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Author Topic: Fate of the Aether  (Read 72824 times)
Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
*

Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #180 on: January 09, 2019, 09:32:21 PM »

Chapter 42 — Unfit Offerings — Sacrifice
Part 2

Kuun Carr

As most of Sicara’s time – now Lucovis transformation was finished for the time being – was dedicated to Vong Vaccine Analysis – Lucovis had thought it only fitting the Vong be responsible for the Demagols protection.

What appeared as a slimy residue clinging to the corners of walls contained photo receptors that detected the black figures and particle membranes that detected the small traces of unusual metals they deposited – all this flowed into the mind of Kuun Carr.

“Our enemy comes to us…” he noted as the information pierced into his cortex from the hungry snapping neuro-penetrating tendrils of the Eversight

“Inform Sicara…tell him these two will soon learn of the Glory of the Praetorite Vong.”
<<<<>>>>

 
Lyaea

Something…wrong had happened in here…

A vast machine with nine pods connected to a central one, recent disinfectant could not wash the aether of the stench.  There was a familiarity that made Lyaea feel sick.

“What happened here…” it was death…and life twisted together in a tar like copulation.

Adaea scanned the nearby datapads,

“Wiped…very thoroughly”

Something felt even more wrong as her outer aetheric senses were briefly flickered – normally that could be background aetheric current, strong emotion, some life forms even distant past or future events bleeding through…but here she needed to be more on alert.

She began to shift toward the wall as…

She flashed danger into Adaea’s mind.

Something sharp and hard scrapped along her jump jet back pack toward where the join beneath her shoulder.

Another something slammed into her chest – hard

Adaea slammed to the ground.

<<<<>>>>

 
Selaena

Even before the aether told her she knew her baby was in danger…Leaping Gobril contingency plan was immediately in effect.

The trick had worked well on the Weequay ship that attacked Station 3 and it worked here. 

She tore off the escape pod hatch with the aether and Melron leapt in. Two by two four shikkar torpedoes launched, pivoting round the front of the Demagol to hover in position ready to slam into the decks at her whim should she need to create a distraction or disable the ships engines.

Now she leapt. 

Across the 20 metres of void that kept the Yorna from appearing on the Demagol inertial compensators as a blip she grasped a hatch on a higher level of the rusted steel coloured Science Dreadnought and tugged.

A brief hiss of gas as the durasteel entered the void, feet joined she slammed through the pod and inner door with a shatter of plasteel and trasnapristeel.

Straight into a run she dove through the nearest bulk head before it closed to seal the breach, rifle in hand, boots hammering dents in the metal grated floor with each intense step she blitzed toward her baby.   

<<<<>>>>

Sicara

The alerts were a pain in his ear…he pushed out with the force to sense the disturbance…but he got little more than the fear of some of the orderlies and technicians…nothing from his test subjects or the Vong guards. 

His abilities with the force were, he had to admit below average even for a Jedi. 

It had given him an edge, and he worked hard to make the most of what he possessed, but knew in the end his path to serving the line of Bane was through other means. 

For the Sith were not defined by the Force as tool, as the Vong showed there were even situations in which it was a disadvantage – the Sith was an ideal a philosophy to be lived not a power to be learnt.

“Report,” he pressed the comm to the Nova Corps Captain Nymbara as he dropped his reward for his recent success to the floor with the whine of a creature well used to being used.

“Intruders, the Guests have them pinned in the Bio-Science Lab 1, two hull breaches on escape pods, three decks apart…sending teams to investigate.”

“Very good keep me appraised,” he immediately signalled Lord Lucovis with the Quantum entanglement comm he kept on him at all times.

He turned back around to his hobby project, the so called ‘Shamed One’ Woman in the stirrup chair, blood staining her naked form – this was why Vong were his favourite they never screamed or complained and were often so mutilated to begin with few more incisions went unnoticed – indeed some seemed to worship pain.

“Return her to the cell, we will finish later.”

<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

Shadows?

No, not even shadows…assailed her. 

Already she had a cut under her left shoulder, her helmet was cracked…

Another scrape of a…something against her forearms guard spatter chinks of blackstone on the floor.

She couldn’t see what was attacking her, couldn’t sense it…she might as well be blind. She could only rely on the aether to keep her from taking fatal hits, but it offered no guide on how or where to strike back.

She always lost ‘blind’ fights when training – couldn’t connect strongly enough with the aether, just more evidence she thought of her disconnection.

And this wasn’t training.

Adaea wasn’t doing much better, her only hope was mum getting here…and knowing what to do against the invisible…entity…striking at her.

Her feet followed an instinct driven pattern of avoidance and her muscles were bruised beneath heavy blows with what she could only guess was some kind of heavy sword or spear.

Pivoting under the invisible guidance of what Kiraea would call Aertemisaea, she took another hit as Adaea was knocked back into a wall failing to hit anything with her burst of telekinetic power.

There was simply Nothing there to fire at!

As she went to strafe left her foot wouldn’t move…a glance down showed it stuck to the ground by some kind of gelatin substance.

“Aummph…” she doubled over at the hit to her stomach…Aertemisaea had not abandoned her…she had never accepted Lyaea in the first place…having flowered on a strange world under and adopted their naughty habits Lyaea just wasn’t worthy of being People….     

Hands that were not of the aether grasped and dragged her into the depths of the void reserved for those forsaken by their Goddesses.
<<<<>>>>

Adaea


Leaping over the blobby green thing that wanted to grab her feet she saw Lyaea being taken away by…

By nothingness…not figures no nothing…

She couldn’t let her be taken away, Lyaea was not herself today despite Adaea’s efforts. 

Whatever these things were they didn’t seem to fight with the aether.  Her mind running she determined the most probable explanation for what was occurring was they were being attacked by beings that couldn’t use the aether and had such a biology that they didn’t reflect electromagnetic or thermal radiation in a spectrum they could detect. 

That or they were fighting actual Gods.

Rolling to avoid what the aether told her was something bad and fast moving toward her head she launched off all six of her shikkars three either side of Lyaea – based on her pose she was being dragged by the arms – implying the assailants were humanoid. 

As she twisted through the pipes and canisters about the dark-aetheric device the shikkars hit, two bounced off but four struck something slicing inside yielding a dark green fluid…blood she hoped…and if it bled she could kill it.

As soon as it ripped off it seemed to close and they dragged her even faster. She felt a pressure in her mind from Melron, she responded with a warning about the invisible assailants and he suggested a strategy.

Flipping up over an empty pod that had stains of blood and nutri-fluid drying within Adaea unhooked a grenade and floated it behind her – modifying Melrons suggestion she spun round offering her back to where she though the attacker was. 

She was right – something sharp and hard pierced into her jump-jet as she hit the detonator and balled the aether around her.

Blue fire exploded around her as the grenade detonated.  The aether bubble protected her…but not the device about her which buckled and melted in the flash heating…

Landing into a ready crouch sword out she shrugged off the falling blackened detritus to see her attackers scorched form on the ground – humanoid, too burnt to make out species…but all too mortal. 

She was about to rush after Lyaea working out a way to kill these things as the entire contraption behind her began to shift and jolt…before she could skid out nearly two tonnes of metal and cables collapsed on her.

<<<<>>>>

Kuun Carr
“The Hunters have one” Laan informed him as the tizoworm in his skull buzzed with reports.

“Their Jeedai arts cannot penetrate the Cloak of Nuun,” Kuun added – the variation of an ooglith Masquer was covered in a symbiotic layer of photosensitive bacteria, reacting to the wearers surroundings and producing a near flawless image to cloak, as well as masking heat and scent.

“Glory to Yun-Ne’Shel” Laan replied to honour of the Modeller Goddess who guided the shapers to create such biots.

“Glory to the Yun’o” he echoed delving into the Eversights neural feed…the dovin basals sensed something odd…a…ship?

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

Nothing would stop her…not the automated defences she overloaded with lighting, not the blast doors she rammed apart with her shoulder- and certainly not the Nova Corps she ripped to pieces with bullet and blade. 

Before her fury orderlies turned and ran…she sought out the areas where there were the most life forms systematically annihilating every being that stood between her and her baby.     

Bounding into a laboratory of some kind she leapt and rolled in the air firing off shots with her heavy blaster and sniper rifle rending the fleeing outsiders to quivering messes.

At the far end three guard rammed over a desk as a make shift barricade she wasted no time hurling a computer monitor at with shatterpoint precision to wreck the table just after she fired the shots she knew would hit fatally. 

Stepping over the bodies her HUD pinged – [SHIELDS DOWN!]

She didn’t need this distraction…not when her baby was in danger! But without the ship she couldn’t get her baby home safely!

No choice she slowed to a jog as she took command of the ship and the shikkar torpedoes.

<<<<>>>>

Melron

The corridors were mostly empty…he growled at the lack of a fight.   

His renewed vigour lusting for combat against the enemies of the People, his shame seeking those who had harmed them that he might fulfil his role as Guardian and redeem himself. 

He made a point of noting the devices he passed, recalling their function that he might learn more swiftly the things needed to adapt to their new galactic environment.

Rounding a corner into a central corridor he skidded to a stop.

“Bos sos si?” the nearest of the creatures yelled – they were vile things even for Outsiders, strange spiked armour that looked more like shell than metal or stone, hideous undulating green globs on where he guessed they housed noses and mouths given their humanoid form.

“Hurr” another groaned 

“Kane a bar!” the first said purposefully walking forwards arms spread in challenge, then drawing his finger across his throat then pointed straight at Melron

“Do-ro'ik vong pratte” It yelled as it charged.

<<<<>>>>
Reeda Kwn

Tossed back into her cell Vun shifted over to attend her latest wounds.  She suspected the infidel favoured her for his torments because she was seen by the other Shamed Ones as a leader.

“It’s fine Vun…I can deal with it…” her shaper hand branching digits outward to sew wounds closed.   It was true she did have a more prominent role, one the Warriors had not failed to notice either. 

As a shaper she had considered it her role – no duty as a worshipper of Yun-Ne’Shel - to assist those whose implants failed to take, turned rancid – those who would be consigned to the Shamed Ones otherwise – over the years this turned to addressing the rejected biots amongst the Shamed Ones themselves – she found dozens with mutations easily corrected…It had made her popular among the Shamed Ones…and despised by the Elites.

She glanced up as the Warriors paced past, something was happening for so many to come here…something that had the infidel workers on edge as they doled out the meagre foods and took the hourly blood samples to monitor their resistance to the viruses of this galaxy.

Every Shamed One she had redeemed was one less disposable worker, and ten more who pestered the shapers for treatments. 

Such a quiet uprising could undermine the social hierarchy.  One day she awoke to find her left hand, implants she’d had for over a decade suddenly rot and fester- immediately branded shamed she was cast amongst the Shamed Ones she had treated. 

To ensure her thoughts did not spread she was ‘honoured’ to be sent in advance of the main fleet along with other trouble makers amongst the Shamed Ones who still had a few too many friends amongst the Elites to kill outright. 

Outside her cell Hunters removed their Cloaks of Nuun as they dragged a curiously black form to one of the theatres and the infidel spoke – she knew their language – they all did for it made it easier for them to obey the infidels orders.  This was a truly desolate place…far from their Gods…far from their people…being used by such filth as this…

“Strap her in, take off the armour…” the Siniteen spoke.  Though Kwn knew not this woman’s species she felt sympathy knowing the pain she would be subjected to.

“What do you think is happening…” Churl from the cell beside asked, the doors were not locked – they were chained by a far more insidious form of confinement – one of the mind, of years of being beaten down, told they were worthless so often the refrain repeated in their own minds now. 

So it was for millions on the Fleet…so it would be if the Elites – the Overlord, the Priests, the Warmaster – had their way within this galaxy.

Kwn looked over to Churl who was thumbing a small model of Yun’Shuno – the many eyed mother whom the shamed ones were permitted to turn to for comfort…Kwn feared they were far beyond even her thousand eyes in this place.

“Nothing good…”

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
*

Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #181 on: January 14, 2019, 02:16:28 AM »

Chapter 43 — Unfit Offerings — Avatars

Part 1

Adaea

“Unggh,” she hefted off the wreckage and slid out, left leg bruised but not broken.

The shock had distracted her, that could’ve easily been fatal had any more of the invisible enemies been near.

She glanced around her new surrounds…she was about two decks down through a hole caused by her grenade weakening internal supports…about her were broken consoles, a few pipes –some kind of old command station.

Cautiously she moved around, fearful of another attack, but determined to link up with the others. Up ahead thin blue light of an active console.

“Huh…” she stalked up carefully, hearing the thud of boots somewhere above her, hands moved rapidly to plug in her datapad and load in her slicing program – “Burrowing Gofun” for the burrowing furred mammal of home. Eyes passed across reams of data, two levels of consciousness working to integrate with her typical expertise…this was a vessel researching…first bio weapons for 10 years then…vaccinations for…a species whose provenance was unknown……

“Vong…” 

The bio data was complex…cutting edge…whoever was running this was well resourced and very capable…using the Vongs unique genetics and creatures to modify more conventional biological weapons…

This was invaluable…if they could take this information…they could develop contingencies to protect against or destroy thousands of species of outsiders…

Metal creaked and groaned nearby…she quickly bypassed internal security and patched in a link of basic ships functions to her HUD…now the Demagol worked for her.

<<<<>>>>

Melron

Adaea’s warning proved all too true – these creatures were empty in the aether – so much they were ignorant of…he felt the familiar stab of shame at having remained wilfully ignorant while the others adapted for so long…

As he dipped under the writhing weapon it wielded, sidestepping the acidic venom it spat which caused caustic smoke to rise from the metal floor, he consoled himself that he had at last recognised his errors – and was now sure to correct them.

The beast thing wanted to fight him single combat – perhaps an honour culture not unlike the Morgukai he had delved. The six others watched on shouting in their vile tongue that was likely distorted by the hideous globs on their faces.

