ToC Finale:Mikhail Shorn VS Triam Akovin

[Lira Dajenn]

This was it, the final match for the Tournament of the Cauldron. The Final fight of a long grueling series of battles. A week had passed since round three of the Tournament, both finalists had been given time to rest and recover.

Now however the final match loomed. Jedi had been pitted against Jedi. Sith had been pitted against Mandalorian, woman against man, monster against monster. The Tournament of the Cauldron, hosted by Nemene and Evelynn Talith had been a massive success. Trillions across the galaxy had sat and watched on the edge of their seat as the fights carried on.

Hundreds upon thousands had come to Rattatak to witness and view the fights, to be as close to the action was physically possible, and with this last round, they would not be disappointed. The two Queens of Rattatak, and the hosts of the Tournament stood a the top most VIP box of the Cauldron, both smiling and looking down into the massive fighting pit.

This was where the last fight would begin, this was where [member="Mikhail Shorn"] would meet [member="Triam Akovin"]. Back in the Cauldron, back among the sands. Something about the arena had changed however. It was no longer just a flat sandy surface.

Instead the Cauldron appeared to be like a broken city. Half built homes ran throughout the pit, compacted dirt streets, metallic structures of all sorts. This was why the last three rounds had been fought on other worlds. Nemene and Evelynn had been building a surprise. The Cauldorn had been turned into an urban nightmare, the perfect place for a final showdown.

Suddenly, The Queen of Rattatak spoke, her voice booming out. “This Tournament Began Twenty Four Combatants. Some Famous, some unknown. All however performed well. You have seen blood spilled. You have seen bones broken, and you have seen appendages removed.”

The Crowd roared at the last.

“Now we come to the final fight. Mikhail Shorn, The Thronebreaker!” Nemene waved to one side of the arena and the crowd burst into a deafening roar. She let it pass for a moment, then waved to the opposite side. “And Triam Akovin, The Relentless.”

This time the crowds roar seemed to shake the Cauldron. Mikhail Shorn was admired, and perhaps even worshiped by some of the crowd, but Triam? She was the peoples choice. She was not a force user, she was normal like them, and she had defeated the Ashin Varanin. They surged for her until Nemene raised her palm once again. Her voice boomed.

“Begin.”

 

[Lord Ghoul]

Mikhail glared up at the crowd, phrik helmet held under one arm. He held up a hand and gave the audience the finger.

Then he jammed his helmet over his head. The Hydra armor he wore had been repaired after the last fight. The dents had been hammered out, but even so, the dull, grey slabs of phrik that covered his body bore the scars of lightsabers, the pockmarks of blasters, and the tiny dents of really big slug rounds. This armor had been around the block a few times, but the stuff was phrik. It could last a long, long time. In a sheath at the small of his back he wore the Ouch Knife, a beskar long-knife coated in devaronian blood-poison. One touch, even if it didn't break the skin, would send you into incomprehensible agony and leave you drooling on the floor. He also had phrik ball bearings in pouches at his belt. Balls, knife, and armor. In comparison to other people who packed around jetpacks and four sets of assorted carbines and pistols, Shorn was practically unarmed. Not having a lightsaber sometimes put him at a disadvantage, but he was too lazy to make a new one. Plus, having a lightsaber meant concentrating on using that weapon. Shorn would much rather concentrate on his weapon of choice: the Force.

Ysalamiri bubble? No problem, back out of the bubble and chuck a boulder at it. Force dead? No problem. Chuck a boulder. Terentatek? Chuc- well, you get the picture.

Shorn stared at the urban terrain through his visor lens.

Cauldron Town. Population: two.

The place reminded him of his days in the Republic military and later serving under the Sith. How many towns had he seen like this only to walk through ruins after the Empire was finished with it? Too many. He didn't feel guilt for what he'd done. At least, that's what he told himself. Mikhail gritted his teeth. He definitely wouldn't feel any remorse for killing [member="Triam Akovin"]. The chick beat Ashin. Shorn was still pissed. He'd wanted to do that. Well, he would settle for ripping Akovin apart.

The holovids of Triam's rounds had shown Shorn several things. First, the woman loved her gadgets. Mikhail had ways of dealing with those. Second, she showed improvisation and creativity using the terrain. The urban combat zone would give her a lot of advantage as far as close quarters combat was concerned. She probably knew more than he did about CQC tactics. That said, there were an awful lot of buildings here. He could send her through a few walls, impale her on rebar. The possibilities were endless.

A thrill of adrenaline rushed through him. Time to start this fight.

Gathering the Force, Shorn channeled the energy into his legs as he crouched and pushed off the ground in a powerful, Force-aided leap that carried him inhumanly far. He landed atop one of the half-built houses. Staring down at the urban sprawl, he could see a glimpse of the street below. He was on top of a two story house, but he could do better. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop would be easy. He'd drag Triam out so that she had to fight him up here, then he'd launch her into low orbit with a Force Push or three.

Of course, there was one other factor.

Mikhail gritted his teeth. He'd killed [member="Jared Ovmar"] in the last duel. Most of him, anyway. Apparently, part of the guy's soul, or essence or whatever had lodged inside Shorn's body. So now he had to play host to some disembodied spirit of Glory-Song. He had to know everything about that guy too. In the instant when he'd died they'd learned everything about each other. Nobody knew everything about Shorn. Not even Spencer. And now this Jared did. It brought a certain... bond, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Listen up, Spirit-face," Shorn said inside his head, "If you mess me up we both die and you go to the Netherworld. Endless fire and torment. You'd love it. So listen close: don't. Screw. With. Me. Got it?" He waited for a reply, but... nothing. Maybe the guy was taking a nap or something. Did spirits need naps? The guy could either help him or do nothing. As long as it was either of those two Shorn didn't care.

Mikhail took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, stretching out with his senses and searching for Triam.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]

"Deep breathes," Triam Akovin- The Relentless - tried to calm herself as much as possible. Ten thousand screaming lunatics couldn't be wrong, she would not let this man's reputation get to her. A memory flashed as she watched the crumpled body of Jared Ovmar fall into the abyss with a sickening thud. She grimaced. This was a dangerous game she played. This man she fought, turned a fellow Master into a rag doll, and tore down a bridge. Ashin had been her initial test of course, but she was merciful, and held honor. Shorn didn't feel anything, didn't know anything beyond "kill". He didn't even draw his lightsaber... did he draw it ever during this tournament? She tried to remember, and couldn't recall. Nope, he pretty much just pushed, pulled, and crushed everything from a distance.

She was both happy, and appalled by the landscape. It represented everything she could want in a landscape: cover, height, multiple routes of escape, etc., etc.. But it brought out a sickly feeling inside her as she remembered the various clips of the Thronebreaker, the buildings meant to him these: weapons to throw, cover to crush, ruble to block. She felt she was at a significant disadvantage while in an environment that made her very comfortable. This was, to say the least, unsettling. He was still only a man though, he was still susceptible to electrical paralysis, and drugs would make just about anyone go down. She wasn't too worried about electrical attack from Shorn, since he only used it once, and that was when his opponent was essentially dead anyway. Even still, her Phantom Fingers were vulnerable to the force...

That's when she smirked, remembering the ingenuity her victory over Ashin had brought her. It wasn't ready for Vulpesen, but it was effectively prepared for Shorn. C.H.I.T. Darts. Her normal magazines of the things weren't all that extraordinary, but some of them were built with a Terentatek Horn Shell. Those were her last ditch effort against him, she would have to be just about on the brink of death to consider using them. They were her ace in the hole, the only thing worth protecting. She went through her dart rounds to make sure they were prepped for the fight, as she cycled them through her wrist mounted dart shooter.

With all those factors in mind, she walked casually into the arena, masking her apprehension. For whatever reason, of all the other opponents she had faced, she feared this one the most. He was a danger to her for a number of reasons. He was adept enough to whisk away her fingers with his hands, and strong enough probably to lift her even with her Neuranium boots. She wasn't certain though, and uncertainty over all things made her go nuts. Her armor would be nothing to protect herself from his grasp. The only thing she had was range, and thus far there were multiple opponents that tried that and failed miserably. She could go in close, but it was risky. She didn't have any melee weapon, not to mention his armor. She assumed that he would be wearing Phrik, due to the fact he was wearing that last time. To her, he seemed a nearly impregnable fortress... nearly though, was the key word. No one so far had tried to get in close with Mikhail, but she didn't want to set off his bomb too quickly.

