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The Fate of Coruscant The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:|Issue #2: Defending the Capital w/
The light from the lightwhip was abruptly retracted with a sharp, metallic snap back into its hilt as Remowa turned her head to the side.
The extent of devastation surrounding the Imperial Palace was approaching an almost ludicrous level as Krasskorr the Maw
's roar echoed through the courtyard, followed by the searing white heat of Mercy
. In her view, they were two sides of the same coin, both entirely capable of battling each other rather than choosing to destroy the very ground they stood upon.
"If they wanted to redecorate the palace, they could have just sent in an application." Remowa hissed through her glossy black lips, as she came to the unsettling realization that the battle for the landing platform was tipping not in the Emperor's favor, but in the Covenant's direction.
Despite the pain it caused her to retreat from the battlefield like a coward, she understood that there were more strategic ways to conquer their enemies than just standing idle and waiting for them to hurl debris in her direction. With a slight application of the force, she sprang from the ground towards the palace's rear entrance, towards a small opening known only to the Dark Side Elite.
She slipped through a side archway as a section of the ceiling groaned and buckled under the weight of the ongoing bombardment. She didn't head for the command center commanded by Lord Hasuras Na-Amoun
or the shield generators but a hidden alcove behind a fallen tapestry of the New Jedi Order.
Her hand pressed against a concealed sensor, and the wall hissed open to reveal a cramped, utilitarian turbolift. As the doors slid shut, the roar of the battle was muffled into a low, vibrating hum as the lift plummeted.
The air became colder with the Dark Side of the Force. Down here, beneath the palace foundation lay the Shrine In The Depths. The place where the New Sith Order released the sealed Forcevergence during the Invasion of Coruscant and used its power to devasting affect against the formidable Alliance defenders.
She took her place at the heart of the shrine, as her hands were extended with palms upward. Closing her eyes, she reached out not to the battle above, but to the ancient veins of darkness running deep beneath the Palace foundations. She felt the Emperor's lingering ward, a cold vacuum that she began to draw into herself, acting as a conduit for the shrine's power.
"Kotswinot kâiti... Tu tsâwin jidai!"
She threw her head back, her veins bulging black against her blue throat as she summoned the ancient art of Battle Meditation.
"Wuwat tave sa kûsk... Chât tave gâti!"
With the final syllable, Remowa's consciousness expanded, surging upward through miles of stone and duracrete. She reached out to the minds of every Imperial defender still standing in the burning district, weaving her will into their bloodlust, turning their fear into a cold, sharpened focus while potentially sowing seeds of doubt in the hearts of the invaders.
IMPERIAL BATTLE MEDITATION ACTIVE APPLIES TO ALL** PARTICIPANTS ON ALL OBJECTIVES - EFFECT AND REACH AMPLIFIED BY THE PALACE NEXUS
GALACTIC EMPIRE AND ITS ALLIES GAIN A SIGNIFICANT BOOST TO MORALE, STAMINA, AND BATTLE PROWESS
Meliant stalked away from the other command station, content to let the functionaries fuss over the rest of the naval engagement. How he hated ordering capital ships. They never went where he wanted them to, and when they got there it was always too late. Managing such things were for droids.
He arrived back at the tactical holomap and soon realized that this should have been left for droids as well. No, no. Courage to the sticking place. Meliant could not falter now. He was close. An end was well in-sight.
Even as Mercy continued to ravage the palace exterior, even as Blackblades and other elite abominations of the Kainate continued to swarm and multiply like germs in a drop of water. Some of them split off to hunt down the artillery. Doubtless they might find some success in that, but there were more artillery positions than there were Blackblades to spare. And the rest of the district was awash with more stormtroopers, battle droids, walkers, and nests of marksmen.
It would be hell. Even for them.
A distant shockwave rocked the command station - Meliant saw its source in real time, observing as Mercy blew open the sacred Imperial Palace. Meliant massaged the temples of his mask. The mysterious headache, back again. "Stop blowing holes in my palace…"
He more distantly observed the apocalyptic sorcery of Darth Carnifex, inverting gravity and making a mockery of natural law. Why was no one stopping him? Was there even anyone… Well. It had to be someone. Anyone.
Meliant fiddled with some buttons and was soon transmitting directly into Krasskorr's angry reptile ears.
"If you're done with your witless shrieking, get over there and deal with the other Sith Emperor. Go! Make it snappy!"
No sooner did he disconnect did he feel a wave of focus wash over him. Ah. Remowa was wise to absent herself from the bloodletting outdoors, even if she were barely skilled in the arts she now employed.
He would have done the same, in her shoes. No, wait, he would have left entirely. Regardless, it came just in time: the Graspborn were now breaching the palace. In they swarmed. Flies on a fat, dead nerf.
Meliant called his Tribunes to him. They surrounded the table, eerily synchronized, with dead and staring eyes.
"Plug the breach. Hold the 551st in reserve. Send the cultists first. Then the royal guard and sovereign protectors after them."
"They," one of them wheezed faintly, "Won't want to leave the throne room, the sacred places..."
"Then have them shot! Doesn't that go without saying?" Meliant laughed, but it had a hollow ring to it.
The collective palace guard that Meliant had cowed and the rag-tag Sith cultists would advance at speed to face the onslaught of the Covenant forces that entered the Imperial Palace. The cultists were fodder, but there was no mistaking the mastery of the palace guard.
They came heavily armored, and their vibroweapons were wielded with sublime skill. No match for the heroes, but the Graspborn would pay dearly for their impudence. Not all of the palace guard would want to go, of course, and several fireteams of shock troopers were dispatched to answer this treason by shooting them to death.
Those would be gruesome little battles and wasteful, too. So it goes.
"Move a platoon of shock troopers to reinforce the Grand Vizier's position. And another to guard the Vergence with our little battle meditator. They are not to be disturbed."
The Tribunes stared knowingly at Meliant and nevertheless complied. The elite soldiers of the 551st moved wordlessly throughout the Imperial Palace, like constructs rather than living creatures, setting up their strongpoints and digging in. Remowa and Shannic would be well-protected
---
The phantom Gûdjoti giggled and kicked his legs. "Careful, careful. You'll spook them."
Sardak Tel Khos seemed hurt, but his features quickly shifted into a cold, cruel smile - knowing in its malice. The mirth he had played at was gone.
"You were always the least of us, Amoun. Impatient and grasping..." Sardak told him, "...I regretted our friendship, even before the end. I want you to remember that while you destroy yourself again."
Meliant said something shrill in the awful language of the Sith and lunged for him, but Sardak vanished before his eyes. Meliant stumbled and caught the edge of the table. It saved himself from a total fall.
A few functionaries stared at him. So did his Tribunes. They soon thought better of saying anything and went back to their duties. Meliant stood himself back up and held one hand to his stomach. Nuisance after nuisance. What more could there be?
In a dark corner of the room stood a tall shadow, broad-shouldered and with imperious brow, eyes that burned like dying embers. A magnificent beard fell just past his collarbone - braided and adorned with bands of fine gold. Powerful arms were held in judgement across his chest.
Ace's confirmation was good enough, and silence was her reply, though her encrypted channel remained open if needed.
Windrun's attention turned to the battle ahead. Enemy troops had fortified ahead of the palace. Before she had a chance to assess anything else, a great bellow erupted across the field.
Followed by a powerful shockwave carrying smoke and rubble in its wake. Powerful enough to stagger the cyborg against it as shattered duracrete cut past her synthflesh and dug into the armor below. In front of her, maybe a little off to the side, a Covenant shock trooper struggled against it as well...
Arris reached out with the Force and seized the servos of his power armor, locking them into place until he was still as a statue. Yes, the shockwave pushed him back (inch-by-inch) but at least now she had some(one)thing to shield her against the onslaught.
When the shockwave was finally over, the cyborg stretched her artificial limbs and stepped beside her metal comrade in arms. She placed an arm on his shoulder.
"Thanks for the assist--" She began, looking sidelong, until her words trailed off.
Blood trickled from a gap in the man's helmet. Well... It seemed that being suddenly forced still had killed him. Arris grimaced and almost followed up with something kind to say, as if that would've mattered, only for her attention to be stolen yet again.
This time, she spotted Mercy getting ahead of herself. The Titan had a habit of showing off, that much Arris knew, but did she really have to launch herself as a human battering ram against the Palace?
"Unbelievable," she groaned.
Arris broke into a sprint after her, summoning the Force to augment her already exceptional speed. Her approach was met with volleys of mass blaster fire, and the onslaught of...
The collective palace guard that Meliant had cowed and the rag-tag Sith cultists would advance at speed to face the onslaught of the Covenant forces that entered the Imperial Palace.
