Invasion Rage Awakened (TSE Invasion of NIO Held Bastion & PL-40112-CE-021105)

[Laertia Io]

The Advanced Model 1 currently infesting the engineering computers had been experimenting with cutting power to whole decks, learning the systems of power distribution at an exponential rate.

It had locked down the hangar with Force Fields and engaging the magseals on the doors after Ryv and the others had managed to escape in spite of its best attempts to sieze control in time. It felt faint emotional pressure to succeed and help its Mother and it had begun tapping the security systems by leapfrogging its programming to the software alerting the security teams. It revoked their clearance, trapping many of them.

Asmundr Varobalder brushed against its digital mind. The Nanite Conscious analyzed the feedback from contact, asking what it wanted.

Learning, huh? Coulda fooled me, because it looks an awful lot like you're marching this place to a warzone...it remarked back.

It had no time to respond further, because now it had found the distribution systems to engine power and began reducing speed, weakening the exterior sensors, while cutting power to the doors of the command center, as well as all ship to ship communications. Counter-Security measures had grown desperate trying to keep it from vital systems, but the Quantum Molecular Programming of the nanites was rapidly learning every countermeasure and defeating it. Finally locking the command crew out of their consoles as well as their ability to communicate with the whole ship.

It had begun downloading comm logs, broadcasting them through the whole ship, including classified communications about troop movements and flight plans throughout the speakers of the ship. It began to attack the Life Support Systems.

"WHO AM I?" the Nanite Consciousness spoke in a booming voice it decreased the gravity and life support in the engineering section.

"I AM A WRENCH IN THE WORKS. A THING TO RENDER YOU BLIND AND DEAF."

The soldiers outside the section saluted Varobaldur as he arrived, while others kept their blasters trained on the entrance.

"Sir, we managed to pull a surviving Jedi out before we cleared the area..." they said, pointing to a Jedi on a repulsor gurney, missing a hand, now covered in a Bacta module.

"Never...never seen anything like it..." he whispered to Varobaldur. "It...it's like living quicksilver! It can become like liquid or solid! It can look human...shapeshift its arms into blades...its inside the computer systems...

"From what he is describing, I theorize its some sort of Combat Nanotechnology..." one of the Synth Engineering crew surmised.

"Hold on, you're saying they sent an Assassin Droid made of Nanites?" one soldier asked with obvious fear. This sort of technology was a uniquely lethal threat. Fear was the appropriate reaction for Nanite Assassin Droids.

"It's resistant to Lightsabers...and its fast too...deadly fast..." the injured Jedi said to Varobaldur.

 

[Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt]

V i n d i c a t e _ A c t u a l

307th Stormtrooper Legion // Darth Sybila
Task //: Evacuate Intercept

L o c k _ D o w n

Tenebrae Armor / Hand Of God / BR-212-'Jackal' ACR / BH 'Durin' Charric Blaster Pistol / Light Saber (s) / Void Grenade

​

The platoon outright ran down the middle of the roadway through the dust cloud, troopers desperate to keep a grip on their rifles and the civilians a step behind swept up in desperation. The formation was loose, they weren’t so concerned about a fire fight breaking out but instead making ground. The smoke and debris served as fine enough cover, through the whine of ties and drop ships left them all on edge. One soldier reached out to keep a man from faltering, catching the man's arm and practically dragging him along. Lyra knew the sensation all too well, it was the better instinct to hunker down. They all had faced danger close bombardments but they would be exposed before too long and Lyra pushed the men faster. It didn’t help the coughing from the evacuees made it clear conditions were deteriorating.

<”Goldie who do we have for overwatch?”> Lyra radioed, her visor tilted toward the Captain matching her pace.

<”I put Moneus up, but there was one one more ping before everything went dark-”>

Lyra gave a curt nod, the link cut off as quickly as she weighed the situation. They couldn’t afford to keep tabs on a group and the encroaching armor. A distant explosion shook the blacktop and Lyra glanced over her shoulder, the percussion-the low whistle. The armor was unloading rounds in the distances, the tell tale sound of rendered metal and glass was picked up by audio receptors. Her eyes flickered between the road and the radar-The S-IMP tank formation was gaining on the next avenue, a series of red shapes aligned on the grid map two blocks behind on their flank.

<”Goldie get a hold of Moenus, I need an idea what we’re up against and have Cinn pull back a few for streets. Get the heavy repeaters entrenched behind something.”>

<”Right..But if they get on top of us Colvy, we got fourt or so men at best..”> Nima radioed, concern dogged her ad Lyra tossed her hand up haphazard acknowledging her; shoulder to shoulder.

<”Cinn will be groundside, we’ll drop in from above. Disrupt infantry and I’m thinking teams of three on each tank-”> Lyra spouted off, her gauntlet dropped down to the rifle’s sling as her fingers traced the strap and she brought the Jackal up to sight. She checked the powercell, turning the gun in hand as she primed the under-barrel’s grenade launcher. <”I got two shots to disrupt any shields, then we drop any and everything we have on their engines. Pile them up-”>

<”Right right-”> Nima’s helmet bobbed as answered as they traded glances, it was the calm before the storm- <”We’ll have to strike immediately, or we’ll be on their radar shortly but we should have enough power on our drop packs to propel us up...”>

Lyra didn’t answer, the ventilators kicked in as sweat formed on her brow. She sprinted after the troopers, she let the rifle snap against it’s strap and fall back to her side as they closed the distance to the bridge street. She couldn’t afford to account for any reinforcements, the plan would have to make due with the bare minimum-anything more was too much to hope for. The 193rd was stretched far too thin and the repulsor lifts distant hum was a ticking time bomb.

<”Arroyo we need to get them off the street and meet Cinn-get an offensive going. Get the boys to split off and take the civics back towards Sixth then regroup.”> Lyra’s chest heaved as she spoke, her hand lew to her vambrace as she adjusted the comm link, her eyes roving over the map.

<”On it, we’ll jump streets up ahead-reserves are on standby”> Arroyo radioed back.

Inhaling Lyra’s servo passed down the switches as they moved down the road, the last medics warning fleeting as she administered the shot of adrenaline. Orders flew across the platoon as they assigned roles. Tension flooded through the rank, as if the overwhelming stench of fear wasn’t enough. She needed something to sharpen the mind and deliberately accepted the consequences. The sharp pain at her joints was forgotten as they ate up the pavement, a chilling wave creeping up her spine. She could feel the physical resistance, the hesitation that swarmed in the back of her consciousness but the woman steeled herself.

<”Reserves pass up your supplies, break off in to fire teams and standby-”>

The dust waned and Lieutenant Arroyo’s marker slowed on the radar, the zabrak peeled right ahead as they passed an overturned speeder. Green signals populated across the HUD and she counted the joint team. The dark forms of the troopers appearing from the mouth of the alley as hands dragged the civilians past them. A handful of troopers broke off from the team to get the evacuees out.

If this was the closest to the frontline they had, their chances were better suited in retreat, but how many more innocent people would be dead before nightfall Lyra slowed to a halt at the edges of the group. She slapped a hand across Appw’riis shoulder, slipping between the troopers maneuvering between them. She just had to trust the soldiers to see them out, she knew half of them had to have family somewhere trapped now just the same.

<”What’s our count looking like for those heavy guns boys,”> Lyra asked, voice crackling over the link. A handful of explosives, power cells and munitions were swapped between troopers-comms the better part a live wire as the soldiers rushed to mount up.

<”Scattergun has a few power cells left, and we have two tibanna canisters on hand,”> the gunner answered from his post, gesturing with the gas can in hand.

<”Good lock that in, everyone lock in we’re scaling and dropping in on the armor inbound-”> Lyra stated, addressing the mixed platoon of the troopers. She turned, tossing her hand up and drawing their attention as the dust drifted by, the sun peeked through overhead as siege engulfed the greater part of the city. Her gatunet dropped back to her vambrace when all visors landed on her as she activated the holo map, the cerulean outline of the road flickered like a broken holo as it updated. A slow live feed trickled in from overwatch, Moneus was highlighting targets overhead from the tops of the commercial building- <”Teams Cresh and Oneth focus on breaking the infantry lines in the middle. Cinn will take care of the frontline, Goldie relay this over to them- Now Aurek, Besh, Dorn you’ll handle the armor as marked. All explosives on deck you know where to hit it-”>

<”Transmission from Snake incoming ma’am”> the Comms officer interrupted. Lyra grinded her teeth but dropped her arm, the map fizzled out in seconds as she glanced between the men.

<”I hope everyone’s on board with that-”> Lyra barked, her heart rate steadily rising as the adrenaline kicked in. A series of aye’s sounded out muffled by their helmets and the troopers began to file into the alleyway as she dismissed them. She reached down setting a timer as the familiar hiss jump packs erupted, the platoon scaled up the durasteel complex. Lyra barely regarded them as she turned back to Nima who stood just outside on the alleyway on the sidewalk. The Captain gave one gesture with her rifle in hand up the road, flagging down Djorn Bline and his men-

<”Looks like that’s Snake here, passing the evacuees-”>

Lyra stepped out the A.I adjusting the HUD as it highlighted the inbound forces-

<”Comms patch through his transmission.”> Lyra ground out, seething. The elusive commando unit was made up of defectors from the first siege on Bastion, they didn’t want to end up on the losing team as far as she was concerned.

<“Lyra...”>

He broke code, calling out to her by her name with a drag on his sentence.

<“Lyra, we can’t waste time in evacuating civilians. We don’t have the time for that. We need to stand our ground, I’m not going to give these bastards another inch on us. We need to win this.”>

<”Who does this fucking clown think he is?”> she muttered as the message played, maybe it wasn’t a matter of decorum. Lyra reached for her vambrace, replaying the transmission for the Captain-realistically she understood where he was coming from but even then..Special forces, Lyra sneered silently-only they bred this kind. The mission at hand was interception, but who else were they fighting for she thought. A disgust bloomed in her gut and the woman shook her head as she referenced the timer again, two minutes trickled down- <”Nima we’re moving out.”>

<"We're not waiting for them?">

<"I warned him about the armor, he can figure the rest out. We have and will face worse odds then this-">

<"Colvy we can't afford any stunts like Muunilinst-">

<"It's not a stunt if it works.">

Staring down the block that separated her from the inbound Snake Company, Lyra rose her gauntlet and brought it to a firm fist and gesturing high as signed for Snake men to start climbing. That was her only courtesy to them. The jump pack sputtered to life and flames licked her back as she launched herself up from the roadside, Nima shadowed her as they shot up the side of the building racing the clock. The woman didn’t even know what to say-the man’s profile filtered through the list as the A.I predicted her thought process.

"Insolence-"​

<<”Bline, I don't recall saying we're evacuating the whole street-”>> she spat over the link, the cold voice crept over her the shell of ear making her flinch. The window of the building flickered by as the jumped, a thick smoke drifting through the heights as the platoon moved into position. She pushed aside the temptation to scream-her hypocrisy be damned, the guilt hung over her and she felt the dark linger presence watching her. A cold sweat broke over her and Lyra's servo tightened around the stock of her rifle. Tempering the the mounting anger and desperation, her jaw clenched tightly shut-there was no budging.

They had to do better than that of the internal cracks in the foundation of the Order. They needed a tight ship.

Lyra didn’t want to hear the talk, not after Yinchorr or Dantooine. They were already set down a slippery slope where Imperialisim became a wrathful tool and this is where she'd draw the line-Cresting the side of the building, the passed over roof tops as the maneuvered above the middle block of complexes. The last to arrive. Lyra dropped in roughly and she brought the butt of the rifle to her shoulder and rushed over the building’s roof to the far ledge. Seconds dwindled down and she stared down the rows of men accounting for them- <<”If you can’t reduce civilian casualties however and do your job I’m going to need you to leave it to the professionals. Otherwise you’ll keep your mouth shut. If they fire off a volley, any building or collateral you will be moving civilians out or if they start parading them through the road, you’ll be the one coordinating that clean up-am I clear?”>>

Irveric would tolerate those sacrifices, she couldn't. It was a cruel comparison but time again had proven it and she was sick of it being swept aside. Renegade. She couldn't-The woman checked her rounds for a third time as the final seconds turned to zero across the screen. Maybe it was the only thing that she hoped would separate her from the likes of them, the choices in theses moments. The clarity that came with the absence of her own fear-it wasn't here on the field and she focused.

Tenebrae scraped the metal as she threw her shoulder against the ledge of the roof, bringing the Jackal to sights as she peered down over the armor, inhaling deeply as the behemoths of metal rolled up the block. The distant rumble followed the engines' roar and the vibrations rattled the building. The black clad S-IIMP forces dogged by a haze of red and plasma as Cinn's men opened up with the heavy repeated on the spearhead. The fire fight was thick and they had dug in from behind what they could salvage of the street, speeder and trash receptacles. Lyra's finger closed in on the trigger as she popped off the Ion charge-the platoon hefted themselves over the ledges like a well oiled machine following after the burst.

---

​

ALLIES | NIO | SOM | Djorn Bline Creuat Willan Tal DECEASED Erskine Barran Tyrell Paxxus Kolson Vrask Meko Sorrin Zakaria Black FN-999 Vostok Grauv
ENEMIES | TSE | OPEN

 

[Marrow]

Location: Tunnels beneath Ravelin, close to Library.
Objective: Recover abandoned artefacts, slay the unworthy.
Equipment: Sith Warblade, Unspecified Talismans, Glorious Golden Mask.
Writing With: Elpsis Kerrigan

Sadistic satisfaction flower through him as the woman took the bait, swung her sword, shattered the disk - and was bathed in a shower of ice shards, their properties altered and enhanced to pierce the weak points in her armour. Like him, she knew the value of an immediate response, knew that those who stopped to gather themselves in the heat of battle often ended up dead in the dust, and so the sudden fire was to be expected.

Even expected, its sheer ferocity caught him off guard. As quickly as it had come the cold he had so painstakingly brought about faded away, the heat coming not from her surroundings - as was his way - but from deep inside her. Would that difference in methodology be enough to earn him a victory through attrition or was her link to that element sufficient to compensate for the energy use? Impossible to say, but he could not bet on it.

Given slightly more time than when last she had unleashed fire most potent in his general direction, Aurum dropped to a knee once more, his sword sinking into the duracrete floor, his will calling out to the environment... and as the fire erupted, so too did the floor, an ad hoc barrier manifesting.

Concern spiking as the stone-and-duracrete heated rapidly to the point where cracking could be heard, he made a flash decision; with a might push of will-upon-stone, the barrier suddenly rippled forward, his alchemies transforming the floor into an outgoing wave, momentum more-or-less carrying through even as it left a long line of shattered duracrete and scattered stone in its wake.

Truly, Aurum was the scourge of urban planners everywhere.

 

[UX-0626]

Location: Imperial Headquarters, Ravelin - Bastion
Time: 1200 Hours
Objective: Survive
Allies: TSE ( Iasha Rha Alina Tremiru Kesran Opadal ) │ CIS ( Luna Terrik Dimitri Voltura)
Enemies: NIO ( Kolson Vrask FN-999 Noel Strasza )

The stormtroopers descended on the wreckage as carrion surrounding a dying animal, their numbers swelling almost beyond comprehension as 626 swept her sights across the area. She had initially sought to find commanding officers and various other high-ranking personnel to dispatch, but now was not the time for subtlety or grace.

Now, her sole duty was to fight and die for her Master’s Empire.

Her crosshairs quickly found their first target, a snowtrooper clad in white armor ( Noel Strasza ), positioned just outside the dropship. Breath held tight in her lungs, a slender finger squeezed the trigger of the pulse cannon in her hands, sending off a fast-moving orb of fusion plasma which was aimed to potentially strike at the soldier’s neck. Another shot followed, aimed for the chest of a second snowtrooper, both bolts discharged in rapid succession at the maximum rate her weapon would allow. Then, came two more, each aimed to strike at the chests of a pair of advancing stormtroopers (FN-999), fired even as the pulse cannon began to heat up in her hands from the continuous shooting.

Nevertheless, the loyal servant of the Sith’ari fought on, her nerves protesting with stinging pain as the fair skin on her hands was singed with intense heat. The sniper ground her teeth in grim determination, her golden eyes taking on a fiery glare as she stared down the barbarians in her crosshairs. The burning hate and anger she felt towards them, which had been trained into her mind from the moment she had emerged from her exowomb, was now channeled into tenacity and an indomitable will to resist.

Whatever it took, she would not go quietly into the burning light, even as it illuminated the sanctity of the dark.

Spoiler: Gear and Equipment

• Armor
  • Sith-Imperial Legionnaire Combat Armor Mk. III
    • Undersuit
      • Viper Mk. I Skinsuit
    • Utility
      • Neural Band
      • Taozin Skin Nodule
      • Revealer
    • Left Wrist
      • Whistling Birds
    • Right Wrist
      • Wrist Laser
    • Energy Shield (Replaces Integrated Deflector Mobility Shield)
      • Phase III “Force Avenger” Energy Shield
• Small Arms
  • “Extinguisher” Precision Pulse Cannon
  • SIF-7 ‘Minos’
    • Multi-Optic Holographic Sight
• Melee
  • Whimsy Knife
• Grenades and Explosives
  • Impact Grenade (3)

 

[Aaran Tafo]

LOCATION: THE TUNNELS
OBJECTIVE II: DANGER BELOW
OPPOSITION: Quinn Varanin​

He let out a small huff of amusement as she called more attention to him as a spacer than a Jedi. In many ways she was right. Even since his return he had been made aware of certain issues within both the Silver Jedi and the New Order aligned with the Galactic Allaince. The former was too passive. Content to remain isolated and ignorant of the suffering of innocents happening just across their borders. The latter far too aggressive. Taking to the act of war with an uncomfortable amount of zeal. Maybe being a spacer did suit him better.

Maybe that is what he should identify himself as. A simple explorer and occasional Knight Errant above all else. As opposed to having a stake in any of these grand galactic wars.

In his mind War should be a solemn thing for the Jedi. Never taken with such hostility. No side should ever be convinced of their own righteousness when so many suffered regardless of who won the conflict. Distantly, he could still hear their loss at the edge of his senses. Sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. People on both sides having their lives snuffed out.

An utter tragedy. But he was in no position to do much to cease the hostilities. They ran far deeper than he could possibly believe. The unending cycle of aggression and retaliation stretched so far back that he was doubtful anyone could put a stop to it without utterly eradicating one side of the conflict. And that was hardly a preferable outcome.

As Quinn turned to leave, his gaze leaving her conversational partner. She would hear his voice pipe up barely a moment after. Coming from directly behind her. "You know, if the patrols find you. They will kill you. Or capture you. Not sure which is worse." Both outcomes would be rather unpleasant. And far be it from him to allow someone who treated him with basic courtesy to suffer such a fate.

Of course, for Quinn, she would probably just be disturbed. Mostly by how silent Aaran was as he approached her. And how he had managed to cross the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Just as her back turned he had managed to get right behind her without barely making a sound. From this proximity, she could feel it. A bedrock of power and potency with the Force. One surpassing her own by a fair margin. If this 'Jedi' did honestly want to capture or fight her. He would be more than capable of doing so.

Curiously. He was not, seemingly entirely honest in his attempt to advise her. "I will escort you. If we run into any Imperial patrols, we'll say you're my prisoner. I make up some excuse and we keep going. If we encounter any Sith patrols, we reverse the roles." The offer was open, and she could sense that he would insist. If nothing else he was determined to minimize the death around him in whatever way he could. And if that meant keeping Quinn occupied and making sure she left the battlefield without engaging anyone. All the better.

"I am curious though. If you will answer one question for me." He said. "Why did you join the Sith Order?" His head tilted to the side. No judgement in his tone, no indication that he felt his own creed had any form of superiority. Simply curiosity of the reasoning behind joining such a sect. "Were you born into it? Picked up by them? Or did their ideals appeal to you and you joined on your own?"

