Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Echani Versus Ewok: Winner Gets the Forests (Warok)

"Because I can." It had been a good enough reason when she left the hangar bay of her ship toward the desert sands below. "Because he's going to be a handful if I don't prove whose the actual Queen of the Forests." Had been the better reason Ahani Najwa thought up when she spent seven hours in transit to Sabarene. But the most accurate reason by far was simply this: "Because I don't want to be itching powdered."

So it was that Ahani Najwa brought [member="Warok the Defiler"] to Sabarene. What better place could be found, than the one her son had built, to bring the little Ewok for a Kaggath? After all, the new Grand Inquisitor of the Empire of the Hand had a title to maintain!

Not that many people would believe it.

"Ah, Abha! Sabarene's newest bit of fluff and foxy. Come on, Warok. Come be an Ewok Man and get beaten up by a woman. I'll even keep one hand behind my back."
 
Her Excellency didst offend the honor of Warok, Shaman of Shamans, when from her pristine lips came foul utterances of 'Cuddle Bug' and 'Teddy Bear' in reference to his personage. Oh mock not the sullen rage which burned in his tiny heart! This day he would have his vengeance.

Garbed in headress, bone fetish, and wielding his blowgun, Warok planted his widdle feet and pointed a grubby finger at her.

"Do not mock. For one moon you will be enemy. Now... we fight."

He held the blowgun up to his lips and puffed furiously. A thin bone dart tipped with a fast-acting neurotoxin zipped out and toward her abdomen.
 
How was the lunatic Echani to know a Kaggath was the reaction Darth Cuddle Bug was going to have to his new Inquisition-Assigned nickname? "Awww, you're darling! You're trying to connect with me in the language of my peoples! Y-y-you ah-are going t-to be my favourite furry Inquisitor." Shining a bright and sunny smile, Ahani couldn't help but be cheered up by the sight of [member="Warok the Defiler"].

"One moon! Yes, I'll be your enemy for one moon, then I'll be your boss again. Aw you are so thoughtful!" Throwing her cape to the hands of the two Handmaidens she had with her, Ahani bent her knees and put her hand on her sword hilt - the other behind her back. The Ewok put the dart gun to his maw and Ahani slid out of the way to let the dart veer off into the sand. "Ooo starting with that eh? What was that?"

Hand still on the hilt, Ahani rushed the small furry creature and went to round kick him in his pudgy, cuddly stomach. "Come on then, Cuddle Bug!"
 
The target in question was easily the largest portion of the Ewok's body. Even if he was fit by Ewok standards, Warok's belly still held a significant... rotundity to it. Thus, though a small fellow, he presented an ample target. Luckily, the blowgun was not his only weapon.

He eased one hand down the length of the blowgun until he was holding it near the end. Wasting no time on words, because after all who has time for a full conversation in the middle of a fight, Warok seized the hilt of his stone dagger in the other hand and drew it from his belt, holding it in front of him so that the trajectory of her Excellency's kick would impale her foot on the knife.

[member="Ahani Najwa"]
 
Good thing Ahani was wearing armoured boots. Yet, for the most astonishing reason to the Echani that little stone dagger found its way between the plates and scythed into her skin, sliding into the muscle between her foot bones. "Oh you scamp!" She yelled as her foot came down tenderly on the ground. Her eyes blazed with shadowy stars, a snarl took her throat and Ahani telekinetically picked [member="Warok the Defiler"] up and tossed him into a jagged rock back-first.

A wave of her hand and the dagger lanced up out of the wound into her grasp. She stared at it for a second. "Hm! Not bad for a Cuddle Bug." One day Ahani would make the little Ewok her personal Shaman, he would divine his way past her enemies and no one outside of the Inquisition would know how dangerous the diminutive sentient bear was. "Of course now I'll bleed you." Ahani unsheathed her sword Anandi, and twirled it once by the hilt. She jumped for the ewok and swung down, hoping to slice off some of that fur without going too far beneath the skin. Just far enough that the poisoned Sith Blade would begin to dull his senses and muddy up his connection with the Force.
 