Well, whatever those were, she spied at the breach. The cyborg snapped her attention to the graspborn in her vicinity. While she wasn't one to match the otherworldly bellow, her vocal emulator cranked to the ear-ringing extremes it was capable of.
"Come on! Into the Breach - You want your Master's recognition? Cross the threshold or be buried and forgotten out here!"
Arris physically pushed her way through the Graspborn crowd as they moved through the enemy lines like a flood, soaking up enemy fire, sparing her from all but a few stray shots that marred synthskin and scorched armor beneath.
She reached out to the minds of every Imperial defender still standing in the burning district, weaving her will into their bloodlust, turning their fear into a cold, sharpened focus while potentially sowing seeds of doubt in the hearts of the invaders.
As she arrived at the crumbling breach, Arris felt a sharp and sudden dread weigh heavily on her heart and mind. It was as if every doubt, every regret had resurfaced at once. An emotional reckoning.
With a wave of regret, Arris closed off those threads of human emotion she had worked desperately to regain, filling her bloodstream once again with near-lethal doses of stimulant, allowing her co-processor to once again bathe the cyborg in its darkness. Her body was its to command.
Her eyebrow arched slightly as she took in the interaction between her mother and Mercy. How easily she had been replaced…
She turned her attention away from the display, feeling foolish for ever believing there might have been something more where there had only been cardinal desire. Her breath hitched as she swallowed down her emotions; now wasn't the time to let them bleed into the Force unchecked.
She was done trying to control it.
Her mind turned inward, searching for the presence that constantly pulled at her, begging for permission to feed. She was its vessel — and this time, she relinquished the reins. A soft exhale left her as the attack began to rain down around them. The Force rose instinctively to protect the young Queen, the Princess of an Empire, even as she allowed the Core greater freedom.
Still, something lingered in the back of her thoughts.
Her eyes opened, fixing on the distance. Someone was here who shouldn't have been. Kirie
"You were supposed to be free…" Quinn murmured under her breath, the familiar ache tightening in her chest.
Through their quiet bond, she reached out — not with dominance, but with guidance. A steadying hand, a rare calm she did not grant the others.
Don't linger. Don't play hero. Just survive… find me if you get separated.
That was all she allowed. In an instant, she withdrew, severing the connection and turning fully toward the growing nightmares bleeding into her mind from the Phobis Core.
Quinn exhaled and closed her eyes.
Golden masks flashed behind her lids. The red skin of a pureblooded Sith. The press of horrors long buried and half-forgotten.
Take it.
A broad, golden grin bloomed at the edge of her thoughts as the Weaver of Nightmares stepped forward — erasing the young Echani's presence in the Force and replacing it with something ancient and wrong. The air itself seemed to recoil as tendrils unfurled, brushing through the currents of the Force until they found the Chiss's meditation.
Connections were woven.
Quinn's awareness narrowed, honing in on the source.
It would not fight like this — no. The Core wanted more than resistance. It wanted the final breath, the slow drain, the extinguishing of the Force itself. But first, its attention shifted to the wellspring empowering these so-called Sith.
Unnaturally, the Echani's head tilted farther than it should have as she sensed it — a nexus. A dark nexus feeding power into the enemy. Her eyes darkened to a deep crimson as a crooked grin carved its way across her face.
It hungered.
Quinn moved forward, the Force flaring around her, blocking and deflecting every strike that dared come close. She stopped, and the air pulsed as ribbons of ethereal gold burst from her form, threading into the ground and into every enemy caught within reach.
Another slow exhale.
The gossamer tendrils tightened, shuddering as they latched onto the nexus and began to bleed it dry. Power surged back through the connections, flooding into the Phobis Core. Quinn's breathing grew labored — but she welcomed it, reveling in the strength pouring into her.
Her intent was clear: weaken the battle meditation, fracture their unity, and drown them in the ancient terrors that had once ruled the galaxy — echoes of the Dread Masters, nightmares shaped by Raptus himself.
…Sanity is a prison. Let madness set you free…
The whisper slithered outward, threading into the thoughts of the False Emperor's army as fear began to take root.
Countering the Battle Meditation & Draining the Force Nexus
* Anyone using the Force Nexus to strengthen would feel the power draining
Allies would feel empowered by the Dark Side bleeding from Quinn
Enemies would feel the waning of the Battle Meditation since its being fueled by Remowa
& the Nexus
"It is simple, darling Srina." Mercy said quietly, the hunger in her tone apparent as the killing field around them formed. "I have grown weary of being the responsible one."
Were it possible for the Sith Empress to roll her eyes in general, let alone in a warzone—This would have been the moment for it. Mercy? Responsible? She was surprised that lightning hadn’t struck the woman down for daring to utter such heresy. The ears of the final two-thirds of her Triumvirate in the Sith Covenant were likely ringing, or bleeding, depending on the level of bat-chit chaos Mercy had recently put them through.
Her distant amusement didn’t last long, however, as a Force Bellow (Krasskorr the Maw
) cut through the courtyard with a vengeance. She moved with Mercy
on instinct, and she slid behind the taller woman, shielded, while Graspborn were eliminated as if they were nothing. Streaks of red bore down on the edges of her vision, warriors pulverized, and her jaw set tight. It was a brutal response to their opening salvo…But she expected nothing less.
“Don’t stop…”
The words that fell from her were soft as fresh-fallen rain. The pale Echani stepped into the shade of the Warlord and whispered something in an obscure, abandoned tongue that caused dark smoke to leech from her palm. It infected Mercy and turned her veins black, spreading like poison, only it wasn’t. She wouldn’t be able to heal it away like an injury…It was something else. Something more, something that super-charged her natural abilities and forced them into overdrive. It took dangerous, to a whole new level… “Destroy them all.”
But Srina was unafraid of the walking disaster she helped create. She had spent quite some time analyzing how Mercy had adapted her use of the Force to suit her. Afterall, she’d been on the receiving end of it when the woman was feeling “playful” rather than murderous, and it was less than pleasant. It would have been foolish for her not to pay attention, and Srina was the furthest thing from a fool. When the red-haired woman cackled…She knew it was enough.
There was a displacement of air—And Mercy was gone, wild, and crushing everything in her path. She was left behind and caught the groan from Arris Windrun
, truly, like a disappointed parent. “You must let her have some fun…”, the comment was breathy, but oddly, Arris would have no trouble hearing her despite the sounds of heavy artillery going off way to close to their position. Her expression was empty, trained on the opposition in front of them.
“…No one wants a bored Mercy. “
Srina slipped ahead and joined the advancing line, intent on keeping overwatch. Mercy was already reckless as all hell, doing what she did best, but Echani eyes were keener than most. She could use that to keep her from getting hit in the back, not that it would kill her, but they didn’t want anything slowing them down. Hit hard—Hit fast. Don’t let the enemy breathe or regroup.
Never stop.
It was then that she felt it.
The threat from beneath the Imperial Palace was ironic because of the adage that had been created the last time the Sith had truly laid siege to system after system. The stories called it “Endgame,” and those that still remembered whispered of a time when Star Destroyers ripped free from the bowels of Coruscant and left gaping holes behind. From beneath, they devoured. This was a strange, disciplined pressure that slid through the Force like fingers testing for cracks. Her nose wrinkled when she recognized it.
Battle Meditation?
But it was different than what she had faced previously. This was foul and polluted, grasping clumsily at her, weak, because they were made of the same ilk. She could feel it trying to bring her down. Make her slow, defeat her, but her head shook, and her attention sharpened while her iron will snapped into place. She would not be brought low by an adulterated Jedi trick from a cowardly distance. Not in this life, nor the next.
A low growl started in the back of her throat…But something else shifted across her awareness.
More than the fodder the Imperials threw at them, more, than the leftover residue of might from the missing Emperor in the Core.
She would know her daughter if she had been made blind, deaf, and had the Force ripped from her marrow. Srina hadn’t read her mind, but they were close enough that she could feel when her child was brushed aside for something else. There had been something bothering her as of late…Though she did not know the cause. Quinn usually discussed her issues in her own time…
But this response?
The pressure that came from beneath the palace stuttered, and the wash of fear from the phobis core made her catch her breath. Her mind did not unravel as others might, instead, turning that negativity into power in its purest form. It was a feedback loop that would have broken anyone without the training she had endured…But she wasn’t referred to as “the Dread Queen” for aesthetics. It was because fear… Fear was a blessing.
Her mind reached for her daughter, brushing by this hungry entity that had pushed her aside. There was no stopping it until Quinn decided to rein it in, but regardless, she had promises to keep. She would never leave her alone, princess, queen, alive, or dead. She pressed a memory forward. A secret one, something only Quinn would recognize as significant.
So innocuous that this… Nightmare in her place wouldn’t think to stop it. Resist it.
