Private Upward Momentum

[Arris Windrun]

CORUSCANT
Acier Moonbound

Coruscant was burning. The Empire crumbled. Imperial loyalists scattered throughout the ecumenopolis. Some initiated purge orders, others mounted guerrilla defenses, and the rest simply scurried amidst the aftermath of defeat. Though it was hardly the sight of victory for Arris. Now, the Covenant had to entrench itself in the Deep Core, where trillions of beings called home. It was a change they would all have to get used to.

Arris Windrun took a seat on a ledge overlooking a canyon that ran many kilometers deep. She had sent her location to Acier, whom she entrusted with the important task of retrieving ISB records from the Bureau's headquarters. Word had gone out that an explosion utterly toppled the building, so she wondered if the acolyte failed, that he might come crawling back to her in defeat.

The vergence, the dark storm above, and the ugly tension twisting her gut from the role she had just played... It made her uneasy; that was an understatement. Her hands would shake, were they organic. Instead, she smoked an entire box of cigarettes. Anything to keep her high and numb to the countless millions (or more) that would be killed because of her ruse.

It was for chaos - a distraction. An ugly play in an unfair war. But no matter how she spun it... in her heart, Arris knew she drowned in blood.

"Shit..." A word barely uttered.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

What a day. Soot streaked his face and collar, ground into the seams of his clothes. His robes were torn in more than one place, shallow cuts visible along his cheek and brow where debris or shrapnel had caught him on the way out. None of it had been cleaned. None of it had even been checked properly.

He still felt… warm, like the after image of something burning too close to the skin. The Dark hadn't left him yet. It clung, faint but undeniable: radioactive, quiet, dangerous in its patience.

Windrun had come into view, and with that, he heard her.

"Shit…"

Ace's head tilted slightly as he stepped closer, catching the tail end of the word.

"What?"

He approached from behind, close enough that she'd feel him before she fully registered him. When he reached the ledge, he let himself drop down beside her with a tired exhale, elbows resting on his knees as he stared out over the canyon.

The storm churned above, the Force twisted into something unnatural and loud. Quinn's work, he'd later find out. The city still burning in the distance. Coruscant laid open like a wound that refused to close.

Ace didn't look at her when he moved again. He reached into his belt pouch, fingers closing around the slim data stick he'd guarded through fire, falling steel, and a collapsing structure that had very nearly buried him alive. He extended it toward her, the motion unhurried.

The stick rested in his open palm, offered without ceremony. He kept his eyes forward, the fight was gone from him for now, spent somewhere in the rubble and smoke... but the aftermath lingered. A low hum under his skin. Fallout.

For a long moment, he just watched the abyss stretch beneath them, the storm above, the galaxy mid-collapse.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

Arris didn't look over her shoulder when he asked.

"Nothing," she answered.

It was a lie. But lying was the easiest thing to do right now. How else was she supposed to say it? That she had just given an order, in the Emperor's voice, and now the imperial machine moved to wipe out countless lives in vanity, just because an Emperor willed it. What kind of structure was that? It made Arris angry, and oh, she was angry. The Dark Side saw to that. It was impossible here and now, of all places, not to be its idle pawn.

Acier sat next to her. It was as if they were two workers on a break - only their view was a burning skyline and crumbling towers. Each one of them alone housed tens of thousands. In some cases, those were whole microcultures. Communities and generations of families. All of them wiped out, systematically by turbolaser fire. The operator on the other end 'just following orders,' thinking nothing of the horror they wrought. Then again, she suspected the Vahlan's might have actually enjoyed it.

Her anger and shame lashed out in the Force. It wasn't something Arris knew how to contain, and even if she did... She wasn't sure she would try. Not anymore.

Then, her gaze drifted down to the data in Acier's palm. Of all the weapons to wield, this was it.

Arris plucked it like a delicate instrument. Careful not to tarnish the precious information stored within.

Her head turned more fully to him, and as he had so often with her, her expression was unreadable.

"So - how'd it feel?"

"So - how does it feel?" To destroy the Empire.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace didn't believe her. Her "nothing" rang hollow the instant it left her mouth, but he didn't push it. Whatever that was, it wasn't something she'd give up just because he asked.

