Private Third Times the Charm!

[Serina Calis]

"Nothing possibly can go wrong."

Tags - Allyson Locke



The ocean sighed.

It was the only sound that truly lingered in Serina Calis' sanctum tonight—not the distant hum of subaquatic generators, not the occasional flicker of automated systems adjusting to her preferences, not even the soft crackling of a firekindle nestled into the wall behind her. Only the endless, murmuring hush of Manaan's tides brushing against the edge of the world, far beneath her window, filled the vast silence of the suite.

She stood before that window now, tall and unarmored, clad in a deep violet silk robe that swept like liquid across the floor as she moved. The fabric caught the glow of the soft golden interior lights and the cool cyan shimmer of Ahto City's undersea skyline, blending both realms into her silhouette. For once, she had allowed herself something purely indulgent—her hair, normally wound tight or left to cascade with weaponized elegance, now hung freely down her back, damp from the bath she'd taken only minutes ago. It smelled faintly of something expensive and floral, untraceable in origin.

And still, she hadn't sat down. She hadn't let go.

Not yet.

The retreat itself was an architectural jewel—vaulted ceilings, obsidian-marble floors threaded with veins of bioluminescent coral, and furniture carved from imported Wroshyr wood and polished to mirror-shine. Serina's room occupied the uppermost floor of the secluded complex, perched like a throne above the ocean's eternal abyss. Walls of transparisteel offered a panoramic view of Manaan's nightscape, the stars above mirrored by glowing fauna drifting through the sea below.

But her gaze remained fixed on a single point—just beyond the curvature of the horizon, where the light died and the water turned to ink.

She had seen this view before.

Once, while standing amidst the wreckage of a storm-gutted corridor, blood drying beneath her nails and the walls shaking from the impact of a falling comet. Another time, facing a self-proclaimed Demigod who had mistaken power for purpose. Always the galaxy dragged her back into its absurd dramas, its theatre of divine pretensions and cosmic tantrums. Always, the curtain rose too early, and never by her design.

But not this time.

This time, there was no one watching. No allies to impress. No threats to eliminate. No secrets to exploit.

Only the sea.

And yet… she still felt as though something was owed.

She pressed her fingertips to the transparisteel. It was cool, but not cold. Just like the breath of the ocean on the air-recycler's current—haunting and vast and alive in ways even PAD-1's machine dreams could never replicate. Her reflection stared back faintly—just enough to remind her that she still existed here, among the living. That she could feel the pull of solitude not as a blade, but as a balm.

Her voice, when it came, was low. Intimate. Not quite spoken aloud. "If you come for me now," she murmured to the darkness, "you'll find I am not ready to play."

It wasn't a warning.

It was a promise.

She finally moved—slowly, deliberately, crossing the room to sink into the chaise lounge positioned directly in front of the window. Its cushions embraced her like old memories. A nearby serving tray bore an untouched crystal glass of elshrum wine, cool and pale and glinting like starlight caught in liquid. She took it, sipped, and let the flavor sit on her tongue.

It was only now that she noticed the small pulse of light from her datapad across the room. Some message. Some signal. Some request for judgment, leadership, vengeance, or command. Something needy.

Serina closed her eyes.

And ignored it.

She listened, instead, to the ocean.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //:
//: Attire //:

The silence of the fighter hummed through the air of Manaan. She had tracked her prey back to this oceanic planet. There was some attachment to it, but Allyson didn't know why. The last time she had followed Serina to this place, some angelic creature crashed into her. Hopefully, that won't happen again.

Allyson exhaled slowly, letting the droid take control of the ship's navigation. Her mind churned, dragged back to Varonat, to the office, hearing Serina's voice twisting affection into a weapon. The Chandrillan's words hadn't just stung; they'd cut deep, slicing straight through Madelyn Lowe .

She could still see the flicker of pain in her lover's eyes.

Allyson's jaw clenched, teeth grinding so hard it felt like they might crack as rage simmered beneath her skin. All the K'paur could taste was blood. All she could smell was the burn of fury.

Rarely did the Corellian act of her own volition. She was a creature of habit that listened to the one that held her leash. Madelyn didn't need to make the order; hearing the woman cry and breaking in her arms was enough of an order for the assassin.

Remembering where she had tracked the woman the last time she had followed, Allyson raised a hand. The droid stopped and hovered high above the housing establishments. There was one; it stood out like a fortress, and Allyson used the esper eye to see the villain admiring the ocean. Her heart raced, and the bloodlust began to churn, fury burning under her skin.

The cockpit hissed open, and Allyson stood poised at the edge of the craft. She drew the Force tightly around herself, cloaking her body in protection and secrecy. With a breath, the Corellian stepped forward, surrendering to gravity's embrace.

Air rushed past her as she plummeted, eyes locked on the window below. At the last moment, she twisted mid-fall, drawing back her bow. A single energy arrow ignited, crackling briefly before shattering through the glass, clearing her path.

She burst through the window like a shadow made real, colliding with the woman whose stolen peace had finally run out. Allyson's hand snapped to the base of Serina's throat, not yet squeezing, just holding as her boots drove them both to the ground with brutal precision.

The veil of shadow fell away instantly, revealing the Corellian's furious face. Serina would see it clearly now: the cold, lethal anger fracturing Allyson's usually steady composure, all pretense stripped away, replaced only by hate.

"I warned you!" ​

​

​

 

[Serina Calis]

"Nothing possibly can go wrong."

