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 the entirety of her existence, screamed at her to do the same now, to not fail them. But, then the great wolf spoke, and Gerwald 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'd tried to shove Brandyn out of her head. Steady, azure eyes bore into him, and the initial spike of panic hollowed out her insides, turning into pure disbelief and stomach-churning horror, aimed at the man she'd once regarded 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 he spoke of, 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'd spent weeks turning over smoking earth, trying to find some semblance, 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 their leaders that'd promised to protect them to return, then never coming 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, still 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 force of 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 all of this were nothing more than 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 she wanted to leave. Everything in her thrashed and screamed for her 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, and anyone like you."

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​

 

[Darth Strosius]

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

“Alisteri…” his name was a whisper in the wind before her body crumpled,

His dimmed golden eyes widened behind the dark visor that covered them, the whole world seeming to halt for just a moment as He glanced to the side just in time to watch Lina's body hit the ground. Darth Strosius realized that the world hadn't stopped, rather His heart had for another moment again, yet it beat renewed as a blaster bolt whizzed over His hooded head and one of the droids around Him stumbled back slightly from the grazing shot.

“NO!”

Suddenly His heart began pounding in His ears, His breathing still haggard and His vision wracked with dark spots as His attention snapped to watch the Neti rushing to their beloved's side in order to fend off her own beasts and the Jedi alike. Irritatingly their forces weren't quite in full retreat as He would have preferred, evidenced by the blaster shots now hitting His droids directly and soon putting down the remaining three that stood sentinel before Him.

He seized for a moment, choking briefly before spitting out another maroon clot with a wheezing coughing fit that passed as quickly as it had arose. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping even His formidable form operating, let alone standing even if He was putting all of His weight on His lightsaber buried in the ground. Darth Strosius could only hope that His regeneration could keep up. He could only hope that the Jedi weren't as opportunistic as they always were. He could only hope that Lina would be fine, even though from the corner of His visor He saw no movement in her body at all.

What a shame it was that Darth Strosius hated being limited to hope alone.

The Jedi's stance toward Him drew a scowl, a barely visible fanged grimace peeking through the small gap in the bottom of His mask as His foe had the gall to ask for surrender of all things. They really must have taken Sith for fools in this High Republic. "You think I'd trade a blade for a cell?" The grimace morphed into a grin as He heard A'Mia retaliate against the younger Jedi. "You're fething delusional, the lot of you. But you did make one good point, this invasion is over."

Darth Strosius straightened His stance as best as He could, not seeming to mind the blaster bolts that began impacting Him and soaking into His heavy robes or pinging against His armor. In fact He actually began very slowly and sluggishly shrugging off said armor. "Because this nullification of yours? All you did was give those flat-headed numbskulls that lead the Order's forces a new target, one that is far more valuable to them than Thyferra. And they're gonna tear this whole system apart to get it."

He cackled, howling with rasped laughter as He began seizing and contorting. His lightsaber fell to the ground and any pretense of avoiding the blaster fire coming His way was all but abandoned as the last of His armor was thrown off and His form seemed to grow. "But don't worry Jedi scum. Because what they're going to do to Thyferra will pale in comparison to what I am about to do to YOU!" With one final stretch His mask flew off and behind it a maw of needle-like fangs gnashed open.

His arms lengthened, pointed fingers bursting from their gloves as they merged together with sickening cracks and sounds of flesh tearing. Claws that glinted like metal formed into jagged points like blades, pale flesh and armored ashen skin poking through the now-torn remnants of the Sith Lord's ornate robes as the creature that He had became loosed a deafening wail before pouncing on the Jedi with an open maw and lashing bladed arms.

Spoiler: Sangnir Warform

The Legionnaires were not opposed in their mad dash for the refineries, not only were they hampered by the Marines and Vratix which weren't fending off the beasts and Sith but additionally those that fell behind were soon cut down from overhead by another pass of the Republic starfighters. Yet their focus remained unbroken and as they kept charging forwards, calling over their communicators for aid and assistance and knowing far better than to glance back at where their Prophet was fighting the Jedi even before the animalistic screech rang out.

 

["Ariel"]

Reckoning
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

Nemesis folded forward.

For the first time since Connel had entered the command center, the enormous armored figure seemed smaller. Not harmless. Never harmless. But wounded. Lost.

His arms wrapped around his middle. His knees bent. The confidence disappeared from his voice. He was asking for help.

Connel did not move. Night remained low in his left hand. Day remained forward in his right.

Both blades hummed. Nothing else did. No Force. No instinct whispering deception. No invisible warning. Fine. Connel had eyes.

Nemesis still held two lightsabers, seemed to be different. Connel didn’t buy it, but he had to give the man the chance to prove him wrong, or right. He didn’t know which he was hoping for, but he had to keep his mind on the task at hand. Connel stared through his mask. “Drop the weapons.[/COLOR]

Nemesis groaned, seemed to be lamenting.

Drop.

Connel’s voice had changed. No banter. No Jedi rhetoric. Command voice. The same voice a law-enforcement officer might use with an armed suspect standing twenty feet away. Put both lightsabers on the floor.

When Nemesis staggered forward, Connel immediately shifted back half a step. Not fear. Distance. Stop moving.

Nemesis was asking for asylum?

Yes.

That seemed to catch him. Connel meant it. If you surrender, you will be taken into Republic custody.

Night remained ready.

Drop both weapons. Then a beat. Step away from them. Another. Turn around. Connel's free fingers brushed the stuncuffs on his belt. Hands behind your head.

There was no anger in the instructions. No vengeance. No qualification. If Nemesis complied, the fight ended. Here. Now.

He would live.

He would receive whatever law, courts and evidence decided came next. Connel would personally make certain of it. Nemesis lowered farther. His center of gravity changed. Connel saw it. Not surrender. Compression. His stance tightened. The legs loaded. Connel sighed. Of course.

Nemesis exploded forward.

Both lightsabers ignited.

One horizontal strike screamed toward Connel’s neck. The second drove directly toward his heart. No retreat. No hesitation. No surrender. Connel moved. Night touched the first blade. Not blocked.

Redirected.

His wrist rolled just enough to send the decapitating strike over his shoulder. Day met the thrust.

Angle. Turn. Pressure. The point intended for Connel’s chest slid outside his ribs. Connel stepped into Nemesis. That was the first surprise.

Nemesis had attacked expecting distance.

Connel erased it. His knee drove upward into armored thigh. Beskar absorbed the strike. It wasn't intended to hurt. It changed Nemesis's balance. Connel's shoulder hit his cuirass. His right foot hooked behind Nemesis's forward leg. Turn. This to make Nemesis stumble.

Either way Connel was already gone.

Three steps away.

Night reverse grip.

Day extended.

Nemesis would recover.

Connel tilted his head. You had your chance.

The giant was inevitably attacking again.

TAGS • ARE • Tobias Dib
Personal Effects - Omega Squad Loadouts​

 

[Srina Talon]

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

There was nothing dignified about the way the wintry woman disappeared into the arms of the Covenant Titan. She let it happen, let herself be held, and felt not a single ounce of shame while the larger woman kept her steady. The Echani didn’t try to fight it as one might expect and just…Stayed.

War raged distantly around them, as it often did, but these few seconds…

It was quiet, within a waking nightmare.

Her silvery head found a place against the Warform, and every instinct she possessed bade her to keep reaching for things that were no longer there. It had the effect of making her feel isolated, like her mind was not her own, even though for the first time in decades the opposite was true. The first few times it happened like an automatic reflex… Like breathing.

But nothing answered. Not the sky, not the earth, or the wind…Not her children.

Nothing.

Her eyes fell closed for a moment while she tried not to do it again. To stop rubbing salt into a bloody stump. It was a marvel not only how the Force had gone quiet but how the Darkside stopped speaking to her. Stopped whispering, singing, the soft things that continuously kept her company. She laughed again at the agony of it, the bareness of it, and buried her cheek against hardened exoskeleton. Mercy was real.

