Private In the Pines, Where the Sun Don't Ever Shine

[Cameron Crownwraithe]

Location: Hideout Base - Kerest
Tags: Laertia Io Syd Celsius Starlin Rand

While the Jedi was carrying her unconscious form to the transport, Cameron stirred. The sudden movement was forceful enough that it might have made Starlin question why he had decided to cuff a speedster around her arms, instead of her legs. Regardless, the Zanshi remained comatose throughout, even as Starlin collapsed to his knees and began to cough up blood.

Some things were best left to the professionals.

 

[Laertia Io]

Xiphos cut and carved through the opposition if Jedi and Soldiers alike, determined to let nothing stand in her way of reaching Syd. She would crush her into a pulpy mass, bathe all of Kerest in her blood and drop the bones in acid afterward.

She would not stop until Syd was a dead motherf-

"MOTHERRRRR!!"

Xiphos stopped having brutally beheaded a Jedi only seconds before. She spotted a Model 1, holding a rapidly worsening Cultist called The Arena. It was Isacc.

"Please!" he begged.

She had not been unaware of his dalliances, only that it was a Model 1 doing them. Isacc, for all his brutality, seemed to understand something more about emotions than his brothers did.

Xiphos wasn't sure what to do about it. She wasn't exactly one to talk.

But now came the moment of truth. Her son was begging for her help, but what would actually be helping him be? Letting her live? Or letting her die.

She realized, with a sinking feeling, that she had a tactical consideration. She had enough juice in her left to kill Syd, but she had to take the fight to Syd now if that was going to remain the case. If she spent any energy to restore her son's girlfriend, she would definitely have dicey prospects for survival.

She looked at him, then her, her steel son's body language betraying desperation bordering on despair. He was hoping he could save her. He had killed for her because she had ordered it, yet never demanded any acknowledgement or reward. Xiphos was reminded of her own affection for Syd, shattered by the truth.

Xiphos decided her son's happiness meant more to her than her own lust for revenge.

Xiphos staggered over to him.

She stretched out her hands, calmed herself, forcing her emotions to the side.

The act of healing was painful for her, due to her injuries, psychological shock, and the fact that she didn't respect the Force truly any longer, but she was able to power through it because her desire to spare her son the pain of losing his lover, in spite of how much more ambivalent she was about his choice of paramour than she let on, was stronger than all of that.

But it drained her heavily, purging the poison from the Arena's body, stopping the necrosis in its tracks. She even gave The Arena the tiniest amount of her own life force to keep her going. The injured, partly rotting witch stirred in his arms.

"It's ok... you're gonna be ok, Sherbet..." Isacc assured her.

"Dream...boat..." The Arena hissed out.

Xiphos collapsed almost.

Get her out of here. Any way you can think of! She ordered him in her technopathy.

"But you can barely stand." her Skeletal son protested.

That is 'my' problem. Your problem is keeping the one you love safe.

Isacc stared, something having shifted in him. He had learned something interesting about the concept of mercy. It also began to Dawn on him how little he had shown in his own life. Part of that was by design. The design of Xiphos, to be exact. Much of it was by choice.

It was the first time he had experienced any mercy for himself.

Isacc ran with the Arena in his arms. The Republic wasn't the only one landing evac ships. The Leviathan of Sev Tok had gotten pissed when it's deadline had been reached and it began ruthlessly firing on the largest SJC ships in orbit.

Xiphos, badly exhausted, kept trudging her way through the snow, going to where she sensed Syd, and knew immediately that her position was untenable. She felt week, and was in pain everywhere, her armor was totaled, she likely didn't have the energy to take her in a straight contest. But she had to. She was honor bound.

Her sons shot at any Ranger or Jedi that got near her as she trudged through the snow. The blizzard howled all around, and Xiphos was given pause as she sensed her daughter, Cameron Crownwraithe , in distress...

at the hands of Starlin Rand .

To say Xiphos loathed him was an understatement. She hated him worse than AM in I have no mouth and I must scream hated his captives (Speaking of which I have to remind myself to go convince Starlin's writer to have Errik Nimdok go look for canned food). He had made her watch it. Watch the whole horrid thing with that magic spell.

And now he he had his filthy hands all over Cameron.

Xiphos, screaming in rage and frustration, turned, for she loved her children more than she hated Syd, and prepared to rescue Cameron, only to stop as she saw Darth Themis striding up to her, appearance warped to resemble someone other than Moya Virtue, and clad in that purple and black catsuit, clutching her Lightsaber Spear.

"Go, child. I sense your intent. I will recover Cameron."

Make. Him. SUFFER. Xiphos said with telepathy.

"He's her student..." Themis said with a snort. "You don't need to convince me to hurt him."

As Themis turned, Xiphos gave a mental growl.

You knew all along, yet you said nothing. Why? Why did you let me keep sleeping with my parents killer?

"Because if you had learned the truth at any point before now, you would have gone completely insane and fallen irreversibly to the Dark Side. I took no pleasure in concealing that. But by the time you had started seeing her, it was too late. My hands were tied, like they were with Alyosha." Themis answered, not looking at Xiphos out of pure shame. "I'm sorry, Julia. I'm so sorry. But I cannot take it back."

