Private Spoils of War: Boz Pity

[The Battalion]

"That's it..." The Battalion encouraged.

Xiphos focused on the captured Mawite prisoner, who had been shouting about War, Death, and Rebirth, until Xiphos's rage focused on him and he started clutching at his throat. Her hand was held out in a grip, her frustration and pain from months previous boiling into this one moment. His neck broke easily.

The Battalion chuckled.

"Nice going Julia..." The Battalion commended, striding towards Laertia in her private quarters aboard the Absolution Of Loste, a modified Gozanti Cruiser.

It wasn't just the fact Laertia was finally learning the Dark Side, but the fact she seemed to sincerely want there to be a give and take between them. She was finally starting to learn how to use her anger and pain, and project it. The Battalion felt relief that they were finally on the first steps to saving Julia's soul.

She was stubborn. That's what The Battalion liked about Xiphos.

Xiphos, for her part, was silent at what she had just done, staring at the corpse while The Battalion's hands slid around her waist.

"He was trash. And you've killed in far messier ways, my dear..." The Battalion whispered into Xiphos's ear softly.

"That I have..." Xiphos admitted in her damaged voice, normally a whisper now without a small vocal enhancement device.

"It felt good, didn't it, releasing all that pent up fury?"

"Yes..."

"You could command powers much more terrible than that, were you to commit..." The Battalion suggested.

"Batty, I have something to confess..." Xiphos admitted. "I have ulterior motives for doing this lesson with you."

"Oh?"

"The World we are going to is Boz Pity. I had scouted it on my own a couple of days before but I came across something... disturbing... something The Bryn'adul missed as they took over, in the deep deserts."

"What did you find?" The Battalion asked.

Xiphos turned, still in the Battalion's arms.

"It was a skeleton of an outpost, deep in a cave, I sensed faint electronic signals coming from it. When I investigated it, I found a recording of my father."

The Battalion raised an eyebrow. "What was Morris doing on The Graveyard Planet?"

"He'd been gathering intel on you, when you were still Elaine. I...Batty...I think my father was the one who sold you out to The Cult of The Brain Demon."

The Battalion raised an eyebrow in genuine surprise.

"Julia...your father was no saint. That said, I find it very hard to believe he willingly sold me out."

"You may not feel the same after seeing what I saw. I brought a datacron of his. The way he talks about you...Batty...he hated you."

"We never exactly got along...but hatred...I...I'm just not seeing it. He called me a psychopath. Which was fair, because I was into crucifixion of heretics. But I never got the impression he outright hated me."

"Take it from someone who grew up stabbing people, Batty: It's the knife that waits, the knife that remembers, the knife that hates. That is the knife that cuts deepest." (And this gives you power over me?: 90 XP)

The Battalion was silent. "Why are you telling me this?" she finally asked after a long moment.

"I'll not have it said that I deceived you to keep you." Xiphos whispered.

"May I see it? The Datacron?"

"It's in our quarters..."

One hour later...

The Battalion paused at the display of holographic information on the small, crystalline datacron, displaying what she thought she would never, ever be privy to.

The private journal of Morris Crownwraithe.

He was as taciturn in his writing as he was in his speech...even in his most private journal, he communicated few of his secrets and emotions. That's what made her believe it was the genuine article.

That and one piece of information within that shattered her previous perception of the man entirely.

It was a single line at the end:

For my family, The Bloodscrawls.

"Holy fething chit..." The Battalion breathed, clad in her white catsuit, resting on the large bed in Xiphos's quarters, Xiphos busily loading her M-8 shotgun.

"He was a Bloodscrawl..."

"That name means something to you?" Xiphos asked.

"Elaine was a fanatic in her younger days..." The Battalion said of her human self. "She believed that the Bloodscrawls were hiding the secret to a great and powerful weapon that could secure Ession. All of Ession from external attack. She...she went with a detachment of warriors from the Grayson Family...it ended in blood. The whole family ended up dying when they refused detainment and questioning...it was a bad call..." The Battalion answered in a quiet voice, realizing Phyre wasn't the only one who had killed members of Xiphos's family.

"So you're saying you were my father's very own Darth Phyre?" Xiphos asked.

"I didn't know. And I swear, Elaine didn't come there planning to kill them. Any of them. But she made missteps, was too forceful. Too authoritative. It sent the wrong message from the start. And the soldiers were more zealous than even Elaine had anticipated. Which one was he--?" The Battalion asked herself in a whisper.

Xiphos, knowing how genuinely shocked and confused she was, enacted the next phase of flipping her fully to her own side.

She went over and planted a kiss on the Battalion's lips, introducing forgiveness during the rare moment of vulnerability between the two. And it was genuine, because Xiphos wanted to keep her, especially since she now knew for certain that, unlike Phyre, whatever had happened, it certainly hadn't been The Battalion's intention for it when she was Elaine.

She felt her bond with The Witch strengthen...

"Elaine died for what she did. There is no need to explore this revelation further."

"I...I disagree...I don't even know which Bloodscrawl he was. And after all we've been through together...you deserve answers. And so do I..." The Battalion asserted.

"Where do you propose we look?"

"Ession..." The Battalion answered. "That's where The Bloodscrawls are buried."

"A great risk...we don't have to take it."

"You're playing ball with us finally... reciprocation is only natural at this point."

Xiphos whispered something in the Battalion's ear that made the Witch suppress a shiver of delight.

"I'll choke to death 007 people in your name..." Xiphos hissed.

"I love it when you talk dirty..." The Battalion whispered.

Xiphos smiled and pulled back.

"Let's un-depress ourselves by cracking open some lobster shell..." Xiphos said, going for her armor...

 

[Arlo Renard]

The story of how Kai and his two friends wound up on Boz Pity, the “graveyard world”, is a long and complicated one. For the sake of brevity, we will attempt to condense the details.

It began with Ax, an insectoid Sithspawn who resembled a giant human-sized cockroach. Ax had procured three passes for a resort on Jerrilek through dubious means. (In other words, he stole them.) Not knowing what to do with the other two tickets, he confided in Claudia, the hoverchair-bound Sithspawn teen, and asked her if she would like to go on vacation. Bored with the monotonous routine of her daily life in the Reef, she enthusiastically agreed.

But there was still one more ticket left. Claudia took it and reassured Ax she would give it to someone special.

<Where did you get this?> Kai had asked when she presented him with the ticket.

“I won it in a lottery,” she replied. “Three tickets to a planet full of beaches. I was thinking it could be me, you, and Ax—”

<Why Ax?>

“He lent me the money for the lottery ticket.” As she spoke, Claudia’s eyes never left Kai, even as he busied himself with modifying his lightsaber hilt. “Well, do you want to go?”

<I’d like to, but what about—>

“Forget about your Jedi training,” she interrupted, grabbing his hand. When Kai turned his head and met her gaze, confused, she let go of him. “Everyone needs a break every now and then. Even you.”

<I don’t,> Kai replied. <Really. I don’t even have to sleep, remember?>

Crossing her arms over her chest, Claudia pouted. “What if I get in trouble? Ax can’t protect me. I’d be defenseless. People target cripples, you know—they figure they can’t put up a fight…”

Kai paused, thinking. Claudia leaned forward, eager and hopeful. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to have him all to herself. Forget about Ax. If only it could be just her and Kai in paradise…

<I’ll go with you,> he finally agreed. <It’s only for three days. That shouldn’t be too long away from my studies.> Peering at her, he added, <Okay good?>

“Okay fine,” she finished his catchphrase, grinning.

