Birthright. (Atretes Rhoujen)

[Salem Norongachi]

[member="Atretes Rhoujen"] was near. Salem could feel him like a light trying desperately to pierce the darkness but his Master was lost upon unforgiving waters. He was, as he had been a lifetime past- The Dark Lord Omega.

No finesse now, no control. The chains were broken, the monster was free to gorge itself upon an ocean of blood. A typhoon raged through the void, the dark abyss where good men feared to tread. It snatched a fighter from the black and dashed it against its wing mate, little caring for the outcome or the loss of life as both succumbed to the black. Feet moved like the flicker of a candle in the wind, constant impossible motions beyond the ken of a mundane mind.

There was no song. No sonnet that soared and lulled as he brought the Force to heel. No, this was annihilation given a voice, a conqueror crushing children under foot; A world set to burn, another lost in the storm of war that was all Omega knew. Splashes of laser fire brightened against the ships powerful shields, the small fighter darting across her bow before a hammer blow of telekinetic energy violated its metal and it became as flame.

The Frigate had closed the distance into weapons range, its turbolaser batteries raining death all around the Ebon Lord while Sigma kept what remained of the fighters firmly occupied. A burst of preternatural speed. The ships bow a hundred meters ahead.

"Do it." He spoke and the massive warship suddenly veered toward the Frigate as Emah cut the port engines and poured everything into the starboard.

A black speck, lost amongst the curtain of space. Leaping. The Force his guide, his momentum. Boots impacted and latched onto the slender, skeletal ships hull. Dark gauntlets rose and hell came with them, serpents of his rage ensnaring turrets on each side of him before he ripped them from their moorings and cast them into the speckled black. More came, more limbs from a monster of the deep. Along the spine of the ship he ran, his hands slashing left and right like the claws of a rancor- With every motion another weapon died.

 

[EmKay]

The turret fire blazed through the vacuum of space, and fighters were being downed with accuracy to rival a trained gunner. Atretes was becoming cooler now. The temporary buzz of whatever that dream did to him had passed, and now it was down to nearly professional execution of button triggers. Then the ship lurched. He saw several fighters swoop past. He tried to shoot them but the sudden movement of the large warship threw off his ability to aim. Shaken from his focus, Rhoujen suddenly felt it. A mass of power and warp in the Force generated by [member="Salem Norongachi"]. He pondered the implications for a few moments, then remembered he had something to do. He raced out of the turret box, to the dismay of his limbs, and pressed onward to a better position.

The Force followed his commands, and the sensation was becoming familiar to him. Less instinct, more will. It penetrated the very fibers of his musculature. It was painful, but the soothing after-effect and gain of speed was what he needed now, no matter how his body protested. He lost his balance when the ship shook and a burst of energy exploded from Salem. He stumbled and slid down the hall on his rear, then stopped himself with his boots. The forward momentum launched him forward and he used a burst of weak telekinesis to correct his balance and spun on his heel. He slipped into the gunner seat there and had full view of the frigate and starfighters. Atretes couldn't tell where Salem was, but after a moment of focusing himself back into the flow of things, he could see without sight again. He saw the torrent of energy revolving around Salem wildly, but averted his eyes from the mass of power to defend the Hand from the aggressive starfighters. Not anticipating the change of gunner position, the starfighters were taken by surprise for precious moments that the young apprentice used to his advantage.

 

[Salem Norongachi]

The two ships were so close now, 'Knife-fight distance' in navy terms, the guns that remained upon the Frigate hammering relentlessly upon the Star Destroyer. At this distance there would little in the way of dissipation from the lances of energy impacting upon his ship and despite far superior shields it was only a matter of attrition before they fell and the dark paintwork of the Hand of Fate received its first injury.

Why wasn't she pulling back? Norongachi seethed, his rage so unfocused that it latched onto anyone that even slightly displeased him, and then he realized; Emah wouldn't move out of recovery range, she was giving him all the time she could to disable the attacker and return before removing herself from harms way.

