Private Sacred Waters Lost in Sand Rescue Skirmish (Kainate/Jedi PM for Invite)

[Caelan Valoren]

And just like that he was alone.

He wondered where all of these Jedi were getting this ability to instantly move through space. Was there a lesson that had been offered on it that he'd managed to miss? It wouldn’t be all that surprising. He didn’t spend much time at the temple anymore because he was too busy. It also made it so he hadn’t taken on a padawan, though he certainly desired the responsibility of training one. It would be good to practice doing so before his children were older. He wanted to be the one to train them in the use of the Force as well. He didn’t want them to go through life the way he had, training avoided and a sole focus on royal upbringing. They needed to know so they could utilize it to take care of themselves and their people.

The Sith were coming to intervene. They yearned for battle, seeking to crush the invaders before they could reach and rescue their target. He had hoped that they might go unnoticed, but he honestly should have known better. That said, he hadn’t expected everyone to go running off on their own, either. He made a point of bringing up that it wasn’t a good idea to split up on a hostile world at the next Jedi moot.

In the meantime, the voice of one of them drifted through the streets. And the signature that went with it seemed to be moving in his direction. Accepting this, he dropped to a knee and set Fate down on the ground.

"Bwoop-bwoo dweep dwoop?"

“There’s a Sith approaching. I need you to go figure out how we can distract them long enough to extract when the time comes.”

"Boop-bwoop bloop beep dweet-dweep bweep beep-bwee beep dweep boop bwoo-bwoop beep boop bwoop boop? Dwoop-bloop. Beep bweep-beep bwee boop dwoop dweep-bwoo boop beep."

“Just try, Fate. Lives depend on it.”

Fate bobbed his head and tottered off while Caelan drew his lightsaber to his hand and activated it. The white blade with purple and blue outer hues sprang to life and he moved to position himself in the center of the way, such that when the approaching Sith came into view, it would be obvious that he was being waited for, and expecting engagement.

ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Magnus Zambrano ​

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

Alexandra's eyes stayed forward, listening as her allies started to split off to head over and deal with each problem. Caelan Valoren heading towards the direction of Magnus Zambrano who Alexandra's eyes already tracked through the Force, her dear child seemed to have been caught in the Viper's Den. He and the Droid with him were clear on their focus and task, while Saki head moved off to help those unfortunate enough to possibly caught up in all of this. The thoughts making her pause for a moment before chuckling to herself while she still walked with Pelie besk and got closer to where a certain Jedi had tried to jump free to his safety.

It was this short time where Alexandra would leave Daeda to go and make sure things are ready to go back at the ship. The small fox surely joining the Droid Fate in this matter while she continued to focus on the task at hand.

That task leading her to where Vandra Zambrano and Manu Xextos had fallen towards the ground, her hand crossing over her chest while the left remained limp at her side, her eyes staring down at the Man as he surely was unmoving on the ground, or at the least waiting for their arrival at this point.

"... really?" That was all she stated, looking over the situation and his unceremoniously strange attempt of escape. She was certain that Vandra would no more like the matter than Alexandra did as she observed the situation before her. Still it was clear that Alexandra's focus needed to be elsewhere as she turned her eyes to the side once more.

"Jedi Besk, Ill leave you to handle the young woman here." She would give Pelie another smile before walking over to Manu. Her hand reaching out and smacking him upside the head before then starting to heal any injuries he had sustained in his choice of action or simply that had been festering.

"Now... would you like your saber before he arrives..." She turned her head again, feeling for the presence of Darth Carnifex , certain he was already close by.

 

[Magnus Zambrano]

"Center yourself, focus your rage…"

The Jedi father would witness his Sith compatriot, whose child was eager to the point of mania. Magnus charged at flickers of light, anything which brought him and his near 12 ft bulk closer to the Jedi. Closer to the pitch of battle, the cut and sever. He thundered against the roof and he landed hard on the pavement below, cracking duracrete beneath armoured boots. Closer, ever closer.

"… Do not let it unbalance you…"

Magnus was a wave lost in a hurricane, war-cry a resounding bellow restrained only by the bedrock of his Father's voice. He tried to breathe and another barking bellow was his reward. He charged forward, stopping when Pelie veered off. When Saki disappeared.

Lightsaber ignited, its black core flickering with deep reds brushing against purples, Magnus flourished the longblade into the wide-stanced starting posture of Djem So. His eyes, rage-red and swathed in black sclera, focused on Caelan. "… you know what their prize is…"

Magnus was the future of Caelan Valoren 's children, if the Jedi and Monarch were to fail, as Yasha did, in protecting her son. The Mand'alor and mother died too quickly, and despite his step-parents Alexandra Feanor & Noah Corek 's attempts, the unrestrained cut to Magnus' soul filled with his father's malice, with Darth Carnifex 's rage. While the Eternal Father knew how to control the blood in his veins, his and Yasha's firstborn son had yet to absorb the lesson.

The youth gulped and shook both shoulders, trying to calm his breaths. It barely registered, that flicker of fur so similar to Daeda. It barely seeped through his cloak, that his step-mother was present. Squaring up, preparing for her own shield-clang.

"They are Jedi..." A flash of repulsion, a child's pain, drifted and was cast into the white-knuckled hold of his saber's hilt. "… thank you, Father..."

He breathed, and with a significant amount of his bulk, tore across the distance between himself and Caelan, into the town where he could smell the folk huddled in buildings dotted along the empty, formerly bustling street in front of the hospital. A flourish of his blade, a charge at the Jedi…

"... Jedi value life. Them or me, little Jedi!?" Magnus reached for a hover-cart left derelict in the pause, and pitched it at the window of a shop, where people huddled behind a table. He slashed in a downward arc, testing to see if Caelan would go save the people from being crushed, or if he'd mount his own defence.

