I'm just a little black rain cloud...

[Xephirus Cloud]

Xephirus walked into the morose cantina. He was soaked to the bone with the rain water from the forest moon's harsh exterior. He removed his drenched cowl exposing his wet face. Droplets rolled down his face only to linger in the whiskers beneath his chin. The scent of alcohol and sweat immediately wafted through his unkempt face, he appeared nothing more than a drifter. It looked as if he belonged with the group of ruffians already in the cantina. Nothing would separate him from them save his intense eyes, hardened by his longest years. He strode up to the counter and placed some coin for the Nevellian Bartender and spoke not but two words. "Thirius Stout." It was the drink he always ordered, dark and brooding just like him. He had nowhere to go, his memories had faded and his whole life had no purpose that he knew of. The only words he had to go on, nothing more than an echo in time. Simply who was he? He just didn't know.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

As [member="Xephirus"] ordered his stout, a tall, lean man in bulky armor eased himself from a back booth. The Sith aspect of the Dark Side tasted like smoke and ice to his Keetael senses; the taste had spiked through his tongue like a cactus needle when the Sith Master entered the room.

He didn't much like that taste. He associated it, consciously by now, with the kidnapping, corruption, and murder of his oldest son; the murder of two younger sons and his youngest daughter; the kidnapping and brainwashing of his oldest daughter, his last surviving child; and the exsanguination and dismemberment of his wife. All at the hands of Sith.

He didn't much like that taste at all.

Beskar'kandar-clad elbows thudded onto the edge of the bar, and he unveiled his Force presence: Light Side, but hard and sharp as the old soldier he was, the forest warrior. A long lightsabre hung at his side.

"Whyren's Reserve," he said to the alien barkeep. His beskar mask, dark green and gold, bore solely symbolic resemblance to a Mandalorian helmet's design; it far more closely resembled the face beneath, with references to Keetael and Dathomiri iconography. That Mandalorian-iron face turned toward the nearby Xephirus, and held a stare for a good while.

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

Xephirus noted the stare of [member="Ember Rekali"] . And he noted the emission of his force presence. He made note of the clash of his armor and the man's grim face. There was not a solitary doubt that the man across the cantina was not only a skilled warrior but he was also offering an open challenge to Xephirus.

There was a time when Xephirus would have relished at the opportunity to demonstrate to everyone just how powerful he truly was. The only qualm he had with the man was his lack of manners.

Xephirus teeth emerged from his lip as it curled upward into a smile as he was all too familiar with the situation. He finished his drink assuming the at he wasn't going to be sitting much longer. He turned to meet the man's gaze and then said, "You know it isn't nice to stare. I'm assuming you never knew your mother either? In which case I'll let it slide. Guys like us just don't know any better."

 

[Manu Xextos]

The rain pouring outside was enough to make the straight laced Master Manu Xextos drift in from the weather for an inebriating, warm beverage. Pulling the silver hood off his equally silver hair, he stepped in and brushed off his wet sleeves. For a place on this backwater, Manu expected at least a few seedy characters and maybe a drunken teddy bear or two, what he did find was a brooding Light Siding Man in Armour, and the familiar aura of a man . . . no. He couldn't.

Then burst out laughing. "A Mandalorian, a Sith Lord and an Echani walk into a bar." His head shook and the surfer dude Light Sider Force Master walked to the bar and took a stool, "Barkeep, Blossom Brandy and a mug of hot tea."

He glanced at [member="Xephirus"] and let his own Force Signature unfurl. The seven foot Echani was ancient and guided by the glorious Light, an avenger and crusader who had once stood tall on Thyrsus, on Telos, on Thani. "You remind me of a guy. Aw man that was back in the day. Look just like him."

Manu pulled his cloak back to dry off and revealed the silver and white clothing of an Echani with a belt of thick leather and a lightsaber clipped to the belt. He'd had the same lightsaber for eight hundred and seventeen years, and it was still in amazing condition. He looked to [member="Ember Rekali"] as if to say 'I feel you, buddy.'.

All three of them had been touched severely by the Dark.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Xephirus"] [member="Manu Xextos"]

A Secure Intake Port Protrusion (SIPP, patent pending) descended from the mask of Ember's armour. He held up his glass of Whyren's Reserve to the straw and drained it in one. Whiskey burned its way down.

The straw retracted.

