This Old Cantina - Confederacy Space/Tatooine

[Long Gone]

Aaralyn frowned softly.

"No idea how that happened...." She watched as the citizens of Mos Eisley began to scatter, even the drunk patrons of the Cantina. Aaralyn followed the gaze of [member="Ember Rekali"] to the figure of [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]. She motioned towards the woman and then turned towards Ember. "How is it we tend to attract such a colorful crowd?" She said with a grin.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Aaralyn Rekali"]

Ember sneezed viciously beneath his helmet. "Serendipity," he cursed. The shattergun clicked, and he took up a kneeling stance, bracing his arm to level the railgun at the Cantina.

 

[Long Gone]

"You can't be serious...." She said looking at her father and then the Cantina. "And you should probably get that checked out..." She gently patted his shoulder, metal contacting metal with a clanking noise as she did so. With a heavy sigh, she would lean down and kiss the helmet that held the head of her father within. "Love ya dad..."

[member="Ember Rekali"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Focused as [member="Serian Loria"] was on blocking a telekinetic master, using pyrokinesis, and employing torture by chagrin, it was pretty fething safe to say that Loria was busy.

"Fire in the hole."

Twenty metres down the street, outside line of sight, Ember was still kneeling, using Keetael Force talents to improve his aim with the Verpine shattergun inside his bracer. He employed precognition for the aim and White Current to mask his intent from the Force.

A railgun slug travelling six kilometres per second punched a hole through the cantina wall, aimed for Serian's heart.

 

[Lord Ghoul]

A counter push rippled from Serian, barely stopping Shorn's own from sending the Templar flying. A wet snap came from Loria's torso, eliciting a feral grin from Mikhail. Nothing could sound so sweet as the sound of an enemy's bones popping. The trembling rage in his chest tasted that intoxicating nectar and craved more, unsatisfied. He wanted to hear Serian break.

Suddenly, fire. A white-hot, blinding inferno that licked away his skin, consuming him alive. The flames stuck to his clothes, stuck to his hair, stuck to his flesh... and they burned him. A scream tore from Mikhail's lips as his pale skin blackened, charring away. White flames licked at raven locks, searing patches of hair from his scalp. Pure terror gripped Shorn, eyes widening. Feral instincts pulsed in his being. He could sit there and burn, or he could do something about it. In the depths of his agony, afflicted in mind and body, Mikhail lashed out.

He inhaled sharply and breathed in the flames through his nostrils. Cimmerian strength hummed about him, a swirling miasma of Dark Side energy that he drew upon. Of all Sith traditions, the only thing he clung to was the code. A single phrase at the end. The Force shall set me free. Mikhail could feel the chains of fire that bound his body, could feel the radiating heat. With a single ability, he shattered those chains and formed them into a weapon. His scream stopped, leaving his voice ragged. He could not feel his skin, but the flames no longer consumed him. They wreathed about the unrecognizable figure, whose skin and clothing had burnt away until he resembled a red and black mess. For a moment, nothing... then golden light burst from every pore of his being.

The soft glow suffused him, matching the liquid gold of his eyes as he absorbed Serian's flames with tutaminis. A font of power blossomed inside of him. He could feel the buzzing energy, begging to be unleashed. Murder danced victoriously in eyes that locked onto the Templar's form and promised death.

Serian Loria had made a common mistake. He had attempted to do too much at once. Countering a Force Push from the man who'd leveled skyscrapers was no easy feat, but Serian had chosen to counter it with his own push. At the same time, he'd utilized pyrokinesis on a grand scale, all the while using torture by chagrin. If there was one thing about mentalism that Shorn knew it was that it takes concentration. Using a Push, pyrokinesis, and attempting to wreck the mind all at the same time meant something had to give.

Torture by Chagrin was that something.

Various demons rose from Mikhail's past to haunt the darkest parts of his mind, but in the depths of his agony, his madness, and his power... he paid them little heed.

The last of the flames dissipated, sucked into a body whose pale glow stood in sharp contrast to the former harsh illumination. Mikhail raised a blackened hand at Serian, fingers curling. Vast telekinetic will wrapped about the Templar in two places. His neck... and his groin. Mikhail focused all his pain and wild fury on the single task of lifting Serian up into the air, attempting to Force Crush the man's balls in the process, and slamming him back to the ground with the impact of a meteorite. Crushing the groin would disrupt concentration and leave Loria in mindless agony, or so Shorn hoped. Serian could try to resist, but by absorbing those flames Shorn now had his power increased twofold. Mikhail had killed Jared Ovmar, a mentalist of Serian's equivalent, in the exact same manner. Serian Loria would be no different.

Shorn would hold the Templar in a Force Grip all the way down, ensuring that he would not escape. He could envisage the next few moments. Serian's feet connecting with the ground first, shattering, and then the rest of his body following afterward, crushed against the ground like a bug.

A speeder crash could result in enough kinetic impact and blunt trauma to cause intracranial bleeding and explode internal organs. Mikhail hurled Serian toward the ground with a speed far in excess of mere speeder crashes.