Her battle-sister was real, warm, solid, and irritatingly enormous.

The pulse between them was faint compared to everything that had just been stripped away…But it existed. Flesh and blood did not care what blasphemy the Republic had committed for the sake of a desperate victory. Mercy still felt like Mercy. The careful touch to lengths of white-gold hair was soothing, bringing back memory, bringing back some sort of center and wholeness. She breathed in against the shoulder of the giantess before slowly exhaling.

A headache had settled somewhere behind her eyes, deep and ugly, but the terrible rawness underneath her skin was beginning to dull. She suspected that it would take a long time to feel like herself again, but they didn’t have that kind of time. The quiet woman pulled back just enough to bend down and pick up a piece of stone. There was nothing special about it, but she pressed it into Mercy’s palm and curled her fingers over it.

"Aunt Srina."

Yellow-gold eyes snapped toward the young man, noting that his sabers were no longer drawn. The Empress remained deathly silent while her nephew spoke of different things, bacta, and worlds that could not afford to lose access. Of people who had nothing to do with these colossal power struggles, the common man, the everyday flatscan. How could he look so much like Isley Verd when he stood tall but spoke from such an idealistic place?

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

Her expression softened once more, but unlike her earlier outburst, it was less obvious unless one knew how to look. She looked down for a moment to gather herself before looking back at the youngling that she had obviously failed. “Oh, Acier…”

“You really do believe that…Don’t you…”

There was no insult to be found, no infantilizing, just the sudden understanding that his mind had been warped by the dogma that pervaded the Jedi Order. Any, Jedi Order. Her head shifted faintly while she laid it back against Mercy, even though she had the strength to stand on her own. “I used to think that way. That…Taking a side for the “right” reasons made me different. Better. Long before you were born…I tried it your way.”

“I once stood with the Silver Jedi and the Galactic Alliance. I…tried to do things as they wished because I thought there had to be something I was missing. I was, apparently. No matter my efforts, I was never enough. It cost me my heart, my child.”

Her words cut off abruptly, and despite the bland expression, the softness of her tone conveyed that it was more than just a random cautionary tale to bend his resolve. It was her life that came out in stunted chunks. It was not easy for her to share her past, especially not with the colorful audience in the background. Not when the horizon was lighting up from somewhere far away with obvious bombardment.

“Your father warned me.”

It was the same warning she was giving now, but at the time, young and headstrong—Full of Echani pride, she had arrogantly thought that she knew better. “You killed innocent people, little love. You and I will never be one of them. The first time you lose your temper, frighten someone, or make a choice they disagree with…Watch their eyes.”

Her hand rose to rest on Mercy’s forearm, still, cradled against a walking weapon of mass destruction as if she were made of crystal and glass. She had no fear of the Covenant Lord, and it would become painfully obvious that the pair were in sync with or without the Force.

“In the end…I stopped pretending to be something I was not. You have chosen to fight for the unwashed masses, and I have chosen my children. I choose you. I will always choose—”

A flash of red light cut between them with a sudden crack of air, and Srina flinched in the grasp of the Titan. For a moment nothing happened before her knees folded and blood appeared very quickly. It ran bright over the side of her neck before disappearing beneath shimmering silver-black armor, the color startling against snow-pale skin. The blaster shot had caught her where protection did not quite reach, burning into the soft tissue beneath her jaw.

She didn’t make a sound.

She didn’t move, her form slack, her chest…Eerily still. One second…Two. Two became four, four became eight. More, and more.

Then…Srina suddenly dragged in air. It came with a horrible, wet pull. Her whole body tightened, and she coughed, while something bubbled inside the wound. It was a small and ugly sound that had no business coming from a living person. Blood spilled over her lower lip while she tried to force herself to breathe again, eyes full, when she looked at her nephew.

A miserable choke pulled her gaze back toward Mercy while she tried to say something important. “A…ci...”, but her voice failed, throat full of fluid, as the name failed halfway. It didn’t matter. Her battle-sister would know. Blood that had preserved her, time and time again, struggled to move, but she could feel it like heat beneath her skin. “Not..”

Trying…With none of the grace of the Force to help it along.

It hurt like hell.

Static suddenly broke over her comms before the voice of her daughter, Quinn Varanin , filtered into her ear. Her hand reached up to clamp over the wound for a moment while she did her best to listen, but the message was hazy. Or perhaps she was.

"You have one order."

Aware that…There was probably more blaster fire coming, she tried to listen, tried to staunch the flow of blood that pressed past burned edges of skin.

"No High Republic forces… Jedi… and anyone associated with their government are to be allowed to leave Thyferra… alive."

She looked away from the woman, knowing she had just unleashed the monsters, the rabid beasts of the Order.

"Complete extermination."

Her expression changed…Before her bloody hand rose and her palm pressed against Mercy’s face. It wasn’t a grand gesture but a messy, brutal point of contact, while she nudged the larger woman to look at the real problem. Not at her. She needed to see the fallen Jedi Knight who had just made their decision far simpler. Mercy needed her sharpness, her fire.

“T-They…gave…the order…”

Each word hurt and sounded like she was trying to talk through burning, black water—But metallic eyes were firm.

“Do… what…must b-be…” Done.

Do what must be done.​

Her hand fell away with a thud.

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)

 

[Tobias Dib]

Tags: "Ariel"

What the men did had nothing to do with the Force. There was no ethereal power flowing through their veins. No external source offered minute warnings, fueled their bodies with preternatural reflexes, or gave them extracurricular abilities to aid them in the fight that had been stewing for four hours. It was skill, honed reactions, and training pounded into muscle memory. Instincts which had become, not second nature, but first nature.

He felt the blade in his right hand tilt up, the strike missing his enemy's head, while the thrust was realigned outside of Connel's torso. While the actions of his foe redirected the giant's lightsabers, it also removed Day and Night from being able to strike. A smile crept across his face as he prepared to strike with his body.

But Connel reacted first.

The impact on his thigh shifted his footing before the bash against his torso increased the strength Connel used, and he let the momentum disengage them, flowing backward as he pulled the lightsabers back, with the left one leading forward. At the same time, he raised the right one over his helmet in a high guard. Both men retreated a few feet, not in fear, but to create distance.

"You're faster than I thought. I won't make the same mistake. You have more patience than a little darkling typically has. You say I had my chance. I'm still offering you one. Surrender to me, and I will see that neither you nor your men will die today. It's the best offer you will receive."

While he spoke, he eased himself around the room, his left saber still pointing towards the other man. Omega squad had dealt with the distractions and stood nearby. It seemed as though they were content to merely watch, at the moment. Several chairs were now between the two armed men, yet the giant continued circling.

"Your dogs going to attack me once my back is turned? Or are you little puppets going to watch me cut you down?"

A desk now interjected between the men as an obstacle. One he had been angling for. His left leg lashed out, connecting with the desk with such force that it wrenched from the ground directly toward where Connel stood. His right leg tensed and drove him forward, following in the path of the flying furniture. The left lightsaber stabbed towards the left of the desk while his right swept down in a slash towards the right, in case Connel should weave to either side. Meanwhile, his left leg extended, following the desk with a forward flying kick toward Connel's chest should he remain in the path of the desk with enough force to drive through the furniture and the man.

 

[Mercy]

MERCY

EMPRESS | WARLORD | STAR-ARM

Location: On the move | Objective: Bring the thunder

Allies: Srina Talon

Enemies: Acier Moonbound | Lorn Reingard | Judah Lesan

​

​

.

For a long time Mercy had believed that the Force was a crutch. It allowed them to do great things. When in the deepest thralls of the Dark Side, Mercy could break mountains and carve ravines out of continents. When that sweet corruption ripped through her veins, she did not just feel like a god, she simply was one. She stood above mortal men and she was reminded that they were nothing more than background noise.