A burst of flame appeared ahead of him and two missiles fired from the tubes atop the vessel but their ascent was forestalled, Salem had taken them under his control, shackling them to his will his hands fought their guidance systems before they arced up and then plummeted back down onto the backbone of the ship with a collision that sent powerful tremors across its hull. A blossoming explosion ripped from the ship as a result, casting shards of hull plating into the black and then Omega was back upon the offensive. A hand snapped out to a razored shard of spinning metal taller and wider than himself, bindings of the Force encircled it before he whipped his hand across and then down, ramming it into the missile tubes before any more projectiles could be launched.

"Sigma!" He yelled through the Force as he ran full tilt toward the damaged section of the frigate. "Target the spar at the centre of the ship! Pour everything you can onto it!"

[member="Atretes Rhoujen"]

 

[EmKay]

The fighters were easy picking at this point. He'd attuned his senses to know the ships before the ships even registered the electronic interface commands input by the pilot. He was shooting ahead, and they were dropping off-radar with minimal effort. Nearly upon the moment he'd finished off the last of the fighters, [member="Salem Norongachi"]'s voice tore through his mind like a clap of thunder. His mind throbbed dully before he registered what was said. He watched, nearly in terror, when a chunk of hull came hurdling toward him. Less by thinking and more by reflex he held up a hand against it and the Force channeled across his arm and sent the hull piece floating harmlessly away. He blinked, then realised he was wasting time and got to work.

"Right." he muttered under his breath and he focused on the focal point of where his mentor's attack coalesced and caused that massive explosion. The fires helped that on a visual front, and once he zeroed in his aim he laid into the hull breach as fast as the turbolaser would shoot. He needed more power behind these shots, though. He frowned and decided to try something. He slowly released the triggers, and bound them up with telekinesis. They held steady. He slowly backed away, and the turbolaser continued firing. His breathing became ever so more laboured as he strained to focus and keep that telekinetic bind on the firing controls without moving them. He slowly made his way the distance to the next turret. His brow was beading with sweat, and he dared not move faster than walking pace lest he lose concentration.

When he finally made his way to the next turret, he was developing a headache from retaining the split focus. He strained to keep the other turret firing as he sat himself in the next gunner seat and gripped onto the controls. With his hands now performing the same motion as his mind, it became less of a struggle. Like controlling four hands at the same time. The distance still made it strain his control to its limits, but when he opened fire with the turret he now manned, the breaking point of the frigate was under the power of four turbolaser beams from a Star Destroyer pounding into it. Atretes had little idea what that meant, but it sounded devastating to him.

 

[Salem Norongachi]

The fear from the frigates crew coloured the space around Norongachi. They didn't know what to do with this crazed monster upon their hull and the barrels of two quad heavy turbolaser batteries pounding against them. If they thought this was a simple snatch and grab job, they were quickly realizing how mistaken they were.

The ship shook beneath his boots, the reverberations of Atretes' solid aim would have thrown Salem into space were it not for the strength of his mag-boots. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing above the rush of his blood in his ears, the rage of a nightmare sustaining him as he ran toward the flashing shield under Sigmas assault. The Force was an explosion around him, filling him with a dark light that near ripped his make up apart with its power. His hands reached out toward the damage section of the ship, as if he were attempting to strangle an unseen adversary. A leviathan of Telekinetic energy swept from his body, coiling around the frigate at its weakest point and then he poured his desire into it; Snap its spine.

Metal began to buckle under his will, armour plating snapping and bending as the manifestation of his intent squeezed tighter and tighter. A relay inside the ship exploded and cast fire into the black, the cylindrical spar that held engine and fore together losing the test of strength- all the while his hands moved millimetre by millimetre closer together.

Teeth gritted, grinding together as a low snarl filled his hearing, the power gifted to him drawing sweat from his brow and forcing a vein to rise upon the side of his head. Let them go, a quiet thought spoke, they aren't a threat now; but his bloodlust would not be dissuaded, if anything the merciful thought drove him further into his task, fingertips touching and the spar bending and compacted where he assaulted it.

