Rebirth, By Any Means (Moross vs CIS)

[Sal Katarn]

UTAPAU
SINKHOLE CITY

A leper of Liad stood amongst the crowds on Utapau. Hundreds had gathered to hear the preacher, or perhaps to look at him. He had no arms, no legs, and no ears, yet he sat in a specially devised chair and roared passionately to the throngs, imploring them to join in worship of the Aesir.

Several missionaries in brown robes stood around the preacher, silent. One of them wore a mask with intricate carvings. The Morossian shuttle was nearby. A few guards stood around stone-faced. They weren't here to preach. These heretics could burn for all they cared, but the Leper of Liad had other ideas in mind.

"He heeals when he wishes, and plagues when he wishes! All blights and blessings upon the body do come from Liad. You have but to believe to become part of his chosen, as I was! The afflicted shall know peace and we will be welcomed into the Great Hall in death."

Nearby, a few local guards came up. They were Confederacy soldiers, come to break up this gathering.

"Excuse me, sir, but you're going to have to return to your ship. You'll need a permit if you wish to continue these public gatherings and you'll need to file a request with the communications department."

The leper looked horrified. "Every moment wasted is a moment these people's eternities are in jeopardy!"

One of the Confederate soldiers shouldered his way. "No, sir, I'm going to have to insist. You need to leave."

Dozens upon dozens in the crowd roared in protest. Others jeered for the armless, legless man to squirm home on his belly back to Moross. Someone threw a punch. A tumult started. The Confederates moved to break it up, while some began to attempt to forcibly return the lepers back to the shuttle, which got the Morossian guards involved.

Anaudius, standing amongst the followers of Liad, did not see who fired the first shot. He only heard the sudden high whine of a blaster discharged, saw a man go down. And then at once the place was engulfed in a firefight. Blasterfire ripped back and forth between Morossian guards and Confederate soldiers. The masked man witnessed as bolts riddled the preacher. He fell from his chair, blood spewing from his form.

The riots began.

Arms folded inside his overlong sleeves, Anaudius watched behind his mask. The cold metal felt cool against his cheeks. At last, the sorcerer withdrew both hands from inside his robe and gestured in a web of motions, casting a spell of the Force upon the Confederate soldiers.

They dropped their blaster rifles and clutched their heads, screaming in agony at the horrors which now assailed their minds. The Morossian guards swiftly cut them down.

Liad was not a merciful god.

Caught up in the throng of rioting bodies, Anaudius found himself pushed further and further away from the shuttle until at last he was in a section of the city which he did not recognize. He made his way under the edifice of a nearby building and away from the fighting in the streets. Slowly, Anaudius let out a soft breath through his nose. This would be a complicated affair.

[member="Jacen Cavill"] [member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Neskar A'toll]

Bloody zealots. He had had enough of them. Neskar had resided at the rear of the quickly growing crowd as he assumed some nefarious scheme or protest was underway. He hated being right. Utapau had been designated his seat as Viceroy, so he felt the need to restore order. Or purge the problem, one of the two. As the crowd began to dissipate rapidly, Neskar called in for reinforcements. Seeing an entire squad swiftly dispatched gave him the chills, but he would have to withstand for now. Moross guardsmen came for him with visible malice. He met them.


A swift fist enclosed in beskar rammed into the skull of the first and he fell shockingly with a crunch. One. The second came. The guardsman swirled his lethal blade in the air, prowling for a weakness in Neskar. To which Neskar replied with grasping the stock of his errant ripper slug pistol, releasing it from the holster and aiming to strike the head of the guardsman. Reacting fast, the guardsman struck at Neskar, bringing down his blade in a hacking motion, as to cleave his arm from his shoulder. Neskar dove back, recoiling, but the blade bit in between the plates of beskar, opening a wound through the underskin. Too close. Before the guardsman could strike once more with that lethal swiftness, Neskar flicked the ripper back up, aiming quickly and releasing a burst of three slugs before the guardsman could set himself. The slugs tore through the air and impacted the guardsman with excess speed, splattering blood over both him and Neskar. His foe fell dead.


Neskar glared at the leper and the rest of his guard. "Who's next?"

[member="Anaudius"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

((OOC: I suck. Yes, I am aware. Sorry [member="Anaudius"] ))

Utapau. Salem Norongachi hated Utapau. Not as much as he hated Felucia of course, or Endor, but it ranked in the top five worlds he would like to glass from orbit. It was all the open space, the archaic way the natives spoke. The dust in his boots, the cities built into the side of craters. All of it made him want to take his lightsaber, place it to his eye socket and hit the activation switch.

This was all very mellow dramatic, Norongachi knew, as he stomped grumpily toward the small garrison building the Obsidan Knights used, but he wasn't having a good week. Since the reshuffle from religious knights to an actual military group that made any kind of sense given what the C.I.S aimed to be, he'd been dragged all across their territory, supervising the change over. This was his 15th planet and there were more to get through before his work was done.

"Ah," His Pau'an liaison began as he neared the garrison building. "Lord Commander, we welcome you." He bowed, in a slow almost fluid motion that made Norongachi want to kick him in the head. "Your warriors are ready for inspection, please." A long, thin, hand swept gracefully toward the open double doorway of the building.

Norongachi took a calming, relaxing breath to soothe the fire that threatened to erupt from his mouth and scorch the sentient to the bone. It wasn't their fault, he told himself, every race has its quirks. This one just annoys you more, be a professional and smile. "Thank you." Was all he managed to say before a riotous voice caught his ear and forced him to turn.

"He heals when he wishes, and plagues when he wishes! All blights and blessings upon the body do come from Liad. You have but to believe to become part of his chosen, as I was! The afflicted shall know peace and we will be welcomed into the Great Hall in death."

"What," The Lord Commander began. "Is that?"

The Pau'an looked confused for a moment and then embarrassed, perhaps he had thought Salem wouldn't see the hundreds gathered in the meeting square or that the deformed priest would keep the noise down until Norongachi had departed. Whatever hope he had was suddenly dashed when guards in Confederate colours attempted to break up the gathering.

Salem could already see the fuse being lit. It doesn't take much to rile up a crowd, or for some trigger happy solider to lose his nerve in the face of a hundred angry sentients. The first blaster shot sent them into a frenzy before Salems very eyes, a hand rose with with an intricate weave of the Force upon it and snatched a wayward blasterbolt from the air before it could take the Pau'ans head off.

"Get inside and get my fraking Knights out here NOW." He snarled as his attuned senses detected a surge of Force energy. The guards who were attempting to restore some semblance of order to the commotion began to scream, weapons falling from their hands as fingers raked and clawed at their own faces. Green eyes narrowed, senses radiated like sonar, trying to sift through the mess of life signatures for the one that brought the Force to his command.

From behind him the sound of boots upon stone rung out and the forty strong Knights were arranged in perfect formation, their black armour catching and reflecting the light. "Sort that mess out and get those bloody pagan tits off our planet." He commanded, they obeyed without hesitation but the momentary shift in his attention had caused him to lose the trail of the Force User he was searching for. He cursed under his breath and then followed his men into the fray.