Tags - Allyson Locke



The wineglass shattered as the world became glass and wind and violence. One heartbeat she was alone, cradled in the hush of Manaan's deep-blue sanctuary—then, intrusion. A scream of transparisteel, a rush of air, and the full weight of another life slamming into hers.

The room convulsed with chaos.

Serina did not cry out when she hit the ground.

The breath was driven from her lungs, but not her composure. Her head snapped against the marble floor with enough force to make lesser beings weep. A warm line traced the edge of her temple. Her robe tangled beneath her, violet silk fanned like the petals of a desecrated orchid. And at her throat—pressure. Fingers. The Corellian's. Her shadow, finally caught up to her.

Allyson.

Serina's eyes opened—burning, blue, unblinking.

For the briefest moment, she allowed it. The fury. The betrayal. The righteous indignation of a loyal dog who had watched her mistress wound another. It was admirable, really. Primitive, yes—but not without its own pathetic kind of poetry. Serina let her see it—the calm beneath the fury, the heat behind the cold. Her lips parted, not for breath, but in the ghost of a smile.

"You came alone…"

The words curled like smoke between them, low and rich and maddeningly level, even as her windpipe bowed beneath the assassin's grip.

Then she moved—not with panic, not with force, but precision.

Her body didn't thrash. Her hand didn't rise. The air didn't crackle. It bent. Subtly. Invisibly. A micrompressure—a sliver of telekinetic thought—hooked behind Allyson's elbow, another against her shoulder, like the slip of a lockpick into a centuries-old mechanism. The angle shifted. The leverage faltered.

The pressure on Serina's neck slipped—just a hair. Just enough.

That was all she needed.

Telekinetic repulsion.

From beneath her sternum, the Force detonated. Not like lightning. Not like thunder. Like consequence. A spherical pulse, so tight, so clean, it didn't even ripple the wine stain drying near her elbow. But the dust lifted—marble trembled—and the center of the world rejected everything that dared cling too close.

A sharp crack echoed, a gust without wind, a whiplash of pressure.

Serina moved as if born of the aftermath. Rising in a single fluid arc, her body unfurling like a serpent shedding its skin. Barefoot on the cool stone, robe disheveled but still somehow perfect, she stood—chin high, one hand brushing her tousled hair back with the slow, imperious grace of someone completely unbothered by the assassination attempt moments before.

Her voice was silk dragged across a blade.

"Is this what we are now, Allyson?" she asked, her tone somewhere between affection and autopsy. "Petulant rage. A broken toy sent to bark and bite in someone else's name. Madelyn weeps, so you bleed for her. How noble. How... deliciously predictable."

She stepped forward. No saber. No armor. Just her. Pale skin kissed by firelight and blood, the cut at her temple trailing a lazy red down her cheekbone. Her eyes shimmered with calculation—and something darker, something ancient, like the gravity at the center of a dying star.

"You never understood what I gave her. What I gave you."

Another step. Her bare feet made no sound. Only her presence did—rising, oppressive, hollowing the air.

"I let you hate me, Allyson. I gave you that gift. Because it's the only kind of intimacy your kind truly understands. You should be thanking me."

Her fingers flexed, not in threat—but in invitation. Her eyes didn't just look at Allyson.

They devoured her.

"Now," Serina whispered, the word like a kiss laid on the edge of a dagger, "Be a good girl and do it again."

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //:
//: Attire //:

Her fingers slipped from around the girl's gangly neck. If only she had squeezed with force-driven power in her muscles. Everything would have been over; she could have stood over the wasted life that was Serina Calis and walked away. Allyson's bloodlust would have ended; she could have returned home to reassure her paramour that their sanctuary was at peace again.

It was them against everyone else, including Serina.

The blast of Force energy erupting from the girl was fierce—more intense than anything Allyson had faced before. Typically, the Corellian preferred distance: stalk, strike, vanish. Never close enough to watch life dim from her target's eyes.

But this was different.

Now, she wanted to witness every detail. She wanted to see the exact moment when fear flooded Serina's gaze, the realization that she'd finally crossed the wrong line. She wanted to hear the blonde's final breath, to know that Serina understood that her own arrogance brought this reckoning.

Allyson had given her every chance, but her warnings had been ignored, and now it was time to pay the reaper.

The Force had protected her. She took the hit and stood a small distance away. It seemed their separation emboldened the Chandrillian, giving her confidence in her chances of survival—enough for her to start spitting venom once again.

All those words, all their uselessness, bore deep into the Corellian's mind, but all they did was focus her.

She laughed.

"I thought the childish frustration was something you could empathize with? You do it so often, with your tantrums, that you waste your technology to set off a baby alarm." Allyson's voice was even despite the rage that burned inside of her chest.

Serina continued, and Allyson listened, watching, trying to see what the deranged child would do next.

Her hand tightened around the handle of the bow the moment she said Madelyn's name, a word too holy for the sullied lips of the blonde. Instead of exploding like she wanted to, Allyson found the calm in the middle of the storm that brewed in the Force around her.

Years of training and perfecting the art she had been conditioned for began to show. The air shifted, and the Force became focused around the Corellian. For once, she felt it.

The Dark Side.​

As much as she had tried to resist, the light had failed her. It couldn't protect Madelyn or erase the empty, poisonous existence of Serina Calis. Allyson drew in a slow, controlled breath as Serina's taunting words ceased. The blonde dared to address her as if she were nothing more than an attack dog, a tool at her Mistress' disposal.

Serina would soon understand why Allyson Locke was coveted by those who held power within the Empire.

