Invasion The Bacta War | Sith Order Invasion of High Republic Thyferra Chapter 1

[Tobias Dib]

ALLIES: The Sith Order
ENEMIES: The High Republic
TAGS: Connel Vanagor , "Ariel" , Seren Gwyn , Aiden Porte , Mantys Thranx , Daegon Corvinus , Seraphina Corvinus OPEN


Troigs watched the woman carefully. She could easily choose to deny his statement of surrender. War was typically without mercy, and even the most genteel of individuals were warped by its touch. It would be easy to become jaded or allow yourself to be transformed by the heinous acts witnessed. Even more so here on Thyferra. Blood flowed as freely as the rainfall. Creatures of alchemy, science, dark powers, and technological innovation walked the surface. Most anyone would be consumed by their mere proximity. But there was hope in his eyes. Hope for a better future—desire for survivors to come together and rebuild. And a deep-rooted faith that, despite everything that had happened during the war, something good could rise from the ashes like a Phoenix. It all started with hope.

His free hand moved to his belt as the surrendered cylinder rose from the cracked duracrete floor and slowly covered the distance between them. Troigs had seen the slight hesitation in her form. She could have called the blade to her hand and redoubled her attack. Yet she chose to stand down. Perhaps there was still hope for her. The cylinder floated across the space between them, the most sheen of the metal catching the dust in the air. Then it reached his hand at his belt and clipped itself next to where his fingers waited. He was prepared to open his hand and call it to his palm should the enemy attempt to claim it. However, that didn't occur.

Warily, his boots found safe passage to where she stood, avoiding the raised sections of the floor and stepping around large pieces of debris. The lightsaber was slowly lowered but not extinguished as he reached out and took her arm, making sure to avoid the wounded side of her body. Blood matted her hair and stained her face. A small voice escaped his lips. "I accept your surrender." The blue blade rose as he activated his comlink and spoke. "One prisoner in custody. Exiting the facility to secure her in one of the prison transports. I guess I'll miss the final confrontation with Nemesis. Good luck and may the Force be with you all. Troigs out."

Slowly, he began leading the wounded woman out by the arm as his other hand kept a firm grip on his ignited lightsaber, just in case.

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In the storm clouds, the squadron of Sith Interceptors juked and jinked against the light show of anti-aircraft fire, searching the heavens for their positions, and the force of nature as lightning split the skies. It was almost as though the natives of Thyferra, the High Republic, the Jedi, and nature herself were in open rebellion. Despite this, the Sith Order soldiered onwards. No reason could stop the onslaught. No obstacle could divert them from their cause. Not even the Force could manipulate them into a defeat. Only the will of the Sith Order mattered.

The pilots knew the contingency plans. If the industrial park, with its refineries, was at risk of loss, then it was their duty to deny the many sources of bacta, medical equipment, and trained, experienced personnel from remaining outside their grasp. This was their responsibility. This was their mission. And even if it meant their deaths, they would see it through to the end.

The dozen Interceptors flew in conjunction with the four Caldoth-Class Tactical Bombers for their targets. Target profiles of multiple bacta dispensers, storage facilities, cutting-edge medical machinery, housing for employees, and delicate, yet important, infrastructure buildings. There were rules of engagement. Lines of decency and expectations of honor. But in war, there was only win or lose. If you won, it only proved the means were justified by the end. And Nemesis intended to win—one way or another. The dividends of triumphant victory would pay the cost of his actions. While the galaxy had a clear understanding of what winning looked like, Nemesis did not share their viewpoint. He had his own definition of success.

The fighters remained cloaked by nature's fury. It was much harder to hit something you couldn't see. While the bombers lacked true stealth capabilities, their hulls were coated with material that lowered the ships' sensor profiles, making it much harder to acquire a target lock, especially at longer distances. This was why they hid in the clouds that lowered visibility to null and void. With their systems in place and nature's own smokescreen, they were virtually invisible for the time being. Eventually the clouds lost their billowing heaviness and began to thin. The fighters compensated, following the thick tendrils which still existed. Until even they began to dissipate. The fighter screen advanced ahead of the bombers as the terrain became visible below them.

Xucphra City. The capital had already seen one bombing run against government buildings, the mass populace, military institutions, and political residences to varying degrees. To say they were not prepared for a second attack would be foolish. They were prepared to protect Thyferra's infrastructure should the fighters come close enough to invite reprisals for interloping and trespassing. But this time, the previous targets were not the objectives. So the fighters steered clear of the hostile intent of defending weapon installations. Instead, they turned away from those targets and focused on a more lucrative objective.

The Xucphra Corporation.

Discord missiles were fired first. Forty buzz droid swarms descended toward privately owned power stations, substations, and power reactors. All belonging to the Xucphra Corporation. Bunker-buster torpedoes were launched at research facilities, labs, and any other underground facilities the Sith could ferret out before the invasion. Trauger missiles flew unerringly for giant complexes housing the corporation's personnel. High-level execs on the upper floors, middle management in the center, and workers on the lower levels. The gas was designed for the end of life in gruesome and painful ways. Deathball proton bombs fell toward the top-of-the-line production facilities and manufacturing plants for bacta tanks and other innovative inventions created by the Xucphra Corporation.

The purpose was chaos. Economic upheaval. Destabilization of the current power status. What was perceived as random acts of madness were laced with specific, intricate decisions. Choices cloaked amidst other decisions for many different objectives. The reasons were hidden and known only to Nemesis. And he wasn't sharing which orders were obeyed or which actions served a self-serving enterprise. Those answers may never be known.

---------------------------------------------------------------​

Mills knelt near one of the final bulkheads separating his group of ragtag soldiers and the central hub where the towers held it in the air. He knew they were close. Only a few more obstacles remained. The question of whether they would be alone at the final confrontation never entered his mind. Republic and Jedi forces were in the industrial park, and it seemed everyone wanted a piece of the man known as Nemesis. The horrors that had been inflicted under his command would haunt his nightmares for years to come. If not his entire life.

"Everyone ready? This is about to be it—the point of no return. The being responsible for many of the things that have come to Thyferra is just ahead. Steady." As Mills looked around at his group, he saw fear in their faces. But even greater determination. They weren't going anywhere, and every one of them was all in as he expected.

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Within the enclosed hub held in the air by towers, the armored giant grinned as everything fell into place. Sure, the splicers and hackers were having issues. Yes, many of the troopers had been wounded before surrendering. Obviously, the deaths of numerous troops were not a favorable outcome. The complete lack of impressive explosions that were supposed to consume the industrial park was another unfortunate development. But it also proved fortuitous for the next plan.

A comm signal was sent, and both an electronic signal and a hardline lever were pulled due to the previous machinations of Nemesis. Fire systems kicked in, sprinkler heads firing off all across the industrial park. Most emergency sprinkler systems could be activated by a signal or the old-fashioned way of tripping a switch, which immediately activated via gravity lines. While the explosions were negated because the systems were hacked, tripping a lever that had nothing to do with computer systems and oversight would most likely prove problematic. Just as Mantys discovered when the systems were triggered in the laboratory, his technicians were nearly immediately turned into sithspawn.

Across the industrial park, refineries, and the massive hangars, captured and wounded Sith troopers turned their heads upward as water came cascading downward. Fires began to be smothered at the same time as the troopers transformed from submissive prisoners of war into sithspawn. Bonds were broken, and the former prisoners attacked en masse. The industrial park became a breeding ground for monstrous forms that attacked with no hesitancy or mercy. The plans of Nemesis were never something that hinged on a single event. And while the forces arrayed against him thought they changed the rules of the game by ceasing to respond to every action, Nemesis had been playing a completely different game that held no rules.

The forward march of the Republic and Jedi forces, advancing meter by meter into the industrial park, believing they were turning the tide and claiming what was once theirs, failed to recognize Nemesis's duplicitous nature. They were not taking ground. He was giving it. And what they thought was a hard-won battle that would culminate in victory was something terrifyingly more devious. The corridors the enemy presumed to turn into killing grounds were on such a small scale that it almost made Nemesis laugh.

Using the contaminated water supply, by luring his enemy into a false sense of success which prompted their aggressive advancement, and even his orders for Sith troopers to surrender were all calculations he had made before even stepping foot on the surface of the planet. And now, they were trapped in the elaborate trap sprung all around them.

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Troigs pushed Seren against the wall, barely avoiding the spraying water as he shouted to Aiden. "Stay out of the water! Find a way out!"

Sergeant Mills, wearing one of the only full armor suits, watched as his ragtag team turned into Sithspawn and advanced on him, his back pressed firmly against the bulkheads.

The Warden glanced up and was hit in the face by water. He blinked several times, unaware the viruses had entered his system through the mucous membranes of his eyes. A second later, his jaw tore and unhinged as it closed on one of his own men's faces.

And in the secure data rooms, where sprinklers would have damaged the sensitive electronics, the armored giant merely smiled as he watched the chaos explode into existence. "It has begun."

2.22.22
2.22.21
2.22.20


Posted: Sunday 10:35 p.m. EST
Likes: Sibylla Abrantes , Revna Marr , Vivi Irius , Briana Sal-Soren , Gerwald Lechner , Seren Gwyn

The giant form turned to one of the Ronin technicians. "I want a bypass for operations given to me. Power, production lines, security ... I want it all. I want to be able to trip a hardwired alarm at an exit door, or transmit sensitive codes along the internal servers. Go as far as placing a device that can pull a lever or push a button on different systems. I want autonomy."

Posted: Friday 1:51 p.m. EST
Likes: Briana Sal-Soren , Jaun Smyth , Tobias Dib

"A pipe burst in the cytology lab!" she wheezed, clutching her chest. "Th-the technicians there…they're…they look like melted flesh a-and droid-parts fused into one!"

"The cytology lab, was it?" Mantys said. "Well, they've never been a particularly useful discipline. I suppose that it couldn't have happened to a better group."

"Oh, May-co!" he called as the Jedi grabbed his Jedi weapon. "It appears that the cytology lab on the first floor has been affected with a technovirus. Do spare me at least one, if you can."

Another message would be relayed to Senator Smyth's office, this one far less wordy than the one before:

It's not just Krytos now. We've detected technovirus nanospores and Rakghoul plague, too. A pipe burst at one of the labs, and all inside were rapidly affected.

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Objective One
Industrial Complex Refinery
Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Revna Marr

There was no hiding from it. Zaiya felt each of them die.

Each one was different. A tiny presence of light within the Force, each one bright with fear or courage or determination and then suddenly... they were simply gone.

Inky black swept through the Lovalla's spots before she could help it, sorrow bleeding through bronze compassion and flashes of violet anger over the silvering of her rosygolden skin. The edges of her bioluminescence brightened in a silvery tone with every emotion she could not hide, painting her in shifting color against the smoke.

Oh and Force, there was so-o much of it.

All that fear, pain, anger, and determination. All those lives rushing toward shelters while others ran toward the fighting. And beyond that, farther away and throughout parts of the industrial complex was something that just made ice run down her spine like shards of ice. It felt, twisted, feral, dead and just wrong -- the distant presence of the techno-beasts crawling through the Force like inky dipped decayed claws that she could not quite make sense of yet.

Everything clashed, everything hurt, and when Revna jumped right into the middle of Zaiya's soldiers and blasterfire snapped through the smoke, and despite the fact that Zaiya's hand came up instinctively to summon the swell of the Force to wrench one redirected bolt aside as she twisted away from another, bracelets chiming wildly with the movement, she couldn't save them all. Thuds fell to the ground and the ones she hadn't been able to save swept over her, and her chest rose and fell as her breathing quickened.

What is your goal here, Lightwalker? The painted veil of the crimson, black, and gold Revna in the Force asked of the Lovalla Knight. And through those iridescent opal blue eyes, Zaiya found Revena's through the burning chaos surrounding them.

"The sort of heart that hopes you will stop," Zaiya told her plainly, and while her tone was quiet, it was no less what the battlefield deserved as the mottled spots had their edges tinted in dark canary yellow, the hue slowly overtaking the sorrowful black across her spots. "The sort that would rather see you live long enough to become something more than this.... but also the sort that knows sometimes protecting someone means standing against someone else."

It was true, Zaiya did not want to kill Revna. The Lovalla did not want to kill anyone -- but that was totally different from believing she never could.

Especially when she could still feel the empty places where those soldiers had been. And so her fingers spread as the Force answered in a jingle of over a dozen bracelets. And this time, rather than throw another grenade into the soldiers Revna had deliberately surrounded herself with, Zaiya reached for them. The surviving clones were suddenly yanked backward, pulled bodily away from the Sith's blade as loose rifles, shattered equipment and debris scattered outward with them.

It was then that the ground shuddered as explosions rocked and sent people scattering. Cries of help were nearby, and deciding quickly that it was better to assist those who needed help with the soldiers, the Lovalla shouted out. "Get back, go help them!"

And then Zaiya darted the other direction straight towards Revena as she shot forward, her jewelry and bioluminescence erupting in a brilliant chorus of hues and jingles as the Lovalla launched herself through the smoke, one hand finally closing around the lightsaber at her belt.

The snap-hiss of the teal blue wash of her lightsaber joined Revna's own. But the Lovalla did not aim for Revna's throat; she went for the hand holding her saber instead -- all because Zaiya was determined to still try everything else first. Like trying to make contact with a limb or two to potentially knock it numb much like a paddlebeamer or if she got a lucky strike, knock the woman unconscious.

There were quite a few things between please stop and I have to kill you, after all, Zaiya could be very, very persistent.

"But what about yours?" the Empath asked as in closing that distance between them, she felt Revna around her, the way the Force colored her aura, her emotions, and her heart as they began the dance of the saber strikes.

"But maybe I am wondering about your heart too."

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Objective: 1
Allies: SO and their allies Tobias Dib
Enemies: THR, their allies and Aiden Porte

There was something unexpectedly final about watching Voidstar leave the ground, and Seren hated how much the sight affected her. Her amber eyes followed the familiar dark cylinder as it rose from the shattered duracrete and crossed the distance between them, drawn into the Jedi's waiting hand before being secured at his belt. She had placed it there willingly, had known perfectly well that surrender meant relinquishing her weapon, and still the sight of someone else taking possession of it left an uncomfortable hollowness behind. Voidstar had remained with her through choices she regretted and choices she would make again without hesitation, through blood and fear and loss, through everything she had become after the life she once knew had fallen apart. It was only a weapon, she reminded herself, except that the lie was too obvious to provide much comfort. Her fingers curled reflexively against her palms as though some deeply ingrained instinct expected the hilt to return to them, and Seren had to deliberately force them open again.

Troigs approached carefully through the wreckage while Seren remained where she was, her empty hands visible and her body aching with the effort of simply remaining upright. She tensed when his hand closed around her arm, the reaction immediate enough to embarrass her because she had surrendered and had no intention of resisting, yet her body did not seem particularly interested in the distinction. Being touched when she could not simply pull away awakened an old and deeply unpleasant instinct, something buried beneath years of discipline that whispered against allowing anyone to decide where she stood or where she went. The fact that Troigs deliberately avoided her wounded side helped, and she noticed the consideration even through the pain, but gratitude did not erase the vulnerability of having someone else's hand around her arm while her weapon hung from his belt.

Then he accepted her surrender and reported over the commlink that he had one prisoner in custody, and somehow those few clinical words landed harder than Seren expected. A prisoner. She swallowed as the word lodged somewhere unpleasant beneath her ribs, because there was an enormous difference between deciding she would not kill another person simply to avoid capture and hearing herself formally identified as someone who no longer possessed the freedom to decide where she went next. She had made this choice herself, and that mattered, but it did not stop something inside her from recoiling when Troigs began leading her through the wreckage. Seren went with him anyway, because she had given him her surrender and she would not cheapen that decision simply because living with its consequences proved harder than making it.

Every step reminded her exactly how badly the refinery and Aiden had battered her, and there was little dignity to be salvaged from pretending otherwise. Her shoulder pulsed with a deep, sickening ache that sharpened whenever her stride jarred it, bruises were beginning to make themselves known across her ribs and back, and blood from the cut at her temple continued to mingle with the rain and grime coating her face. She kept pace as best she could because she refused to make Troigs drag her, although once or twice the uneven ground shifted beneath her boots and forced her to tighten her jaw against the humiliating possibility of stumbling while being marched out as a captive. Beside her, the hum of his blue lightsaber was almost worse than the physical pain, familiar in a way that reached backward through years she usually preferred not to examine too closely. Once, that sound had meant she was among her own people. Now its light passed across the broken ground at her feet while a Jedi held her arm and escorted her toward a prison transport.

She did not look back for Aiden, although resisting the impulse required more effort than she wanted to admit. Whatever remained between them would have to survive unanswered, assuming either of them ever found reason to cross paths again, and beneath the bitterness of everything that had happened Seren was relieved their confrontation had ended without one of them dying. Perhaps that should not have mattered after they had spent so long trying to hurt one another, but it did, and the realization left its own ache behind. She had spent years convincing herself that leaving the Jedi meant accepting the distance between what she had been and what she had become, only to discover that walking unarmed beside one of them could still make some buried part of her remember what belonging had once felt like. There was a cruelty in that familiarity now, in remembering safety while being escorted into captivity, and Seren found herself wondering whether the Jedi beside her had any idea how much harder his simple decency made it to hate what was happening.

