Peace Was Never An Option [Matsu Xiangu]

[Connor Harrison]

Ossus
Auril Sector​

It felt like a lifetime, but it had only been just over 1 month since Krius Syonis and Matsu Xiangu had crossed paths that fateful day on Utapau. It was a calling of destinies; an entwining of stars. Since her display of the Force she controlled inside her from mild telekinesis to mind-form and even more recently her ability to control breathing and apply healing was wonderful to see.

Krius had never felt more harmonious than when he was with her, she fed of his confidence and ethics, and he fed of her lust for strength and power. It was a natural progression from meeting as strangers to now embracing as lovers.

Lovers. Krius was careful with that word. He still had his motives and his dreams, and had to be careful nothing stood in the way of that, not even his head and especially not his heart. He couldn't let it. Not yet.

--

His ship sat atop one of the small cliffs of Ossus, overlooking a calm ocean beneath him. Not far from the Hydian Way, the route Krius wanted to take in continuing his search for his materials, Ossus was a planet ravaged by war and rich with evidence from what the Jedi and Sith had done to the galaxy and would continue to do so as long as their old methods continued.

Masters, Lords and Knights before them would vie for control of the Force in constant battles that ravaged planets, laid waste to innocent lives and wasted the potential of so many more with their gift. He would find a way to stop them, and to ensure the galaxy knew who really was in control.

His head turned slightly as he stood looking out as the sun rose over the horizon, a few fleeting birds calling in the clouds and the occasional cargo ship crossing the sky above. Matsu was near and he was happy to feel her presence.

He had promised to continue her discovery of the potential inside her as much as she needed to stand alongside him. Their short journey together had let them encounter a number of beasts of worlds who had tapping's into the Force and also planets in the Outer Rim housing Force history and old warriors of the past. It had been exciting, insightful and, naturally, passionate.

On Ossus however, it was just the two of them, and there were still questions he knew Matsu wanted to ask as she progressed, and answer he was still afraid to give...



[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Utapau had been more fruitful than Matsu could ever have imagined. Where she’d expected to find some being ancient and full of stories she’d instead found [member="Krius Syonis"]. While not exactly the same, it had certainly had the same intended results.

She was like a sponge, soaking up every little drop of knowledge he shared. He seemed an endless font to her and every day she learned something new. Though she wasn’t the student every hour – some of her favorite moments had been the ones filled only by the sound of their breathing and the ship around them. She was growing more powerful with every lesson, every experience – she craved experience.

She stood at the hatch of the ship, a ways off from him, the breeze that spun along the top of the cliff blowing lightly through her hair. He was impossibly handsome there with Ossus’ sun shooting yellowed light around from over his shoulders, the silhouette of his face drawing a small smile to hers. She’d been so careful at first, unwilling to appear as if she was following him merely because she was attracted to him. Certainly there was an element of affection that she craved in his companionship but the moments she remembered best were those when he unfolded the world in front of her. She could still remember taming a beast on Kowak, a heavy burdensome creature. Telekinesis was quickly becoming her strong suit and she’d crushed the thing beneath a boulder nearly twice its size merely by imagining the pile of gore it would leave behind – a mess of intestines and sinew that she could nearly smell already, metallic and tangy and promising.

She was sick, but Krius didn’t seem to mind. (Because it’s what makes you powerful Matsu, so powerful.)

When the thing had expired she’d gone forward, about to touch when – and she could remember it so clearly – his fingers had wrapped around her delicate wrist, a slight cluck of “patience, patience” issuing from him. She’d turned to look down and watched a gushing torrent of poison leave the ruins of the beast’s mouth. How had he known?

He always knew.

The memory left as quickly as it came, but his ability to always know would never leave her: a bracelet lay loose on her wrist, the smaller of the beast’s dangerous, curved teeth arranged by her own design and looped on leather she’d passed the time winding together on their trips between planets.

She came to stand with him, a slip of a thing that hid a dark power pulsing beneath her skin. Her eyes roamed over the broken landscape of Ossus, wondering what had created such destructive variance in an otherwise beautiful landscape. She was sure he would have the answers – didn’t he always? “What happened here?” she asked quietly, turning to look up at him, arms crossed lightly in front of her chest.