The Force, though, told the truth anyway. It was loud on her. Violently so. Her Thread vibrated with anger sharp enough to grate against his senses, raw and uncontrolled, like a live wire thrashing in open air. That part didn't surprise him. Anger was Arris' native state. It always had been.

What stopped him was the other note braided through it. Shame. Ace's brow tightened almost imperceptibly as he registered it. For a heartbeat, he turned his head just enough to cast her a sidelong glance, disbelief flickering across his expression before he could fully mask it. Shame didn't belong to her. Not the way he understood her. Not the way she moved through Tapani without hesitation, without regret.

He looked back out over the canyon. For a fleeting moment, the thought surfaced uninvited: For this? For Coruscant. For the skyline burning. For towers collapsing into graves. The idea died as quickly as it formed. Tapani hadn't bothered her. Why would this?

His focus drifted inward instead, settling on the hollow space where something should have been. He searched for it out of habit... guilt, revulsion, that tight knot that used to form in his chest when lines were crossed.

There was nothing. Just anger. Old, familiar, ever-present. And beneath it, bone-deep exhaustion. The kind that sank past muscle and into the spirit itself. Ace before Tapani would have been unraveling right now, torn apart by the weight of complicity, by the faces he hadn't seen but knew were there.

That version of him felt very far away. And he felt the absence more than the loss.

From the corner of his vision, he registered movement: Arris taking the drive from his open palm. The transfer felt inevitable, like gravity doing what it always did. Then he noticed her turn toward him.

Slowly, he angled his head in her direction, just enough to meet that unreadable expression. Whatever she was searching for on his face, he didn't try to hide it. Her question hung there, heavy.

"Good." Ace answered.

The word came easily. Too easily. He didn't know if it was a lie he told out of reflex, the performance he'd been putting on since joining the Covenant. Or, if it felt good to finally let go. To stop pulling his punches. To unleash everything he'd been holding back on something that deserved it.

Maybe it was both.

"They needed to be wiped out." He continued, voice low, even. "I've been fighting the Empire a lot longer than I've been with the Covenant. Seeing the job finished… yeah. That felt good. We ended the war before they could really do any damage."

Although, he knew that it may have just been replaced with something entirely worse.

His gaze dropped then, settling on his left hand. The glove hid it. The sleeve covered the machinery beneath. He didn't forget what the Empire had cost him. The price exacted one piece at a time. He flexed his fingers once, slowly, before looking back out at the burning city.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Good." Ace answered.

Arris agreed. She couldn't relate to his explanation. Yeah, she had fought the Empire before, too. Longer than she knew Ace. From before Genarius. He wasn't on Desevro during the First Conclave, so maybe he didn't quite get the context, or that all of this was... Mercy's conclusion to a Kaggath that began then. Well, that wasn't so much the truth anymore. Yes, it was the thing that drove Mercy to this place, and like a tsunami wave, she drew everything in her wake and pushed it forward whether they liked it or not. That was her power.

"Mm," It was unusual for Arris to make noise without saying anything. "C'mon. As much as I wanna sit here, we can't wait."

Without a doubt, ISB agents were already moving towards contingencies. Plans likely contained within that little drive, but it was impossible to say for sure how long it'd take before they realized the data was compromised, despite HQ going up in flames.

Arris rose to her feet and was about to walk, but then she stopped. Ace mentioned how the Covenant stopped the Empire before they could 'really do any damage.'

He was her apprentice now. Might not have been ceremonially official, but she promised to be honest with him, and as much as it pained her to do so, she was honest now.

The look she gave him, when she turned to face him, was - briefly - that of a scared girl. Even the way she steeled herself after was weak. She didn't have to show anything at all; that was supposed to be the great part of her synthflesh, but that impulse control? She didn't want it for what she was about to say next.

"I don't know if you heard Solipsis where you were, but right now, what's left of the Empire is carrying out purge orders."

Operation Cinder, it was called, but that was not how Arris knew of it. No, she remembered the broadcasts splattered all across the HoloNet. The discourse. The articles. The survivor interviews. Before they took control of the Core, Solipsis and his machine had indiscriminately punished worlds he accused of disloyalty. Scorched ground, no survivors. A strategy that was meant to inspire fear and cement a doctrine of unquestioning loyalty rather than achieve any material outcomes.

And now it was happening again. Only...

"That was me."

