Visitation Rights.

[Torin Varik]

"Leave at once--!!"

Nejaa barked the order, interrupting Torin mid sentence. Taken aback, the padawan's head snapped to face his master in reaction. It was certainly not what he had expected to hear. Hazel eyes, pressed into a glare, lingered on the younger man as he disregarded the padawan's effort and concern completely with a cold shoulder. Leave? He couldn't just leave. He couldn't just let another Jedi die.

"Nejaa, I'm not leaving you here to face her by yourself. She--"

"Don't make me repeat myself, leave at once. You're nothing but a danger to me here. Find your ship, we'll need a reliable method of getting off world. The infiltrator cannot defend itself against a blockade in its current state."

For a moment, furrowed eyebrows dropped to either side to form a punished expression. It stung, like a verbal slap to what was left of his pride. Was this boy stupid or did he just not see it? Torin wasn't a danger to him. He was putting his life on the line to save him, to protect him. Despite this, he did make a good point. They would need a way out or here. And the Infiltrator had little left to offer. After witnessing his full potential with the force, Torin's faith that his master could hold off the enemy was looking more optimistic. At least until the pilot reached his ship. Still, the mysterious black fog that crept around the landing pad looked too intimidating to underestimate.

"Master--"

"Now."

There was no arguing with him now. There was nothing Torin could say that would change his stubborn mind. In his eyes, Torin was useless here. The only way to redeem himself (or to get a word in without being interrupted) was to get to his ship and be quick about it. Although the curtesy was never returned, he didn't take his eyes off Nejaa. He didn't like it. He didn't like the idea of splitting up at all. It was dangerous, risky, and too bold. But it was all they had left. He would just have to trust that he wouldn't come back to another corpse. After a moment of hesitation, he deactivated the red blade and stepped back.

"Fine." He tucked the lightsaber away. There was a shorter, sharper tone to his voice to match Nejaa's. "But you better be alive when I come back." A couple more steps backward before he turned and took off away from the fight and toward the landing pad where his Clawcraft was parked. The moment he turned away, Torin felt a sickening worry grip him as if he had made a very wrong decision.

[EXIT]​

[member="Nejaa Niynx"]
[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] Agony and confusion – she inhaled like she might take them in, assimilate these Jedi in to a kaleidoscopic tapestry of memory, of the things she looked back on when she fueled such creation in the future. It would be these two men she called to mind, the things she would do to them, the last final shudder of their bodies before they sank to oblivion. Taking the life of a Jedi was particularly sweet. Most people had fewer illusions about peace and existence than Jedi, more willing to see the galaxy for what it was. There was something delicious about the Light going out, that flash-in-the-pan disbelief that sucked down the drain with consciousness. That their last thought was the dissolving of everything they’d fought for gave her no end of pleasure.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Another huge pillar of smoke shot from the ground, stretching towards the canopy and taking anything with it – bodies, other branches, cutting molten lines to match her hatred. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Her only warning something was about to go wrong was a gutwrench right as the Jedi released his power. Within seconds her spell was aflame, a huge rush of oxygen whirling around her as a sudden inferno sucked it all from atmosphere. Her hair whipped around her face as she looked up in amazement, watching fire crawl up the highest of the pillars of dark energy. The tendrils writhed, collapsing in great, dangerous arcs that tore through the treetops, lighting foliage on fire – a sky of flame to oversee their battle. The energy burned, falling in molten flakes, dark but burning at the edges like scraps of paper. The smell of burnt flesh assaulted her, bodies roasted in the sheer blast of heat this ‘Jedi’ had showcased. This was entirely unexpected - exciting, interesting. Suddenly her spine was buzzing, crawling around her skull, animal adrenaline. The power behind what he'd just accomplished was enormous, his connection unable to hide when he used fire in such a way - he was incredibly powerful.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She could feel the padawan’s presence receding, a frown creasing her features as she caught a glimpse of her lone opponent, shimmering mirage-like in superheated air. The sound of the blaze was too loud for her to speak over so instead she reached out telepathically again.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “In this sense you are Jedi – weak because you care enough to send him away despite knowing it will kill you.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She tilted her head as she ‘spoke’, her expression curious. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “But no Jedi would shape fire as you do. Tell me, does your Order shun you? Is that why you weren't here to help them? Is that why you let Kashyyk slip out of their hands? Or do you live in fear of discovery?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She reached out, attacking his mind with a brutality only a truly well-versed mentalist could dedicate. She set out to destroy, to shoot through every lobe and turn his brain to pudding, leaking out of his ears to sizzle on the bark hot with the power he’d never wield again. Torture, an anguish she’d honed to exquisite perfection, feasting on all that kept him from the bliss of sleep at night. She held the desperation of a Galaxy in the palm of her hand, thousands of lifetimes worth of suffering. With his she would grow even stronger.[/SIZE]

[member="Torin Varik"] | [member="Nejaa Niynx"]​

 

[Darth Caedes]

Mid Rim;
Mytaranor Sector;
Near Kashyyyk Space.

So this was the power of a real sith. He hadn't thought it possible, but even the others once held as icons faded away. No Jedi had ever wielded a power of this kind, no self titled lord of the sith, either. From where he came, his powers were unprecedented and ridiculous, even feared and untrusted. But this, endlessly more refined and actually honed. The sky exploded over head, Nejaa's own attack cycling through and feeding its blast. Smells he hadn't wished to smell assaulted him, and smoke too, smoke which ravished Jedi he hadn't intentionally mangled. He couldn't help but flinch, reeling in the hand which produced the blast of fire as if out of startled pain. His palm had burnt white around the center, worse than ever before. In truth, he couldn't manage much beyond a gaping stare, the cyclones of flame whirling around this witch.

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]“In this sense you are Jedi – weak because you care enough to send him away despite knowing it will kill you.”

