A steelbridge to nowhere.

[Gabriel Sionoma]

The merc fidgeted on his shoulder and Gabe canted his head, thinking he might have heard something resembling a snarl or growl.
“You ever learn to trust your gut…Captain?” He looked over his shoulder at her in the dark. He wasn't exactly one prone to arrogance but he knew he was connected. For a majority of his time on Sulon, he had been confused for the one eyed variation of himself. The sort of individual that had cut his path through the universe, one deep and gushing.

One eyed…red.

He stopped in his step, the merc was turning restless and it was more than Gabe was willing to take. Kneeling, he rolled the man off of him. The Twi’lek hit the ground, convulsing, as white froth foamed out from the mouth. Gabe stepped back, slowly, as he gathered the force around him. This was wrong. His eyes weren't red before.

“He has no heat signature…” Gabe whispered as the merc crunched to life, bending and breaking as he arched his body upward and was on his feet. No words, nothing except the sound of teeth clamping against one another. Like listening to someone sleep, afflicted with the uncontrolled need to grind their teeth. It charged Gabe first and any restraint the Marshal once had for this man was entirely gone.

Stepping to his side, Gabe dodged the first attack and clenched the striking arm at the wrist. Kicking the zombies foot out from underneath him, Gabe’s hand clutched the back of the mercs head and slammed him face first into the wall of the corridor. Once and then once more, until the animal tendencies fled from a spasm and seizure and silence. Where there were once contours to the face, there was nothing but a flat wall of skin and blood and broken bone.

Gabe discreetly lowered the body to the ground. Not out of care, out of concern for making more noise. His eyes looked towards the growing heat source. It was breathing, like a giant coming to life.

“No evidence…” There was no pulse now, just the last sound of a breath escaping a dying body. “Just instinct married to far too many coincidences. Maybe there's something special about me…or maybe it's you. Or maybe one of these two-bit mercs.”

What was an alliance captain doing here, anyway? Weren't they supposed to stand down from acting orders that might unintentionally instigate conflict?

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

The instinct to squeeze the trigger hit as soon as the twi’lek started twitching. Bones cracked, blood spilled like tar from his stomach, Aver leveled her aim. Her finger moved down from the guard, ready to put the all-time favorite double tap to use.

And then he moved. Dodged aside, right into her line of fire.

The merc cursed and reholstered the gun. In the blur of the fight, she’d barely gotten Sa Sevai out by the time Gabe was finished hammering his head into the wall. A smith through and through.

The silence that followed after wet flesh against stone carried a peculiar quality. Aver was well used to it – and Gabriel more than she expected.

“Yeah. Maybe.” She glanced at his bloodied hand. “So they’re infectious. Karkin’ fantastic. You’ll probably wanna clean that off, yeah?”

Blade was probably a better choice down here. Structurally unsound all to hell – one misplaced shot and she’d bring the whole mine down on their heads. Stuck with the kukri, too, because no Alliance Captain had any business wielding a lightsaber.

“What’d you run into above?”

Arbra had a few of these… zombie-like creatures. In the temple, once they’d reached the bottom of the stairs. A whole corridor, packed thick like sardines. Nothing a few well-timed thermal dets couldn’t solve but here? Out of the karking question, again.

Shet just kept spiralling downwards.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

His hands were bloodied but they weren't used to necessarily bloody the Twi'lek. More from spatter than anything else, punching wasn't needed to reduce him into a thing on the ground. The wall had served proper medium for such quick departure. It was a mercy, he told himself, knowing all too well that they were now dealing with a mystical contagion in some form.

The deceased mercenary stunk of it, wisps of black and violet roiling off of him with every breath and heave. It started as something biological but that seemed to hardly be the catalyst. There was nothing, save for Yuuzhan Vong viral agents and Sith seeds, to his knowledge, that could react so quickly and with such deadly intent.

"We should hold off on ballistics altogether, for the time being. Too much noise..." He stated quietly as they continued to walk. The mercenary, all of his equipment and weapons, were left in the silence of their wake.

What did he run into, up there?

