Private Proving Under Fire

[Darth Virelia]

"The aura of command."

Tag - Darth Kharnaz


The sky above Morrigal boiled.

Storms born of ash and atmosphere loomed far beyond the northern ridgelines, coiling black smoke into shapes like skeletal hands reaching for the heavens. Morrigal did not know peace. Not yet. But soon—it would forget rebellion. Serina Calis would see to it.

And today, one of her weapons would prove whether he could command not just power… but others.

She moved through the unfinished corridors of Fort Avarice with a sovereign's gait—measured, precise, unhurried. The walls rose around her in various states of completion: permacrete panels half-sealed, durasteel skeletons exposed to the wind, engineers and droids scrambling to obey whispered schedules etched in blood and deadlines. And everywhere her eyes passed, soldiers snapped to attention.

They felt her coming before they saw her.

The chill of order. The gravity of command.

Behind her strode the Shistavanen.

No longer a gladiator.

Now garbed in deep crimson duraplate segmented with matte-black lines of military rank, his fur pulled back into neat cords, his twin sabers clipped with martial pride. Not a brute. Not a berserker. But something harder. Tighter. Forged.

Kharnaz.

He marched in step behind her—not as a pet, nor a student, but as a weapon now tempered for the next stage: application.

Ahead, the great gates of Fort Avarice yawned open. Troopers in newly issued matte-black fatigues stood in parade formation—three rows deep, two flanking columns—helmets gleaming, rifles shouldered, eyes forward. Their boots struck the permacrete in perfect unison, the sound resonant and rehearsed.

They had been drilled for days in anticipation of her arrival.

But they did not raise their eyes to her.

They dared not.

At the head of the line stood a junior officer, spine straight as a pike, sweat beading behind his brow beneath the visor. He saluted as she approached, hand stiff and flawless.

"Platoon Aurek-Six, reporting as ordered, Lady Virelia."

She stopped just before him. Her gaze flicked to the edges of the formation, then back to the officer.

"They look prepared."

A pause.

"Are they loyal?"

The officer didn't hesitate. "Unto death, my lady."

Serina smiled. Brief. Subtle.

"Good. Then today, they will kill for me."

She turned then—flourishing her cloak with a single precise motion—and faced Kharnaz. The wind caught her hair, streaking it across one eye. She made no motion to brush it aside.

Her voice carried with calculated resonance.

"You have learned to master the self. Now, you will master others."

She stepped forward, boots echoing between the ranks.

"In the hills to the north festers the last remaining stain upon this world: a deranged cult calling themselves the Crimson Pyre. Fanatics. Poisoners. Murderers. They have resisted our consolidation of Morrigal since my first ship broke the clouds. No more."

She began to walk—through the ranks, not around them—forcing the soldiers to brace as she passed. Her presence was like gravity, each step heavier than the last.

"You will lead Aurek-Six against them. Not as a saboteur. Not as a duelist. But as a commander. You will take this force, crush the cult utterly, and bring me proof of their destruction."

She stopped at the edge of the parade square and turned once more.

Her voice sharpened.

"I do not care how you do it. I do not care how many fall. I do not care if you burn the hills to the bedrock."

She raised her hand, and a small holoprojector snapped to life beside her. The cult's encampment appeared—hastily erected spires of bone and steel, defensive pylons, half-buried mines and emplacements carved into the hillsides.

"Their perimeter is tight. Their numbers are smaller than ours, but they fight like madmen. You will not earn this with brute force. You will win by being inevitable."

She looked to Kharnaz directly now—eyes blazing with violet certainty.

"Lead. Adapt. Destroy. And return to me with their commander's head."

The holoprojector winked off.

Silence fell.

She did not offer a speech. Did not inspire the men. That was his task now.

This was no longer his proving ground.

This was his war.

She gestured once toward the officer at the front of the formation.

"They are yours now."

 

[Darth Kharnaz]

Kharnaz marched behind his mistress. At last he was allowed to be unleashed on the galaxy. No more would he hide in the shadows, looking only after himself. He had a greater purpose.

Kharnaz stood in new armor, a sign of his new alliegance. Kharnaz had used the facilities on Pollis Massa to create it, imbuing his blood into it when he worked at the forge. No longer id he stand in a forgotten warriors broken armour, but now he stood in his strength made manifest. His hair too was tied back, reflecting his loyalty. He was not Kharnaz the gladiator anymore. He was Kharnaz the Sith.

