Private DAGGERFALL

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //: Darth Fury //: Odrin Rath //:
//: Saijo //:
//: Attire //:

The world shook as new horrors crawled from its deepest pits. Allyson stared out, watching helplessly as monstrous creatures flooded the streets of the abandoned city. What had happened to Saijo? Was this truly what Serina had intended for the planet?

"Why…?" Allyson whispered softly, in disbelief. Wraiths and nightmares manifested into terrifying forms, their ghastly screams piercing the silence behind smoldering debris.

A sudden shift in the Force drew Allyson's attention upwards. Smoke billowed, unnatural, and heavy, permeated with an unmistakably darker presence. Her brow furrowed deeply as she focused, her cybernetic eye adjusting with a quiet hum. Through the swirling haze, Serina's face slowly became clear.

Without hesitation, Allyson reached back, drawing one of her kyber-tipped arrows. Unlike before, she allowed her Force signature to blaze openly, burning bright enough that Serina would immediately sense her presence—a presence hidden away for months. For one brief moment, Allyson touched the purity of the Light. It scorched her, an agonizing reminder of how far she'd descended into darkness, but she needed this strength now.

Nocking the arrow against the bowstring, Allyson drew back firmly. As she did, the kyber tip began to glow, spinning and crackling with a brilliant, pure light. Calling upon this buried side of herself, hidden from everyone in the Empire, drained her, but she knew there was no other choice.

Her only thought now was stopping Serina. Allyson had to ensure the woman couldn't escape without knowing precisely who opposed her. The Corellian had witnessed her betrayal and deceit; Serina needed to know that Allyson Locke had seen through her.

The door to Serina's shuttle hissed open, and Allyson timed her shot carefully.

Releasing the arrow, it surged forward with the precision of a master archer, bright and unstoppable. She hadn't aimed to kill—but rather to send a message. Allyson intended to draw all of Serina's wrath upon herself if possible. It was the surest way she could protect Madelyn Lowe .

As the arrow struck near the shuttle's entryway, it erupted with a flash of Force Light. It wasn't as powerful as Allyson remembered, but it was enough. As Allyson felt a brief moment of pride at not yet being entirely lost to darkness, she knew the shadows were closing in rapidly. Unlike Allyson, Serina was already dangerously close to the edge; this act surely marked the tipping point.

Allyson didn't bother drawing another arrow; there was no need. Serina wouldn't linger to retaliate, not yet, anyway. This was a declaration, a silent promise of future conflict.

The scorned girl had made herself an enemy of the Empire the moment she set foot on Saijo.

When Serina's gaze finally met Allyson's, the Corellian stood firm, her fury no longer concealed as it had been back in the laboratory. Serina had made a deadly enemy today. Allyson vowed silently to do whatever it took to keep her far from what was precious.

 

[Serina Calis]

"I will trade their blood for power."

Tags - Odrin Rath , Darth Fury Allyson Locke



The blast of Force Light ignited on the ramp of the shuttle in a blinding corona, its flare consuming shadow, fire, and even the blood-streaked steel beneath Serina Calis's feet. The mercenaries around her immediately recoiled, shielding their visors, blinking back the sudden brilliance as though a new star had exploded in their midst.

But Serina did not move.

The wind caught her hair as the light passed over her—gold threads burning with the false radiance of absolution. Her silhouette was untouched, unwavering, etched into the moment as if chiseled from sin and sovereignty. The Force clashed around her, recoiling like a predator denied its meal.

It was just far enough away to be more nuisance than threat.

It was a warning.

And then—her eyes found her.

Across the fractured square, framed by fire and ruin, Allyson Locke stood defiant, bow still drawn, eyes alight with fury. Serina's gaze narrowed—not in anger, but in recognition. She tasted the light that lingered in the air, rare and withering, like a ghost of a time long past.

So. The shadow had returned.

Serina stepped forward, alone.

No struggle even in her half broken form. No fear. No anger.

Just her.

She descended the ramp with all the elegance of a priestess approaching her altar, hands at her sides, expression calm—but her presence swelled like thunder beneath silk. She moved until she stood at the edge of the light's fading brilliance, where fire met shadow.

Her voice carried across the ruined city with effortless command.

"You should not have done that, Locke."

Not cruel. Not threatening. But inevitable.

"You could have just let me go."