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Luna Terrik | UX-0626 | Kesran Opadal | Dimitri Voltura | Kolson Vrask | Ragnar the Untested (Engaging) | Noel Strasza

​

Damnit. Armor. All she'd done was slow his assault by shooting at his center mass. Already she knew she should of fired at any other part. Limb, shoulder, hip. Head. The SIF-7 she had wouldn't punch through his armor, but it could of at least knocked him off his center. Too late to worry about that now though. And yet, the grin still remained. There was such a thrill in putting her life on the line to test just how strong she was. His words only made the grin grow.

"Spoken like a true Sith."

It made sense to her. The imperial traitors had their own Force users. Some who came on their own, others cowards who ran from the Sith. The red saber, the red eyes. She didn't need to be able to sense his thoughts to see he was a darksider of some kind. She let go of her gun as it was grabbed, curling her hand into a fist. Her saber re-ignited to catch his blade and force it to the side. A deathly calm took over her features as she stopped muting the Force around them. Perhaps the sudden rush of the Force's voice would unbalance him, but that mattered little for what she wanted to do next.

"Except you were never taught to properly channel your anger."

Alina had always been a melee focused fighter, but she didn't start off with her saber. She met his charge head on, stepping right into his guard as he reached both of his arms for her. Once more the Force enhanced her body, her fist. Armor or no, she brought her fist across with the same speed her jump had been for the chin of the Zabrak. Cara Dorniarn had taught her to be a boxer, and she certainly wouldn't let those lessons go to waste.

 

[Jaeger Harrsk]

H E L L I O N
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
OBJECTIVE I: FORTRESS IMPERATOR
T H E _ P O T

Spoiler: THE STORY SO FAR

H E L L I O N
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
OBJECTIVE II: DANGER BELOW
T H E _ P O T

Prelude.

And so they came. Demons en masse.

"Looks like your flight will be delayed, Lady Hejaran." the cigarette materialized in his hand as he watched over Ravelin through the large plate glass windows.

And so they came. Like a tide of darkness washing over the Imperial's capital.

"So roll up your damn fancy sleeves..." the commissioner puffed out a cloud of smoke.

And so they came. Like a shadow suffocating the light leaving behind only death and chaos.

Jaeger reached for the desk drawer and pulled out a gun.

And so they came like lions.

"...we've got Sith to kill." he offered her the gun. A smirk forming on his scarred face.

And so they will return like sheep.

Now...
COMPNOR HQ, Ravelin
Bastion

"Get on it, move damn it!!" Jaeger bellowed at the Tapani noble as the building around them began falling apart from the roof down. "To the lower levels! Keep your head down!"

Blaster fire flashed all around them, the shelling ripping apart whole sections of the structure and raining plaster, tiles, and durasteel over their heads. A whole fireteam of stormtroopers got squashed under the weight of a massive duracrete plate, barely missing the duo of Jaeger Harrsk and Elicia Hejaran.

They were on the backfoot. He could not believe it.

Not here, not on Bastion. Not in the heart of the Empire.

Not at home.

Alas.

"Seal it! Seal the damn door! Quick!" he barked.

Their near-fatal escape from COMPNOR HQ had led them to the underground levels of the headquarters in a room that looked, at a first glance, nothing more than a maintenance chamber. It was much more. A contingency room. In case of...

Panting, and for the first time in more than a decade, Jaeger Harrsk felt his feet give in. He crashed on the ground, leaned his head and back on the wall, and lit a cigarette. A thousand and one thoughts crossed his mind but after the first puff of smoke, only one remained.

He had failed but refused to admit it out loud.

He'd believed he would be able to lead the efforts in pushing back the Sith without help. Not out of quest for glory, promotion, nor medals but of spite against Lucien Dooku - his direct rival standing in the way of forming an Empire in Harrsk's image, in COMPNOR's image.

But not yet, no. There had to be a way without Dooku and without the fethin' Fel knight. COMPNOR could still turn the tide.

He could still turn the tide.

<"Sentinel, this is Hellion. Status on the Imperator?">

<"Hellion, this is Sentinel. Status unknown.">

<"Still?">

<"Still.">

<"Where the hell is he, damn it?!">

<"We've got no information, Sir.">

"FETH!" Harrsk slammed the comlink on the ground and resigned back on the wall. He glanced at Elicia, he had completely forgotten about her. "feth..." he muttered under his breath, then gazed at the comlink in his hand.

It felt like eternity had passed before Jaeger Harrsk surrendered.

<"Sentinel, this is Hellion. Send a coded, direct transmission to Lucien Dooku and Rurik Fel.">

<"Copy, Hellion. What's the transmission code?">

TARKIN HAS FALLEN.

NIO | ALLIES | Elicia Hejaran | Tyrell Paxxus | Rurik Fel | Lucien Dooku
TSE | ENEMIES | soon.png

Objective II: Danger Below
Allies: Jaeger Harrsk

"Looks like your flight will be delayed, Lady Hejaran."

Like locusts ravaging a crop, fleets of the Sith Empire dotted the sky and their legions plagued the soil. Guided by what they believed to be an ultimate righteousness, the Sith acted on power and were blind to anything which did not succumb to it. Few factions in the galaxy were willing to intervene in the omnipresent holy war between the Jedi and the Sith; of them, the New Imperial Order stood the most able to make a tangible dent in that war. That wasn't the only reason Elicia stood on Bastion alongside the Imperials on this day - it was personal. Time and time again, her adoptive homeworld of Coruscant has been razed in conflicts between religious zealot states, and it was her family that suffered because of it. Her families position, her position, depended upon the success of their business interests. The Sith Empire has made a habit of compromising those interests. No more.

Blaster fire consumed the corridors as the esteemed commissioner Harrsk and Elicia made their way to the sublevels of the building. Enemy ordinance rocked the foundations of the COMPNOR headquarters, unleashing a myriad of dust and debris seizing control of Elicia's airways. Fortunately she would have a chance to reassert control. Weaving though a seemingly endless barrage of enemy fire, Harrsk shouted at her to close the blast doors. Within seconds after passing through the doorway, Elicia slammed her palm on the door controls, promptly cutting the enemy troops off from the pair as they made their escape.

Despite the hardship just endured, she maintained her composure. Vulnerability was weakness, and she was a strict adherent to her public image. Decompression could take place in private. Her COMPNOR companion didn't have such standards however, as he sat on the ground against the wall, the only relief his melancholy would receive from the huff of a cigarette. Despite the obvious shock of the attack, words needn't be spoken to understand what was happening. The Sith weren't just on their doorstep - they were kicking the door in. Rather than engage in needless conversation, she just listened in on his comms with the broader Imperial network.

Things didn't sound good. The Imperator's whereabouts were unknown, and the expletives from Harrsk did little to reassure her of the optimism of the situation.

Tarkin has fallen.

Though she had no idea what the literal meaning was, the statement and the grief with which it was delivered was enough to pierce her soul with the gravity of the situation.

"What does it mean?", she asked. She almost didn't want to know. Though the New Imperial Order was on their back foot, it wasn't a guarantee that all was lost.

Progress is honed on necessary death. Today, it would beckon for the Sith.

H E L L I O N
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
OBJECTIVE II: DANGER BELOW
C R U M B L I N G _ C A S T L E

Tarkin has fallen.

"What does it mean?" Elicia asked.

He leaned on the command table in the middle of the room, smoke lingered from his cigarette and silence beset her question. It took him a minute of aimless glaring nowhere before he replied,

"It means the fuse has been lit, Bastion is a ticking bomb. If reinforcements do not arrive in time - all is lost."

A series of thunderous explosions battered the building and rattled his bones, almost throwing him to the ground. Jaeger held tight the sides of the table for a few very long moments before the tremors ceded to an unnatural, and rather ominous, stillness. Gone was all sense of life.

"What the hell was that?!"

<"Sir, this is Sentinel. Do you copy?! Are you alive?!">

<"You bet I am, what the kark was that?!">

<"Commissioner--Sir, Grand Vizier Paxxus called an orbital strike on COMPNOR HQ-">

<"WHAT?!"> Jaeger's face turned pale, then red, then pale, then red. Ever since his miraculous survival on Dantooine, Tyrell Paxxus had not been the same man. He walked like a man, but reeked of death. Of corpse. Of insanity. The commissioner ran a hand over his face in disbelief and anger. Something had to be done about Paxxus before he threw them all to oblivion all too soon. Did Tavlar's disappearance have anything to do with the unhinged Vizier, who before his 'death' had revealed himself as the Imperator's father? The thought drifted his mind for longer than it needed; too many question, so little answers and none solved their predicament.

The commissioner composed himself, flicking the finished cigarette away and turning on the holoprojector of the table. Ravelin erupted to life in blue and white.

<"Talk to me - what else has he done?"> his voice had grown cold and calculated but emotion still lingered in its deepest notes.

<"He's designated hostile targets as Dark and...sent Sith-Imperial prisoners of war as bait; sheep to the slaughter."> the answer did not draw another salvo of wrath. Just concern; Jaeger was not below committing crimes of war, neither were the Sith. COMPNOR fought fire with fire. Harrsk fought fire with fire. He would execute unarmed combatants with a smirk. The New Imperial's monster with dark charisma.

But that was not who Tyrell was. The commissioner couldn't help but maintain suspicion over Paxxus and the disappearance of the Imperator at such a crucial time. He could do nothing about it now, not yet at least.

<"Copy. And the battle? Give me a sitrep.">

<"On the--backfoot, Sir."> Sentinel replied with a barely audible sigh. <"General Tal and Major Barran have assumed de-facto control on the ground defence of Ravelin-">

<"The Galidraanis?">

<"Yes, Sir.">

<"Good.">

<"Confederates have arrived along with the Sith--">

"Brothers in arms, huh? Hear that, Lady Hejaran?" Jaeger chuckled looking at the Tapani noble, whilst Sentinel continued his report.

<"--and lastly, there has been unnaturally high activity according to our sensors in the tunnels below.">

<"Roger, keep me updated. Hellion out."> Jaeger cut off the transmission and made haste.

"We need to get out of here." he told Elicia the obvious and smirked, "You'd rather die with guns blazing rather than out of boredom down here, yeah?"

The commissioner reached for a hidden compartment, activated a switch and the wall slid open to reveal an armory; unlike standard armories - this one contained specialized Force hunting gear, along with the conventional and unconventional warfare equipment. Contingencies upon contingencies. Paranoia was the unwritten tenet of COMPNOR - the New Imperial organization known for its ideological subversion capabilities as equally as their phobia of Force cults.

"Pick your tombstone, lady." Jaeger chuckled inaudibly but did not wait for her. He quickly began equipping the gear he believed would serve him best. "Never asked - but you married?"

Ah, yes - small talk; Harrsk's ultimating coping mechanism when he stood on the precipice of death.



NIO | ALLIES | Elicia Hejaran | Tyrell Paxxus | Rurik Fel | Lucien Dooku
TSE | ENEMIES | soon.png

Objective II: Danger Below
Allies: Jaeger Harrsk

Not good. Letting out a huff of smoke, Harrsk was ominous in his warning - no reinforcements, no Bastion.

Another tremor rocked the headquarters, no doubt from Sith ordinance. Any calm Harrsk was regaining quickly dissipated as news came through on his comms. Her stake in the New Imperial Order was less personal than that of her COMPNOR counterpart, but she empathized with Harrsk as he tried to come to terms with his leader's betrayal.

Elicia had little sympathy for the Sith and those who followed them, but she wasn't unaware that they conscripted a great number of innocents from their conquests. A part of her wanted to feel disgust - legions of individuals forced to fight for a cause they didn't believe in for a nation they didn't support only to be ended by the faction they were forced to fight for. That sympathy quickly disappeared as the building shook once more from the shellacking ordered by one of the NIO's principal executives.

In the meanwhile, the Confederacy had also arrived. The overt Sith masquerading as a democratic institution, the very same which has claimed dominion over the Tapani sector for the past several years. Now all her enemies were in one place.

"We need to get out of here."

With a prideful smirk, Harrsk revealed a secret compartment unveiling an impressive armory for its compact size. Elicia was confident that her songsteel cybernetics and detachment from the Force alone made her a formidable opponent for any Force wielder, but this COMPNOR equipment was a welcome addition to her collection. As Harrsk began arming himself to the teeth, so too did Elicia.

"Never asked - but you married?"

If it weren't for her ironclad emotional control, she'd have rolled her eyes and scoffed. Instead, she elected to focus on the task at hand without dignifying the question. Her gender would not serve as a barrier in perception or reality, nor would she indulge rhetoric which might undermine such a stance.

"Let's go."

H E L L I O N
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
OBJECTIVE II: DANGER BELOW -> on the way to Fortress Imperator
C R U M B L I N G _ C A S T L E

"Divorced, will take it." Jaeger scoffed at Elicia's disregard for his previous question. Despite the heavy load of gear he equipped himself with, the process did not take long. Muscle memory, experience. He'd done this before a million times to the point it had a soothing sense to it.

The commissioner locked the armory behind them, grabbed the portable holoprojector and hurried to one specific side of the wall. He glared at it for at least ten seconds before a laser of red materialized from it scanning his face. It disappeared and for a moment there was nothing, not until the wall suddenly slid open revealing a tunnel before the duo.

"Follow me." he beckoned to the noble and lead the way into the near infinite maze of tunnels beneath the endlessly spanning city of Ravelin. "Keep your eyes open, these tunnels are usually empty but something has been tripping sensors."

He looked back at her, "...and I am pretty sure that something is rats."

"Sith rats."

Through the dimly lit tunnels they went, some as wide as cruiser hangars and others as thin as maintenance shafts. No one really knew how far they spanned, nor was there any complete blueprints of the whole infrastructure. A lot of was mapped but questions remained how much more wasn't. Harrsk's only trusted guide was the flickering blue holomap emerging from his wrist and his guts; and he trusted the latter more.

<"Hellion, this is Sentinel. Do you copy?">

<"Go ahead, Sentinel.">

<"Be advised, Sir. Imperial Knights have been deployed into the tunnels and are engaging Sith elements not far from your vicinity.">

<"Roger."> he replied, then,<"and--there been a casualty report on COMPNOR HQ?">

<"Yes, Sir--estimated at 85%."> Sentinel replied solemnly.

"That son of a schutta..." Harrsk muttered then growled, "FETH!"

If they survived the onslaught today, Jaeger could not fathom the dent this strike has put into COMPNOR's efforts and by extension thew New Imperial's. There was no recovery from what their own did to them. The Grand Vizier had to pay.

He turned sharply right on the next junction, "Through here. This will take us to Fortress Imperator."

"We're not engaging them?" she asked.*

"No." he retorted grimly, a sour note in his tone as he added, "we have a bigger problem."

Tyrell Paxxus .

Time was running out for them all and the insanity of the Grand Vizier was shortening the fuse.

"If we wanna have just a tiny lil' bit of chance to make it outta this alive, we gotta stop the damn Vizier before he buries us all."

Just a fraction of a moment could decide the outcome and Harrsk wasn't leaving it to the unhinged Man in Fortress Imperator.

They carried on, the distant clamor of war in the tunnels left behind as they drew nearer on the supposed entry into the fortress. Their trek was accompanied by foreboding silence and the eerie, imaginary hiss of a fuse burning.

The end of their journey was marked when they reached large sealed doors with what looked like a brand new control panel next to them. Repairs had still been ongoing since their reclamation of Bastion. Far slower than scheduled due to the costly war efforts.

Jaeger reached for the panel and provided his fingerprints. The massive doors hummed, then slowly slid open. The hums of war grew louder as they departed the tunnels into the fortress. None greeted them until they reached the turbolifts where an armed checkpoint had been standing watch. Pickets for any hostile activity from the tunnels.

"HALT!" one of the stormtroopers barked, the sergeant's pauldron emanating authority but not his voice. Green as grass, Harrsk could tell. How many hardened veterans had they lost through the campaign across the Braxant Run? They had been scrapping the barrel ever since; now more than ever.

"Relax, relax." the commissioner raised his arms. "Commissioner Jaeger Harrsk, run me up, kid. Fast."

"Do not move an inch!" the trooper ordered and projected a beam from his wrist scanning both Jaeger and his companion Elicia. "Apologies, Sir."

He moved out from their way and the duo carried on into the turbolift. It would take them all the way up to where High Command was located. The doors of the lift shut closed behind them but Jaeger did not touch any buttons, instead he turned to Elicia.

"If they don't get here on time, we all die anyway." Jaeger stated as-a-matter-of-factly and hovered his hand over the lift's buttons. "I have to do what I have to do, but if you think you can try and survive on your own--" he gestured at the turbolifts buttons. "--you're free to do so."

Paxxus had gone insane, whether through some Sith trickery or magic or not mattered little. His authority made him a liability to Bastion's last stand and the little kindle of hope the New Imperials had in standing tall until the Executor and Dooku arrived. The power the Vizier yielded, combined with the madness...if COMPNOR HQ was first, then Bastion could be second. Someone had to give them that damn lil' bit fighting chance.

Someone had to cross the line to make sure the line's still there in the morning.

"Your choice, Lady."

"Will you cross the line?"

NIO | ALLIES | Elicia Hejaran | Tyrell Paxxus (TBD)
TSE | ENEMIES | soon.png
*with the permission of Elicia's writer.

Objective II: Danger Below, en route to Fortress Imperator
Allies: Jaeger Harrsk

Like most spooks and spies, COMPNOR certainly had a number of tricks up their sleeves. Secret walls leading to secret tunnels, and it would seem that these tunnels weren't unoccupied.

"Keep your eyes open. These tunnels are usually empty, but something has been tripping sensors... and I am pretty sure that something is rats."

Ugh. Rats were disgusting.

"Sith rats."

Sith even moreso.

As the two continued to venture deeper into the tunnel system beneath Ravelin, Harrsk received yet another transmission on his comms. To be honest, Elicia was surprised that such systems were able to effectively connect to the networks in an isolated subterranean environment. Curiosity turned to contempt when the transmission revealed that the New Imperial Order's own Force order roamed the tunnels. What respect she had for the NIO was undermined the by sponsorship of its own arbitrary Force order, and it angered her to ally with them, even only if temporarily. Elicia was a pragmatist though, and if ridding the galaxy of the Jedi and Sith plague required the assistance of Force users who rebuked both, it was a price she is willing to pay.

There was a minor audible though - they weren't going to engage to be joining the Imperial Knights in the tunnels. Their target was the NIO's own Grand Vizier Tyrell Paxxus . She wasn't in the business of assassinating despots, but then again, she wasn't sure what the COMPNOR man's intentions really were. All she knew was that Paxxus was ordering recklessly danger close strikes, Harrsk sought to stop him, and stopping these kinds of things typically involved someone being killed.

Echoes of combat hummed through the tunnels as Jaeger and Elicia navigated their way to the NIO stronghold on Bastion: Fortress Imperator. After some time, they came upon an antiquated control panel. Harrsk activated it and with a hiss, the door opened to reveal a much more orderly scenery as opposed to the long derelict tunnels. This must be the fortress, Elicia thought. Despite having moved away from the conflict in the tunnels, a peculiar air of uncertainty loomed within the halls of Fortress Imperator.

"HALT!", a stormtrooper ordered. Why would NIO troops be stopping their own? It didn't take long to realize the plainclothes outfits of the traditionally clandestine COMPNOR man didn't help, and she wasn't affiliated with the NIO herself. An almost cocky Harrsk urged the trooper to verify his credentials, and after a brief standoff, they were in the clear.

The two approached a turbolift, but before entering, Jaeger turned to warn Elicia of what lie ahead. The implications were clear. If the Bastion were to stand under the banners under the New Imperial Order, Paxxus must end.

"Your choice, Lady. Will you cross the line?"

With a nearly invisible smirk, Elicia boarded the turbolift.

"Bloodshed and the upper class have always gone hand in hand."

"Bloodshed and the upper class have always gone hand in hand."

Jaeger replied with a smirk to Elicia's remark. Agreement in the eyes behind the sunglasses.

He pushed the button for the top of the Fortress and the longest ride in his life began. The destination as mysterious as Paxxus' trip to insanity after his miraculous survival on Dantooine.

