Private The Cost of Leaving

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The feint had worked, but only for an instant. Varin recovered with impressive speed, the Black Blade hooking around his own before wrenching it off-line with practiced precision. Ace didn't resist the motion. Fighting the leverage would've only left him more exposed, so instead he allowed his wrist to turn with it, yielding just enough to deny Varin the advantage he was trying to create.

He'd expected nothing less. Varin wasn't simply strong. He was learning. Every exchange refined his understanding of the duel just as much as it refined Ace's own. Whatever hope Ace had entertained of ending this quickly had vanished. This was going to be harder than he'd first believed.

The headbutt came immediately afterward. Ace's eyes tracked the subtle shift of Varin's shoulders before the larger man drove forward. Rather than planting himself, Ace slipped his head just outside the line of impact, the armored brow passing close enough that he felt the rush of displaced air across his face. He took another measured step back as soon as the moment had passed, reclaiming the distance between them before Varin could continue pressing.

He'd learned that lesson long ago. Too many opponents had hidden cheap headbutts behind otherwise disciplined swordplay. He wasn't about to fall for another.

The reprieve lasted only a heartbeat. Varin's next strike crashed into his guard with enough force to rattle every joint in his body. The impact surged from blue blade to cybernetic arm and through his shoulders, disrupting both his balance and stance before he could fully settle himself again.

"You're not my enemy, Varin." His voice remained steady despite the strain.

Without retreating any farther, Ace rolled his lightsaber into a tight sweeping arc that cut forward toward Varin's centerline. It wasn't the finishing blow. It was an invitation, presented at an angle that naturally encouraged interception with either the Black Blade or the newly ignited crossguard broadsaber.

The instant their blades met, Ace's free hand snapped forward. A compact telekinetic repulse burst from his palm, directed not to hurl Varin backward but to steal his footing at the precise moment his attention was committed elsewhere.

If the repulse succeeded in disrupting the larger man's balance, Ace intended to flow immediately into a third movement, turning the momentum into a precise attempt to strip one of Varin's weapons from his grasp before he could recover.

"You don't have to be the monster you believe yourself to be." Ace said, his eyes never leaving Varin's weapons. "You have a choice."

Varin Mortifer ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber | Wyrmfang

Acier's voice came clearly to Varin. Not his enemy as the clash impacted. Varin did not respond. Words spoken in duels from his experience were nothing but trickery. Many had tried to get into his head to force him to do something suboptimal. Some had succeeded and they were lessons he would never forget.

But this felt different.

The slash came quickly, Varin pulled up his Black Blade to guard the strike. Another spit of sparks jetted from the blades as they hissed from the heat given off of them. The constant battle between the two blades trying to cut through the other.

Acier's hand snapped forward. A telekinetic technique that robbed Varin of his footing. Acier was smart. He knew that Varin had the size and strength advantage. So his body would either roll with impact or he would use the force to make up for his shortcomings of physical strength.

Varin would never admit it to him now, but it was the smartest way Acier could have gone about it. He had learned much with the Sith.

The force blast was small. Nothing spectacular…at first. Repositioning his footing just enough to force an opening.

As Varin attempted to correct, Acier's weapons moved quickly. Efficiently as always. The horrid Black Blade deftly removed from his hand. It clattered to the floor.

It had been some long since he had been disarmed. And the moment the Black Blade left his grasp, certain whispers ceased. The deep burning rage of betrayal had dampened. The weapon that was forged to feed darkside emotions ceased its temptation over his emotional state.

Acier could have moved to finish him while he was distracted. He could have removed a limb, could have killed him.

But instead he spoke.

Choice…

The word he had heard so many times in his youth as an apprentice.

The broadsaber still held in his grasp, its growl echoed within the chamber. His empty hand trembled. The saver finally disengaged, the hiss of the blade echoed followed by the crimson color fading off within the hellish hilt.

Varin stood there staring at the Black Blade for a moment. His fingers slowly flexing and relaxing.

