That One Talith Dude

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]
Planet of the Aing-Tii
Moross Crusade territory

This deep in the Kathol Outback, one of the most inhospitable places in the universe, navigation was as difficult as most outsiders found it in the Fringe. But sheer curiosity was the grandpappy of invention, as her brother used to say, and Rave was no slouch at navigation. She was, after all, a Merrill, raised as much on the Gypsymoth as in the Sith academies where she'd spent much of her youth. And in due course she found her way past Exocron to the planet of the Aing-Tii, for curiosity's sake alone.

This was a personal errand, not an infringement -- heh -- of sovereignty. The ship she flew was civilian, a Tachyon-class freighter, bland as bland could be. She'd brought no Fringe materiel, nor escorts, just her sword.

As if the Aing-Tii couldn't teleport her into a star if she grew hostile. And they knew that she knew that, fairly quickly, once their translator machines took scent-based communication from their facial tendrils and turned it into awkward but functional Basic, and vice versa. Their acceptance of the Crusade's regime proved a half-decent chink in their orthodoxy. That didn't stop them from giving a firm maybe to her request to learn the least of their arts.

She'd done her research, knew whereof she spoke, and the conversation confirmed and clarified what she'd already learned. The Aing-Tii, broadly speaking, had four powers. The most crucial of them, and the most difficult to learn -- an endeavor years or decades in the making, unless one happened to be Luke Skywalker -- was the instantaneous moving of an object or a person from place to place. She'd seen a great Sanhedrim ship blink into view over Exocron; those biological ships amplified the meditations of whole groups of Aing-Tii. Force teleportation was their hyperdrive.

She was very, very glad that the Moross Crusade was the Fringe's ally.

The second power was the ability to go mind-to-mind, to connect and communicate on a level that didn't require speech, or even words. For whatever reason, they stuck with their translator gear, thank you very much.

The third power was flow-walking. Seeing time-streams, seeing the factors of possible futures, walking through the past. An art for another time...so to speak.

Their fourth and least impressive power, and the one Rave needed, was like flow-walking in many ways, but far lesser. Aing-Tii fighting-sight was, in a sense, the bridge between flow-walking and standard combat precognition. The general idea of it, Rave came to understand, was acquiring a moment wherein you went through a given situation twice. Walk into a facility, hidden turret attacks from the right, two guards come around the corner to the left -- elements. Then do it again, but for real, knowing what's going to happen, when, and where. Far less useful against another powerful Force-user.

When the Aing-Tii finally understood and somewhat believed that she wasn't there for teleportation or virtual time travel or a really uncomfortable level of mental intimacy, whichever monk she spoke with -- she had no idea what their command structure was like, or their formal relationship with the Crusade -- agreed to show her the fundamentals of their least impressive power. Rave got the distinct impression that he, she, or it was humoring her to get her out of their collective hair. Not that they had hair.

Sessions of meditation commenced. It was odd, to her anyway, how people who saw the Force as a whole spectrum of colors could find such strength in centeredness and awareness of self, in a Sith-like mode. The Sith part of her wanted to say 'well, of course,' but she didn't like simple explanations. So she pursued fighting-sight on the Aing-Tii's own terms, duplicating the requisite state of mind and Force effects until she found herself getting a sense of being cut loose in time.

From there she could walk through a cave of local predators, know the first charge would come high and from the right, the second low and from the left, the third from behind, from one she hadn't even sensed. So when she walked into that cave for real, she swiped Entropy across the first one's throat in midair. Its bulk hit her anyway, sent her crashing dagger-first into the second critter. She ripped Entropy free and spun left, dagger sinking into the third beast's neck before her sword did the rest. Short, perfunctory -- it was tough to feel like this moment mattered at all, despite the rush of adrenaline, but fethed if her heart rate was barely up at all. And it was perfunctory because it had worked.

She cleaned her blades and walked up out of the cave onto the barren plain. A hand shielded her eyes from the sun, as she caught a flicker of distant movement.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

To say that Soliael moved as a god would be an understatement. As he wandered across the desolate landscape surrounding the cave he seemed to flow, not walk. His feet never seemingly touched the ground and his long trench coat fluttered behind him in the wind, snapping every once in a while as it blew in a strange curvature and then returned to normal.

An aura seemed to surround him, a dark light that burned the ground around him and threatened to swallow any who wandered near it whole.

After what seemed a long while Soliael finally found himself standing before the entrance of the cave, and the woman that the Aing-Tii had told him about. Beneath his mask his eyes shifted slightly, dead blackness seeing only the abyss. A pulse of the darkside raced from him, blackness taking in everything and anything that moved before it bounced and returned to him.

