Duel Sith Civil War: Another God to Disembowel (open to one loyalist)

[Gryylarc]

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DARK SIDE OF KHAR SHIAN
AGE OF RUINS: 6000 YEARS
TEMPERATURE: -5 F

You know it's bitter out when a Wookiee wears pants.

Fully clad in warm clothes, lightstaff ignited for reddish illumination, Gryylarc trudged through the snow. The Dark Side could and did keep him warm, but tapas required strength and focus that he could spend elsewhere.

Shouts rose, a challenge to identify himself. He threw the lightstaff sidelong. Its twin blades sheared through the pair of loyalist stormtroopers, and silence fell again - apart from the weapon humming back to his hand.

Someone was here, someone more interesting than stormtroopers. Gryylarc's red eyes scanned the ruins.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

”They say age breeds wisdom…” Over the howling air the voice called out, loud enough to pick up beyond the wicked and bitter winds, yet still soft enough to be mistaken for a ghost of thought. Amidst the frozen ice and snow bespeckling the ancient ruins, a pair of stormtroopers laid bisected, curls of ash and smoke rising from their bodies as the sound of footsteps crunching over the barren expanse now accompanied a form, nothing more than a shadow in the dark side of the moon, a pair of glowing eyes like those of a serpent peeking out from under the thick hood and washing the stranger’s face in a dim glow.

”And yet, you were foolish to come here alone.” Telis’s voice drew out over the wind like a grindstone against a blade, his throat deeply rumbling as he half-hummed his taunting remark. One hand was completely garbed behind a thick glove, onyx black like the robes he wore - far too thin to protect him from the cold were it not for the use of the Force, and even still he could feel the coldness of the air surrounding him and biting at his lungs. Rather than dulling his focus, it sharpened his senses, keeping him awake and aware, careful and watching as his newfound prey made his presence known.

A Wookiee Sith, a rarity in the Empire. With his silver fur, Telis perhaps would’ve had a hard time spotting the rebel, but his shape had been made manifest by the slaughtering of his two companions, poor soldiers who now laid lifeless and useless in the snow. Reaching to his side, with his gloved hand, Telis pulled out the chitin-carved saber hilt, a cruel smile forming on his face as he did so. His cybernetic hand moved to tug at the hem of his robes as he unveiled his weapon, showing to Gryylarc plain as day the false limb. In a single movement, Telis spun the metal hilt, the maliciously crimson blade leaping to life as he reached the apex of his flourish, cutting into the ground and leaving a blackened scar where it had struck.

”It is fitting that you come here hunting, heretic. Much like your rebellion and these ruins, you will die forgotten.” Telis raise his saber, holding it in two hands as he stepped over the forgotten bodies of the stormtroopers and lowered down into a hunter’s stance. As he did so, the grin on his face grew wicked with his pale skin being painted in the bright red light, sparks jumping from the blade and dancing through the air before winking into nonexistence, in the same way the snow around them was whipped by stray winds and dissipated into the dark sky.

 

[Gryylarc]

Gryylarc took up a simple stance of his own, lightstaff held diagonally across his body with both blades active. As the other Sith talked, red eyes flicked over his stance and visible traits.

Gryylarc had never seen the point of Dun Moch. Then again, to his mind, anyone who could be distracted or thrown off by trash talk deserved it. As Telis Taharin-Zambrano stepped over the dead stormtroopers, their fallen blaster rifles turned upward and pointed at, approximately, his nether regions. The stubby rifles fired point blank.

Turning a Sith into a eunuch wasn't generally considered the most efficient way to shut them up, but it had its proponents.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

Telis felt the thrum of the Force before it could be used against him. He felt the presence grow behind him, and with one flick of his mechanical hand, the light of the blasters caught in their barrels, ceased by a barrier that held the bolts in stasis. His smile reduced to a frown at the attempt to cut off his chance of lineage, and though it was largely lost in the air, Telis let off a disapproving sigh at the attempt, letting the bolts sling back into the blasters with a side-step, frying the mechanisms inside the guns and distancing himself from the bodies.

”I recognize the weave of such tech-magic. Do not be so foolish as to think my body open for such foul play - I am a master of things in my domain.” Telis was smart to keep his internal mechanisms under his control, and through that, keep them resilient to such uses of technomancy. He had learned from past opponents never to leave such a doorway open, and such constant focus had other benefits beyond simple control. In one swift motion, Telis’s eyes turned a lightning blue as his body lit up with internal lightning, channeling through to his hand in a single racing bolt of Force Lightning at Gryylarc, aiming for his foot in retaliation for the attempted nether-shot.

