Darth Daiara
Metamorphosis
She watched him walk away, a sense of disconnect filling the space that his absence had created.
She still didn't think separating was a good idea, but arguing with Zaavik when he had made up his mind was like yelling at rock. She focused her energy onto herself and looked around at the destroyed remains of her ship. They had been shot down with relentless precision; something about it felt wrong. Had the imperials known who they were?
It hardly mattered now.
She set off from the crash site, her skin burning with each drop of acid rain. Her ship was destroyed. She almost wished Kaalia would yell at over it, at least then she would know the woman still cared.
It was an inappropriate time to think of her former master, but it had become harder not to. Every time Zaavik mentioned home-- his training-- this stupid war-- she realized how much a part of her was missing. What was an acolyte without a master?
Fecked.
She walked unaccompanied through the streets. In the distance, the dome of an important capitol building shone. Acid rolled down its metal surface, the rain burning everything that stood in its path. She ignored the pain itching across her skin and jumped down from a building's ledge.
Something tickled the back of her mind.
She looked to the left, her eyes meeting with
Rika Hiro
as the two came face to face. Aradia tensed, her hand going to saber. She did not pull it, her wariness almost tactile as she summarized the woman. ...Citizen... or threat... ? She took a testing step forward. The woman was in her way.
Bright streaks condensed into singular points as the ship left the egress of hyperspace. Gray wedges against the void loomed in the distance, throwing red stripes of fire between one another. Zaavik took his hand from the hyperthrottle and quickly attended to several switches before grasping the co-pilot's yoke tightly. A chime sounded as atmospheric shields activated in preparation to enter the Vjun's stratosphere.
Turbulence shook the ship like a low-magnitude earthquake. A sigh of relief escaped the Zeltron's lips as the impression that they'd managed to slip past the naval theater above dawned. Their proximity exit from hyperspace appeared to pay off despite the risk. Until it didn't. The sound of interloping Ion Engines screaming clawed beneath the sounds of their own ship. A sudden jolt, crack, and rumble from within the ship killed snuffed out his relief in an instant.
"Chit!" Alarms began to cry out from the console in desperation. A holo diagram of the ship projected, sections of the aft near the drives all flashing red. The magnitude of turbulence had increased by a factor of ten. Zaavik threw on his pilot's headset and slowly fought the rumbling and came to an unbalanced stand within the cockpit.
<Keep us steady!> he shouted through the microphone, his voice vocoding directly into the next headset to be heard above the sounds of a collapsing ship. He staggered and wobbled against the unsteady ground, teetering with falling objects and sliding furniture. After a long stumble, he braced himself around the ladder to the dorsal quad laser turret and began to climb.
A sudden flash of heat was followed by a hard impact across his back. When his vision refocused, he was supine facing an inferno engulfing the upper part of the ladder. The headset crumbled and slid off as he raised his head slowly. He clasped one hand over the far side of his face, a burning sensation stinging at every nerve. An unurgent groan drowned beneath the alarms and rumbling as he slowly returned to his feet in a daze.
Snapping out of it, he readjusted his plan and started to claw through a disheveled interior toward the engine bay. A cryo-extinguisher that hd fallen off a wall bracing was promptly scooped up. He shot the carbon dioxide stream over every flame in his way until he made it to the drives. Tibanna was so thick on the air that he immediately wretched, coughing up a fit afterward.
Leaning on a wall, he turned his head up for a glance at what was left of their propulsion. This was it, wasn't it?
She stared numbly at her screen as the propulsions went offline. She could watch their decent on the holograph-- the digital horizon rushed quickly towards then, while Imperial fighters closed in to finish the job. Didn't they see there was nothing Aradia could do?
The ship's alarms vibrated through her, demanding action. She wanted to claw at her ears and peel their shrill echoes out of her mind, but there wasn't enough time for that.
"Zaavik," she croaked, her thoughts snapping to the explosion that had rocked the ship. He wasn't back yet. Panic sent her tearing out of the seat, her hands digging into furniture as she propelled herself out of the cock pit.
Gravity fought against her. The forty five degree tilt at which the vessel fell tugged at her limbs and dragged her back. The ship was small but the distance between her and the engine room felt insurmountable at that moment.
