Private Grandson versus Grandfather

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Wearing: Interceptor Gear

Armed with: DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle (Classic)
Citizen Energy Sword
Mercenary Slugthrower

Objective: Kill the Android.

As Nathan fired at Percival Io , the strange being able to eviscerate the defenses of no less than three Jedi, he struggled to figure out what, exactly, he was dealing with. Even the best HRD's the Empire could field could rarely make more than one retreat.

It was a reminder of how much this future mystified him. He had clearly missed a few things, despite having rampaged through a couple of Brain Demon temples a few weeks before.

Of course, surviving cameras in the facility had captured bits and pieces of him inflicting massive pwnage on the Cultists, including that infamous bit where he had risen out of the coffin to start gunning down everyone.

But he had no context for what it was. He only knew he had to kill it before it killed anyone else.

It would not atone for his failure to protect Lysandra. But it would momentarily salve his conscience to fight it.

Nathan fired at the Android across the swamps, trying to blast open his chest...

 

[Percival Io]

Percival jerked as more shots struck him. The damage already dealt to his body had him running at less than optimum capacity. He was slower, but still faster than even a human in peak physical condition.

So he slogged forward, stomping through the sucking mud of the swamps, until he was in range of the mysterious man with the rifle. His broken jaw hung slack as he unleashed the sonic weapon in his throat upon Nathan.

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Crap.

Nathan had scrambled up but the thing was damned fast. Damned fast. Even with the mud costing him traction.

He partly got out of the way, partly blocking with the rifle, so the scream heavily damaged his DLT-19 rendering the weapon useless, and flung him backward, partly shredding his jacket and severely burning the skin on his arm. His hands singed, he retreated, pulling out his pistol as he fired from behind a tree, trying to hit the throat of Percival Io .

"So this is the anti-jedi droid of the era. What kinda psychopath thought YOU up?" he wondered to himself as he fired.

 

[Percival Io]

The shot blew a hole through Percival's throat, silencing him. But the Chaplain had seemingly endless tricks up his sleeves. He charged forward, blades emerging from his knuckles, and slashed at Nathan's chest and throat.

With his jaw and throat mangled, he couldn't respond to the man's question. All he could do was fight, stabbing and slicing at Nathan with his claws.

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

CHITCHITCHIT---

Nathan barely managed to get out that pilfered Citizen Energy Sword that he had bought earlier off that expy of the Resident Evil 4 merchant. The damn thing popped claws and came at him like a Droid outta Hell slashing and stabbing at him.

Old instincts, memories from battles long past, made him block the claws, using the terrain and his sword to help parry the attacks, though two got through, the tips biting through his Cortosis lined jacket like it was paper, leaving deep gashes on his the side of his torso and his arm and legs.

He stumbled back, nearly hobbled from the vicious assault and starting to bleed, as in serious. He grimaced, but refused to cry out. The cuts reminded him of getting dismembered, and he snarled, savagely striking at Percival Io 's torso and legs with the purple energy blade in a half memory of the Shii-Cho style. His face became fully visible to his opponent then, and would no doubt be recognized from the recordings of his massacre of the Cultists. But also more likely because the datacron that had been recovered by Galahad Io was public knowledge in the House. Xiphos had refused to have it covered up or censored, as she despised such a thing for her own sake.

 

[Percival Io]

He was close enough to see his opponent's face now. Leering with rage, Percival spat droplets of silver blood at...

Hazel eyes widened in surprise as he recognized the man's face. Not as Nathan Bloodscrawl, but as Morris Crownwraithe. Xiphos' father. How was this possible?!

Percival stumbled backwards. There was no way he could kill his own Grandfather. Not without figuring out what the hell was going on first, at least. But how could he do that with a damaged, inoperable vocoder, and no other means of communicating with the man?

He went into full retreat, retracting his blades, refusing to fight any longer.

Nathan Bloodscrawl

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

For some strange reason, the Biot's previous aggression vanished and he began retreating. Nathan wasn't going to let him. Not after watching him behead that woman.

Lysandra's death, her absorption into Phyre, looped in his head as he he gave chase, hampered by his injuries and bleeding, mind a haze of trauma and endless loops of his wife's death at Phyre's hands.

"Where do you think you're going, Droid?" he growled, snatching up his pistol and trying to fire, but the mud had jammed it. He gave chase, bleeding and pissed, and started to lose more blood. Percival's claws had done damage. He was having trouble keeping up. Having trouble running.

Nathan collapsed in the swamp within eyesight, passing out, still bleeding...

Percival Io

 

[Percival Io]

"Where do you think you're going, Droid?"