"That'd make my children feel better to hear it," he said, voice flat even before the helmet filter. "A man like you drank their mother's blood, ripped off her limbs, drained her spirit of memory and bound it to himself for power. It'd make my children feel better if they could hear at all -- if every one of them hadn't been taken by Sith too." Behind the lenses of the mask, purple Vahla eyes flicked to Xextos. Ember took in the tall, powerfully built Lightsider and dismissed him. Sure, he had the scent of Advanced Age, same as Xephirus, but seven-, eight-hundred-year-old Forcers were a dime a dozen these days, and Ember had often been heard to remark on just how many of them had never grown up.

Talk about second childhood.

So, at least visibly, he ignored the talkative surfer dude. Anyone that big and happy could deal with not being the center of attention, or maybe not; Ember didn't much care one way or the other.

"Get up, old man," he said to Xephirus. "You're worth a million."

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

[member="Ember Rekali"] [member="Manu Xextos"]

Xephirus watched as the Echani entered. He was a loud boisterous man who looked oddly familiar. Perhaps a key to his past. Xephirus listened as the silver-haired man spoke of how he knew someone who looked just like Xephirus. He wanted to pursue the conversation further but the Mando just couldn't leave well enough alone. He wanted Xephirus based upon his exterior.

Xephirus turned to the Mando'a, "A man like me?" He said with a coy smile. He was turning into the Xephirus, no one liked to deal with. And with every word and gesture he fell deeper and deeper back into his own skin, "Dashing good looks? Lushous brown hair?" He rolled his finger around the top of the glass.

"You know what? It sounds to me like you aren't very careful with your own possessions." His smile faded ever so slightly. It was as if he had heard these words before. "You are incapable of taking care of those nearest you." A single unexplained tear rolled down Xephirus' face. He didn't understand. He wiped his face and looked at the Mando sternly. "And you know what, buddy?" His brow had curled and his eyes fell into a scowl. "That ain't my fault! But if you really wanna do this I'll be more than willing to end your internal strife. If you desire so much to rest alongside your lov-" Xephirus stopped cold at the word love. As if he had been in the man's shoes before. It all just seemed too familiar... why though? Why?

 

[Manu Xextos]

Manu sipped his brandy and gulped his tea. He kept one foot on the floor and the other on the stool's foot bar, leaning against the bar with a forearm on its' surface. He tried his darnedest not to continue the age old aggression between Mandalorians and Echani, but when the Mandos made it so easy it took Manu mashing his lips together to suppress a giggle.

He had a sippy straw. The Mandalorian drank whiskey from a sippy straw.

"People aren't possessions. They're not pawns to gain power. The man is grieving he's got the right. The Sith penchant for power and anger and fear cause more problems than they solve for their brethren's short field of focus. But, what can I say? The Mando's got me beat on personal tragedy and that's well, that's a bona fide feat."

When [member="Xephirus"] called [member="Ember Rekali"] out, Manu swivelled on his stool and put two fingers to his temple. Instantly every single person in the bar (including the bartender) got up and filed out. As the persuasion of the once-Jedi filled the room, Manu's skin turned into a crystalline translucence. He faded in colour until he was but shades of grey and silver. "Don't let me get in the way." Manu pulled a bottle down from the bar and popped its cork, re-filling his glass. What was the best way to have a man rectify his grief?

Fight it out. Maybe the Mandalorian would feel all the better for it in the morning, and maybe the confusion on the Sith Lord's face would clear in all due time.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Xephirus"] [member="Manu Xextos"]

Ember pushed away from the bar, half-turning to put both men more or less in front of him.

"Oh, I'm well past grief. I'm into the doing-something stage. So when I say I've lost people, it's so you'll understand that I'm pretty fething inescapable. When I say you're worth a million credits, what I mean is, I am taking you in, because my heart is warm with the thought of filling my gas tank and payin' my crew with the proceeds of your skinny shebs. And when I say get up, what I mean is get up or I introduce that bar stool to your skull until the choice ain't in your power anymore."

Other patrons began to sidle away, apparently under the influence of the surfer. The barkeep touched a button on his way out, and a small flat particle shield hummed to life across the liquor cabinet.

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

IC: "I'm worthless." He said with a wink and a smile. "You don't want the apprentice.... but the master." He said as his eyes flashed over to Manu. Xephirus produced a force illusion of Manu's eyes being more red and hate filled than Xephirus' own.

