Log:Carida: Our Most Desperate Hour
Our most desperate hour
OOC Date: September 10, 2020
Location: Carida
Participants:
Jedi Order: Elrych Cometburn, Jax Greystorm, Zandra naMuriel, Rey Skywalker
NR Commandos and Allies: Ambrosia Greystorm as Pvt Yisha Siiruk, Merek, Ax, Kael Greystorm, Nerys Greystorm
Knights of Ren: Syrus, Sebek, Errod Zand, Imani, Vandred, Jacali, and Malik Ren as GM
The short story: The First Order has released a chemical weapons attack on the Republic-friendly city of Endcliff. As citizens flee, the Jedi and their allies fight to protect the civilian escape.
The long story:
[Malik Ren]
Back to the Caridan front, and the war is growing dire.
Always the first to use overwhelming force at the risk of terrible collateral damage, the First Order has unleashed a chemical weapons attack on the pro-Republic city of Endcliff. Chaos has reigned ever since, as the civilians, trapped by the eponymous seaside cliffs of their home, flee toward the trees of the Caridan forest.
There, the Order is waiting for them.
A light rain is falling, turning tortured ground into mud. The tree-trunks are already scarred and splintered by blaster fire and war machines here, and the forest is in sorry shape. Most of the wildlife fled long ago, this is a graveyard now. A graveyard into which a particular district of civilians is expected to flee... a nest of terrorists (freedom fighters?) who are the likely reason for the attack in the first place. For them in particular, not just the Order, but the Knights of Ren are waiting.
The forest bristles with red blades and waiting guns, but the terrorist-freedom-fighters of Endcliff are not without their own allies.
[Elrych Cometburn]
The whispered humm of a mephite crystal lightsaber is the first thing that's heard, before the glowing blue blade lights the darkness of the forest ahead of the glowing red. Steam rose off the bright saber, rain drops hitting the fluctuating beam and vaporizing on contact. It's held at a low guard buy it's cloaked weilder, dark green robes and a hood blending in with the background. There are no words from this 'jedi', just a simple movment of his hooded hed upwards to reveal glowing blue eyes that are just as brilliant as his blade. The breeze pushes through the canopy of trees, almost unnaturally. Was it him? Maybe, maybe not.
[Syrus]
Standing with his saber already drawn, Syrus wears a deep frown beneath his mask. This agent of the mighty Cosmic Force finds no joy in what he's about to be called to do, but it is the will of something much larger than himself, and he must see it through. His gloved hand flexes around the grip of his saber and he whips it up into a defensive stance, ready for what is to come.
[Sebek]
"And thus they flee from the invisible doom that befalls them." Ah, the poetic nonsense of Sebek of the Desert, Flagbearer of Coret, Conqueror of the Sixteenth Deck, Consumer of Hounds, Wielder of Tei Tenga, He Who Hunts. The long-handled Tei Tenga was in his hands, sparking as the rain hit it, hungry for battle and bloodshed. "Into that which is very, very real," oozed his accented, velvety voice, buzzing from behind the twisting snarling animal mask that hid his green features (if not his topknot, sticking out the top). There was a twisting VWROOOM sound as the saber looped experimentally, then was readied at Sebek's side. "And so begins the glorious battle."
[Malik Ren]
Malik Ren is masked in that strange, dark helmet of his, black and silver, the features reminiscent of, but not identical to, his one time master. "Focus on the Jedi and their allies," the Ren is instructing his Knights in that strange, vocoded voice the helmet creates. "Fleeing civilians, however nefarious, are Vahn's problem. This is ours." The helmet swivels toward Sebek. "EVEN if you spy a tasty, defenseless, wounded civilian with his liver exposed and ready to eat, you will stay on TARGET."
[Jax Greystorm]
The swoop bike Jax had arrive on waited not far from him as the rain plinked against it. The Corellian jedi looks to Elrych giving him a nod. Jax takes up his saber. The blue blade darker than the other Corellian jedi. He takes a defensive stance letting the civillians sweep past him. He calls out, "Malik, Turn back this will be more than 10,000 Credits per day per incident!"
[Ax]
Ax had never been much on military engagements. He was born into piracy and smuggling on Socorro, that bred a bit of a natural defiance to authority. However, the Echani had less like for the Knights of Ren and their Sith cohorts. And while he'd thought the battle at Exogol would be the end of the First Order, he couldn't have been more wrong.
Joining Jax on Carida with other Jedi, he felt a bit out of place. Dual-bladed saber-staff in hand, its cyan blades alight, he's working on centering himself before combat, pushing his anger away and clearing his head for what was to come.
[Zandra naMuriel]
Zan also arrived on the swoop bike train, with others. It's a time honored travel method. She too is off, her hooded robes covering her easily identifiable hair. She offres a smile to Ax and Jax, and s nod their way. Jax's call out brings a smile to her face. She unclips her saber from her waist, the green blade igniting as she takes a moment to center herself, concentrating. "Once more into the fray, I think is the phrase, right?"
[Errod Zand]
"Reminds of this time on the jungle moon of Va'art," a gruff voice rasps from a middle-aged man sitting on a fallen log, a dead-bladed sword laid across his knees. Errod's cig hangs from the corner of his lips, the ember tip flaring in the gloaming. "I was hunting taozin, these... giant worms. Supposed to be extinct, but they're not. It was raining like this, makes the ground soft." A trail of smoke drifts from his mouth as his eyes, unfocused, gaze into the distance. "Three days passed like that. Your mind starts to forget what it was to be dry, your skin replaced by a soggy rind that-"
The sound of voices cuts the narration short, and the Knight straightens up, flicking his cig out away from himself into the mud and turning his helmet over in his hands. The simple metal covering lowers over his wiry ponytail, locking in the dampness to marinate. A flick of the switch sends red plasma running down the rivulets in his sword's blade. "Reckon I have a score to settle."
[Errod Zand]
"Reminds of this time on the jungle moon of Va'art," a gruff voice rasps from a middle-aged man sitting on a fallen log, a dead-bladed sword laid across his knees. Errod's cig hangs from the corner of his lips, the ember tip flaring in the gloaming. "I was hunting taozin, these... giant worms. Supposed to be extinct, but they're not. It was raining like this, makes the ground soft." A trail of smoke drifts from his mouth as his eyes, unfocused, gaze into the distance. "Three days passed like that. Your mind starts to forget what it was to be dry, your skin replaced by a soggy rind that-"
The sound of voices cuts the narration short, and the Knight straightens up, flicking his cig out away from himself into the mud and turning his helmet over in his hands. The simple metal covering lowers over his wiry ponytail, locking in the dampness to marinate. A flick of the switch sends red plasma running down the rivulets in his sword's blade. "Reckon I have a score to settle."
[Imani]
"We should always make sure that Sebek eats before a battle," Imani remarks as she stands among her brethren, sounding as calm as ever while on the cusp of battle. "That way we don't have to worry about surprise livers distracting him. Do you like jerky? I'll bring jerky next time." She has that ominous armor that marks her as a Knight of Ren, and her weapon at the ready, waiting for the enemy to close the distance.
