What He Found There.

[Alkor Centaris]

[member="Corde Flint"]​

Debris from the felled Shield Gate peppered the city of Carannia and sent the citizens into absolute panic.

Alkor waded through a murky haze of jet black smoke that billowed up from chunks of sundered building. He indiscriminately tread across the broken, lifeless bodies of citizens and soldiers alike. When the dark tide washed across a battlefield, either you rode it to victory or you became its victim. That was the edict of the Sith, of Darth Carnifex who called them all to Eclipse the Light.

He barely noticed any of it. Alkor strode quietly through the hacking and coughing of several survivors, who begged and pleaded for their lives with every breath they managed. He watched one man's chest rise and fall, so slow that you could see Death looming overhead ready to bear him home. It was like every other battlefield, and yet, it was a different battle.

The sirens of medevac units blared overhead as they raced for the scene, and embers rose from the wreckage of some nameless Lord's ancestral home. His legacy would die with his precious Dominion. "Do you hear them call you still?"

Alkor ignored the familiar voice as the ghosts of his past took form. He recognized it immediately. "Can you still hear the people you've killed, crying out for vengeance? Or have you learned to embrace that darkness at last, and are you numb to it all?"

He pushed aside a slab of duracrete that fell during the initial bombardment. The dead numbered more from structural damage than any actual fighting on Serenno. While the budding Republic licked its wounds and hoped for a chance to break out on the galactic scene, they invited the collective wroth of the Sith.

Now they burned for it.

Another groan rose from a boy, no older than ten. Alkor watched him struggle simply to breathe with one lung collapsed and tensions high. Do it, the voice invited him. He gripped his lightsaber tightly in hand. "What's wrong?" the voice asked. "Has time made you so weak?"

No.

He pulled himself back from that ledge as something else stirred in the distance.

"Attention, non personnel in the Carannia area," came a booming across a radio speaker. "Be advised, ships are preparing to fire another salvo. Evacuation is strongly recommended."

 

[Corde Flint]

[member="Alkor Centaris"]​

Cordelion walked ahead of the main rescue forces sent to assist those ravaged by the Sith's attack of the city, surveying the damage for himself before some official dictated who needed relief first. The sheer amount of wreckage was daunting, the death toll being a number the Jedi was not looking forward to learning.

He felt the weight of the task at hand more and more with each step. A hefty cough cleared his throat of dust particles as he trekked down paths less accessible. Stopping here and there as he encountered people, he offered what rudimentary care he could, clearing away debris that left individuals trapped, setting bones with splints made of the very wreckage that'd caused the injuries, dipping into his small supply of rations, and reciting some lines he'd been given encouraging they all evacuate as soon as they were able.

Be sure you move with caution, however, as routes have yet to be cleared. It all sounded incredibly artificial but it was far better than if he tried and make something up.

A few minutes with each victim and he was on his way, looking for the next group in need of aid. Sometimes, there were structures he'd attempt to move without aid. The moment his fingers met the durasteel he was greeted with an onslaught of images, the horrors these people had endured in a far more personal perspective than he'd been wanting to encounter.

Those instances left him shaken, more so mental than physical though one could still see its toll in his posture. Such visions were things he was no stranger to, but nevertheless the sheer amount of them weighed down on him like a backpack filled with a few dozen large rocks. Still, he carried on. With so much to be done, there was no time to dwell on his own secondhand turmoil.

Corde continued on, a bit slower in pace as it dawned on him there could very well still be Sith in the area. What more damage they could possibly deal, he was unaware, but he didn't doubt their animosity, just hoped he'd be able to stand against it should it come to that.

And so he moved on, lightsaber positioned for quick access but his primary focus still on the relief effort.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

[member="Corde Flint"]​

The boy gargled blood as his sightless gaze searched an unseen sky for mercy. His remaining lung fought to collect enough air to keep him alive, but only succeeded in pumping more crimson to strangle him. Coupled with the immense weight of a pylon that had ruined more than a third of his body, Alkor knew that there was no saving him.

He had no intention of it.

Crimson flashed hot as he ignited his lightsaber, and the blade sank hilt deep into the suffering youth. A sharp gasp, then nothing. His heart evaporated in an instant.

The smile etched on his lifeless face thanked the Jen'jidai.

Pity?

