Private Hunter meets Hunter

[Darth Anathemous]

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Scarif had changed hands many times over the lightyears. Imperial, Sith, Mandalorian and sith again--it didn't matter who held these shores, they always built ugly towers to hide away uglier secrets. Kaila came knocking on the front door like she owned the damn place, * rap tap tap * and it opened.

By the time the confused souls within knew what was happening, it was already too late.

Room by room and lift by lift she cut her way through the old tower, leaving bodies for anyone to come across as the alarm blared all around her. The facility commander was mortified when the doors opened and security fell all around him. Just security.

The Sith left the work force to continue operations as normal, giving them but one order:

"Broadcast." she said, pointing at a large holo-projector.

Some whispered, but were silenced by the ignition of a lightsaber which quelled any thought of resistance. Her likeness then appeared on neighboring worlds all across the Abrion Sector, tall and imposing in her dark armor, wreathed in talismans older than even the sith war-mask's cold glare at the world.

She released her closed fist over the projector, revealing at last her true purpose here.

Lightsabers.​

Beaten, broken.​

​

There were two, both of different styles but one bore the symbol of the Sharyan Jedi.

With her message sent, the projector burst at her silent command, as did all the communications array in the command center. They'd have panicked were it not for the sith lord's voice which cut through the chaos with practiced ease.

"I want the names and faces of every Jedi in your archives."

She tossed them a dataspike, and with her trap set, began to meditate over the coming battle.

---

Cerys Dyn ​

 

[Cerys Dyn]

It had been a routine mission. Cerys had been assigned as primary protection to the Republic delegation sent to Iskalon, right on the edge of Republic space. The mission was to be simple, pedestrian even. The city of New Pavillion was to officially opened. The new capital of Iskalon was one of those many Republic projects meant to signal to frontier worlds that they had not been forgotten by Naboo, and to those across the border that the Republic could be trusted.

When the distress call came in from Scarif, it became quickly apparent that the mission to Iskalon held the only detachment of Jedi from Naboo. Cerys and her Padawan companion were the only ones that could respond.

"Cerys, do you think this is a good idea? Should you be going alone?" It was the voice of the overly cautious Dalmah Nen. The Ayrou would go alone to Iskalon, with Cerys taking responsibility for Scarif.

"Someone has to stay with the diplomats, Dalmah," said said from the pilots chair of the ships landing shuttle. Dalmah could be heard sighing deeply across comms. "You said it yourself. You are not a combatant."

"So how will I protect the diplomats?!" Came the whisper-yelled reply.

"Would you rather be going to the place you know there will be combat?" Cerys said, as the larger vessel to which her shuttle was docked dropped out of hyperspace. Her fingers danced across the controls, disengaging the shuttle from its berth. "At least on Iskalon you can put on a good show. The mere presence of a Jedi should dissuade any ne'er do well."

The shuttle drifted backwards, and Cerys took just a moment to linger on the vessel as it prepared to reenter hyperspace.

"May the Force be with you, Dalmah."

"May the Force be with you, Cerys."

The diplomatic vessel disappeared in half a breath, whisked into subspace.

Cheeks puffing out in anticipation, Cerys guided the shuttle towards the correct jump point. The computer indicated a successful course being plotted, and she pushed forward on the hyperspace controls...

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Her approach towards the old data tower had been slow. Every step, she had kept low, maintaining cover behind the large flax bushes that grew in clumps on the perimeter of the tower. But they would not provide cover for the entirety of her progress.

Hunched over behind the last flax bush before one hundred meters of open sand and duracrete, Cerys pondered her options.

"Force be with me," she muttered against the cold, crawling dread that threatened to distract her. Something, or someone, had obviously attacked this spire, that much was never in question. But ever since arriving on Scarif, there had been a slowly encroaching sense of familiarity about the moment.

Cerys half expected to encounter a Sith today. And her mind had settled on the most likely culprit being the reptilian beast that had slaughtered her former Master, the woman she had only recently learned was, in fact, also her mother.

The only option was to run, with the aide of the Force. But timing would be everything.

She had already mapped out the sensor sweeps, and noted a small window of less than two seconds in which she could make the dash. But even a moments hesitation would trip the sensor, alerting the one inside to her presence.

Cerys determined to let the cycle play out three more times, and run on the fourth. When the time came, she readied...and then ran...

Darth Anathemous​

 

[Darth Anathemous]

Not a sound was heard atop the tower when the whispers had faded. It could have passed for serene were it not for her armored form in the eye of silent storm, boots touching, gloved hands splayed over her knees.

