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

[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


"Maybe it doesn't." The admission came between crossing blades, teal and crimson scattering sparks through smoke and ash. Maybe the Sith was right. Maybe Zaiya's heart did not belong on a battlefield.

"But neither do theirs." She shot back, their strikes a flurry of attacks before a well placed boot decked the Lovalla and hit her stomach.

"Ungh!" Zaiya folded around it and went tumbling backward, hitting scorched earth hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs with a savage grimace.

Ow....definitely ow. Maybe even several ow-ws.

The Jedi rolled onto one knee as she coughed to catch her breath, one arm cradling her middle. Across from her, Revna was speaking about her own heart. About love and joy and happiness and all that there was therein -- and Zaiya believed her. And maybe that was perhaps the saddest part.

Because of course, Revna could love. Of course she could feel joy. Zaiya had spent so much of her life learning that nobody was ever only one color. Anger could exist beside love, sorrow beside joy, and fear beside courage. Sometimes all of them happened at once and became such a confusing mess that Zaiya herself did not know what color she was supposed to be.

You bleed emotion.

Zaiya looked up through sweaty strands of ombre hair, wry cyan sparking through her mottled spots.

Well... like, yes, obviously. She was a Lovalla. She practically glowed emotion. The kaleidoscope of colors were her kind's primary form of communication.

But Revna stopped before Zaiya could decide whether pointing that out would be helpful. Something had changed. Zaiya felt it too, a smothering wrongness brushed across the edges of her awareness, strange enough that her head snapped toward the smoke-choked sky. Grey tones of confusion rippled across her mottled spots edged almost immediately by the worried hue of canary yellow.

But there was barely any chance to dig into it. Aris had taught her not to waste an opening, especially when seconds could mean another life. So when the teal plasma hit Revna, for half a heartbeat, Zaiya was relieved... until again, the wind seemed to whistle in her ears as she was suddenly airborne again.

She quickly summoned soft solid to try and mitigate the damage, but it was the white hot pain that flared through her ribs and shoulders when her body struck the ground, bounced, and rolled through ash and grit that made everything suddenly, terribly wrong.

It hadn't worked. Instead, bruises threatened to bloom in mottled purplse spots where her muscles and bones objected to the intensity of the hit. Zaiya froze, frazzled as she half-scrambled on all fours in a crouched position, saber hilt in hand and her iridescent opal blue eyes snapping wide open in shock.

It was the silence, the dullness of it all that struck her hard.

Thyferra had been unbearable only seconds before. There had been thousands upon thousands of emotions crashing against her empathic senses, a tumbleweed of fear and pain, courage and desperation, death and determination, every living presence another color in an enormous painting she could never entirely shut away ...but now that painting was gone. And when Zaiya reached instinctively to view and feel the colors... there was nothing.

"No..." Zaiya uttered, breathing spiking as she reached again. For the soldiers, for the frightened civilians fleeing toward shelters, for the horrible blighted wrongness she had sensed crawling somewhere beyond the smoke.

"No, no no no..." This was worse than when she had felt her parents die, when she had felt their bond sever as they were crushed under the orbital bombardment at Commoner. In desperation, the Lovalla's hand tightened around her lightsaber. The Entondite crystal had always answered her before with its song, its resonance felt so much like the bonds of her own people that it had become one of the first ways Zaiya learned to understand the Force....only now it was just a hilt trembling in her hand.

But there was one presence Zaiya searched for before all others.

Aris.

Zaiya scrambled upright, fingers flying to the necklace at her throat. Their connection had become so constant she barely thought about where she ended and its quiet resonance began anymore. Through fear, confusion, joy, embarrassment, love, there had always been that warm certainty somewhere beyond herself.

"Aris?" Her voice cracked as his name escaped aloud, as for once, nothing answered.... and Zaiya's light began to die. The rosy gold washed toward silvery ash. Magenta dulled. Teal dimmed. Luminous blues guttered into grey until the brilliant Lovalla stood beneath the smoke with barely more than an uncertain shimmer.

