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So many dead crew and bridge officers - while glorified managers - were a hindrance. It would certainly impact the efficiency of top-down command with a skeleton operation on the command deck. Kesyk would have to rely on the competency of substation commanders and the independent order of every subgroup across the Tyranny.
Broken consoles sparked. The dying but not yet dead moaned and stirred, last desperate gasps. A bridge in shambles, its vessel ripe for the guns of the faithful Mandalorians. Like a damaged nervous system that still responded, but slowly.
Too slowly.
Does a captain go down with their ship?
Kade's attention had no time to spare for such matters, fixated upon the single line opened upon the face of the Thing.
A mere fleshwound, paltry and insignificant save that it sent a message and focused their attentions upon a new task. Kade's hand was halted, bound up against the will of the being in the glittering armor with the hole through its chest, who still stood upright. No being of flesh and blood this one.
The fingers of his remaining hand curled so tightly around the beskad's hilt that he thought they might pop. Kade's lips pulled back in a snarl beneath the helmet. They could not even bear to afford him the attention his presence demanded, casting it off upon another. But he had known this. Known how the sting of humiliation would feel as they pretended to ignore him. A worthless adversary.
That did not lessen his fury.
He swung his shattered hand in a futile gesture, blood spattering out and onto those gathered unless they moved.
Stories often grow in the telling, but this one hadn't been told yet. The fact of the matter was that it was only one fussy, gold-plated Sith Lord with any interest in killing this fellow. Two had their love puddle, and the Vice-Admiral had the helm.These things… You know the rest.
"Do you think I'm done with you?"There would come a great yank, and the warlock - if he were unprepared for such a thing - would be pulled from his feet and dragged along the floor of the bridge (slick with viscera) back to Meliant.
The yank jerked the Mandalorian stumbling backward, but affixed himself in place with the Force, rooting it through his feet until he stood fast. If the swordmaster wanted him dead, he would have had to come do it right there and then.
Right beside the chanting Sith, who even now Kade felt widening the nether portal. He took another shuddering breath as he felt the weight of all that power rushing through the bridge.
Now, as foretold, not merely the weight of one will, but that of many seeking to suborn the natural order and bend it to their awe. It was this which Kade had come to contend with, not the swordmaster.
"Together we can do it," he murmured up at her. "If we work together, we can rip it open even wider. That one already created a path, we can take advantage of it... and give her entry."
The array painted on the wall originally meant to undo and counter the Spirit-Speakers of the Mandalorians and shut down one of their avenues of attack had but one glyph yet to be set. Rather than to weaken, the last sigil painted would strengthen the rift to suit Cruelty's plan.
It tore like fabric beneath their combined will, wider and wider with fraying edges, and so did the rift between her body and her soul as Lina became two.
The miasma of energy rushing through the bridge at this moment was something beyond comprehension, a collection of sheer, raw power that sought to rend the fabric of reality. So much concentration. So much effort expended.
And all for one single purpose.
"Go on, bring out your Dark Messiah."
Kade hurled down his beskad and pulled out a detonator from his waist. Then he closed his eyes and gave himself over completely to the pull of the Force. To a sense of oneness. To a loss of self.
"I am awaited."
He pushed the detonator.
The 30 kilogram baradium bomb in his backpack capable of obliterating the entire bridge exploded.
The Whispering Matron and the Kar'ta Kelborn crashed into each other with a tremendous explosion, despite Zavar Kelborn
's best efforts to manage the fiery debris heading his way. The two ships carved a deep trench through their hulls, with sparks and molten metal erupting from the bows upon impact. Gaping holes appeared, large enough for a man or war droid to squeeze through, as boarding pods were launched in every direction.
Raukai stood on the quaking bridge, one gauntleted hand pressed against the fractured frame of the viewport. Beyond the shattered transparisteel, the battle unfolded in eerie silence, with cannons trading fire as a distraction, fully aware that his warship was doomed and would be sacrificed as intended.
He tilted his head one last time toward the terminal before speaking. "Leave none of them alive." Across the failing cruiser, Dral'hanade responded without uttering a word. Jetpacks ignited. Basilisk war droids unfurled from their magnetic clamps with metallic wails, green mist seeping from their vents. Others strapped into Wing-Blast rocket packs, their thrusters already roaring.