[Nerys Arda]
Nerys was here to deal with the chemical weapons, because //science//, but things were never that simple were they? Apparently, there was fighting to be done, and an enemy to put down. So here she was, in full gear, with her backpack of holding and all of the weapons she could jam into it. She had her bowcaster now, with the hilt of a sword being as well as the head of a staff, both secured to her back for easy access. Once she had settled herself into the flow of the team, she made sure to allow space between herself and the rest, finding a place //at a distance// so that she could get a good angle on the enemy force when they approached. And so, she found a palce at range, using her bowcaster to sight the enemy.
[Vandred]
"<Reporting: I'm at a distance! So please ensure we keep it that way.>"
Vandred came to a stop far behind the lot of those brave, brave people with Lightsabers before him. His shoulders shift a bit before he slides himself into a hole where once a Republic or First Order mine once resided. He lets his left foot catch in a harder spot of rubble, the tendons in his foot popping as his foot tilts at a hard angle to catch itself comfortably in place. The tendons shift against each other before he settles it in place.
"<Military targets. You're the boss.>" comes the static crackling response from the oddly slim and lithe man as he slithers his upper torso up and over the lip of the hole he's slid himself into, bracing an E-11 neatly into place.
[Jacali]
There is always something to distract from her studies.
Jacali has departed her craft, a small BB droid rolling along behind her, with a much larger Seeker hovering in line, carrying with it what appears to be a Merr-Sonn "E-Web" so that she's not weighed down by its unwieldly bulk. She pays close attention to the informations feed that keeps her aware of particular positioning, or the trends in the tides of battle whilst keeping a healthy distance from the active fray.
After all, she is no frontline fighter.
When she finds herself a position that she believes will serve her well, there she stops and turns her helmet-and-hooded head toward her droids to issue them their orders. At this point, the Seeker begins setting up the turret it had been so effortlessly carrying. Once it has been secured, Jacali will stride to take her place at the ready without a word, lacking the poetic flare of Sebek, or the nonchalant dreariness of Errod. She's here to do a job, socialising is clearly not part of that.
(For clarification, Jacali is positioned at a distance.)
[Merek]
Merek of course would take time to put on his equipment, the black armor with the kama. Then he shifts the weapon up which Kael let him use, "Thank you," he offers with that husky drawl, making his way to the field with the team. He of course does not have a lightsaber, he does take a position as they come upon the fight, finding a little overlook to settle in, beginning to aim the weapon. The HUD in the helmet begins offering him information.
[Kael Greystorm]
Kael stands back as the glowing blades of the Jedi push forward taking up a firing position off behind Ax and Jax //at a reasonable pistol distance// his Sentinel IV gripped lightly in his left hand. He's watching the blue and green sabers held into a line before the red sabers and shifts his hand on his pistol's grip just a little, the voicebox in his helmet picking up his words to broadcast them some, "I really wish we had Ammara here for this." He sighs as his visored gaze starts to scan for targets letting the computer system pick up enemy targets. He does look over towards Merek and nods, "Not a problem I look forward to getting it back."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
Go to war, they said. Fight for a noble cause, they said...
PVT Siiruk of the New(er?) Republic army squelches her heel sloooooowly up from the muddy grip molding around her boot. She's stalking along with the rest of her squad, this side of chaos. Which side is that precisely? Who friggin knows.
<<Siiruk to Cresh leader>> she mumbles behind that face shield and idly shakes a glop from her treads while craning a look UP to her chosen perch. <<Think I've found the sweet spot to cover your hides. You comin up on my tail, yet?>> And up she goes, slinging the rifle over her shoulder for the climb up a rocky knob. It's not the stone itself that tickles her fancy, but the big, weird tree growing from it, reaching at impossible angles from a base it had no business sprouting from. But nature finds a way, doesn't it? Of particular interest is this one chonky branch and its surround of leaves. Ought to hold her weight just fine.
Slight of build, the raven-haired trooper creeps up that trunk without too messy a disturbance. Once up there, Yisha takes her cautious time settling into her makeshift watchtower. At a distance.
[Rey Skywalker]
Rey's speederbike arrives at the line with the others. She's off it in a nimble sweep of her leg, her hood is up to help shield her eyes from the falling rain and her eyes are on the enemy line ahead of them.
She glances tothe others with her as she stands aside them. "We need to protect the civilians from these madmen, get as many people to safety as possible. We have to cut our way through them, if needs be, to ensure that others are safe. These people are not easily reasoned with, but if we break their numbers apart enough, they'll scatter."
Her saber is drawn and her blade is ignited, she starts forward, her eyes on those ahead of her. "By order of the New Republic Senate, this land belongs to the free people of the galaxy." She raises her golden beam, shouting the words above the sound of the rain. Her blade aims to the heart of the darkness ahead of the light.
"Leave, or surrender!" She offers them options.
[Malik Ren]
"Do you know, I was just in the company of the New Republic Senate?" That's Malik's voice, the Master of the Knights of Ren replying to Rey's offer, her good-faith effort to solve this without violence, with a peaceful end even for her enemies. But they are heartless enemies, and all she gets is a shake of the helmet. "Not impressed."
"I speak on behalf of the First Order when I answer you on this contested ground, girl, and the answer is no."
The battle begins!
[Elrych Cometburn]
The green hood is pushed back with a free hand so that the young face of Elrych Cometburn is revealed. He looks up towards the falling rain, closing his eyes a moment to catch the rain on his face. He seems to let Malik's word rumble bellow him, as if the man hand't said anything. Then, head lowering, he pushes forwards at a speed that could only be assisted by the force. He clashes with Syrus, that coy Corellian smirk splattered across his lips. It turns into an all rout grin as he swings again, the blade humming deadly hunger far too close for comfort. Another slashe, wider this time but slightly more controled.
[Syrus]
Blocking two of El's attack before narrowly stepping out of the way of another, Syrus proceeds to ignore the young Jedi, locking his focus on an old friend, the smuggler. "Ax!" he calls out, hefting his saber up and lashing it angrily at the man, two of his swings lopping chunks off of a nearby tree and another just barely missing. "My study of your sabers was informative. It seems you've traded them out."
[Sebek]
On your left? That was SEBEK! "Ahai!" he erupted, shoving forth a hand and letting loose a blast of horrible twisting energy that did a fantastic job of sending raindrops flying but only ruffled the hair of He Who Brags. "Behold! Our scores are level, brother of battle!" Oh was that respect, offered from the Falleen to the Corellian boy? It was definitely more than Syrus ever got. "We shall bout once more!" His attention was locked on to Elrych as he twisted, turned, deflecting the incoming strikes headed his way.
[Malik Ren]
Does Malik have a smirk? A smug look? A frown?? We'll never know, as the mask just makes him an inscrutable dark creature, devoid of externally visible emotions! His strike seeks Elrych this time, a close call much as Elrych did to his fellow knight!
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax moves through the rain to engage Malik as he takes several strikes at Elrych. "On your left." The Jax says as he moves up to stand next to Elrych, his saber moving through a series of strikes to attack the leader of the knighs of Ren. He then pulls back ready to strike. He wasn't tracking where any of his family was at the moment trusting that the force was protecting them."
[Ax]
"I was bored," Ax calls out to Syrus, narrowly avoiding a clash, parrying another, and one getting close enough to scorch his clothing. "Coming at my front this time, I'm impressed," Ax says, spinning the haft of his hinged twin-bladed saber as he goes on an offensive of his own. "I made some improvements," he says doing his best to keep his opponent in front of him this time. "Is it still Syrus or you take on some lame Darth or Ren name now? How's that work anyway?"
