To the Edge of Night (Mythos)

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum thought for a moment. He had not heard any stories about the Jar'kai, he had been busy in recent months and his resources had been focused elsewhere. Building ships for a whole organization of little children had definitely been something interesting to do. He made a guess though as to what it was.

"I would assume a loyalty test of sorts?" It would have made sense to Ultimatum, after all as both a Sith and a ruler of a planet loyalty was an important commodity that was not easily found in all. He wouldn't want to have traitors in his midst, at least that was what Ultimatum assumed.

[member="Lord Mythos"]

 

[Mythos]

He never parted his gaze from the holographic feed of the training session. "You could say that, but no. Loyalty was something they slowly grew into, not given as a test" He watched the trainers continue their rotations and exercises with exceptional attention to detail. They fought and trained, like the waves of the sea crashing upon the stones again and again they persevered through the training simulation put forth by the captains of the Jar'Kai and the very room filled with obstacles.

"They were pitted to fight each other." Mythos said somberly, thinking back to the day they were chosen like a memorial flashback."over three hundred entered, exactly half left alive. "

The turbolift prepared and readied for the descent as Mythos had ordered,now he wanted to see this training first hand and would make sure these men had their first day be exactly what they needed it to be. "Let us see first hand how the training goes shall we?" He smiled a wicked grin, Ultimatum wanted warriors, Mythos would see to it they would be.
[member="Ultimatum"]

 

[Ultimatum]

That had been another possibility hadn't it. He had overlooked that concept, assuming that more people would have been preferred to a smaller more elite group. There were two ways of viewing how to collect warriors, the Sith way of culling the weak until only the strongest were left. Then there was the way of training all until there was near equality in abilities. Both had their advantages and both had their disadvantages. Ultimatum was prone to the latter as he was an especially violent sentient, by choice.

"Let's." He responded as he followed [member="Lord Mythos"]. He hoped to have soldiers, warriors he had been given. There was a difference. These clones were from warriors and they had the training of soldiers, at least a basic high level training. Ultimatum intended on having more training, making them better than what they had been.

Snipers were some of the most vigorously trained soldiers, they had to be. Their job was often the toughest, in many cases, and was also incredibly important. Ultimatum did not plan to start a war, he had no use of one. He planned to protect himself and his world. These were the beginnings of it. There were things that would occur that he would have no control over, they were things that he would have to be prepared for.

"You trained them well. The Jar'kai I mean. Have any proven themselves particularly strong in the Force?"

 

[Mythos]

"Immensely, their power and strength have carried the word of them throughout the galaxy so it seems" He said musingly, insinuating at his visit as proof of his own words. The lift dropped at intense speed flashing the lights and again and again during it's descent into the training ground all the way at bottom level aside the entrance to the palace.

They would be met by a hover pad outside the lift driven by two of the Jar'kai guards at each end of the metal stand and it would take them a few miles to the training station where his men were being trained.

Mythos never wasted time or credit laying about or doing nothing so while on the hover made he decided to practice a small trick of telekinesis to lift himself from the platform and keep himself steady as the platform drove on without touching the metal stand. The pressure of the air compressed around him as he focused his telekinesis on keeping himself on the hovercraft and afloat at the same time. He could feel the force fleeing from him quickly, he could not keep this up for long but still he drudged on further as the guards looks back in amazement but then snapped back to keep the craft steady and in speed...not daring to fail at their simple task.

The point quickly reached where his grasp was failing yet the reason while he was able to hold on further was the axe on his back, when he could no longer accomplish the task at hand, an injection of the dark side of the force flowed through his veins and not only was he able to steady himself and float, but now he did so... easily.

He turned his eyes from a few feet above to Ultimatum, his eyes glowing a eerily yellow form. "We shall arrive... imminently" A wide grin flashed across his face, unashamed of showing the power he had achieved at this level to someone as close to him as the lord of mustafar.
[member="Ultimatum"]

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum watched the display of power by the Sith. It was a little irritating, the unnecessary show of force. Yes he had the power and he needed to exercise it in order to maintain that strength. That did not justify it in Ultimatum's eyes. He decided however to keep his peace, there was no need to create trouble or mention personal preferences. At this time it was all business.

