She never actually
spoke, not physically. That was what The Mongrel found most eerie about her. Each graceful eyebrow raise or smile ghosting around her lips figuratively spoke
volumes, even without her telepathy to accompany them, but no words came forth except in his head. Clearly this one relied heavily on her magic, to the point that it had replaced ordinary functions... though the calmness and even
humor she projected in his direction were all her own, speaking to a strong will. She had no fear in the face of his bloodlust, and that told him much about her.
As The Mongrel had predicted, he did not decapitate the Jedi with a single strike. Her laser sword emerged suddenly from her sleeve, its brilliant blade causing his visor to automatically dim his vision in order to protect his eyes. The gloom shrank back from her, this beacon of literal and figurative light, and his dark crimson sword could not overcome that light either. The weapons clashed, spitting sparks that sizzled against his heavy leatheris jerkin. For a moment it seemed that his superior strength would push through her guard... but that was when she put her agility to use.
Ducking under the dread blade, she redirected it over her head; the corridor was filled with a deafening, nails-on-a-chalkboard
screeeech as the weapon tore a long furrow in the dark stone wall. Of course, that put her face almost level with the gas grenade he held.
Go on, he thought, smirking behind his mask,
get a good, long whiff. Because that was what you did to womp rats: you gassed them in their burrows, exterminating the little pests. The last two Jedi he'd tried this on - well, a Jedi and an Imperial Knight - had quickly countered it, but maybe the third time was the charm.
That was when her invisible fist slammed into his solar plexus, doubling him over and throwing him across the hallway. The Mongrel growled in pain and frustration, the sound made monstrous by the metallic distortion of his mask, as he flew away from his foe. He had been tossed around by Jedi before, and knew it was a possibility, but he had been able to find no defense against such magics. There was only one blessing about the situation: the angle of the push. He'd been thrown back down the corridor, rather than into one of the walls. Because if he'd hit the wall this hard...
His rib cage was durasteel, but most of his skull was not.
Because he'd had experience being telekinetically manhandled, The Mongrel knew better than to try to fight his momentum. Instead he let the invisible blow carry him, not thrashing to change his direction but calmly taking note of it. He flipped over in midair and slammed his dread blade downward, piercing the stone floor of the corridor with another earsplitting
shriek. Dropping the gas grenade, which continued to billow a cloud of anesthetic into the hallway, he grabbed the hilt with both hands, using his weapon as an impromptu brake before he was thrown too far from his foe.
"Afraid you can't match me blade to blade, Jedi?" He asked, pulling the blade from the stone and standing back to his full height.
"No matter. I have other ways to kill you." Holding his energy sword one-handed, he reached down and drew
the big iron on his hip. It was a recent acquisition, taken from a foolish bounty hunter who had tried to interfere in a Mawite raid. Now
that had been a good fight, technology against technology and skill against skill, no magic tricks. And he'd gotten a good trophy out of it. Trophies he could kill with were his favorite kind.
The Mongrel liked the heavy, armor-piercing kick of the gun... and its ability to load a variety of ammunition. The first shot he squeezed off was a flash-bang round, sending a burst of bright light and harsh sound ad the Jedi to disorient her. He'd used similar tactics in the past with directed energy weapons; Jedi were good at deflecting blaster bolts and slugthrower rounds, but their laser swords couldn't block stunning flashes or eardrum-shattering sound. Loading the flashbang into his gun was far more convenient than holding it in his hand or trying to lob it at a foe.
The next group of rounds he squeezed off, the revolver barking five times in rapid succession, were
Hel-class Bio Slugs... the kind of "bullets" he was astounded it was legal to sell in "civilized" space. Avatars bless Jaeger Solutions for openly selling mass-produced Jedi-killing weapons. These bullets were living things, bioengineered organisms based on Yuuzhan Vong technology. Somewhat self-guided thanks to their primitive, ravenous sentience, they streaked toward their target. Their grim intent: to latch on and burrow into the flesh of those they struck.
Their digestive acid dug through armor and flesh alike.
Of course, the living bullets
were projectiles, the kind of thing a skillful Jedi could intercept and disintegrate midair with a lightsaber and Force-enhanced reflexes. The Mongrel was counting on the anesthetic gas and the flashbang round to slow and disorient his foe, in the hopes that even one of the nasty little flesh-eaters could slip through her defenses. It was a new tactic for him, and untested... so he advanced as he fired, his cybernetic arms remaining perfectly steady and on-target despite the movement of his body. If this didn't work, it was back to the blade.
He would do whatever it took to defeat the Jedi.
Zoraya Ives-Ayres
Lyra Vent
Thurion Heavenshield
Sakadi Marathi Sinvala
Bendak Crail
Romund Sro
The Mongrel
Tegan Starfall