Unfortunately, the trio never made it to Jerrilek. The ship Ax had rented for the trip (oddly enough, transport was the one thing not covered by the stolen passes) had a problem with the navicomputer, causing it to screw up the coordinates. Seemingly by random chance, the hyperspace jump took them not to Jerrilek, but to Boz Pity, a planet far from their intended course.

“Oh no,” Ax chittered as an alarm rang through the ship shortly after their arrival. “Something’s wrong. Have to land. On the planet? It’s not safe!”

One among a number of systems that had been targeted by the Bryn’adul during their campaign against the Silver Jedi Concord, Boz Pity was at least in better condition than many other planets that had suffered a similar fate. Its native species had gone extinct a long, long time ago, leaving behind only ruins and tombs.

With no society to restore or obliterated settlements to rebuild, Boz Pity didn’t figure much into the plans of the galaxy’s major factions. No doubt there were some Draelvasier stragglers still on the surface of the planet, but they were isolated and ill-equipped. Hopefully, anyway.

<We don’t have a choice,> Kai said. <We have to land.>

It was a rough landing, but they made it to the surface intact. Ax immediately scurried off to survey the damage and conduct repairs, while Kai stood guard outside.

"So much for our beach vacation." Claudia hovered down the loading ramp and stopped beside him. “Mind if I keep you company?” she asked.

Kai didn’t say anything, seemingly lost in thought. The landscape they had landed in was a foggy moor, stretching out for miles in every direction. Aside from the faint sounds of wildlife and wind, it was quiet. Too quiet.

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

Wearing: Warrior's Skin

Armed With: Elaine Tear's Lightsaber (Corrupted)

Objective: Clear out Bryn'adul resistance/Secure Weapons.

The Battalion didn't know what to feel heading to Boz Pity.

She wasn't sure it was anger she felt at Morris. Merely surprise. Morris had struck her as insular, emotionless most of the time. The Battalion was slowly starting to realize she had never known him at all...

But why had Xiphos brushed off the revelation that yet another girlfriend of hers had murdered blood kin? Did she really like her that much? Or was she so emotionally burned out that she no longer had the energy to hold grudges against any except Jedi, The Maw, or The Bryn'adul as a whole?

It made her suspicious. She liked Xiphos, but she had seen how she reacted to the revelation about Syd. She had, to put it mildly, flipped right the feth out.

Was it distance? Was it Xiphos having changed since Kerest?

That's when it hit her, really hit her, just how much Xiphos bought into what she had tried and failed to sell to the Major Factions.

The Battalion wondered what would have happened if Syd had stayed. Could Xiphos have found it in herself to forgive her if Syd had remained loyal to the cause?

After all, The Amalgam contained a copy of the evil version of Syd in her mind, yet Xiphos had made no move to strike her down. Xiphos was a wretched thing in a wretched position. Nearly all her closest and most powerful allies had all hurt her in some way. Themis, by not telling Xiphos the truth about Syd, Arianna, because the Force Spawn using the long dead Countess's flesh had completely failed in her original mandate to protect Laertia growing up, Syd, by having murdered her parents, The Battalion herself, by having killed the family of Xiphos's father. The Amalgam, by cruelly toying with Xiphos's feelings as much as she aided her.

With perhaps the one exception in Maple, all of Xiphos's inner circle had hurt or back stabbed her or failed her, or all three, sometimes without even meaning to, sometimes without even realizing it until it was too late to do anything about it.

Xiphos was so desperate for family, for allies, for Love, that even those who had all hurt her in such personal ways around her all the time, was better than nothing at all.

For the first time in decades, as she piloted her TIE Reaper to the surface, she felt the sting of empathy and pity and remorse...and she did not like it. She tried to crush it, but it came unbidden. She was glad Xiphos was in the Shadow Bride instead of in here with her. Being forgiven for a past evil was a sensation she thought she would never receive again.

It was dangerous to dwell on it. Her strength lay in being a paragon of The Dark Side...who happened to be the girlfriend of a brutal Mad Scientist playing mother to a race of Machines.

So much of her current life was totally bizarre.

It looked like a Bryn'adul outpost...but suddenly The Battalion picked up a signal coming from farther off.

"Xiphos, I'm getting a signal...looks like a crashed ship..."

"Go and investigate. I have plans for this Graveyard."

"If it's just Spacers, you mind me feeding on them?" The Battalion asked.

"If I am going to accept you by my side, I have to accept your nature along with it." Xiphos answered over the comm.

The Battalion didn't know how to respond to that.

She instead diverted course to check out the crash site.

The Battalion, on a whim, decided she would surprise Xiphos by not killing whoever she found. It was a decision made at a whim.

The signal was coming from a foggy area full of giant headstones...The Battalion felt life forms. Life forms twisted by Sith Magic...

Intrigued, she grabbed her Lightsaber, clipped it to her belt and ventured off the Reaper, carrying a box of tools...

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

<How are we doing, Ax?> Kai asked telepathically.

Ax’s answer was muffled, echoing in the confines of the ship. “Hyperdrive in bad shape. Will need more time—hours, to repair! May need spare parts too…”

Kai’s shoulders slouched at the news. Claudia watched him, clearly wanting to say something, but she couldn’t seem to find the words.

“Kai,” she finally whispered. “I’m sorry.”

<What for?>

“For dragging you into this.” Hesitating, she admitted, “I didn’t win the tickets in a lottery. Ax stole them. He probably got this piece of junk that way too.” She gestured to the ship. “I just wanted a break, you know? To relax and have fun, away from all the fighting and the destruction.”

Coruscant had been a mess ever since the invasion. With the Jedi Temple in ruins, Kai had begun spending more time at the Reef, where the other Sithspawn lived. The leader of the Reef, Damsy, had reluctantly agreed to help some refugees, leaving the abandoned factory where they made their home far more cramped. Claudia had needed an escape.

<You said you were afraid for your safety,> Kai remarked, looking at her pointedly. <Was that because you were afraid whoever those tickets belonged to would come and attack you?>

“I don’t know. Not really? I mean, I guess…” She sighed. “I’m sorry for that too. I know you want me to learn how to defend myself anyway. When this is all over, I’ll go back to practicing with the Force, so maybe one day I won’t be so dependent on you.” She wasn’t very good at using the Force, but she knew she could get better.

Kai peered down at her, then nodded his head. <You shouldn’t have involved yourself in Ax’s crimes.>

“He stole the tickets from some rich dude,” she argued. But it was no use. She’d seen Kai become upset with people for stealing before. His time with the Jedi had turned him into quite the boy scout. “Look, it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re stuck here now, and the tickets will probably expire before we have a chance to leave this rock…”

Kai spotted a figure in the distance, emerging from the fog. His hand instantly went to his lightsaber hilt, but he didn’t draw the blade yet.

<Who goes there?> he called out.

“Who’s there?” Claudia added, shouting across the moor just in case the visitor couldn’t understand telepathy.

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

The Battalion's flesh rippled everywhere disgustingly as it detected the presence of Sithspawn like herself.

Intriguing...

The Cult was always on the lookout for Sithspawn. Such flesh had many purposes...

But she reminded herself, she was going to help them to surprise Xiphos.

"I heard you the first time..." The Battalion called back, walking up. Though her aura was a miasma of Corruption and evil it still didn't hold a candle to The Amalgam's.

"I saw your ship crash...I'm fairly handy with busted equipment. Brought spare parts."

The Battalion noted that, just like Xiphos, these two seemed to be fighting their nature's. One seemed to be paralyzed...The Battalion had long since accepted her own nature. Or so she believed.