Their lives didn’t matter, their struggles were irrelevant, their needs were immaterial.

That was the danger.

Because no matter how powerful they were, they were not gods. They could be brought down by traps, treachery and stupid mistakes.

Mercy listened to Acier, refusing to intrude on the moment between aunt and nephew, even as she finally heard him say something that made sense.

Oh, so you do see. She thought to herself as Acier highlighted something that Mercy had been struggling with for decades now. They differed, of course, Acier still thought that participating in the dance as long as it was on his terms would make a difference. But he was young, he thought he knew suffering, but time had not yet broken him.

It would take true misery and betrayal for it to do that to him.

Her face appeared once more, the mask sliding back, merely to let herself rest her face against Srina’s head. Giving her one more point of contact, so she would not feel completely lost to the misery of losing the connection to the Force.

“I once stood with the Silver Jedi and the Galactic Alliance. I…tried to do things as they wished because I thought there had to be something I was missing. I was, apparently. No matter my efforts, I was never enough. It cost me my heart, my child.”

Mercy sighed and kissed the top of Srina’s head. Poor soul. Unlike Srina, Mercy had known from the day she was old enough to climb trees and leap into lakes, that the Jedi were a phantom meant for others. They were not made for wild souls and free hearts. But neither were they made for those that would do anything to protect their own.

One would burn their love, to save the world.
The other would burn the world, to save their love.

Who was the hero in that tale? It depended on the perspective.

Her hand squeezed around the stone that Srina pressed into her hand. Brows furrowed there as she looked down at it. What was she supposed to be doing with a rock?

Sure, Mercy had once used one to kill a Queen Mother to install another on the Throne of Hapes, but that didn’t seem relevant he-

A flash of red light cut between them with a sudden crack of air, and Srina flinched in the grasp of the Titan. For a moment nothing happened before her knees folded and blood appeared very quickly. It ran bright over the side of her neck before disappearing beneath shimmering silver-black armor, the color startling against snow-pale skin. The blaster shot had caught her where protection did not quite reach, burning into the soft tissue beneath her jaw.

Fresh hot blood splattered across her face.

Then came the burning sensation as the plasma continued onward, carving across the side of Mercy's face before disappearing behind them.

She blinked and everything turned to needlepricks that faded into the background. It all slowed down to a halt. The pain was imperceptible. Every sensation that fed her through Warform became immaterial.

Judah’s attempts to get himself free.
Lorn’s breathing.
Acier’s… heartbeat.

Mercy’s hand reached out, absently, stroking Srina’s face. But there was so much blood, she couldn’t see where the blood ended and the face began. Her hand shook. She felt Srina trying to gasp for breath, the blood in her throat, choking her. The attempted words and the pain in them. But her mind didn’t register what they meant. Just her sestra’s suffering thrummed through her mind.

Bright amber eyes turned dark as Mercy slowly looked up towards Acier.

Pain.

On her face.

Agony.

Through her eyes.

Hatred.

Against her snarled teeth.

Mercy gently lowered the body of her sister.

The corpse.

That was what her mind called it before reason could object.

There was a heavy noise in her ear, her blood thumping, a scream that rolled up along her spine. The Force was gone, she could not feel her, beyond the blood pumping through them. The flesh shared between them.

Acier had thought he had seen the feral animal. But in truth he had only ever seen Mercy in full control of herself. That was what had been monstrous about it. She turned Abregado-rae into a wasteland not in anger, but in a calculated move. Now he would see something in her face that few had ever seen before.

Unleashed.

So deeply fallen into the thralls of Hatred that she did not even see her sestra gasp for air behind her. Hadn’t heard the words or recognized them for what they were. Asking for Acier to be spared. The words of extermination didn’t reach her either, but they didn’t need to.

Everyone in this room would die - it was not a decision that she made consciously, it was simply the way the world arranged itself, when it took her Srina away from her.

Acier and Lorn and Judah would find out what Mercy was without the chains of civility holding her down.

Annihilation.

Her shape blurred and the space between them and her shortened into a heartbeat.

After the manipulation of her body by Srina and herself, Mercy didn’t need the Dark Side to move like an explosion. Warform wasn’t armor. It was her. Pushed to such extremes, it made her bones cry out in agony.

It didn’t matter.

Beat.

Her hands turned into battering rams as they aimed to smash through Acier.

Beat.

Her hand, still clutching Srina’s rock, hammered towards Judah’s head even as he was struggling to get himself free.

Beat.

The nightmare was on Lorn finally. Guilty. Marked. Mercy bore down on him, intent on planting him into the wall. If she got him there, she’d break every bone in his body and rip his heart out.

There was a sound… Mercy could hear it. What was that?

It almost sounded like her own voice, screaming, but that couldn’t be.

Mercy was dead quiet as she tried to kill everything in the room in the space of three heartbeats.

.

ERASE THE PAST

 

["Ariel"]

Reckoning
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 desk tore free from its mountings.

Connel watched it come. For the briefest instant, he actually wondered whether Nemesis was serious.

Furniture?

Apparently so.

The giant followed immediately behind it, using the desk for concealment as much as a weapon. One lightsaber thrust around its left edge while the second descended from the right. Neither attack was intended to finish Connel. They were walls.

The real attack came through the middle.

Nemesis launched himself forward, one armored boot driving behind the desk with enough momentum to carry both furniture and Jedi across the room. It was good. Connel would give him that. Left was covered. Right was covered. Backward surrendered the initiative. So Connel went forward.

Night snapped upward.

CRACK.

The first blade changed direction.

Day crossed beneath it.

CRACK.

The second followed.

Connel wasn't trying to overpower Nemesis. He didn't need to. A centimeter was enough. An angle was enough. Saber Kata had never cared where an opponent's weapon went. Only that it wasn't where it needed to be. The desk hit.

Connel turned with it.

Its edge slammed across his shoulder plate hard enough to send pain down his arm, but the motion carried him outside the worst of the impact. Then he saw the boot. Nemesis was airborne. Both blades committed. His entire armored mass was coming forward.

Connel extinguished Day.

His free hand dropped to his web gear. The grenade was in his palm before the thought had finished forming. Thumb. Activator. Nemesis was almost on him. Connel slapped the Force-Blinding flashbang directly against the center of the giant's breastplate.

Can't see me, can you?

WHUMP.

White swallowed the room.

The absence of the Force changed absolutely nothing about electromagnetic radiation. Nemesis might not have been able to sense Connel. Now he wouldn't be able to see him either. The explosion caught him in midair. Beskar endured.

Momentum did not.

Nemesis's kick lost its line as the concussion twisted his airborne body. The armored giant crashed through what remained of the desk and hammered into the floor. Connel was already moving. No Force. No warning whispered into his mind. No invisible hand guiding his movements. Just training. Night rolled into reverse grip. Day reignited.

Connel came through the fading white glare before Nemesis had completely recovered.

Night intercepted one saber. Day redirected the other. Knee. Shoulder. Hilt. Move. Nemesis swung. Connel wasn't there. The giant turned after him.

Connel's Lightblaster cleared its holster.

CRACK.

The shot hammered against Nemesis's shoulder plate.

He turned.

CRACK.

The second struck his hip.

Neither penetrated, Beskar… even Connel’s Lightblaster wouldn’t penetrate that. Neither needed to. Connel watched how Nemesis reacted to each impact. How much weight shifted. Which foot planted. Which shoulder moved first. Which saber instinctively came toward the threat. Information.

Every attack gave him information.

Nemesis brought both lightsabers around. The Lightblaster disappeared. Night intercepted high. Day low. Connel stepped inside the weapons. An elbow hammered at the side of the helmet.

He immediately disengaged, regardless of whether it landing or not.

Nemesis would recover. Connel didn't press. For the first time since the exchange began, he simply stood there. Night low. Day forward.

Breathing controlled. Waiting. You can still surrender. There was no mockery in his voice. That was the worst part. Drop the weapons. Kick them away. Hands behind your head. His head tilted slightly. I'll cuff you myself.