Xiphos didn't reply. Instead, she ran off to face Syd, While Themis made her grand debut, causing the sky to rumble with green lightning as she broke into a run, sprinting to reach Starlin...

 

[Starlin Rand]

A twitch from Cameron put Starlin on high alert, a surge of new adrenaline holding him together for the moment. He got a new pair of cuffs and clamped them around her ankles, coughing all the while. Blood splattered against the visor of his helmet, bad enough that he couldn’t see. He disengaged the pressure seal and removed his helm, but the cold air only worsened his cough.

He reached for Cameron again, slinging her over his shoulder—only to collapse with a choked cry of pain. The rib he had cracked earlier during his duel against Cameron in the hangar was catching up to him. He likely had a perforated lung.

The snow in front of him was stained red as he fumbled with a medkit, injecting himself with a stim. Knowing it wouldn’t do enough, however, he tore open his suit, then reached into his pocket and produced a lighter. Shielding it from the wind with a torn piece of his environmental suit, he whispered to the flame, “Healing waters, the body spurns; Ashla, let this flame mend instead of burn…”

He stuck it against his side, panting and gasping in agony as he felt the spell at work, fusing broken bones back into place and knitting punctured flesh back together. The worst of his injuries was healed, but there was little he could do about his growing exhaustion, except to reach the transport—

Sensing someone approaching rapidly, he clambered to his feet, lightsaber and shoto in hand. Green lightning flashed in the sky overhead, visible even through the blizzard, and a woman emerged from the snowblind landscape. She was dark-skinned, with orange hair, and wielded a spear tipped with a plasma blade.

Starlin barely darted out of the way in time to avoid being impaled. Skidding across the ground, he leaped forward, slashing at her with both his weapons.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, scoffing at her to hide his growing dread. “Another one of those Cultists with weird names?”

Laertia Io Cameron Crownwraithe​

 

[Syd Celsius]

(THIS PLAYS)

Syd cut down more Model 1 units. The One's and three's gave her the most trouble

Her orange blades whipped about, as much fighting her own despair and desire to drop dead and let the murderous Droids rip her to pieces as she was fighting the actual Droids themselves, each sporting powerful energy blades that could resist the Lightsaber. Laertia's designs. They were brilliant. They were put to profane uses.

One woman's personal ambition, pride, and increasingly skewed sense of right and wrong versus an entire entrenched system equally convinced it was in the right. Any one else would have broken.

Syd fought throughwaves of Nuetralizers. She had once taught them alongside Laertia. Many still remembered her. But revelations on Korriban about her identity and spread through the Model 1 ranks, kept under strictest secrecy by them.

Her sons had known before she did, and kept silent to spare her madness. To no avail.

They definitely wanted to kill her, and now that Laertia had let them off the leesh in regards to her, they were going for all it was worth. They were still under the mistaken impression that, whatever psychological shock their Mother had suffered, they could still kill Syd before the secret could come out.

Syd cut them down, her blades and sorcery to full effect. Most clashes lasting only a few seconds before a Droid fell. She dodge or phased through projectiles as necessary to reach those in her way. And they would die, who or whatever fired at her. The more she cut down the less there were to kill innocent Jedi and Soldiers.

It was her mess and it was all her fault.

At least, that's what she told herself.

And then, in a clearing of snow, She at last saw her. Her armor mangled and broken, hair frosted over at the edges. Eyes blood shot, face covered in nervous breakdown sweat, all in contrast to Syd's eerie perfection in the blizzard conditions, the snow steaming before it could hit her.

Syd saw the dozens of soldiers and a few Jedi Battlemasters she had cut down to get here, in a massive trail of dead behind her.

"JULIA!" Syd called out. "I...I..."

Syd deactivated her staff.

"Julia, this must stop..." Syd pleaded. "When you started all of this...you weren't in it to hurt people...not innocent ones anyway..."

Laertia said nothing, lost in a fugue state. She didn't even remember where she was.

"I should have stopped you after Dantooine..." Syd reminded herself out loud, crestfallen. "I should have reigned you in when my own Padawan killed another. There were so many points where I should have reigned you in. And I didn't."

A single question escaped as a hate filled rasp from a psychologically shattered Xiphos.

"Why didn't you?"

Syd was silent for a moment, and everything around them seemed quieter.

"I think...on some level...part of me..." Syd trailed...

"...part of me wanted payback...on them. That's what I worry the reason I never pulled you away from your choices was...because in spite of myself...in spite of my entire history...there was a part of me that wanted you to be right about them. And I'm ashamed of that part now."

Laertia Io said nothing. Xiphos had ceded control back to her for this one instance, because even the part of her that was Xiphos couldn't justify not letting Laertia be in complete control this time. Because it sent a stronger message than if it was just Xiphos doing it.

Xiphos angled a curved hilt with a purple blade and Syd wanted to wretch in disgust at the perverse irony of the weapon Xiphos had been using since the conflict started here.