Then, returning his hand to his saber, Telis readied himself again, his heels digging into the snow as he stared down the Wookiee with a grim look on his face, his eyes remaining the lightning blue as arcs of energy danced through his irises, tracing down the subdermal network beneath his skin, as though he himself were nothing more than flesh and energy. He invited the rogue Sith to come at him, to dance near and see the venom that laid waiting in his strokes. Antaru was an aggressive road, but even in defense there can be aggression and retaliation. Once more, the winds howled around the two, Telis’s blade glowing in front of his lightning-lit eyes.

 

[Gryylarc]

The lower blade of Gryylarc's saberstaff caught the lightning and shunted it into the earth. Snow hissed to vapor as the current grounded out. The old Wookiee grinned and advanced one heavy step at a time.

"Hurrarrrr."

At his belt, a tiny translation droid whirred to life. "Lord Gryylarc informs you that you waste too much energy and that he will enjoy your fatigue."

Gryylarc spun the lightstaff through a defensive circuit to build momentum as he surged across the last distance between them - assuming Telis Taharin-Zambrano didn't create more distance. Ideally, Gryylarc would slam into his defenses blade on blade and decapitate him like the troopers.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

Telis would watch as Gryylarc readied his assault, the tiny droid at his belt whirring to life and informing Telis of the mistake in playing coy with his opponent. It was such a shame that all such prey who believed themselves predators were too strong and silent for Telis’s own enjoyment. He reveled in the course of a fight, but when there was no attempt at defiant wordplay to clash against his own words, well… it simply took the fun out of the eventual victory, and no clever wordplay to twist in his favor later on. Of course, Telis was used to hearing this type of “strong but silent” type demeanor from Jedi - he would’ve hoped that a Sith would be able to match his own clever wordplay and drama, but expectations aren’t always reality.

As Gryylarc finished his defensive circuit and turned it into a charge, Telis would only wait, settling into his stance as he saw the Wookiee burst into momentum. The Force guided him, and with reflexes trained by years of harsh punishment and endurance, the Coruscanti Sith leapt above the Wookiee’s charge, carried by the harsh winds of the barren, dark moon, his saber stretched out to his side as his hand reached out for the Wookiee’s translator droid. His mind reached out to the machine, and as it did so, he attempted to override it, letting the Force flow into it with more power than it had bank to store it.

With a flourish through the snowy air, Telis landed once again back on his feet, skidding through the snow as he once more raised his lightsaber in both hands, looking at the Wookiee for a brief moment, before lurching forwards, aiming to once more make up the distance and, should the Wookiee remain where he was, come down on him with a swift and ferocious stab towards Gryylarc’s right shoulder, lightning still dancing in his eyes and through his body as his face filled with concentration and focus. It was a dangerous assault, but Anataru favored the bold.

 

[Gryylarc]

Telis Taharin-Zambrano 's plans succeeded. The little drood on Gryylarc's belt wailed and shorted out. Blind fury spiked in Gryylarc as he whirled to face Telis' new position. He shifted the lightstaff to a loose one-handed grip with the top of his fist just inches from a blade emitter.

When the human lunged in again, Gryylarc whipped the lightstaff through a brisk figure-eight and swatted the high stab away. He stepped in to reverse his stance and lashed out with his empty left hand. He was still a little too far to be sure of catching Telis' saber arm with the alchemized metal claws that slid out from his fingertips - but it was worth a shot.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

With blind rage, the Wookiee deflected his blow carelessly, and while Telis’s use of Mechu-deru resulted in some benefit for himself, it was far from the benefit he was hoping for, but regardless, he could recover from this, as well as he could recover from any miscalculation. Telis would feel his saber-hand yanked wide as his saber was pushed away by the staff, the Wookiee coming in to disarm him and mutilate his main hand. Telis, however, would refuse to let that happen, interjecting his metal hand in the way of the blow, allowing the metal blades to dig into his alchemized fist, phantom pain riding up Telis’s arm and as he grimaced, staring straight into the Wookiee’s eyes with planned defiance.