[Zandra naMuriel]
Zandra looks at Rey at her offer, and sighs as Malik declines. "He's always up to something," she says. "And why do we keep walking into what we know are traps? I vote we set the next one." That said, she picks a target and heads after Sebek, maybe recognizing him from last time, and thinking he's a fair target. She swings her lightsaber, several times, but fails to actually hit anything.
[Errod Zand]
Intent on the score he mentioned, Errod singles out the green blade, following its glow to find the same woman who struck him down with embarrassing ease in their last encounter. "Not this time," the aging warrior grumbles under his breath, and when she lashes out at Sebek, he takes the opportunity to step forward, slamming his boot down hard as he twists through the hips. The weapon in his hands whistles with the speed and force of the strike, but when it connects with Zandra, it's like there's an invisible barrier between her and the red and silver edges. It just hits her and bounces off, a child's backyard duel with hollow sticks.
It's disconcerting. The grizzled hunter glances down at the sword, gives it a little shake, his thumb running over the switch again. "Nature has a cruel sense of humor, doling out a second curse as if one was not enough. I am grateful for the reminder." He takes another swing, but it whiffs past the woman, swishing uselessly through the air with a clattering of soggy branches.
[Imani]
Imani can see the vibrant colors of the Jedi weapons as they ignite with deadly purpose, and though she has in the past tangled with them before, she's in no hurry to engage them just yet. Instead she crouches just slightly and begins to sprint, skirting the edge of the immediate battle as much as she is able. There's a momentary skidding and redirecting of steps as a sizable bolt sails too close for comfort, but not so close that she's hit, and not so close that she diverts her present course.
[Nerys Arda]
As the lights sabers began to clash and the blaster fire began to pepper the air, Nerys settled herself. She did not pray, not in the way someone who believed in religion might, but as she waited finding the right target, her own voice rattled around in her head, "Please let us get home again." Because that was the most important thing. And then there was work to be done, as she sighted a body breaking off from the group and heading in their direction. A red bolt raced across the distance, but failed to impact with anything besides the ground. Enemy. Incoming.
[Vandred]
Vandred lets his HUD slowly pan across, his eyes closing a bit as the glare of blades on blades begins filling up his visor. A quick eye blink at some toggles to shift on some shade and.. Perfect. Blink-click, and Vandred's HUD briefly outlines Kael Greystorm. Blink-click to save that blurry picture for the memory bank. Blink-click and Merek's blurry armoured frame joins the one of Kael to be examined further, later.
His right shoulder pulls in to his body as his tendons shift, adjusting itself and curving around the butt of the E-11 before additional fatty tissue and muscle is curled into place. It might make him look like someone's caved in his side with a hammer, but it allows him to adjust better for recoil. It's comfortable.
His HUD hooked up to his E-11's scope, he has to briefly adjust to the change in vision, and then it settles on Kael Greystorm. His finger curls around the trigger. A brief pause, then he begins squeezing the trigger.
[Jacali]
The best tactical option for Jacali is to allow those with their rave glowsticks swinging to deal with other like-groovy folks, and keep her attentions on the supporting cast of this little endeavor. And so, her sights are set on one of those that seems to have had the same idea as she did: Merek.
She's unaware of all the talking going on between the others, lost in her own little world of Very Orderly Tasks. She takes her aim, fully trusting in the might of her companions to keep the more troubling threats at bay as she exacts her GLORIOUS, RIGHTEOUS VENGEANCE!
Of course, the problem with such vengeance is that one really should be righteous before they attempt it. Decidedly, Jacali is anything but. A screaming bolt of red sears through the sky toward its intended target, but impacts little but the ground in his vicinity, violently kicking up debris in a harmless shower in example of what could have been.
Time to reload, utterly unaware of what is about to happen.
[Merek]
Merek begins settling in while he sweeps the aim of his weapon to the fore while he waits, then he notices that an E-Web was set up. While it comes to him, the blaster bolts strike all around with a lot of dirt kicking up from about him. The man takes a roll along the side, while he shifts, <"I'm taking the E-Web guys. Focus on the incoming man.">
He notes Imani with a little motion and point, and looks then to Kael and Nerys' position. Then he takes aim with that T-21, the power charging up witih that rifle. Then three successive shots of fire blast from the weapon along to Jacali's left leg and abdomen, sliding upward along the path. The weapon was clearly made with pure firepower in mind.
[Kael Greystorm]
Kael's still scanning the battleground as he spots an e-web setting up on the far end of the fight and sighs as he gets ready to sight down... Then his HUD lights up and the visored head swivels towards the sprinting Imani his pistol coming up to sight in on the enemy. He registers Merek's call out, the trigger slowly squeezing. Then the twin red bolts of E-11 fury slam into his side his trigger pull finishing as his body is jerked from the impacts sending the bolt at least in the general vicinity of Imani. And by vicinity the sky. Way over her head. Likely not even close enough for it to register as a shot towards her. He looks down at the scorch marks on his armor, "That's going to leave a mark. Caution! They're still charging in."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
And so it begins! Pvt Siiruk is up there in that tree and pops a shot off at a suspicious looking unfriendly sneaking at high speeds around the edge of the fray. It's a miss! <<Skrag>> Yiisha grumps under breath and realigns for her next shot.
[Rey Skywalker]
At the denial to her offer, Rey starts forward and rushes toward the impending combat! They've been here before, Carida has been a hellscape of fighting, just as it was assumed it would be. With a jump and a twist, Rey launches herself over Malik's head, coming down behind him now she engages him with swings of her golden saber, whilst he engages other members of her group.
The growling golden blade sizzles through the falling rain, as her strikes are quick, precise, but turned aside by her opponent's ever-growing skills.
Rey sweeps herself back and raises her saber up to point the tip of the blade toward the grey skies. "You've lost this world, Malik. Your forces are stretched thin, and the turn of the tides in the galaxy are now in the favor of freedom. The First Order's reign has only crumbled since the day it began!"
[Malik Ren]
Everything is soaked by the rain, here. It falls and falls, not a torrential downpour but a pusillanimous drippy drizzle that seems to win its soggy war by attrition. This feeds beautiful trees, plants, and lush carpets of moss in an undisturbed forest, but this area is far from undisturbed.
Combatants of both sides sink into the mud, boots and robes sticky and splattered with it, sliding perilously close to charred trees and steep precipices. The rain sizzles against sabers of every color, and beads on chain-whips and guns. Carida itself does not care who wins this fight, just as it hasn't cared about all the blood spilled into its soil in all the other fights. Win or lose, the planet will remain, and it is heartless.
Is it really worth this, all of this? But it's too late to back out now, isn't it?
[Elrych Cometburn]
Elrych clashes with Malik for a moment, staggering back as the final assault of his crimson blade almost cuts. "As it was forseen, here you are a free man." A wink given to Malik as the boy reaches into his robes and produces a Datachit. He tosses it towards Malik, maybe he'll catch it. Maybe he'll let it drop there and think nothing of it. "For you and your boy."