The Ewok snapped his teeth triumphantly, stone blade wet with her Excellency's blood. Suddenly, an invisible hand picked him up and hurled him backward with all the force of a catapult. The sensation was quite familiar as he had indeed been launched out of a catapult before, but that is a story for another time.

The current story involved 100 odd pounds of fur flying through the air screaming, "Waaagaaaaaaa," before smashing back-first into a very pointy, very uncomfortable rock with a disgusting crunch.

Warok slumped to the sand, head drooping forward. He blinked groggily, witnessing the next incoming attack through bleary vision and struggling to stop it. He raised his stone dagger a second time and managed to put the weapon in the path of her Excellency's sword. Hunter-gatherer culture and Imperial might collided in a spray of sparks. The dagger shattered, shards of stone spitting everywhere. The hilt slipped from Warok's numb fingers and thudded to the sand.

Vision going in and out, he slowly, weakly swung his bone-fashioned blowgun at her wrist.

[member="Ahani Najwa"]
 
The bone blowgun slapped into her wrist and fell to the ground. Ahani rolled her eyes and put her knee on the little Ewok's stomach. "See? This is why we don't scream 'kaggath' on your Master and better, eh Darth Cuddle Bug?" She reached in to scratch [member="Warok the Defiler"]'s scruffy hair under his chin and tried to hide the smirk on her face.

He had been far too easy. "Now, now. Admit I and only I can call you Cuddle Bug and I'll get you medical support." A bacta injector pack veered into Ahani's hand, she held it aloft for the Ewok to see, even in his bleary vision. No way was she going to put the gooey bacta straight on his fur. . . that was cruel and unusual punishment!

He definitely didn't need a fur cut. "Say it." Her eyes narrowed.
 
"....No.... deal...." he whispered in a tiny voice. Likely suffering from a partial fracture of the spine, consciousness was no longer optional. His head slumped forward and darkness took him. Funny, if you cocked your head in just the right way he looked almost adorable.

[member="Ahani Najwa"]
 
"Like times past, you once again underestimate the fortitude of the will. This Ewok...is strong in the darkside."

The ancient Sith Lord stepped forth from the haze of the desert that surrounded the psychotic, half here-half gone again Ahani and this rather oddly unique Ewok. The Force was an amazingly powerful tool when wielded by the right person. It let those who understood it's many secrets like himself keep hidden away, even when right behind a person. Stowing away on-board Ahani's ship was old hat. To trick the mind, to weave illusions and cause one's focus to ignore the plainly obvious was much more simple than most could fathom to someone who'd perfected the art long ago. He could feel the power of the Force within this tiny, furred creature. It radiated from Warok in such subtle ways, that he was not surprised to see Ahani treat him more like a plaything than the powerful asset he could become.

Ket nearly dismissed Ahani outright, kneeling down at Warok's side. Closing his eyes, Ket began to concentrate deeply upon the Force. On it's very nature, allowing himself to grow smaller and smaller within it. Years upon years of practice had given him the ability to narrow his focus to a pinpoint. And whilst in this state, he took the time to heal the the small spinal injury Warok had suffered with great care and precision. One who would fight someone he knew to be so much stronger than himself and do it with absolute fervor and commitment was rewarded by those like Lord Van Derveld. After some time, Ket's eyes opened, and his focus began to widen once more.

"Arandee ota meechoo, Ewok. You have earned more than you know this day."


[member="Warok the Defiler"] | [member="Ahani Najwa"]
 
Vitality returned to the Ewok's body like lightning to a rod. His body convulsed, for healing from the Dark Side is never without pain, and he released a soft whimper before sitting bolt upright, dark eyes gleaming. He looked up at [member="Ket Van Derveld"] and cocked his head slowly.

He stood up, dusted himself off, picked up his blowgun, and looked way up into Ket's face.

"Teeha."

Then he tried to stab Ket in the leg with the neurotoxin dart in his left paw.
 