"This jerk would've let you take me to save his own skin." He said as if he had a real gripe with Manu. "He likes to go around with that stupid air-head visage. His laid-back lingo and holier than thou attitude. He has you all eating the slime he feeds and you all line up like bantha to slaughter. Fools.... puppets..." He scowled at Manu. "Krife you, huttspawn. If I'm going down so are you. I'm sick of being the whipping boy!" He said with a bark. "And you..." He said shaking his head as if in disbelief. "You're the worst of them all. So blindly ignoring the man who appears the fool just because he is so good at hiding it."

Ooc: Three-way dance anyone?

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

[member="Ember Rekali"] [member="Manu Xextos"]

Ooc: Forgot to tag you guys.

 

[Manu Xextos]

"But I am holier then thou, Sith Lord. I'm a freaking Saint! Who surfs! And hugs nerf herders!"

Manu did the only thing a man could do in the shadow of such fertile distain and hatred. He finished his drink and burst out laughing. "Dude! Did you just Sidious me? You did! You totally Darth Sidioused me! Hey, I'm no Dooku, dude. The goatee never fills in."

He shrugged and waved to [member="Xephirus"], taming his chuckle as his eyes rested on the Mando. "You gonna believe the Sithspawn? Can a Dark Lord of the Sith do this?"

The room became awash with unabashed, glorious, righteous light. Bathed within it, the Echani was but a statue of a man given the continued grace and mercy to keep breathing. His life breath was a miracle of the Light, a constant supply of gorgeous similitude with the ever present peace of a spirit that sprung in harmony despite chaos, love despite hate. No purer condition had the man but this: that he was a dedication to the value of charity, the value of delight. As he so delighted in the gift he had been given, the Doctor and Master shared with the present men a portion of his divine and noble pacification. Should they allow him to touch their minds, a rectifying grace would descend, willing to heal their hurts and bring them closer to that spirit of harmony where the pains of past sins and tragedies ebbed away for darker pastures. Manu lived to heal and so lived in a healing state.

Otherwise, he would have died centuries ago.

For a while Manu didn't think it would matter if he were a Jedi, Sith, Echani, Mandalorian or In-Betweener. Manu wondered how far the once blurred racial lines still fell in this new time. [member="Ember Rekali"] neither looked nor felt like the sort of man to take pity or feel remorse when credits lingered within his grasp. He had mouths to feed and from the sounds of it a dwindling, yet long table full of empty plates. Desperate men were more dangerous than Light and Dark and although Manu wondered what chance he had of venturing out unharmed, all he wanted in his heart of hearts. . . .

. . .

. . . was to watch some Mando on Sith duelling action. What? Come on! It's a Mandalorian versus a Sith Lord! How awesome is that for spectator sports?

Manu poured himself another drink and brought the cup to his lips, his other hand flopping down open on his thigh. "Misdirection versus misdirection. You believe this guy? I'm sure as heck not worth a million credits. Might get seventy nine ninety five out of me if you shake out my pockets. Please don't steal my booze money, Mr. Mandalorian. My wife put me on an allowance, since she came back from the dead."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Xephirus"] [member="Manu Xextos"]

Feeling like he'd somehow been bludgeoned by every word with positive connotations in the entire Basic language, Ember turned to Xextos. It was a slow turn, one that hinged on Ember's pretty substantial incredulity.

"Did you seriously just use the apex power of the Light Side of the Force to say look how pure I am?"

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

Xephirus scratched at his neck awkwardly then drummed his fingers upon the bar top.

Well then... that wasn't going to work out after all. He thought to himself. He shrugged, his mouth agape the silver-tongued Sith was speechless.

In a single fluid motion he kicked the barstool he was sitting on him backward and out of the way. He lifted his hand quick as a Teek and a blue bolt of pure dark side energy poured from his hand directly at his primary target.... the mandolorian. Xephirus had determined the Mando was the greater threat, dark broody and battle-hardened just like him. The Echani he would have to keep a close eye on... as well but for the time being was not the initial threat.

 

[Manu Xextos]

Had Manu Xextos used the apex power of the Light Side to give a 'holier than thou Sith Lord' non-verbal speech?

The drink in Manu's hand found it's way to his lips and the Echani Master took a long drag of the sweetly burning liquid. He pondered [member="Ember Rekali"]'s question for a good long minute before swallowing the booze and slapping his cup down on the bar. "Mmmmmmmm Yep! Yes I did. I did, didn't I? Hah! You only live onc-tw-ah . . time's relative, dude. And I'm not even a member of the Jedi Order. Was once. You know how it is, get married, have kid, get kicked. Fun times. They were had by all. Or some. Most? Maybe a few. I laughed. It's good for the cardiac system."