Again, The Force extracted her shame like a rotten tooth. No anesthesia.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace pushed himself up at her cue without comment, falling into step beside her as if that had been the plan all along. Abrupt, sure, but that was Arris. Movement instead of reflection. Forward instead of here.

Then she stopped. Ace was already half-turned when she faced him, and whatever he expected to see on Arris Windrun's face, it wasn't that. For a split second, the world stalled. Fear. Bare. Unarmored. The look of a scared little girl wearing a woman's skin.

His expression shifted before he could stop it, just a fraction, but real. Surprise, then something quieter beneath it. Concern, maybe. Disbelief. He'd seen Arris angry, amused, cold, cruelly patient. He'd never seen her look like this. Never seen her hesitate in her own body.

What the hell happened? Then she mentioned Solipsis and Purge orders. Ace didn't answer immediately. Inside the ISB headquarters, he had felt something. A ripple. A pressure wave in the Force that didn't belong to the building or the storm overhead. Something dark, decisive. He hadn't known it was her. Not until the confirmation left her mouth.

The Force surged again, her shame spiking outward like a pulse, raw and invasive. It hit him without warning, flooding his senses, leaving no room to breathe around it. Ace stiffened as his instincts flared.

"What?" He started, then caught himself. "But you said Solipsis--"

He stopped short, the rest of the sentence dissolving as her emotional backlash washed over him again. The concern in his eyes hardened into something more controlled, more deliberate.

"What do you mean by purge orders?" Ace asked, voice low, edged with urgency now. "What have you done?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

She saw it in his eyes. His mask had cracked. Any other time, she would've reveled in it, maybe teased him for it just to claim a victory. But not now.

"What do you mean by purge orders?" Ace asked, voice low, edged with urgency now. "What have you done?"

He asked her a question, but Arris took it as an offer - a chance to confess, and she took it.

"Fleets, garrisons, planetary governors..." She gestured vaguely at the sky above, where the dark storm raged, but it was beyond that, to the stars and the other core worlds, her gesture reached. Trillions of souls.

"I don't..." She was going to say she didn't know what was about to happen, but she knew.

Arris threw her arms down, like someone about to storm off after a tantrum, and that motion alone threw the Force against duracrete like a cleaver. The metal cracked and splintered. Little pieces tossed in the air. They rained back down, scattering across the ground with the sound of hail.

"It's to keep them busy," of course, Arris was too pathetic to confess. Too quickly she turned to justification and denial.

Arris turned back to him again. Wherever they were meant to be, she would delay it with her fit.

Millions, maybe more, would be dead before the Covenant arrived.

"They'll be distracted when we..."

It seemed even denial was a hard pill to swallow.

Damn.

Arris was utterly fucked.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace followed the line of her gesture without thinking. Up past the storm. Past the smothered skyline. Past Coruscant itself, to the stars beyond, systems he'd never seen but could picture all the same.

He saw it all on her. The scared little girl breaking through for half a breath. Then the wall snapping back into place. The shift was almost seamless. Ace recognized it because he'd done the same thing. Still did. Let the truth surface just long enough to breathe, then bury it before it could cost him something he couldn't afford to lose.

Then the Force slammed outward. Duracrete split and fragments skittered and fell around them like hail. He glanced down at the fractured ground, tracking the cracks spiderwebbing away from her boots, then lifted his gaze back to her face as if nothing had happened. As if the Force hadn't just lashed out like a reflexive confession.

"Windrun..." He said, almost afraid to even ask. Not because of how she'd react, but because of what she'd answer. "What are they purging?"

Deep down he knew. He knew what it was. Arris Windrun, as detached and completely remorseless as she was, to be reacting this way to what she'd just let loose... how much blood did she have on her hands from this?

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

That he asked for clarification only pissed her off.

"People - cities, worlds!"

Whatever guilt she let slip was quickly filled in by anger.

It seemed whoever was waiting for Arris Windrun did not want to wait any longer. A small transport flew down and landed a few dozen meters away. The mark of the Covenant was crudely painted on the hull. The loading ramp slammed against the duracrete, and out stepped a sprinter. When he reached them, his voice was low and steady, betraying any exhaustion.

"Windrun," he addressed her. "We need the data now."

Her attention snapped to him. For a second, it looked as if she were about to draw her revolver. Cold metal fingers were curled around the grip.

Then, in her other hand, she tossed over the datachit. "Take it. Now fuck off." As if the runner would stay.