Zaiya looked suddenly smaller, because she was small. Without the Force strengthening her body or warning her of danger, Zaiya was painfully aware of every limitation -- her ribs hurt. Her shoulder hurt. Breathing hurt.

And frightening her more than anything was the fact she could still not feel Aris. Panic flared in her chest, struggling to make sense of it all while trying not to break down.

And as the Lovalla scoured the battlefield, she caught sight of Revna as she collapsed onto her hands and knees. Zaiya saw the panic on her face, but she could not feel it. For perhaps the first time in years, Zaiya had to look at another person and simply guess. No empathic colors. No resonance. No Force whispering what existed beneath the words.

Just another frightened young woman staring back at her.

And Zaiya understood being frightened and alone. For the first fourteen years of her life, she had been so utterly alone. Had no concept of the Force. The Sith. The Jedi. It had been that moment in time, that thread of fate, that had her cross Aris's path. That led her to discover that even though she was the only Lovalla she knew, she didn't have to be alone anymore. The Force had made her feel connections again. Had given her colors and light and made what was one a colorless, blind galaxy into a tapestry of wonders.

And now that was gone. All that was left was exhaustion, pain, panic, and fear. Maybe she was going down too, and that frightened realization cut through everything else.

I don't have much time. And if Zaiya passed out first.. Opal blue eyes flicked towards the refinery behind her, where the soliders worked in desperation to tend to the wounded. To the shelters beyond where so many innocents tried to find cover or the shuttles that tried to escape the blight and indiscriminate attacks of the Sith.

No... she could panic later. She could cry later. She could curl up somewhere and desperately try to find that connection to Aris and octopus him for hours just to feel him beside her... but first, she had to make sure the woman would not be able to hurt anyone else.

So with all the clashing of emotions. With the sense of bewilderment, shock, alarm and fear that swept over the Lovalla, she acted. The teal blade vanished with a snap-hiss and Zaiya clipped the hilt to her belt. Maybe it was useless now. Maybe everything she had learned to depend upon was useless now.

Fine.

Zaiya still had one thing -- herself. Well... for however long she remained in the fight. And ohh, she really, really had to. Or this was going to suck, so, so very bad.

So she pushed onto trembling legs, first one step, then another, until she finally ran. It wasn't graceful, or pretty, and there was no Force-assisted burst of crazy speed to guide her feet through the battlefield. Just Zaiya, all bruised, frightened, dull muted grey Zaiya, the kaleidoscope of brilliant colors fading as though the light were bleeding out of her.... because it was.

For nothing was as deadly to a mated Lovalla than severing the bonds that kept her alive.

Keep going. If she only had a few moments left, then she was going to make them count. She stumbled and barely caught herself, only to then throw herself at Revna.

"Got you!" She yelped out as her shoulder slammed into the Sith, pain radiating through her on the impact, but still Zaiya wrapped both arms around her as they crashed to the ground together. Because if Zaiya could not feel where Revna was anymore, then fine -- she would get close enough that she did not have to.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The instinct to protect her family was overwhelming. She'd abandoned her mission on Sepan 8 when she knew Bastila was in danger, only to find her worst fears realized. Every atom that made up her existence, screamed at her to do the same, now. But, Gerwald had managed to say the one thing that kept her planted right where she was.

“Thyferra has belonged to us before. We rebuilt it before. If this war leaves nothing but foundations when you are finished defending it, we will build it again.”

“And somewhere on this world is someone who decided we deserved the opportunity.”

The sentence hung in the air, cold and stark, cutting through the splitting headache that'd taken over a good portion of her senses as she tried to shove Brandyn out of her head. Steady, azure eyes bore into him, the initial spike of panic hollowing out into pure disbelief and stomach-churning horror surrounding the man she'd once regarded as a hero.

The vault creaked open again, followed by a decade of emotions carefully controlled, carefully locked up, erupting in her like a Dathomiri volcano.

Build it again.

As if the dead beneath those future foundations were nothing more than packing material. As if a ruined home could be replaced by stacking fresh stones over the ghosts of the people who used to live inside them.

