Oh No (House On Fire)

[Jairus Starvald]

They crashed through the emerald foil and just as they passed the barrier did Carach see something that both amazed him and completely rocked him off his metaphorical boots. The visage of [member="Darth Nephthys"] moving through the portal into the real word at the heels of a heavily armored man, Orcus and others who he did not recognize at this point in time.

He fixated on Neph. Those red eyes, his amber eyes, they crossed and something of understanding passed between them.

Always separated, so close, so, so close, but never did the distance completely close.

As soon as the moment began it also ended when the Sith Lord and the Neutral Master phased through reality and got thrown into the depths of the Netherworld itself.

Rather unceremoniously Carach crashed into the sands. He felt it here more than he ever did out there.

Anger, rage, fury.

Barely controlled.

The Sith looked up, looked past Vereen and to the battlefield that raged beyond them. He saw the figures fighting the eternal fight and it felt good. No, not good, it felt right.

His hand gripped around a staff that had not been there a moment ago.

It was time to fight.

Using the staff as support he managed to climb back to his feet. Power started to gather around its surface and Carach breathed out.

It was time.

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJGt67Mwmo​

​

Darkness.

Darkness and destruction.

Pain surged through his muscles, every dense cord of sinew a flame with power and ferocity, every nerve frayed and cut, every fiber of his being burning like a brazier.

Dark eyes scanned the area, bodies, surging around each other striking, fighting, grunting, screaming. There was a hammer in his hands as he started to rise, using it like a cane to lift him off the ground. Someone stepped on him, tripping over his form as the warrior began to rise. Armor, he was wearing full armor, dark black plates on every inch of his body. Sand beneath him, dark leather tabard that hung to the ground, stained in soot and blood. The sky above him was churning, red and black and grey, swirling like a vortex.

Someone bumped into his right side and the warrior reacted, his left hand taking them by the back of the neck and squeezing, lifting the struggling body off the ground. Bones creaked and cracked, splintering beneath the armored guantlet, the circuits and reactive fibers pulsing with his strong muscles. The body stopped making noise, stopped moving at all. He threw it, tossing it several meters to his left. A being raised its sword, and he stepped forward, driving the head of the hammer straight into the being's gut, driving the air from his chest and short cutting the slash of the being's sword so that its arms impacted his collarbone. He heard a pop, but felt no added pain to what he was already feeling.

Who was he? Where was he? What was happening? Answers, impossible answers began flooding his mind.

Screaming, this time from him, terrible bestial screams like those from a wounded animal. He had heard these before, but he knew not where. All he knew was there was fighting, that these things were trying to kill him. A third stepped up, unrecognizable to him, not that it mattered as he remembered so little. He dropped the hammer in his hand to hold the lower part of the haft, sweeping the back spike about knee height. A sickening pop as bone and ligament separated. The being dropped to a knee and his hand lashed out, closed fist, knuckles to the orbital bone with all the force he could muster through the pain.

A strange energy flowed through him. The place pulsed with it, every being he could sense, all connected, all similar. It called to him, like a lover on a bed of satin and rose petals after a few drinks. He reached out, and took hold of it with his mind, pulling it to him, drawing it in. He could feel power swelling inside his mind, through his body. He was surrounded by enemies. By Power.

By Fear.

And he called it to him, his eyes turning a dark shade of grey as he answered in turn.

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The staff hummed in tune with the tone of the Netherworld.

It whispered in his head and moved almost by itself.

One, and the end of the staff lashed out. Its hardened piece shattering a head and skull which had come just a bit too close for comfort. Two, and the staff whirled around the Sith’s body just as the body itself moved counter-clockwise in the motion.
The result? Two more bodies falling to the ground, knees shattered and bones broken.

Carach did not halt his step. He moved and moved, flowing in and out of combat like it was a dance. A familiar dance - He had been here before, for centuries or only days.

"Kill." It whispered gently in his head… but the staff’s voice had been different, had it not? Who was whispering in his head? And why didn’t he seem to mind all that much?

A motion at the edge of his vision caught his attention.

Armored, familiar helmet… the man in armor broke through his own foes like a scythe cut through grass.

"A challenger… kill him too."

The Sith Lord grasped the staff of power more tightly and started to move towards his friend.

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

As the Force found him, his mind began filling with memories, faint remembrances that left clues to who he was, why he was here, where here actually was. Faint glimpses to a past that indicated there was some wrongness in his being here, on this battlefield surrounded by beings he did not know or understand, or belong with.

Perhaps eventually this would be his resting place, but not now. The sky churned above him in a swirling vortex of black smokey clouds, red light shining through pieces, shining on the battlefield. The wind swirled across the battlefield, blowing smoke, and sand, and blood through the air.

A being stepped forward, but one could not block a hammer with a sword. One could only hope to deflect it. But this being was not so wise, his muscle's burning but strong pushed the hammer down, into the being's skull, hearing bone give way and flesh scream before being silenced.

His eyes darkened, slowly but surely turning his grey irises black as he pulled the fear and Force around him, drawing power from them, surging that power through his body, letting it flow across his being.

More presences flowed through his sense, and he moved to face the strongest of them.

Black eyes furrowed as he recognized this being, the first that he did. Did he belong here? Was there no other place he deserved to be? It mattered little, the being wasn't interested in speaking as it began making its way towards him.

He pulled the Force around the being's presence, empowered by the fear of an eternal battlefield, and did his best to wrap his enemy's presence in a barrier of energy, contain it and its presence. Instinct told him that it would dampen and suppress his opponent, if he could battle against its will enough.

Sand pressed under metal boot as he began moving forward, hammer gripped in one hand, half way down the haft.

