((OOC: Playing a touch of catch-up. To save you reading the whole thing, it's a lot of text - I know, I've tagged individuals just above portions that may be happening around/to them. If I've missed something, it's because things are happening super fast, and I apologize.))
Above Great Jedi Library
To say that Ashmedai was flying would have been, perhaps, a touch inaccurate. The Sith Lord, like many force users, had long since been able to jump to large heights with the aid of the Force. If that was combined with the rather simple concept of levitating his own bodyweight higher through the Force, it could certainly be viewed as flying. Regardless, it was something that Kiskla had actually seen before albeit briefly. However, his actions were little more than distraction. If the Jedi Master desired to receive the full brunt of his sole attention, then she need only wait a few minutes longer. Several things happened to the Sith Lord just as he was preparing to allow himself to fall back to the ground, and they ranged from amusement to deep-seeded anger on the emotional scale.
As Ashmedai allowed his body to gradually begin falling back towards the ground, he became aware of two presences building around him. There was one making a laughable yet encouraging effort to pull him in a specific direction, and there was the swelling of darkness from within the Library, threatening to destroy it altogether. Kiskla's specific effort, despite whatever misguided belief in a false deity she maintained, was more or less hopeless. To be clear, she had the strength in the light side of the Force that would have certainly exhausted his energy reserves to combat and overcome if he resisted for too long. However, that was not what he felt her reach out to him with. There was a deeper darkness, a familiarity in the motivation behind her actions. Though the Jedi Master had never explained her...mental situation in depth to Cameron, he understood all too well from her emotions at their last meeting that she...really believed it possible to dip in both worlds. As he told her then, it was not. To try, as she currently was, merely guaranteed a permanent effectiveness of mediocre to poor. The Jedi Master could rely on whatever false deity she wanted, but if said false deities entire embodiment was merely the dark side of the Force, it would fail her in any battle against a true vanguard of the dark side time and again. Allowing emotion to fuel your connection to the Force and tap into its more deadlier forms was, on the whole, easy. Doing that and using it against an entity that had been trained and living as a Sith for centuries, not so much. In summary, the Sith Lord worked to resist the Jedi's efforts, but it took rather little. Today was not the day she would use his ally and weapon against him with success.
Fortunately for Kiskla, her attention was diverted by Zambrano's actions before she could exhaust herself in her futile attempts. As the blonde Jedi and her associates dealt with the crumbling and subsequent destruction of the useless stone structure that had once been the Great Jedi Library, Ashmedai's own body rocketed through the air towards the ground. Just before impact, the Sith Lord utilized the Force to abruptly slow his descent. Landing with all the force of a floating feather, the Sith Lord's gaze remained fixed on the sight before him. Retreating to the treeline near the Library, Ashmedai leaned against a large trunk and watched the Republic forces scramble to recover.
@[member="Kiskla Grayson"]
The moment he sensed Kiskla looking for him once more, he addressed her. Ashmedai had not attempted to mute his presence in any way, it shined still like a raging fire in the darkness. You know. I really hope this entire campaign is not indicative of your Council's intelligence. Unless...you kept our little private meeting together a secret from them. Motioning around him, somewhat unnecessarily, the Sith Lord indicated the many dead and wounded bodies in the area. These lives and this blood are on your hands and the hands of those like you. I told you that even in some twisted form of victory, the Sith would never let you win. I told you they were willing to go much farther than you were...and that a head-on fight was pathetically pointless. I told you that this would happen. So, you seek my counsel and then ignore it. I regard that as having my time wasted. If Kiskla Grayson had a trigger, a point where her emotions threatened to take control of her actions, it was in the face of becoming, ultimately, a failure. Whether or not she knew that...another matter entirely.
As the Sith Lord had expected, the one Jedi he held respect for had shown up unprepared for this fight. This answer to his question at the outset of this invasion had been realized. He would be learning nothing from the Jedi today. Pity. The disappointment, however, rested in Kiskla. She chose to hold herself back and then dared to lash out at him with what...a restrained form of dark side affinity masquerading as a deity from children's stories in her head? The audacity that she could merely come here and take a casual interest in whatever goals the Republic had, misguided though they were, was in a word...well his views were clear by now.
@[member="Daella Apparine"] | @[member="Syn"] | @[member="Dar'rak"] | @[member="Meta "]| @[member="Yasuo"] | @[member="Florin Armetta"]
Up to this point, Cameron had not really been terribly...angry. Disappointed yes, angry no. However, that had changed abruptly in the tide of this so-called invasion. Pushing off the tree he had rested against, the Sith Lord casually walked into the open. No more than a hundred or so meters in front of him, his silver-green gaze caught sight of the many Jedi engaging remaining Sith forces in the area or attempting to regroup from the destruction left by Zambrano. Inhaling sharply, Lord Ashmedai allowed the very heart and soul of darkness inside of him to flood into his surroundings. The secret to increased continued strength in the dark side was not the ability to merely emotional about everything. The secret was controlling one's emotions and utilizing them to empower one's connection to the Force, to the dark side. On the battlefield, Ashmedai had no qualms about letting the full spectrum of his emotions consume the environment around him. The presence of other Sith and, perhaps more importantly, dead and injured bodies for him to rob of whatever specks of life energy remained surged through Ashmedai's entire being.
Withdrawing his Sith Sword once more, purple-white tendrils of force lightning began to cascade down the Sith Lord's weapon hand until the edges of the blade were encased in the raw energy of the dark side. The skies above them seemed to darken as the already present sound of thunder intensified while sheet-lightning illuminated the clouds above in a constant light show. Holding the blade to his side, Ashmedai inhaled and exhaled slowly before settling his gaze in the direction of remaining Jedi. Today was, perhaps, a good day to die. It, however, would not come easily. "Jedi." The word left Ashmedai's mouth just as he unleashed a crippling wave of Force energy from the core of his being with the full brunt of his strength. The Sith Lord had no doubt that not all would be effected, but he was quite certain that the less indoctrinated would be foolish in any attempt to absorb or otherwise struggle against such energy.
Go with the flow was...typically what he instructed to his acolytes in such a circumstance. The only thing that followed behind the crushing wave of energy, a distraction for most, was a blur of colors representing the Sith Lord's rapidly advancing form towards the current object of his...disdain (@[member="Kiskla Grayson"]).
