Skirmish [GA/SO] Determination and Distraction

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin caught her breath against a crag. Cleaning her sword on a stretch of torn cloth, she watched Darth Prazutis fight Jonyna Si . That fight emanated grandly. Her long-ago choice to trade sensitivity for strength was a comfort and not in the usual ways. If she'd been more sensitive, she would have found the sheer psychic noise of it tremendous.

Since nobody alive was nearby to engage, she took off her mask for a better look at the duel — the tactics, the character of it, the weapons and armor all totally unfamiliar.

I need a hobby, she found herself thinking. Shooting and rituals never fully counted. I need a hobby outside of work. I suppose I'm a collector; other than that one amble through a vendor the other day, how long has it been since I picked a new rifle, or talked with another collector? Do I enjoy it like I used to?

The battle escalated, or rather the duel Ashin was watching. She sheathed her sword and found a rock to sit on. Dead of both allegiances surrounded it. She clicked the mask into place against the armor of her blood-spattered hip, a carrying position, and sat and kept watching. It was interesting and even enviable to see how much the pair of them cared.

I've retired at a century old. I could write again — but no, I said what I wanted to say. Sculpting, painting? I can see why so many retirees die so quickly. Lack of purpose.

Travel? I conquered ten thousand worlds, but how many did I see?

I have everything that matters most to me. What's next?

The mountain began shaking in earnest. She took a drink from her small belt flask, stretched her sore bad knee, and drew her sword and got back to it. What's next could wait for tomorrow.

 

[Tel Ahren]

Lirka Ka

​

"You know, I was just asking myself the same question! I'm looking for the Jedi too. They really made this place into a maze, didn't they?"

"You're so right!" came Tel's emphatic response. He wasn't even lying or sarcastic; the place really was mazelike. Between the various tunnels through the rocky spires, ice slips, the ruined village and other facilities around...navigating the surface of Zeffo in this mountain range was almost impossible. He could backtrack his steps, he was fairly certain, but that was about it. On that topic, though...he could sense that the creature he'd seen was coming his way.

The being.

The...woman? That's what the voice sounded like, beyond the helmet. Heavily accented, but unless there was a very impressive vocal filter built into that helmet, he was almost certain they were a woman. No clue what the accent was.

He hadn't seen any weapons, but that didn't mean much. If his senses were right—they usually were—she didn't even need weapons to deal with him, anyways. Her body probably was a weapon.

He was almost completely sure she was going to chase him.

"Want to go find them with me?"

He stepped out from behind the outcropping he'd hidden himself with, sprinting back into the open cave mouth he'd stepped out of only a minute or two before.

 

[Rath Nihro]

A W A K E N I N G

Objective: The Misty Mountains
Equipment: Shroudsaber, Shroudshoto, Outfit
Tag: QK-2510

This aerial opponent had her fair share of weaponry in her arsenal. At least the majority of them would have taken out a Jedi who either wasn't prepared or expecting it. Years of serving the Eternal Empire, as a mercenary, and then the Dark Empire had taught him to prepare for war. Yet to never seek it out. First a soldier, then the Empire's spear, and now here he was. Contending with the Sith alongside the Jedi. Neither of which he had foreseen in allying himself with, and yet here he was.

Except in reality it wasn't necessarily the jedi he was helping, but the soldiers who were put up at odds with some truly brutal adversaries that knew nothing of mercy. Only blood and glory.

It took every ounce of instinct and his enhanced mobility to stay ahead of the missiles as he heard the familiar encroaching sounds of flame burning. The problem wasn’t the fact that they were locked onto his heat signature, the problem was that the missiles avoided cover of any sort. Rath learned that the hard way as he tried to telekinetically move a boulder in the missiles’ path, only to watch the projectiles curve around it and sped rapidly towards him. It reminded him of the time he faced a spirit that was particularly strong with telekinesis that could manipulate objects as if they were sentient beings. Except this case involved highly explosive devices that were keen in shredding through his body.

So he did the only alternative that was available to him. To run effectively, but not just anywhere as he simply drew upon the Force to build within his free hand as he nimbly moved through the uneven terrain. His form a blur as the wind tossed in his wake with the missiles following after him at breaknecking speeds. Like fleeting death birds as he maneuvered to a specific point. Assuming that his trajectory was correct, he allowed the power to build so intensively that the space around his left hand began to shimmer and warp in a pale blue light.