She wondered if he could lift everything in this Cauldron... she wondered if that would exhaust him. She started to form a strategy, but she had no idea if it was viable. If she could stay hidden and mobile enough whilst still alerting her presence at specific points, and angering him through distractions, she might be able to get him to over exert himself... but that was a long shot... a REALLY long one. Eventually, it was inevitable that they'd get in close. They would be directly across from each other, with nothing in the way, with or without all of each others various gears. She needed a strategy for that, not the warm up. She needed data though, and although holovids are great, they are nothing compared to on-site experience.

Just before she started, she took one last inventory before she went to her work of un-relent. Armor, Fingers, Boots, Darts, Repulsorpack, Electrical Underlay, Rifle, Pistols, Wits, all check green. One last sigh, "Let's get this over with." She said, she ran to the nearest building and scaled it effortlessly with her repulsorpack. One hand grabbed on the edge before the roof, which she used to peak out and see what was going beyond it. She saw a tiny figure leap- leap?- yup, leap through the air and land on the platform of some over looking building. He was already on a hunt for her, which confirmed that her strategy might be valid. Might, being the key word. She had to options, fire at him in the open- ha! nope- or shoot at him from inside a building. Whelp that decision was quick. She released a bit from her perch, and made her way inside the building. She ran through the structure to face a building right next to it, sure of an exit, she quickly set herself up to a window where she could see Mikhail that was close enough to her exit.

"There you are ugly," She said as she quickly went from aiming, to firing. In a moment firing would become fleeing to her exit at the drop of a hat.

 

[Arage Bao]

Spirits never slept, they did not need to. But that did not mean Jared did not attempt the feat. Sometimes it was better to zone out, ignore the passing lives of the person you use as your portable living accommodation. Mikhail Shorn, the man who had… killed him. The split-second his essence got infused inside his mind no secrets were to be had between the two of them. It made Jared anxious; nobody knew all his secrets, even Evelynn got most of her memories wiped after their… intimate lesson. Still, he supposed there was some kind of bond forming between the two.

The snarky nerf herder, and the… well snarky nerf herder. Really they were not that different. A fact that had surprised Ovmar quite a lot, he had always seen Mikhail as a--- and then he started talking to him. Really sometimes Mikhail could be so.. insensitive.

Spirits need some time off too. At any rate, Jared’s mental projection sighed and then answered his killer.

“Really, Shorn. You still trying to pull the tough guy-routine on me? I am –in- your brain, lad. Don’t care if you want to fool everyone else, just try to stop fooling me.”

In Mikhail’s mind, Jared had created a whole new world to play in. It wasn’t that boring really, scenarios and the such. It was fake, but better than to sit in darkness. With a flick of his wrist, the world turned into a white room, with a black couch in the middle of it. He jumped on it, sat down and then laughed a bit.

“Besides, I have –been- in the Netherworld. Listening to Palpetine mumbling incoherently about unlimited power? No thank you. I won’t mess with your duel… much.”

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]​

 

[Lord Ghoul]

"Much? No. No, no, no. Not at all, nothing, or I swear I will find someone who can bind spirits and pay them to bind your ass to a toilet seat." Shorn sent back to the spirit of [member="Jared Ovmar"].

Smirking inwardly, Shorn's senses finally located his quarry. Apparently, [member="Triam Akovin"] wore nothing to obscure her presence in the Force. What was the line? "All too easy." He turned and looked at the building where he felt the woman's signature. Finding her in this arena was hardly a significant feat. After restricting the search of his senses to within the arena's confines he ruled out the crowd. Which left only one presence. Triam's. Finding her was not impressive. What happened next though? A different story entirely.

Mikhail's helmeted head swiveled toward the window where his opponent had set up her hasty-fire position. His eyes locked onto her and he felt a rush of adrenaline. She squeezed the trigger. Time seemed to freeze. He witnessed the muzzle flash, watching the length of bright red plasma that exited the barrel and hurtled for him. The shot she fired was dead on. Shorn expected it would be. When selecting from a quiver full of assets, simply making the choice between which to use in a given situation could spell death. Mikhail wasted no such time. Like always, the Thronebreaker acted on impulse. He raised a hand, but not to stop the lancet of energy.

The red packet of plasma hit him in the chest. Dead-center. The Sith Lord gritted his teeth at the impact of the plasma round, but did not break eye-contact with Triam's distant figure. Eye-contact was essential.

The woman's aim was impeccable, but so was Mikhail's armor. Stormtrooper armor could shrug off slugthrower rounds as if they were hailstones. Duraplast armor could take laser cannon rounds and light grenades no problem. Phrik? Phrik played in a different league. Oh yes, Mikhail had been hurt while wearing the Hydra armor. Lightsabers could burn through it given enough time. Blaster bolts certainly affected the armor. Like rain. Except instead of a light splashing ping they left a blackened scorch mark. Akovin's blaster round left a charred pock in the middle of Mikhai's breastplate, but did little more than add yet another disfigurement to the armor. No, if Triam wanted to truly harm the man she would have to aim for one of the soft points on his armor, such as the visor.

Unfortunately, Mikhail didn't plan on giving her the opportunity for another shot. The fingers of his outstretched hand curled inward, like a claw.

"Peekaboo, I see you."

From watching the videos of Triam's rounds Mikhail knew several things. First, her armor was hard. Very hard. He'd dealt with Mandos in beskar before so it wouldn't be a problem, but it was frustrating. Frustrating in the same way a predator was frustrated by a clamshell. Smashing the shell against rocks was satisfying, but irritatingly repetitive. The second fact he knew about Triam was that she used repulsors to power her extraordinarily heavy boots. Such knowledge would come into play later on. This led to the third fact: her incredibly bulky boots. Shorn liked to grab people and send them through walls. If Siobhan Kerrigan could chuck asteroids, then he could probably do that now, even despite her accoutrements. However, Mikhail was ill-inclined to sacrifice so much energy.

Instead, he opted for one of the oldest tricks in the Dark Sider books. He crushed down on Triam's throat. Only this wasn't a Darth Vader I'm-going-to-slowly-strangle-you choke. This was a full on Force Crush from one of the most powerful users of telekinesis in the galaxy. Crushing a human's trachea would be the definition of ease. And since Triam was not Force Sensitive, or did not appear to be from the footage he'd seen, she would not have a Force Aura with which to resist the telekinetic constriction. Distance was irrelevant so long as Shorn had eyes on the woman. Darth Vader had, after all, once Force Choked an Admiral on an entirely different ship than his own simply by staring at him through a screen.

The move was one which was sure to bring boos from the crowd if it worked. Nobody liked a quick end to a duel. But Shorn didn't fight for the crowd, or the Ladies of the Cauldron, or the Corusca Gems. An anger burned within him. A resentment toward the galaxy. He wanted to make a statement here and show all those fools that he could not be beaten. He fought to win for the sake of winning.

Anything else was just icing.

To say Mikhail's attack on her throat was like the drop from an executioner's noose would be incorrect. No, if it went as Shorn planned Triam would feel as though a durasteel cable had been tied to her neck and she'd been pushed from the top of the tallest spire in Coruscant. Except she wouldn't have the luxury of those blissful few moments while falling. Nope. Shorn's telekinetic crushing skipped right to the decapitating end, because - like a steel cable and a thousand story fall - the strength behind the sudden choke would be likely to completely squeeze her head from her body.

Of course, if she had ultrachrome armor covering her throat - depending on the thickness of the armor - or managed to somehow avoid the main force of the attack, she was liable to get off with a smashed trachea.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]

The answer was yes.

Thankfully, it was yes anyway. Ultrachrome armor protected her neck from the full brunt of the tracheal assault. She let out a very rude sounding noise as she clutched at her strangled neck and immediately decided she didn't like this situation at all, too.... suffocating. As she ran from the window towards the escape route to the next building, she felt the damaging effects of an nerf herder given god-like powers. Luckily today, she was really intent on making that "god-like being" go kark himself, and tell him to shove it while stepping on his throat with her boot... see how he likes it.