As the breath left her lips, Allyson vanished entirely. No shadow remained, no footsteps echoed, no trace of her existence. She moved like a ghost in silence. Closing the distance instantly, she drew her taut bowstring and released a precise arrow aimed just above Serina's head.

Allyson's cloak dissolved at that moment, revealing her form as something else unfolded. Dark shadows bled from the Corellian's body, faceless specters birthed from the depth of her anger and pain. Lost souls, Sith and fallen Jedi whose lives she had taken, unwillingly tethered to her through hatred and anguish.

The arrow split into a storm of burning shards, raining down mercilessly. As the phantoms surged toward Serina, they shrieked, a chorus of vengeful screams as they sought out their new host, drawn inexorably to the source of their creator's wrath.

"You will no longer threaten what is mine." ​

 

[Serina Calis]

"Nothing possibly can go wrong."

Tags - Allyson Locke



The air screamed.

An instant before impact, Serina moved—just enough. A twist of the shoulder, a shift of stance, her body slipping into the narrow space between precision and inevitability. Two shards whistled past her, singing death into the walls behind. One cut across her left arm, opening a gash through silk and skin alike. It stung—but pain was a currency she had already spent beyond reason.

The last shard struck true.

Straight through her right eye.

The one reforged in the depths of Woostri after Jenn Kryze 's brutality.

There was no scream. No stagger.

Just a pause.

Serina stilled. The momentum of battle froze like glass flash-frozen in mid-shatter. Her fingers, long and pale and terribly precise, reached up and gripped the shaft of the shard where it jutted from her ruined eye socket. A moment later, she pulled it free with the slow elegance of one removing an earring, and flicked the blood-slick metal to the floor with a whisper of disdain.

What followed was not blood.

It was something darker.

Black and violet ichor slithered from the ruined socket like a parasite expelled—unnatural, viscous, and faintly luminous, as if something alive within her was wounded, not killed. The right eye pulsed in response, the iris reknitting itself like molten glass, the pupil burning neon with an inhuman purple light. She did not blink. She simply looked.

The air around her shimmered. Reality thinned.

Serina Calis stood untouched by agony, her chest lifting with a slow inhale as if this entire affair was becoming something profoundly… entertaining.

But then—the phantoms.

They came in waves. Wraiths torn from the bowels of Allyson's soul—echoes of Sith Lords, slaughtered Jedi, fallen alike, all screaming for blood, their forms twisted by the pain of their untimely ends and the hatred they had inherited. They rose behind the assassin like a living tapestry of vengeance, eyes burning with netherfire, claws reaching with hunger.

They knew Serina.

They could smell her.

She had walked the threshold before. She had tried to claim them once—tried to own the dead. And they had torn her to pieces for her pride.

But she was no longer that foolish girl clawing her way through the dead oceans of Woostri.

Serina remembered the Corpse Lord.

The land of the dead. The endless mental spiral staircase down into the pit where Darth Nefaron waited, unmoving and half-rotted, a whisper wrapped in shadow. She remembered his voice—gravel dragged through venom, teeth like rusted knives.

"You cannot rule them. You must make them kneel. If they cannot be chained—then they must be made to fear you more than death itself."

And tonight, she would not forget.

The room dimmed further. The Force shuddered.

As the specters surged toward her, Serina exhaled—and let go. Not of control. Not of strength. But of containment. The lid came off the cauldron. The wound beneath her—where once her heart had been—cracked wider. The Force poured through her like dark water through a shattered dam, and from that bottomless well came the stench of pure domination.

She stepped forward.

Not away.

Not back.

Into them.

The phantoms howled. They sensed the shift—saw not a target, but a predator.

Serina's eyes, both the intact and the new-forged, burned like beacons in the storm of hate. Her voice rose—not in desperation, but in command, reverberating through the Force like a sovereign returned to reclaim her throne.

"You do not own me," she said, each syllable soaked in rot and royalty. "You exist because I allow it. You scream because I permit it. But you do not touch me. You do not take from me."

The shrieking grew louder as the phantoms closed.

Serina answered.

Her will surged, black and violet and crowned in the entropy of corrupted knowledge. She projected it, not like a wall, not like a shield—but like a scythe. The very concept of her self was sharpened and driven forward: a honed edge of authority, of rightful terror. She forced her presence into theirs like a spike hammered into bone.

"Back to the void," she intoned, low and sacred. "Back to the cold. You are not wrath. You are echoes. And I—"

Her hand lifted, palm out.

"—am silence."

A wave of pure fear blasted from her being—not an illusion, not a mental trick. A primordial terror born of knowing she would not suffer them, would not pity them, would not fear them.

They faltered. They reeled.

One by one, the phantoms were driven back, devoured by the abyss that had first birthed them. Their screams became sobs, became whispers, then vanished into a sudden, aching quiet.

Smoke lingered where they had been.

Serina stood at its center, surrounded by the dying embers of Allyson's rage—her robe soaked in blood, one arm dripping, one eye glowing like a wound in reality. She did not move to wipe the ichor away. She let it fall, staining the pristine marble.

And only then did she speak again.

"You want to end me?" Her voice was a purr now. Almost pitying. "You should have killed me when I was still kind. Before Valery Noble . Before I remade myself in the silence of the dark. But now—"

She took one slow step forward. Then another. Her feet left trails of purple-black fluid like ink spilled across starlight.

"—there is nothing in me left to kill."

Her hand reached toward Allyson—not in offense, not in mercy.

But in invitation.

Serina's outstretched hand did not tremble.

