End of the Line

[Miss Blonde]

It was time. Everything led up to this moment. The reason for the raid, the selling of Mand'alor the Preserver's armor, and the forging of a short sword Beskar. With all that work done there was no going back now, and there was no use of hiding it from Keira. As the leader of the crusaders she had more than likely heard of the raid on Voss and by the M.O of the attack be able to piece together that Blonde was indeed behind it. So while Keira was left relatively in the dark, Blonde decided that it was time to initiate the final task at hand.

Kill the Jedi prisoners. But it wasn't going to be that easy, it was going to be as simple as putting a bullet between their eyes. No, it had to be raw primal fear and emotion, it had to be the feeling of hopelessness and edge of your seat terror as they choked on air and blood during their last moments. And while Blonde didn't like doing that to Keira, she knew it had to be done in order to create a blade powerful enough to match Keira.

So Blonde called her, and she was as honest as she could be with her friend on a open line. With the call going through and Keira failing to pick up she left a message with her distorted voice, you could never be too careful on who tapped into whose comm these days.

"Keira. You know who it is. Get to my workshop, I have two problems that need to be taken care of by you. Get here as soon as possible." And then Blonde hung up before anyone could trace the call, besides Keira already knew the drill about the underworld.

So waiting on her workshop on Relovian the woman sat atop her mesh machine watching two Jedi with with gags in their mouth stare in fear and horror at a blackened steel blade in the woman's hands along with droid's laying down a plastic tarp with a mop and bucket on standby.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

It was something Keira would have ignored, had the call not come directly from her best friend. Of course she knew full well what it was about, as the HoloNet had been more than telling as to all that had happened on Voss. A handful of Jedi had been taken, with countless more individuals losing their lives, and the offenders had escaped nearly without a trace. To her that sounded all too familiar, as she had participated in a number of operations that had just about the same end results. By the time Blonde had requested her presence, it was something she was waiting for. It was undeniable, how efficiently the two worked in tandem, and she couldn't turn her back on it no matter how hard she tried.

This was the part she hated, having to explain why she had to leave again to another planet on a call that she wasn't able to be completely honest about for an old friend it was safer for those around her not to know. As always she somehow found it in herself to part ways, this time not donning her armor or weaponry but rather bringing it along as extra security. There were a few moments where she simply sat in the pilot's chair, the weight of departure heavy in her chest, but eventually she pulled out of the hangar and into the void of space, jolting into hyperspace. There were some aspects of her life that were inevitable, and the underworld was and always would be one of those.

Without breaking stride or so much as bothering to knock she walked into the workshop dressed entirely casually, speaking just as soon as Blonde came into sight and hooking her thumb back towards her ship, "If this is something I need my kit for I can head back and grab it. Usually when you make calls like this--" That was when the two other individuals in the room came into sight, and immediately she came to a stop, her senses immediately studying them through the ethereal. Dark eyes shifted to the smaller woman, and she moved to stand beside her. "You didn't mention the problems were Jedi. I thought you were beyond the point of having other people do your dirty work for you."

[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

When Keira arrived Blonde didn't say much. All she did was cautiously twirl the blackened beskad in her hand and stare as the two Jedi knelt there watching the droids finish up laying down the tarps necessary as to not make a mess in the workshop. But beyond that, Keira would know that these Jedi were sentenced to death for more than just the plastic on the floor. Patricia wasn't wearing her mask, and there were two lists of people who saw Blonde's true face. Those she trusted, and those who weren't going to draw breath much longer. And Keira could reasonably put together that these people were on the latter.

"I got you a gift. Well, gifts." Blonde said with a little pause.

To be honest she didn't really want to kill these people. But every day her powers to manipulate the force grew and grew, and with it the hunger of how much powerful could she make items. How further could she keep pushing the envelope before she hit her limit? Either way the woman looked over to Keira and lifted the sword towards her with the force so it would levitate in front of her.