He cocked his head slightly as if in question.

Soliael had long ago made a point to learn from the Aing-Tii, it had been one of the first thing he had done after infecting their species with belief. Thought he had allowed them to maintain some free will, he had not expected them to allow anyone else their teachings. The Aing-Tii were a stingy bunch, and anyone they allowed upon their world was intensely interesting to Soliael.

“Can you see time itself now?” The god's voice was distorted, mechanical and almost omnipresent in nature, it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

 

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

Rave's mind worked in other ways. She looked at the levitation as an ongoing effect, the dark radiance as an ongoing effect, the voice throwing as an ongoing effect, the darkness-pulse as an ongoing effect. Servant of Sirella Valkner and Sira Ves and Val'Ryss Zankarr that she'd been, her knowledge far outstripped her power. She hadn't yet seen a Force manifestation she didn't understand down to its nuts and bolts. And as the living god of the Moross Crusade spoke, her assessment of him boiled down to one principle.

Now there stands a man who wastes energy.

She contemplated telling him that the Aing-Tii hadn't seen fit to teach her flow-walking, and she hadn't asked. Fighting-sight was the germination of that greater power anyway, so she could honestly say yes. Head tilted just slightly, she watched the god float around.

"All of it that I need to," she said at last. They'd met once before, as Knights, though of course he'd already been a god then, as Moross reckoned such things. His Force presence blared -- amplified, but recognizable. "But I'd imagine the Keeper of Knowledge would find my curiosity limited, even prosaic. The Aing-Tii said that you, more than most of the gods of the Crusade, have a special interest in this world. I'd rather hoped I would run into you."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

"Strangely enough the Aing-Tii have a tendency to lie. To keep things from those they do not trust.” The god spoke with a sort of amusement to his tone as he slowly settled down onto the earth below him. Though it was true that Soliael had taken a keen interest in the Aing-Tii, it was not he that controlled this world. “Though I greatly enjoyed my time among these...creatures. Inari is the patron of the Aing-Tii. It is she that holds most of their hearts, as she does so many others.”

Neth the keeper was really only worshiped by a select few. The constant searchand divination of Knowledge was not something that really appealed to most beings, as such Soliael really had the smallest portion of worshipers of the currently ''living'' gods. The other two of course were Inari and Kalee, god of healing, and war, much more favorable things to strive for.

As the lull in conversation happened another pule of the darkside ran out, then returned to him. No outward reaction from him occurred as this happened, only a slight shift of his head, turning to face her only a hint more.

“Though that begs the question, why would one such as yourself hope to run into me?” That really answered itself. The God of Knowledge supposedly knew almost everything, with only a slight few tidbits of knowledge alluding him.

Everyone wanted to ask him something.

 

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

"Frankly? Because I wanted to meet someone else like me. Someone who knows everything." She smiled faintly. "Is that blasphemy or just sacrilege? I get the two mixed up. I think I'm remembering right that blasphemy applies equally to tearing down gods and lifting oneself to the level of divinity.

"But if it's blasphemy, it's blasphemy with a purpose. What I want to understand is how to translate omniscience through the lens of current capabilities. I know a lot, Neth. At this point in my growth -- in our growth -- I'm not fully sure how much of that I can do, and how to balance my growth between new options and what's served me best so far. I think you have the answer, not because you know all, but because I suspect you, too, face the challenge that arises when colossal knowledge meets capabilities that haven't yet grown to their full strength."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

Soliael let out a deep resonating laugh that seemed to bounce through the air like a dying firefly. He smiled beneath his mask, and seemed to nod in confirmation. There was of course the pretense that he was a god, the grand lie that was the Moross Crusade, but even in this lie the conversation they were having applied.

The man beneath the facade of a god of course had only recently ascended to the heights of what most would consider a master. His powers and abilities had transcended those of lesser men, but they were not yet fully formed, not yet fully...tested. He could ravage entire species with his technovirus, but he could not yet control the outcome. He could wipe out entire cities with the darksie, but he could not spare a single being within. He had knowledge, knowledge to match the ancients, but he could not apply it. He did not yet have the control that so many craved.

His facade of a god was much the same. Phenomenal cosmic power, in a mortal form that he could not fully control, that in fact controlled him, funny how that worked out. “You seek to test yourself. Against someone like you.”

Soliael let out a chuckle again. “Against me.”

He spoke the words, confirming her suspicions about their likeness.

 

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

She nodded once, not missing the confirmation. "And I'm certain you feel the same. For curiosity, then, as between allies."