They had not made it far before the hiss of the emergency systems began overhead, almost lost beneath distant fighting and the tortured groan of damaged machinery. Seren's attention shifted upward as water suddenly started striking metal and shattered duracrete throughout the industrial park, and for the smallest fraction of a second it seemed absurdly ordinary, the automatic response of a battered facility attempting to extinguish the fires consuming it. Something about it still felt wrong, enough that a warning crawled through her before she could put reason behind it, but Troigs understood the danger first.

His hand was already around her arm when he abruptly pushed her toward the wall, and Seren had neither the leverage nor the warning necessary to do anything except go where he directed her. Instinct screamed at her to twist away when she realized which side of her body was about to take the impact, but she stopped herself almost as quickly. She had surrendered. A sudden wrench against his hold could look like resistance, an attempt to escape, perhaps even the beginning of an attack, and that single heartbeat of hesitation removed whatever chance she might have had to protect herself.

Her wounded shoulder struck the wall hard.

The pain was so immediate and overwhelming that Seren's vision went black. There was no refinery for several terrible heartbeats, no Jedi holding her, no contaminated water beginning to fall around them, only a white-hot explosion of agony tearing through the already damaged joint and racing through her chest and down her arm until she could no longer tell where the injury ended. Brilliant points of light burst through the darkness behind her eyes as her knees threatened to fold beneath her, and a broken cry escaped before she could swallow it. Nausea surged hard enough that she tasted bile, while every attempt to breathe seemed to catch somewhere in her lungs and return as another vicious pulse through her shoulder.

She might have gone down if not for the wall at her back and Troigs's hand still holding her, and there was something bitterly humiliating about needing either. Seren had surrendered to him, allowed him to take Voidstar and accepted being led away as his prisoner, and now she was half-blind with pain while the grip of the man holding her captive was one of the few things keeping the world oriented beneath her. Every instinct demanded space, demanded that she tear her arm away and regain some small measure of control over her own body, but she clenched her teeth and endured it instead. Whatever else happened, she would not turn an involuntary reaction to pain into something that could be mistaken for breaking her surrender.

Sound returned before her vision did, and Seren squeezed her eyes shut against the stars still bursting behind them as a ragged breath finally made it into her lungs. "Ah...fuck." The words were barely more than a strained whisper, stripped of any dignity she might otherwise have tried to preserve, and when she cautiously opened her eyes again the refinery returned in blurred fragments. Her shoulder felt as though something had been driven straight through it, the deep ache from before transformed into a vicious throbbing that made the weight of her own arm nearly unbearable.

Then Troigs shouted toward Aiden to stay out of the water, and Seren understood.

Whatever anger might otherwise have followed the pain never had the opportunity to properly form. She remained against the wall because she was not entirely certain her legs would support her yet, breathing shallowly while her vision cleared enough for her amber eyes to follow the streams pouring from the sprinkler heads and spreading rapidly across the broken floor. She had seen enough of what the infection on Thyferra did to living bodies that the memory turned her stomach, but worse was what she had felt through the Force, those tortured remnants of life twisted into something that should never have existed. Flesh and machinery had ceased to have meaningful boundaries, people had become monsters while still carrying enough life within them to scream, and now that same corruption was cascading from overhead with all the harmless familiarity of rain.

The first cries farther down the passage made Seren's stomach clench, but it was the way they changed that truly frightened her. Human pain fractured into wet, malformed sounds that no throat should have produced, while movement erupted among people who had only moments before been wounded prisoners and exhausted soldiers. The Force turned foul around them, crowded suddenly with agony and violent transformation, and Seren felt bile rise into the back of her throat for an entirely different reason as the terrible implication became certainty. Those soldiers had surrendered. They had put down their weapons because someone had decided their lives were worth more than a pointless death, only for whatever had contaminated Thyferra to reach them anyway.

Seren stayed where Troigs had put her, no longer caring that being pressed against the wall made her feel trapped or that the Jedi's grip around her arm reminded her with every passing second that she was his prisoner. The distinction between prisoner and captor suddenly seemed grotesquely insignificant when either of them could become one of those things merely by allowing the wrong droplets to touch exposed skin, and whatever wounded pride she had carried at being escorted away disappeared beneath a far more primitive terror. She had already surrendered control over where she would be taken and what would happen to her afterward. She was not prepared to surrender control of her own flesh as well.

"I'm not going anywhere near that water." Her voice came rough and uneven through clenched teeth while she held her injured arm as still as possible, bright flecks occasionally crossing her vision whenever the pain surged particularly hard. There was none of the dry humor Seren might ordinarily have used to disguise how frightened she was, because she simply did not have enough left in her to manufacture it. She hurt, she was unarmed, she was a prisoner, and somewhere nearby people were becoming monsters because water had touched them.

Her gaze moved toward Voidstar hanging from Troigs's belt, and for the briefest moment the sight awakened the instinct to call it back into her hand. It would have been so easy to tell herself that circumstances had changed, that surrender no longer mattered because survival did, but the thought died almost as quickly as it came. Troigs had accepted her surrender, had deliberately taken her uninjured arm when he placed her in custody, and even the brutal collision with the wall had come because he was trying to keep the contaminated water from reaching her. Seren could hate the helplessness of her position without pretending the man holding her had become her enemy again simply because everything around them had gone horribly wrong.

She forced herself to remain still beneath what shelter the damaged structure provided, waiting for the darkness at the edges of her vision to recede completely before trusting her legs again. If Troigs found a safe route through the facility, she would go with him. If one of the transformed creatures reached them, she would do whatever she could to survive without pretending that defending herself somehow revoked the choice she had already made. She had surrendered because she was finished spilling blood for a battle that had consumed too much already, and she refused to let fear make that decision meaningless now.

Only minutes earlier, the prospect of reaching the prison transport had frightened her more than she cared to admit. Captivity meant relinquishing control, submitting to searches and restraints, answering questions she might not want to answer, and trusting people who had every reason to regard her as an enemy with whatever happened afterward. Those fears had not disappeared, and Seren suspected they would return with considerably greater force once she was somewhere quiet enough to think about them, but with screams echoing through the refinery and corrupted water creeping across the floor, imprisonment had abruptly become the safer future.

For the moment, Seren wanted only to live long enough to reach it.

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Friends: Acier Moonbound | Judah Lesan
Foes: Srina Talon | Mercy​

Pain flared. The violet lightning had left his armor charred and his robes smoking, scorching bits of his skin beneath, but the physical agony suddenly took a backseat. Through the haze, he heard Acier's voice ring out across the ruined refinery entrance:

"I'm a fucking Jedi."

Those four words hit Lorn harder than any strike from Mercy. For months he had watched the kid wrestle with his past, stumbling through the ash of who he used to be and dodging the heavy weight of a possible title. Now, seeing him stand tall, Acier had finally recognized the truth Lorn had seen in him all along. It did not matter how crooked the road had been. Trial, error, and immense tragedy had forged the young man, much like it had Lorn. Warmth spread through the Jedi's chest, kindling a deep spark of pride. Acier inspired him. Day after day, watching the kid push forward was what forced Lorn to drag his battered body off the cold floor. The older man was supposed to be the mentor, yet he learned just as much from the kid's unbreakable spirit. Standing amidst the wreck, Lorn felt a sudden surge of pure determination. He was going to survive this fight, push past the shattered ribs, and make sure he got out of this refinery just to tell Acier how damn proud he was of him.

Then the energy in the room took a bizarre left turn.

An ideological debate suddenly broke out amidst the clash. Lorn slowly straightened his spine, ignoring the stabbing pain in his side, though his brow furrowed in utter confusion. His golden lightsaber hummed steadily in his grip, ready for violence, but the battlefield had devolved into a lecture hall.

Static chirped softly in his ear. The comm-link quieted the spatial chaos as tactical updates began trickling through Vanguard channels. Republic forces were executing a violent counter-offensive planet wide. Audio logs crackled with the heavy thump of mass-driver cannons and the rhythmic, unified advance of clone troopers. Down on the surface levels, infantry squads were systematically pushing the Sith front lines backward, locking down the perimeter and reclaiming the bio-refineries little by little. Ground commanders were reporting heavy enemy casualties as the anvil of Republic armor finally slammed down.

Lorn kept one eye on the tactical display scrolling across his wrist display, absorbing the incoming data while keeping the other eye on the absurd theater unfolding in front of him. Had he harbored a single doubt that two people were Sith, all he had to do was stay for the monologue mid-fight. It was always guaranteed.

In truth, he should have been thankful for the unexpected moment of reprieve. His ribs were likely fractured and his body was running on pure fumes. But the massive spike of adrenaline coursing through his veins was a ticking clock. If he didn't use this energy right now, it was going to dump, leaving him completely crashed and vulnerable on the floor.

The actual content of the argument was baffling beyond measure. The mysterious stranger with the crimson blade was standing there equating Lorn's actions with an invading Sith army. Lorn had made a terrible, soul-crushing call on Ghorman, executing an informant about to be dragged into a Sith dungeon for agonizing torture and eventual execution, all to protect an entire resistance network. Somehow, that was being weighed on the same moral scale as an invading Sith force slaughtering civilians and burning a planet for personal gain.

When the stranger turned his gaze toward him, followed closely by the cold eyes of the dark side users, Lorn's eyebrows scrunched together in genuine disbelief. He shifted his weight, adjusted his grip on the golden hilt, and stared back at the room.

Are we doing this, or what?

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Zaltin Corporation's Production Facility
Interacting with: Quinn Varanin
Items: x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x

This is the power of the Dark Side.

Sibylla did not have time to decide which terrified her more as she saw it all unfold, her heartshape face blanching of all color. Between the way those that had once been living, breathing people were dragging their broken, bleeding selves from the wreckage or that Quinn spoke of them with the terrible familiarity of someone who had seen such horrors before.

The dead. They are not themselves anymore.

And as another body lurched upright, Sibylla felt her stomach turn again. There had always been stories about what existed beyond the Blackwall. Horrors whispered about by refugees. Worlds swallowed beneath the advance of the Sith. The sort of things most were easy enough to reduce to reports and intelligence briefings when one was sitting safely within the halls of Theed.

But this was different. Oh so very different. It was very, very real, as if the horrors of a nightmare had plucked and dragged themselves into the light, and there was no denying their presence. If this was the power the Sith brought with them from beyond that darkness, then what in the stars had been waiting behind it?

But there was little time to dwell on it as blasterfire erupted around them; Sibylla found herself dragged away as Quinn's guards, Sibylla's escort, and the facility's own security opened fire as the creatures surged toward the shattered viewport. And when lightning exploded from Quinn's hand to rip through the advancing dead, for once she absolutely had no argument as Quinn yelled they needed to run.

So she ran. The sound of her boots struck hard against the floor as they fled through the facility, alarms shrieking overhead while emergency bulkheads slammed shut behind evacuating personnel as another explosion rang in the complex.

And before she could catch her breath, Quinn suddenly rounded on her, and Sibylla barely had time to react before an armored hand shoved her against the wall, almost winding her as she was pinned there.

"What is out there, Sibylla? Do not lie to me!" The blonde seemed to scream out, and hazel orbs snapped up into green and finally, between fight or flight, Sibylla had enough.

"What?!" She hissed out, adrenaline shattering whatever remained of Sibylla's composure. "Why are you asking me what is out there?! Did you not see what those creatures are doing?!" Her voice rose incredulously. "I should be asking you just what are those! What happened to them?!!"

Quinn had been demanding answers about Outbound Flight, about something they had supposedly found, and now what was out there? What in the blazes did Quinn expect her to say? Through it all, Sibylla had not even registered what else the blonde had cried out in her panic -- I do not feel them anymore.

"What do you even mean by -- " Sibylla began, but a guttural shriek sounded from their left, and with a snap of her head towards it, Sibylla caught sight of what was coming at them, and in the next instant, she shoved the Echani sideways, her hand snapping down as her blaster cleared its holster almost on instinct. In the next second, her arm snapped up and she sent a volley of vibrant green blaster bolts down the adjoining corridor.

The first bolt struck a techno-beast zombie that had at one time been a pilot, the twisted, corrupted body jerking backward. The second made another thud hit the floor. But even then, more were coming behind them, the rate of infection spreading was too fast and impossible to even believe it if one hadn't seen it happen with their own eyes.

"Shiraya's sake!" Sibylla cursed as her hand flew to her ear. With a jerk she tore one of the black-and-white pearl earrings free, barely registering the sharp sting as the clasp ripped loose. Her thumb activated the concealed EMP and stun charges before she hurled it into the advancing mass. She wasn't even sure if either one would work, but they needed some breathing room from whatever in Shiraya's sake this Sith madness was.

"GO!" She shrieked at Quinn, grabbing her hand to drag her away as the first pearl detonated, sending a violent pulse ripping through the corridor, techno-beasts convulsing as machinery shorted and bodies crashed into one another.

"Run!" Sibylla yelled. But they were barely several strides ahead when Quinn caught her arm again, fingers biting hard enough that Sibylla knew there would be a mottled ruin of violet bruises there tomorrow -- well, assuming there was a tomorrow.

"I cannot feel them, Sibylla. I cannot FEEL them!"

Sibylla simply stared at Quinn... and then finally saw it. It wasn't anger that etched her face. No, it was the desperate, frantic panic that had made her already porcelain skin almost transparent in shock. Something that shook her to the depths that even whatever was now chasing them.

Feel them.

And with that, Sibylla's breath hitched amid her ragged breathing, hitting her even as her heart thundered in her ears. Quinn didn't mean she couldn't feel the creatures. She meant the Force.

And suddenly it clicked into place.

There was something Sibylla knew of capable of doing that. Of cutting someone's senses in the Force. A way to cause a void in the Force for those who could touch it. The artifact found in Naboo. The one Aurelian had claimed from the Jedi when it had been found as being under his purview. The item that had been deemed a matter of interest, especially in the wake of the increasing attacks and threats from not just the Black Sun, but the Sith Covenant in their race for the Core and then the Sith Empire when they had attacked at Moorja then New Cov.

Aurelian himself had overseen continued testing of its potential as a defensive measure capable of denying hostile Force users their greatest advantage if Naboo or the Republic ever faced circumstances dire enough to warrant its activation -- circumstances, Sibylla realized as another explosion rocked the facility, rather like this.

"Move!" She caught Quinn and forced her onward, and finally Sibylla brought some clarity. "The attack would have triggered Republic defensive contingencies!"

There was no sense hiding it now. And as they ran, Sibylla continued to fire blindly behind them, another pair of green bolts disappearing down the corridor as sweat mingled with the blood at her temple. Another turn, out of breath, a brief realization that one of the grenade types must have helped because a series of twisted, mangled limbs and torsos lay still, allowing them to draw more distance from the danger.

"An attack of this magnitude by the Sith would have activated defenses to try and counter the offensive -- one that could create an area that could null and dampen the effects of the Force and anyone's connection within it....Sith, Jedi, anyone who can use the Force." And if anything was to suggest, this was it.

But it was an item that meant the situation would have to be dire enough to warrant even the Jedi and those with the Force on the High Republic's side facing the repercussions for using it. The risks and unknowns. A situation that would warrant that the greater good needed to be considered over the needs of the few or the one.

I need Aurelian. Sibylla's mind raced with the thought, the woman casting her eyes up to the sky. Through another viewport, Sibylla could see that Thyferra's sky had become a battlefield. Starfighters streaked between rising transports and beyond them loomed the unmistakable silhouettes of Sith vessels, while other ships tore into the system to meet them. Republic reinforcements, perhaps the Rapid Deployment Fleet responding exactly as contingency plans intended.

Feth take it.

With a curse, Sibylla ripped the communicator from her belt with her bloody free hand, bringing it up to activate it. She and Aurelian had promised one another they would always know where the other was, even including trackers as a safety net in the wake of what occurred on Corellia. Granted, neither had imagined bacta contract negotiations ending with orbital bombardment, Sith abominations, and Sibylla sprinting through a wing of a nearly collapsing corporate complex with the future Empress of the Sith.

Without further ado, Sibylla's thumb found a familiar priority code. Only one person Sibylla knew could tell her whether the artifact had been activated. In the next second, the signal went out directly to Aurelian Veruna .

And somewhere amid the chaos consuming Thyferra, the King of Naboo, presently in the throes of the power the Void Artifact was making him feel, would receive a priority ping from perhaps the one person in the galaxy he would never ignore... except this time, it was not coming from Theed or a secure Republic vessel.

Instead, Sibylla's location marker flashed groundside on Thyferra, deep within the burning landscape where the Sith war machine was colliding with Republic clone forces amidst the explosions, fleeing bacta shuttles, and infected techno-beast blights and nanospores now spreading among the dead and alive. There, directly in the middle of it all, was one small beacon identifying Sibylla's location as she tried to connect, her call continued to pulse.

