Duel The Last Remnant | Acier Moonbound & Lysander

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

The crimson dust of Kuar lacked the hunger of Rattatak's sands, yet it still clung to the obsidian plates of Remowa's armor. She was seated cross-legged on the shattered edge of a long-extinct cistern, a solitary obelisk amidst the desert expanses of Harkul. Above her, the Core World's sky seemed to fade into an unnatural coloration, providing a sharp contrast to the outer rim she had been forced to flee from when the Sith Covenant had arrived in response to her signal.

They had driven her out. Two of them. She still did not know their names, to her, they were merely the Hammer and the Scalpel but the humiliation of that retreat had festered in her chest for months. In the wake of that stalemate, she had wandered aimlessly. The fall of the Galactic Empire had left a vacuum not just in the galaxy's governance, but in her own soul, and the isolation had become a slow, suffocating weight.

Rather than letting her depression consume her, she channeled the unexpected emotional upheaval to strengthen herself with the Dark Side of the Force. While many would harness this newfound power to embark on a rampage of destruction in retaliation for the fallen Galactic Emperor, she had a more noble objective: to conclude her life in the heat of battle. A glorious death was in store for her, yet she refused to depart from the living Force without putting up a struggle.

Remowa uncrossed her legs, rising with a simple movement that showed no signs of the past weakness that had plagued her months ago. She looked down at her left boot. Strapped across her shin was a new addition in the form of a Shinbone Blade, a simple dagger made of beskar but its edge had been laced with Malkite themfar, a lethal, agonizing neurotoxin that turned the slightest scratch into a death sentence.

A low, familiar vibration rippled through the Force, catching the edge of her awareness like a razor. The air grew heavy with the taste of ozone and a calculated, oncoming malice. Remowa reached down, her slender fingers wrapping around the familiar hilt of her improved lightwhip. She didn't ignite it yet; she merely let the weapon dangle at her side, her crimson eyes fixing on the horizon where the dust was beginning to stir.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

The Wayward drifted silently above Kuar's atmosphere, its immense silhouette hanging over the world like an executioner waiting for permission. The bridge lights were dimmed low, red against black, while fractured mountain ranges turned slowly beneath the transparisteel viewport.

Ace stood with his arms folded, staring down at the surface. He had considered leveling the entire region from orbit. One command and a barrage from the Wayward's ventral batteries would melt the valley into glass and ash, finally erasing Remowa from the galaxy permanently.

But the longer he stared at the planet, the more he realized orbital fire wouldn't satisfy whatever had rooted itself inside him since Rattatak. Remowa had touched something personal when she went after Sibylla. Then she escaped him. Worse, she made him feel unprepared and outmatched.

"She's here." He said. "I know it."

Not because of scanners or spy networks, those had only narrowed the possibilities. The Force handled the rest. She was drifting, and eventually predators stopped hiding and started choosing where they wanted to die. Kuar fit her too perfectly.

The shuttle descended through cloud cover shortly after. By the time the ramp lowered, Ace stepped out first, black coat shifting lightly beneath the wind, gloved hand resting near the hilt at his belt. The shorter purple shoto sat opposite it now.

Lysander moved beside him. He was insurance, someone he trusted to watch his back in case Remowa had anything up her sleeve again. That, and he was certain his fellow Knight would want some retribution.

Ace glanced sideways briefly while they walked. "If she runs again, I'm not chasing her twice."

The words came flatly, but beneath them sat something colder. The pair moved deeper through the ruins in silence after that. Ace could feel it growing stronger the farther they descended. That familiar presence in the Force. Sharp. Coiled. Waiting.

Then they found her. At the center of an old forge chamber open to the sky, Remowa stood motionless, lightwhip hanging loosely at her side like she'd known they were coming long before they arrived.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Remowa Acier Moonbound​

Months had passed since Rattatak and that forsaken arena. Standing aboard the dreadnought, the Wayward, it almost felt like another lifetime entirely. The Core had fallen beneath the Covenant's heel not even half a year ago, but the galaxy never slowed for them. Their hands had been on the throttle ever since, carving more territory and crushing resistance beneath iron heels. Amidst that brutal ascent, others began to carve their own names into the Dark. Acier especially. All too predictable, really; perhaps some of it'd been manifested the morning they trained together on Thrantin. Two Tuk'atas on the same trail, same hungers; their philosophies diverged in a few places, but trajectories were parallel.

