Invasion Hope Never Dies | GA Invasion of TSE held Ziost and Tiss'Sharl

[Arctus Silmar]

The Shaper

The Iron Crown|| Whilstone of Prowess|| Whilstone of Acuity || Whilstone of Power||
Urfael|| Mithralian || Empyrean Gland
Voice Sample

With a growing sense of the Force's gaze drawing down upon him did The Shaper direct the OMYN droids to their reap their bloody toll. Groups of Alliance marines fought their hearts out, in some cases literally by The Shaper's hand, to defend the rotting innards of the limping vessel. Urfael weaving a bloody, terrible swath through bone, blood and sinew as he drank deeply of the pain, darkness and death wrought all around him. Whether strangled by the gurgling of their own blood or having their armor turned into a makeshift coffin crushed down upon their fragile frames, The Shaper swelled his presence in the Dark Side with every step taken. He could feel the approach of the Iron One, his presence in the Force calling to The Shaper like a dulcet melody emanating forth from a finally hewed instrument, if said instrument was a cold, stoic instrument of war. Pausing for just a moment, The Shaper extended his spear Acharn to an OMYN droid, and directed it to be returned to the boarding shuttle, knowing he would need to make an expeditious exit once his work was done.

The Shaper's presence in the Force swelled and writhed, billowing about himself as a cloak of molten darkness, flowing like lava as his senses bore down upon Kainan as well.. This would be most interesting. He had been there on Dantooine when the Lord Executor had done battle with the Once-Emperor and Thurion Heavenshield and come away in one piece. The Shaper smiled a slow, intense smile as he mused. 'How Interesting.' Directing the majority of the OMYN droids The Shaper kept only a small group of four with his person. Bracing himself for the battle to come in mind as well as drawing into himself the energies of the Whilstone of Power and Prowess.

As he rounded the corner to come face to face with his foes excitement, palpable and thrumming in his veins, coursed through him. He was unsurprised, pleased even, as the Lord Executor wasted no energy on words. Springing to action with legendary acumen The Shaper expected nothing less of since feeling his confrontation on Dantooine. Whether the Lord Executor took enough notice of he to note the peculiar lack of his spear Acharn from his person was entirely unknown to The Shaper himself, though he was entirely aware of it's position. Recognizing the grace and power behind Rurik's slash, in the form of Juyo. A wild, chaotic form The Shaper recognized all too well.

In the relatively tight confines of the hallway The Shaper responded with his own defensive flourish, emphasizing his mastery of Makashi by electing to not meet Rurik's strength and comparatively wild strike. instead his footwork fell back as Urfael angled the lightsaber blow out and away from himself, only for the OMYN droids to join him a moment later. One of the droids opening fire on Rurik with it's rifle while the remaining three elected to do the same to Kainan. Staggering their barrage of fire so as not to create gaps or openings between shots and The Shaper would weave his own counter-attack to follow the droid's shot at the Lord Executor, respecting the man's strength and avoiding a direct strike, and instead opting for a feint to his neck from the iron-clad man's right, Shaper's left, before drawing the blade down in the feint for a comparatively shallow attack at Rurik's inner left thigh. He did not need, nor aim to test the Executor's full defenses with another there to aid him, merely hampering him would make the ensuing likelihood of the droids' demise easier upon himself.

Engaging: Rurik Fel Kainan

Allies; Ingrid L'lerim

Other Enemies: Aerarii Tithe Areyon Fisk Kamer

 

[Maijan Paisea]

TASK FORCE XESH

ABOVE ZIOST | PEACEMAKER
STRANGE IS BETTER

​

Captain Giraan's instructions were clear, and Maijan was strangely happy to be of aid and found useful. They were going to make a run for the planet. It had the potential to be suicidal, which was the golden woman's modus operandi of late. If it worked, it worked. If it didn't..they wouldn't know.

The ships that had manifested earlier, and had been sitting mostly idle to show more strength than actually existed, slowly started to rotate. As if they'd all received the relayed command to redirect their course and cluster around The Peacemaker. Maijan was particularly proud of the adjustments and flares of the engines and how hyperrealistic those looked.

"Ready?"

Mid-nod, the illusionist paused. The threads of the White Current were strained, put under pressure by the immediate appearance of something sudden in the corporeal realm.

"Therrre's something wrong. Captain.."

Maijan could only feel the miraculous appearance and its foreboding nature and intention. The radars of the ship were much more likely to pick up the reality of the situation, and suggest adjusting the originally intended target.

"Therrre's something in the way. Somezing bad."



ALLIES | GA | NIO | Teica Giraan | Hiram Voss | Siloh Riain | Leon Gallo | Captain Raith
ENEMIES | TSE | SV-2121 | Sith Dominance

 

[First Sister]

Location: Temple Engineering Core, Prosperity
Allies: TSE ( Alina Tremiru Darth Strosius Saket Keane )
Enemies: GA ( Kaska Arden Dagon Kaze ) │ NIO

The Sister was thrown wholesale into one of the consoles behind her, her head bouncing off of a wall a full ten meters from her previous position as the male Jedi closed the distance with preternatural speed. His lightsaber clashed against her own in a violent and physical display, which would quickly overwhelm the diminutive Qilin if she let it continue. While she did channel strength into her body, the math would never work in her favor if she sought to sustain it, assuming equal capability in the Force or the Body arts with the Jedi bearing down on her. Ostensibly, her attempt to break his focus with the sonic stunner had failed, which meant she was now faced with his lightsaber, battering against her own while she was left in a purely defensive posture. Having deactivated her energy shield in order to conserve its power, the Sister resorted to parrying and dodges, taking advantage of her size to roll and spin where she could, though a pair of strikes inflicted glancing blows, scalding her left arm and right thigh, respectively. In the wake of her dodges, the imposing Jedi’s lightsaber also struck the consoles, sparks flying in the air as electricity energy surged within the room. The electromancer could sense all of it, the living current yearning for freedom where the Light sought to inflict bondage. It was these energies that she began to reach out and touch, even as the Jedi sought to batter her down.

Just as their blades clashed once more, the Sister used her free right hand to fire a pair of blasts from her wrist-mounted repulsor weapon into the Jedi’s chest at point blank range, with the intent to throw him back. If the attack afforded her the necessary separation, the electromancer would focus the electrical energies surging within the room, before casting them down upon the two Jedi in an attempt to electrocute both of them outright. Stemming from six different points of discharge, each of the Jedi would find themselves beset by her electrical fury from above, behind, and the front. The nature of the room’s purpose lent the Sister plenty of electricity to draw on, allowing her to perhaps seize a decisive advantage against the two Paladins of the Light.

Spoiler: Loadout

• First Sister’s Sith Uniform
  • Undersuit
    • UL-14 “Virtus” Class Underlay
  • Energy Shield(s)
    • Phase III “Force Avenger” Energy Shield
  • Alchemical Talisman(s)
    • Jin'Wodasir - Pins of Protection (2)
    • Talisman of Concentration
  • Left Wrist
    • ACS-207 Cryo-Ban Gun
    • Wide-Beam Sonic Stunner
    • Universal Gas Launcher
      • Pink Vapor
  • Right Wrist
    • ACS-208 Wrist Tensor
    • Wide-Beam Sonic Stunner
    • Universal Gas Launcher
      • Vertigon Gas
  • Utility Belt
    • FAE/U-01 "Serenity" Anti-Signal Field System
    • Empyrean Infusion
• Miniaturized Double-Bladed Spinning Lightsaber
• Whimsy Knife
• DL-13 Holdout Blaster

 

[Teica Giraan]

[Location: Orbit of Ziost - Peacemaker{Negotiator-class Light Cruiser} - Bridge]
[Captain Giraan reporting in]
[Interacting with: Maijan Paisea ]
[Relevant to: Sith Dominance]
​

Three.

"Damage control on Standby."

Two.

"Gunnery on Standby."

One.

"Engines firing, all hands on Standby!" The deck chief shouted.

The Peacemaker's two remaining thrusters lit up in blinding rings of blue-tinted light as she began her acceleration. Bow facing the hole they had cracked in the Sith formation, Turbolasers spinning into position, and Bridge officers bracing themselves for what lay ahead. Debris shot out from all around the light cruiser, explosions littered the space around them in spectacular displays of orange and yellow. The engines began to roar across the decks, the beaten and bruised Peacemaker slowly growing faster and faster and-

Teica let out a hesitant breath. Again, she'd be taking her ship, her crew, herself into danger. And for what? She opened her mouth, ever so slightly, as if to call off the order. But the order didn't come, and the Peacemaker continued forward.

"Therrre's something wrong. Captain.." Maijan's voice prompted the captain's mouth to shut, "Therrre's something in the way. Somezing bad."

Immediatley, she looked to the viewscreen, and her composure shattered. Her eyes blinked, at first once, then twice, faster and faster each moment. no, it had to be a trick. It had to. It had to. Standing over the planet was the long, sharp and angular frame of a super star destroyer, descending into the atmosphere.

"Kara...Confirm Dreadnought," Teica couldn't keep her eyes off the screen as she spoke to her scanner chief.

"Dreadnought Confirmed. Matching configuration...Behemoth II class," There was a long pause, then a gasp of raw terror, "They're firing on the ground, ma'am."

Her eyes grew wide, her fists clenched, the shock, the fear, thoughts screaming through her mind. It was real. The danger was real. The Sith were slaughtering her colleagues, friends, their own men... She had a new goal.

"How long until we're in atmo?" The captain's eyes began to swell with newfound determination.

"Half a minute, ma'am."

"Switch all turbolasers to salvo fire. Once we've entered, fire everything we have at their engines."

The moment came, the Peacemaker charged past a debris cluster and dove into the atmosphere of Ziost. The repulsors fired up, fire almost ignited along the shields as she tried to slow herself, and turrets moved into position. There was a pregnant pause as the guns achieved their lock. But when they were ready, they delivered. One burst of parallel bolts of compressed energy charged forward, missiles rushed from their tubes in rapid succession, and the ion cannons let loose. By now, a few other ships had joined in, dancing about the darkened sky and firing with everything they could, even as turbolasers rained down from the sith-imperial ships above.

Let's kill us a Dreadnought.

 

[Darth Daiara]

The Aftermath
Ziost Academy
Zaavik Perl | closed​

Spoiler: The Story

Ziost Academy | The Aftermath.
Zaavik Perl | closed

The Jedi had come with purging fire.

Why?


They spoke of hate. And murder. And evil. They accused her of these things as they-- . . .

She wondered if they ever bothered to look in the mirror.


She hated them.


A noise caught in her chest as she fell to her knees, the battle scarred remains of the Academy gates in pieces around her. Dust coated the crumbled space in a thick layer, turning the once vibrant place into a wash of melancholy gray. She swallowed against her dry tongue and took in a shaky breath. There were no sparks of life within the abandoned structure.

Jedi were heartless creatures.

