Public Open House

[Mordecai Zambrano]

Judile Redoubt, Praesitlyn
[ Image Source ]
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"So, let me verify that our priorities are straight. We're wanting something large enough to house several hundred, if not thousands, of people? A home that dominates the better part of a square mile? A structurally sound and utterly defensible home... but with breathtaking views and a short commute to the nearest city? All of this with modern creature comforts, mind you. Is this correct?"

"Yes, that's correct." Mordecai struggled to not grin. A prodding, gentle finger in his abdomen helped. "And one that only took," he mockingly glanced at his bare wrist, eyeing an invisible chrono, "the Sluissi the better part of a century to repair and renovate. I don't suppose our patience with warrant any kind of discount, will it, Mr. Halcard?"

Now it was the other man's turn to respond with a thin smile. The portly man even went so far as to chuckle lowly at Mordecai, eyeing his dark robes up and down and the woman at his flank. "Very well, I don't suppose I can dissuade potential buyers at first glance. At least you're the first ones that seem to have more.. reasonable demands. The others want even more renovations done to turn the Redoubt into some forsaken club or palace." Shan Halcard's voice oozed distaste, each syllable causing his jowls to jiggle. "You may enter and tour as you will, Mr. and Mrs. Zambrano. Grab a drink and enjoy! I'll be around shortly to provide a more guided, enriching experience."

Mordecai inclined his head, watching as the man turned to leave and enter the massive structure.

The prodding finger in his side returned once more. "Why can't you let me do the talking for once? I swear I already had him buttered up in the Holo-mails I've been sending. Men like him are disarmed so easily." Carly's broad grin was even more disarming, enough to cause the Sith Lord to tuck down and give her waist a squeeze. She snorted in amusement. "Nevermind... maybe all men are like that."

"Guilty as charged." He shrugged.

"C'mon then, let's go take a tour, Mister Zambrano."

"Yes, dear."

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Storm gray eyes watched a heavily modified U-wing take off back into low atmosphere and shimmer incandescent before becoming invisible. Stygium cloaking. A steep price, but one he’d enough to pay for now. No thanks to the IGBC.

Tydeus heard the approaching footsteps and turned his eyes away from the window view, lips thinning into a line.

Fresh off the heels of his defeat on Dromund Kaas by a Kainate commandant, the words of the droid, the dead god, and the Umbaran filled his mind. Rush in, thoughtless and full of rage, and he would die.

So when his contacts told him of a Zambrano on the market for a home. Well. Tydeus took little umbrage in threatening the life and welfare of a societal cockroach like Shan Halcard in order to gain access to the manor.

Standing alone in the foyer, the boy in black duraplast armor struck an odd sight. A sword amidst dinner cutlery.

In one hand he held a lightsaber embellished with silver. In the other, a helmet.

Between clenched teeth, Tydeus hissed, “Dragon rider.”

Mordecai Zambrano

 

[Mordecai Zambrano]

There were very few times that his guard dropped. This was one of them.

Sith Lord Mordecai Zambrano and his wife Carly Zambrano remained outside of the Redoubt for only a few minutes after Halcard retreated inside. Their short-lived moments together were spent clingingly loosely to one another, fingering through even more Holos and details of the land they were about to purchase. Aerial shots that encompassed the entire landscape, artistic scenes of the sunset fading behind Praesitlyn's mountains, and readouts for energy consumption and property taxes. The pair's idle chatter was mundane yet pleasant, a poignant foreshadowing of the rest of their days together.

Or so they thought.

"Carly." Mordecai uttered her name suddenly, salt-and-pepper head pulling away to snap towards the Redoubt. "Stay here. Stay outside. Something isn't right."

"What's wrong?" The worry creeping into her voice paled in comparison to what was coming from inside the Redoubt. "What's going on?"

Vengeance. Loathing. Anger. Suffering.

A palpable miasma of emotion that reeked of violence, aimed solely at him.. and her.

