Act IV: Ira

[Vrag]

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.​

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[member="Hal Terrano"] | [member="Lira Dajenn"]​

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​

It is often said that murderers like to return to the scene of the crime, and while Vrag tried all her life to avoid being predictable, some lines have to be drawn.

She was a woman of great patience, that was certain, but even an iron will has its limits, and Hal had reached hers. The Sith had devoted her time, her knowledge and her… well, care might be an odd word to use in conjunction with someone like her, but nothing else really applied. In her own way, the firrerreo cared for the former Jedi; like a God might cherish its creation, yet usher it to experience the adversity of the world nonetheless.

She was a beast of nature in many ways, as primal and feral as the creatures that roamed the darkest corners of the Galaxy still. In that same sense, Vrag would nurture her spawn, but only for so long as it remained incapable of doing so itself. It was time for Hal to leave the nest, and she'd given him ample chance to do so on his own; now her patience, as fabled as it may be, had run out, and Vrag had never been one to shy away from use of force.

So she would bring him here, out of all places in the Galaxy, and bide him kneel upon the ruined stone steps of the temple he'd been seeking a lifetime ago. She would have him gaze into his own reflection, have him face the truth he would see in the depths of those eyes, and she would have him accept the color of anger.

Can you feel the pulse of the planet, Hal?​

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Can you feel the soil, gorged with your blood?​

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Can you sever the lifeline, Hal?​

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Would you spill yourself again?​

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For me?​

 

[Hal Terrano]

He felt sick.

That was the running constant in his life now. Everything he did, everywhere he went it came accompanied by an uneasy sense in his stomach, like he was constantly caught in turbulence, never settling once. The malady at his core had gotten so severe that it kept the man awake at night, dark sleepless circles having marked his face since a recent excursion to the dungeons.

When he thought back to that experience the bile crept up his throat, he remembered that red, the same red that adorned the victim's screaming face.

It wouldn't leave his head. He wouldn't let it. It was a punishment. Hal Terrano had stood there and watched. Hal Terrano had done nothing. He was weak. He was a coward.

He was sick.

Sicker still on the surface of New Plympto, back where his trial of life all began, when a slug rocketed out of the swampy growths and straight through his knee. The man didn't comprehend why they were there, but he could only assume that it wasn't to pluck fondly through the start of their precious memories together.

In silence still he remained, following the woman wordlessly as they had found the fabled abandoned Jedi Temple's grounds that he had been seeking all that time ago. Shame and fear had left him now, falling down further into something deeper, darker, blacker. His gaze was blackened, irises blending into pupils as they bore the brunt of his despair and hopelessness to the world around them.

Hal Terrano had long since stopped asking why.

---

[member="Vrag"] [member="Lira Dajenn"]

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Vrag"] | [member="Hal Terrano"]

Where had he gone?

Lira Dajenn stood in her armor, her saber-staff clinging tightly in its leather straps to her thigh, the lightwhip hanging at her waist, and her hands scrunched up into tight fists as she stared at Johnny and the shuttlecraft.

Where did you go Hal? The thought rang through Lira's head over and over again, a sickening echo that bit into her mind. She didn't understand, she didn't get it. What was she supposed to think? That her Master had abandoned her? That he had run away? No. Hal wouldn't have done that, he wouldn't have just left like that.

He had Avalore, he had her, he had the temple on Cato Neimoidia.

There was no running away, he wouldn't do that. Someone had to have taken him, there had to be a clue here. Lira watched with nervous eyes behind the facemask of her helmet, the odd little HUD pinging as Johnny walked around the ship, trying to use his psychometry to find a clue of Hal, where he had gone, what had happened.

“Find anything?” Lira said finally, her smooth honey voice ringing out in the clearing.

The masked Jedi turned around, looking at Lira and shaking his head. The young Knight frowned, tears glistening in her eyes. She shut them, shaking her head and placing a hand on her covered face, supporting it. The force wrapped around her, a buffer against the pain she felt.

Meditation would help, it always did.

For half a second Lira floated within a river of calm. The force snatching her up and taking her, stroking her thoughts and calming them for half a second...until a ripple passed through the still water.

Her eyes snapped open.

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACL_5nls_Tk​

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​

Their arrival needed no announcement; the ruins were well-recognizable, and she was confident that the man knew exactly where they were. It was where they'd first met, a black figure stalking her prey through the woods, felling the stubborn creature and dragging him home, struggling and stoic as he was.

