Public Evening The Odds - The Great Hunt (Jedi)

[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Bastila Sal-Soren​

Lorn's boots pressed soundlessly into the damp dirt, each step measured and patient. His shoulders were squared, but the tension there was impossible to miss. The glow of Bastila's blade ahead painted her in a restless violet haze, and every time her saber hummed against the dark, his jaw tightened a little more.

The forest pressed heavy around them, choking with the stench of wet rot and musk. The cries of Sithspawn clawed at the edges of the night, weaving between the trees like phantom echoes that drew closer with each passing step. Lorn's hand stayed on his hilt, fingers steady, but his breath drew slow and controlled through his nose, as if disciplining the anger simmering just beneath his calm.

"Keep it down," he muttered, his voice low and flat, carrying the weight of command even without looking at her. "Noise carries. You're lucky to even be here with me. Thank your sister for that." His gaze cut briefly to the back of her shoulders, cold and hard as iron. "Maybe you'll learn something worth keeping this time, like how not to shoot someone in the back."

The words left him like a blade drawn across stone, sharp and sparking with old resentment. He didn't linger on them, nor did he give her the satisfaction of watching his expression shift. Instead, his head tilted slightly, listening.

That was when it came: a growl, low and guttural, vibrating in the air like the promise of violence. It rolled through the underbrush ahead, too close, too deliberate. Lorn froze mid-step, his weight shifting instantly into a fighter's stance. His golden blade hissed to life, casting his face in stark amber light.

His eyes sharpened. All thought of Bastila's presence abandoned, his attention locked forward. The night itself seemed to hold its breath; something was hunting them.

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

Bastila
Tags: Lorn Reingard​

Bastila stilled as the growl rippled through the dark, her head turning fractionally toward the sound. The violet glow of her saber hummed steady, its light sliding over the slick bark of trees and the low sweep of ferns trembling in the unseen wind.

She didn’t rise to his words, not that he would hear anyway. She repeated his words silently and mockingly to the airfully. A slow glance back was all else she allowed, her eyes catching the flare of his blade as it burned into the night. For a heartbeat she weighed a reply, but she kept her lips pressed tight, the Force alive with the jagged edge of his feelings towards her. Then she exhaled through her nose, quiet, measured.

“You were going to start hurting people, Lorn,” she murmured, voice barely above the hum of her saber. “You were arguing with a Force Damned Goddess.”

The undergrowth shifted again, closer, the sound of something massive moving low. Bastila eased her stance, made sure her weight was balanced, and angled her saber downward as she let her senses spread out like a net. The hunger in the dark was impossible to miss, it was a pulsing, feral intent closing in around them.

She squared her shoulders, eyes narrowing. “There,” she whispered, chin tilting toward the thicker shadows ahead. “It’s circling.” A slow guttural click was followed by the sound of dripping liquid and a thing began to emerge from the treeline.

 

[Connel Vanagor]

TITLE
Sedesia
Rally Point

Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, Sariel, Raphael, Jeremiel, Connel, Raguel SERAPHIM
[Any text in brackets signifies comm-link usage and not face to face conversation]

He knew of Colette, and frankly the brow surprised him. Was this some sort of power trip for her? They were about to go into a vulnerable war zone(in a manner of speaking). Then the drop of said brow alleviated that concern, and he was glad his mask was on, she wouldn’t see his embarrassment as his initial reaction.

Enough of that… mistakes happen…

When she was telling of the situation that they were going into, Connel took that moment to let his carbine hang sling, pull out a Mobile "Bodycam" Datapad from one of the pockets of his web gear. He then pulled the comm chip out of the side of the device, slipped it into the side of his mask, in the area of his goggles and offered the device to her(Colette).

When you are ready, press the “red” button and you will see what I see.

With that, he puled his weapon again and began to move, but not before looking to Kyrie. You got "drag"(rear guard)?

TAGS • Jared Starchaser • Katarine Ryiah • Kyrie Blaze • Reina Daival • Colette​

 

[Colette]

Connel Vanagor / Katarine Ryiah / Kyrie Blaze / Reina Daival

"You know best."

That much was true. Colette could sense the emotions in her apprentice's words. She couldn't name them, but she felt them all the same. Not that it mattered.

She grabbed Connel's device with an affirming nod.

"Good idea, thanks," she said, patting herself down before withdrawing her pad to slot in the chip. "We'll keep our eyes and ears out for trouble. Stay safe out there."

Connel then grabbed the stranger's attention before Colette could. She focused on Reina instead. While she wanted to say she trusted her apprentice, she also remembered the last time she lost track of her.

Colette's eyebrows tightened, her lips pursed. If these enemies took Reina, there would be no escape. It would mean failure — as a protector, and as a teacher. Again. Some part of her wanted Reina nowhere near this mission. But coddling her wasn't an option either.

This was the balance every teacher had to master, or so Colette had come to believe. Too much, and you smother them. Too little, and you lose them. In the end Reina wanted to be here or she wouldn't have signed up. Colette could find strength in that. She furrowed her brows once more and gave her apprentice a nod of respect.

