Populate [RNR] To Hell and Back || The Sundering || Populate of Vendaxa

[Aiden Porte]

"Push forward! We breach the inner hall before they box us in!"

At Lorn's command a surge of energy and inspiration pushed through the Jedi Padawan. He charged in line with Lorn, the blade he wielded cutting through the grotesque figures that were created by the Unblessed. His thoughts were focused on what was going on before him. Holding each line that was captured and also pushing forward so that everyone else still had a way to go. A way to retreat when it came to that.

His thoughts did betray him for an instant, as he thought about those that were in deeper into the fray. His Father, Briana , Brandyn, Elias....

The children....

Lossa's child.....

Blaire's child.....

Blaire....

He stepped back in line, gather his footing once more, and he pushed onward. Making sure that nothing moved past him. The only thing left in his wake was the bodies of the creatures that charged them. He glanced back to Phillip Slate to make sure he was okay.

Aiden was just Padawan too, and he was in no means intending to be condescending, but he had to look out for Philip too.

They had to victorious today, for everyone.

Lorn Reingard

 

[Phillip Slate]

Tags: Lorn Reingard Aiden Porte

Fear and terror were already taking root in Phillip's mind, the fear of what could be going on somewhere else in the battle, terror of what could await them if they failed here, but that was the good thing of training. He didn't have to think about that. The Padawan could just turn his brain off and operate off his training. Letting his saber lash out to protect himself and that would be it. At least...up until he heard Lorn's voice through the battle, snapping Phillip's brain back into focus.

He had to try and protect Aiden's back...even then, he could do that. Defense was what he was alright with. It was going out on the offensive and extending himself that he struggled with. Phillip did his best to stay in line, focusing on protecting their backs. He could trust the other two to be on the offensive. Even as the sounds echoed around him, throbbing inside of his head. There was no way he'd be forgetting these sounds anytime soon. But that could come later. Once they were done with the battle. Because they'd survive. Phillip believed that.

 

[Lorn Reingard]

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Lorn could feel the tide begin to turn - not in the world around them, which still screamed and clawed with chaos - but in the rhythm of the battle. It was subtle, buried beneath the howls and the shrieks of dying beasts, but it was there. The momentum had shifted. The Vanguards were carving a path forward, and behind him, Aiden and Phillip were holding tight to the plan.

Lorn's saber cleaved downward in a final, brutal arc, splitting a beast from collarbone to hip before its twisted bulk slammed against the wall and went still. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, sweat streaming beneath the EVA suit's collar, stinging his eyes, but his hands never shook.

The Gatehouse interior yawned before them - half temple, half furnace. The deeper they pushed, the hotter it got. The air shimmered with the rift's unstable energy, curling the edges of reality like paper in a flame. They were in the throat of the storm now, and if they didn't hold it, the galaxy wouldn't get another chance.

He opened his comm.

"All teams, this is Commander Reingard. Gatehouse breach successful. Holding the threshold now. Begin Phase Two evacuations. You've got a window - take it."

A pause. Then he added, quieter, for the two nearest him.

"They're counting on us. All of them. We hold this place, or they don't make it out."

He looked to Aiden first - sweat-drenched but unwavering, the fight burning in him without dimming his clarity.

Then to Phillip - wide-eyed, shaken, but still upright. Still swinging. Still here.

"You're doing well," Lorn said to them both, voice steady even if his breath was fraying. "We make our stand here. We don't retreat. Not until every last one of them is out."

He stepped into the center of the Gatehouse floor, sabers crackling in the heat, and turned toward the opening rift at the far end. More would come. Worse things. He could feel them.

But so be it.

Let them come.

Aiden Porte | Phillip Slate​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

Sibylla Abrantes Seth Denko Aurelian Veruna

"Legacy isn't just polished on marble floors." He almost clapped.

Raigryn was a fossil. The young ignored him as he shuffled around the room. The old and powerful would have paid attention, but they were busy making their point.

This afforded Raigryn a particular kind of freedom of maneuver.

He watched the reactions of the locals and picked out those who seemed receptive. The odd glance told him who they were looking to. The little groups would follow their own influential figures. Raigryn wanted to find the most sympathetic leaders to target quietly.

 

[Vizion Trozky]

OPERATION ELYSIUM
UNBLESSED NETHERWORLD COMPLEX a.k.a. THE OPERATION SUNKILLER FACILITY
THE NETHER
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Learning that Zeriana was held somewhere within the Nether, rather than realspace, had finally given Vizion a more concrete answer for why he couldn’t get a lead on the child’s location months before, even with a tethering item such as a beloved toy or lock of hair - a thing he relied on when other avenues weren’t available to him, which they wouldn’t be with a baby.

This was preferable to simply shrugging that it was likely a limitation of his experience and strength with the particular farsight tracking he was trained for, when he was known as one of the foremost trackers across the diaspora of Jedi for a reason - he was that capable.

But he wasn’t here for that role, so much as his perception, his skill with a blade, and to see through the return of that child. Those children - why was it that they came after all the children of her family, exclusively? Would her brother’s child have been taken too, if born already? An unhealthy obsession if there ever was one.

