I Are All We

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Carach dropped to the ground, catching himself by his knees and arms, but then he dropped with his face in the sand anyway.

Every muscle in his body unwound itself, relaxing, he sighed against the sand and after a minute or so - during which Puppy sniffed at him, nudging him with her nose - the Sith Lord rose up again. He looked like a monster of sand, beard, hair, robes and it was a wonder that his mouth wasn't filled with that crap.

"You realize," He mumbled while scritching Puppy behind her ear. "That I will return this favor, yes?"

Lazily the Sith Lord stretched himself out, arms in the air, spine groaning in the sudden tension before his muscles rolled beneath the skin.

A few pops here and there as bones creaked, then tilting his head left and right, snap, snap, snap.

Until Carach felt like he resembled a human once more.

The mountain-side was daunting, but it was the complex build into the mount that truly caused him to whistle. Amber shine increased as he focused on the details. There did not seem to be any obvious routes up there, so perhaps they would have to climb that thing until they were at the top?

"That's gonna be fun."

 

[Aver Brand]

“Kark no.” Aver snorted, pulling a block of plastic explosive from her utility belt. “That’s three hundred meters of vertical rock. I ain’t climbing shet.”

“Cover me,” she called out as she jogged over to the foot of the cliff. Steady, practiced hands affixed device after device to the warm stone. The merc worked quickly, rigging each unit to a single frequency. The spread was fairly even, reaching just high enough to dislodge the jutting overhang upon which the temple was built.

Sprinting through sand was no easy feat, but the firrerreo made it work. Perhaps a little short of breath, Aver rejoined [member="Carach"] and Puppy, and uttered the weirdest greeting yet.

“Call transponder RU486. Code 42.”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Something happened.

But it wasn't the explosion... or rather the explosion happened and then something happened to it. Whilst she was speaking her strange greeting black smoke seeped through the foundations of the bedrock making up the mountain, they were crowding the explosives, clinging to them almost as if it to get warm.

"Uh, Ave-"

Nope, it was too late already. The explosion boomed through the planes, causing an outward shockwave that caused Carach to take a few steps back or be barreled over a second time. But instead of the mountain collapsing... the smoke grew, almost as if it had fed from the thermic reaction, literally eating up the heat and kinetic energy of the explosives.

The smoke expanded.

Twice. Thrice. It rose up in the sky, clouding the entire mountain from sight and Carach had the distinct feeling like it was looking at them.

"Uh." Carach blinked. "So, remember that mountain? It is still there."

 

[Aver Brand]

[member="Carach"]

“Yeah, I do, what the kark.” With a tinge of indignation coloring her voice, Aver stared daggers at the rockface. Maybe if she poured all of her displeasure into that cold gaze, the mountain would rethink its life choices and collapse after all.

“Well, mindkarkery is your expertise, Ten Years. Figure it out.”

She paused, zooming in on the ridge and its new smoke appendix. No organs to target, no brain, and no instinct beyond that of whoever was driving this monster. Felt like flipping a table. At least a small one.

“Distract it. You’re good at that. I’ll go shoot whoever made this thing.” She blew him a gauntleted kiss and switched on the VF live camo. One moment, Aver was there – the next, she was just another patch of desert and sky.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

"No, you karking ain'-" Oh, okay, she really was.

Carach cursed as the karking Vraggles left him with Puppy and disappeared wherever Vrags went. The large Tuk'ata stared at him, as if he had any solutions to the current situation at hand, which was a really stretch of the imagination. The cloud of smoke didn't stop approaching though, even if one of its targets suddenly disappeared. If anything, it became more enthusiastic now that its job became so much easier with a single Sith Lord to eliminate, instead of two.

The remaining Sith patted the Tuk'ata on the head, while staring at the gorram nonsense.

Until a thought entered his mind: salt... no salt, but blood? There was plenty of blood ahead. Usually it was someone else's blood spilled in anger or fury, but right now there really wasn't anyone around for him.

Unless Carach was willing to slaughter Puppy.

Which he wasn't.

Instead a dagger was drawn across the palm of his hand. This welled up blood, seeping richly across the sand and Carach sighed, before purposefully scattering his own rich blood in a circle around himself and Puppy. Who was very firmly trying to explore that same blood and sand in curiosity. At least until the words in Sith were spoken dutifully and direct, investing the blood and sand with the necessary sacrifice.

A breath and two passed.

The immense smoke demon pressed ahead, trying to penetrate the new boundary.... but all it could find? Was a wall as strong and firm as a mountain.

Once again Carach petted the Puppy. "Trust me, this will only work for maybe a few minutes, so you better hope that Vraggles will figure this shet out."

 

[Aver Brand]

She felt space magic blossom somewhere behind her back – stank of blood and power. [member="Carach"], then.