Finally he spoke. His voice eerily quiet. Eerily calm. But there was an edge sharpened within his words. A feeling of pain. A feeling of confusion.

“It's…far too late for me, Acier…”

He thought back to Tapani. The slaughtering of men, women and children by his hand. The vision he had of killing his own sister and his younger self only for it to be the children of the royal family.

“Some of us…can't have redemption.”

His stance slowly straightened as he stood up. His hand slowly rising, pulling the Black Blade to his grasp.

“I knew from the instant I saw you, you did not belong with the Sith. Your legacy does not belong to us. Just as mine does not belong with you, or your allies.”

No, they did not belong to him or any likes of those who were not Sith. Not with his plans. Not with his goals.

Something had clicked within Varin's head as he looked at Acier. He had found his true family. Where he belonged. Something Varin could not truly be a part of. But it was something he respected Acier for. Sticking to his decision. Even in the face of monstrosity.

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The Black Blade struck the stone with a heavy clang. Ace didn't take his eyes off Varin, lightsaber remaining leveled toward the Sith Knight, its point steady against the silence that followed.

Yet something had changed. The fury that had raged within Varin only moments before had... quieted. Not vanished, just settled. Ace couldn't explain why. Whether it was the weapon lying at Varin's feet or something else entirely, the storm he'd felt through the Force had given way to something heavier. More reflective.

His attention flickered briefly toward the crimson glow of Varin's crossguard lightsaber as its growl faded into silence. But he didn't lower his own weapon. Not yet. He didn't intend to strike, but experience had taught him that hesitation got people killed. Until he knew this conversation was real, the lightsaber remained where it was, more safeguard than threat.

Then Varin spoke, confessing that he believed it was too late for him. That he couldn't be redeemed. He knew that feeling. Sometimes... if he was honest... he still carried it.

Varin stooped and recalled the Black Blade into his hand. Ace watched him carefully but made no move to intervene. The intent he'd sensed moments ago hadn't returned for now.

Then came the words he hadn't expected.

“I knew from the instant I saw you, you did not belong with the Sith."

For the first time since the duel began, Ace lowered his blade a fraction. His eyes drifted away, expression composed, though something quieter lingered behind it.

"...I know how you feel." The admission came almost reluctantly. "I don't..." He paused, searching for words he'd rarely spoken aloud. "I don't think I deserve redemption either."

His gaze then settled somewhere beyond the chamber.

"But I can atone. Maybe I spend the rest of my life trying to balance the scale for everything we did during the campaign for the Core... and everything that came after."

With a soft hiss, Ace extinguished his own lightsaber. The blue blade vanished, leaving only the distant echoes of the chamber around them.

"I think... the fact you believe it's too late for you..." A dry chuckle escaped through his nose. "...actually means it isn't."

His eyes lifted to meet Varin's once more.

"And I'm not telling you to come with me. I'm not asking you to join the Jedi. Or the High Republic. Or anyone. I'm just saying..." His gaze settled on the Black Blade resting once more in Varin's grasp. "...you have a choice to be something other than the Covenant's weapon. There's a whole galaxy out there where we could be building. Helping. Instead of destroying and killing."

Silence settled between them again and Ace lowered his head slightly, exhaling through his nose.

"But I know it'll take more than words." His eyes returned to Varin one last time. "I just hope one day you'll see it for yourself."

Varin Mortifer ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber | Wyrmfang​

“I don’t think you understand, Acier.”

Varin’s stance straightened as he looked him in the eye.

“Sith life is all I know. It’s how I was raised, and it is how I flourish.”

His words echoed in the chamber as the quiet slowly began to take hold of the chamber.

“I am but a creation that thrives in much different soil than you. I do not deserve redemption because I do not see the need for me to be redeemed. Nor do I need atonement…”

His voice grew quiet as he thought of the killing of his family. The animalistic hatred he feels for the man who did it, and the pain that still rots through his body at the mere thought of his last memory with his sister.

“Some are dealt a hand they cannot escape. As far as I’m concerned, I am right where I need to be…”

His stance slowly relaxed as he spoke.