She fell behind the wall between the window and the exit that blocked Mikhail and Triam's view of each other. She decided she didn't like his range, and it didn't seem he cared too much about her blaster shots. She also really didn't want to be choked again, and if that meant going out in the open then she would quite obviously, stay the hell away from open area. The strategy then, would to make him, come to her, rather than charge head on to someone who could choke you from anywhere so long as they could see you. She didn't know if he would jump to her, or cartoonishly lift up the building and shake her out of it, but it didn't matter. She decided she wasn't going to run anymore. She was going to start the fight right here, and one way or the other he would obey... but first she need to be in a secluded area where they couldn't see each other, and a building with an open window in it was not exactly ideal.

She decided she would set up camp between floor X and the floor below, sittin' on the stairs. She pulled out five tazer darts from her pack and applied a proximity shell to it, and set the things up to all the places she hoped he would enter in. Then she sat down, essentially mute, unable to make witty remarks for the rest of the Tournament. Which was a shame, she really hoped to make the end dramatic. She supposed Talith would have to do it for here, since she joined the speechless club temporarily with Evelynn.

 

[Lord Ghoul]

The Thronebreaker snarled a curse as [member="Triam Akovin"] escaped his grasp. Something had given way beneath his Force choke, but apparently not something important enough to kill the damn woman. Not yet, anyway. Shorn stared at the building in which the ultra chrome armored figure hid. Contrary to popular opinion, thermal vision did not see through walls, or at least Mikhail's didn't. Shorn breathed in deeply, trying to ignore his helmet's claustrophobic confines, and closed his eyes. He could feel her. Hiding. Just there. Just beyond his reach, waiting for him. His lips curled into a cruel smirk.

Gathering the Force, he channeled it into another of those Force leaps that carried him beyond what should be humanly possible. One hop. Two hops. Phrik boots landed on top of another building with a very solid thud. Sweat beaded down his eyebrows, dripping into his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. He blinked rapidly and licked his lips, tasting salt. Shorn felt tired. He had hardly slept the week preceding the finale. With Ovmar in his head he was afraid to even close his eyes. The spirit of the man he killed, a powerful mentalist, inside his damn head. It was enough to unsettle anyone. But for Shorn? His nerves were frayed and he suspected he was slowly becoming paranoid. Whatever. Sith had to be paranoid. Too many knives in the back.

Mikhail glanced down. This roof overlooked the building which held Triam. If the woman was waiting in there for him and trying to avoid his line of sight, she probably wouldn't have seen his movements. But Mikhail wasn't about to just walk on a limb and assume he could waltz in there.

Nah, that wasn't his style.

Triam wanted him to come after her. He would, on his terms. Nothing could piss off Mikhail Shorn quite like someone ordering him around. He took orders from no one. After all these years trapped beneath oppressive superiors, he was finally free of their suffocating structure, but fools continued to come after him. They tried to control him, to command him. Big mistake. Tendrils of telekinesis webbed out from his fingers as he stretched out a hand toward the building which held the woman. Proximity helped, but as the old saying went "Size matters not." His fingers curled and his willpower in the Force wrapped around the ceiling just above where he sensed Triam standing. She wore ultrachrome armor. Blasting the entire building down with a big ass Force push would do nothing except waste energy. He had a better idea.

"Yooohoo, big bad Sith Lord out here." The muffled taunt carried a full dose of zealous spite.

Shorn flicked his vision to thermal, then pushed his palm downward. The roof over Triam's head cracked suddenly, before caving in in a glorious stream of permacrete rubble and a cloud of dust. With thermals active, the dust from the debris hardly impeded his vision. He searched for her with both his eyes and his senses. Ultrachrome armor she might wear, but that wouldn't prevent her from getting trapped beneath debris. Who knew, she might even suffocate! He smiled at the thought. Even if the stream of debris did not trap her, it would end up flushing her out.

The other factor, unknown to Shorn, was that the falling debris probably set off those nasty proximity shells.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]

Oh happy happy joy joy. He wanted to suffocate her! How sweet

The edgy merc, looked up immediately at the cracking ceiling. That obviously was not a good sign, as if any sign of her enemy could be considered good. Before total collapse, she unwittingly read Mikhail's mind on the thought that those proximity shells would go off fairly soon. Since she needed to get out, now, she shot the nearest shells so she could pass through the door way. As it all began to tumble down she reached up and shot an explosive dart at the ceiling, so when all the ruble came down on top of her, there would be plenty of breathing space from the explosive cavity.

She tried to fly through the explosion of the ceiling, but the crushing power of the force was simply too quick for her. Ruble of unknown variety came down on her like a car crash and grounded her from the waist down. Luckily, the debris she blew up created enough space between the collapsing roof and walls and the outside. She could quite clearly see the light, through the various opening, and she was still breathing... albeit she struggled to do so thanks to Mikhail's earlier work.

Her legs killed under the crushing force of the rubble, and she couldn't have been more thankful for the strength of her armor preventing the entirety of the weight from rendering her legs into jello. Undoubtedly though, her armor would begin to lose its integrity, it wasn't designed for this, and it was made in segments. That alone was probably what was saving her; if her legs had been encased in much larger pieces the center point would be much more susceptible to giving way, but in many smaller pieces it had much smaller points of weakness. Her situation was akin to a sheet of paper (her armor) holding a weight (the rubble), depending on the weight and whether or not it is being force through (i.e., momentum) the paper doesn't break. But if that weight is put into a singular point (such as a weight in the shape of triangle, dropped with a point facing the paper from a short distance) all the energy is put into one area and it breaches the paper. The rubble was a flat weight, and wasn't nearly compact enough to penetrate the small structures of her armor.

Long story short, her armor was pretty tough, and would suffer just about anything short of a huge weighted point driven through it, or a knife slipped between the chinks.

Looking up through the dust, she immediately searched for a way out. Her first instinct told her to latch onto some far object and pull herself out mechanically, but she knew that the less area of her legs under the roof, the more its weight would crush. Thus she reasoned the rubble needed to be... well, rubble-ized again. She saw an edge of the roof on top of her that was safe enough distance away, and shot a few an explosive darts in rapid succession to break up the roof and thus redistribute its weight. Once that was done she heeded her first instinct, and grappled onto some sort of topple support beam and willed her glove to tug her out as quickly as possible. The encounter only hurt for a second at the very last moment before she was airborne.

She got on top of the support beam, and searched for Mikhail, before she launched herself into the air, rifle ready for his head. It didn't take long to find him, since he was only a building away. She fired at his head, while she skillfully launched an additional explosive dart or two at the structure beneath him. Hopefully, that was enough to distract him from completely choking her again. That kinda sucked.

 

[Lord Ghoul]

Mikhail picked up a -lot- of activity down below. A few more explosions followed well after he had collapsed the roof, but the heat from the blasts obscured his thermal vision making detecting anyone down there pretty damn hard. Mikhail still felt the woman in the Force, though. She was very much alive and hummed with a vibrant intensity. Relentless, like a vornskr pup attempting to drag out an yslamiri from its tree. She just wouldn't. Let. Go. The heat signature of the explosions dispersed, leaving only a few, small flickering fires... and the figure of a humanoid perched atop of a support beam.

Blue eyes behind the visor locked onto the woman as she vaulted into the air, propelled by an unseen force. Repulsors? Focus moved quickly away from her means of propulsion as [member="Triam Akovin"] fired a blaster bolt toward his face, then shot something else at him. Mikhail turned his head to the side slightly, more intent on what she had fired after the blaster than the lancet of red itself. Two small projectiles zipped toward him. Shorn tucked his chin as much as he could. Blaster bolts struck the phrik helmet, scoring the armor and charring it black. He grunted at the impact, but maintained his focus and unleashed a telekinetic push. The wave of Force energy slammed into the two darts and sent them spinning away. Mikhail couldn't spend the time to follow their reversed trajectory toward the end, 'cause of the stream of blaster fire headed his way.

