Private Call of the Wild(er)

[Jonyna Si]

​

The simple fact was, fighting Jonyna with plants was a bad idea. She spun rapidly, igniting Lucy in the process and channeling her pyrokinesis through it. Clearly Vulpesen was somewhere around here. She could only hold off that gas for so long while fighting against any enemy on two fronts.

It was moments like this she wished her Mom would respond to her calls. But her crystals seemed to only respond when she was in a dire need. And right now, she had things mostly handled. She couldn't let Vulpes get the upper hand. Where ever he was, he was underground still. This gave Jonyna an idea. Her time training with Ko had shown her the power of the earth, so now she needed to use that to it's fullest extent. She had all the time in the world to channel her force abilities. So with as much power as she could muster, she stomped the ground, forcing the while dueling ring to sink downwards, like a massive slab of rock. She'd fix it later, she figured.

 

[Vulpesen]

Vulpesen grunted as he felt his body jolt downwards, his protective shell crunching slightly as it was compacted by the earth. Still, it held and did its job. Effectively, he had forced Jonyna to put him to siege, though unlike the average battle of attrition, she didn't have the luxury of knowing where, precisely, his fortified position was. He on the other hand, channeling the living force, knew her every movement. Vulpesen had once searched the galaxy for his missing fiancé, expanding his consciousness so far out that he'd touched the very edges of the galaxy before breaking the veil to the beyond to find her in the netherworld. Finding someone who was stomping around somewhere over his head, was nothing.

Still, there was more adapting to do as he found his efforts with the plantlife wasted on her. But if she wanted a mduel of the earth, who was he to say no? That which Jonyna knew of earth manipulation, she had learned from her apprentice, Ko. What Ko had learned, had come from Vulpesen. He started to punch his hands too and fro, sending his desires above the earth towards Jonyna. While before, the frail vines had whipped and lashed at Jonyna, now, a myriad of spikes launched themselves up from the ground from every direction, attempting to piece through jonyna's limbs and core. Some of the attacks, while smaller in size, even rose from directly beneath her, attempting to hobble the jedi by punching their way directly through the soles of her feet.

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

The shift from plants to earth put Jonyna once again on the backfoot, but she always had the ability to keep maneuvering. Fire kept her agile and unpredictable. But at this point, she was at a loss. She couldn't tell where he was...but she did have an idea. Something she'd seen within the archives. A technique she'd never done, but it'd be worth a try.

She stomped her foot once more, but rather than the ground shifting downward...it rang. It rang like a bell and a wave of sound pulsed downward, and then back up.

There he was...

 

[Vulpesen]

The sudden vibration around him was a bit alarming and Vulpesen let out a growl as he realized he'd been found. Jonyna was proving to be quick and agile, dodging around his spikes. It was time to increase the pressure with a saturation of fire. She might have found him, but he was eager to keep her from acting on it. a Withdrawing several talismans from his cloak, he whispered against them. "Lend me your aid." Around Jonyna, the force would coalesce, forming a trio of creatures of different sizes. The Kreehawk would serve as a fine distraction, harrying Jonyna from the air while earth continued to strike at her from below. The Kath hound would do its best to tire her out, barking and snapping at her body. But perhaps the most dangerous was the Acklay that swept and struck at her with its bladelike claws.

What's more, having been found, Vulpesen released his concentration on keeping himself hidden. No longer worrying about hiding, he focused his energies on his protective sphere, hardening and strengthening the shell against assault or outside influence. As for the fog, he'd decided to release it, tired of recollecting the concentrate from the scattering winds. Instead, he focused on increasing the danger of the stone spikes, launching them with increased frequency.

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

Dealing with the barrage of spires and the new animals swarming her, Jonyna could only dodge so much. Instead, she took a new approach. Go up. She rocketed upward, focusing instead on the ground underneath her. She needed to take the pressure off, give her time to focus.

Ya know, it would be a really good time for-

An ethereal tiger burst from her ruby blade, before transforming into yet another Cathar that leapt down from the heights Jonyna was at, using the Force to pull the saber from her daughter to her.

Cici could hold off the beasts. Her daughter had a duel to fight.