Percival continued to retreat, though the damage he had sustained was extensive, and the muddy swamp hindered his progress. On the bright side, Grandpa was injured and slow—er, maybe not so bright, since he didn’t want any further harm to come to Morris Crownwraithe.

In the end, his grandfather was the first to fall, collapsing on the ground. Percival slumped, his body twitching from all the moisture that had gotten into his exposed circuitry. Still he crawled back toward Morris, examining his wounds. Spotting the gashes, he stopped the bleeding with injections of healing enzyme and bandages, then crawled away to hide and regenerate until Morris woke up…

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan's state of unconscious was a mishmash of nightmare images, mostly of Phyre eating Lysandra's soul over and over. Her screams as her very essence was obliterated would always haunt him. He fidgeted as Percival Io treated him, moans of misery escaping his mouth...

He snapped awake, shot up from the dry ground he had been laid on. He noticed the bandages. He traveled back to the area he had fallen, retrieving the strange energy sword, and began looking for the Android's prints in the swamp, following faint tracks...

He still wasn't certain how to actually defeat it. Jedi Killer Technology had only gotten more advanced. It was the single most lethal example he had ever personally encountered.

Why was it dressed as a priest? Had even the Droids started needing religion now?

What kinda psycho makes their droid such a pretty-boy? Nathan wondered this, each possible answer he came up with only making their as yet unknown designer more of a psychopath in his eyes.

"I may not be a Jedi, but I am very disagreeable to watching a dismemberment. Kinda stirs up bad memories..." Nathan called out to the dank woodlands. "So what gives Droid? Why didn't you turn me into confetti?"

He kept alert, waiting for it to emerge...

"I thought the Gulag Plague was hell. The Plague has nothing on this era..."

 

[Percival Io]

Curled up in the stump of a hollowed-out tree, Percival injected himself with what was left of the enzyme, hoping to speed up his already incredibly fast healing. His flesh crawled as he regenerated lost tissue and severed limbs.

Silvery blood still soaked his clothes, but he was whole again. He flexed his jaw, testing the rebuilt muscles—then froze when he heard Morris’ voice.

"I may not be a Jedi, but I am very disagreeable to watching a dismemberment. Kinda stirs up bad memories..."

Percival initially said nothing, still trying to discern Morris’ exact position within the swamp. He was somewhere behind him, due south. Drawing a stun pistol, Percival turned to face his grandfather, pointing the gun at him… only to lower the weapon without firing a single shot, as if he couldn’t do it. His expression was a carefully arranged mask of shock and fear designed to elicit an empathic response. Percival wasn’t some nightmarish droid; he was just a scared kid.

“Because you’re my grandfather,” he said, just the right amount of softness and snivel in his youthful voice. "Grandpa Morris. I thought you were dead. We all did..."

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

In others, perhaps, Percival's tone might have brought hesitation.

Nathan had a heart of ice. He scowled more at the tone than the response.

He kept his sword up. The fething thing had healed itself. Chit. Chit.

"Grandfather?!" Nathan hissed. "How do you know that name? No one should know that name except... except..."

Realization. Cold realization.

"The Cult built you, didn't they?" Nathan asked Percival Io in a hate filled snarl, his loathing of the Cult pouring out in the seething tone in which he asked the question. Green eyes narrowed to slits.

"I am sworn to avenge my wife, who it's master, Darth Phyre, dismembered after eating her soul. WHERE IS SHE?!" Nathan roared, slowly moving towards him.

"Talk, Droid...or I swear, on the blood of my wife Lysandra that you will not leave this swamp alive..."

 

[Percival Io]

"You're Morris Crownwraithe," Percival persisted. "My mother is Julia Crownwraithe."

Morris was clearly having a hard time processing the news, throwing out accusations. Percival grimaced at the mere mention of the Cult. "Your daughter built me," he said. "She may have fallen to the Cult, but she was not a Cultist when she made me."

As Morris began to advance toward him, Percival took a step back, still playing the part of a scared boy. A toy constructed by a woman who had long since gone mad. "Darth Phyre is dead. I killed her, with the help of my mother and brothers and sisters. But not even that destroyed the Cult." Genuine emotion began to leak through the façade as he spoke, frustration and anger and sorrow. "Mother is now the head of the Cult. She calls herself the Parliament. She is married to another Cultist, the Battalion. And she has brought her entire House under their rule."

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan didn't bother to correct Percival as to the name. It had been much the same when he had first started using that name...nobody knew where he was from before that. Even "Moya De Lifte", his master, genuinely hadn't known where he hailed from before discovering him, as even back then he had never cared to explain his past in any real detail other than the fact he was from Ession. He saw no reason to start giving answers now.