But these and all other questions were abruptly set aside when he got locked into a fight with one of the dreaded beasts of the Nether - a thing that would stalk them ceaselessly if not taken out of the picture. The thing that waylaid him for countless minutes as the others trekked ahead, but once the beast was slain, Vizion picked up the pace, fueling his speed with the power granted him (only being slowed a touch by the EVA suit he was wearing), and picking up their trail by way of the easiest, singular beacon: Briana.

Feeling her there at the other end of their bond, through the distortion of this unwelcoming place. She was keeping her focus on what was ahead, he could feel it; a rather interesting and useful discovery as of recent. He’d become so aware of all the ways it felt, in all the ways she looked at him, and turned her attention his way that he could tell she was doing it without looking. Without being present himself.

And he could tell when she wasn’t.

On his approach, he pulled back his presence in the Force tightly to a featherlight touch, rather than an announcement, one of several measures he could employ to evade notice aside from simply hugging the shadows, while he picked up on the quiet discussions between those who had gone ahead, until the attack began and their focus shifted. Then the sound of alarms rose, and he plucked one of his two hilts from the belt of his EVA suit.

A hilt that was lit in short measure when one of the despicable personnel of this facility came at him. The attack ended in a matter of seconds with a well-placed jab into the attacker’s torso, who was promptly thrown off of his orange blade thereafter with a firm telekinetic flick that sent the corpse barrelling past his companions, and into another of the Unblessed, plucking another ugly note in the discordant symphony of this situation.

“Sorry,” Vizion uttered, coming up alongside the two of his companions that were closer to the entrance as they began to advance further inside, “for the hold-up.”

Brandyn Sal-Soren • Briana Sal-Soren • Kahne Porte • Rook Merriex​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

No sooner had it been, that Brandyn and Rook effectively split from the team, than before several Unblessed operatives emerged. They moved quickly, too quickly—like roaches driven from hiding, stirred by light. Rabid, almost, and ready to wreck havoc on them with reckless abandon. Was this what being in the Netherworld for so long had done to them? The thought was pushed back.

Briana ignited her saber without hesitation, muscles coiling in anticipation and the blue of her blade thrumming. Her body moved on years of honed instinct to intercept the gaggle of the agents who threw themselves at her like cannon fodder, no semblance of strategy in sight.

Why? The question looped through her mind, focus split between keeping her blade work tight and controlled while grasping to understand the logic behind their actions. Why are they so desperate? They weren't holding ground, they weren't even guarding an escape route. They were just... sacrificing themselves. Stalling.

"We don't have time for this," she bit out, gritting her teeth as her eyes narrowed and settled on those still in their way. Channeling the Force, Briana used it to launch several members of the group up into the air while Kahne took care of the rest, slamming them against the ceiling with such velocity that by the time their bodies smashed back down against the floor, none of them moved. Whether or not they were dead or unconscious... Briana didn't know. There was barely enough time to think, let alone to digest any of it — only time enough to act.

Just as she was preparing to move toward Kahne, a sharp flare of danger through the Force struck her, urgent and undeniable. Briana spun, instincts screaming, only to find an Unblessed agent she'd missed upon her right flank. It should have been too late — would have been, had Vizion not appeared, moving with near-impossible speed and precision, intercepting the attacker and dispatching them, and more besides, before Briana could even blink.

“Sorry,” Vizion uttered, coming up alongside the two of his companions that were closer to the entrance as they began to advance further inside, “for the hold-up.”

The instinct to move toward him, half out of relief and half out of something sharper — surged before she could think, her feet quite nearly ungrounding themselves before she caught what she was about to do and consciously forced herself to stay put. Her fist curled at her side, jaw setting before she sighed and straightened out her posture, re-centered. "I'd say you made it just in time," she quipped drily, "but, we should go, before more of these goons friends decide to show up..." Disengaging her lightsaber but not bothering to reclip it, Briana sprinted off in the direction that'd been transmitted to them — where Lossa and Blaire's children were.

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There'd been several more 'problems' the further down the hallway they'd gone, until they'd finally reached the end of the corridor — spent, and nearly breathless, as reinforced transparisteel doors came into view. Briana came to a slow stop, her throat bobbing. "I can feel them," she whispered, as if she didn't quite believe they'd actually get this far, come this close. Even though she'd never met Baryn, something in her recognized him. Like calling to like, soul to soul — kin. Then, there was Zeriana... that same bright, relentless spark that surrounded her mother, surrounding her. It was dim, she could tell, but there.

"Stand clear," Briana told them, igniting her blade with a snap-hiss and plunging it into the door. The Corusca Gem inside her hilt burned hotter than standard kyber, and with a little patience and effort, the Transparisteel began parting like it was made of wax as Briana carved a sharp rectangle through the door. When she was finished with the final line, she took a few steps back, pulling the force tightly around her body before using the heel of her boot to slam against the metal.

The entire center of the door crashed inward, smoke and steam belching from the breach.

OUTFIT: Aether EVA Suit | TAG: Kahne Porte , Brandyn Sal-Soren , Rook Merriex , Vizion Trozky | EQUIPMENT: Ligthsaber, Echo Stone, Astor's Dagger

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