Once Hallowed Ground

[Mereel Vaun]

Spoiler

img src: https://www.deviantart.com/gi1t/art/Azyl-Chasm-488646563

Leaning on the hull of the HWK-295 freighter landed in the vast courtyard, Mereel absentmindedly stared at his crossed arms. The contact from the Dark Hand who was supposed to be working with him on this mission was due to arrive any minute now, and due to the nature of this outing, he hoped it was sooner rather than later.

The New Republic Jedi Order had dispatched Mereel to investigate an old, massive series of Jedi tombs on Chandrilla after the groundskeeper had gone silent. But before sending the Jedi off on his merry way they warned him that Sith interference was heavily suspected in the silence of the groundskeeper, and that if he should run into any Sith on his mission, he should retreat and inform the Council immediately.

Not one to leave Sith be when he found them, Mereel had subsequently blabbed his mission intel to an info agent in the Dark Hand, and a meet up time for a back up operative was promptly set.

And now he just had to wait. Gusts of wind licked at the coattails of his dark red jacket and his black-helmet-concealed eyes continued staring at the chrono on his right arm. Any minute now..


[member="Jacste Selden"]

 

[Ghost369]

A small mercenary ship came down from the atmosphere, fresh out of hyperspace, and landed in the courtyard next to Vaun's ship. A man in a dark cloak stepped out and approached Mereel.

He appeared to have no weapons, or maybe they were just concealed. His face was hidden under a hood and the only skin visible was that of his right hand, the other was jet black and metal. He had a very dark force presence, but didn't seem to be hostile. It was Vaun's Contact, Jacste Selden. A Dark Jedi Mercenary, currently working for the Dark Hand and New Republic.

"You must be my contact. I'm Jacste. They said there'd be a lot of Sith in these tombs. I hope you're strong enough." He said, rather bluntly.

The wind blew the Dark Jedi's hood off to show a man with black hair and blazing orange eyes. They were hungry for Sith blood. He put his hood back over his head again and looked toward the tombs. Jacste could sense the darkness inside, the Sith were definitely here. A smile crept across his face at the thought of killing them.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Not that the man would see it because of his helmet, but Mereel raised an eyebrow under his helmet as the figure dressed in hooded black cloak approached. This whole place reeked with the dark side of the force, but the figure walking towards the Mandalorian Jedi cut through the sickening haze in the air with a dark presence of his own. Mereel stopped crossing his arms and let his hands freely fall to his sides - reflexively raising his shoulders and dangling his hands by hips and next to his weapons. He didn't reach to pull a blaster pistol or even his lightsaber, it was simply an automatic response of the body: a subconscious change in stance that his brain had made just in case the obvious Dark Jedi decided to make any moves.

Not particularly to his pleasure or displeasure, the Dark Jedi revealed himself to be his contact from the Hand. "Mereel Vaun. I'll hold my own.."

He almost told the Dark Jedi to stay out of his blaster's line of fire, but he bit the corner of his lip hard before any words slipped from his lips. The wind swept back the man's hood for a second, and Mereel got a glimpse of his eyes. The man's pupils were darker gold than anyone's he had ever seen, or rather they were orange, likely a result of corruption from the dark side.

After this was over with, he was giving someone in the Hand hell for this.

Not seeing any point in loitering around in the courtyard any longer, Mereel began walking towards the singular, long bridge that lead into a cliff face, and beyond that the cave network which housed the tombs of hundreds of Jedi. Pulling the Westar M5 V2 from off of his back, Mereel nestled the rifle in the crook of his right arm as he took the first step under a large decorative gate, boots connecting with ancient stone bridge.

"Don't know for sure what we're dealing with here, but gossip and hearsay point to Sith. Recon before you got here was a bust, so nothing I can tell you there - but I can tell you that you should consider investing in a helmet. Wind doesn't blow it off."

[member="Jacste Selden"]

 

[Ghost369]

"Hi, Mereel." Jacste said, trying to seem friendly.

He really wanted to mention that he could sense the negativity and hate towards him in this Jedi's thoughts, but would let it go and keep this to himself. The old Jacste would have become filled with rage and attempted to gut Mereel where he stood, but he'd show restraint. Not because he didn't want to kill him, but because he knew it wasn't smart. It would be bad business and it'd lose him money and make things difficult in the long run. He'd surely get fired by his Republic clients and their allies, never to be hired again. No, Mereel would survive, along with Jacste's contracts.