It would let Srina do what she had always done. Be her mother. Be—Her anchor so that she could fight this battle meditation without losing herself on her own terms. Her emotional state was crucial when she unleashed her truth and whatever she felt happening now…
…She would not lose her. Ever.
<<…I am with you…>>
Something she had said to Quinn…Countless times. Something that held countless meanings. Her expression shifted, becoming skeletal, while the battle rushed back in and she suddenly took a shot to the shoulder that sent her staggering back. Her armor absorbed most of it, but it didn’t stop her teeth from grinding while pain forced her to duck swiftly under the next volley. She wasn’t sure what she was more irritated by. Her own carelessness—Or the Imperial that had suddenly decided that now was the time to actually hit their target.
She drew in the fear…Drew it in—The sweetest immorality that left her visage far less pristine than it usually was. The Empress, suddenly, had too many teeth that were far too sharp. Her cheeks would seem gaunt, hollow, while terror rose in soldiers that had been sent into the Covenant ranks to die, bloody. Defender formations hesitated while shock troopers murdered their own battalions for dragging their feet when it came to taking their place on the front line. Certainty, curdled.
Echani eyes found the enemy that was aiming at her again, and the pale woman twisted two fingers. Gravity was only too happy to comply. She peeled the firing nest loose before folding it in on itself with a dull, wet crunch. From there, she ripped it from its moorings completely and sent it crashing down near Mercy
…Wiping out a turret that was more than likely dead set on filling the hulking woman full of holes.
This let the onslaught continue.
Mercy created a path while the Graspborn flooded in like ants scrambling over a carcass, almost fighting each other to get past the defenses and into the interior of the Imperial Palace. Gold-hewn orbs fell on the creature that had screamed at them not moments prior, and the Force began to coil tight around her spine. There was a split second of absolute silence around the Echani warrior before the air crushed flat, followed by a detonating crack that snapped outward in a single, brutal line.
The ground beneath Krasskorr the Maw
’s feet would forget how to be solid while the precise shatter point caused it to explode outward, stone and duracrete, flung aside. A sonic rupture would seek to slam into him a heartbeat later, while the phylactery around her neck began to rise, responding to the nearness of its owner.
Darth Carnifex
…He was close. Her eyes darkened while it began to beat with the pulse of her heart, and she readied another attack—waiting, for the Imperial slag to fight back.
The lizard-faced Imperial would not stop Mercy
, and he would be equally disappointed.
They would not leave.
Not until Coruscant was laid to waste, made barren, with bones picked clean.
A Covenant shuttle touched down not far from the crater Mercy Star-Arm had smashed into the ancient stone. The bay door popped open with the sharp hiss of hydraulics, at which point the crimson-clad Sith troopers contained within stormed forth amidst the swarms of Graspborn already on the ground. Aelissandre was among the first to disembark, the humming weight of her electromagnetic plasma hand cannon held ready as she swept her gaze across the surrounding area. Others moved in her step, orders carried out swiftly and silently as the shuttle took off in their wake.
At the behest of the squad leader, Aelissandre advanced.
Forward.
It had been only a few weeks since her awakening from stasis in a subterranean vault on Umbara. Since then, time had passed in a disorienting rush of events and revelations. She had learned, quite quickly, that this was not the Sith Empire that she had originally been conditioned to serve. Darth Tyranox, the Sith Lord etched into her psyche as a figure of reverence, had been dead for more than a half-century, killed in a purge during one of the era’s many bloody successions. His tomb, if it even existed, had yet to be found.
Fortunately, her mind, or rather, the conditioning that shaped it, was flexible. Whether that was by necessity or by intentional design, Aelissandre had yet to discover. She knew only that upon realizing that the Sith of this era were not so different from the ones that she had originally been meant to serve, her will had fallen in lockstep.
And so, outfitted with prototype armor that felt both alien and familiar, in addition to new, advanced weapons to replace the outdated armaments she had almost quite literally woken up with, Aelissandre moved at their behest. The Elzeri set her sights forward, towards the cadres of elite palace guard and the frenzied masses of enemy cultists surging to face the Covenant assault. The electromagnetic plasma hand cannon whined to a crescendo inside her grasp, unleashing bolts of searing star-fury at blistering velocity into the enemy ranks. Three cultists went down with her first two shots, their bodies simultaneously pulverized and sublimated into violent puffs of incandescent vapor as shockwaves rippled out from the impact points.
However, just as she did, several events happened in rapid sequence.
For a split-second, Aelissandre stopped, her mind unraveling with a sudden surge of doubt. Were these Sith truly the ones that she was meant to serve? Were they worthy successors to Darth Tyranox and the Eighth Sith Empire? Had they been the ones to kill Tyranox in the first place? Her eyes glazed over as she watched as the Graspborn die ragged heaps to the whining vibroweapons of the palace guard.
And then...
The doubt faded like a whisper on the wind. Aelissandre drew a sharp breath, casting her eyes around until her gaze found the white-haired figure of Quinn Varanin, shrouded in a visible corona of Force energy. She was not Force-sensitive, but somehow, she knew that the Echani had been responsible for purging the paranoia from her mind. However, even with the fear itself dissipated, the treasonous thoughts it had wrought lingered like a stain in the back of her mind, unforgettable even in the midst of the violence transpiring within the courtyard.
Immediately, Aelissandre decided that she would purge them with blood. Both her own and that of the enemy!
The heavens parted, then shattered. Clouds cracked and detonated, ruptured at the seams, as the sky itself shifted, stained, scarlet, screaming, a blood-red wound that loomed over the capital before raining ruin upon them all.
Cataclysm came over Coruscant like a pack of wild wolves.
A mountain of Iron, the Siegemother groaned and screamed as it burned through the atmosphere, a gushing wound torn across the Coruscanti skyline.
Anti-air batteries screamed their defiance, shearing slabs of corroded metal from its massive corpus, as it pummeled through the bleeding heavens.
It came regardless, trailing fire and fury, casting its apocalyptic shadow across the Federal District like a shroud pulled over the face of the dying.
Than that bleeding leviathan of metal and malice, finally succumbed. When it struck. The planet heaved.
Tremors ripped through kilometers of layered cityscape, buckling transit lines, collapsing under-hive warrens, shattering viewports across a hundred city blocks.
The sound reached seconds later, a roar so vast, so all-encompassing, that it seemed less like noise and more like the world itself groaning in agony.
Thousands dead in an instant. Tens of thousands more in the minutes that followed.
A pillar of smoke and fire erupted on the distant horizon, climbing higher and higher, a black fist punching toward the heavens.
Secondary explosions rippled outward from the crash site as ruptured power conduits and fuel reserves ignited in sympathetic detonation.
The Siegemother had made planetfall.
Coruscant would carry that scar for a thousand years.
Yet the Saint of Fire stood sentinel at the vast steps of the Imperial Palace, a solitary colossus of chrome and conviction.
Before him, the five immense statues of the Old Gods loomed, their cloaked silhouettes casting long shadows across the shattered marble of the Grand Plaza.
His Karsta Raka stirred at his flanks, their branded bodies bristling with barely contained bloodlust. Their sanctified armor glinting dull crimson in the hellish light.
The two Green Wardens rose up behind them, combat protocols humming in murderous symphony.
And Zherach, the bound flame, the leashed inferno, coiled at the edge of perception, eager, hungry, waiting.
Then she fell.
Like a meteor. Like a monstrous monument to malice made manifest.
The Titan plummeted from the burning sky, wrapped in the crushing weight of the Force itself, her mass multiplied, her velocity weaponized.
Formidable.
Than the Kainate announced themselves with black landers cutting through the flak-torn sky. Their hulls dark as void-space, marked with sigils that seemed to drink the light.
The Saint of Fire could not sense the Force as others did. No whispers of presence. No ripples in the cosmic tapestry. His gift was singular, fire, and fire alone. The Furnace burned within him, but it did not grant him the gifts that other Sith possessed.
The Butcher King. The Eternal Father. A being who had walked battlefields for centuries, who had broken worlds and crowned himself upon their ashes.
Despite everything Da'Razel believed about himself, his faith, his conviction, his sacred purpose, a shiver crept up his spine. Cold. Unwelcome. It slithered across his back like the unknown presence of an arachnid crawling beneath his armor, legs picking delicately between the vertebrae of his reconstructed spine.
Fear.
He had not felt it in years. Had thought it burned away along with his flesh, his weakness, his former self.
He was wrong.
The Dark Lord descended from His shuttle wreathed in killing intent. His armor was a masterwork of war, scaled with Mandalorian beskar torn from a thousand murdered clans, inscribed with runes that seemed to writhe at the edge of vision.
Blackblade Guard poured out behind Him, cybernetic nightmares in gleaming black plate.
Carnifex moved through the battlefield like death given form. Where He walked, death followed. Where He looked, courage withered.
Da'Razel but watched. And for one terrible moment, he too could not look away.
