was even a glimpse of live pumping through his veins.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Darth Vupua screamed once more, her throat ragged, raw and sore from the amount of times she had to release her pain, hate and fury throughout the duel through the roar every time Darth Abyss attacked. She staggered onto her good foot, her stance loop side as she found it difficult to remain upright on her foot. Lightsaber humming in the air, she held it in front of her defensively, her gripping slackening due to the blood that oozed out of her other hand and the pain she felt from holding it.

But she continued to draw on the pain that she felt coursing through her body, feeling the dark side flow through her with thanks to the technique she had learned from Darth Revan's gatekeeper. Drawing onto her powers with the Force, Darth Vupua launched her Lightsaber forward on a treachery that would smash Abyss in the chest. Guided by the power of the Force, the Saberthrow was thrown at power and speed designed to hit the Sith Lord before he knew what hit him.

The power of her throw made Vupua lose her footing and she collapsed into the cold sand, kneeling down the knee adjoined to her torn foot whilst trying to semi stand. She prepared to roll to either side to avoid any counter-attacks.

 

[Darth Abyss]

He wasn't just a second, but seconds to late to truly evade her saber. All he managed was to balance his stance out a bit to his left, the blade piercing right trough his shoulder. He felt his arm go numb, and he was unable to even lift it in any way at all. Still he pushed forward the knife in his right, his steps more stumbling than actually walking. Before he made it to her he could feel his knees become weak again, collapsing on the ground in a stance that mirrored hers. With his last strength he threw the knife at her as he fell, aiming at her abdomen, but in his current state precision was something he didn't possessed anymore. Again he forced himself to produce words, which sounded muffled, and barely understandable, his jaw sending an impulse of pain to his brain every time he forced it to move.

"Do not let your ego blind you, sister. We sith fight each other to determine who is strong enough to decide our legacy. If we both die, there will be no legacy left."

If they would kill each other, there would be no victory for either of of them. It would be the ultimate defeat of their order, no matter what rule they believed in. Equality was a lie in the large scale of things, but reduced to a fight of two true lords of the sith it was a rare but possible outcome. If she wouldn't see reason than they would both be lost, as he would even try to kill her with nothing left but the fist of his right. His right extended, not as an attack, but as an offer.

"Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead."

It was a famed quote by Revan, one that had influenced Abyss a lot in his live. Revan was a paragon for many sith, so he hoped that she would understand.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Rolling to the left, Vupua avoided the flung knife and turned her fiery gaze to where it had landed before averting her gaze from it back onto her opponent. Where the sand had been orange hours ago was now strewn in blood, thrown knives and blackened from where Darth Vupua's Force Lightning had been surged into her opponent. She heard her Lightsaber deactivating after it fell, it's hum disappearing and leaving only the cold breeze of Korriban to wash over their ragged, hard pants.

Lifting her sleeve to her brow, Vupua wiped the sweat along the sleeve of her robe before throwing it off and discarding it to the side. Exposing her left arm and the pommel of the Saberstaff that was sheathed along the top of her arm, Vupua looked to the hand that extended towards her. In that moment, Vupua witnessed her victory. She did not smile at it, for that would expose her. Instead, she grasped the hand in both of hers, intertwining her bloodied hand with the Sith Lords as she held it in an deceptive embrace.

"You are so right, Lord Abyss. Honor is a fool's prize. And if we do die here, then our legacies die with us." Surging Force Lightning through her palms and into Darth Abyss, Vupua looked him in the eyes as another torrent rippled through her finger tips and up along Abyss arm, conducting and coursing it's way through his body, making muscles spasm and lock together as the dark side forced her opponent to convulse beneath her attack.

 

[Darth Abyss]

His eyes locked onto hers, the yellow glowing with new found intensity. What she was doing was nothing new to him, he had done it countless times, and he had even thought about using it himself would her hand meet his. It was nearly impossible to speak through being electrocuted, but he still managed, his cramping hand pressing his nails into her hand. After all she had seen through his deceptions, but there was something she had not accounted for. She had cut him from the force for some time, and while he overexerted his body, he had been very careful with his use of the force, while she had drawn from it constantly. Her drain had pulled much of it out of him and it to her, but a sith always had power to call upon in a dieing breath.

"THEN A FOOLS PRICE IT IS."

And with that cry the sith released what he had at her, in the same for she was. A fit of blue lighting fueled by the kick of adrenalin that came with standing right at the edge of death. He had warned her, he had made an offer that would've allowed them to both walk away from this, but she seemed detriment to throw away her live for nothing. If death was meant to be than it would come, but as he had promised it wouldn't simply come for one of them. The yellow gaze rested on her, fueled by hate while his eyelids jumped up and down due to the electricity being pumped through his body.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Darth Vupua looked into the eyes of her desperate opponent and finally allowed the smile she had been withholding a moment ago coil around her face in a smug grin that told Abyss that she thought she had won. As Force Lightning wormed it's way through her hands and into her opponent, tearing skin from flesh, flesh from bone and rupturing internal organs, Darth Vupua felt the torrent of energy released by Abyss back through the grip that the two shared.

In that moment, the torrent of Force Lightning that Darth Abyss charged back at her met the invisible dome of Darth Vupua's Force Shield. As the blue streaks of lightning impacted the Force Shield that Darth Vupua wore, the Sith Lord continued her assault on Abyss until he finally caved in.

 

[Darth Abyss]

There was no logical explanation for him to still kneel before her, death should have found him by now, but the yellow gaze of his eyes stayed locked onto her, the fire in them not fading for a second. It was not that he couldn't die, but he simply refused to. The energy from his hand had not faded, there was nothing that would make him bow. He had accepted that this could be his end, but not as long she would walk away from this. Hate had kept others on the brink of live before him, the unnatural power of the dark side pumping through their veins. He vividly remembered the vision of Darth Sion he had when he had been named Darth by his master, when the undead sith lord had taunted him with his empty eyes, doomed him that one day he would become like him, would his obsession stay unbroken.