Keira would be able to feel the blade through the force, the slight threads of power that imbued the beskar short sword. But Blonde still didn't say much as she watched the two Jedi be dragged onto the tarp kicking and screaming. One a Nautolin male no older than twenty and the other a seasoned human Jedi Master with a grey beard and well kept hair. When they were on the mat the woman spoke calmly with her eyes focused on the Jedi over what needed to be done.

"Follow my instructions to the letter. Don't hesitate, don't ask questions, and when this is over you'll have power enough to defend your family and strike down your enemies." Blonde said as she watched the young Nautolin be thrown to the ground.

The young man's gag popped out and he began to look over to Blonde and speak in a panicked and fearful voice.

"Please! You don't need to do this! Please don't hurt us! I have family!" The young Jedi pleaded and then Blonde would respond.

"I don't think begging will save you." And to Keira it was strange how she said it. It didn't sound like a snarky retort or a quick witty dash meant to show how cunning she was. No. It was said in a low monotone near emotionless voice that was almost like stating an empirical fact to the boy.

And once it was said, Blonde pulled her nine millimeter pistol and shot the kid in his gut three times. The slugs impacted and he and the gagged older man screamed in shock as the boy fell to the ground clutching his wound and bleeding heavily on the tarp.

"Begin a consume essence working. Channel that energy not into yourself but into the blade. Make the blade absorb their negative emotions." Which Blonde was quite sure there were plenty of.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Normally Keira wouldn't have cared. Hell, a part of her didn't care even now, and was glad to see these Jedi suffer and bleed after what had happened recently pertaining to their Order. Part of it was well-deserved retribution, as them and theirs had far more than a few gunshot wounds and a slit throat coming. Ten thousand lives had been lost due to their carelessness, and somehow that debt had to be repaid. Perhaps not all at once, and perhaps not for a long while, but none of this would be forgotten or forgiven in the least. While others would have been quick to put the crimes of the Jedi behind them, she had never been so lenient. Once upon a time she had attempted forgiveness, but time had taught her the sentiment was meaningless.

However, there was a part of her, however minuscule, that felt some kind of remorse for the two of them. In some way she could empathize, but that didn't mean mercy would be shown. Such a naive ideology had been sacrificed long ago so that she might better do what had once been her only lot in life: end the existence of others. It had granted her something of a skewed moral outlook, one in which only those strong enough would survive to flourish afterwards. It was suitably ironic that her own worldview so closely mirrored those Sith that she wished nothing more than death and destruction upon. People like her weren't so far from their enemies as they liked to believe, but it was that false hope that kept them going.

The moment those shots impacted terror and pain roiled out from the Jedi in waves, and it took her a moment to fully process what Blonde had said as she was caught up in the overwhelming tide. It didn't cause any detriment to her, however. No, quite the opposite. Such a thing fueled her, giving her a reason to continue fighting in some instances while in others simply providing a rush of euphoria. In this scenario it was most certainly the latter, and for those first few moments she had done nothing more than draw those emotions into her core, feeling them wholly and purely, cracking a smile at the sense of weightlessness and the adrenaline rush they provided.

But then the instructions pushed their way through that intoxicating mental fog, and she redirected the siphon into the weapon she only seemed to just then realize she was holding, and her mind seemed to clear a fraction. There were no words spoken, but she seemed to retain a slight razor's edge to her persona that hadn't been present before.

[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[media] https://youtu.be/GPaHtxTvR2Y [/media]​

Patricia didn't say anything. There really wasn't anything to say, Keira understood what was happening and grasped the nature of what this was. For Patricia and the loss of thousands of lives at the Jedi's carelessness, she could honestly not give a damn. It was war, people die. But she could use that hatred for the Jedi that fueled Keira and other mandos, she could use these emotions and manipulate them to get what she needed.

And she did. She attacked Voss, kidnapped Jedi, and now had what she wanted. Something innocent and light sided enough to be snuffed out by darkness and revenge. Because that's what this was. Keira could label it as her pound of flesh and justice against Jedi and what they were responsible for. But to the force, to how Patricia understood the small fraction of its infinite being, this was darkness and vengeance.

