Do As I Command

[Darth Caedes]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"];
Outer Rim;
Hoth.

It was because Nejaa feared her that he was here, he decided. For reasons he couldn't articulate, Nejaa had come to wipe clean that very fear. Matsu Xiangu had to die, she had to fall to his blade and no one else's. For years Nejaa had been haunted by visions he couldn't shut his eyes from, lit afire in the nightmares of that witches touch. The darkness had laughed at him, shown him its fangs, but the light was no longer an option. If he was to live any further, he would destroy that which made him shake cower most. Blood stained the snow in thick pools, visibly steaming against the sheer cold of Hoth's twilight. Behind Nejaa, swollen neck wrapped in a tangle of metallic wires, was a corpse. A jedi, bloodstained body held half way aloft in Nejaa's grasp, dragging there behind him and marking a trail with its crimson innards. Even as armed men spun out of shielded encampments or bunkered hallways he advanced, guns dropping as their necks snapped and heads spun round on their axis, grinding in clicks. Soldiers, the grunts, nothings, so he treated them as such. Clear the way lest you become the road upon which I walk. Some it seemed weren't lucky enough to receive such an efficient ending, gaping holes staring out of opened chest cavities, arms and legs hanging unnaturally from otherwise severed hosts. The planet's natural silence would be stained with the shout's of many last words tonight. Matsu, he screamed into the force, death now stares you in the face. Feverishly uniformed bodies began to stack up in piles around entrances, their shots deflected back at them in order to relieve entire sides of the face. Who he killed, the location of the slaughter, it didn't matter to him. He didn't check to see if the enemy was human or yuuzhan vong, only if they stood against him or in his way. No unconnected entity concerned him, Nejaa heard through the whispers of the force.

Remove the filth, Nejaa...​

Remove the filth and cleanse this place...​

Make this the last time, Nejaa...​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Matsu…

From that distance it had been little more than a whisper. But it had woken her, a pair of eyes glistening in the light of stars outside the windows of her ship’s sleeping quarters.

...death now stares you in the face.

And so it did in the form of some vast expanse of snow and ice, holding out silent and freezing arms. She could hear his voice as the cracking of sea-ice and she some deep-water beast recognizing the lurch from miles below. It stirred her from the dark, from the quiet of her preparation. It was a sound she’d not heard in years - she might have thought him dead, had she not been sure she would have felt it.

Hoth stood in contested space, held in check by no major or minor group though it rested just outside the Galactic Alliance’s sphere of influence. However there were hold-outs here, the GA’s bid to protect whatever resources hid beneath the icy surface of the planet until they were either driven off or could devote more time, perhaps. Either way it mattered little to Matsu. What mattered was finding whomever had ripped half of them to shreds.

She shivered in ecstasy as she walked by men and women half-frozen in blankets of their own innards, some still reaching for her as a savior. (Not me. Never me.) Nearly choking on the wave of emotions pulsing off him, she stopped in the center of the snowy room.

“Did you do this?” she called, a telepathic burst. She’d gotten even more adept at communicating using only the mind since the last time she’d seen him. Her injuries, hidden for the time being under a black half-mask, had necessitated that. “It’s beautiful…”

[member="Nejaa Niynx"]​

 

[Darth Caedes]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"];
Outer Rim;
Hoth.

