Duel Battle of the Times [Ask]

[Saverok]

The neon lights flickered in the damp, smog-filled alley as Saverok stood in the shadows, taking it all in. Coruscant. The beating heart of the galaxy. He had seen it rise and fall, shift and change, yet somehow, it always stayed the same. No matter how many wars raged above, how many empires crumbled, how many Republics rebranded themselves, the city-planet endured. And the Underworld? That never changed.

Down here, beneath the towering spires and blinding skylanes, the same kind of people still lurked—the desperate, the dangerous, and the ones who didn't belong anywhere else. It was a world Saverok knew well. He had lived in these depths before, hidden among the forgotten and the forsaken, biding his time until the galaxy shifted to offer better opportunities. That was how it worked. You waited, you survived, and when the moment was right, you took what you needed.

Thats why he was here on Coruscant.

But things were different now. No one knew his name anymore. Not down here. Once, years ago—hell, lifetimes ago—his name had weight. So did his son's. People feared them. They spoke their names in hushed tones, either in reverence or terror. But now? Now, Saverok was just another ghost of the past clad in a Neo-Crusader armor that belonged in a museum, the world moved on without him. Instead, another name echoed through the alleys, passed between merchants, fighters, and low-life scum like some kind of legend. Saverok listened as it was muttered in gambling dens, painted on the walls in crude graffiti, whispered like a warning. A name he had trouble believing. A name that didn't feel real.

The name of a Jedi by reputation. And it was a shame the jedi had delved into the underworld. As if purity could clean the muck from these sinful allyways and corridors. And yet it felt like it could of. Arriving outside a nightclub, Saveroks large armored frame shoved a bouncer aside and entered into the establishment. His internal HUD scanning the club and its patrons. Patrons that screams at the contestants sparring and throwing blows to the body.

Underworld fight clubs. Aint nothing like em...

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Weapons: Lightsabers (hidden)

The underground fight club pulsed with energy, raw and unfiltered. The air was thick with sweat, smoke, and desperation, swirling together beneath the flickering neon lights that barely cut through the haze. The crowd roared as fists met flesh, bodies slammed into the mat, and credits exchanged hands with greedy, twitching fingers.

But Valery wasn't among them.

She remained in the shadows, leaning against a rusted durasteel support beam in the farthest corner of the club, where the light barely reached. Dressed in dark, unassuming clothes — loose enough to hide her figure, hood drawn just enough to keep her face obscured — she was a ghost among the filth. Coruscant's underworld wasn't a place she could walk freely. Too many eyes knew her. Too many whispers carried her name.

The Sword of the Jedi couldn't be here.

But she had to be.

This place wasn't just a fight club. It was a hub — a meeting ground for smugglers, arms dealers, and those who dabbled in things far more dangerous. Valery had tracked whispers of dangerous artifacts being passed through these circles, rare and powerful relics falling into the hands of people who had no idea the kind of destruction they could unleash. She needed names. She needed to see who was involved. She needed to know how deep this operation ran.

So she watched.

Her sharp, fiery gaze flicked between groups of gamblers and fighters, memorizing their faces, the subtle exchanges of credits, the murmured words lost beneath the howling cheers of the crowd. A human man in the back near the bar, dressed too cleanly for a place like this, was deep in conversation with a Rodian. A datapad flashed between them, something encrypted, something valuable.

That was her mark.

She shifted slightly, ready to move closer—

And then she felt it. The moment Saverok entered, the air itself seemed to change. It wasn't just his sheer presence — the hulking frame, the ancient Neo-Crusader armor that belonged in a museum — but the weight of him in the Force. A darkness, buried deep, old and scarred.

Familiar.

For a moment, Valery went completely still, her heart steady but her mind racing.

It couldn't be... right?