But it was time to get back to the blade, and it's power. With the negative emotion being sucked into it in a steady stream, Patricia had to up the ante. She had to give more to make the blade that much more powerful. So with a numb and and cold demeanor she walked over to her table of tools and grabbed a fusion torch. With it in hand she began to slowly pace her way over towards the young Nautolin on the ground, and with a snap of her fingers one of her droids picked the young man up by his head tails and made him look at Patricia.

"Listen kid, I'm not gonna bulls*^# you, all right? I don't give a good fuck what you know, or don't know, but I'm gonna torture you anyway, regardless. Not to get information. It's amusing, to me, to torture a Jedi. You can say anything you want, 'cause I've heard it all before. All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you ain't gonna get." and with her cold words the woman light the fusion torch.

Now Keira had seen Blonde in some dark areas, but she'd never seen her like this. She'd never been to the darkest places of Patricia's former line of work as a Galactic Republic field agent. It was almost funny what a nation that was all about peace and democracy was willing to do to those who threatened the status quo. Because that's where Patricia learned how to do this. Not from being a criminal, not from ruling a drug trade, no her enemies just got a shot to the head and a unmarked grave. She learned how to do this to uphold law and order.

The next sound to come from inside the workshop were screams. Raw screams of pain, horror, agony and sadness as she used that torch on the two men making sure not to kill them just yet. And when it was done the woman sealed the consume essence working on the blade allowing it to both passively and actively suck in negative emotions and evil to fuel into pure energy.

"Do you know how to drain life?" Patricia asked Keira as they stood over the scared and bleeding bodies of Jedi.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Situations like these were funny for people like her, because they never meant quite the same thing depending on who you asked. Some were absolutely elated with the pain of others, and found nothing more than enjoyment and a thrill in such a sadistic method of murder. A small handful of those were vode, at least when it came to the Jedi, but the majority were those Sith she so despised. In some instances, it was and had been her. Before Keira had supposedly gotten better and played at redemption, she had found pleasure in nothing more than the rush of combat and the feeling of inflicting pain and suffering on another sentient. That had been her drug, her be-all-end-all and the only thing sought out at the end of the day.

But those walls were broken down now, at least for the most part. Where once they had stood strong at the foundation they were now crumbled and broken down, fractured in some areas and demolished in others. However, they were still there. And that was the problem. Because in scenarios like these they came creeping back in, slowly pressing down on her until the sense of claustrophobia became overwhelming. And that was the problem. When people like her began to feel trapped, their first instinct was to lash out against the seeming aggressor until they perceived all as being well once again. It was a tricky balance, and one impossible to maintain most times, but she managed. She had to, after all.

Here and now, that balance was becoming increasingly difficult to cling to. In combat it was easy to find a refuge from it, as the heat of battle oftentimes kept one's pressing focus from finding itself concerned with anything or anyone else. But this wasn't combat, and she wasn't allowed to kill these people and relieve a fraction of the tension, as much as she wanted to. Besides, Patricia had made it clear that walking away wasn't a viable option, as this process was something that had to be done right in order to be completed successfully. Unfortunately rational thought became a rare commodity at her breaking point.

Her brow furrowed and her grip tightened on the beskad until it physically pained her, and she seemed to forget how to exist in those next few seconds as the world at once sped up unbearably and slowed to a crawl around her. Everything about simply living was disorienting, and there was a muted clatter that she soon enough recognized as the blade falling to the ground. And then she was outside, walking away from the facility until she was roughly one hundred meters out and unable to feel the effects any longer. Breathing seemed to come a fraction easier then, but those walls remained standing. In a stark contrast to the sun shining down on her from above her mood was dark, stormy and volatile, a hair trigger personified.

Unfortunately - or was it fortunately? - there were no people around for her to direct her frustration to, and so the environment would have to suffice. With her left hand she delivered a left hook with her full strength towards the nearest trunk of a palm tree, the wood cracking under her strength and groaning slightly, thought it was still standing. The barest fraction of the tension bled from her, but at her core it still sat like a boulder, immobile and indescribable in its all-consuming weight. In one wave she released it, sending the already damaged tree flying and leveling a handful of others, sand and other debris clouding the air, the burst of the ethereal echoing in the distance. That wasn't perfect, but she felt better. She couldn't do this anymore.