He raked nails across the stubble as he eyed the woman. For someone who is in what could be considered a treacherous situation at best, she was doing rather well in her composure. He wondered if she was around, decades ago, when the Alliance fought against the cyber diseases that ran rampant through the cults. It was always the cults.

He sighed and shook his head. "I saw one of those things. I couldn't pick up their heat but I could sense them..." He smirked, tonguing his cheek. "It felt like drowning...I wouldn't be surprised if there were hundreds or thousands of them..." He pressed a hand against his chest. "Shot one right here and it barely caused a hiccup."

The corridor suddenly opened up into a flared room, splayed by a corridor that ran perpendicular to where they were walking. Domes of light cast directional heat and fire through the hexagonal room that served as junction for 6 different hallways. Just as they stepped forward, Gabe pressed a hand against the Captains shoulder, pushing her with a surprising amount of force into the shadows against the corridor prior to the junction. He, in turn, shielded his presence with the force and his appearance with the phantasm cloak.

Standing still, he watched as a set of guards, unaffected by any curse, strolled past him and down the corridor. Back to where they started, where the body of the mercenary lays eternally resting.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

The Captain grunted in agreement. “You got a glowstick on you, I reckon?” Aver did too – two of them, even, and they were both as useful as tits on a gen’dai. The second she pulled out a lightsaber, the game was up and all bets were off.

Last karking thing she needed down here.

She side-eyed the man as they neared the glow. “Drownin’, huh?” The Force, doubtless. Used to be that Vrag was as keen on sensing as a rock. It’d gotten better over the years, with Ygdris lounging under the bed instead of curling around her body in combat. Still, it was neither a talent nor a focus for the woman – and she had no particular inclination to delve into the presence of these creatures.

Surprise just didn’t come as they reached the hall. She’d seen this – hexagon – twice now. Temple, and Rev’s memories of the maze under Maena. Hackles raised, Aver felt it a moment before he slammed her into the wall, into the darkness.

The guards slid by, soundless, speechless, lifeless. Aver watched them melt back into the black of the corridor. A single breath escaped her.

“They’re gonna figure out we ain’t there. We should get moving.”

Even if it weren’t quite so urgent, Aver would’ve shoved him away. Working together to survive, yes. Touching? Hell no.

The merc slipped past the Marshal and into the spacious underground chamber, plastered against the wall. Blue eyes traced the symbols covering near-on every inch of the hewn black stone. Some brown and flaked by time, crossed by fresh red lines every so often. She’d seen them all, now. Statues, lines, carvings.

Didn’t matter. Their meaning remained the same.

“What intel did you get about these guys, again? And who gave it to ya?”

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

A glowstick. He couldn't recall the last time he had heard the item called that. Seemed like a very grunt thing to say though he rarely heard them express it as such. In most cases, the common soldier preferred a force user on the field in battle - those weapons tended to draw fire and aggro from the enemy.

“Yeah, I have a couple of them…” He looked towards her, commenting in question on his perception of the force. She was making it sound as if she had never interacted with a force user before which given her rank in the GA, seemed odd. Could be the case, he supposed, though it felt forced at times.

He felt the elbow push into him, brushing past him as the the guards slipped into the darkness. He raised an eyebrow as she strolled into the hexagonal room with relative nonchalance. Even if they were in trying times, it seemed unusual for someone who made it this far in the Alliance to simply do away with the normal cordial relationship between soldiers and force users. On top of that, he was technically the ranking officer.

Something…was off. “Nothing to really speak of. I intercepted some correspondence between an estate on Sulon and an unknown purchaser. Rare species, both sentient and not sentient, that were marked for consumption. A crumb trail that led to this planet.”

The phantasm cloak continued to obscure view of him as he moved near her. He recalled speaking to Omai Rhen about this mission, about who he could contact for support. Officers from the Alliance were not on that list. His hand moved from the invisibility of the cloak, pressing against the worn sandstone.

“I meant to ask you, Captain Vyrgg…how did you find out about this mission? As far as I can recall, no acquisition requests were made to Alliance personnel due to the impending ceasefire…” He knew he hadn't made the request. The Grand Marshal made explicit request of such.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

Quietly, Aver filed the piece of information away. If he figured her out and this turned into a fight… well, good to know he had backups. Heard the hitch in his step before he joined her in the chamber, still shimmering under that cloak of his.