Nejaa could feel the sweat begin to bead upon his brow, the grind of clenched teeth pushing and pulling against one another. That cold dread filled the air, far more lethal than any Hoth weather. Matsu was here, Matsu was close, Matsu was coming. Lights flickered from their shattered bulbs, wires like veins hanging from the mechanical outlets and panels along walls. The living weren't the only thing to fear Nejaa, anything could undergo destruction, and so anything could fall before that tangled wrath. He could hear her retorts, feel the pleasure of power emanating from Matsu's feral presence in the force. His own attempts to convey terror seemed insignificant in comparison, for while he used fear as a weapon, she embodied it personally. When last they had come together all of Coruscant shook under the crushing power of two titans, the force screeching to keep up with those who used it. Pain had caused no damage to the woman, oppression had no effect, she relished in it. Devoured it, and grew more powerful afterwards. There had been no grand plan, no cleverly thought out strategy. Where once Nejaa might have schemed to cover weakness, he now stood barren, without expectation, naked before her ultimate influence. Already, he could feel necromantic energies yanking at his mind, haunting him, communicating in far more refined a manner than he. Did you do this, they whispered to him, it's beautiful. Nejaa's lip broke composure, trembling under the weight of suspense. Shakily, he withdrew the red blade, casting it forth from its sleek grip and letting it hum dangerously close to the festering snow. Steam hissed in crackling bolts as he spoke, obscuring the echoed scream as it bounced through deserted tunnels. "I know you're there, Matsu," Nejaa shouted, "show yourself, slithering sith." Even as his voice drew to a close, Nejaa could hear the crunch of snow underfoot, the approach of a predator. Leveling his blade towards the nearest entrance, Nejaa stepped further back, dragging the corpse with him so that it's neck bent horribly, dead eyes staring upward to reveal Torin Varik's pale face. The human male who had once studied under Nejaa as an apprentice, Torin had already begun to suffer from apparent rigor mortis, deep cuts and gashes lining what was visible of his skin under shredded clothing. Although he had been the only one living, he hadn't come alone.

Remove her, Nejaa...
Kill her and remove her forever...
Stomp her out, Nejaa, stomp her out and be done with it...

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Although almost every creature in her immediate vicinity would have served quite nicely for reanimation, she would give none the honor of seeing Nejaa before she did. Her passion for that particular Clawdite was hard even for her to explain to herself. She craved the maelstrom that pressed just underneath his skin. Whatever he felt now was nearly incomprehensible - she’d never known anything quite like it, not even Out There. Closing her eyes for a moment, she tilted her head and drew a deep breath of metallic air.

If only he’d allow himself, he could be magnificent. She could taste the men’s last thoughts as Nejaa had made his presence known, replayed memories on dying neural networks of those fresh corpses.

Perhaps it was simply that they’d clashed so many times, and in all of them he’d managed to survive. Was that not Suffering? And if her learning was true - and it was - that made him closer to God than man. Like her. Just like her.

I know you’re there Matsu. Show yourself, slithering sith.

She did not respond. But she followed.

The grinding snap of his blade echoed off hollow tunnels, those who’d managed to flee the far reaches of the base with the blessing of forewarning leaving the two powers to themselves. For a moment she imagined herself the last creature on earth, there in a solitude broken only by the crunch of her footsteps and the constant, menacing done of his weapon. Everything was blue, reflecting in prisms off dark ice - an amalgam of her own place deep under the sea and the mountains she craved so desperately. Oh, she might have stayed there forever had she not rounded a corner to greet the hellish glow of a blade burnishing the ice all around the passage he’d backed in to.

When she rounded, she saw him first. (eyes i dare not meet in dreams, more distant and solemn than a fading star) Dread poured off him as a weapon, and had she not been so accustomed she may have wilted under its weight.

But then she looked down.

With only half a face to communicate that which was unspoken, she’d taken to - almost unconsciously - letting her feelings pulse from her. Arousal, powerful and unmistakable, changed her dark interest entirely. A laugh rolled over the mental wave she cast to communicate, rich and low and tempting.

“Oh Nejaa…” She paused, stifling something indecent as the stiff bones in Torin’s neck cracked in the hush of the snow. “What have you done?”

[member="Nejaa Niynx"]​

 

[Darth Caedes]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"];
Outer Rim;
Hoth.

