Private Til the Bitter End

[Darth Strosius]

Formos, Formos Cathedral
878 ABY
-------------------------------

"High Priest, a ship belonging to Lady Tremiru has entered the atmosphere. It has yet to respond to any hails and is heading directly for the settlement." Alisteri clicked his tongue at the news, looking back at the bowing cultist from over his shoulder. He stood before the grand altar in his cult's newest building, having been in thought and focusing on the craftsmanship of the runes lining said altar to soothe his mind. "Is that so? Odd, she didn't say that she would be visiting."

Between focusing on his cult, heeding the orders of his master, and attempting to bring Faldos to heel, it had been some time since he had last spoken with Alina. Far too long really, but such was the reality of their work. "Shall we prepare a greeting party for her as usual?" There was a pause before the cultist received a response, a simple shake of his head as he turned back to idly trace the carvings of the altar. "No. In fact, tell the priests and the guards that I'd like the cathedral empty for the day. I would rather meet with Lady Tremiru alone. There is much to be discussed, just ensure that she has a clear path to me. Thank you."

This confused the cultist but there was no hesitation as they rose from their bow. "As you wish, High Priest." With that they quickly set to work telling the other occupants of the cathedral his wishes, Alisteri's attention drifting back to the altar. Already over a dozen people had been sacrificed on the glossy black stone surface. Slavers, spice traders, murderers, criminals of all kinds coming from both planets under his influence. Then his gaze drifted to his newly crafted sword that sat on his hip, his lightsaber occupying the other side of his belt.

"Perhaps I should have had them arrange for some curtains to be set up around here, Alina has never been a fan of the temple look." He mused with a small chuckle. "Hopefully she won't think too harshly of the décor."

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

She'd been focused elsewhere. Too far elsewhere. All her grand scheming and attempts to undermine the heir of the Worm, of the Twice Failed, of his very own master. She'd missed it. Missed what he was turning into. What he was becoming. What she had let herself become. They had always been meant to become the next generation of Sith. Something better. When they drank that blood, became what they were, she wasn't going to be like them.

He wasn't going to be like them.

Alina walked with her head high. Black armor clung to her form. Black metal plates with enough gaps for her Warforme. In her hand, the black blade she'd intended to use to finally cut down those in their way. Destroy the old way, let something new grow. Her grip tightened as she stood before the thick double doors that lead into this new church. An actual church. No longer the run down ship he'd been hiding in since the Empire fell.

She took a breath before lifting a foot. And sent it slamming through the wood to kick them open in a cacophony of sound and shattered wood.

"Ruling worlds. How far the boy behind the mask has come with his little cult. Will you be making a throne out of bodies, next?"

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

The violent and loud cracking of wood being forced aside was more than enough to stir Alisteri from his musings, a sigh leaving him as he turned to face Alina. The five worlds carved into the back wall framed the masked man perfectly, the dim lighting in the end where he stood not interrupted or overshadowed by the light now coming in from the doorway. "That was brand new you know."

His head cocked to the side at the question and he simply chuckled and shook his head, as if he believed the whole remark to be some sort of joke. "You know I'm not one for thrones, and one of bodies sounds very uncomfortable. And unnecessarily messy." He crossed his arms behind his back and stepped down from the raised platform of the altar, his steps seeming to echo in the otherwise quiet cathedral. "Ruling is a bit of a stretch, neither Formos nor Faldos are under my sway completely."

He stopped his approach, still a fair distance away from his friend. "Not yet anyway." Alisteri already had plans in place to rectify that situation of course, all he needed was a bit more time. Time was something that they were always in need of it seemed, but something that they had plenty of so long as they maintained and persevered.

Finally he spread his arms wide as if proudly displaying the dark cathedral. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure Alina?"

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"No pleasure."

Alina hoisted up her blade, narrowed her eyes. The gold of them shifted and turned to a deeper and deeper red until, finally, she exploded. A mess of flesh and gore scattered from under her armor as she took her Warform. One hand gripped her black blade as she crouched, gripped the ground with the other.

"You've started down a path I can't let you follow. So I'm going to do as I always do, and beat you to your senses."

