Powering Up On Bakura

[Sheff Zee]

The Sith Knight that was Lord Phobos was on the first levels of the abandoned power station on Bakura. It made for an ideal ambush. He had released information to the underworld that there were slaves being smuggled to the planet, and to be sold into slavery, and those who weren't would be going to the Sith Organizations. Maybe not that in depth, but it had been hinted to anyway.

It was a trap to gather Jedi in a single place, and then blow up the place. That's why he had brought explosives with him and had set them in the basement of the power station, next to the supports that held up the floors and the whole of the infrastructure. It was mostly as a last ditch attempt to escape the place if there was a Jedi Master, rather than someone upon his skill level. He may have been a Sith and boasted of skill half the time, but that had been with people that hadn't known their own limits, or with people who he knew he could beat.

A certain Sith Apprentice from the New Order sprang to mind. But that was in the past, back when he had been an Apprentice too. No matter how recent that was.

He was sat down in the open doorway of the power station, black cylindrical lightsaber upon his knees. Aeon Estillion Caedus knew he was ready.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

Calico had many, many sources from his days as Grand Marshal of the Confederacy. He had run an extensive and intricately detailed spy network leeching into the seediest corners of the galaxy. This network had followed him into the Liberty Concord, and then to the Omega Protectorate. Now it served him well as he hunted down and executed Sith of the New Order for sport. His son, his brother, his fiance, his entire government, all gone because of another religious movement.

It was this that brought him to Bakura. There was a small rumor going about that the slaves here would possibly be delivered to the Sith. One of those slaves could be his son--and even the smallest tidbits of information warranted an investigation. He now strode forbiddingly toward the entrance of the power station the slaves were said to be traded in. He was a large, imposing figure in full armor; marked in tribal paints across its many surfaces. A DC-17 rifle hung in his hands; a scattergun's muzzle set over the normal barrel. The weapon had been optimized for close range.
Perhaps the most intimidating bit of weaponry he carried was the foot long, red, thorned vibroblade attached to his arm plate. It was ready to spring out at a moment's notice. He paused mid-step as he noticed the figure sitting in the doorway. "You are?"

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

His eyes opened up, and instead of the daunting yellow-golden eyes that most Sith carried, his were a penetrating icy blue colour. Though it did seem as if there was enough rage to outshine the suns of Tatooine within them. He stood up and grasped his lightsaber a little tighter when he saw his enemy.

What kind of Jedi is this?

It didn't matter, the crimson beam from the lightsaber was ignited and he pointed it at the one he suspected as a Jedi. "You have no need to hide your presence from me, Jidai. You will die soon enough, my name is Lord Phobos, the last name you will hear in your life." He replied, and his right hand, the hand that hadn't been cut off by Darth Ferus released the force push straight to the Mercenary.

Sadly, he didn't know he didn't have the force, and that he was wasting his power. "Who are you?"

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

Calico stared silently from behind his visor as the man exerted a kinetic push against him. He simply stood there, and continued to stare, evaluating the young man. A Sith, clearly, and expecting a--what was that, a Jidai? If only Calico knew just how fate ran in such a full circle. For here, before him, stood the Apprentice of a Sith Lord he had once seen as a trusted friend and comrade. The galaxy had a way of connecting things.
"You're just another Sith then. I've preached and preached as much as I possibly could have, but you lads never listen." He brought his DC up to train at the young man's midriff. "Your masters are using you like they use everything else. You're a tool, a slave, and you people enjoy it." His tone was sharp and full of acid. It was clear the man had an inherent dislike for Sith.

His scattergun popped loudly, and it spat a spread of azure laserfire outward toward the Sith Lord. "I am Calico Tal'verda, by the way."

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

The man spoke of how he enjoyed being a slave, and a tool. It may have been true, at least part of it, the tool part. Though he wasn't a tool for the New Order, he was a tool for his true Master, Nemene Talith one of the two Queens of Rattatak. Both of them he could consider his Masters, although Nemene Talith had made him what he was today.

A being that felt no pain, after all of the torturing sessions she had forced him into. And he moved faster than he could ever imagine, though Nemene Talith still moved faster than him. He was determined to kill her one day though.