Sweat matted his hair to his head beneath the helmet. It ran down his face. His breath came heavy, winded, but not exhausted. Crumpling the roof wasn't so hard, but that didn't mean he wasn't tired. And when people were tired they made mistakes. Sometimes small mistakes, sometimes big mistakes. Sometimes downright stupid mistakes. Like looking up at the person who was shooting at you.

He lifted his head up toward her. Hot red plasma filled his vision as a blaster bolt slammed into his visor. The blob of red obscurred his vision, but a second followed quickly after, shattering the visor. Shards of glass spewed inside his helm and Shorn gasped in pain as the pieces of glass bit into his cheeks. He blinked rapidly, terrified that the shards would get into his eyes. None did. He could feel rivulets of warm, sticky blood running from cuts in his cheek. Feth. Thermal vision was gone now. No more visor. He stared up through open air toward the woman who'd shot out his visor.

A sudden explosion sounded below. Mikhail didn't know what it was and right now he really didn't care. He was focused on a single task: killing Triam. Stretching out in the Force, he let the aphotic Dark Side roll through him. The sickly-sweet flow of cimmerian power filled him to brimming. He poured his emotions into that miasma. Anger at Triam, sure, but that was more of an annoyance. He needed a fuel that would burn far hotter. He focused on what Triam represented to him. Not just an opponent, or some random mercenary. She was a barrier between himself and victory. A victory that would show the galaxy that Mikhail Shorn was not someone to be pushed around. And also... she was just a mercenary. Mikhail Shorn wouldn't be beaten by some nobody.

He remained convinced that the only reason Ashin had lost her fight was because she had withheld her power, afraid of causing the aquarium to be destroyed and flooded with water. She had fought with restraint. Triam had not. But here? Here there was open space. There was rubble. Here, Mikhail was in his element and he... he would show no restraint.

The Sith Lord reached out and wrapped a hand of telekinesis around the repulsors that kept Triam afloat. Not just the repulsorpack, but also the repulsors on her neuranium boots. He curled the fingers of his left hand and willed the Force to crush them.

"I beat an Emperor, crowned a new one, broke the symbol of the kriffing Republic itself. You? You're nothing!" The muffled scream came from his helmet as rage flowed through him. Akovin represented all those who tried to beat him. So many. Rosa, Anaya, Jacen, Shaw, Onyx, Zaiden, Jared, Isley, Ayra, Marek, Diana. Why couldn't any of them kill him? He was a murderer wasn't he? He'd killed thousands of innocents on Coruscant. He deserved to die. But none of them had been powerful enough to stop him. His body trembled with the amount of energy and anger rippling through him.

He clinched his fist so tight it shook and the power of the Force crushed against Triam's repulsors. He had done this countless times. Mandalorians with their jetpacks. Diana with her rocket boots. Propulsion systems had become such a natural target for Mikhail's telekinesis that he got all smirky when he noticed people wearing them in battle against him. Triam's repulsors probably wouldn't explode, but that wasn't the point. Crushing the repulsors into useless scrap would render her not only unable to whizz around the sky, it would also make moving around in those incredibly heavy neuranium boots almost impossible.

Shorn stood on top of a two or three story building. He didn't care what galaxy you were from, or how much armor you wore. That fall would hurt.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

When it came to using force- and no I don't mean that mystical voodoo crap Mikhail relied on-, there is always a double edge sword when it comes to making a point with a strike. In a moment, of say, punching someone... inside you, no matter who you are or how "pure" you think you've become under the edicts of some broken code, there is always a satisfaction in those small victories. A lot of the time, to Triam it seems, people are often so caught up in that initial satisfaction in those small victories. They allow it to boost their confidence, fill their hubris, and inevitably set them up for a greater fall when they are reminded that they are not all powerful, that they are not god, that they are still human... or alien, Triam doesn't judge. The point is though, is that a thrill junky like Triam, she wasn't in it for the small victories, or even the really large ones. For her it was much the opposite. She did what she did most often not because she thought she could win, or survive the longest, or be the best; she fought because she was afraid. She would never be so conscious as to admit it, but whenever she had opposed anyone, it was not done out of spite or a sense of superiority, it was because deep down she was afraid of the things she faced. It was fear that motivated her, fear motivated her to fight the source.

Right now, Triam was very afraid, and she found no clouding satisfaction in the small victory of relinquishing Mikhail's visor. It made her fear him more, because with each shot, each movement she made, every minutiae detail of her being, was poking an angry bear she did not know whether or not she could kill if it decided to wake up. This hyper focus of fear extended her awareness as far as one not gifted in the force could manage, her gut was the source of power, and her nerves its motivation to live. Every contraction and relaxation of her muscles was now on manual, all of it monitored, searching for unnatural stimuli that needed a reaction. Now remember, Triam is merely human, she has no abilities, or extra senses, and by a very small degree she is no more or less lucky than any other person in the galaxy... though some might argue she is very unlucky right now. This focus she had gained in the essence of her fear in her opponent, is something available in all of us. Triam Akovin represents what we are all capable of, when we are left with no other choice but to accept fear as The Lord... and spit in his face regardless.

Mikhail grabbed her, and haltered her movement. In the time that it took her to take flight and fire at Mikhail, time seemed to be at a standstill as her senses absorbed everything she could to combat this lethal opponent fixated on the ending of her existence. But at that very second that the unnatural unseen grip found its way to her Repulsor pack, her body's chemicals responded in kind, preparing to be thrown, plunged, or tossed. She stopped firing long enough, to hear the crushing of electronic systems, and boots or no boots it was clear that she was being dropped.

With no need to discard the pack, she lifted her hand towards the building and reached. She felt the gravity of this world take her by the feet, and voraciously tear her downwards by the toes as if being dragged away to be mauled by some dread beast lurking beneath the bed of every childhood nightmare. She knew what had been done, and in its realization she thanked the version of herself in the past who had by some divine miracle anticipated this very event. As her hooks dug into the building, she let go of her rifle by necessity and hit the emergency release mechanism built into her armor that attached the boots to her legs. The things fell faster than stones, as her shiny shoes slipped out of the dangerous things. Almost immediately she heard the things smash through the ground.

Attached to the wall, no longer flying and no longer falling, the woman swung towards her savior. With a grimacing anticipation, she braced for soon to be uncomfortable impact. She made sure to be spread out in order to absorb the shock in more than one area, so as to not cripple a critical system like the feet. Unwilling to let the pain get to her, she immediately bounced from the wall from her feet and zoomed upward with her glove. In her free hand, she pulled free one of her two pistols.

She came over the edge, and reacted immediately to exposed flesh: she shot at his face. Though hyper aware of her more vulnerable position, she took her glove and made sure it latched on to the roof below her; to prevent her from falling, or to prevent her from falling too quickly should he try and push her away.

[member="Mikhail Shorn"].

 

[Lord Ghoul]

A thrill shot through Shorn as he heard the muffled sound of crunching electronics and rending metal despite his helmet's padding. The woman dropped faster than a Circean Wyrm out of [member="Hannibal Oryen"]'s hands. The thrill was not the kind one received from a good play in a shockball game. This was a different animal. This was the kind of thrill one gained from standing over an enemy, boot on his throat, and stomping down. In battle, nothing is so sweet as the wet snap of an enemy's breaking trachea. The rush of power and strength so infinite you feel invincible. You feel... in control. Most would find such a sound abhorrent. Most people weren't Mikhail Shorn. They had not had to struggle since their infancy to prove their worth. Not to a cold-hearted, murderer called father, nor the reckless hatred of the Sith. Mikhail only ever wanted control over his own life. He found it in killing others. For what is true power if not control over life and death?

He sneered cruelly as she managed to escape the treacherous fall with skillful use of her pesky finger cables. Blood dribbled down from his cheek and across his lips, followed by sweat the stung his cuts and mixed with the blood leaving a coppery-salty taste in his mouth. He breathed hard through his nose, exhaling in a rush as the woman swung through the air using those cables. Eyes as cold as Hoth watched her, well aware of the danger posed by her blaster pistol even as the tingle of precognition caused his hair to stand on end.