 

[Connor Harrison]

He slowly inhaled, and exhaled. A steady breathing pattern to help revitalise his mind, taking in the serene landscape before his eyes. Matsu was here, and it was soothing to feel her out of the inner tomb of their ship.

She was certainly getting stronger in her power and in herself. At one point she would have draped herself over Krius, an action he loved, but one that reminded him of her utter devotion to him, and nothing more. Now, she simply stood by him, like a partner; an equal.

Of course she would never be his equal, but she would stand beside him as that Goddess he had brought out of her. A slight shiver ran up his body with her very aura next to him. If he could look back on them both atop the cliff, Krius knew he would see a perfect race in the making.

"Ego happened here Matsu. Ego. The one thing that will always spell certain doom for a person, no matter how powerful they think they are."

Krius let his eyes roam upwards to the ominous looking skies and painted a picture with his words.

Not content with wanting to dominate Tython as their own, the Jedi established an Academy on Ossus over forty thousand years ago. Their preaching of righteousness spreading like a virus, enslaving others in their Order and claiming peaceful planets as this for their own.

And when one tries to tame a beast, what happens? The beast turns on it's handler.

Jedi Knight Exar Kun, hero to many in his time, turned to the Dark side and became a Dark Lord of the Sith. Same as the Jedi, but following a different set of pathetic rules and lies for their own devices blah blah blah

Ossus became the result of what happens when you put two opposing sides of the same idea together and give them the weapons crafted by their parasitic drones. The planet was ravaged by war, destruction and because of this, the Sith caused a catastrophic shockwave above the planet which ravaged the world of it's wonderful nature and beauty to cover it with fire, destruction and poison.

Of course over time nature finds a way of surviving against the will of others who try and control it, and the planet regained most of it's rich vegetation and atmosphere. But it was never the same, and riddled with the constant scars caused by Force users who wanted to dictate how we should use our gift, rather than simply let it be.

His fists were clenched, his voice dark and bitter and anyone would dare say emotional. Krius let the images he projected sink in, and he slowly turned to Matsu beside him, her hair flicking in the wind against her emotionless face.

"We will always find a way above the death and destruction that the Jedi and Sith bring to the galaxy."

He brought his hand up and stroked her face, brushing a flick of hair from her eyes.

"Ossus is an example of how we will always triumph over those who try to destroy us."

His lips hovered in front of her ruby red invitation.

"We are survivors."

The following kiss was long and tender and a reminder of who they both were to eachother.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

He was going to tell a story.

Or at least that was how she thought of it. There were many times she had asked a question only to receive some artful weaving of embellished fact in return. She’d come to love those moments best and she thought this would be a good one – she could hear the passion in his voice. So as he began she closed her eyes and bent her face to the light of the sun that shone through the dark gray-green haze of Ossus’ atmosphere, drowning in the deep tone of his voice.

When she opened them again she stood in the middle of a battlefield, machines as large as banthas plodding on mechanical feet past her to meet their enemy counterparts. Men and women, Jedi and Sith alike screamed in agony at her feet, screeching and looking in horror at parts of their body that had been lost, bleeding and broken ends of arms and legs. The sky above was black as night, thick with the dust and debris of the torn up ground as it imploded under the impact of bombs. Craters as large as the ships floating above her head pocked the landscape and she started her walk forward. It was loud, chaotic – the air smelled metallic with the heat of the machines as they pressed on and the more organic tang of blood. The air was impossibly thick with smoke, dust -- everything was a haze of green or a sickly yellow punctuated by the glow of blaster bolts and lightsabers, the ground shaking with the steps of the machines or cataclysmic explosions. She moved through it easily, her strides determined, her body a lithe, serpentine figure cutting a swath through pain and those meeting oblivion.

A man – Jedi, Sith, some poor fool sucked in to fighting for either side out of a sense of misplaced morality she didn’t know – came running towards her, pleas for help running off bloody lips. She reached out, her fingers curled around in claws as she lifted him in to the air, closing her hand in a fist as she walked right by without looking, his neck snapping under the force of her chokehold. She let go after tossing him away, stalking between lightsaber duels, every blaster bolt missing her, every one that needed help going unheeded.

