Eight Hundred Years In The Making [Na'Varro vs. Xextos/Closed]

[Aran Finn]

Monastery, in the Mid Rim​

​

Monastery, a world of thick rainforests and closed off mystics, where time had hardly seemed to pass and nothing at all had seemed to change. Alen Na'Varro was a man who felt the ravages of time more than most. The reason for this was threefold. Firstly was the situation he had found himself in ... a few short months ago he had been living in the year 25 ABY, Ruusan had been his home, and he had served the most powerful being in the galaxy. One vergence in the Force later and he was here ... 835 ABY and with no master but himself, and nowhere at all to call home. The second reason for his affinity to the concept of time was the ravages of the Dark Side itself, which slowly but surely took its toll on his body. His eyes, hair and beard were all tinged with red now where once they had all been the purest of brown, and he was sure that if he lived much longer they would turn completely from brown to crimson. The third reason happened to be the Force itself. When you knew the Force intimately, and it knew you, time ceased to be an illusory mystery and became a simple, stable constant.

The bearded man arrived at the temple for the Order of the Sacred Circle in the mid-afternoon, sweat dripping from him due to the humidity. His trek through the rainforest had been arduous, even for him. It was summer here and the heat was sapping, as was the all-conquering mugginess with seemed to drain all the water from his body. But regardless, he arrived at the temple ... to see steps. Steps stretching up, hundreds of them, hewn from stone and now seemingly part of the new hill he had to climb. A new day, a new obstacle ... Alen knew that he should have quit smoking years ago.

@[member="Manu Xextos"]

 

[Manu Xextos]

Familiar presences were vacant in the Rogue Knight Manu Xextos' experience. All but dead and gone, the near millennia where he slept had eradicated the familiar, but now for weeks he'd felt the tug of an entity he knew of, but not personally. A force and a family. Ruusan.

Someone from the Old Days was near. Meditating in his quarters aboard the Star Destroyer Brynjar, Manu Xextos called out to the force and summoned the waves of time to part. A minor glimpse, a place. A time. During his childhood, he and his mother travelled vast plains of planets and one in particular had been close to being a sort of home for the empathic child.

Monastery. The meeting would happen on Monastery. Soon, the Force seemed to say and so Manu sent word to the Helm and the Brynjar's thousand member crew was off into the territory, their Captain taken by the whims of the Light. Upon Monastery, Manu felt the unconscionably humid environment to feed his anemic body with a modicum of strength. Like a reptile in the sun, Manu Xextos was warming up, seeping in the pacifistic atmosphere hungrily. He made his way to the ziggurat, and saw @[member="Alen Na'Varro"] huffing away.

"Ah, so you're the one." Alen Na'Varro, a man he knew of but had never met. A man from Ruusan, compatriot of Hana, Killian, Ressa. People he knew all too closely. "By the Light, how did you find your way here?" The Echani asked, coming closer yet cautiously so. What would the former Jedi get from this man, he wondered.

 

[Aran Finn]

"Ah, so you're the one."

The voice cut short Alen's musings ... he turned to see a tall, slender Echani. The face was instantly recognisable, as it was one that he'd seen before. Years ago, countless centuries ago on Thyrsus, and Force knew, perhaps he'd see it again in the countless centuries yet to be. The Force had a strange way of bending things to its will. He had no idea if it held more surprises for him ... clearly, the Echani had some sort of premonition that they would meet. Alen had received no such premonition ... surely, yes, this was a surprise.

"By the Light, how did you find your way here?"

"I remember you. Manu Xextos, of the Kae, from Thyrsus all those years ago. Me and mine helped you and yours on occasion." Alen dismissed Manu's question as unnecessary. How they had got here was not the question. The question, in actual fact, was why they had got here. Himself, Alida, and now Manu of the Kae ... it did not make sense. "I never formally made your acquaintance. I hear that the Echani believe that the best way to get to know another is through combat. My culture believed the same, or at least they did once..."

Alen drew himself to his full height and approached Xextos, walking like a great cat. Like a lion, if any beast existed like that within these Star Wars. His demeanour was not aggressive, it was friendly but with purpose. Na'Varro felt he had been drawn here for a reason now, just like the Echani seemed to expect.

"Come, let us be acquainted properly. Then maybe after we can become fast friends."

@[member="Manu Xextos"]

 

[Manu Xextos]

"Alen Na'Varro, I presume. Your name travelled with your deeds," Manu saluted a hearty fist to his chest, a bow of his heading gratitude. Indeed, he knew of this man. "These cultures never fail, with us to revive them."

A duel, how perfect? To be Echani in this age of foreign intents was the best gift @[member="Alen Na'Varro"] could render the former Jedi. Manu grinned, bringing his shining white-metaled lightsaber out from his side and activating its silver beam. Nuada Healer and champion of Light's Intent. "I agree, the acquaintance is welcome." Standing fast, Manu kept his stance in the way of Ataru. Light on his feet, the seven foot man hopped back and to the side, waiting the Lion's approach for that first strike to tell him which style was best.

Manu Kae was a man of water, ever changing, ever maneuvering like the ocean itself.