Right now he felt powerful. He felt in control. Fingers calloused from bloodshed held [member="Triam Akovin"]'s life; and they did not know mercy. For who had shown mercy to him without expectations? Did they not understand the pull of the Dark Side? Did they not understand how good it felt to rip the life away from those who didn't deserve it? Idiots. Shorn couldn't be who they wanted him to be. He would never be that man. Triam was about to find out why.

A blaster shot from the pistol spat toward his exposed face with tremendous velocity. Predictable. Way too predictable. Of course she would shoot at the exposed portion of his face. Her and every other unerring marksman (woman?). Which was why it was good for someone who didn't use a lightsaber to have a contingency plan. Mikhail raised a hand, his left hand - the other was just a cybernetic, lost to kriffing Anaya Fen, of all people.

So many "Sith" tasked themselves with learning everything there was to know about the Dark Side. They wanted to learn all the powers, all the techniques. Mikhail didn't give a damn. He had three main powers - just three - and they all suited him just fine. Telekinesis, Force Lightning and... Tutaminis.

The blaster bolt was intercepted with unnatural speed by his palm. It sizzled easily through the armorweave, revealing the glowing skin beneath. Glowing with the power of tutaminis. He would never be able to take a sniper bolt to the face, or tank through a turbolaser, but for a Lord of the Sith stopping a blaster bolt seemed almost a menial task. Mikhail Shorn absorbed the lancet of plasma and felt a rush of new energy enter his body. He could not hold it forever, though, otherwise it would quicken the decay of his flesh. He needed to transfer it into some other type of energy. Three guesses which...

The telekinetic willpower of the Thronebreaker wrapped around Triam Akovin in a Force Grip. Not her throat, her whole body. The power added by the blaster bolt was slight, but it was enough to compensate for how winded he felt from the fight. Enough so that when he attempted to smash her down into the permacrete of the roof it would feel more like a mini-asteroid landing than a speeder crash. Without those neuranium boots she was at his mercy. Ultrachrome armor was great against blasters and lightsabers, but Mikhail didn't use either of those. Nah, he preferred to utilize that unseen energy field that gave people the ability to pull star destroyers out of orbit. The ridiculous strength of that cimmerian miasma roiled inside his chest. Knots of irrational anger formed in his stomach. He didn't know why, but he didn't try to understand. For some reason he wanted nothing better than to tear this woman's spine out of her back. He could almost hear the slick, wet, cracking it would make as it ripped out of her flesh, but he would settle for creating a mercenary-sized crater in the ground.

Mikhail pulled down with every fiber of his being, snarling, "You're mine!"

He tried to pull her down into the roof with enough speed and force to break the permacrete. Even Jared Ovmar clad in beskar'gam - a more resilient armor than ultrachrome - had felt the full force of a Shorn-gifted body slam. Impact would feel ten times worse than a speeder crash, which would cause enough kinetic injury damage that internal organs could rupture, or the brain could suffer a fatal blow. Or both. Without those boots he could be sure of one thing: if those feet hit the ground it would be game over. People didn't fight well after their legs got broke. Minus boots, minus repulsors, she was just another armor-clad moron trying to kill him. Day one of Shorn's entrance into the Sith-Mando war and what was one of his first moves? Ripping a Mandalorian off a wall and slamming him into the ground. This was textbook Shorn. This was the type of fighting he thrived on. And, in some ways, this was what he lived for, the only thing he knew how to control... other people dying.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]

And finally, her worst fear was finally realized- energy absorption. She had suspected a number of other opponents to possess this ability but fortunately for her she had never seen it realized. Her suspicions were correct, she by the Scientific Method of shooting at things, had discovered that it was indeed very real.

She knew that this wasn't any technique of Force Weapon as employed by Ashin Varanin, because the dude was freaking glowing... and not in the good way. His face radiated after her blaster bolts pounded into his face exposed face, and the bolts themselves didn't seem to dissipate on contact like they did with Ashin. One thing was certain of this, that was a very dangerous ability to be fighting. That was when she decided... she didn't really like blasters any more. The fact that her attacks could so easily be thwarted with this one skill scared her. The force was boundless in its application, but she knew given the time so could technology. It was merely the process of innovation. She would discover the ways to counter this.

Obviously her first thought in this venture would be slugthrowers, weapons famed for their anti-jedi applications; but she knew from her current enemies performance that was just as if not even more dangerous to her. She would find a way later, and then figure out how to make it cheap and practical.

But she needed to focus on the now. Her already raised hairs spiked all over when the Sith gave her a good ol' nice bear hug in the force. Prongs in the roof, tightened as she felt herself be lifted, as she struggled to once again pull her arm up, which was now effectively pinned to her side.

Her awareness went into over drive again, as she realized this pivotal moment as a deciding factor between life and death. She had recently empowered the Sith, and she was lacking her stolid footing from her now broken boots. In this situation more bolts wasn't the answer, she needed something. Good thing she had exactly that. It was expensive though, and she would be sad to see such beauty's go to waste. Almost without effort, her launcher loaded her special payload.

In that mere instant that she was lifted from the ground (cables still latched to the roof), three darts escaped her launcher in the general direction of her opponent (though pretty short of him, considering her arm was pretty much pinned). Each was explosive and made to both distract her opponent an to destroy his footing... well actually both of their footing. There was just one distinct difference in all of them...

Terentatek Horn.

The difference between defeat/death and a chance of survival/victory would be made in the effectiveness of her tactic. If enough force is applied before he has to deal with the darts, the momentum carried will still be debilitating if not completely lethal. If the darts do their jobs before enough of that momentum can be gained, than her tactic is victorious and she survives to fight her opponent longer. Either way, the fall would still hurt, considering he would do everything in his power to bring her down, and a collapsing roof didn't help matters either...

 

[Lord Ghoul]

Eyes full of indigo malice watched [member="Triam Akovin"] as she levitated into the air. Mikhail Shorn's Force Grip trapped her arms to her sides. He always, always trapped the arms to the sides, otherwise his victims were liable to do something crazy, like shooting their soon-to-be killer. As it turned out, Triam did this anyway. Shorn caught a flick of her wrist, followed by three objects that zipped toward him. The Thronebreaker stared at the darts whizzing toward him as the Force seemed to make time itself stand still. The small, but lethal weapons came in at a low angle. The Sith Lord's eyes flared wide in apprehension, then he set his jaw, gritted his teeth, and yanked Triam downward with all his might.

The Hydra armor he wore was fashioned from a phrik and duraplast alloy. Duraplast armor on its own was known to withstand point-blank grenade detonations and leave the wearer unscathed, while phrik had been known to take tank and starfighter blasts and remain intact - the wearer was probably nicely barbecued inside from the plasma's heat, but all the same the armor survived. Shorn trusted the armor. Yes, trust. An inanimate object could not betray him. It was lifeless, without ulterior motives or flippant emotions. It would never stick a dagger in his back. It existed for a single purpose: to protect its wearer. Mikhail Shorn felt far more comfortable trusting in these lifeless, metal plates than in any living soul. So, he trusted it to protect him now. Unless Triam had developed special phrik-eating darts he expected he would come out just fine. What could this idiot girl do to him?

Two things stopped him from trying to counter those little darts... trust in an inanimate object.... and a good heaping of arrogance.

He kept his Force Grip on the woman so that she could not alter her downward trajectory. Despite her loss of propulsion systems he still thought she might have a trick or two up her sleeve, which was why he went with the brutal, simple solution of smash-smash. Counteracting the downward velocity combined with the insist pulling of the Force meant that any change of the trajectory that led straight into the permacrete roof was basically impossible, even with those pesky cables. What were they next to the power of the Force?

These thoughts and the yank coincided with the darts falling short of Shorn and zipping into the permacrete. Mikhaill smirked.

The explosion that followed caught him by surprise, sending up a spray of pulverized 'crete and fragmented terentatek horn that pinged off of Shorn's armor, or bit through armorweave bodyglove to lacerate flesh. He raised his right arm to shield his face with superhuman speed. Mikhail stumbled backward, nearly blown off his feet. Had those darts been larger and therefore carried a bigger payload of explosive ordnance, then Shorn would've been knocked down as though a hurricane had swept him off his feet. As it was, the damage was bad enough. Blood leaked from fragments embedded in his flesh. In place of a hand he had a throbbing pincushion. He could feel a stream of blood dribbling down from a stabbing pain in his neck. Shrapnel was imbedded under his right armpit, which had been exposed when he covered his face. Every movement of that cybernetic arm brought a fresh wave of pain.