Alive for now, but dangerously close to becoming one of the infected herself.

 

[Pillar of Faith]

ARTIFACT ACTIVATED

The Void artifact is fully activated. Objective 1 & 2 is the area of effect.

See Mandate: Here​

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Zaltin Corporation's Production Facility //:
//: Sibylla Abrantes //:

They continued to run, but so did the shambling bodies that seemingly felt endless. The sea of the dead crawled through crevices and cracks in the wall to reach for the two women. Quinn's heart raced; her mind kept searching for those she cared for. All of them came to a blank, an empty void that she feared more than anything.

That empty void meant death. That empty void was the unknown.

Quinn dragged Sibylla along; she valued the woman's attempts at stalling the dead, but with each attempt, only more sprang up. She did something stupid; her eyes looked over her shoulder only to see that those she had brought with her were now among the dead and dying. She cursed under her breath, trying to remember the way around the complex. They had known this would probably come to an attack, so Quinn was given escape routes.

As if she were some simple delegate.

Sibylla forced her forward, and Quinn stumbled slightly as her mind was caught by the words that the woman decided to express. There was something out there, something that was going to destroy everything.

Contingency plans. So the Republic wasn't as naive as they all had thought. She told them; she had told all of them before the attack that there was something here — while she was wrong… she was still right. A part of Quinn hated it; whatever her master had found, it was troublesome, but at least it was contained in space…

At least Quinn was safe.

She remembered that feeling: the sick, twisted void that had engulfed her. Her mind was silent, empty, as she felt as if her body was tearing apart. The Force held her together, bound her to this life, and without it, what was left for her? What kept her bound to reality if there was no Force to keep her cells stitched together? They were questions she didn't want to ask, nor did she want the answer to. Dying was an experience she never wanted to feel again… but why?

Shaking her head, she looked toward the woman as they entered a room that seemed untouched. The urge to rip her head from her neck grew as panic and anger fueled her. The more Sibylla spoke, the more she realized she had potentially walked into her own death trap.

Was this the plan?

How did they know?

"The Force, it cuts it off?" she reiterated, wanting to know if what she heard was correct. The High Republic was willing to cut the Force, believing it was enough to stop the Sith. While Quinn could understand, she really didn't.

"The Jedi? What about the Jedi?" Shaking her head, from her understanding, they were valued in the Republic.

"Do they know? Are they aware you're going to strip them of their strength? Is that worth it? Or do you have so little faith in a group that is sworn to protect that you're willing to sacrifice them?"

Silence.

"Did you even give them a choice?"

A new, sudden hate bloomed in the Echani's chest. She had heard of non-force users hating those that could. Either born from jealousy or something else. Was this that? Things seemed so separate, something that she had been reassured of while on Naboo. Shaking her head, she wanted to laugh, maybe cry at her inevitable destruction.

"You're all so pathetic; you believe you're better than the Sith yet…" Quinn stepped back, looking at Sibylla under a new light, a new realization.

"You're just like them, willing to sacrifice whoever you can to get what you want. The Republic is a lie, Democracy is a lie…"

Quinn huffed, an exasperated expression of final understanding.

"Peace is a lie."

She paused, remembering the echoes of art of the small she had sensed from the Mandalorian Ambassador. Quinn could glean enough from their interaction that they were potentially friends. Quinn's expressions softened as she looked at the naive noble, clutching a gun she believed would protect her.

"Sibylla," she started.

"If Adelle Bastiel was out there, swarmed by the dead, fighting for her life to protect you… to let you escape because it's obvious you're no soldier…" Quinn motioned to the gun. The girl could shoot, but for how long?

"Would you still feel okay? Still feel it's right? That the Republic uses this device to fend off the Sith? Knowing that Adelle would lose the Force as well? What about others that you know are Jedi? Are you okay sacrificing them so you could survive?"

Quinn stopped. This wasn't fair; she knew it. She could see the fear etched on the woman's face. But she did wonder if she understood the consequences of something like this. The Republic would not escape unscathed. Sibylla wouldn't leave this as the same person she arrived. A hand pressed against Quinn's face as she wiped away a tear, one that she didn't realize she had shed.

Still, the hate churned in her core.

"As much as I want to hate you. As much as I want to throw you to the beasts and see if you could fend them off with your stupid little gun… I'm not going to..." Quinn shook her head, the spear suddenly elongating as she drew the pin from her chest.

"I will go out, fend off this horde so you can remain here, pray to your useless god... and please, try not to throw up." Her voice was suddenly calm as she heard the chatter over the intercom in her ear. Everyone warned about what they were feeling, what they were seeing in the sky.

"You'll return to your warm bed on Naboo, and Thyferra's horrors will be but a distant nightmare."

Quinn slipped through the door, closed it, and shoved a table against it. Sibylla would remain as safe as she could as Quinn dealt with the mess her own kind had wrought on the planet. She turned the corner where they had run from, the spear still humming with the force acting as a focus for the Echani. In her hand another storm of lightning coiled. Remembering the EMP, and knowing what these beasts were, Quinn knew the Kinetite was her best weapon. She waited, the horde now moving as they could; hot viscous drool dripped from their gaping mouths.

She didn't cower in fear; she didn't run; she didn't pray to a god that would never answer.

No, she waited until the right moment; until the horde had nearly swallowed her whole.

The kinetite slammed into the first horror's chest with enough force to cave it inward, then tore through the thing entirely. It became a chain reaction, the gathered energy bolting through one fiend and into the next, ripping through several bodies before finally dissipating. In the same motion, her spear twisted in her grip. The silver point plunged into a throat, punched through flesh, and turned sharply. Quinn wrenched it sideways, tearing through bone before the creature's head rolled free.

Then another.

And another.

She moved through them, every turn of her body answered by pain. Her wounds pulled beneath ruined flesh, muscles screaming each time she drove the spear forward or forced herself into another sweeping strike.

Still, she moved.

Even as she swung and struck, nothing seemed to slow them down.

They kept coming.

Then she knew what she needed to do.

Exhaling slowly, Quinn stepped back, putting the smallest amount of distance between herself and the pressing horde. Her eyes flickered toward the door she had blocked with a broken table and whatever rubble she could manage.

Sibylla could escape if she needed to. Quinn hoped the woman was smarter than that.

Another strike.

Another twist of the spear.

Then gold began to bleed into the air.

Thin tendrils spilled from Quinn like veins pulled free from beneath her skin. They slithered through the horde, winding around limbs and throats before burrowing into rotting flesh. Some slipped through open mouths. Others punched into ruined chests and curled around whatever spark still animated the corpses.

The horrors seized.

For the first time, they stopped advancing.

Bodies locked rigid as their remaining life was hooked and dragged toward her.

Quinn inhaled.

And they screamed.

Not with lungs.

Something deeper.

Whatever fragments of consciousness remained inside those ruined bodies suddenly understood what was happening. Their spirits thrashed against the pull, malformed silhouettes briefly tearing free from flesh before the golden tendrils wrapped tighter around them.

There would be no escape.

Quinn consumed them.

Their life force ripped free in violent streams, flooding into her faster than the dead could collapse. It crawled beneath her skin like fire, filling torn muscle and exhausted limbs while the hunger buried inside her opened wider.

More.

The thought was hardly even hers. The Force answered anyway.

The tendrils tightened.

Bodies withered in seconds. Flesh blackened and split across bone. Eyes sank into hollow sockets. Some of the creatures collapsed inward as if centuries of decay had found them all at once, while others remained standing long enough for Quinn to tear the last remnants of their souls free.

Those were the worst.

Pale shapes clawed desperately at the air between them, stretched impossibly thin as Quinn dragged them closer.

Then they disappeared into her. Whatever they had been was gone. Nothing left to return to.

Only Quinn.

The last creature dropped at her feet and broke apart against the ground, its body little more than dried flesh and brittle bone.

Golden light still crawled between Quinn's fingers.

For a moment, she simply stood among them, breathing slowly as stolen life settled into her veins.

The hunger quieted.

Never satisfied.

The chase broke, and Quinn sighed in relief for a moment. Turning, she flicked her wrist and pushed aside the rubble that blocked Sibylla's door. It was safe for the moment, and while their talk was tense, they were each other's way of survival. Another Moorja. Quinn planned to escort her toward the shuttles, once again paint it with Sith codes, and let the woman escape.

Everything was planned. She reached the door to Sibylla; ichor dripped against her armor, and her once pristine white hair now matted against her face.

"I'm sorry," Quinn said, breathless. "I just—"

Her face paused, contorting into a pain that felt as if she was dying. A hand braced the frame of the door. And her lips parted, moving, but no sound escaped.

Through her stomach a blade. One had escaped, a Jedi or mercenary now an undead shambling. It somehow managed to strike the Echani, sneaking up on her… her senses suddenly had dulled.

Quinn knew what happened. She felt it the moment the blade was drawn.

The Force was gone.

Every ounce of pain surged through her body; instinctively, she searched to quell it, to quiet the pain with the Force. But nothing came, nothing answered her agony. There was enough anger within her to keep herself together long enough to reach back and break the weak arm of the undead. Turning, once more, the spear- now nothing more than a simple blade- decapitated the creature, and the creature fell, taking its sword with it.

Quinn gasped as she felt the sudden absence of the weapon, and pain she had never felt before surged through her.

"It's gone…"

A part of her was in disbelief that, with everything that she had just said, the contingency plan would still happen. Didn't the Republic value their citizens even if they were Jedi?

That disbelief faded into a different kind of calm. Quinn was settling with the fact that she was going to die. There was no other way of seeing it. She had been cut from the Force, impaled and left with a woman with a blaster.

Oh, she was going to die.

"We have to go… but as much as I want to hate you right now…"

Quinn shook her head.

"I can't, not now. I won't let you die; no one deserves to die like this."

Her open hand extended, shaking as her body began to reject everything, screaming to be released.

"Sib, we have to go, now."

 

[Revna Marr]

Wearing:
Ring || Lightsaber || Necklace || Armor​

Revna watched her Jedi foe carefully through her visor - and she didn’t miss the way colors shifted across the other woman’s face. There was a sharp spike in emotions that spilled from the Lightwalker, surrounding her in an aura that only another Force user could sense or see. Sorrow seeping through after witnessing and likely feeling each death around her - then a flicker of anger. Other emotions collided and spilled free - a feast for a Dark Sider such as Revna.

The Lightwalker heard Revna’s words over the din of combat, and her opal hued eyes found the red slits of Revna’s visor. She responded, saying how she had the sort of heart that just wanted Revna to stop.

"The sort that would rather see you live long enough to become something more than this.... but also the sort that knows sometimes protecting someone means standing against someone else."

While she was speaking, one of the Republic soldiers tried to rush Revna to tackle her as her back had been turned to him, but the Sith woman sensed the movement and in one fluid motion, turned and stepped back, letting the crimson blade arc as the armored soldier stumbled past her. Her blade caught the top of his shoulder and slipped half way down his body before he collapsed to the ground, silent and still.

Brave, foolish warrior… Revna thought grimly to herself as she returned her focus to the greatest threat - the Jedi. She felt the Force shift and dance around her, before her foe seemed to reach out and grab the soldiers around Revna and yank them away from her before she could kill anymore of them. Around that same time came great explosions that rattled the ground, causing Revna to even duck a bit and glance around herself to take better stock of her surroundings. The battle was truly evolving around them, both Sith and Republic forces digging in and trying to outmaneuver the other for control over various sectors.

Beyond her, Revna heard the Jedi tell her remaining soldiers to go and help the wounded, likely getting them away from the Sith so she wouldn’t kill anymore of them. She had no interest in doing so, however; they had served their purpose and she ignored their existence in favor of the Lightwalker’s instead.

The colorful, almost bioluminescent young woman then charged Revna, her various jewelry and adornments flashing and jingling with the movements. The Sith Knight took her position and held her ground, watching the Jedi’s movements and body language closely to ascertain what she was going to do next.

Just before the Jedi’s hand reached for her saber, Revna noticed the opal hued eyes flicker from her face to her saber hand, and it was all the information she needed to prepare for her defense. She angled her blade just as the teal colored blade in the Jedi’s hand descended, blocking then deflecting it.

"But what about yours?" the Lightwalker inquired of Revna once she had closed the distance between them. They exchanged blows - blocks and parries, stabs and slashes - a dance of red and blue blades that cast colors and shadows over the charred ground. "But maybe I am wondering about your heart too."

Revna parried another attack and followed up with a Force push to put space between her and the Jedi; she backed away a few steps, her blade never leaving its guard position, as she reached up with her free hand to the clasps on her helm and unsealed it from the rest of her armor. She then pulled the helm off completely and tossed it to the side, allowing her foe to see her face for the first time.

Ember eyes, the color of a hot coal, locked with the Jedi’s opal gaze. The Lightwalker would not see a Sith whose features were contorted with hatred or anger. In fact, Revna’s face was almost devoid of emotion, but her eyes were bright with grim focus and something…else. Was it…curiosity? Hunger?

“My goals? Does someone like you even really care about my goals?” Revna said, waiting for the Lightwalker to close the distance once more - which she did, though the Sith noticed that none of the Jedi’s attacks were aimed to be fatal. In fact, it was something she had picked up about the Jedi in general - she was doing everything in her power to not kill her, or anyone on the Sith side, for that matter. That realization brought the Sith Knight a sort of emotion or feeling for the Jedi she wasn’t expecting: sadness.

She met the woman with another impact of her blade against the blue, noticing something else strange, though this time it was the weapon the Jedi held. It did not radiate with heat, but a sort of coldness that Revna almost found…familiar. Every time the blade came close to her, she felt something pull on her. Take something from her - like an energy leech.

Though Revna was beginning to feel the faint edge of weariness creeping into her muscles - a sort of tiredness that was coming upon her way too quickly to be natural - she still pressed the Jedi, shifting from defensive to the aggressive Djem-So form, her strikes coming fast and hard. She continued this for a few longer moments, before responding to the rest of what the Jedi had said.

“As for my heart…” Revna allowed her foe to come in a little closer, seeming to almost yield ground to the other woman, before she caught the teal blade then kicked out with a black boot against the Lightwalker’s stomach. “Yes I have the heart to kill.”

Darth X’aviera backed away a pace or two, giving ground and space to the Lightsider. “My heart is also equally capable of feeling love and joy and happiness.” she said, her voice reaching across to her beautiful foe with soft, almost sad notes. Her head then tilted to one side as her burning eyes narrowed slightly. Even as the battle raged all around them, she felt as if she was existing within her own little bubble with this Lightwalker. She began to approach the Jedi, her steps unhurried, though her blade still hummed ominously between them - ever ready to react to anything the Jedi might do.

“You…on the other hand…your heart does not belong on the field of battle. You bleed emotion-” Suddenly, Revna stopped talking, and all but froze in place as something strange pressed against the edges of her awareness. Something that made her uneasy, made a chill prickle along her skin. Warily, she pulled her eyes from the Jedi before her, and up to the smoke and ash choked skies above their head.

Something out there wasn’t right. Something had blinked into existence…and it wasn’t good, whatever it was.

She noticed movement from the corner of her eye, and though she reacted - it wasn’t quick enough. A grimace flashed over her pale face as the teal colored blade connected with her saber arm - but instead of cutting straight through the appendage as she expected it to, something else happened instead. She lost complete feeling in that arm and hand, and she felt as if some of her energy was ripped away from her, pushing her closer to exhaustion. Her lightsaber fell from her grip, its crimson blade vanishing the moment it left her hand. The Force erupted from Darth X’aviera, more an act of self-preservation than anything, a Force push that crashed against her Jedi foe to fling her away to give Revna time to adjust and process what had happened.

She was about to recall the saber to her other, still useful hand, when that uneasy feeling bloomed through her again - this time stronger and more potent. Revna didn’t have time to contemplate it, before she felt everything fall silent. Darth X’aviera gasped, her hand rising up to her chest, feeling as if her entire soul had just…vanished into the void.

She tried to reach for the Force…and felt her blood run cold when it didn’t respond. Why couldn’t she access the Force? Did…did her god suddenly abandon her? Had she displeased Bogan and lost favor with Him? Genuine fear and alarm spiked through her as her heart began to race away in her chest, her breath coming faster and more shallow. She tried to move forward, but her body simply wouldn’t respond and she collapsed to her hands and knees on the blood soaked, ashen ground.

What the feth just happened?! Screamed the thought through Revna’s mind, the only thing that echoed. She tried to reach across the telepathic threads to those she could communicate to - Srina Talon, A’Mia, her lover Caedes, even her Father - but there was nothing there. Just…emptiness and silence. Everything had just gone wrong in the worst way possible.

Quite suddenly and rather jarringly, she remembered that she still had enemies around and now she was completely vulnerable and open to attack. Any moment now, she expected to feel pain, to feel death as she envisioned a blue saber piercing through her body, or perhaps a dozen plasma bolts slamming into her as the Republic soldiers seized the chance to kill a Sith. Revna lifted her eyes and scanned her immediate surroundings, looking for troopers who might be running up on her, but most importantly, Revna was looking for the Jedi she’d been fighting.

