The surviving smugglers from the defensive perimeter outside the old monastery had barely succeeded in shutting the massive, cortosis weave durasteel doors. They would hold, but not for very long. They had bought themselves perhaps four minutes at best. And thats if the creature pursuing them didn't decide to pull some cheap slasher-villain move and cut around the door.
The Monastery's interior was vast, dark, and gloomy, its floors littered with small rusted over bell charms. In its recessed walls lay shattered prayer wheels. Strange rectangular notes, many half rotted away, had the Anzat language written on them. They had been told they were prayer wards.
"What the feth is it?! What the feth is going on?!" one of the female smugglers yelled, spattered in the blood and viscera of her comrades who she had fled as The Congregation was murdering them.
"I dunno! But we got four minutes before it gets in here to finish the job!"
"I hope the Boss is happy. Working with that Jedi just got half his people butchered." The biggest one, a zabrak with brown skin snorted. "We survive this, I'm gonna shoot the bastard..."
"Quiet you fools! Look!" one of them snapped, pointing at the door. It had a glowing spot at the center that was getting brighter.
"What do we do?!"
"I know what to do..." said a voice in the back...
Everyone turned. It was their boss. He was taller than all of them, an Echani of very pale skin, wielding a double bladed sword. His hair was brown, long and coiled into a giant braid that draped over red armor.
"You're going to all get to the upper levels, arm yourselves to the teeth with the weapons I left you. You're going to defend that Jedi, no matter what. Anyone who survives can debate who gets to be in charge." The Echani growled.
The smugglers didn't argue, not even the one who had vowed to shoot him if they survived.
Everything about this, the entire situation, was out of character for their captain. He normally didn't drop everything and haul ass to a planet under active occupation by the Sith. But one strange transmission had him doing just that. Against all odds, he had managed to evade the Sith dragnet to land on one of the single most dangerous planets in the galaxy. In the middle of a plague affecting already lethal brain vampires and making them all ravenous. It was a recipe for disaster. It 'had' been a disaster so far. But ironically this had not come in the form of being forced to re-enact the ending to From Dusk Till Dawn. That of course would have been too easy. No, they got the violent slasher film scenario. With lightsabers.
The rest of them started up the spiral staircase of wrought iron. The lightsaber was very close to melting the door.
"Hey cap, what about you?!" One of them called out as the Echani waited.
"He's got no reason to worry about that now, son..." The big Zabrak said, pulling the other one with. "Hey Cap! You fethed us, you know that right?!"
"Oh yeah..." The Echani replied with clear resignation, his weathered knuckles white from gripping his sword so hard. "I know..."
They fled to the upper levels, where the Jedi that had been occupying the Monastery when they arrived waited. Why he had not intervened had much to do with the spy who was lying injured in the main chapel above, being healed.
The Captain must have owed the Jedi huge to do this. Or that spy maybe, they had all thought, even as they willingly complied with what they had come to realize at the end was a suicide mission.
The Captain was alone, having stripped off his cumbersome black armored chest piece so he would not be slowed down as he continued to watch the door burn and melt.
Finally the locks melted and the doors were kicked open by the Congregation, whose flesh on one side of an otherwise beautiful face was bunched up and bubbling, shifting around constantly. He struggled not to vomit as she smiled.
"Give me the Jedi, and you live. I'll kill everyone else, but you will live." The Congregation offered. "One time chance. What do you say?"
"I need him." The Smuggler Captain answered, spinning his ritual brand.
"Then whatever business you have with him, you'll settle it in hell." The Congregation snorted, spinning both her purple blades on her ringed track. She desired a challenge.
"You any good with that brand, smuggler?"
"Come and see." (Apocalypse was secretly Poe Dameron: 10 XP)
The beast snarled and bolted for him, blades on her ringed track spinning at max speed.
The Captain didn't move as the blades rushed him. Not until the very last second.
There was a flash of metal reflecting light as he moved past her.
The Congregation shrieked with unnatural, metallic howls as a deep brutal gash revealed itself on her side, leaking white blood. If his slash had cut any deeper it would have reached her spine.
The Congregation's flesh writhed everywhere in pure hatred as she threw a deformed hand out, red lightning arcing off it and towards the captain, who shocked her by merely spinning his blade and catching the bolts, which became trapped in the blades themselves.
The Congregation was so surprised that when he flung his captured lightning at her, she didn't think to block until it was too late.
It slammed into her violently, instantly frying all the electronics in her suit, parts of it catching fire as she was hurled backward.
As she slammed into the wall, the sudden shock of having her suit damaged, her lightsaber being knocked away and the impact caused The Congregation's control of the body to slip for a second.