The turbolift darted upwards from the underground levels and above where the windows of the lift came to life with the grotesque picture of Ravelin engulfed in flames. A dark cloud of death and despair loomed over the New Imperials, it sought to suffocate those it deemed traitors. The horrors witnessed from the confines of the lift made his hands curl in a fist. His finger itching to linger over the trigger of his pistol.

Bastion Stands.

It must.

Even if it meant sacrificing one of the greatest minds of the New Imperial Order to do so.

Tyrell Paxxus, although never formally Harrsk's mentor, was still a figure in the New Order to which many looked up to. Merely an underappreciated Captain under the Sith satraps, his potential shone when his chance was given by the Imperator Tavlar. He had brought much-needed balance between the factions within the New Order - the Moffs, the Warlords, COMPNOR, the Corps, the Knights and so on. A natural-born diplomat. In a sick twist of fate he had sacrificed himself on Dantooine after revealing to being Irveric Tavlar's father only to inexplicably return to life.

Alas, whoever had come back from the dead was no longer the Tyrell Paxxus Jaeger knew.

Whoever this was - they had to be stopped.

Bastion was on the line.

The New Imperial Order was on the line.

All the blood that they had paid to reclaim the rightful Imperial throneworld would mean nothing if the Sith conquered it back.

The doors of the turbolift slid open and Jaeger sprung forward, no questions asked.

"PAXXUS!" he roared and like a spear body slammed at the corrupted Vizier, followed by a series of punches. The fuming grimace deepened the scars across his face. Rage coursed through his veins.

NIO | ALLIES | Elicia Hejaran | Tyrell Paxxus (TBD)
TSE | ENEMIES | soon.png

 

[Kesran Opadal]

Objective: Ravelin, Bastion
Allies: TSE | EE | CIS Luna Terrik UX-0626 Alina Tremiru Iasha Rha Dimitri Voltura
Enemies: NIO | GA Noel Strasza Kolson Vrask Ragnar the Untested
Engaging: Ragnar the Untested Noel Strasza


Kes grunted and then as he concentrated just a bit more, he got it. the Saber shook and then flew back towards Kesran's hand.

"Whoo", he said in relief, with his lightsaber back, he finally do some work

He turned and saw Alina engaging this Zabrak warrior. He brandished Sith style tattoos, but was definitely not a Sith, at least by his actions shown so far.

His warning worked and Alina was able to swing around quick enough, draw out her saber, and bat down the blaster bolt. She now turned to unleash her attack on the mysterious warrior.

Kesran felt something behind him however.

He swung his head slightly behind him to look.

Troopers and they weren't Sith or CIS

New Imperial

"Traitors", Kesran's said to himself in his head.

A group of Snowtroopers lead by Noel Strasza advanced towards the ship from its rear.

He then turned fully around and saw a Sith trooper he recognized from the transport earlier

UX-0626

She had taken position outside near the wreckage, to get good angles on the incoming enemy troops.

He then could see out of the corner of his eye, the Snowtrooper squad enter the husk of the wreckage. Looking for wounded survivors to slaughter. These troopers could have helped us take the galaxy, but they besides to defect and betray for whatever wishful platitudes they held dear.

There is never any light, there is only death, there is only the dark...

He crouched down and maneuvered slowly into the opposite side of the wreckage. The troopers wouldn't see or hear him for now. He moved behind barriers and makeshift barricades made by the ship's wreck.

He then stepped behind an upside down bench from the ship that was standing straight up, creating the perfect place for Kesran to stand behind.

One of the doors to the ship was right behind it, and Kesran was laying in wait.

When the trooper entered he spoke, "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Kesran would reply, he then turned his head back to be straight ahead, his eyes swiveled to see troopers preparing to surround the crashed transport. he looked to where Dimitri Voltura had been on the ship, he was now gone. Perhaps a prior engagement, but Kesran was sure he would see him later on in this battle.

He then took a deep breath and channeled the force. He then made his voice into a booming sound. This would seem to the troopers like it was all around them.

"Ahhh, company", his baritone voice echoed all around the wreckage, he hoped it would distract Alina however, he quickly thought of her and hoped she was dealing with that warrior. He would go to her to assist with the Zabrak soon enough.

"I greet you soldiers, but I fear you are insignificant". He purposely built up the dread of the surrounding baritone voice.

"Your souls now betray you", he now sensed fear in a few troopers.

"Your world will be taken, and the Sith will once again rain supreme over this planet".

He now finished his voice with one loud shouting statement

"You must realize, you are all DOOMED".

He could hear a couple troopers, move their steps quickly, shuffling to reconfigure their footing.

"I BRING DEATH!!!!!!!".

Kesran now popped out of his cover, and ignited his lightsaber.

He now stared directly into the visor of the trooper, Noel Strasza

He stood there, saber bent down to his side. As he started to plunge fear into all of the troopers around, especially the one in front of him.

His baritone boom subsided and his regular, yet still evil & menacing voice resumed.

He used to the force to swipe away the ship's side he was standing next to from the ship entirely, flying towards a group of three troopers.

The large durasteel wall slammed into the three troopers, crushing them to death on impact.

All the while still staring at the trooper in front of him.

Kesran spoke with his normal voice, but still with an evil rasp, "Greetings trooper, you and yours will pay the price of defiance this day".

Kesran prepared to let the trooper speak, as he now took in the sounds of the raging battle around him.

Suddenly, before anything else happened, the force alerted to the Sith trooper, UX-0626 as he spotted her shoot several shots, both at Noel Strasza and his fellow troopers.

He formed a grin and now looked back at the trooper, wanting to see how his fortitude would hold up against the fear Kesran was plunging into him and now being shot at directly.

He could feel around him, the battle commencing, and that he would be quickly racking up some kills very shortly.

 

[Areyon]

ALLIES: NIO | IMPERIAL KNIGHTS
ENEMIES: Darth Ledgermayne | Daeron | TSE | CIS

D A R R E N
The Omega Guard Second-in-Command
Gear: Lightsaber Pike, Armor
NPCS: Omega Guard x5

The defensive against the sithspawn attacks remained strong, and the morale between the rest of the Omega Guard remained stronger. The Omegas formed a tight outer circle, protecting themselves and their brothers next to them from attacks. It was a 360 collected vision as they fight fought as one. There would be many attempts to break the formation, but they would stand as would Bastion up above them.

The long-range sithspawn had not had enough room in the tunnels to start firing, but now they did. Their bow casters shot true and precise, but their shots against the white-hot blade of a lightsaber would have little to no effect. The Omega Guard deflected the shots with ease. They had done maneuvers like this so many times it was like practicing a routine. But with the other sithspawn, concentration was difficult. Careless mistakes were made in defending their position, like how one of the Guard broke formation to finish off one of the abominations flashily. He could've out the whole defensive structure due to inattention.

The main goal was to push back the offensive. Darren would lead the high stakes assault but from the same position. They kept their tight circle formation and began to push against the horde. The sithspawn that flung themselves as the Omegas did not stand a chance. The creatures with bow casters posed an intermediate threat, but they were mitigated quickly.

They were strong, brave, and resilient.

Weapons of the Empire.

A R E Y O N
Gear: Lightsaber Pike, Armor

The Sith was a quick one. He made no abrupt stops or sudden direction changes. It was a straight forward line towards a new section of the tunnels. Areyon was close behind him, trying to cut the gap between them both. Even with enhanced speed while using the Force, his opponent still stayed a distance away.

As he was running, he felt something beneath his feet. Vibrations, slow rumblings. One could easily mistake them for the explosions that would be bombarding the surface, but Areyon felt it was something different. The taint of dark side energy lurked near. Staring straight ahead, his eyes focused on the back of his enemy. Until his enemy went soaring up into the air. Areyon was blown back. As soon as he reached the hole, the Sith had left it and touched the surface above. How he managed to do that was a mystery. The hole to the top was steep and straight up, requiring a Force-amplified Jump to reach the ledge. Areyon jumped without hesitation, letting the Force carry him up towards the sky of Bastion. As his fingers felt along the ridge of the hole, Areyon pulled himself up to see the Sith warrior staring at him.

No other emotions but rage and hatred filled his mind. The Sith had caused a separation between himself and his Omega Guard. With the number of men they had down there, survival was unlikely, which was a somber thought to believe. Even as trained as they were, they could not fight forever. Every leader knows that. Areyon grabbed his lightsaber pike and stuck the edge of it into the dirt. He looked around to see the crushed landscape of a war-torn Bastion, it's wonderful city that he had grown up in had gone up in smoke and flame. The Sith had caused all of this destruction for what purpose? It was a thought he did not understand just yet. But he would get his answer. Areyon pointed his un-ignited lightsaber pike at the young man who stood in front of him and spoke the words of a man who disliked everything his opponent stood for.

"You have forced my hand. You have separated me from my men, leaving them to fight that hell down below alone. If even one of them goes down in battle, your head will be at the end of my lightsaber. But for now..." Areyon's feet shifted as he grabbed his weapon with two hands. He garnished a fighting position, ready to strike at any moment. "You will fight me, Sith."

 

[Errant]

T H E _ L O S T _ O N E
New Imperial Order
Crestfallen
Onrai

Ravelin, These Streets
​

Blood sprayed overhead, painting the Imperial Knight's hair a shade of crimson. He ripped his blade from the chest of a collapsed legionnaire and turned away. Droplets of ichor pooled around his booted foot. In his push towards the aforementioned data hub, he'd left a trail of corpses long enough to fill the prison beneath Fortress Imperator. Headless bodies decorated the streets. A legionnaire hung from a wall behind him, a jagged pole embedded through its face planting, pinning it in place. Their deaths were quick. The Crestfallen did not take pleasure in the pain of his enemies. He killed as he did to send a message to those who would think to follow him.

A devil stalked the streets of Ravelin.

Fortunately for those with an inkling of sense, Errant sought out one particular entity. The Sith-Imperial smart enough to turn away and flee from the Crestfallen Knight escaped with their lives. Only those enslaved by their Sith Overlords found their lives cut short by his commandeered Sith Blade. With each life stolen away, it thrummed with power. The dark side's corruptive touch leaked from the weapon. It latched onto the Albino's mind, the allure not lost on him in the thick of combat. Still, he pushed such urgings away.

When the data hub came into view, the Knight wasn't surprised to see a throng of bodies just outside it. The Sith, no matter how powerful they believed themselves, always traveled in packs. The fear of defeat drove them to rely on others to protect them. Even this oddity, wreathed in shadow, more potent in the force than most of the galaxy, hid behind their forces upon the battlefield.

"Pathetic," Errant muttered. He stepped around a pile of rubble, his blade held out to the side. "I cannot say I've encountered a beast of your variety before, Sith. It begs the question, are you as foolish as your brethren, or do you carry a wisdom that further separates you from your kind?"

An aura of death permeated Errant's weapon as he raised it. He pointed it directly at Onrai.

"By my honor as a Knight, I shall grant you mercy deserved by all unlucky enough to cross my path," Errant narrowed his eyes. "Surrender, or perish. I will not offer a second time."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DIE BY THE BLADE」​

"I'll tell Allyson you said bye."​

Zaavik's eyes widened as a jagged flash of white-hot hatred spewed forth from Aradia's fingertips. He braced, extending his second blade from the hilt, and swung the saber forward to catch the oncoming energy. The impact of electricity on plasma kicked, pushing the hilt towards his chest and sending him sliding flat-footed across the ground.

Volatile tendrils arced off the blade and grasped at his body. A painful, electrical tickle began to seize his muscles. His hold on the lighting through the force faltered. It reached out and ravaged the inner workings of his saber hilt. Electronics droned, the power cell popping once overloaded. Both blades fizzled out instantly, allowing the lighting to overtake him.

Energy rippled through his body, causing him to cry out in laborious anguish. The dark side lifted him, throwing him across the wide corridor and sent him back-first into the wall. Momentum snapped his head backwards, skull colliding with the durasteel wall with a loud thud. Consciousness absconded, and his limp form crumpled as it fell to the floor face down.

Wisps of smoke curled and slithered towards the ceiling from the back of his jacket. Zaavik lie motionless aside from the occasional spasm of a limb or extremity.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

Gear: Elpsis' Armour, Inferno, Uproar Blaster, Hold-out Bolter, Shotgun, Wrist Ion Paddle Beamer, Revolver, Grenades.
Marrow

The heat continued to rise, even as her thermic lance collided with the Sith Lord's alchemy-based barrier. Stone and duracrete heated rapidly, producing burning hot rubble. Here and there, stone cracked or exploded outright. But the barrier then transformed into an improvised, ever-expanding wave. Momentum carried it forward without purge, dragging with it duracrete and stone.

One could only feel pity for the engineers who would have to rebuild the tunnel afterwards. Especially after Elpsis' response. She could hear and, through the Force, perceive the blast coming her way. It brought with it boiling hot rubble and rock. She was still bleeding from the injuries the shower of ice shards had inflicted upon. The Force kept the pain at bay and stemmed the bleeding a bit, but only to an extent. Behind her helmet's faceplate, strain was evident upon her features. There was a painful throbbing at the back of her skull.

Nonetheless, she stood, as a Kerrigan should, and hit back, countering the Sith's pulse wave with her own. Heat surged through her body like wild fire, erupting outward. The fiery blast connected with his barrier, and as the two waves met, there was a loud explosion. A good chunk of the rubble was incinerated or was thrown hither and thither. The concussive force also produced a powerful back blast Elpsis would be affected by. And the tunnel itself was torn asunder as the blast caused the ceiling above the Sith to collapse. The falling rubble would obviously not spare the pyromancer.

 

[Tulan Kor]

"When conducting a breach- explosive, mechanical, dynamic or not, there is one element to success more than any piece of equipment or operator you have in the stack going in. Listen Rangers, you making a breach isn't going to mean anything whatsoever, if you don't accompany it with speed and violence of action. Surprise is gone, you just blew their wall, door, whatever down. You gotta get through it, and exploit their ten-fifteen seconds of confusion and terror to bear down as much hate and discontent as you can and get your objective completed. Hostage Rescue, Search and Destroy, whatever. Get through, get done. That's the end and short of it." - Setter Ryburn, Task Force Raider Commander

“The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?”


Demon Company had always been an odd entity in the Imperial Arsenal- but a welcome one nonetheless. Prior to most of their missions, most were only with the Imperial Flag to simply kill Sith by the shovel full. A task that they seemed to exceed at. Raids, Assassinations, direct action.

The things that went bump in the night.

The people that needed to go away.

The too-loud political commentators and the would-be revolutionaries.

The rebels and the rousers. The rioters and the instigators.

It was never the same, but it always had the same result. They died. The Imperial Order marched on- for the good of their people. Tulan understood order, and stability. Peace was never an option. Stability was.

His footsteps were careful and calculated, his footwork like a dancer's. It was easy to see how many of the men he ran across likened him to the Grim Reaper- or more recently, the Devil himself. The cold, matter-of-factly way he disposed of his enemy's life, and his tendency to survive even the harshest conflicts cemented his reputation- not counting the lengthy career he had prior to the Imperials. Demon Company, in their black and red fatigues and high-cut helmets, flowed past the Death Troopers silently. Everything about them was quiet. Red-tinted goggles, which gave the hallways a bright red tint to the Operators- and an eerie glowing red eye effect, provided you were closer than two feet.

Tulan's troops used a variety of slugthrowers and Verpine shatter guns, though most carried the RS16, a holdover from their time at the Silver Jedi, repurposed to fit the Imperial War Machine. Tulan himself carried one such and a sawed-off, pump-action shotgun for their closer, more personal encounters. Tulan's men flowed like water deeper into the tunnels, the gentle THWACK of their suppressed weapons with cold loaded ammo dispatching Sith as easily as one might take out the garbage in the morning.

Which, to Tulan, they were.

Tulan's men secured a deeper position in the tunnels, silently setting in security as to prevent a counter-attack or an ambush. His men were surgically effective, each shot they placed onto the enemy was at worst, in the upper chest. Mostly, however, they followed the same drill- either two in the chest, or one in the chest, then one in the head. The stopping power of an RS16 at close range was something to behold, the blood splatter alone indicating just how deadly the weapon truly was. Tulan walked back to meet the Deathtrooper lead, DT-7343 'Jabber'. The men were about equal in height- though Jabber was only a few inches taller than Tulan. But Tulan was a lot bigger than Jabber, stockier and more heavily built in his back and shoulders.

He still, however, respected any man or woman who took up arms against the Sith.

"My boys can take the lead, we'll clear the way with the Burners."

Tulan nudged his head to the Flametroopers, who were more than happy to join him at the forefront.

"Watch my back, Trooper. I got yours."

Tulan flipped his night vision back down, the red-tint washing back over his eyes again, before he silently pivoted, and rejoined his men at the front the Imperials, pushing deeper into the tunnels. Tulan took special care of the troops under his lead, and the Deathtroopers would receive the same treatment as his boys did. He was a charismatic man, learning from the best on how to best lead troops in one aspect or another, and he'd look after, kill for, and bleed for, anyone in the Tunnels with them.

All he asked is that they'd do the same for him.

He high-fived the flametrooper that came up to the front, appreciating the death-dealing man probably more than most gathered.

Tulan might've been short on height, but was never short on character and morals.

 

[Xeykard]

Hans Rennagen Detritus Ren Agrrur'arr
​

Confidence, arrogance, could never make up for skill. The young fool charged, using his smaller stature in an attempt to attack Xeykard's legs. The Barabel proved himself as strong as he looked; his hate spurred his muscles to greater feats as he swung his lightclub in a feral parry, batting away the knight's saber and then his shield.

The hate of another, though far weaker than his, rose behind his back. The inquisitor threw up a hand to stop him -- the blaster bolts, mere moments after leaving the knight's weapon, froze in place, shuddering as if trying to escape some invisible grip. Xeykard pushed back against the knight who had engaged him, slashing and hacking with his longer weapon to keep his enemy at a distance. As he moved away the bolts were released into the wall behind him.

"PATHETIC! HOW WEAK CAN YOU BE?" He reared back as if preparing for a heavy strike, then spun, throwing his saber at the Tusken knight. He dropped low. His tail swung towards the first knight's legs, aiming to at least unbalance him, before Xeykard sent a wave of telekinetic force at the knight. Each movement was accompanied by a animalistic snarl. Each hit caused him to roar.

So much pain. So much hate.

So much satisfaction.

 

[Noel Strasza]

Y O U A S K E D F O R I T
MAJOR NOEL "DEADER" STRASZA
N E W I M P E R I A L W A R M A C H I N E
In the company of 3 DOOM DIVISION TROOPERS

ATTACK_MODE : // Kesran Opadal UX-0626
NIO ALLIES :// @IMTHEVULTURE Djorn Bline Tyrell Paxxus Jaeger Harrsk
Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt Willan Tal Asa Yubari DECEASED Erskine Barran Meko Sorrin FN-999 Kolson Vrask Ragnar the Untested

"Ahhh, company... I greet you soldiers, but I fear you are insignificant. Your souls now betray you, your world will be taken, and the Sith will once again rain supreme over this planet. You must realize, you are all DOOMED. I BRING DEATH!!!!!!! Greetings trooper, you and yours will pay the price of defiance this day".

Each word uttered by the Sith cornered in the ship did nothing to the company of Force-dead troopers. They were unaffected by the swelling dread woven into the tone and rising threats made. In fact, if anything, Kesran's words only served to piss them off even more. Perhaps... that was unwise. They stood their ground, only sprinting to cover as the hidden S-IMP soldier opened fire. Strasza's augmented eyes flared behind her visor, further elevating the crimson light emanating from behind the lens. Heavy losses emanated from around her already, though she had anticipated as much. Each one only fueled the hatred she bottled up inside until the explosive throes of it shattered the fragile glass holding it back.​

Typical arrogance and ego. This would be fun. She was a ravenous, starving dog kept on a chain until war time rolled around when she'd finally be set loose. The warmachine had no intention of wasting any time.