He eyed the troops as Darth Virella spoke to them. Well trained and high tech, they would be a formidable force. But Kharnaz would show them that the force, in the hands of one such as him, would be far more powerful.

He listened intently as she turned to speak to him, answering only at the end.

"They are yours now."

He bowed his head

"It will be done, my mistress."

She turned to leave, leaving the men to him. Kharnaz walked around them, sniffing them.

They were loyal and well disciplined, but they lacked passion. Kharnaz had fought with others before. In the pits sometimes teams were made. Gladiators all had a passion, borne out of desperation. It is amazing how hard people fight when they have the threat of survival.

These men did not have that. They have never seen real combat before, he could smell it. They reeked of overconfidence and complacence. Their training was never truly dangerous. They did not understand real danger and as such did not have the drive he needed.

He would teach them. He would turn these soldiers into warriors. Before the assault he would make certain that his men had that all important flame within him.

He turned to the commander.

"Why do you fight, soldier."

The officer frowned, not expecting the question.

"To serve your Mistress and expand her will, sir." He replied.

"Wrong."
Kharnaz outstretched his fingers. The officer tugged at his collar, then pulled at it. He started gasping as he found it ever harder to breath. Kharnaz lifted him up, his feet struggling futilely in the air."

"You do not fight for any individual any more. Nor do you fight for a cause, or a family or any other tradition. You fight to survive."

The man gasped, his face turning blue. Something popped in his neck.

"The enemy out there, they fight to survive. That means they will be viscous. A cornered animal is the most dangerous. If you are to have any hope of killing them you too must have the same driving force."

The man went limp, his eyes rolling back. Kharnaz dropped him to the floor unceremoniously.

"You must fight to survive. Every attack, every defence, every shot fired will be to keep you alive. Not just from the enemy, but from me. I will not hesitate to kill any one of you. Only with fear at your back will you be able to overcome them."

He looked out to the army. To their credit they remained as stoic as ever, but Kharnaz could smell the fear coming off them. Good.

"I will lead the attack. Myself and two thirds of the army are to go with me, in a frontal assault. I expect high casualties. I gurantee that a death by blaster will be far worse than what I have planned for you if you fail. The other third will attack from the rear, trapping them. Finally I want multiple flamer squads. We shall burn them out."

He looked out. They all understood now.

"Get to your transports. We strike at night. "

Like a well ordered machine the troops moved, preparing for the assault. The commander lay forgotten in the mud. At night the war would begin.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The aura of command."

Tag - Darth Kharnaz


From the high balcony of the bastion wall, Virelia watched it all unfold.

The wind tugged at her cloak, making it ripple like black flame against the high metal ramparts. Morrigal's harsh wind was laced with ash and dust from the north—carried from the ever-burning pyres of the deranged cultists who still infested the hills. In the distance, her sensors could already taste the madness, the erratic heat signatures, the occultist architecture rising like tumors from the hillsides.

But her eyes were not on the horizon.

They were on Kharnaz.

She did not interrupt his speech. She did not correct him. No immediate adjustments were made to his decisions or tactics. This was his moment. His test. Not merely of violence, but of command.

And what a curious beginning it was.

She stood in silence as he executed the officer. Not with ceremony or theatricality, but cold utilitarianism. There was no elegance in the method—just a predator's certainty. A lesson etched in a bruised windpipe and dropped like waste into the dirt.

For the soldiers, it had been a wake-up call.

For Virelia?

It was data.

Her arms folded across her chest as she shifted her weight to one hip, her eyes narrowing slightly. Every beat of that interaction was recorded. Not just by droids—by her. Personally. She studied his tone. The tension in his body. The decision points.

He used fear.

That was not new. Fear was a currency the Sith minted with ease. But fear alone did not hold an army. It galvanized. It inspired performance in bursts. But long-term?

Fear demanded maintenance. Constant presence. Constant threat. It was expensive.

Her gaze tracked the soldiers as they dispersed, moving with rigid formation toward their transports. She noted their posture—tense now, more alive. Good. They'd remember what failure meant. The weakest among them would shiver and sweat.

But not one had looked back at the body in the dirt.

That told her something else.

It worked.

For now.

Her thoughts slid like a blade between strategy and psychology. Command was an art. She had studied it not only in books and simulations, but in flesh—across dozens of worlds, campaigns, prisons, laboratories. Soldiers were variables. Commanders were formulas.

Kharnaz had chosen one of the darker ones.

She spoke then, softly, to the comm embedded in her armor. The link was encrypted, routed through multiple AI relays. But the voice was private. Intimate.

