A Return Home[TRE Dominion of Korriban Hex]

[Natalie LaForte]

Location; Malachor V
Objective; Destroy
Allies; [member="Darth Abyss"]
Enemies; [member="Antherion], [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr][/FONT]
[COLOR=#ff1493][FONT=georgia]Neutral(?); [/COLOR][/FONT][FONT=georgia][member="Soeht"]

She had received the message in her mind and ever so obediently followed it, with her rifle already raised she aimed in, not so much in precision but to distract the adversaries infront of her, as several hundred bullets flew towards them in response, "Just give up. You're both as bad as the other" she giggled to herself while continuing to shoot, but she could see the Lion's hand moving, and a crack of lightning flew towards her. She smiled, looking at the scorch marks just below her feet.

"Is that all you've got, kitty? Let me show you how a girl plays."

She set the weapon to its stun charge before pre-firing into the cat's general direction, the tongs elongate from the under barrel and have a direct course for his torso, while this was happening, she outstretched a hand to him and closed her fist. A heavy weight would build on his shoulders, not a physical one, but an emotional one, but the ultimate effectiveness of this would rely on his ability to endure it with his mind, or simply shrug it off due to the acolyte's over-confidence in her abilities.

 

[grammaticus]

Corin's general plan was foiled the moment he felt the blade cutting at his legs. Destabilizing the room from a distance had been the goal, and then shatter the few remaining pillars using the force, and leave the Jedi to be crushed alive. However, he couldn't hide his excitement when the Jedi revealed himself, and a proper fight began.

The moment he felt the blade connecting with his body, he had thrown himself forward, but even the armor around his legs couldn't completely protect him. As he came up to a combat stance, igniting his saber, he felt the bottom of his pants dampen slightly from his own blood. "Finally decided to fight, Jedi? Excellent, lets see what you know." Before he even finished speaking, Corin threw himself forward once more, his blade arcing through the air in an underhanded slice at the Jedi.

However, before the blade could get close, he flipped his body, the blade no going away from the Jedi, and allowing Corin to bring his armored left elbow at the Jedi's head.

[member="Elijah Henson"]

 

[Garza]

Korriban - Leave

I found myself laying on the floor. Dust and dirt embedded into my cheek and my neck. My entire body hurt. I felt as though I had been ran over with a speeder, then beaten with it by a Gen'dai. I felt exhausted. Groaning as I rolled over to my back, I found that it was very difficult to move. My body wanted to just lie there and take one hell of a nap for a few thousand years. Looking up at the top of the dark room, I could see that all the dust that had been throw up from the altercation with the ghost and myself, had started to fall upon me like snow. Drifting back down on me as though I were on Hoth.

Turning my head left, I saw my sword on the ground. Already partly covered in dust. Looking to my right, I saw an impact in the stone. Almost as though someone that had been standing there exploded. I shook my head and slowly leaned up. Pushing up with my arms, and trying with all that I had.

Finally being able to sit up I reached over and grabbed my sword. Pulling it over, I lazily sheathed it. Crawling up into my knees. I eventually stood up. I almost fell over and had to lean up against the door. My head pounded and felt like it was going to blow up like a melon after being show with a blaster. Shaking my head, I tried to do what I could to clear my head.

So, I had to discover what in the hell I just did. Walking over to the door, I waved my hand. It opened with a loud crumbling sound. Walking through the hall, and back out through the tomb, I needed to head back home. I was done here.

[Exit]

 

[TB-705]

MALACHOR V

Something came over his pallid ally. Thengil could feel it in the Force, like an infectious disease leaking from [member="Darth Abyss"] and into @Antherion. The human seemed to fight it off, though his hover chair swerved. Two knives zipped from Abyss and buried themselves in the chair's back.

An unknown figure in the stands made himself known by voicing something incomprehensible. Thengil growled low. That presence feels familiar... Soeht?

Thengil growled low, as a sense of danger tingled across his neck. His eyes flicked back down to the arena, tracking the woman as she opened fire on him, while simultaneously trying to do... something else. He felt a meddler scrape at the door to his mind, seeking to alter his thoughts. Thengil's lips curled down in a sneer.

Pathetic.

He flicked his paw, imbuing the motion with an exertion of will, and nudged the barrel of the female's gun to one side with the Force. Awry shots whinged by, missing him only by centimeters. The air filled with the scent of discharged tibanna.

