Private The Confrontation

[Halitus Veikis]

TAG: Darth Halitus

Veikis had waited for his move. The slaying of Kuwani in Tatooine would be answered. The Father would come to Mustafar, the cauldron where many ties broke. The Fiest Son threw off this mantle for Disciple. He had examined the dark eschelons and cults, and found one to pledge himself to. Now was the work of severing old ties, of cutting the cords that had been forged by an imposter.

The Dark Disciple waited by the shoals of yellow gold, the lapping fire was tranquil to him as he stood with his leather coat. He black hair flowing in wind as he watched Mustafarian Miners hard at work extracting ore from the flows. The Former First Son envied them in part, to be lost in the mundane and be content, to not thirst without quenching for power.

Veikis had been waiting for this moment. The culmination of so many years of bitter feeling. He waited for the arrival of the False Father who no doubt would be driven by revenge…

 

[Darth Halitus]

The Father.. could he call himself that anymore? He had lost his adoptive sons, and now his only blood daughter to one He had called First Son.

Lord Halitus had received the coordinates to Mustafar, a world with a history. Here the Dark Lord Vader was forged and held power. Here destinies we’re shaped and relationships rent. The Darth arrived in his ship The Wing with its great black haul and bat like wings. The shuttle set down on a landing pad with a bridge. Stepping off the ramp, Lord Halitus made his way across the bridge. He stopped, his breaths beating in his chest with a clang and his fire eyes matching the flows. He looked beneath his hood to the river of flame, where the figure of His Former Son stood. A pang of regret was echoing in The Dark Lord. They had such dreams on Argos IV once, and to be here, ready to tear apart the last vestiges of their bond. It was tragic, so was the way of the dark side.. it afforded no loyalties save to it.

Darth Halitus made his way down to the valley of lava rock, his boots sliding on smoothness. He approached Veikis, who looked quite older and different than remembered.

“So we at last our long awaited reunion.. here at the Furnace of Fates. I can sense it.. the suffocating strength in you, indeed you are powerful as I forsaw.”

The Former Father was proud even if the process had robbed him of Kuwana. While he could never forgive The First Son, he did respect him. Of all The Vrapas, only Veikis had the potential to become great. And as was usual of fathers and sons, The Son grew in spite of the Father.

“I wish to know what my Daughter’s last words were.. you owe me that at least Son.”

He kept using that word, a designation for their bond. He was not ready to forgo it despite how much ire was bubbling beneath the surface. Halitus was not ready to call him by another title, not yet…

 

[Halitus Veikis]

The Dark Disciple felt the False Father’s presence when he entered atmosphere. His face was placid, inside there was a range of emotions, everything form rage to excitement. Despite his best efforts to shake the need for The Father’s approval, it remained.

When The Father spoke of his strength, he turned with his arms crossed, his Ruby eyes fixing on the Him. He looked so frail, so small despite the towering frame. A sick old man grasping at each breath. This would damper his victory, to cut down an aging ‘breather.’

Then the spark was struck, hem mentioned Her.. that pathetic strand of progeny that he had snuffed out on that barren rock of a planet. More disappointing was the tone, The Father was speaking as if they were still on Argos IV, like he was that boy that owed him.. he owed him nothing!

“My strength is my own. You had little to do with it. In your absence I have learned all that I need.”

His tone was cold and devoid of any emotion. He controlled every impulse to lash out, to give the Old Man satisfaction. He would treat The Once Father with dispassion, for he did not deserve the heat beat of the dark side. This was a severance, and he would treat The Frail Father as if he was already dead.

With intention he did not answer the query about the Daughter. To withhold gratification of this desire was a weapon that Veikis wielded beside the saber that hung at his black leather belt, the chrome sparkling from a recent polish for this moment.

 

[Darth Halitus]

The Father let his breaths that rang loud in his chest full the silence. His eyes fixed on The Former First Son, he was stoic and disciplined, and more than that denying him his due. At last Veikis was ready to finish what they started in the Cave long ago.

“A true Master does not mold, they step back and sow only scaffolding that the apprentice builds on. You have exceeding my expectations.. and now you must do what you promised all those years ago..”

The Dark Lord I clipped two durasteel praetor hilt sabers and snapped both blood blades to life, their fire humming as he took a stance, shifting his shoulders up and angling the blades out like wings.

“Let’s see what you have learned.”

