Invasion Rains of Contruumere [One Sith vs GR Invasion of Contruum]

[Vexen]

The slow patter of water dripping from her fur was accompanied by the sound of her rapid, shallow breathing. Vexen didn't understand a lot of things and the medical terminology the droid had spouted was beyond her. One thing she did know was that it wasn't best to spray a medical room with water tainted with mud, sweat and blood. So a small nose poked around the edge of the doorway, as she watched Micah place his mother down on the bed with great care. She was pale, her breathing slow. Vexen could sense her conciousness, buried deep down away from the surface.

She knew she should have stayed silent, let him work, but she couldn't help but ask: "What's wrong with her?" Her long face scrunched up in concern as it bobbed from side to side, betraying her agitation. She'd never sensed Micah this het up before. He always knew what was best. If he was concerned Kira was in very real danger. She had always seemed such a kind and easygoing soul to Vexen. Micah seemed to inherit that from her; it certainly didn't come from his father.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]
[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]
[member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"] [member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

Fear could kill.

Fear could lash through one’s being like ice shards, slicing deep to paralyze the soul.

Micah knew fear, it was the fear of loss. The fear of losing a loved one. The fear of their death.

Death was the natural order of things. All beings would meet their end one way or another. It was the cycle of life. From birth, all were destined for death. For some, like Micah, his sisters, and his father, death would come at a slower rate. Not as delayed like his great Oma, but there would be a notable difference.

His mother, on the other hand, would cross into the Force far earlier than that.

She was human. Her longevity subject to her human genetics and the Lightside of the Force. Regardless of how much that would extend her life, it would not be a fraction of what his father’s would be. He saw it in every year his mother aged and his father remained the same. He understood it. He knew of his mother’s heart and where she sat on that issue.

It didn’t mean he liked it.

So when faced with the bloodied, pallid visage of his all too still mother, Micah felt fear. It burned through his veins, trepidation acid on his skin.

“Amphistaff venom, Vex,” Micah’s rough voice would echo through the voice modulator of his helm. Brushing the length of blood caked and muddy blonde hair from Kira’s face, he turned to the Defel.

“We need to get her stabilized.” He immediately began to pull off his gauntlets, the clamp and clicking of the phrik echoing within the small medbay. Tossing them to the side, he worked at the clamps of his helm. A jerk of his hand would pull it off of his head, revealing a sweat soaked visage, a day’s growth of stubble, and bright orange eyes framed by a mop of damp unruly hair.

Clunk, went the helm, tossed along the floor as it gave a roll.

The ship gave another shudder, and Micah gave a grimace.

“Go get us home Vex.” he told her. He had taught her how to use the navigation computer before. Where the presets were. The Talith had little skill with piloting, but Kalee’s Shadow had a wealth of advanced computer and navigation systems that could get them from place to place. Not to mention the piloting droid.

His hands gave a subtle tremble as they cupped his mother’s face, checking for breathing. Gone was the laidback young man that would always carry a cheerful smile. In his place was a rather harrowed looking Micah attempting to use what small knowledge of the Force his Aunt Amorella, the former Goddess Inari the Reviver, had once showed him long ago.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"]

The air turned blue in the wake of the darting shadow that made for the bridge. Growing up on the periphery of society she had met Micah with perhaps a greater vocabulary of profanities than polite adjectives. One paw snatched at the back of one of the chairs to slow herself. Her claws accidentally ripped the leather back chair. Deft hands moved across controls with an assuredness she rarely showed. The sense of peril brought a focus that overcame her lack of time at the helm.

"Motherkriffingrancorgristle!" she growled as she looked over the holodisplay. That was a lot of little red dots. She tapped at the controls until she altered the course to find the path of least resistance. Navigating a three dimensional maze was something of an inherent trait. In her mind she simply visualised the dense clouds of red as solid objects and imagined weaving a path through. Still the view of space crackled blue as a stray fighter decided to follow in their wake and throw them a few pot-shots. Vexen hadn't asked how Micah's father was going to escape. Given how he had arrived, she assumed he could go back the same way.

Despite her practise she was no skilled pilot. She didn't even attempt serious evasive manoeuvres as the fighter trailed them. One paw slammed into the lateral thrust controls whilst the other slowly turned the nose back against the turn. It was enough just to give them a few moments break. By the time the fighter had realigned they were free of the gravitational pull. Shields flared as laser blasts lanced across space the lash across the fields, but it was too late. Stars stretched out to infinity as they slipped out of realspace.