The creature moved swiftly and silently despite its bulky form, expertly wielding its strange weapon that slithered like a sea-snake one moment, rigid as a branch the next – it was this novelty that gave the creature a chance against a Guardian – had they all rushed him at once they would’ve stood a better chance. 

Pride – the Lady of Wisdom warned – comes before disaster.

So the Goddess has spoken, so it shall be done. It was beginning to get the measure of his swordsmanship, closer to striking a blow…but he too was learning. 

Standing erect from his defensive crouch he borrowed from the Morgukai - Djen-Sha sweep high followed by a Djen-wo – low flourish – the Djen-Sha met the hardened scales of the serpent weapon – a second Djen-wo and his Blackstone blade backed by ether enhanced strength met the far less dense shell armour on the right– a tight flourish tore the legs within into five meaty chunks worthy of a roast by the mountains on a summers evening.

As it dropped in pain it made no shriek, nor yielded its iron gaze as Melron griped and crushed its skull with one hand.

He knew not these enemies race – but he guessed that expression was shock – the next rage. 

Now they all came.

<<<<>>>>

Selaena

How does Adaea do this!

On the HUD cut in from the Yorna – molten rocks were hurled toward the ship as something slowed its acceleration – and she couldn’t see or sense where it was coming from to send a torpedo at it.

In front of her she was pinned by automatic fire from four turrets – she’d come across the security centre – fortified by twelve Nova Corps who were no longer as easy to shock.

She played safe with the Yorna, turning it tight and fast along the Demagols hull, keeping it close – soon confirming her suspicion they didn’t want to damage the Dreadnought. 

Grenades sailed toward her body, she tossed them back along the corridor blasting one of the turrets apart…if she could get in there…

The Yorna took a hit from a burning rock – nothing serious…yet…flipping the ship end over end she swung it down the port side aiming to put the Demagol between it and whatever was shooting.

The guards were getting adventurous – a door opened behind her down the corridor and fire erupted, she twisted around and got off one precise shot to a head, slamming the other with the aether.

She needed a break and fast.

<<<<>>>>

Adaea

The systems were open to her…security holovids opened up to her view…Melron was fighting six…no five now as one burst apart on his blade…creatures like the ones she had seen in the cells.

Selaena was pinned down by three guards and two turrets…that she could help with – no time to reset friend/foe she switched them off and opened the door to security centre where she sensed a presence working against her…someone was trying to slice back…

Sending a thought of temporary safety to Selaena the older woman started to advance and sent a message back <Ship danger>  Damn…she scanned through the..uh-oh…

Diving to the side her spine tingled with danger…

Another one of the invisible hunters…hammering up she blitzed down the corridor pivoting her blaster in its holster mentally to fire behind her as she scoped through the Demagols scans to find whatever was shooting at the Yorna

<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

Eyelids heavy she felt tugging as someone tried to undress her, struggling with the hidden locks that needed the aether to open.

“…full adult sample…female based on the profile…removing the outer layers as we speak,” she heard the nasal tone of a Siniteen

Too late, my time has come,

Beside her she finally saw her true enemy…only say - they were dead in the aether…invisible as they had been to the eye before. In their hideous mutilated countenances Lyaea saw she was lost…

Sends shivers down my spine,

“Ah you’re awake excellent…so much more data on neuro-rhythms can be collected with a lucid subject…”     

This pallid creature she could sense in the aether as they continued to restrain her…the red sprinkles of awareness of injury flickering across her background consciousness

Body's aching all the time.

“First we shall take samples of all your tissue types…just small amounts as a baseline…then a few small measurements to see how you react under stress, pain…alas the Red Master wishes you relatively…complete…when he comes to collect you…”

There was a tray table covered in sharp pointed instruments glistening eagerly to cut her up

Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go,

She would tortured then dissected....pieces of her scattered about in death as she had been in life – torn between two cultures she would drop into the endless abyss unwanted and unremembered…the Goddesses would not come for her disconnected spirit.

Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.

Idly gazing around she saw the cells full of those like her, vacant sunken expressions of the lost – creatures like the Hunter things, but under fed and bloodied from experiments of the Siniteen.

As the mad scientist hummed about her stomachs turned against their despairing sink, intent not to end up like those wretched creatures.  She felt the thread of the aether rebuild as her hearts chambers pulsed and squeezed more rapidly…

She could feel the Siniteens sick presence, it was distinct but not strong….

Mind primed she locked onto the cell doors, and twisted her mental prowess into a needle –

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?

<<<<>>>>

Reeda Kwn

The Siniteen suddenly dropped to the floor, gasps amongst the Shamed were beaten back by the growl of the Hunters beside him. Two orderlies came to help him up…but he struggled to rise…

Kwn looked to the female, her helm now removed…skin so white and clean, hair blazing red…it was so strange to Kwn’s eyes.

Perspiration was on her brow…the Siniteen was buckling downward pawing for something – a battle Kwn could not see was underway. 

Suddenly the Red-maned woman’s eyes met Kwns – the cell door flew open.

<<<<>>>>

Sicara

The bitch was strong in the force…

He finally grasped the Vong device with his last strength he rammed it onto his face as the Vong guard’s adopted a ready stance as the cell doors flew open around them.  The force suddenly died as the ooglith masque covered his head – cilia pushing painfully into every pore…it denied him the force but protected him from the woman’s mind.

She looked around concerned
“What are you doing!” she screamed “Fight!”

The shamed ones simply looked on…silly girl
“Ah…foolish to use all your power like that…hold her down…”

<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

How the disgusting thing on his head blocked the aether she didn’t know…why the creatures in cages didn’t fight she couldn’t understand…

So you think you can love me and leave me to die?

It didn’t matter she was out of options.  Suppressing the red haze of damage sensation that was People equivalent of pain from her shoulder, with clenched fist she ripped her arms upward against the restraints.  Ripping free she shredded off the rest with the aether and charged her now all too visible assailants. 

Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby,

The brutes snapped filthy looking serpent creatures at her as she wove through with superior speed to hammer her fist into the first neck as its now rigid worm creatures spat acid over her shoulder. 

It choked and gargled into death as she turned on the second – it tossed its hideous jelly at her feet, but a Guardian should never fall for the same trick twice Kiraea said, she danced on her sore leg out of its paths and round the second guard as a lightsabre hissed on a thumping feet charged toward her from behind.

Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here.

<<<<>>>>

Reeda Kwn

Cree screamed orders for the nearby Shamed Ones to attack the red maned female as he and two other warriors subject to experimentation charged forward. 

“Hold!” Reeda called in response emboldened by the woman’s defiance

Churl, once a warrior himself looked torn wishing to heed the call of his former battle brothers

“What honour is there to fight beside those who cast you aside!” she chided him back to his cell as the red maned woman dodged the amphistaff and blorash jelly to hammer loud meaty smacks that racked bone and tore muscle. 

The siniteen moved forward screeching

“Lucovis will not mind a missing limb or two!”

Kwn felt the tug of inertia hold her back…she was Shamed in a strange land…what business was this of hers…

And yet this woman fought their common tormentor…

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
*

Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #182 on: January 14, 2019, 02:19:34 AM »

Chapter 43 — Unfit Offerings — Avatars

Part 2


Melron

Three down…three to go…he had his share of scrapes, but with each one that fell they got tired, and he got cannier.  

They had an unusual array of weapons, strange jellies, insect creatures- but he was not surprised, the galaxy was full of horrid things all intent on killing People – he needed to learn them all and find countermeasures.  

He could feel the others- all in danger…he needed to end this fast.  He began practicing what he had learnt – their pattern in his mind he saw the movements – this one would turn his serpent to a spear as the other two struck out more flaccid to try and catch his limbs – like gobrils they obeyed simple rules once you watched long enough – and so they did.

He shifted to take a thin cut on his chest piece from the spear, his elbow able to smash the green blobby thing on the nose and mouth and the skull behind it into mush – the second caught his other arm – the serpent sought to bite into this hand as Melron yanked forward – wrong footed the warrior ended his days on Melrons blade.  

The third didn’t follow, tossing a grenade insect it smacked his side and slammed him out of the mess of bodies.

The warrior thought he had a clear path now with Melrons blade still in the chest of the last kill – his charge was stopped as Melron rammed the floor beneath him upward with the aether- they might be immune to the aether but the floor- and ceiling against which it splattered was not.

Now to help the others.

<<<<>>>>

Kuun Carr

“Unhhh…” the villip-biot screeched in his skull…a full squad of warriors dead on top of the hunters…they did not have the numbers to take such losses…these were sacrifices without gain…Perhaps it was time to abandon Lucovis and his half delivered promises…

Yet he needed the Collection of Viral agents and vaccines as well as the Siniteens expertise…it would be too difficult and risky to abduct other scientists and coerce them.

And still the black ship was eluding him…keeping too close to the Demagol to fire upon...he moved in closer trying to pin it with dovin basals gravity arms.

“Belek Tui” Laar said arms crossed against his chest – Kuun considered what order to give.  Did he invest more warriors into defending the Demagol…cut his losses…or…

His back arched as the Eversight detected a threat…not from the ship he was tracing…but….

<<<<>>>>

Adaea


Leaping over pipes, skidding under struts she ran through the maintenance corridors, looking for a ship, Lyaea and a place to trap the hunter.

There it was! Designated ‘Eversight’ on the Demagols register it was classed as an ‘asteroid’ but was clearly some kind of non-metallic vessel.  The anti-slicer was being a pain…and she needed those turbo lasers…and…there was Lyaea on the security feed! So much at…whoa!

She skidded under a…bug thrown at her back that slammed into the strut ahead and blew a dent into it. Ok…OK she could do this…if she could pilot three ships and fight a Sith and Mandalorians she could do this much more easily…

Her mind raced through half a dozen solutions till she settled on the most likely to succeed…she hoped the Lucky Gondur’s luck was with her…and Aethenaea had guided her thoughts well!

She screeched to a halt and turned 180 degrees summoning her bow from her back with practiced ease as she searched the aether for thoughts associated with counter-slicing…finding a mind some distance away working to defeat the weirdly named “Burrowing Gofun” virus – hey it isn’t weirdly named!

She loved and respected their animals! It was in their honour she named the ships and her favourite plans and devices!

Annoyed at the insult to her animal friends she grabbed his subconscious like a table cloth and yanked – and like in the holo movies all the conscious thoughts on top tumbled and flew off.  The counter slicers efforts dissolved she flicked her eyes rapidly on the HUD as she launched three quick arrows with her fingers back long the tight corridor.

The turbo lasers online she opened up on the ‘Eversight’, meeting its molten-rock fire with yellow plasma burst that sheared off chunks of yorik coral in the moments before the dovin basals reacted to create micro-singularities to dissipate the energy.

Activating the ship wide comm to talk to Lyaea and the others, the hunter dropped gripping an arrow in his chest as she turned the other two arrows round to bore into his head just to make sure.
<<<<>>>>

Selaena


A blip of victory from Adaea and the Turrets pinning her shut down, the control centres doors flew open.  Before the remaining guards had time to fall back she was out of cover and hammering shots.  

Chest, Head, Back, Head, round after round of explosive shells punctured every last one of the Outsiders that sought to keep her from her baby.  In the control room they pulled their side-arms, only to find them fly from their hands, spin round and fire into their hearts.

<<<<>>>

Lyaea
“It’s Ada I’m on my way! This should help!”

The ships loud speaker screamed as lights dimmed to a level below most humanoids ability to see but more than adequate for People.

The bulkiest creatures still charged toward her - they might not obey the laws of the aether – but they did obey the laws of physics – as the guard dropped a broken bloody mess she hurled every sharp piece of medical equipment her eyes could see at the three charging warriors as she ducked the Siniteens slashes.

His style was unfamiliar…adapted to dealing with the gyroscopic jolts of a sabre without the aether – no doubt due to his comparative weakness – something he obviously excelled in – but he was still not as fast as People ,she duck and wove easily enough as she hammered the other warriors to death with gurneys and monitoring equipment.  

She felt a string of deaths and her mother’s protective caress erupt in the aether as the ship began to rock as it turned – hard!

“There lots of cool stuff on this ship, we should take it!” Adaea called over the ships comm broadcasting her intentions to everyone…but such random admissions did at least confuse them.  

Further down the hall the doors burst open and a remainder of Nova Corps and four more of the bulky ones – these in crab like armour charged in.

In the dim glow of the Siniteens red sabre she summoned forward her sword and blaster wishing she had properly been blessed with Aertemisaea’s strength or Aethenaea’s wisdom as a young girl….

<<<<>>>>

Reeda Kwn

“Oh I got them!” the door that had revealed two more Warriors and a few infidels slammed back shut…the voice was from all around…like a villip…whoever was controlling the announcement now controlled the ship as a shaper controlled a biot – like Yun’Ne-Shal…could a non Yuuzhan Vong embody the properties of a Yun’o?

The Siniteen – her frequent rapist and tormentor charged in the blood red glare of his blade like a creature from an ancient myth – the red maned woman responded with…

Blue light erupted from both her hands and Reeda dropped to her knees as the other Shamed Ones screamed in terror – the Siniteen took the arcing energy on his blade – but it was too much…

The divine explosion of lighting lifted their mutual enemy from the floor and slowly ripped the Siniteens limbs to charred pieces.  

The door just sealed blew upon with a thud-launcher – the Red maned woman’s energy dropped the sizzling siniteen and turned on the new entrants as the Warriors screamed at the awestruck shamed ones.

“Kill all the INFIDELS atone for your SHAME!”

“NO!” Reeda screamed surprising herself as the other shamed ones wavered between fight and flight

“Shamed is your word for us! We bear it NO MORE!”

She needn’t have bothered –he could no longer here her – like the siniteen he was now covered in blue electricity.
<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

Aether – No – Electrical Potential difference – Yes – the voltage in her hands might be created by the aether but the voltage difference between her and the creatures was all physics – the stream of energy ripped and tore the shell armoured warrior apart as the siniteen writhed in pain on the floor.