The Sith Lord ignored the worried plea of his wife for only a moment, reaching up to thumb the key of his comlink. A direct line to The Brute, a star destroyer, lingering in high orbit. "Send a squad down. Retrieve Carly. Now." He turned to smile faintly before pressing the comlink into her hands. "Head back further towards the landing pad," his head cocked off to Carly's rear, "stay there and wait for the praetorians."

Her lips trembled. "Okay.. I- I love you."

"Love you too." He leaned in close to still quivering lips with his own. "I'll be back."

Mordecai only turned for the Redoubt once Carly began to move away, helping ease the turbulence massing within his heart and gut. He passed the Redoubt's threshold in purposeful strides, his furred and obsidian robe fluttering. The lightsaber was already within his grasp by the time he reached the foyer and his gaze found a lone figure. A man, no- a boy that reeked of violence. A boy that obviously knew who he was.

"Have we met before?" Mordecai growled through bared teeth.

Tydeus of Tion

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

“No.”

The boy pointed his helmet at the Master of Drakes.

“I am Tydeus, of Tion and her moons.“

Within the youth, the Wound in the Force from a billion Tionese dead shuddered and rippled, an undulating miasma of raw power. The pain of it reflected in his eyes, which burned as molten steel.,

“I watched my family scorched to ash by the turbolasers of Kainite war ships, led by their false god.“

He slipped his helmet over his head and it pressurized with a hiss.

“Your brother,” said the voice from beneath the helm, stripped of feeling. Gloved fingers pressed a series of buttons on his forearm gauntlet.

”I will erase him from this galaxy. His mortal coil. His empire. His name. Zambrano.”

The helmeted head tilted down.

”A name you share.”

Mordecai Zambrano

 

[Mordecai Zambrano]

He frowned. Deeply.

Mordecai closed the distance slowly, methodically. Purposeful strides that echoed with every syllable Tydeus uttered. Understanding blossomed within the Sith Lord but his face never revealed it. If anything, the boy's claim to vengeance only fueled the furnace of anger and vitriol boiling within Mordecai. An unstoppable force encountering an unyielding wall.

"Right." He retorted simply, still pacing towards Tydeus.

Just two men that cared deeply about their families. Mordecai knew just where to prod.

The snap-hiss of a crimson lightsaber igniting was the preamble. Brow furrowed, teeth bared.

"Maybe they deserved it."

Tydeus of Tion

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

”Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?”

Tydeus thumbed the switch on his hilt. A bar of citrine, brilliant as a sunbeam, erupted from the emitter.

“No matter. The price for all deeds comes due, Zambrano. You should have thought of that before you gave your name…

Outside the redoubt came the shriek of a U-wing’s engines, then the high chatter of Taim&Bak laser cannons. The floor shook from the explosion outside. Where Mordecai had left…

“To your wife.”

A stygium cloaking device to hide the ship. A slave drive on his gauntlet to call it. Simple enough things, but they couldn’t guarantee success.

From all he knew of the woman, she‘d been just as complicit in the crimes of Mordecai’s house. A better woman would have left this monster long ago. Probably around the time his family started displaying the flayed bodies of their enemies like prized statues.

He hoped she was dead. A smoking fucking corpse on the street. Maybe the sight of her charred flesh would bequeath unto this so-called Dragon Lord an ounce of Tydeus’ pain.

The boy stood his ground and watched Mordecai Zambrano , a feral sneer behind his helmet.

”Maybe she deserved it.”

 

[Mordecai Zambrano]

Time moved slowly in that moment. It felt like an eternity to process what exactly was happening, to register the throaty pound of laser cannons outside and their reverberating explosions. Each thump felt like the beat of a stilling heart. For a brief moment he felt utterly vulnerable and weak-kneed. The Praetorians and the shuttle had come.. right? Mordecai's heart pounded in his ears; weakness turning into conflict. Did he sprint outside or trust his soldiers to do their job?

Mordecai reeled from his stupor, snapping his head around to glare at Tydeus with unending hatred. An unfathomable, booming roar echoed from outside where the laser cannons fired. Loud and brassy enough to feel it in your organs. A roar so loud that it dwarfed Mordecai's own guttural cry. A hateful sound that could only convey a single message.