He arrived because Acier called; because there was unfinished business. When the other Sith Knight spoke, Lysander felt it too. The fact that she, a former Dark Side Elite, slithered into their backyard on Kuar was insulting; perhaps even a provocation. In a way that rivaled Bonadan, he never asked why, no matter how many questions fluttered beneath the skin. Why this foe mattered to him. Why the hunt had become personal. Why the man's wound still bled. The decision was simply supported, buried beneath pragmatism's cold heart; naturally, he would have supported glassing the entire planet if such was asked of him, cruel as such a deed might be.

This time there would be no rushing in blindly. They would arrive together. The shuttle descended through the clouds, and when the ramp lowered, he stepped out beside Acier. The Dark began to bleed off his frame in waves. Be it retribution, or anything that swelled from passion, there was no heat; only the absence of it, a narrowing of the mind. Fingers clenched the Helm of Twin Suns, sealing with a hiss that echoed like a tomb’s cold breath. A sentinel guarding nothing judgment.

And Lysander, Point Emissary, passed that judgment with a tone born of the abyss; as though he issued Covenant law through the planet itself.

“The Council appoints this day as the end of her life.”

The hilt of Nightstar was grasped, and the blade emerged with a serpentine exhale; the edges thirsted for very the darkness that birthed it on Desevro. Football echoed, and the space between them grew by a few paces.

 

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

Remowa did not blink as her two adversaries stepped into the open air from their shuttlecraft, their boots grinding the grit against the hard sunbaked terrain beneath them. She sensed the oppressive, suffocating aura of the Dark Side emanating from them, contrasting with the chaotic, frantic energy they had unleashed on her during the battle on the Planet of Rattatak.

This was something more polished, less prone to errors and abrupt shifts in intensity. Lysander von Ascania declaration of her death sentence reverberated through the wide, desolate space, softly echoing off the far-off canyon walls. Next to him, Acier Moonbound remained motionless, the purple shoto at his side a sign of an apprentice who was finally thinking rationally rather than letting his emotions take control.

It did not matter that they had come to destroy her. In the twisted game of the Dark Side, this was the ultimate victory. She had survived the collapse of an Empire, survived the suffocating isolation of the Core, only to cultivate her own executioners. They would strike her down, yes, but in doing so, they would carry her legacy into the new galaxy they were building.

"Are you prepared to die as well on this long-forgotten planet?" she asked calmly in a tone that did not reflect the severity of the situation. If they answered her or not it hardly mattered as her body moved into position without even tensing a single muscle. Her improved lightwhip simply roared to life then lashed out with an autonomous fury as if she had been holding back on Rattatak.

The three plasma filaments didn't move as a single unit; they separated instantly, each weaving a completely independent trajectory through the air. The uppermost serrated cord hissed in a jagged, blinding zig-zag directly toward Lysander's throat, seeking to bypass the reach of Nightstar.

Simultaneously, the middle strand scissored outward in a wide, deceptive loop designed to blindside Acier from his left flank, while the third plasma filament and the heavy, Mandalorian iron-studded cords whipped low across the hard dirt, cutting a devastating horizontal swath to take the legs out from under both of them at once.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace had spent months reliving Rattatak in his head. Not the outcome, but the mechanics. Every exchange, every mistake, and every shift in momentum.

Remowa hadn't beaten him through raw power alone. She'd controlled the fight itself. The spacing. The rhythm. The terrain. Even the reactions of her opponent. By the end of it, Ace realized he hadn't been fighting a woman with a lightwhip. He'd been fighting a moving kill zone built around deception, pressure, and punishment.

So he adapted. The instant the three amethyst filaments separated through the air, Ace recognized the pattern immediately. He didn't bother with the upper filament, he trusted Lysander to handle it. The low sweeping cords, however, weren't trying to immediately cripple them. They were there to destabilize footing and create hesitation long enough for the middle filament to punish whichever direction they instinctively moved.

Layered pressure. But this time Ace didn't rush her. His blue blade ignited alongside the violent snap-hiss of the purple shoto in his off-hand almost simultaneously. The larger lightsaber intercepted the middle filament at an angle rather than meeting it head on, redirecting the plasma strand harmlessly past his shoulder instead of allowing the whip to coil against his blade like it had on Rattatak.

At the same time, the shoto dropped low in a reverse grip. Purple light flashed across the ground as the shorter blade caught the sweeping iron-studded cords before they could fully wrap around his legs. The impact glanced wide, sparks scattering across the hard terrain instead of ripping his footing out from beneath him.