"Impressive."

Her tone was flat—but not devoid of meaning. She rarely praised. Even rarer was her attention without critique.

"His instincts remain brutish, but focused. The troops now understand their place on the board. He has begun to play the role."

She turned from the edge and paced slowly along the upper parapet, her gaze never breaking from the departing convoys.

"He plans a two-pronged maneuver—blunt assault with flanking pressure. Classic and effective, but reliant on morale and timing. We'll see how well he adapts once the chaos begins."

She paused.

Her voice dipped into thought.

"His flame squads are well-considered. Fire demoralizes. It disrupts cover. But if the cultists have biological wardings, we may lose momentum to madness, not gunfire."

A flicker of distaste ghosted across her lips—not at him, but at the unpredictability of the cult's final redoubt. She had seen their rituals before. Living men lit like torches. Children armored in bone. Whatever faith they served, it was not coherent.

She resumed her pacing.

"He relies too much on fear. That will need refinement. A weapon can be sharpened with terror, yes—but an army?" She exhaled through her nose. "An army needs purpose."

She came to a stop at the far end of the parapet. Below her, the transports hummed to life. Dozens of engines, dozens of lights, cutting through the growing gloom like a phalanx of judgment. The assault would begin under the shroud of nightfall. Just as planned.

Her fingers tapped a subtle code against her vambrace.

Dozens of hidden sensors across the battlefield—tactical droids, encrypted spy-nodes, subdermal biotags—came online. She would watch everything. Every movement. Every command issued. Every failure. Every victory. Every death.

Because this wasn't just about Morrigal.

It was about the Fourth Legion.

This world was nearly secure. The cult's eradication would be the final act—removing the last trace of irregular resistance. Once done, Morrigal would be Virelia's forward operating base for the Velgrath contest, the great imperial calculus of might and merit. She would not win the Fourth Legion.

She would make winning irrelevant.

With a functioning fortress. With a loyal army. With a commander at her side who could turn survival into conquest.

Her voice returned to the comm, still quiet.

"He needs to survive this."

A pause.

"More importantly… he needs to lead. Not command. Not kill. But lead. If he does that… I will give him something no master ever gave me."

She turned now, stepping into the descending lift as the wind howled behind her.

The gates of Fort Avarice began to close.

"A future."

And far to the north, in the hills where the mad still chanted in blood-soaked shrines, fire and fate both waited for their reckoning.



The hills screamed.

They always did, beneath the breath of Morrigal's black moons—high, ululating, ancient cries that echoed off jagged stone like the voices of dead gods gnashing against the silence. Some said the wind carried the voices of the First Fire, others believed it was the bones beneath the mountain weeping ash and memory.

To the Crimson Pyre, it was music.

Atop a broken bluff of vitrified stone, lit by flame that burned green and gold, the Prophet crawled.

He had no name—not anymore. His bones were bound in rope and leather, his skin a map of burnt scripture and self-inflicted rites. His eyes were milk-white, one torn nearly in half from a previous communion. His limbs twitched with divine seizure as he scuttled forward, naked and bloodied, toward the fire that danced atop the altar of split iron. Smoke billowed around him, thick with spice and sacrifice.

"They come. They come with metal mouths and hollow gods. They come to burn what cannot die."

His voice was not loud. But every cultist heard it.

Dozens encircled him, kneeling in the soot. Their armor was improvised, fused from bone and techscrap, etched with symbols that radiated despair and ecstasy in equal measure. Some bore flamers cobbled from broken plasma coils, others crude rifles or jagged swords. All of them were marked.

With brands. With ash. With pain.

Across the encampment, fires danced high into the sky, casting mad shadows across ruined shrines, charred effigies, and massive hanging cages swaying in the wind. From within those cages came the muffled sounds of prayers—or screams. To the Pyre, it was the same.

Life was agony. Pain was the flame. The flame was eternal.

A drumbeat began.

Slow. Rhythmic. Beating on the stretched hide of an enemy officer captured a week prior. Each thump sent dust pluming into the night air. Each beat was answered by whispers, then chants, then screams.

"Ash to ash. Blood to bloom. Burn their bones, and make them truth."

A priestess stepped forward now, tall and thin as a spine ripped bare. Her helm was a welded grate, her robes black with soot, her fingers clawed from years of ritual fire-handling. She carried no weapon—just a torch made from a broken rifle barrel. The flame atop it danced with a life of its own.

She raised it high and turned toward the western hills.

