Inquisitor of the Lost
Malachor V
Tella, for her part, had continued moving, always being sure never to stay still as she had been taught, putting a bit of distance between Braze, his ally, and the surprisingly durable wolf-although she was a better duelist than her mother, she still relied more on subterfuge and the Force to fight her opponents than a lightsaber. Putting them at length, as such, was good except when she could ambush from stealth.
The moment the large wall of flame came up though, she smiled. The Jedi had made a critical mistake giving her that much free ammunition as one of her penultimate focuses over the years had been focusing on the Alter school, and one of her favorite moves in recent years had been to conjure a literal firestorm by combining both air and fire. Normally this took some setting up to do or a rather large amount of concentration and effort on her end to pull it off faster, but Braze had already done half the work for her. All she had to do was add the wind.
Focusing her concentration, she seized the air around her with both hands, sending a powerful continuous gust of wind towards the wall of flame with the intent to circle it around into a whirlwind and then push said firestorm inward on the Jedi and his companions when it reached them. At the same time, however, Braze's companion leapt through the wall of fire-surprisingly unharmed- and raised his weapon. She instinctively flicked part of that gust towards him in an attempt to force the gun-or the projectile fired from the gun, to the side and into the dirt, although only being part of what she was channeling, it would not be enough to put him down on the ground himself. The majority was directed past him to push the wall of fire inward in a fiery cyclone onto the Jedi and his injured wolf. She doubted he would be able to protect the two of them completely or for long against such an assault.
Meanwhile, the gun fired, and something felt off to her, although the powerful gust of wind had been sufficient to knock its projectiles trajectory downwards into the ground a fair bit right of her, it caused her to double take.
What was that? I could not sense it. It had definitely fired, and something had definitely been deflected from the dust in the dirt, but I did not sense the projectile itself. It was not like the voidstone ammunition that they invented back in the early days of the Empire that simply dampened the Force. It was completely silent to it.
An uneasy feeling stirred in the pit of her gut. Her mother had told her about these kinds of things from her greater experience, especially regarding fighting a Force Dead assassin on Ukatis years ago. But they had been large, living beings, not ammunition. If so…she had been lucky that Braze had created that ring of fire to give her the idea to use a gust of wind in the first place, and luck was something that inevitably ran out.
Even if I accomplish nothing more here today, this piece of knowledge was worth it. I will have to tell mother and work on every future barrier being multi-layered and reinforced with strong, condensed pockets of air to stop things like this. It will be more draining…but better draining than dead.
A flash of uncertainty crossed her face as she focused most of her attention on Braze's partner while keeping one hand fueling the fire towards and around Braze, albeit at a slower rate than before. The clone had become enough of a threat to warrant around half of her power, so she used her other hand to direct a shimmering barrier of the Force tight around him in a moderately strong stasis field-enough to stop him temporarily, but if he put a focused effort on breaking it, he would eventually get through. But she did not need forever, just enough for Braze's defenses to fall. A mild throbbing began in her head as well-maintaining two simultaneous powers, while possible, was draining even for one more on the traditional Consular path. She knew if anything changed rapidly, at least one of them would have to be dropped.
Braze
Zalia Vexhammer
Joseph Torson
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