Dominion Kickin Ast | SO Dominion of Ast Kikorie

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Irina Jesart //:

The sound of the Councilor's footsteps stopped. Irina had asked her the burning question. If it were just that, Quinn would have revealed the details behind her tone. Yet, Irina didn't know when to stop, when to bite her tongue…

"A bad day?" Quinn echoed. Her eyes settled on the sky where their shuttle and several others had fallen from. Was this all that this day was to the Apprentice… just simply a bad day?

Quinn exhaled softly as she shook her head, "No, this isn't a bad day." Finally, she turned to face the isolated acolyte who failed to learn the place she had put herself in.

"Today is a terrible day. Do you not see the dying and the dead around you? Do you not comprehend the lives that were just lost?" She was appalled by the girl's language. Shaking her head, Quinn stepped back and sighed.

"You wouldn't understand. It's unfair that I expect you to understand." She paused and then began to turn away to continue what she needed to do.

Irina had stated that they were not peers, they were not the same, and could never be. The girl wouldn't be able to even bear the thought that all of these lives depended on her actions, her choices…

Quinn should have been able to stop this, unfair, but it was the truth. Even if there was nothing she could do, at the end of the day, she had to answer for their deaths, for this mistake.

"You know." Quinn shook her head, "If I could, I'd sacrifice your pointless life to bring them all back…"

She began to walk again, not caring what the girl thought. She was below her.

"At least they understood their duty; you just pretend to."

A hand waved as she knelt to pull wreckage off of another figure that groaned and called out for help.

"Do something at least, if you get in your way, I'd rather deal with the wrath of your Master, than look at you standing there with that stupid look on your face…"

Quinn glanced over her shoulder and nearly laughed at the pathetic sight, "...as if you're going to try and act on your hurt feelings."

Aerik Lechner deserved better, Quinn thought quietly to herself as she caressed and memorized the face of another young acolyte who had lost their life. She let her face soften just for a moment as the boy looked too much like the young wolf... and a part of her just once wished she could return his feelings.

Maybe he'd have someone worth his time.

 

[Darth Nefaron]

DIRECT TAG: Aerik Lechner
MENTIONED: Srina Talon Darth Prazutis

It appeared the wolf had caught a scent.
​

Interesting as it was that Aerik had not taken his bait, Nefaron was far more intrigued by the boy than he initially imagined. Though an apprentice to Darth Prazutis, Aerik's birth surname carried far more weight in these dark days. With the ascension of the Empress, Srina Talon, her relationships and confidants gained far more power, even if they would not admit it. Gerwald Lechner, Master of the Second Legion and Emperor's Wrath, was at the forefront of every major Sith Campaign and would no doubt lead the amalgamation of Sith forces into the Core.

Yet he, too, had faltered on his path.

He had loved. There were children to carry on his name.​

This was a weakness, a weakness that any Sith could exploit. But Aerik would become far more than a pawn in a plot to bring down his father, yet the Corpse Lord would need to see just what he was capable of, if he had that fire within his black heart that would see him fully embrace the Dark Side or allow room in his heart for another and therefore damn himself.

When Aerik began his hunt, Nefaron was not far behind. While he hesitated in activating his lightsaber once more, he was keenly aware that they might be ambushed at any moment. Still, it seemed better to gather potential allies than simply wait to pick off the first patrol that happened upon the pair of Sith.

"Hunting?"

Nefaron chuckled lightly, perhaps entertained at the Spawn's idea of war. Yet the Corpse Lord did not press the subject any further and instead chose a different path altogether.

"Any allies we gather must serve as a distraction. Should we find a gap in their defenses, we could quite easily bring down the shield that protects their pathetic city and perhaps find the source of their little trick."

Right on the apprentice's heels, the Terror Lord took the opportunity to gauge the boy's thoughts, perhaps even see just how he might handle the perilous situation they found themselves in if he were in command of the invasion.

"Unless, of course, you find stealth to be a waste of time. Your father would certainly lead a frontal assault that would needlessly waste his own resources for the sake of glory."

A jab at Gerwald, and Nefaron knew all too well the path he took. Having been around the man sparingly, the Corpse Lord might as well have lied about the course of action the Warlord might have taken if he were here instead of his spawn, but he didn't need to speak truth to drag out the reaction he was looking for. Should the boy prove cunning as well as strong, then he may just have a role in Nefaron's future plans.