He didn't retreat afterward, distance made her dangerous. Instead, Ace stepped diagonally forward through the opening he'd just created, stealing space before the whip could fully reset its rotational momentum.

For the first time since this fight began way back on Rattatak, there was no desperation in his movements. Only recognition. His eyes remained locked on Remowa herself now, not the weapon. He was watching her shoulders, her hips, her footing. The things that actually mattered.

Then he attacked with a sharp pulse of telekinesis that struck the ground near her lead foot first, not powerful enough to harm her, only meant to disrupt balance and interrupt whatever follow up sequence she intended to chain together next.

The moment it did, Ace moved behind it. Fast. The blue blade came first in a tight horizontal cut aimed toward her weapon side while the purple shoto remained closer to his body, guarding the inner lane this time instead of overextending into it.

There were no wasted motions or emotional lunging. Not this time. Now it was just a predator finally beginning to understand another.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Remowa Acier Moonbound

​

Lysander pierced the gloom from under the helm as the serrated zig‑zag drew near through the sulfurous air, aware of its unforgiving arc; its velocity was undeniable, rooted deeper than speed alone. The blonde was fast, but that wasn't why he recognized the strike. The Dark etched into muscle memory the shifts most fighters betrayed when danger curved toward one's throat: a widened stance, a pivot of the hips, weight redistributed like a warning. But none of these signals flickered now.

A single step surged forward, body pivoting just a few degrees, enough to nudge the violent curve of the whip away without sacrificing ground. Even so, he admitted another truth: this weapon was far more dangerous than the usual clash of blades.

Without hesitation, Nightstar ascended in a motion that was fluid, wrists slicing upward, guiding the glowing lash to strike where momentum was weakest. A shower of violet sparks erupted as the whip skated across the interception point, redirected past the shoulder. Throughout, breath remained steady, rhythm unbroken by the near assault. Just the slow turning of a guillotine's blade.

Another ripple traced the air; this being Ace's telekinetic pulse weaving through the dust and shadow. The effect was still absent, but the intent prickled like an electric current along his skin. The chill of the Dark coalesced around him, stitched from every nightmare ever birthed in the forgotten depths of the teen's mind. And so Nightstar returned from its interception arc and angled toward Remowa's centerline, descending like a scythe for the heart.

Unlike the arena of their past, this battlefield was where he intended to bend break the Chiss' spirit first; to force her onto the backfoot if possible, wrest control, make them fight harder, and bleed deeper..

The dance had begun anew..

 

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

The telekinetic pulse directed at her by Acier Moonbound aimed to throw off her balance and disrupt her attack's rhythm. Rather than resist this disruptive shockwave, she embraced the concussive force as a trigger, letting her front foot yield to the pressure, converting what could have been a stumble into a smooth pivot that completely evaded Acier's sweeping blue blade.

She disappeared from his direct line of sight, using the force of his own attack to slip past his reach and breach his guard. Suddenly, when she was within the pocket, she was close enough to catch the scent of the scorched fabric of his coat. Her free hand shot upward before Acier could react, aiming to slash his non-robotic arm with her gauntlet claws.

"If you weren't so intent on killing me, you might have a chance with that noblewoman." She teased with a slight smile, as the sharp nails made a slight cut through the fabric and whatever was beneath it. Without a moment's hesitation, she propelled her full weight forward, directing her entire mass into a point-blank shove against his chest, aided by a force push to potentially send him backward.

As this unfolded, the atmosphere shifted behind her, and the distinct sound of Lysander von Ascania 's blade slicing through the air indicated that she had exposed herself to danger. Using the force of her own push as a launchpad, she launched herself sideways, twisting her body to evade the golden Knight's lethal swing.

As she sprang out of the line of fire, her fingers flicked the controls of her hilt. The three plasma filaments of her improved lightwhip snapped backward, coiling around her form. The spinning amethyst strands formed a defensive shield of pure, whistling energy.

Lysander's descending phrik point grazed the outer edge of the rotating plasma wall, throwing off a cascade of violet sparks that illuminated the dark plains of Harkul, but the lethal bite of his blade missed her flesh entirely. She touched down several meters away, her heels skidding across the crimson dust as she re-established her distance.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

The moment Remowa yielded to the telekinetic pulse instead of resisting it, Ace knew exactly what she'd done. Rattatak had taught him that Remowa rarely fought force with force. She redirected it, repurposed it, and turned momentum into opportunity. Every apparent mistake concealed an angle. Every retreat masked an attack.