The roof in front of him had been blown apart and the groan of support structures could be heard from below. Yet, the entirety of the roof held. For now. Eyes as cold as Hoth stared out from a cracked visor and blaster-charred helm. His final yank toward the permacrete roof just before the explosion provided enough momentum to break bone or rupture organs, even through armor, but much to his chagrin it wasn't the cosmic meteor impact he had been aiming for. Which meant one thing... she was still alive.

The Thronebreaker was no longer smirking. His face was a mask of twisted rage and pain. Triam's prodding had finally awoken the sleeping Krayt dragon. Now she would have to deal with the desolation his awakening heralded.

A hand raised in Triam's direction, in the direction of those cables. The hand shook with uncontrollable anger, little bits of permacrete and terentatek horn sticking out of it at odd angles. The fingers splayed suddenly and a torrent of crackling blue Force lightning leapt from them to sizzle through the air straight for those cables and the entire surrounding area. They would burn, but more importantly they would cause temporary nerve disfunction, which meant nerves firing uncontrollably unable to do something like say aim and fire a dart launcher. Shorn didn't care about that though.

He just wanted to see her writhe in pain.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]

The impact was lessened. The permacrete in the resulting explosion had blinded Mikhail enough to loosen his control over her velocity, and the painful shards of force inhibition almost undoubtedly assisted her survival. A gaping hole resulted from the explosions which Mikhail had refused to fall in... though as she was being torn down, she would be falling into that hole one way or another. Still in the air, her cables groaned with the stress of staying into the permacrete and being pulled on by the force grip Mikhail had over her. Her arms may have been pinned at that point, but her resolve proved stronger to force her forearm up just enough to fire the darts at that particular angle. But that was in the past now, and her legs were about to be driven into the ground of the gaping hole.

At the velocity of speeder crash, Traim "The Relentless Rag Doll" Akovin's body was pulled into two directions. The whole thing was going into the pit, while her gloved arm still attached to the roof pulled on her arm. Its range was ten meters, but by the time she got up here she locked its distance to that point, so she didn't have to be worried about being pushed off. So there was that. Her feet bounced of the ground followed by her butt to her back, then her arm pulled her body again and the cycle repeated until she the cables nearly snapped and had her suspended only a bit off the ground. She whimpered at the pain of her arm being repeated tugged away from its socket, thankful that her armor alone kept her stitched up together. She whimpered rather than screamed, merely because she was unable to, with the condition of her throat. That arm was now out of commission. Luckily though, her injuries, she could fight with.

She had broken several ribs on the way down, and probably would have broken her other arm if it hadn't been mechanical. Her feet though were undoubtedly sprained, and she may have fractures in her tibia. All around, she just hurt... like hell. Tangling from an arm a meter or so (she couldn't tell) from the bottom of the pit she created from the crater she made. The cables strained as gravity tried to use her body weight to collapse that portion of the roof too. In all likelihood it just might in due time. But first she had to deal with Mikhail's next hissyfit.

Lightning etched its way through the air, and the brightness of it etched its mark in the air into her retina's. Pure rage, manifest in nature's most unforgiving force: electricity. The hot, nearly plasmic energy arced from her opponents hands into the air all around, and straight towards the nearest sources of metal and water. Down and around, touching the support beams, explosive fragments, armor, and finger cables. The highly conductive material of her armor, coursed all throughout its various segmentation, and they began to heat up. Obviously that was a very bad thing. The cables arced the electricity in both directions, and ultimately fried the systems she crafted to ensure that thing worked the way it did. All around her body everything was being blasted by a torrent of unnatural hate.

Not Triam. Not entirely anyway. Below the surface of her armor, the thing that the audience, and her opponent did not see but was vitally important to her survival as she had learned in her previous duels where her systems had been fried due to her own electrical systems coming into contact with itself, was the greatest underlay she could ever hope for. Armorweave Underlay Mark V, maximum protection against most energy attacks. She though was only concerned with its ability to hamper the effects electrical paralysis, of which she had come into most contact with. She was thankful she had half a mind to invest in it.

So then, the expected reaction of writhing pain (due to the shocking), was dulled fairly well. She still maintained muscle control (as well as prosthetic control), and she could still aim pretty good. In fact, just good enough. It was funny though, the buzzing she felt all over her body, actually helped her to forget her arm was so injured... but then the rising temperature reminder her she was still kinda in death's jaws. If she allowed the electrocution to continue her armor would all melt simultaneously, and then she would be buried under molten slag. That wasn't acceptable, and she wasn't about to give up... ever.

Her dartshooter, was still functional despite the torrent of lightning, and her mechanical arm was perfectly protected from it. Dangling from the edge with brilliant defiance, Triam aimed at the pompous Sith Lord and decided he need a desperate taste of his own medicine... and then some.

Two Terentatek Tazer darts zipped towards the Lord, followed by a Terentatek dart filled with a hella lot of drugs, followed by a Terentatek explosive round. In total, four darts, one purpose: Stun, Drug, Detonate. If the drug didn't land near flesh, it was her hope the explosion would vaporize the stuff to be ingested by breathing. It saddened her though that she had to use them once again. She had 25 in total, and she had already gone through 7 of them, bringing her down to 18 left. It would be worth it though, in the long run. She just hoped she didn't need 19 of the later, where the last one is crucial to survival, and she is left with only 18. These were the risks she took to thrill herself with fear, that some day her luck and ingenuity would run out.

She would make certain that day was not today. A silly tournament was not going to be her final resting place, no matter how much this Sith had to prove.

 

[Lord Ghoul]

Streams of lightning scored the ground and writhed through the air in crackling torrents. A charred and pockmarked helm hid all features save those pale eyes, which glared out through the cracked visor. Those wicked, flashing tendrils of lightning reflected in the murderous gaze of those icy blues. The streams of electrocution sizzling out form Shorn's fingertips engulfed Triam, but the woman didn't let out a scream or thrash about. From where she hung awkwardly suspended by her finger cables, the woman aimed her dart launcher up at him. Mikhail's dismissive sneer was lost behind the expressionless helmet. She thought she could just shoot things at him and expect them to hit? Hadn't she learned her lesson earlier? Throwing or shooting things at him, a guy who got his thrills by chucking stuff with telekinesis, could be put on a list with the worst ideas of all time. He used boulders as skipping stones. Blowing aside darts as big as a finger would be pathetically easy. She might as well have thrown flowers at him. They'd do just as much harm.

The lack of sleep during the week was beginning to take its toll. Damn that Jared. Couldn't anyway die these days and stay dead? He licked parched lips and turned his hand palm up. The cascade of lightning came to an abrupt end. Vaporous smoke curled off of [member="Triam Akovin"]'s cables and armor, but the woman herself didn't seem to care. She was more concerned with shooting him. Mikhail snarled, features twisting painfully from the glass shards stuck in his cheek. Sweat ran down his face and stung the cuts, but that was just an annoyance.

Two darts zipped from Triam's launcher in quick succession. Almost before they'd left the barrel, Shorn unleashed a downward Force push meant to spin the darts aside and also smash Triam into the wall, hopefully ripping her fingers off her hand due to the resistance of the cables. The blast of telekinetic energy caused the darts to shift slightly in the air, but nothing more. Mikhail's brows lowered, what the- he waved his hand, slapping them with telekinesis, but the darts came on.

"Fierfek," Shorn cursed.

The two darts hit him, one after another. One in the arm, the other in the leg. Volts of electricity coursed through him, easily conducted by his armor across his whole body. Unadulterated pain ripped through him. He screamed at the agony as he reeled backward, away from the gaping hole in the roof, and collapsed onto the permacrete, where he lay convulsing. The convulsions and constant muscle movement caused the shrapnel under his armpit to tear further into his flesh. Blood ran from the wound in a steady rivulet.

In the second or less that it took Triam to load a different type of ammunition, Shorn had fallen backward, away from the hole in the roof. The angle of the next two darts, one drug-filled, one an explosive, carried them through the air where Mikhail had been previously standing. The drug dart, lighter due to the lack of explosive ordnance, continued on, zipping into the distance, but the explosive dart detonated just above Mikhail.

