Chapter 113
Sev'rance Tann
"Shipmistress, the vessels have been seized and are within our hangar bay."
The Neimoidian spoke without ever removing his eyes from his screen.
She, in turn, answered without ever looking away from the battle. "Good."
The Republic fleet was answering her attack much,
much faster than she'd anticipated.
Mass fighter attacks however were held for emergencies for a reason.
Too many of their ships needed to be resupplied and rearmed, not enough reserve units in place to answer quickly enough. For all of Rancisis' increased skill at brute forcing past her interference of his Battle Meditation, the Force could not simply
place a fleet of fighters where there were none to be had, or refuel and rearm those that needed it.
And so now, she'd gotten away with at least sixty-seven ships with Jedi on board, spread throughout her fleet.
A fine enough prize.
"Call for the retreat." She ordered. "Pull back to the cover of the anti-orbital defenses."
"Are you sure they will not follow, my lady?" another Neimoidian asked.
"No." She answered him with full honesty, "Which is why we're securing as many Jedi as we can, getting them on a prison transport and sending them out of the system immediately."
The Neimoidian had the good sense to bow. "At once, my lady." Before scurrying along to obey.
That many Jedi could serve a great many functions just on the pragmatic scale. Enemy intelligence, hostages, negotiation currency..
Hell, just in this battle she could use them as living shields. She doubted, after all, that the Jedi would be willing to blow up a ship that had some of their own on board.
They didn't have the stomach for it; to do what was necessary.
And that's not to say anything regarding… other uses they would have should she or her Master decide to turn them.
Ilum and Geonosis had already proven fantastic proofs of concept.
Looking down at the security feed, where her tractor beam placed the vessel down in the secure hangar, Tann could already see her ships beginning to carry out their retreat, so she was confident enough to pull away from the bridge. "Manage things here. I will go and tend to our guests."
The Neimoidian looked nervous, but bowed, albeit haltingly this time. "As you command."
She didn't blame him for being nervous. Rancisis and Tiin were still in command of that fleet, but the presence within that ship was
blinding, overwhelming. It reminded her of Skywalker, who looked to be a burning bright star in the Force as he'd flown past her bridge.
This one was not as powerful, but it was certainly nothing to scoff at.
Frankly, she wasn't sure she'd win if she did try to fight.
Which is why she had no intention of fighting.
Descending down the length of the ship, she soon enough made it to the security bay, another collection of engineers and Neimoidians fluttering about, bowing hastily as she entered.
"We have access to the ship's systems, mistress, waiting on your command." One said.
She nodded, not even looking at the menial before her fingers clicked on the necessary buttons.
The boarding ramp hissed open.
No one exited.
She sighed.
She pressed down on a single bright red button.
"To those aboard," She called through the intercom. "Your vessel has been seized. You can either walk out and surrender peacefully, or we can blow up your ship with you inside of it. I'd prefer the former, less clean up that way. I am granting you thirty seconds to respond."
They took twelve.
The woman who stepped out of the ramp was a Sephi, shining so brilliantly in the Force that Tann almost feared she'd go blind staring directly at her.
Following her were several lesser Jedi, none that she recognized. Two were injured, three others were in various states of disheveled; blaster scoring, burn marks on their clothes, dusty robes and dirt smudges on their exposed flesh. Undoubtedly, they'd all been rescued from Geonosis.
Behind them came someone else, hands held behind his head. Not a Jedi, or a clone either; the pilot.
And him, she did recognize.
"The famous Kronos." She noted smirking. "My my. Quite the catch I've landed, or so they say."
"Pretty sure there's a bounty to let me go." The masked man said with what was no doubt a cheeky smirk and shrug. "You let me go, split it with ya sixty-forty… my way, of course."
"Oh, I think you misheard." She drawled.
The clones began to file out.
Most were injured, some even being carried by multiple others, laid across the floor where they continued to die slowly.
"Lay down your weapons." She called, "Place them on the floor, slide them away."
All of them hesitated.
Tann sighed. "Do it, or I vent the hangar."
It would be a shame to lose such a prize as this Jedi Master and the famous Kronos, but she wouldn't risk
six Jedi, especially with one so powerful, running across her ship to cause havoc and potentially kill her.
One by one, each of the Jedi set down their weapons, sabers and saberstaffs. the Clones did so as well, shoving them forward and away from themselves as they slid across the metal floor.
"Hmmm?" Tann frowned, finger pressing down on the button. "Was I unclear in my instruction, Jedi Master?" She asked.
The woman splayed out her hands. "Forgive me, but I have no weapon to divest myself of. I am a pacifist."
In spite of her incredulity, she sensed no deception in the Force.
This was either the saddest thing she'd ever heard, or just cosmically funny.
She couldn't quite decide at the moment.
Only the Jedi would let such power go to absolute
waste.
"I see." She chuckled. "Very well. Droids will be entering the room now to collect the weapons. Do not intervene."
With another press of the button, three of the hangar's blast doors slid open, with well over a hundred B2s marching in lockstep to enter, a dozen B1s behind them.
The larger droids quickly arranged themselves in formation, surrounding the group in a semi circle, as the smaller B1s collected the weapons and began to hastily leave with them, getting them well out of reach.
"Search the ship, and the Sephi."
—
Hannah
The hardest thing, always… was controlling your breathing.
It was always too loud, and the softer you tried to make it the louder it felt, your heart thumped in your chest so hard you could swear everyone could hear it.
The sound of that
thump-thump-thump under your ribs and pounding through your skull was deafening. The way your chest shuddered, trying to let out the breath slowly was maddening.
Beside her laid Ventress, her lightsabers clutched in her hand, but remaining utterly still, even as the droids walked directly above them, their clinking feet sending sharp metal echoes through their hidden smuggler compartment, shielded and all but invisible to scanners.
Scanners that even now the droids were using, sweeping the halls.
She didn't know if it would protect against the Force, but apparently Fay would handle that part by
'Making certain the Sith cannot sense anyone but me.'
The droids moved slowly, methodically. Every second felt like a minute, every minute an hour, and Hannah wondered if they'd ever be done.
Then, finally…
"No life forms detected."
"Good, good." Hannah could only assume the voice was the infamous Sev'rance Tann. At least, she couldn't readily recall any other female commanders as part of the CIS.
"Kill the clones and the smuggler."
It was only a lifetime of well honed reflexes that let her move fast enough to grasp Ventress' arm, physically restraining the white haired, pale skinned woman from ripping her way out of the ship and destroying the whole of their chances.
She didn't breathe, didn't say a word while Ventress's eyes almost
glowed in the gloom and dark, baring her teeth at Hannah.
She shook her head.
At the absolute worst… Dennis would survive. He would freeze his suit. He had an out.
If Ventress moved now, even if Dennis survived, the rest of them surely wouldn't.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the tension in the woman's form began to bleed out.
"Did you not hear me, droids?"
"They'd heard you."
Hannah recognized Master Fay's voice.
"I'm simply not allowing them to raise their weapons."
Hannah wished she could see what exactly was happening, but sadly, all she could do was listen, deduce and infer.
"My my. Nearly a hundred droids, held still by pure telekinesis. A pacifist, you say."
Hannah could almost hear the smile in Master Fay's voice. "Do not mistake pacifism for apathy. I will defend those with me to the best of my limited ability. You may try to destroy us, but I feel you have a battle you must pay attention to. By now, word has surely reached Master Rancisis of my capture, and he will be making efforts to secure us. How much time can you afford to spend here, butchering helpless and injured clones, I wonder?"
A beat of silence.
"Very well. Stand down. The clones may live."
Hannah heard the distant hiss of doors opening.
"Now, please, follow the droids towards your accommodations. Do not try my patience."
Hannah listened, waiting calmly, patiently. The sound of feet striking floor was loud, but gradually lessened and became ever more distant.
Finally, she heard the sound of a door slamming shut.
She looked towards Asajj.
The pale woman nodded.
Soon enough, they pushed open the smuggler compartment, sliding the false panels aside as they pushed themselves out of the little cubby hole.
"Rugess." She hissed.
The Bith emerged a little further down the hall from his own hidey hole.
They slid the flooring and false wall panels back to their places, gathering together in the hall. "Ok," Hannah breathed, double checking her armor seals. "Everyone know the job?"
"Deactivate tractor beam, sabotage ship shields and lockdown." Ventress answered.
Hannah turned to Rugess. "Think you can pull that off."
The Bith, nervous but more brave than he gave himself credit for, babbled out his answer.
"That's right, no choice but to pull it off." She affirmed with a nod, patting her old friend on the shoulder. "We're getting back home."
—
Iskt
The only warning he had was the sudden rush of clones moving from the tasks of organizing supplies and conducting medical procedures over their wounded brothers, to suddenly rushing towards the armory and then the defenses while an alarm klaxon blared across the base.
His head turned, searching on a swivel for one of the senior Knights, or even some of his fellow Padawans, before he grew frustrated, grabbing a clone by the arm to stop him before snarling out his next words.
"What's going on?"
"Unknown force has appeared, sir." The clone answered. "Approaching fast from the west. ETA one minute. All forces are to get to their assigned defenses; I'm not sure what the orders are for Jedi."
The west. Master Plo's legion?
Something must've gone wrong.
Iskt racked his brain, remembering the many drills and procedures he'd memorized and where his assigned rally point was. There wasn't a lot of time to get there
"Thank you, trooper!" He made sure to say before letting the man go, the both of them taking off in a run.
Trandoshans weren't small, and he was already beginning to outgrow the humans around him, but he was still young and small enough that he could navigate through the camp with a measure of dexterity and the slightest bit of Force enhanced speed that he didn't automatically resemble a bulldozer, even in the sudden chaos that had overtaken the base.
Halfway towards his destination he did find someone that set him at ease.
"Cal!"
Kestis turned his head, the glint of the cybernetic cheekbone graft catching in the high noon sun.
"Iskt." He nodded, slowing his pace just enough for the Trandoshan to catch up before they both kept moving. "Good to see you."
"You too." He answered. "Have you seen Karla?"
"I think she was with Knight Tiplar last I checked?" Cal winced, he was probably more unsure than he thought.
Knight Tiplar, she and Knight Tiplee, her sister, were in command of this base. On the cusp of becoming Jedi Masters, if rumors were to be believed, he had to take some solace in that if nothing else.
Then the sound of blaster shots reached them and he didn't have the time to wallow on it further.
Climbing to the battlements, they saw mounted heavy repeaters firing into the enemy. Iskt saw a horde of speeder bikes and modified fast hover tanks, most of their armor stripped down to the bare bones minimum with just the cannon on top, each of those firing onto the walls.
Bursts of plasma tore and melted chunks out of the metal.
Three LAAT gunships sailed up overhead, firing down into the mass, adding to the defense. They didn't have the high powered composite-beam laser turrets of the front line models, wielding instead bay mounted heavy repeater cannons.
The droids returned fire, two of the gunships dodging but one having been caught mid turn. The missile smashed into its engine and the thing listed sideways, the pilot struggling to maintain control, or perhaps even to turn, as the gunship came crashing down, back over the wall and inside the camp nearby, clones and tents getting smashed under its burning wreck.
