The Fall of a Titan

[Arage Bao]

Bad folk, or good. Galaxy is full of both sides of the spectrum, people who liked to commit atrocities and those who loved to fix ‘em. Never was much of a fan of either though, always figured I had too much standards to start killing babies and never cared enough to become a Hero of Mankind.

I liked my schemes, liked my little plots that advanced my agenda neatly. Oh, sure. Couple of people would get hurt in the progress, but in the grand scheme of things… ‘least I didn’t try and make a planet explode, or two for that matter.

So it was a matter of having standards, ‘least that was what I told myself: that I wasn’t all too evil and so I was better then the common rabble. Know better now, know that I have too much blood on my hands and pitch covering my heart to ever be anything more than another Shorn.

Strangely enough the thought was consoling, no regret anywhere, just a common persuasive knowledge that I no longer had to put myself to standards that were all prevalent throughout the Galaxy. I’d make my own rules, never was much of a ‘by the Book’-type of guy anyway.

You might ask yourself what this is all ‘bout, location was the planet of Ithor. Mandalorian Space. Bunch of barbarians they were, no sense of civilization whatsoever. Not in a bad kind of way though, one of ‘em threw some valuable memories at me for nothing but a chance for a new life.

Anyway, having memories of three of the most powerful Force Users of the Galaxy nearby brought me a certain level of perspective. Showed me that I still had much to learn and that sometimes you gotta take risks, that sometimes you gotta go for the extreme to gather knowledge.

That was what this was all about.

Knowledge.

But how do you get your hands on the Paragon?

Simple.

You get her to come to you.

It was relatively easy to figure the mark out, memories had a funny way of providing unique perspective on certain events. I knew where she was from, I knew what she despised and I knew how to best get her attention.

Had already interacted with her once, Tatooine. Hadn’t been expecting to get so close though, spooked me to be honest, hadn’t been the time nor the place for a confrontation.

It only underlined my suspicions though, so it wasn’t strange when a whisper was sent through the right channels, somewhere a disgusting cabal was revealed, trading in the flesh of innocent young ghostlings. Selling ‘em to the highest bidder and making a fortune out of slave girls.

Word reached the Cabal itself though.

They knew their location was compromised, wouldn’t be long before they disappeared and with ‘em hundreds of girls, except if someone was able to get in quick and get ‘em out.

Tight window of opportunity.

Risks were high too, moment they realized they were being infiltrated… those girls were gone.

Throat slit and disposed of… stealth would be preferred.

Your move, Paragon.

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

If he was looking to bait her, he'd chosen the perfect hook - during her tenure as Supreme Chancellor, Aleidis Ijet had cultivated no small number of informants and friends, and more than a few of them had simply been tasked with monitoring the Ghostling slave trade in exchange for... well, credit, and the gratitude of her own good self. There were few sins that repulsed Aleidis more than slavery; people sometimes spoke of how she'd managed to create a functional treaty between the Empire and Republic that might have lasted indefinetly had a coup not driven the Emperor from the throne, few knew just how fundamentally the Chalacta Conference had hinged upon the impending abolishment of slavery.

So when one of Alei's informants told her about a shipment of Ghostlings about to be hauled off to parts unknown, Aleidis had set out immediately for the location at full warp. It'd been long enough that she could see to these matters personally without stirring up a diplomatic nightmare, so she would. Having an inexhaustible expense account didn't break one of frugal spending.

This was a task she couldn't bring [member="Codi Zrgaat"] on, though; her closest companion was taking a bit of a sabbatical on Zeltros, and going by to get her would delay the task long enough to endanger the lives of the Ghostling slaves. That wouldn't do, and being sneaky was easier without a flashy, hyper-aggressive Togruta around, anyway. (As much as Aleidis was loathe to admit to herself.)