”Thought you could just toss me off the mountain and run away?! You'll-!” The same dark armored figure from before that Rath had previously sent flying made a reappearance with a sanguine lightsaber in hand. This time he utilized the narrow path to thrust his lightsaber with the intent of skewering the lesser armored one. However, the eyes of hatred under the mask widened as the pupils dilated in shock as Rath not only leapt over the dark warrior, but he had flipped, spun, and slammed his fist on top of the Sith’s head.

For a moment the man's body began to spasm, before a thunderous crack rumbled throughout the mountain as the Sith disintegrated into ash followed by a devastating bubble of kinetic energy that slammed against everything and burrowed into the earth, sanguine sparks of lightning lanced into the mountains as the missiles either slammed into the bubble, or circled around it. In the former's case there wouldn't be explosions either. Instead the mountain before them rumbled and groaned in protest. Then as if the land itself had turned into water, the rocks and dirt slid down the mountains towards the Sith’s main forces.

Rath winced as the impact had dislocated his shoulder with a nasty pop, sending a sharp pain that throbbed, and he only had that single moment, that one second, to have used the Sith as a springboard with a leap roughly a hundred feet away to the next peak. With a graceful flip of his body to adjust his landing, he managed to land on the side of a steep wall as he stabbed his lightsaber through the stone. Where he slowly began to descend as the midnight blade began to melt through the stone itself.

He had only ever used that ability once before, but never of this magnitude. The memories that haunted him of that day, when death should have welcomed him, had claimed another close to him instead. Perhaps in some twist of fate, this time he might be able to help the soldiers below see another dawn. And another day to wake up with their loved ones.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The fire consumed the world. But not him.

The mountain screamed as it ruptured beneath his feet. A jet of molten earth exploded beneath the Dark Lord, reeling from the vicious sonic boom that sent cracks across his legs like a spiders web, the black plate screaming in response. Magma clawed toward the sky in a violent geyser, the very impact could have shattered beskar. The sonic strike that preceded it could have deafened titans, and despite this? Darth Prazutis stood. Steam bled from the deep fissures in his warplate. The metal hissed, its form glowing in deep veins from the cryo impact and lava burst alike. The armor was chipped, cracked, broken in places. Its form seemed to stretch outward in living tendrils, sinew, muscle made of living shadow. It moved and swayed as if it was alive, it was knitting itself back together like mended flesh, pulsing blackness beneath its folds. The smell of burned flesh filled the air as the skin of his face blackened, flesh working to regenerate itself, smoke trailed off its burning form. Ash clung to his pauldrons like ceremonial soot. He had taken the blow, all of it. Not untouched. Not unscathed. But purely unyielding. The sheer, boundless depths of will, of conviction within that kept him surging ever forwards.

The Shadow Hand didn't recoil from the vicious blows. He stepped forward, and from that simple act the world around them flinched before him. He drove the vicious warblade, Xûl Qarnak into the earth with both hands. Its blade effortlessly cut the ground. It wasn't done in any form of challenge, but a gesture of pure command, of iron gripped dominion. The obsidian cracked, and the ground beneath them groaned like something ancient stirred from its eternal slumber. All around the impact point, runes flared into life pulsing brightly, contrasting to the darkened skies above, bloody red, outlined in flickering green. Glyphs of necrotic power, of pure annihilation. The Force didn't rush to him, it didn't cloak him like a friend, it bent to his will. The giants molten gaze found her through the rising smoke then. "You call to the Force like a lover, and that act makes you weak." He said, voice the grind of tectonic plates. "I drag it by the throat. It bends to my dominion." Then? He invoked it. Forgotten sorcery of the highest caliber among the Sith, a complex ritual spell that should've taken preparation time, should've required gesture and incantations precisely spoken to the open air. Instead only silence preceded its coming, the runes over his darkened plate, over his warblade, and atop his amulet flared brightly then, the dark power invoked surging through it like a living conduit, a lightning rod magnifying it. A surge of abyssal energy radiated outward. It wasn't a wave, nor was it a blast. But a heartbeat pulsing through the earth, a Gravepulse.

The earth split open. A colossal fissure cracked forward in a wide, straight line from where his blade had pierced the ground, the world screaming in protest. A faultline of molten flame and seeping darkness tore through the battlefield like a gaping wound across the skin of a colossus. Black fire surged out of the open wound, green-limned fire tainted with necromantic power, it howled with the shrieks of a thousand unquiet spirits. It was not a simple force attack, mere magic. It was genocide. It was the world answering to its master. From the edges of the growing chasm, bones jutted skyward like grasping fingers then. Warped skeletons, some humanoid, others not, entombed in the earth long forgotten in histories ages. Ghostfire flickered in their sockets. They did not rise, yet, but they watched. They were silent witnesses to what was happening here, forced from beyond the grave by the will of the Mortarch. The rift raced toward Jonyna with the inevitability of extinction. Let her leap. Let her fly. Let her burn. The world itself had turned against her now, and right in its heart stood the architect of its wrath.