The dark side, as some called it, was strong here. He wondered if it were so embedded in his followers. If this place were taken by the Jedi, a by no means mean feat, would they be able to redeem them. Or would it be a fight until the end for the Jar'kai. Would [member="Lord Mythos"] take them with him should he try to escape. These were questions that Ultimatum did not wish to ask or immediately know the answer to.

"Impressive. What is the plan for the Jar'kai for now? Just keep training?"

 

[Mythos]

Mythos trained and pushed his limits everywhere he went, when he dove into the bowels of Mustafar to help the workers he was also testing and training himself, he feared that if one day he stopped training and pushing himself beyond his limits his power would diminish and fade like untrained muscles. He slowly plopped down into the pad as the hovercraft made it'sway to the outside of the training area and smiled to his companion pondering the question as they made their way to the training area.

"Training is so important my friend, you can never stop training, the day you do is the day you give your enemies the chance to surpass you" He looked at him with a small smile yet his face told him his words were very, very true. In Mythos' eyes there was no greater goal that the acquisition of boundless power and once you have that power you needed to maintain it and increase it at all times.

Mythos arrived and the captains of the Jar'Kai held up a hand to halt the combat exercises then bowing to Mythos in the atrisian customary way, exposing their necks to him in a show of complete subjugation and obedience. "Rise" He said with his raised hand and the three Jar'Kai captains stood in attention watching the two impassively. "I'll take things over from here if you don't mind my captains." he said shooting a wink to Martha and a sly smile to Banzai who already knew what Mythos had in mind...

As soon as he stepped forward he spoke a few words. "One of the top priorities of the Jar'Kai is to fight users of the force, Jedi, Sith and other rouge users of the force so before you do that you must realize what to expect from them....the only way to do that is to experience them first hand..." He paused unsheathing his lightsabers and cracking his knuckles. "You will do that now"

In a flash he was on them,a flurry of combat strikes and juyo rotations kept the entire unit off balance and the surprise strike and maneuver pushed them back as he landed a knee strike in the stomach of a clone dropping him then instantly a neck chop that bashed the other landing him hard clutching his neck.Two of them came from behind with a combined strike to his back but Mythos snapped back and extended his hand to them sending them flying off several yards with the force.

One Clone came at him with the training sabers and executed a rotation with the Jar'Kai style that drove Mythos back as he blocked the three consecutive strikes. "Impressive. Mythos said as the light of the sabers illuminated his face. He kicked down hard on the clone's foot and then pushed forward with his body using the leverage of the blade clash as momentum and the sudden pain of the strike to bring the bigger man down with a leg sweep.

The other clones charged but were stopped in their tracks when he extended both his hands and lifted them in the air,choking the life out of them with the force. "When you fight a warrior of my caliber, you are always in a disadvantage, you work as a team or you die as individuals, your call."

He dropped them and crossed his arms over his chest. Now it was their turn.

@Ultimatum

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum watched. The clones were not bad, against a well trained Force user, but he bet that [member="Lord Mythos"], was playing around rather than being really serious about this. The Sith was unlikely to really show his full strength. Ultimatum smiled as the man commanded the clones to attack as a team.

He watched as they all took a moment to share looks and then moved towards their target. As they were spread around the Sith they could attack from different directions, instead of taking him on in a row and actually getting in each others' way. They were clones, they had been trained together and were capable of working as a team in ways that would have surprised most organics. They were all pretty much the same person, they had similar thoughts, they understood each others' unspoken commands. It was not as good as a Force user's premonition, at least Ultimatum bet so, however it was more than could be said for most organics.

They were intelligent, using what they had learned, both from their teachers and the form of their current enemy. They were not droids, they could not have observed the weaknesses or flaws in Animus' form, they could not have analyzed his movements and in a split second change attack style. They tried their best however.