The moment at which Matsu became visible, for that single second, every ounce of mental bolstering Nejaa had forced upon himself quaked and fell. Composure felt like being drown in the waves of a high tide, the force swelling and thunder-clapping back down around him. Had the saber's blade not hummed under his falterings, the flinch might have gone unnoticed. Anger, explosive, hot anger erupted from within him, how dare she break him so easily, how dare she spit on everything he'd built himself into. Who was she, able to to peer through him so easily, staring down on a power which eclipsed the other masters. Nejaa began tugging on the wires which coiled round the corpse's neck, straining to lift the dead weight, then throwing Torin before the snake of a woman. Instantly his blade raised again, assuring her that he meant nothing friendly by the show of sacrilege, slit, hateful eyes glaring with feral caution. "You look even worse, witch," Nejaa spat, immediately regretting the petty nature of his first words. So, as if to affirm his strength, Nejaa snarled and advanced toward her, closing the distance until his blade was more an urgent threat than before. Of course, Nejaa understood that the silly weapon would amount to little in the desperate exchange of powers. Even so, it felt natural there, angled toward that mouthless, burnt and masked face. "In our last meetings," Nejaa hissed in accented basic over his blade "I was undone by this." Off handedly, he gestured to the padawan, Torin's bloated face purple from repeated beatings; a purple which matched the bruising along Nejaa's knuckles and the length of his fingers. "I've... I've made myself immune to you, creature." But he didn't believe it. Would he ever? "You," Nejaa shouted this time, pressing fingers against his temples.

"You're nothing to me now."

To hell with speaking, to do so was only to give away his power. She couldn't respond with words anyhow, to ramble only made him the fool. Only inspired her to respond with that shrill force, Matsu's voice, living in the constant screech of fingernails against rough steel. No, enough, kill her. Reaching up with fist and force both, Nejaa grabbed hold of the ice, the structure itself, the mountain, and pulled. Sweat instantly drooled from his pores, veins lining his reddening neck, but the ice cracked. Deep, low tones of thick, old ice shattering from within. He relished in the power, ultimate strength, shrieking with his entire presence, howling into the force. You have no power over me, you have no power over me! Become nothing, taste blood, choke on blood. Ice began to fall in chunks larger than either Matsu or Nejaa, crashing down from the ceiling, falling free from the walls. Pressurized bursts began to detonate far off, batting the floor into a broken crust, sparking walls falling in under their own weight. Alarms sounding, only to end abruptly and unnaturally under the collapse. And still the force poured from him, the smooth skin of a human bubbling and festering into his natural, unaltered appearance. Burnt, grey, melted skin, yellow-oversized eyes with molten-moving centers and thin, scarred lips. He would crush her like the spider she was, stepping back whilst arcing his blade in guarded taunts. Come, I beckon you into the mountain, come inside the mountain. Follow me, filth. Follow me and learn my lesson.

Good, boy, gooood...
Allow power to consume you, Nejaa...
Move with the power, feed from the power, let it sustain you Nejaa...

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

When he tossed Torin at her feet like so much refuse, she squatted down, cradling the corpse’s head in her metal hands. It was soft - past the point of rigor mortis, so he’d been dead for at least a day or two. She no longer had the use of her voice and therefore the ability for her to curse another was lost, but every spell and deadly incantation she knew could be performed unspoken. She was already working when Nejaa brought himself together to unleash something incredible.

For a moment she felt distinctly upside-down, a creature underneath a searching maw digging in to a place she’d thought wholly free of its prying insistence. The mountain opened up above her in one giant yawn, Nejaa suddenly a walking tectonic plate as the earth shifted.

Torin’s eyes snapped open, a magenta-red that glowed with the sheen of ice coming down around them.

The ice pulled apart at random intervals, snow-mist swirling in the air and stinging her face. The earth rumbled beneath her feet as chunks of rock fell from their prison beneath feet of ice. Looking up, she saw it fall away in something of a tunnel. Releasing Torin to his own devices, she leapt for the lip of the opening, crawling through it until she’d reached its other side. Losing her mouth had made her exceedingly sensitive to unspoken communication - something like a scanner constantly searching the holonet waves, gathering information passively. She could hardly avoid the storm of thoughts in Nejaa’s mind. Whatever it was that started between them and made them continue to clash across more than one world drew to a head right beyond the mouth of the tunnel in the ceiling. She could hear something behind her and turned her head to see Torin’s eyes glowing silently in the dark. If she could have, she would have smiled.

In the way that the rogue below exuded immeasurable power, Matsu pumped out a wave of raw fear before slowly crawling from the lip of the tunnel - one limb at a time (lactrodectus elegans; long pointed leg appearing at the dark corner of her web). One, two, three, four, she skimmed along the ceiling, twisting her neck to look at him.

“Was it so simple?”

