Arrived in: Scorched Earth (
http://starwarsrp.net/topic/136853-scorched-earth/#entry1868997
Wearing: 451 Suit (
http://starwarsrp.net/topic/136742-451-suit/)
Armed with: Heliosphere (Curved Hilt Lightsaber)
The Sith Lord had killed sixteen of them before they'd managed to take him alive. They weren't standard Republic Jedi, or what was left of them.
They weren't shadows. He knew that. He'd be dead by now otherwise. They had wanted him intact. Great care had been taken to make sure he was unharmed.
He'd been treated fairly, he'd admit. Three square meals a day, clean cell and clothes...no interrogation.
That last bit was a bad sign. It meant that they didn't need to ask him questions. But still, he'd been treated fairly. This made it creepier.
He was a slim, lanky figure, dressed much to a steadily growing worry in his black robes, a faint gray water pattern on the leather tunic. He had a gaunt face and yellow eyes, full of wrath. His brown hair was messy and unkempt. He liked it that way. Made people wary. His nose was bent from a barfight years before he had been a Sith.
They had come in green robes. Corellian? Nah. Didn't have the swagger. Besides, wasn't Corellia gone or something? It had been only twenty-five years since the Plague threat had ended. Information was spotty as hell. Everyone was barely coming out of all the post apocalyptic cheesy action horror those holodramas of old had always warned people about.
He didn't know what world it was. All he knew was that it was in the desert, under stars he did not recognize. He was led under restraint across a straight stone bridge, whose supporting pillars were stretching high, about eight stories above the dunes. The bridge connected to what resembled a great amphitheater carved into the mountain at the end of the bridge. He was escorted under guard by Mandalorians, all wearing stark white armor and white bodygloves underneath. They'd been there during the capture, and had provided the chemical cocktails and restraints that kept him compliant and incapable of breaking free.
It wasn't until he arrived at the Amphitheater and saw all the hooded men in long green robes wearing featureless white masks save for an image of a green pentacle with the ancient symbol of Ashla at the center, that he realized he was dealing with Consulars. His alarm increased rapidly.
Consulars were in 'his' line of work. Counteracting it, specifically. Or reverse engineering it.
"I have a bad feeling about this..." the Sith muttered in a coarse, Concord Dawn accent.
The white armored Mandalorians said nothing, carrying their golden blasters that were so chromed they gleamed with starlight. As he got closer he spotted a giant copy of their pentacle faces emblazoned on the cliff face in the faint light. They surrounded him in a semi-circle on raised seats carved from stone, simplistic and uneven.
At the center of the stone stage at the bottom of the theater was a wood effigy, unfinished looking, with symbols in black charcoal written around it that hurt the eyes to stare at. No. It couldn't be.
One hooded man, all in white, with a purple version of the Pentacle on everyone elses face on his white mask stepped from a croud of armed guards.
"Tell me..." the man asked in a calm baritone to the Sith, walking around the stone stage while the Sith was forced to his knees by the Mandalorians.
"Do you recognize what it is we have written on this stage?" The man in white asked.
"You've created a summoning alter..." The Sith answered. "And what you've written appears to be the Kolda-Bratha Calculus blended with Alkahest..."
"Ah, so you are familiar with it."
"Familiar enough to know how unfamiliar with it you must be, if you are mad enough to involve it in a summoning ritual..." the Sith spat dismissively. "Why have you brought me here?"
"You wish to leave this place alive?" The man in white asked.
"Wow, you get right to it, don't you?" The Sith asked with a smirk.
"Yes or No?"
"You want something...what?"
"Oh, that's very simple. We know you can summon Smoke Demons. We want you to summon one."
"I summoned a Smoke Demon before. Killed a lot of your men."
"And showed us your credentials." The Pentacle faced man replied, producing the Sith's curved hilt Lightsaber, a red and gold curved hilt modeled after the long dead Count Dooku.
"You would have me pervert The Bogan to your ends?"
"Yes. If you want to live."
"And if I summon the Smoke Demon, you'll set me free?" The Sith pressed, staring at the disturbing white clothed man.
"No. You must defeat what we turn it into. If you win, you go free."
The Sith narrowed his eyes. "What are you making?"
This elicited a chuckle from the man in white.
"You'll see..."
"I go free? No tricks?"
"No tricks."
The Sith, still on his knees, shrugged.
"Hell of a deal. I agree to your terms."
"Excellent. Summon it right at the center of the stage, where the effigy is."
The Sith looked at the effigy, noting a lock of red hair tied to the featureless head.
The Sith concentrated, washing his soul in darkness, letting it eat into him as he pointed, chanting:
"Woyunoks hadzuska koshûjontû..." came the first words.
Black Smoke erupted from the center, forming orange eyes made of lightning in the center of a spherical cloud.