Iskt caught sight of Knight Tiplee, the Mikkian woman shouting orders and pointing out targets beside the heavy guns before they opened up beside her.
Iskt saw one, then two of the modified tanks blown apart.
And still there were more.
The barrage kept up, hammering down on the walls. They wouldn't hold for long.
Iskt saw one of the hovertanks activate its afterburn thrusters, accelerating to ramming speed before it smashed into the weakened wall. The tank and the metal wall tore each other apart but still, a breach was formed and in came the rush of speeder bikes, droids firing indiscriminately into the still disorganized camp.
The clones returned fire, taking cover wherever they could, ad hoc barricades and firing lines forming on the fly. Lightsabers lit up across the expanse of camp ground where Padawans and Knights, still isolated from one another, were caught out
alone.
"Come on!" Iskt barked, shoving past Cal and hearing the human boy running after him as they made their way towards Knight Tiplee.
They made it about half the distance before a rumbling
howl out of a custom engine shrieked through his ears, making him cringe as a bike shot up and over the wall, its antigrav glowing red hot at its underside as a massive…
thing pulled a heavy pistol and shot at Knight Tiplee.
The blaster bolts were the size of
fists and they smashed into the Knight's saber, physically knocking her back with the sheer force behind them before the being whipped the whole bike around so hard the nose of it bent at an off angle as the momentum whiplashed its tail end hard, trying to use the rear thrusters to burn Knight Tiplee before she leapt away, swiping at the bike with the tip of her blade and sending it careening out of control.
The massive creature rolled off of the speeder bike, drawing a second hand cannon and shooting.
Clones returned fire and Iskt could
see the shots landing, piercing armor and hitting flesh.
He could
smell burning meat.
And it didn't matter.
The thing kept marching forward through the hail of bolts, one shot from its hand cannons killing one clone, tearing fist sized holes in their bodies, as Knight Tiplee charged into the fray, lightsaber in hand.
"We have to help!" Cal shouted rushing past him, lightsaber igniting.
Iskt followed close behind.
He leapt over burning wreckage and hopped over dead clones, discarded weapons and damaged equipment. Master Tiplee was trying to fight the monster, her speed keeping her out of its powerful reach, her saber just
barely deflecting the shots it tried to blast her with at point blank distance.
Cal reached the battle first.
He swung his lightsaber, the blue blade carving a score through the thing's back, a lethal blow…
Yet the thing turned around just as fast, drawing a knife that would have taken Cal's head clean off if not for him ducking in almost pure reflex, the thing continuing by bringing the knife
down to punch through the top of Cal's skull. But then Iskt was there, lunging. He swung his saber, ready to cut the limb off at the wrist, only for the tall humanoid to pull back at the last moment, shifting its weight on one leg and driving his knee forward into Iskt's side.
The Trandoshan boy blocked the blow with the meat of his arm, and felt the sharp sudden
pain of his bone
snapping like a dry twig, the blow sending him tumbling over the wall.
He flipped mid tumble, landing on his feet and grunting as his broken arm jostled, Trandoshan regeneration already trying to set the bone and fix the limb, still listening to the clash of the two Jedi and the monster above.
The Padawan shut off his lightsaber, using his now free hand to grab hold of whatever hand holds he could find, powerful limbs pulling him up before vaulting over the railing to stand atop the wall again.
He arrived in time to find Knight Tiplee pinned, an armored boot pressing down into her chest, her lightsaber stabbing into an ankle as the massive blaster was leveled at her face.
Iskt reached, grabbing hold of a power pack crate and with all his natural and Force enhanced strength
hurled it.
The box sailed through the air like a cannonball, smashing into the monster's shoulder, sending him stumbling off of Tiplee, the shot going wide beside her head. It burned a hole through the coral-like crown that framed her features.
Hurt, but alive.
The Knight rolled and then stumbled away, hand at her chest, clearly in pain as Iskt lit up his saber and stepped between them.
"I didn't say we were finished." He rumbled.
Behind him, Knight Tiplee panted. "Thank you, Padawan." Her voice was wet, something was broken inside her chest.
The monster glared at him from behind his helmet, reaching down to pull free the lightsaber from his own ankle; he was so large he made the blade look like a thin
toy.
But it was still a lightsaber.
Then, the monster's arm was gone.
Cal's blade cut a line clear and bright through flesh, having snuck up behind the thing.
Iskt expected to see, if not pain, at least surprise.
What he didn't expect was for both severed arm and stump to burst into a mass of writhing tentacles.
Cal didn't have the time to get away.
The blow hit him full on, sending him sailing clear up and over the wall just as it had done to Iskt, and Iskt had a moment to recognize the hollow, metal sound in his ears as the beast's laughter.
—
CT-853191417 "Guelzo"
"COME ON! MOVE!" He roared, pulling the trigger again and again, his shots just a single bolt amidst the sheer
wall of firepower that sailed past and over his head into the screeching, howling mass of…
monsters.
"FORM A BATTLELINE ON ME!" He heard Orwell barking somewhere behind him, no doubt reorganizing the shinies. Guelzo didn't know who, if anyone, was in charge of the Jedi right now and he didn't damn well care.
"LT, We gotta get back in there." Weber's voice crackled in his ear through the quad's private line.
"She's in there alone."
'I damn well know that.' He growled in the privacy of his own mind.
She'd ordered them to get the men out of that ambush, Jedi and clones both. She'd directed them with her swarm, ran interference with them…
everywhere. If Guelzo were a betting man, he'd say well over 2/3rds of the people they
did get out owed their lives to thrice damned Geonosian
bugs giving directions or out monstering the monsters.
Good soldiers followed orders.
But by god was it easy to hate these ones right now.
"She didn't say how far we had to take them, only to get them out." Pratchett chimed in.
"They're out of the worst of it. Have a battleline where they can fight. We're not even in range of the Commander's swarm. Let's go get her, now."
As the Knights and Masters finally rallied somewhere, they charged back into the fray, meeting the so called Sithspawn abominations with lightsabers and Force in hand, backed up by heaps and heaps of blaster fire.
Still, the monsters rushed on, heedless. Guelzo saw them zeroing in, tunnel visioning on the Force users in particular, crashing into them with the wild, maddened abandon of the Geonosians against Miss Taylor just hours ago.
And she was in there, alone with them and that Sith.
He could see the glow of the fires from here. The sheer, suffocating
heat of them making him sweat inside his armor even from this far away.
It didn't take much convincing.
"Noble-" Before the orders could even fully leave his mouth, there was a warbling shriek in the black. It reminded him of a bird of prey from Kashyyyk, and sent a very real chill crawling down his spine.
The monster that came out of the dark this time wasn't like the others. It was
huge, corded muscle coiled tightly under skin stretched
taut. Red eyes peered out of the blackness, a crown of horns and scything talons, rows of teeth as long as his arm caging a mouth that could swallow a dewback whole
The other beasts genuinely
cowered as they heard it, shriveling and pulling away; fearful of whatever this was. He saw many of the Jedi
pale, visibly trembling as they too backed away.
He wasn't Force-sensitive, Miss Taylor had tested them and they each had the Force-sensitivity of a particularly stubborn rock.
But even he felt an unnatural unease looking at this thing, a feeling of overwhelming dread.
"Orwell… tell me you've still got your ordnance."
"For all the good it'll do."
The monster screeched, its black maw opening wide.
Then it charged.
Nothing that large should ever move that fast.
It smashed into the forward ranks, broken and squashed bodies flying in its wake, its tail whipping out, the tip of it cutting men literally in half. Blood and gore fountained, mulching the earth. Clones and Jedi both screamed as they fired and hacked away at it, the blaster bolts and lightsabers barely even scratching its hide as it devoured men whole.
"FIRE!" Guelzo roared, the entire team opening up with their weapons, even Weber, with his sniper rifle firing from the hip.
The monster growled, a low hissing sound deep in its chest before it opened its now bloodied teeth again. A green smoke spewed out of that black pit and Guelzo saw men scream in agony seconds before the cloud
melted those same men in their own armor and robes.
Never should have come here… Should have just blasted this rock from orbit until we made a new asteroid field.
He didn't say the words, but he felt them, like a roiling, hateful bile in the back of his throat as he leveled his rifle and kept on shooting.
—
Sora Bulq
There was no grace to their duel. No subtle, near artistic dance in their movements, in the meeting of blade upon blade.
No. This was a
fight, fueled by what Bulq recognized to be a mutual hatred and a reciprocal disgust.
Ever since that day in the Temple, where the first seeds of their dislike had been sewn by Skywalker meddling in affairs that didn't concern him, it had now come full circle. The seeds had grown, crystallizing in this moment where this Knight who thought far too highly of himself seethed with palpable rage and a lust for vengeance.
Bulq was aware of Skywalker's nascent reputation as a blademaster. Trained by Dooku, a true legend, but whittled down by Kenobi, a man laughably reliant on the defenses of the Soresu and muddled with so many other influences from so many other
teachers that Skywalker's fighting form barely resembled a coherent baseline as much as a deformed amalgamation of too many hands pulling at his strings.
Their blades locked, strength pitted against strength. Skywalker was no Windu, but Bulq was surprised when he felt solid, unyielding resistance not unlike his training partner.
He pushed forward, striking with a rapid series of blows, attacking from all angles, seeing the base of Skywalker's form slip into Kenobi's Soresu footwork.
Their blades blurred, slicing deep gouges into the floor, the holotable, the walls, comm relays and other equipment along the inside of the Juggernaut's command deck. Coolant, chemicals and oils spilled across the floor, quickly catching fire, blue and orange flames beginning to crackle and rise around the both of them.
Another swing as Skywalker ducked, Bulq's saber striking the monitor at his side. The bright flash and stinging sparks blinded Bulq for a moment, and the sudden warning in the Force came nearly too late as his blade rose sharply, barely blocking the blindingly fast counter swing that would have severed the top of his skull.
Then Skywalker was the one attacking.
He was not as strong as Windu.
But he was
fast.
He blocked a strike on his left, another on his right, a third to the leg with barely enough time to even blink between all three. He attempted a feint, only to have it read and three more strikes were delivered one after another, nearly taking one of his arms as Skywalker
almost managed to exploit the opening.
Bulq's eyes widened, and then his fury mounted, incredulity mingling with wounded pride as Skywalker's blade locked with his, the boy's features still carved in a jagged snarl of bared teeth and curled lips as he pushed against Bulq's saber, as if to shove both blades into Bulq's chest.
The muscles along Weequay's arms bulged, the dark side of the Force fueling him in his rage…
But still Skywalker was… overpowering him. The fallen Master's eyes widened, and with a snarl he wrenched a panel free from the wall with the Force. The thin plate of steel spinning through the air struck Skywalker, slicing open a thick gash over his brow, sending him reeling.
The boy screamed in pain and Bulq tried to capitalize on the opening before he felt the Force
heave, and he was sent sailing back through the air. The raw power the boy wielded was like an avalanche, and Bulq found himself incapable of resisting it before he mustered the full strength he had within himself to push back, both physically and otherwise.