Saverok ​

 

[Saverok]

His head turned and featureless glare swept through the club as more data collected in his armors internal system and within his own biology. Saveroks sensory acuity boomed, pulsing and instinctually feed him more "data" under the surface. The subtle flexing of muscles, the pumping of blood through bodies and bioelectric fields as they interacted with internal stimuli. The fighters surge of adrenals, the patrons relaxed by chemical mixtures or spices and then there were the few in the establishment that were cool as a stone. The Mandalorian shifted and turned to "feel out" the latter group. A movement on his part that caused him to briefly, unknowingly, stare directly at the specific figure staring at him ( Valery Noble ). They were one of many that were looking at him and he had grown quite accustom to the phenomenon.

Shoving his way toward the bartender, a large gauntlet landed on the counter with a thud. The motion and sound immediately alerting some with the promise of credits on the counter. Credits in exchange for information. " Ey. I am looking for information." He stated and took a seat on a bar stool.

" Im a bartender. Not a infobroker. Sorry, hunter. Take it somewhere else, okay? Now do you want-" The clean dressed bartender pivoted to move away and suddenly found himself pulled over the counter with a jerk of force. The movement was faster than he could anticipate or react to. Broken glasses forcibly pushed off the counter and onto the floor with a clash. The entire scene leaving the bartender with only enough of a reaction to gasp before any words could form. As soon as the commotion was fully realized the music was lowered and the low pitch of blasters being armed sounded aloud as a warning. The air became electric and tension thick.

Yet no conflict erupted, yet. And the mandalorian seemed to not react at all. Instead got slightly excited based on his progressively relaxed body language.

" A jedi. Known in the underworld. I am. Looking. For. Information. Tell me what you know." Saverok tilted his head slightly and tightened his grip on the mans rather elegant attire. He might as well of been connected to iron manacles now. " Which jedi? C'mon, this is Coruscant. Jedi are all over?" He managed to say after collecting himself, a feat that was quite impressive to the Gen'dai.

 

[Valery Noble]

Weapons: Lightsabers (hidden)

The second Saverok grabbed the bartender, the club changed.

The tension, once nothing more than the usual underground pulse of barely restrained chaos, suddenly crystallized. The low hum of conversation died, replaced by the unmistakable clicks of blasters being armed. The energy in the air shifted, thick and electric, the kind of silence that only ever came before a fight.

Valery had seen enough of these places to know exactly where this was going.

She sighed. So much for keeping a low profile. And with the scene that he created, she knew that she couldn't just focus on her old mission again.

This?

This was worse.

Her fiery gaze snapped toward the Mandalorian, his massive, armored frame looming over the bartender like some kind of executioner. The poor man, still half-draped over the counter, had gone completely still — either too terrified to move or smart enough to know that struggling against a Gen'dai never ended well.

For a few more seconds, Valery stayed put. She let her hooded figure remain in the shadows, watching, measuring, feeling out the weight of Saverok's presence through the Force. Ancient. Scarred. She had felt it before. In old places. In old wars. A relic of a different time. And one that was about to turn this entire club into a warzone if she didn't step in.

With a quiet breath, Valery pushed away from the rusted durasteel support beam and stepped into the light.

Her hood remained drawn for now, but her presence? She no longer hid that away. The moment she moved, the underworld regulars knew. Whispers rippled through the crowd. Her boots barely made a sound as she approached, but the weight of her voice cut through the air like a blade.

"Let him go." She didn't shout. She didn't need to. There was no demand in her tone, no rage — just certainty. A quiet, undeniable command. And then, as if to punctuate the moment, she finally tilted her head up just enough that the dim neon glow caught against her fiery eyes.

The bartender's breath hitched.

Because now?

Now, there was no mistaking who she was.

Saverok ​

 

[Saverok]

The moment the voice cut through the thick tension of the club, Saverok's grip on the bartender tightened—not out of defiance, but out of shock. That voice. It was sharp, steady, and full of quiet authority. It hit him like a hammer against rusted iron, rattling something deep in the hollow spaces of his mind. It wasn't just the command itself—it was the familiarity of it.

His thoughts stuttered.