They surged from the hangars and the new breaches in their own hull, a tide of black and crimson armor flooding into the kill-zone between the locked ships. Raukai's own Basilisk stood ready beside the command chair, its plates still charred from the previous skirmish. He grasped the long-handled axe leaning against the seat, its blade still stained with older blood.
One boot found the stirrup, and the droid responded to his weight with a scream, reactors flaring, green mist and flames swirling around its frame. The viewport finally gave way, as he moved the Droid forward with a yank on the reins to enter into battle, though his eyes spotted Careena Fett
in the distance and moved to engage.
Naniti held a lightsaber in either hand as she stood on the edge of the roof for half-a-second. She'd known what kind of enemy they were facing on Abregado-rae -- Mandalorians. If there were a people that would have countless blasters (or disruptors) pointed at you it'd be Mandalorians. They also weren't big on lightsabers themselves. So, two was in fact better than one for defense.
And as for Force Powers they were some of the most annoying opponents. Their numbers would break concentration. Their armor would deflect certain attacks. Countless gadgets to deal with varying conditions. Even lightsabers might not one-hit kill unless you got it between the beskar plating. Environmental manipulation and melee were the best approaches to fighting their kind. Which was fine with Naniti.
One saber swept up to absorb some or most the first disruptor shot as the violet woman crouch and bent out of the line of fire. Last, but not least, there were the disruptors.
Feydrik Munin
took as much an interest in her as she had in him. The pair stalked toward one another as the rest sought to destroy the other. The Togruta's feet slid across the rooftop as she slithered from side to side; she crouched and twisted at the same time one lightsaber then the next rose to blunt the highly energized bust of plasma.
The fact he hadn't given her a speech didn't upset Naniti. She was the sort of person that could understand everything that needed saying was said in how you tried to kill your opponent. And Feydrik was trying to erase any evidence the Togruta before him existed.
She worked to close the distance, forced to move her arms faster and faster with a narrowing ability to dodge or twist out of the way. The fifth or sixth bolt managed to slam into her shoulder and leave a burn mark there, but it didn't slow Naniti down. If anything, she sought to channel the pain into the upward sweep aim to bisect the rifle or one of the man's shoulders if Feydrik would just stand still. The second saber was held in reserve, ready to ward off the trained warrior's response if he lived.
The droid fighters in question were quick, numerous, and surprisingly well armed and armored for something so small.
Their strange weaponry packed a devastating punch, at least as evidenced by the holes gouged in nearby buildings.
"Engaging hostiles." Reported one of the droidcraft, filling Helix's already-packed comms capacity with reports. "Numerical superiority confirmed, but enemy forces possess a heavy support droid. Allied air support in the area also confirmed."
And TIE Hunters and Sathog bombers shrieked across the skies with them. Reinforcements from the Tyranny; delivering fire that rocked the factory district with every impact.
"About damned time." Snarled the warlord none-too-kindly. "Kill these interlopers before they hinder this assault more than they already have. Coordinate with the Covenant fighters and focus them down one by one. You have greater numbers and superior technologies, so make it count."
"Sensors report multiple incoming missiles." Whined the bridge lieutenant, barely giving Helix time to pause after the last order. Such was the beautiful chaos of war: one scarcely had time to catch a breath between catastrophes.
He was ready for them this time. "Retask portside Tarnicite guns. Shoot them down."
The dazzling stitches of outgoing flak shifted their focus, calculating the trajectories of the incoming missiles and firing at precisely the right instant to intercept them. Each picked the torpedoes from the sky with the superhuman precision known only to Helix creations. It was a gamble relieving some of the flak pressure on the enemy like this, but necessary to prevent more damage in the short term. He'd just have to hope the fighters could make up the difference.
"I can learn from my oversights. Let's see if they can. Send some missile fire back, lieutenant, and pay particular attention to that war droid. They'll be easy prey for our fighters when they've no power."
The twin launchers atop the vehicle swivelled, picked targets, and fired. Dozens of small blue-tinged leech-missiles streaked up into the sky, scattering like angry insects as they sought targets.
More endless chatter filled the corners of his mind, but he focused, brushing aside all but the most crucial. Notably, one such comm-stream involved mass cryo-bombing of the places the crawler had already struck.