The Force curled around her like a storm tamed by will, and yet there was no hatred in her tone. Only clarity. Intelligence. Something far more dangerous than rage.

"I thought I sensed something earlier. I hoped I was wrong. But then again…" she paused, head tilting slightly, her lips curving in a cool, unreadable smile. "You never were good at staying where others thought you belonged."

A flick of her fingers dismissed the ash on her gloves.

"You know what's coming. I know you felt it."

Her gaze turned to the horizon—where the sky had begun to bleed. Even now, streaks of descending turbolaser fire rained across the far mountains, carving lines of molten destruction into the crust of Saijo. The orbital bombardment had begun.

"Fury wasn't just a man. He was a gate," Serina murmured, more to the air than to Allyson. "And when we shattered him, the things behind that gate started to crawl through. My mercenaries can't hold them back. No one can. The planet's already dead—it just doesn't know it yet."

She turned her eyes back, and this time, the smirk faded.

"We've pulled everything of value. Nothing remains but horrors he unleashed to spite his own downfall."

Serina Calis looked at Allyson Locke truly.

"You shouldn't die here. Not for pride. Not for a statement. And not to spite me."

Her tone sharpened—not cold, but piercing, surgical in how precisely it found the wound beneath the armor.

"You care about her. You still care. You think I'm the threat."

A breath.

"I'm not. Not to her. Not to you, unless you make me be."

She took another step, the embers curling around her boots like coiling serpents.

"You think I don't see you? But I do. You've worn every mask you were ever offered, and you made them all fit. Operative. Shadow. Jedi. Lover. You let yourself be owned, because it made things simple. Because it made your pain mean something. Because it let you protect her."

She tilted her head.

"Tell me, Allyson—does she know?"

Her voice was softer now, like silk drawn over glass.

"Does Madelyn know the weight you carry for her? The parts of yourself you bury to make her stronger? Does she know how often you think of dying in her place? As you clearly planned on doing now?"

There was no malice in it. Only understanding, an understanding born from their previous conversation, from the small hint of jealously that Serina wished she had her own Allyson Locke.

Someone that saw the monster beneath and would do anything to protect it.

And in that understanding—a choice.

"Get on the ship."

Her hand lifted, just a fraction, extended outward in invitation.

"Come with me. I'll purchase another ship from my mercenaries, give an escape vector, off-world clearance, and no questions from any of my men. You'll be gone before the next blast hits. You can go back to her, to your secrets, to your higher ups, to your pain. Or…"

She lowered her hand.

"You can stay. You can burn with the rest of this broken thing. And for what? Because I made you angry?"

A pause.

The smoke began to thicken again, blown by the hurricane winds of the first orbital strike. The wraiths, momentarily dispersed, began to creep again into the corners of vision. The next barrage would flatten this district entirely.

Serina turned, her cape catching the wind like a banner torn from heaven's gates.

But before she stepped aboard the shuttle, her voice came once more—low, direct, only for Allyson.

"Don't throw yourself away on principle. She'd never forgive herself."

 

[Odrin Rath]

OPERATION DAGGERFALL

Equipment: Lightsaber & Armor
Assets: Starship
Tags: Serina Calis Allyson Locke

The ground shook.

Turbolasers screamed down from the heavens in molten lances, carving into Saijo's ruined skin like the knives of gods. The already ruined Citadel cracked and bled fire, once a throne of secrets—now a sacrificial altar beneath the fury of an uncaring fleet.

From its broken heart, something moved.

No—someone.

A figure emerged through the smoke-choked gate, dragging ruin in his wake. Towering, scorched, and drenched in ash, Odrin Rath stepped into the dying light. The crushed stone under his heavy armored boots cracked with each slow, deliberate stride. Behind him, another blast hit—a turbolaser lance that vaporized the rest of the chamber he'd just left.

He didn't look back.

In one hand, the limp body of a defeated enemy trailed behind him like a torn flag, armor still steaming from where Odrin had struck him down. He held it without effort, a lion dragging its prey—not only with pride, but with purpose.

His red cloak billowed in the hurricane winds of orbital fire, edges scorched and dancing like flame. Around him, embers rose, caught in the updrafts of the world's unraveling. Saijo was dying. Odrin had seen to that.

And yet—there was no rush in his pace. No urgency. Only finality.