For a fraction of a second, the neon lights, the club, the murmuring crowd all faded away. Saverok wasn't here—he was somewhere else, somewhere older. A battlefield? A temple? The past? No. It wasn't real. He knew how his mind worked, how it twisted things, how it conjured ghosts. And yet…He let go. The bartender crumpled against the counter with a gasp, scrambling away like a rat slipping through cracks. Saverok didn't stop him at all. His attention had already shifted. Slowly, he turned.

His heavy armor groaned with the motion, his massive frame pivoting to face the hooded figure. He should have been on his feet, standing tall, imposing—yet, almost without thinking, he found himself lowering down onto one knee. Not submission. Not surrender. Recognition. His visor veiled eyes were now roughly level with her own.

Even with her face shadowed, even with the years—the centuries—that had passed, a small confident part of him knew.

"...Valery?"

The name left him barely above a whisper, a mixture of disbelief and something dangerously close to wonder. His mind fought against it. He had seen too many illusions before, too many tricks played by his own unraveling sanity. But in the end the Force did not lie to him. Whatever was left of his dwindling force sensitivity seemed to heighten in her presence. The air itself hummed, steady and unshaken. Evoking a personality within a fractured psyche that had not surfaced since the Old Republic.

This wasn't a hallucination.

This was real!

And Saverok… didn't know whether to feel relief or something else entirely. A large armored appendages motioned to tubes connected to the frontal part of his Neo-Crusader Helmet. They both detached with a simple pluck and hissed aloud in till the sound gradually faded into background noise. Next his grasp came apon his mask, pinched slightly and lifted the ancient piece of beskar away from his visage. All at once the Internal HUD shut off and the veil of technology dropped.

He wanted to see this with his own two eyes.

Eyes that were completely alien in biology and psychologically. Set deep within the weathered lines of his alien face, they carried the weight of centuries—no, millennia—of conflict, loss, and survival. They were dark, vast, and ancient, like deep wells filled with echoes of forgotten wars and the ghosts of those long dead. If anyone dared to truly look into them, they wouldn't just see a soldier; they'd see a fractured existence, a being who had lived through the rise and fall of empires, who had been both hunter and hunted, conqueror and prisoner.
The kind of gaze that didn't just look through people but past them, through layers of time itself. He had seen cities burn, battlefields littered with bodies, comrades turn to dust while he remained, unchanged and yet never the same. There were moments where his stare became unfocused, as if he wasn't fully in the present, trapped between echoes of the past and the uncertainty of the now.

And yet… there was still something there.

A spark. A flicker of lucidity that refused to die. In this moment, in the dim neon glow of the club, that ember burned just a little brighter. It wasn't the cold, detached stare of a machine or the haunted look of a man lost to madness. It was something in between—an ancient warrior wrestling with his ghosts but still here. Still present.

" Is that truly you?" He asked rather vulnerably and tilted his head some more.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Weapons: Lightsabers (hidden)

The moment Saverok released the bartender, Valery prepared for the next move. She expected resistance. A fight. Something violent. But what she got instead stopped her in her tracks.

She felt it in the Force before she saw it — the shift, the way his emotions wavered between disbelief and something older, deeper. He turned, the massive weight of his armor groaning, but not to attack. No, his towering frame lowered. Not in submission. Not in surrender. In recognition.

And then— her name.

Her breath hitched. Surprise flickered across her face, her fiery gaze locking onto him as he removed his mask. The dim neon lights of the club caught against his weathered features, his alien eyes staring at her not with hostility, but something uncertain. Raw. Vulnerable.

It was not what she expected.

Valery had encountered relics of the past before— warriors, ghosts, remnants of another time. But Saverok? He wasn't just a fragment of history. He had lived through it. Through the rise and fall of empires. Through blood-soaked battlefields and silent losses that stretched across centuries. And now? He was staring at her as if she were the ghost.