The feline's paw squeezed shut and he sought to crumple the barrel of the weapon into a useless wreck.

[member="Serenity Loveheart"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

"Why are you here outsider? This matter does not concern you."

Abyss felt the strange presence creep up on his mind, a darkness that had suddenly appeared in the arena he picked as battlefield for malachors fate. That was unexpected, but from the incomprehensible burst of what were once words and now simply echoing fragments of the dark side he couldn't yet tell on which side this figure stood if on any at all.

There was little time to focus on that possible problem, at least as long as there was no problem. For now striking down [member="Antherion"] and [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"] was the more pressing matter. The cripple was pushed back already, mainly because he was in fact a cripple, and the little cat was focused on fighting his apprentice. Both would make a good target, but splitting his focus when he wasn't forced to do so would only make his next action less effective.

The cripple had been the one to oppose him on his own turf, the one who threatened what he had build, so he would be the first to suffer in return. A simple mental blast had already proven to be effective, and his physical incapacity to move quickly played into Abyss cards as well. Once he was discarded the cat would follow, and then maybe the powerful presence, even if he hoped that this demonstration of power would be enough to gain its favor.

His left reached to his back, while his right extended and framed a claw aimed at the man in the chair, while the crown on his head began to glow. Mentalism was normally a subtle, very precise and time consuming art but Abyss had discovered a handful ways to make it a viable option in a direct fight. His crown wasn't some simple trinket but an artifact forged to store the minds he devoured. Instead of trying to rip his opponents mind apart, he proceeded to channel the strength of his mind in a flood of hundreds of unrelated thoughts and memories, some of death, some of horror, some of failure and some of defeat, meant to bury the man's mind below it.

Then his left hand pushed forward, throwing a cryoban grenade at the man in the wheelchair. A emp or ion grenade would've been more useful but the extrem cold could still cause trouble with the machine that allowed his adversary to move around.

[member="Serenity Loveheart"] [member="Soeht"]

 

[Ras'kala'han]

So this was why they called him Mindeater. That was one of the thoughts that passed through Antherion's head. The others were encircling him - threatening to overwhelm his focus and disrupt him. It was as though his mind was enveloped in a storm - grey clouds pressed around him, discordant whispers screamed in his ears, and visions clouded his eyes. All five of his senses were, from millisecond to millisecond, in different places at different times.

Antherion had whirled around - the sparks in his hands dimmed. They faded to a faint, blue light wreathing his fingertips as he closed his eyes, tilting his head upwards, refusing to betray the pain he had earlier. He heard some sort of rolling or clicking underneath him - and ignored it. He had to focus. And as he did, in the moments between the grenade's landing and its detonation, seconds flowed a

Despair. Horror. Failure. Death.

You called me broken.

You will fall, and crumble to ashes. You are nothing. You are bleeding, your body shattered over the sands. You are burning, your eyes running out of their sockets in liquid form.

You think me weak.

You are weak. Weaker than you can fathom. Your sister locked you away, and that was the day you died. As civilizations were born and slain, parts of you necrotized and crumbled, and what crawled out of your coffin that day on Oricon was a toxified corpse that was fit for nothing but the worms. He was underneath a monsoon of unwelcome thoughts. No - not intense enough. He was buried beneath a mountain. He was sealed at the center of a black hole. Mindeater, you have eaten a mind.

You made one mistake.

Death would be better than living like this. You will be enslaved again. You are just as though father had wanted you. His own, perfect 'legacy'. Playing the game of Empires at the feet of Purebloods.

You thought you could wear me down.

For four thousand years, he had waited in endless nightmares. For four thousand years, he had been buried, and in his dreaming death, learned patience beyond patience. Discipline that lay behind discipline. Despair was as air to breath. Fear was his oldest friend. Loneliness, his bread, failure, his wine. If [member="Darth Abyss"] wanted him to bend the knee he would have to show him something new.

Opening the darkness of his own mind, Antherion accepted the flood Abyss offered, welcomed it, and sought to use it to draw Abyss into the pit of his own psyche - a swirling void of cold calculation. He would test the man's patience, seek to drag his seconds out into aeons. Submerged in the depths of Antherion's own subconscious absence, he would find moments spanning into eternity, imprisoned in the mindbreaking infinities between seconds.