"Not today," He spoke to the quiet of space. "Not ever." And then he pushed off from the Frigate as his hands clapped together, fingers interlacing and the Nebulon ripped apart. The explosion lost some of its meaning in silence, a ripping fire that cut along the back of the ship and ignited the massive ion engines which in turn damaged the front of the ship further with its shock wave. Norongachi thought he saw a face, pale and frightened, looking up at him from a viewport as he fell back toward the Hand of Fates waiting hull and in that moment his emotion began to abate, from a vortex to a storm and then finally a quiet simmer at the edge of his hearing.

His boots hit the hull of his ship and immediately Emah pulled them away from the death throes of the enemy, tilting the side of the ship up to shield him from the fallout of his handiwork that was still, even now, tearing the frigate apart. Every inch of his body began to ache, the distinctive taste of blood upon his tongue where his teeth had bit into his lower lip but he continued to move, one foot in front of the other until he stepped through the ray shielding and submitted to the Star Destroyers artificial gravity which brought him to his knees.

[member="Atretes Rhoujen"]

 

[EmKay]

The spectacle was one to behold, or it would have been under normal circumstances. The prolonged remote telekinesis was taking its toll on Atretes, and he slumped forward onto the controls while his control over the two turrets faded. The turret dipped forward and obstructed his view of the destruction, and his vision went blurry. He could still sense through the Force the way the power whirlwinded around [member="Salem Norongachi"] and struck according to his design. He felt the life extinguish from the cruiser, and then something else. A subtle wave in the Force that emanated from the scene of the death of a whole crew, a minor disturbance that tickled the edges of his perceptions. His groggy mind wondered vaguely on what it was before he strained to keep his eyes open and look out to space. He saw the little speck that was his teacher float back to the ship and sensed his presence to be closer.

Rhoujen pulled himself free of the turret housing, and staggered his way to the hangar. His legs were burning from the exertion, his head was in a splitting headache from that exertion, and he felt like he was either going to pass out or be ill. Maybe both. He didn't realise when he'd finally reached the door to the hangar, but when he did he ambled his way in and have a sheepish wave, before he too fell to the ground, one hand supporting his upper body and the other massaging his temple.

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"This is becoming a habit..." Norongachi said, flopping onto his back and pulling the stifling helm from his head. A breath of recycled air entered and escaped his lungs in a sigh as his muscles relaxed. Outside, the ship had levelled out and its shields flashed as occasional pieces of debris collided with it as Emah pulled them away.

"Damage report?" He asked the ship.

"Minimal, a conduit blew on deck 75. I have the repair droids working on it." Came the response and then. "Fix my guns and never do that again." Silence stretched out before the three of them then, as Norongachi thought of what to say to his student and more importantly how to word it in such a way that it wasn't pure hypocrisy.

"You have experience using your emotions in conjunction with the Force. What I did out there....was not what I want you to do. Its a cycle that once you are locked into it, is almost impossible to break." He turned his head to look at [member="Atretes Rhoujen"] and smiled. "Almost." He sat up, his armour groaning along with his body at the effort and got to his feet.

"Come on, lets get the frak outta here before something else shoots at us." Omega spoke as he walked toward the exit and then stopped, turned on his heel and let that Norongachi smirk play across his lips. "And welcome aboard and yes, its always like this." With that he was gone, heading for the bridge of the ship and his personal quarters. He needed to rest and to reflect but must of all he needed a drink.

 

[EmKay]

Atretes didn't have any energy left. He listened to what [member="Salem Norongachi"] said, and took the lesson into his mental archive of his mentor's life lessons. Once he heard Salem leave, Rhoujen slumped on the ground in an exhausted daze. He was pushed by an astromech droid that beeped irritably, forcing him up and out of the hangar. After flashing it a dirty look, the apprentice headed off to his room to get some rest while the master charted their next event.

[OOC: I think we can draw the curtain and exit stage right at this point.]