Predation

[Eighth Guard]

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The Eighth Guard, Praetorian Knight​

Equipment: Praetorian Armour​

Location: Hoth - Frozen Wastes​

Status: Surviving​

Theme: Fondor Loop A | Battlefront 2​

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A crystal hunt.

That is all it had been, a trip into the unforgiving snow of Hoth with a group of disciples. Their ship had been shot down, by a rocket it seemed, a few minutes before they were to set down. He had been discovered by their ambushers pinned beneath a durasteel beam, otherwise, he would have slaughtered them where they stood. They shoved him down to his knees next to a handful of the young men and women he was assigned to protect, survivors of the crash no doubt. It was apparent by the fact that they did not shoot him on the spot that they likely thought him just another untrained Ren in fancy armour.

Who were they anyway?

Despite the trauma incurred, he could see the markings through his helmet's visor. They were commandoes, and not just any regular military guerilla that the Alliance could've sent during the War: SIS commandoes. He could not theorize as to why they would still be in this system, for they began to speak something that the praetorian could not hear through the ringing in his ears. Though, they soon made their intentions clear when they shot one of the disciples in the head, causing the now-lifeless body to crumple over and remain there for the blizzard to consume it.

The body hadn't even hit the floor before the executioner was in front of his next victim, yelling something before delivering another fatal bolt of energy. Eight knew there were only so many disciples left before he himself met the same fate, a humiliating death when taking into account his position in the Order of Ren. He quietly snapped his handcuffs and pretended to still be restrained, even as his captor stood before him and yelled something about him being a blight on the galaxy, much to the delight of his comrades.

His arm didn't even rise to the level with the knight's head before an invisible Force snapped his neck with reserved fury. Smirks turned to open-mouthed horror and then to irrefutable anger, as the praetorian knight rose from the ground and ran into the blizzard, his crimson armour disappearing into the wall of white.

Eight could hear them yelling behind him, but he didn't care, he needed to find the others if any.

He needed to survive.

[member="Varas Ren"]

 

[Armand Temi]

After Varas returned from eliminating pirates from asteroids in First Order space, she experienced a strange melancholy walking the corridors of the Bastion of Ren on Virgillia. What should have been an exciting mission had been perfectly uninspiring, especially given that [member="Kyrel Ren"] time and time again expected her to be on his short leash.

Yes, that day she may have felt like defecting, just piloting that beautiful, sleek fighter and jetting off to some Outer Rim world where she wouldn’t be found. Crash the ship in a lake. Live with the natives eating coconuts.

These bizarre thoughts unsettled her, and Varas worried she’d slightly lost her mind. And alone in the dark, sleeping in a small bed in the training academy, she wondered if this was because she was a clone. Mired in the tangled memories of Kyrel Ren and Tmoxin Temi, it was no wonder she had no idea who she was.

But this wasn’t just clone sickness. She was sure of that.

That morning before she braced for the harsh climate of Hoth, she tapped out an inquiry on her datapad, and sent it out into the ether of the Holonet, hoping like a gypsy’s crystal ball, it would come back with the answer she sought.

The crash landing came sooner than she expected but instead of discovering a tribe of uncatalogued aliens and learning to speak their language while she “found herself,” it had been on a routine mission with the Ren again. Figures, Varas thought bleakly as they hurtled towards the snowy ground, the Knight almost hoping for death in that moment. Yet she was only knocked unconscious for a few minutes. Once she opened her eyes, patting the ground around her, then patting her hip for her saber - still belted thankfully - the brunette clone rose up to take stock of her surroundings. Feth, the side of her right eye socket ached, likely where she’d ended up taking the brunt of the crash.

But as Varas watched the Disciple take a point-blank blaster bolt to the head, she screamed with rage, ignoring the blistering pain through her body: “Take me, not them!” Still sitting on her posterior, she saw a flash of red run out into the blizzard, thinking at first it was another disciple bleeding but realizing it was the crimson-tinted snow armor of a Praetorian Guard.

One of the Commando’s head swiveled towards her and he said, “That’s one’s not dead after all.” As he pointed his blaster and shot at her, she rolled towards the same hole in the ship that the Eighth Guard had sprinted out of.

Varas was also too injured to fight all of their attackers at once, and on Hoth, safety in numbers was an understatement. Becoming lost in the white-out conditions was almost more of a threat than the Commandos.

“Wait up!” she called to the guard. "Where are you going?"

She wasn't sure he could even hear her over the howling wind.

[member="Eighth Guard"]