Private Plays Well With Others (Mercy and Avalore)

[Avalore]

Avalore gritted her teeth, already so close to forgetting the nugget of maturity she had showed by dropping back down.

Well, by intending to. Avalore shot a glance up towards the pale chin hovering high above and hissed in annoyance. "Stop making this harder for us. She doesn't like childish behavior you oaf."

She shook at the mace can and tested the distance it could spray. Not very far. Five, ten feet max? It wasn't the solution, but something inside both of them was.

Her eyes widened in understanding.

"...Distract it."

 

[Mercy]

Avalore

"Like I give a chit what she likes or not." She muttered childishly but then grunted in the affirmative.

"Hope ya got something good, champ."

Otherwise they'd both be dead.

Before Mercy could change her mind she drew hard on the Force. She could feel the pressure build inside her body. Already pushed to the limits, she pushed once more. Eyes shot blood red behind the shades as veins burst. Blood flowing not just from her nose, but her left ear as well. There was a keening sound at the back of her throat the large woman was trying desperately to ignore.

Because for the hell of it silencing it was impossible.

Her movements blurred all of a sudden. Then Mercy shot forward like a canon ball. Straight into the Golog's knees. They met there and once again the moment shattered into pieces. In that split-second the rock and the mountain struggled for supremacy. Momentum could go either way. She drew even harder at the coiled mass of the Force.

Pouring in all her hatred, her fury, her pain.

It was enough... barely. She snapped through the moment and crushed past the Golog's knees.... and shot into the ground behind it. The Golog? It lost its balance and began the descend down, toppling forward as it cried out in surprise.

Ashin Cardé Varanin 's pocket hissed. If she looked inward? The Angakut training tool melted down as Mercy accidentally pushed it past its limitations.

Now there were two apprentices in the pit.

 

[Avalore]

Avalore sucked in a deep breath. She had only done this once before, and only because she had been moments from death. Ashin had removed fear for that component from this equation, but she had left her with a great number of frustrations.

The throwing, the gorog, Mercy, her eye, always always moving and never stopping. Avalore was angry-- pissed at it all. She was tired of being thrown around. She didn't want to bend any longer.

The force exploded from her, dark tendrils snaking around the Gorog like invisible chains. Stop, she ordered, their wills clashing. This wasn't a simple desert snake like before, this was a creature with a brain and desires all its own. It pushed back.

Avalore stepped forward, unrelenting as she tried to bring its will to heel. The Angakut dissolved in Ashin's pocket, but the girl's efforts did not bend. She was done with that.

Kneel. KNEEL! The force bellowed. And with Mercy's attack distracting him, the strains of his mind broke. The creature fell to its knees, the lights of awareness leaving its eyes.

Avalore had control now. Her first blood rolled past her knee.

 

[Mercy]

Avalore Ashin Cardé Varanin

Mercy was breathing heavy and sitting on a toppled piece of concrete.

Everything hurt.

But... somehow Avalore had done it. How? Mercy wasn't sure. Hadn't been anything athletic, or with muscles, or even with that weird arse spray of mace that Ashin dropped between them. For some reason the the beast just... obeyed. It had been falling and then? It just straight up knelt in front of the small child.

If she wasn't so tired.

If everything didn't hurt.

If Mercy didn't feel so hungry.

She might have made a quip or two. Instead she just groaned and looked up to the pale face staring down at them. "Satisfied yet, or do ya have something more up ya sleeve, Varanin. Maybe a pet Summa-verminoth?" She closed her eyes. The light was giving her a mother of all headaches and Mercy could barely stand.

Every part of her body was screaming.

meatmeatmeatmeathungrymeat

"Definitely need something in mah stomach right about now..." Muttered to herself as she swayed and only barely caught herself... with her still broken arm and instead face-planted into the dirt.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin stepped off the edge of the trapdoor. She hit the ground in a deep crouch, not far from the two macerated apprentices within the gorog's reach. Idly, she wondered whether Avalore would try to get that gorog to kill her.

"Consider yourselves Knights of the Order of the Sith," she said evenly. She stepped over Mercy approached the last Sith standing.

The melted Angakut thunked in the mud, still trailing wisps of smoky fabric from the pocket of Ashin's coat.

"Leave, kill, or keep the gorog as you see fit, Avalore . You might have a use for a living siege engine someday. I see fragments of claw and tooth littered around: I'll have Lord Moran make you something appropriate once you're out of your extended and completely mandatory sojourn in a bacta tank."

 

[Mercy]

Ashin Cardé Varanin Avalore

A groan as she managed to turn on her back.

Knights of the Order of the Sith?

Why did it feel so... empty. She didn't feel particularly Knightly. No, she felt fethin' karked twelve ways from Taungday. But at the very least Mercy was alive... and the pain was something she could live with. Literally. Alive. She grunted up another teeth. Then licked the empty spots. Teething. Oh, that was gonna be a pain in the arse for the next few days.

"An' what do I get for helping her take it down?" Muffled voice through gaps in her teeth. "-unless ya goin' with the interpretation that cus the champ is standing after having a break, she the only one deserving o' some respect."

Fingers curled into the pillar and managed to pull herself up to her knees.

One eye still open behind the shade peered up at the Gorog. Okay, that was impressive, she'd give Avalore that. A little hazy salute towards the girl. "Didn't think ya had it in ya, lady. Good for ya. Say..." Bloody lips licked as she remembered the taste of one of its fingers. "I dun' suppose you'd let me slice off a lil' bit?"

 

[Avalore]

The Angakut fell smoking to the ground but she could still feel that potential at her finger tips. Like maybe... after some rest.... she could do that all again.

She could smash them both in.

The temptation was like nothing she had felt before. She raised her chin as Ashin approached her, defiant despite the news that made her heart skip.

"You're a 'itch." A fact. Not one of anger, or resentment, just a cold hard truth about the mechanics that were making her training so successful. The desire for approval drove her forward in everything and she got it then, in Ashin's own subtle way. It made it hard to follow up with a gorog smashing them into a wall.

She clenched her fist as Mercy rattled-- making Avalore look better, she realized now. So she didn't bite.

Though she wanted to.

She wanted to Gorog smash everything until the building pressure inside her chest had burnt out like log in a camp fire.

"Fuck you," was her response to the woman's request. "Fuck you both-- fuck this all." She turned from them and walked away, through the hole Mercy's form had chucked through the wall.

She was done today.

The gorog stood up and lumbered mindlessly after her, ripping through bleachers in an attempt to follow her out.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin shook her head and hid a smile as Avalore and the gorog stomped away. Instead of trying to get the last word in, Ashin turned to Mercy .

Her mood cooled noticeably.

"What do you get?" she said. "This wasn't a job, my mercenary friend. A test is its own reward, especially if you passed. Get."

The hilarity of the request sank deep. She found herself laughing as she walked away.

 

[Mercy]

Avalore Ashin Cardé Varanin

"No wonder the Sith Order keeps karkin' turning to dust every few years or so." She muttered as she watched Ashin walk away.

If all they gave out were fancy arse name tags and all. Mercy groaned as she got herself back up entirely on her feet. If everything was hurting, why did she feel so good though? It couldn't be that stupid title, right? 'Knight of the Sith'. It meant literally nothing. She had met Knights barely worth the floor they were standing at.

And Ashin? Nothing like what she had imagined as a little kid.

"Never meet ya heroes," Murmured while beginning a slow limp towards the med-bay. Every groan, every ache, it couldn't help the grin trying to sneak its way towards her expression though.

Mercy, Sith Knight, knighted by the Empress of a thousand worlds herself.

A little spring in her step- ow, feth no.

"...and what lesson??"