Log:Coruscant Fires: Ax vs Malik Ren Duel
Not-Jedi vs Ren in the burning Coruscant lower levels
OOC Date: December 9 2020
Location: Coruscant
Participants: Knights of Ren, Waywards: Malik Ren, Ax
[Ax]
Ax was a smuggler first and foremost. Sneaking in and out of dangerous places was pretty much his daily routine. It was no surprise that lately there had been multiple contracts to haul goods on and off of Coruscant. With the current turmoil, he could even charge premium prices.
Having flown into system earlier in the evening, it had taken him hours to make it to planet. He'd even been pretty sure that he'd broken orbit undetected as he'd not used typical hyperspace routes and had pushed his ship to speed well outside of sensor range only to cut power to all but maneuvering thrusters and life support to just drift in until he got close enough to merge with the regular traffic of Coruscant. Some wealthy individual was paying him to take some artwork off planet before the fires spread further, and to do that, the Echani needed to get in and out without raising an eye.
Currently, Ax was a few blocks away from an old abandoned landing pad that he sometimes used for such runs. He was supposed to meet his contact here to arrange the transfer of goods, and like every typical wealthy individual who was hiring a criminal, the client was late. Leaning against a wall near an alley and close to a public holonet terminal that had long-since been vandalized, Ax was in the shadows, thinking he was nearly invisible. Coruscant was a dangerous place for someone like him, after all.
[Malik Ren]
The air is thick with smoke down here, and hot with the inferno of burning infrastructure below the landing area. All the light here is suffused with an eerie red-orange glow, as though the fire of the planet's molten core itself has risen up to consume all the artifice upon its surface. When the wind picks up, ash and embers dust across the duracrete, short-lived but looking for new purchase to find flame.
Someone's here. Ax knows it before he can see it, of course, that signature of some living thing moving through the landscape of the Force. The client? Finally? No, this is different. Vaguely familiar. Much darker.
Half a moment passes, and then the smoke and darkness resolves into a shape, a person, black-robed and wearing a black and silver mask. "What have we here?" When he speaks, even altered by the vocoder, it's clear this planet is his homeworld. Somewhere up on those upper levels where the sun still reaches... but that was another life. Almost casually, a streak of red ignites, a snap hiss and an ominous hum. "Not at all what I expected. You normally have better sense than to muddle about in this Jedi nonsense... not that I see you dragging orphans out of burning buildings, as did your compatriots."
[Ax]
"Dammit," Ax mutters. "The Jedi have nothing to do with my being here," He says pulling his own saber out. The ornate hinged hilt folding out to its full length with a flick of the wrist. The twin cyan-colored blades much brighter than the sinister red blade of the Knight of Ren.
The Echani had not come here to pick a fight or hunt Knights. Hell, he wasn't even here to rescue orphans, though if he had the opportunity he'd probably risk that. "Rey and Kylo don't like to work with petty criminals like I am." As he speaks, Ax does a light bit of stretching to loosen up a little bit. His fighting style and weapon needed him to be maneuverable at the least.
"Guess I'm not as good at avoiding notice as I thought," he mutters, glad he had come alone and didn't have the twins with him, or his wife for that matter. "I guess if we gotta dance, we gotta dance."
[Malik Ren]
"Then you can thank the Jedi for causing you an Inconvenience, because they have everything to do with my being here." Malik makes a brief gesture with his left hand, almost like a sign against evil (or a sign against good... since he is evil?), a gesture of protection. It seems likely to be an effort toward shielding with the Force, but if so that is a tactical difference from what Ax witnessed at Carida -- Knights are usually far more about offense than defense.
"Kylo," a disgusted scoff follows that name, "Oh, haven't you heard, he's /Ben Solo/ now. Reformed. Redeemed. Beloved by that witch girl now, I suppose, which really seems like something both of them should question a little deeper, considering how much effort he spent trying to kill her. All of us, created, trained, just to kill her, and now... here we are. Absurd."
Amusement can be heard in Malik's voice even through the vocoder's distortion. "You are not as good at avoiding notice as you thought, no. Sorry about it. But you're quite right, of course. Wouldn't do not to make a proper effort."
[Ax]
Ax does his own gesture, a protecting ward. It was a powerful one, and was draining to use, but hopefully it would be enough to keep him alive for this. "He's still the guy who called down an orbital strike on a busy starport just because he didn't get his way," Ax says, spinning his saber and getting into the dance that went with a twin-bladed saber. "You're probably the better Ren or whatever anyway, I mean, he had to have all that planned for months if not longer."
With his saber moving about at speed, the Echani force user closes the distance. "Shall we?" he asks, ready to get the fight going before he passed out from holding his shield up. Hell, he wasn't even sure if it would block a lightsaber, he'd only tried it against a blaster in the past.
[Malik Ren]
"Just because he didn't get his way? You have an interesting way of retelling a story," Malik muses. "But I suppose all of it, always, depends greatly on one's certain point of view. Do you know I put so much legwork into tracking you down, back then? You didn't make it particularly easy. Bravo." He spends a moment studying the twin-bladed saber in play; this is an atypical weapon. Although his expression may be hidden behind the mask, it's clear that Malik is taking a moment to study it, and to assess the risk posed by a skilled wielder with twice as much saber in play.
Only a moment, however, and as the distance is closed, that red blade snaps into action! It is a very unornamented weapon, well-designed, but with an aesthetic so minimalist that it borders on aggressive. Kylo's saber was a hot mess; exposed wires and unstable crystals, all the faults and impatience exposed for everyone to see. Malik's is the opposite, with everything untidy clearly and deliberately hidden away, perfection demanded. A different sort of Ren.
Sparks fly as the blades crash together, and one quick strike nails the target hard and true... but is absorbed and deflected by the shield in play, and no harm done. "Clever trick. How long can you keep it up?"