Skywalker wiped at his eyes, the leaking blood making him half blind, the thickening smoke doing him no favors with the other half, blinking through tears and soot.
And still, he sensed no fear from the boy, just grim determination and a still smoldering
hate.
Bulq gripped his lightsaber tightly.
—
Hannah
Hannah didn't have the faintest idea how the Force worked.
Blaster, Mover, Thinker, Breaker, Brute, Master, and now Stranger. The only thing it didn't seem to cover was Tinker, but she wouldn't put it past the blasted thing.
Ventress simply
moved through the ship, avoiding cameras and slipping past patrolling droids as they turned away or walked past adjacent hallways with nary a missed step. She and Rugess followed close behind, with Rugess telling them where they needed to go.
But without the Force, or what Hannah was just willing to call just straight magic bullshit, she had no doubt they would have been discovered many hallways and patrols ago.
She kept a tight grip on her ion rifle, ready to let loose on any droids that managed to slip past this soft Stranger or Thinker effect Ventress was pulling off before they could send out an alert.
Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.
But still, as they descended down towards the ships engineering deck, she knew a fight was inevitable, even before Ventress grabbed hold of her sabers with a hissed warning: "Get ready."
The doors opened.
The engineering deck was one of the most important locations on any ship.
Its security wouldn't simply be 'passed through'.
But reaching this place was the critical part.
As the doors hissed open, two B2s stood on guard, both droids barely having a second to recognize the danger before Ventress' sabers sliced one open and the other was shot with a cascade of ion energy that left it a smoking heap on the floor.
As metal struck metal when the droid collapsed, the ship's alarms instantly began blaring.
"Move!" Hannah barked, a timer on her helmet HUD activating. "We have three minutes!"
—
Sev'rance Tann
When the alarms began to blare Tann was surprised, her gaze snapping up to the ceiling before she activated her private commlink to the bridge.
"REPORT!? WHAT'S GOING ON?"
"Shipmistress! We have a general alert from the engineering deck! Intruders have been spotted!"
Engineering!? How! I-
She pushed the thoughts away.
HOW didn't matter.
Tractor beam, shields, hyperdrive. They could affect nearly all ship systems through there.
The tractor beam, that had to b-
She felt a tremor, a shift in the Force, seconds before the Neimoidian blubbered through the commlink again.
"Shipmistress! Republic Fleet has appeared beside us!"
They would take losses, they were in range of ground side anti-orbital cannons.
But they knew that.
They wanted to rescue the Sephi.
She grit her teeth. "I need a combat dispatch!" She commanded.
—
Kit Fisto
Every crecheling who'd ever dreamt of wielding a lightsaber had read the old legends. Of the great wars and near mythic figures of ancient, long gone histories and powers that defied belief.
He felt as though he'd marched into one of those ancient tales now. Staring at an ancient Sith and Jedi Lords.
The monsters, the Sithspawns, hissed and glared, gathering around her, but drawing no closer. Whether it was the flames or something else that kept them away, he couldn't say.
Hebert began to cross the distance between herself and Jorus, her every step bringing a rise in the heat Kit could feel on his flesh; serpents of fire danced in the air around her beside the Geonosian insects that had still survived the heat and entropy.
"I'm going to finally put an end to you-" Hebert promised, her voice low, saber humming in her hand. Her voice belied the emotion her expression hid. "-once and for all."
Several of the lesser Sithspawn braved the fires, rushing forward with howling screeches.
Hebert didn't even turn her head, and all of the approaching monsters were engulfed in flames
"This is no corpse puppet you face now." Jorus sneered. "I am here in flesh. And we are not equals."
The temperature rose and Hebert's body was
wreathed in flames, a cloak and crown of fire that seemed to be melting the stone at her feet. If it wasn't for her not wanting to harm him and his own usage of the Force to counter it, sheer collateral would have seen him burnt to a crisp even at this distance.
That was the only warning given.
Hebert moved a trail of fire in her wake and Jorus' blade caught the blow, parrying it and countering even as the young woman was already moving, already shifting. The fire warped Kit's perception, making her seem as though she were still in one place when she was in fact at another. Afterimages, formed of manipulated flames, struck like living shadows; how Jorus could keep up in the epicenter of it all he wasn't sure.
Hebert was not Dallon, she was no physical powerhouse, but her mastery of the Force came to full bare. Boulders and
corpses were hurled through the air like so much confetti, bombarding Jorus who whispered words that made Kit's flesh crawl - Sith incantations in their ancient language.
It compelled the monsters to attack.
The beasts rushed forward, heedless of the flames.
It was the swarm that answered them.
Insects swooped in, devouring eyes, tearing apart flesh and consuming sinew. Hate fueled lightning met overwhelming fires, and for a sliver of time the old legends came alive again.
—
Hannah
The engineering deck was a crisscrossing maze of elevated platforms, power generators, and interconnected bridges. With not a single railing in sight.
OSHA should exist in this galaxy. If they did, Hannah had no doubt they'd have wiped out the Separatists by murdering anyone and everyone affiliated with this design.
Even so, up to code or not, Rugess navigated them through the maze, making his way towards the tractor beam power conduit while also directing Ventress towards the primary generator. The tractor beam was on a secondary, hard line system similar to the life support. They needed to be independently powered in case of a primary reactor failure.
Like the one they were about to cause.
With a well placed ion spike, the tractor beam was shut down. Rugess assured her it would take a week of engineering to get the thing back online.
They rushed to the exit, trusting Ventress to deal with the primary generator.
She did.
Very decisively.
Several lightsaber slashes guaranteed there'd be no fixing it. They'd need a new one.
"On my way." The woman responded through the comms.
"We'll hold the elevator for y-"
The door opened.
And what felt like a hundred blaster bolts nearly killed her and Rugess a split second later. The only thing that had saved them was her power forming a beskar blast shield, holding it up between the two of them and the small army of droids now marching their way out of the elevator.
She cursed, feeling her own balance slipping as the sheer
volume of shots threatened to tip her and her shield backward before Rugess, seeing what was happening, grabbed hold of her. His added weight gave her enough stability to reach behind her and pull Dennis' shotgun off of her back.
She slipped it to the right of the shield, the gun barking in her grip, her armor letting her take the weapon's massive kick with a single hand and wrist. Rugess pulled free his own blaster, shooting out through the other side.
She felt the droid fire falter, and she shoved herself forward with a roar, the beskar shield smashing into the front row of B1s, knocking them back and into their fellows.
"Hit the deck."
Rugess didn't need to be told twice.
The shield disappeared and she trusted her own armor to take the brunt of the punishment, bolts pinging off of the plates as the green energy reformed into a grenade launcher.
She fired it, the ion grenade clonking out of the weapon on a two second delay, giving her just enough time to dispel the launcher and reform her shield, once more placing it between the two of them and the droids.
It went off. The blinding flash robbed her eyesight and she felt the sharp sting of electricity as it coursed over her armor, her muscles shuddering and red warning lights appearing in her HUD even as the insulation did its best to protect her from the current.
Her body shuddered, muscles twitching and her heart beating erratically in her chest.
But the droids were dead.
She dispelled the shield, standing stiffly, almost afraid to move given that her legs might just give out on her.
Rugess stood one arm coiling around her waist, blubbering out his worried question.
"I'm ok." She promised.
There was a hail of more blaster bolts as droids arrived on the catwalks above. This place would be swarming with them soon.
Her fingers pressed to her comlink, ducking into the elevator. "Ventress!"
There was a tremendous crash of steel and a rain of metal bodies falling from high, smashing into the catwalk. Hannah dared to poke her head out enough to look up, in time to catch sight of Ventress clambering down the walls with hand holds and acrobatics that the heroine doubted she'd have been able to pull off on her best day.
"I'm here!" She answered, her sabers deflecting several shots as she slipped into the elevator, Rugess punching the elevator button to get them out of here. "Let's go get Dennis."
She didn't disagree, but she did note the exclusion of… everything else on Ventress' rather short list of priorities.
—
Iskt
It wouldn't die.
Iskt had never seen anything like it.
By now, the raid force had been destroyed. The clones, however green, were well drilled, and their camp grounds had enough fallback and defensive points that they'd destroyed the droids.
But this thing. Would. Not. Die.
Clones fired into it, Jedi, Padawans and Knights both, joined in on the attack, cutting it to pieces only for it to simply reform. Tentacles and worms came back together again and again, grabbing hold of men in facsimiles of humanoid shapes and smashing their bodies into broken sacks of flesh against stone and metal.
Occasionally, Iskt tried to rush in for a quick attack before running away, a constant 'in and out' to stay out of reach of the clearly monstrous enemy.
It was surrounded, clones and Jedi at all sides, yet still Iskt could sense - could
feel - that it didn't feel at all threatened.
It was
enjoying this.
Its head moved, panning slowly over the assembled
targets.
Iskt saw it settle on him.
The Trandoshan grit his teeth, both arms now gripping his saber tight.
The monster rushed him.
Its speed was deceptive, swallowing nearly thirty meters in an
eyeblink.
Then, cannon shots tore into the mass of flesh and tentacles, ripping entire chunks of mass from its body, and
this time he heard the monster
howl.
It and Iskt rounded towards the source…
The downed LAAT, with its heavy repeater emplacement aiming straight at the beast, and behind the gun…
Karla.
Iskt could read the Monster's intent without even needing to use the Force, and his cry and reaction were more reflex than thought.
"NO!" He shouted, trying to interpose himself between her and the now charging monster.
He never got the chance.
The mass of flesh and tentacles battered him aside, the air knocked from his lungs, his whole body sailing through the air before he hit something with a tremendous crash. A sharp, breathless gasp escaped him as searing pain cut through his whole body.
He heard the shriek of torn metal and the deafening clamor of a meat train smashing into the downed LAAT. He tried to move his head, tried to see what was happening, and not just guess through sound.
He tried to grip his saber, but his hands were empty; his fingers wouldn't obey.
His vision began to darken, and he reached into the Force, trying to sense, trying to feel.
He found her.
She was
cold. Like their Masters. A blank, hollow emptiness as she abandoned all panic, all fear.
But Iskt knew her, he knew her well enough to know that she was afraid.
And he was here.
Useless and incapable of anything.
He growled wetly, iron pooling at the back of his throat, his eyes narrowing as his vision sharpened, adrenaline flooding his system as his Trandoshan regeneration tried to compensate for whatever damage had been done.
A single question flitted through the quiet parts of his mind.
Its voice was unfamiliar.
'Destination?'
—
Obi-Wan:
"So calm. So secure. Are you not worried about what you sense around you? Even I can feel the death of so many across this world. Maybe your Padawan is amongst them?"
Komari's words were goading, cutting, looking to get him angry. Looking to cause him to make a mistake.
He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.
Even if in his heart he was worried.
Something was deeply wrong with Anakin. He could sense it from here.
But still, he showed no outward signs of it. A Sith would exploit a weakness. Any weakness. Dooku wouldn't forgive him for showing one either.
Instead his answer was glib.
"I have no need to worry. Unlike your Master, I did not train a mediocre apprentice."