Her fingers coiled into the debris around her. Her vision blurred. The space became assaulted with the sudden noises of a pained animal, rickashaying off the structure in a chilling echo.

It took her a moment to recognize the noise came from her. It took another breath for her to feel the dirt press against her face. Her grief overruled her, breaking her down and curling her up.

Why did she care?

What did she expect?

Twenty-four lives had been saved that day because of her treason, and it still didn't feel like enough.


She wasn't enough.

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

Repulsorengines roared as three Sith-Imperial TIEs flew overhead. Zaavik dove forward, landing shoulder first against a slanted bit of war-rubble, and ideally out of sensor view of the passing aircraft. His head followed their pass with a high arc, eyes settling on the horizon as they grew smaller against the sky. Zaavik remained behind cover until he could no longer hear the bellow of their engines.

Once he was certain they hadn't noticed him, he brought one hand up and vaulted over his cover. Boots crunched into the dirt and grime beneath, the toe of the left knocking against something hard. The sensation drew his gaze; a corpse of the GADF color. The face, or what was left of it, was beyond any attempt of identification. A quick tug snapped the tags from around his neck, which Zaavik quickly pocketed.

There was a ripple in the force, a phantasmal lead that'd he'd unwittingly facilitated. Yet again he found it tugging him along, even now in almost direct opposition to what he should have been doing. Here was Golden Starbird Recipient Zaavik Dagoth, War Hero of the Alliance, and Shadow of the New Jedi Council, blatantly defying orders. Few people familiar with him beyond name would be surprised, but it certainly wasn't a good look.

Not like that that had ever stopped him from doing anything.

The distinct sound of a footstep suddenly overtook every other sensation as a precognitive sense of danger washed over him. Emerald plasma ignited, elbow bent, and crimson clashed over his shoulder with defensive viridescence. He whirled, sending strikes forward as he advanced. An opening presented itself, and one upwards strike sundered both the assailant's hands at the wrists. The followthrough sent the greenish blade sinking into the cest, incinerating the heart with the contained heat of a sun.

As his eyes met his assailant's, he finally actually noticed the person before him, rather than the red, glowing danger. Zeltron, female, about his age. The look on her face was unbearable as she experienced her last agonizing moment of life. Zaavik avoided her gaze and brought his foot upwards as she fell to her knees. His boot pressed against her upper breast and collar bone, forcing the now limp cadaver from his blade and slumping onto the floor with an extension of his knee.

He looked down past the wisps of smoke that rose from the hole in her chest. Like him, so very young, but unlike him, so very dead. She'd thrown any immunity their shared youth might have offered when she assumed the intent to kill. The lifeless, pinkish irises stared at him, aimless and devoid of intent, yet still staring right at him. He averted his gaze sharply, squeezing his eyes closed with a closed-mouth grimace.

It took a moment for him to muster the strength to unfreeze himself, but he eventually managed to press on. It was far from the first life he'd taken, but as if adhering to some intangible, alien logic, it had managed to affect him. Perhaps the look on her face reminded him of the Senator. Maybe it was the turbulent ripple he followed leaking some kind of secondhand aguish into his shred of empathic capability. It was morbid in the context of only just taking a life, but he wondered if he was losing his grip.

This is a real bad time to get soft, he thought to himself. Any life lost was a tragedy, but it was the unfortunate reality of war that death is callous, sudden, and brushed aside unceremoniously. At least until the battle was over. Many cried in outrage at these realities, others sought to minimize their existence entirely. Few of them were had ever been present to witness them. Fewer of them were forced to be haunted by the fact that they were the last thing some people would ever see. Those who had to live with both, fewer than Hutt's teeth they were, yet still somehow naive.

Zaavik envied them, those whose spectacles would not allow them to stare into that abyss. It had gone beyond staring, or the staring back commonly associated with it. It was now a listless drifting in that abyss, indifference as a sail. A slow and insidious usurper was apathy. Altruism's throne in Zaavik's heart had never had a legitimate claim to oppose it until now. For as long as it could last, the only thing keeping the seats as they were was spurn and stubbornness.

A noise like something dying caught his attention as he had trekked deeper. The spectral sensation reverberated the sound in a sense beyond the real. He shifted course toward it, skulking through what remained of an atrium. The sound continued, sounding more human the closer he came. Emerging from behind a shred of metal and stone now unrecognizable, he was greeted to the sight of a familiar, red-headed figure curled into the dirt.

Zaavik stood a mere two meters away, devoid of any verbal sentiment. An empathetic grimace seized his features, but he didn't say anything. What was he supposed to say? He could easily cut her down now, taking advantage of her vulnerable state. Yet, he didn't, or more accurately couldn't. Not even apathy could drive him to snuff someone out in the literal fetal position. But, truthfully, it went beyond that in its own inexplicable way. Anti-climax to their menagerie of encounter aside, it just didn't feel right.

Even with all this consideration, he said nothing.

The Aftermath
Ziost Academy
Zaavik Perl | closed​

A familiar presence washed over her, their energy burning like an inferno inside the force. She sat up with a gasp, the eyes of Zaavik Perl emerging from the wreckage that had undone her.

"What are you doing here?" She accused, her words harsh with sudden embarrassment.

She knew what her Master would have said if she had found her like this. Her peers. Her instructors-- The weakness was seeping out of her eyes and she couldn't stop it. At some point it had all just become too much.

Something in this place made the slivers of stress exploded into cracks. She could feel it-- The wild edges to her thoughts that she didn't care to reign in. Was that the darkness, or was it her? She didn't care anymore. She had had enough.


The distant sounds of the invasion echoed over to them, the ground vibrating under her hands. She hastily wiped the moisture from her face, smearing around the dirt and dust of a battle she hadn't even fought. She was painfully aware of the lit saber at his side, the vulnerability of the moment sending adrenaline pulsing through her. Sweat joined the snot on her upper lip.

"They got to you, didn't they." A set of blood shot eyes leveled on him, the sky blue swimming with betrayal. She forced in a breath, trying to relax her seizing diaphragm and maintain an ounce of dignity. She raised her chin.

"Well, go ahead then. Do it."

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

A good question. One Zaavik wouldn't be able to truthfully answer himself, even if he took the time to consider it. He stared blankly down at Aradia, dour and unblinking. The only sound apart from the distant fighting was the undulating hum of the emerald death he held in his left hand. Neck twisting one side to the other, he looked around with a sharp ejection of air from his nostrils.

Another group of aircraft soared overhead, kicking up dirt and dust with an accompanying gust of wind. Stray hairs that had escaped his tie and the unzipped brim of his jacket over the strike suit all fluttered in tow. Several steps closed to distance, deliberate pace conflicted between assault and concern. Plasmatic blade crackled against dust particles in the air.




The surging green at his side was now close enough to project its glow across the diminished Sith's face. If ever there was a time to strike, it would be now. A loud, sudden droning of the saber in motion reverberated through the space around them. A sudden fizzle and the sound went silent as the blade disappeared, leaving only empty, dusty air before an unactivated hilt.

A harsh click followed, the apparatus returned to his belt coupling. Before her eyes manifested a cortosine, aluminiferous hand, fingers outstretched in offer. "Get up," he said with sincere, yet somehow still begrudging empathy. The source of the mysterious despair he'd picked up on was now clear. Aradia's sullen display was far too similar to a reflection.

Sith or not, enough exposure had proven to him that she was human, all too human. In some respect, they all were. Few had chosen alternatives to malice when put before him. Time after time she had opted not to kill him, as he'd done for her. Zaavik had lost track of the score by this point. This was either breaking even or giving her a debt. Assuming they hadn't yet gotten past the murderous friction, that was.

"Come on, get up," he repeated.

The Aftermath
Ziost Academy
Zaavik Perl | closed​

Aradia could feel the tension in the Force as he considered it. Killing her. The air felt electrified as her very life hung in the balance. She didn't care. For a moment, a painful spell, she was ready for death.

She wouldn't of resisted. The loss of all the wars had compounded on her thin shoulders. She no longer saw any light at the end of any tunnel. She only saw the struggle of her past and the hopelessness of this never ending war. She felt incapable. She was done.

The crackle of his saber bit through the moisture of the air. She squeezed her eyes closed, braced for the blow that never came.

"Get up."

Her eyes snapped open. She balked in confusion at the hand leveled before her. "What?"

"Come on, get up," he repeated.

It was not the response she expected from the Jedi that had been her most passionate adversary for the better part of a year. They maimed each other-- hated each other. One cease fire for the sake of survival changed nothing. And yet he had put his saber away. She hadn't even considered taking hers out.

Common sense screamed in the back of her mind, but in the forefront was this nameless ache that anchored her in place. She took the hand, her body coiled in anticipation as she rose to her feet.

"Don't look at me like that." Her words were tight, biting back the display of emotion he had stumbled into. She was too distraught to blush, but she did possess the sudden urge to knock him on his butt and make their embarrassment mutual. She had never shown him anything but anger before.

"This was another Academy."

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

Zaavik's hand clasped around hers as he pulled upwards. The size difference briefly accentuated as his metallic extremities enclosed hers almost entirely. As soon as she was on her feet, Zaavik wasted no time having his hand abscond back to his side. In and out, the hand made an odd phantom-gripping motion inflecting his uneasy feeling for physical contact. The gesture was what it was regardless, and he'd bottle any further articulation for the apprehensive sensation.




A vague gesture was mirrored with either hand, fingers stretching out pacifistically at his sides, palms flashing outward for a moment. Afterwards, they'd slither into either jacket pocked as his azure regard drifted to the floor. He'd scan over the surrounding area, in part due to paranoia, and otherwise out of a lack of verbal sentiment to offer. After a moment, his gaze would return, now devoid of the prying expression he'd accosted her with previously.




"Yeah, I gathered that much." He'd instinctively shield his mind as the image of the lifeless gaze of the opposing Zeltron manifested in his memory. Yet another group of TIE screamed overhead. Sith or Imperial? He didn't bother to look up to find out. Nor when a second pass came in the opposite direction, even lower this time. A third managed to pull his gaze toward the sky. "We should probably move," he suggested in a vacuous, aimless tone. He walked stiffly, moving to a covered area away from the atrium without giving time for protest or obliging acknowledgment.

The Aftermath
Ziost Academy
Zaavik Perl | closed​

Aradia stared at the ghost of a boy in front of her, hardly recognizing him without the anger and vindication drawing lines across his face. His expression was smooth. Blank.

Unresponsive to the war zone around them.

Her own pain caught in her throat. Stood there, stunned as he turned to hurry them out. "...That's it?" She chased at his heel, debris kicking up. "That's all you're going to say? You figured? There are bodies in there, Zaavrik. Kids. Our age. And they sent you back to--"

Bombs landed close by, their earsplitting explosion masking her scream. The ground shook violently, bringing down a rain of dust. It brought her to her knees. She clamped down tight and cradled her head, her elbows digging painfully into her shins. Fear pulsed through her chest. The rapid sound of her heart blocked out all else.