[Ax]
Ax goes on the offensive, the twin blades of his lightsaber creating a bright blur of motion. Every strike he sent, low-high-low, each was blocked with the loud snap-bzzz and shower of sparks that only came from lightsaber combat. As good as he was, he didn't have any illussions that he was unbeatable, he had more than a few scars to prove it, several of them would have been fatal if he hadn't gotten serious emergency medical care.
When the strike hits, Ax's eyes flinch a moment, hoping his shield would hold. It did! "Long enough," he says in as confident a voice as he could muster, all the while continuing his assault. Like Malik's, Ax's saber was as perfect as he could make it, the phrik alloy of its hinged hilt difficult to work with.
[Malik Ren]
Faster and faster the strikes fly, sparks from the white and red blades echoing the embers of the fires scattered across the duracrete! The double-bladed saber proves adept at protecting Ax from the unwelcome attentions of his enemy, and even swings up once in a very, very near miss that might have taken an unwary arm off if not for Malik's dodge at the last possible moment.
"Where did you learn that?" Malik inquires, perhaps meaning the shield, in a tone that is curious, if understandably distracted by his effort to not die here. "You have no teacher. You have no love lost for Kylo and the girl. Muddling through holocrons on your own, out there in the smuggler lanes?"
[Ax]
The fight was going longer than Ax had hoped, and he wasn't sure how long he could keep the shield going. While it had saved him from what would have been a potentially fatal blow, it had its downsides.
"I've about tapped out what my holocron can teach," Ax says between breaths. His fighting style and the saber required constant movement, it was great for fast aggressive fights, but when the opponent was a skilled duelist, he desperately needed to land a strike or two quickly or he'd be worn down, especially trying to keep his defenses up through the force.
Again, he launches into a barrage of fast rapid attacks, the twin blades of his saber-staff coming at alternating angles. At least it made his opponent spend time on moving to parry.
[Malik Ren]
"I could teach you. Things beyond the limits of the holocron... things the Jedi would shriek about, trapped as they are like pretty little insects in amber, unable to change or adapt. Things beyond your current horizons. Potentials realized in full, where now, even so impressive... the paths are imperfect. Are they not?" Malik does not fight in any classic 'style' or form; Kylo Ren didn't either, and none of his students learned saber combat in the Old Republic mannerisms. He is necessarily leaning more into agility compared to Kylo's brute force, being a much smaller person, but the same broad strokes are there. Relentlessness, and a talent acquired through lessons that were cruel.
"But of course -- you don't want that. Do you? You like where you are, alone out there. You're drowning, but it's the sea of your choosing." The red blade snaps in hard again, and Ax's shield once again saves him from big trouble. "The self-made man."
[Ax]
"The paths aren't perfect," Ax says as he goes into his barrage of assault. He was starting to falter a little bit in his movements, the exertion and the drawn out nature of the fight more than his body could keep up for much longer.
"And being alone isn't my choice. I actually went to talk to Rey after our last little meeting on Nar Shaddaa, swallowing my pride and all," he says. "Figured I'd help train some of the new recruits, then Kylo crawled out of his burrow like the roach he is," Ax adds. "Don't think I'm much welcome in their ranks, though they're happy to have me on the battlefield, just not in their ranks."
Apparently, he didn't think it was even worth mentioning Malik's idea of teaching him. Both knew the Echani would never join the Knights of Ren. He might be a criminal, but he wasn't a monster.
[Malik Ren]
"Is it the Jedi way, to treat their Force-sensitive allies as cannon-fodder? Just stacking you up like a sandbag in front of e-webs or the Knights, so that your pain buys time for the stupid children they more easily indoctrinate into that sad old cult?" Malik Ren tsks. "That is unconscionable of them, and you ought not to stand for it, really. They are owed your vengeance, if they would be so callous with your loyalty. But, as you like."
The Ren's saber strikes in again, this time the moment the shield falters. The red blade sinks into Ax's thigh, not enough to sever his leg, but a grievous and painful injury nonetheless. At least, it being a lightsaber wound, he won't bleed out. "I've made you a good offer, Echani, and I am not the creature about whom the Jedi tell tall tales. I chose my own sea, as well." His smile can be heard rather than seen. "Think about it."
The blade shuts off, followed by the hilt reaching up to crack Ax across the head, but unconsciousness may be a blessing in some ways.
When Ax wakes up, he is alone. He has not lost his saber or any of his possessions, but tucked into his pocket is a chunk of shiny metal, burned and tarnished. The remains of an award of service given to a member of the support core of the old Jedi Order. It had not belonged to a Jedi but one of those non force sensitives that worked for them keeping the order going. The jedi oath is engraved on it. Jax would recognize this object.
Nearby on the landing pad, Ax's client is in two pieces, and all of the art is missing.
[Ax]
Ax had never pushed himself with the shield, and it showed. When it failed, it was a jolt, a wave of exhaustion hits the man and the strike to his leg came in too fast for him to parry in his dazed state. Instinctively, Ax's body does what any body would do when they take severe trauma, and the Echani collapses to the ground.
The fact that there was a lightsaber duel here is likely the only reason some criminal element doesn't rob him blind, in fact, the streets will likely be abandoned for hours.
Waking up, Ax has no clue how long it was that he was out, but his leg felt like it was on fire. It took him a bit to look down to assess the damage. There are quite a few obscenities spoken in Huttese because that language just lent itself to doing so. He'd get back to his ship, but it was going to take him a while hobbling on one leg. Fortunately, he found a stick to use as a makeshift crutch, and he was resilient and stubborn if nothing else. To hell with the client and the art, he had bigger problems, like trying to fly without the use of one of his legs, fortunately he had droids.