What manner of monster have they unleashed upon us?
Then the war snapped back into focus.
Hasuras Na-Amoun
had ordered heavy Artillery bombardment. Screaming Graspborn. The roar of collapsing masonry.
Wrath flared up within him, burning away the cold dread, replacing fear with familiar fury. He was the Saint of Fire. He was the Keeper of the Furnace. He had faced death and emerged reborn from the ashes.
She descended like a dark star dying, bright and terrible, trailing black and silver in her wake.
She raised one pale hand.
And everything Mercy had broken rose.
Columns. Slabs. Shattered shield pylons. Broken walkways. Duracrete boulders the size of speeders. All of it lifted into the air in a slow, spiraling cyclone of destruction, gathering around the Echani witch like a crown of carnage. Her eyes burned with corrupted golden light, when she hurled it all forward.
A tidal wave of wreckage, a tsunami of shattered stone and twisted metal, launched toward the Palace with the fury of a hurricane. It sought to pulverize anything in its path, to punch through the outer bastions, to bury the defenders beneath tons of their own broken fortifications.
The Saint drew deep upon his core, that sacred wellspring of divine flame bound within his form. Heat bloomed outward from his chassis in visible waves.
He raised both hands and unleashed.
A wave of searing fire erupted before the Palace steps, not mere flame, but an incandescent fury, temperatures that could slag durasteel, that could turn stone to glass.
The debris met the firestorm head-on.
Stone shattered into superheated shards. Metal melted mid-flight, trailing molten droplets like orange rain. Smaller fragments vaporized entirely, reduced to ash and memory.
But the largest pieces, the column segments, the duracrete slabs, punched through the inferno, diminished but not destroyed. They crashed into the Palace facade with thunderous impacts, cracking walls, collapsing a section of the upper terrace, sending guards and acolytes scrambling for cover.
His gore red visor swept the battlefield. He marked the Empress's position. He felt her terrible presence like ice against his soul.
The vox crackled in his helm. Meliant's voice, sharp and commanding:
The Saint said nothing, instead he swept into action.
But Krasskorr the Maw had moved faster. The massive Saurton had descended from his terrace perch, lightclub blazing crimson, charging toward the pale witch with all the subtlety of a rampaging rancor. The lizard-beast would intercept the Empress. Theiscreature of violence would face this deity of winter.
And for one brief, shameful moment, he felt something he had not expected:
Relief.
Da'Razel would not have to raise his hand against a goddess.
Not yet.
But Mercy... the Palace.
The Titan of war had launched herself like a human battering ram, crashing through the outer bastions with catastrophic force. The breach gaped wide and wounded, smoke and dust billowing from the rupture. Through that wound poured the Graspborn, a flood of fanatical soldiers scrambling over rubble, desperate to be first into the sacred halls, eager to earn their master's favor with blood.
The Palace would be violated.
"Karsta Raka!" Da'Razel's voice rang with absolute authority. "Hold this position! None pass these steps!"
Than he re-opnened his allies channel. "Lord Hasuras Na-Amoun
, I will secure the place alongside your guard, clear the crash site, for it will burn"
He did not wait. Could not wait. His heavy armor made him too slow to stop Mercy's initial charge, but he would not give her that satisfaction again.
The Saint bent his mechanized legs and leaped.
Servo-motors screamed. Hydraulics roared. His massive form launched skyward with impossible force, trailing fire and smoke, the Kotjontû curling over his head in a blazing arc. The war-hammer ignited fully, its head wreathed in sacred flame, burning with the incandescent fury of a dying sun.
Whether he struck her directly or not mattered less than what followed.
The moment Da'Razel landed, whether atop the Titan or beside her, the Kotjontû struck the ground, and erupted.
The war-hammer's head detonated on impact like a volcanic caldera tearing itself open. Bleeding, radiating fire exploded outward in all directions, a shockwave of sacred flame that consumed everything it touched. The rubble ignited instantly. The duracrete beneath his feet cracked and glowed molten orange, fissures of liquid heat racing outward like veins of magma spreading in an open wound.
The air itself caught fire.
Within seconds, the entire area surrounding the breach had transformed into a smoldering hellstorm inferno, a crater of burning devastation.
The Graspborn charging through the breach screamed as their armor superheated. Some fell, cooking inside their own suits. Others pressed forward regardless, driven by fanaticism beyond pain, but most wouldn't emerge from the inferno.
At the speed of thought Da'Razel bypassed the emergency protocol of his armour suppressing his injector mechanism. With another thought-command, he flooded his system with Lignan.
He breathed in, a deep lurching breath.
The Force-enhancing compound surged through his reconstructed veins like liquid lightning.
The effect was immediate. Overwhelming. Transcendent.
Raw power pulsated through every fiber of his being, synthetic and organic alike. The Force roared in his perceptions, no longer a river to be channeled but an ocean in which to drown. His senses sharpened to crystalline clarity. His strength multiplied. His pain receptors deadened to nothing.
Da'Razel's jaw clenched behind his helm as the euphoria washed over him. His breathing grew ragged. His hearts, both the original and the mechanical auxiliary, pounded in thunderous synchronicity. He could feel everything. The heat of his own flames. The cold radiating from the distant Empress. The fear bleeding from the Graspborn. The hunger emanating from Mercy herself.
It was too much. It was too glorious. It was divine.
His armor began to heat. A searing heat. The ultrachrome plating radiated visible waves, glowing dull orange at the joints, bright cherry-red at the vents. Steam rose from his form where moisture in the air met his superheated surface.
The Saint of Fire stood wreathed in his own inferno, a burning colossus guarding the wounded heart of the Empire.
"You dare," his voice crackled and roared, amplified by the war-mask, distorted by heat and fury, "to violate the sacred halls of the God-Emperor? You dare to breach these blessed walls with your unholy presence?"
The Kotjontû swung in a wide, devastating arc, trailing a crescent of white-hot flame.
"I am the Saint of Fire. The Flame Father. Keeper of the Furnace. And this…" he slammed the war-hammer's haft against the smoldering ground, sending cracks of molten orange racing outward, "this is where you BURN."
The inferno answered his call, rising higher, hotter, hungrier.
The battle for the Palace had begun.
Sky turns blood-red, Siegemother crashes far from Plaza, thousands die, Coruscant scarred
Da'Razel at Palace steps with Karsta Raka, Green Wardens, and Zherach
Mercy falls like a meteor into the courtyard
Carnifex arrives, Da'Razel feels him through All-Father Flame connection, experiences genuine fear, momentarily paralyzed
Srina hurls debris tidal wave at Palace, Da'Razel counters with fire wall, partially successful
Meliant orders him to kill the Empress
Krasskorr intercepts Srina instead
Mercy breaches Palace, Graspborn flooding through
Da'Razel prioritizes Palace over hunting empresses
Leaps at Mercy with the Kotjontû war-hammer
Turns breach into hellstorm inferno
Injects Lignan, euphoric power surge, armor superheats to glowing orange/red
Challenges Mercy
Name: Khar-Vorn Health: 100% ██████████
Force User: No
Appearance: Devaronian male, heavily scarred, lower jaw replaced with a brass restraint frame, back and shoulders branded into overlapping furnace sigils
Appearance: Human female with vitrified burn-scarred skin, and iron nails driven through spine and collarbones; wears a scorched modular assault cuirass with ritual markings
Strengths: Jet-assisted close-quarters executioner, fearless under fire, highly mobile ritual enforcer
Weaknesses: Short-burst jet systems strain her damaged body, armor inferior to true Mandalorian gear
The roar of the Force Bellow had barely left Krasskorr's mouth before the reality of the siege for Coruscant became all to apparent. He stood defiant even as Mercy
launched herself like a living comet towards the palace, the impact sending a tremor through the foundations that even his stance couldn't stabilize though she was to be intercepted by Da'Razel
.
The resulting explosion of power from her leap threw a spray of superheated duracrete shrapnel into Krasskorr's flank. He roared in pain as jagged shards bypassed his armored plating, bury themselves in the thick leathery muscle of his thigh and shoulder. Blood, dark and thick, began to coat his scales, but he didn't falter.
An unknown force seemed to drive him forward in the way of Remowa
's battle meditation that slowly knit his fractured concentration back together. It was a lifeline in a battle such as this, but it didn't last long as Quinn Varaninphobis core began to bleed into the Palace Nexus. Krasskorr felt the surge of cold clarity began to fray, replaced by a creeping dread.
Visions of his own shortcomings...the Emperor's dismay at his failure to repel the invaders gnawed at his thoughts. It wasn't a keen blade that would bring him down, but the burden of overwhelming paranoia...
Krasskorr snarled, "The Emperor has not disowned me yet..." slamming his claw into his own wounded thigh to let the physical agony clear his mind. His gaze sharpened further as he focused on the source of the invader's power in Srina Talon
, an foe unknown to him yet still a challenger who defied the True Emperor.