Of course that's when Jax comes in for the strike on Malik, Elrych is turning as a GENTEL BREEZE strikes him, like the hot breath of a rancid forest beast. He winces. It was more force than that but his defences what they were he only felt what his Jedi protections allowed him. Blue eyes fall upon Sebek. There's an ammused smile, "Bonechewer... See I knew you didn't die. Even? Yeah... that means we don't have to duke it out any- wait no that's not an option for you." He strikes then, his blade roaring Against Sebek, again he's fast and those swings equally powerful... perhaps he's too focused on this opponant, his back exposed.
[Syrus]
"I'd have stabbed you in the front last time, if you'd had the common sense to face me," Syrus answers back to Ax, holding off one of Ax's attacks, the glowing cyan and crimson reflecting in the thin visor of his helmet. "I have always been and will always be Iro'syrus Ini-Heret Volo, agent of the Cosmic Force. Statues will be inscribed with that name for eons to come, smuggler." Shoving the Echani back, Syrus begins to close the distance, chopping angrily.
[Sebek]
"Aha! You understand, He Who Brags!" Clash! Clash! Sizzle! That last one caught the flair of Sebek's battle cassock, singing away fibres. It was close, way too close. He whirled the long handle of Tei Tenga around and commenced his own assault, deflected at every turn by the canny swordplay of He Who Brags. "No greater joy exists than battle against a foe most talented! Consider yourself esteemed! For you have shed your fat, and become one with combat!" And combat was what he did love the most, besides eating people, as he whirled around like a sandstorm, using all of the space available to him.
[Malik Ren]
Malik Ren does catch the datachit Elrych threw toward him, though he seems surprised about that, and the comment to follow. He's narrowly avoided losing his pretty head to Rey's golden blade, and normally her words would command his full attention as well. But not this time, not when Elrych just said that. Your boy, your boy.
The red blade snaps up Elrych's back, and Malik replies easily, conversationally, "As is so often the case, you are wrong." A merciless second strike follows, to the Corellian's front this time.
"/That/ is for me and my boy."
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax lightsaber whips around to try to strike at Malik Ren. " I'm not sure what's going on. Though that's nothing new." Though he continues to try to throw some swings at Malik and keep him on his back foot.
[Ax]
"Only if you pay for them," Ax says to Syrus as he parries the incoming attacks before going into a counterattack move. He'd had a little bit of sparring with his new saber design, but this was his first actual fight and it was truly testing his skills. "Maybe you'll explain to me one day over a strong whiskey," he adds as his flurry of swings is directed at his opponent.
[Zandra naMuriel]
Zandra, as Sebek is focused elsewhere, and there's this pesky electro whip attacking her, turns her attention on Errod. "Hey now, that's not so nice to attack from behind like that." her blade is swung with speed but not so much precision. She reaches for the force, and at least keeps Errod busy for a bit, as he continues to try to hit her, and she returns the favour. "Wait, I recognize you."
[Errod Zand]
Wiry limbs move with speed and precision at the upper end of human abilities, but the young woman in front of him is so fast. Everywhere his blade reaches, she vanishes away or swats his attack aside. When he does manage to touch her, it's like his sword has been swapped out for a practice bat. Breathing heavily, he steps back away with a new line of smoking scorched armor across his shoulder from a graze of his own. "I'd be offended if you didn't," he rasps back at her, pushing the bottom edge of his helmet up with the back of his hand just enough to spit down from behind it onto the ground.
[Imani]
Imani may have taken a slightly more circuitous route to combat, but she finally arrives at her destination, having managed to evade several shots sent her way. She's fast, perhaps not so fast as those with latent force abilities, but still she's fast, and practiced at engaging the enemy. It shows as she charges at Nerys, Bilari in sword form as it collides hard with the woman once, and then without much wait between, it's brought around to batter into her a second time. She hasn't' any witty repartee, just a brief check that the woman is down, and then she spins around to search for her next target.
[Nerys Arda]
This is what happened when you brought a knife to a gun fight. or in this case, a scholar to a soldier...you know what? I can't make that work. Moving on. Nerys, who caught Kael's words, but did not turn to see what had happened to him, turned her sights in the direction of the one who had shot him. Because she had //priorities//. And she paid for it, as the figure that had sprinted across the distance brought the glowing blade down and struck Nerys twice, cleanly. And even as Nerys fell, turning, even in that moment to protect her weapon, she still thought of home, and the man still standing not far from her. Because that was a good thought to take with her into a dark night.
[Vandred]
The first blurt over the comms is in a language that sounds like it requires you to be able to twerk your vocal cords, with the way it switches in pitch and tone, forced out in a harsh bark from his lungs that makes it an obvious curse.
"<Caution.>" Follows afterwards, in Basic.
Vandred's head twists as it swivels towards Merek, and his body undulates accordingly, almost serpentine as he snaps his upper torso to face towards Merek along with his head. There's that same momentary pause before he starts pulling on the trigger, sending out two whipping red bolts towards Merek's armoured figure.
[Jacali]
This seems to be happening to the good doctor a lot lately.
First, some wayward Ren panic-burns out her nerves after she was SO HELPFUL, and now this. The sound that follows is one that is becoming tragically familiar as those burst-fire shots tear through her flesh, the kinetic force breaking bone in her thigh and pelvis before the final impacts her abdomen and sends her swiftly to the ground. Here, she begins screaming.
... Well, howling, really.
It is a brief and haunting, cacophonous cry of anguish that swells and dies, just one more voice crying out in the mayhem of this conflict, joining with the strangled pleas of those that had been so cruelly marred by the press of the First Order, and those Knights of Ren.
Perhaps this is karma.
Maybe this is all that could be fair.
It's very possible Jacali had a hand in supplying the chemicals that had brought so much carnage in the initial push, and now truly righteous vengeance could be witnessed in its troubling wake.
... Of course, this is all terribly dramatic, and the warbeasts with the deathstikes of glowy doom are far more deserving, but let her have her moment. It's all she has now. That, and the droids that have moved toward her, the smaller of which has already begun its medical scans in an attempt to assess the devestation.
[Merek]
Merek would notice that Jacali was bested, nodding a bit while he watches the woman. She might notice that black helmet, with the orange face mask upon it. The warrior would begin standing while he notices that man coming from the hole to shoot at him, noticing Nerys along with Imani. He manages to maneuver away from the first strike that Vandred makes upon him.
He does his best to lift up his weapon, then even while he charges firing, another bolt from that way takes to his leg, bringing him into a roll while he tries to step next to Nerys to defend her. "You'll be alright!" He stands up while he shifts the weapon away a bit, meeting the eyes of the woman. He knows that he does not have the power in it to win. He can still try to buy Kael time, <"Fall back a position!"> He then takes a moment to motion to the whip wielding woman, and looks to the direction of the hole blaster. He can still be a shield, "Fight me. I know I will fall, but our Republic will stand against the darkness. We will win, maybe not today, but someday we will make the galaxy safe from you, where civilians can all come back to peace." Oil and blood begin rolling along his leg while he waits.