The grenade? In around a second, if Thengil did nothing, it would detonate and utterly disrupt Antherion's chair and concentration.

| [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"] | [member="Serenity Loveheart"] | [member="Soeht"] |

 

[Klesta]

Location: Elom's orbit
Objective: Get out of the system
Post: 8/38

I did what I could: better to live and fight another day than to be mindlessly slaughtered here, she thought, while the coordinates of the destination they called a rendezvous point were transmitted to the rest of the wing. The fighter craft was to head to Maridun: far enough to evade the Resurgent Empire's patrols but close enough not to need to refuel before arriving there. Meanwhile, on the ground, there was a barricade in place, running the whole width of the cave overture where the base used to stand, but there were no Kaleesh in that region of the mountain range. Perhaps resistance was stiffer inside the city, or has otherwise spread to other regions of the planet that did not include the region in which the cave base was. Now that the squadrons were in position to leave system unnoticed, they all made the jump to hyperspace, and they open the encrypted private ACARS channel.

"What did we achieve on Elom by engaging the enemy vanguard and then simply running away like this?" Pixie asked Yula and Daisy.

"Remember, Porkins, Fairytale, on a strategic level we are nothing more than just hit-and-run units: by now the Resurgent Empire will think I am a priority target for their starfighter pilots - they think we serve the Sith Ascendancy, but we serve neither faction"

"Tell me, you always talk about how you joined the Commonwealth because you turned your back the Sith Order, but why do you think your enmity carries over to their splinter factions? And why did you even betray the Sith Order in the first place?"

"The Sith Order was interested solely in butchery and explosions back then, ruling over a graveyard would do them no good. Yutan was an operation where the functionality of their protocol was questionable: I could very easily have achieved these objectives better than they did"

Attack craft:

Spoiler

47 Yutan stealth fighter-bombers

 

[Soeht]

Malachor V – A Promise Not Forgotten​

Soeht watched. [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"] attempted to twist [member="Serenity Loveheart"]’s gun barrel with the Force. [member="Darth Abyss"] attempted to dominate @Antherion’s mind while sabotaging the boy’s hoverchair with a grenade.

It seems poiņt͝l͏ess͜now.​

Soeht’s voice declared, as if his mouth was next to the fighter’s ears.

But I have not f́or͏g̨ot͢t͢en͘ ̀my p̵̶͟r̸̡͜ǫ͜m̵͞͡͠i̶͜͡҉͏s̛͟͞͏̕e̢͞.​

Arcs of crimson lightning danced around Soeht’s right arm. The target was soon apparent as he pointed his arm toward Darth Abyss.

E҉ve͘n ͞if

Ar͏e uņaw͜are.​

Electricity erupted from Soeht’s fingertips. A tremendous amount of power soared toward Darth Abyss. Yet, he would know its purpose.

And become aware of the truth.

 

[Connor Harrison]

ENGAGING: [member="Electroheart"]
--
A thick cybernetic arm came down to bat her hands away, and his other grabbed the blade, which again took her by surprise. Cybernetics it seemed were a wonderful advantage over flesh and blood.

In that split second, his head cracked against hers. Her right leg buckled slightly at the impact as she rocked back, but she fed from the pain at once. Closing her eyes and feeling the wet trickle of blood down her face – where it came from wasn’t important; eyebrow, temple, nose…it was all the same.

It only enraged her further, and so she let the unstable Jedi/Sith genetics take over.

As the sparks flew from her blade, she killed it and brought the hilt across the mans’ face. With her strike, she ducked under his arm and came up behind him, back to back. With a snarl, her arms went around his head and throat and she lunged, hoping to bring him down and break a few bones in the process, unwavering and unwilling to even consider a loss or a surrender.

 

[Vilaz Munin]

Location: A ship
Allies: Sith [member="Vrak Nashar"] [member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]
Enemies: Jedi
Objective: Get Chris that Hex
Post count: 5/20

"It's a shame that it's not as much as I wanted," the warrior replied back to the Sith as he was informed that the resistance was small in size. He didn't mind how big or small it was, but he would have required some men of the Sith if the conflict was on a large scale.

A few Jedi were something that Vilaz could handle with ease and without breaking a sweat.

"And I'll be back with dead Jedi, Sith," and maybe some Padawan braids adorning his right shoulder and some collected lightsabers.