Fancy tech. Rev never used to go for stealth. Figures.

Where weakness spread in the wake of physical might, poor substitutes had to do. The merc glanced at her pineal feed – over the glimmer of his cloak behind her, and back to the mouth of the corridor they came from. No heat, barely touched by the Force… these karkers you could really only see by the sheer grace of visual contact.

Couldn’t say she loved that.

Aver was halfway to the next tunnel when the question came.

Her lips split into an unclean grin. A cop to the very core. How karking droll.

“Meant to ask me, huh?”

Shrugging, the merc walked on, blade still in hand, blue eyes still flickering around the room. There was a familiarity to these halls that had nothing to do with familiarity of construction. Like they were alive, perhaps.

She reached out, fingers trailing along the rock for a few moments. Could almost imagine a slow, earthen breath pushing out against her. These were its veins, and they…

…they were the blood.

“You should only ask questions you want answers to, Marshal Sionoma,” Aver murmured as she parted her touch from the wall. Her pace sped up – she knew where to go, now.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

His eyes dropped to the blade in her hand, his mind lingering on the way she replied to the question. The way she dodged the nature of the conversation. What was a mild form of curiosity turned into full blown suspicion. Therein lied the breeding ground for distrust.

And if he didn't trust her, he wasn't sure he'd want to continue with her. Not as is, not armed to the teeth with every opportunity to turn against him - particularly in the more desperate conditions that he sensed lingering in the near future.

“I asked you a question, Captain, because I wanted the answer…” He spoke sternly yet quietly as he followed a good distance behind her. Her pace could speed up as much as she wanted, though she might soon find herself facing off against this foe alone.

“So I'll ask again…” He stopped walking, his hand gripping the custom lightsabers that would burn orange on activation, as he planted himself. “How did you find out about this mission?” He pressed towards the next most logical question. “Are you really a Captain in the Galactic Alliance?”

This was an unfortunate circumstance. He knew they were, for all intents and purposes, trapped down in this maze together. Eldritch and esoteric auras encircled them and if she was truly as blind to the force as she seemed and led on, she was as good as a sitting duck in this place. He was stuck between the need to trust her, the desire for his own survival, the desire to get to the bottom of this path, and the unexplainable concern he had for her well being. And that last concern was drying up relatively quickly.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

When steps failed to ring out behind her, Aver stopped. Couldn’t rightly see him, no, but she could well sense him. Where the merc was as flat with her presence as the pulse of a dead heart, Gabriel was alive, spread out, sensing, touching, breathing in. Behind barriers of focus and vigilance, yes, but there was nothing suppressed about him.

He gave of himself, instead of taking from others.

The smile left her as she turned around.

“You don’t want the answer, Gabriel,” she spoke, content to keep the distance. She didn’t believe he would try anything, but combat was no place for beliefs. It was a place of steeled certainty and complete doubt. Anything in between was unacceptable.

Her eyes crinkled around the edges. Rueful, perhaps – if she were capable of that sort of emotional subtlety. “I’m not a Captain of the Alliance, no. I’m a gun for sale,” she gestured to the corridor they emerged from, “like the rest of the dead down here.”

Time was ticking even while they wasted words. Aver refused to die over the flapping of jaws. Her boots clicked again and she marched on.

“You can join me and we clean this up, or find your own way out if you can’t work with a merc.”

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Gabriel. Hardly anyone calls him by that name. Maybe Avalore when she's angry.

"I can work with a mercenary just fine, hence why I hired so many. However, I have more difficulty when it comes to liars." The cloak dropped as the hood fell from his crown. Perhaps he may have appeared old and haggard at one point, but it seemed he was invigorated by the act of defiance and the presence of conflict. The sconces burned hot in the hazel of his eyes, eyes drifting away from her to the markings on the walls.