No, he sprinted back to the transport, and just like that, it took off. With it, the Covenant's plans were now in motion.

She turned back to Ace. There was a brief look of consideration, soon swallowed by emptiness.

"It's done."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace turned away when she finally said it. His jaw tightened, and his teeth grinded once. He shook his head slowly. People. Cities. Worlds. The thing he hadn't wanted to hear, but the thing he already knew. Something ugly stirred in him because of it, dense and heavy, radiating outward like a sudden drop in gravity. Fury with weight behind it.

The transport came down in his periphery. He watched it land, tracked the Covenant mark on the hull, the ramp slamming against duracrete. The runner approached. Asked for the data.

Ace saw Arris' hand curl around her revolver and, for a split second, genuinely wondered if she was going to shoot him. Not because the runner had done anything wrong, but because her anger had nowhere else to go.

When she didn't fire, when she tossed the datachit and told him to fuck off, Ace's attention came back to her fully.

When she said it was "done." That was when whatever filter he had left finally burned away.

"You're so full of shit." He said, voice low. "Why? What's the point?"

He turned back toward her, anger stripping the words down to bone.

"Purging people? Entire worlds?" His hand cut through the air once, sharp. "For what? The Empire's already finished. All you-- all we had to do was pick them off while they were scrambling."

He stepped closer. Not threatening. Just refusing distance.

"What is it with you fucking Covies," He snapped, "and being so fucking callous about taking innocent life."

The word landed hard... on her, and somewhere closer to home.

"And you have the nerve to feel shame?" His laugh was short, humorless. "To feel guilt?"

It wasn't clear anymore who that was meant for. Ace stopped there, chest rising and falling once, hard. Whatever title Arris Windrun wore meant nothing in moments like this. Titles didn't stop blood from spilling. They didn't make hands clean. If someone could bleed, they weren't untouchable, and they weren't above being told they were wrong.

He looked at her with that understanding settled behind his eyes. He was done pretending it mattered.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

Arris was ready to turn and be on her way when Acier snapped.

"You're so full of shit." He said, voice low. "Why? What's the point?"

She stopped halfway in a pivot. Her foot dug into the ground like a droid programmed to be at attention. He questioned her ruse, its purpose, and even threw himself and the 'Covies' on different sides of a line in the sand. Then, he attacked her motives and feelings directly - stripped her of any right to feel guilty for what she did. That he would judge her while being violently along for the ride? How very Sith.

"That's because you feel more than you think," she accused coldly.

Arris turned back to face him and stepped twice to close the distance. She threw one hand at the burning city.

"Look around, Ace. Fighting dirty is what killed the fucking Empire. You want a clean war? Join the Alliance." She said that last bit sarcastically. "Or go back to the Republic. I'm sure their senate is holding ten new charity galas. Donations will bring back the dead, I'm sure."

She almost spat. Her artificial eyes, grey and lifeless, never left his. "While those brainwashed idiots follow an Emperor's orders, our forces will swoop in and kill them. One. Swift. Blow."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace almost laughed at that. Feeling more than he thought? He wished it were true. Lately, feeling had been a liability. Thinking was the only thing that still worked. Three steps ahead. Then three more. Anticipate. Adjust. Endure. Rage wasn't something he indulged, it was something he compressed, redirected, used to keep moving through a stretch of his life that didn't allow for hesitation.

That had always been how he survived, long before the Covenant. Thinking kept you alive. Feelings got you killed. But he didn't argue it. There was no point.

Ace followed her gesture to the city as she flung it toward the skyline. Coruscant still burned, towers shedding smoke and fire into the storm above. When she sneered about the Republic - about galas, donations, empty gestures, he didn't interrupt. He didn't even disagree, because she wasn't wrong.

But she wasn't right either.

"No." He said evenly. "Donations don't bring back the dead." His eyes stayed on the city. "But don't act like you're standing on higher ground just because you dragged the fight to the Empire." Ace continued. "The Republic's slow. Compromised. Cowardly half the time. But they're not out there erasing entire worlds."

He turned back to her. He remembered what she'd said about one swift blow. About wiping out what remained before it could regroup. Ace pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closing briefly as the phrase replayed in his head. One. Swift. Blow. He exhaled, long and controlled, forcing the anger back down where it belonged. This wasn't the moment to let it drive.

