OBJECTIVE: 1 [Belly of the Beast]
LOCATION: Humbarine City [Belltower]
SITH ALLIES:
Mercy
SITH ENEMIES: Imperial Scum/Faithless - Iron Covenant?
Siv Dragr
|
Sahan Dragr
Her eyes closed…
But impact never came.
There was no collision with the street below, no stone slabs crushing life and breath from her, only the sensation of familiar arms as the world shattered and fell apart around them. Srina felt the grip on her body tighten, instinctive and protective in a way that should have been absurd considering everything else that was happening at the same time. The fact that
Mercy
literally had to dodge to the ground using the wreckage as stepping stones to avoid being pummeled. That ice and stone exploded when it hit the ground nearby, that red light filled the sky over and over.
The sound…. The sudden well of screams, of destruction, was absolutely deafening…
But she could still hear the bell while it crashed thoughtlessly through the streets. Bound by inertia to keep going, barreling through both buildings and people. The pale woman could feel every clang that filled the air until it eventually tapered off, too far away, or something finally made it stop.
It should have been terrifying.
It felt
normal.
“I know.”
Her hand reached up, leaning on tiptoes, to wipe the blood and dust from Mercy’s cheek before both feet settled down on the chunk of broken stone. Nothing was clear. Nothing was safe…. It was all shrapnel falling from the sky and rebar, spikes of ice, and broken buildings littering the ground with a dust cloud so thick she had to call the wind to blow it away to borrow some measure of visibility.
It helped a little.
Not much.
Srina remained in the shadow of her battle-sister while metallic orbs turned once again to flicker over the giantess in silent inquiry. Was she injured? Her response had come without hesitation, because she knew that
Mercy
would
never let her fall again. Never let her head hit the ground, never, watch her bleed out while there was still breath in her lungs. There was a bond between them, trust, that was exceedingly rare between Echani, let alone Sith. She never needed to look for the Empress of the Core because she always knew
exactly where she would be.
“…Your children are on the field, Sestra.”
She referred to the Graspborn, certainly, and her Echani eyes could pick them out among their quarry. Imperials in uniform, civilians, who were guilty by association. Mandalorians who seemed damned and determined to make themselves a problem. The zealots who worshiped the Star-Arm swarmed the streets regardless of the debris, wind, and storm. They were savage beasts, eager to prove their worth.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
For a moment…She remained silent with Humbarine City stretching out before them in a state of growing madness. The trap had been sprung, and the pieces were falling into place far easier than she had ever anticipated.
And then a Sith Covenant vessel emerged through smoke and cloud in the distance. It had weapons that flashed brightly enough to momentarily rival the storm, and she caught sight of another ship being split apart beneath the assault. Literally, cut in half. Turbolasers carved burning scars through heavens that were black as pitch, which led her gaze back down toward the city-turned-battlefield. People ran. People screamed. People fought…She even saw a man lean in and tear a chunk out of another man with nothing but his teeth. Fear moved through Humbarine like a living thing, and the Dread Queen breathed it in—Accepting power that was so freely offered.
Her curse merely opened the door. People…In all their wicked, foolish lies…Invited it inside.
Invited
her inside.
Was it beautiful?
Srina didn’t get the chance to answer because something new brushed against her senses, expanded by the overflowing well of the Dark Side. The song she had woven through Humbarine still lingered, slipping in and out, carried by storm and terror. It moved through her people, the Graspborn, and those who carried her blood, her rites, her protection. Yet…Another voice had found it.
Lily Rhodes
made contact that was tentative, as if, she wasn’t quite sure what she was reaching out to. Srina could feel her determination, the refusal to be swept away, and the Empress reached back…
Not with warmth, because that was fleeting, not with comfort…Because that could be taken. She offered something else. An anchor—A connection that settled around Lily in jasmine and rain.
…
Here…
The word carried within the weave, not spoken, but
felt. It led to greater awareness of all that
Madrona A’Mia
had done and the madness she pressed into the populace. The Hordemother was known to her but sensing her through Lily seemed to make everything fall in place. There were layers to this curse, layers, to their plan.
...Here...
The sensation of the word repeated through the passive link. Like a pulsing heartbeat.
The Eternal Mother would always be there.
When she breathed in next, stale air, it was to the sound of a municipal water line bursting while her hair whipped in the wind. The air currents had been adjusted, but that was of little concern. If she needed to control it, she would, but that was neither here nor there.
Oh.
The lost Mandalorians were still out there, somewhere, flying on jetpacks and doing what they did best.
Surviving. Honestly, they had the durability and multiplication power of cockroaches. Lift a stone and find another…
And another.
Case in point. The Echani gave a lilting sigh while his anger washed over her, burning brightly enough that she could almost taste it. Her head tilted while seemingly watching the absence of him move through the smoke…Had the hatred in her curse found him, too?
Not enough to turn him into a mindless beast…But enough to encourage, enough, to cause him to listen to the whispers that urged him to kill? Enough to indulge the little murmurs that he
thought came from his own heart?
An explosion went off nearby and, more or less, she had her answer.
