Junction Echoes of the Gravesong - Undeath comes to the Diarchy (DIA & ME junction of Brath Qella/Placeholder

[Maldor Mecetti]

Objective 2
Near the (Ex) Space Elevator
________________________________________
​

Maldor felt like he'd trudged miles through dunes in a desert by the time he'd drained the last of life from his security escort.

Not only had he overextended his abilities in slowing down the falling elevator car, but the Dark Healing he'd engaged in was terrifically exhausting in its own right. Even as he forced himself out of the crumpled and broken-open elevator car, he was amazed that he had the strength to do so much as find his feet.

But then he was amazed for a new reason.

And not a good one.

Fire and smoke swept the city. He caught sight of a giant winged reptile. He saw part of the space elevator being mysteriously suspended before its full length of over a hundred kilometers could fully crush the landscape. In the distance, undead hordes advanced. Some of them seemed to be armed, and perhaps even knew how to use what they were carrying. Defenders were opening fire. Reinforcements were being dropped off by- Oh, look- Trigonus manufactured armored speeders.

A scream drew his attention to the sky. Multiple starfighter-scale vehicles were swooping over the city. Twin Ion engines made a distinctive cry. Munitions exploded. Laser Cannons raked the ground.

The city was in Hell, and all the Angels and all the Demons were gathered here to fight for it.

He took a moment, marveling at the impossible chaos, and struggled to catch his breath.


Sahan Dragr Gath Aether Verd Ze'bast Verd Drego Ruus Diarch Reign Diarch Rellik Ze'bast Verd Red Mobius Vytal Noctura Rokul Manti Wyrvhor Adonis Angelis IV Merion Oreno Kandosii Ka'rta Zara Saga Ryu Jung Kassandra Beskar'ad Laphisto

 

[Zara Saga]

​

Zara clung to the harness behind Athena with one arm, the other still loosely gripping a deactivated lightsaber hilt, her body pressed to beskar that smelled like carbon scoring and dragon sweat. Her braid had somehow knotted itself to a strap, and she had blood in one eye and possibly a cracked rib, but, somehow, she was laughing.

"Oh wow. Wow." she coughed between sharp breaths, her voice still rich with sarcasm even as the dragon bucked beneath them, dodging a falling piece of someone's apartment. "Look at me, clinging to a Mandalorian's back like a damsel. Who would have thought."

She wiped her face roughly, trying to look anywhere but down. "You guys ride dragons. And here I am, hacking zombies with glowsticks and personality."

Another bolt of anti-air fire streaked up from below, barely missing the dragon's wing. She yelped and grabbed Athena's waist for balance, then immediately rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'm just gonna say it. If I had a fire-breathing death lizard, this issue would be over and I'd be sipping something frothy on a debris-free balcony."

She leaned forward, voice in Athena's ear now, sugarcoated and smug. "You know, for someone who plays the stoic war queen bit, you really know how to make an entrance. Very theatrical. Are all Mandalorians born with a flair for the overdramatic, or do they make you practice at helmet school?"

Another explosion, closer. Zara flinched as flaming wreckage whipped by.

She cleared her throat, voice softening slightly. "So… savior, what's the actual plan here? Are we flying to glory? To a noble last stand? Or are we just going to wing it until we run out of dragon fuel and crash in something vaguely heroic?"

She paused, then smirked.

"Don't say 'die trying.' If I hear that one more time today, I swear I will jump."

Athena Faar​

 

[Aether Verd]

Assets: Beskar'gam | Basilisk
Darksaber | Resolute Dawn​

OBJECTIVE II - (EX) SPACE ELEVATOR

The line would hold holding.

That’s what he’d said. And for a time, it had. The Basilisk roared. The horde broke. His warriors fought like the wrath of gods themselves. Even the dead could not advance untouched.

Then the sky ignited.

Aether saw it before the shout came. A spiraling twister of fire, forged in Mandalorian fury, twisted and taken. Not extinguished. Claimed. By the titan that marched with chains and hunger, twisted and hurled like a spear of apocalypse.

Aether’s head snapped upward. There, above them all, the sky burned with the wrath of their own making, now turned against them. The elevator.

That beautiful, arrogant piece of engineering snapped.

His eyes went wide. “Haran.”

The next moments blurred.

Aether raised both arms, the Force erupting outward in a visceral, primal shout. A shimmering dome surged into existence, cracking with white lightning, wrapping both him and the Basilisk beneath a fragile pocket of protection. Then came the rain.

Steel. Glass. Stone.