She had long broken that flinty exterior, prying his walls apart with her questing fingers until she'd tasted of his blood, painting her black exoskeleton with his pain and tears. She'd ripped off that armor, discarded it, twisted and torn, and offered him a new one.

He needed only accept.

"Hal," she warned as they stood in the heavy quietude of the jungle, dwarfed by the sprawling, ancient flora around them. He stood there, a few paces away from her and at the edge of a small pool that had once served as the courtyard of the temple. Most of the structure was long gone, but that small detail, for some reason, had remained, the intricate carvings rimming it overgrown by moss and ivy. The water itself was still — too still, almost — and nearly black from all the soil that had dissipated in it over the course of the years. Its surface was like a smooth glass, undisturbed save from the occasional wayward firefly that would glide low, sending small ripples across the whole pool despite its unassuming size.

Vrag had been more akin to a boulder when she'd came roaring into the routine of [member="Hal Terrano"]'s life, smashing the basin and sending the precious blood splashing over the sides in her desire to discover what lay underneath.

"What do you see?"

Her words would echo eerily in the humid air of the swamp, easily drowning out the chirp of distant birds and the soft buzz of bug swarms. It was a slow day, unremarkable for the creatures dwelling in the marshes of New Plympto even as it bore down upon the former Jedi like the weight of the world itself. Whatever happened here today, life would go on uninterrupted by the squabbles of a few power-addled mortals.

[member="Lira Dajenn"]​

 

[Hal Terrano]

Despite only being a few steps away from the woman her voice was a muffled abstract concept. It barely permeated the edges of his mind, as if he had been caught in an explosion that stretched his senses beyond comprehension. Hearing without listening, looking without seeing.

Sometimes thoughts overwhelmed. Monstrous truths would tear at him and scream above all other voices. New pains that sat upon his chest, sometimes it felt as if he couldn't even breath. He would just lay there on his bunk, curled into the foetal position as his diaphragm seized violently. Before he would meditate, could meditate, even in the beginning upon Prakith he tried to clear his head through old methods but now, now the man just lay there and let it take him.

Was he dying?

Was he dead?

A husk of a Jedi.

Or was it the constant cover of the Dark Side smothering his exposed vitality, strangling whatever scraps [member="Vrag"] had left until there was nothing.

What do you see?

Again her words were muted in his ears, battling against white noise that had always seemed to be there. He stepped forward, and for all his physicality Hal Terrano had never seemed smaller. He peered over into the inky liquid, his biots still throbbing painfully with every move and twitch like they had on the day he had been born.

What do you see?

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“...I...I don't…"​

"….don't…"​

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"...I….”

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In that moment the creature collapsed, dropping down onto his knees at the lip of the ancient pool. Back arched and trembling violently Hal found himself in silent desperate convulsions. It had been a long while since Terrano last physically wept, no longer having the strength or human capacity to summon those hot, wet tears.

No, that was too much like living.

---

[member="Lira Dajenn"]

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Hal Terrano"] | [member="Vrag"]

Could it be?

“Johnny.” Lira's voice rang out in the clearing, catching the other Jedi's attention. The man turned and faced the young Knight, his posture clearly questioning. For a few moments Lira didn't move, as if she was trying to hear a pin drop against a metal floor. She stood perfectly still, her eyes searching the far off forests.

“Do you...” She trailed off as she began to search through the force, running through an endless maze towards that one little pang. “...Feel that?”

She didn't know what it was.

An echo of her Master? A call for help? Lira didn't know, but she felt something. She could sense it, so far off in the distance. Her lips thinned, and her eyes glazed over for half a second. The Knight turned slowly, towards the echoing waves, towards the small pang that she had sensed. Johnny reached out to stop her, but Lira was already gone.

She broke out into a spring, her armor phasing and shifting as she moved.

 

[Vrag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9iFvw3S9VI​

They waited in the oddly deafening silence of the swamp, air heavy and pregnant with the weight of decision as Hal looked at darkness and darkness looked right back. The pool was black as midnight and twice as old, its depths stretching into infinity.

What could a man hope to see in the endless black of space? No starts to home for, no sun to warm his aching bones?

He would crumble to dust, a living thing turned stone.