Helix's photoreceptor-clusters narrowed in suspicion. What were they playing at? He ran the possibilities. Either an attempt to slow a post-strike push, or a reaction to the mass regrowth that the heat and radiation were inducing in the invasive fauna. In all likelihood, either or both were possible reasons, but he had larger problems.
The crawler's plasma-howitzers and phosphor cannons, mighty as they were, were too sluggish to be of any real danger in the knife-range dogfight that raged above. Nonetheless, they were still plenty dangerous to targets on the ground.
"Continue bombardments as scheduled. They can stop the fires if they want, but a little ice won't bring back those dead men, nor rebuild the industrial capacity of this world."
Helix noted the plunging temperatures depicted on the readouts in a casual way, but paid little heed. Neither he nor the iron beast he captained were daunted by cold, no matter how fierce. Metal did not share flesh's frailty against the ravages of an artificial winter.
He just hoped the rest were still alive, and hadn't entirely botched their own objectives. Helix had a sneaking suspicion that his deal with the Empress might take a hit if he didn't secure victory here.
Almost without delay, multiple bombs planted within the factory sector exploded with great violence, sending fireballs and flame columns within the sky leveling most building to simply piles of molten rubble.
He needn't have worried. A series of coordinated explosions rocked multiple sites at once, far too coordinated to have been struck by him.
"Wait, belay that, cease fire on the factory sites, risk of friendly fire now unacceptably high. Redirect all bombardment priority to forward enemy positions." He marked a series of coordinates matching up with the greatest concentrations of unknown life readings.
The crawler's guns swiveled, then quaked as they let loose another volley, raking the frontlines with otherworldly energies in a devastating creeping barrage. Helix watched innumerable life signatures and vehicle indicators wink out on his sensor display, and nodded approvingly. More vermin, escorted off to the trashbin of history where they belonged.
"Read increasing radiation levels across the front." Commented the droid lieutenant. "Graug infantry now within visual range."
"Good. Fall into formation with them, and keep hammering the enemy's center. Let's push through."
All three of the supercrawler's forward direct-fire batteries opened up, ripping apart a row of buildings that had been housing entrenched enemy infantry and heavy weaponry. Terrible ebon fires roared from doors and windows as the phosphor-Otherplasma blasts detonated, transforming each structure in turn into a blast furnace. Stone and steel ran like wax, and Helix fancied he could hear the screaming even from this distance. Small figures wreathed in black fire were spilling from the doors, tumbling out of windows, and writhing in agony on the rubble-strewn ground.
"Live like an animal, die like an animal." Mused the warlord, flipping his comms channel to address the general infantry in the area, Graug or otherwise.
"This deadlock ends now. Fall in with me, and let's flatten every inch of this wretched place. Let the very name "Mandalorian" be a curse upon your lips. Scour every building of these parasites, and leave no soul left breathing. From ages one to one hundred, they can, must, and will be cleansed from rightful Sith dirt. A medal for any man that brings me a picked-clean skull or a scrap of Beskar when this is over."
The droid's grinding, calm, assured voice seemed to stiffen their resolve, as did the sight of the supercrawler, weathered but defiantly unbroken. The Sith soldiers at the center front fought like madmen, coordinating around the armored fist that had finally come to relieve them.
⚙ I found myself tuning out the noise of the conflict before me, though still concentrating on Grace
and her well-being as well as maintaining the cosmic flame clones I had conjured, each one defending our position on the balcony. It was clear that the tides of battle were still not in our favor, and my most immediate need was to finish this ritual, to call for a living sun to burn away the mandalorians. As I continued to chant the words needed for my ritual, I could feel an overwhelming presence; then the words that followed
@Mercy
"All of you who hear me, you are true Lords. In our darkest hour, you still stand. They wish to break you, but we are their destruction made flesh. Stand, move, fight. Do not go quietly into the night, scream your fury and be Sith."
It was those words that further fueled my defiance against these vermin and their tactics. Did these vermin truly think that the dark side was so easily crushed? That pulling on supernatural forces would cause us to cower. No, as Mercy so eloquently stated, we are Lords of the Sith; we are the dark side given flesh, and the fiery fury given purpose. As I meditated over my innate rage and the purpose of the chant, I felt two hands grasp my shoulders. On the left stood the 2nd of Yggdrakses' chosen, Veha. On my right stood Sato, the 3rd of Yggdrakses' chosen. Both seemed to be corporeal due tio the Netherworld rift that the Mandalorians had opened.