Jonyna Si ​

 

[Lirka Ka]

After the whole bout on Woostri, Lirka had come to understand something about Jedi. A fake smile, and a confident lie let you get plenty far. Especially for a weasel like her, who in this Galaxy really knew the name “Lirka Ka” beyond just another meaningless name slapped onto the long list of Carnifex’s various murderers in his grand and monstrous menagerie.

With his response reaching her receptors, Lirka clanked her clawed metal hands together in some poor attempt of a clap.

“Then we are in agreement!”

Had she been a mind reader, Lirka would have been rather pleased with the assessment Tel Ahren had given her. He was wise, at the end of the day the Kainate’s dear-and-somewhat-former Slavemaster did prefer punching things at the end of the day. Remaining as casual as she could, keeping all that murderous intent that bubbled within her wretched soul hidden away by a veneer of simple “friendliness”. She met the Jedi with a shrug.

“Might as well. Two heads are better than one, I believe is the saying.”

After his quick appearance before breaking into a sprint, Lirka let the various mechanisms of her power suit chatter and whir before breaking into her own. Thunderous metallic steps as the servos on her legs pushed the Goliath of a woman forward at breakneck speeds as she ran, clambered, and leapt. Moving towards the cave mouth with nothing but the glimmering glow of her eye lenses to light her way.

If everything worked out Lirka would find her way to the killing fields and enjoy some proper blood, yet if worst came to worst she was certain there’d at least be a nice cliff somewhere she could toss this Jedi off of and see how well he splats.

 

[Anthony Gray Sun]

Tag: Umbra-3​

The sith fighter had expected him to dive with the fighter.

He hadn't.

Instead, he had pitched up after his nose after firing his chain laser, before rising high into the clouds. As the sith fighter fired back, Anthony once more used the cloud itself as a shield. Moisture became a solid wall, as he took a moment to reprieve, only for his sensors to light up as a missile lock warning filled his vision, augmented reality trails forming in front of him. Firing chaff and flicking his MDT, Anthony watched as the missiles flew past him.

Then he dove. He watched the sith fighter try and ram him. A deadly game of chicken was played as Anthony dove right at it, opening up with everything he had. Ion bolts ripped from his chainlaser, then laser bolts from his main cannons.

And then, at the last moment, he twirled. Twirled once more in a way that would kill a pilot normally, using the Force to withstand the Gs on his body.

This machine expected him to roll over and die.

He'd let the machine know he wasn't going to.

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

TAG: Rann Thress

The wind howled through the jagged peaks of Zeffo, dragging smoke and dust across the shattered ground like veils over a corpse. The Southern Ridge Outpost clung to the mountainside in a desperate scar of trenches, supply crates, and flickering shield generators. Blasterfire pulsed through the air in steady rhythm, a heartbeat of resistance echoing off the ancient stones. Above it all, the Tomb of Miktrull loomed like a judgment.

Gerwald Lechner moved with measured steps, boots crunching against shattered duracrete. The battle around him was noise in the background, distant, indistinct. His mind was elsewhere.

He closed his corrupt eyes and reached outward.

The Force flowed over the field like a flood barely held at bay. Emotions bled into one another—fear, pain, resolve. Dozens of lives were burning bright, most of them dimming too fast, but Gerwald sifted through it all with a practiced edge, cutting through the chaos like a blade. He didn't need to touch every mind. He just wanted one.

A subtle nudge. A ripple beneath the current. The kind of reaching that didn't announce itself, barely scratching the surface.

There.

He felt a presence that was controlled and familiar, too precise to be born of fear. It was too centered to be Sith. It stood like a pillar in the storm, rooted in conviction. Gerwald didn't have to see the man to know it was him.

Rann Thress.

The Force between them thrummed with recognition, old bonds strained by time and broken ideology. Once, they'd stood side by side, now, across the battlefield and buried beneath scars, that connection flared to life again. It was right, tense, and inevitable.

Gerwald's eyes opened, the corner of his mouth curling, not in joy or hatred, but in confirmation.

He turned toward the source without hesitation.

The mountain would bear witness. One way or another, this would end.

 

[Umbra-3]

Determination and Distraction
Location: Zeffo.
Objective: Eliminate Priority Targets
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: Anthony Gray Sun
Tags: ???

"The void does not care for skill. It does not care for speed. It does not care for pride. The void only asks one question—will you survive? If you hesitate, if you falter, if you make even a single mistake… the void will answer for you."​

UMBRA-3 had seen many pilots try to run.
Fewer tried to fight.
But none did this.