 

[Aran Finn]

Ataru? Interesting. Na'Varro knew that Ataru was an odd choice for an extremely tall man like Manu, but he didn't doubt the man's skill for a second. However, he recognised the stance instantly. Years of hard dueling does that for a man, and once again the Dark Jedi was glad for his years of experience with the blade. A lot of losses and life lessons had prepared him for situations like this. Whether he won or lost to Xextos meant little in the scheme of things, nevertheless Na'Varro aimed to win. Victory was always something to be savoured. He craved it, and felt like having his fill of it today.

Ataru's strength was its mobility and propensity to allow attacks from any angle. Form IV could not match Djem So, Alen's chosen form, in aggression and power alone, but its mobility could and would cause Na'Varro problems. His solution was simple. Don't allow mobility. An easy creed to remember, but not so easy to carry out. He would need to be careful. One of his crimson blades ignited in his right fist, leaping to life in his hands. The Force flowed through him violently, and he felt its power and exulted. Fighting was what made him feel alive.

Now he moved. Na'Varro closed the distance in a millisecond, furiously, drawing upon the Force to work for him as he did. @[member="Manu Xextos"] would find his right foot anchored to the ground by Force energy as the Dark Jedi steamed in, bringing blade down powerfully like a hammer, in a vertical strike aimed at the Rogue Knight's sternum. If Xextos stepped back on his left, like Alen was expecting, he would be ready to parry step round, cutting down at his enemy's right upper leg.

 

[Manu Xextos]

As a child Manu had few days of sunshine or blue skies over his face. He had little to play with and even less to do on the starship his mother and father took bastion upon, those years when Palpatine was still a threat and Manu was a small Echani with an illegal brain. What he did have were holograms, a stringed lyre and the Combat Room built around the engineering sections. Three stories of ducts, bars, space and jumping off points for the natural acrobat and his acrobatic mother to train in on. Dad? Well, he was brittle. Fought with a Pike and stuck to it with the stubbornness of his opinionated, wasting attitude.

Manu's body was naturally pliant, more flexible than one would expect from the very tall which was no doubt why he favoured Ataru in the first place. When [member="Alen Na'Varro"]'s blade came hammer-hard down, Manu kept his feet planted and twisted his body, back-bent weaving his lightsaber between himself and Alen, and giving the close-range man a push-kick toward the knee, fuelled by a padawan-strength burst of telekinesis. The Echani grinned. "Djem So!"

His lightsaber swept from upward defence to sideways, circling around and down to Alen's deadside.

 

[Aran Finn]

Manu's parry showed excellent technique. The twist of his body diverted most of the energy of his strike away from his form, and the planted legs allowed the rest to flow through his body and into the ground. The Jedi Master's fundamentals were sound, at least. There were few duelists who understood the fundamentals in this day and age, and that was of concern to Na'Varro. The fundamentals were just that ... fundamental. Weight, balance, and understanding of body mechanics were all more important that flashy moves and Force powers and other bits of esoterica. Alen's crimson blade was knocked off course, and he had to be on his toes as the riposte was swift. Alen acknowledged Manu's grin with one of his own. His was somewhat more unsettling.

A snappy push kick was thrown at the knee of his planted left leg, with a small wave of Force energy accompanying it. Interesting use of the Force there ... it was a dangerous move, despite seeming harmless. If Alen didn't move his leg or at least block the strike, he risked dislocating his kneecap. An odd and gruesome way to end the fun, to say the least. In response, Na'Varro brought his leg left to a position behind and slightly to the left of his right foot to avoid the physical ramifications of Manu's foot and reduce the effectiveness of the telekinetic blast, which was small and directed. His weight settled mostly on his left leg in a defensive posture. As he did so, his wrists rotated one hundred and eighty degrees from his right to his left as his left wrist came up and his right wrist came through, the crimson blade coming around to parry Manu's strike with power and exemplary technique. A technical swordfight against an extremely skilled opponent, this was Alen's jam. Djem So defence had a lot in common with Soresu defence, except that it traded some speed for a boost in power. The parry wasn't just aimed to stop Manu's strike, it was also aimed to bat it aside.

Action and reaction. Weight, balance and momentum. Alen's mind was locked into the fight now. As his blade intercepted Manu's and turned it aside, his counter was fluid and quick. Trading speed for power now, he strayed from Djem So into a realm of unorthodoxy.

He stepped forward again just after the climax of his parry, his left foot coming forward as he opened his leg to the side a fraction to avoid being flanked. A less skilled fighter might have required his blade to circle off in order to gain momentum, but Alen knew what he was about. As his left leg came forward, his right arm straightened and locked as his wrists twisted, his right hand coming over his left one. An almost three hundred and sixty degree of the wrists, but his crimson blade turned in a very tight circle. As it did so it came down at Manu's lead leg, the right one, at just above the knee. The straightening of the right arm cut down on the circling tip of his blade and gained him a fraction of a second in speed, but it also did not allow him to strike with much power. However, it cut down the chance of a parry or riposte, as cutting down his range of emotion allowed his blade to stay inside of Manu's.

[member="Manu Xextos"]