She gritted her teeth as she hammered out energy into the throng who now regretted reopening the door. Deep minutes in her pain and fatigue slowly ended as they dropped smoking husks of burnt flesh.

Her body was trembling she didn’t think…shouldn’t….have that in her…she had not been properly blessed in the grove of Aertemisaea at fourteen by completing a ritual hunt…she had to do it on Colganna with a nexu…surely that didn’t count…or maybe she just believed it didn’t count…

Perhaps it wasn’t her opinion on what she had or hadn’t done properly that mattered…the Goddesses were Compassionate…she had forgotten that even as Kiraea and Adaea tried to remind her…they understood…it was not her fault she had been taken away from Home…and she had done what she could…they understood.

<<<<>>>>

Reeda Kwn

She understood…she finally understood…why all this had happened…what the trembling being before her was…

This was all the plan of the Goddess…all her doing.  

As the lights returned she stepped out of the cage the red maned woman had opened, past the bodies of the warriors she had slain, ignored the screeching siniteen that had tormented them for the purpose of helping the invasion of an Empire that treated their own as menials to be abused rather than assist those with failed implants as the Gods enjoined…

Reeda was not cut off from the Gods in this strange galaxy.

The Red Maned woman leapt up her hands on fire with energy, Reeda raised her palms in a gesture of peace.

“Khattazz al'Yun Yun-Shuno!” she called – it all came together - This was why she had been shamed for serving the Goddess…this was why she had come to this strange galaxy…to find this woman – The Avatar of Yun-Shuno who would Extol the Shamed, destroy their oppressors – remind the Elites of the truth of the Gods that they subverted for their own power.

The others slowly wandered out of their cells, genuflecting and bowing before the Avatar that had freed them from the shackles of the mind.

<<<<>>>>>

Lyaea

She had no idea what was happening…or why…a wall suddenly burst apart and her mother charged in as the beings chanted at her
“Sha grunnik ith-har Yun-Shuno!, Sha grunnik ith-har Yun-Shuno!”

“NO” Lyaea screamed before Selaena could fire a shot as Melron came in through another door a little battered but still strong.

“They’re…prisoners I think…slaves…”

Her mother looked them over…Lyaea felt her thoughts in the aether…seeing the scars, the strange laboratory…the cells, the beaten down posture even as they bowed…

“Slaves…always slaves with the Outsiders…” Selaena might hate outsiders – but she at least felt empathy for other slaves enough to not hurt them.

“You…” one of the aether mute slaves spoke up

“You are…One with…Goddess…”

That struck Lyaea’s heart…how did this outsider – let alone one invisible to the aether know….

“Yes…” Lyaea replied “joined with my Goddesses…”

Though neither appreciated exactly what was lost in translation, their joy at escaping danger and loss of connection and identity that their God’s gave them rendered it a moot point.

“What of him…” Melron kicked over the Siniteen – his limbs wrecked and burnt but still alive

“Keep him alive…” Adaea called over the comm… ”I’ll bring the Yorna in we need to leave right now!”

<<<<>>>>

Adaea

The small bridge crew didn’t resist…having already lost control of the ship to a slicing program called ‘Burrowing Gofun’ and now faced with a dozen formerly Shamed Yuuzhan Vong fighting for their ‘Goddess’ thoughts of resistance were few.

“All right!” Adaea ordered arrow primed and aimed at the navigator “We’re leaving, understood?”

He gulped and nodded.

“Maynard got the target…” – if the battle at Station 3 taught her anything it was to always have an extra escape plan.

“Dead on sweetie”

“Extraction time…”

<<<<>>>>

Kuun Carr

Both squads of warriors and the Hunters were dead…he had to pull the Eversight back to avoid the dreadnoughts turbolaser batteries…the Demagol was not a war ship…but it was still well armed and destroyer class.

“We are ready to depart Prefect” Laan called through villip as his team prepared to launch the counter attack.

“No…” Kuun whispered devising a plan…it was time for negotiation not confrontation.

“Prefect?”

“No…we have sacrificed enough for no gain…Lucovis has proved his impotence today…the race of Valens and Milaea has proven their superiority…these are the allies we should seek to turn to the True Way of the Gods not a petulant crime Lord like Luco…”  

His eye burnt from neuro-feedback as the ship rocked…a breach…how…what…

“Erghhh..I…” his sentence was cut off as the Demagol vanished into dark space taking the Collection of Viral Agents and Sicara’s research with it as the Eversight bled yorik coral into the void.

<<<<>>>>

Lyaea

“Hit em!” Xandra called across the comm as their ship landed in the Demagols bay just before the jump.  

Melron and their new friends rounded up the last of the guards and crew, Adaea in charge of the bridge and contacted the Chiss for pickup of even more exotic equipment and technology when they reached Vulpter.

Her mother stood close beside her eyeing off the one named ‘Reeda Kwn’ as they placed the Siniteen Sicara in the chair he had tormented the ‘Yuuzhan Vong’ woman in.

“Goddess…this one you liberate us from…we serve you in all things…this one seeks to harm you...do with what?”

Lyaea considered a moment, trying to work out what to say that wouldn’t risk their tentative alliance.

“Spare him…we will use his knowledge of bio-technology to extol your people from slavery to freedom,”

Extol….such a concept to raise above…truly this is the Avatar of the Yun’Shuno…Reeda thought as for the first time in years she truly smiled.

“Receiving a signal through Station 7’s comm hub…” Adaea called over the comm

“Distress signals…lots of them…”

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
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Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #183 on: January 16, 2019, 09:33:43 PM »

Chapter 44 — Unfit Offerings — Justice

Li’IMack


A plume of dust burst out as her sore knuckles smacked the punching bag that served as a temporary substitute for Jo’s head.

He was being an idiot demanding trial by combat…just adding of his stupidity after running after the Sith or whatever they were.

“Unng!” she called out with a quick combo slapping the bag sweat beading down the sides of her face, odd strands of hair stuck across her brow.

As the bag swung back, she caught it spinning along with it till it settled. 

If knocking Jo on his stupid arse was what it took to get through his thick skull, she was happy to do it…but

If I told him the truth… his crusade against Valens was...ill placed…this Valens creature may have killed Odjina and the others, but it was under orders from Kimar…who then lost control of his monster to the point it destroyed him.

So far as Li was concerned the blood was on Kimar’s hands, the weapon he sent to destroy Vyth was less important than the fact the so called Jedi Grand Master had sent him there in the first place – so afraid of Mak’Tor unorthodoxy he couldn’t’ leave them in peace.

But to tell Jo that…would mean telling everyone, Jo was not known for his discretion…and that would destroy any chance of the Jedi after Kimar getting a fair treatment from the Mak’Tor again…the old clan ‘grudges’ could still be strong….

“He’d probably go after the Jedi order itself,” she huffed out…if Jo was blinded by rage enough to try not once but twice to fight a monster like Valens despite overwhelming odds he’d have no compunction turning his rage on the Jedi order as a whole.

Maybe I’m not giving Jo enough credit…

There was no justice nor balance in this…Jo had done wrong…but so had – so was she by lying about Vyth to keep the peace…

Flopping onto the bench along the plain cream gym wall she felt the weight of the ‘crown’ of Kage threaten to crush her…the tight heaviness of the lie around her chest…the depth of the split with Jo draining her confidence in her choices…

It was a bitch of a situation…but she was stuck with it.

<<<<>>>>

“Kage…have you reconsidered…” Mi’ke’Cas – ‘Mike’ her honour guard prodded as they headed to the exercise yard outside the Military Prison where the Trial by Combat would take place

“I don’t need a Champion Mike…” that came out more caustically than she’d wanted, her nerves jagged already

“…If anyone is going to slap some sense into Jo it should be me,” she smiled across her purple lips trying to look nonchalant.

Jo wasn’t exactly top of the crop in terms of combat skills, and she knew his weaknesses, he took a while to get into a decent rhythm and favoured upper body work – habits Odjina had never quite drilled out of him.

As they wandered past a few Military Police who had gathered to see the archaic spectacle Li began to wonder if she shouldn’t have asked Anson D’aklon to be her Champion – put some distance between her and the situation and get an outside perspective…but the noises coming from Galtea were troubling to say the least.

The Military police had marked out a circle 4 metres in diameter, Jo standing in the middle waiting.  Li didn’t want to make a big deal of Jo’s stupidity, so only her Honour Guard, the Prison Warden and the Military Police would watch.  Normally such a ritual would be conducted privately among the Mak’Tor, but as it stood there were still gray areas between the Men-at-Arms and the Knights jurisdiction that needed to be sorted out.

The Knights did not want to end up a mere special forces branch of the Men-at-Arms, but nor did the Men-at-Arms wish to simply become ‘grunts’ under the Knights, and until the Mountain facilities were finished sharing accommodation and resources required a bit of give on both sides, Li was confident she could settle a good working relationship eventually, but Jo and those who joined him on his jaunt certainly hadn’t helped in that effort.

She intended to kick his butt, then commute his sentence to hard labour on the building of the new Mak’Tor facilities on M’Tzigon. 

It did stink a bit of nepotism, but it could be justified given the relatively lenient sentences she’d given the others who followed him of 5 year suspensions of rank.  Working on the new facilities would keep him on world and occupied with something productive…and hopefully he’d settle down enough to let her reduce the sentence further – and more importantly allow her to let Ha’Ona see him.

And that was what angered her more than anything - Jo wasn’t just hurting himself he was hurting Ha’Ona who was asking more questions about why she couldn’t see him despite feeling his presence on M’Tzigon, and Li was running out of excuses.

For that if nothing else he needed a slap around the ears.

“Changed you mind Joey?” Li called across as Mark grudgingly handed Jo his sabre, the use of his childhood nick name a last ditch attempt to sting him into backing down.

He just shook his head eyes focused.

Li rolled her shoulders, she’d given him every possible chance – the hard way it was.

<<<<>>>>

Jo’Set’Mack

The amethyst of Li’s sabre lit her eyeshadow and lip gloss a deeper hue of purple – her ‘Little vanity’ she called her makeup.

She thought she had him beat, she had no idea – every scrap of annoyance, rage and frustration he felt at being beaten by Valens twice was loaded into the chamber and about to fire straight at her.

“You’re a coward Li, you know what’s out there, what they did to Ho’Li and you’re doing nothing about it,” he taunted as they circled at the edge of the ring.  Normally a trail by combat would involve the master of blades, but considering Anne had joined his strike force that option wasn’t on the table

“If you think to redeem some honour by facing me yourself…” he held back a fake laugh

“You’re the coward Jo, running away from a hurt little girl who needs you,” her reply was laced with acid as she twirled her sabre in an Ataru flourish

“I was protecting her and you by taking the fight to that psychopath – you have no idea you’ve never seen what that thing is capable of, too busy flirting with your Vhal’Dan boyfriend to see the threat to the whole galaxy”

Li grimaced as her grip tightened annoyed he was making it personal – but how could it not be.

“Enough, quit stalling and come get your arse kicked!” she shouted back before the charge.

She came in low and swift, going for his legs, he kept to swift strafes and white burned against the sandy ground as their sabres met.  Li had a fast Ataru style that tended to a low guard when facing a physically larger opponent like Jo – she was also confident she could take him and didn’t want to hurt him seriously – she was fighting with limits – Jo wouldn’t.

As she burst out another flurry against his mid-section he quickly parried, his guardian blue sabre clashing the purple into retina staining burst of pink.  This was just toying with each other, probing, Li checking he didn’t have any new tricks from their last sparring session before…Before the Galaxy died to him with Ho’Li.

There would forever be before and after Vyth, for Jo, Li and the Mak’Tor, and whilst Jo might not have much more to offer in terms of technique, he did in the way of emotion.

He let her chip away at his guard as the first drops of sweat stained the shirt beneath his arms, his hair grown long in neglect soaking up the perspiration of his brow.

One-two-three, low, she kept up steady combos not touching the force yet as they shuffled about the makeshift ring in what would have looked more like a light sparring session to the few onlookers.

One-two-three, left - with every clash his mind recalled the motions of Valens, the few he had seen and actually comprehended, the fluid graceful moves like an Angel of the Maker…it filled his stomach with bile that such a murderer could possess such power, hit his very soul that the Maker would allow such creatures to walk the galaxy…

One two three low – for the Maker to permit in His supposed grace such crimes to occur – he kept defensive, Li was starting to get suspicious he was going to try something – oh she was right – but she would never be able to predict just what
 
One-two-three right – every trace of injustice he felt toward the Maker filled him like a cloying tar that filled his limbs…so powerful yet so weak, Free Will…where was Ha’Ona’s free will NOT to watch her mother die…You claim equality of Sentients yet the strong still rule…promise Justice and healing yet never show it here and now.

One-two-three LOW - “Frell the Maker,”

<<<<>>>>

Li’IMack

“Wha…” she couldn’t end her exasperated word as something changed – Jo’s eyes went black for a moment and he struck.

Her shoulders screamed as they almost popped out backwards against the strength of his blow, her feet almost swept out from under her by the tidal wave of ugly emotions that flooded her.

One the Sidelines Mark almost leapt to intervene, but having to respect the Trial by Combat stayed out of it.

She hadn’t realised just how far Jo had fallen.  With every hammer blow against her comparatively weaker grip she learnt her error, with every silent scream of pain he belted her backward.

Jo wasn’t just be a hard headed Mack, wasn’t experiencing grief sparked rage that would burn out – he was completely losing it – and she was taking the brunt of it.

<<<<>>>>

Jo’Set’Mack


With every blow, every stroke he felt himself growing stronger and stronger, Li was trying to twist out but he wouldn’t let her escape like he had let Valens get away twice.