Not that she would ever let him, even if he pleaded with her for a thousand years. He was hers now, and by the Force, she would die first before he ever saw the embrace of death again. As twisted and broken as he was, he was her creation.

A weeping creation, but her creation nonetheless.

"Get yourself together," the Hand of the Dark Lord snapped, her blue eyes burrowing into the back of his neck as the man as he collapsed to his knees in front of the pond.

A man who couldn't handle his own reflection. Pathetic.

"I said," the woman repeated, drawing in a sharp breath through equally sharp teeth. "Get yourself together, HAL!"

With that, the Sith was beside him with but a few long strides, backhanding the sobbing creature in a sudden burst of anger; no, not sudden. It had been brewing for weeks now, borne of repeated failure to get a rise out of that broken form.

"What do you see?!"

[member="Lira Dajenn"] | [member="Hal Terrano"]​

 

[Hal Terrano]

Get yourself together.

An amusing sentiment from the woman who had dismantled him in the first place. Her demands joined the maelstrom inside of her head. Did she think she hadn't tried? That he hadn't been trying to tie the scraps together and pretend that he was still a walking, functioning human being all this time?

I can't.

Maybe he was still desperately clinging to the wrong parts.

Her voice was louder now, actually permeating through the thick layer of his lost faith and utter despair. There was no physical reaction when she came storming over, he didn't offer a shred of resistance, letting [member="Vrag"] backhand him so hard that he fell backwards onto his behind, cheek instantly reddening from the harsh crack of the impact.

Not that the pain bothered him, it couldn't, it barely phased the man, Force, Hal almost felt like he deserved it.

“….s-stop...”

The desired effect was lacking however, as he whimpered, pulling his knees up to his chest much like an upset child. Inky irises flitted downwards, his anguished stare more often than not never seeing the sky these days. He was a man on the edge of imploding, tormented by stimuli that he could no longer handle, posed with questions that had couldn't answer.

“….I ca-can't...”

Head folded forward, into the crook between his knees as the long since former-Jedi continued to shudder in his near-silent sobbing.

“…I can't…”

---

[member="Lira Dajenn"]

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Hal Terrano"] | [member="Vrag"]

She ran.

Johnny tried to follow, but it was too late. Lira Dajenn had one skill in the force, or at least one thing that she absolutely prided herself upon, and that was her speed. The force could flow through every muscle, every tendon, every single part of her. Intricate laces of strength that seemed to wrap around her and enhance her.

It pressed her, pushed her, came so naturally to her that she didn't even feel it.

She could only feel that wave.

That slight inkling push off in the distance, the center of these odd little ripples. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was something. Hope rose within her chest, trust in the force. Lira knew that whatever was at the end of this journey, whatever she found, it would lead her to her Master. Her steps quickened, her armored boots pressing down further into the muck.

She came closer and closer, and then she could feel it.

That slight panging sadness, that ache of regret, the watching eyes of her master within the force. Joy filled her heart, a spreading warmth within her chest that stretched out to fill her limbs. “Hal!”

Lira yelled his name, the crying echoes reaching throughout the forest.

 

[Vrag]

And as always, the man was a disappointment. A failure. Nothing. Not even a groan of pain; he simply succumbed to the moss-covered ground, giving in to her strike as if he were a lifeless skin sack of meat and bone.

"Look at yourself, Hal," her voice was sharp as it filtered through the rebreather, all metal and no soul. Was this what freedom made of a living creature?

A monster?

Oh, how she hated that word; the last-ditch attempt of a weakling, clawing desperately to somehow make her less human than them. To justify their own pitiful weakness.

Her lips curled back as Vrag bared her teeth behind the lifeless mask of the skull, her hand darting out to grab him by that matted shock of blond hair. She yanked his head backward, looming above him with death and anger in her eyes. Why can't you? Why?!

"Look at yourself!" she growled again, word by word forced out through her gritted teeth.

"You're pathetic!"

She wanted to reach inside of him with the acute edges of her fingers, to tear that flesh open anew and pour into that empty vessel some of her rage. Oh, she had enough to share, enough to drown whole worlds in it. What was a single man compared to her cold fury?

A kite, dancing in the wind.

She released him with a grunt, a trickle of that anger seeping into her gesture as she pushed him away. Let him fall. Let him crawl. Let. Him. Slaver.