(Cutaway of Commissioner James Gordon sitting by an elegant fire place.)

(Gordon: Nothing. No matches on prints, DNA, dental. Clothing is custom, no labels. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint. No name...no other alias)

The name made him stop.

Julia...

He remembered now. He remembered suddenly, why he and his wife had been on Dantooine. They had been chased down, and could run no further from Darth Phyre.

It had been to send his little girl away, to give her some form of chance away from Phyre's madness.

But it hadn't worked. Darth Phyre had managed to wait it out in the future for her. They had taken her. Corrupted her.

He and his wife...his master Moya's gambit...it had utterly failed. Lysandra had died for nothing.

Nathan staggered back, stricken, sensing no lie in the words of Percival Io .

The stolen energy sword flashed purple, but instead of attacking Percival, he started slicing and hacking at the nearest dead tree stump in a fit of psychotic rage, screaming obscenities too foul to write down without incurring the wrath of Admins.

He hacked away at the dead stump, chopping and slashing at it in a state of mania before falling to his knees, eyes red with pain he couldn't dig out of his skull, but not the physical kind.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to.

He was unable to. His last tears had left his body when Lysandra's soul had been gleefully consumed and annihilated.

But he could scream still. And scream he did at the sky. In horror and despair.

 

[Percival Io]

Percival stayed out of Morris' way as he unleashed his fury on the remnants of a dead tree. The Chaplain was tempted to join in, seeking a release from his grief and rage in violence. But it wouldn't be enough to quell those emotions. It was never enough.

Morris' cry of horror and despair sent terrified wildlife scattering. Percival stood by, feeling the vibrations of the scream in his own body. Whatever he had done, however they had gotten off on the wrong foot, he sensed that he had found a kindred soul in his grandfather - someone who could at least understand him. Someone to share in his pain.

He started to approach Morris, one empty hand reaching out to touch his shoulder... but a noise in the distance brought his advance to a halt. Someone was coming. Probably more Jedi, brought there by the survivor who had run away into the swamps.

Or perhaps more Sith, coming to add their reinforcements to the fight. Either way, Percival would likely have to kill them, whether in self-defense or to protect his Grandfather.

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan stopped screaming long enough to sense some form of danger approaching. Familiar feeling danger.

(Gandalf: This foe is beyond us.)

"We have to go..." Nathan said, shaking, shivering with rage. "We have to go now. Right now!

Nathan got up and immediately began running deeper into the swamp, he made sure that Droid was following him as he did. What was in the swamp was far worse than an army of stormtroopers. Far worse than an entire Platoon of Jedi sent to capture them both.

He eventually collapsed back to his knees, exhausted from how much he had run from that hated presence. Running had bought them time. Bought them both time.

"Start talking..." he said quietly, desperately looking for Weaponry some soldier in this battle they were in the midst of might have dropped.

"How...did this abomination come to pass?!" Nathan growled at Percival Io , eyes wild with hate and something bordering on madness...

 

[Percival Io]

Percival turned to Morris, frowning, but followed him. The Chaplain was prepared to face any foe that dared to cross him, but if his ancient Grandfather was so insistent, he supposed he would be a fool not to listen…

He ran alongside Morris until the man fell to his knees in exhaustion. Percival halted, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of danger even as Morris demanded an explanation.

“Where do I even start?” he said. “Your daughter was tricked into becoming the apprentice of the head of the Cult, the Amalgam, who disguised herself as a Jedi Master. Ever since then, the Cult has been digging their claws deeper into Mother, preying on her vulnerabilities, her desires, and her disillusionment with the Jedi. They isolated her and made her think they were the only allies she could trust in a galaxy which had turned its back on her. Then it all culminated in Mother's decision to become the new head of the Cult after finally killing the Amalgam.”

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan wanted to be sick. He wanted to burn the whole planet down, and tear out his own eyes and ears.

"And you're built...to kill people like that poor woman whose head you cut off?" he asked idly, trying not to hyperventilate. But he was losing control. A dead tree nearby splintered at the base from invisible waves of rage and shock from him and tumbled away from them. He wanted to die. Again.

He half considered letting the Droid do it.

Nathan's stolen sword flashed alive again and he savagely chopped into a nearby boulder, screaming violent obscene things. He didn't care if an enemy heard this. He didn't care...

"Who are her allies?!" he hissed venomously, almost blind as he grabbed Percival Io by the collar, not caring that his screaming at him was potentially fatal.

"Who?!" he asked again in a lethal whisper, his intent clear at that moment. The Cult was marked for death by him. He would not leave this world until the Cult, until the Brain Demon herself was no more.