She wanted to know if this was impacting her too…or if it was just a cheap trick being used by the Republic to weaken their Sith foes and make them easier to kill en masse.

​

Allies: The Sith Order
Enemies: The High Republic
Direct Tag: Zaiya Ceti ​

 

[Darth Prazutis]

For the first time since Allyson Locke had confronted Him, Darth Prazutis said nothing as she vanished. One moment she had stood before Him, bow in hand and fury spilling from every word. The next there was nothing. The Shadow Hand didn't pretend otherwise. That was what made Allyson Locke dangerous. His helm moved slowly across the ruined battlefield, but there was nothing for Xûl-Karzaan to find. Its sight could pierce the veil of cloaking. But her presence was buried beyond that within the force itself. Only burning wreckage, shattered fortifications, advancing Blackblade Guardsmen farther afield, and the distant concussion of the Kainate continuing its assault upon Thyferra. Then His gaze dropped. An arrow. Not aimed at Him. Near Him. The Dark Lord understood an instant before it detonated.

Fire swallowed Him. The explosion erupted beneath His feet with enough force to tear apart the earth and hurl burning debris through the surrounding haze. Qâzjiin'vraal disappeared inside the blast. The tremendous figure of the Mortarch became little more than a black shape inside an expanding sphere of smoke and fragmentation, His cloak snapping violently behind Him as the detonation hammered across His armor. Something shifted inside the fire. Prazutis stepped through it. His plate smoldered. Living sinew twitched beneath sections blackened by the blast. Xûl Qarnak came upward through the smoke, blackened bloodfire carving a burning line through the obscurity around Him. Then another arrow landed nearby. Prazutis saw it. Too late. Space folded. Allyson was suddenly there. Close. Far too close for an archer who did not know exactly what she was doing. The Ghost appeared with her weapon already drawn, the armor-piercing arrow aligned with the center of His chest before the Dark Lord could fully bring Xûl Qarnak between them. The string released. Prazutis twisted. The arrow struck. Qâzjiin'vraal hardened violently around the impact, living metal and sorcerous sinew contracting like the flesh of some enormous predator. It was not enough. At that range, reinforced by Allyson's strength and the Force behind it, the projectile punched through the black plate covering His torso and buried itself deep within Him. The Shadow Hand staggered backward a full step, His heel slamming down hard enough to fracture the earth beneath it. Black-red blood erupted around the shaft and poured down the front of His armor. His left hand came around like the closing talon of some immense beast.

Nothing.

Allyson had already vanished.

The Ghost returned through the same impossible doorway through which she had appeared, leaving the Reaper grasping at empty air. Silence held Him for several seconds. Blood ran from His chest. Xûl Qarnak growled in His hand. Then Darth Prazutis looked down at the arrow lodged inside Him, and a sound came through Xûl-Karzaan. Laughter.

Low. Deep. Genuine.

"There you are." One immense gauntlet closed around the shaft. He didn't rip the entire projectile free. Instead His fingers tightened until the exposed portion snapped away, leaving the arrowhead buried within His flesh while Qâzjiin'vraal slowly contracted over the opening. Prazutis looked toward the second arrow she had planted. The anchor. His hand extended. The projectile tore itself free from the ground and flew across the distance into His palm. For several moments He studied it, piecing together what she had done. She had not merely teleported unpredictably. She was creating points across the battlefield, constructing a web of positions that allowed her to move through the engagement faster than conventional pursuit could answer.

Clever. His fingers closed and the arrow collapsed into twisted metal, slamming shut one door of opportunity. Where the others waited he wasn't certain. "You put her in danger." Prazutis repeated her accusation, His voice rolling through the burning haze. "You forced her into this disgusting world of ours." He began walking without a clear direction. He simply moved, forcing her to continuously reconsider distance, angle, and approach. Xûl Qarnak remained low beside Him. "No. You carried this world home with you. Every secret. Every corpse. Every betrayal. You carried them across her threshold and convinced yourself that because she could not see the blood, your hands were clean." The broken remains of her anchor fell from His fist.

"She was never supposed to know what you really are." His voice softened. "Why? Because you thought she loved someone better? Someone cleaner? Or because you were afraid that if she truly saw Allyson Locke, she might decide the monster wasn't worth loving?" There was no immediate attack. That would have been easier. Prazutis let the question find her wherever she hid. Then His attention shifted upward. Two vessels were climbing through Thyferra's ruined sky. Evacuation transports. They had launched from somewhere beyond the devastated refinery district and were fighting desperately for altitude, engines burning hard as they attempted to escape the battlefield below. Their transponders identified them immediately across the tactical feed. Civilian. Both packed well beyond normal capacity.

Hundreds fleeing the invasion. For a moment the Dark Lord simply watched them rise, but then? Then, he raised his hand. The first transport lurched. Its engines screamed. Its climb stopped. The second shuddered violently beside it. Across the sky, two vessels filled with terrified refugees hung impossibly in place. The Dark Side surged. Prazutis' fingers slowly curled inward. The transports began coming back down. Ripped down. Their thrusters burned at maximum power, fighting against something machinery had never been built to resist. One vessel rolled sideways as its pilots desperately attempted to break free. The other gained several meters of altitude before being violently arrested again. Prazutis pulled. Both ships descended, fast. Their noses tipped toward the surface as warning alarms shrieked across open emergency frequencies, voices flooded the channels. Pilots screaming for control while passengers crying out.

The Mortarch listened. His expression remained hidden behind the abyssal face of Xûl-Karzaan. "Allyson." The first transport swung sideways through the sky. "You wanted Me to leave her outside our world." The second followed. "But this is our world." His arm moved, and the ships moved with it. Not toward a single point, but toward two separate regions of the battlefield where Allyson's previous movements, cover, and possible remaining anchors made her presence conceivable. Prazutis didn't know where the Ghost stood. So He targeted both. The first transport came screaming down. He released it. The refugee vessel became a falling missile, hundreds of tons of hull and screaming engines hurtling toward one side of the battlefield in a descending arc. Seconds later the second followed, ripped from the sky and hurled toward another probable avenue of movement.

"You were ashamed to accept the truth of the world you belong to now, the person you've become, ashamed of the blood you've spilled to keep her safe. So now i'll drown you in it." The words rolled through Xûl-Karzaan. The dark plate seemed to mend itself together with each passing moment, cracks and tears twisting together and hardening in a way that shouldn't have been possible. "Come now, Allyson. Surely you can do better." One transport vanished behind the smoke as it descended. The other tore low across the devastated skyline. Xûl Qarnak rose into a true fighting guard then.

"Strike me down. I can feel your anger." Then the Shadow Hand changed the battlefield. His free hand opened and the earth around Him erupted upward. Not in one directed attack, but across the entire immediate engagement space. Ash, powdered stone, shattered durasteel, broken glass, spent ammunition, fragments of wreckage, and burning debris rose into suspension until thousands of pieces hung around the Dark Lord. Slowly they began moving. A storm formed. He couldn't feel where she'd gone, so he stopped trying to. If she wished to strike him she would need to appear, and Xûl-Karzaan would pierce physical cloaking of all sorts. Anything entering that space would disturb the debris, feel the bite of the razer storm he'd created. An arrow would carve a path through it. A body appearing from nowhere would displace it. Teleportation would no longer place her inside empty air but inside a constantly moving field of particulate matter and jagged wreckage. The Blackblade Guard understood immediately and expanded away from their master, leaving a widening circle. The storm accelerated around Him.

Then the Dark Lord looked into the smoke where Allyson had disappeared.

"You are angry because Taiia saw you. But that is not what terrifies you." A chunk of shattered armor rotated past His helm. "You cannot decide which version of Allyson Locke she loves anymore. You cannot keep the wife in one room and the monster in another." Another fragment passed His shoulder. "She has seen both." The Dark Lord stepped forward. "And now you are forced to live with the possibility that she might judge you." A pause. "Or worse." His helm inclined. Prazutis drove Xûl Qarnak into the ground. The storm exploded. Telekinetic force erupted outward in every direction, hurling the suspended debris across the engagement zone in a violent expanding ring. Shattered stone, metal, ash, burning wreckage, and fragments of ruined defenses ripped through the smoke. The Reaper began destroying everywhere she could exist.

Allyson Locke | Taiia Locke​

 

[Srina Talon]

OBJECTIVE: Poison The Well [2]
LOCATION: Thyferra [Refinery]
SITH ALLIES: Mercy
SITH ENEMIES: Acier Moonbound | Lorn Reingard | Judah Lesan

“Still not coming back, though.”

Maybe it was the smile from “Old Man Lesan” that finally succeeded in drawing her ire.

It was battered and incomplete, hardly worth remembering, but there was enough of the Master Jedi in it to make something cold settle behind her eyes. The pale woman had endured his constant commentary for literal years, but now, he was involving her nephew. Every irreverent remark glazed with obvious bias for the Light did not make it correct or some profound revelation. Srina had spoken…Honestly. Without hatred. Seeking…

Acier.

What part of Judah’s fractured memories thought he was fit to reach into her family?

Metallic eyes fully settled on him while he wove his little tale, and the metaphysical weight of a mountain would follow. He wanted her attention so very badly? He wanted to be seen as a half-insane homeless drifter with moments of lucidity so divine that his words should become the gospel? So be it. “No…”, Srina whispered, as if breaking from a trance…But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was Echani, stillness. The calm before the storm. “I don’t suppose you are going back.”

It was…Such a small thing. With Acier and Mercy still trying to pound on each other, it would be hard to notice spindly lengths of industrial filament slipping across the floor. It was just a silver tangle until it rose around Judah in the finest slice, so thin that it could have been hair, but strong enough to keep the machines in the refinery running. Her head tilted to the side while those same ghostly fingers from before held his head still. Then…The wintry woman began to sew his endlessly running mouth shut.

It was fast enough to pierce almost effortlessly, like a barber or a surgeon, and every movement followed the last. The thread crisscrossed back upon itself no matter how he struggled, until her hand pulled back, fingers closing, until the filament drew tight.

She wanted it to hurt.

“I warned you about my children…You have wasted my patience.”

If Judah tried to dig it out, claw it away, the wire would only cinch tighter while the remaining thread rolled lazily around the Jedi in a tight weave that would dig deep into flesh like the plastic mesh on a holiday ham.

Imagine…Being undone by a ball of metal string.

"I'm a fucking Jedi."

For one moment, no longer than a heartbeat, Srina just stared at her nephew.

“You are a Verd.”

The Jedi Knight behind him was burned and more than a little bruised, but somehow, the sight of his face full of pride made those four words hurt more than they should have. He carried the blood of literal Kings. He had might, strength, passion and power…But chose to follow the galaxy's greatest lie rather than to stand on his own.

Being a Jedi hadn’t simply come to him. It was taught.

Srina’s jaw tightened.

"You're missing the point. I don't think what Lorn did was good. I get why he did it. There's a difference." He addressed Srina without looking away from the Titan. "Responsibility isn't finding an excuse for what you've done and calling it justified. It's owning it. Learning from it. Trying to do better without pretending the blood disappears. I know exactly what I've done, Srina. I can't change it. I can only decide what I do next."

His blades remained ready.

She listened…Because she had asked for his reasoning. She wanted to know his truth, not the spoon-fed drivel from Judah or his Jedi recruiter. It was nauseating to hear the words repeated back, sometimes verbatim, regardless of the revelation or the intention.

But…She paid attention and waited rather than trying to tear the head of Lorn Reingard clear from his shoulders. Her expression would speak volumes to the wounded Jedi, whether he knew her or not. It wasn’t quite the colorful hatred she had for Judah…Few things were. But…

They had time.

"And that's the difference between me and her. Mercy doesn't regret shit. She just wants to escalate and escalate. You want to protect your children? Whatever. But when everyone else's lives stop mattering because they're not yours? That's where responsibility ends."

Something in his tone, so dismissive, broke through her seemingly perpetual calm.

“Do you think I don’t know what I do?”

The words left her lips with far more harshness than intended, with an edge that had nothing to do with the fact that they were at literal war. The emotion that surfaced without her will was too immediate, too raw, to be disguised or cleverly pushed away. Eyes of yellow-gold fixed themselves to Acier once more while her head tilted, as if she were trying to see him more clearly. When she spoke next…It was softer. “You can understand him…But not me.”

Was it because she did not throw herself to the mercy of his Jedi Council and seek the same perfect pardon he had? Was it because she didn’t advertise the blood on her hands and kept the weight of death, of killing, to herself? Her head tilted away, and her eyes landed on Judah, and the urge to rend him limb from limb was only barely contained.

“I protect my children by any means necessary, because they are mine. The Zeltron was sacrificed because she was expendable. Not yours.… These acts are no different.”

It was strange that he could not see it…That he did not know. Srina would burn this world and any other if it meant tomorrow for the Sith Order…But she would also do the same for him. He condemned her for the lengths she would go to while unknowingly living beneath the protection of them.

Why did he think Judah and Lorn suffered so much more when his nose merely ached?

That Mercy had suddenly decided to play nice with her food?

Whatever Lorn Reingard thought of the conversation—Srina offered him nothing. Alarms were going off in some of the other refineries while explosions were rendering the technology she had come for absolutely useless. Carefully, she sighed.

“The difference between us, little love…Is very slight.”

A disturbance passed through her awareness that for a moment it felt like the wind. There was a familiarity to it that reminded her of Abregado-Rae but infinitely worse. Mandalorian dogs had literally deployed dogs to fight them on the killing field who had possessed small bubbles of Force Nullification. This was no creature…No lizard. The emptiness was spreading rapidly, and she could feel it like an incoming wave that none could escape.

Srina stopped breathing.

The Force had been with her for as long as she could remember. It gave her another dimension to see the world, and she was constantly entrenched in all that the Darkside had to offer. It was an extra sense that was as connected to her as an arm or leg. Feeling parts of herself, her children, disappearing into the void as the wave got closer was…Agonizing.

When it hit…It was the sensation of dry-drowning. Every nerve ending was exposed to NOTHING for the entirety of a planet, perhaps the system, and there was no defense for it. Her head shook as if her ears were ringing, and there was a loud clang when her gloved fist smashed into a piece of machinery hard enough to make the sound ring through the refinery. There was no wound that her armor could identify, just the sensation of nothing, literal nothing, scraping against her awareness until there was scarcely anything left. Her stomach turned…And the Force receded further.

“Mercy—”

Srina turned…She had to actually turn to look for her battle-sister who was suddenly too far away…Because in an instant her world became impossibly small. “Mercy…”, her name repeated, softer, but her voice was no less wrong. The living Force had been shorn away, leaving behind an absence so complete that every instinct recoiled. It was through sheer stubbornness, and the irritating recollection that they still had “three fucking Jedi” to deal with, that she ignored the pounding in her head. She had known nullification before. Void Stone, dogs, lizards…Nothing compared to this. Those things had created absences she could recognize within the Force.

This was…This was something else.

Her breathing remained shallow while she turned her head, looking first toward Lorn and then toward Acier.

Judah was still a little tongue-tied because of her public service…But for several seconds she said nothing while her body recovered from the sudden shock. Would he ever tire of being so incredibly wrong? About everything? All the time? When her voice finally came, it was rougher than either of them had ever heard it. “You know…The Jedi grow darker every moment I know them.”

Srina raised one hand to her forehead and laughed, though there was very little humor in it. The irony was almost too much. She had spent decades listening to Jedi speak of the natural order, of life, of the Force that moved through every living thing, while men and women like her were accused of twisting it beyond recognition.

“The Force lives in everything…And your Republic just carved it out.”

Spoiler: Equpiment

Armour Saber Ring Ring Terentatek Body Gloves HG-54 "The Vora" Class Hand Cannon Holding Aces Popper Echo Implant NPC Units (On Standby) Drake "Vaelcryx" (On Standby)

 

[Mercy]

MERCY

EMPRESS | WARLORD | STAR-ARM

Location: On the move | Objective: Bring the thunder

Allies: Srina Talon

Enemies: Acier Moonbound | Lorn Reingard | Judah Lesan

​

​

.

It was amusing the Jedi didn’t realize they were being toyed with, even as they themselves were attempting to lure the two Sith Lords deeper into their trap. When was the last time that Mercy neglected killing blows and instead went for broken ribs and broken noses? It was all a gift to her battle-sister, who had a deep history with at least two of the three.

Judah - hers, Mercy would not even try to kill him.

Acier - Oh, he deserved punishment and in truth Mercy would love to break him in half like a pretzel. But instead she only aimed to hurt him, to punish him for his treachery and high-minded rhetoric.

Lorn - Well, Srina still seemed of half a mind that Acier could be convinced not to follow the path of the Light. Mercy didn’t agree, but she knew fully well that slaughtering Acier’s mentor in front of him would make Srina’s goal even more difficult.

So she didn’t make killing strikes. A head butt to break his nose, smashing ribs in until they cracked, throwing secondary lightning to distract Judah so Srina could take advantage. And Mercy didn’t regret it.