It hovered—elegant, regal, fingers splayed like a conductor's before the final movement. The air around her hand shimmered with subtle distortion, not from heat, but from something far older, far darker: a disease of the soul blooming into being.

There was no scream. No thunderous swell of power. Only decay—silent, insidious, inevitable.

Serina inhaled.

And with that breath, she summoned death.

Not the swift finality of a blade or the righteous burn of the Light—but the withering. The slow ruin of the body and mind. The entropy that turns brilliance into ash and pride into silence. The Force around her twisted, drawn inward and corrupted by her will, coalescing at the edges of her palm like oil in water—black and violet tendrils, reaching outward, searching.

Her eye blazed now, pupil constricted to a fanged slit of radiant neon violet. The ruined one pulsed like a furnace, the shadow-blood that trailed from it no longer dripping, but floating—suspended in the air like droplets of ink resisting gravity, orbiting her like a sickened halo.

The Force Affliction spiralled forth—not in a blast, but in a caress. An invisible miasma, creeping like fog, like old guilt, like the cold breath of something watching from beneath a bed of stars. It curled toward Allyson, not with violence, but with inevitability. Every step Serina took forward made it stronger. More real.

"This is what you taught me," Serina said, her voice low, almost mournful, almost loving. "To not rage without cause. That vengeance is best done with a cold smile. That there is no need to scream in a galaxy that only knew of silence since inception."

"If only you chose me."

She turned her hand in the air, slowly, as if twisting a dial on a great unseen machine. She imagined peeling back the layers of Allyson's own defenses, thought by thought, cell by cell, which only furthered who connection to the Dark Side.

"Your limbs will remember what it means to be mortal," she whispered. "Your cells will learn what it means to be mine."

The Force trembled.

This would be domination. This would be infection.

Not a seizing of the will, but a corruption of possibility. A sickly tether extending from her soul to Allyson's—unseen, intangible, but it would be felt. Like a hook set in the chest, a coil of pressure in the stomach, a shadow under the tongue. A test of resistance—not against power, but against decay.

"I wonder," she purred, "will Madelyn even recognize what's left of you… when I'm done?"

And behind her eyes, behind her calm, behind her control—

Serina waited.

To see if Allyson Locke would break…

Or bite.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //:
//: Attire //:

The arrows had done their job, and the phantoms were something Allyson would have to understand at another time. They were a mere distraction that manifested with the temptation of the dark side. She wanted the power to stop all of this, to keep what she cherished sacred. Perhaps it was a foolish endeavor, one sacrificing pieces of herself - but that wouldn't stop the Corellian.

Her phantoms faded, and she felt them dissipate, leaving her once more able to find the calm of the trained assassin. Still, Allyson could feel her emotions pulled in every direction. They drove her and threatened to allow the bloodlust to take over. All she saw was red, and nothing was going to stop her.

Stepping forward, she drew another arrow, one of the nanite arrows meant for armor-piercing. Seeing that the girl wore nothing that had a semblance of protection was overkill. But Allyson wanted her dead, and even if she was wearing something with hidden armor - it would be piercing through it, ripping through whatever was left of her internals.

Before the bow was raised and her target focused, Allyson felt the sudden shift in the Force. The girl was doing something the moment she raised her hand, allowing the Force to roll off her fingertips. Serina commanded the Force like Sith, and there was little time for Allyson to figure out what was happening before it did. Her mind was safe, fragmented beyond belief from the years of spy work - but her body became contaminated.

Allyson inhaled sharply, recognizing the sickening miasma immediately. She had felt this before—fighting against the Empire and the Maw. Typically, Sith preferred swift annihilation rather than toying with their prey. Serina had made a critical miscalculation. By daring to speak and provoke, she invited the savagery that strained against the Corellian's fragile restraint.

Like a reckless child taunting a predator.

Yet beneath the venom, the girl's words revealed something curious, almost desperate. Allyson's lips twisted into a sharp, knowing grin, refusing to take the bait. She did not belong to Serina—she never would.

Her loyalty was absolute, and she willingly surrendered to Madelyn Lowe, just as Madelyn had given herself completely in return.

That trust was unbreakable.

The Force bent to the Assiassin's will, enhancing and feeding power to the plagued body of the woman. Each footstep moved quickly, cutting the rest of their distance down in a near blink of an eye. Hesitation would be the Chandrillian woman's undoing. Allyson swung her arm upward as she held the reinforced arrow by the shaft. She aimed to drive it into the unprotected belly of the governor. She didn't care that there was nothing left of her but the disgusting black bile. Allyson wanted to see it; she wanted to leave the girl mewling like a dying beast.

"Choose you?" Allyson echoed, eyes narrowing. "Why would I choose someone so desperate?"

There was no anger in her voice—only genuine confusion laced with a touch of pity. Serina Calis had nothing to offer her. Nothing worth coveting. Just a hollow hunger to possess whatever her gaze touched. How pathetically transparent.

A dry laugh escaped the Corellian's lips, sharp and cutting.

"Don't worry, she'll recognize me," Allyson said. "But who will recognize you?"

She tilted her head, feigning a thoughtful frown, the edge in her voice lingering. Time was running short. Allyson needed to stop Serina's focus on the affliction that clung to her. If it continued, if Allyson had to give everything just to contain it...

Then, the girl might actually get what she wanted.

 

[Serina Calis]

"Nothing possibly can go wrong."

Tags - Allyson Locke



The arrow pierced her.

Clean. Brutal. Precise.

There was no time to evade, no shield raised, no clever vector of telekinetic redirection. Allyson was too fast. Serina had let her too close. The reinforced shaft drove deep into her abdomen with a sound like wet silk torn down the center, and for a moment, the world became white. Not from pain. From clarity.

