Silara Kuhn vs Alkor Centaris

[Eralam]

Our contestants find themselves on the floor of a large, abandoned factory. Exactly what was made here, nobody knows. Most of the machinery lies in rusted heaps, albeit heaps staged in a neat grid, allowing three meters in between each row and one meter in between the machines.

In the center of the factory is a square area of floor cleared away for the fight. The square is 30 meters to a side. Though it's been cleared of debris, it's still not in good shape. Cracks run across it, a hint for our fighters to watch where they're stepping. Ordinary fighting won't collapse it onto the underlevel, but a sufficiently powerful explosive or Force attack might do the trick.

Powerful floodlights hang from the ceiling some thirty meters overhead, bathing the makeshift arena in harsh white light. Fighters are free to use the rest of the warehouse for their fight if they wish, but between the otherwise dim lighting outside of the main stage and the rusted machines, they do so at their own risk. Medics will be standing by with tetanus shots.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]
[member="Silara Kuhn"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fw8mf8SV50

The Voice of the Dark Lord stepped into the industrial room, her feet as silent as the stale air that rusted the piles of trash on the factory floor. Her crimson hair was held up in a tight bun, bangs and all the rest pulled back and tied behind her head, and she was dressed in a simple, form-fitting, singlet. At each side of her hip rested a twin saber, both crafted with masterful knowledge not only of the lightsaber but of the alchemy that was utilized in its creation in order to ensure that she would be the only one to wield them.

Darth Vitium - known to the general public as the wife of Alric Kuhn, as Silara Kuhn - had known many enemies over the course of her relatively short life, and even shorter career, as the Dark Lord of the One Sith's voice and former apprentice to his (former) hand. As with nearly all of the second generation of Sith Lords within the One Sith, she'd dueled and killed her master in single combat and bested a number of the Jedi Order's own Jedi Masters, including their newest Grandmaster of the Order, Corvus Raaf. To say she was arrogant was an understatement, and often this made the odds for the underdog much greater than those who were more evenly matched or more skilled than her.

Her bionic eyes flickered and shifted colors, a visible change that signified a shift in the video feed that her optical nerves were receiving, in this case changing from standard vision to ultraviolet - somewhat enhancing her perception of colors and light in the room. She'd come to regard these implants as a gift more than as a crutch, remembering the several months she'd spent completely blind and crippled after her devastating defeat on Kashyyk due to her underestimating of a rival Jedi Master. Slowing her entrance to the makeshift arena, Silara's left hand, also a prosthetic, shifted to the side of the belt that her sabers were held to rest the mechanical digits along the hilt of her dominant saber.

While she waited for her opponent, not even with a saber drawn, the Jar'Kai duelist allowed her features to relax, a key to the fluidity needed when engaging in saber-play. While most certainly not the apex of the food chain in saber play, at least not when paired with her betters in Niman and Makashi, she was undeniably a master of the art of dueling and much preferred its use when in close combat than trying to rely on a fickle a thing as the force.

Never one to make the first move, Silara waited patiently for [member="Alkor Centaris"] to show - not a word leaving her tightly-knit lips.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Chains hung from the ceiling just beyond the floodlights with rusted hooks that still held the chassis of a nameless, unfinished project aloft. Time went on, but whoever had owned this factory had been left in its wake. Alkor could only guess at the nature of the loss. He ran his fingers along the ragged, oxidized form and felt flecks of it scrape away beneath his slightest touch. A large segment of the frame sloughed away and clattered to the floor at his feet, but Alkor did not bother to mind it. It shivered for a moment before it settled, stagnant.

He felt several other chains trickle along his shoulders as he passed through them, and they shivered at his touch. The landscape was barren, battered by age, and broken. When the light finally touched him, it felt foreign and offered no warmth. He already saw her, of course. Like the true and proud Sith of old, she strode without a care into the arena and awaited her challenger. His icy blue gaze froze on her for more than a breath before his hand gripped the black hilt of his blade. It was not so special as a master of alchemy might manage, but the metal was ornately forged and its heart pulsed with a deep, hateful darkness.

Rarer than most lightsaber crystals, Quixoni were born from the heart of stars gone supernova. Only a handful of them were created when the planet was destroyed, and they fell into the hands of the Jedi Order who kept them from the hands of unsavory adepts. Over his many years, Alkor's Master had collected many baubles and artifacts. Armed with vast wealth, great influence, and ancient wisdom he managed to collect a single gem. It had been his final gift to his apprentice, the symbol of his endurance and will to destroy.