Still, Aver never lessened her punishing pace. With CERS fully engaged and the Force flowing through her limbs, she crossed the distance separating her from the cliff in mere breaths. And the merc didn’t stop there. With a grunt and a flex of the thighs, the woman launched herself at the mountain. The dunes disappeared far below as she found footholds of stone, hands grasping the jagged red rock.

Paced and swift, Aver scaled the face of the canyon, skipping whole overhangs with bursts of the Force. Her forearms burned by the time she vaulted over the edge, and her lower lip was bleeding with her teeth still sunken inside.

The plateau was, save for the temple, completely barren. But the temple? Hooooboy. Five tall spires reaching like claws for the sky, piercing a half-dome embedded in the sand. They were each engraved and painted with streaks of red, ancient symbols she’d never seen nor cared to learn about.

Carach would know them, probably. (If he was still alive in five minutes, that is.)

She placed a wary hand on the LeMat and urged Chomsky to crawl up her arm, waiting to spring into her grip if the need arose. Never before was she so glad her presence in the Force was permanently suppressed from prying eyes – if the bastards sicced another one of those demons on her, alone, there wasn’t much Aver could do about it.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

The ward held... for now.

A circle of blood and sand around himself and Puppy to keep the Demon out, but it was barely enough. No salt, no oil, definitely no iron flakes from the Nether, it wasn't even the blood of an innocent. Already Carach could see the cracks appearing within the bubble, where the smoke demon was applying as much pressure as possible to get through.

Carach cursed.

If only the Sith Lord had the severed tongue of a Krayt here, then this entire thing would have been relatively easy. But he couldn't consume the essence of fire without it. Which meant... more improvisation had to be done. As the darkness filled the encirclement - smoke pressed against the entire surface and now allowing even a shimmer of light through - Carach settled down on the sand, while Puppy settled down next to him.

Once more the dagger sliced through his palm, new blood breaking through dried up visage and power started to fill the air.

Incantations whispering from his lips.

"If I die here, I am gonna haunt you, Vrag..."

 

[Aver Brand]

Betcha [member="Carach"] was laughing now. Aver was crawling on her belly over the dunes – stealthily – to get the drop on the fether who dipped them into this pool of shet. Stealthily. Which she never did.

The merc was a hit-hard, don’t-let-’em-get-back-up type of fighter. That is not to say she was a brute. With roots in makashi, her blade control and footwork were hard to surpass. Combined with the sheer strength and speed she could muster, aver was a force to be reckoned in the battlefield.

Not the Force, though. Nothing like these karkers.

Her blue eyes glared daggers at the robed back of the karker in question. He was of small stature – though, granted, compared to her most people were – and bereft of any weapons she could see. Just a red cloak with black symbols (same as the temple) and some jewelry stuck to its head.

Aver released a breath, coiling like a snake in the sand. At this distance, she couldn’t miss.

Then again, her explosives should’ve blown the mountain sky-high, and their ship should’ve handled the landing.

She squeezed the trigger. A sole shot rang through the canyon, echoing through her ears.

The chanting stopped. The demon, far away, grunted a squeal of surprise. The figure, very close, slowly turned around.

Fear wasn’t an emotion she experienced. But if she could, she would.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Something happened to the smoke demon halfway through his incantations.

Erratic behavior as the tendrils warped slightly, curling away from the barrier it had almost shattered already and instead retreated slightly backwards. It hummed and the blackness faded just slightly, as if the beast had a difficult time anchoring itself to this reality. Because it wasn't a regular Smoke Demon and it needed steady attention from external forces to keep itself here.

"Thank you, Aver." Carach mumbled, before squeezing his hand and letting the blood drip freely into the sand, where it was almost immediately soaked up by the texture beats.

As the blood dripped, soaked, absorbed and expanded, so did the incantions rolling from his lips in a steady flurry of words and meaning. Then power erupted - never would have been enough if the cultist hadn't been distracted by his ally.

But now? Just enough to rip through the gargantuan being and detach any anchor it may have had

The sheer attempt of channeling the amount of energy necessary was staggering. Without assistance Carach collapsed on his knees, blood seeping from his nose, before he fell to the ground completely. Puppy nuzzles the fallen Sith, trying to get him to get up.

Difficult task to accomplish.

 

[Aver Brand]

[member="Carach"]

She’d appreciate the thanks. Later. If she was still alive.

Apparently the light bent around her just so, or maybe the dessicated monstrosity could smell her, or something, because the thing headed straight for her. The merc, who was rather against this turn of events, emptied the rest of the LeMat into the thing, and then the shotgun barrel too.

Stopped it each time – for a breath, but no longer.

It kept marching, and Aver kept retreating, right up until she ran out of plateau. Only two ways outta that. Downhill.