It had taken two failures to realise that to destroy the Daemon you had to become one – so be it – Jo Set Mack had been a weak, pathetic fool pining for his lost sister, he wouldn’t be that Jo Set Mack Anymore – he’d be something better, stronger – a weapon that can destroy Valens and his apprentice.

Blue was smacking Purple toward the ground, Li starting to stumble under the strength of his blows.  She turned to her ally the Force and pushed the air out, his feet fumbled for a moment before the tar of his hatred firmed his stance – it was a weight of power the Master would tell him he needed to throw off – they were wrong –hatred wasn’t a dead burden – it was an armour, a shield and sword – only those who feared it left it behind – was Gray he wouldn’t turn from it, he would wield it.

<<<<>>>>

Li’IMack

What had he become…

She almost didn’t care about her own defeat, the one Jo was suffering was far worse…but what could she do…he was his own man, and if he won…

Li couldn’t let him win.  A quick riposte and telekinetic blast to his left opened up space for her to fall back and regroup, rising back up from her defensive crouch she drew the force into her limbs her mouth silently moving with a healing tune to keep her muscles from becoming over strained. 

Jo leered at her, his face distorted in a way that made her stomach drop – this was what hatred did, this was where revenge lead – it twisted the very soul, turned what was a good man into a monster who believed his cause was just.

“Come on coward!” he sneered, words hit like blaster bolts to her chest, the darkness that was overtaking him made them stick and drip on her – there was truth to them, she had all but abandoned any effort to seek out the murderers of Vyth after Soryu’s warning, it didn’t sit well with her, especially hearing the rumours of a Jedi defeat on Myrkr at those same hands – but the Mak’Tor couldn’t fulfil their oaths if they were dead. 

She was trying to avoid extinction by consolidating on M’Tzigon, Li knew others wouldn’t agree with her choice, but to see in her cousin’s face the vile produce of her decision not to act…

<<<<>>>>


Jo’Set’Mack

He struck forward, the force speeding his feet and creating an invisible shock wave that battered her back before she raised her blade just in time to keep his sabre from taking her arm at the shoulder.

Jo battered out his frustration from Sinkhole onto her high guard, bearing down with his height, dominating the space all around her, he pushed his disgrace on Nimban into her sternum with a barb of force energy, she staggered back and rolled, his blade slicing into the sand the pure energy superheating it into blackened glass.

She was on the edge of the circle scrambling, her healing tune getting audible under her heaving breath.

Jo smiled as his heart welled with the warmth of victory, first Li then Valens.

<<<<>>>>

Li’IMack

He looked crazed, utterly crazed – she needed to end this fast.  Her second wind already spent she quietly prayed for a third as his arms twitched with dark strength.

She knew what she was facing now – a being of pure emotion – and she knew how to face it –
She would balance rage with serenity,
Strength with dexterity
Ferocity with mercy
She would fight as a Gray should

Keeping her grip light she allowed him to close in, not resisting, he was a bulky tank, his dark turn had shocked her into a retreat but no more. 

Left foot up and forward she moved to meet him, sidestepping his downward blow she kicked out to turn his attention to the left, he strafed out, but she went back to his left, keeping him moving, his strength faltering against her dexterity, her movements precise almost text book – reasoned well timed moves kept her away from his emotion driven blows. 

The Trial by Combat was till incapacity, she had expected to knock him down easy, now she knew he would have to take a serious wound for her to win – to maim her cousin was a harrowing prospect – but in those eyes she didn’t see much of Jo’Set’Mack to feel guilty about harming.

Her speed frustrating his desire for a quick kill she twisted into his guard, he thrust forward but she got her blade over his and pushed in locking the glowing weapons, he pulled up hard to get out of the lock, the tip of her blade searing into the dirt, she wouldn’t budge until she wanted to. 

With a grunt he let out a sloppy force blast that ground their feet deeper into the sand, the movement useful for her plan she executed it – loosening her push she let him push her blade back up – opening her to his attack for a brief second that his rage denied him the clarity to take.

He was over doing every movement with dark strength he didn’t know how to use, her looser grip twirled her blade in a 180 around his and added to his pull, physics and bio-mechanics worked his wrist uncomfortably and his blade flipped from his hands.

<<<<>>>>

Jo’Set’Mack
That bitch!

As his blade loped off past the rings edge she twisted forward to strike, he sidestepped with the speed of darkness, her blade sheared the sweaty shirt and left a painful welt along his chest as his hand sprang out to grasp her throat and lift.
 
Immediately she turned her wrist to slice but in the distraction he slammed his mind into her sabre knocking it from her loose grip before pulling her off her feet.  She was too heavy to hold up by the throat with one hand for long – so he slammed her down.

Mike yelled from the sidelines as she curled up like a child at his feet, her arms up to protect her face as he raised his foot to kick.

Between her forearms he saw just a slice of her features – no Li – Ho’Li.  His foot stopped knee crooked back to boot her head like a razor ball.

“Enough!” Mike yelled rushing to his Kage
“You’ve won its over”

<<<<>>>>

Li’IMack

Gasping for air she barely heard the words of her Honour Guard.

It wasn’t truly over, but Mike wasn’t going to let it end properly, he valued Li’s life more than their traditions – she might reprimand him for it later – for now she couldn’t’ be more thankful.

Mike stood indomitable before Jo who looked more confused than happy at his victory, slowly her breath returned. 

She felt the dark poison of anger leaching off her cousin as the ‘crown’ of Kage twisted in her heart like a knife…Jo never needed help more…yet she couldn’t let him stay and infect others vulnerable to walking the same path.  Subconscious thoughts that exiling him after losing would look like spite rather than justice were drowned by the pounding of her heart

“Get out…” she rasped

“Get out and don’t come back.”

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Karmack
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Light side points please.


« Reply #184 on: January 17, 2019, 02:48:12 PM »

A point: You can win the Trial by Combat and be exonerated, but it doesn't necessarily clear you...   Jo'Set is falling, falling, falling.  He's essentially embraced the dark at this point.  To stubborn to give up his quest for vengence, to proud to admit he's made a mistake, and to stupid to know when he's done.

Ironically, he did win.   But only because he was further gone than Li'I thought.  If she'd known he was that far over the edge she would have been prepared to kill. 

And the Aethans...   Wow.  Quite the end to their fight wiht the Vong.  Probably saved the galaxy by convincing them that an alliance with the Sith Lord was a bad idea.  And uncovering a cult of the goddess among the Shamed Ones...  Sweet!   That was a nice touch.  :-)

And still, at every turn, it seems someone is trying to kill and/or enslave People.  No wonder they're so xenophobic!
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Master Singer of the Mak'Tor

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« Reply #185 on: January 17, 2019, 11:04:32 PM »

Chapter 45 — Unfit Offerings — Ecstasy
Xithar
Till now he had not lived.

A galaxy of colours, sounds, taste and smell was opened to him.  Works of Art he had purchased decades before were revealed in new glories as fresh eyes took in every stroke of the brush, every pixel of the digital art with unimaginable precision and read new meanings with multiple levels of cognition operating across the sculptures and tapestries.

Till now he had seen the galaxy only through a thick curtain of black, hands covered in unwieldy iron gloves, ears stuffed with glue.

Opera, Musicals flowed into his ears, thrumming notes he could not hear before in the pieces altered his perceptions, made him laugh and cry at the enhanced beauty.

Servants ran ragged trying to procure different foods to satisfy his curious new pallet, Captains overwhelmed by his demands for more and more pleasure slaves as he sought to experience every possible sensation his body was capable of.  He, or should he say She, was so glad of choosing the female clone…uh clone such an ugly word for a goddess…the new anatomy was incredible, the new experiences beyond words. 

Till now he had been simply the mortal Xithar a dead thing limited…now she was the Goddess Lucovis and knew true life.

Everything was so extraordinarily enhanced, so….beyond…just beyond!  Lucovis poured money into ordering with expedited shipping the finest perfumes, oils, clothes, courtesans, catamites, indulging the carnal pleasures. 

The tomes and scrolls from the Almas fortress filled her thirst for knowledge and understanding, read in mere moments by eyes that saw so many more wavelengths, multiple cortices that learnt and understood with astonishing speed.

She took all the best pit fighters he could find and relished the sensations of combat. the pleasure of tasting blood that slapped onto her naked body as she tore through skin and scale with her bare teeth.

An Apogee was reached as she tore into a Basilisks’ heart with one hand, the rich scent of arterial blood mingling with feminine pheromones that put his Falleen ones to shame, as she bit down on a rich sweetened chocolate while Lucovis favourite Sephi lapped between her thighs. 

A combination of reproductive and combat hormones had exploded through Lucovis body, involuntarily blasting all around him away in a wave of telekinetic pleasure – slaves and prostitutes they might be, but under the auspices of her own desire they became as hypersexual as Bobo the Bith. 

Xithar existed now as a mere tool for serving Lucovis needs – for it was not a want it was a need – a Goddesses needed to be served, adored, pleasured!  The Falleen body Lucovis had enjoyed so much was now simply dull and unimpressive.

The Vigo continued the operations of running the Black Sun – but now decisions were made by Lucovis.  A mere half an hour of thought was all it took for Lucovis superior neural networks to pry out a course to turn Hondo’s exquisite murder into Xithar taking control of Black Sun.

The Video of Hondo being ravaged by his slaves had been decoded by Lucovis in an instant.

One figure in the video was the so called Sith of Cygrat, four levels of conscious thought rapidly pieced together small scraps of memory, tiny pieces of evidence into a cohesive narrative and causative model based on her knowledge of the key actors –another pleasure to revel in the thrill intellectual triumph. 

The Sith of Cygrat was one of Valens and Milaea’s kind, working with the Sons – Boos would follow them to finish off the abolitionists and prove his right to be Vigo after Hondo – all Boos would find was the wrathful face of the Demi-Gods under whose gaze he would wither.

Like a Goddess playing dejarik across the Galaxy she twisted this to her will, having Xithar ask Jyx to join with Boos, planting Tsen and the Ubese Goush midst the throng as well - Boos would fail, Jyx would say him, then Tsen would say Jyx with Goush providing back up – in one fell swoop two more Vigo’s territories would be appended to Xithars own.

Yet this was not all…her spies had informed her of the Jedi adventures with their Mando’a hirelings on Uba…in  their mad pursuit to restore their battered reputation they would no doubt reach the same point…a confluence of Fate that served on Her Celestial Will.

In a flurry of motion Lucovis hands typed out nearly 15,000 messages to various under lords, gang masters and politicians all set to be sent precisely when the other events came to fruition to secure his dominance over half the galaxies Black Sun operations.

Xithar continued meanwhile to procure more and more slaves, artworks and toys for Lucovis amusement - forcing the painters to redecorate the ceilings while Lucovis was still engaged with a dozen prostitutes, dancers lined the walls, air filled with the richest incense they could steal from the shipments that filtered through Or Mirit to Coruscant. 

Oh people complained about him taking too much from the shipments, but Xithar soon showed them their place as servants to the Goddess of the Sublime and Profane.

Till now He had not lived –
Now She would never die.

<<<<>>>>
Lucovis
This was how it felt to be a God.

To have every sense simultaneously stimulated, ones mind and body covered in the red bliss of pleasure. To ride the wave of ecstasy without end or limit.

To hold dominance over the lesser mortals that licked her body, fed her the most opulent of foods, begged to suckle her refuse.

To revel in every sensation, to have every whim catered to by fanatical devotees. 

To see above, below and through all events that surrounded you, their causes, effects, opportunities and challenges with such clarity she could manipulate the entire Black Sun onto a path that would see her come to dominate it and then large swathes of Hutt Space and the Republic within mere months…just a little time…

Time…Time that was so much longer now…

Her advanced synapses operated six times faster – Xithar, a genius by any measure, could think at 4500 words per minute – Lucovis regularly breached 30,000. 

Watching the Holo News reports of the Jedi crackdown at Uba IV had been painful – boring, dragging…dragging, dragging!  Waiting for the disaster at Vulpter to realise itself in four dimensional space an itch she couldn’t scratch! 

A Goddess should not have to wait for her Will to be realised! And this Goddess was becoming bored…

Novelties were running out, she had raped, killed, eaten almost every conceivable creature she could lay her dominance upon, enacted every heinous Sith rite –memorized every Tome in the Almas Fortress, through a dark séance that was paid with the blood of three dozen slaves whom she had worn to exhaustion with her lust she had scrawled a vision of the future in blood upon the ceilings and walls of the Hedonist that detailed in utter precision how she could come to dominant the galaxy if she chose.

But she needed resources…A Goddess should Not be limited by the crude matter of reality…

The sensations of pleasure became rote and predictable… yet tantalizingly painful in their teasing…

There was more sensation to be had…but the pathetic lumps of flesh that served her were incapable of helping her attain the true heights of her physical forms potential ecstasies. 

She needed other Gods to indulge her passions with - True equals to her resplendence, perfected bodies to conjoin with, new pheromones to suckle, other minds to engage and converse with at hyperactive speed.

Dragging the broken corpses of the gladiators she indifferently slaughtered to the altars she tried to make them into Gods like her…

They fell to pieces – twisted and exploded outward in messes of flesh and bone no matter how she manipulated the flesh, regardless of the tomes she had mastered and advanced upon she could not replicate some secret to the melding of Flesh and Force that made the biology work, the flesh dissolved into slurry or turned to ash under her increasingly impatient ministrations. 

Then…then disaster befell her fully.


A signal from the Demagol…the ship where all the machinery and samples from the Clones were stored…

It blinkered for 12 second…12 Seconds in which her lightning fast hands sent a hundred orders for her thralls to move and recover the device…

Then the signal Died.  Too quickly for her best infocytes to trace, the tracking devices disabled…

Reaching out in the Force she sought Sicara…

But found nothing…A blankness where he had been and no clue as to where he was now…

A pain the likes of which Lucvois had never known overwhelmed her as she broke before the bone and fat strewn altar – she was frustrated…unfairly still subject to the laws of finite resources…

The Demi-Gods…the others made in her image…or was it she in theirs?…it was the only explanation – they were getting ever closer to finding Her before she was ready…and without Sicara…it would take Forsaken TIME to build the devices needed to generate new bodies…yet she couldn’t even manage that!