Then she took off, ripping through the air to lunge for him. She brought the blade around, igniting it's red edge midslash. She'd wake him up, or she'd kill him. She'd never let him become what they both hated.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow at the response and his eyes widened as Alina transformed into her more monstrous visage. "Oh chit." Alisteri was quicker to react with his body than he was with his mind, leaping to the side to barely avoid the deadly slash of her great weapon. He rolled as he hit the ground and pulled both of his weapons from his belt as he stood, an ignited lightsaber in his left and his sword in his right.

"Alina I haven't the faintest idea what you mean! Do elaborate a bit before you try and cut my head off!" While he was reluctant to strike back, he knew well enough that there were few advantages awarded to him in this fight. He was smaller yes, but in her Warform she was just as quick and intelligent as he was so avoidance wasn't an option. Alisteri had to fight back, or at the very least find some way to keep ahead of her.

His fingers splayed wide as he kept a grip on his weapons, the pews surrounding him floating into the air before two of them were hurled at Alina with a simple wave of his hand. "And last I recall it was you needing to come to your senses, I've not diverged on any paths."

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Look at you before your black altar! You're becoming exactly what we wanted to stop!"

She wasn't going to listen to reason. Not his, not here. She'd already let herself fall too far down that path. Maybe that's why she was here, to convince herself that she wasn't too far gone. It didn't matter. No, no thoughts, no thinking this through. She'd made her choice when she came her. When she kicked open the door. She opened her maw and screamed as the pews came her way. The Force ruptured, her unnatural connection just destroying them midair.

And she came again. Brought her blade around. Again and again, furiously just trying to hack him apart in a pure battle rage. He needed to be stopped before he did slip too far.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

Alisteri knew that he could not be idle as the pews were destroyed, he knew that he had to find some way to outpace or gain some upperhand over Alina if he was to survive. She was stronger than him in every way that mattered in a duel and with her current form there was no chance of an even playing field regardless. Trickery and clever tactics would have to be his weapon for the moment, and that started with moving again. "Don't tell me you've gotten cold feet now! A little occupation and expansion is nothing heinous Alina, it is a necessity!"

The pillars and more thrown pews would be his main method of eluding her as he did his best to avoid her furious slashes and strikes, sending pew after pew into her blade in some attempt to slow it down. Soon he had jumped up and onto a ledge atop one of the pillars to avoid another strike, using his new height to bear his weapons and finally go on the offensive.

Hoping that her wild strikes had gotten her blade stuck in something, or at least had put her in an awkward position to counter from, he leapt down from the pillar in a spinning slash aimed at her back. "Two backwater planets are just the beginning! We will need hundreds in order to save the Sith, you know this as well as I!"

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Necessity is just the start! You've seen it as well as I, how quick a Sith will use necessity to do whatever they want to. We were abandoned by necessity! We watched the others die by necessity!" She ran through the Church, ripping around through the pews, crashing into the walls, hacking apart the floors. Everything in her path she destroyed in her made dash to get to Alisteri. To catch him with her blade. She wasn't thinking, only acting. Instinct, rage, she let it flow freely through her.

Her blade came crashing down in that rage. Through the pillar he'd jumped up on and further in her wild swing. Only for it to catch in the ground. She tugged for a moment, only a moment, to wretch it free.

But it was a moment long enough for a line of pain to bloom across her back. She roared aloud, tightening her grip on her blade further before spinning into a wide spin to try and make him back off.

"You're only going to become them!"

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

His spinning strike may have landed but he had little time to dig his blades any deeper into her back as she spun and threw him off, his tight grip on his weapons ensuring that they went with him. Alisteri's boots scraped against the floor as he landed, rolling his shoulders with a hissed sigh. "Again you lack faith Alina! Do you really think so little of me? I bring liberation, justice and law, not simple subjugation!"

He aimed his sword at his friend's monstrous form and focused, lightning crackling in his fingers and arcing up across the blade. "Don't you see Alina? We can't just kill the tyrants! Carnifex and Empyrean are just the start, the first of a long list that must fall before we can become free to prosper as true Sith!" A powerful bolt of lightning shot out from the tip of his blade and shot towards Alina, but he didn't wait to see it strike if it did.

Back on the move he went, once again ascending up one of the pillars to get some height on his opponent. "Their servants, their inner circles, their wretched domains, all must be cleansed of their influence! To destroy them we will need an army of our own Alina, all I'm doing is getting that army! We have to replace their corrupted order with new foundations, to burn it all down from the ground up, there is no other way!"

