It'll Be In That Order (Lords of the Fringe Dominion of Bespin)

[Moira Skaldi]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


And so it was all but over and done. Well, that's sounds a bit dramatic, but you get the picture. Resistance had been crushed and the HRDs stood victorious, though obviously not without having sustained damage of their own. Any destroyed unit would be recovered and brought back. Not for sentimental reasons, but plain practical ones.


Stepping over the mangled corpses of Reavers and Firemane soldiers, Moira stepped into the large warehouse. Ironically enough not so long ago the Eldorai Angelii had purchased cortosis from Firemane here just before everyone started vanishing. A nice piece of irony, but anyhow, they had work to do. For her part Moira scanned the cortosis stocks ahead of them, making sure that the metal in question was refined and up to spec. Presumably machines had some way of verifying that sort of thing.


"Load the ore into the shuttle and place explosive charges in the facility," she commanded a couple HRDs who had come with them. The death machines immediately set about their work like obedient drones, grabbing crates of cortosis and loading them on repulsors before taking them out. At the same time droids were busy plundering the armoury of the base. The automated defence systems and Firemane/ARGH droids demanded their tribute, but the Archangels were relentless.

 

[The End Narrator]

She'd jump ahead of [member="Nui Akona"], not a chance he'd get ahead of her in the kill count. She had to make the whole thing worth it - and be able to rub it in his face later. It was one of those competitions between them as it had been on that damnedable ghost ship. She could remember hearing the howling of the crew when she took more than one artifact - that burning sensation when something touched her...or maybe that was just the fires of hell whipping at her back when she ran down those rusted halls for safety and freedom.

God, those were fun times.

Now, times were different.

War had dragged on and entire governments had been sundered to such an extent - they were vying for territory new or reclaimed. No one cared about their differences, atleast for the moment. November, well, she was just trying to keep her place in the Galaxy and keep her fourth point seated firmly in it until such a time came that death promptly removed her.

That wouldn't be for a while.

No, not a long while.

 

[Maelion Liates]

[member="Moira Skaldi"]
Ore was removed from the warehouse and loaded onto repulsor sleds. They could not take all of it, of course, but they could take a fair amount.
When they had finished taking whatever they wanted, the HRD set explosive charges. They didn’t have charges big enough to destroy the whole facility, but enough to damage the stocks of cortosis so it could not be easily used.

With this done, they started to leave, with Moira getting the responsibility of blowing up the cortosis stores when they were safely out of range.

 

[Moira Skaldi]

[member="Maelion Liates"]


Along with the fair amount of cortosis, the HRDs were able to liberate a significant number of weapons from the armoury of the base. Firemane and ARGH had designed a variety of beautiful death dealers, and tended to keep their bases well-equipped. The various variants of bolters and shatterguns would be strongly appreciated by the Age of Steel. There were limits to how much they could transport, but it was enough to satisfy them.



Everything was loaded up into the shuttles and these swiftly took off into the sky. Moira held the detonator for a moment as she looked upon the mining outpost beneath them as the ships pulled up further into the clouds, then she pressed the button and there was a loud boom as the explosives charges detonated, creating a beautiful fireball. Not the entire facility had been destroyed, but a fair chunk of it. Likewise the stocks of cortosis had been damaged enough to not be easily useable.


The shuttles accelerated and shot through the atmosphere, then through space, whilst Bespin slowly but surely fell to the Fringe Confederation. Thousands of kilometres away from Bespin, cloaked and invisible to detection, lay the Lightbringer. It welcomed the shuttles into its belly and once they were aboard, the command was given and the stealth ship jumped to hyperspace, vanishing from the system in a flash.

 

[Hira Mitsae]

In the distance an explosion rocked the installation, bits and pieces of furniture was thrown around in the office of the Baron and cut short any reply Varanin might have had to Irani’s retort.

Screams welled up, they were enough to raise the hairs of even the most deadly fighters. Barth seemed to become more anxious by the second, casting quick looks at the door - probably deliberating if he could run for his life and actually stay alive.