"The tyrant sends her beast. The beast will gnash. The beast will howl. But he does not know…" she hissed, voice like cracked glass, "the fire is already in us."

The cultists howled in reply.

Some beat their chests until ribs cracked. Others bent backward until bones snapped. Some fell into seizures of holy madness, vomiting up ash or speaking in tongues none could translate. Madness was not a condition here. It was a weapon.

And they had used it well.

Already, the approaches were seeded with traps—flesh mines made from the bodies of their own martyrs, pressure glyphs woven in blood-ink, wards that screamed through the Force with confusion and agony. The hills were ready. The shrines were awakened. The Pyre was lit.

Behind the altar, six figures stood chained to spears of blackened iron—fresh captives, twitching with barely-contained terror. One was an officer. Another a medic. One was just a boy, not even in uniform. They would serve a different purpose.

As the Prophet rose, his mouth stretched wider than seemed possible, lips tearing, blood running in thin crimson ribbons down his chin. From within, the heat poured—not breath, not words. But heat.

"Let the fire take us," he whispered. "Let it show us the shape of death."

And as one, the cult began to burn.

They did not die.

They burned—willingly. Their skin blackened. Their nerves ignited. Their spirits screamed into the Force, not with fear but joy. They became beacons, their pain stretching across the hills like pyres of psychic agony.

And in the northern dark, the wind changed.

The Flame saw them now.

And it hungered.

 

[Darth Kharnaz]

Darkness fell. The hills glowed orange from the cultists pyres. Kharnaz watched as his transport drew closer. He could feel their hatred, all the way from here. Shame. They could have been formidable allies.

"Gunships, come in low and fast. Flamer units are to spray fire when in range."

The ships swooped in like birds of prey going after a meal. The cultists looked up, fireing wildly at the dark shadows that were the gunships. Torrents of flame spewed out of the windows, as the flamers got to work.

The blaze could be seen for miles. The dry trees caught easily, and the winds from the gunships engines spread the fire fast. Screams filled the air but they were not of pain. They were of celebration.

"ENGAGE!" *Kharnaz shouted, and he leapt from his ship. The soldiers landed and disembarked, laying down covering fire. Kharnaz felt the heat of one of the gunships exploding, a stray missile finding its mark. Kharnaz used the force to tear down their pyres and statues, while his men engaged in brutal battle. Cries of despair rang out as the symbols of their faith were crushed.

Flamer cultists advanced, forcing his men back. Kharnaz summoned his rage to push their flames back with the force. The soldiers watched as the cultists incinerated themselves. But the fight was not over yet.

Explosions rang out as the flesh mines activated. Blood and viscera sprayed over them, hindering their vision. Kharnaz drew his lightsaber, now in double bladed configuration. Wiping his eyes, he trusted his reflexes to deflect the oncoming blaster fire. He charged forward, a whirlwind of death and hatred. His crimson blades butchered any who stood before him.

But he did not know the cultists had their own plan in motion.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The aura of command."

Tag - Darth Kharnaz


The flames painted the sky.

The first wave of gunships descended like wraiths, vomiting fire across the shrines of the Crimson Pyre. Structures of bone and twisted iron cracked and fell, ignited in seconds by torrents of liquid flame. Cultists screamed—not in fear, but ecstasy—as the fires consumed their idols, their comrades, their flesh.

Yet beneath the chaos, within the sanctum burrowed into the hills, the Pyre's true minds were already in motion.

"They begin with fire," growled Sister Marn, the strategist. Her face was split with burn scars, her left eye milky. She stood before a rusted display table salvaged from a long-dead mining operation, now retooled for the cult's purposes. Data flickered across the screens—biosigns, heat maps, wind patterns from the gunships. "Just as we predicted. The western ridge has already collapsed. But they've overcommitted. Too fast. Too eager."

Beside her, a younger acolyte shook with adrenaline, blood still dripping from self-cut symbols along his forearms. "They sent their beast. He cuts through us like a storm."

"Let him," she snapped, turning to her inner circle. Six lieutenants in blackened robes, each commanding a pocket of the cult's defense. "Fall back from the open courtyards. Draw them into the hollows. Let the blood guide them in."

They obeyed instantly, voices crackling through salvaged comms and strange, alchemical mirrors alike.

The outer hills were never meant to hold.

They were bait—shrines of fire and bone erected to pull the Sith's forces into the furnace.

Beneath the flames and ash, the hills were hollowed with tunnels, carved over generations, reinforced with scrap metal, and rigged with dead man's switches. The Pyre's flame squads began retreating through scorched kill zones, laying down suppressive fire and fuel trails behind them.