The sky collapsed.

A mountain of debris slammed into his shield with the force of a dying god. The ground split. The air screamed. He was driven down and buried. The bubble held, barely, now more tomb than bastion. Dust filled the cracks. Flames licked at the gaps.

He could barely move. But he could hear.

“Aether! The elevator!”
“Kryze. Rally Point: Cargo Platform Alpha. Holding.”
“Mand’alor, we’re headed your way.”
“Seismic detonation imminent! BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
“Signal’s weak—but it’s there. He’s down there somewhere.”
The roar of Red’s cannon.
The wrath of Kassandra’s charges.
The howl of Miit’alor’s wings.
The chant of warriors refusing to die.​

He was not alone. And he was not dead.

His fingers clenched tighter on the Basilisk’s saddle. Through the shattered cracks above, he saw something impossible...white. A shimmer not of light, but memory. Presence. The shape of a helm. The shaft of a spear. And then many. Dozens. Hundreds. The weight of history behind him. The Manda, blazing silent in the dust.

They stood with him. His fire became fury.

Aether roared. A sound not of voice alone, but will. The bubble detonated outward, a dome of white lightning exploding in all directions. Debris lifted, not by physics, but by command. Shattered girders. Chunks of reinforced alloy. Glass like razors. Every piece of the tower that had sought to bury him now hung in the air.

He rose from the crater: tall, smoke-drenched, glowing from within. The Basilisk, bruised but unbroken, growled beside him.

Lightning coursed from his limbs. White arcs surged through the debris. His voice cracked like judgment through the comms:

“Sahan. Get clear.”

Then he hurled it all.

The mountain of wreckage screamed toward the titan and the oncoming horde. Steel became missiles. Concrete became hammers. The dead were ripped apart mid-charge. And as the debris struck, it detonated. Each impact chaining lightning across the battlefield, threading white-hot justice from corpse to corpse.

Then Aether hurled the largest piece: a segment of the central column, still humming faintly with burned-out power cores. He locked it onto the titan’s location, intending for the wrath of Mandalore to bury the beast as the elevator's debris had buried him.

But his wrath was not over. Not by a long shot. The Mand'alor's HUD flared.

And with it, his voice again, clear and final:

“All Diarchy personnel. All Mandalorians. Fall back to Siv Kryze’s rally point. Cargo Platform Alpha. Pull survivors if you can. Form ranks. This ends now.”

Aether marked the target on his helm. The Basilisk’s uplink surged to the fleet above.

“Mand'alor to fleet command. Mark my signal.”

A breath.

“Ready the Super Defoliator.”

The sword was drawn. Judgment was coming.​

Diarch Reign , Diarch Rellik , Ze'bast Verd , Red Mobius , Vytal Noctura , Rokul , Manti Wyrvhor , Adonis Angelis IV , Kandosii Ka'rta , Laphisto , Runi Kuryida , Maldor Mecetti , Sahan Dragr , Zara Saga , Ryu Jung , Kassandra Beskar'ad

 

[Jonah]

Jonah slammed the hilt of his vibroblade into another corpse’s temple, then finished it with a clean blaster bolt to the skull. One more down. Ten more rising. They never stopped.

Beside him, Kandosii was poetry in motion, and every line ended with something dying. The Peacekeeper roared with that distinct disruptor snap, punching holes in the dead like they owed him money. The rifle work was surgical. The commentary? Classic.

Jonah smirked mid-combat, deflecting a gnashing maw with his forearm before driving the vibroblade into its neck.

“Remind me to buy you a drink after this. You’ve got the death count and the one-liners. All you’re missing is the dramatic walk-away explosion.”

He reloaded, his tone still half a joke, but the edge of weariness was creeping in.

“Though I gotta admit, the bit about plague stories and ghost yarns? That’s some bleak comfort, vod. No wonder your folk kept the graves deep.”

The street shook. Not from the horde. From above.

Aether’s voice hadn’t come yet. But the world was already changing.

Jonah turned his head sharply. A sound like the sky cracking open split the air. He looked up...saw it. A swirling cyclone of flame twisted through the heavens and slammed into the space elevator.

For a moment, he could only stare.

Steel and flame danced in ruin, and then, like the wrath of the galaxy itself, the great shaft began to fall. The whole damn structure, once a symbol of progress and precision, now crashing like a slow, dying god. The tether buckled. Fire streaked its spine. The shockwave rippled all the way to the soles of Jonah’s boots.

He turned toward Kandosii.