She might just get her wish after all, came the bitter sentiment. They could die here and neither side would blink.

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

The sound was deafening, though the impact only manifested a flinch. Forearm rose to shield eyes from dust and debris as he squinted against the current. Stepping against it, he begrudgingly took Aradia by the arm and pulled her upward, moving them both deeper into cover as an unidentified ship burst into flames overhead and careened down somewhere beyond view.

As soon as a sufficient roof loomed overhead, he released her and spun around to face her. "This is why I said we should move," he quipped with dissatisfaction, face now peppered with war-dust. "-And no one sent me here. I should be elsewhere, but- You know what? It doesn't matter. But yes, that's it, I figured. We aren't kids Aradia, especially not when we take up arms. I'm not here for moral debates, I gave that up on Bastion."

He shook his head, an indecipherable expression on his dirt-mired face. "I was looking for you," he confessed plainly. He followed the trail most potent in the force, as he assumed was its will. Why else would it be so blatant on the air? "What happened to you?" he demanded. "You're usually so stubborn you'd suffocate if I told you to breathe, but you were just about to let me kill you back there. For what?" If every moment meant something, as he'd been taught, this one was a particularly agitating puzzle.

Was it empathy? A dogged search for meaning in this chaos? He intentionally ignored the harder questions.

The Aftermath
Ziost Academy
Zaavik Perl | closed​

Emotion bit across her expression, a fierce scowl turning to a sudden tremble on a dime. She was losing it. Everything felt so far away and yet so loud. She wanted to scream. She wanted to burn things. She wanted to curl up and cry and never leave her bed again.

His question brought a laugh bubbling to her lips, half crazed and half tormented.

"Exactly. For. What?"

The words hung in the air, nonsensical. Her eyes bugged as if it was all obvious. It wasn't.

"I'm a traitor. You know that? I snuck some kids out of here before the jedi hit the gates--" A distant collusion echoed to them, joining the cacophony all around them. "And for what?" She gestured at the deadly destruction of the Academy around them.

"You're back! It doesn't matter what I do-- You're always back! You won't stop until every single one of us are dead. And for what? Those students at the academy didn't chose to fight. Not like you. You came to their home and their owners put weapons in their hands and turned them into flesh shields. And I-

"I can't stop it. No matter how much power I take in-- don't look at me with like that-- don't you think I fear the darkness too? But you won't stop, you never stop!" She bellowed, fire jetting harmlessly out from her hands.

The corruption billowed off her, dominating the once complex harmony that had been her energy. Everything was off about her. The pure note of hope was gone --smothered-- as she poured out her heart to him for the first time.

"Make them stop." Tears carved clean paths down her cheeks. She stepped towards, imploring. Desperation gleamed in her still blue gaze.

"Please. Before there's nothing left."

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

A slight blench recoiled from the insistent, imploring tears. He grimaced, one eye squeezing shut as was his signature uncomfortable mannerism. "Don't do that," he protested weakly. It was definitely empathy, he could see it now. "I can't either," he conceded. "Either way you look at it, it's young people forced into war. It's not good, or right, it's war. It's reality. I can't declare the war to be over. I can't force the Empire to evacuate acolytes rather than arm them, nor can I tell the Alliance to call off the Stygian Campaign."

Zaavik took a disarming half-step backward. "We're cogs, Aradia. From my order's blood machine to yours, that's all we are. We have no say in any of this. It's an extension of a conflict as old as time itself, you know that. It's up there with the absolutes of the universe, like time or death." He sighed, shoulder sinking with exhale, leaving him looking a diminished shell of his usual headstrong carriage.

"I don't know what you want me to do," he protested softly. "You always decline my help, and now you're practically begging me? To do what? You're a traitor now, you say, and I can offer you the same thing I offered on Bastion in that case... -but I doubt that's your idea of help in this scenario." The corners of his mouth tightened into a flat purse as the outward edges of lips curled in.

"I'm just one person- Don't look at me like that."

The Aftermath
Ziost Academy
Zaavik Perl | closed​

"I'm not running away to be some jedi," she dismissed in distaste. She looked away and wrapped her arms around herself, the motion tight and desperate.

His reasoning brought her no comfort. Life brought her no pleasure. The reality they lived in was stark. Harsh. Bleak. It was no wonder Kaalia Pavanos had tried to remove her from the front lines when the first signs of strain had shown. Aradia should have listened to her. Her old master really had had her best interests at heart.

Unlike the Empire.

But she still needed the heartless system. The Empire gave her resources-- instructors-- bases to rest and reset. It took more from her than she could spare, but without it... she had nothing. She couldn't leave.

She wasn't half as free as she thought she was.

She turned back to him sharply, a guttural noise pulling from her chest.

"So we don't do it. We don't go out there. We don't fight. What's there left anyways? It's just dirt. Bombed dirt. Is that really worth dying for? For once, let's think for ourselves.

"Stay here with me."

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

Features flickered, widening with an affronted expression for a brief moment. "Yeah, I didn't think so." That much had been made clear on Bastion. A great Jedi once declared that 'No one's ever really gone.' There were people much more qualified to analyze the real meaning of that than he. Though, admittedly he sometimes wondered what it really meant. Did it apply to Sith as well? No one meant no one, didn't it? Then again, even those among the greatest Jedi could be wrong.

Comms chatter crackled to life to the piece in his ear. Several voices relayed information, spouted orders, rambled off codes in the Alliance's specific military vernacular. Only one stood out: 'Nox is MIA.' Hearing them acknowledge his callsign sent a chill down his spine. So they'd finally noticed his absence, as was the inevitable. Though, he doubted significant suspicions would arise, at least not yet. It was war, chaos on its purest form. But, should he stick around much longer, he'd have an abundant level of explaining to do.

A finger pressed the side of the earpiece, temporarily silencing the device. There was still time to figure this out. Enough to even, perhaps, convince her what the right path was. If she still had the capacity for this much grief, the light hadn't entirely flickered out just yet. It was massively hypocritical to give her a second, third, fourth, countless unnumbered chance when he'd neglected to give it to others. Bastra, Zoltan Street, among others. All snuffed after singular wrongdoing, singular slights.




His head recoiled at an angle, brow furrowing with the narrowing of both eyes. So that's what it was? He hadn't expected such a request, although truthfully he felt fewer reservations than he believed he probably should have. "What are you-?" Hemming and hawing ensued, the inquiry devolving into a silent glare, filled in equal parts with consideration and suspicion. His comm device began to sound off again, this time attempting to address him directly, but somehow he could hardly hear it.

"Fine."

Her eyes widen slightly, betraying the shock she clamped down on. She hadn't expected him to agree. She expected resistance, scorn, or the end of the cease fire that apparently still held firm.

Even at war.

Despite the patterns of their past, his palms remained empty of weapons. Even more unsettling was his gaze. It was empty-- void of the hatred she knew all too well. She almost didn't know what to do without it. The damaged walls rattled with the sounds of another impact. She grimaced and shied back, her torso sliding down the wall and to the ground. The hall was poorly lit. The only light poured in from the shattered opening they had scooted through.

Another boom rattled the world; the disruption was normal now. She flinched all the same, her nerves clearly raw. All the while he... he stood there... numb and unaffected. A chill grew up her spine as she observed him.

She knew him as a boy full of fire-- spunk-- he blistered with emotions that bleed out of him like a raging river. They were his fuel, like they were hers. Now he was barely more than a husk. She had seen this phenomena before in others. Fallen others.

He wasn't calm, he was checked out.


"I get it, you know. What you're feeling. Or what you're not." She looked away from him and tucked her knees up.

 

[Asmundr Varobalder]

THE_WARDEN
THERE IS NO CHAOS, THERE IS HARMONY
THE NEW JEDI ORDER | ZIOST | PEOPLE'S TOWER
ALL OR NOTHING

​

"We are luminous beings,"

“We are luminescent enough..” Asmundr returned Zark’s smile, finding inspiration in the quote from his friend. Luminous beings indeed –– amidst the tides of The Force. Each individual resting as starlight within a galaxy unseen.

The volatility of the dark storm conjuring was chaotic within the empyrean. It shrieked and hollered, gathered and clouded. Zark and Asmundr worked dutifully to silence it, reduce the chaos to whispers by casting a brilliance that soothed the turmoil.

Despite the power of Zark and his minds, they could not be luminous enough for both problems that needed solving. The Force seemed intent on humbling the great Master, shattering him to his core and demanding he makes choice after choice that pulled him further from his mantle within the New Order, stripping him of worthiness.

"If these people tell this story to their children, maybe someday the galaxy will see a hero is just a man who knows he's free."

Free was such a strange word. Was Asmundr free? He hadn’t thought so –– he perceived himself more a slave to the needs of others. A happy slave, perhaps more a servant; that sounded more pleasant.

He only nodded and made a sound of commitment at the back of his throat.

Perhaps he was free. So much so that he made the choice to be here today. To evolve from the uncontrollable fury of his youth. Some time ago he’d forgotten he had fists. Forgotten that he had been born a warrior, a vicious warrior, that was used to throwing punch after punch. He’d once sought glory in the fight, washing his hands beneath crystal waters where they shone like red sunsets with blood. The same colour that the city would be drenched in if he failed today. If he and Zark couldn’t be luminous enough. If he, a Master of the Force, couldn’t impede the storm. His fists clenched, an awareness rolling from the Warden’s impressive frame.

Through the murkiness of the darkside, paths that crisscrossed over one another glistened. The intersections howled with warning, and Asmundr’s face fell. There was another threat coming, beyond the horizon and suddenly over it. The culminating clouds of the ritual continued to grow, but a darker shadow was instantly over them. And Asmundr was too focused on the Sith’s wretchedness to stop it.

A terrible tremor gripped The Warden’s body, and he shook in his robes. His first instinct was to speak to his companion –– but splitting their focus would take them from conquering the darkness wrought by the ritual. He had to delegate. He had to...seek..help.

Humility settled on his shoulders, weighing him down. He was used to his mind being a shared space, connected and open to all those who sought. A small part of him, a fraction of self, withdrew from the task he shared with Master San Tekka. To all those on New Adasta, connected to the Light Side of the Force –– all those brilliant nodes within the lattices of the empyrean –– he supplicated with an earnestness that bordered on desperation. His words hummed a song of need and infinitesimal hope. In the peripherals of potential, The Force whispered there might be the possibility of relief. A shield that might have been in the works, if only the Defense Force could act soon enough. If they could organize. The outcomes were too many, and the darkness clouded the way to victory or failure. He could not see.

But he could hope. He could ask –– reach out and touch all the minds of those willing and able to hear and understand.

Those of the Light, I beseech you to act. Strength is coming to take your lives, please, do what you can to protect your brothers. Barriers to the sky to meet the danger.

If they needed, they could drink from the well of light and serenity that flowed from the Masters three.