Xiphos forgiving what her human self had done was starting to mess with her head though...a little, anyway.

"So..." The Battalion asked Arlo Renard as she stood in front of them and the ship "What's busted?"

In the distance, there was an eerie, wailing sound...

 

[Arlo Renard]

The figure in the fog gradually materialized into that of a woman with dark curly hair, luminously pale skin, and distinct features. At first glance, she appeared to be completely nude, though in actuality she was simply wearing a skintight bodysuit of some kind. Under normal circumstances, Claudia would’ve rolled her eyes at such oversexualized fetish wear.

But these were not normal circumstances. An intense miasmic darkness clung to the mysterious woman. There was no mistaking it. She was of the Dark Side.

Claudia’s eyes widened and she instinctively started to back up, her hoverchair moving closer to the boarding ramp. Kai’s body tensed into a combat stance, his lightsaber clenched tightly in his hand as he prepared to defend them.

The stranger seemed nonplussed by their reactions to her. She explained that she had seen their ship crash, that she was experienced with repairing damaged equipment, and that she had spare parts. To help back up her claims, she had brought along a box containing tools and other such items.

Claudia glanced over at Kai. She knew exactly what he was thinking, and they could not afford to let him go through with it. “Our pilot Ax is working on the ship right now,” she blurted. “He can tell you what the problem is.”

Using the controls of her hoverchair, she moved out of the way to allow the woman to walk up the ramp. In doing so, she got closer to Kai—and grabbed his arm, preventing him from stopping the Battalion.

“Ax said that we need spare parts,” she said, loud enough for the Battalion to hear. “The hyperdrive won’t work without them.”

Kai shot the Battalion a dirty look. <She’s a Sith,> he communicated privately to Claudia, using telepathy only she could understand. <This could be a trap.>

<Yes, but we don’t know that for sure.> Reaching up, Claudia held Kai’s face in her hands. <Maybe she just wants us off her turf. Killing us would only cause her more problems—people would look for us. Either way, we’d be stupid to refuse her offer.>

Just then, they heard an eerie wailing sound coming from somewhere in the distance. Compressing his lips, Kai pulled away from Claudia and followed the Battalion up the loading ramp. A worried Claudia hovered close behind him, pressing the button to raise the ramp once they were all inside the ship.

A 578-R space transport, the vessel was absolutely ancient. From the outside, it had looked to be in fairly good condition, but on the inside it was clear that it had seen better days. Ax was busy fiddling with the hyperdrive, occasionally ducking to avoid the sparks from burnt wiring. Other parts of the ship showed clear signs of wear and tear.

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

The Battalion looked mildly amused at the reaction of Arlo Renard , who looked ready to pounce, except he was stopped by the other. Likely communicating by telepathy.

She made sure to troll Kai by winking at him as she went up the ramp.

"Holy chit, this thing's more ancient than I am..." The Battalion muttered under her breath as she stepped in following the sparks and smokes.

"A motherfething 578-R...no wonder you're in trouble...you know these things kept getting recalled, right?" The Battalion asked as she stepped into engineering, immediately understanding it wasn't just the Hyperdrive, but other things that had contributed. Eroded circuits, power conduits that should have been replaced years ago, substandard insulation on certain parts...damn thing was an accident waiting to happen. The bug-man, Ax, caused instinctive misgivings in the Battalion for reasons she couldn't explain on the surface. (It was mainly due to the fact she was a partial expy of Ellen Ripley, but try explaining that to her.)

The Battalion whistled as she slowly inspected the damage.

"Well, right off the bat...good news and bad news...one, your Hyperdrive can still be fixed and ship functions can be restored. Bad news is even if we get it fixed, I wouldn't trust this thing for more than another Jump or two...and even that's being generous. I can get it working again, but honestly, this thing is a fething death trap. Were it not for the circumstances, I would have written it off and declared it a lost cause already..." she told Ax

The Battalion began busily working on the Hyperdrive with practiced alacrity. This would be so much easier to just kill and absorb them but she really wanted to surprise Xiphos...

"But it's your ship...your funeral..." she remarked. "We'll also need to replace a few power couplings and circuits while we're at it...can have it up and running in about forty minutes if I work fast..."

There was another louder wail from the foggy moor outside...it could be heard even in the ship...

 

[Arlo Renard]

In response to the stranger railing against them for flying a ship in such poor condition, Ax just shrugged. “Ship was cheap. You fix ship. We go to nearest starport, get another ship. Better ship.” He folded his bug arms (legs?) together like a praying mantis. “Thank you for help.”

Claudia gnawed on her nails, her eyes darting in the direction of the weird wailing. It was getting louder. “What’s making that noise?” she asked.

Kai was leaning one arm against the wall, eyelids lowered to half-mast, trying to discern the source of the sound with the Force...

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

The Battalion worked as quickly as possible on the Hyperdrive, experience fixing ships as a form of meditation when she was still Elaine Tear helping the job go faster.

She was not exactly certain why she wanted to surprise Xiphos. She only felt she had to. The Amalgam no doubt would have killed the boy and the bug if they refused to submit, and eaten the spirit of the Girl...

The Battalion found little Joy in doing what The Amalgam did. She wasn't the type to slaughter villages for its own sake. She liked the challenge of consuming prey that was capable of fighting back and killing her. The Amalgam filled herself on any cruelty that would sustain her.

She was still pretty evil, and enjoyed killing otherwise decent folk. But She only got a A in it while Amy got an A++.

Just as she finished fixing the worst of the damage to the Hyperdrive, the large wail sounded off, this time all around the ship.

The fog suddenly seemed to get thicker as the Battalion sensed a very strong Dark presence...

Batty, what is that? Xiphos asked, reaching out through a slowly growing bond. I felt it even from where I am...

I don't know, yet, Julia...but prepare yourself. I'm a lot closer to it than wherever you are and whatever this is, it's BAD.

Can you handle it?

The Battalion smiled to herself.

I 'am' pretty good at cutting a Motherfether myself, you know...

Call me if you need me. I'm cutting up lots of these Draelvasir right now...might take a while...

Make them suffer, Dear. The Battalion encouraged through shared telepathy.

Don't I always? Xiphos replied.

The Battalion smiled a little at this. It never failed to amuse her (and by implication, her Narrator) at how Xiphos, who knew the art of Cryokinesis, had literally become a Defrosting Ice Queen when the Battalion had entered her life.

The Battalion's strengths were different from most others in her cult. Whereas most were all into subterfuge and emotional manipulation cut by intense moments of sadism and butchery, The Battalion found her talents in the application of sheer, direct violence. It was part of the reason Xiphos liked her, and part of the reason the Amalgam had put her in her path.

The Battalion set down her spare parts bag.

"Whatever that is, the ship won't be fixed before it's on us..." she muttered, heading back out to the front where she drew her Lightsaber, but didn't activate it...

The fog seemed to be rolling in ever closer, and The Battalion was starting to make out shapes inside. Had they always been there? Why had they not attacked before?

One finally got into view. It looked gigantic, like a Drael...

It was the body of a rotted Juggernaut of the Bryn'adul, but had multiple mouths over its body full of jagged teeth. More variants all equally rotted/mutated, started to come out.

"Oh..." The Battalion trailed, activating her pale red Lightsaber, enshrouding her body in a field of red energy. "Feth that..."