I WILL KILL YOU​

The rage-fueled juggernaut surged forward. In an instant Mordecai closed the distance, propelled forth to swing his lightsaber in titanic, powerful strikes. He drew so close that his nostrils flared with the stink of a Tionese rat. His crimson blade swung in fast, cleaving arcs aimed right at the boy's middle.

Tydeus of Tion

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

The first blow nearly clove Tydeus in half but for a back step. The crimson saber’s tip drug along his armored torso, melting duraplast in a thin furrow. The boy managed to intercept the next with his own lightsaber and felt his wrist nearly bend inward, such was the strength of Mordecai’s enraged stroke.

The Tionese backpedaled, parrying and weaving out of the way with the speed and fluidity of the Way of the Steel Hand. He could feel with every collision of their lightsabers that he was no match for the Dragon Lord’s raw might combined with his decades of experience in warfare. If the boy wanted to survive the next few moments, he needed to change the paradigm.

“She’s not the first, Zambrano,” Tydeus words came muffled from beneath his helm.

”Aleksandr Idruin... hiding in the Rim.”

He darted back and a glancing blow sheared through part of his pauldron.

“And your nephew, Arkaitz. You shouldn’t have let him rot in that prison.“

Their sabers smashed into one another, yellow sizzling against red.

“Shall I box your wife’s head up with theirs when I send them to your brother?”

Mordecai Zambrano

 

[Mordecai Zambrano]

Each cleaving blow he delivered felt immensely gratifying. The vicious thrum of lightsabers soaring through singed air, the weight of devastating collisions, and the ever so sweet purchase of sword's edge against duraplate. The enraged brute seized any moment of hesitation or weakness that he could find, using each passing second to close distance and deliver potent blows that would cleave Tydeus asunder.

Yet through it all, the boy found the strength and will to speak. Even as a Sith Lord continued a relentless assault.

Teeth bared into a snarl and spittle flew. The names were unfamiliar to him, by proxy of being so sequestered from what the rest of his family did. But the enraged Lord did understand that they were most likely family. That would not do.

BOOM! BOOM! SCREEEECH!​

The whole of the Judile Redoubt shook and trembled. Reinforced durasteel beams creaked and plaster rained from the ceiling as fractures developed. A roar trailed those thundering quakes as if to signal the end of worlds. Bone and metal screeched as something tore through layers upon layers of fortification.

A shard of sunlight spotlighted both fighting men for the briefest of moments. Mordecai pulled away from the melee just in time to avoid being crushed by a duracrete boulder. Rocks flew and dust clouded the battlefield. A flap of wings sounded overheard alongside more tearing. Murderous Mordecai glared at Tydeus, rounding the fallen boulder like a Firaxan shark.

A glob of slobber crashed to the floor next to him. He glanced upwards to see the snarling visage of an adult Arkanian dragon. Golden eyes narrowed to slits, claws poised to launch his muscular bulk inwards.

"Rhaegos!" Mordecai barked. "Eat him and shit him out."

Tydeus of Tion

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Terror.

The Tionese noble stumbled backward, nostrils flaring, heart racing. Slitted pupils of deepest black fastened on Tydeus from amidst great amber orbs like search lamps. The beast opened up a maw of jagged teeth and let loose a roar that chilled the marrow in his bones.

The boy ran.

Slavering jaws snapped shut just behind his heels with a great whoosh of air.

Flailing an arm out behind him, Tydeus chopped at the dragon’s snout with his lightsaber, as he ran deeper into the redoubt. He punched a button on his gauntlet, but didn’t see a response scroll across his heads up display. He punched it again and again.

He heard the wall he’d slipped through explode as the drake smashed through the fort. Pieces of plaster and duracrete pummeled the boy and rained down from the ceiling.

“Fuck,” panicked, he ducked through a doorframe and flattened on the opposite side of the wall. He couldn’t catch his breath, his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.

Amidst the thrashing of the dragon, searching for him. He heard the hum of his foe’s lightsaber growing closer.

Closer.