Srina didn’t react to the falling debris because the Mandalorian chose to come at her hard. Beskar-clad weight drove forward behind the knife, turning the jet-pack-powered thrust into something closer to a spear strike rather than a simple stab. It was meant to tear her neck open, to run her through, to kill her, but the Blackwall Empress stepped off the line instead of meeting the attack head-on. Her lead foot pivoted as she whirled through the attack in a flash of white and scaled armor to allow the blade to pass through empty space. One hand caught his vambrace that held the knife, above the spines, while the other struck sharply against the inside of his elbow with
surprising strength.
She knew where to hit. She knew…Every weakness, the body had. She had been raised from birth in a culture where combat was not an option but a way of life. Where their eyesight was so keen that it was confused with pre-cognition. There was no wasted movement in her actions, though the small attack may or may not have caused the joint to lock…Her grip would probably turn his shoulder, which could make him stumble past his mark. The subtle redirection had taken her away from Mercy—
Pain.
It did not come from the afflicted Mandalorian within reach but from above.
The sensation struck without warning, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe, while the White Noise settled on her like invisible fire. Every instinct in her body recognized it immediately. Not because she could see it now, but because she had known from the start exactly what that weapon was designed to do. It hadn’t worked on Mercy…Of course, they switched targets. A sharp tremor passed through her frame, and the alchemized
Sronias flared defensively to life, forming cold ice
hard as durasteel, creeping up the arm of her opponent. She felt the cold, the biting chill—But it
paled in comparison to the
ND-013.
It felt like her body was turning against itself, and something deep beneath flesh and bone recoiled violently. Only…For the blood that
Mercy
had
shared with her to jump-start the healing process. Apoptosis set in, but the forced healing caused her body to restore itself, then slow cellular suicide, then restoration. Over, and over. It left her in a constant state of decay, a constant state of pain, where white dust flaked off her skin in an afterimage.
“…And you call us cruel…”
Her grip on
Siv Dragr
never loosened, and her hawkish, golden eyes never filled with the hatred he was looking for. There was a fathomlessness to her that led to a world of secrets hidden within her gaze. It was unnerving for most to witness, to bear, when they realized that her emotionless nature was the opposite. She felt
everything.
She remembered Eshan.
The smell of homes and her people burning. The absolute silence that followed. She remembered the suffering of a planet that had never involved itself in the wider affairs of the galaxy, that had done nothing, other than exist. They had suffered the fallout of baradium warheads, partly because Srina had dared to refuse the hand of an absolutely insane Mand’alor, who then took revenge through Mand’alor the Infernal by destroying everything she had ever loved. She remembered kneeling beside the dead, burying her eldest sister, and so many others. She remembered even if this Mandalorian did not
care or
dare to accept his hypocrisy.
The difference…
She never let memory or emotion rule her.
If the Mandalorians had expected screams, tears, or for her to roll over and die? They would be sorely disappointed. She was not some wailing acolyte, and her grip on the elder Mandalorian got tighter rather than looser. The ice constricted like a snake, the ring active, regardless of her state, because the White Noise
did not affect alchemized items by design, and
she knew it. The ice was just like any other element and his armor wouldn't nullify the effect anymore than it could delete rain falling from the sky.
“I gave you every opportunity to leave…”
Mercy’s blood surged through her veins with almost predatory intensity and it kept their bond cruelly strong. Perhaps to their detriment the larger woman would feel as she felt…But she would also sense her intent. She could not control her body as the giantess did, nor could she stop what was happening in the moment. Every little death that should have put her on her knees only made her seem more intense and more unyielding. Beneath armor and shielding, pale skin visibly rippled as dying cells were replaced faster than they could properly fail. At one point—Her skin was so thin near her eyes that the bones of her ocular sockets were visible. The phantom scent of ozone mingled briefly with copper and frost while dust drifted out of her nanite armor in faint, ghostly trails.
Her head tilted—Terrifyingly beautiful, even in her destruction.
“...But your hatred won’t let you…I will take it, then.”, she murmured, uncaring, about the close quarters weaponry he obviously had access to. Anything more explosive was a double edged sword due to proximity and the trap made of his own hatred. He underestimated her because she was the quieter of the two, more feminine, and thus unassumimg… But he couldn't have been more wrong. The Force was only one piece of her…Not the whole of her. He would need to contend with
everything she was, regardless of every gadget and trick they had hidden in metal sleeves. In his fury he had also forgotten there was a second Sith Lord to contend with not ten feet away.
“Give me your worst—”
“Give me your hate.”
It only made her stronger.
“—And I will give you the death you crave.”
Lysander von Ascania
had targeted for cleansing. What
Anet Raine
did in the central command, and
Riffraff Ranat
did in the ears of the people, Astra and the Legion would do to those below. Morsels that
Garza Inari
might have enjoyed sampling. Broken souls with stories of their own from a bygone dominion. 
Tamsin Starfall
's mind. A place where people could be kept safe. Humbarine had prepared for an assault, but the Sith Covenant had taken out the leadership before they could organize their defenses. The best laid plans and all that. Now, places of safety could be turned to their purpose and not merely to ensure the survival of the corrupted fools and their minions.
