The Nuetralizer Team that had been ambushed had all gotten themselves moving again, The Chaplain that had gotten half her head blown off had survived and reactivated, so well designed for self repair, when the Fixer Nuetralizer contacted them wirelessly.
Alert. Ambush Hostiles are not KIA.
One of the Model 1's sliced the local security network with their built in wireless Droid Source Ripper. Sure enough, they had gotten back in through an airlock, and were no doubt following them to intercept them at Nutrient Storage.
Immediately, he sliced the Blast Door controls three sections ahead of the Hand of Judgement ambush team trying to follow them, forcing them to shut, than directed power flow to the circuitry that controlled whether they opened or shut, completely ruining them, while other Model 1's did the same thing to the other blast doors in other sections, which would doubtlessly hamper their ability to take alternate routes to reach Nutrient storage, then shutting the blast doors behind them, occasionally rigging one of their Thermal Detonators to the doors so any trying to follow them on this level was in for a nasty surprise.
Four Model 3 units, took their Poison Grenades (Each had been issued three apiece) from themselves and their fallen brethren and looked for an opening to the ventilation system, stuffing them in and crushing the vent opening shut, while the other Model 1 units sliced the Ventilation Circuits and remotely set off the poison Grenades, redirecting the flow of gas to the systems, while a Chaplain Nuetralizer silently requested one of their Assault Radiation Blasters and received it, along with a small belt of the radiation grenade ammo that went with, using the House's self developed sign language to communicate her intention before crawling into a service hatch after ripping it open to climb inside....
Meanwhile, the Poison Gas would utterly flood the level
Joseph Torson
and his men were on. That armor of theirs had better have biotoxin sealing, because not only was it highly potent, it was
concentrated, due to the fact the blast doors ahead of them and behind them had been sealed in preparation for the poison attack on them...and even if they got the doors ahead of them open, the poison was still two sections ahead of them...
Either way, the assault team with the Nuclear Weaponry was still making their way to Nutrient Storage...
Meanwhile...
All of Tython was death and lava and falling rocks. The Rhand Class Shuddered as it sustained Multiple bombing impacts, it's armor on one side heavily damaged as it lost about a full quarter of its Ionization Cannons. But the damn thing
wouldn't fething die. House Io had built their battle cruisers to endure
severe punishment. It's weapons and tactical A.I. decided to redirect up to half it's torpedo fire back on to the Star Destroyer in a focused set of Alpha strikes on its biggest guns, firing
Model 2's armed with Stouker Concussion Rifles let loose on the advancing legions, all members of the House present gunning for the most powerful and dangerous warriors the Maw could field, even as the sky fell above them and the earth erupted below them, wiping out whole squads. Their tanks that were still present began directing cluster fire on the largest Mawite groupings headed towards the ruins through the swamps, which boiled in some sections.
Through all of this, The United, the persona Countess Arianna Belasko was channeling, kept
savagely killing. Summoning tornadoes of water to hurl enemies away, tentacles of water to crush individual enemies. But even the savage she was channeling knew something had to change, and soon.
She had her own assault team fighting alongside her, clearing battlefield threats to allow them to advance. The Dark Side felt like it was everywhere, and the Light Side Sith deep within the United's flesh had to struggle mightily to keep that darkness from infecting her own spirit, and giving an opening for the mass of evil minds that made up the
real United from getting back inside this body.
They even had their own two Black Knights, conducting scouting duties. One was named Peter, the other, Michael, and they were breaking people violently.
But the battle scape was bad, and there was only so much she could do on her own.
The other Sorceresses spawned from her flesh, Darth Moroz, a Cryokinetic specialist and Darth Ryluss, a Mind specialist, were sowing their own brand of Chaos on the battlefield. Moroz, a curly haired blond woman in a white ritual gown with a ceremonial Lightsaber and Moroz, a Brunette with a similar tanned complexion and equipment, had been sending terrible, sudden ice drafts to enemy units in varying attempts to freeze whole units of enemies solid, while Ryluss attempted to get into individual enemy commanders minds in an attempt to make them have suicidal orders to give to their underlings, which would expose them to fire from House Citizens if it worked, had been tirelessly at it, despite now having been confirmed to have lost up to thirty percent of their invading Force, intent on making the Maw have to fight for every centimeter taken while under fierce, unrelenting attack from House Io. The wave of fighters sent by
Tu'teggacha
didn't help, wiping out a full quarter of the Nuetralizer TIE's before the wily, individualistic Droid Star Fighters began adapting to the flight and attack patterns of the Maw Fighters, particularly the Knyght's, as there were veteran TIE's there that had engaged them in previous conflicts, and began executing complex hit and run attacks, trying to make enemy starfighters chase them, in order to ambush them with sudden swarm attacks or trick them into the range of the Anti Starfighter laser cannons of the Battle Cruiser while many others still focused their attacks on The Tho Yor, or defending the Seismic Tank viciously from Starfighter attacks, weaving a complex defense around it that reacted only as enemies approached. As bloodthirsty as The United was, she knew if this kept up the very best outcome she could hope for was to fight the Maw to a stalemate.