 

[Vulpesen]

Jonyna's decision to leave the ground brought a smile to Vulpesen's lips. She'd detected him through her connection through the earth, and in giving that up, she'd given him free reign to once again hide in the force and shift his position. The orb tunneled through the ground, closing the path behind it before finding another spot several yards form where she'd last sensed him.

Jonyna's mother, while frustrating to his attempts to corner the younger cathar with his familair, was not a threat he had to worry about just yet, and so he let the kath hound and the acklay distract her, batting at and circling the maternal jedi while being careful not to get too close lest they find themselves impaled on the blade in her hand.

The kreehawk continued to harass Jonyna from above, flashing tis claws at her head while its master orchestrated another attack from below. The seven daggers that he had launched earlier found themselves all snapped up in the force and with a loud crack launched themselves like bullets at Jonyna's boots. If her tactic was to use her mobility, then the wilder figured it would be best to remove that from her skillset by disabling the jets that she was using to propel herself.

Jonyna Si

 

[Vulpesen]

Oops

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

Jonyna growled as she felt her target disappear. But he couldn't be gone for long. For now, she was back on the defense, throwing Claire outward and controlling it with the force to strike down that damn hawk. From it, burst forth twin owls that pincered the hawk. With the hawk dealt with, she shifted her orientation, grabbing her coat with a freehand to catch the daggers it in. She couldn't let this so called king win. She couldn't let her honor, her code, be disrespected. She had made a decision back on her own planet. To inspire the people who had lived in fear for generations, to bring them out of that with a grand gesture. Was it a fool's move? Maybe, but neither her nor her opponent would live to see the answer to that question. Fate had decided otherwise. Now it was a matter of principle. Jonyna needed to defend her choice, and not be backed into a corner and forced to go back on her choice. A real leader, to her, would never do such a thing. Vulpes wanted to teach her what it meant to be a commander? He was about to learn she already knew that much.

Cici meanwhile, seemed to act on instinct. With familiars like this, she needed not worry about the quandary of morality when it came to striking down an opponent. She held out a hand, and from it burst a flame that engulfed the entire acklay in one go, before turning to the Kash Hound. Cici smiled, chuckling even as suddenly the Kash Hound was surrounded by multiple copies of the ghost, all with the same saber.

Vulpesen

 

[Vulpesen]

Each familiar winked out of existence and Vulpesen's brow furrowed as he felt Jonyna's movements above, glide her around his darting daggers. Alright... time to stop playing. He was a busy man, after all, and there was only so much one could sit back and take it easy in a fight before it became tedious. Taking a grip of his sphere, he shot it up into the air, his hands tightening around the hilt of his saber staff. Dirt and earth exploded from the ground as a two meter sphere rose like a mortar round in front of Jonyna, then with a burst of force energy, exploded.

Stone shrapnel lanced out in all directions, both down below at the ghost of Jonyna's mother, and of course, directly at Jonyna. Vulpesen of course, offered no time to recover from the sudden assault. He'd studied Jonyna enough to know that she was durable enough to take it, and so he simply dove towards her, the force keeping his body aloft while twin blades of black and gold assaulted in a flury of blows. All the while, his coat fluttered as daggers flicked out and started a barrage of piercing missiles to offer an omni-directional threat.

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

First the shrapnel came, marring her face with cuts. She could handle that. But then the blades came. She could only parry the two blades herself, but now daggers swarmed her.

The wind swirled, an attempt to force the daggers off course. What started as a dust devil spurred into a full blown tornado as Jonyna did her best to get back down to solid ground, or at least what was left of it, occasionally shooting blasts of sonic energy from Liz at the Wilder. She could feel the burning in her legs as she shot downward, using her own command of the wind to force her beyond terminal velocity. Daggers pieced her thighs and forced her to fight the pain. The Owls of Claire dove at Vulpesen as well, attempting to distract the Wilder with claws bore as the saber returned to it's master.

Cici watched from the ground, but she wasn't going to let a Wilder overwhelm her daughter. She raised her saber, a blade that had been passed down from Cici's own mother, and channeled what was left of her power into the blade, and with one mighty slash, the sky ignited for a moment, a slash of flame cutting across the sky aimed right at the former monarch.