Nemesis raised his blades.

Connel sighed. Okay. Then he attacked. Night came first.

Nemesis would easily catch it.

Exactly as Connel expects. Day didn't attack.

Connel's boot did.

The strike hammered down aimed at the outside of Nemesis's knee.

His stance shifted. Day struck the opposite saber. Night disengaged. Lightknife. Nemesis saw it leave Connel's hand and would be able to twist away easily. The problem is the knife wasn't aimed at him. It buried itself in the wall behind him. If Nemesis's attention followed it for even less than half a second. It would be too long.

Connel closed.

Forearm. Hilt. Knee. Day Night.

The sequence flowed without pause between weapon and body until there was no meaningful distinction between them. All designed for Nemesis to finally force separation with a wide sweep a punch, a kick, whatever. Connel would step away. Again, he stopped. Again, he would give him room.

There's no shame in surrendering to someone you can't beat.

That one?

That one had a little Caltin Vanagor in it. Maybe more than a little. Connel could practically hear his father saying it. The thought almost made him smile. Almost. Nemesis came again. Connel met him. Metallic armor crashed together between crossing lightsabers.

Neither man had the Force.

For once, that meant there was nothing between intention and action. No precognition. No augmentation. No telekinesis. No mystical advantage. Just two men and everything they had learned over lifetimes of violence.

And that suited Connel just fine.

Nemesis struck harder. Connel became faster. Nemesis pressed. Connel changed angles. Nemesis adjusted to Night. Connel gave him Day.

He adjusted to Day.

Connel punched him.

He would anticipate the punch.

The Lightblaster appeared. He tracked the blaster. Night attacked. Again. Again. Again. Never the same problem twice. Never the same rhythm long enough to learn it. Nemesis had told him that he had trained his entire life for this. So had Connel.

There was only one difference.

Nemesis had been trained to destroy whatever refused to bend. Connel had been trained by a man who had spent his life discovering increasingly creative ways to remain standing.Nemesis's blade crashed against Day.

Night hooked beneath the second saber.

Connel twisted both weapons outward and drove his armored forehead directly towards Nemesis's helmet. Whether the blow landed, or Nemesis dodged didn’t matter, it was to create distance.They separated. Connel rolled his neck. That sounded better in Dad's head.

Night reversed.

Day rose.

Last chance. He pointed Day directly at Nemesis. You surrender, this stops.

He let is sit a beat.

You don't... His stance lowered. No anger. No hatred. No Force. Just absolute certainty. ...then quit talking.

Nemesis moved.

So did Connel. And somewhere in whatever came after death, Caltin Vanagor was probably deeply offended that his son had waited this long to start fighting dirty.

Then again… he had taught him how.

TAGS • ARE • Tobias Dib
Personal Effects - Omega Squad Loadouts​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

Wearing: This | Weapons: Lightsaber | Knife
ALLIES: Irina Jesart | ENEMIES: Kito​

Aerik felt Irina beside him through the bond as he moved. Her trust was there without reservation now, flowing between them with enough clarity that he understood what she intended before she ever committed to it. When stone erupted from the ground between them, Aerik caught the shift in her focus and the certainty that followed. Irina did not turn toward him or break from Kito. She trusted him to deal with it, and Aerik intended to.

The slab tore upward through the transport and filled his path almost completely. It should have forced him to stop, redirect, or find another way around. Before Aerik could make that choice, however, the Force disappeared.

There was no warning and no gradual weakening. One moment Irina occupied a place in Aerik's awareness that felt almost as natural as his own heartbeat, and the next there was nothing. The absence struck harder than the loss of the Force itself. Aerik's stride faltered for only a fraction of a second as instinct reached for something that was no longer there. Irina had opened herself completely to him moments before, and now that connection had been severed so violently that Aerik could not immediately tell whether she had pulled away or whether something had happened to her.

Then he heard steel scream against steel beyond the rock. He heard Irina's boots shift against the earth and caught the rhythm of her breathing beneath the noise of battle. Beneath it all was the heartbeat Aerik had known long before either of them had learned what their bond could become. Irina was still there even if the Force was not, and the wall remained directly in front of him.

Aerik kept running.

He lowered his shoulder just before impact and drove into the slab with everything his body could give him. Stone cracked beneath the collision as pain tore across Aerik's shoulder, traveling through bone and muscle without stopping the Nox Lupo behind it. Fractures raced outward from where he struck until his weight and momentum carried him through the weakened section. Rock broke around him in heavy pieces, debris scraping across armor and skin as Aerik forced himself through without ever reaching for strength that no longer answered him. The Force had been taken from him, but the strength in his blood had not.

Aerik stumbled a step when he cleared the broken slab, shoulder burning from the impact, before his balance returned. His eyes found Irina almost immediately. Kito's flaming odachi had been driven aside, Irina had stepped inside the attack, and crimson disappeared only to snap back into existence as her blade rose toward the Jedi's exposed side.

"After you."

A breath Aerik had not realized he was holding escaped him. Irina was fine for now, and he trusted her enough not to interrupt the attack she had already committed to.

The comm in his ear came alive before Aerik could decide his next move. Quinn's voice carried across the Sith channels, and Aerik listened while keeping his attention on the fight in front of him. The message itself was clear enough. Whatever had happened to the Force was not limited to their position. Thyferra had been stripped of it, and Quinn wanted the source found and destroyed.

It was everything beneath the words that caught him. Aerik knew Quinn Varanin well enough to recognize the sound of her voice when she was irritated, amused, angry, or trying very hard to make certain everyone around her believed she had everything under control. This was different. The pauses were too long and her breathing was wrong. Something strained beneath the authority she forced into every sentence, subtle enough that another soldier might have ignored it, but Aerik's hearing had never allowed him that luxury.

Something was badly wrong with her.

His jaw tightened as Quinn continued, ordering that no High Republic forces, Jedi, or those associated with their government were to leave Thyferra alive. Complete extermination. Aerik said nothing, though there was nothing he could do for Quinn from here and the realization sat poorly with him. Without the Force, he could not reach outward for some reassurance that she was still standing somewhere across the battlefield. All Aerik had was her voice and the certainty that she was hiding something behind it. He would have to trust that she could survive long enough for someone closer to reach her, just as Irina had trusted him to deal with the wall between them.

Aerik shifted his attention toward the transport. Kito's stone had rooted the vehicle in place and torn through its path, adding another problem to a mission that could not afford many more delays. The soldiers already had his order to inspect the cargo while moving. Now they needed movement back.

<<< "Clear it. Get the transport moving again." >>>

Aerik flexed his injured shoulder and immediately regretted it. Pain answered sharply, but there was no current of the Force to soften it, no supernatural instinct reaching ahead of him, and no bond carrying Irina's intentions into his awareness. Yet Aerik could still hear her. He could smell the heat rolling from Kito's strange white flame and the scorched earth beneath it. He could hear the scrape of boots, the shifting weight of bodies, and the mechanical strain coming from the immobilized transport behind them. Everything Aerik had been before Prazutis ever taught him to reach for the Force was still there.

So was his control.

The realization came quietly beneath everything else happening around him. Someone had tried to kill him. Kito had separated him from Irina and turned her weapon on her with lethal intent. Quinn sounded wounded somewhere across Thyferra, and the connection Aerik had allowed himself to trust had been torn away without warning. There was still no hunger answering any of it. Aerik did not know whether that would last, but for the moment he remained himself, and that was enough.

Aerik stepped away from the shattered stone and moved toward Irina's side without crowding the attack she had already made. He no longer had the bond to tell him where she intended to move next, which meant they would have to rely on something far less elegant. Aerik watched her and listened, trusting the familiar rhythm of her movement now that the Force could no longer carry her intentions to him.

When Irina moved again, Aerik would be ready to move with her.