Another warrior – a woman this time – came rushing forward, her lightsaber held high and ready to crash over Matsu’s head. The girl let loose a wave of the Force so strong it bordered on a repulse, throwing the attacker on to her back – where Matsu took her. She leapt on to the woman, pinned her down and wrapped her fingers around her throat. Krius’ voice was smooth in her head as he narrated.

Ravaged by war --
Matsu dug her fingers around the woman’s larynx…
-- destruction --
…pushing her sharp nails in to flesh and muscle…
-- catastrophic shockwave --
…and screaming back in to the face of the woman screaming up at her, her face a picture of beautiful madness…
-- ravaged the planet –
…shivering as hot, thick blood coursed out over her delicate fingers.

She threw the piece of flesh down on the woman’s body, leaping off to let her convulse and bleed out on the ground she’d died for.

If she cared enough to put her life on the line, she could nourish the thing she found so precious. Pathetic.

When she got to the center of it all, smoke from a small ship billowing up in to the cloudy sky, she saw Krius step out from behind the wreckage, that usually calm expression marred by a barely contained passion. His hands were balled in to fists and she felt a rise in herself at the sight of his emotion. As he spoke of nature reclaiming the planet the world around them changed, shaping itself in to the yellow and green landscape she saw now, the smoke disappearing and leaving the murky cloud cover in its place…blood still dripping from the tips of her fingers.

When she opened her eyes his hands were in fact clenched in to fists and she wondered if she’d just sensed the movement and incorporated it in to her vision, or if she was just getting to know his mannerisms so well she imagined him correctly.

Either way she turned to face him as he finished, her lips meeting his easily as he leaned down to kiss her. To her they were equals, two beings on a quest that she had perhaps come late to and still did not fully understand…but she was willing. And powerful. She would bring his dreams to fruition with a devotion so strong as to be blind to anything else. She had let him explain his vision many times and it was starting to become clearer what he wanted of the galaxy.

There were times she felt a kernel of doubt.

But now was not one of those times.

She would be the one that walked before him, the force that tore all those unworthy of even glimpsing him apart from the inside. Behold – destruction, raw and unfathomable, made woman.

She was getting good at telepathy since that first time entering his mind. She’d never tried to break him since then but she often sent him things just to practice, get so good that it barely took effort. She showed him then, a streak of necessary violence against those that would chain them – what she would do for him.

When the kiss ended she smiled slightly. “You will make us more than survivors,” she said, an unnaturally sharp canine peeking out from under her lip. It seemed she became more an animal every day.

[member="Krius Syonis"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDSDloAcxAM

Krius pulled back as she spoke. She was totally devoted to him and would walk his path, cutting down anyone who stood in their way. She was becoming more and more the perfect weapon and specimen of what a Force user should be; unshackled, unrestrained and uncontrollable. Her bloodlust was evident and it thrilled him to the point of wanting to watch her kill for him.

He looked down at the grass beneath his boots, waving in the ocean breeze coming in before them and spoke; half to Matsu, half to himself.

"The people in this galaxy are different from us. They have labelled us as outsiders and dangerous. Ultimately I believe that is a good thing. They will soon make the same mistakes they did eons ago by thinking they are dominant. But if we show them, Matsu, if we show them our true power without limitations and restraint, then that is what we will come to bear. Embodied within my very soul is the fundamental belief of the potential for every person born with the Force as their gift to become something that no Jedi or Sith will have prepared for. That's what we can bring to the galaxy."

Krius pointed towards the endless horizon, the sun looming behind the ocean as it began to set, striking violent oranges, reds and purples out over the water, small streaks of thunder from the clash of pressure in the air flashed over in the distance.

He was previously a man walking a path placed on himself to be a symbol of hope and freedom for people he had seen suffer at the hands of those parasitic Non-Force users who had deadly technology at their fingertips to eradicate planets, species and history at the touch of a button. Now he was more than just a man.

If you were born with a gift then straight away you had been chosen as the perfect embodiment of a God to lead those before you and destroy anything standing in your way. This was becoming clearer and more evident to Krius now he had Matsu by his side.

"Matsu, you have begun to release your power and embody the Force, strengthening your muscles, your skin, your senses, your core. You're growing stronger each day than I ever could have imagined. The only way to know how strong, is to keep testing your limits."

