Private Reincarnation

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The hulking Vahlan blinked as her form disappeared from view, then a slow, predatory smile curled his lips and he laughed.

She fascinated him. And he enjoyed her flair for the dramatic.

With loping strides, Gerra made his way to the copse of colorful fauna in the Felucian jungle. He could sense a dark presence lurking within, but knew that any beast enhanced by Sith alchemy likely had some sort of ability to conceal itself as well as heightened intelligence. This would be no easy hunt.

Taking up his lanvarok, with narrowed eyes Gerra strode between the mighty stalks of the fungi, an eerie bioluminescence cascaded from them and all around. He shouldered through the undergrowth, muscles tensed and ready.

If this had not been a test of skill and might, he would have simply burned the copse and then slain the aacklay as it scrambled free.

It would have been far easier than venturing into its lair.

The mushrooms swayed nearby and Gerra grew tense and still as a statue. His grip on the haft of the lanvarok tightened and he grit his teeth as the oppressive presence drew nearer.

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

Gerra’s laughter followed her into the forest as she moved ahead of him, bare feet leaving soft impressions in the ground, silent as they passed beneath the weighted caps of the funghi forest. Where undergrowth would have given her away she teleported to the next clear spot and pressed on.

She could feel the oppressive presence looming, its instinct to kill and hunt much like they were unmistakable in the force.

Ansisa paused leaning on a tree as she watched Gerwald coming up behind her, predatory gleam in his eye, for a moment she just appreciated the sight of him. As he drew level she pushed aside the carnal urges he ignited and focused.

He would lure the creature out for her. The perfect bait.

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

"If it has blood, you can make it bleed. If it has eyes, you can blind it. If it has a mouth, you can make it scream…"​

Behind Gerra came an insectoid roar that shook the fungoid jungle and sent a chill down the Vahlan's spine. He spun around, eyes wide, and raised his lanvarok.

The aacklay emerged from behind the stalk of an enormous bell-shaped mushroom, the tips of its enormous crab-like legs piercing the upper lay of moss and slime mold as it scuttled toward Gerra. It opened wide its maw and Gerra leaped to the side. A jet of lightning struck where he'd been standing, frying the lichen ground to char.

Grunting, Gerra swung the lanvarok around and ejected one of the poison discs from the weapon's head. The disc hissed through the air, but only struck a glancing blow in the Aacklay's neck. The enormous monster let out another roar and scuttled toward him, lifting one of its enormous legs like a spear as it reared up to impale him.

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

The creatures roar split the air, shaking moisture from the canopy, tension bled into Ansisa's muscles as she coiled drawing the blades from her back. For something as big as it was it had done a good job of ambushing Gerra. She moved from her hiding spot, powerful legs carrying her forward into the fray as it belched lightning where Gerra had been standing a moment before.

She moved for its hind legs, slashing at joints as she moved beneath it, ichor staining her blades, the pain made the creature recoil. its spear like job for Gerra faltering as she dropped her cloak, revealing crimson eyes glittering with delight and a smile curving her lips.

The acklay moved, trying to find its new attacker, wounded legs still bearing weight. Ansisa moved with it, keeping beneath the beasts heavy centre, slashing at another knee joint as it came within reach.

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

Gouts of veridian vitae spurted from the hind legs of the aacklay and its spearing arm aimed for Gerra faltered in an instant. Gerra's eyes snapped down to where the blood flowed and he saw Ansisa as she dropped her cloak, wearing eyes that seared with violent delight and a smile curving and dangerous. Despite the peril, or because of it, Gerra's own lips split in an answering grin and a laugh that rumbled into the canopy.

"There she is," he roared with glee, overcome by the battle lust of the moment.

He swung his lanvarok and smashed the limb which had been meant to spear him. The blade did not slice through the limb like a lightsaber would have. Instead, there came a crack as of a slugthrower shot that split the air as the impact of the polearm shattered the leg's carapace. Bits of chitin chipped and exploded, pulverized, and the Aacklay drug back that arm, shrieking in pain as more green blood dripped from its savaged limb.

But as Gerra rushed in, too reckless by half, the beast retaliated in a spray of lightning from its open maw that struck him and flung him backward twenty paces. He let out a bellow of pain as smoke curled from his form. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably beneath the tatters of his robes.

"Bring it down," he snarled, whipping the lanvarok around and spitting another disc at the beast's eyes to distract it.

