Faction Great Purge - Fall of Prosperity [Jedi/Sith]

[Darth Prazutis]

Bold. Driven by the deepest desire for vengeance the Imperial Knight charged across the floor towards the Butcher King. Through smoke, blaster fire, and the raging battle surrounding them all. It seemed perfect then a life served to avenge the fallen of Tion, one of many worlds burned to ash by the Kainate, their dead screaming into the void serving the Dark Side's purpose one final time. It couldn't have been written better in the annals of stories and legends, to see your hated quarry so close, so very close in front of you. To have them in a penultimate confrontation to avenge every friend and family you ever lost, to carve their names in blood and battle. Out from wreckage came the brave Tydeus of Tion, out from certain death he emerged drawing blades designed for death, to fell monsters, his eyes locked on the Eternal Father. The battlefield seemed to slow as Tydeus crossed the deck, howling vengeance at the Dyarch. Right as he neared Kaine Zambrano, right as he loomed a few feet away. So close...so very close...

Yet denied his final reckoning.

Out from force augmented speed, the Shadow Hand crashed towards the side of the Imperial Knight with all the force of a nearly seven-hundred-pound locomotive at high speed. Xûl Qarnak gripped in His hands, the blade raged and howled with a deafening rumble, runework screaming bright on dark metal as it drank in death. A lightsaber designed for a Sith Titan to afford Him every advantage, to bring the full might of His inhuman power to bear as He swung it down towards the Imperial Knight. Apart the Eternal Dyarchy were apocalyptic threats, separate they were more akin to a natural disaster than any other word. But together? Words failed to describe the totality of danger when they fought as a single unifying force against a deadly threat. They'd been side by side buildng, ruling, conquering, killing for over a hundred years. Their bonds were so deep in the Dark Side of the Force they almost ceased being two individuals and became one yawning void in the force the closer they stood, their powers multiplying on themselves over and over. No one knew them better. It was a lifetime of connection that drew them deeper than even the closest of familial bonds, it was something different.

They could communicate without speaking, reach each other regardless of distance. Even while He charged it wasn't to save the Eternal Father from the Imperial Knight, no. To assume such was folly. It was the very moment where two became one to turn ones climactic moment into utter ruin, to transfigure it into ash in the mouth. Even as He crashed in the Shadow Hand was preparing, moving seamlessly in order to fold His attack efficiently into the Eternal Father's next move. The giants positioning designed to split Tydeus's focus far enough so he couldn't keep both of them in the same view, and precious seconds between them would matter between a blocked, parried, or evaded blow and a blow struck. But as His strike fell something else came. A telekinetic grip of overwhelming strength. It wasn't designed to freeze Him entirely, it was designed to seize him for just a moment, to let the abrupt and sudden nature of it wrench the Imperial Knight into confusion and delirium. To carve an opening just wide enough for the Eternal Father to exploit.

Darth Carnifex | Darth Empyrean | Lysander von Ascania | Naniti | Allyson Locke | Tydeus of Tion​

 

[Seo Linn]

Seo hit the lower deck only moments after Dalvos, boots slamming hard against the plating as blaster fire sparked wildly through the ladder well above them. The confined space amplified everything: alarms, sonic blasts, shouted warnings, the sharp hiss of burning metal where stray bolts struck bulkheads already half-ruined by the fighting, until the entire corridor felt as if it were vibrating around them.

She dropped into cover beside the doorway just as another burst of red plasma tore through the intersection ahead. The Sith were regrouping quickly, far more quickly than she liked, and Seo leaned out long enough to send several controlled shots downrange, forcing the surviving troopers back behind the damaged corridor split while Dalvos assessed their options. The left passage still held movement; the right looked unstable enough that one more bad hit might bring it down entirely.

Her eyes flicked downward for half a second. The scorch mark on his thigh armor was impossible to miss.

"You're hit," she said evenly, not accusatory, simply noting the fact as another bolt cracked past close enough to shower sparks across the wall beside them.

Dalvos's suggestion drew her attention back toward the damaged right corridor, and she judged the distance, the strain in the supports, the way the plating bowed under its own weight. "Cutting through may still be faster," she said, calm even as blaster fire hammered the doorway hard enough to force her lower. "If the left passage narrows, they can funnel us into overlapping fire."

She returned fire almost immediately afterward, driving the troopers back just long enough to buy them breathing room measured in seconds rather than minutes.

Then came his last comment. You're kinda crazy, you know that? Thermal detonator.