Her response was a serpent fast, whip-like swing that nearly took his eyes. He answered with a thrust that she dodged, and the dance began again.
His clones were fighting her stealth droids. Some sort of new models, assassins by design, or at least he assumed so. He couldn't exactly go checking system specs while occupied.
Some of his men tried to help, but like always she kept avoiding them, drawing him away. It was a careful game she played, remaining
just at the edge of the fight. Not close enough for them to help, but not making his own prospect of backing away to avoid over extending past his men quite so obvious.
She was, if nothing else, a very good warrior.
Fighting her was like fighting smoke; liquid shadow and ethereal mist.
Her bladework was
impeccable, the phantom of Dooku's old tutelage showing itself even now in her Jar'Kai, elevated to nearly a dance in her hands.
But still, Obi-Wan felt it in the exchange of blades, in the back and forth of Makashi and Jar'Kai. In the parries, thrusts, feints and counters. He read it in the movements of her body and the coldness of her eyes.
The lack of… anything.
The movements were there, the intent to kill was as well. But it was… robotic.
Passionless.
A machine going through the motions.
"You don't have to do this." He ventured. "I can tell you do not wish to fight."
The woman answered with bitter laughter.
"Oh? Going to
redeem me,
replacement?" Her strikes came again, faster this time, a fire smoldering within now. A bitter, spiteful thing. "Going to
rescue the poor little Sith? Be the hero? Be the perfect Jedi?"
The last words stung, for indeed, he could remember days gone by where he did dream, if not actively aspire to be the greatest Jedi the Order had known, to be the greatest Jedi he could be. To prove that he was not the mistake so many had judged him to be during his earliest years where he was nearly cast from the Order.
"I cannot say what will happen," He answered carefully, giving ground, backing away as he blocked and deflected her strikes, giving himself room to breathe and
speak without leaving himself exposed. "But why continue to fight in a war you don't even want to win?"
"
Win!?" She laughed, and the sound was somehow both mocking and broken. "You think
any of us will win
anything? That this war will have any victor besides him?"
There was a feeling there, a genuine
hopeless despair that, legitimately, caught Obi-Wan by surprise.
This wasn't the Sith he had expected.
This was a woman, battered and beaten down; a dog obeying commands to avoid the lash.
"Your Master," He ventured again, careful in his tone. He even lowered his blade, ever so slightly, still ready to return it to its ready position in a split second. But… opening up the conversation, if she allowed. "If you… If you tell me what you know, if the Jedi Council finds him, we can-"
"Do what?" She scoffed. "Do
what?" When she repeated it, the question was a hiss, her own blades lowering, sith yellow eyes burning with a strange
hatred that wasn't even directed fully at him. "Defeat him?
Win the war?" The words were filled with acid, the very notion of the Jedi's
victory an absurdity of the highest order in her mind. "All we are are
puppets dancing on strings, and the only thing that will change is what he decides to call his new galactic order!"
Obi-Wan shook his head.
No one, no Jedi or Sith, was ever that powerful, and whatever lies he poured into her head to make her believe in this omnipotence were just that, lies. "You can stop this." He said, almost pleading.
"Stop
what?" She screamed, and he saw tears glimmer in her eyes. "The Republic's fall? It already
has and the only people too stupid to see it is your feeble
blasted order of hypocrites and blind puppets! He's
won. It's already
done. You're not getting out of this hell anymore than I am!"
She shut off her sabers. "My job was to delay you. That's how
pointless this is. Killing you was just…" She shrugged. "Indulgence for me. But even that
doesn't matter." She turned away, confident that he wouldn't strike her in the back. Or maybe… just uncaring at the prospect.
"Go, fight your war. Blow up the plant, take the plant. Rescue your apprentice, abandon him. Go out naked into the wastes. It doesn't matter anymore. You'll dance on his strings until he wraps them around your throat and throttles you."
"We aren't as helpless as you think." He raised his blade. "And I can't just let you walk away. You must face justice for your crimes at the very least."
"There is no justice." She muttered, her sabers reigniting. "Fight me then. Maybe you win. Maybe I kill you. Maybe I escape anyway. Either way, it's a delay. My job is accomplished. Maybe by the time you win, Windu is thrown back, or dead. Maybe that Padawan of yours dies. Wouldn't surprise me, Jedi abandon their apprentices all the time."
Obi-Wan stood there for a long while, the choice warring in his mind.
—
Durge
The little red Twi'lek ran.
Many ran, but he always caught up.
This would be no different.
But even so, she frustrated him by running towards the places wreathed in
fire. Smoke and flame were the things he loathed above all else.
But she gravitated towards it, as if realizing the fire would slow him more than any wall.
But still, he would catch up.
He felt the Jedi and clones trying to fight him, their lightsabers hacking at strips of flesh uselessly, the blaster marks already beginning to heal even before the next shot landed.
This one though, had hurt him.
She would die before he left this place.
Destroy the supplies.
That had been his mission.
The mission was done.
This… This was just for fun.
When he finally cornered the little red morsel, she was pinned between himself and the outer wall of the camp. Too small to jump, too much wreckage to go to either flank.
"End of the line." He growled.
He expected fear, but there wasn't any. Just a cold
deadness in her features, even as she raised her weapons.
Brave. Or stupid. Most cried by now.
He stepped forward.
And something
slammed into him.
The impact was like a speeder smashing into his side. It threw him off, his body tumbling through the air to smash onto the burning remains of a prefab unit, feeling the fires
burn through his body as he roared, throwing the thing that looked like a boulder off him, trying to stand, to get away from the flames. But then the thing came back, hammering into him a second time, striking with more force than what should've been possible for something of its size, chunks of his flesh and wriggling nerves torn off of him.
Muscles coiled and bunched, forming a single cohesive whole before he delivered a punch that would've caved in a plate of tank armor.
A great, wide maw opened up and
bit down, literally catching his fist and tearing the hand off with its teeth.
The Trandoshan glowered, growling in a way that sent vibrations through the air, its flesh granite grey.
Durge struck at him with his other fist, blows that could and had slain its kind, and Wookiees as well, in centuries long past, blows that had caved in their rib cages and shattered their skulls, now just seemed to
glance off of its diamond hard hide.
The Trandoshan, covered in blood and with a jagged strip of metal sticking out of its back, didn't even bother to defend himself, reaching up and grabbing hold of Durge's skull with
impossible strength for one of its species, let alone so young.
Then, it smashed Durge's skull into the dirt.
Durge growled, blow after blow, impact after impact striking the boy; head, face, shoulders, arms, stomach, chest, legs, but nothing gave.
Then the little monster started running.
Durge felt the rocks and jagged ground digging into the side of his head, tearing off strips of flesh, and those unyielding claws kept pressing down, kept dragging him across the length of the camp, Like grinding his skull against a grating tool.
Durge felt the pain, snarling and clawing and biting-
Then with a roar the boy pressed down harder than before…
Something cracked
The last thing Durge would feel before he came to again was the odd sensation of his skull shattering into pieces.
—
Vicky
She wasn't hurting this thing.
She felt the impact of her blows, of her saber strikes. She'd hit it as hard as she could, and while that did knock it around… she knew she'd caused no lasting damage.
Its speed was greater than hers. More than once she'd only dodged due to a forewarning in the Force, not even
seeing the incoming strike before it was already passing through the place where she'd been a second earlier.
This thing…
It was made to kill her.
And it was a
monster.
She hovered in the air, at least two dozen feet above the howling sands, taking a moment to catch her breath.
Grievous glared at her, yellow eyes almost
shining. She could see the satisfaction within them, because he
knew that he was strong enough to do it, strong enough to
beat her.
He hunched forward, arms coiling back, neck and head extended. She saw the panels of his chest
unfurling, his entire rib cage pulling back to reveal a power core, glowing white hot, thrumming with excess energy.
It must be what the Geonosians made to fix the power issues the Mandalorian project had.
Then, something along its back
unfolded and, suddenly, it was rocketing up into the skies on pillars of flame.
Vicky cursed, bringing her blade up in time to block one swing and darting back to dodge the second, pulling away as he chased her through the air.
If it was made to fight her, it stood to reason it could fly.
But… this was
her territory.
When it swung next she darted under its strike, diving directly underneath, her free hand grabbing hold of its ankle and
pulling.
It lost control, flight systems trying to compensate for something it could never be designed to handle as she pulled with all her multi-ton strength and sent it careening through the air in an out of control spin that it did its best to arrest and regain its bearings.
It hit the ground on its feet, both clawed legs carving a deep, jagged trench through the Geonosian sand, and she pounced on it before it could fully regain its balance.
She came in close, and even though she was right on top of it, moving at the fastest speed Fragile One could give her, it was
still nearly fast enough to catch her with a kick that would have shattered her neck if it clipped her.
But it didn't clip her.
She was just under it, just off of where he
thought she'd be by the barest hair. Her lightsaber smashed into the foot still planted on the ground to tear it out from under it, dirt and rock bursting out of where its clawed talons tried to grab hold and resist the swing.
Its other foot caught its fall, but she was behind it already.
She twirled, stopping dead and twisting in a way that defied the laws of physics and motion, crashing her knee down on its
spine, smashing it face first into the ground as her free hand reached down to grab hold of its skull and
pull.
She was willing to bet that while the designers made it to absorb her impacts and strikes, they likely didn't design the thin neck with all its small, little moving parts to withstand several tons of force pulling the skull off.
She heard the metal groaning, and Grievous growled and snarled in what might have been alarm or pain as something
snapped like a metal gunshot somewhere in his systems, before his arms twisted around in their sockets in a way that was definitely
not possible for anything other than a mechanical limb. She ducked under one but the other stuck her in the arm, forcing her to pull away lest she lose the hand completely.
She tried to reach again, but in that one free moment Grievous activated his built in jet engines, four gouts of flame bursting in front of her eyes and nearly burning her to a crisp as she backed away with a frustrated snarl.
The cyborg got to his feet once more, both blades lit, now wary and on guard.
Vicky grit her teeth.
"Well… at least I have a way to kill him now."
—
Aras
Amidst the howling winds and the clash of the nearby gods of the battlefield, another, smaller duel was being waged amidst the dust and storm of battle. Two Mandalorians of the old and new orders were dueling over the dunes in the midst of the thickest fighting.
Pre Vizsla had not been
given his title, or inherited his following.
Death Watch only followed the strong.
Vizsla was no callow youth or a fool that had barely been in a fight before. He knew what he was doing and he showed it here.
He was stronger, larger, and with greater reach. But Vizla was faster and his blade, the Darksaber, lighter, easier to maneuver and manipulate.
But neither of them were young men anymore.
Vizsla's style relied too much on the power of the Darksaber, looking to overwhelm his enemies.
That worked for most.
Not against a man armored with beskar and a weapon that could similarly contend with the legendary blade.
He knew what would happen. Likely Viszla, if not for pride or a desire to prove himself to his Death Watch, would have known it too.
But he didn't.
Their weapons struck together, titanic blows that sent both weapons careening backwards again and again and again, the impacts shaking up their limbs. Aras didn't bother to block the Darksaber with his own sword where he didn't need to. He instead used his vambraces, thigh and shin guard to block while conserving his energy.