They screamed in a loud wail as one, their lumbering bodies charging forward at high speed, Force lightning erupting from the multiple horrid mouths and barely missing her as she charged forward at the same time, slashing savagely at them, wading into the thickest groups without fear, pure savagery and skill in every attack. It was easy to see how she had grown on Xiphos as she began hacking through rotted, fetid Drael bodies, but she was surrounded and still more were coming for Arlo Renard and his friends...

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai’s eyes snapped open. The thing outside was unlike anything he had ever encountered before. All that he knew was that it was definitely malicious, and hungry…

<Don’t open the door!> He tried to stop the Sith, but she lowered the ship’s ramp anyway. Seeing the lightsaber hilt in her hand, he drew his own weapon with extreme prejudice. The Sith’s thirst for blood and battle was probably going to get them all killed, but there was nothing he could do now.

Nothing except fight.

<Get to the escape pods and seal the doors!> Kai barely had a chance to give the order to Claudia and Ax before the mutated Drael were upon them. They barreled past the Battalion, charging up the loading ramp amid a chorus of wails. Kai activated his lightsaber, the blade bisecting one of the monstrosities, all of the creature’s mouths opening at once as it let out a death cry.

It happened fast. Too fast. Kai heard Claudia scream, and felt Ax in pain. He tried to reach out to both of them with the Force, but it was no use. Ax was dead, and they were eating him, teeth tearing through his insectoid carapace—

Claudia’s screams were suddenly muffled, not by crustacean flesh, but by the solid metal of a closed door. She was safe. But Ax…

Kai reached out with the Force and dragged the corrupted Drael away from the bulkhead, throwing them back down the ramp. He came at them in a storm of movement, the Force tearing around him like a vortex. His blade was a flash of white fire in the fog, burning hot as his anguish at the death of his friend.

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

The Battalion carved through the rotted mutants, as relentless a Maelstrom of violence as they themselves were. But even though she cut down dozens aggressively and brutally she was still nearly overwhelmed by them, and it wasn't until she started hurling large balls of Lightning to tear them apart that she really made progress.

Had one of their Shamans grown desperate enough to truly resort to the Dark Side? It seemed like it. Xiphos would take pleasure watching The Battalion torture to death whoever it was.

She sensed the death of the Bug Man and shrugged internally. He shouldn't have brought such a crappy ship. He had brought it on himself. And he might have gotten his friends killed bringing them here. The Battalion wasn't about to play defense. Playing it safe is what Elaine Tear would have done.

The Battalion slashed and slashed viciously through rotted Bryn'adul meat, feeding of the dark energy powering them. She felt Arlo Renard give into his anguish, starting to slash ferociously into them as he gave into his emotions like the Sithspawn he was. Surely he could feel it. The raw hatred, the deserved hatred he had towards these beasts, and how it empowered him to wreck their chit, how it empowered him in general. What good were Jedi teachings when monsters could snatch everything from you? Phyre had proven that to Elaine, in the end.

That small flicker of doubt flared up at the moment, the doubt Xiphos had subtly coaxed out of her without realizing it, and the distraction of it cost her when a fist slammed into her, only the red field of energy protecting her from the full might of the punch.

She quickly rebounded, even though she hit the ground and was stunned for a few precious seconds allowing them to close in.

She snarled, even as they dogpiled her, her light red blade cleaving through rotted flesh and rusted armor, dicing her foes to pieces with a look of savage glee on her face. She decided to back up Kai, getting closer, trying to form a defense barrier with him to more properly protect that hunk of junk Claudia was in. She whispered unholy words, trying to strengthen and empower Kai to better resist these undead fiends...

Meanwhile...

Xiphos brutally laid waste to the defending outpost with the Assistance of her Model 3 Children, all armed with Shatter Rifles, that punched through the tough tissue of the Baeduran defending the outpost. She noted an unusually high amount of Elite units defending this place, and the presence of the Dark Side everywhere, and she felt The Battalion surging through her enemies like a scalpel through muscle.

Her sheer skill and vicious strength were like Catnip to Xiphos. Plus she was highly skilled in enhancement magic, and had proven critical to Xiphos's operations. They seemed to enjoy the same types of ships, heavily armed and armored, they could both kill in incredibly painful, grotesque (albeit highly impractical) ways, and plus, she was breathtakingly hot and could cook.

Xiphos had been sincerely in love with Syd, but there were different reasons to love Batty. Many different reasons.

But how to save Batty from The Dark Side?

This issue was starting to occupy Xiphos's idle time (what little of it there was.). It would ultimately have to be The Battalion's decision.

That said, if what she was attempting with the Battalion worked, it would serve as an excellent trial run for Amy...

Xiphos sliced apart Bryn'adul with the Sword of Cinndurr, venting her internal frustrations in them exactly as Errik Nimdok had accused her of in his mini bio of her. She might hate him, but even she couldn't argue he was spot on in some of his musings.

A Model Three brutally bashed in a Juggernaut's skull with a spiked club. Xiphos could feel the same old Hatred The Bryn always had for anything that wasn't Bryn, but now she felt the creeping edge of demoralization. Despair.

They had once seemed poised to sweep over the Galaxy. But Danuta had been to them what Malachor was to Mandalorians. Now they were a quickly fragmenting culture at each other's throats, being aggressively pursued and wiped out by House Io to the last wretched youngling. They were animals, and Xiphos was going to slaughter them like animals, and Natalie Portman would cover it all up in the end, like she did with Hayden.

The rampage through the straight forward construction, Drael Tech in disrepair, the warriors not really comprehending how it could be over for them, not understanding how they could come so far, do so much damage, come close to Kashyyyk, only to collapse.

But Xiphos understood what they didn't.

All factions fall, die, expire.

Even the days of her own faction were ultimately numbered, though she knew not the number, nor the manner in which its end would come. Likely violent, like they had lived. Hopefully they could make a difference in the Galaxy, with the time they were active. But Xiphos knew nothing lasts forever...

Xiphos wondered how her death would occur. Would it be at the hands of some Jedi who got lucky? Some Assassin? Amy? Maple? Xiphos could accept it if it came from the latter two. She loved them. For a split second, she wondered if she might actually let them.

Zealots engaged her. Spec Ops. Xiphos gave them no honorable end, instead ripping away a floor plating panel with Telekinesis and smashing into them at high speed with it, brutally cutting them in two pieces, whose heads were further bashed in by club armed Model 3's.

Then she spotted a Shaman, only this one reeked of Darkness. His skin was pale and moldy, and his armor looked frayed and tattered.

Xiphos was suddenly blocking absolutely massive bolts of lightning from him. She felt his madness, his insanity...

She blocked the powerful lightning with her blade, though it was powerful enough to make her struggle to reach him as her children continued to butcher every Bryn they could find.

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai’s blade was larger than a typical lightsaber, modeled after a claymore. Like that ancient sword, its longer reach afforded it many benefits, allowing him to cut down swathes of enemies in seconds, sweeping his blade through their flesh before they had a chance to get close enough to hit him.

One of the Bryn zombies managed to break through. As it lunged at Kai, he brought the pommel of his weapon down upon its head with such force, it exploded in a shower of bloody mist. Covered in gore, the stench of rotten flesh in his nostrils, Kai only snarled and sliced the heads off another three Bryn.

He wanted them all dead. They needed to die, if he was to protect Claudia and himself…

As his determination to survive grew, his flesh hardened, becoming like armor. The Bryn struck at him, but couldn’t penetrate his leathery hide.

Even as he enacted this transformation, something else was happening to him. Too focused on combating the horde, he couldn’t stop to fight back against the strange magic working on him. The Battalion would find no resistance to her empowerments.