He dived to the side, out of view of the Clone-turned Mercenary, though not without taking wounds along his torso. One of the slug rounds had torn through his side, though it had been a clean hit, and didn't clot the blood to stop the blood flow. The other two that had hit him had just left bruising, though he was certain that if it hadn't been for his quick impulses he would have died.

Getting back up to his feet, hidden by the door, he tried to sense for his opponent.

He couldn't. This man wasn't a Jedi then, but he would die all the same. Even with the wound, he continued down the corridor - staying along the side so he couldn't be seen until the Mercenary actually came inside, he tried to get to the door at the end of the hallway. He turned around however, and threw his lightsaber straight towards the Mercenary, it was force guided and it wasn't the regular saberthrow with the spinning.

It moved straight for it's target. Centre mass.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

Calico felt a pang of satisfaction at the sight of the Sith's blood. It was unhealthy, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He felt the need to rejoice when the Sith felt the pain inflicted upon his people. Upon his sons, his brothers, all of them. He quickly thumbed in another power pack; the slug-thrower attachment was powerful, but it was a one shot reload. Something that often cost a lot more time than he would have liked.

It was, in fact, this very thing that made the warrior slip up. He noticed the glowing crimson light arcing toward him too late. The former Commando did his best to twist away from the thing, but he simply wasn't flexible enough. The blade carved through his shields, his armor, and cut a burning gash out of his left side. The wound was instantly cauterized, and Calico immediately ripped the weapon from his midriff. He held back a scream as he threw the black hilt as far away from the power plant as possible, but oh, by all that was holy, did he hurt.

A red warning light flashed across his visor, and the intense pain made his vitals spike. He wasn't old, nor was he unhealthy, but the possibility of a seizure was certainly real. He wasn't bleeding, and no vitals had been pierced, but the hole in his sides would certainly hinder him. Biting down hard enough into his lower lip that it drew blood, Calico stalked up to the doorway. He set his weight against the outer wall, reached into his belt, and pulled away one of three frag grenades from a locked metal pouch. He thumbed the activation, and tossed it down the corridor. It was a standard breach, just in case the Sith had stuck around a bit too close.

"Enjoy that,di'kut."

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

Aeon Caedus was arrogant, and he always had to win. He even had to make sure that the people he tried to kill were dead. That's why he had stayed almost three quarters to one of he doors that would take him into a staircase and watched if his lightsaber harmed the man. It had, and his triumph had been evident within the Force.

It had all died down however when he saw the man grabbing for one of his grenades. Aeon was ready. When the grenade had come down the hallway, he wrapped the Force around it. It was a powerful force bubble that formed onto it, and it shrunk just before the grenade blew up. But when the grenade blew up, the shield didn't hold, and even though the most dangerous part of the blast had been maintained, some of the shrapnel still flew in every single direction.

He brought his left hand up, his cybernetic hand to cover his face, and he heard the sound of some of the metal sinking into the cybernetic hand. He knew he would have torn his tongue apart from the pain. For, he wasn't the type of person to be hurting from the big wounds, yes, they hurt quite a bit. But it was the smaller wounds that were the annoying ones, the ones that were always making themselves present in the back of your mind and you couldn't help but look at them. It was aggravating to say the least that there was now metal pieces in his cybernetic hand.

When he tried to clench, he felt as if the largest piece was impeding one of the mechanisms in his wrist. He frowned, but he continued on his way. He realized it would have been better to shoot the grenade back at his enemy, but it was too late now. The damage had been down, and finally he threw himself into the stairwell that would lean upstairs or downstairs.

For now, he went upstairs. Now he decided it was better to go up rather than down. If he blew up the charges in the basement, then he would surely die along with them if he was down there. If he was up top when he blew them, then perhaps he'd actually have a living chance.

So he took the steps one at a time, and with his right hand, the only hand that could use the Force, he drew his durasteel falcata. The only weapon that he had left, that he actually knew how to use. He of course always brought the slugthrower pistol that was strapped to his chest holster, but he never used it because he wasn't trained well enough. For some reason, he thought they'd get to that in their bout.

