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Private The Angel & the Demon




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FORTRESS IMPERATOR // RAVELIN, BASTION
vibes | Rurik Fel Rurik Fel



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The Warlord's visit wasn't planned this time.

Having sworn an oath to the Knights, it was implied that Lucien had forgone his brazen ways, and cast aside the fire which marked his ascension as one of the Order's foremost Champions of the People. Loyalty and Restraint, mixed with the honor of prestige of being one of his brother's trusted ilk, meant that the eyes of COMPNOR had waned just enough in the recent months that had passed. The King of Serenno had been busy with the reconstruction of his twin jewels, the worlds of Serenno and Nirauan, and it seemed for a time that he'd finally settled into his role within the Order.

Complacent, or so the rumors in the wind believed he'd become. Placid in his return from the bacta tanks of Ravelin, a loyal sword to the Empire, and to Rurik.

Yet none who could speak upon what truly encapsulated his thoughts, the former Jedi's mind having been fractured it seemed since his return from his battles against Solipsis. It had been a long and hard-fought road to repairing the damage done, and even now as he stood tall in the eyes of his people, the damage that'd been done would still plague him with each and every passing day.

But Lucien had not changed, no matter the damage that had been done, and the time it would take to repair it.

He was a Champion of the People, and an Angel in the eyes of those who he wished to save from a galaxy that proved all too cruel more often than not. He stood up for their rights, for their lives, and for their liberties to be protected, even at the cost of his own prestige in the eyes of his fellow Warlords. The death of the former Imperator had only changed his perception slightly, yet still he remained loyal to the cause which he helped build up from the jump. He was an Imperial at heart, and even if the actions of his brother were beginning to divide their paths, that much would always remain.

The paths being walked by the two would inevitably collide, and such a moment would come to the foreground upon the revelation of intelligence that proved all too dire to everything he'd done on behalf of the Empire. For what seemed like the first time in his life, Lucien felt the hatred in his heart being directed towards one of his own blood -- outside of the grandfather who sired their line.

That rage drove him to Bastion, where the Warlord descended upon Fortress Imperator, poised to retrieve his audience with his half-kin without being accosted by the Knights & Stormtroopers present. Even as the Warlord was called to stand down -- lightsaber in hand, an amber rage stoked in his eyes -- he pressed forwards through the masses of men who blocked his path, delivering upon them all the retribution he wished the Iron Emperor would feel himself in the moments to come.


Destruction was beckoned forth by his rage as he erupted forth his command over the force, delivering wave after wave of volatile energies that crippled the Knights and their accompanying personnel to the ground. His fellow Imperials would be saved from the final grace of death, despite their incapacitation in the wake of the Warlord's advance. He would not slay his fellow Imperials, if given the chance to preserve their lives, but he would also not be stopped.

More joined to halt his path, only to find the Warlord did not hesitate to use the force & his blade to bring their attempts to stop him to a halt. Though they did manage to delay him for a time, he would still proceed forth to the turbolift unharmed, and unmolested. Their meeting was long overdue, and nothing would stop him from saying what he said to say to Rurik, before the hatred became anchored to their destiny.

Further into the fortress he would ascend, until the turbolift came to a stop upon the level requested. It was empty, save for the lone secretary who worked outside of his office. Lucien clipped the lightsaber back onto his belt, amber eyes only briefly settling upon the woman before they refocused back onto the large wooden doors to his front. He came to a stop midways to it, adjacent to where the woman frozen with fear was seated.


"Go."

He spoke up, breaking the monotony of tense emotion to strengthen the woman's willpower through the force. She immediately shot up from her seat, entering the turbolift at once and disappeared out of sight.

Good. They were alone.

A hand stretched outwards towards the doors, his fingers clenching together slowly into a fist. The door creaked beneath its own weight as minute slivers of cellulose began tearing themselves apart, expanding and creating even more cracks until both doors were set to implode in on themselves at once. They shattered no more than a thought later, willed into being by the force being beckoned at his fingertips. He cared little for the damage, and while he could have just walked inside, he was far too pissed to simply finish the finale without another display of his furor.