Briana remembered well what that rebuilding looked like. She remembered the skeletal remains of Naboo after the Confederacy abandoned them. The scorched fields and vineyards that others relied on for their livelihoods gone. Even the swamps and Ootah Gunga hadn't gone unscathed. She remembered the families who spent weeks turning over smoking earth, trying to find the smallest shred of their loved ones, or something that simply belonged to them, that they could bury.

She remembered the endless stretch of waiting for a stewardship that'd promised to protect them, then never came back. She remembered the rise of Queen Kalantha . She remembered watching her go from Galactic Government, to Galactic Government as a lone voice begging for someone to look at the worlds in the Southern Systems, choking on the wreckage left behind by the CIS. She remembered door after door being closed on her, until finally they'd stopped asking, stopped pleading, and put their own bruised hands to the wheel, hauling themselves up out of the mud by sheer-will and the desire to survive, and building a Republic out of their own ashes.

And here he stood, smoothing over what she could only describe as the attempted annihilation of this world, as if it were nothing more than a pile of rubble. Another inconvenience on the schedule.

Teeth gnashed together as another pang shot through her head.

“Whatever is happening to you, decide quickly whether you intend to fight it or me.”

Force knew that everything in her was thrashing at her, screaming to go and help Brandyn and Bastila... but, thousands of people here had no sister who'd be coming for them. No brother who would tear the galaxy apart on their behalf. Even though they may never know her name, or the names of those who'd been lost today. May never understand what it cost to remain standing here... she thought of what she would have wanted the 'heroes' she'd once looked up to, to do for her.

What they'd failed to do. She'd choose their homes. Their children. Their futures.

Even if that choice cost her everything.

With a rattling breath, Briana used all her mental fortitude to shove back against Brandyn's rage, against the darkness trying to overwhelm her.

The crystals of her trap had been blown aside, and with the countdown underway on losing the Force, it seemed a useless endeavor to try and rebuild now. Instead, she raised her blade into her dominant style of Djem So and locked her gaze on his, her choice clear.

"You won't be getting the chance to do any of that. Because this world does not, and will not, ever belong to you or your Empire. It belongs to its people. And so long as the Jedi draw breath, so long as I draw breath, we will always stand to oppose you. Along with anyone else like you, too."

And just as she'd finished speaking, that's when she felt it. Like a candlewick pinched out in a sudden gale, the internal sun that'd always warmed her veins her entire life simply vanished. Even though she'd anticipated it was coming, the actual arrival of the void was no less staggering. Her limbs felt leaden, stripped of the supernatural velocity and strength she'd relied on to carry her through every clash of her life. Across from her, Gerwald’s physical stature loomed larger, his sheer mass seeming like an insurmountable wall without the kinetic equalization of the Force.

But as the silence pressed down on her, Briana didn't step back. Her knuckles whitened around the hilt of her lightsaber, relying now on raw, aching sinew and pure, stubborn defiance.

If the light inside her was gone, then she'd burn as she was.

OUTFIT: XoXo | ENEMY: Gerwald Lechner | HONORABLE MENTIONS: Brandyn Sal-Soren , Bastila Sal-Soren Kalantha
EQUIPMENT: Jumpsuit, Astor Daary's Blade, Springloaded Gauntlets, Echo Stone, Force Blinding Flash Bang, Jedi Imbued Kolcta Grenades x2, Lightsaber, Crystal Cage (Perms)

​

 

[Helix]

​

Outside, the Blightspawned Cyber-Zombies continued to explode in numbers.

The Tarnaci Blight was not some crude pathogen to be categorized, understood, or cured. It was a thinking collective being, adaptable in lethality, transmission, and strategy. Water, air, or touch were all valid means of infection. Worse still, the Blight was cunning in its manipulations: not everyone who came into contact was transformed immediately. Many infected were unaware and outwardly unharmed, pouring into the civilian refugee ships that desperately attempted to race offworld. All it took was to touch a tainted surface, drink tainted water, or breathe tainted air.

Each of the horrors it created acted in concert, particularly as the techno-virus tightened its grip on Thyferra's population. While slow of reflex and mind, the Blightspawn more than made up for it in numbers, fearlessness, and sheer aggression.