“A weapon I must be…for now…But I will be so much more in the end.”

He paused once more before he continued.

“If your plans include you fighting the Sith Covenant, I cannot let our next meeting end in words…”

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Varin was right. Ace had misread him completely. This wasn't a man crushed beneath the weight of everything he'd done, convinced he'd crossed some invisible line beyond which redemption could no longer reach him. Varin wasn't searching for forgiveness. He wasn't interested in atonement. He was exactly where he wanted to be.

The realization settled heavily in Ace's chest. For so long, he'd looked at those brief glimpses beneath everything Varin had become and convinced himself they meant something else. The poet behind the warrior. The man fiercely protective of those he considered his own. The friend Ace had stubbornly refused to call a friend when they'd stood beneath the same banner.

He'd mistaken humanity for goodness. They weren't the same thing. Those parts of Varin weren't evidence of some better person buried beneath Sith corruption. They were simply human pieces of a complicated man who was also capable of extraordinary violence, and who had made peace with that fact.

Ace's gaze slipped away, lowering toward the fractured marble scattered across the chamber. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, that realization genuinely disappointed him.

Even Varin's declaration that he would someday become so much more offered little comfort. There was nothing hopeful in the words. If anything, they sounded like a promise that the man standing across from him intended to keep walking down this road and see just how far it could take him.

Ace had spent this entire encounter telling Varin that he had a choice. Now he had to accept that Varin had made one.

When the Sith finally warned him that another meeting wouldn't be allowed to end in words if Ace intended to stand against the Covenant, silence lingered for several seconds.

"Yeah."

There was no challenge in the answer. No bravado. Just calm acceptance.

His eyes remained lowered for another moment before slowly returning to Varin. Whatever disappointment had crossed his features had settled into something quieter now. Something almost lamentful.

"But Varin..." Ace hesitated. "Looking back, I'm glad I had you as a friend. I'm sorry I couldn't admit that back then."

The admission felt strangely overdue. His gaze remained fixed on Varin's as he continued.

"...And I'm sorry we ended up on different sides of this."

Varin Mortifer ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber | Wyrmfang​

That look.

For some reason, that look specifically had churned something within him. Varin looked at his helm that laid on the floor. The inert visor staring at him in its red reflection. Altering the way the room looked as if it were its own little world.

Acier’s next words shot a pain through Varin’s chest.

Friend?

His gaze flicked back at Acier. A look within his eyes, something that seemed softer. Then came the apology. Varin’s eyes lowered to the floor, the pattern of their duel etched within the snow at their feet that had made its way into the temple. A small breath left him then his eyes met his. A since of humanity behind them.

“You were family to me, whether you saw it or not.”

His voice had grown quiet. The memories of their adventures and their moments of teaching each other various things surfaced his mind. Varin was not like a lot of Sith. He cared. It was a damned curse.

But a thankful one. It was the only way he felt that the Sith could eventually be better. Stronger.

“I…”

His voice seemed to tighten around his words as if to choke them away.

“I tried Ace…to help you.”

A small sigh left him before he straightened himself once again.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way too. It’s not what I want.”

The thought of possibly having to fight him again only surfaced more pain. The kind he could not feed off of. Pain that was more than physical.

“I pray we never have to spill each other's blood. It would…”

He hesitated for a moment before he pulled together something to just say, regardless of what he truly wanted to say.

“It would be a waste.”

His hand slowly outstretched to his helm, the metal scraped along the floor before leaping to his grasp.

“Just this once. I will say I could not locate you, in case they ask.”

He slowly stepped past Acier towards the doorway stopping just within the frame, his gaze flicked to the small droid then back to him.

“Be careful out there.”

The helm slowly lowered over his head, the magnetic locks engaging into place and the visor humming to life.

Brother…

The word he just could not say to him echoed within his head as he made his way down the hall. A small tear running down his cheek behind the helm. Something within the altercation had torn deeply into him to the point where his body did not even evaporate the tear. Instead letting it fall down his face as he slowly made his way to his ship.

Acier Moonbound​