After bisecting another zombie, Kai was knocked down by a lunging zombie that caught him by surprise. The thing had him pinned to the ground, teeth gnashing at his face. His lightsaber knocked from his grasp, Kai resorted to tearing the rotten ghoul limb from limb with his claws—yes, the human hands were gone now, replaced by long jagged fingers sprouting from knuckles that secreted acid in place of sweat.

As he regained the upper hand, another zombie pounced on him, and another. They bit into him, trying to tear him apart as they had Ax. The foulness of his tainted blood was so pungent it overpowered the rotten smell of the reanimated Bryn; one spat out a chunk of his corrupted flesh in apparent disgust. But Kai’s fury could not be so easily stifled. He wouldn’t go down without a fight, wouldn’t let them kill him, no! He would live and they would die and he was in control.

A wave of raw power radiated out from Kai’s center, a hurricane of death and destruction. It dismembered the Bryn that had dogpiled him, spewing chunks of decomposing flesh in every direction. Kai commanded the wind, plucking the rest of the Bryn off their feet and tossing them about as if they were caught in a cyclone, and he was the eye of the storm.

Reaching out his hand, Kai seized his lightsaber again. The shard of Chaldean marble within sang to him in a voice only he could hear, louder than ever before. For once in his life, the Bamarri spirit within was not at odds with the Sithspawn body it occupied. Spirit and flesh were one and the same, body and soul aligned.

A chunk of metal was ripped off of the ship and thrown across the landscape. Kai turned his head and saw that the vessel was being torn asunder, unable to withstand his violent manipulation of the weather. He remembered then, that there was something… someone inside that he was supposed to protect…

<Claudia.>

The name was a whisper in his mind, an anchor that dragged him down from the euphoric ecstasy of his unleashed power. With it came other names, other faces, friends and loved ones.

The winds died down, the tempest quieted. All fell still as Kai surveyed the damage his outburst had done to the ship. It was unflyable now, fit only for scrap.

Hardly aware of anything else, he walked among the gutted shell of the vessel, finding the door and tearing it open. Claudia gave a scream of fright and shielded herself with her arms.

<Claudia, they’re all dead. The ship is wrecked. We have to go now.>

“Kai…” she whimpered, still cowering. “What happened? What did you do?...”

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

The Battalion smiled as Arlo Renard gave into his hatred and fear, flesh rippling everywhere as he channeled the Dark Side, annihilating both his opponents and hers. She watched as he tapped into the darkness more and unfortunately ripped his own ship apart.

She sighed, watching him snap out of it. His soul was a little more beautiful to her now, but not by much.

She kept her distance, observing as she watched him pull the wreckage off a still alive Claudia, who asked what he had done.

"I'll tell you what happened. He embraced his nature..." The Battalion said calmly. "Was that not easier, young man? Embracing what you are? Embracing your emotions, your rage. You shouldn't cower from it. Either of you. You yourself could easily learn to do what he did. And I guarantee you'll both be happier with yourselves at the results. At the very least you won't spend the rest of your life groveling for Jedi Acceptance. You'll be able to hold your head up high, as I do."

The Battalion sighed.

"My ship is not far off. I'm willing to give you both a lift..." the Witch offered. "All it would require is a quick pitstop first. An associate of mine is need of some assistance...and silly me, in all this confusion I never even properly introduced myself. I am known as The Battalion..." she finished, giving a slight bow.

"Shall we?"

Meanwhile...

Xiphos drew ever closer to the Shaman blasting lightning. She didn't see Bryn'adul Shaman resort to lightning all that much. They preferred more esoteric applications of the Force. He was experienced, had discipline, but he had drank too deeply of the Dark Side too quickly in his despair and rage over the fate of his faction. His lightning was powerful, but only because he was putting so much of himself into killing the annoying malignity that had never ceased to be a problem for the Bryn'adul since Nar Kreeta.

His Lightning was strong enough however that even Xiphos struggled to reach him. This one had such hate towards her and her machines which had humiliated their finest warriors with painful ignoble deaths that she was actually forced back a few steps by it.

Xiphos pushed her own hatred of the Bryn'adul to one side, pushed all of her petty hatreds aside, warping and twisting the Light to serve her. Lightning, eh? Two could play that game.

Dark blue Lightning traveled up her arms as she staggered forward, her blade blocking the Lightning. She willed it forward, without hatred or malice, out of sheer necessity of defeating all Bryn'adul.

The powerful blue Electric Judgement slammed into her foe, and he screamed as it burned through him by burning up his now deep connection to the Darkness. He caught fire, desperately trying to focus his skill as a Shaman to purge her deadly energies, and partly succeeded, because almost anyone else would have been dead by now.

Xiphos advanced ruthlessly, striking for his throat, and his second trick came into play.

Xiphos almost didn't get her guard up in time as his red Lightsaber came into play, custom built to his size. Because the Sword of Cinndurr had a slower swing he actually got some pretty good nicks in on her armored stomach and right arm, forcing Xiphos to back off.

"Who has committed the heresy of teaching you?" Xiphos asked in curiosity. For Xiphos, doing anything to Bryn'adul other than trying to kill them upon sighting was a rarity.

"Tell me, and your death will be quick."

The Shaman only smiled.

"Mawite..." Xiphos realized. "Fine. If you won't tell me, then I won't kill you. I'll have dear Amy rip your mind open to get me the answers."

He brandished his red blade in a Makashi Flourish.

"Motherfether, I hope you know how to use the Darkness to cut off all pain to your every last nerve, 'cause Imma go lookin'!" (Four or Five seconds to be a hero: 90 XP.) Xiphos snapped.

Their blades clashed and Xiphos found herself in an actual, genuine duel with a competent opponent fueled by pure hatred.

He met and deflected her every stab and slash, retaliating with excellent counters that Xiphos struggled to meet. The Battalion had always had more of an ear for Makashi than Xiphos. Xiphos could beat a Makashi user though.

The slow swing hampered her retaliation attempts though. Xiphos countered by throwing out a telekinetic field that tried to slow his physical movement down, but his hatred allowed him to power through it, and Xiphos was rapidly forced on the defensive, resorting to using disciplines from Soresu to keep out of the way as well as better intercept his strikes. She was patient. She had been forced to learn it all over again using this Lightsaber.

As he bashed it again however, the power of the fiery orange Lightsaber broke his red blade.

He stepped back in astonishment. Xiphos advanced, but he blasted lightning at the roof, causing a minor collapse of the ceiling above, buying him time to escape

The other Model 3 units, who had slain all the other Bryn'adul at this point, immediately set about to clearing the rubble.

"Garth?" she called out to her Son, a Model 3 unit. "Have you found out why the Bryn'adul were protecting this outpost?"

Seismic scans indicate a massive, hollowed out space beneath. But from what we understand, this is an outpost for one of the last Butcherer Attack Cruisers. It's due to arrive within hours."

"Full strength crew?" Xiphos asked.

"Three quarters strength. We would still be outnumbered even if we did find a way aboard..."

"Well, we're gonna find our way aboard it. We'll be ready when it does. And we're gonna kill every last motherfether aboard it when it arrives. We just need Batty here."

The Model 3 units finished clearing the rubble blocking the tunnel to where the Shaman had fled.

"But fiiiiiirrrrrsssst...I got me a Shaman to kill..."

Xiphos preceded into the tunnel. The Nuetralizers began taking inventory, marking down supplies of Barracas Oil as a first step, waiting for the Battalion and whoever came with her to arrive...

 

[Arlo Renard]

He couldn’t answer Claudia’s questions. Silence fell after she posed them, with Kai staring at her almost without seeing. The sound of the witch’s voice punctured the eerie quiet in the wake of his rampage.