“You seeing this?”

But then...It stopped.

The massive tether, mid-collapse, just hung there. Frozen. Suspended by something no physics class could explain. Jonah’s breath caught in his throat.

Then came the voice he knew.

“All Diarchy personnel. All Mandalorians. Fall back to Siv Kryze’s rally point… This ends now.”

Jonah’s jaw tightened. Then...

“Ready the Super Defoliator.”

Relief hit first. His brother was alive.

But then the words sank in. His eyes widened.

“Shab,” he breathed. He looked to Kandosii again, tone flat and grim now. “That was him. My brother. And if he’s calling for that…”

Jonah jerked a thumb toward the horde.

“…then he’s not playing anymore.”

He looked up toward the still-smoking elevator. Toward the sheer scale of destruction they stood inside.

“The Super Defoliator’s not any bomb. It burns everything that breathes. Leaves the armor, cooks the soul.”

He glanced around, eyes scanning for any other Mandalorian signals.

“If we’re in the radius when it fires? We don’t get to talk about this later.”

He exhaled sharply, voice regaining a flicker of that usual dry edge.

“They’re not gonna pull the trigger if there’s Mando'ade down here. So we should get to Kryze’s fallback. Fast. We clear the zone…”

He fired up his jetpack.

“…so the fleet can do what it does best.”

He launched into the air with a roar of engines, pausing in a hover overhead. Ash and cinders swirled in the sky like snow over hell.

He looked down, visor fixed on Kandosii.

“I’m not leavin’ you behind."

Because when the Defoliator fired? No one would outrun the judgment but the ready.

Tag: Kandosii Ka'rta , Kassandra Beskar'ad + Open

 

[Gath]

YAGA MINOR
Objectives I & II​

The elevator fell.

A monument to pride, now ash.

Gath watched its descent with quiet satisfaction, the inferno wreathing his frame casting long shadows across the broken plaza. He had twisted the Mandalorian’s fire into a weapon. Not merely against the living, but against the very structure that once rose above them: untouchable, unchallenged, arrogant. They had built it to defy gravity, to rise unbroken to the stars. How poetic, then, that it fell by their own hand.

And through its death throes… he felt it.

Beneath the stone, beneath the blood-slicked rubble and scorched bodies, something pulsed. A slow, thunderous beat, old as creation and just as cruel. It called to him. Not with words, but with want. It was not Harrow’s voice he heard. No whisper of his cowardly prophet. This… this was older. Primordial.

And Gath?

Gath listened.

His head tilted slightly. He closed his eyes, let the battlefield fall away. He could feel the artifact now...alive in a way only nightmares could be. He reached for it...not with hands, but with intention. And for a moment, Gath considered what it would mean to take this power for himself. To deny Harrow his relic. To possess this shard of cosmic dread and wield it not in service… but in sovereignty.

But the moment shattered. The flame-flea returned.

Mandalorian. Golden. Defiant. A whelp with a war cry and a weapon born of pain. Again, he struck. Blade flashing, gases hissing, pulses scrambling the bond to the grave. Gath felt it all. The sting of the gas, the tremor in his veins, the impact of the cursed blade as it rang against his chains.

And still…

He laughed.

Low at first. Then rising, guttural, victorious.

"I am sustained by the Netherworld itself," he said, voice thick with amusement. "By death. By despair. Trinkets will not stop me."

He inhaled deeply, deliberately, drawing the gas into his lungs like incense in a cathedral. A sign of defiance against the "warrior."

And then he exploded.

A pulse of telekinetic force erupted from him in all directions. It was not elegant. It was not clean. It was brutality, shaped into a wave. Like a train crashing through the soul, the force sent bodies, living, dead, and in-between, hurtling. Even his own risen were cast aside, shattered and scattered like the bones they once were. But he did not flinch.

He did not care.

He did not care for the dragons overhead. Nor the conjured beast that burst from the ground like a bad omen. He did not care for the glowing specter that halted the fall of the elevator, that ghost in white who stilled the sky with spear and silence.

Gath had already won.

His arm extended toward the earth.

Darkness reached down and the earth answered. From the ruined base of the elevator, a single black rod, smooth, obsidian, ancient, broke free from the rock with unnatural force. It soared through the air like a missile, and when it touched his hand, it stopped. Instantly. Obedient.

The rod was cool to the touch. Lighter than it should have been. Hungrier than it had any right to be. It thrummed in his grip...not a weapon, but a promise. A splinter of something greater. The core of nightmares.