The Jedi's X-wing spun upward as if tethered to some unseen hand, slipping between cannon fire and debris-choked mist, surfing the storm like he was born in it. He didn't flee the charge—he welcomed it.

Then the Jedi dove.
Straight at him.

A game of chicken in full atmospheric pressure. A duel of wills where one expected the other to break.

UMBRA-3 didn't blink. Couldn't. His neural feed didn't know fear. Only data.
But even then—a flicker.
Somewhere deep inside the ghost of his flesh, something stirred.

Respect.

Because Starblazer didn't falter.

Instead, he unleashed hell.

Ion blasts pounded across UMBRA-3's polarized shielding, arcs of caged lightning clawing at his hull, peeling layers off the leading edges of his armor. Secondary hull temperature spiked. The cockpit bucked under the strain of mixed-frequency impacts.

And then the Jedi spun.

Spun again.

A move that should have turned any normal pilot to bloodied paste inside their flight suit. UMBRA-3's predictive matrix misread the velocity vector, unable to account for the biological insanity of the maneuver. The X-wing zipped across his upper firing cone—past the turrets, past the nose, and behind him again.

Not luck. Not error.
Will.

UMBRA-3's disengaged Coaxium injection in a flash, killing the suicidal charge before it became a mistake. The sudden shift in speed nearly tore the Sion in half, its composite plating groaning like tortured metal under the strain. Stabilizers screamed as the fighter bucked—then leveled, rotated, slid into a backwards knife-edge drift along the jetstream the Jedi left behind.

Smoke vented from his dorsal plates. His starboard sensor array was overloaded from the ionic wash. Yet he did not disengage.

The Ghost Link pulsed. The AI responded not with alarm—
But with calculation.

"Adversary maneuver profile updated. Threat Level: Elevated. Tag: 'Wraith-Class'."

A new designation, reserved only for the rarest of foes.

UMBRA-3's thoughts narrowed. This was no longer execution. This was war.

He cut power to forward cannons—temporarily—and rerouted it to the inclusive countermeasure suite. His sensors scrambled, rebooting on ultrawide passive arrays as he launched a blindside missile, not at the Jedi—but at the air itself.

The warhead detonated just ahead of Starblazer's expected path, superheating the moisture in the air. A boiling vapor screen burst to life, distorting the Jedi's visibility, throwing micro-eddies of turbulence across his flight path.

And through that cloud—UMBRA-3 reappeared.

Not from above. Not from behind.
From the side.

Rotated 90 degrees, flying perpendicular to the horizon. His ship was no longer flying—it was sliding through the storm, a blade dancing edge-first through fog and lightning.

Then the beam cannons lit the sky.
And the hunt became a duel.

 

[Drystan Creed]

OBJECTIVE I

Drystan took a moment to center himself, his mind already moving to formulate the next phase of his operation. But his train of thought was cut short by the flash of a blaster bolt screaming toward him—reaching him faster than any sound could've warned.

Instinct took over.

He threw up his hand, the Force channeling through him just in time to catch the shot midair. The power behind it was intense—a long-range sniper bolt, made to kill him and anything behind. It pulsed against his palm, fighting to push through his barrier, but after a tense moment he managed to disperse the energy. Smoke rose from his hand, the air around him momentarily clouded by a haze that matched the hue of the bolt.

As the smoke cleared, he ducked behind the outer wall of the outpost—thick, dented metal shielding him from further fire. He hadn't expected overwatch support for a place like this. That sniper would be a problem—not just for him, but for anyone else operating in the area.

He had to neutralize the threat.

Closing his eyes, Drystan focused inward. The Force flowed through him, crackling arcs of golden energy surging down to his legs and feet. The air charged around him.

Let's see if you're fast enough to catch a Shadow.

In a blur, he broke from cover.

Golden sparks trailed behind every footfall, a streak of lightning zig-zagging across the field. He moved with erratic precision—cutting angles, vaulting over rubble, sliding under broken stone slabs. Anything to throw off the sniper's aim.

He was enhancing his speed, but how he did it set him apart from the average user.

Where a typical Knight might maintain a constant enhancement throughout a sprint, empowering the entire body at once, Drystan took a more refined approach. He focused the Force only into the necessary muscles with each step—directing energy into one leg as it drove into the ground, then seamlessly shifting it to the other as it took over.

Drystan was a prodigy, a savant. And it showed in the way he moved—squeezing every ounce of efficiency from his body, making each motion count.