For a long moment, Valery didn't speak. She just watched him. And she felt him. She knew that pain. The weight of time. The way the past never truly let go. The way it lingered, whispered, clung to the edges of your soul no matter how much you tried to push forward. Finally, she stepped forward, slow but steady.

"It's me." Her voice was quiet, but certain. Grounding.

"And I—"

Memories flickered at the edges of her mind, hazy but undeniable. Battlefields. Clashes of light and dark. What sides had they been on during these confrontations?

Did it even matter now?

She exhaled sharply, running a hand through her thick, dark hair before offering a faint, tired smile. "I remember you too. Not everything, but…" Her gaze flickered with something soft. "Enough." Then, her expression shifted — not unkind, but firm. She nodded toward him.

"Please, rise." She wasn't going to let him stay on his knees, lost in the past. "If you're alright with not turning this bar upside down…" Her lips quirked in something almost amused, though there was a knowing weight behind it. "Maybe we can talk somewhere?" Somewhere private. Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere where neither of them had to feel like relics on display.

Saverok ​

 

[Saverok]

"It's me." Her voice was quiet, but certain. Grounding.

"And I—"

Memories flickered at the edges of her mind, hazy but undeniable. Battlefields. Clashes of light and dark. What sides had they been on during these confrontations?

Did it even matter now?

She exhaled sharply, running a hand through her thick, dark hair before offering a faint, tired smile. "I remember you too. Not everything, but…" Her gaze flickered with something soft. "Enough." Then, her expression shifted — not unkind, but firm. She nodded toward him.

"Please, rise." She wasn't going to let him stay on his knees, lost in the past. "If you're alright with not turning this bar upside down…" Her lips quirked in something almost amused, though there was a knowing weight behind it. "Maybe we can talk somewhere?" Somewhere private. Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere where neither of them had to feel like relics on display.

His large armored frame shifted as Saverok stood up. He was still holding his mask in hand and for a brief moment his lucid gaze decompensated. A flicker of danger flashed, Like a rapid corellian hound and his facial muscles twitched. The sights, sounds, feelings and people around him came back to his remembrance all at once. " Heh. Suurrre." He answered oddly and walked ahead of Valery Noble in large strides, shoving the bouncers aside at the door. It was in jest but judging how the playful assualt staggered the two gamorreans, It didnt exactly appear that way.

Once outside, Saveroks gaze locked on an alley way and where he directed his eyes, his body soon followed suit. " Come. I know a place. My son...he used to live there..." He stated in a loud voice. A voice that trailed off at the end of his sentence. Saverok's boots hit the duracrete with heavy, deliberate steps as he strode deeper through underbelly of Coruscant, his presence like a looming stormcloud. He didn't wait for Valery to answer—he didn't need to, not yet. The words had already spilled from his mouth, but his mind was somewhere else, tangled in old ghosts and questions that had no right to resurface.

The alley yawned before him, narrow and dark, the neon glow from above barely reaching this deep. Graffiti stretched across the walls like scars, some of it fresh, some ancient, layered over by generations of the forgotten. The scent of oil, rust, and something vaguely organic clung to the air, thick and choking. Broken glowpanels flickered overhead, casting sporadic flashes of pale blue light over the grime-streaked walkways. Saverok walked fast, shoulders squared, his movements almost playful—if not for the sheer weight of his presence. He ducked into another passage, twisting down a side street, then another, taking sharp turns like he was leading an invisible chase. Maybe he was. Maybe something was following him that he couldn't quite name.

His fingers flexed around the edges of his mask, the cool metal grounding him for half a second before his grip tightened.

Everything felt… different. Off. The air here carried a strange heaviness, pressing in around him like the past had decided to take form and walk beside him. He could hear distant sounds of life—muted conversations, the occasional shout, the hum of speeder bikes overhead—but none of it felt real. Just noise, just echoes.

And Valery. Still there. Still alive?

He would stop suddenly, turning on his heel to face her direction, his alien eyes gleaming in the dim alleyway pondering with curiousity.