Neither spoke words to me, but they didnt have to; their intentions were conveyed through the bond that linked our souls together. They too were enraged and began acting as a focal point for such an emotion. "RAGE!!! FURY!!!!! ANGER!!!!" Their voices finally came through like a thunderous symphony in my mind as I could feel those volatile emotions from sith across this entire confrontation. And I used it to fuel my incantation.
▐ ▐ ▐ ▐
I could only describe the feeling as burning zeal; the warcries of sith alike across the many fronts of battle echoed into my mind, their passion, defiance, hatred all filling me like kindling to a flame. But why stop at the living? As I pulled on the red-hot emotions, I felt a hunger, a thirst that just couldnt be quenched till all enemies were consumed, filling me. In response, I reached into the deepest part of the Force I could find, and began to siphon the souls of the slain. Mandalorian and sith alike, the vengeful souls of friend and foe began to coalesce and enter this plane of existence, only to immediately funnel their way to me. I could feel their rage as well, their fury at being slain or drawn into the plague's biomass. It was exhilarating, the rush of all that animosity and hatred coursing through me. The rapid soul influx was just what I needed to aid in fueling the ritual. The deaths that permeated the planet would feed me as a vessel for what was to come.
In fact, two entire squadrons of the Mandalorian's elite star fighters had apparently done nothing but a mere scratch to the Supercrawler in two passes.
But Iris did not know...
Because she got shot down.
A simultaneous flak and plasma burst punched through the shields, ripped through half her wing strut, and sent her starfighter into a tumble.
"Eject!" she screamed to her astromech, worried for him.
Then they both rocketed out of the dying starship.
Iris tumbled through the air for a minute, then activated her jetpack and managed to right herself. Then she felt an impact from small arms fire that connected with her jetpack and went tumbling down... down.. down...
Until her stuttering jetpack slammed her on top of the Supercrawler.
Groaning, Iris got to her feet as the supercrawler shuddered slowly forward. She looked down and was surprised to see Ar-Nine there,
"How did you? Nevermind."
She looked around at the top of the Supercrawler, trying to get her bearings on the enormous thing. Then she remembered what Strill One had given to her before this sortie...
A lightsaber shoto recovered from Humbarine. A war trophy, ostensibly. But one that worked.
Not that she knew how to use it in battle, but...
Taking it out, Iris ignited the crimson light shoto, then started to cut her way into the top of the Supercrawler.
"Some things require a personal touch, I guess. Huh, buddy?"
Ar-Nine toodled agreement.
"This is Strill Six to AWACS, I'm on the Supercrawler. Broken arrow on my transponder," she took a deep breath, "Call it in."
Then she dropped inside the Supercrawler.
AWACS Watcher
«... Affirm. AWACS Watcher to Saxon Fleet. One request for fire solution on our mark. Single strike, octuple barrage. Bring the rain.»
Kade hurled down his beskad and pulled out a detonator from his waist. Then he closed his eyes and gave himself over completely to the pull of the Force. To a sense of oneness. To a loss of self.
A long, pointy bit of metal suddenly extruded from the front of the warlock’s chest, punching through the beskar’gam of his chest as if it were the meagre plasteel stormtroopers were sent off to die in. It was the Sword of the Heron King, of course, but as it had slid so effortlessly through the warlock’s heart, he would not have long to appreciate its craftsmanship.
Its wielder was now directly behind him, having marched right up in a boiling rage. Who did this fucking pissant think he was, refusing an imperial summons?
“Look at that, he went back to talking normal,” Meliant looked past He-Who-Walks-Between and seemed to directly address Cruelty and the others, “Do all these bucketheads factory reset right when they die, I wonder? I guess there's no need to perform when..."
The Golden Emperor’s head snapped to behold the detonator, which he only now noticed clutched in the warlock's hand. A far and unwelcome cry from the silly little short-sword he had been flouting earlier.
This runt was as good as dead, but death spasms and dying neurons would take care of the rest.
There was no time to for anything else, so Meliant profaned the warlock again in the hissing language of the Ancient Sith. An exact translation was impossible, but “worthless shitdick bastard” could roughly convey the spirit of his meaning.