"Lead the way, Twi'lek. I've been itching to kill some Jedi," the Mand'alor regarded to the good looking alien before him, finding no interest in her whatsoever.

 

[H3xle]

Elom

Waide woke with his body screaming with pain, yet he didn't make a sound. Blinking something out of his eyes, he reached down and pushed himself up. His hand slipped into the wound he'd created on his masters side, then came away sticky with blood. Waide ignored it and stumbled away. Each step hurt worse than the last, and his body was covered by clothing that was useful for rags only, and dust from the impact. He tripped over the small lip of the crater his massive master had made on impact. His knees buckled, and he rolled to the ground and lay on his back in the dust. Buildings rose up around him, and people began to trickle out to see what had happened. They looked from the massive creature in the crater to his battered form. The look in their eyes was equal parts incredulous and fearful.

Slowly, Waide got to his feet. Fighting between the pain and laughing at the looks on their faces as he made his way through the crowd. He used the pain from his wounds to help focus his energies. He drew the dark side to him like an old friend, and began to speed up his wounds recovery while looking around. He needed to find clothing, then locate where he was. He knew his master and he had come here for a mission, but he couldn't remember what it was. He stumbled through a fairly slummy part of the city until he found a small secluded green space in between a series of tennement housing. Clothing hung on lines, and there was a wash basin in the middle. Waide quickly washed the dust and blood from him, then stole some clothing and donned it. Garbed in a dark tan tunic and black pants with a wide belt, Waide pushed onward.

 

[Darth Ferus]

Pointless.

That's all this fight was.

Krest had watched, listened, and was disappointed. The Sith had always devolved into combat, and whats more another outsider was trying to fuel the combat to a breaking point. To force death and destruction on his own. There were Jedi in the system. Rebels elsewhere. Traitors hiding. There were foes to pay attention to, and then there was this. From the shadows the Assassin stepped out, his gaze falling upon [member="Serenity Loveheart"] , to [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"] , to [member="Antherion"] , to [member="Darth Abyss"] , and to [member="Soeht"] .

With a casual wave of his hand the Zabrak took the grenade beneath Antherion and tossed it to the corrupter Soeht. Let him deal with the explosion. His focus was his allies. Abyss, and Antherion. Two close allies within the Sith fighting to kill. No, that would not do. The Force welled around him, and with both hands he would simply try to grip the pair and throw them away from one another.

 

[Darth Abyss]

[member="Antherion"]'s mind reached deep, but the one of the mindeater was a endless, empty void. With every step he had taken towards transcended time had become more and more meaningless, the further he moved away from his humanity and closer to the force his mind became indifferent to seconds, minutes and hours, lost in the eternity that was the abyss of darkness that raged on within him. He was about to channel the power of his mind yet another time.

All of a sudden Abyss could feel as power pumped through his body, he felt as his muscles became tense, he felt as pure darkness surged through every vein, every cell that he was composed of. From one moment to another he was empowered, the darkness living inside of him even more intense. Yet before he was able to channel this new found power to crush his opponent's mind into a million little pieces he was found by an invisible hand, his body being dragged away and his focus broken apart.

The short flight ended with Abyss on one knee, with little to no delay to return to his feet. Corruption was written even more on his face then before, and a mindless, violent anger emerged inside of him. The voice of the mindeater echoed through the arena, first just a whisper, then slowly becoming a hundred voices of minds long lost speaking in a twisted chorus, as the abyss opened a final time, the crown on his head glowing bright enough to shine through the dark hood above it.

"Enough. Enough. Enough. Enough. EnoughEnoughEnough."

Abyss left extended, once more a claw aimed at the center of the warcry. Yellow eyes glowed below the mask, that of an animal and not those of a man. Again the echo broke through the arena, this time without him even opening his mouth.

"LeaveLeaveLeave my worldworldworld, or all of you will be devoureddevoureddevoured"

The abyss made no difference between friend or foe, it was simply an endless darkness that threatened to swallow each and every emotion, thought and memory to close to it, until nothing but emptiness would be left.

[member="Krest"] [member="Soeht"] [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"] [member="Serenity Loveheart"]

 

[TB-705]

Malachor V​

​

They came, crawling out of the woodwork like roaches. First [member="Soeht"] and now this interloper who sought to challenge both [member="Antherion"] and [member="Darth Abyss"]. Worming forward on his belly like an earthworm emerging from the muck at the rainfall of power. Scavengers sniffing at the edges, wondering what tablescraps of might they might pick up.

