Private Lessons Unlearned

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Ace saw the opening. He didn't rush it. Arris was tumbling, one leg already compromised beneath her, but Ace had learned enough in the last few seconds to know what open meant against her. Losing an arm hadn't stopped her nor did a damaged knee. She'd grabbed an active lightsaber with her bare hand and nearly destroyed it.

If she wanted him close, charging blindly would give her exactly that. So Ace kept moving, but measured his approach. His eyes tracked her remaining hand, then her legs, watching for the slightest adjustment that might turn the fall into another attack. Both blades remained between them as he closed, blue held forward while the shorter purple blade stayed nearer his body to intercept anything she tried at close range. He wasn't interested in trading another hit, he wanted to end this.

Ace waited until the last possible moment before committing. As Arris tumbled, he closed to the edge of his striking range and planted his feet, close enough for his blades to reach her without carrying his body into immediate grappling distance. He kept his weight centered rather than lunging after her. If the opening was bait, he wanted enough balance left to pull away.

Then he attacked. The purple shoto moved first, sweeping low toward Arris's already damaged knee, extending only far enough to bring the joint within reach. It wasn't the real attack, but it wasn't an empty feint either. If Arris ignored it, the shoto could further compromise the leg already struggling to support her. If she defended it, Ace wanted her attention drawn low for the fraction of a second he needed.

The blue blade followed immediately behind it. Ace rotated through his hips and shoulders without stepping any deeper into her reach, bringing his primary lightsaber around in a short, controlled arc toward the side of Arris's cybernetic skull.

Even then, he didn't throw himself into the strike. His feet remained underneath him and his weight stayed centered. As the shoto completed its low sweep, Ace began drawing it back toward his body, positioning the shorter blade between himself and Arris in case she tried to counter.

His eyes weren't fixed on the blue blade's destination either. He already knew where he was aiming. Instead, Ace watched Arris's remaining hand and legs for movement, ready to abandon the attack entirely if the apparent opening turned into another trap.

He wasn't about to assume that he'd won simply because she looked vulnerable. Arris had already taught him better than that.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Arris saw the shoto aimed at her weakened knee. She didn't think about it. Instinct guided her. With what little leverage she had, the cyborg twisted out of the shoto's way, sparing her leg the finality. Stupid. Because her head now moved in the direction of his oncoming blue blade.

It connected...

She couldn't help Kirie, and in the end, it didn't even matter, but she still wanted to pull the trigger all the same.

"How about I space us both right here? Wouldn't that be funny?" She grinned something sick.

Her fingers scratched at the songsteel, inching a little closer to the trigger.

She reached for Lily's lightsaber, putting it in her hand, and guiding it to rest against the right of the cyborg's temple.

"All you have to do is think, and end me."

...She wanted to die.

The plasma burned through hair and synthflesh with ease. It didn't take much for it to split away the metal and bone beneath it.

'Beautiful.'

'Maybe Rox will finally forg--'

The heat was impossible.

Acier's lightsaber hit its mark. It cut deep, and within a second's second it would carve through grey matter and end her.

The Force itself erupted around the blade; phantom jaws closed shut more viciously than her hand ever did. Whether or not it destroyed the blade, the Dark Side continued to erupt in an explosion around her face. A second later, her whole head was engulfed in black flames, and she emitted a bestial scream - it was noise through the Force alone. Sharp enough to shatter glass and deafen ears.

She collected the fire in her hand and threw it to the side where it melted through the wall.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAgggggggggghhhhh... Aha... Ahahaha. Hahahaha! WOW - that should've fucking killed me! Maybe I really am unkillable!!! Ahaha!"

Her head was so twisted from the damage that it was impossible to say how much her was damaged. But it couldn't have been good for her.

Arris braced forward on her bad leg, which should've collapsed from the force of the step. Her arm stretched out, hand open as if gripping something only she could see. Soon enough, Acier would understand why. First, it was the light. It bent around him, and drew towards her, and the hallway itself warped and was pulled inward, too. Space itself began to collapse around him, and if the monster Arris Windrun had her way, it'd drag him by his throat, towards her waiting hand ready to crush.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

For a moment, Ace thought he'd done it. His lightsaber cut into Arris's skull, burning through synthflesh and metal as it drove toward whatever waited beneath. Then something seized the blade. Ace felt the Force close around it with enough violence that the already damaged containment field finally gave out.