"How!?" The word came out rougher this time, quieter. Less of a question, more of a demand. His brow furrowed, and for a second, the flicker of danger returned, his presence a slow-rising tide of tension. "The wars, the battles—you should be dust like the rest. So what is it? Some Jedi trick? A curse? Or something worse? There is....always something worse than, Death." He rambled and looked around him. And the corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite anything. Behind the Gen'dai the alleyway opened up into a large industrial section. Filled with vermin nests, rusted durasteel pipes, junk piles, stagnant green waters and traces of alien and human remains that had been half digested and chewed on by some sort of creature no doubt.

Was this the place he spoke of earlier?

 

[Valery Noble]

Weapons: Lightsabers (hidden)

Valery arched a single brow as Saverok shoved past the bouncers, his massive frame barreling through them like they were little more than flimsy training dummies. The Gamorreans staggered, grunting in surprise, but the Gen'dai didn't even spare them a glance.

A moment passed.

Then, Valery smirked, shaking her head as she followed. Playful, she thought dryly, though there was something oddly familiar in the way he carried himself. She had seen warriors like him before — dangerous, yes, but not without a certain… flair.

She walked in silence, keeping pace, letting him lead. The deeper they went, the heavier the air became, thick with the scent of rust, oil, and the unmistakable rot that clung to the underbelly of Coruscant. Graffiti and grime covered the walls like forgotten history, layered over and over again until the original markings had all but disappeared.

It wasn't just a place. It was a graveyard of time.

Then, he stopped.

"How!?"

There was no patience in it, no gentle curiosity — just the sharp, demanding edge of someone who had seen far too much of the galaxy's cruelty to believe in miracles. The weight of his words pressed into the alley, thick and unyielding. Valery didn't flinch. She met his gaze evenly, her own amber eyes steady, burning with something real. "Stasis," she answered simply, no hesitation in her tone. "A very long time."

She exhaled, glancing past him at the ruinous sprawl of rusted durasteel pipes, stagnant green pools, and the half-digested remains littered across the ground. This was it. This was where he had led her.

Her voice softened, but the weight of her words remained. "I woke up a little over a decade ago. The war I knew was long over. The people I fought beside… gone." A small pause. "I wasn't supposed to make it out. But I did."

Her gaze flicked back to him, searching.

"This is the place you spoke of, isn't it?"

Saverok ​

 

[Saverok]

He stared back at her. Stasis.

That was it? That was the reason?

His breath left him slow, like air escaping a cracked hull. For a moment, he didn't move—just stood there, staring at her with an expression that couldn't decide what it wanted to be. His red eyes narrowed, pupils shrinking slightly, as if trying to piece something together that refused to make sense. Stasis. She had skipped it all. The centuries of war. The endless cycle of blood and fire. The slow, grinding weight of time crushing everything in its path. She hadn't suffered the way he had—hadn't had to claw through the ages, losing pieces of herself, of everything she had ever known, bit by bit. She had closed her eyes. And then, just like that, she had opened them again.

No wars.

No pain.
No history.
No traumas.​

It wasn't fair.​

His expression shifted, flickering through surprise, confusion, and something bitter before settling into a forced stillness. His jaw locked tight, the muscle in his cheek growing rigid as his teeth ground together. There was a storm rolling through him—anger, jealousy, disbelief—but tangled within it was something quieter, something he didn't know how to name.

Relief.

She was here. She was alive. That part shouldn't have mattered, but somehow, it did. A slow exhale like motion passed through his would-be nose as he clenched his mask tighter in his grip. Saverok's head tilted, his gaze flickering past Valery for the first time since she'd spoken, as if suddenly aware of their surroundings.

And then, like a switch being flipped, his entire demeanor shifted.

His large frame tensed, and his head snapped around, eyes scanning the alley with sharp, darting movements. The rusted pipes. The stagnant, greenish pools reflecting the dim glow of flickering streetlights. The broken duracrete, cracked and uneven beneath his feet. The scattered debris of things forgotten, half-buried in filth and time.