Outside the tower her mind touched the Will, feeling through the chains which bound her and all living things together in it's machinations hoping to divine each and every disturbance along the nearest links.

She saw the circular room around her, the dark clouds over the technicians who'd only now mustered the courage to look at her. Fear... sorrow... the dark lord fed on them, used their emotions to expand her sight in the immaterial plane. She smelled the sea, felt the life tucked beneath where no human disturbed them, how they swam from her radiating hate. Not for them, never for the majesty of nature. Just how beautiful the world looked. The temptation to embrace it.

Her head turned to shield her eyes from the expanding white spot in her sight beyond sight, a sting traveling deeper by the minute.

Something else was coming...

...and the light came with it.

- - - - - -​

Bodies lay in the Jedi's path, corporate security, fresh enough that they did not yet smell. At the beginning of her trail, the casualties showed no outward signs of struggle. It began quick and clean, at least until the first sensor sweep. Just beyond it's reach was the scent of smoke and burnt flesh where men fell with a weapon in hand--but their wounds burned too deep to have been made by blasterfire.

But for all that fire, the embers began to dim and give way to a cold air that rolled across the skin.

For every step, the sensation would worsen.

And with it, that creeping sense of familiarity.

---

Cerys Dyn ​

 

[Cerys Dyn]

Ready to push through the doorway as soon as it opened for her, Cerys paused. The dead lay before her. Cleanly, efficiently dispatched in a manner she has rarely seen. Stooping to roll one of the guards over, Cerys inspected his wound — a clean singular pinpoint incision, and the telltale cortisation of the flesh.

"Lightsaber," she hissed through her teeth.

She should not have come alone.

And she knew she could not leave. So it was best to move forward towards this foe on her terms, rather than turn, run and be hunted.

Haunted eyes stared up at the Togruta as she walked in a slight crouch, both blue blades of hers held before and behind her. Every step was cautious. Each measured, and pushing through the Force to sense the path she need take.

A path that lead to the elevator. Despite it being obvious reality, Cerys still felt unease settle across. Perhaps it was not the enclosed space she would have to subject herself to, but the gnawing recognition of who it was that waited atop the towers many floors.

Before entering the lift, Cerys tapped her distress signal, in moments the Sanctuary on Naboo would be alerted to her predicament. Balun would come for her. He always did.

Cerys' already uneasy stomach dropped further still as the elevator shot upwards towards the main records and observation room.

The door slid open.

And she knew.

Anathemous.

Half way out of the lift, the Togruta froze in place. The technicians immediately lost the brief look of hope at seeing a Jedi arrive. Knowing that Cerys was scared, did not help them.

Darth Anathemous fyi Balun Dashiell​

 

[Darth Anathemous]

Tag: Cerys Dyn ​

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Kaila forced herself to look into the light even as it seared her eyes, growled in defiance as her anger wrestled for control. The light bent to her power but did not break, instead reshaping around her coiling will into something uncannily familiar.

A symbol? a mark? it belonged to...

"You?" said the sith to her would-be-prey at the door.

That chill on the air lessened when the woman slowly stood, eying Cerys over a broad shoulder. No weapons were drawn on the togrutan jedi, not yet, but her golden stare seemed to hold her longer than it should have. Incredible, she thought, still so eager after all this time.

"Hmh. We have to stop meeting like this." she chortled, though it sounded more like interference than a laugh behind the mask.

Only now did she turn to face the jedi properly, her posture deceptively relaxed, but a hand on her saber nonetheless. The technicians cowered behind their terminals of course, or one another, but she did not fault them. So long as they remembered their place in the natural order, she'd not begrudge their terror.

But her? the padawan's fear tasted familiar, but never had it been so potent.

No matter, it would serve the sith well enough in the moments to come, just as these hostages empowered her now.

One probing step forward, a curious tilt of the head, Kaila would take her time with this one.

 

[Cerys Dyn]

She felt her body coil. Not in preparation to flee, but in willingness to fight. There were innocents present. She could not retreat.

"You." Determination echoed in her tone. "Don't you just hang around like the stench of a Dianoga."

She was likely taking too many queues from her former master, and leaning heavily on humour and mockery to pass as confidence. But she needed all the confidence, fake or otherwise, that she could conjure at this moment.

Strafing to the right, she walked slowly behind a console. For just a heartbeat she took her eyes of Anathemous and glared at the technicians on her side of the room. With barely a twitch of her head, she indicated that they should leave by the way she had arrived.

The technicians hesitated, looking rather to the Sith to see if they would be permitted.

Cerys groaned.

"Let them leave. They do not need to be here."

Darth Anathemous