"Whatever reason you're here for, it's too late. The slaves are dead." He spat out and barked in laughter as he climbed. The sound of the laugh echoing as he trailed blood upwards.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

The grenade had seemingly failed to do the job. Then again, things tended to go that way when Sith were involved. Calico slumped against the wall, and took in a deep breath. This was going to hurt. He blinked three times at the icon in the top right of his helmet. Almost instantly, it felt as if dozens of little spines were drilling into the veins on his arms. That was, of course, because they were. Tiny bacta injectors sent the healing liquid up and into his arms; nullifying the pain to a bearable level for the moment.

He had managed to pry himself off the wall when he heard the Sith's comment; followed by the laughter. Well, that confirmed things. Zius wasn't here--The Sith wouldn't just kill him, he was too valuable--which meant there was nothing for Calico to worry about. Realistically, he could just leave, but that would leave the Sith Lord to cause more issues for innocent people. The warrior snapped the anti-ordnance firing attachment onto his DC-17, and slid in an anti-infantry round. He called back all deadpan seriousness. "My team is only here to put you down, kid. You've cornered yourself, kriffing idiot!" He bluffed. The man couldn't sense him; perhaps he would think Calico had brought a full team with the same attributes as himself.

He knew if the boy rushed him he would likely be killed. His ability to fight with a sword in his condition was less than favorable. He would have to settle on trickery and cheap tactics to win, and that tended to work rather well. He paused a few paces away from the steps, and put a rough estimate to the Sith Lord's position by the sound of the boy's voice. Upstairs. He leveled his rifle up at the ceiling where the stairs met it, stumbled back two feet, and let the round go. The cone shaped piece of metal slammed into the ceiling, and exploded in a violent display of flame. The blast threw calico on his backside, and made his wound flare up once more. The staircase began to crumble inward, and a large portion of the ceiling had been reduced to rubble. There went his only explosive round.

Shoulda brought more, shab.

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

"It's a shame they're all going to die." He called out to the Mercenary just as a cone-shaped projectile shot past his face and upwards to the roof. From the angle he was on, he saw it explode, but his proximity sent him back down the stairs and into a wall. He heard something crack behind him, but he knew it wasn't his back.

Aeon still felt his legs.

But before he could stand up again, he was forced to wrap a shield around himself. He felt the ground shifting underneath him and he slipped on the blood slicked floor. Just as a rock the size of his head took his place. He saw his enemy for a moment as he fell, leaning against the wall, and his right hand was pointed towards him, and released the force push as a rock came into alignment.

Then he fell to the lower levels.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

Well, that was a lot more successful than Calico expected. He watched the Sith fall with a satisfied little smirk. "Enjoy the basement." He grumbled as he began to switch the Deece back to its primary firing mode. He didn't notice the head sized rock shooting toward him like a missile. The piece of rubble crashed into his rifle, and then his chest. The force behind it sent him sprawling back against the wall, and forced all the air from his lungs.

He sat there trying desperately to claim a breath. One finally came, and he held a hand up to his chest out of instinct. His DC-17 lay a few feet away; a massive bump going right through its midsection. Calico was lucky the power pack hadn't exploded. He grumbled a quiet curse to himself and began to slowly rise up to his feet. A spiking pain shot through his chest and his left side; it was all the warrior could do not to topple over. He reached for his sidearm, and old DC-15 model, and thumbed the safety.

The Sith had never claimed his lightsaber, and something in the back of Calico's mind told him the di'kut wasn't dead. He would be coming back up. Thus, Calico leaned back against the wall, weapon trained on the hole that was once the staircase. It was the only way back up to this floor that he knew about--and Sith were rather good at jumping to high places.

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

His form had rolled away from the 'cave-in' though he was still on several sharp rocks. He felt the light cuts and struggled back up to his feet. Some stray rocks continued to fall in as he pulled the shrapnel from the grenade out of his hand. It took time and while he did that, he used the force to heal most of his wounds, to the best of his abilities.

He felt the slugthrower pistol still on his chest and he drew it once he was ready. The slugs were the ones laced with detonite, so once he had achieved the best angle on his opponent he fired. The slugs weren't supposed to hit Calico, but just get as close as they could to him. Hopefully the miniature explosions would distract him long enough.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

((Sorry for taking long to post and short posts. Celebrating being home, was busy all day, had to sneak this in.)