The blade flickered and died away as Alkor walked by the body. "If one takes action," Alkor murmured, "he must commit to that action."

His decision to assault Serenno had ultimately led to the death of that boy. It made no difference if it was his saber that caused it, or fallen rubble.

There are more to slaughter.

"The weak are of no concern to me," Alkor spoke clearly. "I came seeking a challenge. All I found were women and children."

Alkor walked further into the decimated hellscape Carannia had become as a torrent of Heavy Turbolaser fire rained down from above. Disintegrated in an instant, chunks of earth floated skyward and the temperature rose to unbearable levels. The Force itself screamed out as hundreds, if not thousands of lives ended in an instant.

Leave none alive.

 

[Corde Flint]

[member="Alkor Centaris"]​

Fortunate enough to be out of the blasterfire, tending to another group he'd encountered in his humanitarian effort, Corde felt the sudden loss of lives manifest in a splitting headache. A moment of weakness saw him dropping to a knee, drawing concern from the very people he'd been sent here to help. He brushed off their concern, insisting that he'd be well, allowing himself a moment to gather his thoughts and steel his own concerns.

Death was a natural part of life, however unnatural its form took.

There'd be a time to mourn the fallen later, just as there would be a time to rebuild. As grievous a wound the invasion had struck, the Sith had failed in extinguishing the light Serenno would continue to be.

And they would always fail, so long as Corde still breathed.

Momentary weakness aside, he finished up with the group he'd been tending to, ensuring they were in at least a stable enough condition to move before he carried on his way. A child clung to his leg, begging him not to go, not to the 'bad place'.

Social awkwardness temporarily forgotten, Corde knelt to the child's level, offering a bit of a half smile, anything to look remotely reassuring. "It'll take more than the 'bad place' to kill me, kiddo."

In that moment, he didn't doubt it, either.

Going on his merry way, he didn't stop again until the sight of another figure caught his gaze. The unfamiliar face was too lively to be local, too menacing to be a friendly. Just what Corde had hoped to avoid. "Don't you think you lot have done enough?" He called out to the other, not reaching for his weapon quite yet. "These people haven't done anything wrong."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Corde Flint​

It was the simplest of assertions, yet the most audacious. Innocence in any sense of the word depended on depth. How far you looked into one's life, the actions they have taken, or the feelings they have felt could twist the definition in an instant. To say so body that one has never done wrong, this man clearly had a faith in humanity that his audience profoundly lacked.

Alkor paused in his introspective stride and turned his head slightly, enough that the speaker knew he was heard. His deep, dark, empty blue eyes cast a shadow similar to the massive Star Destroyers that hung overhead. Like an inkwell overturned, they blotted out the sun, and the only light that followed was the bloody hellfire that screamed down from orbit. The heat pulsated again and robbed their immediate surroundings of moisture, and Alkor felt his mouth dry out.

The Jedi were a symbol of hope. Despite the impending death that the attack promised, and in spite of the absolute rout of Dominion forces on Serenno, this man stood defiant of him with his words. Alkor admired that strength of spirit.

"These people are doomed," Alkor explained calmly. "Whether you buy them seconds or minutes, the darkness has come for Serenno."

It was not a question of fairness. What was fair was often not what was realistic. Those with power controlled those without it. Even in situations where those with power had the best of intentions, they managed to pave the road to hell with them. The galaxy was inherently unfair, and what was enough would be determined by the victor.

As the massive starships screamed again, more of the people's glorious attempt at a New Republic crumbled away. Alkor took a few steps closer, and the survivors recoiled from his approach. He never walked the lonely, damned streets of a broken world out of any wicked desire to be fulfilled. There was nothing he wanted, especially from those with nothing to give.

In a sick way, he empathized with them. In their darkest moments, they lived the same reality he had from the day he was born. They struggled, suffered, and died, and Alkor watched. Death was the only constant Alkor had, and he always found his way back to it. The Jen'jidai crouched low, ratty fabric sweeping across the shattered duracrete as he touched the ashes several feet in front of the Jedi. He pulled his fingers away blackened, and rubbed them together.

"There are hundreds of Sith Zealots in Carannia already, all of them ordered to slaughter on sight. It makes no difference whether I lift my blade here, or they find death elsewhere." Alkor sifted the soot in his palm through his fingers, and it scattered to the wind.

"My only enemy is the Light," he said, "and the false hope it peddles."