She staggered, just once.

Her body doubled slightly over the embedded shaft, and her hair fell forward, the tips streaked in her own corrupted blood. Black ichor spilled down her stomach, soaking the remains of the violet silk robe, trailing into the glossy marble floor like ink spilled from a shattered pen. The arrowhead was visible from the back—protruding with surgical cruelty, embedded where flesh should have been vital.

But there was no scream. Not even a gasp.

Serina breathed.

And her eyes widened—not in fear.

In revelation.

"Through passion... I gain strength."

She had recited it a thousand times, in darkness, in silence, before lords, before corpses, before datapads soaked in dried blood. She had spoken the words. Believed them. Or so she thought. But now—now, with death's fingers threading through her organs, with Allyson's voice ringing like an accusation not of crime, but of irrelevance—the truth of it burned into her bones.

Passion.

Not childish wrath. Not bitter loneliness. Not even the bottomless hunger to be seen, to be understood.

But this.

This feeling.

This perfect, molten rage. The clarity of knowing that to be underestimated was a gift. That the Corellian's pity, her scorn, was not injury—it was fuel. Every word, every cut, every look of cold dismissal—Serina could use it.

The pain was no longer pain.

It was passion.

And passion was strength.

Her head rose slowly, hair parted like a veil revealing a face transfigured—not broken, not pained, but radiant in the most terrifying way. Her lips curved—not in a smile, but in a slow, sensual unfolding of something real, something ancient and new. A secret blooming in the soil of agony.

Allyson was close.

Too close.

Serina's hands—still trembling, still blood-slick—rose as if in surrender.

But the Force did not obey gestures. It obeyed will.

And her will had changed.

It surged from her—not like a scream, not like fire—but like a black hole cracking open in the heart of the room. The very air began to spiral around her, drawn inward. Not violently, not with storm or tempest—but with hunger. The kind that took.

Force Drain.

It would begin softly, the threads of Allyson's life teased away at the seams—through the blood, through the bone, through the tension in every muscle that drove that arrow into Serina's flesh. The assassin had pierced the governor's body.

Serina sought to pierce her soul.

And all the while—Affliction deepened.

She did not relent. She pressed the sickness harder, let it bloom inside Allyson like a thousand venomous flowers. If the assassin's will was fire, then Serina would drown it—not with water, but with filth. She would make her own agony a contagion. Her own decay a weapon. The Force was not a light to be wielded or a sword to be brandished. It was rot. It was ruin. And Serina had learned to love it.

Her voice came ragged, wet with blood but thick with strength.

"You should have killed me faster," she hissed, eye flickering like a dying star. "Now I understand what none of them did. I don't need to survive this. I only need to..." her lips peeled wider, that half-smile becoming something darker, "infect you."

Her fingers curled into claws mid-air.

Not to grasp.

But to drain.

The black ichor that poured from her belly began to retreat. Not vanish, not disappear—but flow backwards, drawn back into her through sheer unnatural force. Her veins darkened beneath her skin. Her spine arched. Her feet rooted deeper into the blood-slick marble.

Life and death twined.

Allyson's attack had opened her. Had wounded her.

Serina would repay it.

Because Serina Calis was done being left behind.

And if she could not be loved, feared, or understood—

Then she would be remembered.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //"
//: Attire //:

The satisfaction of the strike was short-lived. As soon as she felt the give of flesh, Allyson felt the cold grip of death clawing at the edges of her soul. Her hand released the arrow as she watched everything unfold. Serina spoke again, explaining everything happening, but Allyson heard nothing.

Infect.

It was the only thing that Serina could do to her. The girl wasn't strong enough nor clever enough to outsmart the Corellian. So, instead, she chose to continue to weigh her down with the affliction. Except this was different. Allyson had never felt this before; she had never felt the Force take life. Her calm did nothing, nor did the near-instant defense of Tutaminis. Nothing stopped the frigid cold from gnawing at her.

Allyson watched the same hand curl and bend, weaving the tendrils of the Force drain like a seamstress. Life was draining from her, fueling a rebirth of the girl. Her breathing became ragged as she didn't understand how all of this was happening. This feeling had only happened once before, when she had nearly died from a lightsaber strike.

Was this death?

"What are you doing…?" Allyson questioned, everything slowing, feeling weak. Her knees buckled as she collapsed, gasping for air and wanting to hold on.

She had finally found an ounce of happiness. Someone had wanted to keep her—accepted her for everything that was wrong. Allyson finally had the one thing she wanted in this galaxy, and that was to belong—not only to a home but to someone.

The cold continued to encroach, and she was on her knees while death decided to claim her. Yet, remembering why she was here - what drove her, she felt that warmth begin to push back.

Serina was not going to be allowed to win.

Again, the Force surged, bowing to the will of its Master. The drain continued, pulling mercilessly at Allyson's life force, but the Corellian surged forward instead of breaking beneath its pressure. She refused to let the Force dictate her fate; it would not be the chain that bound her.
One step, then a sudden burst of speed, and Allyson was upon Serina again. Her hands found the girl's throat, fingers tightening instantly, thumbs pressing hard against the delicate larynx. She didn't care anymore—if stopping this attack meant killing Serina, so be it.

"What do you want from me?" Allyson shouted, her voice raw and desperate as her grip tightened further. "What will finally satisfy this sick obsession of yours?"