The Dark Jedi followed next to Mereel as he walked toward the bridge and cave entrance. The mercenary could smell the old, rotting corpses, along with the previously sensed Sith inside, as they got closer to the tombs. As the Jedi took out his rifle, Jacste summoned his blaster pistol and lightsaber from his robes and into his hands with the force. The pistol in his left hand and his lightsaber in his right, held reverse grip, waiting for an enemy to ignite. They stepped on the bridge and Mereel started talking.

Jacste had been listening quietly to the briefing, only speaking to confirm, "Yeah, the Sith are definitely here."

When the conversation changed from Sith to helmets a look of disappointment appeared on his face.

"You really are Mandalorian, aren't you?" the mercenary retorted back, "You didn't tell me it was going to be windy, okay? Though it doesn't matter much, since we'll be going into the underground tombs."

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

As they walked across the bridge, it became obvious to him that Jacste was at least attempting to be nice, if not friendly. Having routinely worked with criminal scum and Dark Jedi in the past, Mereel sighed and mentally told himself to not be too much of an A-hole.

"Aye, I sense it too, but it's too potent to just be a handful of acolytes or a powerful individual.. " He said in response to Jacste's comment about Sith being here. It was as if the air itself was polluted by the dark side, and he had encountered enough force nexuses during his travels to know that it shouldn't have been the case for a Jedi tomb. Somehow, whoever was here had corrupted the tomb's nature in the force.

When they reached the end of the bridge, two grand, cracked columns of marble marked the entrance to the underground tombs, "I wear the armor sometime, but just out of practicality. The Mandalorian Empire can suck it, the Mand'alor can suck it, and the Resol'nare -"

He took the first step past the threshold of the cave entrance and found himself standing atop a stone vista, overlooking a massive chamber filled to the brim with dilapidated looking stone bridges lined with Jedi statues. A dim green glow illuminated the entire cavern.

Spoiler

img src: https://img00.deviantart.net/f39a/i/2012/190/1/1/underground_landscape_by_startingthejourney-d56jfku.jpg

".. can suck it."

Much to his surprise, nothing rushed out to attack them as they entered the burial ground chamber, nor did he see any Sith or lifeforms in sight - which was saying something, because his vision was excellent. The dark siders must have been much deeper into the chamber. A flight of stairs to their right appeared to lead down into the tunnel and bridge network.

"Now that I've established that I'm a piss poor excuse of a Mandalorian, you want to tell me what you are, exactly?" He asked, the question was asked for purpose of conversation, but he realized as he said it that it may have come across as confrontational.

[member="Jacste Selden"]

 

[Ghost369]

"That's how I feel about the Sith." Jacste said in response to Mereel's comment about the Mandalorians.

Jacste looked up at the massive pillars before them as they came to the other side of the bridge. Their size amazed him and he simply said to himself, "Beautiful." He breathed in deeply as they entered the tomb, as if he was breathing in the dark side energy around him. He liked it, he felt the power surging through him and the dark jedi felt more powerful than he'd been in some time.

As the two of them walked down the steps to the right, Jacste began to feel like somethong wasn't right. Something was coming. Suddenly an evil voice could be heard, but no one could be seen.

"Isdavkal! Your Amzi Uud Tapti'." (Betrayer! Your time has come.) The unseen voice said in the language of the Sith. Suddenly the voice uncloaked and an evil man stood in front of Jacste. Two more appeared on a ledge above and a fourth was standing behind Mereel. They had been cloaked and had hidden their force signatures. All four of them ignited their lightsabers and Jacste's ignited next. The blade was red, like theirs.

"Isdavijas. . . Ir Zhol's your Amzi Anas's Tapti'." (Betrayed. . . And it's your time that's come.) Jacste corrected, before attacking.

First he brought his lightsaber down on the Sith, which was, of course, blocked. He struck again, slashing across their gut, then again the other direction, both were blocked. Jacste let out an irritated growl and force pushed this Sith into a rock wall. After the push the mercenary spun his lightsaber twice in front of him before giving it to his left hand. With his right, organic hand freed he shot a torrent of force lightning at the Sith, who was still reeling from hitting the wall.