Gath’s gaze lingered on it.

And then...

He looked up.

White lightning. Fury incarnate. Aether Verd had risen from the grave of his own making, wreathed in divine hate, and flung the elevator’s corpse back at him. Undead were torn asunder in its wake. The storm screamed with righteous rage. Gath watched, not with fear, but with approval.

“Yes,” he growled. “Stand.”

His risen forces, those that survived the quake of power, began to crumble anew. And elsewhere, Mandalorian and Diarchy warriors cut through his ranks with fire and steel. The base of the elevator had become a crucible, their last bastion, and they fought like it.

But Gath? Gath smiled behind the mask. He had what he came for.

The rod pulsed in his hand like a second heart.

A test, then. A spectacle.

He stepped forward onto broken stone and spread his arms wide, cloak torn and flaring, chains dragging behind him like the dirge of gods.

“Strike me,” he called across the battlefield, voice rising like thunder. [color=red“Bring your dragons. Your gods. Your charges and your lightning. Strike me!”[/color]

“I am the breaker of chains. The cheater of death. The master of the dead…”

He raised the rod.

“I am GATH!”​

And the earth shuddered.​

Diarch Reign , Diarch Rellik , Ze'bast Verd , Red Mobius , Vytal Noctura , Rokul , Manti Wyrvhor , Adonis Angelis IV , Kandosii Ka'rta , Laphisto , Runi Kuryida , Maldor Mecetti , Sahan Dragr , Zara Saga , Ryu Jung , Kassandra Beskar'ad​

 

[Ze'bast Verd]

TAG: Aether Verd / Adonis Angelis IV / Manti Wyrvhor / Runi Kuryida / Rokul / Laphisto / Kandosii Ka'rta / Red Mobius / Vytal Noctura / Diarch Reign / Diarch Rellik / Jonah / Zara Saga / Ryu Jung / Sahan Dragr / Siv Kryze / Athena Faar

He heard it.

Whispers in the Force clawed at the edge of Ze’bast’s mind. Dissonant, hollow, echoing within the grave-hymn of the battlefield. The Gravesong continued on. It was not the first time he’d heard it, but this time, it lingered. The voices were older than memory, familiar yet warped by whatever Force-wrought corruption brewed in this nightmare. He did what he could to push it away, drowning it beneath the thunderous roar of his jetpack. The sound wasn’t just propulsion. It was a rhythm, a focus, a mantra to center himself.

Too much was happening at once. Too many fronts. Too many variables.

But he remained focused. His objective wasn’t scattered.

He sought Mand’alor. Not just to follow, but to protect. That was his charge. He was Supercommando. A shield before the blade, a blade when the shield was broken. Others could indulge in glory; he would preserve the living.

Siv’s voice cut through the squad channel, sharp and urgent. Ze’bast’s eyes narrowed beneath his t-shaped visor as he filtered through decision trees in his head, each one branching into different paths, each one with a cost. His thoughts were methodical, but the pressure was mounting — especially with Adonis’s inquiry lingering like a weight against his chestplate. Orders needed to be given. Fast.

He inhaled, ready to make the call..

Then Mand’alor’s voice broke across the comms like a burst of cold clarity through smoke.

No hesitation. No doubt.

The rally point was affirmed.

Ze’bast never spoke the words he was about to. He didn’t need to. His instinct had aligned with the command of their warlord. A rare and welcome convergence in the chaos.

“Oya! We head to Siv’s rally point, so says Mand’alor,” he barked into comms, the tension giving way just slightly in his voice. “We’ll protect the most forward perimeter. Move with purpose!”

His squad descended like meteors. The sound of armored boots smashing against permacrete was the first statement of their resolve. Without hesitation, they fanned out to form a wall of iron, flesh, and conviction between the last vestiges of the living and the horde clawing at reality’s edge. They fired in disciplined bursts. Blaster bolts and shoulder-mounted missiles lit up the dusk with red and orange streaks of defiance.

They weren’t here to retreat. They were here to hold the line.

The sickening knowledge that the Super Defoliator was to be unleashed gnawed at the edges of Ze’bast’s mind. If that weapon had been sanctioned, the situation was worse than he had known. That meant things weren’t getting better at the current pace. A harder decision was required than one he was authorized to make.

He gritted his teeth.

“Warden Kryze!” he called out through the haze of fire and tremor, “We’ll hold this line. We serve as your shield. Death won’t win here!”

The ground shook beneath them. Not from ordinance, but something else.

It didn’t matter.