It was her own saber from when she had still been Darth Phyre, she could see Laertia's intent: Laertia wanted to dismember her with her own weapon.

"Laertia...I'm sorry! I didn't know! If I had...I would never have gone near you...." Syd pleaded. "But whatever hatred you hold towards me...however deserved...you don't have to take it out on everyone else...please! Please surrender!"

Laertia Io staggered stiffly towards her, unconcerned where she was, her family's dismemberment at her lover's hands on loop in her skull.

"ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME CAN BE LAIN DIRECTLY AT YOUR FEET! A DECADE OF MISERY IN THE SLUMS!!! A LIFE OF FEAR AND BRUTALITY SINCE I WAS A CHILD!!! I SAW THINGS THERE!!! I KILLED!!! AND KILLED!!! AND KILLLLLLLEDDDD!!!" Laertia screamed in rage, the force taking over for her damaged vocal chords. Knife like pain seared her throat as she screamed her fury out.

"YOU MURDERED MY PARENTS!!! YOU DISMEMEBERED THEM AND LAUGHED AS YOU DID IT!" Laertia shrieked, spit flying from her mouth and going bug eyed with homicidal intent.

Syd was silent, unable to retort to any of it. Because it was the truth. Whether it came from an insane, fallen Jedi or not, it was the truth, not even twisted by the Dark Side. But that was because it was already so twisted even the Dark Side couldn't have hoped to twist it further. There was no Jedi teaching that could counter it. No pithy, clever, yet empty saying of some ancient master that could be called upon to refute sheer naked fact, or quell a completely, one hundred percent justifiable hatred.

The Jedi Code had no say in this fight. The dispute here, and how personal it was, were beyond the scope of its ability to address.

All Syd could do was try to avert the inevitable.

Syd threw down her staff.

"If you want your revenge then take it. Kill me. I won't stop you. But stop the rest of this. End your crusade against the Jedi. Let me be your final kill...just stop hurting other people. You've lost the plot. There's no need to fight The Jedi."

"I cannot help but wonder..." Laertia said in a rasp. "If I had met with nothing but success...would you have stayed?"

Syd looked her dead in the eyes.

"I do not know."

"I suppose there was little point in asking. Pick up your blade."

Syd stood firm. "NO. That is the deal I am offering. Kill me here. But this crusade of yours stops. Your alliance with Phyre's cult stops. Do this and I will make no attempt to defend myself."

"You will dictate no terms to me..." Laertia snapped. both she AND Xiphos in total agreement. "Y'know the completely fethed irony in all this? I could never have made it this far without your Cult's help. And right now...I can't think of a better way to go on hurting you even after your death than to continue to use them, to cast them into the thick of it, making sure its the ONLY part of you that survives. So no, Syd. I don't accept your terms. Now pick. Up. Your. Blade." she demanded in a low snarl.

Syd looked at her in misery.

"What if I just want to let you kill me anyway?"

Laertia shrugged.

"Your choice. But if you don't pick up that blade...it's not Starlin I'll come after. It's his mother that will suffer. I'll make the little bastard an Orphan like you made me, and then we'll both be totally caught up in the parallels. The best part? HE WON'T EVEN NEED TO ASK WHERE I GOT THE IDEA FROM!"

Syd didn't know she was screaming in rage until her orange blades corkscrewed through the air for Laertia's head and the pair ruthlessly slashed and stabbed at each other, Syd clearly having the energy advantage as she drove Laertia backward in a frenzy...

Meanwhile...

"Unfortunately for you...no..." the catsuit clad Sith replied to Starlin Rand .

"I am Darth Themis. Whisperer of the Thirty Fifth Heresy, which governs Alkahest. And your master murdered my entire family and me, once, long ago, trapping my spirit in a black flame of the dark side to torture my soul for eternity. I got better. And I have come for my revenge."

Themis sprinted, lunging with her spear in a swift, superhuman motion for his chest, thinking only of causing Syd a similar level of pain as she had caused her...




Cameron Crownwraithe

 

[Starlin Rand]

“Aw chit,” Starlin muttered, as Themis lunged at him.

He rolled across the snow, barely escaping her spear. The blade clipped the side of his enviro suit, however, breaching the seal and exposing his flesh to the freezing cold.

Landing on his feet, he brought his weapons up, swinging at her with both his lightsaber and shoto. Moving kept him warm, so he kept going, his movements fast and agile. Whenever one blade was blocked by her spear, he came in with the other, slashing and stabbing. Yet despite his aggressive approach, he wasn’t aiming to kill Themis. His attacks were meant to disarm or disable her.

“Can’t we talk about this?” he asked breathlessly, the stimulant and the Force coursing through him, making his heart beat wildly in his chest. “I’m not my master—I shouldn’t be blamed for her actions. She probably killed you and your family long before I was even born! And if you’re here because of Laertia—do you really agree with what she’s doing?”

He sensed he was unlikely to get very far trying to reason with Themis, but he still made an attempt. He had to try.

Syd Celsius Cameron Crownwraithe​