On the southern flank, flamer troops advancing past the outer sanctum disappeared into a black crater—a sinkhole, collapsed on cue. Seconds later, six barrels of nerve smoke detonated, spewing out a crimson gas that seared lungs and boiled blood beneath armor.

Marn's voice crackled across the cult's crude commline.

"Seal the lower tunnels. We trap them inside. Detonate the fuel lines when their second wave enters."

Elsewhere, runners sprinted through collapsing trenches, igniting glyph-bombs—arcane symbols etched into ceramic that burst with electromagnetic pulses. Imperial comms flickered. Targeting systems died. One gunship spun out of control and crashed into the hillside, shattering into flaming debris and crushing half a platoon beneath it.

Inside the sanctum, the Prophet rose.

No longer crawling. No longer screaming. Now armored in jagged obsidian plate fused to his skin, a crown of scorched metal twisted into his scalp. His eyes blazed with unfiltered hate and clarity. Around him, two dozen elite fanatics chanted as one, dragging a chain of living prisoners behind them.

"They burn our homes," the Prophet intoned. "So we burn what they carry inside them. Let them see what we have seen."

The prisoners were infused with volatile bioplasm, unstable mixtures of alchemical fuel and madness-inducing venom. As the Prophet's fingers flared with hellish light, the prisoners began to scream. Their bodies ignited not in flame—but in psychic agony, their minds weaponized by sheer torment.

Above, Kharnaz would feel it.

The sudden ripple in the Force—not dark, not light, but blinding, frenzied, senseless. A wave of pain born not from ideology, but devotion unmoored from reason. The kind of madness that made even rage feel clean by comparison.

The flames turned against the wind, carried by channels carved into the hillside. Controlled backdrafts ignited through pre-laid fuel lines, curling around enemy formations and pushing them forward—herding them toward the inner sanctum.

Where more traps waited.

Where no direct assault could reach the command node without breaching through three layers of fanatics, sealed steel, and a line of flame-touched berserkers who'd been fed pure fear toxin since dawn.

Marn activated the last phase.

"Release the embers."

From hidden trenches, hundreds of cultists surged forth, not toward the enemy—but behind them. Outflanking the Sith's advance by crawling through old mineshafts and crater tunnels.

The enemy had brought fire.

But the Crimson Pyre was fire.

And now it would consume from within.

 

[Darth Kharnaz]

Kharnaz felt it. The deep wrongness that went through the force. Kharnaz knew the Jedi revered the force while the Sith controlled it but this was new. This was worshipping the force itself in the most impure ways. Kharnaz nearly threw up.

He was just barely aware of the opening sinkhole, his men being swallowed as if by the Sarlacc. The soldiers without helmets began to choke and gasp for air, inhaling only death in response. Kharnaz inhaled some himself, which was enough to bring him out of his haze.

The fire spread unnaturally, and hordes of cultists appeared as if out of nowhere to force them forwards. Kharnaz did not like being maneuvered by the enemy like this.

His men were beginning to break. Some were wailing, the madness proving to much for them. Others were throwing themselves into the flames, clearly wanting to put an end to their misery. Now it was clear to Kharnaz why fear alone could never control them forever.

In this galaxy there was always something more frightening than you.

Thinking hard Kharnaz turned to a new source of inspiration.

"Do you not see their debauchery? Their heresy? How they pervert the very planet?"

His men listened, but did not yet respond.

"These cultists have forfeited the right to live. Before you were motivated by loyalty, then by fear. Now You will be motivated by the galaxy itself.

It is our duty to destroy them, to purge the galaxy of their filth. You have seen and felt what they have done. They cannot be allowed to exist. We shall bring this planet back to reality.

Fight! Fight to the last blaster cartridge, and then until your knife is so slick with blood it falls out of your hand."

A cheer rose up. The soldiers doubled down, standing firm. Kharnaz pushed a button and the reserve wave arrived. The third of his army he had left deployed behind the new wave of cultists, trapping the trappers. Kharnaz had numbers on his side and he intended to use that to their full capacity. While he left most of his army to butcher the cultists like metal between a hammer and anvil he selected an elite squad.

"We are going to cut the head off the snake. Your job is to go with me, clearing any traps, with your bodies if you have to. Well comrades will win the battle, we shall win the war."

Kharnaz pointed the way with his lightsaber.

"Forward! Into the tunnels. We are not coming back until their leader is dead!"

