The staff spun, the body shifting to help better intercept and deflect the bolt back upon its shooter, killing him instantly.
He remembered
this part about his original career as a Jedi, certainly. Constantly being shot at by every Soldier carrying the best weapons they could get their hands on. Had his father not taught him Form Three he would have died many, many times over.
The Citadel loomed, a terrible, inverted pyramid where the Dark Side perversely sang invisible notes to Nathan's admittedly limited perception. He flinched, barely catching a bolt in time with a staff spin, the team of soldiers firing and killing his attacker.
Nathan spotted a Mawite firing a rocket at him and the squad.
He concentrated and held out his hand just as the rocket armed leaving the barrel.
It vanished mid flight...and re-appeared above the one who had fired, traveling downward towards the shooter.
The explosion was impressive.
Most impressive. Nathan had a small amount of time to note how he was starting to focus better...weeks prior, it would have taken the wind out of him...
A storm of bolts swarmed in his direction, and Nathan drew on both the power of the particular crystals he had installed, as well as it's unique attachments--most of it optimized for blast deflection--and combined it with his own Force Senses and rudimentary understanding of Soresu to ward off the storm of shots, coming from a mounted heavy Repeater. The team behind him fired off a grenade from a Launcher and blew up the defensive position blocking their route.
"We're making good time, Jedi!" The Sergeant in heavy armor said. "We've done a great job so far wiping out a good sized portion of the repeater and rocket emplacements. Our Soldiers on the ground won't have such a bad time on this route to the Citadel."
Nathan said nothing at first, deflecting a blaster bolt into a Mawite's face.
"When we get in that citadel, it will be kill or be killed." Nathan spoke finally, in a cold, unfeeling voice as he lead them to cover in the form of a burned out APC. "What are we after that's so important it required us to go ahead of the others?"
"Some sort of Great Crystal. Our orders are to capture or destroy it if we can't capture it."
"I'm in favor of destroying it outright."
"My thoughts exactly..." The Sergeant replied. "Trying to capture these artifacts just breeds the potential for trouble down the road, if you ask me. I don't count on us being able to capture it. Not with the kind of resistance we'll face in there."
"Any chance we might find prisoners?" Nathan asked.
"If there are, they're probably dead or wishing for it." The Sergeant replied.
Nathan didn't reply to this. Unfamiliar with the modern politics, and uncaring of the enemy he faced, as he had faced off against such truly depraved, genuinely
sick bastards during the Gulag Era that this "Maw" was, at
best, more of the same kind of trash that had tried to kill him back then, that he didn't bother asking things others might have asked. He'd taken a look at one insane nutjob screaming about
War, Death, Rebirth (He wondered if it was some sort of catchphrase amongst them) and he realized that,
yeah, it was a same-chit, different-day sorta thing. An enemy turning the whole Galaxy into that Airport Level from MW2. (You know the one. Don't lie about it)
Nathan signalled for them to start moving again and they moved through cover and overturned vehicles, until they were forced to stop by a small band of charging cultists armed with swords, screaming that funny chant he had heard earlier.
"So it
is a catchphrase..." Nathan noted as he teleported into their midst, spinning his staff to meet their vibromachetes, strictly adhering to Form Three's passivity in meeting attacks, retaliating only when he had an opening, a tip of his blade slicing through a neck or hip. Or an arm and leg. Nathan had not killed many people before this point in this new era he found himself in. If it had just been him, by himself, he might not have, but he was responsible for these Soldiers lives. Responsible to make sure as many of them came home as possible. Sparing as many as he could opened the chance they might be revived prematurely by some outside Force beyond his control and kill other allied forces. No. He didn't have the right to take that risk.
And in war, someone will inevitably die. Judging by how crazy these bastards he was cutting down actually were, he figured they'd done
something to earn it. He could figure it out later. It was probably a genocide. That was usually what pissed Republic-Types off. Jedi too. Nathan didn't bother with getting disgusted. He didn't have the energy anymore. He'd been exposed to this wretchedness, this form of moral decay, his entire career and it no longer elicited much from him beyond a sigh of annoyance and an irritated sounding request to be directed towards the perpetrators for their arrest or for their
cutting. Sometimes both.
He
normally took no pleasure in any taking of life. There were two exceptions. One had been that one Sith whose head he had frozen alive in liquid nitrogen to avenge the victims he had found in that basement the Sith had been using during the Plague. The Nitrogen kill had been the first time he had outright
snapped, unable to stomach letting the Sith live because of what he had seen done in that basement, spending the night after trying to forget the terrible horrors in that place, nearly losing his mind. He had never told Lysandra. The other exception had been Elaine, though at the time he had done it, it was as much about lifting the guilt of not avenging his family, a life of debating whether or not vengeance would be wrong finally being put to rest. Except he had been brought to a world partly shaped by his lack of mercy, seemingly as punishment.
Nathan cut another Mawite in half as he waded into the thickest combat, parrying stabs and blocking chops and blaster bolts. Instinct made him teleport behind and bisect an armored man about to fire a handheld sonic
cannon at them. Nathan sank more into Form Three, eyes shut, The Force moving his body and his blade, his fists, his legs into jaws and torso.
No mercy today.
His blade sliced through two more Mawites before they picked up a
swarm of gunships firing on everything below. They didn't seem aligned with this "Maw". More Sith. He didn't give a chit. There were always more Sith.
Nathan and the Soldiers accompanying him retreated into the partly collapsed remains of an apartment complex.