Usually she preferred to rip someone in half while yapping, but this fight was one of words as much as it was of action. A battlefield of worldviews, only possible because of the close connection some of them possessed.

If Acier hadn’t been her nephew, if Judah hadn’t been her prisoner, none of this talking would have happened.

Instead… Mercy was having the time of her life.

He slipped laterally from the path of her charging fist, twisting his body away while his blue blade swept toward her exposed flank in a passing counter.

"I'm a fucking Jedi."

He immediately continued backward, refusing to remain within Mercy's reach and resetting his guard at distance.

Her attack missed and he immediately counter-swept. The saber rammed itself into her side, burning bright and lighting her flesh on fire underneath. Before Mercy could move to punish him for it, Acier had dashed backward again.

In truth his declaration arrested her movement as much as his quick thinking did. He had obviously learned from the blood crawling down his face after the head bash.
But Mercy looked at him incredulously.

“Wait, that’s it?” Mercy said finally, slowly, while glancing towards the other two Jedi and then to Srina. “That’s your big epiphany? Boy, Jedi have existed for millennia, causing as much genocide and destruction in the Galaxy as the Sith have. Your mentor killing someone because it was convenient and you rationalizing it away just proves my point.”

She cackled again.

“Fucking hell, and I thought you were actually struggling with something more complicated than that. Declaring yourself part of the status quo isn’t some grand moral victory, Ace, it’s just lazy posturing, but you are young… so I can’t blame you for following your idols.”

Then a grin towards Lorn.

“How are your ribs, big boy? Ready to step back into the ring yet, or are you still taking five?”

Copies of copies of copies. All of them were the same. Clutching to concepts that had been invented thousands of years ago and pretending it mattered now.

There was a reason why Mercy wasn’t attacking and instead continued the barbed dialogue. If she couldn’t rip them to shreds, then she could at least make them hate the sound of her voice, until they decided they were done listening to it and attack her in turn.

Srina wouldn’t be able to blame her for defending herself, after all.

She was about to say more, being on a hot streak would do that for a yapper, but then it arrived. The deadening of the Force. Mercy had assumed it would be the same as being stuck in an anti-force bubble, but what came shocked even the Lord of the Sith.

Everything went silent.

Mercy felt like she was blind, deaf, without skin, without soul, devoid of all meaning in a cosmos so uncaring and wide that she could drown in it and would never see the light of day again. The Lord stumbled as she gasped.

“What the-?” She bit the inside of her mouth, forcing more pain to rush through her, breaking through the void. Warform sank into her a moment later, injecting her with sensations that were all physical and did not need the Force.

It was like a sip of water after a trek through the desert. Not nearly enough, but better than nothing at all.
She snarled and she exploded into motion. The revelation would be grotesque for the Jedi in the room, Mercy didn’t depend on the Force for her killing. She only called upon it when the need was high.

But even if this was unnatural, it was still better, because now she could tear them from limb to limb and nobody would have the Force as a crutch.

It would be grand, it would be beautiful, she’d feel their blood on her face and the world would scream in-

“Mercy—”

Srina turned…She had to actually turn to look for her battle-sister who was suddenly too far away…Because in an instant her world became impossibly small. “Mercy…”, her name repeated, softer, but her voice was no less wrong.

Acier would see it in that moment as the mountain of fury and destruction came down on him. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no clever tricks to make. If she caught him, she’d rip him in half with just her strength and whatever alteration had been made to her. It would be his end.

Then the animal suddenly dashed away, at the sound of her name, and caught Srina as pain laced through her sister’s psyche.

Choosing to defend that which she loved rather than kill what she hated.

And truly, what feral animal would do that?

Srina would feel the bio-pulse from Warform feed back into her. The Force was gone, but their connection was still there, forged from blood and flesh.

“The Force lives in everything…And your Republic just carved it out.”

For Srina it was a tragedy, but for Mercy it was triumph. The nightmare of Warform finally wrapped itself around her head, covering her fully now, but her voice was somehow even louder and more aggressive.

“You are a fucking Jedi, Ace… I agree.” She said with a hungry laugh. “And I am me. No regrets, because nothing I have ever done requires it. I protect what is mine. I kill what stands in my way… and yet I have never done something like this… what do you think? How many across Thyferra will die with the Force no longer in reach?”

They were all born with the Force.

It was the essential component of life. What happened to a child born beneath a sky where the Force could no longer reach? How many people would reach instinctively for that impossible second wind and find only emptiness?

It was… it was… it was glorious.

Srina would feel it from Mercy - the epiphany of how wrong this was and how beautiful that made it.

Something like this could break the wheel, destroy the endless machine that created Jedi, Sith, Mandalorians, and everything else in between to copy the same struggle they had all been part of for millennia.

Mercy helped her back to her feet gently.

“Are you done talking to him, sestra?” Mercy asked gently, ignoring the Jedi in the room, stroking her hair instead. “Can we finally… start the killing?”

She left it in Srina’s hands… or the Jedi.

They could always make the first move. Just as the ancient Jedi of old that had sterilized worlds in their pursuit to erase the Sith and any other anomaly in the Force.

.

ERASE THE PAST

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

​

Thyferra
Tags: Darth Strosius & Lina Ovmar
Equipment: Here sans armor, satchel of scientific tools
Shambling Vines now active: 11
Opponents: William Thule & Andromeda Demir

As she finished hastily but precisely taking a few samples, A'Mia was peripherally aware of just how quickly chaos had spread across the map. That conflict arrived back at the forefront of her experience as many things occurred at once.

Explosions nearby caused ripples and shockwaves through the water where she and her Sithspawn lurked. One of the marines finally succumbed to the wickedly strong pull of vines and was dragged howling beneath the surface. Somewhere, in many nearby places actually, A'Mia could feel panic spread amongst the plants as fire ripped across the landscape. Amidst all that, things had well and truly come to a head with their Jedi opposition.

Releasing the remainder of her shambling vines, six more of the slithering ravenous beasts joined the fray and spread A'Mia's control of them thin indeed. They were aggressive and indiscriminate by nature — all they inherently knew was the law of the jungle and their tactics were to ambush prey or entirely overwhelm them. For the time being though, her control over them remained.

Slinking closer, errant bolts sizzling through the water around her, she rapidly approached where her loves were embroiled. The neti encountered one of her spawn and the drowned marine, quickly stealing his communication device off him so she could use it herself to listen in. To the credit of Alisteri's troops, they pushed on around and past where Sith and Jedi clashed — focused as ever, eyes set on completing their mission.

Just a few moments longer and her foes would be surrounded on all sides by her spawn…

A'Mia coiled, ready to spring at who she perceived to be the weaker of the two Jedi. Phrik punch daggers grasped in two appendages, saber hilts in two more, the neti was a lurking nightmare.

From the murky water she sprang, whirling newly lit sabers in defense like a dervish while she punched out in a series of quick stabs at Andromeda with her phrik daggers. The neti was unrecognizable as the demure looking scientist from before and appeared rather more like a multi limbed swamp monster wrapped in an ill fitting robe.

ARTIFACT ACTIVATED

The Void artifact is fully activated.

Though martial combat was unaffected, suddenly A'Mia's senses changed. Input dulled from the usual overwhelm of data those strange eyes were able to take in. Soon, the orchid would pull away from their connection and enter its dormant state. Soon her control of all the spawn would slip and it would turn into a feeding frenzy rather than a controlled series of attacks.

Oops.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Thyferra

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

ALLIES: Lorn Reingard | Judah Lesan
ADVERSARIES: Srina Talon | Mercy

Ace didn't see the pride on Lorn's face, his attention was fixed on Mercy. Of course that was how she'd react. Whether she genuinely misunderstood what he'd meant, deliberately twisted it into something easier to mock, or simply wanted to crawl beneath his skin, Ace couldn't bring himself to care. He hadn't said it for Mercy. He didn't need her approval and he'd certainly never expected her to understand.

A half-smirk tugged at his mouth. "Uh-huh." The single laugh that followed escaped through his nose and immediately reminded him that Mercy had just broken it.

Ow.

Then Judah spoke. Ace listened, understanding the older Jedi's objection even if he couldn't agree with it. There was something almost admirable about viewing life that absolutely. Nobody became a number, expendable, or had the right to decide another person's dignity mattered less because circumstances became inconvenient. Ace wished the galaxy worked that way.

But it didn't. He had grown up in a place where moral choices hadn't been philosophical exercises debated from comfortable chairs. Sometimes every option was shit. Sometimes refusing to choose didn't summon a third path where everyone walked away alive.

That didn't mean Lorn's reasoning sat completely right with him either. Ace had learned that lesson during the Covenant.

"I didn't have a choice". Then it became "there wasn't another way". Then, "the mission needed it". Keep going long enough and eventually you could convince yourself anything was acceptable so long as the thing you were fighting for mattered enough. He knew because he'd done it.

Ace opened his mouth to answer him, but then his eyes snapped toward Judah just in time to watch thin industrial filament rise around him. Srina's fingers moved and the wire followed, threading cruelly across the older Jedi's mouth.

Ace stared. Did she really have to do that? His dark eyes slid toward Srina. Honestly, he wished she'd do it to Mercy.

“You are a Verd.”

"I'm both." There was no hesitation in the answer.

But something had changed in Srina. Her composure cracked for only a moment, yet Ace caught it. He had spent too much of his life reading people not to. Beneath that sharper edge, the Force carried something else toward him.

Sadness. Disappointment. That bothered him considerably more than anger would have.

“You can understand him…But not me.”

Ace's expression tightened. "I lived Abregado, Srina. I can't understand that."

For the briefest instant he wasn't standing in the refinery. Black smoke swallowed the sky. Flesh rained through it. Calyx Sundrift 's memory had become his own, forcing him to experience a world dying beneath the Covenant's hand while Mercy promised more planets would follow.

Ace blinked himself back into the present. And still, frustratingly, he understood part of Srina. He understood loving people so much it became frightening. That obsession had been the whole reason he'd entered the Covenant in the first place. Protect Sibylla, Lorn, Fatine. Protect the people he couldn't bear to lose. Somewhere along the way that love had curdled into fear, and fear had made increasingly ugly things seem reasonable.

He understood that perfectly. But understanding wasn't absolution. Not for what he'd done and not for what Srina was doing. But would she even hear the distinction if he tried explaining it?

Perhaps she was right about one thing. The difference between them wasn't enormous.

Ace's voice softened. "...But it's enough."

Then the Void arrived. He'd known it was coming, but knowing didn't help. Pressure hollowed itself behind Ace's eyes so suddenly that his balance shifted. The refinery seemed to move without actually moving. For several bewildering seconds he couldn't tell whether a heartbeat had passed or ten. Fatigue descended almost instantaneously, heavy and psychological, as though someone had reached inside his skull and pulled every thought slightly farther away.

And then...

Quiet.

Ace froze. There were no distant impressions brushing against his awareness. Lives humming somewhere beyond the walls. Emotions bleeding faintly through barriers he'd learned to construct years ago. No Force waiting beneath thought.

Nothing. It was wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong. Yet beneath the disorientation there was something he almost hated himself for feeling.

Relief.

He'd experienced something vaguely similar while incarcerated beneath dampeners. For years his reality had carried constant feedback. Presence. Emotion. Instinct. Things he'd learned to filter until the noise became indistinguishable from silence. Now there was actual silence.

Ace breathed through his mouth. For a few seconds, he simply existed inside it. Then training took over. Before the Force, before lightsabers and precognition, a kid on Bonadan had survived by watching people.

Eyes. Shoulders. Hands. Weight distribution. The little changes in someone's face before they decided whether they were going to talk or swing.

Ace looked at the two Sith. Srina appeared disturbed in a way he'd rarely seen. Not merely uncomfortable. Violated. Her entire relationship with the galaxy had just been narrowed without warning.

Mercy reacted differently. She looked... worse. Ace shifted his footing as the Titan exploded toward him. No precognition warned him. The Force didn't whisper where the blow would come from. But he still knew how to fight.

Ace prepared to move, then the Titan stopped. Ace's brows drew together as Mercy abandoned him immediately and crossed instead toward Srina, catching her, holding her while whatever nightmare wrapped around the larger Sith pulsed visibly beneath flesh and armor.

Ace watched silently. That wasn't the Mercy he knew, or perhaps it was a part of Mercy he'd never bothered looking for. The creature he'd called an animal had chosen someone she loved over someone she hated.

Then Srina spoke.

“You know…The Jedi grow darker every moment I know them."

" The Force lives in everything…And your Republic just carved it out.”

Ace slowly looked upward. Not toward anything he could actually see through the refinery ceiling, but toward the sky beyond it. There was truth there. Whatever tactical advantage the artifact offered, something about this was horrific. People who had done nothing wrong, people actively fighting beside the Republic, had just had something fundamental suppressed without their consent.

And this was why Ace didn't trust institutions. Not the Republic. Not even the Jedi Order. Give any organization enough authority and eventually somebody decided their necessity outweighed everyone else's discomfort.

Mercy's voice pulled his gaze downward again.

I am me. No regrets, because nothing I have ever done requires it. I protect what is mine. I kill what stands in my way… and yet I have never done something like this… what do you think? How many across Thyferra will die with the Force no longer in reach?”

Ace's brow knitted. "No, you've only massacred entire systems. Sacked planets. Killed your way across the galaxy. Committed genocide."

He stared at Mercy as though she'd just said the stupidest thing he'd heard all day.

"Was I supposed to suddenly forget all that because you weren't involved in this? Was this supposed to make everything you've done less horrific?"

He extinguished both of his blades and stepped forward. Not carelessly, Mercy had just demonstrated that losing the Force hadn't made her any less physically capable of folding him into something anatomically creative. He kept enough distance to react if she decided she was finished behaving.

But his attention settled mostly on Srina, lowering himself nearer her level.

"Aunt Srina." The title came deliberately.

Not Empress or Sith. Family.

"I don't put any faith in the Republic. Or even the Jedi Order. They're all fallible." Ace glanced toward the refinery around them. "But look at what happens if you take this planet." His eyes returned to hers. "Bacta stops moving. Hospitals start rationing it. People who would've survived their wounds die because there isn't enough to go around. Prices shoot up, and poor worlds get fucked first because richer systems can outbid them."

He gestured vaguely toward everything beyond the refinery walls.

"And that's before everybody starts killing each other over what's left."

His voice remained calm. Mercy would have probably loved that actually.

"You care about your people. I respect that... I understand it." That word mattered now. "But there are trillions of people out there who aren't Jedi, Sith, Republic, Covenant, whatever. They didn't ask to get dragged into this stupid argument that's been going on for thousands of years because people with lightsabers keep deciding the galaxy needs to pick a fucking side."

Ace's dark eyes remained on his aunt. The refinery was impossibly quiet without the Force and he found that, strangely, he didn't need it to know what he meant.

"That's why I'm here. I'm not fighting for the Republic. I'm fighting for them."​

 

[Darth Strosius]

Equipment: Lightsaber - Sword - Dagger - Robes
Tags: Lina Ovmar / Madrona A’Mia / William Thule / Andromeda Demir
--------------------------------------------

A curse barely escaped through clenched fangs as His blade was intercepted, not by the younger Jedi herself but rather with the one that was meant to be embroiled by Lina and her crushing darkness. Darth Strosius landed and glared into the dark eyes of the interrupting Jedi as He ripped His lightsaber away from the clash. "What is the obsession with you Jedi and getting in the way!?" They couldn't help but stick their heads where they didn't belong, and it seemed as though the High Republic that they belonged to weren't all that dissimilar in that regard.

Explosions briefly rocked the ground and the masked man threw a glance to the side and uttered another curse at the sight of their landing shuttles in various states of destruction. How lucky it was that His soldiers had yet to load them with anything after all, He supposed. Yet still more than enough of a setback. He took a couple steps away from the pair of Jedi, half to avoid the sweeping ray of light that was sent towards the Republic troopers and half to take up a defensive stance as He tapped on His helmet's commlink with His free hand.

Before He could call for reinforcements, and ideally some new transports though, a communication rang out from across the battlefield.

<<< "Force suppression from the Grace of Theed is expanding. Surface exposure is considered probable. If contact with the Force is lost, conventional command protocols take precedence. No formation stops because its Sith cannot reach for it." >>>

"The one time I leave the orbital battle to the rest of them alone. Imbeciles!" That the High Republic and the Jedi apparently possessed some manner of Force Suppression that could extend so far was a worrying and fascinating prospect in equal measure but He couldn't ponder on that issue properly whilst He had two Jedi and a few Republic soldiers in front of Him.

:"I need immediate reinforcements and transport, we haven't even made it to the refinery yet.": A refinery which was quickly starting to become one of the few left it seemed, if the explosions in the distance were any sign. Darth Strosius wasn't certain whether to blame the Sith forces or the Republic ones for their destruction but it hardly mattered. He didn't care who won Thyferra, it wouldn't be in any state to supply the wider galaxy and more importantly His own people with Bacta in the aftermath regardless.