It was just a dummy hop into deep space. Risky, but preferable to pointing at a known hyperspace lane. Space was really, really big. A blind jump threw off pursuit. Vexen didn't really understand this, but she;d been told to do it in the circumstances. They dropped back into real space a few seconds later, well outside of the system. A few more keys and the computer was set to calculate a route back to safety and to take control. Vexen barely waited for the acknowledgement before sprinting back down the corridors.

Once again she found herself standing on that threshold, peering in. An outsider to proceedings with no means of offering assistance. "How is she?" she asked quietly.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

This time he reacted.

The strings had already begun to be cut, sliced through one by one. At times he seemed to carve through them, a heavy handed cutting through knotted rope with little more then a butchers blade. When she began to move the strings began to tighten, becoming more taught and difficult to cut. His lips thinned, and slowly his muscles began to flex. The force around him shifted, the cutting of the strings slowed, and suddenly Soliael jumped into the air.

He bounded back and over the blade that went for his knees, flipping once and allowing the plasma blade to fly harmlessly through the air.

His bare feet landed with a splash in a puddle of mud as he came down, the whirring blade of plasma boomeranging back behind him and turning towards his form just as Ophidia charged towards him. Three steps, two steps, one step, and suddenly she was before him. Soliael's form seemed to shift for half a second, his body gathering a haze about it before suddenly the force exploded out from him in a violent wave. A burst, a repulse carried out from him, mud, water, the lightsaber behind his back, and hopefully Ophidia would go flying back as Soliael released a torrential wave of power.

It took him but half a second after the force repulse to quickly seize the strings once more and beginning to cut again.

This time he would work faster, his face contorting as the ring upon his hand began to burn and sizzle with power.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

She had expected him to jump the first blade, hence the second strike. Rather than the faint resistance of flesh, she was met with a wave of Force power, knocking her back. Her helmet and her breastplate absorbed much of the shock, as part of their design. She flew a few metres back and, using the momentum, managed to roll up on her feet quickly. The red blade in her hand seared the mud, sending plumes of steam and smoke. Her boots bit into the mud, securing her foothold once again.

The tingle on Ophidia’s back intensified, but she was not deterred nor intimidated. Swiftly, her telekinetic hold grasped the second lightsabre, similarly launched back by Soliael’s repulse. The tsaisibola clinging to her leg slithered down to her foot, a head cloaked in active camouflage peered out from the hem of her robe, identifying its target.

With a swift kick, the assassin seemingly flicked mud from the ground at Soliael, and from her foot launched the tsaisibola with fangs bared. It shot off from her foot like a spring and flattened its body to float through the air and sink its teeth into the general groin area of the man before her. Meanwhile, her left hand pulled back, drawing the floating, active lightsabre back against Soliael in a swift thrust from the left shoulder, aimed roughly at the shoulder blade.

Once more, Ophidia charged from the front, using her swiftness to make her strike ambiguous, she would shift her trajectory until the last second and come in with a diagonal swipe from the lower right. Her bladework was quick and precise, much like the serpentine creatures she had modelled herself after.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

It was enough.

Micah and Vexen had taken Kira, they were off the battlefield and likely heading away from the planet by now. This fight could have gone on, it could have been prolonged, but Soliael had neither the time nor the patience for a longer fight. In ages past he simply would have eviscerated the woman as she came towards him, used the power of the darkside to tear her body apart molecule by molecule. Yet that was no longer who he was, it was no longer who his wife wanted him to be. Instead he would use a new kind of strength.

The ring on his hand flared with power, and suddenly Soliael once again tore reality asunder.

This time he appeared behind her, his arm appearing before anything else. The force flowed through him, the strings upon the Sith's back still taught. His own skin was prickling, his eyes were red, blood trickled from his ear as the force began to ravage his body. He cared not for the power he held, he cared not for the damage he was doing to himself, he cared only about getting to his wife's side. He could feel every inch of himself fill with power, could feel the force bite and snap at his body as he drew upon too much of that sweet strength.

As soon as Soliael reappeared his hand scrunched together, fingers curling as invisible chains would move to wrap around Ophidia. He would grasp at her and wrench her back, pulling and hopefully whipping her back in a succinct pull. Soliael would attempt to throw her to the ground and then finally sever the string that held onto her back, cutting her connection to the darkside of the force.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

One should not pull the same trick too many times, and even if Ophidia was preoccupied with her attack, she was not so blinded by her fury as to not see him disappearing once again. As an assassin, she knew where people tend to go when they want to get the drop on an opponent, and the Force screamed at her in affirmative warning.

