Footsteps In The Snow

[Darth Evandrus]

Theme​

Evandrus had been walking through the snows and winds of Hoth for hours now and he was getting damn sick of it. The cold was something he was using the Force to kind of ignore but the snow itself and the wind were just as relentless as the cold. Gritting his teeth, he pushed onward, seeing the mouth of a cave up ahead.

Knowing that even wolves wouldn't want to be out in this kind of weather, Evandrus pushed onward and stepped into the cave.

As he had hoped, he found the mother of the cubs dead at the back of the cave, with four shivering bundles of fur nestling against her body. The cubs were small but he could tell, through the Force, that they were still strong.

Pulling out some spare cloth from his pack, Evandrus used the Force to set up a fire close by the cubs to help keep them warm. Equally, he activated a homing beacon so that a shuttle would come to this location to pick him and the cubs up. Setting his pack down, he rested by the fire, pulling the small cubs close to both himself and the fire, slowly gaining their trust by providing warmth and comfort.

But he got the impression he was unlikely to be alone long.

Something else was coming for these cubs he just knew it.

@Insalius

 

[Christopher Harlow]

Chris had followed the guidance of the people in the camp, using the map on the datapad and tracking the wolves as best as he could. He couldn't feel the cold, instead he actually felt rather warm. He was saving innocent lives, taking them from a life of certain death and allowing them to live in peace. Before he had left he had uploaded his mind to his people's computer, knowing that this was a dangerous place to go. He'd also taken a page from his father's book and had recorded his life in a memoir, set to release to a few people in case he died. He hoped he didn't, but it paid to be prepared. He was tired, tired of all the bloodshed and darkness, and all he wanted to do was create just a little bit of light in his own part of the galaxy and just live out his days there. If he would be so lucky, of course.

It was then that he spied a form in the snow, another person out here trying to hunt? The only thing out here worth hunting right now were the Varlwulves, meaning he had to at least try to see if this man could be talked out of killing them and instead to let Chris take the puppies. It wasn't until he was close enough to see the man's face that he recognized him, his mind immediately going to dark places. Cregan, here? Hunting Varlwulves? He had no need to do so...unless he was also after the puppies. Was he going to corrupt them too, just like how he himself had been corrupted by the Dark Side? That thought made something nap in Chris' mind, forgetting his own silver blade on his back to draw the lightsaber from his arm, igniting it. "There's only one reason you'd be here, now. You want the puppies, or are they to be a gift for Alais after you've twisted them to the Dark Side? Or are they going to become abominations? How could you?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Darth Evandrus]

Ah.

He had been right.

Someone was, indeed, coming for the cubs. The only difference to his mind was that it was someone rather than something; A person rather than a wampa or whatever else was out here. And, naturally, he didn't sense him coming through the Force because the person who was here for the cubs wasn't someone the Force could let him sense.

He stroked the soft fur of one of the braver cubs for a moment longer before rising to his feet. Staring at Chris, he looked to the lightsaber blade his old friend had levied at him... his own lightsabers flew to his hands, twin red blades igniting in the familiar "snap-hiss" of lightsaber activation.

"These cubs are mine, Harlow." He declared bluntly, "What I do with them is none of your business. Now... I believe I told you that the next time we met we would be enemies..."

His eyes narrowed and began to darken, yellow beginning to creep in to replace the blues of his eyes.

"And you come to me with blade raised as well... in light of our previous friendship I will ask you once... walk away."

He fully expected Chris to ignore him so his blades were already in a defensive stance in front of him and his body was ready to move.

@Insalius

 

[Christopher Harlow]

It was the eyes. That yellow change, just like how his father had described in his own memoir, just like how Alais' eyes always seemed to look now. How much longer until the pale skin and black veins appeared? The seeming effect of rotting away while still alive, as if the Dark Side stole as much as it gave to it's users? And Cregan hadn't said he wasn't going to experiment on these puppies. All of that pushed the fatigue away, the cowardice away, and he planted his feet into a combat stance."After this, I was going to walk away. These puppies are innocent, though. Regardless of what you say for the rest of the galaxy, these have none of the sins you apply to everyone else. To take them and corrupt them, how can that be anything but evil? You can't explain your way out of this one. This will be the last time I turn on this lightsaber, to protect the innocent from the darkness." Once he won and had saved the puppies, he would bring them home to raise them as they should be, with love and care without fear of being twisted to the Dark Side. He couldn't let Cregan succeed here. Just how far had the man fallen?