Ultimatum watched both parties, he would log the information for later looking over. Perhaps it would give him an idea of what the Force was perhaps capable of.

 

[Mythos]

If Ultimatum desired to know about force combat, now was a great time to behold the true power of the dark side. As the clones came forward Mythos' weapons were released from their individual holsters, each floating individually in the air with a massive focus of telekinetic force skill. Each individual weapon; the axe, the rudis and both lightsabers formed a four pointed flank around Mythos spinning each time more rapidly in the air.

When the first combat wave came in each trooper was met with a wall of coordinated plasma as Mythos fought their advancements with nothing but his mind. The closest trooper ducked and dodged the Axe along with a partner that managed to grab a hold of the weapon itself letting his partner through the defense only to find a flying dagger aimed at his chest courtesy of Mythos that threw him back next to his clone brother.

The farthest two clones contended with the black core lightsaber that aimed each slice for a vital area of their bodies however when the lightsaber focused on getting the killing blow on one trooper it gave them the opening to rush the center figure of Mythos which one of them did take while his brother held the saber at bay.

As that clone rushed the remaining two clones were not a yard from Lord Mythos, each moving and parrying the swift and vicious shoto dagger that was maneuverable and highly controllable in a telekinetic grasp and as such very effective at keeping two enemies at bay singlehandedly. It was then the rushing trooper came with a close slice at Mythos' 8 o'clock that forced the Sith Lord to drop the concentration from his weapons casing them to drop.

As quick as a flash of light he took his last remaining weapon with his left hand, the blade of savatas, from his boot while bending his knees and angling his body to meet the attacker. With his free hand he caught the bottom of his opponents' training saber while he twisted the blade in between his two arms and yanked hard on his body, throwing him to the nearest trooper who by this time were rushing his figure because all weapons had hit the ground.

As he landed upon a trooper two more descended upon him, this time catching him weaponless and on the defensive. But a Sith Lord was never without a weapon. He needed time to regain some of his stamina so he dropped his body in a ball while his opponents charged, hearing the sizzling contact of training sabers meet before he touched the ground with a single hand holding up his body and executed a strong sweeping kick that dropped both men and brought him to his feet in a whirlwind of movement.

As he arose from the ground the fallen troopers' lightsabers came to his hands flying swiftly and his eyes stared down the remaining troopers that undauntedly charged him with a triangular formation. He fell into the force, he could not possibly see the rotations and angles of the attacks humanly, so he relied fully of the guidance of the dark side of the force to predict and counter the movements.

He back stepped and round parried the thrust that came from his side so his opponent over reached and acted as a wall between a charging opponent and himself. He inverted the grip of one training saber and raised it horizontally directly behind him to parry a downwards chop then shoulder slammed that very trooper into the ground with a quick burst of the force as he tried to come in with a horizontal chop with his second lightsaber. Inverting to the stance of Juyo quickly he sprang and twirled his body in mid air aiming a spinning vertical kick at the trooper that had made his way around his brother to slice Mythos with an uppercut slice.

The kick landed beautifully... the heel of the boot connected with the jaw at an amazing velocity and sent a oozing line of blood directly into the chest of the nearest trooper who was getting up from being thrown down with the sweeping kick. When Mythos touched the ground that trooper was the immediate target of his fury. He dashed to him, determined to reach him before he stood up, two of his brothers flanking Mythos closed in to stop his path but Mythos dived between them head first and lightsabers out, digging into their extended forearms and coming down with increased momentum. When he continued his dash the troopers in his way already found that the lightsabers they had been hit with had nullified the use of their arms completely.

Training sabers of this nature were commonplace in Glee Anselm, designed to cause intense pain and to numb the area they hit not to kill. The rising trooper was at one knee and rising steadily when Mythos jumped and raised his knee to meet his opponents face and felt the decisive impact of the strike before turning heel swiftly and facing down his remaining opponents. What he saw was two wounded, one out of the game the other behind him also out and the two who were recovering and ready to attack. They had done well, they fought excellently, this battle would teach them many skills that against a force user would be invaluable.... yet the battle was not over.