She averted her eyes in a sudden bout of disgust, her chest rising with coiled breath as she directed her searing gaze to the canopy of the jungle. A dark green as far as the eye could see, interspersed with flickering rays of light where the growth was less thick. She might as well have been staring into Hal's soul.

"You will," she spat without looking back at him, the words laced with promise.

"You will."

[member="Hal Terrano"] | [member="Lira Dajenn"]​

 

[Hal Terrano]

With head wrenched back by the hair his bottomless eyes stared straight forward, seemingly lost in the world around them, his face a mask of despair and confusion. The lines in his face made strong by strenuous frowning now betrayed him completely, twisted in nothing short of agony's display.

He didn't want to look at himself.

Couldn't bear the weight of his own reflection.

Pathetic, the word felt like a perfectly placed knife between the ribs, puncturing his very soul and rendering him unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to think, and why?

Because it was true.

When she released her grip the shadow of a man allowed himself to fall, back upon the dewy grass of the ancient temple's ground, eyes staring listlessly up at the canopy around them. Her words of promise once more faded into the terrible obscurity of his head as Hal Terrano once found himself being swallowed up by his own sense of sickness.

Then there it was, in the darkness.

A heartbeat.

Light in the dark.

Warmth in the cold.

Just for a heartbeat.

The former-Jedi's face creased at the feeling, as if it hadn't been real and all a game played by ever-cruel imagination. Just a flicker of nothing. Then it beat again. Was it real? What was that? Hope? No, Hal didn't know what hope was any longer, that was still upon the floor of the dungeon. Another. Stronger. Brighter. Warmer.

The man slowly rolled over, shifting from his back and onto his stomach as he felt another surge in the Force. Like a wounded animal Hal moved, going onto hand and knee to crawl towards the source, never thinking about standing as if he no longer knew how to on his own accord.

Help.

Me.

---

[member="Vrag"] | [member="Lira Dajenn"]

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Vrag"] [member="Hal Terrano"]

Faster.

Faster.

She had to go faster.

Her legs flexed, her muscles stretched, every part of her body seemed to blur. She moved faster and faster, her breath catching, her chest raising, her armor pressing down into the muck. Every second that passed, every minute that slid by, every single iota of time that moved was another moment wasted. Another moment in which Hal could be suffering, breaking. She pushed herself, pressed herself to the very limits of what the human body could do.

The force flowed through her, her armor shifting and changing, the holographc projections bouncing and moving in sync with her, dancing alongside her. Quick, long strides took her further and further through the swamps, feet pressing and pushing, until finally...she sprang clear.

From the jungle she burst forth, a glittering spec of light within the dark.

“Hal!” She screamed again, sensing her Master and calling out to her.

With a loud thud she landed, her armor clattering and pushing against itself, the holographic projections portraying only a thin film of smoke over her armor. She stood still, frozen, eyes casting on the scene before her. She shifted, first to the woman dressed in armor, broken and ragged with spikes, then to Lira's Master upon the floor, slowly crawling. Her breath caught, and her hand flicked to the lightwhip at her side, pulling it off her belt.

“Master...” She whispered, taking a step forward before her gaze focused upon the Sith Lord. “Who are you?”

Another step, slow but steady.

She had to reach him.

 

[Vrag]

But he didn't.

No matter what she did; whether she was stony silent or screaming loud enough to rouse flocks of birds from the trees, nothing seemed to move [member="Hal Terrano"]. Had she broken him beyond repair? Dragged her creation over one too many obstacle to see it scramble on its feet again?

It was hard to tell when naught but empty black eyes stared back at you.

Her heart beat evenly against her ribs, pumping the red, red blood around her body as the woman stood nearly immovable at the edge of the crumbling stairs. The jungle before her was still — almost too still — but Vrag was a creature too used to urban sprawl to realize that something wasn't quite right about the quietude of the trees.

There was something akin to a faint rustle, barely at the edge of hearing, and then the shrubbery was blown open, leaves and vines scattered to all sides as a blurry figure shot out into the clearing where the temple stood.

Her fingers snapped to the lightsaber clipped to her belt, feet immediately shifting into a balanced stance upon the age-old stone of the forgotten Jedi structure. Then there was a call, a traitorous call that told her everything she needed to know about the sudden newcomer. She would not answer.