The robed men and women in the seats chanted, singing of the glories of the light. The inscriptions around the effigy glowed green.
"A great day is upon us!" The man in white proclaimed as the sphere of smoke shivered in waves over its surface. "Jedi have attempted to create a great weapon for fighting the Dark Side. They have used lightsabers, arcane rituals, ancient artifacts. Once a group much like us attempted to create a perfect being of light, but instead made only a Force Vampire. But we have learned from their wretched mistake. While they used a man of the light as the main ingredient in their overambitious attempt, we will use a thing of darkness to make our empowered being, for unlike that group..." he trailed, watching as the smoke demon gave a scream as its smoke converted to fire and its sphere expanded, till it glowed like a star. Every one of them looked away.
"We don't want a perfect being of light. We want a weapon! And we shall give it one of the most powerful tools in the Galaxy to work its will. We will make from the element from which no civilization can survive without. Where there is smoke...there is FIRE!" the man in white exclaimed as the sphere of fire disappeared, revealing a somewhat bronze skinned woman with fiery red hair, on one knee, arms to the side, with her head bent. She was very curvy.
"Why is it a girl?" The Sith asked, genuinely confused.
The man in white shrugged, looked at the woman as she rose, and presented her with two silvery, flame patterned lightsabers.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" The Flame Geist asked in a low contralto as she held her blades, which were both blue when they snaked out of the hilt.
"What is your mission?" The Man in White asked.
"My mission is to destroy the followers of the Dark."
"You are about to fail that mission..." the Sith boasted on his knees as he was allowed to rise, the Man in White tossing him his lightsaber.
The Man in White turned back to the Flame Geist, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Terminate with Extreme Prejudice."
"It will be done my master..." The Flame Geist spoke, whipping her blades around her body defensively, born with her knowledge of Form Two.
"An impressive creation..." The Sith admitted with a sneer to the man. "I seem to have underestimated you lot."
The Man in White turned to the Geist.
"Make me proud..."
The Geist advanced, and The Sith struck with the ghostly swiftness of his own form two, and she parried with one blade, striking rapidly with the other, but he stood his ground, parrying with both hands and slashing savagely at her neck but she blocked, making an X with her blades and swiping them away, forcing him to retreat as she advanced again, barrowing some of Form One's doggedness in her assault on him. A blast of lightning from him did nothing to her...the enchantments on her shell absorbed the relatively average blast of electricity and she advanced relentlessly, blue blades whipped in fans around her body as a way to both defend herself and confuse him.
He switched to Shien still using his curved hilt, and struck at her viciously. The Geist parried, timing the blades and positioning herself as she parried to avoid as much of the kinetic energy of his attacks as she could, spinning around him and parrying the heavy vertical blows from his falling avalanche technique.
His fingers shot out and the naked Geist rolled out of the way on instinct, the stone floor behind her exploding from the invisible telekinetic spear from his hands. He was on her instantly, blade crashing down for her beautiful face, only for another X of blue plasma to block the killing strike and her kicking him back. He cried out in pure burning agony from her touch, stumbling backward.
"What foul being have you created?!" The Sith roared at the Man in White.
"Well, Gee, it was made of smoke and I 'did' mention fire..." the man answered.
The Geist rose, and the Sith's eyes widened as she levitated and flew at him at a very high speed, her blue blades crashing against his scarlet one and nearly scorching his shoulder. He snarled in rage and forced her back, throwing another, stronger blast of lightning at her, this one actually caused her flesh to ripple like water everywhere as it hit her, knocking one of her blades out of her hand. He increased the voltage, and she was forced to one knee, blocking with her remaining blade and grinding some of the lightning but not all of it.
"Screw this..." the Geist muttered, as the electricity began to creep towards levels that would actually endanger her shell. She held out her palm at him.
"Ashes to ashes..." the Sith mocked.
"Talk...to...the...HAND!" the Geist shouted, a blast of Fire erupting from her hands that was so large and moved so quickly that the Sith had no chance to move at such close range on the stage. He was forced to break the lightning, desperately throwing a barrier of energy around himself to avoid an intense blast of fire that would have killed him instantly otherwise. But the fire just kept coming, and the heat and pain began to creep through the barrier, survival instinct alone making him hold the barrier up. But the heat increased. The speed of the fires as they rushed over his slowly cooking body increased also. Finally the ceased, and the Geist, still winded from having used her power for the first time ever, knew she would have to finish this personally. The huddled, smoking figure of the Sith arose, curved lightsaber burned and fused to his grip but still active.
He struck, second degree burns all over his face, blisters already busted and leaking. She parried with both blades, ducking and whipping her left hand blade into his thigh, her other clipping off his sword arm. He screamed, dropping to one knee...and he laughed seconds later when her blades were around his throat. He turned to all the others.
"Kill it with fire...a simple if brutal logic."