@Ultimatum

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum watched with much interest as the clones seemed to have their backsides handed to them by the Sith. He was certain that even though they appeared to have done some damage to their foe the Sith was more powerful and could have easily dealt with them. He looked forward to seeing how far the organic would allow his pride to be injured before he would react violently. As time went on Ultimatum could almost calculate the decline in the strength of the clones. Most certainly they were putting up a valiant effort, and working as a team and supporting each other was strengthening them far beyond what any of them by himself could have done.

The droid was surprised that Animus had chosen to use what he assumed to be a training saber. He had always heard that Sith tended to live along the lines of live or die and little to no chances in between. Ultimatum was not complaining, he wanted his men to remain intact as long as possible, assuming that real war and battles would eventually cause enough damage to them. As the battle continued, Ultimatum recorded the Sith's movements. He created a three-dimensional model in his mind and replicated the movements of the body within his HoloNet being. Unlike organics who required teaching normally over and over again in order to accomplish a move or set of movements, as a droid Ultimatum could completely replicate almost any movement that he was able to visualize within his mind, the only limit was that of his physical body and its maneuverability. He looked forward to when he had a more lithe body with which he could actually fight with a melee weapon, instead of simply standing in the way of the weapon and taking a beating.

[member="Lord Mythos"]

 

[Mythos]

The reason Why Mythos opted for training sabers was only to follow Ultimatums' wishes that his soldiers were not harmed, if it was up to him and he was going to train them like the Jar'Kai at least half of them would be dead or wounded beyond help. Mythos turned from his stance, twirling the lightsabers upon his wrists and taking the Jar'Kai stance once again, the numbers they had had depleted yet the ones who remained came forward without fear and encircled the Sith Lord in a rush of movements and rotations that kept Mythos turning in place as he defended his position and allowed no strike to enter. Mythos was above all... a swordsman, a bladewarrior, nothing like other warriors like Damien Daemon who were actual Blademasters but he was getting there slowly and carefully.

One by one each troopers made slight mistakes that cost them a strike from the Sith lord, slowly they started falling one by one in the flurry of saber fighting until eventually every trooper was grounded in the floor and unable to continue. Drenched in sweat and confident in their abilities Mythos turned off the training sabers and tossed them to the floor, then he began to clap slowly. "Marvelous... you display courage and teamwork... let this defeat embolden you and strengthen you..." Mythos showed the blood on his cheek that the rifle strike had caused and pointed with a single finger at it. "Most don't get this close..."

He paced back to Ultimatium with a satisfied expression. "You have good men, they still need more training... but now f they ever see a force user they will know how to behave"
@Ultimatum

 

[Ultimatum]

Animus had a surprisingly supportive response to the end of the battle. He seemed to be good at giving these short words that would hopefully strengthen their resolve for their next battle with a Force user. They had skill, they were intelligent, they learned quickly; he just hoped that they would not become complacent with the new form of combat they had learned. He would tell them to train constantly, perhaps the droid would build modules for them to practice on an almost real target.

When the Sith turned to Ultimatum and spoke to the droid, he smiled, "When does training ever stop? Thank you for your expertise. Think that will leave a scar, or going to put bacta on that?" The last question Ultimatum pointed to the cut. While the clones picked themselves up and took a little bit to try and get feeling back into those limbs which were numb.

[member="Lord Mythos"]

 

[Mythos]

"Just like your intelligence Ultimatum, always becoming more and more encompassing of all things, the human muscle retains reflex that after repetition comes to work almost with a mind of it's own. Training stops the day you die." He stated and chuckled turning back to the men nodding in approval, the fact that they had even touched him was a sign that they were ready... when his apprentices managed to strike a blow on him Mythos usually saw their promotion to knight shortly after. This case was it's own story, units needed constant training to make up for the lack of individual attention one could give to an apprentice.