They could both destroy as much of the world as they wanted, He would ensure that His forces secured the means of Bacta production no matter the cost. Such as now when they were making a mad dash across the paddies towards the refinery, using the distractions of the Jedi and the marines to rush on towards their objective. Now that the shuttles were gone they were able to move as a unit, though while the Legionnaires moved forwards what remained of the droids lingered to guard the rear and more importantly keep firing upon the Vratix and Republic forces.

As A'Mia emerged from her watery hiding place with her daggers and sabers drawn, lashing towards the more hesitant of the Jedi pair, Darth Strosius renewed His offensive with a step forward and His lightsaber raised high. However, He never quite managed the second step nor the downward slash that He intended to make.

ARTIFACT ACTIVATED

The Void artifact is fully activated. Objective 1 & 2 is the area of effect.

See Mandate: Here​

In an instant the pale tendrils that flowed from His back vanished as the field washed over them, withering and disappearing within a matter of seconds which heralded Him faltering and stumbling back. The masked man coughed, then wretched, keeling over and clutching at His stomach as He felt His body attempt to regenerate the gaps where the Force had been sewn into His being just a moment before. He tumbled forward and barely caught Himself with His lightsaber-wielding hand, a hollow gasp leaving Him as He realized His heart had stopped.

Thankfully it did resume its beating after a long second, however the regeneration wasn't quite quick enough it seemed. His free hand scrambled up to His mask, frantically undoing the bottom portion of it and tossing it aside so that He could breathe freely. Then He shook and coughed before His whole body convulsed as He heaved and spat out a clot that stained the ground below Him with a deep maroon and made His breathing ragged in its wake.

The last of the droids rushed to stand around Him, two standing guard with one firing at the soldiers and another shot towards the Jedi whilst the third knelt down to inspect Him. It reached for its commlink but His gloved hand caught it before it could tap any buttons. "We finish the mission first." His voice was weak, haggard and whispered yet the droid obeyed all the same and rose to join its two remaining squad mates to fire upon their foes while He attempted to pull Himself together. Quite literally.

 

[Aiden Porte]

OBJ:1
Location: Fields
Objective: Endure
Indirect: Seren Gwyn
​

While distance separated them, that was when others chose to jump into the fray. Aiden moved with a quick and fierce authority. He was thrown deep into close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat now. He was starting to get overrun, and it was this that gave the Sith the opportunity to leave and surrender to whomever she did.

Aiden took a backstep, avoiding a sword swipe, then drove forward, his blade piercing the flesh of the Sith adversaries surrounding him. He pivoted around, throwing the small blade in his hand toward his next opponent, piercing his chest. Then something happened, something that seemed to be impossible, but it happened regardless. There was silence, emptiness. He couldn't feel anything, not the Light, nor the dark presence within him. Emptiness stretched across the battlefield. The Force was absent.

Aiden pushed back against those around him as they, too, began to feel it. However, he couldn't delay. He had to push forward and act, taking down those around him until there were none left standing. At which point, he pulled his saber from his combatant's body, pushing him off with his free hand.

His eyes moved around him, not just to those who had fallen, but to those Jedi in the distance who were fighting with all they had. But with the loss of the Force, they were hindered. Some didn't have the training that he did. He watched the scene unfold around him as Jedi were struck down, unable to call on the Force that could have protected them.

They had weaponized what they found that day and chose to utilize it. For what? For this? It seemed that here, the Republic had shown its true colors and dealt the first real blow. It was no mystery that there were some politicians who cared not for the Jedi. The Republic that he had come to serve and fight for had now done the unspeakable.

"Aiden!"

The Jedi Knight turned to see members of the Everlight running toward him.

"My friends, I must ask for your help once more, but the Force is not with us. Not right now. The Republic has seen to that, snuffing out what resides in all living things. There are Jedi out there, hurt, abandoned. We must help them. Pull them back. Please, do this for me."

"What will you do?"

Aiden took a deep breath, pulling the blade that had pierced his side during his previous encounter with the enemy.

"There must be a distraction. Get them out of here. I will not abandon my fellow Jedi to die here without the Force, without hope. No, I will give my life for theirs if necessary."

Aiden thought back to something Lira had spoken of, to a time when she had awoken screaming in the night. Futures and destinies had been changed before. He did not fear death, but he feared leaving this galaxy in no better a place than when he was first brought into this world.

The orders were sent as things as Everlight dispersed into position, cover and aiding those Jedi around him. Aiden took another deep breath as he was tossed a blaster rifle. He sheathed his blades and clipped his lightsaber to his belt.

How did it come to this?

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Darth Prazutis //: Taiia Locke //:
//: Attire //:
//: Equipment //:
//: Bow & Arrows //: Cybernetic Eye //: Jacket //: Arrows of Absence x 25 //: Bag of Absencite x 5ea //:

The dark side surged.

Hatred swelled from within, bleeding into every fiber of her being. She hated Prazutis; she hated herself; she hated everything that had led to this point. His words echoed the belief she had carried for so many years, decades that could have been moments of happiness. Allyson believed that the only way to love someone was to protect them from the horrific aspects of her life. There was no life, no reality where the two could ever coexist.

There always had to be Allyson Locke, the woman, and Allyson Locke, the Ghost.

They could never be the same person. One held onto humanity, while the other was a monster that only understood destruction and lies.

Her eyes widened as the arrow burrowed into the titan's chest. It was a blow against his godlike entity. He was mortal — mortal enough to bleed, and if he bled, he could die. Death was the only way he was leaving this planet; she would hunt him until the end of her days, until he breathed his last breath.

Fear.

She feared who she was, what she was becoming, and Taiia's life being in danger because of her.

Anger.

She was angry that Prazutis had reached out, drawing the woman she loved into this world. She was angry because no matter what she did, the Woman and the Monster could never truly be separated. She was angry because he was right; Allyson had pulled Taiia into this world. She could have just let the woman live her life peacefully, ignorant of the blood staining the Corellian's hands.

Hatred.

She hated everything that was unfolding. She hated feeling there was no way out, no way to find some semblance of peace or redemption. She hated that there was nothing more she could do; Taiia was in this world now, and Taiia would see the horrible catastrophe Allyson had caused. She hated knowing there was no going back.

The Force pulled her through the second teleport, landing her where she had begun. Her stomach twisted violently, two jumps in quick succession forcing the Corellian to hunch over as the Reaper continued his speech. She dry heaved; nothing came up, but it hurt. Her organs clenched, every reflex straining to expel something that didn't exist.

She recovered quickly, straightening as she cloaked herself once more from his sight and senses.

Allyson watched, moving with each of his steps. His words continued to cut into her, forcing emotions to flare. They were becoming harder to hide; she was never like this. Nothing ever reached so deeply into her that she simply felt.

Not even Zaavik…

He was the closest thing she had to a sibling. She raised him, taught him everything she knew. He was supposed to be better than her in every way possible, and yet Allyson couldn't save him. She couldn't stop the corruption born from her own misguided efforts. Where the Shadow assumed she was saving him, all she had taught him was abandonment.

When Zaavik fell to the Dark Side, Allyson made it her personal mission to destroy him.

There was no coming back; the path they walked would always carry the temptation. It was like a drug… a moth to the flame.

Her heart was steeled; with every blow, with every strike, she tried to kill someone close to her. For the longest time she believed him dead, until Coruscant. Even now, Allyson wondered.

But Taiia… She was always different.

Allyson wanted her to only see the good in her, because if Taiia couldn't see that — then…

There was truly never anything good about Allyson Locke.

Her eyes followed the transports. They stalled unnaturally in the air, hanging there, and Allyson understood exactly what the man was doing. He would sacrifice anything, everything, just to prove how little she resembled the protector she portrayed to her wife. No, Allyson was like Prazutis, like Carnifex, like Raaf; she was everything they were, only capable of pretending her monstrosities were…

Justified.

The first shuttle crashed near her.

The Force aided her escape as she scrambled from the blast, catching the kinetic wave of the shuttle colliding with the planet's surface and letting it carry her clear. Her body tumbled forward, thrown wildly off course, boots tearing across the ground before she managed to catch herself and land mostly on her feet.

She barely had time to breathe.

The second shuttle was already coming.

Allyson focused on the Force, letting it flow over her —
Something caught her attention.

Taiia.

Allyson could feel her.

She was close… closer than she should be. She was here, on the surface of Thyferra, and in the chaos of the fight Allyson hadn't sensed the route the woman had been taking. Everything Allyson had planned, everything she had so carefully constructed, was now falling apart in her hands.

Taiia was here to bear witness to the Monster the Corellian had become.

"Taiia?"

Allyson didn't realize she had spoken the name aloud. Her focus was wholly on the woman she could see in the distance through her cybernetic eye.

"Taiia!"

Allyson moved, still protected by the Force, still hidden. Through their bond she reached for her, wanting her to leave, wanting her to escape before things were ruined again…

Forever.

The distraction cost her.

Instinct screamed.

Allyson looked up.

The second transport hovered directly above her.

She had nothing capable of stopping it. Nothing powerful enough to push the massive vessel back. The Corellian was nothing extraordinary; her affinity with the Force was niche, specialized, and yet somehow she had always been capable of standing toe to toe with the titans of the galaxy.

Suffering…

For one final moment, before the shuttle made contact, time slowed.

Allyson didn't know if it was something the Force had done before it was finally snuffed out, or if it was simply one last gift — enough time to look upon her wife one final time. Even if Taiia was far away. Even if she was about to witness the horror Allyson had spent all those years apart trying to hide from her.

Selfishly, Allyson looked away from the shuttle.

Toward the place where she had spotted…

Felt…

Taiia.

The bond tightened.

Then disappeared.

I tried to keep my promise…

Terror echoed through it—

And the Force rolled into silence.

This was truly hell.

There was no quiet in death.

The shuttle burned, flames rolling through the wreckage as those aboard remained still only for a moment. Then bodies twitched. Limbs moved. One after another they rose, spilling from the shattered transport and shambling away among the other dead already moving across Thyferra.

Allyson was not there.

As the Force disappeared, the Corellian had reached out with one final effort toward the previous arrow she had teleported to.

The shuttle crashed.

And Allyson appeared.

She was immediately struck by the silence.

She could no longer feel the bond. She could no longer hear the electromagnetic waves rippling through the Force, breathing life into the galaxy in the strange way only she could perceive.

There was nothing.

Not even her Master's voice.

Allyson exhaled.

She found herself at Prazutis' back.

Once more, she raised the bow and fired another armor-piercing arrow, this one aimed closer to the base of his neck. She couldn't fight him without the Force. Flickering in and out of the shadows had always been her strength.

But if she was affected…

He must be, too.

They were both mortals.

And he bled like one…

He was going to die like one.

Allyson had made peace with her death long ago…

Even if she didn't truly want it now.

But if it meant protecting Taiia—

She would drag him to the depths of hell with her.

 

[Lina Ovmar]

Staff | Monsters
Allies: Madrona A’Mia Darth Strosius
Engaging: William Thule Andromeda Demir

Lina’s smile widened at his denial at his refusal to give in to the despair around him, even as the darkness pressed in further engulfing the light. The scream of fighters overhead did not deter her, reinforcements simply meant more souls she could collect, more deaths to fuel her power.

The Light went out.

A blast of telekinetic energy rippled from Master Thule's still open palm to knock back the advancing Sith.

Triumph flared in her gaze, even as the telekinteic blast hit her chest, the force anchored her, feet dragging in the mire as she slid backward, Wraithspire embedding in the mud. From above, Strosius descended drawing the Jedi’s attention and from the water, A’Mia surged forward, beautiful and terrifying to behold.

Her loves.

"Omen!" she cried over the din. "Consolidate your forces, pull the wounded back. Keep the Vratix together and out of the paddies! There's something in the water!"

Lina opened herself, reaching into the Void, into the Nether calling her precious pets forward. A dozen more rose in the darkness, surging past the Jedi reaching. They would give everything to destroy the Vratix and their Republic soldiers working to protect them.

She straightened and took a singular step forward intent on joining the fray.

ARTIFACT ACTIVATED

The Void artifact is fully activated. Objective 1 & 2 is the area of effect.

See Mandate: Here​

Obsidian eyes widened as the absence struck her, the vibration of Wraithspire in her hand stilled as the darkness dissipated. Her pets shrieked, scattering into shadows but Lina did not hear them.

She heard nothing but the Void as it wrapped around her, seizing her in its icy grip, a grip she had been fighting for so long. There were no runes to hold her soul in place, no tether to keep it from being torn from her.

There was a cost to using the Netherworld.

“J'us waria nindz shiyi ki shujiyio.”

Another day yes, another day it would take her and break her for all she had stolen from it, but it wasn’t today.

“Alisteri…” his name was a whisper in the wind before her body crumpled, her soul ripped from its housing out of reach. Lifeless eyes stared at nothing as the obsidian receded from them, leaving dulling emeralds in their place.

Hollow and empty.

Lina was gone.

 

["Ariel"]

OUR GAME
ON THE GROUND
THYFERRA

Omega Squad Every Day Gear Locations

• [Michael, [Gabriel, [Raguel, [Raphael, [Jeremiel, [Connel [Sariel, [VIGILANT REAPER [
  [Any text in brackets signifies comm-link usage and not face to face conversation]
• 
  Rides
  
  • "Enterprise" Station Ship
  • Vigilant Reaper
  • Null Vector
  • Speederbike
  • Iron Psalm
  Gear/Armor
  
  
  • Gear(“Bodycam” Datapad, UAD Drone, link to Seraphim AI included)
  • Lightblaster
  • Shortsabers (“Night” and “Day”)
  • 5 Throwing Lightknives
  • 3 Force Blinding Flashbangs
  • RI-17 Rifle-w-MS-0412 Grenade Launcher
  SURGICAL - CRYBERNETIC IMPLANTS
  
  • Repli Implants that would be for the limbs
  • Bonemer enhancements to strengthen structure of the body
  • Muscle enhancements.
  • Hemo enhancements for blood flow
  • Hawkeye implants for eyes
  • Advanced Medical Implant
  • Scentzy
  • Injected Nanotech upgrades
  
  
  
• Shadow Sanctuary - Enterprise

The Force disappeared.

Connel Vanagor noticed. He kept walking. There was no dramatic wave. No pain. No physical sensation announcing that something fundamental had been torn from the universe. One moment it was there.

The next, it wasn't.

The constant presence that had accompanied him for as long as he could remember simply ceased to exist. No awareness beyond his senses. No instinct reaching ahead. No quiet connection between himself and the living world. Nothing. His boots continued striking duracrete. Bren Alazar noticed the half-second hesitation. [Artifact?]

[Yeah.]

It SHOULD concern him. Should completely throw him off, but it wasn’t. Connel didn’t care. Sure, it was a little unnerving, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him from doing what he had to do. The Force is a blessing, not a crutch and too many relied on it to get by. He was lucky, his father had him train with Omega Squad when he was learning the path of the Shadow, and it stuck. Now? It was just icing on the cupcake. He was still a Jedi, make no mistake, but Nemesis would see just how little it mattered. Just looked at the Sithspawn who were crumbling in stature. He had his training, he had the head on his shoulders, the cybernetics too.

Bren glanced around. The industrial park was still burning. Republic armor was still advancing. Blaster fire still echoed between buildings. Somewhere in the distance, Crownbreaker fired and something very large ceased being an immediate concern. Overhead, the scream of engines announced another pass from the Vigilant Reaper. Bren looked back at Connel. [Problem?]

Connel checked the ammunition counter on his rifle. [No. Not for me.]

"Good.][/COLOR]

They kept walking. That was all the ceremony the end of the Force received.

There was a war on.

______________________________________
Nemesis had changed the battlefield again.

Poisoned water poured through emergency sprinkler systems across the industrial park. Captured Sith soldiers had twisted into monstrous forms beneath it, turning surrender areas into slaughterhouses. The trap had been ugly, effective and completely in keeping with everything Omega had learned about the man they were hunting.

It had also been his last opportunity to dictate their priorities. Bren had made sure of that. [Michael to all commands.]

His voice moved across the Republic network. [Industrial park remains primary. Contaminated sectors are red. Nobody crosses red without sealed protection. All surrendered personnel remain isolated from water exposure. Authentication protocols remain in effect. Uniforms are not identification.]

Acknowledgments returned. Regal's voice came last. [Michael.]

[Go.]

[Western approaches secured. Mechanized elements continuing inward. We have civilians moving through Corridors Dorn and Esk.]

[Hostiles?]

[Numerous.]

A distant explosion rolled through the city. [Problem?]

[Naw.]

Bren almost smiled. [Keep squeezing.]

[My intention exactly.]

The transmission ended. Connel glanced toward him. [You two are starting to sound alike.]

[Terrifying thought.]

[Let’s move.]

__________________________________
Outside, the Republic advance continued.

Not quickly. Not cleanly.

Forward.

Sovereign tanks crawled through rain and fire, tracks grinding shattered duracrete beneath them. Infantry moved in their wake, using armored hulls as mobile cover. Technobeasts rushed from burning structures. The Republic shot them.