The shuttle touched down ahead, sent by his ship the moment the bombardment began. Its ramp extended like a tongue from some waiting beast, and Odrin approached it without pause. The body dragged behind him left a trail of smeared blood across the permacrete, almost beautiful in its ritual simplicity.

But before he stepped aboard, he paused.

His head turned slightly—just enough to let the firelight catch his profile.

Across the fractured plaza, through smoke and war and the end of all things, he saw them:

Serina Calis. Allyson Locke.

Two blades of fate poised against one another, locked in a storm of meaning he chose not to disturb. But he saw. And he knew.

Odrin didn't speak. He offered no warning, no threat, no approval.

Just a glance.

One crimson eye gleaming through soot and shadow.

And then, without a word, he turned and ascended the ramp. The unconscious body thudded against the durasteel floor behind him. A second later, the ramp closed, sealing the silence.

The shuttle lifted, fire dancing across its hull as it pierced the veil of smoke, bound for the stars—bound for Dromund Kaas.

And beneath it, Saijo burned.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Serina Calis //:
//: Odrin Rath //:
//: Attire //:

Allyson smiled.

She was only partially surprised to see Serina step toward her in confrontation, though, truthfully, she should have expected it. And part of her, the reckless Corellian part, enjoyed it. Something about the woman had changed. The air around her was darker now, heavier. Confident. Dangerous.

Allyson raised a brow, noticing the difference in the once-lost child. And as Serina spoke—almost scolding her for the arrow—Allyson laughed quietly under her breath.

The Corellian didn't reply at first. She only shrugged when Serina chastised her about the attack, then started in on her loyalties. The curl of her lip should have been warning enough.

And then, of course, Madelyn's name came up.

The casual Corellian veneer faded. Around them, the city burned fire and ruin, swallowing silence. Serina knew precisely how to force a spy to listen. Every word she spoke was laced with that quiet venom only someone who understood the depths of another person's heart could wield.

Allyson listened. Let it all sink in. Let it crawl under her skin.

"Unfortunately," she finally said, her voice dry and cutting, "I'm not allowed to die." A quip, but only just.

"She'll never know the things I do in the shadows. Or the bodies I bury to protect her."

Allyson had heard the echo of Madelyn's words long before now. This was the aftermath of the scolding of someone who'd decided to become more than what they were given.

Serina commanded her to board the ship, and for a moment, Allyson hesitated. It would be easy. A clean escape. Her own shuttle had already disintegrated under the bombardment, and she could hear the alert chirping in her earpiece, which was now silent. Staying meant being stranded. And while Allyson could survive; getting off-world again would be a disaster.

But she didn't need to know the odds. She was Corellian. She consistently defied them.

"No," Allyson said with a grin, just as another bombardment rained around them. The ground trembled. In the distance, Sithspawn wailed.

"I don't want to owe you anything, Serina Calis. Life debts are messy. And with the spectacular destruction of Saijo under your belt, I honestly fear what you'd make me do to repay mine." She looked around, arms outstretched in theatrical defiance.

"So I'll take my chances with the Sithspawn and your onslaught."

Owing Serina would be more terrifying than owing Carnifex or even Empyrean. With them, you knew what you'd get. But Serina? She was the unknown, and the unknown was what scared Allyson the most. If she'd known the girl's warnings were real, she might've taken them seriously. But here, in this flaming hellhole, Serina Calis had been reborn into something no one could have anticipated.

Still, Allyson noticed the brute dragging the bloodied body of Darth Fury nearby. She remembered his gaze during the Tsis'Kaar meeting and how he'd tried to read her. He was a fool then. And his foolishness had earned the wrath of a woman unhinged and the muscle to match.

She exhaled. At least she wasn't Fury.

"Go on, then," she waved lazily. "Scamper off and relish your triumph. This won't be the last time you see me."

The ground shook again. Fires surged higher.

"Oh, and if I hear Madelyn Lowe 's name from your lips again…" Allyson's voice dropped, calm and quiet. "You should sleep with the lights on. I don't take kindly to people threatening what's mine."

She stepped back, watching Serina retreat toward her shuttle. Once she was far enough, Allyson turned and sprinted for cover. The attack was intensifying, the Sithspawn growing desperate, trying to draw power from anything they could reach.

Ducking beneath a collapsed beam, Allyson crouched and pulled a sleek, black communication device from her pocket. She tried to call the only number it was connected to, but it went straight to voicemail.