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The aura of command."

Tag - Darth Kharnaz



The screams changed pitch.

Where there had been confusion, madness, and cracks in cohesion—now came defiance. The cult's forward scouts, writhing in the half-light of burning shrines and twisted sanctums, began to notice it first: the soldiers were not retreating. They were rallying.

Even as smoke clawed at their lungs and psyshock waves lanced through their minds, the Sith forces—those that should have crumbled under the Prophet's designs—held. Not all. But enough.

In the command hollows, Sister Marn narrowed her eyes.

"Something's shifted." Her voice was sharp, unsettled. "The southern flank was supposed to collapse by now. We spent two weeks threading the gas lines and laying the sinkholes. They should have been blind and broken."

A scout crashed into the war chamber, blood running from his ears. "They brought in a rear wave. They flanked the flanking force. Dozens of our companies are cut off—sealed behind the enemy lines."

"What?!"

"Some of them are fighting to the death. Others… are surrendering."

Marn hissed. Not in rage—but disbelief.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The fire was supposed to unravel them. The nerve-bombs. The toxin waves. The Force-burned prisoners.

And yet the Sith commander had weathered it. Adapted. He had seen through the madness and pulled his men back from the brink—not with calm or compassion, but with a more potent madness of his own.

Conviction.

The cult was prepared for weakness, for fear, for hesitation. But not this kind of brutal clarity. Not the unflinching will of a predator who thrives under pressure.

Worse—he was coming.

"Kharnaz," Marn said the name aloud, bitter in her throat. "The beast."

Another lieutenant entered, ash clinging to his robes. "He's taken an elite force. They're cutting through our inner tunnels now. Straight for the Prophet."

"Seal them," she snapped. "Collapse the corridors. Detonate the lower charges. Don't let them reach the sanctum."

"I can't," the lieutenant said. "The charges were sabotaged. I think some of the converts turned. They've marked the Prophet for death."

For the first time since the siege began, Sister Marn faltered.

She turned to the last surviving tactician in the chamber. "Sound the retreat. Pull all loyalists to the prophet's chambers. The rest of the complex is expendable. If we can buy him time, he can—"

A rumble tore through the hill. Marn stumbled. Dust spilled from the ceiling. Something massive had breached the lower layers.

"Too late," she whispered.

From deep in the cult's veins, distant howls echoed. Not the usual madness. Not blind worship. This was military precision—cutting, calculated, merciless. The sound of boots, of sabers, of command.

And behind it all, a presence like a black sun.

A Sith, yes.

But not the kind Marn had studied in temple scrolls. Not a sleek diplomat or corrupt noble.

This was something feral.

A thing that bled for a purpose.

A hunter of monsters.

And this time… the cult were the ones being hunted.

 

[Darth Kharnaz]

The lights had gone out in the tunnels. The darkness was illuminated by blasterfire as his commandos cleared a bloody path through the inner defences. Kharnaz initially stuck by them, but it soon became clear that the cultists traps had faltered. And as food as his men were, they would only slow him down.

It was not hard to find the way to the command center. While there were no signs the closer he got the more resistance and symbols of worship he found. He tore through all, a monster in the dark.

At last he came to the final corridor. His men had secured the other side. There was no escape and the cultists knew that. They were behind cover, and some had set up a heavy repeating blaster.

He could smell their fear. Their fingers twitched. They waited, their terror growing with his every breath. The first thing they saw were his eyes, burning yellow flames in the dark. Than he was illuminated by his crimson blades.

"Open fire!"

Blasterfire filled the all. Kharnaz deflected some shots beck, then threw his saberstaff, decapitating the closest cultists. He caught it with one hand, unleashing a burst of force lightning from his other. The cultists creamed as the massive current jumpred through bodies, cooking several inside out. In a practiced motion he split his saberstaff into two, and charged forward, bisecting several opponents. Finally the heavy blaster was left. As it aimed down at him Kharnaz grabbed it and twisted, his immense strength bending the barrel. The blaster backfired, eviscerating its operators in a sulfur smelling explosion. Kharnaz walked past, unconcerned. With his claws he tore the door open.

Kharnaz stepped into the command center. He looked around at the blasphemies that were happening here. He pulled their balsters off their belts with the force. He strode up to them, each step a threat. He stopped in front of their leader.

"So you are the prophet."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The aura of command."

Tag - Darth Kharnaz



The chamber fell silent.