 

[Caelan Valoren]

The Sith that appeared before him was different. Strained, unsure. YOUNG. Younger than him, though he supposed if he had never been affected by the time chamber, and whomever it was that had made it, they wouldn’t be far apart in developmental age. But he seemed far more brash than even Caelan had been. Perhaps that was the dark side effect upon him. It had stunted his mental growth in favor of power and physical strength. He was like a brute, a colossus sent to battle, given order and direction, knowing he would not deviate because he didn’t have the capacity to. That’s what Caelan saw coming charging at him.

And he felt pity.

He didn’t know, at least not for sure, if it was the dark side that had brought this upon Magnus. There wasn’t a way of knowing without spending time with him, or delving into his mind, both of which were unlikely. Could also be that it was his father, Carnifex, that had influenced this upon him. It wasn’t like the beast of a Sith wasn’t well known amongst the Jedi as a threat to the light. Perhaps he had made his son this way?

The lightsaber strike was expected. What wasn’t was the hover-cart being launched at a nearby storefront. He was only narrowly able to react to this while defending himself. The lightsaber would strike a barrier in front of him, normal type of barrier, nothing special. The hauler would do the same, smashing into it and falling to the ground. Barriers were never a real strain for him unless he had to make a lot of them. If this boy was going to continually attack civilians while trying to fight him, it was going to become a strain on him at some point. He knew this, and knew the consequences, but he had to continue to buy time so they could get Manu and the rest of the Echani out.

“Don’t assume weakness based on a difference in philosophy,” Caelan said in response to the words aimed at him. “No two people are the same, whether amongst the Jedi or the Sith. We all have different skills, different thought processes, and different moral values.”

With the blade stopped, and the people in the store temporarily saved from being squashed like insects under a boot, he unleashed a blast of the Force at the boy in front of him, meant to send him skittering away, but not to do significant harm. Others might wish to kill all Sith, but Caelan didn’t wish to harm anyone. He didn’t believe it was right for Jedi to wish to harm others. That militant line of thinking was something he continually argued against.

“Why do you want to fight me? Because of what I am? Because I don’t utilize the dark? Am I here to harm you?”

ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Magnus Zambrano | Darth Carnifex | Alexandra Feanor ​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Where Magnus jumped down to slam into the ground with tremendous force, the Dark Lord slowly descended gracefully and with a monarch's poise. His armored greaves touched the ground with a soft thud, armored and bladed cloak fanning out around Him like a razor-sharp sunburst. He watched impassionately as His son absorbed His lesson, correctly identifying that a Jedi's principle weakness was their unwavering resolve to safeguard the lives of innocents. It mattered little what a Jedi's creed entailed, for all those who carried that moniker shared the same weakness.

"Endanger life, my son. Kill those without the means to defend themselves. Exert your power over them, and the Jedi will have no choice but to respond predicatively." This was His commandment, His edict to His son born of rage and violence. In this, however, Magnus would have to persevere alone. The Dark Lord had business elsewhere, and He would not burden His son with His vigilance. "Feed his corpse to the desert. You know what it means to fail."

Then He left Magnus, traveling to where He was needed with ethereal swiftness. Even so, His movements radiated the perception of being unhurried, languorous in form. Even so, every inch of Him hummed with carefully managed savagery, the very air electrified with the promise of violence. He made no effort to conceal Himself, letting the oppressive intensity of His presence wash over His foes like a glacial tidal wave.

"Of all the profound errors a creature like yourself can commit," rasped the Dark Lord, "This rivals most." He didn't draw His weapon just yet, though it could be seen dangling from His hip as He opened up His cloak. "Manu should know better than to act against the welfare of his people, they will always bear the burden of his delinquency." Each word caused the air to ripple with power, the authority laden with each syllable unmistakable.

"If you crawl to me now and kiss my feet, I will show restraint." He left the implication of what would happen otherwise unspoken.

Manu Xextos | Alexandra Feanor
Magnus Zambrano | Caelan Valoren ​

 

[Manu Xextos]

For Saki

The market was the city's largest. People hiding from the sun under shades and a mesh net spun across the expanse. Saki's body ripped it with a catastrophic sound, and it fluttered down around her inside the crater. Fathers grabbed their children, youths peeked from behind stalls, women protected their wares.

Most of the Echani didn't speak. Verbal language was unneccessary with the tension in the air, with Saki rocketing down like a meteor into the main district of the city. The first few who moved were the older women, stuffing what they could into bags and reaching for blasters, vibroknives, a few broomsticks made of stronger alloy than anyone might think.

Surging out of homes and buildings in slim waves, first a few straggling warriors with telescopic vibrostaffs peppered out, then half retreated. This wasn't a battle, or a Sith to fight. It was time to go.

"Our ancestor… Master Xextos?" To any of the Jedi, who met @Raya at Alexandra's tree, the woman who spoke looked her twin. Aged, spine curved by decades in the sun, "He's coming?"

"We could mount a rescue, there's enough of us!"

"Don't be moronic, Urdu! That was a Kainate ship." Another voice echoed from the square, as more and more bundles of people began to swarm at Saki, people running from side-streets, others tossing supplies off skiffs with enough power to haul folk at speed.

A haggard man with pure white hair skidded to a stop on his speederbike. "It's Carnifex, he unleashed Magnus!"

The first woman wheeled on Saki. "Where is your ship? How large is it?! There's a transport outside the city, it hasn't flown in half a decade, but… it should run."