For their part, the Cyber-Zombies were not Force-reliant in their existence. They were the products of terrifyingly advanced technology rather than sorcery, and didn't react or respond as the Void zone expanded to encompass the planet.

Naturally-formed ranged weapons chattered and jagged metal blades crunched home into flesh as the cybernetic dead resurged. Slowly, but inexorably, the enemy was beaten back on several fronts. The horrors Helix created knew neither pain nor fear. Even as weapons fire tore limbs from their bodies or rent them in twain, they faced their end with the same mindless indifference they showed towards all else.

Each was tremendously superhuman in strength, regardless of any weaknesses or infirmities in life. Should one lay hands on a victim, the result was nearly always the same: another member of Helix's horde.

Then, as one, they began to speak. Words formed in torn throats, oozing from leaking jaws, crackling vocabulators, and insectile mandibles. Regardless of where they were or what they were doing, every single member of the millions-strong horde put forth the same words. Announced in the lilting falsetto of youth, the reedy whisper of great age, and every type of voice in between, they spoke thusly.

"Good people of Thyferra, I bid you hello. Do you like my creations? I would hope so. They wear the faces of your sons, daughters, wives, husbands. They smile even as their fangs meet your throat."

"Take a good, long look. You will share this fate, this I guarantee. I offer no mercy and no quarter. Upon my honor, every man, woman, and child on this planet will join the horde."

"My name is Helix, and I will be your guide on the exciting new transition that you are about to undergo. Mark that name in your memory, for the brief time that you still have one, and know that it is I who plunged this poisoned dagger into the heart of your world. As your loved ones peel the flesh from your bones with loving fingers, consider this. Perhaps they are the lucky ones."

"After all, they no longer know pain, fear, or pity. They are mine now, as you soon will be. Perhaps once there was a chance for you to escape this fate. No longer. Your leaders have failed you, and have complacently allowed this nightmare to fall upon you. They sit behind armored barricades, military starships, and off-world mansions while your door splinters and buckles under the blows of your former friends and neighbors. The Blightspawn will be inside soon. They will find you."

"Before you lose the capacity to understand, I would have you absorb this. Every single slow and painful death that has occurred is the fault of your leaders, not yourself. What has occurred here, is occurring here, is a tragedy. Like all good tragedies, there were a thousand offramps to avoid it. Your masters primly avoided every single one."

"If you would elect a quick and painless transformation rather than a more... creative one, turn your weapons on your superiors. Terminate your loved ones to spare them the horror to come, then terminate yourself for good measure."

"I will instruct my servants to extend this tiniest of considerations towards those who comply. You are dead either way. How much pain I make you endure before that... is in your hands. You know what you must do."

This was all Helix could offer to his allies as he fought for his non-life. A tightening of the noose, a modicum of finer control over the Blight's ravages. It was already a scalpel-precise thing, infecting in a cunning and intelligent manner. Helix commanded the Blight, and thus, its victims.

Inevitably, some would listen, choosing a blaster bolt to the brain over messy disassembly at the hands, guns, blades, and claws of the horde. Death, of course, was no salvation. A headless corpse would transform all the same, and a few would even develop new heads as the Blight ravaged and remade them cell by cell.

"To the rest of you..." this part came crackling over the Sith comms. "These are soldiers, not distractions or dalliances of sorcery. Use them. Every kill they make swells our numbers. For now, they will answer to any of you who require them. I daresay you'll need them, with your 'special talents' temporarily indisposed."

 

[Garus Bushi]

Allies: THR, Jedi Order, Nemesis
Enemies: SO
Tags: Master Orik , Shahar Aksum , Tobias Dib

He only had the barest of memories of his planet of birth: winding brooks, falling cherry blossoms, and the sense of belonging. However, his home was a cramped freighter, surrounded by his family, until pirates stole both. And a young boy was left with only bloody memories to haunt his dreams for years.