"Look, Ket! We're bonding! The little guy is trying to be worthy." Ahani hugged her arms around her chest as the Master Van Derveld came swooping in. It took a second for the woman to double-take. Was she hallucinating?

No, [member="Ket Van Derveld"] had snuck aboard again and watched his once-charge from the confines of the shadows. Better than going out in the distant suns and losing the feral man. "Of course he's strong in the Dark Side, otherwise would he be worth my time? Isn't he darling? Aw did I break his spine? Whoops. Sorry Cuddles!"

Ahani called out to [member="Warok the Defiler"] from her vantage point behind Ket. As the petulant waves of the Force swirled around and took pain and damage from the Ewok, she picked at her nails. . . and then. . .

"Did you j--baaahahahahahahahaha! Warok's going to be my favourite! Look! He wants to take me on again! Awww. Close the range, Warok! Multiple shots at his joints. Use your size to your advantage. You can do it!" The woman was awash with glee, hopping once up and down and clapping her hands together. For a second she almost pounced on Ket to help the little Ewok in his pudgy attack.

Pity she wasn't that insane.
 
As the small Ewok arose like a bolt of lightning had hit him, Ket listened as he spoke. Ket could feel this insignificant creature's hatred, and it pleased him quite a bit. It had been a long time since he'd felt such emotion, but as a result, he knew the Ewok would do all he could to try to take the Sith Lord down as fast as was possible. Moving his leg faster than the Ewok could, Ket stood upright, bellowing out like a thunderstorm.

"You dare attack he who has saved you from death itself?! Then embrace oblivion, Ewok!"

Ad with that, Ket reached out, grasping the little furry Ewok with the Force, gripping his throat and squeezing tightly as he lifted him from the ground where he once lied. Listening to Ahani babble on as he held the Ewok tightly within the confine of the Force, he turned his head, and spoke to her in kind.

"And you! You would condone this? Then you too shall suffer the same fate!"

Soon enough, Ahani too would feel the might of the ancient and powerful Sith Lord Van Derveld bear down upon her. Her ribcage would feel the pain first, as it traveled up her sternum and clamped down upon her throat. The ability to speak? Lost within his will as he severed her very ability to breath. He would kill her right here and now with nary a thought. One wondered if she might stave off such an attack, or be relinquished to her fate.



[member="Ahani Najwa"] | [member="Warok the Defiler"]
 
The furry critter was hoisted into the air, where he hung, legs kicking furiously, throat constricted, consciousness slowly fading. It was quite the sight, the powerfully built [member="Ket Van Derveld"] with both arms outstretched, choking an Ewok and a slip of a woman. Warok's struggling grew feebler. One does not simply go toe to toe with a Sith Lord after having been healed of a broken back a minute prior.

Doing the only thing he could, Warok shoved his dart inside the blowgun, then fished one grubby paw inside a pouch attached to his rope belt and withdrew a handful of small, slightly rounded objects. He hurled them to the ground with all of the tiny might remaining in his body. They clacked against the sand and in a whoosh released a puff of purple smoke that sent a haze up in front of the Ewok.

Warok, whose knowledge of the technical side of the Force was quite slim, had simply wanted to hide. Unwittingly, he'd performed one of the most effective counters to telekinesis there is: breaking line of sight. Telekinesis, particularly Force Choke, requires the wielder to maintain visual contact with the victim. The haze of purple smoke now blocked the Ewok from Ket's view, breaking the hold.

Relief rushed into his teensy lungs a moment before his furry rump thumped to the sand. Sitting on the ground, Warok aimed his blowgun at where he felt the woman's presence to be and he blew furiously. The small dart sped out of the enveloping purple smoke like a dragon from the fog, humming angrily toward her lower abdomen.

Then Warok began to weave illusion magic.

[member="Ahani Najwa"]
 
'Grow up, you wet blanket! It's fun! We're bonding!' Ahani cackled, speaking directly into Ket's mind, strung up with the power of [member="Ket Van-Derveld"]. She gagged and giggled at the same time, her eyes a froth of milky silver and utter bliss. The fight! By the Force, the fight! The Echani lived for combat and in it found her baptism. 'Where's the Ket that gloated over the fight? Speak to me in my language, as the Ewok is speaking and be glad there's more creatures with spunk!'

