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​