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
ALLIES: Srina Talon | Mercy | Taeli Raaf | Darth Prazutis | Varin Mortifer | CT-312 | Darth Strosius | Darth Carnifex | Tobias Dib | Helix | Madrona A’Mia | Lina Ovmar | Aerik Lechner | Irina Jesart | Quinn Varanin | Seren Gwyn | Velda Nar-Donna | Revna Marr | Chomba Womba | Darth Tormenta | Varin Mortifer | Vivi Irius | Arris Windrun | Kaivaan Raaf | Kurayami Bloodborn | Eira Dyn | Rowyna Galeway | Darth Nefaron | Darth Malum of House Marr | Lily Rhodes | Ayrith Drayen
ENEMIES: Briana Sal-Soren

The loss of the Force did not arrive gradually.

One moment the battlefield still existed around Gerwald in ways sight and sound could never fully explain, and the next that entire layer of awareness was gone. The Howl vanished with it, severing the familiar presence of the Dreadguard so completely that instinct reached for them before thought could catch up. He could no longer feel who remained behind the barricade, who was wounded, or whether another had fallen. Taeli's warning kept the absence from becoming confusion, but preparation did nothing to make the silence less absolute.

The Second Legion would have to function exactly as he had ordered. Conventional command would carry where the Force no longer could, and the Dreadguard would rely on training rather than the bond that normally tightened their cohesion around him. It was a loss, but not paralysis. They had been prepared for war before the Force became part of the equation, and now they would prove how much of that preparation mattered.

Across from him, Briana felt the same absence.

He saw it settle into her immediately, not because she collapsed beneath it, but because the difference in her movement became impossible to miss. The supernatural speed and strength that had carried her through their exchange were gone, leaving fatigue and injury where the Force had once hidden both. Her posture shifted as she raised the white blade again, abandoning Makashi for Djem So and choosing a form that met pressure with pressure.

The choice made sense.

Without the Force, Briana could no longer rely on the same kinetic equalization that had allowed her to absorb his strength so cleanly. Gerwald had lost much as well, but the body beneath everything the Force had amplified remained Lupo. The weight in his frame, the strength in muscle and bone, and the heightened senses that tracked her breathing and balance had never belonged to the Force in the first place.

Her answer came with the same stubborn certainty as the blade she raised. Thyferra did not belong to him or the Sith. It belonged to its people, and so long as she or the Jedi continued to draw breath, they would oppose him.

The Dread Wolf regarded her for a moment before answering.

“You think rebuilding means the dead do not matter?”

There was no heat behind the words. If anything, his tone carried the certainty of someone who had already decided the argument long ago.

“It means the living still have something when the killing stops.”

Whatever she believed he meant by rebuilding did not change the reality Gerwald saw in it. He had watched worlds break before, had seen governments abandon them, and had seen people survive despite both. Ruin was not permanent. The dead deserved remembrance, but the living still needed something left to inherit.

The comm at his ear crackled before the exchange could go further, and Quinn's voice cut across the Sith command network. The suppression had spread across Thyferra and into the space surrounding it. No High Republic soldier, Jedi, or servant of their government was to leave the planet alive.

Complete extermination.

Gerwald heard the order, but it was not the words which held his attention.

He knew Quinn too well.

There was something wrong beneath the authority in her voice, buried beneath every measured breath and pause she tried to disguise as command. Gerwald had watched her grow from the girl who had somehow become family into the woman now issuing orders to an entire warfront. He knew the strength in her voice, the impatience, the confidence, and the sharp edge she carried whenever someone forced her hand.

This was different.

His first instinct was to reach for her.

Nothing answered.

The absence struck harder then. His connection with the Dreadguard was gone, but Quinn's silence in the Force was something else entirely. He could not tell where she was, could not feel whether she was frightened or wounded, and could not reach across the distance between them to assure himself that his niece was still standing. There was only her voice coming through the comm and the growing certainty that she was forcing it to remain steady for everyone listening.

His hand tightened around the hilt of his saber.

For a moment Thyferra became secondary to one simple question he could no longer answer.

Was Quinn safe?

The Dark Councilor pushed the thought aside because there was nothing else he could do with it. He could not abandon the battlefield to search blindly for her, and Quinn would have hated him for doing so when she had just given an order meant to keep the Sith alive. Whatever condition she was in, she was still commanding. Until someone told him otherwise, he would trust her to remain Quinn Varanin, even when every instinct in him demanded that he find her.

The emotion did not leave with the decision. It settled lower, colder, and gave weight to the order he issued next.

He opened a channel wide enough to reach every Sith vessel still operating over Thyferra.

<<< “The Republic has removed the Force from the field. Adjust accordingly.” >>>

His eyes remained on Briana as the transmission carried outward.

<<< “No restraint. No hesitation. Break their formations, their defenses, their supply lines, and anything they are using to hold this world. Unleash havoc on Thyferra and every Republic force still standing on it. If they intended to make this war conventional, then show them what that means.” >>>

He released the channel and immediately shifted to another command interface.

Nemesis had done exactly what had been ordered. Charges had been planted throughout the industrial park long before the Republic understood how much of the area had already been prepared. Someone had found the network, hacked it, and stopped the timer before the sequence could finish.

They had not removed the explosives.

That was enough.

The timer no longer mattered. His thumb moved across the remote control built into the command unit at his wrist, bypassing the failed countdown and sending the detonation order directly to the charges.

The industrial park answered.

The first explosion rolled through the complex hard enough to carry across the distance between them, followed almost immediately by another. The sequence spread through the prepared positions, one detonation feeding into the next until smoke and debris climbed into the air above the industrial district. Structures already weakened by fighting disappeared behind expanding clouds while the sound of the blasts rolled outward across Thyferra.

The Dark Councilor never looked away from Briana.

He did not need to see the damage to know the order had been carried out. The explosions themselves were confirmation enough, and whatever the Republic had believed they saved by stopping the timer had only been delayed until the Sith decided otherwise.

That was the war Briana had chosen to remain inside.

The Force was gone. Her crystals had been scattered. Republic reinforcements had arrived overhead, and now the industrial park was breaking apart somewhere beyond them while the fleet received permission to abandon restraint. None of it had made her move.

Gerwald could respect that much.

He started forward again, careful now in ways the Force had once made unnecessary. There was no invisible awareness warning him of danger beyond sight and no sudden burst of unnatural speed waiting behind the next step. The battlefield had narrowed to what his eyes could track, what his ears could hear, and what instinct and experience could still provide.

In some ways, it felt simpler.

Briana had chosen Djem So because she intended to meet strength directly. He understood the decision and adjusted his grip accordingly, allowing the red blade to settle into a position that favored the physical advantage she could no longer erase with the Force.

Then he closed the distance.

The attack came without any supernatural acceleration behind it, only the natural force of the Lupo delivering it. His blade swept across in a heavy horizontal cut intended to test what Briana's new stance could withstand now that neither of them could rely on the Force to change what their bodies were capable of.

There was no need to prove anything to her.

She had chosen to stay.

He would answer that choice.

 

[Taiia Locke]

//: Allyson Locke //:
//: Darth Prazutis //:

​

Allyson's hand brushed across Taiia's back as she moved behind her, a brief touch that said more than words would have managed in the middle of the fight. Taiia understood it immediately. Allyson was moving, repositioning, trusting her to hold the space rather than trying to drag her away from the danger she had willingly stepped into.

Prazutis answered her as his weapon shifted between them.

"Then you should know better than to believe I made her this."

Taiia's eyes narrowed.

"I never said you made her this."

She was not blind to the things Allyson had done or the person she had been forced to become over the years. "I know what she has done. I know what she is capable of. You are the one who keeps pretending that is the sum of her." The flash of Allyson's arrow came a moment later. It struck hard against the already ruined armor near the base of his neck, snapping his head aside and shifting his balance just enough for Taiia to see the opening. It was small, little more than a fraction, but against someone like Prazutis she doubted she would be given much more.