 

[Manu Xextos]

"Boooo-yaaa-" It worked!? It's working! I'm going to make it out ali-wall! Wall and… aw frick. The tears're gonna be mine, "-aaugh!" I can feel it… especially as I'm unceremoniously rag-dolled through the window and down into a lower floor with a limb-tangled smack and the long squeal of my body sliding down the smooth hallway floor. "HNNNNNNNGGHHHH... my most of me…"

And now she's mad. Beat me with me own leg mad… but hark! I sense… well I don't know who it is, but someone who doesn't want my blood outside me is a fantastic start.

"Never said intact…" I glare at the child as I gingerly sit up, the most non-plussed glare of a disappointed older brother, and knock on my wobbly prosthetic leg with three clangs. "… aware. HE TORE MY LEG OFF VANDRA, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?"

A rather dour-faced Jedi Pelie besk leaps between Vandra and I, the start to a rescue I hope is on the better side of all ideas.

"Old!?" I clear my throat, looking down at the reflection of a world-weary face in the hospital's shiny floor. Another glance up as Alexandra Feanor arrives and I can taste salvation. "… granted, but see how good you look at 953… Thanks, by the way… Don't… worry about me, a minute and a snack, I'll be back playing hopscotch… by the force, how old am I? Hopscotch? Dang it Manu, get it together… I'm just so excited! I'm getting rescued! Waheyy! Nothing can wreck this feeling!"

"Of all the profound errors…"

"Nevermind! Ohhhhh goodie, Alex!" It's been fifty years, let me have sarcasm. "… what? Have you met Vandra? It would have been a solid plan… didn't stick the landing, but… oooo gimme gi-huhwha?" The gut-rot of Alexandra's left arm smacks my senses like spoiled fish. "… ohhhhhhh I'm'a gonna hate this'un aren't I? That's some mighty fine damage, you good for this? Need me to lend a hand? Literally?"

I grab for Nuada, desperate to hold my lightsaber again, to feel the love and continuity of the focusing crystal. The metal a little tarnished, but gleaming enough to polish out to its original white-metal shine. It rushes back through me, the missing peace. And as Carnifex's presence depresses against the hospital like the entire building was sunk into the bathypelagic, I can't help it. An ocean of respite and release flood through anyone in the viscinity capable of sensing the projected empathetic signals of an exhausted and if I might say, pretty mentally loud, Echani Master.

"Heh…" A heaved breath, then another. I roll onto my elbows, my torturer in his resplendence. "Heh… hehehehahahaaaahahahahaaaah!" The laughter comes in waves, I grip my thin stomach, eyes closed so tight inner stars are my only guide. I wheeze and cackle, rolling off my back to wobble to my knees. "Kaine Zambrano, everyone! The Void's errand boy. You haven't broken me yet, Kaine… heheheeeeehhh… fifty fething years!" My voice is almost a wail, my lungs catch as another wave of absurdity tosses me like a kid on their first board. "Hahaaaah! Of course! Swoop down on the lil planet, threaten everyone I have left to love. Cause that's what it is, isn't it? In some perversed, fethed up sort of way. That's always what it is with you. Destroy a person's loves, until they have nothing but you. Hahhaaaah."

'Saki, there's only so much time we can buy you. Get the Echani out. You have no other priority, get them out.'

My breaths come easier, one hand clutching Nuada's hilt on my knee, the other on the top of the prosthetic where it melds with my flesh. Flesh he took. Lenience from Darth Carnifex didn't mean my people would all live through this, but was a few stragglers to limp on better? My ice eyes flickered to Vandra, how she seemed so… surprised I didn't serve the Zambranos like it's some sort of honour.

If I crawl now, I'll never get back up. How can I keep my people safe, if I can't even get beyond my own knees?

"You… heh… you almost got me. How much easier it'd be to succumb. I got buddies this time. You got an adolescent with grieving issues and a crazy person… no offence Vandra, eh, maybe a little offence. I'm afraid most of your militia's come down with one killer of a cold… is… is Magnus in armour? 'Cause if not…" I whistle high to low, make a little landing noise. "… you got a few spares, huh? Your wives and kids aren't in the blast radius now, Kaine! I have no reason to be restrained. Unless you got Raya in your pocket, I'd say it's two against you… take off the trick leg, the dangling arm… solid one and a half… maybe three quarters." I slap Alex's right shoulder. "Ya gonna hit him? I'm gonna hit him."

For the first time in half a century, Nuada crackles to life. Her pure white blade cuts into the hall.

 

[Magnus Zambrano]

"Any warrior who can't handle battle is a coward. Any being who doesn't learn to fight survives only on mercy… mercy is a thin and fickle veil." Magnus charged in, grimacing at the barriers, wondering if they had a threshhold of force before they crumbled. Or was it a mental fortitude, like his unwilling tutor Manu Xextos , who they were trying to rip away? He thrust a swing of his saber scraping the ground and up through Caelan's leg and hip area. "The Jedi taught me that!"

The flash of his saber against Caelan's defences held the same gut-churn of his childhood self clinging to his twin as Girak-Kaine shuddered awake. As the mystic son of Carnifex looked helpless beyond the veil with visions a youngling couldn't comprehend. As the blade cut through their mother's body at their father's hand.

"To die in battle is honour!" It was one of Girak-Kaine's precursor dreams to nightly visions. Pasts, futures, nonsensical images that flowed past any cognition Magnus could muster. All he could do was hold his brother, helpless against it, incapable of fighting Girak-Kaine's spectral battles. "To be given a command from my Father is an honour."