Double checking her datapad to ensure she was at the right warehouse, Aleidis lingered in the shadows in a sketchy part of Nar Shadaa with her satchel over her shoulder. It contained her usual kit - lightfoil, a handful of smoke and sonic grenades for incapacitate without harm, a flare gun (for luck) and a change of clothes, just in case she had to blend in with the slaves. No identification, of course. Slipping her datapad back into the big pocket of her faded grey hoodie, Aleidis flipped her hood up and made sure her cheap prosthetic arm was working right. A simple illusion would make it look like real flesh, and that was enough for her.

Right. Go time.

Becoming invisible to everything was a useful skill to have - any master of the White Current could tell you that. Invisible to the eyes and mind of your enemies, disappearing from cameras and infared, convincing the Galaxy that you simply didn't exist. But that was an exhausting skill to use for a long time, and Aleidis didn't know what lay ahead. So she'd used a lesser form to get this far, one she'd made use of repeatedly and often in her life. Being invisible was useful, being dim was simple. Rather than convincing the Galaxy that she wasn't there, she simply gave it the impression that she wasn't important. Eyes slid away from her, guards took little notice of her or assumed she belonged wherever she was. A dim person was no more interesting than a potted plant you've seen every day for years, and worth as much notice as that implied. Best part? It didn't involve the Current, and thus didn't give her away to any White Current user with half a brain and a proximity of a few miles. Just good old conventional Mentalism.

In this state, Aleidis crept into the building via a relatively unattended door using a passcard some slicer had assured her would open most simple commercial locks. So far it hadn't let her down. Two steps in the door... and she was assaulted by the smell of gore. Blood and excrement, viscera. Death. Something horrible had happened. Was she too late!?

Keeping low to the ground, her soft leather boots making little noise on the metal floor, the softly glowing dim woman followed her nose and prayed that the worst hadn't occurred.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

It was a good thing she took the swift and stealth approach, the cameras missed her by inches and just like that she was inside. Wouldn’t have mattered a lot though, nobody was there to see the recordings anyway, not the Ghostling was aware of that fact. Across the warehouse two shadowy figures were looking at their target.

‘She’s in.’
‘You sure? I saw nothing.’
‘Probably affected your mind.’
‘At this range? How powerful is this girl?’
‘Nothing the boss can’t handle.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe we-’
‘We have our orders.’
‘Does he even know she’s already in the building?’
‘Probably.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that we should shut the feck up and follow orders.’

A murmur in the radio was enough to start locking down the parameter, not in the military type of way of course. Just a few well-placed experiments across the area, they would make sure that even if Ovmar got his face wrecked in… Iljet would have problems getting out, ‘least with close to two dozen girls following her tail.

Inside the building the Ghostling was slowly creeping in an attempt to avoid all detection. There were droids here too, patrolling through the hallways, but not a lot of ‘em.

Just enough to make it a nuisance.

Somewhere in the distance she would suddenly hear a female scream, before abruptly being cut off.

Gotta move fast, Paragon. Before there ain’t anything left to save.

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Aleidis wasn't worried about Droids, nor had she ever been worried about guards - her training as a Padawan had involved trying to sneak past the Master's chamber in the Jedi Temple every day for months. This was nothing.

The first droid that lumbered into the Ghostling's path turned, stared at her; and saw nothing. Folding the White Current around herself, she registered on neither infared, sound, or recorder as she crept past the machine. Humans were easy to fool, Droids were slightly less so, but no more complex than fooling a camera or tape recorder. Neither camera nor tape recorder had ever had much luck picking up on a ghost who didn't want to be caught, and Aleidis was one of the more elusive ones alive.

And then a scream. The purging had started already!? Aleidis didn't bother to dismiss her Total Invisibility this time, running full-out for the source of the screaming. She was a doctor! If she could only get there in time, she might be able to make a difference! To save a life!

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

Her run brought her to a hallway, blood smeared across the walls and a single, vivid trail leading across the floor; as if someone had been dragged bleeding. The bloody trail ended at the end of the hallway, and vanished behind a door - closer inspection would reveal the door to be locked.

Locked with an encryption slightly more difficult than the one Aleidis had to unlock a few moments ago. Wouldn’t be much of a problem, was only a matter of time… but did she have that?