Mikhail stared up into the cloudless sky. There was no blue up there, only the dull brown of the Cauldron's ceiling far, far overhead. A sudden flash of orange-red light burst into existence, blotting out everything from view and searing through his corneas. The afterimages of the explosion continued on long after they should have ended. Mikhail scrambled backward, away from the hole in the roof, ignoring the screams of pain from the shrapnel in his palm. He couldn't see. Blackness. All he saw was blackness. Mikhail got to his knees and looked around, trembling. Nothing but the dark of an empty void. Electrocuted, body filled with shrapnel, disoriented from lack of sleep, he stared up into the ceiling which he could no longer see. A cold fear gripped his heart. Blind. He was blind. Hot tears spilled from his eyes, leaving tracks in the grime of the gore and dust that stained his face.

He could hear the roar of the crowd. Those were not roars of dismay. They reveled in his suffering, in his pain. That fear quickly turned to anger, then Mikhail felt the rage inside of him explode. He roared back with every bit of defiance in his bones until his voice went hoarse.

"I AM MIKHAIL SHORN!"

Yes, he was Mikhail Shorn. And Mikhail Shorn could not see. He could not see and therefore he could not grab Triam with telekinesis. He could not choke her, but he could feel her. On his knees on top of the roof, Shorn stretched out and sensed where Triam was. The desperate need to hurt her filled him. He needed to hurt her to get back at them. At those who mocked him. Filled by rage and pain, Mikhail raised hands studded with shrapnel toward where he remembered the wall of the building stood behind Triam. The one she had been defiantly hanging from.

Where he sat on his knees, far from the gaping hole in the roof, Triam did not have line of sight on him. She would have to move further backward, or get on top of the roof in order to do that. And in her current state of dislocated shoulder, sprained ankles, and broken ribs, just moving around would be hard enough.

Shorn ripped blindly, pulling his hands inward. With a horrendous crack, the wall behind Triam came tumbling down.

"I WILL BURY YOU!" He screamed hoarsely, voice cracking. Triam no longer represented just an opponent, she became in his eyes everyone who had ever done him wrong. His father, the Senate, the Sith, this crowd... "ALL OF YOU!"

Mikhail pulled further, intending to either kill Triam from the impact of all that falling debris, or entomb her beneath it.

 

[Cassus Akovin]

[member="Mikhail Shorn"]

She was dead. She had no doubts. It wasn't within the possibility of conception that she could survive this. Those were her thoughts as she experienced all of this, laying in the... somewhere. She couldn't rightly tell where she was at the moment, so she tried to recollect what had happened...

~~~

Before Triam could even see if her plan had worked, she had been dealt another blow, with nothing but her armor to saver her. The Monstrous Shorn tried to pulverize her shots in a wave of the force, but his influence through the mind was simply so damn powerful. The woman had sweat rolling down her whole body, bruised and aching, breathing rapidly through a trachea whose injury prevent sounds from being created, beyond the pathetic whimpering of returning pains. She had nothing, nothing at all. She had armor, darts, and a blaster pistol, but she had nothing to save her if she fell, nothing.

Haplessly she hung from this portion of the roof, not out of necessity but simply because she could hardly move at all to get out of the way. The wave struck as the man attempted to push her darts away in the ignorance of their nature. The wave passed through her initial darts, as she fired the two next one's, unable to adjust to a now fallen and convulsing Shorn. The wave could virtually be seen in the air, or perhaps that was her heightened perception trying to absorb all the information it could to find something that could protect her. It was like a shock wave, and as the explosive dart went off releasing its payload over head she began to perceive it as such.

The force of a hurricane seemed to slowly build up in her slowed perception of time, experiencing the full brunt of the pulverizing force. Even if Shorn hadn't meant for it to be this powerful, in her perception it couldn't be more accurate, considering her current physical condition. Her dangling body was violently pushed back, and without a wall to stop her, this proved to be satisfyingly painful for the blood thirsty Sith above. The cables under the immense tension snapped from their anchors, destroying the grappling system pretty well and ensuring that if by some miracle that the Phantom Finger's weren't broken, that they wouldn't be able to administer drugs or be capable of latching on to anything effectively. Her rag doll body was tossed to the floor as she heard him scream.

She was fearful of that voice, and didn't know what was coming. Not knowing was a fear she never knew how to face, she always lost to it if there was no way to make it known. In her head, she was practically breaking down, not knowing what to do or how to react. She froze, immobilized by her helplessness. Everything hurt, her organs were in danger, she struggled to breathe, and her enemy was still alive and kicking... very hard. What she didn't know if he still had a calling in the force. She had no recollection of seeing either of her two other rounds go off, and thus had no idea of knowing if the drug or drug vapors had been ingested.

What was worse, was the screaming... everywhere, screaming, raving, frothing lunatics partaking in the joy of watching someone infamously cruel writhe in agony to his misfortune as a result of a 'normal' person's initiative. Everywhere the sound was, everywhere! It was all encompassing all pervading, inescapable! The roar of fanatics and the depraved, supped full of sadistic pleasure. It penetrated the whole stadium, everything. It was as omnipresent as the rage radiating from Mikhail. Triam took no pleasure in the applause, this wasn't over yet, not by a long shot, and even blinded she felt that Mikhail had a lot more destruction to cause... and she had no idea how long he would remain that way.

She began to scamper, before realizing she was much too late:

"I WILL BURY YOU! ALL OF YOU!" Damn the force! There wasn't enough time!

A second, far more destructive wave of the force blasted through the area like a nuclear bomb. The immediate vicinity in front of Mikhail virtually atomized as his rage sought the destruction of positively everything. The pressure applied to the area was indescribable, Triam had no words to recollect the event she had caused... it was unnatural. Her body was tossed like a projectile in a gun, and she would go through the... wall? Where was it? Oh, there it is... or a piece of it anyway, oh look another one! Oh wow, they are everywhere... wait, is that wall or is that roof? By the force he was bringing the whole thing to ruin!

Triam was fading fast, and witnessed the fragments of the building as stars all around her as if though she was floating in space. Surly no single being could be that powerful? Oh course that wasn't the answer, but from her perspective it felt like it was a possibility, even though her rapid mind dismissed it as it attempted to dismiss the rest of its collapsing reality. In essence, this was death throws, no one could possibly survive this... surly!

She watched the snaky reflective cables fly through the air in front of her, creating a distinct trail of where she had been a moment before. They were fascinating to look at, such design! They were beautiful, and she realized they were hers, so she was happy while amidst this limbo between nothing and hell. She didn't see her life though, as one might expect from one believing they would die...

Her unbelieving mind raced everywhere. As it did this she imagined time slowed down so much that her mind leaped out of her head in some kind of mental projection and went around to all the 'stars' and trying to make sense of each and attempting to see some sort of advantage in each of them. Everything was about the statistics of probability and utilization, and the application human error as part of multi-layered contingencies for unpredictability as well as the off chance of luck. Right now, Triam was trying to cheat her own system, tap into that degree of unpredictability, but more so in the department of 'sheer luck'. It was necessary that she had some right now.

While she thought that she was dying she watched her imagined projection of herself tap a stylus to her lip as she recorded things down in a datapad much like a detective; that woman was everywhere at once, being as thorough as ever in touching every grain of sand or glass floating through the air, inspecting its quality and beauty of use. So much writing, so much data, it was everywhere ready to be tapped, but her little brain was merely pretending, she was without such powers of analyzing.... she was much too slow for that. Time, she always needed more time. Looks like her time ran out and she was out of karks to give.

She started to list things, take inventory. Yup, that's right, in what she thought was her final moments of death she did what she had always done. She took assessment of everything around her, in her or on her. She listed the number or rocks she saw, the number fans that could be seen through the unreality she was experiencing, the level of pissed-off-ness she saw in the blind Mikhail waaaaaay over there, but enlarged for a sense of clarity. It was like a dream... or a nightmare. It could be either, but if it was a dream it was much to painful, and if a nightmare it was much to peaceful.

When she finished listing, she discovered that all she had was a mangled body with broken ribs, sprained ankles dislocated shoulder, bruises, and the possibility (no more likely confirmed with this last blast) of a fracture tibia... most painful. Additionally, she had upon her skin her Armorweave Mark V, and upon that dozens upon dozens of segmented Ultrachrome armor, with a dart launcher and a broken contraption she called Phantom fingers, along with a blaster pistol holstered to her thigh oh so faithfully. Then she realized she forgot something, that was so close to her by now that she forgot it was in all technicality in her own system of listing rules separate, she had a mechanical hand. It wasn't fancy, but it was durable, far more durable than that dainty hand entrapped in the useless glove, without a touch of feeling due to the nerve damage of the dislocation.

Huh, strange. Why did she forget about it, and more importantly, what was so provoking about it that would make it important enough to remember after forgetting? What could she possibly use it for in this situation? How did she even think she could do anything in this situation?

Regardless of the thought, a miracle was about to occur for the young Akovin.

Time sped up rapidly, and the roaring blasted in every ear, even over the sounds of a mad man screaming as he tore apart everything in front of him in an unholy blast of fury. A tiny silver dot could be witness about the size of a person could be seen from a distance as she weighing less than the combined weight of the rubble flew through the air in the short distance between on building, and the alley of the those across the street. At a closer view, they might be able to see that Akovin's body began to spiral. This was a crucially important detail to note.

Back in Akovin's head her dreamland died as the edge of building came into view to ground her in the here and now. The over dramatized Shorn passed out of her line of sight as her perceived doom took form. The drag from her cables had spun her to this point and where now behind her due to her limp arm. She tried to shield her face with her hand, as she was about to be wedged between two buildings.

Insight. Revelation. Epiphany of the grandest time. She stuck her mechanical arm out to her side and jammed her fingers into the stone as hard as it could possibly muster, slowing it down as it touch and forcing Triam to scream (which was stifled completely due to her throat). It hurt only for a moment as the edge of her metal fingers began to disintegrate from the friction, at which point pain receptors simply shut down from the data overload. Her rag doll body slowed its velocity and then suddenly the hand was wedged enough into the building that she came to a near screeching halt, hurting the real part of her arm greatly, but by a combination of her gradual slowing of her hand, along with the drag of her cables it helped.

However, even as this happened, her momentum and velocity carried, and was thus transfer from a horizontal trajectory to one of a vertical trajectory. She fell at an angle, her hand scraping against the wall, and body falling into its path creating a sickening scraping sound, before she simply let loose and bounced from that building, directly into the next, and the cycle repeated very briefly until she smashed in the ground.