Even strung up like a meal meat. The woman had changed since last the elder Van-Derveld beat her down in her acolyte years. Ahani had become a master of weapons and a master of the telekinetic powers of the Force. Her body stronger than it looked, she glared and spat at Ket, lancing out with a tempestuous Force Throw strong enough to send the sand for meters around them billowing at Ket's face and pushing him backward and off his footing.

She didn't notice the dart, nor did Ahani know she had inadvertently sent the thing on a direct path to Ket with her use of the telekinetic powers of the Force. Could the Master Van-Derveld concentrate on two Force Chokes with little line of sight and attacks coming from both directions, one by a fellow Master who had for the past eight hundred years been connected and swathed in the Force's many workings as a living Meditation on her own merit?

Ahani raked toward the Sith Lord with the rage and anger and audacity she had to prove her worth to her betters.

The gap in their powers had begun to close.
 
No one had ever accused Ket Van-Derveld's mind of being held together all that tightly.

Yes, it was true, he wielded more power than most groups could hope to achieve collectively. Yes, it was true he held back 99% of the time. Yes, it was also true that should he feel so inclined, he could have lorded over the galaxy at least twice in his lifetime. Yet, he never did overstep himself. He was finally one with the voices in his head. It had taken him 800 years worth of deep meditation within a Force-induced hibernation trance and a few years of seeing just how karked the galaxy had become since his formative years. Yet, something ashin had said sparked a debate within the voices. Why was it so many from his time were either showing up or already here in this one? Even now, so many centuries removed from everything he'd grown familiar to, not much had really changed.

He'd seen them come, He'd seen them go. Time, it seemed, never changed. It was always the same old song.

And that's when Ket Van-Derveld lost. his. control.

Like a snapping toothpick, sapphire eyes went as black as the void between the stars as something primal rose from the very depths of his twisted psyche. A hundred different voices seemed to twist over one another and forge an alien, inhuman sound as he let out a Scream of such intensity, not only was the little dart Warok shot out deflected into a nearby tree, but Warok himself as well as Ahani found themselves flying upward into the sky like leaves blown by the wind. A soul crunching, devastating sound that would leave their ears ringing for a good long while, white noise that was as insidious as it's origin.

Darth Ahroun was a powerhouse, an uncontrollable monster that would not stop. And right now, cold black orbs spat forth a venomous stare at the flailing form of Ahani Najwa. She would remember once and for all, this day. She might be a Master of the Force but he was it's sovereign lord.


[member="Ahani Najwa"] | [member="Warok the Defiler"]
 
The infantine Ewok was blasted off his feet by a primordial power. He whooshed backwards through the air, tumbling and tossing, arms flailing helplessly and yeeping something that sounded suspiciously like "Wheeeeeee!"

His form faded off into the distance as he flew far and away until naught more than a speck remained, then he plummeted to the earth with all the landing grace of a falling comet.

Snap. Crackle. Pop.

They found him later in a comatose state, lying in a tangle of twisted limbs, body broken in twelve places. He did not awake for quite some time.

[member="Ahani Najwa"] [member="Ket Van-Derveld"]
 
"Finally." It hadn't sat right with the Elder Najwa, not since she felt the ungodly presence of [member="Ket Van-Derveld"] aboard the Super Star Destroyer. He'd been too unsettled and too temperate. A seeking, grinding, hovering, heeding, kneeling son of a sinner pining for a piety or breath of the divine he'd never before been given. By rights the man had returned to her life with the force of a muted gong rung in inches instead of miles. He came to the steps of [member="Ashin Varanin"] and Ashin's grandfather Je'gan with the craving of a hungry child.