[Kael Greystorm]
Kael watches in horror as Imani just runs dodging into the midst of the Commandos without suffering any injury. He raises his pistol sighting in and as he's squeezing the trigger he watches Nerys be cut down. His bolt slamming into the ground almost at his feet as his arm drops for a moment. Then he shakes his head to clear his mind just a bit pistol still in left hand he reaches up over his shoulder to slowly draw his sword out of it's scabbard holding it in his right hand his pistol still clasped in his left. "I won't be falling back today."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
Keep your cool, Yiisha...keep your cool. The young woman in a tree is lounged on her belly like a panther, toe of one boot, ankle of another hooked 'round an anchoring point to help maintain her balance. She's at home in the tree, having been fond of climbing in her youngster days. It was the best place to escape the torment of the older classmates at boarding school, see. 'Yellow Yiisha' they'd call her, but she knew they were just salty they hadn't the skills needed to give vertical chase.
If only they could see her now. Desk jockeys.
It's getting messy down there in the mud, the gore. The smell of fear mingles with whiffs of ozone and decaying wood. This heady aroma hangs in the air, unbeaten by the persistent rain. She resists the urge to spit it from her mouth and instead draws a deeeeeeeeep breath through her nose. Her cheek nestles in, eye spying through the sight for a new target, and when she's decided...the breath holds.
-*PEW* A single shot screams out, drilling into the mud near Vandred's hole. It's not across his nose, but it's near enough to wonder...meant for him? Or just a coincidental miss intended for some other body.
[Rey Skywalker]
With the chaos of battle raging on around them, Rey focuses herself in the Force, she can feel the balance of the Force in flux here, the rage and anger of the Dark Side chilling to the spirit. As she steps back again, Rey exhales and lunges forward with two more strikes to Malik, trying hard to get him to focus on her and to leave her companions alone.
"This has to stop, Malik!" She shouts at him, two more strikes turned aside. "You could be the final nail in the coffin of the First Order, if only you'd give up your anger!"
Her next strike sizzles across Malik's shoulder, and down his back, favoring the right side of the Knight of Ren's torso!
[Malik Ren]
Like so many Caridan battles, this one is bloody, as combatants begin to take wounds from light to grievous. Blood begins to color the mud, here and there, and distantly in the direction of the city, escaping civilians begin to run out of the city. Sometimes they fall. Sometimes people help them up, and sometimes they leave them on their knees in the mire. Are they innocents? Is anyone?
[Elrych Cometburn]
This was for him and his boy. The pain seering across Elrych's back as Malik's blade cut through the cloth and flesh there caused him to shout in pain. His focus ruptured, he turns rapidly staggering back. His blade held in one hand as the second strike comes. He parries, the sabers cracking against each other. He attempts to move, switching dominant hand but Malik is quicker. A slash across his chest.
The Jedi pauses, the determination in his blue eyes not once wavering. He's slow to fall, the blade of his lightsaber extinguishing. His knees become his bastion first as he struggles to say something but can't quite form the words.
Still yet that smile comes from him, "Then you are not all lost..." For he still had love for his son, something still held there. The entity, the Ren might not have full control. He collapses onto his face, out of the fight and into the black sea of unconciousness.
Poor Sebek, Malik took his kill.
[Syrus]
"Oh, and I will have done," Syrus answers, his hand moving to press against the shallow slash across his chest that should have been much, much worse were it not for the corona of energy that exploded out from Syrus' body at the touch of the saber. "You're too far gone for friendly drinks, Ax, but I'll make sure to visit your burial site and tell you the stories then," Sy promises, leaping forward to slash at the man once more and only managing to dig grooves into the ground, kicking up half-burt leaves.
[Sebek]
With the sudden fall of He Who Brags at the hands of He Who Leads, Sebek of the Desert was reminded why both men held their names so. Turning, he followed the lead of He Who Leads in engaging with the new target. Aiee! The Blade of Gold! And thus a foe determined! "Rejoice!" declared the Falleen, launching triple-overhead spin attacks that didn't even come close. "For it is time you receive a defeat you are owed!"
[Malik Ren]
Malik really should have paid more attention to Rey and it costs him, even as he manages to defeat Elrych, a golden-bladed swipe strikes him and lands a bloody, cauterized wound down his back! It is a terrible injury, but he rolls his shoulder as though to lean into the pain, draw from it... just as Kylo taught him, the Ren who came before, echoed in the one who followed. "Your man just threatened my /child/," Malik shouts back at Rey over the general uproar of plasma fire and clashing sabers. "Wouldn't you be angry?"
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax continues to fight with Malik, though he's not doing anything compared to Rey or even Elrych. The Corellian continues to fight with his saber and it hiss as the rain strikes the blade and nothing else.
[Ax]
"It is not I who is too far gone," Ax says as he parries more attacks and goes into a flurry of his own. A pair of his strikes go through, however, one high, followed by a mortally wounding low blow. "I'm sorry, my old student," he says as his last hit not only struck home, but cut clean through Sy's thigh. "Hope the Knights have a good medical plan, you'll need it," And Ax is moving on to the next target. Maybe he's not that good of a Jedi after all.
[Zandra naMuriel]
That electrowhip. Zan is still trying to stop Errod, though she's not having much luck. This time the swings of her lightsaber are enough to put terror into a lesser man. "You are brave," she says as, the battle continues. She so far manages to shake off the electorwhip, somehow. "But misguided. It doesn't have to be this way." She can try. Though she's keeping her defenses up.
[Errod Zand]
They come together again, and the lightsaber clashes against the electrowhip, the plasma veins fending off the beam of light. Snap, flash, hiss, blade meets blade and rebounds off until Errod holds the contact, pressing in and forcing a sizzling deadlock, his flat mask close in the young woman's face. The rain pings softly against his helmet, boils away from their weapons, his eyes visible between the two slits in the mask. "It always had to be this way. It always will," he growls to her, finally shoving off and backing away. Shoulders heaving, he shakes his metal head. "This is the only way it can be. The only way it ever can be. You can't fight your nature, and I can't stop myself from stopping you. Over and over, till we all go back to the mud."
[Imani]
Imani doesn't miss the speech she's given after bludgeoning Nerys, turning her focus to the already injured man as he takes up guard by the fallen woman. "You may not understand it, but I honor your sacrifice all the same," she assures Merek, then whips the weapon around to connect with him brutally. As before she takes only a moment to ensure he's down, then spins around to charge toward the next person. That person being Kael. It's only a few swift steps for her long stride, and then she's there at the man, using the forward momentum to drive the sharp point of her weapon into a weak spot on his armor.
[Vandred]
As the first blaster bolt aimed towards him whips into the ground just beside his position, Vandred promptly releases his E-11 for a moment, as it sinks into his side, flesh shifting to cradle the weapon in a small curve in flesh, muscle and bone. His elbows twist inwards, knees dislocating themselves as tendons rearrange..
"<Adjusting position.>"
... And he promptly spider-scuttles his way out of that hole, into a small pile of rubble - closer towards the fallen Doctor - his head swiveling to track Pvt Yisha Siiruk's previously recorded position via his HUD's enemy tracking software.
Joints crack and pop as he re-arranges his bones, and his E-11 is rocked into a waiting hand as his body re-adopts its normal shape and he opens fire directly at Yisha's position - or at least her position as his HUD had recorded it.