Irani simply raised his eyebrow and looked at [member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="November Sinclair"] [member="Nui Akona"]
Tibannapolis Undercity

Picture darkness giving way to suspended gantries, metal-mesh walkways hanging over a ten-thousand-mile drop (an approximation; he didn't know Bespin's radius). Picture a Bando Gora reaver, self-mutilated more messily than your average Vong, eyes glowing blue, flat on his back. Picture blue-tinted blood all over the beskar-clad knuckles of the man currently pinning that reaver to the mesh.

"Not gonna ask again," said Seren, and meant it.

"The Kerrigan will return to us. The Immaterium is in flux. It is a sign-"

"And that? That's not what I asked."

Shink.

Seren Ordavo wasn't keeping count.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Seren Ordavo"] [member="November Sinclair"]

He had been keeping count, until it had become a little bit too tiresome. At some point the numbers start to wash over each other and the faces just become another target practice, it was the fear of every Jedi - that you see your opponent as a meatbag waiting to be shot open, not as a human being with hopes, dreams and lives. When Nui had been Sardun it had been different, he had felt every kill he had made, it had heavied his soul, but now?

Now he was... detached from the Galaxy, it felt so foreign and not to his liking.

Strange how things changed by a simple shift in perspective. He continued to cut down beast after beast, animals waiting to be put down, blood rush was made apparent in his ears.

Akuna did not hear anything else, besides the drumming of the blood, pumping through his veins.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darell Irani"]

The Force was not her ally. That reduced her lightsabre's effectiveness, though she still wore it, because she'd spent a substantial amount of time using it without the Force -- while severed, etc. Her better ally, her best ally, was her heavy blaster pistol. It rasped free of her holster as she rose from the chair in a clatter of phrik fullplate.

The door blew in, followed by the much-abused receptionist and approximately one million Bando Gora cultists.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

Irani took his time, flicking of some dust from his shoulder he stood up and ducked right before the receptionist would have crashed into his face. Instead she was sent flying over his head and into the shocked Baron.

Finally the businessman pulled up the suitcase that had been standing next to him, opened it and… got out a typewriterhttp://starwarsrp.net/topic/40644-tenloss-type-8-smg/.

He spit out his cigarette to the side and unceremoniously started shooting into the horde.

KABLAMKABLAMKABLAMKABLAM

 

[The End Narrator]

[member="Nui Akona"]

Counting corpses became a tiresome game - perhaps even trivial when it came down to the grand scheme of the Fringe objective.

November sighed as she jabbed the knife into the neck of a Reaver and ripped it free with minimal effort, she could feel the fatigue on her muscles and the cramping in her neck. She'd go for a massage after this, perhaps even a hot bath. No, she'd have a droid do it and be damned if [member="Nui Akona"] got anywhere near the location with a holocam. She groaned as she rose up for a moment and then squatted over the corpse of the Reaver, stabbing the knife into it's gut.

"You know, I am desperate to blow some of them up at this point..." She mused, even perhaps to herself.

[member="Seren Ordavo"]

 

[Sal Katarn]

A red-eyed Arkanian variant appeared out of thin air and plopped into existence near [member="Darell Irani"] and [member="Ashin Varanin"]. One glance at the doorway full of cultists and the oddity that was Dûvain rolled his eyes contemptuously, possibly to disguise the spark of very real fear.

"Utterly unreliable," he muttered, as his favored method of apparition seemed to have, once again, landed him in the middle of a combat zone.

The monster glanced at the occupants of the room, all fighting valiantly. Dûvain sighed through the nose. He really would rather be somewhere else at the moment, anywhere, honestly. Alas.

He moved a hand beneath his black longcoat, clawed fingers brushing the durasteel breastplate he wore. The fingers came back from the recesses of the coat holding a black cylinder with a bronze dragon coiled around it. The dragon's jaws formed the emitter head of what could only be a lightsaber.

Dûvain stared at the weapon for a moment. With the Force haywire he really had no idea what this nexus would do if activated.

Well.... at least it would provide some entertainment.

Snap-hiss.

 

[Darth Metus]

Josiah was not business savvy.