She regretted ever coming here. She could have stayed by Madelyn's side, safe, untouched by this madness. Now, her life hung by a thread. If she didn't return—Madelyn wouldn't even know why.

"I—" Allyson's mouth opened, lips parted uselessly, words caught in the turmoil of emotion choking her. But finally, they broke free. "I love her—is that what you wanted to hear? Is that the confession your twisted mind needs?"

She shook Serina roughly, fingers digging deeper into the girl's skin.

"You're right," Allyson breathed harshly. "No matter what she does—no matter what happens—I'll always love her."

 

[Serina Calis]

"Nothing possibly can go wrong."

Tags - Allyson Locke



Serina Calis laughed.

Not a chuckle. Not a smirk. A true laugh—low, elegant, and terrible. It started as a breath in her chest, then bloomed into something uncontainable. Even as Allyson's fingers clamped around her throat—driving her to the floor again, pinning her against blood-slick marble and fractured transparisteel—Serina laughed. Her throat crushed, breath forced from her lungs, and still the sound came, wheezing and strangled, but triumphant.

It wasn't joy.

It was vindication.

Because Allyson was losing now. Her mask was broken, her calm shattered, her composure gone. That mask of discipline, that vaunted assassin's restraint—it had crumbled the moment her knees hit the floor. And Serina had seen it. That moment of surrender. Of desperation. Of weakness.

And Serina had drunk it in like wine.

The nanite arrow still jutted from her gut. Blood still seeped from the hole in her stomach. Her skin was clammy, her vision blurred, her body weakening even as she clawed life from her enemy—but none of it mattered.

Because Serina Calis had won.

She had dragged the untouchable Allyson Locke to her knees.

And now?

Now the assassin was confessing.

Spitting her defiance like a girl backed into a corner. Crying out her devotion like it was a shield. "I love her!" she cried, as if love could protect her.

And Serina's lips curled into something vile and beautiful all at once.

Her voice came rasping, bruised and broken from the strangling grip—but rich with venom nonetheless.

"Oh… darling. That's exactly what I wanted to hear."

Serina's hand lifted—not in defense, not in resistance—but to touch Allyson's cheek. Lightly. Mockingly. A gesture soft enough to be mistaken for affection if not for the way her nails dragged slightly along the jawline, smearing blood.

Her eye—only one now, the other pulsing with that infernal light—gazed up into Allyson's with perfect, crystalline clarity.

"And she'll never forget that you said it to me."

The Force pulsed again—a silent wave beneath the skin. Not a push. Not an attack. Just a presence, vast and poisonous, saturating the room like mold in a sealed tomb.

"You think this is about you? You think I chased you across the stars for some twisted obsession?" Serina whispered, voice rough but sharp enough to slice skin. "No, Locke. You were just the lever."

Her hand dropped. Her smile did not.

"This is about Madelyn."

Her tone grew colder, words sharpened by memory—weaponized by it.

"Governor Calis. In your posturing, you have made missteps…" she quoted, each syllable twisted with mockery. "Polis Massa is a collection of pebbles... You have convinced me… It. Is. Over."

The words came like knives, slow and deliberate, pulled from the well of humiliation carved into Serina's mind on that cursed day. She had replayed them a hundred times. Every pause. Every sneer. Every condescending inflection. Serina hadn't forgotten. She had memorized.

Her voice dropped to a whisper now—intimate, a confession for Allyson alone.

"She thought she could dismiss me. Laugh at me. Break me in front of the others like some foolish girl who hadn't earned her scars. And you… you stood there, leash held tight, watching her spit in my face like it meant nothing."

Her teeth flashed behind blood-smeared lips.

"So now I'll burn everything she loves until she remembers her place or until she serves me."

Another push of Force Affliction rippled outward—not through anger, but through will. This wasn't wrath anymore. This was strategy. This was theatre. Serina didn't need to win the fight. She didn't need to kill Allyson. She just needed her to suffer—to carry the suffering back to Madelyn like a gift-wrapped message.

"She can have you, Allyson," Serina said sweetly, her voice a blade dipped in perfume. "She can keep her loyal dog, her broken little pet assassin, her tragic Corellian. But only if she remembers who you belong to now."

Serina's eye gleamed. The dark one bled.

"You both belong to me."

Another laugh—softer this time, almost purring.

"This doesn't end until I say it ends. Not when she dismisses me. Not when you stab me. I decide when this is over. And if you want it to stop? If you want the pain to end, the sickness to fade, the strings cut?"

She tilted her head, voice full of luxurious cruelty.

"Then kneel. To me."

A final push—not with Force, not with power.

With truth.

"You can love each other," Serina said, softly now. Almost tender. "I won't take that from you, I won't demand that you break relations or hide your affections. You can have your sanctuary, your moments, your whispered promises in the dark. I'll allow it. I'll even protect it."

"I am not here to make your life miserable."

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //:
//: Attire //:

Allyson moved away from the touch; she didn't want this foul thing to touch her so intimately. Her hand slapped away Serin'as before it could feel her face, a place no one had any right to reach for. This child was beyond pathetic, the way she spoke, claiming ownership over things that saw her as nothing more than an annoying pest.

But Allyson let her speak. She allowed her the moment as she lay in her own pool of blood to think she had won. The more the words spilled from Serina's lips, the calmer and more focused the Corellian became. The bloodlust and rage that she felt dissipated as she was reminded of what Serina actually was.

No one.

Her power was only on Polis Massa and whoever gave it to her. Coming here, letting her emotions get the best of her, gave Serina a moment of power. She took the opportunity to say what she knew would hurt Allyson because of her affection for Madelyn. She weaponized their relationship because she didn't know what it was or what it felt like.