So when his blade cut through empty space, surprise never reached him. His eyes were already tracking her movement. The shift of her hips, rotation of her shoulders, and the displacement of air as she slipped past his reach.

The claws came upward. This time, they met the exact obstacle he'd built the shoto to provide. Ace's right wrist rotated inward on instinct. The shorter purple blade snapped between them, collapsing the inside lane before the gauntlet claws could reach flesh.

"Lot of talk for a walking corpse." He fired back calmly.

Then came the shove, followed by the Force push. Rather than planting his feet against it, Ace yielded. A short step carried him backward with the force instead of against it, reducing the momentum and preventing the push from fully throwing him off balance. His boots skidded across the hard terrain only briefly before stabilizing.

And through all of it, he never stopped watching. Remowa. Lysander. Remowa again. The moment Remowa launched away from Lysander's strike and re-established distance, Ace moved.

Toward where she intended to be. His cybernetic hand opened and the Force answered immediately. The terrain beneath Remowa's landing point exploded upward. A localized eruption of fractured stone, grit, and debris timed to intercept the exact moment her feet sought purchase

Another attempt to steal control of the battlefield before she could reclaim it. Ace didn't follow. Instead, he shifted outward, opening the angle for Lysander's advance and forcing Remowa to contend with both of them at once.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

Tracking the Chiss was effortless. The Dark wove itself around her trajectory. The disturbance rippled through the air, sensed without sight, much like the whisper of a prophet reading omens before a storm. A wrist flicked, the blade descending, retreating into a guarded embrace as her form skidded across the blood-stained dust. Judgment, inevitable as the night, crept closer. No one would elude it forever. Warming up was simply a prelude; no expectation of mercy would accompany this confrontation. He hadn't arrived expecting an easy opponent, and she had no doubt sharpened her skills in kind. Such was the way of the Sith, their hunts inexorable..

Breath drew deep, in through the nose, slow and deliberate. Exhalation followed. The exact same rhythm he'd carried up Thrantin’s mountains before dawn alongside Acier once. The blonde's pulse was elevated, muscles primed and ready, lungs expanding with greed for more oxygen. Time seemed to narrow, compressing around each movement.

Acier’s gambit expanded the battlefield; Remowa’s evasion elongated the space further. The lane that opened from that was thick with potential and impossible to ignore. The Dark answered immediately as he surged forward, limbs a blur of raw strength. Power coursed relentlessly. Trained channels were summoned, reinforcing tendons, sharpening reflexes, every fiber but another weapon.

If the Chiss desired space, he would deny it. If she valued distance, he planned to bleed away every single meter. As he understood it, lightwhip thrived on freedom. None of that fortune would be granted.

A vicious lateral arc cut toward her legs, looking to cripple the foundations first if possible. Hips rotated, weight shifted, the efficiency of a striker targeting a lead leg after angling off. A dramatic killing blow had no place here; this was pragmatism stitched into his sword.

 

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

The localized explosion of broken stone and debris erupted under Remowa's feet the very instant her boots tried to find grip on the sun-baked earth. It appeared that Acier Moonbound had been monitoring her movements, as the telekinetic blast was intended to break her resolve before she had even a second to adjust her stance.

However, she refrained from trying to steady herself, as that would instill in them an unwarranted belief that she had truly been caught off guard. Instead, she directed the momentum of the blast straight into her core, harnessing the force to enhance her lift and propel herself directly into the sky of Kaur.

Below her, Lysander von Ascania 's blade sliced through the void she had just occupied a moment before. The heavy phrik point of Nightstar whistled harmlessly through the rising dust, the golden Knight's missing his target as she used his partner's own pressure to completely rewrite the setting of their engagement in her favor.

High above the plain, suspended at the peak of her gravity-defying jump, Remowa's crimson eyes fixed on the enormous iron chains that stretched across the edge of the nearby canyon possibly remnants of a long-forgotten mining endeavor.

With a sharp flick of her wrist, the three plasma filaments of her improved lightwhip lashed out through the ionized air, uncoiling like a nest of hunting vipers. The flexible strands wrapped themselves around the thick, rusted links of the highest chain with a heavy, metallic clang.

With a simple press of her finger on the hilt's modified controls, the whip's mechanisms locked the slack instantly into place, converting the weapon into a high-tension zipline. Riding the momentum of her upward ascent and the gravity of her fall, Remowa skimmed along the length of the chain.