So when he was young, Magnus fought their father. He fought in the training rings and eventual arenas. He carved as much safety for his younger siblings as was possible in Sithly places. And in that barrage, Kaine Zambrano welcomed his son. He held the boy, taught him the brutality of true combat, taught Magnus what survival meant, and how he could be that paragon to protect his siblings. His mother. He saw death strike his father, only for others to help in the resurrection. Death was not final for the faithful. The promise Magnus' father whispered to her death throes, he fulfilled.

"He cares to command me! What would you know!?" Magnus searched for paternal affection in his father's wicked orders, another moment to teach his son. A spectre of pride in potential. Every promise he gave to his children - to honour those who honoured him, to punish those who failed him - he fulfilled. He was a brutal tyrant of a man, who asked much, but demanded far more from himself. And if any of the children were to raise up and protect the family, Magnus burned the promise quietly into his own flesh.

"Oh, here we go, Jedi swooping where they're not wanted, here to separate a mother from her fethed-up light-headed son, but we are the antagonisers!" A flash of mixed emotions struck Magnus' face, "Why else would you go to Aberash Temple on the way? Or assault the hospital he's working in? Are you here to let the illness strike before Manu finishes his cure? It wouldn't be the first Jedi massacre I've witnessed. Here you are, high on your sunlight flickers… I won't let you take him from me!"

Magnus gulped, covering the slip with another wide swing of his saber to gain distance from Caelan Valoren . "Us, he… he has to finish! I won't let my people die like drowning voorpah. I am compelled to obey my Father, at least the Echani are fighters, I can give them a good death."

He charged, this mind-twisted son. Not, though, toward Caelan, but into a structural pillar holding up a cantilevered building, which teemed with beings huddled, paralyzed, running.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

Alexandra would be patient, continuing to stand where she was when she looked towards Manu. Slightly disappointed in the man's antics but as she stood there her thoughts did roam. Her gaze only moving from him when she heard the voice of a certain individual, and in a flash her presence expanded. It was like a wave as she reached out through the force and her gaze turned onto Magnus Zambrano who she frowned deeply at. The young man had seemed to have gotten themselves into trouble, falling into the command and lockstep service of Carnifex.

It was something she knew would happen, something she had no intention of interrupting, but at the same time she did look at Magnus. It was a disappointment in her eyes, a simple statement telling him that there was no intent for harm but that they would not be leaving without Manu. Her thoughts running over it all before looking towards Manu after thinking it over.

"Tell me, Manu. Have you completed your duties here?" Her gaze turning towards the man, letting him retrieve his saber from her before listening for his answer. It was a simple question, one that left her standing there before frowning again and feeling the presence of the other who she had felt before.

"Ah... Kaine. It has been a while. Ive been meaning to have a chat with you." Coming from Alexandra would be a momentary flash of nothing but utter bloodlust. An intense and instinctive rage directed in only one direction that those near her would feel. Caelan Valoren and Manu Xextos most of all would feel that change as she breathed in deeply, her thoughts going to how lonely and cold she has been in the last few months without the presence of a certain individual at her side.

But as soon as that bloodlust came, it would simply flow away from her, dissipating as she winced. The dark corruption that had seeped into the half of her being standing before Kaine right now striking at the moment of emotion, sinking its claws into her deeper from her short time being submerged into the depths of Coruscant's dark core.

It brought with it a cough, crimson stains falling onto the sleeve of her robe as she raised her right hand. It was an after-effect that she could not simply excuse and ignore, and instead she steadied her mind so that she could fight without interruption.

"Apologies, I forgot myself for a second there. I will have to correct a mistake with far more care." She still glared at Kaine, carefully letting the Songsteel spear move in her hand, moving it so that she held it at the ready. There was still a underlying bloodlust, an intense want to kill and cut Carnifex into pieces here and now as she stared at him. The woman who otherwise was so calm, peaceful, and without malice for anyone having in her eyes the man who had taken part of her peace from her.

"So, Old Man, How about you leave and let me take Manu with me? If you do, we can shelve this discussion for another time and you wont have to show Magnus what it means to run with your tail between your legs."


(Additional Tags, Pelie besk Saki Vandra Zambrano Darth Carnifex )

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"You fought a losing battle fifty years ago and you'll fight another losing battle today, Manu Xextos." The Dark Lord crossed both of His arms over His chest, slowly rising up to levitate a half-meter off of the ground. "I'd have splattered your consciousness across the ground decades ago had your mother not preached that you'd one day stumble onto the path. Of all her children, you've always been the biggest disappointment. She'll shed no tears for you when I bring her your corpse, what's left of it."

His gaze, and thus His ire, did thus settle upon Alexandra. "You speak without thought, Alexandra Feanor. You come before me unbalanced and believe yourself to stand among your betters? You should have remained on Alderaan, swaddled beneath the boroughs of your beloved tree. That was where you were when I killed her, was it not?" A gleam of utter cruelty danced in the Dark Lord's baleful eyes, each one a molten halo of hatred and fury.

"Did he tell you how he stood aside, helpless as a newborn babe, as I gutted her? Tore the heart from her chest? Was he not shameful in that moment, Feanor? Can you stand to look him in the eyes, knowing that he allowed her death? Then again, she was an it. A thing, a creature brewed in the flesh-pits of my Yuuzhan Vong." A laugh, cruel and inhuman. "You fell in love with a grub. I imagine those tears were utterly pitiful."