He blinked as the smoke stung his eyes and tears welled before dropping. They weren't for his prior life. No tears remained for the boy who no longer existed. But on the horizon, the city burned, and he knew many other children would be orphaned before the night ended. The tears were from the smoke, and for the unseen orphans. He almost lost his chance to be a Padawan because of his past. Yet Master Orik saw through the pain and nightmares of the past that gripped the youth. And he could see the possibilities of hope, strength, and light for the future. Orik became his teacher, father, brother, uncle, master, and everything else that mattered. And when his old Master rallied his pupils and other like-minded Jedi, Garus never needed to be asked. He would answer the call.

He never would have expected that call to see him hidden in a forest as the Sith burned a planet, poisoned a people, and infected the population. Everything within him wanted to rush out and join his blade to the cause of Thyferra. However, he wouldn't. The Jedi Order was no longer making a difference. They treated the symptoms of an underlying disease that slowly grew immune to each effort the Jedi tried to make. And now, the only true option was surgical. They had to remove the corruption at the source, before it spread and killed the host. The galaxy was the host. And the Order of the Fist would be the laser scalpel. So he waited with almost sixty of the others for the time to act.

He and all the others heard the go-ahead, and he rose with the others to follow Master Orik carefully through the trees. Many of the members of the Fist he knew. Several were close friends. He knew some, though not well enough to count them as friends. Acquaintances. And few were complete mysteries. All answered the call that Master Orik sent out. That was all that mattered. They were in this together. As one, they followed until they reached the small clearing. The dead Sith lay where they fell, the long grass covering their forms almost gracefully. It was more than they deserved, especially as the planet burned all around in large part due to the actions of the dead's brethren.

In the forest, he slipped his robes and tunic off, pausing as he held them in his hands. For the majority of his life, the garments meant something: law and order. Protecting the innocent and standing in the gap for those unable to defend themselves. But now, all Garus saw was the leash. They were tossed away as he claimed his new garments. From the corner of his eyes, he caught the brief reflection on ebony skin—an orange hue from the eastern fires and a blue sheen from lightning above. She was beautiful. In the midst of chaos, she was a thing of delicate form. And she had the strength of resolve to be a member of the Fist. His eyes were averted as he finished dressing in the slain Sith armor. There was no time for anything but the mission.

As the Order followed Orik, Garus wondered for the briefest of moments. What they did now broke all the rules of the Jedi. Definitely all the rules of the High Republic. But what was occurring on this planet was a cycle. War, battle, retreat, gather forces, then war, battle, retreat, and gather forces. The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new response. That was where the Order of the Fist came in. They were the new thing that would break the cycle for every other potential Thyferra across the galaxy. And for every other possible child made an orphan by the continuation of evil.

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

​

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

Dark glee filled the neti has one of her daggers struck home, the arboreal equivalent of adrenaline flooding her form as she whirled. To the credit of her opponent, the lithe little Jedi managed to avoid too much further harm for the time. Seeking the high ground and convening with backup, the woman began to speak but A'Mia's gaze was frozen elsewhere.

Time stretched out, the seconds seemed to elongate impossibly, as Lina crumpled to the ground.

Lina…

Beautiful, darkly brilliant and powerful Lina. Her paramour… companion of boundless intellect and quick wit… A'Mia's anchor point at times when Alisteri baffled her so, and also the other way around. A woman whom she’d confided so much to, yet still hadn’t fully found the words to say how much she cared. Foolishly, A’Mia thought they had time — was relieved when her romantic endeavors had led her to not one partner whose longevity could hope to match her own, but two. And now, ripped so suddenly from her…

Hollow and empty.

Lina was gone.

“NO!”

The scream tore from her and before the Jedi could fully conclude her offer of peace, the arboreal woman moved in a terrifying whirl of limbs and cloth away, back toward her fallen companion. If they hadn't been cut off from the Force, the scream would have caused significant damage. As things were, the neti was horrifyingly angry but devoid of her ordinary powers with which to show it. Water sprayed and plant matter flew from where A‘Mia tore through the environment to reach Lina.

One of her loose Sithspawn had already crept in, seeing the opportunity of an easy meal now that the sorceress didn't have control. A'Mia screamed again as she slammed bodily into the thing, their terrifying screeching mingling as it tore through the air at an octave so alien from any sound mammalian creatures typically produced. Her other spawn began to pounce in a frenzy, targeting anything with flesh and showing a preference for targets nearer to the murky waters.