"Remember, just like we practiced," Colette said and put her hands on her hips. "Simple movements. No twirling, no throwing. Hit and run, death by a thousand cuts."

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Bastila Sal-Soren​

Lorn's lip curled into a faint snarl, his breath harsh through his nose. "I wasn't going to hurt anyone," he shot back, his voice low and sharp. His golden blade flared to life with a snap-hiss, filling the trees with amber light. The glow carved deep shadows across his face, highlighting lines etched by sleepless nights and battles won by a hair's breadth. His eyes quickly scanned the treeline, hunting for whatever lurked there.

"You'd act the same," he went on, his words gritted, heavy with unspoken memory. His gaze snapped back to her, sharp and unyielding. "If Dominic Praxon or your siblings were possessed by some ancient entity walking out that door, you'd do anything in your power to stop it. Don't pretend otherwise."

The forest seemed to press tighter around them, breathless and watchful. A low growl rippled through the air, closer this time, vibrating in their bones. The Force flared cold in his gut, a sharp, undeniable warning that an attack was already upon them.

The beast broke cover with a shriek, massive and jagged, charging between them in a blur of claws and muscle. Lorn moved instinctively, his boots tearing at the mud as he dove aside. The rush of displaced air and the stench of wet scales whipped past him. As quickly as it had appeared, the thing vanished back into the dark, swallowed by the trees.

He rolled to his feet in one fluid motion, blade raised, his chest heaving as his eyes burned through the darkness. His voice came hard, raw with anger and a deeper ache. "You had no right to do that," he said, not shouting, but each word hit like stone on steel. Though his eyes never left the trees, bitterness laced every syllable. "I have to trust my own wouldn't stun me behind my back."

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

Bastila​

Bastila’s saber snapped back into guard, violet light washing over the churned mud where the beast had vanished back. Her chest rose and fell quick, but her voice came sharper, louder than she meant.

“Oh, don’t you dare put it all on me.” She threw him a look over her shoulder, eyes narrowed, blade humming between them like a barrier. “I didn’t want to have to shoot you but if you had taken a second to actually stop you would have seen that everyone was on edge with you, if I hadn’t done it you would have ended up slicing through the whole Vanguard. You’re not some martyr, Lorn.”

The forest groaned with another distant shriek, branches shuddering overhead, but she pressed on anyway, she ignored the mention of Dominic and how it plunged deep into her gut, anger tugging her words out faster than caution.

“And don’t act like you’d have done better. If the shoe had been on the other foot and it had been Briana, or Brandyn, and I was endangering everyone and the mission you’d have dropped me too. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.”

She shifted her stance, catching the rustle of movement in the underbrush, as the beast again moved at speed towards them, forcing Bastila to backflip out of the way of the creature’s advance. Her saber sliced downwards as she went and made contact enough to fill the clearing with the brief smell of burnt flesh, yet even then her mouth didn’t stop. “You keep telling yourself I betrayed you if it makes it easier. But I saved your life and Ala’s, whether you like it or not.”

A branch snapped from behind them. Bastila turned back toward the dark, jaw tight, violet light quivering as her saber angled low. “Force forbid I have to tell Briana of your sulking all mission.”

Tags: Lorn Reingard​

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Bastila Sal-Soren​

Lorn's teeth bared, a grimace fighting a snarl as Bastila's words cut through the night. His grip tightened on the saber, its golden light casting sharp lines across his face, highlighting the wear etched there.

The underbrush exploded again. The beast tore through, a wall of claws and muscle barreling right between them. Lorn pivoted almost lazily, his saber flashing in two sharp arcs. His blade scored across scaled flesh with a hiss of searing meat, but he barely glanced at it. His eyes remained locked on Bastila.

"I'd have restrained you," he snapped, his voice like flint striking steel. "Not stunned. Not like that." His saber swept down again as the beast whirled past. His feet stayed steady, even as mud sprayed up at his legs. He wasn't rattled; if anything, his focus sharpened under the chaos.

"Ala is my responsibility." His voice cracked on the word, the heat in it heavier than simple anger. "I could have fixed it. I had to try." He struck at the beast again as it lunged, his movements precise, almost mechanical, yet turmoil bled through the edges of his stance.

"And now she's just gone. Locked in some detention cell with that thing still inside her. What am I supposed to do now, Bastila?" His chest rose hard with each breath, anger and grief tangling in his throat. "How am I supposed to just let her go? You took away any opportunity I had to fix it."

The beast shrieked, retreating a step into the dark. Lorn stood rooted, saber raised, its golden glow burning against the black. His eyes locked on Bastila's, haunted and unflinching.

"Go on then," he said, his voice low but raw, almost trembling under the weight of it. "Tell Briana about my sulking. She'll hear the same thing from me. I would say it to her face, and you know it."

His blade hummed in the silence that followed, but his words seemed louder than the beast's growl. His rage and grief hung heavier in the night than even the monster circling them.