"Aaaaaaaahhh!!" the man screamed out in pain before being silenced.

Jacste had lept from the stairs to the Sith and impaled him in the chest with a two-handed downward stab. Now that Jacste had gotten off the staircase and moved to an area that was easier to move around, one of the Sith assassins on the ledge above jumped down to meet him.

"Oh, hey. I honestly forgot your useless ass was up there." Jacste said, mocking the assassin.

"You deserter scum." was all they said to him before attacking.

"This is true." The Dark Jedi replied.

He defended against the Sith's blade and pushed it away with his. They would go for a stab this time, but that would prove to have been a big mistake. Jacste simply moved out of the way of the blade and returned his lightsaber to his hip. He grabbed the wrist of the assassin's outstretched arm with his right hand, to keep it straight, and punched their elbow with his left, cybernetic arm.

"Rraaaahh!!" The Sith cried out in pain, as his arm easily broke.

Jacste then aligned his back with their chest before Judo throwing the assassin over him. They hit the ground hard about ten feet away and rolled a few times before stopping face up. The assassin shot lightning at him with his unbroken arm, out of desperation. They had used their fear and pain to fuel the lightning, but it wasn't enough. The energy was simply absorbed into the palm of Jacste's right hand and shot right back.

"Aaaaah-ha-haaah!!" They Sith screamed out again as his broken body spasmed.

Taking his pistol off his hip again, the mercenary fired two shots into the assassin's head.

"Weak." Jacste said, disgusted with their performance.

Mereel would ask what he was, but the Sith interrupted before he could answer. "To answer your previous question, Mereel. I'd call myself a mercenary, but the Jedi would call me 'Dark Jedi' and the Sith call me 'Deserter' or 'Isdavkal', meaning 'Betrayer', in basic, like those guys did. I was one of them once, for a time, to my great shame. They took everything from me, including my left arm. I hate them as much as you do, if not more."

If he looked closely at the Sith corpses, Mereel might notice that Jacste's armor was very similar to theirs, but without any sort of symbols, emblems, rank, or other identifying marks.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel nodded his helmet in understanding and agreement when Jacste mentioned having a similar relation with the Sith and the beauty of the pillars, respectively. But other than that the Jedi went quiet for a moment as he followed the Dark Jedi down the stairs to the right. It wasn't that he had run out of conversation material, it was just that he was caught up in the beauty of the place - even with the sickening aura of the dark side corruption looming in the air.

When the Sith assassins decloaked practically on top of them, Mereel slung his rifle over his shoulder and summoned his lightsaber to his hand with the force. He ingited the icy-blue blade and slipped into the defensive form of Soresu as two of the assassins honed in on him and began circling around him.

His breathing slowed, and his mind became clear of thought as the Sith assassins closed in. One rushed him from the front and the other behind. He began raising his lightsaber as if to block the blade of the assassin approaching him from the front, but took his left hand off of the hilt at the last second. he aimed his left hand at the first Sith assassin and liquid cryoban spray began streaming out of his palm. The first assassin only continued moving towards him at a normal speed for a second, but after three seconds of sustained fire, the assassin had stopped moving completely. Taken by surprise, the first Sith assassin was defenseless against the cryoban spray, and his being became enveloped in a layer of frost and ice.

Not that Mereel saw those layers of ice though. His left arm remained aimed at the first assassin, but his attention had already turned to the second assassin, the man approaching him from behind. He raised his right hand and easily blocked the first of the assassin's saber strikes, but the man followed his first strike with a low sweep aimed at his legs.

Mereel danced back on his feet, narrowly avoiding the saber before it could cut him below the knees. The cryoban projectors on his left hand stopped firing and he swapped his lightsaber to his left hand. His now empty right hand shot up towards the remaining assassin, and his fingers began squeezing. An invisible grip took a strong hold around the assassin's neck, and Mereel continued channeling the force to strangle his foe until the man stopped clutching at his neck and he fell to the rock floor.

With one assassin frozen and the other dead, Mereel sighed heavily. After letting the obviously well-practiced Dark Jedi finish venting to him, Mereel reclipped his lightsaber to his belt and redrew his rifle. "I figured as much, I've ran into your kind plenty before. On both sides of the battlefield."