"You've abandoned what made our Empire what it is, Rurik."

Lucien stepped through the splintered shards of wood beneath his boot, ensuring he grinded them beneath his feet as he walked inside the office.

"The ideals of an Empire that we helped to build; those same ideals which Tavlar held onto until the day he fucking died."

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? Planning the dissolution of the Assembly, banning entire ideological groups, and centralizing the power beneath your "throne"? Pfft. This is worse than the storm that brewed when Jaeger was alive. You're isolating our Empire from the galaxy already, and now you wish to remove the elements that truly set us apart from the Imperials who bent the knee to the Sith in the past."


Fists balled together, amber eyes peering through his brother's mask to search for Rurik's own.

"This is wrong, brother. No-- This is bullshit. You have to know this."

 
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E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
ORDER OF THE IMPERIAL KNIGHTS

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He'd wish it unto no one. The burden of Empire. He'd known his predecessor carried a similar sentiment when he bared the crown, the thorny laurels of command. As Lord Executor he rarely shared space with the Imperator, being his will in the field of far off stars on the grounds of far off worlds, but the times he chose Fel as his confidant, he could see a man brewing with internal suffering. Lyra, Dantooine, his children no doubt serving as the main engines of strife in the man. Wise beyond his years, there was no doubt something beyond him died with it.

Fel was the only one he could trust to take command in Irveric's place, the only one worthy of the throne. Vindicated in that- he's been able to keep ahold of it but he was not ignorant to the chance that continual, apocalyptic external threats propagated this. His time in the fire had begun well enough already.

He'd dismissed three military officers, two of the Imperial Navy and one of the Imperial Army but minutes before Lucien's abrupt and rageous entrance as they spoke about the matters of Chiss space and dire situation that continued to brew in such a hell fire.

Dooku kicked down the door, clenched fists, anger, and vitriol slavering in his tone as he spoke. Rurik was still as stone, unflinching from the angered posturing as he peered out the window of his office, looking over the rain soaked expanse of the seat of the Empire before him as Dooku spoke, angry, concerned, passionate. He sought to compound a great weight to this encounter as if it would be the last the two half-brothers spoke.

Fel did not treat it as such, he turned to speak to the man, his steely eyes shifting to Lucien's in kind.

"What?" He simply asked. There was no official stream of information by which Lucien could've retrieved that information, Rurik had few...very few confidants, people who he entrusted with such delicate information but before he'd ever made an official decree, before he'd ever put into action something he still deliberated- Lucien sought to crucify him for it.

"Tavlar held the ideals of an Empire built by the Imperials...that was what he told unto the Sith fateful day he declared his defiance to the Empire. And in it, the Imperials, the True Imperials brought his dream, our dream to fruition in this Empire. Order has been brought to worlds without civilization and our people roam without the fear of manipulative, insidious Force creeds that would seek to use them as cattle, as puppets in their great game. I am seeing to it that the Empire remains so." Fel stated, glancing to Lucien before peering out the window again.

"You...and me, are here to serve them, the Imperial- not to serve ourselves...that is what has become of the Imperial Assembly, this league of warlords that have come under the Iron Sun. They are but vessels for the egos of those clutching the reins of command, brother. They do not serve the Empire, they serve themselves...and Carlac showed that our interests...are not only mutual. A man who you once held as a confidant, an ideological peer...betrayed everything we'd ever built, in open sedition." Rurik remarks.

"This way of rule...it only replaces the ego of the Sith with the ego of the Warlord, the mortal man who uses his glad handing and demagoguery to fuel a rise to power, to taint and manipulate those in his shadow into acting on his distorted impulses. I will not play this game any longer, nor will I subject the Imperials, our people to it...dissolving the rotten framework which allows those who do not bare the interest of the Imperial in mind only serves to further the ideology of which this Empire was founded upon. The power is removed from those who use our nation as a vessel to fuel their own ego and demented ambitions and returns it to those who deserve it, who rise on the back of their own merit and strife overcome to achieve what is due to them...I know you see the rot festering, I know you know the scheming and deceit your peers in the Assembly involve themselves in...and I will not subject my people to it any longer." Rurik states.
 



