Mud, Blood and Lightning - Vrag vs. Sinistra

[Sinistra]

Location: Jabiim, mud flats outside of Choal
Conditions: Torrential rains and electrical storms in shifting mud pools.

Sin's gear:
Two sabers; one silver, one red.
Two DC-17 blaster pistols in a custom shoulder harness, maximum of 50 shots each.
Black fitted combat suit and knee high boots..
Durasteel gauntlets and shinguards.
Combat helmet with visor to keep the rain out of her eyes.


She couldn't remember how she got here, but she knew this place. It was like a dream, another lifetime ago that she had been here but in trying to recall the hazy memory, she was convinced she imagined it.The mud slid beneath her boots as she moved through the sludge. The trick wasn't to pick your foot up and step, the suction would put your boots right off. You had to push yourself through the mire, as if you were skating on ice.

The rains were thunderous in their falling, the sound of water on water, a cacophany of white noise punctuated by the bright flashes of lightning and peals of thunder themselves. There was no vegetation around them, only darkness and mud, the shifting tides of watery death all around her.

She waited, soaked but ready. The silver blade cast a shimmer on the surface of ripples, no clear reflection to be had in the deluge. Her visor helped to keep her from completely closing her eyes but on this battlefield, the Force was the only ally she needed.

 

[Vrag]

Spoiler: Equipment:

Infantry Armor MK II
Lightsaber (red)
Chom-Huun
Razor, blast, thud, and flash bugs
Vulcan Blaster Rifle + disruptor

Staying alive, she'd learned, wasn't so much about strength, or endurance, or even skill in the Force; rather, it required that one use their brain. Which, all things considered, Vrag was apparently pretty good at. Emprical evidence said so, at least.

Because using one's brain meant that she hadn't touched down on a world riddled by electrical storms clad in her Skerr Ygdris, of whom she was fond entirely too much to subject it to flash torture and a subsequent death. Plus, being the one inside said armor as it faced its unfortunate demise. Not a very appealing end, all in all, which was what ultimately led the Hand in her atypical choice of garment for the day.

The thing that she found most odd, really, was the lack of life within the suit she had donned that day. With mud up to her ankles and the sky throwing a hissy fit above, her Vonduun would've long responded in kind, reeling and coiling against the flesh of the firrerreo. MK II, however, stayed… dead.

Vrag frowned.

Well, in the spirit of pragmatism, even the Hand of the Dark Lord adapted. Such was life, in between razing worlds and smoking cigarras in bathtubs. Truly harsh, indeed.

Karking rain.

Perk #201 of militaristic nations: good standard equipment.

Currently relevant only because Vrag and the Force had never been the best of buddies in that sense — or the Sense, if you're feeling particularly puntastic — and because technology, in the end, did not tire one out like utilizing space magic did. Enter thermal vision filter, scene left.

Bodies lit up like Christmas trees in cold climates, and that was also the only good thing about weather like this that the woman would ever admit to.

Why not a karking beach, lady. What the Nether is wrong with some warmth and sun?

Damn those Sith and their proclivity for brooding. It's as if they were contractually obligated to wear dark colors and lurk in the most miserable corners of the Galaxy.

Oh, well. At least she had her Chomsky.


[member="Sinistra"]

 

[Sinistra]

The lightning flashed, the rain dripped, and her opponent appeared through the grey afternoon rain. Fully armored. A smirk tugged the corner of her lips. Full armor was a sign of fear. Fear of injury. Fear of death. Fear of change.

Her guards for more for support than anything else, as they were of basic steel, medical grade. Let's face it, Sinistra wasn't an acolyte anymore. But she was in excellent shape, she trained just as much now as she did as a warrior. The only difference was the wealth of knowledge that she carried with her.

Steam rose from the surface of the water as her light saber touched it, thrumming and hissing. If [member="Vrag"] was going to be suited in the One Sith's finest, then the best thing she could do was show her it was a meaningless crutch. After all, either you were a Sith and faced down your fear of the unknown or you might as well crawl your way the hallowed halls of the Jedi.

Standing in mud and water, Sinistra could feel the shifting currents of the Force along with the mud and letting herself be the conduit she focused that flow into a push aimed at the mud and water between her and Vrag, so that a tidal wave of fetid swamp water scraped up would hit the Hand from top to bottom.

 

[Vrag]

Well.

That was certainly no way to greet a lady.

Fortunately for both of them — and the odd wild animal that would find itself involuntarily spectating the would-be duel — there were no ladies here. Or in a five-mile radius, for that matter.

People like Vrag and [member="Sinistra"] usually sent those screaming in the other direction, which was only logical, because blood is a queen to wash out of silk clothes. Or any clothes, for that matter.

Still, out of the muddy waters and back to business — or was it the other way around? — the firrerreo was, all etiquette aside, still not overly fond of getting drenched in tepid muck, and so the woman threw up a hastily crafted barrier as her fast-paced footwork carried her back a step or two, fingers shifting on the handle of her lightsaber even as she moved, obscured by the curtain of sewage.

With a turn of her hips as her movement stilled, the Sith sent the red beam flying sideways through the rain, straight at the traitorous silhouette of heat against the background of cool, dead marshes. The blade would come spinning at the woman's legs at a slight angle, either causing real damage, or at least distracting the Lord for long enough that Vrag's fingers could wrap around the writhing body of Chomsky.