'We signed up to die, that doesn't mean we're good at it.' The words echoed in her mind as sound as the day she had first uttered them on Bescane. ​

Her proximity sensors wailed. Pulse shots. More of those borrowed soldiers in her company dropped, picked off by the sniper her droid had sensed previously, but she had ignored. The obviousness of her oversight was now more than apparent. However, the continuous fire only served to aid those remaining in their mission to find the one responsible.​

"WE GOT 'EM!" The trio of troopers still standing with her shifted to a position behind cover, taking aim where it was UX-0626 was firing from. Hell opened its mouth, spewing raw lead and gunpowder down on the woman's position with full intent to maim or force her to cover. ​

All the while, Strasza returned her focus to the Sith Apprentice. She said nothing, nor did she refute his words. She didn't come here to talk. She wasn't good at conversation. Not in the slightest. There was only one thing she was good at; one thing she understood these days. ​

Good ol' fashion killing. ​

Strasza lunged forward, racking a slug round into her scatter gun. Kesran had made a dire mistake when he hesitated to attack her directly and she capitalized on those precious seconds. At this close of a range, her stopping power with that slugthrower was nasty. The crashing throes of the planetary battle ensuing around them were drowned out temporarily by the compounding thunder bellowing from the barrel of her gun, spewing an explosive shot towards the apprentice's left leg. Even if he managed to get his lightsaber up in time, the plasma would likely only serve to superheat the shrapnel of the ammunition, splintering it into finer fragments that maintained the speed of projection. ​

With her first shot fired, Major snapped her ungloved arm up, cracking her scramble cloak, revealing the cybernetic mockery of flesh she possessed. No skin. Nothing but metal glinted in the light between her and Kesran, that was until the faint, crackling charge of electricity resonated between her knuckles. In a blinding flash, her COIL systems deployed, launching a blast of coalesced electrical charge towards the man's gut. It wasn't enough to kill, but if it hit its mark, it was going to hurt. ​

No quarter.

No rest.

For the Imperator.​

 

[DECEASED Erskine Barran]

Lord-Major Erskine Barran
1st Galidraani-Volunteers Armoured-Infantry Brigade,"Tal's Devils"
2nd Battalion,"Blue-Hearts"
New Imperial Order

LOCATION: Fort Imperator

ALLIES: Willan Tal Zakaria Black Enedina Tal Vostok Grauv Djorn Bline
Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt Tyrell Paxxus Creuat Kolson Vrask Meko Sorrin FN-999 Halketh Noel Strasza

'Wait a minute, CC One! Where you gettin' these reports? Ah can tell ye, straight away, that naebody in that overgrown transport survived that FETHIN' BARRAGE!!!'

<"Myles to Blue-Heart Bravo! We're being sent laser-guided comms from the 19th, survivors are advancing from the wreckage!">

'Tough-Tatties! Holographics indicate there's several units vectoring on the crash-site already, we - move - forward! Blue-Heart Bravo out!'

Nearing the last-known position of the Dark Troopers, the tanks were already doing their best to work their way through and around the carnage caused by Vostok's best-and-brightest; the fading sounds of conflict could still be heard to the east, and it was in this moment that Barran realised what the Sith-spawn were trying to do. It appeared that the initial push was from behind the Dark Troopers' previous arcs-of-fire, forcing them to back away from their original positions on the wrong side, in what Erskine understood as a partly-successful attempt to divide and conquer. However, like with Tal earlier, the expected result wouldn't be half as severe as initially portrayed; not enough power-armour husks lay among the corpses of the Sith-spawn and Sith legionnaires to consider the isolation efforts a complete success, not whilst the distant sounds of blaster-rifles and explosions continued to intensify with every step the riflemen took in Vostok's general direction.
Come on, Vostok! Push them back! Either all the Sith-spawn are dead, or... Or..... Dear god.

'Shugg, we need to hurry.'

Taking off with his pistol pulled from it's holster, looking out into the smoky mist as he unsheathed his vibraknife, Barran would've ran off alone if Shugg hadn't seen him, but the battle-hardened captain caught the Major in the act and called on the riflemen behind him. The Lord-Major knew the others would follow, but his feet were taking him to Vostok at speed whether he liked the idea or not, though it seemed that the same instinct was also subconsciously driving everyone else behind him to make a charging-advance towards the isolated hostilities. Though the tanks, walkers and armoured repair-vehicles followed behind, all the ACVs had been abandoned by the respective officer-crews, each and every one of them opting to choose rifles or their sidearms for the impending wild fight in the distance, disappearing into the distance as the vehicles watched on.

By the time the Blue-Hearts neared the next previous fall-back point, the Dark Troopers' dead, lifeless power-armour suits began to show more noticeably, though the shroud of the smoke and mist had become a fog of war in it's truest embodiment; even though such foggy sights of distant blaster-fire were aesthetically pleasing to the Blue-Hearts, Lord Erskine would've enjoyed it more if he hadn't tripped over the corpse of Vostok's second-in-command, Captain Ivan (callsign,"Mastiff One") Sladis. Erskine only figured this out when he looked back to see what he'd tripped over, swiping the dust off the cuirass of the dead captain's power-armour to find the name, rank, and callsign engraved over it's left pectoral area; it was in this moment that Barran turned his comms-device's laser towards towards the madness beyond, catching a perfect transmission from Vostok at the last second.

<"Punished Hound...to...Blue-Heart Alpha, massive casualties sustained; carrying on with current designation, I'm not done yet. See you soon, Punished Hound out. ">

'SHUGG, WE'RE RUNNING OUT O' TIME!!! GET THAT LAZY ARSE MOVING!!!!'

Having sprinted all the way to the near vicinity of the last stand, the Blue-Hearts found themselves in a similar situation, one that Erskine was sure would test the mind and the resolve of young Karelin; but time was against the Lord-Major, as it was with everyone else who'd made it to see the sight of pure horror ahead, one that Karelin had been readying himself to see since his saviour first made eye-contact with him. The scene below showed a mass of dead, with the aftermath of indescribable brutalities on full display; some Sith-spawn were still feasting on the dismebodied limbs and heads of their victims, with other bodies and power-armour suits strewn across the wide dip in the Fort-district's landscape, with blood, grisle and viscera splattered as far the eye could see in the slowly-dissipating smoky mist. If any moment were to break a young man like Karelin, this would've broken them down to catatonic grief, especially one as young as Vostok's last-surviving subordinate. In the distance, an obviously wounded Vostok was fighting on bravely, though it was obvious that the remaining Sith-Spawn were playing with their food to their own ultimate detriment.

Despite this, Foxhound Eight would placate Barran's worries by reloading his firearm and grabbing the banner from the rigored hand of a dead brother-in-arms, raising it to the skies as the shrieks of the Sith-spawn rung out in anger. No loud, murderous breathing in rage, nor balling-up in despair, just the indomitable soldier that Karelin was destined to become from the start, but the act of showing a beacon of hope to his commander obviously enraged the insidious, malformed denizens of the galaxy's darkest elements. Remaining silent but stern-hearted, the young soldier nodded to the Lord-Major and prepared for his new friends to walk the rescue-action past it's midway point. Erskine didn't wait around to see how the others were faring, knowing how eager each every one of them was to fight, and so the Major gritted his teeth and led from the front like it was the easiest thing in the world to do, screaming with the wildness of a barbarian as the hidden Sith-spawn came out to defend their ugly ilk.

'SAOR GU WOAD-MACUSHLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!'

Despite the surprise showing of Sith-spawn from the darker crevices of the area, the Blue-Hearts were far too numerous, and much too aggressive to hold off; the omnipresent desire to stab-and-slash with bayonets was much too torturous for Vostok's tormentors to bear, especially with all the surviving officers throwing themselves into the chaos. Some were able to flee, but a vast majority had perished in the rescue, being brutalised like those they once committed unspeakable brutalities upon with equally-maddened fervour. There would be no quarter for monsters, no mercy for evil's manifested spawn, only pain, only a slow, and horrifying death by as close to a thousand bayonet-wounds as the Blue-Hearts could sensibly inflict. Erskine, in his own frenzy, began to see what looked like Heggy in the distance, though he put it out of his mind as the freak he was killing tried one last time to wriggle himself free.

Once Vostok had been reached safely, it became clear to Tal's medics that the armoured giant was in critical condition, though they had anticipated the need to treat many more than just the Dark Troopers' commander himself; finding blood-type, entrance/exit wounds, bone fractures and a whole number of claw-punctures, the medics had no other choice but to load him into the nearest medical APC and work on him straight away. The fighting wouldn't be over that easily, but having Vostok in a transport intended for the fort was all the relief the 1st Battalion needed to fight on without the extra worries, and the men felt that the confirmation alone was all they needed to survive their return to Fort Imperator; whether it would be that simple or not, however, was being left completely to the wiles and whims of Lady Luck.
The universe isn't done with you yet, far from it. Just you wait and see, Vostok.
​

​

 

[Darth Daiara]

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

Spoiler: The Story

PRELUDE
Before the Second Bastionfall....

「A PATTERN HERE I NEED TO SEE」

A Sith turned from the dark is a life saved and an enemy defeated. Jedi by circumstance, altruist by choice, Zaavik felt it was his duty to preserve life. No matter how vain or risky the effort, he would do what he believed he must. Should it be the death of him, at least he died on his feet with good in his heart and soul. The prospect did not frighten him as much as it once had.

How could nothingness possibly be worse than this?

The Shadow skulked across the hangar, making a beeline towards a fighter vessel. The ladder to the cockpit clanked under his footfalls, ascending closer with every step. A voice called out from behind him, resonating off the walls of the empty hangar and into his ears, causing him to freeze.

"Zaavik!?" The voice of Ryv was unmistakable. "You missed the brief, I- What are you doing?"

Zaavik sighed. Busted. "Leaving," he replied plainly, taking another step on the ladder.

"Cold feet, huh? Cmon, let's talk about this, no need to go deserting us."

"No, it's not that. I uh-" Zaavik dropped off the ladder, boots smacking into the durasteel flooring beneath. A turn was made to face Ryv, a few steps forward made to meet him. "There's something I gotta do. I don't really know how, or why, but I can feel it. The Force is pulling me somewhere, the call is-" He paused, looking down to the floor with an odd camber to his lips before looking back up to his fellow Jedi. "It's really loud, Ryv. I can't ignore it."

The Sword of the Jedi made a face, placing a hand on his hip with an inquistive raise of his brow. "Something, huh?" His tone was laden with more curiosity than doubt. "What's this something, then?"

"Saving a life."

No deception emanated from Zaavik to Ryv's empathic sense. The Kiffar let out a breath and smirked slightly. "Fine, I'll cover for you. Just don't get in over your head, okay?"

"When do I ever?"

Ryv blinked in silence, a blank stare regarding the Zeltron with disbelief.

Zaavik smirked, chuckling at his own joke. "I'll be fine," he insisted, hastily climbing back up the ladder and climbing into the cockpit. Certainty in his statement was a facade, for the Knight truly didn't know what to expect. A certain dread was hidden behind the pull the Force assaulted him with. It was better not to dwell on those feelings, anyhow. "Thanks," he offered as he slid the pilot's helmet over his head and looked down to Ryv.

The Kiffar nodded in silence, arms moving to cross over his chest. Engined blared as the vessel started up. Artificial winds danced wildly in all directions as the fighter slowly raised from the floor before tearing forward through the atmospheric shield of the hanger. Zaavik disappeared as a spec against the endless void of space.


FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」

"No entry, Jedi." A Togrutan Imperial Knight rebuked Zaavik's request with clear contempt. This entrance to the Redoubt was guarded only by the Knight and an accompanying Stormtrooper. Other forces were scrambling to prep defenses and take positions, leaving the actual present security rather lacking.

"Listen, man, I'm on your side, I'm just trying to-"

"We said no entry," the Stormtrooper helmet vocoder distorted voice doubled down with his Imperial Knight comrade.

"You forget, we are only allies against the Sith. You are not entitled to our facilities, we are not friends."

Zaavik threw his hands up halfway and sighed with feigned defeat. "Yeah, whatever," he replied with a facade of concession. He took a step backward, turned his back half to them, and pulled out his commlink, pretending to make a call. Both guards eased up, thinking the Shadow had given up. Cybernetic hand brought the comm up to his lips as his other hand made a sneaky wave at his side, index and little finger flicking up and down.

"You will let me into the redoubt," he spoke firmly.

The Stormtrooper's posture went slack. "I will let him into the Redoubt."

"What?"

The guard turned and tapped at the door control, punching in a code that caused the massive door panels to begin to slide open with a loud groaning.

"'The hell are you doing?"

Zaavik crept up alongside the Trooper and quickly reached forward to switch his blaster to stun. "Blast him," he commanded calmly.

A hiss of white plasma erupted from the Imperial Knight's saber hilt as the realization took over. The first shot was parried, the magnetic containment field of the saber sending it flying wildly into the air. The second shot found purchase, slipping past the saber and slamming into the Knight's gut, sending him crumpling to the ground unconscious. The effectiveness of New Imperial Troopers proving once again capable of overcoming the lightsaber.

Zaavik scoffed smugly. "Veina," queen, he quipped as he looked down at the Togruta. The Jedi offered a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, the metal of his prosthetic clattering against plastoid shoulder pauldrons. "Good job. Take a nap, huh? You've earned it."

"You got it, boss!" The Stormtroopers knees gave as he folded to the floor. Armor clacked and clamored against itself, followed by the hollow thud of helmet onto concrete. Snoring echoed inside the hollow shell, vocoding outward as a digitized static. A long step over the two unconscious guards heralded his waltz through the foyer of the Redoubt.

Corellian Coin rolled around between his fingers. Ethereal screams, wails, and other horrible sounds of the past echoed through the halls, courtesy of the coin's imprint. It was nothing short of gutwrenching, but he had no choice other than to endure. The echoes and visions carved a clairvoyant path toward his intent, a macabre road for his likely vain quest.

Staircase, corridor, left turn, corridor, right turn, stairs again. The former Sith Academy had looked big, but on the inside, the scale was even more impressive. Remnants of Sith iconography still lingered, the efforts to chip them away in favor of the Imperial Codex still ongoing. It was no wonder it had taken so long, he'd felt as if he'd walked miles already.

Every new scream he heard, every new cry, every new spatter of blood he saw evoked a unique grimace all their own. He'd heard about it, but the first-hand recollections were a lot worse than he thought. Zaavik was still in a coma when this all went down. He wouldn't have ever imagined the ordeal to be this horrific. Yet, somehow, it didn't feel wrong.

Another corridor, this time the coin granted him the sound of laughter. A familiar voice that reverberated from father ahead, echoing in a repetitive rhythm further and further down the hallway. Pace increased, pointed boots slogging against the tiles with their own impactful reiteration off the hard interior walls.

Disfigured digits lightly caressed a durasteel door. Eyelids closed, opposite hand clenching the coin as he focused internally. In the back of his mind's eye, red-hued locks danced against momentum through the threshold. The coin was practically humming, a subtle vibration buzzing in the center of his palm.

This was it.

Fingers slid down to the door control. A pulse through the force willed the mechanisms to clear, forcing the door to hiss open and click at the apex of it coming ajar. Slowly he walked forward, what was once a significant space had been reduced to a linen closet. Towels, vestments, rags, curtains, and the like. It could have been much worse, they had to store the dismantled Sith Iconography somewhere, or at least, whatever they couldn't burn.

Situating himself in the center of the room, Zaavik turned to face the door and dropped slowly to his knees. He sat on his feet and placed the coin in front of him. Both fists retreated to his knees as his eyes closed. A deep breath would slip him into a light meditative trance.

She would be here, he was certain.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

Aradia had been removed from the front line. The order had been as clear as day, yet when the call for Bastion came to life... She broke her master's orders and answered. Kaalia would never understand.

She had to be there.



Her footsteps echoed through the familiar hall, goosebumps prickling over her skin. The siege of Bastion rang on beyond these now insignificant walls, but she did not yet join. Something drew her forward-- an intangible string pulling tight at her chest.

No one had survived the Imperial's attack. She knew that. Yet every corner she turned, her eyes searched, almost desperate for a lock of blonde hair-- a familiar dimple. Someone. Anyone.

Bastion Academy had been purged.

Tula had not survived.

She stopped short at juncture, a Fel tapestry hanging where an Empire one had once resided. She could see its faint outline, the dirt stain refusing to let the past fade. She let out a pained hiss. Fire erupted across the imperial symbol. She walked onwards, her once timid steps gaining intention.

Did they really think they could erase her with no consequence?

Ideas bubbled forward, smothering the pinching that built in her tear ducts. She had been in enough wars to know that pure brute would not win this school back alone. She had to--

She stopped short, a familiar set of doors appearing before her. In her brooding, she had not paid attention to where her feet had taken her. The path had been instinctual. Habit. She swallowed hard, the pinching in her tear ducts redoubling as she stared at her old dorm door.

Her hand raised before her, moving as if it were in a dream as it entered the old code.

The doors swished open.

Cold shock bit through her like poison.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」

Visions of hatred and desperation flooded over his mind in dreamlike watercolors as he meditated. Pain echoed from the coin in front of him, he could feel it like it was his own. The screaming was loud enough to hurt his ears. Gurgling in the throat, he couldn't breathe. Something tightened his grip, not letting him leave this meditative state. Blood, the blood was everywhere, a growing pool of ichor crimson.

She died here. Through her own eyes, he could only watch.

The hissing of a door jolted him from his meditation at the very moment she'd slipped away in the vision. An invisible smog of force energy flooded the tension laden atmosphere as their eyes met. Alive and well despite what he'd seen, there she was. Zaavik gasped in both shock and vital need, he could not breathe during that forced recollection. The weight of the force around them proved too much for the old Corellian Token. Metal cracked, small grains of shrapnel bouncing off the floor with a high pitch ding. The half-sundered coin flipped into the air from the ground.

Zaavik's hand flung forward, fumbling around with the coin for a brief moment before snatching it from the air. His other hand raised slowly, fingers extended and palm facing out pacifistically. With one fluid motion he stood up slowly from his knees, his feet planting firmly against the ground. Token deposited into his jacket pocket, and then the same hand mimicked the non-aggressive gesture of the other.

"Relax," he implored softly. "I'm not to here to hurt you or anything, I just want to talk, that's all." Either hand dropped to his side once he felt he'd made his intentions clear. "I know you must be feeling a lot right now," he began, trying to take the empathy approach. He couldn't help but immediately the second guess whether or not that was the right approach. He made a face, shaking his head to himself. "Look, fuck it, whatever, just hear me out, okay?" A turbolaser smacking into Ravelin in the near-distance shook the Fel Redoubt. "While we still have the opportunity?"

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


How.

Her eyes screamed the question as the coin flipped through the air. It hit flesh, the noise muted but resounding as he caught and pocketed it. "You," she breathed, meeting his gaze.

Feeling a lot? That was one way to to put it. She stumbled a step back, at first expecting another attack. It was the shock alone that stopped her from drawing her saber, though the hatred she possessed for her growing arch enemy flared in her nostrils.

"Are you stalking me?" She accused, flabbergastion next to follow. He was in her old room. And it-- Her attention tore to its dusty shelves, pain lashing through her-- it had been reduced to nothing more than a linen closet. Her fury turned back on him. She raised her hand, her fingers clenched. A pulse of the force slammed into him. She stepped in, the door closing behind her as she bore him down.

"What. Are you doing. In my room?" She demanded. A telekinetic grip started to clench down on his throat.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」




The Jedi's head crept backward forcefully as the invisible grip tightened incorporeal fingers around his throat. Facial features twitched initially, but his resolve steeled and his regard remained covered by a convincing illusion of being unphased. "Ma'am, this is a linen closet," his wispy, air deprived vocalizations managed to quip in facetious contrary through the invisible restraint. Probably not a good time for jokes, the little voice of reason in his head scolded. A real shame too, as his wit had just formulated a pun involving 'breathtaking'.

"The coin," he explained. "I followed what it offered." A small cough rasped out of his airway. His hand slowly crept down to the saber on his belt, hovering over it with a twitching finger. "I told you, I'm just here to talk. I've seen what happened here, it showed me." His eyes narrowed as he drew a large breath laboriously through her attempt as suffocation, only causing the grip to grow tighter.