She would be able to hear the soft sobbing of girls behind the door, sometimes the voices raised themselves in a screeching cry, before breaking off.

Standing in front of the door, she would also notice a second door, a chink open, to her left, no light came from the room - impossible to see what was hiding behind door no. 2.

Then again, with all those scared cries behind no. 1… do you really have the time for a closer inspection?

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

The choice was clear. As little as Aleidis liked getting jerked around - and she got the distinct feeling she was being jerked around - the loss of immediate life superseded the mystery of a dark room. Even if the person narrating that door forgot that sensing life is something a wandering Doctor could totally do.

There was little hesitation. None, in fact. The first time Aleidis heard a choked sob behind door number one, she got to work.

Her cryptographer was only good for low-level locks, and Aleidis was as good with technology as could be expected of a young woman from a stone-age tribal planet. But she had her own ways of getting past locked doors, even if they were slightly less subtle than a crypo-card. Glancing around briefly, Aleidis crouched near the base of the locked door and ran her hand delicately over the metal - analyzing it on a level deeper than mortal sight, inspecting the molecular and atomic bonds between the particles that made up the thing.

As good as she'd been with healing, Aleidis was a better mentalist. But the Force power that'd always come most naturally to her was the Art of the Small - folding one's Force presence and focus down repeatedly. As a Knight, Aleidis had been able to weave together severed nerves and had, with concentration, managed to melt a wall by breaking it down to base components. Subtle? Not always. But very, very useful. Like most skills that were nigh-incapable of killing another person, the Art of the Small had been all but forgotten in the modern Galaxy.

Her fingertips brushed over the door's rim one more time, and this time, she found what she was looking for. Breaking down the entire thing to a sludge of it's most basic components was certainly something she could do, but that'd take time. There was most likely a control wire she could sever to merely pull the door open, but she was profoundly lacking in upper body strength. Good thing the Force was with her, or she'd be really screwed.

Aleidis found the clamps and rollers that kept the door so obstinately closed, and after a minute of concentration, turned them into goo. It was child's play to use the force to pull the now-free door open and peek inside.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

As the Ghostling Master poked her head into the room she would be hit by the fragrance of gore and death, tugging at her nostrils and dominating the taste buds in her mouth. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation and there may or may not be bile involved in it all.

There were a couple of things she might notice in the room, sobbing bundles scattered across it, tugged into the far-reaches of the corners and hugging themselves trying to… forget. Some of ‘em were unresponsive and it would be difficult to coax them out of the room, which brought us to the more immediate annoyance that was present here.

It was the arrogant-looking Sith Lord standing smugly at the center of a circle of mutilated corpses strawn and scattered ‘cross the room. They were eviscerated to such a degree that it was difficult to disconcern to whom they had belonged in the first place.

A nasty-looking sword impaled one of ‘em in the ground, when the door was pulled open the man looked up from his handiwork and gave the invisible apparition a smile.

‘Ah… yes. The woman of the hour. Welcome, miss Iljet.’

With that he lit up his cigarette, puffed out some smoke and simply waited.

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

The cloying smell of death, of blood and exposed organs, was no new thing to Aleidis. She'd been trained as a Padawan in the hospitals of lower Coruscant, cut her teeth on the plague-and-crime ridden hole that was Trevel'ka. It was disgusting, it was worrying, but a quick glance told her that there were no wounded in this room; just the living, dead, and the culprit. A culprit that looked just as pleased as punch that she'd come to stop him from eviscerating frail, softly-glowing girls. A trap, then. Wonderful.

Not a bad one, either. Either every girl in that room was a master of mental defenses, or there was some kind of phenomena blocking her from telepathically urging them to flee. Ysalmari were terribly popular these days, as were Vong-stuffs.

"Jared Omvar. You are making a mistake." Aleidis stated flatly, standing upright in the doorway. If she crossed over into that anti-Force field, she'd be almost as helpless as any of the girls he'd already terrorized. And she'd be wholly unable to help anyone via the most conventional means avaliable to her. "I'll admit that this was a clever way of luring me out - but what I don't understand is why you'd choose such an elaborate method of turning yourself in." The thin girl stated flatly, drawing herself up to her full - and largely unimpressive - height. "Why don't you let these girls go, and we can dicuss what this is really all about?"