Seo blinked once at him, then gave the faintest shrug, strangely casual considering the circumstances. "I learned early how to improvise," she replied dryly, a flicker of humor crossing her expression despite the firefight raging around them. "And it was low yield."

Another shot cracked against the bulkhead overhead, showering them both in dust and sparks. Seo leaned back out and fired twice more toward the corridor split before glancing at Dalvos and the plasma torch in his hand.

"Cut fast," she said, steady and certain. "I'll keep them occupied."

Dalvos Thrakan @open

 

[Katarine Ryiah]

"Never Hide Your Heart"
​

Prosperity - Dock 4

​

The door hissed open.

Katarine felt them before she saw them.

The dark side rolled through the docking bay in oily waves, clinging to the mercenaries waiting beyond the threshold. Not all of them were Force-sensitive, but they carried its stain, of violence, fear, cruelty, desperation. The kind of people darksiders surrounded themselves with. The kind of presence she had spent years trying to avoid.

Her stomach twisted the instant it touched her senses.

And somewhere beneath the revulsion came hunger.

Her white blade snapped to life just as blasterfire erupted toward them. Crimson bolts slammed into the humming light and scattered in every direction. One ricocheted into the ceiling. Another tore through a fuel line in a burst of steam and sparks.

"Get to a ship!" she shouted.

The two families ran past her in panic, clutching children and bags while alarms began to scream throughout the dock. Katarine stepped forward alone, saber moving in swift defensive arcs as more mercenaries emerged from cover.

The pull intensified immediately. It always did when she was close to people like this.

The dark side was not inside her, but being near it awakened something terrible in her body. Like standing beside a fire during winter. Like inhaling smoke after finally escaping it. Every instinct told her to move closer instead of away.

To listen.

To sink into it.

Her pulse quickened.

Another volley came. Katarine spun gracefully through the barrage, redirecting bolts back into crates and railings while refugees disappeared toward the waiting freighter behind her.

"Aren't you coming?" someone yelled from the boarding ramp.

"Just go!"

She didn't know if she meant it, but the pull kept growing.

There were darksiders nearby.

Not here in the dock perhaps, but close. She could feel them like pressure behind her eyes. A familiar ache. A terrible magnetic call somewhere deeper in the station.

She just hadn’t decided if she was going to answer that call yet.

 

[Nima Torr]

Darkness had fully settled over the Prosperity like a funeral shroud, suffusing the air with a sense of foreboding as the distant cacophony of battle resonated like a mournful dirge, foreign and jarring to a sanctuary that had long been shielded from the turmoil beyond its walls. Within these hallowed halls, the focus had always been on nurturing the potential of its cherished students, many of whom were blissfully unaware of the gruesome realities unfolding just beyond their borders, their naivety shielded by those who had suffered in their stead, until the time came for them to take up the mantle.

Nima had hoped for their sake that they would have more time—a childhood filled with laughter and carefree joy, rather than the pervasive fear that seeped into the very fabric of the ship, until it felt as if she were choking on despair itself, the weight of impending doom pressing down relentlessly on her heart and soul.

Unfortunately, hope had slipped through her fingers like grains of sand; the time for dreams faded with the encroaching presence of the living nightmare that dogged their steps. Now, all that remained was the hard-edged truth, the bitter understanding that those who survived this harrowing trial might one day ignite a spark that could illuminate the path to a brighter future.

It mattered not if none of them survived today.

Nima moved purposefully through the dim hallways, her figure illuminated by the twin blades of azure that burned at her sides, piercing the inky darkness. As she walked, the air around her seemed to shimmer, with delicate, imperceptible threads of a gossamer web stretching out and weaving between the jagged remnants of a diseased realm. The ethereal web glistened faintly in her mind, each strand a fragile connection to the dwindling lights, and the cloying darkness that attempted to seep into the edges of her perception.

At the furthest reaches of where she dared to grasp, one particular thread twisted restlessly beneath the corruptive presence of the dark, its light flickering and dimming with each passing heartbeat. Sensing the urgency in its fading glow, Nima's strides quickened, propelled by an instinctive need to reach the fragile light before it was snuffed out forever.

As she approached, an inactive elevator shaft loomed in her path, its entrance sealed off by a heavy silver blast door. Time dwindled in the moment between heartbeats. With a calculated flick of her wrist, she channelled a surge of energy that erupted from her fingertips, and with a resounding clang, the seal shattered—metal crumpled inward, twisted and mangled under the force, the edges of the door bending inward with enough power to create a jagged opening that beckoned her deeper into the abyss. Another step carried her the rest of the way, as she launched herself forward, a lunge that twisted mid-air, driving through the gap as she landed upon a support railing on the inside of the elevator shaft, then kicked off to rapidly descend until she once again felt the tug of threads.