Taiia went for it.

Rather than retreat, she dropped lower and turned beneath his weapon arm, folding her body through the narrow space she had already forced open. Both sabers moved with her, white blades sweeping upward together as she rotated beneath him. One rose beneath the damaged shoulder while the other came around toward the opposite side of the joint, the motion less two separate strikes than a single crossing bite meant to take the arm cleanly from the socket.

For the briefest moment, she thought they had him.

Then Prazutis moved.

He changed the angle between them rather than simply yielding ground, refusing the clean line she and Allyson had created and forcing Taiia to adjust with him. It was subtle, disciplined, and irritatingly effective. Whatever else she thought of him, he had not survived this long by being stupid. Taiia turned with the movement and reset her footing as Xûl Qarnak rose.

The attack suggested the upper line.

His shoulders followed it. His hands followed it.

Taiia read the motion and shifted to answer.

Then his wrists changed.

The true strike collapsed downward so late that even Taiia only understood it when the blade was already cutting toward her hip.

Her eyes widened.

She twisted away, but not quickly enough.

Heat tore across the outside of her thigh.

Taiia sucked in a sharp breath as the blade caught her, pain lancing through her leg hard enough to break her stride for half a step. She recovered quickly, weight transferring to the other foot as she pulled herself clear of the rest of the cut, but surprise remained written across her face for an instant longer.

Then it vanished. Her gaze settled on Prazutis differently. He had lied with the blade, not with the Force, nor with overwhelming strength. He had shown her one attack, let her commit to the answer, and changed the question before she could comfortably recover.

It showed he was skilled, but the fight had just changed. Until then, Taiia had been content to control the space between them, keep him away from Allyson, break his rhythm, force him to answer her. The cut stripped away any remaining assumption that she could afford to dictate the pace simply because he had entered her preferred range.

Prazutis could kill her.

More importantly, he could kill Allyson.

Taiia's grip shifted around both hilts. There was no sudden eruption of anger, no reckless charge born from pain. If anything, the anger that had been building inside her became quieter. Sharper.

The next opening would not be used to control him.

The next one would be used to end him.

The Force still lingered somewhere beyond reach, distant enough that even brushing against it brought a dull pressure behind her eyes. Taiia tested it only for a moment before letting it go again.

Not yet.

There was another reserve beneath that silence, a power that remained latent within her, distant in a different way, something she could reach for if the moment came when skill alone was no longer enough. Taiia left that untouched as well. Prazutis had already shown her that he was dangerous enough to punish carelessness. She had no intention of wasting anything simply to make the fight easier.

For now, she relied on herself.

Her stance tightened as the Executioner came up in his other hand, every movement smaller now, more deliberate. She no longer pressed forward simply because closeness favored her. Her eyes followed the minute changes in his footing, the position of his elbows, the way his weight shifted beneath him.

He had adapted to her once.

He would not get the same opportunity twice.

The rifle fired toward Allyson.

Taiia resisted the instinct to turn.

Allyson could handle herself.

That was the entire reason they had a chance here.

"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."

Taiia stared at him for a moment. The pain in her thigh pulsed with every heartbeat. Blood had begun to darken the fabric beneath the cut, but her footing remained steady.

"You talk far too much for someone who claims to be in control."

Taiia raised both sabers again, the white blades settling into a tighter guard as she began to circle. Careful now, watching and waiting.

Prazutis had surprised her.

He had earned that much.

Now Taiia was waiting for him to make a mistake. Once he did, she would end his life.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Thyferra

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

ALLIES: Lorn Reingard | Judah Lesan
ADVERSARIES(?): Srina Talon | Mercy

Ace caught the change in Srina's expression. It was slight, but whatever she thought of his answer, something about it had reached her. And her response was... enlightening.

He remained quiet as she spoke, brown eyes fixed on hers without judgment. The Silver Jedi. The Galactic Alliance. That was surprising. He tried to picture the woman standing before him now among the Jedi and couldn't quite make the image fit. Srina had always seemed so certain in what she was, so completely removed from everything the Jedi represented.

Then she mentioned her child and Ace's expression softened. He didn't know the story, what had happened, or how she'd lost them. But he knew the way her voice changed when she spoke about it.

Then came the reminder.

“You killed innocent people, little love. You and I will never be one of them.

His gaze dropped toward the refinery floor. She wasn't wrong. Tapani would always exist, and so would Humbraine. There were people who would look at him and see nothing beyond what he'd done, and maybe they had every right to.

But that wasn't the point. Ace didn't care whether they accepted him. He still wasn't convinced he deserved their acceptance. Atonement wasn't about convincing everyone he was secretly a good person. He just wanted to do what he could with whatever life he had left. Make sure fewer people suffered because someone stronger than them decided their lives didn't matter.

Make sure nobody had to become what he had just to survive.

His lips parted. Then...

CRACK.

Ace flinched. He had felt nothing. No warning tightening at the base of his skull. No precognitive flash. No invisible instinct turning his attention toward the danger a fraction of a second before it happened. For one disorienting instant, he'd almost forgotten what being completely surprised felt like.

"SRINA!"

Blood appeared beneath her jaw. Ace's head snapped toward Lorn. The pistol was still in his hand and utter disbelief crossed Ace's face.

"WHY DID YOU--?!"

He stopped. He knew why... which almost made it worse. Srina was the Sith Empress. They were at war. Taking her off the board could cripple the Sith in ways none of them could predict. Strip everything else away and Lorn's reasoning made perfect strategic sense.

But Ace couldn't strip everything else away. She was his family. Someone he cared for even when they stood on opposite sides of a battlefield.

Ace turned back, mouth hung slightly open as Srina sagged against Mercy. There was so much blood. It spilled beneath her hand, down her neck, across Mercy's cheek...

And then Mercy looked at him. Their eyes met but there was no hatred waiting for her in his. Only the same horror. The same grief. He watched something inside Mercy disappear as she lowered Srina gently to the floor. Ace's muscles tightened. He didn't need the Force to read that.

Mercy exploded forward. Without precognition, she was barely more than a blur. Ace had no chance to evade, so he brought his arms up instinctively, twisting his left side toward the incoming blow.

Mercy's fist crashed into beskar, but the impact still felt like being hit by a landspeeder. Ace left the floor and slammed several feet backward into the walkway railing. Metal buckled around his back before he dropped hard onto the durasteel.

For several seconds he couldn't breathe. His mouth opened uselessly while his lungs refused to cooperate. Pain tore through his body without the familiar buffer of the Force to blunt its edges. His vision smeared and the pressure behind his eyes intensified. Somewhere beneath everything else his broken nose throbbed with every frantic attempt to drag air through it.

Air ripped back into his lungs and he rolled onto his side, coughing. Through blurred vision he caught Mercy moving again: first toward Judah, then Lorn, too fast for him to make out more than intent and motion.

"Mercy... sto--"

His eyes found Srina and he began crawling. Every movement sent something new screaming through him, but he dragged himself across the floor until he reached her and gathered her carefully into his arms.

"I'm..." His breath hitched. "I'm sorry... so sorry..."

White hair. Blood. A body trembling in his arms. Suddenly, it wasn't Srina anymore.

Her body convulsed violently in his arms, a cry tearing from her lips. Her trembling hand clawed weakly at his collar until her fingers found his cheek. Her eyes met his, wide with pain but fierce with recognition.

"Vayun…" Her voice cracked, wet with anguish. "Don't… don't listen to them. You're not their prophecy. You're mine. My son. My beautiful boy…"

Her grip faltered, fingers slipping from his face. The last breath rattled from her lungs, and the fire in her gaze guttered out. She slumped against him, limp and still.

Ace was eighteen again, kneeling there with Orryn's body in his arms. Pressing desperately against her throat. Her chest. Searching for something. Anything.

"No..."

Ace bowed his head over Orryn's lifeless face, her white hair matted against his arm. For the first time in his life, he had held her. And in the same breath, they had taken her from him. Again.