The blood colored blade erupted forth and hummed with palpable malice.

He did not speak. Instead, the Dark Jedi nodded slowly to regard his foe. He could taste violence in the Force. This woman caused the world to shiver and recede from her. It was not often that Sith caused timidity in the flow of power. More often than not, they attracted it and overflowed with its voracious and primal tendencies. His lips curled in empty amusement.

Alkor took a step forward and his blade spun in a fast, clockwise circle before it came crashing down toward Silara. It was a very honest and brutal attack. A new opponent deserved nothing less.

[member="Silara Kuhn"]

Spoiler

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

 

[Ellie Mors]

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX1wPLjPhlc[/media]

Where her foe appeared to be observant in a philosophical manner, Silara couldn't have cared less if the enemy that was standing in front of her was a Sith Lord, a Jedi Master, or some rogue or even a witch - the result was still the same, there was going to be blood, and only one of them would remain standing by the end of the match. An ancient Sith lord had once commented on the prowess of masters of the force, that a duel between the tip of the pyramid often only lasted a handful of minutes at best. It wasn't because the difference between two masters was always so great, but rather that each movement, each cycle of the blade, every synchronous choice, was a fatal blow waiting to happen.

One wrong step, one misstep, a single wrong turn, and there would only be one left standing. To live as a master of the force, to survive a duel with another, meant to be one step closer to perfection. Cunning, strength, agility, dexterity, and wisdom all were a part of it, the force was another. The moment her semi-glowing eyes caught sight of [member="Alkor Centaris"] she knew that her match was more than met in him. Though she was no longer in the prime of her youth, Silara knew that she was more skilled, knowledgeable, than she had been as a woman in her late teens. She'd bested Darth Mierin in single combat with inferior saber skills with the cunning combination of her saber-play and dirty tricks with the force. While the newcomer was an unknown to her, that made it all the more easy for her to get into her groove.

She hadn't defeated him yet, she didn't even know his style of combat, and that made him dangerous, deadly. And the fear of that unknown was what drove her passion, her single-minded urge to find that death-granting challenge. Every fiber of her being was invested in this duel, motivation at its zenith, and the moment the man drew his saber her left hand, already resting on the base of the hilt of her left saber, tugged at her own. She didn't bother pulling at the right, knowing the benefit of the second saber - as with a saberstaff - was its unpredictability. Its blade was bright red, brighter, deeper, than her hair and burned through the air like the glare of the sun. The barab ingot, found in the depths of a volcano on Mustafar, fueled this color and the almost unstable appearance, while the sigil crystals spurred the heat to points beyond the capabilities of most adegan crystals.

Not so much as a smile crossed her face as the heavy blow was aimed towards her, a strike she recognized as an opening strike that many practitioners of Djem So or Juyo utilized to offset the balance of their opponents and set the battle at their own pace, fast-paced and brutal most often. Prior to the advent of her use of prosthetics, the heavy blow would have forced her to immediately rethink her approach, likely move to avoid the blow or strike at an opening as her skill with Makashi usually suggested. However, the greater strength that the false arm granted her meant that her wrists wouldn't give way when attempting to block or directly counter such a heavy blow.

Instinctively her body, at the knees, began to bend as she leaned towards the blow, her left hand moving up, the tip of her saber angled towards Alkor, and she swept the lightsaber's crimson blade against the Dark Jedi's. She wasn't one for chance, however, and she utilized the way she was posed to slide her right foot slightly forwards, taking a page out of the book of Niman, the way of the Rancor, to release a subtle telekinetic push in order to play with her enemy's concentration and footing. Knowing that her right hand was still free, though not yet holding her second saber, Silara opted not to push her luck with a more forceful, and thus more concentrated, push from her hand. An opportunity, born out of his preference for the more heavy of melee strikes, was already opening that she wanted to exploit rather than blindly strike.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Her tenacity was apparent from the moment she drew her weapon. In the same way Alkor wasted no time on words, this opponent afforded him the same cordial respect. It was like no Sith he had faced, and more like one of the Dark Jedi who he had called his Brothers. It was almost refreshing to face an enemy with a level head.