He reminded himself why he was here. Why he'd gone this far. Why he kept climbing higher instead of walking away. Leverage mattered. Position mattered. And if standing this close to people like her meant fewer worlds burned in the end, then he'd keep standing there.

He lowered his hand and looked at her again.

"Look at you." Ace said, voice calm but unyielding. "Your feelings are screaming through the Force. An acolyte miles away could sense your shame. This… this is messing with you too."

He let his words hang in there for a moment, just before continuing.

"Cleaning up the Empire the easy way. The quick way." His eyes stayed on hers, searching, calculating. "Is it really worth it?"

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris shook her head and mouthed a silent scoff. To her, Ace missed the point entirely.

"Look at you." Ace said, voice calm but unyielding. "Your feelings are screaming through the Force. An acolyte miles away could sense your shame. This… this is messing with you too."

He wasn't wrong there, however, and it annoyed her. Even the suggestion plucked another ripple from her. Arris Windrun had no control over the Force. It had all the power over her.

"Cleaning up the Empire the easy way. The quick way." His eyes stayed on hers, searching, calculating. "Is it really worth it?"

"Does it fucking matter?!" She snapped back. Her eyes narrowed. "The way I grew up, Ace, none of this shit mattered!

"It didn't matter what nations fell -- what worlds got destroyed... What Sith Lord died and was reborn the seventh hundred time."

Arris drew her revolver and spun it around in her hand, faster and faster. An idle tick to run the rage in her system.

"It doesn't matter. Who lives. Who dies. Who eats. Who starves. It doesn't matter. Nothing changes because no one wants to look out the window and see something that needs changing."

She laughed. "Shit, Ace..." The gun stopped, barrel pointed at her chest, grip offered to him. "Shoot me now and see that nothing changes."

She shoved it towards him. "I mean it! Go ahead. Add mine to the long list of bodies that raise this chaos-damned world to touch the sky."

With a twisted, cruel smirk. "Not that you could kill me," she muttered.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

When she drew the revolver, his hand moved on instinct, hovering just above the hilt at his side. Just prepared. He tracked the spin of the weapon, the speed of it, the way it served as nothing more than a pressure valve for the rage burning through her.

Ace recalled what she'd said prior, and after. The bitterness, the nihilism, the conviction that nothing ever really changed. Her words sank in deeper than he liked to admit, because he'd heard and seen versions of them before. In alleyways and scrap yards. From people who learned early that ideals didn't keep you fed and mercy didn't keep you alive.

Different worlds. Same lesson. Then she stopped the revolver, shoving it toward him. Ace took it calmly, the weight of it settled into his palm easily. He looked down at the revolver for a moment as she spoke.

Not that you could kill me.

Ace lifted his gaze. In one smooth motion, he brought the revolver up, the barrel pressing flat against her forehead. Cold metal to synthflesh.

"You think I can't?" He asked quietly.

His finger rested alongside the trigger.

"It'd be easy." Ace went on. "I kill you now, take your place. Or at least climb higher than I am." His eyes didn't leave hers. "And you're wrong. Something would change. You'd be gone. One less monster."

The words weren't a threat. They were an assessment.

"Don't get me wrong..." He added, voice low. "I do want to kill you."

For a brief second, just one, something flickered behind his eyes. Not the anger. Not the calculation. Something older. Quieter. The version of him that still believed people were shaped by their circumstances, not defined by their worst decisions. The part that remembered what it was like to be a kid staring at the binary moons above, convinced the whole system was rigged and no one upstairs gave a damn.

He saw Nar Shaddaa again. Her den. The fragments she kept around herself. The story she'd just told him, raw and unvarnished. They weren't that different. And worse... there was something human still in there. Buried, twisted, but present.

What if it could be reached? What if it could be used? What if he could mould her into an ally? The thought passed through him fully formed.

Then Ace pulled the gun away just as fast, firing past her instead. The shot cracked through the air and exploding into sparks and debris.

"I won't kill you." He said flatly. "But don't think it's 'cause I can't. I'm not repeating the same cycle of bullshit I grew up in. The one you grew up in. Burning everything down and calling it truth."

He exhaled slowly, then shifted tactics... the only way he knew how.

"The Covenant's supposed to tear down old institutions, yeah?" He said. "It'd be pretty fucking embarrassing if we just ended up becoming them."