His voice was becoming louder, harder and powerfully confident. Krius was speaking to the whole galaxy.

"This is no fantasy - no careless product of wild imagination. No. The time is coming for us to soon slay those who are weaker than us, those who wish to enslave our kind. I saw your vision; you show no mercy and the power you hold arouses you in a way that makes you unstoppable."

He looked towards Matsu, a simple look into her eyes, and then he turned back to the cliff. Soldiers would fall before them as Matsu would break their bones with the flick of her wrist. Jedi and Sith would become impaled on their own blades as Krius clouded their mind to turn on their own kind. Sentinel beings would evaporate into dust as Matsu would release a ball of energy fuelled by darkness and power to obliterate anyone standing before her.

She would walk over cold corpses beside him and save those afraid to become what they were born to be, much like sweet Matsu had been that day on Utapau. And now? Now she was becoming a Goddess!

Krius held out his hand towards the ocean below, contorting his fist, pulling it towards him. Below the cliffs, a section of the ocean began to swirl violently and bubble, much like his emotion, and it began to rise upwards like a pillar above the rocks. He was in total control, eyes burning with intensity as he shouted above the fury below him.

"I will never leave you even in the face of danger. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel, all this, and more, I bequeath you, Matsu. You will carry me inside you, all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. Until the very day we die."

As the water raged upwards, Krius let out a loud cry as he let the Force create a display of sheer intensity before them. He swung his arm back and pushed forward with all his strength, causing the water to violently erupt upwards even more.

He suddenly dropped his hand at his final words. The water hung in the air for a second and then cascaded down, violently crashing back into the ocean with a roar above the crack of lightning in the distance. The spray was enough to sprinkle them with droplets carried by the wind.

His breathing was heavy and with the tingling power coursing through him, he felt invincible. Stepping back, he turned to look at Matsu, his face a picture of sheer determination.

He couldn't read her expression, and maybe he didn't want to, but it took a lot to not give in to his urge for an embrace fuelled by lust; dangerously fuelled by power.

"They wanted peace. Peace was never an option."

Krius walked past Matsu down the slight incline to where their ship sat. He leaned his arms against the dark hull and hung his head, catching his breath; his eyes focusing on the dark blades of grass beneath him; his mind racing like a wild Rancor.

Thunder cracked again in the distance.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

There had been times where Krius had begun down this path but never fully walked its length. He had not explained the conclusion of his grand plan – whether it was because he believed Matsu wasn’t ready to know its truth or because he did not know its end himself she had never been sure. But the answer came then – a wall of water that he lifted with his mind alone, a demonstration of the determination and sheer will that lay within his chest. It was…magnificent. As thunder crashed around them, the planet’s form of protest as Krius bent the very seas below, Matsu’s face was impassive. Through his speech, through the total control he showed in his awesome display of power…even through the whipping droplets of ocean spray on her face as the display came to an end and Krius went back to the ship. Nothing.

For the first time she was…unsure of him.

It wasn’t fear. Matsu had grown somewhat impervious to that emotion – something that if she weren’t so desperately angry and violent might inhibit the endless pool of power she’d learned to tap. But no: the fact that Krius was so powerful only drew her in. When she’d watched that pillar of water form she’d felt nothing but some exotic trance, imagined drowning under the weight of the saltwater. The unusual was something to be sought and if she died in its wake she would join the Force gladly.

Wasn’t it the craving for experience that had her here in the first place?

So it wasn’t fear but…some shift in her faith. All this time she’d never had a cause, never a true rallying in one thing or another. She lived for herself, for Krius, for the taste of chaos. His last words had been true: peace was never an option. It wasn’t peace she wanted. She didn’t mind the slaughter of innocents in the path of something she wanted – morality was an alien concept to her, something out of her galaxy entirely. But she didn’t agree with his systemic genocide of those without the Force either. Her parents did not wield the Force and they didn’t keep her down either. What about those who, despite the lack of control of the Force, had talents all their own? They could be useful. They could change the Galaxy, help her get what she wanted – for the first time, she did not see the Galaxy as Krius did.

It was an unsettling notion.