Almost.

At first glance, her defense was by the book for someone who did not use one of the more outright powerful styles of combat. Judging Alkor by his size- hardly fit to loom over someone with Djem-so- one might never have expected him to open with a powerful overhead strike. In reality, it simply drew a retort of necessary force.

There was more to her than an equal and opposite reaction, however.

To a master of Sense, any draw on the Force left a ripple. For Alkor it came like a shrill outcry, especially when it manifested as a threat to his person. Though its direction was indeterminate and the actual nature of the attack was equally unknown, the Jen'jidai was hardly surprised by it.

As her weapon angled toward his and swept for a deflective blow, Alkor leaned backward. He felt the uneasiness wash over him as the woman pulled at the Force's heartstrings and lashed out with the most devious of telekinetic attacks in a duelist's arsenal. It was textbook Niman, the sort that the ancient Sith Lord Exar Kun once employed with brutal efficiency. Trickery and manipulation were powerful tools of the dark side, and she commanded them well.

His right foot slid backward at her behest, though it was an easy enough effort to counterbalance. If Alkor wanted to, he could have mitigated the effectiveness of a small push by weaving the Force protectively around the point of contact.

It would have been wasteful.

Economy of effort and motion were equally important in lightsaber combat. When one committed to a strike, they poured raw willpower and determination into even the smallest jab. It was the same with any sort of fight. Nothing was meant to be half-hearted.

As his rear leg slipped out, Alkor dipped his body and he thumbed the activation switch of his lightsaber. The resistance of his blade disappeared in the blink of an eye and he felt the residual heat of her weapon as it skirted past his face, already out of harm's way due to her push. It was much more unstable, and hotter than an average lightsaber. It even crackled as though laughing and jeering him.

Trakata offered several advantages beyond the simplistic confuse and surprise tactic that most viewed it as. While that was the most obvious benefit, it also allowed a skilled practitioner to pass blades quickly and create openings that otherwise would have eluded them. In a scenario like this, it could turn the forward momentum of an opponent into an advantage.

In the instant after her weapon passed, he reactivated the blade and it lanced toward her left armpit, a quick shiim meant to disarm or weaken the appendage.

[member="Silara Kuhn"]

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/svceOen4yWg"]https://youtu.be/svceOen4yWg

 

[Ellie Mors]

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plR9Q4LWos4[/media]

The moment the saber's light was extinguished was the moment that Silara's lips curled into a confident, red, smirk. Her eyes narrowed to slits, hardly open at that point, and she knew that her decision to relax her body was the right one. Trakata was tricky, it was smart, and many - mostly Jedi - called it dirty. Silara, too, fought dirty. Niman was one avenue of it, and she twisted its opportunistic style with an unfair perversion of its origin. She knew what was coming, simply by being aware of the flow of battle and the body language of her foe and the only real options left available in such a short window of time.

Being rather familiar with the method of employing rapid toggling of power to sabers in order to cut down foes in battle, having employed the very same method to cut down Mierin on Prakith, Silara was highly aware that attempting to swing the outward-swinging saber in her left hand back to deflect the swiftly approaching tip of the Dark Jedi's saber was a lost cause, but she'd already set herself up for an out in case of a scenario similar to this.

The opportunity that she'd been waiting for was beginning to show, Alkor walking right into the steps she'd laid out for him, following her desirable flow of battle, and the Sith Lord made use of her previously forward-slid foot to use as a means of pushing herself back and away from the incoming strike. As the Dark Jedi had likely noticed, every action had an equal and opposite reaction, although sometimes further pressure might be applied - like her telekinetic push had shown - there was always an endless array of options if one was aware of them. In this case, the leg she had slid forwards to push the Dark Jedi was primed as an escape tool, pushing her backwards, just out of reach from the tip of her enemy's saber.

Escape, however, wasn't the only choice of action she'd take. Retreat and defense only went so far, gave only so much room for action, and counter-attacking an enemy was key to turning the tide of battle. Allowing Alkor to gain ground by pushing her back without attempting her own offensive maneuver would mean forfeiting any kind of advantage she had over him. As she had made sure to note to herself earlier, her right hand had been free of a saber. The moment that she had pushed back, taking note that the Dark Jedi could simply leap towards her in a calculating but incredibly risky strike, the Sith Lord also opted for a more dangerous application of the force to ensure that her temporary retreat wasn't met with further pressure.