But she pushed back, finally feeling a semblance of her own strength.

Each empty threat made Allyson smile and finally laugh.

"Nothing belongs to you," she said plainly, laughter rolling into her words. "Not even your own fate."

She rose slowly, strength returning to her limbs, pushing back against the dark affliction. "I'll never kneel to you. Madelyn will never kneel to you. No one in this galaxy will kneel to someone so desperate to be chosen."

With calm precision, Allyson placed her boot against Serina's throat, pressing firmly as the laughter faded. Her expression hardened into cold amusement.

"No."

She wiped the black ichor from her face, flicking it aside with disdain.

"You claim ownership because you have nothing else. If you must shout and insist something belongs to you, that's the clearest proof it doesn't." She shook her head, the grin returning with bitter mockery. "You have nothing. You control no one. The only power you wield is what someone else lends you, and it's pathetic."

Allyson leaned closer, staring down at the defeated girl. "You're a bottom dweller, Serina, a nuisance at best. I've wasted enough time playing your childish games."

She lifted her boot and stepped away. There was no longer a reason to kill her; Serina posed no real threat, just an annoyance.

"You're insignificant, and time will erase you. I actually had hopes for you—but clearly, you're incapable of change."

Turning, Allyson paused briefly to retrieve her arrow, pulling it free from Serina's wound.

"Oops, can't forget this."

She smiled coldly, leaving Serina behind without a second glance, and moved toward the shattered window to make her exit.

"This is the last time you bother me and the Minster."

 

[Serina Calis]

"Nothing possibly can go wrong."

Tags - Allyson Locke



The sound of the arrow being pulled from her body echoed louder than it should have. A wet, tearing whisper that seemed to vibrate through the marble, through the transparisteel shards still scattered across the floor, through the stained silk of her once-beautiful robe.

Serina didn't cry out.

She simply remained still, her body collapsing slowly to one side like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her hand twitched—just once—then folded back against her chest, fingers curling limply as if still reaching for something that was never there to begin with.

The cold air from the broken window rolled in across the floor, sweeping through the silence. It kissed her skin, carried her scent—blood and decay, perfume and rot—out into the night beyond the glass.

She didn't lift her head to watch Allyson leave.

She didn't beg.

She just… lay there, listening to the footsteps fade. The wind filled the silence with soft ocean sounds—the lapping of waves far below, the creak of the retreat's metal frame settling against the pressure of the sea.

Alone again.

Always, always alone.

Serina's mouth trembled. Not with pain. But with something deeper. Something quieter. A grief so vast it could not scream. Could not plead. It simply was—as permanent and bitter as the starlight reflecting across her ruined sanctuary.

She thought of Madelyn.

Of her eyes, her voice, her condescension. Of the moment in the Free Trade Meeting when she had looked Serina in the face—not with anger, not even contempt—but with dismissal. That sting had never faded. It festered. Mutated. Became a reason for everything.

And now Allyson, too.

The ever-faithful shadow. The perfect weapon.

She had spoken as though Serina were beneath her. Had crushed her throat beneath that boot and spoken truths as if they were sacred, unassailable. Had stared into her eye and laughed at the woman bleeding before her. As if Serina Calis were just another misguided child throwing tantrums in a world ruled by adults.

They would go home now. To each other. To warmth, and safety, and whispered vows in darkened rooms. They would cling to love as if it were proof of virtue. And they would forget.

Forget this.

Forget her.

Serina stared blankly at the ceiling.

And for a moment…

She believed them.

A breeze stirred the hem of her robe.

She whispered, not to the Force, not to any god, but to the empty room:

"...Am I really so nothing?"

The silence did not answer.

Her body trembled again, faintly, just once.

And then her eyes closed. Not in defeat—but in containment. In preparation. The sorrow didn't fade. It settled into something colder. Something that would wait.

She saw their faces behind her eyelids.

Madelyn. Allyson.

They would pay. But not with death.

Death was mercy.

They would live long enough to watch the galaxy change.

To watch everything they stood for rot from the inside out.

To kneel, one day—not because she demanded it, but because there would be no other choice.

Because when the stars began to fall, and the Alliance, the Jedi, the Sith—all of them—began to tear themselves apart, they would finally, finally understand.

What they had done.

What they had created.

The wind moaned through the shattered window, dragging with it the scent of salt, ozone, and something older—like rusted iron soaked in seawater.

Then came the drums.

Not real. Not yet.

But Serina heard them—low, thunderous, primal.

They beat from the edges of her mind, far off at first, as though echoing from across the stars. The first sounded like a pulse. The second, like footsteps. The third—like marching. Not toward her. From her. The sound of inevitability beginning to rise from the embers of humiliation. The opening cadence of a war not yet declared.

Boom.
Boom.
Boom.

And beneath it, the sirens.

Wailing like ghosts across a dying sea, screaming not in panic—but warning.

The galaxy would burn for this.

Her fingers moved.

Slowly at first. Numb. Shaking. But alive.

She planted her hand against the floor, elbow locking with quiet, aching protest. Blood slithered down her wrist, forming a spreading pool beneath her—but it no longer mattered. Pain no longer mattered. The cold no longer mattered. Her weakness, her loneliness, the way Allyson had looked at her like something pitiful—none of it mattered anymore.

All that remained was the next step.

The reckoning.

Serina rose.