Calico certainly hadn't expected something akin to frag rounds to start popping off above his head. He instinctively ducked, and stared up at rubble fell from the newly formed gouges in the wall. No, not expected at all. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and took a step toward the stairwell; pain coursing through him much to his displeasure.

The warrior blinked through dizzy vision, pointed his sidearm down the chasm, and fired repeatedly down into hit; hoping to hit something, anything.

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

He had been preparing to leap up and out of the hole once he had shot enough sots upwards, obviously he wasn't going to be able to jump out yet. The blaster bolts started to fly out around him and he tried his best to dodge around the shots. He avoided them for the most part, but he still summoned the Force to his form, and when the blaster bolt hit his hand, he tried to use the Force to absorb it as best he can.

It was Tutaminis, an ability that he had never used before, it was a raw ability, and it barely worked. The Force had absorbed the blaster bolt, but he still felt the pain, and his right hand was blackened beyond possible repair.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]

 

[Revenchent]

Then it was all calm. Calico toyed with the idea of jumping down to finish his opponent off, but in the back of his mind, he knew that was suicidal. He had internal trauma and a wound through his midriff that desperately needed treatment. He cursed internally, and backed off toward the entrance of the building. His sidearm was slipped back into its holster, and he pulled three the remaining frag grenades. The soldier thumbed the activation switches.

The small orbs began to give a dull whine.

And flew overhead toward the Sith Lord. Calico turned tossed the grenades, and turned to try and hobble back to his ship.

[member="Aeon Caedus"]

 

[Sheff Zee]

When his hand had been hit by the blaster bolt and absorbed most of it, he held the blackened husk close to his body and dragged his wounded form away from the hole in the ceiling. A few more levels down and he would have gotten to the explosives, but the caved in staircase blocked the rest of the staircase downwards. It was too late to go down there, but he always had a back up plan.

What kind of Sith would he be if he didn't?

He heard the sound of metal bouncing off of duracrete and turned around to see the grenades again, he was a good distance from the hole, one of the grenades bounced on the far side of the rubble, he was safe from that, another rolled in his general direction, and finally the last one had gone straight to him.

Still clutching his hand to his chest he got to his feet as fast as he could and half ran, half dragged himself across the floor and got away from the two grenades that were nearby to him.

He felt the shrapnel pierce several layers of his skin and flesh, only flesh wounds he had determined, but he had still been thrown from the two shockwaves and into a pillar, and when he had hit it, it had been his ribs that had found the pillar itself. He heard a faint cracking sound and he slumped onto the floor.

It hurt to breathe, but the inner rage within him kept him alive, the dark side of the Force worked upon treating him. The wounds within him couldn't be treated by the Force yet, he wasn't that powerful in the healing aspect of the Force. Not like his Master, but he planned to be. He was on the side that didn't have the open wound, but there were still bruises upon it. There was shrapnel all over the top section of his back and he screamed out, even if it hurt, and for every second that he continued to do it, it continued to grow in pitch.

The Force tore at his throat as he screamed, the finally kindled rage, the hatred for the Mercenary named Calico, the hatred of himself for having become this savage animal, the hatred for those who had pointed it out to him, just pure fury that needed to be unleashed. When he had been an Apprentice he had controlled his rage, he had been taught by Darth Ferus to do such a thing. It was an ability similar to Force Rage, but rather than utilizing all of your as fast as possible, it was decided by the user at how it was used, and quantity.

He used it again.

The Dark Side of the Force fuelled the healing process, he felt as if his vision was shaking from the continuous scream and then he stopped. His damaged cybernetic hand clenched the slugthrower. He didn't remember when it had swapped hands, but he did feel a warm liquid rolling down the edges of his facial features. He pointed it at the hole in the ceiling, daring the Mercenary to come through. Meanwhile, through his telepathic abilities he called for his usual bodyguards to come and fetch him. They were used to it by now to receive the telepathic messages, and they were only a few miles away. With the urgency that he called, they would be there in a few minutes.

[member="Calico Tal'Verda"]