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

In response the Sith Lord shook his head with the same weary smile, tugging another time at his cigarette and savoring the experience before finally replying to her. She was good, he had to give her that, even in a situation such as this one she could appear entirely confident in her ability and level-headed to do what was right without rushing into things.

Kudos.

‘I don’t think so, lass. Let’s cut this conversation short, I ain’t steppin out and you don’t want to step in. So I threaten the girls and you waltz in to try and save ‘em. Because that’s what you do, you are a savior, a… hero, of some sorts.’

Now he nodded to her.

‘Or perhaps you are tired of it already. You already proved yourself enough to this vile, cold world. You stopped Velok, made sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else anymore… and how did they repay you? Kicked you to the curb, planning on impeaching you while your stitches weren’t even healed yet probably.’

Jared Ovmar took hold of the Sith Sword and pulled it out of the body, a wet sound permeating through the room as it drew itself from the meaty flesh.

‘So what’s it going to be, Barsen’thor?’

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Aleidis gave the defiler a flat look as he tried to evoke a negative emotional response. He wasn't telling her anything that she hadn't quietly spent the past year brooding about. Trying to trigger resentment? The easy temptation that was wounded pride and bitterness? She was no stranger to the taste, and any Jedi who claimed otherwise was either a saint or a liar, but being a Jedi master didn't mean that the anger was entirely alien to you - it meant that you didn't let it cloud your judgements, your reactions or thoughts. And she wasn't about to start doing that now.

"Harm a hair on them, and you will not leave this building how you entered it, Jared Ovmar." Aleidis promised quietly, her dark eyes narrowed the slightest bit. "I need not enter the room to affect you - and you cannot spend the rest of your life in there. As you presume to know so much about me, you know how patient I can be."

The Ghostling girl took a half-step back, facing Jared in profile - the sabreless version of Je'Gan Olra'en's infamous Makashi technique, showing her readiness to draw her weapon and engage him if she had to. "And you know full well how I respond to those who make a point of getting at me through innocent lives." She added ominously. "Velok sought to draw me out, too - you, Master Ovmar, are no Velok."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

Ovmar let out a sigh, she wasn’t going to make this easy. Which may or may not be just how he liked it, easy was boring - least these days when everything came on a silver platter to him. The potential risks? Was simply the icing on the cake. He was pretty sure he’d be able to avoid the crystal soultrap-fate Velok experienced, if she was able to kill him.

Which wasn’t as hard as it might sound.

‘You are right.’ the Sith Lord conceded. ‘I am no Velok, but we do have certain things in common. Curiosity and the drive to feed it, but truth to be told I am not a big fan of ending innocent lives, it was simply the easiest way to bring ya here.’

‘Mhmmmhm, what to do… what to do.’

He looked up. ‘Fight me and they go free. Don’t fight me… and they go free.’

The Sith Lord smiled.

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

If there was a pan more dead than the deadpan expression Aleidis gave Jared just then, it would have been indisputable proof of life after death.

"So, either we engage in entirely pointless and empty combat... or you 'let them free' in what I'm assuming is a predictably ironic way." Aleidis stated flatly. Likely by just releasing a bunch of clueless, half-naked primitive girls onto a planet-sized city where everything could kill them at a touch. Freedom, but fatal. Gorram Sith Lords.

"Given a choice, I would have preferred to remain a pacifist." Aleidis said reluctantly, drawing her oft-unused sabre from her satchel. "When this is all said and done, I pray that you'll remember the chances I gave you to just walk away with your dignity intact, and use it as an object lesson." The Ghostling warned, turning the sabre over in her still-natural hand before standing with her side facing the Sith, a specialized Makashi stance with her weapon unlit.