He didn't wait for Hasuras Na-Amoun
order to reach his ears, though the transmission hissed through his comm to target Darth Carnifex
nearby, but that was simply unfeasible at the moment. "Time to dine on FLESH!" Krasskorr ignited his lightclub, the crimson light snapping into focus in the dust-choked atmosphere of the palace.
His planned charge towards the Empress was not a clean sprint as he had hoped. As he attempted to bulrush her, the ground beneath his heavy armor forgot how to be solid. Her precision shatter-point attack caused the duracrete to explode upwards in a violent geyser of stone. Krasskorr was caught in the epicenter of such power.
The blast sent him skyward, his massive frame tumbling through the air as shards of superheated stone peppered his belly, shredding the softer scales between his armor plates. A heartbeat later, the sonic rupture slammed into him.
The invisible wall of force hit him like a mountain, the pressure so overwhelming that it made his jaws bleed. He was propelled backward, but not before utilizing the smoke as a shield to execute a lightsaber throw, hoping she wouldn't detect it amidst the chaos of other dark side disturbances, as he crashed through a row of decorative pillars.
Summary: Krasskorr throws lightsaber at Srina Talon
The borrowed power exploded out of her and burst into the fortified walls of the Palace.
The combined might of the Empress and the Warlord tore through durasteel and duracrete, ripping holes into the structure. It wasn’t enough to tear it down, not by a long shot, but suddenly the fortification went from having one axis that needed to be defended… to many more.
Graspborn and Covenant troops alike swarmed almost instantly. Like a disease that had finally found an infection vector and gone to work. They pushed in, clawing forward, hungry for recognition and power. Under the influence of Quinn’s Phobis Core, they climbed over the dead bodies of their comrades and just kept coming.
Many died.
Many more managed to push into the first hallways, where they were promptly beset by Meliant’s traps and killing corners.
The outer walls were falling, but the Palace was not yet taken.
In the midst of that chaos and carnage, something strange began to happen. As bodies fell, some of them began to rise again. Former corpses fooled troopers into thinking the enemy dead, only to drag them to the ground and finish them there.
That smoke-infested Lordling probably had other layers in store.
Mercy wasn’t worried about it. She was too busy grinning at Srina Talon
. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Srina had just saved her hide from being perforated when she destroyed that turret. Arris Windrun
was nearby as well, always ready with an eye-roll at the most opportune times. There were few others she’d rather have by her side right now.
She lost track of Quinn Varanin
, but felt her presence regardless. Even as Remowa
tried to dampen her spirits, Quinn pushed them right back up again.
For the best. A depressed Mercy was a sight few wished to see.
"Turn him into a pair of boots, darling," Mercy called out to Srina as she turned back inward. "I haven’t worn crocodile leather before…"
Servo-motors screamed. Hydraulics roared. His massive form launched skyward with impossible force, trailing fire and smoke, the Kotjontû curling over his head in a blazing arc. The war-hammer ignited fully, its head wreathed in sacred flame, burning with the incandescent fury of a dying sun.
Da’Razel would soon learn a lesson many before him had discovered the hard way. When presented with two options, Mercy usually chose the third lane out of sheer spite.
She didn’t try to dodge the attack or its wielder. Instead, Mercy met him head-on, leaping up to intercept him mid-air before he could finish his landing.
As her opponent swung his hammer, Mercy swung back.
Her golden arm, terrible and eldritch, slammed directly into the head of his war-hammer. The explosion that followed tore through the scene, a shockwave rippling outward. It was forceful enough to potentially influence others around them, chief among Srina Talon
and Krasskorr the Maw
. As the latter began to throw his saber, the blast rocked through them, perhaps sending it slightly off tilt.
Molten lava drowned the space where they had collided only moments before, but Mercy was already past it. She crashed through one of the inner walls and tore her way out of the palatial stonework beyond.
The heat was scalding.
Many Graspborn died, and with them the troopers they were fighting. But the horror continued. Some of the half-immolated, barely living figures rose again, bear-hugging cultists and troopers alike to drag them down with them.
"You dare," his voice crackled and roared, amplified by the war-mask, distorted by heat and fury, "to violate the sacred halls of the God-Emperor? You dare to breach these blessed walls with your unholy presence?"
The Kotjontû swung in a wide, devastating arc, trailing a crescent of white-hot flame.
"I am the Saint of Fire. The Flame Father. Keeper of the Furnace. And this…" he slammed the war-hammer's haft against the smoldering ground, sending cracks of molten orange racing outward, "this is where you BURN."
Mercy dusted off her shoulder and watched Da’Razel with interest.
"Well met, Saint of Fire," she replied, a smirk tugging at her lips as she shook her golden hand. It was scorched black, but intact even after the explosion. "I sent the mongrel you name Emperor fleeing twice."
The smirk sharpened. Teeth bared. Monstrous.
"Will you give me the fight he promised? Can you stand for and die for him?"
She doubted it.
Every encounter with the Empire had been a disappointment so far.
Vesper gave a little noise of triumph as the bar gave way, then quickly ordered the engineer to continue with the next one. Eventually, even the bulkiest of the men were able to slip through the gap with three bars down. Vesper went ahead, like any good leader. She stopped to look at Tavi's holographic map; all was proceeding according to plan.
"My orders are: wait for me to climb the damn thing and signal back down that it's safe to come up. Or if I don't signal, assume I died and throw a thermal detonator up after me and avenge me. Kill as many of those buckethead fucks as possible and take all the loot you can carry back to the ship. Is not complicated, Tavi, honestly."
She nudged him with her shoulder, smearing some sort of green sludge from her hazmat suit to his, to show that she was only teasing.
They passed a disused droid which looked like it had last been active when Chandra was still Chancellor, half-slumped against the curve of the sewer pipe wall. Bad juju for the droid, she thought, imagining its final resting place a literal shithole. Won't be us, she thought grimly and muscled forward.
The ladder was right where it was supposed to be. She put hands on hips and looked up it, sucking her teeth thoughtfully. "Supposed to come up in a maintenance crawlspace. Trying to decide if I take off this stinky gear here, or up there." Vesper heaved a sigh so dramatic that the faceplate of her suit fogged. "Going to be disgusting either way. I say up there. I hope we won't need to put them back on, but if we do, don't like to leave them down here, waiting for something to splash on them. Or chew through them."
She turned, gave her men a stoic nod, then hoisted herself up the ladder. The panel was locked, but it wasn't terribly difficult for someone of her background to slice it. She peered cautiously, then stuck her head through. Seems clear, she signaled in hand-talk to Tavi. Still wait. Two minutes. Hear gunfire and not my voice again, throw thermal detonator. Make sure door sealed first.
Not that she would be around to know if he did or didn't; she didn't like the idea of the blast setting off a chain reaction, exploding toilets from here to Column Commons.
She hauled herself up at last, looked around the dimly-lit maintenance crawlspace, and -- satisfied that she was alone -- began to shuck her hazmat suit.
“You must let her have some fun…”, the comment was breathy, but oddly, Arris would have no trouble hearing her despite the sounds of heavy artillery going off way to close to their position.
The cyborg stopped. All she could offer was a glare in Srina's direction, though in the Force, all her attention was on Star-Arm.
Hate.
She kept walking without a word. Didn't even look back when the reptile stepped in to challenge the Empress. The graspborn seemed content to spread among the place as they pleased. Some didn't even bother to kill anymore, as their attention instead turned to looting. The Covenant troopers, meanwhile, largely remained outside to encircle enemy pockets and keep the way in secure.
Battle, death, pain, fear. At once, every emotion rose in her like starved creatures escaping their burrows post-storm to scavenge the dead, but what they arrived at was a feast. From Quinn Varain exploded depths of Darkness unlike anything she had felt since Ruusan. No - this was stronger... stronger than, as the Princess gorged herself from the vergence.
"Oh..." Arris nearly tripped.
It felt... "Oh!"She instinctively sniffed, expecting spice under her nose. Euphoria didn't begin to describe the goddess complex she felt.
Windrun's senses heightened with such clarity that the fog of the enemy's battle meditation was lifted. Her attention shifted entirely to an energy emanating within. Signals and noise from deeper within the Palace. There - that was where the technopath needed to be, the aperture from which she could really shine.
A pair of guards crossed in front of her, evidently they felt capable or compelled to stop her.
HATE.
She threw her arm like a lazy backhand, sending an invisible, bone-shattering shockwave to strike them for that insolence, then walked over their corpses to keep moving forward. Her posture was rather imperious now, and Hatred erupted with every step.
Inside Windrun's head, a scene played out over and over. Her lips moved subtly, as if she were practicing.