~~~

She must have blacked out. She lay there staring at the dull ceiling, and suddenly realized why it was so dark. A temporary blindness had befallen her two as her mind shut down to avoid the pulverizing pain. All around her body, her analysis of the body was off the charts, she was too much in pain to count. That was a big deal for Triam, she had been able to sustain such menial abilities through so many physically grueling activities that this came as a frightening surprise. Luckily though, you can't crash yourself out of habit, and she immediately labeled her symptom as that of a concussion... a severe one. Just being able to label that was satisfying. All around her smoke and dust lifted around her as she witnessed the resulting carnage of rubble surrounding everything. She herself was underneath an impressive mound that rather frightened her at her luck of survival.... that most likely contributed to the darkness she initially experienced.

She survived another grueling telekinetic blast from an infamous force user. She had to figure out a way to get paid for it, she was on a roll. Standing was going to be really, if not damn near impossible. She decided she would start small, so she sat up, using the hand-stump of her mechanical arm to prop her up. It still had fingers thankfully... most of them at least. She looked around in her hazy vision, unable to see Mikhail. She knew one thing had to happen though, she need to get out of his line of fire, he was blind shooting now, and he was trying to topple everything in the general area where she had last been.

They were in a city environment, so surly there would be speeders... there had to be! Even if it was fake, such insignificant details had to be present. It wouldn't be real entertainment if such things were left out. She pulled her limp arm carefully (and through gritted teeth and tears) out of her glove, and discarded the thing. She ripped off cloth from her torn up cloak and haphazardly tied it around her arm to keep it from getting in the way, though not to really help it. It hurt like hell, but she had to press on. She had moments left, just moments and she already spent an uncountable number of them lying in the dirt.

On all threes, she quite literally crawled away from her landing spot and sought for some kind of speeder. She thought she saw one, and hustled through gritted teeth and the use of adrenaline to get her too it. She wasn't running, she had some semblance of a plan, but she needed mobility, and the only mobility available to her was the hope of a speeder. She could almost feel the blind glare straight through the solid structures of the buildings.

Many of the people watching this almost revered Mikhail as some dark god... she had wounded a god! Two of them! The galaxy would no know of her defiance and resolve, and she was prepared to go the extra mile and keep defying, keep resolving to wound... and some day... kill the "gods" of the galaxy.

 

[Lord Ghoul]

He could see only darkness. His own personal hell. The demons which waited for him in the recesses of his mind terrified him. So he focused on the anger, on the rage that threatened to rip his stomach apart so tightly did it writhe and clench. He could not see her, but he could feel her. He could feel her pain as she ripped off the wall and went hurtling out across the battlefield that their tormentors had erected. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. Not to quell the rage, to feed it. Mikhail Shorn drew in the Dark Side until the very air around him seemed to grow cold. The Thronebreaker got to his feet, first one leg, then the other.

Warm urine soaked the body glove, trapped there by the tight material and leaking ever so slowly down his thighs. Such was the consequence of the tazers which had wracked his nervous system with tremors not three minutes prior. His breath came ragged and hoarse from his screeching roar against the crowd. Their chants still sounded in his ears, muffled due to his blaster-charred helmet. They cheered for him now. Shorn curled both hands into trembling fists. Tears spilled from his shuttered eyes as the shrapnel dug further into the flesh of his palms. He would make them pay for this. Her, then all of them. The galaxy would suffer for what had been done to him. When had it ever shown him mercy? At every turn despotic Fate seemed to revel in playing him a cruel hand, delighted in the agony it caused him. Mikhail reached out and felt [member="Triam Akovin"]'s presence. The agony she felt now was nothing. He would cripple her, break her spine and sever her limbs. He would leave her a useless, broken thing and let her see how the galaxy would treat her.

No. Killing her would be merciful.... but Shorn would let the sadists of chance decide.

He bent his knees and pushed off of the roof, leaping far, far into the air in a preeminent display of Force Jump bolstered by telekinesis. Shorn leapt so high he practically flew, but he did not know the joy of flight. His stomach had become a fist of anger clenched so tightly it hurt. No happiness. No love. Only pain. Only anger. Burdens whose crushing weight he felt bring him back to the ground as surely as gravity. Shorn's impossibly high leaping arc carried him over buildings and directly down toward Triam. His sense in the Force was not as precise as some. He had an exact location on her, yes, but he could not see the outline of her body through the Force. He could only feel her aura, like a flickering candle. A flame he intended to snuff out. He compensated for his lack of sight with this broader attack.

The pain and exertion wrought on Mikhail during the duel left him tired, but now he brought to bear that kind of primal strength known only to the desperate. He persevered with the animalistic fortitude of a cornered vornskr, an apex predator refusing to admit to wounds whose purpose - however grave - only seemed to enrage. Preceding his fall he unleashed a shockwave of Force push. The age old ability in the hands of a common Force user with a rounded skillset was comparable to the blast of a bomb. In the hands of the uncommon it could be used to literally rip foes apart and in rare cases disintegrate them. The shockwave unleashed down on Akovin was comparable to the overpressure wave of one big freakin' bomb.

As Shorn plummeted toward the ground the Force Push acted like a gigantic hammer. The floor of the Cauldron would be the anvil. Caught between the sheer telekinetic energy and the hard ground beneath, Triam's body would be broken. Perhaps not killed, but any bones left unbroken would surely be shivered to bits. And that cybernetic arm of hers, the one she was likely trying to point up at him in order to fire a weapon? That probably wouldn't even get the chance to raise and fire in her condition - for it would be smashed and pinned to the ground by Shorn's telekinetic hammer.

If by some chance she did manage to fire at him, well, even terentatek horn had its limitations.