Her left hand, empty as always, snapped forth, a short but quick motion that would send a wave of Force in the direction of the armored woman. The Sith was hoping that the girl was still too distracted by the sight of her Master — how odd to hear that word in relation to Hal, the Broken Man — her attention split between the kneeling former Jedi and the towering Hand of the Dark Lord.

Not that [member="Lira Dajenn"] would ever realize who Vrag was; not if the firrerreo had any say in the matter. The push she'd sent her way would hopefully knock her back into the dark pool where Hal had sought to face his reflection and failed; perhaps once the water was stained red, the man would finally succeed?

 

[Hal Terrano]

There she was.

Lira Dajenn.

Born from the smallest rustle in the trees. Hal didn't even know what he had started crawling towards, it was like the faintest flicker of light in a world that was naught but darkness. Did that mean that he was not so completely broken? That he could believe that there was still light? That he could be saved?

Looking up at the figure that emerged from the bush Hal's face twisted in further grief. Seeing his former-Apprentice stood before him brought back notions that he had been trying to forget. Thoughts of Lira Dajenn, thoughts of Cato Neimoidia, thoughts of Avalore Eden. It stirred the sickness, he thought he might have vomited right there.

Instead there was only a small whimper.

"Don't…"

Still on his hands and knees the man folded forward, tucking his head into himself so he couldn't feel the pressure of Lira's gaze upon his broken soul.

Don't look at me...

Danger hadn't occurred to him in that moment. That right here and now Lira's life was in danger. Vrag was a formidable force, a beast in battle that few could best. Could his old Padawan match up to that? Given who trained her it seemed doubtful, but that notion was tinged by his own reinforced sense of doubt.

Please.

---

[member="Lira Dajenn"] [member="Vrag"]

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Vrag"] | [member="Hal Terrano"]

“Ma-” Her words were suddenly cut off as a force push struck her.

She cursed herself, knowing that she should have been more aware, more focused on the other person. Yet it had been the sight of her Master, it had been the sight of Hal that had truly caught her off guard. Heart had sunk, and all semblance of calm had melted away. He was injured, he was hurting, he was suffering.

And it was all because of that woman.

Her muscles tensed, and through the force Lira managed to push herself in the air. She came to a landing within the bog of water, her feet striking first, sinking into the shallow mud. A splashing wave ran out from her. She scowled, her hand adjusting on her lightwhip , her feet shifting within the mud to free herself.

Calm.

She only felt calm.

The peace that Hal had taught her, the center that was her own, that would allow her to fight and survive. Lira flicked the switch on her lightwhip.

 

[Vrag]

Like a cat, the Jedi twisted in the air to land on her feet in the shallow pool, muddy water splashing over the edge of the basin as Hal's precarious balance was skewered again. It was such a fragile construct, the equilibrium of the mind and body, and one that she knew very well how to disturb.

Hal was easy, a near-broken and well-used toy by now, but his apprentice — former apprentice? — was a sudden unknown in her meticulously designed equation. A wrench in her works. An annoyance.

Her blue eyes flickered again to the hilt in her grasp, mouth turning into a thin, hard line as a blue coil of light spilled forth from the emitter.

Vrag considered herself reasonably practiced in battle, but this was something else. A whip? A whip belonged in a dungeon cell on Prakith, and sometimes in bed, if you knew who you were playing with. But in combat? She'd heard of it, of course, but never fought against it. Fun.

Her red blade hissed into existence as well, almost plebeian in its plain, sword-like shape. Not that the Hand of the Dark Lord particularly cared about how she looked to the intruder; what mattered was the skill, not the style.

The Sith would not wait for her opponent to move to a better position, her feet moving surely and quickly across the ancient stone as she closed in on the armored Jedi. The odd whispers of imagery and flashes of light flickering about her form were confusing as hell, and the towering warrior quietly switched to thermal to better make out the actual silhouette of her opponent. Fight fire with fire.

Her body was steeped in war, more so than any Jedi could ever hope to achieve, and she would break the girl on the steps of the temple before the day was done.

[member="Hal Terrano"] | [member="Lira Dajenn"]​

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Vrag"] [member="Hal Terrano"]

Her muscles flexed.

She tried to get a sense of this woman, tried to feel her power, see how strong she was. Yet there was no hint, no clue, all she could sense was a foreboding wall of sheer terror and determination. Her lips turned down, and the grip on her lightwhip tightened, the blade thrumming as it slowly descended towards the water.

Her entire body flexed, and then she moved.

