Duel Sith Civil War: Wilt Before My Fury (open to one A P O S T A T E)

[Darth Quercus]

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DROMUND KAAS - SUBTERRANEAN RUINS

Two figures paced down a long stone bridge. One was a generic Massassi marauder with blank eyes and a propensity for drool. The other was a potted plant.

Darth Quercus had dressed down for the occasion: they had selected a simple reddish pot perched on their mechno-chair. The chair's chisel-tipped bronzium legs clacked on the stone in time with the slower thuds of the Massassi's polearm lanvarok.

Through the Massassi instrument's eyes and ears, Lord Quercus scanned the ruins of the cavern and waited for their challenger.

 

[Serpentis]

What faced the pair on the bridge?

Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.

A whistling sound... then drums.

Gold light. Blinding if you had eyes.

Bright and Powerful it looked like a procession of a thousand, endless. All heralding their queen. Ancient coins thrown in the air, caskets of gems on show as her servants dropped rose petals in her wake. Opulence and decadence. Was it too good to be true? Right now what was ahead was vivid and full detail. There was even a musician with a hololute, though he looked somewhat out of place on the sidelines, trying desperately to keep up with the tune that echoed through the ruins.

Snaking her steps to a stop and curling her hands together in welcoming grasp.

Golden perfection, the female figure standing the other side of the bridge was Echani looking? Almost glowing, her dress too good to be true, too well made. Perfection. The lines and interwoven nature of it had once cloaked a vicious snake of a personality, just like her hands once curled around an empire. Everything about this entire display felt odd.

Someone or something handed the vision ahead a pair of... clipping sheers? She mocked the plant ahead with a snip and they disappeared from view. While the Lords plotted their revolution, Kiara Keth had gardening to attend to, a practiced gardener, Sorcha’s gardens were where she had lived and ultimately died.

Gear:? All there is shines gold. There is almost certainly gear and truth here though. For those sharp of sense or sight. Truth through the masks, through the lies, through opulent displays put on to hide what was there. It was almost like she had been released from her tomb, to engineer a perfectly crafted display of all the traditionalists' in their idealistic zealotry would see burned. Maybe Serpentis was aware of this and playing them, or maybe she was just another pawn in their games.

Darth Quercus

 

[Darth Quercus]

Serpentis presented an immaculate and tempting vision - presumably. Even tapped into the shreds of his Massassi instrument's mind, Quercus found mammalian attractions and aesthetics left him cold. As a wee seedling, all such matters had downright baffled him.

Blossoms rustled ominously.

<I apologize that I must break the work of art into which you have made yourself, mammal.>

The drooling Massassi reared back and spun the polearm lanvarok. A razor-sharp alchemical disc shot across the intervening space, with an eye to decapitation.

 

[Serpentis]

Several of the golden warriors on the bridge tried to dive aside, but there were so many, the disc went straight through several of them, and yet they looked untouched! All charging their warcry toward the Massassi ready to knock him from the bridge! Serpentis stepped sideways to avoid the disc, the edges of it cutting the air to her side as she admired its passing.

A storm of drummers and boots pounding forward. Though the bridge seemed to stay as it was, barely moving at all. Where was she in the crowd on the bridge? There was so much gold there it was a mess, the mass of it surging forward. As they lunged as they swung, as they tried to overwhelm Darth Quercus … nothing happened to anything that connected with the pair. Except for the noise, the din, the war cries, the distractions all around trying to overwhelm senses and blind the eyes. Even as they failed, they were reforming, growing finding roots.....

Plentiful Force Illusions, but the lute player carried on his tune. He seemed keen, maybe something was real here? Hopefully, he was getting paid well!

Not the only real thing sadly. From out of the gold, and out of shifting illusionary cluster ahead, a light whip shot outward going straight for the Massassi’s body. The gold hum of light from the whip looking to lash then retract in an overhanded chest strike, not curl around a body part. As dangerous as any lightsaber, some would say more so, to both attacker and victim.

Gear: Light Whip (Right Hand) Force Whip (Left Hand) Armorweave Clothing, Songsteel Dagger x4 (Belt), Laser-Shears (Right Hip), Dearic Garden Club Weedkiller (Belt), and a Bridge full of Illusions.