Her armored boots glided effortlessly over the air just beneath the iron links, using the slide to pull herself away from the converging kill zone the two Knights had established on the plains below. She was a dark shadow cutting across the canyon's edge, effortlessly reclaiming the exact distance she needed to keep her weapon lethal.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

Ace watched the entire sequence unfold. The launch, the chain, the lightwhip locking into place, and the rapid retreat across the canyon's edge.

His eyes tracked the length of the rusted chain instead. For all the freedom she'd just created for herself, Remowa had willingly attached herself to a line that could only go where the chain allowed.

Ace's gaze shifted briefly toward Lysander. Nothing was spoken, but the look lasted less than a second before Ace moved.

The Force surged through his body and the ground beneath his boots cracked as he launched upward in a violent burst of speed.

To an observer, it would've looked familiar. The same relentless pursuit and direct aggression as the man who had chased her across Rattatak fueled by anger and pride.

Except this time there was no desperation behind it. Only intent. Both lightsabers remained positioned defensively as he moved, blue blade leading while the shoto guarded the inner lane. Ready for the lightwhip. Ready for a Force attack. Ready for whatever counterstrike she chose. Because he wanted her to choose one.

As the distance collapsed, Ace raised his primary lightsaber and committed to what appeared to be another direct attack. Then didn't. The strike never came. At the last possible moment, the motion broke apart before completion.

A feint. A deliberate lie. Rather than fighting the momentum of the leap, Ace used it. His body twisted through the air, carrying him past Remowa's position as blue and purple light swept harmlessly through empty space.

His boots struck the rusted chain overhead, metal groaning beneath the sudden impact as he settled into motion atop the very route she'd chosen for her escape.

He wanted her eyes on him, her weapon on him, her next decision centered entirely around him. Because while Remowa focused on the predator charging directly at her, there was another one still hunting.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

Lysander hated ambiguity, so his first instinct was to categorize the spectacle before them. And it wasn't perceived as a threat. With the Chiss evading his strike, all it took was a single glance passing between them; this was a silent lexicon of war or perhaps even carved from spinning the block for the Covenant. His brother at the ridge, and himself preparing the trench. It registered with the clarity of thunder clapping. No orders were issued, nor were they needed; just air reshaping to accommodate the kill.

A trap blooming in the smog.

Unnecessary motion these days was a luxury for the desperate. Where once blood lust might've led to some fevered sprint for those chains above, there was now only the coolness of a Vornskr, one that already finished the meal in the darkness of his mind. Anything whispered by the adrenaline-addled was a lie; experience taught his a harder truth: stillness could be his best weapon. Patience serves a sharp blade better than a lunge. Something that'd taken many losses to finally understand. That, and his time among crueler Sith advised him he simply needed to wait for Kuar to deliver the target.

Feet planted, weight diving into the hips as though it might link his soul to the planet, the blonde gazed upward. Nightstar's hilt bit into a calloused palm. The Force would not surge; it was a viper winding through his muscle and conduit alike, as it pushed outward, shivering into those chains. They began trembling under a hum, slowly increasing in intensity. A shockwave would've been too vulgar. All Lysander needed to do was shake the balance of the one clinging to it. Panic was a beautiful architect of error, and it was true the Emissary wished to savor it before their foe's final breath today.

Golden irises tracked the tremors while beginning to dissect what her flight path might be. Physics made it immutable, and perhaps even the most obedient ally in the entire galaxy. There was no room left for debate.

Upon that calculation slow strides commenced as he became the portrait of an executioner. The sword was then angled toward the dust. Whether she fell to Ace's blade or his own was trivial, for what he also wanted was an intoxicating view of watching a trapped animal trying to buy time through struggle.

 

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

Remowa's expression stayed unchanged while Acier Moonbound pursued her across the canyon, attempting to box her in but was repeatedly outmaneuvered by the tight lightwhip around her body. Her wrist moved in sync with the sound of his blades slicing through the air acting as her guide to know where to focus her defense.

The feint he performed on the chain was skillfully done, reflecting the months he dedicated to studying his defeat on Rattatak. He maintained a strong defensive stance without overreaching, using his momentum to secure the chain above her. He wanted a response to this deception but would receive none for the Dark Side Elite was well aware of her two opponents.