His lightsaber died and the blue blade collapsed as something ruptured inside the hilt, leaving the weapon broken and useless in his hand. Then Arris's head erupted into black flames.

Ace's eyes widened and instinct took over. He kicked from the deck and threw himself backward into a tight backflip, landing several feet away with his purple shoto still ignited.

What the fuck had happened?

He didn't answer Arris's laughter. His attention remained fixed on her damaged head while possibilities rapidly assembled themselves. Maybe he'd been wrong about exactly where the implant sat. Maybe the blade hadn't reached deeply enough before whatever she'd done destroyed it. Or maybe the implant wasn't as simple a vulnerability as he'd assumed. The flames complicated things further. Some kind of defensive technique? Instinct? Something tied to the implant itself? He didn't know, all he knew was that she'd survived.

Then the light around him bent. Ace's expression tightened as the corridor seemed to distort toward Arris. He felt the pull catch him next, something invisible closing around his throat and dragging him forward.

This time, Ace didn't fight it. His boots left the deck as he was hauled toward her waiting hand. Instead of wasting strength resisting something he didn't yet understand, his eyes tracked the distance disappearing between them.

When he was close enough, his shoto moved first. Ace slashed the purple blade toward Arris's outstretched wrist, aiming to sever the hand before it could close around him.

At the same time, his left arm came forward. Agony tore through his relocated shoulder, but Ace forced it through the motion anyway. The ruined lightsaber remained clenched in his beskar plated hand.

He thrust the broken hilt toward Arris's face. Centimeters. Then Ace's prosthetic fingers closed and metal crumpled beneath their strength. The damaged casing collapsed inward around its ruined components as Ace tightened his grip further, crushing through the hilt toward the kyber crystal still housed inside.

The broken lightsaber erupted in his hand, releasing its remaining energy in a small, violent explosion mere centimeters from Arris's damaged face and the implant Ace hoped still lay somewhere beneath it.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

The closer Ace was, the more palpable and real her power would feel. Yes - the shoto struck its mark. Her hand fell, landing with an unceremonious thud.

But when he tried to jab his broken weapon into her skull, the terrible, dark waves erupted with the density of crushing depths, as if she were dragging him beneath the sea past where twilight shone.

Her body changed in that moment. Metal tore apart from all across her, becoming animate, like slithering creatures that crawled across her form to make quick repairs of the damage he dealt. It was an imperfect survival, of course, distributing material across herself to mend weak points while leaving her - as a whole - thinner and more vulnerable.

The cyborg's head contorted until it reclaimed something of her face. Only it was more skeletal and sickly than that, a mash of synthetic pieces webbed over exposed organic matter. It was probably then he'd notice her eyes were completely gone. Yet, he'd feel the entirety of her spirit staring deeply into his.

And it was through that connection, in the Force, that her voice, her real voice, was heard. Inflection, imperfection, and all.

"Who's gonna stop me?"

Oddly, maybe - she sounded younger and almost timid.

A skeleton of a metal hand, more scrap metal than elegant cybernetic, took place where he had previously severed one. It reached for his collar to grab and pull him forward into her crashing headbutt. Forehead to forehead.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The explosion tore through what remained of Ace's left sleeve and glove, shredding the fabric from below his elbow and leaving his beskar-plated forearm exposed beneath it. Whatever it did to Arris disappeared from his attention almost immediately.

The dark side crashed over him. Ace had felt oppressive presences before, but this was different. It felt impossibly dense, like he'd been dragged beneath an ocean and pulled deeper until the weight of everything above threatened to crush him. His breathing tightened instinctively.

Through it, he watched Arris change. Metal crawled across her body, tearing itself from one place to reinforce another. Ace realized quickly that she wasn't creating anything. She was redistributing what remained, cannibalizing herself to keep functioning while leaving other sections thinner and exposed.