Voluntarily or…

well, Aver didn’t really pause to consider the alternative. Didn’t get the time, because it was right then that a thin, blackened foot planted itself square in her chest and kicked her off the cliff.

Karkin’ hell.

It was a long drop. The merc was quick on her feet. With some help from the Force – no use hiding now – and the bright orange beam that burst out of Chomsky, Aver slowed her fall down to a bearable speed by the time she hit the ground.

The earth groaned beneath her feet as she rolled forward to dissipate the impact. Lifted from the crouch and—

“Puppy? Carach got himself knocked out already?” It was going to be a long day. She gave a light slap to the man and went back to reloading her pistol.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Carach did not dream.

In the wake of the fall, the collapse and the sinking of lucidity the Sith Lord just rested in a slumber that had the potential for more, but they denied him righteous rest. The teeth bit hard in his skin, puncturing with controlled intent; to awake and to bring him closer towards their mutual goal in a moment of weakness. Eyes fluttered open, saw racing sand underneath him, clouds buffeting up from immense weight shifting underneath rolling muscle, before eyes closed shut again.

This repeated, once, twice, three times until he was thrown to the ground again. He groaned. He snarled as as Puppy's paw pushed him over, trying to get him to wake up and rise again.

"I will-" The threat, the whisper, the promise, whichever it may be was lost as a boom of kinetic force exploded only a few meters from them. Again eyes fluttered open to see what had come to visit - Vrag... always a sore sight for the eyes - but before a greeting could be rolled from his lips she slapped him.

Lightly.

Carach appreciated the sentiment, even as he groaned and pushed himself off. "I assume..." He tilted his neck, feeling tension rise and then dissipate. "You were the reason the Demon lost it for a moment."

It was the only reason the Sith was still standing.

"Thank you." Not even an attempt of; I had in welllll in hand. Before the situation could turn several shades of awkward Carach looked up towards the mountain side, then to the sizeable hole created by impact. "What was up there?" It had to be a frightening foe for her to fall such depths.

 

[Aver Brand]

Her gaze immediately snapped down to the Sith Lord. No witty comeback? Must’ve really hit him hard.

“Yeah, I shot the karker running the show,” Aver said with a frown, blue eyes narrowing at the top of the cliff. “Or… whatever that was.”

“It didn’t kill him— it.” She lifted the gun in her hand for [member="Carach"] to see. It was a good gun. It was a big gun. It was a gun that murdered things with one bullet.

“Small karker, but stronger than you’d guess. Looked like he’s been dead for a century or so.” She gestured at her skull-painted faceplate. “Had some kinda weird jewelry going on. And white eyes. No pupils though.”

Made her skin crawl in ways she didn’t expect. In her experience – and she had plenty – corpses weren’t that lively. Or that capable of speaking. Or kicking accomplished conquerors off mountains.

Her frown deepened.

“Some good ole’ slice and dice with the lightsaber could do the trick. Thing had anatomy like I ain’t never seen before. Totally deformed ribs and shet. Maybe you’ll know it though. Or the symbolism crap they got going all over the place.”

She sighed, holstering the LeMat to free up her hands. Climbing, take two.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Years ago she would have simply shown him.

Opened her mind without any worry or concern, because they had been a team. Together they had brought a large portion of the Galaxy to heel... as a team. But time? Time was a fickle thing and it had settled itself between them like solid duracrete; oh their mutual acknowledgement of their kark-ups had left seams and cracks in it.

But far more would have to happen, before they could return to how it was.

If they could go back to how it was.

"When we work together, nothing that can stop us." Carach said anyway, knowing that it wasn't as easy as speaking a sentiment and making it so. He stared up to the rock face again. Until Puppy whined behind them, the Tuk'ata's claws crawled against the wall, trying to find purchase.

Not finding the ability to do so.

"Puppy wants to help as well, it seems."

 

[Aver Brand]

Her motions stopped. She turned her head for an increment towards the man, considering.

But rarely considerate.

“We’ll see,” she said at length, voice unusually quiet. Aver addressed the pawing hound at her side, a hint of a smile to her voice. “Come on, Shai. You know I wouldn’t leave you down here.”

“But I can’t climb this shet and carry you at the same time. We’ll go up, [member="Carach"] will seduce that thing with his manly wiles, and I’ll lift you up. Yeah?”

Even normal tuk’ata were highly intelligent creatures, but Puppy was no ordinary beast. In the amulet clipped around her neck resided a spirit older than dirt, with memories and knowledge that even the Sith Lord couldn’t boast. Aver scritched the soft spines under her chin, then bit into the rock with newfound determination.

She was practically married to the queen of zombies – this one wasn’t gonna slow her down.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

There were exactly two things that Carach could do with practiced ease.

First, the realm of the ethereal, the abstract, the whispers between and the spirits raised. His first love; mentalism and the one thing that the Sith would always fall back to, but it was the second thing that he used now. The power over wind and manipulation of external force itself, telekinesis.