Severance made you a scavenger, returned you to the rank of tyro to slither in the mud with the rest of them.

Revulsion.

I am not them.

Denial.

Eddies of doubt swirled around, rife with disgust for these castoffs to ambition. Who was this Abyss but a pale shadow of Xiangu's terror? And Soeht, nothing more than a parasite seeking to maintain relevance through his "gifts." Thengil now recognized the interloper as Krest, an assassin who came and went, never rising to prominence, never aspiring to anything more than to be used as a tool. All three sat downstream, slurping the runoff of storied peers.

Thengil's lips twitched violently.

I will not sit idle and drink refuse with the rest.

Lightning from Soeht struck Abyss, transfigured him into a pariah of the light. Apotheosis.

A horrible scream tore from the robed specter. Thengil heard it in his head, a banshee wail that sought to tear his mind to ruin. The feline doubled over, skull throbbing, brain on fire. He felt his thoughts drain toward a whirlpool of emptiness. No pain there, only the numbness. The scream drove him there, like a howling wind, promising peace in the absence of existence.

It terrified Thengil.

Adrenaline flowed. The fear raced through his thoughts, his nerves, galvanizing action.

Thengil sucked in a gasping breath of air, then flung his head back, bore his fangs, and loosed a primal roar from his maw that shook the arena. The sound rippled outward, covering the whole of the area like the overpressure shockwave of a bomb blast. The roar was unnatural. In nature, any such bellow might paralyze prey with fear, but here the roar was instilled with some ethereal power to shock even sentients to their core and render them, for a moment, no more than the mute doe stunned fast by hunter's roar.

[member="Krest"] | [member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Serenity Loveheart"] | [member="Soeht"] | [member="Antherion"]

 

[Natalie LaForte]

Location; Malachor V
Objective; Destroy
Allies; [member="Darth Abyss"]
Enemies; [member="Antherion], [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr][/FONT]
[COLOR=rgb(255,20,147)][FONT=georgia]Neutral(?); [/COLOR][/FONT][FONT=georgia][member="Soeht"] [member="Krest"]

The weapon moved, not because he was forcing it, but because she was going along with his plan. Although it would mean she would have to face a much tougher adversary, she already knew the odds were in her favour. "If you must disarm me to kill me, are you even a warrior?" with a grin she continued to struggle against the movement of his force, sporadically firing in seemingly random directions still infront of her; she saw a weakness in his plan, his concentration could be broken simply by firing a more accurate shot at him; at least she hoped.

So the stun setting she charged earlier fired, with the hope of the sedative like curse she had placed under him combined with the inherent flaw with his combat style being enough to slow his movement to the point of where they would connect and send electric shocks down his spine, whether that happened was again, dependent on these factors.

But as it fired, the rods extending from the weapon, the very same darkness that enveloped her in her training was made present during her training boomed. Looking down to the communicator, opening it for possibly the final time and connecting with her sister. "Get. Me. Out. Of. Here. Now." but in her own anger, the force overwhelmed her and hit the communicator out of her hand and smashing on the stone below.

She dropped the weapon, whether it connected or not really of no concern anymore as the colours from her iris drained, almost in response to the feline's primal rage. Regardless of whether or not her sister actually sent assistance in the form of a pickup, or at the very least, a distraction to get out of this place, also lost her interest. An incessant desire to cause pain overcame her, brandishing the lightsaber with its blue sparkle coming around it.

It was quite a contrast to any force user, the crystal within the beam was pure meanwhile the beholder; filled with corruption and hatred, but perhaps this very contrast was the reason to why she didn't bleed it, causing a painful crimson into it. No. She mocked the Jedi in their purity, and despite none being present, was the true reason why she still carried it.

"Let's play." As she ran towards the cat in a defensive position.

 

[Elijah Beckett]

Location: Elom, Elos City. [In the northern tunnels beneath.]
Allies: [member="Bethany Kismet"] | [member="Electroheart"]
Enemies: [member="Joon"] | [member="Darth Pyrrhus"] | [member="Zakir Thaun"]
In Scene With: [member="Corin Zanith"]

You have a distinct disadvantage whenever going against a Sith or Dark Jedi. If it can be avoided, never enter in direct combat with them. Yeah, that's gone well so far.