No one could operate the power of lighting forever, especially not while also needing focus for a force shield, and that was what he counted on. She had decided that she would kill him, so he had decided that he would do the same. They would share fate in live or in death, and that was the one truth that kept him from simply dropping down on the ground, that kept him from letting his live fade away.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Feeling that her Force Shield was about to fade under the intense powers of the dark side, Darth Vupua emitted a Force Push towards Darth Abyss to break the connection that the two shared. As she knelt there in the sand, with blue streaks of Force Lightning coursing around the invisible dome of her Force Shield before eventually dissipating into the sand around them.

Watching Darth Abyss, Vupua was perplexed at how her opponent was still alive. This ability to survive was built out of a determination that even she could not understand, but she sensed that there was something else at work here. "How are you still alive?" Vupua asked through gritted teeth.

 

[Darth Abyss]

Abyss rolled over the sand, barley able to move his body at all. Smoke was rising from all over his body, as he pushed himself up on his knees with his right, needing both of his feet and his still working arm to even get of the ground. Lifting his head slightly to look at her, he pressed words out of his teeth:

"Mind over matter."

The picture of him crawling through the sand was that of a broken man, but she would clearly be to feel the energy that pumped through his veins. He was not Darth Sion, he wouldn't die and rise again, but like Darth Maul, Krayt and many others before him he wouldn't allow death to take him, not as long there was still a thought in his head. His state wasn't really alive, it was only the power of the dark side that even allowed his body to move, it was the pure hate he felt in this moment.

"When you refused my offer, I made a decision. Whatever fate was meant for me, you will share it."

He clearly had no way of beating her, but at this pint he would've continued to fight even without any limp left. All he wanted her to do was to either accept their shared death, or see that no one would win today.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Summoning her strength to lift her up to her feet, Darth Vupua stood on her good leg whilst the other hung limp beside her. She looked down at the man, respecting his strength and power, but hating him for her own inability to finish the duel in a complete victory. It was evidence of her own weakness that she was stalemated with such an individual. She had come to Korriban to kill him, or use him for own her means, but she was now being forced to leave without either.

A cloud of pointlessness now hung over Vupua as she gazed down at her opponent. She knew what Darth Abyss spoke of. During their duel, she too had fed and drank in the power of the dark side, using her own pain and that of her opponent, among other emotions, to continue fighting. But Darth Abyss had displayed use of this ability beyond her own. Was he more of a survivor than her?

"No doubt we will fight again one day, Darth Abyss. And I will kill you on that day. But you have displayed that you can be useful to me, if I decide to spare you today." As Vupua stood there, she did not long to end the pain she felt, but instead drunk it in, using it to make her stronger. "It has become obvious to me that we are evenly matched, however much it disgusts me to admit it. Until the day comes that we challenge each other again, I propose that we join forces for the moment. Through strength, we gain power and it is obvious to me that you are strong."

Putting aside her lust to kill him, Vupua's calculative and cunning mind created a proposal that was mutually beneficial for them both. Through this contest, Vupua could see the use that she had for Abyss, but as she contemplated his use, she wondered if he saw the same way that she did.

 

[Darth Abyss]

"I will count the days. Yet other than you it does not pain me to admit that we are equals for now. It does simply mean that fate has not made a decision about us."

Abyss spit the words out, followed by a good amount of blood, still kneeling on the ground and unable to stand or even get in another more graceful position. His hate remained, and it had to if he intended to stay alive until someone would come by to pick him up. It was his luck that he had both the money and the resources to let his body heal, even if it would take a fair amount of time, and would only work if wouldn't make his last breath beforehand.

There was a obvious provocation in her words, as she used to word spare, but he gave her no answer on it. He knew well enough that she had understood that she would've needed matters beyond her, at least in her also weakeand state, to drain the last bit of live out of him. It was good that not everyone was as well versed in sith history than he was, or she might would've remembered why Darth Sion died his final death. Not blades and pain had been his end, but words, aimed at the hate that kept him alive. That would've been the one thing that would allow her to kill him, but finally she had seen reason.

"But you speak the truth, not just for us, but for the whole galaxy. The darkness has begun to rise on the horizon once more, and those who serve it with their full determination will be needed to distinguish the light."

He wasn't to keen to work with someone who did her best to kill him, but that was the way of the sith. A true sith had almost no friends, and if any they were certainly no sith.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Abyss"] |

Reaching out with the Force, Darth Vupua summoned her Lightsaber back to her and caught it in other hand. She allowed her arms to fall her side, as her arms glistened with sweat, authenticating the tattoos that lined her body in arcane markings. "How will I be able to find you? We need a place to meet and discuss our future endeavors if we are to part this valley with a mutual pact established."

 

[Darth Abyss]

A broken laugh emerged from his lungs, his head hanging low. Where to find him? It was a question he neither would or could truthfully answer. He simply existed in the shadows, hidden in the darkest corners of the galaxy unseen until he decided to make his move. Only very few were allowed to know the position of his hideouts, and she was certainly not one of the. The one thing he would give her was a way to contact him, but one that wouldn't lead directly to him.

"Nowhere and everywhere. If you need to contact me then dissolve into the underworld of Nar Shaddaa. Search the children of Korriban."

The children were his own personal cult, but while they saw him as their prophet, no one of them knew more about him but his mask. Yet if she would contact them they would pass on a message, which would take a long, complex way to end in his hands in the end of the day.

[member="Avedia Lacroix"]