She breathed the force into her limbs and willed strength into her steps. If fate didn't want her to reach him, it would have to try a lot harder than that.
Step by step... she pushed forward. Another explosion rocked the ship-- a hit from the enemy fighters-- but the hulls held firm.
A scream of exertion tore through her as she pulled herself over a wall. Trapped there by the degree of the ship's fall was Zaavik. She crumbled next to him and heaved for air. A small voice in the back of her mind chimed that their time was numbered.
Her head lulled to face him, gravity pressing her flat into the wall like a lime being juiced.
All the effort they had put into survival, and now... Did he see it? Did he understand?
Her chest squeezed with terror as she stared down their death.
She wasn't done living yet.
As the moments passed, every attempt he made to peel himself from the wall grew more and more difficult. Like moving through clay, Zaavik's hand came forward and clasped around a jutting section of pipe. His cold prosthetic sizzled against the heated durasteel, but his grip didn't falter. As his muscles strained, he seemed to lift in slow motion. Teeth grit together, he began to shout with exertion through them.
The ship was suddenly jostled again. The pipe came loose, and with it, Zaavik was pulled upward and slapped pinned against the wall again. The force of their descent kept him stuck like a fly in a glue trap. He writhed, struggled, shouted, cursed, fought battles with every muscle in his body just to peel away.
Calling upon the force, he reached again. The cockpit seemed an impossible distance away, but it was their singular hope. He gripped his hand into a corner wall, the crushgaunt tech on his prosthetic crumpling the panel beneath like paper. The makeshift handhold gave him the grip needed to pull upward. His body peeled off the back wall slowly until only his feet were flat upon it.
He tucked on arm over the now side-ways threshold into the room he'd been trapped in. Like hanging off a cliff, he dangled with his toes just inches above where he'd been pinned beside Aradia. Over his shoulder, he slowly turned against the forces on his body to look her way. As he reached down toward her in an attempt to help, his arm was whipped sharply downward. His shoulder popped almost loud enough to be heard above the blaring of death's descent.
Yet another jolt. Zaavik was ripped from his hold and sent back toward the wall. He tucked his chin, but it did little to stop his head from slamming back with whiplash after his back and shoulder. The arm he had offered became trapped beneath his torso, pain spiking from shoulder to finger. The second concussive daze in a matter of minutes took the fight out of him.
Once the stars had faded from his vision, he was surprised to discover they were still falling. His neck muscles strained as he looked to his side. An apologetic look was offered Aradia's way. As best he could manage with his face subject the same g-force as the rest of his body, at least. His free hand slithered down and over hers. Fingers fought through invisible clay to close around the much smaller extremity.
'Trusting the Force to keep you safe' always sounded like brainless rhetoric before. Now, though, it wasn't like he had any other options. He clenched his eyes shut as tight as possible and hoped.
He was an idiot for trying to resist it. They could barely defy the Imperials, what chance did they have against physics?
He tried to jump off the wall anyway. G-force brought him crashing back. Her teeth rattled as his shoulder cracked. He didn't have to scream for her to feel it echoing through the force. Chills speckled over her skin. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see yet another friend die.
Terror clawed at her chest like a wild animal. She couldn't move, the invisible force sat on her chest like a thousand speeder. Better gravity than an Imperial.
Fingers encircled her own. She jolted in shock and opened her eyes to find him staring back. The touch was electric, her skin tingling as she felt him brush across her mind. Clammy fingers gripped his back.
Hope blossomed through her, from his skin to hers. It chased away her fears with ease that surprised her. She felt everything he did, just like in the escape pod, when they had combined their energies and found the strength to...-
Her lips parted at the idea.
Dark coalesced with light, forging a shield around them.
And then impact tore them apart.
That which does not kill us...
VJUN CRASHSITE |Darth Daiara
Facing a blood-black void with only a ringing in his ears, Zaavik assumed he was dead. It only occurred to him moments later when he questioned his ability to even be conscious, that he was, in fact, still breathing. As consciousness fully returned, so too did the pain in his everything. He still couldn't see anything. Wondering if he'd been blinded, he felt around to deduce that he was buried in wreckage. Miraculously, somehow alive and not pinned.