"No, no, no..."

Something wet caught in Srina's throat and Ace snapped back. She was alive... His hand immediately found the wound beneath her jaw. He pressed down, trying to staunch the blood despite the tremor running through his fingers.

"Stay with me. Please..."

Another crash pulled his attention upward. Mercy. They were all going to die if she didn't stop. And so would Srina...

Ace's eyes widened. "MERCY!" His voice tore painfully through his ruined nose and battered chest. "STOP! SHE'S STILL ALIVE!"

He looked down at Srina, checking her breathing, keeping pressure against the wound. Without the Force there was nothing else to reach for. No presence to reassure him that she was still there.

Just blood, breath, and her weight in his arms. Real things.

Ace looked back toward the rampaging Titan. "YOU NEED TO GET HER OUT OF HERE..."

His arm tightened protectively around his aunt.

"...OR SHE WILL!"​

 

[Tobias Dib]

Allies: SO
Enemies: THR, Jedi
Tags: "Ariel" , Seren Gwyn , Gerwald Lechner , OPEN



The giant barely had time to register the impact on his chest plate before the explosion sent him crashing backward and to the floor. Blood flew from his mouth and nose as pain coursed through his chest. While the armor managed to keep shrapnel from piercing his body, the concussive force had done its work inside the armor. The transparent lettering on the cracked HUD reported internal injuries, bleeding, three broken ribs, a cracked sternum, and a whole other list of minor injuries. The only good part was that the helmet negated the white blast of light by instantly polarising the visor. But then the internal systems cut out from the electromagnetic wave and instantly began a reboot. But that didn't help in the meantime. He responded on autopilot, rising from the ground and swinging the lightsabers between himself and Connel to create distance. However, one of the lightsaber hilts lacked the necessary EMP shielding and shorted out.

And then a blast crashed against his shoulder with such might that his shoulder dislocated and his left hand dropped the deactivated hilt from numb and tingling fingers. Another shot hit his hip and cracked his pelvis. The pain was excruciating as the man swung the lightsaber still in his right hand mindlessly at his opponent.

"You can still surrender. I'll cuff you myself." The gargantuan figure roared and slashed at Connel as his muffled shout escaped the helmet without the aid of working external speakers. "I will never surrender to a darkling like you. I am the light that shall banish you!" He lunged forward and received his foe's strikes. The kick that connected with his knee brought immediate numbness as he felt something give way. The giant responded with his natural strength, trying to batter the smaller man. But he avoided every strike as blows beat him backward. One of the strikes slipped between the armor plating and into his chest. It brought no pain, only a cold that gripped his body. A headbutt sent him falling back against the wall, where he slid to the ground. The lightsaber was held up, still between the men. And then it dropped to the ground.

His working arm raised, and he unsealed his helmet and tossed it to the ground. Darkened veins of corruption decorated his pale face. His eyes were sunk in, and blood stained his mouth and chin. His hand found the lightsaber hilt once more. Then his head twitched from side to side before he finally looked back at Connel, eyes locked onto the Night—the dark lightsaber blade. Fresh blood dribbled from his mouth as he spoke.

"I ... I will never surrender ... to a Sith. You will never ... take Thyferra ... Thyferra? ... Thyferra ..." The giant struggled to his feet and held the lightsaber out in front of him. The intent to attack was clear. Then the industrial park was engulfed in explosions.

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The message received no response. While the soldiers, Jedi, Troigs, and the small command unit waited, seconds turned into minutes with no sign their message had been heard. But that decision was theirs to make. They were the ones in the field at the moment. The large man shook his head, wishing he could be there to help. However, he still had a duty to complete.

At the prisoner transport, Mills ensured the prisoners were secured. He reached out and pulled the shackles on one of the captured Ronin. The technology built into the cuffs wasn't currently necessary. No one could touch the Force. But if, or when, the Force came flooding back, then the cuffs would do their job at suppressing anyone with the ability to touch the Force. And while power would come rushing back, for the prisoners it would remain as distant as it was now.

During his check of their bonds, Mills took extra care to look for any wounds or signs of infection. None appeared apparent. Yet it wasn't them that concerned him. It was the wounded Republic soldiers, Jedi, and civilians crammed into the ship. His voice, whispered in his helmet, chirped in the earpieces by the armed guards. "The prisoners are secure. Keep an eye on the wounded." He turned his helmet toward several of the injured strapped to the walls before heading into the cockpit. "This bird is overloaded. Whose fool idea was that?" The pilot turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. "An officer. We're just under capacity so we can fly. We'll just look like a drunk while doing it." Mills shook his head and almost turned away.

Almost.

"What the hell is that?" His finger was thrust at the radar as several blobs grew on the screen. They didn't need any more words but one. "Incoming!" Mills hopped from the recessed cockpit. "Get ready to launch us in thirty seconds!" He shoved through the compacted personnel until he reached the edge of the bay, one hand hovering over the controls to close the landing ramp. On the broken duracrete landing, Mills saw the Jedi Troigs arguing with one of the Republic officers as two other sergeants continued the argument as the Jedi walked away with a shake of his head. "Troigs! Get in here now!" Mills waited as the Jedi ran up the ramp before hitting the button to close the ramp.

The prisoner transport ship shuddered as it launched. With what was coming, the pilot decided there was no safe option to return to the prison, so he punched the thrusters and launched for the sky. Below them, one of the Sith interceptors slammed into the landing pad, setting off a massive fireball that created other explosions as it consumed nearby ships. A jet of flame rose and engulfed the transport ship as Mills placed his body over the nearest group of people and Troigs did the same. Fire flew in from the closing ramp and burned across the backs of the two men in armor. Both hollered as their armor superheated and burned their backs and legs. And then the ramp closed, cutting off the source of the flames.

Mills collapsed on the flooring of the transport, moans escaping from his helmet as one of the civilians removed it. The superheated helm was dropped from burned hands. Engines kicked in and launched them through the atmosphere into orbit, where the pilot angled away from the Sith fleet, engaging the Republic forces. Troigs grunted as he stood, recognizing the person he had shielded. It was the woman, Seren. He offered a tired smile. "Told you I would protect you." Then he moved to Mills and called for a medic. "Thanks for the ride, my friend. Looks like we might survive this after all." Once he was sure Mills would survive, he made his way to the cockpit and the pilots.

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Several explosives had been mounted in the room where the battle between the armored figures played out, as Omega Squad watched. When they reactivated and exploded, there was no countdown. No warning. Only eruptions as the bombs turned everything around them into shrapnel and fire. The enormity of the explosions launched the giant out of the room and tumbling from where it perched in the towers. His body crashed on burning duracrete, and portions of the ceiling caved in. Slowly he crawled, only his right arm and leg working, toward where his lightsaber hummed several meters away. In his peripheral vision, he saw Connel approach, and he let his body sink back to the ground.

He knew his life was ending. His enemy's damage left him broken in body. His mind had been broken hours earlier. The voices were gone—the voice of his master who twisted and corrupted everything within him. In the cacophony of the burning, destroyed industrial park, he found silence in his mind and remembered who he was. And what had been done to him. Broken, molded, reshaped into a simulacrum of someone else's distorted reflection. The hand stopped reaching for the lightsaber and, instead, weakly stretched out for Connel.

"Nemesis ... not me ... I am ... Jerek Adien ... Knight of the ... Jedi ... Order ... he did this ... to ... me ... Sorry ... brother ... so ... sorry ..." His head fell back against the cracked duracrete, and the light left his eyes. For hours he had been merely a broken proxy for Nemesis. When Trask took his armor and robes, Jerek wore the man's own armor. Matte black, just like what Nemesis wore. And while he seemed a giant, a detail Nemesis noted immediately, he was still half a foot shorter than the mastermind who orchestrated it all. Since the real Nemesis had left, the Sith troopers or Ronin had never called Jerek Nemesis. He was always the 'armored giant'—a decoy. Connel and Omega Squad played the game, followed the rules, broke the rules, changed the game, and stopped playing. It didn't matter because Nemesis had already orchestrated everything down to the last details with enough contingencies and backup plans; the end was always going to be this way.