Then, he takes a blaster bolt in retaliation. His body concaves from the kinetic force, and his singed flesh is carefully peeled from the inside of his armour, layers of fat moving to try and sap away some of the residual heat from the wound - but it doesn't help. His body writhes subconsciously, even as his limbs follow commands and he drags himself forwards, slithering his way towards the fallen Doctor and her E-Web.
[Merek]
<"You all don't know when it would be best to run."> Merek speaks to Kael on the comlink with amusement, then he begins to shift the weapon to the side, with a shift to throw it upon the ground, freeing him up to dodge. While it doesn't work, he does make Imani work for it, beginning to weave along before the whip would manage to strike him. Even with that, he offers a look while the face mask would break.
The man looks to see the strike upon Kael, as well as that fire back on the woman, the Private striking upon Vandred. Well, he watches as that rain falls, side by side with Nerys along with Kael a little bit away.
[Kael Greystorm]
Kael's standing there standing his ground as Imani deftly takes down Merek. He sighs knowing where this is about to go as this ninja of a warrior drops everybody in the back area looking over at Merek he shakes his head, "Told you I'm not running." As Imani closes the distance towards him he steels himself sure of where this is going to end. Then the attack comes the Electro Whip hitting him and he grunts from the pain. He stabs his sword into the ground and grabs the whip with his right hand. Then the visor'd helmet looks directly at Imani, "My turn..." And at point blank range he squeeze the trigger the Sentinel IV barking off a single shot that slams into the Knight. His gaze falls back down to his battered armor and the injuries that are underneath, "Well foug...." And he falls back impacting the ground with a resounding THUD.
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
An errant streak of red scorches an already fractured trunk of what was once a tree and Pvt Siiruk pauses her exhale. Narrowed, chestnut eyes slide keenly to the left to gauge the distance. Was it meant for her? Before her eye has time to refocus through the scope, she's got her answer. A second bolt sears through some leaves JUST over her head. It's possible that her gear bag stowed just behind her, sitting upright against trunk, has got a new hole.
She's been spotted!!
Yiisha puckers her face into a frown and turns up the heat on this battlefield plasma pal she's made, tracking his freaky scuttle around like some fugly bug. A slow, deliberate pressure coaxes a winning strike out of the rifle but seeing as how the target is still on the move, more or less, she's not gonna celebrate. Yet.
[Rey Skywalker]
Rey takes a step back from Malik, her saber's blade growling like a ghostly apparition. She glances to the side for only a second before he speaks of his child and her attention shoots right back to him.
"We know about your child, yes." She replies. "And if you think that any of us would ever harm a child, even yours, then you've no real concept of what a Jedi even truly is. All you know is tainted with hate and lies. You should consider forgetting what you know, and starting fresh."
She sweeps her saber back at him again, multiple times, bouncing the golden blade off of the crimson, causing bursts of sparks and light to bounce around the rain soaked environment! Rey stagger steps to the side to try to cut him off from further engagement with her fallen companions.
"Malik, Ben saw reason, he gave this up. You can too. All of your people can, before it's too late. Before there is no life force left in you, and recovery from injury... is no longer an option."
[Malik Ren]
The ranks are growing thinner on both sides, and especially for those of the Knights. Malik Ren has survived the skillful blades of Jax and Rey, but for how much longer? Sebek is still standing, despite a close call with Elrych, and Jax, Ax, and Zandra still stand at the ready alongside their leader Rey. While Imani and Vandred fight bravely, both have been wounded, and Errod has difficulty landing a blow against Zandra that will cut through her disciplined control of her body's injuries. Civilians continue to escape, and struggle, while the Knights are occupied with Endcliff's defenders!
[Syrus]
A shock of pain surges through Syrus' system as Ax's blade bites into his leg. His near-mastery of energy dissipation a fairly new development, he's only able to resist the blade for so long before it completes its journey, sending the now one-legged Knight spilling over and disrupting a pile of leaves that are now at the mercy of the breeze.
[Sebek]
Was Sebek being ignored?
Sebek was being ignored! "The time for parental disappointment is later!" Rage was bubbling up inside him, causing his skin to flicker away from the proud and enjoyable green into varying shades of yellow. Not that it was visible, Knight of Ren attire being all-concealing as it was. He moved underneath the golden blade to attempt to land strike after strike against She Who Inherits' midsection, swinging Tei Tenga wildly like a bat instead of the refined, elegant weapon of a more civilized age.
But it'd be a misnomer to call Sebek civilized.
It was when the pommel, spiked and menacing fwinged off the back of the golden warrior's hand that Sebek yelled again. "Now is the time for battle, insect!"
[Malik Ren]
Jax Greystorm is a threat which has been threatening for TOO LONG and Malik whirls from his conflict with Rey to clash sabers against Jax! One swing is too close for comfort, but the others are skillfully handled by the Corellian, who seems just as much at home on this battlefield as he does in the stars. "I'll pay your FINE," Malik hisses at him, apparently remembering the incident with the Clean Water Act!
But maybe he's just picking on Jax now, to have a moment to think about what Rey's said, her relentless insistence that darkness can be turned from, left... a new path can begin... Ben did it after all, and if Kylo could be saved...?
"I'm not him."
[Ax]
With Syrus down and out of the fight, Ax moves forward. The knights weren't beyond sticking a lightsaber through someone's back, as Ax has the scars to prove, he figured he could make an exception. Stepping opposite Rey to flank the new Master Ren, Ax goes into a flurry of strikes. Even if he's not hitting, maybe he'll assist in taking the beast down by offerring Rey a flanking partner, at least while he's still standing. Maybe this would also give Jax a better chance of survival by giving Malik another target.
[Jax Greystorm]
Malik's blade whips past Jax's face as the Corellian brings his saber up to parry Maliks strike his blade making a whosh sound. The blue blade washing a light across Jax's face as the two blades complain against each other. "Not today, Malik. If you don't turn back you will have to pay a price greater than that if you don't turn from this path." Then Jax pushs the blade to the side Just in time to engage Sebek the swipe a bit more savage and stronger than Jax meant but its there. Jax takes a breath feinting, "He who names, I would say resist your rage but we know you're lost to it for now. YOu have to be stopped." Jax going in for a lunge with his saber to disable Sebek.
[Zandra naMuriel]
Zan and Errod are having an epic battle, the two mid discussion as they continue this fight. Zan's hood has come askew showing that violet hair of hers. She is trying to keep up with Errod, but the battle scarred fellow is definitely dodgy. "It doesn't have to be this way - it never has to be this way," Zan says. She means it, there's earnestness in the young jedi initiate's words. She ends up gasping for breath, though as the electrowhip hits, sending shock through her. A break in her control alas, at long last. She hisses as she backs up, disengaging for a moment, nearly slipping in the goopy mud they're all fighting in.
[Errod Zand]
"Maybe this is how I fade out," Errod muses aloud to Zandra, but he lapses into silence without completing the thought when she comes at him again, eyes narrowed in their slits. Rattle and hum, his feet slide in the mud but stay beneath him, the weapon in his hand batting her attacks away as he warms to the task. Tighter, more precise, the movements to fend her off smaller and less exhausting even as he pants a fog of air out under the mask.
Steam rises from the blade and his body as the veteran warrior hurtles forward, drawing a red line after so many failed attempts. Errod and his weapon seem to share the surprise, the follow-up knocking into a branch and showering them both in rainwater. A rough chuckle, made tinny by the helmet. "Even a mutant god like you has blood inside. I had almost forgotten."