"On guard, Master Ovmar."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

The lightsaber was at his hand in an instant, but he kept it unlit for now. A clarification was due, of the rules, because rules were important in a lawless Galaxy like this one. It provided clarity, understanding and a certain sense on what the stakes were, and were not.

He nodded in a confirmation. ‘If you fight me, I will give them everything. An education, allowance, I will provide them with everything they need to make a life for themselves.’ The Sith Lord pointed up a finger, as an addendum of the point. ‘It doesn’t matter who of us wins. If my face ends up eating dirt, I will help them, if I manage to best you? The same.’

Ovmar shrugged.

‘Dignity can only be lost when one cares about the opinions of others. You are a symbol, if I lose against you? At least I will have learned something of my limits.’

Then he lit the saber, blue light casting shadows in the room. Men came in from the other room and guided the ghostlings away, in the furiousity of a fight one could lose himself. During battle limits fade away and mistakes could be made.

Better that they don’t find themselves in the crossfire.

'This will be fun.'

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"Send them home." Aleidis 'suggested'. "It's a struggle for them to even walk or breathe off of Datar. There's nothing for those girls, especially not on Coruscant, that can compare to home."

After a moment, the Ghostling leaned down and removed her heavy leather boots for a bit more freedom of movement. That done, Aleidis lit her own sabre, the ancient crystal blazing to life with a mellow hum, casting a bold green glow. A Ghostling's feet were naturally pointed, heels raised, as though she were wearing an invisible pair of stiletto shoes - but they were made for climbing, running, fleeing predators. Just about the only aspect of her biology that was helpful in a fight. Aleidis bounced slightly on her toes, took a calming breath... and then lunged forward, into the Ysalmari bubble.

Her sabre flashed in a lunge, a flurry of rapid strikes - testing Jared's defenses, keeping him focused on thinking about her moves than concentrating on his own. This was where Makashi excelled; determining the holes in a duelist's style, and exploiting the hell out of those holes. Defense would avail her of little in this duel.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

In the strictest sense of the word Jared Ovmar was not a duelist. Most of his life had been focused on training on the deeper levels of the Force, such was the way of a specialist, but this didn’t mean he was totally useless. It simply meant that against a true Master of any of the lightsaber forms one had to become slightly more creative in its approach.

The Force was no longer here to augment his body with extra strength, and yet it didn’t worry the Sith Lord. Perhaps it were the cybernetics who had been part of him for a long time, theoretically tripling his body strength and giving him superior reflexes.

Perhaps it was simple arrogance and hubris, when she entered the fold in a Makashi stance, Ovmar answered with Djem So. The attacks were parried, and with every parry and augmented attack came in return.

This was one of the strengths of Djem So, using the force of the attacker against themselves. He kept a solid foundation, mobility wouldn’t avail him here, not against one of hers.

‘Reasonable.’ the Sith Lord supplied between parries. ‘I shall arrange it.’

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Aleidis couldn't block his strikes.

Well, she was fully capable of doing so, if she wanted to break an arm or something. Obviously, that was a bad idea, so when his Djem So hijinks re-directed her attacks into flowing counters, Aleidis opted to compromise her offense with movement - flitting and darting at the edge of his strike radius, circling around the (to her angle) towering man with the scary cybernetics.

Stupid, stupid Ysalmari. She wouldn't scratch him like this. Aleidis knew master-level saberplay when she saw it, and Jared wasn't it. Unfortunately, neither was she - and while neither of them had chosen to focus on martial discipline, he at least had the advantage of not being a Ghostling in his favor. Something had to change, or she would lose. Try not to think about how pathetic two Masters dueling like Knights would look to Masters Darron or Fabula.

Aleidis was far too accustomed to fighting with the marked advantage of being completely invisible whenever she damn pleased.

The Ghostling withdrew a half-step, panting slightly... then whipped her hand into her bag, produced a smoke grenade, and threw it into the air. Thick, grey fog began to fill the room, acrid and sharp to the senses. The Ghostling shut her sabre down to facilitate stealth, backing into her cloud.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

What you can’t see, you can’t hit.

Smart girl.