Suddenly, and without warning, a huge sword materialized in the air at Alexandra's back, some ten meters away. A third of the blade had been crudely broken off, the remaining end jagged and vicious. It shot forward with a velocity propelled by the Dark Lord's will, aiming to skewer her from behind and pin her to the cold earth below. With it came the sensation of keen loss, the death-wail of endless multitudes bound beneath the shimmering surface of that horrendous blade.

Hungering for more.

Alexandra Feanor | Manu Xextos ​

 

[Vandra Zambrano]

Saki Darth Carnifex Magnus Zambrano Alexandra Feanor Caelan Valoren

Pelie awaited for the sith to engage so she didn't seem so wanting to engage hiding her emotions under a faceless expression. As she stood there not wanting to lose her life but also not wanting to be here entirely sure she hated the darkside. But she wasn't stupid and rescuing manu was a way to stick it to the sith that's when she sensed what manu did. She expanded her senses to find Manu Xextos she vanished from the hospital in an instant and appeared between manu and Vandra Zambrano Igniting her icy bright violet lightsaber.


That hummed with power standing in a traditional form 3 pose her covered face looked towards vandra "if you want to get to him your gonna have to go through me" she said coldly waiting for her to engage she wouldn't let this mission fail as she felt the whole building around them. Through the force even the electrical currents the wind she could see every muscle twitch facial movement. Each individual hair moving on everyone's head "unless your to chicken to face a real challenge and only fight old men who are physically crippled which wouldn't surprise me from a sith" she said goading vandra on.

Right before she could continue her assault on Manu Xextos two things happened, one being the arrival of Alexandra Feanor and Pelie besk who seemed to challenge her while Alex went to tend to Manu, at first she was about to see about dealing with them both while keeping Manu here but her rage was quickly over taken by her sheer glee and almost insane like excitement at the arrival of her Father Darth Carnifex who seemed to have a handle on Manu and Alexandra, She turned to Pelie who challenged her and decided to ignite her crimson blade and do a speeding charge towards her too purposely clash against her blade and them both out the window down to the village below so they can have a proper battle without getting in the way of her father, If it all went well she would land safely onto the ground infront of her opponent either way the goal was to bring her to a different battle ground.


I accept your challenge Jedi, but I am giving us more fighting room hehe, wouldn't want to get in the of Father as he deals with up their lets continue this...Now...lets see how confident you are once im done ripping you apart.

Was all she said as she took a stance the shadow of the mountain made it so that her blade glowed against her armor like a Hellish beast was infront of her, she was still enraged from Manu's technique but now it was more focused ...focused towards this Jedi infront of her as she felt Magnus Zambrano facing against Caelan Valoren off in the distance she was ready to begin with wildness in her eyes behind that armor like a wild beast was in that armor instead of a human.

 

[Caelan Valoren]

The boy spoke in a predictable manner, as had the one that directed him. It was Sith mantra to destroy and kill. They were the psychopaths and sociopaths of the galaxy by nature. It was what led them to be what they were.

"Strength is know when to fight and when not to," he countered. "Wisdom is knowing that someone not wanting to fight, doesn't mean they can't."

The blade that swept for his calf once again met a barrier. He knew it would ultimately frustrate the boy, and that it would make him madder and more likely to lash out at his surroundings, but that also made him less controlled, less precise. Despite the way they boy acted, despite what he said, Caelan did not wish to hurt him. He pitied him. Pitied the fact that this boy was nothing more than a puppet for a man who had been the puppeteer of many over the years of his existence.

The mention of illness caused a flicker of curiosity and a note of worry to flash across Caelan's face.

"What illness do you speak of?"

But before he could get an answer, there was a wide swing of a blade meant to keep him at bay, which worked as Caelan stepped back to avoid being struck, and then the boy was charging. Not at him, but at a building. A building full of people. And right in front of him was a pillar holding up and overhang that supported the building. Taking down that one pillar probably wouldn't take down the whole building, not with the amount of redundancy that went into structural designs, but it would weaken it to the point where taking out one or two more would certainly bring it down.

"Stop it. If you and your people are dying, killing these people isn't likely to help your search for a cure."

He started grabbing other objects from the road, that hauler for example, and using them to shore up that location in the building.

"If there's an illness killing innocent people, and if you ACTUALLY care about them, then stop this and let's see to fixing it instead of fighting."

ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Magnus Zambrano | Darth Carnifex | Alexandra Feanor ​

 

[Saki]

Manu Xextos

There was one thing she had to admit when it came to echani... they responded quickly and if they saw you do something physical... didn't always ask questions. SHe watched as the older ones were getting things prepared as she spoke. "We have a ship and can call in more if needed." She said it while she could sense the others but was involved in this. Best way to fight was make sure the potential to distract was gone. SHe had a plan well half a plan... mostly if she needed to she planned to throw that building on Darth Carnifex or something. Master Denko and despite everything she would always call him that would have done other things but there were buildings all around them and she had seen him massacring the Togarian once upon a time. She looked at the echani who were there and they all seemed ready when she spoke. "If you can keep up, I can charge us through." She waited but stayed there for a moment as she focused on her mental map with the best way to move a larger crowd and avoid the zambrano spawns. She motioned as she started moving forward quickly.

 

[Manu Xextos]

"I've done enough. We keep the lab a floor above us intact, they can figure out the rest… whether it's in time to save the already infected?" I flourish my saber again, gripping it two handed. "Depends on how hard they exert themselves."

The flash of bloodlust, the corrupt cough stings my medical senses. New plan. We fight enough to book it, and I get Alex to lie on a hospital bed for a week… nah, she'd never go for it.

"Still gave you some pretty neat scars." Loss in battle is only one stage of defeat.