The Imperial Palace seemed to be coming apart in layers, at least, from the side where the Graspborn swarmed like buzzing locusts. Walls that had remained untouched for far too long seemed almost eager to crumble beneath the pounding assault of the red-haired Titan. She caught Mercy
grinning at her, like a wild fool, and Srina shook her head imperceptibly. Arris Windrun
had seemed less than enthused with the crazed antics of their “Star-Arm” if the hatred that rolled off them in waves was anything to go by…
Mercy really had a way of endearing herself to others.
Her elegant brow creased amid the chaos, ever so slight, but her attention remained on Krasskorr the Maw
for no reason other than the fact that the desolator happened to be in the way. Mercy had torn the front open and kept going, using the strength she had given, while her eyes pulled at the ash and debris that was left in the wake of her attack. The lizard-faced creature had been blown back and into a row of pillars—
– BOOM –
The shockwave that came from the conflict between Mercy
and an Imperial she knew not hit like a hammer to the chest. The impact stole her air while heat and pressure slammed together in a violent overlap that could have knocked an AT-M6 back on its ass. How she remained standing? Not without difficulty and not without a violent coughing fit. Within that haze, something else tore loose from the smoke. Srina saw it…The lizard’s weapon spinning in a blurring arc toward her with ugly intent, guided less by aim, more by…Hope?
Spite?
She shifted her weight as time seemed to slow, already drawing on the Force to tear it aside, but Mercy’s collision finished the job for her. The blast from the Covenant Warlords sudden meeting with the Imperial Firedancer (Da'Razel
) ripped through the corridor they had disappeared through and roared out into the open. It created a concussive wall that caught the lightclub mid-flight and kicked it off course. It shrieked past Srina instead of into her, close enough that the air burned along her cheek before it embedded itself somewhere behind her.
She didn’t recoil and remained…Highly aware of the huge foreign weapon at her back. It would only take one pull of a trained force-user to yank it from the stone it was stuck in and have it cleave through her from behind. It was cowardly, but that was to be assumed of the Faithless. Who else hid behind a third iteration of a Death Star when the first two had failed so miserably?
Her gaze sought out Krasskorr the Maw
among the carnage. The Echani could tell that he was still alive, but with so many bodies on the battlefield, his presence had gone ragged and unfocused. Perhaps stunned. Perhaps injured, too injured to fight back, in which the Graspborn would make short work of him. Hungry, savage little things.
For the time being…It was good enough. The reptilian self-appointed gatekeeper had been an obstacle blocking them from their true path, and now, he was not.
The white-witch did not stop moving, could not stop, and instead took in the newly caused damage to the integrity of the Imperial Palace. If they kept this up, there wouldn’t be anything left, which was fine by her. The more they set fire to this broken bastion, the more they attacked the very center of Imperial power…The faster Coruscant would crumble. It didn’t matter if the civilians rose up. It didn’t matter if the High Republic stepped in.
"You dare," his voice crackled and roared, amplified by the war-mask, distorted by heat and fury, "to violate the sacred halls of the God-Emperor? You dare to breach these blessed walls with your unholy presence?"
The Kotjontû swung in a wide, devastating arc, trailing a crescent of white-hot flame.
"I am the Saint of Fire. The Flame Father. Keeper of the Furnace. And this…" he slammed the war-hammer's haft against the smoldering ground, sending cracks of molten orange racing outward, "this is where you BURN."
"Well met, Saint of Fire," she replied, a smirk tugging at her lips as she shook her golden hand. It was scorched black, but intact even after the explosion. "I sent the mongrel you name Emperor fleeing twice."
The smirk sharpened. Teeth bared. Monstrous.
"Will you give me the fight he promised? Can you stand for and die for him?"
She hopped over a piece of debris that was larger than a speeder and narrowly missed landing in a pool of what looked like volcanic slag. It was already black on the top, deep, with the charred remains of Imperial and Graspborn having suffered for their proximity. Mercy’s impact had torn the corridors wide open while the flame of the Firedancer had glassed sections of the floor and collapsed the ceiling just enough to turn the area into a killing funnel.
Srina saw Mercy
up ahead, and her eyes sharpened just slightly. “I had that.”, she spoke aloud, without raising her voice or breaking the strength of her stride. She planted her feet hard into the fractured marble and drew the Force in tight, just as she had before, silvery hair catching the light, just long enough for power to compress until the space around her vibrated. The pressure built fast, too quick to be subtle, dust lifting, sound thinning to a narrow, ringing edge.
“Stop playing with your food.”
She let it go.
A sonic attack that was similar to what she used against Krasskorr the Maw
tore forward in a similar straight line, merciless, and meant for the back of Da'Razel
while he seemed to be committing his weight against Mercy. The building screamed as pressure collapsed outward while she sought to shatter the spine of the finest the Galactic Empire had to offer. There was no anger in her, no care, merely the mission.
She did not hate the Faithless.
Srina advanced immediately behind her attack, reaching to the small of her back, for the hilt of a red-bladed saber that held her past, that bled, with her sorrow. She was not suited to be the Empress of anything and lacked the bloodthirsty vitriol that most of her people maintained. She had been born a soldier…Not a royal. A warrior, not a noble. She was nothing…
The halls of her eyes hollowed, metallic, distant with skillful disassociation. The fear that swirled through the air hadn’t lessened, teasing, trying to pull her demon to the surface. She blinked. What was that creeping doubt?
Her eyes narrowed.
This Firedancer was just like the reptile…In her way.
The Fate of Coruscant The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:|Issue #2: Defending the Capital w/Quinn Varanin
( Eventually )
Remowa's fingers spasmed in the damp atmosphere of the Shrine In The Depths, her knuckles turning a bruised white as she clung to the central altar even as Hasuras Na-Amoun
forces arrived from the surface to protect her. She sensed it gradually creeping into the currents of the force, the insatiable hunger of the phobis core controlled by Quinn Varanin
as it started to extract power from the heart of the Nexus, causing her eyes to widen in disbelief.
No one was supposed to be capable of draining a nexus from the surface.
"Filthy... little... leech," Remowa hissed, the words catching in her throat. The influx of fear from the surface was a tidal wave, a panic that threatened to drown her own consciousness. For a moment, her vision blurred. She saw not the violet stones of the shrine, but the burning horizon of Csilla. She felt the cold, not of the Dark Side, but of a dead world, the silence of a history erased.
The despair of her people threatened to break her focus, a phantom weight pulling her toward the abyss of her own trauma. She snarled, a visceral sound that echoed off the damp walls. She didn't push the fear away but used the memory of the ashes of the Chiss to anchor her. If she had survived the death of a world, she would not be broken by the nightmares of an Echani princess.
With a jerk of her head, Remowa redirected the flow. She stopped trying to protect the nexus and instead used herself as a filter only possible by being next to a source of incredible dark side power. She took the raw, unbridled terror radiating from the phobis core and compressed it, refining it just a bit as her hands moved skyward towards the ceiling which shook violently by the amount of destruction happening above.
She reached into the collective psyche of the defenders above. She didn't offer them hope or comfort; she gave them a nightmare far more potent than the ancient Sith. In the minds of the 551st and the weary shock troopers, she projected a singular, towering image: The Galactic Emperor, Darth Solipsis
" Do not falter in protecting my...Galactic Empire. There are fates far worse than death and your soul will experience them, piece by agonizing piece if you fail to protect my sanctum from these invaders "
She made them feel his burning gaze upon their necks, more terrifying than any Covenant blade. She made them realize that the invaders might kill them, but the Emperor would claim their very souls if they faltered. The strain was immense. Remowa's body shook, a trickle of dark blood escaping her nose and staining her blue lip. The energies were rampant under her grip.
Every time the Princess drained the nexus, Remowa pulled harder, dragging the power through her own nerves until her skin felt like it was peeling away from the bone. "Look at him..." she rasped, her eyes wide and glowing a frenzied, luminous red. "Fear the master... more than the flame."
Above, the Imperial lines solidified. The wavering soldiers didn't find courage; they found a paralyzing, fanatical dread that forced them forward. They fought like automatons, driven by the suffocating presence of their Galactic Emperor manifested in their minds.
Remowa sank to her knees, her hands still locked onto the altar, her breath coming in ragged, shallow bursts.
IMPERIAL BATTLE MEDITATION ACTIVE - NOW BOOSTED BY VISUAL OF THE GALACTIC EMPEROR DRIVING THE GE FORWARD APPLIES TO ALL** PARTICIPANTS ON ALL OBJECTIVES - EFFECT AND REACH AMPLIFIED BY THE PALACE NEXUS
GALACTIC EMPIRE AND ITS ALLIES GAIN A SIGNIFICANT BOOST TO MORALE, STAMINA, AND BATTLE PROWESS
The battlefield ignited by their clash, two colossi made landfall opposed to each other in deadly malice.