She couldn’t ask him to explain. She could feel the triumph, the excitement riding over him even without the Force and she didn’t dare put a screwdriver in the gears of his machine just then. She wasn’t afraid…but she wasn’t stupid either. But she could pry ever so slightly, get more without seeming to disagree.

Instead of following him she turned to face him – with a newfound hesitancy – watching him lean against the ship. Telepathy was a skill that was rapidly becoming like second nature to her and she practiced constantly. It was even easier with Krius as she’d become so close to him and without moving from the cliff she spoke to him, her voice wrapping in around the grooves in his brain. “If they do not wield the Force, how could they possibly hope to enslave us?”

She felt the roar of the ocean in the palm of his hand again and truly wondered…who could ever stop him?

[member="Krius Syonis"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The cool spray from the waves below flicked over his back as his hands traced the cool engravings on the hull of his ship as he took a moment to calm himself from an almost embarrassing display of some raw emotion. He shouldn't have been so flippant; there was certain things one should never do with power. Flaunting it was one of them.

Matsu wasn't reacting to him when he turned around, which was strange to Krius as he felt she would have. But, never mind. She was still there and spoke to him. Her voice calm and un-emotive. She asked an honest question. She deserved an honest answer.

"Those who do not control the Force are, at times, more dangerous than us, Matsu. Do you remember the Galactic Civil War many hundred of years ago, during the reign of Emperor Palpatine and Sith Lord Darth Vader? The mighty battle station they created was one that came from the minds of non-Force users; creative geniuses, technical brilliance and military might. That was a weapon that destroyed planets. And with it, millions of our kind."

His arms crossed, and his left hand came up dictate along with his words.

"Centerpoint Station. The Galaxy Gun. The World Devastator. Do I need to go on? All weapons created to control the galaxy for those who want to destroy those who do not fit a certain social standard. And those who control the Force, if they do not bend to the whim of the Sith or Jedi, are simply too dangerous to be left alive and so are wiped out with any means the parasites can."

Krius watched Matsu and touched upon her mind with the Force. For the first time he felt her...questioning him. She never had before, and this was alien to him. He didn't control her, that wasn't what he wanted, but there was something in her tone that he didn't like.

From wanting to stand beside him as they walked over battlefields to freeing others like them, Krius wanted Matsu to be the perfect weapon and ally in his cause.

"You seem troubled my dear. What's wrong."

It wasn't a question to be taken lightly. She was more powerful than she probably knew, and Krius has to remember that because he too wanted to keep her harnessed until it was time to unleash her true potential. It would come in time, he was confident of that.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

If there was one thing she had learned from Krius – and there was more than one thing, to be certain, but it was what he spoke of now that hit home with her – it was that the Galaxy was more than just her. She had spent so much time on her own, just her and the company of her mind, that it never occurred to her to think of others gathering. The idea of a gathering of minds pooling thoughts and ideas to create something greater…it made sense, but without him it would have taken her too long. And she might have ended up like Vader.

But still she couldn’t help but allow that seed of doubt to take root, sending its shoots down in to the sulcus of her brain and planting dissension. To her such conflicts as the Death Star hadn’t been about Jedi or Sith, but the pathetic idea of good and evil. But she could feel confusion and discontent clutching at her brainstem and she hated the doubt she was feeling about [member="Krius Syonis"]…her Krius. She wanted to believe him.

When she felt the brush of his reach in her mind, his subtle probe, she felt a flash of anger that consumed her like a match in dry air. He was talented and in most ways infinitely more powerful than her but the mind was quickly becoming her realm and she could detect any intrusion – especially from a man who she had let in to her life so thoroughly.

But it was her space, HERS, and she wouldn’t have him there.

Without realizing it anger was gathering her power to her core, ushering a release of violence almost of its own volition. Get out of my head, get out, GET OUT, GET O U T. But – no, not now. You’re confused, you’re confused, you’re confused. Shh…take some time. And it dissipated before she could become a deadly little slip of a thing, her dark eyes losing that ever, ever so slight edge of yellow that crawled at their edges. Within a few seconds she was calm enough to answer him, the growing storm that had just raged so strongly within her so quick as to be imperceptible.

“Not troubled. It’s just a lot to take in at once. I understand but…it’s not an idea most in the Galaxy seem to be thinking of,” she said, desperate to escape the subject that was digging its claws in to her mind and offering her a small sardonic smile.