"Let me go," he rasped dryly. "I told you, you're not in any danger," yet "I'm not here to hurt you," unless I have to. It was always the omitted bits that were the most important. A universal rule between Jedi and Sith. There never had been any such thing as total honesty, and especially not between the faces of the Force's spiritual coin. A gulp struggled down his throat. "I don't blame you if you don't trust me, but I've let you go twice, haven't I?"

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


The quip earned him a rattling, one which his only his talking halted. She seemed to teeter in that moment, a crazied edge to her eyes as the urge to squeeeze rocked her. And there it was again. The hunger. It was growing less frightening, if only cause the Jedi served as something more pressing to mistrust.

"-- I've seen what happened here, it showed me."

Shock rippled over her features. The grip released him. He was left to gasp at the gifted air, the sithling staring skeptically at his cornered form. "What could you possibly have to say to me?" She uttered, distaste coating every word.

He was the enemy. His kind murdered her kind relentlessly. Everything she had known, they had stolen from her grasp. She was a kid, nearly purged for religious wars and deeds that were not her own. And he owned it.

They bore each other's scars. They were two sides of that same coin and they could never be made to see eye to eye. That was not how physics worked. The mention of what he had seen left her needing to know more. For a moment, she'd bite.

"You have thirty seconds."

Her saber jumped into her palm, the blue hue lighting up the room. Jedi. It was an embarrassing punishment in response to the saber he had taken from her. Wouldn't it be appropriate if she killed him with it in turn? She pointed it at his chest.

"No jedi tricks."

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「FIVE SECONDS」

A quiet, stifled gasp quietly compensated for the lack of air in his lungs. Chest and shoulders rose with each subsequent breath in an exaggerated fashion. "Foitan banas," fuck's sake, he bleated as he rubbed his throat with his right hand.

Five seconds had passed.

"Thirty seconds?" Zaavik scoffed, upper lip curling with vexation. "This is gonna take a lot longer than thirty seconds, you're just gonna have to deal with that."

Five more seconds passed.

He sighed. No preparations as to what he was going to say had been made prior. This entire endeavor had been spontaneous, and he was playing it by ear for better or worse. "No tricks," he reassured begrudgingly. He showed his hands, turning them once over and them back, keeping them where she could see them. "You're torn up about what happened here, it doesn't take an empath to figure it out. I get it, I really do. I've been there too, believe it or not. Not just losing everyone, but to death's door as well."

Five seconds left.

"The residual echoes gave me a vision; I saw you die here, in the courtyard, nearly drowning in your own blood. I don't know how you're still here-"

Time's up.

"But I know it wasn't the work of any Sith."

Zaavik had been counting the seconds in his head, he was ready to snap his hand down to his saber if he had to. Yet, still he continued regardless.

"I know you don't want to let anything like that happen again. Not even just to yourself, either. But you're on the wrong path. The Sith do that kind of shit on a planetary scale on a near-constant basis. I can see the good in you, you mean well, but you're misguided."

There was a pause, Zaavik gauging the atmosphere before his next sentiment.

"I came here because I can help you."

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


Her heart pulsed in her ear, the tip of her saber subtly wavering with each internal thump thump thump. That wasn't what she was expecting to hear. Her thoughts raced, her eyes searching for a sign of mockery. The boy was as serious as stone, an earnest edge to him imploration. He saw her. It disarmed her.

Was this an apology?

The saber lowered a centimeter, her chest puffing in distress as he painted a picture of that day. She didn't like to think about her death. She didn't like that he knew about it. Standing before him, she felt vulnerable. Raw.

Confused.

It distracted her from an off set of words, her gaze boring into him-- Hungry for recognition, desperate to feel whole again. Thirty seconds had come and gone, and he still held her attention.

"How?" She asked, her voice tight and mistrusting.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」




Getting this far was unexpected. Every expectation was that she'd try to strike him down the moment he finished speaking. At least he was getting somewhere. It was a much better start than he could have realistically hoped for. Though, he was beginning to understand that the closer he got, the thinner the tightrope would get. Unfortunately, he didn't have time for anything other than a full send. Beyond the walls of the redoubt, the battle raged indifferent to this encounter. Every breath taken in silence was time wasted.

"You're in pain. Desperate to scrub a layer of soot from your skin that won't wash away. Hate won't be a solvent, it'll only bring you more suffering. I know what happened was wrong, horrible, but we can do our damndest no make sure nothing like it ever happens again. You don't trust me, I know, and to be honest, I'm not exactly your biggest fan either."

Zaavik slowly offered out his hand. Durasteel-cortosis alloy glittering with a weathered sheen beneath the artificial light overhead.

"But it's my duty to help you. Not just as a Jedi, but as someone who's been exactly where you are. That wound will fester forever, it's not something you can just forget, but you can soothe it. It would be unfair and dishonest to try to convince you otherwise. We can't ever make it right, but we can do right by you. Come with me, leave the Sith behind, open your eyes to a better path. You can make a difference this way, a crusade for vengeance isn't going to save anyone, it's only going to eat you up inside."

"Isn't it already?"

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

He had her. He really did. His words hit feelings she had never been able to give names to. He said it like it was. He validated her, no excuses. No blame on her.

Goosebumps speckled up her arms, a surreal prick of emotions hitting her tear ducts. For a moment, it felt okay. To feel. To hurt. It was horrible. It was wrong! And she deserved to hear it-- she deserved-

"Come with me, leave the Sith behind,--"

Her expression froze, the emotions bleeding from the planes of her face. And that was the exact moment everything he had to say meant diddly chit.

"You're trying to recruit me," she said, a dangerous edge to the emotionless statement. She beheld the cornered jedi, the tight rope he walked held taunt, moments from snapping.

Or maybe it already had.

She left him to sweat it out, her hand clenching on her hilt as she took a single, harmless step towards him. "Why?"

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」

"Recruit you?" A humorous scoff slipped wryly from between his lips. "Ostensibly, maybe. Though, not even I would be so naive to think I, or anyone for that matter, may make a Jedi out of you." Zaavik smirked briefly, his glare softening in a non-aggressive fashion. "I thought about it, and maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see it." The offered hand dropped halfway, making room for her approach while also retreating in a paranoid touch-avoidant gesture. Ironic, given the nature of the gesture in the first place.

"I'm sure plenty would've said the same about me, though." Truthfully, he himself was quite possibly the worst excuse for a Jedi he'd ever met. Knighting had felt like a sham, war hero commendation too, he didn't deserve anything. That's why he was trying to earn it now, make a difference. Whether it was the truth or his own twisted perspective on himself changed nothing. What he'd done all the way up to where he stood now couldn't ever be changed. You had to live with these things.

"I just want to help you, like I said. Jedi or otherwise, just not a Sith. The Dark Side is voracious, and it devours you with every passing second. So too, is the hate that you bottle. Mine has already eaten more of my than I can ever hope to get back. I don't want that for anyone. Not even a Sith."

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


A dry laugh caught in her chest, his words earning a near roll of her eyes. "Oh when you put it that way. I'm flattered." She kept approaching, her steps lazy yet pointed as she drove him back. There was no window in this room. There was no escape spare the door at her back. She bounced the saber in her hand, the tip held off to the side.

"You know. For a moment I thought you might actually be decent. But I'm so stupid," she cursed, her head shaking in passionate dismissal. "Such an idiot to think I could actually get understanding out of someone like you. You spout the craziest chit, you know that? As if I'd abandon the people that need me." She pointed the saber his way, its length bouncing haphazardly as she gestured. "The people you want to kill." The blue hue reflected in her eyes, intense as her fury broke free.

"You will never. Speak. Of my pain. Again," she uttered, her voice rasping with righteous indignation. Firey hot tears boiled over, the wounds of her past laid open and bare. It was his fault. For prying. For being a prick. For taking part in the systematic murder of people-- he was no savior. He was no hero. She didn't buy his excuses. She saw him as he was and she held him to it.

"I hate you!"

She descended on him in a flurry, streak of red and blue as she went to deliver a silencing blow across his neck.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DISCIPLE」

A grimace materialized over Zaavik's face when the laugh reached his ears. The final thread on the rope had finally broken. Whatever silver he had on that tongue of his clearly hadn't been worth its weight in words this time. Fingers twitched, muscles in his body near-trembling with anticipation of whatever twitch-reaction he'd need to make next to save his skin.

Every opportunity he had to retort was stifled by her continual rebuke. Words had probably outgrown their usefulness now. Cerulean eyes followed the blue droning of saber tip as she whisked it around with the camber of her words. He wasn't listening anymore. She was going to strike, it was clear, all attention reallocated to the secret top priority of this entire endeavor: not dying.


"I hate you!"

Couldn't help but hear that part, though. Visions of the saber's trajectory flooded his middle-consciousness with a pang of danger only split-instant before she began to strike. Eyes widened suddenly, head reeling back along with the bending of knees. Spine and sinew contorted suddenly into a low backward lean, slipping just beneath the would-be deathblow. He snapped back up, snatching his saber on the way up and sending the viridescent blade screaming to life with the distinct hiss that only a lightsaber could make.

A step back sought to put space between them, but his back bumped the wall halfway in. He pointed his saber forward in a defensive gesture and half-shrugged wryly. "Well, welcome the club then, I guess."

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

She screamed in his face, the motion senseless and even wild as he made light of her pain. There was insult in what he had just tried to do. There was pain in the pain he tried to use against her-- pain he was responsible for.

She would not be manipulated. She would hold him accountable.

She felt so foolish.

The room surged with energy, dark and twisted. She jumped up, her head brushing the high stone ceiling. The energy imploded, telekinetic tendrils ripping the shelving off the walls. In her fury, she was stronger. The metal units went tumbling down towards him. She fell after it, her hair flowing around her like a vengeful halo as she came down with an overhead strike.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DISCIPLE」

Pupils dilated to a black speck on a cerulean backdrop. Adrenaline coursed along with the force, every muscle revving for their next move. A second hand grasped his saber hilt, thumb sliding over to press the activator to send the second blade erupting from the opposite end. Controlled arcs of verdant light sundered shelf and linen as they careened toward him on either side. Plasma hissed against metal and fabric, leaving a burnt smell in the air expanding from the long, black scars left in the objects.

Zaavik turned his chin up, meeting her snarling rage head-on with a stern look of determination. Blue and green screeched together, one of his blades catching the oncoming strike from overhead. The blade to the opposite cut into the wall behind him as the hilt turned with an accommodating camber. The light from the clashing blades strobed a vibrant cyan.

He pressed forward, kicking his foot off the wall and freeing himself from the clash. His frame spun in a tilted corkscrew, his boots knocking into a ceiling panel and jarring it out of place. He landed on the other side of her with a broken shelf clattering beneath the impact of his feet. Elbows pulled back, and one shoulder reached over to hold the saber alongside him at head-level; Juyo's closest equivalent to a fool's guard.

"We don't have to fight," he declared calmly. Illumination droned and sputtered against his face, melding with the light vermillion to manifest a hazy yellow sheen over his visage. "You know how this is gonna end; the same way it did the last two times." Her shoulder and side were testaments to the iron grip he'd kept on the upper hand between them.

"Just- Unignite the saber. Please. We can talk about this," he implored, ever persistent.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


"One time," she corrected with a hiss, turning to match her positioning with his dodge. She had no trouble balancing on top of the mess, her movements graceful as she pivoted her footing on the side of the fallen shelves.

The levity of what he had tried to do kept pulsing over her, bringing with it waves of indignation as she broke it apart. He had acted like he understood. And she-- she had wanted to believe-- because he wasn't the only one that had recognized parallels. She had seen his desperation for control on her ship. He didn't trust his people. She could see his scars-- and he--

He played with her.

"Just- Unignite the saber. Please. We can talk about this,"

"Shut up," She snapped. And it was was the last thing he'd have her say, her legs sinking into stance. And then she attacked.

Her blade twisted in arcs through the air, whipping quickly from form to form as she pressed for an opening. It was unrelenting, as smooth as water rushing in to a damn. Where there were cracks, she would press to slip through. He had always had her running, her back to him was his turf. Facing him head on was a different matter. Her size meant nothing when he had to break past her guard.

Her guard was deadly. She was going no where.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DISCIPLE」


"Shut up,"

Were it so easy, he thought.

There wasn't any time to keep thinking as arcs of malicious blue struck toward him. His own saber came to meet them, weapon oscillating to parry with either blade one after the other. The sudden rush of offense forced Zaavik back a step as the defensive twirl of verdant plasmatic edges only just managed to bat away the strikes. Another step back. Zaavik felt a tug on his jacket followed by a hiss. A sliver leather and zipper incinerated by a the stray followthrough of a poorly parried attack.

A final step back. His heel caught the door, the rubber sole of his bootheel squeaking down to the floor. Nowhere left to go. A searing pain assaulted the flesh of his tricep near the elbow. Leather hissed as it burned away, a glancing blow turning flesh to black in an instant. He bared his teeth with a vague intonation of pain. Another strike came from the left. Zaavik smacked it away with a wild parry, saber blades popped and sizzled from the impact.

Zaavik used the opening to release one hand from the hit and throw it backward to slap the door control. A reverse step into the newly unobstructed door threshold brought him just beyond the reach of the next strike. Zaavik threw a feint to the right, pulling back at the last moment and shoving both hands forward to send the inert metallic center of his hilt towards the bridge of Aradia's nose.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


Aradia jerked, the hilt clipping her temple. Pain blossomed, her vision dancing. She didn't let her guard drop, but it bought him the breathing space to make it through the door and catch his footing.

She hissed, touching her temple and pulling back to find blood. It flowed freely down her forehead, the first drop sliding past her eye. Her attention snapped back onto him, the hit drawing a scowl across her lips.

"All that time Allyson spent away has left you sloppy," she stated softly, seeking a flinch of pain across his expression. Her chest throbbed, aching with the embarrassment his false pity had left her with.

The moment her words registered on his face, she assaulted him with a telekinetic barrage right towards his gut. She followed it in with an Ataru flip out the door, corkscrewing into a weighted slash over his metal arm.

"You're pathetic!" She screamed, her voice raw from the pain that she reflected onto him.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」




The soft reluctance in his face shifted to sharp malice almost instantly. A sharp exhale as his nostrils flared, teeth bared from beneath curled lips. He reared back for a strike, biting at the bait almost instantly. Alas, a collection of small, unseen forces slammed into his gut, catching him off guard and extracting a cough that sputtered with a backward stumble. Vision broke into doubles, a wheeze rushing into his lungs. Unconsciousness only narrowly avoided by some unexplained force of will.

A pang of feat nudged at him. Near-breathless he pivoted on his heels to meet her ascent over him. Prosthetic hand snatched forward, cortosis lining trapping the blue plasma with impunity. Arm shook with exertion as he slowly pulled the saber down and to the side like an off-kilter lever. "Veina," queen, he forced through clenched teeth. "Keep that name out of your mouth."

Zaavik's tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. A half step forward added momentum to the forward torque of his shoulders as he sent his forehead recklessly downwards toward the crown of her skull.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

She let him, her whole being falling into the welcoming embrace of the darkside. Energy rushed forward and rippled over her skin. He slammed into a solid barrier, her teeth grinding at the faint echo of pain that made it through. He would have it worse. Ashin Cardé Varanin lesson had been worth the payment.

She beheld him evenly, blood dripping down her face as she took in his fury.

"Who's the sith now?" He knee went up, a foot aiming to kick him in the gut and buy her space. At the same time, her wrist twisted, trying to break her saber free. She had told him to shut up-- go away. Leave her alone! But in that length of time a change had slowly crept over her. An edge entered her eyes, the soft girl turning hard. What mattered before mattered less now. Now she wanted him to flinch. Now she wanted him to know the pain he mocked.

"Admit it." She taunted again, walking forward with those exacting steps. The same one he had stalked her with that night on Life Day.

"You're hypocrites. The lot of you. Hate me if you want-- fine! But stop pretending you're any better for it, OWN WHO YOU ARE!" She lunged at him, one breath away from resuming her flurry of sword work.

This wasn't what she came to Bastion for, but it felt good.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」

Pain throbbed in his forehead as he pulled back from the impact. Aradia's blood smeared now across his face from the aggressive contact, crimson ichor contrasting against the brighter reds of his skin. At the very least, he knew what he felt was nothing compared to what he'd inflicted upon her. Against the blood-black smears, the crystalline mirrors in his skull shone even brighter than before. An entirely different intensity than those opposite of him, however. It wasn't anger, that had faded as soon as it sparked, No, instead it was a certainty. Certainty that he wouldn't lose. Certainty that Aradia needed help. Certainty that this wouldn't be in vain.

A barrage of cerulean strikes approached with a precise hatred. Alternating between blades, Zaavik parried each with deft, deceptively effortless looking strokes. Every return strike he threw was deliberately aimed to injure or disarm, but not to kill. It didn't matter, as none found purchase past her guard. Plasma sizzled on plasma, flashes of light illuminating in quick snaps with every moment of contact. A final clash saw their weapons lock together, the two of them struggling against each other's strength. While it'd been made painfully clear in previous encounters that Zaavik would easily overpower the waifish Sith, this time she met him with everything he could give, as if she had some inhuman surge of strength.

The work of the dark side, no doubt.

"You're right," he said. "I'm a hypocrite." He wouldn't indulge her accusations as a generalized picture of the entire Jedi Order, though. It wasn't his place to speak for them, or declare what they were. He was only a Knight, and a fresh one at that. Zaavik was a hypocrite, but a hypocrite was in many cases just a man trying to change. It was often those who criticized, however, who were trying to hide what they themselves lacked. "If I hated you-" he said, trailing off for a moment as he summoned his own surge of strength to avoid being overwhelmed. "I wouldn't be trying to help you."

Zaavik shoved forward, freeing himself from the clash and gliding backward on feet kept low the floor. He twirled once over, adjusting himself through the corridor and braced for the next barrage. If he was going to be on the back foot, at the very least he'd take the liberty of leading the fight locale. She could press all she wanted but had to follow where he retreated. He'd need to retain some semblance of control if this was going to ever turn in his favor.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed
​

He admitted it too easily. It did nothing-- soothed nothing. She needed to see his pain, she needed him to know. She descended on him, her thoughts bleeding away as the fight took over. She didn't think, Kaalia and taught her that just got in the way. She felt. Instincts and the force guided every unrelenting strike she rained down on him.

It was different, being the pursuer. The control was in her hands this time. She wasn't willing to let it go.

"If I hated you-I wouldn't be trying to help you."

"Right," she scoffed, matching his pace down the hall. "Handing me to my murders, very helpful." Her features contorted with the delayed pain of the reminders, the blue blade twirling twice at her side. She surged forward, an underhanded swing trying to clip up under his armpit. Her strikes were starting to focus around that arm, a push to severe the cybernetic from flesh pursuing.

"You want me dead," she spat, following it with a fluid upward arch that transitioned to clash towards his hip.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」​

Zaavik moved again to parry the strike, feet shifting and arms arcing to guide his saber toward the strikes. Blue skidded against green, halting the first, but not stopping the tip of the blue to carve slightly into his hip. "Kuron!" A pained expletive growled from a deep, primal depth in his vocal folds. His stance faltered on that side momentarily before a sudden flourish and compensating readjustment put him back in place. Red spattered visage regarded Aradia with a pained grimace. The kind of grimace only incinerated nerve-endings could achieve.

"If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have bothered trying to talk to you in the first place," he said. Two opportunities to kill her had come and gone before this third meeting. Zaavik chose mercy both times, even allowing her to flee the very heart of the Core in her own ship. Did that mean nothing to her? Or was she so blind with rage she hadn't even considered reflecting? Zaavik shoved these considerations out of his mind. If there was any hope of a breakthrough, he had to speak. As long as she continued the assault, he wouldn't be able to do that effectively.

His eyes darted around in an erratic scan for a solution. Improvisation was largely responsible for the reason he was still alive. Today would probably no exception. A door control was just barely visible over he shoulder, past the reddish threads that hung over it. A moment of focus, and suddenly Zaavik could feel the door panel's electrical pulse as he reached through the force. On the other side, that pulse echoed out into a chamber much larger than the linen closet he'd only narrowly escaped from.