Clenching his fists, Kai whirled on her. <It’s not my nature! The Sith imposed it on me! I am good! You made me this way!>

By you he did not mean the witch specifically, though her spell had loosened the leash on his darker impulses. He meant the Sith in general. They were all to blame for what had happened here, and for all the mistakes and lapses Kai had committed. But even as he screamed into the witch’s mind, Kai’s words rang hollow. It was the shrieking of a child having a tantrum when faced with the consequences of his actions. He had annihilated the Bryn’adul zombies, he had destroyed the ship, and now they would have to rely on the witch’s help because of what he had done.

But Kai didn’t have the maturity to accept responsibility for any of it. Instead, seeing how frightened and vulnerable Claudia was, he focused on keeping her safe, pushing all other thoughts aside… for now.

<Claudia,> he began, addressing her with a surprising amount of tenderness. <Let’s go.>

“It’s no use.” Tears ran down the girl’s face. She tried to wipe them away, but her hands shook. Her entire body was trembling so much, it was causing something that had been knocked loose in her hoverchair to audibly rattle. “I’m just dead weight. I’ll only slow you down.”

<No,> Kai insisted, an edge of desperation leaking through their telepathic link. She was the only thing keeping him grounded here. If he lost Claudia, he would lose himself. <I can protect you. We’ll make it out of here.>

She shook her head, her expression a grimace from the sting of her weeping. “Ax is dead. We don’t have a ship to hide in anymore. It’s all open ground from here, and I can’t survive on a battlefield—”

He pressed his lips to hers. It was a sloppy, awkward kiss, their mouths crashing together with a little more force than was necessary. A brief one, too, little more than a peck. Yet the shock of it stopped her protests. She blinked, the last of her tears falling like scales from her eyes, and whispered, “Why’d you do that?”

Kai smiled at her. He understood little about romantic love, but he knew she had wanted that kiss from him for a long time. <I’ll protect you. Whatever it takes.>

“That sounds like a recipe for a painful death,” she retorted, glaring at him. But there was something of her old self in that glare, along with something new that seemed to have just been born. Turning to face the witch, she sighed. “Okay Battalion, you take the lead. I don’t think I need to warn you not to try any funny business, given what you just saw my associate do…”

She gestured to the wind-torn landscape around them, strewn with the bits and pieces of their ship and the gore of dozens of shredded Bryn zombies. As they began to follow the Battalion, Kai stuck close to Claudia, his eyes sweeping the horizon in search of new enemies to kill.

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

The Battalion sighed as he yelled at her telepathically. He was quite young, whatever his ship, exhibited a child like anger at her words.

"We can give you the skills, young one. We can even give you the flesh to best use those skills in. But you are not some rakghoul or lesser laboratory horror we could simply order around by fiat. In the end, it is your choice to use what is already in you."

She watched him calm down the other, Claudia,by kissing her. Must have dumped some points into his Charisma stat.

Not an inconceivably long time ago, The Battalion would have snorted in disgust at such a display. But her time with Xiphos had already subtly changed her in ways she hadn't noticed.

Claudia began warning her not to try anything funny. The Battalion grinned.

"Even if you don't trust me, at least trust what I say next: I'm capable of so much worse than your boyfriend's display. If I wanted either of you dead, it would not be a question of if, but when it would happen." The Battalion told them casually. "But I'm feeling... charitable..."

The Battalion beckoned Kai and Claudia follow her. She even walked slowly so they could keep up, as alert for threats as Arlo Renard was.

"I cannot help but be curious as to how you both got so ashamed of being what you are. Is a Lion ashamed for hunting and killing prey?" The Battalion mused to herself as she walked.

"I was human once. It's not all it's cracked up to be..." she muttered, at last reaching her TIE Reaper. The blood enchantments she had left on the hull and burst apart dozens of Bryn'adul zombies who might have taken it apart otherwise.

"You see..." The Battalion trailed, getting inside and activating the controls. "I represent an organization that welcomes those like yourself. A organization where you wouldn't be a slave. Where you could live openly. Boldly."

The Battalion let them both stew on her words as she piloted the ship to a now heavily damaged outpost where the Skeletal Model 3 units had taken up perimeter guards. There were butchered Bryn'adul everywhere.

The Battalion landed the Reaper on a landing pad, and the Battalion was the first off.

"I brought a pair of guests..." The Witch told Garth The Model 3, whose Skeleton face had an X of red paint on it, signifying he was a veteran from Kerest.

"Not like you to pick up strays, Batty..." Garth noted.

"Oh, I can't be generous, once in a while?"

"I guess..." Garth muttered before looking at the others.

"Hi there! I'm Garth!" The Soldier Droid said enthusiastically.

"The girl is likely injured. Give them whatever med supplies they require." The Battalion ordered. "Where's Xiphos?"

"She went deeper into the complex. Batty, we got a bit of an issue. A Bryn'adul Battle Cruiser is on its way." Garth explained. "Butcherer Class..."

"Ooooo... intriguing...I am already getting ideas in this evvvvvillll little skull..." The Battalion joked, turning to Kai.

"Your lady friend will be safe, young one. Come with me. Perhaps you running into us could prove fortuitous after all..." The Witch mused, striding into the small complex where the Nuetralizers were busy clearing out bodies, many badly clubbed or sliced apart so badly that their parts were being dumped into large buckets, others registering the supplies of Enhanced Radesh Oil

"Save the body parts! I'll need those soon." The Battalion instructed as she headed into the tunnel, going deep until she heard sounds of Lightsabers clashing.

She came upon Darth Xiphos, clad in her dark blue Bio Armor , locked in combat with a Shaman armed with a red Lightsaber in the middle of a vast depository for ship parts, and weapons.

Xiphos was on the defensive with her dual vented Sword of Cinndurr, it's fiery, near unstable orange blade hissing and sputtering against the red one violently. The Shaman attacked viciously and smoothly--even The Battalion was impressed at how he was keeping up with Xiphos...

Xiphos was then surprised by a second Apprentice, another Shaman, this one armed with a saber staff, also red. Xiphos barely teleported out of the way of a backstab.

The two foes took turns swiping at her, trying to cut off her retreat and end the immense threat she posed to their people once and for all. The Apprentice spun his staff, trying to decapitate her, the Shaman making a quick slice at her legs. Xiphos shifted to the side, swinging her blade as she did so. Her blade immediately shorted out one blade of the Apprentice's staff, transitioning smoothly to a sudden lunge with the blade that caught the slice for her legs one handed, her other arm back handing the apprentice brutally and slamming him into a nearby wall. The Shaman was alone again...

Xiphos dashed towards him, blade crashing down from above towards his face. Due to the slow swing of the blade because of it's more intense gyroscopic forces, The Shaman was able to catch it...and was still utterly driven to his knees by the Force of her blow. She pressed against him driving his own blade closer to her.

He concentrated, trying to choke her and break her neck. She shrugged off the attempt with her own will, a sneer under her helmet.

The Shaman's hatred rapidly gave way to the blank stare of realizing he was about to die, and it was to be a painful death. He had sank to new depths joining with the Maw, helping them do things that would have made even the Merciless Bryn Hoards of Old recoil in disgust. In the end, he had sunk so far it wasn't even really about saving his people anymore, but about pure bloody revenge against the universe itself for deciding against his people's future, despite their clear and obvious superiority to every other creature the Universe had made.

And no matter how far he had sunk...it was still not enough.