Elijah was focused as the Sith lurched towards him. He swiftly twisted his body out of the path of Corin's underswing, firmly planting his feet to the ground as he pivoted away from the blade that would've bisected him. With his attention on the blade though, Elijah barely caught sight of the elbow heading his way until it was nearly too late. He brought an arm up - initially intending to catch the blow with his hand, but his delayed response meant the armored elbow struck his forearm instead.

He hissed in pain as he felt the blunt impact hit bone and muscle. Though not desiring to be any closer to the Sith than necessary, Elijah quickly sheathed his blade and with his free hand delivered a Force blast to Corin's torso, sending the Sith away from him.

With some distance between them again, Elijah took the moment to check his arm - running his hand over it and pressing a few fingers against the area of impact. Yeah, that's fractured alright.

Yeah right now, Elijah was wishing he was wearing armor too. Returning his attention to Corin, Elijah got ready for the next attack. This time though when Elijah unsheathed his dagger, he thumbed the button on its hilt and the weapon's vibrocell hummed to life - the blade itself began to vibrate ready to tear into whatever it cut.

If you do happen to enter direct combat, never go on the attack. A lightsaber is a dangerous weapon to go against.

"Come on then Sith, surely you're not going to let someone with a dagger get the best of you."

Goading him was probably not the best solution either.

 

[grammaticus]

Corin planted his feet in the ground, slowing himself down from the Jedi's push. The moment he came to a halt, he brought his blade up in a guard position, in case the Jedi decided to launch a follow up attack. He wasn't entirely surprised to see the Jedi simply standing there. The Jedi teachings he knew told of a more defensive and passive approach.

The Jedi's words sparked Corin's anger. He usually kept it controlled until it was needed, but the arrogance this Jedi was projecting irked him. Corin brought his lightsaber in front of him, having it parallel to the floor. He pressed a second button on the hilt, and a second crimson blade came out of the opposite end of the saber.

"You don't have a chance here, Jedi. Elom has fallen. Your death shall have no great meaning or value in the end." Walking forward, Corin began to spin the saber, the crimson blades arcing through the air, and changing directions quickly as Corin kept changing his movements. While he was doing this, distracting the Jedi's main view, he briefly flicked out his hand, picking up a chunk of a fallen pillar, and sending it flying towards the Jedi's side.

In the same moment, he lurched forward, the crimson blades cutting through the air towards him.

[member="Elijah Henson"]

 

[Ras'kala'han]

Location: Malachor V, The Warcry
Allies: [member="Krest"], [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"]
Adversaries: [member="Darth Abyss"], [member="Serenity Loveheart"], [member="Soeht"]
Objective: Survive.

The first question in Antherion's mind was 'how'. As in, how could Abyss outlast him? His mind by all rights should have been unable to function after having its perception of time so drastically altered, the man should be drooling and twitching on the floor, not making deific proclamations -- but as curious as that was, miracles were the stock and trade of the Dark Lords, and he had to continue. His mind ran through the alternatives, he honed his focus to an edge as he prepared to offer the counterattack...

Then, there was a flurry of swift movement. Antherion felt his chair shift backwards from unexpected interference, as though dragged by an invisible hand, the grenade underneath him rebounded, and worst of all by far, one of their previously unnoticed observers bathed the Darth in a ray of crimson power than saw the Mindeater's fearsome power begin to grow geometrically.

He gripped the edges of his chair.

"LeaveLeaveLeave my worldworldworld, or all of you will be devoureddevoureddevoured"

Antherion's eyes widened with horror. This was not the action of a civilized being. This was like Voracitos... or worse. They were, in the end, the equals, and his superiors. The one thread in common was that their humanity had been annihilated by the Dark Side.

He felt, more and more, inconvenienced by his own mortal nature.

He stood, transfixed. Power bled outwards from him, his very essence being ravened by the void that was opening up in front of him. He had something to say - the tip of his tongue - he had to run - uncertain - it was Thengil's roar that brought him to focus. The Force Scream had been intended to disrupt focus, but it at the very least brought awareness back to the core of his being, recalling him from the shadows he had been sinking into.