Good thing he was holding the bottleneck tight! Manu's eyes chased the barstool [member="Xephirus"] kicked away and stayed in his seat. He sat straight and tall, elbow leaning against the bar and battled an incredibly integral internal battle all his own:

Whether or not to laugh.

Blue lightning arced from the Sith and Manu nearly 'oooed' and 'aaahed' the act when by rights he should have been helping the Mandalorian take Xephirus down. But, one, the Mandalorian was a grim and determined sort of man, two, he didn't ask nor look like he needed help, three, Manu wasn't the one who challenged any one of the two, and four, Manu wasn't finished his tea.

He'd done his bit when he got the collateral damage out of the place, hadn't he? The Echani kept a mental weather eye on any stragglers or innocent folk who had found their way nearby, sending out the quiet mental suggestion that maybe this bar was closed. His lightsaber still hung on his belt, one of his feet remained on the ground while the other rested on the barstool foot rail.

The Bright and Sparkly Peanut Gallery was entrenched at the bar.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Manu Xextos"] talked.

[member="Xephirus"] surged to his feet, bar stool flying backwards. In his mind's eye, Ember received a powerful impression of incineration, and as blue-hot energy formed around Xephirus' hand -- looks like sutta chwituskak or maybe a lightning variant, feth he's fast at conjuring that, schutta knows what he's doing -- Ember put the full strength of his focus into his own specialty. Physical enhancement -- every technique of strength, speed and durability from the half-dozen traditions that made up this particular mutt. He took a quick step forward, wrapped the Force around and through his arm, and met Xephirus' bolt with his elbow.

It wasn't just any elbow. This was the elbow that had intercepted kinetite and Spears of Midnight Black, that had cut the face off the Dark Force Temple on Dromund Kaas. This was the elbow that had arm-wrestled bull rancors, the elbow that had put his fist through the Sith Council's vault on Bosph to Force Light their holocrons into crystalline dust.

All hail the fething elbow.

Half an inch of masterforged beskar, surrounded and backed by Ember's decidedly heterogeneous mastery of the Force, crashed into the bolt of pure Dark Side energy at very, very short range. Corrupt fire warmed his arm right through the Mandalorian iron, splashed out around him -- and, at least in part, richocheted back towards its creator. For a moment, Ember's helmet readouts fuzzed, like blasters going inert in the presence of Dromund Kaas' Sith magic.

With the bar on his right, Ember kept moving forward, a double quickstep aiming to put the edge of his right hand into the right side of Xephirus' neck. The general idea involved slamming the Sith Master into the bar with a force reminiscent of the twenty-five asteroids Rygel Larraq had dropped on Dromund Kaas.

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

Being Xephirus Cloud was all about fighting and death.... fighting authority, fighting family, fighting random lightsiders who judged him for the choices he made in his life. Void! Truth be told he didn't even remember being a Sith. Sure it made sense... the power... the eyes.... the attitude. He couldn't deny the fact, he just didn't remember making a deal with the devil. It just didn't feel like something that he would do. He felt like a stranger in his own body but he knew he needed to defend himself from the raving madman suggesting to lock him up and throw away the key. Freedom was just to great a price to Xephirus.

The dark side energy washed over the bar top and licked Xephirus' limbs. It shattered glasses filled with liquids of all colors. It slammed against the walls and bore holes in the ceiling. This was as destructive a power as any star destroyer.

It burned. He had felt that burn many times. It was like a familiar ex-lover who would arrive, love you for a moment then leave you remembering why she was your ex-lover. Oh, this dark power was a saucy witch he couldn't help but love. Deeming the ability ineffective on this particular being, Xephirus put his ex-lover back in the box of tricks he had. She wasn't getting the job done and he needn't waste his energy on her.

Noting the oncoming attack Xephirus instinctively stepped into the attack only absorbing a small potion of the blow as the Mando's armored bicep crashed into his shoulder. It hurt like the void, but easily less devastating than it could have been. Now within the man's guard Xephirus reached up with his hand beneath the man's mask. He began siphoning energy from the Mando'a, a technique just as deadly as the previous with the same intent. The technique went by the name of Force Deminish. And prolonged exposure to this technique would destroy the Mando'a. He would leave Xephirus alone, one way or the other.