Imagine an egg. The egg represents a human being's fragility. Now imagine taking that egg and throwing it against the ground as hard as you can. That is an accurate depiction of what Shorn was attempting to do to Serian. There would be no crater, just bloody bits and pieces of a Templar Loremaster scattered about Mos Eisley.

Even as Mikhail did so, something punched through the outer wall of the Cantina, impossibly fast, and zipped straight for Serian's heart. While Shorn could lift someone into the air and body slam them at considerable speed, he could not do so faster than 6 kilometers per hour, which was the speed of the slug. Which meant that the bullet would reach Serian before Shorn could lift him off his feet.

[member="Serian Loria"] [member="Ember Rekali"]

 

[Serian Loria]

The next attack made him crumple to the floor, but the blue energy that was surrounding him protected him. It didn’t stop the crushing weight, but in his prone position on the floor, the shattering of the wall only rained down debris upon him. It left Mikhail standing in line to the slug, though he wasn’t aware of it. He coughed blood, the pressure around his throat and making bile rise, though it was crushing the protective bubble into his flesh. He wasn’t aware of the pain from his lower extremities, his whole body was in pain at this point and he was holding onto consciousness by will alone. Was his survival of the shot serendipitous? Someone looked to be trying to cheat Shorn out of a victory of his own hands.

He doubted Shorn would deal with the one who fired that shot, he sensed Ember’s aura disappear. He could have died then, had he not fallen to the ground, had he still been standing he would have died then, he could still die now. The building had been pretty fair wrecked, the loss of stability in the wall behind him made the foundations groan. It had been the fire that did the most damage, his position on the floor allowed him to feel the shift. He sensed below him emptiness, like a cave, there was water. All planets had pockets such as this, where it led there was no clue. He couldn’t take on a coward who had a ranged weapon who was at full strength, nor could he continue the fight.

If he brought the building down to cover and hopefully finish off Shorn and broke the floor and rock, he could escape. It was a choice, die now or probably die and take his enemy with him. He chose the later, this way there was a chance the cold would pull his body into a dormant state, though he could still die of hypothermia or a myriad of other reasons including his own injuries. He would take his only shot of survival. He brought the building down and broke the ground below, he cast his fate to the Force, if it was his time to die he’d be claimed. It tapped him to the dregs, when he hit the water he knew no more. Debris fell through the fracture, fell around him as he sunk down.

His life energy was so minute one would have to be next to him and even then it was a pale flicker. His body was broken, thankfully he was not bleeding as nothing had broken his skin, the cold water chilling him. He felt arms around him and a familiar scent, Telara. Perhaps it was the end, why else would he feel her then? It wasn't what he imagined, but he wasn't disappointed.



OOC:
I'm leaving this ambiguous, maybe it succeeded, maybe it didn't, but I have no idea, which is the point.
I'm ending my part on my terms, consider me out of this thread.

 

[Lord Ghoul]

The shot, zipping at over 6 kilometers per hour zipped over Serian as the man fell, stirring his hair and missing him by a literal millimeter. The trajectory of the slug carried it on and straight toward Mikhail. Shorn wasn't even aware of the slug, much less capable of stopping it. In a day filled with fortuity, the slug's path carried it serendipitously into his right arm and blew it clean off at the upper forearm with a screeching ring of metal on metal. You see, Mikhail's right arm was cybernetic from the elbow down, courtesy of Anaya Fen.

The man stood there, unflinching, as the building caved in around him. However, one did not simply bring down a building on Mikhail Shorn. An explosion rocked the crumbling building as Mikhail used telekinesis to blast aside the falling debris about him. Unblinking, he stared at the remnants of their fight. Serian was somewhere in there, buried beneath the rubble. Probably dead.

With a clear path skyward, Shorn employed Force Flight to lift himself up off the ground and float into the sky. The sun's harsh rays burnt what was left of him, his sunlight allergy acting up. Yet, 90% of Shorn's body was covered in varying burn degrees and his clothing stuck to him, melted to his flesh. The only thing keeping him going right now was a generous helping of Dark Side energy and his Garhoon blood.

He moved through the air, faster and faster as he felt his power slipping away. He had to get to his ship. There it was, just below. His flight destabilized and he tumbled through the air in an uncontrolled crash. Mikhail barely cushioned his landing in the sand, screaming as something in his chest broke and sand got in the burns.

Somehow, he managed to crawl his way up the boarding ramp and into the star yacht.

Pariah, the ship's A.I., welcomed him in a flat, emotionless voice. "Ah, master, returned again victorious I see. I do hope the other organic looks worse."

"Shu-shut up," Shorn rasped, "Get me to Fringe space. Now!"

He crawled his way further into the ship as Pariah lifted off and began the hyperspace jump. Several bloodpacks sat in a cooler. Mikhail tore one open and drained the contents greedily, then slumped to the deck. His eyes closed and he let his Garhoon blood do the rest.