Sifting Through The Soot [Darth Ophidia]

[Darth Carnifex]

​

​

Prakith
Deep Core

"Coming out of hyperspace, your majesty."

Space distorted around the towering luxury yacht as it reverted back into realspace, the smeared glow of distant stars dissipating into a thousand individual pinpricks of light that served as the backdrop for the orb of hate and fury that loomed just beyond the viewport. It had been too many years since he'd last laid his eyes upon the smoldering world, one hidden within the deepest recesses of the galaxy's Deep Core.

Here he had convened with a Dark Lord whom he had once considered great, powerful, and wise... But had soon come to realize was nothing more than another madman.

Carnifex, once Vornskr, would no longer serve any madman.

"Bring us down to the old Citadel, we'll start our search there." When the Galactic Alliance drove the One Sith from the Core worlds, they had occupied most of the Sith's fortresses in the region and rid them of dangerous artifacts and caches of armaments. Not even the One Sith's most holy world had been spared their desecration, but now that the Alliance had also been relegated to the history books by his new breed of Sith it was time to rifle through the ashes.

His eyes turned to face the other on the bridge, the one whom shadows bent to her will so easily. "Even now, the Dark Side still emanates from this world... Looks like the Jedi were incapable of ridding our influence despite their best efforts."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

As Darth Ophidia set eyes upon the core, much like the times she had looked upon it before, one could almost see the fire dance in her eyes - A memory of the days when she set fire to an empire that spanned these very worlds. She also recalled the times since then that she had visited old haunts, particularly this the most sacred world of Prakith. Every time, she was beset with purpose.

"The darkness of this world is old and rooted deep." "It cannot be undone by mere politics or ownership."

She set down the empty cup of tea on her droid's metal tray and waved him off. The droid looked somewhat miffed, but accepted his dismissal.

"Prakith is one the dark side of the Force."

This was why she returned to this place; it was away from the sith worlds, hidden away in the deep core. Yet, it retained an unquestionable darkness and impeccable heritage in the ways of the sith and the dark side.

If there was one place where the dark could arise again in the Core, it was here.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Aptly said, my friend. Aptly said."

The Dark Star descended through the smog-laden atmosphere of Prakith, black clouds parting as the yacht cut through them like a knife. Prakith's landscape was as hellish as the Sith who had once called its baleful land home, volcanic mountains belching forth plumes of soot and noxious gas into the air. The land itself was marred by war, massive craters of acid rain bubbling with putridity alongside the ruined skeletons of war machines both Sith and Republic.

And in the distance loomed the once magnificent Citadel of the Dark Lord, nothing more than a shelled out husk.

"Move the Dark Star into the upper atmosphere once we depart, Captain. Keep out of sight until called for."

"As you command, your majesty."

Silently the Sith Emperor and the Queen of Shadows departed the bridge, stalking through pristine corridors until they reached a small hangar bay situated at the rear of the gargantuan command tower that jutted up from the yacht's main fuselage. Inside was the Emperor's personal shuttle, the Crestfallen II, which had been fueled and primed in preparation for their descent to the Citadel. Both ascended the boarding ramp, which retracted behind them as the shuttle lifted off and left the Dark Star to begin its approach to the Dark Lord's Citadel.

Inside the shuttle, Carnifex looked towards the smaller Sith Assassin. "Let's see what we can salvage."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

As the Crestfallen II took them down to the surface of Prakith, Darth Ophidia ran through her notes from previous excursions to the planet's sites. She and Cerbera had investigated the ruins of Andeddu's keep and found it a little more inhabited than they had liked, while not seeing a single living soul. She had also launched an excursion to locate a base from around the time of the Battle of Yavin, where Palpatine's inquisitors had kept their records and a selection of artefacts.

That was while the Galacitc Alliance hovered over the system, restricting her access and the time she could spend investigating.

Now, there were none keeping the gate closed.

"Adversaries, certainly." Sith never went unchallenged, merely unbeaten. "I just hope we don't have to call on him."