FORCE HARMONY: ACTIVE​

ALLIES | NJO | GA | NIO | Zark San Tekka | Master Zoryu | Captain Raith | Maynard Treicolt | Cotan Sar'andor | Aelys | ALL JEDI WITHIN NEW ADASTA
ENEMIES | TSE | THE DARKSIDE | RED TOPS | Sith Dominance | Taeli Raaf

 

[Rika Hiro]

​

L A D Y_S I L E N C E
COMPNOR
Tags: Shamira Karuto Cara Dorniarn

​

Asa found them, or rather, they unwittingly stumbled into her path. Three soldiers were idly strolling down the street, one fumbling with a commlink while the others kept on alert for any alliance soldiers. They had to be either a forward operating patrol or communications team of some kind. Still, the ground situation seemingly made it nigh impossible within New Adasta to maintain comm link signals, thus forcing Sith units to set up makeshift relay stations and communications in the hollowed-out ruins.


She waited patiently, watching in the shadows of a jagged and pockmarked building as the three drew nearer, unaware. The first one came in carefully, flashing his torchlight throughout the long-abandoned ground floor and illuminating overturned tables and belongings left in a hurry by the previous occupants. The rest flowed in and fanned out; the only person staying behind near the entrance was the comm man while his two comrades searched the building obnoxious to the woman in grey hanging in an alcove above. The first man who entered soon vanished, the only indication the sound of his rifle hitting the floor and a muffled groan. His comrade moved to investigate and disappeared as well, leaving the commlink operator the only breathing thing in the building that wasn't hanging out from a vent with its neck snapped or slumped in a corner with their head torn off.


And from the shadows, she came for the comm operator, panicked shots from his blaster lighting the corridor in shades of violent red and scantly revealing the woman relentlessly coming at him. Asa's opaque shades against her pale face gave her the ghastly visage of a skull in the intermittent flashes of light as she drew rapidly closer. Before the sith trooper could fire another shot point-blank, she slapped his gun aside and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him against the tiled walls with a brutal crunch before she let his corpse hit the floor. Her attention turned to the comm in his bloodied hand, and she pried it away, staring at the device with a mechanical like stare before bringing it to her lips. The HRD changed her voice modulator to emulate the now dead man's voice.
​

<<"Send help.">> ​

 

[Tulan Kor]

HATE CONSUMED ME, FIRE CONSUMED THEM

NEW IMPERIAL ORDER STORMTROOPER CORPS
SPECIAL OPERATIONS BRANCH
DEMON COMPANY
ALLIES: NIO l GA l Irveric Tavlar l Willan Tal l Jorus Fel l Kal Ostan l Captain Raith l Cotan Sar'andor l DECEASED Erskine Barran l Jorus Fel
Enemies: TSE l Irina Volkov l Valen l Sith Dominance
Perspective: Private Lears



My mother always told that I should be careful what I wished for. She was right. I wanted combat, I thought I knew what combat was. I thought I knew what fear was.

Then the sky turned black.

I had been fiddling with the radio on one of the backs of the other soldiers, while he laid down an impressive volley of fire. The fighting stopped, a standstill washing over everyone.

My name was Morn Lears. I was twenty-three years old. I lost both of my parents to the Sith onslaught on Thyferra. They were good people. My father sold shoes. My mother was a restaurant manager. I wanted to build starships and watch them take off.

I had a brother, and two sisters.

They all burned in the fiery landscape that became my home.

I watched them die, helplessly as their transport was shot down and crashed into the planet below. They died in fear, in agony.

I wanted to make the Sith pay.

I never had a girlfriend.

I never owned a home.

The totality of my possessions was eclipsed in a box in my barracks room.

I died from an explosion from a turbolaser, fired by an indifferent, uncaring enemy above me in the sky.

I never got my revenge.

I died looking at the sky, that great blue sky beyond the Star Destroyer. In my last moments, I wanted to live life beyond that Star Destroyer- where the blue skies were. Where men like Tulan Kor didn't have to exist. Where the Sith couldn't kill at random anymore. The pain was so intense, so consuming.

I cried out, tears streaming down my face in my final moments.

I did not die in peace.

I did not see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I felt my body give way, even as Tulan desperately tried to drag me away. He was crying too. I wanted to tell him that it was going to be okay.

But he was alone now.

He was alone when I died.

--

Tulan had not been one to claim to be a religious man. In fact, he damned the force- though he knew it existed. He asked himself routinely, if balance was it's true objective- then what good was all this sacrifice? What did they matter, in the long run of things? The Sith were a forest fire. There was no reasoning with them. They threw lives away, they sacrificed everything for their precious victory. They armed the civilian populace, and then sent them to their doom not moments later. Their soldiers, their tanks, their walkers.

Demon Company was ripped apart when the blasts came down, raining fire on what remained of the city.

Tulan's existence, his very essence- was made by what the Sith took from him. They raised him, made him into a killer. A remorseless killing machine. They trained him, they made him evil practically. He lost everything to the Sith when he betrayed them. When he killed a platoon of their finest Commandos for what they made him do. For what they turned him into. He buried them in the same mass grave that they made him dig.

His wife left him.

All hope of a normal life, shattered.

Because of the Sith.

There was no "way out" for Tulan. There would always be the Sith, so there would always be a man like Tulan. Until the Sith were eradicated, turned to ash, and their memory burned at the stake with all their Darths, Lords, and Knights and acolytes put to the sword or the end of a gun, there would be no peace. No true, lasting peace. The Sith were not good. They did not build. They only destroyed. They only curated destruction, courted death at every turn and every opportunity.

Tulan hated that he survived the bombardment. That in the dark basement that he dragged Private Lears into of an abandoned homestead, the poor man died. He looked like Tulan did, as a young man. He died scared, and alone. Tulan looked at the ceiling, taking off his helmet, wailing in agony. He cried, tears flowing down his face.

But what grief he had was replaced with rage.

Anger, unending.

Bloodlust, unfulfilled.

Rage, unyielding.

Resolve- unflinching.

Tulan crossed the young man's arms, unhooked his helmet, and laid his head in it. He thanked him for his service, held him tightly for a moment. Then, he removed the young man's rifle, and his ammo and grenades. He did the same for the other members of Demon Company that had perished in the blast. As far as he knew, it was him and only him that survived.

He used one of the dead men's IFAKs to clean his wounds, wipe his goggles, and wipe his face with one of the alcohol wipes in them. He needed to be focused. He picked up Lears rifle, pulling the bolt back- the round in the chamber was ready to go, it's purpose determined only by Tulan. He took a few battle stims, only using one for the time being.

The Sith had incurred the wrath of the Devil himself.

He had no more mission.

He had no more company.

He had no more platoons to command.

His chains- like the Sith's creed, were broken.

And the only thing that was going to stop Tulan was him running out of ammo.

He ascended from the basement, looking up at the sky, tightening the grip on the rifle as the Galactic Alliance and New Imperials began to engage the enemy. He turned his eyes downward, back to his fight, his war.

The course that the Sith set him on-

It was finally time to return the favor, by himself and only by himself.

To the entire New Imperial Order, Tulan Kor and Demon Company were dead.

Maybe he died a long time ago. Maybe he'd die today.

But he'd take more Sith with him than he could count if that was to be the case.

Setter Ryburn taught him well- to die fighting. Dorn Company, Demon Company, the Rangers. He'd give the Sith a reason to feel fear.

The Devil had come to Ziost at last.

​

​

​

 

[Noel Strasza]

C R A S H
E W M R I N A A H C
2ND DOOM DIVISION | THE WATCHMEN | 2/8
T K S A O R F C E A T O R M P R I E
ENGAGEMENT | OPEN
Light called. Iron paid.

It was only seconds before the sky darkened that The Watchmen laughed and hollered from within their newly acquired walker, triumphant in celebrating such a small victory together as a unit, a team. That's what they did the best. Little victories. One little, oft unnoticed victory after the other. They were the ripples far off on the horizon that sent tidal waves crashing into the shore. ​

<"Major, I'm getting a read-"> Penny called, shifting about inside of the vehicle. She trudged through the narrow space, worming her way to the console her commander had strapped in at, <"-there's a shift in fluctuations, somethi-">​

Black covered the earth, shrouding the war-scarred lands beneath it in the shadow of despair. Cold swept across the battlefield as looming death thundered to life over them all, rumbling deep within the ground below. A slumbering beast this anger was no more, no, here it was. Manifested. ​

Her alert systems wailed.​

Thunder droned.​

<"GET TO COVE-">​

Blinding light crashed down around them, sending her electrical systems into fizzling haywire with every surging outpour of the turbolasers lining the underbelly of the beast above. But this death was kind. It rained down indiscriminately, cleansing the bloodied fields of their sin. It reached wide, disintegrating those who tried to run. No one had seen it coming. No one had predicted it. No prophet had spared them warning. No atmospheric alerts had cried with the descent. The smoke-smothered skies had looked brighter for a moment; hope. A flicker of it dared spark through the raging clouds on their way to rain terror.​

And in an instant, it was gone.​

A beam struck the unmarked AT-HA, splintering it clean through with imperceivable tangibility. Strasza cried out as she was severed from the craft, blasted far, far from the remnants she was too blinded in that decisive moment to see. Hands fruitlessly groped at the air, the jagged, melting edges of the armored vehicle that was supposed to protect them. It was going to keep them safe. It was going to get her ragtag band back home in one piece. The hissing ring in her fried ears was all she heard as the portion of the craft she was still strapped into smashed into the ground, splashing through the craters and grinding to a smoldering, sparking stop. Her HUD flickered out, leaving her alone, severed from the others, in the dark. The smell of fried wires and molten titanium filled her nose, causing her stomach to churn.​

Beyond her busted helmet, she peered, eyelids barely managing to stay open with the struggle of her mind to keep pace without her augmentations to process. She wasn't meant to live without them- not anymore. There was no light, only darkness. Some beam flashed over and over and over in endless rhythm, each pulse only rattling and thundering against the ground further. ​

"ROGUE!? PENNY!? BRIGGS!?"​

Major gasped, fumbling clumsily for the straps locked by her hips, keeping her in the cockpit she had chosen. Her frame shook violently, trembling as the damage added up and the artificial blood spewed from the various holes shrapnel had shredded through her armor and chassis. Without the control of her Guardian Systems, she felt her heart hammering into her throat, pounding away at mock cords that struggled to scream in anguish- yet she was met only by muffled silence, offered no reprieve from this sudden night terror. Rage overcame her then, the only tool she had. Her fingers tightened around the fabricated leather, ripping it clean from the anchor over her left shoulder and she repeated, wrenching the seatbelts from her body.​

"CRABS!? TYCO!? LANCE?!"​

Her heavy frame lurched forward suddenly, smashing her against the forward console, and she realized then that she was almost upside down. Another cry of frustration grated her throat, but once more, she heard nothing. A command was issued for her left leg to move. The flash of her plated boot in the strobing beam piercing her smoking tomb revealed her body was still responsive. Relief. Fists curled around the upper bar and she strained to lift herself from where she had landed next, clawing desperately at the metal to hold her. A swift kick from her heel dented the curve of the leg console away from her right shin, freeing that leg up. Precariously against the rattling quake of the remaining cockpit, she balanced on the edge of the dash, folded on herself in the claustrophobic space as she struggled to orient her directions. Glowing, crimson coolant spewed from the holes carved through her synthetic body, trickling down between her feet to trail lines along the controls beneath. ​

The cyborg threw herself at the superheated wall, locking her legs against the opposite in roaring strain to bend the weakened steel to her will. Nothing. ​

She was trapped.​

"DOC!?"​

Someone.​

Anyone.​

Was anyone still alive?​

​

ALLIES | NIO | GA | SJC | ???
FOES | TSE | S-IMPS AND OTHER UNSAVORY FOLKS | Valen Sith Dominance The Amalgam

 

[Lark]

​

Objective: Two
Allies: TSE
Enemies: GA and Allies, Vexander Graves Seto Du Couteau Brama Tagge

If Lark's brother truly had appeared before him once that malignant mimicry melted away, whether in person or through some other sort of vision, he did not stand beside his sibling now. But he knew that he had not been abandoned, that his elder brother was watching over him, and had been for some time. As any true guardian should. If there was nothing else in the galaxy Lark could believe in, he knew that the bond they shared was true. No matter how many stars lay between them, even when oceans grew so ancient the sands of time itself consumed the waves, still would their connection be strong. Nothing could break the ties between them. Not anymore.