Maybe there was something to the rhetoric after all.
Green plasma sparked to life, the light of his saber illuminating the crevice he was buried beneath. An open palm pressed against the piece above him, testing the weight at every spot he could reach. Deciding on a point, he sunk the saber through and began to cut. A firm, sustained extension of his legs with feet flat on the panel eventually pried it free, opening the crevice up to the air outside.
The light sent pain into his eyes. It traveled back and transitioned into a throbbing in his skull. Getting to his feet was a monumental effort. His shoulder ached, the sensation clearly familiar as dislocation. He threw himself against an upright section of hull after lining up the lunge. Bones forced themselves into place with a pop, evoking loud curses and sounds of agony.
Staggered around in a daze, blood running down his face from the crown of his skull, he came to a realization. His heart skipped a beat, a sudden exhale coming with sudden desperation. "Oh chit," he muttered. Stumbling around through smoky haze and scattered flames he looked around frantically. "Aradia!?" he shouted over the crackling of infernos and distant sounds of war.
He reached out with the force, searching for any sign of life buried beneath steel and smoke.
"Zaavik! Zaavik!"
Her shrill shriek tore up her throat. The ship's metal panels had come down on her. She couldn't see anything. All she could hear was her own panicked heartbeat, and her whimpers... she couldn't help the whimpers. She didn't like tight spaces. They reminded her of cargo holds at slaver's bay.
Her shoulder throbbed. She could feel the warm liquid ooze around a rod of metal embedded into her flesh. It was deep. She didn't look.
The very notion of being impaled again drove her into a frenzy. It was Kyber dark all over again, but she wasn't that same naive girl. She wasn't weak anymore. Lock down her quivering muscles and forced in a breath.
She held it, pushing through the terror... the desperation... the pain... until her desire to live overruled all else.
She released the breath. A telekinetic wave rippled out from around her, battering against the rubble that would burry her alive.
It wasn't enough.
A muffled voice rose from somewhere. It was hardly audible beneath conflagrating roars. So much so that Zaavik couldn't decipher where it had come from. His head darted around frantically, trying to replay the sound in his mind to trace its origin. No luck. He called out for her again, louder this time, hoping that he'd get an answer. Instead of words, a force signature replied, touching his mind as wreckage on his peripheral shifted.
His body pivoted with a snap and started forward in a short-lived sprint. Boots slid on dust and dirt, halting before a jagged mountain of durasteel, wire, and pipe. At this distance, despite the thunderous throbbing in his head and ringing in his ears that made feeling anything else monumental task, he could sense her.
Viridesence snapped to life. Deliberate cuts and strikes quelled sharp ends and metallic obstructions. Blood mixed with sweat and trickled down over his eyes, yet he continued despite the stinging. What was once a mountain was becoming a pile. Feet slipped beneath the mound loose metal and cut away material. Jagged edges cut at legs and feet, making the climb all that more difficult.
A deliberate shove brought a gust from the force to clear away the excess, just enough to see an arm exposed from beneath larger pieces of what must have been the ship's cockpit previously. Surging forward, he reached down and grabbed her wrist, fingers deliberately placed for a pulse. The feeling of the arm moving was an instant indicator well before he could even begin to notice a vital sign.
Relief made itself known with an exhale. He let go and peeked through the gap just after a quick glance around the makeshift structure of carnage. Even through the opening, the crevice was so dark he could hardly see more than the side of her face.
"You okay?" Probably the dumbest question he'd asked in years. Something in the back of his mind, paranoid, needed some affirmation that she was still alive. If her presence in the force and ability to move weren't enough of an indication. Stress and a concussion were making him far from completely rational. A voice, even hers, would be the most reassuring. Even if just to remind him that he wasn't dead himself.
VJUUN CRASHSITE |Zaavik Perl
Light.
The heat of his saber seared away the liquid streaming down her face. She shied away, grimacing against the harsh contrast.
"Zaavik," she choked, her fingers reaching up for him. She wanted to lift herself out. Freedom felt so close, but the bar in her shoulder kept her trapped.
It was impossible not to think of Kyber Dark. She could feel Bastion's brick wall scraping her behind her.