The Saint was a smoldering incandescent wrath of fury. A wretched heaving inferno-demon wholeheartedly committed to felling the wicked witch before him.
The first strike had been spent. Two warriors locked in fated feud.
Mercy was strong. A bulwark of power in every measure of her being.
She had managed to take the stroke of the shearing molecular blades of his hammerhead, a feat most fortress walls, and especially no mortal, had achieved before her. Black veins pulsed beneath her skin like tributaries of corruption, Srina Talon's dark alchemy surging through the Titan's form, making the already monstrous more.
He could feel the remnants of their clash rumble through the Kotjontû, through the ultrachrome shell, into his organic bones, in his soul.
And it stoked his core. A pyre meant to consume worlds. The heart of a star. An indomitable spirit.
He would beat her to cinders, sear her asunder, render her but a husk of coals fading in the memory of this battle, flakes of charcoal scattered to the winds.
The Lignan had seized his being, coursed through every still-organic part of him, triggered every nerve, fired every sinew. His presence blazed incandescent in the Force, searing to those opening their senses to the energies around them, a nova amidst the carnage where Quinn Varanin
phobis tendrils and Remowa
clashed in invisible war for the battle meditation.
Then that radiance bled into realspace.
A detonation of brilliance. The world became nothing but white, pure, and absolute. Color ceased to exist. Shadows burned out of existance. Every contour of the Plaza drowned beneath a luminescence, as though a sun had birthed itself within the breach. Retinas scorched. Optics overloaded. For one eternal heartbeat, reality itself was scoured clean.
The conflagration cared nothing for allegiance.
It devoured indiscriminately, Graspborn and Imperial alike, their screams harmonizing into a singular chorus of agony. Flesh blackened and sloughed from bone. Armor fused to the meat beneath. Bodies crumpled into writhing pyres, limbs curling inward like burning parchment before collapsing into heaps of smoldering ruin. The stench of charred sinew and molten plasteel choked the air.
Even the vessels of the undead found no refuge. Charred skeletons crumbled where soldiers had stood, their forms cremated beyond any necromancer's reclamation. No flesh left to puppet, no bone left to animate, ash scattered across glass-slick stone.
Only the Karsta Raka navigated the inferno, the fire-born, the children of St. Peterius, branded faithful who had long surrendered their flesh to the flames kiss.
They poured into the breach, replacing the decimated ranks. Vibrocleavers rose and fell. Cortosis shields battered aside the stunned and staggering. The Karsta Raka butchered the charred and reeling foes of their Saint with cold efficiency.
The breach would hold.
Hasuras Na-Amoun
would need to clear the zone. Reinforce with fresh bodies. The commander knew what the Saint's presence heralded, that fury unbound would only intensify as the battle wore on. Every passing minute fed the Furnace. Every enemy felled stoked the fires higher. The Saint could not temper himself. Could not relent.
He only burned hotter.
The ground beneath his greaves erupted. The gilded guardian of the Furnace moved with a velocity nothing of his mass should possess, lifting off like a launched warhead as conflagration consumed him, first crimson, then azure, and propelled him toward his opposition.
The pale Empress's sonic slices tore a straight line through the space the Firedancer had occupied but a blink of an eye before.
His flank belonged to Krasskorr the Maw
and the Dark Side Elite, and he surrendered no thought to doubt. The Saurton would clash with Srina Talon
would meet her winter with his own brand of savagery, and the Elite would ensure the line did not crumble. They were his lords, the chosen instruments of the God-Emperor's will. Faith in them was as absolute as faith in their God.
Da'Razel had his own monster to burn.
His massive figure hurled itself like the crack of thunder at the War Titan. Coiling serpentine arcs of plasma crackled along the ruined earth in his wicked wake. The tiles of the plaza bubbled and liquefied as he streaked past them, his trajectory but a blackened scar scorched into ancient stone.
He was a molten gilded blur of armor. The temperature of his advance, a blistering tidal wave of hell pyre unleashed. Atmosphere combusted at his approach. Durasteel wept in proximity. Organic matter sizzled and ceased. Close combat with the saint akin to embracing a star.
He swung the Kotjontû.
In a brutal close arc, its sheathing molecular blades ravenous to rend his opposition apart, to sink their fangs into her flesh and wrench her to pieces, like the thrashing, jaw-clenching maw of some feral leviathan.
No matter what impact it found, it would be a second volcanic eruption.
Name: Khar-Vorn Health: 95% █████████:
Force User: No
Appearance: Devaronian male, heavily scarred, lower jaw replaced with a brass restraint frame, back and shoulders branded into overlapping furnace sigils
Appearance: Human female with vitrified burn-scarred skin, and iron nails driven through spine and collarbones; wears a scorched modular assault cuirass with ritual markings
Strengths: Jet-assisted close-quarters executioner, fearless under fire, highly mobile ritual enforcer
Weaknesses: Short-burst jet systems strain her damaged body, armor inferior to true Mandalorian gear
Beneath the rubble of the decorative pillars, Krasskorr could not see the trajectory of the lightclub nor its sudden misdirection away from the Sith Empress Srina Talon
by the meddling hand of Mercy
shockwave. He only felt the distant vibration of his weapon biting into masonry behind his target, followed by a bone-jarring tremor at the collision between the Saint of Fire Da'Razel
and his foe nearby.
His maw dripped with a mixture of blood and sweat from the shear excursion of having to shield his mind from the affect of the phobis core on the Battle Meditation conducted by Remowa
down at the shrine. Every breath was a rasping scrape of agony against his bruised ribs, but for the hybrid, pain was the most reliable fuel for the Dark Side of the Force.
With a roar, Krasskorr heaved himself from the rubble. He saw his lightclub embedded in the stone behind Srina Talon, its crimson blade still hissing with frustrated energy. He was a cannibal and a brute, but he was no coward who relied on a strike from the shadows. Reaching out with a massive, trembling claw, he exerted his will.
The lightclub wrenched free from the masonry with a shriek of protesting stone, spinning through the air and slapping firmly into his waiting palm as the force gathered around him, launching him forward directly between the Empress and the Saint of Fire to absorb the impact of the sonic barrier, sliding backwards a bit from the pressure.
"Face your end!" Krasskorr bellowed, his voice amplified by the Dark Side.
As claws dug into the surface of the palace floor, the attack was swift and sudden as he adopted the rage and defense of the Djem So Lightsaber Form, using the immense reach of the lightsaber within his hand and his superior mass to create a living barrier of plasma energy to cut her off from helping Mercy.
He rained down a series of overhead and sideways cleaves, The crimson blade hissed and crackled as it slammed toward her, Krasskorr using his size to maintain a brutal, kinetic pressure that sought to crush her defenses into the fractured marble of the Palace floor.
Arris pressed deeper within the Palace, following the glow of information she sensed, and fighting her way through the occasional squadron of fanatic defenders. Their bodies continued to litter the floor, and the cyborg marched onward with only a handful of scorch marks along her frame to prove they had tried to stop her.
Each kill fueled the Hatred in her heart, driving the Dark Side to consume her emotions like a parasite, as the power emanated from her in palpable waves. This pleased her co-processor, which rewarded her further with an offering of its power. It was like waking up the morning after a fever broke, feeling refreshed and hungry. And hungry she was; even from her position, she could still taste the power rolling off of the Sith Princess.
The poisoned device manipulated her cybernetics, improving them; in a way, there was little difference between her cybernetics and any organic parts she once had. The cybernetic mutant had transcended the definitions between organic and machine. Days before, she would've feared giving in so quickly, maybe even at all, but now? Under the influence of Quinn's power? The vergence? The cacophony and battle and bloodlust? It was impossible not to, and oh, it felt so good to give in.
If she hadn't been met with the occasional flash image of Darth Solipsis on her mind (how annoyingly intrusive), Arris might've considered this the best day of her life. Oddly, however, she focused on that intrusive vision embedded in her thoughts, studying it and the intensity that seethed from him. Ah, yes, now that was the Emperor she witnessed on Desevro and the Death Star... A sick grin curled at her mouth.
Eventually, the noise of battle grew quite distant - drawn to her only by the crash of warships and heavy artillery fire outside the walls. The Talusian stopped when she realized something. Had she gotten lost? It was terribly quiet; she was sure there'd be more than the handful of cultists she previously run into. Where were the--
Up ahead, several members of the 551st were entrenched before a checkpoint. One of them was armed with a heavy repeater - now that might have threatened to carve her up if she wasn't too careful.
Arris threw herself behind a large pillar and drew her revolver. When she peeked around the corner to acquire targets, she was surprised to see they weren't opening fire.
Had they noticed her? Her finger itched to pull the trigger.