Her head twisted next, reconstructing something resembling a face from synthetic fragments stretched across exposed organic matter. Skeletal. Sickly. Her eyes were gone completely. Yet somehow, Ace had never felt her looking at him more clearly.

Then he heard her. Not through his ears, but through the Force.

"Who's gonna stop me?"

Ace hesitated. She sounded... different. Human, younger, almost timid. Was that supposed to be a threat? Or was she actually asking? Did some part of Arris genuinely wonder whether anyone could stop her?

The hesitation cost him. Scrap metal closed around his collar and yanked him forward. Arris's forehead crashed into his. White consumed Ace's vision and his head snapped backward, splitting pain erupting through his skull as he staggered. Something warm spilled beneath his brow, blood running down over his right eye.

Arris was on another level now. Beyond anything he'd fought before. Ace had grown since their last fight. Considerably. But whatever power supposedly waited at the end of the Final Weave still remained beyond him. He hadn't reached it and he didn't even know how.

Ace snapped his head forward through the pain. The Force surged through his body as his exposed prosthetic fist came around in a vicious left hook toward Arris's reconstructed face, augmenting both its speed and the already considerable strength behind the beskar hand.

His other hand followed through the Force and more damaged wall paneling ripped free around them, but Ace's attention had shifted. He'd seen what Arris had done to survive. Some sections were thinner now. Vulnerable.

Durasteel folded into sharp, jagged fragments before launching toward those weakened portions of her body from multiple directions.

Only then did Ace speak, his voice hoarse. "You could stop right now."

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Brave.

Almost unstoppable. Almost.

But did Ace learn?

That kernel she left in his arm was more powerful, more connected to her than ever. It told her what Ace wanted from it, and in a split second, she reached out and snatched it. As soon as she made contact, it would join her. It was unlikely Ace could fight it, even with what she had taught him, for only mechu-deru was a Dark Side practice - power no longer available to him.

She could, and indeed attempted to bring his hand to life. Only it wouldn't be an extension of him anymore. It would become something all too evil, and it would take over his body if it could.

Durasteel spikes shot into her body, striking exactly where Ace intended. And again, he would learn.

The Force ripped metal from the walls, filling the gaps in the cyborg’s form.

She could draw from other sources than herself. Though momentarily thrown back and out of the fight, the durasteel warped and twisted too, reinforcing her body.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The change started in his arm. Ace felt the prosthetic stop answering him before he fully understood what Arris had done. His fingers twitched without instruction. Plates shifted beneath the beskar shell as something foreign crawled through mechanisms that had answered exclusively to him for a year.

Worse, he could feel it happening. The bio-link mesh translated every movement through the neural interface as though the prosthetic were still obeying him. Ace's brain sent one command and received something entirely different in return. Fingers he hadn't told to move. Sensations corresponding to mechanisms changing themselves beneath his skin. His own nervous system insisting the arm belonged to him while something else increasingly decided what it would become.

Ace tried once to pull it back under control. Nothing. Whatever Arris was doing existed somewhere he couldn't reach, and the transformation was already spreading through machinery connected directly to his nervous system.

So Ace stopped trying. His remaining hand seized the prosthetic near its attachment point. The Force wrapped around it with him and Ace pulled. Pain detonated through his already damaged shoulder. The mechanical connection resisted, but it was the bio-link tearing free that nearly dropped him.

Neural feedback ripped through his entire left side, every connection in the mesh screaming simultaneously as the interface was forcibly separated. His muscles spasmed. His vision flashed white. For one disorienting instant, Ace could still feel fingers attached to an arm he was physically tearing away from himself.

He pulled harder and the prosthetic came free. Ace stumbled with it, nearly collapsing as his nervous system struggled to understand the sudden absence. Phantom sensation burned through a hand that wasn't there anymore. He didn't give Arris another second and hurled the corrupted limb away from her, sending it skidding far down the corridor.

His eyes returned to Arris. The durasteel he'd driven into her was already changing. Twisting. Becoming part of her. He quickly understood he was feeding her.

So he'd stop. His remaining hand, still wielding the shoto, opened toward Arris and the Force gathered around her directly. Then Ace drove it forward.