Vizsla didn't do that. He hacked, slashed and cleaved, trying to overwhelm him with sheer volume of blows.
Likely, it was a tactic he'd enjoyed during younger days.
That Darksaber made it so he never had to correct it.
And Aras was about to make him pay for it.
He struck when he began to slow, his form growing sloppy, in that brief window of time before physical exhaustion caught up to the mental realization.
Their blades locked and this time, Aras drove forward with a sharp, brutish move that shoved both weapons downward, creating an opening wide enough for the large Mandalorian to smash his elbow into Vizsla's helmet, knocking the pretender's head back with a savage whiplash.
He stumbled, reeling, and Aras swung his sword. No Darksaber rose in time to meet his swing, the full force of the blow rushing forward and carving a jagged gouge into the beskar plate along the man's bicep and curia, only
just managing to cut into flesh beneath, a surface wound only.
The force knocked Vizsla off his feet, and he answered with an extended wrist, a gout of flame spitting out to bathe Aras in fire.
The heat seared, the gaps in his armor quickly beginning to heat and flesh beginning to burn, yet still the Royal Guard pushed through, knowing he couldn't forsake the opening because of something as insignificant as burns.
He heard the howl of a jetpack activating, Vizsla sliding away on the rock and sand with active rockets screaming into the dirt, narrowly avoiding the downward strike that would have cracked him and his armor open like an egg.
Aras' own arm whipped out, mag line latching onto Vizla's shin guard, the force of the jetpack nearly yanking the Mandalorian off his feet, all but wrenching his shoulder before he pulled with all his considerable might. Vizla's jetpack gave out, its exhaust choked by sand and dust, smothered by the floor he was still lying on.
The Death Watch commander roared, swinging the Darksaber again at Aras' feet, aiming for the gaps, only for the large man to leap over the swing, stomping down on Vizla's wrist with all his weight a second later,
feeling something inside the pretender's wrist give as the Darksaber fell out of limp fingers and he screamed in pain
Aras drew his knife, ready to plunge it down, to finally bring Mandalore's long schism to an end, however bloody that end would be.
Someone smashed into his side, another Mandalorian seeing their commander's plight rushing into the fray, before
that Mandalorian was thrown off him by a clone Aras recognized as Slipstream.
But the opening was closed.
Vizsla staggered to his feet, Darksaber in the grip of his unbroken hand. As several of his sycophants gathered at his side, Aras grasped his blade again, feeling the pain and aches of his injuries and the tiredness of his body, still wondering how many more Mandalorians he'd have to kill today to rid the galaxy of this false Mandalore.
The winds howled and the sands whipped about. He couldn't hear their words, but he knew they were being spoken between them.
The old crusaders that these fools and puppets
worshiped would never retreat.
It was no surprise that this one only enjoyed the parts of the old traditions that
benefited him.
"RETREAT!" Came the call, and howling jetpacks roared to life, Mandalorians fleeing; notably fewer than those that had arrived.
Aras could feel Vizsla's hate filled gaze staring at him from behind his helmet, even through the shades and gloom of the shifting sands.
Another defeat, another humiliation.
Aras tried to revel in the victory, no matter the bitter fact that he was watching the pretender slip further and further away.
"Sir." Slipstream called, pinning a Mandalorian interloper, a woman, to the ground, hands behind her back. "Should we pursue?"
Aras wished to say yes. To chase the pretender to the end of the world if need be.
But that was not his job here.
Instead he answered with a quiet rumble.
"We go to Dallon."
—
Taylor
He was strong.
Stronger than I ever thought he'd be.
I'd read up on Jorus, since Corellia.
He was a prodigy of his day. Strong in the Force and skilled with a lightsaber. Many said he might've been a Council member if not for his arrogance.
I'd fought Council Masters before. Plo Koon, Billaba, Gallia, Yaddle. All of them were good. All of them were strong.
But this was different.
He was…
bloated.
A glutton put in front of a full table who'd never stopped eating. I felt the malformed, twisted energies
pouring off him, overflowing from a body that was too small, too
weak, to hold all of it. Somewhere along the way he'd
burst.
But still he swallowed more and more.
Even as we dueled with swords, lightning and fire, it was the struggle in the Force that truly tested my limits.
Jorus was a seasoned Master, with decades more experience than I had in manipulating the Force. A fallen Jedi he might be, but he was still powerful and had been building his strength here, at the seat of his power for
months.
But I hadn't been sitting idle all these months either.
After all…
I never stopped 'listening' through the Temple.
Every day I wasn't on campaign.
Every lesson.
Every practice session.
Every spar.
Every activated holocron
Thousands of Knights.
Hundreds of Masters.
It was
all mine.
I was more powerful, too.
Not only could I sense what he was doing, I understood it. I knew where he'd learned it from. I knew how it was normally used.
And I knew how to counter it.
As Jorus pulled more of these dark side energies into himself, I made not only the flames rise, growing hotter, but I even insulated my insects from the heat and the entropic energies of the dark side, keeping them alive. I
forced him to keep spreading himself thin, to keep multitasking.
A bubble of air infused with the Force that I couldn't ignite shielded his body from me.
A protective field of telekinesis kept my insects at bay.
Environmental control prevented me from melting the stone, or igniting the bodies under his feet.
With the sword, I switched my style from Makashi to Djem So to Ataru on the fly, forcing him to keep adapting, keep thinking, shifting. Keep switching gears to keep up.
I gave openings in my form, only to seal them shut at the last moment with blade or flame, countering with an attack of my own a split second later.
All of this,I could do. All of this, I could
maintain.
His power might be equal or even greater than mine.
But his mind…
He was right. We were not equals.
I felt something stirring, a pleased feeling at the back of my mind that was not my own.
He sensed it too.
"That
thing…" the Sith hissed, eyes burning a fiery orange in his sunken sockets.
He rushed me full on, driven into a frenzy, and I was so surprised by the act that it was all I could do to bring my blade up in time to block his strike, the raw power behind it knocking me clean off my feet.
I hit the ground with my feet skidding across the dirt, gaining my balance in time to leap back as Jorus came crashing down where I'd been a second ago. His blade dug into the stone before, with a cry of rage, he used the Force to hurl boulders the size of basketballs towards me.
With a thought, I sent them careening off course, overwhelming his strained, overtaxed manipulations with my own innumerable attentions, feeling his fury mount.
The fallen Jedi snarled.
"That's how you're so strong." He gnashed his teeth. "Stolen power. Stolen favor. Never should have been yours."
His words carried such certainty, such
hate… It made me smile.
"Abomination."
I snorted.
In a way, he was right.
What I said instead was simple. And also true, as I felt the light melding at the back of my thoughts as I began to approach him again.
"I've simply done what so many of you Sith pretend to do but never really achieve."
"And what is
that?" he demanded, goading.
With a thought, the air molecules behind me were made to explode, rocketing me forward with near neck breaking speed. Jorus reacted just in time to dodge, answering with a counter I felt through the Force and the tiny, infinitesimal insect hiding at the underside of his wrist, allowing me to dodge and slip into his guard, my lightsaber scoring a glancing blow across his chest that made him gasp in pain.
Just pain.
Not fatal. Not yet.
I saw him. Not his physical self, withered and desiccated as he'd made it, but in the Force. Malevolent. Prideful. Arrogant. Hateful. Spiteful. The whole of it.
I wondered what he saw within
us in turn.
Regardless, I answered.
"I have broken my chains."
—
Hannah
They fought their way through the halls of the ship, which by now was shuddering and shaking with the damage being wrought upon it.
Hannah didn't know what the hell was going on outside, but she hoped Rancisis knew enough about how much punishment this ship could take before it blew up.
Because it felt to her like he was testing it very heavily.
The only 'advantage' it provided was the disorganized
mess it was turning the interior of the ship into.
Repair and astromech droids rushed to and fro to try and repair failing systems while battle droids were being stymied and cut off from each other as damaged sections of the ship were locked down. Ventress took point ahead of them, Rugess keeping a close eye at their backs and Hannah ready to help either one that might need it.
The B1 droids were slow, weak things. She unloaded with a combat shotgun, its drum magazine whirring as the barrel spat fire and lead, barking. The kick and weight was familiar and comforting in her hands, tearing the flimsy machines apart.
B2s were another beast entirely, withstanding withering volumes of fire before armor piercing shots tore apart enough of their systems to bring them down, each of their wrist mounted shots feeling like hammer blows even as her armor deflected them.
She had to watch for the ones with wrist rockets, it had been too close a call the first time one had shot her with it, nearly hitting her dead on.
She used the beskar shield to block, trusting Ventress' blades to carve them apart in short order.
Rugess marched behind them, his mind and attention on the electronics; scrambling systems, slicing through cameras and causing as much invisible damage as he could while filtering through the ship's own security to locate their friends.
He hardly fired a shot, barely knew the right way to hold a gun, but they would have been dead in the water long ago if he hadn't been here.
When they got back home, Hannah was baking him a cake.
Or getting Fay to bake him one since Hannah didn't know the first thing about baking.
"There!" Ventress snarled. "Detention block!"
She didn't bother calling Ventress to slow down, or wait or stop, it hadn't done any good the last dozen or so times so Hannah just resigned herself to covering the impetuous firebrand, checking the adjoining hallways and keeping her head on a swivel.
The Rattatakk woman stabbed her sabers into the durasteel door, the metal instantly beginning to glow white hot, warp and melt.
Seconds later, there was no more door.
"Help! They've breached the do-"
Ventress rushed in and Hannah heard the sound of meat striking meat, a Neimoidian reeling back, tumbling out of his chair to land ass over end on the cold hard floor.
"Open the cells." Ventress snarled. "Or I'll treat you like I treated that door."
Hannah stepped through the opening, making sure to not touch the glowing edges of it and helped Rugess through a second later.
The Neimoidian whimpered on the ground, hands held up; the man maneuvered himself back to his feet, making sure not to trip over his own robes. "I-I will, yes, just… don't hurt me."
Ventress' answer was a sneer and a threatening brandishing of her blue blade.
The Neimoidian inched his way past her, reaching over towards his station and planting his hand over a panel then inputting a series of commands into his computer.
All at once, the doors hissed open.
"Get the fuck out here!" Ventress hollered down the hall. "You're being rescued!"
Dennis, likely having recognized her voice, stepped outside quickly, though Hannah noted he was still in heavy mag cuffs. His hands were enclosed in strange, oblong gloves that she vaguely recalled were meant to hold much, MUCH stronger creatures, like Whiphids, Wookiees or Houks. It looked like Tann had heard about Dennis' touch based ability.
Ventress eyed the device with disdain lifting her blade, offering its services.
With a careful touch on Dennis' part, the mag cuffs sparked and lost their charge. They were still around his wrists, and his hands were still enclosed in those gloves, but he could at least move his arms independently.
"It'll have to do for now." Hannah said before feeling the ship shuddering. "We don't have time, EVERYONE GET OUT HERE!"
At her shout it still took a moment, but it was master Fay who emerged first, marching down the hallway with a calm demeanor, the others following her example.