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FORTRESS IMPERATOR // RAVELIN, BASTION
vibes | Rurik Fel Rurik Fel



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There was truth behind the Iron Emperor's words, that much he could not bring himself to be dissonant upon as the two men faced each other off. The League of Warlords was a system set in place during a time in which the Imperials required the strength of all those who would answer their call, bestowing upon them the power necessary to allow the New Imperials to surge forth upon the warfront with each and every ounce of unequivocal might it could muster.

But the system was flawed.

Tyranny was given as a right to those warlords who wished to govern their worlds with an Iron Fist, and through the machinations of themselves and their allies, an internal struggle for power seemed to define the majority of the gathered representatives who were called upon in the Imperial Assembly. The system had a cancer growing deep within it, enabled from the start due to the necessity of the situation, but it did not necessitate the total collapse of what had been set in place.


"You and I can both acknowledge the rot that was allowed to fester, but the answer I'm seeing presented is the total destruction of a system that -- while flawed -- has the basis for something greater. We've seen this before- this galaxy has seen these exact same events happen time and time again. Such a fate was what brought about the Empire of old, and the cancerous high culture of Human Imperialism that all but doomed it from the start."

A hand lowered to his side, and for a moment the rage coalescing beneath his amber orbs would subside enough for his empathy to shine through. Fingers slid beneath his white robes, and from within it he retrieved a singular object into his grasp. Lucien stepped forwards, only coming to a stop once he reached the very edge of the desk that separated him from his brother. He placed his hand upon the table, setting the crystalline pyramid upon it for his brother to view. It pulsated a rich crimson, emanating an aura into the room that tugged onto the binds of the force that connected both him and Rurik through blood.

It was a holocron; an object that Lucien acquired not long after his coronation onto the throne of Serenno, and a relic to their shared ancestries long, albeit nuanced past.


"This...it's not the first time we've seen these events come to past, brother. The Dooku line -- whether you wish to forsake our name or not -- has forever been bound to the strings of fate in the shaping of this galaxy. It was the greatest of our line who once played a role in shaping the fate of the galaxy, leading to the first Empire's creation, and the destruction of the systems that once provided a semblance of fairness to those who inhabited it. You say that the dissolution is the cure to removing this festering rot that is the Warlords who've shaped an era for their own personal gain, but what of those who seek nothing more than the right to fair governance, to have their liberties protected from being infringed upon? The answer to tyranny is not to replace it with more of the same."


A finger traced up the side of the pyramid, stopping upon the point at the top as he spoke. A single burst of the force would activate the sanguine device, a wave of energy engulfing the room as it seemed to come alive at once, morphing its shape until a crimson light emitted from the opening now present at the top.

The image of a man came into view, one who looked eerily familiar to their grandfather, and possessing much the same in the way of the
Gravitas and visage, to Serenno's former King.

"If you wish to cure this rot, don't do so at the expense of reducing us to the Imperial identity of the past."

He continued, a finger now pointed at the image of their ancestor, Count Dooku.


"Don't make the mistake of creating an Empire that this man helped to establish, even unwittingly. We are Imperials-- but that doesn't mean that tyranny has to win. There's another way-- a right way. It might not dissolve the rot without more strife, but it won't come at the cost of returning us to the dark ages from whence we've come."

 


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E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
ORDER OF THE IMPERIAL KNIGHTS

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"If we are going to speak of lessons of the forefathers than you must understand the irony. It was Roan Fel, one of the very last of the great Fel Emperors...who was betrayed by his Moff council who had sold themselves to the whims of the Sith. Carlac had shown that nothing changed. Where there is a means to power, those who seek to manipulate it will seek it. You misinterpret tyranny for justice. It is not tyranny to keep those 'elite' in check, it is tyranny to empower their egos to do what they will of the Empire. It is tyranny to empower a man so much that he may put his people to the slaughter to protect his own, depraved and demented ideas. He put all of the people Tavlar entrusted him to lead and protect between himself and justice. That is tyranny. To warp the name of a man who swore loyalty to Empire before any mortal soul into this ideology that sates the ego of the few before the needs of the many is a disgrace to his legacy." Rurik iterated.