 

[Sinistra]

The Force flowed out, the Force flowed in. She felt the ebb like a current and as she finished one move, so would it become another. The red saber came sailing at her legs, but it took only a caress of power and the hilt snapped to her open left palm as though it was meant for it. She smiled darkly, the rich tone of her alto voice purring with a velvet edge. It was husky and low, sweet and with a promise of pain.

"Throwing souvenirs?" Her s's hissed from her lips and tongue, like a drawn out mocking.

She pushed off her right foot, sliding to her left where she could feel a sturdier, harder ground beneath her boots. Two of her left fingers uncurl from her new toy to point towards [member="Vrag"]'s mid section, a push aimed to make her tumble backwards into the mire.

 

[Vrag]

Oh, she was cheeky.

Now, Vrag wasn't necessarily averse to some sass in a woman, but everything had its place and time, and smacking each other around in the mud was none of those. No matter how much [member="Reverance"] would've liked to have seen it, the dog.

In any case, while the lady was wasting precious seconds on things as useless as speech, the Hand was already moving, fluid as the water below, above, and around her.

Really, what the kark was wrong with some sun?

In any case, as a duelist based in Makashi — though the Form presented only the roots of the style that the firrerreo truly employed — Vrag made for a poor target, what with her midsection being reduced to a narrow strip of flesh concealed by armor of an appropriately brown color. Instead of landing ass-first in the wet sludge at her feet, the Sith was merely forced to take a crossing step backward to retain her balance, using this opportune moment to pass Chomsky from the left to the right.

Most importantly, the switch saved her time. Not a lot of it, but enough to make a difference in a duel as fast paced as one would expect between two Sith Lords similarly inclined to destroy the other. Jedi might have dragged their feet — literally, too, considering the terrain — but Vrag was not burdened by any such notions of honor or fairness in combat.

Her free left hand instead snapped to her belt to collect a few excited bugs ready to tear at the woman opposite. Without pause, the firrerreo flung a snap bug at her opponent and then followed in its wake with an explosive burst of speed, aiming to slam her into the mud as [member="Sinistra"] was momentarily blinded and deafened by the aftermath of the creature's violent demise.

 

[Sinistra]

Unless otherwise noted, her eyes stay trained on her opponent as Vrag backsteps from the push Sin threw, and miss nothing as Vrag passes her bizarre looking weapon from one hand to another. The hand at her belt. Considering the intelligence dossiers on the Hand, and the funky stick in her left hand, it was more vong creepy crawlies.

As an aside here, why was it always creepy crawlies? Sinistra was fully committed to conquer Garqi so that she could weaponize the crap out of those baforr trees with alchemy and staff herself a palace with robots. Right after she got out of the mudbath, of course. Back to the regularly scheduled duel.

Whatever Vrag was throwing Sin didn't want to be close to it, and with good reason. She summoned a quick Force bubble around herself, just beyond the edge of her lit sabers, to protect her from both the explosion of the snap bug and the charging Hand. She shielded her eyes as much as she could by looking down at the splashes around Vrag's legs. She was more than content to let the armored woman bounce off her shimmering red bubble into the muck.


Portion in yellow edited to address snap bug.

 

[Vrag]

It would be fitting, that her abuse of speed be turned against her. The woman was proving a tougher nut to crack than she had initially expected, and the confidence born out of countless won engagements had clearly swollen beyond healthy and into the realm of that which the firrerreo abhorred with her very being; arrogance.

Indeed, a fitting punishment.

Upon seeing the traitorous flash of red that denoted an erected barrier, Vrag scarcely had time to do little else but launch herself to the left with her next step, rolling unceremoniously through the wet, brown sludge of soil and water over her shoulder in order to avoid crashing face-first into the effervescent wall of the Force protecting the other Sith from her attacker.

Still, the firrerreo would have long been slaughtered and abandoned upon a field not unlike this one, were she not as resourceful and quick on her feet as she was. As she burst onto her feet from the roll, the woman threw a mismatched pair of bugs from her hip in a sideways arc, knowing that the ravenous Vong creatures would easily pass the bubble even when she couldn't.

The blast and razor bugs would cling to each-other until the very last moment, creating an illusion of a single attack, when in truth the danger was manifold. The nang hul would split off to launch itself at her exposed arm, whereas the razor bug would plummet downwards in a wild change of course, aiming to slice the tendons in her popliteal fossae and render her immobile.

[member="Sinistra"]​

 

[Sinistra]

Sinistra barely caught sight of the coming bug as Vrag turned to get around the bubble. She stepped forward to intercept the bug, which turned out to be two, the red and silver sabers in her hands were quick to meet the large thrown biots as she crossed the blades in a guard position, the silver pointed down, the red crossing it. The plasma blades were more than enough to kill both the bugs, but the blast bug went with a bang as it were, the energy and shrapnel from the blast traveling over Sinistra's hand, allowing her to absorb the now kinetic energy from the vong biot. Sinistra winced at the pain of a cut as the pieces of the razor bug sliced through her leather glove, leaving a shallow cut on the back of her hand, drawing blood.

The barrier was dropped as Sinistra continued her motion, closing the distance to Vrag. Sinistra channeled her thoughts as she stared down her opponent, her left arm coming back to hurl the red saber in a flat spin at Vrag. At least, that is was what Vrag would see. The Illusion was quick, just the cock of the arm and throw but in truth, Sinistra let the deactivated hilt drop from her hand as she pulled it back so that she could pull one of the DC-17 blasters from the holster and fire several shots at Vrag as she advanced on the armored woman.

[member="Vrag"]