He didn't need to see his target to know he was closing in. Fast.

Sable Varro

 

[Rann Thress]

TAGS: Gerwald Lechner

The rematch of a lifetime,Rann thought to himself as he made his way through the chaos, his usually ornate outfit of flowing robes etched in gold replaced with a long-sleeved shirt and sleeveless jacket. A simple outfit, far removed from who he used to be. But that was the point.

They both had changed.

His heard his heartbeat pounding in his ear, a mix of nervousness, anticipation, and determination, as he climbed the shattered steps towards the Tomb to where the beacon in the Force lay waiting, forsaking all other distractions. Something awaited that deserved his full attention, a mistake needing correction or atonement. As Rann climbed, growing ever closer to his opponent, he struggled to place the feelings clouding his mind.

Was he excited for a rematch?
Was he sad it had to happen?
Was he amused at how their circumstances had changed?
Was it all of them at once?

He pondered these as he finally caught sight of Gerwald, saw the corners of his mouth pull into a smile. One Rann returned for a similar reason, he suspected. At long last, here they were. Different people than the last time and decades removed.

Rann approached Gerwald, staying just his arm plus lightsaber range just in case the one time Lord Commander felt inclined to try a sneaky move.

He exhaled, expelling the feeling of nervousness from his chest as he stood face to face with…he didn’t know if he’d have ever called Gerwald a friend. At one point, maybe.

“It’s been a long time, Commander.” He said finally, a smile still on his face, “Truthfully I didn’t think we’d ever meet again,” he rubbed the back of his neck, remembering the feeling of Lightning coursing through his body as he writhed in pain on the ground. Remembering the fool Gerwald had made of him when he was younger. Much younger.
He let a moment of quiet linger between them as he thought of what to say next, or if he should say anything. When he finally landed on something to say, he sighed before speaking, “Y’know, generally I’m not really ever at a loss for words, Ger,” he shrugged his shoulders broadly, “An’ I’m not really sure what someone should say. We both know what comes next. I don’t want to change that," he tapped his chest with his fingers, "you don’t want to change that," he gestured out towards Gerwald, "…so what, then? Philosophical grandstanding? A ‘you’ve changed’ or two?” He put a hand on his waist and cast his glance around them. “At least we get a moment of calm, compared to all this,” he gestured with his other hand, then dropped it, resting it on his lightsaber hilt as he returned his gaze to meet Gerwald’s.

“I mean, you have changed, though,” he said with a chuckle as he reached out through the force, feeling the presence of the Darkside that seemed to have grown significantly since the last time they met, “The man you are now wouldn’t have spared the man I was then.”

Rann sighed, his finger tapping on his lightsaber as if it were high noon and his quick draw would save his life. He weighed his chances against Gerwald in his mind, trying to measure the man. Running mental simulations in his head as to how the coming battle would go, he shook his head as he realized… he was planning to fight the old Gerwald. Not this one. He didn’t know how this fight would go.

But he knew they’d both be finding out soon.

 

[Raphael Gallustrade]

Objective 2
Tags: OPEN

Late... He was late, again!!

"Seriously..." Raphael muttered to himself, as his starfighter tore its way through hyperspace, "How is it that I'm always late?" He sighed, shaking his head. "I need to set better alarms. I'd heard about this. I'd set my alarm... and then I slept through it anyways... Once this is all said and done, I need to apologize to the others for being so kriffing late..."

He reached forward and pulled the lever, dropping out of hyperspace and he sped towards the surface of planet Zeffo. He didn't even need to get close to the planet to see them. There were so many splotches upon the face of he Force. Light and dark colliding in clashes and torrents that it would've startled him, had he not already known what was going on here.

Raphael didn't need to know how the battle was going, though. What he was here for asn't to be the warrior. He was part of the distraction team, and he'd be a damn good distraction. Worst part was that what he was about to do was... Well, it was stupid, really. His ship was very fast, especially when in interceptor mode and that was how he was coming in and fighting. He'd need the speed to fight the storm.

He closed his eyes and opened himself to the force around him, before diving into the atmosphere of the planet. He could practically hear the ship screaming, as he came into the battlefield. At this speed he couldn't change the wings to fighter formation, anyways...

The computer began to scream as he neared the first set of mountains, but he'd seen them long before it had: a small squadron of interceptors moving in to attack. His cannons flashed, as he came down, three fireballs formed, before he pulled up and kept the speed going. He banked as lightning came down. Today he was riding the storm, it seemed.