[Imani]
Imani should have seen the shot from Kael coming, but she didn't, and the result is that she staggers back, turning into the momentum and going to a knee for a moment. It never feels good to be shot, not at a distance, not point blank, but she's not dead yet. Neither are those she fights with, and so she steels herself for the pain as she gets back to her feet again. A shaky breath drawn before she starts to head back for the front again. It is not the best move considering everything that awaits her there, but her people are there, and so that's where she too will stand. Eventually. She's not moving quite as quickly as she was before.
[Vandred]
Things are not looking up for Vandred.
Just as he gets closer to Jacali, another blaster bolt whips through the air and collides with Vandred's right hip. He's sent sprawling for a moment, and looks - considering the way he's sprawled out as if a broken doll - that he's well and truely down for the count. Or dead.
His limbs tremble for a moment before he heaves himself upright - rising up with a roll of his knees and a pained jerk as he rises up past hip level - and he lurches drunkenly, as if on puppetstrings for a moment..
Then he's twitching his entire form into action, lacking the normal grace of bipedal motion as he lurches on to all fours. He moves forwards as his knees pop out, then promptly shift backwards to give him a digitigrade set of lower limbs. He hovers over the unconscious Jacali, his left limb's tendons releasing so that he can wrap the arm around her and then loop it into his breastplate before tightening everything back up and awful again so that the Doctor is cradled. Then he's bounding - right arm pulled into his body somewhat so that he's not too off balance.
"<Doctor recovered. I'm leaving. Good luck, bye!>" comes Vandred's constantly pleasant tone of voice over the Knights' comms.
[Rey Skywalker]
Rey side steps just as Sebek sweeps in fro her right. Her saber is raised up for a block that sends hims incoming blade to her side, then she sweeps it down to block another attack before she dodges backward with a jump, just as Sebek is ... as he is.
With a soft exhale, Rey nods to Jax and sweeps herself back around to face Malik.
"You're not him, you're not even remotely close to him." She replies to him. "But you're still a being with the Force, not bound to serve its shadows, and more than able to breath in its light. Step out of the darkness, let the peace of good, stop you from uneding suffering."
She sweeps her blade at him again, attempting to disarm him, more than kill him, but ultimately she staggers backward again, her eyes glancing around the battlefield.
"Or leave, run away, take your people and go. Just as I asked you to do before this all started. Spare them the suffering, if you won't spare yourself."
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
-*ZEWP*
A second kiss from Pvt Siiruk's rifle hits home, though maybe not precisely where she'd liked to have sent it. The sharpshooter doesn't blink, waiting with baited breath to see if he --aw, frink, he is still alive. An impatient sigh snorts through her nostrils as she prepares to fire yet another round, but her finger halts its crooking juuuust before the rifle triggers. Enemy disengaging, on retreat, casualty in accompaniment.
She's heard tales of some bloody old battleaxes who don't think twice about finishing off a neutralized threat, but...
An adjustment is made to her scope and Yisha goes on the swivel to locate a new target. She is NOT that kind of soldier. Not yet, anyway. Give her a few decades to become jaded and cruel, then maybe.
[Sebek]
So focused was Sebek on his singleminded goal of claiming the defeat he was owed of She Who Inherits, he failed to take into account the brawl going on behind him. Indeed, the sudden and very brutal arrival of He Who Whiffs to the civilized debate about the merits of parenting (good or bad) and assorted definition of 'right paths' was not something Sebek expected. Less so, when it involved blue coring a hole straight through his gloobark. For the sake of all the filthy HUMANS here, it's near the kidneys.
Blood emerged from his mouth, a sickly green colour, and stained the inside of his helmet. He turned his head to see that face, that familiar face, and his voice was a rattle as it choked out, "Behold, He Who Impales." A new name! "Our score is level, our bouts glorious. Battle does you cre-"
It was during this completely unnecessary and frankly time-consuming monologue that Sebek's body decided it would shut down now. He collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes, Tei Tenga screaming into oblivion as the red disappeared from existence. And so falls Sebek, stabbed in the back by a foe he now considered worthy.
[Malik Ren]
The Knights had us goin in the first half, not gonna lie, but the field looks more dire now than it did before. Malik, Errod, and Imani, two of them grievously wounded already, stand against the forces of Jax, Ax, Zandra, Rey... and a surprisingly scrappy little NR sniper over there! Someone promote Yisha, already!
"There is no spared-from-suffering in this life, and you are deluded to imagine it's possible," Malik replies to Rey's philosophy, and her encouragement to get his people out of here and make like Vandred and scuttle! "Life is suffering, and the only true path is understanding that. The Jedi are breaking this galaxy, Rey!" Has he ever called her REY before, and not just 'girl'? "You will mean well, but you will bind it into chains that will be the catalyst for /everything/ you hope to avoid."
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax unleashes a furry of strikes at Malik. "Rey, we're debating with a narcissist. He just argues to hear his own voice and justifies whatever he wants at the moment. He claims the sith and us are breaking everything. Except he never fights the sith. He claims he's found a third way it's just the dark side. We have to continue but we will ge no where."
[Ax]
All this talk of salvation. Ax knew it wouldn't work in the middle of a fight, not with these kinds of zealots. There was an old saying on Socorro, amongst the Black Bha'lir, 'Honor the vyvya', which meant to give back to the community that fostered you. For Ax, that community were his friends, fellow Waywards.
Kael and Nerys were such family to Ax. When his senses detected their life forces ebbing, he knew he had to act quickly.
Rapidly disengaging, Ax jumped out of the way and with the assistance of the force to boost his strength and stamina, he was covering the distance towards his two fallen comrades, the double-bladed saber staff swirling around him as he moved a pretty good means of keeping unwanted people away. No, his goal was to get them to a medic and off the battlefield. After all, newlyweds can't do a honeymoon if they're dead, better to do it from a shared bacta tank. Besides, Ax actually liked this wife, unlike the last one.
[Zandra naMuriel]
Zan does go back into attack after a brief moment. She reaches for the Force, as she continues to try to keep up with the more experienced veteran fighter. She attacks again, but the battle is tiring for everyone. She can still feel the pain from the previous shot, nagging at her. She valiantly attacks and misses, and then comes the part where Errod's attack strikes true. Zan manages a smile, a surprisingly peaceful one. "Or you get your revenge," she says, as she slowly crumples to the ground.
[Imani]
At last Imani fulfills her unwise choice in making it back to the front of the battle where the very colorful murder-sticks are being waved around. The shot to the abdomen really, truly smarts, but she does her best to ignore it as she charges at Jax. The idea was to take a swing at the man while he was occupied with Errod and his attack, but alas, the force is with him and he manages to evade each swing of the chain whip.
[Ambrosia Greystorm]
-*Creeeeak*
Yisha's about to send her regards to one of those crazy whip-wielding beasts down there when the limb suspending her weight above and away from the hot zone groooooooooooooooans. She freezes, recognizing that sound as nothing good. Nothing good at all comes from that sound.