No matter how broken he was, or how fractured his mind became, Lark would always know that he loved his brother. And that his brother loved him.

He'd scold you right now, Lark thought with a smirk. You've been given an assignment, there's hardly time to be reminiscing on brotherly bonds. Eliminate the enemy, then you can focus on reuniting your family. You're on your own within any enemy vessel, and your targets will have maximum security. Shake away these memories, put your exhaustion to the side for now. Focus. We cannot afford to rest.

It was fortunate Lark had the Force to guide him, for there was naught else to aid him. He attempted to keep a mental note of his location in the event of a necessary retreat, but in terms of a pursuit he'd he charging in blindly. If a chase began he didn't mind playing the hunter. But his unfamiliarity with the Prosperity left him at a disadvantage. He still remembered that harrowing experience trying to escape a ship of similar proportions, rushing through the hangars searching for an available escape pod or a ship with an empty seat. That was on a Sith ship, he at least had some knowledge of its layout. But now he stood in the belly of a beast he had no memory of.

It was all very exciting.

The melody of madness still tolled within him, growing more potent as his fatigue was replaced by adrenaline. He followed the trail the Dark Side led him down, and after turning another corner Lark focused his gleefully infernal eyes on a handful of Galactic Alliance senators, as well as a Jedi that was more aloof than many other masters the young acolyte had come to blows with.

Ziost had left a burning mark on his soul that would take time to heal. Perhaps an assassination was appropriate therapy.

 

[Willan Tal]

L O R D P R O T E C T O R

Major General Willan Tal

1st Galidraani armoured infantry division

'Fighting first' 1st brigade

Task Force Imperator 'Lionheart force.'

ZIOST

Allies: Arcturus Tal Enedina Tal DECEASED Erskine Barran Konrad Bolter Rurik Fel Jorus Fel Tulan Kor

Willan had been in three orbital strike zones in his life; one had been during his days of service to the first order, another he watched from the comfort of a bunker as it annihilated rebels by the hundreds and now this. Thrown mid-sentence while on comms as a mammoth blast wave ripped through the command centre and sent both man and machine into oblivion, men thrown against their seats or sent flying to the floor breaking bone and tissue. Were it not for the luck of being a distance from the blast; one might've called for a eulogy and a funeral for oneself and everyone in the command centre. A few concussions and a few broken bones were but a blessing compared to what those in the strike's radius suffered.

My men.

My daughter.

Shock and realisation pulled the man to, and he helped himself up, nursing his arm, which was in agony as he pulled himself over to one of the few functioning comm relays and grabbed a headset: creeping panic and an all-devouring sense of dread eating at his soul. His men went into that foray, it was his men who were out there. Hundreds of Galidraani sons wiped out. He frantically smashed the station buttons, praying he'd get a signal or anything. Something to tell him he was wrong, something to assure that he had not lost what he held dear most. He was not about to let it go, not like this. The Sith could take his homeland, kill his people, but they would not take away his own flesh and blood. Fond memories of watching his daughter run in the gardens of the family home came flooding back, memories of watching his child graduate the academies with high flying honours, memories of spring and happier times. Times he longed to chance upon before he breathed his last and departed from this life.

No father should bury their own.


<<"Lionheart one to special operations company, do you read over.">>

He received no response, causing his heart to sink and the pain in his head to grow stronger. Tal kept composure and changed the comm frequencies, trying not to betray his increasingly troubled state of being as the potential realisation began to hit.

<<"Lionheart one to Blue heart alpha-">>

Tal pulled the mic down, nearly cracking before bringing it back up and taking a deep breath. One had to maintain a face in the midst of sheer hopelessness, a mantra he and many others learnt in Galidraans esteemed military academies. The facade had served him well and reinforced the stiff upper lip stereotype of his people. But even he struggled in this hour.

<<"Lionheart one to blue heart alpha, potential high casualties from units local to blast radius, all hands presumed to be lost until otherwise over.">>

Willan waited for the transmission to end and pulled the headset off, placing his head against the comm screens and exhaled deeply.

Gods help us.​

​

 

[Duma Shallotte]

Location: Prosperity
Allies: TSE and their allies
Enemies: GA, their allies, and Jax Thio
Objective: Hide

The young-looking woman had been a part of several different groups and governments throughout her life. She had seen empires rise and fall. Nations come and go. At one point in time, she had even thought and hoped the empire she was now moving to would die. Not anymore though. Now she was ready to face her destiny and join the people that had helped destroy one of her former alliances.

This would most likely make her journey difficult but she would accomplish it. Having once been a part of the Alliance, getting onto one of their ships wasn't too hard. There were so many people that were within their territory that keeping one person watched would be almost impossible. Knowing where this particular ship was heading, she snuck aboard and put herself into hiding. Coming out only when she felt like the area was clear around her.

Moving the air vent aside, Lakura attempted to double-check to make sure the hallway below her didn't have anybody in it. Second thoughts crossed her mind as she decided to jump down. Sadly she was not what one would call a good acrobat and she totally missed that there was a corner nearby.

On her way down, two beings came around the corner and if they didn't notice her, she would land directly on them. Reaching a hand into her pouch at her side, she withdrew some things and threw them at the ground. Muttering under her breath, plants would start magically growing up from the seeds she had thrown and the spell she had said.

If this worked as she wanted, the plants would catch her and slow down the approach of the two beings.

 

[Julian Qar]

s t a r s
[ Dr. Julian Qar]
MEDICAL CARE| VERY OPEN - TRIAGE READY
Gear: The Drip - Weapons: Adjudicator & Angry Owl - Medical Kit: Standard Pack + Az-rael [1]

Bodies lay wasted away by the fire and explosives tossed throughout. It was a wonder any medics were able to provide aid, it was exhausting work but that was their duty. Julian waved towards Hazel, finding a moment to scan over their packs, “We don’t have enough supplies...” The field medic huffed, curling his fit in frustrated. All he had were a few Medpatch, some tape, and one unit of saline. On his hip, all that was left was one vial, the others given to civilian casualty teetering on the brink. “I’ve got one unit of plasma and some bacta spray, I think I got enough anesthetic for two people? What should we do?” Julian furrowed his brow, zipping up the pack as the ground underneath him rumbled throwing off his balance some. “We just gotta keep movin’, do what we can, and head back.” His eyes scanned the field before him, there were so many bodies, so much blood, he knew they’d just have to turn around and leave them all behind. “Let's do one last sweep, Hazel, come on.” The junior medic nodded, shoving the last of her supplies into her kit before swinging it over his back. She was scared and didn’t quite understand how after so many years and so much carnage the Doc just kept moving. “How do you do it?” She piped up through the wails of blaster fire, “Especially knowing your girlfriend is off fighting, risking her life and here you are?”​

​

Julian hated small talk, but it seemed the more they spoke, the less Hazel’s anxiety spiked. Perhaps she wasn’t cut out to be a field medic...only time would tell. The doctor pushed his blaster against his chest, turning to glance at his assistant before answering, “Trust, Hazel. She’s the best of the best...I trust her with the world. She’ll come home, jus’ as she always does, with a few scrapes that we’ll patch up and that’ll be that.” He allowed himself a small smile and nodded once, his HUD still carried the feed of 8 Watchmen heartbeats, spiking, and then dropping to rest. Perhaps that was the true meaning of the trust he spoke of.​

​

As they continued their rounds, Julian’s ears perked at the sound of shields being deployed overhead. He didn’t think anything of it until the sky began to darken, eclipsing the sun forcing day into night. The air around them stood still, the medic peered up from his hood, lowering the fabric to rest on his shoulder while his heart lept into his throat at the sight. He saw the ship, and the quiet and vibrant lights beaming down from it when suddenly - “GET DOWN!!.” He didn’t even think, grabbing hold of Hazel’s hood and shoving her and himself face down into the rubble. Hands swiftly covered their helms, bodies vibrating as seismic waves shifted nearing tectonic plates. The ground groaned and bowed from the hellish display given off by those lasers. Why were they doing this? They still had civilians huddled within the city walls. The medic couldn’t process thought, trying to steady himself even with that shield covering over them - he felt everything. ​

​

“eeeeeeeeeeeeee”​

​

The assault finally seized, leaving behind nothing but destruction in its wake. “H-hazel!” Julian shouted, coughing as smoke and debris bloomed and shrouded them. Toppling over their bodies like giant snowflakes from Carlac. Carefully, the medic pushed himself to his knees, crawling towards his assistance, unable to really make out his surroundings from the disjointed shaking of the ground. There she was face down in a pile he forced her into, he gulped, shoving her body as the last shocks scorned the ground and silence isolated them. “H-az-Hazel!” The junior medic came to slowly from the taps on her shoulder, groaning as she lifted her head and pressed on the broken shield of her helm. Surface crack. No entry. Thank f*ck. She gave the Doc a thumbs up, thankfully only sustaining a minor headache and nothing more. “We need to go…” Sound finally pushed through the screeching in their ears, allowing them to relay communications back to one another. “Should we do our s-s-sweep?” Hazel stuttered, dusting off her knees and just before adjusting the wobbled strap on her back. Julian shook his head, “I don’t know how much time we have left before this fuckin’ shield gives out and we’re do-” ​

And at that moment, all he could see was black. “Doc?” Hazel waved over his face, she knew that look, he was focused on vitals on his HUD. His HUD. One warning after another flickered madly in his eye. He choked, all he could see were their portraits and their names, flat-lined. He pulled off his helmet, holding onto his chest while mock lungs registered his anxiety and tossed his mind into a frenzy. “Doc, what’s wrong?!” For a moment she thought he had arrested but then felt the ringing from her datapad, registering all the names as one by one the watchmen fell. “I can’t breathe...I need to get to her...!” Frantically he tried to kick forward, fumbling on his step. Hazel knew from that moment, he was being tormented by that sound ringing in his ears of their catastrophic demise. “Doc! Julian! Stop!!! She’s gone! She’s gone! T-there’s nothing you can do!” The weight of the galaxy crashed down on him, pouring gallons of torment and agony into his chest, ripping him apart as the only person that kept him breathing was gone. “I c-can’t..I can’t do...this w-w-ithout her...f*ck...I can’t ...I can’t....I can't....” Reality wrapped its fingers around his throat, taking away his breath, only tears, and inaudible wails were muffled by a barrage of gunfire still surrounding them.​

"Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum , Noel..."​

 

[Brama Tagge]

ALLIANCE COMMAND
PROSPERITY || BETWEEN TISS'SHARL AND ZIOST
SAVE A PRAYER

"....the best bet we have is to head to the Temple Situation Room which is close by and get a whole status of the situation. Besides, is easier to defend since we will join the Gate Master and perhaps a few Peacekeepers"

A nest. They needed a nest to scope out the situation before making a plan. Just like a hunt, it was rare to traverse over completely unknown terrain. And if you were going to embark into unfamiliar territory, you usually had a guide.