An idea flickered to life in his head.

The Shadow moved forward, throwing wild and ferocious strikes toward Aradia with either blade. Buzz, sizzle, pop, all deflected. He could see the blue moving for his head in a horizontal strike just before it happened as if he pulled the next move from her mind. He dipped low, his left foot extending and sliding across the ground beside her. A bend of his knee pulled him in as he ducked beneath the strike and strafe alongside her to maneuver behind. Zaavik spun with his momentum, his heel kicking the unsecured door panel and triggering it to open.

Boot shifted flat against the wall, pushing off to meet her oncoming attack with added force. When the force of his insistent parrying created some breathing room, he slipped back through the threshold. With two swings, his saber carved into precise locations along the door frame, sending sparks and smoke flooding into the threshold and he faded into the obscurity of the greyish screen of wisps and flickers.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


A trill of excitement brought a smile to her lips. She was getting to him. Each hit chipped away at his defenses. She could feel his desperation in the flurry of his attacks. It urged her on, the acolyte finally finding the upper hand. All she had to do was keep. On. Pushing.

She sunk deeper into the power, letting it strength her limbs and rule her reflexes. It was almost hers-- her intangible need to break him at her finger tips.

Smoke filled the halls, a fancy flurry of his sabers creating a momentary reprieve. She followed him without hesitation, growing reckless with the power she leaned into.

"How does it feel?" She asked, nudging the door closed behind her. Click, went the lock. "Being hunted. Trapped." She let that word hang in the air, the echos of a lost life still clinging to the energy of this room. The purge was not an easy thing to erase. Not that the Imperials even understood the forces they so carelessly messed with.

"Can you feel it? They linger. They haven't moved on. They haven't forgiven."

She walked in deeper, her saber drawing sparks across the stone as she dragged it behind her. The smoke began to settle, slight golden hue to her eyes as she scanned carefully.

"Once I'm done with you, I'll go for your friends too. I think they'd like that."

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」​

The Force shrouded Zaavik into obscurity. Every photon bent around him, a trick of the light rendering him completely invisible. He stood motionless as Aradia strolled into the room like an amused predator. With every step, she grew closer, stopping only inches in front of him. He held his breath, not wanting even the smallest breeze to tip her off. Hostile eyes scanned around the room, looking right through him as if he was never really there at all. A Ghost. A Shadow. Right under the nose was where he excelled.




Come to think of it, it wasn't exactly a new sensation. In one way or another, that feeling was ever-present. The streets of Zeltros, the halls of the Jedi Temple's youngling ward with the taunting, tormented faces that inhabited it, and now with Ido Bastra snuffed out, even his own home. He was now, at this moment, what he always had been. It would be a lie to say her words didn't remind him how much it disgusted him. It'd taken years to learn how to ignore it, and he didn't much like being reminded.




Zaavik was a fool to think she couldn't say anything else that'd fuck with him. He frowned, even though he doubted there was much weight to that threat. Yet, it invoked some inexplicable urge to strike. Remove the head from the concept so that it never came to fruition. He could do it too, easily, right now. She couldn't see him, one flick of the activator on his saber and she'd be- No. He wasn't going to stoop to her level, she wanted that. Or, at least, she thought she did.

His fingers fanned out with his hand limp at his side. Reaching out to the force, he willed a box in the corner to topple over, drawing her eyes elsewhere. A slow step to the side was taken with which he was able to weasel around behind her. Any breeze he might have caused likely overlooked in favor of the sound he'd engineered. Backtracking toward the door, he waved his arm this time to make an even bigger sound on the opposite end of the room, this time pulling an entire shelf over.

A quick turn on his heels and he lunged for the door control. A beep, and then a metallic screeching as the door forced its way open through the damaged frame. A quick step out through the mostly cleared wall of smoke and he dropped from invisibility. A blank look regarded back into the room as he hit the control again and sent the door grinding shut. With a small force of will, the force commanded the electronics in the door to lock. A loud click echoed through the hollow frame and out both sides.

He wasn't trapped anymore, objectively, but it didn't make the feeling go away. Nothing ever did.

Zaavik's forearm rested halfway against the door and the wall. A few heavy breaths caught him up to comfortable stamina. Now he could talk. "Bhesj," was the first thing out of his mouth. Old Corellian this time, not Zeltron, a general term of impatience. "Just listen to me," he insisted. "If I really wanted you dead, think about it, wouldn't this have been a waste of time?" He was beginning to feel like it was anyway. "I could have killed you at the outpost. I didn't. I could have killed you on Lifeday. I didn't. You aren't that dense, surely."

"You could've sent that knife between my ribs. You didn't. That's why I'm here. You're letting your fear and your pain get the better of you. You think you want to hurt me, but that's not really what you want. You want to feel safe, strong. You think if you hurt me, you'll reassure yourself that no one can ever hurt you again. It won't. It'll only make it worse. I know what you're feeling. Sinking my saber through the heart of the man that-" Zaavik hesitated. "Took everything from me- It didn't fix anything. Nor did the next one. Or the next one. It just festered the wound. I'm not about to let anyone, not even you, succumb to that, not when I've seen that there's still the possibility redemption left in them."

Zaavik Dagoth was a Jedi. He didn't try to help her for the praise. He didn't try to help her for his own self satsifaction. He was doing this because it was right.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


Ethereal forms appeared along the edge of her vision, teens in dark robes and men in white suits. The deeper she sunk into the power, the clearer their forms grew, visible only to the girl they haunted.

She slammed her fist into the door, frustration boiling over as he cut her off to the other side.

He spoke with reason, but the time where she could hear it had come and passed. "Shut up," she hissed again, the words she was forced to endure causing lashes of pain. Her saber pierced the door, molten magma forming around the end that burned its way through to him.

"You think just because you read a coin you know how I feel. You do not." She gritted her teeth against the sweltering heat, muscles flexing as she started the slow process of cutting a hole.

"But you will."

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DIE BY THE BLADE」​

The opposing saber that plunged through the door came only inches from his face. Violet strands that hung over his face fizzled as they were singed by the radiating heat. Zaavik stumbled backward in surprise, nearly planting his ass into the floor. Several clumsy stumbles cantered quickly along the ground before he caught his balance. He straightened, moving to square himself with the door.

A sigh laden with slight feelings of defeat exhaled toward the blue saber. "Have it your way."

Zaavik reignited once side of his saber, the green blade extending with a screech. He reached out to the force, focusing on Aradia's presence on the other side of the door. There would only be a moment before he'd cut through, so he had to make this count. A vague outline of her stance shimmered into his minds eye and he lined it up with door in front of him. Taking care to avoid her saber, he took a step forward and performed a two-handed thrust, sending his blade through the door as well, aimed at her shoulder.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


In her fury, she missed the force's warning. Again. His saber pierced her shoulder, a scream granting him the knowledge of his mark. Her saber yanked out of the door, metaphorical red descending over her vision.

He was granted a moment's reprieve as she stepped back, clutching at her shoulder with pained grunts. If only she could do that healing thing on command. She didn't even understand it. Never mind, that. She raised a bloody hand, her vision blurring with tears of exertion. The force crushed down on the weakened door, bits of it caving in inch... by... inch.

It ripped open, bending over itself as she revealed the contents of the room. She. Couldn't. Stand. To know. He knew. What they had done to her. Her expression contorted in pure spite, unrecognizable as she gathered her pain to her.

"I'll tell Allyson you said bye."

Lightening shot from her fingertips, startling even her as the red arms reached for his body.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DIE BY THE BLADE」​

Zaavik's eyes widened as a jagged flash of white-hot hatred spewed forth from Aradia's fingertips. He braced, extending his second blade from the hilt, and swung the saber forward to catch the oncoming energy. The impact of electricity on plasma kicked, pushing the hilt towards his chest and sending him sliding flat-footed across the ground.

Volatile tendrils arced off the blade and grasped at his body. A painful, electrical tickle began to seize his muscles. His hold on the lighting through the force faltered. It reached out and ravaged the inner workings of his saber hilt. Electronics droned, the power cell popping once overloaded. Both blades fizzled out instantly, allowing the lighting to overtake him.

Energy rippled through his body, causing him to cry out in laborious anguish. The dark side lifted him, throwing him across the wide corridor and sent him back-first into the wall. Momentum snapped his head backwards, skull colliding with the durasteel wall with a loud thud. Consciousness absconded, and his limp form crumpled as it fell to the floor face down.

Wisps of smoke curled and slithered towards the ceiling from the back of his jacket. Zaavik lie motionless aside from the occasional spasm of a limb or extremity.

Aradia stepped forward, unflinching to his cries. Good. Yes. She had cried too. It had changed nothing, did he understand that now? This was what helpless felt like. She tossed him into the durasteel wall like a doll, the thrill of control rushing through her veins. She could do anything to him now. Crush him. Kill him. Make him scream.

"You want to understand me?"

She held him there, the lightening flowing throughly through her fingertips as she kept him pinned-- Dangling, in agony, staring down his death.

Just like she had that day on Bastion. She flinched, faltering for moment before the grip on him tightened.

"Imagine it now." She urged, a sense of desperation in her tone as she tried to connect-- tried to rationalize the horrors of this moment as she drove the life from his body with her hands.

"You're dying. And your friends are all behind you-- dying. You're helpless. You're pathatic--arg She let his unconscious body drop, the static leaving the air as her blood pulsed in her ears.

"Get up!" Telekinetic strings wrapped around him, trying to toss him into the opposite wall of their hall.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「BLOOD AND GUTS」​

"Get up!" ​

Zaavik regained consciousness as he was flung through the air. Blood from the back of his head arced and spattered against the floor. His half-limp tumble through the air ended unceremoniously as he smacked shoulder first into the opposite wall. The tie in his hair came out, letting violent strands fall freely just beyond shoulder-length. Swaths of his bright hair saturated in blood near the scalp. A hard thump against the floor echoed through the hallway as he finally became reacquainted with the ground.

For a moment, he was deathly motionless again. A flicker of movement finally, his left arm pulling in to brace his forearm against the ground. Zaavik grunted as he pushed himself up, head raising to look at Aradia behind a purple veil of hair. Against the protest of the throbbing in his head and pain in strained muscles that still felt the echo of lighting-induced convulsions, he stood.

His vision twisted, seeing double of the ginger assailant in front of him. The world around him spun and wobbled, causing him to stagger and sway as he attempted to remain upright. Crimson ichor flowed from his head and down the back of his neck. The blood caressed his mired skin with a sickening, unnerving warmth as it trickled inch by inch, slowly overtaking the cloth of the shirt beneath his jacket.

"That's why we're different," he intonated haggardly. A disfigured hand held up, three fingers were broken from one of the twins falls he'd taken. The already disfigured extremity now jagged and brutalist with tips pointing in directions they shouldn't. A blur of metallic sliver slid from his inner jacket pocket into the prosthetic left, his primary hand. A crimson blade ignited with a screech, illuminating the familiar hilt of Aradia's former saber that he'd taken from her all that time ago.

"I won't give in to my suffering so easily."

An awkward, uncoordinated step forward ushered a wild overhead arc to the left, striking again at the injured shoulder. Even in his daze, the trajectory was deliberately non-fatal.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

Spoiler: The Story

PRELUDE
Before the Second Bastionfall....

「A PATTERN HERE I NEED TO SEE」

A Sith turned from the dark is a life saved and an enemy defeated. Jedi by circumstance, altruist by choice, Zaavik felt it was his duty to preserve life. No matter how vain or risky the effort, he would do what he believed he must. Should it be the death of him, at least he died on his feet with good in his heart and soul. The prospect did not frighten him as much as it once had.

How could nothingness possibly be worse than this?

The Shadow skulked across the hangar, making a beeline towards a fighter vessel. The ladder to the cockpit clanked under his footfalls, ascending closer with every step. A voice called out from behind him, resonating off the walls of the empty hangar and into his ears, causing him to freeze.

"Zaavik!?" The voice of Ryv was unmistakable. "You missed the brief, I- What are you doing?"

Zaavik sighed. Busted. "Leaving," he replied plainly, taking another step on the ladder.

"Cold feet, huh? Cmon, let's talk about this, no need to go deserting us."

"No, it's not that. I uh-" Zaavik dropped off the ladder, boots smacking into the durasteel flooring beneath. A turn was made to face Ryv, a few steps forward made to meet him. "There's something I gotta do. I don't really know how, or why, but I can feel it. The Force is pulling me somewhere, the call is-" He paused, looking down to the floor with an odd camber to his lips before looking back up to his fellow Jedi. "It's really loud, Ryv. I can't ignore it."

The Sword of the Jedi made a face, placing a hand on his hip with an inquistive raise of his brow. "Something, huh?" His tone was laden with more curiosity than doubt. "What's this something, then?"

"Saving a life."

No deception emanated from Zaavik to Ryv's empathic sense. The Kiffar let out a breath and smirked slightly. "Fine, I'll cover for you. Just don't get in over your head, okay?"

"When do I ever?"

Ryv blinked in silence, a blank stare regarding the Zeltron with disbelief.

Zaavik smirked, chuckling at his own joke. "I'll be fine," he insisted, hastily climbing back up the ladder and climbing into the cockpit. Certainty in his statement was a facade, for the Knight truly didn't know what to expect. A certain dread was hidden behind the pull the Force assaulted him with. It was better not to dwell on those feelings, anyhow. "Thanks," he offered as he slid the pilot's helmet over his head and looked down to Ryv.

The Kiffar nodded in silence, arms moving to cross over his chest. Engined blared as the vessel started up. Artificial winds danced wildly in all directions as the fighter slowly raised from the floor before tearing forward through the atmospheric shield of the hanger. Zaavik disappeared as a spec against the endless void of space.


FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」

"No entry, Jedi." A Togrutan Imperial Knight rebuked Zaavik's request with clear contempt. This entrance to the Redoubt was guarded only by the Knight and an accompanying Stormtrooper. Other forces were scrambling to prep defenses and take positions, leaving the actual present security rather lacking.

"Listen, man, I'm on your side, I'm just trying to-"

"We said no entry," the Stormtrooper helmet vocoder distorted voice doubled down with his Imperial Knight comrade.

"You forget, we are only allies against the Sith. You are not entitled to our facilities, we are not friends."

Zaavik threw his hands up halfway and sighed with feigned defeat. "Yeah, whatever," he replied with a facade of concession. He took a step backward, turned his back half to them, and pulled out his commlink, pretending to make a call. Both guards eased up, thinking the Shadow had given up. Cybernetic hand brought the comm up to his lips as his other hand made a sneaky wave at his side, index and little finger flicking up and down.

"You will let me into the redoubt," he spoke firmly.

The Stormtrooper's posture went slack. "I will let him into the Redoubt."

"What?"

The guard turned and tapped at the door control, punching in a code that caused the massive door panels to begin to slide open with a loud groaning.

"'The hell are you doing?"

Zaavik crept up alongside the Trooper and quickly reached forward to switch his blaster to stun. "Blast him," he commanded calmly.

A hiss of white plasma erupted from the Imperial Knight's saber hilt as the realization took over. The first shot was parried, the magnetic containment field of the saber sending it flying wildly into the air. The second shot found purchase, slipping past the saber and slamming into the Knight's gut, sending him crumpling to the ground unconscious. The effectiveness of New Imperial Troopers proving once again capable of overcoming the lightsaber.

Zaavik scoffed smugly. "Veina," queen, he quipped as he looked down at the Togruta. The Jedi offered a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, the metal of his prosthetic clattering against plastoid shoulder pauldrons. "Good job. Take a nap, huh? You've earned it."

"You got it, boss!" The Stormtroopers knees gave as he folded to the floor. Armor clacked and clamored against itself, followed by the hollow thud of helmet onto concrete. Snoring echoed inside the hollow shell, vocoding outward as a digitized static. A long step over the two unconscious guards heralded his waltz through the foyer of the Redoubt.

Corellian Coin rolled around between his fingers. Ethereal screams, wails, and other horrible sounds of the past echoed through the halls, courtesy of the coin's imprint. It was nothing short of gutwrenching, but he had no choice other than to endure. The echoes and visions carved a clairvoyant path toward his intent, a macabre road for his likely vain quest.

Staircase, corridor, left turn, corridor, right turn, stairs again. The former Sith Academy had looked big, but on the inside, the scale was even more impressive. Remnants of Sith iconography still lingered, the efforts to chip them away in favor of the Imperial Codex still ongoing. It was no wonder it had taken so long, he'd felt as if he'd walked miles already.

Every new scream he heard, every new cry, every new spatter of blood he saw evoked a unique grimace all their own. He'd heard about it, but the first-hand recollections were a lot worse than he thought. Zaavik was still in a coma when this all went down. He wouldn't have ever imagined the ordeal to be this horrific. Yet, somehow, it didn't feel wrong.

Another corridor, this time the coin granted him the sound of laughter. A familiar voice that reverberated from father ahead, echoing in a repetitive rhythm further and further down the hallway. Pace increased, pointed boots slogging against the tiles with their own impactful reiteration off the hard interior walls.

Disfigured digits lightly caressed a durasteel door. Eyelids closed, opposite hand clenching the coin as he focused internally. In the back of his mind's eye, red-hued locks danced against momentum through the threshold. The coin was practically humming, a subtle vibration buzzing in the center of his palm.

This was it.

Fingers slid down to the door control. A pulse through the force willed the mechanisms to clear, forcing the door to hiss open and click at the apex of it coming ajar. Slowly he walked forward, what was once a significant space had been reduced to a linen closet. Towels, vestments, rags, curtains, and the like. It could have been much worse, they had to store the dismantled Sith Iconography somewhere, or at least, whatever they couldn't burn.

Situating himself in the center of the room, Zaavik turned to face the door and dropped slowly to his knees. He sat on his feet and placed the coin in front of him. Both fists retreated to his knees as his eyes closed. A deep breath would slip him into a light meditative trance.

She would be here, he was certain.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

Aradia had been removed from the front line. The order had been as clear as day, yet when the call for Bastion came to life... She broke her master's orders and answered. Kaalia would never understand.

She had to be there.



Her footsteps echoed through the familiar hall, goosebumps prickling over her skin. The siege of Bastion rang on beyond these now insignificant walls, but she did not yet join. Something drew her forward-- an intangible string pulling tight at her chest.

No one had survived the Imperial's attack. She knew that. Yet every corner she turned, her eyes searched, almost desperate for a lock of blonde hair-- a familiar dimple. Someone. Anyone.

Bastion Academy had been purged.

Tula had not survived.

She stopped short at juncture, a Fel tapestry hanging where an Empire one had once resided. She could see its faint outline, the dirt stain refusing to let the past fade. She let out a pained hiss. Fire erupted across the imperial symbol. She walked onwards, her once timid steps gaining intention.

Did they really think they could erase her with no consequence?

Ideas bubbled forward, smothering the pinching that built in her tear ducts. She had been in enough wars to know that pure brute would not win this school back alone. She had to--

She stopped short, a familiar set of doors appearing before her. In her brooding, she had not paid attention to where her feet had taken her. The path had been instinctual. Habit. She swallowed hard, the pinching in her tear ducts redoubling as she stared at her old dorm door.

Her hand raised before her, moving as if it were in a dream as it entered the old code.

The doors swished open.

Cold shock bit through her like poison.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」

Visions of hatred and desperation flooded over his mind in dreamlike watercolors as he meditated. Pain echoed from the coin in front of him, he could feel it like it was his own. The screaming was loud enough to hurt his ears. Gurgling in the throat, he couldn't breathe. Something tightened his grip, not letting him leave this meditative state. Blood, the blood was everywhere, a growing pool of ichor crimson.

She died here. Through her own eyes, he could only watch.