Clawing up she slapped the broken failed body from the altar hammering a dent into the wall as it struck. 

“Wretched mortal clay!…I need…I need ambrosia…essence of Gods…”

But where…more clones…no more were on Kamino, the useless Morgukai had failed to capture the second batch…Uvex on route to Lexrul had a different part to play….Once again she was foiled by the failure of petty mortals.

Her hands in idle boredom fell still coated in blood to her abdomen…there within four ovaries full of potential…even so it would take WEEKS to build a new generation chamber now the Demagol was lost and even then she didn’t have anywhere near enough Wyrms left to power the Alchemically induced growth necessary

And the Demi-Gods were getting too close…

Thought flew like electrical charge through her synapses scrying out the future, the past, the present for what to do to end her suffering, to plot a way to create herself in NEW bodies, a dozen bodies to make herself…a…

A Pantheon…ONE God in A Dozen Bodies!

But a dozen bodies the same as her no…no…no…she needed more…variation…the clones were all gone…the samples lost….

The only option was…the adults…Valens, Milaea and the others she knew existed If not their names…

But how does one chain a demi-God long enough to extract their gametes…

Her fists clenched and sparked even as her Sephi continued to lap between her thighs….

Lucovis hadn’t even realized she had left the laboratory and was now in the main harem…her body moved without conscious effort it seemed as her plotting sped along.

 She couldn’t be without some stimulation now – like a drug Lucovis was habituated to a high level of activation and needed it maintained to not fall into the Hell of Tranquillity.  Once more being denied her Right as a Goddess by the limits of resources…

“A Goddess knows know limits but her own WILL!” she screeched in a voice that sent the Sephi reeling, blood trickling from her purple pointed ears as discarded metal sex toys curled and crimped under her annoyance.

A Goddess existence should be pure pleasure, expanding to new and greater heights every moment…yet how far she was from that pained her…and a ”Goddess should not know pain or struggle or limitation.”

“How will I live…how will I live…” she cried as the reality of her limitations broke the wave of divine joy she had been riding…

“I neeed…I need…”  she rapidly grabbed the coughing Sephis head and pushed it back into her crotch

“Continue!”

Her mood gradually stabilised as her conscious thoughts mingled to devise a way to obtain the ambrosia she needed to keep from starving to death.

“They will come of their own accord they still seek Xithar - but they will come in force, angered they will not see the Truth of my divinity and bow

Apotheosis is the end goal of all evolution I must move toward it NOW NOW NOW

There’s more pleasure to be had…I need it I need it…

A Gods hand cannot be chained, but they are not true Gods…

I need more wyrms…raw power to create new bodies

A dozen bodies a Pantheon of eternal pleasure….Yessss….

Don’t chain their hands ruin their minds…

Fear, the Wyrms feed on fear, what greater fear than the Fear of the Demi-Gods themselves!

their mind lost in pain, I take the pleasure of their boides …

But there is risk…in their numbers they could destroy me…I need soldiers to restrain their thrashing bodies - and ARMY of Daemons to fight the Gods when they come for ME!

Explode Terror across the skies, fill the wyrms with the Nightmares of a Dozen Gods and a Billion Mortals…they will come to Ord Mirit…there…there I awaken the Doom of their dreams

And the others…the Jedi will sense my Joy…but if they are there…They follow the Demi-Gods…all together in one moment…

more more more….uh..unghhh….”

Lucovis mind stretched forward as the pressure within her body built to a climax, lines of fate, call them Ley Lines, Daen-nosi, Thread of the Graeae…it converged and twisted as she plotted out across the stars how to achieve her Apotheosis as a Pantheon with her resources, where to place every piece, to gently pluck every string to create the Symphony of her Te Deum

Vectivus, Valens, Yoda, Jo’Set’Mack, Milaea, Kuun Carr, Oma, Soryu…all would serve Her dominance. 

The waves of pleasure moved in time with her pulsing thoughts, the impatience building with every moment…till finally…

She opened her eyes as the climax rolled over her, creaking the support columns behind her command Throne where she now inexplicably sat – thought, vision intent translated into action seamlessly without the need for effort – stars streaked past an instant later into hyperspace already following the Path of making her Heaven reality.

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Karmack
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Light side points please.


« Reply #186 on: January 17, 2019, 11:19:41 PM »

Um...    I think Lucovis is mad....    ;-)
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« Reply #187 on: January 18, 2019, 12:00:33 AM »

Um...    I think Lucovis is mad....    ;-)

Well she was created only weeks before from 10 clone aethan infants using sith alchemy and vong bio tech and mentally melded to a hedonistic Black sun vigo who knows the Aethans (and the Jedi if they ever find out…) are out to kill him…I’d say she’s remarkably lucid considering…
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Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
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Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #188 on: January 21, 2019, 10:52:32 PM »

Chapter 46 — Falling Down — Archangel
Part 1
Milaea
Teeth gritted she felt her muscles tense…too much…her hand gripped too hard and clamped down on the plasteel breaking it into flowering curls between her fingers.

Tossing the broken toy across the room she reverted to more manual means, despising her advanced cognition which kept careful count of the number of times she’d gone through these motions since leaving Nar Shadda.

No matter how high the flood of hormones brought her body…her soul and mind remained weighed down, encumbered by the cycling images of her mother and aunt, set to the tune of Xithars too convincing philosophy and the broken feeling of recalling her own actions that were more Sith than she had ever realised. 

Was this what is was to fall – not to make a single fatal choice – though surely she had done that on Vyth – but to look back on an accumulation of small violence’s and self-serving decisions along the road of good intentions and realise just how deep into the pits you were? 

“It is such a quiet thing to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it,” she recalled from the sayings of Kreia…a book she should never have read, as Nar Sahdda was a place she had never have gone…nor Bimmiel…nor Vyth…

The chime sounded half an hour to real space translation. Lexrul…another place she shouldn’t be going to. 

Why was she going there? To destroy the Sith apprentice so that the Sith Master would give up the last of the stolen clones – so she could kill them too and then Xithar himself? How did any of that make sense? Why hadn’t she killed him then and there – rent the knowledge from his mind.

And why was she after these clones…a distant dream of thinking if she found them fast she could avoid her visions of the Oblivion Army coming true? Protect the Galaxy from her People’s insatiable rage…

Is that even possible? she sneered sitting back up as her blood flow returned to normal and the afterglow of her hormone and pheromone flood settled into her cheeks.

They were barbaric farm folk with no greater concern than their own survival – even now somewhere she could feel Valens killing something, Kiraea enraged at something else…even Adaea was trying to put an arrow in somethings face.

And so her thoughts rounded back to Xithar – what WAS the purpose of any action if not your own survival and pleasure?

Why bother saving the galaxy if it didn’t yield her pleasure – for as her mind shredded against its vicious cycles and her soul was burdened with growing guilt proved this whole Quest was doing nothing but causing her pain.

And yet she didn’t flinch from it…was a deeper more primitive part of her enjoying this, the remnants of Aethena that lusted for blood and sex, sex and blood as she had fallen into – pleasuring herself all the way to Bimmiel – bathing in the Cultists blood - then again all the way to Nar Shadda – glorying in her hate as she tore the Mansion apart then feeling more than a little pride as she incinerated the Gen’Dai…and now…

Her bed was soaked with the pheromones of pleasure, on Lexrul would come the blood.

She enjoyed it
She hated it…

Like a drug addict returning for another fix – shoot it up straight to the heart to kill the thoughts and emotions in a sea of pink and red pleasure. And she was going in for more…ideas of saving the galaxy and the People mere justifications for taking pleasure in death. 

She wanted to blame all of this on the echoes of Aethena within her…but as the small figurine of Aethenaea glared at her she Knew Herself to be the one doing all this not some ghost.

Scraping herself from the moist bedding she felt the pressures of her churning thoughts and emotions that the sex hadn’t removed bear down upon her…perhaps the blood would lift their burden.   

<<<<>>>>

Maeson

Maeson was a simple farmer, most at home on his farm with the Gormin rumbling just outside in the barn, the Kyala Fruits ripening in the orchard and his family peaceful on the beds around the hearth of the long house. 

He was very far from that life now, knew many different things, engineering, piloting, quantum mechanics…these were things of the real world, things you could touch and manage like the crops and livestock…simple things.

The bizarre swirl of emotions, thoughts, pain and pleasure coming from Milaea’s sealed off room he didn’t understand – these were not simple things he could fix like a cart or a plough. He kept the Goddesses closely if quietly, he knew there were Rites being performed in that room he had no business questioning or interfering with, but it felt wrong even out here. 

This was women’s sacred business.  He could do nothing to interfere…
He needed to get one of the older women here and soon.

<<<<>>>>

Uvex


***See Chapter 21 for Uvex Creation***

 “Can I help…oh!” the receptionist looked stunned at Uvex beauty, her cheeks turning green as she vomited in sheer joy to behold Uvex divine form.

Zhe rewarded such recognition by touching skin to skin, peeling off her imperfect face, then allowing her to become part of zher majesty by consuming her as zher unique anatomy feasted in a different way through her body.

The fresh meat filled Uvex with joy – the sensations unique and exhilarating, to taste a thousand different proteins and fats that comprised the human female in each rich mouthful. 

Zhe took the meal to the chair at the back of the office and feasted while zhe waited.

<<<<>>>>

Milaea

He was pathetically easy to find.  Publicly listed information on Lexrul Mining Corp. holo-site about the Jonex mine near Bimmiel was enough to find the name of the director when it had closed down on a Business Conditions update released to the Core Stock Exchange.

Krennic – Galdin Krennic of Lexrul, an urban planet in the mid rim.  Current residence was publically listed on the Sativran city Comm’s Book.  This was a Sith apprentice so ordinary and innocuous he had no public face other than that which he was born with. 

Now rather than director he was Chief Executive of Lexrul Mining, his name appeared in business and finance publications as a moderately wealthy, tough but fair businessman.  His ventures were always met with success…not excessive, enough to seem the result of hard work rather than unnatural foresight.

“I’ll take it in.” she shoved the walking muscle sack aside

“Perhaps we should leave…go back home to rest or…”

She silenced him with a look – the country bumpkin Maeson would never argue with a female - he manipulated himself without her needing to try.

Orbital control had difficulty with their ship…it didn’t appear on their scanners she had to boost the transponder signal for it to pick up – an irrelevance on lawless Nar Shadda – here she needed to register the flight path and purpose of the “Gentle Goral’s” visit…they didn’t like giving out true names of things, one of their superstitions…there was a logic to it that Krennic would soon learn.

Sativran City was one of the larger cities of Lexrul, largely upper and middle class, the kind of citizens for whom places like Nar Shadda and the deep core were mere curiosities to be used as settings in fictional dramas, and wars and slavery things that had stopped happening generations ago, and even then had only occurred somewhere ‘over there’.

Cruising into a high rise space port amidst the glistening skyscrapers with varying hues of dark blue and green trasnparisteel, she simply stopped thinking about all the issues that burdened her and focused on the simple task of finding and disposing of Krennic – ignoring the reasons why and why not that would only confuse her.

Milaea almost laughed…so much like Vyth…don’t think just follow orders, hold the Orders line, follow the wisdom of the Grand Master be he Sith or Jedi. And she had done so.

Finally landed, she stepped out alone, when the farmer tried to follow she glared him back into the ship.

“Stay here,” like a domesticated animal he dropped his head in obedience.

<<<<>>>>

No one in Lexrul mining tower cared for the fact she was fully armoured and armed, just as no one on the mono rail there had – her illusions and aetheric attention diversion methods kept anyone from even knowing she was there. 

Only one being noticed…another being in a disguise Milaea had never heard of - a being for whom the aether was an irrelevance as he scratched at the Ooglith Masquer that itched in his pores form wearing it for so long.

<<<<>>>>

Even in the Turbo lift with half a dozen other sentients as she made her way to Level 126 the Executive Offices of Lexrul Mining of the 300 storey building she went unnoticed.  She wondered if it were she who was invisible or they…

The petty little mortals who were so insignificant that they could not see her – was this what it was to be a Goddess, to be seen only by those worthy by virtue of their power to see her glory as she kept herself aloof from others trivial gaze.

Finally the doors opened and she swept out past confused being who didn’t know why they were moving out the way.

This shouldn’t be difficult – even if he sensed her coming he was unlikely to be armed – a few holdout weapons perhaps, doubtful any more armour than a nano-suit beneath business attire.

She cruised past the empty receptionist desks, most likely out to lunch based on the time, the large grey doors parting by motion sensor to reveal a spares office, wide light blue carpets, the walls with images of mining facilities on a dozen worlds, a small lounge area.

At the back against the light-active trasnapristeel that was tinted dark to keep out the reflected midday sun that bounced from the other sheened building was a wide semi-circular desk with the high back chair turned round to face the window.

She ignited her sabre, a jolt of pleasure flowed as the familiar snap-hiss echoed in her ears and amethyst light cast dark shadows on her red armour.

“Darth Vectivus…” the chair began to turn, for a brief moment she saw in the features the hideous yellow-green face of the Emperor of the Future she had seen. 

Instead it was if anything even more disgusting –a face…androgynous with masculine chin and feminine cheek bones, half etched adult - half teenager.

Eyes that glowed slightly blue, hovered over a mouth that was wet with blood…on its lap was the ravaged body of a woman…visible chew and penetration marks across her form and the most monstrous aetheric presence, dotted with…holes…she had ever felt.