The soldiers Arris encountered stood so perfectly still and silent at their posts that they may as well have been statues. They were held in thrall to Meliant and his Tribunes, incapable of acting if they were not willed to do so. Eventually, one of them called out to her.
"Come out. They won't shoot you. Not unless I tell them to."
It was a voice she had heard before on the Death Star III - now layered and distorted over the voice of the hapless stormtrooper Meliant spoke through. This deep into the palace, the din of battle was muted. The Fire Saint held the breach and kept Mercy and many of her forces at bay. Perhaps not for much longer.
Whenever Arris deigned to poke her head out, he spoke again. "It's good you happened by. At least one of her camp should be here to see this. Then she will know I did my part."
Even with the sorcerous manner of speech, his voice carried that slight strain of exhaustion.
"My command center is just past these friends of mine. Join me there."
Arris' bitterness clung to her like blood in water; it was intoxicating. The Dread Lord reveled in it, savoring the way her hatred coiled and bled into the Force. Such pure disdain — not for the enemy, but for the brute she followed blindly. A rare indulgence, a flavor it hadn't savored in ages.
It drank deeply.
Each pulse of resentment fed the thing driving Quinn forward, each unspoken wish offering itself willingly. The entity reached back through the Force, slow and patient, threading itself into Arris' heart. It did not command, no, it suggested. It whispered until the thoughts felt like her own.
'You are this world's god…"
The words slid into her mind, soft and inviting.
'She only weakens you… makes you small…'
The hunger grew, pressing and urging Arris further.
'Take…'
The whisper tightened, coiling around her will.
'Take… Take…'
The voice grew louder, echoing in all facets of her mind.
Emotions were a strong fuel; nightmares only turned those emotions into reality. Each mind threaded into the Echani, feeding the entity and allowing it to claim the woman's body. She could feel it growing stronger, claiming her in a way she had never known possible.
Despite everything, Quinn didn't fear it. She had allowed this to happen, giving in to what had always protected her.
Control radiated from the thing wrapped around Quinn's soul, a vast absolution. Yet, something fragile endured the shift. A single thread, a memory so small it shouldn't have mattered. A mother's love, worn thin, but unbroken — anchoring her to Srina.
The Dread Lord felt it.
It coiled closer, curious… amused.
Darkness focused on the woman; she fed on the dread and quiet horrors that bled from the Princess. Even as it fueled her, she resisted with that thread, that memory. It savored it.
'She wants this… You feel it too.'
The voice did not push; it waited.
'Do not fight what she is becoming… Do not deny what has already taken root.'
It paused for a moment, letting the weight of its connection linger. Its voice was suddenly tender as it spoke again.
'She is ours… She always has been.'
Memories rose like reopened scars — desperate choices, compromises carved out of fear and desperation. Each one lingered, measured, and remembered.
Quinn had stood at the edge of death more times than she could count, and each time, someone had reached for her, pulling her back. Even before she drew her first breath, Fate had been written toward extinction. It was that one choice — the Phobis Core — that bound her here, an anchor forged from terror and darkness, keeping her tethered.
Even then, on Susevi, Srina had pulled the woman back to the living. Denying death, denying Fate the child it had called home. A mother's love had always been Quinn's tether to life.
'Choices, choices… a mother's burden. Sacrifices made so the child might live.'
The voice lingered, letting the truth settle.
'The cost is always paid by the child.'
It dissipated, returning to its summoner. Quinn felt the surging power of the Nexus as the enemy focused her own power. It was a troublesome factor, facing one that feeds off the same darkness. She couldn't hurt the anchor on the opposite end of the tether they shared. Even if she bled horror and darkness, they used it, savored it like she did.
If this wasn't the path to the enemy's destruction, then there were other ways. The draw from the Nexus became stronger; her focus on pulling as much of its ancient dark energy into her, using the Phobis Core as an anchor, an engine to drive the power outwards. Her head snapped to the sky, the one filled with another battle.
Quinn didn't care. She wanted the complete destruction of whatever lay before her. She hungered; it hungered for death, terror, and the destruction of the core.
The skies above Coruscant collapsed into darkness. Clouds folded in on themselves, spiraling into a vast, roiling wound in the atmosphere as thunder tore through the city like a scream. Lightning churned within the storm's core — not white, but bruised red and void-black — illuminating shapes that should not have existed.
Faces pressed through the clouds.
Ancient Sith. The long-dead. Hollow-eyed visages stretched and contorted, mouths yawning wide as if to consume the world below. The winds howled with their voices, a chorus of hunger and fury that rattled durasteel and bone alike.
Bolts of crimson and obsidian lightning slammed into the city, striking the palace spires and skittering across the dense, boiling plumes of the storm. Each impact sent ripples through the Force, the air thick with pressure and dread, as if Coruscant itself were being weighed and found wanting.
There would be no escape.
If Quinn could not hunt her enemies down…
She would let the storm take them.
She would devour them whole.
The Phobis Core focused on a couple of people & Quinn is making a Force Storm raining bolts of lightning upon the Palace and the surrounding areas. The skies threaten to swallow anyone not paying attention. The Nexus is being drained and fueling the Storm & the Phobis Device.
Whenever Arris deigned to poke her head out, he spoke again. "It's good you happened by. At least one of her camp should be here to see this. Then she will know I did my part."
The cyborg twitched. The sick grin quivered into a brooding frown.
"I see the rumors of your death on Chandrila have been greatly exaggerated."
That was another thing for her to mention to Acier Moonbound
, who moments ago had just relayed his inability to stay on target. Already, his tryouts for apprenticeship were looking dim. Still, maybe he'd pull it all off anyway, but that was a fleeting wish. For now, her attention focused solely on Meliant's disembodied voice.
Arris felt a twinge of euphoria at that... It made the next words sweeter, dulling any reaction she might've otherwise had towards being manipulated. In fact, she quite liked what the words were saying. They tugged at the roots of Windrun's heart - her frustration, her rage, and pulled up to give them light.
The cyborg balled one hand into a fist, metal fingertips scratching against metal palm. She thought of Mercy.
HATE.
She pushed past Meliant's creepy posse of will-vitiated soldiers and entered the command center. Her fingers didn't quite leave the grip of her weapon, ready to draw at a moment's notice.
The Force Bellow burst forth from his mouth, creating a visible distortion of devastating kinetic energy in waves that crashed into the smoke and rubble. The noise was a tangible impact on the ears, a sonic barrier designed to disorient the approaching army and disperse the invading force.
Tiny hairs prickled at the back of Eurydice's neck, and she ducked behind a stone buttress. Mere moments after, a shock wave of visceral sound loosed over the courtyard. Debris erupted in an outward ripple toward the invaders, and the girl, cowering behind imperial masonry, was shielded from the physical bulk of the assault.
Eurydice's vision swam. A sharp pain punctured both eardrums, followed by a pop. The perilous sounds of war became mercifully muffled as she crept out from behind her cover.
Mercy was a limitless tempest of a woman, a beast made of sheer will and pulsing black veins. Golden tendrils sprouted from Quinn, reaching into the abyss and consuming with relentless abandon. Then there was the Empress, whose visage suddenly pulsed with some sort of ethereal Eldritch horror. Eurydice didn't know who she truly feared more in this moment – her enemies, or her allies.
Monsters.
The Force made her small. Small and unworthy of any passing glance, of any bolt or saber as she stumbled from one jagged pile of wreckage to another, until finally, in the shadow of a storm named Mercy, she passed through one of the gaping tears in the palace wall. There were many threads to follow, and she picked the one that put less pressure on her aching ears.
" Do not falter in protecting my...Galactic Empire. There are fates far worse than death and your soul will experience them, piece by agonizing piece if you fail to protect my sanctum from these invaders "
First the demoralization, then the unrelenting fear clawing at the edges of her mind – and now, she was assailed by the image of a geriatric tyrant.
Eurydice slumped against the corridor's wall while clutching her head. The wrinkled face of Solipsis was forcibly expunged from her mind. She dabbed the blood from her earlobes, missing the red streaks that dipped beneath her jaw and down her neck, then shambled onward.
"It's good you happened by. At least one of her camp should be here to see this. Then she will know I did my part."Even with the sorcerous manner of speech, his voice carried that slight strain of exhaustion."My command center is just past these friends of mine. Join me there."
Peeking around the corner, she was treated to the peculiar sight of Arris parting through a line of eerily rigid imperial soldiers. Eurydice stuck one finger in her ear and twisted, as if cleaning the dried blood from the canal would bring things back into focus.
Krasskorr the Maw
's roar echoed through the courtyard, followed by the searing white heat of
Mercy
. In her view, they were two sides of the same coin, both entirely capable of battling each other rather than choosing to destroy the very ground they stood upon.
Hasuras Na-Amoun
or the shield generators but a hidden alcove behind a fallen tapestry of the New Jedi Order.