She was running out of time.

Tag: OPEN​

 

[Zark San Tekka]

OPEN

"Security override. Council clearance."

Master San Tekka remained perfectly still while a sensor beam swept over him. It was a multi-layered system that would compare his genetic sequence, retinal pattern, and voice print to records that confirmed his identity as a sitting master of the Jedi Council. Elsewhere aboard the Prosperity there were Jedi dying and padawans who needed protection but there was also a bigger picture.

Blast doors thick enough to withstand a turbolaser unleashed steam from the hydraulics' slow progress. He passed by more secure repositories on his way to the masked Jedi's final destination. The Bogan Collection. The Black Vault. Most of the New Jedi Order's treasure had already been plundered but there were still secrets on board the Prosperity that he could not allow their ancient enemies the Sith to possess.

Zark handed an empty holocron to a polysensitive grasper which placed the device onto a multispectral reader.

"Initiate Guardian Protocols."

Top secret data reflected off the Jedi's temple guard mask while the holocron vault copied millions of exanodes onto a single cube. Master San Tekka sensed the darkside looming closer but could do nothing except wait for the process to complete. He picked up the glowing holocron when it was finished and marveled at how something so beautiful could be a symbol of their defeat.

Like the coming dawn his lightsaber burned its way through delicate Jedi machinery. The vault's analysis chamber erupted in a geyser of sparks. Holocrons winked out one by one as a corruptive program wiped out everything Zark could not take with him. Sacrificing so much knowledge violated the Code's precepts but the alternative would inevitably lead to far worse disaster.

Distant lightsabers echoed off the Prosperity's bulkheads. Master San Tekka closed the blast doors behind him. He would do everything possible for the survivors still on board but it was imperative that the old man made it off this ship.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Lysander von Ascania | Naniti
​

Sometimes, when a moth was traveling toward a flame, it found something else that captured its attention.

Cora's next heartbeat sank into her stomach like a lead weight. There were many familiar aspects to the Propserity, the clustered presence of so many Jedi. Kahlil, Connel, Silas, Ko, Lily…

And then, one discordant note in the Force. Chaotic, but familiar in the most unsettling way. The sound of it raced over her skin, prickling every hair, coiling in her gut before she even realized what it was.

Cora caught the nasty glint of Nightstar as it reeled back, then whipped forward in a cruel arc. She reached out, but was too late to pull the Jedi back from his fate. The resulting spray of blood wasn't as tightly calculated as the wound it had come from.

It was grisly and final, and it painted a crimson smattering across her face and shoulder.

Cora caught the savaged Knight as he fell. Shallow breaths, choking on his own blood. Her hand pressed close to the wound stretched across his abdomen, close to his heart. Years of triage had taught her when a wound was survivable, and when it was not.

"Lysander!" she cried, voice edged with disbelief as it rippled through the hangar.

Those shallow breaths gave way to a wheeze, then silence. He was afforded the mercy of a quick death, one that hadn't been granted by the Sith's brutal blade.

Cora kept her senses honed on Lysander as she rose. All but sight.

She could not look at him. Not at the cold, ornate face of his visor. A shaky breath was drawn in through parted lips that trembled ever so slightly, disappointment sinking into every shadowed feature of her face.

"This is what you've chosen to become? A man who runs with butchers and slavers?"

She'd never quite been ready to accept the reality of who Lysander was, but no longer could she afford him the benefit of the doubt. Her selfishness had cost lives.

In a cruel trick of memory, she saw light streaming through the high windows, caught in his golden curls. The way his little hand tried to turn the page of the book before she'd even finished reading this one aloud.

Then, there was the way his tiny finger traced the illustration of the knight. How he'd stare at it for minutes, taking in every detail of valiant, shining armor.

That recollection faded as quickly as it had come. The knight disappeared, and all that was left were the harsh, impersonal lines of her brother’s chosen helm.

Cora finally settled her gaze on the totality of Lysander. She held his gaze - or rather, sought it - through the slits in that visor.

"You're here to kill Jedi, are you not?" He'd effectively shaken her, and she didn't hide that. Cora’s expression firmed, dipping almost into a frown, a rising intensity to the gentle sister he'd known.

"This is what your masters told you to do?"

Cora spread her arms out to her sides, holding Lysander in her unwavering line of sight.

"Then do it. Become the monster you're trying so hard to be. Strike me down, brother!"