The Si legacy bore down on the Wilder. Jonyna's word, everything she had, rode on this battle. IF she were to relent, she'd never live with herself. A hero is only as powerful as their promise to protect. Their word is everything. She would keep her word. No matter the consequences.

 

[Vulpesen]

Vulpesen dove after his quarry with the focus of a hunting zipher, his face twisted into a growling grimace as he fired dagger after dagger at Jonyna. Those that missed, simply flipped over and shot back from her front. As his familiars had been to Jonyna, her owls served only as a nuisance to the Valde who flicked his tail and cracked two daggers through the avian aggressors while his body twisted and danced around her sonic bursts.

The flash of flame was a bit more difficult to content with and Vulpesen deigned to extend a hand towards the pillar as it slashed towards him. "I've taken the fire of Emperors!" he howled, the flames flaring around him as they crashed into an invisible wall. Darth Vulcanus, a one time Emperor of the Sith, the premier pyromancer of the age, had suffered a saber pierced lung when he fought with Vulpesen. That had been about seven decades ago. Vulpesen's monarchy hadn't been won through words. It had been earned through blood and fire.

Safe from the flames, Vulpesen slammed into the ground, hitting a crouch while one hand held his saber at the ready and the other thrust his fingers into the grass. Around Jonyna's own landing place, the ground would seem to melt around her feet and the grass would rise up to ensare her. Though in tapping so deeply into the natural plant life around them, Vulpesen had found another target. His armor had been specifically runed to be protected against another force user, a precaution taken when one sith had tried to blow up his lightsaber in his hands, and another had tried to crush some rather delicate anatomy. Now, as Vulpesen reached out to warp and twist the wood that covered her infernal coat, Jonyna would be faced with the dangers of her own construction against an arc-wilder. Vulpesen had never sought to be a Hero. He'd simply perfected the craft of saving lives by neutralizing threats. The role of hero had been a natural result.

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

She couldn't move. She could feel her coat binding her, and she couldn't move.

It was practically hell for her, but she kept fighting. She swore she'd never let this happen again. Whoever made his armor, she'd be speaking with them.

But she needed to keep fighting. Never give up. There's always a...

Vulpesen could feel it immediately. The wind, what had been swirling in a massive vortex above them, now came straight down, as well as as much telekinetic force as Jonyna could muster, right on top of him. IF he was going to bind her, she was going to force him to submit through pure pressure. Suddenly the wilder felt like he was standing on a star. Force him down. IF she couldn't crack his armor, she'd crack his body.

 

[Vulpesen]

He sensed the danger before he could feel it. The impact of force energy, he wasn't concerned about, his cloak having been runed to be protected against such attacks. The blast of wind however, was a bit more dangerous. Thankfully, he was nowhere near as hampered as his opponent when it came to movement. Still, there was a reason that 'fast as the wind' was a common expression and as quick as the Valde was, he could still feeling a bruising force crashing into his back, then down his body as he launched forward. 'Gonna feel that in the morning,' he thought ruefully as he continued his attack on Jonyna's armor.

The wooden plated cloak, now properly fused together, started to grow inwards. Spikes and and brambles shot towards the armor's wearer, careful to avoid anything vital, but still quite capable of wreaking havoc on one's capability of continuing any sort of fight. "Its over," he growled as he rolled to his feet, finally drawing both his sabers as he approached. "You're good, but I've been doing this for almost a century, trained by men who've done it for millennia." He was careful to keep any reproach from his voice. Win or lose, Jonyna had earned his respect with her challenge. Then she'd kept it by proving to be a greater challenge than he expected. Still, this was the point he needed to prove. Youthful exuberance was no replacement for the wisdom of age, and wisdom was the prime virtue of any commander. "Now please, yield before I break something that'll be a pain to fix."

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

That was a lot of pain. Every nerve in her body was firing, but she was still standing. That was all that mattered.

"I'd rather die on my feet, than live on my knees." She snarled, blood sputtering out of her mouth. "I...I said I'd stand up to you. I said I'd stay on my feet and stand by what I said. I do not yield until I'm dead on the ground."