Bright, white, sparks of electricity played at the tips of the fingers on her right hand before they lept like solid bolts of lightning, in truth being the raw power of the dark side, to branch out for the Dark Jedi's lightsaber. She'd known that, in the past, force lightning had enough of a "push" to it that an advancing foe wielding a lightsaber might not only find themselves standing their ground, rooted in place, but actually pushed back, although it was never so significant as to be used entirely for that purpose. But it was more than capable of being used as a temporary buffer to make sure that the man's saber was not pushed any further than she needed it to be.

In truth, if she hadn't lost the use of her left arm on Kashyyk and been forced to utilize a prosthetic, likely Silara would have turned her body parallel to Alkor's jab and retrieved her secondary saber, at the time a shoto, to remove his hand. That wasn't an option here, however, as the extremely minute lag in the time it took for her arm to operate as compared to her organic right was just enough to create enough uncertainty and probability to lose a limb or even her life that it wasn't worth it. As much as she hated moving on to the defense, however temporary it was, in this case it was absolutely necessary in order to draw out what she needed for victory.

She was, after all, facing a master of the dark side.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

A sane man would have stopped when the Sith raised her hand and the telltale crackle began.

He knew the sound of electricity all too well from his Master's proclivity to unleash torrents of it on him for his failings. The hot arcs of energy danced over his body and through his bloodstream so many times in those days, Alkor tasted the familiarity of it in only the faintest of hisses. Pain blossomed across his synapses before she ever unleashed the attack. He saw an image of the Dead Man superimposed over his foe, cackling hellishly at him as [member="Silara Kuhn"] lashed out with a hand and the darkness heeded her call.

Something snapped inside him.

His once azure eyes were stained red. Alkor's blood boiled and every nerve screamed out in defiance. Countless words he owed his Master raced across his thoughts and dissipated in an instant. Only one thought remained. He was a traitor. He would pay with his life.

In that instant, the long suppressed roar of an ancient, primal darkness welled up within the Jen'jidai. All of the hate, all of the unrealized dreams, and all of the broken pacts came to life as his body opened itself up and drank in the hemorrhaging enmity. Alkor took a blinding step forward and instead of raising his saber defensively, and he became a blur.

Her power crashed against him like waves against rock. Heat and pain wracked his body as flesh split and heat seared muscle tissue. Blood coagulated instantly and splattered to the floor as crystalline teardrops. They shattered upon impact. Though his mind reeled and his body pleaded with him to stop, Alkor could not hear anything.

His footfalls played a staccato drumbeat. His lips split open and the Force strummed his vocal cords. The roar within him became a howl in truth.

Fury overlapped its avatar as the diminutive man moved through the space between them, assailed by electricity and the pain it caused. The sensory overload manifested as a powerful arcing slash. He sent the backhanded attack toward her at torso level and attempted Sai Tok, imbued with the power of speed by the same darkness that she used against him.

Spoiler

][URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3e85FtmvUg"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3e85FtmvUg[/url]

 

[Ellie Mors]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hJw4i6jcuQ

If Silara had time to be surprised, she would have likely reeled in astonishment that the Dark Jedi had opted to charge through the lightning that wracked him. It wasn't the first time it had happened, coincidentally, but it was most certainly not a common thing - and the last person who had done so was nowhere near as capable as this man was, not that she had ever been known for her ability to cast force lightning. What she had been banking on, and what had probably helped her rely on her instincts, was the reliance on the darker emotions that the dark side of the force thrived on.

Twenty years ago, as a young apprentice, Silara's first master, a pragmatic Sith Lord, had tried to suppress her gift with the dark side. He had taught her that killing without reason was nothing more than senseless murder, that every actions needed to contribute to whatever goal she had at the time, and only if it was to further the Dark Lord's will. While she had always agreed to the latter point, the former had been a point of contention for her.

Her gift wasn't a natural prowess for wielding a blade, it wasn't the impossible telekinetic strength that a handful of infamous Dark Jedi and Sith had wielded during the war between the One Sith and the Republic and Omega Protectorate, but rather the communion between herself and the dark side of the force.