"My escape from this place will not be anchored to your presence. And just as I'm sure you are capable, the force is our guide here...and you are almost blind to it." Whatever she was, whoever she was, of this he is was certain. Otherwise, she wouldn't have continued on the forward path with such haste. "So you can either be honest about who you are, what you are doing here, or you can find your own way forward."

He pointed an armored hand towards her path. "There's a good deal of them up there..." He took a breath in through the nose, flaring his nostrils. "You can smell the rotting flesh if you try hard enough. You can sense the nexus, if you try hard enough. But you're clouded by anger and conflict." His eyes drifted back to hers, or to the illusion of them. He flexed his free hand, the force calling to him for alliance and need. In however he needed it. Perhaps it was to continue to guide, perhaps it was to fight. It was his ally here, among monsters and etchings, he could not have been more fortunate.

You are no Jedi. It was true, but he felt the connection to the lightside all the same.

"No more half-truths...or we part ways here." Head tilting, he waited for any response. Fully prepared to turn left on the next corridor, taking the high road that would lead to the parapet of the next chamber - instead of the heart of it.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

The urge to laugh tickled her throat. Perhaps she would’ve, if they were somewhere, anywhere but here. Instead, she merely let out a puff of amused air, shaking her head as his voice rang out.

Stubborn ass. Not even amusement anymore. Exasperation. There was no time to stand still when trying to outrun a tidal wave. So righteous, climbing on that high horse lightning-fast as words spilled from his mouth. Brown eyes crinkled, bright with determination and tempered fury. No – judgment.

Aver stopped, finally. Her nostrils flared, and she put out the fire in her gut with three controlled breaths.

As she turned around, the merc calmly turned off the overlay. No use for it anymore. Black phrik peeled out underneath, and a figure half again as tall, with a flat faceplate staring down at him. No more markings of allegiance or loyalty. Mere utility.

“I am neither blind nor angry. If you’re so eager to see those things, you just need a mirror.” She canted her head to the side as she spoke, body tingling as she tasted the coil of the Force around his body. Aver could drive the animal further into a corner, and Vrag would have.

But she had shed her skin and learned to better hunt since then – better hunt, yes, and to appreciate a beast without killing it. The path to understanding this brother… turned out to mean to love beyond the other.

Seemed laughably simple, now.

“Then I hope you like to live more than you like to hate me, Gabe,” she spoke again, “because unless we kill that rotting flesh you're smelling, we’re both quite karkin’ dead.”

She gave a mock bow.

“Ygdris Val at your service, Marshal Sionoma.”

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

You don't want the answer, Gabriel.

He clenched his teeth as she appeared, admitting to himself that she was right about that and that alone. But he wasn't angry, he rarely knew the flavor. Desperation, pride, martyrdom. These were his sins.

His fingers curled around the hilt of the lightsaber, prepared to defend himself against this particular individual. He could have wanted for all the alternatives of the universe. For her to be a spy, to be an enemy of the state of the Alliance, sent here to undo a Marshall or take him hostage or worse. Perhaps this was her influence, the zombies were her puppets, and she was bending them to her will to kill off a once influential member of the Alliance. Alternatives upon alternatives...anything but her.

"I don't hate you...Captain Vyrgg...Mrs. Venn...Ygdris Val. Whatever name you are choosing today..." His eyes narrowed. "And you were always angry and blind..." A quip about a mirror wouldn't change the fact that she saw with her eyes, not with her heart. Otherwise, she might have found the decency to stop tormenting a dying man. But where was the decency in things that didn't know the meaning of the word?

He had bent his knees, ever slightly and unknowingly, as if he was preparing for something. Standing up at full height, she towered only over the silhouette of her former Alliance guise. "You're at no one's service but your own. You would leave me dead in this place if it assured your survival." He split clamped teeth with venom and words he knew to be true, pulling up the hood of his cloak. It didn't activate, it simply stood over him like a shadow, as he turned to take a step up the path that wouldn't leave them to be torn to pieces beneath claws and hungry eyes.