"You... you can't." He panted with exhaustion, looking at Abyss with an expression of contempt. "My mistake was believing that you held any leverage when our fleets are above your cities. Kill us and no one speaks to the Master on your behalf, and Malachor burns. Try to enslave us? We're expendable, they'll gladly incinerate us if it wins them a planet. The Sith are merciless, we are no exception."

He was shouting now, clinging to his vessel, and to scant and vanishing hope. He had spent his mental energy to simply survive, he could sustain no further combat.

"This duel is pointless. Malachor belongs to the Empire. You only decide whether we claim it whole, or whether you see everything you built crumble --"

He spread his arms outwards, vulnerable. Defenseless, crippled, and spent, tired beyond weariness. "I call your bluff. No more duels. No more games. Negotiate or you will lose all that you have built."

This was his last gambit. The last thing he could muster. He only hoped it was enough.

 

[Leos Palle]

Location: Elos, Elom
Allies: [member="Bethany Kismet"] and [member="Elijah Henson"]
Enemies: Legion
Engaging: [member="Joon"]

His head connected, and he'd strengthened his to soften the blow, though his ears still rang quite a bit from the impact. Regardless, it had done its job and caused her to bleed further. Sith, he knew, drew on their pain to strengthen themselves, but ultimately that strength also weakened them. It was temporary, and if he could endure her surge, he would win the fight through attrition. Hurt her more, whittle her down, leave her a mess unable to harm those who couldn't protect themselves. He wouldn't kill her. Oh, part of him wanted to because that would be the only way to end the threat that she was, but he wouldn't do it because he knew Bethany wouldn't want him to.

In his regained composure he was smacked across the face with her lightsaber hilt, causing his lip to crack and bleed. A small price to pay. And then she was behind him, her hands reaching up to wrap around his neck and chin. His first instinct was to reach a hand up and grab hers, which he did, but she was starting to pull him down. He pivoted his body before fully losing his center of gravity and fell down on his side, his other hand taking the brunt of the impact. Though it would bare scrapes, and his shoulder was now in a lot of pain, it hadn't broken bone. There was likely torn tissue where the metal connected to skin, as evidenced by the blood that started to ooze through his clothing there.

He reacted quickly, biting through the pain, by spinning himself about to bring one leg up and around with the intention of slamming it into her midsection. This, if it worked, would allow him to further pivot, if he wished, atop her. Each move needed to be designed to lead to the next, or you would get caught in a cycle of retribution which put you back on your heels.

 

[Darth Abyss]

With the roar of [member="Thengil Ri'Shajirr"] the abyss calmed down a little, not threatening to consume anyone in near time, but the dark, twisted presence of it still shrouded Darth Abyss who for once made no effort to keep the darkness inside of him hidden behind a cloak of shadows. Slowly he walked forward, picking up his metal sword up on the way to [member="Antherion"]. The words of the man were only meet by another laugh, still carrying an otherworldly echo behind it.

"Negotiate? Shall I bring you a brown robe? It would fit you perfectly cripple."

Again a laugh, as the mindeater continued his path, the steel of his sword drawing a line in the sand as he dragged it behind him. Malachor was lost either way, it would fall either by fire of by the inevitable incompetence of an empire that had send a cripple to take him down. He didn't needed the art of darksight to foresee their fate after this. The animal was still very much in charge right now, even if it had sealed the abyss for now. There was nothing he desired more than to chop the little man in the chair into a collection of even smaller pieces.

"You are no sith, cripple. You and your cat friend are merely slaves, bound to serve another and for what? So other men can sit on thrones, while you walk in chains. You are not a disgrace to our order, you are not even a part of it. I was free yesterday, and I will still be tomorrow no matter if Malachor stands or burns. My power reaches far beyond the borders of a dead world, but all you will have tomorrow are useless legs and the knowledge that you were defeated."

Dun Möch. This was the time, the final mental strike. Not placed by the force, not by strength of his sword but by simple words. He could kill the cripple and he was defeated, he could leave him alive and allow Malachor to be burned leaving the cripple as a slave with nothing to rule as well, or he could make an offer as it was the norm in the underworld.

"Why should I not simply kill you, eat your mind and throw your worthless body down into the lower city? As you said Malachor will not belong to me, and neither will it belong to you, a replaceable slave in the machinery of the empire. If you wish to see tomorrow, you should better give me a really good reason for not ending you here and now."

[member="Krest"] [member="Serenity Loveheart"] [member="Soeht"]