Had this been a normal situation the Sith Lord would have simply sensed the girl, sadly that wasn’t a possibility here. A moment after Iljet’s got turned off Jared followed suit, he changed his position slightly doing his best to be as stealthy as possible.

The Sith Lord didn’t make a sound, instead he opted to close his eyes, bending slightly in his knees to ensure mobility and simply… listened waiting for the sign.

While they were playing their little game, the doors of the room closed themselves. Reinforced durasteel, if she wanted to take off, she’d have to either cut through ‘em with her lightsaber or attempt to hack ‘em.

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Good thing she wasn't going anywhere.

Sure, she'd considered just leaving the room so she could either force him out of the bubble or brain-fuckle his men and get her fellow Ghostlings, but that plan ran the risk of him calling ahead and ordering an execution. And there was no way of knowing if the girls were still in this dingy warehouse. Jared would have to be dealt with. And it was a good thing he most likely had heightened robot senses, because Aleidis had a plan.

The military-grade smoke grenade had been manufactured to signal troop movements or something without resorting to the radio. In a small, enclosed room with questionable ventilation? The smoke quickly became thick enough to cut with a knife. With their sabres unlit, Aleidis had no more idea of where Jared was than where he knew where she was, which meant she'd have to work quickly before her recently horrible luck reared it's ugly face.

The Ghostling slipped a hand into her pocket, retrieving two little foam screws - one for either pointed ear. Plugs. They were important for the next part.

Mostly because sonic grenades, though non-lethal, had no discretion when it came to friend or foe.

Aleidis plucked two metal balls from her satchel, pressed a button on the side of each one, then threw them to opposite sides of the room. Before they even hit the walls, they activated - rending the air with an ear-splitting, bone-rattling screech. A weapon designed to disable riots-in-progress, and she'd set two of them off in a confined metal room. Even her earplugs wouldn't keep all the horrible out - Aleidis' vision began swimming, she was immediately wracked with nausea. That's how you knew they were working: the vibration made it feel like your head was exploding, and made you want to throw up your intestines.

Good technology, that. Mostly non-lethal.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Aleidis Ijet"]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Sonic weaponry was booming these days and Ovmar had been forced to deal with them one way or another. First time had been Ember, needless to say the Sith Knight had crawled away from that specific fight - his life intact though, so there had been a few bright spots.

At any rate, when you were some kind of thug slash banger of the street who decided to augment himself, trying to gain an edge on your enemies? You’d have been fecked now, chop-shops don’t have the latest of the latest gear, different with a billionaire who had cash to burn to make sure he doesn’t get in the same situation twice, thrice of even four times.

Sadly technology wasn’t infallible.

The moment the sonic device started booming through the room Ovmar folded, crashing to one of his knees blood started seeping from his nose, had it been any longer he’d have dropped unconcious and that would have been that.

Thankfully technology kicked in just then, noice cancelation integrated into the cybernetics of the Sith Lord. Almost immediately the boom canceled out, tears were still seeping from his eyes and a puking sensation wasn’t far away.

This was a weak moment, his eyes still roamed over the surroundings, but he’d need a few seconds to recover.

Yeah... technology was great.

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

He wasn't going to get a couple moments to recover. Even if Aleidis had no idea that he wasn't a sopping pile of vomit by now, she was coming for him to end the fight.

Datar was a place of sulky, wet weather - that was how the trees grew to such unprecedented size. Between the fogs that rolled in hourly, living in the cloud-riddled canopy, and the near-permanent twilight of the place, Aleidis was slightly less disabled in a dark, smoky room than her opponent. She stalked low and silent, fingertips brushing over the floor, black eyes peering for any shape in the dark that was Ovmar. And when she saw a standing blob that represented the Sith, she struck...

Not with her sabre. That might kill him.

She drew and fired her flaregun from near-melee range, launching a burning ball of magnesium emergency at the Sith Lord in hopes of burning him, setting his clothes ablaze... distracting him, and lighting him up like a fething Life Day tree in the dark room. There was nothing like the sudden sensation of being on fire to ruin one's concentration.