He felt the lightning rise in his veins, his subdermal network all lighting blue as he attempted to push his hand forward into the fist of Gryylarc, and with his push, channel the Force Lightning that ran through him, allowing the energy to char his own fist of it meant delivering the shock through the Sith’s metal claws, his teeth bared as his face was washed in haunting blue light that made his pale skin appear hollow and shallow - something unearthly that still retained Telis’s striking beauty despite his depravity deeper and deeper into the dark side.

He attempted to hold Gryylarc there, recovering his saber arm, the muscles sore from the strength of the deflection, driving it right towards Gryylarc’s wrist should his shocking maneuver prove to hold both of them locked in that dangerous power-struggle. The snow that had previously dusted up on his robes melted, with a mixture of the lightning and the movement of the starfire blades.

 

[Gryylarc]

The secret second purpose of Gryylarc's claw strike had been to connect his claws with the lightning that danced through Telis Taharin-Zambrano 's body. The alchemical metal of his claws was comparable to the alloy of a classic Sith sword - meant to drink and store lighting. The discharge scorched the fur and skin of Gryylarc's left hand, but sank into his claws and stayed there until he opted to release it.

For the moment, he didn't. He had bigger problems - specifically the saber strike at his right wrist. By pulling back and releasing the metal arm, he caught the foible of the strike on the forte of his forehand blade.

Now he let out the trapped lightning, indiscriminately, an uncontrolled web that aimed to blind and maybe scorch his enemy. He flicked his right wrist and sent the backhand blade up along Telis' left side at targets of opportunity - outside of the knee, ribs, and so forth.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

Telis’s attempt to pin down Gryylarc had once more gone awry, but the Coruscanti was nothing if not versatile. He watched as the Wookiee absorbed the energy of his lightning, cursing the air silently, and feeling his blade miss the wrist of his opponent, striking against only alchemized metal. His attack undone, Telis watched in a mixture of apprehension and horror as the Wookiee brought his blade back, aiming to jam the deflecting piece of metal right into his side, at the same moment as he attempted to wildly unleash the lightning that he had stored up. But, with quick thinking, Telis fell into rhythm.

After all, there is no such thing as a twin without a second sibling.

With his blackened metal hand, Telis raised from his side a second saber hilt, the blade quickly leapt to life in the same way as it’s brother. Moving to catch the strike from the Wookiee’s forehand blade, Telis let the two weapons clash, his saber held in reverse as he parried the strike wide, sending the blade only to cut through his black robes. At the same time, he brought his main saber up to meet the torrent of lightning that cascaded from Gryylarc in retaliation, grimacing as he felt the energy course through the blade and eventually dissipate off of it, holding off the storm.

With one hand focused and set on defying the lash of lightning Gryylarc was unleashing, Telis would crouch down once more, lunging himself upwards and overtop the Wookiee in a burst of movement, his spare blade stretched downwards in an attempt to bring his blade to cut through the Wookiee’s right shoulder, once again Telis twisting through the air to make sure that when he landed, his eyes were still set on the foe he battled against.

 

[Gryylarc]

Telis Taharin-Zambrano

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me - and Gryylarc wasn't in the mood for shame. When Telis repeated his overhead leap, Gryylarc's forehand blade was already pointed up and back, in a decent position to ward off the downward strike with little effort. Gryylarc's well-toasted left hand shot up in an attempt to snag a grip with alchemical claws.

Presuming he got said grip, the big Wookiee spun in place and dropped to one knee, yanking down. His goal, and a fairly feasible one, was to compromise Telis' elegant landing by whipping him into the ground with bone-cracking force. His scorched left hand wasn't strong enough to hold on beyond that, so the other Sith would probably be able to free himself.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

Telis would find himself unceremoniously yanked from the sky, his blow deflected and his robotic hand once more grabbed. With the strength befitting a Wookiee, Telis found himself thrown down from the air, smacking against the ground and into the thick sheet of snow that had laid undisturbed for millennia. While he kept a good grip on his weapons and the yank wasn’t followed by a grip, Telis hit the ground quite brutally, his head hitting the stone floor of the ruins, thankfully the blow alleviated by the layer of snow on the ground. It didn’t stop the fact that Telis felt the shock run through his whole body, his ears and head ringing with pain that brought tears to his eyes and made him want to throw up. But now was not the time for weakness.