She could feel the courtyard statue carve through her gut. Her mind played tricks on her. Phantom blood bubbled up her throat, the scars of her psyche not letting her forget.
This was not the time to lose her wits.
"My shoulder, I'm trapped," She groped at him, her grip like a vice as it found his sleeve. She was pale, her grip clammy. There was a wild edge to her eyes as she tried to claw herself out.
"Don't leave me like this. You can't leave me like this."
Zaavik grimaced at her demeanor, almost frozen as she snatched his sleeve. "Hey, I'm not going to leave you there, get ahold of yourself!" he admonished urgently. The gravity of the predicament was starting to really settle in past the concussive daze behind his eyes. Releasing his grip, he dropped his saber toward the floor. The pressure switch sent the blade back into the hilt as it clattered to the ground. The freed extremity gently pried her fingers from his sleeve. "I'm gonna get you out, just hold tight."
Uncrouching, he took a step back and called his weapon back to his hand. There was still one large piece of hull wreckage to deal with. It could have been so easy as to cut it to pieces, but that risked cutting Aradia or dripping molten material into the crevice. Retracting his backward step, he came forward and braced his hands against the edge. A long shot, but he had to unpin her somehow.
Every muscle that could contribute began to strain. A sustained grunt reverberated behind clenched teeth as fruitless attempts to lift went on for over a minute. No amount of adjustments or repositioning made any more difference than a minuscule budge. Labored breathing only paused for frustrated cursing.
An idea struck him. Zaavik went into a searching frenzy, digging through scraps until he found a long, metallic bar. The joints in his prosthetic fingers whirred with strain as the knockoff crushgaunt tech crimped the end until it was as flat as they could manage. Metal clanged on metal as he struck into the crack between the pinning piece and an object beneath.
Ten pummels later, it was wedged forcefully between. Using the object as a fulcrum, he positioned his body above and forced his arms down. The weight of his torso added enough force to create a loud pop after a few seconds. The large sheet that had Arada pinned shifted out from between other structures and skid askew. One good shove sent it sliding down the pile and out of the way.
Finally.
He climbed the pile again, tripping at least three times on the way up. Kneeling over Aradia, he could finally behold the worst of it. A stray rod had impaled through her shoulder from underneath. "Ah chit," he lamented involuntarily. The green blade returned again. Slowly, carefully, he'd cut the spar as close to her as he could safely achieve.
"Okay, uh-" The utterance held in a prolonged note. He was grimacing again, mouth slack. "Look, there's no easy way around it; this is gonna suck." His body dropped down, scooping her up beneath the opposite shoulder and her ribs on the impaled side. Without warning, he lifted and ripped straight upward off the stake. Unfamiliar blood ran down his arm as he dragged her a few feet to the side and propped her against the sturdy remnants of the ship's landing gear.
He dropped, splaying onto the ground opposite her, head spinning. Allowing himself to wallow in agony momentarily as if he'd forgotten they were in the middle of a warzone.
Zaavik's chest rose and fell with labored breaths. Still supine, his eyes drifted toward Aradia as she addressed him. "I'll live," he dismissed with strained, breathy timbre. Everything ached. Cuts on limbs still burned, fractured ribs still brought agony. His head was foggy enough to make everything happening seem dreamlike.
He sat up, slowly returning to reality from dazed anguish. Seeing the hole in her shoulder, he began to blink as if he'd not realized the severity before. Taking the packet she'd offered with robotic movements, he hardly realized what he was accepting. "We gotta do something about that," he asserted. The pill packet rested in his open palm still. He stared down, realizing what it was.
"This stuff is good, but it's not a miracle." He threw off what was left of his now tattered jacket. A quick slice of a freed saber cut off a sleeve. What was left of it was discarded. The strike suit he'd taken with him after deserting on Ziost held up much better beneath it, but it was still in rough shape regardless.
The stray sleeve fluttered through the air toward her at a swing of his arm. "Bandage that up." The suggestion came in a tone that seemed at least twice removed from reality. He stood, swallowing the would-be almost-miracle pill while trying to stifle the spins in his whole body.