There were no speeches anymore.

No attempts to understand what nightmare of alchemy, disease or technology had produced each one. If something came through the flames trying to kill Republic soldiers or civilians, it was engaged until it stopped. Then the line moved. Regal stood half-exposed from Crownbreaker, rain hammering against his armor. [Movement, northwest.]

The heavy walker rotated. A cluster of shapes emerged from smoke. [Identification?]

[Hostile.]

[Confirmed?]

[Confirmed.]

Regal lowered himself into the commander's station. [Then why are we discussing it?] Crownbreaker fired. The hillside vanished behind flame and debris.

[Advance.]

The tanks moved. Behind them, Republic troops pulled survivors from buildings. Ahead of them, Sith positions disappeared one at a time. Regal wasn't chasing Nemesis. He was doing something worse.

He was taking away everywhere Nemesis could go.

_______________________________
Above the industrial park, the Vigilant Reaper banked hard through smoke.

Its targeting systems swept across the ground. Sith concentration. Marked.

Republic forces.

Protected. Evacuation corridor. Protected. Contamination zone. Marked. Fire threatening evacuation. Priority. Fire consuming an abandoned district with no recoverable personnel? Ignored. There wasn't enough Reaper for all of Thyferra. There never had been.

So it saved what it could.

A precision blast tore through combustible material ahead of an advancing fire, carving another ugly black scar across the landscape. The inferno continued on either side. It didn't matter. For a few precious minutes, the evacuation road remained open. [Reaper to Evac Cresh. Firebreak established.]

[How long?]

[Maybe eight minutes.]

[That's not much.]

[No.]

The pilot watched transports crawling through the corridor. [It'll have to be enough.]

Then warning tones screamed. Sith aircraft. The Reaper climbed. [Michael, Reaper.]

[Go.]

[Company.]

Bren didn't slow. [Handle it.]

[With pleasure.]

The transmission ended beneath the roar of rotary cannons.

_______________________________________________
Farther toward Xucphra City, the Sirocco descended through the storm.

Below it lay something no reasonable person could call a battle anymore. The city was dying. Power infrastructure, research facilities, corporate complexes and manufacturing centers had been deliberately targeted in the latest Sith attack. The gunboat couldn't save Xucphra.

So nobody ordered it to.

[Sirocco Actual to City Emergency Command.]

Static answered. Then: [Receiving.]

[We cannot provide full-area coverage.]

A long silence. [Understood.]

[Give me your largest active evacuation concentration.] Coordinates appeared.

The captain studied them. [Helm.]

[Sir.]

[Take us there.]

The silver vessel rolled through the rain. [Point defense free. Ion batteries prioritize strike craft. Anti-missile systems protect evacuation traffic.]

[Yes, sir.]

The first Sith fighter appeared. Cannons tracked. [Here they come.]

The sky became light.

____________________________
SERAPHIM remained everywhere.

That was unfortunate for the Sith. Every network connection became a potential entry point. Every compromised terminal became a battlefield. Every attempt to penetrate Republic systems became another thread SERAPHIM could pull. A Sith slicer attempted to infect an educational database. The connection disappeared. Another attacked financial infrastructure. SERAPHIM quarantined the code, traced the route backward and introduced herself to the originating system. Three Sith terminals abruptly rebooted. A fourth locked its operator out.

A fifth displayed:

ACCESS DENIED

The slicer tried again.

ACCESS DENIED

Again.

PLEASE STOP.

The slicer froze. Another message appeared.

THIS IS BECOMING EMBARRASSING.

Then his terminal shut down.

SERAPHIM returned her attention to matters of consequence.

__________________________________________

Gabriel pulled the final spike from the terminal.

[SERAPHIM.]

[Yes?]

[You have this?]

[Obviously.]

Gabriel stopped.[You know, most people just say yes.]

[Yes.]

[Thank you.]

[You're welcome.]

He grabbed his rifle. The tactical display on his wrist changed. Omega's position. Connel. Bren. His squad. Gabriel stared at the icons for a moment. He had been away too long. [Michael.]

[Go.]

[I'm coming back.]

Bren didn't ask why. [Route?]

[Service passage Besh-Seven.]

[Clear to Besh-Nine. After that, unknown.]

[Good enough.]

SERAPHIM interrupted. [It is not.]

Gabriel sighed. [What?]

[Two unidentified emergency-response personnel entered Besh-Eleven approximately thirty seconds ago.]

[Credentials?]

[Valid.]

Gabriel stopped. [People?]

[Invalid.]

There it was. Again. Fake Jedi. Fake soldiers. Now fake firefighters. Nemesis apparently considered identity an optional component of employment. Connel was listening, the hunt was on. [Track them.]

[Already tracking.]

[Don't spook them.]

[I am aware of basic counterintelligence principles.]

Gabriel started moving. "Could've fooled me.][/COLOR]

"I have not attempted to.][/COLOR]

Gabriel shook his head. [/COLOR] [Michael, two suspected infiltrators moving inward.]

[Toward us?]

[No.]

Bren paused. [Then don't touch them.]

Gabriel understood immediately. [Follow?]

[Follow.]

Another voice entered. Raguel. [Already am.]

Gabriel stopped. [Where the hell are you?]

No answer. Then a firefighter walked casually past the far intersection. Gabriel stared. The firefighter waved. Then continued. Gabriel keyed his comm. [Raguel?]

[Yes?]

He watched the firefighter disappear. [Raphael was right.]

Silence. Then Raphael somehow appeared on the channel. [ABOUT THE BELL? I TOLD YOU!]

[About the bell.]

[FINALLY. I TOLD YOU!]

Raguel disconnected.

________________________________
Connel heard it.

He almost smiled. Almost. Then another automatic burst echoed somewhere ahead. The smile disappeared. [Distance?]

Bren checked his display. [Gabriel?]

[Four minutes.]

Connel looked down the corridor. [No Force.]

[I know.]

[No reliable schematics.]

[I know.]

"Possible infiltrators.][/COLOR]

[I know.]

[Nemesis probably has another contingency.]

Bren finally looked at him. [I know.]

Connel nodded. [Just making sure.]

[Anything else?]

[Yeah.]

[What?]

Connel checked his rifle. [I'm having fun.]

Bren stared at him. [That's disturbing.]

[So I've been told.]

__________________________
The next bulkhead opened.

Not because Connel waved his hand. Not because the Force bent metal. Gabriel had already cracked the security system. The door simply opened. Connel moved through first. Rifle high. Bren followed. Two Republic soldiers lay against the wall. Connel immediately stopped. [Don't approach.]

Bren covered him. [Why?]

Connel pointed. One soldier wore the wrong shoulder identifier. Small. Almost invisible. But wrong. [SERAPHIM.]

[Scanning.] Three seconds. [Neither individual matches Republic biometric records.]

The nearest "soldier" moved. Connel fired. The weapon flew from the man's hand. Bren covered the second. [Don't.]

He didn't. Connel approached carefully. [Who are you?]

Silence.

[Fine.]

He keyed another channel. [Regal.]

[Go.]

[Two infiltrators. Alive.]

[Send coordinates.]

[Sending.]

Regal paused. [Firefighters?]

[No.]

[How disappointing.]

Connel looked at Bren. [Did Regal just make a joke?]

[I refuse to acknowledge it.]

____________________________________
Gabriel rejoined them three minutes later.

No fanfare. A service door opened. He stepped through. Closed it. Fell into formation. Bren glanced sideways. [Systems?]

[SERA's got them.]

[Explosives?]

[Network is dead. Physical triggers are still possible.]

[Infiltrators?]

[Raguel's tracking two.]

Connel looked at him. [Good to have you back.]

Gabriel checked his rifle. [Good to be somewhere people are trying to shoot me instead of upload things at me.]

SERAPHIM spoke immediately. [Technically, several cyberattacks were directed toward systems attached to your equipment.]

Gabriel closed his eyes. [Thank you, SERA.]

[You are welcome.]

Bren pointed forward. [Can we go kill bad guys now?]

Connel corrected him. [Stop bad guys.]

Bren looked at him. [Right.]

Gabriel: [Very Jedi.]

Connel: [Force is gone.]

[Still Jedi.]

Connel considered that. Then nodded. [Damn right.]

They moved.

_____________________________
Something exploded ahead. The corridor shook. Dust rolled across them. Omega stopped. Waited. Listened. Nothing. Bren studied the passage. One obvious route. One sealed bulkhead. Limited cover. A perfect breach point. Gabriel looked at him. [That's ugly.]

[Yep.]

[Think they'll come through it?]

[Eventually.]

Connel examined the walls. No Force required. [Directional?]

Bren nodded. [Directional.]

Gabriel began setting charges facing the breach. Not to open it. To greet whoever eventually did. Connel watched. [You expecting someone?]

Bren checked the detonator. [No.] He stood.

[I'm expecting someone to think we're not.] Connel smiled.

Captain Mueller would have approved.

_____________________________________________

They went another seventy meters.

Then SERAPHIM spoke. [Michael.]

Bren stopped. Everyone stopped. [[Go.]

[I have identified a probable hostile command element.]

Everything changed. Not dramatically. Nobody gasped. Nobody drew a lightsaber. They simply became quieter. "Location?][/COLOR]

[Central hub. Approximately one hundred seventeen meters from your current position.]

Bren looked toward Connel. [Confidence?]

[Ninety-four percent.]

Gabriel asked the obvious question. [The other six?]

Possibility that Lord Nemesis is deliberately falsifying his position.] Bren smiled.

Of course. Connel studied the corridor ahead. [Think he is?]

[Maybe. Change anything?]

[Nope]

[Good.]

That was the game now. Maybe Nemesis was waiting. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe the entire hub was another trap. Maybe there were explosives. Maybe another poison.

Maybe another army.

Maybe Nemesis had planned this exact moment six months ago while sitting somewhere drinking tea and congratulating himself on his brilliance. It didn't matter. Omega wasn't trying to predict him anymore. They were simply going to clear every meter between themselves and his position properly. If he was there, they'd find him. If he wasn't, they'd find where he'd gone. No bait. No diversions.

No games.

______________________________

One hundred meters.

Republic armor thundered outside.

Ninety. A Sith fighter screamed overhead. The Sirocco caught it before it reached the evacuation lanes.

Eighty. SERAPHIM destroyed another hostile connection. Seventy. REEK reported another contaminated corridor isolated. Sixty. Crownbreaker sealed the western escape route. Fifty. Reaper crossed overhead. Its shadow passed over the shattered skylights. Forty. Bren raised a fist. Omega stopped. Gabriel checked the door. [Electronic lock.]

[Can you open it?]

Gabriel gave Bren an offended look. [Please.]

SERAPHIM: I have already opened it.]

Gabriel stared upward. [Could you let me have ONE?]

No.]

Connel whispered: [Focus.]

Gabriel nodded. [Right.]

Thirty. The door opened. They moved. Twenty. The battle outside seemed strangely distant now. Connel noticed the silence inside himself again. The Force really was gone. No warning. No intuition.

No comforting presence.

Only training. Experience. His team. His equipment. His eyes. His ears. His judgment. Connel realized something. It was enough. Ten. Bren raised his fist again. Stop. They stacked. Connel front. Bren behind. Gabriel. The others covered the approach.

Connel looked back.

No speeches. They'd already given those. No heroic declarations. No vengeance. No promises. Just a nod. Bren returned it. Gabriel checked his weapon. Ready. Connel faced forward.

The door opened.

_______________________________
The central hub stretched beyond it.

Smoke drifted through damaged lighting. Emergency strobes pulsed red against blackened walls. Screens flickered. Rainwater trickled through cracks somewhere high above. Connel's rifle swept left. Clear. Right. Clear. Bren entered. Gabriel followed. Then Connel saw him. At the far end of the chamber. Huge. Armored. Black.

Nemesis.

No Force told Connel who he was. He didn't need it. Bren came alongside him. For several seconds neither side moved. After everything that had happened on Thyferra, the moment was almost absurdly simple. One man standing at one end of a room.

Another standing at the other.

Bren quietly asked: [That him?]

Connel stared through the lenses of his mask. [That's him. I’m sure of it.]

Gabriel raised his rifle.

Nemesis had spent hours making them look elsewhere. At burning forests. At artillery. At hostages. At poisoned cities. At infected water. At Sithspawn. At bombers. At infiltrators. At everything except him. But Regal had the battlefield. Reaper had the ground forces covered.

The Sirocco was screening the city.

SERAPHIM had the networks. Republic armor was closing the perimeter. Raguel was hunting infiltrators. REEK was helping contain the infection. The Force was gone. And none of it changed what happened next. Connel released his rifle. The sling caught it against his chest. His hands dropped.

Night.

Day.

The two hilts came free. No telekinesis. No flourish. Just hands. The blades ignited.

Connel started walking.

Bren moved with him. Gabriel followed. Omega Squad spread out behind them. For the first time since they had landed on Thyferra, Nemesis had Connel Vanagor's complete attention. And that was probably the last thing he wanted, even if he didn’t know it yet. Connel's voice carried across the chamber. Quiet. Controlled. Almost conversational.

[Found you.]

Tobias Dib Seren Gwyn Aiden Porte Briana Sal-Soren Rik Perris Vivi Irius Jaun Smyth Tiberius Rath

Personal Effects - Omega Squad Loadouts​

 

[Darth Prazutis]

There had always been noise, the Force had never truly been silent for Darth Prazutis.

Even before He had understood what it was, it had existed beneath the world like a second heartbeat. Through war, meditation, sorcery, agony, death, and resurrection, through training it had become something inseparable from His awareness. It unleashed the inner titanic potential within his veins. Ka'ra'nazat had whispered against His soul, Qâzjiin'vraal had breathed with Him, Xûl-Karzaan had filled the spaces between thoughts with the voices of those who had died screaming beneath His hands. Then all of it stopped. The Abyssal Heart went cold against His chest, the crimson runes adorning His warplate dimmed, and the movement of Qâzjiin'vraal changed as the predatory intelligence within its alchemical flesh suddenly muted beneath the absence of the supernatural currents feeding it. The oppressive weight that normally surrounded the Shadow Hand collapsed inward, the sheer hurricane of his apocalyptic presence vanished. The whispers filling Xûl-Karzaan disappeared so abruptly that the silence they left behind felt almost violent. For one fleeting instant, Darth Prazutis stood in a universe emptied of the Force.

Then the arrow struck Him from behind.

It hammered into the vulnerable region near the base of His neck where gorget met pauldron. Qâzjiin'vraal was still monstrous armor even deprived of its sorcerous hunger, but without the Dark Side coursing through its living lattice there was no impossible anticipation of the impact, no instantaneous shifting of supernatural density to meet the threat. The armor-piercing head punched between the plates and buried itself viciously into the flesh beneath. Prazutis' head snapped forward and His entire body lurched, one enormous boot scraping through pulverized earth before His knee struck the ground. Blood came immediately. Dark streams spilled through the damaged collar and ran down His chest, joining the blood already staining Him from her previous shots. Pain erupted through the muscles of His shoulder and neck, hot and immediate, every movement of His head driving the buried projectile deeper against torn tissue.

The Shadow Hand remained upon one knee for several seconds, and around Him the silence in the Force persisted. There was no warning now, no precognition, no supernatural regeneration rushing to close the wound and no darkness rising instinctively to answer His fury. There was only pain. Blood. Flesh. Slowly, Darth Prazutis reached over His shoulder and His fingers found the arrow. He pulled. The barbed projectile resisted Him, tearing flesh as it moved, but His fist tightened around the shaft and He pulled harder until the arrow came free in a wet rush of blood. It struck the earth beside Him.

Prazutis stared at it before He began to rise. Not quickly. Not effortlessly. He planted one massive boot beneath Himself and forced His wounded body upright through strength alone. His shoulder rolled once while blood continued dripping from the opening Allyson had made. Qâzjiin'vraal remained damaged around it, its mundane living tissue beginning the slower biological work of closing what it could while its sorcerous properties remained strangled by the nullification surrounding them. Then the Dark Lord turned. There she was. No Force concealed her now, no supernatural veil. No Ghost hidden between heartbeats. Only Allyson Locke, bloodied, exhausted, sickened by repeated teleportation, deprived of the Force she had spent a lifetime shaping into techniques few living beings could replicate so efficiently. Still holding the bow.

Still trying to kill Him.

Prazutis looked at her and smiled beneath His helm. Not because she had failed, but because she hadn't. "They died." His voice was different without Xûl-Karzaan's abyssal chorus, deeper than most men could naturally produce but singular now. Human. If anything, that made it worse. The Dark Lord gestured toward the burning wreckage of the transports behind her, where shapes staggered through the flames in bodies that had once belonged to people fleeing Thyferra. "You saw them fall. You felt Taiia. And still you came back for Me." There was unmistakable satisfaction in His voice. "Good." Prazutis began walking toward her. "You chose again. No Mentor guided you. No Master whispered into your mind. No Force guided your arrow. Nothing remained between you and the decision you made." The blackened blade of Xûl Qarnak still burned. Its sorcerous hunger was muted and its reality-warping malice extinguished beneath the nullification, but the lightsaber itself remained exactly what it had always physically been: A monstrous weapon designed for a monstrous wielder. Prazutis raised it. "And you chose murder." There was no condemnation in the statement. It sounded like congratulations.