Her question reached him, but it bounced off something unsteady in his mind.

"This is the place you spoke of, isn't it?"

His breath hitched. His gaze flicked left, then right, then up—searching. "I—" His voice was low, rough. He blinked rapidly, as if shaking something loose. He turned in a slow, tight circle, scanning the decayed structures towering around them. The walls loomed, the shadows stretched long, and for a brief second, he looked… lost.

"This... is—Yes" He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. A humorless chuckle rumbled from his chest. "Yes!" His expression twisted, frustration creeping in as his fingers curled against his mask. His eyes darted across the alley again, the eerie glow of his irises catching every shifting shadow, every jagged piece of broken durasteel. His voice came quieter this time.

" No doubt you...have moved on in life too? This is the place where I first met my firstborn." He moved. Fast walking over to a heap of a junk pile and began scuffling around. Eyes darting back and forth almost frantic. His mood began to resonate with fits of irritation and slight anger, but the source was null and void. It was clear something internal was occurring. Fractures of the mind. " Errmm. You would of liked him Valery." He paused and chuckled to himself. " He would of gave you a run for your credits. I trained him. Where is it? WHERE THE KARK IS IT!" He cracked and suddenly screamed profanities. Letting loose first in basic, then Mando'a and then in the words of his own kind. " Wha'a ut sha ka'kung Yaftagu! I naag us nugh!!" was the utterance in a dead tongue. Saverok's frame lumbered back and forth rummaging, in till, finally he found it and hoisted it up from a vermin nest.

Alien creatures shrieked and scurried in all directs when a small, no medium, sized magseal container was set flatly on the ground. Looming over it, the Gen'dai just about fell on his knees and opened it. A few combination keys and biometric scan and the seal was negated. The lid lifted with a hiss and a faint yellow glow emitted from inside. Large gauntlets gently and now shakily handled a eye dropper of sorts. A eye dropper that shined a prismatic hazy-blue and golden liquid. It shimmered vibrantly as the delicate dropper was motioned over Saveroks eye and used. Yaladi Spice.

" sorry." he whispered blinking the liquid around.

It felt like the birth of a star! Like victory incarnate and touching the great unknown. And indeed it did! The whisper that was the Gen'dais force sensitity jumped! The occult lifeforce of the galaxy reconnecting and expanding into something...alien. The natural darkness of the undercity seemed to leak out from his force presence. Amplified and growing.

" It brings me strange joy to puzzle at how you are alive. How was reacclimating yourself the new galaxy?" He said clearly and with new dark determinations.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Weapons: Lightsabers (hidden)

Valery watched him closely, her sharp eyes tracking every shift in his expression, every fluctuation in his stance. He moved like a storm barely contained — one moment lost in memory, the next snapping through frustration, anger, something deeper. Something raw. It set off something instinctual in her, the careful awareness of a warrior who knew better than to turn her back on someone so volatile.

And then, the spice.

Her muscles tensed slightly as the vial hissed open, the liquid catching the dim light. He brought it to his eye, and as soon as it made contact, she felt it — the sudden, unnatural surge, the way the Force around them twisted and expanded in a way that wasn't entirely natural. His presence stretched outward, darkened, yet it wasn't the overwhelming, malicious tide of the Sith. It was something else.

A slow exhale left her nose as she adjusted her stance, weight shifting slightly in preparation for whatever might come next. His voice was clearer now, steadier, but there was a weight behind it.

She hesitated for a moment before exhaling softly, her hand lifting to rub the back of her neck. "It wasn't easy," she admitted, her voice quieter now, more even. "Waking up after so long, realizing that everything I once knew was gone? The war, my friends, my way of life... It was like stepping into a galaxy that had moved on without me."

Her fingers dropped, and she looked at him, really looked at him — this towering being who had lived through those centuries she had skipped, who had endured in ways she never had to. "The worst part?" She let out a small, humorless chuckle. "After all that time, after thousands of years... it's still the same. The war never really stopped. New faces, new factions, but the same battles, the same bloodshed."