Smoke curled from shattered vents. Glowing embers flickered across the ritual cloths that hung in tatters from the walls. The shrines were crumbling—one had already toppled, its centerpiece, a flayed and burning effigy of some half-understood deity, reduced to slag. Blood ran in rivulets across the cracked stone floor, mixing with oil, incense ash, and liquified fat.

And into that silence walked death.

Kharnaz's arrival had not been like a man breaking into a command post. It had been like a force of nature breaching containment. The last defenders had vanished into gouts of screaming lightning and severed limbs. The air still buzzed with the residue of unnatural heat. The stench was unbearable—charred bone, ozone, and scorched faith.

Sister Marn stood frozen behind the Prophet, breathing shallow, hands trembling.

She had seen many things in service to the Pyre. Men flayed alive and still praying. Summoners creating fire-wreathed monsters. Children consumed by their own zeal. But this—this beast—this Kharnaz—was something else.

Not a butcher.
Not a warlord.
Something worse.

He knew what he was doing. And he enjoyed it.

The Prophet, still seated on his iron dais, twitched slightly. His jaw clenched. His eyes—one milky white, the other seared completely black—locked onto the silhouette before him. He did not speak immediately. His disciples huddled around him, unarmed now, stripped of their weapons by the same invisible grip that had wrenched their blasters away moments earlier.

"You came," the Prophet said at last. His voice was gravel soaked in old blood. "The Beast… in the flesh."

His lips curled into a cracked grin. "They told us the Sith were wolves in robes. That they used knives to cut the soul. That they built temples out of fear. But you…"

He coughed, blood spattering down his front.

"You don't even pretend. You don't offer salvation. You bring the storm and devour."

Marn stepped forward now, her voice ragged. "You don't understand what you've done. The Pyre can't be killed. It spreads. It lives in pain. Every life you take here—every flame you extinguish—feeds it."

The Prophet swallowed. His hands trembled on the edges of his throne, though whether from pain or awe was unclear. "You want to kill me. End it. Claim victory for your Mistress."

He spat to the side.

"But what comes next? More ash? Another planet? Another cult to burn?"

He looked up—into the Sith's yellow eyes, and for the first time, he hesitated.

That flame wasn't just hate.

It was clarity.

The Prophet had met madmen. He had created dozens. But this creature before him was not insane.

He was purpose given flesh. And that made him worse than anything the Pyre had ever faced.

"You don't want to understand us," the Prophet whispered, almost pleading now. "You just want us gone."

He began to rise from his throne. Marn reached out instinctively, but the Prophet brushed her away.

His back was scorched. His skin hung from his ribs in ribbons. And still he stood tall.

"Do it, Sith."

His voice was clear now.

"End the flame."

But even as he spoke, Marn's eyes flicked toward the throne's base—where her fingers brushed the dead man's trigger hidden beneath a broken slab of bone.

Her hand froze.

The Prophet saw it, but did not stop her.

Because even in death—they would not go quietly.

 

[Darth Kharnaz]

Kharnaz was not listening to the madmans ramblings. It was typical of cultists to try pass on their pathetic religion before they were killed. He watched the other zealots, all clinging deperately to their leader. It was then that he saw one reach for the dead mans switch.

Marn froze. She tried to move but something held her still. Kharnaz held her still, using the force to freeze her movements. With a twist of his wrist kharnaz bought her arm back at an unnatural angle with a loud snapping sound. She screamed.

"You dare attack even when beaten? You dare!"

This insult was too much for Kharnaz, to try take him down so dishonorably. With a roar he tore into them. He did not even bother igniting his lightsaber, he only wanted to feel their blood on his claws. The scene was utter carnage, blood and viscera splattered the throne. They tried to attack back, but no one could get close the storm of fangs and claws that Kharnaz had become. One by one he tore them apart, leaving only the prophet.

Kharnaz had learnt a crucial lesson: some enemies did not deserve last words. Without a moments consideration he tore into his throat, severing his jugular artery and windpipe. As he lay gasping on the ground Kharnaz ignited his lightsaber, finishing the job by decapitating. He howled in triumph, holding the severed head up high. Then he attached it to his belt.

As Kharnaz walked out of the smoking complex he surveyed the damage. While all the cultists had been eradicated like the vermin they were, his army had suffered heavy casualties. The cultists had fought hard, and only a quarter of his forces remained in fighting shape, the rest either wounded, dead or fleeing. Kharnaz cared not. They were just soldiers. He activated his commlink.

"It is done, mistress."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The aura of command."

Tag - Darth Kharnaz



The words echoed in her chamber.