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

The crack of lanavrok against the acklays foreleg made the air tremble, its shriek of pain amplified as Ansisa struck at its legs once more cleaving clean through a joint as it belched lightning at Gerra as he charged in. His bellow of pain twisted her grin into a snarl, powerful legs moved her beneath it, hacking three more limbs in two before she slid out from under it, its its remaining limbs collapsing under the sheer weight of it.

Its head whipped round, Jaws widening as it spat lightening her way, but she was already moving. Leaping on its back, bare feet running across sharp carapace. She drove one blade down, driving it into the beasts spine and twisting, paralysing its body. Its head thrashed, eyes wide with fear and pain as it lunged back with snapping jaws towards her.

She side stepped, retaliating with a brutal swipe of her blade tearing through an eye, before reaching with her free hand, the force slamming the acklays head down against the earth, pinning it in place as she stepped along its neck. Her gaze lifted from it once to Gerra, flashing him a smile before bring the blade down with the intention of removing its head.

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

The ear-splitting shrieks of the beast pierced the air along with the sound of razored alloy shearing through chitin and flesh. Blood deluged in great gouts, soaking the moss strewn ground beneath the Acklay. At last the enormous insectoid fell beneath Ansisa’s blade, crashing into the soil with enough force that it shook the nearby fungi.

The tall Vahlan, body blistered and scorched by the lightning, watched with unshadowed approval and a small touch of wonderment as Ansisa began to carve the Acklay’s head from its corpse. She looked a vision of lethality, every inch of her sleight form dangerous: clothes drenched in splashes of the beast’s ichor, hair sweaty, and bare feet standing sure and confident in the moss as she claimed her prize. Gerra stared openly at her, unable to disguise the raw lust in his gaze.

“There she is,” he rumbled, pointing his lanvarok at her, “The huntress. It is well we had no Trandoshans with us else they’d think you their Scorekeeper incarnate.”

Still breathing hard, he came up to her as she was about her grisly work. “How does it feel? The thrill in thy blood.”

Ansisa

 

[Ansisa]

The blade came down in a final stroke, the acklays head dropping the the mossy ground with a satisfying wet thud and Ansisa straightened, flicking the blood from her blade, before climbing back to the acklays back to retrieve her second one a throaty chuckle emanating from her at Gerra's words. She slid once more to the ground, with the grace of the assassin she was.

"I see no reason to deny such a claim, to be a Goddess among mere mortals...its quite enticing."

She drew closer, eyes scanning over where lightening had struck him, his flesh raw in places, the wounds edges blackened, before lifting them to his face, her lips pursing in thought. "It does make the blood sing." she admitted, "but a creature does not have hopes and dreams, it has only survival."

She drew closer, lifting a khukuri the rest on his shoulder, the blades edge a hairs breath away from his throat, her eyes fixed on it, seeing the steady beat of his heart beneath the skin. "When someone is faced with death, their is more than fear in their eyes, there is everything they planned to do, everything they know they will never achieve." she lifted the blade to his cheek, its point resting beneath his eye.

"Taking that from them, watching it fade from their eyes as their life spills from them..." her eyes lifted from the blade to meet his crimson orbs hungry "that is something you cannot get killing a beast."

Hasuras Na-Gerra

 

[Hasuras Na-Gerra]

Mere mortals.

Gerra lofted a brow. Did she mean him? But as she spoke, coming closer to him, resting the tip of her blade against his face, he could see the thrill in her carmine stare. The lust for the kill. And though she be cruel, she was not cold. A cold killer slaughtered without feeling, mechanically. No better than a droid. But she? She reveled in it. As tongues of fire dance when they burn.

"You steal their futures with your blade," he grunted, glancing down the length of the blade toward the Chiss who wielded it. He planted the butt of his lanvarok in the ground with one hand, then the other came up to wrap around her wrist and he sought to move it and thereby the blade away from his face. His lips twitched in amusement, "Scorekeeper."

The huge Vahlan tugged her toward him. The lightning from the Acklay had shredded huge holes in the front of his tunic, threads at the edges crisped and burnt to black. The muscle beneath, the pallor of ash, looked singed, but he hardly seemed to heed the pain.

"And what do you see in my eyes?"

He let the lanvarok go and it thudded to the ground. His other hand, calloused and smeared with blood, came to rest on her hip.

Ansisa