Whatever shadows came, whatever monstrous spawn the Gravesong summoned forth, they would break themselves upon his vod.

This position wouldn’t give way.

Not while Ze’bast Verd stood.

​

 

[Secret of Manda]

The Mandalorian of pure white stood motionless with their spear raised high. Vod fought and slew their way through the enemy in every direction as the ruin was fixed in a single moment in time and space. That she violated the presumably immutable laws of the galaxy weighed no more on their shoulders than basking in the rays of a sun on a lightly breezy day.

Blaster fire, disruptor fire, explosions, and force conjurings ebbed and flowed on the battlefield all around them. Even the enemy sought to rend and tear their way to victory; their abusive use of power an odious affront in every sense. Through it all they did not intrude on the interloper. Some had looked to them, but had their attention torn away once more; but over all, the Mandalorian in white was left a living statue, and they in turn left the battle to those that strenuously fought.

It wasn't until Gath roared in defiance before the Host of all the Heavens that the lone figure's helm turned slightly in its direction. There was no other movement. A subtle shift and the three feet of ground literally under and out from Gath's feet simply ceased to exist. Mandalorians didn't take requests, they gave ultimatums. Hopefully the filth could appreciate just how little was thought of them by refusing to strike them.

Gath

 

[Kandosii Ka'rta]

Objective 1: Purge the Lower Districts


Equipment: Beskar'gam, JT-13 Multipurpose Jetpack, PK-45 "Peacekeeper", M874-C Lever-Action Banger, Mandalorian Vambraces w/chamber-shot slugthrower, Enclave Bowie Knife, Pack of Fiora Ivory Cigarras
Tags: Jonah + Kassandra Beskar'ad + OPEN

Kandosii chuckled as he shouldered his repeater once more. "Well shucks, partner, I ain't ever been the type'a fella t' turn a free drink down." Before he could quip anymore, the tether was assailed by the twisting inferno, like the devil himself in a tango with the steel.

"What. In. Tarnation?" It was safe to say that yes, Kandosii was indeed seeing this. And then the order to retreat came through. And just when the fun was getting started, too. Jonah urged Kandosii to follow him in the retreat, and he wasn't about to find out what being incinerated in an instant felt like. He let his rifle hand by its sling, activating his JT-13 in jump mode, rocketing into the air with incredible speed before transitioning to flight mode. With a chuckle, he spoke. "Yeah, I should hope you ain't leavin' me behind. Now let's soar."

Kandosii shifted his weight as he flew, dodging and weaving around or through falling wreckage, and unholstered his Peacekeeper again. Dropping an empty cell to be lost in the sea of wreckage below, he slotted a new one in and began firing at any zombies he could see as he wove through the skies, his duster flapping wildly in the wind like some sort of demented bird of prey. With each snap of the disruptor pistol a zombie met their maker, surgically gunning down the unliving even as he flew towards the rendezvous alongside Jonah. Things were deathly serious now, but he wouldn't waste the chance to thin the hordes even a little. He could say for certain, this definitely wasn't the way he expected this operation to go.

 

[Velda Praz]

Location: Vjunhallow | Sublevels​

"One of these days, you guys are going to get to save me."

The Diarch and his companions would feel the presence before they could see it. Among all the chaos of the area. The fire. The smoke. The explosions. The blaster-fire. The uncanny dead.

There was something else. Something closer.

There.

A movement of color. A pattern similar to, but inconsistent within the underground of rubble and broken halls.

A pattern of color that became a person. An attacker, who would need to be dealt with?

No.

Velda Praz. She and the Diarch had never been formally introduced, but she could often be seen hovering around Maldor's affairs. Having secretive meetings. Whispered words. A woman who melted into the background whenever someone came along with official matters to discuss.

Not a particularly beautiful woman. But neither was she ugly. Not notable, really, except for the dark clothing and tech specs she was always wearing. Thin. Possibly athletic, though she showed little of her body for anyone to judge. She might be in her twenties or her forties. It was indeterminate.

Perhaps that helped her do her job.

Though what job that might be had never been clearly explained to anyone.

"That day has come, Diarch," the woman said. Was this the first time he had ever heard her speak? Probably.

"I have orders to evacuate you from this planet, and I have a Ministry Reaper standing by. Follow me."

Where she got the gall to speak to the leader of a vast nation with such a demand, one could only guess. What a 'Ministry Reaper' was, might also require a guess.

How the Diarch and his companions would respond to this apparition's appearance was anyone's guess.




Ryu Jung Diarch Reign