The path was a step up in incline but he knew, based on fingers trailing across chiseled sand stone and runes depicting spiders and shrikes and dragons and leviathans and horned beasts, that there was no exit along this path. It curved upwards and leveled out, filled with the brevity of cavernous air, as lights burned against the walls and charred golden stone. Ahead, in what felt like miles, a small eye looked out into a great chasm of monsters and madmen.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

This time, she did laugh. “You entitled kark.”

There was no urge to break him. Anger, yes, running currents through her bloodstream. But moreso than anger, pity – for a man once so great and prudent, capable of perceiving a thousand angles instead of just one.

His own.

In the wake of separation, both were left changed. For better and worse. Centuries spent in a cage of flesh, together… it forged dependencies even in the flames of hatred. Aver could see now all the severed bonds trailing from one to the other, scabbed over with the passage of time, but no less lacking for it.

“And you wouldn’t do that to me, oh great, honorable Marshal?” Aver called back with a sneer, blue eyes dancing.

She watched his retreating step, but didn’t join him. Not because she was stubborn – that was a fierce trait of both brothers, not her – but simply because she knew better. He marched upwards in defiance, refusing to allow an alternative where he would follow someone like her.

His chin jutted with pride.

She didn’t understand the motives of these cultists – but she had fought and vanquished them before, and knew the lay of their bodies.

And fighting a rabid beast, that could make all the difference.

Aver walked below.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

In truth, this was a moment where he wished she was right. He wished that he had the resolve and strength of character to just be rid of her. But he still cared for her and if there was anything that he hated, it was that aspect of himself. It wasn’t honor or humility that would draw his life out to help save hers, it was stupid incessant feelings that he couldn’t cut away.

Not like Reverance had done to him, excising like a cancerous tumor to try and throw away. They were there to be experienced, both heartache and concern, but that didn’t mean Gabe had to welcome it with open arms.

The shimmer of his cloak activated as he moved through the upper corridor, steps light but paced with a certain purpose. Each step took him closer and closer to the end, each step took him closer and closer to the source of light and warmth. The stone around him shifted from sand to beige and he suddenly had the feeling that he was walking into a institution of some sort. Walls were suddenly well trimmed, even seemed to be freshly painted, and the balcony of the parapet was lacquered wood.

And it wasn’t the only one. The chamber was multi-storied, rows of balconies extending along the perimeter in equidistance, all seemingly for the purpose of viewing whatever it was that occurred in this place. Fingers shielded by the cloak wrapped around the railing as he leaned over, looking about. There were multiple levels above where that lower path would eventually enter the room, totaling 16 different balconies. And some of them were occupied. Figures in cloaks of red and not the drab of the zombies. These were finely tailored, trims of gold and silver, and bore different counts of purple chevrons across the beak of the hanging hoods - which concealed almost the entirety of their faces. And below…

The floor moved in the low light, like worms just beneath damp soil. Torches extended from every flat wall in the octagon room but it wasn’t enough to truly illuminate. Perhaps that was the purpose of it, to conceal. At the forward end, furthest from Gabe, a sepulcher stood as a lone figure lifted his hands towards the air above him. Across his bare lower back, the engravings of the horned beast dripped from fresh cuttings that trailed to his haunches. Even in the low light, his skin was clearly jaundice. And from his shoulders, a great mane of a beast stretched upwards, 5 feet above him, and adhered to his flesh by crude stitching.

He lifted his wrist to his mouth and stopped. He could have spoken through it but his sight flashed to her presence, standing near the edge of this great pool of the dead, and her comm chirping to life. Risking her own. Hazel eyes lifted to the corridor, across the way and beyond all these cultists. They would need to cross it if they were going to get out of here.

He thought for a moment and threw caution to the wind.

Across the chasm...another corridor. That might be our way out.

Then that man, in the buff at the sepulcher, began to rise from his kneeling position. And Gabe couldn't help but watch intently.

[member="Aver Brand"]​

 

[Aver Brand]

There was no light at the end of her corridor. The last of the sconces had disappeared at the mouth of the tunnel, and now she walked through pitch black. It suited her just as well. Her stride was long, but light – ready to drop into stance at the drop of a dime.

Which, given how silent these things were, was probably all the warning she’d get.