The Sith waited for Romul, on one knee, his body language distressed. Pitiful, Romul thought, as he went to swing his hammer. But the hammer's head cleaved through air; the Sith leapt upwards with surprising agility before the Old Boar could kinect. Romul planted his foot firmly to stop the hammer's swing in time to riposte, carving with a wide angle out, down, and up. The Sith's dark spear Romul barely had time to register before it collided with his hammer with a terrible kinetic force, strong enough to drive his hammer back, letting go with his right hand as it fell. With several large krrks, the beskar had impossibly fractured, though the hairline faults that spiderwebbed through the metal Romul had no time to register as the Sith bore down at him, crimson lightsaber swung down.
"Ragh!" Romul batted the blade away with his free gauntlet and let the Sith come to him; with all the force he could muster, he headbutted the Sith. The force from his beskar-clad helm, that of a seven-foot veteran of war, would hopefully be enough to drive the Sith back several meters, if not throw him to the ground entirely. The fact that the Sith was airborne and had nothing to stop the kinetic force would aid him, hopefully. Breathing heavily, Romul took a step backwards to increase whatever distance he'd made for himself. "Cunning," he granted the Sith, shaking his hammer before swinging it in a wide, fast arc towards Strosius's side, with a force heavy enough to flatten the Sith's internal organs and crack steel.
Strong enough to crack beskar already fatally fractured by the Sith's arcane arts, which Romul was periously unaware of. The snow had begun to fall harder.
Loud thooms punctuated the intense firefights between the scrambled Sith forces -- becoming more desperate by the minute -- and the allied Mandalorians and Gados. Gallius's tactic to replace the Gados on the frontline with his own commandos had been a bold move, but fewer Gados were now dying. That had to count for something.
A reaving parasite descended from the smoke and snow, screeching a hypersonic scream that caused a horde of twenty Gado natives to drop their weapons, catatonic with fear. The parasite descended, maw gaping, gorging on its prey rendered helpless. There were no taunts issued from Gallius's mouth as his cryoban repeating blaster gunned down the monstrous mass of flesh. It was too late to save some of the hapless Gados, but as the beast froze and shattered, the remaining few gathered their weapons and fled to the back, to run or regroup Gallius did not know.
The fungal tendrils that had spread throughout the city did seem to be withering in the unnatural cold. A blizzard had begun to blow, impossibly. Gallius did not know how nor why, but it reminded him of Kestri. Many a blizzard he had weathered there until it had become commonplace for the commando. Ironic, it was, that of all places, and in all situations, a blizzard would remind Gallius Saxon of home.
The massive warfleet sat virtually unopposed in low atmosphere, but for Sith fighters that flitted about, nuisances like many flies around large beasts. The Saxon warfleet's hangar bays had been devoted too much towards dropships and transportation that their own fighter complement was quite overwhelmed, but in such close quarters the point-defense measures of the Mandalorian warships were quite deadly. Missiles and laser cannons, ineffective against capital ships but designed to tear through starfighters and small craft, ripped into the Sith fighters.
The firings of an ion cannon towards the fleeting coordinates of the evacuation fleet did not go unnoticed by the massive Star Destroyers and escort craft that sat low in atmosphere. Three Ha'rangir-class Star Destroyers zeroed in on the ion cannon and unleashed a precision strike on it and the general vicinity. First a salvo of hypermatter cannons with the potential to create a destructive, destabilizing chain reaction when it came into contact with any sort of shields, followed up by dozens of mass-driver cannons with enough power to turn anything in the general vicinity into a crater. The strike ceased as soon as it began so that scans could assess damage and the need for any follow-up.
The fleet was swift to answer. Two more Star Destroyers, unengaged with the ion cannon, zeroed in targeting solutions on the massive land tank. Accounting for its constant slow motion, a similar salvo was unleashed against the tank; hypermatter cannons, followed by mass-drivers. As soon as the strike thundered from the cannons of the Star Destroyers, they ceased, waiting for damage assessment before proceeding.
The blizzard that had begun to form up was beginning to be noticeable even by the ship's sensors; evidently, the weather patterns had turned. Hellfire continued to rain down against Sith forces and masses of plague from the Mandalorian ships above. Their bombardment was precise, not indiscriminate, and thus diminished in overall power; but Abregado-Rae was not lost and thus not consigned to fire and brimstone.