"There. Finally." The Mortarch spread His arms slightly despite the agony protesting through His wounded shoulder. "No excuses. Just you and Me. Two monsters." The tremendous figure continued advancing. "You thought taking the Force away would make Me mortal." A low laugh escaped Him. "You believe that should comfort you because gods bleed. That I might use it as a crutch?" He reached up and dragged two armored fingers through the blood running from His neck, regarded it upon His gauntlet, and then wiped it slowly across the face of Xûl-Karzaan. "You have mistaken mortality for weakness."

The Dark Lord pointed Xûl Qarnak toward her. "The Force did not teach Me to endure pain." A memory surfaced beneath His words. Maena. A world that devoured weakness, where mercy did not exist. "I learned that before the Sith ever knew My name. Before Carnifex. Before Empires. Before anyone called Me Shadow Hand. They called Me the Undying King because men spent years discovering how difficult it was to make Me stay down." The Dark Lord's voice rose as He advanced. "Break My bones, I rise. Tear My flesh, I rise. Beat me, shock me, crucify me, flay me, burn me, I RISE." Blood struck the ground beneath Him with every measured step. "Take My power, and I rise." He spread one enormous hand toward the unnatural emptiness surrounding them before His voice became quiet again. "You cannot take from Me what made Me WHO I AM. Your overreliance on Raaf's creations, and your parlor tricks blinds you." A Blackblade Guardsman approached through the smoke behind Him, the enhanced giant carrying an Executioner particle rifle across his armored chest. He rounded to the side of the Dark Lord, and threw his rifle through the air, and without even looking away, the Dark Lord caught it, tucking it against his shoulder, the large rifle pointed toward the ground.

Then Prazutis moved.

There was no Force behind the sudden acceleration, and that was what made it horrifying, His body had never been ordinary. The Umbral Sovereign strand had been built for war, a colossal biological engine carrying centuries of martial conditioning within flesh engineered to endure punishment that would kill lesser beings. His armor weighed enough to cripple ordinary soldiers, yet He wore it as another man wore clothing. The eight-foot titan surged forward and Xûl Qarnak came across His body in a brutal diagonal strike meant not to decide Allyson's reaction but to demand one, the enormous weapon sweeping toward her with the reach and momentum of an executioner's blade. Whether she evaded, retreated, or answered with another arrow, it didn't matter. Prazutis followed the motion rather than admiring it. His injured shoulder burned, and He welcomed the pain because pain meant He was alive. He rotated through the strike, keeping His body behind the enormous weapon and reducing the profile He presented despite His impossible size. He had fought archers, snipers, Mandalorians, Jedi, assassins, and warriors whose entire philosophy was built around killing Sith larger and stronger than themselves. Allyson Locke was better than almost all of them, and He treated her like it. No lumbering swings. No assumption that size equaled victory. Controlled steps, measured angles, relentless pressure. The Undying King had not survived centuries by becoming careless.

The Dark Lord quickly followed up his diagonal strike by lowering the Executioner and with one hand, the particle rifle barked three times, blood-red bolts ripping toward her, aiming to cause pain rather than inflict lethal wounds. "You want to know whether I could die." Xûl Qarnak moved again, another brutal cut carving through the smoke between them. "Yes. I can." The answer carried no fear. "I have stood upon that threshold more times than you could count. I have conquered death. But understand something before you decide what that means." Prazutis stepped into striking distance again. "I was Emperor of the Sith. I was Shadow Hand when Empires rose, and I remained when they fell. Kings have called Me brother. Emperors have called Me counsel. Dark Lords who believed themselves eternal have become names in archives while I continued walking." There was no mystical aura reinforcing the words now, no supernatural terror pressing down upon the battlefield. There was only a man who had actually lived them. "I have put My hand upon every age of modern Sith history and left fingerprints in blood. I have commanded armies large enough to blacken the heavens. My legions have exterminated nations. I have watched governments rise around Me, through Me, and because of Me." His voice hardened. "And when every throne shattered beneath its occupant..." Prazutis struck His armored fist against His own chest. "I remained."

The sound rang across the battlefield, metal against metal with bleeding flesh beneath it, alive in spite of everything Allyson had done to Him. "That is who you decided to hunt. Not a sorcerer. Not an artifact. Not some monster held together by the Dark Side." Xûl Qarnak rose. "Me. From NOTHING I have risen, with a burning desire for EVERYTHING, and I have SHATTERED THE VERY HEAVENS." His voice dropped into something almost intimate as the blade turned in His hands. "The boy Maena couldn't kill. The King who would not stay buried. The Emperor who outlived His Empire. The Mortarch. The Shadow Hand of the one true Sith'ari." Prazutis looked directly at Allyson. "And now devoid of the Force." A faint sound of amusement emerged from behind His helm. "It has not diminished Me. It has simply removed every excuse either of us had left." His eyes moved briefly toward the burning transports before returning to Allyson. "You were willing to die for Taiia. So am I supposed to be frightened?" He shook His head. "No. Now I respect you." His grip tightened around Xûl Qarnak. "You finally understand. Love does not redeem monsters. It gives them something worth becoming monstrous for. You've stopped lying to yourself, and embraced the demon you truly are." There was the lesson He had been pressing toward since the moment Allyson confronted Him. Not that she should stop loving Taiia, but that she should stop apologizing for what love had made her willing to do. "You wanted her protected from this. From you." Prazutis gestured toward Allyson with the blade. "But look at yourself now." Bloodied. Force-dead. Standing before the Dark Lord with nothing but a bow and the conviction that she would drag Him into hell if that was what Taiia required. "This is the woman who loves her. Not the mask you wore at home. You. Finally you fully embrace the Dark Side."

As he finished, the Dark Lord charged. No thunder from the Force followed Him. No darkness bent reality around His advance. No supernatural storm announced the coming of the Reaper. There were only tremendous armored boots pounding against broken Thyferran earth, the growl of Xûl Qarnak, and an ancient warrior closing upon a Wraith while blood ran freely beneath His armor, torn flesh slowly mending.

The Force was gone.

Good.

Now they could discover which monster was harder to kill.

Allyson Locke | Taiia Locke | Darth Carnifex | Taeli Raaf​

 

[Tobias Dib]

Allies: Sith Order
Enemies: THR & Jedi
Tags: "Ariel" , Seren Gwyn , OPEN



"I'm not going anywhere near that water." Seren's words drew a small smile across his face. In the darkness, he could still see the way she held herself, her wounded shoulder obviously giving her trouble. His grip upheld her in the moment of weakness as his eyes delved deeper into the ruination of the tunnels. No need to remark on her physical condition. She knew her current limitations. "A sensible precaution." Once Troigs felt her recover a modicum of composure and strength, he angled his head down the way he had come. "Hug the walls. Stay close. And remember, you gave your surrender and I shall hold you to that. Just as you should know I am honorbound to see you safely through to the prison ship." With these words, his hand slowly moved from her arm, and he led the way carefully through the long corridor.

Several times he stopped, letting his prisoner stay close. His left hand remained at his belt, near the foreign lightsaber clipped there. While he believed he could trust her intentions, there was no point in tempting fate. When they finally made it to the first intersection, he paused and peeked around the corner before swiftly pulling back to lean his back against the wall. His eyes searched her face, and he mouthed the word stay. Then he closed his eyes, letting the Force flow in and through himself as he centered his mind and allowed a calming presence permeate his being. Metallic scraping echoed around the corner with a shuffling gait that splashed through the water—multiple beings. Then the first monstrous form passed into view.

Metallic protrusions littered the former Sith trooper's skin. Shoulders were hunched, and arms dragged on the ground behind him from grotesque lengthening of his limbs. Milken eyes stared at nothing as the creature passed. The next two still appeared more human, despite the elongated fingers with wickedly curved talons at the end of them. Nothing was wrong with their eyes as they turned toward the glowing lightsaber. It would be the last thing they ever saw as a single strike removed their heads from their shoulders. Before the bodies hit the ground, the metallic sithspawn spun with inhuman speed and lunged for Troigs, who spun, narrowly avoiding the lengthened arms, and he dropped the blade down from a high guard, severing the sithspawn in twain. The lower half lay unmoving as the top half crawled forward, hands reaching for the nearer woman.

Troigs spun the lightsaber, amputating the creature, before driving the plasma blade into the sithspawn's chest and heart. He quickly repeated the move on the previous two. Quick thrusts to the chests. Eyes turned back to the corridor where he had departed from Sergeant Mills. Desire wanted to rejoin the ragtag group and push for the center of the compound. Duty demanded he get Seren to the prisoner transport. A slight grimace crossed his features as he shook his head, the decision made. "We go left and head for the exit. My duty comes before other things. Come on." Troigs almost reached for her arm again, but he desisted. She hadn't resisted. And Seren hadn't made an attempt for her lightsaber hilt while he was engaged with the sithspawn. He would continue to offer her a hint of courtesy.

They turned and headed down the long corridor. The water still fell from the sprinklers above. Their strategy of hugging the walls worked until it didn't. One of the pipes above was busted, spraying water against both walls. Seren had no way past without getting hit by the mist of contaminated water. A grunt escaped as he looked at the woman. Thoughts ran through his mind for an alternative route, yet each required a longer path through contested halls, and there was no way of knowing if they had suffered similar damage to the water pipes. Another grunt escaped him as he turned to the woman. "When I move, you move."

The lightsaber was deactivated and clipped to the front of his belt. His armored gloves flexed over his hands before he took the edges of the Jedi robe and moved, using the cloth as a barrier between himself and the spray, and stepped into its path, creating an area she could move through without getting wet. After the slim figure of Seren slipped past, he moved from the stream and tossed the saturated robe from around his body. Water ran across his sealed armor, and he frowned before waving his hands over the plate armor, intense heat radiating from them and drying the water. He reclaimed and ignited his saber before motioning her to once again follow him.

They crept along, avoiding the water and any other encounters with the creatures until they reached a fifth intersection. The lights were out, but illumination was still to be had from fires that ran along the top of the walls far enough away from the sprinkler water. The blue lightsaber cast a glow which aided in their travel. His head leaned just far enough out that he could see almost a dozen mutated creatures heading down the intersection for them. Easing back, he glanced at Seren. "This will take a few more moments." And then IT was gone. The Force, the senses, the abilities. All gone. A grunt escaped as his mind filtered through the options as the creatures rapidly approached. Troigs trusted in his skills and, should he need to, he could always beat a hasty retreat. Then he looked at the woman and knew she could not.

The steps grew closer, and he deactivated his hilt and went to the woman, ushering her backward to a slight depression in the wall. "Get in, close your eyes, find your center, do not be afraid, and let everything drift away." He whispered the instructions as he helped her move to the dip in the wall. Then he pressed himself against her, using his size and darkened armor to block the view of anything potentially organic. Following his own command, he closed his eyes and breathed out slowly as he calmed his heartbeat and lowered his life sign. The first several creatures moved by without pausing. The fourth stopped. A distorted face turned milky eyes along the corridor, searching for a victim. But in the relative darkness and shadows, it found nothing, and the group moved on down the tunnel.

--------------------------------------------------------------​

"It has begun." Three little words to describe the culmination of one of the most devious plans enacted by Nemesis. Working holovids revealed the demonic transformation that had been wrought upon Sith troopers in custody, deceased troopers, and even those still in the fight within the depths of the industrial park. When Nemesis had set things in motion, there were many paths available. This was merely one of the many outcomes he had envisioned. Sithspawn finding the flesh of new victims. Men and women falling beneath savage ferocity until they lay unmoving, held in the peaceful embrace of death. Yet even that was denied them as twitching fingers creaked as they spasmed. Unfocused eyes rolled back into their heads.

At first, the dead were merely the dead. Even the light twitches were barely noticeable, especially in a warzone. It wasn't until some of them convulsed, backs arching off the ground and arms jerking beneath bloated bodies and holding their torsos off the ground. Heads dangled between shoulders that popped when arms slipped from sockets and reformed into alien, ungodly new pockets of elongated joints. Eyes popped from behind eyelids and raised on serpentine stalks, twitching from one side to another. The top half of their heads sagged beneath the weight and mouths opened. Wide. So wide that the flesh of the cheeks tore and shredded until the jaws opened in a caricature gape, teeth growing misshapen and several covered in a metallic substance. A long tongue dangled a meter from the revealed throat, a barbed spike rising in the air. The bloated belly split in a valley of teeth, long tendrils of connected intestines slithering out with open maws of sucking throats. Veins pulsed on pale flesh, raised like silver braille streaks of infection. Metallic spires poked from exposed flesh like defensive spikes.

The armored giant waited, knowing the enemy would soon arrive. And then he would remove them from their mortal coil. Who knows … maybe he would allow them to rise as sithspawn, obeying in death what they foolishly refused in life—the honor of serving their new Liege Lord, Nemesis.

And then, as quickly as the death of a light fixture, the Force vanished.

--------------------------------------------------------------​

Mills continued to pull the trigger on his blaster rifle despite the power cell having run empty moments before. The group that had joined Troigs and himself at the prison, survived the run from city to industrial park, endured the violence as they entered the facilities, and had come so close to striking at the heart of the compound where Nemesis existed in a web of chaos now lay dead by his own hand. His gorge rose, and he vomited on the viewscreen within his helmet. These men had volunteered to join their fight. And he was the one who killed them by shooting them down like rabid dogs. It was heartbreaking. And devastating for his mental health. His hands automatically swapped the drained power cell in his rifle for a new one as he stared through the putrid viscous fluid on the interior HUD.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he saw movement from the dead. There it was again, slight motion at the extremities. And then they convulsed, their bodies contorting. "Hell na …" He leaped over the writhing bodies and ran down the halls. Steps skidded across stagnant water and pooled blood alike in his rapid retreat. The sounds of nearly a dozen sithspawn finding their feet, and apparently hands, to pursue him on ungainly limbs. He bounced against walls and bulkheads in his flight from the terrors behind. The monstrosities. One who refused to let him flee without pursuit.

And so he ran.

Every turn he made was designed to throw the following sithspawn off his trail. Eyes scanned for an escape while his legs churned and his lungs began to burn. The cumbersome heavy blaster was dropped in his wake as his arms pumped while he accelerated. After several minutes running through the maze of corridors, he took another turn and finally escaped their sight. Quickly, he searched for a place to hide before looking up at the pipes that ran along the ceiling. "I wonder …" He leaped, hands grabbing the pipes, and swung himself up and between the small space and next to the brackets. He waited as the sithspawn sped past in a vain search for where he had gone.

--------------------------------------------------------------​

"Found you."

He didn't turn to face the enemy. There was no need. Connel and his entire Omega Squad were nothing to him. Not a threat. Not a worry. Not even the irritant of a minuscule bug he could squash with a single step. He was like an annoying rash in the groin caused by wearing his armor too long. He didn't need to apply force to deal with a rash. Maybe a small amount of baby powder. The thought brought an amused smile to his face. Yes, they were babies, unable to grasp the intricate designs planned from before the Sith fleet arrived. Before a single Sith landed from the drop ships. Yes, they were children attempting to play a game with adults. A game planned and prepared by Nemesis long before the invasion began. To say Nemesis thought this moment would occur was an understatement. Nemesis had planned on this very outcome. Though he was disappointed it had taken as long as it had. It seemed the Alphas were busy elsewhere, and he was stuck entertaining the worth of a military component so far down the alphabet; he was almost offended.

"Found you? I was never hiding. I've been here the whole time. I would ask what took you so long, but your obvious inferiority is apparent." He walked forward, his massive frame taking him to the windows where he looked out from where the room was perched in the towers. "Found you? It was plain to see your ineptitude in the first hour of our landing. I would have assumed your people would have discovered my location long ago because my slicers and hackers kept acting quite blatantly. How many breadcrumbs must be laid before you could see the trail? Instead, you played it safe and stayed away, which allowed me several hours of freedom. Several hours of actions with impudence and no consequence. If you had come at my veiled invitation, then perhaps the last several hours could have been avoided. However, I understand. Fear. You cowered like a whimpering, frightened nexu kitten, as I would expect. This is the caliber of what the Jedi and High Republic call their special forces? It's no wonder your government and way of life are a rotting, bloated corpse. This wasn't a war for the Sith Order. It's a Sunday picnic as we stroll through your gardens and take what we want."

His helmet turned to the right as he nodded. "Say hello to my pet. You may remember her. Her name is Alara Sikair." The techno beast who was once Alara leaped over desks and attacked the intruders as the Ronin at the desks rose and pulled their blades before launching forward at Connel and his compatriots.

Meanwhile, the giant stood in front of the glass, watching the action within its reflection. An unlit lightsaber rested in each of his hands as his back remained to the inconsequential interlopers. The timer continued to tick.

2.00.00
1.59.59
1.59.58