"Tavlar knew of the great lie. Perhaps it was his absence from the Force that allowed him to view it most clearly...but it is the lie that there is the dark and the light and that there must be balance, that there is no cure to this plague- that there will always be a shadow in the brightest light in a light in shining darkness. Empire...is the cure and Empire is order made manifest- and in order, there is true peace...there is true freedom." Rurik explains.

"The Alliance, they are not free. They are as much slaves to the glad hands sold to the whims of their elite and ruling interests- the tyranny of the majority. In this, there is vindication for the few- the few at the top where the fat has risen as the working class beneath them bicker over sweet nothings. That is the fate of an Empire given to the whims of the warlords. Just as we learned the lessons of states corrupted by the Sith, so too have we seen the bandit states of the Pentastar Alignment, a corporate dictatorship where women and children are traded like animals or the Eriadu Confederacy ruled by a man who cared more for his mistress than his people, his soldiers." Rurik explained, crossing his arms over his chest once more.

"I speak not of those who entered the Empire for the betterment of their world, their people. They are Imperial and they are bound to the fate of the Empire all the same. Their interests are mine. But I speak of those who climbed the ladder and kicked all others off of it. Those who don't believe in the dream of Tavlar, those who held their hands up in salute to the Sith all the same as they did to the Imperial. Those whose loyalty is to power, not to any people or idea. The Imperial will not suffer their tyranny any longer." Rurik iterated, his steely eyes looking to Lucien.
 



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FORTRESS IMPERATOR // RAVELIN, BASTION
vibes | Rurik Fel Rurik Fel



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"You speak of loyalty-- not to the people, or an idea, but to power itself."

Lucien interjected at the end, following immediately off the last words that exited from the Emperor's iron-cast lips. A hint of the anger from before returned to his eyes, golden orbs casting fiery displays of dissent towards the rhetoric he'd waited patiently to hear, and listened to without interruption. But with his brother's time to speak done, Lucien would no longer remain silent, nor would he hold back the punches that he'd been keeping under wraps for all too long either. This conversation needed to happen, no matter the outcome, and no matter the path it forced the two half-siblings to walk.

"No, brother, what you speak of is total and supreme submission, in exchange for the supposed benefits that come with the establishment of Your New Empire. Your interests, no matter how altruistic you believe them to be, will never truly align with every single demographic of our Empire, let alone the hundreds of millions who've yet to truly take to the idea of New Imperialism itself. Your vision works to a point-- I won't deny that, brother. But it doesn't represent the vision of my people, and i'm certain there's dozens of worlds out there, many of them led by individuals who simply wish to see the betterment of their planets, who feel the same."

He touched the holocron once more, the visualization of Count Dooku coming alive with animation, flickering as the avatar of their ancestor came to life with emotion, movement and words.

The whispering of his name can rekindle hope, and hope is something we cannot allow our enemy to possess.

"Is this the path that we must follow?"

Lucien retorted, once more waving a gesture towards the man who cut the distance between himself and the Emperor.

"Shall we bathe this Empire in blood, to sate the desire to achieve the rule of order at the cost of the will of the people themselves? Even if it's the minority who oppose your efforts to unite our Empire through the iron fist of totalism itself, do you truly believe the cost will be worth it? No matter what you speak, the vision of Tavlar did not consist of letting our people fall victim to the same hyperbole that led to the creation of Palpatine's vision of the past. True Peace will never be achieved through the hegemony of Empire itself, but through an Empire willing to seek equilibrium, despite its inherent nature to achieve unity at all costs."

Another gesture, and the force was willed upon the holocron once more.

Twice the pride, double the fall.