[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[media] https://youtu.be/iLQzaLr1enE [/media]​

Patricia didn't stop Keira, probably couldn't even if she wanted to. No, Keira had to work out her own demons, and while Patricia hated the idea of surrounding Keira in her vice. It had to be done. Not to satisfy her own curiosity of creating power, but to give Keira the weapon she needed. For years the Mandalorian Clans had viewed her as an outsider, a bastard child, and many other less than pleasant things. But in truth Keira was better than any of them, and she deserved to have items of her new culture, and those items needed to be as powerful as her.

So when Keira left, Patricia turned off her fusion torch and set it to the side. Taking off a pair of dark shaded goggles she clipped them on her belt then walked over to the two Jedi. Taking a good look down at them she sighed and could see they were still hanging on to life. But despite the sad sight, she didn't feel anything for them.

"I know what you're thinking. How is this fair? That how can I do this? End a pair of good lives over a sword. And the answer is that it's not, it's not fair at all. But that's the world we live in. It's not personal, it's just business." Patricia then looked over to her two droids and snapped her fingers in succession to pull their attention.

"Keep them alive, don't let them go into shock. Use the bacta if you have to." Patricia gave her orders, picked up the sword, set it on the table, and then walked outside.

Once she stepped through the doorway, Patricia felt not only the tropic breeze and sun on her face, but Keira's pain and confusion. It was a mix of confusion, anger, regret, a cornucopia of darkness. And if the sword had been around it would be having a field day when it came to gathering energy. But thankfully they were out of its range and Patricia could attempt to calm her friend down. So when she did eventually find Keira, she wasn't going to go on a spree of destruction.

Eventually the small woman made her way over to the disturbed mandalorian and crossed her arms. Not in a confrontational manner but more as an older sibling trying to make sense of everything. So her eyes tracked over towards the tree with a sizable crack running through it, that would probably need to be replaced or maybe have some plant surge run through it. But enough of that, time to friend.

"When I first discovered I had abilities, I was twenty-three. I grabbed Darth Revan's lightsaber and I felt nothing but darkness and anger, and it felt good. I had a sip of the poison and it tasted nice." Patricia then uncrossed her arms and walked around Keira towards her right to lean against another tree.

"Now I'm not going to give you a sob story about how I overcame the darkness, because I never did. And you never will either. I want you to understand that, Keira. You will never beat it, and you will never best it. That's why Jedi are stupid, they can lie to themselves and forsake the darkside, but it will always be a part of them. Because it's part of life, part of creation. Everything begins and everything ends. Simply the natural order." Patricia said in her most sincere of voices.

"Now the key to it is moderation. Not to let it take you completely, to live in that area where you can have both. Love your family, strike down your enemies with furious anger." She would then point to her workshop.

"Now what's in there. That's rough, and I'll admit that. But it's a necessity, and it's not the darkest thing you've ever done. We both know that." Patricia then narrowed her eyes and lowered her arm.

"Now you can either stay out here and hide from your problems, I'll go in there and do the rest myself." Patricia then stepped forward and held her hand to her best friend.

"Or you can take my hand, woman up, and face this with me." Patricia kept her hand out to Keira.

It was time to make a discipline check for Keira. Patricia didn't need her for this, but she knew she had to be here, she needed to see what went into making these sorts of things, and most importantly was she needed to forge the connection with the blade. She needed to share this experience with it, she needed that story burned into her mind. Otherwise it was just going to be any other sword for the woman and not a reminder of how dark that rabbit hole got.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

"Tell me something I don't know." Despite acknowledging Patricia's presence it didn't seem as if Keira was speaking to her, looking off across the beach, lost in some halfway in-between in the blurry smudge between reality and the subconscious. It was to this sanctuary she often retreated in order to escape the worst of her own mind, and it was a place she had a hard time navigating her way out of once she was there. These days her grasp on reality was far better than it had been in the past, and with her friend present it gave her something more to focus on than just attempting to ground herself within her mundane surroundings. Something like this was comparable to a relapse, and that was dangerous when she had never been fully recovered in the first place.