@Nefieslab

 

[Darth Evandrus]

He had offered Chris the chance to leave, to run so that they wouldn't need to face each other in combat. So that he wouldn't be forced to fight and kill the man who had once been his friend. As a Sith Lord, Evandrus couldn't afford to be lenient. And considering this was a present for his kids?

Well, he had warned Chris that he would only ask once.

Rather than speak again, Evandrus attacked.

Using the Force in two different ways at once, he manipulated the cold to wrap solid ice around both feet of his robotic opponent while red lightning arced from his left hand across the distance between them, aimed at roughly chest height. He remained vigilant for any counters.

@Insalius

 

[Christopher Harlow]

Chris had learned many things during his studies of the Jedi and Exiles, all valuable information from his father. One was about how the power Force Lightning worked, in that it was a targeted thing and that a lightsaber could block it. His quick mind was able to calculate where the lightning would strike based on Cregan's hand position and the bolts leaping across the air. With the lightning blocked, Chris reached up his arm to grab his other sword, a blastsword, and brought it down with as much force as he could to break the ice at his feet. As he struck, he fired the blaster from the tip to crack the ice for sure, breaking him free and protecting him from both Force attacks. Unencumbered, he would then dash forward to close the distance between the two as even with a blaster Cregan's ranged capabilities were far stronger due to the Force. He had to keep him from being able to use that power, so engaging in close combat was the only option. He would keep on guard in case another attack came his way but his charge wouldn't stop just short of the other man, it would preferably bowl him over. He would keep his attention on Cregan and move with the man if he did, still on guard for possible attacks.

@Nefieslab

 

[Darth Evandrus]

Evandrus scowled a little bit as Christopher drew his other blade and broke through the ice - that was irritating it had to be said but not insurmountable. While keeping up the blast of Force Lightning from one hand, he used the Force as Christoper was charging forwards to grab the robotic man's left leg, using his might with the Force to halt his friend mid-charge by the unexpected hampering of his left foot being unable to be lifted from the ground.

As a droid, Christopher wouldn't even notice until his foot didn't move, which gave Evandrus the change to attack, blunting his charge by robbing him of his momentum. The lightning stopped as Evandrus engaged with his lightsabers. With Christopher's left side further back than his right due to Evandrus grabbing his foot, Evandrus stepped to his left (Chris' right) as he attacked.

His right-hand saber came across Christopher's body as a horizontal slash at the waist, centred on Chris' right side so that the robotic man's left-hand blade wouldn't be in a position to block, forcing Chris to block with his right-hand blade as Evandrus' left hand blade stabbed out at the elbow joint of Chris' right hand, to stab into it and disable it.

He was still prepared to back up in needed or to keep edging more to the left so that only one side of Chris was facing him.

@Insalius

 

[Christopher Harlow]

Despite being a Droid, Chris could still feel like an organic could. The feeling of pressure on his foot, coming from nowhere, let him know that Cregan was trying another use of the Force to affect him. His foot was pinned, but with his exact control over his body, he was able to redirect his momentum while sliding his right foot around into a more favorable position and allow his left side to come into play for his defense. The lightsaber in his right hand came up to block the thrust meant for that hand from Cregan's left hand, the blades locking due to how lightsabers did in their unique way. Because he had come back a bit the horizontal slash wasn't at the best angle, so Chris' left blade came up to deflect that strike fully out of the way. As his blastsword wasn't a lightsaber, he slid the tip down his enemy's glowing sword to brush the tip of his metallic weapon against Cregan's hand. As he did he triggered the blaster portion of his weapon. Between the extremely sharp edge of the blade and the blaster hit, all done during the zenith of Cregan's right-hand strike, the man's fingers or hopefully hand would be injured or lost. At the very least he had repelled this attack and was in a position better able to handle another, with the pain from the hand wound hopefully being enough to interrupt any other uses of the Force from his opponent.