Ooc: After that last post by [member="Ember Rekali"] I gotta step my game up. Your post [member="Manu Xextos"]

 

[Manu Xextos]

Lightning cascaded, elbows of ultimate and thorough planetary-scale doom were thrown and Manu picked up his mug of tea. He was happy as could be to watch a good fight to see how Mandalorians of today and a man who looked suspiciously like the Sith Lord who burned down [member="Erryn Xextos"]' favourite and only snack shack on Thyrsus while his wife was pregnant and had the munchies, duked it out for bounty, glory and self preservation.

That's when it happened. The untold villainy! The unholy it!

[member="Xephirus"]' wash of the Dark Side's concussive power shattered Manu's mug of tea in his hand. The Echani's mouth hung agape, he groaned with a bark! A whinny!

Did it always have to be food related with this guy? "My tea!" Manu wailed. Couldn't a guy have a happy drink in a pub without disaster striking? Without the cloud of a torrential dismal downpour? The sickly dredge of a draining, diminishing power slicked across the air, but vastly passed Manu by. His jaw set and eyes narrowed.

He would avenge his beverage! In a minute. The seven foot tall former Jedi crusader pursed his lips and felt out for [member="Ember Rekali"]. The Mandalorian's body may have been augmented by the Force, but the Echani Master kept a bead on Rekali's vitals just in case. If he needed to, he'd be there to back the bitter Mando'ade up.

Or at least avenge his hot leaf juice. Manu's skin washed with a pale lack of colour, his body went as white as his clothing, shimmering in odd angles with the illumination in the room. The room dimmed, Manu's hand drifted to his lightsaber but he did not get off his bar stool.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Xephirus"] [member="Manu Xextos"]

Ember's left hand snapped up from its place near his chest to snare Xephirus' wrist in a grip like a crushgaunt. He was sorely tempted to just try to crush the bones to powder, but that would take a moment too long with Xephirus draining him. The Sith Master's powerful psychic hunger tugged at him, weakened him.

"Hungry, are ya?" Ember ground out. "Eat up."

He, too, knew the creation of light; Ember Rekali was, among other things, a long-retired Jedi Master, and Force Light had been his bread and butter as an artifact containment man for the Shadows. Rhetoric spoke of purity forming a conduit for the Will of the Force, the Inexpressible Energy of the Light Side and similarly capitalized things. Ember had little patience for such formalism, and his teachers, long ago, had been possessed of comparable pragmatism. A Sith Master's Force diminishment had the same roots as the powers of Nihilus and Palpatine; it could swell to consume more than just one little Mando. If Xephirus really knew what he was doing, that kind of hunger could ricochet along Force bonds and pull life energy from everything around -- if Ember gave him the chance.

That hunger could be endless.

Ember met it with no resistance. The Force flowed through him; light flared from his eyes, from his neck between Xephirus' fingers, and was gobbled up promptly. If a Force-drain duel was a tug-of-war, Ember let the rope slip through his fingers without the slightest tension -- and the rope had no end.

Now it was just a matter of whether Xephirus could eat faster than Ember could serve, and how long they could both last.

 

[Allyson Locke]

“Oh boy…”

A small brunette looked up from the corner of the bar, she pulled off the scarf that doubled as a hood and set it down onto the table. It seemed that the boss man had bitten off a bit too much, or well the other guys have bit off a bit too much. Patting her side and her thigh, she felt the two small pistols and pulled them out. There were only a few things she could do in this world and Mechu Deru was one of them. Shrugging off the feeling of the Corellian whiskey and chuckling lightly at the stereotype she had become for a brief moment, Allyson was ready.

“Oh Captain my Captain, I got your back.”

Raising both pistols she pointed them at the Firefly Jedi. “Ello, there glowbug.”


[member="Ember Rekali"] | [member="Manu Xextos"] | [member="Xephirus"]

 

[Xephirus Cloud]

In that moment Xephirus and [member="Ember Rekali"] were intertwined in the Force, like two trees planted too closely, cutting and ripping at each other for nourishment. That was the best way he could describe it. It was hell. The old Mando's prowess in the realm of lightsider techniques was... incredible, for lack of a better expression. Draining the Mando's energy sucked to be frank. It felt like little razorblades were flowing through Xephirus' veins. Though the pain shot through him he wasn't about to let go. In this short fight Xephirus had learned to respect Ember's strength and frankly he was too stubborn to. Sure it sucked for Xephirus... but it sure as the void sucked even more for Ember.

In this moment, Xephirus didn't even notice [member="Allyson Locke"] or even [member="Manu Xextos"]. Everything was a blinding light, and it overloaded his senses like a migraine. This was one fight he was not finding any fun.