Between her fingers, seemingly out of nothing, she produced a pyramid of gold and red crystal, slightly tarnished, and inscribed at its bottom: The Holocron of Heresies. It contained great knowledge, and it had made Ophidia aware of many new things.

But the gatekeeper was a real son of a nerf herder.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Better to have the option and not need it, than to need it and not have the option." gruffed the Sith Emperor.

The shuttle idled over a relatively stable stone platform, dust and soot spewing out in all directions as the ion engines blasted the stone with gusts of hot acrid wind. Landing gear extended, the Crestfallen II came to a rest upon the smudged platform with a hiss of hydraulic steam as the ship's weight settled. The boarding ramp descended with a thud as it connected with the stone floor, the shadows dissipating as light from the nearby volcanic activity drifted into the cabin.

Emperor Carnifex emerged first, his heavy footfalls displacing the soot that had settled back on the platform once the shuttle had settled. Dark eyes, molten rings bathed in a sea of blackness, surveyed his surroundings with silent disinterest. He was no longer wooed by the violence of Prakith anymore than he was wooed by the intensity of dying stars, and he considered it all very much beneath his notice.

What did interest him, however, was what could be discovered locked away within the Citadel's decrepit depths.

"Doesn't look like the Alliance left a skeleton force to guard the old Citadel, which is fortuitous. We may yet move about unimpeded within."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

"They left very little defence of Prakith even when they were alive." "They could not purge it, nor turn it to their advantage."

There was a wryness to her tone.

"Yet, Force will not let us pass untested."

She maintained a pace two steps behind the Sith Emperor. It was both a sign of deference and a precaution for his and her own safety. She could more easily spring to his aid from this position, but she could also better defend herself should he be swayed to attack her. That precaution in itself was an intentional sign of respect between Sith. While certainly the Rule of Order maintained an alliance between them, he never ceased being a potential threat.

Acknowledging another as a threat, at least to Darth Ophidia, was to consider them at least an equal. It was a more honest praise than words.

"We are Sith, but Andeddu never let anything from his grasp without challenge."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The entryway loomed before them, parts of the archway had been broken in a past battle and lay crumbled at the base of the threshold. Remnants of a campsite laid scattered around the area, a knocked over glowlamp, pieces of fabric that once served as environmental cover, and the remains of abandoned food. Carnifex came to a halt a meter away from the site, his mouth curling up in a sneer as he surveyed the area to ascertain pieces of information that might aid him in understanding what had transpired.

"There were people here..."

His voice trailed off, followed by sudden action as his lightsaber sprung into his hand, activated, and deftly moved to redirect several blaster bolts into the surrounding stone. "Correction, there are people here. It seems as though the citadel was not as abandoned as we were lead to believe." A subtle shift of his blade smacked away another bolt, the Emperor's keen senses tracing the trajectory of the blast to somewhere inside the darkness of the Citadel's entrance.

Whoever they are, they might've seen the Emperor's yacht on approach to the Citadel and scrambled inside to stage an ambush. Now that the trap was sprung, they held the initial advantage. What they underestimated was their safety hidden in the shadows, for the Sith were the true masters of the Dark Side.

"I will hold their fire. Bring them into the light, my dear."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

As they approached the campsite, Ophidia circled to the side and crouched down to look more closely for footsteps. She traced a finger around a boot-print in the ash and soot, linking the marks together to count the figures.

Then the blaster shot collided with the Emperor's sabre. Ophidia's eyes turned immediately to the origin of the blast. The moment the first of the bolts crashed into the stone, she had already vanished from sight - Hiding in her cloak of shadows. The ash burst from where she moved. sporadic places around them, the ash rose in little columns as she masked her approach with false footsteps.

A scarlet blade ignited behind the gunners, casting a red light around their figure before cleaving down diagonally. A second blade ignited, at hip level, piercing through a second as she turned and removed the head of the third. She jerked to the side as a new stream of plasma swished through the spot where her head had just been. She ducked down, stepped to the side, jumped to the wall and stuck on it like a spider in a web.