This unfortunate situation was hardly any different. Except on a hunt, she knew which side she was on. Right now, she couldn’t tell which she was: The predator or the prey.

While she figured that out (assumed it would come within the next waking moments), the elder Tagge nodded to everyone’s apparent agreement about the control room.

“Let the other know about our location,” Brama instructed. Dash made a small face, nigh undetectable. He refrained from informing Brama that sending Knight Thio a message wasn’t necessary, given the shared location beacons the assigned protection had on them. The Jedi was pretty much constantly keeping aware of their location since the beginning of his assignment.

Dash, on the other hand, had no idea where the Jedi Knight was.

The group navigated briskly through the corridors. Once in a while, the retired sniper peered through her scope before rounding a corner. It made her feel a little closer to making a decision –– making her feel more like the hunter in this scenario. Though the more they sought to draw away from the kerfuffle, the more she teetered toward the prey once more.

Just before they reached their destination, Dash had an update to share: “The Jedi have found the intruders. Or, some. The numbers are still….calculating.”

The Situation room seemed to know they were coming. On arrival, the intelligent automation hissed the door open and the space remained dark for only an interval before light swept through the room; everything coming alive. In the middle of the room, down a step, a circular table glowed blue with small, ever-changing projections animating from the centre.

"One of you whippersnappers get a read on this.." Her finger furiously pointed and swirled at the holotable.

Let's see if we can get some numbers in this equation. What's onboard, and what's waiting for us outside this ship?"

She refused to be the prey.

"And Dash, do try and find out what's happening on Alliance One and the Vice Chancellor."

ALLIES | NJO | GA | Vexander Graves | Seto Du Couteau | Jax Thio
ENEMIES | TSE| Lark | Duma Shallotte

 

[Zaavik Perl]

ZIOST ACADEMY
Darth Daiara

「I GAVE LABOR TO THE GRIEF」​

"I get it, you know. What you're feeling. Or what you're not."​

Zaavik's eyes narrowed indignantly. "What, is this a therapy session now?" A hypocritical rebuke coming from him. His habit of well-intentioned hypocrisy was well observed by this point, but now, rather than well-intentioned, it tasted more of defiant phlegmatics. After a few steps, arms crossed over his chest, he sat on the remains of what was once a wall, or some other architectural feature. Impossible to really tell at this point.

"I'm just tired," he said. As if all dissent to her gesture had suddenly deflated from him along with the sigh that had preceded it. "There's always fighting. I'm always fighting, you know?" Dual sapphires gazed vacantly down at his boots over the dirt. Memories of the last decade flashed, all drowned in scapes of war and strife. Always fighting, as a child, and now in the earliest years of manhood. All of them flooded the force-presence of his vicinity, murking the mental space.

Suddenly, his throat opened to emanate a strange noise. A strange laughter unfitting to the atmosphere. "No, no-" he rebuked with feigned amusement. "I see what this is," he added, waving his hand dismissively. "Don't do that," he accused. "Clever, I'll hand it to you, but you're not going to get anything out of me that way." Either hand gripped tight around his knees, leaning forward with pressure on his heels. "Don't try to play me like that."

Denial.

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

I M P E R A T O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
TASK FORCE IMPERATOR | BATTLE GROUP 'ENIGMA'
501st LEGION | GLADIUS COMPANY | DEMON COMPANY
ZIOST
Armor | Rifle | Pistol | Void | Melee | Grenades

ELEGIA
​

The war machine kept turning. Soon as they set out, the New Imperial Stormtrooper Corps and Armored Assault brigades went about what they did best. Killing Sith. Enmass. Industrial brutality. This was total war. The Galactic Alliance might have had the luxury of being able to strike from a difference. Such was not the brutalist reality for the True Empire. All born of the struggle. The endurance to overcome the darkness.

With the heroic sons and daughters of the Iron Son venturing into the fray., Irveric looked on with cold admiration. The reflections of death and duty splayed in the visor of his helmet half painted in the skull along the right half of his face, the punished. And the etchings of the fallen, the brothers and arms of the patriotic struggle that charged into the fray before them.

His commo came to life from DECEASED Erskine Barran . Galidraani General, newly minted. The Galidraani, while a newer addition to the fold of the Imperial struggle, quickly thrust themselves to the forefront of the total war of existence with the Sith. Their mission was as pure as many, not dislike any of those at their sides. The struggle which made the dreams of a New Order and a patriotic will furrow with the most primal want any living sentient could have. Certainly in times as tough and uncertain as these. The instinctual need to return home. To bath in the heat of the hearth, be welcomed and embraced by familiar faces.

Irveric strived to claim that feeling again...only for it to be ripped from him on Dantooine.

'Barran to Enigma Actual! Excuse my improper use of the comm-links; I'm keeping the channels private as I go, but I won't be comm-link coordinating in this op with any such aims of ingratiation or endearment, my only function here today is to provide you with the only help I have it in my power to provide.'

By now - excuse the noise, Engima-Actual! Just a momen- alright, by now you'll have received a compressed file containing every possible visual-representation of the western approach to New Adasta. All my map-holographics, and all the known enemy-positions found by my surveillance-droids, can be found in there.'

'The orange and white circles are markers for two different stages of a maneuver I'm currently laying dangerous groundwork towards, and by the time I reach the white circle, the overreaching center of the Sith-Imperial's frontlines will be in a nasty little bind indeed. The enemy center's commander, the one we just so happen to be baiting - is a fledgling-Sith warrior, out for the blood of one Grand-Marshall Cotan Sar'andor as it happens.... Your approach will be covered as far as the white blip, and we would be honoured if you joined us in the crucible. Blue-Heart Alpha out!'​

Ever the courteous and well humored, even in the thick of battle. Such was the way of the Galidraani. Having been given a great deal in briefing of the exploits of the Galidraani Blue-Hearts and the Fighting First of Willan Tal . It was no wonder why the Galidraani had managed to exude a wider influence than what was proportionate for their homeland7, for the valiant souls it produced.

The words made him feel nostalgic, almost bitterly. For the days before the Civil War, a tank commander in the 12th Armored Division of the Sith Empire. The mud and dust of Kintan, the broken ground of Cathar, the bleak surface of Mandalore...and since, his own charted path of unforgiving total war unto those who were once his comrades.

<"Understood, Blue Heart Alpha. The 501st will punch through soon enough, but firstly I want to disrupt any means to reinforce what they already have. Regardless, carry on as you are. For Galidraan. For the Empire."> Irveric patched through, his close confidant coming to his side/.

<"Gladius has landed on target and Demon is seeing through with its objective."> The two commands he'd issues minutes prior were well under execution as was the rest of the New Imperial war machine in tandem with the Galactic Alliance.

<"Understood, keep the Siege Breakers pounding on anything they try and consolidate on the outskirts. As soon as its set down, turn it to dust. All the same keep the Cataphracts moving in line with the troopers and transports. Need these Sith bastards hemmed in as soon as possible.">

<"Acknowledged, sir. Did-"> He stopped, the helmeted gaze lifting in the direction of the leviathian which appeared to overwhelm his sight. Behemoth II. The beast had been present in many large scale engagements in this war. Mygeeto, Bastion...here it appeared from the perilous void again, the flagship of Braxus himself.

Not immediately after, it began to rain hell fire. Devastation of a massive scale began to rule over the New Imperial assault. AT-ASGs which slowly lumbered along the accompanying assault unfurled the full power of their shields, causing them to root in place. It managed to hold back the first bulk of the tide before the shimmering blue began to ripple into nothingness beneath the Behemoth. Monsters of metal and firepower began to be crumpled like paper in a ruinous fire storm before then collapsed and trembled to the broken ground beneath. All the while the valiant sons of the Empire, the truest to the Imperator scrambled for cover in the chaos, veteran soldiers eviscerated in an instant with the explosive carnage unfurled by the Dreadnought. They'd be little more than numbers and names attached to the bodybags of charred flesh and organic matter squeegeed from the nooks of a shattered, desolate earth.

<"All Naval units, concentrate fire on Behemoth II! I repeat! All fire on Behemoth II!"> Irveric commanded selfishly, pinging the naval formations in orbit. Hs cracked in that moment, the cold exterior shattering as he saw the immediate results of the reaping of death inflicted unto those closest and most loyal to him. It twisted a dagger in his stomach to bare witness two.

The walker closest to him was soon struck in earnest by the ship, the 'head' containing the command crew exploding upon the thunderous impact of the round as it continued its slow, flaming descent to the ground beneath. He slowly looked up, his placid gaze concealed from the equally frigid visage above his face before he patched through to the units under his command, issuing an order, still managing the unbroken pace of his voice.

<"All shields to full, find cover, defensive forma-"> And then the commo died as the mountain of steel buried over him, accompanied with the airburst of explosive prowess beating at the battered hull of the walker. One by one he saw the life signs fading, both of the ruse unveiled by the Sith and the sons of the Empire. Gladius...Demon...Enigma...they withered in an instant.

Hundreds of thousands of the Imperator's Fist which he carried with him through the breach put to the sword, cut down and washed away like inhuman gnats. His senses were overrun from the event, his audial suppressors shot as his ears rang, the heads up display shooting violent cracks across the surface before there was sudden blackness.

He saw nothing...he concentrated on his heartbeat, his breathing. In those far too frequent brushes with the razor maw of death, he knew how to feel one with his mortal shell and cling to life.

His life signal continued its constant beat...only barely. What was once a bustling concentration of his soldiers...faded to wounded souls clinging to life and breath or trying to hide their way through the storm of consecration, until the sun would reveal the field for the carrions.

But such was the fire around him.