Telekinetic power crashed outward like a battering ram, aimed not at destroying another piece of her body but throwing all of her backward. He poured more strength behind it, attempting to rip Arris away from the deck and send her hurtling down the corridor.

Ace's fingers curled. The Force tightened around her from multiple directions, attempting to seize the reconstructed cyborg beneath an invisible grip and compress inward, denying all those shifting pieces the freedom to crawl, redistribute and rebuild.

His balance shifted awkwardly as he maintained the pressure. Some part of his brain still expected the missing weight of his left arm to compensate, phantom fingers curling around nothing.

Ace ignored it. His eyes flicked briefly across the battered corridor surrounding them. Five kilometers of metal. Material Arris could use to keep rebuilding herself. He was slowly beginning to realize Arris had the homefield advantage.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Arris didn't even flinch as Ace ripped the beskar arm from his body and threw it past her. Though that wouldn't stop the transformation. It was already a technobeast. A Sithspawn. A lifeform in and of itself. Independent of either of them. She had merely given the spark. It was how her co-processor was transformed into its current form, and now it was a power she understood and could use again.

There was no time for the cyborg to contemplate the lesson, however. A great telekinetic force struck her like a boulder, sending her flying back. She bounced against the floor, off a wall, and skidded to a grinding halt some meters away from where she last stood. And it didn't stop there. The Force crushed around her.

She buckled against the power. Her body creaked. It snapped. Sparks flew from where metal ground together as she began to crumple inward.

But as he pressed in, she pushed out, her Hatred becoming a visible barrier of pure Darkness. Its emanations would suppress the Light Side, all the while strengthening its opposite.

Arris regained her strength - or enough of it, anyway - that one of her revolvers flew to her hand; the accelerator flicked on on its own. There really wasn't a visible step-by-step. It all happened so fast. The gun in her hand. The accelerator on. The trigger pulled. It ripped, it roared, and it fired a slug at speeds so excessive, the projectile would reach Ace ever before he heard the bang.

Maybe she'd miss, Arris didn't know, but more concerning was the sheath.

Usually, it was simple energy generated by the oversized accelerator, but this time it was something else - a bolt of deep hatred, so Dark that it swallowed the Light itself.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Ace saw the revolver fly into Arris's hand and the Force screamed a warning through his skull. He didn't wait. His grip around Arris vanished as Ace reached instead for the wreckage scattered throughout the corridor. Torn paneling and twisted durasteel ripped from the deck, overlapping into a crude layered shield between them just as the accelerator came alive.

The gunshot thundered and Ace was already moving. The Force surged through his legs and threw him laterally as the projectile struck. The first layer disappeared. The second buckled into the third before the entire barrier erupted apart, fragments spraying through the corridor as the Darkness surrounding the shot tore through everything he'd placed between them.

Ace hit the wall hard and caught himself against it with his remaining shoulder. For a moment, he stayed there. The darkness surrounding Arris seemed to burn the Force itself away around her. Reaching through it felt increasingly difficult.

His arm was gone. His lightsaber was gone. His shoulder and ribs screamed whenever he moved. Blood still ran across his face. Every time Ace adapted, Arris produced another answer.

His eyes swept across the corridor. Five kilometers of metal surrounded them. Outside? A fucking scrapyard. Ace exhaled slowly, this entire place was a buffet for her. Continuing wasn't commitment anymore. It was stupidity.

He couldn't kill Arris today. That much had become obvious. Letting her kill him wouldn't accomplish anything either, not when he could walk away, learn from this and face her somewhere that didn't hand her every conceivable advantage.

A frantic series of chirps suddenly exploded through his commlink and Ace froze. More Binary followed, considerably louder this time. Something about the arm. Ace's eyes widened.

Apparently ripping the thing off hadn't stopped whatever Arris had done to it. And Tic was alone with it. He thrust his hand upward and the ceiling groaned violently before entire sections tore loose above him. He dragged everything downward at once, collapsing durasteel, conduits and structural debris across the corridor between himself and Arris.

It wouldn't stop her. Hell, considering what he'd just learned, he might've given her more material to work with. But it didn't need to stop her, it needed to buy seconds.