Her head deformed and warped back into The Amalgam's who blinked purple eyes in shock as she spotted the sword heading point first for her face. She barely rolled out of the way, but because her armor was heavier than she was used to, the edge of one of his blades managed to nick her in the shoulder as she executed an evasion-flip out of his range.
The Amalgam struggled to try and think of a strategy, but the Captain was rushing her and she back flipped out of the way, hand latching onto her Master's lightsaber. Her Master took control of the body once the conducting loop between it and the suit was restored and it was the Congregation's features he was gazing upon a second later.
She smirked, raising her hands to the air.
There was a crack of thunder from outside the Monastery. Then heavy red lightning bolts burst through a nearby window shot from the sky above.
She could not see through the glare, but smiled...for a half second, before realizing with growing frustration that he was still alive.
"This blade..." the captain trailed, its blades arching her red electricity. "Was blessed by the Anzati Anchorites who trained here. Force Powers have no dominion over it."
Her fury quaked. Now she had a problem.
It really would have to be a duel of skill.
The Congregation snarled and charged him again.
Meanwhile...
The Jedi Knight, a Weequay man who had long been a friend of The Echani spy he had journeyed to rescue from these Anzati monk-assassins knealt over the unconscious man, concentrating as best he could. His friend's injuries were severe from the torture he had been put through by them. Frankly he was amazed The Anzat had not simply turned him into their next bowl of "soup". He always did have a talent for upsetting his foes.
The Jedi, clad in dark brown robes, had not ceased healing him for days. His injuries had been that severe. The Monastery chapel at the top of the wood and metal structure was lined with small bell charms, golden light from a spherical light fixture at the top shined down on them, the pews arranged in a circular pattern around the center where a small Anzat shrine of candles lay.
The Echani, a man in his early thirties with gray hair on the side of black lay in prayer wrappings as he focused. But he had never been too fast at healing like other Jedi. He would not finish before the evil creature the Spy's smuggler brother was buying time for was on them.
"Its hopeless, you know..." came a young, seductive sounding voice that was somehow still tinged with pure malice...
The Jedi turned looking for the source. But he saw only darkness around him as he stopped his healing, causing his friend to groan.
"Who was that?" the Jedi asked, feeling the Congregation's fury surge below as she failed to kill the spy's brother. He grabbed his lightsaber spear, a Shoto fitted to one end of an Electrostaff, and braced for an attack.
"She will kill him. Violently. Messily. Slowly..." the seductive yet malicious voice sounded again in the darkness outside of the light fixture's radius.
"Who is that?" He called out, the blue shoto on his spear activating.
There was a chuckle at this.
"Why, another monster of course...its just that the monster below and the monster speaking to you are at cross purposes..."
"Show yourself! If you are here for my life I won't go quietly!" The Jedi exclaimed.
"Tempting...it would be delicious to make a Jedi scream...but no. I'm not here for you."
"What do you want?" The Jedi asked, getting curious. They usually attacked by this point.
"What I want is none of your concern. Just consider yourself lucky..."
The Jedi felt his throat tightening in a Force grip. He struggled to break it, but there was an inhuman mental will holding him in place, like a multitude of people all choking him at once. He soon blacked out after a few moments of struggling, exhausted by healing his friend for so long. Else he would have put up a 'far' better fight then he did.
His attacker flung the unconscious Jedi against a pew. It started towards the spy, but was interrupted when the group of survivors burst into the chamber. They stopped, pointing their blasters at the figure that had emerged from the shadows.
She was young and curvy, with very dark skin and black hair fastened to a topknot that hung luxuriously from her scalp, clad in an all white dress with a low cut neck and long slits in the front to allow her legs to move freely. Her eyes were a dull purple that went sulphurous as she narrowed her gaze, her heart shaped lips spreading in a smirk.
"Kneel." She commanded. "And serve me. Serve me, and your life shall be spared. I have a purpose for you...if you are smart..."
"What's to stop you from killing us all once that purpose is fulfilled?" The Big Zabrak man asked, aiming right at her head with a shotgun.
"Nothing." The Woman responded. "But you can either deal with me, who 'will' kill you if don't surrender..."
The survivors felt their blood chill as they watched the dark skinned woman's flesh wriggle like there were maggots underneath, the same as the flesh of the woman below.
"Or you can deal with her, who 'will' kill you whether you surrender or not..." the woman trailed, opening a cavity in her stomach and retrieving two purple, golden shotos which she activated immediately.
"What's it going to be?" She asked.
The death scream of the Captain below made their decision for them in an instant...
Taeli Raaf