 

[Zaiya Ceti]

Outfit: x x x x x | Equipment: x x x x x x | Weapons: x x x | Companion: Domxite
Interacting with: Aris Noble Darth Umbra


Zaiya's boots pounded against the scorched duracrete, her breath shallow as she darted between pockets of chaos. Smoke curled through the sky like grasping hands. Shouts and screams tangled with the familiar thrum of lightsabers clashing, but she barely heard any of it.

Not when her gut screamed that something was wrong.

Her skin shimmered from rosy gold to a dull silver, sending soft streaks of grey flickering at her temples against the strands of her multicolored hair as threads of uncertainty wove into her smothered anxiousness within her chest.

She felt Aris the closer she got. Of course, she did. She always felt him whenever he drew near now. But it wasn't how the Force moved around him that set her nerves alight.

The Force had never moved around him the way it did with others. It didn't swirl or ripple outward like waves. No, with Aris, it always seemed to live inside him, buried deep beneath skin and sinew; self-contained and burning like a star on the edge of collapse.

As Zaiya ducked behind a fallen transport and spotted him in the next clearing, locked in combat with a Sith she didn't recognize, it wasn't his presence in the Force that sent Zaiya's stomach twisting.

It was how he moved.

The closer she got, the clearer it became. While Aris was a blur of movement, there was a distinct difference in his footwork, in his parries, and stirkes. Where his muscles usually coiled with precise control, now jerked with raw aggression. His shoulders tensed too tight, his strikes came too fast, too hard, like every blow was meant to break something. And his expression… that was the worst part.

She had studied his face for years, memorized the flickers of his emotions when words failed him. But now? That face she knew so well was twisted with something unfamiliar.

Anger. Hurt. Rage.

Zaiya hadn't seen him angry before. She'd seen him focused and driven. But this? This was different. This wasn't a logical focus. This was the moment after logic be damned, emotion driving each strike. Churning inside like a dam about to crack.

Zaiya's legs moved before her mind caught up just as the Sith sent a powerful kick in Aris's direction, her skin glowing like sunlight through stormclouds as she reached out with the Force.

A shimmering flash of blinding white light tore from Zaiya's outstretched palm, hoping to blind the Sith just as the Lovalla Padawan did her best to cross the distance and arrive beside Aris.

"Aris!"

Her voice tore from her throat, concern and alarm lacing white hot over her skin in a medley of hues. There was so little time to react, much less say, but she had to hope that she could get through to him while engaging the Sith.

 

[Tel Ahren]

Lirka Ka

​

“Might as well. Two heads are better than one, I believe is the saying.”

He heard the whirring servomotors, hissing pistons, and frightfully heavy footfalls of the woman behind him as he ran. The cave was dark, but he remembered the pathway well enough without breaking out his lightsaber; he sprinted forward as the light behind him was blocked, hung to the right instantly. Jumped across the corroded metal, kicked off of a hanging panel to reach the next bit of solid ground, flakes of rust falling into the crevasse below, and then ran along a decaying pipe for a few steps until breaking back out of the cave. The echo of the woman's footsteps wasn't far behind at all.

He turned, peering at the hanging panel in the darkness. He raised one hand, drew it back slightly—

Please work, please work, please work!

Thrust it forwards with the weight of all the focus he could bring to bear. The grass at his feet waved slightly as the air itself moved from the energy that was pushed into it, and he could hear metal creak and groan deeper within as he turned and started running again.

Something fell with a crash inside. Hopefully his attempt to push the metal hard and break it off on top of his pursuer had worked, although he didn't bother to check as he turned again, running uphill towards the start of an ice flow he'd spotted and leaping forwards to slide down it. Hopefully that would give him enough speed to put some distance between them.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

a small squadron of interceptors moving in to attack. His cannons flashed, as he came down, three fireballs formed, before he pulled up and kept the speed going. He banked as lightning came down

—and up.

With nobody convenient left to kill, Ashin stood on a mountain crag. A new arrival, an Alliance starfighter, was screaming past up there and doing disproportionately well.

She'd sheathed her sword for the short climb. Now she raised her preferred weapon: the mace Khovesk, That Which Frees From Consciousness, Crusher of Hopes and Faces Alike. Lightning sizzled around the mace and her plate armour and snapped outward in wide brief nets that touched midair debris. A flicker here, a bolt there, trying to get a piece of that audacious starfighter.

Maybe it would move on to keep engaging Sith air cover; it wasn't like she could keep up on foot. Maybe it would accept her invitation and treat her like a defense turret, like a human flak cannon aching for a decent challenge.

ZAP. ZAP. ZAP.

 

[Aris Noble]

He wasn't mindless like the last Sith.