"If my mother wanted me dead, I wouldn't be breathing. How many decades has Ahani tried to bore wisdom into that reinforced skull of yours?" I chuckle, shaking my head. "You still don't see it, do you? Her greatest lesson. Light and Dark combined, I almost pity you. Still the lonely man learning the hard way how to scrape an empire out of broken bits. I die and become One with the Force. I join the legions who fell before me. My wife. My children... Heck, my Jedi Masters from Yavin's moons. Ahani keeps me alive, because to her, love is a cage in which she can mother the universe."

How much time and effort drains the Kainate resources between rituals and rites of passage, clone tanks and wicked technologies to stave off death. To return from it, perverse and soul-wounded until the inevitable claw back into the Netherworld. "Ahani fears death, because she fears the emptiness in her own loss. I fear no such evil."

What in the howling hurricanes, did I miss? Alex tightens, the apology striking at me with a strict desire to send her for imaging and a blood scan.

"Yasha's dead?" A twitch to my eyebrow, the pieces are beginning to slink into place. Magnus was always an idiot, but the boy seemed unhinged lately, some hubbub about a Mandalorian captive later let free. Big pageantry I, lowly captive, didn't get to see. "Alex, your wife dies and… aahhh. So that's why."

My shoulders settle, the giggles descend to another place, one locked away until the time is right. I breathe and the planet breathes with me, a serene wind filled with the Light's peace and compassion. A foot shuffles in beside Alexandra Feanor , ready to watch her back, to break another opening.

"I've been where you are." Another breath and the wind strokes along Alex's cheeks, rustling the hair which, if I may, used to be a glorious silver. Let it take the Dark One's putrid hatred away. "Grief, anger, they come. We do not ignore them, we transmute them. Downriver to consolation. Let the grief flow."

A hand on Alex's collarbone holds her steady, holds her back. My mental voice is clearer, stronger than the warble I have burbling from my throat. It rings inside her mind, and with it the offer to let her grief and the corruption in the Force I feel, sink away. 'You don't need to feel this right now. I can hold onto the corruption, the grief, for you. What'd be a more fitting wake for your wife? You coughing up blood, or you kicking this xar'chath halfway to Aberash at full tilt? Say the word. I'm stronger than I look. Let me help you and we'll get out of here.'

One benefit to spending half a century as Kaine's punching bag's given me one heck of a look at his tactics. Far from a Darth Carnifex Savant, I still recognize the shrill immediacy of a threat behind us. Kinda hard not to, when the weapon's taken so many lives it's mentally shrieking. Why else would the man talk, get us distracted? Swerving round, I bat the blade away with a sliver of Force Body combined with the wind, powering a sense of timing honed through lifetimes at war.

 

[Magnus Zambrano]

By any standards, even Epicanthix, Magnus Zambrano was abnormally tall. He towered over his father and Uncle Braxus, growing into a physical body out of pace with the smaller, more agile beings. Lung capacity, blood pressure, caloric intake all scaled up for a beast of a young man still growing into his bones.

The illness, as Manu said, was airborne.

Unlike his half-sister, Magnus didn't have the time to dress in hermetically sealed armour. Every breath Magnus took scoured at his lungs. He shook his head with a bark, blamed the impact with the pillar for the wheezed inhale. "A virus. Spreading through the Sabarene Epicanthix. Something old and mutated released from a salvaged ship buried in the desert. Manu is ancient. If I forfeit the Echani Doctor, I slaughter my own species. If I disobey Father, who protects my siblings then? If I follow Father's will, I break my step-mother's heart! Her and that magic tree…"

Rubble drifted from his cloak. The familiar sensations he dismissed earlier doubled onto his shoulders.

His step-mother Alexandra Feanor was here. Magnus' stomach dropped. How could he keep both sides of his family safe? The knowledge that his quest was as futile as a pacifist on the Malsheem hid from his mind, yet. A sobering reality for an older day of self-reflection.

Caelan Valoren shored up the damaged building, and once more, Magnus was failing. He could no sooner bring a building down than stop Gunnr from reaching that planetoid, and witnessing the final end of Yasha Cadera.

"I am Magnus Zambrano. I cannot falter!" No sooner kill a Jedi than carve his mother's vongflesh off her… eyes stinging, Magnus' nostrils flared. He roared and attempted to slash through the materials Caelan used to shore the building up. A wild thing, Magnus charged his shoulder into another of the posts, swung wide as duracrete and construction materials exploded around them. "I am His son! I do what must be done! If that means digging my mother's grave I do it! If it means slaughtering a Jetii to... to..."

"Stop confusing me!" The youth had nowhere to put his grief outside his fists. Wild as he was, trained instinct threatened another volley of four quick-snapping strikes downward at Caelan's head.

 

[Caelan Valoren]

The boy was confused. Worse, he was sick. The coughing betrayed him. Even though he was interested in fighting, Caelan was not. This was not a situation in which combat would do anything other than leave the boy injured. He was not going to come out of this in good shape, even if he managed to defeat Caelan. Given what he said, he was dying, and instead of focusing on dealing with that, he was hell bent on destroying the Jedi in front of him. It was foolish, childish, and showed a lack of self-care. It also told him his father didn’t care about him.

“Does your father want you to die?”

It was a cutting question to ask. On one hand, the boy wanted, clearly, to serve his father and do whatever was asked of him. He yearned for parental respect and approval. But he wasn’t going to get respect from someone who sent a sick child of theirs into battle against a healthy opponent. It was like sending someone off to battle and then taking away their weapons. Either they died at the hands of their opponent, or they managed to get lucky enough to barely survive.

“You’re sick. Your coughing betrays that.”