Mordecai Zambrano

 

[Mordecai Zambrano]

The atmosphere was palpable; vibrating. An utter sense of ferocious, primal rage that exuded from a flying reptile that rivalled the sheer size and bulk of a freighter. A pressure that sent a rush of adrenaline into one's bloodstream, kicking that fight-or-flight system into overdrive. The very moment Tydeus pulled his gaze away and made to run, the slavering beast reared on its haunches and propelled himself inwards.

Duracrete and plaster shards slowed the dragon's advance only slightly, unable to yield against alchemically hardened scales and the flap of thundering wings. Rhaegos' pursuit tossed a swirling miasma of dust and debris into the air, enough to make Mordecai squint lest his vision be choked out. The magnificent beast surged forward with incredible strength to viciously snap at claw at its surprisingly plucky prey.

The Sith Lord watched Rhaegos' prey drive kick in and was fully prepared to join the fray but something else halted him in his tracks.

Not the booming roar erupting from mere yards away. Not the pungent aroma of acidic reptile slobber. Not the ragged breathing or rapid footsteps of a new enemy.

"Finish him!" Mordecai snarled. The crimson shaft of his saber disappeared, then he was spinning on his heels to rush towards the entrance. Back to Carly.

Tydeus of Tion

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Claws tore apart the duracrete between Tydeus and the drake, pulverizing the wall in a crushing grasp and tear. The boy retreated further and further into the redoubt, the dragon snarling and pushing its way after him, obliterating every obstacle in its way.

A sudden belch of fire set the boy’s cloak on fire and melted half his visor in a blinding torrent of incandescent flame. Still running, vision blurred with tears, Tydeus scrabbled at his flaming cape and unclipped it from his armor, then his fingers tugged at the seal of his helm until he could rip it free. He tossed it aside and pushed his legs to carry him further, faster, despite the blistering on the side of his face and beneath his gloves.

But even as the fear and adrenaline made Tydeus’ heart pound, he sensed the Zambrano‘s presence in the Force growing distant and he no longer heard the hum of his lightsaber moving toward them. Breath sawing in and out of his chest, the boy seized upon the sliver of hope. Together, he could not hope to defeat both the dragon and its master. But apart?

Sprinting around the corner, the boy crouched in a low alcove and waited, blade at the ready.

He did not have to pause more than a second.

The dragon erupted from the doorframe, tearing it asunder and spilling into the room in a mass of scales and wings. It roared, head swiveling, searching for the boy.

Tydeus moved with the speed of the Steel Hand, bursting from the alcove at a dead sprint that turned into a leap as he sprang from the floor and up atop the dragon’s side. One hand clung to a spine on the beast’s back, his feet dangling along the beast’s side, scrabbling for purchase, while his other hand waved his sunburst of a saber.

The beast let loose a roar of fury that reverberated through every fiber of Tydeus’ being and he felt another flash of fear seep through his body like a snap-chill. Unbalanced on the beast’s back, Tydeus swung at the scales before him, but his lightsaber only sparked against their glimmering surace.

Rhaegos whipped around, neck unnaturally limber, and Tydeus only saw the rush of teeth like daggers coming for him. He let go of the spine and pushed off with both feet from the body in a backward flip that sent him arching through the air. As he did, he whipped his blade upward so that it drug fully through foot after foot of winged, leathery surface while he fell.

But he had underestimated the dragon’s speed. Rhaegos had seen countless battles and knew every trick. As the Tionese sprang away, that snapping maw darted forward and snatched him from the air.

Tydeus cried out in pain and disbelief as he hung from the beast’s mouth, left arm impaled on a serrated tooth. As Rhaegos bit down, Tydeus felt bone crunch and shatter. Blinding tears streamed from the boy’s eyes and his scream turned his throat raw. The dragon shook its head like a dog with a toy, snapping Tydeus this way and that in the air. He heard a pop in his shoulder and a fresh wave of agony hit him. Great yellow eyes stared down the snout of the monster, slitted pupils examining him with venom.

Setting his jaw, the boy lashed out in the only way he could. He drove his citrine lightsaber for one of the beast’s massive eyes, aiming to plunge it deep.

Mordecai Zambrano