As Acier's boots hit the creaking metal, a sensation tingled at the back of her mind while Lysander von Ascania harnessed the force around him. They were working together, trying to squeeze the limited space she had just fought so hard to create. But the plan relied entirely on her actually landing on the chains.

While Acier adjusted his stance on the shifting iron links, thinking he had successfully claimed the high ground, Remowa's hand moved with precision. She didn't strike upward at his guard. Instead, her wrist snapped, and the three plasma filaments of her improved lightwhip coiled tightly around the main structural link directly beneath Acier's feet.

With a sharp pull of her fingers on the hilt's controls, the serrated plasma lines sliced through the ancient, rust-weakened iron in a fraction of a second. The snap of the breaking chain echoed across the plains as the tension vanished instantly as the massive iron links crashed violently downward into the abyss.

With no foundation to stand on due to the tremors, Acier Moonbound would potentially be thrown into free fall towards the jagged rocks and sand below them. Remowa released her anchor point a microsecond before the chain collapsed, using the recoil to drift backward onto a solid stone shelf along the canyon edge.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

The instant the chain snapped, Ace understood exactly what she'd done. The rusted links groaned as the structure failed beneath him. For a fraction of a second, thousands of kilograms of ancient iron hung suspended between stability and collapse before gravity finally claimed them, along with him. Instead of fighting the fall, Ace released the chain entirely. His boots left the rusted metal as the massive structure plunged toward the canyon below.

Gravity seized him. Ace seized everything else. Two cybernetic fingers lifted from the hilt of his blade - the falling chain didn't continue its descent uninterrupted. Several of the larger sections twisted violently through the air, ripped from their natural trajectory as telekinesis gripped them mid fall. Ancient links groaned and shattered as entire lengths of iron were dragged sideways through the canyon.

His aim wasn't to crush her, Remowa was too smart for that, but instead he wanted to limit her choices. Massive lengths of iron crashed toward the canyon shelf Remowa had retreated to, forcing debris, dust, and twisted metal into the space she'd just claimed for herself.

And behind it came Ace, not attempting to stop his fall, instead accelerating through it. The Force coiled through his limbs as blue and purple light ignited against the canyon walls. His body twisted through the rain of collapsing metal, using the chaos he'd created as both cover and pressure. Every falling section of chain became another obstacle Remowa would have to account for. Another decision forced upon her.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Acier Moonbound Remowa​

Iron tendons were trembling before registering that fracture above; a quiver raced through those chains like a muscle spasm. The Emissary’s mind was logging different angles before his vision could ever catch up. He watched as the Chiss flung herself backward to vault onto a shelf, meanwhile Ace was plummeting earthward like a blade. Dust roared upward in a plume. Fragments were tumbling. The entire canyon was convulsing in a cacophony of iron and stone now.

Chaos was beginning to carve out truth. Dust clouds swelled. But no altitude was a sanctuary when two Sith hunters were present..

The Bracer of the Grove Knight hummed, locking itself against his wrist like bark knitting onto oak. Beneath his boots, the planet surrendered to it; there would be no treacherous wobble. Sure Step activated. His center of gravity felt.. flawless.

Swirling dust was entered, striding into the storm ahead as one entered a cathedral. Lysander threaded through debris with precision. A few of the iron links slammed like broken ribs. More dust exploded outward. Sure Step orchestrated each tendon stretching, each muscle flexing, angling his spine, guiding his pelvis through gaps, preserving perfect equilibrium..

Reaching the wall beneath her ledge, the first handhold was found. A second yawned into view. A hidden crack offered his third grip. And so he ascended, ignoring the forearms that were straining.

Height meant nothing. Distance meant nothing. Only the kill mattered. Chunks were slamming near him, shockwaves that would rattle the bones of most. A rogue chain clattered only a meter away. Pain was always acceptable, just as risk was. Reaching their mutual foe was nonnegotiable.

With aid of the bracer, he learned to master that vertical plan; he ascended as though it were stairs. After a final torque of the shoulders and shift of the hips, he stepped onto the ledge. Dust clung to him like ash as Nightstar dangled from his hand.

From there he’d only attempt to close the gap as quickly as possible.. just a seizure of more space. The sword was angled down for only a second longer before angling forward in a middle guard.

 

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

The rain of collapsing metal and pulverized stone descended upon the canyon shelf in a violent avalanche but she did not panic as the massive sections of chain Acier Moonbound had wrenched from the air cam hurtling toward her position on the stone shelf. Her solid red eyes tracked the largest piece, a multi-ton cluster of twisted iron links that intended to flatten her into the stone.