The moment he vanished, the Rattataki dropped her attack and buried her heel in the mud to give herself the traction she needed in order to whip around and act. She felt the invisible chains wrap around her and tug to yank her onto her back. However, as the grip tightened on her, she released a repulse of sheer self-preservation. Every ounce of will in her body went into breaking the chains and lashing out with an explosion of lightning-laced Force. From her mouth, she released a primal scream of hatred, which crackled through, warped by her helmet into something inhumanoid.

Meanwhile, the Tsaisibola bit through nothing but air and landed in the mud, skidding around and once more adopting the colour of the dirt. Released from Ophidia’s influence, the second lightsabre tumbled into the mud and shut down. In her reaction, she had also let go of the sabre in her hand, which too fell into the dirt and retracted its’ blade.

If, for a moment she was free of Soliael’s grip, then her left hand would lash out towards Soliael. From a fold in her sleeve, the Nagajj would emerge in a swift bite against the man. Baring its’ fangs of deadly venom. Her breath would be ragged, her resources exhausted, but she would not yield nor surrender.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

Soliael had fought against the Vong before, what seemed like an age ago. The Horde, they had called themselves then. Now they were called the Legion, or perhaps the Hrosha-Gul, Soliael didn't know anymore. Either way, he knew their tricks. The creature bounded towards him, jumping and snapping it jaws. The false god shifted, his eyes becoming weary as a wave of the force burst from the woman. His hands shifted, palm fluttering out just as his leg kicked up.

His foot impacted against the creature, kicking it away and sending it flying into the mud. Venom dripped from his foot, though his skin remained unbroken.

Half a second later he felt a burst of the force finally hit him, his body flying back as he skidded through the mud. His teeth barred, blood still trickling from his ear and dirt now covering his bare chest. Pain lanced through his body as he hunched over slightly. The force was still within him, still burning his skin but protecting it at the same time. Perhaps he had taken too much power, perhaps he had gotten carried away. The thought of his wife, injured and broken, the idea of finishing this woman without killing her. Soliael remembered a time where he had eviscerated a man with a wave of his hand, torn apart a fortress with a single snap of his fingers.

The darkside had always been more powerful, had always been stronger.

Then again, death was easy.

Soliael stood to his full height, stretched tall. The force once again seized at him, gripping him as his hand came up. The air around her would sizzle, her hair would begin to stand up, the storm around them would once again begin to still. His mind was singular now, focused. He had to finish this. His palm dropped down, the force calling upon the storm above. Lightning would strike down onto the woman, called down by the force.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

There was only so much Micah could do within the medbay of the Shadow. Having never actually interacted with the Yuuzhan Vong, the Micah didn't know what he could do. However, he could at the very least slow down the metabolic rate of his mother's body. If he could get her stabilized and remove a much of the venom as possible...

Well, then he could let his Aunt handle the rest.

His eyes were clenched tightly, his focus upon his mother's form. He could feel more than hear Vex's questions of concern, and his lips drew to a thin line.

"She's strong. I'm slowing the poison as much as I can..." he told her, his voice gruff. "But we need to get her to Borleias as soon as possible." thank Inari that they were not too far off. They could travel quickly through the Parlemian Trade Route, then head north to Borleias. The venom was working through her body, and Micah didn't know how long she had. Not to mention his father...

Well, if anything, his father would know where they were going. Not to mention, if there was anyone who could take care of himself, it was he.

There was no one more powerful in the Talith family than he.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"]

She nodded once and grunted her affirmation. The shade sped back off to the cockpit and returned a few minutes later having convinced the computer to modify the course for Borleais. Computers didn't always seem to want to do as she told them for some reason, but she was learning. Staying just outside the medical bay she twitched anxiously. Eventually she shoved her paws under her arms just to stop them fidgeting. The slender woman was looking very pale, her life force faint. Vexen could sense those tendrils that connected Micah to his flesh and blood as he tried to help. She could sense his pain and his grim determination. Yet there was nothing she could do.

There was a short, stuttered sigh. She spent so much time learning, trying to fit into a world she hadn't even known existed. Back at the space port she'd helped a little, but she would always be something of a passenger on their adventures. That she accepted. But this feeling of helplessness was frustrating. Her teeth ground and her lips curled in a snarl as frustration turned to anger at whomever had done this to Kira. Why would anyone ever want to hurt her? Those soldiers held no qualms about shooting at the four of them though, and they didn't know them at all.

Those delicate tendrils seemed like grey wisps to her mind's eye. Vexen focussed on the Force as she felt Micah's resolve falter for a moment. There was a touch of fear, but also something more basic: exhaustion. Those threads didn't just connect Micah to his mother. There were others; they were more faint. Possibly because how Micah focussed on that connection to aid his dying mother. Death seemed to follow Vexen wherever she went, she reflected.