The hissing of a door jolted him from his meditation at the very moment she'd slipped away in the vision. An invisible smog of force energy flooded the tension laden atmosphere as their eyes met. Alive and well despite what he'd seen, there she was. Zaavik gasped in both shock and vital need, he could not breathe during that forced recollection. The weight of the force around them proved too much for the old Corellian Token. Metal cracked, small grains of shrapnel bouncing off the floor with a high pitch ding. The half-sundered coin flipped into the air from the ground.

Zaavik's hand flung forward, fumbling around with the coin for a brief moment before snatching it from the air. His other hand raised slowly, fingers extended and palm facing out pacifistically. With one fluid motion he stood up slowly from his knees, his feet planting firmly against the ground. Token deposited into his jacket pocket, and then the same hand mimicked the non-aggressive gesture of the other.

"Relax," he implored softly. "I'm not to here to hurt you or anything, I just want to talk, that's all." Either hand dropped to his side once he felt he'd made his intentions clear. "I know you must be feeling a lot right now," he began, trying to take the empathy approach. He couldn't help but immediately the second guess whether or not that was the right approach. He made a face, shaking his head to himself. "Look, fuck it, whatever, just hear me out, okay?" A turbolaser smacking into Ravelin in the near-distance shook the Fel Redoubt. "While we still have the opportunity?"

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


How.

Her eyes screamed the question as the coin flipped through the air. It hit flesh, the noise muted but resounding as he caught and pocketed it. "You," she breathed, meeting his gaze.

Feeling a lot? That was one way to to put it. She stumbled a step back, at first expecting another attack. It was the shock alone that stopped her from drawing her saber, though the hatred she possessed for her growing arch enemy flared in her nostrils.

"Are you stalking me?" She accused, flabbergastion next to follow. He was in her old room. And it-- Her attention tore to its dusty shelves, pain lashing through her-- it had been reduced to nothing more than a linen closet. Her fury turned back on him. She raised her hand, her fingers clenched. A pulse of the force slammed into him. She stepped in, the door closing behind her as she bore him down.

"What. Are you doing. In my room?" She demanded. A telekinetic grip started to clench down on his throat.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」




The Jedi's head crept backward forcefully as the invisible grip tightened incorporeal fingers around his throat. Facial features twitched initially, but his resolve steeled and his regard remained covered by a convincing illusion of being unphased. "Ma'am, this is a linen closet," his wispy, air deprived vocalizations managed to quip in facetious contrary through the invisible restraint. Probably not a good time for jokes, the little voice of reason in his head scolded. A real shame too, as his wit had just formulated a pun involving 'breathtaking'.

"The coin," he explained. "I followed what it offered." A small cough rasped out of his airway. His hand slowly crept down to the saber on his belt, hovering over it with a twitching finger. "I told you, I'm just here to talk. I've seen what happened here, it showed me." His eyes narrowed as he drew a large breath laboriously through her attempt as suffocation, only causing the grip to grow tighter.

"Let me go," he rasped dryly. "I told you, you're not in any danger," yet "I'm not here to hurt you," unless I have to. It was always the omitted bits that were the most important. A universal rule between Jedi and Sith. There never had been any such thing as total honesty, and especially not between the faces of the Force's spiritual coin. A gulp struggled down his throat. "I don't blame you if you don't trust me, but I've let you go twice, haven't I?"

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


The quip earned him a rattling, one which his only his talking halted. She seemed to teeter in that moment, a crazied edge to her eyes as the urge to squeeeze rocked her. And there it was again. The hunger. It was growing less frightening, if only cause the Jedi served as something more pressing to mistrust.

"-- I've seen what happened here, it showed me."

Shock rippled over her features. The grip released him. He was left to gasp at the gifted air, the sithling staring skeptically at his cornered form. "What could you possibly have to say to me?" She uttered, distaste coating every word.

He was the enemy. His kind murdered her kind relentlessly. Everything she had known, they had stolen from her grasp. She was a kid, nearly purged for religious wars and deeds that were not her own. And he owned it.

They bore each other's scars. They were two sides of that same coin and they could never be made to see eye to eye. That was not how physics worked. The mention of what he had seen left her needing to know more. For a moment, she'd bite.

"You have thirty seconds."

Her saber jumped into her palm, the blue hue lighting up the room. Jedi. It was an embarrassing punishment in response to the saber he had taken from her. Wouldn't it be appropriate if she killed him with it in turn? She pointed it at his chest.

"No jedi tricks."

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「FIVE SECONDS」

A quiet, stifled gasp quietly compensated for the lack of air in his lungs. Chest and shoulders rose with each subsequent breath in an exaggerated fashion. "Foitan banas," fuck's sake, he bleated as he rubbed his throat with his right hand.

Five seconds had passed.

"Thirty seconds?" Zaavik scoffed, upper lip curling with vexation. "This is gonna take a lot longer than thirty seconds, you're just gonna have to deal with that."

Five more seconds passed.

He sighed. No preparations as to what he was going to say had been made prior. This entire endeavor had been spontaneous, and he was playing it by ear for better or worse. "No tricks," he reassured begrudgingly. He showed his hands, turning them once over and them back, keeping them where she could see them. "You're torn up about what happened here, it doesn't take an empath to figure it out. I get it, I really do. I've been there too, believe it or not. Not just losing everyone, but to death's door as well."

Five seconds left.

"The residual echoes gave me a vision; I saw you die here, in the courtyard, nearly drowning in your own blood. I don't know how you're still here-"

Time's up.

"But I know it wasn't the work of any Sith."

Zaavik had been counting the seconds in his head, he was ready to snap his hand down to his saber if he had to. Yet, still he continued regardless.

"I know you don't want to let anything like that happen again. Not even just to yourself, either. But you're on the wrong path. The Sith do that kind of shit on a planetary scale on a near-constant basis. I can see the good in you, you mean well, but you're misguided."

There was a pause, Zaavik gauging the atmosphere before his next sentiment.

"I came here because I can help you."

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


Her heart pulsed in her ear, the tip of her saber subtly wavering with each internal thump thump thump. That wasn't what she was expecting to hear. Her thoughts raced, her eyes searching for a sign of mockery. The boy was as serious as stone, an earnest edge to him imploration. He saw her. It disarmed her.

Was this an apology?

The saber lowered a centimeter, her chest puffing in distress as he painted a picture of that day. She didn't like to think about her death. She didn't like that he knew about it. Standing before him, she felt vulnerable. Raw.

Confused.

It distracted her from an off set of words, her gaze boring into him-- Hungry for recognition, desperate to feel whole again. Thirty seconds had come and gone, and he still held her attention.

"How?" She asked, her voice tight and mistrusting.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」




Getting this far was unexpected. Every expectation was that she'd try to strike him down the moment he finished speaking. At least he was getting somewhere. It was a much better start than he could have realistically hoped for. Though, he was beginning to understand that the closer he got, the thinner the tightrope would get. Unfortunately, he didn't have time for anything other than a full send. Beyond the walls of the redoubt, the battle raged indifferent to this encounter. Every breath taken in silence was time wasted.

"You're in pain. Desperate to scrub a layer of soot from your skin that won't wash away. Hate won't be a solvent, it'll only bring you more suffering. I know what happened was wrong, horrible, but we can do our damndest no make sure nothing like it ever happens again. You don't trust me, I know, and to be honest, I'm not exactly your biggest fan either."

Zaavik slowly offered out his hand. Durasteel-cortosis alloy glittering with a weathered sheen beneath the artificial light overhead.

"But it's my duty to help you. Not just as a Jedi, but as someone who's been exactly where you are. That wound will fester forever, it's not something you can just forget, but you can soothe it. It would be unfair and dishonest to try to convince you otherwise. We can't ever make it right, but we can do right by you. Come with me, leave the Sith behind, open your eyes to a better path. You can make a difference this way, a crusade for vengeance isn't going to save anyone, it's only going to eat you up inside."

"Isn't it already?"

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

He had her. He really did. His words hit feelings she had never been able to give names to. He said it like it was. He validated her, no excuses. No blame on her.

Goosebumps speckled up her arms, a surreal prick of emotions hitting her tear ducts. For a moment, it felt okay. To feel. To hurt. It was horrible. It was wrong! And she deserved to hear it-- she deserved-

"Come with me, leave the Sith behind,--"

Her expression froze, the emotions bleeding from the planes of her face. And that was the exact moment everything he had to say meant diddly chit.

"You're trying to recruit me," she said, a dangerous edge to the emotionless statement. She beheld the cornered jedi, the tight rope he walked held taunt, moments from snapping.

Or maybe it already had.

She left him to sweat it out, her hand clenching on her hilt as she took a single, harmless step towards him. "Why?"

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「AS THE DEAD SIGH」

"Recruit you?" A humorous scoff slipped wryly from between his lips. "Ostensibly, maybe. Though, not even I would be so naive to think I, or anyone for that matter, may make a Jedi out of you." Zaavik smirked briefly, his glare softening in a non-aggressive fashion. "I thought about it, and maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see it." The offered hand dropped halfway, making room for her approach while also retreating in a paranoid touch-avoidant gesture. Ironic, given the nature of the gesture in the first place.

"I'm sure plenty would've said the same about me, though." Truthfully, he himself was quite possibly the worst excuse for a Jedi he'd ever met. Knighting had felt like a sham, war hero commendation too, he didn't deserve anything. That's why he was trying to earn it now, make a difference. Whether it was the truth or his own twisted perspective on himself changed nothing. What he'd done all the way up to where he stood now couldn't ever be changed. You had to live with these things.

"I just want to help you, like I said. Jedi or otherwise, just not a Sith. The Dark Side is voracious, and it devours you with every passing second. So too, is the hate that you bottle. Mine has already eaten more of my than I can ever hope to get back. I don't want that for anyone. Not even a Sith."

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


A dry laugh caught in her chest, his words earning a near roll of her eyes. "Oh when you put it that way. I'm flattered." She kept approaching, her steps lazy yet pointed as she drove him back. There was no window in this room. There was no escape spare the door at her back. She bounced the saber in her hand, the tip held off to the side.

"You know. For a moment I thought you might actually be decent. But I'm so stupid," she cursed, her head shaking in passionate dismissal. "Such an idiot to think I could actually get understanding out of someone like you. You spout the craziest chit, you know that? As if I'd abandon the people that need me." She pointed the saber his way, its length bouncing haphazardly as she gestured. "The people you want to kill." The blue hue reflected in her eyes, intense as her fury broke free.

"You will never. Speak. Of my pain. Again," she uttered, her voice rasping with righteous indignation. Firey hot tears boiled over, the wounds of her past laid open and bare. It was his fault. For prying. For being a prick. For taking part in the systematic murder of people-- he was no savior. He was no hero. She didn't buy his excuses. She saw him as he was and she held him to it.

"I hate you!"

She descended on him in a flurry, streak of red and blue as she went to deliver a silencing blow across his neck.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DISCIPLE」

A grimace materialized over Zaavik's face when the laugh reached his ears. The final thread on the rope had finally broken. Whatever silver he had on that tongue of his clearly hadn't been worth its weight in words this time. Fingers twitched, muscles in his body near-trembling with anticipation of whatever twitch-reaction he'd need to make next to save his skin.

Every opportunity he had to retort was stifled by her continual rebuke. Words had probably outgrown their usefulness now. Cerulean eyes followed the blue droning of saber tip as she whisked it around with the camber of her words. He wasn't listening anymore. She was going to strike, it was clear, all attention reallocated to the secret top priority of this entire endeavor: not dying.


"I hate you!"

Couldn't help but hear that part, though. Visions of the saber's trajectory flooded his middle-consciousness with a pang of danger only split-instant before she began to strike. Eyes widened suddenly, head reeling back along with the bending of knees. Spine and sinew contorted suddenly into a low backward lean, slipping just beneath the would-be deathblow. He snapped back up, snatching his saber on the way up and sending the viridescent blade screaming to life with the distinct hiss that only a lightsaber could make.

A step back sought to put space between them, but his back bumped the wall halfway in. He pointed his saber forward in a defensive gesture and half-shrugged wryly. "Well, welcome the club then, I guess."

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

She screamed in his face, the motion senseless and even wild as he made light of her pain. There was insult in what he had just tried to do. There was pain in the pain he tried to use against her-- pain he was responsible for.

She would not be manipulated. She would hold him accountable.

She felt so foolish.

The room surged with energy, dark and twisted. She jumped up, her head brushing the high stone ceiling. The energy imploded, telekinetic tendrils ripping the shelving off the walls. In her fury, she was stronger. The metal units went tumbling down towards him. She fell after it, her hair flowing around her like a vengeful halo as she came down with an overhead strike.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DISCIPLE」

Pupils dilated to a black speck on a cerulean backdrop. Adrenaline coursed along with the force, every muscle revving for their next move. A second hand grasped his saber hilt, thumb sliding over to press the activator to send the second blade erupting from the opposite end. Controlled arcs of verdant light sundered shelf and linen as they careened toward him on either side. Plasma hissed against metal and fabric, leaving a burnt smell in the air expanding from the long, black scars left in the objects.

Zaavik turned his chin up, meeting her snarling rage head-on with a stern look of determination. Blue and green screeched together, one of his blades catching the oncoming strike from overhead. The blade to the opposite cut into the wall behind him as the hilt turned with an accommodating camber. The light from the clashing blades strobed a vibrant cyan.

He pressed forward, kicking his foot off the wall and freeing himself from the clash. His frame spun in a tilted corkscrew, his boots knocking into a ceiling panel and jarring it out of place. He landed on the other side of her with a broken shelf clattering beneath the impact of his feet. Elbows pulled back, and one shoulder reached over to hold the saber alongside him at head-level; Juyo's closest equivalent to a fool's guard.

"We don't have to fight," he declared calmly. Illumination droned and sputtered against his face, melding with the light vermillion to manifest a hazy yellow sheen over his visage. "You know how this is gonna end; the same way it did the last two times." Her shoulder and side were testaments to the iron grip he'd kept on the upper hand between them.

"Just- Unignite the saber. Please. We can talk about this," he implored, ever persistent.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


"One time," she corrected with a hiss, turning to match her positioning with his dodge. She had no trouble balancing on top of the mess, her movements graceful as she pivoted her footing on the side of the fallen shelves.

The levity of what he had tried to do kept pulsing over her, bringing with it waves of indignation as she broke it apart. He had acted like he understood. And she-- she had wanted to believe-- because he wasn't the only one that had recognized parallels. She had seen his desperation for control on her ship. He didn't trust his people. She could see his scars-- and he--

He played with her.

"Just- Unignite the saber. Please. We can talk about this,"

"Shut up," She snapped. And it was was the last thing he'd have her say, her legs sinking into stance. And then she attacked.

Her blade twisted in arcs through the air, whipping quickly from form to form as she pressed for an opening. It was unrelenting, as smooth as water rushing in to a damn. Where there were cracks, she would press to slip through. He had always had her running, her back to him was his turf. Facing him head on was a different matter. Her size meant nothing when he had to break past her guard.

Her guard was deadly. She was going no where.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DISCIPLE」


"Shut up,"

Were it so easy, he thought.

There wasn't any time to keep thinking as arcs of malicious blue struck toward him. His own saber came to meet them, weapon oscillating to parry with either blade one after the other. The sudden rush of offense forced Zaavik back a step as the defensive twirl of verdant plasmatic edges only just managed to bat away the strikes. Another step back. Zaavik felt a tug on his jacket followed by a hiss. A sliver leather and zipper incinerated by a the stray followthrough of a poorly parried attack.

A final step back. His heel caught the door, the rubber sole of his bootheel squeaking down to the floor. Nowhere left to go. A searing pain assaulted the flesh of his tricep near the elbow. Leather hissed as it burned away, a glancing blow turning flesh to black in an instant. He bared his teeth with a vague intonation of pain. Another strike came from the left. Zaavik smacked it away with a wild parry, saber blades popped and sizzled from the impact.

Zaavik used the opening to release one hand from the hit and throw it backward to slap the door control. A reverse step into the newly unobstructed door threshold brought him just beyond the reach of the next strike. Zaavik threw a feint to the right, pulling back at the last moment and shoving both hands forward to send the inert metallic center of his hilt towards the bridge of Aradia's nose.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


Aradia jerked, the hilt clipping her temple. Pain blossomed, her vision dancing. She didn't let her guard drop, but it bought him the breathing space to make it through the door and catch his footing.

She hissed, touching her temple and pulling back to find blood. It flowed freely down her forehead, the first drop sliding past her eye. Her attention snapped back onto him, the hit drawing a scowl across her lips.

"All that time Allyson spent away has left you sloppy," she stated softly, seeking a flinch of pain across his expression. Her chest throbbed, aching with the embarrassment his false pity had left her with.

The moment her words registered on his face, she assaulted him with a telekinetic barrage right towards his gut. She followed it in with an Ataru flip out the door, corkscrewing into a weighted slash over his metal arm.

"You're pathetic!" She screamed, her voice raw from the pain that she reflected onto him.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」




The soft reluctance in his face shifted to sharp malice almost instantly. A sharp exhale as his nostrils flared, teeth bared from beneath curled lips. He reared back for a strike, biting at the bait almost instantly. Alas, a collection of small, unseen forces slammed into his gut, catching him off guard and extracting a cough that sputtered with a backward stumble. Vision broke into doubles, a wheeze rushing into his lungs. Unconsciousness only narrowly avoided by some unexplained force of will.

A pang of feat nudged at him. Near-breathless he pivoted on his heels to meet her ascent over him. Prosthetic hand snatched forward, cortosis lining trapping the blue plasma with impunity. Arm shook with exertion as he slowly pulled the saber down and to the side like an off-kilter lever. "Veina," queen, he forced through clenched teeth. "Keep that name out of your mouth."

Zaavik's tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. A half step forward added momentum to the forward torque of his shoulders as he sent his forehead recklessly downwards toward the crown of her skull.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed

She let him, her whole being falling into the welcoming embrace of the darkside. Energy rushed forward and rippled over her skin. He slammed into a solid barrier, her teeth grinding at the faint echo of pain that made it through. He would have it worse. Ashin Cardé Varanin lesson had been worth the payment.

She beheld him evenly, blood dripping down her face as she took in his fury.

"Who's the sith now?" He knee went up, a foot aiming to kick him in the gut and buy her space. At the same time, her wrist twisted, trying to break her saber free. She had told him to shut up-- go away. Leave her alone! But in that length of time a change had slowly crept over her. An edge entered her eyes, the soft girl turning hard. What mattered before mattered less now. Now she wanted him to flinch. Now she wanted him to know the pain he mocked.

"Admit it." She taunted again, walking forward with those exacting steps. The same one he had stalked her with that night on Life Day.

"You're hypocrites. The lot of you. Hate me if you want-- fine! But stop pretending you're any better for it, OWN WHO YOU ARE!" She lunged at him, one breath away from resuming her flurry of sword work.

This wasn't what she came to Bastion for, but it felt good.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」

Pain throbbed in his forehead as he pulled back from the impact. Aradia's blood smeared now across his face from the aggressive contact, crimson ichor contrasting against the brighter reds of his skin. At the very least, he knew what he felt was nothing compared to what he'd inflicted upon her. Against the blood-black smears, the crystalline mirrors in his skull shone even brighter than before. An entirely different intensity than those opposite of him, however. It wasn't anger, that had faded as soon as it sparked, No, instead it was a certainty. Certainty that he wouldn't lose. Certainty that Aradia needed help. Certainty that this wouldn't be in vain.

A barrage of cerulean strikes approached with a precise hatred. Alternating between blades, Zaavik parried each with deft, deceptively effortless looking strokes. Every return strike he threw was deliberately aimed to injure or disarm, but not to kill. It didn't matter, as none found purchase past her guard. Plasma sizzled on plasma, flashes of light illuminating in quick snaps with every moment of contact. A final clash saw their weapons lock together, the two of them struggling against each other's strength. While it'd been made painfully clear in previous encounters that Zaavik would easily overpower the waifish Sith, this time she met him with everything he could give, as if she had some inhuman surge of strength.

The work of the dark side, no doubt.