Ace held the revolver out to her, grip first. Then he walked past her.

"You gonna make good on your word, Windrun?" He called back over his shoulder. "Make me your apprentice? Your partner?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

He pressed the barrel against her forehead, and she leaned in. Shy of half an inch, making sure it really dug in against her synthflesh.

She liked the way he spoke. The way his arrogance slipped through every word... each time clearer than the last. He didn't see it. How that self-assurance wrapped around him like a rope, threatening to hang him. She saw it because that was exactly the same place she used to be. Yeah, used to. Fighting in the Galactic Kaggath? It fucking changed her. She went from feeling invincible to seeing her own death in everything.

Even now, even as the trigger dared his finger to get a little rough, she saw death. But she wasn't afraid - she was ecstatic.

But then he pulled it away, the weapon roaring as an accelerated slug punched through a duracrete wall some dozen meters away. Her artificial ear rang as it adjusted to the sudden spike in noise.

"I won't kill you." He said flatly. "But don't think it's 'cause I can't. I'm not repeating the same cycle of bullshit I grew up in. The one you grew up in. Burning everything down and calling it truth."

She frowned.

"Yeah - I keep my word," she answered calmly and snatched the revolver away like he was a kid. "Apprentice," she snickered.

Her amusement ended, because there was something she meant to add.

"But you're only half right," she turned to keep her eyes on him. "We're not just here to tear shit down, we're here to end The War."

The only war that ever mattered for Jedi and Sith.

"Anyway... Don't be shy. I also said I'd answer any questions you have. So go ahead... Use me." She hinted at her suspicions.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Arris Windrun was a lot of things: volatile, ruthless, catastrophically sure of herself... but at least she kept her word. That counted for something. Not much. But something. When she snatched the revolver back and called him Apprentice, his mouth twisted faintly, like the word left a bad taste. Made his skin crawl, but a foot in the door was still a foot in the door, even if it reeked.

He continued on as she spoke again.

End The War.

Whatever loose, half-dismissive posture he'd been holding slipped away. His attention locked fully onto her now, dark eyes settling on her face with a sharpness that hadn't been there a second ago. That wasn't rhetoric. Not to her. She'd said it like a proper noun. Like something specific. Old.

"The War?" Ace repeated, slow. Then, a frown creased his brow. "You mean the Core War?" He glanced briefly, instinctively, toward the burning skyline behind them. "We just ended it. Today."

He looked back at her, searching for the catch he knew had to be there. She mentioned answering questions. Any questions. For a second, his mind flooded with questions and curiosity. Too many to choose from. So he chose the one she'd just put in his hand.

Ace straightened slightly, voice even, controlled. "You're talking about something else, aren't you?" He said. "When you say The War."

His gaze didn't leave hers.

"Start there."

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

"Honestly?"

She pondered it.

Admittedly, Arris knew very little about the Jedi and Sith, or the history between them, but she knew what Tilon told her. She picked up on more from her travels and within the Covenant. What drove them - the Dark Side... has been driving Sith for longer than anyone can remember at this point; Ancient history.

"It ain't personal to me," as if trying to write herself out of the picture already, "but what else?" She asked, as if rhetorical, but elaborated anyway.

"None of this ends until the Light is defeated."

And maybe that wouldn't be with the Covenant. But it didn't matter. Arris knew that much. Though unlike the Empire within the Blackwall, the Covenant waged an active and direct war against the Jedi. And now that Coruscant and the Core Worlds have fallen to them, the Dark Side will be stronger than ever.

All the people in the core. All trillions of them lived under a state of Sith Anarchy. Their fear, their greed, their suffering, and hate... It would go unchecked. It would spiral and permeate across the galaxy, weakening those who relied on the Light while strengthening those who reveled in Darkness.

Maybe what the Covenant did was driven by Mercy's Kaggath with Solipsis. Maybe many of them were along for material gains.

But it didn't matter. What the Covenant won wasn't Coruscant - it was a state of control. They shifted The War well into the Dark Side's favor.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace absorbed everything she said without interruption. By the time she finished, he understood. This wasn't about the Core War, the Empire, or even the Covenant. It was about the old one. She'd called it "defeating the Light" but to him? It was just the Force.

Ace exhaled through his nose, slow. "Oh." He said quietly. "That one."