"These are brutal times. Plague is barely over..." the Man in White acknowledged. "Brutal Logic sometimes has a place if you want galactic stability."
The Sith spat blood on the ground at this. "The same reasoning you criticize 'us' for."
"When the other side has a point, the other side has a point. Can't help that. Its our approach and ends that distinguish us." The Man in White argued.
The Sith spat again at this, turning to his killer.
"You are a slave. You will die a slave." he grunted at her defiantly.
"I do only what I was made for. I fufill my purpose..." the Geist replied stoically.
"You are nothing more than a weapon to be pointed at whatever they don't like! You are expendable to them! Utterly expendable, just like I am!"
"You are wrong. You are not expendable." The Geist asserted.
The Sith raised a burnt, melted eyebrow. "What am I, then?
Her blades severed his head from his shoulders. She stared at the body as it collapsed forward.
"You are...terminated..." The Geist answered, shutting off her blades.
The Man in White clapped his hands appreciatively.
"Well done, Ghost of Flames. By the power vested in me by this august body, these Resistors of Darkness...I hereby proclaim you a Jedi Knight and command you to go forth and bring purging fire to the Servants of Bogan wherever found, and to never stop, never cease in your mission. YOU! ARE THE FLAME GEIST!" he exclaimed, and the rest of the Consulars present rose, shouting in agreement.
"It will be done as you wish..." the Geist answered solemnly, kneeling as she was knighted, his green blade stopping above her shoulders.
"Hey, are we gettin' paid? Watching this kinda made us all hungry." One of the Mandalorians asked.
"We transferred the credits to your account half an hour ago. Would you care to stay for tea, warriors of Clan Hades?" The Man in White asked politely.
"Oh, yes! Tea sounds lovely!" The Mandalorian said with mild enthusiasm.
The Geist rose, but not before she pulled out the intact curved lightsaber of the Sith, burning the remaining flesh on it to carbon and wiping it off as she followed the Man in White...
The Geist snapped to reality, having been meditating in her quarters aboard her vessel, The Scorched Earth. The old Star Courier in orbit above Balamak while she gathered herself. She had not met to go back to that day, while meditating, but that unnamed Sith's words had come back at the worst time, where she was planning to interact, really interact for the first time with multiple members of her new sect of Jedi. The enclosure of the ship was no longer the welcome retreat, but a reminder of how cramped her prior conditions in that small chunk of nullification resin had been. She could not wait to get off this vessel, even if this place was chilly. But she had to meditate. She had to.
The Captains quarters was bare, more a chamber for meditation, silvery and bare and reflective as the metallic suit she was clad in, a red and gold skintight creation of hers. One of her many gifts in magic. The Geist headed to her cockpit, that Sith's Lightsaber still clipped to her belt, his synth replaced by her Solari crystal.
She had been invited to a festival...something that was definitely outside her comfort zone. But she knew its value from a diplomatic standpoint. Plus, it would allow her wider access to her new associates.
She was not sure where she fit in their ranks. She was knight level in skill, but her rank had been conferred on her by her creators in irregular circumstances. It might not necessarily be recognized, considering she had just joined.
Her orange eyes stared at the autumn leaves creeping through the trees as her heavily armed and armored starship streaked over the skies, setting down in a grass clearing, its fins in the back folding as the engine powered down. She headed down and out of the extended ramp, shivering in the wind, for it was unpleasantly cold. But merriment was everywhere, she observed as she walked past all these innocents she had been created to protect by roasting slaves of the darkness, unfamiliar with merriment personally. She didn't know what to do here. Weapons were not supposed to party.
The Geist was accosted by a localwoman giving out raffle tickets. She took one to be polite, but asked for a name so she could be called out when the raffle came.
The Geist thought a moment. Even weapons got personal names...sometimes.
"Oh, hell, after what I've been through, I've earned one..." she trailed thoughtfully before answering.
"Celsius. Syd Celsius."
The local nodded and Syd Celsius went to explore the fairgrounds, curious about what normal people considered 'entertainment'. She had no real concept of this. Tossing fireballs every chance you get was exciting enough. She noticed signs of a gigantic pumpkin and decided to go and see why this was so important. There were Dark Siders no doubt plotting death and destruction. The Mandalorians were murdering as usual. Thats what held her attention.
Well, that and this gigantic pumpkin.
She could not eat or drink anything, so she plucked a burning torch from its sconce, treating it like cotten candy and sucking a few wisps of flame from it into her mouth now and then as she walked through the festivities, feeling the presence of Jedi, and realized she was close to one.
Walking up to [member="Kiran Arlos"], who sipped Cider, Syd went up to him.
"Excuse me, are you going to the Giant Pumpkin?" The Geist asked stoically, orange eyes gleaming in the festival light. "I just got to Balamak and I'm lost. I'm Syd, by the way. Its nice to meet you."