His true form was a thing to behold, and she imagined him in a battle that was with her and not against her.

“You blame Torin, but he did not make you weaker or protect you.”

Torin dropped from the ceiling, gathering dead limbs beneath him and rising with a horrid snapping of bones that hadn’t thought to see use ever again.

“Though I suppose some things are more useful dead.”

The snow puffed up around her boots as she dropped to the floor, the ice reflecting the hellish light of her saber as it ignited at her side. Snow hissed as she spun it over in her palm, rolling her shoulders in anticipation.

“You could use that energy trying to kill me Nejaa. But I can hear those voices in your head. You’ve gone too far. You’ve murdered someone good, someone pure. You’re no Jedi. So what does that make you?”

Combat with a lightsaber was not her speciality, was she was almost begging to feel the sting of his power as she threw herself forward, a telekinetic blast ricocheting from one hand towards his feet as she swung her saber in the other. Hopefully the combination would give her the upper hand but even if it didn’t any wound he opened would be sweet.

One step closer to me Nejaa.
Come be with me.
Please.

[member="Nejaa Niynx"]​

 

[Darth Caedes]

[member="Matsu Xiangu"];
Outer Rim;
Hoth.

The second blade crackled as it shot forth, vein lined and burnt hands wrapping their marred fingers around the familiar grip. Red, stretching almost until it hissed against the snow, loosing an aura of steamed glow. And the world fell apart around him. To Nejaa, even staring back into Torin's lifeless eyes, the way in which he, it, that thing's body snapped upon attempting movement, it was all easier than hearing Matsu's shriek of force. Ear splitting even when his ears couldn't hear it. Numbing, even when it stung like snake bites. When she spoke, everything spoke, all of them, all at once. Like one thousand combined wills echoing in his mind, refracting off of one another to tear apart Nejaa's own, unique consciousness. It had always been these which fueled his doubt, pumped his fear. Or these which breathed life into putrid fits of anger. And it was these who had given him such power.

"I'm no Jedi," Nejaa said through a cloud of visible breath.

As if to meet Nejaa in his remark the cave shook for a final moment, spear-like stalactites cleaving holes in the ground around him, catching the crimson glare of Nejaa's final lightsaber and cascading the color over him in a fitful dance of reflections. His and Torin's eyes met once more before Nejaa attacked. With a heavy step and the rhythmic swinging of an arm, Nejaa jerked, then propelled one of the fallen spears of ice toward Matsu, a second aimed for Torin's corpse. And in that same moment, Matsu struck out. First with the force, Nejaa watched his improvised weapon shatter like glass as the witch sabotaged its inner structural integrity, breaking it as she would a small twig. A second later Nejaa was spinning in the air, his blades generating an odd, multicolored blender in the air around him. Years of acrobatic devotion and the augmentation of force sensitivity allowed Nejaa to defy average laws of physics, for the force's power bowed to nothing else. Blade met blade, that squelching, almost molten wooping press of force, his against hers. Fire burnt through Nejaa's veins and he attacked again, sharing the burden between both blades and lashing out with the second, sending red to coil against red. The walls reverberated and trembled with each of Nejaa's attacks, cracking in complaint against the sheer pressure he gave off. Stepping across himself and pressing forward, Nejaa attacked furthermore, each strike made with the intent to slay. Fire sparked in an aesthetic bloom of explosions on his third, sidelong slash, and the forth brought with it a hyper jet of white hot flame, threatening to liquify that which it touched; be it skin, ice, or otherwise. The belch of sizzling ice kicked up long tendrils of thick fog, the landscape groaning under Nejaa's black hearted hatred. So he howled along with it, an inaudible curse through the far deeper, dual toned vocal cords of his natural form, a wraith like smokescreen of voices screaming and clawing from underneath it. Two pairs of feet staggered in the snow, kicking up the clumps, two bodies pushed and pulled against one another, Nejaa's aggression tempered only by Matsu's own careful mastery.

"In no form could that Padawan defeat me, Witch. You will not draw use from him here."




Remove her, Remove her now, Nejaa...
Get her away from here, End her suffering...
Stop the pain, Nejaa, protect yourself from the pain...