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Kill everyone? That's your answer? If they don't bend the knee, they go on to that altar?" Her blade ripped up, it's edge cleaving the blast of lightning itself, sending it scattering beside her. She paused, her blood red eyes staring up at him on his perch. Scanning his mask, him. All before her lips pulled back into a snarl.

"You were never meant to destroy. You can't destroy! You've always been weak, doubting yourself. You can't even fight me on the same level, and you're going after them!?"

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

"If that's what it takes then yes!" Alisteri pulled himself up on the ledge and quickly spun around to face Alina, looking down at her with his usual masked gaze as he caught his breath. He wasn't used to fighting someone as fast as he was, someone that he could just barely avoid and dodge. His grip on his weapons slackened ever so slightly as she spoke, a brief but noticable dip of his head as he listened. "You're right Alina. I am weak, as I've always been. But I'm not just doing this for me."

He shifted and stood tall, a renewed vigor coursing through him. "Saket, Lark, Venn, Arcturus, the countless people wronged by them. And us, you and I. This is for us! I don't need the power of a Dark Lord when I have true Sith by my side!" He gestured to the door leading outside where the rest of the settlement laid. "My cult is but the first, the first of our army. The first to be set free from the tyranny of those so far above us. We are nothing alone, but together we are undeniable! Unstoppable! The Force itself will quake when our wrath is finally unleashed and our chains are forever broken and cast aside!"

Much like the words of a sermon his speech echoed in the dark hall, seeming to fill every alcove and corridor as if the building itself was built to listen to such an empowered statement. "We don't need the strength of one Sith Alina, not when we have the strength of thousands behind us!" Alisteri extended a hand, albeit still clutching his weapon, towards her. "I need you Alina, because I can't destroy them. But we can."

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Damnit.

Alina's snarl slowly dipped. She couldn't bite back against what he was saying. She wanted to believe in what he was saying. Wanted to trust in his belief. But her gaze drifted to the altar. Narrowed, just slightly. Her blade again leveled out, pointing towards him as the red glow of her eyes narrowed. "You can't break your chains tying yourself to another, Alisteri." No, no. She didn't believe what she was saying.

She didn't want to talk about this any more.

She braced herself on the ground before launching forward, bringing her blade around again, jumping right up towards Alisteri with her blade all over again. Again and again, letting not reason just.. Fury. It's all she had left.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

His extended hand fell, dejected and rejected, before he let out a frustrated sigh. "Faithless as usual." Alisteri was quick to leap back from his perch and hit the ground running once more before a strike of her great sword hit the ledge. It seemed that there was no getting out of this after all then, he'd have to do it the hard way.

Lightning crackled in his hand as he raised his sword again, firing off another bolt in her direction as he ran around a pillar. He had to think quickly and fight smarter if he was to survive. "You'll see Alina, even if I have to make you!"

He focused his mind and reached out even as he kept away, and much like he would in a more physical sense, attempted to leech off of Alina. Her rage, her resolve, her strong emotions that kept her going, if he could siphon from them and gain a little boost to his own strength then he would stand a far better chance.

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

She didn't even notice it. The leeching. So consumed by her frustration and anger, Alina just threw herself at him again and again. Her blade reaved through the church, shredding pew, pillar, and floor alike. Fight. Kill. Destroy. They were the only thoughts in her head. She had to destroy. If she paused and thought it through for even a moment, she knew she wouldn't be able to commit to this.

But she had to.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

There was no stopping the destructive force that was Alina in her current state, with the obstacles for him to evade her with growing thinner and thinner with each strike of her great blade. Continuing to run would only serve to tire him out and he doubted that he could attrition her Warform in the realm of stamina, he'd have to find some way to retaliate or wear her down. His essence consuming had yet to grant him the power needed to face her properly, given his inexperience with the technique, but he had little choice by this point. There was nothing else to run to by now.

Alisteri stopped before the altar, his breathing slightly labored as he faced his monstrous friend. Lightning crackled within his fingertips again, this time bolstered by her own wrath in addition to his own, as he rolled his shoulders. "You just love taking the path of most resistance don't you?!" Both of his hands were thrown up as he summoned his strength and let loose a burst of lightning at her from both hands in a wild but directed fury of lashing bolts.