It sat not right to the Echani Matron. The deluge was a welcome release of Darth Ahroun and as she flew through the air with her ears ringing painfully in her skull, Ahani breathed a sigh of utter, convincing relief. Ket Van-Derveld was as sane as the expanse of space appeared black to the common eye. Ahani hung herself in the air, suspended by the Force itself and laughed in nervous relief.

"There we go. There you are, Master Wolf." Her words hung in the air, clung to Ket's skin until he would feel them roiling over him and tattooing him with the glory and relief of the woman who had grown and Mastered her arts. 'There you are, Master Wolf.'

He played at insanity like she played at the sane, and here was the Chaos Maker, the Devastator of Systems, the Lord of the Dark. She'd heard tell of a Dark Lord of the Sith who made even the most valiant of Masters bow the knee with a glance. The Dark Lord of the Sith had nothing on Ket Van-Derveld on a bad day. As Ket clicked into place, the universe shifted into focus for the Daughter of Byss. She was but a shadow of his image in the Force, but she was Mighty in comparison to multitudes. From her vantage point in the air, Ahani wrapped her power around the sand at his feet, roiling it up into a cyclone that could sever and chew flesh off bone in seconds. The cyclone heated up, until the sand spun into sheets of glass thick as limbs around him.

It might slow him down. "You came to the Empire to find who you are, and where you are in it, Ket! Welcome back! Sulking didn't suit you. I know you, Ket! I've fought you hundreds of times and in the language of my people that means I know you better than the universe knows its stars! Your lingering fear, Old Wolf! I shall name your largest fear Darth Ahroun: You're as sane as the bedrock of hallowed halls! And Sanity has its' penance on control."

Meet me in the language of my people, she seemed to say.

What happened to the Ewok? "Warok? Did you yell 'whee? Warok? Oh, he'll be okay."
 
Within the fractures of Ket Van-Derveld's mind, a single, all-encompassing voice began to speak to him once more. A voice as insidious and as ultimately cruel as a dozen Dark Lords of the Sith combined. It chipped away at the walls within his very soul, walls erected to keep the beast at bay. As the sands began to eat away at his skin, the pain shot through him like a lightning bolt, a shock to his system that fueled his immense rage and hatred. Like pouring gasoline onto the fire, given enough time, the fire would overwhelm all it contacted, burning through everything in it's path. This was akin to thermonuclear wildfire, a raging torrent of pure, unadulterated rage. A murder-fueled hate machine out for the blood of the guilty and innocent alike. As the sand fused into glass at least a foot thick, Ket simply poured his rage into the Dark COnduits of the Force, his sheer willpower within the Darkside causing the glass to literally combust in a fiery, shard-filled explosion that would kill lesser beings.

The flames were massive, intense, causing the sand around him for almost 20 meters to solidify into glass itself. The shards of glass that remained numbered in the thousands, speeding upward and outward. Yet in that moment, a bloodied hand shot forth through the flames, and opened wide. The glass in the air stopped, hanging there as if time itself was paused. The hand then crunched into a fist, and the shards convened on one another, and hurtled toward Ahani at near the speed of sound itself. As they did, the flames surrounding Lord Ahroun dissipated, and there he stood, his upper body now bared. The countless tattoos, scars, and brands could be seen, his skin smoldering as thick grey smoke billowed off him. His long, inhuman-looking canine teeth were coated with his own blood, and he grinned like a jackal as that familiar alien sounding feral voice howled forth.


"YoU daRE tHInK yOuRseLF in MY leAGUe, LITTLE GIRL?! NoW wE ShaLL sEE if WhaT you reMEMBEr is WOrtH thE FUss. You'VE biTTen Off moRE tHaN yoU cAN cheW thIS tiME, PoPPet!"


[member="Ahani Najwa"]
 
A ball of glass shattered across her body and flung her further in the air. Ahani went with it, absorbing some of the force of Ket's glass bomb by continuing its momentum. Deep gashes opened in her arms, legs and hip. The myth of Ket Van-Derveld was as myths often were, a lesson in perceptions. To some the man was perceived to be a walking wound of the Force, the forgotten son of a disposable father and wasted mother, the apprentice of demon-kings and lunatic grins, the lover of a Dathomiri with distant eyes. The firestorm of Ket's rage flung toward her and revealed more than the half-naked body of the man. It revealed the angle missing from her great triangulation, the fixed point on which her universe could render itself and reside.