Her cybernetic hand flexed slightly, and she slowly relaxed in order to force herself into a state of peace, even if it was mostly falsified. "I know, Patricia. All you're doing is telling me the same things I've told everyone else more times than I can count. But just because you keep saying it doesn't make any of this easier. I might not ever get over this completely, and I've come to terms with that, but I don't need a reminder." Her existence was enough of one as it was, especially on days like these. Just as soon as she thought her condition was improving something like this came along to remind her that she wasn't and never would be entirely whole or properly pieced together.

She followed the line of Patricia's arm in looking back to the workshop, and she shook her head in order to clear it, hair hanging in her face. "I know...I know it's not the worst I've done or ever will. It's not like that helps rationalize it. I know that in some way those two Jedi deserve this, after what happened on Korriban. But that doesn't..." A lance of pain spiked through her head, and she raised her hand to brush her hair out of her face, a headache beginning to pulse behind her eyes. "I'm trying to be better, so forgive me if all of this chit is a bit overwhelming. The dark is all I knew for years. It's where I made house, what I called home for too long a time. That's not something you can just face." She wouldn't say it aloud, but it wasn't comparable to simply picking up a lightsaber, either.

Raising her right hand she grabbed that of the smaller woman, helping to pull herself to her feet where she had nearly collapsed, her legs weak beneath her. Still she was shaky, but at the very least she could manage to support her own weight. "Okay. I'm...I'm ready. Let's finish this."

[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[media] https://youtu.be/pTA0DSfrGZ0 [/media]​

Patricia didn't let go when Keira grabbed her hand, she didn't really want to. Instead she interlocked her fingers with Keira and slowly walked with her towards the workshop. And on that short yet eternal walk into the howling dark, Patricia didn't say anything. She might of had more gumption when it came to this than Keira did, but she wasn't particularly proud of it either. And everything that needed to be said between the two of them was already spoken beforehand. Now all that was left was to finish this and ensure the sword was going to out flawless.

But when they crossed the threshold into the workshop the darkness hit them like a wave crashing onto the shore. Pure and utter feelings of fear, pain, and dread filled the air and was being absorbed into the sword, into its hunger for more. Patricia knew that where everything stemmed right now, it was too much for Keira. So she acted.

Walking over to the wounded and dying Nautolin, Patricia called the sword over to her with the force and then knelt down beside the young man. With the young Jedi half way conscious, she picked him up slowly so that he sat on his behind with his back to her chest. The Jedi made a few groans and weak but useless jerks attempting to struggle with as much strength as he had left.

"Shhhh." Blonde shushed him lovingly as her free hand gently stroked the top of his head.

Then it began. Focusing into the blade, Patricia accessed a power she had been keeping in the vault. She'd learned the basics of drain life for this occasion. But rather than have the boy's life force drift into her, she reached out to the sword through the force and began to form that ethereal power into the sword itself letting it be passive and active abilities.

So with the working charged and in the sword, Keira would be able to feel its presence in all of its dark and unholy tidings. And with one finial shush and stroke of the head, Patricia plunged the blade into the young Jedi's heart. The blade itself cut through the man's flesh like a hot knife through butter, but that wasn't everything. As the young man seized and struggled for a few moments he eventually relaxed as the ethereal working came into play.

His life force began to drain and slowly the man became more and more pale as his power began to drain into the sword. And once it was all sucked up, she pulled the blade from the man's chest letting his body fall to the ground a literal husk of their former self.

With his life energy in the blade, blonde fine tuned the working with his power. Now all that was left was to kill the Jedi master in order to accelerate the drain life process. It needed a more powerful sacrifice in order to make it more effective. So with a few snaps of her fingers the droids hoisted the older man to his feet, and Blonde would step over towards Keira.

Patricia didn't say anything at first, she didn't want to. But the silence would have to be broken.