Of course no one else was thinking of it – that was why Krius would hold the Galaxy in his palm.

Why didn’t that sound as sweet as before?

She moved from the ship, closing the distance between them until she was but a few feet from him, tilting her head to look up at him. “I showed you what I’d do for you – that won’t change.”

[member="Krius Syonis"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Nodding at her empty response, Krius moved forward and took Matsu by the shoulder, his firm hand on her soft, tense muscle. Funny; she didn't seem as relaxed as normal to his touch. He picked up on this, but thought nothing of it. He had just showed a rage that was rather unprecedented and shocking, which he regretted.

With his left hand on her arm, he turned her around to face the ocean and the raging storm in the distance. Standing behind her, his grip still on her shoulder, he brought her arm up, holding her palm in his hand as he spoke.

"I've done nothing but show you your true potential as a Force user, Matsu."

His fingers turned her palm outwards, as if reaching for something out over the crashing water below.

"The reason this idea is not something the galaxy is thinking about, or ready for, is that they are so wrapped up in politics, war and their own personal battles that the future of other generations like ours is jeopardized by their arrogance."

Krius let her palm stay outwards as he brought his hand and held it just under her breast, against her beating heart. Funny...now he had her close once again, he felt his patience waning slightly. Why was this doubt there? Was he due to constantly reassure her of the galaxy's danger to them?

"Soon we will be leaving for Coruscant, the heart of where this arrogance lies. The Senate will be our first target. We can either show them by force or by negotiation that our plight is something more than just a fantasy like the Jedi and Sith. We have the power to make them see and to strike our first blow to show we are the ultimate power in the galaxy."

He stepped back and left her for a moment. He was tired of speaking; it was time to act. It was time for Matsu to show her potential and to become his most trusted and most powerful asset.

The sky around them was getting darker and the illumination of the moon coming up was beautifully tranquil, but it wasn't tranquillity Krius cared about right now.

"You have a choices now my dear before we take go forward. One; you fight me, right here, with all your knowledge of the Force I have shown you."

He stepped to the side of his ship, looking down to the small Knossa Spaceport below, the wind blowing across him.

"Or two; you use your power to destroy a shuttle full of commuters for the Hydian Way, leaving the planet below us anytime now."

Krius chewed over a satisfying smile as he watched the shuttle below in the Spaceport, packed with faceless individuals who simply were in the right place at the right time to help push Matsu into what he knew she could...WOULD...become.

He would teach her not to try and push him out of her mind.

The mind HE helped forge from nothing.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq_49BXGqHY

She looked between his hand wrapped around her outstretched palm and the horizon, feeling her body respond as he used his touch to heighten the effect of his words. She could feel a low rise of what she thought was anger from him as he explained himself and she quailed under that emotion. She didn’t want him angry with her – but she did not agree. She shocked herself with the revelation, the total dissolving for even a second of the faith she’d come to find in the man who’d shown her the way to her true self – to her superior self. She didn’t want it and when he gave her a choice she latched on eagerly.

Fight him, or pull the ship from the sky, killing dozens – perhaps hundreds – of innocents.

The second was the obvious choice for more than one reason. The last thing Matsu wanted in that moment was to fight Krius. She wanted resolution, reconnection, to forget that she had ever for even one moment doubted him. If she used the power he’d shown her to pull down the ship she’d remind herself of what it was that had gotten her here, who had shown her who she truly was. And…the murder of the innocent had never been what made Matsu balk. It had never been about the petty battle between good and evil, right and wrong. Couldn’t those without access to the depths of power she plumbed have their usefulness? Her head was burning, felt almost physically pained by so much wondering and she had to stop.

Matsu stepped towards the edge of the cliff, watching the lazy tilt of the water around the edges of the spaceport and thinking of that depth inside her, the well of power that she’d come to compare to the ocean as she closed her eyes and drifted.

The stretch of ocean no one ever swims over.​

The depths that no civilization built within.​

Her, alone, with the monsters and beasts that never saw the light of day.​

And when she opened her eyes again the ship had lifted from the port below, wavering for a moment before climbing through the atmosphere steadily. The breeze off the ocean far below them reached up and tangled its fingers through her hair, pulling thick dark locks over her shoulders and whipping around her cheeks as she lifted her face to the sun and the ship.