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Each step was getting more sluggish as she flew through her rage. Virtually unnoticeable at first, but the longer this was drawn out, the easier it was to see. Her body, her Warform, it wasn't an unlimited source of strength and power. She'd drawn deep onto her Maw, forced herself to continue burning through it all in her mad attempt to strike him down. She had to stop, just for a moment. Blade buried deep into the ground to catch herself as she'd flung once more past Alisteri.

"It's the only path I have."

She spoke low as he raised his hands. Then the form dropped. Flesh melted from her pale skin, the Warform unable to be sustained. Not as she made the void around her. All to snuff out the bolts as he launched them. All so she could step forward with both hands on the hilt of her blade. Now golden eyes glared with her hate towards him. One quick step, and she went to bring the blade down.

"All I can do is destroy."

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

By the time that lightning had stopped arcing out from his hands, Alina was surprisingly back to her normal self yet no less dangerous or determined. A little bit of lightning couldn't stop her, not from him at least. "You know that's not true, our paths can become one again Alina." Dsespite his offer Alisteri didn't let down his guard or even try to evade her as she moved forward. He intended to stand his ground this time, raising his blades as she moved to strike him down.

"Then let's destroy together!" Out of pure instinct his lightsaber came up to meet the executioner's blade, his sword however was thrust forward in an attempt to exploit her strike as it came down. All he needed was to aim for a gap or weak spot in the armor and the risk of only blocking with one blade would be worth it.

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Then let's destroy together!"

She hesitated. Just for a split second she hesitated. Once, so long ago, she would've agreed to that. They were words she wanted to hear. Not now, though. She didn't want to hear them now. Then she felt it. A sharp pain in her chest just as she'd hesitated to commit to her blow. Slowly she blinked, lowering her gaze to the armor she wore. It was strong, but it wasn't built to defend against a Lightsaber.

Or the Sithsword that'd now punched through it.

The void around them faded. She couldn't keep her focus on it, not anymore. Anima, rivets of the red energy, drained from the wound, dripped onto the floor. Alina's arms lowered as she dropped the blade to her side before she slipped forward. Rested her chin on his shoulder.

".. You dumbass.. You're supposed to be the one to rebuild.."

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

As the void that threatened to block him from the Force faded he initially felt relief and even a sense of pride, for he had finally gotten one over on Alina. Throughout their sparring and duels over the years he had never managed to beat her, give her a decent fight sure, but there had always been that divide between one who was Sith from birth and one that was born as nothing. But then she slumped, her sword falling to the ground as she leaned against him, and all feelings but dread drained from him in an instant.

"Chit!" Alisteri deactivated his lightsaber and clipped it back onto his belt as quick as he could, the now freed hand moving to help hold her up as he let go of the sword buried in her side. He glanced at where the sword had landed, at the red seeping out from around it, and his eyes grew wide. "Damnit! Just give me a moment Alina, I have some spare Anima in my laboratory."

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her steady as he moved to try and heft her up to carry her. The blade had dug in far deeper and in a far more vital area than he had intended but to remove it now would cause far too much harm to be worth the effort. Besides, time was of the essence. "Just hold on, it's just a short walk alright?"

Alina Tremiru

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Can't let go, can ya?"

Her voice came out in barely a whisper. She had no more strength left. The feeling of it all just fading away was.. She didn't know how to describe it. Just felt heavy. She was limp in his arms, unable to fight against him or stand on her own or.. Anything. She knew what was happening now. She'd brought it on herself. She always brought everything onto herself. Pain, death, misery. Betrayal.

"I'm just.. Dying. It's fi-.."

She couldn't finish her sentence. Not because she was too weak to talk. Her voice cracked. Life, her life, flashed before her eyes. It was what she thought was just a figure of speech, but there it was. The struggling, the want for more. The friendship and companionship she'd had but thrown away again and again. Alisteri, Iasha Rha , Amani Serys . They'd all tried to help in their own way, but she used them.

Quinn Varanin .

Alina's face twisted with nothing but regret. There was nothing for her, no afterlife, no embrace of the Force. She'd known that from early on, but now all she had was the void of nothingness claiming her vision. If she died, she was gone. She couldn't fix those mistakes. Those regrets.

"Shit.. I don't.. Want.. t.."

Then the void consumed her, and she was gone.

Darth Strosius