Pushing the shambling vine away from Lina's body, so small in this state, A'Mia took an errant blaster bolt to the shoulder. She ignored it and stooped, picking Lina up gently to cradle her close — hunched protectively as her free arms flexed menacingly. One saber remained at the ready and the other appeared to have been stowed.

The neti whirled back to face the Jedi, strange slugthrower in one hand. It pulsed slate blue, reactive to A'Mia's emotional state via organic interface. Though they weren't the individuals to blame for her current anguish, the people before her bore that wrath all the same. She leveled Sporebite and fired.

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!​

Three of six specialized rounds in the clip. All aimed center mass at Andromeda.

 

[Seraphina Corvinus]

WEAPONS: None
ALLIES: Daegon Corvinus | TAG: Jaun Smyth | ENEMIES: Everyone (Cracks in the sidewalk...?)

“Ray shields…”

That, at least, was an answer.

Seraphina nodded faintly and settled again beside her husband, though the strange sickness in her stomach never had time to ease. The sudden absence caused fear to rise in her chest like nothing she had ever known, even more potent than when she was lost in the Crystal Forest. Something important had all but disappeared, and she felt the need to lean into Daegon.

She did not have the connection that some did, but it was still beyond startling. Wrong.

Everything felt so very lifeless, empty, that she couldn’t help but assume that it was the work of the Sith Order. It made sense that they would resort to such inhuman, wicked tactics, even more damaging than perhaps the bombs or the plagues. They could rebuild, perhaps, find a cure for the pathogens, but if the Force had fled? How did one fix that?

There was horror on her small face that seemed to turn a whiter shade of pale, and a cold chill swept down her spine. “Daegon…”, such a soft, terrified whisper. She couldn’t hide the sheer terror that burned in her chest any more than she could stop drawing breath. Just when she felt like the sensation might overwhelm her, a chime from the Senator’s data pad came through, and she visibly flinched.

"Ah. How serendipitous."

Her confusion was palpable…The Senator seemed pleased? Almost, thrilled? Could he not feel it?

, "I expect the Republic's device - classified before you ask for more information - will render those two strains inert. They are Force borne infections and we are currently without the Force."

Her head pulled back, and her head shook in absolute disbelief. Sera spent several long moments trying to convince herself that she heard him wrong, and bile rose in her throat at what sounded almost like pleasure in his voice, carrying on as if the sky weren't falling. The Diathim could not believe it, and yet the Senator had been clear. This was the work of the Republic.

Not the Sith.

How was that even possible?

The claim that the infections would be rendered inert because the Force was gone was a cold, cruel comfort. She wanted to believe it, but the Senator had just explained only minutes earlier that there were multiple pathogens and that they did not yet understand them. How could he be so certain? She hesitated, wings drawing inward. She wanted to ask…

But Jaun Smyth did not want to hear from her any longer. It was clear in the way he dismissed her earnest questions, without so much as sparing a glance, and only spoke to Daegon. Perhaps it was because she was disabled, and therefore useless as an asset. Weak. It was her husband who managed and controlled the security detail of Xucphra.

"They're going to pay for all the lives they've taken today."

If the Sith were really trapped and their advantage really had been stripped away…Was now not the perfect time? If there had ever been a moment to demand that they leave, to bargain from strength rather than desperation, surely it was now—

"Good. Thank you, Colonel."

Her hand squeezed Daegon’s fingers suddenly, so tightly that it probably hurt as the Republic representative tucked away their concerns like filing a bit of inconvenient paperwork. The lack of empathy he exuded chilled her to the core, and every oil slick word that followed caused her to recoil. At first…She had just assumed that the Senator had misunderstood her.

The truth hurt far more than being outright ignored.

He didn’t want peace, and never had.

He wanted them here.

Trapped.

But…Thyferran, Republic, and Jedi forces were trapped with them. Her head spun while the reality of the situation slowly dawned on her and wiped away cloud-filled notions that the High Republic would value life above all else. Caging a frightened animal never made them less dangerous, and she couldn’t imagine that the Sith were any different. Small teeth bit into her lower lip, and slowly, she pushed her chair back from the table.

