It was always an excruciatingly meticulous task. To rebuild unto what he continuously lost from each lurch into the fray. This ritual had become less of a nauseating maintenance and more of one of few fleeting opportunities for meditation. His tortured eyes screwed shut as he eased back into the surgical chair, the searing torch cutting and binding the cybernetic metal of his limb.
Forward. There was no mulling over lost battles or past struggles. Only what lied ahead. The conundrum came in that the next horizon of the Iron Dawn was a place so deeply rooted in the past. A shattered one at that. One of abandonment from kin, of exile.
For he was born of a Dooku and a Fel in-exile, forbidden lovers. The white streak in his hair made the lineage immediately evident and with the Sith due for the full take over of Serenno, utilizing Dooku as its force to stamp the warring nobles into line, Rurik’s fate met an impasse. To be presented to the Sith and all but likely killed for his lineage, as one of the last to carry the blood of Jagged. Or to send him into exile, to be forgotten. A feud took place within the halls of Dooku over Rurik’s fate but soon enough he was transplanted into the Core, abandoned with a new identity to conceal the royal blood.
But he’d reclaimed that lost lineage now. And he sought vengeance.
His eyes opened to the disturbance as the door to his chamber aboard the NIV Antares Draco willed open to reveal
her.
Anika.
His tortured gaze looked to her with an arched brow.
“We’ll be there shortly…” He remarks, slowly standing himself up before her. He was troubled beneath the frigid exterior. Unlike the other campaigns he’d embarked upon sparing Bastion which he’d undertook in malign indifference, a clinical pursuit of the Sith destruction. But here, now, he was due to face those who’d sent him down the path he now walked. The man of iron.
“Still don’t think this is any place for you…” He admitted before he turned to begin slowly piecing his iron skin together, placing it atop his form to don the heavy metal shell which had now become all but his identity.
War was something Anika never experienced firsthand. She had heard tales, of course, but they were much like the stories she had been told in her youth. They were often exaggerated and twisted. Not to mention the true nature of it was largely shielded by whatever mouth happened to be doing the talking at the time. If there was one thing she could not bear to stand, it was an opinion based on fallacy. Up to now, that was what she considered war to be. Opinions. Heavily misguided by the rush of adrenaline or victory and passed from mouth to mouth. Gaining lie after lie in the process.
When the chance to discover the truth presented itself, how could she pass up?
After an exceedingly boresome journey through the endless black veil of space, Anika had found herself walking through the Antares Draco with a deafening purpose. It was a far more important venture for the man who waited for her at the end of her short walk. Anika had not yet stopped to consider it fully, but she did not need an intense session to know that this time… it was far more than just a war.
The doors to his rooms permitted her to enter with a soft woosh as they parted. The arched brow he offered her was met with a pleasant smile.
“I know.” She replied as she invited herself in. As he busied himself getting ready, Anika busied herself getting comfortable. Throwing her weight down onto a plush sofa and tucking her legs up underneath her frame.
From her seat, she shot the back of his head an ill-tempered look.
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t intend to get my hands dirty.” As if to confirm the fact, she shot her gaze down to her painted nails. A fresh coat of blood red had been applied to them, very recently. They caught the bright fluorescent lights of the ship, making shimmering squares dance across the mirrored surface. It seemed as though she had more to say, but silence dominated the room from that moment on.
Rurik had been provided a half-truth. There was no lie in the fact that Anika had wanted to experience it firsthand. That much could be relied upon at least. But it was not war that she wanted to experience. It was the Sith. The way they worked. They way they fought. The way they control the force. Everything. She would know them intimately after today, and that alone was an exhilarating feeling. Exhilarating enough for her to cast aside the mild irritation Rurik had caused.
When her softened expression returned to his form, she spoke again.
“What are you doing?” There was a lingering element of curiosity surrounding him. If they were meant to be spending the rest of their life together, it made sense.
“Readying myself...for what is to come.” Was Rurik’s shorthand response, turning to a medical droid which sealed the front and back halves of his cuirass over him once more with a metallic clasp sealing the armor. Then came his pauldrons and gauntlets settled over the strong arms of tortured flesh.
“Of course...it had to be here...Serenno. Home. Or the very least...the place of my birth. My kin had made sure it would not be my home for very long...and now they live as cupbearers and servants to the Sith. At least...not for much longer.” Rurik iterates as the cloak was lowered over his shoulders and he turned to another medical droid who offered his iron visage his way, taking it into his hands he looked into the metal face he’d now come to don. For some, the hope of perseverance and others the coming of death made manifest. He turned back toward her, stepping once more toward Tau’ri.
“All those who’d rather see me banished...or worse. They’ll see my vengeance before the day is done.”