Alright…
Alright…
"Let's move-"
She stepped through the carved opening in the door again, the others following. Jedi and what few clones could move under their own power began scavenging for droid blasters, still clutched in the hands of dead droids, grenades and other weapons.
She turned towards Dennis. "We have to get to your ship-"
"Oh, I'm afraid you won't be going anywhere."
Hannah swiveled around, weapon at the ready, finding Admiral Tann standing at the end of the hallway, a squad of B2s, droidekas and what Hannah recognized as the now infamous Jedi Hunters at her flank.
Ventress snarled, igniting her sabers, taking a defensive stance in the center of the hall, interposing herself between the woman and the men behind her.
Hannah shifted her weight, ready to dive into the adjoining hallway for cover.
This was going to devolve into a firefight very,
very soon.
Tann sighed through her nostrils. "I'm only going to ask you once. March back into those cells and I won't have to kill all of you."
"Calling your bluff." Ventress snarled. "You need us alive. The only thing that's keeping that Jedi from blowing up this ship is the fact that he knows we're here. So I say-" She flourished her blades. "-your best chance is to run to the nearest escape pod, because you and your dozen tin can bodyguards over there aren't stopping us."
Tann chuckled, the sound emerging somewhere low in her throat, red eyes glowing.
"Oh, I assure you…"
The woman's hand moved, thrusting forward and Hannah barely had time to register the sparkling crackle of electricity before
lightning burst out of the woman's fingertips, crashing headlong into Ventress' blades before overtaking the woman's defenses and hitting
her. Hannah saw the woman's limbs contort, writhing in agony before a scream was ripped out of her throat and she was sent sailing backwards, crashing into the wall before collapsing in a heap on the floor, smoke rising from her unmoving body.
"ASAJJ!" Dennis screamed out her name.
Hannah had a single second to understand the implication before a red lightsaber bloomed to life in the woman's free hand.
Tann smirked, her hand sparking with forks of electricity dancing between her fingers "They're not the ones you should be worried about."
Then, all hell broke loose in that hallway.
—
CT-853191417 "Guelzo"
"GET DOWN!"
That whip of a tail nearly took off Guelzo's head, Asimov yanking him down just in the nick of time as he saw another Jedi die, crushed under the beast's claws.
Two of his brothers fired an anti-armor rocket; what fears there were of a potential cave in were long since abandoned in the face of this thing.
Still, the monster, with preternatural senses, ducked, not even seeing where the attack was coming from before it moved perfectly to avoid it. Whirling around with a screech it
pounced on his two brothers, both men devoured whole with barely a scream to be lost in the sound of snapping jaws and crunching bones.
The monster crawled along the walls, digging into solid rock with its talons. Blaster shots, missiles, rockets and damn near everything else followed after it as it breathed another poisonous cloud, hundreds of men scrambling to get away from it, hundreds more failing to do so.
With a thundering crack that rattled the bones inside of his own body, he saw the ceiling the beast was clinging on suddenly give way, a cadre of Jedi tearing down the chunk of ceiling in a crash of boulders, dirt and gravel. The beast cried out, warbling out another cry that was quickly smothered by the tons and tons of earth that fell over it. Guelzo worried that the entire tunnel would collapse and it just might have if those same Jedi didn't immediately turn their collective power to contain the damage and hold up the ceiling.
Still it wasn't dead, still it thrashed and struggled to pull itself free.
"LIGHT IT UP!" He didn't even realize he'd been the one to scream out the order, though the order wasn't even needed.
Blasters fired on full auto, an endless storm of blue and green bolts crashing into the beast's exposed face. This time its cry was pained even as it ripped free a single taloned claw.
Orwell rushed forward with a cry, and Guelzo felt his heart drop as their ordnance specialist pulled free the full pack of magcharges from his back, lunging with his jump pack on full burst, blaster bolts pelting his beskar like rain. Some
must have gotten through but still he rushed forward, heedless. He aimed at the creature's head but again, with that uncanny intelligence, the monster raised its free arm, blocking his brother with its freed limb.
Orwell didn't get greedy, he planted the mag charge pack on its elbow just before he was battered away with a pained cry, flying clear across the tunnel to hit the far wall with bone breaking force.
Pratchett rushed to his side, and Guelzo could only hope his brother wasn't dead inside his armor.
Then the charges went off.
The monster shrieked, genuine
pain in its howling, and the shots didn't let up; they didn't dare stop, even as their blasters threatened to blow up in their faces.
They couldn't stop.
Because the beast's red eyes were still open, still burning. It was still alive.
Suddenly, it burst free of its earthen prison, one arm
gone at the bicep, but it was no slower for the crippling wound, rushing to the Jedi that had trapped it with blinding speed.
Two died before they could even react. One bitten clean in half, another skewered by three of its five talons in its remaining hand.
Again, the tunnel quaked, this time
dangerously, and more of the ceiling began to collapse.
A tail whip decapitated a third, and the remaining six had to scramble back, rushing to get away.
"COVER THEM!" Someone shouted, but the fire had abated, too many blasters overheating, too few brothers able to do as ordered and defend the Jedi that now had to escape even as the tunnel began to shake and quake around them.
They were all going to die down here.
But then… impossibly…
The beast stopped.
It halted its charge, a sudden wariness in its posture. Rivulets of blood trailed down its black scales, shining like obsidian or jet in the gloom, its blood red gaze peering into the midnight black of the tunnel.
Even as men ran away, even as brothers tried to swap out power packs or cool their guns, he still heard the cry.
"Grand Master!"
It was tearful relief he heard. It was promised salvation and safety. The
hope that suddenly they would all get out of this alive.
In spite of himself, Guelzo's head whipped around, his eyes tearing themselves free of the creature, only to see the tiny green Jedi hobbling forward with his stick, the crowd parting for him like schools of fish.
Yoda's features were… strange. Not just grim, but something darker, contemptful.
The monster's eyes were fixed on him, its reptilian intelligence seemingly assessing this
new danger.
He'd had a hundred Jedi with him and a battalion of brothers. Where the hell were they?
"Far you have fallen, if Sithspawn you create now, Jorus." Yoda said to empty air, approaching the wary beast who, however injured, was still a massive threat.
Guelzo gripped his rifle tight, ready to start shooting again, not that he was sure it'd do anything to save the Grand Master, close as he was to the thing.
The monster screeched, rearing up as it took a breath, the telltale poison cloud beginning to form in its throat.
Yoda stretched out his hand, and clenched his fist.
With a teeth breaking
crash the monster's jaws slammed shut, the poison caught in its own sealed maw.
It lunged at the Grand Master, claw ready to rip and tear.
Another gesture, and the stone that Yoda pulled from the weakened earth above their head was like a lance, jagged and sharp, moving with such speed Guelzo didn't even see it until it came to a stop, right where it buried itself through the top of the beast's skull, running it straight through and pinning it to the floor.
Still, the monster thrashed and writhed, its body not realizing it was dead quite yet. Even as it slowed and the burning light began to fade from its eyes, the searing red turning opaque, then grey and finally, a clear milky white.
It went still.
The Grand Master spared the beast a glance, his eyes passing over the tunnel that was strewn with dead with a sad, forlorn melancholy.
Then he walked past it.
Nothing but another corpse.
—
Hannah
She lunged for the safety of cover, red blaster bolts following after her. One lucky shot slipped under her shoulder pauldron, scoring a glancing, searing hit at her arm, sending shards of burning pain across her limb as she hissed, the green energy of her power flickering with a myriad weapons before she settled on an assault rifle, its armor piercing rounds sporting beskar tips.
She took aim, pressing the butt of the weapon just above her injured limb and pulled the trigger, feeling the pain sing across her senses but pushing it down.
Fist sized holes were punched through the B2s but the shields of the droidekas held against the onslaught, returning fire that sent her diving back into cover as the droids advanced.
Clones and Jedi returned fire, some being cut down before they could reach safety, dying in the middle of the hall with agonized screams as they were struck by a half dozen bolts, each droid immediately turning and concentrating fire on their next target.
When Tann moved, she moved
fast, rushing forward like quicksilver. Her red saber lanced forward to try and skewer a Jedi straight through the chest, stopped only by Master Fay physically interposing herself between the blade and its target, shunting the sword to the side. The woman's eyes were wide, a sliver of fear slipping past her mask.
"You, pacifist, I need alive."
Lightning leapt from the woman's fingers again. Unlike with Ventress, however, the power did not overwhelm Fay. It did drive her back and cause her pain, but the attack
was resisted.
Even so, her interference had given the Jedi behind her time to pull one of Asajj's lightsabers into his own hand, the green blade lighting up in time for him to defend himself, their lightsabers clashing with flashes and sparks as clones and fellow Jedi scrambled to get the hell out range of the frenzied melee.
Then, a lightsaber blade nearly took off her own head.
Hannah ducked, the swing glancing across the brow of her helmet with a spark. As she slid around on her ass, a gun formed in her already aiming hands as the Hunter droid lunged for her, blades extended.
One blade slammed into her vambrace, knocking her first shot wide. The second she dodged with a jerk to the side, the weapon reforming into a set of ion charged brass knuckles that she used to punch the droid in its metal face, the ion spark making the thing reel, its eyes flickering erratically with the discharge.
Still, it swung at her, almost blindly, going off of memory of where she was, Hannah's knuckles shifted into a beskar shield once more, a kite shield this time, shunting one blade into its twin, pushing both aside, hearing the strange sound of a plasma blade melting through steel flooring right beside her face.
She twisted her arm, bringing it close to her face and then shoved her right vambrace into the edge of the saber blade, pinning it there to prevent the thing from trying to swipe at her exposed neck.
Then, in her left her, the gun came back.
With its vision shot, the droid didn't react nearly fast enough.
Two shots, beskar tipped bullets tearing a hole clean through the droid's skull as it slumped over, dead.
Hannah grabbed hold of its lightsaber. She doubted the thing would be using it any time soon.
Standing to her full height, her gun was once more replaced by the beskar shield
—
Tann
The Jedi was no swordsman.
She recognized the Niman form in his movements. Harried, off balance, panicking.
She considered indulging the exchange for a moment, the practice of it.
Then the ship rumbled beneath her feet and she realized she didn't have that luxury.
She thrust once towards his face, swiped at his leg, and pretended to over extend, seeing the boy hastily try to seize the opening.
Only she wasn't there anymore, and suddenly he didn't have a head.
The body thumped to the floor and she was face to face with a trembling Bith of all things, a datapad clutched in his hands as he backed away.
She reached for her sidearm, no need to drag this out.
Before she finished, she sensed the danger, leaning back sharply, barely avoiding an iron ball that would have taken her head off as Kronos armored punch nearly took her in the temple.
The smuggler lunged for her, body ducking low, his shoulder slamming into her middle; arms lifting her legs to shove her off her feet with a roar. She hit the ground with the air rushing out of her, snarling as she swung her lightsaber , barely missing as Kronos rolled out of the way, continuing the sideways tumble before getting to his feet, his hands still encased in the iron prisons as he moved to punch her again before she could stand only for a
hard push to send him careening into the wall his back cracking into the far corner hard enough that she saw his whole body contort with pain.