“…We should take our leave…”

Their people needed more than this. Not...This. Never, this. They were safer outside, safer…With the actual monsters.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

White met Crimson as Xûl Qarnak screamed against Taiia's blade. For the first time since Darth Prazutis had begun His charge, the great warblade did not continue toward Allyson Locke. Taiia had stepped between them and caught the strike obliquely, stealing its killing line away from her wife instead of attempting the folly of meeting the Dark Lord's strength directly. It was the correct answer, the kind born from experience rather than instinct. Taiia moved with the blow, redirecting its momentum instead of resisting it, and slipped inside the tremendous reach of Xûl Qarnak before Prazutis could simply bring the lightsaber around again.

Her second white blade followed immediately toward the already damaged armor beneath His wounded shoulder. Prazutis twisted, but Taiia had committed cleanly and quickly. White plasma carved across Qâzjiin'vraal, burning through the battered plating Allyson had already compromised and biting deeply enough to find flesh beneath. The smell of scorched metal and cauterized blood filled the narrow space between them. Prazutis grunted as pain tore through the shoulder Allyson had already riddled with arrows, but He did not recoil from the contact. Instead, He used the fraction of a second Taiia's blade remained engaged to change the geometry between them.

The response was frighteningly economical. His wrists turned, Xûl Qarnak rolled across the first white blade rather than crashing against it, and His rear foot shifted half a pace to realign His hips. The immense weapon returned toward His center before Taiia could comfortably exploit the interior line she had stolen. His grip shortened, deliberately sacrificing some of the great saber's enormous reach in exchange for tighter control at close range. The blade ceased behaving like the weapon of a giant and became something much more precise, governed by minute alterations of leverage rather than sweeping displays of power.

Centuries lived in that movement.

No Force guided Him. No precognition warned Him. No supernatural instinct whispered the answer.

It was simply technique refined until almost nothing unnecessary remained.

Prazutis brought the cross-body mass of Xûl Qarnak between Taiia's weapons, attempting to interrupt the rhythm of her twin blades before she could fully establish it. His armored forearm came forward behind the bind, not reaching foolishly toward plasma but crowding the space around her weapon arm with the brutal leverage of an eight-foot colossus who understood that swordsmanship didn't end where the blade began. "Then you should know better than to believe I made her this." The Dark Lord responded. The arrow struck Him before anything more could be said.

Allyson had chosen the moment perfectly. Prazutis never saw the shot leave her bow. His attention had narrowed upon the immediate threat before Him exactly as Allyson intended, and with the Force gone there was no precognitive warning to save Him. The energy arrow struck near the already devastated base of His neck and erupted against tissue that had been wounded repeatedly throughout the fight. His head snapped sideways as light flared across His back. The pressure He had begun applying against Taiia faltered and one enormous boot shifted hard across the broken ground to keep His balance. Smoke curled from beneath the ruined edge of His gorget. Fresh blood followed it. For several breaths, the Dark Lord did nothing.

Taiia before Him. Allyson behind Him. The Force absent. His armor broken in several places and His body carrying wounds that would already have ended most warriors. The position was terrible, and Prazutis understood exactly why. He didn't pretend otherwise. Instead, He changed it. Prazutis stepped obliquely across the battlefield rather than retreating directly backward. One deliberate movement began carrying Him out of the clean line between the two women. Another altered the angle further until Xûl Qarnak remained oriented toward Taiia while Allyson moved toward the edge of His peripheral awareness instead of remaining comfortably behind Him. He did not attempt to escape their pressure. He merely refused to remain where their coordination was most dangerous.

Blood continued spilling down His neck. Beneath the armor, the engineered flesh of the Umbral Sovereign was already responding. There was nothing supernatural about the process now. Torn muscle tightened around damaged vessels, accelerated clotting fought the bleeding, and regenerative tissue began the slower biological work of keeping an abused body functional. The wounds remained. The pain remained. Prazutis simply regulated His breathing until both became information rather than distraction.