House Io didn't
want a stalemate. Anything less than utterly breaking the Maw was unacceptable to them.
The United mentally commanded the witches spawned from her to return to her even as her Nuetralizers and citizens under her command secured a hill by slaughtering the Maw. But nowhere was safe. Not with the sky, or the earth.
The United decided to heartlessly sacrifice Moroz, who had just finished freezing a Mawite solid. The biggest problem that she could see, at the moment, was the lava and flames. She saw entire squads of Sirens buying it precisely because of this. A most agonizing death.
"Servant." The United hissed icily as Moroz knelt before her. "I command your sacrifice."
Moroz was silent. Unable to protest, despite knowing the horrendous pain that would be coming.
"Whatever is doing the volcano work must be chilled..." The United elaborated, cutting open her palm and pouring glowing white blood onto a broken starfighter wing that would serve as the altar.
Moroz, furious that
she had to be the one this happened to, of all days, huffed and went to the altar.
Unable to resist the command of whom she was spawned from, she knelt in the circle that had formed from the glowing blood on the wing.
"A pity..." Moroz muttered. "I was just starting to like being alive again."
Peter the Black Knight, having just finished beheading a Mawite Sith that had dared to try and interrupt made a whip at her expense.
"You don't seem to
get it, Sith. This isn't a battlefield...it's a surgical theater. And
you're the patient." (Darling: 90 XP)
"Nobody asked you, Peter. Please stop trying to act like an Edge Lord." Moroz grunted. "It's really off putting."
"I ain't the one about to get turned into a ritual sacrifice." He shot back.
"Okay, Peter, now you're just being
mean." Darth Ryluss hissed as she watched a falling rock take out four platoons of Model 3's in the distance. Dammit.
The Mongrel
was just
racking up the XP at this point. (One does wonder just how high the Maw's luck stat is when it seems there are just these long stretches where everybody against them rolls Snake Eyes. And I don't mean the type that tried to kill Storm Shadow either. Wait, by that Analogy, does that make
Darth Solipsis
Cobra Commander? Is The Mongrel Destro? Would that make
Keilara Kala'myr
The Baroness? What the hell was I going on about before this rant came up? Did I get XP for it?)
(Checks for XP)
(No. No XP. Feth it.)
The United began chanting, The Light Adept in her flesh dangerously channeling the raw Force Energy pervading the very air around them, the Force Screaming in protest, the energy from the reality warps into the flesh and blood of Moroz, which began violently leaking glowing white blood from her eyes in small amounts, than large, until finally it drained completely from a now mummified, body, strange white electricity arcing around it.
Everybody stepped back as the temperature dropped massively in the immediate area, the blood flowing into the earth, infused with the terrible magic of the planet as well as the Cryonic Essence of Moroz, upped to an insane degree of strength as the United channeled the magical blood through the earth, which only got colder and colder and
colder as it traveled, ancient incantations shielding House Io forces from the effects, but hopefully not that of the Maw if this worked.
The cold effect began to grow so powerful that the blood began actively leaching heat from the Lava, it's heat leach effect starting to freeze it solid in many parts of the most immediate battlefield and hopefully steal the heat from Massive amounts of Mawites as well. The ground began to freeze and crack in large parts, along with the Lava closest to the surface, and then began starting to try and Leach the heat from the flowing lava deep beneath the surface being aggravated by the presence of the
Scylla AI
, trying to Leech the heat from any of its machines that might be underground and possibly slow the lava flow down as it traveled, a magically supercooling mass of blood that was getting colder and colder, with any who were not Mawites immune to the effects on the surface...
The magical effect would only last a short while, and wouldn't fix damage already done, but it might make the battlefield a little less burning hellscape...
Now. To get her apprentice,
Draco Miles
and start doing something finally about that damned Destroyer. Seemingly out of capriciousness, the Weapon A.I. of the Rhand Class Cruiser let out a salvo from four of its arrays targeting the mass of Mawites that were getting closer to the temple ruins, though most of its fire was still directed skyward, blasting apart the largest chunks of moon it could to prevent it from hitting non Mawite as well as their own forces.
Meanwhile.
The Parliament was busily enchanting the Charges when she sensed the thrown weapon sailing to her.
A flick of the eye from The Xiphos Who Laughs and the spear was teleported off into the distance, where it smacked into a half buried Jedi statue. The Parliament was so contempt filled she hadn't even bothered teleporting it back on its source and didn't even turn to face the thrower. The Model 1 units wanted to shoot but Ted raised his hand.
Teddy needed no orders to protect The Matriarch. He took aim, being a crack shot, aiming center mass as he fired all three explosive rounds from his Battle Scout Rifle at the thrower...
Bex Tarring
,
DECEASED Erskine Barran
, Julian Qar, Tulan Kor, Aerys Myrrine