Together?

Equally unstoppable. "Few have been able to resist me." Carach calmly acknowledged, before his hand flicked and force rammed itself into the rock wall.

The climb began and every step on the way was paved by the application of minuscule force.

 

[Aver Brand]

“I don’t know,” Aver grunted, scaling the same fethin’ wall for the second time in ten minutes. This wasn’t the glorious carnage she was promised. Sand was getting everywhere. It was hot. They were fighting things that shouldn’t be able to exist, much less shake off a whole cylinder full of bullets that could stop a karking krayt dragon.

“Well, it has been ten years, Dar. Wrinkles are starting to show. Next up? Your—” a flex, a lunge across an overhang, “fantastic ass. And then kark knows what. Maybe all that whiskey you been drinkin’ starts eating your liver.”

She was ahead of him now, tracing her previous path to speed up the ascent. “But don’t worry, sweettits – I’ll still bend you over in ten years.”

Humor, as ever, persevered. If that mummy held her over the chasm and spat ritual at her face, Aver would still have a comeback at the tip of her tongue.


[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Carach looked amused, not that she could see as she was a few meters above him, but it was the thought that truly counted here. "Wrinkles? I have been sacrificing a virgin each week to keep my skin pretty, don't tell me it was all for nothing." The Sith Lord snarked right back, before making a vault over another overhang.

Almost overshot his target by a few meters, but he corrected it with some quick telekinesis application mid-air.

A few meters before they got over the edge Aver stopped, hanging there and waiting on him, which wasn't very long. Relatively anyway. "Know you ain't about mentalism, but was there anything you got from him? Thought, feeling, something?"

For all they knew the beast was lying in wait for them.

 

[Aver Brand]

“No.” Double time was taking its toll, and none of them were exactly feather-light. She was glad for the additional protection of the underlay, or her fingers’d be aching by now. The sandstone scraped even through the layer of armorweave, and her brow furrowed with effort.

The sun wasn’t helping.

“He— was– empty.” A huff, a pull closer to the top. “Nothing.” Another ledge, another grinding of teeth. Twisting at the hip, Aver leaned into a jutting rock, stealing a moment’s respite after a long climb. She looked down, past [member="Carach"], past the jagged curves of the red rock, all the way to the pale golden sea stretching out to infinity.

The beauty of the view was not lost on Ygdris. Not anymore.

It was with a smile that she bit into the face of the mountain again.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Soon before long they were there.

The last ledge, beyond it the beast that had thrown Aver out from the mountain and back to the ground with the rest of them. Symbolic, to a degree, with what they were facing in general - the ancients... larger than life, standing on a mountain of apathetic experience, them? broken, divided, arrogant, older and not getting any younger. It was a joke that they were the only ones seemingly interested in all of this. While the rest pissed away their time with endless cycles that would never break, not in another millenia, it fell to... them to do something.

Gorram irony there.

"Let's try something new." Carach mumbled, before eyes closed and a shimmer surrounded them. It clung to their bodies (or in Vrag's situation, her armor), cold as ice and hummed against them. "Let's see."

With gentle caution he climbed over the ledge and pushed himself up. Up ahead Carach saw exactly what Vrag had been facing: back twisted as bones were shaped into a mess of contours beneath thick, vaguely crimson sticky skin. Ears swiveling, sharp pointed up. This time it did not even wait to be shot.

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Its voice rasped, like vocal chords had decayed past the point of function and it was only through sheer force of will that it kept on speaking. "New plan, kill it now." From the depths of his hands a kinetite ball appeared, humming with force, there was no hesitation when he threw it right at the menace.

 

[Aver Brand]

The words that crawled out of its mouth made sense. She understood what it had said. She had not clue what it had meant, though, and no time to figure it out.

Talking, Aver had always maintained, was the quickest way to get yourself killed in battle.

Didn’t waste bullets this time – just opened her palm for Chomsky to hinge itself into, secure fingers around its leathery body. There was no snap-hiss as the yellow blade sizzled into life.

Seventh guard, motherkarker.

The ball of energy that [member="Carach"] cast at the creature left a stink of ozone in the air as it burst forth. Time trickling slow, the merc watched as ribs split open, arcing out with blackened sinew still clinging to the pointed tips. Its torso opened like the maw of a massive beast, chomping down on the kinetite with the familiar snap of bone.

Blind eyes crinkled at the edges, gleaming blue with the power it had just consumed. Barely pushed it back a step – a single rift in the sand where it dragged its clawed paw backwards.

Not a breath passed when Aver lunged, intent on exploiting its displaced balance. With weight on the backfoot – denied agility and swiftness of reaction – the merc intended to pierce it right through the mangled juncture of bone where a sternum should be.