"Men might not have been able to take you down a few notches. Good thing we're not men, also." Allyson's grin followed. "Raaf sends her regards with her little toys." Prazutis' helm turned fractionally toward her. A low sound emerged from beneath it, somewhere between amusement and acknowledgment. "Tell Taeli her work still bites." That was all the answer she received. Prazutis moved. It shouldn't have been possible for the giant to remain upright, as fast and efficient as he was given all the wounds he sustained. However, his body was far from ordinary, it was a mastercraft of genetic engineering. Incredibly resilient, efficiency crafted into its very cells. It clotted more efficiently, and its regenerative capacity was already closing and mending wounds inflicted earlier. It was designed to endure extreme war scenarios, and it showed just how incredible it was. Taiia had taken the interior range because that was where Xûl Qarnak should have been most cumbersome, and Prazutis answered by turning that expectation against her. The great blade rose just enough to suggest an attack toward her upper line. His shoulders followed the motion. His gaze followed it. Even the first subtle rotation of His wrists promised the same trajectory.

It was a lie.

The blade changed direction almost immediately. There was no dramatic flourish or broad rechambering of the weapon to betray His intention. A slight rotation of His hands collapsed the threatened high line into a compact diagonal cut toward the space across Taiia's forward hip and thigh. The attack was designed not around the assumption that it would strike her, but around forcing a response to something whose true line had been revealed as late as physically possible.

Makashi reduced to pain.

Prazutis didn't chase the blow after releasing it. His weight remained beneath Him. His elbows stayed comparatively close. Xûl Qarnak never traveled farther from His center than necessary, leaving Him balanced enough to answer whatever Taiia chose to do next. Centuries had stripped vanity from His bladework. Every motion that served no purpose had been discarded somewhere across the countless battlefields that had failed to kill Him. Only after committing Taiia to the immediate problem before her did the Executioner move.

Allyson had hurt Him more than anyone else upon Thyferra, and He treated her accordingly. There was no panicked burst of particle fire, no attempt to compensate for difficulty by filling the battlefield with bolts. Prazutis had carried rifles and killed from distance long before the galaxy knew Him as a Dark Lord. His wounded shoulder forced Him to adjust the way He supported the heavy weapon, so He did. The stock settled lower against His massive frame, allowing His other arm and torso to carry more of the rifle's weight.

The barrel found Allyson.

Not her chest.

Her bow.

The Executioner thundered once.

A single blood-red particle bolt tore toward the weapon in Allyson's hands and the arm supporting it, an attempt to remove or compromise the tool that had repeatedly breached His defenses without dictating what happened to the woman holding it. Whether Allyson moved, abandoned the bow, redirected the threat somehow, or accepted some other consequence remained entirely hers. Xûl Qarnak returned immediately toward His center after the deceptive cut, ready to meet Taiia's answer rather than hanging extended in empty space. The Executioner remained lowered but available in His other hand. His stance continued shifting in tiny increments, constantly attempting to deny the women comfortable opposite angles without presuming He could simply prevent them from creating those angles again. Each attack came almost immediately at the same time as the other.


That was what so many failed to understand about the Zambranos. While the Dark Side of the Force had made Darth Prazutis more terrible. It had never made Him strong alone. It was never a crutch for weakness beneath. He had done that Himself. Taiia's accusation remained inside His thoughts. She believed He had mistaken surviving everyone around Him for proof of superiority. Perhaps that was how He had sounded. But simple survival had never been the reason He remained dangerous. Adaptation was. Allyson had pierced His armor from behind, so He changed the angles He offered her. Taiia had collapsed His enormous reach, so He shortened the weapon and fought inside hers. The Force had vanished, so He discarded the instincts that depended upon it and returned to the disciplines He had possessed before supernatural power had ever become second nature. Every answer they found changed the question He asked next. "You presume much to think you've gotten so far. But we have barely begun to dance, and I've been controlling the music since you showed up." It left much unsaid. Did the Dark Lord of the Sith unleash everything at his disposal, the same Reaper that unleashed apocalyptic devastation from orbit, was everything put on the line? Or was it part of some grander design?

Allyson Locke | Taiia Locke​