She shook the device in frustration, then recorded a message, hoping Madelyn would find it and care enough to listen.

<Maddie. Mads. Madelyn—Saijo is literally on fire. Orbital bombardment. I'll survive as long as possible, but there's no escape.>

She hung up, then smacked her forehead gently against the device.

The roof above her exploded. She looked up and found herself face to face with a cluster of snarling Sithspawn.

"Chit," she muttered, already drawing her bow. She took a few steps back and loosed the first arrow. Allyson fought as the flames surged higher and the sky cracked above her.

And with each strike, each breath, she clung to one selfish hope: That Madelyn would get the message.

And maybe, just maybe… bring something to eat when she comes.

 

[Serina Calis]

"I will trade their blood for power."

Tags - Odrin Rath , Darth Fury Allyson Locke



Ash fell like black snow across the scorched bones of Saijan City.

Wind howled through broken spires, carrying with it the laughter of dying Sithspawn and the fading echoes of a world unmade. Fires danced along cracked ferrocrete roads, climbing higher into the sky as the second wave of orbital bombardment loomed overhead.

And in the heart of it all—she stood.

Serina Calis paused at the foot of the shuttle's boarding ramp, the hem of her cloak torn and trailing behind her like a black tide drawn through ruin. Her boots crunched against the bones of what had once been power, once been defiance, once been his. She did not look down. She never looked down.

Not when she'd already claimed the right to stand above.

Her mercenaries didn't speak. The squad flanking her simply waited, weapons angled to the ground, their visors watching the horizon. They had seen her walk through fire. They had seen what she became when her mind quieted and her power was sharpened into command.

But only one person had spoken to her without fear.

Across the courtyard, framed by swirling smoke and a haze of flame, stood Allyson Locke, bowed but not broken, bloodied but defiant.

A woman Serina understood all too well.

The Corellian had thrown her words like daggers—cynical, theatrical, brave—but the edge behind them had trembled. It wasn't her hands. It wasn't her aim.

It was her heart.

Serina had heard it in her voice: the crack beneath the sarcasm, the fracture that had a name. Madelyn Lowe. That quiet, desperate devotion that Allyson had tried so hard to bury beneath bravado and detachment.

And Serina?

She didn't need to shout to answer.

"Remember, Locke."

She didn't draw a weapon. She didn't reach for the Force. She simply turned her head—not even all the way, just enough to meet Allyson's gaze across the ruined distance.

And said one line.

A single, scalpel-cut whisper that sliced through the smoke and embedded itself where it would hurt most.

"Shadows are born in the light of others—never their own."

Then Serina turned and walked up the ramp.

Not slow. Not fast. Perfectly paced, like the closing of a coffin lid.

The shuttle doors hissed closed behind her.

A breath later, the launch thrusters ignited. The vessel lifted into the burning sky, engines shrieking like a funeral song. The battlefield, the planet, the entire moment fell away beneath her.

And Serina Calis did not look back.

She didn't have to.

The dagger had been buried.

And like everything she touched, Allyson Locke would break—whether it took days, months, or years.

Serina would make sure of it.



So many Sith had spoken of power. So many had claimed it, flaunted it, written it in blood and fire. But only a handful had ever truly wielded it.

Serina Calis was now among them.

The shuttle rose like a silent blade through the suffocating smoke, ascending through the wounded sky. Its sleek undercarriage still glowed faintly from the heat of the surface, but its ascent was smooth—inevitable. Through the blackened viewport, the chaos of Saijo receded below her: a sprawl of broken towers, flaming districts, craters belching hellfire where once markets, palaces, and temples had stood.

From this height, it no longer looked like a city.

It looked like a wound.

Her shuttle docked itself inside the Crimson Spire. Serina would not waste any more time on her way to the bridge.

Serina stood tall at the helm, not seated—she would not sit during this. She had stripped the remnants of her ceremonial cloak, replaced it with the high-collared command jacket once gifted to her by a long-dead mercenary who'd thought her merely a useful puppet.

He was ash now.

She was eternal.

Around her, the mercenary crew aboard the Crimson Spire moved in perfect, rehearsed silence. They did not question her presence on the bridge. None dared to interrupt her gaze as she stared down at the planet below, eyes glowing faintly with residual power. Her hair had begun to loosen again at the edges from the ambient Force. The raw voltage of her wrath still hadn't dissipated.