Why could a superior people not best this one meaningless pile of flesh and her wretched machines?

He would never receive an answer, to the very end in deep denial over why his people had failed even as his own Lightsaber was forced through his body. He died screaming and enraged by his own failure and weakness as he was cut apart diagonally, catching fire. (GLORY KILL!!!)

Xiphos grabbed his now burning lower half and dragged it over to the Apprentice, who was barely starting to regain consciousness.

"Hey. nerf herder." Xiphos barked, getting the disoriented Shaman Apprentice's attention as she swung the burning lower torso and legs into his head.

He went limp as Xiphos beat him to death with his own Master (QUAN CHI WINS: FATALITY: 700 XP), making the Battalion's thirst meter jump to over 7000 at the brutal sight of the Apprentice's head being smashed apart.

Xiphos then looked up and spotted The Battalion.

"So good of you to show, Batty." Xiphos said happily, teleporting close to her. She stared at Kai. "Who's this?"

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai looked sullen as the Battalion taunted them. One day, he would be able to stand against her and all those like her. He imagined he might even become so skilled, he could defeat the Sith once and for all. But no matter how much he desired it, the fact remained that that dream was an impossibility, at least in the current state of the galaxy.

"I cannot help but be curious as to how you both got so ashamed of being what you are. Is a Lion ashamed for hunting and killing prey?"

"I'm in a hoverchair, in case you didn't notice," Claudia replied, rolling her eyes. "Not exactly a fearsome lioness if I can't even walk. The doctors say I'm slowly turning into a tree. I probably won't make it to the age of twenty before my body gives out, if I'm lucky."

<A Sith took me from my home and killed my loved one,> Kai added. <He forced me into this body, then threw me out into the world with no guidance or care. This is not who I am or what I was meant to be.>

"I was human once. It's not all it's cracked up to be..."

"Yeah, well, we didn't ask to be made into monsters." Claudia sighed. "I just want a normal life. I don't even want the Force. I just want to live."

On the way to the outpost, the Battalion pitched them some sort of organization she was part of. She spoke about it in a very similar manner to how Damsy Callat talked about the Sithspawn Sanctorium, her language filled with references to throwing off the chains of slavery, living freely and boldly, and living in a society that would welcome people like them. Not really listening to her much, Kai and Claudia stayed silent for the duration of the ride. It was a heavy, awkward silence that hung between them like an iron curtain. Despite everything that had happened or would happen, both of them were bound by the same goal: to get the hell off this planet as soon as possible. Preferably still in one piece. Yet they had no idea what awaited them...

The outpost was in poor condition, many of its structures crumbling. The ground was strewn with the corpses of dead Bryn, visible even from the sky. Kai, eyeing the Neutralizer Model 3s, helped Claudia out of the TIE.

Claudia took the offered medikit and started to dismantle it on her lap. Then the name of Xiphos was uttered, and her head immediately snapped up. She and Kai exchanged glances, along with private thoughts.

<Darth Xiphos? As in, the terrorist with the murderbot army?> Claudia asked. It was impossible for them not to know who Xiphos, aka Laertia Io, was. She had been in the news constantly, including reports of her slaughtering Jedi and GA forces in some kind of misguided crusade. Her activities seemed to have moved elsewhere in the galaxy in more recent years—and it made sense that they would find her here on Boz Pity, a factionless no man’s land ravaged by the Bryn.

<The Battalion must be one of her witch cultist allies,> Kai concluded, staring at the Battalion as she spoke to the droid called Garth.

<We can’t stay here. These people will kill you just for being a Jedi!>

<A Bryn’adul battle cruiser is on its way here. We have no hope of leaving if they come.> Crouching down, Kai started rifling through the medikit. Bacta injector in hand, he looked up at Claudia, his blue eyes searching her violet ones. <I don’t want you to risk your life, but if you can find us a ship…>

Her hand cradled the back of his head, stroking his hair. <Before they get here—>

<No, don’t rush.> As he injected her wounded leg, he let her hug up to him, nuzzling his neck. <If these are really Xiphos’ forces, I suspect they have other vessels, possibly even an entire fleet to call upon. We wouldn’t survive them, either.>

<What are we supposed to do, then? Join them?>

<No.> He removed the hypo. <Never. But we can buy time and wait for the right opportunity to escape.>

The Battalion beckoned for him to follow her. Claudia’s grasp on him tightened. “Come back soon,” she whispered before letting him go.

Kai followed the Battalion to the storage area, where he first laid eyes upon Xiphos.

Clad in strange silvery-blue armor, she didn’t even look human. The design of the suit distorted her anatomy, making it look more droidlike. She certainly fought with the efficiency and cold brutality of a machine in her duel against the Shaman and his apprentice.

When the Shaman was defeated, she used his bisected body to beat his apprentice to death. Kai flinched with each impact, the wet crunch of shattered bone and the reek of Bryn gore combining into a profound assault upon his senses. He caused his ears to disappear and removed his sense of smell in an effort to at least block out the sound and stench of the act.

Claudia had called them monsters, but surely this Darth Xiphos and those who allied with her were far more monstrous in deed.

Kai staggered backwards as Xiphos suddenly teleported very close to him and the Battalion, crashing into a pile of rusting ship parts in his rush to evade her. The parts clattered to the floor, metal clanging together and loose screws rolling around his feet. Keeping his distance, he said nothing. He simply stared at Xiphos, frozen like an animal sensing the presence of a predator and trying not to be seen.

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

"This is one of the survivors of that crash I told you about..." The Battalion answered. "He's Sith Spawn. Claims he was turned into one against his will."

"So, like you..." Xiphos noted.

"Sorta..."

Xiphos turned to Kai, who looked frightened, stumbling into junk.

"The Armor never does make for a good first impression..." Xiphos realized, willing her armor to open up, which it did, splitting open and unfurling at key sections, allowing her to slip out, revealing the snow pale woman in the black body glove, her obsidian black, slender cybernetic left arm gleaming in the low light.

"Apologies, young man. Terribly sorry for all the unpleasantness you just witnessed but the Lobster are vermin, and I am sworn to persecute them..." Xiphos explained. "I'm afraid you caught us at a bad time. I'm sorry for that, but we have to prepare for the Bryn'adul's arrival. They still have a Battle Cruiser in play. I can't allow departures yet. They might detect you leaving and it would spook them, and I can't have that."

"He got here on a stolen vessel. Killed a massive load of Bryn'adul." The Battalion mentioned.

"Than perhaps he might be persuaded to aid us in this instance." Xiphos noted, her mismatched eyes, one cybernetic with a gray iris and a faint gold light at the center, the other a strange, metallic bronze with a dark green iris, scanning him over.

"He's a Jedi Groupie..." The Battalion added.

Xiphos snorted. "He's no Jedi. Kid's face just screams wrong place, wrong time."

The Battalion folded her arms.

"You ask me, he'll bolt at the first opportunity..." The Battalion advised.

"So we'll give him reasons not to screw with us." Xiphos replied, still staring at him.

"Tell you what young man... let's make a deal. If you at least agree to stay out of our way and not try to escape before we have completed our task, then you and that other my Sons reported with you will be given a ship, weapons, and be sent on your way, no catch. But you would both have to be on your best behavior. If you choose to assist us... provided you survive...then you and your friend will be sent on your way with a better than normal ship. If you honor your word in either case then I will honor mine. Attempts at betrayal will be punished severely. What do you say?"

"It's about as good a deal as you're gonna get. I'd take it." The Battalion advised Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai stayed silent even while Xiphos and the Battalion were talking about him. When the latter called him a Sithspawn, his stare began to harden.