 

[Percival Io]

"And you're built... to kill people like that poor woman whose head you cut off?"

"Something like that," Percival muttered. "I was designed with Force Users in mind. I've killed both Jedi and Sith, along with a few more obscure sects and Force Orders. If it's any consolation, she and the others attacked me first."

Many Jedi seemed to have adopted a policy of immediate hostility toward Neutralizers. Percival had certainly noticed they stopped trying to understand him or urge him to turn away from House Io's teachings. On the Holonet, the usual critics had complained that it wasn't the Jedi way, but since it was still a matter of debate whether or not droids even counted as sentient beings deserving of rights, it was easy to dismiss their protests. Now that Neutralizers had gained the capacity for free will and agency, the lines would no doubt blur even further.

Percival's train of thought was interrupted by Morris grabbing him by the collar and screaming in his face. The Chaplain's lip curled as he shoved his grandfather away, but he made no attempt to silence the man. Like Morris, Percival would have welcomed his own destruction.

"I have told you already," he spat. "The Cult's leaders are her allies. There was Light Sith who offered her aid and had a place at the table, a woman called Darth Themis, but she turned against Mother after she joined the Cult." Lowering his voice, he added, "I wish that I could join her, but I have... other reasons to remain. People who depend on me."

Nathan Bloodscrawl​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"I want names..." Nathan snapped. "Faces!"

Nathan paused as Percival Io .

"Whisperer of The Thirty-Fifth Heresy? Why the hell would that freak be helping her?" he asked, not knowing his daughter had inadvertently followed in his footsteps, both having unknowingly trained by a Sith in their lives masquerading as Jedi.

Boy, oh boy, was he gonna have a measured, mature, sane and polite response when he found that out about himself.

(Cutaway of J Jonah Jameson laughing uncontrollably)

"You must have specifics. Who besides this Amalgam and Darth Themis?" Nathan demanded, trying to get himself back under control. But his discipline was totally failing him due to how emotional this moment was, the knowledge of his total failure to save his daughter biting into his very soul, taunting him, threatening him with insanity.

"If you have people who depend on you, than the best thing you could do is get them away from that Cult." Nathan snapped. "That cult is composed of sick, depraved people who will murder the souls of those you love..."

"Percival?" came a voice of a man with a slightly Electronic edge to it.

Nathan wheeled around and stepped back as a Model 1 emerged from the swamps carrying no less than a T-7 Ion Disruptor. His lack of paint or small strips of colored rags and trinkets set him apart from his brothers. He was the one known as David, the Model 1 who had been rip van winkled at Sarka, reviving away from his brothers and spending many months on the run, trying to locate Laertia. Unlike most of the mechanicals, he was the only Model 1 that had chosen free will, but had kept it a secret, even from Mother.

"There you are!" David said, stepping from the swamp. "Got bad news. Our Agents just reported Syd freaking Celsius is in the area. She's on the warpath. Batty just gave orders over comms to pull out immediately. I was sent to...to..."

David stopped, staring in clear surprise at Nathan. The contents of his datacron had not escaped any Model 1's notice.

"That's impossible. You're dead..." David trailed, not even raising his rifle.

"Friend of yours?" Nathan asked grimly.

 

[Percival Io]

"Whisperer of The Thirty-Fifth Heresy? Why the hell would that freak be helping her?"

"She claims to be Julia Crownwraithe's godmother. I do not understand her motives other than that connection."

"You must have specifics. Who besides this Amalgam and Darth Themis?"

"The Battalion, formerly known as Elaine Tear, is married to Mother." Percival listed off the names in a dry, detached tone. "Countess Arianna Belasko is another ally and financial supporter. Darth Strelok, formerly known as Maple Harte, has a tentative allegiance to the House. Lady Ni-Ne Li-Ves was one of our first backers, though her relationship with Mother is strained."

"If you have people who depend on you, than the best thing you could do is get them away from that Cult."

"That's exactly the problem. The woman I love was forcibly assimilated by—"

"Percival?"

Percival instantly fell silent, whirling around to face David, weapon at the ready. He relaxed only slightly when he saw that it was a friend, not a foe, and listened to what the other Neutralizer had to say. They were being ordered to retreat now that Syd Celsius was in the area.

David also recognized Morris Crownwraithe. "Yes," Percival replied to Morris' question. "We don't have time for introductions. We need to leave. You're welcome to come with us, if you want to..." See his daughter again, after she had been turned into an abomination? Somehow he didn't think Morris would be interested. Or if he was, it would only be because he intended to destroy her.

Nathan Bloodscrawl