"It is done, Mistress."

A simple phrase. Weighted with smoke and ash. Behind it lay a war of flame and madness, of blood rites and artillery, of losses far greater than the numbers alone would suggest. The commlink fell silent after that—not because of a dropped signal, but because Kharnaz had nothing more to say.

He thought that was all that mattered.

Darth Virelia stood alone in the command chamber, eyes fixed on the slow scroll of the datafeed.

Morrigal was now secure.

And yet…

Her hands folded behind her back. The chamber was quiet save for the rhythmic ping of medical droid transponders reporting biosigns. She watched them for a while, reading through the lines of suffering and sacrifice—not with detachment, but with exacting precision.

Each loss mattered.

Each failure would be learned from.

Kharnaz had done what she asked. He had won.

But at what cost?

She turned slowly toward the viewport. The sky over Morrigal was thick with smoke columns now—scars carved into the planet's flesh. The northern hills, once burned by cultist flame, now burned again. Cleansed. Defiled. Whatever word one used, the result was the same: the Crimson Pyre was no more.

And its death had come with a cost worthy of the Sith.

Not clean.
Not strategic.
But total.

A soft click broke the silence as she activated the long-range return feed. The comm crackled, then stabilized. Kharnaz's silhouette appeared in her retinal HUD—standing tall amidst the destruction, head of the Prophet dangling at his side like a grotesque trophy. Behind him, the smoking bones of what had once been the cult's inner sanctum.

He had not waited for her approval.

He had claimed it.

"Kharnaz," she said at last, voice soft but crystalline, its edges honed to a perfect silence-piercing pitch. "Report."

There was no praise in her tone.

Not yet.

She listened.

He spoke. Few words. No embellishment. Just the facts: the cult was dead, the head claimed, the tunnels cleared, the command structure decapitated. His own men—their state, their losses—were spoken of like discarded weapons.

When he finished, she didn't answer immediately.

Instead, she breathed in slowly through her nose.

Turned.

Crossed the room with measured steps until she stood before the large holographic map of Morrigal, now updated in real-time. The Crimson Pyre's territory blinked red once… then turned black.

Gone.

She stared at that space for a while before responding.

"You won."

Her tone was low, but final. Not admiration. Not yet.

Just truth.

"You achieved your objective with no reinforcements, no orbital support, and a force whose morale was fractured the moment the cult turned the land against them."

She turned her gaze back toward the comm's glowing interface.

"That is not nothing."

A pause.

Then—softly:

"But this was not a victory of strategy. It was one of sheer refusal to die. And that is a lesson worth learning only once."

Her voice sharpened now—not cruel, but pointed. A commander speaking to her subordinate. A master speaking to her chosen weapon.

"You spent bodies as if they were stone. You tore into an enemy with no understanding of why they resisted so viciously. And you barely contained a retreat before it began."

She stepped closer to the console. Her voice dropped into something colder.

"You gave them hate, Kharnaz. And when that failed, you gave them purpose. And that—"

She stopped. Reconsidered.

No.

Not yet.

She drew in another breath and exhaled slowly.

"This war was never about the cult. It was about you."

A pause. Then, almost solemn:

"You led, Kharnaz."

"Not just in blood. Not just in fear. But at the edge of your own understanding. You adapted. You recovered from your own doctrine. You evolved."

She turned to the window again.

"And that is why you are still alive."

The silence between them stretched, thick with consequence.

Then, at last, she spoke again—softly.

"Leave the corpses where they rot. Let the ash blow across Morrigal's sky for a hundred years. Build nothing on their bones. No temple. No monument. No command post."

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the distant hills burn.

"Let the land remember what happens when purity tries to challenge inevitability."

A pause.

Then, with a voice that betrayed no emotion—yet offered something deeper than approval:

"Return to Fort Avarice. I will see you at dusk."

And the commline closed.

 

[Darth Kharnaz]

The commline closed. With a few sentances she had told him everything. His victory. His costs. And the promise of his reward.

This was Kharnaz first taste of war. He had been in battles yes but nothing of this scale. He was drawn to it, and hungered for more.

Maybe someday Kharnaz would lead his own wars someday. He could imagine it, thousands of soldiers under his command, claiming planet after planet. But he couldn't get carried away. He needed to learn more. Obtain more power first.

Perhaps the new invasion he was hearing about could be a good cover to learn more from an old contact. Perhaps.

But for now he headed back to the fort. Kharnaz ambitions would take a long time to come to fruition.

But he could wait.

Darth Virelia