Not unloading any of his own rounds into the downed assassins, Mereel marched onward down the stairway that would lead them to the first of many, many bridges. "I know a thing or two about being called dishonorable by your own people. Normally I would recommend the doctrine of not letting the words of fools get to you, but that's what gives you power, doesn't it?"

[member="Jacste Selden"]

 

[Ghost369]

Jacste had been able to see some, but not much of Mereel's fight and was rather impressed with his of trickery and the brutality. He was different from other, peace loving Jedi he'd met in the past. He nodded when the Jedi said he'd "ran into his kind on both sides of the battlefield". Jacste had previously, for a time done mercenary work for both sides, but he wouldn't mention that. It was in the past and he didn't need this guy questioning his allegiance

Jacste noticed the Sith that Mereel had left alive and gripped his frozen form with the force, crushing him into icy pieces, before tossing his frozen remains into a small ravine.

"I definitely don't care what those fools think. They can call me traitor all they want, I'll just kill them. It's not really the things they say to me that give me power, so much as the things they do to people like me that makes me strong." Jacste replied when Mereel told him to ignore the words of fools.

As the Jedi and Dark Jedi approached a second bridge Jacste realized the Sith were bound to have heard their fight and send reinforcements to check it out, likely more than last time. However they had gotten to the bridge first.

"I have a plan. Take these." Jacste said to Mereel, handing him 4 small explosives, "Be careful with those. They look small, but they hit hard. Put them underneath the bridge, on the right side. We'll draw the Sith to us and then we'll send them to the depths." He looked down at the chasm beneath the bridge as he finished talking.

Jacste would place his charges under the left side of the bridge, while Mereel would put his on the other side. Now all they had to do was hide while they waited for the Sith to come check on their men and take the bait. Jacste hid behind a giant rock and after some time of quietly waiting, eight Sith approached the bridge. He clutched the detonator in his left arm and as they crossed, he detonated the bridge and cracked the rock around it slightly as well. Six of the eight Sith died screaming, not that it could be heard over the explosion. They went out in fire.

Surprisingly two of the Sith sensed the explosion and jumped out of the way in time, though they still received some burns. Jacste stepped out of the Shadows to face one of the men, leaving the other to Mereel.

"That looks like it burns. You gonna be okay there, buddy?" he mockingly asked the Sith.

They simply looked at him with a burnt face, full of hate, their orange eyes looked into his as they rushed to attack him. Jacste crossed sabers with them and then dodged as they tried to hit him with a blast of force destruction from their free hand. He knocked the burnt man's hand away and pushed him up against a cave wall with his cybernetic arm before lunging in and stabbing them in the gut. The Sith grabbed his wound and fell to his knees. Then Jacste lifted them with the force and looked him in the eyes.

"Burn. . . Like your brothers!" the Dark Jedi said.

"They were your brothers too." the Sith retorted.

"No, they weren't." Jacste said as he burnt the man alive with Pyrokinesis and threw his burning, screaming carcass into the ravine, where the bridge once was.

"Aaaaaaaaahhh!!" After a short time of falling the Sith's charred body hit the ground and fell silent.

"Well, they definitely know we're here now." Jacste said, "Let them come."

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel didn't attempt to stop Jacste or talk him out of it, but he sighed as the mercenary crushed the sole surviving, frozen assassin into chunks using the force. His brain swiftly reminded him of the numerous Sith atrocities he had bore witness to, and that what Jacste had just done was likely far more merciful than any fate the Sith would give either of them if immobilized.

He exhaled a short, dismissive puff of air when Jacste said what the Sith did to him made him strong, "I can't say the Sith have ever empowered me, and they certainly haven't made the people on the planets that they level any stronger. Turbolaser fire isn't something that many people can come back swinging from.."

With that being said, Mereel couldn't deny the man's capability as a fighter, and he was more than somewhat grateful that the Dark Hand had brought him on. While he was more than self-assured with his own fighting abilities, he didn't think he could clear out a whole tomb system crawling with Sith on his own. As they arrived on the foothold of the second bridge, Jacste handed handed him four explosive charges

Accepting the ordnance with a grin, Mereel nodded his head and listened along to the mercenary's plan. Once the man was done speaking, Mereel tapped the metal knuckles of his left had to the side of his helmet, "Mando, remember? I've handled ordnance before, don't worry."