"You're right," he said. "I'm a hypocrite." He wouldn't indulge her accusations as a generalized picture of the entire Jedi Order, though. It wasn't his place to speak for them, or declare what they were. He was only a Knight, and a fresh one at that. Zaavik was a hypocrite, but a hypocrite was in many cases just a man trying to change. It was often those who criticized, however, who were trying to hide what they themselves lacked. "If I hated you-" he said, trailing off for a moment as he summoned his own surge of strength to avoid being overwhelmed. "I wouldn't be trying to help you."

Zaavik shoved forward, freeing himself from the clash and gliding backward on feet kept low the floor. He twirled once over, adjusting himself through the corridor and braced for the next barrage. If he was going to be on the back foot, at the very least he'd take the liberty of leading the fight locale. She could press all she wanted but had to follow where he retreated. He'd need to retain some semblance of control if this was going to ever turn in his favor.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed
​

He admitted it too easily. It did nothing-- soothed nothing. She needed to see his pain, she needed him to know. She descended on him, her thoughts bleeding away as the fight took over. She didn't think, Kaalia and taught her that just got in the way. She felt. Instincts and the force guided every unrelenting strike she rained down on him.

It was different, being the pursuer. The control was in her hands this time. She wasn't willing to let it go.

"If I hated you-I wouldn't be trying to help you."

"Right," she scoffed, matching his pace down the hall. "Handing me to my murders, very helpful." Her features contorted with the delayed pain of the reminders, the blue blade twirling twice at her side. She surged forward, an underhanded swing trying to clip up under his armpit. Her strikes were starting to focus around that arm, a push to severe the cybernetic from flesh pursuing.

"You want me dead," she spat, following it with a fluid upward arch that transitioned to clash towards his hip.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」​

Zaavik moved again to parry the strike, feet shifting and arms arcing to guide his saber toward the strikes. Blue skidded against green, halting the first, but not stopping the tip of the blue to carve slightly into his hip. "Kuron!" A pained expletive growled from a deep, primal depth in his vocal folds. His stance faltered on that side momentarily before a sudden flourish and compensating readjustment put him back in place. Red spattered visage regarded Aradia with a pained grimace. The kind of grimace only incinerated nerve-endings could achieve.

"If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have bothered trying to talk to you in the first place," he said. Two opportunities to kill her had come and gone before this third meeting. Zaavik chose mercy both times, even allowing her to flee the very heart of the Core in her own ship. Did that mean nothing to her? Or was she so blind with rage she hadn't even considered reflecting? Zaavik shoved these considerations out of his mind. If there was any hope of a breakthrough, he had to speak. As long as she continued the assault, he wouldn't be able to do that effectively.

His eyes darted around in an erratic scan for a solution. Improvisation was largely responsible for the reason he was still alive. Today would probably no exception. A door control was just barely visible over he shoulder, past the reddish threads that hung over it. A moment of focus, and suddenly Zaavik could feel the door panel's electrical pulse as he reached through the force. On the other side, that pulse echoed out into a chamber much larger than the linen closet he'd only narrowly escaped from.

An idea flickered to life in his head.

The Shadow moved forward, throwing wild and ferocious strikes toward Aradia with either blade. Buzz, sizzle, pop, all deflected. He could see the blue moving for his head in a horizontal strike just before it happened as if he pulled the next move from her mind. He dipped low, his left foot extending and sliding across the ground beside her. A bend of his knee pulled him in as he ducked beneath the strike and strafe alongside her to maneuver behind. Zaavik spun with his momentum, his heel kicking the unsecured door panel and triggering it to open.

Boot shifted flat against the wall, pushing off to meet her oncoming attack with added force. When the force of his insistent parrying created some breathing room, he slipped back through the threshold. With two swings, his saber carved into precise locations along the door frame, sending sparks and smoke flooding into the threshold and he faded into the obscurity of the greyish screen of wisps and flickers.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


A trill of excitement brought a smile to her lips. She was getting to him. Each hit chipped away at his defenses. She could feel his desperation in the flurry of his attacks. It urged her on, the acolyte finally finding the upper hand. All she had to do was keep. On. Pushing.

She sunk deeper into the power, letting it strength her limbs and rule her reflexes. It was almost hers-- her intangible need to break him at her finger tips.

Smoke filled the halls, a fancy flurry of his sabers creating a momentary reprieve. She followed him without hesitation, growing reckless with the power she leaned into.

"How does it feel?" She asked, nudging the door closed behind her. Click, went the lock. "Being hunted. Trapped." She let that word hang in the air, the echos of a lost life still clinging to the energy of this room. The purge was not an easy thing to erase. Not that the Imperials even understood the forces they so carelessly messed with.

"Can you feel it? They linger. They haven't moved on. They haven't forgiven."

She walked in deeper, her saber drawing sparks across the stone as she dragged it behind her. The smoke began to settle, slight golden hue to her eyes as she scanned carefully.

"Once I'm done with you, I'll go for your friends too. I think they'd like that."

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「ATTITUDE」​

The Force shrouded Zaavik into obscurity. Every photon bent around him, a trick of the light rendering him completely invisible. He stood motionless as Aradia strolled into the room like an amused predator. With every step, she grew closer, stopping only inches in front of him. He held his breath, not wanting even the smallest breeze to tip her off. Hostile eyes scanned around the room, looking right through him as if he was never really there at all. A Ghost. A Shadow. Right under the nose was where he excelled.




Come to think of it, it wasn't exactly a new sensation. In one way or another, that feeling was ever-present. The streets of Zeltros, the halls of the Jedi Temple's youngling ward with the taunting, tormented faces that inhabited it, and now with Ido Bastra snuffed out, even his own home. He was now, at this moment, what he always had been. It would be a lie to say her words didn't remind him how much it disgusted him. It'd taken years to learn how to ignore it, and he didn't much like being reminded.




Zaavik was a fool to think she couldn't say anything else that'd fuck with him. He frowned, even though he doubted there was much weight to that threat. Yet, it invoked some inexplicable urge to strike. Remove the head from the concept so that it never came to fruition. He could do it too, easily, right now. She couldn't see him, one flick of the activator on his saber and she'd be- No. He wasn't going to stoop to her level, she wanted that. Or, at least, she thought she did.

His fingers fanned out with his hand limp at his side. Reaching out to the force, he willed a box in the corner to topple over, drawing her eyes elsewhere. A slow step to the side was taken with which he was able to weasel around behind her. Any breeze he might have caused likely overlooked in favor of the sound he'd engineered. Backtracking toward the door, he waved his arm this time to make an even bigger sound on the opposite end of the room, this time pulling an entire shelf over.

A quick turn on his heels and he lunged for the door control. A beep, and then a metallic screeching as the door forced its way open through the damaged frame. A quick step out through the mostly cleared wall of smoke and he dropped from invisibility. A blank look regarded back into the room as he hit the control again and sent the door grinding shut. With a small force of will, the force commanded the electronics in the door to lock. A loud click echoed through the hollow frame and out both sides.

He wasn't trapped anymore, objectively, but it didn't make the feeling go away. Nothing ever did.

Zaavik's forearm rested halfway against the door and the wall. A few heavy breaths caught him up to comfortable stamina. Now he could talk. "Bhesj," was the first thing out of his mouth. Old Corellian this time, not Zeltron, a general term of impatience. "Just listen to me," he insisted. "If I really wanted you dead, think about it, wouldn't this have been a waste of time?" He was beginning to feel like it was anyway. "I could have killed you at the outpost. I didn't. I could have killed you on Lifeday. I didn't. You aren't that dense, surely."

"You could've sent that knife between my ribs. You didn't. That's why I'm here. You're letting your fear and your pain get the better of you. You think you want to hurt me, but that's not really what you want. You want to feel safe, strong. You think if you hurt me, you'll reassure yourself that no one can ever hurt you again. It won't. It'll only make it worse. I know what you're feeling. Sinking my saber through the heart of the man that-" Zaavik hesitated. "Took everything from me- It didn't fix anything. Nor did the next one. Or the next one. It just festered the wound. I'm not about to let anyone, not even you, succumb to that, not when I've seen that there's still the possibility redemption left in them."

Zaavik Dagoth was a Jedi. He didn't try to help her for the praise. He didn't try to help her for his own self satsifaction. He was doing this because it was right.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


Ethereal forms appeared along the edge of her vision, teens in dark robes and men in white suits. The deeper she sunk into the power, the clearer their forms grew, visible only to the girl they haunted.

She slammed her fist into the door, frustration boiling over as he cut her off to the other side.

He spoke with reason, but the time where she could hear it had come and passed. "Shut up," she hissed again, the words she was forced to endure causing lashes of pain. Her saber pierced the door, molten magma forming around the end that burned its way through to him.

"You think just because you read a coin you know how I feel. You do not." She gritted her teeth against the sweltering heat, muscles flexing as she started the slow process of cutting a hole.

"But you will."

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DIE BY THE BLADE」​

The opposing saber that plunged through the door came only inches from his face. Violet strands that hung over his face fizzled as they were singed by the radiating heat. Zaavik stumbled backward in surprise, nearly planting his ass into the floor. Several clumsy stumbles cantered quickly along the ground before he caught his balance. He straightened, moving to square himself with the door.

A sigh laden with slight feelings of defeat exhaled toward the blue saber. "Have it your way."

Zaavik reignited once side of his saber, the green blade extending with a screech. He reached out to the force, focusing on Aradia's presence on the other side of the door. There would only be a moment before he'd cut through, so he had to make this count. A vague outline of her stance shimmered into his minds eye and he lined it up with door in front of him. Taking care to avoid her saber, he took a step forward and performed a two-handed thrust, sending his blade through the door as well, aimed at her shoulder.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed


In her fury, she missed the force's warning. Again. His saber pierced her shoulder, a scream granting him the knowledge of his mark. Her saber yanked out of the door, metaphorical red descending over her vision.

He was granted a moment's reprieve as she stepped back, clutching at her shoulder with pained grunts. If only she could do that healing thing on command. She didn't even understand it. Never mind, that. She raised a bloody hand, her vision blurring with tears of exertion. The force crushed down on the weakened door, bits of it caving in inch... by... inch.

It ripped open, bending over itself as she revealed the contents of the room. She. Couldn't. Stand. To know. He knew. What they had done to her. Her expression contorted in pure spite, unrecognizable as she gathered her pain to her.

"I'll tell Allyson you said bye."

Lightening shot from her fingertips, startling even her as the red arms reached for his body.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DIE BY THE BLADE」​

Zaavik's eyes widened as a jagged flash of white-hot hatred spewed forth from Aradia's fingertips. He braced, extending his second blade from the hilt, and swung the saber forward to catch the oncoming energy. The impact of electricity on plasma kicked, pushing the hilt towards his chest and sending him sliding flat-footed across the ground.

Volatile tendrils arced off the blade and grasped at his body. A painful, electrical tickle began to seize his muscles. His hold on the lighting through the force faltered. It reached out and ravaged the inner workings of his saber hilt. Electronics droned, the power cell popping once overloaded. Both blades fizzled out instantly, allowing the lighting to overtake him.

Energy rippled through his body, causing him to cry out in laborious anguish. The dark side lifted him, throwing him across the wide corridor and sent him back-first into the wall. Momentum snapped his head backwards, skull colliding with the durasteel wall with a loud thud. Consciousness absconded, and his limp form crumpled as it fell to the floor face down.

Wisps of smoke curled and slithered towards the ceiling from the back of his jacket. Zaavik lie motionless aside from the occasional spasm of a limb or extremity.

Bastion Academy FEL REDOUBT| Zaavik Perl | Closed



Aradia stepped forward, unflinching to his cries. Good. Yes. She had cried too. It had changed nothing, did he understand that now? This was what helpless felt like. She tossed him into the durasteel wall like a doll, the thrill of control rushing through her veins. She could do anything to him now. Crush him. Kill him. Make him scream.

"You want to understand me?"

She held him there, the lightening flowing throughly through her fingertips as she kept him pinned-- Dangling, in agony, staring down his death.

Just like she had that day on Bastion. She flinched, faltering for moment before the grip on him tightened.

"Imagine it now." She urged, a sense of desperation in her tone as she tried to connect-- tried to rationalize the horrors of this moment as she drove the life from his body with her hands.

"You're dying. And your friends are all behind you-- dying. You're helpless. You're pathatic--arg She let his unconscious body drop, the static leaving the air as her blood pulsed in her ears.

"Get up!" Telekinetic strings wrapped around him, trying to toss him into the opposite wall of their hall.

FEL REDOUBT // BASTION
SECOND BASTIONFALL
Darth Daiara

「DIE BY THE BLADE」​

Zaavik regained consciousness as he was flung through the air. Blood from the back of his head arced and spattered against the floor. His half-limp tumble through the air ended unceremoniously as he smacked shoulder first into the opposite wall. The tie in his hair came out, letting violent strands fall freely just beyond shoulder-length. Swaths of his bright hair saturated in blood near the scalp. A hard thump against the floor echoed through the hallway as he finally became reacquainted with the ground.

For a moment, he was deathly motionless again. A flicker of movement finally, his left arm pulling in to brace his forearm against the ground. Zaavik grunted as he pushed himself up, head raising to look at Aradia behind a purple veil of hair. Against the protest of the throbbing in his head and pain in strained muscles that still felt the echo of lighting-induced convulsions, he stood.

His vision twisted, seeing double of the ginger assailant in front of him. The world around him spun and wobbled, causing him to stagger and sway as he attempted to remain upright. Crimson ichor flowed from his head and down the back of his neck. The blood caressed his mired skin with a sickening, unnerving warmth as it trickled inch by inch, slowly overtaking the cloth of the shirt beneath his jacket.

"That's why we're different," he intonated haggardly. A disfigured hand held up, three fingers were broken from one of the twins falls he'd taken. The already disfigured extremity now jagged and brutalist with tips pointing in directions they shouldn't. A blur of metallic sliver slid from his inner jacket pocket into the prosthetic left, his primary hand. A crimson blade ignited with a screech, illuminating the familiar hilt of Aradia's former saber that he'd taken from her all that time ago.

"I won't give in to my suffering so easily."

An awkward, uncoordinated step forward ushered a wild overhead arc to the left, striking again at the injured shoulder. Even in his daze, the trajectory was deliberately non-fatal.

The brutal truth of his words caused a visible flinch, the cold kiss of shock hitting her cheeks as his empathy turned cruel.

The inability to connect caused a flash of disappointment, both of them withdrawing their attempts to reach the other. Her twisted methods not withstanding.

"You will never understand," she whispered, her vibrant fury turning cold and meticulous. He brandished her stolen saber, the one she had been unable to retrieve all that time ago. Her nostrils flared. She sunk into a stance and watched his wild approach, her muscles flexing in preparation. All it took was a simple, redirecting parry and a step to the right.

Her expression was cold and unfeeling, the once overwhelmed acolyte now distant-- calculating.

As his momentum took him past her, she brought the blue blade down across his back.

 

[Halketh]

F A C E L E S S
THE LORD OF CARNAGE

DOOM_DIVISION : // DEPLOYED
THE_CARLACI_CORPS : // DEPLOYED
ENGAGEMENT : // Dimitri Voltura
NIO_ALLIES_CLOSEBY :// @IAMTHEWARMACHINE Tyrell Paxxus DECEASED Erskine Barran Djorn Bline
Jaeger Harrsk Asa Yubari Enedina Tal Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt Willan Tal

_

Madness will consume you.
​

In the smoldering wastes left by his splintering sanity, The Vulture stood with his hesitant troopers returning to rally up behind his position. Crimson bolts flickered between his electrum plated fingertips and he nurtured them despite the nigh-overwhelming tremors rattling his limbs. He had expended much and feasted none. His strength was waning.​

Each corpse rising behind him in sequence jerked, twisting and contorting on itself unnaturally as the newly recruited troopers righted themselves once more. The Lord of Carlac chased after his breath, swaying on his feet as the reanimated soldiers, most of which were still smoking, stumbled forward, throwing themselves over the barricades and into the tide of Sith Imperial assailants as they came to fill where the others had only just fallen. His narrowing sight expanded wearily and he thrust himself forward, catching a moment of respite against the flank of a duracrete barricade.​

"Master, you must-"​

"Stop," he panted, lifting a shining gauntlet to wave in partial dismissal, "I'm fine. I just need a moment. You take the reins, push forward with the others. Establish a new line and dig in." His golden helmet turned in her direction.​

She could almost see the pained expression on his eyeless face. "I don't want to just leave you here, not after that. What's going on?"​

Halketh grit his teeth in response to her defiance, feth, why was she so stubborn? His clawed hand gripped her shoulder guard firmly and he rattled her faintly, "Cassiy, the NIO needs you. Our people, need you. Go, please. I trust your judgment to lead the-"​

"Vulture, this is Avalanche, we're in desperate need of a combat engie sir, ours got domed, over." ​

He felt the rising veins in his temples twitch. "Cassiy, go." ​

Reluctantly, the rattataki gripped the chromed cylinders by her hips and nodded, jerking herself away from the miraluka to leap the barricade, crying in rally towards the rest of the Carlaci forces present on the boulevarde. The sea of white-clad soldiers charged in tandem with her, leaving Halketh alone for a moment to catch his breath.​

"I read you, Avalanche-" he wet his cracking lips, "I'll dispatch the next, over." It was one thing after another, wasn't it? Where was Major? Or Asharo? Anyone from his forces who could relieve some of this crushing pressure. He needed to compose himself, desperately. The weakness plaguing his bones was just distracting enough for him to struggle in this regard, try as he might. He needed to feed.​

'Such desperation was always your greatest flaw.' Her voice coaxed at the front of his psyche, forcing him to smack the open palm of a hand against the side of his helmet in some reflexive response. Perhaps if he struck his head enough, the channel would change, and no longer would he suffer her goading words from beyond the grave. She wasn't merely haunting him, now, she was gaining the upper hand. ​

"Snowdrift, Avalanche needs a wrench and reload- pair off two engies and ship them back to the fortress, over."​

"Solid copy Vulture, wilco, Snowdrift out." ​

'Do you feel that weight on your chest? That burden of responsibility?'​

"Yes," he answered aloud to no one.​

'The same I felt when I watched what was becoming of you-'​

"The difference is I can bear it," the miralukan Warlord hissed his interjection, "Avalanche, you've got two on the way, Vulture out." ​

Another series of smacks to the side of his head. He shook it violently, bolstering his weakened will with the dependence placed on him. He couldn't curl up and succumb to it, not now. There was far too much work to be done. Shakily, he grasped his knees and rose to his feet, expanding his sight to reveal the battlefield in his proximity once more. A slip between the narrow span created by the barricade brought him to the periphery of the entrenched troopers his apprentice helmed and he flexed his hands, drawing what slipping life force he could from those friendlies and foes alike who were cut down by the ever tumultuous tides of the invasion. ​

Strength sang through his veins, spurred on slowly by the ebbing of control and the absorption of the dead and damned. His vision flared in returning colors, honed once more by the swell. A flash of surging crimson and black caught his consciousness and he focused on it without turning his head. ​

Something wicked this way comes. ​

"Cass, stay with the troopers." He sent his message telepathically and was met in equal silence. She was sulking. Good, she could draw strength from that.​

The Vulture tightened the straps of his charred gauntlets as he moved, sweeping over to the alley pouring into the boulevarde. There wasn't merely one present, no, there were more. That rising, encroaching threat was accompanied by others of lesser equal. Halketh planted his feet, focusing his head forward towards a strange, Force twisted man.​

A dragon on the battlefield. ​

Polished metals glinted wickedly in the fluctuating light by his sides as his fingers flexed in preparation for what he anticipated would come of this. He hoped then, he had remembered to reload the Adjudicator snuck up his sleeve. The Dark energy coalesced around Halketh defensively, enveloping him in its cold embrace as he steadied. And soon, words addressed to the approaching combatant would follow: ​

"Tea first, or when we're through?" He asked of Dimitri Voltura , voice projecting from behind his helmet with the aid of The Force.

TL;DR // Halketh's apprentice takes temporary command of the Carlaci ground forces, both living and undead, and pushes forward. Halketh regains some of his composure and restores his energy. Dimitri Voltura arrives in his proximity and he prepares to engage.​