His eyes drifted briefly before settling on her again. He'd grown up on stories: half-myths, half-warnings Red used to tell him late at night. Jedi. Sith. The Second Hyperspace War. Names that sounded bigger than life, like legends you weren't meant to touch.

Then the Force found him. A year of firsthand experience. A year of being thrown headfirst into it: Jedi who preached balance, Sith who reveled in dominance, both convinced they understood the truth of it. He was still learning, sure, but he'd seen enough now to know the shape of the game. Enough to stand across from someone like Arris and not feel out of his depth.

"Ambitious." Ace said after a moment. Then, evenly, "Or arrogant."

His dark eyes didn't leave her.

"You really think the Covenant has what it takes to end a conflict that's been going on for…" He paused, searching for the right scale. "What? Thousands of years?"

The question wasn't mocking. It was measured. And internally, the answer was already there. If that war ever ended, It wouldn't be in their lifetime. Philosophical wars like that didn't get endings. They got chapters.

He shifted his weight, attention narrowing again as he circled back to what she'd said earlier.

"You said it's not personal to you." Ace continued. "So why waste your time? Just to reap the benefits along the way?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

"I don't think you get it."

Arris drew a fresh cigarette and lit it. "Kattada was..." Painful. "A whim - Desevro was a whim. The fight with Solipsis was a whim," she added.

She exhaled a haze of foul smoke. "Genarius was a job," she posited with a shrug. "But we took it on a whim."

Another drag. "Chandrila? That shit wasn't planned, not really. Vestra just wanted to prove herself... on a whim."

"Tapani - Coruscant..." She turned away from him and looked up to watch the smoke cloud her sight. "Don't you see?"

Arris dragged again and sighed it slowly. "If nobody stops us at our impulses," She looked over her shoulder at him, "who will stop us once someone figures out how to run this show?" There was something almost sorrowful in her tone.

The cyborg began to teeter and then fell backwards with a thud. For anyone organic, it would've been uncomfortable, maybe concussive, but not her. As Arris fell, she brought the cigarette to her lips mid-motion and landed with her arms folded behind her head.

"I think... I think I'm here because I'm broken." She turned to look at him from her new angle. "How about you?"

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace's attention sharpened when she said he didn't get it. Then she went on about... whims. The words lodged somewhere unpleasant and stayed there.

Kattada. Desevro. Solipsis. Genarius. Chandrila. Tapani. Coruscant. Horrific moments, now reframed as nothing but impulses. Not strategy. Not doctrine. Not some grand, coherent vision of the future. Just… because they felt like it.

The realization actually horrified him. All of it. Entire systems shattered, worlds scarred, people erased, not because they had to, but because no one stopped them when the urge hit. Because the odds were bad and someone wanted to see if they could beat them anyway.

Ace had thought the Covenant was dangerous because it was ambitious. This was worse. They were dangerous because they just felt like it. When she question who'd stop them once someone actually learns to lead. Comes in with a plan. He felt the truth of it land with a dull, sick weight. She wasn't boasting. She wasn't threatening. She was identifying a future problem.

And beneath it, threaded through the smoke and cynicism, he heard it: sorrow. Not self-pity. Something quieter. Something that sounded uncomfortably like warning.

Then he heard the thud. Ace turned as Arris toppled back, watched her hit the ground and settle there. He studied her for a moment; arms folded behind her head, cigarette still burning, before his gaze lifted again, drawn back to the Force storm churning overhead.

Broken, she'd said. His eyes stayed on the sky when she said it, surprised despite himself by how easily it came from her. How casually she offered it up, like a diagnosis instead of a confession. When she asked him the same question, his gaze lowered.

He didn't answer right away.

"I came here to survive." Ace said at last, lying through his teeth. "And… 'cause I believed in it. Living for yourself. Tearing down the old institutions... at least, I thought I did."

He swallowed, the next part quieter but no less real.

"Now I don't know anymore. Don't know what I'm turning into."

That part wasn't a lie. Finally, he looked at her properly.

"Okay." Ace said. "You're broken. Everyone is, in some kind of way." His mouth twitched, humorless. "So what, misery loves company? 'Cause everyone else here's screwed up in their own special way too?"

He let the words sit, then looked back to the sky, as if waiting to see which of them it would swallow first.

Arris Windrun​