Felt him move further above, a tiny speck of mottled gray swimming in the ocean of dirt. In some ways, she’d be more at home here. A good place to die, all things considered. All things. Includin’ the idols and the crazy worship – done that whole song and dance before. That’s how the Yun’do looked to their gods; bloodied and raw, welcoming death with ecstatic abandon.

Vrag would’ve danced with these creatures to the last, and maybe a part of her still felt that tug of the void. But others, tethered, moved in other ways these days. Between spaces, often, instead of through them.

The winding path opened up at last. To her left, a rising grandstand, littered with hooded shadows of black and crimson. To her right, the bare face of the rock, painted over and over and over again with the same karking symbols.

And straight on ahead, a pit of squirming flesh. Looked like a mad butcher’s dumpster; parts of animals an’ people, ripped apart and sewn back together in all the wrong ways. Didn’t turn her gut around only ‘cause she’d seen Matsu do it with a smile on her face.

Small comfort, having a Goddess Sith in your mind.

Still better than having half of a man you used to care for, though.

Aver whipped her head around, dead still elsewise at the edge of the shadow. Her breath cut short – couldn’t see him, but she could feel him. And if the merc could, the bastard in the hole could too. And the whole rest of the damn hall.

Everything fell awfully still.

“Ssso you’ve come, Horned beassst,” the sallow man croaked into the silence. “But what isss that, hmm?” He turned around, the severed goat swaying above his head. “What isss… he?”

As one, the audience swiveled around to stare at the unknown in their midst. Aver they’d met already.

Gabriel… they had not.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He didn't receive a response from her, not like he would have expected. But he felt the way her mind quivered, like tugging on the vines of a forest to watch as the trees rattled. But that wasn’t the only response it garnered.

That was a message sent directly to her, as encrypted as it could possibly get. Which means they were either tapped in or they knew the two were there already, waiting for them. Clenching his teeth, Gabe pulled back his hood and revealed his presence. He was sure of it now, the phantasm cloak was useless. They had his number.

“Ah yes, we have the blasphemer, the blind one!” One of the balcony cloaked figures boomed across the void with a deep resonant tone. “No, he is not the leviathan! He is the spectre, the undoer!” Another spoke, voice high but pronounced.

“The undoer! The unseen! And the horned beast!” The largest of them spoke, distant across the chasm and a voice of screeching velvet. Gabe looked down as the hooded man pointed, fingers curling towards where he felt Ygdris. He then continued. “Avatar, oh righteous avatar, complete the ceremony! Let them watch!”

Zombies were already clawing their way up to Gabe, click clacking across the interior of the building. Gabe held his arms out, lightsaber in each, as he looked towards the offering as the beast turned towards him.

Fingers, coated in black, reach up towards the socket. With a grunt and teeth clenched, he reached in and yelled. The zombies yelled in turn. Gripping the eye, the man pulled, rasping and shaking. Stretching the eye out, it plopped from the socket and he kept pulling. Until the root gave way, quiet over taking the chasm as the stretch of tendons resounded with a hard pop. Bleeding from the socket, the avatar lifted the eye up for the world to see as the robed figures began to slowly clap.

Gabe gripped the lightsabers with white knuckles. This can't be happening, they couldn't know what had occurred on that fated night. It was his nightmare, to tell only those whom he deigned capable of seeing past the sins. Or, in some cases, making him fully accountable for them. The orange beams ignited, flooding the balcony with lightside and copper glow. The largest of the cloaked figures pointed, laughing.

“Undo the undoer. Let the Horned one watch!” The zombies, as if on command, moved now with explicit intent.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJbqplkBBv8​

Aver observed the tower crumble like she’d once observed a distant mountain do the same. On a world doomed to fire and ash, to death by its own lifeblood. A vista this brother had never lived to see… amended now, twenty years later.

The lords of this underground court screeched in joy, the squirming bodies below joined in on the chorus. A melody so savage that even Ygdris watched with a curled lip. This was not her song. It was not their song.

Hers, perhaps. But Matsu wasn’t here. Her kiss was distant, her eyes the void between the stars.