The red light from her sabre illuminated a barricade further down as the entrance choked up before opening again into the reception.

From her perch, the scarlet spread further than it normally would.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The Emperor was not idle as Ophidia made her move.

He deflected several shots back, hitting two of their assailants in the chest with their own attack, and sent the other ones careening into the walls and floor of the entryway. Advancing implacably, he stepped forward with a burst of Force-enhanced energy and sliced the nearest foe in half with a single swipe of his blade.

Super-heated blood sprayed out in an arc onto the ground, sizzling where it landed.

Carnifex reached out with his left arm and grasped one of the men with the Force, lifting him up into the air and slamming him back down against the ferrocrete barricade with enough force to collapse his ribcage and pulp several of his internal organs. With another twitch of his wrist, he sent that same barricade hurtling back across the ground like a skipping stone on a lake to smash into the hall beyond the entryway with a cataclysmic upheaval of stone and dust.

And forward he advanced, "They are not professionally trained, but they fight without fear. Zealots, I imagine. The easily ensorcelled drawn to this beacon of darkness like moths to the flame. Their trespass shall not go unpunished."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Leaping down from the wall and landing as quiet as the shadows themselves, Ophidia crouched down next to one of the bodies. She tilted the head to the left and right, opened the mouth and inspected the tongue, and inspected the arms of the deceased.

Clearly, she was searching for something.

"Zealots are often branded with a name or symbol of their master."

She pulled open a sleeve and halted in place. Her head cocked to the side and her eyes narrowed as though she had been met with a hideous scent. There, on the zealot's arm was a brand that was all too familiar.

"What kind of heresy."

With a quick and fluent scramble, like some kind of quadruped, she moved to the next, unveiled another, near identical brand; another, and another. She stood up, fists clenched hard and her face curdled in a sour grimace. The tattoos on her chin deepened her frown to the point of the theatrical. Her eyes travelled to Carnifex, enlightened by rage, though her body remained in unnatural stillness.

"Zealots, or thieves making mockery of our sacred traditions."

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Reaching out with the Force, the Emperor summoned one of the cultist's corpse to his outstretched hand by their throat. With his other he tore free the clothing, revealing a body marked by ritual tattoos and scarification. On his chest was one that caused the Dark Lord's eyes to widen in surprise, indignation, and ultimately heated anger.

For on the cultist's chest was tattooed the symbol of a Dark Lord of the Sith, one that Carnifex and Ophidia and cast down many years ago beneath the sprawling cityscape of Coruscant.

The Dark Lord of the One Sith, Darth Sortis.

"What putrid refuse still clings to his madness!" With a growl of disgust, he flung the corpse away, letting the broken body crumble against the ruined stone. "How truly foul these heretics are, my friend." Carnifex and Ophidia had worked together to destroy Sortis during the Imperial Civil War, smashing all of his machines and breaking the power of his artifacts until only the man remained; powerless and weak. Though they had pledged their service to him, Sortis had been consumed by madness and drove the Sith further into the abyss by turning conquest into extermination.

His demise spared the Sith from total annihilation, allowing them to escape the conflagration that consumed the Empire in the wake of his death. Sortis would be forever remembered as a warning to those Sith who would let power corrupt their mind.

"This whole world must be purged of this infection."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

"Zatitsis." "We don't know yet how far it has spread."

She turned a coin between her fingers, letting it flicker over her knuckles and travel up through her palm before resting between her index finger and thumb, and then vanishing back into the ashen hand as though consumed by some maw.

"If we are fortunate, then this is be both root, stem, and flower." "If not, the purge may be extensive."

She would hate to have to purge her existing observation network in fear out of fear of it being corrupted by this heresy.