Ace extinguished his shoto and turned, breaking into a run deeper into the Wayward. His balance remained wrong without the prosthetic, phantom fingers still curling around nothing as he moved.

Another panicked chirp crackled through the commlink. Arris could wait, Tic couldn't.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Arris began to walk towards him before debris swallowed the path between them, and she disappeared from his sight altogether.

It was impossible to say where Arris was exactly, but her reach extended further and further across the hulk. Doors frantically opened and closed. Overhead lights flickered. The colors danced on control panels. She was everywhere, inside all of it. Suddenly, klaxons blared, and the speaker system clicked to life, drowning the hallways in eerie static. Somewhere beyond that meaningless noise, however, if Ace even bothered to pick out the pieces, Arris was quietly humming.

He'd reach a lift system on his way to Tic. Each lift fell, one by one, as he passed them by through the hall.

Blast doors began to close behind him, too. The speed at which they kept up with him increased every time, until they demanded a quickened pace.

Then, her voice finally cracked through the speakers properly.

Like before, he was hearing her real voice, and like before it was off - a juxtaposition of the monster he faced.

"Why are you running Ace? Things are just starting to get fun."

Then - a ray shield flickered to life in front of him.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Arris's humming followed him, buried beneath static and screaming klaxons as the Wayward seemed to wake around him. Lights flickered overhead. Doors opened and slammed shut without warning. Every control panel he passed danced beneath invisible fingers.

She was inside the ship, but Ace knew the ship. The first lift dropped before he reached it. Ace barely slowed, cutting left through an adjoining passage instead. The next disappeared behind its doors with a metallic crash somewhere below.

He knew another way down. Ace vaulted the railing beside the empty lift shaft. The missing weight on his left side immediately threw off the movement. His body twisted awkwardly before his remaining hand caught the maintenance ladder. For a second, phantom fingers reached instinctively for another rung that wasn't there.

"Fuck."

He descended one-handed, boots braced against the wall to take some of his weight, before kicking through an emergency access hatch several levels below.

The blast doors were getting faster. The first slammed shut meters behind him. The next nearly caught his heel. Ace accelerated despite the protest from his ribs, letting the Force carry his stride until another began descending ahead.

He decided not to tempt fate. Ace ducked through a narrow service entrance and continued through an engineering passage running parallel to the main corridor.

Arris could control every system aboard the Wayward, but she couldn't change where they'd been built. Her voice eventually found him through the speakers.

"Why are you running Ace? Things are just starting to get fun."

Ace rolled his eyes, breath coming heavier now. He emerged from the service passage and stopped. A ray shield crackled across the corridor ahead and he stared at it for half a second.

Then turned around. Not back the way he'd come. He tore a recessed maintenance panel from the wall with the Force, revealing an access tunnel barely large enough for a person.

Ace remembered this network but getting through it one-handed was another problem. He climbed inside anyway, his shoulder dragged against the cramped passage as he crawled, forcing him to compensate with his knees and remaining hand. Every movement reminded his brain of the arm that should've been helping him.

His commlink crackled. Tic's frantic Binary was clearer now. Closer.

"Keep moving. I'm almost there."

Ace reached the next junction and dropped awkwardly through an access hatch, landing hard enough that pain shot through his ribs. Something metallic scraped beyond the doorway.

Then Tic screamed through the commlink and Ace's head snapped toward the sound. He pushed himself upright, purple shoto returning to his hand.

Arris could keep playing with the Wayward but he had found Tic's deck.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

"Oh - come on, Ace." Her voice cracked through the speakers again.

Holocameras lined the new hall he found after exiting the claustrophobic maintenance tunnel. Each one followed him. Eyes. Her eyes.

"I can feel your little droid friend, you know... It would be so easy to reach inside its head. Erase its memory... until it no longer recognized you."

She could even turn Tic against him. Replace every trauma burned into that memory core with the face of Acier. Make him into the enemy.

Then, there was an explosion behind him. One metal wall turned bright orange before it melted away. Thud. Thud. Thud. Something was coming. A hook-like metal limb gripped the edge of the hole, and something horrifying pulled its way through. A chimera of debris and electronics, sewn together with the Force. It looked almost like an insect made of scrap metal. And it was large, too.