Extending her left hand, she channeled a focused telekinetic blast to shove it sideways, causing it to crash harmlessly a meter away from her. Yet the volume of debris made a flawless evasion impossible, with her being pelted with stone and rock repeatedly against her armored form. A single jagged stone tore through the air, bypassing her guard entirely to carve a line across her cheek.

Warm crimson blood welled from the cut, stark against her blue skin, but Remowa merely bared her teeth. She seized the sudden flare of pain, converting the sharp sting into raw, unbridled malice. The Force coiled violently around her, gathering into a localized storm of destructive energy.

Before Acier could capitalize on his descent or Lysander von Ascania could fully close the gap from his ascent, Remowa unleashed the stored agony. Keeping her right hand locked onto the activated hilt of her improved lightwhip to maintain her deadly zone of defense, she thrust her left hand forward, her palm opening toward the two Knights like a living battery.

Blinding arcs of Force lightning erupted from her single outstretched hand, carving a direct destructive path toward both of her attackers simultaneously. The lightning branched through the falling dust and rain of metal, using the debris as a conductor to track straight toward Lysander's middle guard and Acier's airborne trajectory, threatening to cook them alive in the corridor they had tried to trap her in.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

The first warning wasn't sight. It was instinct. A sudden flare in the Force, a spike of danger so sharp it cut through the roar of collapsing metal and stone.

Ace reacted on reflex. The blue blade snapped upward and the purple shoto followed a heartbeat later, crossing beneath it as the first arcs of lightning tore through the canyon.

Most of the discharge crashed against the crossed lightsabers and exploded outward in branching forks of energy. Most. Several arcs slipped around his guard. Pain detonated through his shoulder, then his chest, then the side of his neck.

His muscles seized instantly and the smell of scorched fabric and burned flesh filled the air as lightning crawled across his body. His cybernetic arm spasmed violently around the hilt of his weapon.

A grunt escaped clenched teeth, and for a moment, his descent stopped being controlled. The shelf rushed toward him, then vanished from beneath his feet.

Instead of landing atop the ledge, Ace slammed shoulder first into the canyon wall below it. Stone fractured on impact. The collision knocked the air from his lungs and sent him tumbling downward through a shower of dust and loose rock.

His blue lightsaber vanished with a sharp hiss, clipped back on to his belt, and his cybernetic hand shot outward, metal fingers punching into the cliff face. Stone exploded around his forearm as the artificial limb dug deep into the canyon wall, carving a jagged furrow through the rock before finally finding purchase.

The violent fall jerked to a stop and Ace hung there for a moment, breathing hard. Lightning still danced through his muscles.

Above him, the Remowa still occupied the shelf. He hoped Lysander would be able to keep the pressure on her.

Ace tightened his grip on the stone and looked upward through the settling dust, the purple shoto still burning in his remaining hand. Then he raises his right arm as two fingers lifting from the hilt of his shoto. The Force responded to his command, and the stone beneath her position groaned.

Cracks raced through the canyon ledge like fractures through glass. Loose rock and debris broke free first before larger sections followed, the entire shelf beginning to give way beneath the pressure of Ace's telekinetic assault.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Remowa Acier Moonbound​

The ground beneath Lysander's boots gave a wretched moan; it was a tectonic protest against all the violence upon this planet's soil. But the Sith would not grant this cliffside any satisfaction. With the bracer burning and screeching at his wrist, it aided in defying the crumbling substate. More of the shelf fractured sharps of shale skittering into the abyss below.

Lightning began screaming rivers of agony, the fury of a thousand ghosts, slamming against his sword's aperture. His weapon vibrated with a frantic rhythm; fighting the kinetic torrent pouring into it. The surge bled through the hilt, and electrical contagions snaked up his wrists. A haunting echo of the Galactic Kaggath where he was once nearly unmade.

Fingers lost their edge of sensation, nerves weeping from the overload. His forearms trembled. Muscles spasmed against the dumping of raw power. Step by agonizing step, he waded through the devastation. Lysander's boots skidded as the pressure tried to force him back; he refused to yield a single atom of ground, a single molecule of his dominion, no matter how painful.

Through pyrokinesis, infernal heat coiled up from the core of him, a hellish catharsis, igniting the dust and shattered shale in a sudden bloom of fire. To breathe now was to inhale the fury of the planet itself. A thermal shockwave of pure suffocating malice rippled outward from his advancing frame as the air around him became mor consumed by unholy flames.