Without waiting for a response, Mereel broke away to fulfill his half of the explosive arming. After all of his charges were set, he vacated to the side of the bridge opposite of where they had approached and made himself scarce behind a long-fallen Jedi statue, splayed out across the ground in a horizontal heap. He didn't know how to mask his own presence in the force, but fortunately the dark, pervasive air flowing through what had once been a lightside nexus masked his presence from the eight Sith as they walked onto the bridge.

The grip on his rifle tightened. The ground beneath his feet quaked, and a thunderous roar resounded through the chamber as the explosives removed the bridge from existence. Slinging his rifle over his back momentarily, adrenaline pumped through his veins as he pulled himself up the vertical incline of the statue. In hindsight, he could've just used the force to jump up the statue, but it was a realization he had only made once he was on top of it prone.

Redrawing the rifle from his back, he took aim at the Sith not engaged by Jacste and slowed his breathing. His mind emptied as the reticle of his Westar M5 V2 rifle's scope centered over the dark sider's center of mass. Mereel's trigger finger eased back reflexively, and the first bolt sailed toward the Sith. Of course, the bolt was blocked - sent flying back towards him, whirring by over his helmeted head.

His thumb switched the rifle's firing mode to fully automatic and he let loose on the trigger. Fifteen continuous azure bolts were sent flying at the man. Most of the blaster bolts were blocked, and several of them were redirected towards him, but they all sailed either under or over his being when it occurred. More important was the fact that the Sith acolyte was suppressed and near-stationary as his left hand fiddled around for an attachment on his belt.

When the fifteenth round left his rifle, his cortosis hand met blaster barrel as Mereel slapped his grappling spike launcher onto the bottom of the rifle's underslung railing. Much to his advantage, the now un-suppressed Sith had begun charging at him. He casually fired two more blaster bolts at the man, lulling him into a sense of security, and after the Sith blocked each of those, Mereel's left hand thumbed the spike launcher's launch button. Liquid cable shot out from the bottom of his rifle's barrel at a terrifying velocity, and for a single second he could sense his targets fear. Then nothing.The grappling hook had penetrated the Sith acolyte's robes and armor, burrowing itself deep past even the flesh until it had finally nestled itself into his target's heart.

Mereel pulled himself out of the scope of his rifle to see that Jacste was already done with his fight. Still in his prone position atop the fallen statue, Mereel gave the mercenary an energetic thumbs up. "Clear, but I think I'd much rather take the fight to them."

[member="Jacste Selden"]

 

[Hard Contact]

Crimson speckles trickled down a pair of hands loosely wrapped in black cloth. The hands formed a cup, slowly collecting more and more speckles until running over. With the required offering in her hands, Odia casually nudged the dying acolyte's form and the novice's body rushed to meet the floor headfirst.

The Sith Lady ambled across the stone floor, droplets of blood spilling out from all sides of her hands as she moved to the center of the dimly lit, empty chamber. Her boots came to rest atop a massive, faded white kyber crystal. Odia's breathing slowed, and her eyes closed as she began speaking the ancient cleansing rite, "Hoc modo quod serus ad lutum. Serio, suus'circa undecimam horam in mane, Quod ego sum facis cum vita!"

She parted her hands, and the remaining blood in her hands fell onto the kyber crystal. The rite broke the seal of Jedi Masters long passed, and her hate flowed freely into the crystal, turning it dark red. The corruption of the Jedi Tomb was now complete.

A Sith knight entered the room behind her, and she turned to face the peon. "Speak."

"The traitor is here. Another is with him. A Jedi."

"The Jedi is of no concern. Take the acolytes and lure him in, kill the Jedi, but leave him alive. The chamber has been prepared for him."

Odia had no concern for the Jedi. A Jedi would be out of there element here, in a tomb now swathed in nothing but dark. Her only thoughts were on the traitor, [member="Jacste Selden"] - the man who had killed the only man she truly trusted in the Sith hierarchy. She would make sure his death was slow and excruciating.

The Sith knight nodded and left the chamber to fulfill his duty.