The creation scrambled towards him, kind of like an animal that couldn't find sure footing on slippery floors. Its claws slammed into floor and wall, tearing panels with ingress as it closed the distance between them.

"I tried to connect with you, Ace. On Coruscant, in the ISB interrogation bunker."

She nodded at her gun, enough room for a second hand.

"I wanted to share that burden with you, Ace."

The metal beast kept coming.

"I wanted to make amends..."

She looked down at her gun, then the body, then back to Ace.

Hesitantly, Arris reholstered it. "Fuck her if she doesn't agree." There was a bitterness to it.

"I wanted to be your sister."

The machine monstrosity lunged.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Shoto | Tic

The holocameras followed him. Ace noticed each one turning as he passed, lenses tracking his movement through the corridor like a dozen borrowed eyes. He ignored them. Ignored Arris too, even when Tic became the subject of whatever the fuck this was.

His expression didn't change but internally, something tightened. Because unlike most threats, Arris wasn't bluffing about what she could do. Ace had already felt her reach into machinery connected directly to his nervous system. Tic was somewhere ahead, alone, and Ace had no idea what Arris could do to him from here.

So he kept moving. The explosion behind him didn't change that. Heat briefly washed down the corridor, followed by the sound of something heavy striking the deck.

Ace refused to turn until scraping metal entered the corridor behind him. Then he stopped. The thing pulling itself through the ruined wall looked vaguely insectoid, a grotesque collection of machinery and debris scrambling across the deck. Its limbs struggled for purchase against the smooth flooring, claws scraping walls whenever its momentum carried it too far.

Arris kept talking. Coruscant. Sharing his burden. Making amends. Being his sister.

Then the creature lunged. Ace jumped with the Force, but the response came sluggishly. The darkness permeating the ship still made reaching for it feel like trying to move through deep water. He cleared the creature anyway, twisting awkwardly without his left arm and landing hard enough that pain stabbed through his ribs.

"All this 'woe is me' shit is getting old."

His purple shoto snapped into existence.

"You're a fucking plague, Arris. Everything around you turns to shit. Everything you touch turns to shit."

The creature scrambled around. Ace didn't wait for it to find its footing. He drove forward, shoto carving through one of the limbs supporting its weight before immediately retreating outside the sweep of another. It crashed sideways.

"I thought that maybe there was something worth reaching in you on Corellia. On Jakku. I'm almost mad at myself for taking so long to realize those were just blips in a miserable existence full of you being--"

It charged again and Ace never finished. He sidestepped rather than trying to overpower it, letting its poor traction carry it past him before slashing into another supporting limb. His injured body couldn't afford a contest of strength. Fortunately, the thing seemed barely capable of controlling its own momentum.

"Rox. Kirie. Nilira." His voice remained eerily level.

He could never know for sure if Arris was the sole reason why they were messed up as they were. But from the way her guilt operated, and how she had latched on to Corsell and Nilira. It painted a pretty damning picture.

"You ruined two and left one to die. I'd bet credits you're already halfway toward fucking Lily up for good too. Worst of all, you probably don't even care."

The creature scrambled toward him again. Ace waited, and at the last second he threw himself aside and reached through the Force, not for the creature, but the damaged wall behind him. A heavy section of durasteel ripped loose overhead.

He brought it down with everything he could still command. The slab crashed toward the machine as Ace rolled clear, his ribs screaming when he forced himself back onto his feet.

"I regret a lot of things I did in the Covenant, but I'm glad I never let you in."

Then Ace turned away and kept moving.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Lights went out, and - save for sparking wires - the interior was cast in total darkness.

The lights flickered, and for a moment, Acier would see Arris standing there, but she was made of flesh and blood just like he was... minus that one arm of his, anyway. Maybe an inch taller, some years younger. Lean and freckled beneath messy dark brown hair.

Arris took a step forward as the lights flickered again. Whatever he saw, it was a trick or revelation of the Force. She was still that nasty machine halfway between broken and reforged.

"Is that what you think?" Her voice was calm, coming from her vocalizer again. "You did let me in, Ace."