The support was chewed through before he charged at Caelan in a flurry of strikes. Caelan used his own saber to parry, his body moving fluidly in time with the strikes, letting them slide down and away from him rather than trying to block and absorb the power of the larger being. Epicanthix were not small. He knew this because he knew Kahlil and he knew his and Valery’s children. They were tall, strong, and even with his abilities in body modification they could overpower him. It was smarter, instead, to allow his momentum to carry his strikes away from Caelan with simple parries.

Again, he unleashed a blast of the Force in an effort to push Magnus away from him. Frustration, digging at his mind, getting him to relinquish the unnecessary desire to spill blood in that moment, that was the key.

“If you want to live, if you want to protect your people, stop fighting unnecessary battles and stop holding people against their will. If you want help, if you can’t complete what Manu has apparently already started, then ask for help. Let him go, and ask for help from others. Lazerian has the resources and the people to help. If you want to save your people, then let us help you, but don’t hold him against his will.

“It might not be what your father wants, but you need to focus on what’s best for your people, not what your father wants, because if you die from this illness, then what your father wants doesn’t matter anyway.”

ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Magnus Zambrano ​

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

Alexandra would look on at Kaine Zambrano, listening to each venomous word and with each one her own unease and anger only grew. What he stated wasn't wrong, her form both incomplete and now the half that remained within her body was deeply infected with the corruptive nature of the Dark Side. It ate at her very being, pulled for her to give in and to surrender herself to the pull and to fall back into the Netherworld. To be sent to the place where her being had escaped and defied the natural order, where she likely belonged in the eyes of the Cosmic Force.

Even if it were true though, Carnifex did not see the fear that had been there when Alexandra still served under him, nor the disinterest from the last time they had interacted and the man had shown up within her home on Alderaan. It was instead a instinctive and somewhat beastial look, one that better matched the bloodlust falling from her with each of his words.

True or not, it did not matter.

As he describe her having been missing to be there for Yasha, as he described that Noah simply stood to the side while it happened. She would simply stare back into those molten halos of his that were eyes. She could only stare as each word caused her grip on the blade to become tighter, as her body shifted just that bit more forward ready to strike out and plunge her own blade deep into Carnifex's chest. Everything he said was true, and that was what pissed her off the most, up until the final end where she instead reacted with a small laugh.

Manu would hear her laughing as she did, and his words did reach into her while she laughed. The Bloodlust falling from her as she steadied herself and stood tall once more. Manu's words, his efforts helped to push her mind back into a state of calm, but the final words were what truly pushed her back into reason.

She could focus with Manu covering her back, stopping the blade and pushing it away rather than letting it run her though. Could speak her own words in return as she thought on one simple fact.

"I forgot how twisted your view of things were. Its good that you could not understand what the truth of things were. I fell in love with Yasha Cadera, that is true, and she had taken in a Biot, that was also true. But if you think to cheapen such a thing with how she had been when she died, to think that these facts made lesser what had been felt, then I have no need to pay your words any notice." She coughed again, but remained tall with Manu at her side, her breathing far more steady and the corruptive infection of her body pushed down so that she could smile.

"I did lose her, I did fail to be at her side when she passed. But, I trust Noah's decisions, just as I trust Adara's when she came to me in tears, and trust that Magnus feels the same pain of loss that I do. You view her as an It, but she was no It." She would reach out into the ground, letting the flow of the force twist and her hand start to weave it once more to her will. Letting it guard her and closing her hand tight on the hilt once more. The earth beneath Carnifex cracking open and thick roots reaching up to grab at his arms while she stood there.

"Ill be taking Manu, and you will either let me do so, or we will shave off one of your lives. Even if we cant kill you, I can atleast make it hurt, a bit of a gift in Her Memory."

Manu Xextos Darth Carnifex

 

[Magnus Zambrano]

"No! Of course he doesn't!" To say Magnus had never seen a pacifist was a misnomer. It was disappointingly easy to cull them in the Malsheem's Evicerium. A practice his Father tore into him, another form of hunting. Poor entertainment. Barely worth the effort. Only those who proved themselves were worthy of being seen, Magnus was a Zambrano. "No, you don't… you don't understand!"

He had to learn. Learn Magnus did.

"I'm not sick! It… it's the dust… Why do you dishonour us both?! What is it with Jedi?!" Trained first as a Mandalorian, then taken to be with his Father, between the Mandalorian side and the Panathan, a conversation without combat was… disorienting. Strange. He didn't know what to do with Caelan, or his odd words. It was this distraction that cost Magnus. "Why won't you fight!?"

Caelan Valoren 's blast hurtled Magnus off his feet, into the side of the building across the narrow street. With his bulk, Magnus took out a sheered corner of the adobe structure, one of the smaller buildings facing the desert. Dust plumed, rubble cascaded, a muffled scream was silenced.

After what felt like stillness, the rubble moved and Magnus burst out of the wreckage, with a raucous and explosive shockwave of pure, angry force. Dross slammed into surrounding buildings, taking out the windows for an entire block, chunks of walls and outcroppings. The nearest houses crumpled into slag. Duracrete slabs rocketed along the road, which was consumed by Sabarene's sand regardless of the roadworks the city underwent. He staggered into the street, this calamity in training, caught his breath with a series of coughs on one knee, extinguished Lightsaber in hand.

Magnus' massive head hung between his shoulder blades, lips slack, eyes rimmed with crimson, grit plastered to sweat.