At this point, it was a matter of principle. Jonyna Si, the Hero of Cathar, did not yield.

Tag: Vulpesen

 

[Vulpesen]

Slowly, steadily, Vulpesen approached Jonyna, keeping the brambles lodged in her body in place, and even winding the hooks in deeper though he was careful to avoid anything vital. The cathar, he felt, was to be commended for the figh she put up against him. But her words, her ideaology... Memories flashed through his mind. Fire and blood, friends vanished far too soon into the embrace of the force. The speed at which his sabers reconnected into a single staff and his hand snapped out to lash across Jonyna's face surprised even him.

The Valde, previously lecturing, now held a scowl on his face and all around him, the force went dark and the air heavy, as if the gravity around them had changed, pushing down with oppressive weight. "That's the problem with jedi. So certain in that whole 'there is no death, only the force' poodoo." The words left him with a guttural growl. "I promise you kid, death is real. And when it comes to servants of the light, it tends to be permanent. Its not the start of a martyr. Its the end of someone who can actually do something to change things. I've seen countless jedi give up to join the force, each idiotic sacrifice being done in the name of hope that someone will pick up the torch. All because the they were too weak to carry it themselves! You want to be worth something to your people? Stop trying to die for them. If you jedi keep letting yourselves die, then eventually there'll be none more to carry the torch. Its your biggest failing. Being so willing to die because you haven't the will to look to tomorrow. The will to do whatever it takes to live."

There was more he wanted to say. And it cracked in the air around them in crimson streaks, barely holding back from Jonyna, though the grass wilted wherever it touched. Vulpesen was no stranger to meaningless deaths. He's seen the Republic fall because of them. He himself had even taken such lives, held hearts in his grip as their beats faded into his own strength. It was one of the worsts lessons the sith had taught him. The darkside was hungry for death. And too often, he had seen the jedi eager to offer it.

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

To the Cathar’s credit, she fought through the pain, as she had spent decades training herself to do.

But this speech? This talk of life after death and the confidence in that?

It only left the woman confused.

“What the fuck are you talking about?! You think I’m some kind of crazy idiot who thinks think can throw themselves away for The Force? No! I’m some crazy idiot who does it because it’s right! Because if I don’t, no one will! Because if I don’t, the people I could’ve helped, won’t ever get it. You think I’m doing this because I’m a Jedi?! I’m doing this for every scared little girl at the end of a blaster!”

Her words rang with utter conviction. This was not some Jedi spouting ancient philosophy, drilled into their head from decades of brainwashing. No, this was a good person clawing and scratching through life. Through the unfair slog. Punching the uncaring cliff until the whole mountain fell.

Tag: Vulpesen

 

[Vulpesen]

"Either way, you're a crazy idiot. It doesn't matter if you die for the force or for your people. Either way you're dead. And when you're dead, you're useless. What's more, you're so caught up in your pride you just told me to finish you in a sparring match!" This time as Vulpesen turned his gaze he allowed a calm to settle over his features. "Once upon a time, I would have been obligated to do so." His voice darkened along with his presence in the force. Like an eclipsed sun, the light in his force signature was soon overcame by an overwhelming dark which seemed to permeate the very air. Where once the Valde had stood as a beacon of powerful energy leaning towards the light, there was now a black hole of the darkside. "Too many jedi, I watched die for what's right. Too many so prideful that they would die for it. Their names are forgotten to history. I adapted. I did things I'm not proud of. I broke my godchild's leg. I slaughtered guards for chiss child. I stopped the heart of a slave who offered himself for nothing but my own ambition and knowledge. I served the sith because pride as a a jedi would have gotten me killed. But I survived. And because I survived." There was a pain in his voice that went unmasked, rather it furthered the dark cloak of the force that had been his shield for years under the one sith. He wasn't bragging, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't still have nightmares of his days with a red saber. "Because I looked to the future, not to the suicidal idiotic notions of pride, I have saved my entire people from extinction along with countless others, and live now to bring the sith of today to heel. I survived the impossible battle to win the war on the next turn of the wheel. Stop being willing to die. It won't be as noble as you think."