He knew that two and two made four. He knew that credits made the worlds go 'round...but when it came to contracts, contacts, and all other manner of corporate jargon, the Jedi was clueless. However, in light of the fact that change after change played itself out in his daily life, Josiah thought that maybe he could take a chance and learn something new. On Bespin, his cousin was set to do some sort of negotiations with the men upstairs. As such, Josiah tagged along...several paces behind...and tarried out by the receptionist when she went inside.

Then came the explosion.

Then came the Reavers.

Before the Jedi could blink, the situation shifted from waiting to survival. At once, he ignited his lightsaber and moved back into the conference room. There he was greeted by the sight of [member="Ashin Varanin"] firing away at the advancing horde, alongside a fellow that just screamed "businessman." Now, this was usually the part when Josiah would start telekinetically slinging around parts of the building like a child tossing toys about, but there was a small problem.

The Force was wonky as kark.

As such, Josiah was forced to think outside the Jedi box. So, he started thinking like a glorified fish. Retreating back, he found cover and decided to make some well-placed shots against the enemy. From the way they were charging in the door, one cultist dropping at the right place could trip up a few of them. Excellent. Reaching out, the Jedi mustered a modest electric charge and expelled it from his fingertips. The arc of lightning shot across the room and smacked square into the chest of one of the cultists, encouraging it greatly to spasm to the floor. Upon dropping, his compatriots continued their advance...and a couple of them tripped.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Josiah Denko"] @Dûvain @Darell Irani

First she and Irani were having a nice Pulp Fiction moment, a heavy blaster pistol and a Tenloss tommygun just chewing into Reaver ranks, and then, as always happened, came the lightsabres. Well, then again, she supposed they fit: the natural evolution of the hammer-bat-chainsaw-katana progression.

Except there was something about that one specific sabre-

"Waitdon't-"

Too late.

 

[Crystal]

It seemed that Crystal had taken to traveling around the Galaxy seemingly endlessly now that the Force was not her ally. She tagged along for many a mission, for something to do, and for something to keep her mind on other than the splitting headache that she had had for entirely too long now. The Force seemed to be causing immense amounts of pressure to her mind. Even with the inhibitor she wore, the pain never fully subsided. Something was very wrong in the galaxy and she couldn't truly grasp it.

So she went where she could and helped out where she could. But it was very tempting to press her thumbs through her temples to relieve some pressure. It would also be messy. So, better to keep busy. For the moment her assistance was not required. The Sith sat in darkened quarters in silence and waiting.

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Ashin Varanin"] | [member="Josiah Denko"] | [member="Dûvain"]

All had been going relatively well, a shoot-out in the spires, blood sprays everywhere and the distinct sense of accomplishment as the hordes of Reavers died before the onslaught of their conventional weaponry, and people said that guns were passé. Then a lightsaber ignited back in the lobby, there was a distinct sense of disappointment found in Irani, because he had been enjoying himself immensely, but few things could be said against aid and so he accepted it without verbal complaints. But then life decided to give them a metaphorical f'you sign in the face with the same guy appearing next to them.

All good and well, more aid was always acceptable... until he revealed his lightsaber. A sense of itching appeared on Darell's skin, he looked for its source and his eyes settled on the dragons of the saber.

He spoke one word, before everything went to hell.

'Feth.'

Everything went boom.

The Soulsaber went critical mess and caused a mass explosion of force energy, Irani was sent flying. What about the rest? The Sith did not know.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

@Dûvain @Josiah Denko [member="Darell Irani"]

Her first instinct, almost uncontrollable, was a very bad idea. She'd done her best to suppress that instinct, but her best, as a couple of worlds could attest, wasn't good enough. Within her skillset, there was only one defense against chaotic Force Drain, and her addiction flared to life in counterpoint. A death field sprang up around her, unbidden, the result of the Force's erratic nature; the Baron Administrator gasped, and a couple of overclocked Bando Gora started choking on bile.

"Apologies."

She jumped out the window, removing the death field from the picture, and began the long fall toward Cloud City's repulsor monad, where tractor efflux would pull her in before a longer fall could claim her.

 

[Vrag]

Every sense, every nerve ending was on high alert, focused only on her next kill and the dangers lurking around her. She felt that at this point, some sort of perks should start piling up. I mean, just how many enemies of the same type must one kill before they get really, really proficient at ending their lives? Fifty? Hundred?