The Sith's attempt to stop the evacuee fleet was woefully inept. Perhaps they were incapable of simple strategic readjustment, or their sensor systems had betrayed them; the Mandalorians didn't care so much as to why, only that their fleet had continued unimpeded. Romul had deliberately taken into account the fighting in the city and the large Sith fleet hanging overhead, and, in anticipation of the resistance, had devised his scheme.
In the opposite direction, the escort frigates and corvettes launched, playing the role of transports, evacuating the civilian populations rounded up before the spread of the contagion. The Akior led them, using its advanced sensor countermeasures and stealth systems to obscure the movement of the evacuation fleet, making for the far side of the planet before daring to rise above the atmosphere.
To remain within a planet's atmosphere had been a gambit indeed, when all conventional doctrine suggested making for orbit and a convenient hyperspace exit sooner rather than later. Yet doing so would have exposed them to what the Sith now so desperately attempted to use against the Mandalorians. Instead, already over a hundred kilometers away from the outskirts of the nearest population center, the evacuation fleet had been burning full thrusters in the opposite direction. By the time the ion cannon was fired, the fleet had crested the horizon and was out of the range of ground ordnance. By the time the Sith in orbit had reacted, they were well beyond reach of any weapon they could fire at them.
Their patience paid off; at long last, the ships of the fleet began to pull upwards into orbit.
Hundreds of thousands of natives, perhaps millions; Gados, Humans, and others, all now refugees of another world broken by the Sith whose contempt for peace and irreverence for life was on display for the galaxy. Selectively evacuated before the virus had a chance to spread itself, they were clean of contamination, free to live their lives, but none would forget today. In a tragic twist of fate, they would not be free to do as they please, for the memory of all lost would forever mark their lives.
Even if Abregado-Rae were lost, perhaps this would be the true victory. An entire people, like the Mandalorians, united by their shared hatred of the Sith. It had taken fifty years for the Sith to finally receive Mandalorian recompense; perhaps, from Abregado-Rae, it would be less.
Wracked with madness as she was, A'Mia's surroundings became more like vague suggestion, precise details regarding the state of reality were momentarily blurred with the blinding kaleidoscope of so much raw energy coursing through the Weave. Her wretched, echoing laughter was a sinister cacophony that only petered out when the first searing stings of cryo-weapons started to land.
Across the ravaged planet, at several key theaters of war and sweeping out from those points as far as the rampant reaver's wings could carry them, her horde began to die in droves. Cold in and of itself wouldn't kill the hearty organisms outright, not immediately at least, but direct hits from attacks which froze when a direct hit was scored was certainly enough to do the job. A'Mia's laughter turned into a howling groan and soon a roar which blended with the whipped up wind.
The Mandalorian host protected, the glow in Tytos's eyes faded as his spell took hold, but his communion with the Manda remained, his talisman glowing white on his chest. He looked at the Smith once more and smiled. "The Manda favors us today, Karn. Be glad." Then, calling upon the power of his talisman and the Manda, he began to work the spells of a tempest. Incantations in Mando'a were muttered as memories of the coldest blizzards of Kestri began to flow through his soul.
Behind him, Tusk howled fiercely, leaping into the air to fire all weapons at the ranks of soldiers behind the Sith. Several squads of well-trained Clan Saxon commandos had landed behind Romul; blasters focused on the Sith, they all concordantly fired on the Sith from well-chosen positions of cover. Overhead, more basilisk wardroids soared into battle. Explosions covered the battlefield.
The interloper warlock weaving countermeasures at first went unnoticed, so bereft was the neti at feeling many dozens of those reavers she'd mingled her senses with just suddenly die. She shook in distracted fury at how many hundreds of mushrooms and thousands of spores were being lost.
The Mistress of Shadows simply stepped from behind Cruelty, an ice cold hand marred with blackened veins settled gently on his shattered shoulder, wings of shadow twisting into pointed dark tendrils poised like stingers waiting to strike.
So too did that cherished dark presence slip A'Mia's notice at first, when in ordinary circumstances she'd have noted the woman's arrival instantly.
As war and sickness, ice and flame ravaged Abregado-rae, the Hordemother teetered on the very brink of insanity — ego death so profound that the millions of pieces would scatter to the four raging winds and not a piece of "A'Mia Madrona" might be found again.