"The working is set, you just stick him with this and the blade will do the rest." And then she presented the Blade to Keira.

"I trust that you can do this." She stated and then waited.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

The weight of it all hit her like a brick wall the moment she crossed that threshold, her breath choking in her throat as if her lungs were filled with black, brackish water. Her jaw was taut, and for a long few moments all Keira did was focus on her attempt at steady breathing, every exhale stuttering as it escaped. Control was something grasped at even as it consistently slipped through her fingers, her own mind an amalgam of churning, unstoppable chaos, each thought disappearing as soon as it manifested. The only constant was the veil of darkness that hung over her like a heavy fog, seeming almost tangible across her entire form, reminiscent of a heavy, wet blanket.

As the first Jedi died her breath hissed in a sharp inhale, released measuredly as her head hung forward, a trace of a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. Though she hated to admit it, truly despising this side of herself, that felt good. There was nothing quite like feeling the life of another sentient bleed away slowly, their very essence being drained from their form as if it had never existed in the first place. The dying of the light was the single thing that darkness inside of her yearned for, and to bear such personal witness to it sent a certain thrill through her, adrenaline jolting up her spine. Yes, this was what she had worked towards all these years, this and nothing else. This here was her true purpose, and always had been.

Except it wasn't, and she had to remind herself of that. With a sharp shake of her head she forced herself back into reality, that residual high clinging to the fringes of her consciousness, lending everything a certain numbed edge. The beskad was taken without hesitation this time, and she turned the blade over in her hand, seeming fascinated with the blood that coated the dark, corrupted iron. Then her gaze shifted to the Jedi, and her head tilted to one side in a strange, birdlike curiosity, the same sort that had possessed her younger and more demented self. A single whisper fell past her lips before she plunged the blade through the man's chest, reveling in the end of his life, "Minmin vil ut valle Nharquis."

[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[media] https://youtu.be/LwVXkM_YxMg [/media]​

It was over. The sword's drain life enchantment kicked in and the sacrifice was made. The old man's face went pale, and his eyes blank as they rolled into the back of his head. And once his body fell, Patricia walked over to the sword Keira held and ran her hand over it. Using the force she sealed its power and everything was as it should be. Now all that was left to do was have Keira go meditate on the blade, and when she was done with that the blade would be hers.

"Go on out to the beach. Meditate on the blade for a bit. I'll finish up here." Patricia said with a sigh afterwards.

She then turned and looked up at Keira. It was clear the woman had a lot of conflicting emotions running through her, and Patricia understood that. But that was precisely the reason why Patricia wanted her to get out of here and not see her aftermath for too long.

"You did good." and that was the last thing Patricia would say to Keira. There was work to be done.

When Keira decided to leave the workshop, Patricia would look down at the two corpses. Burned, stabbed, shot, these men had gone through a lot to give what Patricia needed. Now it was time to send them home. At the end of the day, Patricia held no ill will against the Jedi, and she wasn't going to give these two a hole out back where the crabs and gulls would eat their remains. No, they deserved better than that.

"Clean them up, wipe away any physical evidence, wrap them up, send them home." Patricia said with a very dark and almost sad voice.

"$#%$ you!" the droid said rather happily, of course being programmed to say it and meaning "sure thing!"

"Yeah... $&#% me." Patricia muttered to herself as the two bodies were dragged away on the plastic tarp.

[member="Mara D'Lessio Merrill"] the woman who had purchased the younger Jedi padawan would be receiving the bodies of the two men. When they would arrive at the woman's address they wouldn't be cut into tiny pieces or displayed for the world to see. It wasn't a statement that they were hellbent on killing Jedi. The two men would be placed in caskets with their arms folded over their chest and their eyes closed. Patricia had even enclosed a million credits for each body, to pay for funeral costs, help grieving loved ones, and show that she did indeed respect the unwilling sacrifice that she put them through. Did it make up for killing and torturing these men? No. But it was the best she could do short of turning herself in. Sometimes even the hardest of criminals had a conscious.

[member="Keira Ticon"]