VJUN CRASHSITE |
She grabbed the sleeve, catching one end in her teeth as she tried to get it around her shoulder. Her eyes followed him as she did so. He looked distant. Confused, but whole. She'd take it over dead any day, but it didn't make what they were up against any easier.
"Hey." She stepped into his field of view, her gaze alert and boiling with the pain she suppressed.
"Get your head in the game, we're here for the Imperials, remember?" The feckers had already gotten the better of them once. They couldn't let them get it again.
She shoved his sleeve into his chest and turned, giving access to the wound for help. She surveyed the scene as she did so, noticing the streets they had landed in for the first time. She had spent hours studying them on their way over. They were familiar.
"We're close."
Rain hit her eye. She flinched, a burning sensation ripping through her. Her head slowly tilted up.
"Feth. We need move." She jerked away from his work on her shoulder, the kolcta geltab pumping new found strength through her system. She didn't need to concentrate so hard on keeping her pain away. The edge was already starting to creep away.
See gripped at his arm, her gaze severe.
"Can you handle this one?"
It was almost as if she'd abandon the mission if he couldn't. Almost.
Shoving him in a crevice worked just as well.
*afk -> 5/24 for camping, sorry for the slight speedy posts on mah personal story
Zaavik's eyes unglazed. Untranced from the acidic squall falling beyond the cover of shattered steel, he glanced down. A distinct thumping still nagged the back of his eyes. Expression shifted from daze to forced attention when meeting Aradia's accost.
"I'm here for everyone," he countered sharply. Goal alignment didn't translate into a perfect lack of contention. Out of the two of them, Zaavik had the broader contumacious horizons. He wasn't going to waste any energy hoping she'd come around to the same oppositional nonpartisan. His gaze lingered, planting a flag firmly atop his hill. If they weren't in such a dire strait, he would have counted on verbal backlash. Would have put a thousand credits on it, even.
Eyes snapped front, back to the drizzle, back to the task at hand. Arguments would have to be saved for later. It went without saying, although the urge to implore her regardless clawed at the tip of his tongue. He chomped it, squeezing the life out of it with one gentle clamp of restraint. No time for that.
Whites flashed openly with a grin. It smelled as self-satisfied as chit did of itself. "I've done more with worse," he assured, suddenly more full of himself than usual. It was the truth, but that did little to make him seem any less vain.
"I'll find you when my part is done. We'll worry about getting off this rock once everything's in place." He gingerly tugged his arm out of her grasp. Stepping from beneath overhanging wreckage, he rose a hand to manifest a small dome against the acidic fall. His shape flickered, fading from visibility after a pause. Rain shifted as his personal force-umbrella floated unconcealed. "Oh. Also-" His voice called out, seemingly disembodied from his unperceivable figure.
"Don't die."
The Rogue Shadow skulked away.
Ingrid L'lerim ok we fight now
LADY_SILENCE_
COMPNOR
V J U N
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To remove a weed and prevent it from growing back and causing ruin to your garden. You must remove it root and stem every time to deny a new generation of undesirable invasive plants rising from the soil it inhabits. The same directive applied to the youth of the Sith Order who bore the title of acolyte wherever they were lightsaber trained or not, under the directive of the higher committee, the Sith order was to be exterminated from the highest echelons to the lowest roots and stems. Hundreds and well into the thousands of Sith knights, acolytes and even lords had perished in such a way. Promptly killed or disappeared when the rear units of the Imperial army came to did away with them, some preferring to dispose of them in a myriad of gruesome ways, and those deemed important were shuttled off into the supervision of COMPNOR. The HRD had seen off dozens of the Sith Order by its own hands; it did not discriminate, nor did it show such inane notions as mercy. All perished under the cold dead gaze of the ERIS HRDs sent to hunt them down.
The HRD wandered like a solitary ghost amidst the ruins, acid rain rolling down milk-white skin; if it hurt, it did not notice nor stop for shelter. It was here for something else, a red-headed acolyte who had escaped death many times and killed many servants of the Imperator. But not today, an order had been sent down to remove the problem or capture it in the field and send it back to the superiors. Whoever else present was expendable in the eyes of the directive and the HRDs superiors. Only the acolyte mattered. And Yubari would not leave without the acolyte, dead or alive it didn't matter.
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