"This is the future of every Emperor who's attempted to do such in the past. Palpatine, Roal Fel, and each and every last pretender who sought to the fill the vacuum left behind in the wake of their deaths and deposition."

Lucien paused, his eyes closing shut as he settled his thoughts upon the future that soon would follow. He was trying to reach out to his kin, the closest of his blood, and a man he vehemently looked up to at one point in the past. It was disheartening to feel the tension that was brought to the fore by their disagreement, but deep down he knew that the love he held for his brother would never disappear. As much as he wanted to hate the man for the future he wished to bring about, Lucien could not bring himself to not look upon his own flesh with nothing less than admiration and empathy, despite it all.

"There is no more nobler a sacrifice, than giving your life for a cause in which you sincerely believe, and in the millennial history of the galaxy itself, I truly believe there has never been a cause more worthy than that of this Empire we've created."

He spoke up once more, eyes still closed shut, a hand floating down to his belt and removing the charcoal-hilt attached to it by a clip. He presented the hilt in hand, holding it outwards between them, and cutting through the visage of Count Dooku in one motion, deactivating the holocron as a result.

"And for this Empire, brother, I will protect the people, their beliefs, and the way of the life they wish to uphold, at all costs if necessary. It is not my vision, nor a wish to sustain power that drives me forwards."

His eyes reopened, displaying within them a momentary lack of empathy as the final words of his retort escaped his lips.


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"For the Empire."
 
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E M P E R O R
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
ORDER OF THE IMPERIAL KNIGHTS


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He listened, his gaze emptily staring toward the cityscape of Ravelin laid out before them. Though he was not a man defeated so easily, ironclad in his resolve. There was one thing he could not doubt was that Lucien was genuine in his beliefs and sentiment. Though he might've been born in the purple, given a more noble upbringing than Rurik was privileged to- but it was hardly Lucien that Rurik was wary of. Rurik knew well or rather- hoped he would not be the last Emperor to this New Order. Whoever was to follow might not have the mettle to tangle with the collective power and ego of those who ruled the various realms of the Empire beneath him.

He had to make strong consideration of who that heir might be. For as much as his legacy demanded a direct descendant claim the throne after he was gone, he doubted that time would come for himself.

He looked over the hologram image of Lucien's long lost descendent with open apathy, listening to the collective sentiment between them.

"I could not agree more, brother. I suppose it is a matter of perspective. You fear that I will rip away the identity of what has been made, what has been forged by the toil and bloodshed of the Imperial, our people." He considers aloud.

"It is that identity which I seek to protect. To preserve from the lingering darkness of the Sith, the open malfeasance and blubbering incompetence of these democratic powers which actively plunge the Galaxy into ruin. The Jedi and Sith are both pawns beneath the same hand, to incite and perpetuate the lie, the lie that there can be no peace because there must be that constant strive of balance between light and dark. Tavlar saw through the lie as I do. There can be peace- under Empire. In true Order, there is the freedom to live one's life without fear." Rurik concludes.

"But this Empire will not be held hostage to the creed and hubris of the few who seek power for powers sake, who use our people as the means to greater authority and not the interest at which they serve solely. The Emperor should be the first servant to the state, to its people and little more." Rurik states, peering back to Lucien. Holding his arms out as he explained.

"I have nothing else, I have no human attachment to this world. My life is in service to the Empire and nothing more. I am its servant and I am the vessel of its will, I will only act in its interest, brother. The Empire...is second to none." He iterates.

"But I am merely mortal...and the time will come when the throne is empty again, as it stands now- the Empire would meet its dance of death. The Empire would be held hostage to chaos once more, held hostage to the egos and ambitions of the few who seek to serve themselves..and not them...thus-..." He looked away from the man once more, his gaze shifting back over Ravelin as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"If you are to be the heir of the Empire...you must understand the sacrifice that demands, the sacrifice that I have made. To be Emperor is not a blessing, it is a burden, one of no greater fulfillment...and no greater pain of failure. And I have failed far too many." He explains.
 

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