Aris gritted his teeth as he watched the man slip into his guard, into his reach. Even a flick of his wrist wasn't going to be enough to eliminate the threat that had just approached him. He was strong. Aris could at least see that much as he saw the kick coming. Would it be strong enough to knock him off his footing? Should he move with it?

Those would've been the usual thoughts he'd have. Instead, Aris gritted his teeth, let go of the saber he'd been holding, and launched his own fist. It didn't matter. The Sith needed to be stopped.

A flash of light quickly stopped that line of thinking, though. He blinked, immediately overwhelmed by the flash as he reeled back. The kick connected as he tried to step away, sending him half stumbling before he could regain his footing. Zaiya. Her voice was something he could easily pick up in the crowd. He blinked, eyes still trying to regain their sight. He should've been wearing the mask she'd made him, but he hadn't even thought to.

He hadn't been thinking at all. Everything was still blurry as he disengaged, heading right to stand with her again. The mask came up, covering over his face to give his eyes time to recover more under the shade it gave. "Sorry. .. And thank you." He spoke, distant, controlled. At least to anyone else. His parents were heading after Azurine. They'd save her.

Right now, he had to focus here.

"I won't send you away this time. Help me fight him? His soldiers are tearing through the Alliance here."

Zaiya Ceti | Darth Umbra

 

[Darth Umbra]

The kick snapped into the man's leg, buckling and throwing him off balance simultaneously as the Jedi let go of Umbra's lightsaber. As Umbra felt his hand free, he began a sweep with his lightsaber, hoping to take the Jedi's head clean off.

But then, light. A blinding light. It burned Umbra's retinas and threw his swing off tempo, where it arced harmlessly through the air. Umbra stumbled back, using the Force to throw any would-be attackers backward, but felt the push impact no one.

His eyes burned from the light, not just because of the brightness, but because of the light side of the Force which had caused it. Umbra felt the pain radiate into his being, nearly crippling him. Nearly. He embraced the pain, drinking it in, empowering himself through it, and wanting more. Through the Force, he felt the arrival of a new individual, another Jedi, by their feel. They landed next to the original one he had been fighting, and their connection was readily apparent through the Force.

<KILL THEM>

<CONSUME THEM>

<DO NOT STOP! OPEN YOUR EYES! COWARD! HIDING! ATTACK!>

<OBEY ME!>

His master raged within him, trying to force Umbra to act; it was suffocating. Umbra tried to shut him out, pushing him deep within his consciousness, feeling him try to fight back. Umbra squeezed his eyes shut, his lightsaber deactivating as his hands squeezed the sides of his head, battling another conflict within himself, one that caused him anger and frustration. It built up, threatening to overtake him, his master trying to claw back to the surface.

He was losing the battle within himself, and he knew the Jedi would not stand idly by; they would take action and cut him down while he fought within his mind. Umbra's fury was boiling over, and there was only one place to direct it. His left hand shot out, lightning erupting from his fingertips and arcing toward the two individuals who opposed him.

He poured his wrath and fury into the lightning, directing his mental aptitude toward these two physical beings, hoping this would stunt the flow of his master's ire.

Aris Noble | Zaiya Ceti

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Darth Prazutis

The cry of the grave. It was a call that Jonyna had heard again and again over the years.

She had told Vulpesen that she would die on the battlefield, protecting those behind her. That was an inevitability she had long accepted. It was a thought she not only accepted, but made peace with. She did not fear it, did not run from it.

But she did rage against it. Raged against the dying of the light. And on this day, in this fight, she would only let the light burn bright.

As if in mockery of the dark lord's move, she too stabbed her sword, the White Blade, into the stone beneath her.

It burned like a star, like the novas in the sky. A blinding flash that met the gravepluse head on, and purged the darkness from it the earth.

"And for that, you will never hold it's true power. A slave will never show it's talents, for it will only ever do what it is forced to. I let the Force show me it's true power. For it is given willingly, through compassion and hope."

And then she moved. The blade dragged across the ground, slicing through darkness and magik in an unrelenting cleave. One moment, she was near a hundred yards away. The next, she was right upon him, swinging the white blade at that leg once more. She intended to take it off, as her blade shot forward with enough force to slice through a starship.

 

[Caelan Valoren]

"And you speak of a lack of restraint as if it will do the same," Caelan retorted, though his voice was not angry or malicious. "It won't."

He, too, took a step back. This brief moment of disengagement was watched by the soldiers of both parties who were more intrigued by what was happening between the two of them than they were at the prospect of fighting one another. Wind rushed passed them, ruffling the parts of his armor that weren't made of metal or form-fitting material, and tugging at his form, but he resisted it easily enough. Though the mountain wind was strong, he was stronger.