Her hands went to her sabres, resting on them, her fingers drumming them. Her Emperor would know she was the least dangerous when her hands were so openly displayed close to her weapons. That was not how she would strike him if she were to kill him. And certainly, she was not foolish enough to try to do it all on her own and in the open, with a ship in orbit. No, she was thinking of violence, but not against him.

"We need to gather more information" "Infiltrate, observe, and then take them down from the top."

Her hands moved together, gesturing for emphasis. Organisations such as these were often bound to a cult of personality as well as a literal cult of worship. By attacking their head, they might just have the power necessary to throw the entire congregation into discord and pick them off group by group. A smile was now returning to Ophidia's lips, and the plain anger in her eyes tuned into their usual cold hatred.

She had a plan, or at least an idea.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"A course of action better suited to your talents, naturally."

Though once an Intelligence Agent in the Old Empire, the Zambrano patriarch had grown beyond his once lithesome form and molded himself into the epitome of martial prowess. Muscles rippled with strength beneath his armor, and he found himself ill-equipped for subtlety. Still, he could serve their current purpose through other means.

"Take to the shadows, my old friend. I will draw their attention."

With lightsaber lit, the Emperor charged into the depths of the old fortress. Though heretics now occupied its once hallowed halls, the layout of the structure remained unchanged. He could conjure memories of every twist and turn, guiding himself towards the great hall where most of the One Sith had gathered in those early days of planning and strategy. Yet where once the halls had been lit with warming light and the sounds of murmuring voices could be heard, there was now only his own footsteps as he advanced unceasingly towards his destination.

The door leading to the great hall was sealed and hastily barricaded, a feeble obstacle to one as powerful as the Dark Lord of the Sith. With a simple gesture, he blasted the door into rubble, striding into the chamber even as a hail of blaster fire rained down upon him. With a theatrical sweep of his left arm, chunks of debris and pieces of the nearest wall were wrenched from their resting places and flung through the air to crush the bodies of heretical cultists with precision accuracy. A twirl of his weapon sent several blaster bolts back to their owners, and with a single swing he cleaved entire groups of men in half without resistance.

He was the lightning rod.

They would never see the Shadow pass them by, unaware that whatever the nucleus of their debased worship was one step closer to annihilation.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Sometimes, it was less than optimal to work with someone of a much different build and expertise. But, it was the privilege of masters to complement and enhance each-other's abilities when they were faced with considerable opposition; even when that opposition's strength was merely a matter of numbers. The difference between Darths Ophidia and Carnifex was quite obvious. Even though, by their history, they could easily have turned out all too similar.

This was not the first time they had fought in this way, and their enemy now was far less than what they had fought then.

"Your will be done."

And with that she stepped back, not into the shadows, rather she sort of skipped into the wall itself.

She knew this place, from numerous times when she had investigated it or simply toured it for the sake of pleasure. And in her little tours, she had learned a great number of little secrets about its pathways and secret doors. It seemed to her that some of these paths were still used, and others not. They sure made it easier to climb the building.

Still, there was once or twice she had to silence a zealot. It was easily done by the edge of her hidden blade, or the serpent she wore around her waist. Its venom was quick. One crack, one snap, one life gone.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"VERMIN!"

Carnifex waded amongst them like a titan, molten shadows dripping off of his body as he rent those that would oppose him asunder with frightening ease. Lightning sprung freely from his fingertips, calcifying bone and cooking flesh in an instant as the deadly currents passed through the throng of bodies before him. There were many of them, far too many than what should've been handled by one man alone. But the Emperor of the Sith was not merely a man, he was far more than that.

He was a Sith Lord.

So even as they rushed him, attempting to spear him with crude weapons or poke holes in his armor with daggers and swords, he cast them off. Some managed to leap onto his back or shoulder, but they were torn away and pulverized against the rock walls of the hall. The Emperor bled from several wounds on his legs and lower torso, but he never wavered as he slaughtered without restraint or mercy, the bisected corpses of his foes piling around him with each swing of his lightsaber.

All to buy time for the Queen of Shadows to excise this cancerous tumor.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]​