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
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Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #189 on: January 21, 2019, 10:57:12 PM »

Chapter 46 — Falling Down — Archangel

Part 2

Uvex

Zher smile broadened at the face of an unexpected enemy…the Red Master had said another would come for Vectivus who took the face name ‘Galdin Krennic” it seemed they had both had the same idea. 

Nonetheless this little thing would be an excellent appetizer, a chance to test zhis new body against a worthy foe rather than the receptionist and petty passenger’s zhe had slaughtered and feasted upon on the way from the Corporate sector. 

Zhe leapt up, sending the desk flying into her perfect twist that sliced the heavy stone piece apart with purple energy.  Immediately blue lighting tore across the room igniting the carpet as telekinetic hammers bounced off zhis kinetic shield – she became a dozen forms at once, but zher new found powers soon dispelled the illusion as zher newly ignited blades slammed into a mid-guard.

The pleasure was already flooding zher.

Uvex had been afraid before the transition to the new body, his – as zhe was then a male – trust in the Red Master wavering as he saw the implements of transition – but now zhe saw the glory of the change zhe had undergone – a new body, a new perfection that defied conventional concepts of beauty, that transcended the lines of male and female into a new pulsing anatomy built for strength and pleasure.

Zhe twisted into the battle as the thin carpet burnt out, hammering both sabres with force unimaginable a mere month ago, telekinetic strikes precise and defined as a surgeons tools Uvex could not have perfected with years of practice before came naturally.  Zher body sheathed in electrical energy from the overflow of brilliance.

The woman in red struggled back, unprepared for such an assault…zhe tasted her scent…oh how zhe would enjoy her corpse with zher new tools of pleasure before consuming her.

<<<<>>>>

Milaea


‘Monster’ did not do this thing justice - perversion was almost a term of endearment for such a being. 

It was malformed beyond description, half adult half bulky teen, its body wrapped in metals fitted by the aether beneath a black robe wet with blood form its cannabilistic feast.

As she hammered back its red sabres and bounced the telekinetic blast away she tentatively tried to touch its mind to assault it on the mental level…

She nearly vomited –

Dropping her guard for a moment it cut one gouge in her pauldron before Milaea could recover.  It was a sickly amalgam of five nascent souls never given the chance to live beneath a sixth that was convinced of its own Divine beauty. 

Retreating back against its heavy handed flourishes she struggled to counter its wild variance in strength – the right hand was weaker and shorter than the left, but the right leg was stronger than the left – the imbalance made its attacks bizarre – like a Jedi Master half drunk on a broken hover board – so freakish it was effective.

Yet this was not the most disgusting thing about it…this had the blood…the muscles…speed, neurobiology of People within it. 

People…five nascent children…this Monster was the product of the clones…Xithar…the sick frelling bastard… not killing him now another regret to add to the list.

Twisting around she tried to get to its distorted left side that it swayed toward with a slight hump on its back that felt dead in the aether – this thing was made of more than just People - Sith alchemy and something…something even sicker.

The lighting coursing on its body curled round her suppressive field, she needed to end this fast.  Darting out her shikkars it blasted three instantly, two bounced off a kinetic shield as their sabres met just before her right shin, the sixth got through but its speed in twisting avoided penetration to leave just a deep slash in its cheek.

<<<<>>>>


Uvex

Vile! Vile imperfect witch to strike zher thus – unworthy to even face zher grandeur.

Uvex effortlessly tripled the intensity of zher attack catching the red woman off guard bashing her back with heavy blows saved only by the unique armour that seemed able to take numerous sabre blows.  Zher telekinetic hammers struck home against her shield, the backwash of energy clashing began to rock the floor and walls – the torrents of lighting began to sear the ceiling and ferrocrete beneath the burnt carpet with black holes.

Soon…soon zhe would show zher full glory.

<<<<>>>>

Milaea

Fighting fire with fire she blasted lighting back, trying to grip one of its feet in a telekinetic vice and dragging time itself back around its form to slow it. 

Against any other opponent except perhaps Yoda or Valens this would’ve ended it – but she was not fighting a single enemy but a vile accumulation of five People and a Sith.

Purple and red blades thrust and twirled in flourishes, slashes and cuts as the aether tore itself apart with physical sledgehammers and mental needles. 

The power drain was starting to even tire her, the floor was beginning to crack and warp, the walls were already flaking away.

Mentally pivoting her blasters up she fired from the hip holsters, her bolts hit to the dark metal of the chest paid for with an elbow to her ribs followed through with a sparking blades across her shin armour.  Intent burgeoning in her mind she detached her blasters and spun them off before the monster overloaded them into blue-white detonations that fractured deep holes in load bearing columns.

This was an enemy that would not wear out, that would not tire or fatigue from excessive aetheric usage. Her only recourse was better balance and a more refined form against it gangly twisted body.

Low Makashi parried its downward strikes with white hot clashes of connecting blades that lit the room now that all the office lights had been blasted apart. 

They were dancing in a sea of lighting – waves of energy trying to breach to the shores of their bodies countered in a swirling morass by other tsunamis of energy.

She went high with Niman form – balanced, moderate, everything this hybrid abomination lacked in it distorted blows. Chaos would be met with Order.  Its weaker right hand faltered against the blow as she strafed the stronger left – this was where she would focus, forcing the imbalance to advantage herself. This was Sofa’s style, controlled and steady…Sofa…she hadn’t thought about her since…

She couldn’t be distracted, a blow came too close to her helm as the inner walls dissolved into fragmented pieces under the releases of the aether. 

Milaea detached her two grenades and moved them along the ground to the left – it forced the atrocity to deal with them – its mind slightly moved to distraction her balanced form paid off, hammering a cut into its chest, pausing in the follow through to jab her sabres pommel into the metal with shatter point precision that turned it to fragments and sent it staggering back on uneven legs. 

As the grenade detonated as sent searing plasma sparks into the air they gained a gap staring at each other, God eyeing Monster.

It thought it was perfect, she would show it how wrong it was.  It doubled its strength once more, she matched its every attempt to overwhelm with steady consistent blows. – Mid-thigh, lower-leg, right-shoulder scoring hit after hit as its randomness resolved into frenzy.

<<<<>>>>

Uvex

Bitch! Tralk! It would die…it offended! Uvex gripped the struts above and below…this would show zher power!

<<<<>>>>

Milaea

Its defences dwindled she sliced through another piece of its armour – she now had 35% of its vile pink blotched pallid flesh exposed.

The ground…no floor beneath her shifted…the ceiling.

She dove to the side covering herself with the aether as the floor above her collapsed down and the floor below pushed up trying to crush her – people, consoles, filing cabinets fell through the gash as the monster laughed manically and the transapriteel window finally cracked open – high altitude winds blowing in.

The building – it was…twisting…their fight had…what had she done by being so free with the aether!

No time to think as it charged back she shook off the worry and returned to her strategy, its frustration evident as its eyes blazed out more energy randomly, vaporizing the office workers unlucky enough to have fallen with the collapse.

She pushed back just as hard, determined to end this thing. Its unbalanced flourishes began to become predictable, she sidestepped the heavy left blow, parried the weaker right, then with simple composure crouched and used a simple pushing slash- and aetheric tug, a swift slice diagonally right to left and an aetheric push.

The stench of burnt meat stemmed from its chest, its left hand dropped its blade as it looked down on the cauterized gash. 

The entire building shook as it bellowed out a scream of half a dozen lives about to end, it rent everything – everything – rubble, bodies, and most dangerously support columns from their moorings, ferrocrete broke, durasteel snapped and flew toward her in a hurricane as it charged mouth agape showing distended ill-fitting teeth in three rows.

The universe slowed as she gracefully moved through the blizzard of projectiles coming up under its fist to turn round in the scattered dust and smoke to slice its head clean from its neck, her excess lighting channelling into the meaty gash to incinerate the body. 

She paused only briefly as her spine electrified with danger – above her the building cracked and buckled as 176 floors began to fall.

Her hand jutted up pushing the aether to keep it from collapsing as the monsters empty robe flew off into the wind.

Thousands of lives, millions of tonnes pressed upon her…knees crushed down into the floor as she pushed up…trying to hold the weight…the weight of her guilt, her pain, her grief, her fear, the future, the past, the People, the Galaxy, the Jedi, the Sith

How did it all get so heavy?
She used to stand up so tall….


Teeth gritted as they had hours before, in pain now not pleasure, her shoulders began to twist down, back arched forward. 

It was too much – the burden of the future, the weight of the past.
 
There's only so much she can carry.

She had to let it fall.     


<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
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Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #190 on: January 29, 2019, 09:24:33 PM »

Chapter 47 — Falling Down — I Was an Angel
Part 1
Milaea
She fell.

No…she had already fallen…she just hadn’t admitted it to herself yet.

She was falling physically now too, that was the only difference.

Deep instinct took over, red energy crackled around her body forming a cocoon that was both warm and terrifying.

Something jolted her as she stared up into the plumes of dust and rubble that jetted from the building and joined her in the fall.

Piece by piece chunks of ferrocrete hammered onto her cocoon, slowly the dust followed, then bodies…more and more till bit by bit like a mosaic slowly stifling the light till it was fully obscured.

Finally Milaea rested in a dark cave of her own creation that echoed with the screams of the dead, the wounded and the living around her.

She sat in silence in her tomb. 

…….

She could stay here…

If she did nothing she could do nothing wrong. 

She couldn’t hurt herself or others anymore…if she let this bury her…it could bury all the pain she carried with her.

Here in the quiet she could die in silence…or so she hoped.

Her thoughts would not let her be…her pained limbs refused to rest. 

Eyes reopened to see…a face she never wanted to see again, that she desperately wanted to forget.

The light green skinned Twi’lek smiled with knowing eyes

“I understand…I know what’s it like to have something in you…a part of you…you don’t understand…to be afraid of it,” Odjina said…had said on Vyth…was saying on Lexrul?

“And yes there were times I hurt others because I couldn’t control my power…and sometimes…” his eyes dipped in shame that mirrored her own,
“Sometimes intentionally I would lash out in my anger…even at Ha’Ona…but she stuck with me, she told me that acceptance and patience was my lesson to her…and I believe in reciprocating that lesson,”

She wanted to speak to say something to him…but what was there to say?

Not say…do…something to do…

As she stood the rubble shifted with her unconscious telekinetic effort.

She felt heavy…weak as she wandered through the crowds of emergency crews and dust covered office workers.

No one seemed to notice her -just another lost soul amongst the carnage. 

Her throat constricted, she needed to breath…sitting on a pile of rubble she took off her helmet – the dust choked air seemed somehow more refreshing than the clean filtered oxygen of her suit.

For a while she simply watched the people move past, heard the screams of the emergency hovercars trying to lift people from the rubble, hand held scanners of crews climbing the rubble trying to detect survivors.
“Here, drink this,”

A middle aged man with a fatherly smile and dust filled greying hair proffered a water bottle. 

She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was till she took it and drank it all in one gulp.

“You need some more?”

She shook her head.  He looked around, he was dressed in a smart but modest business suit, scuffed in the disaster.

“Not much more I can do I’m afraid…” he sat beside her staring out at the disaster

“More than anyone can bear…”

Something clicked in her mind in that moment

“You’re him aren’t you…you’re Vectivus,”
He nodded,

“I am,”

Her hand fell to her sabre as he remained impassive.

“I can’t fight you, I’m no match, unarmed and ill equipped.  I won’t resist.” He said looking about the carnage.

Fingers touching the hilt she slowly lifted them off.

“Lucovis…Xithar…” Vectivus began “Gets into your head…makes you see things you are, things you have done in ways that suit him…and creates conflict within yourself…everyone is vulnerable…” he turned to face her

“But especially someone already bearing the weight of guilt and grief as you are…”

She didn’t look at him, just stared at the cracked ruin of a tower occasionally dropping another load of rubble from the side.

“He didn’t blame you know…neither did she…none of them”

She gave him a sad quizzical look

“Odjina…Ho’Li…” he smiled again with a fathers comforting gaze. “They understood what you didn’t, you were a child, forced to make a decision no one should…”

He paused pulling out a wallet, a holpict inside of two young men and a woman a little younger all with the same eyes.

“My three children…all older than you are…much as I love them…I wouldn’t ever rely on them to make that kind of choice”

“I still did it…” she whispered

He placed a hand on her shoulder, she didn’t react.

“When did you make your lightsabre…fourteen, fifteen?  A weapon capable of killing, in the hand of a teenager…They call it a padawan…” for the first time he broke out of his caring paternal tone.

“I call it by its true name – a child soldier, brainwashed from birth by dogmatic perverts that claim to serve peace and justice…You were a victim as well Milaea – confused and used by the Jedi …Odjina and Ho’Li saw that…once you do too all this weight, this pain you’re carrying will be gone.”

His hate of the Jedi was palpable…his solution inviting and easy…like Lucovis his words held a logic to them…what kind of organisation puts weapons in children’s hands like the Jedi, teaches them to be as doctrinaire or self-denying, forced them to make such decisions at such a young age – if any other company or organisation tried it they would be shut down as child abusers by…in Galactic scale irony…the Jedi themselves.

“So that’s it…the fact it was my blade…my hands doesn’t matter?” the act she was even asking she quickly realised meant to her it already did matter.

He had such a fatherly look…he reminded her a lot of Soryu…she wondered idly if this was some kind of aetheric trick to make her trust him...but she recalled the Sith holocron she had found beneath the Temple – over centuries it had realized the limits of a philosophy of pursuing power and dominance, corrupting and twisting – perhaps Vectivus had learned the same.

“There was never a time…” he explained carefully “When you were free to choose apart from the influence of everything around you…pressured by Kimar’s teachings, muddled by your feelings for Ho’Li, troubled by your Masters recent injuries, struggling to deal with the visions you were having, and your only support…Valens…a xenophobic psychopath who thought falsely you were an adult capable of making choices as he had been forced to at the same age – his pain blinding him to the stark differences…”

She began to wonder how he knew all this…what technique or ability gave him such piercing insight.