Not in one fluid motion, but in phases—like a creature reborn in stages. Her spine arched, shoulders squared. Her legs were unsteady, trembling beneath her, but she commanded them to obey. Her hair hung down in clumps, soaked in blood, eyes hollowed by fire and failure—but behind them—

There was resolve.

Her reflection shimmered faintly in the cracked transparisteel. Not the woman she once was, no. She had been elegant once. Measured. A dancer in halls of power. But now?

Now she looked like war.

Torn silk clung to her body like burial wrappings. Her right eye still bled black from the ichor of her rebirth—pupil a perfect ring of ultraviolet flame. Her hands, once soft and refined, were smeared in gore. She didn't wipe them clean.

She wanted them to see what they had made her into.

The Force moved through her differently now. Slower, deeper, hungrier. The wound in her stomach pulsed with every beat of her heart, but it was no longer a weakness—it was a crucible. A forge. The affliction she had unleashed had backfired, yes—but it had taught her. And next time, there would be no warning. No final chance.

Just the fall.

She walked toward the window.

The sea howled below, crashing against the cliffs in rhythm with the drums in her head.

Boom.
Boom.
Boom.

Sirens still wailed. No alarms had been triggered. But Serina could hear them—not on Manaan. In the future. In the hearts of senators, governors, Jedi. All those who had laughed. All those who had looked away. All those who had spoken the words:

You are nothing.

She touched the frame of the shattered window and looked out at the stars.

They were quiet.

They would not be for long.

A shadow flickered behind her eyes. Not a plan. Not even vengeance.

Design.

She spoke to the sea, to the sky, to the silence.

A promise.

But every word was carved from steel.

"…You should have killed me."

She closed her eye.

Another breath.

Softer. Colder.

"Because when the flames come…"

Her eye opened again.

Glowing.

Unblinking.

"…they will spell my name."

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //:
//: Attire //:

Allyson paused, looking back at the girl lying in her mess, knowing Serina wouldn't die tonight. Whatever had transpired here would only fuel her rage further.

She exhaled slowly, wondering if her actions had made things worse. Despite everything, Allyson felt Serina was unkillable, something beyond the Corellian's understanding. There was more to the girl's nature, and her thoughts briefly drifted back to Madelyn as she padded into the fighter ship hovering just beneath the shattered window.

---

Allyson leaned back in the cockpit seat, closing her eyes and letting the aftermath settle over her. Her limbs ached, exhaustion from the fight and the lingering, invasive presence of Serina's attack sinking deep into her bones.

She groaned softly, glancing down at the arrow she'd retrieved. The dried ichor clung to its shaft unnaturally. Only one person might understand exactly what Serina was, or what Sith creation she had become. She pressed a few buttons on her comm device, instructing her droid to analyze the sample and transmit the data directly to Taeli Raaf, adding at the end of the transmission that she'd personally deliver the arrow when she next visited Jutrand.

Holding her head, she listened absently as the droid clarified her coordinates. She opened one eye, noticing that her droid had automatically set her destination for Jutrand.

"No, Bait," she murmured tiredly, "I want to go home."

The droid chirped insistently, reminding her that home had been programmed for Jutrand. Allyson sighed, realizing she'd neglected to update Bait's coordinates recently.

Leaning forward, she carefully input the correct destination, the house she'd rebuilt for Madelyn on Varonat. Bait accepted the correction, and Allyson sank back, finally breathing easier. Tonight had gone entirely off course. Despite warning Serina to stay away, Allyson wasn't convinced the girl would listen.

Allyson wanted to protect the fragile sanctuary she'd built the one place in the galaxy where she felt at peace. Serina had threatened that, and she would remain a threat until she was completely erased.

---

//: Madelyn Lowe //:​

After landing, the crew quickly took over, handling the fighter as Allyson silently climbed into her speeder, still feeling hollowed out by the night's confrontation. The house appeared dark and unchanged as she approached; her sanctuary remained exactly as she'd left it, safe and untouched. Relief spread slowly through her chest.

She left her boots outside, knowing they'd require more thorough cleaning than she had energy for. It was also practical, one less reason for Madelyn to scold her. A small, fond smile formed at the thought of Madelyn's exasperated complaints about mud tracked into their home, a sharpness always softened by Allyson's easy grin.

Inside, the silence welcomed her warmly. She paused in the living room, breathing in the comforting familiarity before moving towards the washroom. Allyson felt desperate to remove the lingering stench and grime of the fight.

As she passed the bedroom, she caught sight of Madelyn, awake and watching. Allyson moved close enough to reassure her without raising her voice.

"I'm okay. I'll explain after I clean up," she promised softly, noticing the concern in Madelyn's eyes as the woman took in the blood and weariness she wore.

"It's not mine," Allyson clarified gently, "I was dealing with an annoyance. I promise I'm not hurt, just tired." Her shoulders slumped slightly, her frame nearly collapsing under the strain.

Allyson slipped away, stepping beneath the hot water and letting the remnants of violence wash away, carrying the night's horror down the drain. She didn't want to think anymore, didn't want to worry if the monster she'd left behind still breathed. Freshly cleaned and dressed in something comfortable, Allyson finally emerged, exhaustion claiming every muscle.

Night still held the world outside, and she gratefully took her place beside Madelyn, sinking onto their bed. Her body protested painfully, but she didn't care. She was home, where she belonged.

They had their sanctuary and safety, and they had each other.

She watched Madelyn quietly, warmth flooding her chest. Now, it was undeniable, even to herself, how deeply she loved this woman.

Reaching out gently, Allyson rested her hand against Madelyn's cheek.

"I just need you here tonight. We'll be okay."​