Ket Van-Derveld never changed, nor did he slide sideways in his intents. "You are as you've always been, Ket! The universe shifted sands around us, but the bedrock is identical! It's our cosmos, Ket! And I shall see it whole again." The fixed point. The endless days and nights where Ket would beat her down - acolyte without her Master, until he became the Master. In his terrifying, horrid eyes and snarling posture, the timbre of his caterwauling voice, Ahani was free. "I see you, Ket! It is no coincidence, you and I."

Before his eyes, Ahani began to unfurl. While to some the Dark was the bastion of the broken-hearted and horrific, to Ahani another gift of the Force was given. Ahani Najwa, Daughter of the Vornskyr's House was proof eternal that life in its intrinsic, spiritual beauty would overcome. To Ahani the Passions of the Force were given and in Ahani's bower those passions roiled in dance and song. She had been a beautiful creature, chipped away by the harrowing wills and hatred of evil men but still the tired mother of three lingered on as life lingered. Her ragged, torn mind was the last will and testament to the discourse of power-hungry fools who thought conquering the Starmother was a form of power or freedom.

Ahani laughed. She laughed and laughed and tears fell in the winds and into the fire. The bedrock of her insanity had not come from the abuse of Raien Keth, Palpatine nor Ket himself. She had not spoken it, it had malingered in her spirit as a festering wound, but the Force was with her. The Force gave Ahani Najwa the strength and resilience to put forth her hand to the shivering, impatient universe and as a mother stroking her growing belly say, "Not yet, my lovely child. Soon, not yet."

It hadn't been long enough, nor had the time passed to prepare. But now. Oh now as Ket's fires stroked her face, as the sea of sand turned to glass Ahani felt the first of the labour pangs. Her mind had begun the crawl toward returning and as she unfurled for her Old Wolf, the woman whose consciousness had moulded star matter in her own image looked kindly down on the raving destruction of the stars' defender. "I was awake, Ket! All eight hundred years I lived and breathed each second! Manu thinks I slept in the dream and yes, I was in it but I was not of it. I've flickered across the skies and expanse of the cosmos and in its causeways my mind discovered the pangs and pains of our lives. The empires risen, lingered, fallen. The plagues wiping civilizations off the bedrock of their pride. The man locked in his sins, waking to a changed place and believing in his heart of hearts that he must be insane, for the sanity in his presence doesn't fit. You are no lunatic howling at the myriad moons. You are the legend of the Deep. The left hand of the Dark. You are the glorifying pulse, the immune system of the cosmos. And I am no virus, nor am I a lost and wicked thing. I cannot build upon the galaxy unless you tear it down, just as I could not be stronger, more resilient until you slammed me to the ground."

As she spoke and telepathically jutted the speech into [member="Ket Van-Derveld"]'s mind, Ahani pulled the ragged edges of the Dark around her, it burst with a kaleidoscope of colour and nebulous array, Ahani swayed in the air and the air swayed with her. The wind picked up and up and the air around Ket's body grew thinner, thinner, thinner. Soon there would be no air around him at all. Nothing but the wind and the woman behind it.

"Not in your league! Of course I'm not! But I've caught up. I've waited a long, long time for you to wake up! Trust me, Lord Ahroun!" The thrills of fear flickering up her spine were enough to keep her suspended in the air, she'd not be the wisest of women to close range with the legendary monster. "Tear me down, Darth Ahroun. The Right is yours to take."

Laughter on the breeze. The endless nights Ahani would slink off broken of body and strong of mind until the day that snapped. The laughter and the flickers of memory shattered into the waning oxygen and built upon the Old Wolf a Temple of her prayers. The landscape around Ket became a void of oxygen and the Starmother began to lower in the air.
 

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