“Your own voice was shouted down by the whirlwind of chaos around you…how much of what you did, what you thought that day was really you? And how much was the indoctrinated child soldier the Jedi wanted you to be?”

Vectivus anger was directed to the Jedi…he truly despised them…not because of their history with the Sith, but his belief that they were dogmatic kidnappers…she couldn’t fault him on either charge.  He was so much like Xithar…so much truth that felt so good to just accept in his words, yet tinged with a blackness.

He was right about one thing…she had been confused then not really knowing what or why she was doing things she did and unable to truly bear the consequences once done – and she was confused now – she had no time…no time to think and reflect – since as far back as Cygrat.

“I…I don’t know…” she answered honestly

This was all a huge mistake...coming here…pursuing the Clones…she just couldn’t make the hard choices and take the irreversible actions and live with herself after wards.

She was not a Jedi, not a Goddess…just…a confused scared little girl out of her depth. 

All the confidence she thought she had, all the self-assurance she’d thought she’d gained passing the trials, taking on Kiraea and Valens on Coruscant…it was illusionary, a façade built of who she wanted to be, trying to fake it till it became real. 

Now…she Knew Herself…she wasn’t what or where, or who she wanted to be or even who she thought she was.

She blinked against the dust irritating her eyes as Vectivus stood up.  He had defeated her, finished what Xithar had started by savaging the tattered remnants of the person that was Milaea.

“You should go home, take time to think…leave this behind…”

She knew she couldn’t…if Xithar could make monsters like the one she had just fought…the galaxy was in danger…but she was in no state to stop him, and was not even sure if she truly cared or if she just wished she cared about the Fate of the galaxy.

“You do care Milaea…” Krennic said

“That’s our common fault…” he looked over the wreckage as a struggling woman was lifted out her neck quickly put into a brace.

“…If Xithar gets his way…this is the first work of demolition to clear the way for him to turn the galaxy into a pool that reflects his own hedonistic insanity…”

“And you…want me to kill him…your master…make you the top Sith” two could play at the game of reading thoughts as she choked back the motes that assailed her throat.

“The Sith need to change – the Black Sun isn’t the way to further the evolution of our Order – it simply feeds vain appetites by destroying others – that is not the galaxy I want to leave to my children…With your Peoples genetic prowess Lucovis is now beyond my power to stop – only the true Gods can destroy such a Monster”

“I…I can’t do it…”

He smiled once more, she sensed no deception, but then if he were truly a Sith Lord she wouldn’t would she?

“You don’t need to…the rest of you Pantheon will see to that.” He glanced back over the steaming ruin as fire retardants were poured on from high above.

“You’ve fallen yes…but to fall is not the horrific failure the Jedi would tell you…it is shattering the illusions and manipulations of the Jedi, the Sith, the Republic, even your Peoples ethnocentric ideals - hands that held up and pushed your limbs into actions you didn’t truly want to take…now all that is left is you – from now on you bear responsibility for what you choose to make of yourself.”

She didn’t bother raising the inherent conflict in his outlook – that he argued all choices were taken under duress of myriad environmental influences, yet now said one could be free of those influences that had shaped her since birth.

Who was she without those influences?

This was too much at once.

He walked slowly away through the confusion that still reined about them.  Whatever his intention with his words, she knew it was for his benefit in the end, like Xithar he was a manipulator….and she was vulnerable enough to fall for it. 

Her limbs slightly recovered she began to stand.  She should kill him, as she should’ve killed Xithar. 

She couldn’t raise her hand to do it – she had struck out offensively only once and she never wanted to do it again.  Milaea almost wanted him to turn and attack to give her an excuse.

Vectivus simply vanished into the haze of destruction.

The same question that had haunted her all her life returned…she had all this power how would she use it…on Vyth she used it in service to a Jedi Order that had convinced her she should follow their teachings not her heart, on Coruscant she had used it to try and protect civilians even if it mean destroying her own People…on Bimmiel, Nar Shadda, now here on Lexrul she had used it to try and stop her Peoples rage and power spreading. 

Each use was tinged with confusion and regret she needed to work through. The only time she could recall it hadn’t been was…

She closed her eyes and raised her hands. Over a thousand tonnes of wreckage lifted with them.

<<<<>>>>

They didn’t understand till they saw the sabre at her side…then they assumed she was a Jedi sent to help. 

All the people of Lexrul cared was that she found and freed hundreds of people trapped in the collapse.  Ships were jostled out of the way by invisible hands, massive durasteel support columns were carefully used as levers to add mechanical advantage to her super natural prowess lifting chunks of marble floors that once graced the executive suites. 

Neat piles of wreckage were placed out of the way, doing the work of a thousand droids in a mere hour.

Overall 478 people were found alive and rushed away.  Who she was no one ever found out, perhaps it didn’t matter.

Only what she did.

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
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Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #191 on: January 29, 2019, 09:30:06 PM »

Chapter 47 — Falling Down — I Was an Angel
Part 2
Milaea
Night fell soon after the last of the survivors was plucked out.

She wandered the streets alone, ignored by the sentients around her once more.
 Perhaps she was invisible not because of her power but because she was No One…not Milaea the plucky padawan, not Milaea the mournful murderer, not Milaea the determined defender of Coruscant, and not Milaea the resigned warrior tracking the Sith that had taken the Peoples babies.

The crowds grew as she neared the entertainment district – a few holo-displays showed the clean-up, but for the most part life here went on as if the buildings collapse had happened on some distant world a hundred years ago.

The lights in the promenade were a gaudy pink, red and blue, a cleaner version of Nar Shadda without the slave collared women propositioning passers-by to earn their quota to avoid their Masters brutalization.

She wasn’t really going anywhere…just looking for a place to stop…to think…to be…to find…Herself apart from all those things that pressed down upon her. 

A poster in one club window caught her eye and tugged at her desires…a beautiful human woman with dark honey hair.  Not really thinking she walked in. For the first time someone noticed her.

“Hey you got some ID you look at little young to be….” The greeter stopped….just stopped as she wandered past – like a holovid put on pause, pressing ‘play’ once she was in Milaea sensed her confusion wondering what had just happened.

Arranged around a central stage in dim light and red curtains she hovered over wooden chair at an empty table near the front as the applause from the last song died down – she couldn’t sit, the weight of her armour would crush such fragile furniture.

A brief odd look from the honey haired singer who prepared for her next song as a waiter put down the complimentary water and asked what she could get her.  Milaea looked around at the half soused patrons…no amount of alcohol or death sticks would help her forget – Aethan digestive cells and bacterial symbionts easily picked apart such substances into more useful proteins well before reaching her blood stream anyway.  She just pointed to the flavoured milks and keyed each one into the serving-pad.

The waiter wandered back as three new patrons entered, stiff stances, firm posture in long cloaks. 

Milaea didn’t – couldn’t have sensed them if she wanted to. 

As she sipped the first beverage the song began, sultry and sensual with a slow rhythm to the Bith pair on valachord and fanfar.

“In the land of Gods and Monsters,
I was an Angel…”

Her deep blue eyes stared over the crowd to the far wall.
“living in the garden of evil,
Screwed up scared
Doing any—thing that I needed…”

Milaea let the words flow into her empty head.
“…shining like a fiery beacon…” her finger pointed in a laissez-fare fashion across the crowd and Milaea watched her hips sway
“You got that medicine I need
Fame, liquor, love, give it to me slowly.
Put your hands on my waist, do it softly.
Me and God we don’t get along, so now I sing.”

Milaea wasn’t even conscious of doing it, but she was dragging the singer’s attention to her
“No one’s gonna take my soul away,
Living like Jyn Morryson
Headed towards a frelled up holiday.
Motel, spree, sprees, and I’m singing,
Frell yeah give it to me, this is heaven, what I truly want
It's innocence lost.
Innocence lost.”


Behind her the three aether invisible patrons took a table, refusing to even look at the waiter’s datapad menu for the sacrilege such machines were.

“In the land of gods and monsters,
I was an angel, lookin' to get frelled hard.”

Milaea bit her lip slightly, excited images of doing just that overflowing into the aether around her,
“Like a groupie incognito posing as a real singer,
Life imitates art”

Influenced by thoughts she couldn’t explain, emotions she had no clue to the source of the singer looked straight down at the woman in the front row meaning every word she then sang
“You got that medicine I need
Dope, shoot it up straight to the heart please
I don't really wanna know what's good for me
God's dead, I said 'baby that's alright with me'.”


While the other patrons couldn’t see the blood red armour for the half-hearted illusion, the three patrons behind her were unknowingly immune to such aetheric glamour’s.

“When you talk it's like a movie and you're making me crazy,” her tone more seductive now, she bent at the waist gazing straight into Milaea’s eyes

“'Cause life imitates art….
If I get a little prettier, can I be your baby?”

Milaea began to mouth the words of the song she had never heard before

“You tell me life isn't that hard.
No one’s gonna take my soul away,
I'm living like Jym Morryson.
Headed towards a frelled up holiday.
Motel, sprees, sprees, and I’m singing,
Frell yeah, give it to me, this is heaven, what I truly want.
It's innocence lost.”


Her voice quietened as the valachord notes went low

“…Innocence lost….”
Half applause from the inebriated patrons meant nothing as the singers eyes remained fixed on Milaea.  In fact everyone in the room apart from the three dead spaces was in some way effected by her uncontained emotions bleeding across space.

As the singer took a short bow she gestured for the intermission music to play – she didn’t need to say a word, her gaze and emotional feedback pulled them out of the room.

<<<<>>>>

The leader of the strike force grunted to follow cautiously…the woman was too well armed…the others not yet in position.  The implanted villip in his head buzzed with messages back and forth as they prepared.

<<<<>>>>

Liana De-Lray was the name on the small back room door.

For Milaea she was just the pretty human woman with the sensual voice whose tongue was plunging down her throat as she unclasped her breast plate, the back plate having already made a massive dent in the floor when it hit the ground.

Liana’s pathetic little dress offered no resistance to the aether as they pushed into the small refresher, Milaea turned on the warm water as she divested herself of her greaves and gauntlets, the tiles smashing under the ultra-dense weight.

She just wanted it all wet and warm and soft. 

Liana had such an intense desire for her, a deep carnal hunger…she clawed at the under suit, Milaea had to unzip telekinetically, in a heartbeat Liana’s face was between her breasts. Milaea rolled her head back as the water cascaded down washing everything away. 

The beat of Liana’s heart, the scent of her arousal in dancing in her senses. 

She didn’t have to care or worry - the gods were all dead, and she just wanted to get frelled hard.  And so did Liana…

Why?

That annoying question made her pause

Why did this woman who had never met her want desperately to tear off her underwear and run her fingers and tongue all over her?

She didn’t…Milaea did…but she didn’t…Liana was filled to the brim with emotions, but they weren’t hers – they were Milaea’s – she hadn’t checked her aetheric aura – it was bleeding into Liana and subsuming her own.

She was just reflecting back what Milaea was putting out. The Desires of the Goddess overcame the will of the Mortal.

Did it really matter…why should she care if it pleased her?  Liana grasped at her panties tugging them down as though she would starve if they remained on.

Milaea shouldn’t care, she should just ride the physical sensations…but she did care. 

“Now all that is left is you – from now on you bear responsibility for what you choose to make of yourself” Vectivus words haunted her even as Liana’s lyrics had filled her voided heart, and her wet honeyed hair warmed her stomach.

Milaea could easily have sex with Liana…she wanted to…but not…not like this…not when the poor woman was drowning in someone else’s emotions. 

This was what Vectivus had meant…what Liana had sung about… Liana felt like this was Heaven and what she truly wanted…but it was all the situation around her… Liana could do this never really know why she had. 

Milaea dropped down to meet her detaching Liana from between her legs.  Liana took this as intention to kiss and plunged at her lips, Milaea’s pheromones dripping off Liana’s tongue.

“Wait this…isn’t…” in the glassy wet tiles she saw something move behind them.

She felt nothing in the aether, only the pain in her back as something hit her.

Hard.

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Karmack
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Master of Ceremonies
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Force Alignment: 1152
Posts: 5602


Light side points please.


« Reply #192 on: January 31, 2019, 08:34:46 PM »

Amazing...    Even Aethan goddesses are brought down by physical impropriety...   ;-)
Logged

signature picture by DarthScrub

Master Singer of the Mak'Tor

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
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Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #193 on: January 31, 2019, 09:48:52 PM »

Chapter 48 — Falling Down — Burning Angel
Part 1
Milaea
Vectivus was wrong…she did have further to fall…

Naked, wet and sore she quickly pushed off Liana, realizing just how much she was hurt – at precisely 175 Centimetres tall Milaea weighed just over 250 KG due to her far more dense bones, compacted fat and muscle cells and deeply folded advanced organ structures. Ten centimetres shorter and less than half her weight poor Liana couldn’t bear the impact of Milaea slamming into her and was already bruised.

She couldn’t feel any threat, any enemies nearby…on the aching pain where something had hit her in the back

“Bruk tukken” a voice growled behind her as a squelching sound neared behind,

Eyes tightly closed she felt assailed by the disappointment of having to defend herself again, at dragging poor Liana into…whatever this new test from Xithar was.

Leaping up she twisted mid-air to dodge a…bug…

She had expected to see Vectivus instead she saw three plain looking men with weird looking weapons.  Milaea wasted no time.  Mind aflame with annoyance she hammered out a wave of telekinetic energy while drawing her equipment back to her…

But the aether simply passed through these creatures, and the furthest one remained with his hand around her sabre and foot on her chest plate.

They were already heading toward her…but it was the blobby jelly racing along the floor that worried her more.  Much like the assailants it didn’t react to her telekinesis…OK so go for the surround.

“Unnnh” still strained from the fight with the Monster and moving the rubble she felt the burn of exhaustion in her limbs as she rent the floor tiles and foundation beneath upwards wrong footing the jelly and the attackers. 