Darkness surged around him like ink in water. The ground he stood upon held no significance in that moment.

 

[Remowa]

The Ancient Chains - Kuar, Plains of Harkul
The Chiss Woman vol. 1 |:| Issue #4: The Last Remnant w/ Acier Moonbound and Lysander von Ascania

The suffocating wave of heat rolled toward the crumbling shelf as Lysander von Ascania inflamed the air itself, the thermal shockwave threatening to incinerate everything in its path. Remowa felt the sudden oxygen deprivation and the blistering rise in temperature a microsecond before the entire stone ledge completely disintegrated beneath her boots under the pressure of Acier Moonbound telekinetic assault.

Her armor had taken the searing embers, slowly burning her as she deliberately dropped straight down into the canyon below, using the falling debris of the shelf as a barrier against the expanding wall of fire above. The rapid descent was a blur of rushing wind and falling stone, gravity pulling her down at a considerable velocity with the canyon walls moving past her vision.

She did not allow the fall to become a panicked plunge. As her body plummeted parallel to the sheer cliff face, her left hand moved with practiced, lethal speed down to her shin. Her slender fingers wrapped around the hilt of her beskar dagger, ripping the blade from its sheath. With a focused grunt, Remowa slammed the resilient metal blade directly into the solid rock wall beside her.

Sparks exploded in a brilliant, continuous stream as the beskar shrieked against the ancient stone, carving a deep, jagged furrow down the cliff face. The tremendous friction generated a violent shudder that vibrated up her arm, straining her shoulder and tearing at the muscle, but her grip remained.

The resistance worked precisely as intended, bleeding off her terminal velocity and slowing her rapid descent to a perfectly manageable pace. A rogue piece of falling shale from the collapsed shelf struck her shoulder armor, the impact bruising the flesh beneath the plate, but she absorbed the pain, using it to keep her focus on her two adversaries.

Her boots finally touched the canyon floor with a heavy, controlled thud. She rolled immediately upon impact to dissipate the remaining kinetic energy and the flames spreading across her plating, coming up into a low kneeling stance amidst the swirling red dust and sand at the bottom of the ravine.

She slid the toxin-laced dagger back into its sheath across her shin, her right hand still loosely maintaining its grip on the unignited improved lightwhip hilt. Looking up into the haze where the fire and dust still choked the upper lip of the canyon, Remowa wiped a smear of crimson blood from her cut cheek with the back of her gauntlet.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Kuar - Plains of Harkul

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | The Wayward

The violent tremor of the collapsing shelf rippled through the canyon. Above, Lysander continued advancing through the lightning and fire alike, refusing to surrender ground even as the ledge gave way beneath them. Remowa's answer came immediately. Rather than fight for a position that no longer existed, she abandoned it entirely.

Ace watched her fall without panic, every action deliberate. The dagger appeared in her hand moments later and shrieked against the canyon wall as she carved a controlled descent through the stone. Another adaptation. Another solution.

Then she hit the canyon floor. He noticed the blood on her cheek, but he remained composed. A wounded predator was just as, if not more, dangerous.

Ace's grip tightened against the cliff face and then he moved. The cybernetic hand tore free from the stone and his boots planted briefly against the canyon wall. For a fraction of a second his body coiled like a spring and the Force erupted through his limbs.

The wall cracked beneath the impact as Ace kicked off into open air. His body rotated through a controlled backflip, clearing the remaining debris and dust before descending toward the canyon floor.

The blue lightsaber ignited again with a sharp snap-hiss and he landed several feet from Remowa. It wasn't graceful, and he wasn't completely recovered from the lightning. But he was standing.

Blue and purple light reflected across the canyon walls and for a moment he simply watched her. The blood on her cheek, the dagger she'd used to save herself, and the lightwhip still resting in her hand.

Then he moved. Fast. The blue blade came first, not for her centerline but for the space occupied by the lightwhip itself. A tight horizontal cut designed to force the weapon into motion rather than allow it to remain dormant.

The purple shoto followed immediately behind it, guarding the inside lane as he advanced. He refused to overextend or recklessly commit. Just pressure.

Every step carried him slightly farther across her front, subtly widening the angle between himself and Lysander. Not enough to completely surround her, but enough to make tracking both of them increasingly difficult.

The attack was meant to occupy her attention again, long enough for Golden Boy to capitalize.

Lysander von Ascania | Remowa​