<Draco.>

The voice was a woman's, and he recognized it. It was his name, spoken by his princess. The memories began flooding back to him. In the here, the now, things were developing. In his mind the pieces were filling together. The soft, subtle presence of Faith emanating from his bond through the ring he wore on his hand reassured him, reinforced his will to press through and press on.

The memory of the tunnel of pale green light flashed in his mind. Carach, Draco, names of the two men. One had read the other's mind, through or around his mental defenses and stolen the most guarded secret he had. It was time to bash that secret out of the Sith lord's face. Hand tensed, Force touching, strengthening the dense muscles in his arm and hand, knuckles white.

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

He’s crushing your connection to the Force.

“He can try.” The Sith Lord growled beneath his breath.

Stop him.

The Sith frowned at that command. In this state he was no longer sure which were his feelings, which were feeded into him by the field and the souls fighting on it, and what was forced upon him by the souls attached to him.

But what he did know was rage.

“Don’t tell me wha-”

In that moment when his concentration slipped a wet blanket was forced over his being.

All of a sudden the voices stopped and Carach blinked, his focused settled over Vereen… Vereen. Then a wash of energy broke through the wet blanket, the voices returned in full and the fury came back again.

They still had distance between them.

Ten meters and counting. The staff was left next to him - it stood upright on its own and while the Sith concentrated on his opponent, the artifact started to deflect away those that came too close to Carach.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

He twisted, moving into a full sprint towards Carach, adding a little speed with his jump pack. The Sith was moving with a purpose, with intent. It was quite clear they were not allies at this moment, and though he felt as though he remembered him as a friend or an ally, he felt on the need to purge the being at the moment. Only that he should defeat the Sith Lord and continue on, discovering where he was, what he was doing.

He slowed, still at a run as he closed the gap between he and the Sith. The hellscape of darkness and despair they found themselves on was a mystery to him, he knew nothing about it or where he was. He only had vague memories of his reality, his life, his past. Things were developing too quickly for him to process everything, to truly understand what was happening. Answers of what was happening, what needed to happen were beyond him, having yet to realize the questions needed to be asked. All he knew was he was fighting, for his life.

Carach could have his sympathy, because it would not be he that fell. The amulet around his neck clanged against his armor as he slowed, to striking range, holding the hammer low on the haft so that most of its length could be used, sweeping it low for Carach's knees while his left hand, balled into an armored fist was propelled forward in a vicious hook intended to come across Carach's jaw with enough force to break a duracrete brick.

<One will walk away, the other will perish. One fight for it all.>

The voice was his own, garbled with bestial sounds and growls, the voices of tormented souls screaming in the background. His eyes were black without the mask. He was in hell. He was not alone.

[member="Darell Irani"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

What was there before, was long gone.

A Warrior moved with purpose and a Sith moved with grace.

Every single step that Draco took was like a rumble on the background of the scene. The copper bloody dirt scattering in the face of armored boots crunching down upon them, the Force hummed with purpose in response to the two Masters facing off against one another and it was in the crux of that singular moment that the Sith Lord acted. Vereen had momentum, weight and strength behind his swing, but Carach had not yet deemed it necessary to commit himself to one direction or the other.

This ended in six steps between them.

Foot forward, hammer moving to hook and fist balled to shatter faces.

A Sith moved with grace, a Warrior moved with purpose.

Vereen moved forwards… Carach swiftly moved three steps back and unleashed a heavy Force Push aimed at Draco’s knees, to disrupt his balance in the middle of his momentum and hopefully momentarily disengage his footing.

Ki-

"Shut it."

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

The Sith scampered out of striking range fairly easily, had a lot of time and space to do it as the warrior closed. It was not real feat of skill or power, neither was the simple Force Push. Unfortunately, for someone handicapped like he was, a simple Force Push at his legs wasn't something easily swatted away like some others. The only real answer to telekinesis, was equal and opposite telekinesis. Without it, all a Force User could hope to do was dampen it, drain the power from it, or dodge it.

With the Mandalorian already dampening the Sith Lord's power to a small degree, his options in suppressing the Force Push was already blown, and having been advancing there was no real getting all the way out of its path. He side stepped, some of the push, but his left leg was still thrown out from under him, sending the Mandalorian falling on to his right knee, the hammer clattering to the ground.

Anger seethed through the Mandalorian, black eyes burning, face red. How dare this Sith, no, all these specters of the past mock him like this. Pride injured, the Force coursing through his veins and pumping into his mind, the warrior got up to one knee, breathing heavy.

There was a pain in his stomach building like a pressure valve overloading with, rage, anger, hatred, fear. Darkness.

Pieces of his psyche, long torn and blocked out, long thought lost and forever forgotten came flowing back. He was many things, across a life time. Mandalorian, Sith Lord, Dark Jedi Master, Foreman, CEO, Blacksmith. Conqueror.

Slave.

Never again would he succumb, be a slave. Never in his life would he bow to another, be subservient, without a voice, without freewill. It was the Netherworld that freed him from his chains, but it was the Force that destroyed his prison.

Bestial roar echoed through his helmet, the earth rumbling, rocks shifted with tremors around his being. Red Lightning burst from his finger tips in all directions, and where they struck the Force was torn from that place or that victim. The roar continued as the Mandalorian stood, surging with power that had been lost to him for so long. The specters around them flinched away, some caught up in the storm of red pulsing lightning, others wisely moving away to wait out the storm.

"VULKAN LI-" and then there was a voice, the tiniest voice in his mind. Not a loved on, not a mentor, not even a living person. <It sounds to me like you have yet to actually conqueror your inner darkness. It is a difficult journey, but one we all must make. Fail and be corrupted, by the Dark, or by the Light, it matters not. Corruption is corruption.>

And there was silence.

Breath. Draco looked about, he could see Carach. Sucking in air became difficult, as though every muscle in his body was failing. Breath.

[member="Darell Irani"]