Vexen's emotions tapered off as she found something to focus on: following threads. There it was, that ever-present connection between them. Vexen sat on the floor before her concentration on the Force caused a lapse in the physical world and she fell.

I'll help

It took her a moment, but she instinctively knew she could do this. He'd done it before, when they'd trained, to help her on little tasks. The little defel didn't have great reserves, but what strength she had, she lent him. What resolve she could bolster, she would with encouraging thoughts.

She'll be ok

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

It was a familiar sensation. Micah and Aela had once done this in the past, back when they first discovered a lost world. They had combined their powers to be able to guide themselves through the mists. This was different, yet still the same. While Vex didn't was still young in the Force, her complete willingness to give and aide as much as she could was a welcomed sensation.

Truth be told, it brought tears to Micah's eyes. His eyes stun under their tight clench, his hands still hovering over his mother to help stabilize her.

But there, in the quiet, Micah's hoarse tenor would state the following.

"Thank you."

 

[Vexen]

A monotonous drone roused Vexen from her reverie. She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the ship was about to revert to realspace. Micah stayed stock still, looming over his mother's prone form. Her skin was still pallid, her life force weak.

Vexen took a first tentative step. Her right paw shot out with incredible speed to stop her from falling. There she stayed, propped up by the bulkhead for a few moments until the dizziness abated.

Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs she took a few more certain steps. She pondered for a moment, before risking the disturbance to his concentration.

“Where are we setting down she asked?” Once he responded she would head to the cockpit, though perhaps grabbing a sugary bottle of juice on the way to replenish her reserves.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

Micah was visibly worn, his normally tanned skin pale, the bright orange of his eyes stark against his blanched skin. He was tired, weary. He had used as much of his power and every bit of training learned under his aunt’s care to stabilize his mother.

“My aunt’s home,” he told her, his voice gruff and hoarse. There were dark purple crescents under his eyes, and a thought came to him that he should contact Aela, Maleah, and Kai. Once we get her to Aunt Amore’s, he thought to himself.

“It’s one of the nearby islands.” he told her, taking a step back with a half stumble. “Should be a quick plug and navigate.” He sank down with the weight of the ‘verse on his shoulders. “Aunt Amorella.”

From here on out, it was all up in her hands.

There was nothing else Micah could do but wait.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Both her serpents now lay in the mud. One, the Tsaisibola, hidden by its active camouflage. The other, the Nagajj, was kicked through the air and landed in the wet mud with a light thud and splashing of water. After a moment of gathering itself, it slithered away through the mud, seeking a better vantage point from which to attack. The Tsaisibola remained hidden, watching until given further orders.

Ophidia fell to one knee and drew a gasping breath through the filters of her helmet. Her eyes kept set on Soliael, and while she took a knee and was visibly fatigued, she did not seem quite out of the fight. There was a desperation deep in her soul that kept her going. She knew she could be drawing on her last reserves, but she would face the consequences as she had lived her life: Defiant to the very end.

Ophidia gathered what she had of strength, held together by the force of self-preservation. Her fingers curled into talon-like forms while her skin crawled and prickled. If she had hair at all, then they would have stood on end. Her hands darted up above her head. She was not going to attempt to avoid the lightning strike; her legs were far too exhausted to move her at any decent speed.

Instead, she opened herself like a conductor. Taking the lightning strike, she tried to absorb its power through Tutaminis and then launch it at Soliael in a wide, violent torrent of lightning. Again, she screamed. This time, it was in agony as the energy she could not absorb and redirect coursed through her body. Plumes of smoke arose from her clothes as the fabrics were singed. Arcs of electricity riddled her form and lashed out left and right like snapping serpents. Sparks flew from the electronics of her armour as it was overloaded with electricity. Where the power coursed the strongest, her skin cracked and burned in strange wounds as only nature itself could create. Her fingers blackened and blood now seeped into her clothes.

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

In that moment he thought of his children.

Aela, Maleah, Micah, Kaili, the names that they went by for most. They were his progeny, his legend, his everything. They were all skilled in their own way, they all held some sort of power, strength that they called their own. Kaili had taken most after him, her skills in technomancy having grown to enormous heights. Maleah had taken after his mother, her love of beasts came as naturally to her as their control. Micah had taken a piece of his father, his ability to track and see things that many others would miss, and Aela...Aela had taken after both of her parents.

An odd mixture of skills and strengths, though a master of a technique that both he and her mother had taught her.