Wet sounds emerged through the chant, and unbidden dread crawled up her spine. Blue eyes snapped to the man above, to his coiled stance, to the two beams of orange now lighting up the stands.

...you? Aver asked, breathless. Reverance had kept himself at bay ever since he’d stormed off in the middle of the night. He wasn’t here to see with her gaze, to feel with her body. The ice that wrapped around her heart now was purely of her own making.

You.

Uninvited. Unwanted.

Red lips parted to bare sharp teeth. “You will undo NOTHING!” the Horned beast roared and brought the Queen and Enemy to bear. The flood of creatures from below met the immovable dam, ancient trees fallen into their path that stymied the flow of the black river. One blade for the difficult cut; the other for its elegant brutality.

None were for Gabriel.

Every other consideration would come after survival. Aver cared not for the cost.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

The dual heart of Sulon leaped to life from the emitters of his gun steel sabers, pouring out the quickening taste of force body over his form. The tingling he felt in his wrists, the ache in his back, all dissipated as he felt the the energy course through him. From the emitters, Valor dispersed outward for those whom he considered ally. With the words he heard her scream, incredulous as he might have been, she fell into the category.

The first zombie mounted the railing only to see the elegant swipe of Gabes left hand, severing the wrist and sending the zombie tumbling down to the pit below. But where one went down, two more appeared in their place. Gabe brought both sabers forward in reverse arcs, clipping heads from the bodies and sending limbs to the crawling world below.

His gaze flashed behind him, hearing the rumble of footsteps, as the upper corridor was filled with the dead and dying. Racing towards his back. Hazel eyes, burning, cast in the direction of Ygdris. Why did she say that?

I loved you, too. The words echoed in his mind, like coarse velvet, as he bared his teeth in defiance of the wave that was arching over the railing. Spinning one saber to reverse, he released a sharp force push. Breaking the railing beneath them, the horde fell like dominoes once more and debris shot across the gap. Missing the large cloaked figure in the opposing alcove, wrought iron pinned a wailing cultist to the sand stone that stood adjacent to the leader.

There was nowhere to go but down. Running forward, he pulled the force to him as jumped from the balcony. Plummeting to the ground below, he slammed into the epicenter, releasing a massive repulse that shot out in every direction. Zombies were cut open by the force, sent spinning and hurdeling and splattering against the wall. The wave hit the avatar as he stepped down eroded steps, washing over him like gentle waters. And the zombies who were still fighting and survived the wave ceased in their current attack.

“Doessssse the unnnnnndoerrrr wish to issssssue a challenge?!? ” Gabe looked up, standing from the kneel, as static orange arched from the sabers along the arms of his vanguard armor. He sent a smidgen of side eye towards Ygdris before looking back to the Avatar, rebellious and ignorant to what he faced. He just felt and what he felt, it needed culling.

“I do.” He glanced towards the nearby exit as the Avatar lifted his arms in celebration, chortling. And from the sepulcher, he withdrew a spear of electrum as he descended towards the center.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

Conflict was her home.

The mercenary flowed with the currents of melee like she were born into it. There was an obscene viscosity to her movement, and anyone watching wouldn’t feel quite right. The same way a Möbius strip made the observer uncomfortable – the mind screamed it couldn’t exist, yet empirical evidence clearly went to show otherwise.

Oh, Aver defied. She just wasn’t defiant.

Strokes precise and measured, she carved her way through the horde. The heft of Sa Sevai coupled with her strength easily cleaved rotting flesh and brittle bone; Echthros in the grip of her right weaved like a dancer through the onslaught, black blade all but invisible but for the char and smoke it left in the wake of its heat.

The shockwave of his landing was the first thing to disrupt her rhythm.

Even though she felt him in her spine, half a breath before he leapt through the air, there was nothing Aver could do. Instead of bracing, she moved with its force, coiling over herself in the air only slam into the wall with a grunt.

Stubborn ass.

He stoked true anger in her gut for the first time in decades. Ygdris had drawn her first demarcation from the Sith long ago, in that she didn’t fight with flames of fury. Ire led to mistakes, and mistakes, always, always led to death.