A howl of rage- and she was suddenly defending herself from the Ratatakki.
The woman's blade seemed everywhere. But her form was crude. Unpolished. Seemingly trying to overcome her lack of training with raw, unbridled fury.
The Force sensitive equivalent of a Cantina brawler.
How very sad.
Tann grinned, but then sensed another danger behind her, locking blades with the Rattataki, she manipulated the blade even as she pivoted around to catch the red synthetic saber taken by the Mandalorian woman, all three blades crackling and sparking.
Tan danced between their dual efforts. Slipping just out of reach of each. The Rattatakki was by far the faster and stronger of the two, aided by the Force, but the Mandalorian woman was better trained, more disciplined.
And she had a strange, green glowing shield.
Far more interesting than a barely trained country bumpkin.
"I think you're done." She drawled and when the pale woman swung again, she left herself far too open.
She paid for it with her leg suddenly vanishing from above the knee; howling as she screamed in agony, nearly killing herself as she toppled over, far too close to her own saber stabbing her for comfort.
And then Tann turned her attention to the Mandalorian.
—
Hannah
The Saber was ripped out of her hands by an unknown force and Hannah was suddenly left disarmed.
She blocked the follow up strike with the beskar shield, but by the second, she'd gotten her bearings.
She shifted the shield at the last second, trusting her Beskar vambrace to catch the saber blade as the green weapon shifted into a knife, lunging it straight forward and towards Tann's exposed neck.
The Chiss woman's hand reached up, quicksilver fast, catching Hannah's limb in a grip that could have been a living vice; the Parahuman's strength not getting an inch of give in the alien's grip.
Tann pulled the arm and knife to the side with languid, casual ease, smirking as Hannah struggled against her apparently much greater strength.
Then, came the lightning.
The Electricity sparked out of Tann's hand into Hannah's forearm, racing across her whole body and it was the most
excruciating pain Hannah had ever felt in her life.
Once, she'd been under Butcher's pain effect.
This was somehow worse.
Needles of agony slipped between muscle fibers, rusted nails bridged the gaps between her bones, acid flowed through her veins in the place of blood, fire boiled her eyes in their sockets.
She barely heard herself scream.
But she'd faced the worst Bet had to offer.
And she was still standing for a reason.
The Knife shifted into a gun.
Hannah pulled the trigger.
Instantly- the lightning vanished, she heard Tann scream, clutching at an ear that wouldn't be hearing much of anything anytime soon with a S&W 500 Magnum going off right next to it.
She took aim, her body still twitching in pain, but obeying her.
Tann's hand lashed out, and Hannah once more felt her arm jerked violently to the side by something she couldn't see, the gun going off again- clipping a Clone in the hip.
She didn't stop, wouldn't- she couldn't give up the momentum, if she did she was as good as dead.
As the gun barked, she shifted her power, the gun vanishing, replaced by a spiked shin guard, Hannah's kick was sloppy, she was off balance, but it was fast and Tann wasn't expecting it, the spikes cracked into the woman's knee, tearing at flesh and cloth- the Sith was knocked down, on one knee, screaming in pain, where red began to bloom across the white fabric of her clothes to join the trickle of red trailing out of that blown out eardrum.
Her free hand grasped at Hannah's green, glowing shin guard, lightning again sparking.
She had no intention of letting the woman get a second shot off of that power.
Hannah shifted her power, only the faintest trace of the electricity managing to leap towards her before Tann lost her grip on a piece of equipment that simply ceased to exist Hannah's fist already plunging down with a knuckle knife to punch a hole clean through her cheek and tear apart the woman's face.
But then Tann moved, rushing with the speed of a mover cape, Hannah barely caught the blur of her white clothes.
It was only pure
reflex, instinct, that let her do what she did.
It wasn't a deduction, it wasn't a guess.
She just moved.
Her left arm came up, the Beskar vambrace rising just in time to catch the blade before it slipped through the gap between her helmet and curia, the red blade hissing as the thin sheet of armor rapidly heated up against her skin, inching towards her exposed neck as Tann's free hand cracked into the back of her helmet, shoving her forward, closer to the deadly edge.
"You-" Hannah heard the woman hiss. "-are more trouble than I thought you'd be."
Hannah's right arm, still free, shifted.
"Mandalorians are like that-"
The pain stole the breath from both their lungs.
The green spear gored through Hannah's side, punching through soft meat and flesh, bloody, painful, but little else.
She doubted Tann had been quite so fortunate.
She felt the strength
leech out of the woman enough so that Hannah shoved the blade away with a cry of rage, pivoting sharply, the spear running through the both of them disappearing to reappear as a large warhammer in her hand, already pulled for a swing.
When she turned, she swung, Tann dodged, stumbling back, the hammer battering aside her blade, narrowly missing her face by a hair.
When the hammer disappeared, replaced by a gun in the hand following after the first- Hannah saw the woman's eyes widen as the gun was leveled right at her face.
She pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was deafening, Tann tried to dodge, but still the bullet tore through flesh, blood burst across Hannah's helmet, obscuring her vision as the Sith stumbled back falling to the ground with the meaty thump of a body hitting the unyielding floor.
Her legs shook; she felt her knees give out, collapsing to the floor as her vision swam and Dennis called her name.
—
Grievous:
She was strong.
But his limbs could withstand her strength
She was fast.
But his speed could match her.
She was skilled.
He was better.
And when she nearly pulled off his head- it showed her to be more than raw, unthinking strength.
She was dangerous.
Fighting Dallon was like fighting the strength of the Gale and the will of the Storm.
She moved with the howling sands. Flowed through it like a fish, darting through bubbling waves.
His newly stolen lightsabers hummed through the air, slicing and searching, only to ever fall just shy of their target missing by less than a hair's breadth.
When she answered, he met her strikes with his, clashing blade upon blade, feeling the power in her every blow in the artificial muscles and bones of his arms.
Heat built up in his body, the power core reactor that could power a starship straining to keep up. The heat venting out of the exhaust ports at his back and chest, a superheated steam cloud that did nothing but make her back away for nary a second before she rushed back in with a swooping dive.
The impact rocked him back, the talons of his feet carving jagged trenches into the dirt. He shoved her and diverted the force of her blow to the side, trying to finally land a blow only for her to
dance out of the way, her whole body twisting in an axis that would be impossible without her flight before she came about with a kick that smashed into his ribs, the entire chassis of his form rattled with the impact but kinetic dampeners compensated, returning with a fevered, furious aray of swings and swipes, only for her to again and again dodge and dance past each of them.
He growled, frustrated,
annoyed.
They were at an impasse. Neither of them able to kill the other with their overwhelming, raw power.
He still had his trump cards. His surprises. But he would not spend them
here. Not where they could be
wasted against his future enemies.
After all, Dallon wasn't the only Jedi he wished to kill.
He saw her grit her teeth, lips pulled back in a sneer of equal frustration, the wheels in her mind turning, wondering how to get an advantage over him. How to
win.
Then- something changed.
There was no missing the shock on her face, the slack look of utter disbelief, shifting rapidly into a sadness and grief-
Then. Fury.
When she screamed he
felt it, not in some pathetic, emotional sense, but as a physical
blow, it knocked him off balance and he was utterly unprepared when she crashed into him at full tilt, heedless of any danger.
The impact this time was
irresistible, kinetic dampeners overloaded, yellow and red warning signs blaring behind his eyes as backups kicked in, reserve power flowing into his system.
As he raised his arms to defend himself from the colossal punch that dragged his body across the floor his lightsabers were lost in the tumbling, slipping from his grasp.
When she charged him again, this time he was ready.
Two limbs whipped up, catching her fists- he thought for a split second if he should unlatch the limbs and turn them into four, if he'd have the time to draw two more lightsabers and swing- only for the decision to be taken out of his hands as she
lifted him, picking him up in a way that defied all he understood of force projection and physics- even as he tried to let her go she grabbed hold of one of his wrists, screaming in fury as she smashed him to the floor with a titanic crash.
She planted her feet on his body, trying to literally twist his arm off and break it completely. He answered with his leg, the limb twisting unnaturally a full 180 degrees to reach up, grab her by the back of her head and rip her off of himself, flipping her end over end and turning the tables by smashing her to the floor this time, rising up to his feet pressing the full weight and strength of his leg into holding the back of her skull, face pressed to the floor.
As he went to draw two more blades; He felt a momentary
fear — an overwhelming terror that made him step away and off of her, ready to turn and flee — only for chemical regulators in his brain to directly flood his mind with hormones and drugs to counteract her influence, realizing what she'd done as she shot upwards with an uppercut that threatened to cave in his chest as he was sent sailing back.
The reforged Kaleesh growled. He'd been
warned. And even with that warning he'd let his chance slip by. Dallon now hovering there, breathing harshly — whether from anger, or adrenaline, he couldn't rightly say.
"I don't have time for you," she snarled.
Grievous' eyes narrowed.
Then... realization.
"Ahhhh.?," he chuckled, enjoying the sight of the woman's fury mounting. "There is someone who needs your help. Someone dying."
Yes. Jedi could feel the deaths of others, couldn't they?
Her silence and
hate was answer enough.
He laughed again. "And here you are, with
me."
She rushed forward again.
She was dangerous, wild. But wild warriors made stupid mistakes. He only needed her to make
one, and this time he would not fall for her trick.
She swung down, the sheer speed and impact of her feet on the ground shook the earth beneath him, his counterswing was blocked, sheer power forcing his blade
up, leaving his middle exposed as she delivered a flying knee to the center of his body, seemingly trying to crack open the power core in a way that would bathe them in destructive antimater.
Once more she knocked to the ground, a second swing, now angled downward sent his body smashing into the dirt once more.
She grabbed hold of his body bare handed lifting him and once more smashing him against the stone, stubbornly trying to shatter him against the earth itself.
Grievous swung with his blades and her hands left him, allowing him to reach his feet already knowing she would be lunging for him again.
Now, he split his arms.
Two became four, and lightning fast he sprung his trap.
Dallon's eyes went wide, stopping dead in her tracks, but still too close.
He swung one, two, three four blades-
She blocked the first, dodged the second, and her fist managed to crack into the now compromised integrity of one arm, breaking it into non functionality with a single blow.
But the fourth…
She tried to dodge, and still
nearly succeeded.
The glancing blow scored a burn across her thigh. Dallon hissed, pained and backing away nursing the smoking slice.
Still alive.
But he'd cut her.
Grievous' eyes narrowed; glaring, thinking, analyzing.
There was a clue there.
He glanced at his arm , sparking and hanging useless at his side, he was down to three sabers, and each of his limbs in this state couldn't take a blow from her- so technically he was down to
one functional and safe arm.
He was not foolish enough to think he could defeat her with just one arm.
He saw the call to retreat go out; he saw the Mandalorians rapidly withdrawing.
He took that as his cue. Her reinforcements would be there soon, and he doubted kinetic dampeners would be capable of fighting twenty beskar-clad clone bodyguards fighting alongside her.