 

[Darth Quercus]

Serpentis ' illusions baffled the eyes and instincts of the Massassi instrument. A lightwhip snapped out; its tip sheared into his chest at supersonic velocity. The six-hundred-pound marauder fell and did not get up again.

Quercus felt irritable fury, pure and clean for being an artifact of choice and thought rather than mammalian hormones. It might be better to say he chose fury in a way that no mammal really could. Without the Massassi instrument, he lacked eyes, ears, fingers - anything but the senses of his mind.

To which, on the bright side, the illusions were effectively transparent.

Blossoms shivered, and a biological poisoned dart hissed out toward the nearest actual being among the horde.

 

[Serpentis]

Hissing satisfaction through the force as the beast fell.

Along with much of the galaxy Serpentis had never fought a plant before, so she was still comfortable in her belief she was surrounded in a golden mass of illusion, unknown to her she was revealed! The illusions forming into plant form, some becoming tempting flowers, others predatory foliage... As the light whip came backward over her shoulder, she was already lashing the force whip forward, which while not lethal might be a hell of a shock. What a charge of electricity would do to a plant was anyone’s guess, sadly it would never get there...

One step closer with each swing. Much more subtle than a disk, the dart was perceived as it flew toward her but with the concentration split between whips, illusions and now dart, she was far too late to fully get out of the way this time. She had to twist her body at the last minute awkwardly, the force whip probably smashing across the ground in front of Darth Quercus , while the light whip behind her almost span to come back at her. Such were the weapon’s perils, she was off-balance as she continued to twist unnaturally, and dipped to her side to regain her stance, her right ankle now badly twisted, giving her less balance or speed. Hissing, slithering sensation in the force beginning to build, her body wanting to snap and bite as it soon would.

Illusions were failing her... so all but the odd stray pretty flower faded, leaving just the two of them, and that damned fool with a lute who kept playing.

All but free of illusions. Kiara did not appear gold. A pretty echani host body with a hollow look in her eyes, not a zombie, unnaturally beautiful skin still but ghoulish and empty behind the eyes. What he was fighting was the past made real.

Darth Quercus

 

[Darth Quercus]

Quercus was biologically incapable of panic, but the two whips just about convinced them otherwise. The mechno-chair backed up along the bridge to create distance between the whips and the fragile terracotta pot.

The dead Massassi's lanvarok, seven feet of rust-brown alchemical alloys, rose spinning and whirling around every axis. Quercus' goal was to tangle both of those whips around the polearm, potentially pit their energies and structures against each other, bind them up, rip them from the Echani woman's grip-

Well, maybe Echani. All humanoids, and many mammals in general, pretty much 'looked' the same to Darth Quercus.

Serpentis

 

[Serpentis]

Recovering her balance, and taking a pained few steps, it wasn’t hard for her steps to keep pace with a potted plant. Seeking to recover her force whip in the same way, lashing it backward, the twirling polearm caught it and they tangled well. There was momentary irritation and a hissing sneer as they locked together. Not having the raw strength to hold the weapon in her grip.

Hissing sneer became a hissing laugh in the force, she released it and span the lanvarok faster and faster working with the Sith Lord's dangerous momentum. Suddenly sending a pressured force shove at the very center of the polearm toward him, now charged with a slaver's force whip caught up along the weapon. Sparking electricity cracking along its edge looking to burn, shock or just flattened the proud foliage.

However, cunning her opponent was. There was an element of her toying with Darth Quercus like she was playing with her food. Arrogance definitely but more cruelty in Serpentis, not assuming herself superior as much as enjoying suffering. Letting the remaining light whip lag behind her, crackling against the ground as she approached closer still.

Something was coming…. that hissing slithering sensation again, fed by the pain in her ankle, the torment of so long encased in a tomb was beginning to turn into a...

Darth Quercus

 

[Darth Quercus]

Serpentis

The whirling lanvarok, electrowhip included, stopped dead in front of Quercus - or at least its centre of mass did. It continued to spin uninterrupted.