It's why he couldn't fight her on Jakku, and why he spilled his guts to her on Corellia. He could deny it, eat it, rationalize it away, but it didn't change a thing. Even if he recognized her for the monster she was now, and even if he could confront her as something to be put down, Arris Windrun was part of him. As anyone else. Acier couldn't excise reality. No one could.

She stopped walking until they were a showdown's distance away from each other.

Arris was smiling... or maybe her face just looked that way with the jaw so terribly exposed. With empty sockets, it was even harder to tell.

"I love my family, Ace... there is nothing too terrible that I wouldn't do it for them."

Mercy and Srina Talon saw children in them, each and every Sith and their nations - and Arris was coming to understand it.

She would be their sister.

"I trust myself," she muttered for herself.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Shoto | Tic

The lights died, and Ace stopped. Sparking wires provided the only illumination until the lights flickered back to life, and for a moment, the thing standing ahead of him wasn't the mangled machine he'd left behind.

It was Arris. Not the Arris he knew. Flesh and blood. Younger, maybe an inch taller, lean beneath messy brown hair. Freckles dotted her face. Human.

Ace stared. Then the lights flickered again and she was gone. Metal replaced flesh. Empty sockets and ruined plating returned exactly where they'd been. Ace wasn't sure what he'd just seen, and right now, he wasn't particularly interested in finding out.

Arris insisted he'd let her in and Ace shook his head. His remaining hand found his left shoulder, cautiously rotating the injured joint once.

"No. I didn't. Caring for you and letting you get close aren't the same."

Maybe Corellia had convinced her otherwise. He'd opened up there more than he'd intended. Sure. Jakku probably meant something too. He'd tried to save her because, for a time, Arris genuinely had mattered to him. Maybe that was her definition of being let in.

It wasn't his. There had always been something between them. Some final barrier Ace had never allowed her beyond..

Ace studied what remained of her face. He couldn't tell whether she was smiling or whether their fight had simply rearranged the plating into something resembling one.

Then she spoke about her family. That there was nothing too terrible she wouldn't do for them.

"I know." Ace's gaze remained on her, blood still leaking from his brow. "And I feel sorry for them."

There was no jab or cruelty behind it. His eyes wandered briefly around the devastated corridor. The torn walls. Sparking wires. Somewhere behind him lay everything they'd done to one another. Somewhere ahead, Tic was still waiting.

Arris had wanted to be his sister once. She'd wanted to share his burden. Connect with him. Make amends. If this was what being loved by Arris looked like...

So he started walking again and passing Arris without another glance, purple shoto remaining in his hand but unignited.

"I'm happy you've reached an understanding in yourself." Ace said dryly, almost sarcastic, as he continued toward Tic. "But I'm done with you."

And strangely, there wasn't any hatred behind that either. There was no affection, disappointment, or even the lingering hope that had kept him reaching toward her for months.

Nothing.

Arris Windrun could've been any stranger he passed on the street.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound​

Arris stood there. She didn't stop him when he passed. Only once he had, and she was well behind him, did the woman answer.

"Goodbye... Ace."

She never said it on Corellia.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks Shipyard

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Shoto | Tic

Ace found Tic not long afterward. The little droid was shaken but otherwise intact. Nearby, what had once been Ace's prosthetic lay motionless, the life Arris had forced into it seemingly gone. Ace didn't spend much time examining it. He had no intention of taking the arm back, even if there was anything left worth salvaging.

He recovered Tic, and together they found their way off the Wayward. Ace never looked for Arris again before leaving. There wasn't much left to say.

Whatever they'd been to one another had ended somewhere aboard that ship. Master and apprentice. Friends, perhaps, in whatever strange way they'd eventually become them. Two people who had once understood enough about each other to care what happened to the other. Ace wouldn't pretend none of it had mattered. It had. Just not anymore.

The next time Acier Moonbound and Arris Windrun crossed paths, there would be no lingering hope that one might save the other. No old affection complicating what needed to happen. No expectation that either owed the other understanding because of what they'd once shared.

They had chosen different paths, and those paths had finally carried them far enough apart that there was nothing left to bridge the distance.

Next time, they would meet simply as two warriors standing on opposing sides.

-END-​

Arris Windrun
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