Mythos gestured to the first of the rising troopers and shot him a smile. "You there" His eyes narrowed and focused, then relaxed with the yellow flame of his fury subsiding. "You allow your emotions to run rampant, you rushed forward instead of aiding your team out of anger. This can be useful, but only when in control" He then turned to another, gesturing to him as he helped his comrade rise. "You, tend to be overly critical of your own actions in the battle, act upon your decisions and trust yourself enough to see them through..." Mythos shot him a wink before he finished. "You might be surprised with what you can accomplish."

Mythos paces around the troopers that slowly started to rise, if they were to leave this place they were to also learn the second art of being a warrior, a deep understanding of oneself before the understanding of the enemy. He would go one by one revealing to them truths about themselves that he knew for a fact to be true because he had seen them in action... Something about facing a person in combat gave Mythos a deeper understating of their nature. "You are an opportunist, this is good because it means you can strike at the perfect time with the least amount of risk, you are patient and cunning, yet you can also be too patient... do not let the opportunity of victory escape you because you waited to long."

His eyes darted to the most physically hurt of the troopers, the trooper he had downed with a single swirling axe kick and almost snapped his jaw in half. He gave that trooper the most warm smiles and gripped him by the shoulder. "You are one hell of a fighter, you lack no courage or bravery, however what worries me is your lack of intuition, remember that a warriors' mind needs to be as sharp as his body, think tactics and strategy, think of the best way to defeat your enemies, not the quickest."

His eyes then quickly and instant darted to the pair of troopers that had fought his smaller blade. "You two work upon each other and bring out the best in your brother. I have rarely seen such coordination and flexibility... but when i split you apart you did not know what to do. Learn how to fight without each other as well as fighting as team just for such occasions, individual strength is worth just as much as strength of the unit."

He turned to Ultimatum when he finished, he gave a few more pointers and general footwork and blade rotation explanations before he headed back to his mechanic friend. "I don't remove scars that can stay Ultimatum, these are my badges, i wear them with pride"

His tone was relaxed but serious and imposing. His body was decorated in scars, from the chest to the lower legs and the face Mythos wore each and every one like a medallion of the highest honor as well as a story to be told if ever asked.

[member="Ultimatum"]

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum watched the men respond, some with less enthusiasm and others with more. However, all seemed to take the message to heart. Ultimatum was almost certain that they would remember these lessons on character and work on them back at base. It was a question of whether Ultimatum would have to instill a routine which included a combat training.

He smiled to [member="Lord Mythos"]. Yes training never ended, it would be a constant quest as was that for power he was sure. For himself, the search for power was a limited endeavor, he had the end goal in sight. Studies had given him information that would be invaluable to his own plans, he hoped one day to talk to Animus about this. But not yet, the organic would probably put up some resistance to the idea, and a Sith was not an enemy he needed yet. He liked the man, as much as he could like any Sith, maybe more, but there was only so much that he could talk about with him.

It was an interesting concept, about wearing one's scars with pride. That did not seem logical to the droid, however he reminded himself, organics had the strange ability to become stronger after damage, part of their physiology made them repair damage and strengthen it so it did not break as easily next time. As a droid he was made of nonliving metal which did not repair itself or grow stronger, therefore when he took blaster fire, even though it only left scoring on him and nothing immediately dangerous, he would always take the time to later repair it.

He took more pride in that which most would never see, the internal components that were more advanced than most anything in the galaxy, the metal body that was made resistant to most weapons. That sort of thing, he had never thought of scars as something to be proud of, to him they were weaknesses and they had to repaired, that was perhaps a reason that he had yet to comprehend organics' strange fascination with scars.

"Perhaps someday I will understand that. Until then I hope you do not mind me sticking with repairing what damage I take. Thank you once more for taking the time out of your day to help train these men. I hope they did not disappoint and maybe someday you will see the potential in clones. Out of curiosity, what do you intend to do about the media coverage of my arrival? Is this government more of the free press sort of controlled?" The first part was intended as a joke, the later question was to learn something more about this man. As Malgus had aptly said before, learning was constant. He would never stop learning, not until the day the HoloNet came crashing down.