Still naked she leapt forward hair wet and matted behind her as she landed a punch into the head of the nearest enemy, her strength enough to collapse the skull inward and tear what looked like a greasy second skin away from the face.

The second grasped her arm with some kind of…writhing whip thing which kept her trapped long enough for another projectile bug to slam into her exposed left breast painfully.

Tugging back on the whip creature made it’s body cut into her skin and reared a head as its owner flew forward.  She nearly cried out at the serpent thing that spat a sizzling glob of acid she barely twisted her head to avoid – instead it struck the end of her loose hair melting it into a pool of bubbling keratin. 

The owner off-balance from her speed earned an elbow to the face as the last of them threw another bug hitting her left shoulder - the impact strong enough to bruise the muscle beneath.

Twitching her mouth in annoyance as the second one fell she turned on the third whose emotionless face mirrored its absence in the aether too perfectly.  It raised its snake like weapon in one hand her sabre in the other.  If it was a null aether entity so be it…her sabre was not.

The pop of displaced air as she teleported her sabre was drowned out by the explosion behind her.

The back wall of the room including the refresher burst apart as a hulking brutish creature in spiked brown armour clasping a serpent much larger and angrier looking than the ones the others wielded burst in.  Liana already beaten from Milaea’s weight was now covered it cuts and bruises form the blast, painfully cramped into the toilet cubicle the blast had flung her in upside down.

Like the others this monster didn’t have any aetheric presence.  She felt the ache and weariness mingle with the stress of her body shifting from anticipating pleasure to experiencing pain too quickly.

Hurling her sabre at the big one she spun into the near one, taking another slash to her unprotected skin from its vile slithering weapon.  Even without the aether it was no match for her speed and strength, it used the serpent thing like a double ended sabre, the mouth end trying to bite and spew venom, the ‘pommel’ a heavy pointed blade, she swiftly dodged feeling much more free in her movements naked and hammered her fists into its chest as she came up from a crouching pummelling internal bones and organs to goo as her amethyst sabre lodged into the armoured warriors shoulder.

Ignoring the pain it went to grab the hilt but paused shocked as it vanished back to her hand.  Teleportation was costly, every gram of mass, cubic centimetre of volume and inch of distance took a lot of energy on an object not ‘enchanted’ as Adaea would say to pay for its own voyage in space time. It was a price she really didn’t want to pay.

The jelly recovered from being slammed about came back at her as she summoned her under-suit forward as fast as she could to get something between her and the venom spitting creature.  Its hideous squelching denied her the option by grabbing onto the levitating armoured body glove…it must detect motion…little option she flicked her right hand out unleashing fire under the blob – it might be immune to the aetheric fire but it was effected by the superheated tiles that made it sizzle and bust releasing the garment she desperately needed as the huge warrior closed in. 

She didn’t have time to shift herself and get into the under-armour - the beasts hissing weapon was already bearing down on her sabre with horrendous strength.  The beast before her was huge, two and a half metres tall and weighing at least as much as her in strange armour that looked more suited to an exhibit of deadly marine life forms. 

Blow after blow she deflected and pushed back against, feet pained upon the broken tiles of the room, hips and shoulder twisting painfully to avoid the spitting venom and occasional missile bugs – some of which she even managed to slice out of the air as the lights went dead leaving her blade the only illumination apart from the hovercar car headlights just outside that silhouetted at least three more monstrosities.

Between parries she managed to get some pieces of her armour around her, but without the under armour body glove to attach to she had to hold them in place with the aether draining her attention and increasing the burn in her chest.

It was simply not enough…this thing was too strong and she was too weak, too devoid of any meaning or goal to fight for anymore beyond simple survival.

“Only when the mind, the soul and the body are in tune with each other and themselves can you truly harness you potential” Soryu said somewhere behind her.

The main blow missed but the jagged horns on his elbow sliced into her collar.

She had looked at him quizzically as she often did “I get not in tune with each other…buuuut….how-can-your-soul-not-be-in-tune-with-itself-if-it-is-itself?” she always spoke quickly…or to her normally…when struggling with a concept at that age.

Another one was coming through the blasted wall, it spared a glance to the sobbing form of Liana and grasped her in one huge hand of three fingers – lesser digits not from nature but from self-mutilation.

“Uh Mili…I hope you never do…but…ah you can become a stranger to yourself at times…sometimes for years and not realise it. But…” he knelt to her diminutive height and pointed to her head then her heart “If you keep true to yourself, you’ll be alright,”

She almost slipped as a tile dug into the meat of her heel, pushed in deeper under the weight of the monsters blows.  Her eyes dazzled by the glare of the sabre striking against the leathery scaled hid of the weapon, the after image of the second warrior hefting Liana up then backhanding her as she resisted remained fixed on her retina.

Milaea didn’t care about herself, she just wanted to make sure Liana wasn’t hurt. 

She switched off her blade plunging the room into near darkness, allowing the pain in her feet to tumble her over, small drops of her blood from the previous cuts sticking in the air like a curious chain of pearls.

In the space between the two warriors she removed the air…as they were a void to the aether, so she made a void in space for them to occupy.

As the snapping serpent staff closed on her leg the air sought to refill the depressurized zone.

Before she had reached the floor both warriors were ripped back by the clobbering rush of air filling vacuum, slamming into each other with resounding cracks as their shell like armour smashed together. As she sailed downward her fingers opened and crackled red re-illuminating the room – she couldn’t use the aether to pin their location and connecting the energy aetheric pole to pole – but she could see enough to aim pure electrical current at their bodies.

Red, hungry lighting erupted from her finger tips causing the warriors bodies to burn and convulse, the armour they wore experiencing a sudden overload, like any other muscle subject to electrical simulation it constricted and broke the warriors within even further.

With a thud she landed on the floor. Already more enemies were entering as she tried to rise feeling already the numbing effects of her bodies stress responses taking hold.

Her breathing increasing she did the little she could to move Liana out of the way as her eyes fixed on the cracking ceiling above her…noting every little imperfection as if it held some secret meaning she needed to reconcile with Liana’s song to solve everything broken within and around her.

Milaea vainly wondered if this was what it felt like to be drunk as she giggled in tune with Liana’s song increasingly lost to the adrenal anaesthetics. 

She got up faster than she expected not feeling the hand gripping her neck and raising her up.  Eyes dead onto the bio-film covered face of her assailant she didn’t feel anything as it pounded a fist into her stomach.  Letting her head sway back with the motion she built up momentum to head-butt the monster – the gloopy covering took some but not all of the damage causing it to drop her.  With little elegance she pushed up into a crash tackle using the weight that had hurt Liana to overcome the creature before almost playfully pounding on its chest and head.

They were surrounding her, their dead presence acting like dams blocking the ocean of the aether about her.  Just make it stop…make it be over…she wanted a bath…

Sharp lashes gabbed her arms and legs, another hand gripped her hair and pulled her head back before her in the dim light her eyes made out some kind of coral like spiked object being moved toward her in slow motion against her superhuman cognition.

Help…

Everything was blocked off…numb and empty as the spikes edge closer.  She had barely anything left, bleeding, naked, surrounded, captured.  The lashes that held her tightened contracting blood flow to her hands and feet even as they cut into her skin.

Help…

She’d had enough…she wanted to go home now…

No one was coming to save her.

Only a tiny spark of warmth remained in her, the aether became cold and empty…cold…so cold…her trickling blood was icy as the Tears of Aephrodaea dripping down her limbs…

She tugged at all the heat around her…grasping and hoarding it…

Her eyes stung as the air froze, steam began to some off the creatures around her, the spiked implement designed to spear and enslave her turned from muddy brown to pale white…

On her arms the serpent weapons stopped their constriction and became more solid than a living creature ought to be, slightly expanding as cell by cell water turned to ice.

The one before her dropped the spiked implement onto the ruined floor, it splintered into a million flash frozen pieces as he tried to move away but found his frost bitten toes resistant. 

A crisp crack as one of the lashes snapped and they began to realise what was happening.  It was largely too late – the mucus coated gnulliths on their faces that kept them from inhaling airborne viral and bacterial agents they had no immunity to began to choke them, the throat insert expanding as it froze to push their oesophagus apart painfully, draining heat from inside their bodies.

Her fingers and toes were turning a fiery red from cold as intense as the peak of Mount Alixaea as her desire for warmth tore the thermal energy from the air, the floor, the walls…but the cold air consumed the warriors vital energies.

Serrated coral horns began to snap, cartilage ground into dusty dry ice with their failed retreat. 

Her arms dropped to her side, as the lashed that had held her, once frozen now melted into a protein soup.  The only source of heat in a twenty metre radius she began to glow red.  Above her the crack she found so interesting in her hypnagogian state became unstable. 

“Help...” she whispered as the ceiling crashed down.
<<<<>>>>
Yhum
The collapsing building would bring attention they did not need…his force was now half strength.

Contact with Prefect Kuun was Sporadic, the Eversight’s villip choir disturbed by something.

“Move quickly” he shouted as they plied the rubble for the female they were to acquire

The one named Lucovis desired her destroyed, the Prefects last communication insisted she was more valuable alive but to be wary of her Jeedai powers.  Their disadvantage was they did not know the full range of such powers – more than telekinesis and energy assaults, this one could alter the temperature. 

Finding her mating with another female had been a boon…but still the surprise was not enough – this creature was by nature stronger and faster than the Yuuzhan Vong’s best warriors, with its Jeedai powers near invincible…this was why the Prefect wanted her, from her genetic code the shapers could develop new biots, integrate her abilities into the next generation of warriors. 

The remnants of his lips, removed to honour his fallen comrades, curled up into a smile at the thought of the Warrior Caste melting the infidel’s sacrilegious towers of metal and machine with new forms developed from this female Jeedai’s such superior biological code.

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

Lord_S_Gray
Knight Commander
*

Force Alignment: 428
Posts: 1903



« Reply #194 on: January 31, 2019, 09:49:56 PM »

Chapter 48 — Falling Down — Burning Angel
Part 2
Milaea

Once again she was entombed…first in the altar beneath the Northern Mountains.

Then under her fear of her own power, trepidation about the future. In the dark of Bimmiels mines, the rotten halls of Nar Shadda, the towering offices of Lexrul….
 
No she wasn’t entombed again – she always had been, if not self-doubt it was guilt, if not the weight of reasonability of future choice the fear of having already made too many wrong ones.

“sqqqrrr…” a strained breath that was not her own.  She wasn’t alone in the tomb.  Liana was still with her.  Another victim of her mere presence, only small consolation that she was alive.

Scraping of ferrocrete screeched in her sensitive ears.  She was being unearthed as she never should’ve been in the first place. Milaea had little left to resist with – the next step was…

Was her life worth that…did she even deserve to live, did she even want to?

Vectivus was right she did care about others, that was her fault, the thing that kept her from being like the others, made her want to change them, yet kept her in a state of friction to her own actions.

If she were gone…

This was her lowest ebb, still naked and broken mentally and physically, resigned if not actively willing to just let everything fall away.

“helllpp,” Liana croaked out as more artificial light broke through – no help was coming from above Milaea knew – the only one who could help her….was her….

Milaea’s heart heaved as her breast rose with a deep breath of tainted dusty air – much as she wanted to let all the pain she couldn’t fix fall away in death, she shouldn’t go without at least fixing what little of Liana’s pain she could.

<<<<>>>>

Yhum

They were getting close he could see the hideously un-scarred pinkish flesh. With a grunt he summoned his second to prepare the Yorik-Kul.

“Enemies Approach!” called one of the Ooglith Masquer lookouts down the street.  Most of the emergency services were still too busy from the towers collapse to respond to this one in time. Yhum checked the motile machines they were forced to use for secrecy were still prepped to leave as soon as she was taken.

“What opponents…” he called “Police?”
“Tchoo,” The lookout spat “Abominations of machine and flesh!”

“Hurry!” Yhum demanded as he saw the metal clad things began firing their blasphemous ‘blasters’

<<<<>>>>

Milaea

Perhaps someone would think it a noble end, a fair trade – wretched confused, soiled young woman dies, innocent singer with her whole life ahead lives.  There was nothing altruistic about Milaea’s actions – she just wanted to die with one less person’s bloody pain on her conscience.

As the last pieces of rubble fell away she rose back up, her muscles unable to function it was pure will as her skin went red not from bruising and cuts but a last overflow of energy.

The creatures immediately tried to attack once more – again their strange weapons came at her vulnerable skin only to vaporize against the superheated air about her form.  She was literally burning up and taking them in the inferno. 

Like a phoenix of ancient Myth she rose in red flame, but from these ashes would be no renewal.  As she had frozen the air about them before she torched it now – the water left their cells dried and shrunken, the superheated crab armour cracked in dehydration. 

The other creatures down the alley buckled and bent, their cybernetics melting in their flesh, burning metal cutting through the weaker flesh. 

The balance – the counterpoint to her conflagration was healing - repairing Liana line by shattered line.   

Milaea was no longer breathing, her body slowly degrading under the blaze of her power.  It didn’t really matter.  She’d done enough to die with a little more decency than she would’ve otherwise – a blaze of glory she could almost laugh.

“Mili! LIVE!” Sofa screeched across time and space
“Love! Stop!” Kiraea called in turn
“Milaea…I’m coming…” Jarys pleaded
“Don’t! It was all my fault….”  Valens seeking to take her pain away. 

A single tear - red shining so much brighter than any diamond would ever dare – evaporated on her cheek as soon as it fell from her eye in the instant before everything ceased.

<<<<>>>>
Logged

Lord_S_Gray

Surik: "Kreia, what are you—are you a Jedi, a Sith?"
Kreia: "Does it matter? Of course it does, such titles allow you to break the galaxy into light and dark, categorize it. Perhaps I am neither, and I hold both as what they are, pieces of a whole."

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