@Nefieslab

 

[Darth Evandrus]

God damn how he hated that the type of droid Christopher was were flexible as hell.

Thankfully the way that Christopher was turning wasn't a total disaster for him, even if it was rather irritating. With his left lightsaber blocked, he was tying up Chris' right lightsaber just fine. His right lightsaber was nudged out of the way, away from Chris' torso, but sliding down the blade of a lightsaber was possible - didn't mean that the lightsaber didn't have the ability to push back.

As Chris' blastsword blocked his strike and slide down the lightsaber, Evandrus pushed back with the lightsaber, pushing Chris' sword-blaster-point further back as he was pushing himself backwards from the balls of his feet. It worked - to a point.

His duelling gloves were tough but even with moving the point of the blast forwards and himself backwards, his hand took some damage, the blast hitting his knuckles and fingers as he still clutched his lightsaber. The metal took a lot of the power but the blast still burned all of the fingers and bloodied them. It looked worse than it was and it was a blow that caused an awful lot of pain but it didn't stop him from holding his lightsaber.

As a Sith, Evandrus drew on the pain and as he took his step back he slashed up at Chris' face with his left blade to make some space for himself. Once he landed he would flick his right foot out in a small kick - which he used as the motion of a Force kick to Chris' lower torso to keep him unbalanced. His right lightsaber hand was now rather fixed into position (so no twirling it around) but he was still ready to block with the blade, even as he attacked.

@Insalius

 

[Christopher Harlow]

It took just a moment for Chris to determine his next move, taking in his surroundings and situation in one snapshot. The cowering puppies, his memories with Cregan, the long war he had been through, his pain, his hopes, his ideals, and his fatigue. From a logical standpoint, there were many options he could take from this position. Most of them involved jumping back and going on the defensive. That wasn't what Chris felt was right, though. In his gut, to survive this, to protect what he could with his hands, he had to take a risk. This would hurt, but hopefully this would hurt Cregan more. Enough to get the win. So, he took the blow to his face as he darted in instead of jumping back, slipping past any other attack Cregan would do as he brought up his blastsword to keep the wounded hand away. He brought up his right hand to slash with his lightsaber across Cregan's face, over the eyes just as he himself took as a blow. The pain was immense, his vision fading, but he pushed through the pain to follow through on the attack. It was a gamble, perhaps his last gamble. Sometimes you had to do the craziest of moves to truly take a person off their guard and achieve victory.

@Nefieslab

 

[Darth Evandrus]

Evandrus had managed to score a strike against Christopher's face and he wheeled back immediately to try and avoid the counter attack he knew was coming. It was only by pushing himself backwards so quickly and having an idea that the counter attack was coming that Evandrus was able to pull himself back enough to avoid his skull being cleaved open.

It didn't stop him from taking the slash across his face and it didn't stop his left eye seemingly burning with nothing but whiteness to be seen.

Roaring in pain, Evandrus' lightsabers deactivated as he rolled backwards, pulling the Force to him so that when he stopped rolling he threw up a wall of Force at Christopher to pick up and carry the robotic man deeper into the cave. The force of the attack would scatter the puppies, even though they took almost no direct damage, and start to bring the ceiling down.

Hearing the roar of the engines of the transport he had called in, Evandrus scowled but stowed his lightsabers, instead using the Force to gather three of the five puppies to him, holding them tightly to his chest before leaving, hurrying to the transport both to get them warm and to assess the damage to himself.

His left eye was beginning to see again slowly but it was hard to tell right now - there was rather a lot of blood from the strike between them. Looking down at the puppies, he sighed a little bit and ordered the pilots to take off.

It would be worth it when they smiled.

/Exit Thread
@Insalius