She could let it go.
But instead she lifted her hand, palm wide, slender fingers outstretched and…pulled.

There was a lurching moan of metal from across the bay, a creaking protest as she tugged at the seams. The effort of it started crawling up her arm, a weight she wasn’t sure she could shoulder threatening failure. Failure? No. Her fingers curled in on her palm, tugging her arm down and – as if by strings – the entire ship twisted sideways in the air and she could feel…panic! Not her own but a flood from dozens of minds, clutching alien sensations of desperation and fear. With a wrench of her fist the thing righted itself once more and a snarl more animal than human escaped Matsu’s lips as she swept her hand wide and took the ship for her own. The effort was enormous and once more she thought she might lose it. But she wouldn’t let go and she let the power, that ocean inside of her, loose (waves hungry and unforgiving, her depths unknowable!), that snarl giving way to a scream, lips curling back on her fangs as her ecstasy tore up through her body and her eyes went wide with the adrenaline, looking the picture of feral madness. (And she, at the very bottom of that ocean that was hers and hers alone, opened yellow-rimmed eyes! Reborn, reborn again and again and again, SET. ME. FREE!) And then, with as impressive a splash as the water Krius molded in to the air, the ship impacted with the cliff side some ways off, shaking the ground they stood on with the force she'd thrown behind the shuttle. Fire and smoke billowed in to the air as pieces of the shuttle toppled down in to the sea, hissing booms of hot, massive shrapnel hitting the water sounding off behind her as she turned to Krius.

She’d lost her breath somewhere between the scream and the effort but her eyes were wild with her power. “For you,” she said, holding out her hand to the smoking wreck of a cliff side behind her, her tone indicating none of the doubt that seemed to make him sharper with her.

If she could do that, she could keep him out of her mind.
She’d make sure of it.

[member="Krius Syonis"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Letting his words sink in, Krius took one step back, crossed his left arm across his chest and gently rested his head in his right hand, toying gently with his chin as he waited. He gave no emotion; no sign of what he would prefer her to do. This choice was hers.

Should she want to fight him, he would make sure she tapped into the feral power inside her very soul to teach her that no-one should be under-estimated and trusted, not even he, Krius Syonis, the man who had become closer to her both physically and mentally than he dare dreamed for. If the fight was there, it would be over quickly and be one more step forward for Matsu to not listen to her heart, but to her head.

He watched her slender body, hair tickled by the breeze, and was pleased when she turned towards the ocean and the slowly climbing hulking mass of metal creeping into the atmosphere. Higher it climbed, the jet stream from the 3 large engines painting a trail upwards in the dusk.

With her solid stance and focused mind came the moment he had waited for - the kill.

He watched her manipulate the ship in a terrifying arc down from it's flight path, his mind full of the screams and cries from the beings inside. Some Force users on board were simply collateral damage. Her scream of sheer frustration caused her power to increase, and the ship dissolved effortlessly and pleasantly into the rock face, swallowed by a fiery explosion and thick black smoke, bellowing upwards in a twisting dance with the fire.

Krius didn't smile or voice his joy because this was a menial task, a small matter of using her mind to focus on something other than preventing him from connecting with her. And whilst her focus had been on serving his wish, she had failed to learn not to totally switch of her mind from her surroundings.

As she murdered of all those unimportant beings, Krius had seen inside her mind.

Reborn, reborn again and again and again...

Matsu wants to become more than she is letting on, but something is holding her back. And that something is her own mind; her own mind working against me...

His fingers gently dug into the soft flesh under his bottom lip as she offered her sacrifice to him across the waters below, thick with flame, twisted metal and smoke.

This creature can be something so wonderful, so powerful and she can have everything she ever dreams. But in doing so, one thing is becoming clear; To have everything, she must first lose everything...

A pained smile crossed his lips and he nodded softly, his heart racing.

"Too easy for your my dear Matsu. But once more, an extraordinary display."

She must first lose everything...

"Thank you for showing me. Why don't we go inside for a while, night is drawing in. We should soon be on our way."

He slowly raised his hand out to her, beckoning her to take his palm.


[member="Matsu Xiangu"]