"When our little sister was born, Father took my twin and I hunting in the Panathan wilds. For Ma'ada, to cook her favourite meat. He smiled, then. Taught us of tracking the massive beasts that made our Panathans strong." Magnus grinned through a cough, lips curved up at one side. "Father let me dispatch the killing blow, even if… it was his honour by right." He took a deep breath, heaving off the rubble and finding his feet. "I've heard His laughter, and seen His pain… I've climbed on His shoulders to see the world from the top of a mountain, and struck Him so hard my fists broke. I've watched him plead with Ma'ada to bundle us up and leave to safety. Leave Him behind to cover our retreat. And when the worst happened, my Father came for me… He will always come for me… He has to come for me…"

When the reverse was true, when Kaine Zambrano almost met his end, Magnus spent months in meditative communion with Girak-Kaine and Raya Najwa Zambrano stabilizing the ragged half of their Father's soul. Magnus' hand left his saber's hilt, he stared at it. It was a sacred secret, when his Father needed them, he and his twin were wanted. Magnus shut his eyes and let his senses expand. If he could only take a real breath… "… 'Tragedy makes us strong, Magnus'… He does not fear… what I am."

The threads of the Force thrummed for Magnus, as the behemoth reached beyond the little alley as far as his senses could see… he cursed the dwindling periphery, no. It was a Jedi trick, the Jedi was trying to push him off his mission.

"Laz-eran?" He wasn't sick… it was the dust… "Help?"

Magnus shook out his head again, black eyes snapping open. "You can't have Manu!" and the truth came in the bellow of a tempestuous Sithling, whose limbs crackled with thick, indiscriminate blue lightning, "Manu is kind to me! Raya is gone, I can't lose her brother, too!"

Without Manu, or his half-sister Raya, who else did Magnus have to act as respite and healer? After what he did to bury his mother, Alexandra Feanor and Noah Corek likely never wanted to see him again. In his immaturity, Magnus had yet to see Manu's desperate fight for sovereignty. That life, Manu's life, was better outside captivity. All he saw was loss. Another emptiness. Another missing cloak and shallow grave dug with his own effort, to please a Father who barely looked at him. "He has to fix this!"

And in the crackle and burst, a glimpse of Magnus' grief strong enough for Caelan to see. Magnus didn't know yet, how to love a thing without crushing it in a heavy hand. Owning it. Outside his Father's cage.

 

[Manu Xextos]

To the west of Saki 's position, an explosion of rock and slag struck the city. People sought cover, as grit and rubble rained down like volcanic ash in sheets, force dissipated enough not to cause much harm. Some of the Echani stopped to look at each other, others leapt up walls to higher vantage points, their muscles coiled under desert-cool clothes.

"What is it? The Hospital?" The old Echani watched the head shake, the tip of chins. Not the hospital, the city itself. People from outside the market square started to arrive. Parents tossed their children into one of the skiffs, a couple launched into the pilot and co-pilot seat, one gripping a vibrostave.

A few Echani and a Nelvani limped in from the alley, rubble and blood caked to their sides.

Another crash thudded into the air, buildings on the nearer-horizon shuddered, one falling into the street two blocks over. Bodies pressed into the square, short screams deadened by the vice-grip the Echani held on restrained silence. On giving no satisfaction to their once-partners, now usurpers.

"Zambrano." Lightning crackled from a cloudless sky. People began to actively panic.

If Saki didn't start to move, the stampede would rip through the folk pressing in the middle.

 

[Caelan Valoren]

The boy flew away, but Caelan hadn't placed the angle of his attack very well. A building crumpled and a life was silenced. He felt that person slip away and closed his eyes for a moment, knowing it was his fault they had died. It was someone else to add to his list of those whose deaths he was personally responsible for. Too many. Every single one of them was too many. He didn't want to kill. He hated doing it. Even when his hand had been forced he'd hated doing it. Yes, even Jedi could feel hate and survive through it. They were all living beings. Unless they were sociopaths there was always going to be emotions to be dealt with.

And of course the boy was sick. There was no doubt of this. He was going to die if he didn't receive whatever cure was necessary to alleviate the illness. Caelan did not want to see this happen. He did not want to see the Epicanthix of this world die, either. It didn't matter to him if they had ties to the Zambrano's and the dark. He knew that not all Zambrano's would be that way. He'd seen with his own eyes several of them that were of the light, so he knew it was not a foregone conclusion that they be evil. Even then, not all Epicanthix were evil either.

The boy spoke and Caelan listened, not moving from where he stood. Fate was off somewhere helping to organize withdrawals and that meant as long as he kept Magnus here, they'd be able to get the people out. But he was focused on the boy in front of him; a boy who needed more than just physical help.

"Your father may come for you. It's possible at some level he does care about you, but he doesn't care enough. If he cared enough he wouldn't have sent you to fight me while you were sick. And no matter how you choose to deny it, you ARE sick. Your body betrays you with the coughing fits and the way you move, as well. I may no know the exact cause of the illness, but I know a sick person when I see one. I've seen my share of them among the displaced from Sith invasions of Alliance worlds.

"You need help and Lazerian's scientists will help if you allow it. I give you my word as their King. And as for Manu, he's not being taken away from you. He won't suddenly disappear from the galaxy. He's just being given freedom. He won't be locked away, forced to work as a slave. Your right to visit with him, provided he wishes to visit with you, doesn't end just because he is freed. If he does care about you, he'd still see you."

Caelan worked to contain the lightning that was crackling around the boy, utilizing barriers to block it from getting too far away. He didn't want the boy killing anyone.

"Stop and think about what's best for you and your people. Someone working in a confined space for years to fix something that still isn't fixed, or working with people who aren't confined, but motivated by a desire to help, and the fact they're monetarily compensated?"

ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Magnus Zambrano ​