That baiting remark made Halitus feel like they were back on Argos IV when he had said it to Veikis, and his brothers. It was fitting to pepper the dialogue with past sentiments, for there would be no opportunity to utter them again. As The Father began to move, he rolled his wrists to make the blades spin, a flurry of foreboding.

 

[Halitus Veikis]

Exuses.. and more exuses. How artful the Father re-envisioned history, pretending that he had not abandoned His Sons and then his First Son repeatedly. But what did Veikis expect? He saw it now, a shell of a man grasping for a voice when he could barely breath. How small Halitus seemed to Him now.

Seeing the twin fangs of the Father emerge, Veikis removed his single hilt and with not even a word he called the EM ever from the bled kyber to form his own tooth. With it he would chew up the past and spit it out into a sea of flame.

Taking a stance, The Not Prodigal Son made the first strike, a rather simple but effective jab near the shoulder which was parried with ease. Every duel began with ceremony, movement of the feet in a dance and then someone finally touched with burning kyber, and what followed was moves and counter moves till victory or defeat was achieved. Veikis was determined this would not be the ladder, he linked a chain of cuts and that made the signature Jar Kai of The Father a disadvantage. The Former First Son moved around the two fangs, knowing where both were at, stepping between them in what seemed precarious, before jabbing at the chest. His tip tore at a tube in the chest, reeling steam and making The Father stumbled, even almost slip on smooth lava rock.

 

[Darth Halitus]

The Son had severed his respirator coil with percision. Halitus fwkr hus lungs burn, as if shards of glass were smashed and placed inside. He began to swing his twin fangs with a increased violence, hammering at Veikis as if he waa a tent peg and he had two hammers.

The truth is this barrage belied that his breaths were becoming shallow, his strength was draining and so he reached out in The Force, siezing one of The First Son’s lung, and drawing the oxygen to himself.

He watched as the drain caused the Prodigal to sieze up, if there was a moment to strike this waa it, but as he crossed his two sabere in an x, Veikis evaded and seemed not phased by parasitic breath power. The Father saw that his greatest disciple had grown exceedingly powerful, and he considered letting the First Son strike him down. But the mantel of dark lord could not be given, it had fo be siezed, to be taken.

 

[Halitus Veikis]

The False Father was predictable, he had clearly lost a step, become soft from his laison with The Jedi. Halitus used that technique, he drew on Veikis’ lung, something he had done when he was young, it was part of being a Vrapas Sith, an extension of their Lord. Had The Dark Lord used this on anyone else, they would have been immobilized, but Veikis had developed a tolerance.

He then dropped his head as tye blades crossed over him and rolled and rose cutting from upwe thigh into waist and lower back. Spaeks shot into air and The Former first Son seeing the magma boiling in a river in front of him reached out with his hand, the five points of his fingers in their leather glove calling the lava into the air and turnint he threw it on a now kneeling Father. The golden and orange glowing liquid fell on the Dark Lord like a baptism.

“Die now.. Father.”

The words were shaking in his throat. Despite his attempts to stay dispassionate, he realized that in a moment like this he needed to expiate all of it, even his feelings for someone who had been in his life for such a long time.

 

[Darth Halitus]

The lava lapped down the shoulders of the Dark Lord, the cut had made him fall on one knew and now he was being burned, his body immolated as he fell down, the flames caressing his form as he laid there on snokth lava rock.

There Halitus felt his heart thud, thud, thud in his chest as his breath was growing fainter and fainter. The long awaited day had come, The First Son would take the mantle and he would reach transcendence. This had been the plan, and now as he smoldered, The Flame Baptized Father felt himself drift as the words of Veikis rang on in his ears.

With one final breath The Dark Lord was no more. His body still and cold despite the burning.

 

[Halitus Veikis]

At last it was over. The False Father felled and now Veikis couid at last move on and forge his own desrint free of the tanglements of the past.

Deactivating his lightsaber, The Freed Son walked over to the corpse of the Father. Leaning down, he checker his pulse ro confirm that he was truly dead. Clipping his saber to his belt he then turned away and rising from Halitus’a corpse was vapor thay became a ghastly green tentacle, it bore into back of Veikis’ head causing him to fall om his knees ans his eyes ro glow white ans his mouth to be wide open.

When the flow of light ceased, Veikis fell down and twitched, his hand trembling until there was a snap sound. Rising back to his feet his eyes aglow, he held out his hands and began to laugh ij a disturbed tone.

“At last.. transcendence.”