"They were not Jedi. It is easy to wear clothing, wield a blade, espouse ideals. Many have done so over the years. There are still those now who do so but aren't actually Jedi. Too many have forgotten that we are not meant to be soldiers, that Jedi aren't meant to be warriors seeking battle. This is why when you approached you saw me not striking down the forces of the Sith, but merely defending the soldiers of the Alliance. I was not here to kill. I have no desire to do so.

"I wish I could say the same for the majority of my Order, but I fear that my idealism is largely ignored, that the way of the Jedi has fallen into its own form of darkness. That's why they did nothing to stop the Ashlan when they should have. Scouring the galaxy and destroying the dark will not bring balance to the Force, but imbalance and the Force will realign it as it did in the past, but too many do not understand that. I hope to change that. I hope to open their eyes to the reality that the life most are currently leading does not align with the code."

No movement. He wasn't going to leave. He couldn't.

"I appreciate your offer, but I cannot leave. My purpose for being here is too great. The Sith hold a dear friend of mine within this tomb, someone without whom my life would have ended before. A captive from when the Sith attacked the world of Woostri, and she endeavored to defend it. I must remain and allow the rescue team time to reach her. Were this not the case I would not be here at all."

---

ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace)

TAGS: Darth Apophion ​

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka adored the chase. And it seemed that Tel Ahren was going to give her a great one, the nimble bones of a little would-be-Jedi and the metallic bulk of her being. Lirka couldn’t help be allow herself to, perhaps foolishly, get a bit giddy at the prospect of their potentially gory meeting.

Though, she was no Jedi, nor a Sith. Lirka had only her intuition to keep herself going, and it was an unfortunate fact that Lirka’s intuitions were well…simply not very good.

The corroded metal that Tel had ran across prior croaked and groaned under Lirka’s bulk, and for a moment she thought the thing might have given out under her powersuit - though she thankfully escaped the void this time. Unfortunately, her fantasizing about incoming violence, and a few careful steps to escape tumbling into the crevice below had left her woefully unprepared for Ahren’s bout.

The panel came tumbling down upon Lirka’s head with a crash - a particularly dome shaped dent forming where it hit her hard head as the beastly woman strained against the things weight, hands raising to do what she could to lift the thing back up with the strain of mechanisms and muscle.

“Bad move, Jedi.”

Venom hissed from her words, as she finally tossed the thing aside. A weaker being would have been crushed there and then, but Lirka Ka was a monster born of the cold certainty of steel. Her lenses glimmered in the darkness of the cave, searching for where her quarry may have scampered off to. With the distance between them growing, Lirka considered what she would have done.

Up seemed reasonable, with Tel being a distant thing now. Lirka knew she needed to pick up the pace less this endeavor on Zeffo end up just as one big embarrassment. Letting her blade unfurl and ignite in roaring electro plasma filament and sprinting forward with an infinitely more murderous intent.

“Run, little Jedi, run! It’ll make it all the sweeter when I catch you!”

All it took was one good hit to the head for all of Lirka’s pretense to evaporate.

 

[Darth Apophion]

"So how does this end? I will waste no more time arguing fallacies. The great lie of balance is a myth ironically held at the end of Jedi's blade, just like the Ashlans. I will not turn away from this Eternal Schism between our creeds. I accept my burden. Come, Warden of Faded Truths."

Apophion said no more. Silence fell upon them once more, deep and oppressing.

To many, it seemed that Apophion was merely humoring the Jedi with conversation.

But beneath the stillness, the Force was already at work, sinking into the earth, twisting through ancient stone, coiling into every fracture and fault like a slow breath drawn by the world itself. The Sith did not gesture. He did not raise a hand. He merely lowered his saber and focused. His power did not come from motion nor wrath or rage. No, his strength in the Force was born of sorrow. A sorrow so vast it had crystallized into unwavering clarity.

All along, he had been preparing to strike.

As his vermillion blade dipped toward the ground, the tremor came subtle at first, then undeniable. The stones around Caelan began to shudder and rise, pulled free from centuries of silence. Without warning, the ground buckled, and dozens of stones and jagged fragments lifted into the air like specters summoned by grief.

Then they came hurling through the Force with lethal intent.

Boulders and broken masonry, shards and slabs, launched from nearly every direction. They came in waves, staggered and varied, large and small, high and low, each one aimed with brutal precision to overwhelm. Not a wild bombardment, but a calculated storm designed to break any defense. To force motion. To force a mistake.

The Sith did not speak.

The Force, and the ruin it carried, spoke well enough.

​

Caelan Valoren