All in good time. ​

 

[Helix]

Objective II: Douse The Lamp
Tags: Reina Daival ​

"I could maybe back it up, if I was in top condition. I am not. Perhaps I am being modest, but I don't quite think my mastery of the Force is at the level where I could easily tear apart squads of people."

"Fair enough." Murmured the mechanoid quietly, photoreceptor-pods still fixated on the tower. He seemed to take this self-assessment at face value, and didn't appear inclined to question it. "That in mind, minimizing risk is indeed the best policy."

He was quiet as she gave her thoughts on the problem ahead, eventually selecting his first proposal as the least lethal of the bunch. "I quite agree. It does still involve a level of risk that, at any other time, I'd consider unacceptable. Still, it's less suicidal than the other options at hand, and desperate times call for desperate measures." In fact, it was exactly the sort of stupid, foolhardy plan that Helix had seen destroy larger forces time and time again. Many, many lifetimes ago, when he was more limited in mind and body, he'd marveled at the sort of mad bravery and unusual creativity that organic troops could display, given the right motivators. Now, when he could consider such plans himself, they seemed less marvelous, and more just dangerous.

To suit the action to the word, Helix's surface rippled, reforming itself into the spitting image of one of the hapless soldiers they'd butchered a few minutes past. Of course, he'd been sure to make his appearance match the story they were selling; he was bloodied, unkempt, and sporting a passable imitation of a lightsaber scar.

"I wouldn't worry about doing your part quickly. Doing it reliably is infinitely more important." He said, utilizing the soldier's voice in a tone that was probably intended to be genial. The apparition held out one empty hand, causing a portion of his surface to assume the shape of a blaster rifle.

"Presuming it works, and they let us in, they'll have no reason to suspect anything untoward. That means we will not need to be in any particular hurry. After all, I doubt the tower is going anywhere, unless other survivors beat us there, as you hope. If they do, more power to them."

"You'd best hide those weapons, though." He added. "I don't think they'll be quite stupid enough to buy that..." he paused for a heartbeat to access bits of stolen memory from the man's copied neural data. "Sergeant Rakk here would just let you keep them if he'd miraculously managed to capture you. I'm not going to ask you to give them to me, because you will need them if they aren't fooled, and we have to go to plan B. Just keep them out of sight if you can."

He waved the fake rifle in his hands. "After you."

 

[Aerik Lechner]

Wearing: This | Weapons: Lightsaber | Knife
TAG: Darth Nefaron​

Aerik moved through the wreckage without slowing.

The twisted hulls of fallen transports created narrow channels of broken durasteel and scattered debris that forced careful steps as burning fuel continued to spit and crackle across the field. Smoke drifted low across the ground and carried the scent of scorched circuitry and charred flesh.

Behind him Nefaron’s voice carried across the debris.

“Hunting?”

Aerik stepped over the fractured wing of a ruined dropship and continued forward, the magma orange blade in his hand casting a molten glow across the broken metal around them.

“It is a battlefield,” he said as he picked his way through the debris. “The difference is only perspective.”

His free hand lifted without thought and brushed the scar along his jaw before lowering again.

The suggestion about allies and distractions lingered in his mind as he moved across the wreckage. Numbers mattered even among the Sith. Pressure created fractures, and fractures eventually broke defenses.

Aerik slowed near a ridge of collapsed plating and looked out across the burning scrapyard toward the distant shimmer of the shielded city.

“If we gather enough survivors,” he said while stepping down from the ridge into another channel of broken hulls, “they will serve as more than a distraction.”

He reached out through the Force again. The connection remained muted and uneven, but the presence he had sensed earlier shifted faintly somewhere ahead of them.

“Someone here built the weapon that crippled the descent,” he continued while angling through a gap between two wrecked transports. “If the shield protecting that city falls, their advantage disappears with it.”

The next words from Nefaron reached him as Aerik climbed over the shattered engine housing of another transport.

Your father would certainly lead a frontal assault.

Aerik slowed.

His next step landed heavily against the broken plating beneath his boots. The orange glow of his blade flickered across the metal while his hand rose again and brushed the scar along his jaw before lowering.

“My father would do whatever was required,” he said while stepping down from the wreckage.

He moved forward again through the debris field without turning back.