Xiphos stepped out of her armor. She was a human woman with skin the color of mausoleum marble, her pale face scarred with old battle wounds. Her hair was inky black and so was the glossy bodyglove she wore underneath the suit of armor. Less than a minute after beating someone to death, here she was speaking to him in a polite, almost genteel manner. Granted, the content of her speech served to gently break the news that he had no choice but to help her, or die trying to escape. He was in her world now.

Only when the Battalion called him a “Jedi groupie” did he snap out of his trance.

"He's no Jedi. Kid's face just screams wrong place, wrong time."

<When did I ever say I was a Jedi?> he asked. It was a viable question—he had never mentioned it. Of course, the answer was predictable. The Battalion would probably mention something about his fighting style, his stance and walk, or even just point to his aversion to anything Sith as evidence of an obvious Jedi connection.

As for the deal Xiphos offered, it was more or less what he had intended to do: wait for the storm to blow over. He and Claudia had little hope of survival otherwise.

He took a step forward, his body language and tone shifting into that of someone older and bolder. The attention-demanding tilt of the broad shoulders and the cocky cant of the head were ripped straight out of the Dagon Kaze playbook, anyway. <I accept your offer,> he said. <We’ll see whether Laertia Io keeps her word.>

The Battalion​

 

[The Battalion]

I never said you were one either, Kai. The Battalion replied with telepathy. I said you were a 'Groupie' to Jedi. So desperate for their approval it radiates off you.

Still, he accepted Laertia's offer, and that was enough to get the ball rolling.

"Very well, young man." Laertia replied. "My Sons will supply you with weapons upon request. Now, we have a few hours before the Battle Cruiser arrives, and that time must be spent cleaning the place up, cataloguing what we find and of course prepping to disable the Cruiser and kill those aboard. Go stay with your friend if you like for the moment. I'll fill you in on the details once I have ironed it all out." Laertia assured Arlo Renard ...

Laertia got back into her armor and headed deeper into the Complex, taking note of stored modules like the Personal Shielding favored by the Bryn. Gods those suckers had been such trouble in the early days. They might yet prove more trouble for her enemies if they could be properly reverse engineered...

The Battalion turned to Kai.

"Just so you know..." she said. "I was turned into a Sithspawn against my will also. Used to be a Jedi. The only real difference between us is that I made peace with what I am a long time ago." (I been on to you since they turned you: 2000 XP)

The Battalion then went to join Xiphos deeper in the complex, using Force Flight to catch up to her.

Xiphos was inspection their stores of infantry Weaponry and supplies, already trying to figure out how to use it all properly.

"You surprise me, Batty..." Xiphos said, looking at the weapon caches. "I'd figured you'd kill whoever you encountered without blinking."

"I'm not Amy. Besides...I wanted to surprise you..." The Battalion replied, hand slinking over an armored shoulder.

"You succeeded. But why, might I ask, were you so intent on surprising me?"

"There is no such thing as a Perfect Sith...besides, you're trying so hard to keep me...I figure a pleasant surprise wouldn't hurt."

"You have good instincts..." Xiphos complimented, turning around and pulling her close.

"So tell me, Julia..." The Battalion asked, running a finger affectionately across the opaque, glowing blue face plate of her helmet. "Just how are you planning on killing everyone aboard a Bryn'adul Battle Cruiser?"

"Well..." Xiphos confessed, armored fingertips dancing along the Battalion's spine absentmindedly. "I see all these vast supplies of Sun Quaker Ink...and I see all the dead Bryn'adul...and I think 'Surely magic can take a bad thing and make it worse'...I want to enchant the ink, increase it's lethality temporarily as a first strike weapon, and then teleport vast amounts of the altered ink aboard and set it off, then enslave their Personal Shielding against them and march aboard, kill those left all as quickly as possible."

"Ooooo..." The Battalion muttered. "You're getting kinkier all the time..."

"Still not as kinky as the time I caught you in a flannel catsuit."

The Battalion rolled her eyes.

"You're never letting me live that down, huh?"

"Depends..." Xiphos asked pulling her closer. "Did you keep it, my Curly Haired Hellion?"

"Of course..." The Battalion replied smoothly.

Meanwhile...

The Model 3 Units were rapidly cleaning the signs of a massacre away while standing guard around the ship where Claudia was.

"So, Organic...I couldn't help but notice the wheeled prosthetic you use...have you not considered cybernetics as an option? The House specializes in such things. We could have you up on both legs with a few hours of surgery and a couple weeks physical therapy." one of The Model 3's asked.

 

[Arlo Renard]

His blue eyes focused on the Battalion, his telepathy narrowing down to just her: <Then I will have to hide myself from you better, witch.>

While he was agreeing to cooperate for the sake of his and Claudia’s survival, he didn’t like any of these people, nor did he have any reason to trust them. As far as he knew, this was a terrorist faction. They had been thrown together by circumstance, but fate had yet to say what might come after they dealt with the Bryn.

Once he was dismissed, Kai turned to go. The Battalion made a comment as he was leaving.

"Just so you know..." she said. "I was turned into a Sithspawn against my will also. Used to be a Jedi. The only real difference between us is that I made peace with what I am a long time ago."

<You and I are nothing alike,> Kai replied, unmoved. <You gave in to the whims of the one who turned you into this. You let them change not just your body, but your soul. I remember who I really am, and I won’t let them take that away from me.>

The Bryn’adul be damned, he and Claudia were still alive. They could get through this without losing themselves.

Parting ways with the Battalion, he went and found Claudia. She had been placed under guard in a secure ship. Kai hoped she would be safe there, regardless of what might happen with the Bryn. As he ascended the ramp, he heard one of the droids asking her a question about cybernetics—one that she had been asked many times before.

“This thing runs on a repulsorlift, not wheels. And surgery wouldn’t do me any good,” she replied sourly. “The problem is caused by a mutation in my DNA. I’m slowly turning into a tree. Replacing my legs with cybernetics wouldn’t stop the spread, unless I uploaded my consciousness and became a total droid—and I definitely don’t want to do that. No offense.”

Her eyes were drawn away from the Model 3s as Kai approached her.

<It’s as I hoped,> he announced, kneeling beside her. <They want us to help them deal with the Bryn. If we succeed, they’ll let us go.>

<Oh, thank the Force!> She threw her arms around him. <But how am I going to help them?>

<You won’t have to. I’m going alone.>

Her fingers gripped him tighter. <But Kai—>

<It’ll be okay. I heal fast, remember?>

Stroking his face, she pressed her lips to his. This kiss was considerably more heated than previous ones between them so far. Sensing the shift in Claudia’s intentions, Kai eventually pulled away.

<We can’t be doing this now,> he said gently. <We’re just a couple of kids.>

<I know. I just…> She sniffed. <I’m afraid something might happen, and I’ll never see you again. This is all happening so fast, and I want a chance to have what I wanted for so long…>

Kai pressed his lips together, looking down at the floor with a furrowed brow. He was beginning to regret that first kiss he had given her, a spur of the moment decision in hopes of getting her to calm down. The truth was, he didn’t feel the same way about Claudia as she felt about him, perhaps was even incapable of feeling that way. But in such dire times as this, he couldn’t bear to let her down yet.

<I will come back,> he assured her, clasping her hands in his. <We’ll go home together, I promise. And we’ll have plenty of time then to talk.>

Calming down, Claudia leaned forward and rested her head against his chest. He let her do it, wondering if he’d wind up breaking his promise.

The Battalion​