“Piss off, Marshal,” Aver spat from her corner of the pit, batting the upper half of a zombie into the ground. “The undoer issues kark all,” she continued, louder, rising to the first level of the stands.

“You belong to me, Leviathan. Just like him.”


[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He looked back towards Aver, eyes wide if not followed by the furrow of a brow.

You would leave me dead in this place, if it assured your survival.

He wasn’t sure he could believe that, not with the way the world was unfolding. Everything was turning over, his world and his view on this interaction. Had she changed so much, in the past 20 years, to dictate a difference in opinion? Was she so much more malleable than he imagined, years spent in silent conquest and the shadow of his brother. Not every touch was that of the Wrath. The tenderness, the desire to make her happy, it was beyond the devil.

“Doeeessssss the horned onnnnee wisssssh to ssssstoop the chhhhhallenge?” The speaker pointed towards Ygdris, finger curling inward.

“No! ” Gabe immediately responded, blinking slowly as he turned back towards the Avatar, weapons brandished in a flare as the impression of his force aura bolstered and nearly toppled over the confinement of the body.

Even you can't fight your way through this horde. It's my fault they found us...let me fix this.

Was that for him or her? He couldn't quite be sure.

Baring his teeth, he charged, but far removed from the way Reverance might have approached this situation. Gabe was already equipped with multiple characteristics of this individual. First, it was clear that the Avatar was somehow immune to telekinetic damage. Second, based on his movement, he had as cumbersome and slow pattern of strafing, favoring the eye he still had - though that could serve as deadly combination if kept at a distance with a polearm. Gabe had no intent to stay away.

He vanished in a heat shimmer of speed, orange blade flicking out with mild power as it smacked against the staff. Pivoting to the he right, he dodged an angry counterattack and disappeared, appearing at the monsters back just in time to smack him against the back with the saber - carving a deep gash beneath the stitching of the beast that hung overhead. The Avatar spun, flicking the spear out and catching nothing but air. Gabe appeared again, slicing a deep groove across the beasts triceps.

Taking a step back, he twirled the sabers as he took on a boxers lightfootedness.

“Avatar! Stop playing games with this one!” The voiced echoed out from the jowls of the large one.

“Heeeeeessssss not the Leviathan. Heeeeeessssss worse!” The half-man half-beast let out a gut wrenching howl as he charge like a wild beast, swinging the staff in a low arc. Behind him, the freed eye hovered and watched the fight ensue.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

It’s not about… feth.

He was already moving into measure, naught but a smear of orange between his twin blades. Quick, yes, and always precise. They fought much the same in that respect – though with Aver, the finesse belied a savage brutality.

Her breath cut short as Gabriel struck him once, twice, severing flesh from bone. A good man, perhaps, but the mannerisms lingered. He fought to kill, not capture. He fought to end, not to maim. Marshal, but no Jedi.

She could live with that.

Blue eyes found the larger of the two, the rotting, black flesh flaking from his flabby mouth as he spat insult.

Aver would add the injury.

No challenge issued forth from her lips. No summons to a duel. Echthros flew back to her belt in the same motion as she swept the Hand cannon from it. Her hand tensed on the grip, body locked from the wrist down to absorb the recoil—

Two to the torso, one to the head. Her finger on the trigger moved only as far as it had to, snapping off the three shots in lightning succession.

The towering mass of knotted muscle and bulbous, cancerous growth wobbled. For a moment it felt like she might’ve toppled the mountain… but then the guffaw emerged. He wasn’t crumbling. He was shaking with laughter.

Anger pulled taut at her tendons now, jaw fixed and hard behind the faceplate.

“You think your technology means anything to us?” His voice was the screech of a rusty saw against bone. “Are you afraid, Horned beast? Is that why you hide behind those toys like a cowering girl?”

Aver sneered, but didn’t move – her eyes were fixated on the scorched holes that sealed shut as she watched. A thin red film, a jagged line. That was all that remained of his wounds as he straightened a crooked spine.

The merc shot him again and began to climb the stairs towards his perch on high.

Before, she was stabbing in the dark – now, Aver had a plan.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]​