Nathan watched from a rooftop covered in sandbags as the city was ravaged.
As he watched from behind the impassive visage of his red helm, he felt...
doubt...
Tell me, Father... he heard the voice of Laertia Io in his skull.
What has actually changed since the Gulag Plague? What have the Jedi actually fixed?
"Leave me alone." Nathan said to no one as he spied four Jedi under attack with alliance troops.
Their only solution is the same one they always use: Trust in the Force. They never consider the idea it might choose to deliberately deceive them...
Not sure if it was actually his daughter communicating with him, or the dark places in the back of his skull, he sought to drive the voice out by firing on a Mandalorian from above.
This, this right here,
this was why he didn't like getting into extended fights with Mandalorians. This entire battle justified his mindset towards dealing with one via "cheating".
He looked at his peers, the exasperation building as he watched them try to take them head on.
Do you not SEE the hypocrisy? The Bryn'adul were doing the same damn thing the Mandalorians were doing. And they were actually only slightly more ruthless about it. None of the Jedi could be bothered to fight an opponent they didn't have a history with. Picky. Stubborn. Arrogant. Willfully oblivious. That's who you fight alongside. If it was the Bryn'adul doing this they'd already be seeking an excuse to go fight the Sith.
Nathan didn't reply as he teleported down to the group of Jedi and soldiers, activating his Saberstaff as blaster bolt after blaster bolt pelted their position he was able to pick out the familiar pitch and whine of maser bolts in all this madness and evade those while batting back the regular bolts back against the advancing hoard which now descended on them all like locusts with jet packs. At this point, their position was
completely overran and they were on the verge of being surrounded on all sides by blasters, wrist blades, rockets blasting Alliance soldiers apart.
All Nathan and the Survivors could do was
run. Run from the rockets and bombs raining down on them from above and behind them. He watched Jedi and Soldier alike be cut down as they fled.
A nearby explosion sent him flying. He felt something wet on the inside of his suit. Then agonizing pain in his side as he was flung through the window of a building by the explosion.
The armor had taken a good chunk of it, but he knew he had shrapnel in him. The emotional suppression training didn't let him feel the fear and rage. But it could do nothing for the pain. He crawled on the ground, in too much pain to use the Force as Mandalorians got closer to the remains of a supermarket he had been blown into, the shelves toppled with their contents by the shockwaves from nearby detonations, the ceiling partly collapsed.
He crawled slightly faster. His suit's sound dampener was partly damaged, so it was going to be unreliable. But he had no choice.
He could hear that he wasn't the only one in here trying to hide. He heard a frightened woman cry out before being shot.
He turned the dampener system on and all noise from him was brought down to extremely miniscule levels as he pulled himself up, his insides burning, about to vomit from the pain as The Mandalorians stormed in, knowing there was a Jedi here. He checked his lightsaber.
One half had been smashed utterly, along with the crystals in that half.
Chit.
"Jedi! Come out, Jedi, and face the judgement of a people your order foolishly angered!" a man's voice bellowed.
Nathan ducked as a wave a blaster shots tore through the shelves he was behind. Heavy repeaters. They had his heat signature.
"Your kind should have stayed out of the Enclave's business!" The voice roared.
Nathan could barely run from the shots due to his injuries. They were toying with him. Trying to trick him into making a mistake. He dived into the window of a security room, slamming painfully onto his injuries, nearly blacking out.
Only the need to live to destroy the Cult of The Brain Demon kept him awake, forced him to stand. The image of his wife's face mummifying as Darth Phyre consumed and annihilated her soul made him
run from the next volley.
"COME OUT, JEDI! WE HAVE A HOSTAGE! A POOR, INNOCENT CLERK! THAT'S WHAT YOU JEDI DO, RIGHT?! PROTECT
WEAKLINGS SUCH AS THIS?!" The Mandalorian whose armor bore strange, teardrop shaped patterns all over its otherwise black surface yelled, holding up a terrified clerk, a teenager bloodied and dirtied, with the snot of fear running out of his nose by the scruff of his neck.
"I don't see you in ten seconds, he dies!"
Nathan knew it was tactical suicide. They would kill the clerk anyway even if he
did come out.
What are the Three Directives of a Bloodscrawl? his father asked in the back of his head.
"Ten!"
He blinked and he was in a white void, with
The Battalion
in her skintight white catsuit, staring at him, arms folded.
"You're a fool if you go out there, Morris. You know that." The Battalion warned.
"Leave me alone, Elaine." Nathan said.
"Why? You won't leave
us alone." The Battalion replied, circling him in the void.
"Even when presented with direct proof of Jedi incompetence and hypocrisy, still you try to do it as they would?"
"It's not
The Jedi attacking Ukatis,
Dipstick..." Nathan hissed back. "It's The Mandalorians..."
"And how long will the war drag on because the Order refuses to win it?" The Battalion demanded to know.
"Wars end when they end. Can't force an end. Can't speed a war up. And The Jedi won the last two wars. How many wars have you and my daughter won?"
"They won due to their sheer
bulk, Morris! Not because of any
merit!" The Battalion sneered. "You can't be
that naive. Their half measures will allow their enemies to grow stronger and stronger, just like last time. How many worlds must suffer for the Order's refusal to accept the cost of winning
easily?"
She was behind him, suddenly, whispering into his ear.
"We entered
knowing we were on the losing side. But we still did it, because it was the right thing to do."
Her hands glided easily over his shoulders.
"Their system is
broken..."
"Better a broken system
trying to do good than a fully functional and operational system whose ambition is evil." Nathan replied.
The Battalion only smiled.
"Let's see if you still believe that when the Mandalorians kill you..."
He blinked and he was back in the ruined building.
"SEVEN! SIX! FIVE! FOUR!"
Nathan had to
think fast...