Discretion was the better part of valor, today.
He turned, running away into the still howling sands, ordering the droids to keep up the fight, they would bog down the pursuit.
Dallon herself might choose to chase him.
But he doubted it.
Whoever she sensed she'd deem more important.
Her mistake.
'A draw,' he conceded. '
This time'
—
Jorus C'baoth
The golden blade darted out of the fires, nearly catching him in the eye before he parried, pushing the weapon aside and trying to back away once again, only for Hebert to pursue him, a living trail of fire, like a comet following in her wake.
He reached with the Force, pulling boulders and compelling what few lesser Sith Spawn remained to once more attack, forcing the beasts into the fray even as their minds rebelled at the very notion.
It bought him a moment. The boulders were pushed away, nearly melting mid transit through the air, such was the heat, and only one of the beasts managed to reach her, its fire resistant flesh giving it just enough resistance to do so, only for her lightsaber to breach through its overtaxed scales, severing its head cleanly.
Jorus landed amidst a pile of rubble and dead things. Spawn, Jedi, Clones. It did not matter. They were all burning meat by now.
He might've joined them too.
'It feels like I'm burning alive…'
The traitorous thought rose from somewhere deep within, watching as the fires rose and rose impossibly high in this now oxygen deprived kiln.
Hebert stood within the fires like a demon from storied hells and ancient religions; hair and robes consumed by flames to such an extent that he felt as though she might as well have been a shard of a burning star.
His Sithspawn creatures could no longer draw near, even when compelled and each step she took, only increased the strain on his own body from the heat, his own concentration and power forced to insulate himself more and more.
He couldn't beat her with the blade. What flaws were in her bastardized form were masked by the fires repelling him before he could seize the openings. Too much of his own flesh was now covered in charred, blackened skin and revealed bone.
The pain fueled him, but also slowed him.
He would lose a war of attrition against her
His fingers crackled with lightning, pooling as much of his own strength as he could from the deepest wells of his willpower and the twisted, Dark Side energies that had pooled in this place over the course of months.
'Finally' He heard the woman breathe. '
Your last card.'
His fury spiked. His anger drawing ever increasing wells of strength at her arrogance
With a shout, a column of lightning lanced through the expanse between them. Jorus felt the moment both of their strengths connected, a river overflowing from its embankment to crash headlong into an unyielding dam.
He pushed, forcing more of his own power, more of the twisted, malformed essence of this place into his attack; a smile pulled at his lips, feeling the dam crack, feeling it
give.
When it was finally breached, the lightning
flashed bright and blinding across the room, overwhelming the light of the flames entirely
"This is the fate that should have befallen your blighted existence when you first entered the temple." He declared. "That thing you command never should have been yours."
He kept up the attack, the stream of ceaseless lightning, hearing it crackle and snap, watching the forks dance and jump across the whole cavern, even as his fingers began to blacken and burn with the excess power.
He would let nothing survive.
"I think its time I make it clear-"
His mind and body went utterly still.
He never even had the time to turn his head to face the threat that emerged from the fires at his side like a living wraith before her hand was on his cheek.
And his face was suddenly on fire.
Jorus
screamed.
The flames cast long, hellish shadows across Hebert's face; emotionless and passionless, even as her voice carried all the conviction of a born killer.
"That compared to the things I've already
killed you Sith have never been anything more than pests! Hiding in your holes for me to come and burn you out!"
He rallied his mental faculties, smothering the Force driven flames with his own faltering strength, one hand cradling the warm, wet ruin of half his face.
One eye couldn't see, drool and spittle stung at the burns on the side of his mouth, there was a cold kiss of the air atop the left of his skull.
"H-how" He wheezed. "I… I felt you die!" He mumbled through ruined and charred lips.
The contempt in her answer was palpable. "You are a blind insect… Let your death be the same."
Jorus felt his strength, his hold over the beasts around him faltering, even the lesser ones, beginning to struggle as the greater ones roiled and
rebelled even as he grasped ever tighter reins over their minds.
Then- he felt one of his Hssiss
die.
And another presence made itself known.
The flames began to die away, and the rush of cold air that swept into the vacuum stung and
burned worse than the flames across his flesh.
Master Yoda stood at the mouth of the cavern entrance.
Jorus stared at the grandmaster, disbelief and
despair pooling in his stomach. "No…
No. Not you! Not now!" He screeched at the tiny grandmaster.
"Come I have." Yoda intoned quietly. "To put an end to this…"
Jorus
seethed
"I won't let you
win." He spat. "You are not allowed to win!"
There was a warbling cry- the remaining Hssiss slithering their way out of the shadows.
Jorus looked back, Four sets of burning red eyes, gleaming scales emerging from the dark.
He reached out in the Force, prepared to establish his hold over them again.
They were the last- he could-
His hold slipped off of their minds. A too wide leash coming off of the neck like it was barely even there.
Yoda shook his head.
"The Dark Side. Loyal it is not…" He answered the unspoken query. "Obedient to the
strong they are."
"And you're weaker than you've ever been." Hebert finished.
Jorus had a moment to realize what they meant, just in time to turn and see an open maw with a forest of teeth bearing down upon him.
—
Sora Bulq
The smoke was thick- suffocating; by now the flames had spread through the whole of the tank, its walls, its ceiling. He couldn't even see the doorway with how blackened the interior was, choked in smoke and flames.
But he could see that blade. Shining blue in the dark, Skywalker's features cast in its pale glow- the boy glaring with still unflinching determination. A desire to see Bulq dead.
If not for his own hatred of the upstart; he might have offered him a place as an apprentice.
They circled the holotable that had once served as the place where they'd laid out the battleplan just hours before. The pale blue light of the holo long since dead; its exterior charred and half melted, the glass orb cracked with the heat.
Bulq breathed; wondering if there was any air in the smoke he swallowed
He examined the boy; sweat and blood mingled over bloodshot eyes. Soot lined the crags of his face.
But his breathing…
if he was breathing at all… was steady.
Bulq's eyes narrowed, wondering if it was the toll of years on him or the vigor of youth on Skywalker.
Or if the boy was just that good at lying.
Skywalker broke the standoff first.
He leapt onto the holo table, blade flashing, Bulq blocked, sliding Skywalker's blade over his head before he kicked at the holo-table, raw power wrenching the thing from its moorings with a sound of snapping bolts, tipping it over as Skywalker stumbled, only to answer by shoving the whole table with the Force onto Bulq.
The fallen Master caught it telekinetically, but a sudden
deafening impact sent the table careening back into Bulq's body nearly bowling him over completely- the impact had been so hard a shard of the holo-table's underside had come apart, the panel looking almost like a makeshift knife.
With a start, he realized the impact, the sound was a
fist- Skywalker had punched the thing back into him.
The surprise was overwritten by another; with only a split second's warning he had in the Force to lean back, shoving off of the thing with his feet for extra distance as Skywalker's blade lanced straight through- aiming directly for Bulq's skull.
He grabbed hold of that sliver of metal and gripped it hard, its edge digging into his palm threw his Lightsaber, manipulating the blade with the Force to go around to the right as Bulq rushed towards the left; ripping the steel with a sound of shorn metal.
He heard the clash of blade striking blade, realizing Skywalker took the bait and
lunged
Bulq felt a wicked smile curl at his lip as hot blood coated his palm, a breathless gasp leaving the boy as the knife was driven
deep into his back.
Skywalker swung wildly behind him, but there was no speed, no strength in the movement, avoiding it was easy and the subsequent Force push that sent the knight smashing into the far bulkhead even easier.
He hit the metal floor with a dull thud. Still breathing and even still, struggling to rise to his feet once more.
"Leave me choking on it." Bulq crowed even through a dry, smoke filled throat. "That's what you said right Skywalker?"
He approached the boy; blade in hand. He would die here. A traitor taken by his passions and his hatred; as one brought in too late to the order, too old and too emotional.
Those fools would believe it.
His hand rose, blade held tight in its grasp, ready to bring it down and end it.
And suddenly, Sora Bulq couldn't breathe.
It was as if an iron clamp was suddenly crushing his larynx, he tried to gasp, sucking down nothing as his defenses were breached- like they never even existed at all.
Skywalker's hand was raised, curled tight into a grasp and when he raised his eyes, Bulq saw
blackness; armor as dark as the void between stars- a galaxy in flames.
And he knew true
horror.
He tried to bring his weapon down once more.
Skywalker's grasping hand closed.
And it was Bulq who had no air to scream- as his hand, lightsaber and all, was crushed, bone, blood and shards of metal
Skywalker roared, something primal, something hateful, it tore itself free of him and when he charged into Bulq it was weaponless and filled with wild, heedless rage.
The first blow shattered Bulq's cheekbone, his vision swam, and it was all he could do to block the second, the third struck him in the top of his skull, crashing the back of his head against the steel floor; strength bled out of his body. He tried to strike out with his remaining hand- but then another blow hit, and another and another- his body did not obey.
He shut his eyes by the ninth blow.
They would not open again.
—
Anakin
He couldn't feel his hands.
The thing he was striking wasn't even a face, barely even flesh. Just a lump of battered meat and skin, shattered bone, both his and Bulq's shifted and crunched under each blow; his arms felt like lead.
But still he didn't stop punching.
Anakin screamed and cried and howled. The fires danced and smoke smothered them all.
He felt something, a weak grasping at his arm, and he whirled around, fist at the ready a scream of rage in his throat, ready to hurt and
break.
Only for ice to fall on the fires of his rage, dousing them instantly-
"...
Come back." Was the whisper that reached his ear, breathless and faint.
"Master Plo?" The red haze faded from his eyes.
The Kel-Dor's breathing was heavy, his mask cracked, one lens gone, the eye beneath having evaporated entirely.
He was dying.
And still his clawed hand weakly grasped at Anakin's arm, having crawled his way across chamber.
"Come back-" He pleaded before slumping once more to the floor, his breathing ceasing altogether.
Anakin grasped at his arm, as if physically trying to anchor him to this life. He shook him, voice thick with emotion.
"Master? MASTER!"
(X)(X)(X)
And so we've reached the end of Geonosis.
Final tally, 4 dead/dying Jedi Council member (one turned traitor)
Three dead Sith (again, one turned traitor)
A pacified planet of insects with no more factories, or military facilities.
Several million dead clones.
Several billion dead bugs and droids
A few hundred dead Jedi, a few captured Jedi
Three injured Parahumans
Two Padawans with powers.
One (getting better) dead Bounty Hunter
And one Ventress now missing a Leg.
I'll let you all decide if it was worth it.
In other news, I can say that there are 2 more updates to be written from this point until we end the arc, so there are three advance chapters on Patreon dealing with the aftermath and then 2 more to go to reach the "Season finale" so to speak.
This is by far the biggest battle I've ever written in terms of scale and scope and while it was a fun experience; not gonna lie, the pace of needing to write each of these chapters in a weeks time. Yeah. That part in particular, not fun. Nearly burnt myself out.
But it got done and we're on track to finish in time before I shoot my computer to claim technical difficulties to stall an update xD
All jokes aside, read, reciew and if you like what you've read, join us on Patreon,
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