It was that technique that Soliael called upon.

Aela had always used it for defense, had always tried her best to not harm others. Soliael...Soliael had not. He recalled the battles against the Horde, the fight above the Silken Asteroid. He remembered the mercenary he had fought there, the explosions that the man had caused. He remembered what he had done then, and he did the same now. It was a simple matter really, he had the force, he had been standing still, all it took was a whim.

In the same instance that Ophidia lashed out, Soliael twisted his hands. An opaque bubble would form around the stationary woman, a sphere of red and blue interlaced within itself that would quickly encapsulate her in her own little storm.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Trapped inside the bubble, the electricity had nowhere to go. The electricity bounced off the opaque walls and back at its source. The entire bubble illuminated from the coursing energy within as the Sith Lord was stuck with the full attack. Some of it, she managed to send into the ground and disperse, some she attempted to absorb and contain, but the damage dealt to her was impossible to neglect. Her body was smoking, her skin covered in wounds as the electricity tore through her skin, the bubble filled with the scent of burnt flesh as she fell into the mud.

However, they were not alone on this battlefield. The One Sith and their armies were purging the planet, and with the sudden silence of a squad earlier, reinforcements were inevitable. While Darth Ophidia was capsuled in the bubble and left to roast, streaks of red plasma would rain down in the direction of Soliael. They had no aim to free the trapped Sith. Rather, they would utilise her situation to hurt or kill an enemy of the Empire. It was assumed that a man of his power and obvious opposition meant they would be well rewarded if they could kill him. Money and glory were powerful incentives, especially when they had strength in numbers and a rush of victory.

As Ophidia had fallen into the dirt, her vision becoming unfocused and steadily darker, she reached for the lightsabre hilt next to her. Her fingers curled around it as her body jerked uncontrollably. She lost consciousness as her fingers clenched around the cylinder; her heartbeat slowed down to a near stop; her ragged breathing became near non-existent. She was out of the fight and in dire need of medical attention.

Failure.

[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

He hadn't forgotten them, hadn't thought himself safe. He had seen Micah and Vexen run, he had seen those who tried to stop them and he had anticipated the arrival of more soldiers. The Sith had won Contruum. Another world of the Republic that had fallen, another planet that was to be burned to ash.

It was the way of the things, for now.

The Sith took what they pleased, the Republic fell back, and the galaxy feared the next step. He remembered when it had been this way before, he remembered the Sith Empire attacks on the Mandalorians, the Republic. He remembered it well, he had been apart of it, but he also remembered it's fall. The Republic eventually pushed back, pressed through the Empire and tore it to ribbons. It was an inevitability, much like death itself. Soliael knew that, he expected it. Many in the Senate would disagree with him, though he considered them blind.

As the troopers closed, as their weapons began to hum, as the heat of the storm began to press all around them Soliael reached out one last time.

His thoughts would press against the Sith's, his mind enveloping hers, his voice calling out to her with a simple, domineering thought. Harm them, go near them, even try to find them, and I will obliterate you. I will take away everything you hold precious. I will sear the soul from your body, tear the thoughts from your mind, I will take your power and leave you a blubbering fool. Hurt my family again and I will ensure that you are rendered but a shade of yourself. Everything you are, everything you wish to be will be taken away. Remember that.

Ice would echo through her skull, searing red plasma would fill the air, and then suddenly Soliael was gone.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

In the dark that took her, Darth Ophidia heard Soliael's threat. His voice was seemingly omnipresent and for a moment she was confused until the memories of her situation became apparent. She looked down and saw her beaten body upon the soil, the two serpents in the mud slithering to her side and hissing protectively while the plasma rained down in chase of Soliael. The Rattataki looked at her hands, dripping with a phantom blood, and then at the vanishing Talith. A wicked smile spread upon her lips. Next time, she would be stronger, faster, better; next time she would be ready.

In the back of her mind she heard a familiar laugh, one she had not heard since the first days of her knighthood. If Soliael's voice was likened to ice, then this was like the void. A tingle spread over her phantasmal back as smoke coiled up along it and draped over her shoulder. Laughing, red eyes and pale white teeth bared as the smoke chuckled into her ear and whispered.

​

Char Ophidia, minjo j’us waria tutidrasi.​

As medical personnel rushed over and checked her near-lifeless body, the smoke cleared and her spirit merged with her body once more. Her gear was collected, and she was brought to a medical ship for intensive bacta-treatment. The medics were unsure whether or not she would make any recovery, but the health-benefits of Sith Lords were considerable. Even so, she would suffer quite the scarring.