ALLIES | NIO | GA | Tulan Kor | Jorus Fel | DECEASED Erskine Barran | Willan Tal | Kal Ostan | Cotan Sar'andor | Captain Raith
ENEMIES | TSE | ENGAGING Sith Dominance | Valen | Irina Volkov | OPEN

 

[Jax Thio]

Location: Prosperity, the Jedi ship
Ally: BB-12
Equipment: Imperial Mk. I "Dooku-Pattern" Jedi Armor Jax's Prosthetic Arm, Jax's Second Lightsaber
Tag: Brama Tagge , Vexander Graves , Seto Du Couteau , Lark (Enemy), Duma Shallotte (Enemy)

After a few minutes of running, BB-12 and Jax arrived at the situation room where the senator and the group of Jedi who were assigned to her. <Got the old wrinkled prune in my sights!> BB-12 whirred. <There's some trouble a foot!>

Jax could already sense a disturbance in the force, the ship was already being boarded and the Senator Brama's life was in danger. He was sure that she can take care of herself but Jax was to help guard so hopefully she won't too much of a handful. "Senator Brama!" Jax was out of breath by the time she reached her. The Jedi almost forgot to bow to her in the process.

"It seems that you already know that there are intruders on the ship. Your life is in danger, I agree with Master Graves that the best course of action is to escort you to the Temple Situation Room. It's easier to mount a defense and the most of the masters are there."

So much for this trip being boring, but then again a Jedi's duty is anything but.

 

[Creuat]

K N I G H T
GALACTIC ALLIANCE | NEW JEDI ORDER
NEW ADASTA

That's not good enough

Failure he would not submit to, not when they were at the brink of victory on Ziost and all of it was snatched from their grasp. They could taste it, but it left him wanting it. Again, they risked themselves on a crucial mission that would help bring a swift end to the war and with it challenging the stability of the Sith and their empire. All they sacrificed on Ziost weeks during the initial conflict, and all of it went to waste?

That alone boiled his blood, especially when many criticized him and his Jedi brethren of wrongdoings they committed in this war. A burden they carried that their duty demanded them, a selfless sacrifice for the goodwill of all only to be looked down upon.

How dare they

The battle perhaps was lost, now with the heavens raining down upon the earth in the form of a titanic dreadnought belonging to the Sith. Spoken down for purging the Darkness, yet those that did didn’t have the will to fight back against the Sith. All for their pride and misplaced ego.

No matter, he would do what he must; even if many continued to depict him as a menace when there were worse things to judge other than him.

The Nautolan, surviving the onslaught of the Sith’s dreadnaught, was drawn upon a particular building from the ruins of New Adasta. Torn and vandalized by destruction, although there was something that made it interesting than its neighboring spaces.

The dark.

And so the light would cast it out just like with all other shadows. This plague would not continue any further, for the good of the Galaxy.

ALLIES | GA | NIO
ENEMIES | TSE | Darth Luminoth | CLOSED

 

[DECEASED Erskine Barran]

POST VII
THE_STORMCHASER

1ST EXILED-GALIDRAANI DIVISION
2ND GALIDRAANI ARMOURED-VOLUNTEER BRIGADE,"BLUE-HEART BRIGADE"

OBJECTIVE 3: Remnants of Dust

Taskforce LIONHEART: Willan Tal Konrad Bolter Enedina Tal

ALLIES (NIO/GA): Irveric Tavlar Tulan Kor Noel Strasza
Fisk Kamer DT-0800 A.I.M Rika Hiro
Djorn Bline Arcturus Tal Jorus Fel
Cotan Sar'andor Captain Raith Suri Vullen Kal Ostan
Zirell Marxon Master Zoryu Zark San Tekka
Kinoan Asmundr Varobalder Aelys Allyson Locke

ENEMIES (TSE/CIS): Irina Volkov Valen Taeli Raaf Sith Dominance
The Amalgam Laertia Io Maple Harte

CALLSIGN: BLUE-HEART ALPHA

Custom Blaster-Pistol | Basket-Hilted Vibrosword Claymore

A BARRAN WASTELAND - Wrath of the Stormchaser I (Clashing Lights)

<"Scout Leader to Barran, that's a negative. 'ppreciate the offer, but looks like we gotta have six to operate this damn thing and I'm not leaving my squad to their own devices, over.">

Ziost was burning, shuddering under the abuse of the sheer weight of the surface's hostilities, wincing under the thudding onslaught of the NIO's high-altitude bombings on New Adasta; of the souls who rushed to escape the hellishness of it all, not even the wilderness of the war-theatre's Exclusion Perimeters could offer them any meaningful shelter, for the New Adastan inner-city maze held no solace for the routing Sith-Imperial land armies either. This battle was certainly looking to go in the Galactic Alliance's favour, as the NIO had all but succeeded in achieving their goals in their eastward push for glory, and all that remained to the symbiotic anti-Sith factions was the fighting destruction of the battle's balance of power.

To top it all off, light had been cutting through the murky dark from within the inner-city since the lightning-storm was still passing beyond the mechanized encirclement, growing with increased overall mass as the Sith-Imperials' lightning-storms steadily started withering away in the stormy entanglement, little by little as Erskine was in the process of sending comprehensive usage-instructions to Major Strasza's prodigal Watchmen. Two contrasting wonders on a jaw-droppingly hellish backdrop, storms of light and shadow embroiled in a cataclysmic fight to prevail over the other as the warriors fighting beneath watched on, with heads tilted and mouths agape in fear and amazement. If the dark, ominous thunderstorms were surely the work of Sith, then this new, pulsating dome of light was surely the work of the Galactic Alliance's most-powerful of Jedi elements, inducing an entirely new wave of shivering goosebumps in addition to his ceaseless aesthetic-pleasure in observance.

For all the destruction his engineers had inflicted on the enemy mechanized contingent, (and with equal measure, a portion of the New Adastan suburban landscape) this new display was beyond anything the Woad-Macushla could even dream of, and it frightened some of the men among them, believing it to be the working beginnings of godly retribution for centuries of the galaxy's seemingly-eternal run of sins throughout it's long, storied timeline. Though their superstitious nature was appreciated, especially as none in the old Battalion had really taken to the myths and superstitions of their forefathers like Lord Erskine had, Barran knew such thinking was preposterously counterproductive to the collective morale of those around them, and had made a whispered point of ordering his nearest subordinates to verbally slap down on the worries of those indulging such talk.

The power of the Jedi on Ziost could be felt before in Cotan somehow, but this was an obviously greater culmination of collective Force-manipulation from the collaboration of singularly-powerful life-force emanations, but none of the Blue-Hearts would know this for sure; some were guessing it was a countering concept to the Amalgam's Shadow Dome on Generis, but a fair few were correctly guessing it was the work of Jedi masters, including Lord Erskine, smirking as he gazed through the ACV's right-side viewports. The Brigadier-General would have considered his life complete, as a Galidraani life in absolute fulfilment of everything one of their generation may ever have hoped, even dreamed to achieve; but fate, it seems, had much preferred to be rather excessive with her cataclysmically-ironic sleights in such times, and Barran was completely oblivious to her evils in the one moment his absent wariness might have prepared him for what happened next.

'Barran to Scout Leader! Instructions sent to both your pilots' datapads. Set yer eyes t'the north, an' look up.... Now that's something a Blue-Heart doesn't see every day, so take it all in, mate-'

As if by instantaneous reaction, the heavens flashed white with the brightness of a sun in supernova, giving way to a flashing orbital hail of annihilation. The burning world of Ziost's residual husk was being murdered before his very eyes, and by the same faction sworn to protect and fight for it's safety; contingents friendly and opposing alike would buckle under the wicked rain of blinding deathliness, and whether they were fighting, fleeing or non-combatants, the screeching beams of the Sith-Imperials' insidious orbital strikes would slaughter the powerless below with careless abandon.
Like Bastion, only worse; far, far worse. Is there no low that these freaks won't sink to? Such evil knows no bounds!

Ziost was burning, but brighter than ever before; the very ground itself shook beneath everyone in and around New Adasta, and in ways that completely dwarfed the magnitudinous efforts of the Tuath engineers and the NIO bombers combined, seemingly right down to the base of the planet's increasingly-agitated lower-tectonic layers. Screams, uprootings, building-collapses and lesser explosions would be muted by the sheer roar of hemispheric obliteration, stomping the entire battle itself into the dirt with apathetic prejudice; and the Sith-Imperial starship would be fortunate in being too far away the deafening cacophony to hear or feel it's frightening intensity, though Lord Erskine wouldn't.

A BARRAN WASTELAND - Wrath of the Stormchaser II (Ashen Skies)

The last thing he remembered seeing before being knocked unconscious by the rolling impact was looking at Jax Sloane 's graffiti, and apologising to his friend for breaking the ACV before one of the many orbital-strike beams collided with ACV One's thick, well-armoured hull, and with the force of an explosion that may have been strong enough to throw it into the tracks of a Cataphract halted nearly twenty-metres to the south of their previous resting halt-position. Though Barran was fortunate enough to still be holding the overhead safety-grips, the remaining crewmen were not, though Lord Erskine would have to find this out the hard way. Right after the Brigadier-General awoke in a contused daze, he turned to his left and saw a dusty pile of bloodied-rocks where CSM Malcom's head should've been, crawling away with a succession of back-lying teeps to the broken surface beneath; wincing with pain all over as he slid and backpedalled with his still unsteady legs and feet, though still horrorstruck enough to move away from the grisly scene and find a way out.

'KARK IT ALL TO HELL, MAN!!!!!', the Lord-Major cried to the heavens that rained death and destruction on his mad dash for glory, and with a pained groan that followed after feeling a tight pain in his chest, below the left pectoral. Looking down to find a red-hot shard of steel sticking out his jacket, Barran began to prepare his mind, heart and soul for the worst, but chose to unbutton his jacket without overthinking it; to his great relief, (and with equal intensity, to his great dismay) the reek of spilled whiskey ran riot on Lord Erskine's nostrils, revealing that the unofficial male-line heirloom had sacrificed their life to save his own; an ominous omen of what he was to expect in the following minutes, as the Brigadier-General was fortunately lucid enough by then to understand that he still needed to get out of his mobile sarcophagus to look for survivors.

Grey skies above would snap the Lord-Commander to his senses, realizing that the ACV was lying on it's right-hand side with the slide door pulverized in it's open slot, but looking to the left and seeing what had been pulverized by the pulverized caused Erskine to blot out the agony and roll over instinctively to vomit safely, but violently retching dry nothingness onto the rock-quilted base tower of what was once his map-holographics unit. The only thing that could cut through that wall of pain all over, the throbbing and ringing-tinnitus in his ears, and his retching fit was the triplet-vibrations in his pocket that nagged at his patience incessantly; but the lucidity would increase yet again in time, realizing the vibrations were hails on his personal datapad and pulling it out his trouser-leg pocket to try and read from it.