"They're all racing for the Citadel. Looks like it's starting to take heavy damage. We could probably steal a ship and get in through one of the gaps..." Nathan suggested.
"Yeah, but they're landing personnel. Firing at anything that moves..." The Sergeant pointed out.
Nathan and the team stayed behind cover as they watched the Sith gunships streak by, firing on Alliance and Maw. Now he was feeling a bit of intellectual curiosity as to just how awful these Maw had been that everyone wanted them dead. Of the groups he had personally encountered, only the Cult of the Brain Demon had ever inspired such unanimous hatred. Then he remembered what the corrupted Elaine told him earlier. About Julia playing a part in the destruction of two different super-weapons.
Ohhhhhh. So 'you're' the nutcases who made those. Yeah. That's sounds about right for this sort of trash... he thought to himself.
It was like Moya had told him weeks prior: Julia didn't
have to be the hero in order for the people she fought to still be
beyond horrible. While he wasn't exactly certain about Moya's self admittedly biased thoughts in the matter,
particularly where the Jedi fit into this twisted equation to explain his daughter's spiral, for the first time, he got a glimmer of the kind of pressure Julia had been under.
Mind rending,
crushing pressure to halt foes desiring the death of
everything. From the tales Moya had told of the Bryn'adul, Nathan could not be certain his own response to such a threat would have been all that radically different from her own, at least in the most extreme cases. Then again, Jedi encountered threats so extreme they
had to be killed immediately for the safety of others.
Moya had also mentioned Laertia's frequent and terrible nightmares as the Bryn'adul slaughter grew more and more savage as she grew more entwined in the conflict, how it became so personal for her, especially when she saw the Jedi seemingly callous to the billions being murdered, all to finish off a Sith Empire. The umpteenth one. As if there wouldn't be enough survivors to form a new one. There were
always enough survivors to form a new one. Nathan had been taught this by his Father.
Julia had rebelled, likely realizing the same thing. He pitied her. He wished she could have met his father. He could have taught her the value of accepting the Force's will. Much better than Nathan himself could have.
What are the Three Directives of a Bloodscrawl? his father Angus asked from the depths of a half faded memory.
"Serve the Public Trust, Protect the Innocent, Uphold the Will of The Force..." he hissed out in response out of reflex more than conscious decision.
"Huh? What did you say?" The Sergeant asked as one of those under his command gave a layout of the area ahead via a small sphere shaped scout Droid sending feedback for a holographic projector.
"Nothing..." Nathan answered.
There was a beastly roar through the air and the screaming started. Nathan felt a dark splinter in the Force, sharp and filled with pain.
Curiously, he watched as enemy Maw and stormtroopers started to run from at first, to confront the horror that had just arrived, savagely ripping into their ranks...and watched as more and more Sith and Maw began to run for their lives. In
droves
Nathan watched as a corpse pale, white eyed woman in black hoplite-like armor strode casually down the street, soaked in blood and gibs, her fiery orange sword hissing with dark power. Moya had described this one. Lynda/Westenra. Some sort of hyper advanced HRD built by a mad vampire scientist in a particularly severe fit of insanity.
Upon seeing her fight, he saw the grace mingled with savagery, watch her punches cave in faces, her sword bite through armor, Nathan was half tempted to write her off as an abomination, as much a threat to her own allies as she was to the enemy. He knew from Moya that West was not Force Sensitive, so that means she must have pilfered those items she wore from elsewhere.
Either way, he was already leery of her. She was using items born from the Dark Side. Such artifacts could only ever end in misery if kept. But he had no choice. He needed all the help he could get against his daughter, and this beast that had once tried to be a normal,
loving human was not something to discard casually.
"Hey!" Nathan called out, waving his arms.
"Are you
crazy? That's
The Demon of Jedha!" one of the other soldiers hissed.
Lynda's eyes snapped towards him and a crocodile like hiss escaped her throat as she floated towards him.
"What? Do I have Mawite in my teeth again?" Lynda joked in a bleak manner.
"We need help getting a ship to breach that Citadel..." Nathan said.
Lynda sniffed at the air around him and grimaced.
"That smell...it smells so...
familiar..." she said idly, glancing at him in suspicion.
"Will you help us?" Nathan asked.
"I dunno..." Lynda muttered, looking around. "I was kinda having a good time here. Nice, sunny day out. Lots of roses to smell..."
"Lots of Maw bunched together in the Citadel like Sardines." Nathan replied, hating having to appeal to someone's desire for unrestrained murder, even though that was basically what the Alliance was here to do (Repeat the Sacking of Korriban from the ancient times).
Lynda took a moment to think, and flew upward as an enemy gunship began a strafing run on the ground below, jamming her burning sword into the side of the ship, cutting it open and ripping open the occupants in the passenger section, the bloody act given away by the trail of blood that would occasionally escape, followed by the ship fluttering, the pilots cries of agony audible before it made a sharp U-turn to them, settling down.
Nathan saw no bodies, only
bloodstains and chunks of stuff as he and the others climbed in.
The trip there was rocky, and Lynda was forced to evade incoming fire, but they inevitably reached a blasted open entry...the citadel was under attack constantly now and set down, Nathan, his Soldiers and the demon splitting off, heading elsewhere from them.
Nathan came under fire from the gaggle of creeps defending this place almost immediately, slipping into Form Three on instinct as he and his allies began fighting their way through security, close to
Quintessa
...
Jasper Kai'el
BB-610
Minerva Fhirdiad
Tren Chaar
Shar Sieu
Kahlil Noble
had told him to be aware of his emotions.