There wasn't a response to come immediately as there normally was. The voice echoed through Nejaa's head, whispered in Matsu's own tone as translated by the force. He knew not how to reciprocate such an ability, or even how to attempt it on his own, he was only able to understand. And speaking, as it ordinarily occurred, was useless against the inferno before him.

“But no Jedi would shape fire as you do. Tell me, does your Order shun you? Is that why you weren't here to help them? Is that why you let Kashyyk slip out of their hands? Or do you live in fear of discovery?”

How. How was she able to do it, and as if it were nothing to her. Nejaa's was a power which could smash the guard of nearly any Jedi, it had to be- at least any Jedi he'd ever met. Even the masters seemed frail against such brutality, but this woman, it was as if she manipulated his own flame with a level of skill far surpassing his own. Her words inspired rage, the kind which boiled from deep within. More instinctual.

There was no way. There was no way this woman- that anyone hovered comfortably this high above him. Above any of the Jedi. A firmly planted step initiated his attack, pivoting left in a short hop and spinning his body round with the provided momentum. His arms were let loose, fingers forming claws so as to grip the bodies of those fallen around him. Even after life, they might yet serve to attack this sith. Arms and legs first rose from the ground, chunks of gore, some of which barely recognizable. Then an entire torso, bodies, debris and the empty helmets of soldiers passed. Everything swung a sphere's path around him in his movement, another foot planting itself at an angle so as to continue the spin and collect more. More of the dead, more of his friends and masters.

"YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE!!"

Matsu had only to raise her arm, cast her fingers like the legs of a spider. He felt it first, then heard it, that screaming-pitched noise. His entire head swelled with a pain he had never felt before. Like a migraine which consumed Nejaa's entire spine and sent him staggering, one of the arms in motion retreating to grasp his head. Weak knees fought to continue stride, but it hurt to even keep his eyes open. Like they would burst if he tried any longer. More so to fall back than to attack, the remaining arm swiped forward casting what storm of bodies and filth he had picked up in a wall of mess and heavy things. A hissing shriek, and the second arm gripped at his forehead.

It didn't remain for long, a flickering moment of hesitation before his own hand launched forth and took a spider-like form. Similar, but not at all identical to Matsu's, and he wasn't entirely conscious of even what he was doing. But the answer came, even if he was too wrapped in a forced and deadly suffering to realize it. From the hands of a Jedi, conjured entirely from darkness even despite the light's presence, a thick shockwave of electricity screamed from Nejaa's fingertips. A Sith's lightning. Like whips or live snakes, odd angles spat the powerful attack towards his opponent, cut in spurts of momentary lucidity. The skin yet visible under his cloak tore itself back and forth, whisping between colors and textures as if he did not belong to any one species in the galaxy. Eyes wavering in both color and saturation. Even as he fell to his knees, a back arched in shattering pain, his arm remained outstretched and moved by the force. Every inch of him fought, the woman would be wrong. She had to be wrong.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

[SIZE=12pt] A wall of body parts. In another life where this man was on her side she might have admired such gruesomeness, the ability to put aside scruples in the name of victory. What was the integrity of a dead body? If she were to fall she hoped Reverance would rip her mechanical arms from their sockets, eject the claws and tear apart their enemies. She hoped he removed her head, winched vertebrae apart and carried her delicate little skull by the hair, holding her up as the reason he was exacting such retribution. What would it matter in death? What was the body but a vessel for some higher being?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu was not afraid of dying because she would never fall.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt] She would ascend.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] So when the lightning crawled up the arm she held clawed towards the Jedi, frying all the circuits up the entirety of the mechanical masterwork that composed her left side, she didn’t feel fear. She felt excitement. (come on, hit me with the worst you’ve got. let’s do this. make it hurt. let’s destroy each other, unrecognizable pulp, a mess of muscle and guts in the middle of all these less important than the need to devour) She would relish watching him give in even more than he already had, disappoint himself with that final sigh.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] The arm fell to her side, the sizzling malfunction of everything inside hissing in her ear. It wouldn’t respond to any signal she gave it. The steaks of energy he sent at her must have been exceptionally powerful to completely short her out and suddenly she felt laughter, long peals of something smooth that bubbled from deep in her chest. Her cheeks hallowed as she gathered her power, exaggerating the height of her cheekbones and the pout of her lips by virtue of their shadow as the veins shot through the whites of her eyes – demonic, a Baphomet in truth, a harbinger come to drown the world as was her namesake (goddess of the sea, the mind sea, the death sea) – the Final Beast. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] She didn’t need her hands for this, not when she’d done it dozens of times before.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] The wall of body parts seemed to have lost momentum when he went for his far more effective lightning technique. The former was throwing ammo at her – fallen parts she used anyway, whispering an incantation before the arms and legs he’d taken from his fellow Jedi reanimated and started crawling towards him. The shattered bodies they’d been torn from heeded her call as well, rising with death rattles, lungs pushing out final bursts of air propelled by unnatural movement. Bloody foam slopped from broken mouths, lower jaws dangling in a horrid mockery of speech, hands in claws as they tried to rip the living Jedi to shreds.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=16pt]how could you leave us here[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=16pt]leave us here to die[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=16pt]and when you come back you prove you weren’t one of us[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=16pt]not one of us, coward, coward[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=16pt]dark, unworthy, wrong, you shame yourself[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=16pt]twisted by the dark side, you disappoint us all[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=16pt]how did you get this way?[/SIZE]​

​

[SIZE=12pt] Matsu moved forward through the smoke and flame, still-functioning right hand clasping around the hilt of her sword. As much as she would love to fight him to the death the idea of sawing his pretty little head from his shoulders was equally as appealing.[/SIZE]

[member="Nejaa Niynx"]​