It wasn't like she was keeping score, but the numbers would be well through the roof by now. What else do you expect, pitting a tank with an arsenal of weapons and a penchant for murder against a constant flow of reavers, in a beautifully narrow corridor no less?

The whole scene was like a live simulation of arteriosclerosis, played out on a larger scale for your convenience. Piles of dead and dying cluttered the passage in Vrag's wake, and she reckoned it wasn't all that different for her accomplices somewhere in the maze of the Undercity. Speaking of which…

"Hey, Ordavo," she grumbled into her mouthpiece as she blew the head off of another reaver. Fething runners. "Wanna make things go boom?" She'd only met the man briefly, but they'd worked up a nice rhythm back on Eriadu, and she didn't see how joining forces against the tide of crazies would be detrimental in any way.

[member="Nui Akona"] | [member="Seren Ordavo"] | [member="November Sinclair"]

 

[Grrwunhoooll Agaburry]

Moving out with the other remaining Fringe Forces was odd to Kezeroth, He was new to the Fringe and their motto confused him. " Here we kill monsters.." he muttered to himself in the darkness. With only a thin robe covering his armor the Gen'dai looked more mysterious than anything. Blood soaked his robe and phrik wrist blades, So called reavers had chosen the wrong opponent t attack. The thought of monsters only brought the image of himself and the One Sith. Smiling he made his way to [member="Vrag"] and the others and nodded at them all. " Lead the way.."

Examining them all, Kezeroth chuckled. This was his type of gang here, All of them were hardened from battle and deadly like Vipers. Wiping blood off his Blades by using his cloak a profound thought came to his mind. His face mask folded back revealing how ugly and corrupted his appearance was, in this dark his eyes emitted a eerie red glow. " It takes a monster to hunt one..."

[member="November Sinclair"]
[member="Nui Akona"]
[member="Seren Ordavo"]

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

Meanwhile, aboard the Chimaera...

Life as of late had introduced one faint glimmer of true hope into her psyche. Well, [member="Jared Ovmar"] couldn't be called life, per se, but the strange contact had made her at once a little more genuine in her smile and at the same time did nothing to quell the chasm of hurt and sorrow she carried. She had heard him, had felt him and that was her fact, her belief. It had also meant she was spending far more time in the meditation chamber and doubtless her parents had noticed. They didn't suffocate her - they were concerned, but there was a certain amount of working through things that she did need to do on her own.

Her uncle had been the closest thing she had to a best friend for years, other children oblivious and not understanding. In a way, she hardly had much of a chance to really be a normal child. What was normal, anyway? It was relative. Normal was relative. Of course.

 

[Arage Bao]

Meanwhile, somewhere else…

A hum sounded through the deeper echelons of the median, it manifested itself into a colorless hallway with infinity stretching out within the walls. Some portions of the wall contained anchor points, but most were simply… gateways to nothing. One would not want to be trapped inside the stuff, one would quickly find him or herself unable to get out.

At least for a few months, years, or decades; depending on how accomplished they were in the manipulation of the stuff. A single man strode through the hall in current day, lines decorated his face and suggested a grinning man, a man of mirth to some degree.

Then a voice rang out, not in the room, his ears didn’t pick up on it. The traversal area was made in his head, in lieu of the physical plane.

‘She’s trying to find you again.’

The man halted in his step, a frown suddenly creating new lines. Lines of worry, that suggested another level on the grinning man.

‘I see.’

An unsubtle cough.

‘Are you going to talk to her?’

This made the man tilt his head, as he stared into infinity and simply pondered the implications. It would have been better if she forgot about him, like most people, what he was doing was… dangerous. But then again [member="Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs"] had always loved danger.

‘I suppose so.’

He picked a space, randomly at first glance, and stepped through the void.

Ovmar still wasn’t sure if this was real, or if it was a dream. But then again… reality was a matter of perspective anyway. A soft voice would reach Ibby, spiritual plane once again. No need to worry Varanin and Jacobs, not yet at the very least.

‘Ibby.’