Golden Fedora
Knight Commander
Force Alignment: 564
Posts: 1565
The Grey Prophet
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« Reply #44 on: June 20, 2019, 12:47:01 AM » |
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well, after more than 5 months, here it is!
CHAPTER VIII 69 A.B.Y. Tyr’s eyes snapped open and he sat up with a start. Looking around he realized that he must have blacked out when the crystals spoke to him. He was on the floor of the hangar, Dargus and Aradyn standing a little ways away talking into their comms, the crate on a repulsorcart between them. Aradyn saw him sit up and walked over to him. “What’s going on?” he asked dazed. “Dargus is talking to Command about what to do with the crystals now that we have them.” She replied. “Well hurry up. I have a bad feeling about this.” Tyr said, shaking his head to clear the fog. “Why? This place has been uninhabited for more than 40 years.” Dargus said, having finished talking to command. “I don’t know. When I blacked out... I don’t know. Nevermind. Let’s just get out of here.” Tyr said, trying to remember what gave him this weird feeling. “Let’s get back to the ship.” Dargus said, walking towards the door at the end of the hangar. “Lets double time it. I have a really bad feeling about this.” Tyr said, standing up and walking to the door, dusting off his cloak as he did so. “Uh, guys, who is that?” Aradyn said pointing to an old man in tattered grey robes blocking the door. “ How should I know?” Tyr whispered. ”Who are you?” he called out to the man. Ignoring Tyr, the man said; “Our sanctuary has remained untainted by your foul Sith ways for almost 50 years. Why are you returning now?” “Sanctuary? Sith? We don’t know what you are talking about.” Dargus said. “All we know is that our mission told us to come here, get these crystals, and take them to our CO.” “I cannot let you do that” the man said reaching into his robe and pulling out and igniting a brilliant white lightsaber, just as four hooded men, their robes slightly less ripped and tattered than the first’s, dropped from the rafters and ignited their own lightsabers. “Well kriff.” Tyr said, drawing and igniting his lightsabers. Then, Aradyn and Dargus stepped up next to him and ignited their own sabers, Aradyn with a saberstaff with pale purple blades, and Dargus with two aqua colored blades. Even seeing the almost even fight, the old man looked just as confident. “We will be leaving with these crystals, and you will not stand in our way.” Tyr said with as much conviction as he could put into his voice. “We have guarded these crystals for more than 50 years, we will not allow them to be taken by some Sith child such as you.” The man said. As he said this, the other four began to move in, trying to encircle them. “Dargus, don’t let them take the crystals back. Aradyn, with me.” Tyr said, moving to face two of the hooded men, Aradyn facing the others. Tyr’s opponents saw this as their opportunity and moved in, one swinging his saber high and fast towards Tyr’s neck, Tyr caught that one on his blade easy enough and sent the man stumbling away with a flick of his wrist. The second man came in with a high overhead strike aimed to split him in two. Tyr dodged this with a quick sidestep, using the shorter of his two blades to deflect a blow from the first man. Pushing him away, he stepped back towards the second man, using his shoto to get inside the man’s guard and driving it through his chest. Without a second thought, Tyr spun and brought both of his blades back to bear onto the first man. His opponent was obviously new to combat, whereas Tyr, with almost a decade of sword and street fighting under his belt and more than a year of highly specialized training under the Order, quickly overpowered the young man and dispatched him with two swift thrusts through the abdomen. Tyr noticed two things when he turned around; one, Aradyn was just finishing off the last of her opponents, the remains of the first in half a dozen pieces on the floor. The second man’s defences were crumbling under her swift and unrelenting blows, and then, almost faster than the eye could blink, Aradyn had relieved the man of both of his arms and his head soon followed his arms on the short trip to the floor. The second thing Tyr noticed was that the old man had not moved, but had remained standing in the same position that he had held when the fight broke out, lightsaber still unused in the mans grasp, and eyes unfocused on any of the three. Curiosity soon got the better of Tyr who slowly began to walk towards the man, lightsabers raised in case the man tried anything. “Its over old man. Your people are dead, and we are taking these crystals. You can either let us by, or we’ll go through you.” Tyr said. Aradyn and Dargus walking up behind him to enforce his threat. When the old man didn’t move, Tyr decided to take matters into his hands and after two quick steps, raised his lightsaber to strike down the old man. His blade was within centimeters of the old man’s neck when a brilliant white beam as strong as duracrete blocked Tyr’s strike. Tyr quickly withdrew his weapon and spun back to stand next to Dargus and Aradyn. When he looked back at the old man, instead of seeing him in a combat stance as he expected, he looked the same as he had the entire time, lightsaber low at his side, eyes still unfocused on any of them. Determined to finish what he started, Tyr lunged in again, this time with a straight stab towards the man’s chest, but just as he was about to impale the man’s heart, the old man spun with speed that should not have been possible for someone of his apparent age. Once Tyr recovered from his attack, he spun towards the old man, who just gazed at Tyr, indifferent as always, “How did you do that?” Tyr asked. “You would not be able to understand even if I told you.” The man replied “You want to be that way then, Aradyn, Dargus, Take him.” Tyr said, lunging forward with Dargus just behind him, Aradyn had stepped backwards and