Leaves rustled ominously.

<I think not.>

Quercus' deft Force grip slid along the lanvarok to the polearm head. The knotted slaver-whip slid down the shaft and past the butt. Doubtless if Quercus had been mammalian, there would have been double entendres involved. The whip whipped off the polearm and rocketed back toward the Echani at knee height. The lanvarok followed at chest level.

 

[Serpentis]

While her foe was busy untangling the items, he would find her try to force propel his pot high upward toward the ceiling area, where gravity may become a consideration on his descent.

Meanwhile she had now two separate weapons flying at her to deal with. There was a wicked smile. Her brother would have pulled Quercus along with them… in Kiara’s mind, there was no time to do the technique she wanted, both items flying back towards her rapidly. The bridge didn’t offer much room to avoid a loose whip so she painfully jumped upward, bringing her lightwhip down into the center of the polearm and looking to entangle it instead. The inexperience of years out of combat, or even life, was showing in how she didn’t just jump clear or direct the weapons aside slightly.

Avoiding the slaver's whip at her feet. Her technique half worked, spinning the polearm with the light whip's grip, however, the main bar still hit her in the stomach and threw her back a good few paces onto her very elegant backside, leaving her looking up at the ceiling. She did now, however, hold all three weapons again, force pushing the polearm a good distance away out of reach.

The armorweave had absorbed some of it, but she had certainly bruised or broken something, badly wheezing and winded.

"Enough." Kiara's voice spat angrily, pouncing up despite the bad ankle. He'd got her attention. There were no more games.

Darth Quercus

 

[Darth Quercus]

Serpentis ' Force grip shoved Quercus' pot up off the mechno-chair. They experienced weightlessness through every fibre of their body, from roots to blossoms, and they were not amused.

Least of all when the mechno-chair interpreted the shifting forces as imbalance and tilted to compensate. When the pot descended, it struck the chair at an angle, then smashed on the stone bridge.

Wrath boiled in Quercus as they sat there with their roots exposed through the shattered pot and scattered soil.

Lightning exploded from their leaves.

 

[Serpentis]

Preferring illusions. Force Barrier wasn’t near as strong as it could have been for a force ghost using a host. The lightning hitting her threatened to smash that barrier aside, in fact, her host was feeling significant pain and more rebellious against Serpentis than usual as a result. Lightning licked and flickered at the edges of her barrier, sensing a Sith Lord would overwhelm her resolve if she stayed in the open. Actually pushed back physically and feeling static discharge against her host, she locked up! The host had control. Freezing in place under the assault, until the barrier discharged in a resounding wave of energy, chewing up the stone and bridge around her in explosive, and for Quercus, potentially satisfying cutting shards of debris around her.

But where was she as the dust cloud settled? Cut, bruised and now burned. Her head was dipped low, snapping up eyes, that same hollow stare which drank in everything, threatening to consume all before her. She was remembering who she was.

A deathly banshee force scream echoed across the bridge, fueled by the torment of years under entombed under the earth, and now a shell of what she used to be. The sonic energy came in waves sending up the loose stone, dust, and further decimating the surface of the now rough bridge between them. It didn't stop. Her opponent had no ears thankfully to hear, but the wave of energy echoing from the echoes of the past were all too real, torrents of sonic energy rushed toward the prone plant, loose stone in its wake.

If he could sense it through it all, her Echani host was also apparent now before him. Two force signatures, because Serpentis was tiring quickly, and froze up again vulnerable, a fight between host and spirit beginning which he might exploit.

Darth Quercus

 

[Darth Quercus]

Serpentis

An inarticulate roar built in the Force as Quercus resisted the torrential scream. Harsh wind and broken rock ripped through their stems, shredded leaves, sent petals whirling off the bridge and potsherds skittering away. The plant stood proud.

But faced with the choice to strike back or to preserve themselves, Quercus wrapped the Force more tightly around their root ball and levitated onto the mechno-chair. Metal legs tap-tapped on the stone bridge - retreating, not advancing. The apostate had won this particular engagement. Quercus lacked the hormones for the fanatical loyalty that would have driven them to a committed, Pyrrhic victory.