“He does not waste soldiers,” Aerik added as he passed a shattered cargo container. “He spends them, like any strategist would.”

The distinction settled into the space between them as he continued toward the wreckage ahead.

“If a frontal assault achieved what it was meant to,” he said while stepping onto a rise in the debris, “he would take it.”

From the rise the field of burning dropships stretched across the outskirts of the industrial complex where the invasion had fallen apart.

Aerik reached outward through the interference again and felt the faint pulse of the Dark Side flicker somewhere below the wreckage ahead.

“Stealth has its place,” he said while descending the slope of broken metal toward a partially buried transport. “But only if it leads to an outcome worth reaching. It’s not about which method is better. It is about which one produces the preferred result."

He lifted the blade and angled it toward the collapsed troop bay where twisted plating had folded inward.

The presence inside shifted again.

Alive.

“Which is why we start here,” he said as he stepped toward the opening in the ruined hull.

 

[Reina Daival]

Tag: Helix
Objective:

Depending on how you viewed it, the simple act of living was risky. Reina wouldn't be surprised how many droids would probably see it as too risky. She felt like it was something that a bunch of nuts and bolts wouldn't be able to understand, but she wasn't going to complain about it. It wasn't important for the mission as she just watched Helix change, blinking ever so slightly at the disguise. It was a neat little trick to say the least.

"I can do it reliably enough. I'm not some kind of neophyte with the Force. And if this does work, how do we know they won't try to send an extra guard with us to "back you up?" There are a lot of potential things that can go wrong with the plan. The faster we get it done, the better."

It was true at least that without any flaws in the plan, the guards would probably let them through. But Reina was the kind to always try and figure out what to do if the plan went wrong. More often than not, it was fine making the plan, but when you put it into action, the plan nearly always went out of the window. Being able to improvise was one of the best skills a mercenary could have.

"Do you think I look roughed up enough that they'd buy our story?"

There had been the stream of blood going down her face from the crash, alongside a few cuts and scraps. No injuries from actually dealing with the soldiers. With the story they were going with, and the fact that "Sergeant Raak" had a lightsaber scar, it would make sense as to why she wasn't shot, but she wasn't necessarily sure if she looked beaten enough to buy the entire story. So she braced herself for any sudden strikes Helix may have given when he thought Reina wasn't expecting.

Part of her debated if she should give Helix her lightsaber as well. Sure, she needed her weapons, but she'd be fine with the dagger. There was every chance however that things would go a lot more worse than she expected, so she hid the lightsaber within her robes, whilst she adjusted the sheathe for her dagger, attaching it to her wrist to make it easier to draw out of her sleeve in case things went wrong.

Then with that, Reina started to move ahead. It was time for some of her acting skills, as she dragged her leg behind her, almost as if she was limping. Wasn't too hard for her to replicate that, considering she had plenty of experience relying on one leg in the past.

​

 

[Irina Jesart]

Quinn Varanin

Irina was silent, torn for a moment between two halves of herself. The woman who understood that Quinn was above her in every way, and the one who refused to be silent, who refused to be dismissed. The ‘look’ that Quinn saw was not that of a wounded child, but a woman fighting two parts of herself. She had suffered worse insults from the honeyed tongues of nobles than this spoiled Queen whose status was little more than the result of nepotism, could ever deliver.

There were two problems staring Rin in the face.

The first, that Aerik considered this woman one of his pack.

The second, was that the Second Legion would one day fall to her, which meant that no matter how she looked at this, no matter what either of them thought of each other.

Their futures were entwined.

Irina took a long breath, exhaling out of her nose, letting the mask fall back into place.

“Death, is a part of war.” she said quietly, moving to another chunk of wreckage easing it upright with a gentle push in the force, unveiling another body. “These men and women went into battle, knowing this, allowing my emotions to rule the moment, to lash out needlessly at those around me would be a futile waste of energy.”

She crouched, one hand reaching to check for a pulse and finding none. “My duty is to find who did this and destroy them, not allow myself to be used as a verbal punching bag for you.” She straightened, memorising the woman's face, before turning to look back at Quinn, eyes ablaze with fire.

“So, Councillor, if you have quite finished? I would suggest we round up those who are able and find a defensible position instead of wasting time on the dead or dying. We can give them the time of day when the battle is won.”