Her amber eyes darkened for a moment, the weight of it all settling deep in her chest. "At first, I felt like I was still fighting the same war, just in a different era." She shook her head slightly, glancing away. "But I had to let it go."

She looked back at him, something softer in her gaze now, despite the caution that still lingered there. "I've moved forward. I made new friends, built a new life. I found someone." Her lips curved into something small but real, a quiet warmth flickering behind her eyes. "We started a family. It wasn't easy, but it's good now. Better than my old life."

A pause. "I found my peace." Her eyes searched his, gauging for a reaction.

"Have you?"

Saverok ​

 

[Saverok]

A slow exhale left her nose as she adjusted her stance, weight shifting slightly in preparation for whatever might come next. His voice was clearer now, steadier, but there was a weight behind it.

She hesitated for a moment before exhaling softly, her hand lifting to rub the back of her neck. "It wasn't easy," she admitted, her voice quieter now, more even. "Waking up after so long, realizing that everything I once knew was gone? The war, my friends, my way of life... It was like stepping into a galaxy that had moved on without me."

Her fingers dropped, and she looked at him, really looked at him — this towering being who had lived through those centuries she had skipped, who had endured in ways she never had to. "The worst part?" She let out a small, humorless chuckle. "After all that time, after thousands of years... it's still the same. The war never really stopped. New faces, new factions, but the same battles, the same bloodshed."

Her amber eyes darkened for a moment, the weight of it all settling deep in her chest. "At first, I felt like I was still fighting the same war, just in a different era." She shook her head slightly, glancing away. "But I had to let it go."

She looked back at him, something softer in her gaze now, despite the caution that still lingered there. "I've moved forward. I made new friends, built a new life. I found someone." Her lips curved into something small but real, a quiet warmth flickering behind her eyes. "We started a family. It wasn't easy, but it's good now. Better than my old life."

A pause. "I found my peace." Her eyes searched his, gauging for a reaction.

"Have you?"

Not just in the way a warrior watches an opponent, but in the way something ancient and patient observes a storm forming in the distance—measuring the winds, reading the sky. She said the word peace, and it hung between them, light as air, heavy as stone. His senses, honed to an edge beyond humanoid comprehension, caught the slight shift in her posture first. A tightening of muscles beneath the skin. Her heart rate adjusting—just a fraction. Most would miss it. But then again Saverok was not the majority, he was the anomaly.

They both were.

Then the Force. It rippled, subtle yet unmistakable, like a quiet hesitation in the current. Not fear. Not deception. Just... something withheld. Something not fully given. "Peace." The word rumbled out of him in a slow, deliberate purr—though with the distortion of his cybernetics, it sounded more like a growl. No mockery. No bitterness. Just curiosity, turning the idea over like a blade in his palm, testing its edge.

He tilted his head back again. Another drop of spice into his other eye. And the Gen'dais force presence spike again as before, but collectively his being was enveloped with so much raw potential. As if Saveroks force presence was never diminished at all. He stood whole, but also tainted. Various rodents and vermin in the adjacent nests began to shriek and flee the area with urgency. "To lose oneself in war, in vengeance, in the endless cycles of history. That is easy. The galaxy welcomes it, expects it. But to step away from it? To forge something new when the past has already claimed you? Comradery, family, friends. That is so rare. Rarer than victory, rarer than power. Peace isn't just found—it's built, piece by piece, against the weight of everything you were before. And not many are strong enough to bear that burden." He feigned a frown and blinked several times as his presence and clarity of mind adjusted. Attempting to balance hollow emotions that may of been expected, against the extasy of the force surging through him once more invigorated! Her question eluded momentarily and Saverok's gaze locked onto Valery with an intensity that may of felt unnatural, Surgical even, not with hunger, not with malice, but with an eerie, calculated curiosity. Unwavering, unblinking, boring into her with such absolute focus that it stripped away the comfort of any normal interaction. There was no flicker of emotion, no subconscious twitch or shift, just pure, methodical observation. It was the kind of stare that made the air feel heavier, like the walls were closing in, like the person behind it wasn't entirely human in how they processed the world.