Anika rolled her eyes. Such a tight-lipped response, as usual.
“I can see that.” She was about to prompt for further information when he began to speak again.
“I suppose everything has to come back round eventually, but surely it can’t feel like home anymore. How old were you when you left?” Anika responded, in a rather heartless tone. She did not seem perturbed when he stepped forward. In fact, she rose from her seat to meet him. Her chocolate eyes flickered quickly from the mask in his hands to scars covering his face.
“Here I thought you had no desire to impress yourself on the galaxy.” She said bluntly.
“Vengeance is an exceedingly taxing thing to exact. Is it truly vengeance you seek today? Or are you simply following orders?” She asked, without the smallest attempt at hiding her doubt.
He slowly swiped his thumb along the jagged laceration buried and repaired over in the surface of the mask she spoke before his gaze flicked up to meet hers once.
“I was but a boy when I was forced from home...but my duty comes first...before all else...fortunately, I walk a path in which it crosses the same with the fire that burns within. I vowed the same before we embarked on the crusade unto Bastion...the vaunted seat of my truest lineage...and I brought the Sith’ari to nigh death there...Zambrano, the same who’d murdered the last to rule in my name. And I will bring death unto Serenno...and I will kill the patriarch to Dooku...he who was so eager to see my end at the hand of the Sith, to hand over the fate of his world, his people to them.” Rurik iterates, the bitterness cutting through the characteristically frigid tone.
“This is personal.”
Anika couldn’t rightly define what made him attractive as he spoke of his revenge. If she had to hazard a guess, it would be that vehemence was a flattering shade on him. That or she enjoyed feeding off the anger that burned inside him like a raging fire. Regardless of reasons, he did seem moderately more appealing in the throws of his passionate speech.
She mirrored his action on the mask against one of the thicker scars on his face. A gentle sweep of her thumb across the puckered skin. It was meant as a reminder. Of what his enemy was capable of, and of what he could withstand if he tried. She let her touch linger there for a few moments, before her hand dropped to the mask Rurik had in his hands.
“You speak rather ardently of revenge.” Anika said as she peeled his fingers from the cold metal. She had seen him take it on and off several times now, she knew the mechanics well enough.
“Passion can be a powerful tool.” The edges of the mask clicked into place as she spoke.
“I advise you to use it wisely.”
She warned of letting his emotions sway his actions, sentiment he expected from himself and far less so mirrored across from him.
"I have long tempered the fires within, Anika. But now..."
With that the mask clasped into place and he was the Man of Iron once more. And he would have his vengeance.
"It is time to make war again."
THE LAST IN LINE
The Royal Palace of Serenno
Knights of The Empire
So began the regicide. The House of Dooku had long been corrupt to its deepest roots and foundations with their subjugation to the Sith. They were his blood and perhaps the seeds of redemption lay buried deep in their psyche. But he doubted it. Lucien Dooku and Rurik Fel were the exceptions, not the rule. The rule of Dooku had been bathed in blood, manipulation in the darkness.
This was no dispute of blood and kin. This was crusade.
"The Sith would see the entire Galaxy remade in its depraved image. We'd seen it before, the heart of Empire distorted into the testament of deceit on Bastion, the calm world of Dantooine put its raging fire in its hysterical laughter...and Serenno, a proud, noble world. Its surface gilded over a rustic, rotten surface beneath. Today, we are the fire which will burn away the festering swamp of corruption and make Serenno as it should be. Beneath the Iron Sun. We are the will of the Empire and tonight, we march forward once more. May The Force be with us all." Rurik spoke in correspondance to his knights and soon enough they were the enemy at the gates made manifest.
Rurik and his knights had reached the Palace, to clear the way to the throne. There, they could install its new and rightful monarch in Lucien Dooku. Whatever claim Rurik might have had, he rescinded it. He was returned to his rightful home at the fall of darkness on Bastion and returned to preserve it when rage awakened. He would do right by his half-brother and install him unto his rightful place as
King.
The steps would be bathed in the crimson ichor of the Sith's finest, the Knights of Serenno and the rest who came to croak at the coming of the Iron Dawn by the time the day was done.
"Do not falter from our path! Only forward!" Rurik commands. The burst and break of the Palace would be as bloody as an assault as ever. But the Imperial Knights and the parceled remnants of the current standing 501st would see the fight finished through to the end this day. Or die trying for their was no other result deemed satisfactory.
The Sith would have to
break.
ALLIES |
NIO |
Lucien Dooku
|
Hans Rennagen
|
Kainan
|
Dorian Sicarrio
ENEMIES |
TSE | OPEN FOR SMOKE