Then the signal came.

"Lady Calis," her weapons officer said, voice modulated, emotionless. "Final confirmation. All allied units have exited the bombardment zone. Saijo has officially surrendered. The surface is clear."

Her lips parted.

"Begin."

No hesitation. No flourish.

Just a command.

Just history.

Across the void above Saijo, the Symphony of Knives, Harbinger's Wake, Veil of Teeth, and a dozen other black-hulled destroyers aligned in perfect, cold formation. The Crimson Spire, her mercenary flagship, remained central—its long spines glowing as energy surged into its ventral cannons. Strategic fire-paths lit up across the bridge readouts like arteries in a dying god.

The first salvo struck the surface like a immortal vengeance.

Two hundred thousand terajoules of concentrated turbolaser fire screamed down from the heavens, slamming into the scorched bones of Saijo's corpse with the fury of a myth resurrected. The firestorm bloomed outward in rings, not like an explosion—but like a cleansing. District by district, sector by sector, the orbital cannons etched her will into the crust of a world once proud, once defiant.

Now obedient.

Cities crumbled into slag. Entire mountain ranges cracked and bled molten stone. The ancient manufactorums and Fortress Academies, once home to thousands of Sith, their disciples and sects, were rendered into irradiated glass. The planet did not split. It didn't need to.

It simply yielded.

Taris had once known such a fate—cut down by Darth Malak in an act of monstrous finality. But this… this was colder. Sharper. Malak had destroyed for a single Jedi.

Serina destroyed for dominance.

And the galaxy would listen.

She took a breath and whispered the words that would be recorded forever by the Crimson Spire's black box: "Execute Cleansing Protocol Theta-Zero."

The fleet complied.

Dozens of gravitic warheads dropped from orbital silos—smaller, more precise, guided by surgical AI to strike deep bunker networks, subterranean vaults, and Sithspawn birthing pits still hidden from satellites. With each impact, the surface of Saijo shivered, as if the world itself mourned.

The Sithspawn shrieked.

Their shrieks did not reach orbit.

In every corridor of every surviving complex, her mercenaries had left surprises—plasma charges, collapsible anti-pillar grids, chemical fire floods. The Sithspawn that survived the first inferno found themselves drowning in liquid hate and burning plasma.

The planet was not just dying.

It was being cleaned.

Serina finally turned away from the viewport.

She stepped down to the central command dais, her fingers brushing the edge of the console like a pianist seeking a final chord. Her face was calm, luminous even beneath the pallor. Not from adrenaline, not from wrath.

From euphoria.

This—this was not anger.

It was fulfillment.

She had done what no one had allowed her to do. What none had believed she could do.

She had picked a world. Planned its death. Executed the play with precision. Defeated a Sith Lord. Broken his forces. Looted his vaults. Captured his secrets. Orchestrated betrayal so artful that the truth and lie were indistinguishable. And then…

She erased him.

She had burned his legacy from the map.

For one quiet moment, Serina closed her eyes. In the Force, the tremors of planetary agony still roared. But they did not consume her. They were hers.

Even the wails of the Sithspawn, the final screams of twisted creatures born of madness and alchemy, felt distant.

Insignificant.

They did not die with defiance.

They died with obedience.

As the flames danced across the surface, Allyson's flare of light had long since disappeared from her senses, lost in the chaos. Serina hadn't responded. She would not again. Not now.

The Shadow had made her declaration.

Serina had made her reply.

She didn't need to say another word.

She had given the galaxy a monument to her name—written not in marble or silver, but in ruin.

As the Crimson Spire banked away from Saijo's atmosphere, the final wave of bombardment fell. The crust of the world shook. Flames climbed into orbit like grasping fingers too slow to catch her.

Behind her, Saijo was silent.

Ahead, the stars opened once more.

Roughly less than two years ago Serina looked upon the stars from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

At that time, she dreamed of how she would shine so bright as to match them.

Now, untold trillions of people would look to the stars, to look upon Saijo, only to see tiny flashes of light across its face, the omen of her coming.

She had written herself into the very fabric of the universe.

For generations, the light of each explosion will continue to travel the galaxy, marking this day in the eyes of every being who dared to look upon the stars.

Just as she once did.

Serina Calis smiled.

And never once looked back.