Laying on the ground on his side, Telis breathed in the cold vapors of the snow, collecting himself with a speed that seemed almost inhuman. With a single bound, Telis returned to his feet with a spin and a sway, his hood flicking down and revealing his hair, tossed about and the side of his temple split with a mixture of snow and light sprinklings of blood covering the area, though both things were shaken off by his swift recovery. With both blades in hands, Telis stared at Gryylarc with a vengeance, his lips curling back to reveal teeth that had been sharpened by an archaic art. Raising his blades again, Telis charged straight at the Wookiee with a shout, both lightsabers held for a charging strike… but with a single motion, Telis feigned, attempting a strike to catch Gryylarc off guard.

At the last moment, instead of charging straight into the Wookiee, Telis fell to his knees and leaned back, his arms hugging his body as he tried to slide between Gryylarc’s legs, bringing his blades to slash at his thighs as his momentum was carried by the wet snow across the smooth floor of the old ruins, moving to finish his slide with a spin back to standing were he allowed to continue it all the way to fruition, albeit a bit of unsteadiness in his motions as he tried to do so, still reeling from the blow that shunt him to the ground.

 

[Gryylarc]

With a snarling grin, Gryylarc set his stance to meet Telis Taharin-Zambrano 's charge.

And then blinked as the much smaller Sith Knight slid between his legs. Well, they weren't 'his' legs anymore, were they.

Gryylarc's back hit the snow. The old marauder looked over at his fallen legs and roared in a mix of fury and agony. The roar resonated in the Force, tore up the snow, cracked nearby stonework.

Also he threw his saberstaff at Telis just on general principle.

 

[Telis Taharin-Zambrano]

Dark Side of Khar Shian
Age of Ruins: ~6000 Years
Temperature: -5F

Telis felt his blades briefly pull back, cutting cleanly through the Wookiee’s legs in a shower of red sparks that melted the snow all around him and left tiny red dots on the old stonework on the ground behind him. Telis closed his eyes as he slid out from behind Gryylarc, feeling the snow rise up onto his back and face as the Wookiee fell into the snow, his legs separated from his frame and leaving him defenseless. In one fell motion, Telis had kept both his spoken and unspoken promises.

But victory was never without cost.

As he attempted to rise from the snow, Telis suddenly felt a weight strike the back of his right knee, a sudden release followed by a heat, and then numbness. His knee was yanked to the side as it was half-slashed open by the tossed saber, the staff sliding in the snow meters away as it landed, yet still left its scar upon the Coruscanti, forcing a sudden shout from his mouth and collapsing him to one knee, red hot pain flaring up and down his entire leg, a black scar forming on the back and the cap of his knee as the skin melted and cauterized together from the blow.

Perhaps he would’ve entertained the idea of allowing the beast to freeze and die painfully, but a new fury drove Telis - not to give the Wookiee a warrior’s death, but to ensure that his promise would be made manifest. Attempting to stand once again and biting back the tears that stung at his eyes, Telis half-limped over towards the collapsed form of the silverback, a hero in another timeline. In his hands, Telis held his Twin Dancers, the blades gently cresting the snow as he stepped over the separated legs of Gryylarc, his blue eyes fading once more to gold, and the once lightning-blue glow now shifted towards a bloody, accusing red.

”I made a promise, did I not, heretic?” Telis leered over Gryylarc, grimacing and sneering down at the Wookiee, before bringing his blades to the Sith Knight’s neck, the blades crossed. For a moment, he let the crossed blades hold, showering sparks over the back of the Wookiee, before with the screeching of the blades sliding over one another, he brought them out to his sides, through the neck of the Wookiee, his eyes set towards the dark horizon.

”And I always keep my promises.” With the body at his feet, Telis let the two blades he held die out, their crimson light fading as they once more turned off, and returned to his sides. Kicking away the decapitated head of the Wookiee, Telis bent down to turn the body of Gryylarc over, his eyes set on the claws that adorned the Sith’s hand. Taking them from the brutish paw, Telis slipped them over his own mechanical hand, the still-bright metal of them gleaming compared to the blackened metal of his cybernetic limb, and with a smile, Telis accepted the new weapon in his arsenal.

Pulling the hood of his black cloak back on, Telis limped over towards the staff of the warbringer, picking it up and letting its blades retract as well, before gripping it in one hand, relying on this second trophy to be his walking stick. As he stepped over the body of Gryylarc, Telis picked up the head of the fallen Sith Knight in his spare hand, before once again disappearing back into the ruins. He had promised that Gryylarc would die as forgotten as the ruins and his rebellion, and as a distant ship eventually took off and careened away from the dark side of the moon, the promise had been fulfilled underneath the darkened sky.