And yet, his face told a different story. His expression was strangely soft—relaxed, almost serene. His features, though hardened by time and war, bore no visible tension. No clenched jaw, no furrowed brow, just a placid stillness that made the whole thing worse.

"While you, Valery, had the privilege to sleep. I watched the galaxy rise and fall. Jedi. Sith. Mandalorians. Empires. Republics. Civil wars. Clone wars. The Yuuzhan Vong. Gulag virus. The Nether world and on and on. I've seen kings and tyrants, saviors and monsters, all taking their turn playing the game. Each believing they were different. Perhaps some were. Thinking that they would be the ones to change everything. And yet..." He gestured vaguely, as if to the very air around them. "Here we are. Its difficult given my... condition." His so called lips pulled back slightly, revealing a glint of sharpened teeth—a smile, A polite smile but one devoid of humor. Then his tone shifted, quieter now, but heavier somehow.

His eyes concentration flickered with something unreadable. And subtly his presence seemed to subside in the force and began to ebb and flow like waves. No longer raw and uncontrolled at random but pulsating into a rhythm that, if Valery Noble was keen enough to notice, would mimic the flow of her own biology. To effect her equilibrium and intestinal tract to produce something akin to motion sickness. Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.

"Tell me, Battlemaster."
That word. A rank. Not Valery anymore?
"You said you found your peace. Built a life. A family." He flashed a heartfelt smile.
Then his head tilted just slightly, the movement unnervingly smooth.
"But do you feel it? Do really think this life is better than the one that left you behind?"

 

[Valery Noble]

Weapons: Lightsabers (hidden)

Valery listened. Quietly, steadily. There was no rush to fill the silence between his words, no impulse to interrupt the weight of what he was saying. This was a being who had lived — endured beyond anything she could fathom. While she had slept, skipping thousands of years in an instant, Saverok had been there for every rise and fall. Every war, every massacre, every so-called new beginning that crumbled into the same endless cycle of bloodshed.

She didn't envy him.

Her amber eyes flickered slightly, softer now—not with sympathy, but with understanding. "I won't pretend to know what that's like," she murmured, her voice low. "To live through all of it. To watch while the galaxy repeats itself over and over again, making the same mistakes." She inhaled slowly, steadying herself. "I only woke up to the mess it left behind."

Then, the shift.

A ripple through the Force, slow at first, like an unseen tide pulling her downward. But it grew. The way Saverok's presence adjusted — not wild, not chaotic, but calculated. A deliberate rhythm, tuned to her — to the beat of her heart, the cycle of her breathing. It was subtle, but she felt it like a tug on her. A slow, twisting pressure against her balance, against her body's natural equilibrium. Not an attack, not quite. But something meant to test her.

Her jaw tightened slightly, but she didn't falter.

The Light stirred within her. It didn't flare up in defiance — it didn't lash out. Instead, it flowed, steady and anchored. A counterbalance, an opposing current pushing back just enough to keep her standing firm. Valery didn't need the Force to be a weapon in this moment. She needed it to be hers.

Her smirk returned, small but unwavering. "I feel it," she answered, voice steady, unwavering.

"This life is better." Not because it was easier. Not because it meant the fight was over. It wasn't. It never would be. She wasn't naive enough to believe she would be the one to end war, to stop the cycle, to change the course of history for thousands of years to come. She wouldn't. But she wasn't fighting blindly anymore.

"I know I won't change the galaxy forever," she admitted. "But I can shape it. I can make a difference now. For the people I love, for the people who have something worth fighting for." A pause. "I have a family. I have something real. And that's more than I ever had before, and I don't need anything else to feel fulfilled."

Saverok ​