Or, perhaps more accurately, the natural aptitude for feeding on its presence. Her master had called it the ability to consume the essence of other dark siders, called it a horrible and worthless gift that should never be used - that she should never face another Sith in combat unless directed by the Dark Lord, that every action had to be of her own physical skill and pragmatic knowledge. To the Mon Calamari, it was disgusting for her to ever rely on something that was fundamentally outside of her control. In hindsight, it was why she had nearly bested him in a spar when she was being trained in saber play by the older Sith.

Possibly why, maybe in fear, she had been gifted to the Dark Lord's hand, Darth Mierin.

In recent time the Sith had fallen on the same faults that the Jedi had adopted, the same plateau of knowledge and power caused by the same pragmatic laws and rules that they had, in fear of rivalry and duels of succession, enforced. Silara, killing her master, saw to an end to that ridiculous self-inflicted decline in the Sith Order's growth. And here, rather than try to rely on learned knowledge, the Sith Lady fell back to her instincts, to her baser abilities, and drew on the very anger, pain, and resentment that the man that approached her was pulling on for strength. As he pulled on the dark side, so would she, too, feed.

In the time frame of less than the time it takes to draw a breath, [member="Alkor Centaris"] had launched his force-fueled strike, his speed almost unrecognizable if it weren't for the fact that she had actually relied on force enhanced movement to deal with more physically powerful foes in order to take full advantage of Makashi's necessitation for quick and nimble strikes. Perhaps in the first time in her memory, she faced a force user that relied on a speed that was on par with hers. He was almost a blur, so quick that it actually required every ounce of her attention and focus to ensure she wasn't struck down in that initial strike.

The saber that, earlier in their initial contact, had been previously pulled away from her in order to bat away his first strike instead came soaring back at an awkward angle, a horizontal sweep that was more or less a defensive parry than it was any kind of saber style, while her right hand reached down for the second saber at her hip. The moment her left saber made contact with the oncoming saber she felt the brunt of his strength pushing her hand back as if it were nothing.

She pivoted with the extended saber as support while her right hand swept a now-lit secondary saber up from her hip to essentially act as a lever to push up against the Dark Jedi's outreached saber, every sliver of time that passed as the saber in her left was pushed back against by his booming in her ears as the adrenaline surged through her.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

The pain was magnificent.

His throaty howl magnified into unadulterated anguish, then proper anger.

There was no better way to describe the exhilaration he felt when the electricity coursed through him, and his muscles rippled with esoteric memory of the torture they had endured countless times. The skin broke and sizzled, cracked and cauterized. Fabric at his chest had torn open, and the reddened flesh had begun to blacken... until she halted her attack.

How many times had they torn him down? How many times had they forced him to get back up? Leto Bes'tial battered him in close combat with twin sabers. He tore flesh and singed bone. The scars were still there. Lahash de Fortia had pummeled him with immense speed and powerful strikes. Eversio had forced him to fight against unseen Force power and thrashed him from one side of the room to the other. C'thulu Plaga had unleashed torrents of unholy lightning through his body and left him hideously maimed. Bedrovelse Hevn had flayed the flesh from his arm to punish failure. All of the Dark Jedi had imprinted their vigor and their fury on to him through the rite of pain. It was a simple matter to forge this sensation into power. It was the birthright of a Jen'jidai to understand the innate connection between the two.

Her weapon stopped his, but only just. The other came to life in its wake, and together they stalled the momentum of his strike.

Alkor twisted his blade furiously upward as his body moved in the throes of speed, and the crimson stain of plasma whipped around his body. The movement would abate the lock foremost, in a way not dissimilar to Trakata. The difference in this instance was that the blade remained active. Under normal speeds, this sort of maneuver would have been exceptionally dangerous. Both of her blades were poised in front of his body, and the probability of getting horrifically burned was immeasurably high.

Not that Alkor was opposed to being burned. The acrid smell of molten flesh still wafted from his person as he moved, exacerbated by his dervish movements. It roiled into his nostrils, enhanced his senses, licked at his inner fire and stoked it. His body spun in one breakneck motion, the lightsaber like a constant stream of light around a stain of black.

The blade came furiously around and upward, from the opposite vector and behind her twin sabers. He sought to drive the weapon through her right arm, the closer of the two from this angle, and then sink its fangs into her torso.

[member="Silara Kuhn"]

Spoiler

Sorry for it taking so long to respond! I wanted to give you a proper response, so it took longer to think about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l09H-3zzgA