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Troigs emerged from the cockpit and raised the pilot's sidearm. One, two, three, and four shots rang out into the heads of the Republic guards. The lightsaber ignited and slashed through one of the Ronin's cuffs. "Release our people and arm yourselves." The blaster was tossed to the Ronin as Troigs walked over to where Seren sat with the others. The lightsaber ignited, the massive great saber blade slashing through her cuffs. Then he deactivated it and squatted before her. "We haven't been properly introduced. My name is Nemesis." His hand moved to her belt and removed her cylinder hilt, returning it to her hands. "The very few I trust call me Tobias. You can do the same." He rose to his full height and turned to the wounded and the civilians. "Stay still. Stay quiet. Stay alive."

Then he turned away as his Ronin and Sith troopers stood with their new weapons. "Pilots? Replace those in the cockpit." Walking through the crowded cargo hold of the transport ship, he took the comlink from his belt and keyed in the security frequency to the commandos, Connel and Omega Squad. "I don't know if you are alive. I hope you are. I would say you were a worthy opponent, but that would be a lie. Live. Grow stronger. And maybe the next time we meet, you'll be elevated to a concern, though not a threat. I called myself Troigs. You should search the database for the name. Although that is predicated on your ability to utilize the Holonet, and your actions have left that very much in doubt. I'll spell it out for you. Troigs are a two-headed race. You thought you found my head, but you only found a head. Until we meet again, oh... You should run." His enormous hand crushed the communication device. There was no need to hear a response.

He pulled another comlink from a pouch on his belt. Another secure frequency. "Scorched earth." The ship continued away.

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The pilots heard the orders. The twelve Sith Interceptors leaped ahead of the bombers, leaving the slower craft behind, as they diverted all offensive power to shields and engines. When they pierced the cloud cover, the ships were angled directly for the burning industrial park. There were no words shared. This was their job. Their target. And they had their orders. The dozen fighters spread out, then slammed into the park, explosions engulfing the ships and turning any metal structures into liquid puddles that boiled. Secondary explosions erupted around their impact points.

Meanwhile, the lieutenant of the eight bombers released the last of their payloads. The deathball proton bombs fell into the ruination that was the industrial park. Sections simply evaporated. Then the coaxium injectors were used, and the eight craft split the heavens on the final run of their careers and lives. Only three lines of dialogue were recorded before they, too, crashed into the refineries located within the industrial park.

"It's time for ludicrous speed!"
"How fast are we going!?"
"Mach-fuck-you!"

Behind the kamikazee ships fell drop pods filled with droids. It appeared as numerous as a meteor shower with landing zones around the devastated industrial park with orders to push the Republic forces into the very location they had wanted to retake. CT-312 wanted to lend aid, and Nemesis was all too happy to accept.

Then the doors opened, and several Ronin entered, escorting one of the Jedi who had attempted to infiltrate the facility. The human was young, around Nemesis's unknown age. He had a pale face, brown eyes, and tightly cropped hair slightly lighter than his gaze. Blood dripped from a broken nose and dribbled across the front of his tan robes. Scoured armor peeked beneath his garments as they shoved him into a chair, manacled hands before him. The Jedi was tall, only half a foot shorter than his own hulking frame. Trask, one of Nemesis' most trusted confidants, had clearly taken the challenge of capture personally. Nothing like two bulls of the same size rushing one another to prove their dominance. And Trask proved to be the victor. Nemesis looked down from where he stood as one of the Ronin handed him an exquisitely engraved cylinder. Slowly, the hilt was rolled between his fingers as he watched the Jedi with cobalt blue eyes and the Force. His other hand lightly tapped the belt around his waist. It was a waiting game, for he could sense power gathering in the young man. The wait was considerably shorter than he expected.

With a sudden motion, the Jedi leaped up into a backflip to land on a desk as the lightsaber flew from Nemesis's grasp. It ignited as he raised his hands, the emerald blade spinning through the chain of the manacle before landing in his freed palm. Then he lunged forward, driving a killing strike into the armored plates of Nemesis' chest. Right before the green blade would have touched the massive figure, it disappeared. A look of shock barely registered as Nemesis spun with his arm extended, violently clotheslining the Jedi, who flipped in the air and crashed on the gray carpet beneath them. A moan escaped as he was lifted telekinetically and slammed back onto the desk, papers, styluses, and tiny knicknacks flying from the impact.

"What happened to your lightsaber? It takes little enough effort to depress a button and turn a blade on. It takes the same amount of pressure to turn it off. And I drained the power cell. Next time, if there is a next time, control the lightsaber as much as you would your own body. It is supposed to be a part of you, not merely a tool." His massive gauntleted hand closed around the Jedi's neck, pinning the other man there while tightening. "Now, let us play a game. I'll ask a question, and you answer me truthfully. You lie, and this becomes considerably more unpleasant." The Jedi offered a rebellious, bloody smile in response.

Good. If it were easy, there would be no fun.

Nemesis moved his free hand along his belt, fingers lightly tapping as he entered the Jedi's mind. The first touch was powerful as the man clung to the energy flowing through him, drawn by the permeating presence of the lightside battle meditation. Without the waves of reserves flooding through the Jedi's form, it would have been a simple thing to overcome. But the connection of power created a barrier that took several moments for Nemesis to batter through before entering his mind. The Knight immediately threw psychic barriers around certain recent memories under the impression that Nemesis would seek out unknown information. However, much like his faceless adversary in the bowels of the industrial park, Nemesis allowed misconceptions and outright falsehoods to lead the Jedi to lend his strength and focus on priorities that were never his intention.

Memories were fortified against the encroachment, and rage at being denied filled the giant. Frustration, anger, fear of failure, and other overpowering emotions flooded through the mental assault. And still the Jedi resisted as a snarl flickered over his face. The battering ram of the Force smashed against the barriers, which shredded the looming figure's assault. Pieces of his imagined psychic tools were destroyed to lie cast aside in the Jedi's mind. With fury, an astral projection of his form rained blows on the closely guarded secrets held in a protective shield by the Jedi. The young man grinned with abandon, knowing he was overcoming his opponent's mighty, aggressive onslaught. Pride grew as he turned the tide, rage meeting cold fury as he pushed back. Nemesis faltered in the Jedi's mind, who took the offensive, allowing the knowledge he was on the right side to strengthen every strike. Murdered civilians, fallen brothers and sisters in the Order, dead Republic soldiers, and the monstrous sithspawn who ravaged the planet added fuel to the young man's power. And just as he raised his mental arms to vanquish the projection of Nemesis, it happened.

The darkside infected him at the intricate manipulations of Nemesis. Every emotion leached onto the Jedi. Every failed attempt by Nemesis only fueled his arrogance and hubris. The memories of the dead drew forth the dark rage, and the knowledge that he was about to defeat the giant at his own game drove him into an attack with no mercy, no empathy, no restrictions. The feelings swirled into the core of the Jedi, and as he struck, taking an overwhelming glee in the action, he fell to the dark side.

And Nemesis won.

It had never been about information. His only desire was to break the Jedi. To shatter the man until Nemesis could remold him into a tool of darkness. By tapping into the dark side of the Force, the light and power of the battle meditation disappeared. And Nemesis drove his consciousness forward to engulf the Jedi with his own darkness. There was no haven from the tendrils that infected and overwhelmed the Jedi. All he had been was stripped away, and Nemesis poured his ambition, drive, desire, fear, and rage into the young man, destroying who he once was and creating a simulacrum of his own distorted reflection. With grim satisfaction, Nemesis walked away from the broken man, discarded as a broken plaything, and moved to the view screens that still showed the working security systems and surveillance.