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

"And I look to the past. I don't give a shit about what happens to my name. My name will be carried on by my clan. I've already earned that." Jonyna shot back, her pain bringing out old habits. "Are you always this shit at convincing people, or is that just the politician in you?"

Maybe mocking the person who was sparring you wasn't Jonyna's best call, but she'd already made her choice. She'd made peace with her own death long before she went in the ice. Unlike this so called king, Jonyna never claimed to be anything more than a hero. Was that ego talking? She didn't think so. It certainly didn't come from a place of ego, not for her. It was a place of genuine belief. That good will prevail. That heroes will always rise, and that the good guys will come out on top. Was that realistic? Probably not. Life wasn't always something out of a holo-drama, but she'd also spent the last few months doing her research. Learning what had happened since she'd been locked in the ice of a Witch.

In 3 months of catching up, she found that, more often than not, the stories told were out of a holo-drama. The son of Skywalker, rising from being a simple farmer to fight a great evil, then fighting the rest of his life against the Empire that evil had wrought on the galaxy. His sons and grandchildren fighting against similar threats, all coming out on top. Maybe it was cheesy, maybe it was naive, but Jonyna believed she could stand alongside those legends. Before Vulpesen could respond, she spoke up once more.

"If you're so wise, so well lived that you believe that I'm a fool for trying to fight for a better galaxy, then I think you the fool. Yeah, people die all the time. That's how nature works. That's what the Cathar, my people, have understood for generations. People die. But it's our duty, our goal to do something while we have a heart still beating. I made my call, and you undermined it. We can debate all day on if it was the right one, but neither of us can go back and prove it. You think I'm an idiot?! Fine! I don't care! I've seen people like you before, met Jedi who called me ignorant for daring to fight against the Empire! Who called me stupid for throwing my life away! I don't care! My tribe will not live in fear any longer! Because I'm here to drag them out of the darkness! Is that so wrong?! To believe in the power of my own ability to create a legacy! I don't need some historian to tell me I did a good job! I just need to be able to look back, and see the face in my mind's eye of every person I helped. Or have you forgotten that part, blinded by your own need to survive, by the dark side, the light, by looking so far to the future, that you've been blinded to the past?!"

The pain was definitely causing her destress at this point. She was practically running entirely off adrenaline at this point.

Maybe it was just that she didn't want to hear any more of this drivel. This idea of looking to the future. She was never going to be the one to build the future. That would always be the tribal leaders, the Council, the Powers That Be. Folks like the princess she had once saved, folks like her sister who had brought the Si family into the tribal council. People who had more patience and wisdom than she ever would.

Jonyna Si was not a politician. Not a general. Not a Tribal Leader.

She was a Sage. A woman of wisdom, yes.

But at the end of the day, she was a survivor. Not through planning, but through grit. Through skill and wit. Through endurance and fiery will.

She survived through her own unending heart.

 

[Vulpesen]

"I was never a politician. I'm just someone who's been exactly where you are. I'm just trying to keep people alive." He let out a soft sigh and turned, motioning to the side lines where Lucas and his father started forward, already gathering the force to patch up the wounds the pair had sustained. "I'll never tell you not to fight. Its worth it. Its necessary. But if you die, the fight is over and we lose one more warrior in this eternal war. That's what it is, eternal. How many planets would have been saved if the Jedi focused more on surviving the sith than sending messages with their death? Even when the sith fell, we were spent. No one left to fight the Brynadul. Stay alive Jonyna. Its too early for you to leave this war. They'll come back like always. And we'll need you alive for it."

He waved off Lucas as the man came forward to heal him. Broken rib was an easy enough fix. Jonyna however, would need some major care as he retraced the wood of her coat from her body. "Now hold still. The jedi will be pissed if I let their premier soldier die on my lawn." He looked up at Harlow, the one observer who had no talent in the force. "How is it, you always said wars are won?"

"By stacking more bodies than the other guy," he responded with his usual gruffness.

Jonyna Si

 

[Jonyna Si]

​

Jonyna could only wince as Vulpesen finally freed her of her prison of bark. "Just shut up and heal me, wiseass."