Her sense of self was suddenly elucidated by the echoes of Alisteri and Revna, bound as they were, tugging at the web while they faced their own struggles. Revna and the void, that glorious accursed thing, and Alisteri shot through with pain from the sky torn asunder.
It was the simple act of them being there, nearby and caught in turmoil of their own, which saved the arboreal woman from whatever esoteric end her over-reach might have earned her. Spider-like, the neti's fractured mind crept back along the web to rejoin with the whole. She found herself there, rooted amidst the carnage of her making and threatened by the tide of enemies abound.
All of you who hear me, you are true Lords. In our darkest hour, you still stand. They wish to break you, but we are their destruction made flesh. Stand, move, fight. Do not go quietly into the night, scream your fury and be Sith.
Anger simmered in her veins as she drew on the rift, the gaping hole in the fabric of reality that granted her access to where her true power lay, and she fed it to them, threading it down the line to reinforce the two who held her heart.
<<Dari j'us minti ani zinoti ri itita iw ani qo, ki aki? Titsû mus kûrsosûti anim.>>
An ache filled the woman. How had she missed her paramour's arrival? A'Mia had been truly lost in the distant throes of urging the plague onward amidst overloaded senses.
It was time to focus inward. To draw upon a gift given and siphon as much darkness as she dare from their surroundings. A'Mia's roots were deep, digging down, down as if seeking bedrock. As she gathered the Force to her it welled at the heart of their ritual site
Her many arms began to work in circular patterns as if she wove great strands of silk along their length, and the Hordemother began to hum. The air soon filled with the strange, throaty sound and it could almost be felt more than heard. A call which built over time and soon reverberated out through the ground itself, signaling to the mycelial horde what must be done.
The fungal tendrils that had spread throughout the city did seem to be withering in the unnatural cold. A blizzard had begun to blow, impossibly. Gallius did not know how nor why, but it reminded him of Kestri. Many a blizzard he had weathered there until it had become commonplace for the commando. Ironic, it was, that of all places, and in all situations, a blizzard would remind Gallius Saxon of home.
A'Mia's keen eyes found a building somewhere the middle distance and, as she continued to spool dark energy about her form, the neti sent a brutal strike into a weak point of an already bombed out building.
CRACK
Turning her gaze out across the landscape, she spied another good target, calculating again with shatterpoint just where to send a forceful nudge.
CRACK Skreeeeee!
Another hit landed true, this time toppling what had once been an electrical tower which crashed down amidst the screaming protest of metal.
If the beskar brutes wanted to try freezing her out, fine. But she could buy her creatures time by providing cover — rubble and turned up soil, layer upon insulating layer of broken pieces of a civilizatio. Like so many scattered leaves which pile in the autumn to provide cover for all the creeping crawling insects in winter, A'Mia was providing shelter.
Her message to the horde hummed louder, spreading through the web she and Lily still maintained and through the very soil where A'Mia was rooted at the epicenter of it all. The meaning would be indecipherable to all save fungi: To ground, dig, bury. She bid they seek shelter where they could and for those who could not? Sacrifice themselves for the rest. If escape to cover was impossible, the reavers were to unleash acid spray and attack all who were not of the collective with prejudice.
All the while A'Mia stood tall. Weaving, spinning, spooling more power, gathering it to her in preparation.
That was the beauty of life, as fleeting as it was. No matter the result of what happened today, there would always be a tomorrow. And that tomorrow would be as pointless- or as meaningful- as one chose to make it.
Carduul fought so that he may live to see that next dawn, to witness that brilliant spark shine once more just for it to fizzle into nothingness again. Sith, they simply sought to make it all end. Time and again, they wished themselves to be the end-all, be-all. To permanently stay atop their thrones, as greedy and self-centered as to wish for the whole galaxy to halt around them merely because they think it right. No matter what deluded thoughts they may have thought themselves capable of, the simple fact was it was just that- delusions. A facsimile of empathy.
Even as it showed determination, it was a hollow echo. This one’s path had all but ended, long ago.
A grand, beautiful song echoed in his blow’s wake- a ka-thoom! Had impacted against the shell and armor that had encased Mercy, and sent her crashing aback into the spaceport. A huff of breath exerted with the blow, hands steadying from the reverberation that had shot through the haft as he righted his posture.