The young soldier jerks her head back from the scope and carefully unhooks her feet, one after the other. Her right arm snakes through the rifle's strap, followed by a duck of her head. Only when that weapon is secure does she take her hands off of it and put all her focus into sliiiiiding backward on the limb, towards her bag. The blaster-burned bag is tapped with a foot and nudged until her leg threads through the strap and she pushes up into a kneel, back to trunk. It takes some finaggling, but she is soon shimmying down her vantage point with pack and rifle in tow and a breathless sounding lament on comms.
<<Siiruk repositioning. Perch compromised.>> In more ways than one, really. On the upside, she didn't FALL out of the tree. Yisha is forced to take a break from her sniping while she disappears back into the dismal forest and find herself a new vantage point.
[Errod Zand]
There's blood in the water, but there's no sharklike smile, just a blank sheet of metal with tired eyes behind it. There's mud on the ground, but no slipping when he steps around behind her, just the surefooted maneuver of practiced feet tracing old lines. There's blood in the air, but not much of it, just a quick spray largely scorched away by the superheated plasma.
When she falls to the ground, Errod spends a moment looming silently, his hand quivering. The tip of his weapon, so far from the fulcrum, trembles with the weight of the years and the work of his hands. His helmet tips upward, eyes searching the sky, and turns toward Jax, the inertia of the moment inexorable as he finds his steps wending their way in behind the next Jedi, a misjudged first strike sticking in the muddy earth.
[Rey Skywalker]
With the rain battering down on the chaos around her, Rey sweeps her gaze around what remains. She exhales softly, her focus in the Force being her resolution to keep going. Her hood whips in the wind around her face, but as she sweeps back around it catches a gust of rain soaked wind and is sent back off of her head, behind her shoulders, leaving her face to be fully expoed to the weather. Her booted feet sink into the mud around her as she walks to the side.
She sweeps her saber around in a flourish, rushes toward Malik for another series of attacks before she lunges backward again. "We won't ever stop." She tells him, loud enough for any others around them to hear as well. "The Jedi are on the rise again. We're only just beginning to flourish, and we're only just starting."
[Malik Ren]
Both Malik and Rey have lost a few teammates to discretion being the better part of valor... and a few teammates to the violence of the opposition, as well. Zandra falls to Errod, Ax tends his people, and there it is in the end in the mud, blood, and rain -- Rey, the Skywalker, Jax, a Jedi far wiser and fiercer than he gives himself credit for.
Facing them, that obsessed, single-minded student of Kylo's, a man who sold his soul for power and a vision. Or something of that sort, he's never been right since, at any rate. Errod, welcoming the embrace of the void as much as he'll deliver you into it, and Imani, cheerful, dedicated, smiling as she cuts people up and suffers in return.
"The only reason I'm tolerating the Sith is that it is necessary to end one of you at a time. Their turn will come," Malik snaps at Jax, giving up a little tidbit of motivation that he'd refused to part with in jail. A pause lingers there, a hesitation, before he throws himself back into the fight with Rey, getting no further than he did before. clash! clash!
"You have to break the wheel. There is /another way/. The Jedi are lost, their time is over! There is a /another way/!"
[Jax Greystorm]
Jax whips around as the force and some type of training that doesn't appear to be force training takes hold. The Corellian facing both of the whip weilding Knights of Ren, the Martial artists. He brings his saber up into a salute. His hood pushed back to reveal his face in the rain, "YOu've both trained to the point that your masters, I respect that. I'm sloppy compared to you." Then he feints right before moving in to strike at Errond close where the whip would be less useful and there's a quick slash. It looks like he should have been halding a vibroblade. "I never learned how to fight like a proper jedi." He says spinning around to whirlwind attack at Imani missing her. Then stepping back preparing, "I'm Jax Greystorm. I leanred to fight from Ambroisa Greystorm. YOu probably should run now."
[Errod Zand]
Maybe his foot slipped. Maybe he's tired. Maybe the Force isn't with him. Maybe his stims are wearing off. Maybe he's just getting old.
Whatever the case, when Jax moves in close like that, it takes Errod completely by surprise. The grizzled veteran tries to move out of the way, but it's too little, too late, and he moves in the wrong direction. The damage to the kidney area of his torso is extensive, and when he collapses, it's in a smoking, steaming heap. Worse, he needs that kidney in top shape at the moment with the amount of illicit substances circulating in his system.
"Hm," the heap of armor and weapons mutters, numbing fingers fluttering uselessly over the fresh, stinking burnt wound. "Krif."
[Imani]
Imani is working in tandem with Errod to try and take down one Jedi, which isn't an easy feat in the best of circumstances. He attacks, and then she tries as well, but her blade is deflected once, and finds nothing but air the second time. When Jax comes after her she's fast enough to evade the hits, diving out of the way and into a roll, then springing back up onto her feet again, ready to launch another attack on the man.
His dire warning is given, and for some it might give them pause, strike proper fear into their hearts. People who have been fighting this war for a while surely know the legend that is Ambrosia Greystorm. And then there is Imani, who is relatively new to this particular field of battle, so his dire warning doesn't quite land, and prompts her to ask, "Who?"
Which is probably the last thing she says before Rey's telekinetic attack hits, and takes her out of the fight.
[Rey Skywalker]
Rey's saber blade comes down and the shimmering golden tip is aimed in Malik's direction. Her dark brows furrow downward as she glares past her saber at the man whose earned her ire on too many occasions now. With rain streaking down her face, she listens to him declare the Jedi to be over, as if its anything new for her to hear another angry, disillusioned man to declare to her.
Suddenly, Rey spins and extends her hand, she channels the Force through her fingers and sends a telekinetic wave toward Imani, aiming to shove the woman away, to push her off into the foggy rain, before she sweeps her body back around and once more aims her blade at Malik.
"You're alone now." Rey tells him, the wet strands of hair framing her face gently swaying back and forth as they shed droplets from their tips.
"Jax." Rey says, speaking over Malik now, to Jax on the other side of the man in black.
"As Paragon of the new Jedi Order, as student to Master Luke Skywalker, and Master Leia Organa. I grant you the rank of Jedi Knight. May you guard the galaxy, and its free people with dignity and honor." She sweeps her saber back to her side and holds it aimed directly upward again, the golden light shining against her form in the dim grey world. Her eyes focus solely upon Malik now.
"The Jedi only grow stronger. We are not gone, we are not finished, we are only just beginning anew."
[Malik Ren]
There goes Imani, flying off into the rain, and the others are where, now? A dense, foggy mist has settled over the forest as though to give privacy to the pain of the fallen, as though to protect the men and women who are fleeing the poisoned remains of their city some distance away. Malik looks toward Imani's trajectory away from here in alarm, then back just in time to see Errod fall! His own saber extinguishes in a hurry, and he reaches to try to catch the older man. He can't, not fast enough, he's only there to just help him lower into the sinking embrace of the mud.
Is he dead? Are all of them dead? Malik searches the extent of the wound for answers, blood pouring down his own back as something not quite cauterized cracks open. They've lost this city's terrorists fleeing into the forest, Admiral Vahn is going to have something to say about that, but that seems distant now, listening to Rey promote her Knight, and declare that the Jedi are not gone, that they are stronger, and they're back.
Silence and rain falls. "Then you've doomed all of us to all of this, forever," Malik Ren replies into the silence. Around them, victory, defeat, a war that never ends.
"So be it."