attempted to get behind the man. When Tyr and Dargus got within striking range of the man they spread out to try and split the man’s focus. The man’s look of indifference didn’t change. By now Aradyn was straight behind the man’s back. Dargus made the first strike, his shotos swinging at the man’s neck and ankles. While the man’s expression didn’t change, his body and lightsaber moved with near mind blowing speed to intercept every one of Dargus’ strikes. Aradyn and Tyr, both realizing that this wasn’t going to be as easy as they thought, moved to support Dargus. Tyr on Dargus’ right side, reinforcing him and beginning to push the old man back towards Aradyn, who, staff whirling in a deadly flourish, struck at the man’s exposed back. To her surprise, before her saber struck the man, he extended one arm and sent Tyr and Dargus flying into the far wall as he used the hand with his saber in it to block her strike with surprising strength. She then launched into a wild series of strikes that had actually overwhelmed both Tyr and Dargus in their practices, but the man continued to surprise her, and he blocked every strike almost before she thought to deliver it. With a snarl she pressed her attack swinging her staff furiously to try and breach the old man’s seemingly impenetrable defences, but for all her efforts, she couldn’t even dent the steel wall of his defence. Tyr had recovered enough to stand by this time and noticed that Dargus was still unconscious, after closer examination Tyr saw that Dargus had broken his right arm when he had been thrown and had apparently hit his head pretty hard. “Aradyn! Dargus is down, we have to go now!” Tyr called across the room. He decided the best course of action would be to put Dargus on the hovercart next to the crystals so he could pull him along with the crystals once this annoying old man was dealt with. “I can’t really help that right now!” Aradyn yelled as Tyr put Dargus down. Tyr then noticed that he had dropped his lightsabers when he was thrown. A quick glance around showed them half buried in the snow. He ran over to pick them up, as he was collecting his shoto he heard a yell from Aradyn, looking over he noticed that the man had landed a solid strike on the inside of her calf, which was starting to bleed and drip down, staining the snowy floor red. “Mind helping me out here Tyr?” Aradyn called out in agitation. In response Tyr activated his blades and charged over. Tyr was beginning to see that the old man was beginning to push Aradyn back towards the far wall. Aradyn was now limping noticeably and her defences were beginning to falter. With a quick lunge, Tyr was able to distract the man from Aradyn and give her a few seconds to breathe. The downside to this was that now the man was focused completely on Tyr. Tyr completely immersed himself into the duel, his mind slowly giving itself over to the reflexes he had gained from more than a decade of combat. For a short time, the fight was almost evenly matched, Tyr’s wild and unexpected attacks meeting against the old man’s steel defences. Then, after a slightly overextended stab from Tyr, the fight was no longer as balanced, the man changed from having impenetrable defences to attacking with the speed and ferocity of a cornered nexu. Tyr, not noticing the change until it had already happened, was barely able to defend himself, Aradyn saw this and tried to come to his aid, but the man reached out his hand and she flew backwards to slam into the wall a few meters behind her. She crumpled to the floor in a heap. With a scream of rage, Tyr tried to regain the offensive, returning the old man’s powerful strikes with quick thrusts of his own, but after a few seconds Tyr realized he wasn’t going to win that way and returned to defend himself from the man’s furious strikes. Dargus chose this moment to wake up and try to help. Noticing him, Tyr was about to yell to stay back, when the old man took advantage of his momentary distraction to blast through Tyr’s guard and send his sabers flying into the snow a few meters away. Tyr, now not concerned about Dargus in the least, leapt backwards to avoid the old man’s lightning quick blows. He quickly got back to his feet and, from within his cloak, drew a dagger that was given to him by an armorer on Insurrection. The dagger was made of Beskar, often called Mandalorian steel, and was resistant to lightsaber strikes. The old man, either not noticing or not caring, lunged forward and took a stab at Tyr’s chest, but Tyr was able to deflect it off the edge of his dagger, although the man’s lightsaber still sliced off a small sliver of his cloak. Not expecting this, the man had accidentally overextended and allowed Tyr to land a cut on his wrist and send his lightsaber falling to the floor . With a triumphant grin on his face, Tyr advanced again swinging the dagger in a mad attempt to finish the man off. But the old man would not go out so easily and with a few deft parries was able to defend himself from Tyr’s dagger for almost a full minute before Tyr quickly switched his grip and sliced a long gash along the man’s forearm. Now Tyr had a distinct advantage and, with a well practiced spin, was able to duck down and land a deep cut on the back of the old man’s knee. With a cry of pain the man fell onto his back. Tyr then stood over him and prepared to drive his dagger through the man’s heart, when he saw the man reach out to his fallen lightsaber, but the fact that it was over three meters away made Tyr decide to ignore him, but as Tyr was about to drive the dagger through the old man, the lightsaber flew across the floor and into the old man’s hand, and with a flash of white light, sent a beam of brilliant energy through Tyr’s abdomen. Although this didn’t save the old man from his fate and Tyr, now powered more by gravity than force of will, drove his dagger through the old man’s heart. Tyr had a mere moment of satisfaction before everything went dark.
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