Entropy rang from its sheath. If she was to brag about the sword, she would have said that for quality of smithing, specific ambition of purpose, and execution of that purpose, it eclipsed any sword she'd ever heard of, let alone seen. This was the sword which had gotten her acknowledged as a Master and, in her humble opinion, not overly soon either. A hot wind off the barren flats tossed out her long leather coat, revealing a wiry, compact body and a belted knife. The sword settled into a two-handed Atrisian stance, closely akin to what the Jedi called Shii-Cho.

She closed her eyes and entered fighting-sight for a moment. Her inexpert gaze could pick up little or nothing about his future actions, but surprises -- beasts, airstrikes, sandstorms -- could be predicted and countered. She sensed little in that regard. Unless his greater experience with the Aing-Tii arts was somehow compensating for hers, this would be straightforward in the sense that it would just be between the two relatively new Masters.

"Dazzle me."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

Soliael let out a deep chuckle, his head turning to her once more as another pulse of the darkside rushed out and then returned to him. He smiled slightly, he had not fought anyone since Metalorn, not anyone worthy anyway. There had been beasts and lesser men, there had been creatures, Terentateks and slugs and the like, but none had really been his match. His smile grew into a smirk as he prepared himself.

The barren landscape didn't really suit his most powerful ability, but that hardly mattered now. He gazed at his target and the finely worked blade that she drew.

His father might have admired such a sword, But Soliael simply acknowledged its existence and then moved on.

He took no stands, instead stood with a straight back. For only a split second power built within him, energy rushing through his body for a split second and then erupting from his back. Suddenly his left eye popped open beneath his helmet, a rim of blood forming slightly beneath it. Six spheres of pure darkside energy, unwashed and unkempt hatred flew from him towards the Woman.

 

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

The spell was one that her third and, arguably, most influential master had known intimately. Rave had little aptitude for the more offensive uses of Sith magic, but she'd seen and faced all the common ones and most of the rare birds. The spread of six spherical bolts bracketed her neatly, and those things could shred your average sword. She'd blocked one once with a very basic alchemical blade, and lost the blade. This spell, in fact, had been one of the main reasons for her creation of Entropy.

Her stance shifted to the Ataru she'd used since young adolescence, twenty years. Weight on the balls of her feet, quick double-step sideways at the last second to get her out of the bracket. Two of the six slashed past, slammed into the hillside behind her, and dirt fountained out in a spray. She wrapped the Force around her hands on Entropy's handle, tapping into the ancient magics she'd woven through the sword. A precise slash jarred with each impact as it arced through three of the spheres, shredding them. The fourth impacted her hands on the grip, with bruising force. She held firm and let that strike's momentum and energy pass through her, permeate her. Rather than tear apart her hands or compromise her grip, the Sith sorcery threw her painfully against the hillside.

She rolled upright, threw out her left hand off the grip, and snarled an incantation in a Paecean dialect. Brilliant green lightning leaped from her fingers, a single, sustained arc seeking a terminal.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

As the lightning jumped towards him Soliael grinned slightly, a grinned reminiscent of his fathers once famous constant expression. His arm shot up in defense, a red light immediately shooting forth from his arm, a shield of pure light formed around his arm, bending to the size of a large buckler. The Lightning struck it and crackled across it, sparking and biting at Soliaels arm, but never really harming him.

He smiled, and then surged forward with a wave of the force, breaking the lightning and jumping forward in a single bound.

Soliael was not quite as fast as his father, but his speed was nothing to scoff at. He moved with liquid grace across the barren wasteland, closing the distance between himself and Rave in only a few seconds. As soon as he reached her his hand extended out in a ridiculously forceful punch, prhik covered hands aiming for the smallish girls ribs.

 

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

There were very few women who could use the Force to amplify their strength to a point where they could handle this kind of kinetic energy. Rave was not, as a rule, among them. Never had been. But as someone who'd been fighting serious duels since age thirteen, she'd long known that mobility was her friend. She regained her balance with a shuffle-step right and an inside-outside block from her left forearm. The block didn't stop his strike so much as guide her away from it, and she kept moving right and forward, turning to face him, getting out from between him and the hillside. It was too steep to go for that high ground nonsense.

Green lightning flickered around her hands, one empty, the other grasping Entropy. Alchemical blades of a certain quality absorbed lightning, trapped it, released it on impact. In a heartbeat, an electrical nimbus surrounded the blade. She brought it slashing around and down for the side of his left leg, while a bolt snapped out from her clawed left hand, aiming for his face.