She dashed forward, her feet sinking into the mud for half a second before her armored boots pulled free.

The holoprojection around her seemed to vibrate with life, shifting and moving after her like an echo, one moving off the one side, another to the other. Her hand came up, wrist flicking. The curling snake of the lightwhip shot forward with a loud hiss, cutting through the air and heading directly towards the armored Sith's throat.

There was no talk here, no reasoning. Hal would have wanted it, but Lira knew.

The time for talk was done.

 

[Hal Terrano]

He was no longer an active participant in the moment.

Not moving from his bent position upon the sodden ground. It might have even looked like the man was praying were it not for the way his arched back still convulsed with dry heaving sobs.

Once upon a time he would have stepped in-between the two women, trying to encourage a non-violent solution for a more than violent situation. Peace and negotiation had been his bread and butter, and even in the face of danger he tried to vehemently to live up to that standard. That was once upon a time, however, a time that had long since crumbled to dust.

Noble intentions and strong convictions had been strangled, until they were nothing more than a pathetic mewling in the back of his mind.

Don't stay.

Platinum blond hair was still touched against the damp of the ground as he remained upon prone upon the sacred ground. A wince and a whimper cresting upon his hidden features as weapons were ignited and primed for battle.

Don't fight.

Still, there was a whisper. The very smallest notion, and it urged him to get up, to help. Or even just try, if not for his own sake then for Lira's.

Not the easiest notion when it always felt like there was a foot on his back, grinding him down into the dirt at every single point, a foot comprised of both his own harrowing doubts and Vrag's sickening determination. However, even still, there was a glimmer of hope.

Get up.

---

[member="Vrag"] [member="Lira Dajenn"]

 

[Vrag]

Vrag and Vonduun moved as one, beasts of different nature but same purpose; shed blood. They were attuned to each other after so much time spent together, two predators that hunted the same prey with terrifying determination and efficiency. No quarter would be given, not now and not ever, and the solitary mercy that the Hand of the Dark Lord would visit upon the intruder was death.

A quick one, perhaps, but a death nonetheless.

Her body, a machine tailored to the toils of war, didn't need a conscious prompt to move when her opponent did; instead her feet pushed against the cracked stone of their own accord, muscles working on pure instinct and experience as the woman reacted.

Left arm first, protecting her open line as she made a full cross-step, bringing up her armored forearm to catch the hissing coil. As the whip would wrap around her vambrace, the Skerr Kyrric would surely reel and protest against the prolonged exposure to the searing heat. Still, she could withstand those few seconds it would take to execute what she had in mind.

As her foot came down, the firrerreo would use all of her momentum to yank the Jedi closer, augmenting the pull on the whip with a small application of the Force. If her retaliation proved successful and her enemy was pulled into the wide measure, the Sith would seek to drive her red blade into the armpit where no armor would hope to oppose her. Unless the girl let go of her lightwhip, her sabre-arm would be forced into extension, giving Vrag a perfect window to exploit.

Efficacy.

[member="Lira Dajenn"] | [member="Hal Terrano"]​

 

[Lira Dajenn]

[member="Vrag"] [member="Hal Terrano"]

The thing that most people oddly forgot about Lightsabers, and yes even lightwhips, was that they had an off button.

Of course she knew Vonduun Skerr Kyrric when she saw it, she had been fighting the One Sith for the past six years, and she of course knew its resistance to lightsabers. The Lightwhip had no hope of penetrating that, no hope of cutting through it, it was already weaker than a lightsaber and had little hope of even slicing through turadium or other heavy metals.

So when she had flicked the whip forward, it had been a simple distraction.

As soon as she saw the Sith move, the lightwhip coiling around her and her stance changing to pull at the coiled energy Lira smirked. She dashed to the side, her thumb fingering the activation switch of the lightwhip. The bright blue coil disappeared into sudden nothingness, just as Lira began to feel the tug on her hilt. In an instant the whip was triggered again, activated and blazing to life.

Another flick of her wrist saw it shoot low, curling and biting towards the Sith's back leg, hopefully in an endeavor to off set the heavier armor clad woman. Only to suddenly be grasped by the SIth. The force pull came after, almost as a secondary effect. She felt it as a powerful tug on her body, one that nearly wrenched her to the ground.

Lira struggled, nearly falling as her lightwhip sailed off course because of the pressure on her body.