<<first wave is safe but we were hit much harder on the south flank

easiest gaps of the two envelopment lines to fill in mind?

you can survive worse ya wee pie
we both know this

the tuath would mock your death if you died now
get angry now and reprimand me later ya woad bam>>

'Oh, ah'll haud you t'that, ya glaikit wee Tuath reproba-', the Brigadier-General said to himself, trailing off to laugh his wryest, most dry of lairdly chuckles yet. Before his laughter truly had a chance to take hold in fits, the bruising under his pectoral had brought swelling on that hurt his ribs when he started wheezing with it, transforming almost instantly into the deep, agonizingly-growled exhalations of attempted pain-suppression; and though Erskine was in his most desperate fight for survival yet, the fear of dying on a Sith-infested planet was expectedly driving him onwards on adrenal instinct alone, urging the budding Stormchaser to assume an aggressive posture when all hope around him had been obliterated beyond recognition. Testing this however, would be the adversarial appearance of Erskine's peripheral droid-sighting, the Lord-Commander's first opponent of the Sith-Imperials' second wave, and all Barran had the will to say was,'A toaster oven? Nah, mate. See ye!', before quick-drawing his blaster pistol and unloading it on the head, right arm, neck and upper torso of the opponent who was in the process of extended it's own blaster forth to shoot him first.

Other droids awaited outside, the throbbing in his ears was beginning to subside, and Lord Erskine was fighting his shooter's instinct to draw his Vibrosword instead. But as he was readying himself to climb out through the cover of the LMG-hatch, Barran noticed an undented box of stims embedded in a torn up segment of underfloor insulation foam, asking the hands of fate,'How? Since when did life work out like that? Kark this nonsense for a laugh....', under his breath as he shuffled towards it on his stomach so as not to get caught in the sights of the Sith-Imperial droids in the process. Easily done, though the Brigadier-General was sure they could hear him moving; having vowed before to never look a genuine gift-horse in the mouth, Erskine would inject himself with one of the stims without so much as a second thought, and consciously pocketed an extra few, knowing other survivors would need it more in their fight to snatch a gruelling victory from the demonic jaws of defeat.

A BARRAN WASTELAND - Wrath of the Stormchaser III (What Breaks Lesser Men....)

The first of the pistol-shot droid's squadmates would attempt to stomp on Erskine's head as it jumped in from outside, dropping in from a terminal height to connect with and shatter every bone it's foot-pads were expected to land on; two shots to it's shooting arm, and two to it's head were unleashed after the timely attempt to roll over, slamming his back against the rock-covered digital units before unleashing the pistol shots, reloading and using the breathing space to crawl out the LMG-hatch behind him. Utilising the cover his hatch-escape had gifted him, the Stormchaser dropped two more droids on the group's exposed right flank with double-taps to their exposed chest-units; turning around to find another trying to climb through the hatch he'd just exited from, drawing his Vibrosword and slicing it's head and arms off before stabbing the power core behind the chest-plating to shut his foe down.
Five down already? Your move, ya bunch o' useless toaster-ovens.

After hearing him sheathe his Vibrosword again, the Sith-Imperial droids started pulling the wrecked ACV upright to get a better shot on the Blue-Heart at the other side, but not a single AI among them had accounted for the fact Erskine was leaning on the LMG in a momentary brainstorm to plan next steps that would never see their fruition. As the vehicle tipped yonder, Barran instinctively grabbed onto it's upward-facing trigger handles below and leaned back with his feet instinctively seeking the ladders in the hatch, screaming,'SAOR GU WOAD-MACUSHLAAAAAAAA!!!', as the remaining eight droids were backpedalling to make way for the wide armoured vehicle in it's uprighting descent. By the time he was done spraying the last remnants of the ammo-magazine into the robotic adversaries beyond, only one spluttering, malfunctioning wreck of a droid remainied to stand in his way, so Erskine shot it once to do the trick with his blaster-pistol.

'Never take on a Blue-Heart wae unlucky troop-numbers, we'll use yer disregard o' chance against you at every opportunity.'

<"Lionheart one to Blue heart alpha-">
Wait, my comms-device still works? What the kark? Lucky me, I guess. But where in a thousand galactic hells might it be?

Jumping back down into the broken husk of ACV One, and for the last time, the horror within would need to be ignored in the Lord-Commander's attempt to find his personal (requisitioned) comms-device, though it had only taken a moment to find in all that mess; it had been lying where he'd landed, seemingly shielded from the rocks, steel and glass shards by the very mass of the man who'd been trying to find it, conveniently pointed out by the footpad of the second droid he had decommissioned. Whilst in the act of dusting the sandy gravel off the comms-device, Erskine made for the broken open left exit and sighed with dejection and lessening rage, preparing himself for the inundation of worst-case scenarios that were sure to follow as soon as his Lord-Protector had properly patched through. A solitary, ghoulish figure stood off to the south behind him, completely within the Brigadier-General's blind-spot, but he could feel their presence, still and resolute but somehow passive in the place where Erskine couldn't bring himself to look.

<"Lionheart one to blue heart alpha, potential high casualties from units local to blast radius, all hands presumed to be lost until otherwise over.">

'Wait, what about our firstborns? No, he can't mean that.... No, what have I done? NO, ERSKINE!!!! YOU KNOW THAT YOUR DECISIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES, AN' THOSE DECISIONS HAVE DOOMED YOUR OWN SON TO DEATH!!!! WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS, OLD MAN??!?!?!?!?!?!', Lord Erskine ranted and roared at himself, screaming untethered, tearful rage at the manifested cost of his life's actions. Unleashing a lasting, chest-beating primal scream of fury into the ashen wilderness of death beyond, Erskine turned round to see who was watching all this time, but what he saw lashed at his last tether of emotional control. All his tears, all his hopelessness and grief would spill forth, reduced to a sobbing wreck by the silent, spectral shade of his son, Lord-Leftenant Thomas Barran. Kneeling back to make teary eye-contact with his son's ghost, Lord Erskine pulled his pistol to his forehead, cocked the hammer, and whispered the sweetest of silent apologies to his wife, before abandoning his trigger discipline to wrap his index finger around the blaster-pistol's trigger.

'IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT, THOMAS?!?!?!?!'
<"Understood, Blue Heart Alpha. The 501st will punch through soon enough, but firstly I want to disrupt any means to reinforce what they already have. Regardless, carry on as you are. For Galidraan. For the Empire.">
Not today, Thomas. Not today.... War on your killers first, then we'll see about meeting in the next life, eh?

A BARRAN WASTELAND - Wrath of the Stormchaser IV (The Saga Begins)

Sheathing his weapon after reflecting on how close he'd come to ending it all right there, the Lord-Commander began to straighten himself out for what was expected to be a difficult ending to the Second Battle of Ziost, as men like Erskine knew that their fight wouldn't end until they'd killed everyone in front of them, or until everyone (or everything) in front of them killed every last one of Barran's martial, fighting ilk. Erskine would stand again, from the place he was close to accepting as the best place to kill himself in, rising from the ember-topped gravel with a renewed resolve the Sith would surely learn to fear before long. The new man who'd risen from his own despair would stare out across the hellscape and spit his venomous disdain at it, drawing the basket-hilted Vibrosword claymore and stepping into the oddly-serene wilderness of wreckages and corpses with an exhausted heaviness to the Lord-Commander's step as he began his hunt to find friend or foe.

As if by a shock to the system, Barran was taking his first steps towards the city when he heard the loud metallic clunking of metal-on-metal contact at ramming-speed, desperately repetitive in it's impacts, though sporadic enough to be perceived as driven by sentient habit. Following the direction of the noise, it didn't take long for Erskine to realise it was one of the AT units that Strasza's squad had stolen before the orbital strikes were implemented; crashed, written off and burning all over it's surface, the vehicle that Erskine had correctly surmised was Noel's latest steal had luckily turned out to be the one that all the metallic cacophonies were coming from. Sprinting towards the vehicle to get a better look, the Lord-Commander understood that only someone like Major Strasza could survive the blasts so easily, but understood the peril she would be in if the fires turned the inner-compartments into makeshift ovens: so Barran quickly darted around to find the spot where the Major was trying to burst out from, and with relative ease too, despite the smoke everywhere increasing the difficulty of his task.

'Strasza, it's Barran! I'm about to cut a nice big triangle in this bothersome wall o' yours, so step back an' ready yourself to burst through it as soon as I finish! You're not dying today, mate. Not here, an' not on my karking watch! Step back!'
​

​

 

[Jorus Fel]

G L A D I U S
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
501st STORMTROOPER LEGION
TASK FORCE IMPERATOR
NIO // ALIES // Tulan Kor | Irveric Tavlar | DECEASED Erskine Barran | Willan Tal | Kal Ostan | Cotan Sar'andor | Captain Raith
TSE // ENEMIES // ENGAGING: Sith Dominance | Valen | Irina Volkov
T H E _ D A Y _ T H A T _ N E V E R _ C O M E S
Love is a four letter word
And never spoken here

T H E _ R E T U R N _ D E A T H _ O F _ G L A D I U S _ C O M P A N Y​

We were setting up in the foliage of the park overlooking the artillery set up before us. Crawling, exchanging fire, contemplating how to get a clear shot at the darn thing. An ominous feeling started rising at the back of my head, soldier's instincts some called it. Bigfoot, Dumdum, Rebel and Widow were already on the brink of popping their own separate artillery outposts, none of them had to drag through a long stretch of an open and wide street to reach their target. As I mused over our next course of attack, the holomap projecting from my wrist, Ghost snuck up on me from nowhere, concern in his voice. "Captain, you gotta see this."

"What is it?"

He said nothing, only gestured for me to follow. The young kid took me to an inconspicuous scene - three of our stormies brooding over a Legionnaire's body. I raised my hands in irritation.

"Well?? What is it?"

Without a word, Ghost unsheathed his vibrodagger and viciously stabbed it at the dead Legionnaire's chest; there was no gruesome sound of bones cracking, flesh tearing and blood streaming. Only sparks and steel.

"What the hell?" the foreboding feeling began to grow exponentially. A sense of dread sending a chill down my spine.

"Checked all of them, Sir--droids." Ghost said, almost whispering. The dread within me starting to stir within my brothers in arms. I tried holding it together but I couldn't. Any words I sought to utter were obstructed by the sudden disappearance of the sun behind the grotesque shape of a super star destroyer blotting it out. Its weapons supercharging to unleash upon us apocalypse. My breathing ceased, my guts fumbled into knots and I darted away towards Espada. Gone was the skin of a stormtrooper, of an Imperial, of Captain of Gladius Company. All be damned; I was only a man in love with a woman with one last confession to make in mind.

I emerged from a thicket right beside her, she looked down from the behemoth of impending doom above us and stared at me. Our helmets tumbled down from our heads to reveal young faces, allowed to taste the bitter hand of death, eyes filled up with the horrible war but one final will, one last confession to share before it was too late.

She lunged into my embrace and I whispered,

"I lov-"