A cold wind had begun to blow. Impossibly, Romul saw a snowflake fall, one, then another. It reminded him of Kestri, her winter winds, her blizzards frigid and inhospitable. Had it begun to snow? The Warmaster laughed, rolled his shoulder, working the last of the tingle from his arm, and closed the distance with his foe at a run.
His gaze tilted upwards, to the sky. Towards the rising fires being snuffed out by cryoban weaponry, the explosions, the fleets and dizzying force-borne sights of ghostly fleets above, and gave a softer exhalation. Of all things, the falling of snow had begun to land upon him. He had watched as the dainty thing drifted down, before droves of them began to clutter. The Crusader’s hands kept close around his weapon. His gaze narrowed upon that wretched husk of a being in front of him.
“...Nor shall I.” Never again.
So sally forth he did. But a single instant after his foot had left the ground in a flicker of movement, another harsh reverberation of metal upon metal had resounded across the Teeth grit as he briefly made the contest of strength. His weapon had caught it narrowly, a harsh ache of protest being felt as the impact made itself known through his muscle and bone. The crushgaunts built into his gauntlets did a hefty sum of the work for him- yet the rest was naught but his own will and body. Another harsh grunt left his body; he was but human. Yet, this was how he persevered. He did not use crutches. He barely needed tools, and was never quite fond of all the overcomplicated technology of today. That was the Mandalorian way. To hone oneself into a weapon, itself, was one of many purposes of their culture.
“It might not be today,” Came a gritted remark, as sparks flew with the drag of metals. “It might not be in years!”
With the moment locked in clash, he had redirected the bind sideways with the crook between the blade and the haft. Instead, the other end came directly from the opposite side in an attempt to strike the Sith across the face in a disengagement from it. Immediately following, a jettison of the pack had allowed him to swiftly move towards the Sith’s right side with an almost graceful motion.
“But one day, you will be vanquished and lost to the cosmos for another eon!”
In doing so a hand had unlatched to fire yet another heavy blaster bolt towards the gut from close proximity- nigh point-blank. It grasped the poleaxe directly after the motion, readying his guard for the next movement in this deadly dance. Carduul had maintained the pressure for nearly the entire fight…and was hardly one to relinquish the momentum easily.
His gaze flickered towards the apparent rage and mad cackling of the other, still battling it out somewhere above them with the other Sith Empress. The Arkanian - Haran. It was easy for Carduul to be swept up in his own battle, yet he found himself increasingly attentive to his kin’s battle. Alas, there was far too much occupying him to spare a moment. Any momentary distraction from this could see him just as easily rent asunder. All he could do was wait for a proper opening.
Korar let go of Kovita's reins and slid of her armored back. Walking forward he grabbed his hammer, earthshaker, from his back with his prosthetic right hand. He let the head of Earthshaker fall against the ground, cracking it slightly. Its weight pulling his prosthetic down at its connection point on his shoulder as he dragged it across the ground before lifting it and putting his other hand closer to the head of it.
"Now then, who said you could keep that? Didn't say it was a gift now did I? Just didn't want to mess up what my little vod was doing," he said as he approached Naamino Zuukamano
. He didn't care too much that the sith had it, what was he gonna do? use it? the necklace would affect him too, but Korar has no force powers like the three others here. But still, could be used to mess with his vod, so it'd be in his best interest to have it back.
He watched as Varin Mortifer
left, oh well, didn't want to fight then so be it. It was disappointing but maybe he'll come back. But for now Korar had no real reason to focus on him.
Now charging at the small sith, Kovita following him, Korar swung his hammer down at him attampting to hit either his head or shoulder, either would work for Korar. As he was charging Kovita made it to Naamino Zuukamano
first from behind on the left before Korar and attempted to bash him to the side with one of her tusks. As she was charging she was hit by the sickening blast naamino threw her way. On a normal person it'd probbaly stop them in their tracks, Kovita however was not a person, she was a large armored beast with one thought on her mind now. To fight what Korar was fighting. The blast did have some effect on her however, but it wasn't nearly enough to really stop her, it did annoy her though.
Ceria Kesyk
Meliant
Lina Ovmar
Cruelty
Astra Sadow