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Irina Jesart //:

Quinn was tending to another as Irina continued to talk. The casual tone of her words annoyed Quinn. If things were different, if she had accepted the Councilor's friendship, maybe this would have unfolded differently.

Right now, Quinn was hoping the girl would learn to bite her tongue — something that Quinn would have to bring up to her fellow Councilor.

"Are you still talking?" Quinn asked, "I don't care what you believe your duty is, or this pathetic excuse for strength or bravery."

Her eyes settled on the apprentice once more, and she looked down on her. There was an absence of thought and understanding in the plain words she spoke.

"Death is a part of war. But that doesn't mean you lose sight of the people that go to war with you… for you." She turned her attention back to the woman that Irina had only offered a moment to. Quinn brushed aside the girl and moved the woman from under the wreckage.

"We all know what we sign up for when we go to war, but your lack of understanding is apparent." She continued to tend to the woman, adjusting her clothing and closing her eyes. When the Echani was done, she looked to see if she was asleep among the wreckage.

"They might not mean anything to you, but at the end of the day… at the end of the war and their life…" she paused, remembering the lessons of her youth - watching her parents send millions to war… to their deaths and then mourning each and every loss.

"They're still my people, and they still deserve respect — to die in battle is a great honor, a warrior's death," Like the Empress, the Queen of Eshan was an Echani, a culture of warriors.

Quinn moved past her and again looked down at her from the corner of her eye.

"I doubt you lack the maturity to even understand any of this, so I won't hold it against you."

Quinn continued, it annoyed her that Gerwald would send this girl into the field, placing people under her or with her, as she lacked the basic understanding of caring for those who fight with her. To leave the dead mangled, tossed aside like fodder. Quinn had seen enough during her youth and now in the position she was in. Irina would never understand it, and Quinn had no hope of her ever being able to.

"You care about only the things that benefit you. It's troubling, and an embarrassment to your Master." Quinn's tone lacked any emotion now — there was no more to tell her. This interaction, along with the one before it, was enough for her to see. Irina was what the Sith wanted, a war machine without empathy.

Quinn mused as she offered another lost soul a quiet and painless death. Maybe she was the broken one, the one that didn't fit the mold of the Empire. Perhaps, she had too much empathy? Still, to see the calm as men and women, at times not much older than her, allowed that much before death wouldn't change things.

"As for your duty, you're to do as you're told. I attempted to make you my equal, but you refused it outright. You can't do anything, so do yourself a favor and just listen and hope that you can at least do as you're told."

Another sound, another person, and Quinn helped them up. A small discussion between them and Quinn allowed the healing that she had done with Skadi to heal the man who leaned against you. His gratitude was shown in spite of the pain, and he began to do the same as her.

Find the dead, find the living, and continue.

"Also, Apprentice, don't talk to me so casually as if we're equals." Her throat cleared as she turned to face Irina.

"As you said, you aren't entirely sure if you can consider yourself a peer of the Heir Apparent, the Queen of Eshan, and a Dark Councilor… so remember your station, Apprentice."

 

[Irina Jesart]

Quinn Varanin

It wasn’t strength or bravery, it was simply a matter of getting the job done and this was a waste of time. If whoever had struck them down decided to sweep the area as she would have done they were all sitting ducks. She stepped aside as Quinn moved in, watching the gentle way she pulled her from the wreckage, laying her on the ground and straightening her clothes, closing her eyes.

It was not that Rin did not understand it, she did in her own way. The Emberborne had been handpicked by her, everyone of their lives was her responsibility and their deaths sat heavy in her heart, it was just that the moment was… irrational. Her eyes flicked over the woman she laid to rest, trying to comprehend Quinn’s need to address it in the moment.

The words that did strike a chord though, making Rin’s head snap up were those regarding Gerwald.

An embarrassment to your Master…

That stung, more than she was willing to show. Her dedication to Gerwald, to all he taught her. She was proud to call him her Master, but if he was witnessing this…if he could see this interaction, would he think the same? Irina swallowed, her feet shifting as shame crept up to heat her face. For the first time in a long time, Irina felt small.

When Quinn turned back to face her, throwing her own words back in Irina’s face, the defiance in her eyes fading, sadness and regret replacing it.

She had earned this.

“As you command, Councillor.” Irina replied quietly with a bow of her head, moving to the next pile of twisted durasteel as she swallowed her pride and beginning to clear it aside.